Much of personal computing is about "can you top this?"
so a mention a few weeks ago about a rechargeable wireless optical mouse brought in another rechargeable, wireless mouse.
Like all optical mice, But it also doesn't need a desk.
uses gyroscopic sensors to control the cursor movement as you move your wrist, arm, whatever through the air.
Intelligence officials have revealed a spate of foiled plots on ships in Southeast Asia and are warning that a narrow stretch of water carrying almost one third of the world's maritime trade is vulnerable to a terror attack.
After learning of several foiled al Qaeda attempts on U.S. and commercial ships in the area, experts are warning that the terror network still wants to cripple the global economy, the world's economic jugular vein in Southeast Asia is at risk.
Caffeine can help increase reaction time and improve performance for military servicemen who must perform complex tasks or who need help staying alert for longer periods of time, according to a new report by the National Academy of Sciences.
"Specifically, it can be used in maintaining speed of reactions and visual and auditory vigilance, which in military operations could be a life or death situation," according to the report.
"Something that will boost their capabilities at crucial moments is very important."
Researchers are already exploring ways to put caffeine in nutrition bars or chewing gum as alternatives to coffee, Archibald said.
A similar dose of caffeine, about 200-600 mg, also appears effective in enhancing physical endurance and may be especially useful in returning some of the physical endurance lost at high altitude, the study found.
The Institute of Medicine is part of the National Academy of Sciences, a private organization chartered by Congress to advise the government on scientific matters.
thanks to robust demand in Asia, boosting the trade surplus to 1.055 trillion yen ($8.47 billion), the Ministry of Finance said.
But the prospect of a slowing U.S. economy and weak demand at home overshadowed any optimism for the months ahead.
More than 750 hostages were rescued, including all 75 non-Russians and 25 children, when special forces stormed the building.
Russian special forces used a sedative gas before storming the theatre.
Many captives were taken to hospital suffering from the effects of the chemical.
marking a historic shift to the left for Latin America's largest country.
hours after Silva's Workers Party had declared their candidate the winner.
Thousands of Silva supporters gathered in the streets of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, waving his party's red flag in celebration.
Amid mounting pressure on North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program Japanese and North Korean diplomats have resumed talks on normalizing diplomatic relations.
The two days of meetings in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, are expected to be dominated by Japanese concerns over the North's bomb-making efforts, as well as calls for a fuller explanation over the kidnapping of Japanese civilians in the 1970s and 80s.
At least 54 people have been confirmed dead but that figure is expected to rise, possibly to over 100
after a fire tore through a six-storey building in Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City that housed shops, a disco and several foreign companies.
Initial reports indicated it may have been sparked by a short-circuit in the Blue Disco on the building's second floor.
prevented firefighters from entering the building for about four hours with firefighters taking more than five hours to extinguish the inferno.
Mobile bomb-fighting robots can already inspect suspicious cars, buildings or mail for explosives or hazardous materials, according to Jan Karlsson, an expert at the U.N.
The Geneva-based commission, in its annual study of the industry titled “World Robotics 2001,” said a record 100,000 robots were installed last year, up 25 percent on 1999.
“There is definitely a much higher incentive to invest in automated technology to fight terrorists,” Karlsson said.
“It could be used in post offices, in surveillance of offices after hours and to inspect suspicious cars.”
Postal Service - whose postmaster told a Senate panel that the financial impact of the anthrax crisis could be several billion dollars - uses robots to sort parcels, but other automated equipment sorts letters.
At the same time, labor costs are more and more.”
“For industrial robots, 2000 was the best year ever,” added the Swede.
“Not only in Japan and Europe and North America, but they have also started to take off in some developing countries, for example in Brazil, Mexico, China and South Africa.”
Annual sales of robot units are estimated at $5 billion to $6 billion.
But with the cost of installing necessary software and integration systems, the total robotics market could be worth closer to $25 billion.
About 50 systems of firefighting and bomb-disposal robots have been sold through 2000 in countries including Israel and Britain.
The study, written before the devastating U.S. attacks, predicts sales of 120 systems by 2004.
About 2,300 robots work in demolition, servicing or dismantling nuclear, chemical, waste or other hazardous complexes, the report said.
Another 60 robots work in surveillance.
“Guard robots are used privately and professionally to detect intruders or fire,” Karlsson said.
“The Pentagon have several, and they are used in nuclear plants in the United States and Europe, but the market is still rather marginal."
Five United States Congressmen have written to President Bush urging him to punish North Korea for continuing with its nuclear weapons program and push for a change of government in the isolated Stalinist state.
In a letter to the administration, Republican Senators Jesse Helms, Bob Smith and John Kyl, Republican Representative Chris Cox and Democrat Representative Ed Markey called on the president for the U.S. to provide North Korea with fuel oil.
Four days of peace talks between the Sri Lankan government and Tamil rebels have ended on a high note as both sides bid to end one of Asia's longest-running conflicts.
Both sides declared success in Thailand, after they agreed to set up three committees to look at issues that lie at the heart of the 19-year-old war that has killed nearly 65,000 people and displaced more than 1.5 million.
The government says the new bodies will address ethnic and power-sharing issues and will also oversee a resettlement of refugees and restoration of areas destroyed by the decades-old civil war.
A 194-vehicle pileup on a freeway south of Los Angeles left more than 40 people injured, five seriously, The accident occurred shortly before 7 a.m.
and prompted the California Highway Patrol to close a two-mile stretch of Interstate 710 in both directions Traffic was being diverted to alternate routes.
Thick fog may have been a factor in the accident, California Highway Patrol officers said.
The best man raises his wine glass and out comes a drunken diatribe.
It's a wedding couple's nightmare, but a growing number of love birds are shielding themselves by having Web sites ghostwrite the perfect toast.
For the right price, dozens of sites promise to find the right words for just about any occasion:
But toasts for the happy couple are the most frequent requests.
In a stunning and historical night for the GOP and President Bush, Republicans seized control of the Senate, held onto their majority in the House and savored wins in two hot gubernatorial races.
The Republicans will have at least a 51-seat majority Republicans won at least 226 seats, up from the 223 they had going into the election.
China has unveiled plans for the largest water-diversion in its history and possibly one of the world's most expensive at $60.4 billion.
The project will channel water from the country's longest river, the Yangtze, to three rivers in the north, the Yellow, Huai and Hai, whose basins are running dry.
The ambitious South-to-North Water Transfer Project will move water along three channels linking the wetter flood-prone southern basin to parched northern climes.
This is just one of the latest of China's massive public works projects, recent ones including the Three Gorges hydroelectric dam, a proposed 4,000-kilometer natural-gas pipeline and the world's highest railroad from Qinghai to Tibet.
Authorities from the Water Resources Ministry plan to begin construction next year on the controversial and hugely expensive project.
Vice Minister of the Water Resources ministry Zhang Jiyao said plans for the project would be submitted for approval to the cabinet by the end of the year.
Environmental experts say the new project could cause widespread corruption, human hardship and environmental damage, and could dry up the Yangtze in 30 years.
They urge China to take simpler steps like raising water prices, curbing rampant well-digging, stopping up leaks and improving water treatment.
European officials have expressed concern the U.S. president will now be more emboldened, following his Republican party's mid-term election gains.
Europe and Bush have been at loggerheads over whether the threat of military action should be included in a new U.N. draft resolution on Iraq, and European leaders have also voiced concern about U.S. calls for "regime change" in Iraq.
The two sides have also had spats over a wide range of issues including global warming and the new International Criminal Court.
"Apocalypse Now," Francis Ford Coppola's anti-Vietnam War classic, is the greatest film of the past 25 years, according to a survey of British film critics and writers.
Two movies by Martin Scorsese also made the top 10 in the poll released by the British Film Institute's Sight & Sound magazine.
The 50 respondents chose Scorsese's "Raging Bull" as the second-best movie of the past quarter-century, followed by Ingmar Bergman's "Fanny And Alexander" in third place.
The Philippine Coast Guard and navy frogmen are searching for survivors in Manila Bay Two days after the crash, they had rescued 16 passengers and found 14 others who had died, navy officials said.
Four others are still missing.
Survivors have been taken to hospitals around Manila Bay, a shore region off the Philippine capital of Manila.
Emergency workers and stunned residents across the South and Great Lakes regions picked through shattered homes and buildings after a string of tornadoes left at least 36 people dead and dozens injured.
after more than 70 tornadoes touched down.
Most of those killed were in Tennessee, Following the Iraqi parliament's unanimous recommendation to reject the return of U.N. weapons inspectors, he is "looking forward" to receiving the country's final decision.
Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations, Mohammad Al-Douri, delivered a letter of acceptance to Kofi Annan, telling reporters that "Iraq will not have any mass destruction weapons.
So we are not worried about the inspectors when they will be back in the country.
especially if combined with weight-training, a Harvard study of more than 40,000 men suggests.
High-intensity exercise includes running or jogging at 6 mph, while low-intensity activities include walking at a pace of about 2 mph.
Researchers also have debated whether weight-training has a big impact on the heart, since it does not give the heart and lungs the kind of workout they get from aerobic activities such as brisk walking or running for at least 20 minutes.
But in the Harvard School of Public Health study, men who engaged in weight training for 30 minutes or more weekly had a 23 percent lower risk of heart disease than men who did not pump iron.
The researchers said the benefits may result in part from reductions in blood pressure and body fat achieved through weight training.
Given the independent results from weight training, the researchers theorized that adding weight training to a high-intensity exercise program would reap even greater benefits.
The study is based on medical records and questionnaires given periodically to 44,452 health professionals from 1986 to 1998.
Participants were ages 40 to 75 at the outset.
Heart disease was ultimately diagnosed in 1,700 participants.
Men who ran for an hour or more weekly at 6 mph or more were 42 percent less likely to develop heart disease than non-runners.
Men who did brisk walking at a moderate pace of at least 3 mph for at least a half hour daily were 18 percent less likely to develop heart disease than those who did not.
There were no significant heart benefits found from low-intensity walking.
Gerald Fletcher, an American Heart Association spokesman.
He said the findings correspond with AHA guidelines, which recommend aerobic exercise at least six days a week and weight-training two or three times weekly.
But Fletcher said, "A little is better than sitting in front of the television."
Days before the premiere of "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets," the film's producer said it fears pirated copies are showing up on the Internet.
an illegal copy of the film has appeared on the Internet, which often contains bootleg copies of films, even before they hit theaters.
The studio later retracted the statement, saying reports of bootleg copies hadn't been substantiated, but an AP search discovered what appeared to be the movie available on a site hosted in Europe.
it has developed a nuclear weapon.
the country "has come to have nuclear and other strong military weapons to deal with increased nuclear threats by the U.S. imperialists," according to the Yonhap news agency which monitors North Korean broadcasts.
It was unclear, however, whether the report referred to a plutonium- or uranium-based weapon.
despite the high-tech industry's downturn, co-founder Bill Gates said as he unveiled a strategy to push "smart" computing technology into everyday gadgets such as alarm clocks and pens.
Gates, who opened the 23rd annual Comdex trade show, said there was a negative perception of high tech following the collapse of the tech bubble about two years ago.
carrying more than 19.6 million gallons of heavy fuel oil sank 130 miles off Spain's northwest coast, leaving Spanish authorities scrambling to protect the coastline in the region where fishing is the primary industry.
The World Wildlife Fund warns that if all of the oil leaked, it would be one of the largest oil spills ever more than twice the size of the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska's Prince William Sound.
Space boulders big enough to wipe out a major city slam into the Earth about once every 1,000 years, much less frequently than previously thought.
The revised calculations come from an unprecedented examination of years of data that scour the ground for nuclear explosions.
Choi In Won wants to perfect his badminton game.
Kim So Hyon would just sleep a lot.
The three wage warriors and millions of fellow countrymen are busy spending future leisure time in their heads, as South Korea considers moving from a six-day workweek to the five-day version that is standard in the U.S., Japan and Western Europe.
Korea also hopes to accomplish the shift in apparent defiance of conventional economic logic.
A government proposal, strongly supported by labor unions, calls for employees to work 300 to 500 fewer hours a year
The government thinks it can pull off this trick because it did so once before.
In 1989, South Korea told companies to trim work hours to 2,500 annually from 2,700 without paring their payrolls.
The big difference this time, employers say, is that South Korea isn't the insular, command economy it was in the late 1980s and its workers aren't exploited, underpaid victims.
The economy is far more dynamic, and workers are well organized, politically active and the beneficiaries of wage increases that routinely outpace productivity.
Labor unions say there's never a perfect time, that higher wages will force South Korea to shift into more sophisticated industries and that employees and Korean society will be happier, healthier and more relaxed.
Koreans toil long hours, but they don't necessarily toil effectively.
According to the International Labor Organization, Koreans work 2,474 hours a year, compared with 1,979 for Americans and 1,859 for the Japanese.
But they're also 62% and 45% less productive, respectively.
Sleeping, eating, lounging, Internet shopping, stock trading and card playing are common during workdays that can last from 8 in the morning until 10 at night.
Analysts attribute the widespread mixing of work and play in part to South Korea's rapid shift from farm to factory to fluorescent-lighted offices.
"The U.S. had hundreds of years of commercial activity, while Korea's had only a few."
In what was hailed as a "truly defining moment" for NATO, the alliance has formally agreed to invite seven former Communist states to join NATO was as significant to them as the fall of the Berlin Wall.
are due to be admitted to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation in 2004 after being formally approved by all 19 current members.
The FBI is investigating whether the Saudi Arabian government funneled money to associates of two of the September 11 hijackers.
Findings from an inquiry by the House-Senate Joint Intelligence Committee money from the Saudi Arabian government could have made its way to the two hijackers President Bush signed into law legislation creating a Cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security a move that sets into motion the largest reorganization of the federal government in about half a century.
who has been director of the White House Office of Homeland Security, as his nominee to lead the vast, new department.
The department is a direct result of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, which exposed security lapses and intelligence failures, and led to calls for sweeping changes to the nation's defense, intelligence and law enforcement sectors.
It appears to be "Heartbreak Hotel" for Lisa Marie Presley and Nicolas Cage less than four months after the Hollywood couple tied the knot.
Details were not released about the breakup, but statements from both parties seemed to indicate irreconcilable differences.
President Bush has apologized for the deaths of two South Korean girls more than five months ago.
Mark Walker of the 2nd Infantry Division were acquitted of negligent homicide charges in the June 13 road deaths of Shim Mi-son and Shin Hyo-sun, both 13.
For Park Kang Woo, policy director of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, the solution is clear:
Drop working hours to a reasonable level and you'll see fewer accidents and higher productivity.
There is a precedent.
In 1998, Yuhan Kimberly Corp., a maker of household products, switched to a five-day week without paring paychecks.
Accident and defect rates fell and productivity gains were enough to cover the reduced time, a company spokesman said.
Still, the experience of one internationally managed company doesn't reflect what might happen across an entire economy, economists say, and employers are being asked to pay out in advance what could amount to a 15% hourly wage hike for benefits that may not materialize.
Why the hurry to accomplish such a Herculean feat?
Japan took 10 years to make a similar transition starting in 1987, when it had a per capita income of about $19,000, compared with South Korea's $9,700 today.
Greece and Portugal started their switch-overs in 1997, and are giving themselves a decade as well.
And Hong Kong and Singapore are easing in that direction under a more voluntary process.
The government says the move is a way to show that South Korea is a developed nation.
The change also will boost flagging consumption, spur regional tourism and help local economies as city dwellers head for the country to enjoy nature's beauty.
"It's politically motivated," said Kim of the Korean Employers Federation.
"It's hugely popular, and the government wants to get credit for it, especially with local and national elections coming next year."
Among the many thorny issues is holidays.
Koreans now enjoy 17 national days off, two weeks of annual leave, an added day's vacation per year worked and 12 additional bonus days annually.
Large companies often add three or four more personal days, and women get an additional 12 menstruation days.
Add these to the 52 days gained by not working Saturdays, and South Korea would race to the head of the global vacation class, trumping even the cafe-lounging French.
By some counts, the days-off total could soar as high as 165, compared with France's 145 and the U.S.
Another worry is whether too much relaxation might undermine South Korea's power, accomplishments and work ethic.
"We just can't afford to be lazy or relaxed," said Choi In Woong, a civil engineer.
"If we do, the next generation will become even lazier."
Chong Do Won, manager of a small advertising company, frets that all this free time would boost social tension in a country that has traditionally prided itself on its homogeneity.
"People would become very jealous and hateful if one person goes off skiing and the other is sitting in their dingy apartment," he said.
"It's a big problem."
The 14-year-old Mir space station will be ditched in February in a controlled descent that will send it hurtling into a remote area of the Pacific Ocean, officials said today.
The decision to abandon the ailing space station was taken at a meeting of the Russian Cabinet.
Officials have wrestled for months over what to do with the Mir, which Moscow can no longer afford to maintain.
President Bill Clinton arrived in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, following a visit to the crash site of a U.S.
Thousands of Vietnamese lined the president's route from Tan Son Nhut Airport to his hotel, many waving and cheering in stark contrast to Clinton's earlier visit to the site where Air Force Capt.
An Internet oversight board gave the Web a new batch of domain names, choosing .biz, .name, .info, .pro, .museum, .aero, and .coop to help ease the dot-com name crunch.
The decisions by ICANN capped a half-decade of discussion about how to relieve the crowded field of addresses ending in .com, which has some 20 million registrations worldwide.
The new suffixes could appear in use by the middle of next year.
Stanley "Tookie" Williams is co-founder of one of the nation's most notorious gangs, and a death-row inmate convicted of killing four people in 1981.
He's also a nominee of the 150 people nominated for the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize.
From his tiny San Quentin cell, Williams leads a campaign to stop children from making the same mistakes he did.
He writes gritty books about his experiences as a founder and leader of the street gang, the Crips.
The Florida Supreme Court gave Al Gore a key legal victory in his presidential campaign, ruling that ballots being recounted by hand in three heavily Democratic counties must be included in the state's final vote tally in its election for the nation's 43rd president.
The state's highest court, a panel of seven justices, said those counties, Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade, must complete their recounts and submit results by 5 p.m.
An explosion rocked the Israeli town of Hadera killing at least two and injuring more than 36 people, a local Israeli official said.
Israeli TV reported that a car bomb went off next to a bus on Hadera's main Hanassi Street.
The car that carried the bomb is now a pile of twisted, smoking metal.
The blast was so powerful, it caused the bus to slam into a nearby store.
Several stores also caught fire.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the explosion, although "Izz el-Deen al-Qassam", the military wing of the militant Islamic group Hamas, said in a statement today it would bring death to every Israeli home.
After months of speculation, the elusive gizmo referred to as "IT" or "Ginger" has been unveiled to the public.
The ABC television program "Good Morning America" demonstrated the invention Monday, a two-wheeled, self-propelled scooter that can travel at about 12 mph.
"This is the world's first self-balancing human transporter," Kamen said.
it has a computer that does what your brain does for you.
It's got those tires that do what your feet do for you."
Kamen said the invention - called the Segway HT - will be going out in limited quantities over the next few weeks, and by the end of next year, it should be widely available.
The price is expected to be around $3,000.
Kamen's invention has won over some bigwigs in California's Silicon Valley who have seen Ginger and reportedly thrown money behind it, according to initial reports in January on the news Web site Inside.com.
Investing icon John Doerr has called Kamen a blend of Thomas Edison and Henry Ford.
Apple Computer's Steve Jobs was quoted as saying that people will erect entire cities around "IT."
Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos has taken a special liking to the invention, featuring it on Amazon's Web site.
News of Ginger was first uncovered when it was revealed that the Harvard Business School Press had offered Kamen $250,000 to chronicle the making of Ginger in a book with the help of a writer.
Kamen's work is based out of a Manchester, New Hampshire, lab called DEKA Research & Development.
the worldwide information technology industry is expected to grow by more than 5 percent next year.
spending on IT and communications resume, driving a worldwide growth rate of 5.8 percent for the industry," said John Gantz, IDC's chief research officer.
Still, growth next year is expected to be anemic.
The research firm also cautioned that a prolonged war in Iraq or collapse of the stock markets could limit spending.
entitled "Unexplained Lights," Air Force lieutenant colonel told how he witnessed an object emitting a "red sun-like light" moving through the trees of Rendlesham forest.
He dangled his infant son and his morbidly altered face just gets weirder.
As the trial resumes in a lawsuit filed against the 44-year-old entertainer his erratic behavior has once again eclipsed his musical talent.
About a dozen police and 30 town officials were searching for the monkey, said Shigeru Arai, deputy chief of police in Suwa town, about 160 kilometers northwest of Tokyo.
The attacks began Monday, when the monkey bit 14 women as they put out garbage or left home for work.
Nine more women were attacked Tuesday.
Most of the victims were ages 50 to 80.
The International Atomic Energy Agency called on North Korea to end any nuclear weapon program and open "all relevant facilities" to inspections immediately.
North Korean officials, however, refused that demand.
And the United States has called North Korea's refusal to allow inspectors into its nuclear facilities it will continue to work with allies to convince Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons program.
Caffeine is a substance naturally found in coffee.
When caffeine is removed from coffee it is called decaffeinated coffee or “decaf.”
Rheumatoid arthritis is a disease in which the body’s defense system attacks the tissue surrounding the joints, the places where bones are joined.
The disease affects women more than men.
Researchers from the University of Alabama in Birmingham reported their study at the yearly meeting of the American College of Rheumatology in San Francisco, California.
They studied more than 31,000 women between the ages of 55 and 69.
The women were included in the Iowa Women’s Health Study from 1986 through 1997.
The researchers studied 158 women who developed rheumatoid arthritis during that period.
They also studied women who did not develop the disease.
Women who drank four or more cups of decaffeinated coffee a day were two times more likely to develop rheumatoid arthritis than women who never drank decaf.
The women who drank more than three cups of tea a day had a sixty percent lower chance of developing the disease than those who never drank tea.
Researchers from Boston University in Massachusetts reported about another study.
It involved rheumatoid arthritis among 64,000 black women.
The women were involved in the Black Women’s Health Study that began in 1995.
The researchers found that drinking more than one cup of decaffeinated coffee a day seemed to increase by four times the chance of developing the disease.
However, in this study, drinking tea seemed to increase the chance of developing rheumatoid arthritis.
The researchers said they believe these are the first studies to show a link between decaf coffee and rheumatoid arthritis.
But they said people should not stop drinking decaf or tea until more studies are done.
When it comes to DNA, there's not that much difference between mice and men.
Mice and humans each have about 30,000 genes, yet only 300 are unique to either organism.
Both even have genes for a tail, even though it's not "switched on" in humans.
The mouse is the only mammal, whose genome has been sequenced.
and Larry Lindsey, the White House's top economic adviser, in a dramatic shakeup of the Bush administration's team charged with reviving the nation's troubled economy.
No successors have been announced.
Presidential spokesman Ari Fleischer wouldn't comment directly when asked if the two were forced out, saying only that each had resigned.
could return to your kitchen table not as leftovers, but as plastic wrap.
Pentagon officials said that U.S. military weapons specialists have found at least a dozen Scud missiles several hundred miles off the coast southeast of Yemen in the Indian Ocean.
But U.S. officials said there is no indication the ship was headed to Iraq.
Scuds are the type of ballistic missiles that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein used to attack both Saudi Arabia and Israel during the Persian Gulf War.
may have come up with the most attentive and perhaps honest car dealer ever in its child-size walking robot Asimo.
how to walk, climb stairs and recognize voices.
The robot is used as a promotional tool, reciting information about cars in showrooms and appearing in commercials and at Honda events.
never ask a question to which you don't know the answer.
Diplomats generally operate on the same basis.
So when the Bush Administration presented evidence to North Korean leaders that their country was developing nuclear weapons, it expected the regime to lie about it.
A day later came the shocker.
"Yes, we've been secretly working to produce nukes," a top aide to "Dear Leader" Kim Jong Il told astonished U.S. envoy James Kelly.
And, he added, "we've got more powerful weapons"
presumably meaning biological and chemical agents.
He was not apologetic at all, says a U.S. official, but "assertive, aggressive about it."
Tightly controlled countries like North Korea typically stonewall such sensitive inquiries.
So the admission did more than just confirm long-held suspicions in Washington that North Korea, a charter member in Bush's "axis of evil," had pursued weapons of mass destruction despite a 1994 agreement to stop.
Why, everyone wondered, was Kim confessing now?
And why had Bush pressed the issue, when he was already immersed in two major global confrontations?
No wonder the Administration sat on the news for 12 days while it scrambled to figure out how to downsize the crisis.
By the time the Bush team went public with the news last week, it was also trying to reassure citizens and allies that this standoff would be addressed, at least for now, with diplomacy, not military might.
So who assisted the Koreans?
Pakistan had the Bomb but no missiles to deliver it, and North Korea is the world's most active missile proliferator, especially to customers who can't shop elsewhere.
In 1998 Pakistan tested a homemade Ghauri medium-range ballistic missile that the U.S. believes originated in North Korea.
War with North Korea, Bush told his aides, was out of the question.
He could not let Kim alter the fragile balance of power on the Korean peninsula, where 37,000 U.S. troops stand across the DMZ from a million-man army close enough to destroy Seoul, South Korea's capital, in a blitzkrieg.
By Bush's own doctrine of pre-emption, the U.S. should strike against any state with weapons of mass destruction and an irresponsible dictator.
But the consequences of attacking Pyongyang are unacceptable.
What Bush apparently never anticipated was a brazen admission that the evidence was right.
Scientists in Britain and the United States shook hands.
No big deal, one might think, but the men in question were 3,000 miles apart, connected only by the Internet.
one in London and one in Boston
picked up a computer-generated cube between them and moved it, each responding to the force the other exerted on it.
"We can actually feel the object being pushed against our hands.
UCL said the secret behind the technology is the speed at which the successive impulses are sent.
Not only can scientists feel the force being exerted by colleagues across the Atlantic Ocean, they can also feel the texture of the object they are feeling.
The implications of the experiment could be vast, said UCL, which described the event as the world's "first transatlantic handshake over the Internet."
For example, trainee surgeons could use it to practice operations via the Internet.
It would also have recreational uses, allowing people to touch and feel each other over the Internet.
"I don't think it'll be available to the public for years
at least five years," Jordan said.
That is greater than the $49.0 billion in imports that Japan took from the United States and the $36.6 billion it took in from the European Union.
Need to pay down credit card debt?
Desperate for money for music lessons?
Simply tired of working and too embarrassed to stand on the corner with a tin cup?
after Web strangers contributed more than $13,000 to her cause, according to her Web site.
Yahoo started a "begging" category But the recent spike in activity and diversity of sites led Yahoo to rename the category e-panhandling.
The United States says it had no intention of attacking North Korea but has rejected Pyongyang's call for negotiations saying North Korea must first take concrete steps to end its nuclear weapons program.
"The issue of a treaty suggests that we should pay something right now for their misbehavior," Secretary of State Colin Powell said.
"What we can't do and won't do is reward North Korea for their behavior."
A herd of wild elephants driven berserk by country liquor trampled to death six people, among them four children, during a rampage in India's northeastern state of Assam.
The animals came out of the forest, and drinking country liquor stored by villagers in Tinsukia.
after consuming huge quantity of country-made liquor, killing six people on the spot.
President Bush announced plans to deploy the first phase of a limited system designed to protect the United States against a ballistic missile attack.
the United States will take every measure against what is perhaps greatest danger of all that may result from hostile states or terrorist groups armed with weapons of mass destruction," Bush said in a written statement.
Army used a high-energy laser to shoot down an artillery shell in mid-flight in a defense industry breakthrough, the Army and the manufacturer said.
The Army and TRW Inc., which developed the weapon, said in a joint statement that the laser tracked, locked onto and fired a burst of concentrated light energy photons at the speeding shell over the White Sands test range in New Mexico.
The Mobile Tactical High Energy Laser (MTHEL) is being developed by TRW for the Army and the Israeli Defense Ministry.
Lasers have been used in past tests at the range to shoot down slower Katyusha Rockets similar to those fired at Israel by militant guerrilla groups in neighboring Lebanon.
"This shootdown shifts the paradigm for defensive capabilities.
We've shown that even an artillery projectile hurtling through the air at supersonic speed is no match for a laser," said Army Lt.
Joseph Cosumano, head of the missile defense command.
"Tactical high energy lasers have the capacity to change the face of the battlefield," he added.
The laser was fired from a static testbed in a carefully controlled test, but TRW officials said they looked forward to producing a truly mobile version as the program progressed.
In earlier tests in 2000 and 2001 the testbed focused on the threat of artillery rockets and shot down 25 Katyushas fired singly and in salvos.
The U.S. military has shot down dummy intercontinental missile warheads in tests both inside and outside the atmosphere using projectile weapons and is also examining the possible use of long-range lasers to burn up such warheads in flight.
The Nasdaq composite and the Standard & Poor's 500 index The retreat accelerated for blue chips after Hans Blix, the U.N. chief weapons inspector, said he was not satisfied with Iraq's dossier on its weapons program.
Concern is mounting over North Korea's seeming determination to press ahead with reactivating its mothballed nuclear facility in defiance of an international agreement.
it had cut most of the seals that international inspectors placed on a deactivated nuclear reactor and has blocked monitoring equipment at the reactor.
the Nyongbyong reactor is capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium.
The top Chinese official in Xinjiang has vowed to crack the whip on separatists and terrorists just a few days after an American human rights team visited the autonomous region.
District Judge J. Frederick Motz handed down a preliminary injunction at the request of Sun Microsystems Inc.
Microsoft had "leveraged its PC monopoly in which it is unfairly advantaged."
Side effects from the cancer-fighting drug Gefitinib have resulted in 124 deaths in Japan.
The dead were among 494 patients who have developed debilitating lung disorders including interstitial pneumonia blamed on the drug.
The figure is up from 39 deaths by the drug's manufacturer, Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca.
Gefitinib has been taken by at least 10,000 cancer patients since it was cleared for use in Japan in July.
President Bill Clinton has unveiled a $3.5 billion five-year program called "Empowerment Zones" which is designed to revive America's troubled inner cities.
Depressed urban areas like south central Los Angeles which was devastated by riots several years ago will be targeted for government assistance as well as business investment.
Smaller sums would go to 95 other urban and rural areas.
The program rivals any of the so-called "Great Society Antipoverty" programs of the 1960s, but will this one succeed where the others failed?
In remarks at a White House ceremony the president eluded to widespread skepticism about the workability of another costly federal program to save the cities.
In 1949, then-President Harry Truman launched his urban renewal initiative.
Subsequent administrations spent billions of dollars on programs with names like "Community Action," "Model Cities," "Community Development Block Grants," and "Urban Development Action Grants."
Today, though, most of the inner cities remain essentially, shockingly unchanged, in some cases even worse.
George Peterson, urban policy analyst for the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C., describes the typical inner city landscape beset by crime, poverty and neglect.
"Two-thirds of the lots are vacant.
A large part of the population is a street population that doesn't live in the houses at all.
And you have a feeling of very intense personal fear not just because you're an outsider, but the people that live there have a fear that pervades their lives."
And it's a frustration of not being able to be part of a community reinforced by this physical desolation, that once you walk in an area like this, you'll never forget it."
In our Focus report, Bob Dody examines the plight of U.S. cities in the 1990s and what's being done to revive them.
Conference of Mayors in Washington, U.S.
"Their policy prescription is simple.
There are things that are working."
But the evidence as a whole indicates otherwise.
"Civilization as we know it is beginning to unravel around us and an increasing violence is a primary cause.
And there's no doubt about it from my over thirty years of experience in law enforcement and now the last two years as mayor of San Francisco."
Violent crime is the number one problem in American cities, like Chicago where Matt Rodriguez is the police superintendent.
"Chicago experienced a 9% decline in homicides last year, but murders of young people, ages 11 to 20, rose to record levels.
Three out of every ten murders in Chicago now involve victims in this age group.
And 92%, 92% of them are killed with firearms.
Nationwide children under the age of 18 are 244% more likely to be killed by guns today than they were in 1996."
John Rich sees many crime victims in the emergency room.
"In a given evening there may be three or four individuals who come in, who've been shot or stabbed as well as people with a number of other health problems.
I mean, many times what happens, specifically as the people are taken into the trauma room, many times rushed up to the operating room, their wounds are cared for, they're hospitalized many times with severe, severe injuries such that they require sometimes life support for a period of time."
Louis Mayor Freeman Bosley Jr., chairman of a task force on hunger and homelessness for the U.S.
Conference of Mayors, offers a startling profile of many people who are homeless.
"Over 50% of the people that are homeless are employed.
The salaries or the wages that they're making are just so, so little that they cannot afford basic rent or can't afford to buy a home.
A lot of times when people think about someone being homeless, they think about the man sleeping on the park bench or the lady walking down the street with the bags.
43% of the people that are homeless are women with at least two children.
So those are the invisible homeless people that we really don't see, and that's one of the things that we really need to be focusing on."
A car rental agent tries to sell the customer / a collision damage insurance / costing from an extra $3 to $19 a day.
But many car renters are already protected.
Others are covered / because they use a major credit card.
They become tempting targets / for an aggressive rent-a-car sales force, / often on commission to sell insurance / no matter what.
Most car rental companies are self-insured / and simply getting a free ride / from consumers.
A House commerce subcommittee / wants a national ban / on the sale of collision damage insurance.
The large car rental companies are for it.
/ Several smaller ones are not.
Neither was testimony from astronauts or even photographic evidence.
So NASA has commissioned a mini-book to show that, indeed, Americans did land on the Moon.
Most humans on Earth accept that U.S. astronauts first got to the moon aboard the Apollo 11 mission on July 20, 1969.
But those who don't believe have created a sort of cottage industry of doubt, and that is what NASA wants to combat.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has dealt with the controversy for decades, without much fanfare, but Roger Launius, NASA's former chief historian, said the questioning intensified in 2001 after the Fox television network aired "Conspiracy Theory:
Did We Land on the Moon?"
Those who doubt the Apollo moon landings maintained the United States lacked the technology to send humans to the Moon and was so desperate to appear to win the space race against the Soviet Union that it faked the moon mission on movie sets.
The doubters said the fake was done so poorly that there is ample evidence of fraud, including a picture of astronauts planting the American flag that allegedly shows the flag rippling in the wind.
The skeptics contended there can be no breeze on the moon, so the picture must have been faked.
But when the astronauts struggled to plant the U.S. flag in the lunar surface, they twisted it around a bit before it stuck, and that naturally created ripples in the flag.
But on the Moon, the rippling went unchecked, making it look as if it were being carried by the wind.
The site's creator, astronomer Phil Plait, was blunt in his condemnation of the doubters, whom he calls conspiracy theorists.
"The craziness involves people who think that the NASA Apollo Moon missions were faked," Plait said on the site.
"There are lots of rumors spreading around about this, and rest assured they are all completely false.
In 1994, / a Japanese business bought Locke Company, / saving it from a shutdown.
A joint venture with Japan's Nippon Steel in 1995 / helped Inland survive / and produce higher-quality steel.
From the IBM Building to Rockefeller Center, / foreign investors are snapping up American assets.
Even the Pillsbury doughboy may acquire a British accent, / the company having been sold to British interests.
It being fine, they went hiking.
Foreigners now control 10 percent of American manufacturing / and 20 percent of American banking.
But the growing international presence / in plants, real estate, stocks and bonds / and in American branches of foreign-owned banks / troubles many business and trade experts.
The issue of / whether foreign investment in the United States is harmful or helpful / is still unresolved.
However, / there is nothing new / about the selling of American assets.
There is something wrong with the machine.
We can't think of anything better.
It's been going on / since the Indians traded Manhattan to the Dutch / for knives, trinkets and a few pieces of cloth.
The average man probably does not consider saving wildlife when popping a dose of Viagra, but two scientists suggest that the tiny pill could save tens of thousands of animals.
Traditional Chinese medicines often rely on specific body parts from certain kinds of animals to treat common physical ailments, such as erectile dysfunction.
Jan Vertefeuille, a representative of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), said other popular Western drugs have not had an impact on traditional Chinese medicines.
Cao Dan, a specialist in Chinese medicine with the WWF, said there is widespread Asian suspicion toward many Western remedies like Viagra.
"One of the reasons for this strong hesitancy to Western medicine is concern about side effects," she said.
Viagra, for instance, has caused cardiac problems in a number of its users.
Impotence is not a primary focus in traditional Chinese medicine, but the price that men are willing to pay for a cure is significant.
And Viagra is an attractive alternative because of its low price and availability.
Some conservationists think that there are better explanations for the sluggish trade in a handful of Canadian animal parts.
Seals can be harvested for organs other than their genitalia, they say.
Moreover, the decline in animal part exports from Canada coincided with the economic meltdown in much of Asia.
For 40 years / scientists have labored to make progress / in two frontiers of computer research.
One group, / working with the lightning-fast machines / known as supercomputers, / is always pushing for more blazing speed.
The other group, / writing programs / that show the beginnings of artificial intelligence, / explores the mysteries of human thought.
The two fields of computer research / are at different stages / in their life cycles.
Artificial intelligence is just getting started :
With the spread of supercomputer networks, / high-speed computing power is available / to anyone with a personal computer and a telephone.
This goal is called AI, / for artificial intelligence, / and it has escaped computer programers / for decades.
South Korea has the most effective education system of the world's richest countries, with Japan in second place and the United States and Germany near the bottom.
UNICEF said it based the study on five different tests of 14- and 15-year-olds to determine their abilities in reading, math and science.
What is new about the study is that it averages the results to give the most comprehensive picture to date of how well each nation's education system is functioning as a whole.
"The blame or credit does not go exclusively to a nation's schools.
It is clear that educational disadvantage is born not at school but in the home," said the report.
UNICEF spokesman Patrick McCormick said the study had been unable to draw conclusions on a range of factors, such as how much was spent on education.
The study also didn't get into whether extreme competition was a factor in Japanese or Korean results.
"Germany, with its strong educational and intellectual tradition, occupies 19th place out of the 24 nations," just behind the United States in 18th place.
The United States, however, finished low in each test and in adult literacy.
McCormick said the study had not attempted to explain why the United States had fared badly.
"The countries that economically are very diverse, with big immigrant populations, with lots of moving around, with a huge poverty gap, probably are going to show these sorts of results with education itself."
More than $1.5 billion in government grants for homeless services will go to cities, up from $823 million this year.
Another well-funded federal program for cities is the National Service Act of 1993.
The $800 million initiative offers more than 20,000 young people a minimum wage salary plus $5,000 for college tuition in exchange for a year of service in city schools, hospitals and police departments nationwide.
National Service Program Director Elie Segal acknowledges that some of the mayors might have doubts about the new group known as "Americore."
"Ask the mayors of Texas with you today?
The mayors of Texas know because last summer they saw and learned as 87 Americores swept through the state of Texas and in the course of eight weeks immunized over a 104,000 little kids.
"And I ask you to remember the words of Edward Gibbon as he described the collapse of Athens two millenary ago.
`When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society,' he wrote, `but the society to give to them.
When the freedom they wanted the most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free.
' My friends, this is not going to happen here."
"I believe that job training is, if there is a single, and there's not, but if there were to be a single most important issue, it is that.
The ability to allow someone to hold a job, to be trained for that, a meaningful job, not flipping hamburgers, but a meaningful job, therefore entitling them to the opportunity to raise a family and to achieve all those kinds of things that we talk about on a regular basis."
And last month the administration unveiled its plan to create what are known as "Empowerment Zones" in six large cities and one mid-sized city as well as in 95 urban and rural enterprise zones.
A $3.5 billion package of grants and tax incentives entices businesses to relocate in depressed areas, create jobs and revive the local economy.
Which is the wrong approach according to New York Times magazine writer Nicholas Leeman, author of the recent article titled, "Rebuilding The Ghetto Doesn't Work."
Leeman argues that empowerment zones in every other city revitalization plan since President Harry Truman's Urban Renewal Initiative in 1949 is based on the premise that the newly-hired poor will choose to remain in the slums.
Leeman notes that in fact many have actually moved out.
A pattern, he says, that has been repeated millions and millions of times over the decades.
Robert Rechter, a domestic policy analyst for the conservative Heritage Foundation, argues that, in his view, the government continues to waste billions of dollars in a misguided effort.
"The reality is that if additional federal money would have cured the problems of America's cities, we would've cured them long, long ago.
Since President Lyndon Johnson launched the war on poverty, which is largely an urban war, back in 1965 the United States of America has spent $5 trillion on welfare, much of it going to the inner cities of the United States.
Rechter adds that, as he sees it, dependence on welfare keeps many poor people in squalid conditions.
"One of the problems with joblessness in the inner city today is that the unemployed classes in the inner city have basically lost their historic mobility.
When jobs dry up in an area conventionally Americans move to other places where jobs are, and most research indicates that one of the problems in some of our inner city areas is that when the jobs dried up in those areas, the people did not move on, even among blacks."
"Blacks are historically a very mobile population in our society.
In many cases, the areas in the inner city where they live, they migrated to them within a generation ago.
The question is why when jobs dry up in those areas they're not moving on into more lucrative locations, and the reason is that the welfare system, our housing subsidy system and all of our manifold welfare programs, heavily subsidize them to remain where they are and to remain unemployed."
Robert Rechter concludes that the main problem facing American inner cities is not a lack of government funding or services but the disintegration of the family and the collapse of moral values.
But preaching to people doesn't necessarily get results, says George Peterson, an urban analyst with the Urban institute, a Washington, D.C. think tank.
And I think there is a political consensus that's emerged that the right way to do that is to set up as many, and encourage as many community organizations, community groups, activities
the same kind of things that make the suburbs an interesting place for children to live.
For example, in terms of Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts and in church activities, after school activities, there's a dearth of that kind of supportive organization in most poverty areas."
In San Francisco, Mayor Frank Jordan tells a personal story about the importance of closeknit communities.
His mother died when he was ten years old and his father became what is now known as a single parent.
"We didn't have foster families in those days.
The neighbors pitched in and they helped us for awhile.
I lived with even an elementary classmate of mine.
The parents knew of the situation and took me in because they were in the immediate neighborhood.
The church helped out as well.
They found ways to just spontaneously start to get involved as a community.
So l had an extended family and a support base that was very, very helpful to me."
Frank Jordan stayed out of trouble, he says, because friends and neighbors saw a family in need and they helped because it was the right thing to do.
America's troubled inner cities will experience a renaissance, he says, when people get back to helping each other as if they were family.
Commentator John Active traces his roots a long way back in the Bethel, Alaska, area.
He thought he knew who he was.
All this time I thought I was a full-blooded Yupik Eskimo, and now I am told I am not.
For over 40 years I have been proud to be Yupik and reveled in the honor of Yupik-hood.
I relished feasting on fermented fishheads, liked dressing in furs, and had even become an expert at purchasing fresh ice at the supermarket.
I didn't want to go around the rest of my life being a half-baked Alaskan.
I telephoned Juneau, the capital of Alaska, and spoke with a specialist who knew about the natives' enrollment in the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.
The act was in compensation for land unfairly taken away from Alaska natives more than 30 years ago.
Nearly a million dollars and millions of acres of land have been paid out.
At that time, in order for the natives to be compensated, an enrollment to certify eligibility was undertaken.
And in order to expedite the count, people were hired, predominantly non-Alaskan, who know little about us.
So I'm assuming they guessed at our blood quantum.
The enrollment specialist told me if I wanted to change my statistics, I'd have to go through my tribal organization.
Today I find myself hesitant to tell new acquaintances my ethnicity.
I don't know but I've always had a fetish for spears, swords, togas and laurels.
When I was young I hoped to grow up to be an Indian, and would have had some sports team name their mascot after me.
I'm Long John Active.
Since I'm only half-Yupik, should I call myself a "Yup" or a "Pik"?
$3.95 for the first two minutes.
Technology converts the know-why of science / into know-how for industry.
In a wider sense, / it is the practical application of man's inventiveness / to the improvement of his well-being / and the increase of his wealth.
Four essentials for technological advance are / the right idea, / the right method of putting it into effect, / the right moment in time, / and availability of the right materials.
So important is the last factor / that successive cultures of the ancient world are defined / in terms of the working of characteristic materials - / the Old and New Stone Ages, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age.
In one sense, / technology is a body of knowledge / about how to do things.
I'll let you know where to go.
The sum of this knowledge had increased / considerably / by the Middle Ages.
During the second half of the 14th century, / there was a general shortage of skilled labor / for the workshops and the mines.
Manpower had to be reinforced by machines.
And technical colleges were also set up / as a substitute for the craft apprenticeship, / in order to foster the new skills / that machinery demanded.
At a recent party for politicians, businessmen and military officers in Moscow, Anastasia fit right in.
With her shoulder-length, bleached-blond hair and long fingernails painted bright red, the compact 19-year-old (weight 51 kilograms, height 162 centimeters) could have been taken for a date, a mistress, a party girl.
She coolly eyed guests as they wandered in and out of the restaurant.
And instead of a purse, she carried a Makarov pistol in a holster beneath her loose jacket.
These days in Russia, bodyguards have become as unremarkable as the occasional disappearances of Boris Yeltsin.
The bodyguard business is good, thanks to the country's soaring crime rates and bloody mafia feuds.
But not every protection-minded Russian wants to employ a beefy guy in a wide-shouldered suit.
Hence Anastasia and the handful of other women bodyguards currently at work in the country.
That's our strength."
"That's right," says Taisia Plotnikova, the editor of a new Russian magazine called Bodyguard.
"They don't have to be very big and strong.
They just have to be very well trained."
Julia Teryokhina, 26, who works for the Alex Agency in Moscow, reports that she lost seven kilograms and was covered with bruises after undergoing two weeks of martial-arts training.
Anastasia is one of four women who just completed a two-year program at Tandem, a small bodyguard school on the outskirts of Moscow.
Oleg Huriev, who runs Tandem, trains his students to adapt to business settings.
They take classes on computers, psychology and one called "businesswoman's image", along with the more traditional instruction in karate and the use of firearms.
"The market," Huriev says, "is open for them."
Are women up to the job?
Many of the men who run security agencies don't think so.
They view female candidates skeptically, arguing that they can't manage physically or that their clients come in expecting to hire men.
As the sole woman bodyguard at Alex, Teryokhina admits that she has worked only for foreign businessmen, who don't think the idea of female bodyguards is odd, or for the spouses of local businessmen.
And she doesn't expect such attitudes to change quickly.
But the women have plenty of satisfied customers.
"We were very happy with them.
They were completely professional," says Tatiana Andreeva, the director of the Miss Moscow beauty contest, who used the Tandem school team to guard the competition this year.
"This is a real discovery."
Anastasia and her fellow female classmates are convinced they are on to something.
to open their own training school
Your child's school may boast a room / full of computers.
There are about 11 students / for every computer / in schools.
/ However, / there are about 35 students / for every multimedia computer.
Some students are working on computers / 10 years old.
/ This is an issue / we have to face head on.
The problem with older computers:
/ Most newer software requires / CD-ROM, sound and video capabilities.
Students aren't learning / on the same equipment / they will use in the business world.
Older computers can't take advantage of the Internet, / or if they can, / retrieving information can be extremely slow.
Experts say / the optimum ratio would be / five kids to each multimedia computer.
But before that can happen, / schools must make computers a priority, / though in times of cutbacks.
Unfortunately / too many people still think / that technology is nice but not necessary.
Schools have to give youngsters this experience / because computers are going to be part of their lives / for the rest of their lives.
They love the samba, carnival and thong bikinis.
Sex between consenting adults is nobody else's business.
And people constantly talk, read and joke about sex with an ease that astonishes North American visitors.
The airwaves, especially, can shock strangers.
one recent episode, aired not long after students returned home from schools, included a bondage scene between a woman in leather and her daughter's boyfriend.
But even in Brazil there are limits.
And for the first time in the decade since democracy began taking the handcuffs off broadcasters.
Brazilians have begun to draw the line.
He's not the only one.
The Roman Catholic Church is rallying the faithful.
Politicians, deluged with complaints, are taking the offensive.
And there's growing public support for a radical cure that once would have been anathema:
Brazil actually is far more conservative that the beach scene at Ipanema would suggest.
Abortion is illegal.
Few women dare suggest their lovers wear condoms for fear of insulting them, or being considered prostitutes.
The entertainment industry rejects such subtleties.
The audience is huge, especially for soap operas:
more Brazilian homes have televisions than refrigerators, and most sets are tuned to the soaps between 5 p.m. and 9:30.
95 nude shots, 74 sex acts and 90 scenes with smutty dialogue.
Broadcasters argue that they're only giving people what they want.
But the networks seem to be losing the argument.
The federal Justice Ministry has fielded hundreds of complaints from individuals and from local governments in the country's conservative hinterland.
A Sao Paulo Catholic parents' association recently filed a petition with 15,000 signatures calling for more discretion.
Government officials complain that the networks flout regulations requiring them to warn viewers about racy content.
But that game may get more difficult.
A committee of the federal Senate now meets each week to review the week's programs for sexual content.
Juvenile-court judges are starting to demand script changes in programs that have child actors.
But he was the standard-bearer for the 24-hour economy.
Maine hunters and fishermen always knew they could count on L. L. if at 4 a.m. they needed long underwear, or a warm cap.
They'd give the sleigh bells on his front door a yank, and he'd roll out of bed to make a sale.
Today, L. L. Bean is a billion-dollar-a-year operation that does nearly 40% of its business after hours.
No longer does the night belong to prowlers, insomniacs, and autoworkers on the graveyard shift.
Rather, they clock more than half their workday outside Ward Cleaver's time zone, the one that starts after breakfast and ends before supper, Monday through Friday.
From big-name financial service outfits to no-name repair shops, businesses are responding to a collective impatience.
Increasingly, the attitude is, "If I'm up, why aren't you?"
The people who serve them, in turn, want to eat and shop at their convenience.
And folks who work the late shift want to take care of some household chores on the way home.
That they can do, in any of 319 Walgreen drugstores, 410 Safeway supermarkets, and 291 Wal-Marts open all night around the country.
Unwinding late at night with a round of golf is a bigger challenge.
But Heartland Golf Park in Deer Park will let you tee off until 3 a.m.
Open only since May, Heartland frequently has a 21/2-hour wait at midnight.
"Some people come off work at midnight, and others want to play a few holes before they head for the office."
"The place is lit up like Shea Stadium."
But the 24-hour economy is not without its dangers, even on a golf course.
Heartland is so bright that the Federal Aviation Administration is concerned that planes with faulty instruments might mistake it for nearby MacArthur Airport.
Manufacturing companies in everything from autos to steel have had multiple shifts for years, in part because it's cheaper to keep plants operating continuously than to shut them down and start them up again.
The real growth in round-the-clock operations has been in the service sector.
Like a long row of dominoes, one 24-hour service pushes against another and forces it to fall in line.
If you're stuck working on a holiday, you don't want to be stranded without your support systems.
"I was in the Denver airport on Christmas Day and wondered if my insurance would cover a rental car.
I called Geico, and an agent gave me the go-ahead."
If you can't fix my computer at 2 a.m., fine.
I'll find someone who will.
Anne Applebaum, a journalist on assignment in New York, ran into trouble one Friday at 8 p.m. when her computer broke down just as she was preparing to file a story to London.
PC Computer Doctor, a repair shop, picked up the machine, fixed it within hours, and gave a 90-day guarantee.
You won't find that kind of service in London or anywhere else in Europe, where hours tend to be short, lunches long, and weekends inviolable.
"All the so-called 24-hour companies tell you to call back on Monday."
The economy that never stops has its downside.
Indeed, some of the world's worst industrial disasters have occurred at night, including those at Chernobyl, Bhopal, and the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
Moore Ede, a physiology professor at Harvard medical school, estimates that the costs of fatigue
add up to a staggering $80 billion a year.
Adults on the second or third shift often find they are totally out of sync.
"I'm the one leaving the party when everyone else is arriving."
Mirasola, a British, still lives on London time because she trades copper, aluminum, and other base metals that are most active on the London exchange.
Her workday begins at 2 a.m. at her home office, chats with her Asian clients, and settles down to four hours of trading.
At 6 a.m. she drives ten minutes to her firm's office.
By noon, she calls it a day.
Before she goes to bed at 7 p.m., she likes to exercise, do a little shopping, and have dinner with her husband.
The dinner part can be tough:
Companies that pioneer the night for their industries often find the gains to be prodigious.
says even companies trying to catch the trendsetters can add 5% to revenues
"You have to assume that some of the business done at 4 a.m. would have been done during the day, but not all of it."
estimates that more than 40% of large U.S. companies work under the stars, at least in some aspects of their business.
As the folks at CNN say, it's always prime time somewhere.
Kinko's Inc., a chain of copy shops, moved to a 24-hour schedule when people literally started banging on its windows after hours.
They started knocking on the glass, begging us to let them in.
The company's 803 stores around the country are magnets for everyone from dreamers pursuing secret schemes and second careers to executives putting the final touches on tomorrow's presentation.
In Chicago, Kinko's has hooked into a different dimension of the 24-hour economy by opening an office in the lobby of the Stouffer Renaissance hotel.
"Our customers were coming down at odd hours asking us to fax things abroad.
We weren't equipped to meet their needs."
So last Christmas, Stouffer and Kinko's began collaborating;
Banks have long since given up bankers' hours.
It used to be that ATMs and automated voices handled the after-hours crowd.
Now many banks are adding warm bodies around the clock who provide much more than basic account information.
A leader is Huntington Bankshares in Columbus, Ohio.
If in perusing the newspaper late at night you see an ad for the car of your dreams, call a Huntington loan officer.
She'll tell you within ten minutes whether you should dream on.
Huntington books 10% of its loans in off hours.
Business generated by its 24-hour number equals that of 30 full-service branches.
The economics of running a business nonstop are elementary.
Pennsylvania Power & Light charges its industrial users about 30% less for electricity purchased after hours.
When a company breaks the barriers of a nine-to-five world, 24 hours at full steam is hardly the only alternative.
A skeleton crew may be all that's needed on the graveyard shift.
And sometimes two shifts are enough to meet demand.
Maintenance crews often take over for a portion of each day.
Heartland Golf Park, for example, has to close for a few hours to replace divots and water the greens.
says it has eliminated millions of dollars in waste and doubled its market share
since leading the night charge for the auto insurance industry in 1991.
If an attorney stays out of things, a person with a lower-back or neck injury gets an average of $2,100 from the insurance company;
The good will generated by continuous service is harder to measure than the profits.
L. L. Bean, for one, has built the business on it.
The biggest challenge posed by the nonstop economy may be a physiological one:
how not to sleep through it.
"We're simply not designed for this 24-hour world we're created.
Our internal clocks adapted us perfectly to a world where we slept by night and hunted by day."
He recommends that night workers take frequent catnaps.
Connie Lehman, who sometimes works nights as CNN's director of video resources, says her solution is to maintain a well-lit, high-adrenaline environment, and then to sleep well during the day.
Naps may take care of our bodies, but how about our souls?
We can't hold back the 24-hour economy.
But even God rested on Sunday.
Celeste Taylor isn't sick, but she's carrying a deadly bacteria that could sweep through Tampa General Hospital, even kill her twin girls.
"It's Mommy underneath this big mask.
It was worse right after the twins were born.
For several days, Celeste wasn't even allowed to see them.
Two weeks after the births, doctors still won't permit skin-to-skin contact.
Her babies have yet to see their mother's face.
"Everybody looks at you funny, and you feel like you have a disease."
What Celeste has is one of the most feared bacteria found in hospitals:
It preys on the sick and vulnerable, causing deadly blood infections, pneumonia, toxic shock.
Fortunately, Celeste doesn't have the bacteria in her bloodstream;
she's only a carrier.
But Staph kills an estimated 60,000 Americans each year, more than die in car accidents, and killing the bacteria has become almost impossible.
Staph has evolved, mutated and become immune to antibiotics.
Today, only one antibiotic is effective against the kind of Staph Celeste has:
But how long will it hold up?
tens of thousands of additional deaths from a "Super Staph", an "Apocalypse Bug" no drug can defeat.
"The question now more asked is, "Why haven't we seen it yet?"
It's not, "Will we see it?
" So we're just very, very close to a situation where antibiotics are becoming obsolete."
"But it's still shocking to think that there are bacteria out there that we cannot treat.
that's not the way it was supposed to happen."
Why is this happening?
In simple terms, misuse of antibiotics.
patients who don't finish an antibiotic prescription, kill off the weakest bacteria, allowing the strongest to survive.
"If the bacteria is not killed and it becomes resistant, it can leave the individual and go to somebody else.
I think we see bacteria that are literally laughing at all the antibiotics.
In this rural setting outside of Pottstown, Pennsylvania, a woman has made medical history.
Her case proves how resourceful bacteria have become.
"So I figured, operate Friday, she'll be out of here Monday or Tuesday, and then..."
Carol Rothermel, a nurse, thought the operation on her sister Joan Reigh would be routine.
But Joan ended up in the hospital 322 days, primarily because of infections she developed after surgery.
Doctors fought the bacteria with heavy doses of antibiotics, including Vancomycin.
But over time, the germs developed resistance and took their toll.
Henry Fraimow, an infectious disease specialist, was trying to figure out why, after six months of antibiotics, Joan was still sick.
As the name implies, it's already become immune to Vancomycin and every other antibiotic.
But in Joan's case, the organism made one more unexpected evolutionary leap.
"We were flabbergasted by what we saw."
What they saw is on this culture plate smeared with Joan's bacteria.
A disk of Vancomycin is in the middle.
"And you can see the only place on this plate that the bacteria are growing, are around that disk containing the Vancomycin."
The bacteria not only resist the drug, but have evolved to the point where they thrive on it.
In response, doctors stopped giving Joan Vancomycin, and the bacteria died.
This was the first time ever scientists had seen the new bug, but it won't be the last.
That adaptability worries scientists.
"I can't see that this problem is going to get better.
All that's going to happen is it's going to get worse."
They have a special team on standby to race to any emergency.
How serious is the war with these organisms?
"Microbes have been around for three billion years, and we've been around for a lot less time than that.
The Internet today has the same feeling of excitement that virtual reality had three or four years ago.
Not a day goes by without another news story on the information superhighway, businesses starting to use the Internet, government plans for Internet controls, privacy and porno on the Internet, or the varieties of information which the Internet offers.
The possibilities for news stories are as wide as the Internet itself.
Those who do not using the Net yet wants to know what it is and how to get there.
The Internet is a huge network of networks.
A network is a group of computers joined to a host computer or server by modems or by cables.
These connections let the client computers communicate from one server to another.
On the Internet, all kinds of computers can communicate directly with each other and enter into thousands of different networks.
To get onto the Internet you need a computer, a modem or cable connection, and a service provider, a way of entering the Internet.
Businesses, colleges, and government offices generally have private links between their computers and the outside world.
Individuals work through a commercial provider like America Online, CompuServe, or, in Japan, NiftyServe and TWICS.
One other thing that is needed:
Department of Defense created a computer link between defense companies and universities doing military research.
Three computers in California and one in Utah were able to have easy contact with each other.
Over the next 30 years, this became the Internet, a global network which has more than 140 million users.
Numbers of users are likely to double over the next year as more people buy personal computers and turn on to this new information tool.
Most present users of the Net simply exchange information with other people.
Messages can be typed direct to another address or to a bulletin board for people who share a similar interest.
After the Kobe earthquake, for example, hundreds of people used the Internet to find out about friends and family in the area.
In February, Mastercard introduced a program to let its customers pay bills via the Internet.
More and more of the bulletin boards on the Net are for buying and selling.
The most obvious purpose of advertising / is to inform the consumer / of available products or services.
The second purpose is to sell the product.
/ The second purpose might be more important / to the manufacturers / than the first.
The manufacturers only try to persuade customers / to buy the product / by creating a desire for it.
They know all the different motives / that influence a consumer's purchase.
/ Furthermore, / they take advantage of this knowledge.
The consumer may want to copy the football star / by using the product.
At other times, / people buy products / to get the attention of other people.
Other purchases are for pleasure / rather than need.
Tickets to a baseball game or to a rock concert / are examples / of this kind of emotional motive.
Of course, / need remains the most important reason / for buying something.
Food is a real need, / but / what about the sugarcoated breakfast food / advertised on television?
/ It is neither necessary / nor nutritious.
What causes or motivates the shopper / to buy this product?
Most likely / it is an emotional motive.
Imagine driving from Maine to Maryland virtually nonstop, breezing through hundreds of miles of turnpikes and bridges, never stopping at a tollbooth.
This traveler's dream is actually a step closer to reality.
The governors of Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont agreed to work toward setting up a multistate system of ETC, Electronic Toll Collection.
Under ETC, tolls would be electronically deducted on the fly, as they already are in some states.
Traffic congestion costs the nation about $100 billion in lost productivity annually, so improving highway efficiency can be a boon.
But privacy advocates say ETC could turn highways into massive surveillance systems.
Besides raking in tolls, transportation departments also can suck up tons of personal information about a traveler, including driver's license data, license plate number, destination, highway speed, vehicle identification and time of day of travel.
Who controls this information?
Will it be sold or merged into other databases available to insurance companies, credit bureaus, marketers and law-enforcement agencies?
Indeed, privacy advocates say ETC billing should be as anonymous as the coins tossed into tollbooths.
The technology already exists for anonymous ETC.
"New Jersey's system is indifferent to your identity," says Commissioner of Transportation Frank J. Wilson.
And AT/Comm, a Massachusetts company, operates the North-South Tollway west of Chicago, the largest ETC installation in the country, with over 200 lanes and more than 10,000 drivers billed electronically.
"The decentralized system is organized not to pry into drivers' privacy," says spokesman Michael Greenstein.
Another ETC company, Dallas-based Amtech, can install systems using digital cash, which would afford complete privacy.
Electronic toll collection is clearly in its infancy, and state planners are only now confronting privacy issues.
The first running shoe was invented 100 years ago.
But it took 80 years for the industry to get out of its starting blocks.
Today about 300m pairs of what Europeans call trainers and Americans call "athletic footwear" are sold around the world each year.
The average keen American jogger runs 20 miles (32km) a week.
So he or she could be buying a new pair every six months.
Of course, few wear out their shoes that fast:
most buy sports shoes to feel sporty without feeling sweaty.
But changing fashion wears out shoes just as fast as running.
It is a marketeer's dream industry, combining fashion, utility, health, fitness, glamour and personalities, all tied together with megabuck advertising.
But it is showing signs of premature ageing.
Most of the growth in the $13.5 billion global sports-shoe market is expected to come from emerging markets.
This has not yet bothered America's Nike, which has emerged as the market leader.
Nike announced a 55% increase in pre-tax first quarter profits on sales up 38% compared with the same period last year.
Nike has 23.8% of the world market, compared with 20.4% for America's Reebok and 10.8% for Adidas, a German family company.
But this order has changed repeatedly over the past decade, and could do so again.
Until the mid-1980s, Adidas was the clear leader.
But, the death of the founder's son left the firm adrift.
Nike stepped in, with expensive advertising and promotion.
Its trick was to sign up famous sports personalities to equate the brand with their success.
Nike persisted with this marketing strategy even when American and European teenagers tore off their sneakers or trainers to don British Doctor Marten boots and other grungy fashion footwear of the early 1990s.
Now fashion has swung back its way, and Nike is reaping the reward.
After early success in developing a new market for shoes for women, Reebok has trailed in Nike's wake.
A bigger threat to Nike is a revived Adidas.
After a disastrous period in the hands of Bernard Tapie, the firm was bought in 1993 by Robert Louis-Dreyfus, another French businessman, who had earlier helped to revive the ailing Saatchi & Saatchi advertising group.
Louis-Dreyfus has moved all but 3% of production from Germany to Asia.
The workforce is down from a peak 14,300 to 5,500;
Adidas has another advantage:
it makes a wide range of sports clothes, too, whereas three-quarters of Nike's and Reebok's sales are from footwear.
Analysts reckon sales of sports clothing will grow faster than the shoes market.
Adidas's pre-tax profits for the second half of last year more than doubled on sales which rose by about 10%.
Its next target is America, where it hopes to double its current low market share, at Reebok's expense.
But most of the future profits of the sports shoe business will be won in Asia.
That, as they say in the industry, is where the feet are.
What would you say about someone who spent 18 hours a day online?
Not a research scientist, but a stay-at-home mom from Texas.
What if she lied to her husband about the monthly phone bills, as high as $400?
What if you heard that her marriage dissolved and she became estranged from her children.
She worries about what's going to happen as more Americans encounter the Internet.
"I believe it could be really bad and really dangerous for this country."
Glenda may be as far overboard in her assessment of the future as she was in her computer use.
But she's certainly not alone in fretting about the infinite web's potential to collapse into an all-absorbing black hole.
Some experts estimate that 2 to 3 percent of the online community have serious Internet addictions.
Kimberly Young, a clinical psychologist and assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh, has submitted a paper on the problem for the next American Psychological Association meeting and would like to see the disorder added to diagnostic manuals.
Rich Barrette, an Ohio University grad student, started his Webaholics web page a year ago after watching the academic careers of two close friends go down the drain.
It has since drawn 200,000 visits.
There are also Interneters Anonymous, and the 300-member Internet Addiction Support Group, founded by a New York psychiatrist.
Kenneth Gergen, a Swarthmore College professor and psychologist, is a little more tactful but no less discouraging.
It can certainly sound that way.
Stella Yu, a college senior from Carson, Calif., says she's struggling with her obsession.
She first went online in the late '90s.
Now Yu, 21, drags herself out of bed at 5 a.m. to squeeze in a few hours online before school.
She logs on between classes, and then, later, at her part-time job.
Once home, the surf's up until bedtime at 1 a.m.
"My whole day is planned around this," she says.
Her grades have fallen, and so has the ax at home, where she argues with her father over phone bills as high as $450.
"I always make promises I'm going to quit;
that I'll just use it for research.
I use it for research for 10 minutes, then I spend two hours chatting."
Still, Yu stops short of calling herself an addict.
Indeed, Pittsburgh's Young understands the skepticism.
Steve Jones, chair of the University of Tulsa's communications department, says worry is overblown
"Widespread use can't be achieved without making us fearful that it's going to become addictive.
If we look at movies, television, books, there's always a fear that somehow they're going to keep us from making contact and creating human relationships."
After all, the average TV viewer spends more than 28 hours a week in front of the tube, while the average Interneter burns a comparatively measly five and a half hours.
But a few people do fall prey.
MIT sociologist and clinical psychologist Sherry Turkle says that while people may feel addicted, the true difficulty lies elsewhere.
Most problem onliners spend their time in chat rooms, E-mailing or otherwise communicating.
And self-described Net addicts think themselves less worthy in person than online.
People need to appreciate that if they're warm, clever, funny and kind online, then these qualities belong to them.
More and more women are in the military / these days, / and as their numbers grow, / so do their responsibilities.
A study says / the Air Force offers the best chance for employment, / with 97 percent of the jobs open to women.
But / the Marines remain a nearly exclusive male domain / with only 20 percent of the jobs open to women.
Women are still excluded / from direct combat roles, / although women would be among the casualties / on today's battlefield.
And most military women / don't want to be excluded.
And / with more exposure to dangerous military missions, / many are hoping / the remaining barriers in the U.S. military will fall.
Asia is developing its industries and its economies at breakneck speed and, at the same time, creating a multi-billion dollar need for environmental solutions.
The World Bank cited the following areas as those in most need of assistance:
air pollution, water resources, deforestation and land degradation, rising energy demands, the processing and elimination of toxic waste, and dumping.
Of the international market for environmental goods and services, the Asian demand alone is expected to exceed $60 billion.
Environmental protection legislation throughout Asia is surprisingly well developed and sophisticated.
But, with the single exception of Singapore, compliance and enforcement do not necessarily follow, as governments struggle to balance the protection of the environment with the economic imperatives of development.
Peter Nadebaum, principal of environmental sciences and engineering consultants, CMPS&F, said developed countries have adequate environmental laws and policies, whereas underdeveloped countries feel they just cannot afford them.
They need to find a balance between their immediate economic survival and the longer term need to protect their environments."
In developing countries, where industrial waste is discharged directly into rivers and drains, the problem is that there is no concept of hazardous waste, therefore, the will to implement the regulations lacks any sense of urgency.
Environmental legislation comes at a high cost to countries which are trying to survive economically.
Survival calls for short-term thinking, but environmental protection is the domain of long-term visionaries.
Somewhere there is a balance.
The balance is now being demanded of their governments by the rapidly expanding middle classes of Asia Pacific.
They are setting the agenda for change in countries like Indonesia, Thailand, China, South Korea, Taiwan and Malaysia, where water quality is the first focus, to be followed by air pollution and then waste management.
The Indonesian environment has outstanding scientific conservation value containing 60 to 70% of the world's biological diversity.
In contrast to many developing countries, Indonesia also has plentiful natural resources including petroleum and non-petroleum energy resources, rich soils, and closed canopy forest.
Indonesia made its commitment to the basic concepts of sound environmental management early and has a long history of integrating economic development and protection of the environment.
However, along with other developing countries, the nation could not fund all its priority areas simultaneously and consequently its environment has suffered in the process of development.
Indonesia's industrial development has been so rapid that, environmental issues have come to the fore on a significant scale throughout industry.
High demand sectors for waste water technologies include agri-business and food processing, textiles and tanneries, electroplating and distilleries.
But balancing social and environmental concerns with the interests of a growing population in search of higher incomes and living standards, is the greatest challenge of all.
Farmers, for example, have increased their incomes and more people have been able to remain on the land because of improved crop varieties, irrigation, fertilizers and pesticides which have increased the yields of farm lands.
Forests and other natural vegetation have subsequently been cleared to expand the areas under cultivation.
Shrimp farms have increased employment opportunities at the expense of mangrove forests and other natural vegetation.
Higher employment and incomes have been generated by the commercial logging industry which has been growing since the mid-1960s and is now further boosted with the dramatic expansion of the domestic plywood and other timber industries.
Mining and resources industries, especially petroleum and gas, small-scale gold mining and quarrying for construction materials, have generated economic rewards and substantial growth in employment.
New industries have sprung up everywhere, some for domestic processing of agricultural commodities and some for import substitution.
As well several million people have migrated to urban areas in search of income and employment.
All of these changes have had a significant environmental impact particularly on the quality of water, and the loss of both flora and fauna in relatively untouched areas.
Bio-diversity has been reduced.
Atmospheric pollution by particles and chemicals, and problems in the disposal of solid wastes are further environmental consequences of growth.
Many changes are taking place / in "food styles" in the United States.
The United States is traditionally famous / for its very solid and unchanging diet / of meat and potatoes.
Now / we have many different alternatives to choose from :
Ethnic restaurants and supermarkets / are commonplace in the United States.
Because the United States is a country of immigrants, / there is an immense variety.
Health food gained popularity / when people began to think more seriously / about their physical well-being.
/ i.e., / there are no preservatives to help it last longer / or other chemicals to make it taste or look better.
Fast-food restaurants are now expanding rapidly / all over the country.
/ In the United States, / speed is a very important factor.
People usually have a short lunch break / or they just don't want to waste their time eating.
America's attitude toward food / is changing, too.
/ The traditional big breakfast and dinner at 6 :
Like so many people in other cultures, / many Americans are taking time / to relax and enjoy the finer tastes at dinner, / even if they still rush through lunch / at a hamburger stand.
The introduction of environmental rules is a painful process.
The evaluation of the environmental impact of large-scale projects necessarily uses environmental expertise intensively.
Price incentives have to be examined carefully to ensure that they do not lead to detrimental environmental practices.
Commercial waste, for example, has to be costed as a cost of production component.
Subsidized rates for water supply and energy lead to resource waste.
Indonesia is looking for new technologies and management systems for waste minimization, treatment and, where possible, recycling or reuse.
There is greater coordination between those who protect the environment and those who cause it problems.
Regulations for monitoring and enforcing of environmental policies are also being strengthened.
In successive five-year development plans, Indonesia has acknowledged the strains being placed on the environment by rapid economic growth.
The Basic Law on Conservation stresses community participation and provides the basis for environmental impact assessment.
In complete contrast, the tiny island republic of Singapore, which generates a large variety of toxic wastes from its heavy engineering and manufacturing industries, has tough environmental laws.
Singapore's 2.7 million people live in 626 square kilometers.
About 48% of the island is used for commercial, residential and industrial purposes.
Around 12% is used for agriculture, while the remaining 40% comprises forests, reserves and other non-built up areas.
Important sectors of the Singapore economy include manufacturing, trade, financial and business services, transport and communications.
Heavy engineering and manufacturing are mainly located in the Jurong Industrial Estate at the southwestern area of the island.
Clean industries such as light engineering and electronics are scattered in areas near population centers.
The Pollution Control Department of the Ministry of the Environment controls toxic wastes, and the control begins when a new factory is at the planning stage.
Singapore generates a variety of toxic wastes, such as waste oil, spent solvent, spent enchant and waste sludge.
Industries which do not have such facilities are required to engage approved waste disposal contractors to collect their wastes for recycling or treatment.
Recovery and reuse of wastes is encouraged as this reduces the amount disposal.
Wastes that cannot be recycled must be treated and rendered safe for disposal.
Singapore uses various methods and technologies for treatment and disposal of toxic wastes:
- Biological treatment for biodegradable liquid wastes
- Physical and chemical treatment
- Fixation or immobilization, which binds the toxic
Most liquid wastes are treated by in-house treatment plants.
Aqueous wastes, after treatment are normally discharged into the sewer for further treatment at sewage treatment works.
Elsewhere in the region, Hong Kong generates 390,000 tons of air pollution a day, which is roughly divided into sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and carbon monoxide, plus uncountable tons of suspended particulate.
The territory is also undergoing what is considered the world's largest construction boom.
Entire islands and mountains have disappeared to be used in land reclamation sites and for the new Chek Lap Kok airport.
In just one aspect of the construction, 70 million cubic meters of soft marine mud must be dredged from the seabed and replaced with 76 million cubic meters of sand excavated from other marine locations.
However, contractors must satisfy the strict requirements of Hong Kong's Environmental Protection Department.
The department has mandated 60 water monitoring stations covering Hong Kong's territorial waters and two boats to monitor dissolved oxygen, turbidity, suspended solids and temperature.
The dredgers working on the airport and related projects are also obliged to dispose of marine mud in designated sites.
They were fitted with satellite navigation positioning devices to make sure that they complied with this regulation.
In the Caucasus region of the Soviet Union, / nearly 50 out of every 100,000 people / live to celebrate their 100th birthday, / and many don't stop at 100!
/ But these Soviet old people aren't alone.
These peoples remain healthy in body and spirit / despite the passage of time.
What accounts for this ability / to survive to such old age, / and to survive so well?
First of all, / hard physical work is a way of life / for all of these long-lived peoples.
Another factor / that may contribute to the good health of these people / is their isolation.
They never eat more food / than their bodies need.
It is clear that / isolation from urban pressures and pollution, / clean mountain air, / daily hard work, / moderate diets, / good genes, / and a youthful approach to life / all contribute to the health and remarkable long life / of all these people.
- I've seen some weird stuff.
- Like little lights flopping around in the sky.
- They're working with unearthly technologies out
- The most important thing that... to remember when
Nevada Highway 375 shoots across the high desert landscape in what seems like an endless straight line.
It might as well be a road to the twilight zone because it takes us to a place that doesn't exist.
Somewhere beyond these mountains, two and a half hours outside of Las Vegas, there is a secret airbase where spy planes like the Stealth Fighter and the Blackbird first tested their wings.
You won't find the base on any map, but you will find it in these old satellite pictures we discovered, taken by both the Soviets and the U.S. government.
We see runways, buildings and what looks like large trenches.
What do people do there?
For some unofficial answers, we stopped at the nearest town we could find:
one dog, one flagpole and one bar called the Little A'le'Inn.
- There's things over there that... would boggle
- And I think there's a lot of aliens out there.
- You see a lot of different things that sometimes it's
- not wise to talk about.
People here tell us about seeing strange lights in the sky and about rumors of captured UFOs stored in secret hangars.
But just down the road, we hear a different story at the Area 51 Research Center.
- The alien stories that emerge around here, most of
Glen Campbell quit his job with a computer company to work full time uncovering the inner workings of Area 51.
- This is the best publicized secret base in the
- country, yet the government won't acknowledge
- How long have you been looking into this base?
- I've been here for two years.
- And what do you know about what happens in that
- I really don't know.
I know some of the routine procedures
But I don't know what's going on in
- there, and frankly a lot of the workers don't know
- what's going on in there.
It's a holdover of the Cold War.
the perfect place for a government to keep its secrets and, allegedly, the perfect place to commit a crime.
Base workers, risking imprisonment, came forward to tell us how government contractors allegedly used Area 51 as a secret dumping ground.
They describe how under armed guard classified materials were dumped into large open trenches and set on fire.
The workers tell us they developed health problems after breathing the smoke.
They say their complaints were ignored, and requests for protective clothing were denied.
Law professor Jonathan Turly represents Mrs.
Frost and base workers in a suit against the military.
- We're only asked one question to this government
- And what did they say to you?
- They said that "we don't understand the question"
- admit that it exists?
- Once you admit that the base is there, you become
- liable for any crimes that may have gone on there.
We followed Campbell and about 30 other amateur spies to a ridge on public land where part of Area 51 is actually exposed to public view.
- What do you think is hiding behind that ridge?
Just make yourself comfortable and enjoy the scenery.
- Here, honey, or over there?
- You can see some of them right now.
- Yeah, I can see them.
With a pair of binoculars, the nondescript buildings and hangars we found are surprisingly easy to see.
- The government gets to spy on us all the time,
- now we can spy back.
But, as it turned out, we weren't the only ones lurking in the desert that day.
Guards in white vehicles appeared in the distance, watching us as we watched the base.
"Disney thinks that they are so big we can't hurt them.
But when you get too big for your britches, you've got problems coming."
Why target a company that can be nauseatingly wholesome?
Because Disney is producing entertainment that AFA believes morally suspect.
Worse, Disney has extended health benefits to the live-in partners of gay employees.
As Wildmon mobilizes his zealots, is Mickey quaking in his oversize shoes?
Says spokesman John Dreyer with a shrug:
Disney is not alone.
his outfit was boycotting the retailer because its Waldenbooks division, now spun off, was selling Playboy
than AFL-CIO members got their noses out of joint because Kmart buys ads in the Detroit News, where a nasty strike is in progress.
Want to attract boycotters?
McDonald's was for years dogged by environmentalists who spread a false but devilishly persistent rumor that Big Macs contained beef from cows raised on land cleared from Latin American rain forests.
Sighs McDonald's spokesman Chuck Ebeling:
"With 10,000 locations nationwide, we're a lightning rod for the issue."
The irony is that by the time a company gets big and visible enough to make irate consumers vote with their feet, it's too big for a boycott to affect it much.
In October, a coalition of dairy farmers, consumer groups, and environmentalists in Wisconsin announced a boycott of Monsanto, claiming that its genetically engineered products are unsafe.
Monsanto was unaware of the boycott until a reporter called the company's headquarters in St.
And what's the point in boycotting a product you never use anyway?
Christian fundamentalists in Kansas and elsewhere are swearing off Coors beer, a seemingly odd choice given the highly conservative bent of the Coors family.
But the brewer, like Disney, now buys health insurance for people whom boycott leader Fred Phelps Sr.
Odder still, Baptists don't seem to be the types who knock back a few cold ones after church.
Coors spokesman Joe Fuentes allows as how the AFL-CIO boycott of the late '80s, which included people like ironworkers and truck drivers, was a far greater blow.
In cyberspace, China seems an upside-down caricature of the real thing.
Dozens of Web sites offer critical views that are forbidden on Beijing's streets.
Pictures of the bloody Tiananmen crackdown are available.
So does Beijing fear the power of cyberspace?
Last month, Beijing signed a deal with a Dallas-based firm that will provide Internet access in all 30 province and regions of China.
Asia accounted for just a small fraction of the estimated 140 million users worldwide.
But usage in the region, which is expected to be the epicenter of global economic growth in the 21st century, has exploded.
In India and South Korea, which a few years ago opened up full service, the number of users has increased exponentially.
The number of Net "hosts"
The implications are enormous for Asian nations, where doctrines from Confucianism to communism militate against the free circulation of ideas.
That has fed a fear among governments that information would take on a more sinister, even subversive aspect.
Indeed, many look to Singapore, that unrepentant island of discipline, as a model.
Singapore authorities caused an uproar in 1994 by searching 80,000 files on a business network.
When they uncovered five pornographic images, they sent stern warnings to the offenders.
But the authorities have not been able to keep up with the Net's explosive growth.
The amount of data moving on the Net quadrupled, according to a National University of Singapore study.
Singapore's economic planners hope to turn the nation into a "wired island" in which every home and institution is connected to a central Internet gateway by the end of the year 2000.
That's a censor's nightmare.
Singapore plans to police only "public areas."
In Indonesia, the military has proposed "blacking out" objectionable information.
But for now it has focused on pumping out progovernment information.
In China, too, the government may simply drown out the cyberdissidents.
Beijing has widely advertised the new Net services even before issuing a planned set of "behavior regulations."
It is encouraging scholarly exchanges and new business opportunities.
Beijing has even launched its own official electronic magazine, The Chinese Scholar.
Some say it's overreacting.
China's fear of the Internet has been much exaggerated.
Many of these dissident groups have been online for a decade, and they haven't really subverted anything.
Environmental protection no longer means / an end to economic development;
/ both commerce and the planet can prosper.
Ten to twelve percent of the Amazon jungle / has been destroyed since 1976.
"A necessary evil," / say the cattle ranchers, gold miners and plantation owners.
If you want to make money, / you have to clear land.
/ But these days / that rationale is being questioned.
A group of natural scientists / have developed an economic model / to back up their theory / that it's more profitable / to leave the jungle standing / and harvest the natural forest products.
They call the concept / "sustainable development."
/ In the economic model, / two and a half acres were put to various uses.
/ Timber brought in only a few hundred dollars more.
But / if the forest products / - latex, fruit and medicinal herbs - / were gathered and sold in local markets, / the value of the land doubled.
Some governments are beginning / to see the logic of this approach.
Brazil has set up 15 areas / where this type of "sustainable development" / is being practiced.
The success of that experiment will determine / the fate of the rest of the Amazon.
Even the experts were stunned when they saw the data showing that the U.S. had grown fatter, not thinner, over the past 15 years.
"It just blew my mind," says Albert Stunkard, a University of Pennsylvania professor who has been studying obesity since the 1950s.
One international study discovered that Americans now lead the world in body mass.
While Stunkard and his colleagues don't have easy explanations, they generally blame various-size portions of sloth, gluttony, and genes.
Those who favor sloth as the main cause trot out a 1999 report on what caused weight gains among 12,000 Finnish adults over five years:
Low levels of physical exercise were more closely tied to obesity than any habitual eating pattern.
But if sloth is the principal villain, Americans should be losing a little weight.
Surveys show that slightly more of us were exercising in 1999 than five years earlier.
Most experts maintain that diet is more important.
It's usually easier to lose weight by changing your diet than to exercise three or four hours a day.
Still, the authorities agree that exercising is also critical to maintain normal weight after losing pounds.
Mindful of this, Lovejoy, a trim 34-year-old vegetarian keeps a decree from her superego over her desk:
a luscious poster of the "Louisiana food lovers pyramid", with pecan pie at the top and, along the bottom, gator, crayfish, oysters, and crabs.
And we continue to go out to eat
44 cents of every food dollar now goes for meals prepared outside the home, compared with 36 cents in 1980
exposing us to ever huger plates of food in restaurants that compete on portion size.
The 9,176-foot snowcapped volcano / on New Zealand's North Island / put on a stunning display before dawn, / shooting red hot rocks, glowing ash and debris / thousands of feet into the air.
Plumes of black, brown and gray smoke soared / eight miles high above the volcano, / and strong tremors were felt / up to 25 miles away.
Rumblings deep within the earth / were heard 40 miles away.
/ No injuries or major damage was reported.
But dozens of aircraft were grounded, diverted or turned back, / causing chaos for thousands of travelers, / particularly at Auckland International airport, / 160 miles north of the eruption.
Jets have been known to stall / when their engines take in large amounts of ash.
Roads around the mountain / were sealed off by police / as a precaution.
The countries of South-East Asia have rarely controlled their own destinies.
Even peace and unprecedented prosperity have not shaken the assumption that South-East Asia's fate will be decided by outsiders.
Westerners still often refer to the area as Japan's backyard or part of the yen block.
The economic stars of the region
Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia
have followed a distinctive path to development.
As a result, they are now exporting not just goods, but ideas.
The economic strategies of China and India look much more like those followed in South-East Asia, rather than the North-East Asian model of Japan or South Korea.
It is much more open to foreign direct investment.
The tigers of South-East Asia have built their booms by welcoming foreigners.
Singapore, which practically invented this strategy, now has an economy dominated by multinational companies.
The export industries of Thailand and Malaysia are also heavily reliant on foreign firms.
There is much admiration in South-East Asia for the Japanese and South Korean governments' sponsorship of steel, shipbuilding and other heavy industries.
Both Indonesia and Malaysia have tried nurturing winners, in aerospace and cars respectively.
But such efforts remain peripheral.
In Indonesia, the framework for growth has been established by a determinedly orthodox group of economists who have concentrated on macroeconomic stability and opposed subsidies.
Malaysia's state-backed car industry has yet to prove itself commercially viable.
By contrast Thailand, which has followed the standard South-East Asian strategy of luring in foreign direct investment, seems likely to become the regional hub for motor manufacturing.
South-East Asian countries have also been much quicker to let financial markets flourish.
By contrast, the stockmarkets of Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia were cleared for take-off early on the path to economic development, allowing companies to raise more money without heavy borrowing.
manage the kind of economic miracles achieved in other parts of Asia, they seem likely to do it the South-East Asian way.
Both countries have set out to court foreign direct investment.
China took in $35 billion-worth in 1994 alone.
India got into the game much later.
But even its nominally Communist politicians are now eagerly scouting the world for foreign investors.
Both countries still have large state sectors.
But both now see their nationalized industries primarily as a burden that must be reformed, rather than as the fulcrum of an economic strategy.
Finally both China and India, like the South-East Asians, have encouraged companies to raise capital through their frenetic stockmarkets.
In the inward-looking economies of China and India in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, directed lending and industrial planning were a disaster.
Both Japan and South Korea rose to economic power when stable Asian allies seemed more important to western politicians than closed Asian markets.
And with Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore rattling along with economic growth rates of over 8% a year, the days when South-East Asia could simply be dismissed as Japan's backyard are over.
Most people are no more interested in / how government or politics works.
Government in general is even less interesting.
Government is a technical undertaking, / like the building of rocketships or the organizing of railroad yards.
The issues / which attract public notice / usually involve / raising money for taxes, / spending money for public works, defense, education, crime in the streets, / and, most important of all, the economy.
When times are bad, / or where there is a nationwide strike or disaster, / everyone becomes interested in the economy.
Most serious political communication is limited / to forty-five seconds on the television evening news.
But why are some people apparently born to be lean, while others get fat on normal diets?
In one study of 540 adults who had been adopted at early ages, researchers found that the subjects' levels of fatness were much closer to those of their biological parents than to those of their adoptive ones.
Such studies have led to the consensus that weight is about 33% a matter of genes, which in turn has bolstered the idea that many of us must spend a lifetime in struggle against our heredity.
But a few years ago skeptics took a hard look at what fat people actually eat in real life and found that obese subjects consistently underreport their calorie intake by some 40%.
Normal-weight people typically underreport too, but by about 20%.
But although a naturally slow metabolism may not cause people to gain pounds, new evidence suggests that everyone's metabolism may perversely slow down when they try to lose.
In March a Rockefeller University team published a study in the New England Journal of Medicine showing that when research volunteers lost about 10% of their weight by dieting, their overall calories burned fell still further
The lower burning occurred in both normal and obese people and was due partly to metabolic slowing
as if the hand of an invisible enemy were on the body's thermostat, offsetting hard-won reductions of consumed calories.
Thus, it appears, there really is a food demon:
It's that insidious inner thermostat trying ceaselessly to keep our stored fat at a constant level.
Negotiations for a global ban on testing nuclear weapons / have reached a turning point / with only two weeks to go until the deadline.
We have two days to go.
Two hamburgers to go, please.
The 38-nation Conference on Disarmament / planned rare weekend sessions / in an attempt to break deadlocks / in at least four issues.
The conference has set June 28 / as the deadline for completion of the English language text / so that it can be translated into other U.N. languages / and be ready to meet the U.N.
General Assembly's demand / that it be ready for next September's session.
A major issue to be decided / is the so-called "Entry into force" - / how many of the eight countries considered capable of having nuclear weapons / would have to sign / to make the treaty become effective.
Britain is insisting / that all eight would have to ratify, / but some countries don't want to name nations / to avoid giving any special status.
The eight include Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, / all of which acknowledge having nuclear arsenals.
I believe him (to be) honest.
= He is believed (to be) honest.
The only major movement in recent weeks / was China's dropping its insistence / that it be allowed to conduct "peaceful nuclear explosions" / under the treaty on the theory / that they might be useful for massive engineering projects / like digging canals.
The heavens rained news last week.
They presented conclusive evidence that stars the size of our sun have planets and those planets might be able to support life.
They saw for the first time galaxies forming at the dawn of time, thanks to pictures taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.
And they learned that at least half of our own Milky Way galaxy is composed of ordinary stuff, not exotic, as-yet-undiscovered particles that some have postulated.
Here's how to understand the highlights.
If one other planetary system is found, the argument goes, then the universe surely must contain many others.
And if another planet is found that has propitious conditions for the formation of life, then, perhaps, we are not alone.
The two planets discovered by Geoffrey Marcy of San Francisco State University and his associate Paul Butler are not the first ones ever discovered beyond our solar system.
The reason they are so exciting is that they begin to meet the test of possible life.
They orbit the stars 70 Virginis, in the constellation Virgo, and 47 Ursae Majoris, in the Big Dipper.
Both stars are about the size of the sun, and their planets are gaseous like Jupiter, only bigger.
The temperature of the planet orbiting 70 Virginis is probably about 185 degrees, allowing liquid water in "a nice toasty warm bath", Marcy says.
That's about right for complex organic molecules to form similar to those "that presumably led to life on Earth".
Water on the second planet is probably frozen.
The planet around 70 Virginis is particularly important, observes Robert Brown, a planetary systems specialist at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore.
"It is the first find with characteristics of mass and orbit that are similar to the solar system."
The planet circles its sun every 116 days and probably was formed by the same kind of event that caused the solar system.
The discovery of the planets will spur a host of new searches.
Astronomers aren't able to see planets directly with telescopes because light from the stars they orbit is too bright.
Instead, a planet's existence is deduced from wobbles of the star around which it orbits caused by the planet's gravitational force.
The wobbles, in turn, make the wavelength of light from the star shift slightly, and the shifts can be detected from Earth.
The two new planets were found using a 120-inch telescope at the University of California's Lick Observatory.
When the Hubble Space Telescope was first proposed, astronomers wanted it to be a time machine that could look back nearly to the beginning of the universe to see what was happening.
Of course, Hubble is used for lots of other observational purposes.
For 10 days through December. 28, Williams kept Hubble trained on a narrow stretch of sky near the handle of the Big Dipper that is uncluttered by nearby objects.
The orbiting telescope took pictures during the entire time, 342 exposures in all.
Once transmitted to Earth, the frames were assembled into a single image that reveals a bewildering array of galactic shapes and colors.
Some, in fact, looked as if they were beginning to evolve into classic spiral shapes.
nearly 4 billion times fainter than can be seen by the human eye
that they have not been seen by the largest terrestrial telescopes.
Hubble, in effect, was looking at fossils that offer clues about how galaxies develop, and they are key to understanding the fate of the universe.
We are seeing some of the galaxies as they were 10 billion years ago, in the process of formation.
As these images have come up on our screens, we have not been able to keep from wondering if we might somehow be seeing our own origins in all of this.
One of the most puzzling and compelling questions for astronomers is what the universe is made of.
By studying how galaxies move, they can calculate how much mass is needed to produce the motions.
But when they count up what they see, the visible objects add up to only a 10th of the matter that is needed to account for galactic motions.
But an international team from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the University of California and the Mt.
Stromlo Observatory near Canberra, Australia, has now presented strong evidence that much of the missing stuff is ordinary matter astronomers call MACHOs
a combination that wasn't technically or economically possible until this decade
the team photographed 9 million stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud nearly every night for the past two years.
The computers watched to see if any of the stars got brighter for a period of one to four months.
If so, it meant that a MACHO in the halo of the Milky Way too faint to be seen from the ground had been detected passing between the Large Magellanic Cloud and the telescope.
The MACHO's massive gravity acts like a lens to magnify the light from the distant star and reveal that something is out there.
In two years, the team recorded seven such "microlensing" events.
That meant there are enough MACHOs in the halo of the galaxy to account for at least half the necessary dark matter.
In fact, team members say privately, other evidence they're collecting suggests that they may be finding all the matter that's needed.
Next week, more news from the heavens is expected as NASA reveals what the Galileo probe discovered as it parachuted down through Jupiter's roiling atmosphere on December 7.
We praise those people who have lived through the impossible or succeeded where others would fail.
But this week, we dedicate the first part of our show to the people who did not survive:
the more than 200,000 victims who died when the Atomic Age was born, when the U.S. dropped the first unclear bombs on Japan.
We begin our look back with the question:
Should the United States have unleashed the terrible power of nuclear weapons on Japan, or could World War II have ended in a less violent way?
This week, we put that question to three people who have given it much thought, and this is what they said.
There is no question the United States should have dropped the atomic bombs on Japan in the summer of 1945.
The Japanese were showing no signs of surrender.
They did want to negotiate.
But as we were watching their troop movements, and we knew intimate details because we'd broken their military and diplomatic codes, as we watched their military troop movements and their political maneuvering, we knew that they were waiting for us to invade.
They wanted one great invasion battle, where their kamikazes, their troops, even their civilians, could inflict massive casualties on our assault forces and force us into negotiations.
Truman had to drop the bomb.
He had no choice in the summer of 1945.
We should not have dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
I think the evidence we now have is that the Japanese were attempting to find a way to surrender, and the top military leaders of the United States, almost to a man, understood that this was not a matter of military necessity.
Moreover, the United States and Great Britain were taking their armies out of Europe, and they were about to move all of that power that had defeated Hitler to the Far East, to join that war.
And finally, the Russians were mounting their troops on the Manchurian border about to enter this war.
So, I think Japan was on its last legs, and there's clear evidence that they were prepared to surrender so long... above all, not unconditionally, but on the condition that the Emperor of Japan, a figure who played the role of a god in their culture be given some assurance that he would not be deposed.
I think that was a condition, but I also think that U.S. leaders did not see that as a major problem.
To finish the war as soon as possible, that was the understandable decision by the President Truman.
At that time, the Japanese military forces still possessed more than 10,000 airplanes, were going to be used as suicide attack, like a kamikaze, and most of the Japanese military leaders were against to surrender to the Allied Nations.
They were asserting to fight against the Allied Nations until the complete destroy of the Japanese manpower and properties.
He was looking at America and the world in the summer of 1945.
I think actually the evidence is that perhaps because a decision was made to wait, wait for the atomic bomb test, perhaps more lives may have been lost, as some historians have argued.
And I think that may be right.
One by one, / American companies are giving up / their leadership.
One example is / the flight of U.S. manufacturing operations abroad.
Over the past four years, / some 500 U.S. companies have established their factories / in northern Mexico / because of cheap labor costs.
They work solely for money.
As a result, / they are treated either as "tools" or "numbers", / rarely as human beings.
Were the competition not so great, / Americans might get away with this behavior.
But others / like the Japanese, Koreans, and Taiwanese / are only too ready / to step in and sell their quality goods / at cheaper prices.
Americans once believed in such values / as diligence, prosperity, and progress.
But new values have arisen, / beginning with the hippic creed of the 1960s.
These new values include / play, nature, and freedom.
The same holds true for Europe.
Thus / the challenge to America comes / not from Europe but from Asia / where people put work before leisure / and prosperity before freedom.
Much of what you must know to succeed in business these days is not easily learned in a book or classroom, as the surrounding article makes clear.
Acquiring key business skills, such as perceiving and controlling emotions in oneself and others, is a subtle process.
But much else of what you need is just meat-and-potatoes knowledge, things you can learn in a semester or less by taking the right course.
This will help you understand, among other things, how your company raises and allocates capital.
It will also make clear why that new product your team has designed might not be launched, despite its sensational showing in test markets.
A dismaying number of managers don't know how to read a balance sheet or a profit-and-loss statement.
So sign up for a course in these fundamentals, as well as some more sophisticated ideas.
A course that will teach you the basics of word processing and spreadsheets is essential.
You can also take instruction in how to navigate the Internet.
This is where you will learn how to target a market, capitalize on brand equity, position a product, and use market research techniques.
High-tech companies may be in particular jeopardy of drifting away from consumers.
They are so avant-garde in their skills that they invent solutions to imaginary problems while forgetting what their customers really need in the workaday world.
Learn how to talk the walk
You may know your stuff, but technical prowess won't get you to the top unless you can express yourself in written and spoken words to a variety of audiences
customers, colleagues, analysts, journalists, and many more.
And when you can do that well, you might be in great demand.
This might seem a subject too narrow for the generalist.
But it's a good bet that in this era of tightening budgets and limited commitments, your company again and again faces the question of whether to hire a permanent staff for a new project, bring in temps, or have a subcontractor far away handle it.
Sooner or later the question will wind up in your department.
This course will help you evaluate the costs and contributions of insiders and outsiders and come up with the best mix.
It will also help you avoid inflammatory combinations of permanent and temporary employees.
This is the course in which you learn how to keep people working together, even when they don't want to.
For example, you are the leader of a cross-functional team that has to identify outmoded computers and give them to a local high school.
It is hard for you to motivate team member Wilson because you have no authority to promote or fire him.
The trick is to convince his line boss that nothing is more vital to the company at the moment than community relations.
A course in team building might also instruct you in how to motivate people when there is less opportunity to reward them with bigger titles and salaries.
Take a course that will keep you and your company from violating equal-opportunity law.
But the instruction ought to view affirmative action as something more than a downside risk.
If you learn to work well in and lead a group that includes, say, ethnic minorities and handicapped workers, you may convince your superiors that you are one of the select few who can function brilliantly in a global marketplace that is ever more inclusive and complicated.
Some 45% of the world's people live in cities, a proportion which is rising rapidly.
Cities in the developing world are growing the fastest.
There are 95 cities in China with populations over 1m.
Old cities, especially in America, will continue to decline, creating social and racial problems.
And all cities will find themselves in increasing competition with each other;
this will be particularly sharp between the great cosmopolitan centers.
In 2000 there will be a growing realization that the success of cities depends on their integration with their surrounding urban areas.
In downtown Chicago and New York the top rent for office buildings in 2000 will remain at or below $22 per square foot a year (excluding service charges), with 20% or more of office space standing empty, despite several years of economic growth.
In midtown New York the vacancy level is lower and rents generally higher, although in real terms rents will remain lower than 15 years ago.
A survey of office tenants in Britain confirms a trend that is common for mature economies;
companies are seeking cost-efficient, good-quality buildings in order to remain competitive;
and city centers are generally regarded as inefficient.
The original pull to the suburbs was to be in a more pleasant place;
So which cities will do well in 2000?
The top city for attracting extra cash and visitors will be the host city to the Olympic games.
Bottom will be all cities in Africa, with many of South Africa's cities facing waves of crime that may wash away that country's much needed new investment.
Among capitals, it is London that scores best.
The attractions of the West End and the City to visitors, businesses and international investors will continue.
Since the 1990s hardly any new development has taken place.
Asset values are likely to rise and, for occupiers seeking modern office space, the occupation costs of new leases will increase.
During 2000 the 4.4m-square-feet Canary Wharf development will be fully let and, encouraged by the construction of the new Jubilee Line railway, development may commence on additional phases.
Posh London residential property will still be more in demand than its equivalent anywhere else in Europe.
Jakarta shows just how fast a city's fortunes can change.
The financial liberalization of the banking system in 1990 resulted in a surge of development.
The number of new office buildings has increased sevenfold in 15 years.
In cities such as Hanoi, Beijing and Shanghai, the story is much the same.
Strong demand from multinational companies for too few modern office buildings will create abnormally high rents.
Construction is to be seen everywhere
The world's largest city will spend 2000 licking its financial wounds.
Water and air, the two most ubiquitous natural resources on the planet, will be the focus for increasingly bitter political disputes, both between countries and within national boundaries in the coming decade.
Smog and acid rain, water pollution and sewage disposal, dams and river-flows will become ever more contentious issues.
According to the World Bank, fresh-water will become the natural resource most likely to cause wars in the 21st century.
The bank warns that the river basins of the Jordan, Tigris and Euphrates in the Middles East will become the most dangerous flashpoints.
Forget oil and land, water is where the most intractable disputes will arise in the near future.
Such is the worldwide growth in demand for water, which is doubling every 21 years, that output from new water supplies will be unable to keep pace.
Not only are the number of new sources of fresh water falling, due largely to 95% of the world's sewage being dumped directly into rivers, but tapping them can cost between two and three times more than existing water supplies.
In 2000 chronic water shortages will affect about 40% of the world's population in about 80 countries, according to the World Bank.
A billion people in the world will not have access to clean drinking water.
Dirty water already causes eight out of ten diseases in developing countries and 2000 will see more than 10m people dying as a result.
The continued increase in the global population will only exacerbate the situation.
If this were not bad enough, most of the new arrivals will be in the exploding urban centers of the developing world, where the growth of the "megacities" is about to eclipse even the great urban sprawls of the industrialized nations.
The future inhabitants of Sao Paolo, Bombay, Lagos, Jakarta and the like will live in squalid shanty towns with inadequate water and little sanitation.
What happens during the few years ahead will largely decide whether this peak in the global population will be 7.9 billion or 11.9 billion, nearly twice the number of people on the planet now.
They will need clean air to breathe.
Here there is some cause for optimism.
The effects of the ban are expected to begin ameliorating ozone destruction some time before the end of the decade, and perhaps 2000 may see the first signs of this, although 1999 ozone loss was the worst on record.
Equally effective could be legislation to limit the use of cars in the major industrial cities, where photochemical gases in summer and acidic "smogs" in winter have been getting consistently worse.
From Los Angeles to Athens, city authorities have tried to enact measures to limit exhaust emissions.
One new focus of concern are the tiny particles, called PMIOS, which are emitted from vehicles.
These particles are small enough to be inhaled deeply into the lungs where, because they are coated with highly reactive chemicals, they cause damaging oxidation within the cells of the tissues.
There is no doubt that new environmental concerns will arise over the next few years that scientists could not have anticipated.
Who could have predicted that the sperm counts of western men would have fallen significantly over the past 30 or 40 years, perhaps because of the presence in the environment of chemicals that mimic the environment of chemicals that mimic the effect of female hormones?
See that fellow moving into the corner office down the hall?
Doesn't have an MBA.
People charge over the hill for him.
He doesn't demand attention, he commands it.
What's he got that you don't?
You don't hear much about charisma in business school.
And you've probably never read about it in a business magazine.
To most people, it's the inscrutable X factor
Not many people have charisma.
But when you talk to those who do, you discover that it isn't such a mystery after all.
Charisma is a tricky thing.
Jack Kennedy oozed it, but so did Hitler and Charles Manson.
Con artists, charlatans, and megalomaniacs can make it their instrument as effectively as the best CEOs, entertainers, and Presidents.
Used wisely, it's a blessing.
Charismatic visionaries lead people ahead, and sometimes astray.
But you know it when you see it.
And you don't see much of it in the Fortune 500.
But those are commodities compared with charisma.
When a CEO is perceived to have charisma, his business performs better.
Even so, most leadership courses focus on follower ship and compliance and consensus management instead of leadership.
The result is a sort of guerrilla war against charisma.
Charisma matters more or less, depending on the business.
There are professions where charisma bubbles and boils and leads to success, and others where it doesn't make much difference.
Dentists, CPAs, morticians, engineers, architects, and bankers, for the most part, don't need charisma.
A 12-year-old American girl has taken to the skies, hoping to become the youngest female pilot to cross the Atlantic Ocean.
from the northeastern U.S. city of Augusta, Maine.
She will follow a flight path similar to the one Amelia Earhart took when she became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic in 1932.
New Zealand has effectively introduced prohibition after a law designed to curb drunken mayhem was passed The bill originally intended to make it unlawful for anyone to consume or carry alcohol in designated liquor-free areas and carried a fine of up to NZ$500.
an error in the wording of the legislation means that drinking or the carrying of alcohol could be banned in any public area of the country.
over imports of Chinese farm produce.
Japan has agreed to stop import restrictions of three farm goods from China.
China is canceling its punitive tariffs on three Japanese products.
Japan's coast guard has found three bodies believed to be crew members of a mysterious boat after an exchange of fire with Japanese patrol boats.
The unidentified ship, which had ignored orders to stop within Japan's 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone, by 25 Japanese coast guard ships.
it has embarked on the creation of a new supercomputer that should reign as one of the fastest of its kind for weather forecasting for the next several years.
The 130-ton colossus called Blue Storm based on Big Blue's p690 Unix server technology, according to Peter Ungaro, vice president of high performance computing at IBM.
Both India and Pakistan are reported to have moved ballistic missiles and troops close to their shared border regions and evacuated villages as tensions between the two countries continue to rise.
The Times of India reports in the forward areas of the international border in the Jammu and Poonch regions North Korea has broken its silence over Japan's sinking of an unidentified ship, accusing Japan of "brutal piracy," without laying claim to the vessel.
"This crime committed in other country's territorial waters is nothing but brutal piracy that could be committed only by samurais of Japan in defiance of international laws," the official Korea Central News Agency said.
The discovery by a team at Penn State University is the first positive evidence of planets existing outside our solar system.
The half-hour line snakes around a corrugated-metal building that looks like an airplane hangar at Edwards Air Force Base.
But the boxy structure is really a theater next to a busy interstate highway in Texas.
Inside the building, the seats rock, convulse and swivel as a movie filmed from the cockpit of a jet fighter is projected onto a concave screen.
A computer program synchronizes the seat gyrations.
This simulated flight, based on The Right Stuff, a 1983 Warner Brothers movie, is the newest attraction at Six Flags Over Texas.
Not since the golden age of amusement parks in the 1920s has there been this much interest in intentionally getting one's pants scared off.
About 255 million thrill-seeking souls will click through the turnstiles into North American theme parks this summer.
The capital costs of starting a new theme park begin at $500 million.
This summer, 45 state-of-the-art roller coasters will be introduced in 41 theme parks, and theme-park operators will invest nearly $1 billion in new and existing facilities.
The real excitement will come from attractions that try to translate into rides the thrills from movies and TV.
Disney, for example, has spent an estimated $100 million over eight years on its "Indiana Jones Adventure."
Universal Studios Hollywood unveiled a live sea-war show to coincide with the opening of the film Waterworld.
And at four Sea World parks, guests can watch a stunt show with buzzing speedboats based on Baywatch, the popular TV series.
There are posters for Warner movies like The Bridges of Madison County and Batman Forever plastered throughout the Six Flags Over Texas park in Arlington.
After purchasing theme parks in Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia, California and Canada for $400 million in 1997, Paramount Entertainment is using a strategy that is similar to that of Six Flags.
Capitalizing on Paramount movies like Wayne's World, and Days of Thunder, the Paramount parks have increased average attendance by about 12 percent since 1997.
MCA, another entertainment giant, has been battling Disney in California and Florida.
MCA's two Universal Studio parks, which have grown from basic movie-set tours, drew 12.3 million visitors this year.
Universal plans to keep coming at Disney through expansion, and it will build the 800-acre Islands of Adventure park in Orlando over the next three years.
The new facility will cost $2 billion by the time it opens.
The increased competition has chipped away at Disney's lucrative theme-park franchise.
But so far this year, it looks like Disney's parks will bounce back strongly.
Revenues in the second quarter increased 11.2 percent, to $891.9 million, over the same period a year earlier; operating income jumped by 19.6 percent, to $182.2 million.
Disney's overseas prospects also are improving.
Disneyland Paris opened in 1992 and lost $1 billion in its first two years.
Today, however, the park is near the break-even point.
Tokyo Disneyland, meanwhile, is the most popular theme park in the world.
The major challenges facing theme parks in the future will revolve around demographics.
With the aging of the population, parks will be competing for an older crowd, which means that attractions may have to be geared toward 50-year-olds.
Already, Disney is running ads showing a retired couple visiting Disney World in Florida.
And Viacom has opened a chain of adult playgrounds called Block Party, where adults play virtual-reality games.
But in the end, the true test for theme parks will always be how well they sell individual fantasies to the young and old alike.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries is meeting to sanction a cut in production.
its U.S. unit will sell to SBC Communications Inc.
this would reduce the stake held in Yahoo!
from about 20 percent to about 17 percent, but Softbank America would continue to be the largest shareholder in Yahoo!
and the deal would have no impact on Softbank's relationship with Yahoo!.
At least 220 people were killed setting off a blaze that swept through four blocks of apartments and   stores.
people jumped from windows in century-old buildings many of the buildings had poor emergency exits and fire security.
More than 300 million Europeans have adopted the euro as their common currency in the most ambitious currency swap in history.
Fifty billion coins and 14.5 billion banknotes from Finland in the north to Greece in the south.
in some Asian countries, with raucous celebrations leading to a heavy death toll Nearly 500 people were injured throughout the Philippines due to stray bullets and firecracker accidents during the New Year festivities, nearly 400 people have died on roads since the start of the New Year holidays.
As South Korea promised to push for another summit that have long hindered reconciliation talks.
In his New Year's message, South Korean President Kim said Seoul would continue with its policy of seeking reunification with the North.
North Korea revived old accusations that South Korea has consistently resisted, and hampered efforts to improve inter-Korean ties.
The World Health Organization called on governments to ban cigarette ads and to launch anti-smoking campaigns.
Aren't most companies these days?
When conditions are uncertain, charismatic bosses spur subordinates to work above and beyond the call of duty.
Consider that combustible Internet software company Netscape Communications.
2 executive at Federal Express and then at McCaw Cellular.
At both places he was considered a genius at motivating people.
His college degree is from the University of Mississippi.
Barks dale's most valuable asset is his self-effacing, Jimmy Stewart style affability.
Frank and funny, he instantly charmed the two money-bags behind Netscape:
"A huge portion of what Netscape is worth is Jim Barksdale telling investors it's going to work.
He has this great ability to convey confidence and give comfort.
To me, charisma is almost the definition of leadership."
And he's willing to pay plenty for it;
he and Doerr gave Barksdale an almost unheard-of 11% stake in Netscape.
Charismatic people have a remarkable ability to distill complex ideas into simple messages.
What's their secret?
They communicate by using symbols, analogies, metaphors, and stories.
Remember Jack Welch redirecting GE
going on the road to tirelessly preach his "No, 1 or No. 2" strategy requiring managers to "fix, close, or sell" any business that wasn't first or second in worldwide market share.
Barksdale uses the same technique.
When Barksdale arrived in Silicon Valley, Netscape was a chaotic corps of 100 employees, some younger than his won kids.
Engineers were panicked about product delivery deadlines.
Managers were bewildered about strategy.
Jim Clark so feared Netscape would run out of money that he had imposed a hiring freeze.
Barksdale, who calls himself "the president of doing stuff" lifted Netscape's hiring freeze, ramped up R&D, opened foreign offices, broadened the target market, and cut prices.
His message to employees:
If it fails to reach escape velocity, it will crash back to earth.
"We've got to go full speed.
We've got low barriers to entry and incredible competitors.
If we can't establish presence and a brand name, we'll die."
Inside Netscape, Barksdale promotes the strategy in two words:
President George W. Bush allowed U.S. technology firms to sell high-speed computers to Russia, China, India and countries in the Middle East, designed to halt the spread of nuclear arms.
capable of complex three-dimensional modeling, calculating fluid dynamics, and other advanced applications to Pakistan, Vietnam and other so-called "Tier 3" countries without specific permission from the government.
South Korea has tried to protect the won against speculation and major fluctuations in value by limiting overseas dealing in the currency to government-approved money traders.
Tokyo and Seoul are now discussing plans to allow tourists to temporarily exchange yen and won at commercial banks and airport money booths inside Japan.
The Pentium 4 running at 2.2 gigahertz (2.2 billion cycles per second), is the world's fastest in terms of clock speed.
Beijing has warned the United States as it reacted to criticism over the detention of a Hong Kong resident accused of smuggling bibles into China.
"It's being dealt with and no other country should interfere in China's independent judicial system," Opium growing in Southeast Asia's infamous Golden Triangle area has increased sharply as the price of the drug has doubled because of falling production in Afghanistan.
that opium poppy plantations are spreading throughout the Golden Triangle, the area where the borders of Thailand, Laos and Myanmar meet.
The area is traditionally one of the world's major sources of opium and its derivative, heroin.
The U.S. government has accused one of the nation's top tobacco companies of secretly developing a high-nicotine tobacco and using it in cigarettes.
The head of the U.S.
Food and Drug Administration says the Brown and Williamson Tobacco Company distributed high-nicotine tobacco in five cigarette brands The tobacco product is known in the industry as Y-1.
Company spokesman Tom Fitzgerald disputes the government's claim.
They feel empty without it.
Whether they succeed or not, a remarkable thing often happens:
Their audacity enhances their charisma.
Charismatic people speak emotionally about putting themselves on the line.
They work on hearts as well as on minds.
Arthur Martinez, the former vice chairman of Saks Fifth Avenue, knew he had big problems when he joined Sears last year to rescue its sinking retail unit.
Martinez met with almost all applicants who visited headquarters for jobs at the level of vice president or higher.
"I started by explaining why I took the job."
This is one of the greatest adventures in business history.
There's no model for what we're going to do.
You have to be courageous, filled with self-confidence.
How can you not do it?
Martinez has assembled one of the best teams in retailing.
Sears is gaining market share and is solidly profitable again.
Charismatics are rebels who fight convention.
They may seem idiosyncratic, but their oddball image augments their charisma.
Meeting Gadiesh, you first notice her skirt;
it starts about eight inches above her knee.
viewed from the side and back, it's magenta.
She is complex, intense, driven, painfully direct, sometimes ribald, and a lot of fun.
Bain was rebounding from dire financial problems when the partners elected her chairman.
Largely because of her inspiring leadership, Bain has expanded to 1,400 employees, from 990.
Revenues are increasing 25% a year.
Success comes from pulling emotional levers.
Like Barksdale and Martinez, Gadiesh abhors bureaucratic doublespeak, and the unthinking conservatism it usually reflects.
She flashes her wit to kill it.
A few years ago she was trying to help Chrysler executives reduce options on cars, thereby lowering costs.
The auto execs were leaning on market research to avoid tough decisions.
We can't cut that option because our average customer wants it, they said again and again.
Exasperated, Gadiesh shot back, "Well, the average customer has one tit and one ball."
The boys from Detroit got it.
Chip giants Micron Technology and Hynix Semiconductor will likely sign an alliance soon, according to an executive helping Hynix restructure.
"An agreement is likely to be reached in a few days, as the price Micron proposed is not that different from what Hynix expected," the unidentified executive said.
Micron has reportedly offered to take over Hynix's memory operations, including DRAM, SRAM and flash memory chips.
's president reportedly called a top Treasury Department official as the company was negotiating with bankers it needed to avoid bankruptcy.
The disclosure is the latest evidence of contacts between top administration officials and the beleaguered energy giant as it struggled to avoid filing for bankruptcy a massive $84 billion 5-year environmental protection plan to combat a worsening pollution problem.
China hopes to reduce the total amount of pollutants in the air, water and soil by 10 percent of 2000 levels.
A team of inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for its first official visit of a nuclear laboratory North Korea agreed to allow the agency to visit the site in a 'non-inspection' role a sign that Pyongyang was keen to resume normal relations with the IAEA.
Secretary of State Colin Powell is now en route to New Delhi in defusing the latest tensions the United States was "ready to assist" if there was a dialogue.
A Chinese court has sentenced an Australian businessman to at least 18 years in prison and ordered his expulsion from China on corruption charges.
Peng is to be deported.
Peng's health and the fact that he has a young family.
Charismatic people are able to see things from another person's perspective.
Gadiesh, who spends 70% of her time working with clients, says, "I constantly try to think, If I were the client, how would I feel about this?
1 if you're going to find common ground."
Studies show that women tend to be better than men at stepping into another's shoes.
But Barksdale proved himself to be fairly nimble recently when hackers cracked a security code in Netscape's software.
Barksdale quickly assembled his key people.
He let everyone toss out ideas about how to fix the problem and assure customers that the company's software is safe for navigating the Net.
Then he made an odd suggestion:
Give cash rewards to anyone who finds security flaws.
Thus far, two significant new bugs have been detected, and $2,000 in cash bounties have been paid.
Simply by offering to pony up for its mistakes, Netscape won admirers.
If you admit you made a mistake, the customer will always cut you slack.
So how do you manage charisma, this wonderful, terrible thing?
Gadiesh suggests using an internal compass.
When he returned, Byford talked with Gadiesh about the importance of "true north."
An ordinary compass, points to magnetic north, which is fickle and unreliable.
A gyrocompass, on the other hand, works on its own internal mechanical system and always points to true north.
She adopted true north as her personal guideline.
"The most important thing a leader can have is true north.
It's a set of principles that directs him or her to what's virtuous and right.
It all depends on whether it's anchored by true north."
Learning charisma from people who are loaded with it is a bit like studying acting with De Niro or playing basketball with Jordan.
Regardless of how hard you try, you may never win an Oscar or make it to the pros.
But you'll certainly improve your technique
Indian scientists have made an archaeological find suggesting the world's oldest cities came up about 4,000 years earlier than is currently believed.
The scientists found pieces of wood, remains of pots, fossil bones and what appeared like construction material just off the coast of Surat in western India.
Lava edged with black crust inched through the eastern Congolese city of Goma, nearly two days after Mount Nyiragongo erupted, killing more than 40 people and forcing half a million people to flee.
for the situation in Goma, saying half of the city has been burned and destroyed.
aid groups set up freshwater tanks to provide clean drinking water.
the dam will be a wall of concrete 190 meters tall and more than two kilometers long.
Its reservoir will be filled by stages until it reaches 660 kilometers in length Britain has rejected accusations that it is letting its U.S. allies abuse al Qaeda suspects insisting the prisoners had "no complaints" about their treatment.
British officials who visited the U.S. prison camp in Guantanamo Bay said the detainees spoke "without inhibition" to them and confirmed they were being treated well.
In its first official comment on the Jiang's jet bugging why the reported bugging of President Jiang Zemin's Boeing jet should have any impact on relations between Washington and Beijing.
With preparations under way for next month's summit meeting both countries are eager to prevent the issue scuppering the recent improvement in Sino-U.S. ties.
Tremors almost every hour are continuing to shake northern Congo as the first food aid arrived in the region following last week's volcanic eruption.
The arrival of food for up to 70,000 people has also coincided with a cholera outbreak among some of the tens of thousands of refugees fleeing the area.
Ten years ago Japan was revving its government-industry engine to roar ahead in biotechnology, and U.S. technocrats were scared.
Today the dynamo seems like the little engine that couldn't.
The five top-selling bioengineered drugs in Japan are licensed from U.S. companies.
Japan once led the world in microbe-based products, and it entered the biotech arena running flat out.
By the mid-1990s more than 200 Japanese companies had major programs, according to a report by University of Washington's Steven Collins.
No fewer than seven of them raced Genentech to commercialize t-PA, a blood-clot dissolver for heart attacks.
cut more than 300 deals with U.S. companies for access to their biotechnology.
But Japan's storied skill at tweaking existing inventions to optimize performance and cut costs proved irrelevant.
Further, Japan's corporate codgers had trouble keeping up with biotech's dizzying pace
unlike U.S. rivals, they seldom attracted stellar academic talent.
Says Tadashi Matsumoto, who oversees biotech R&D at Kyowa Hakko, a Japanese chemicals company:
"The quality of Japanese scientists is very good, but it's hard for them to move and change.
They are much more staked to their positions than U.S. scientists."
"Japanese companies tend not to have sales forces outside Japan, so they license rights to drugs only for the Japanese market."
Western companies can pay more for rights to biotech drugs.
bet an estimated $100 million on t-PA development but lost out to Genentech.
Chugai took a major hit when its American partner, Genetics Institute, lost a patent fight with Amgen for U.S. rights to EPO, a lucrative anti-anemia drug.
But that opened a window of opportunity for U.S. and European drug companies, which stepped in and secured rights to scores of promising drugs at fire-sale prices.
Still, many Japanese companies continue to invest in biotech, albeit more cautiously than ten years ago.
"Now we're much more interested in core technologies and partnerships that give us equal relations with U.S. companies."
Those plans are being reviewed at the Middle East and North Africa Economic Summit in Amman, Jordan, by government and business leaders from about 60 countries.
U.S. commerce secretary Ron Brown, who is leading a delegation of American businessmen, says the region is now ready for foreign investment.
The summit will end later today.
to endorse the creation of a new Middle East development bank.
As the year-end employment season is approaching, college graduates-to-be or graduates are busy seeking jobs, but their rate of employment at large enterprises remains at a low level.
On the other hand, small and medium-sized companies, especially those engaging in so-called ``3D’’ (difficult, dangerous, and dirty) businesses, are having serious difficulties in hiring workers.
In a nutshell, a strange phenomenon of concurrent labor and job shortages exists in the local market.
According to a recent survey of an employment-related information research company, the average competition ratio among college graduates to get a job in large enterprises was 67.3:1, almost similar to last year’ s 67.7
1. Until the first half of the year, many market experts anticipated that the employment scale by large enterprises would increase significantly, riding on a strong upturn of the domestic economy.
However, as the future economies of the world’s major countries have become opaque due to deepening fears of the possible ``double-dip’’ recession of the U.S. economy and an anticipated war between the U.S. and Iraq, most domestic enterprises have been making downward adjustments of their employment plans these days.
If this trend is left unchecked, the domestic job market in 2003 is feared to face its worst situation since the foreign exchange crisis gripped the country in late 1997.
On the contrary, some small and medium-sized companies are facing the suspension of their plant operations due to a failure to secure enough workers.
Based on a survey of 8,400 companies with five to 300 employees, which was conducted by the *Korea Institute for Industrial Economics & Trade, the shortage of manpower came to 204,900 persons.
In particular, the lack of professionals and technicians with undergraduate or higher-level educations stood at 7,300 and 17,000, respectively.
As a means of solving this problem, smaller companies have been largely dependent on foreign workers.
It is not easy, however, to employ competitive ones.
To settle the unbalanced employment market problem, it is desirable for large enterprises to expand their recruitment from the standpoint of investing in future manpower and contributing to social responsibility.
College graduates seeking jobs, meanwhile, are required to reconsider their basic conception of employment so smaller companies can support the national economy by becoming better places for workers to demonstrate their abilities.
Big engines and pretty women.
but no country cares more passionately about them.
There are 75 in the United States each year, and people flock to them like religious zealots.
Most Americans drive practical cars like Chevrolets but covet the power and luxury of a Cadillac or Lexus.
At last week's New York International Automobile Show, families posed for pictures in front of the $91,000 BMW;
Sequined women stood in front of glittering new models, speaking ardently of "sporty split dual exhausts," "electric, 12-way adjustable seats" and "classics for tomorrow."
The only things missing from the extravaganza were a pack of Marlboros and a highway.
The hoopla could not camouflage a basic fact about the American car market, however:
roughly 15 million vehicles sold annually
Many are worried about their jobs and wary of auto prices that have risen by 5 percent a year since 1992.
The average new-car price is now almost $25,000.
Pricy, high-margin sport-utility vehicles (SUVs) continue to roar out of showrooms.
namely, Ford Explorers, Jeep Grand Cherokees and Range Rovers.
Sales of these gas-guzzling "light trucks" more than doubled between 1996 and 1999.
(Nearly half the vehicles sold in America are trucks.) Honda, Mercury and Toyota's Lexus division have jumped into the SUV market.
Mercedes will unveil its four-wheel-drive All Activity Vehicle next year.
There was plenty of new technology on display at the show.
Isuzu's Deseo, a futuristic SUV "concept vehicle," has a lightweight, aluminum frame and stylishly short front and rear ends.
To save cargo space, the spare tire is stored within a patented rear door.
To eliminate the "blind spot," the rearview mirror has been replaced with a camera built into the back door.
Computer chips now govern the overall performance of automobiles.
black boxes, if you will
detect deterioration in the power-train and store the data in a control module for technicians.
Mercedes has developed an "electronic stability system" that can sense when a car is veering out of control and momentarily brake a single rear wheel to restore stability.
Few cars can match the fripperies in the $100,000 Mercedes.
The Moon Gray coupe has headlamp washers, power rear head rests, heated outside mirrors and an electro-pneumatic system that closes the door should the driver leave it ajar.
It doesn's have any leg room in the back."
Hurricane Luis, the most powerful storm of the season in the Atlantic, is roaring through the Caribbean this morning toward the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, with sustained winds of 225 kilometers an hour.
Luis was more than 100 kilometers west of Antigua.
BERLIN (AP) _ Michael Jackson rewarded fans outside his Berlin hotel with a brief appearance and a glimpse of his youngest child _ dangling the toddler over a fourth-floor balcony.
The boy, his legs kicking, had what appeared to be a white cloth over his head as Jackson, briefly holding the child with one arm, displayed him Tuesday to dozens of fans waiting below the window of the luxurious Adlon Hotel.
The child, in a baby blue jumper, was the reclusive singer’s third and youngest, Prince Michael II, said Antje Sigesmund, a spokeswoman for the Bambi entertainment award ceremony, which Jackson is attending in Berlin.
About 200 fans gathered outside the hotel, just opposite Berlin’s landmark Brandenburg Gate, and security had to remove some from the lobby.
Several carried banners, including one that said ``Save the Kids,’’ with drawings of children’s faces.
Jackson, wearing a bright red shirt, smiled and waved to the fans, at one point tossing a small white towel to the crowd below.
The singer then went inside and retrieved the toddler, using one arm to hold the boy out over the iron rail of the hotel.
Fans cheered as the pop star appeared with the child, but Jackson quickly retreated into his hotel room without *making any statement.
Little is known about Prince Michael II.
People Magazine reported in August that he was six months old.
The magazine, citing an *anonymous friend, said the boy was not adopted and did not identify the mother.
In Berlin, Jackson was *taking a break from a California courtroom where he testified last week in a $21 million lawsuit claiming he *backed out of concerts.
He arrived in Berlin to pick up a Bambi Thursday.
He is to attend a benefit for homeless children and a charity auction where he will *put a jacket and hat on the block Wednesday.
There may be no kind way to lay off employees, but there ought to be a better way to talk about it.
As the leaders of America's corporations closed the books on 1999, they could look back on a gratifying year.
Their stocks boomed, with market indexes setting record after record.
Senate groused, coupled those record profits with record layoffs.
And the GOP's presumptive was only half right.
Profits in 1999, adjusted for inflation, look likely to set records.
from just over 400,000 to just over three million but all seem to agree that the 1999 figure is the lowest in several years, which is not surprising after four straight years of economic growth.
Workplace America, a newsletter published by Hunt-Scanlon Publications in Connecticut, tallied the year's 50 biggest job-reduction announcements and came up with a sum of about 375,000, the lowest since the newsletter began keeping its list in 1992.
Some of these people took buyouts or left via attrition;
some worked for a business unit spun off from the mother ship but may have kept their jobs;
some may not actually lose their jobs for months.
Be that as it may, a lot of companies had a hell of a year, and a lot of their employees a hellish one.
What were their leaders thinking?
Quoted below are the chairman's letters of the 1999 annual reports of companies that made Workplace America's list of the 50 biggest job-reduction announcements.
Kent Kresa of Northrup Grumman described the 5,400 cuts in his talented work force as being our toughest decisions
Daniel Miglio of Southern New England Telecommunications (2,500 cuts) lamented painful but necessary job loss.
apologized for the considerable human cost of 2,400 layoffs, adding, curiously, "The footwear business is highly managements intensive, especially, when people get the boot."
Others talked about cuts as if they were desirable.
Robert Erburu of Times Mirror (3,000 cuts) called staff reductions one of several operating improvements;
Times Mirror has improved its newspaper staff more than 20% since 1995.
another 3,000 people were axed in 1999.
"To position our employees to serve customers more effectively," as CEO John Clendinin said, BellSouth announced that 11,300 would take positions off his payroll.
Citizens in Ireland go to the polls today to vote on a referendum that could legalize divorce in the predominantly Roman Catholic country.
But if opinion polls are any indication, the vote is going to be very close.
LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) _ Angry mobs stabbed and *set fire to bystanders Thursday in rioting that erupted after a newspaper suggested Islam’s founding prophet would have *approved of the Miss World beauty pageant.
At least 50 people were killed and 200 injured, Nigeria’s Red Cross president said.
The violent demonstrators in the northern city of Kaduna burned churches and rampaged through the streets until hundreds of soldiers were deployed to restore calm and enforce a dusk-to-dawn curfew.
``A lot of people died.
We don't know yet exactly how many ... more than 50,’’ said Emmanuel Ijewere, the president of the Nigerian Red Cross.
Street demonstrations began Wednesday with the burning of an office of ThisDay newspaper in Kaduna after it published an article questioning Muslim groups that have condemned the Miss World pageant, to be held Dec. 7 in the Nigerian capital, Abuja.
Muslim groups say the pageant promotes sexual *promiscuity and indecency.
*In all honesty, he would probably have chosen a wife from among them (the contestants),’’ Isioma Daniel wrote in Saturday’s article.
The newspaper ran a brief front-page apology on Monday, followed by a more lengthy retraction on Thursday, saying the offending passage had run by mistake.
In Thursday’s rioting, more than 50 people were stabbed, bludgeoned or burned to death and 200 were seriously injured, Ijewere told The Associated Press.
At least four churches were destroyed, he said.
Many of the bodies were taken by Red Cross workers and other volunteers to local mortuaries.
Many people remained inside homes that were set afire by the demonstrators, Ijewere said.
Shehu Sani of the Kaduna-based Civil Rights Congress said he watched a crowd stab one young man, then force a tire filled with gasoline around his neck and burn him alive.
Schools and shops hurriedly closed as hordes of young men, shouting ``Allahu Akhbar,’’ or ``God is great,’’ ignited makeshift street barricades made of tires and garbage, sending plumes of black smoke rising above the city.
Digital videodiscs for TVs and PCs are coming.
You reach for a compact disc and flip it into a black box.
The CD contains two full-length movies
"Snow White" on one side, "The Lion King" on the other.
The kids choose "Snow White."
phssst, in a half-second you've skipped over the previews and landed square on the best part of the animation classic, when the seven dwarfs start singing "Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it's off to work we go ..."
The children cackle and shuffle off to bed.
You smile, and slide the disc back in its case.
The videocassette recorder may never achieve the historical status of the steam engine, printing press or PC, but there's no denying that it's one of the great inventions of the 20th century.
It gives viewers the freedom to watch any show or movie they want, when they want to.
The VCR has helped shape the slouchy postmodern man
Since the VCR's introduction in 1975, more than 800 million have been sold worldwide.
But the beloved device might soon be headed for the technological dustbin.
A new home-entertainment machine threatens to take its place.
Called a digital videodisc player, or DVD, the latest black box functions like a combination audio CD player and VCR:
it plays standard-size CDs containing high-resolution movies and digital sound.
Analysts say the new video format has a bright future as a replacement for VCRs and videotapes ― and as the successor to CD-ROM drives that have been spurring sales of home PCs.
Major consumer-electronics companies unveiled DVD players in Japan and North America in 1995.
Paul Kagan Associates, a research firm, estimated that 7 million DVD movie players had been sold in North America by the end of 1999
In Asia, throngs of middle-class consumers are already snatching up a crude progenitor of the DVD player.
"These are very popular right now," says a salesman at the Pacific Palace mall in Hong Kong.
As a medium for playing movies, discs are smaller and easier to handle than tapes, and offer nearly instant access to material.
As with audio CDs, users can fly over video segments they don't like.
First-generation digital discs store 133 minutes of video on one side.
Over the next few years, their capacity will double and then quadruple.
With even more space, content providers could store multiple versions of the same film on a disc.
Click a button on the remote and choose either the tame or lurid version of a sexy thriller, depending on who's watching.
Hollywood studios could reap big profits from the new format.
the replication cost for a videodisc will be less than a dollar.
If consumers start buying DVD boxes, software sales could zoom.
If this group of demonstrators is correct, the U.S. government is covering up the most important secret of all time:
Can any of this be true?
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) _ Adjusting her black veil to get a better look at the computer screen, 14-year-old Fatima points to something she just typed.
’ she asks, a smile brightening her *freckled face.
``Yes,’’ answers Hashem, a 18-year-old *computer enthusiast who recently returned to this southwestern city after living in Pakistan as a refugee.
Like many Afghans, they use only one name.
Hashem is helping fellow returnee Ehsanullah Omer run Kandahar’s first and only free computer and English language training center, a project being funded by Kandahar’s governor to give men and women the ability to acquire the skills Afghanistan will need if it wants to fully join the world community.
With a small staff working in a former Taliban garrison, Omer, 32, wants to open digital ``doors’’ that will not only train Kandahar’s people for the challenges ahead, but also help them learn more about the U.S.-led coalition troops that allowed them to do it.
``Afghans have been denied the outside world and we want to open those doors,’’ Omer said. ``If they don't know how to use a computer, they can't do that.
International peacekeeping forces will be here for years.
To develop a positive attitude about these people we have to teach them who they are and where they are from.’
There are about 4,000 U.S. troops stationed just outside this city of more than 300,000 people.
The capital, Kabul, is patrolled by a 4,800-strong multinational peacekeeping force.
The center is teaching 1,450 men and about 200 women to read and write in English and training them how to use a computer.
Students range in age from 14 to 45 and lessons are in the evenings.
``They are a little weak in English, but we are improving it.
They start out learning about the operating system and then programs and applications,’’ Hashem said as he looked over a huddled group of 20 women crowded around a dozen computers.
Courses last four months and the entire training program runs two years.
Kandahar residents can enroll for free, but the school is currently running on a *first-come, first-serve basis and funding and space are already straining their limits.
Last year U.S. consumers bought 680 million tapes, valued at nearly $10 billion.
recently sold 42 million copies of "Snow White" alone, at a price of between $20 and $30 per tape.
"DVD is, ultimately, a whole new market for our classic titles," says a Disney spokesman.
Warner Home Video, a unit of Time Warner, is especially keen on the technology
it has the world's largest collection of feature films.
"This is a very important media for us," says Warren Lieberfarb president of the company.
Despite their interest, the studios will proceed cautiously.
The "content providers" are loath to cannibalize the lucrative tape-rental and sales markets, or spend heaps of money on DVD titles, until the new technology proves itself.
They don't want to stick out their necks, by spending heavily on player production, until they're assured that the most popular movies are available on discs.
Last week Philips, the Dutch electronics giant, criticized Hollywood studios for sending out "conflicting signals" about their distribution plans.
DVD players sell for at least $500.
The price of both the hardware and software will fall if and when sales grow.
Digital discs have two major handicaps.
DVD units will play only movies at first
they won't be able to record TV shows or anything else until "writable" (that is, recordable) discs hit the market.
That deficiency could save the VCR for a while.
Experts think recordable discs will find a wide audience, perhaps first with PC owners, who'll use them to store data from the World Wide Web.
The second potential problem is the gradual emergence of pay TV, or "video on demand."
In the near future, consumers may be able to order any movie over a cable, satellite or phone network.
Why buy a DVD player and discs when you can dial up a blockbuster film at any time?
Lieberfarb believes that the DVD has a "window of opportunity" to implant itself on the public psyche before networks rule the world.
The discs store seven times more data than existing CDs, and new disc drives will read that information faster.
PC moving pictures will be sharper than ever.
Compaq, Apple and other PC makers will build DVD-ROM drives into some of their computers.
"We're definitely looking at DVD as an alternative to the CD-ROMs that are being shipped today," says a product manager for Apple.
The new format "will bring PCs in line with where the broadcast industry is going.
Hiroyuki Furukawa, a vice president of Toshiba America, claims that DVD encyclopedias could feature full-screen, full-motion videos instead of small, grainy snapshots.
The capacity of future DVDs will be enormous 27 times greater than that of today's CDs.
Whether or not the DVD succeeds, digital video will play a major role in the evolution of both the TV and the PC.
The video compression chips that make DVDs possible are the key component in the direct-broadcast satellite business, which is growing rapidly in Asia, Europe and the United States by offering hundreds of channels to consumers who don't have cable TV.
and Microsoft are working on ways for PCs to receive video programs directly from satellites.
Digital video signals "the beginning of the merger between PCs and home entertainment," says Rick Lehtinen, senior analyst for the In-Stat Multimedia Group.
It's a trend well worth watching.
He could get eight years in jail.
he ER1 personal robot won't make coffee, pick up the newspaper, vacuum the floors or even walk the dog.
But beyond the not-so-cheap shots, the robot has a lot to offer.
Like the personal computer kits of the 1970s, much can be learned _ and perhaps someday much money can be made _ on the road to usefulness.
And don't forget the prestige from being the first *on the block with a robot smarter than Sony’s AIBO.
The ER1, sold by Evolution Robotics Inc., resembles neither a dog nor the robotic stars of science-fiction movies.
The 2-foot-tall, 20-pound machine is a three-wheeled platform that holds a laptop, its brains, and has a staff that carries a Web camera, its eye.
Some might confuse it with an industrial table.
All parts are included except the most expensive _ a laptop running the Windows operating system.
Plan on spending at least another $1,000 if you don't already have one.
For the mechanically challenged, Evolution sells an assembled robot for $699 (still minus the computer).
But anyone who opts to *plunk an extra $100 for the assembled version is missing half the fun.
The ER1 is more of a hobby than a toy.
It's not recommended for children under 14, unless they're supervised.
Schools might be interested in using the robot to introduce the basics of robotics and programming.
It took about two hours to assemble my ER1, which came in dozens of pieces tightly packed in a box along with 100 screws.
Once installed on the laptop, the software shows a live shot of what the robot’s camera sees, various behavioral options and the robot’s battery levels.
The instruction manual is especially well done, rare for a high-tech product, and clearly outlined all 32 steps to finish the job.
After a few hours of charging the battery, we were ready for our first test _ a routine in which the ER1 recognizes its box and moves toward it.
that a new face doesn't guarantee a new job.
Retailers’ expectations may have been low for the start of the holiday shopping season, but the competition was fierce.
In Omaha, Neb., a 52 year-old woman was knocked to the ground when hundreds of people rushed the doors at the early morning opening of the Nebraska Furniture Mart.
Diana McKeever received several stitches to her knee and was released from the hospital.
In Greendale, Wis., Doreen Schellhase, 46, her two daughters and her son’s girlfriend donned Santa hats and prepared to storm the Target store before its 7 a.m. opening, equipped with two-way radios to *best the competition.
And Marvin Takar, who went shopping the day after Thanksgiving for the first time ever, *had no idea what he was *in for.
``It's unbelievable,’’ said the 42-year-old printer, staring in amazement at the swarms of shoppers at Ala Moana Shopping Center in Honolulu.
Early bird specials and marketing gimmicks drew bargain hunters to stores across the country Friday in what retailers hoped would be a momentum-building kickoff to the holiday shopping season.
Major retailers including Sears, Toys ``R’’ Us and Wal-Mart, as well as several mall operators, said shopper traffic was at least as healthy as the day after Thanksgiving a year ago.
Because the law of averages is still on the books, five elderly Americans are expected to die this week of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), an incurable and invariably fatal illness.
Also this week, odds are, one elderly Briton will die of CJD, whose cause is largely unknown.
CJD routinely claims one person per million population every year.
But no instances of the disease will be routine for a long time:
any of them could be a clue that people are now threatened by "mad-cow disease."
There have now been 11 suspicious CJD deaths in the last two years.
In the United States, activists filed a suit demanding that the Food and Drug Administration ban a practice suspected of causing mad-cow disease in Britain:
feeding cattle the rendered parts of cows and sheep.
"Eventually this practice is going to get us in trouble," warned virologist Richard Marsh of the University of Wisconsin.
Suspecting that one or more of the pituitaries had come from a CJD victim, the FDA banned the use of cadavers as sources of growth hormone.
So far, 15 U.S. dwarfism patients and an additional 80 overseas have contracted CJD from infected cadavers.
Scientists could better gauge the risk of contracting mad cow and Creutzfeldt-Jakob if they knew what caused them.
But no virus or bacterium has ever been associated with the diseases.
According to a theory advanced by neurologist Stanley Prusiner of the University of California, San Francisco, in 1982, prions are misshapen molecules that wrap themselves around normal proteins in brain cells (diagram).
This deadly embrace transforms the healthy proteins into more misshapen prions.
The misshapen prions, in a lethal chain reaction, alter still more healthy proteins.
The change in shape makes the proteins invulnerable to enzymes that would normally break them down.
The proteins accumulate, eventually forming the clumps and holes characteristic of Creutzfeldt-Jakob.
And prions from one species can sometimes infect the brains of another.
Although the British press is carrying predictions that 500,000 beefeaters a year could die of CJD associated with mad-cow disease, in fact it is very hard to contract any of the brain-rotting ailments.
For one thing, there are hints that you need to be genetically susceptible.
Thousands of patients who received infected growth hormone did not get CJD;
those who did had a particular kind of brain-protein gene.
Also, UCSF's Fred Cohen points out, a prion can alter healthy brain proteins only if it resembles them:
"The fit between the human brain protein and the bovine prion is not very good."
The question is whether it was good enough to kill 11 people in Britain.
where powdered rhino horn is a treasured Chinese medicine.
A British environmental group is prescribing strong medicine of its own:
CIUDAD VICTORIA, Mexico (AP) _ Prison officials in northern Mexico say their inmates are manufacturing furniture *bound for Texas _ despite U.S. laws that ban the importation of goods made with prison labor.
And they'd like to contract with more American companies to produce all kinds of goods.
One official said prison shops would even label their products to hide their origin.
Prison officials in Mexico’s northern states are pointing to inmate workshops as a way to stem the loss of business as foreign-owned assembly plants abandon the border zone *in search of cheaper labor in Asia.
Convicts already do work for Mexican companies.
But prison labor is strongly criticized around the globe *on the grounds it undercuts unions, steals jobs from law-abiding workers and poses risks of human rights abuses.
Many countries, like the United States, bar imports of products made by prisoners.
The prison director for Tamaulipas state, Manuel del Riego, said Clint Hough of Austin, Texas, is the first foreign businessman to accept the state’s offer of its inmates’ services.
Del Riego said Hough has been buying furniture made by prisoners for more than a year. Inmates at the Ciudad Victoria prison said Hough ordered chairs for a Texas restaurant chain as well as dining room furniture.
Hough, interviewed at the prison, would not confirm that he takes the furniture across the border.
Wiping sweat from his brow with a towel, Hough later denied ordering furniture from the prison at all, and said he merely teaches prisoners design and finishing techniques.
Del Riego said 150 foreign companies, including many in the United States, had expressed interest in setting up production lines at the 11 prisons in Tamaulipas.
``Companies will save tons of money,’’ he said.
On average, Mexican inmates earn the minimum wage of 45 pesos a day ($4.50), half what free workers along the border make.
Companies hiring prison labor also save on health insurance, retirement and other benefits.
A couple of hours north of Las Vegas, these desolate 98 miles of blacktop average 53 cars a day and so many UFO sightings that in February Nevada's Department of Transportation renamed 375 the Extraterrestrial Highway.
The Nevada tourism people hope this downsized corner of the state can cash in on the current mania for UFOs and all things paranormal.
They've already got Twentieth Century Fox picking up most of the tab.
In exchange, Fox used the event to promote its big action movie, "Independence Day," in which hostile aliens do the galaxy a favor by blowing up New York City.
Some of the movie takes place around the E.T.
It also makes reference to Area 51, part of Nellis Air Force Base, where the stealth bomber and Aurora spy plane were developed.
But UFO-logists say that's just the cover story:
the government is actually housing an alien craft and crew here.
Back on planet Earth, half a dozen civilians who worked at Area 51 have sued the Defense Department, claiming hazardous waste on the site exposed them to harmful chemicals.
One case was dismissed, another is pending.
The official military line is that current activities in Area 51 are classified and cannot be discussed.
Ground zero for astral travelers is the dusty hamlet of Rachel.
To hard-core believers, as the folks with saucers in their eyes call themselves, this is their Lourdes:
holy ground with trinkets for sale.
At Rachel's Little A'Le'Inn , owner Pat Travis enthuses about the mystery guests who frequent her intergalactic way station.
"The more people who come here, the better it'll be for our community."
And the governer agrees:
"If E.T. comes back, we'd like it to be here in Nevada.
Most people, when they look to the skies, see friend or foe.
Marcus Pizzuti, a commercial artist who recently moved to Rachel believes Area 51 contains spacecraft with "antimatter annihilation reactors" powered by alien substances that are way off the periodic table.
Some might say the same about Pizzuti.
A conspiracy theorist who also goes by the name PsychoSpy, Campbell sent the governor a 25-page letter of protest against turning the area into a tourist trap.
He worries that interlopers will run afoul of the camouflaged security guards who guard Area 51.
When narcotics officers raided Bobby Harris' house they found 20 marijuana plants The search warrant was based on information a PG&E meter showed higher-than-normal electric use, which could indicate the use of growing lamps.
But Harris, who lost his house as a result, says the real issues are California's constitutional guarantee of privacy and the state's forfeiture law.
Many smokers, especially young *trendsetters, have switched to French-made Gauloises, which they say are similar in taste and a dollar a pack cheaper.
American cigarettes, particularly Marlboros, have been the main target of a boycott of U.S.-made products organized several months ago by Palestinian activists.
The campaign has resonance among many Palestinians upset by what they see as Washington’s one-sided support of Israel.
Two other famous American exports _ Levi’s and Coca-Cola _ have largely escaped the sanctions.
At more than $50 a pair, Levi’s were out of reach for most Palestinians anyway.
Coca-Cola is bottled in Ramallah _ the Palestinian administrative headquarters in the West Bank, meaning a boycott could endanger jobs.
``The United States is backing Israel to continue the occupation of our land,’’ said 24-year-old construction worker Fadi Suleiman.
The former Marlboro man and most of his buddies now smoke Gauloises.
``Maybe the boycott will be a message to the Americans to open their eyes and stop being pro-Israeli.’
Marlboro had always been the most popular cigarette in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, favored especially by Palestinian men in their 20s and 30s as a status symbol;
most Palestinian women don't smoke.
Wherever men gathered _ at work, for card games in all-male coffee shops or even at stone-throwing protests against Israeli occupation _ most smoked, and the brand of choice was Marlboro.
The only exception was in prison in Israeli _ a *waystation for tens of thousands of Palestinians _ where only Israeli brands are available.
Anti-American sentiment has peaked in the past, during the first uprising from 1987-1993 and during the 1991 Gulf War, but never before has an anti-American boycott succeeded.
The sales of Marlboros appeared to begin declining in the West Bank about a year ago with the introduction of Gauloises.
Hassan al-Zain, 60, who has been selling cigarettes in Ramallah’s central Manara Square since 1954, said that only a year ago, he used to sell 10 packs of Marlboros a day.
Now he is selling 10 packs of Gauloises and two packs of Marlboros.
Other vendors confirmed the trend.
Ulcer pills for warts?
Pharmaceutical manufacturers cannot promote such "off label" uses to physicians or to the public, since the drugs were not screened for those purposes.
And because doctors still rely heavily on drug makers for information, many are unaware that many drugs do double duty.
Researchers are free to publish papers on off-label uses, of course, but their findings rarely reach the lay media.
It is perfectly legal for doctors who discover or hear about a drug's off-label use to prescribe it;
The American Medical Association says that off-label prescriptions account for up to half of all those written.
Whether yours might be one of them is well worth knowing.
If so, your doctor and pharmacist should be able to justify the choice.
The catch is that not all off-label uses have been thoroughly studied.
Some have become accepted, among them antibiotics for certain ulcers and etidronate a drug that regulates bone metabolism
Others are based on one doctor's experience with one or two patients.
And because off-label uses bypass the lengthy clinical trials and the FDA's scrutiny for safety and efficacy that approved drugs must endure, their risks and side effects are open questions.
A study of 13 pregnant women, for instance, suggested that a nitroglycerin patch normally used to prevent angina, delayed premature delivery when applied to the abdomen during preterm labor.
In 1987, Orlow began prescribing the drug for children as a pain-free alternative to surgery.
Orlow suspects that cimetidine helps rally the body's immune system against the viruses that cause warts.
Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital prescribed clonidine, a hypertension drug, for children with a certain attention-deficit disorder.
John Paul Brady, professor emeritus of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, found that bethanechol
Frances Pavick of Atlantic Highlands, N.J., calls Brady's unconventional approach "a miracle."
Nor has Pavick experienced headaches over paying for her bethanechol;
That is not always the case with off-label drugs.
Insurers have no consistent standards on coverage.
Many will pay up if doctors deem a prescription "medically reasonable and necessary."
Cimetidine for warts, clonidine for sleeplessness and bethanechol for speech problems haven't yet made it into Drug Evaluations or the U.S.
Still, hundreds of double-duty uses are already logged.
It is up to doctors and patients to seek them out.
Abuse of the elderly is a crime rarely reported but which affects as many as 2 million people each year in the U.S.
to indicate elder abuse is on the rise.
KUWAIT (AP) _ Massoumah al-Mubarak knows the power of democracy in Kuwait.
When Kuwait’s emir decreed women should have the vote, the *freewheeling Parliament _ a rare symbol of democratic ideals in the Persian Gulf _ used its constitutional powers to overrule him.
A week later legislators rejected women’s suffrage again in a separate bill.
``This is what they are so proud of here,’’ said al-Mubarak, a professor of international relations and prominent women’s activist.
``They use the tools of democracy to undermine democracy.’
Nearly 12 years ago, U.S.-led forces drove Iraqi occupiers from Kuwait amid promises of political equality in Kuwait, promises that made it easier to *sell Americans on a distant war to protect a tiny, wealthy autocracy.
As U.S. troops mass here for a possible second war against Iraq, Kuwaiti democracy remains an ideal that is usually discussed using comparisons.
``Compared to the other countries around us, Kuwait is very democratic,’’ said Waleed al-Tabtabai, a conservative Muslim lawmaker.
``Saudi Arabia or Qatar, their councils are just *veneer.’
``In Kuwait, anybody can run and elections are free,’’ he said.
That, however, depends on the definition of ``anybody.’
Of the 2.3 million people who live in Kuwait, only about 115,000 are registered voters.
Nearly two-thirds of the population are foreigners, many of whom perform low-status jobs in the oil-rich nation.
Of Kuwait’s 860,000 citizens, the excluded include people under 21 and naturalized citizens of less than 20 years’ standing.
Members of the military and the police also are barred, to keep the forces from being politicized.
Most conspicuously absent, from polling booths and candidate lists, are women.
``It's only a democracy of the few,’’ al-Mubarak said.
Just across the border in Saudi Arabia, women face employment and social restrictions and aren't even allowed to drive.
Kuwaiti women are legally protected in the workplace and in education.
They hold key business jobs and a few occupy top diplomatic and government posts.
When it comes to governing, many Kuwaitis still believe a woman’s place is far from Parliament.
Smoke has been getting in the eyes of tobacco companies lately.
Whistle blowers like Jeffrey Wigand have said cigarette makers knew all along their product was addictive.
The Food and Drug Administration is looking to strike while the ash is hot.
The agency wants to ban all pictures and images in print ads for tobacco in any publication whose readership isn't at least 85% over 18 years of age.
Can the FDA do that?
Would the ban crimp businesses like advertising and publishing?
And would it reduce smoking in America?
The answers seem to be maybe not, probably not, and unclear.
Non-tobacco industry lawyers think the FDA may be overstepping its authority.
"Our concern is not with tobacco but with the power of government to undermine the First Amendment rights of business."
tobacco accounted for 9% of advertising revenues.
Ads for cigarettes have since fallen to about 3%.
Smokers are the most loyal consumers in the world.
And they aren't likely to quit if their brand is no longer shined in glossy four-color.
However, if limiting glamorous ads would prevent young people from taking up smoking, the FDA's ban might not be such a bad thing.
keeping 25 percent of what she recovers.
The potential in her business is great:
the private sector can't do it.
But moms who aren't poor complain that state agencies focus on welfare cases.
Hiring a deadbeat-dad detective is filling in that gap and delivering money to mothers and their children.
BETHLEHEM, West Bank (AP) _ Rain drips through the wooden roof of the ancient Church of the *Nativity, a cold and nearly empty place except for a few monks and a couple of children begging for change.
Just two weeks before the holiday, there are few signs of Christmas in the town where tradition holds Jesus was born.
Israeli soldiers patrol Manger Square after occupying the town for the third time in recent months.
There is no Christmas tree in the square, no decorations, few pilgrims.
Through fog and wind, Palestinians rush around on streets *chewed up by tank treads to buy food before the soldiers shout for people to get back inside.
For a third year, violence overshadows preparations for Bethlehem’s Christmas, a holiday that used to draw tens of thousands of tourists and was the lifeblood of the town’s economy.
This holy town has been a place of despair for the last two years.
A massive force of Israeli soldiers shut down the town for more than a month in the spring as troops hunted Palestinian militants they believed were behind suicide bombings in Israeli cities.
On Tuesday, candles flickered and burning incense wafted through the church.
A woman with a wrinkled face and long, gray-black hair swished a broom to push puddles of rain water into a pail.
A couple of children begged strangers for money.
Built like a fortress over what Christians believe is Jesus’ birth cave, the 4th century stone and wood Church of the Nativity became a place of violence.
For 39 days, Israeli battle tanks and rooftop snipers surrounded the church, where gunmen *hid out and survived on boiled grass and well water.
Ancient frescos and a statue of the Virgin Mary were pocked by bullets, and several rooms *gutted by fire during the standoff.
Israeli troops reoccupied Bethlehem’s streets for two months this summer and again three weeks ago, imposing curfews to clear the streets except for a few hours every fourth day.
During one such break Tuesday, Jack Giacaman, 30, hurried to finish carving olive wood nativity figures he promised he'd have for a priest by Christmas.
IBM hasn't done that, hopes never to have to.
It's hardly a surprise that one of the main reasons people like to work for IBM is the company's all-out effort to maintain full employment."
Can it really be 20 years ago that IBM included the above paragraph in a book it handed out to every employee?
Its employees, of course, bought into it completely.
Didn't IBM dominate the mainframe computer industry?
Hadn't it always taken care of its people, even those who were only minimally competent?
If they wore the blue suit and went where the company sent them and did what the company asked of them
if they committed completely to IBM
then they were taken care of for life.
That was the deal, and there was nothing implicit about it.
It was right there in black and white.
And then, seemingly out of nowhere, along came Microsoft.
Along came the rise of the personal computer and the decline of the mainframe.
Along came the commoditization of hardware and the primacy of software.
Which is to say, along came the one true constant of capitalism:
And there was IBM, saddled with 405,000 loyal workers and a sacrosanct no-layoffs policy, watching in anger and bewilderment as its new, more nimble competitors ran rings around it.
By the mid-1980s, when IBM finally abandoned its "full employment" stance and started downsizing, it wasn't just fighting to retain its position as king of the hill
it was fighting for its very life.
Today it employs around 300,000 workers, and while no one expects it to regain its former lofty position, no one expects it to go out of business anytime soon, either.
They ruin morale, corrode loyalty, and cause tremendous pain to employees who, through no fault of their own, find themselves out of work.
They are clearly at the heart of the tremendous anxiety so many Americans feel.
It is a chilling place few visitors will ever forget:
the sights and sounds of hatred, prejudice and genocide.
China’s Mao Tse-tung had his ``Little Red Book.’
’ Now, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has a pocket-sized, white-bound pamphlet filled with his words of wisdom.
"Don't be attracted to easy paths because the paths that make your feet bleed are the only way to *get ahead in life.’
Earlier this year, the Iraqi Information Ministry *brought out ``Saddam Hussein:
Great Lessons, Commandments to Strugglers, the Patient and Holy Warriors.’
’ Most Iraqis were already familiar with the free pamphlet’s contents, 57 quotations drawn from speeches made by Saddam, including one in 2000 marking the 12th anniversary of the end of the Iran-Iraq war.
Since 2000, selections from the 57 commandments have been painted on school walls, carved on statues, printed in Iraqi newspapers, splashed across huge billboards, framed and placed on the walls in government offices _ all of which are controlled by the state, Saddam’s Baath party or Saddam’s son Odai.
The Muslim call to prayer is broadcast on state television in Iraq, and after every call _ five times daily _ a few of the commandments are read.
Saddam’s commandments cover all aspects of life.
He advises against making decisions in anger or humiliating an enemy after defeating him.
He calls for doing good, depending on brains as well as *brawn, ruling fairly, planning well, keeping people’s secrets and learning from others’ mistakes.
At Baghdad’s Al-Quds Elementary School, the commandments are painted in black and red on the walls of the entrance and in the classrooms.
Seven-year-old Ilaf Marwan raised her hand, then stood and recited confidently: ``Keep your eyes on your enemy and be faster than him.’
If Saddam is seeking advice as the current standoff regarding the U.N. weapons inspection intensifies, he might turn to page 11 of his pamphlet: ``Don't provoke a snake unless you have the intention and power to cut off its head.’
But contrary to critics like the New York Times
They're almost always a necessary, and usually belated response to dramatic change.
So it was at General Motors, which began downsizing after years of losing market share to Japanese automakers.
So it is at Sears, which has shed 50,000 people during the 1990s, as more and more of its customers have migrated to new competitors like Wal-Mart.
Indeed, the telecom industry is as good an example as any of the kind of profound change the American economy is currently undergoing.
There is globalization at work, as equipment that was once routinely made in the U.S. is now manufactured in places like Malaysia.
and the cataclysmic effect of deregulation, which will clearly transform this thing we call telecommunications in ways we can't even imagine right now.
Back in the old Ma Bell days, for instance, when AT&T was the telecommunications industry, it employed a little more than 950,000 people.
Today, AT&T employs roughly 300,000.
Yet the industry still employs around 950,000.
In other words, industrywide there has been virtually no job loss despite AT&T's downsizing.
thanks to the same economic forces that are causing AT&T to lay off workers right now.
They also complain that Wall Street
And they're right on both counts.
As for the first charge, the sad fact is that corporate America's inability
to soften the blow for that 55-year-old out-of-work middle manager is its biggest failure.
Nor have companies done a very good job of making the case they should be making, namely that despite the current pain, we'll all be better off once we've adjusted to this new era of global competition and technological change.
This was Paul and Donna Cooney on the day they won $20 million in the Florida Lottery.
But the fortune turned bitter-sweet.
she'll take home half the take.
NEW YORK (AP) _ The union representing New York subway and bus workers suspended its deadline to shut down the nation’s largest mass transit system early Monday and reported progress in talks to avert a strike.
``We have made sufficient progress to stop the clock,’’ Transport Workers Union secretary-treasurer Ed Watt said.
The union’s 34,000 workers had been poised to strike if they did not receive a new contract giving them raises and changing work rules they called demeaning.
Union chief Roger Toussaint and top Metropolitan Transportation Authority negotiator Gary Dellaverson continued their intense talks at a midtown Manhattan hotel.
Watt said the two sides had made progress primarily in noneconomic areas.
But another union leader, John Moore, said the MTA had yet to address the issue of a wage increase _ potentially a significant obstacle to a settlement.
``Believe me, we feel bad for everybody out there,’’ said token booth clerk Patrick Jarvine, who was working late Sunday at the Times Square station.
``All we want to do is pay the bills.
That's all we want, and that's not too much to ask.’
Mayor Michael Bloomberg was pleased that negotiations would continue and hoped that a strike would be averted, spokesman Ed Skyler said.
Earlier Sunday, Bloomberg warned New Yorkers to plan for a strike and declared ``we are all in this together.’
George Pataki rejected demands that he intervene in negotiations.
``There is no person capable of riding in on a white horse with a bag of money to resolve this contract,’’ Pataki said.
He and Bloomberg spoke to reporters as the city’s emergency command center *went into operation *in anticipation of a strike.
Minutes later, Toussaint said all major contract issues still needed to be resolved.
But he did not *rule out a *last-minute settlement with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
Instead, Albert Dunlap, the former Scott Paper CEO and corporate America's unofficial spokesman on the issue, goes on Nightline and, to his eternal shame, labels as "socialism" Labor Secretary's proposal to give tax breaks to companies that avoid layoffs.
Whether or not the secretary's idea has merit, at least he's trying.
We point out the warning signs and investigate which industries are ripe for the next round of restructuring.
We follow a handful of career AT&T employees who have lost their jobs.
But throughout, we hope you'll be able to keep in mind that there is a larger picture here
It may not feel that way when you're in a downsizing company, but that is history's lesson.
transformation as we moved from a rural economy to an urban one.
We've been through the Depression, when the economy seemed moribund, and since then through a world war, when the economy was completely geared to war production.
We've watched the rise of the giant corporation, a development (speaking of ironies) that was not considered particularly healthy at the time.
Always, there have been winners and losers during such times of change, and the losers did not deserve their fate any more than today's unemployed middle manager does.
Yet in the end, we've always managed to adapt to the economic forces around us.
Yes, the old contract between company and employee is dead.
But eventually some new ethos will replace those values and will be as widely accepted
and as taken for granted
"I have a friend who works at a Silicon Valley company that is in deep trouble and is about to go through its second round of layoffs.
In better times, it was one of those places that threw beer blasts every Friday, gave its workers paid sabbaticals, and had a no-layoffs policy.
The company broke that policy about two years ago, and my friend remembers vividly how bad it was
"It completely changed the culture of the company.
We felt as if all the values we had believed in were thrown out the window.
Morale was just terrible;
people would hover in little groups to trade gossip about who was going to get laid off.
And gossip was all we could do because the company wouldn't tell us anything.
That was the most infuriating part of all."
Tell us who's going to lose their jobs!
' And do you know something?
We should have done it years before."
The museum was losing $500,000 a year.
Among the highlights:
this 1929 Packard that went for $82,000.
All buyers now have one week to drive or tow their purchases out of here.
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) _ The strike against President Hugo Chavez’s rule began *strangling Venezuela's critical oil industry as thousands of opposition demonstrators noisily marched to a key symbol of the president’s revolution.
The strike _ which marks its 17th day on Wednesday _ has reduced Venezuela's oil output from nearly 3 million to 400,000 barrels per day, sending the world price of crude oil above $30 a barrel and depriving Venezuela of $50 million daily in export income.
The strike has cut Venezuela's oil exports to the United States _ Venezuelan oil normally accounts for 10 percent of U.S. oil imports.
Chavez has sent soldiers to striking oil facilities *to little effect, and Venezuela’s 13-tanker shipping fleet lay at anchor, its crews having joined the strike.
While the lifeblood of the nation’s economy slowed to a trickle, thousands of Chavez opponents marched toward the tomb of independence hero Simon Bolivar in downtown Caracas.
Tuesday was the 172nd anniversary of the death of Bolivar, who is revered by Chavez.
But the leftist president's opponents said they also *venerate Bolivar.
Hundreds of Chavez supporters, many wearing red headbands and waving red flags symbolizing Chavez’s leftist rule, awaited the opposition demonstrators at the tomb, ready to battle them in the streets as they have in recent days.
``We are defending Chavez,’’ said Heide Carolina Ruiz, an 18-year-old high school student.
She said she wasn't concerned that the Chavez supporters outside the tomb were far outnumbered.
Amid fears that violence might erupt, march leaders decided to halt the demonstration a couple of blocks from the tomb.
Then, 30 demonstrators were chosen to enter the building housing the bronze tomb through a side door and under police guard.
is showing signs of declining.
The Ministry of Finance has released figures indicating the August surplus fell to below six billion dollars, from 9.4 billion dollars in July.
record highs set by the Japanese yen against the U.S. dollar The strength of the Japanese currency has put added strain on Japan's ability to sell its products in overseas markets.
The Clinton administration and the Japanese government teetered on the brink of a trade war Sanctions were averted when the two governments struck an eleventh-hour agreement on Japan increasing its purchase of U.S. cars and auto parts.
NEW YORK (AP) _ A civic group concerned with rebuilding lower Manhattan said Thursday that while the new designs for the World Trade Center site were inspiring, the process for deciding what will be built there is flawed.
``It was a great deal of form without any relationship to the function or the process,’’ said Ron Shiffman, a professor of architecture at the Pratt Institute.
Shiffman and others at the Civic Alliance to Rebuild Downtown’s news conference said it was difficult to judge the plans presented Wednesday by seven teams of architects without knowing how much commercial space will be built at the trade center site _ and who is deciding that.
Beverly Willis, co-founder of a community group called Rebuild Downtown Our Town, said great architecture requires a great client.
``Do we have a great client?’
``I don't know who the client is.
George Pataki controls key appointments to the boards of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the trade center site, and the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., which has been charged with redeveloping it.
The two agencies, which together will choose a final plan by Jan. 31, instructed the architects who unveiled their designs Wednesday to plan for 6.5 million to 10 million square feet of office space on the 16-acre site.
The teams of architects from around the world offered a *dazzling array of designs, several of which included towers that would be the tallest buildings in the world.
The architects were not required to provide cost estimates with their presentations, but several of them said Thursday that their plans were flexible enough to be feasible whether there is a demand for 10 million square feet of office space or not.
Frederic Schwartz, a member of the THINK team, which offered three plans, said all the plans _ including a World Cultural Center *consisting of twin lattice-work towers _ are defined by their cultural and public space and could be built with or without their accompanying office buildings.
Rebuilding officials had said earlier that the final plan might incorporate aspects of several of the designs.
But Louis Tomson, president of the development corporation, said Thursday that something based on one of the nine plans will be built.
``I'm *floored by the response of these architects.’
I am delighted to be here to participate in this conference.
And I want to commend all of you, especially those of you who have come great distances, for helping to enrich the dialogue about current affairs among our countries and around the world.
This conference takes place at a historic time.
As we approach a new century, we also find ourselves on the frontier of a new world.
It is a world undergoing profound change.
We have watched as dictatorships and controlled economies have given way to democracy and free markets in country after country.
We have watched old divisions and hatreds recede or vanish.
And we have watched new opportunities for peace and prosperity unfold.
At the same time, we have watched change generate new challenges and intensify old ones.
The challenge of poverty, the challenge of shrinking resources and accelerated global competition.
The challenge of peaceful coexistence in the face of ethnic, religious, cultural and political differences.
And most of all, the challenge of putting people first, of including all citizens
men and women, rich and poor, people of all races and creeds
Today, too many nations waste precious resources on building and acquiring weapons of mass destruction, on staging wars and doing violence to basic human rights, instead of investing in their people.
Too often natural resources are destroyed and human ones exploited through irresponsible social behavior.
And too much time is spent in naked pursuit of power instead of working for peace and prosperity.
whether we are in the media, in public life, in corporations, or as volunteers
is to think hard about how governments, businesses and citizens can help create conditions that encourage individual initiative and a vibrant civic life.
was that social development and economic development go hand in hand.
You cannot have sustainable markets and trade without investing in human potential.
During my trip to South Asia, I saw example after example of women struggling to overcome poverty, illiteracy, inadequate health care and longstanding forms of discrimination.
I saw poor and illiterate women who had organized around their capacity to borrow and save money, and were beginning to lift themselves and their families out of acute poverty.
I saw women who had acquired skills to make crafts they could sell for profit.
I saw women insisting that their daughters be given the same opportunities for schooling as their sons.
Development experts tell us that where women lack the tools of opportunity, children tend to be less educated and less well-nourished.
Families tend to be larger and poorer.
Where women remain illiterate, we find that democratic institutions are more fragile and the environment less well-managed.
We have seen how the education of girls and women in parts of Asia and South America has lifted whole regions out of poverty.
We are learning around the world, and relearning here at home, that where women prosper, countries prosper.
a culinary education doesn't come cheap.
has raised a question of grammar with serious implications for transgender people _ should the slain teen who lived as a girl be referred to as he or she?
News media, including The Associated Press, initially used the masculine pronoun.
Transgender activists saw the masculine pronoun as disrespectful _ saying it was clear that Araujo, who adopted the name Gwen after singer Gwen Stefani of the alternative rock group No Doubt, would have wanted to be referred to as a girl.
Others argued that allowing people to essentially self-declare their gender without undergoing a physical change is too subjective an approach to grammar.
After gathering more information from Araujo’s family, The AP decided to switch to the feminine pronoun when referring to the slain teenager from Newark, California.
The AP stylebook doesn't have an entry for ``transgender,’’ but does address the issue in part under ``sex changes:
``Use the pronoun preferred by the individuals who have acquired the physical characteristics (by hormone therapy, body modification, or surgery) of the opposite sex and present themselves in a way that does not *correspond with their sex *at birth.
If that preference is not expressed, use the pronoun consistent with the way the individuals live publicly.’
Araujo presented herself consistently as female _ wearing women’s clothing, makeup and long hair.
Araujo also intended to have sex-change surgery, according to her mother, Sylvia Guerrero, who had promised the teen she would file a name-change petition after that was accomplished.
``He was going to be a `she’ and so we can go by `she’ out of respect to her,’’ Guerrero told The AP.
Switching the habit of a lifetime has been tough for Araujo’s mother.
Although Guerrero tried hard to use ``Gwen’’ when they were out in public _ partly for her child’s safety _ she says she sometimes *slipped up, much to her teen’s *chagrin.
``It's not that I'm disrespecting you.
I respect you very much,’’ she remembers telling the teen.
Economic theory suggests that better human capital is an important source of growth.
Measuring it is devilishly difficult.
Investing in people is a popular political goal in rich and poor countries alike.
Rich-country politicians talk of "skill deficits" and the need to improve training;
in poorer countries, the emphasis is on better health and general education.
that is the health, education and skills of the workforce.
According to modern growth theories, the accumulation of human as well as physical capital is a powerful engine of economic growth.
But to gauge the effects of improved human capital, economists need to be able to measure it.
Unfortunately, this is far from simple.
Early attempts to measure its contribution to human capital made use of literacy rates.
In practice this is unsatisfactory.
The definition of literacy is subjective.
More important, the test captures only a basic level of education, ignoring the differences among literate people, some of whom are much better educated than others.
Another way of measuring the quantity of education is to use school enrollment ratios.
The main difficulty with this is that such ratios measure future, rather than present, human capital.
Today's schoolchildren will not be part of the productive labor force until far into the future.
The best attempt at measuring education across countries to date has been made by Robert Barro, an economist at Harvard University, and Lee Jong-Wha from Korea University.
In 1993 they published a comparison of educational attainment ratios for 129 countries between 1960 and 1985.
This calculated the proportion of men and women over 25 who had completed different levels of schooling (ie, none;
Although their results are widely used by economists as a measure of the educational component of human capital, they still leave some things to be desired.
One snag is the varying quality of education:
Moreover, even if educational quality could be accurately measured in these ways, the results would tell you only so much.
people who spent their school days studying classical Greek may have less productive human capital than those who studied computer science.
One way of overcoming these difficulties is to measure human capital by looking at wages.
In a recent paper, Casey Mulligan from the University of Chicago and Xavier Sala-i-Martin from Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona tried to calculate an index of human capital based on labor incomes.
The idea is that the amount of human capital a person possesses should be reflected in pay.
Although this wage-based approach to measurement avoids some of the pitfalls that come from equating levels of education directly with human capital, it creates others.
For a start, the approach depends on having detailed information both about wages and schooling.
Messrs Mulligan and Sala-i-Martin calculated their index for the United States, where statistics are available in abundance.
It would be extremely difficult to replicate this approach in many other countries.
More crucially, the authors assume that labor markets function perfectly and that higher wages are based only on changes in human capital.
Even in the United States this is a dubious assumption.
Plainly, both approaches to measurement have their drawbacks.
Which is best will depend largely upon what countries economists are studying.
Where statistics are fragile or labor markets heavily distorted, the best approach is probably to try to improve measurement of education.
As with much in economics, the importance of human capital is easier to prove in theory than to measure.
European governments and environmental groups are hailing the Shell Oil company's decision to call off its controversial plan to sink an oil rig off Scotland.
that could be more dangerous than disposal at sea.
Officials of the Anglo-Dutch company announced Tuesday they were giving up on their original plan because they lacked support.
Shell's about-face followed and protests by the environmental group Greenpeace.
VATICAN CITY (AP) _ Pope John Paul II celebrated Christmas Eve Mass early Wednesday against the backdrop of a possible war against Iraq _ a war to which the Vatican is voicing increasing opposition.
Peter’s Basilica decorated with red poinsettias, a frail John Paul presided over Midnight Mass, *ushering in one of the most joyous Christian holidays amid mounting tensions between Washington and Baghdad.
``While the clouds of war lengthen, the minds and hearts of men in all continents are drawn to Christmas,’’ the newspaper wrote in a front-page article.
In recent days, top Vatican officials have said a ``preventive’’ war against Iraq had no legal justification and could spark an anti-Christian campaign in the Muslim world.
Despite the shadow cast by the specter of war, Christmas festivities were well under way at the Vatican on Christmas Eve, with the traditional unveiling of the life-sized Nativity scene in St. Peter’s Square, depicting the birth of Jesus in a Bethlehem manger.
Bagpipes played and children’s choirs sang on the warm winter’s night as visitors marveled at the *creche and twinkling Croatian Christmas tree that stood tall next to the piazza’s obelisk.
After nightfall, John Paul went to his studio window above the piazza and lit a candle, a silent vigil for peace that has been a hallmark of his 24-year papacy.
The pope later emerged for Midnight Mass, looking tired but resplendent in gold-trimmed white *vestments.
The 82-year-old pope suffers from the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease and has trouble walking.
As hymns rang out in the marble basilica, 12 children from nine countries and dressed in traditional costumes presented wreaths to the church altar as John Paul looked on smiling.
In his *homily, the pope recalled the image of the baby Jesus in the manger, saying he was ``born for a humanity searching for freedom and peace.’
The fate of American dissident Harry Wu:
a Chinese court has found him guilty of spying and other charges, sentencing him to 15 years in prison.
while trying to enter China from Kazakhstan.
He was formerly arrested in July on spying charges, and he was later taken to Wuhan, a city in central Hubei province.
cried Sumner Redstone of Viacom, and Disney's Eisner agreed.
On the other side of the great divide, Rupert Murdoch of News Corp.
The debate becomes moot with Disney's epic deal:
But the conglomeration of Disney or Time Warner is not like that of ITT, which combines property insurance with antilock brakes and casinos.
Disney's merger with Cap Cities unites entertainment production and distribution operations that complement each other like oil and vinegar.
By contrast, the Westinghouse-CBS combination merely piles two broadcasters on top of each other.
Hollywood studios and TV networks are natural partners.
The Federal Communications Commission cleaved the two businesses apart in the 1970s with arcane regulations known as the financial interest/syndication rules.
Fin/syn is scheduled to lapse this fall, making deals like Disney's permissible again.
So long as fin/syn governed their behavior, entertainment companies had to choose between content and distribution.
Content hawks like Eisner argued that people pay for entertainment, not distribution;
no one wants to see a lousy movie or program, regardless of where it's shown.
The counterargument was equally convincing;
even the best programming will die unless it can reach its audiences.
In theory, the much-discussed convergence of computing, telecommunications, information, and entertainment creates a hierarchy of value.
But reality is more complicated than that.
Movies cost an average of $51 million each to make and market, and Hollywood churns out a couple hundred of them each year.
Yet 20 top pictures typically consume roughly 40% of total box office.
The odds are no better in TV production.
It's an asset play, not a cash flow play."
After building up great libraries of copyrighted movies and shows, production companies usually make up for lean years by selling out to a new owner for a fabulous price.
Every major studio but Disney has done that more than once.
But the leading content companies are getting almost too big to buy, making expansion into distribution a more attractive alternative.
ABC, NBC, Fox, and CBS still reach mass audiences with an efficiency unmatched by cable TV, movie theaters, videocassettes, or anything else.
That's true despite the growing popularity of entertainment alternatives, which have stolen 40% of the prime-time audience from networks.
The scarcity of mass distribution systems is what has magnified the economic value of networks.
In a decade or two, when telephone, cable, and satellite companies may offer 500 channels of mass distribution to every home, the networks' present advantage will shift to marketers with brand names viewers trust.
But a lot of money will be made and lost between now and then.
And when that day comes, Disney's shareholders will not be sorry to possess such familiar trademarks as ABC and ESPN.
ORDZHONIKIDZEVSKAYA, Russia (AP) _ Faced with the possible closure of the camp where he lives along with thousands of other Chechen refugees, Dzhabrail Galuyev says he would rather die than leave.
``Even if soldiers come in tanks and forcefully throw people out of their tents, even then I won't leave, I'll die here.
In that case, somebody would know about my death,’’ he said.
``There in Chechnya, I could simply disappear.’
He worried that his two sons would be seized by Russian troops during the loathed ``*mopping up’’ operations conducted in Chechen villages during the hunt for suspected rebels.
Civilians complain of wide abuses in these operations, saying innocent young men are taken away and never seen again, others summarily executed or beaten.
Like Galuyev, tens of thousands of Chechens are afraid to return to their homeland, where air strikes, artillery barrages and rebel attacks *break out daily, but are under pressure to leave their camps.
One camp was closed in early December, and human rights groups say authorities have told residents of other camps that their gas and electricity will be cut off and have even threatened to frame them for crimes if they don’ leave.
``Declarations by Russian officials that refugees’ return to Chechnya is completely voluntary is simply not true,’’ said Anna Neistat, head of the Moscow office of Human Rights Watch.
``These insistent attempts to return people to a conflict zone are absolutely incompatible with Russia’s obligations under international law.’
The United Nations says about 20,000 people live in the tent camps, and another 90,000 stay with relatives or in makeshift shelters in Ingushetia.
At Galuyev’s camp, Bella, in the Ingushetia region next to Chechnya, the population has fallen by a third in recent months to about 4,000 amid threats it will soon close.
``Two weeks ago, about 12 to 15 soldiers, all officers, came here. They told the people it would be better for them to go away now when they could be helped with their move ... than when the gas and electricity is *cut off,’’ said refugee Anya Kosenko, 24.
``The soldiers said the decision to close the camp had already been made and the choice would be whether you would freeze to death in the cold _ or move,’’ she said.
One New York City resident said it was all about self-respect.
would be good for the nation.
but we got pain, too.
if the dialogue is proper, then we might be able to end the pain, and ending the pain may be good for both.
The men, gathered in a focus group conducted by FORTUNE, could be remarkably compassionate about the subject, but generally they regard midlife crises as vaguely embarrassing thing that other people occasionally have.
"Midlife crisis is a label you put on other people doing bizarre behavior.
But you never anticipate that you will do it."
But none of them concede that their midlife musings and second-guessing ever actually escalated into a crisis.
And none of them report having voluntarily changed careers, spouses, or hometowns as a result of any navel-gazing.
Frankly, these men appeared trapped, in their perception, by the burden of being men, and envious of the freedom available to many professional women.
Their self-image as breadwinners seems to have snuffed out any serious consideration of chucking everything for a new career or lifestyle.
Besides, says Peter, a benefits consultant, "Most men are scared to change.
They're afraid of making a decision."
Professional women in the workplace have it rough in many ways, but are freer than men to pull up stakes and try something completely different.
True, they have to put up with lower wages, leering bosses, the pressure of bearing and raising children, and the isolation of being almost alone in a male world.
But "a woman who is not the primary wage earner has the option of staying home," says one.
That is human, not female, nature, they agree:
Women, they say, are more likely to have crises because they have different "clocks" that force them to make important decisions at different times than men.
Other men in the group feel that women become very concerned about their appearance when they turn 40.
When women worry that their attractiveness is ending, they worry that their career is ending too, and quit.
"Men see themselves as having 20 more years."
When a full-fledged midlife crisis comes along, though, nearly all agree that a woman is likely to handle it much better than a man.
"Men buy Porches, disappear to Florida, shack up with chippies, and come back six weeks later.
They get involved socially;
they join a bridge club."
How would their wives react if these men announced they were having a midlife crisis?
Every reaction imaginable has been predicted.
Dave figures his wife would be concerned and compassionate.
Al's ex-wife would have hired a private detective, figuring he was about to have an affair, he jokes.
Anti-aircraft weaponry is in place to protect South Korean World Cup football venues but the government and armed forces have yet to finalize a strategy to contend with breaches of no-fly zones who wished to remain anonymous, said that President Kim had been briefed on security and presented with a detailed report about the U.S. economy's chances for recovery, contrasting somewhat with his remarks earlier this month but still pointing out the risks to a runaway recovery.
"There have been signs recently that some of the forces that have been restraining the economy over the past year are starting to diminish and that activity is beginning to firm," Greenspan said to the Senate Budget Committee.
to force Vice President Dick Cheney to release information about the Enron task force The General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, has said it wants to know several things about the closed-door meetings, including the names of Enron executives who attended, when and where the meetings were held and how much they cost.
that tries to trick computer users into clicking on a virus-infected Web link and began spreading to Europe and parts of North America, computer experts said.
The so-called "My Party" worm, which is not considered destructive, Microsoft Windows Address Book and Outlook Express Database.
saying her power struggles were stalling the passing of crucial budget legislation.
over the myriad confrontations between Tanaka and ministry bureaucrats since her appointment to the cabinet post A retired satellite with no onboard steering system should re-enter Earth's atmosphere and leave a trail of debris in its wake, NASA cautioned today.
Most of the doomed satellite will burn up but a handful of metal chunks could survive, ranging from 1.8 kg to 45 kg, NASA space flight engineers said.
By a razor-thin margin, Quebec has voted to remain a part of Canada.
Losing by only 1% of the vote, separatist leaders have quickly and defiantly vowed Even federalists say the time has come for real reform in Canada.
The premier of Nova Scotia, John Savage, says Quebec must be recognized as a distinct society.
Rapid advances in the computer and telecommunications technologies have drawn valuable business information, as well as personal communications, out into the open.
Businesses need to protect telephone conversations and electronic messages from competitors, industrial spies, and private investigators.
Consumers using computer networks to send personal mail, file tax reports, or shop from home with a credit card also need confidentiality.
But as security becomes a growing concern in this age of ever higher technology, a possible solution has emerged
cheap, easy to use, and virtually unbreakable encryption.
The problem with encryption is that it can help shield lawbreakers as well as law-abiding citizens.
U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies contend that if virtually unbreakable codes become widely available, their efforts to protect the public from criminal elements will be paralyzed.
So the agencies have developed a technology known as "clipper chip" as a way to neutralize strong encryption.
David Galernter, associate professor of computer science at Yale University, says the clipper has become the focus of a yearlong public debate.
"More people in the technology and scientific community oppose it out of fear of government intrusion into privacy.
They regard that kind of fear of government as prudent.
I would regard it as paranoid.
But that's where the difference of opinion comes in."
In this "Focus" report, Neil Lavan assesses the necessity to balance the individual's right to privacy with society's need to combat crime in the information age.
Cryptography, the science of sending secret messages, has been used by governments, diplomats and military commanders since antiquity.
It has always worked by means of keys.
An original message was encrypted by the sender into jibberish and decrypted by a receiver using the same method, or key.
Problems arose with making the key known to both parties and then protecting it from third parties.
Modern day encryption began in the mid-1970s when two computer scientists at Stanford University split the cryptographic key.
The split-key system shields telephone communications from eavesdroppers and provides a secure electronic identification for contracts and financial transactions.
In this system, every user has two keys a public one and a private one.
Whatever is scrambled by the public key can only be unscrambled by the private key.
If somebody uses your public key to send you an encoded message, you alone can decode it because you alone have the private key.
A potential third party would not be able to crack the code.
Enter the clipper chip.
Created by scientists at the U.S. National Security Agency, the clipper chip would let users encode telephone, computer transmissions, and other communications devices while allowing law enforcement agencies to decode them.
Also known as an "escrowed encryption system", clipper is, in effect, an additional key held by the government in escrow.
Steven Walker, a former top National Security Agency cryptographer, says opponents want to know why law-abiding citizens should give the federal government the key to their private communications.
"It is not clear to me and to a lot of others, that the government necessarily does have or should have the right to listen in to any private communications that you and I might wish to have."
Computer scientist David Galertner argues that although one may buy a telephone or a computer that comes factory-equipped with the clipper chip, that doesn't limit an individual's ability to run any kind of encryption he or she wants.
"Well, you can unplug the clipper chip and throw it away.
More likely you can run any other kind of coding scheme on top of clipper.
David Johnson practices computer law in Washington, D.C.
He is also president of Lexus Council Connect, an on-line communication service for lawyers.
He says government officials hope the clipper will become the standard and will be widely used around the world because they worry that an increasingly sophisticated encryption technology could weaken the legal process.
But, he says, he's not sure clipper is the answer.
"They have never quite explained how it can be that a voluntary standard, like they propose, will really either be used by the people they're most interested in listening in to, which is unlikely, or ultimately be widespread, because in fact, the likelihood is that many people most concerned about security for very good reasons will distrust a standard that is designed, in part, to be intercepted."
President George W. Bush's State of the Union address saying it was close to "declaring a war."
The statement was Pyongyang's first official reaction in which he labeled the North, along with Iraq and Iran, as an "axis of evil," seeking weapons of mass destruction, threatening the peace of the world.
Dinosaur footprints have revealed that the ancient giants of 163 million years ago were capable of rapid bursts of speed, faster than previously thought.
The analysis of dinosaur tracks, reported in the journal Nature, the 22-foot-long creatures were able to accelerate from a walking pace of about four mph to a top speed of almost 20 mph.
Beijing has renewed its call for Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, to shed his independence goals and return to China.
called on the Dalai Lama, who ended a hospital stay in India, to return to the "embrace of the motherland."
"The Central Government still waits for the 14th Dalai Lama to give up his independence demand and end his exile life and return home," Xinhua quoted the article in China's Tibet magazine as saying.
Japan's troubled space program is celebrating the successful launch of the country's biggest rocket to date, the H-2A
but the mission suffered a setback when the rocket failed to deliver one of two probes into orbit.
communications with the tiny $4.5 million DASH probe was broken at its scheduled deployment time, with ground control technicians unable to confirm that it had reached orbit.
North Korea, one of the three nations in U.S.
President Bush's so-called "axis of evil", was a major exporter of missile technology and equipment to the Middle East and other regions, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) report to Congress said that to the development and sale of ballistic missiles, equipment and related technology."
about his country's troubled economy.
his country is beginning to get over the hump of a deep economic crisis.
but now it's holding steady after losing almost half of its value against the dollar.
a trade deficit has turned to a trade surplus;
sharp inflation is starting just to ebb;
The co-pilot on a United Airlines flight from Miami to Buenos Aires, struck an unruly passenger on the head after the man forced his way into the plane's cockpit.
the plane landed in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the ax used to subdue the man was one usually carried on the plane.
The man was identified as Pablo Moreira, 28, a Uruguay banker.
Moreira is in the custody of Argentine police and will be returned to Miami, where he will be charged with interfering with a flight crew.
more than twice the size of New York's island of Manhattan broke free from an Antarctic glacier in the Ross Sea.
Antarctic researchers have noted an increase in the number of massive icebergs calved from the continent Two relatives of Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa, the first climbers to scale Mount Everest, will try to climb the world's highest peak a second time next month.
It was reported that Hillary's 54-year-old son Peter and Tenzing's grandson, Tashi Terzing, would make separate attempts to ascend the mountain as Nepal starts the 50th anniversary celebrations of its first successful ascent in 1953.
The FBI issued a terrorism alert for authorities to be on the lookout for a man from Yemen or Saudi Arabia and more than a dozen of his associates on U.S. interests in the United States or Yemen.
A senior U.S. law enforcement official told CNN the information was viewed as credible because of the specificity of those allegedly involved in a plot.
"The Lord of the Rings," a fantasy film that was one of the top box office hits of 2001, fulfilled a different kind of fantasy when it was nominated for 13 Academy Awards, including a nod for best picture.
The number of nominations is the second-most after the 14 earned by "All About Eve" (1950) and "Titanic" (1997).
Though many of "Lord of the Rings'" nominations were in technical categories, the film also picked up nods for best director (Peter Jackson), best supporting actor (Ian McKellen), best cinematography and best adapted screenplay.
A group of Hindu nationalists has marched to the Indian parliament, in a bid to show their disregard for what they call growing Western influence in their country.
the 20 Hindu nationalists demanded a ban on Valentine's Day celebrations.
They described cards for the lover's day as "obscene," and a violation of mainly Hindu India's cultural ethos.
A group of 22 software online service companies and publishers are developing a technical standard for labeling information that is distributed on computer networks.
that Congress may attempt to regulate the industry.
President Bush will unveil his alternative to the Kyoto agreement to combat global warming, offering businesses incentives to achieve an estimated 4.5 percent voluntary reduction in the U.S. over 10 years.
The Kyoto agreement, which called for the U.S.
More Europeans than ever before log on in an attempt to find romance Dating sites are reporting great increases in registered members people seeking partners online are willing to pay a subscription fee and ones that charge fees are more likely to survive in the future President Bush arrived in Tokyo at the start of a three-nation East Asian trip that will focus on many tough issues, including Japan's struggling economy, North Korea's weapons programs and U.S.
protested the U.S. rejection of the Kyoto protocol.
Where does a fairy tale go Peter Pan is back in theaters with the sequel "Return to Never Land," joining Cinderella, Dumbo, and Lady and the Tramp among the classic characters resurrected by the studio.
thinking they were on British territory.
They hastily retreated after locals told them of their error.
Gibraltar has been a contested area between London and Madrid More than 370 people have died in a blaze on board an Egyptian train.
Passengers attempted to escape the flames by jumping from the train as its driver carried on unaware of the blaze spreading through the rear carriages.
The injured were taken to hospitals after being rescued from the train by villagers when the train stopped near Al Ayatt, about 40 miles south of Cairo.
when they leapt from the blazing train trapped in at least six carriages.
Environmental groups are calling for tougher standards to keep carcinogens out of drinking water.
They're criticizing attempts by Republicans in Congress to prevent the EPA from imposing new standards.
a survey of more than 100 water systems shows significant levels of cancer-causing arsenic, radon and other contaminants.
LOS ANGELES (AFP) _ Hollywood's top movie studios are poised to post a record year with around $9.2 billion in ticket receipts despite a U.S. economic slump and rampant movie piracy, industry sources said Monday.
``There is every indication that 2002 will be a bumper year for the major studios which have had a number of big blockbusters under their belts,'' said Paul Degarabedian of box office trackers Exhibitor Relations.
Final 2002 box office figures for the top studios were *due out* later this week, but early projections indicated that $9.2 billion worth of tickets were sold, up by about 10 percent over last year's record.
The 2001 box office total of $8.35 billion had set a new all-time record.
Despite jitters over an impending war with Iraq, a dismal US Christmas retail season and growing piracy, movie attendance was expected to grow by at least five percent, with higher ticket prices accounting for the remaining rise in revenue.
Some 1.5 billion movie tickets were sold during the year, as new hits such as the musical ``Chicago,'' Jack Nicholson's new film ``About Schmidt'' and ``Gangs of New York'' open.
A Los Angeles Times study showed that more Americans went to the cinema this year than at any time since 1959, with escapism from recession and the threat of terrorism proving a major boon to the box office.
``Even though people have many more choices as far as leisure activities are concerned, the movies still offers a great form of escape,'' Dergarabedian said.
Mega-blockbusters of 2002 that helped fill studio coffers included a quiver of spin-offs of established characters as well as a bevy of sequels to previous hit movies that the studios were keen to cash in on.
The year's five top grossers were ``Spider-Man,'' ``Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone,'' ``Star Wars:
Episode II Attack of the Clones,'' ``Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring'' and the animated feature ``Monsters, Inc.''
Allergy researchers in Kansas City say there may be a new health hazard floating around out there - tiny particles of tire rubber in the air.
The medical researchers say the rubber particles can cause severe, even fatal allergic reactions.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) _ Deadly space laser aside, some South Koreans are finding another aspect of the latest James Bond flick hard to swallow _ its depiction of neighboring North Korea as a diabolically evil regime and the whole Korean peninsula as a backward underling to Western saviors.
``Die Another Day’’ attracted crowds at its Seoul premiere on New Year’s Eve.
But since then many South Koreans are siding with the communist North in panning the film, despite the nuclear standoff that has recently boosted tensions between the countries.
The latest 007 has even spurred a budding boycott movement.
``I don't want to see a movie where North Korea is depicted as a menace to peace on the Korean peninsula and the United States is depicted as a hero that resolves the crisis,’’ said Park Jin-young, a 22-year-old university student waiting in line for a different picture Friday at a Seoul cinema.
In the movie, Bond, allied with South Korean operatives, is sent to intercept a crazed North Korean officer, Colonel Moon, who is planning an invasion of South Korea and then Japan.
Bond is eventually captured, imprisoned and tortured in communist North Korea.
Later, North Korea uses a satellite-based laser beam to burn a swath through the Demilitarized Zone separating the Koreas.
The movie, starring Pierce Brosnan as agent 007, also depicts a U.S. intelligence official ordering the mobilization of the South Korean army and an outdated scene of Koreans using a cow to till fields.
Bond also has sex in a Buddhist temple.
On Friday, a South Korean civic group announced plans to launch a boycott campaign at some 140 cinemas nationwide where the film is shown.
The complaints nearly echo those North Korea made before the film’s debut.
The MGM hit proves that the United States is ``the headquarters that spreads abnormality, degeneration, violence and ... corrupt sex culture,’’ said North Korea’s Secretariat of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland.
The committee is a communist party organ dealing mainly with relations with South Korea.
Its statement was carried last month by the North’s official news agency, KCNA.
North Korea’s media has also called on the United States to stop screening the film, saying the 20th James Bond feature slanders the isolated communist state.
Relations between the United States and North Korea chilled last year after U.S. President George W. Bush branded North Korea part of the ``axis of evil.’
Inter-Korean exchanges also have slowed since North Korea took steps last month to reactivate a nuclear program that experts say could build atomic bombs.
But when it comes to the latest British secret service spy tale, the two Koreas have formed a bond of a different sort.
And mutual outrage has only springboarded off rising anti-U.S. sentiment in South Korea following the recent acquittals in U.S. military courts of U.S. soldiers whose armored vehicle hit and killed two Korean girls.
Underlining the backlash was the lionization of popular South Korean actor Cha In-pyo, who was initially approached for the role of maniacal Colonel Moon.
He refused the part, complaining it belittled his countrymen.
Despite calls for a boycott, however, many are still lining up for the film’s action-packed thrills _ and sometimes out of plain curiosity over all the fuss.
``I want to see the movie just to see what the critics are complaining about,’’ a 27-year-old Lee Se-young said after slapping down 7,000 won ($5.30) for a ticket.
(AP) _ At 17 years old, Ben Harris estimates he smokes a pack of cigarettes every two or three days.
Harris, who began smoking when he was 9, doubts he'll quit anytime soon _ not even if officials in this borough of 2,000 near Reading enact a proposal to prohibit anyone under 18 from smoking outdoors.
``I've tried quitting and it's a lot harder than people think,’’ Harris said. ``A lot of people I know aren't happy about this.’
Borough Council President Randy Gartner said police officers aren't happy they have no authority to cite teens smoking around town, especially in the summer.
``The police chief and I were discussing the fact that kids could not legally buy cigarettes in Pennsylvania, but we could see a lot of kids getting off the school bus and lighting up and coming to the playground and lighting up,’’ Gartner said.
The council was originally expected to vote Monday on the proposed ordinance, which requires violators to pay a $50 fine.
But the council now has decided to hold off on a decision while its attorney researches whether the proposal conflicts with a state law that pre-empts local anti-tobacco ordinances, Gartner said.
Under Pennsylvania law, teens face penalties only for buying tobacco products _ including up to 75 hours’ community services, a $250 fine, and suspension of their driver’s licenses for up to 30 days, state Health Department spokesman Richard McGarvey said.
If the ordinance is approved, Robesonia would likely become the first municipality in the state to impose such a ban, according to the Pennsylvania State Association of Township Supervisors.
According to the American Lung Association, 33 states prohibit minors from possessing tobacco products.
Flemington became the first New Jersey community to prosecute teens for smoking in 1995.
Penalties range from a verbal warning for the first violation to a fine of up to $300 for five infractions.
The department has cited hundreds of teens since the law took effect, but no one has incurred more than three violations, said Cpl.
Chris Foley, Flemington’s juvenile officer.
“I'm not getting as many calls as I used to get when it first took effect, meaning that the program works,’’ Foley said.
Ironically, national and statewide anti-smoking groups have opposed laws that seek to prosecute minors for smoking.
They have argued that such efforts divert attention from retailers who sell cigarettes to minors, which they view as the real source of the problem.
“Our concern has been that the tobacco industry has been willing to accept efforts to go after kids as an alternative to going after the retailers,’’ said Eric Lindblom, manager for policy research for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids in Washington, D.C.
You can blame this summer's hot weather for the drought.
They can also encourage youngsters to read and write more and that's saying a lot.
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) _ A presidential decree making Christmas _ which falls on Tuesday on Egypt’s Coptic Christian calendar _ a national holiday is focusing attention on relations between Christians and Muslims in this overwhelmingly Islamic country.
It is the first time a Christian holiday has been officially recognized in modern Egypt.
In the past, only Copts, as Egyptian Christians are known, got Christmas *off*, while the rest of Egypt worked as usual.
Several Islamic holidays have long been national holidays.
Reaction by some Muslims illustrates the sometimes uneasy relationship between the two *faiths*, according to Copts who say their identity as Egyptians and their contributions are not adequately recognized.
A statement posted on Islammemo, a Web site devoted to conservative Islamic comment, said President Hosni Mubarak made Christmas a holiday because of U.S. pressure to prove Egypt was democratic and respected *minorities’* rights.
The Muslim Brotherhood expressed surprise that the whole country was given the day off when, according to prominent Brotherhood member Essam el-Erian, only students had complained about occasionally having to take exams on Christmas.
``It is so strange that the regime is giving the people one more day off, while most government employees are not hard workers,’’ el-Erian said.
Christmas became Egypt's 18th national holiday.
Copts have a long history in Egypt _ tradition says St. Mark brought Christianity to Egypt just a few years after the death of Christ.
Copts were once so dominant here that their name is the ancient name for all Egyptians.
Now they are estimated at just 10 percent of Egypt’s 68 million people.
Copts *survived* Roman persecution and Arab conquest, and today are generally free to worship in Egypt.
But they complain of tensions with the Muslim majority and say they face discrimination, particularly in the job market.
At times, they face violence.
Three of these children died within a six-week period in September and October of this year.
The report is part of a government campaign launched earlier this month to warn parents about airbags.
SEOUL (AP) _ The robust South Korean economy traditionally (shrugs off) (flare-ups) with rival North Korea such as a deadly naval clash last summer.
But atomic weapons are a different matter.
North Korea's nuclear programs have now been (branded) this year's biggest (hazard) to the South's economy by the nation's central bank chief.
And the recent tensions are blamed as a contributor to everything from a tumbling stock market to (hollowed-out) foreign investment.
The economy is (far from) the (downward spiral) it took during the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, but economists warn that its rebound could be undercut if Pyongyang adds to the two (atom bombs) it is believed to already possess.
``The nuclear issue is a burden on the economy,'' said Lee Sung-kwon, chief economist at Goodmorning Shinhan Securities in Seoul.
Clashes with the North are not unheard of on the Korean peninsula, which has been divided since 1945 and fought a three-year war in the 1950s, although they were more common in decades past.
Last June, a naval shootout killed six South Korean sailors, and a year earlier, communist and South Korean troops (fired shots) across the (Demilitarized Zone) separating the two sides.
Financial markets usually react with no more than a ripple.
But since revelations in October that North Korea has a secret atomic weapons project, even a small confrontation along the border now carries nuclear overtones.
Just last week, Bank of Korea chief Park Seung called it the biggest peril to the country's economy.
If the threat of war were to escalate too far, the economy could shrink this year instead of growing at 5.7 percent as forecast by the central bank, he said.
Any disruption to peace would be a ``significant blow'' to foreign investment as well as exports and domestic consumption, Park said.
The researchers say sex outside the window probably will not result in pregnancy.
HONOLULU (AP) _ A century ago, Ronald Moon's grandfathers arrived here from Korea facing a future of working in Hawaii's sugar cane fields.
Like others in those first waves of Korean immigrants to America, they carried (little more than) their culture, their values and a strong work ethic, qualities that descendants like Moon, the chief justice of the Hawaii Supreme Court, credit for helping shape their lives today.
``They were true pioneers, and it took a great deal of courage, motivation and sacrifices to come here,'' Moon said. ``I (have no reservations in saying that) (if not for) their teachings and values, I certainly would not be here.''
On Monday, exactly 100 years after the first documented group of Korean immigrants set foot in Hawaii, those first Korean immigrants to America will be honored by the Centennial Committee of Korean Immigration to the United States.
Among the 1,600 people expected to attend the gala are diver Sammy Lee, the first Asian American to win an Olympic gold medal, and retired Col.
Kim Young-oak, recipient of 19 military medals and the first Asian American officer to command an American infantry battalion in combat.
``(There's no question) the Koreans in Hawaii, and in many parts of the United States where they have settled, have done a great deal,'' Moon said. ``When we speak about 100 years here, I think the Koreans (have gone very far).''
The first Korean immigrants to America arrived on the morning of Jan.
13, 1903, when the (SS) Gaelic (pulled into) Honolulu Harbor, delivering 86 men, women and children to the U.S. territory.
Kim Chee-won was among them.
Students of the culinary-arts course at Israel's Devir College have unveiled their most ambitious project 23 kilos of margarine and 45 kilos of poppy seed went into this humongous Purim cake.
reads a slogan inside North Korean jet cockpits, sailors' cabins and army guard posts.
In schools, teachers tell students Americans are ``two-legged wolves'' and the United States is a ``hotbed of all evils swarming with beggars.''
From kindergarten children to People's Army troops, hatred toward Americans is part of life in the impoverished, Stalinist state that gets much of its international aid from the country it despises.
The isolated regime's bellicose rhetoric reached a new pitch in the past week, when North Korea escalated its nuclear standoff with Washington, warning of a ``Third World War,'' ``a sea of fire'' and a ``holy war'' against the United States.
``It's hardly new to me,'' says Lee Jae-gun, a South Korean fisherman who was kidnapped to North Korea and lived there 30 years until escaping in 2000. ``It's a daily fodder in North Korea.
Defectors from North Korea describe the country as an Orwellian place built on three pillars:
a personality cult surrounding leader Kim Jong-il, Stalinism and hatred of anything American.
Kang Chul-hwan, who defected to South Korea in 1992, remembers textbooks telling the tale of an American missionary tattooing ``Thief'' on a Korean boy who picked an apple from his orchard.
Animated cartoons depict Americans as sharp-toothed wolves.
Cho Myong-chul, who defected to Seoul in 1994, recalls that hurling rocks at the effigy of a U.S. soldier was a schoolyard sport.
The animosity originates from the 1950-53 Korean War, during which U.S. troops fought for South Korea, and is cultivated by communist leaders, says Cho, 44, a college professor in North Korea who now works at Seoul's Korea Institute for International Economic Policy.
this woman's hands calm the patient's fears.
it can also tell a doctor so the doctor can stop the surgery.
The sultry jazz musical ``Chicago'' won the Golden Globe for best musical-comedy Sunday while ``The Hours'' was honored as best film drama.
Dramatic performance honors went to Jack Nicholson for playing a depressed retiree in ``About Schmidt'' and Nicole Kidman for her role as suicidal writer Virginia Woolf in ``The Hours.''
``I don't know whether to be happy or ashamed because I thought we made a comedy,'' Nicholson said.
The tragicomic ``About Schmidt” features him as an aging man searching for meaning at the end of his life.
Kidman, who disguised her face with prosthetics for the role, said she was just glad ``The Hours'' was made into a film.
``It was a tricky movie in terms of the subject matter,'' she said.
``Chicago'' co-stars Renee Zellweger and Richard Gere won for best musical-comedy acting, and Meryl Streep and Chris Cooper received supporting performer honors for the loopy screenwriting comedy ``Adaptation.''
Martin Scorsese received the best director for the Civil War era immigrant saga ``Gangs of New York,'' a film he had wanted to make for decades that, once completed, was delayed for more than a year by Miramax Films.
``Maybe `dream come true' is a cliche because cliches are true.
But it really is,'' he said.
Zellweger, who played a star-struck prisoner in ``Chicago'' trying to beat a murder charge, thanked co-star Catherine Zeta-Jones, whom she beat in the category.
``You're a goddess and I'm so glad the world now knows what you can do,'' Zellweger told her while onstage.
with the young and the frightened.
Even the police are investigating.
the teenagers check out just fine.
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) _ For most of their modern history, Iraqis have been little more than spectators as foreign occupiers, then a monarchy created by Britain, and finally a series of homegrown strongmen played politics as a game of intrigue and assassination, massacre and war.
Iraqis must overcome that bloody past if they are to have a say in their future.
The United States, threatening war to topple President Saddam Hussein because it believes he has weapons of mass destruction, says it wants his regime replaced by democracy.
Iraqi exiles have (drawn up) ambitious plans, but are weakened by ethnic, religious and political divisions.
These will make it difficult for the more than 22 million Iraqis to unite behind any new vision for the country.
Saddam is just one in a long line of Sunni Muslims who have dominated Iraqi politics and the military despite being roughly one-third of the population.
Any Sunni reluctance to (yield) their status (to) the majority Shiites could (stand in the way of) democracy.
Hamid al-Bayati, London representative of the Iran-based Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a conservative Shiite group long opposed to Saddam, believes that despite its past, Iraq will eventually fall in line with what he sees as a global trend.
``The whole world is moving toward democracy,'' al-Bayati said. We are Islamists and we believe that democracy is the only way to ensure freedom.''
The conversion from granite to grave marker rolls in $1 billion a year in total sales in the United States.
that's not cutting deep into the headstone business.
(AP)_ Fossil hunters in China have discovered what may be one of the weirdest prehistoric species ever seen _ a four-winged dinosaur that apparently glided from tree to tree.
The 128-million-year-old animal _ called Microraptor gui, in honor of Chinese paleontologist Gu Zhiwei _ was about 21/2 feet (77cm) long and had two sets of feathered wings, with one set on its forelimbs and the other on its hind legs.
Exactly where the creature fits into the evolution of birds and dinosaurs is not clear.
But researchers speculated that it developed around the same time as or even later than the first two-wing, birdlike dinosaur, Archaeopteryx, which is believed to have flown by actually flapping its wings.
Paleontologists were intrigued by the discovery.
They have seen gliding dinosaurs before, but never one with feathers.
And they have never seen a four-winged dinosaur before.
"It would be a total oddity _ the weirdest creature in the world of dinosaurs and birds," said Luis Chiappe, a paleontologist at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County who did not participate in the dig.
Scientists said the fossils _ discovered in the Chinese province of Liaoning, northeast of Beijing, at a site that has yielded several important specimens in recent years _ revive a debate between two theories of how dinosaurs might have evolved into birds.
One theory holds that some of these apparent bird ancestors learned to flap their wings to power flight while they were gliding from tree to tree.
The other theory suggests they learned to fly by increasing their running speed with their wings and taking off from the ground.
The latest find tends to support the gliding-in-trees theory.
Details of the fossils appear in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.
Paleontologist Xing Xu of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences described six fossils with leg feathers arranged in a pattern similar to wing feathers in modern birds.
"They are long and some have asymmetrical vanes like flight feathers," Xu said.
The feathered legs amount to rear wings, Xu said.
He speculated they could have represented an intermediate stage of development before the emergence of true flight powered by flapping the wings.
Or, the feathered legs could have been an evolutionary dead end, other researchers said.
especially children already in pain from serious illnesses.
Doctors rub it on the area to be treated, for it to penetrate the skin.
DIAMOND MOUNTAIN, North Korea (AP) _ Chun Kyong-ok, a North Korean ``environmental monitor,'' had a ready answer to why the United States does not attack the isolated communist state while ``(poking its nose into) every corner of Iraq, even its president's palace.''
``That's because of our mighty military power,'' Chun said matter-of-factly.
Hiking up the Diamond Mountain valley in North Korea is a (sojourn) to a storied natural site that has inspired generations of Korean scribes with its beauty.
But it's also a visit to a place left behind in a Cold War era, where the ideas of a generation ago are everywhere, on granite slabs and on the lips of communist (minders).
The minders posted along the trekking route up the mountain's Nine Dragons Valley are called ``environmental monitors,'' but are really part tour guides, part propagandists.
Chun, a woman in her early 20s with (a dab of) lipstick and crimped (hair pulled into a bun), said U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell ``were all war maniacs and that expecting them to love peace is like telling a wolf to give up bloody meat and live on vegetables.''
The men and women _ wearing clean, padded anoraks and makeup, luxuries in this impoverished, totalitarian state _ mingle freely among the tourists traveling on a cruise ship that has taken a detour around the sealed border between the Koreas.
The trip is run by the South Korean conglomerate Hyundai, which gives visitors _ mostly South Koreans _ a rare view at the fabled Diamond Mountain in the southeast corner of North Korea.
In return for opening up to tourists, the Stalinist state gets badly needed hard currency.
On the trip, the Northerners were eager to learn how their communist regime and leader Kim Jong-il were viewed by South Koreans and the United States amid high tensions over Pyongyang's recent moves to reactivate its nuclear programs.
``Everybody is eager to know more about the South Koreans,'' Chun said.
She and other minders shoveled snow and had no problem chatting freely with the Southern visitors, who trudged up a path cut through thigh-high snow wearing crampons and bright windbreakers.
``If you have to choose between the Americans and the fellow Koreans, what will you do?'' Hong Young-il, a 28-year-old North Korean, asked a South Korean.
The Southern tourists usually (shy away from) political debate.
Hyundai, which has been running the tour since 1998, asks them not to say anything that might offend North Koreans.
The Northerners seemed carefully educated in international issues concerning their government.
They repeated official lines, but on occasion their comments threw rare glimpses into the North Korean thinking.
Asked whether he considered the Americans a ``sworn enemy'' as North Korea's official media often claim, Hong said, ``That was so in old days.''
``We are now ready to talk with the United States if they recognize us and treat us as an equal partner,'' he said. ``The problem is the United States wants to subjugate us.''
Before their historic summit in 2000 thawed relations, the two Koreas had vilified each other for decades.
Hur Bok-nam, a 26-year-old North Korean, urged the two Koreas to ``live up to their compatriotic spirit and join forces to fight foreign forces'' _ a theme all North Korean minders stressed.
``One finger doesn't do much, but five fingers make a fist that can punch,'' he said.
Hur looked disappointed but listened to the notion that most South Koreans want 37,000 U.S. troops to stay in the South, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War, as a deterrent against North Korea and for regional security even after the two Koreas reunify. ``You get tired of a guest who stays more than three days.
How can they have U.S. troops for over 50 years?'' Chun, the female guide, said she hoped heavy snow this winter heralded a ``plentiful harvest'' later in the year in the hunger-stricken country, which is dependent on outside aid to avert famine.
She also hoped that ``cooperation and reconciliation with the South will thrive to resolve our problem in the North.''
Diamond Mountain also serves as a billboard for the personality cult that has dominated the isolated country for half a century.
Verses and slogans cut into granite slabs extol the late President Kim Il-sung, father of Kim Jong-il.
The trekking route was dotted with monuments celebrating the ``historic'' visit by the senior Kim in 1947.
One monument was built at a spot where Kim's ``faithful'' wife, Kim Jong-suk, had to give up the rest of her hike and head down the valley to ``prepare lunch for the Great Leader.''
The trekking ended at a pagoda that commands a panoramic view of snowcapped peaks glinting in the sun and the frozen Nine Dragons Waterfall.
An ancient Korean scribe compared the cascade to ``10,000 bushels of pearls falling down.''
Pine branches sagged with piles of snow, and cameras flashed.
she's about to receive vibrations.
because with a beeper they're free to wander around while they wait.
and waiting for the PA system to mispronounce your name.
WASHINGTON (AFP) _ The United States and the rest of the world will not be (``blackmailed'') by North Korea's drive for nuclear weapons, President George W. Bush said Tuesday in his State of the Union address.
``On the Korean peninsula, an oppressive regime rules a people living in fear and starvation,'' Bush said.
``Throughout the 1990s, the United States relied on a negotiated framework to (keep) North Korea (from) gain(ing) nuclear weapons.
We now know that the regime was deceiving the world, and developing those weapons all along.
''And today the North Korean regime is using its nuclear program to incite fear and seek concessions.
``America and the world will not be blackmailed,'' Bush said, noting that Washington was working with South Korea, Japan, China, and Russia to find a peaceful solution to the crisis.
But he warned Pyongyang that ``nuclear weapons will bring only isolation, economic stagnation, and continued hardship.''
``The North Korean regime will find respect in the world, and revival for its people, only when it (turns away from) its nuclear ambitions,'' Bush said, in remarks on North Korea that were much more restrained than some of his other statements over the last year.
Bush had previously offered to reactivate a ``bold approach'' to North Korea, once it ends the twin nuclear programs which the United States said sparked the crisis.
But administration officials say they will not ``negotiate'' with the Stalinist state, and will only talk with it about how it can verifiably (stand down) the nuclear programs.
Bush did not call on the United Nations Security Council to (take up the issue), though other lower-level U.S. officials have called for such a move.
Pyongyang has warned that it will see any sanctions imposed by the council as a declaration of war.
The crisis was triggered last October when U.S. envoy James Kelly confronted the Stalinist state during a visit to Pyongyang with U.S. claims that North Korea had launched an enriched uranium program in violation with a 1994 anti-nuclear deal with Washington.
Despite North Korea's denials, the United States suspended fuel aid to Pyongyang, which responded late last year by reactivating the mothballed Yongbyon plutonium producing nuclear complex, and expelling U.N. monitors.
Even as Bush spoke however, there was a new blow for hopes to and end to the crisis.
South Korean President Kim Dae-jung's envoy Lim Dong-Won left Pyongyang Wednesday after failing to meet Kim Jong-il, officials said.
``After arriving in Seoul at 12:40 pm (0340 GMT), the envoy will brief President Kim on the outcome of his visit to North Korea,'' a South Korean official said.
Before going to Pyongyang, Lim said he would try to receive a direct response from Kim Jong-il to Seoul's proposal for a peaceful solution to the North Korean nuclear issue.
CityWalk, located between Los Angeles?
There are some things you won't see here:
allows consumers to order and receive video services over the copper wires that already service almost every American home.
which contains movies stored as digital information.
The information is then compressed and sent over telephone lines to the customer's house, where a decoder converts the signal back to full-motion video.
Both picture and audio quality are good, and normal phone service is uninterrupted.
The system should be available late next year.
(AP) _ High over Texas and just short of home, space shuttle Columbia fell to pieces, raining debris over hundreds of miles of countryside.
Saturday's catastrophe occurred 39 miles (63 kilometers) above the Earth, in the last 16 minutes of the 16-day mission as the spaceship re-entered the atmosphere and glided in for a landing in Florida.
The day echoed one almost exactly 17 years before, when the Challenger space shuttle exploded.
``The Columbia is lost,'' said President George W. Bush, after telephoning the families of the astronauts to console them.
``The same creator who names the stars also knows the names of the seven souls we mourn today,'' Bush said. ``The crew of the shuttle Columbia did not return safely to Earth but we can pray they are safely home.''
The search for the cause began immediately.
possible damage to Columbia's protective thermal tiles on the left wing from a flying piece of debris during liftoff on Jan.
NASA appointed an independent commission to investigate.
The agency said the first indication of trouble Saturday was the loss of temperature sensors in the left wing's hydraulic system.
The spacecraft had just re-entered the atmosphere and had reached the point at which it (was subjected to) the highest temperatures.
NASA officials said they suspected the wing was damaged on liftoff, but felt there was no reason for concern.
A piece of insulating foam on its external fuel tank came off shortly after liftoff and was believed to have hit the left wing of the shuttle.
Leroy Cain, the lead flight director in Mission Control, assured reporters Friday that engineers had concluded any damage was considered minor and posed no safety hazard.
``As we look at that now (in hindsight) ... we can't discount that there might be a connection,'' shuttle program manager Ron Dittemore said Saturday.
``But we have to caution you and ourselves that we can't rush to judgment on it because there are a lot of things in this business that look like (the smoking gun) but turn out not even to be close.''
Authorities said there was no indication of terrorism; at 207,135 feet (62,140 meters) and traveling at 12,500 mph (20,112 kph), 18 times the speed of sound, the shuttle was out of range of any surface-to-air missile.
Security was extraordinarily tight on this mission because Ramon, Israel's first astronaut, was among the crew members.
It was a relatively inexperienced crew;
only three _ Husband, Anderson and Indian-born Chawla _ had flown before.
The others were rookies, including Ramon, the 48-year-old Israeli Air Force colonel.
A former fighter pilot who survived two wars, he carried into space a small pencil drawing titled ``Moon Landscape'' by Peter Ginz, a 14-year-old Jewish boy killed at Auschwitz.
``The state of Israel and its citizens are as one at this difficult time,'' Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office said in a statement.
Television footage showed a bright light followed by white smoke plumes streaking diagonally across the sky.
``We saw it coming across the sky real bright and shiny and all in one piece.
We thought it was the sun shining off an airplane,'' said Doug Ruby, who was driving along a Texas highway.
Pieces of the spacecraft were found in several east Texas counties and in Louisiana.
A piece of debris the size of a compact car fell into Toledo Bend Reservoir on the Texas-Louisiana line, said Sabine County Sheriff Tom Maddox.
In Nacogdoches, 135 miles (217 kilometers) northeast of Houston, a National Guardsman stood watch over a steel rod with silver bolts.
People streamed up to take photos of the debris.
The Federal Aviation Administration issued a notice to airmen because the National Weather Service radar picked up a debris cloud about 95 miles (153 kilometers) long and 13 to 22 miles (21 to 35 kilometers) wide over Lake Charles, Louisiana.
The Army's 1st Cavalry Division sent a helicopter search-and-rescue task force from Fort Hood, Texas.
NASA also asked members of the public to help in its search for debris, but warned people not to touch the pieces because they might be contaminated with toxic propellants.
The flight was the 113th in the shuttle program's 22 years and the 28th flight for Columbia, NASA oldest shuttle which was built in 1981 at a cost of about $1 billion.
The horrific end of shuttle mission STS-107 was a devastating blow to the nation's space program;
the Challenger explosion led to a 2-year moratorium on launches, and Saturday's accident could bring construction of the international space station to a standstill.
The shuttle delivers components of the space station to be installed;
it also carries crews to and from the station.
The three astronauts now on board the station could return to Earth at a moment's notice via a Russian vehicle attached to the space station.
Six shuttle flights had been planned for 2003 _ five of them to the space station.
The next was scheduled for March 1.
``We trust the prayers of the nation will be with them and with their families.
A more courageous group of people you could not have hoped to know,'' said NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe.
Columbia had been scheduled to land at Kennedy Space Center at 9:16 a.m.
Dittemore said ``there was no indication of any impending threats to the vehicle.''
Then there was a loss of data from temperature sensors on the left wing, followed by a loss of data from tire pressure indicators on the left main landing gear
``Columbia, Houston, we see your tire pressure messages and we did not copy your last.''
Columbia's commander, Rick Husband, calmly responds:
For several seconds, the transmission goes silent.
In 42 years of U.S. human spaceflight, there had never been an accident during the descent to Earth or landing.
The American flag next to Mission Control's countdown clock was lowered to half-staff.
O'Keefe met with the astronauts' families, who had been waiting at the landing site for the shuttle's return.
Six of the seven astronauts were married, and five had children.
Clark's brother, Daniel Salton, monitored Columbia's return from his Milwaukee home.
It was his sister's first shuttle flight.
``I'm just so glad she got to get up to space and got to see it because that had been a dream for a long time,'' he said.
The shuttle is essentially a glider during the hour-long decent from orbit toward the landing strip.
It is covered by about 20,000 thermal tiles to protect against temperatures as high as 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit (1,648 degrees Celsius).
Columbia's crew had completed 80-plus scientific research experiments during their time in orbit.
In Washington, at least three government investigations will probe the Columbia disaster, and NASA’s shuttle program director vowed to find the answers so America can continue sending people into space.
The investigations will review all the information NASA collected as the spaceship began its descent Saturday morning, then started breaking up more than 200,000 feet (60,000 meters) over Texas.
SEOUL (AP) _ South Korea opened a road across its heavily militarized border with North Korea on Wednesday, the first such connection between the countries in more than five decades.
The South also said it wanted to (take further steps) toward reconciliation despite the communist state's defiance (over) its nuclear program.
Meanwhile in Washington, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage gave senators the U.S. administration's strongest assurance to date that Washington intends to have a direct dialogue with North Korea.
While hoping for a peaceful solution to the standoff over the North's nuclear ambitions, U.S. ally South Korea fears that the tension might escalate into an armed conflict on the volatile peninsula.
In a conciliatory move on Wednesday, a group of 107 South Korean tourism officials and business people traveled to a scenic mountain resort in the North on a recently built cross-border road.
The 10 buses moved slowly along the narrow (dirt road) to the northern side as snow fell.
South Korea's Hyundai business group started a money-losing cruise to the Diamond Mountain resort in 1998.
The company hopes the cheaper overland trip will attract more South Korean tourists.
The road is the first overland route linking the two Koreas since they were divided in 1945.
The 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armistice, not in a peace treaty, and the two countries are (technically) still at war.
Their border is the world's most heavily fortified.
The road was one of several cooperation projects agreed upon at a historic inter-Korean summit in 2000.
Wednesday's trip was hoped (to pave the way for) organized tours by South Korean tourists.
2 leader said that while Seoul would not tolerate the North's alleged atomic weapons program, it wanted to move ahead with reconciliation efforts.
"We can never tolerate North Korea's nuclear weapons development, which is a threat to our national security and world peace, but tension should not be allowed to keep rising on the Korean Peninsula," Prime Minister Kim Suk-soo said in a speech to the National Assembly.
South Korea, the prime minister said, intends to expand several joint projects before outgoing President Kim Dae-jung steps down on Feb.
Those projects include cross-border railways, tourism and an industrial park.
In Washington on Tuesday, Armitage testified before a congressional hearing: "Of course we're going to have direct talks with the North Koreans."
It was unclear whether his comments marked a change in U.S. policy.
Washington has previously demanded that North Korea give up its nuclear ambitions before talks.
Meanwhile, the top U.S. military commander in South Korea stressed that the militaries of the United States and South Korea must cooperate to cope with the nuclear standoff.
"The combined forces of the ROK-US alliance are highly trained, well-equipped and superbly led," Gen. Leon LaPorte said, adding the South Koreans would be consulted about any possible U.S.
The ROK, or the Republic of Korea, is South Korea's official name.
The United States keeps 37,000 soldiers in South Korea.
U.S. officials in Washington say Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is considering sending an aircraft carrier to (the waters) off the Korean Peninsula and adding bombers in Guam.
The moves are intended (to deter) the North (from) provocations during any U.S. war with Iraq, Pentagon officials said.
In a dispatch monitored by South Korea's Yonhap news agency, the North's official news agency, KCNA, said the reported U.S. reinforcements were "a serious development that can only be seen on the eve of war," and that "our people and military will react with strong self-defense measures."
North Korea's media routinely churn out anti-U.S. invective, but it has become more frequent and intense since the nuclear dispute erupted in October, when U.S. officials said the North had admitted having a nuclear program in violation of a 1994 pact.
As punishment, the United States and its allies suspended oil shipments to North Korea in December.
The North then took steps to restart a nuclear reactor, expelled U.N. monitors and withdrew from a global nuclear arms control treaty.
President Clinton has won the latest round with opponents of the crime bill.
The House approved the bill but it is still a long way from becoming law.
The duck had a quail's pointy beak and the quail a duck's flat bill.
But University of California scientists who switched birds' beaks through a little egg (tinkering) had more than (avian oddity) in mind:
The experiment uncovered some of the key cellular players in bird evolution, and may even lead to better understanding of what causes facial birth defects such as cleft palate.
``It connects back to some of the earliest roots of evolutionary thought, but also connects to very real issues in human medicine,'' molecular evolutionist Michael Braun at Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History said after reading the new research.
Birds' amazing variety of beak styles (is integral to) the study of evolution.
One of Charles Darwin's most famous observations during his 1835 visit to (the Galapagos Islands) was that (finches) were subtly different _ including their beak size and type _ depending on where they lived on the chain of pristine, volcanic islands.
His analysis of such differences later led to his theory of evolution through (natural selection).
But just what genes and cells drive those differences remained mysterious.
Beaks all derive from similar-looking tissues in very early bird embryos, said Jill Helms, an orthopedics researcher at UC San Francisco.
To find out what makes them turn out dramatically different, she and colleague Richard Schneider picked two birds with unmistakable beaks _ ducks and quails _ and tried to get them to grow each other's.
They took 36-hour-old duck and quail embryos from an incubator and drilled small holes in the eggs encasing them.
Using the tiniest of needles, Schneider sucked out the cells that seemed (to give rise to) beaks, called (neural crest cells), from duck embryos and replaced them with neural crest cells from quail embryos, and vice versa.
Taping over the egg hole, researchers let the eggs incubate until they were about 11 days old, halfway to hatching but just large enough to tell what the still-forming birds' beaks looked like.
(Letting them survive to hatch with beaks they didn't know how to use would have been unethical, Helms explained.)
Call the result ``qucks'' and ``duails:
'' The ducks grew pointy little quail beaks and the quails grew that distinctive flat, wide duck bill, the researchers report in Friday's edition of the journal Science.
That means neural crest cells carry species-specific programming for beak growth, Paul Trainor of the Stowers Institute for Medical Research in Kansas City said in an accompanying Science review.
The transplanted neural crest cells also altered how the bird's natural tissues and even genes reacted in the presence of the foreign beak, slightly modifying some surrounding facial features and speeding some gene action, Trainor noted.
Together, that makes the cells crucial players in beak evolution.
It's an important study, narrowing down the specific pathway that produces birds' amazing variety of beaks, agreed the Smithsonian's Braun.
But seeing how these cells direct the development of surrounding tissue has implications far beyond birds, he said.
Indeed, understanding what causes a beak to develop the way it does could (shed light on) human (craniofacial) development, Helms said.
If people harbor an equivalent to the birds' powerful neural crest cells, perhaps surgeons one day could correct a cleft palate before a baby was born with a transplant of the right mouth-growing cells, she said.
Helms equates her experiment to eavesdropping on a conversation between two tissues, as the transplanted cells altered the bird's natural development.
``Once you understand the nature of the dialogue between the tissues, then you can start to think about, when development goes awry, is there a way to correct it,'' Helms explained.
and the United States is in the thick of the debate.
It isn't even rich against poor.
SPACE CENTER, Houston (AP)_ Investigators are searching for evidence that a block of ice big enough to damage Columbia's wing may have formed on a waste water vent, a problem that plagued an earlier shuttle flight.
They also are looking closely at what may be two key pieces of Columbia debris _ a 2-foot (60-centimeter) piece of one wing, including an attached chunk of thermal tiles, and a 300-pound (135-kilogram) cover of a landing gear compartment, possibly the site.
16 launch, military radar detected an object moving rapidly away from the shuttle.
NASA said it is unknown what the object was, but the possibility that it could have been ice from a wastewater vent sent investigators back to a detailed search for evidence that the shuttle may have formed ice throughout its mission.
Hal Gehman, head of a board investigating the Columbia accident, said Sunday that the object detected near the shuttle could have come from the spacecraft itself and could be ice.
Space Command of the Air Force, which monitors objects in space, is providing data on the object to the investigators.
The waste water vent, which is under the shuttle cabin, in front of the left wing, is used to expel into space both urine and surplus water generated from the shuttle's fuel cell power system.
Usually the water shoots out into the cold vacuum of space as a spray of crystals, but on at least one shuttle mission, in 1984, the water formed a basketball-sized chunk of ice on the lip of the vent.
At the time, NASA engineers were so concerned the ice could damage the shuttle wing during re-entry that they ordered the astronauts aboard Discovery to use the shuttle's robot arm to break off the ice ball.
That heavy robot arm, which wasn't necessary for Columbia's 16-day science mission, was left off so more experiments could be added, and the waste water vent could not be seen from the cabin by the seven astronauts.
NASA spokesman Kyle Herring said it's possible ice could have formed and not been detected, even though heaters were installed on the wastewater dump valve after the 1984 mission.
When Columbia fired its rockets to drop out of orbit, it could have sent any accumulated ice slamming into the wing where other data suggests there was severe damage to the thermal protection tiles.
The theory is unproven and is only one of a number of scenarios being probed by engineers.
``We're going to let the Columbia accident board guide us in terms of their findings about what caused this accident.''
Tidal wave warnings went up today all the way from Hawaii to California to the west coast of Canada.
as far away as Tokyo, 650 miles south.
TOKYO (AP) _ With the economy (in the doldrums) for years and unemployment at a record high, Japanese are (racking up) debts, (falling prey to) (loan sharks) and declaring bankruptcy (by the thousands).
Individual bankruptcies soared fivefold in the last five years to more than 214,600 in 2002, up 34 percent from the previous year, according to the Japanese Supreme Court.
And experts say the nation’s culture of shame about debts and overall ignorance about the law are a big part of the problem.
Kanamori and other experts say the ballooning problem of (deadbeat) borrowers has produced a booming business of illegal lenders, some linked with gangsters, who charge outrageous interest rates _ such as 1,800 percent a year, according to police _ and hound borrowers with threats (to wring) payments (out of) them.
Loan sharks are a growing menace in other parts of economically struggling Asia as well.
Malaysia’s Parliament is considering tough new laws against illegal moneylenders following a spate of suicides by hopelessly indebted people.
Japanese police say 446 people were arrested last year on charges of operating illegal lenders, but the arrests are believed to be a just small portion of the rampant crime.
The Tokyo police have set up a special team (to crack down on)``yami-kinyu’’ or ``(racket) lenders.’
In most cases, the victims are average, honest, hardworking people.
A ``salaryman’’ worker or a housewife, they usually start out borrowing a small amount of money to keep up with mortgage payments or bills.
But once they miss a payment, they get ensnared in the trap of owing more and end up turning to other dubious lenders _ only to find themselves deeper in debt.
Lenders can legally charge up to 29 percent interest in Japan, but many (exploit) people’s ignorance about the law and charge far higher interest, such as 50 percent over 10 days.
In Japan, family ties tend to be strong and the nightmare of bad debts can spread to relatives, who often co-sign loans.
A 34-year-old Tokyo consultant, who asked that his name be withheld because he is worried about losing his job, had to declare bankruptcy when he found out that he had co-signed more than 120 million yen (US$1 million) bank loans for his father’s machinery business, which eventually (went bust).
In the battle against cancer, researchers will announce tomorrow that they are now perfecting a simple screening test capable of giving early warning on several types of cancer.
I'm that kind of a person.
WASHINGTON (AP) _ NASA released what it called the most vivid (snapshot) of the infant universe ever taken, capturing such stunning detail that it may be one of the most significant scientific achievements of recent years.
Evidence that answers long-standing questions about the age, composition and evolution of the universe was gathered by scientists using NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy (Probe) (WMAP), a satellite orbiting 1 million miles from Earth, during a 12-month observation of the entire sky.
``This picture of the early universe is a gold mine,'' Charles Bennett, WMAP principal investigator at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., said after the National Aeronautics and Space Administration released the picture Tuesday. ``The patterns in the picture tell us all kinds of things about the universe.''
One key finding in the data is that the first generation of stars to shine in the universe ignited much earlier than previously thought _ only 200 million years after the Big Bang, the theoretical explanation for the explosion that (gave birth to) the universe.
The image shows the ``afterglow'' of the Big Bang, called the cosmic microwave background (radio rays).
Also, the new portrait pegs the age of the universe at 13.7 billion years old, with a small 1 percent margin of error.
``We have a map of the earliest light of the universe that is complete, and it is (stunning) to look at,'' Princeton physicist Lyman Page said.
``The light seen today as the cosmic microwave radio rays has traveled for more than 13 billion years to reach us,'' NASA said in a statement. ``Within this light are (infinitesimal) patterns that mark the seeds of what later grew into clusters of galaxies and the vast structure we see all around us.''
Patterns in the afterglow of the Big Bang are frozen (in place) only 380,000 years after the Big Bang, NASA said. At that time, the universe was filled with hot gas heated to 2,725 degrees Kelvin (2,541 Celsius).
The probe’s goal was to establish a map of the universe, making precision measurements to one millionth of a Kelvin degree of infinitesimal fluctuations of temperature, known as anisotropy, observed in the universe about 400,000 years after the Big Bang.
WMAP is the result of a partnership between the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and Princeton University.
That's an increase of more than a million from the year before, three out of 20 Americans are now living below the poverty line - the highest poverty rate in a decade.
PYONGYANG (AFP) _ North Koreans believe they teeter (on the brink of) war, and a strong hatred of Americans invigorates them as they prepare mentally for a possible conflict. ``I think the U.S. army might attack.
They have openly said so,'' said Kim Mi-gyong, a guide at the Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum in the North Korean capital Pyongyang which commemorates the 1950-53 Korean War.
With the four-month-old nuclear crisis on the peninsula showing no signs of (abating), North Koreans are (bracing themselves) to face an (adversary) they believe is worse than Hitler's troops.
``The (atrocities committed) by the U.S. side during the war were worse than those committed by the German soldiers in World War II,'' said 76-year-old Kim Thae-hwa, who commanded 700 soldiers in North Korea's last battle with the United States half-a-century ago. ``They dropped germ bombs that afflicted people for years.''
In the museum, nauseating collections of photos show alleged U.S. war crimes including beheadings, skinnings and torchings.
One million North Korean visitors are exposed to these images of brutality every year as they are taken on tours through the museum's 82 rooms.
``I hate the Americans very much but I'm not afraid of them,'' said Kim, the guide, a young woman whose tender exterior (belies) her harsh words.
``If the U.S. attacks again, we will annihilate the U.S. army, all of them, wipe them off the face of the earth.
Then the North and the South can live together peacefully.''
North Korea has accused the United States of setting in motion invasion plans by launching a massive arms build-up.
Late Wednesday the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, referred the nuclear crisis to the U.N. Security Council, which raises the possibility of sanctions.
Pyongyang has said (sanctions) would (amount to) a declaration of war.
Kim's remarks mirror official propaganda which says the U.S. military presence in South Korea is all that (stands in the way of) reunification of the long divided country.
``We don't hate the American people but we hate the U.S. army as long as they occupy South Korea,'' said Kim the war veteran.
A long-standing aversion to the U.S. enemy is very much alive among ordinary North Koreans and the Pyongyang government, under Kim Jong-il, knows how to keep the hatred burning by constant reminders of the U.S. threat.
Political cartoons in the official newspapers resemble Soviet caricatures in the darkest days of the Cold War, with American GIs depicted in dehumanized robotic form and U.S. politicians portrayed as beer-bellied and hysteric.
The Pueblo, an American spy ship that North Korea captured in 1968, is docked on the banks of Pyongyang's Taedong River and receives hundreds of visitors every day.
``After seeing this ship I have come to hate the United States,'' said Chong Il-chul, a Pyongyang worker with curly hair and a stern look who was among a group touring the ship.
``The Americans are our worst enemy.
They have been causing misfortune for our nation for a long time and they are still doing it today.''
Animosity towards the U.S. appears to extend to all levels of society, even affecting the well-educated and much-traveled who know the outside world.
One Pyongyang resident who said his grandfather was executed by U.S. soldiers in the early stages of the Korean War had little love for Americans when he went abroad to study.
It's been two years now since the overall national economy began climbing out of the recession.
Behind California's healthy image, the state's been crippled by the loss of more than 700,000 jobs.
some 300,000 jobs created this year, more than half of them in high-wage, non-manufacturing industries.
The job gains are in motion pictures, software, finance, foreign trade, engineering, services.
California has a long way to go to full recovery;
SRINAGAR, India (AP) _ For three generations, Bashir Khan's family has helped guard the splendid, but (endangered), forests in India's northern state of Jammu-Kashmir _ the Himalayan region where Pakistan, Muslim insurgents and India have waged a bitter battle for decades.
Khan and the hundreds of other unarmed forest guards are not fighters. For the past 13 years, they have been patrolling the mountain woodlands to protect the forest itself and the wildlife struggling to survive in this battleground.
Since 1990, 72 government forest department officers have been killed.
``The first (fallout) of militancy in the state was easy access to weapons.
``Hundreds of hectares (acres) of forest land have been destroyed since 1990,'' he said.
India and Pakistan, which both claim all of Kashmir, have fought two wars over the territory since they gained independence from Britain in 1947.
About a dozen Islamic militant groups began fighting in 1989 to separate the Jammu-Kashmir region from India and join it to neighboring Pakistan or create an independent state.
There is almost daily gunfire across the cease-fire line that divides Kashmir between India and Pakistan.
The Islamic insurgency, the Indian security force actions to subdue it, and a population that is growing despite 61,000 deaths in the conflict since 1989 have all (taken a toll) on the beautiful landscape.
Set in the Himalayas at 5,600 feet (1,706 meters) above sea level, Kashmir is a green, saucer-shaped valley full of fruit orchards and surrounded by snowy mountain ranges.
About a hundred lakes dot its highlands and plains.
Glacier-fed streams flow through the forests, hillsides and over grasslands covered with wildflowers.
Environmentalists say the Indian state of Jammu-Kashmir has lost more than 150 square kilometers (59 square miles) out of 20,000 square kilometers (7,722 square miles) of forest cover since 1989.
Waterways have been polluted and wild animals have been killed.
The Kashmiri red deer or Hangul, the state animal, has been declared endangered by the World Wildlife Fund, and only 500 remain alive in protected areas.
Kashmir's snow leopards are killed for their skin, and by frightened villagers.
Ibex, Himalayan musk deer, the blue bull and migratory birds are also killed in the fighting and by hunters and smugglers.
Stripping the land of old growth forest leaves bare hillsides exposed to heavy rainfall.
The water rushes down the hills, eroding the loose soil and flowing into rivers and lakes, such as the mirror-like Dal Lake in central Srinagar, which is becoming overgrown with weeds and sludge.
``The Dachigam Forest is the (catchment area) for the springs and underground water channels that feed the Dal Lake,'' said Mian Javed, a senior forest official and wildlife warden.
``With heavy felling of trees in the catchment area, water levels of the lake were dangerously reduced.
Though 80 percent of smuggling has been curbed, there is still a lot to be done.''
In the few areas where patrols are possible, trees again cover entire mountainsides.
But Wadoo said that many regions are out of bounds for forest guards because they are close to border areas and security zones.
``My guards cannot patrol in the night because of stringent security in forest areas, but smugglers can smuggle their pack-mules on the same routes,'' he said.
The increase in human population _ despite daily deaths in the fighting _ has combined with overgrazing of livestock and lack of money for conservation and reforestation.
Deforestation and mismanagement of water resources have caused soil erosion, which is responsible for frequent flash floods in Jammu-Kashmir, Maqbool said.
Some lakes and rivers have become polluted, causing disease.
Environmental rejuvenation would take at least 25 years of continuous restoration efforts.
``It takes an hour to cut down a fully grown Kashmiri cedar but it takes over 30 years for one to grow to its full size,'' he said.
In 1996 the forest department vigorously recommenced reforestation in highly degraded areas, Wadoo said.
The department has reforested 57,100 hectares (141,000 acres), planting over 55 million trees.
People have also become a danger to the forest.
The social, political and economic turmoil has led to neglect of natural resources.
Most people who live in Kashmir's 20,000 square kilometer (7,722 square mile) forest area _ one-fifth of the Indian-controlled portion _ depend on agriculture or livestock breeding.
Since 1991, the population of Jammu-Kashmir state has increased 30 percent, and Forest Department officials say it has risen 20-22 percent in the protected areas.
``Clearing trees for farmland and increased grazing is a major forest-endangering practice,'' Wadoo said.
In Kashmir, six head of cattle graze in two hectares (five acres) of forest land, although the law permits only one.
Most pastureland is next to forests.
As villages expand, they push the orchards and grazing land into the forest.
Wadoo's forest management program calls for village committees to take responsibility for forest preservation, with technical assistance and funds from his department.
``Natural regeneration is the best way for forests to grow.
But ... these regions should be nurtured and protected.
Unless that happens, even effects of nature's healing could be lost,'' Wadoo said.
In the early 1990s, the Sind Valley forests were felled and the mountainsides were bare.
But the conservation efforts since 1996 bolstered the natural process, resulting in an ``almost complete cover around the Sind Valley,'' Wadoo said.
The forestry budget of 100 million rupees (US$2 million) a year is not enough, though, he said.
The Norwegian government recently promised Jammu-Kashmir's government 1.5 billion rupees (US$31.25 million) for a reforestation project, development of grassland and introduction of modern agricultural projects, state finance minister M.H.
Forest officials say that generous funding could alleviate half their troubles, if it comes.
``We don't know when we will get that money.
Up to now we have only been promised 1 million rupees (US$20,880) for a pilot reforestation project,'' Wadoo said.
``People may have lost their concern for forests because there are more pressing agendas, but we have to go on harping until they realize,'' he added.
But amid this squalor, that has been turned into a classy hotel for the desperately poor.
The idea create a luxurious atmosphere for one specific reason:
to inspire residents to get going.
runs the hotel and an office next door that helps residents find jobs.
HONG KONG (AP) _ Eleven-year-old Nicky Lee (doesn't mince words) about the English language, (spewing out) a (tirade) in Cantonese.
``It's very difficult,'' says Nicky, who spends several hours a day studying English at school. ``I hate memorizing grammar, and teachers at my school are so boring.''
Then he sags (in relief), because he's getting a break from lessons at a private tutorial center where he comes in the afternoons for even more of the dreaded English.
Richard Hui, 9, takes another view:
Their dilemmas may (sum up) the state of language learning in Hong Kong, where business and government leaders worry that young people are falling into a linguistic (limbo).
Hong Kong youths appear to be (ending up) less than proficient in speaking English, the international (lingua franca) of business, and in writing Chinese, with its thousands of characters to learn.
To complicate matters, Hong Kong's dominant tongue is the Chinese dialect of Cantonese, which is vastly different from Mandarin, the national language of mainland China.
Officials want to see Mandarin more firmly established here, five years after Britain handed this former colony back to the motherland.
``People's standard of English _ and their standard of Chinese, too _ has been slipping appreciably over 20 or 25 years,” says Yang Ti-liang, who was chief justice during British colonial days but now is trying his hand as a volunteer English teacher at a youth center.
The 73-year-old retired judge says that in the old days, even the lowliest office workers had a reasonable command of English. Nowadays, employers have trouble finding employees with enough skill to even answer the phone.
Yang says even some people who can get by in English don't have a good grasp of it.
He argues, for example, that people used to do much better in picking Anglicized names for themselves, which Hong Kong Chinese have long done.
He cites a businessman who calls himself ``Star'' and a woman who named herself ``Polyesta,'' names he finds a bit too weird for the globalized mainstream.
``The situation is much more alarming than people are willing to accept,'' says Benjamin Tsou, professor of linguistics and Asian languages at City University of Hong Kong.
``Hong Kong cannot afford to let its English continue to slide if it wants to continue as a cosmopolitan, international city. As matters stand, there is that danger, and the government ought to act decisively to reverse the trend.''
The city's government is pushing for better English and Chinese skills and disputes some of the criticism.
the driver must punch in a code number and blow into the breath analyzer.
SEOUL (AP) _ Seven subway officials were detained Monday by police pending issue of arrest warrants in the subway fire that killed at least 133 people last week in South Korea, authorities said.
Police applied to a court for warrants after apprehending the suspects, said Lt. Choi Woong-ju of the police department in Taegu, where the fire happened.
The seven are widely expected to face charges of criminal negligence.
There is no limit on how long the suspects can be detained after a warrant application, but judges usually respond to such requests within 24 hours.
Police are also seeking warrants for three other people, including two subway officials and the man accused of igniting the carton filled with gasoline that started the blaze, Choi said.
All three were in the hospital with injuries from the fire.
The fire quickly (engulfed) the six-car train and then spread to another train which (pulled into) the station a few minutes later.
The actions of train operators who allowed the second train to arrive are being investigated, and police said they will also (look into) suspicions that the subway corporation tried (to cover up) or destroy evidence of a possibly bungled response.
Most of the victims were passengers on the second train whose conductor allegedly fled without opening the doors, leaving victims trapped in the flames.
Police said that of the six cars in that train, the doors were open on only two of them.
Only 46 bodies have been positively identified.
Many of the victims were burned beyond recognition, and officials said they may need weeks, perhaps months, to identify them by DNA tests.
Critics said the tragedy revealed problems with the nation's emergency response system and a potential vulnerability to terrorism.
(Had the train been equipped with) (fire-resistant) seats and floor tiles, many said, it probably would not have (burst into) flames.
And an apparent lack of adequate emergency lighting left victims groping in the dark after the lights went out.
A Reno inventor says he can stretch one gallon of gasoline into two.
WASHINGTON (AFP) _ Iraqi President Saddam Hussein said in an interview Monday that he has no plans (to comply with) a U.N. demand that he destroy his banned Al-Samoud 2 missiles.
Saddam flatly denied that even his most advanced al-Samoud missiles violate U.N. restrictions, indicating he does not intend to destroy them or pledge to destroy them as demanded by chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix.
``We do not have missiles that go beyond the (proscribed) (range),'' Saddam Hussein insisted in the CBS television interview, his first with a U.S. journalist in a decade.
President George W. Bush to join him in a live radio and television satellite (linkup) to debate the need for war before the world.
``I am ready,'' said the Iraqi President, ``to conduct a direct dialogue _ a debate _ with your president.
I will say what I want and he will say what he wants.''
``This will be an opportunity for him, if he's committed to war, this will be an opportunity to convince the world.''
``This is something proposed in earnest'' Saddam said, ``out of my respect for the people of the United States and my respect for the people of Iraq and the people of the world.
I call for this because war is not a joke.’
’ `` As leaders,'' said the Iraqi president to his U.S. counterpart, ``Why don't we use this opportunity?''
There can be no debating the need for Saddam Hussein to disarm,'' said White House spokesman Scott McClellan earlier.
Chief U.N. arms inspector Hans Blix has given Iraq until Saturday to begin destroying the missiles, which can carry a warhead of 300 kilograms (660 pounds), as well as component parts.
Blix's demand came after a panel of U.N. weapons experts concluded the Al-Samoud 2 missiles exceed the allowed range of 150 kilometers (93 miles).
``What is serious is Saddam Hussein's continued defiance of the United Nations Security Council. And on the very day that Hans Blix said there can be no negotiations over the destruction of his Al-Samoud missiles, Saddam Hussein again refuses to even acknowledge that the missiles are (in violation of) the U.N. resolutions,'' said McClellan.
``It is, yet again, further evidence that Saddam Hussein has not and will not disarm,'' the spokesman said.
The comments came as the United States and its allies circulated a draft resolution widely seen as paving the way for military action.
Ford calls its high-tech system "visual engineering.?
Pieces are created in hours instead of weeks and months.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) _ The United Nations on Wednesday reduced its estimate of the (global) population in 2050 by 400 million, primarily because of the prolonged and worsening impact of the AIDS epidemic and lower than expected birth rates.
(At the dawn of the new Millennium), the U.N. Population Division forecast that 9.3 billion people would (inhabit) the Earth at mid-century but a new revision of the estimate projects a lower population of 8.9 billion.
About half the 400 million drop in the projected population is a result of an expected increase in the number of deaths, primarily from AIDS, the forecast said.
The other half is due to a reduction in the projected number of births, primarily as a result of lower expected (fertility rates) in the future.
``For the first time, the United Nations Population Division projects that future fertility levels in most developing countries will likely fall below 2.1 children per woman, the level needed to ensure the long-term replacement of the population, at some point in the 21st century,'' said the forecast.
By 2050, it projects that three out of four countries in less developed regions will have fertility levels below replacement levels.
The 2002 Revision,'' confirms key conclusions from previous revisions about population growth.
Despite expectations of lower fertility levels and increased death risks, global population is still expected to increase from 6.3 billion today to 8.9 billion in 2050, it said.
The Population Division warned, however, that the latest projections depend on ensuring that couples have access to family planning and that efforts to halt the current spread of the HIV/AIDS epidemic are successful.
If fertility in all countries remained at current levels, it said, ``the total population of the globe could more than double by 2050, reaching 12.8 billion.''
But based on the new estimates, the forecast predicts that the population of more developed regions, currently at 1.2 billion, will (change little) during the next 50 years.
Thirty-three countries are projected to be smaller at mid-century than today _ Japan losing 14 percent of its population, Italy 22 percent of its population, and Bulgaria, Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, Russia and Ukraine between 30 and 50 percent of their populations.
(By contrast) in less developed regions, the population is projected to rise steadily from 4.9 billion in 2000 to 7.7 billion in 2050, according to the forecast.
The populations of Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Somalia, Uganda and Yemen, are projected to quadruple because of expected annual growth rates of more than 2.5 percent between 2000 and 2050, it said.
In the most (populous) countries, large population increases are expected even if fertility levels are projected to be low.
Between 2000 and 2050, the forecast said eight countries are expected (to account for) half the world's projected population increase _ India, Pakistan, Nigeria, the United States, China, Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Congo.
The 2002 Revision indicates a worsening of the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic (in terms of) disease, deaths and population loss.
In the current decade, 46 million people are expected to die of AIDS in the 53 most affected countries, ``and that figure is projected to ascend to 278 million by 2050,'' the forecast said.
The deeper reductions in fertility rates projected in the new forecast will result in the faster ageing of the population in developing countries, it said.
Globally, the number of people over 60 years old will nearly triple from 606 million in 2000 to nearly 1.9 billion by 2050, the forecast said.
``Whereas 6 of every 10 of those older persons live today in less developed regions, by 2050, 8 of every 10 will do so,'' it said.
One study found that vaccination not only protected day-care children against the flu but appeared to protect their non-vaccinated siblings as well, presumably because of reduced exposure to the bug at home.
who are known to be at increased risk of infections
During the 1996-97 flu season, half of 149 children at 10 day-care centers in San Diego were vaccinated.
Results showed that the vaccine was 45 percent effective.
Another study of healthy adult workers at one company also showed that administration of the vaccine resulted in fewer illnesses.
Carolyn Buxton Bridges, a medical epidemiologist at the influenza branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, reported on a flu-vaccine program involving healthy adult employees ages 18 to 64 at the Ford Motor Co.
During the 1997-98 and 1998-99 flu seasons, nearly 1,200 participants each year were given the flu shot.
Because the flu vaccine given in the first season did not match well with the influenza strains circulating at that time, vaccinated employees did not experience fewer illnesses than workers who were not vaccinated.
Overall, 1 percent of vaccinated workers got sick, compared with 10 percent of the unvaccinated group.
Yet the inoculation program did not result in an overall savings to the company because the expense of the vaccinations was greater than the savings in preventing disease and keeping employees on the job.
Flu shots are not generally recommended for healthy people in either of these age groups because they have a low risk of developing life-threatening illnesses.
And with the flu vaccine in shorter supply this year than before, doctors are emphasizing that the shots be offered first to the elderly and other high-risk individuals.
MOSCOW (AP) _ The typewritten letters on a yellowing page (spell out) the end of an era in striking (shorthand).
Next to the time _ 9:50 p.m., March 5, 1953 _ is just a brief entry:
So ends a medical report detailing Josef Stalin's last four days, as he lay dying in his Moscow (dacha).
It is part of a new exhibit at Russia's federal archives, whose officials hope it will help dispel decades of speculation that the Soviet dictator (was done in) by a Kremlin intrigue.
If mysteries about Stalin's demise persist, they are dwarfed by the conflicting views and emotions that surround his life _ and his role in the troubled history of a country that seems unable to break his spell 50 years after his death.
``There may be no other figure in Russian history of the last century who has provoked such different evaluations, from fierce hatred to consecration,'' said historian Yuri Polyakov, a member of the prestigious Russian Academy of Sciences.
For some, Stalin was a giant who bore the Soviet Union on his shoulders to victory in World War II, hauled it onto the front line of the industrial age and kept ironclad order at home while turning the country into a superpower with (the clout) to make its Cold War foes shudder.
``He was the best _ as a chief, as a leader. He lifted the country out of the ruins,'' said Natalya Vekshina, 64, who took her grandson to a separate exhibit, across town, focusing on Stalin's cult of personality _ the propaganda that portrayed him simultaneously as a god and a good guy.
``We need a leader like him now,'' Vekshina said.
Larisa Tsvizhba, at the archive exhibit, disagreed.
She said Stalin left a ``sinister mark'' on the Soviet Union and (stunted) its growth by decimating a generation.
``When millions of people die for no apparent reason _ the best people _ what kind of progress can there be?''
Russian officials have said they believe more than 20 million people were victims of communist purges before Stalin's death.
More than 10 million are said to have died.
Like many of Stalin's ardent admirers, Vekshina is from a generation that mostly suffered from the Soviet collapse.
She lost her engineering job, while her scientist husband is ``a big man in his field _ but now he's impoverished.''
But it's not only the elderly who (yearn for) Stalin's strong hand.
``He is the symbol of a healthy nation,'' said Alexei Fedyakin, 27, a (political science) graduate student who came to see the ``Stalin: Man and Symbol'' exhibit and wrote a diatribe in the visitors' book complaining about material showing Stalin in a bad light.
Those items _ records of executions, and artwork depicting Stalin holding the keys to a prison cell stretching across the Soviet Union _ reflect (the backlash) that came in two waves, one soon after his death and another in the late 1980s, with Mikhail Gorbachev's (glasnost).
In 1956, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev denounced Stalin's (cult of personality), and his body was removed from its place next to Lenin in the Red Square (mausoleum) in 1961.
But it was buried nearby, alongside the Kremlin wall, and much of the truth about Stalin's excesses did not emerge until the Gorbachev era.
The sharp criticism of Stalin that (held sway) as the Soviet Union collapsed waned along with the (euphoria) of Russians hoping for a swift, smooth transition to democracy.
Stalin's star has brightened for those angered by lawlessness, economic uncertainty and their country's decline on the world stage.
Oleg Orlov, head of (the human rights) organization Memorial, said that frustration helped fuel the rise of President Vladimir Putin, a former KGB colonel who has restored some Soviet-era symbols and has been careful in his criticism of Stalin.
``Putin arrived on this wave _ on promises of stability and pride for one's country as a great power, and of a restoration of order _ and a major part of this ideology was pride in the past,'' Orlov said.
According to poll results by the Public Opinion Foundation last week, 37 percent said Stalin did more good than bad for the country _ compared to 29 percent who believe the opposite.
The organization contacted 1,500 respondents across Russia on Feb.
No margin of error was given.
In the visitors' book at the ``Man and Symbol'' exhibit, one person mused:
``I wonder, will our country live to see the moment when Stalin is perceived as an ordinary person, instead of as either the devil incarnate or the Father of the Peoples?''
The power of Stalin's personality and the scale of the suffering that marked his rule suggest that's unlikely to happen anytime soon.
On one wall in the exhibit stands a large (diorama) presented to Stalin on his 70th birthday, in 1949.
Inside, a row of dolls marches in Red Square, bearing a banner reading ``Thank you, Comrade Stalin, for our happy childhood.''
Under glass in another room is a book listing victims of Stalin's terror.
Polyakov, the historian, said there is one thing he has never really figured out about Stalin:
why he killed so many people.
``There's no answer,'' he said.
Slated for release in Spring, 2001, Black & White is the work of Lionhead Studios, the new developing house founded by PC gaming legend Peter Molyneux.
The creator of such games as Populous, Syndicate, Magic Carpet, Theme Park, and Dungeon Keeper, he is one of the few ambidextrous game designers.
Molyneux, who is busily finishing the final stages of Black & White, took a few minutes to discuss his latest creation with us.
Here is what he had to say:
You are working on a Game Boy version of Black &
The PC version is designed to take the online portion
into account, but the game itself is absolutely
designed to be a single-player game.
The creatures are independent of the player?
What is really fascinating is that you can take a
creature, one single life, and you can decide what
completely and utterly yours.
You decide what this
There are three simple ways that you teach your
The second way that he learns is much more
His personality develops just like a child's
personality develops, by watching you play the game.
The third way he learns is by you putting this leash on
TAIPEI (AP) _ Pipi's eyes bulge fiercely when strangers approach the Chihuahua dog in the (cramped) clothing store where her owner works.
But Pipi doesn't bark.
Her owner, Chen Sheng-hua, suspects the rescued (stray's) (vocal cords) (were snipped).
``When she opens her mouth, nothing comes out,'' Chen says.
Animal rights activists say they frequently find (mute) dogs that apparently (have been dumped) by illegal breeders, who are having trouble selling animals in Taiwan's slow economy.
In a crowded place like this island, where most people live in apartments or in densely populated towns, unlicensed breeders are tempted to cut dogs' vocal cords to keep them from disturbing neighbors and attracting the attention of authorities, the activists say.
``The mute dog problem is like the stray animal problem, a result of wrong policies,'' activist Shen Jung-chen says.
Animal rights groups say the authorities waited too long before (taking steps) aimed at (holding down) a big rise in the numbers of stray dogs, such as (neutering) dogs and registering pets.
Activists have also criticized the public for buying cute little dogs and then dumping them on the streets when they grow big and old.
Veterinarian Chen Chia-chun says it's extremely rare for dogs to be born mute.
He suspects Pipi lost her vocal cords in a new surgical procedure that doesn't leave a scar.
``In the past, operations to remove a dog's vocal cords left a mark on the outside of the animal's throat,'' the doctor says. ``But now vets go straight into its throat through the mouth and remove the vocal cords from the inside.''
The operation is not without risk, he adds.
The cutting away of the vocal cords leaves an animal with a higher risk of infection.
Chen says he was asked (by phone) to perform such an operation once, but (turned it down).
Sometimes people (pick up) strays to raise at home, but then neighbors complain about the noise, leaving the new owners with the choice of either dumping the dog on the street again or silencing it.
However, Shen, the animal rights activist, argues private breeders are responsible for nearly all cases rather than traditional pet owners.
Individuals begin breeding dogs at home for profit, Shen says.
But because they fear neighbors will complain to the police, the breeders have the animals' vocal cords cut.
If the illegal breeders think capture is near, they dump the animals in the streets, Shen says.
``Only about 30 out of 300 private dog breeders are registered,'' Shen says, adding that pushing for their compulsory registration is one of her group's priorities.
In an isolated valley south of Taipei, the air is thick with the smell of (feces) produced by about 850 dogs living in a shelter run by volunteers.
There are rows of cages, some sheltered by (corrugated) metal roofs.
Pairs of muddy dogs share each cage, and most of them begin barking as soon as they see visitors.
(Mutts) are mixed in with English sheepdogs, beagles, Dalmatians and other pure breeds.
One volunteer, Yang Hsiang, says that out of the 500 dogs she's responsible for, more than a dozen are mutes, including four that were picked up together.
There could be more but finding them is difficult because they're drowned out by the deafening barks of hundreds of dogs.
One of the mutes is Nana, a shepherd mix with long ears and long bushy tail.
She succeeds in uttering a sound, but it's only a hoarse croak, not the bark or yelp of a big healthy dog.
Yang is worried about the dogs because their numbers continue to multiply while donations are (dwindling).
Many Taiwanese (are reluctant) (to euthanize) dogs because it violates their Buddhist beliefs.
``The people who bring the dogs are also responsible for paying for the food,'' she says, ``but as Taiwan's economy has gone into decline, donations are drying up.''
The portents of this disarray were there from the start.
Expropriations and house demolitions proceeded inexorably through the Rabin, Peres, Netanyahu and Barak administrations, along with the expansion and multiplication of settlements, military occupation continuing and every tiny step taken toward Palestinian sovereignty stymied, delayed, canceled at Israel's will.
This method was politically and strategically absurd.
Occupied East Jerusalem was placed out of bounds by a bellicose Israeli campaign to decree the divided city off-limits to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza and to claim it as Israel's "eternal, undivided capital."
The 4 million Palestinian refugees were told that they could forget about return or compensation.
With his own corrupt and repressive regime supported by both Israel's Mossad and the CIA, Yasir Arafat had to rely on U.S. mediation, even though the U.S. negotiating team was dominated by former Israeli lobby officials and a president who showed no understanding of the Arab-Islamic world.
Behind the peace process were two unchanging Israeli/American presuppositions, both of them derived from a startling incomprehension of reality.
Second, after seven years of steadily worsening economic and social conditions for Palestinians everywhere, Israeli and U.S. policy-makers persisted in trumpeting their successes, excluding the United Nations and other interested parties, bending the partisan media to their wills, distorting the actuality into ephemeral victories for "peace."
Isolated in the United Nations and unloved everywhere in the Arab world as Israel's unconditional champion, the United States and its lame-duck president have little to contribute.
Neither does the Arab and Israeli leadership, even though they are likely to cobble up another interim agreement.
The slaughter of Palestinian youths goes on while the U.S. officials back Israeli brutality or express disappointment at Palestinian ingratitude.
Worst of all are the U.S. media, cowed by the fearsome Israeli lobby, with commentators and anchors spinning distorted reports about "crossfire" and "Palestinian violence" that eliminate the fact that Israel is in military occupation and that Palestinians are fighting it.
While the United States celebrates the Serbian people's victory over Milosevic, Clinton and his aides refuse to see the Palestinian insurgency as the same kind of struggle against injustice.
BEIJING (AP) _ With China's next leaders listening, (outgoing) Premier Zhu Rongji convened the country's largely toothless legislature on March 5 and (outlined) the new generation's top goal _ helping the hundreds of millions of people that years of economic boom and wrenching change have left behind.
The National People's Congress is due to take the next step in a transfer of power to a younger generation.
On the agenda for the 2,984 delegates is the appointment of a successor to 76-year-old President Jiang Zemin.
His job is almost certain to Hu Jintao, 60, who (took over) in November as Communist Party general secretary _ though Jiang will stay on in a key military post and many expect he will continue to play a powerful role in Chinese politics.
The party views China's enduring poverty as both a social crisis and a possible threat to its power.
Leaders worry that rising anger about corruption, stagnant incomes among the 800 million people in the countryside and a growing gap between rich and poor could turn volatile.
Zhu, 75, who is set to retire after the congress, made that focus (explicit) in his 90-minute address.
He called for prosperity to be spread to rural China. Jobs should be created and a social safety net for the poor, he said.
``We should continue to take developing agriculture and the rural economy and increasing farmers' income as the top priority of our economic work,'' Zhu said, reading from his 55-page report before a backdrop of red flags.
State television broadcast his comments nationwide.
Nearly a decade (in the making), the generational shift to a cadre of carefully (groomed) party men could become the first (orderly) transfer of power in China's communist history.
``They are more cultured, more knowledgeable, they know more about the world, they have more political experience and they are younger,'' said Shanghai delegation member Chen Chuanwei, sipping tea outside the auditorium where Zhu spoke.
``They are very appropriate to bring us into the new century,'' Chen said.
Outside, security forces (ringed) the building and closed adjacent Tiananmen Square to pedestrians.
The square became a mammoth parking lot for buses that (disgorged) delegates in (finery) ranging from smartly tailored suits of Hong Kong business executives to traditional robes of ethnic Tibetans.
Zhu also (called for) more radical capitalist-style reform, more opening of China's markets to foreign competition and the closure of inefficient companies _ steps bound (to inflict) still more pain.
He said China should ``deepen economic restructuring and open still wider to the outside world,'' creating companies that compete in the global market and (taking advantage of) its 2001 membership in the free-trading World Trade Organization.
Zhu said the government is aiming for 7 percent economic growth this year.
That is the minimum that Chinese officials say they need to create jobs for new workers and millions of others (laid off) in the overhaul of state industry.
The emphasis on rural development is a fundamental shift for the party after years focused on building up export-driven industry that brought in hundreds of billions of dollars of investment.
Officials (have unveiled) ambitious development plans for Tibet, Xinjiang and other remote, impoverished areas, many of them populated by (restive) ethnic minorities.
But with Beijing already running a big budget deficit, many are waiting to see how much it can afford to spend on those efforts in the budget due to be unveiled during the congress.
Other duties for the congress include naming a successor to Zhu, who is expected to hand over his post as China's top economic official to Wen Jiabao, a longtime protege.
After a new president is named, the lone leadership (holdout) will be Jiang himself, who still has his most powerful post as chairman of the party commission that runs China's military.
It isn't clear when Jiang plans (to give up) that post, but it too is expected eventually to go to Hu, already his deputy on the panel.
Xu Genqu, part of the 268-member People's Liberation Army delegation to the congress, said Jiang should (stay on) (atop) the parallel government military commission.
``This is a very good thing for maintaining the stability of our country, and the stable development of the military,'' Xu said. ``We hope he will remain there for a while.''
Sledge Taylor, 48, began farming 25 years ago in Como, Mississippi.
There were about 20 farmers in town.
Now he's one of two.
This is a scenario being repeated in rural communities all over the country.
Department of Labor, despite the fact that the country's agricultural exports are expected to grow.
Farming careers are drying up as surely as sun-parched crops in this year's drought in the Southeast.
Between 1978 and 1998, some 300,000 farms evaporated from the American landscape.
Corporate "factory farms" dominate the farm landscape in the United States today.
Farmers' fortunes have waned for many reasons, some of them complex.
As with other industries in the United States, agriculture has seen consolidation.
It has affected everything from machinery manufacturers to seed companies.
Fewer choices at higher prices for farming necessities.
Congress in 1995 has also hurt farmers.
This legislation phased out farm subsidies, while giving farmers more latitude in deciding what crops and how much acreage to use.
A farmer's income can fluctuate wildly because of droughts and floods, the price of farm equipment and other factors that affect the amount and quality of his products and the demand for them.
The median weekly income of a farmer in 1998 was $447, a little more than $23,000 a year, according to the Department of Labor.
That's about the same wage as can be made by the average forklift operator.
A family farmer has a lot more responsibilities, however, than a forklift operator.
If he grows crops, he must till, plant, fertilize, spray, harvest.
An older farmer may be working the land or growing livestock the same way he's done it for 30 years.
Those methods may have been taught to him by his father and grandfather.
But they may not be enough to survive in the 21st century.
Another strategy is something called "community supported agriculture".
Consumers buy shares of a harvest prior to the planting, freeing the farmer from assuming all the financial risks.
"Each investor has got a piece of that crop," says Ted Quaday, program director for Farm Aid, headquartered in Somerville, Massachusetts.
"We think it's a great system.
Organic farming may also offer promise, especially to younger farmers.
The average age of organic farmers is late 30s, Quaday says.
"And because of environmental degradation, aquaculture is growing in order to meet the demand."
Taylor, a Mississippi farmer is cautiously optimistic that in the long-term, family farmers will rebound.
NEW YORK (AP) _ What caused much of Broadway (to go dark) as contract negotiations between (theater) producers and striking (musicians) (collapsed), silencing (virtually) every (musical)?
No negotiations were planned on March 8, and each side met privately with its own members to assess the situation.
But both sides couldn't even (agree on) what they were talking about.
The union insists the fight to keep minimums _ the number of musicians required for each show _ is part of a larger battle to preserve live music on Broadway.
The League of American Theatres and Producers see it in terms of artistic freedom, hiring only the musicians they say they need.
And as musicians became convinced the so-called virtual orchestras, computer-generated music brought in to replace them, wouldn't work well, they hardened their position on minimums and (walked out) Friday.
What producers didn't expect was that actors and (stagehands) would refuse to cross their (picket lines).
Originally producers proposed the number of musicians required for the large Broadway theaters be reduced to seven, a figure they later raised to 14 and most recently to 15.
The minimums at those large theaters currently range from 24 to 26.
Eighteen musicals, from ``Hairspray'' to ``The Producers'' to ``The Lion King,'' are dark through Sunday and possibly beyond, the first (shutdown) of shows in more than 25 years.
Shutting down these 18 shows has cost about $1.2 million per performance in terms of lost box-office revenue, or nearly $5 million for all four performances this weekend, according to Bernstein.
Picketing (took place) again Saturday in front of theaters before what would have been matinee performances.
Backstreet Boy Kevin Richardson stood with musicians in front of ``Chicago,'' in which he plays shady lawyer Billy Flynn, while two stars of ``The Producers,'' Brad Oscar and Gary Beach, were at the St. James Theatre with orchestra players from their show.
``I think we're all surprised and disappointed _ it's not good for anybody,'' a glum Oscar said.
Outside the Palace Theater on 47th Street, home to ``Aida,'' musicians played ``On Broadway'' as protesters gathered.
Later Saturday afternoon, musicians carried a black casket and signs reading ``Don't let producers kill Broadway'' during a march up Times Square.
``We are trying to let people know that we need live music in these shows,'' said Warren Oates, a drummer with ``Thoroughly Modern Millie.''
The strike boosted business for those productions, primarily plays, that are still open.
The revival of ``Cabaret,'' the one Broadway musical unaffected by the strike because it operates under a special contract, had 50 people in line Saturday morning when its box office opened.
The show was expected (to sell out) throughout the weekend.
Business was also strong at ``Take Me Out,'' the Richard Greenberg baseball drama.
The union has been aggressive in (courting) (public opinion) _ producing audiences surveys saying that theatergoers don't want (canned music) (a term the producers hate), (enlisting) the support of Broadway composers such as Jerry Herman and John Kander, and having performers such as Patty Duke and Audra McDonald do (radio commercials) in support of the musicians.
They were helped by the fact that actors disliked rehearsing with the virtual orchestras.
``We're artists and a machine is a dead thing,'' said Harvey Fierstein, star of ``Hairspray.''
One day after sounding an alert, astronomers said additional data had eliminated any chance that a recently discovered space object would collide with Earth in 2030.
The revised forecast shows the object passing no closer than 3 million miles.
The faint object, dubbed 2000 SG344, was the first celestial body to merit a rating higher than zero on the zero-to-10 Torino scale of impact threats.
That may sound like a slight chance by terrestrial standards, but it was a biggie for asteroid-watchers.
But even more "prediscovery" data on SG344 came in from the Catalina Sky Survey.
That gave scientists such a good idea of the object's orbit that they could see it would miss Earth in 2030.
He said there was still a risk of collision in the 2071-73 time frame.
However, additional observations of SG344 between now and then could rule out even those possibilities, he said.
Based on its brightness, astronomers are guessing that the object is 30 to 70 meters wide.
The upper end of that range would put SG344 on the level of the Tunguska Meteorite, which flattened a wide swath of Siberian forest in 1908.
compared with a 20,000-ton yield for the Hiroshima atomic bomb.
_ (Cuddling) may be good medicine for the heart.
A brief hug and 10 minutes of handholding with a romantic partner greatly reduce the harmful physical effects of stress, according to a study reported over the weekend at the American Psychosomatic Society meeting here.
Loving contact before a tough day (at work) ``could (carry over) and protect you throughout the day,'' says psychologist Karen Grewen with the (School) of Medicine at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
In the study, 100 adults with spouses or long-term partners were told to hold hands while (viewing) a pleasant 10-minute video, then asked to hug for 20 seconds.
Another group of 85 rested quietly without their partners.
Then all participants spoke for a few minutes about a recent event that made them angry or stressed.
Typically, asking people to revisit these scenes (drives up) heart rate and (blood pressure).
Their systolic (upper) (reading) jumped 24 points, more than double the rise for huggers, and their diastolic (lower) also rose significantly higher.
Heart rate increased 10 beats a minute for those without contact compared with five beats a minute for huggers.
This is the latest of many studies suggesting humans are ``hard-wired'' to thrive as social animals, says Tiffany Field of the Touch Research Institute at the University of Miami Medical School.
Field's research shows touch lowers output of cortisol, a stress hormone.
When cortisol dips, there's (a surge) of two ``feel good'' brain chemicals, serotonin and dopamine.
Her studies in U.S. and Parisian cafes show that French couples spend about three times as much time touching as Americans.
Comforting physical contact is out of favor among friends and co-workers because of the legal climate, she says.
``If you happen to touch someone at the fax machine, you (run the risk) of being sued.''
Some studies have indicated that touch among friends might be helpful but doesn't produce nearly as much physical stress relief as contact with a partner, says psychologist Kathleen Light, co-author of the UNC study.
The findings suggest one reason that isolated, lonely people tend to have poorer health, says Ohio State University psychologist Janice Kiecolt-Glaser.
Although ours is a youth-oriented culture, older adults may benefit most from touch, she says.
``The older you are, the more fragile you are physically, so contact becomes increasingly important for good health.''
There is one critical part of the financial system which receives far less attention than it deserves:
Over the past 10 years, venture capital has grown far faster than any other financial instrument, soaring from about $5 billion a year to an annual rate of over $100 billion in the first half of 2000.
Combined with the proceeds from initial public offerings (IPOs), this astonishing sum of money flowing to new companies is fueling much of the demand for new computers and telecom equipment, supporting the dot.com advertising boom, and supercharging the labor market for tech workers.
Even more important, by financing the rapid movement of new ideas and new business models into the market, venture capital is dramatically accelerating the rate of technological change.
That makes venture capital a prime support for the innovation and productivity gains which have characterized the New Economy.
Indeed, the lack of an American-style venture capital system is one of the main reasons why countries such as France, Germany, and Japan have lagged behind the U.S. economically in recent years.
But there's a downside.
The new importance of venture capital and IPOs mean that the New Economy, unlike the Old Economy, is subject to tech booms and tech busts.
During the good years, a buoyant financial market makes it easy to find financing for innovative new companies.
And the success of these companies, in turn, pushes the stock market higher.
Technological innovation and financial gains feed on each other.
When the stock market starts to sag, that makes it less profitable to take new companies public.
Venture capital funds, no longer showing big returns, invest less money.
The same forces which helped drive the New Economy could help push it down.
As companies slow down the rate at which they introduce new computer and communication systems, they will need fewer information technology workers, turning the current shortages in the current tech labor market into a surplus.
The pain will hit many of the people who prospered during the high-tech boom.
Scientists in Italy have discovered 350,000-year-old tracks that may be the oldest known footprints made by Stone Age man.
The prints were made by three early, upright-walking humans as they descended the treacherous side of a volcano _ perhaps to escape an eruption, researchers reported in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.
Other scientists said that while the prints appear well-preserved, they add little to knowledge about human evolution, since footprints of far older human ancestors have been found.
But they said the tracks are still a sobering testament to long-ago journeys across a harsh terrain.
One of the footprint trails zigzags to find the safest path down the steep incline.
Another includes handprints someone left as he steadied himself in a precarious spot, only to slide a short way down the slope.
"You're looking at an event that happened 350,000 years ago _ someone made an imprint on a surface, walking in a way you'd expect to see someone in these same conditions walk today," said Owen Lovejoy, an anthropologist at Kent State University who was not involved in the research.
"It adds another cog in the connect between ourselves and our ancestors."
Who left the 56 footprints is not clear.
But their discoverers suggest either late Homo erectus or Homo heidelbergensis _ two early human species found in Europe during the Paleolithic era, also known as the Stone Age.
Footprints left by the upright-walking, prehuman species Australopithecus afarensis were found in 1977 in Tanzania, imprinted in volcanic mud 3.6 million years old _ making them 10 times older than the new discovery.
"The bottom line is that these are interesting curiosities that do not advance our knowledge of what happened when in human evolution," said Tim White, a University of California paleontologist who co-discovered the most famous Australopithecus fossil, dubbed Lucy, in Ethiopia in 1974.
The more recent tracks were found in southern Italy's rugged Roccamonfina volcano complex, north of present-day Naples.
The footprints' makers were short _ just under 5 feet tall _ based on the prints' size of less than 8 inches in length, the researchers said.
The trails were left by three individuals who walked across a cooled but recent volcanic flow of rock fragments, ash and gases.
A short time later, the volcano erupted again, blanketing the footprints with a thick layer of ash that preserved them for the ages, said Paolo Mietto of the University of Padua, Italy.
The tracks show that their owners were descending, not climbing, he said.
"The idea that these humans were escaping an eruption ... is attractive, and is supported by the fact that all tracks have the same direction, outwards from the volcano's main crater," Mietto said.
Local residents had long known of the footprints, and referred to them and animal tracks preserved near the volcano as "devils' trails."
Mietto said the prints are unmistakably human in origin, as some preserve the foot's plantar arch and individual toe prints.
John Klensin, a member of the standard-setting Internet Engineering Task Force and chairman of the Internet Architecture Board urged strict adherence to established processes for developing and testing new Internet-wide standards.
VeriSign has authorized 24 companies to participate in its test of registering Internet addresses using non-English characters.
Registration began last week and tens of thousands of names already have been registered.
VeriSign and the other companies are only registering names in Chinese, Japanese and Korean characters and adding them to a database.
Web sites associated with those names will not actually appear in browsers until a later stage in testing.
"I'm very concerned that no one is interested in a controlled test.
We're doing experimental surgery on a live patient."
Other critics say that because the Internet still lacks standards for non-English characters, efforts like VeriSign's are premature.
Computers on the Internet that help users find Web sites were programmed with English in mind, and the engineers who try to keep order on the Net say many of those machines will not understand new languages without software upgrades.
They say tens of thousands of such machines, known as domain name servers, need to be updated.
Until that happens, Web surfers could be blocked from many sites, experts say.
ABOARD THE USS CARL VINSON (AP) _ With war planes lining its deck, a U.S. aircraft carrier anchored off South Korea on Saturday and showed off its military might while North Korea warned that the massing of U.S forces in the region increases the danger of nuclear conflict.
Pyongyang's main state-run daily newspaper Rodong Sinmun said Saturday, ``the U.S. can attack the DPRK any moment,'' using the initials for North Korea's official name, Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
``The U.S. seeks to round off its preparations for a nuclear war against the DPRK at its final phase and mount a pre-emptive nuclear attack on it any time,'' it added.
Pyongyang has objected to joint U.S. -South Korea military exercises, named Foal Eagle, which began early this month and will continue till April 2, saying they are a rehearsal for invasion.
Meanwhile, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun told his military Saturday to prepare in case North Korea attempts minor provocations to show hostility during the military exercises, South Korean news agency Yonhap said.
Roh's office could not immediately confirm the report.
Wren said the U.S. warship was here ``as a show of solidarity'' with South Korea and to provide a ``deterrence.''
``Certainly our presence in the region is not in direct response on North Korea, but certainly our presence can also be an influence,'' he said.
Donald P. Quinn, commander of Carrier Air Wing Nine, said ``there are greater tensions, which means we have to be better at what we do.''
The carrier has 70 aircraft, a fleet of supporting warships and more than 5,000 sailors and marines.
On Saturday, the carrier was moored just outside the breakwater of Pusan harbor on South Korea's southeast coast.
The forces were joined by six U.S.
Some time in the next few days, the Carl Vinson plans to steam up the coast to support a landing exercise by U.S. and South Korean marines near the port of Pohang, where U.S. troops landed for the 1950-53 Korean War.
On the other hand, about 2,000 students and activists opposing a possible U.S. war against Iraq marched through downtown Seoul.
They also accused Washington of heightening tensions on the Korean Peninsula by refusing to directly deal with North Korea.
In recent weeks, North Korea has escalated tensions by test-firing two short-range missiles and intercepting a U.S. reconnaissance plane off the country's east coast.
Meanwhile, in Berkeley, California, North Korea's U.N. ambassador met with officials from South Korea, the United States, China, Japan and the European Union for talks aimed at allaying tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
However, no one was appearing as an official representative of a country.
``We are having a very lively discussion,'' said Yoshinobu Yamamoto, a University of Tokyo professor and co-chair of the conference.
The Japanese government, meanwhile, has said it is considering strengthening its missile defenses amid reports that North Korea is preparing to test a medium-range missile capable of reaching Japan.
South Korea's military, however, said Saturday it did not believe North Korea was preparing to test-fire its ballistic missiles.
Tokyo's announcement came a day after Japan's Defense Agency said it had deployed an Aegis-equipped destroyer _ which includes top-of-the-line surveillance systems and ship-to-air missiles _ in the waters between Japan and North Korea.
Japan's Kyodo news agency reported Friday that the government was considering sending two more Aegis-equipped destroyers to the waters in response to the possible threat.
The Korean nuclear crisis flared in October, when U.S. officials said Pyongyang admitted having a uranium program. Washington and its allies suspended fuel shipments;
the North retaliated by expelling U.N. monitors, withdrawing from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and restarting a nuclear reactor that had been mothballed for years under U.N. seal.
Labelling the commercial sexual exploitation of children a 'form of terrorism', the United Nations child welfare agency (UNICEF) has called for a global effort to stamp out the trade.
The conference kicks off where the first congress finished five years ago in Stockholm, Sweden, and with child pornography, trafficking and prostitution on the increase the task has become no easier.
Japanese Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka at the conference called for "resolute and immediate action" across the globe to combat child sex trade.
She told Reuters that "commercial sexual exploitation of children was a grave violation of their human rights."
The meeting comes on the heels of a recent UNICEF report on the commercial sexual exploitation of children "Profiting from Abuse" that provides a barrage of statistics and testimonials from victims.
The report says that in Pakistan, based on reported cases alone, a woman or child is raped on average every three hours.
"From the brothels of Bangkok to the sidewalks of Manila, the train stations of Moscow to the truck routes of Tanzania, the suburbs of New York to the beaches of Mexico, the outrageous is commonplace," the report said.
UNICEF says it is trying to address the underlying causes of child sexual abuse by working to improve access to and quality of education, raising awareness, and advocating for children's rights.
The United Nations says one million children are drawn into prostitution annually.
It estimates that 100,000 children and women in the Philippines, 400,000 in India, 100,000 in Taiwan, 200,000 in Thailand are subject to commercial sexual exploitation in the region.
BEIJING (AP) _ Promoting China's future and his own, new premier Wen Jiabao promised principled, committed leadership on March 18 and said his country must continue its path of reform and elevate rural living standards to keep the future bright.
``Governing China is a project that is extremely demanding. Only by reform, opening up and implementing socialism with Chinese characteristics can we build a more modern, prosperous China,'' Wen said at his debut news conference in the Great Hall of the People.
Wen, 61, was appointed on March 16 and took office immediately, taking charge of an economy that is jerking forward in fits and starts after two decades of economic restructuring started by the late Deng Xiaoping.
He turned to specifics quickly.
Industrial bases in the country's northeast, plagued by unemployment and factory shutdowns, must be tended to as well. Unhappiness among farmers and factory workers could pose real problems for China's communist leadership in its efforts to keep hold of power as it opens its economy to capitalist-style reforms.
Wen also sought to reassure foreign investors by saying private and public companies would receive identical treatment by the government.
``The government has set a firm policy to develop the nonpublic sectors,’’ Wen said.
Wen's appointment Sunday came as part of a generational leadership change that installed the Communist Party's general secretary, Hu Jintao, as president.
Outgoing President Jiang Zemin retained the chair of a powerful military commission _ and probable continuing influence for years.
Wen replaced Zhu Rongji, a crusty reformer who helped China extricate its economy from the 1997 Asian financial crisis.
``But I am also someone with principle, with determination, with the confidence and courage to take up responsibility.''
The state-controlled media have emphasized Wen's connection with ordinary people, showing him communing with wheat farmers, coal miners and rural flood victims.
Wen himself, in his first remarks, invoked that theme and underscored his focus on China's less fortunate.
That experience let me know keenly how hard life could be,'' said Wen, who worked as a geologist in China's hardscrabble Gansu province.
``But that experience filled me with confidence,'' he said.
He praised Zhu and Jiang for their roles in China's recent reform and economic progress.
``Our predecessors have laid a good foundation for us,'' Wen said. ``Yet we still face numerous difficulties and problems ahead, which require innovation and creativity as we press on.''
For the past several years we have been hearing about the gargantuan amounts of wealth rapidly accumulated by tech superstars.
It took John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie a lifetime to become billionaires;
Jay Walker of Priceline.com, Pierre Omidyar of eBay, and Steve Case of America Online did it in less than five years.
What is new is neither affluence nor extravagance, but the number of rich people in America today.
The ranks of the rich have swelled so greatly that it is necessary to establish a new category, the super-rich, to distinguish between people who can afford to live very well and those whose spending habits are only limited by their imagination.
In 1980, if you had a net worth of $1 million you would be considered wealthy.
The term "millionaire" acquired its mystique at a time when the average American was making $10,000 to $12,000 a year.
Today to qualify as rich you need $1 million in annual income, or $10 million in net worth.
According to the Federal Reserve Board, some 250,000 households
But the big story is not about these people.
It is about the explosion in the ranks of the affluent class, the people who make more than $100,000 a year and have a net worth in excess of $1 million.
In 1980, there were fewer than 1 million American families that made, or had, this kind of money.
Today there are approximately 5 million families, or more than 15 million people who qualify.
All this new wealth has generated some interesting conflicts.
Recently, the Wall Street Journal published an article titled, "Even Leftists Have Servants Now."
It profiled several people, many of them college professors, who are for the first time making six-figure incomes.
These people have now hired gardeners, pool men, cooks, and nannies.
Most of these servants are blacks and Mexicans.
The contortions these academics go through to justify their behavior make for amusing reading.
Political scientist Mark Petracca, who teaches at the University of California at Irvine, says he finally agreed to get a nanny, but he absolutely refuses to hire a gardener, even though everybody else in his neighborhood has one.
Petracca says, "It reeks of a kind of imperial colonialism one can imagine present in Shanghai in 1920."
The night sky crackled with flashing light and anti-aircraft fire, reminiscent of the first Gulf War in 1991, as the Tomahawk cruise missiles began dropping on Baghdad once again.
But instead of widespread bombardment, specific targets _ the main presidential palace, the ministry building and Special Republican Guard strongholds _ were struck by the second wave of missiles.
The two buildings were hit almost simultaneously in a day bookended by morning and evening attacks.
The Iraqi military said four soldiers were killed and six others wounded in the day's strikes, during which it said a total 72 cruise missiles were fired.
The morning wave of missiles killed one other person _ apparently a Jordanian civilian _ and injured 14, the International Red Cross confirmed.
While Baghdad was quiet for the rest of the night, air raid sirens were heard before dawn in the key northern city of Mosul and, soon after, several large explosions were heard.
Meanwhile, in southern Iraq, allied forces rained artillery and rockets on Iraq forces and crossed the border from Kuwait.
Thursday night, Iraqi television announcers read a two-minute message from Saddam that mocked U.S. claims that Iraqis would welcome American invaders with open arms.
''God is greater, God is greater, and may the debased ones be accursed.''
In Baghdad, a witness reported seeing anti-aircraft artillery on the roof of the ministry building, which was burning as emergency vehicles rushed to the scene.
The fire was visible from across the river on the east bank of the Tigris.
On a cool, breezy Baghdad night, a thick plume of black smoke climbed into the sky, which was occasionally illuminated by red flares or tracer fire.
The presidential palace sits on the west side of the Tigris River, inside a vast area that stands as the official seat of power in Iraq but is rarely used by Saddam.
The Iraqi leader has access to dozens of palaces.
Three distinct locations in the center of Baghdad were smoking after apparently being bombed.
As dusk fell on that day, many of those left in Baghdad _ ordinarily a city of 5 million _ abandoned its normally bustling streets for the safety of their homes, shelters or the countryside, anticipating night attacks.
By 7:30 p.m. local time, there was hardly anyone on the streets and only a few cars speeding off.
Within 90 minutes, the squawk of air raid sirens filled the air and the second attack was under way.
Although longer in duration than the barrage that launched the war hours earlier, the bombing lasted barely 15 minutes, hardly on the scale of the 1991 bombings.
The blast of the air raid sirens resumed once again later, but there was no further attack.
F-14 and F-18 jets armed with missiles and bombs took off from the USS Theodore Roosevelt in the eastern Mediterranean; their targets were unknown.
Pentagon officials have described their war strategy as ``shock and awe,'' saying they planned to drop 10 times the bombs in the opening days of the air campaign in Iraq than they did in the first Gulf war.
Hundreds of armed members of Saddam's Baath party were hunkered down in the capital, waiting for the United States to unleash its full might, but there was no indication of when that might happen.
On Iraq Radio, a spokesman said that the first attack of the war had targeted Saddam's family home, as well as the homes of his two sons.
The spokesman condemned ``the missiles of the reckless criminal Bush and his lackeys.''
A survey of what people know about AIDS found that four out of 10 mistakenly believe it is possible to get the disease by sharing a drinking glass or being coughed or sneezed on by an infected person.
"It's scary that so many people are still so ignorant of what causes HIV/AIDS," said Marty Algaze, a spokesman for the Gay Men's Health Crisis.
"Almost 20 years into this epidemic, it's disturbing that people think you could still get it from casual contact."
About 40 percent of the more than 5,600 participants said it was very likely, somewhat likely or somewhat unlikely that HIV could be transmitted by sharing a glass.
"Very unlikely" and "impossible" were the other choices.
Forty-one percent said transmission is possible by being coughed or sneezed on by someone with the virus.
Between 800,000 and 900,000 Americans have been infected with HIV.
Melanie Thompson, founder of the AIDS Research Consortium of Atlanta, said the survey underscores that many people still consider AIDS a "gay disease" and "didn't bother to educate themselves about the facts."
Major rallies were held in Barcelona, where more than 500,000 people took to the streets, London, Montreal, New York, Paris, Rome, Washington and other major cities in the Middle East and Asia.
In Khartoum, a Sudanese student was fatally wounded as police tried to hold back hundreds of anti-American demonstrators from the U.S. embassy, police said.
In the Chilean capital, Santiago, a bomb exploded outside the branch of a U.S. bank in an act believed to be a protest against the war, police said.
There were also disturbances in New York and Oslo, reports said.
An anti-war protest outside the British embassy in Bahrain spilled over into clashes with police for a second day.
Two people were injured, according to witnesses, as protestors tried to break through a cordon and hurled three petrol bombs at the embassy garden.
In Barcelona, between 500,000 and 750,000 people, according to figures given by city hall and organizers, protested against the war, calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, one of the strongest pro-war allies of U.S.
Up to 250,000 people marched through central Madrid, according to organizers, pressing the same anti-war, anti-Aznar case.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair has also seen a dramatic fall in his popularity because of his support for Bush, and tens of thousands took part in a march through central London.
Police said there were fewer than the huge crowds seen at the last major peace rally, when London experienced its biggest ever street protest.
In the west of England, several thousand protesters converged on the RAF Fairford air force base, used by U.S.
B-52 bombers flying to Iraq, where they laid flowers at the main gate.
More than 100,000 anti-war protesters demonstrated in Rome, Milan and other cities in Italy, where the war has also been supported by the conservative government but is opposed by the public, according to polls.
More than 150,000 people filed through the streets of Paris and other French cities, organizers said.
Police said there were 90,000 in the French capital.
Some 150,000 Germans rallied across the country, police said.
About 30,000 Kurds marched in Frankfurt in solidarity with kinsmen in northern Iraq and Turkey.
Around 40,000 people attended a rally in Berlin to denounce a decision by the German government to allow U.S. aircraft to use German airspace and bases.
Dozens of young people clashed with police in Oslo during one demonstration.
About 200 people threw stones, eggs and other missiles at government buildings, police said.
When masked youths threw stones near the U.S. embassy, Norwegian riot police used tear gas to disperse militants and seven people were arrested.
In Greece, several thousand people took part in a rally which followed two straight days of demonstration which drew 150,000 and over 200,000 people.
There were up to 50,000 protesters in Vienna, according to organizers, and two government ministers joined thousands of Swedes in their calls for the protection of civilians in Iraq.
About 10,000 people gathered near the U.S. embassy in Copenhagen.
``I'm ashamed to be Danish,'' declared teacher Jacob Lundgaard.
The country's parliament has voted to back the U.S. stance, sending two warships to the Gulf.
In New York, tens of thousands of demonstrators marched from Broadway to Washington Square.
Media reports estimated up to 100,000 people.
Several dozen people were arrested after refused to go home and clashed with police at the end of the rally, police sources said.
In Washington, just a few thousand turned out for a rally outside the White House in Washington.
The president was at his Camp David retreat for the weekend.
In Montreal, organizers said 200,000 people took part in their anti-war rally. Police refused to give a figure.
More than 20,000 people demonstrated in Egypt.
In Cairo, university students burned American, British and Israeli flags and called for President Hosni Mubarak to send military support to Iraq.
In Gaza City, nearly 10,000 people demonstrated, mostly students from the Islamic University, carrying Hamas banners as a gesture of support for the main Palestinian Islamic movement, and Iraqi flags.
In Jakarta, capital of the world's most populous Muslim nation, 3,000 protestors picketed in front of the U.S. embassy before moving on to the nearby British embassy.
Peace protesters also staged rallies in predominantly Muslim Bangladesh and Pakistan.
You've planned a trip to Paris and can't wait to get to the City of Lights.
When you arrive, it's early morning in Paris, but your body feels like it's midnight back home.
While you desperately want to check out the Eiffel Tower, all you can think of is going to sleep.
The condition is fundamentally a brain problem that occurs when a person crosses time zones suddenly, which throws the brain's clock out of synch.
Veteran long-distance traveler Les Adams said he found his solution by applying the findings of a scientific study on jet lag to his own travel routine.
Adams said he was inspired by an article in the prestigious medical journal Science, in which researchers concluded that light behind the knees might be an effective way to treat jet lag.
He went to his local hardware store and purchased a couple of mag lights that he uses to shine light on the back of his knees during flights.
Although Adams' solution gets him a lot of attention during flights, the reasoning behind it may not be that farfetched.
The theory is that light hits the blood vessels behind the knee, which kicks off a chemical process that resets the brain's clock.
And while scientists need more studies before they endorse Adams' remedy, they do agree that the best way to reset the brain's clock to adjust to a new time zone is with light.
"The solution to jet lag... the ultimate solution, if you can do it, is total control of light and dark," says sleep physiologist Dr.
He recommends the use of an anti-jet lag device that travelers can set to receive a dose of light shining in their eyes while they're in flight.
For travelers who need to arrive at their destination ready for action, a jet-lag pill might be a good solution.
The pill is actually an over-the-counter vitamin B supplement known as NADH and marketed as ENADA.
NADH acts like a spark plug to create energy in cells that may translate into improved brain functions.
Even though it is not a stimulant, it may affect a person's alertness.
Operators shut down the Chernobyl nuclear power plant with the flip of a switch, closing the facility for good 14 years after it spawned the world's worst nuclear accident.
The simple procedure ended the long and troubled run of the facility that became a synonym for nuclear fears and the dangers of atomic power.
Ukraine President Leonid Kuchma gave the shutdown order from Kiev over a video linkup with the plant, located some 85 miles away.
3 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant," Kuchma said.
Within seconds, a dial showed the reactor's output dropping to zero.
The procedure went flawlessly, the plant reported.
The shutdown, which followed years of intense international pressure, should erase the danger of future accidents at the plant.
Yet Ukraine will suffer the effects of the 1986 Chernobyl accident for years to come:
Millions of its citizens are affected by radiation-related ailments.
The leaders of this former Soviet republic said they were undertaking a historic mission in closing down the last functioning reactor at Chernobyl.
"The world will become a safer place.
People will sleep in peace," Kuchma said during a ceremony to commemorate the shutdown.
The plant's last reactor, the one shut down last Thursday, was reactor No.
It is located in the same building as reactor No.
4, which exploded and caught fire on April 26, 1986, contaminating vast areas of Ukraine, Russia and Belarus and spewing a radioactive cloud over Europe.
The Kremlin tried to conceal the accident and delayed evacuation of people from nearby towns for days.
Firefighters and other workers who were the first at the destroyed reactor had little or no protection from radiation.
More than 4,000 cleanup workers have died since and 70,000 have been disabled by radiation in Ukraine alone.
About 3.4 million of Ukraine's 50 million people, including some 1.26 million children, are considered affected by Chernobyl.
Many Ukrainians, tired of living with radiation scares, were relieved at its closure.
to win the top Oscar and also took home the most trophies, six.
Its other awards were supporting actress for Catherine Zeta-Jones, and four technical honors including costume design and art direction.
World events sparked several emotional highlights, including Brody's tearful speech urging prayers for peace and an attack on U.S. President George W. Bush and the war by filmmaker Michael Moore, winner of the best-documentary Oscar for ``Bowling for Columbine.''
Small pins inspired by Picasso's ``Dove of Peace'' were visible on the lapels and dresses of some people in attendance.
Brody's victory was something of a surprise, as was the awarding of the best-director Oscar to Roman Polanski, also for ``The Pianist.''
Polanski, a Holocaust survivor himself in his native Poland, has been an exile from the United States since fleeing 25 years ago to avoid sentencing for having sex with a 13-year-old girl.
``The Pianist'' also won the adapted-screenplay award for Ronald Harwood, giving it a total of three, while Pedro Almodovar earned the original-screenplay prize for ``Talk to Her.''
``Chicago'' came in with a leading 13 nominations, followed by the crime epic ``Gangs of New York'' with 10.
But ``Gangs'' was shut out in every category, including best director, where Martin Scorsese was a sentimental favorite.
Once a Hollywood staple, musicals hit a critical peak 40 years ago with best-picture Oscar winners that included ``West Side Story,'' ``My Fair Lady'' and ``The Sound of Music.''
In ``Chicago,'' Zeta-Jones played a jailed vaudeville scamp scheming for celebrity after slaying her husband and sister.
Due to deliver her second child with husband and Oscar winner Michael Douglas in a few weeks, Zeta-Jones joined co-star and fellow supporting-actress nominee Queen Latifah in the Oscar performance of ``I Move On,'' the best-song nominee from ``Chicago.''
``My hormones are too way out of control to be dealing with this,'' Zeta-Jones said after winning.
``My experience making this film made me very aware of the sadness and the dehumanization of people in times of war, and the repercussions of war.
Documentary winner ``Bowling for Columbine'' is Moore's alternately hilarious and horrifying examination of gun violence in America.
We live in a time where we have a man who's sending us to war for fictitious reasons.
Kidman's Oscar win was a Hollywood ending for her after a turbulent couple of years.
She had a miscarriage in 2001 and broke up with husband Tom Cruise, in whose shadow she had lingered throughout their 11-year relationship.
In ``The Hours,'' Kidman played suicidal author Woolf, wearing a fake nose to capture the writer's plain features.
``Why do you come to the Academy Awards when the world is in such turmoil,'' Kidman said.
``Because art is important.
And because you believe in what you do and you want to honor that, and it is a tradition that needs to be upheld.''
Cooper, a veteran character actor whose credits include ``American Beauty'' and ``Lone Star,'' played a man on a mission to preserve rare orchids in the film loosely based on author Susan Orlean's ``The Orchid Thief.''
``In light of all the troubles in this world, I wish us all peace,'' Cooper said as he received his award.
``Lose Yourself,'' from the film ``8 Mile'' starring Eminem, won the best-song Oscar for the rap star and his co-writers, Jeff Bass and Luis Resto.
``I think he's going to feel great about the Oscar,'' Resto said backstage, after accepting the award for the absent Eminem.
The Oscar for foreign-language film went to the German drama ``Nowhere in Africa,'' about a family of Jews who leave Germany before World War II and settle on a farm in Kenya.
The Japanese fantasy ``Spirited Away'' won the award for animated feature film.
The movie, which had a limited U.S. release last fall and grossed a modest $5.5 million, was a surprise winner against a field of nominees that included $100 million Hollywood hits ``Ice Age'' and ``Lilo & Stitch.''
ABC News twice offered a brief war update, then switched back to the Oscars.
Earlier, demonstrators on both sides of the war issue gathered near Hollywood's Kodak Theatre, site of the Oscars.
Anti-war protesters held signs such as ``Bush Betrays USA,'' ``Bush:
Half a block from the area where stars arrived, supporters of U.S. troops in Iraq chanted ``USA, USA,'' and held a banner reading ``God Bless America.''
Planners scrapped the glitzy red-carpet arrival festivities.
And besides wearing peace pins, a few celebrities, Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins among them, showed up in fuel-efficient gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles instead of limousines as a statement against U.S. dependence on overseas oil.
After a few initial references to the war and its effects on the Oscars, Martin's opening monologue stuck to mocking nominees, other celebrities and Hollywood at large.
And in a rarity, the show ran just over its allotted 3-hour time.
Some past Oscar shows, including last year's, have topped four hours.
Australian scientists have warned that the reassuring smell of a new car actually contains high levels of toxic air emissions that can make drivers ill.
A study by Australia's main scientific body found high levels of toxic emissions in cars for up to six months and longer after they leave the showroom.
and Xylene isomers, a foetal development toxic agent.
"To avoid some exposure to this toxic cocktail people who buy new cars should make sure there is plenty of outside air entering the vehicle while they drive for at least six months."
The two-year study of three new cars found anecdotal evidence that drivers were becoming ill when they drove their cars.
A lawyer reported being ill with headaches, lung irritation and swellings for several days after collecting a new car and driving it for only 10 minutes.
When he swapped his new car for an 18-month-old car he no longer felt ill.
The study found two new Australian-made cars had very high levels of volatile organic compounds, up to 64,000 micrograms per cubic meter, three to 10 weeks after manufacture.
A third car in the study was imported to Australia, but four months after manufacture it contained high levels of toxic air emissions, recording 2,000 micrograms per cubic meter.
SEOUL(AP) _ With opposition growing to the Iraq war, South Korean lawmakers postponed a vote for a second time on March 28 on a contentiousbill authorizing the dispatch of 700 non-combat military personnel to the Gulf.
The National Assembly originally had planned to vote on the bill on March 25, but postponed it until March 28 before deciding to debate it for two extra days, assembly spokesman Kim Young-il said.
President Roh Moo-hyun urged the National Assembly and the public to support the bill, saying it is in the country's strategic interest.
About 37,000 U.S. military personnel are based in South Korea to protect it from an attack by North Korea, in a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War.
The test of their ties comes at a sensitive time on the Korean Peninsula.
The United States has accused communist North Korea of developing nuclear weapons and the North has heightened its defenses and accused Washington of planning to invade.
Referring to the bill to dispatch troops to Iraq, the statement said, ``There is so little reason to pass the motion and so many reasons to vote it down.''
Thousands of South Koreans have joined anti-war protests in Seoul and other major cities in recent days.
Embassy to protest the war. put something off until later)
There were demonstrations following the murder of the union leader.
ex) It would be in your interests to accept.
place somebody in a place from where to work and travel)
with one’s mind firmly made)
ex) The police detained him for questioning.
Women have jumped ahead of men for the first time in using the Internet to do their holiday shopping, according to a study released Tuesday.
No longer the domain of young, wealthy white men, the Internet has also attracted more minority shoppers, the study said.
"It shows how mainstream the Internet is becoming," said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet and American Life Project, a nonprofit group that authored the study.
"The online world now looks a lot like the off-line world."
Rainie said it was only a matter of time before women shoppers caught up with men, because women traditionally control the household's spending decisions.
Internet users did some of their buying online this year, versus a fifth of them last year.
Of those, 58 percent were women.
The study also noted that a third of all online shoppers bought gifts from computers at work.
Eleven million first-time shoppers spent money online this holiday season.
Last year, 51 percent of American Internet users said they had purchased something online.
This year, the number rose to 58 percent.
Measured by income, however, wealthy Americans are still the most likely to cyber-shop.
The study cited cyber-shopping increases of 50 percent or more among blacks and Hispanics, alongside increases in overall Internet use.
are window-shopping:
looking for gifts and comparing prices online, then dashing off to the mall to make the deal.
"The Web site is becoming a promotion piece for the store," said Kurt Barnard, president of Barnard's Retail Trend Report, which covers consumer spending patterns.
"They see the item on the screen and they compare it with others.
But they want to go and see what it really looks like, maybe touch it."
Online merchants share some of the credit for the increase, said Dan Hess, vice president of comScore Networks, a research firm that tracks online buying behavior.
Hess said online stores designed Web sites to make shopping easier, while convincing customers of the security of their credit card numbers.
"It's all about making the shopping experience more efficient, more reliable and more comfortable," Hess said.
HONG KONG (AP) _ Hong Kong health officials on March 30 reported 60 more people had fallen ill with a deadly flu-like disease, more than half of them in one apartment complex, pushing the number of infections worldwide past 1,600.
An old Hong Kong woman became the territory's 13th fatality.
Earlier, Christian and Taoist groups in Hong Kong sought to calm fears through prayer.
New cases of ``severe acute respiratory syndrome,’’ or SARS, have picked up pace here the past few days.
At least 56 people have now died of SARS worldwide.
U.S. experts said anyone planning nonessential travel to mainland China, Hong Kong, Singapore or Hanoi ``may wish to postpone their trips.''
Julie Gerberding warned that the ``global epidemic continues to expand.''
At least 59 suspected SARS cases are being monitored in the United States and 37 in Canada, where three people have died.
Hong Kong has now reported 530 cases of SARS, although officials also noted that 60 patients here have recovered and been discharged.
The 74-year-old woman, with a history of health problems, died early on March 30.
Hong Kong is the second-hardest hit place after mainland China, which has reported some 800 cases and 34 deaths.
The World Health Organization has expressed concern over the increasing spread of the disease in Hong Kong.
Thirty-six of the new cases of SARS came from Hong Kong's Amoy Gardens apartment complex, where a victim recently spread the disease and it took hold, according to a Health Department statement.
Some frightened residents have moved out and medical teams have gone through the apartments to check for SARS _ while some minibus drivers won't stop there anymore.
Between 110 and 120 SARS cases have come from Amoy Gardens, which is located in Kowloon Bay, a government spokeswoman said Sunday night, using customary anonymity.
Thousands more Hong Kong people have put on surgical masks, taxi drivers cleaned out their cars, concerts and protests were canceled and the horse-racing track in suburban Shatin saw its lowest attendance ever as many of the territory's fervent gamblers stayed home.
Carlo Urbani, 46, an Italian WHO expert on communicable diseases who identified the SARS outbreak in Hanoi, died on March 29 in Thailand where he had been receiving treatment after becoming infected in Vietnam.
Urbani had identified the mysterious disease in an American businessman who had been admitted to a hospital in Hanoi, where he later died.
The WHO says the disease is spreading via international travelers, and nations across Asia are fighting to contain the illness.
Taiwan's premier urged citizens on March 30 to postpone visits to China for the traditional Ching Ming tomb-sweeping festival, as the island announced its 13th SARS case.
Thousands of Taiwanese had been expected to fly to China this week to worship ancestors and sweep their tombs in the festival Saturday.
Thailand stepped up monitoring at airports and border checkpoints Sunday following the Italian doctor's death.
About a dozen visitors were quarantined, but most were quickly released when it became apparent they did not have SARS.
SARS spread to other countries from Hong Kong after an infected mainland Chinese medical professor passed the illness to seven other people in a Kowloon hotel last month and they, in turn, carried the disease to Singapore, Vietnam and Canada.
Hong Kong health officials said Sunday that a man who came down with the illness had been aboard Dragonair flight KA901 from Beijing-Hong Kong on March 26 and they were trying to trace the other 222 passengers and 15 crew to see if they were infected.
About 50 people from Christian churches prayed in a downtown Hong Kong park, displaying a banner that said: ``Don't be afraid, just believe.''
``We hope God will calm those people who are in fears and impress Hong Kong people to hold on together while going through the difficulties,'' said a statement from the Hong Kong Christian Church Council.
The Taoist Wong Tai Sin Temple held a six-hour prayer session for world peace and an end to the SARS outbreak.
Horse racing is a serious passion in Hong Kong, but just 13,237 people showed up for Saturday's races in Shatin, the lowest figure since the track opened in 1978, the Hong Kong Jockey Club said Sunday.
A week earlier, 34,624 had gone to the races.
Sunday's newspapers ran pictures of empty seats and fans in masks.
Canceled or postponed events have included Rolling Stones concerts in Hong Kong and mainland China, an anti-war rally in Hong Kong on Saturday and a demonstration Sunday by foreign maids protesting a wage cut.
Newspapers reported 10,000 staffers in McDonald's restaurants across Hong Kong are wearing masks.
ex) Has the revolt been contained?
An asteroid that could pulverize a country zipped close by the Earth last Monday, only weeks after astronomers first noticed the big space boulder heading in our direction.
The range might seem like enough to breath easy, about 600,000 km, but many scientists classify it as a relatively close call.
The asteroid, officially known as 2001 YB5, measures between 300 and 400 meters in width.
If such a rock were to smash into the planet, it would unleash the same amount of energy as many nuclear bombs, astronomers estimate.
"The impact would be quite tremendous.
"The environmental consequences would be regional but the social and economic consequences would be global."
Close encounters with giant space rocks are not uncommon.
Asteroids comparable to 2001 YB5 could strike the Earth as frequently as once every 5,000 years, Peiser said.
In much rarer instances, boulders one kilometer or greater in size have smacked into the planet and snuffed out most life forms, much like the 10-km long monster thought to have forced dinosaurs to exit stage left about 65 million years ago, according to scientists.
In the year 2027, an asteroid between one kilometer and mile in length is expected pass even closer than 2001 YB5.
Having pinpointed its orbital path, scientists dismissed any potential of danger.
What particularly troubles Peiser is that scientists only first spotted 2001 YB5 in early December.
What if it had been heading on a collision course?
"That's not enough time for any initiatives for deflection.
If we had 20 or 30 years' time, then we could develop a technology to deflect an object.
(AP) _ The French player stood on the 18th tee holding on to a two-shot lead in a major championship.
It may have sounded familiar, but this wasn't the British Open.
And Patricia Meunier-Lebouc, 31, was about to show she was no Jean Van de Velde.
Eighth-grader Michelle Wie was never a factor, missing several short putts to finish seven shots back after a final-round 76.
The 13-year-old Korean-American from Hawaii began the day four strokes behind Meunier-Lebouc.
She was three shots back at the turn but 3-putted the par-511th after hitting the green in two.
``That just brought me down,'' said Wie, who went on to 3-putt the 15th hole, too.
She did, if only because she handled the pressure of being in contention in a major championship for the first time so well.
Meunier-Lebouc had to overcome an out-of-bounds tee shot on the third hole with some steady play in the final holes to deny Sorenstam's bid to become the first LPGA player to win the same major title three years in a row.
She birdied the 13th hole to take the lead, then parredputtbogey on the final hole gave her a 1-over 73 and a one-shot win over Sorenstam.
``I think I played pretty well all day,'' Wie said.
Park Se-ri, who started the day in the third place, tumbled all the way to 15th after a disastrous 3-over and 291 shots for the tournament.
Korean-American rookie Christina Kim was 28th at 7-over, three strokes ahead of Gloria Park in the 42nd.
Kim Mi-hyun, 26, finished up in 57th place at 13-over.
Along the way, Meunier-Lebouc thought of her 30th birthday party last fall and the fun she had with friends and family who gathered to celebrate.
``I was thinking about that night and all the joy I had,'' she said.
``That's exactly what I wanted to feel on the course.''
Sorenstam wanted to go for the green on the par-518th but couldn't after her tee shot on 18 ended up in a fairway bunker.
Meunier-Lebouc's was there, too, but she wasn't about to make a triple bogey like Van de Velde did.
Meunier-Lebouc did 3-putt the final green, but it didn't matter by that time because Sorenstam had missed her last-gasp birdie putt of 25 feet from the fringe.
``I was swinging so hard on that drive,'' Sorenstam said of her tee shot on 18.
``I had nothing to lose.
It was all or nothing.''
Meunier-Lebouc tapped in to win, got hugs all around and then was carried into the pond by her husband, Antoine, as her caddie joined her in a wet celebration.
``It had to be my husband and caddie in the water with me,'' she said.
She knew it well, after playing her last six rounds with Sorenstam and using the knowledge gathered to remain composed under the pressure of playing a final round in a major championship.
``I was feeling shy until she made the birdie on 12 and took the lead,'' Meunier-Lebouc said.
Meunier-Lebouc eagled the second hole by pitching in, but her celebration turned to disgust one swing later when her tee shot on the third hole went out of bounds.
Sorenstam had won the last two Kraft Nabiscos and was trying to become the first LPGA player to win the same major three times in a row.
She has 42 wins to just one for Meunier-Lebouc, who won the State Farm Classic last year.
It was Sorenstam, though, who cracked, three-putting the 13th hole after taking the lead with a birdie the hole before and then nearly hitting her next shot on the 14th hole into the water.
Sorenstam finished with a 1-under 71 for third place, three strokes ahead of rookie Lorena Ochoa, who shot a final-round 68.
It was the second straight week Sorenstam had a chance to win, and both times she lost with a final-round 71.
Sorenstam wasn't all that unhappy with her score, either, though her putter let her down throughout the tournament.
She missed makable birdie putts on the front nine before finally holing a 5-footer on 10 that tied her for the lead and a 20-footer on 12 that gave her a one-shot advantage.
But just as Sorenstam took the lead, she gave it right back.
Sorenstam 3-putted the 13th hole and then bogeyed the next hole, despite a fortunate bounce off the rock fronting the green that kept the ball out of the water.
``There's really no excuse for making bogey that way,'' she said.
The World Health Organization has released a report about how disease weakens the economies of poor countries.
For years, people believed that good health is a direct result of strong economic development.
However, this study suggests the opposite is true.
It says that strong economic development is an important result of improved health.
An international committee of economists and experts in public health and policy carried out study.
It is based on almost 90 investigations in countries around the world.
Some people say the study is the most complete examination to link investments in health care to economic growth.
The study calls for a large increase in foreign aid for health care services in developing countries.
In the world’s richest countries, total spending for health care for each person is almost 2,000 dollars a year.
However, in the world’s poorest nations, spending on health care for each person is only thirteen dollars a year.
The WHO says this amount should be increased to 38 dollars a year for each person by 2015.
The money would help poor nations provide treatment for diseases.
It would also provide babies with important health care early in life.
Jeffrey Sachs of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, led the study.
He says about eight million lives could be saved each year if the richest nations increased spending on health care in developing countries.
Sachs says more than fifty of the world’s poorest countries would have a chance to improve the living and economic conditions for their people.
The study links political crises in developing countries to high death rates among newborn babies.
The report also provides new information about how AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria affect economic growth in developing countries.
The researchers suggest 8,000 million dollars be provided each year to help fight these diseases.
The WHO plans to send the study to many officials around the world.
They include heads of state, ministers of finance, health and trade, members of national parliaments and non-governmental organizations.
It says the report is a valuable guide for future international health programs, policies and financing.
He flicks a finger across his throat in a threatening knife-slash gesture.
Such attempts to intimidate are regular these days from communist troops who face South Korean troops and the small number of U.S. soldiers in the demilitarized zone that divides the two Koreas, according to U.S.
South Korean troops do their own posturing.
Just meters (yards) from the North's soldiers in Panmunjom, a military village that straddles the border, the South's soldiers stand in taekwondo poses, ready to fight _ legs apart, arms bent and fists clenched.
Such antagonism along the border has come and gone as tensions have ebbed and spiked on the Korean Peninsula since the 1950-53 Korean War.
Now, its resurgence shows another chill in relations.
Washington has accused the North of having a secret nuclear weapons program, in violation of a 1994 pact.
Pyongyang says its nuclear development is for peaceful purposes, and that it fears Washington will invade North Korea once it's done with Iraq.
President George W. Bush has said he wants to resolve the crisis peacefully, but has not ruled out a military solution.
Earlier this week, the United States said it was keeping stealth fighter jets in South Korea after they arrived last month for a training exercise.
The radar-evading F-117s are capable of taking out the North's Yongbyon nuclear plant _ an attack North Korea has accused Washington of plotting.
The Korean border is the world's most heavily fortified, with almost 2 million troops deployed on the peninsula, including 37,000 Americans stationed in South Korea.
Last week, North Korea suspended the sole regular contact with the U.S.-led United Nations Command that monitors the Korean War armistice.
Those weekly meetings in Panmunjom, though usually quick and businesslike, were an important diplomatic portal used to keep the peace between the two sides, which are still technically at war.
In better days _ such as in 2000, when North and South Korean leaders held a summit in Pyongyang _ senior military officers from both sides sometimes relaxed over drinks after their formal meetings, said Steve Oertwig, a U.S. military spokesman.
``Every now and then, they may have an alcoholic beverage.
It's not a big party,'' Oertwig said.
``It's a chance to encourage trust and build a relationship with them.
It's part of being a sociable host.
Both sides would toast each other for peace and cooperation on the Korean Peninsula.''
Panmunjom was quiet when the AP visited this week.
North Korean soldiers stood well back from a small concrete seam in the earth that marks the frontier.
There was no sign of the threatening gestures mentioned by Margotta, head of the local U.N.
But Northern soldiers peered south through binoculars and cameras, and grimaced at visiting journalists.
A group of South Korean school children on a trip to the zone looked into one of three blue huts used for the talks.
In the small building, a boardroom table _ half of it in North Korea and half in the South _ was bare, except for a small U.N. flag.
The chairs were empty.
Two impassive South Korean soldiers stood guard.
It's not clear when the meeting hut will again be used _ or if there will be talks at a higher level to try to defuse the latest tension.
North Korea has repeatedly refused to hold multilateral talks on the nuclear issue, insisting on direct meetings with the United States to negotiate a nonaggression treaty.
Washington has so far refused.
Security Council plans to discuss the North Korean nuclear issue next week.
It sounds almost like a plot line from "Star Trek"
a patient's life is saved thanks to a tiny microchip implanted in his body that lets a doctor detect a dangerous condition before it becomes critical.
Researchers are testing an implantable microsensor that can send data to a hand-held receiver outside the body, alerting doctors to a potential medical crisis, without using any wires or batteries.
They call it a micro-electro mechanical systems device, or MEMS.
The doctor would be able to check the condition of a patient's heart, for example, by holding the receiver near the patient rather than putting him through a costly CAT scan or surgery.
Jay Yadav at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation.
Yadav developed the device with colleagues Mark Allen and David Stern of CardioMEMS, the Atlanta, Georgia-based company he co-founded.
Allen, a professor of electrical engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology, originally invented the sensor for use in jet engines.
If it works, it could provide doctors with an easier way to catch serious problems.
The MEMS has successfully measured blood pressures in a healthy dog, a step doctors call a "milestone."
Next, they will test the sensor in dogs with aneurysms to see how well it performs.
Human trials of the device are also planned.
it might be used in obstetrics to monitor contractions wirelessly;
electrical signals, for instance, or glucose levels.
And though a minor surgical procedure would be required to implant the chip, the actual monitoring would be "very user-friendly," Yadav says, requiring no special training.
the chip dislodging, or the body having some kind of reaction to the plastic used to make the sensor.
But they envision few complications.
The man, who prefers to go by just his first name of Mohammed for now, learned of the captured soldier's location when he went to Saddam Hospital to see his wife, Iman, who is a nurse.
He noticed an unusual number of security personnel ringing the building.
''I decided to go to the Americans and tell them the story,'' he said.
Lynch, 19, was seized March 23 along with 12 other soldiers when their supply convoy took a wrong turn as it passed the southern Iraqi town of Nasiriyah.
She was rescued nine days later in a mission by U.S. commandos and is recovering from injuries at a military hospital in Germany.
Telling the Americans was no easy matter.
Mohammed walked more than 6 miles out of Nasiriyah, through what Marines have nicknamed ''Ambush Alley,'' to reach a U.S. military checkpoint.
A Marine asked what he wanted.
''Important information about woman soldier,'' he replied in broken English.
At the Marines' request, he returned twice to get details of its layout, security and Lynch's exact position.
He drew five maps for rescuers.
Twelve solders from Lynch's unit, the Army's 507th Ordnance Maintenance Company, a non-combat unit based at Fort Bliss, Texas, are missing or prisoners of war.
Two others were killed in the ambush.
She was lying in bed with a blanket drawn up to her chin, he said.
''She think I doctor,'' Mohammed recalled of his visit to Jessica.
I said, 'Don't worry,' and she smiled.''
An Iraqi pharmacist at Saddam Hospital said Lynch knew U.S. troops were on the other side of the Euphrates River, which is just a mile away.
Greg Lynch was already making plans for what happens when his daughter gets home.
He promised "one of the biggest bashes Wirt County, W. Va., has ever seen."
cf) The ship slipped into the harbor at night.
Guilt, psychologists like Suffolk University professor Jane Bybee say, is useful, because it gets people to regret the wrong they do, and correct it.
"They feel a sense of remorse over it.
They wish that they could undo it.
They feel, they ruminate over it," Bybee said.
"One of the markers of a psychopath is that the person doesn't experience guilt at all," she said.
Serial killer Ted Bundy, for example, said he felt no guilt after killing 28 people.
So we want people to feel guilt.
And as parents, we want our kids to feel guilt
not just so they won't grow up to be psychopaths, but because guilt, say the experts, makes you less inclined to cheat, steal, or do drugs.
Research shows kids who have a little guilt are better citizens.
Since a little guilt is good, you would think a lot would be even better.
But the experts say too much guilt
and not being able to get rid of it
Bad parenting can induce that kind of excess guilt.
Bybee says relentless criticism of the child rather than the child's behavior creates bad guilt.
What should we do about it?"
Don't tell them what to do, she said, let them figure it out.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) _ Under the dust, the imitation French Baroque furniture is painted gold.
The many swimming pools and fountains are bone dry.
Almost every room has several televisions.
And the views of the Tigris?
After bombing Saddam Hussein's New Presidential Palace on Monday, the U.S.
Saddam built numerous palaces around the country during his rule as a symbol of his power.
The ``new'' palace was built recently near Saddam's Baath Party headquarters.
Now half destroyed, the main building was sand-colored brick, topped with a blue-and-gold ceramic tile dome.
The first floor and basement are flooded but intact, the third and fourth floors gone.
Soldiers searched the remaining rooms, apparently once used as living and entertaining quarters, not for administration.
They rifled through documents in the many offices, finding ornate boxes of stationery and a portable stereo.
A lone children's room has four beds.
ex) We searched around for hours, but couldn't find the book.
ex) I marveled at the beauty of the landscape.
ex) None of the guests want (wants) to stay.
ex) Don't leave the taps running.
Dutch scientists have found that drinking alcohol up to three times daily can almost halve the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, a report has said.
The beverage is not restricted to just red wine, which has been reported in the past as helping reduce heart problems.
Drinking a moderate amount of any alcoholic beverage
between one and three drinks a day
helped prevent Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia.
The smaller the amounts of alcohol drunk, the smaller the benefits.
Heavy drinking, however, which is categorised as more than four glasses a day, diminished the health benefits of moderate drinking.
Dutch researchers at Erasmus University in Rotterdam carried out a six-year study of 5,395 people aged 55 and over who showed no signs of dementia.
The scientists checked their drinking habits and monitored their state of health.
By the end of the study, 197 participants had developed Alzheimer’s or other dementia conditions.
But those who consumed between one and three drinks a day had a 42% lower risk of developing dementia than non-drinkers.
A clear correlation was seen between the level of alcohol consumption and the degree of dementia risk.
Volunteers who did not drink every day but had more than one tipple a week had a 25% lower risk.
Those who drank less than a glass a week had 18% less risk than teetotallers.
Heavy drinkers were one-and-a-half times more likely than non-drinkers to suffer from vascular dementia caused by blocked or narrowed blood vessels in the brain, and slightly more likely to develop Alzheimer’s.
Excess drinking destroys the liver, and can be toxic to the brain.
Alcoholics can end up with a shrunken brain, which is linked to dementia.
There is even a medical condition called alcoholic dementia.
Researchers suggested the blood-thinning and cholesterol-lowering properties of ethanol in alcohol may ward off dementia, which is often caused by a blood vessel problem.
Another possibility, the study speculated, is that low levels of alcohol could stimulate the release acetylcholine, a brain chemical believed to facilitate learning and memory.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) _ Astounding even veterans of the fight against animal extinction, cloning technology has reproduced two endangered wild cattle, birthed by a cow last week on an Iowa farm.
One of the bulls weighed twice as much as expected and it was euthanized on April 8.
The procedure that created the bantengs has given conservationists hope that cross-species breeding can help reverse the daily disappearance of 100 species and add genetic diversity to dwindling animal populations.
If it survives, the remaining banteng will be transferred to the San Diego Wild Animal Park and encouraged to breed.
The technology is still fraught with problems and a long way from paying significant dividends.
The cloned banteng, for instance, won't begin breeding until it reaches maturity in about six years.
Nonetheless, animal conservationists are excited about the results.
In 1977, the zoo began preserving cells and genetic material from hundreds of animals in a program it dubbed the Frozen Zoo.
Tissue samples from each animal are stored in small plastic vials, which are submerged and frozen in liquid nitrogen.
``At the time we did not know how this resource might be used, but we knew it was important to save as much information about endangered species as we could,'' Ryder said.
Now, that foresight is beginning to pay off with the banteng, a white-stockinged animal hunted for its slender, curved horns.
Fewer than 8,000 bantengs exist in the wild, most on the island of Java.
Ryder and his colleagues sent frozen skin cells from a long-dead banteng to researchers at the cloning company Advanced Cell Technology in Worcester, Massachusetts.
Scientists there fused the banteng skin cells with 30 cow eggs that had their genetic material removed.
Another biotechnology company, Trans Ova Genetics of Hull, Iowa, then implanted the cloned eggs into cows in Sioux Center, Iowa.
Of the 16 resulting pregnancies, only two came to term last week _ and one of the bantengs weighed 80 pounds (36 kilograms), about twice as heavy as expected.
The researchers euthanized the fatter banteng Tuesday, concluding it had little chance to survive.
This is not the first cross-species cloning experiment that resulted in a birth.
Two years ago, a cow gave birth to an endangered cloned wild ox named Noah.
But Noah died two days later of dysentery.
All of which underscores the many problems with cloning technology.
Even same-species cloning has a high failure rate, and surviving animals are often less healthy than naturally born animals.
Dolly the sheep, the first cloned mammal, was put to death in February after premature aging and disease marred her short existence.
The decision to end Dolly's life at age 6 _ about half the life expectancy of her breed _ was made because she had a progressive lung disease.
Others fear scientists will embrace cloning technology at the expense of tried-and-true conservation practices like habitat preservation and conservation.
But Ryder and others who embrace the technology say they would be remiss to ignore cloning, which can augment, rather than replace, existing methods.
Despite conservation efforts, habitats around the world are still disappearing quickly.
``Nobody mentions it, but I'm sure wildlife is disappearing there.''
Dresser's projects include working to impregnate domestic felines with cloned endangered wild cats.
``Cloning could be a powerful tool,'' Dresser said.
So far, though, she hasn't succeeded in bringing such a cat to term.
Researchers in China, meanwhile, are working with rabbits as surrogates for cloned pandas, which are about the size of a stick of butter when they're born.
Genetic material from the woolly mammoth and other extinct animals has never been properly stored in high-tech freezers like those at the San Diego Zoo, so their DNA has long since disappeared from the planet.
ex) This creature’s (natural) habitat is the jungle.
A new State Forestry Administration survey shows that 2.7 million square kilometers of land was desert by the end of 1999, the state-run China Daily reported.
This was a rise of 52,000 square kilometers of desert from the first desertification survey in 1994.
Northern and western parts of China were the most vulnerable, including the autonomous regions of Inner Mongolia, Tibet and Xinjiang, and the northern provinces of Hebei and Shanxi.
While global warming may have played some part in the rise, the survey showed that people were responsible for turning 18.2 percent, or 1.74 million square kilometers, of China into desert.
"Most dry lands in China have been degraded by over-cultivation, overgrazing, deforestation, and poor irrigation practices, as well as abnormal weather changes such as persistent droughts," the official Xinhua news agency quoted the survey as saying.
Another 17,000 square kilometers of reclaimed land had also turned to desert, the report said.
The impact of land turning into desert is not restricted to China's borders alone.
Last year, a sprawling Asian dirt storm blew across the Pacific and sprinkled millions of tons of the Gobi and Takla Makan deserts as far east as Florida, making one of the largest North American dust clouds ever recorded.
Such episodes have comparatively little effect on air quality in the United States.
But the periodic plumes cause major headaches in cities hundreds of kilometers downwind like Beijing, blotting out the sun, slowing traffic and closing airports.
The eastward winds have long spurred protests from residents of Korea and Japan, who have faced similar, if milder, dust epidemics from China.
The three nations have organized a committee to find a strategy to combat the dust, according to the Earth Policy Institute, an environmental advocacy group.
The country's official news agency says that more than 110 Chinese cities are suffering from a severe water shortage due to a lack of resources, water pollution and a deterioration of the environment.
Industrialization has dried up rivers, wells, and springs, affecting the supply of clean drinking water and the irrigation of farmlands.
It is estimated that around 700 million people out of China's 1.2 billion, drink contaminated water.
A movie featuring late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping will be hitting the mainland silver screens this summer.
Nine years in the making and costing $2.4 million, a lot by local production standards, the new film aims to cement Deng's place in China's history.
Beijing Film Productions, in the biographic epic that covers the final 20 years of Deng's life, is also attempting to answer some outstanding questions about his legacy to the nation.
The film, which has now been officially approved, is scheduled for release on July 1 on the 81st anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Current president Jiang Zemin along with 70 other party and government officials will be portrayed in the movie, which also features more than 100 borrowed "Red Flag" limousines, according to local media.
Deng's legacy and the films is also likely to take on particular importance this year as the CCP readies itself for a reshuffle.
The movie plans to show Deng's role as Chinese premier during the Tiananmen Square massacre
The film gives a curt treatment of this issue in a scene where Deng meets with government officials behind closed doors about the necessity of stamping out the student movement.
Despite the controversy, Deng who died at the age of 92 is still officially revered for his contributions to China's development into one of the world's most powerful economies
an area the movie plans to highlight.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) _ The Korean Peninsula has a history of invasions, civil war, and national division.
One constant through centuries of tumult was kimchi, Korea's famous, fermented vegetable dish.
Kimchi is so pervasive in the Koreas, north and south, that enthusiasts compare it to air and water.
A museum in Seoul satisfies the appetites of those curious to know where it came from and how it evolved.
Near the din and glitter of cinemas, music stores and coffee shops, the Kimchi Field Museum sits in the upscale COEX Mall, part of a complex that hosted Asian and European leaders at a 2000 summit.
The museum first opened in another location of Seoul in 1986.
``When you think of Korea, and food, you think of kimchi,'' said Rafael Delgado, a Peruvian who toured the museum on a recent afternoon.
The staid displays don't attract droves of youths who have hipper places to go, so there's peace and space to ponder a spicy, healthy dish that is part of Korea's heritage, as well as diet.
The museum includes a library, a tasting room and a gift shop.
Experts attribute the first written reference to kimchi to Yi Kyu-bo, a Korean poet and government minister who lived from 1168 to 1241.
A copy of an original page carrying his wise words sits in a glass case.
``The leaves of turnip pickled in paste (turnip changachi) are very good to eat during the three months in summertime and the salted ones (turnip chanji) are endurable in wintertime,'' Yi wrote.
Kimchi derived from the need to preserve vegetables through the harsh Korean winters.
Today, the most popular form of dozens of varieties is made of cabbage and heavily laden with red pepper, salt, garlic and fermented shrimp and anchovies.
Cucumber, green onion and leeks are also common ingredients.
Many Korean scribes and scientists have traced the history of kimchi or studied its invigorating impact on the body, said curator Kim Joo-hee.
She collects theses for the museum, which is owned by Pulmuone Co., a South Korean company that makes kimchi and other organic food.
Koreans ate kimchi as far back as the Three Kingdoms period, prior to the establishment of the Unified Silla dynasty in 668 A.D.
A millennium ago, chefs began to experiment with a wider variety of vegetables, including Oriental parsley and Indian mustard leaf.
A culinary revolution occurred around 1700 when Koreans started using red chili peppers in kimchi, Kim said.
Koreans liked the zip of garlic, so it was easy to adapt to the new, spicy seasoning.
Portuguese traders brought the peppers to Asia and the vegetable arrived in Korea during a Japanese invasion in 1592.
One historical account says pepper powder was used as a crude form of tear gas during the fighting.
Fiery kimchi seems to match the reputation _ deserved or not _ of Koreans as headstrong, hot-tempered and high-tempo.
Such qualities helped South Koreans build one of the world's biggest economies in a few decades, even as totalitarian North Korea stubbornly spurned change despite economic ruin and political isolation.
North Korean kimchi tends to be mild and soupy, while the South Korean version is a lot punchier.
It's low in calories, and rich in vitamins.
Another breakthrough for kimchi was in the early 1900s when farmers refined the Korean cabbage seed, producing a wider, longer vegetable than the Chinese cabbage they had been growing.
A British resident of Seoul once said the red pepper-splashed cabbage folds that appear at virtually every Korean meal resemble ``used bandages.''
Most Koreans don't care how it looks, though ancient kings liked kimchi cooks to cut radishes into small, rigid cubes.
Buddhist temples serve mild kimchi.
A special, tender version is sometimes served to the elderly, in keeping with Confucian respect for seniors and their teeth.
Some people offer kimchi at memorial services for ancestors who craved the dish, though many don't because the color red is said to scare away ghosts.
The museum displays brown, glazed pots used to store kimchi in the ground during fermentation.
In the old days, some jars were cut out of logs and lined with oil-soaked paper to prevent juice leaking.
Today, factories mass-produce the dish, but nothing matches a mother's homemade kimchi.
``It's our life, like air,'' said Kim, the curator.
The hands of the Doomsday Clock, a symbolic gauge of the threat of nuclear annihilation, were moved for the first time in nearly four years because of the Sept.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which keeps the clock, set the hands at 11:53, two minutes ahead of the time it has had since 1998.
Stephen Schwartz, publisher of the Bulletin, said the board originally defined “midnight” as nuclear war.
In recent years, however, it has been redefined as the use of nuclear weapons anywhere on earth, he said.
It was the 17th time the clock has been reset since it debuted in 1947.
George A. Lopez, the publication’s chairman of the board, said it has never been moved in response to a single event.
11 attacks combined with evidence that terrorists were attempting to obtain the materials for a crude nuclear weapon should have served as a wake-up call to the world.
He said the world has focused on short-term security rather than solving long-term problems.
“The international community simply hit the snooze button rather than raising the general alarm,” Lopez said.
He said such factors as the concern about the security of nuclear weapons materials stockpiled around the world and the crisis between nuclear powers India and Pakistan also figured into the decision.
The clock is a 1-foot-square wooden mock-up in the magazine’s office at the University of Chicago.
It was started two years after the bulletin began as a newsletter among scientists of the Manhattan Project
in 1953, after the United States successfully tested the hydrogen bomb.
It has been as far away as 17 minutes, set there in 1991 in a wave of post- Cold-War optimism.
PARIS (AP) _ Rallying to salvage one of the world's most treasured troves of antiquities, UNESCO and the British Museum on April 15 announced plans to send teams of experts to Iraq to restore museums and artifacts ransacked in the aftermath of the U.S.-led invasion.
Much anger at the destruction has been directed at U.S. troops who stood by and watched it happen.
"I don't think anyone anticipated that the riches of Iraq would be looted by the people of Iraq," said U.S.
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization said its team would study the conditions of museums and historical sites, identify ways of restoring them and find potential donors.
UNESCO said the team would travel "when conditions permit."
About 30 experts were to meet on April 17 for an initial assessment at UNESCO headquarters in Paris.
UNESCO Director-General Koichiro Matsuura called for immediate action to protect Iraqi cultural institutions, including libraries, saying: "Culture can play a key role in the consolidation of the peace process."
In London, the British Museum said it would also send a team, and it called on the United Nations to ban the sale of antiquities looted from Iraq.
"Although we still await precise information, it is clear that a catastrophe has befallen the cultural heritage of Iraq," said British Museum director Neil MacGregor.
"We hope that the British government and the international community can move quickly to take the steps necessary to avoid further damage and to prepare the way for recovering objects looted, and for conserving those that can still be restored," he said.
After Saddam Hussein's government fell last week, looters stole and smashed priceless archaeological treasures from Iraq's National Museum.
The museum holds items of incalculable cultural value, perhaps the most famous being the tablets with Hammurabi's Code _ one of mankind's earliest codes of law.
It could not be immediately determined whether the tablets were at the museum when the war broke out.
Thieves smashed or pried open row upon row of glass cases and pilfered _ or just destroyed _ their contents.
The museum in the northern city of Mosul also was pillaged, and Baghdad's National Library, which holds one of the oldest surviving copies of the Quran, was set afire on Monday and apparently looted.
Nearby, the important library of the Religious Affairs Ministry, home to invaluable religious texts, also was looted and completely gutted by fire.
Donny George, the director of antiquities at Iraq's National Museum, told CNN on Tuesday that U.S. laxity allowed looters to come back again and again.
He said he went to the Marine headquarters in Baghdad three days ago and waited for hours to talk with a colonel about security issues.
"That day he promised that he will send armored cars to protect what's left from the museum," George said. "Three days ago till now, nobody came."
CNN reported glass cutters were found at the museum, indicating that professionals were involved in the looting.
Matsuura of UNESCO urged American and British forces to take immediate measures to guard Iraq's many archaeological sites and cultural institutions.
He also called on several groups _ countries bordering Iraq, customs officials, police and art dealers _ to do all they could to block the trading of stolen antiquities.
Kim Soo-jinm a 19-year-old female college student in Seoul, grew up watching Hollywood blockbusters, and seeing an American hero take revenge on the bad guys was always fun.
She instead has become an ardent fan of locally made films, which she says better reflect Korean interests.
Movie-goers, particularly in their teens and 20s, boosted the domestic market share of South Korean films to almost 50 percent last year as they found fresh interest in home-grown films.
Yet it is at home where the trend has been most pronounced, and where the process could go into reverse if a rule demanding a set number of Korean-language films be shown is dropped under a planned free-trade deal with the United States.
The top five grossing movies of last year were all home grown and four of them were so-called "gangster movies," whose blend of violence and slapstick comedy appealed to mainstream audiences.
Leading the pack, a male-bonding movie, "Friend," pulled in 2.6 million people in Seoul on a surge of nostalgia from the 30- and 40-something male audience.
The market last year grossed an estimated 244 billion won ($186 million), up 27 percent from a year earlier, data from the Korea Film Commission showed.
Homegrown content accounted for 46 percent of the market in 2001 compared with 32 percent the previous year.
Hollywood films took up about 47 percent of the market share, with the most popular foreign film for the year, the animated ogre-and-princess comedy "Shrek," attracting 1.1 million viewers in Seoul.
But it is not only commercial films that have made enormous strides over the past few years.
Some Korean films have become favorites at international film festivals and Korean directors have won critical acclaim.
Although it did not win a prize, it was one of the most talked-about films at the festival.
"Joint Security Area (JSA)," made by young director Park Chan-wook, won the top prize at Doville Asia Film Festival in France last year and was released in Asia.
It attracted about one million viewers in Japan last year and raked in $650,000 in the first week of its release in Hong Kong in January.
The resolution accused the North Korean government of torturing prisoners and performing public executions, as well as imposing severe restrictions on freedom of thought, assembly and women's rights, and restricting freedom of movement inside the country and across its borders.
It urged North Korea to answer all unresolved questions relating to the abduction of foreigners ``clearly and transparently.''
North Korea admitted last September it had kidnapped Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s to train its spies in Japanese language and culture.
The resolution was proposed by the European Union and co-sponsored by the United States and Japan.
China, India, Russia and Cuba were among the countries that voted against the resolution.
South Korea did not vote, while North Korea is not a member of the commission.
``The draft resolution is pursuing political purposes other than human rights,'' Li Jong-song said.
Cuba also defends North Korea, branding the resolution as ``geopolitical.''
``At the same time we are all aware that the European Union is doing this favor once again for its strategic North American ally.''
China backed North Korea's argument, charging that the commission was ``not the right venue for solving the problem of tension over the Korean peninsula.''
India abstained from voting, declaring parts of the resolution reached ``new levels of intrusiveness'' in issues which are rightfully the mandate of sovereign states.
President George W. Bush proclaimed North Korea a member of an ``axis of evil'' with Iran and Iraq, saying it was seeking weapons of mass destruction.
Since then, North Korea has pulled out of the International Atomic Energy Agency and has threatened to restart reactors stilled by a 1994 U.S.
Bush has said he wants to deal with North Korea diplomatically but has not ruled out military action.
More than $700 million in online sales were lost to fraud in 2001.
And that represented 1.14 percent of total annual online sales of $61.8 billion, according to GartnerG2, a program of business and technology research company Gartner.
Online fraud losses for 2001 were 19 times as high as fraud losses resulting from off-line sales.
And a new survey released by GartnerG2 shows that adult consumers in the United States are beginning to adopt credit card company solutions designed to protect against online fraud.
The Internet survey of more than 1,000 adult United States online consumers was conducted in January.
It showed 5.2 percent of respondents saying they'd been victimized by credit card fraud in 2001, and 1.9 percent said they'd been victimized by identity theft.
More than 18 percent of respondents said they're attempting to fight fraud by embracing two new credit card protection systems:
The credit card companies are, however, not yet willing to take the next major step:
U.S. merchants will, however, continue to pay higher fees for Internet transactions, which average approximately 2.5 percent vs.
"Consumers are interested in using these new security systems, which can significantly reduce online fraud.
The credit card companies should, however, back up their belief in these systems by lowering fees for all merchants who support them," Litan said.
"This would guarantee even more widespread adoption."
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) _ North Korea has made a conciliatory gesture toward South Korea, proposing high-level talks after jeopardizing planned negotiations with the United States with confusing claims about reprocessing spent nuclear fuel for possible atomic weapons.
North Korean officials on April 19 telephoned South Korean officers at the border village of Panmunjom to propose Cabinet-level talks on April 27-29 in Pyongyang.
South Korea has accepted the proposal.
The North called off a similar meeting last week.
In a message carried by the North Korean state news agency, KCNA, a Pyongyang official stressed ``the need to resourcefully settle the issue of inter-Korean relations by the nation itself through national cooperation.''
North Korea often has tried to drive a wedge between South Korea and its chief ally, the United States, by dealing with the two nations separately and saying only Koreans can resolve tensions on
There are 37,000 U.S. soldiers based in South Korea, and Seoul keeps close ties with the United States, though Washington tends to take a tougher line on North Korea.
The appeal for talks came after perplexing signals from the isolated North that left officials in Seoul and Washington wondering just what North Korea's intentions were.
On April 18, North Korea said it was reprocessing thousands of spent nuclear fuel rods at its main nuclear complex in Yongbyon.
Fuel rods are used to power nuclear power plants, and produce tiny amounts of plutonium when used.
That plutonium can be used to make bombs.
KCNA, in its English-language report, quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying ``we are successfully reprocessing more than 8,000 spent fuel rods at the final phase.''
On April 20, Australia's Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said he believes the North Korean statement was a mistranslation.
``There were effectively two statements released, one in Korean and one in English,'' Downer said.
Australia is one of the few Western nations with close diplomatic links with North Korea.
U.S. and South Korean officials also said there was no proof that reprocessing had begun, and suggested the vaguely worded original North Korean statement may have been mistranslated.
But the key question remains:
Is North Korea trying to arm itself with nuclear bombs, or is it just trying to raise the stakes before crucial talks with U.S. negotiators?
``We think North Korea is trying to gain leverage ahead of the talks,'' South Korea's top security adviser, Ra Jong-il, was quoted by his office as saying.
The United States, North Korea and China plan to hold talks in Beijing as early as next week to discuss Pyongyang's suspected nuclear weapons programs.
It would be the first opportunity for substantive U.S. discussions with Pyongyang since October, when U.S. officials said North Korea admitted having a nuclear weapons program in violation of a 1994 agreement.
A senior State Department official said on April 19 there is every expectation that the meeting in Beijing will go ahead as planned.
The official, who asked not to be identified, did not elaborate but his comment suggested the administration had concluded that North Korea had, in fact, not started reprocessing spent nuclear fuel rods.
Uneasy about Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions, Washington sought talks that would include not only the North Koreans but also their neighbors _ South Korea, Japan and China.
Pyongyang insisted on one-on-one talks with Washington but agreed last week to let China sit at the negotiating table.
Intelligence experts say reprocessing spent fuel rods will enable North Korea to yield enough plutonium to build several nuclear bombs within months.
There has been a severe lack of rain and snow on the East Coast of the United States.
The amount of rain and snow that has fallen in the states from Maine to Florida has been far below normal.
The lack of rain or snow is called a drought.
The East Coast states are suffering an unusual drought this winter.
Some areas received only a small percentage of the rain they normally receive.
And the drought has continued into the winter.
Normally, drought conditions happen during hot summer weather.
Ground water supplies usually increase in the winter and decrease in the spring and summer.
Some officials worry that a dry winter could cause serious water supply problems later in the year.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration studies and reports on weather and ocean conditions in the United States.
The agency says that the East Coast drought is a continuing event.
NOAA says the drought is affecting 18 percent of the United States, not including Alaska and Hawaii.
The drought reached its highest level in August, 2000, when 36 percent of the states were affected.
Weather experts say they do not know if there will be more rain or snow in the near future.
Their concerns have increased because the recent period from October to January was the second driest ever recorded for the Northeastern United States.
The Delaware River Basin Commission controls the water supply used by about twenty-million people in the New York City area and nearby states.
That agency has already begun placing limits on the use of water.
Drought warnings are in effect in many places on the East Coast.
The lack of water has caused some officials to consider ways to store water more effectively.
Now, some officials in New York are considering the same kind of system.
The state of New Jersey already has built some underground storage structures and plans to build more.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) _ Lee Jae-gun went through North Korea's three-year training course for spies, which included swimming nonstop for eight hours and scaling hills with a 5-kilogram (11-pound) weight on each ankle and a 25-kilogram (55-pound) pack on his back.
Returning to South Korea to find his son.
Lee is one of hundreds of South Koreans who the South says were kidnapped by the communist North during decades of Cold War enmity.
He was trained in the North as a spy who would be able to infiltrate the South _ but his first chance to return and begin the search came only through a defection three decades later.
Lee, now 64, used to be a down-and-out construction hand in a Seoul slum.
After his sickly, famished wife died, leaving him with a three-month-old baby, Lee entrusted the boy to a wealthy childless couple and went to sea in 1965 at age 27.
Working on a trawler's deck was hard and dangerous, but the pay was good.
A couple more years, he thought, and he would go home and reunite with his son.
That plan was shatteredwhen his ship and another South Korean trawler were seized by North Korean patrol boats near the western sea border in April 1970 and taken to the North.
``When North Korean boats towed our ships, South Korean navy ships gave chase but it was too late,'' Lee said.
During the decades of enmity following the 1950-53 Korean War, North Korea abducted and held against their will more than 480 South Koreans, mostly fishermen, according to South Korean officials.
Pyongyang calls the allegations a smear campaign.
The fishermen are little-known victims of the Cold War.
With international attention focused on Pyongyang's suspected development of nuclear weapons, relatives and human rights activists urge their government to work harder to confirm the fishermen's fates and bring them home.
North Korea sent home 20 of the 26 fishermen kidnapped with Lee on board the two trawlers.
Lee and six young fishermen were kept and trained as spies to infiltrate the South.
Now it seemed to Lee that the only way to return home was to survive the course.
One slip of the tongue ruined Lee's plan to come to South Korea as a North Korean spy and find his son.
He says he had planned to turn himself in to Southern authorities.
``At the end of the three-year course, they told me I was ideologically unfit to become a special agent.''
Lee was sent to work at a machine tool factory.
Lee also determined to give his North Korean son a better life.
Surveillance on his family slackened in the mid-1990s amid widespread food shortages.
First his North Korean wife and son escaped to China in 1998.
Months later he followed.
With the help of South Korean activists, Lee's family traveled to Seoul in 2000.
Lee was the first South Korean fisherman in the North to return home.
But his journey has hardly ended.
Lee went to the address of his South Korean son's foster parent, but the area in Seoul had turned into apartment blocks.
His efforts to trace the foster parent by his name has also turned up nothing.
``After 30 years, Seoul has changed so much I can't tell which street is which,'' Lee said. ``There is no trace of my son.'' ex) If you park your car here the police may tow it away.
The world shipping industry's newspaper, Lloyd's List, has decided that from now on ships will lose their femininity and will be referred to as "it," not "she."
It is not known how the habit of treating ships as feminine began though it is a custom used mainly in English dominated countries.
Some believe it originates from the time ships would be dedicated to a goddess whose figure was carved on the bow.
Although women were considered to bring bad luck at sea, mariners always use the pronoun "she" when referring to their ships.
Whether its proper name is masculine, or whether it is a battleship, or a nuclear submarine, a ship is always referred to as "she."
One explanation is that a ship was nearer and dearer to the sailor than anyone except his mother.
Vessels are also known to have "sister" ships.
Naval Historical Center Web site says it is customary to classify things as feminine "especially those things which are dear to us."
Ronald Hope says the tradition of referring to sailing vessels as "she" dates back to the days of Ancient Greece.
Hope, 80, a former director of the UK-based Maritime Society, said ships have been “she” since Greek times.
"Even as recently as the 19th century most of the sea shanties referred to them as 'she' and I recall in my youth ships owners always telling stories about why a ship was like a woman.
It's a shame that it is being changed.
Peter Goodwin, curator of HMS Victory at Portsmouth, on England's south coast, said:
No ship is exactly the same and all of them have their own characteristics.
You ask any sailor and they will tell you that you care for a ship, you tend to their needs and sometimes they play you up.
But they are never an 'it'."
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) _ South Korea reported on April 29 its first ``probable'' case of SARS.
The infected person showed a high fever, breathing difficulties and signs of pneumonia, which qualifies him as a ``probable SARS patient,'' said Kim Moon-shik, head of the National Institute of Health.
However, Kim did not rule out the possibility that the patient could have ordinary bacterial pneumonia.
The patient, a man in his 40s, was placed in isolation at a hospital after being found to be sick upon returning from Beijing on an Air China flight on April 28, the institute said in a statement.
The man had been attending a two-month language course in the city, it said.
Four people who were sitting close to the patient have been told to stay home.
Health authorities were searching for three others who were also seated near the man, Kim said.
For weeks, South Korea has been preparing for an outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, which has gripped other parts of Asia, especially neighboring China.
There are some 15 others suspected of having the disease in South Korea.
On April 28, the government said it will forcibly quarantine people suspected of having SARS.
It expects thousands of South Korean students and business executives to return home this week fleeing the respiratory disease in China.
In Pyongyang, a North Korean health official said there was not a single confirmed SARS case in the isolated country, according to KCNA, the North's state news outlet.
The North Korean media was monitored by South Korea's Yonhap news agency.
SARS has killed more than 300 people worldwide, including more than 140 in mainland China. ex) Upon arriving home I discover the burglary.
NTT DoCoMo's research and development center has taken the first step towards development of a technology that will allow people to talk on the phone without saying a word, the company said.
Engineers are developing a sensor, which detects signals coming from the muscle movements in the cheek and jaw made when people are speaking.
The company hopes to complete the development in five years, Wada says.
This work has been part of NTT DoCoMo's R & D investigation into various styles of human interface.
The same R & D center has in the past unveiled a cell-phone design that used vibrations traveling around the body to deliver an audio signal from a transducer on the wrist to the ear.
As one of the possible applications, the sensor can be attached to a mobile handset and, with the help of a voice synthesizer, mobile-phone users can communicate in silence, Wada says.
Eventually, engineers are also hoping to apply the technology to wireless e-mail services so that typing an e-mail message will be faster and easier.
The agreement between the two Koreas was made after four days of talks in Pyongyang, North Korea's capital.
``South and North Korea will thoroughly consult each other's position on the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula and will continue cooperation to resolve this issue peacefully through dialogue,'' a joint statement said.
Despite the vow, the joint statement was unlikely to mark a change in attitude by North Korea.
The North has insisted that the South should not meddle inthe nuclear standoff, calling it a dispute with the United States, according to South Korean news reports from Pyongyang.
Secretary of State Colin Powell said the United States was reviewing an offer by North Korea to give up its missiles and nuclear facilities in exchange for substantial U.S. economic benefits.
The North Koreans floated the proposal in talks with U.S. envoys in Beijing last week.
Australia's Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said on April 29 that he believed North Korea exaggerated the capability of its nuclear program to maximize its negotiating position.
He said the claim ``doesn't reflect our assessment of reality or America's assessment of reality.''
In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao questioned the claim that North Korea made the assertion.
He said that as far as he knew, they have ``not made such a statement.''
He added that China, which also participated in the Beijing talks, supports ``the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and also maintains the legitimate security concerns'' of North Korea should be resolved.
North Korea has demanded a nonaggression treaty with the United States.
The U.S. administration has ruled out such a move, but says some form of written security guarantee could be possible.
Powell called the Beijing meeting ``quite useful,'' but later told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that North Korea's proposal was ``not going to take us in a direction we need to go.''
Powell said he and U.S. President George W. Bush still believed a diplomatic solution was possible, and that other nations affected by North Korea's programs should be involved in the talks.
On April 29, North Korea said nuclear talks would be a waste of time if the United States insists that the communist country first scrap its suspected atomic weapons programs before discussing possible economic and diplomatic benefits.
``It is quite obvious that as long as the U.S. maintains such stand, the two sides will only waste time no matter how frequently they negotiate and such talks will not be of any help to the settlement of the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula,'' said a statement in Pyongyang's official newspaper Minju Joson.
``What is urgent for the peaceful settlement of the nuclear issue is for the U.S. to put into practice its will to make a switchover in its hostile policy toward the (North),'' it said.
Bush spoke by telephone with South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun on April 29 and agreed to cooperate closely in seeking a peaceful solution to the nuclear standoff.
During the Beijing talks, U.S. officials said North Korea also claimed it had reprocessed 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods _ a key step in producing nuclear weapons _ that could yield several more bombs within months.
But Powell said there still wasn't any evidence that North Korea had actually done so.
A maverick fertility specialist is reported to have claimed that a patient is pregnant with the world's first cloned baby.
The newspaper said he made his comments while visiting Dubai for a conference on cloning and genetic engineering.
"Our project is at a very advanced stage.
One woman among thousands of infertile couples in the programme is eight weeks pregnant."
Rudolf Jaenisch, professor of biology and a leading cloning scientist based at the Whitehead Institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said:
"It is totally outrageous and irresponsible to attempt cloning of humans when we know there is a very high probability of severe abnormalities, even if the baby survived to birth, which is extremely doubtful."
Antinori has previously pledged to attempt to clone a baby by the end of 2001.
Richard Nicholson, editor of the UK-based Bulletin of Medical Ethics, said he was sceptical of the claim, but said if it was true the baby's future was grim.
First of all, to be manipulating human life in this way is intolerable and all civilized countries have banned it or are banning it."
"Secondly, we know the risks of producing hideously deformed creatures and loss of life associated with cloning.
It's quite irresponsible, but Antinori is a man from whom we expect this kind of behaviour."
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) _ Yoo Si-min, a newly elected reformist lawmaker, tried something no South Korean has ever tried:
taking the oath of office without suit and tie.
It proved an uphill battle.
``Here in the Assembly, everyone wears the same identical dark suit.
I just wanted to wear comfortable clothes when I work,'' said Yoo, 44.
South Korea preserves strong conservatism, partly based on Confucianism.
Sons inherit businesses from fathers.
Most employees at businesses and government agencies address each other by their titles.
At the end of the day, they are reluctant to leave the office before their bosses.
Suit and tie is standard attire in most offices, although some businesses began tolerating casual garb
Political parties are still run as top-down organizations, although Yoo and other reformists try to break what they call ``boss politics.''
Politicians almost always wear dark suits with white dress shirts and a lawmaker's badge on the lapel.
Yoo was a student leader during the country's authoritarian rule and hosted a popular TV talk show.
Although he belongs to a group called Korea Party for Political Reform, he is a key ally of President Roh Moo-hyun, who won election last December with promises to engage communist North Korea and reform domestic politics. Using the Internet, Yoo campaigned for Roh.
When Yoo showed up for his swearing in on April 29, he was a cultural shock to many conservative lawmakers, especially those affiliated with the opposition Grand National Party, which controls the legislature.
``This is not a night club,'' one catcaller said.
Is this a market place?''
said Lee Won-chang, an opposition lawmaker.
Several lawmakers walked out in protest, accusing Yoo of ``defaming the Assembly'' and ``mistaking reform for breaking the old, respected practice.''
Despite its solemn image, the National Assembly is also a place where rival lawmakers swear at each other and scuffle
The rise of Internet and a new generation of assertive youths pouring out of schools with voting rights means that it's time for change, Yoo said.
President Roh broke the decades-old mold when he hired South Korea's first female justice minister and ministers younger than their deputies.
His culture minister, Lee Chang-dong, a former movie director, caused both criticism and praise when he showed up for work and Cabinet meetings without ties or in colored dress shirts.
Roh chats and drinks cheap ``soju'' liquor with his aides in casual attire _ something unthinkable for his predecessors.
Yoo was sworn in on April 30, this time in suit and tie.
``Because of what happened yesterday, two other newly elected lawmakers could not be sworn in,'' said Yoo's spokesman, Yang Soon-pil. Yoo doesn't want to embarrass them.''
But Yoo said he had hardly changed his view on dress code.
``I don't serve the people with clothes, I serve them with my work at the Assembly,'' Yoo said. * Before giving evidence the witness had to take an oath.
A little-known San Francisco company unveiled a personal computer that crams processor, memory, battery and storage into a package the size of a paperback novel.
When the $1,000 Ultra-Personal Computer hits stores this fall or winter, it will operate as a wireless handheld computer, akin to a Palm, OQO Inc.
Or it can be used as a "modular PC" that connects to a full-size keyboard, mouse and monitor to replace a desktop PC.
"This is a full Windows XP computer that fits in your pocket," said Colin Hunter, executive vice president of OQO.
Most people would prefer to have a computer they can carry around with them all the time."
The 5-inch by 3-inch device runs Microsoft Windows XP on a processor of up to 1 gigahertz.
It also bundles 256 megabytes of RAM, a 10 gigabyte hard drive, and two wireless networking connections.
A docking cable allows it to connect with an external keyboard, mouse and monitor.
It can also be networked to an existing PC or laptop through an Ethernet cable or wireless connection.
When undocked, the device's battery life is similar to a laptop's, at 3 ~ 8 hours, depending on use.
OQO is negotiating with electronics companies who could manufacture and market the device.
A version manufactured and sold under the OQO brand is also possible, a spokesman said.
In February, IBM announced it would license technology for a similar device, known as the MetaPad, to vendors.
IBM's MetaPad won't be ready for a few years.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) _ One of Korea's last princes lives out of a two-seat van packed with books, laundry and an electronic range.
He used to sing at night clubs for American GIs and sleeps in flophouses.
Yet he's so proud of his blood line that he never sheds his clothes in a public bathhouse when others are around.
``If I die, there will be no one left to tell the stories of the last royal family,'' Yi says.
South Korea is proud of its heritage, which includes the invention of the Korean alphabet during the Yi Dynasty.
Historical dramas about romance and bloody coups at the ancient royal court are a TV staple.
But few in South Korea know the names or whereabouts of relatives of the Yi Dynasty's last king.
Koreans accuse the dynasty's last rulers of incompetence and blame them for Korea's humiliating 35-year subjugation to Japanese rule.
``But with all its achievements and failures, the royal family deserves better treatment.''
Although a few hard-core supporters demand that South Korea switch to a monarchy, Yi considers such demands unrealistic.
Instead, he believes the government should let him live in a palace, ``at least as a tourist attraction.''
The government is not considering Yi's request, citing public skepticism.
Yi Seok also wants to build a museum where people learn about the dress, food and rules of etiquette at the royal court.
Four years ago, he established a ``National Federation for Preserving the Great Korean Royal Court'' _ an organization operating mainly out of his van.
He runs a Web site and claims thousands of members who are asked to pay at least 1,000 won (83 cents) a month.
``Your Highness, I have always wondered about you ... Now that I know you are alive, I am brimming with tears of happiness.''
``An 80-year-old man called me the other day, offering to come up to Seoul just to bow before me.''
Most are unaware of Yi's campaign.
``I both feel sympathy and anger at the last king and his family,'' said Kim Jae-chun, a taxi driver. ``I understand why people do not want to think about the subject.
It's embarrassing history.''
Yi speaks with a polite yet authoritative tone.
He wears clean, ironed suits and combs his hair before posing for photos.
The Yi Dynasty crumbled during the reign of Yi Seok's grandfather, King Kojong, when great nations jockeyed for control of Korea.
Rival court factions shifted to Chinese, Russian and Japanese forces and the intrigue led to the assassination of the queen by Japanese troops.
Kojong had dozens of grandchildren.
Of them, Yi Seok is the only grandson living in South Korea.
All his elder brothers are dead.
Two younger brothers run auto repair and liquor shops in the United States.
He also has two sisters in the United States and three in South Korea.
A 74-year-old son of Yi Seok's uncle, who was taken to Japan as hostage and forced to marry a Japanese woman, lives in Japan.
Some royal clansmen consider him the first in line to the throne, but most Koreans do not treat him as such, feeling insulted that a Korean prince was born to a Japanese mother.
President Syngman Rhee, who founded South Korea in 1948 after Korea's liberation from Japanese colonial rule, let Lee Seok's family live in one of the several royal palaces in Seoul, but confiscated its vast assets.
He saw the royal family as a potential threat to his authoritarian rule.
``We still had court ladies who followed me everywhere,'' Yi says with a chuckle. ``They would plead to me not to run because running was beneath a prince's dignity.''
According to the court's customs, his mother referred to Yi Seok as ``Your Highness!''
``My high school friends found that strange,'' he says.
When the military rulers in the 1960s deprived Yi's family of financial allowances, he worked as a disk jockey.
In 1962, he began singing at night clubs, entertaining American GIs with such songs as ``I Left My Heart In San Francisco.''
``An aunt learned about this and she wept and lamented that a Korean prince became a 'clown,' but I had to make a living.''
Yi Seok enjoyed national fame with a 1970s hit ``A House of Doves,'' a melodic song about a happy family.
But he was forced to emigrate to the United States when Maj. Chun Doo-hwan took power in a coup in 1979 and evicted Yi's family from the royal palace.
Overstaying his American visa, Yi mowed lawns, cleaned swimming pools and worked as an armed guard in a liquor store in the Los Angeles area.
After securing a green card, he ran his own liquor store.
He returned home in 1989.
So I went to my old home, the palace, but guards there would not let me in.
I jumped the walls at night to sleep in there, but the place was too damp when unheated,'' he says.
Yi had three short-lived marriages.
He has two daughters and a son, all born to different mothers.
Recently a sympathetic landlord let Yi Seok temporarily use a small office.
Scattered about are unpacked boxes.
Downstairs, music throbs from the ``Don't Tell Mama'' night club.
ex) The weather forms the staple of their conversation.
It's just that the gap is narrowing, said gerontologist Dr.
William Hazzard, a professor of medicine at University of Washington in Seattle.
By 1990, women outlived men by seven years, and now there is about a five-year gap, he said.
“The happy fact is not that women are losing life,” said Dr.
Robert Butler, head of the International Longevity Center.
In fact, the centenarian club is still vastly female: 80 percent of the 37,306 Americans age 100 or over are women.
Men are five to six times more likely to have a heart attack than women right up to the age of menopause.
By the time they hit 80, the gap has narrowed, but the risk is still 20 percent higher in men.
“It's not whether they'll die of heart disease, but when.
And they're dying at an older age.”
Similarly, men are disproportionately reaping the benefits of declines in smoking and of eating less fat, especially saturated fat, than 30 or 40 years go, he said.
High blood pressure is being diagnosed and treated earlier and again, because men had a greater risk of developing hypertension to begin with, they get greater benefits.
No one knows for sure what the maximum lifespan will be, but according to Hazzard, the burden is on those that say we'll live to be older than 85 on average.
That's where the ceiling effect comes in.
Since the average women already lives to be over 80, while the average man lives to be about 75, women are slowing in their rate of increase because they are so close to the limit.
“We're already seeing some of the benefits:
less widowhood, fewer elderly people in nursing homes and the increased social support of both spouses being alive longer.”
As if she wasn't ubiquitous enough, Britney Spears' music will be available this summer on a new type of disc for small handheld players.
The discs look like CDs an inch (2.5 centimeters) across and are housed in plastic cartridges.
They can store any kind of data, including video and software and are attractive to the music industry because they are strong on copyright protection.
While the format is novel, analysts say getting consumers to adopt it will be a tough sell for consumer electronics and record companies.
Dataplay Inc., the Boulder, Colorado, company behind the technology, is counting on prerecorded discs
The company's partners include big hardware companies Toshiba and Samsung, which are planning to make players for the discs.
Three big music companies, BMG, Universal and EMI are going to put out music discs.
Dataplay is also making a strong play for the teen-age market.
Independent music company Zomba Records will release discs featuring its roster of stars, including Britney Spears and 'N Sync.
One of the music players, made by Evolution Technologies Inc.
The discs will cost about $16 when they are released in stores in early June, with one album of music ready to play.
But because the discs pack data densely and the music is compressed using methods similar to that of MP3 software, each can contain up to five albums of music.
The extra disc space can contain videos and lyrics, accessed by connecting a Dataplay player to a computer.
When connected, a user can also store data on the discs
250 megabytes on each side, for a total slightly less than the 650 megabytes that fit on a CD.
Data can only be written to the discs, not erased.
Other partner companies plan to incorporate Dataplay discs in digital cameras and small handheld movie viewers, to be released later this year.
A disc can store a two-hour movie at a low resolution suitable for small screens.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) _ President Roh Moo-hyun will fly to the United States this weekend to tackle two of his toughest hurdles:
resolving the North Korean nuclear threat and reducing his country's decades-old reliance on the U.S. military.
Roh's weeklong trip, which begins on May 11, comes amid heightened tensions over North Korea's suspected development of nuclear weapons and rising calls in Washington for the United States to cut its troops presence in South Korea.
Finding a mutually acceptable way of defusing the North Korean nuclear crisis will be the key topic of the May 14 White House summit between U.S.
President George W. Bush and Roh, both known for being plainspoken about their views on the government in Pyongyang.
In a meeting in Beijing in late April, North Korea gave U.S. negotiators a long wish list of political and economic benefits it wants to get in return for giving up its nuclear ambitions, according to U.S. officials.
Washington is reviewing the proposal with its allies in Japan and South Korea.
``The outline of how we will respond will become clear after the South Korea-U.S. summit,'' Ra Jong-il, national security adviser for Roh, said on May 6.
Since his election last December, Roh has tirelessly called for reconciliation with North Korea and a peaceful solution to the North Korean nuclear crisis.
Bush says he seeks a peaceful solution too, but he pulls no punches when criticizing North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, whom he accuses of ``blackmailing'' the outside world and starving his people while pursuing weapons of mass destruction.
U.S. officials have not ruled out the military option.
The nuclear dispute flared in October when Washington said North Korea admitted running a secret nuclear weapons program in violation of a 1994 treaty.
During the Beijing talks, U.S. officials say, North Korea claimed it already has nuclear weapons and that it had reprocessed spent nuclear fuel rods for more weapons materials.
Secretary of State Colin Powell said impoverished North Korea can count oncurbs nuclear weapons programs and missile exports as well as other activities such as drug trafficking.
Roh's trip to Washington comes at a sensitive time in the U.S.
-South Korean alliance, forged during the 1950-53 Korean War.
By October, the Pentagon is likely to decide on a major realignment _ and perhaps a substantial withdrawal _ of forces in South Korea.
Several months ago, thousands of South Koreans held street rallies to protest the deaths of two girls hit by a U.S. military vehicle and call for more South Korean jurisdiction over U.S. troops.
While tension rose in the nuclear standoff, however, thousands of South Koreans also rallied in support of the U.S. military presence.
In a TV debate show on May 1, Roh said it was time for South Korea to reduce its dependence on the U.S. military.
``Some people seem to think, 'We will all die if we don't have the U.S. military.'
But Roh complained that the United States and South Korea were ``out of step'' with each other over when to pull back U.S. troops deployed close to the border with North Korea.
The PGA Tour event last week was won by a South Korean, K. J. Choi.
The first pick in the NBA Draft this year could well be a 7-foot-5 Chinese player, Yao Ming.
The latest pitching sensation in the National League, meanwhile, is a left-hander from Japan, Kazuhisa Ishii.
Ichiro Suzuki bashing his way to a batting title and an MVP Award last year was just the tip of the tsunami, so to speak.
Asian athletes are fanning out to make names for themselves in a bunch of games, from golf to hoops to hardball to who knows what.
If Ishii can throw aspirin tablets in the major leagues, is there any reason why, at some point in the future, another strong-armed Japanese can't throw touchdown passes in the NFL?
Perhaps you've seen Wang Zhi Zhi, the Big Bopper from Beijing, drain a 3 for the Dallas Mavericks.
Or Suzuki, formerly of the Orix Blue Wave, leg out a triple for the Seattle Mariners.
Three of the top closers, you may have noticed, are South Korea's Byung-Hyun Kim, Japan's Hideki Irabu and Seattle's Kazuhiro Sasaki.
A third Japanese pitcher, Hideo Nomo, has a fine 2.56 ERA with the Dodgers, and a fourth, Shigetoshi Hasegawa, is 3-0 as a reliever with Seattle.
And have you noticed what's been going on in women's golf?
South Koreans Se Ri Pak, Mi Hyun Kim and Hee-Won Han have been tearing up the tour.
More Asians are on the way.
As Choi put it after his conquest in the Compaq: "I believe my victory will motivate the next generation of [South Korean] golfers and challenge them to come to the United States and try out for the PGA Tour."
LOS ANGELES (AP) _ A federal grand jury indicted on May 8 alleged Chinese double agent Katrina Leung on charges that she illegally took, copied and kept secret documents obtained from an FBI agent who was her chief contact and alleged lover.
The five-count indictment, however, did not charge Leung, 49, with espionage.
She has been jailed without bond since her April 9 arrest.
He was charged with wire fraud for allegedly filing false reports to FBI headquarters about Leung's reliability and with gross negligence for allegedly allowing her access to classified material.
Leung's indictment was immediately denounced by her husband, Kam Leung, who noted that a second retired FBI agent has admitted an affair with his wife.
``I want to emphasize that for over 20 years she was under the strict supervision of the FBI,'' Kam Leung told reporters outside their elegant home in wealthy San Marino.
He added, ``We all love her and look forward to the day we can welcome her back.''
Defense attorney Janet Levine said the treatment of her client was ``insulting, degrading and sexist.''
She denounced the government for portraying Katrina Leung as a Chinese Mata Hari and said that the woman was convinced to keep working for the FBI even when she wanted to end their association.
``They appealed to her patriotism, her love for this country ... she was begged by her FBI handlers to stay on.''
She said that at some point the FBI knew that the Chinese had identified her as an American agent.
``The FBI played a dangerous game knowing that Katrina was the one in harm's way if something went wrong,'' Levine said.
Calls seeking comment from two assistant U.S. attorneys involved in the case were not immediately returned.
Smith's attorney, Brian Sun, also has insisted on his client's innocence.
Prosecutors say Leung, a valuable FBI source of Chinese intelligence for 18 years, was simultaneously passing secret information obtained from Smith to China.
The breach has raised questions about every Chinese FBI counterintelligence investigation or operation from 1982 to 2000.
Leung, a socialite and political activist, was paid $1.7 million by the FBI for her information as an intelligence asset code-named ``Parlor Maid.''
The indictment against Leung charges her with two counts of copying classified documents with the intent to use them to benefit a foreign nation.
The documents were allegedly taken from Smith when he visited Leung at her home.
One document contains details of ``Royal Tourist,'' an FBI investigation into Peter Lee, a TRW Inc. employee who pleaded guilty to spying for China in 1997.
Another document is described only as a June 1997 secret FBI electronic communication.
The other three charges say Leung kept those documents without authorization, as well as another document detailing FBI intercepts of Leung's conversations with her Chinese intelligence contact, known only as ``Mao.''
Leung faces up to 50 years in prison if convicted on all counts, while Smith faces up to 40 years behind bars.
The indictment against Smith stressed the impropriety of the relationship and said the agent should have disclosed it in the 19 reports he filed with FBI headquarters about her.
Leung claimed contacts with some 2,100 Chinese officials and frequently visited China, where she was often seen with high-ranking government officials.
The FBI said it learned in 1991 that she had passed information to a Chinese intelligence officer but the matter was left to Smith to handle.
In his subsequent reports to FBI headquarters, Smith allegedly vouched for the validity of her information and said she had been verified in part by use of a lie detector.
In fact, Leung refused to take a lie detector test.
ex) I have a useful contact in New York.
ex) We're so much looking forward to seeing you again.
Belgium has become the second country in Europe after the Netherlands to decriminalise euthanasia.
The lower house of parliament passed a controversial bill that gives patients the right to die.
After two days of heated debate, the lower chamber voted 86-51 in favour, with 10 abstentions.
The result is widely expected following approval of the bill by the Belgian Senate in October.
"Everyone has the right to die in dignity," Anne-Mie Descheemaeker of the Flemish Green Party told Reuters.
"People aren't afraid of being dead but they fear the process of dying.
I'm sure that having the option of euthanasia actually gives people the courage to go on day after day."
Martine Dardenne of the Green Party, told Reuters before the vote:
"People should be given the right to choose.
I don't see why one group should impose its moral view on another."
The Netherlands became the first country in the world to allow a patient's right-to-die when it passed its euthanasia law in April.
The bill allows doctors to kill patients with terminal diseases who are suffering "unbearably" if they request it.
The Belgian law differs from Dutch legislation in that it applies to patients older than 18 and sets different procedures for patients who are terminally ill and those who may have incurable diseases but still have years to live.
Any patient requesting euthanasia must be conscious when he makes his demand and must repeat his request.
In the case of someone who is not in the terminal stages of illness, a third medical opinion must be sought.
Every mercy killing case must be filed at a special commission that would decide if the doctors in charge have obeyed regulations.
The law, under consideration now for more than a year, has divided political parties with the Christian Democrats staunchly opposed to legislation and the Socialist-Liberal-Green coalition supporting it.
"We stand against it because it's an extreme law.
It does not contain any provision against abuse," said Yves Leterme of the Christian Democrats.
Some members of the rainbow coalition parties also voiced their objections.
Paralysed, incontinent and unable to speak, she died earlier this week after suffering breathing difficulties and slipping into a coma.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) _ Hundreds of truck drivers refused to return to work on May 13 despite the South Korean government's threat to use the police to end a five-day strike that has crippled the world's third-busiest port.
Prime Minister Goh Kun said the strike ``was seriously damaging the economy'' because the Pusan port handles 80 percent of all container traffic in and out of South Korea, the world's 11th largest economy.
``The people will understand why the government will have to send in law-enforcement forces.''
Goh said the government will continue to mediate talks, but said it cannot wait long.
About 6,000 police were on standby.
In talks mediated by the government, the Korean Cargo Workers Federation and transportation companies met but failed to resolve the dispute over demands by the drivers for higher pay and lower fuel taxes.
Samsung Electronics Co., the world's biggest maker of computer memory chips, said it stands to lose roughly 100 billion won (US$83million) in revenue a day if operations in Pusan continue to be disrupted by a strike.
``If this strike is prolonged, it could be a significant problem for Samsung and other major exporters,’’ Samsung Electronics spokesman James Chung said.
LG Electronics, South Korea's largest home appliance maker, said some shipments have been disrupted by the strike.
More than 60 percent of the company's revenue is derived from exports.
About 700 drivers were taking part in the strike.
The action in Pusan comes after another group of truck drivers in the major industrial city of Pohang ended a weeklong strike on May 9 when transportation companies agreed to raise their fees.
The strike had caused delivery problems for major steel makers, including Pohang-based POSCO, one of the world's largest steel mills, as drivers prevented nonunion vehicles from entering
``However, if the issue is not resolved through dialogue, and should there be a possibility of a transportation crisis, Roh issued an instruction for a strict implementation of law on any violations,'' said Lee Hae-sung, Roh's senior secretary for public information.
Union members in Incheon, a major port city west of Seoul, have also threatened to strike beginning Monday.
Scientists have discovered evidence that hordes of dark, miniature galaxies surround ordinary galaxies, lending credence to the theory that the universe is comprised mostly of cold, dark matter.
The astronomers, who describe their work in an upcoming issue of the Astrophysical Journal, based their finding on an in-depth study of light from distant galaxies.
"The lack of observed satellite galaxies around large galaxies has been major point in the prosecution of the case against cold dark matter," said one of the researchers, Neal Dalal of the University of California, San Diego.
"Our research can be regarded as a major vindication of the model."
WASHINGTON (AP) _ President George W. Bush and newly elected South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun agreed on May 14 that the Korean Peninsula should be nuclear-weapons free and that the current standoff with North Korea should be achieved through peaceful means.
``We're making good progress toward achieving that peaceful
Roh, who in the past has urged the United States against slapping economic sanctions on the North or considering military force, said that he came to his meeting with Bush with ``both concerns and hopes in my mind,'' but that Bush had dispelled the concerns.
``Now I return to Korea with only hopes in my mind,'' Roh said.
``Escalatory moves by North Korea will only lead to its greater isolation and a more desperate situation in the North,'' their statement said.
It was the first time the two leaders had met face to face, although Bush said they had several phone conversations.
``I have found the president to be an easy man to talk to.
He expresses his opinions clearly and he's easy to understan,'' Bush said.
Bush said they also discussed economic issues.
confidence that South Korea ``will continue to be an engine for economic growth and vitality.''
The two leaders spoke briefly from a podium set up in the Rose Garden, which was bright with late-day sunlight, then turned without taking questions to the residence portion of the White House for dinner.
In their joint statement, the two leaders welcomed China's role in hosting a three-way meeting last month that included the North and the United States.
But the statement also suggested that subsequent talks should also include South Korea and Japan.
``Russia and other nations can also play a constructive role,''
``President Roh and President Bush reaffirmed that they will not tolerate nuclear weapons in North Korea,'' the statement said.
Earlier, Roh appealed to the United States against any rush to a decision to reposition the 37,000 U.S. troops now stationed in South Korea.
His office said in a statement that Cheney told Roh over lunch that ``U.S. troops should stay in South Korea because they guarantee security in the region.''
U.S. officials did not dispute the account.
There have been increasing public demonstrations in South Korea against the U.S. military presence.
Years ago, Roh demanded that U.S. troops leave but now he is seeking to delay U.S. proposals to move troops away from the Demilitarized Zone, which separates the two Koreas.
Roh told Cheney, ``I understand the principle and necessity of relocation of American forces in South Korea.'' But, he added, such a ``realignment of U.S. forces affects Korean politics and the economy,'' according to the South Korean statement.
``There has to be close coordination between the U.S. and South Korea on this subject,'' Roh was quoted as saying.
Bush and Roh both are emphasizing a diplomatic solution to the North Korean nuclear standoff.
South Korea and the United States agree that North Korea must not be allowed to have nuclear weapons, but their approaches differ.
administration is wary of negotiating with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, with top Bush advisers divided internally on whether to pursue a policy of containment or increased dialogue.
ex) Until we'd built up sufficient forces to drive the invaders back, we pursued a policy of containment.
NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft has reportedly detected water ice under the surface of the red planet, a finding that could be a giant step in exploration of Mars.
Many astronomers believe Mars used to have quantities of liquid water on its surface, but they have never agreed on where the water went.
Liquid water is seen as a prerequisite for Earth-type life on a planet.
Underground water ice could be a key to understanding how Mars developed and could inform future exploratory missions.
While full technical details will not be made public until late this week, the detection of sub-surface water ice on Mars is just what Mars Odyssey was sent into space to investigate.
Odyssey is also recording data on radiation in low orbit around Mars, to determine any radiation-related risk to future human explorers.
Mars is one of the most studied objects in our solar system.
As Earth's next-door planetary neighbour, it has the advantage of location and is also thought to be similar in composition to Earth, rather than being a gas giant like Jupiter.
In addition to Mars Odyssey, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration is also collecting data with the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft, which has recently taken pictures of dust storms on the Martian surface.
The movie, ``Arirang,'' is a remake of a film based on a classic nationalistic tale that depicts Korean resistance to Japanese colonialists, who occupied the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945.
It was first made as a silent black-and-white movie in 1926 and then remade several times in both Koreas.
But Arirang's upcoming debut in Pyongyang marks the first time that a South Korean movie has been publicly screened in the North since the 1950-53 Korean War.
South Korean Lee Doo-yong, who directed the latest film version,said he took his version of Arirang to North Korea in October, and censors there agreed to screen it in two cinemas in Pyongyang from May 23.
Admission to the movie will be free.
It is set to open in Seoul at the same time.
South Korean films have had limited private screenings in the North, but this is the first time one has been released to the public there, Lee and a North Korean cultural expert with South Korea's Unification Ministry said.
``The film shows the happiness and sadness of life.
``It will be good for reconciliation if we can encourage more cultural exchanges like this.''
Young-jin runs around his rural hometown, attacking all those who work or collude with the Japanese.
He regains his sanity to battle a Japanese spy who tries to rape his sister _ but later loses his freedom forever, Lee said.
Stories about resistance to Japanese colonialism are popular in North Korea.
The nation's late founder and first president, Kim Il-sung, led pro-independence guerrillas.
His son, Kim Jong-il, rules the country today and its state-controlled media often publish diatribes accusing Tokyo of failing to make amends for its repressive occupation.
North Korean films have occasionally been screened in the South,though most have flopped at the box office.
The first was in 2000 with a film called ``Pulgasari,'' a North Korean version of ``Godzilla.''
Though the film was made in the North, its director, Shin Sang-ok, was South Korean.
He sought asylum in the United States in 1986, shortly before the film was finished, and said he and his wife had been kidnapped and held for several years to make movies for Kim
Kim Jong-il founded a film school in Pyongyang that has become a routine stop for the country's few foreign visitors.
Aside from a few movies based on legends, or old stories, most North Korean films advertise the totalitarian government and its socialist creed.
Arirang's director Lee said he wasn't overly concerned about being kidnapped when he visited the North for a week last year.
But I must admit I was a little nervous when entering Pyongyang.
ex) We were all set to go when the telephone rang.
ex) We must try to curtail our spending.
ex) I am not overly impressed by his work.
Millions of computers are being thrown on scrapheaps across Europe, creating a high-tech hazard for the environment.
Many people across the continent are using more than one computer every day
at the office, at home or on the move with a laptop or a pocket PC.
And as technology develops and the marketing machines go into overdrive, customers are buying better, faster and sleeker machines and discarding the old ones with the rest of the household rubbish.
A PC has an average lifecycle of just over two years.
Moore's law, named in the 1970s after chip-guru Charles Moore, states that the speed and power of computer processors, powered by silicon chips, doubles every 18 months.
So any electronic device armed with a chip ages quickly.
This is good news for computer manufacturers and retailers, but bad news for the "green screen" lobby.
Many computer users take their old machine straight to the scrapheap because they do not know it could have an afterlife.
But some businesses have gone into recycling.
Hardware company Dell has a second-hand exchange scheme in the United States where customers cover the cost of shipping.
Dell wants to extend this to Europe.
The European Union is also laying out recycling rules for all electronic devices.
It wants manufacturers to be responsible for recycling and take back old machines when they sell new models.
There are other ways to ensure your computer is given a graceful retirement, including donating it to schools.
Despite all the efforts, analysts say most computers in Europe and America are not recycled but scrapped.
In America, the pile of discarded machines would weigh about 220 million tons, says the U.S.
NEW YORK (AP) _ In a flurry of red, white and blue balloons, streamers and confetti, Broadway bid goodbye to ``Les Miserables.''
It was an emotional final performance for the musical, which closed on May 18 after more than 16 years and 6,680 performances, second only to ``Cats,'' Broadway's longest-running show.
Even before the show reached its stirring finale, the invitation-only audience was on its feet and cheering the performers.
``Time for au revoir,'' producer Cameron Mackintosh told the audience at the curtain call as he thanked the cast and ``all the great, fantastic casts we've had before.''
The show's authors, Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg, as well as its co-directors, Trevor Nunn and John Caird, stood beside him beaming.
After the curtain call and speeches, some 40 children who had appeared in recent high school productions of ``Les Miserables'' gave mini-reprises of the show's better-known songs.
They were joined on stage by all the performers, including members of the original cast, for one last bow.
The English-language version of ``Les Miserables,'' which tells the story of Jean Valjean and his pursuit by the relentless Inspector Javert, had its premiere in London at the Royal Shakespeare Company's Barbican Theatre in October 1985 and moved that December to the Palace Theatre, where it is still running.
Success has not been limited to New York and London.
The musical has played around the world, from Asia to Australia to South America, grossing more than $1.8 billion worldwide.
11 terrorist attacks, ticket sales for the New York show faltered.
In the last several weeks, the musical has played to more than 90 percent capacity.
The week before its final seven days in New York, ``Les Miserables'' grossed $853,505, filling nearly 96 percents of its seats.
In the last few years, the big British musicals have slowly been disappearing from Broadway.
``Cats,'' the Andrew Lloyd Webber feline extravaganza, folded in 2000 after 18 years and 7,485 performances. ``Miss Saigon,'' another Boublil-Schonberg show, closed in January 2001 after a 10-year run.
ex) The performers took their curtain-call.
Next week, a traditional national council called a loya jirga will meet in the capital of Afghanistan, Kabul.
About 1,500 delegates will choose a new leader for Afghanistan and a temporary government.
The loya jirga tradition began hundreds of years ago.
Tribal leaders from all over Afghanistan would be called together to accept or reject national policies, to settle disputes between tribes or to consider new constitutions.
Most loya jirgas in the past have been all male.
The loya jirga is a temporary decision-making group.
It is not a permanent part of the Afghan government.
The loya jirga is a representative process although it is not considered fully democratic.
Representatives of the most honored or most powerful Afghan families choose the people who elect loya jirga members.
The current loya jirga process began in December of last year.
Afghan groups agreed to set up a six-month government following the ousting of Taleban rulers.
That agreement also called for an emergency loya jirga to be held at the end of the six-month term to appoint a longer-term temporary government.
In January, Afghanistan appointed an independent committee to establish rules and methods for the loya jirga.
The committee had to decide on a process for choosing loya jirga members.
It also had to make sure that women and minorities had representation on the loya jirga.
160 seats were guaranteed for female delegates.
The process of choosing loya jirga members has gone through several steps.
The number of electors for an area was based on population.
Then, last week, the electors went to Kandahar for the final voting.
They chose the final group of loya jirga members from among themselves.
The process was not free of problems.
There were reports of vote-buying.
There also were reports that electors had been threatened.
There were delays in the voting as well.
Afghanistan’s former King Mohammad Zahir Shah will open the loya jirga Monday.
He returned to the country recently after living in exile for more than twenty years.
Zahir Shah ruled Afghanistan for forty years and is still considered influential with many Afghans.
However, his part in the loya jirga is ceremonial.
The loya jirga is to complete its work by June sixteenth.
Many experts believe it will choose Hamid Karzai, the current temporary leader of Afghanistan, as its next leader.
Karzai says he will accept the position if it is offered.
The new temporary leader and government of Afghanistan will serve for two years.
Then the country hopes to hold free and fair elections to choose a fully representative government.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) _ The Internet has spawned a new type of journalism in highly wired South Korea _ an increasingly popular Web site where doctors, students and even housekeepers work as ``citizen reporters.''
The three-year-old online service ``Ohmynews’’ _ where the public reports on everything from local gossip to national politics _ has become such a high-profile news outlet that Roh Moo-hyun granted it his first interview after being inaugurated as president in February.
``With Ohmynews, we wanted to say goodbye to 20th century journalism where people only saw things through the eyes of the mainstream, conservative media,'' said its editor and founder Oh Yeon-ho.
We put everything out there and people judge the truth for themselves.''
But Ohmynews's methods have raised concerns about the quality and objectivity of its reporting which, according to its own figures, is read by an estimated 1.2 million people daily.
``Marketing people and activists can pose as journalists to promote their own products and ideas,'' said Choi Joon-suk, a senior editor at South Korea's largest printed newspaper, Chosun Ilbo. ``The quality of the online media is a huge problem.''
All stories are fact checked and edited by professional reporters before being pasted onto the Internet, he said.
Only two stories have led to defamation cases.
A check of his computer shows 26,310 readers have registered to be citizen reporters.
They write about 200 stories a day.
Ohmynews last week published a string of articles ranging from Roh's trip to Washington to discuss the North Korean nuclear crisis to some more local matters.
One citizen reporter wrote a story alleging the nephew of a provincial city mayor illegally drew a loan from a farmers' cooperative.
Another wrote a first-person account of her husband preparing her a birthday breakfast.
``Yesterday was my birthday.
My darling husband got up early and I could hear him bustling about in the kitchen preparing the breakfast for me...''
About 80 percent of the electronic newspaper's content comes from the public, the balance from Ohmynews's team of 38 professional reporters and editors.
Pay for a citizen's article ranges from nothing to US$16, depending on its importance.
Ohmynews's influence was highlighted after an American military armored vehicle ran down and killed two South Korean schoolgirls last June.
While the accident initially attracted relatively little attention in the mainstream press, Ohmynews was aggressive in its coverage.
The stories prompted one ``citizen reporter'' to call for protests.
The idea snowballed and South Korea experienced some of its largest anti-U.S. demonstrations in years and critics called for a review of the U.S.
Mainstream newspapers later criticized Ohmynews, questioning whether it was ethical for a so-called reporter to incite demonstrations.
Then a few months later during campaigning for the presidential elections, Ohmynews coverage caught the attention of many 20_ and 30-year-olds.
They united behind Roh Moo-hyun and his policies for a more balanced relationship between Seoul and Washington and conciliation with communist North Korea.
The fast rise in popularity of Ohmynews, and other online news services, is partly attributable to the 70 percent penetration of homes with high-speed broadband Internet access connections _ more than anywhere else in the world.
Paik Hak-soon, a political observer at the Sejong Institute research center, said ``the mainstream press still has the ear of the majority of the public. But things are changing.''
``Twenty and thirty year-olds are getting their news from the Internet,'' he said.
A breakthrough in stem cell research in Australia could hold a key to the treatment of cancers, AIDS and other auto-immune diseases.
A team from the Monash University Medical School in Melbourne, Victoria, have identified and grown stem cells to regenerate the thymus
The thymus produces many of the cells that make up the body's immune system, including the infection-fighting T-cells.
Stem cells are cells which can be manipulated by scientists to grow into specific parts of a body.
While the Australian scientists have only managed to grow a mouse's thymus so far, they believe a human thymus could be produced from stem cells in three to five years.
that might develop from this research could be at least 10 years away.
Apart from potentially being able to treat or regrow an ailing thymus, Gill says the better understanding of how the thymus and immune system cells works will most likely lead to better disease treatments.
Up until now, it had not been known which cells lead to the creation of the crucial epithelium part of the thymus.
The epithelium converts other stem cells into T-cells.
It also controls the ability of T-cells to recognize invaders in the body and helps prevent T-cells from attacking healthy body tissues.
But thymus activity reduces after puberty.
The Monash research could lead to the discovery of how the thymus can be stimulated to renew the production of immune system cells.
This could lead to treatments for conditions where T-cells have been depleted, such as AIDS, and after chemotherapy.
The Monash team has isolated a population of epithelium stem cell markers in a mouse thymus and proved that they can be grown into a fully functioning thymus.
The next part of the research will be identifying and isolating epithelium stem cells from a human thymus.
Researchers at Monash University in the southern State of Victoria are amongst the world leaders in many fields of stem cell research
a leadership which has developed out of earlier pioneering work in in-vitro fertilization.
Sir Hillary, 83, with Sherpa Tenzing Norgay who died in 1986, was the first to scale the world's highest mountain, reaching the summit on May 29, 1953.
Fifty years later every New Zealander can recall with pride Hillary's earthy words:
When the achievement was announced on the steps of New Zealand's parliament a couple of days later, acting Prime Minister Keith Holyoake said Hillary ``has put the British race and New Zealand on top of the world.''
Five decades later, now firmly in the Pacific and beyond British Empire, New Zealanders would cringe at that.
It was not so much the achievement of being first to the top of the world, but the manner in which Hillary handled the fame.
He built schools and hospitals, created organizations such as the Himalayan Trust and worked tirelessly for primarily the Nepalese, but also for Third World causes.
People in places like Nepal, he said, no more asked to live in poverty than New Zealanders were responsible for their affluence.
``The fact that we do is a blessing, and with it comes responsibilities,'' he said.
In the decades since Everest more than a few New Zealanders have headed off into unpaid labor around the Third World, inspired by Hillary's service.
``That climb 50 years ago had a big effect on the way we New Zealanders regarded ourselves and our country,'' Prime Minister Helen Clark said at a recent Parliamentary reception.
``It was a triumph of skill, courage and endurance in which, as a nation, New Zealand took enormous pride...
''In the 50 years since, Sir Edmund has shown us that the achievement of one dream can be the basis for new aspirations.
Hillary replied in a familiar fashion:
''I like to think that I am a very ordinary New Zealander, not terribly bright perhaps but determined and practical in what I do.
''It's true,`` he told AFP, ''I think he was everything we thought a decent New Zealander ought to be.
``He got on with it, he knocked the bugger off, he did kindly good works in Nepal, he could turn his hand to being high commissioner in Delhi, but above all he remained good old Ed, unpretentious and decent...
He gave us a feeling about ourselves that perhaps pre-June 1953 we did not have.''
Hensley said that when Holyoake made his ``British race'' remark it was only because the notion of ``New Zealand citizenship'' at that stage was only five years old.
He was a New Zealander who had what we liked to think, was the best New Zealand virtues and, look at that, he was internationally admired.''
Hensley recalled meeting Hillary around the world.
``The impressive thing about Ed Hillary was that he was always Ed.
what you saw was what you got, whether he was high commissioner in Delhi or running the legendary bees...
''War has probably shaped us more than any other single thing from our landscape, but the mystique of Ed is a more cheerful counter to our other experiences.
During the early 1980s then prime minister Rob Muldoon and Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi had such a bad that New Zealand closed its mission in New Delhi.
In 1984 newly elected prime minister David Lange named Hillary Wellington's envoy to India and Nepal and he turned things around.
There is something of an after-dinner joke here.
It goes, ''What do Bill Clinton and New Zealand have in common?
They both owe their reputations to Hillary.
An asteroid the size of a football field passed extremely close to Earth last week but it remained undetected until days later, according to astronomers.
The space rock missed our planet by only 75,000 miles, about one-third the distance to the moon, making the near collision one of the closest ever recorded.
Cruising at 6.2 miles per second, the big boulder could have unleashed some major firepower had it struck, according to the NEO (Near Earth Objects) Information Center in Leicester, England.
The destructive force might have been comparable to an asteroid or comet that exploded over Siberia in 1908, which flattened 77 square miles of trees, according to the NEO.
But the asteroid, designated 2002 MN, is not in the same league as potential killer rocks measuring more than 0.6 miles in diameter, some of which are known to lurk in our space neighborhood between Mars and Venus.
Nevertheless, the big boulder should not pose a risk for some time.
"We have calculated its orbit several decades into the future and it does not threaten Earth."
The closest near collision in recent decades took place in 1994, when asteroid 1994XL1 passed within 65,000 miles of our planet.
CANNES, France (AP) _ Director Gus Van Sant's, 50, ``Elephant,'' an intimate look at the victims and killers in a fictional shooting at an American high school, won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival.
The film was well-received, though the victory Sunday was something of a surprise.
The French Riviera festival's 12-day lineup was considered the weakest in recent memory, and many critics favored Lars von Trier's dark, challenging drama ``Dogville,'' which did not win any prizes.
Van Sant, best known for ``Good Will Hunting,'' loosely based some aspects of his film on the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in suburban Denver.
For Van Sant, the film harks back to the small, lower-budget movies he once made, like ``My Own Private Idaho.''
He shot the film in just 20 days with a cast of real high school students, not actors.
The movie starts out showing an ordinary school day, with (a group of) students gossiping in the cafeteria, playing football or working in the photography lab.
Two students go on a shooting spree in the hallways.
The American director looked somewhat surprised as he accepted the Palme d'Or, saying ``Vive la France!''
While newspapers have given lots of attention to school violence, ``drama is an area where we're not supposed to really be talking about such things, because it is such a large problem,'' Van Sant said.
The title, ``Elephant,'' refers to the old expression about a problem that's as easy to ignore as an elephant in the living room.
``It's easier to leave it sleeping and not aggravate it,'' he said.
The director was the first American to take the Palme d'Or since Quentin Tarantino won for ``Pulp Fiction'' in 1994.
Van Sant also won the prize for best director.
``Uzak,'' (Distant), a slow-moving Turkish film about a jobless man from the countryside who irritates his sophisticated city cousin by moving into his apartment, won the Grand Prize, or second place.
The film's two stars, Muzaffer Ozdemir and Mehmet Emin Toprak, shared the award for best actor.
They played the two cousins, who were both lonely and alienated, but unable to become friends.
Arcand also directed the film about a womanizing university professor who confronts death with humor and sharp intelligence.
The movie had many viewers wiping away tears.
Marie-Josee Croze, who plays a young drug addict recruited to supply the dying man with heroin to ease his pain, won the award for best actress.
The Jury Prize went to ``At Five in the Afternoon,'' by 23-year-old directing prodigy Samira Makhmalbaf of Iran.
The movie _ her third to show in Cannes _ is about a spirited young Afghan who dreams of being her country's first woman president.
Many of its scenes have a haunting beauty, showing the country's ruined palaces and rocky deserts.
``Reconstruction,'' by Denmark's Christoffer Boe, won the Camera d'Or, an award for the best film by a first-time director, while the prize for best short film went to Australia's Glendyn Ivin for ``Cracker Bag.''
for prizes was Clint Eastwood's ``Mystic River,'' a crime drama about three childhood friends brought together years later by a murder.
Appearances by Eastwood and Kidman were among the highlights of the festival, which drew fewer stars than in recent years.
``Elephant'' offered a very different take on school violence than Michael Moore gave in ``Bowling for Columbine,'' a hit at Cannes last year.
Moore's film searched for the roots of violence in America by looking at everything from school shootings to racism to the National Rifle Association.
Van Sant doesn't offer any reasons for why school violence happens;
he just presents it, and leaves it to viewers to think about.
A few details were based on the Columbine massacre, when gunmen Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 13 people and then turned their guns on themselves.
Researchers agree that intense physical exercise is not the only way to gain better health.
Studies show that walking several times a week can lower the risk of many diseases.
They include heart disease, stroke, diabetes, bone loss, arthritis and depression.
Walking also can help you lose weight.
Fast walking is good for the heart.
It lowers the blood pressure.
It raises the amount of good cholesterol in the blood.
Researchers say walking can reduce the risk of suffering a heart attack by as much as fifty percent.
Studies have shown that walking for thirty minutes a day can delay and possibly prevent the development of Type Two Diabetes.
It can prevent diabetes among people who are overweight and at risk for the disease.
Walking strengthens the muscles and builds up the bones to which they are attached.
Studies show that women who walked and took calcium decreased their risk of developing osteoporosis or thinning of the bones.
Walking also helps ease the pain of arthritis in areas where bones are joined by strengthening the muscles around the bones.
Walking several times a week is a good way to control your weight and even lose body fat.
Experts say walking is one of the safest ways to exercise.
There is a low risk of injuries.
So it is good for people who are starting an exercise program for the first time and for older people.
A walking program is easy to start.
You should wear loose clothes and good shoes.
Shoes designed for walking are best.
You should stretch the muscles in your arms, legs, and back before and after you walk.
Stretching is an important part of any exercise program.
It helps prevent injury and muscle pain.
How fast should you walk?
Yet, you should be able to talk.
Let your arms move back and forward at your sides while you walk.
There are no rules to starting a walking program.
Or you may walk up hills to strengthen your leg muscles.
Health experts say you can gain the most from a walking program if you walk about five kilometers an hour for thirty minutes a day.
You should do this about five times a week.
PETERSBURG (AP) _ Naval and army cadets marched in tight formation on May 27 across the cobblestones of Palace Square, the epicenter of St.
Thousands of revelers pressed against metal barriers erected around the square, which is bordered on one side by the ornate, sprawling Winter Palace, the one-time seat of czarist power.
Three hundred years is young for a Russian city _ Moscow recently celebrated its 850th anniversary _ but as St.
Petersburg Governor Vladimir Yakovlev pointed out in a speech to the cadets and crowd Tuesday, ``together with Russia it has endured war and revolution.''
It has also endured misery.
``It's a city that has had such a special history in a short period of time,'' said scientist Vladimir Markov as he watched a procession of red-robed Russian Orthodox priests bearing icons outside St.
Petersburg got a major face-lift for the festivities, which are to culminate over the weekend with a Russia-European Union summit and a meeting between Putin, the city's most famous living native son, and U.S.
An ornate gate to the Winter Palace, which now houses the Hermitage Museum, was opened in a ceremony Tuesday, providing access to the building from Palace Square for the first time since the Bolshevik revolution.
Renamed Petrograd in 1914 and Leningrad a decade later, Saint Petersburg got its old name back as the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
ex) The alliance was forged in the crucible of war.
ex) Her bones were laid to rest here.
*ex) By the time the siege ended, the citizens were nearly starving.
= participant in the unsuccessful conspiracy to overthrow Czar Nicholas I of Russia in December
The Internet is for everyone, and with it comes responsibilities for everyone
people who use the Internet, technicians who build it, businesses that make money off it and governments that try to control it.
He calls on Internet users and developers to share responsibility for making the Internet available, secure, affordable and accessible to everyone.
They should also be good Internet citizens.
"Keep in mind that there are real people on the other end of your e-mail, as opposed to thinking, 'This is a computer with a glass display, and you don't have to worry about what you say,"' Cerf says.
On the other hand, he says, the business influence shouldn't be too large that it crowds out research and other uses.
He warns of commercial forces curtailing the global nature of the Net.
unprecedented control of access lines by high-speed service providers, and patents that restrict use of specific technologies.
the patent holder included
benefits more if everyone contributes to the common good.
Cerf also worries about efforts to censor content, like pornography and hate speech.
Such attempts, he says, run up against the First Amendment here and may conflict with values in other cultures.
The meeting's most closely watched moment was the welcoming handshake on June 1 (Sunday) between French President Jacques Chirac and U.S.
President George W. Bush, whose wartime differences led to angry recriminationssmall talk before walking into a luncheon with other presidents and prime ministers.
Chirac, at a news conference later, praised Bush for getting
Congress to pass a $15 billion package to combat AIDS in the developing world.
``Bush took a decision in this area that I would not hesitate to call historic,'' Chirac said.
Largely peaceful demonstrations against the summit deteriorated into battles between riot police and protesters that continued into early Monday.
For more than nine hours, police used rubber pellets, tear gas and water cannons against several thousand militants who rampaged through the Swiss city of Geneva, across the lake from the meeting.
The protesters looted gas stations, pharmacies and other shops, leaving downtown Geneva in a state of chaos.
Even the bulletproof windows of big banks were smashed.
Inside the summit, there was a concerted effort to get beyond Iraq.
White House officials suggested Bush was taking a wait-and-see approach about his relationship with Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, another ardent war foe.
It was a different matter, though, with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who also opposed the U.S.-led drive to depose Saddam Hussein but, in Washington's view, was not confrontational about it.
Petersburg, Russia, where they celebrated ratification of a major nuclear arms agreement and proclaimed their close friendship.
``Strange as it may sound,'' Putin said, the United States and Russia have even strengthened ties _ a point that Bush was happy to echo.
Nearly 100 meat-eating fish native to China have been found in a Maryland pond where a pet owner dumped two of them in 2000, state officials said amid concern that the fish will become a major threat to native species.
Last week, agency officials caught 99 young northern snakeheads by using an electroshock method that stuns them, causing them to float to the surface of the water.
Two adult fish were released into the Crofton pond two years ago, police said.
State officials discovered the presence of the species in May, when an angler caught a suspicious fish and provided a photo for identification.
Since then, biologists have caught several young fish.
No charges were filed against the owner of the two original fish, whom police would not identify, because the statute of limitations has expired.
"They outgrew the capability of his care, so the individual chose to release them into what he felt was a safe environment," said Capt.
Mark Sanders of the Maryland Natural Resources police.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) _ An upscale neighborhood a block from the presidential residence in Seoul has a new cultural icon:
Opened a week ago, ``Asia Eros Museum'' is a sensation in this deeply Confucian society that has stifled public talk of sex while harboring one of the most prosperous sex industries in Asia.
In the first survey of its kind, government-funded experts estimated that selling sex generated 24 trillion won (US$20 billion)last year, or 4.1 percent of the country's gross domestic product,and employed 330,000 women, thousands of them from Russia and the Philippines.
Some experts say the figures are grossly underestimated.
Alarmed, the government's Ministry of Gender Equality designated fighting the sex industry a top policy goal for this year.
Koreans like to depict themselves as a chaste nation.
An old dictum goes, ``Boys and girls should not sit together in the same room after they turn seven.''
Women used to wear baggy ``hanbok''dresses that hid their physical shape, and were told not to smile at men outside their families.
In February, the National Assembly refused to let a filmmaker shoot a scene of an actress in a miniskirt walking through its main gate.
Film crew members accused the assembly of rejecting their request because the actress was playing a prostitute elected to parliament.
So instead, the crew filmed the actress climb over the assembly's main steel gate while parliamentary security guards tried to stop her.
In real life, however, attitudes about sex are rapidly changing.
Young couples kiss in public _ an act that would have invited disapproving stares, if not a tongue-lashing, from old people a decade ago.
A flood of porn on cyberspace is clicks away in this highly wired country.
``It's time to break the taboo and start a discourse on sex, its pleasure, its distortions and superstitions,'' says Martin Shim, a curator at Asia Eros Museum.
Shim's narrow three-story museum exhibits hundreds of erotic artifacts, from Indian carvings and Tibetan statutes to Chinese folding screens and Korean paintings.
It also illustrates Chinese erotic foot-binding and ancient Korean worship for a penis-shaped rock believed to help women bear boys.
By law, prostitutes and customers can be jailed for up to one year in South Korea, and adulterers twice as much.
But enforcement has been so lax that ``until recently many people didn't even know prostitution was illegal,'' says Song Ae-ri, a sex industry expert at the Ministry of Gender Equality.
Today, the government encourages sex education in grade school and upward.
It is pushing for a new law to increase penalties for running a brothel or arranging prostitution elsewhere from the current maximum five years in prison to a minimum of five years.
Besides 70 red-light districts, thousands of steam-bath saunas,barber shops, night clubs, and ``love'' motels _ whose roofs are often shaped like Disney Land castles _ serve as fronts for prostitution.
``With our rapid economic growth, workers are driven to more competition, and sex has become a way of letting off their stress, rather than an expression of love,'' says Koo Sung-ae, a sex educator.
In May, local media appeared scandalized when a Seoul cafe hosted orgies of men and women who romped naked, wearing only feather masks.
According to police, they selected ``a king'' by lottery and did whatever he bid them do.
The cafe's arrested owner told police he got his business idea from foreign porn Web sites and ``was very proud of bringing a new culture of free sex in Korea,'' said police Sgt.
``I don't see any difference between them and beasts,'' fumed Choi Joon-hwan, 72, a visitor to the sex museum.
For celebrities, violating the public code on sexual conduct carries a steep price.
When video footage of popular actresses and singers having sex with their boyfriends turned up on the Internet in recent years, they were expelled from public life, with TV stations scrambling to cancel their appearances.
One of them apologized for her ``crime''and fled to the United States. Later she even changed her name.
Built centuries ago to keep Mongol marauders and Manchu militias out, the Great Wall of China is again threatened.
This time from the inside.
Vacationers are scattering garbage over its battlements and carving their initials into its ancient bricks.
Villagers cart away pieces to make sheep corrals and developers are leasing land at the wall's foot to build tract homes, a group set up to protect the monument warned.
Hoping to beat back the threat, William Lindesay, an Englishman who in 1987 hiked along 2,470 kilometers (1,530 miles) of the wall, announced the formation of a conservation alliance to protect the most spectacular sections of the wall located around Beijing.
There are 629 kilometers (390 miles) of the wall within the municipal limits of China's capital.
But only a dozen or so kilometers have been restored.
Lindesay wants other parts maintained in their current weathered state and to safeguard spectacular vistas around the wall from what he called "view pollution."
With the backing of Beijing's Cultural Heritage Administration and UNESCO, the U.N. cultural organization, Lindesay's International Friends of the Great Wall plans to hire local farmers as rangers to pick up garbage and make sure bits of wall aren't carried off.
They will place signs along trails leading up to the wall reminding visitors not to smoke, litter or otherwise disturb the environment.
They eventually hope to lobby local governments to ban development that would tarnish the wall's natural setting.
China's best known historical landmark stretches from the seacoast east of Beijing to Gansu province in the western desert.
Its earliest parts were built in the second century B.C. by the emperor Qinshi Huangdi, who connected existing battlements as he conquered his rivals and created the first unitary Chinese state.
More modern sections around Beijing, that most familiar to visitors, date from the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and have been restored since the Communist Party took power in 1949.
China boasts thousands of historical monuments from its 5,000-year history and hundreds of major archaeological finds are uncovered each year.
But funds and preservation know-how are stretched thin.
That makes it even more important for non-governmental citizens' groups to participate in preservation, Lindesay said.
WASHINGTON (AP) _ Hillary Rodham Clinton, acknowledging tirades and tears over her husband's affair with a White House intern, says President Bill Clinton lied to her about the relationship until the weekend before he admitted as much to a grand jury.
Clinton, now a Democratic U.S. senator from New York, vividly describes her pain over the betrayal in ``Living History,'' her new memoir covering her eight years in the White House.
A copy of the book, which goes on sale on June 9 (Monday), was obtained by the Associated Press.
``The most difficult decisions I have made in my life were to stay married to Bill and to run for the Senate from New York,'' she writes.
``For me, the Lewinsky imbroglio seemed like just another vicious scandal manufactured by political opponents.''
More than six months later, with the president preparing to testify before a grand jury, Mrs.
15, 1998, he woke her up, paced at the bedside, and ``told me for the first time that the situation was much more serious than he had previously acknowledged.''
``He now realized he would have to testify that there had been an inappropriate intimacy.
He told me that what happened between them had been brief and sporadic.''
Why did you lie to me
I was furious and getting more so by the second.
I was trying to protect you and Chelsea
Publisher Simon & Schuster, expecting large sales, ordered an extraordinary first printing of 1 million copies.
The first lady-turned-senator was paid a $2.85 million advance toward the $8 million book deal.
Foreign rights have already been sold in 16 countries.
List price for the book is $28.
The publisher billed the book as a complete, candid accounting of her years in the White House.
Clinton said that up until that August morning when her husband confessed, she believed he was being railroaded and had merely been foolish by paying any attention to Lewinsky.
She was incredulous that he would endanger their marriage and family.
``I was dumbfounded, heartbroken and outraged that I'd believed him at all.''
She said the president's eyes filled with tears when she told him he would have to confess to their teenage daughter as well.
She ultimately decided she still loved her husband, although ``as a wife, I wanted to wring Bill's neck.''
She describes in bitter terms the months of chill between them, never more painful than when they went to Martha's Vineyard for vacation right after his testimony.
``Buddy, the dog, came along to keep Bill company. He was the only member of our family who was still willing to.''
While on the island, she felt ``nothing but profound sadness, disappointment and unresolved anger.
I could barely speak to Bill, and when I did, it was a tirade.
I walked on the beach.
He slept downstairs.
She said her decision to run for a Senate seat from New York provided a healing bridge for them.
``Bill and I were talking again about matters other than the future of our relationship.
Over time we both began to relax.''
She recounted their last day at the White House, waltzing down a long hallway in her husband's arms.
She concludes that what her husband did was morally wrong but not a betrayal of the public.
On the Whitewater matter that dogged much of their time in the White House, the former first lady acknowledges only ``public relations mistakes in how we handled the growing controversy.''
``Whitewater never seemed real because it wasn't.''
Clinton portrays Whitewater partner Jim McDougall as an embittered man who threatened her several times when she tried to file overdue tax returns for the property.
The payback came, she said, when her husband decided to run for president in 1991 and McDougall planted ``false information about our relationship'' in the press, claiming he had refused favors from Clinton when he was governor.
The final report on the Whitewater investigation questioned the first lady's truthfulness.
Independent Counsel Robert Ray's report concluded that the Clintons' mid-1980s Arkansas land venture benefited from criminal activity and that the president and his wife gave factually inaccurate testimony, but there was not enough evidence to prove the former first lady’s family engaged in wrongdoing.
Clinton's political stock is on the rise, although she insists she will not consider entering the race for president this year.
ex) She was adamant that she would not come.
authority to make a film of it, translate it, sell it abroad, etc)
ex) His stock is high.
Throwaway cell phones are set to make their debut on United States convenience store shelves, down the aisle from plastic razors, beef jerky and disposable cameras they seek to emulate as spur-of-the-moment consumer purchases.
Hop-On, a small company based in Garden Grove, California, said this week it had won U.S. regulatory approval to sell its first phones, clearing the way for a nationwide introduction of a no-frills recyclable phone for prepaid mobile calling.
In an interview, Chairman and Chief Executive Peter Michaels said approval of the phones will allow Hop-On shortly to sell its stripped-down mobile phone and 60 minutes of initial service for a $40 flat fee, through an unnamed "major CDMA" carrier.
Hop-On mobile devices are plastic, two-way phones the size of a deck of playing cards.
Users talk and listen to callers via a microphone/earpiece connected by a thin wire.
Customers buy scratch cards in increments of additional talk time of 60, 90 and 120 minutes, according to company officials.
Hop-On, which hopes to sell the phones at major retailers, corner stores and gas stations, said it received a go-ahead from the U.S.
Federal Communications Commission for phones with a low-cost chipset from Philips Electronics based on Qualcomm Inc.
Michaels also hopes to win the FCC's blessing in 45 to 60 days for a second, less-expensive model that would be priced at $29.
This is based on the international GSM mobile standard.
It would be aimed at Europe and eventually the United States.
The company also said it is in talks with as many as 30 major retailers and other companies to distribute the phones, including convenience stores, gas station chains and big retail chains.
Consumer brands, including a major beer company, are looking at licensing Hop-On phones and selling them under their own brand names as promotional items, Michaels said.
The Mangyongbong-92 was to arrive early Monday in the northwestern port of Niigata on its first visit since a North Korean defector told U.S. lawmakers last month that most of the imported parts used in North Korea's missile program were smuggled by passenger ship from Japan.
But North Korean officials called off the trip, saying Japanese authorities and local media were fanning anti-North Korean emotions and creating unsafe conditions for the ship's port call.
``Under these abnormal circumstances we cannot guarantee the ship's normal operations and the safety of the passengers,'' Nam Sung-u, deputy chairman of the pro-Pyongyang General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, told reporters.
Japan and North Korea have no formal diplomatic relations.
``We are indefinitely suspending the ship's entry due to the abnormal and harsh environment around the Niigata port,'' he said.
Nam said the ferry would not resume operations until Tokyo ``improved'' its actions regarding the ship.
The Mangyongbong-92 was originally scheduled to make 10 trips to Japan through Sept.
Niigata police were planning to mobilize about 1,500 riot police during the ship's planned two-day visit as a precaution against expected protests by rightists and supporters of Japanese who were kidnapped by North Korean spies decades ago.
Customs officials were also planning to tighten their inspections of passengers.
North Korea on Sunday criticized Japan for pressuring the North to suspend the ship's operations.
The statement also warned of ``catastrophic consequences'' if increased surveillance by Japan effectively marked the beginning of economic sanctions against North Korea.
North Korea has repeatedly said it would view sanctions as an act of war.
Japanese officials said their intention to conduct strict searches of the ship and passengers may have convinced North Korea it wasn't a good time to set sail.
``I had a sense that the ship wouldn't be able to return if we had solid inspections in place,'' Niigata Mayor Akira Shinoda told public broadcaster NHK.
The Mangyongbong-92 is the only passenger ship making regular trips between Japan and North Korea.
It carries ethnic Koreans back and forth on excursions and is believed to be an important conduit of cash and goods sent by Japan's Korean community.
Dozens of ethnic Korean students attending pro-North Korean schools in Japan were due to ride the ferry to the North on Tuesday for field trips.
Japan's Korean population of about 200,000 is mostly second- and third-generation residents whose parents and grandparents came to work during Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.
Niigata is 256 kilometers (159 miles) northwest of Tokyo.
An elaborate matrix of paths scattered throughout the entire solar system can dramatically cut the amount of power needed for spacecraft to explore our celestial neighborhood, NASA announced this week.
Conventional deep space missions use the gravity of celestial bodies one at a time, using nearby planets or moons or the sun to slingshot themselves farther along on their journeys.
But craft using the space freeway, which resembles a complex arrangement of tunnels and passageways, take advantage of previously untapped gravitational relationships between the planets and moons.
"Our theory has refined to the point where we can actually compute these trajectories and we find patterns going around the planets and the sun.
In various regions of our solar system, competing gravitational forces virtually cancel each other out, leaving corridors through which spacecraft can travel with little effort, according to Lo.
"Like threads twisted together to form a rope, the possible flight paths formed tubes in space," JPL said in a statement.
Lo foresees a future in which permanent space outposts could line the superhighway, serving as supply depots for human explorers traveling along the same routes.
Past space wanderers have already tested the space road, including asteroids and comets.
Comet Shoemaker-Levy, for example, collided with Jupiter "when it took an off-ramp toward the giant gas planet," NASA said.
Some scientists theorize that a killer asteroid traveled along the highway when it smacked into Earth and wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
QUTANG, China (AP) _ Even with months of warning, the rising waters of the Yangtze River behind the Three Gorges Dam took thousands of people by surprise.
Engineers had posted signs showing where the water level will be when the reservoir, which started to fill on June 1, reaches its highest point.
But in a sign of the confusion surrounding the world's biggest hydroelectric project, and by sheer force of rural tradition, many planted fields they had been told were doomed.
``They thought their fields were really high and wouldn't be reached by water,'' Ding said.
The Three Gorges Dam is unprecedented in the scale of both its construction and the dislocation imposed on people whose families have lived for centuries along the densely populated Yangtze.
The government is moving about 1.3 million people to higher ground _ some as far away as Shanghai, 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) to the east.
Critics say both goals would have been better served by a series of smaller dams.
They warn that the project could worsen pollution by trapping sewage and industrial waste, and that a dam break could lead to catastrophic flooding.
Construction went ahead despite complaints about the 180 billion yuan ($22 billion) cost, forced relocations, environmental damage and flooding of temples and other cultural and archaeological sites.
The government has promised to pay for new homes and farmland for relocated residents.
But some villagers complain that the payments are inadequate, and in a few cases accuse local officials of embezzling money meant for them.
Ding, the farmer in Qutang, about 200 kilometers (120 miles) upstream from the dam, once had a vegetable field of some 3,000 square meters (36,000 square feet). He said that now all but 120 square meters (1,300 square feet) of it is under water.
``The government relocation program wasn't carried out in this village, so we have no money,'' he said.
The reservoir has been rising by two to four meters (six to 12 feet) a day since June 1, when 19 of the dam's 22 sluice gates were shut in a ceremony shown live on national television.
The 190-meter-tall (630-foot-tall) concrete wall is nearly two kilometers (11-2 miles) wide.
Even as the waters crept up Monday, laborers were carrying out last-minute demolition work on lighthouses and other tall buildings due to be engulfed, tearing them down so they won't be a hidden danger to ships.
The Yangtze is one of China's most important transportation arteries, and shipping is to continue through the reservoir, with giant ship locks built to carry freighters and ferries around the immense concrete wall.
Shipping has been banned near the dam since April 10 but is to resume June 16.
China's leaders exalt the dam as a sign of the country's high-tech prowess, but the demolition was being carried out by brute force, with hammers and pickaxes.
Bricks and other salvaged materials were carried away in baskets slung across the backs of donkeys.
A dense blanket of pollution, dubbed the "Asian Brown Cloud," is hovering over South Asia, with scientists warning it could kill millions of people in the region, and pose a global threat.
In the biggest-ever study of the phenomenon, 200 scientists warned that the cloud, estimated to be two miles thick, is responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths a year from respiratory disease.
By slashing the sunlight that reaches the ground by 10 to 15 percent, the choking smog has also altered the region's climate, cooling the ground while heating the atmosphere, scientists said.
While haze hovers over other parts of the world, such as above America and Europe, what surprised scientists was just how far the cloud extended, and how much black carbon was in it, according to A. P. Mitra from India's National Physical Laboratory.
While many scientists once thought that only lighter greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, could travel across the Earth, they now say that aerosol clouds can too.
They discovered not only that the smog cut sunlight, heating the atmosphere, but also that it created acid rain, a serious threat to crops and trees, as well as contaminating oceans and hurting agriculture.
While scientists say it is just early days and they need more scientific data, they do say the regional and global impact of the haze will intensify over the next 30 years, with an estimated five billion people living in Asia.
Discovered in Ethiopia's fossil-rich Afar region, the skulls have clearly modern features _ a prominent forehead, flattened face and reduced brow _ that contrast with older humans' projecting, heavy-browed skulls.
They're close enough to call Homo sapiens,'' said Tim White, a University of California, Berkeley paleontologist who was co-leader of the international team that excavated and analyzed the skulls.
Previously, the earliest fossils of Homo sapiens found in Africa had been dated to about 130,000 to 100,000 years, although they were less complete and sometimes poorly dated, White said.
White and his colleagues assigned the new creatures to a subspecies of Homo sapiens they named Homo sapiens idaltu _ idaltu meaning ``elder'' in the Afar language.
Two other scientists not involved with the research said the skulls are an important find that fill a big gap in the African human fossil record, the period between about 100,000 and 300,000 years ago.
They agreed with< White that the skulls' age and appearance strongly support genetic evidence that modern humans arose in Africa between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago _ and not at multiple locations in Europe, Africa and Asia as some researchers suggest.
Rick Potts, director of the Human Origins Program at the Smithsonian Institution, said the skulls, while still large and thick-boned, are undeniably modern.
Potts said that while White and his colleagues conclude that the fossil skulls are likely those of ancestral subspecies of Homo sapiens, he believes they represent modern Homo sapiens.
Researchers say they have created a transgenic mouse with muscles like a marathoner, capable of enduring rigorous exercise for extended periods of time.
While so far the research has only been conducted on mice, scientists say they expect the techniques they've developed to treat the mouse muscle will also work on humans.
"PGC-1 appears to be the switch, or a major component of it, that enables your body's muscles to adjust to the demands being put on them," said Spiegelman.
"Understanding how this system works could make it possible to develop a drug to manipulate this system."
Muscle is made up of a combination of different types of fibers.
Sprinters or weightlifters, on the other hand, have muscle rich in fast-twitch, Type II fibers.
These muscles are bulkier and stronger but tire quickly.
To create the endurance mouse, Spiegelman's group bioengineered PGC-1 into mouse muscle tissue.
But they were surprised to find that PGC-1 appeared to be converting Type II fast-twitch fibers into Type I slow-twitch fibers.
The muscle itself actually changed color, taking on a reddish hue characteristic of oxygen-rich tissue.
Further, in an endurance test at a Texas laboratory, the bioengineered muscle turned out to contract efficiently two and a half times longer than regular muscle.
The area is sparsely populated.
Students sleep in the same room and eat in a communal dining hall.
One student jokingly compared life to that of ``pigs in a pig pen.''
The all-boy Hansamm institute is one of dozens of cram schoolsproliferating in areas around Seoul where the pupils study hour after hour, preparing to clear a hurdle that will determine their future _ college entrance exams.
``Here life is so removed from the lure of cities that the boys have no choice but to study _ there is nothing else to do,'' says Hwang Min-ho, an instructor who carries a short, black baton as a symbol of discipline.
The regimen is called either ``hapsuk'' or ``kisuk.''
Basically it means ``sleeping and eating together'' in Korean, and the system reflects a belief that doing things together improves performance.
``I had difficulty adjusting at first, but I don't complain because I came here to avoid society and save time for studying.''
For South Koreans, group activity comes naturally.
Men serve a mandatory 26-month military service during which dozens of soldiers sleep on the same floor.
Office workers join ``hoe-shik,'' or group dinners, and like to sing and dance together in karaoke bars.
Parents send youngsters to special boot camps run by South Korean marines to learn teamwork and patience.
South Korea's school system is long credited with mass-producing dedicated workers, a key to the country's high-tempo economic success.
But it also created pressure-cooker conditions that emphasize rote learning for standardized exams.
In South Korea, which college one attends has far-reaching implications.
But as a saying here goes, ``when it comes to children's education, Korean parents don't care whether they jump in water or fire.''
A mother working as a department store clerk gives up almost all of her monthly wage to send her son to Hansamm.
Hansamm is miles from the nearest town.
During summer vacation, high-school seniors study at Hansamm.
But its 70 full-time residents are ``jaesoo sang,'' or ``study-again students,'' who didn't get into the university of their choice and are cramming for the following year's test.
Graduates of cram schools remember friends jumping the walls at night, lured by neon signs in the distance, and corporal punishment for disruptive students _ a common practice in many South Korean schools.
Sirens wail or loud music blares at 6:30 a.m. to wake the students.
After a roll call and exercise, classes begin at 8 a.m.
Another roll call comes at midnight, when students must go to bed _ unless they are studying, which they can do for another hour or two.
``But that's the very reason I came here.''
Hansamm allows students a two-night leave every three weeks.
When they return, officials check bags for items deemed distracting:
The institute plans to take students bird watching, rafting in a nearby river and on a tour to an ``invasion tunnel'' North Korea dug under the DMZ in the 1970s.
The boys seek their own diversion.
``We recently hired a new, young female nurse,'' said Hansamm's headmaster, Yoon Chong-sok.
It was dented by overseas summer trips and a rise in imports, the central bank said on Wednesday.
The central bank said the current account might turn to a deficit in August.
But the bank maintained its 2002 forecast of a $5 billion current account surplus.
The July figure was down from a surplus of $442.2 million the same time last year.
The travel deficit grew to a record $409.0 million in July as more South Koreans went abroad over the summer, the Bank of Korea said in a statement.
Hefty spending on overseas trips and study could trigger a current account deficit in 2003, Deputy Finance Minister for International Affairs Kim Yong-duk said on Tuesday.
Earlier this month, the governor of the central bank Park Seung said the current account surplus in 2002 would be at least $4 billion, lower than the bank's target of $5 billion or equivalent to about one percent of gross domestic product (GDP).
In the first seven months of the year, the current account surplus stood at $3.55 billion, versus $6.97 billion a year earlier, the Bank of Korea said.
Current account, the broadest measure of trade with other countries, includes all goods and services as well as capital transactions and non-business transfers such as donations and aid.
LONDON (AP) _ Days before the new Harry Potter novel was to go on sale around the world, thousands of copies of the book were stolen in Britain, prompting police on June 17 (Tuesday) to threaten the arrest of anyone caught selling them on the black market.
Rowling's, 38, series about a boy wizard, ``Order of the Phoenix,'' have been guarded with great secrecy by publisher Bloomsbury.
Merseyside police, who are investigating the theft, issued a statement warning people that if they ``handle the book before Saturday in anything other than a legitimate manner, they could face criminal charges.''
Bloomsbury also used the robbery to remind the public that a legal injunction prevents any publication of the contents or summary of the book before it goes on sale this weekend and also requires the return of any missing books to the publisher.
(2130 GMT) Sunday, along with the truck trailer they were packed in _ ready for distribution around Britain ahead of the launch early Saturday morning _ from an industrial park in the town of Newtown-le-Willows, northern England.
The trailer was found by police on Monday about 18 miles (29 kilometers) away in Salford, Greater Manchester _ minus its valuable load.
Police said initial investigations had found that a man driving the front cab of a similar-style trailer, which also was stolen, had falsely presented himself to security as the legitimate driver.
``The van is being forensically examined, and we are appealing for witnesses,'' said Caroline Foran, a spokeswoman for Merseyside police.
She declined to say how many police officers were involved in the investigation, on the ground that it could jeopardize the inquiry.
The launch of the book is so hotly anticipated that Internet retailer Amazon.com said it has received more than 1 million advance orders for the book.
Rowling's four previous Potter novels have sold more than 190 million copies in 55 languages and 200 countries.
Earlier this month, a printing plant worker was sentenced to 180 hours community service for stealing pages from the forthcomingnovel he found in a parking lot as he was leaving work.
Donald Parfitt, 44, was arrested after The Sun newspaper told police it received a call from ``a shifty-sounding man'' offering three chapters of the book for 25,000 pounds (US$40,000).
Magistrates in Lowestoft, eastern England, said they considered sending Parfitt to jail because of the ``serious breach of trust and the high potential value'' of the stolen work.
The Sun also reported last month that two unbound, uncut copies of the novel were found in a field near the printer's offices.
A new study has found that mobile phone radiation is unlikely to increase the risk of cancer, challenging earlier research which suggested a possible link.
Researchers at Australia's Institute of Medical and Veterinary Science exposed 1,600 mice to varying degrees of mobile phone radiation over a two year period but found no increase in the cancer rate as a result.
An earlier study of mice exposed to mobile phone radiation conducted by the institute in the mid-1990s found a two-fold increase in lymphoma in genetically modified mice.
The new study was designed to repeat the earlier work, with more mice and stricter control over how they were exposed to the radiation.
The mice were split into two groups, with one group comprising mice which had been genetically modified to have a tendency to develop cancerous tumors.
A parallel study is underway by an Italian research group funded by the European Commission.
Findings from that research is expected in about 12 months.
For years, the North has let small-scale trading posts, known as ``farmers' markets,'' operate independently of the state-run distribution system.
``People with access to land, farming families, are now allowed to have kitchen gardens and thus more small markets have sprung up,'' said Kathi Zellweger, the director of aid to North Korea for the charity Caritas.
Farmers and other producers have even begun to set up roadside stalls, and bartering in public is common, she said.
The markets are thriving as North Korea intensifies a war of words with the United States over the reclusive regime's nuclear programs.
Washington and its allies have been turning up the heat on Pyongyang, using a combination of diplomacy and isolation to dissuade the North from continuing its nuclear programs and trade in narcotics, counterfeit money and missile parts.
On June 18 (Wednesday), the North acknowledged publicly for the first time that it has a nuclear weapons program.
With North Korea's main sources of hard currency in danger of running dry and its isolation growing, experts say the regime needs the farmers' markets more than ever to keep goods and money circulating.
Years of mismanagement and an ``army-first'' policy have left the economy in a shambles.
In the 1990s, famine struck, killing hundreds of thousands.
The North now relies heavily on outside food aid to feed its 22 million people.
To resuscitate the economy, North Korea implemented reforms last July.
It scaled back subsidies, increased wages and allowed prices to adjust to their real value, measures some observers have compared to a policy China pursued in the late 1970s when it gradually opened
But a year later, inflation is estimated at about 300 percent,the currency has plunged and goods are scarcer than ever.
Although the economy grew 1.2 percent in 2002 for the fourth-straight year of growth, output from key mining, manufacturing and power industries is declining, South Korea's central Bank of Korea says.
There are positive signs.
Since it began delivering aid to the North in 1996, the United Nations' World Food Program has gradually gained access to areas previously off-limits.
``That's a great leap forward,'' said Gerald Bourke, a spokesman for the WFP's aid project in North Korea which has grown to five local offices and a staff of 40.
North Korea's record with capitalism is abysmal.
In the mid-1980s, the North created a free economic zone close to the northeastern border with Russia that foreign investors avoided because it lacked infrastructure.
Only a few empty hotels now stand there.
Despite their surge, the farmers' markets are still a minuscule part of the North's economy.
Fewer than 7 million, or about one-third of the population, living in agricultural areas can buy at the markets.
The Bank of Korea estimates that private sector trade
Marcus Noland, an economist at the New York-based Institute for International Economics, said Pyongyang's anti-capitalist track record suggests it may actually be trying to tighten controls, not loosen them.
Previously, farmers sold their goods to the markets because of higher prices there than in the state distribution centers.
By raising official prices, the government may want farmers to channel crops back through the public system, Noland told the U.S. Senate in testimony earlier this month.
But experts say North Korea's fate may be beyond its control.
Whatever onomatopoeia you want to use, the result was the same:
Big names like Pets.com, Living.com, Furniture.com and many others simply folded.
Most of the 2000 debacle had little to do with the concept of selling things over the Internet.
It is clear that using the Web to sell stuff to people
And though it's still tiny, e-commerce is growing and hasn't even reached the beginning of its potential.
The "bubble" was not an e-commerce phenomenon.
It was a Wall Street phenomenon.
The stock market's wild swings are like the mood fluctuations of a child going to the amusement park.
The night before, the child is so excited he or she can barely sleep, talking about every ride and all the food.
But by the time you're in the car on your way, the child gets cranky and starts screaming "Are we there yet?"
When you finally arrive, you're exhausted
But Wall Street and the venture capitalists played a dangerous game with the companies by breaking an unspoken promise.
By building up the companies based on their original business models, the markets were saying, "you're doing the right thing;
do it well and we'll give you enough money to climb the mountain."
Nothing changed except that the investors changed their mind.
The plans they had bought into no longer were good enough, and any company that couldn't change was left to die.
Part of it is just business evolution.
The new plans are largely better plans.
E-commerce may have come of age, but it's a long way from adulthood.
It's left the idealistic childhood.
But it still has all those awkward, gawky, surly teenage years ahead of it.
WASHINGTON (AFP) _ U.S. lawmakers took aim at``spam'' messages on June 19 (Thursday), as two separate bills worked their way through the U.S.
Utah Senator Orrin Hatch co-sponsored one bill introduced Thursday, the Criminal Spam Act of 2003, which targets people who hijack computer systems or use other fraudulent means to send unsolicited commercial e-mail.
``The abusive practices of fraudulent spammers threaten to choke the lifeblood of the electronic age,'' Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch said in a statement.
Their bill would make it a crime to hijack the identities of other computer uses to send bulk commercial e-mail or to conceal key information about the e-mail's source.
Violators could face up to five years in prison.
A separate anti-spam bill, authored by Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon and Republican Senator Conrad Burns of Montana, was unanimously approved Thursday by the Commerce Committee.
Wyden said in a statement that his bill aimed to ``slow the flow of spam,'' but another anti-spam crusader in the U.S. legislature, said the bill, while a good start, didn't go far enough.
Schumer, a New York Democrat, earlier this year introduced his own bill that would impose heavy fines for spamming, mandate jail term for repeat offenders, and create a ``Do-Not-Spam'' list of e-mail addresses.
ex) We're both going after the same job. ex) The law must be given more teeth if crime is to be properly controlled.
According to industry analysts, the automotive computer technology market should grow from about $1 billion in 2000 to $8 billion by 2005.
Already, many companies are developing devices to provide cars with entertainment, Internet capability, satellite navigation, satellite radio, and futuristic safety features so that they look like something straight out of a James Bond movie.
The MP3 jukebox, available in March 2001 for select Fords, is an add-on accessory to cars' existing sound systems.
The jukebox features software that lets users load hundreds of hours of music stored on MP3 files in their computers onto a small cartridge that then goes into the car.
also plans to demonstrate various other new safety, security and entertainment technologies, not yet available on the market, in a souped-up vehicle at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
1 automotive products supplier, is demonstrating satellite radio at the Consumer Electronic Show.
Slated to be available in 2001, satellite radio is a revolutionary new band of radio that will deliver non-stop, digital-quality music and other programming directly via satellite to vehicles and residences.
Delphi won a multiyear purchase contract in November 1999 to build satellite-capable audio systems for General Motors Corp.
Dan Garretson, an analyst with Forrester Research, said he sees the automotive technology sector growing rapidly, with sales of devices like MP3 players, DVD players and satellite radios hitting a cumulative 28 million units by 2005.
(AFP) _ McDonald's said it has instructed its meat suppliers to phase out the use of growth-promoting antibioticsanimal husbandry on June 19 (Thursday) in the service of the wider public health battle on antibiotic resistance in humans.
``We take seriously our obligation to understand the emerging science of antibiotic resistance, and to work with our suppliers to foster real, tangible changes in our own supply community, and hopefully beyond,'' said Frank Muschetto, McDonald's vice president of global supply chain management, in a statement.
The father of all fast-food chains buys 2.5 million pounds of meat a year globally and with that type of purchasing power, McDonald's can ``help to reverse the trend of antibiotics overuse in animal agriculture,'' said Gwen Ruta, program director for Environmental Defense.
The chain consulted widely with scientists and environmental pressure groups, including Environmental Defense, in drawing up its new policy-making document.
It also drew on the experience of its European division that began phasing out the antibiotics during 2000.
By the end of 2001, all of the chain's European-based poultry suppliers had eliminated growth-promoting antibiotics for use in chicken feed.
Suppliers will still be able to use antibiotics for therapeutic purposes and disease prevention, according to Longest.
Scientists are concerned that the widespread use of these antibiotics in animals, alongside the well documented over prescription of drugs by doctors, is contributing to rising human resistance to the drugs.
In particular, bacteria that live in the gastrointestinal systems of animals and develop an immunity to the drugs can sicken humans if they make it into the food chain in one form or another.
``There are salmonella strains resistant to six different classes of antibiotics,'' noted Becky Goldburg, senior scientist at New-York based Environmental Defense.
Salmonella, one of the best-known sources of food poisoning, can be fatal.
A revolutionary new way of healing backs and bones could someday benefit millions.
The experimental approach, which utilizes a genetically engineered protein to help the body grow new bone exactly where it is needed, has proven 100 percent effective in early tests in patients with slipped vertebrae and fractures, researchers say.
A very common back problem has been making 68-year-old Vincent Porretti's job painfully impossible.
He's the theater manager at an Atlantic City casino.
Porretti has a disorder afflicting 6 percent of people over 65 to some degree.
One of his vertebrae, or backbones, has slipped against another, causing severe pain.
Porretti needed surgery to fuse four vertebrae together.
Usually, doctors take a bone graft from the patient's hip or put in metal rods to create the fusion.
But both methods have serious side effects in 20 percent of cases.
Alexander Vaccaro of the Rothman Institute at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, is the first to try a revolutionary approach.
He puts in a putty that actually prompts the body to grow new bone exactly where the doctor wants it.
still experimental but expected to win approval from the U.S.
the doctor simply adds water to a mix of two powders, and molds it like clay.
a genetically engineered version of a natural body chemical that plays a major role in bone growth.
Doctors are testing the putty not just on backs but also on fractures of legs, arms and other bones.
Many say this is just the first step in a new technology that will transform orthopedic medicine.
"I think we will find that bones will heal much better," says Dr.
Thomas Einhorn, chief of orthopedic surgery at Boston University Medical Center.
"And we will even be in a position where we may be able to regenerate entire segments of the skeleton, and restore patients who have really severe injuries."
So far, 19 patients have had the spinal surgery with OP1 putty with, Vaccaro says, a 100 percent success rate.
Porretti says he was pain-free immediately after surgery, despite having to wear a brace for a few weeks.
derives from the ancient practice of using tattoos to brand thieves and slaves.
But when police launched their nationwide search early this month for men with tattoos, they were looking for a new breed of criminals _ young men who have their bodies tattooed to evade the country's mandatory military service, crucial to its defense against communist North Korea.
Some 170 have been arrested on charges of ``willfully tampering with their bodies to avoid military duty'' _ a crime punishable by up to three years in prison.
National media showed the disgraced youths, handcuffed, heads bowed, and tops undressed to reveal full-backside tattoos of dragons, scaled fishes, birds and roses.
Although there is no law against tattoos, South Koreans have considered them symbols of disgrace, often associated with gangsters.
The nation's conscription law rules men with large tattoos unfit for the military because they cause ``abomination among fellow soldiers.''
Most see military service as a sacred duty of manhood.
By law, those seeking top government jobs or running for parliament must reveal not only their own service records but those of their children.
But some youngsters complain that they have to interrupt careers and schooling.
Disenchantment grew after repeated scandals showed that many of the country's rich and powerful pay bribes or help their sons get U.S. citizenship to keep them out of the military.
Fat men eat more and skinny ones fast to win exemption.
Some have doctored X-ray photographs or had surgery to damage ligaments or knee cartilage.
``There is a need to warn those who would do anything to avoid military service,'' Judge Kim Sung-keun said early this month as he sentenced a 24-year-old father with two children to eight months in prison for using tattoos to avoid conscription.
Authorities base their arrests, in some cases, on suspects’ history of military physical exams.
If a young man goes through one exam without overly large tattoos, but comes back for another round with an outsized dragon and secures an exemption, he would be under suspicion.
Investigators also have interviewed tattoo artists about the motives of their customers.
In the early 1980s, the country's military junta launched a crackdown on political dissidents and organized crime under its ``campaign for social purification.''
Historians say some ancient Korean fishermen had full-body tattoos, believing that would protect them from sea beasts when shipwrecked.
Slaves once carried tattoos on their forearms showing who owned them.
Confucianism, the centuries-old primer on social behavior, urged Koreans to ``preserve the body, hair and skin inherited from ancestors.''
Today, however, plastic surgery, hair dyeing and piercing are booming industries.
When soccer star and local sex symbol Ahn Jung-hwan scored his winning goal against Japan earlier this month, he threw off his shirt and flashed tattoos on both shoulders.
``In the following days, I had 10 times more people visiting my Web site,'' said Kang Ho, a Seoul tattooist who finds South Korea's regulations on tattoos ``out of date'' and ``ridiculous.''
Martin Luther King first made his way into my consciousness around 1963, his was not a flattering image.
In my mind, King was "lame."
He was "square," in a Sidney Poitier-kind-of-way, "profiling" his way through the pain of his people, always mindful of where the camera was.
As long as the weather was fair, he would breeze into a town and lead thousands in a demonstration.
Hundreds would be arrested, including King.
He would get bailed out that night and head to the next town with his "snake oil" brand of salvation.
But by 1968 the Black Power movement, with which I then identified, had closed ranks around our brothers and sisters in the non-violent civil rights movement.
There was a revolution going on, and everyone who was black was being swept up into it, like it or not.
Led by King, even mainstream civil rights activists were risking more.
He spoke against the Vietnam War.
His life was a testament to his message:
"The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice."
Just look at how it bent a previously unwilling President Ronald Reagan to sign the Martin Luther King holiday law, only 15 years after King's assassination.
Both the man and his mission grew out of our needs.
"If King didn't exist we would have invented him."
Our King emerged at a time when black "royalty" was in demand.
This is the American King I reflect on in 2001:
Martin Luther King Jr., the aristocrat who ennobled his own people and even the nation, which tried to strip that royalty from him through constant undeserved abuse and eventual murder.
In the end, this nation elevated him to a pedestal no other American has ever occupied.
On any given day, about 800,000 items pack the four-story warehouse, with 5,000 new ones trucked in every morning for an annual haul of 220,000 articles of clothing, 30,000 mobile phones, 18,000 eyeglasses and 17,000 wallets.
``I'm not surprised anymore by what people lose,'' says the custodian, veteran police officer Nobuo Hasuda as he pads along the cramped paths between caches of wheelchairs, snow shoes, motorcycle helmets, trumpets, porno videos.
March,'' and ``Eyeglasses:
As Tokyo celebrates its 400th anniversary as Japan's capital this summer, there is perhaps no better testimony to the city's rapid rise from tiny 17th century fishing village to megalopolis of 12 million people than its downtown lost-and-found.
Recently, someone turned in a martial arts suit for traditional Japanese fencing _ freshly used and still reeking of sweat.
``We had to wash it out because it smelled so bad,'' Hasuda said, gesturing to the bulky blue garments strung between the steel racks to dry.
Last year, about 1.62 million articles coursed through the center, making it possibly the world's single biggest lost-and-found.
About 250 hopefuls visit each day to see if their lost keys, briefcases and billfolds are in the labyrinth of gray steel cabinets.
A 2.2-ton freight elevator shuttles the smorgasbord of goods between floors, while workers on cherry-pickers snag items from the top shelves.
Jewelry, computers and other valuables are locked away in a vault.
Typical of a country obsessed with order and detail, every item is scrupulously labeled with time and place of recovery, then computer archived _ no matter how seemingly trivial.
One Good Samaritan turned in a phone card worth only 42 cents.
It's now tagged and waiting in a drawer cluttered with half-used train passes.
Back in 1980, a single cash stash of 100 million yen ($850,000) went unclaimed, and its finder became keeper, Hasuda said.
After that, the items can be claimed by the finder, or else revert to the city.
Items at the lost-and-found department of New York's Grand Central Terminal, by contrast, are kept for just 90 days, though items worth more than 600,000 yen (US$5,000) must be kept for three years.
It has an average daily inventory of 4,000 goods and donates unclaimed possessions to charity.
Tokyo keeps the cash and sells the unclaimed goods to junk dealers, adding 295 million yen (US$2.5 million) to the city coffers every year.
Both Tokyo and Grand Central claim a respectable 60 percent or so of lost items get back to their owners.
Hasuda's staff of 30 police officers tries to contact owners of other items whenever their identities can be gleaned from turned-in documents, letters, bills or business cards.
Tetsuro Takahashi was one of them.
The center called his cell phone operator when his red clamshell mobile turned up there two weeks ago.
``I'm pretty lucky,'' the 30-year-old said after reclaiming the phone on a sunny afternoon.
Chief Justice Rehnquist, President Carter, President Bush, President Clinton, distinguished guests and my fellow citizens, the peaceful transfer of authority is rare in history, yet common in our country.
With a simple oath, we affirm old traditions and make new beginnings.
As I begin, I thank President Clinton for his service to our nation.
And I thank Vice President Gore for a contest conducted with spirit and ended with grace.
I am honored and humbled to stand here, where so many of America's leaders have come before me, and so many will follow.
We have a place, all of us, in a long story
a story we continue, but whose end we will not see.
It is the story of a new world that became a friend and liberator of the old, a story of a slave-holding society that became a servant of freedom, the story of a power that went into the world to protect but not possess, to defend but not to conquer.
It is the American story
a story of flawed and fallible people, united across the generations by grand and enduring ideals.
Americans are called to enact this promise in our lives and in our laws.
And though our nation has sometimes halted, and sometimes delayed, we must follow no other course.
Through much of the last century, America's faith in freedom and democracy was a rock in a raging sea.
Now it is a seed upon the wind, taking root in many nations.
Our democratic faith is more than the creed of our country, it is the inborn hope of our humanity, an ideal we carry but do not own, a trust we bear and pass along.
And even after nearly 225 years, we have a long way yet to travel.
While many of our citizens prosper, others doubt the promise, even the justice, of our own country.
The ambitions of some Americans are limited by failing schools and hidden prejudice and the circumstances of their birth.
And sometimes our differences run so deep, it seems we share a continent, but not a country.
We do not accept this, and we will not allow it.
Our unity, our union, is the serious work of leaders and citizens in every generation.
And this is my solemn pledge:
I will work to build a single nation of justice and opportunity.
I know this is in our reach because we are guided by a power larger than ourselves who creates us equal in His image.
And we are confident in principles that unite and lead us onward.
America has never been united by blood or birth or soil.
We are bound by ideals that move us beyond our backgrounds, lift us above our interests and teach us what it means to be citizens.
Every child must be taught these principles.
Every citizen must uphold them.
And every immigrant, by embracing these ideals, makes our country more, not less, American.
Today, we affirm a new commitment to live out our nation's promise through civility, courage, compassion and character.
America, at its best, matches a commitment to principle with a concern for civility.
But the stakes for America are never small.
If our country does not lead the cause of freedom, it will not be led.
If we do not turn the hearts of children toward knowledge and character, we will lose their gifts and undermine their idealism.
If we permit our economy to drift and decline, the vulnerable will suffer most.
We must live up to the calling we share.
It is the determined choice of trust over cynicism, of community over chaos.
And this commitment, if we keep it, is a way to shared accomplishment.
America, at its best, is also courageous.
Our national courage has been clear in times of depression and war, when defending common dangers defined our common good.
Now we must choose if the example of our fathers and mothers will inspire us or condemn us.
We must show courage in a time of blessing by confronting problems instead of passing them on to future generations.
We will reform Social Security and Medicare, sparing our children from struggles we have the power to prevent.
And we will reduce taxes, to recover the momentum of our economy and reward the effort and enterprise of working Americans.
We will confront weapons of mass destruction, so that a new century is spared new horrors.
The enemies of liberty and our country should make no mistake:
America remains engaged in the world by history and by choice, shaping a balance of power that favors freedom.
We will defend our allies and our interests.
We will show purpose without arrogance.
We will meet aggression and bad faith with resolve and strength.
And to all nations, we will speak for the values that gave our nation birth.
HONG KONG (AP) _ Hundreds of thousands of angry and worried Hong Kong residents marched peacefully on July 1 (Tuesday) to protest an anti-subversion law in the territory's biggest rally since China used troops to crush a mainland student democracy movement in 1989.
Hong Kong people fear the law will undermine local freedoms of speech, press and assembly.
Their massive protest vastly overshadowed official ceremonies earlier Tuesday marking the sixth anniversary of Hong Kong's return to China on July 1, 1997.
``This will push Hong Kong toward an era of tyranny,'' said W.C.
Mak, a 74-year-old retired nurse who hasn't demonstrated against anything since she joined the 1 million people who flooded the streets in shock and rage after the Tiananmen Square crackdown.
An organizer of Tuesday's protest, Richard Tsoi, said more than 500,000 people had turned out.
Police said 350,000 people were on the streets during the peak of the demonstration, and said the total would have been higher.
They acknowledged it was the biggest protest here since the June 4, 1989, crackdown in Tiananmen Square shocked Hong Kong.
Hong Kong Chief Executive Tung Chen-hwa issued a statement saying he was ``concerned'' so many people had protested.
Tung reiterated assurances his government will ``continue to take active steps to maintain and safeguard rights and freedoms.''
Critics are worried about mainland-style suppression of dissent in Hong Kong, although the government insists that is not a concern and that constitutionally protected liberties will not be harmed.
The protesters, clad in black and waving signs, formed a long line of humanity as many as two dozen deep.
The demonstration extended across a wide stretch of Hong Kong island and took six and a half hours before everybody could file past government headquarters.
To commemorate the 1997 return of Chinese sovereignty, a uniformed band played patriotic music earlier Tuesday and helicopters dragged the Chinese and Hong Kong flags through the sky as government leaders, including Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, stood at silent attention.
Activists outside torched the flag of the Chinese Communist Party, demanding an end to its monopoly on power in the mainland and scuffling with police.
Wen was later asked about the anti-subversion bill and told journalists it ``absolutely will not affect the different rights and freedoms that Hong Kong people _ including reporters _ enjoy under the law.''
Wen left Hong Kong before the march.
Vincent Lui, a 35-year-old engineer who said he had never protested before, turned out with his wife and two small children, holding a black flag that said:
When Hong Kong was returned to China in 1997, an arrangement dubbed ``one country, two systems'' guaranteed the territory could maintain its liberties.
But its mini-constitution also required that it pass an anti-subversion law.
``It's like a knife on top of our heads,'' said Lo Chi-yin, who like many here expressed worries about his children's future.
Smaller numbers of people voiced support for the law.
Hong Kong fishermen sailed dozens of boats around the harbor, flying the Chinese flag high to show their patriotism.
A pro-Beijing group staged a carnival and soccer tournament that attracted a few thousand people.
Religious groups, human rights activists and journalists are among those who fear their activities will be curtailed.
Some business executives worry about the free flow of information _ viewed as crucial in this leading financial center.
ex) Illness has curtailed her sporting activities.
perhaps even the key to solving some current environmental ills.
And the field is advancing rapidly.
The National Science Foundation has been cutting its timetable for the release of nanotech-fueled products from five or 10 years to two or three years, said Mihail Roco, NSF's senior adviser on nanotechnology.
The current state of nanotechnology mirrors the level of development in the field of polymers and plastics in the 1930s, when it was in its infancy, said Kevin Ausman, director of the Rice University Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology.
The plastics industry quickly expanded, of course, providing the materials for a large portion of manufactured goods.
NSF's National Nanotechnology Initiative, which leads the U.S. government's efforts in the field, has been researching nanotechnology's potential environmental benefits.
Roco and other proponents say that, for instance, filter systems for drinking or waste water, natural gas pipelines and smokestacks can be designed at the molecular level, to remove even the most minuscule of impurities.
For water, that means cleaner drinking.
For gas, finer filtration means cleaner burning, with fewer smog-creating impurities.
And industrial plants may be able to use more sensitive emission "scrubbers" that screen even nano-sized flecks of soot from waste gases.
Nanoparticles are also being examined for use as sensors to monitor air or drinking water for the presence of toxins.
Pollution-absorbing nanoparticles that can be used to clean up tainted water or soil is another concept under study, Roco said.
means that products will be smaller.
There is less waste in the production process and in the trash, when nano-devices are discarded at the end of their lives, Roco said.
KAESONG, North Korea (AP) _ A steel propaganda tower stood forlorn, a symbol of North Korean anachronism.
Paint peeling off, it carried a slogan that bears little connection with the reality of the impoverished country:
``Let's revamp our lives with our own strength!''
A kilometer (half a mile) away, communist authorities welcomed a swarm of capitalist investors from South Korea.
Young North Korean women, their tan rugged faces softened by cheap cosmetics, smiled and danced with regimented grace.
A sound system blared a high-pitched song:
``Yes, I am glad to see you too,'' an old South Korean entrepreneur said to a shy North Korean woman handing him a flower.
The groundbreaking ceremony on June 30 (Monday) for a joint industrial park near the inter-Korean border revealed a country at odds with itself, a totalitarian regime striving to rebuild its shattered economy with outside help while keeping up its harsh tone on its suspected nuclear weapons program.
Contradictions abounded in Kaesong, an ancient city just north of the border.
Red-and-white slogans called for loyalty to leader Kim Jong-il, ``the sun of the 21st century,'' and urged people to ``defend our way of living with our lives.''
Muscled soldiers and workers in roadside murals brandished bayonets to ``beat the U.S. imperialists, our sworn enemy!''
At each tourist stop, however, Kaesong people were eager to make a few American dollars.
They displayed ginseng, porcelain, traditional paintings, and even ``adder liquor'' _ a bottle of fiery whiskey with a coiled, discolored snake in it.
When a clerk lifted a bottle by its neck, the cap came loose.
She calmly replaced it and put the bottle back on display.
Kaesong was once Korea's capital and commercial hub.
Its traders were the first Koreans to practice bookkeeping.
Today, communist clerks armed with electronic calculators handled U.S. dollars, euros and even South Korean won as deftly as a department store clerk in Seoul.
Kaesong, a shade below the 38th Parallel, was part of South Korea before the 1950-53 Korean War.
When a new border was drawn at the end of the war, it became part of North Korea.
Now the city hopes to attract South Korean investors and tourists _ a dream vulnerable to nuclear tensions on the divided peninsula.
``In this old Korean center of trade, we hope to open a new chapter of prosperity together with South Korea,'' said Choe Hyun-gu, a North Korean trade official.
Communist authorities have turned an ancient Confucian temple, Songkyunkwan, into a museum and planned to open its oldest neighborhoods to Southern tourists.
A middle-aged female guide said she once escorted leader Kim Jong-il's late father, president Kim Il-sung, through the museum, and it remained her ``happiest memory.''
From a hill, a shining bronze statue of the senior Kim, the North's demigod, stood overlooking streets lined with old zelkova and ginkgo trees.
Although Kaesong is a major provincial city, it had few cars _ a cultural shock for day-trippers from traffic-congested Seoul.
Shops kept their doors closed and few people were seen inside.
Impoverished yet heavily militarized, the country describes every aspect of daily life as a ``heroic struggle.''
A smaller sign said it really was a pepper-paste factory.
All people walked, men in their dark brown Mao-style khaki attire and women in baggy pants and nylon shirts with flower decorations.
School children wore red scarves and walked as if marching.
Without electricity, men fought the summer heat by keeping windows open and staying topless.
Many waved at the air-conditioned South Korean tourist buses.
A small girl in rags digging in a roadside ditch stood awe-struck by the buses coming her way.
Closer to the border, North Korea built a propaganda village, Kijong-dong, with clean apartment buildings.
But a mile behind it, low-slung, identical huts of cinderblocks and gray tiles clustered on hills shorn of trees.
Sunken roofs were patched with plastic sheets.
New Hyundai earth-movers, lent by the South, were doing all the work to build a cross-border road that will eventually link Seoul and Kaesong.
The fact that North Korea is allowing South Koreans to see the embarrassing foibles of its system shows its eagerness for economic help.
Newly built front-line billboards near concrete tank traps showed a cherubic boy and girl and exhorted:
At the end of the tour day, South Koreans found there was more than one price system in North Korea.
One reporter bought a bottle of red ginseng whiskey for eight euros and hours later he found another shop selling it for just five euros.
America, at its best, is compassionate.
In the quiet of American conscience, we know that deep, persistent poverty is unworthy of our nation's promise.
And whatever our views of its cause, we can agree that children at risk are not at fault.
And the proliferation of prisons, however necessary, is no substitute for hope and order in our souls.
Where there is suffering, there is duty.
Americans in need are not strangers, they are citizens, not problems, but priorities.
And all of us are diminished when any are hopeless.
Government has great responsibilities for public safety and public health, for civil rights and common schools.
Yet compassion is the work of a nation, not just a government.
And some needs and hurts are so deep they will only respond to a mentor's touch or a pastor's prayer.
Many in our country do not know the pain of poverty, but we can listen to those who do.
And I can pledge our nation to a goal:
When we see that wounded traveler on the road to Jericho, we will not pass to the other side.
America, at its best, is a place where personal responsibility is valued and expected.
Encouraging responsibility is not a search for scapegoats, it is a call to conscience.
And though it requires sacrifice, it brings a deeper fulfillment.
We find the fullness of life not only in options, but in commitments.
And we find that children and community are the commitments that set us free.
Sometimes in life we are called to do great things.
But as a saint of our times has said, every day we are called to do small things with great love.
The most important tasks of a democracy are done by everyone.
I will live and lead by these principles:
to advance my convictions with civility, to pursue the public interest with courage, to speak for greater justice and compassion, to call for responsibility and try to live it as well.
In all these ways, I will bring the values of our history to the care of our times.
What you do is as important as anything government does.
I ask you to seek a common good beyond your comfort;
to defend needed reforms against easy attacks;
to serve your nation, beginning with your neighbor.
I ask you to be citizens:
citizens, not spectators;
responsible citizens, building communities of service and a nation of character.
When this spirit of citizenship is missing, no government program can replace it.
When this spirit is present, no wrong can stand against it.
After the Declaration of Independence was signed, Virginia statesman John Page wrote to Thomas Jefferson:
"We know the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong.
Do you not think an angel rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm?"
Much time has passed since Jefferson arrived for his inauguration.
The years and changes' accumulated.
But the themes of this day he would know:
our nation's grand story of courage and its simple dream of dignity.
We are not this story's author, who fills time and eternity with his purpose.
Yet his purpose is achieved in our duty, and our duty is fulfilled in service to one another.
This work continues.
And an angel still rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm.
and its top shareholder LG Group over a bailout offer from a U.S. consortium.
Information and Communication Minister Chin Dae-je urged LG, the country's second largest conglomerate, and Hanaro to settle the dispute on their own.
Hanaro's union supports the plan to borrow 600 million dollars from the consortium and the sale to it of new shares worth 450 million dollars, arguing that LG will not be able to resolve the company's debt problems.
Hanaro needs to repay a 450 billion won debt in the second half.
``Ten board members including an LG representative are engaged in lengthy debate on AIG's offer,'' Hanaro spokesman Kim Song-Bae told AFP.
``The board is trying to make a decision today, although we cannot say when the results will come,'' he added.
LG, which holds a 13 percent stake in Hanaro, has opposed the proposed share sale which would allow the US consortium to acquire a 40 percent stake in the broadband service provider.
Instead, the conglomerate proposed that Hanaro make a 500 billion won (420 million dollars) rights issue, which it would then take up.
LG insists the consortium's offer of 3,000 won per share is below the fair market price.
In response, the consortium has raised its bid to 3,100 won, Hanaro said, adding that if the offer was accepted, AIG would become the largest shareholder in the company.
AIG chairman Hank Greenberg, on a visit to Seoul last week, said:
``We believe that the consortium's bid is fair and would benefit investors and the shareholders and the country in the long run.''
The government is seeking the slow but steady consolidation of South Korea's telecom industry which has become becalmed due to overlapping investments and competition.
``Our foremost policy goal is to create a fair and competitive market system that effectively works ... whether it's run by two or three groups does not matter,'' Chin said.
The Hanaro/LG dispute highlights efforts by South Korean telecom firms to get through a period of slow growth, stricter government regulations on subsidies for mobile phone handsets and weak consumption caused by an economic downturn.
Hanaro's rich subscriber base would help LG take on market leader KT Corp.
LG has also indicated it could acquire Thrunet Co, a troubled minor Internet service provider.
In Iran this week, the Supreme Court upheld a death sentence by stoning for a woman convicted of murdering her husband.
However, a quirk of Islamic law says she can go free if she manages to escape while the stoning is taking place.
Last week in Saudi Arabia, three people, including a mother and her daughter were beheaded for murder.
Decapitation for capital crimes such as murder and adultery in Saudi Arabia are routine.
Public amputations of fingers, hands and sometimes feet are performed in Iran, the Saudi kingdom and by the ruling Taliban in Afghanistan.
Men also face harsh punishment under Sharia law in countries such as Saudia Arabia and Iran, but sentences delivered by the courts tend to be biased against women.
The plaintiff in the case was a male, who sued Kuwait's Interior Ministry for refusing to write the names of five women, including his own wife, into the parliamentary electoral rolls last year.
The same court, the highest in Kuwait, has thrown out four similar pleas filed by female activists who claimed Kuwait's electoral law barring female voting was discriminatory and unconstitutional.
Kuwait's supreme ruler, or emir, Sheikh Jaber al-Ahmad al-Sabah, issued a decree in May 1999 granting women full political rights and his Cabinet approved the decree.
Kuwait is the only Gulf State monarchy with a freely elected parliament.
After the last elections in July 1999, women raised the intensity of the campaign for voting rights.
Khawthar al-Jouan, a female lawyer who helped fight the latest case in court, told reporters in Kuwait:
"We will continue the way we have started.
We will not be discouraged."
The comments by Chinese President Hu Jintao and South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun came at the start of a visit aimed at strengthening ties between the two countries and addressing the North's nuclear ambitions.
``In order to fully and satisfactorily resolve the North Korean nuclear issue ... we must open up channels between all concerned parties as soon as possible,'' Roh said at a news conference following closed-door meetings.
``And in order to reach a consensus, all sides need to make relentless efforts.''
Hu said both countries agreed on the importance of maintaining ``peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and ... to peacefully resolve the situation on the Korean Peninsula.''
``We want to avoid the situation getting out of hand, so we need to deepen our efforts to make a breakthrough,'' Hu said.
``At the same time we think we must earnestly consider the security concerns of North Korea,'' Hu said.
China is reclusive North Korea's leading ally and has said it wants Korean Peninsula free of nuclear weapons _ a stand Hu repeated in his comments.
In April, it hosted the first formal talks between Washington and Pyongyang since the nuclear dispute started in October.
Roh called for Beijing to play a ``constructive role'' in resolving the dispute over the North's nuclear program.
Roh also was to meet Premier Wen Jiabao and Wu Bangguo, chairman of China's legislature, and visit Shanghai during his four-day visit.
About 30 Cabinet ministers and top South Korean businessmen were accompanying Roh.
China and South Korea have enjoyed stable and growing political ties since forming diplomatic relations in 1992, as well as booming trade and investment links.
The two are each other's third biggest trade partners, and North Korea has invested about $15 billion in China, much of it near their border.
"Twenty-two years in human resources, and it still affects me," Natalie said.
"There's no way you can grow accustomed to dealing with it."
Last month, Natalie got the bad news herself.
"The company I was with decided to downsize, and that left us with a fairly large mortgage, no income and no healthcare benefits," she said.
"I've learned that no matter what level of job you have, it makes no difference.
You end up on an emotional roller coaster."
More and more, people are learning that the psychological toll can be as important as any of the financial problems that may result.
friends, former colleagues, loved ones and the community.
"They need to cry a lot.
There are a number of good therapies that people can use, that encompass physical, spiritual and emotional components.
Common-sense advice includes eating right and getting plenty of sleep and exercise.
I can remember making more mistakes than right decisions."
People "always think that unemployment happens to the other person," he added.
"And one day you wake up and you are that person."
Extra vigilance is necessary as the months pass to prevent a depression, experts warned, pointing out the importance of looking for the best in life.
"It's not a disease.
You will get through it."
NEW YORK (AFP) _ Half a century after its publication, John Steinbeck's ``East of Eden'' topped the New York Times bestseller list this week, leaving publishers bowing in gratitude to talk show queen Oprah Winfrey.
After a year-long hiatus, Oprah's Book Club is back, and the sales surge that greeted the selection of Steinbeck's 1952 classic shows she has lost none of her clout with the American public.
Penguin now has more than 1.3 million copies in print and has sold close to 813,000 copies nationwide in just three weeks.
Prior to the book's selection, ``East of Eden'' had averaged annual sales of around 40,000 copies.
``It really is the power of Oprah,'' Donelly said. ``People just really missed the book club.''
Oprah suspended her six-year-old club in April 2002, saying that her numerous other activities meant she didn't have enough time to read.
The decision sent a shudder through the publishing industry, which had come to rely on the selections that would guarantee a minimum 500,000-copy increase in sales for any chosen title
or an additional five million dollars in revenue.
At the time, Jane Friedman, CEO of HarperCollins, got a desperate e-mail.
``One of my colleagues had written to me one word:
The reincarnated book club will differ slightly from the original, offering just four or five selections a year with a focus on classic works, rather than books by living authors.
Concerns that classics may lack popular appeal were quickly dispelled by the phenomenal spike in ``East of Eden'' sales.
``We didn't see that before when Oprah had chosen other titles, before she dissolved her club.''
Its return has only served to underline the cultural influence exerted by the 49-year-old Winfrey who, earlier this year, became the first black woman ever to make Forbes magazine's list of global billionaires.
Cattle prices plummeted the day the show aired, and kept heading south for two weeks, in what beef traders called the ``Oprah Crash'' of 1996.
ex) Some people believe they may be reincarnated in the form of an animal.
ex) The company is trying to dispel rumors about a take-over.
ex) Police slapped him with a speeding ticket.
ex) He slapped her with a lawsuit.
How is Japan seen in the eyes of the rest of the world?
Japan was a confident, youthful and ascendant nation, but also one that inspired nervousness, sometimes fear.
That was in the go-go 1980s, though.
And in a surprise twist, Wal-Mart would turn out to be a hero, not a villain.
Just such a drama will unfold in Japan after Wal-Mart opens its first megastore in the country in 2002.
The arrival will elicit cheers in some corners, protests elsewhere.
But its biggest symbolic impact will be to challenge outdated perceptions of Japan.
The launch will show how Asia's biggest economy has opened dramatically to global commerce, transforming itself in the minds of multinational corporations into one of the world's most important new markets.
Japan's cityscapes already glow with neon signs that prove the point:
Starbuck's, Toys "R" Us, Kinko's and even Cadillac.
Japanese Internet users routinely tap Yahoo, AOL and other Silicon Valley inventions to help them circulate in cyberspace.
"Twenty years ago, a Japanese man would have apologized if his son or daughter went to work for an American company," says outgoing U.S.
Ambassador to Japan Thomas Foley.
"That's not true today."
Perceptions of Japan have changed just as fundamentally.
These days America's perceived rival in Asia is China, not Tokyo.
And the stereotypical Asian billionaire of the moment is the Hong Kong IT tycoon, Richard Li.
As Japan deregulates, foreign banks, brokerages and industrial groups are building subsidiaries and, incredibly, buying Japanese companies outright.
Across Asia, once the favored backyard for Japanese conglomerates, "tiger economies" are scrambling to reduce their dependence on Japan's capital and markets.
The new consensus is that Japan is in decline.
Japan could slip from its position as the world's third-largest economy behind the U.S. and Euroland by 2015.
The blowup could prove an embarrassment for Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's government ahead of the Aug.
15 anniversary of the 1945 end of World War II.
Takami Eto, a 78-year-old three-time Cabinet minister who leads the third-largest faction in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, dismissed as ``a big lie'' estimates that the Japanese army killed as many as 300,000 civilians during the 1937-38 occupation of the Chinese city of Nanjing, then called Nanking.
``To say 300,000 people were killed in the Rape of Nanking is a pure fabrication, a big lie,'' Eto was quoted as saying Saturday (July 12) in a speech to a local party chapter, according to the Asahi newspaper and other national dailies.
Historians generally agree that at least 150,000 civilians were killed, but estimates can run as high as 300,000.
Some Japanese nationalist scholars and conservative lawmakers say the figures are inflated;
A museum at a shrine to Japan's war dead says the people of Nanjing were ``once again able to live their lives in peace'' after the Japanese army took over the city.
Eto has caused controversy before for similar remarks.
Neither he nor his aides could be reached Sunday to confirm the statements.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan said there was ``ironclad evidence'' that the Nanjing massacre was ``an atrocity committed by Japanese militarism during the war of aggression in China.''
Any attempts to ``distort or deny history'' would be unsuccessful, the spokesman said in a statement.
A South Korean Foreign Ministry official warned that a failure to come to grips with the past could set back future relations between the two neighbors.
``We once again emphasize that without Japan's correct understanding of history, it is difficult to sincerely develop relations between the two countries.''
In 1995, Eto was forced to resign his Cabinet post as minister for coordination after saying Japan did ``some good things'' when it ruled Korea as a colony between 1910 and 1945.
Conservative politicians periodically rile Japan's neighbors by defending the country's record of aggression during the decades leading up to World War II. In 1994, then-Justice Minister Shigeto Nagano had to resign after calling the Rape of Nanking a ``fabrication.''
try to make sth appear less important than it is)
ex) The events led up to the outbreak of war.
This should be the golden year for Kim Dae Jung, insist those who remain loyal.
His final year as the president of South Korea, they say, ought to be filled with national affection and appreciation.
But there is little love for Kim Dae Jung in his homeland.
Instead of a statesman retiring with respect, he is finishing his political life scorned or ignored by his countrymen.
He is reduced to being a figurehead brought out by aides to try to show that at 76, he is still healthy and relevant.
Parliament has bluntly rejected his last two nominees for prime minister, and lawmakers react to the president's most routine communications with disdain.
Kim resigned from his own Millennium Democratic Party to try to save it, but it is likely to split up anyway.
The party's nominee to replace him is going nowhere in the polls.
Worse, Kim's reputation for integrity
the trait that carried him through courageous battles with a succession of dictators and as many as five attempts on his life
Two of his sons have been charged with influence peddling, seeming to follow the tradition of corruption that Kim had long preached against.
His closest political aide is among a dozen members of his inner circle who have been caught up in various scandals.
And though the president has not been implicated, South Korean voters say Kim must take the blame.
"He really disappointed the country.
He proved that he, too, is a politician, and all politicians are corrupt in this country," said one Seoul resident, Kang Byung Kyu, 27.
Nearly every South Korean president has been reviled at the end of his term, said Donald P. Gregg, a former U.S. ambassador and former CIA station chief.
He helped save Kim from an execution attempt in 1973 by security agents of the South Korean dictatorship.
"Korean presidents fall victim to the expectation game that they are going to solve all the problems of the country," said Gregg in an interview.
"When they don't, people focus on what they haven't done, rather than what they have."
among them Gregg, who counts the South Korean president as one of the great Asian leaders
describe Kim's tragedy in Shakespearean terms:
The strengths that brought him to office became the very factors that have helped bring about his public downfall.
BEIJING (AP) _ Less than a year ago, Yang Bin was an orchid-selling sensation ranked as China's second-richest man.
He had a fortune estimated at $900 million, an equally outsize personality and a new appointment to lead a North Korean free-trade zone.
On Monday (July 14), Yang was sentenced to 18 years in prison after being convicted of fraud and bribery, a stunning downfall for a leader of China's new capitalist class.
``He's done,'' said Steve Tsang, director of the Asian Studies Center of St.
Yang's conviction came amid a Chinese crackdown on tax evasion and a series of investigations of leading business figures for possible tax and financial offenses.
A court in the northeastern city of Shenyang convicted Yang of all charges, including the illegal use of agricultural land, contract fraud, forgery of financial documents and offering and taking bribes, according to an assistant to his defense lawyer.
A woman who answered the phone at the court said she had ``no idea'' about the sentence and refused further comment.
She would only give her family name, Liu.
Yang, 40, is a Chinese-born Dutch citizen who says he made his fortune selling orchids.
His Shenyang-based company also was building a Dutch-themed housing development.
Forbes magazine estimated his fortune in 2001 $900 million, but his businesses have shrunk since his arrest and his current worth is unknown.
The official Xinhua News Agency also reported Yang's conviction.
It said the forgery involved US$216 million, while the bribes totaled US$50,000. The report gave few other details.
Though severe by Western standards, Yang's penalty was normal for China, which sometimes executes people for nonviolent offenses such as tax evasion or smuggling, said Joseph Cheng, a political scientist with City University of Hong Kong.
``I think the Chinese side certainly understands that the world is watching,'' he said.
In another high-profile case, Chinese and Hong Kong authorities are investigating Shanghai tycoon Chau Ching-gai and his companies, which are said to be suspected of misusing bank loans to play the stock market.
Chau, also known as Zhou Zhengyi, was estimated by Forbes to be worth US$320 million.
Such investigations have spread unease among China's new rich, many of whom have operated until recently with little regulation and who frequently are suspected of buying influence and exploiting political connections.
Bai Jianjun, a law professor at Peking University, said Yang's conviction was a message to Chinese capitalists.
``The message being sent is that the government will crack down on people who try to get rich illegally and buy power with money.
Yang moved to the Netherlands in 1987 and won political asylum after the 1989 pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square.
He ran a textile business, returning to China with US$20 million to start a cut-flower business.
The Sinuiju Special Administrative Region was touted as an attempt by the North's communist regime to engage the outside world and revive its crippled economy following a capitalist model.
The rotund, chain-smoking Yang promised the 50-square-mile (130-square-kilometer) area would be ``totally capitalist.''
But China, which had encouraged North Korea to imitate its economic reforms, gave a lukewarm reception to Yang's appointment.
He was called in shortly after that for police questioning and accused of failing to pay millions of dollars in taxes.
It was unclear whether the summons was meant as a sign of Chinese displeasure with his appointment to serve Pyongyang.
For months, the government and state media were silent about Yang's fate and the investigation.
His employees said all communication had been cut off.
On Monday, state television showed Yang looking wan as he stood in his signature white polo shirt before three judges in the Shenyang court.
His lawyer, Tian Wenchang, said he already had appealed.
In our 1985 survey, only 32 per cent of Americans and 10 per cent of South Koreans called the Japanese "admirable."
In the new survey, 66 percent of Americans and 34 percent of South Koreans apply that term to the Japanese.
While 83 percent of Americans claimed that the Japanese took away markets and jobs from firms in the U.S. in 1985, 57 percent agree with that assertion today.
To be sure, Japan still faces image problems, old and new.
One recent criticism that Tokyo isn't doing enough to promote the regional economy stems from the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis.
In China, however, the major bilateral beef remains Tokyo's failure to atone for Imperial Japan's bloody atrocities during World War II.
In Korea, which recently lifted its longstanding ban on Japanese books, films and music, wartime hatred can't keep the two cultures from drawing closer together.
Their visitor, in turn, gushed about leading man Han So Kyu, a South Korean Robert Redford whose recent spy thriller "Shuri" ranked among the top foreign films in Japan in 2000.
When, for example, the Gap introduced Japan to casual fashion in the early 1990s, khaki rapidly infiltrated most every wardrobe in Japan.
Then an unknown Japanese apparel company, Fast Retailing, produced cheaper, trendier casual wear that fit better and cost less.
The company's brand, Uniqlo, is now such a sensation in Japan that plans are in the works to open a string of stores in London, where the principal competitor will be the Gap.
500-pound gorillas aren't always the enemy.
But in less time than it takes most people to commute to work, you're at the doorstep of North Korea, communist alter ego of the buoyantly capitalist South.
This is Panmunjom, the ``truce village’’ and a meeting point of the two Koreas _ ground zero of what's left of the Cold War.
Brian Davis, who is stationed at the Demilitarized Zone.
He says it reminds him of ``Groundhog Day,’’ the American film in which a man trapped in time has to live the same day over and over.
``Groundhog Day’’ in its unfunny, nuclear-tinged Korean format marks a milestone on Sunday, July 27 _ the 50th anniversary of the armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War.
The guns may have fallen silent, but North Korea’s suspected attempts to develop atomic weapons highlight the potential for another, even more destructive conflict.
The armistice is a reminder of the failure to achieve a lasting peace, but it's also a date largely forgotten by South Koreans.
``It is not something to celebrate, just something to accept as a fact,’’ said Paik Sun-yup, a retired South Korean general who fought in the 1,127-day war that left up to 5 million people dead, wounded or missing, half of them civilians.
President Harry S. Truman’s attempt to contain the spread of communism without sparking a wider war with China or the Soviet Union cost 33,600 American lives in combat, with more than 8,000 missing.
About 140,000 South Korean soldiers and 3,200 from the 15 nations that joined the United States under the U.N. flag also died.
Communist military deaths _ North Koreans and the Chinese who intervened five months into the war _ are estimated in the hundreds of thousands.
Twelve hours later, the time the truce took effect will be marked with a 21-gun salute at U.S. military headquarters in Seoul.
North Korea’s propaganda machine casts the war as a victory, rather than the stalemate that it was.
Its government hasn't announced any commemorations, but is expected to do so with choreographed rallies and defiant, anti-American rhetoric.
These will likely be held in Pyongyang, 145 kilometers (90 miles) from the Demilitarized Zone, or DMZ.
The war was one of stunning reversals.
Seoul changed hands four times and was almost destroyed.
The U.S.-led forces were twice routed, while the Inchon landings led by U.S.
Douglas MacArthur were among the most daring and successful amphibious operations in history.
Its legacy is 37,000 U.S. troops still on South Korean soil, and 26 months of military service for every South Korean male.
Yet once out of military uniform, most South Koreans plunge into the capitalist free-for-all with barely a look back.
As long as the North Korean issue doesn't hurt the economy, I am not too concerned and am not too interested in the matter.’ another side of oneself) * ground zero:
Tools to combat global warming are ready, and many have developed more quickly than once predicted, but using them will require political fortitude, according to a major U.N. climate report.
It was approved over the weekend by a U.N. panel charged with looking for ways to mitigate climate change.
Known as "greenhouse" gases because they retain heat in the atmosphere, carbon dioxide and several other gases are thought by many scientists to be contributing to climate change.
"Advances are taking place in a wide range of technologies at different stages of development," the report said.
"The use and lifetime extension of nuclear power plants" could provide an important contribution to emission cuts, the report said.
A 1997 climate change treaty calls for nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and the new report said that hundreds of technologies and techniques are available that could account for more than half of the proposed reductions.
Microsoft is taking its video game foray into difficult territory Not since the days of Atari has a major U.S. company attempted to defeat the Japanese game giants Though Microsoft stunned analysts with an unexpectedly strong Xbox launch in the U.S. last November, it may be an uphill battle for the world's number-one software company in Japan.
Two Manhattan restaurants are feeling some legal pressure over the use of the Viagra name.
Pfizer is threatening trendy New York restaurants Chicama and Sabor if they don't remove a seafood dish which contains mussels, shrimp and clams but no Viagra, has been a popular fixture on the restaurants' menus owing to its "uplifting" side effects.
In an unprecedented move against a sitting vice president, the investigative arm of Congress filed a federal court suit challenging Vice President Dick Cheney's refusal to hand over documents related to national energy policy.
The General Accounting Office has been trying documenting closed-door meetings of the White House's energy task force.
Last year's wave of new virus attacks could be duplicated this year.
Like their wireline cousins, including mobile phones, PDAs, and laptops hooked up to wireless local area networks.
One of the first reported wireless viruses was aimed at the Palm OS, developed by Palm Computing, and released in September 2000.
has unveiled the latest member of its 747-400 family of jets, at the Asian aviation market.
at the Asian Aerospace 2002 trade fair Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan expressed cautious optimism about the U.S. economy, saying a recovery from its first recession in a decade was on the way, but it would likely be muted.
"Despite the disruptions engendered by the terrorist attacks of Sept.
The report also said the economic benefits could actually exceed the costs in many cases.
The other half, it said, could have a net direct cost of up to $100 per ton of carbon.
The report also endorsed giving nations wide latitude in deciding how to go about achieving reductions.
"It's out there, it's just a matter of liberating it, giving incentives to companies, removing the barriers to rolling out new technologies and changes in the system to make it all work."
The report noted that governments will have to encourage those changes.
"Most model results indicate that known technological options could achieve a broad range of atmospheric CO2 stabilization levels over the next 100 years or more, but implementation would require associated socio-economic and institutional changes," it said.
The second, released in Geneva in February, found that if warming through greenhouse gases was not slowed and then turned around in coming decades, the planet could see huge floods, spreading disease and social chaos.
The reports come as nations try to work out ways to implement the 1997 accord drafted in Kyoto, Japan.
The United States and Europe have been at odds, with Europe demanding significant, real cuts while the United States wants to encourage emissions trading and carbon "traps," which would store CO2 underground.
Skeptics of the U.N.-led negotiations stress that the reports themselves highlight that significant uncertainties exist surrounding the science of climate change.
in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad in retaliation for the attack on a train that killed dozens of Hindus.
A wave of arson and rioting left more than 200 people dead, including a dozen children, in the western Indian state of Gujarat.
Authorities imposed a curfew in 26 towns, including parts of Ahmedabad, according to Gujarat's home secretary, K. Nityanandan.
Signs that the hard-hit manufacturing sector finally turned a corner launched a powerful U.S. stock market rally that sent the Dow Jones industrial average to a six-month high.
narrowing its year-to-date loss, after the Institute of Supply Management said its factory-activity index snapped an 18-month slump.
A ruling party lawmaker has agreed to testify under oath about his links to an alleged bid-rigging scandal, and threatening his reform agenda.
The decision by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) heavyweight, Muneo Suzuki, followed a report by the Foreign Ministry the lawmaker had meddled in ministry affairs but stopped short of proving he had broken any laws.
it would only respond to U.S. calls for talks and adopted policies of the previous Clinton administration.
The European Union has already said it will seek WTO intervention.
Wanda Stoy has already lost 40 pounds and wants to lose 50 more.
When she gets the urge to snack, she goes right to her computer
to get help from a "weight loss buddy" on an Internet diet chat room.
Stoy's chat room, which is affiliated with the non-profit group Take Off Pounds Sensibly (TOPS), has about 1,000 members.
It's one of many diet chat sites on the Web.
encouragement and advice around the clock.
Support is essential to losing weight, said Howard Rankin, a clinical psychologist who helps people lose weight.
Some doctors have been concerned about replacing face-to-face contact with virtual contact.
But a study in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association suggests that weight loss is possible over the Internet.
In the study of 91 overweight people, 46 were assigned to use a variety of online weight loss methods.
The participants had one face-to-face group meeting with a psychologist, and then had access to an online bulletin board.
They also received individualized advice from a diet expert via weekly e-mails and sent back exercise and food intake diaries.
People in the group lost about nine pounds in three months and kept it off for another three months.
This weight loss was comparable to that achieved in commercial programs, but not as good as losses in behavioral programs, where participants typically lost 20 pounds in 24 weeks.
The other half of the participants took part in one introductory group weight loss session led by a psychologist and were then given links to Internet weight loss Web sites.
Study subjects in that group lost almost four pounds in three months and kept it off for another three months.
"What's more important than short-term weight loss is how do you stay committed?
How do you keep going when you're not doing very well?"
Wanda Stoy said she uses hers in addition to weekly face-to-face meetings with her local chapter of TOPS.
Computer security companies are warning that will try to delete and overwrite files on infected computers The worm, dubbed "Klez.E," is programmed on the sixth day of every other month, said Mikko Hypponen, manager of antivirus research at F-Secure.
Nearly half a billion people around the world had access to the Internet from their homes by the end of last year, according to market research firm Nielsen/NetRatings.
The classified Pentagon information says nuclear weapons could be used Nuclear targeting discussions have been a part of U.S. military strategy but analysts told that would be the first official one to come to light.
Chinese authorities are planning to increase use of lethal injection as a method for execution as a "civilized way" of enforcing the law, state media has reported.
According to the official Xinhua news agency, after a series of experiments on animals and what it described as a "favorable response" to the practice from both condemned criminals and their relatives.
Officials from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, India, China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea and all 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations have gathered in Tokyo for a two-day conference aimed at stemming the growing problem of maritime piracy to safeguard shipping lanes in Asian waters where violence and kidnapping are rampant, and also the event's sponsor.
A Texas jury found Andrea Yates guilty of capital murder, rejecting her claim that she was insane when she drowned her five children in a bathtub After more than three weeks of testimony, including complex and often conflicting statements from prosecution and defense psychiatrists, the verdict from the jury of eight women and four men came quickly, after three hours and 40 minutes of deliberation.
Like a giant amoeba in the sky, the ozone hole above Antarctica has divided into two parts, which have spread away from the southernmost continent.
The surprising development is the first of its kind since NASA and other U.S. agencies began monitoring the ozone hole, a seasonal vortex high in the atmosphere, more than two decades ago.
Ozone is part of the stratosphere, which stretches from six to 30 miles above the Earth's surface.
Ozone shields the planet from dangerous ultraviolet solar rays, which can cause skin cancer.
In fact, without the ozone layer, life as we know it could not exist.
Recent satellite images reveal that the ozone hole had shrunk considerably compared with the previous two years.
Scientists caution that the data are insufficient to conclude that the fragile ozone layer is on the mend.
Moreover, the hole had dwindled in size before the split because of unusually warm temperatures in the atmosphere, according to NASA ozone scientist Paul Newman.
Between 1996 and 2001, the ozone hole reached more than 24 million square km.
The 2000 hole was the largest ever recorded at about 28 million square km, roughly three times the size of the United States.
Preliminary estimates from early September 2002 suggest that the seasonal hole had dwindled to about 15 million square km, according to NASA.
The air over the South Pole usually becomes coolest in August and September.
The frigid weather is associated with the formation of thin clouds, where the floating industrial chemicals eat up the fragile ozone molecules.
By October, the atmospheric region warms up and the hole begins to disappear.
East Asia will be the world's fastest growing economic region the World Bank says, with growth likely to hit 5.2 percent.
after the sharpest global slowdown in almost 30 years last year, economic recovery has started, beginning in the United States and East Asia.
even with this recovery, growth in 2002 will still be "very limited.”
its sixth test of its missile defense system was a success, meaning it intercepted an intercontinental ballistic missile about 30 minutes after it was launched.
this test was similar to a December 3 test, the latest ballistic missile carried three decoy balloons designed to confuse the "exoatmospheric kill vehicle," the device that seeks out the ballistic missile.
Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing has summoned the U.S. ambassador to express Beijing's "strong indignation and resolute opposition" to what it perceives as growing American support for Taiwan.
NASA and the German Space Agency have successfully launched two satellites to study Earth's gravity field.
A half brother of Osama bin Laden says the terrorist's family has its own information that bin Laden is alive and that he does not have kidney disease requiring dialysis.
In an interview with a CNN correspondent, Sheikh Ahmad who did not want his last name revealed he does not believe that could be behind the September 11 attacks against the United States.
E-mail will not overtake paper mail anytime soon in the home, in large part because women use the latter to control the flow of domestic information, according to a new study.
They haven't been designed for how people behave in the home."
Letters do more than communicate.
Women primarily manage the mail flow to control the household, the report said.
They are the ones who skim, sort and position letters in strategic locations for other people to see.
In many cases, for example, bills go where husbands will see them.
After a day or two, the women will take away the bill and pay it.
Paper mail offers many advantages over e-mail in a domestic setting.
It is easy to share unlike the inherently private e-mail.
The report surveyed more than 200 mail users in Britain and included experiments related to patterns of letter and e-mail sorting.
Investigation over White House e-mail glitch
The Justice Department is conducting a criminal investigation into an e-mail glitch at the White House that resulted in the failure to turn over hundreds of messages that had been subpoenaed by Congress.
Outside contractors in charge of operating the White House electronic mail system testified before a House committee that they were instructed by high-ranking White House staff not to discuss an ongoing e-mail server problem.
President Bill Clinton's south Asian tour took him to rural India on Thursday, where he heard about efforts to bring equality to women in traditional, male-dominated villages.
Mexico and the European Union signed an ambitious free trade agreement, which will give EU companies more access to a major Latin American market and reduce Mexican dependence on the United States.
The agreement would give Mexican producers access to a European market of 375 million consumers, while the Mexican economy would benefit from European investment and more modern technology.
Extraterrestrial gasses have been trapped on Earth for millions of years by complex molecular structures known as "Buckyballs", scientists reported this week.
The discovery offers a new method to trace geological and biological events linked to colossal meteorite and comet strikes and strengthens the theory that some terrestrial atmospheric gases and organic compounds originated in space.
To phase out electric chair
Georgia lawmakers have voted to phase out the electric chair and make lethal injection the state's primary means of execution, two months after a similar move in Florida.
Roy Barnes approves, Alabama and Nebraska would be the only states still using the electric chair as their means of execution.
Falun Gong has been drawing attention in the West for the last two years.
Some Western China scholars are even praising it for the scientific basis of its principles.
Thus it was during my extensive reading for my latest book, "Watching the Tree," that I read the work of Li Hong-zhi, founder of Falun Gong.
I was greatly disappointed.
As a medical doctor as well as a writer, I found the work anything but rational or scientific.
His book "Zhuan Fa Lun" (Turning the Wheel of the Law), for example, challenges the very etiology of all diseases and denies even the microbial role in causing infections.
By suffering, writes Li, "he is repaying his debt.
Li also ascribes moral qualities to inanimate objects such as stone and wood.
Yet archeological evidence has shown that an agriculture-based civilization began about 11,000 years ago.
Then there are his references to "tall ancient buildings" discovered at the bottom of many oceans.
Therefore they must have been constructed long before our earth was covered by ocean waters.
Now who could have done this tens of millions of years ago?
We humans were not even monkeys then ..."
Ships are to lose their sex, to the consternation of sailors and historians alike.
The world shipping industry's newspaper, Lloyd's List, ships will lose their femininity and will be referred to as "it," not "she."
how the habit of treating ships as feminine began though it is a custom used mainly in English dominated countries.
The North Magnetic Pole, which has steadily drifted for decades, has picked up its pace in recent years and could exit Canadian territory said Larry Newitt of the Geological Survey of Canada.
If the pole follows its present course, it will pass north of Alaska and arrive in Siberia but Newitt cautioned that such predictions could prove wrong.
Crowds of thousands have rallied against the Australian government's policy of detaining asylum seekers.
Up to 30,000 protesters lined the streets of Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide, where speakers called for an end to mandatory detention, the Associated Press reports.
Benjaminson and colleagues sliced up muscle from large goldfish and placed them in a vat of nutrient-rich liquid.
the fish nuggets had become 16 percent bigger.
China launched the prototype of a manned space vessel into orbit designed to pave the way for the country's first human space flight, state media has reported.
such as mobile phones, wireless messaging units and game-playing devices has caused a physical mutation in young people's hands.
These are a few examples of Li's "scientific theories."
In his book, he also claims that he will implant a wheel in the abdomen of each of his disciples.
This wheel will keep on turning day and night and protect his followers from harm.
Some 100 pages later he gives the example of one his disciples who was involved in a traffic accident in Beijing.
However, at the moment of impact, the disciple's bicycle was suddenly dragged backwards by a mysterious force for almost two feet.
He immediately understood that his teacher Li Hong-zhi had protected him.
At that moment he saw a large wheel spinning just above his head, while the rod fell and pierced the ground immediately beside him.
You might or might not encounter them, but I will guarantee that you will have no danger.
This is what I will give you.
My saintly body will protect you until you are able to protect yourself."
Is this the reason he changed his date of birth to coincide with that of Buddha?
Among educated Chinese circles, Li's books are viewed with amusement and amazement.
Some of his followers in the United States and Canada may indeed be highly educated but they seem to have forgotten their knowledge of basic sciences.
Whatever the intellectual content of the Falun Gong philosophy, the Chinese government is certainly cracking down on Falun Gong supporters.
In China at present, suppression is merely providing Falun Gong members with a sense of solidarity.
Until the Beijing authorities recognize that there is a burning spiritual hunger among the Chinese people and set about providing legitimate facilities to fulfill this need, cults such as Falun Gong will continue to flourish.
Scientists have identified what they believe is the largest octopus ever seen, hauled from the depths near New Zealand's remote Chatham Islands.
The dead specimen, caught in a trawler's net, but it was clearly a massive animal.
A marine biologist Steve O'Shea had provisionally identified the specimen, caught at a depth of more than 900 meters, as Haliphron Atlanticus, a bright red, jelly-like species of octopus not previously found in the South Pacific.
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is "an enemy" of Israel, as he announced an extended military operation against Palestinian terrorism "everywhere it exists."
As the eight-hour-long Cabinet meeting broke up, Israeli tanks and bulldozers began tearing down the fences and walls surrounding the Ramallah headquarters of Arafat, and injuring more than 200 after causing massive damage to the capital city.
Taiwan's central weather bureau measured the quake at 6.8 in magnitude, centered near Hualien in the eastern part of the island.
Local media reports said one man died in his car, The death toll is expected to rise, as many people have been reported missing in several collapsed buildings across the capital.
for a 13th consecutive month but it was the smallest decline in a year, thus strengthening hopes for a turnaround South Korea has been one of the few bright spots because of its resilient domestic consumption.
Asia's third largest economy after Japan and China, Now South Korea is forecasting growth of more than 4 percent this year, aided by a budding recovery in exports.
The activity was reported by Palestinian security sources.
The Israel Defense Forces had no immediate comment.
it was conducting antiterrorism operations in nine other West Bank towns, including Ramallah and Bethlehem.
In a new book called "The Omega-3 Connection," Stoll, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard argues that fish oils
The brain is an astonishing 60 percent fat, and it needs omega-3s to function properly.
In the last century, however, Americans have drastically reduced their intake of these oils, as we moved to diets based on processed foods.
It is impossible to reduce the cause to a single explanation
While omega-3s are important for everyone, an adequate supply is especially critical for infants and mothers.
No one doubts that omega-3 fatty acids help build and maintain brain tissue.
The American Heart Association has recently changed its dietary guidelines to recommend that adults eat at least two servings of fish each week.
Oily fish such as anchovies, mackerel and salmon have the most omega-3s.
Flaxseed, flaxseed oil, wheat germ and walnuts are good sources, too, as are dark greens such as spinach and kale.
You can also boost your omega-3 levels by switching from corn and soybean oil to canola oil.
Some hens are even fed flax and fishmeal to boost the levels of omega-3s in their egg yolks.
Beyond that, says Stoll, your best bet is supplements.
For general health, one to two grams of omega-3s a day should be sufficient.
To correct mood problems, two to five grams or more may be required.
Teams of scientists in China and Switzerland have sequenced the rice genome, a step that could someday lead to improving the quality of the crop that is a staple for more than half the world's population.
This first complete genome sequencing of a crop plant is detailed in the April 5 edition of Science.
Identifying the genetic code of rice "will speed improvements in nutritional quality and crop yield to meet the world's growing needs," said Donald Kennedy, editor in chief of Science.
Japan shows signs of recovery, Japan faces a rough road ahead.
The jobless rate has recovered to 5.3 percent from the record level of 5.5 percent that it hit in February.
But deflation and declining consumer demand continue to plague the world's second largest economy.
The Bank of Japan's quarterly tankan report of business confidence also showed signs of improvement, with business expressing increased optimism about the June quarter.
At the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) industry conference, the software giant is expected to announce that several behind-the-scenes audio and video production companies will make some of their products compatible with Microsoft's Windows Media Player format.
Britain's Queen Mother has been laid to rest attended by close members of the royal family.
The private committal service and interment at St George's Chapel marked the close of a day of public mourning.
more than a million people had lined the route of the Queen Mother's coffin from the capital to Windsor.
More frequent and more devastating storms caused by climate change could cost $150 billion a year within the next ten years, possibly bankrupting financial services firms, a United Nations-backed report warned this week.
The report said a political framework for action on climate stability is essential, but said the Kyoto Protocol, under which many industrial nations except the United States committed to curb greenhouse gas emissions by 2012, does not go far enough.
Written on behalf of the UN Environment Program's (UNEP) finance initiative, the report said financial institutions could deliver market solutions to climate change, through carbon emissions trading and lower insurance premiums for cleaner companies.
Worldwide economic losses from natural disasters appear to be doubling every ten years, the report said, and called for action to decrease the emission of greenhouse gases, particularly carbon.
The report said that while climate change is widely recognized as being a threat by insurers and reinsurers, their strategies towards it have been mixed.
Few insurers, for example, factor in climate change-related risks into their insurance premiums, the report said.
Fund managers do not currently regard climate change as an investment risk, though socially-responsible fund managers consider climate change when choosing their investments.
But the criteria used tend to be very crude, the report said.
The report called on financial services companies to raise awareness of the problem of climate change and to lead by example in corporate environmental management.
They should also provide products and services that support adaptation and mitigation of climate change.
has made its in-flight Internet access service available to the corporate jet market and expects to do the same for commercial airlines by the end of the year.
Inmarsat will first roll out its Swift64 service with ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) Internet access, which it expects to be fully operational on corporate aircraft within a few months, the company said in a statement.
The ISDN access will have maximum speeds of 64KB and will use its satellite communication antenna infrastructure.
CEO Stephen Cooper told employees that debt and other claims at the bankrupt energy company could reach as high as $100 billion.
Cooper told a hotel conference room filled to capacity with about 1,400 employees that Enron's debt on its balance sheet is greater than he thought.
Enron has about $40 billion in debt and other claims could hit $40 billion to $50 billion, An Air China jet carrying 155 passengers and 11 crewmembers has crashed in rain and fog into a mountain near South Korea's second largest city of Busan.
after the Air China Boeing 767 crashed and broke into pieces after struggling to land in thick fog at Busan's Kimhae international airport.
Witnesses told local television but no one on the ground was hurt.
A supercolony of ants has been discovered stretching thousands of miles from the Italian Riviera along the coastline to northwest Spain.
The 3,600-mile colony consists of billions of Argentine ants living in millions of nests that cooperate with one another.
but the researchers concluded that ants in the supercolony were all close enough genetically to recognize one another, despite being from different nests with different queens.
India's unions have warned they will step up their protests against plans to make it easier to lay off workers, one day after as many as ten million employees went on a strike that brought much of the urban part of the country to a standstill.
Bank workers and employees from more than 220 state-run companies walked off their jobs for a one-day strike, virtually paralyzing the South Asian nation's financial markets, factories and ports.
"We were shocked by the result," said Neil MacDonald, vice president and director of research with Gartner Inc.
"What this means is a third of that time, roughly a third, is wasted."
In a self-commissioned survey, Gartner asked 330 business e-mail users in a variety of occupations and job titles about the contents of their e-mail in boxes.
The company found that the average e-mail user spends 49 minutes managing e-mail on the job each day, and a quarter spend more than an hour a day managing e-mail.
Gartner recommends that companies create a policy on e-mail etiquette to prevent the unnecessary e-mails and avoid lost productivity.
It looks and feels like it's legitimate e-mail because it's from your co-workers.
But it's not until you open it up that you realize it's a waste of time."
Japanese officials blasted the International Monetary Fund, its prescriptions for the nation's ailing economy were unprofessional and out of focus.
But they were conspicuously quiet on the IMF's remark that a weaker yen could be desirable.
In its semi-annual World Economic Outlook, the IMF called on Tokyo to compile an extra budget to boost the economy the Bank of Japan should ease monetary policy more aggressively, even if that meant a weaker yen.
A Japanese laboratory has built the world's fastest computer, one with the computing power of the 20 fastest U.S. computers combined.
The computer is nearly five times faster than the previous leader, according to a University of Tennessee computer scientist who maintains an authoritative list of the world's fastest computers.
The Japanese government spent $350 million to $400 million to develop the supercomputer over the past five years.
in issuing a formal protest over Sunday's surprise visit by the Japanese prime minister commemorating his country's war dead.
The visit by Junichiro Koizumi to the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo was condemned by many of Japan's Asian neighbors who still hold bitter memories of Japanese wartime atrocities.
Chinese officials summoned the Japanese ambassador in Beijing to express their "strong dissatisfaction" at Koizumi's action.
China trails only the United States in the number of people with Internet access at home, with more than 56 million people able to connect A rapidly developing nation, China manages to lead the rest of the world even as more than half of its population lives on less than $2 a day.
A study by Nielsen//NetRatings showed that just over 5 percent of China's more than one billion people In addition to a threat against its embassy in Yemen, the United States has received information about possible threats to other U.S. embassies in the Persian Gulf.
But a State Department official said new information indicated the threat was not only against the embassy in Yemen but also against U.S. embassies in unspecified Gulf states.
The government's goal of boosting organ donation is a good one.
"Let's work together," Tommy Thompson urged the nation.
"Why can't we solve the problem of who gets scarce organs instead of creating more angst amongst ourselves?"
Even if Thompson were to somehow double or even triple the number of organs Americans donate, he would still have to live with some angst.
The waiting lists for transplants are long and, in a graying society like ours, they grow longer every day.
Getting more organs is an ethically sound idea, but his new plan won't work.
The ideas Thompson presented about how to get more organs involve a partnership with private businesses to promote organ donation among employees, a medal to honor donor families, more teaching about organ donation in teen driver-education classes and a national donor card that makes it clear that anyone who has a card can serve as a donor even if a family member objects.
Americans are well aware of organ donation.
Public education campaigns have been letting people know about the "Gift of Life" for 30 years.
One more pamphlet at the office or a few more minutes in drivers ed is not going to boost the percentage of people who sign donor cards.
Moreover, as study after study has shown, signing a donor card is not a very effective way to ensure organ donation.
Nor will the ideas of medals and tougher donor cards do much good.
There are some steps that are likely to produce more organs to save lives.
First, remove financial barriers in access to transplants.
Poor people do not donate their organs at the same rate as the rich.
The reason is simple.
Poor people, many without health insurance, know that the rich have a much better chance of getting transplants than they do.
If Thompson really wants to get more organs available for transplant he must make sure that the rich and the poor have the same chance to get a transplant.
Second, treat organ donation as expected not heroic.
Thompson and President Bush should appear on national television with every governor and member of Congress.
Every one of them should fill out a donor card.
And each should do it simply because it is the right thing to do.
Shortage is always going to be a concern with organ transplantation.
But we can get more organs if the public believes that everyone has a fair chance to receive a transplant should they need one and that donation is not a matter of heroism but of common decency.
While the U.S. stock market has stagnated, many Asian markets have roared ahead Stock analysts say that one reason all of Asia's markets are ahead of the U.S. so far this year is that Asia had a long way to come back.
recessions hit the United States and Japan.
Demand evaporated for electronics and semiconductor chips, key drivers of economies such as South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore.
Now U.S. stocks are still fighting their way through and questions about "managed" results.
But there are signs confidence has returned in Asia.
The Bush administration is plotting a potential major air campaign and ground invasion to topple the Iraqi government of President Saddam Hussein, the New York Times reported.
The use of 70,000 to 250,000 troops is being considered, but President Bush has not issued any order for the Pentagon to mobilize its forces, and there is no official plan for an invasion, Asian markets sank to a lower close as blue chips lost ground in the wake of U.S. stock losses last week.
The United States has regained its seat on the 53-member United Nations Commission on Human Rights, since the commission was established in 1947.
removing the United States from the panel Spain and Italy agreed to withdraw their candidacies so that the U.S. could take their place.
the U.S. candidacy was uncontested.
The United Nations says it will stop distributing food to more than 1 million children and elderly in North Korea because of a shortfall in international aid, sparking fears of a worsening humanitarian crisis in the country.
Everyone has their reasons why.
But few experts on the American workforce doubt that work has changed dramatically in recent years, increasing the pressures and the incentives to work harder.
in many cases creating the expectation that employees should be working all the time:
On their cell phones commuting to work, on their laptops and home computers in the evenings and on weekends.
We've also come to see the role of work in our lives in a dramatically different light as well.
A century ago people were less likely to define themselves by their occupations, and economists confidently predicted a future filled with leisure as machines replaced human labor.
Instead, work today has become more central than ever to people's lives, providing personal fulfillment and a sense of community, as well as a paycheck.
The prominence of work drives people to work harder, but it also leaves many feeling burnt out and fed up.
The decade-long economic boom drove many to work harder to take advantage of the good times, but even as the boom stalls, few experts expect the pressures and expectations on workers to ease.
Filmmakers set out to make a statement, an allegorical poem on film to warn about destruction of the environment, but 825 nude actors have stolen the show.
The film, with a somber and strident soundtrack, is anything but erotic as it draws on a Korean creation myth to depict man's fall from paradise to corrupted modern life.
But the use of 825 nude amateur actors including 100 young women recruited from Seoul college campuses
Taiwan's front-line island of Matsu, hit by the worst drought in years, has turned to Taiwan's rival and sent a water-buying mission to the nearby Chinese mainland for the first time ever.
A boat commissioned by the Matsu government left for China's Fujian province and is expected to bring back more than 2,000 tons of water, roughly one day's supply, an official said by telephone.
Taiwan still bans full direct contact with China, which views the self-governing island as a breakaway province that must be reunified with the mainland, by force if necessary.
trashed the old three-day record of $90.3 million, set last November by "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone."
All 112 people aboard a Chinese jetliner that plunged into the sea near the northeastern city of Dalian the airline has said.
shortly after the captain reported a fire in the cabin, according to state news agency, Xinhua.
Using a ground-based telescope to peer into a distant point of light, scientists have come up with a startling conclusion
the star ingested one or more of its own planets.
The surprise discovery should hasten the search for other such voracious stars, boosting the understanding of planetary evolution, the European researchers said.
Located in the constellation Hydra, the star is slightly hotter and larger than our sun and was recently discovered to possess a pair of giant planets.
Like most of the dozens of planets found around other stars, these two gas giants have bizarre orbits, in this case rather elongated ones unusually close to the central star.
Such planets are unlike any in our solar system and confound traditional theories of planetary formation.
Other explanations that account for the eccentric orbits also predict that some planets could plummet into their host stars, a hypothesis that the new observation seems to confirm, the scientists said.
Using the European Southern Observatory telescope in Atacama, Chile, the astronomers detected the presence of a rare variety of lithium in the star.
The fragile metal would have been destroyed in the early, explosive evolutionary stages of this particular kind of star, which like our own is rich in heavy metals.
The star, known as HD82943, could have swallowed either a gas giant twice the mass of Jupiter or a small rocky one three times the mass of Earth, the astronomers estimated in their report, published in the May 10 issue of the journal Nature.
Scientists have discovered more than 60 planetary systems beyond our own in recent years, using powerful telescopes to measure the wobble brought about by orbiting planets on their host stars.
Asian Internet users flocked to pornographic Web sites, with Singaporean executives and South Korean students topping the list, Some 10.7 million South Koreans headed to adult sites, a hefty 72 percent jump from the year before, the Internet measurement firm said.
Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore all saw a 30-40 percent jump in the number of visitors to the sites.
with 715,700 in Hong Kong and 373,100 in Singapore.
South Korea is testing more livestock for foot-and-mouth disease after pigs in four separate farms tested positive.
Thirty North Koreans have now succeeded in entering foreign embassies and consulates in China in the last two months to escape their homeland and gain repatriation to another country.
Japan appears to be struggling with another outbreak of mad cow disease after officials confirmed a fourth case of the brain-wasting disease on a farm in northern Japan.
The official confirmation by the Health Ministry has set health safety alarm bells ringing just weeks before Japan is due to co-host the May 31 - June 30 soccer World Cup finals itself struck by foot-and-mouth disease in its pigs.
Asian stocks fired ahead, with all major markets showing gains.
Tech stocks led the way, and there are high hopes for export-driven recoveries for rebounds worldwide and an easing yen.
Software piracy grew in 2000 for the first time in half a decade and 37 percent of the programs used by businesses worldwide are illegal copies.
The Business Software Alliance, an organization of productivity software companies such as Adobe and Microsoft, has conducted the study since 1994.
The Asia-Pacific nations, where more than half of all programs in use last year were stolen, are increasingly accounting for worldwide piracy.
The Business Software Alliance announces 159 software piracy settlements worldwide, totaling more than $6.2 million. Thirty-six of those settlements
in which companies paid software companies to settle claims that they were using unlicensed software
are in the United States.
Software companies lost more than $4 billion in 2000 due to piracy in the Asia-Pacific region.
Eastern Europe has had the highest piracy rate each year, with 63 percent of its software illegally copied in 2000.
Many companies use authentication codes printed on CD cases of programs like Adobe Photoshop and Microsoft Office but software pirates find them on illegal Web sites.
In response to this threat, Microsoft's upcoming Office XP and Windows XP products will require an online "product activation" sequence that uses a combination of a software serial code and a number created by scanning the hardware of a person's computer.
If the customer doesn't activate the program, it will stop working within several days.
But like copy-proof "key disks" of the past, these methods can frustrate legitimate buyers and are frequently overcome by industrious software pirates.
Even though Windows XP hasn't been released, there already are downloadable programs that work to disable its copy protection.
The carrot is to return to its roots when it goes on sale in what's said to be its true colour of purple Purple carrots will appear on the shelves of supermarkets at a slightly higher price than the familiar version.
they have dug up the vegetable's original colour and will revert to the new hue for the first time in Europe in five centuries.
Russia's space agency is still waiting for an official applicant to be the world's third space tourist on a flight to the International Space Station scheduled this autumn.
But with time running out for the necessary training, the agency most likely will not find anyone and the chance is now virtually zero that a tourist will come along on the flight, agency spokesman Sergei Gorbunov told Interfax news agency.
The possibility of another attack against the United States Recent reports of increased communications among suspected al Qaeda operatives the war against terrorism remains in high gear.
Vice President Dick Cheney said on NBC's Meet the Press, if it's going to be tomorrow or next week or next year."
The Australian army is warning animal rights activists it cannot guarantee their safety should they try to stop a cull of kangaroos on one of its bases.
Up to 15,000 kangaroos will be shot this week on the base in an effort to reduce starvation amongst the animals and improve safety on the Puckapunyal base There are more than 80,000 kangaroos on the 45,000 hectare base, about double the number the natural environment in the area can successfully support.
Japan's economic outlook got a boost with figures showing business activity rose 1.2 percent in March from the previous month.
The increase is the first in a year and is viewed as a further sign that the Japanese economy has bottomed out after months of stagnation.
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said that he saw signs of an economic comeback in the recent strengthening of the yen against the U.S. dollar.
Engine problems stranded two men on a boat in the Atlantic one recent afternoon.
They could see land but had no idea where they were.
So one called 911 on his cell phone.
The men were lucky to be along the coast of Rhode Island, where emergency operators have more power than most of their counterparts in America to help people calling from wireless phones.
An operator instantly received the boaters' precise latitude and longitude and passed the coordinates to the Coast Guard, which picked the men up safely before dark.
This is not heroic by comic book standards, but it's an ideal moment in the world of public safety.
It's also how wireless 911 calls are supposed to work everywhere.
Six years ago, the Federal Communications Commission ordered phone companies to make it possible by 2005.
But while about half of 911 calls come from cell phones
a percentage that increases every year
meeting the FCC's demand for callers' location information has been excruciatingly difficult.
Phone companies have squabbled over details, and public safety agencies are short on resources.
Several places are scheduled to reach that level soon, and FCC officials and phone companies say the 2005 deadline is still attainable.
But it probably will take a more efficient and cooperative effort.
New reports from remote areas in India indicate that more than 1,000 people died during a fierce heat wave that gripped the nation this month.
Elderly people account for most of the deaths, unable to bear temperatures in parts of the southern Andhra Pradesh state.
The original "Star Wars" (1977) ended with a happy tableau.
"Return of the Jedi" (1983) ended even more cheerily.
"The Empire Strikes Back" and the new film, "Star Wars:
a galactic train wreck in the offing.
The last film in George Lucas' six-part saga of the Skywalker family inevitably ends in tragedy, the final prequel leading into the dark times of dictatorship that prevail at the opening of the original "Star Wars."
Americans are marking the three-day Memorial Day weekend with alerts about terrorism ringing in their ears.
As the FBI warned that terrorists may try to use small aircraft for suicide attacks, the nation's nuclear power plants were placed on a heightened state of alert.
Alerts involved everything from tall apartment buildings to the Statue of Liberty to scuba divers and subways.
Imagine having your laptop fetch a beer from the refrigerator and then roll over to the baby's room to sing a lullaby while e-mailing snapshots to grandma a thousand miles away.
on a range of issues, including counter-terrorism, regional emergencies and arms control.
Americans will celebrate Memorial Day on Monday, May twenty-eighth.
The holiday honors the men and women who died fighting in wars for the United States.
The idea of celebrating such a day began after the American Civil War in the 1860's.
It was the idea of a daughter of a Union officer who had been killed in battle.
She described a German tradition of placing flowers on soldiers’ burial places each spring.
She said Americans should do the same.
The commander of the soldiers’ organization agreed.
He ordered that May thirtieth, 1868, be named “Decoration Day” to honor soldiers who had died in the Civil War.
It was also called “Memorial Day.”
A confederate Memorial Day was observed in some southern states.
It was the first state to make it a holiday.
Congress made it a national holiday in 1888.
After World War One, Memorial Day became a day to remember those who died in all the nation’s wars.
Today, Americans celebrate the Memorial Day holiday in different ways.
Towns and cities hold parades over Memorial Day weekend.
Many people attend special ceremonies to hear speeches and band music.
People enjoy the warm weather with their families.
They may cook dinner outdoors, go swimming or have a party.
Some people travel to Washington, D-C to attend national Memorial Day ceremonies at Arlington Cemetery near the city.
The ceremonies are held at the burial place of the nation’s unknown soldiers.
which any savvy shopper can pick up on the Internet are about to become cheaper still, last weekend slashed prices on microprocessors for PC makers to cut prices in the doggedly weak PC market.
amid a price war led by Dell Computer Corp., which used its direct business model to gain market share and maintain profits.
Football's governing body FIFA has launched an investigation into why there were 3,500 empty seats at the opening World Cup match at Seoul.
The game was declared a sellout by organizers, but only 62,651 spectators witnessed Senegal defeat France 1-0 in one of the biggest upsets in the tournament's history.
Seoul's World Cup stadium is listed as being able to seat 64,677 fans, but FIFA communications director Keith Cooper told a press conference that 3,500 seats remained unfilled.
The Japanese government is seeking to calm a growing storm over comments reportedly made by a member of the cabinet that Japan could abandon its ban on nuclear weapons.
Japan, the only country in the world to have suffered nuclear attack, adopted the so-called three non-nuclear principles of not producing, not possessing and not allowing nuclear weapons into the country.
a leading government official was quoted anonymously as saying Japan might reconsider its stand.
Intel Corp., the world's largest chipmaker that is best known for its Pentium line of microprocessors, will this week kick off its largest-ever advertising campaign.
Ads will appear in print and online in such publications as BusinessWeek, CIO Magazine, Fortune and The Wall Street Journal, The campaign is slated to last as long as three years, a good amount of time for an advertising push, and will run into the tens of millions of dollars.
published ahead of a three-day food summit to be held in Rome in early June, as the organisation steps up its campaign to eradicate world hunger.
Sex education programs do not speed up teenagers' experimentation with sex, and might actually delay it, a study said.
"Programs do not increase sexual activity," said Douglas Kirby, author of the study.
"They do not hasten the onset of sex.
They do not increase the frequency of sex, nor do they increase the number of sexual partners."
Four out of 10 girls in the United States get pregnant at least once before age 20, according to the study.
There are nearly 1 million teen pregnancies each year.
Teen pregnancy and birth rates declined in the 1990s but the United States still has the highest rates of pregnancy and birth of any comparable country.
The report singled out eight programs that were found to effectively communicate the joint messages of abstinence and safe sex.
Five of those were sex education programs, two were community service programs that included discussion session, and one was an intensive program combining sex education, health care and tutoring.
All the programs shared common elements, Kirby said.
"They focused very directly upon sexual behavior," he said.
They focused upon changing sexual behavior."
Kirby said the programs also gave clear messages about sexual behavior and emphasized abstinence as the safest way to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.
Researchers could draw no definite conclusion about why certain programs seemed more effective that others.
But they agreed that candid conversation does work, and simply talking about sex to teenagers does not encourage sexual activity.
"There still is no magic bullet to reducing teen pregnancy," Kirby said.
it would pay $10 million to Hindu, vegetarian and other groups more than a year after a Seattle lawyer sued the fast-food chain, alleging it failed to disclose the use of beef flavoring in its French fries.
Tens of thousands of rooms will not be taken up by World Cup fans while FIFA's ticket agent over-estimated demand.
The optimism for peace on the subcontinent came as shelling raged across the Line of Control in Kashmir, after officials said at least ten people were killed Saturday.
Champions France were unceremoniously dumped out of the World Cup, to finish bottom of their group It was a humiliating end to France's reign in a campaign dogged by injury.
The last defending champions to fail to get past the group stage Some of China's worst floods in years have killed at least 179 people, and made thousands more homeless in a devastating start to the wet season.
Worst affected is the northwestern Shaanxi province, where the state Xinhua news agency said 150 bodies have been recovered after torrential rains triggered landslides and burst river banks across 30 counties.
Another 400 people are missing, and the Chinese military have been called in to help with rescue work.
The United Nations says at least 500 million new jobs will be needed during the next ten years to help support the world’s workforce.
The UN International Labor Office published the World Employment Report a few months ago.
It says the new jobs will be needed to help reduce unemployment around the world by half.
The International Labor Office estimates that 160 million people did not have jobs at the end of last year.
Most of these people were seeking jobs for the first time.
Among them, about 110 million live in developing countries.
The report also estimates about 500 million workers around the world have jobs, but they are not paid enough money.
They earn less than one American dollar a day.
This is called “underemployment.”
The rate at which people enter the world’s workforce is expected to slow during the next ten years.
However, the UN estimates about 460 million people will join the world’s workforce by 2010.
More than half of these new workers will be from Asia.
Experts say the need for jobs depends greatly on whether the world economy continues to expand.
If it does, the International Labor Office says information technology and communications will offer the most promising chances for work.
Duncan Campbell is the economist who supervised the World Employment Report.
He says technology is important.
But there are also concerns.
Many developing countries do not have technology resources like those in industrial countries.
Campbell says developing countries will have to take steps to bridge this digital divide.
He says lack of education is the main reason why people in developing countries do not use technology.
The International Labor Organization is urging developing countries to create new public policies.
The goal is to find ways to link more people to computers and information technology.
which Presley performed in his 1968 film "Live a Little, Love a Lot," has been drawing brisk sales and heavy radio airplay since it was released there as a single last week.
The recording is expected to top the British singles charts breaking the long-running tie between Presley and the Beatles 1 hits in the United Kingdom, which currently stands at 17 apiece, Record company giants Sony Music and Universal Music said they planned to soon offer cheaper and easier ways to download music from the Web in the industry's latest effort to stem online piracy.
Entrenched in the worst market downturn in years, the world's five big music companies last year launched their own online subscription services, MusicNet and pressplay, after previously dabbling unsuccessfully in digital download programs that priced songs around $2 and up.
Several tens of thousands of police and other officials have swooped down on Internet cafes throughout China in the wake of a fire in an illegal cyber cafe which killed 24 students in Beijing.
South Koreans are virtually painting the town red in the wake of their historic World Cup victory over Italy.
A goal in the dying minutes of extra-time gave South Korea an unlikely 2-1 victory over their highly fancied opponents, Italy, sending them into the quarterfinals of the World Cup.
South Korea hadn't even won a game at five previous trips to soccer's biggest event.
Their strength in the race to deliver broadband service is illustrated by an ad from a unit of cable company Cox Communications.
"Who unplugged the Internet?"
and "Is your DSL provider taking you to the InterNOT?"
When a Wisconsin Internet business stopped providing service, Charter Communications cable offered disconnected customers a chance to subscribe to its Internet access "without any pain."
That meant giving significant discounts, so customers could switch over seamlessly.
Cox Communications offered to install its service for free for consumers left without their DSL service.
Cox says it has seen call volume go up by as much as 100 percent in two of the markets where the "unplugged" ad has run.
Cable already is well ahead of its telephone, satellite and wireless rivals in snagging customers.
Cable is also a known quantity, said AT&T Chairman C. Michael Armstrong, who heads the nation's largest cable business.
Cable companies already enjoy a comfortable lead in offering high-speed access, with 4.7 million customers in the United States, according to the Yankee Group.
About 2.2 million people subscribe to DSL service from a phone company or other Internet provider, while 98,000 customers hook up to high-speed Internet via satellite.
Still, some cable operators warn against resting on past successes or discounting the power of rivals.
The nation's four Bell companies, delivering DSL service over phone lines, remain in a prime position to capture customers in their markets.
Weak demand at home for imports and a surge in shipments of Japanese cars, flat screen TVs and other key exports to Asia It jumped 715 percent from a year ago The customs-cleared trade surplus grew for a third straight month A severe shortage of food aid is forcing hungry North Koreans to scrounge for grass and seaweed, the United Nations says.
Warning of a new threat of famine in the communist country, 's World Food Program says hundreds of thousands of North Koreans are abandoning work and school in a desperate effort to stave off hunger.
Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenant Ayman al-Zawahiri and the group is "going to launch attacks against America," according to audiotaped remarks by an al Qaeda spokesman.
The message also said that Mullah Omar, the leader of the Taliban now on the run, and that "98 percent of the leadership of al Qaeda are safe" and are running their affairs smoothly.
that has burned more than 330,000 acres crept toward the largely abandoned town of Show Low and charred more than 100 homes in its path.
President Bush plans to stop in Arizona on his way to the G-8 summit in Canada to get an aerial tour of the Rodeo-Chediski fire that has forced the evacuation of about 30,000 residents along eastern Arizona's Mogollon Rim.
Asian tech stocks are sharply lower, with Tokyo down more than 2 percent after the shock admissions South Korea is faring worst, with its Kospi down more than 6 percent and Singapore is off 2.2 percent.
The mosquito-borne West Nile virus, which can cause encephalitis and result in death, is expected to eventually spread across the United States, federal health officials said.
Mosquitoes spread the virus to birds, animals and humans.
Since 1999, West Nile virus has made 74 people severely ill and caused nine deaths.
All of the victims were in New York and New Jersey.
Studies show that only one in 100 to one in 150 people who are infected actually go on to develop symptoms.
The virus, first identified in 1937 in the West Nile region of Uganda, was detected in the United States two years ago after birds and humans in the New York City area were bitten by infested mosquitoes.
Since 1999, the virus has been detected in 12 states and the District of Columbia
So far this year, it's been detected in dead crows in New York, Connecticut, Maryland and New Jersey.
The CDC has advised all state health departments to be on alert for signs of the virus.
In response, Georgia has formed a West Nile Task Force.
Individual counties are trapping mosquitoes and analyzing them.
When West Nile virus activity is detected in an area, residents are alerted to take precautionary steps to protect themselves.
Health officials suggest citizens who find dead birds or animals contact the local Board of Health.
The report from the National Association of Purchasing Management (NAPM) helped generate a last-week rally on Wall Street.
But economists cautioned that the run of good news in recent weeks has signaled only a slower deterioration of conditions with few signs of any real strength.
The closely-watched purchasing managers report indicated that the manufacturing sector declined for an 11th straight month in June, although the overall index reading of 44.7 percent was the best showing since November 2000 and far better than the 42.3 percent expected by analysts on average.
Any reading below 50 percent indicates that the manufacturing sector is contracting.
Because manufacturing accounts for slightly less than one-fifth of the economy, the overall index figure would be consistent of annual GDP growth of 0.7 percent, according to the NAPM.
“The economy is still not showing any strength, but at least things aren't getting any worse, and that's a precondition for recovery,” said Mark Vitner, a First Union economist.
Blue-chip stock prices rose, with the Dow Jones industrial average jumping 91.32 points to 10,593.72.
Treasury bond prices also rose, pushing down long-term interest rates, in part because the purchasing managers index showed that commodity prices fell in June, reflecting an outlook for continued low inflation.
A South Korean patrol boat was sunk that left at least four South Korean sailors dead and 18 others injured, officials in Seoul say.
One other South Korean sailor is missing and a North Korean boat is also believed destroyed in the 20 minute exchange of gunfire.
The battle took place off the Korean peninsula's western coast in the Yellow Sea after North Korean patrol boats crossed the so-called Northern Limit Line.
In a damning stocktake of China's efforts to halt a looming epidemic, if it does not change the way it is fighting AIDS.
China is "on the verge of a catastrophe that could result in unimaginable suffering, economic loss and social devastation," said the 89-page report 30,736 people were carrying the HIV virus, and 684 people died from illnesses related to the disease.
changing the rules of engagement for clashes with North Korea The proposed change would allow South Korean forces to fire first a contrast to the current regulations introduced under the government of President Kim Dae-jung which require South Korea to broadcast a series of warnings during a confrontation with enemy vessels.
including about 50 children
after a Russian jet and a cargo plane collided Police and witnesses said the crash scattered "burning pieces like fire" Two of those killed were the pilot and co-pilot of the cargo plane, operated by air freight carrier DHL.
All the others believed killed were aboard the Russian jet, Separating 1-year-old twin Egyptian boys joined at the crowns of their heads could result in death for both, so doctors are returning to Egypt for meetings with medical and religious officials to decide what to do.
Doctors are considering the complications that could arise from the surgery.
One said there are five possible scenarios:
complications causing brain damage in one or both, or not going through with the surgery.
The extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago may have been caused by a kind of astronomical "wobble" in Earth's and Mercury's solar orbits, according to a new theory by a group of California scientists.
Scientists have long speculated that a giant celestial body slammed into ancient Earth.
The impact, known by scientists as K-T, threw so much dust into the atmosphere that the resulting darkness killed plants that many dinosaurs relied on for food.
The dinosaurs essentially starved to death.
But it's unclear if the object that hit the Earth was a comet or an asteroid.
Using computer models, University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) professors and researchers tracked planetary orbits as far back as 250 million years ago.
During the Cretaceous period, gravitational pushes and pulls with the Sun and other planets created a wobble in the Earth's orbit, according to the UCLA team's models.
That wobble, in turn, may have caused the planet Mercury's orbit to wobble.
Gravitational effects of the two celestial wobbles might have forced a large asteroid to break away from the asteroid belt and smash into Earth.
There are thought to be hundreds of thousands of asteroids in our system ranging in size from small pieces to as large as entire mountains.
Most of them are floating in the asteroid belt, an elliptical plane located between Mars and Jupiter.
Mark Bailey, director of the Armagh Observatory in Northern Ireland, said he is also studying what might have hit the Earth and driven the dinosaurs to extinction.
"I'm skeptical," Bailey said of the theory.
"It seems to me that this is a very long chain of assumptions."
But Bailey said he could not rule out the theory altogether.
that smashed into the Earth 65 million years ago.
But Varadi, a 20-year veteran researcher, said that if he had to guess whether the object that hit the Earth was a comet or an asteroid, he would choose the asteroid theory.
Hearts went out to 59-year-old Robert Tools when he became the world's first recipient of a battery-powered, self-contained artificial heart this time last year.
Tools lived for five months with the device, exceeding researchers' goal of a 60-day survival.
Perhaps the greatest milestone in the trial so far is that Tom Christerson, 71, has been living with his new heart He now spends his days visiting with friends and playing cards.
A mob of Pakistani Muslims stoned to death a man accused of blasphemy in the central province of Punjab, police and witnesses said.
the people of Zahid's village of Barnala accused him of writing his own name in copies of the Koran in place of the name of Prophet Mohammad.
A village committee met to decide his fate and Zahid was dragged out of his house and executed in front of a crowd of between 250 to 300, North and South Korea are once again embroiled in a bitter row, with Pongyang accusing Seoul of infiltrating two warships into North Korea's waters.
U.S. health authorities announced plans to undertake a $36 million trial of an AIDS vaccine, the largest such trial to date.
Because it will take place in Thailand, the trial has been dubbed the "Thai Vaccine Trial."
About 16,000 HIV-negative volunteers will participate in the five-year study.
half of the participants will receive a series of three "primer" shots and two "booster" shots;
President Bush heads to Wall Street packing a promise of "tough new laws and actions restore investor confidence and protect the pensions of American workers."
But the consumer and investor confidence The president is expected to call for criminal penalties for corporate leaders who knowingly misreport their companies' earnings.
A new report on heart disease among American males says a man's race and where he lives can make a huge difference in his chances of dying, with blacks and those living in economically underdeveloped areas most at risk.
The study found similar differences when statistics were broken down according to location, with much higher death rates in economically depressed areas.
The CDC intends for the new report to be used to identify which parts of the country are doing relatively well in heart disease prevention and treatment and which places are most disadvantaged.
The report looked at geographic variation in heart disease deaths for U.S. men over age 35 between 1991 and 1995.
Geographically, death rates by county ranged from a low of 377 per 100,000 men to a high of 1,102 per 100,000.
Hardest hit were men living in Appalachia, the Ohio-Mississippi River Valley, the Mississippi Delta and the eastern Piedmont and coastal regions of Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina.
While the overall death rate from heart disease is 675 per 100,000 men, when broken into racial and ethnic groups the rate ranges from a high of 841 per 100,000 for African-American men down to 372 per 100,000 for Asian and Pacific Islander men.
The report also found African-American men are more likely to die from heart disease at a young age than are men of other racial groups.
It estimates that about 40 percent of deaths due to heart disease in African-American men occur before age 65.
Stock prices tumbled in a broad selloff as accounting scandals and poor prospects for earnings growth drove the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq composite to their lowest levels in five years.
The pronounced, broad-based selling took a severe toll on investor confidence, which has been shattered by months of corporate scandals that came on top of last year's terrorist attacks.
The Dow Jones industrial average tumbled 282.59 to 8,813.50, that left the world's most widely watched stock index at its lowest close in more than nine months.
China is honing "credible options" and could act with scant warning against what it sees as a U.S.-backed rogue province, the Pentagon has warned.
In a long-delayed annual report to Congress, the Defense Department said that Taiwan's permanent separation from the mainland could serve as a strategic foothold for the UnitedStates   .
The man who pulled out a rifle is involved with neo-Nazi and hooligan groups, as the 25-year-old man was overpowered, a spokesman for the Paris police department told CNN.
It was not yet clear whether the gun went off in the struggle or was a shot aimed at the president.
Japanese software makers said they have detected two strains of a new computer virus that attacks files and disables antivirus software.
Another, more virulent strain, is also circulating, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has expressed optimism about the health of the U.S. economy, but acknowledged that corporate scandals had indirectly hurt business spending and called for tougher penalties for CEOs who break the law.
His words seemed to have a positive effect on Wall Street which probably hung on his words even more than it usually does
amid a stubbornly bearish market ruled by fears about corporate accounting.
China has shut down nearly 2,000 Internet cafes across the country and has ordered 6,000 to suspend operations and make changes.
Anonymous cybercafes are popular because they allow people to evade tough content laws, whose infringement on a personal homepage or message board authorities are likely to track to its source.
More than 56,800 Internet cafes or bars have been inspected during a probe that began in April, the newspaper said.
It said police closed 53 Internet bars and ordered 59 others to suspend operations for "rectification and improvement" in Nanjing in the eastern province of Jiangsu.
Internet bars have mushroomed in China since first appearing in big cities in 1997.
Mini-cyber bars can now be found in bookstores, barbershops, clothes stores, and the butcher's.
To the government, they open the door to a dangerous world outside the Communist Party's control.
To the people, they offer an opportunity to speak with anonymity, making cyberspace almost impossible to regulate despite a slew of high profile arrests since March.
Authorities closely monitor Web site content in search for buzzwords such as Taiwan, Tibet and the banned spiritual group Falun Gong, Web executives say.
Residents of Corleone, the Italian village made famous by Hollywood's Godfather movie trilogy, have come up with a food fit to frighten mobsters
A group of farmers dedicated to fighting the Mafia are now producing the pasta under the brand name "Libera Terra" after setting up a co-operative to farm land seized by the Italian government from the Cosa Nostra's jailed "boss of bosses" Toto Riina.
"We want to prove that these fields are no longer controlled by the Mafia and can remain profitable as well as give jobs to many more people, so that all can benefit from it, A popular brand of diet pills from China has been linked to six deaths in three Asian countries, highlighting the need to regulate the region's booming herbal health industry.
Suspected in the deaths is Slim 10 and other herbal products manufactured by the Guangdong-based Yuzhitang Health Products company.
Slim 10 was found to contain substances which was outlawed in the United States in 1997 after being linked to heart, thyroid and blood problems.
have slipped through a Greenpeace flotilla of protest craft under the cover of darkness.
A Greenpeace inflatable boat then embarked on an eight-hour chase, before unfurling a protest banner demanding a "Nuclear Free Pacific".
Environmental activist group Greenpeace set up the blockade of 11 boats in the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand to protest the shipment of plutonium fuel from Japan to the United Kingdom.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's approval rating has bounced back into positive territory, according to a new poll.
And the revival is almost matched by a drop in his "disapproval rating."
But critics still abound, faulting the politician's lack of progress and willingness to compromise.
Koizumi saw his popularity soar thanks mainly to a push to trim public-works spending and privatize the postal service.
The United States said it would scrap its $34 million payment to the U.N.
after uncovering evidence it said showed funds were being used for illegal activities in countries such as China.
She was reported have been shot three times in the head and twice in the body and was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital.
Hundreds of people have been gathering outside her home as news of her death spread.
Her story was the subject of numerous films and books, but first came to international prominence in the 1994 movie "Bandit Queen", directed by Shekhar Kapur.
Born into a poor family from the low-caste Mallah community, Devi was forced into marriage at age 11 to a man more than 20 years her senior.
She ran away from her abusive husband and was kidnapped several years later by lower-caste bandits who roamed the lawless Chambal Ravines in India's central Hindu heartland.
Two bandits shot dead Devi's gang leader lover and took her their village of where she was confined in a shack and allegedly gang raped by local men.
She escaped three weeks later only to return on Valentine's Day 1981 as the head of her own gang, whom she allegedly told to kill 22 high-caste Hindu men in revenge for her rape.
She was jailed for the following 11 years until 1994 without ever going to trial, and has always denied she ever personally killed anyone.
She was defeated in polls two years later but made a triumphal return to parliament in 1999.
The Times of India said members of the Indian lower house, known as the Lok Sabha, stood for a minute's silence after hearing the news before adjourning business for the day as a mark of respect.
A two-kilometre-wide asteroid, dubbed 2002 NT7, is travelling at 28 kilometres per second and there is a chance, that it could hit our planet on February 1, 2019.
Astronomers believe the asteroid could be the most threatening object yet detected in space.
It is the first object to be given a positive value, of 0.06, on the Palermo scale of potential threat posed by asteroids, although scientists said further calculations were needed to pin the precise path of 2002 NT7.
The House narrowly endorsed a major trade bill that President Bush says could be a key to American supremacy in the world economy America has fallen behind as a trade leader, Bill Thomas, R-California, the chief sponsor of the bill.
"It is time to pass legislation to get us back in the game."
Biologists and technologists at the University of California, Berkeley have spent the past four years called the Micromechanical Flying Insect, that they say will one day fly like a fly.
Taiwan used to worry only about an old-fashioned invasion from rival China, with Chinese soldiers sailing to storm the beaches and impose communist rule.
Now, the island says its defense focus is having to shift to more futuristic threats:
Dramatic new evidence has emerged concerning the final hours of "Otzi", the Bronze Age hunter whose frozen body was found in the Alps in 1991.
The chance discovery of the excellently preserved 5,300-year old corpse
Numerous theories have been advanced, including that he was killed in an avalanche, or simply died of exhaustion.
Now, however, Italian scientists have revealed that he met a more violent end, killed by an arrow.
"Now research on the Iceman starts over."
The startling discovery was made last week using a technique known as computerised tomography.
This uses X-rays to produce a multi-dimensional image of the body, and revealed a hitherto unnoticed flint arrowhead embedded beneath the Iceman's left shoulder.
The 21mm-long arrow, whose angle of entry suggests it was shot from below, shattered Otzi's scapula and ripped through nerves and major blood vessels, paralysing his left arm and causing massive internal bleeding.
It ended up buried six centimetres beneath the skin, close to his left lung.
"There is a whole series of new implications.
All the things that have been published over the last eight years are wrong.
The story needs to be rewritten."
The body, whose age at time of death is estimated at between 45 and 50 years old, was found by two German mountaineers in a glacier on the Italian-Austrian border.
Patients trying to view the Web site of a United Kingdom hospital instead found themselves watching Instead of information about Queen's Hospital in Burton upon Trent, visitors unwittingly downloaded adult material after the site's webmaster in the United States reallocated its Internet address to another company.
Secret documents on Japan's World War Two plans taken secretly out of the country more than 50 years ago, have been returned to Japan, the only nation ever to suffer an atomic attack.
a scientist at the Tokyo research institute in charge of the plans, who felt that burning all copies would be "regrettable," handed the papers secretly to Kazuo Kuroda, a special assistant to the institute.
China's State Council has blasted which called for an independence referendum and implied that Taiwan is a country.
A Chinese spokesman said the call for an independence vote amounted to exposing Chen's intent toward independence and compared Chen to former president Lee Teng-hui.
Chen is trying to split China, formally declaring independence will "bring Taiwan into disaster."
A team of more than 50 doctors and nurses worked through the night in a painstaking and intricate process to separate year-old twin girls joined at the tops of their heads the girls are lucky:
they have separate brains normal in size and structure and separated by a membrane, meaning surgeons will not have to cut through any brain tissue.
Taking a leap forward in the study of Mars, European engineers began construction on the Beagle 2, a lander slated to hit the red planet in 2003.
The IBM PC was introduced to the world 20 years ago at a press conference in New York on August 12, 1981.
Evolving from the MITS Altair computer and taking cues from early PCs such as the Apple II, the IBM PC
and the story behind its development
provided a foretaste of how the whole tech industry took shape.
The IBM PC originated not at Big Blue's Armonk, New York, headquarters but at its small division in Boca Raton, Florida, which was headed by IBM veteran Bill Lowe.
It was Lowe who proposed to IBM's top brass that they build a personal computer made of components provided by outsiders, bucking IBM's long-standing practice of using its own hardware and software.
A one-year deadline was established that would have been impossible to meet operating under IBM's traditionally proprietary ways.
Lowe says IBM's decision to buy instead of build was driven by economics.
Lowe says the proposal to sell the PC through retail channels led to the decision to go with an open architecture.
"Distributors would have to service the product themselves and retailers would accommodate the product only if we used non-IBM hardware," he says.
One IBM engineer involved in the development of the PC, Dave Bradley, thinks this decision changed the face of the industry.
"By going with an open system you invite the rest of the industry to participate.
For example, other companies such as Lotus were able to develop applications," Bradley says.
This paved the way for open hardware standards and, eventually, the opportunity for thousands of companies in the PC sector.
Intel was one of the many companies that flourished.
IBM selected Intel's 8088 processor for the system chiefly because it was the only 16-bit processor available that had an 8-bit bus.
Another company that benefited from the open system was Microsoft.
In the early 1980s the most common OS in non-Apple PCs was CP/M, developed by Digital Research in Pacific Grove, California.
Microsoft, then a small software company in Bellevue, Washington, seized on this opportunity.
Co-founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen assured IBM that in addition to developing the Basic programming language for the IBM PC, Microsoft could provide an operating system.
The International Monetary Fund, seeking to contain a deepening economic crisis said it would provide $30 billion in loans to Brazil.
It is one of the biggest bailout packages in the history of the global lending organization.
The 15-month agreement followed intense talks between the IMF and Brazil as Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill was wrapping up a fact-finding mission to the region.
Oxford scientists have discovered that a crow called Betty is no bird-brain.
Betty astonished scientists by deliberately bending a straight wire into a hook The feat, it is said, makes her the first animal other than a human that has shown a clear understanding of cause and effect, and fashioned a tool for a specific task using new materials not encountered in the wild.
Massive flooding and landslides triggered by torrential rain have killed scores in India, China and the Korean peninsula as the monsoon combines with an el Nino weather pattern to cause havoc in the region.
Oscar-winning actor Nicolas Cage married Elvis' daughter, Lisa Marie Presley, witnessed by family and close friends, The couple recited wedding vows at the Mauna Lani Bay Hotel on the Big Island of Hawaii.
This is Presley's third wedding;
she was married previously It was the second marriage for Cage, speaking at the end of an economic forum designed to reassure Americans that he's paying attention to the economy, said that he is confident the U.S. economy is on the mend.
But Microsoft did not have an OS of its own.
Racing against IBM's tight deadline, Allen got in touch with a local hardware vendor that did have an OS, Seattle Computer Products.
Microsoft executive Jeff Raikes remembers what the industry was like when he joined the company in 1981.
"The software business was dominated by hardware companies, and everybody thought they would just come in and wipe us out," Raikes says.
"People forget that Microsoft took a huge bet to think that an independent operating system and programming language would be successful."
"We put a real premium on schedule.
They were able to provide an operating system on the schedule we needed," he says.
After shipping in October 1981, the roaring success of the IBM PC meant that PCs were ready to make the leap onto corporate desktops.
"IBM legitimized the notion of the PC," Raikes says.
Soon IBM compatibles from Compaq and software applications such as Lotus 1-2-3 appeared, and the PC industry shifted into full gear.
Summarizing the success of the IBM PC, Bradley says, "Clearly it was a product whose time had arrived."
TERABYTES OF STORAGE:
The 1.44MB floppy might survive longer than we think, but by 2010 the traditional floppy, superfloppies such as the Zip, and even CD burners will disappear as DVD burners become stock items.
And multigigabyte hard drives will go by the wayside as multiterabyte drives will be required to hold the Microsoft bloatware of a decade out.
64-BIT CPU UNDER THE HOOD:
The typical configuration of today's PC includes a 32-bit processor running at 1.0GHz or faster, 128MB of RAM, and 128KB of Level 2 cache.
A limited number of of 64-bit desktop PCs also are expected to ship in 2001, following the delivery of Intel's 64-bit Itanium processor.
In 10 years, we'll all be using 64-bit systems with 64GB or more of RAM and several megabytes of cache to process the voice and video streaming.
Ten years out, everyone will be using a flat-panel screen, typically 18 inches diagonally, but it will sport a built-in digital camera for full-motion videoconferencing.
Keyboards and mice will be wireless, and they'll incorporate fingerprint readers for authorizing the user.
And these input methods will be supplemented by speech recognition, which, along with biometric security, will be built into the OS of future.
This OS will be either a Windows derivative or a Mac/Linux fusion.
In the future, Bluetooth and 802.11 wireless LANs will have evolved into something that is secure.
It is difficult to foresee whether or not wireless LANs will scale to gigabit speeds.
For Net access, there will still be a battle between DSL and cable technologies.
United Airlines parent UAL Corp.
it may be forced to file for bankruptcy court protection in the fourth quarter coming due in the fourth quarter and insufficient access to capital markets to cover the payments.
The company has asked for federal loan guarantees from the Air Transportation Stabilization Board, that they were getting negative reaction to their application.
Acknowledging the odds are against them, relatives of the September 11 attacks filed a 15-count, $116 trillion lawsuit against the company The lawsuit was filed in U.S.
District Court for the District of Columbia by more than 600 family members, plus some firefighters and rescue workers.
Elvis Presley may have "left the building," but the "King of Rock 'n' Roll" lives on and on in the endless corridors of cyberspace.
With the arrival of the 25th anniversary of Elvis' death on August 16, 1977, millions of fans were eager to connect with him providing a near-religious experience for some and not-so-spiritual though undeniably profitable opportunities for others.
A thick blanket of haze is threatening to envelope more of Southeast Asia, already prompting health alerts to be issued caused by the illegal lighting of fires has become an annual problem in Asia.
urged Cambodia to help stamp out the trafficking of women and children for sex slavery Addressing Cambodia's National Assembly in the capital Phnom Penh, High Commissioner for Human Rights said the time had come to bring an end to the trade, which afflicts an estimated 200,000 women and children in the region every year.
When Maureen Reagan first noticed a spot on the back of her right thigh about five years ago, she wasn't too concerned.
But then it started looking “gushy,” and Reagan knew it was time to see a doctor.
When she did, in the winter of 1996, the nuisance became malignant melanoma.
After surgery and a year of wrenching treatment with the drug Interferon, Reagan was optimistic.
But last fall the melanoma was back.
By spring, doctors had detected the cancer in her groin, right arm, liver and a rib; by July, it had invaded her brain.
Despite aggressive treatment and a crusading spirit, Reagan died last week at home.
Melanoma is one of the most common cancers in Americans between the ages of 25 and 29 when other leading cancers, like lung and colon, rarely occur.
This year, the American Cancer Society estimates, 51,400 people will be diagnosed with melanoma and 7,800 will die from it.
But doctors say those numbers could be slashed if Americans knew more about how to protect themselves against the disease, and if they were better informed about how to detect it in its earliest stages, when the odds for long-term survival are excellent.
The hunt is on for better ways to attack melanoma and even stop it in its tracks.
But for now, says Dr.
The main preventable cause of melanoma is excessive sun exposure.
So doctors advise avoiding or limiting sun exposure from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and using protective clothing and sunscreen with an SPF rating of at least 15.
Severe sunburns in childhood may particularly increase the risk of melanoma in later life, so children in particular should be protected, doctors say.
When melanoma is caught in its earliest stages and removed, it is highly curable.
Untreated, melanoma can spread quickly into the body from the skin.
Millionaire balloonist Steve Fossett hit turbulence over the Andes Mountains that forced him to put on his parachute, but he maneuvered through it and passed the halfway point in his bid to become the first person to make a solo balloon flight around the world.
EDT, Fossett was over Argentina moving toward the Atlantic Ocean.
He is expected to reach the Atlantic around 8 a.m.
Astronomers announced the discovery of the first solar system other than our own where multiple planets travel around a star in circular   orbits.
Of the roughly 70 planets found so far outside our solar system, most travel in tight, erratic orbits around their stars.
However, the two planets around the star 47 Ursae Majoris both travel in nearly circular orbits at a distance that, in our solar system, would place them beyond Mars but within the orbit of Jupiter.
Sharks attacked three surfers off Florida's upper east coast, a few miles from where three men were bitten the previous day.
The day's first attack occurred about 11:30 a.m. when a shark bit the foot of a 17-year-old girl about 100 yards off the beach at Wilbur-By-The-Sea south of Daytona Beach, said Joe Wooden, deputy chief of the Daytona Beach Patrol.
Giant Japanese chipmaker Fujitsu Ltd.
will announce plans to cut its global workforce by 15,000, or nearly 10 percent, according to newspaper reports.
Japan's biggest company and the world's number-three flash memory chipmaker is set to announce the cuts, say reports in the Nihon Keizai and Yomiuri newspapers.
The Federal Reserve cut short-term interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point, its seventh cut this year as part of a continuing effort to keep the U.S. economy from slipping into a recession, and left the door open for further cuts.
The federal funds rate, the central bank's target for an overnight bank lending rate, now stands at 3.50 percent, its lowest level since March 1994.
Space shuttle Discovery landed at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, completing a 12-day mission to deliver a new crew to the international space station and to return the crew that had served almost six months on the orbiting outpost.
The returning space station residents were reported to be in great shape.
NASA waived the first landing opportunity for the shuttle because of clouds near the shuttle landing facility on Florida's east coast.
Asia and other parts of the world need to act now to avert a growing risk of severe environmental damage and "profound social unrest," the World Bank says A global population of nine billion, six billion of them living in cities, will put enormous demands on energy, water, housing and education according to the report.
The popularity of Internet-enabled mobile phones has spurred a huge rise in sex crimes the National Police Agency said.
In the first six months of this year, 793 crimes were reported in which victims were contacted through online dating sites, compared with 888 for all of last year.
Nearly four out of five of the crimes Child prostitution accounted for some 400 cases, while 213 others violated child protection laws.
The death toll from the West Nile virus has risen to 16 as the disease continues to spread across the country, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
The mosquito-borne virus has now infected 371 people, including the first patients in Maryland, Nebraska and Virginia.
The virus has been spreading quickly westward, with officials fearing it will soon reach the West Coast.
West Nile has now been found in horses and birds The United States can't wait before taking action against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Vice President Dick Cheney said.
The latest batch of indicators showed one of Asia's fastest-growing economies losing momentum amid stuttering growth in the United States and volatility in global financial markets.
These "time costs" increased with the complexity of the chores:
It took longer for subjects to switch between more complicated tasks.
"People in a work setting," says Rubinstein, "who are banging away on word processors, at the same time they have to answer phones and talk to their co-workers or bosses, they're doing switches all the time.
' But even if you have a cell phone that's not held by hand and can be dialed by voice, you still have a really big conflict because when you're driving you need to be looking at various different places, you need to be reading signs, you need to be talking to yourself about those in order to make decisions about where to go with your car."
That suggests that a very simple conversation on the phone while driving a car might not draw too much concentration.
But if the conversation becomes difficult or emotionally charged or mentally taxing, it draws more attention and more mental resources away from your primary task, which is driving the car:
You're more likely to have an accident."
North Korea is "armed to the teeth" with weapons of mass destruction and selling its weapons and missile technology to any state willing to pay for it, a top U.S. official has warned.
Denouncing the North Korean leadership as "an evil regime," Undersecretary of State John Bolton said that unless the secretive communist state halted its weapons exports and development of weapons of mass destruction it would risk losing what international assistance it was currently receiving.
In an attempt to improve bilateral relations between Japan and North Korea, Koizumi has already spoken with U.S.
and received the White House's U.S. backing for the one-day visit.
Japanese equity markets are in turmoil, with the key Nikkei 225 average plunging to levels not seen for almost 19 years.
The sharp decline in Tokyo comes as fears grow about the sustainability of any recovery in the world's second largest economy.
High-profile technology-related stocks including Matsushita Electric Industrial, Hitachi, Toshiba and Canon are all down sharply.
Big bank Mizuho Holdings is off more than 7 percent.
are victims of some type of sexual exploitation every year.
Focusing on the United States, Richard Estes, co-author of the study, said the findings debunked many myths about what kind of children are involved in "the nation's least recognized epidemic."
"One of the other myths is that this is a problem of poor, inner city, mostly minority youth.
We cannot confirm that to be the case, but rather just the opposite."
Estes said most of these children are runaways and homeless kids who trade survival sex for food, shelter and clothing on the streets of U.S. cities.
However, some children in the United States also engage in commercial sex while living at home.
"The majority of these children trade sex for money or for more expensive clothes or other consumer goods," Estes said.
"Most of the customers of these children are members of their own junior and senior high school peer groups."
Many of those who solicit children for sex are men who are married with children of their own, the study reported.
The report called for the earlier identification and more intensive supervision of sexually offending adults and juveniles.
"We've got to pay closer attention to the problem including what's happening in our own homes and neighborhoods with kids who we think we're taking good care of."
Calling Saddam Hussein a "serious threat," President Bush said he would seek approval from Congress about taking action against Iraq and vowed to make the case against the Iraqi leader on the international stage as well.
In making the administration case for a "regime change" in Iraq, he invited British Prime Minister Tony Blair to Camp David He also planned discussions with other world leaders, including the presidents of France, Russia and China.
it would "trigger" a sales boom in the sluggish wireless market.
which features a large colour display, ring tone composer and numerous games, has a built-in camcorder and technology to view and send 15 seconds of images to other mobile phones.
Those images can be emailed to friends and users can download real-time video content.
big enough to cause widespread damage and death only about once every 1,000 years, the destruction would be so extreme that nations should develop a joint defense against asteroids.
Participants at a NASA-sponsored conference on the hazards of comets and asteroids smashing into Earth the planet probably would be hit about once each millennium big enough to release about 10 megatons of explosive energy.
A year after the September 11 terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, bookstores across the country mark the anniversary with readings, vigils and other events.
They will also be selling books.
More than 100 related works are due this fall and virtually all booksellers, A delegation of exiled Tibetans arrived in China this week, but China's Foreign Ministry refused to comment on whether they will discuss reopening official ties between Tibet and Beijing.
Beijing's description of the delegation as a private, fact-finding mission appeared designed to downplay the significance of the visit and dodge questions about its nature, including the possibility that China's leadership and the exiled Tibetan government are trying to reach consensus on the future of the Himalayan region.
Zheng landed 65 percent of her first serves in the match, while Vaidisova struggled with hers and was broken five times.
"Nicole had the big serve," said Zheng whose exploits have been followed on television by fans back home.
Zheng has only won three titles on the WTA Tour in her career, and her best previous Grand Slam performance came at the 2004 French Open when she reached the fourth round.
At Wimbledon, she reached the third round in 2006 but missed last year's tournament with a left ankle injury.
Bangladesh's government raised fuel prices by up to 67 percent Tuesday, adding to the cost of living for Bangladeshis, most of whom live on less than $1 a day.
Bangladesh imports crude oil and petroleum products, which are then sold at subsidized rates.
"We took the decision to raise fuel prices, finding no other way to reduce revenue losses," M. Tamim, an aide to Bangladesh's interim government, said.
Under the new rates, which started immediately, a liter of premium grade gasoline will be raised 34 percent to 90 takas ($3.42 per gallon).
Diesel and kerosene prices were raised 37.5 percent to 55 takas ($3.04 a gallon).
Liquefied petroleum gas mostly used for cooking in areas without piped gas supply saw the largest hike of 66.67 per cent.
Fuel prices were last raised in April 2007, when a barrel of crude oil cost about $60 a barrel on the international market.
Recently, crude has spiked above $140 a barrel. Bangladesh has already seen increases in transport, commodity and food prices in recent months.
John McCain and Barack Obama locked in a statistical dead heat in the race for the White House.
With just over four months remaining until voters weigh in at the polls, the CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey out Tuesday indicates that among registered voters nationwide, Obama holds a 5-point advantage over the Arizona senator, 50 percent to 45 percent.
That represents little change from a similar poll one month ago, when the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee held a 46 to 43 percent edge over McCain.
CNN polling director Keating Holland notes that Tuesday's survey confirms what a string of national polls released this month have shown:
Obama holds a slight advantage over McCain, though not a big enough one to constitute a statistical lead.
"Every standard telephone poll taken in June has shown Obama ahead of McCain, with nearly all of them showing Obama's margin somewhere between 3 and 6 points," Holland said. "In most of them, that margin is not enough to give him a lead in a statistical sense, but it appears that June has been a good month for Obama.
But the new CNN/ORC poll shows that the race gets even tighter when the two most prominent third-party presidential candidates are considered.
In a four-way matchup that includes independent candidate Ralph Nader and Libertarian candidate Bob Barr, Obama's lead over McCain dwindles to 3 percentage points, 46 percent to 43 percent.
(Nader registers 6 percent, and Barr gets 3 percent.)
"A useful rule of thumb is that third-party candidates in November get no more than half the support polls show them having in June or July," Holland said.
One-quarter of all registered voters say Obama lacks patriotism, according to the poll.
That breaks down to 10 percent of Democrats, 29 percent of independents and 40 percent of Republicans who say Obama lacks patriotism.
Starbucks Corp. said Tuesday it will close 600 stores in the United States in the next year and cut back the number of new stores it had planned to open.
Starbucks said 70 percent of the stores slated to be closed had opened since the start of the 2006 fiscal year.
The total includes 100 previously announced store closures.
The company expects charges between $328 million and $348 million related to the closures, including a charge of $200 million in the third quarter.
Once those underperforming stores have shut down a process the company said will happen gradually from now until the first half of 2009 Starbucks said it expects the change to boost earnings by $100 million a year.
Starbucks said it will try to place workers from closed stores in remaining Starbucks.
(CNN) Australians have been warned: Don't get caught annoying the crowds when they gather here later this month to see the pope.
New regulations give police and emergency services workers the power to order anyone to stop behavior that "causes annoyance or inconvenience to participants in a World Youth Day event," according to a New South Wales state government gazette.
The laws will apply in dozens of areas of downtown Sydney including the city's landmark opera house, train stations and city parks that are designated venues for World Youth Day, a Catholic evangelical festival at which Pope Benedict XVI will conduct mass and lead prayer meetings when he visits.
Violators can face a fine of over $5,000 under the regulations, which critics are calling a heavy-handed blow to free speech.
Nearly 200,000 pilgrims have registered to take part in the July 15-20 World Youth Day festival, and organizers say more are expected before the event starts.
PARIS, France (CNN) Brangelina's twins aren't here yet, but the big day is drawing closer.
The seafront Lenval hospital in Nice in the south of France said Tuesday that Angelina Jolie had checked in at its Santa Maria maternity clinic to be kept under doctors' surveillance and get some rest before she gives birth.
It's been planned for a long time," said Nadine Bauer, a hospital spokeswoman. "She's very well. Everything is fine.
"She is not on the verge of giving birth, not at all," she said.
The 33-year-old actress will almost certainly remain in the hospital until she gives birth, Bauer said.
She said Jolie was admitted recently but would not say exactly when.
BEIJING, China (CNN) &#8212; Authorities in southwestern China are reopening their investigation into the death of a teenage girl, following violent demonstrations over how it was handled, state-run media reported Tuesday.
¡°We must put maintaining social harmony and stability on the top of our agenda,¡± said Shi Zongyuan, a provincial party chief, according to the Xinhua news agency.
The unrest stemmed from the June 21 death of Li Shu Fan.
Police said the girl killed herself, and they released several suspects, Hong Kong Cable TV, a CNN affiliate, reported.
The state-run China Daily newspaper attributed the rioters¡¯ anger to ¡°officials¡¯ alleged attempt to cover up a murder case. ¡±
(CNN) Fifteen camels, several llamas and a potbellied pig broke out of a circus near Amsterdam on Monday.
Police said the giraffe kicked open a fence and walked out.
"The other animals walked out with him," said Amsterdam police spokesman Rob Van Der Veen.
They made their break about 5:45 a.m., wandering about a residential street and riling up a neighborhood dog, police said.
Officers and circus employees rounded them up before they could get too far and returned them to their pens.
"Waking up in the morning and looking out the window to see those animals walk through the streets.
He also set fire to the building's main gate.
Police identified the 28-year-old suspect only by his surname, Yang.
The unemployed resident of Beijing was reportedly unhappy with the punishment he received after being convicted of stealing a bicycle, when he launched his attack on the station, police said.
He was arrested at the scene.
British people love pubs &#8212; so much, in fact, that a recent survey found that they cherish only fish and chips and the queen more.
Yet this enduring icon of British culture is under threat after having flourished for hundreds of years.
Recent surveys found that more British pubs are closing than ever before &#8212; victims of an indoor smoking ban, higher taxes and food prices, and changing times.
Tuesday marks one year since England followed Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland to ban indoor smoking at pubs, restaurants, and bars.
LONDON, England (CNN) &#8212; Britain¡¯s Prince Charles has converted his 38-year-old Aston Martin to run on biofuel made from surplus wine, his office said Tuesday.
The car was a 21st birthday present from the queen and the prince has converted it to run on 100 percent bioethanol as a way to reduce his carbon emissions, his office, Clarence House, said.
to run on 100 percent biodiesel fuel made from used cooking oil, Clarence House said.
NEW YORK (CNN) &#8212; A 49-year-old woman collapsed and died on the floor of a waiting room at a Brooklyn psychiatric hospital &#8212;
and lay there for more than an hour as employees ignored her, according to the New York Civil Liberties Union, which on Tuesday released surveillance camera video of the incident.
Esmin Green was involuntarily admitted to the psychiatric emergency department of Kings County Hospital Center on June 18 for what the hospital describes as ¡°agitation and psychosis.
Upon her admission, Green waited nearly 24 hours for treatment, said the NYCLU, which was among the groups filing suit against the facility last year seeking improved conditions for patients.
The video sent the organizations back into court Tuesday, demanding immediate reform.
Portuguese police have handed their file on the Madeleine McCann case to prosecutors to determine whether authorities should continue looking for the missing British girl, the country¡¯s Public Prosecution Service said Tuesday.
The move does not mean the case has been closed, prosecutors said.
Madeleine, then 3, disappeared while on holiday with her family at the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz on May 3, 2007.
Her disappearance drew headlines around the world.
Prosecutors said they will now carefully review the ¡°elaborate investigation papers¡± to determine whether there are sufficient conditions and enough materials to require further investigation or draw an end to the case.
PARIS, France (CNN) &#8212; The chief of the French army resigned Tuesday after an accidental shooting Sunday at a military open house that left 17 people wounded.
President Nicolas Sarkozy has accepted the resignation of Gen. Bruno Cuche, the Elysee said in a statement on its Web site.
¡°The president ¡¦ as he has already stated, is closely following the various investigations now under way,¡± the statement from Sarkozy¡¯s office said.
Seventeen people, including some children, were wounded by live bullets Sunday as a commando parachute infantry regiment demonstrated a hostage extraction exercise at a military open house in Carcassonne, France, in the country¡¯s southwest, according to the French military¡¯s Web site.
The federal government¡¯s investigation into an outbreak of salmonella-caused illness is broadening to include items commonly eaten with tomatoes, federal health officials said Tuesday.
But tomatoes remain the prime suspect in the outbreak, which has been linked to 869 people, 107 of whom have been hospitalized, said Dr. David Acheson, associate commissioner for foods at the Food and Drug Administration.
WASHINGTON (CNN) &#8212; Former South African President Nelson Mandela is to be removed from U.S. terror watch lists under a bill President Bush signed Tuesday.
Mandela and other members of the African National Congress have been on the list because of their fight against South Africa¡¯s apartheid regime, which gave way to majority rule in 1994.
The bill gives the State Department and Homeland Security Department the authority to waive restrictions against ANC members.
Sen. John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, welcomed the move. ¡°He had no place on our government¡¯s terror watch list, and I¡¯m pleased to see this bill finally become law,¡± Kerry said.
MADRID, Spain (CNN) &#8212; Saudi Arabia on Tuesday ruled out further increases in crude production following its June 23 announcement that it would pump an extra half-million barrels a day.
In an interview with CNN, Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said he was troubled by the current high levels of petroleum prices, but added, "We have nothing to do with prices where they are today.
Asked whether Saudi Arabia, OPEC¡¯s leading producer, would open its taps to its estimated maximum capacity of 11 million barrels a day, al-Naimi asked rhetorically, ¡°Where is the buyer?
Saudi officials told CNN later that they stand ready to boost their production if the demand materializes.
Orders for August start coming in this week, and those figures might indicate whether that demand exists.
Sen. Barack Obama said Tuesday that Washington needs to draw on faith-based groups to solve the challenges the country is facing, ¡°from saving our planet to ending poverty.
In a campaign stop in Zanesville, Ohio, Obama said change comes from the bottom up, and ¡°few are closer to the people than our churches, synagogues, temples and mosques.
Meanwhile, Sen. John McCain focused on crime Tuesday in his campaign appearances, saying that Congress ¡°needs to get its priorities straight¡± so that law enforcement officials can have the resources they need.
¡°Funds distributed by the Department of Justice are too often earmarked according to their value to the re-election of members of Congress instead of their value to police,¡± McCain said at the National Sheriffs¡¯ Association¡¯s 68th annual conference in Indianapolis, Indiana.
VIENNA, Austria (CNN) Joyous Spanish fans partied hard into the early hours Monday morning after their side defeated Germany 1-0 to claim their first major football title in 44 years.
Fernando Torres scored the only goal of the European Championship final in Vienna Sunday, sliding the ball past German keeper Jens Lehmann after 33 minutes as the Spaniards took a grip on the match which they never let slip.
Spanish fans in Austria and back home went wild on the final whistle, with fireworks being left off and the sound of car horns filling the air in Madrid
Firefighters had to douse the celebrating crowds with water as the temperature neared 30 degrees Celsius in Madrid after the final whistle, The Associated Press reported.
"We suffered, but in the end, it was worth the pain," he said.
News agency Efe reported that 25 people were hospitalized in the Spanish capital, with one person in critical condition with head injuries.
In all, emergency services treated 120 people.
Boston Red Sox manager Terry Francona declined comment Monday on a report the team received a mailed threat targeting black and Latin players.
The Boston Herald, citing unidentified sources, reported the threat was believed to be postmarked in Memphis, Tenn., and that a suspect believed to be from Baltimore but living in the Memphis area was being sought.
The newspaper said the team increased security for its three-game series against the Tampa Bay Rays.
"I will not discuss that out of respect to everyone concerned," Francona said Monday night. "It's not something we can address.
No names of players were identified in the newspaper report.
Red Sox slugger David Ortiz said he first learned of the threat from reporters.
I don't think they'll be anything crazy coming out of it.
Boston and Tampa Bay were playing for the first time since a bench-clearing brawl between the teams at Fenway Park on June 5. The Herald said the threat was not believed to be related to any bad blood between the Red Sox and Rays, who are battling for first place in the AL East.
The online hangout Facebook is getting more serious about grammar.
No more should users see jarringly incorrect declarations such as "Debbie changed their profile picture.
Users who haven't specified their gender in their Facebook profiles will be asked to do so in the coming weeks.
That way, Facebook doesn't have to default to "their" or the made-up word "themself," as it had been doing.
While not knowing someone's gender poses grammatical challenges in English, it has created even larger headaches as Facebook expands to other languages, where a gender-neutral option isn't available in plural form.
"People who haven't selected what sex they are frequently get defaulted to the wrong sex entirely," Naomi Gleit, a Facebook product manager, wrote Friday in a company blog.
Transgendered people and other users who find the male-female distinction too limiting will still have the option of removing gender entirely from their profiles.
PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania (CNN) Cathy Campbell did a double-take and tapped the brakes when she spotted what appeared to be a pointy-edged box lying in the road just ahead.
The optical illusion is one of the latest innovations being tested around the country to discourage speeding.
A smaller experiment two years ago in the Phoenix area found the faux speed bumps slowed traffic, at least temporarily.
Now, in a much bigger test that began earlier this month, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration wants to find out if the markers can also reduce pedestrian accidents.
The fake bumps are being tested on a section of road in a business and residential area in Philadelphia's northeastern corner.
But soon they will also be popping up or looking that way on 60 to 90 more streets where speeding is a problem.
The 3-D markings are appealing because, at $60 to $80 each, they cost a fraction of real speed bumps (which can run $1,000 to $1,500) and require little maintenance, said Richard Simon, deputy regional administrator for the highway safety administration.
On one of three streets tested in the Phoenix trial, the percentage of drivers who obeyed the 25 mph speed limit nearly doubled.
But the effect wore off after a few months.
"Initially they were great," said the Phoenix Police traffic coordinator, Officer Terry Sills. "Until people found out what they were.
VILNIUS, Lithuania (CNN) Unidentified hackers broke into several hundred Lithuanian Web sites over the weekend, plastering them with communist symbols, government officials said Monday.
The hackers posted Soviet symbols the hammer and sickle, as well as the five-pointed star and scathing messages with profanities on Web sites based in the ex-Soviet nation, officials said.
"More than 300 private and official sites were attacked from so-called proxy servers located in territories east of Lithuania," said Sigitas Jurkevicius, a computer specialist at Lithuania's communications authority.
Many believe the attacks were a backlash against legislation approved by lawmakers two weeks ago banning the public display of Soviet and communist symbols.
President Valdas Adamkus signed the law Friday.
The law prohibits the public display of the Soviet flag, military uniforms and the five-pointed Soviet star, as well as the playing of the Soviet national anthem.
Oil prices edged higher Tuesday, staying above $140 a barrel, amid concerns about tensions between Iran and Israel and a weakening dollar.
Oil also rose on expectations the European Central Bank will likely raise interest rates at its next meeting on Thursday, a move that would help strengthen the euro against the dollar, Shum said.
As the dollar has weakened, investors have been piling into oil contracts, betting that they will gain, thereby offsetting the dollar's decline.
Since the start of the year, crude has shot up nearly 50 percent.
Light, sweet crude for August delivery rose 35 cents to $140.35 a barrel in Asian electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, midday in Singapore.
Iran is the world's fourth-largest oil exporter and OPEC's second-largest exporter.
About 40 percent of world oil exports pass through the Gulf.
African Union leaders huddled in Egypt Monday to address demands they reject the results of Zimbabwe's widely discredited runoff in which President Robert Mugabe was handed a shallow victory.
Mugabe Zimbabwe's only leader since its independence from Britain in 1980 took the oath of office Sunday, hours after election results showed he won Friday's runoff.
However, he was the only candidate in the vote.
Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai said he is closely monitoring developments from Harare, Zimbabwe's capital.
He pulled out of the election, citing political violence and intimidation.
Tsvangirai said he could easily get a non-Zimbabwean passport, "but that will mean I may not be able to come back into the country.
I don't want a situation where I am then treated like a foreigner."
At the summit, Tsvangirai's party has a team of five people, led by the Movement for Democratic Change vice president Thokozani Khupe.
"They are reporting very good progress. They have caucused with a lot of people," Tsvangirai said.
PERTH, Australia (CNN) A man who auctioned his life his house, his car, his job, even his friends on eBay said Monday he is disappointed with the selling price:
Ian Usher, a British immigrant to Australia, put everything he owned as well as introductions to his friends on the online auction site after a painful breakup with his wife prompted him to want a fresh start.
Bidding closed Sunday and reached nearly $384,000 an amount Usher said his house in the western city of Perth was worth on its own.
"I guess I'm a little bit disappointed at the final price, I'd hoped it to be a little higher than that," Usher told Nine Network television on Monday.
"But I am committed to selling and moving on and making a fresh start.
(CNN) A Paris court on Monday ordered Internet auctioneer eBay to pay $63 million in damages to Louis Vuitton for selling fake luxury goods online, according to reports.
The court also barred eBay from selling four perfume brands Christian Dior, Kenzo, Givenchy and Guerlain, AFP reported.
eBay, the world's largest online auctioneer, said it would lodge an appeal and said the decision was not a victory for copyright law.
It is based on LVMH's desire to protect its commercial practices and exclude competition," a spokeswoman for eBay in Paris told AFP.
"This is being done at the expense of the consumers and sellers to whom eBay is always offering opportunities," she added.
LVMH told AFP the decision was a major coup against illegal Internet sales.
The court barred eBay from running ads for the perfume and cosmetic brands or it would face a fine of $79,000 per day.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police said Monday that a truck carrying 330 crates of bees was traveling on a ramp on the highway when the load shifted and the truck overturned shortly after 1000 GMT.
Police said a downpour of rain has helped to contain the bees in and around the truck.
Bee experts from Agriculture Canada were called in to help deal with the accident.
The driver of the truck was not hurt.
Iraq¡¯s oil minister Monday opened international bidding on six oil fields that could increase the country¡¯s oil production by 1.5 million barrels per day.
But the oil ministry continues to negotiate short-term no-bid contracts with several U.S. and European oil companies, including Exxon Mobil Corp., Royal Dutch Shell, Total SA, Chevron Corp., and BP &#8212; a step recently criticized by two U.S. lawmakers.
Oil Minister Hussein Shahrastani announced Monday that 35 international oil companies can bid on long-term contracts for redeveloping the six oil fields, as well as two natural gas fields.
He said the fee-based contracts will not give the winning companies a share in the revenue from oil sales ¡°because this wealth belong to Iraq only and thus we will not allow anyone to share the Iraqis¡¯ oil. ¡±
LOS ANGELES (CNN) &#8212; The Screen Actors Guild has told its 122,000 members to stay on the job even if the union fails to reach a deal with film and television studios before their current contract expires at midnight Monday.
SAG President Alan Rosenberg said no strike vote has been planned, and the union¡¯s negotiators are ¡°coming to the bargaining table every day in good faith.
¡°Any talk about a strike or a management lockout at this point is simply a distraction,¡± he said.
The talks have been complicated by a split between SAG and the smaller American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, which has reached its own agreement with the studios.
About 44,000 of AFTRA¡¯s 70,000 members belong to both unions, and SAG leaders have urged those members to vote against the deal.
(CNN) &#8212; A spreading wildfire is forcing the evacuation of a small Arizona town Monday.
Officials in Crown King, a former mining community in the center of the state, are evacuating residents as the fire approaches homes and businesses.
The blaze already has burned 600 acres, and the area¡¯s dry conditions and high winds are helping it spread.
Fire teams will start a controlled fire in an effort to take flames away from the town and create a barrier for homes and other buildings.
Crown King has only about 250 permanent residents, but on weekends there may be close to 1,000 people staying in cabins they own in the area, said Nick Angiolillo, emergency manager for Yavapai County.
More than 10,000 workers plan to spend the next two weeks cleaning up an algal bloom that threatens Olympic sailing events in the eastern Chinese city of Qingdao.
The workers already have weeded out 100,000 tons of algae covering parts of the coastal area set aside for the sailing events, state media reported Sunday.
While the algae poses no health threats, it has blocked sailing routes, the news agency Xinhua said.
Sailors from more than 30 countries already are in Qingdao training for the Games, which begin August 8.
The Pakistan Air Force said in a statement that the jet broke the sound barrier as it was shifting from an altitude of 40,000 to 15,000 feet (12,200-4,600 meters).
Earlier, the Air Force had told CNN that it did not have flights in the air at the time.
(CNN) Authorities have restored order in a county in southern China after demonstrators burned a police station and government building, state-run news agencies reported.
Some of about 10,000 demonstrators overturned cars and set fires to protest the police investigation into the death of a teenage girl, according to the state-run China Daily and the privately owned Hong Kong Cable TV, a CNN affiliate.
It was the latest of several public demonstrations in China, and it came just weeks before China hosts the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing.
The unrest stemmed from the June 21 death of Li Shu Fan, 15, Hong Kong Cable TV reported.
Police said the girl killed herself, and they released several suspects, according to the station.
The state-run China Daily newspaper attributed the rioters' anger to "officials' alleged attempt to cover up a murder case.
LIMA, Peru (CNN) &#8212; The trial of former President Alberto Fujimori opened here Monday with his former intelligence chief, Vladimiro Montesinos, declaring his boss innocent of the charges he faces.
¡°I came here to clarify that Mr. Fujimori has no responsibility with the actions cited in this process,¡± Montesinos told court magistrates.
The trial, held in Ate Vitarte on the outskirts of Lima, marks the first time the two men have been in the same room since they both fled the country eight years ago.
Fujimori, 69, faces charges that range from bribery and corruption to murder and human rights abuses that carry a potential penalty of 30 years in prison.
The remarks will come in Harry Truman¡¯s hometown of Independence, Missouri, just days before the Fourth of July.
¡°Sen. Obama will discuss what patriotism means to him and what it requires of all Americans who love this country and want to see it do better,¡± Obama spokesman Bill Burton wrote in a morning e-mail to reporters.
and when false rumors began circulating that he did not say the Pledge of Allegiance.
President Robert Mugabe was sworn in Sunday after the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission declared he overwhelmingly won the country's disputed runoff election.
"I, Robert Gabriel Mugabe, do swear that I will well and truly serve Zimbabwe in the office of president, so help me God," Mugabe said at the State House complex in Harare, standing before a red-robed judge wearing a white wig.
The international community has roundly called the election allegedly marred by violence and vote rigging a "sham."
Many voters expressed fear of government retaliation if they did not take part in the vote to extend Mugabe's rule.
Some said they were required to report the serial numbers on their ballots to Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front.
Zimbabwe's Electoral Commission released the final results of Friday's runoff vote, showing that Mugabe won by an almost 9-to-1 margin, with voter turnout about 42 percent.
The final tally, according to the electoral commission, showed Mugabe snaring 2.2 million votes, or about 86 percent of the ballots, to opposition candidate Morgan Tsvangirai's 233,000.
The commission's quick turnaround was a contrast to the five weeks it took the ZEC to release results from the March 29 election.
Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change quickly denounced the results, calling the election "a one-man race, a one-man circus.
"We have nothing to do with the so-called Mugabe win," MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa "In effect we believe that whatever ZANU-PF and Mugabe are doing is just but a continuation of the sham."
The Bush administration has launched a "significant escalation" of covert operations in Iran, sending U.S. commandos to spy on the country's nuclear facilities and undermine the Islamic republic's government, journalist Seymour Hersh said Sunday.
White House, CIA and State Department officials declined comment on Hersh's report, which appears in this week's issue of The New Yorker.
Hersh told CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer" that Congress has authorized up to $400 million to fund the secret campaign, which involves U.S. special operations troops and Iranian dissidents.
President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have rejected findings from U.S. intelligence agencies that Iran has halted a clandestine effort to build a nuclear bomb and "do not want to leave Iran in place with a nuclear program," Hersh said.
"They believe that their mission is to make sure that before they get out of office next year, either Iran is attacked or it stops its weapons program," Hersh said.
The new article, "Preparing the Battlefield," is the latest in a series of articles accusing the Bush administration of preparing for war with Iran.
He based the report on accounts from current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources.
"As usual with his quarterly pieces, we'll decline to comment," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe told CNN.
"The CIA, as a rule, does not comment on allegations regarding covert operations," CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano said.
Microsoft Corp. is scheduled to stop selling its Windows XP operating system to retailers and major computer makers Monday, despite protests from a slice of PC users who don't want to be forced into using XP's successor, Vista.
Once computers loaded with XP have been cleared from the inventory of PC makers such as Dell Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co., consumers who can't live without the old operating system on their new machine will have to buy Vista Ultimate or Vista Business and then legally "downgrade" to XP.
Microsoft will still allow smaller mom-and-pop PC builder shops to buy XP for resale through the end of January. A version of XP will also remain available for ultra-low-cost PCs such as the Asus Eee PC.
A group of vocal computer users who rallied around a "Save XP" petition posted on the industry news site InfoWorld had been clamoring for Microsoft to keep selling XP until its next operating system, Windows 7, is available.
The software maker has said it expects to release Windows 7 sometime in 2009.
Spain claimed their first major football title in 44 years after beating Germany 1-0 in Sunday's European Championship final in Vienna.
Fernando Torres scored the only goal of the game, sliding the ball past German keeper Jens Lehmann after 33 minutes as the Spaniards took a grip on the match which they never let slip.
Germany started the second half strongly as they went in search of an equalizer with German captain Michael Ballack firing a shot narrowly wide on 58 minutes.
But Spain had a series of chances to double their lead midway through the half as Sergio Ramos headed straight at Lehmann and Andres Iniesta forced two more saves in quick succession from the German keeper.
Football fans had been gathering all day in the Austrian capital with around 70,000 watching the eagerly anticipated match on giant screens in the Fanzone area in the center of the city in addition to a 50,000 capacity crowd at the Ernst Happel Stadium.
(CNN) The most consistent production unit in Hollywood just hit another home run.
Over the last decade, Pixar has become a byword for quality, combining cutting-edge digital animation with depth of character, slapstick comedy and rich, engrossing storytelling that appeals equally to kids and adults.
"Wall-E" has all of that and more.
Written and directed by Andrew Stanton ("Finding Nemo"), it's Pixar's most ambitious movie and an instant classic.
Wall-E is a solar-powered garbage drone, the last one still operating on an abandoned toxic planet that looks an awful lot like well, is Earth.
A rusty box sitting on caterpillar tracks, with a retractable binocular-shaped head, he compresses junk into building blocks and then piles them up into towers that are shadow-skyscrapers of waste in the ruins of an unidentified city.
Electronic billboards still plug defunct products and bring us up to speed handily:
Having polluted the planet with more waste than it could handle, globo-corporation Buy N Large evacuated its customers on a five-year space cruise ("The final fun-tier," promises the president, played by Fred Willard), leaving the robots to clean up the mess.
It's been 700 years, and Wall-E is still at work.
a whisk, an electric light bulb, bubble wrap.
His most treasured item is a VHS tape of "Hello, Dolly.
His systems are scrambled when he bumps into Eve, a gleaming research pod from the mother ship.
At any rate, Eve is the apple of Wall-E's eye.
"Wall-E" isn't a perfect movie;
a pas de deux in front of the Milky Way (with Wall-E propelled by a fire extinguisher), Eve's maternal glow as she carries out her primary directive, the fleeting moment when first-time space traveler Wall-E turns back, sees the Earth and tries to share his joy in the discovery.
A wonderful combination for any movie. "Wall-E" is easily the best film of the year so far.
But now they face an unwelcome blast of fresh air:
On July 1, the Netherlands will be one of the last European countries to ban smoking in bars and restaurants in compliance with EU law.
The Health Ministry says the ban will apply to cafes that sell marijuana, known as coffee shops. But this being Holland, which for centuries has experimented with social liberalism, there's a loophole:
The ban covers tobacco but not marijuana, which is technically illegal anyway.
But that still leaves coffee shops and their customers in a bind.
Dutch and other European marijuana users traditionally smoke pot in fat, cone-shaped joints mixed with tobacco.
Another is to replace tobacco with herbs like coltsfoot, a common plant that looks like a dandelion and that smokers describe as tasting a bit like oregano.
PARIS, France (CNN) A military shooting demonstration in southeast France on Sunday left 16 people wounded, including children, when real bullets were used instead of blank ones, officials said.
Four of the wounded were in serious condition, including a 3-year-old child, Bernard Lemaire, chief of the regional administration in Aude, said on France-3 television. Fifteen of the injured were civilians.
A Defense Ministry official said the incident occurred during a demonstration of hostage-freeing techniques at the Laperrine military barracks.
The official said investigators will look into why real bullets were used.
The soldier who fired the shots has been detained, Lemaire said. He said the injuries were likely an accident but that it could have been a "criminal act.
In a statement, President Nicolas Sarkozy expressed his "horror" at Sunday's incident at the base, which houses the 3rd marine infantry parachute regiment.
NEW DELHI, India (CNN) One out of every three families living below the poverty level in India paid a bribe last year for basic public services, like admitting a family member into a hospital, according to a new report.
The report by Transparency International India and the Center for Media Studies said poor people in India paid about $210 million (9,000 million rupees) in bribes last year to the police, schools, hospitals and power companies.
"This kind of corruption that denies people their entitlement to basic and need based services, many of which may be 'free' by law, results in the poor finding themselves at the losing end of the corruption chain," said R. H. Tahiliani of Transparency International India in a statement.
Transparency is a non-profit working toward improving ethical practices in government.
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (CNN) Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim has denied accusations he sodomized a male aide in a politically explosive scandal, which he blamed on a government conspiracy to thwart his rising clout.
The accusations revived memories of a similar sex scandal a decade ago that led to his imprisonment and ouster as deputy prime minister.
Hours after the aide filed the complaint, Anwar, 60, took refuge at the Turkish Embassy, claiming his life was in danger.
Anwar, 60, dismissed the accusation as "a complete fabrication.
"Certain agents" in the National Front "have initiated plots" to harm him, he said.
He added that he remained committed to work toward a "free and just Malaysia.
Several embassies offered to shelter him but Anwar chose the Turkish mission because of his close ties with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said Badrul Hisham Shaharin, a senior member of Anwar's People's Justice Party. It was not clear how long he would stay there, even though police say they do not intend to arrest him before investigations are complete.
The supermodel who died Saturday afternoon after a fall from her 9th story apartment committed suicide, according to Megan Cuccia, a spokeswoman for the New York medical examiner¡¯s office.
Ruslana Korshunova, 20, was a native of Kazakhstan who was living in New York¡¯s financial district.
The cause of death was blunt impact injuries, according to the medical examiner¡¯s office.
(CNN) &#8212; A wounded dolphin spotted earlier this week in Glasgow, Scotland has been seen again closer to the sea, a marine life group said late Friday, but there were still concerns about the animal.
The dolphin is a Risso¡¯s dolphin, a deep-water species rarely seen so far inshore, the British Divers Marine Life Rescue said.
Experts said they were concerned because the animal appeared thin and had a gash above its left eye.
Friday, BDMLR said it had seen pictures of the same adult dolphin taken a day earlier near Campbelltown, Scotland, near the North Channel which separates Scotland and Northern Ireland and closer to the North Atlantic.
It is not unusual for bottlenose dolphins and harbor porpoise to be found in coastal and river regions
A teenager died Saturday after he was decapitated at the Six Flags Over Georgia theme park outside of Atlanta, authorities said.
The youth died after he scaled two 6-foot fences around the Batman roller coaster ride, said a statement issued by park spokeswoman Hela Sheth.
He was struck by the coaster and killed, she said.
¡°We do not know why this person was intent on gaining access to this restricted area,¡± the statement said, noting that multiple signs are posted stating, ¡°Danger Zone,¡± ¡°Do Not Enter¡± and ¡°Authorized Personnel Only.
¡°Some witnesses have stated that the individual was trying to retrieve something he had lost,¡± Sheth said in the statement. ¡°Others reported that he was trying to touch the ride. This is merely speculation at this point, and we are working with park visitors and local police to learn more.
No one on the ride was injured, she said.
WASHINGTON (CNN) &#8212; Sen. Barack Obama plans to visit Europe and the Middle East this summer, his campaign announced Saturday morning.
The senator from Illinois and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee will visit France, Germany, Israel, Jordan and Britain, his campaign says.
Obama has also said he intends to visit Iraq and Afghanistan this summer, but no announcements regarding that trip were expected to be detailed Saturday.
More than 100 were wounded, the state news agency reported.
Clashes broke out after more than 15,000 protesters headed toward the presidential office, news agency Yonhap said.
The demonstrators used ropes to pull down police buses that had been parked around the presidential office to block the marchers from entering.
Many carried steel pipes and hurled rocks at officers.
Police fired back with water cannons and fire extinguishers.
South Koreans have protested regularly since April when the government announced it would resume importing beef from the United States after a five-year ban.
JERUSALEM (CNN) &#8212; The Israeli government Sunday approved a deal with Hezbollah that would involve exchanging prisoners for two kidnapped Israeli soldiers, a government official said.
The Cabinet approved the measure with 22 ministers voting for it and three ministers voting against it, the official said.
Before the vote, Olmert told his Cabinet Sunday that two Israeli soldiers Ehud ¡°Udi¡± Goldwasser and Eldad Regev are not alive, ¡°as far as we know.
Under the deal, Israel will release five Lebanese prisoners, including Samir Kuntar, who has been serving four life sentences in Israel for a 1979 attack in which he killed a four-year-old girl and her father, a government official said.
The deal will also include returning the remains of several slain border infiltrators, the official said.
JERUSALEM (CNN) &#8212; Israel reopened some of its border crossings with Gaza
on Sunday, four days after it closed all but one passage because of Palestinian rocket attacks.
The Sufa and Nahal Oz crossings were open Sunday to allow for the passage of fuel, food and medical supplies.
Last week, Israel closed all but the Erez crossing on Gaza¡¯s northern border on Wednesday in response to rocket and mortar attacks from Gaza &#8212; a violation of the fragile cease-fire between Israel and Hamas leaders.
A U.S. ship has arrived at a North Korean port carrying 38,000 tons of food aid to be distributed to some of the millions living in hunger, U.N. sources said Sunday.
The delivery is part of a new deal signed by U.S., U.N., and North Korean officials and others, which gives outsiders &#8212; including the U.N. World Food Program &#8212; much greater access to the country.
The deal follows agreement over North Korean nuclear activities.
WASHINGTON (CNN) Hours after sparring with Barack Obama over immigration, John McCain told crowd at fundraiser Saturday night that "Sen. Obama's word cannot be trusted.
"You know, this election is about trust, and trusting people's word, and unfortunately apparently on several items, Sen. Obama's word cannot be trusted," McCain said in Louisville, Kentucky.
The comment came as McCain criticized Obama for reversing positions on public financing and other issues.
Interviews are nothing if not opportunities to drive yourself crazy.
Just remind yourself to look good, appear confident, say all the right things and don't say any of the wrong ones.
It shouldn't be so hard to follow these guidelines except you'll be on the receiving end of an endless line of questions.
Factor in your nerves and you'll be lucky to remember your own name.
If you walk into the interview prepared, you can make sure you know what right things to say, and you can stop yourself from saying the following wrong things.
1. "I hated my last boss.
" Your last boss was a miserable person whose main concern was making your life miserable.
Of course you don't have a lot of nice things to say;
however, don't mistake honesty, which is admirable, for trash-talking, which is despicable.
"If you truly did hate your last boss, I would be prepared to articulate why your last organization and relationship was not right for you," says Greg Moran, director of industry sales and partnerships for Talent Technology Corp. "Then be prepared to explain what type of organization is right for you and what type of management style you best respond to.
2. "I don't know anything about the company.
" Chances are the interviewer will ask what you know about the company.
If you say you don't know anything about it, the interviewer will wonder why you're applying for the job and will probably conclude you're after money, not a career.
"With today's technology," Moran says, "there is no excuse for having no knowledge of a company except laziness and/or poor planning neither of which are attributes [of potential employees] sought by many organizations.
3. "No, I don't have any questions for you."
Much like telling the interviewer that you don't know anything about the company, saying you don't have any questions to ask also signals a lack of interest.
Perhaps the interviewer answered every question or concern you had about the position, but if you're interested in a future with this employer, you can probably think of a few things to ask.
4. "I'm going to need to take these days off."
"We all have lives and commitments and any employer that you would even consider working for understands this.
If you progress to an offer stage, this is the time for a discussion regarding personal obligations," Moran suggests.
"Just don't bring it up prior to the salary negotiation/offer stage.
5. "How long until I get a promotion?"
While you want to show that you're goal-oriented, be certain you don't come off as entitled or ready to leave behind a job you don't even have yet.
6. "Are you an active member in your church?"
As you attempt to make small talk with an interviewer, don't cross the line into inappropriate chitchat.
LONDON, England (CNN) China's new found wealth has seen an explosion in the number of new developments springing up in what is, arguably, the world's biggest building boom.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in Beijing, which has transformed into a virtual construction zone as the city undergoes an Olympic makeover.
Once a flat cityscape in the shadow of the formidable Forbidden City, Beijing has been struck by skyscraper fever.
Standing on the edge of the former site of the city's historic walls are a series of eight asymmetrical towers that bestride the smog-laden landscape like a colossus.
Dubbed the Beijing Linked Hybrid, this architectural maverick has certainly pushed the design envelope to its very limit.
The brainchild of New York architect Steven Holl, the mixed-use unit is a ring of eight 21-story towers, linked at the 20th floor by gently sloping public sky bridges, lined with galleries, cafes , restaurants, bars and shops.
It also has green roofs, filters to protect residents from pollution and large ponds to harvest recycled rainwater.
Among them is that its brand of green luxury won't come cheap.
With apartments selling for 44,000 Yuan, or $6,000, per square meter, it can only appeal to China's nouveaux riches, further creating social division in what is already a deprived area of the city.
EASTER ISLAND, Chile (CNN) It's earth's most remote inhabited land, a South Pacific speck of volcanic rock so isolated the locals call it "Te Pito O Te Henua," or "The Navel of the World.
But Easter Island is a bellybutton experiencing a tourist boom and some are worried the onslaught of outsiders could take a toll on the very things they come to see, the gigantic stone heads known as Moais.
"More tourism, more deterioration.
"We are at the point now where, either we protect what we have or we lose it," she said.
Moais (pronounced Moe-Eyes) already face a host of natural enemies.
Sun, surf, winds and humidity are eating at their features.
Erosion tears away the Ahus, ceremonial platforms of dirt and stone on which they sit, and even is slowly claiming the island's porous edges.
Nahoe said most tourists are careful not to harm Moais, but some unknowingly walk or climb on them, exacerbating natural deterioration.
Others deface them deliberately, including a Finnish tourist who was fined $17,000 after hacking an ear lobe off a statue in March.
A grown man wearing a diaper is spun around until he can barely stand, then is made to try an obstacle course carrying pitchers of milk without spilling any.
Another man, dressed like an insect, flings himself onto a giant-sized "windshield" with a giant-sized "splat.
With the increasing popularity of YouTube clips from Japanese game shows such as "Endurance," "Hole in the Wall" and "Human Tetris," U.S. networks never shy about imitation are bringing similar antics to their prime-time schedules.
On Tuesday, ABC is airing back-to-back premieres of "Wipeout" (8 p.m EDT) and "I Survived a Japanese Game Show" (9 p.m. EDT), with a domestic edition of "Hole in the Wall" coming this fall on Fox.
(CNN) &#8212; The North Pole may be briefly ice free by September as Arctic sea ice is melted away by global warming, according to scientists from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado.
¡°We kind of have an informal betting pool going around in our center and that betting pool is does the North Pole melt out this summer and it may well,¡± said NSIDC senior research scientist Mark Serreze.
will completely melt away at the geographic North Pole, Serreze said.
The Bush administration hailed North Korea's declaration of its nuclear program as a success for the multilateral diplomacy it engaged in through the six party talks with South Korea, China, Japan and Russia.
As a result of Pyongyang's handover of the 60-page declaration document and Friday's expected destruction of the cooling tower at Yongbyon President Bush ordered some sanctions against North Korea lifted and instructed the State Department to remove the reclusive communist nation from U.S. lists of enemies and nations that support terrorism.
But as important as what the document says is what it doesn't say.
There is no mention of how many weapons North Korea has or where they are hidden.
Nor did North Korea admit to a suspected uranium enrichment program or what nuclear secrets it may have shared with Syria.
Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have pledged a robust verification process to double-check North Korea's claims. And North Korea has promised to allow U.S. inspectors access to the Yongbyon facility and to interview its nuclear experts.
PYONGYANG, North Korea (CNN) A day after releasing details of its long-secret nuclear program, North Korea on Friday destroyed a highly visible tower at a facility where officials now acknowledge they extracted plutonium to build nuclear weapons, according to reports.
The massive implosion at the Yongbyon facility was intended to be a powerful public symbol of a move to end nuclear activities by the Communist nation once branded a member of an "axis of evil" by U.S. President George W. Bush.
But the move will also have a practical purpose.
Nuclear experts say that the plant's destroyed central water-cooling tower would take a year or longer to rebuild if North Korea were to try using the plant again.
"This is a critical piece of equipment for the nuclear reactor," said analyst John Wolfsthal, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who has been following North Korea since the 1980s.
"Without this facility, the reactor can't operate and can't produce more plutonium for weapons. "
DETROIT, Michigan (CNN) Chrysler LLC said Thursday that people who buy its vehicles next year will have the option of turning their cars and trucks into wireless Internet hotspots.
The company said the feature will be available as part of its "uconnect" system that will debut in most 2009 Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep models.
The wireless Internet will come as a dealer-installed option and will work over cellular telephone links.
Spokesman Todd Goyer said people will be able to use laptop computers in their cars and trucks just as if they were in an office or home.
To access the Internet, vehicles will need to have "uconnect" hardware, which Chrysler will unveil to compete with Ford's "Sync" and other in-car electronic systems.
NEW YORK (CNN) As Paris Hilton's sidekick on "The Simple Life," Nicole Richie showed a flair for comedy and an impish glee at cracking jokes at others' expense.
The 26-year-old celebutante will again display a caustic streak in an upcoming guest spot on NBC's "Chuck," portraying the mean-spirited high school nemesis of undercover CIA agent Sarah Walker (Yvonne Strahovski).
In the episode, which will air this fall, Sarah must confront Richie's character when she is forced to attend her 10-year high school reunion for a mission with fellow agent Chuck Bartowski (Zachary Levi) as her date.
"Nicole auditioned for the part and was very funny," executive producer Josh Schwartz said in a statement Wednesday.
"This role is a great opportunity for her to show off her comedic skills and be diabolically evil and kick some butt. It's going to be really fun.
The Phoenix lander's first taste test of soil near Mars' north pole reveals a briny environment similar to what can be found in backyards on Earth, scientists said Thursday.
Phoenix landed a month ago to study the habitability of Mars' northern latitudes.
Phoenix so far has not detected organic carbon considered an essential building block of life.
Last week, the lander found evidence of ice below the soil.
Scientists generally agree that liquid water, a stable energy source and organic, or carbon-containing, compounds are required for a habitable zone.
The latest experiment was designed to test for minerals that do not have carbon in them.
Earlier this week, Phoenix's 8-foot-long robotic arm delivered a pinch of dirt dug up from near the surface to its onboard lab.
Like a chemist, the spacecraft mixed the soil with water brought from Earth into a beaker the size of a teacup and stirred it.
Sensors inside the beaker detect the soil's pH and probe for traces of the nutrients.
Preliminary results showed the soil had a pH between 8 and 9, researchers said.
A pH less than 7 means the solution is acidic, while a pH over 7 means it is alkaline.
Phoenix also detected the presence of magnesium, sodium, potassium and chloride in the mixture.
"It's very typical of the soil here on Earth minus the organics," Kounaves said during a teleconference from Tucson, Arizona.
New York Yankees outfielder Hideki Matsui remained out of the lineup and the batting cage with a sore left knee Thursday and will be re-examined Friday by team doctors.
If he is cleared to play, Matsui could be the designated hitter for the first of the Yankees' two games Friday against the Mets.
If the doctors don't like what they see, Matsui might be headed to the disabled list.
"You don't want it to come to that, but if we feel it's in the best interests of him and the ballclub, that's something we'll talk about.
Matsui had right knee surgery during the offseason, but it's his left knee that is hurting.
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (CNN) &#8212; For the first time in three decades, Argentina will not meet its goal of beef exports to the European Union this year.
stems from a bitter dispute between the government of President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and farmers, who oppose a tax increase she levied in March on the export of grains.
Fernandez described her move as an attempt to redistribute wealth to other sectors of society so that farmers would not be the only ones to benefit from soaring prices for grains on world markets.
In response, irate farmers erected roadblocks that paralyzed much of the country¡¯s transport of goods.
That sparked the ire of truck drivers, who conducted similar demonstrations, further hamstringing traffic, which blocked delivery of food to supermarkets resulting in spot food shortages.
Refrigerator trucks, used to transport meat from the slaughterhouse, didn¡¯t make it to the ports.
NEW YORK (CNN) &#8212; A three-year initiative will seek to give HIV tests to everyone in the Bronx from age 18 to 64, the New York City Department of Health announced Thursday.
The announcement comes on the heels of a report released Wednesday that found a high rate of ¡°unsafe sexual behavior¡± in the city.
The Bronx has been particularly hard-hit, according to the report.
A quarter of New Yorkers infected with HIV &#8212; more than 21,000 people &#8212;
live in the Bronx, and the borough reports a third of the city¡¯s AIDS deaths each year.
Militants forced their way into the state-run hotel in the Swat Valley early Thursday morning, ransacked it and set it on fire, said Sardar Rehim Shahzad, district coordinator for Swat police.
The hotel, the only one at the Malam Jabba ski resort, sustained significant damage, he told CNN.
(CNN) &#8212; Romanian authorities plan to decide Friday whether to allow an 11-year-old girl to have an abortion after she was raped by her teenage uncle, the Romanian Ministry of Health said Thursday.The girl is now 20 weeks pregnant &#8212;
too far along to have an abortion in Romania &#8212;
and her parents have said they¡¯ll take her to Britain for an abortion if the Romanian authorities deny her one at home, a spokeswoman at the health ministry said.
It is illegal to have an abortion in Romania after 14 weeks unless the pregnancy poses problems for the mother¡¯s health, said the spokeswoman, who asked not to be named.
Abortions are legal in Britain up to 24 weeks.
¡°If the mother wants to go to the UK (with her pregnant daughter), it¡¯s up to her,¡± said the spokeswoman.
The uncle has subsequently gone missing, the ministry said.
NEW YORK (CNN) &#8212; Anheuser-Busch Companies Inc., the largest U.S. brewer, will take the ¡°energy¡± out of its alcoholic energy drinks as part of a nationwide legal settlement, it announced Thursday.
An investigation by attorneys general of 11 states found that the brewer was marketing its caffeinated alcoholic beverages to minors and misrepresenting the drinks¡¯ health benefits, said New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.
such as guarana and ginseng &#8212; from the drinks, making them simply alcoholic beverages instead of alcoholic energy beverages, the company and the attorneys general said.
The move takes the company out of the alcoholic energy drink field, and part of the agreement with the attorneys general is that will never again produce, distribute or market any alcoholic drinks containing caffeine or other stimulants.
(CNN) &#8212; The group that coordinates Internet domain addresses has voted to open domain name extensions up to a vast new array of possibilities.
At a meeting in Paris on Thursday, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) unanimously agreed to a policy that will eventually allow a host of new ¡°generic top-level domains¡± to join the list of 20 domains that now includes dot-com, dot-edu and dot-org, as well as country extensions such as dot-jp or dot-it.
Analysts say the new list could lead to a host of new business-, city- or hobby-specific domain names, such as dot-hotel, dot-flight, dot-fishing or even dot-sex.
ICANN also voted to break the English-language prominence of domain names by allowing ¡°internationalized¡± names &#8212;
ones using other languages¡¯ characters, such as Chinese or Arabic.
WASHINGTON (CNN) &#8212; The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a sweeping handgun ban in the nation¡¯s capital, saying it violates Americans¡¯ constitutional right to ¡°keep and bear arms.
The gun control issue has been politically divisive for years, and the monumental decision is expected to have broad social and legal implications, especially in an election year.
The majority of justices disagreed with arguments that the District of Columbia government has broad authority to enact what local officials called ¡°reasonable¡± weapons restrictions in order to reduce violent crime.
It sounds like the setup to a joke: A crocodile walks into a bar ¡¦
Drinkers at a watering hole in the Australian outback found themselves toasting a baby saltwater crocodile that wandered up to the pub¡¯s door Sunday.
No one knows how the two-foot long (60 cm) crocodile ended up outside the Noonamah Tavern, located off a dusty highway about 25 miles (40 km) from the Northern Territory capital of Darwin.
But unusual creatures are all in a day¡¯s drinking for the tavern, said bartender Leila Naray.
A couple of men brought the crocodile inside the pub, taped its mouth and Naray snapped photos.
Authorities in southern China are using information obtained from mistresses of government officials to crack down on corruption, state media reported Thursday.
At least 80 percent of government officials arrested for corruption in the city of Dongguan in Guangdong province were exposed thanks to their mistresses, the China Daily said.
Beijing has been trying to rein in corruption for several years.
A law that went into effect last year mandates that government officials found to have mistresses be dismissed from their posts.
In recent years, the country has seen several highly-publicized corruption cases involving officials who steal &#8212;
The endorsement is expected to help rally support around the presumptive Democratic nominee in the critical swing states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota, where union voters make up between 25 and 35 percent of the total vote.
North Korea on Thursday is expected to release details on its plutonium stockpile and continue preparations to publicly dismantle a controversial nuclear reactor &#8212;
key steps meant to assuage international concerns about nuclear activity in the usually secretive Communist nation.
Under an agreement hammered out in six-nation talks that included the United States and China, leaders in Pyonyang agreed to provide a full accounting of the plutonium, ¡°acknowledge¡± concerns about its nuclear proliferation and uranium enrichment activities and agree to continued cooperation with a process to ensure that no further activities are taking place.
They are expected to hand over a ¡°declaration¡± on the plutonium activities to Chinese officials around midday local time (overnight ET) Thursday.
The Chinese would then turn the papers over to the U.S. State Department, which is expected to announce that North Korea has been removed from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.
Before he was let go as Mariners general manager, Bill Bavasi was telling his bosses that the team's problem was the players, not manager John McLaren.
First they fired Bavasi himself. Then they axed McLaren.
But now, with the team buried 19.5 games out in the AL West, the Mariners are finally looking to shake up the roster.
Technically, that would even include the organization's crown jewel, Ichiro.
But if the Mariners really want to shake things up, they should seriously consider trading Ichiro, the international icon who has three tools that are among the best in baseball:
His negatives are that he appears at times to be playing at half speed and to have more interest in stylin' than anything of substance.
Ichiro isn't the only star on the roster that would draw serious interest in trade discussions.
LOS ANGELES (CNN) Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's love for children is by no means limited to their own:
The couple has donated $1 million to help kids affected by the war in Iraq, the Education Partnership for Children of Conflict announced Wednesday.
"These educational support programs for children of conflict are the best way to help them heal," said Jolie in a statement from Education Partnership for Children of Conflict, which she co-chairs.
"We hope to encourage others to give to these great organizations," Pitt added in the statement.
WASHINGTON (CNN) Scientists unearthed a skull of the most primitive four-legged creature in Earth's history, which should help them better understand the evolution of fish to advanced animals that walk on land.
365 million-year-old fossil skull, shoulders and part of the pelvis of the water-dweller Ventastega curonica were found in Latvia, researchers report in a study published in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.
Even though Ventastega is probably an evolutionary dead-end, the finding brings new details on the evolutionary transition from fish to tetrapods.
Tetrapods are animals with four limbs and include such descendants as amphibians, birds and mammals.
Although an earlier discovery found a slightly older animal that was more fish than tetrapod, Ventastega is more tetrapod than fish.
It probably had stubby limbs with an unknown number of digits, scientists said.
"If you saw it from a distance, it would look like a small alligator, but if you look closer, you would find a fin in the back," said lead author Per Ahlberg, a professor of evolutionary biology at Uppsala University in Sweden.
"I imagine this is an animal that could haul itself over sand banks without any difficulty. Maybe it's poking around in semi-tidal creeks, picking up fish that got stranded.
TOKYO, Japan (CNN) Japanese police on Tuesday arrested a 77-year-old man suspected of killing his entire family with a hammer, including a 4-year-old granddaughter, a police official said.
Police discovered the bodies after receiving a phone call from a man who reported killing his family, the official said.
They rushed to the suspect's house in Kashiwa, east of Tokyo, and found the suspect, Yoshio Kiuchi, slumped on the floor and splattered with blood, the official said on condition of anonymity, citing department policy.
They also found the bodies of Kiuchi's 4-year-old granddaughter, 75-year-old wife, 49-year-old son and 44-year-old daughter-in-law, he said.
"A man made an emergency call to police this morning, saying he killed his entire family ," the official said.
(CNN) The group controlling Internet domain names may soon decide whether to relax naming rules and potentially open up a virtual domain name gold rush.
On Thursday, the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) will vote on two key proposals.
The first would allow domains that do not use Latin characters, meaning domain names using Chinese, Arabic or Cyrillic letters.
The other proposal would allow domains to use nearly any letter or number combination up to 64 characters.
If ICANN approves the proposals, the world of .com and .org and country names like .jp or .fr would be opened to a much wider choice, such as .hotel or .sex.
Just the thought of .sex has bloggers predicting an auction frenzy, as almost any word in any language could become a domain name extension.
ICANN has previously turned down requests for .xxx, which would be used by adult sites, over fear of seeming to give approval of pornography sites.
Analysts say .xxx and nearly everything else would be possible if the rules are relaxed.
Among the exceptions would be trademarked domains, such as .cnn or
.microsoft not being on general sale.
LONDON, England (CNN) A water lily painting by impressionist master Claude Monet was sold for more than $80 million at auction Tuesday, kicking off a week of modern-art sales expected to reach records that defy the global economic downturn.
as," or "Water Lily Pond," was sold by Christie's for $80,451,178 including buyer's premium, making it the most expensive work of art sold by the auction house in Europe.
He saw the oil paintings of his water garden as a cumulative work in progress, and rarely sold them.
One of the other paintings is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, while another was sold at auction in 1992 for $12.1 million and is in a private collection.
The final painting in the series was cut into two before World War II.
The one sold Tuesday was bought in a 1971 New York auction for $320,000. It has not been publicly exhibited since.
multi-storied buildings where each floor rotates individually around a central core, causing the structure to constantly shift shape.
Architect David Fisher hopes to build his ¡°Dynamic Towers¡± in Russia and the United Arab Emirates by the end of 2010, he said Tuesday at a press conference in New York.
He also hopes to build a similar skyscraper in New York.
Both the 80-floor building in Dubai and the 70-story structure in Moscow will apparently generate their own electricity from solar panels and wind turbines fitted horizontally between each floor.
Along with the usual luxury amenities such as swimming pools, the building plans also call for car elevators so residents can park on their floors.
(CNN) &#8212; Saudi authorities announced Wednesday that they have arrested hundreds of people over the past six months for allegedly having ties with al Qaeda and planning terror attacks against major oil installations in the country.
Saudi Interior Ministry spokesman Gen. Mansour al-Turki said 701 were initially arrested, and 520 are still in custody.
The remaining 181 were released for lack of evidence.
Some of the suspects are believed to have recruited and trained militants from Asia in order to bring them to Saudi Arabia to carry out terror attacks, al-Turki said.
(CNN) &#8212; Seventy people have been confirmed dead and more than 700 remain missing more than four days after a ferry capsized in a typhoon off the coast of the Philippines, the country¡¯s defense minister said Wednesday.
Forty-eight survivors have been found washed ashore in various places around Sibuyan Island, where the ferry was toppled by Typhoon Fengshen early Saturday morning, said Gilberto Teodoro, who oversees Philippine disaster response and was in Washington coordinating with the U.S. government.
725 passengers and 141 crew members &#8212; Teodoro said.
The U.S. military has sent naval craft from Okinawa and Hawaii to assist the Philippines in relief and search-and-rescue efforts.
The U.S.S. Ronald Reagan, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, was in the area Wednesday in support of relief efforts.
WASHINGTON (CNN) &#8212; In a series aimed at rescuing some of the youngest victims from the world¡¯s oldest profession, authorities have arrested more than 300 members of prostitution operations and removed 21 juveniles from the sex-selling rings, the FBI announced Wednesday.
The sweeps were conducted in 16 cities nationwide over the past five days, authorities said.
¡°Our top priority in these cases has always been to identify children victims and move swiftly to remove them from these dangerous environments,¡± FBI Director Robert Mueller said in a news conference.
MIAMI, Florida (CNN) &#8212; An illegal immigrant dishwasher who lost $49,000 to the U.S. government as he tried to take it home to Guatemala was ¡°very, very happy¡± upon hearing of a federal appeals court ruling saying he is entitled to recover some of the money, his attorney told CNN Wednesday.
The appeals court ordered a hearing to set a new fine.
Gershman has said Zapeta¡¯s attorney, Robert Gershman, said Zapeta was not trying to conceal the money, but he did not know the law.
Zapeta had paid taxes on the earnings, he said, and under legal guidelines should be fined at most $5,000 for failing to report he was traveling with the cash.
(CNN) A man who fled the United States for his native England after his wife and daughter were killed was found guilty of their murders Wednesday.
Neil Entwistle, 29, repeatedly closed his eyes and shook his head as the foreman read the verdict: guilty of two first-degree murder charges, possession of a firearm and possession of ammunition.
Police in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, discovered the bodies of his wife, Rachel, 27, and his 9-month-old daughter, Lillian, in the master bedroom of their home on January 22, 2006, after responding to a missing persons report filed by the victims¡¯ relatives.
Entwistle fled to England after the killings.
WASHINGTON (CNN) &#8212; Global warming could destabilize ¡°struggling and poor¡± countries around the world, prompting mass migrations and creating breeding grounds for terrorists, the chairman of the National Intelligence Council told Congress on Wednesday.
¡°All of this threatens the domestic stability of a number of African, Asian, Central American and Central Asian countries.
People are likely to flee destabilized countries, and some may turn to terrorism, he said.
CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN) &#8212; Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama says he disagrees with a Supreme Court decision striking down the death penalty for child rapists, telling reporters Wednesday that states should be able to execute people for ¡°heinous¡± crimes.
¡°I think that the rape of small child, 6 or 8 years old, is a heinous crime,¡± the Illinois senator said.
¡°And if a state makes a decision that under narrow, limited, well-defined circumstances the death penalty is at least potentially applicable, that does not violate our Constitution.
The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that capital punishment can be applied only to murderers, striking down a death sentence for a Louisiana man convicted of sexually assaulting his 8-year-old stepdaughter.
John Smoltz is keeping his right arm numb and his hopes for a comeback warm.
Smoltz, who had season-ending shoulder surgery on June 10, spoke Tuesday while wearing a compression sleeve that keeps his arm a frigid 32 degrees.
He's happy with the high-tech device which he said allowed him to sleep for five hours - his longest yet - on Monday night while cutting back on pain medication.
Smoltz said he's not yet able to watch games from the dugout because he's worried about having to make a sudden move and hit the arm.
He hopes to be out of the sling, and back in the dugout, by the All-Star game.
Smoltz hopes to know more about his hopes for a comeback during the next few months.
His doctors have said he can begin throwing within four months.
Smoltz was 3-2 with a 2.57 ERA in six games despite pitching through pain.
Smoltz, 41, is the only pitcher in baseball history with 200 wins and 150 saves.
He holds major league records with 15 victories and 194 strikeouts in the postseason and won the 1996 Cy Young Award.
Sen. Barack Obama has asked top contributors to help his former rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Hillary Clinton, retire her debt, an Obama campaign source said Tuesday.
Clinton suspended her campaign and endorsed Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination this month.
She has amassed a campaign debt of about $22 million, but about $12 million of that is money the New York senator loaned to the campaign herself.
Individual donors can contribute $2,300 to individual candidates.
Clinton and Obama have scheduled a joint campaign appearance Friday in Unity, New Hampshire.
Obama said Tuesday that he had spoken with Clinton by phone earlier in the day as well as on Sunday.
"We had a good conversation," he said. "We're looking forward to seeing each other tomorrow and campaigning on Friday.
Toyota may scale back its ambitious target of selling more vehicles in the United States this year than it did in 2007, as damage from an economic slowdown and soaring oil prices becomes more fully known.
Surpassing the 2.62 million vehicles the company sold last year in the U.S. - its biggest market - would be difficult, Executive Vice President Tokuichi Uranishi told a shareholders meeting Tuesday, according to Toyota spokesman Paul Nolasco.
The world's No. 2 automaker announced in December that it was hoping to sell 2.64 million vehicles in the U.S. in 2008 and predicted a 5% jump in global sales to 9.85 million vehicles because of strong sales in emerging markets such as China and Russia.
in July, as it does every year.
Through the first half of June, total auto sales in the U.S. were running at an annualized rate of about 12.5 million vehicles, according to J.D. Power & Associates.
It was the lowest level for June in decades and a huge drop from the year-earlier rate of 16.3 million vehicles.
Uranishi projected that total U.S. auto sales could slip under 15 million vehicles this year, Nolasco said.
Last week, Ford Motor Co. (F, Fortune 500) said industrywide sales could drop as low as 14.4 million for the year, which would be the lowest level in 13 years, according to Ward's AutoInfoBank.
Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai called Wednesday for armed international peacekeepers to secure a new presidential election in the country where violence has marred a runoff set for this week.
Tsvangirai won the most votes in the March 29 election but failed to gain a majority.
He formally withdrew Tuesday from the runoff against President Robert Mugabe, who said Friday's vote would take place as planned.
"We do not want armed conflict, but the people of Zimbabwe need the words of indignation from global leaders to be backed by the moral rectitude of military force," Tsvangirai wrote in Wednesday's edition of the British newspaper The Guardian.
They would separate the people from their oppressors and cast the protective shield around the democratic process for which Zimbabwe yearns.
The U.N. Security Council unanimously condemned the Zimbabwean government Monday for its campaign of violence and intimidation but stopped short of calling for a postponement of the runoff or for a new election. Tsvangirai, however, was clear.
"The reality is that a new election, devoid of violence and intimidation, is the only way to put Zimbabwe right.
Meanwhile, Mugabe said Tuesday that the runoff will happen as planned. "We will proceed with our election;
We are a sovereign state, and that is it. "They can shout as loud as they like from Washington or from London or from any other quarter. Our people, only our people, will decide, and no one else.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia (CNN) A new case of mad cow disease was confirmed in Canada, its 13th case since 2003.
There was no risk to public health because no part of the animal entered the human food systems, government inspectors said.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency said Monday that the latest case of mad cow disease, also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, does not suggest the problem is more widespread.
Mad cow disease causes spongy holes in the brain.
In people, a rare but fatal form of the disease called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease has been linked to eating infected tissue from cows.
"We're very confident that BSE is not common in Canada because of our surveillance," said George Luterbach, a veterinarian with the agency.
It is the third case in British Columbia in the last three years.
ASUNCION, Paraguay (CNN) &#8212; Paraguay¡¯s Senate failed to muster a quorum Tuesday, thereby frustrating President Nicanor Duarte Frutos¡¯s bid to resign two months before the end of his term to join that same legislative body.
An insufficient number of members of liberals, minority party members and even some members of his ruling Colorado Party showed up in the Senate to form the quorum necessary to approve the resignation request he made on Monday.
That means Duarte must continue as president of the republic until Congress decides to accept his resignation or until August 15, when his term of office officially ends.
can proceed with his lawsuit against the maker of M&Ms and its ad agency, whom he accuses of trademark infringement, a New York judge has ruled.
Burck lawsuit against Mars Inc. and Chute Gerdeman Inc. alleges they infringed on his trademark and violated his privacy when after they released ads showing a guitar-playing M&M dressed in Burck¡¯s trademarked white cowboy hat, white cowboy boots and white underpants.
U.S. District Judge Denny Chin ruled Monday that the trademark infringement claim can proceed, but he dismissed the privacy claim, saying New York law protects the ¡°name, portrait, or picture of a living person, not a character created or a role performed by a living person,¡± according to new release from the court.
Twenty-six alleged members of a Hispanic gang believed to be one of the nation¡¯s largest and most violent were indicted in North Carolina and charged with offenses including drug activity, racketeering, assault and murder, according to federal court documents.
and committed multiple robberies and assaults, among other crimes, the Department of Justice said in a written statement.
One of the gang¡¯s purported leaders allegedly directed activities from his El Salvador prison cell, communicating with U.S. gang members and receiving money they wired, authorities said. &#8211; From CNN Justice Producer Terry Frieden
U.S. immigration authorities denied the visa because George, 48, faces trial in November in London on charges of false imprisonment relating to an April 2007 incident, according to a statement from Boy George¡¯s management, posted on his site.
¡°George is astounded at the decision and is having his lawyers here in the States look at it in the hope that someone will change their mind,¡± the statement read.
Boy George, whose real name is George O¡¯Dowd, was charged in London last November with false imprisonment following a complaint from a 28-year-old man, police said. The incident happened in East London the previous April, police said.
Rutgers women¡¯s basketball team ¡°nappy headed ¡®hos,¡± called Jones ¡°a lovely
Imus suggested that the controversy is fueled by people who are out to get him.
¡°What people should be outraged about is that they arrest blacks for no
reason, and I mean there¡¯s no reason to arrest this kid six times,¡± Imus said.
from Citadel Broadcasting¡¯s WABC-AM in New York and syndicated by ABC Radio Network and simulcast on RFD-TV.
(CNN) &#8212; Authorities in a northern Malaysian city have forbidden Muslim women from wearing bright lipstick and noisy high-heeled shoes, saying the directive is intended to prevent sexual assaults and ¡°illicit sex.
The national news agency, Bernama, said the directive was issued by the municipal council of Kota Baru and is aimed toward Muslim women working in restaurants and other businesses in the city.
It said the ban will safeguard the morals and dignity of the women as well as thwart rape.
¡°It states that Muslim women are forbidden to wear thick make-up, like bright colored lipstick and high-heeled shoes that gave a tapping sound,¡± the news agency said.
Officially 69,181 people are dead with another missing 18,498, according to authorities.
¡°Because it is presumed that the missing people are already dead, the total death toll of this disaster is likely to exceed 80,000,¡± said Vice Premier Hui Liangyu.
If all the missing are dead, then the death toll would top 87,000.
The magnitude 7.9 quake devastated Sichuan province and surrounding areas on May 12, leaving more than 5 million people homeless.
Philippine divers found bodies but so far no survivors inside the hull of a ferry that capsized in a typhoon, a Philippine Coast Guard official said Tuesday.
A total of 864 people &#8212; 725 of them passengers &#8212; were aboard the Princess of the Stars when it overturned about a mile off Sibuyan Island early Saturday as Typhoon Fengshen pummeled the Philippines, according to the ship¡¯s owner, Sulpicio Lines.
Rescuers earlier found at least 34 survivors and at least 11 dead from a ferry that capsized in a typhoon, the Philippine Information Agency said Monday.
JERUSALEM (CNN) &#8212; An Israeli soldier committed suicide at Tel Aviv¡¯s airport during a departure ceremony for French President Nicolas Sarkozy, prompting security guards to whisk Sarkozy and his wife into their plane.
The sound of the gunshot sparked an immediate security alert.
Video showed Sarkozy and his wife, Carla Bruni, shaking hands with officials at the base of the stairs leading up to the plane when Israeli security guards interrupted them.
The Sarkozys quickly walked up the stairs into the aircraft while the guards surrounded Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and moved him and other Israeli officials into a waiting car.
JERUSALEM (CNN) &#8212; Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will ask his Cabinet on Sunday to approve a deal with Hezbollah that would involve exchanging prisoners for two kidnapped Israeli soldiers.
Olmert told Karnit Goldwasser, the wife of one of the kidnapped soldiers, about the development, she said.
Hezbollah militants kidnapped Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev and killed three other Israeli soldiers in a July 2006 raid into northern Israel.
Israeli troops invaded Lebanon in an unsuccessful attempt to rescue the soldiers.
Israel¡¯s chief military rabbi began a procedure on Monday to determine if the two soldiers are dead or alive.
¡°I look forward to being back with this great team,¡± she said as she returned to the Senate at the end of a two-week vacation, taken after she conceded the 17-month-long primary contest to Sen. Barack Obama.
The second-term New York Democrat pledged to ¡°immerse myself in there,¡± pointing to the chamber.
She had just emerged from the party¡¯s weekly luncheon that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called ¡°one of the most emotional caucuses¡± he¡¯s ever attended on Capitol Hill.
He said the New York senator entered the event to a sea of high fives, cheers, and a standing ovation from her Democratic colleagues.
(CNN) &#8212; Sen. Barack Obama on Tuesday blasted Sen. John McCain¡¯s energy plans as ¡°gimmicks,¡± saying his policies ¡°will only increase our oil addiction for another four years.
¡°For decades, John McCain has been a part of this failure in Washington.
He commended McCain for speaking out on climate change but said that ¡°time and time again, he has opposed investing in the alternative sources of energy that have helped fuel some of the very same projects and businesses that he¡¯s now highlighting in this campaign. ¡±
Sen. John McCain on Tuesday said energy efficiency ¡°should begin at home¡± and proposed that the federal government purchase more environmentally friendly vehicles.
¡°Every year the federal government buys upwards of 60,000 cars and other vehicles, not including military or law-enforcement vehicles,¡± McCain said, according to an advance copy of his remarks.
¡°From now on, we¡¯re going to make those civilian vehicles flex-fuel capable, plug-in hybrid or cars fueled by clean natural gas. If our great goal is to move American transportation toward lower carbon emissions, then it should start with the federal fleet. ¡±
Curt Schilling could be throwing off a mound by January after having shoulder surgery Monday that keeps him on target to pitch by the middle of next season if he decides to return.
Schilling, who hasn't pitched this season, decided last week to have the operation after the rehabilitation the team preferred didn't relieve the pain he felt when throwing from a mound at far below maximum effort.
The 41-year-old right-hander and postseason star knew it would end his season and possibly his career.
Chances of pitching again seem more likely after the operation.
His 11-2 postseason record is the best of any pitcher with 10 or more victories and he has a 2.23 postseason ERA in 19 starts.
Gere, a Buddhist who has been active in the movement to free Tibet, appears in the TV ad for Fiat's new Lancia Delta, using the car to whiz from Hollywood to the snows of the Himalayas, where he plays with a group of young Buddhist monks.
Fiat said in a statement Friday that casting Gere for the ad had not been a "political choice" and was not driven by the desire to "interfere with the internal political system of any country.
The company apologized to China's government and its people for any offense arising from "misinterpretations of its well-established position of neutrality.
However, a Fiat spokesman said the company would continue to run the ad in Italy and would introduce it in other European countries as the Lancia Delta goes on sale across the continent.
The spokesman, who could not be identified under company policy, said the ad was not being aired in China, where the car is not on sale.
Gere has been vilified in China for criticizing Beijing's human rights records and policies toward Tibet, which Chinese communist troops occupied in 1951.
He is also a close supporter and student of the region's exiled Buddhist leader, the Dalai Lama, who Beijing says is a separatist.
The U.N. Security Council has unanimously condemned the Zimbabwean government because of violence that has marred the campaign leading up to a scheduled presidential election runoff, which forced the withdrawal of the opposition candidate from the race.
The council's statement issued late Monday questioned the legitimacy of any election held under such circumstances but did not directly call for the runoff, scheduled for Friday, to be postponed.
Earlier, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon made that appeal, saying the vote runoff as currently scheduled "would only deepen divisions within the country and produce a result that could not be seen as credible.
But Boniface Chidyausiku, Zimbabwe's ambassador to the United Nations, said after the Security Council vote that the runoff would take place as planned.
"The Security Council cannot micromanage political elections in any country," he said. "They have expressed their view, and we take note of their view.
But as far as we're concerned, the date is set.
Opposition candidate Morgan Tsvangirai, who announced Sunday that he was dropping out of the runoff, took refuge Monday in the Dutch Embassy in Harare.
He cited an ongoing campaign of political intimidation, harassment and arrests by President Robert Mugabe's government and the ruling Zanu-PF party.
Mugabe spokesman George Charamba said Monday that "there is nothing on this good Earth that will stop the elections on the 27th.
Chidyausiku said the "violence is not widespread.
"The problem is the secretary general and other members of the (Security) Council are basing their arguments on sensationalist reports that are coming from Zimbabwe," he said. "When I talk to people at home, and what you see in the international media, you would think you are talking about two different countries.
TOKYO (CNN) Japanese police arrested a 19-year-old man Monday for allegedly threatening on the Internet to go on a stabbing spree at Tokyo Disneyland.
Authorities were also searching for a woman suspected of wounding three people in a knifing incident Sunday.
Since the deadly stabbing attack in early June, police have arrested several people for allegedly using the Internet to make chillingly specific threats of violence.
"I will go to Disneyland to stab visitors to death," the 19-year-old wrote, according to a police official in Chiba, the suburban area where the amusement park is located.
The suspect's name was not released because he is below the age of 20 a minor under Japanese law.
Investigators have found no evidence that he was preparing to carry out a real assault, the official said on condition of anonymity, citing department policy.
The arrest on Monday coincided with a search for a woman suspected of stabbing three people in the arm at a crowded train station in the western city of Osaka.
(CNN) Colombia's main rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, has released a video of an abducted congressman as proof the politician is alive.
The video, broadcast Saturday on Colombian TV Caracol, showed Sigifredo Lopez, who was kidnapped in 2002 with 11 other politicians in the city of Santiago de Cali.
In the footage, Lopez cites the date as March 30, 2008, and confirms that other members of his party died in captivity on June 18, 2007.
Lopez asked the government of President Alvaro Uribe, who has been intransigent in negotiating with the guerrillas, to reach a deal quickly with the rebels and exchange prisoners for Colombian hostages in a safe haven.
Lopez added that he suffers from migraine headaches, stress, insomnia, depression and hypertension.
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) &#8212; Comedian-actor George Carlin, know for his raunchy, but insightful humor, died of heart failure Sunday in Santa Monica, California, his publicist said.
He was 71.
Carlin, who had a history of heart problems, went into the hospital Sunday afternoon after complaining of heart trouble, said publicist Jeff Abraham. He died at 5:55 p.m. (8: 55 p.m. ET) at St. John¡¯s Hospital.
Carlin was best known for his routine ¡°Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television,¡± which appeared in 1972¡¯s ¡°Class Clown¡± album.
The comedy sketch prompted a landmark indecency case after WBAI-FM radio in New York aired it in 1973.
The Federal Communications Commission ruled the material ¡°indecent.
The case was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court where the justices ruled in 1978 on a 5-to-4 vote that the sketch was ¡°indecent but not obscene,¡± giving the FCC broad leeway to determine what constituted indecency on the airwaves, especially when it involves children.
¡°So my name is a footnote in American legal history, which I¡¯m perversely kind of proud of,¡± Carlin said. ¡°In the context of that era, it was daring. ¡±
LONDON, England (CNN) Nelson Mandela is in London for a week of events to celebrate his 90th birthday.
The former South African president's plane landed at Heathrow Airport Monday morning.
He is due to attend an outdoor concert in his honor in Hyde Park on Friday.
Performers include Queen, Annie Lennox, Leona Lewis and the Soweto Gospel Choir.
Troubled diva Amy Winehouse is also scheduled to sing, if her doctors allow it.
She was taken to a hospital last week after fainting at home.
Proceeds from the concert will go to the 46664 charity, the AIDS charity named for the number Mandela wore while imprisoned by South Africa's apartheid authorities.
Mandela also is due to meet prominent supporters, including Prime Minister Gordon Brown, former U.S. President Bill Clinton and talk show host Oprah Winfrey.
Mandela, who turns 90 on July 18, has visited London many times, and has expressed gratitude to the city for the constant vigil that was held outside the South African Embassy during the apartheid years.
Friday's concert coincides with the 20th anniversary of London's Free Mandela concert, held to demand he be freed from prison.
1990 after 27 years behind bars, and was elected South Africa's first black president in 1994.
WASHINGTON (CNN) &#8212; The airline industry on Monday blasted a proposal from the Department of Homeland Security to require air carriers to collect the fingerprints of foreign air travelers departing the United States.
In comments to DHS, the Air Transport Association said the proposed rule is ¡°unjustifiable¡± and ¡°should be terminated.
¡± The ATA, the trade organization of the U.S. airline industry, said fingerprinting is a border control responsibility of DHS.
The airlines objected to paying for the cost of carrying out the proposal, an estimated $3.5 billion over 10 years.
KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) &#8212; U.S.-led coalition forces said Monday they killed 55 militants in response to an ambush in eastern Afghanistan.
Coalition troops launched ground and air attacks in response, killing 55 militants and wounding 25. They also detained three others, the statement said.
In the second incident, a coalition attack on militants planting a roadside bomb in eastern Afghanistan killed two civilians, including a child, an Afghan official said Monday.
A coalition spokesman confirmed the Sunday night attack on the insurgents but said he did not know of any civilian casualties.
BRISBANE, Australia (CNN) Police say they have charged a man found asleep in a motorized wheelchair on a highway in northern Australia with drunk driving.
The officers breath-tested the 64-year-old man, who registered a blood alcohol reading of 0.301 more than six times the legal driving limit and charged him with operating a vehicle while drunk.
The man, whose name was not released, told police he was making a 14km (nine miles) from his home to a friend's place, Waters said.
BEIJING, China (CNN) China is planning a major cleanup operation for Mount Everest next year and may limit the number of climbers and other visitors, Tibet's environmental protection chief was quoted as saying Monday.
The cleanup and new measures are planned for the second half of 2009, Zhang Yongze told the official Xinhua News Agency.
China has already enacted some restrictions, including forbidding vehicles from driving directly to the base camp at 16,995 feet (5,180 meters), Zhang said.
MINEOLA, Texas (CNN) In the windowless front rooms of a former day care center in a tiny Texas community, children as young as 5 were fed powerful painkillers they knew as "silly pills" and forced to perform sex shows for a crowd of adults.
Two people have already been convicted in the case.
Now a third person with ties to the club, previously known in town only as a swingers group, is set to go on trial Monday not far from Mineola, population 5,100.
Patrick Kelly, 41, is charged with aggravated sexual assault of a child, tampering with physical evidence and engaging in organized criminal activity.
In all, six adults have been charged in connection with the case, including a parent of the three siblings involved.
Jurors this year deliberated less than five minutes before returning guilty verdicts against the first two defendants, who were accused of grooming the kids for sex shows in "kindergarten" classes and passing off Vicodin as "silly pills" to help the children perform.
Jamie Pittman and
Shauntel Mayo were sentenced to life in prison.
Kelly also faces a life sentence if convicted, and Smith County prosecutors hope for another swift verdict.
ASUNCION, Paraguay (CNN) &#8212; Paraguay¡¯s President Nicanor Duarte offered Congress his resignation Monday, two months before his term is slated to end.
Duarte, a member of the ruling Colorado Party who was barred from running for a second five-year presidential term in last April¡¯s elections, instead ran for and won a seat in Paraguay¡¯s Senate.
President-elect Fernando Lugo of the Patriotic Alliance for Change is slated to take office on Aug. 15. He has supported Duarte¡¯s right to resign.
WASHINGTON (CNN) &#8212; President Bush has nominated Lt. Gen. Ann E. Dunwoody to serve as head of the Army¡¯s supply arm, a promotion that would make her America¡¯s first female four-star general, the Pentagon announced Monday.
The nomination would make Dunwoody, appointed the deputy commanding general and chief of staff of the Army Materiel Command last week, to the top spot at the command. The Senate must confirm her promotion.
¡°This is an historic occasion for the Department of Defense, and I am proud to nominate Lt. Gen. Ann Dunwoody for a fourth star,¡± said Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
¡°Her 33 years of service, highlighted by extraordinary leadership and devotion to duty, make her exceptionally qualified for this senior position.
Dunwoody, a native of New York, was commissioned as a second lieutenant in 1975 after her graduation from the State University of New York in Cortland.
She holds graduate degrees in national resource strategy and logistics management, and became the Army¡¯s top-ranking woman in 2005.
WASHINGTON (CNN) North Korea is to blow up a key part of its controversial Yongbyon nuclear reactor on Friday.
The destruction of the plant's cooling tower is part of an agreement with the United States aimed at denuclearizing the Korean peninsula in exchange for loosening some restrictions on the highly secretive Communist country.
The North Korean government has invited news organizations, including CNN, to witness the event.
Earlier this year, Pyongyang agreed to disable its nuclear reactor and provide a full accounting of its plutonium stockpile, "acknowledge" concerns about its proliferation activities and its uranium enrichment activity, and agree to continue cooperation with a verification process to ensure no further activities are taking place.
North Korea has been taking Yongbyon's main reactor apart, but
imploding the cooling tower is an exceptionally important psychological step given that the highly recognizable shape of the structure is synonymous with nuclear power plants.
The United Nations' nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, says it would take a year to rebuild if North Korea decided to go back on its agreement, and that the construction could not be done in secret.
(CNN) &#8212; Rescuers have found at least 34 survivors and at least 11 dead from a ferry that capsized in a typhoon, the Philippine Information Agency said Monday.
A total of 864 people were on board the Princess of the Stars &#8211; including 725 passengers, according to the ship¡¯s owner, Sulpicio Lines.
A Red Cross official said victims and survivors from other fishing boats that capsized in the area have been found as well.
Oil and energy are expected to be on the agenda as McCain campaigns in California and Sen. Barack Obama speaks in New Mexico on Monday.
McCain, during a town hall-style meeting at Fresno State University, is expected to propose a $300 million prize for whoever can develop an automobile battery that ¡°has the size, capacity, cost and power to leapfrog the commercially available plug-in hybrids or electric cars.
Spain beat world champions Italy 4-2 on penalties to reach the semifinals of Euro 2008 after Sunday's match in Vienna had ended scoreless.
Spanish captain and goalkeeper Iker Casillas saved penalties by Daniele de Rossi and Antonio Di Natale to leave Cesc Fabregas to beat Gianluigi Buffon with the deciding kick.
David Villa, Santi Cazorla, Marcos Senna also scored for Spain, but Dani Guiza had his effort saved by Buffon.
Fabio Grosso and Mauro Camoranesi scored their penalties for Italy who won a shoot out to beat France in the final of the 2006 World Cup.
"Clearly losing on penalties after working so hard doesn't leave us happy," Italy coach Roberto Donadoni told the Associated Press. "We all spent a lot of energy.
They've got to be the most disappointed, and I'm sorry for them.
Spain will return to the Ernst Happel stadium on Thursday to play Russia for a place in the final of the tournament.
Germany play Turkey in the first semifinal in Basle the previous night.
"I would like to congratulate first of all my players for their remarkable behavior and maintaining their morale during the match," said 69-year-old Spanish coach Luis Aragones after the penalty drama.
"It was very difficult because the Italians closed down all the spaces, which made it difficult to play our natural game.
Sen. Barack Obama on Sunday said as president he would strengthen government oversight of energy traders he blames in large part for the skyrocketing price of oil.
The Democratic candidate's campaign singled out the so-called "Enron loophole" for allowing speculators to run up the cost of fuel by operating outside federal regulation.
Oil closed near $135 a barrel on Friday almost double the price a year ago.
"My plan fully closes the Enron loophole and restores commonsense regulation as part of my broader plan to ease the burden for struggling families today while investing in a better future," Obama said in a campaign statement.
Obama's campaign blamed the loophole on former Sen. Phil Gramm, a Texas Republican who serves as Republican candidate Sen. John McCain's co-chairman and economic adviser.
The Obama campaign accused Gramm of inserting a provision into a bill in late 2000 "at the behest of Enron lobbyists" that exempted some energy traders from government oversight.
Houston-based Enron collapsed in scandal in 2001 when it was discovered the company had vastly overstated its income.
McCain spokesman Tucker Bonds said McCain has supported efforts to close the loophole and noted the bill in question was signed into law by former President Clinton.
"The fact that Barack Obama is attacking John McCain, despite McCain's leadership on the issue, shows that Barack Obama is driven by the partisan attacks that Americans are tired of," Bounds said.
LONDON, England (CNN) Supermodel Naomi Campbell has been sentenced to 200 hours of community service after pleading guilty to assaulting two police officers following an "air rage" incident at London's Heathrow Airport.
According to the British Press Association, the 38-year-old pleaded guilty at Uxbridge magistrates' court, west London to two counts of assaulting a police officer, one count of disorderly conduct likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress and using threatening, abusive words or behaviour to cabin crew.
Prosecutors described how Campbell kicked and spat at police, used foul language and accused airline personnel of racism after she was told that one of her bags had not been placed on the British Airways flight to Los Angeles on 3 April.
model was also ordered to pay $400 to each of the police officers she attacked and $300 to Miles Sutherland, the captain of the British Airways plane she disrupted, in addition to a $4,600 fine.
BEIJING, China (CNN) &#8212; The official death toll from the May 12 earthquake in China stood at 69,181 as of Sunday, state media reported.
Another 374,171 people were injured and 18,522 are still missing after the 7.9-magnitude quake struck Sichuan Province and surrounding regions, according to Xinhua.
The number of missing has increased more than a thousand from a week ago when the government reported that 17,427 people had not been found.
The latest death toll report is little changed from a week ago when the confirmed number killed was put at 69,170.
The number of injured from the quake was also barely changed, but 12 more than a week earlier.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=3200193 SEOUL, South Korea (CNN) &#8212;
Strict inspections will be in place when South Korea resumes importation of U.S. beef, following a public outcry over concerns about mad cow disease.
¡°Please prepare sufficient quarantine inspection measures ahead of imports, fully reflecting the results of the additional talks,¡± Prime Minister Han Seung-soo said at a meeting with agriculture officials, the Yonhap news agency reported.
U.S. beef imports are expected to resume this month.
A revised agreement between Seoul and Washington was confirmed on Saturday after a series of negotiations.
It allows for the resumption of imports of American beef, but not from cattle older than 30 months, including the exclusion of certain parts believed more susceptible to mad cow disease.
The initial deal that would have allowed the import of almost all U.S. beef prompted widespread public protests shortly after it was announced in April, essentially paralyzing the government of President Lee Myung-bak.
Zimbabwe opposition candidate Morgan Tsvangirai said Sunday he would not participate in Friday's presidential runoff, provoking dismay from international observers and handing an apparent victory to President Robert Mugabe.
"A free and fair election is impossible," Tsvangirai told reporters Sunday. "We in the MDC have resolved that we will no longer participate in this violent, illegitimate ... sham of an election process.
Mugabe, who has been Zimbabwe's only leader since it gained independence from Britain in 1980, was facing his toughest re-election battle yet.
Tsvangirai led Mugabe in the March 29 election, but failed to win enough votes to avoid a runoff.
Patrick Chinamasa, Zimbabwe's justice minister, denied the MDC's allegations of intimidation and said Tsvangirai was dropping out to avoid "a humiliating defeat."
But Britain, the former colonial power in Zimbabwe, blasted Mugabe's government for claiming a "tainted" victory built on "state-sponsored violence.
"I think the people around Robert Mugabe realize that power is ebbing away, and it's vital that they realize that there is no future other than a bleak one for a Mugabe regime that seeks to hang onto power at the barrel of a gun," British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said.
The Southern African Development Community has called on Mugabe to postpone Friday's vote.
And in a statement issued Sunday evening in New York, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's office called for an immediate end to "the campaign of violence and intimidation that has marred this election.
LONDON, England (CNN) Singer Amy Winehouse has lung damage and irregular heart beat, says her father.
Soul diva Amy Winehouse has damaged her lungs by smoking crack cocaine and cigarettes, her father said in an interview published Sunday.
The Sunday Mirror quoted Mitch Winehouse as saying that Amy has an early stage emphysema and an irregular heartbeat, and has been warned that she will have to wear an oxygen mask unless she stops smoking drugs.
"There are nodules around the chest and dark marks. She has 70 percent lung capacity.
Winehouse collapsed at her north London home Monday after signing autographs for a group of fans and was taken to a London hospital for tests.
She remained there all week.
School administrators in Ohio voted Friday to begin the process of firing a middle school teacher accused of burning a cross into a student¡¯s arm and refusing to keep his religious beliefs out of the classroom.
The Mount Vernon School Board passed a resolution to terminate the employment of John Freshwater, an eighth-grade science teacher for the past 21 years.
Freshwater, according to an independent report, used an electrostatic device to mark a cross on the arm of one of his students &#8212; causing pain to the student the night of the incident and leaving a mark that lasted for approximately 3 weeks.
According to the Ohio Department of Education, the student¡¯s family has filed a lawsuit.
(CNN) &#8212; An Alabama man whose wife died during a honeymoon scuba diving trip off the coast of Australia almost five years ago has been charged with murdering her.
An Australian coroner ruled Friday there was enough evidence to put Gabe Watson on trial for the death of Tina Watson, who was 26 when she drowned in October 2003 while diving around a historic shipwreck in Australia¡¯s Great Barrier Reef.
Watson, 31, told police his new bride appeared to panic 45 feet underwater and that he ¡°looked into her eyes and saw her eyes were wide open but there was no response,¡± Townsville Coroner Glascow said in his inquest findings.
were inconsistencies in Watson¡¯s statements to investigators.
He said he was ¡°unable to conclude that Tina¡¯s death was an accidental drowning. ¡±
(CNN) The Olympic torch made its controversial passage through the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, Saturday with most local residents kept away.
But political rhetoric was present, according to a journalist who was there.
Australian journalist Stephen McDonell said ¡°it was quite bizarre¡± to watch a controlled crowd smile and wave as the flame arrived at the palace.
McDonell said it was obvious that ordinary Tibetans were not allowed to attend.
The local general secretary of the Communist party used the event to make a pro-China political statement against the Dalai Lama¡¯s government in exile, McDonell said.
He said the official declared that ¡°the stars of China will forever fly over Tibet and we can smash the Dalai clique. ¡±
(CNN) &#8212; Kidnappings, rape, slavery and murder shadow the lives of children in strife-torn countries, according to a United Nations Children¡¯s Fund report.
¡°It is everyone¡¯s duty to ensure children are safe from harm, and governments have a responsibility to enact and enforce measures that provide a protective environment for all children,¡± the agency said in a statement released Friday.
More than 50 children have been abducted in Haiti since the beginning of the year, adding to a growing trend of kidnappings in countries affected by violence, the agency reports.
In countries like the Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Iraq where armed conflicts, food shortages and poverty devastate peace, children have become the primary targets for armed groups who see them as commodities, the agency said.
MEXICO CITY, Mexico (CNN) Police involved in a raid that sparked a fatal stampede at a nightclub in northern Mexico City on Friday have been suspended, and an investigation into the incident is under way, officials said Saturday.
Among the dead were a 13-year-old girl, a 16-year-old girl, a 14-year-old boy and three 18-year-old boys.
California firefighters Sunday were battling hundreds of wildfires, including one in Napa County that led to evacuations of about 250 homes, the state¡¯s fire department said.
At least 602 fires started after about 5,000 lightning strikes since Friday evening, said Mike Jarvis, spokesman for the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
¡°It was just pretty crazy,¡± he told CNN Sunday Morning.
The blazes were part of the fall-out from triple-digit temperatures.
Diyala Military Operations command.
The attack happened near the main government complex in Baquba, on a street that was sealed off by security officials last week.
More than 20 female suicide bombers have carried out attacks in Iraq this year, a number much higher than in previous years.
JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia (CNN) &#8212; Saudi King Abdullah confirmed Sunday that his country will increase daily oil production from 9 million barrels to 9.7 million in the near future to counter the sharp rise in international oil prices.
The Saudi petroleum minister, Ali I. Al-Naimi, said the country will reach the 9.7 million level by July.
The annoucement comes after Saudi officials have announced modest increases.
It would be Saudi Arabia¡¯s highest production rate since 1981.
White House Deputy Press Secretary Tony Fratto praised the step, saying, ¡°Any increase in production in today¡¯s oil market is welcome.
It is important that we also take steps to increase domestic production and our refining capacity. ¡±
MANILA, Philippines (CNN) &#8212; Filipino Coast Guard rescuers knocked on the overturned hull of a capsized ferry Sunday evening, hoping to hear any sign of life among the 749 missing passengers, a Red Cross official told CNN.
No sounds were returned, and the Coast Guard wrapped up their rescue mission for the night.
Heavy seas prevented divers from getting underneath the capsized vessel.
¡°It¡¯s a race against time,¡± said Philippines Sen. Richard Gordon, head of the Philippines Red Cross.
WASHINGTON (CNN) &#8212; Days after both men reversed course on major issues, the presidential campaigns of Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain spent much of Sunday¡¯s talk-show circuit working to ensure accusations of ¡°flip-flopping¡± don¡¯t stick.
Both sides tried to go on offense, with the Obama camp accusing McCain of ¡°yet another flip-flop,¡± and McCain¡¯s camp saying Obama has broken his word. In the 2004 race, similar accusations helped President Bush defeat Sen. John Kerry.
Last week, Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, reversed himself by announcing he would give up public financing for the general election and rely on private contributions, while McCain, his expected Republican rival, said came out in favor of lifting a federal ban on offshore oil drilling he once supported.
From the beach of Lake Willoughby's Southwest Cove, the sheer cliffs of Mount Pisgah tower over the deep, frigid water.
Across the narrows, Mount Hor's peak completes the look of a Scandinavian fjord.
In the summertime, the beach offers a different view:
Southwest Cove is one of the most famous nude beaches in the country, but there's a move under way to make people put their suits back on.
For decades, people have come to visit the beach, which is listed in nudist guides and on Web sites.
The beach is on public land that isn't visible from the highway.
The state which has no laws banning public nudity advises visitors with a sign at a trail head leading to the beach that warns "be advised, you may encounter nude bathers.
But some Westmore residents want to be able to use the beach without having to worry they or their kids will confront a naked person.
They're pushing the town to pass an anti-nudity ordinance.
"For me, it's about common public decency getting families and kids and people and Westmore back down to what they all talk about as being the most beautiful place, and they don't go there any more," said Tony Strange, who lives about a half-mile from South Cove and helped circulate a petition asking the Select Board to enact the ordinance.
Regulars say the nude beach is an accepted part of the area that doesn't cause any trouble.
On a recent hot Saturday afternoon, about 15 people were at the beach.
Other than the absence of swimsuits, there was nothing to distinguish it from a traditional beach:
People brought beach chairs and coolers, some paddled canoes, others just sunbathed.
"We try to make it clean, safe and enjoyable for everyone, that includes families with children, that includes anyone from anywhere, and yet we're being accused of dominating the area," said David Timson of St. Johnsbury, who has been going to Southwest Cove for 20 years. He is head of a newly formed organization called Friends of Southwest Cove.
Almost one year after the original Apple iPhone went on sale, Apple CEO Steve Jobs has announced a 3G version of the device, finally putting to rest months of rumors and speculation.
While some of the rumors panned out the new handset will offer full GPS other rumors, like the addition of a 32GB model, fizzled.
But even with the long list of basic features that Apple still is denying us (hello, multimedia messaging?), the addition of 3G support is a big win.
If data speeds hold up as Jobs demonstrated (more on that later), the new iPhone really will put the Internet in your pocket.
$199 for the 8GB model and $299 for the 16GB version, a pleasing price for all but the poor souls who shelled out nearly $600 a year ago.
The new iPhone will go on sale July 11.
Though the iPhone 3G is thinner at the edges than its predecessor, the phone measures a hair thicker (0.48 inches versus 0.46 inches) in the gut.
The other measurements are the same except that it weighs just the slightest bit less (4.7 ounces versus 4.8 ounces).
Otherwise, the iPhone 3G shows few cosmetic changes from the front same display size and resolution, and the single Home button sits just below the screen.
We're very pleased to see that Apple has done away with the irritating recessed headphone jack, which now is flush so that you'll be able to use any 3.5mm headphones you like.
It also offers live tracking so you can monitor your progress as you drive (or walk) along.
We're excited to see this feature as well, as it fills in another gaping hole on the original handset.
But now it appears that Apple has solved that problem.
In just five hours, the new version of the Firefox Web browser had as many downloads as its predecessor got during its entire first day, the software's developers say.
Firefox 3 reached 1.6 million downloads by early evening Tuesday to match Firefox 2's first-day downloads.
In the opening hours, Firefox's Web site was distributing nearly 9,000 copies of the free software every minute.
Downloads continued Wednesday as Firefox supporters sought to set a world record for most software downloads in a 24-hour period.
The category is new, and Guinness World Records must certify it, a process that could take a week or longer.
The site was slow or unreachable for about two hours starting about 12:45 p.m. Eastern time, 15 minutes before the scheduled release time, according to AlertSite, an Internet performance monitoring company.
Firefox comes from Mozilla, an open-source community in which thousands of people, mostly volunteers, collectively develop free products.
Firefox is the No. 2 Web browser behind Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer.
Firefox 3 includes enhancements to help users organize their frequently visited Web sites and block access to sites known to distribute viruses and other malicious software.
Firefox 3 also offers other design and speed improvements.
It might have been the setting for a "Jaws" movie.
Six snorkelers wading like ducks in a row, cruising just below the surface of the water while watching exotic fish dart beneath them.
It was all very peaceful, until the mysterious whale shark appeared out of the deep blue.
The whale shark is one of the most perplexing and elusive creatures in the ocean, still largely a mystery even to the marine biologists who have dedicated careers to studying the creatures.
But here, in the confines of the Georgia Aquarium in downtown Atlanta, it's impossible not to see the giant whale sharks particularly when you're in the middle of their fish tank.
It's also somewhat hard to avoid them:
The creatures seemed more intrigued by the visitors, often lumbering toward them like a slow, curious locomotive.
The guests were circling the world's largest fish tank through the aquarium's "Swim with Gentle Giants" program, which plucks six snorkelers and six divers into the 6.3-million gallon fish tank each day.
The visitors are treated to close-up encounters of roving bands of sting rays, sleek hammerhead sharks, enormous grouper and countless other species.
But the puzzling whale sharks were the real draw and for good reason.
The aquarium is the only outside Asia to house the whale sharks, and the only in the world to offer tourists a chance to dive with the creatures.
The program's directors pitch it as an innovative and safe way to help visitors better understand animals they'd otherwise never see.
"An immersion experience is the ultimate way of connecting people and animals," said Bruce Carlson, the aquarium's chief science officer.
"It's a real opportunity for us to expand ways for people to get to know the animals here at the aquarium and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for our visitors to see animals they'll probably never get a chance to see in the wild.
WASHINGTON (CNN) A cyclone wrecks coastal Myanmar, spawning outbreaks of malaria, cholera and dengue fever.
Flooding inundates Iowa, raising an array of public health concerns.
As these disasters draw attention to weather hazards, which many fear could be exacerbated by climate change, scientists are working to be able to better predict health dangers as they forecast the weather.
"Everything is connected in our Earth system," Conrad Lautenbacher, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said at a panel on "Changing Climate: Changing Health Patterns.
The key is bringing all types of data together: health, weather, human behavior, disasters and others. "It's science without borders," Lautenbacher said.
He said 73 countries and more than 50 international organizations are participating in the Global Earth Observation System of Systems, and more are expected to join.
"It's a full court press" to observe what's going on on the Earth, he said. When it comes to health and disasters, "we can't afford to be wrong a lot of the time. We have got to get ahead of it.
Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, noted that "we have these very modern technologies that are very good at sensing atmosphere and Earth surfaces, and you can put them in computers and model some of these weather events ... and we're pretty good at it right now.
Take a disease like cholera, Lautenbacher said.
Research has shown that outbreaks in India vary with the temperature of the Bay of Bengal.
Satellites can measure that temperature.
In addition, climate researchers are doing forecasts of the Pacific Ocean phenomenon known as El Ni&ntilde;
o, which affects temperatures in the bay, so that might also be used to forecast cholera.
The problem was discovered late Tuesday after the spacecraft dug a trench inside a polygon-shaped surface feature that was likely caused by seasonal expansion and shrinking of ice.
Scientists said the lost data wasn't crucial.
"It's unfortunate to lose any bit of science," said mission scientist Ray Arvidson of Washington University in St. Louis. "But it's not really critical stuff that you kick yourself over.
Engineers noticed Phoenix's strange behavior when it sent a piece of engineering data 45,000 times like a broken record.
Normally, the lander would store the day's work in its flash memory, but the repeated data caused it to power down for the night without saving everything.
"We're rather annoyed," said project manager Barry Goldstein of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages the $420 million mission.
Engineers overcame the bug, but its cause remained unknown.
Wednesday's digging was delayed to not stress Phoenix's memory.
Badminton matches look so real playing on Hyundai's new 3-D TV that you may reflexively dodge the virtual shuttlecock.
Hyundai is offering in Japan only the first product for watching the 3-D programs that cable stations in Japan now broadcast about four times a day.
and the only programs available so far include just a few minutes of video from Japan's northern island of Hokkaido shots from the zoo, motorcycle races and other short scenes.
Seen on regular TVs, 3D programs split the screen vertically so the same image appears in both the left and right halves.
Conversely, wearing the 3-D glasses while watching regular programming on the Hyundai 3-D TV produces a slight 3-D effect.
The TV uses stereoscopic technology called TriDef from DDD Group Plc in Santa Monica, California, which works by sending the same image separately for the left eye and the right eye.
Ryo Saito of BS 11, the cable channel that runs the 3-D shows, says more content is needed for the technology to catch on, and other manufacturers need to start making 3-D televisions.
"People are showing interest in 3-D programs, but most homes don't have the special TVs," he said.
Samsung already sells 3-D rear projection TVs in the U.S., but there are no 3-D TV broadcasts in the United States.
The technology is also available on desktop monitors and for video games.
JACKSON, Mississippi (CNN) Jamie Lynn Spears gave birth to a girl Thursday morning at a south Mississippi hospital, according to a person close to the Spears family.
The person confirmed the baby's birth but asked not to be identified because the family had not announced the baby's birth.
The 17-year-old was the star of Nickelodeon's "Zoey 101," a sitcom about prep school friends, and is the younger sister of pop star Britney Spears.
The Spears family announced in December that Jamie Lynn was pregnant.
The father is Casey Aldridge, a pipe-layer from Liberty, Mississippi.
The couple is not married but announced an engagement several months ago.
The younger Spears lives near Liberty with Aldridge, 19, and has been seen around the small south Mississippi town often as her pregnancy became more apparent.
Her family owns a home across the state line in Kentwood, Louisiana.
magazine and was expected to receive a large payday for exclusive pictures of the newborn.
BALTIMORE, Maryland (CNN) For one night, at least, tattoos and the living canvases that carry them took their place alongside Rembrandt, Matisse and Picasso.
The Baltimore Museum of Art celebrated the art of tattooing recently with a panel discussion among prominent tattoo artists, a runway show displaying the strongest output from local shops and high-minded discussions of the importance of body art among African tribes and Japanese laborers.
"There has never been this many tattooed people in one room in a museum that haven't been asked to leave," said Bob Baxter, editor of Skin & Ink magazine.
potbellied men wore shorts or underwear to show off their elaborately inked arms, legs and backs.
Observers at the May 31 event marveled at the images of Joseph, Mary and the baby Jesus, adapted from stained-glass windows, that adorned the calves of Lucas Walther, or the 31 feline species that peered through jungle foliage on the arms of Jan Bishop.
(CNN) Prince Harry paraded alongside his fellow British servicemen in Scotland Wednesday, as he attended a memorial to service members who have died in Afghanistan.
Harry, 23, serves in the British Army and spent 10 weeks in Afghanistan earlier this year.
He was withdrawn unexpectedly in March after news leaked out about his low-key deployment.
The prince appeared in uniform alongside around 200 other sailors, soldiers, marines and airmen at the parade, which took place on Edinburgh's famous Royal Mile.
They made their way to St. Giles' Cathedral for a private memorial and thanksgiving service for the fallen service members.
Also attending the service was British Defense Secretary Des Browne, families of the fallen troops, and recovering wounded military personnel.
The parade and memorial service took place on the same day Britain's Ministry of Defense announced the deaths of four British soldiers in Afghanistan, and two days after Browne announced Britain will increase its presence in Afghanistan from 7,800 troops to 8,030 by next spring.
Prince Harry is the younger son of Prince Charles, the heir to the British throne, and the late Princess Diana, who died in a Paris car crash in 1997.
BEIJING, China (CNN) What's in a name?
Local dishes like "Husband and wife's lung slice" or "Chicken without sexual life" conjure lots of furrowed eyebrows on famished foreigners.
So, with the Olympics a few short weeks away, China is giving its cuisine a linguistic makeover.
It is proposing that restaurants change the names of exotic, but bizarrely named, delicacies to make them more delectable for the estimated 50,000 visitors arriving in August for the Summer Games.
The appetizer "Husband and wife's lung slice" is taking on the more appetizing "Beef and ox tripe in chili sauce.
"Chicken without sexual life" has been transformed into "Steamed pullet.
The government has put down more than 2,000 proposed names in a 170-page book that it has offered to Beijing hotels, according to state media.
"Thanks to the pamphlet, we do not have to struggle to come up with the English translations of dishes any more, which is usually time consuming," a senior manager at the four-star Guangzhou Hotel in downtown Beijing told the Xinhua news agency.
But Westerners are more accustomed to names that describe the ingredients and how they are cooked such as pot roast.
ZAM ZAM DISPLACEMENT CAMP, Sudan (CNN) Sudan's Darfur crisis has exploded on many fronts violence, hunger, displacement and looting but United Nations peacekeepers say the biggest issue now affecting the region is the systematic rape of women and children.
Thousands of women as young as 4 caught in the middle of the struggle between rebel forces and government-backed militias have become victims of rape, they say, with some aid groups claiming that it is being used as a weapon of ethnic cleansing.
the rapes, and crimes against women and children," said Michael Fryer, police commissioner of UNAMID, the United Nations peacekeeping force deployed to try to tackle the violence.
Relief workers say they are powerless to stop the attacks and say that if they do speak out, they fear that the Sudanese government will tell them to leave the country.
Some relief workers say that almost every woman living in aid camps has been raped or become a victim of gender-based violence.
Many teenagers, while out running errands such as collecting firewood, are raped multiple times by militiamen, the workers say.
They say the situation has now become so bad that many women are now resigned to rape as a way of life and men are unwilling to accompany them because they fear that they will be killed if they try to defend them.
SDEROT, Israel (CNN) &#8212; Israeli children Thursday morning toted colorful backpacks to school in this town on the Gaza border, on the first day of a truce that Israel hopes will end the barrage of rockets that have pummeled Sderot in recent months.
Meanwhile, in Gaza, people gathered around fruit stands, men sat in chairs chatting on the streets, and black-clad Hamas forces patrolled some neighborhoods as the cease-fire took effect at 6 a.m. (11 p.m. Wednesday ET).
But one Gaza resident voiced skepticism that the Egyptian-brokered agreement between Israel and Gaza¡¯s Hamas leadership will last.
¡°We are not optimistic because the Israeli side always violates any calm,¡± he said. ¡°As Palestinians, people and factions, we all support this calm. We just want to live in peace. ¡±
BRUSSELS, Belgium (CNN) &#8212; Members of the European Union decided Thursday to lift sanctions on Cuba, a spokeswoman for EU Secretary-General Javier Solana told CNN.
Christina Gallach said the decision, made over dinner during the first day of a planned two-day summit here, will be formally confirmed on Monday during an EU council meeting.
The diplomatic sanctions, which limited visits to the Communist island by senior EU personnel, were imposed in 2003 after concerns were raised about human rights in Cuba.
They had been suspended in 2005.
Plans call for the human rights situation to be reviewed next year.
WASHINGTON (CNN) &#8212; A drunken passenger who tried to light the curtains of a Boeing 767 on fire during a transatlantic flight is in custody in Vienna, Austria, the Transportation Security Administration said Thursday.
Zoltan Lensky, 25, a Slovakian citizen, was on Delta Flight 40 from Atlanta, Georgia, to Vienna Wednesday night when flight attendants refused his request for more liquor.
According to TSA spokesman Christopher White, Lensky slapped a flight attendant on the hand, moved forward in the cabin, pulled out a lighter and tried to ignite the curtains around the flight attendants¡¯ rest area.
Lensky was handed over to authorities in Vienna when the flight landed.
What was believed to be the sixth human foot to wash up on the shores of British Columbia in recent months was a fake, authorities said Thursday.
The British Columbia Coroners Service confirmed that the remains found in a shoe on Wednesday were a ¡°skeletonised animal paw¡± that was put in the shoe with a sock and packed with dried seaweed.
¡°It is the position of BCCS that this type of hoax is reprehensible and very disrespectful to the families of missing persons,¡± said a written statement from the group.
¡°It fuels inappropriate speculation and creates undue anxiety for families and communities while wasting valuable investigative time and resources that could be spent on the main investigations.
Authorities are investigating multiple possibilities on the origin of the five feet that have washed up in the past 11 months &#8212; from foul play to the possibility they belonged to victims of a plane crash.
(CNN) &#8212; Saudi Arabia is increasing its oil output by 200,000 barrels per day, and the kingdom will convene an international meeting of oil producing and consuming nations to deal with the problem of rising oil prices, according to a statement on the country¡¯s British Embassy Web site.
The United Nations had said earlier that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had been told of both moves over the past weekend.
The meeting will be held Sunday in Jeddah, with as many as 38 countries, four international organizations and 30 oil companies agreeing to attend, according to the statement, posted Thursday.
KATHMANDU, Nepal (CNN) &#8212; Nepalese authorities Thursday arrested at least 650 Tibetan exiles protesting against China¡¯s policies in the province ahead of this weekend¡¯s Olympic torch relay in Tibet, security officials in Kathmandu said.
It is the largest single-day arrest of Tibetan protesters in Nepal since the demonstrations broke out in March following China¡¯s bloody crackdown on protesters in Tibet.
Nepalese police forcefully dragged some of the protesters to awaiting vans and drove them to police stations across the capital city.
¡°They have been arrested for damaging the diplomatic relations between Nepal and China,¡± said civilian security officer Jaya Mukunda Khanal.
The attack occurred at the Bonga oil facility, which is 65 miles
offshore and produces around 200,000 barrels of crude oil a day.
for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, or MEND, said it conducted the attack, which resulted in the seizure of an American oil worker.
African nation of Nigeria, the fourth largest supplier of oil to the United
Such incidents reverberate across the U.S. economy because the attacks are one of the reasons for the record high gas prices in the United States.
WASHINGTON (CNN) &#8212; Calling the public campaign financing system ¡°broken,¡± Barack Obama said Thursday that he had become the first candidate since its inception to decline federal matching funds for the general election &#8212;
a widely expected move that allows him to avoid strict spending limits and take advantage of an unprecedented grass-roots fund-raising haul.
¡°It¡¯s not an easy decision, and especially because I support a robust system of public financing of elections,¡± in a video announcement e-mailed to supporters Thursday.
Obama has vastly outraised McCain, who now faces a huge cash disadvantage.
A day after Northwest Airlines announced it was scaling back domestic flights, Delta Air Lines did the same Wednesday &#8212; announcing a 3 percent cut for the second half of 2008.
The decrease comes after Delta announced plans in March for a 10 percent reduction in capacity.
But the Atlanta-based company said it had to increased its cuts further because of the rising costs of fuel.
Delta estimates that fuel could cost $4 billion more in 2008 than in 2007.
The airline has implemented fare increases, a hedging program that allows the company to get contracts on oil prices below the market rate, and offered early-retirement incentives to employees to help cover the higher than expected fuel cost, according to a Delta spokesperson.
High fuel prices have caused cutbacks throughout the airline industry.
This year, United, Continental and US Airways also have announced plans to ground flights because of costs.
On Tuesday, Northwest Airlines announced it was cutting back on domestic capacity 8.5 percent in the fourth quarter due to oil prices.
KINGSTON, Iowa (CNN) Luck ran out for about a dozen pigs who escaped their flooded farm, swam through raging floodwaters and scrambled atop a sandbag levee in southeastern Iowa.
Des Moines County sheriff's officials shot the pigs Tuesday, not long after they reached the levee several miles from the nearest hog farm.
Officials said they killed the pigs over worries that they would weaken the levee.
"Basically you cannot have something with a hoof walk on plastic and not poke a hole in the plastic and let water into it," said LeRoy Lippert, chairman of the county emergency management commission. "Hogs, they have a tendency to root and that would not have been good either.
He said the state veterinarian and other agencies were consulted, and that 10 to 16 animals were killed.
SEOUL, South Korea (CNN) &#8212; South Korean President Lee Myung-bak plans to deliver his second apology in a month Thursday over his handling of plans to resume U.S. beef imports, state media reported.
His administration has been embroiled in controversy since reaching an agreement with Washington in April to allow American beef back into the country after a five-year ban imposed amid concerns of mad cow disease.
¡°Lee will speak to the nation on national television at 2 p.m. (1 a.m. ET) to explain South Korea¡¯s efforts to revise the beef import deal,¡± presidential aides told the Yonhap news agency
Tiger Woods will miss the rest of the season because of surgery to repair a torn ligament in his left knee, an injury that has troubled him for last 10 months despite winning nine of 12 tournaments.
Woods also said he suffered a double stress fracture of his left tibia while preparing to return to the PGA Tour last month, which forced him to miss the Memorial and was the source of his pain at Torrey Pines where he won the U.S. Open.
He had arthroscopic surgery April 15 to clean out cartilage in his left knee, bypassing ACL surgery with hopes it could get him through the 2008 season.
But going 91 holes for his 14th career major made it impossible to play any longer.
"Now, it is clear that the right thing to do is to listen to my doctors, follow through with this surgery and focus my attention on rehabilitating my knee," Woods said.
Woods was last seen in public late Monday afternoon walking with a pronounced limp across Torrey Pines toward the parking lot, the U.S. Open trophy in his arms.
"Although I will miss the rest of the 2008 season, I'm thrilled with the fact that last week was such a special tournament," Woods said.
Sen. Barack Obama is leading Sen. John McCain in the crucial swing states of Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida, according to a new survey.
Obama lost the Democratic primary in Pennsylvania by 9 percentage points.
But a Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday shows him leading McCain by 12 points, 52 to 40 percent.
In Ohio, a state Obama lost to Sen. Hillary Clinton by 10 points in March, he's leading McCain 48 to 42 percent.
And in Florida, where he did not campaign this primary season and lost an unsanctioned Democratic contest, he leads McCain 47 to 43 percent.
The Ohio and Florida results are reversals from Quinnipiac polls published a month ago, when Clinton was still in the race and McCain led Obama in hypothetical match-ups.
In the waning days of her campaign, Clinton argued to voters and superdelegates that she should be the nominee because she was the stronger candidate to beat McCain in these swing states during the general election.
Florida clinched the presidency for George W. Bush in 2000, and Ohio did the same in 2004.
The polls had margins of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points for Pennsylvania and 2.6 percentage points for Ohio and Florida.
ZURICH, Switzerland (CNN) Swiss television has made an embarrassing mistake in broadcasting a Euro 2008 soccer match.
National broadcaster SRG turned back time on Monday when it offered subtitles accompanying Germany's national anthem that mistakenly included the "Deutschland, Deutschland ueber alles" lyrics, a first verse ignored since the fall of the Third Reich.
The faux pas occurred during the channel's live coverage of Austria vs. Germany at the European Championship, with the mass circulation daily Blick showing a picture of fans singing the anthem.
Speaking at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington think tank, Rice said that ¡°North Korea will soon give its declaration of nuclear programs to China.
¡± China is the host of the six-party talks aimed at ending North Korea¡¯s nuclear program, along with Russia, South Korea, Japan and the U.S.
Rice spoke in advance of her upcoming trip to Asia where she will be attending a meeting of G8 foreign ministers and meeting with her Asian counterparts .
Rice said once North Korea submits its declaration, President Bush will notify Congress he intends to remove North Korea from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism and scrap some sanctions levied against North Korea because of nuclear concerns.
WASHINGTON (CNN) &#8212; Medical examinations of former terrorist suspects detained by the United States at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and Afghanistan revealed evidence of torture, according to a report released Wednesday by a human rights group.
The Massachusetts-based group Physicians for Human Rights reached that conclusion after carrying out two-day clinical evaluations of 11 former detainees who were never charged with crimes.
The doctors¡¯ group said in a 121-page report that it uncovered medical evidence of torture, including beatings, electric shock, sleep deprivation, sexual humiliation, sodomy and scores of other abuses.
(CNN) &#8212; A former University of South Florida student who made a videotape showing how to make and use a remote-controlled bomb pleaded guilty in federal court Wednesday to providing material support to terrorists, authorities said.
Ahmed Abdellatif Sherif Mohamed, 26, could be sent to prison for 15 years when he is sentenced, according to federal prosecutors.
A sentencing date was not set.
Under the plea agreement, in return for Mohamed¡¯s guilty plea, six other charges against him were dropped.
JERUSALEM (CNN) Palestinian militants and the Israeli military traded violent attacks Wednesday, a day before a truce was scheduled to take effect, according to the Israeli military and Hamas.
Palestinian militants fired more than two dozen rockets and mortars on southern Israel, but there were no casualties, the Israeli military said.
Israeli aircraft responded by targeting two rocket-launching sites in northern Gaza, according to the Israel Defense Forces.
One of the airstrikes killed an Islamic Jihad militant and injured four others, Hamas sources in Gaza said.
(CNN) A severed foot the sixth in 11 months washed up on the shore of a Canadian island on Wednesday, police said.
The right foot was found by a woman walking on the beach, said Sgt. Mike Tresoor of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in the town of Campbell River on Vancouver Island, British Columbia.
"A local citizen walking on a beach in Tyee Spit located what appears to be human remains of a right foot in an approximate size 10 black Adidas running shoe," police said in a written statement.
The foot will be examined by a forensic pathologist, and DNA testing will be requested, said the statement posted on the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Web site.
The number of cases of sickness caused by tomatoes has risen in recent days, with a total of 383 people having been infected since April with a rare form of salmonella in 30 states and the District of Columbia, federal health officials said Wednesday.
At least 48 of the victims, who range in age from less than 1 year to 88 years, have been hospitalized, an official with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told reporters on a conference call.
No deaths have officially been blamed on the outbreak, but the infection may have contributed to the death in Texas of a man in his 60s who also had cancer, the CDC said.
The increase reported Wednesday resulted not from a large number of new cases but from improved surveillance by state health departments in response to the outbreak and from the fact that laboratories completed analyzing previously submitted samples, said Dr. David Acheson, associate commissioner for foods at the Food and Drug Administration.
LONDON, England (CNN) &#8212; Britain¡¯s Home Secretary said Wednesday she was ¡°extremely disappointed¡± at a court¡¯s decision to release on bail a radical Muslim cleric known as Osama bin Laden¡¯s spiritual ambassador to Europe.
A three-judge appeals panel released Jordanian national Abu Qatada on Tuesday on strict bail conditions, including a 22-hour curfew.
The judges said there was no reason to continue holding him but that he presented a ¡°continuing and significant¡± threat.
¡°The government¡¯s priority is to protect public safety and national security and we will take all steps necessary to do so,¡± Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said in a statement.
Bush also renewed his demand that Congress allow drilling in Alaska¡¯s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR, clear the way for more refineries and encourage efforts to recover oil from shale in areas such as the Green River Basin of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.
Bush said that the basin potentially contains more than three times as much recoverable oil as Saudi Arabia¡¯s proven reserves, and that the high price of oil makes it profitable to extract it.
¡°In the short run, the American economy will continue to rely largely on oil, and that means we need to increase supply here at home,¡± said Bush, adding there is no more pressing issue than gas prices for many Americans.
(CNN) With the general election campaign now in full bloom, Michelle Obama &#8212; wife of presumptive Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama &#8212; is honing her message for the fall, aides say.
¡°We have an opportunity for her to kind of step back and think about the message she wants to deliver. So she¡¯s really working on it as we speak.
Aides said Michelle Obama¡¯s new speeches will include more details about her family and humble upbringing on Chicago¡¯s southside.
(CNN) Some fans of the band Chicago thought this day would never come.
Many have waited 15 years for it.
An album the band recorded in 1993 finally goes on sale Tuesday, long after a squabble between the group and its former record company shelved the project.
¡°I am waaaaay excited about this,¡± said a fan nicknamed ¡°sprout.
¡± ¡°I¡¯ve been hearing about these songs for years, and now I¡¯ll actually get to hear them for myself! Yea!!!!!!
¡°I am really glad to see Rhino finally releasing a forgotten ¡¦ masterpiece,¡± another fan said.
The album, "Stone of Sisyphus," takes its name from a character in Greek mythology who rolls a heavy stone up a hill only to have it roll back down again and again for eternity.
NEW YORK (CNN) Johnson & Johnson and the American Red Cross have resolved a lawsuit over the use of their shared red-and-white symbol.
The deal was announced Tuesday.
It comes after a federal judge tossed out most of health-products maker Johnson & Johnson's lawsuit, upholding the Red Cross' right to use the emblem.
The judge said the group also had leeway to use the logo to promote itself and raise money for its charitable works.
Johnson & Johnson had claimed the Red Cross illegally licensed its emblem to other companies, plunging the two organizations into a legal dispute.
The companies say in a joint statement that it is "more productive" to accept the judge's rulings and set aside the remaining disagreements.
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) Is the white stuff in the Martian soil ice or salt?
That's the question bedeviling scientists in the three weeks since the Phoenix lander began digging into Mars' north pole region to study whether the arctic could be habitable.
Shallow trenches excavated by the lander's backhoe-like robotic arm have turned up specks and at times even stripes of mysterious white material mixed in with the clumpy, reddish dirt.
Phoenix merged two previously dug trenches over the weekend into a single pit measuring a little over a foot long and 3 inches deep.
The new trench was excavated at the edge of a polygon-shaped pattern in the ground that may have been formed by the seasonal melting of underground ice.
New photos showed the exposed bright substance present only in the top part of the trench, suggesting it's not uniform throughout the excavation site.
Phoenix will take images of the trench dubbed "Dodo-Goldilocks" over the next few days to record any changes.
If it's ice, scientists expect it to sublimate or go from solid to gas, bypassing the liquid stage when exposed to the sun because of the planet's frigid temperatures and low atmospheric pressure.
Even if it's not ice, the discovery of salt would also be significant because it's normally formed when water evaporates in the soil.
KASHGAR, China (CNN) Hundreds of security personnel lined the streets to head off any disruption, as the Olympic torch relay resumed Wednesday in western China's restive Muslim region of Xinjiang.
Foreign journalists were not allowed along the route, where cheering bystanders shouted "Go China!" under sunny skies.
Also Wednesday, Olympic torch relay organizers said the flame will make a one-day stop in Tibet's capital of Lhasa on Saturday.
That leg has been shrouded in secrecy because of political sensitivities surrounding Tibet.
The route has been criticized by Tibet activist groups who see it as an attempt by Beijing to symbolize its control over the Himalayan region.
HAVANA, Cuba (CNN) &#8212; Former Cuban President Fidel Castro appeared Tuesday in a video broadcast on Cuban television, the first scenes of the ailing revolutionary leader released since January.
In a scene broadcast on a state-run Cuban television news program, the 81-year-old Castro spoke animatedly with his younger brother, Raul, who succeeded him as president in February; and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
It was not possible to hear what they were discussing.
During part of the video, the elder Castro is standing.
Fidel Castro, who led the island¡¯s 1959 communist revolution, has not been seen in public since intestinal surgery in July 2006.
He temporarily transferred power to Raul at that time, and permanently relinquished Cuba¡¯s presidency to him in February.
President Cristina Fernandez on Tuesday defended an increase in export taxes on grains that has riled many farmers, and she called on them to respect the law in protesting her policies.
¡°But we were always respectful of the popular will.
Fernandez, of the center-left Peronist movement, made her plea for comity a day after massive demonstrations in various cities blocked traffic and paralyzed much of the country.
In a concession to her critics, she said the tax increase she imposed in March will be debated by Congress &#8212;
but since her party controls both houses, there is little likelihood of major changes.
Former Vice President Al Gore endorsed Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Monday, urging Americans to reject what he called the Bush administration's legacy of "incompetence, negligence and failure.
"Americans simply cannot afford to continue the policies of the last eight years for another four," Gore, the party's 2000 presidential nominee, told Obama supporters at a rally in Detroit, Michigan.
Perceived as a senior statesman in the Democratic party, Gore brings a certain force to Obama's campaign, political analysts have said.
Monday marked Gore's debut in the 2008 election;
he had not weighed in while Obama was still battling Sen. Hillary Clinton.
Amid thousands of cheering supporters, Gore began by addressing head-on the criticism that Obama doesn't have enough experience to lead the nation.
The former vice president turned Nobel Prize winner playfully said he recalled one Republican nominee wondering out loud whether his Democratic rival for president was "naive and inexperienced.
"And yet another said the United States cannot afford to risk the future of the free world with inexperience and immaturity in the White House," said Gore. "Who were they talking about?
Every single one of those quotes came from the campaign of 1960, when the the Republicans attacked John Fitzgerald Kennedy for allegedly lacking the age and experience necessary to be president.
Joining Obama in the midst of the candidate's two week swing through the nation to talk about his plans to revitalize the economy, Gore praised Obama as someone who could mobilize people, young and old, who had never before taken part in politics.
Gore went on to praise the nominee's vision on the environment, domestic and international issues.
(CNN) Dozens of flights were delayed at India's New Delhi airport Monday after lizards, birds and jackals strayed on to a runway to seek refuge from the monsoon rains.
Animal rescuers rounded up the critters and moved them to habitats outside airport property.
But the operation delayed several flights and shut down the runway for some time, airport spokesman Arun Arora said.
Kartick Satyanarayan of the conservation group Wildlife SOS said the animals descended on the runway in search of dry ground.
His group works with the airport to move wildlife from airport property to a sanctuary on the outskirts of the capital.
"It's been raining cats and dogs the last two days. And when it rains like this, water goes in and fills the burrows of these animals," he said.
"The runway," he added, "is the only safe area. So they come out.
WEST HOLLYWOOD, California (CNN) "Star Trek" star George Takai is ready to "live long and prosper" with his partner of 21 years.
Takai will marry 54-year-old Brad Altman on September 14 in Los Angeles.
The 71-year-old actor, known for his role as Sulu on the "Star Trek" sci-fi TV series, was the first to pay $70 for a marriage license in West Hollywood early Tuesday.
The marriage license is good for 90 days.
Takai was jubilant, saying "it's going to be the only day like this in our lives and it is the only day like this in the history of America."
He told reporters and a swelling crowd outside the West Hollywood city auditorium "may equality live long and prosper."
The California Supreme Court has legalized same-sex marriage.
BEIJING, China (CNN) &#8212; The death toll rose to 112 people in the flooding in southern China, according to the China News Agency.The flooding that started last weekend, adds to the misery of a country still counting its losses after last month¡¯s devastating earthquake.
The floods displaced 1.27 million people, according to the news agency.
The deaths were in 12 provinces in the area and flooding has caused the homeless to flee for shelter as they braced for more downpours, the agency
The hardest-hit provinces were Guangxi, Guangdong, Hunan and Jiangxi.
Floods have destroyed at least 67,000 houses and ruined crops on 2.5 million acres (1.02 hectares), the China News Agency said.
(CNN)- A severed human foot was found washed up on the shore of an island on the western coast of Canada this week, reportedly the fifth detached foot found in the area in the past 11 months, according to police and local media reports.
The foot was found Monday on the shore of Westham Island south of Vancouver, according to a police press release.
The severed left foot was taken to the coroner.
The coroner was ¡°establish(ing) identity and liaising with outside agencies to determine if this is linked to the other partial remains recovered in the recent past,¡± police in the British Columbian district of Delta said.
KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) &#8212; NATO has warned residents of villages seized by the Taliban in southern Afghanistan to take cover before an operation is launched to recapture the lost ground.
NATO aircraft dropped hundreds of leaflets Monday night on several villages in southern Afghanistan that have been seized by the Taliban, warning residents to leave ahead of an allied operation against the rebels, officials said.
The militants, in apparent preparation for an impending military operation, planted mines and destroyed bridges &#8212; and forced villagers to stay and fight alongside them, a tribal elder said.
The planned NATO operation would target villages in the Arghandab district of Kandahar province.
It is the same province where 400 Taliban militants escaped from prison in a daring and well-executed jailbreak Friday.
General Zahir Azimi, a defense ministry spokesman, said thousands of Afghan troops &#8212; with reinforcement from the capital city of Kabul &#8212;
The deployment, he said, would be completed by Wednesday.
France will soon rejoin NATO¡¯s military command more than 40 years after it left, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said
France was a founding member of the alliance in 1949 but it left the military structure in 1966 amid frictions with the United States.
continued, however, to contribute troops to NATO missions and to participate in NATO¡¯s political bodies.
presidency of the European Union next month, Sarkozy will try to boost the EU defense dimension.
GAZA CITY, Gaza (CNN) &#8212; A truce between Israel and Gaza¡¯s Hamas leaders will take effect Thursday morning and last for six months, Hamas officials said Tuesday.
Israeli officials, however, stopped short of confirming that a cease-fire agreement has been reached.
Hamas senior official Mahmoud Zahar and Hamas negotiator Khalil al-Hayya held a news conference in Gaza to publicly announce the Egyptian-brokered cease-fire agreement, which they said will begin at 6 a.m. Thursday (11 p.m. Wednesday ET).
On Sunday, Israel will gradually start to open its border crossing terminals, the Hamas officials said.
(CNN) &#8212; Sen. John McCain on Tuesday will propose lifting the ban on offshore drilling as part of his plan to reduce dependence on foreign oil and help combat rising gas prices.
¡°The stakes are high for our citizens and for our economy, and with gasoline running at more than four bucks a gallon, many do not have the luxury of waiting on the far-off plans of futurists and politicians,¡± McCain will say Tuesday in Houston, Texas, according to excerpts of his speech released by his campaign.
¡°We have proven oil reserves of at least 21 billion barrels in the United States. But a broad federal moratorium stands in the way of energy exploration and production. And I believe it is time for the federal government to lift these restrictions and to put our own reserves to use.
McCain¡¯s plan would let individual states decide whether to explore drilling possibilities.
LONDON (CNN) Prince William was made a Royal Knight of the Garter on Monday at a ceremony presided over by his grandmother the British monarch and attended by his father, brother and girlfriend.
Queen Elizabeth II made William the 1,000th knight to join the order and formally presented him with the regalia, including a blue garter, sash and star brooch.
After the ceremony at Windsor Castle, the knights wore their traditional ostrich feather hats and velvet robes as they walked to St. George's chapel in the castle grounds for a service.
William's girlfriend Kate Middleton, dressed in a black suit and hat, watched the procession with his brother Prince Harry.
the monarch can give the honor to anyone she chooses without advice from government ministers.
It is meant to honor those who have held public office, who have contributed to national life or who have served the queen personally.
William, 25, is second in line to the throne after his father, Prince Charles.
Two former prime ministers, Margaret Thatcher and John Major, are members of the order.
Oil prices briefly spiked more than $5 per barrel to a trading record Monday, but crude tumbled throughout the afternoon as traders took profits after prices couldn't get over the $140 a barrel hump.
Light, sweet crude for July delivery edged 25 cents lower to settle at $134.61.
That's a sharp drop from the session high of $139.89, set just before 9 a.m. ET.
Oil initially surged as the dollar weakened after the Empire State Manufacturing Survey, which monitors manufacturing capacity in New York State, indicated deteriorating business conditions in June.
"The dollar took a pounding in early morning trading, leading to a steep rise in oil prices," said Stephen Schork, editor of the energy industry newsletter The Schork Report.
But after several attempts to pass $140 stalled throughout the morning, oil quickly tumbled in the afternoon hours.
"Everyone who tried buying in the morning decided it wasn't going higher, so they sold off," added Schork. "They were gunning for $140, and then the bulls and bears slugged it out.
Schork still thinks the bulls will win the fight, and oil could top $150 a barrel by next Monday.
"The market hasn't moved much higher since it rose nearly $17 June 5th and 6th, but there hasn't been a corrective sell-off either.
Former world No.1 Carlos Moya of Spain and Argentine pair Juan Ignacio Chela and Juan Monaco are among the first players to withdraw from Wimbledon due to injuries.
Moya, the 1998 French Open champion, has never advanced beyond the fourth round at Wimbledon but has only contested the grass-court championship twice in the previous six years.
Of his 20 career titles, 16 are on clay and four on hard courts.
Argentines Martin Vassallo Arguello and Brian Dabul and Croatia's Roko Karanusic come into the main draw as replacements.
Japan's Akiko Morigami has withdrawn from the women's singles with an injured knee.
Czech player Renato Voracova has replaced her in the draw.
A bomb exploded outside a Shiite mosque in northwest Pakistan on Monday, killing at least four people and wounding five others, police said.
The bomb exploded near the outer wall of the mosque in downtown Dera Ismail Khan as worshippers were leaving after evening prayers, said Abdul Ghafoor, a local police officer. The blast shattered the mosque's front wall and damaged its dome.
Police cordoned off the area as people sifted debris looking for survivors.
An Associated Press reporter saw a crater near the shattered wall where the bomb went off.
Ghafoor said four people had died in the bombing and five were wounded, three seriously.
Pakistan is struggling to combat a tide of Islamic militancy particularly in its volatile northwest.
It has a history of violence between the majority Sunni and minority Shiite Muslims.
Last month, gunmen opened fire on a car killing four Shiite Muslims in Dera Ismail Khan.
Hours later, a Sunni was shot dead elsewhere in the city.
BRUSSELS, Belgium (CNN) Annual inflation in the euro zone rose to a new high of 3.7 percent in May, according to data released Monday that reflects surging food, fuel and housing prices across the 15-nation currency bloc.
The main drivers of inflation were food prices that jumped 6.4 percent over the year, transport costs that rose 5.9 percent and housing, which rose 5.7 percent, Eurostat said.
Rising inflation increases the pressure on the European Central Bank to raise interests at its next meeting, despite the risk of slowing growth amid a global financial crisis, a possible U.S. recession and soaring energy costs.
LONDON, England (CNN) Amy Winehouse fainted Monday at her north London home and was hospitalized, her spokesman said.
Winehouse lost consciousness but an assistant caught her before she hit the ground, spokesman Chris Goodman said.
"She quickly recovered and her father, Mitch, took her to hospital as a precaution," Goodman said in a statement.
Winehouse had spent the afternoon signing autographs for Canadian fans who were standing outside her house. She collapsed after they left.
Public broadcaster NHK reports that 45-year-old Tsutomu Miyazaki was hanged early Tuesday.
In 1997, Tokyo District Court found Miyazaki guilty of killing four girls aged from 4 years to 7 in 1988 and 1989 and sentenced him to death.
Tokyo High Court upheld the sentence in 2001, and the Supreme Court followed suit on January 17 this year.
The murders and Miyazaki's arrest dominated headlines in the country and prompted calls for tighter restrictions on the content of violent adult videos.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) &#8212; Pakistan reacted sternly Monday to comments by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who said Afghan troops have the right to enter Pakistan to confront Islamic militants.
A Pakistani foreign office spokesman said Pakistan will defend its territorial sovereignty and that he hoped Karzai¡¯s comments were ¡°not the re-initiation of the blame game by Afghanistan.
SEOUL, South Korea (CNN) &#8212; President Lee Myung-bak plans to shake up his cabinet this week after massive protests, triggered by a deal his government reached to resume U.S. beef imports, the state news agency reported Monday.
The president plans to replace the prime minister and several ministers involved in the controversial beef deal, including those who deal with agriculture, health, foreign and economic policies, according to a report by Yonhap, the South Korean news agency.
The president plans to name a secretary in charge of public information, the report said.
In April, South Korea agreed to resume importing U.S. beef five years after halting them amid concern about a case of mad cow disease in the United States.
Hundreds of thousands protested, and the president¡¯s cabinet offered to resign last week.
BEIJING, China (CNN) &#8212; Floods in southern China have killed 57 people and forced more than a million people from their homes, state-media reported Monday.
The floods have affected 18 million people and caused economic losses of $1.5 billion (10.6 billion yuan), according to reports in state-run media.
Flooding also has displaced about 1.3 million people, including in the earthquake-ravaged Sichuan province, the reports said.
Authorities said that torrential rains are expected to pound the region for another 10 days raising water levels further, according to the news agency Xinhua.
The flood has hit nine provinces the hardest &#8212; including Sichuan, which is still reeling from a 7.9-magnitude earthquake that struck southwestern China on May 12.
Floods have destroyed 45,000 houses, damaged 140,000 more and ruined crops on 920,000 acres, state media said.
Humanitarian agencies trying to bring aid to Myanmar are being hampered by weather difficulties of the monsoon season, a UNICEF spokesman said Monday.
Michael Bociurkiw told CNN his organization is happy it has finally been granted access by Myanmar¡¯s government to use helicopters to deliver aid to those hit by last month¡¯s cyclone. But making deliveries means battling strong winds and rain.
¡°It is very very difficult to deliver aid even in very large helicopters. But we are getting out there and putting up with the elements.
Bociurkiw said his organization, along with others, has been able to reach people who live in the southern Irrawaddy delta region, but the need for aid is still intense.
DES MOINES, Iowa (CNN) Orangutans and bonobos in one of North America's leading ape research centers are spending time high in their habitats to escape Iowa floodwaters, officials said Monday.
Water on the grounds of the Great Ape Trust of Iowa in Des Moines has been as high as 14 feet after flooding began last week.
Research, including the future and origins of culture, language, tool use and language in ape species, was brought to a standstill, officials said.
CEDEAR RAPIDS, Iowa (CNN) &#8212; A man who was refused entry into a flood-stricken area struck a state trooper repeatedly with his vehicle and was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon, Cedar Rapids police said Monday.
The trooper was not injured, police said.
(CNN) &#8212; A cluster of nine cases of sickness linked to tomatoes from a single source is being investigated for clues to the cause of a salmonella outbreak that has sickened more than 200 people in 23 states, health officials said Monday.
The report is ¡°our most fruitful lead to date on the traceback,¡± said Dr. David Acheson, assistant commissioner for food protection at the Food and Drug Administration.
All nine patients appeared to have consumed the same type of tomatoes, he said.
Since mid-April, at least 25 people have been hospitalized with Salmonella Saintpaul, an uncommon form of the bacteria.
No deaths have been officially been blamed on the outbreak, but the infection may have contributed to the death of a man in Texas in his 60s, who also had cancer, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
MARTINEZ, California (CNN) &#8212; As the Contra Costa County clerk in northern California, Stephen Weir has signed off on hundreds of marriages and officiated over several ceremonies.
Weir and his partner John Hemm plan to be the first in their county to marry under a California Supreme Court ruling that allows same-sex marriages.
The ruling takes effect Monday at 5:01 p.m. (8: 01 p.m. ET).
The European Union has agreed to freeze the overseas assets of Iran¡¯s Bank Melli, a spokesman for Britain¡¯s Foreign Office said Monday.
Patti Solis Doyle had faced criticism from Clinton loyalists over her handling of the campaign¡¯s finances and strategy.
She exited the top spot shortly after the New York senator¡¯s disappointing showing in the February 5 Super Tuesday contests, and according to sources close to Clinton, the two have not spoken since.
Another major figure from a former rival¡¯s campaign will also take on a key role:
Stephanie Cutter, who served as John Kerry¡¯s spokeswoman during his 2004 presidential run, will serve as senior advisor to the campaign and Michelle Obama¡¯s chief of staff.
Jim Messina will become chief of staff for Obama¡¯s campaign, leaving the same position in the office of Sen. Max Baucus.
HALLE, Germany (CNN) World No.1 Roger Federer extended his unbeaten run on grass to 59 matches after beating Germany's Philipp Kohlschreiber 6-3 6-4 in the final of the Gerry Weber Open in Halle.
Federer, who sailed through the Wimbledon warm-up tournament without dropping his serve, extended his record unbeaten run on grass to 59 matches to equal Pete Sampras' record of 10 titles on the surface.
"I'm really excited, I think that is the first time in my career I have won a title without losing serve," said Federer. "That was very special and I'm very proud to keep my streak going.
In fact, Federer also won a tournament in Doha in 2005 without being broken.
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (CNN) Saudi Arabia plans to increase its oil production by 200,000 barrels a day next month, the kingdom's oil minister told U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon on Sunday, according to Ban's spokesman.
The U.N. secretary-general met with Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi in the port city of Jiddah during a one-day trip to the world's largest oil producer.
Farhan Haq, a spokesman who is traveling with Ban, said in an e-mail that the U.N. chief said al-Naimi told him Saudi Arabia would increase oil production by 200,000 barrels a day from June to July.
In May, the kingdom increased its production by 300,000.
By July, production should be at 9.7 million barrels a day, Haq said.
Ban also said Saudi Arabia understands that the current price of oil, which topped $139 per barrel earlier this month, is not normal, according to the official Saudi Press Agency.
"The king believes that the current oil prices are abnormally high, and he is ready to restore prices to their appropriate levels," SPA quoted Ban as telling reporters in Jiddah.
(CNN) Tim Russert, who became one of America's leading political journalists as the host of NBC's "Meet the Press," died Friday, the network said.
He was taken to Washington's Sibley Memorial Hospital, where he died, the hospital confirmed.
Colleague and former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw broke the news on the network Friday shortly after 3:40 p.m.
Russert had just returned from a family vacation in Italy with his wife, journalist Maureen Orth, and son, Luke, to celebrate his graduation from Boston College, Brokaw said.
Buffalo Mayor Byron W. Brown ordered that all flags on city property be lowered immediately to half-staff in Russert's honor.
During his 17-year run as the host of "Meet the Press," the longest of any host in the show's 60-year history, Russert earned the respect and admiration of many journalists and politicians.
His professionalism earned him many accolades.
The Washingtonian Magazine once dubbed Russert the best and most influential journalist in Washington, describing "Meet the Press" as "the most interesting and important hour on television.
In 2008, TIME magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world.
LONDON, England (CNN) The bishop of London said Sunday he would order an investigation into a wedding-like church service for two male priests.
The priests exchanged rings and vows in a service at one of London's oldest churches marked by a fanfare of trumpets and capped by a shower of confetti on May 31, Britain's Sunday Telegraph reported.
Rev. Richard Chartres said in a statement that such services were not authorized in the Church of England and said he would ask the archdeacon of London to investigate.
While civil partnerships between homosexual couples are officially recognized in Britain, the Church of England's guidelines ask clergy not to bless such partnerships.
The wedding ceremony is likely to anger conservative members of the Anglican Communion, a loose-knit worldwide Christian grouping which includes the U.S. Episcopal Church.
Conservatives are fiercely opposed to both same-sex partnerships and the ordaining of gay priests, and the issue threatens to tear the Anglicans apart.
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) He's pregnant.
After setting the mood with lighting and finessing, the Georgia Aquarium's attempts to coax rare sea dragons to mate have finally worked just in time for Father's Day.
The pregnant male weedy sea dragon is now only the third of its kind in the United States to successfully become pregnant outside of its natural habitat.
The sea dragon, found in nature only in the waters off southern Australia, became pregnant Tuesday when a female transferred her eggs onto his tail.
Dennis Christen, assistant manager of animal care and husbandry, said that male sea horses, sea dragons and pipe fish all carry the eggs instead of the female.
Christen said that recently the staff took steps to try to assist in mating.
They altered the mood by adjusting the lighting and thinning the plants, Christen said.
But so much is unknown about the creatures, including their mating routines, that a lot about the pregnancy remains a mystery, Christen said.
When the animals finally do mate, the sea dragons arch their tails and swim side by side until they latch onto each other before swimming vertically together during their version of a "date.
Of the 70 small pink eggs wrapped around the male's tail, nobody knows how many are viable and could actually hatch.
Christen said that they are relying on other experiences with breeding, where about 60 percent of the eggs survived, to estimate how things may go.
The eggs are expected to hatch in four to six weeks.
NEW YORK (CNN) A street-sweeping truck roaring down a Bronx street sucked up a dog and killed her as her owner held the leash.
Robert Machin said he had just finished walking his two Boston terriers and was about to put them into his car when the truck appeared Thursday morning.
The retired transit worker said he was suddenly whipped around and saw one of the dogs, Ginger, being swallowed by the sweeper's round bristles.
Machin said he yelled at the driver to stop, but the truck kept going.
He and friends chased the truck for 2 ¨ö blocks before catching up with it.
Ginger's slight body was later pulled from the sweeper.
The city Department of Sanitation called the death "a rare and unfortunate accident.
A heartbroken Machin questioned whether the driver was observing proper procedures, saying the truck seemed to barreling through the street at an unsafe speed.
The heartbroken Machin, 57, choked up as he described losing Ginger.
LONDON, England(CNN) Britain's Princess Eugenie has been reprimanded by her school after being caught frolicking naked on college grounds, it was reported Saturday.
The 18-year-old daughter of Prince Andrew, Duke of York, and Sarah Ferguson, was apprehended for her involvement in end of term "high jinks" at the exclusive Marlborough College, west of London, the UK Press Association said.
A royal source told the Press Association, "It was nothing more than high jinks at the end of term in May. A group of them were reprimanded and that's the end of the matter."
The tabloid Sun newspaper reported that a college staff member woke to playful shrieks and found several young women dancing around without clothes.
It said there was no suggestion boys were present or that drugs were involved but claimed a pupil said the students had been drinking.
Princess Eugenie, the sixth in line to the British throne, is studying art, history of art and English at the $46,000-a-year college, PA said.
It said the princess was expected to be among guests celebrating the official birthday of Queen Elizabeth II on Saturday.
KATHMANDU, Nepal (CNN) &#8212;
¡±The national flag is fluttering in the hands of the people in the royal palace now,¡± said Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala at a ceremony at the former palace Sunday.
He will live as a civilian in a summer palace on a forested hilltop outside the capital.
Gyanendra¡¯s departure came following the declaration of the former Himalayan kingdom as a republic last month.
stranded in flooded homes in Cedar Rapids, a local Humane Society spokeswoman said Sunday.
The flooding has affected too many pets to count, Susan Manson of the Cedar Valley Humane Society told CNN.
Cedar Rapids.
LONDON, England (CNN) &#8212; Another set of secret documents regarding government policies against terrorism were found on a British train, The Independent on Sunday reported.
It¡¯s the second set of confidential papers from the British government to be left on a train in less than a week.
The documents were turned in to the London-based newspaper.
The papers also describe methods to fund terrorists and address the ¡°potential fraud of commercial Web sites and international internet payment systems.
A spokeswoman from UK¡¯s Treasury branch, which handled inquiries into the incident, said the department is ¡°extremely concerned about what has happened and we will be taking steps to ensure that it doesn¡¯t happen in the future. ¡±
KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) &#8212; Afghan President Hamid Karzai warned Sunday that his troops have ¡°the right¡± to cross the border into Pakistan to go after Islamic militants who have been launching attacks inside his country.
¡°It exactly gives us the right to go back and do the same. ¡°
¡± Each is battling a common foe:
The militants are accused of launching deadly attacks targeting troops and civilians in both countries.
Until now, Karzai has pleaded with Pakistan and international forces to take on the militants.
¡± He said the cross-border attacks have destroyed homes and schools.
And we will avenge all that they have done in Afghanistan for the past so many years. ¡±
TOKYO, Japan (CNN) &#8212; Rescue workers dug out three bodies from under mud and rock Sunday, bringing the death toll from Japan¡¯s 7.2 magnitude earthquake to nine.
Police also raised the number of missing to 12, after family members of six people said they have not been back home since the quake Friday morning.
Another 167 were injured, police said Sunday.
Several landslides covered roads, some highways buckled, a few bridges collapsed and bullet trains stopped after the quake.
But two nuclear power plants in the region were not affected, officials said.
Two of the bodies discovered Sunday were pulled from the rubble of a landslide at a spa in Miyagi. Another man was found inside a car that had been buried under mud, the national police said.
The quake, which hit at 8:43 a.m. (7: 43 p.m. ET Friday), was centered 100 km (60 miles) north of Sendai, Japan, in southern Iwate Prefecture, the Japanese Meteorological Agency said. Several strong aftershocks followed.
BEIJING, China (CNN) &#8212; Flooding has killed 55 people and forced more than a million to flee their homes across a stretch of southwestern China, including the earthquake-ravaged Sichuan province, state media reported Sunday.
Authorities said that torrential rains are expected to pound the region for another 10 days raising water levels further, according to the news agency Xinhua.
The flood has hit nine provinces the hardest &#8212; including Sichuan, which is still reeling from a 7.9-magnitude earthquake that struck southwestern China on May 12.
By Saturday afternoon, the official death toll from the quake had risen to 69,170, Xinhua said. Another 374,159 people were injured and 17,428 are still missing.
CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN) Barack Obama celebrated Father's Day by calling on black fathers, who he said are "missing from too many lives and too many homes," to become active in raising their children.
"They have abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men. And the foundations of our families are weaker because of it," the Democratic presidential candidate said Sunday at a largely black church in his hometown.
Reminding the congregation of his firsthand experience growing up without a father, Obama said he was lucky to have loving grandparents who helped his mother.
"I resolved many years ago that it was my obligation to break the cycle that if I could be anything in life, I would be a good father to my girls," added Obama, whose daughters, Sasha and Malia, and his wife, Michelle, watched from the audience.
Obama's appearance at the Apostolic Church of God was his first address to a church since he ended his membership at Trinity United Church of Christ, where he had worshipped for 20 years, following inflammatory remarks there by his former longtime pastor and others.
Begin your day the French way, with a caf&eacute;
au lait and a piece of satisfyingly crusty baguette (we like to head to Montmartre to the Coquelicot boulangerie on Rue des Abbesses, complete with coffee served in a bowl and homemade jams) then brace yourself for a foray into the back streets.
avoid anything too close to the big tourist attractions if the menu comes in four different languages and the clientele are all studying their guidebooks, you're better off skipping lunch!
If you've got a serious day of sight-seeing ahead, pack a picnic from the sumptuous foodhall at Galeries Layfayette (Boulevard Haussmann) or visit La Grande Epicerie at the Left Bank's grand dame department store, Au Bon Marche (Rue de Sevres).
If you'd rather lunch with the literati, Les Editeurs (4 Carrefour de l'Odeon) should fit the bill.
Sink into a red-leather banquette and see if you can spot the publishing sensations of tomorrow while surrounded by books and the people who wrote or edited them.
Another good bet if you've been gazing at the Eiffel Tower is the unassuming Le Comptoir de 7eme (Avenue de la Motte Picquet,), for well-presented bistro favourites at reasonable prices.
The best ice-creams in Paris (the best in the world?) come from Berthillon (Rue Saint-Louis-en-l'Ile, Ile St Louis).
Prepare to queue but know that it's worth the wait!
Her employer, Air India, says she is too fat to fly.
for the national airline for 26 years.
Until two years ago, Air India allowed an attendant¡¯s weight to vary within 6.6 lbs (3 kg) of a specified limit.
When they don¡¯t, the airline grounds them without pay until they shed the excess pounds.
The airline says that someone who is Sheila¡¯s age, height and weight should weigh 143 lbs (65 kg).
¡°It¡¯s very demoralizing,¡± Joshi told CNN. ¡°And ¡¦ it¡¯s quite humiliating.
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) During the first seven years of their relationship, Judy Kelly doesn't remember her boyfriend, Bill Horrisberger, ever going to a doctor.
"On a scale of one to 10, Bill was a zero," Kelly remarked when asked about her partner's willingness to get an annual checkup.
It turns out Horrisberger, 62, a retired English teacher from Atlanta, Georgia, isn't the only man who is reluctant to put on a hospital gown.
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality estimates that American men are 25 percent less likely than women to visit a doctor.
"A lot of times, it's very difficult for them to be convinced that they need to see a physician for a problem," said Dr. Allen Dollar, a cardiologist with Emory School of Medicine in Atlanta. "To a large extent, there is a lot of denial going on, and in some cases, that denial can be deadly.
Dr. David Dodson, an expert on men's health at the Marino Center in Wellesley, Massachusetts, recommends that healthy men under 50 get a regular checkup every 18 months. After 50, he suggests, men should see their doctors annually.
As men age, Dodson said, they are more likely to develop high cholesterol and high blood pressure.
Those conditions can increase the risk of heart disease, stroke and diabetes.
"The older you get, the more important those exams are," Dodson said.
Around age 50, he wants men to be screened for colon and prostate cancer, in addition to regular blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar tests.
At least half his male patients end up making an appointment only after they've been prodded by a wife or other loved one, the doctor added.
LONDON, England (CNN) Jyoti is the Hindi word for light.
It's something Pranav Mehta has never had to live without.
And he is lucky.
Near where he lives in Gujarat, one of the most prosperous states in India, thousands of rural villages lack electricity or struggle with an intermittent supply at best.
Much of that electricity will come from coal-fired power plants, like the $4 billion so-called ultra mega complex scheduled to be built south of Tunda Wand, a tiny village near the Gulf of Kutch, an inlet of the Arabian Sea on India's west coast.
Dozens of other such projects are already or soon will be under way.
Yet Mehta has another solution for India's chronic electricity shortage, one that does not involve power plants on the ground but instead massive sun-gathering satellites in geosynchronous orbits 22,000 miles in the sky.
The satellites would electromagnetically beam gigawatts of solar energy back to ground-based receivers, where it would then be converted to electricity and transferred to power grids.
(CNN) Croatia sent out a message of intent to the other Euro 2008 finalists as they stunned highly-fancied Germany 2-1 in Klagenfurt to secure a place in the quarterfinals.
Darijo Srna and Ivica Olic struck the goals as Croatia, who had only ever beaten Germany once before, produced arguably the first major upset of the tournament.
Lukas Podolski pulled a goal back late on for Germany with his third strike in two games to set up a nail-biting finale, but there was to be no way back for Joachim Loew's team, who finished with 10 men following the 90th-minute dismissal of substitute Bastian Schweinsteiger .
Both sides came into the game having won their opening matches, although Germany had looked far more impressive in seeing off Poland than Croatia had in defeating Austria.
However, it was Slaven Bilic's side who turned on the style at the Worthersee Stadion as they took control of Group B with two wins out of two.
LAS VEGAS, Nevada (CNN) Microsoft Corp. and Harrah's Entertainment Inc. introduced a high-tech interactive bar table Wednesday that lets patrons order drinks, watch YouTube videos, play touch-screen games and even flirt with each other.
The tables offer Harrah's a new way to track its customers' habits and behaviors, adding to its sophisticated costumer rewards program that tracks users' gambling habits.
"Of all the goodies up our sleeves lately, this is one of the most dramatic," Tim Stanley, chief information officer of Harrah's, told The Associated Press.
The six rectangular tables with built-in 30-inch flat screens using Microsoft Surface technology were installed in a lounge at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, with custom applications built for Harrah's.
A spokeswoman for Microsoft said the units sold for a base price of $10,000.
(CNN) &#8212; An Ohio distributor is recalling about 6 million Chinese-made tire valve stems after concluding some of them were improperly made and could increase the risk of vehicle accidents.
Tech International, the part¡¯s Johnstown, Ohio-based distributor, estimates that just 8,600 of roughly 6 million of those valves are defective.
The valve is a replacement, snap-in tire valve &#8212; Model No. TR413 &#8212; manufactured between July and November 2006.
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) Agent 007 still has all of his digits.
Daniel Craig was sent to the hospital after suffering a minor hand injury while filming the latest James Bond movie "Quantum of Solace" at Pinewood Studios near London.
It's not the first accident that's occurred during filming for "Quantum of Solace.
" Stuntmen were injured while filming an action sequence on famously winding lakeside roads in Northern Italy in April.
S&Atilde; O PAULO, Brazil (CNN) Three heavily armed robbers stole two Pablo Picasso prints from an art museum in downtown S&atilde;
o Paulo on Thursday, the city's second high-profile art theft in less than a year.
The bandits also took two oil paintings by well-known Brazilian artists Emiliano Di Cavalcanti and Lasar Segall, said Carla Regina, a spokeswoman for the Pinacoteca do Estado museum.
The Picasso prints stolen were "The Painter and the Model" from 1963 and "Minotaur, Drinker and Women" from 1933, according to a statement from the S&atilde; o Paulo Secretary of State for Culture, which oversees the museum.
The prints and paintings have a combined value of 1 million Brazilian reals ($612,000), the statement said.
At noon, three armed men overpowered museum guards and grabbed the works, located on the second floor, the statement added.
The museum was open to the public when the theft occurred, but it wasn't immediately clear whether anyone was visiting at the time.
Citing higher fuel prices, United Airlines said Thursday it will begin charging domestic passengers $15 each way for one checked bag.
The carrier, based in Chicago, Illinois, said the fee to check a second bag will be $25 each way.
The fee to check three or more bags, overweight bags or ¡°items that require special handling¡± will increase from $100 to $125 or from $200 to $250, depending on the item, United said in a statement.
The $15 charge will apply to customers who purchase a ticket on or after June 13, 2008, for travel within the United States and to or from Canada, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands on or after August 18, 2008.
(CNN) &#8212; Oil giant ExxonMobil plans to sell off its company-owned gas stations, saying they aren¡¯t profitable enough even with gasoline selling at $4 per gallon.
The nation¡¯s largest oil company, which earned nearly $41 billion last year, says it will sell more than 2,000 stations over the next few years.
The company says the stations to be sold will continue to sell ExxonMobil product.
WASHINGTON (CNN) The day after Jim Johnson resigned from Sen. Barack Obama's vice presidential candidate vetting committee, Sen. John McCain set his sights on Eric Holder, one of the two remaining members of the committee.
"I think people in the media and observers will make a decision as to whether these people, individuals, should be part of Sen. Obama's campaign," McCain said in Boston, Massachusetts, on Thursday.
"I think it is a matter of record that Mr. Holder recommended the pardoning of Mr. [Marc] Rich.
Rich was a commodities trader who fled to Europe in 1983 after tax evasion charges and allegations of illegal oil dealings with Iran.
He was pardoned by former President Clinton at the end of his second term, while Holder was deputy attorney general.
In a response Thursday, Obama campaign spokesman Hari Sevugan said McCain was raising old allegations rather than talking about the issues.
"It's telling that John McCain whose vice presidential search process is headed by a prominent D.C. lobbyist who served as the Reagan administration's point man on the Iran-Contra scandal would try to recycle a tired attack on Mr. Holder," she said.
WASHINGTON (CNN) &#8212; A U.S. Marine videotaped throwing a puppy over a cliff while on patrol in Iraq has been kicked out of the Corps, and a second Marine involved has been disciplined, according to a statement released by the Marines.
Lance Cpl. David Motari, a Marine based in Hawaii with the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, is being ¡°processed for separation,¡± and also received non-judicial punishment, officials said in the statement Wednesday night.
The Marine Corps would not specify what that punishment was because of privacy regulations.
The statement said Motari received the punishment for his role in the ¡°episode which generated international attention.
(CNN) &#8212; The number of illnesses attributed to salmonella-tainted tomatoes jumped to 228, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Thursday.
Florida, Georgia, Missouri, New York, Tennessee and Vermont.
Infections have now been found in 23 states since mid-April, the CDC said. Additionally, the agency said that a man in his 60s who died of cancer had a Salmonella Saintpaul infection, but his death has not been attributed to the outbreak.
Voters in Ireland are going to the polls Thursday to vote on a proposed treaty that is meant to streamline the enlarged European Union.
All European Union member nations must approve the treaty for it to take effect, and Ireland is the only country to put the treaty to a popular vote &#8212;
Opinion polls in Ireland have shown the vote is too close to call.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) Iraq's prime minister sat down with Jordanian leaders on Thursday, the first day of his two-day trip to the neighboring Sunni Arab nation, which buys oil from Iraq and hosts hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees.
Along with the oil and refugee issues, improved diplomatic relations and security matters are among the topics on the agenda as Nuri al-Maliki meets with King Abdullah II and Jordanian Prime Minister Nader al-Thahabi.
"Al-Maliki expressed his appreciation of the king's positions in support of Iraq, its people and the elected government, and his aspiration to establish the best relations in the economic and trade fields in what will serve the best interests of the two fraternal nations and peoples," al-Maliki's office said.
TOKYO, Japan (CNN) &#8212; Authorities have raided two companies south Tokyo for possibly exporting sensitive technology that ended up in a North Korean nuclear facility, police said Thursday.
The raids took place last week at Tokyo Sinku, a vacuum pump manufacturer, and Nakano Corporation, an export agent, on suspicion they illegally exported vacuum pumps to North Korea via Taiwan, Shinya Yamada, an investigating officer at Kanagawa prefecture police, told CNN.
The vacuum pump was for a research-and-development project in Taiwan and is not covered under Japan¡¯s foreign exchange law, according to a Nakano Corporation official.
The law limits the export of technology considered to be sensitive.
The pumps can be used to remove nuclear isotopes from uranium, which can be used to make nuclear weapons.
BEIJING, China (CNN) &#8212; Chinese and Taiwanese officials agreed Thursday to set up permanent offices in each other¡¯s territories, in the first formal talks between the two sides in almost a decade.
The decision, reported by the territories¡¯ official news agencies, came during a meeting between the Straits Exchange Foundation and the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits. Both bodies are semi-official organizations that negotiate on behalf of their respective governments.
The two sides are also expected to discuss the possibility of establishing chartered flights across the 100-mile Taiwan Strait on the weekends and approval for Chinese residents to travel to Taiwan.
Woods restricted himself to just nine holes again in practice on Tuesday and has not even walked a full 18 holes since the final round of the Masters at Augusta.
But the world number one shrugged off concerns about his troublesome left knee:
"It's a little sore, but not anything I haven't dealt with before," he said.
"I'm good to go and I plan on playing competitively.
Writer A.E. Hotchner, who partnered with Newman to start Newman's Own salad dressing company in the 1980s, said the 83-year-old actor told him about the disease about 18 months ago.
Newman issued a statement late Tuesday that said he's "doing nicely" but didn't specifically address questions about cancer.
The Oscar winner appeared to have lost weight when he was photographed at a practice for the Indianapolis 500 auto race last month.
Newman won an Oscar for his leading role in 1986's "The Color of Money."
His screen credits also include "Hud," "Cool Hand Luke," "The Verdict" and "Road to Perdition.
JAKARTA, Indonesia (CNN) Bands of starving monkeys have destroyed crops around Indonesia's famous Borobudur Buddhist temple in search of food their habitat can no longer supply.
Dedi Rinyadi works for the Natural Resources Conservation Agency. Rinyadi says thousands of the long-tailed macaques went searching for sustenance Wednesday in several villages of Central Java province.
Rinyadi says the primate population has exploded due to dwindling predators, but drought has led to food shortages.
The monkeys have stolen crops and destroyed about 400 hectares (990 acres) of farmland including around the 7th-century Buddhist temple complex outside the sultanate of Yogyakarta.
Distressed farmers are using firecrackers and air-riffles to chase them from their villages.
TOKYO, Japan (CNN) &#8212; Japan¡¯s opposition-controlled upper house of parliament approved a no-confidence motion Wednesday against Prime Minister Yasuo Fakuda.
It was the first time a chamber of parliament has passed such a censure in the country¡¯s post-war history. The motion is non-binding and largely symbolic.
Then, Fukuda would have had to dissolve the lower house and call snap elections.
The prime minister does not face such a threat.
And they countered Wednesday¡¯s motion by saying they will introduce a confidence motion as early as Thursday.
Nepal¡¯s former king said on Wednesday he is not going to leave his country even though the monarchy has been abolished.
Ex-King Gyanendra made remarks to reporters before departing the Narayanhiti royal palace in Kathmandu.
¡°I will stay in the country to help establish peace. ¡±
SEOUL, South Korea (CNN) &#8212; The South Korean trade minister plans to meet with his U.S. counterpart this week and may announce more negotiations of a deal that has imperiled the South Korean government, state media reported Thursday.
The two sides probably will pursue more negotiations on a deal that would resume beef exports from the United States to South Korea, according to the report from the Yonhap news agency.
South Korea banned beef imports from the United States in 2003 amid concerns about mad cow disease.
Hundreds of thousands of protesters have filled the streets of Seoul in recent weeks to protest the deal in demonstrations that ¡°rapidly evolved into anti-government protests,¡± the news agency said.
Britain¡¯s House of Commons on Wednesday narrowly approved a counterterrorism bill that allows authorities to hold terrorism suspects without charge for up to six weeks.
The 315-306 vote followed concerns by civil liberties groups and others, who called the measure unjust and unnecessary.
The bill would raise the current limit of 28 days to 42.
(CNN) About 20 people were injured Wednesday when a tornado struck a Boy Scout camp in western Iowa, authorities said.
There were 100 scouts at the camp, CNN has learned.
A Monona County dispatcher said no deaths had been confirmed at the Little Sioux Scout Ranch near the Nebraska state line.
Those injured are being transported to the nearest hospital, which is at least 100 miles away from the camp.
Mike Krysl, a spokesman for Mercy Medical Center in Sioux City, Iowa, said the staff is in full-scale disaster alert. He told the Omaha World Herald that the facility was expecting to receive two male juvenile patients earlier Wednesday.
The National Weather Service received a 7:35 p.m. report of a touchdown at the site.
(CNN) &#8212; Google co-founder Sergey Brin has paid $5 million to secure a seat on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, officials said Wednesday.
In a statement, Brin credits Space Adventures with helping ¡°open the space frontier to private citizens.
Space Adventures will also host the first private space flight to the International Space Station in 2011, said spokeswoman Stacey Tearne.
Two seats will be available on that trip, part of a deal with the trip.
The mission is part of a deal with the Russian Federal Space Agency (FSA).
(CNN) &#8212; Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Wednesday offered an apology on behalf of the government for a policy begun in the late 1800s that took Indian children from their families and placed them in schools intended to assimilate them.
¡°The treatment of children in Indian residential schools is a sad chapter in our history.
Harper said children were forcibly taken from their families, isolated from their culture and traditions and, in many cases, were abused and neglected while in the schools.
LONDON, England (CNN) &#8212; Scotland Yard and Downing Street both said Wednesday they have launched investigations into how top-secret British intelligence documents on al Qaeda and Iraq came to be left on a commuter train by a senior civil servant in the UK¡¯s Cabinet Office.
a member of staff took the papers out of the office when they should not have and left them on a train,¡± Cabinet Office spokesman James O¡¯Sullivan told CNN.
A key member of Barack Obama¡¯s vice-presidential search team, James Johnson, is stepping down after criticism over a mortgage he received, the Obama campaign said Wednesday.
¡°Jim did not want to distract in any way from the very important task of gathering information about my vice presidential nominee, so he has made a decision to step aside that I accept,¡± the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee said in a statement.
Obama has criticized Countrywide in connection with the subprime mortgage crisis.
(CNN) Rebecca Safran has fooled Mother Nature.
The evolutionary biologist from the University of Colorado figured out a way to give male barn swallows a makeover that makes less popular males much more desirable to females.
And now, she and her colleagues have discovered that those artificial makeovers are having an unexpected effect.
About eight years ago, Safran expected to find that the length of a male barn swallow's tail feathers determined his level of success attracting mates and breeding.
Instead, she noticed something she didn't expect: Female barn swallows tended to choose mates with the darkest breast feathers.
Those males "bred a lot earlier, attracted the best mates and sired the greatest number of offspring," which Safran says is "the currency of evolution.
In the latest edition of the journal Current Biology, Safran and her colleagues report that they've followed up on the males with the magic marker makeovers and have found something surprising.
MONTERREY, Mexico (CNN) Manuel Uribe, who once weighed a half-ton but has slimmed down to about 700 pounds, celebrates his 43rd birthday Wednesday with a simple wish for the coming year: to be able to stand on his own two feet to get married.
At his home in northern Mexico, where he can still do little more than sit up on a bed, Uribe said that more than two years of steady dieting have helped him drop about 550 pounds from his Guinness record weight of 1,235 pounds.
He hopes Guinness representatives will confirm in July that he holds a second title: the world's greatest loser of weight.
But Uribe is still unable to walk with his fianc&eacute; e, Claudia Solis, down the aisle.
"It frustrates me a little, because it is not easy to get out," said Uribe, who has not been able to leave bed for the past six years.
But Uribe vowed not to be deterred:
"We are in love, and this year my birthday wish is to be able to stand when we get married," he said.
SYDNEY, Australia (CNN) An Australian judge has aborted a drug trial after discovering that some of the jurors were playing the puzzle game Sudoku while evidence was being given.
Sydney District Court Judge Peter Zahra ended the trial Tuesday for two men facing drugs conspiracy charges.
The trial had been running for 66 days and had cost taxpayers an estimated US $950,000.
The judge was alerted after it was observed the jurors were writing vertically, rather than horizontally.
The jury foreperson admitted to the judge that four to five jurors were playing puzzle games for up to half the time the trial had been going.
A new trial is expected to begin in a few weeks.
LOS ANGELES (CNN) &#8212; The man whose investigation of then-President Clinton provided reams of tabloid fodder is now working to help crack down on photographers working for the very publications his efforts once filled.
the independent counsel whose open-ended investigation of a Clinton land deal veered into an intimately detailed report on the president¡¯s affair with intern Monica Lewinsky &#8212; is helping California lawmakers craft laws to crack down on celebrity-hunting packs of paparazzi.
Malibu Mayor Pamela Conley Ulich first contacted Starr, now a law-school dean at Pepperdine University in Malibu.
Local governments in Los Angeles and West Hollywood are also part of the effort to curb what they call a dangerous and expensive problem.
¡°Just imagine you¡¯re a motorist driving down the street and Britney Spears parks next to you &#8212; all of a sudden you¡¯re swarmed by these people,¡± said Los Angeles city Councilman Dennis Zine.
An 800-word prequel to the blockbuster Harry Potter novel series fetched about nearly $50,000 Tuesday for a writer¡¯s group and dyslexia charity.
The auction had started at 10,000 pounds and was driven up by two bidders &#8212;
one who was present and the eventual winner, who funneled his bids into the auctioneer¡¯s earpiece.
The prequel is hand-written and signed by the author, according to Waterstone¡¯s, a large bookstore in central London that that hosted the event.
(CNN) &#8212; At least 100 people were killed Tuesday when a Sudan Airways plane caught fire after landing in Khartoum, Sudan, according to officials and Sudanese television reports.
Sudanese television reported more than 200 people were on the plane. Several injured people were taken to a hospital, the network said, but the number of injured was not immediately known.
The plane was arriving from Amman, Jordan, airport security officials said, and was landing in bad weather when it overshot the runway, crashed and caught fire.
¡°Many people¡± are believed dead, an official said.
However, it was not clear whether the plane actually crashed.
The chief of the Khartoum airport told Al-Jazeera Arabic network the plane landed safely, but an explosion occurred in one of its engines before it came to a stop, about 10 minutes after the plane had landed.
LONDON, England (CNN) &#8212; Benazir Bhutto¡¯s widower, who now heads her political party, is protecting Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, despite accusing him for having an indirect role in her assassination last year, a Pakistani politician said in a recent interview.
¡°Sadly, he¡¯s not protecting him for some national interest but for his own corruption cases,¡± Imran Khan, head of Pakistan¡¯s Movement for Justice party, told CNN¡¯s Becky Anderson in an interview in London on Monday.
Khan said Asif Ali Zardari is shielding Musharraf by not pushing to reinstate the country¡¯s sacked judges, including Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry.
Parliament¡¯s newly elected ruling coalition, headed by Zardari¡¯s Pakistan People¡¯s Party, had promised to restore the judges within 30 days of parliament¡¯s first session in March.
HONG KONG (CNN) A stuntman was killed and six others injured in a fire while shooting an action scene in director John Woo's Chinese historical epic "Red Cliff," the film's crew and Chinese media said Tuesday.
The accident occurred Monday morning while filming an action sequence in Beijing, the crew said in a statement.
A small boat was set ablaze and collided with a larger boat as the filmmakers had intended, but the fire quickly raged out of control and engulfed both ships.
The person killed was a 23-year-old stuntman, the Beijing News reported, citing a local fire commander.
Woo, told of the news while promoting his film in Hong Kong, rushed back to Beijing, the crew said.
They are making every effort to make arrangements for the deceased, his family and the injured crew members," the statement said.
It was the latest setback to Woo's massive production, which marks his return to Chinese-language film after a stint in Hollywood.
"Red Cliff," about a well-known battle in feudal-era China, has suffered casting changes and set problems since it started filming in April last year.
Actors Chow Yun-fat and former Cannes best actor winner Tony Leung Chiu-wai earlier pulled out, although Leung later returned to the cast.
The budget for "Red Cliff" was more than $80 million huge by Chinese standards.
The Chinese government views the movie, which is partly backed by state-run China Film Group, as an important showcase of Chinese history and wants it released before the Beijing Olympics. The Olympics start on August 8.
Initial exams of some of 26 dolphins found dead in southwest England Monday brought researchers no closer to knowing what caused what they called the biggest mass stranding of marine animals in Britain in almost 30 years.
The animals appeared to have been well-fed and in good physical condition, Alan Knight of British Divers Marine Life Rescue told CNN Tuesday.
¡°There was nothing to suggest that they¡¯d gone ashore because they were feeling ill or because they were not healthy,¡± Knight said. ¡°Nothing on the first seven post-mortems gave us any idea what would have made them strand.
Post-mortems on another 19 dolphins were scheduled for Tuesday.
Kerstin Fritzl, 19, was hospitalized in April, emerging for the first time from a basement dungeon where she was born and lived with her mother and two brothers.
WASHINGTON (CNN) &#8212; The vice presidential search team for Sen. Barack Obama has a list of about 20 people under consideration to be the presumptive Democratic nominee¡¯s running mate, one Democratic senator said Tuesday.
Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota said many of the names on the list shown to him already have been ¡°bandied about¡± in the media but others are ¡°outside the box.
He said the list includes people who are ¡°top officials now,¡± others who are ¡°former lawmakers¡± and others who are ¡°former top military leaders.
INNSBRUCK, Austria (CNN) Guus Hiddink is used to being the underdogs at major tournaments and is trying hard to make sure his Russia side are not seen as favorites for their opening European Championship match against Spain.
Having watched the Czech Republic, Portugal, Croatia and Germany win the first four games of the tournament, Hiddink, who took South Korea to the semifinals of the 2002 World Cup, is urging his latest side to buck the trend that seems to be developing.
"Favorites have won their first game in the tournament," Hiddink said Monday.
"So tomorrow in our confrontation with Spain and I have said it many times that they are favorite we hope to break the (pattern).
Victory over the Group D favorite at the Tivoli Neu stadium would not be the first time a team coached by Hiddink has caused an upset against Spain.
At the World Cup in 2002, his South Korea team beat Spain on penalties in the quarterfinal on its way to a fourth-place finish that shocked football.
But Hiddink said he would draw little from the match six years ago.
"We are on the eve of this tournament. It's different circumstances, different teams, different coaches, everything is different.
The 61-year-old Dutchman usually likes his teams to play attractive, attacking football, but he will likely have to temper that instinct against the potent Spanish midfield and attack, especially since Russia is missing its two best forwards, the injured Pavel Pogrebnyak and suspended Andrei Arshavin.
Hiddink did not give anything away about his tactics on Monday, but his captain Sergei Semak hinted that Russia would try to crowd the midfield to stifle the creativity of stars like Fernando Torres and David Villa, who have scored a combined 56 goals this season.
said Semak, who is the most experienced player with 46 international appearances.
CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN) McDonald's, Wal-Mart and other U.S. chains have halted sales of some raw tomatoes as federal health officials work to trace the source of a multistate salmonella food poisoning outbreak.
Burger King, Outback Steakhouse and Taco Bell were among other restaurants voluntarily withdrawing tomatoes from their menus, following federal recommendations that consumers avoid red plum, red Roma or round red tomatoes unless they were grown in certain states and countries.
McDonald's Corp., the world's largest hamburger chain, stopped serving sliced tomatoes on its sandwiches as a precaution until the source of the bacterial infection is known, according to a statement Monday from spokeswoman Danya Proud.
The Oak Brook, Illinois-based company will continue serving grape tomatoes in its salads because no problems have been linked to that variety, she said.
The source of the tomatoes responsible for the illnesses in at least 16 states has not been pinpointed.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said that since mid-April, 145 people infected with salmonella with the same "genetic fingerprint" have been identified.
At least 23 people have been hospitalized, and no deaths have been reported.
Researchers put the body of the panda, Maomao, into a wooden coffin and buried it in a simple funeral ceremony on a hill in the vast Wolong Panda Reserve Center, one of China¡¯s preeminent giant panda research and breeding facilities.
Caretakers left two apples and other food that Maomao enjoyed at the burial site, an engineer at the panda reserve center told CNN.
About 130 giant pandas live in the center.
Another 150 wild pandas lived on the Wolong reserve before the quake struck, but researchers say it¡¯s unclear how many of the wild pandas survived.
SAQQARA, Egypt (CNN) Egyptian archaeologists have uncovered the "missing pyramid" of a pharaoh and a ceremonial procession road where high priests carried mummified remains of sacred bulls, Egypt's antiquities chief said Thursday.
Zahi Hawass said the pyramid, of which only the base remains, is believed to be that of King Menkauhor, an obscure pharaoh who ruled for only eight years more than 4,000 years ago.
In 1842, German archaeologist Karl Richard Lepsius mentioned Menkauhor's pyramid among his finds at Saqqara, calling it the "Headless Pyramid" because its top was missing, Hawass said.
But the desert sands covered Lepsius' discovery, and no archaeologist since was able to find it.
of the missing pyramid," Hawass said on a tour of the discoveries at Saqqara, the necropolis and burial site of the rulers of ancient Memphis, the capital of Egypt's Old Kingdom, south of Cairo.
Only the pyramid's base or the superstructure, as archeologists call it was found after a 25-foot-high mound of sand was removed over the past year and a half by Hawass' team.
A burial chamber also was discovered.
Hawass said the style of the pyramid and of a gray granite sarcophagus lid found in the burial chamber indicates the pyramid was from the Fifth Dynasty, a period that began in 2465 B.C. and ended in 2325 B.C.
That would put it about two centuries after the completion of the Great Pyramid of Giza, believed to have been finished in 2500 B.C.
Archaeologists have not found a cartouche a pharoah's name in hieroglyphs of the pyramid's owner.
But Hawass said that, based on the estimated dating of the pyramid, he was convinced it belonged to Menkauhor.
SEOUL, South Korea (CNN) A South Korean abducted more than 30 years ago has reportedly escaped from North Korea.
Sixty-five-year-old Yoon Jong-soo fled last month and is now under South Korean protection at a consulate in northeastern China.
South Korean officials say Yoon's North Korean wife and their daughter have since been arrested.
Yoon and 32 others ended up in the North when their fishing boat was seized off South Korea's east coast in 1975.
Of those who were seized with Yoon, three have returned to South Korea in recent years.
Yoon was among 480 South Korean civilian abductees, mostly fishermen, believed still alive in the North.
SEOUL, South Korea (CNN) Prime Minister Han Seung-soo and the entire South Korean Cabinet offered to resign Tuesday amid an uproar over an unpopular deal to resume importing U.S. beef, the Yonhap news agency reported.
The move follows a similar resignation offer last week by top aides of President Lee Myung-bak.
The eight staffers said they hold themselves responsible in the collective resignation offer, which was delivered to Lee by his chief of staff, according to Lee Dong-kwan, a spokesman for the president¡¯s office.
It was unclear whether Lee would accept the offers.
WASHINGTON (CNN) &#8212; Citing tiger population counts that have dwindled to a few thousand, several Hollywood stars have come out in support of a preservation campaign announced Monday by the World Bank.
The head of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, told those gathered at a news conference at the National Zoo that the conservation initiative will find out ¡°how to work with the local communities, so we can preserve some of the areas in which the tigers live.
Actor Harrison Ford, known for his support of environmental causes, said, ¡°I¡¯m here to celebrate the World Bank¡¯s plan to form a global alliance of conservation partners, to work with the tiger range nations in order to secure a future for these magnificent creatures.
The audience included former actress Bo Derek, now a special envoy at the State Department fighting trafficking in wildlife.
She told CNN the World Bank¡¯s initiative to save the tigers should help counter ¡°demand for their body parts, mainly in Asia,¡± and ¡°loss of habitat¡± caused by the exploitation of natural resources.
Actor Robert Duvall, who lives in the Virginia countryside about 50 miles from Washington, came in to lend his ¡°moral support¡± to the World Bank¡¯s initiative for tigers.
Hundreds of Pakistani lawyers and flag-waving activists launched a cross-country march toward Islamabad on Monday to demand the restoration of judges sacked last year by President Pervez Musharraf.
What is being called the ¡°Long March¡± is the first organized protest against Pakistan¡¯s new government, which has yet to deliver its promise to reinstate Pakistani Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and about 60 other judges.
¡°It¡¯s one of its biggest failures,¡± Athar Minullah, a spokesman for Pakistan¡¯s deposed chief justice, told CNN.
Pakistan¡¯s lawyers¡¯ movement has been demanding the restoration of the judiciary since Musharraf declared emergency rule and removed the judges in November.
A battle royale over an estimated $500 million treasure that a Florida deep-sea salvage company found last year is due for a fresh round in court in Florida on Monday
Spain wants the entire treasure returned, but Odyssey insists Spain may have no right to it.
Lawyers for both sides are due to present arguments Monday morning in a U.S. federal court in Tampa, Florida, in another round of the case that started last year, Odyssey spokeswoman Natja Igney told CNN.
DURHAM, North Carolina (CNN) &#8212; Sen. Edward Kennedy was released Monday from Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina after recovering from brain surgery, CNN has learned.
Kennedy, 76, will return to his home in Hyannisport, Massachusetts, after undergoing a 3¨ö-hour operation on June 2 to remove the majority of a malignant glioma from his left parietal lobe.
In a statement from the Massachusetts Democrat's office, Kennedy was said to be "thankful for the care of the doctors and nurses at Duke, and also for the continued prayers and well wishes from the people of Massachusetts and all over the country.
He later was scheduled for an operation to remove a malignant tumor at Duke University Medical Center in Durham
(CNN) &#8212; Saudi Arabia has called for a conference of oil-producing countries and major consumer nations to address the soaring price of crude worldwide, the kingdom¡¯s oil ministry announced Monday.
Details of the conference, including its date and location, are to be announced later, the ministry told CNN.
The Saudis are the world¡¯s largest oil exporters and hold the largest estimated reserves.
They are a leading member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, the global oil cartel, and the third-largest source of U.S. imports.
(CNN) Bangladesh police have detained or arrested more than 18,000 people in the last 11 days in a crackdown on crime they say is aimed at improving security ahead of December elections.
Human rights group decry the actions as politically motivated.
The roundups began May 28, just days after the two main political parties said they would not cooperate with the military-backed caretaker government on organizing the elections.
Police told CNN that by Saturday 16,916 arrests had been made, while local media reported another 1,548 were arrested Sunday.
The Awami League and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) have said hundreds of their party members have since been taken into custody.
BEIJING, China (CNN) &#8212; Engineers worked to open additional spillways at an earthquake-created dam in southwestern China Monday, as water was piling up behind the structure faster than they could drain it, state media reported.
¡°Increasing the outflow of water is critical for the dam¡¯s safety,¡± said Zhang Ting, head of the Sichuan provincial hydro-meteorological bureau, the Xinhua news agency reported.
¡°If the water flows too slowly, the inflow will increase the pressure on the dam.
(CNN) Rafael Nadal became the second man to win four successive French Open titles on Sunday after crushing world No. 1 Roger Federer in straight sets in the final in Paris.
The Spaniard triumphed 6-1 6-3 6-0 to hand Federer a third straight defeat in the final at Roland Garros, with the Swiss top seed still seeking to win the only Grand Slam crown missing from his collection.
And the manner of his comprehensive victory left little doubt that Federer, who has won 12 other Grand Slam titles, may struggle for many years to come in his bid to defeat his nemesis.
Second seed Nadal, who did not drop a set all tournament and has never lost at the clay-court event, matched the feat of Bjorn Borg's four successive wins from 1978-81.
He moved to a 28-0 winning record at the tournament, having won 84 of 92 sets played.
Nadal broke Federer in the opening game of the match, and needed only 32 minutes to wrap up the first set.
Federer fought back in the second, but still succumbed within 50 minutes, and then saw Nadal race through the third set in less than half an hour to clinch a historic victory.
Federer paid for his errors, having made 13 unforced mistakes to two by Nadal by the end of the second set.
The group was found at Mantaolan, which is on the island of Rinca off Komodo National Park, the head of the rescue team said.
The husband of one of the divers said he was told they were in good condition, although dehydrated.
Searchers using boats located the missing divers at 11 a.m. Saturday (11 p.m. ET Friday), the official said.
They arrived at a hospital in Labuan Bajo, on the western tip of the island of Flores, about two hours later, an official said.
two from Great Britain, one from France and one from Sweden. Among the missing is one of the owners of the dive company, an employee said.
LUCKNOW, India (CNN) He's a revered Hindu monkey god.
And now, he's the chairman of an Indian business school.
Hanuman, the popular god known for his strength and valor, has been named official chairman of the recently opened Sardar Bhagat Singh College of Technology and Management in northern India, a school official said Saturday.
The position comes with an incense-filled office, a desk and a laptop computer.
Four chairs will be placed facing the empty seat reserved for the chairman and all visitors must enter the office barefoot, said Vivek Kangdi, the school's vice chairman.
"It is our belief that any job that has the blessings of Lord Hanuman is bound to be a success," said Kangdi.
All Hindus know that Hanuman can lift mountains and leap oceans, but ancient texts make no mention of his business acumen.
"When we were looking for a chairman for our institution, we scanned many big names in the field of technology and management. Ultimately, we settled for Lord Hanuman, as none was bigger than him," Kangdi said.
Hanuman is one of the most popular gods in the crowded pantheon of Hindu deities.
His most famous feat, as described in the Hindu epic the Ramayana, was leading a monkey army to fight the demon King Ravana and rescue a kidnapped princess.
The Sardar Bhagat Singh College in Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state, awards bachelor's degrees in engineering and management.
The school opened last year.
KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) &#8212; An Afghan journalist working for the British Broadcasting Corporation was found dead Sunday, a day after he was abducted in southern Afghanistan, network and Afghan officials said.
Gunmen abducted Abdul Samad Rohani in southern Helmand province Saturday, said Ahmad Nabi Jan, an official with Helmand police.
His body was found dumped near a cemetery in the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah on Sunday afternoon, Nabi Jan said.
Rohani was the Helmand-based reporter for BBC World Service¡¯s Pashto language service.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the killing.
¡°Rohani¡¯s courage and dedication have been a key part of the BBC¡¯s reporting from Afghanistan in recent years,¡± the network said in a statement.
(CNN) &#8212; Severe storms packing heavy rains, high winds and powerful lightning swept across the American Midwest to the East Coast on Sunday, flooding towns from Iowa to Michigan, threatening levees and leaving at least eight people dead.
Five of the deaths were in Michigan, where several storms plowed from western Michigan eastward.
Two delivery workers for The Grand Rapids Press were killed Sunday morning after their car fell into a deep ravine created when a rain-swollen creek washed out a road, the newspaper reported on its Web site.
Leftist rebels in Colombia should release all hostages in their custody as a first step toward laying down their weapons, President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela said Sunday.
In pointed remarks, Chavez said the rebels should stop fighting and end a war that has riven Colombia for more than 40 years, killing tens of thousands.
His comments came just months after he urged the international community to recognize the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia as a legitimate insurgent force rather than a terrorist organization, as the United States and European Union consider it.
KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) &#8212; U.S. first lady Laura Bush arrived in Afghanistan Sunday for a visit that is expected to last nine hours.
The first lady is scheduled to meet with American troops and visit Bamiyan province, where two giant statues of Buddha &#8212; carved into sandstone cliffs centuries ago &#8212;
were demolished by the ruling Taliban regime in March 2001.
It is her third trip to the country.
She last visited Afghanistan in March 2006 with President Bush.
Later in the week, the first lady is scheduled to address a donors conference in Paris on Thursday.
The host country, France, has set a goal of raising between $12 billion and $15 billion to help Afghanistan¡¯s reconstruction efforts.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) &#8212; Eight former officials from executed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein¡¯s government will be transferred from U.S. military prisons to Iraqi custody in the coming days, Iraq¡¯s Deputy Justice Minister told CNN on Sunday.
Deputy Justice Minister Boshu Ibrahim said most of the prisoners were informed of the upcoming transfer by Iraq¡¯s acting justice minister last week and were ¡°very happy¡± to hear they will be in Iraqi custody soon.
But an attorney for some of the detainees expressed outrage about putting the mostly Sunni Muslim ex-officials in prisons controlled by the country¡¯s Shiite-dominated government.
¡°This is not a handover to a government, it¡¯s a handover to Iranian militias,¡± said Badi Aref, who represents 15 former regime members. ¡°We will hold the U.S. responsible for all that these detainees will go through.
The current Iraqi government is now dominated by Shiite and Kurdish politicians and has close ties to Iran, which fought a bloody eight-year war with Iraq under Hussein.
The survey showed that the average price at gas stations around the nation was just a fraction of a cent under $4 a gallon, said survey publisher Trilby Lundberg.
tried to allay Iranian fears over a planned U.S.-Iraq security pact, saying his government would not allow Iraq to become a launching pad for an attack on its neighbor.
security of the neighboring countries, including Iran,¡± al-Maliki said, according to a report on Iran¡¯s state-run news agency IRNA.
A man ran over a group of people with his truck and then stabbed 18, killing at least 7, in a video game district of downtown Tokyo Sunday afternoon, authorities.
The dead included five men and a woman, according to a Tokyo metropolitan police officer. The gender of the seventh person was not immediately known.
Twelve others were wounded, police said.
Japanese media reported that the suspect told investigators he was 25 years old.
The attack occurred near a British base in Helmand province, in southern Afghanistan, about 11 a.m. Sunday (2: 30 a.m. ET).
A fourth soldier wounded in the attack was expected to survive, the ministry reported.
The troops killed Sunday were from the 2nd Battalion of Britain¡¯s Parachute Regiment.
One was dead on arrival at a military hospital, while the other two died of their wounds there.
The British contingent in Afghanistan is among the most active NATO units in battling a resurgent Taliban, the Islamic movement that ruled most of Afghanistan before the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington by its al Qaeda allies.
A U.S.-led invasion the following October drove the Taliban from power, but American and allied troops have been fighting its remnants in the country¡¯s mountainous south ever since.
ATHENS, Greece (CNN) &#8212; A strong earthquake jolted western Greece on Sunday, killing at least two people and triggering landslides that have trapped at least 11 people, according to officials and state-run media.
Another 37 were injured as a result of the 6.1-magnitude quake, which struck about 3:30 p.m. (8: 30 a.m. ET).
The temblor¡¯s epicenter was located about 20 miles (35 km) southwest of the Greek port city of Patras, in the Peloponnese region.
felt the ground shake for as long as 20 seconds.
Earthquakes are common in the Peloponnese region, according to Greek Geodynamic Institute director Gerasimos Papadopoulos.
(CNN) Now that she has ended her historic run to become the first Madame President, many are speculating about what Sen. Hillary Clinton will do next.
On Saturday, she held her last rally, telling thousands of supporters she was endorsing her former rival, Sen. Barack Obama, who became the presumptive Democratic nominee Tuesday.
"The way to continue our fight now, to accomplish the goals for which we stand, is to take our energy, our passion, our strength, and do all we can to help elect Barack Obama the next president of the United States," she told the packed crowd at the National Building Museum in Washington.
campaign trail to stump for Obama.
Some of her top backers are hoping she will play a larger role in the Obama campaign by becoming his running mate.
Clinton told New York lawmakers this week that she'd be open to becoming the Democrat's vice presidential nominee, some of them said, but Obama has said only that Clinton "would be on anyone's short-list.
Democratic analyst Jamal Simmons says Clinton has reason to look beyond a joint ticket.
"Hillary Clinton may actually think she spent the last year, year-and-a-half getting out from the shadow of Bill Clinton. She may not want to get underneath the wing of Barack Obama," said Simmons, an Obama supporter.
Apart from the vice presidency, analysts say, there are several roles Clinton could potentially fill.
Some New York Democrats would love to see a Gov. Hillary Clinton in 2010.
But the primary fight would put her up against David Paterson, New York's first African-American governor.
Paterson took over after Eliot Spitzer stepped down in the wake of his call-girl scandal.
Clinton could potentially add Supreme Court justice to her r&eacute;
Should Obama become the president, he could carve out a place for Clinton in his Cabinet.
Based on Obama's own words, the idea might not be too far-fetched.
Some angry voters wonder whether she ought to dump the Democrats and run as an independent.
She did rack up more than 17 million votes in the primary.
Many analysts say the best option for Clinton is to return to the Senate, where she can establish a powerful influential voice like that of Sen. Edward Kennedy.
LONDON, England (CNN) London's Royal Botanical Gardens (RBG) at Kew recently opened a new attraction which gives visitors the chance to walk among the treetops and examine tree canopies from a new perspective.
The Xstrata Treetop Walkway, which opened at the end of May is the latest design from London Eye architects Marks Barfield.
Rising to a height of 18 meters and stretching across 200 meters, visitors can walk between 50 of Kew's mature broad-leafed trees.
The walkway can be found in the woodland area which was designed by 18th century landscape gardener Capability Brown.
Constructed from 12 steel trusses connected to 10 circular "node" platforms, the weathered steel chosen for the project already blends beautifully with the natural environment.
The architects describe the end result as "a surprisingly natural, 'bark-like' texture.
"As a trained arborist I have had the privilege of being up in the tree canopy; experiencing trees at height and birds and other wildlife from a completely different perspective. It's fantastic that we are able to give visitors the same experience.
In what has been designated "Year of the Tree" at Kew, Kirkham hopes that giving visitors a new perspective on the trees will help them understand the importance of nurturing them.
TOKYO, Japan (CNN) Police evacuated dozens of residents after poisonous fumes escaped from an apartment where a man killed himself by inhaling a detergent-laced gas, authorities said Wednesday.
The death in the city of Kanazawa, northeast of Tokyo, is the latest in a spate of suicides where people have mixed detergent and other chemicals and inhaled the resulting toxic hydrogen sulfide gas.
According to local media reports, more than 180 people across Japan have committed suicide in such a manner since late March an average of more than two a day.
The instructions are easily available online, and officials have asked Internet service providers to take down the recipe for the deadly mix.
In the latest case on Wednesday, officers found a man in his 20s in the bathroom of his apartment surrounded by bottles of detergent and other chemicals, said a Kanazawa police officer.
The man had posted a note outside his front door that warned residents that gas was being generated inside, the officer said.
Police evacuated 34 residents for two hours.
One woman, complaining of sickness, was taken to a hospital.
Even before the spate of recent death, Japan had one of the highest rates of suicide in the world.
A consumer advocacy group called on the Food and Drug Administration Tuesday to ban the use of eight artificial colorings in food because they have been linked to hyperactivity and behavior problems in children.
Controlled studies conducted over three decades have shown that children's behavior can be worsened by some artificial dyes, says the Center for Science in the Public Interest.
The group noted the British government is successfully pressuring food manufacturers to switch to safer colorings.
Over the years, the FDA has consistently disputed the center's assertion.
The agency's Web site contains a 2004 brochure that asks the question:
"Do additives cause childhood hyperactivity?
"No. Although this hypothesis was popularized in the 1970's, well-controlled studies conducted since then have produced no evidence that food additives cause hyperactivity or learning disabilities in children," the agency said.
Julie Zawisza, an FDA spokeswoman, said Tuesday that color additives undergo safety reviews prior to approval for marketing and that samples of each artificial coloring are tested.
"(We) didn't find a reason to change our conclusions that the ingredients are safe for the general population," Zawisza said. "Also note that the European Food Safety Agency has a similar view as FDA's.
Dyes are used in countless foods and are sometimes used to simulate the color of fruits or vegetables.
The additives are particularly prevalent in the cereals, candies, sodas, and snack foods pitched to children.
HARTFORD, Connecticut (CNN) Passing notes in study hall or getting your best friend to ask a boy if he likes you or, you know, LIKES you, is so last century.
Nowadays, teenagers are snapping naked pictures of themselves on their cell phones and sending them to their boyfriends and girlfriends.
Many of these pictures are falling into the wrong hands or worse, everyone's hands, via the Internet and leading to criminal charges.
Some parents are aghast.
"I just don't understand why kids would do a stupid thing like that," said Rochelle Hoins of Castle Rock, Colorado, where 18 students in her twin sons' middle school sent around nude pictures of themselves last year.
Similar cases have been reported in New Jersey, New York, Alabama, Utah, Pennsylvania, Texas and Connecticut.
"It used to be that kids would make mistakes, and it was local and singular and everyone knew it was part of growing up," said Catherine Davis, a PTA co-president in Westport, Connecticut, who had a frank talk with her two sons after several students' nude self-portraits recently spread through the wealthy New York City bedroom community.
"Now a stupid adolescent mistake can take on major implications and go on their record for the rest of their lives," she added.
School administrators in Santa Fe, Texas, confiscated dozens of cell phones from students in May after nude photos of two junior high girls began circulating.
The girls had sent the photos to their boyfriends, who forwarded them to others, officials said.
In La Crosse, Wisconsin, a 17-year-old boy recently was charged with child pornography, sexual exploitation of a child and defamation for allegedly posting nude photos of his 16-year-old ex-girlfriend on his MySpace page.
The girl had taken the pictures with her cell phone at her mother's home and e-mailed them to the boyfriend, authorities said.
He didn't know it was illegal. "
HONG KONG (CNN) The backlash in China against Sharon Stone continued Wednesday as the Shanghai International Film Festival said the American actress was not welcome at this year's event.
The 50-year-old "Basic Instinct" star provoked outrage in China after suggesting that the recent earthquake in central Sichuan province may have been the result of bad "karma" because of Beijing's rule in Tibet.
French fashion house Christian Dior dropped Stone from its Chinese ads after she made the comments in May during a Cannes Film Festival red-carpet interview.
Stone, who walked the red carpet in Shanghai last year, will not be invited back soon, Shanghai International Film Festival spokeswoman Tang Bing said Wednesday.
Tang said film festival organizers sent Stone a letter protesting her remarks and demanding an apology.
Stone has said she was "deeply sorry" for causing anguish and anger among Chinese people, and she offered to take part in quake relief efforts.
The Hollywood actress impressed festival organizers with her charity work and her appearance last year, and her comments came as a surprise, Tang said.
"She showed her affinity for the Chinese people and her affinity for Shanghai. She didn't say any bad things," said Tang.
The Shanghai festival is scheduled for June 14-22.
ROME, Italy (CNN) The Vatican announced Thursday in a general decree that it will excommunicate anyone who would attempt to ordain a woman as a priest and the woman herself.
According to the decree, the excommunications would take place with immediate effect.
The decree was signed by Cardinal William Levada, prefect of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith.
It was not persuasive to Regina Nicolosi, a program coordinator for Roman Catholic Womenpriests, who was ordained two years ago.
"We have come not to take that too seriously," said Nicolosi, a 66-year-old married mother and grandmother who lives in Red Wing, Minnesota, and said her group is composed of 40 to 50 women priests, none of whom are recognized by the church hierarchy.
"It's one of the very last patriarchal hierarchies in the western world, and I don't know when they will be ready to let go of that.
Though she said she wants to reform the church from within, she will continue her work as a volunteer in a nursing home who celebrates mass in small groups even if she is excommunicated, she said.
She predicted that the church's resistance will backfire.
"This is bringing more and more women into our group, and I think we're getting more support from Catholics who are saying this is getting ridiculous," she said.
PARIS, France (CNN) A Paris court on Tuesday convicted Brigitte Bardot of provoking discrimination and racial hatred for writing that Muslims are destroying France.
The court also handed down a $23,325 fine against the former screen siren and animal rights campaigner.
The remarks were published in her foundation's quarterly journal.
In the December 2006 letter to Sarkozy, now the president, Bardot said France is "tired of being led by the nose by this population that is destroying us, destroying our country by imposing its acts.
She was referring to the Muslim feast of Aid el-Kebir, celebrated by slaughtering sheep.
French anti-racism laws prevent inciting hatred and discrimination on racial or religious or racial grounds.
Bardot had been convicted four times previously for inciting racial hatred.
Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama will be ¡°a good friend to Israel¡± if elected, Sen. Hillary Clinton told a pro-Israel lobbying group Wednesday.
Though Clinton has yet to concede the Democratic race and spoke Wednesday of what she would do as president, she told the America-Israel Public Affairs Committee that Obama ¡°understands what is at stake here.
¡°It has been an honor to contest these primaries with him.
It is an honor to call him my friend. And let me be very clear:
I know that Senator Obama will be a good friend to Israel,¡± the New York senator and former first lady said.
Continuing aftershocks remain a concern.
They could destabilize the rock and soil that form a quake-created dam holding back nearly 56 billion gallons (211.6 million cubic meters) of water.
A Web posting purportedly from al Qaeda has claimed responsibility for Monday¡¯s blast outside the Danish embassy in Pakistan, which killed at least six people.
The statement was posted late Wednesday on a Web site frequently used by Islamic militants.
Wednesday¡¯s message warned that more attacks will follow if Denmark refuses to apologize for the cartoons.
naval ships loaded with supplies for the victims of Myanmar¡¯s cyclone will sail away from the country¡¯s coast on Thursday, after the ruling junta refused for three weeks to allow them to deliver aid to survivors.
Timothy Keating said that although the USS Essex group will leave the shores of Myanmar, also known as Burma, he will leave several heavy lift aircraft in Thailand to assist international relief efforts.
¡°We have made at least 15 attempts to convince the Burmese government to allow our ships, helicopters and landing craft to provide additional disaster relief for the people of Burma, but they have refused us each and every time,¡± Keating said in a statement issued Wednesday .
Madrid, Spain; and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, will be eligible to host the 2016 Summer Olympics.
The short list will be whittled down to a winner in October 2009 to allow the host city seven years to prepare, under committee guidelines.
the 1964 Summer Games.
Madrid had previously bid for the 2012 Summer Olympics, but it was awarded to London.
Caroline Kennedy has joined Barack Obama¡¯s vice presidential selection team, an Obama campaign spokesman said Wednesday.
Former Fannie Mae CEO Jim Johnson is heading up the search team and former Deputy U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is also serving on the committee.
Kennedy, the daughter of President John F. Kennedy, formally endorsed Obama late January in a New York Times op-ed piece titled, ¡°A President Like My Father.
¡°I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them,¡± Kennedy wrote then. ¡°But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president &#8212; not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans.
NAIROBI, Kenya (CNN) Kenyans have long watched the U.S. presidential election with special interest and, in many cases, a special sense of pride.
Barak Obama is the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas.
"I'm excited ... because he's a Kenyan. He's a half Kenyan," a smiling woman said in a Nairobi neighborhood.
More than a few hangovers were expected Wednesday as many Kenyans celebrated the presumptive Democratic nominee's latest primary election win and him surpassing the delegate total needed to win the party's nomination.
Video from across the country showed Kenyans dancing and swilling Senator Keg Lager, which has picked up the nickname "Obama Beer" in honor of the junior senator from Illinois.
Obama is popular across many parts of the country, especially in western Kenya where many of his relatives live.
"I want a black man to rule America so that you can see the changes that Obama promised the people ... to see the change," one young man said.
In summer 2006 thousands of Kenyans lined the streets of Kisumu, giving Obama a hero's welcome on his visit to his father's home.
Obama's father died in a car accident in Nairobi in 1982.
As he rode through the streets in a truck, flanked by a lengthy convoy, massive crowds chanted "Obama, Obama" and waved flags emblazoned with his name and an image of his face.
(CNN) A man and a woman have been charged by police in Italy after they were found having sex in a confession box, it was reported Wednesday.
The Italian ANSA news agency said the young man and woman were taken into custody by police in the northern city of Cesena following a telephone complaint from a man attending morning Mass in the city's cathedral.
Authorities were alerted after a parishoner heard "rustling and groaning" coming from inside the confession box and pulled back the curtains to reveal a goth-rock couple engaged in oral sex, ANSA said.
The agency said the pair a 31-year-old laborer and a 32-year-old teacher defended their conduct saying: "We are atheists and for us, having sex in church is like doing it any other place.
However, Bishop Antonio Lanfranchi of Cesena-Sarsina took said the couple's behavior was "an outrage of notable proportions which bespeaks unutterable squalor.
He added that a special ceremony would be held to purify the confession box.
HOUSTON, Texas (CNN) The international space station's toilet trouble appeared to be taken care of Wednesday after a Russian cosmonaut replaced a malfunctioning pump.
The space station's toilet broke two weeks ago.
The problem, confined to the urine side of the commode, forced the orbiting outpost's crew of an American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts to flush manually with extra water several times a day.
Space shuttle Discovery brought up a new pump for the toilet, as well as the space station's newest room, a $1 billion Japanese lab.
Oleg Kononenko spent more than two hours installing the 35-pound pump and hoses and then running three tests of the toilet while he talked with specialists at Russian Mission Control, just outside Moscow.
The toilet worked normally.
It transports urine via air flow to the pump, which separates the gas and liquid.
"Let's start using it," Russian Mission Control told Kononenko, one of the two Russians living aboard the space station. "We'll keep our fingers crossed.
Kononenko was asked to give periodic reports on how the toilet was working.
Sen. Barack Obama, the newly minted presumed Democratic presidential nominee, said Wednesday that it was "very humbling" to be the the first African-American to lead a major party's ticket and expressed confidence the party would unify behind him.
"You think about all the people who had to knock down barriers for me to walk through this door," he said.
"And the challenges they went through were so much more difficult, so much more severe, and the risks they took were so much greater that I will say, last night standing in that auditorium, it struck me that it was testimony to them.
The senator from Illinois also said his successful campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination has taught America's children that the Oval Office is within anyone's reach.
"I have heard from a number of people already, both black and white, that their kids 7, 8, 9 years old take for granted now that, of course, a black can run for president, that a woman can run for president," he said. "There is a matter-of-factness to it that I think bodes well for the future."
Asked whether he was disappointed that his rival for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Hillary Clinton, did not concede outright Tuesday night, Obama said his priority was unifying the party.
Clinton will officially end her campaign for the presidency by the end of the week, sources said.
A top Clinton fundraiser said her withdrawal is expected to happen Friday.
Obama won more than the 2,118 delegates needed to capture the nomination after the primaries in South Dakota and Montana on Tuesday.
The win came after five months of sometimes bitter contests with Clinton. He now has 2,158 delegates, according to CNN estimates.
On Wednesday, Obama's next challenger, Arizona Sen. John McCain, the presumed Republican nominee, congratulated Obama on his victory and immediately challenged him to 10 town hall meetings before the parties' conventions in late August and September.
BEIJING, China (CNN) Authorities in southwestern China watched nervously Wednesday as rising water behind an earthquake-created dam neared a spillway designed to relieve pressure on it.
The threat of aftershocks from the May 12 quake and more rain, meanwhile, put the area in "extreme danger," said Liu Ning, chief engineer of the Ministry of Water Resources.
Heavy rainfall and severe aftershocks could compromise the integrity of the dam and send water cascading out.
In the event of particularly heavy rain and a major aftershock, the chances of a catastrophic failure would stand at 93 percent, Liu estimated.
Authorities have evacuated about 200,000 people who are considered to be at risk if water overflows the dam.
Engineers built the spillway to drain water from the lake in a controlled way once it tops the lowest levels of debris blocking the river.
On Tuesday, water in the so-called Tangjiashan quake lake was within 8 feet (2.4 meters) of the spillway, in Beichuan county, Cheng Dianlong, deputy chief of the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters, told the Xinhua news agency.
Engineers used heavy equipment and dynamite to chisel a 1,560 foot-long (475-meter-long) spillway through tons of rock and soil that slid off the hillside during the earthquake.
They finished work on the channel Sunday.
Thirty-five so-called quake lakes were created by the 7.9-magnitude quake.
The Tangjiashan lake worries Chinese officials most because it could threaten up to 1.3 million people downstream.
The official death toll from the quake has risen to 69,107, China's Civil Affairs Ministry reported on Tuesday, an increase of 88.
About 18,230 people remain missing.
Sen. Hillary Clinton will officially end her campaign for the presidency by the end of the week, multiple sources told CNN.
A top Clinton fundraiser says it is expected to happen on Friday.
Obama and Clinton were in Washington on Wednesday to each address the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
The candidates ran into each other at the AIPAC conference and had a brief chat, Obama spokeswoman Linda Douglass said.
"She's an extraordinary leader of the Democratic Party and has made history alongside me over the last 16 months.
I'm very proud to have competed against her," Obama told the Israel lobbying group.
Obama became his party's presumptive nominee Tuesday and will be looking to unite Democrats divided by the long and contentious primary season.
"I am very confident how unified the Democratic Party is going to be to win in November," he said in a Senate hallway Wednesday.
Some say that putting Clinton on the ticket might fit the bill for uniting Democrats.
Clinton lavished her opponent with praise Tuesday, saying he ran an "extraordinary race" and made politics more palatable for many.
John McCain on Wednesday challenged Barack Obama to join him for a series of 10 town-hall debates.
Calling for ¡°no process questions from reporters¡± and ¡°no spin rooms,¡± the presumptive Republican presidential nominee proposed one debate a week from now until the Democratic party convention in August.
Obama campaign manager David Plouffe welcomed the idea in principle, but suggested some changes to the format. ¡°We would recommend a format that is less structured and lengthier than the McCain campaign suggests, one that more closely resembles the historic debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas,¡± he said in a statement released by the Obama campaign.
Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was released late Wednesday after being detained by police for about 10 hours, police and Tsvangirai¡¯s spokesman said.
Zimbabwe police detained Tsvangirai, the MDC¡¯s presidential contender, earlier Wednesday, less than a month before the run-off election against President Robert Mugabe, a police spokesman said.
Chamisa said Tsvangirai was picked up by police because he was going to attend an unauthorized meeting in southern Zimbabwe.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=3171351
Thierry Henry collected his 100th cap for France in Tuesday's 1-0 win over Colombia, playing 76 minutes in Les Bleus' final warm-up game before the European Championship.
Henry was fouled to set up France's only goal, a 24th-minute penalty by Franck Ribery past goalkeeper Agustino Julio.
He also went close in the 42nd with a curling free kick that forced Julio into a leaping save, but was shown a yellow card in the 62nd for a late tackle.
Former Arsenal marksman Henry was replaced by Chelsea striker Nicolas Anelka with 14 minutes remaining.
his international debut 11 years ago in a 2-1 win over South Africa, with his first international goal coming against the same opponent in the opening match of the 1998 World Cup.
He is France's all-time leading scorer with 44 goals.
In what he called a "defining moment for our nation," Sen. Barack Obama on Tuesday became the first African-American to head the ticket of a major political party.
"Tonight we mark the end of one historic journey with the beginning of another a journey that will bring a new and better day to America," he said.
"Tonight, I can stand before you and say that I will be the Democratic nominee for president of the United States.
Obama's rally was at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minnesota the same arena which will house the 2008 Republican National Convention in September.
Speaking in New York, Sen. Hillary Clinton, congratulated Obama for his campaign, but she did not concede the race nor discuss the possibility of running as vice president.
"This has been a long campaign, and I will be making no decisions tonight," she said.
There were reports earlier in the day that she would concede, but her campaign said she was "absolutely not" prepared to do so.
Two New York lawmakers also told CNN on Tuesday that during a conference call Clinton expressed willingness to serve as Obama's running mate in November.
One source told CNN that Clinton told those on the call that if asked by Obama, she would be interested in serving as his running mate.
One of the lawmakers said Clinton's husband, former President Bill Clinton, has been pushing the idea privately for several weeks.
Clinton said she would meet with supporters and party leaders in the coming days to determine her next steps.
She also asked people to go to her Web site to "share your thoughts with me and help in any way that you can."
CNN has projected that Clinton will win the primary in South Dakota and Obama will take Montana.
Those states marked the final contests in the primary season.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice blasted Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas on Tuesday and called the United States' bond with Israel "unshakable.
In a speech at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference, Rice said the United States' commitment to Israel was "unwavering."
Rice said President Bush had kept his promise to remain committed to Israel's security, and she characterized the alliance between the two nations as "one of the most vital relationships" the United States has.
"After 60 years, Israel has no better friend in the world than the United States of America.
She called for the return of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier who was captured by Gaza militants nearly two years ago in a cross-border raid.
Exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal said his Palestinian Islamic fundamentalist group has put forward a list of 350 Palestinians it wants released from Israeli jails in exchange for Shalit, but he blamed Israel for the breakdown of talks.
Rice said cooperation on missile defense with Israel would help the United States defend against Iran, along with going after Iranian agents in Iraq and continuing to impose sanctions on the regime.
In addressing perceived threats posed by Iran, Rice said that the United States is pursing tough diplomacy.
"We can and we must exploit these vulnerabilities.
MONTERREY, Mexico (CNN) A car plowed into a weekend bike race along a highway near the U.S.-Mexico border, killing one and injuring 10 others, police said.
The 28-year-old driver was apparently drunk and fell asleep when he crashed into the race, said police investigator Jose Alfredo Rodriguez.
A photograph taken by a city official showed bicyclists and equipment being hurled high into the air by the collision.
Rodriguez said Juan Campos was charged with killing Alejandro Alvarez, 37, of Monterrey.
Authorities said the wreck happened 15 minutes into the 34-kilometer (21 mile) race Sunday along a highway between Playa Bagdad and Matamoros, across from Brownsville, Texas.
Campos said he is an American citizen living in Brownsville
. The U.S. Consulate could not immediately confirm that.
"We are looking into the incident in terms of whether American citizens were involved," consulate spokesman Todd Huizinga said.
BERLIN, Germany (CNN) Three people are dead and many more injured after a major storm struck southwestern Germany, officials said Tuesday.
Two of those killed were women who drowned in their car after it was swept away by floodwaters, said Karl Wolf, a spokesman for the crisis management center in the Zollernalbkreis region in the German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg.
A third woman died when she became trapped in her flooded cellar.
Heavy rainfall set in late Monday, Wolf said, and caused the Starzel River to rise 6.5 feet (2 meters) above regular water levels, he said.
The region is about 35 miles south of Stuttgart.
Authorities said they cannot yet estimate how much damage the storm caused, but several roads need to be cleared and some bridges were damaged.
The police and fire department began clearing roads and pumping water out of cellars Tuesday.
It could take days before the situation normalizes, Wolf said.
Sen. Barack Obama has clinched the Democratic nomination for president, according to CNN estimates, making him the first African-American in U.S. history to lead a major-party ticket.
Obama picked up a slew of superdelegate endorsements on Tuesday.
Those endorsements, combined with the delegates he's projected to receive from South Dakota's primary, will put him past the 2,118 threshold, according to CNN estimates.
Obama will claim victory during a speech in St. Paul, Minnesota, according to prepared remarks released by his campaign.
"Tonight, I can stand before you and say that I will be the Democratic nominee for President of the United States," he's expected to say.
His remaining rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton, does not plan to concede the race Tuesday night, campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe told CNN but one of her leading supporters said "a moment of truth" was at hand.
"I think a decision has to be made about whether keeping this nomination wide open is in the best interest of winning in November," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California.
"I do not believe that it is, and I'm a very strong supporter of Hillary being placed on ticket as a vice presidential candidate.
Two New York lawmakers told CNN on Tuesday that Clinton expressed willingness during a conference call to serve as Obama's running mate in November.
One of the lawmakers said Clinton's husband, former President Bill Clinton, has been pushing the idea privately for several weeks.
Former President Jimmy Carter and Rep. James Clyburn, the No. 3 Democrat in the House and the highest ranking African-American in Congress, were two of the most prominent superdelegate endorsements that Obama picked up.
He is redrawing an electoral map for Democrats.
Obama is looking more and more toward a likely general election matchup with John McCain, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee.
Obama has started looking at Clinton as less of a rival and more as an important ally who can help him win in November.
"Sen. Clinton is an outstanding public servant, she has worked tirelessly on this campaign, she has been a great senator for the state of New York and she is going to be a great asset when we go into November to make sure that we defeat the Republicans," Obama said on the campaign trail Sunday in South Dakota, adding Monday in Michigan that "she and I will be working together."
General Motors Corp. will close four plants, a move that could cost the jobs of hundreds of employees, the company¡¯s chief executive officer said Tuesday.
This announcement comes after GM, the nation¡¯s largest automaker, posted a $3.3 billion net loss in the first quarter of this year.
The plants slated to end vehicle production are in Ohio, Wisconsin, Mexico and Canada, GM chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner said at a news conference
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=3170519
With seconds to spare, 4-year-old Shang Tian-Zhu bolted out of his school as it crumbled to the ground in last month¡¯s massive earthquake.
But the memories of the May 12 temblor still haunt the young boy.
¡°He cannot go above a first floor or near tall buildings,¡± his mother said. ¡°He wakes up most nights, yelling ¡®earthquake!
Holding tight to his mother, he returned to class for the first time Monday in a makeshift school under the cover of a donated tent.
Psychological counselors are also visiting the tent-schools to talk with the students about the tragedy.
WASHINGTON (CNN) Travelers from England, France, Germany, Japan and about two dozen other "Visa Waiver" countries will be required to register electronically before boarding a plane or boat to the United States, the Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday.
DHS will begin accepting applications via a secure Internet site on August 1, and will require visitors to use the Internet system beginning January 12, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said.
The move will help U.S. authorities vet foreign visitors, he said.
The announcement is the latest change to the Visa Waiver Program, which allows citizens of 27 countries most of them European countries that are strong U.S. allies to travel to the U.S. without a visa.
Currently, citizens from VWP countries complete a written form providing basic biographical, travel and eligibility information while en route to the U.S. and submit the forms to border officials on arrival.
Under the new program, known as Electronic System for Travel Authorization, or ESTA, travelers will complete an electronic version of the form before traveling.
Initially, there will be no fee to apply for travel authorization, although one may be imposed later.
Visitors will still be required to have valid passports, but after January 12, travelers with valid ESTA clearance will not be required to complete the written form.
Chertoff said the system will make it easier for U.S. officials to check travelers against terror watch lists, and will help travelers by allowing them to deal with possible problems before they get to U.S. borders.
"a 21st century solution" to the problem of keeping terrorists out of the United States.
Critics, however, say the system does nothing to prevent "clean skin" terrorists those like shoe bomber Richard Reid who were not on terror watch lists from entering the United States.
Truckers and taxi drivers slowed traffic around Paris' business district to a crawl Tuesday in a protest over rising fuel prices, and hundreds of fishermen demonstrated in London to demand government help.
Dozens of trucks and taxis in Paris drove slowly toward and around the headquarters of oil giant Total in La Defense, site of the main financial district, to protest a new tax on heavily polluting vehicles.
Authorities said the operation snarled traffic on several highways.
Farmers elsewhere in France blocked ports and oil terminals as part of protests started by fishermen last month demanding government aid to help compensate for high fuel costs.
Fishermen from around the United Kingdom demonstrated in central London on Tuesday to demand their government's help in coping with soaring fuel prices.
Barrie Deas, chief executive of the National Federation of Fishermen's Organizations, said the cost of fuel for fishing boats was making it impossible for many in the industry to keep going.
"Boats are going out to sea and fish for five days in terrible conditions and we're not getting enough to even pay our crews," he said.
World oil prices have been climbing for months, and topped $135 a barrel on May 22.
They have since fallen slightly but remain at near-record levels.
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) An outbreak of salmonella food poisoning first linked to uncooked tomatoes has now been reported in nine states, U.S. health officials said Tuesday.
Lab tests have confirmed 40 illnesses in Texas and New Mexico as the same type of salmonella, right down to the genetic fingerprint.
An investigation by Texas and New Mexico health authorities and the Indian Health Service tied those cases to uncooked large tomatoes.
At least 17 people in Texas and New Mexico have been hospitalized.
None have died, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Thirty people have become sick with the same Salmonella Saintpaul infection in Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Idaho, Illinois and Indiana.
CDC investigators are looking into whether tomatoes were culprits there, too.
In Texas and New Mexico, raw large tomatoes including Roma and red round tomatoes were found to be a common factor in the 40 illnesses.
But no farm, distributor or grocery chain has been identified as the main source, said Casey Barton Behravesh, a CDC epidemiologist working on the investigation.
"The specific type and source of tomatoes is under investigation," she said.
Salmonella is a bacterial infection that lives in the intestinal tracts of humans and other animals.
The bacteria are usually transmitted to humans by eating foods contaminated with animal feces.
Most infected people suffer fever, diarrhea and abdominal cramps starting 12 to 72 hours after infection.
Many people recover without treatment. However, severe infection and even death are possible.
Infants, the elderly and people with weakened immune systems are at greatest risk for severe infections.
By mid-afternoon in Europe, light, sweet crude for July delivery fell $1.40 to $126.36 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. On Monday, the contract rose 41 cents to settle at $127.76.
In London, Brent crude on the ICE Futures exchange fell 46 cents to $127.56 a barrel.
Oil prices have fallen back sharply over the last dozen days after climbing above $135 a barrel on May 22.
Prices edged higher on Monday on concerns about heating oil supplies and after an OPEC official said there is no need for the cartel to pump more oil.
"Typically a seesaw pattern is an indication that the market has peaked," said Victor Shum, an energy analyst with Purvin & Gertz in Singapore. "But some see this as an opportunity to buy.
On Tuesday, General Motors said it would close four truck and SUV plants in the U.S., Canada and Mexico as surging fuel prices hasten a dramatic shift to smaller vehicles.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) Al Qaeda or one of its affiliates was probably behind an explosion outside the Danish embassy in Pakistan, Denmark's intelligence service said Tuesday.
The massive blast in the capital city of Islamabad killed at least six people, injured 24 others and damaged the embassy wall and a neighboring United Nations building.
It also left a 4-foot-deep crater in the road.
"It is ... the assessment that al Qaeda or an al Qaeda-related group is the possible perpetrator behind the attack," said Carsten Thomsen, spokesman for the Danish Security and Intelligence Service.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Danish embassies in predominantly Muslim countries, such as Pakistan, have been the scene of protests since Danish newspapers reprinted cartoons that Muslims say insult their prophet.
The Islamabad attack came six weeks after al Qaeda deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, in a video message, called on Muslims to retaliate against Denmark for the caricatures.
"The assessment as of now which is not a final assessment is that it seems to be a terror-related attack using a car bomb," Thomsen said. "And that it is, all in all, likely that the Danish embassy has been the target of the attack, regardless of the fact that the embassy lies in close proximity to other foreign representations.
Thomsen said the Danish Security and Intelligence Service did not discount the possibility that the attack may have been the work of some other militant groups.
"We should note that some other militant Islamic groups in Pakistan also might have the intention and capacity to target Danish targets in Pakistan," he said.
Sen. Hillary Clinton on Tuesday told New York lawmakers she is open to being the running mate of Sen. Barack Obama, her rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, two of the lawmakers told CNN.
Charles Rangel, a senior member of the New York Democratic delegation, also told CNN, "I have reason to believe she is open to the [vice president] slot.
One of the sources added that former President Clinton has been privately pushing for a couple of weeks for his wife to be No. 2 on the ticket.
On Monday night, a close friend and adviser of the former first lady told CNN Clinton will say tonight "that she will do whatever it takes" to put a Democrat in the White House. Obama insiders saw that as an indication she would accept an offer to be his running mate if asked.
"In her speech [Tuesday] night, she will convey the message that first and foremost she is committed to Democrats winning in November and will do whatever she's asked to do," the Clinton adviser said.
Even though she discussed being Obama's running mate, her campaign chairman earlier in the day said Clinton was "absolutely not" prepared to concede the race after the polls close tonight in Montana and South Dakota, the final two contests on the primary calendar.
Terry McAuliffe rejected as "100 percent" incorrect an Associated Press report that Clinton is preparing to acknowledge Obama has the delegates to win the nomination Tuesday night as the five-month Democratic primary process comes to a close.
Obama "doesn't have the numbers today, and until someone has the numbers the race goes on," McAuliffe told CNN.
Obama continued to inch closer to the nomination as superdelegate endorsements trickled in Tuesday afternoon.
Obama on Tuesday had 2,106 delegates, just 12 delegates shy of the 2,118 needed to clinch the nomination.
World champions Italy have called up Fiorentina defender Alessandro Gamberini to replace Cannavaro, with goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon likely taking over as captain.
Cannavaro was on the ground for about 20 minutes receiving treatment before being carried off on a stretcher.
The 7,000 local fans in attendance gave Cannavaro long applause when he finally exited.
Cannavaro was first taken to a hospital in Moedling, then he was transferred to the larger Vienna Akh facility for further tests.
Italy play their first game of the tournament against the Netherlands next Monday.
Cannavaro was instrumental in Italy's run to the World Cup title two years ago, earning the Golden Ball award based on his efforts at the tournament in Germany.
BERLIN, Germany (CNN) Berlin's mayor has expressed concern at Madame Tussauds' plans to include Adolf Hitler among prominent Germans who will be immortalized in wax at its new museum, his spokesman said Monday.
Klaus Wowereit has written a letter to the wax museum's curators urging them to consider carefully whether to include the Nazi dictator and, if they still do, to be careful how they present him, spokesman Guenter Kolodziej said Monday.
"In the mayor's view, he should not be shown as a cult figure," Kolodziej said.
Madame Tussauds' Berlin museum is scheduled to open on July 9.
It will be located on the Unter den Linden boulevard, close to the German capital's landmark Brandenburg Gate.
Spokeswoman Katrin Srumsdorf said the museum planned to send Wowereit an official response on Tuesday.
She stressed that curators recognize Hitler needs to be treated with sensitivity.
Unlike in London, where he stands along with major world leaders, Hitler's likeness in Berlin will be hunched over a desk in a dimly lit bunker, she added.
"He will appear as an old, broken man, as he might have looked in the days just before he committed suicide," Srumsdorf said.
The Hitler statue will be the only one on display behind glass, which means visitors won't be able to have their pictures taken with it;
Madame Tussauds Berlin will feature many prominent Germans, including former Chancellor Helmut Kohl, current Chancellor Angela Merkel and scientist Albert Einstein who left Germany shortly before Hitler took power in 1933, never to return.
Former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, one of Hillary Clinton's most ardent supporters, said Sunday it's time for Hillary Clinton to acknowledge she has lost her bid for the Democratic nomination.
Vilsack, who was briefly a presidential candidate himself last year, told the Associated Press it's "pretty clear that Senator Obama is going to be the nominee.
"After Tuesday's contests, she needs to acknowledge that he's going to be the nominee and quickly get behind him," Vilsack also said.
He endorsed Clinton shortly after and played a key role in the New York senator's unsuccessful Iowa campaign effort.
His comments came the same day the Clinton showed signs she plans to press on after Tuesday's contests &#8212;
continuing argue she has won the popular vote and that the party's superdelegates are able to switch their allegiances before the convention in August.
Nineteen U.S. troops were killed in Iraq in May, the fewest killed in any month since the war started.
The second-lowest month for American deaths was in February 2004, when 20 were killed.
May's toll was a significant decrease from April, when 50 were killed the highest monthly figure since September.
The U.S. military death toll spiked last year as the U.S. troop escalation, dubbed the "surge," was unfolding.
In 2007, there were 104 deaths in April, 126 in May and 101 in June.
Numbers began dropping when the "surge" strategy took hold and Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr suspended the activities of his militia, the Mehdi Army.
There were 78 American deaths in July, 2007;
29 in February; and 38 in March. May's death numbers appeared to support Senate testimony last month from Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq.
Petraeus said recent operations in three Iraqi cities have "contributed significantly to the reduction in violence.
The month of June may not bring such optimistic news.
A suicide car bomb struck an Iraqi police checkpoint outside police headquarters in Mosul on Monday, killing nine people, including four police officers, and wounding 46 people, a Mosul police official said.
Eight of the wounded were police officers, the official said.
Mosul is about 260 miles (420 km) north of Baghdad.
CORRENS, France (CNN) Brangelina must be cocooning.
The paparazzi swarming France's Cote d'Azur can't find Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.
Locals mutter or giggle about the invasion of Hollywood glam.
A flyover of their new home in a luxurious villa turned up no clues about a report they've added a set of twins which Pitt's manager says is "not true.
A handful of parked cars and two men were seen from up above one planted next to the chopper, another peering skyward through binoculars from an estate driveway.
Other than that, there was no sign of human life outdoors or in.
Several shutters were pulled on the main stone house.
The apparent calm did not stop the buzz.
"Entertainment Tonight" first reported on its Web site Friday that the actress had given birth in France.
Show host Mary Hart cited an unidentified source who claimed to be in the delivery room, saying the twins were born and that "yes, mother and babies are fine.
Pitt's manager, Cynthia Pett-Dante, told The Associated Press: "We have no comment except the story is not true," and several celebrity news outlets also reported the story was false.
Despite the denial, the Web site of Britain's Now magazine on Saturday cited "sources in France" saying Jolie's doctor had flown in from California, and that the couple named the twin girls Isla Marcheline and Amelie Jane Jolie-Pitt.
Jolie has said previously that her twins are due in August.
She and Pitt already have four children: 6-year-old Maddox, 4-year-old Pax and 3-year-old Zahara, who are adopted, and 2-year-old Shiloh.
If Dr. Robert Zubrin could take a trip to Mars, he would be sure to pack a bread maker in his suitcase.
Not just because bread is a pretty reliable expeditionary food, but because the act of cooking, according to Zubrin, seems to help people get along with each other, especially when they are in slightly dire, less than luxurious and more than stressful circumstances.
He has, after all, led almost a half-dozen mock Mars missions on barren Arctic ice fields and scorching Utah deserts with volunteer teams made up of students, scientists, journalists and anyone else willing to wear fake spacesuits and live in tiny tin-can-like habitation modules for days on end.
The simulated expeditions were made, in part, to research ways to live and work on the Red Planet.
what personality types might best be suited to make the 35 million-mile journey and who would be better off watching from Mission Control.
"Some of these crews have worked out very well," said Zubrin, president of the Mars Society, a 7,000-member multinational group determined to reach what it calls the New World. "Others were at each other's throats.
While it will probably take at least another 20 years before Zubrin or anyone else for that matter makes it to the Martian surface, NASA and other space agencies are already drawing up plans for a voyage that will present astronauts not only with physical but also psychological challenges never faced by humans before.
"When you go to Mars, all bets are off," said Dr. Nick Kanas, a professor at the University of California, San Francisco, who has studied astronaut psychology. "We don't know what is going to happen.
CINCINNATI, Ohio (CNN) The man who designed the Pringles potato chip packaging system was so proud of his accomplishment that a portion of his ashes has been buried in one of the iconic cans.
Fredric J. Baur, of Cincinnati, died May 4 at Vitas Hospice in Cincinnati, his family said.
Baur's children said they honored his request to bury him in one of the cans by placing part of his cremated remains in a Pringles container in his grave in suburban Springfield Township.
The rest of his remains were placed in an urn buried along with the can, with some placed in another urn and given to a grandson, said Baur's daughter, Linda Baur of Diamondhead, Mississippi.
Baur requested the burial arrangement because he was proud of his design of the Pringles container, a son, Lawrence Baur of Stevensville, Michigan, said Monday.
Baur was an organic chemist and food storage technician who specialized in research and development and quality control for Cincinnati-based Procter & Gamble Co.
Baur filed for a patent for the tubular Pringles container and for the method of packaging the curved, stacked chips in the container in 1966, and it was granted in 1970, P&G archivist Ed Rider
Baur retired from P&G in the early 1980s.
Oil dropped below $127 a barrel Monday in Asia on worries that prices are cutting into demand and as a probe into futures trading by a U.S. regulator continued to weigh on the market.
Jitters about record high fuel and energy prices particularly in the U.S., which has just started its summer driving season have helped to pull oil off the $135.09 a barrel trading record hit May 22.
Data from the U.S. Energy Department and Federal Highway Administration and several surveys in recent days suggest American consumers are driving less.
Additional selling pressure came with last week's announcement from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission about an investigation into possible price manipulation in oil futures markets.
The CFTC also announced new rules designed to increase transparency of U.S. and international energy futures markets.
"There are more concerns on the high pricing we have seen, that it will have a negative impact on demand, and the fact that the CFTC is expanding its investigation of manipulation in the oil markets," said Victor Shum, an energy analyst with Purvin & Gertz in Singapore.
Late afternoon in Singapore, light, sweet crude for July delivery was down 80 cents at $126.55 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
On Friday, the contract settled at $127.35 a barrel, up 73 cents.
(CNN) __ If you're prepared to put in some elbow grease and be the envy of your working-stiff friends, consider these cool jobs:
1. Toy creator
Toy creators, also known as commercial and industrial designers, get the best of both worlds:
They use their imaginations and play with toys without the hassle of noisy customers.
They get paid to think of ideas for new toys, produce them and play with them to see if they're ready to go into production.
2. Food scientist
You might not have ever cared who creates all the different flavors of ice cream as long as the scoops keep appearing in your bowl.
Well, food scientists spend their days in laboratories developing and perfecting new flavors so that low-fat birthday cake ice cream tastes good and not, well, low-fat.
3. Doll fashion designer
Fashion designers, like the ones who create the clothes you're wearing right now, decide what attire dolls need and come up with the best design to sell to the public.
It might sound like child's play, but consider that Barbie's wardrobe makes Mattel one of the world's largest clothing manufacturers.
4. Sommelier
Fine diners know that the perfect meal isn't just about the entr&eacute;
it's also about the glass of wine that accompanies each course. Of course, if you're like many people, you don't know if a Riesling is the best match for fresh tilapia or if it's a faux pas that will send the chef into tears.
Sommeliers know everything about wines, from the vineyards they were pressed in to the best entr&eacute; es to pair them with.
5. Athletic trainer
Every sports team has an athletic trainer on hand to get athletes into shape and to prevent injuries.
They know what stretches and exercises they need to get ready for a big game and how to treat any injuries that do occur.
6. Event planner
Event planners are responsible for finding convention and meeting sites, orchestrating enrollment and registration, possibly making transportation arrangements for attendees and negotiating prices for venues and hotels.
What makes this job cool is that, although you work hard ironing out the many wrinkles that big events entail, you get to visit various sites and network with people of every imaginable industry, which means you're not stuck at a desk all day.
Hillary Clinton said she will take the race for the Democratic presidential nomination "a day at a time" and is reviewing all options as she moves forward in her campaign.
"People have been trying to get me out of this race since Iowa and my political obituary has yet to be written and we're going forward," she told reporters Sunday before leaving Puerto Rico, where she snared 68 percent of the vote to win the majority of the delegates in the Caribbean U.S. territory.
After Tuesday's primaries in Montana and South Dakota the party's last contests superdelegates will push either Clinton or Sen. Barack Obama to the 2,118 delegates needed to secure the party's nomination.
Barack Obama leads among superdelegates 321 to 291, according to a CNN tally.
But Clinton pointed out superdelegates are free to "change their minds" and she hopes they will evaluate her wins since February and the coalition of voters she's pulled together.
"This has been such an intense process, I don't think there has been a lot of time for reflection of the sort that I'm advocating, which is OK," she said aboard her campaign plane after leaving Puerto Rico.
Obama leads Clinton in overall delegates 2,070 to 1,915, according to CNN calculations.
Despite Clinton's assertion that neither she nor Obama will have the necessary 2,118 delegates after Tuesday's showdown, the Obama camp expressed confidence that its candidate will clinch the nomination.
"If not Tuesday, I think it will be fairly soon," Obama campaign spokesman Robert Gibbs told ABC's "This Week" on Sunday. "We hope this week, absolutely.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) A massive blast targeting the Danish Embassy in Pakistan Monday killed at least six people and wounded as many as 18, authorities said.
Confusion lingered about the attack in the capital city of Islamabad and the number of casualties.
Police at the scene said a suicide car bomber pulled up next to the embassy at about 1 p.m. and detonated explosives.
But Senior Superintendent of Police Ahmad Latif told CNN that authorities could not immediately label it a suicide attack.
Likewise, a medical worker told CNN the explosion killed eight people, including a young child and at least one foreign national.
But Latif put the number of fatalities at six and said none of the dead were foreigners.
Among the wounded, he said, was a Brazilian citizen of Pakistani descent.
Authorities differed on the number of wounded as well, with figures ranging from five to 18.
No embassy official was seriously hurt, Latif said.
It is not uncommon for preliminary casualty figures to vary:
police cautioned that the numbers could rise.
"My immediate reaction is that you can only condemn this," said Stig Moeller. "It is terrible that terrorists do this.
They're destroying the Pakistanis' ability to connect with Denmark. It is completely unacceptable.
Most of the 17 Democratic senators who are uncommitted superdelegates will endorse Sen. Barack Obama for president this week, sources told CNN Monday.
The lawmakers will wait until after the South Dakota and Montana primaries Tuesday before announcing their support for Obama, two sources familiar with discussions between Obama supporters and these senators told CNN's Gloria Borger.
Obama supporters have been "pressing" for these superdelegates to endorse early this week, but according to one source, "the senators don't want to pound Hillary Clinton, and there is a sense she should be given a grace period.
A series of meetings on the topic have been facilitated at different times by Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, former Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle and Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin.
Durbin and Daschle are Obama supporters, while Harkin is uncommitted.
Obama is now 46 delegates short of the 2,118 needed to clinch the Democratic nomination, while Clinton needs 202.
Obama has the support of 331 superdelegates to Clinton's 292.
Superdelegates are party elected officials and activists who are free to vote for either candidate.
Following Sunday's Puerto Rico primary, Obama picked up two more superdelegate nods, and Clinton received one.
Jack Jordan, 37, will serve the probationary term in his home state of Maryland with a stipulation that he obtain outpatient psychiatric treatment, spokesperson Tracy Golden confirmed.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=3169009
The U.N. Security Council on Monday gave U.S. and allied warships new power to pursue pirates into the waters off Somalia, an effort to combat a new spate of hijackings off the Horn of Africa.
The unanimous resolution calls on U.N. members to use ¡°all necessary means to repress acts of piracy and armed robbery,¡± and authorizes warships to chase pirates into Somali territorial waters if necessary.
Somalia¡¯s U.N.-backed transitional government has said it would welcome international assistance in battling the pirates.
A French-led squadron, which includes U.S. and German ships, is currently patrolling the Somali coast.
Still, three European freighters were hijacked last week in the Gulf of Aden, which connects the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea off the Horn of Africa.
CNN has projected that Hillary Clinton will win big in Puerto Rico.
Two of the key reasons are her strong performance among those voters who favor statehood for Puerto Rico and her husband's popularity on the island.
According to CNN's exit polls, 60 percent of Puerto Ricans who participated in the primary favor statehood, and Clinton won 82 percent of those voters.
Bill Clinton's overwhelming popularity in Puerto Rico also gave the New York senator a boost.
Just over 80 percent said they had a favorable view of the former president, and those voters went for Clinton by a 56 point margin, 78 percent to 22 percent.
(Among the 15 percent who hold an unfavorable opinion of Bill Clinton, 76 percent voted for Obama.)
(CNN) Myanmar's defense minister said Sunday his government broadcast warnings before a deadly cyclone hit the country last month and it has acted promptly since then in providing relief.
Major General Aye Mint told an international security conference in Singapore that military rulers broadcast warnings more than a week before Cyclone Nargis made landfall on May 2.
"The government warned the general public about the cyclone and storm through newspapers, radio and television since 24th of April," he said.
The minister once again reiterated Myanmar's position that the relief phase of the disaster is already over and the country has entered the reconstruction and rehabilitation phase.
Donor nations have insisted that immediate relief needs have yet to be met, with the United Nations saying it will take at least another six months.
search and rescue task, we are now emphasizing on the second phase," Mint said. "Works in this phase include rebuilding homes and reconstruction of the villages for local people hit by the storm.
About 130,000 people either died or are still missing since the cyclone struck.
Myanmar's government has put the death toll at 78,000.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon guided a conference of 52 donor nations in Myanmar on May 25.
At the meeting, countries pledged in excess of $100 million to help Myanmar recover and said they are willing to open up their wallets further once aid groups are granted access to the worst-affected areas.
Israel has approved the construction of almost 900 new homes in East Jerusalem, a move that could hinder international efforts to secure a peace deal by year's end.
The Palestinians hope to make East Jerusalem the capital of a future Palestinian state.
A spokesman for Israeli Housing Minister Zeev Boim said his office will issue a tender this week for the construction of 884 houses, 121 of them in Har Homa.
Israel and the Palestinians are in peace talks that include the future of Jewish settlements and East Jerusalem.
In March, Israel announced plans to build 600 homes in East Jerusalem as part of the Jerusalem mayor's initiative to construct 40,000 homes in the city to ease the housing plight of young couples.
At the time, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who was in the region to shore up support for the peace initiative said Israel should stop all settlement activity.
Largely at the request of the United States, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert froze construction in both Har Homa and Pisgat Zeev, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.
Australia, a staunch U.S. ally and one of the first countries to commit troops to the war in Iraq five years ago, ended combat operations there Sunday.
Soldiers lowered the Australian flag that had flown over Camp Terendak in the southern Iraqi city of Talil.
The combat troops were expected to return to Australia over the next few weeks, with the first of them arriving home Sunday.
The move fulfills a campaign promise by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who was swept into office in November largely on the promise that he would bring home the country's 550 combat troops by the middle of 2008.
Rudd has said the Iraq deployment made Australia more of a target for terrorism.
Rudd's predecessor, former Prime Minister John Howard, said he was "baffled" by the decision to withdraw the troops.
Howard, who led the country for 11 years and celebrated his friendship with President Bush, told the newspaper that the decision to send Australian troops to Iraq in 2003 was "very, very , very hard."
But he stood by his choice, which he said helped further deepen Australia's alliance with the United States.
Australian troops helped train 33,000 Iraqi army soldiers following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
They helped train the Iraqis in logistics management, combat service support and counterinsurgency operations.
BANGKOK, Thailand (CNN) Thailand's prime minister has warned he may send in police and soldiers to disperse several hundred people who have been staging an around-the-clock protest in Bangkok for the past six days.
The Peoples Alliance for Democracy(PAD) is protesting proposed changed to Thailand's constitution which would protect former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his followers from corruption charges.
Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej issued his warning on government television Saturday, saying the protest must stop immediately and calling it a "make or break point.
PAD officials have rejected the warning and vowed to continue their demonstration which has not stopped since it began last Sunday.
It was a series of rallies by PAD in 2006 that led up to a military coup that toppled Prime Minister Thaksin, a wealthy telecommunications tycoon who now lives in exile.
Thaksin's party, the People Power Party(PPP), is the largest member of the current coalition government.
(CNN) A magnitude-6.4 earthquake hit the Pacific Ocean off the northern Philippines Sunday morning and was felt as far as southeastern Taiwan, the U.S. Geological Survey reported.
The epicenter was about 50 miles (80 kilometers) west of Basco, the capital of the Batan Islands in the Philippines and about 340 miles (550 kilometers) south of Taipei, Taiwan.
No injuries, deaths or damage were immediately reported, said Manny Torres of the National Disaster Coordinating Center in Manila, Philippines.
The center put the earthquake at a 6.3 magnitude.
Sen. Hillary Clinton claimed victory in Puerto Rico on Sunday and insisted that she is leading Sen. Barack Obama in the popular vote.
With 93 percent of precincts reporting, Clinton was ahead of Barack Obama by more than a 2-1 ratio.
Her win gives her the larger share of Puerto Rico's 55 delegates.
The Democratic primary season ends Tuesday when Montana and South Dakota cast their votes.
"When the voting concludes on Tuesday, neither Sen. Obama nor I will have the number of delegates to be the nominee," she said in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Obama leads in the overall delegate count 2,070 to Clinton's 1,915.
A candidate needs 2,118 to claim the Democratic nomination.
The Clinton campaign has been focusing on the popular vote as it tries to convince superdelegates to pick her instead of Obama.
The superdelegates are a group of about 800 party leaders and officials who vote at the convention for the candidate of their choice.
Obama campaign spokesman Robert Gibbs expressed confidence that Obama would clinch the nomination in the coming days.
"If not Tuesday, I think it will be fairly soon," he said Sunday on ABC's "This Week.
"We hope this week, absolutely," he added.
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) Massage, that art of laying on hands, has been around for a while and has seen some changes through the years.
Gone is the simple back rub with some oil tossed in.
Today's list of massage options is long and varied, a veritable smorgasbord of touchy-feely options.
But no matter the variation, most experts agree that massage is a good thing.
"It increases blood flow to muscles, and that increases healing and speeds healing time," said professor Allan Platt, who teaches physician assistants at Emory University's School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia. "It's also good for obtaining the relaxation affect for the entire body, which lowers blood pressure, lowers the heart rate and decreases stress, which is all good.
But there are times when massage is not the answer. Platt gives examples:
"If there's any damage to bones or muscles that could be manipulated out of place," massage isn't a good idea, he cautioned. "Like a slipped disc or things like that, where it actually may increase irritation of the nerves or the nerve roots. Those are times where it may be beneficial to stay away or stay away from that area.
Other factors also might make avoiding that area a good idea.
"Rashes stay away from those areas that might be infected," warned Martha Young, a certified massage therapist. "Whether it's eczema, poison ivy or some other skin allergy, massaging that area might irritate it further.
She suggests clearing the therapy with a doctor, even before heading out for that massage.
She has massaged patients with rashes and just avoids those areas so it isn't a complete deal-breaker.
But some things are deal breakers.
Patients with high blood pressure who are not on medication should rethink this hands-on therapy method.
"Because getting a massage will increase your blood flow," Young explained, "that increase in a patient with already high blood pressure could cause problems.
And cancer patients should be especially cautious.
The lymphatic system is a key vehicle for the spread of cancer.
Massage that stimulates those glands could be detrimental, Young says.
The best rule of thumb is to check with your doctor if you have any major medical issues before you lie on that heated-up and padded-down massage table.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Sunday he will make a decision within "a matter of days" to withdraw U.S. Navy ships from the coast of Myanmar, because "it's becoming pretty clear the regime is not going to let us help.
As a result, he said many more people will die, particularly those in areas that can only be reached by helicopters, such as those sitting idle on the U.S. ships.
Speaking to reporters at the close of an international security conference here, Gates said the Myanmar representative at the forum did not seem interested in speaking with him.
But he said "it was interesting to watch as minister after minister described their respective unhappiness at their inability to get assistance in to Burma.
It was particularly pointed, he said, because Chinese officials thanked other countries for the help provided after the earthquake in China.
Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that even when the decision is made to pull the four U.S. Navy ships off the coast, the vessels will move away slowly enough to turn back if there is an unexpected change of heart by the Myanmar government.
Gates' comments came a day after he made his strongest public condemnation of the Myanmar government at the conference, saying that Myanmar's rulers "have kept their hands in their pockets" while other countries sought to help cyclone victims.
Legendary designer Yves Saint Laurent, who reworked the rules of fashion by creating elegant pantsuits that came to define how modern women dressed, died Sunday evening, a longtime friend and associate said.
Pierre Berge did not give details but said Saint Laurent had died following a long illness.
A towering figure of 20th century fashion, Saint Laurent was widely considered the last of a generation that included Christian Dior and Coco Chanel and made Paris the fashion capital of the world.
From the first YSL tuxedo and his trim pantsuits to see-through blouses, safari jackets and glamorous gowns, Saint Laurent created instant classics that remain stylish decades later.
When the designer announced his retirement in 2002 at age 65 and the closure of the Paris-based haute couture house he had founded 40 years earlier, it was mourned in the fashion world as the end of an era.
BEICHUAN COUNTY, China (CNN) Chinese soldiers and engineers have completed a spillway from an earthquake-created lake that was threatening to burst its banks in the central county of Beichuan, state-run news agency Xinhua reported Sunday.
Tangjiashan Lake was created when a landslide caused by the earthquake dammed Jianjiang River, threatening quake-hit communities downstream.
Authorities were concerned that the lake could burst its banks or that another aftershock or earthquake could rupture the earthen dam and cause a sudden flood of water on the communities downstream.
Workers hope the spillway will allow the water to bypass Beichuan town.
Farther downriver, in the town of Mianyang, Communist Party chief Tan Li head of the city's quake control and relief efforts renewed an order that 1.3 million people living downstream from Tangjiashan Lake be evacuated to higher ground.
The diversion project, which included a 475-meter (517-yard) channel up to 10 meters (33 feet) wide, was completed at 10 p.m. (10 a.m. ET) Saturday, said Liu Ning, chief engineer of the Ministry of Water Resources and the project's deputy director, Xinhua reported.
By Saturday night, about 135,500 cubic meters of mud and rocks had been removed from the lake, and the plan to use explosives to blow away the blockage was abandoned because of the channel's completion, Xinhua cited Liu as saying.
According to the plan, the lake which has been rising about 1.6 meters daily and was seven meters from the top of its naturally-formed dam would spill into its man-made canal between now and Thursday.
The lake in Beichuan County is the largest of several "quake lakes" created by the earthquake nearly three weeks ago.
The project to divert the water took nearly a week.
It will be Wednesday or Thursday before authorities know whether their emergency operation is successful, a commander said.
Because the region is so remote most of the roads were cut off by landslides the government has brought the equipment and personnel in with Russian military helicopters.
Another challenge is the weather.
The commander said some members of the Chinese army have resorted to walking to the site, carrying fuel on their backs, because the helicopters were unable to fly in the fog and rain.
Many of those who have already left have been living in tents after losing their homes in the earthquake, forcing them to pick up and move again some for the third time.
The government told frustrated evacuees that they were creating a safer place for them to stay.
However, the residents said the government-created site is not as desirable as the site they are being ordered to leave. They say they would like to return once floodwaters recede.
After a day of wrangling in front of a sometimes unruly crowd, the Democratic National Committee's rules and bylaws committee reinstated all of Florida and Michigan's delegates to its party convention, with each getting a half-vote to penalize the states for moving their primaries earlier than the party had approved.
The move will leave front-runner Sen. Barack Obama's lead over rival Sen. Hillary Clinton intact.
"This results in Sen. Clinton obtaining a substantial number of additional pledged delegates, but I also understand that many members of the Florida and Michigan delegations feel satisfied that the decision was fair," Obama said after a campaign event in Aberdeen, South Dakota.
"Our main goal is to get this resolved so we can immediately turn the focus of the entire party on winning Florida and Michigan and delivering on the needs of the people in Florida and Michigan states that are enormously important, states where a lot of people are struggling.
The Florida decision, which follows the pro-Clinton results of that state's primary, was greeted by virtually all sides as an acceptable compromise on a thorny issue.
But Clinton backers vowed to fight the Michigan decision, which gave the New York senator a 10-delegate edge over Obama in a state where his name didn't appear on the primary ballot.
With no Michigan or Florida delegates included, Obama led Clinton by 202 delegates.
The committee's ruling gave Clinton 105 pledged delegates from Florida and 69 from Michigan, with a total of 87 votes.
Obama received 67 pledged delegates from Florida and 59 from Michigan, casting a total of 63 votes.
That tally leaves Obama ahead by the equivalent of 174 delegates.
Sen. Hillary Clinton will win Puerto Rico's Democratic primary by a wide margin, CNN projects, giving her the larger share of the territory's 55 delegates.
Clinton campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe said Puerto Rico was "another great win" for the New York senator.
Clinton swept Obama in every major demographic group, including groups Obama generally wins, such as younger voters and higher income voters, according to CNN's exit polls.
The primary season ends Tuesday when voters in Montana and South Dakota weigh in in the lengthy nomination battle.
Those states have a combined 31 delegates up for grabs.
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) A pressurized cylinder exploded at Universal Studios on Sunday, injuring two firefighters as they tried to fight a blaze that began early in the day, Los Angeles authorities said.
The blaze at the studios' back lot destroyed several movie sets and the "King Kong" exhibit, and damaged a video vault.
Several firefighters suffered minor injuries, fire officials said.
No other injuries were reported, and the blaze is reportedly contained.
The fire destroyed an area called New York Street, which includes movie set-style buildings designed to look like the cityscape of New York City.
Between 40,000 and 50,000 videos and reels in vaults were damaged, said Ron Meyer, chief operating officer of Universal Studios, The Associated Press reported.
"The video library was affected and damaged, but our main vault of our motion picture negatives was not.
Hours after the morning blaze was reported, the roughly two-block area north of Los Angeles appeared charred and resembled a "disaster movie," Los Angeles City Councilman Tom LaBonge said.
He said he could see the smoke from his Silver Lake home Sunday morning. "It looked like a bomb had exploded," he said.
45 a.m. ET) and was contained by 9 a.m.
The set of "The Changeling," a film recently directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Angelina Jolie, was "completely destroyed," Meyer said.
Another area, called "Courthouse Square," also was destroyed, Meyer said.
Numerous movies have been shot in that area, including several scenes of the 1985 hit "Back to the Future," Meyer said.
And two of the eight locations used by the CBS series "Ghost Whisperer" were affected, he said.
A tour of the back lot area was closed Sunday but was expected to reopen Monday, park officials said.
Fire inspectors had not determined what caused the blaze, said Los Angles County Fire Chief P. Michael Freeman.
There were no reports of filming at the time of the fire.
Jamaica's Usain Bolt is officially the fastest man on the planet as he set a new 100 meters world record of 9.72 seconds at an international meeting in New York.
Bolt was trimming two hundredths of a second off the record previously held by fellow-Jamaican Asafa Powell and for good measure relegated world champion Tyson Gay to a distant second.
Bolt gave credit to a big contingent of Jamaicans who were in the crowd to watch his feat.
"I just wanted to give them what they wanted.
"He ran a perfect race," Gay said. "I've got to take my hat off to him. "
The lanky 1.95 meter Bolt had produced his previous best performances before this year over 200 meters and finished second to Gay at this distance in last year's world championships.
But the record changes all that and with Powell, who is recovering from a chest injury, and Gay he will be among the favorites for the 100 meters at the Beijing Olympics.
Seven people died and more than 80 were injured Friday when a commercial airliner overshot the runway and traveled into an adjoining street, where it crushed three vehicles and cracked into three sections before coming to a halt a few feet from a house, officials said.
124 passengers, two pilots, four flight attendants and five crew members who were being repositioned &#8212; when it started the day in San Salvador.
The Airbus A-320 landed at Toncontin International Airport amid high winds and low visibility at at 9:45 a.m. (11: 45 a.m. ET), a Taca spokeswoman said.
(CNN) &#8211; Governments need to ban all tobacco advertising and promotions to deter adolescents from smoking, the World Health Organization said Friday.
The campaign is geared toward young people and the effects of advertising on tobacco use, citing statistics that show most smokers start before 18 years old, some reported as young as 10 years old.
¡°The tobacco industry employs predatory marketing strategies to get young people hooked to their addictive drug,¡± said Douglas Bettcher, director of the agency¡¯s Tobacco Free Initiative.
He said that¡¯s why the United Nations-backed organization is urging governments to ban all tobacco advertising, because ¡°when one form of advertising is banned, the tobacco industry simply shifts its vast resources to another channel,¡± including movies, magazines, sports venues and music.
The more they are exposed to tobacco advertising, the more likely young people will try smoking, according to the WHO based on recent studies.
The latest updated report on tobacco treatment from the United States Department of Health and Human Services says that tobacco kills more than 435,000 people in the United States each year, the equivalent of almost 1 of every 5 people in the country. About 1,200 adolescents and children daily become cigarette smokers, according to the report.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=3165582
Denmark held the Netherlands to a 1-1 friendly draw in Eindhoven on Thursday, Marco van Basten's side's penultimate warm-up match for Euro 2008.
Ruud van Nistelrooy opened the scoring for the Dutch after 28 minutes but, with the home side squandering a host of chances, Christian Poulsen levelled 10 minutes after the break.
Coach van Basten made four changes to the side that beat Ukraine 3-0 at the weekend, with the inclusion of Arjen Robben and Van Nistelrooy the most decisive.
Van Basten announced this week that the Real Madrid striker would be his undisputed first choice striker and after 28 minutes Van Nistelrooy put the Dutch ahead after a fluent combination between Wesley Sneijder and Robben.
Robben, who only played half of the 12
qualifiers due to injuries, was in fine form and looks a certain starter in next month's tournament as one of the three attacking midfielders.
However, in defense, the Dutch looked shaky and an error from Joris Mathijsen allowed Nicklas Bendtner to control the ball in the area and set up Poulsen for the equaliser.
The Dutch have one more warm up against Wales in Rotterdam on Sunday before starting their Euro campaign against world champions Italy on June 9, with France and Romania as their other opponents in Group C.
Meanwhile, Turkey continued their preparations for the Euro 2008 finals with a 2-0 victory over Finland in Duisburg, Germany.
NEW DELHI, India (CNN) Members of an Indian ethnic community burned effigies, squatted on railroad tracks and blocked highways Thursday in an attempt to bring part of the country to a halt in a protest over caste classification.
The Gujjar community part of India's centuries-old, complex social caste order are in their seventh straight day of demonstrations to demand a bigger share of government jobs and education benefits.
Several days of clashes between Gujjars and police have left at least 35 people dead.
On Thursday, more than 35,000 police officers fanned out across the capital city of New Delhi and surrounding areas to maintain peace during the 'bandh,' or shutdown.
By 1 p.m., major arteries joining Delhi to surrounding cities had reopened.
In the Gujjar's home state of Rajasthan where the protests began last week Thursday's shutdown appeared to have been only partially successful.
Some shopkeepers shuttered their stores and universities postponed exams.
But many government buildings remained open.
Railway officials canceled 16 train routes, stranding thousands, said Northern Railway spokesman Rajesh Khare.
The Rajasthan government airdropped pamphlets asking demonstrators to refrain from violence.
But protesters picked up the pink-colored pamphlets and made a bonfire of them, state news agency The Press Trust of India said.
The demonstration commemorates the anniversary of a similar Gujjar protest last year that claimed at least 25 lives.
JANEIRO, Brazil (CNN) The National Indian Foundation says one of Brazil's last uncontacted Indian tribes has been spotted in the far western Amazon jungle near the Peruvian border.
The Brazilian government foundation, known as Funai, said Thursday the Indians were sighted in an Ethno-Environmental Protected Area along the Envira River in flights over remote Acre state.
Funai said it photographed "strong and healthy" warriors, six huts and a large planted area.
But it said it was not known to which tribe they belonged.
The tribe sighted recently is one of the last not to be contacted by officials.
Survival International said the Indians are in danger from illegal logging in Peru, which is driving tribes over the border and could lead to conflict with the estimated 500 uncontacted Indians now living on the Brazilian side.
There are more than 100 uncontacted tribes worldwide, most of them in Brazil and Peru, the group said in a statement.
"These pictures are further evidence that uncontacted tribes really do exist," Survival director Stephen Corry said.
"The world needs to wake up to this, and ensure that their territory is protected in accordance with international law. Otherwise, they will soon be made extinct.
TOKYO, Japan (CNN) Japanese scientists say they have used cutting-edge technology to create a noodle bowl so small, it can be seen only through a microscope.
Mechanical engineering professor Masayuki Nakao said Thursday that he and his students at the University of Tokyo used a carbon-based material to produce a noodle bowl with a diameter of 1/25,000 of an inch.
The project was aimed at developing nanotube-processing technology.
Nakao said the Japanese-style ramen bowl was carved out of microscopic nanotubes.
Nanotubes are tube-shaped pieces of carbon, measuring about 1/10,000 of the thickness of a human hair.
The ramen bowl experiment included a string of "noodles" that measured 1/12,500 of an inch in length.
A helicopter crashed into a building in Panama City on Thursday, killing 11 of the 12 people aboard, including Chile's federal police chief, a Panamanian government official said.
The incident occurred during the afternoon in a commercial zone of the city as the Panamanian helicopter was carrying several Panamanian police officials and six members of a group from Chile.
They had been attending a regional forum in the city of Colon, the official said.
Witnesses said a rotor blade hit a three-story building, causing the helicopter to fall in a ball of fire.
Several people on the ground were burned, and the building which houses a clothing store also caught fire.
It took firefighters hours to control the flames and to keep the blaze from spreading to other buildings.
Chilean police chief Gen. Jose Alejandro Bernales and his wife were among the dead, the official said.
A delegation from Chile was expected to arrive late Thursday to help identify the bodies. No cause was immediately identified for the crash.
The Chilean government has declared three days of mourning.
Steve Yohanan loved having a cat around while he worked at home, enjoying how she put her head against his hand or purred in his lap.
After his allergies acted up and he had to give the cat away, he missed the touch interaction he had with her and started thinking about how he could study these emotional responses to touch.
Now, Yohanan, 40, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Computer Science at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, has come up with a prototype for a robotic creature he'll use to figure out how humans use touch to communicate.
Although the research could have implications for robot pets, and that's close to what Yohanan is doing, he's more interested in using it to understand human-to-human communication.
"I hope that this opens up interaction when you're dealing with social interaction, specifically kind of in a more general robotics sense, but also if you're dealing with mediated interaction, so if you're using technology to interact with another person," he said.
The furry robot looks somewhat like a rabbit with no eyes, nose or mouth.
Yohanan left off facial features because he wanted to exclusively study how people respond to the creature through touch.
Although the creature can't move around, a person can feel it breathing and purring.
The creature's bunny ears will also stiffen or relax, depending on how it "feels" in response to a human's touch.
Yohanan imagines that the creature might lead to the development of a robotic pet that could connect couples who don't see each other often.
For example, a wife who works different hours than her husband could convey her mood through touch to the creature, and the husband would sense that mood through the robot when he came home.
"The person knows, oh, well, Steve's in a good mood today," he said.
MEMPHIS, Tennessee (CNN) For almost 60 years, Dianne Odell lived inside a 7-foot-long metal tube, unable to breathe outside it but determined not to let it destroy her spirit.
From her 750-pound iron lung, she got a high school diploma, took college courses and wrote a children's book about a "wishing star" named Blinky.
"I've had a very good life, filled with love and family and faith," she said in 1994. "You can make life good, or you can make it bad.
Odell, 61, died Wednesday when a power failure shut off electricity to the tube and stopped the pump drawing air into her lungs.
Family members were unable to get an emergency generator working after a power failure knocked out electricity to the Odell family's residence near Jackson, about 80 miles northeast of Memphis, brother-in-law Will Beyer said.
"We did everything we could do, but we couldn't keep her breathing," Beyer said. "Dianne had gotten a lot weaker over the past several months, and she just didn't have the strength to keep going.
Odell, who contracted polio when she was 3 years old, lived with her parents, Freeman and Geneva Odell, and their house was equipped with an emergency generator designed to fire up immediately in a power failure.
Family members even tried an emergency hand pump attached to the iron lung.
Capt. Jerry Elston of the Madison County Sheriff's Department said emergency crews could do little to help.
The local power company reported spotty power outages in the area because of storms.
Her care was provided by her parents, other family members and aides provided by a nonprofit foundation.
"Dianne was one of the kindest and most considerate people you could meet. She was always concerned about others and their well-being," said Frank McMeen, president of the West Tennessee Health Care Foundation, which helped raise money for equipment and nursing assistance for Odell.
Odell accepted her life with grace, McMeen said.
Odell's iron lung, similar to those used during the U.S. polio epidemics that peaked in the 1950s, was a cylindrical chamber with a seal at the neck.
She lay on her back with only her head exposed and made eye contact with visitors through an angled mirror.
She operated a television set with a small blow tube and wrote on a voice-activated computer.
The positive and negative pressures produced by the machine forced air into her lungs and then expelled it.
Iron lungs were largely replaced by positive-pressure airway ventilators in the late 1950s that give users much more freedom of movement.
But a spinal deformity from the polio kept Odell from wearing a more modern portable breathing device.
Though Odell could not leave the iron lung, she was able to be moved in the machine.
For her 60th birthday, in February 2007, friends and family held a party for her, with about 200 guests, at a downtown hotel in Jackson, a town of about 50,000 residents.
"She had a 9-foot birthday cake, and she had letters ... from people all over the country," McMeen said.
Naomi Campbell has been charged with assaulting two police officers during a "luggage rage" incident at Heathrow Airport, her lawyer and prosecutors said Thursday.
The 38-year-old supermodel was charged when she reported to Heathrow police station to answer bail over the April 3 fracas, lawyer Simon Nicholls said.
The Crown Prosecution Service said Campbell faced five charges three counts of assaulting a constable, one count of disorderly conduct and one count of using threatening, abusive words or behavior to the crew of the airplane.
Campbell was ordered to appear at a west London magistrates' court June 20.
Witnesses said Campbell was aboard a British Airways plane due to take off for Los Angeles when she became involved in a dispute over her luggage.
Tens of thousands of bags had been separated from their owners at Heathrow's Terminal 5 after its chaotic opening in late March.
Campbell was removed from the plane and held for eight hours at the airport police station before being released on bail.
She arrived at the police station Thursday in a chauffeur-driven Mercedes.
The assault charges carry a maximum sentence of six months in prison and/or a fine of up to $10,000. The other charges are punishable by a fine.
(CNN) Scientists have trained a group of monkeys to feed themselves marshmallows using a robot arm controlled by sensors implanted in their brains, a feat that could one day help paralyzed people operate prosthetic limbs on their own, according to a study out Thursday.
"I think we'll be doing this on an experimental basis in two years," said Schwartz, professor of neurobiology at the university's School of Medicine.
The results were appeared in the journal Nature's online edition on Thursday.
The arm is controlled by a network of tiny electrodes called a brain-machine interface, implanted into the motor cortex of the monkeys' brains the region that controls movement.
It picks up the signals of brain cells as they generate commands to move and converts those into directional signals for the robotic arm, which the monkeys eventually used as a surrogate for their own.
The researchers report that one monkey achieved a success rate of 78 percent over 13 days of trials, while a second monkey completed its tasks with the arm in 61 percent of tests conducted over two days.
They said the animals also were able to direct the arm around obstacles to ensure safe delivery of the food, which included small items such as grapes and marshmallows.
"I'm most excited by the chance to study many neurons at the same time, so we can see how they work together as a network," Schwartz told CNN.
The research provides the opportunity to consider interactions among neurons, he added.
"Understanding the brain at a more fundamental level, I think, will result in all sorts of chances to treat a wide range of brain diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's", according to the professor.
An earthquake shook southern Iceland on Thursday, reportedly causing injuries and damaging roads and buildings.
The 6.1 magnitude temblor struck about 3:46 p.m. (11: 46 a.m. ET), according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Its epicenter was about 50 km (31 miles) east-southeast of the capital, Reykjavik, and was about 10 km (6.2 miles) below the Earth's surface.
It was unclear exactly how many people were injured or the severity of their injuries, Olli Tynes, a journalist with Reykjavik's Channel 2, told CNN.
A hospital in a town near the epicenter was also reported damaged, and some wings have had to be evacuated, he said.
Roads and bridges in the area have been closed.
Tynes said he has been speaking to residents of the towns closest to the epicenter.
"They said they thought the world was coming to an end," he said. "They thought they were going to die.
There have been no reports of homes collapsing, as most homes in Iceland are built to withstand earthquakes, he said.
Although Iceland is seismically active, its last major quakes were on June 17 and June 21, 2000, with quakes of 6.5 and 6.4, respectively.
The temblors damaged homes and buildings, but caused no serious injuries.
JAKARTA, Indonesia (CNN) The world's rarest rhino does not like the limelight.
A Javan Rhino was captured on video attacking a camera set up in an Indonesian jungle to study the habits of the animal, apparently because she sensed the lens was a threat to her calf, the WWF said Thursday.
There are only around 70 Javan Rhinos in the wild, about 60 of which live in Ujung Kulon National Park on the western tip of Java island.
The remainder live in Vietnam.
In the first month of operation, five infrared video traps have captured two images of the camera-shy mother and calf, said Adhi Rachmat Hariyadi, head of the WWF's Ujung Kulon project.
"It is very unusual to catch a glimpse of the Javan Rhino deep inside the rain forest," he said, adding the attacked camera was undamaged and put back on its stand the day after the incident.
WWF officials said they planned to relocate several of the rhinos in the park to another part of Indonesia in the hope that they breed.
Otherwise, they fear the species could be wiped out in the event of disease or natural disaster.
Adhi said the WWF decided to implement the video technology based on the success of similar methods used to track rhinos in Sabah, Malaysia.
Rhino numbers in Indonesia over the past 50 years have been decimated by rampant poaching for horns used in traditional Chinese medicines and destruction of forests by farmers, illegal loggers and palm oil plantation companies.
Apart from the 60 Javan Rhinos, there are thought to be around 300 Sumatran rhinos still alive in isolated pockets in the forests of Malaysia and Sumatra island.
China is turning to its former enemy Japan for help as it seeks to boost its relief operations after the deadly earthquake that has devastated the southwestern Sichuan province.
China has begun talks with Tokyo about what would be the first significant military dispatch involving the two countries since World War II, The Associated Press reported Thursday.
"Given the magnitude of this disaster, if some countries or militaries are ready to provide us with material in urgent need, we will express our welcome," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang, AP reported.
The Kyodo news agency said Japan plans to dispatch Self-Defense Forces aircraft to transport tents and other relief supplies to main airports, but the troops will not be allowed to go into the affected areas.
The Beijing regime has welcomed aid from the international community as it seeks to help the 158,000 people evacuated from nearly 170 areas.
The official death toll from the quake climbed to 68,516 on Thursday;
another 365,399 people were injured and 19,350 missing.
About 5 million are thought to be homeless, the government says.
One of China's main concerns after the May 12 earthquake is to deal with the effects of its aftershocks, with landslides having created dangerous "quake lakes."
Thousands of people evacuated after the initial 7.9-magnitude quake face the prospect of having to be moved on again due to fears of massive flooding if the the lakes burst, CNN's Kyung Lah reported Thursday.
(CNN) The economy, your location, industry trends even the hiring manager's mood can influence whether or not you get a job.
Here are 25 ways you might be unknowingly sabotaging your own job search:
The first steps
1. Not keeping track of your accomplishments
2. Leaving on a bad note
3. Not networking
4. Only using the Internet
5. Only searching for the perfect job
sum&eacute; and cover letter
6. Writing a generic cover letter
7. Typos
8. Including your current work info as the best place to contact you
9. Focusing on yourself and not on the company in the cover letter
10. Not targeting your r&eacute; sum&eacute; to the position
The interview
11. Showing up late
12. Dressing for the wrong job
13. Not asking questions
14. Badmouthing a former boss
15. Not paying attention
16. Not researching the position
17. Not researching the company
18. Forgetting common etiquette
19. Forgetting you're being interviewed from the moment you walk in
20. Bringing up salary too soon
After the interview
21. Not sending a thank-you note
22. Being over-aggressive in follow-up
23. Not learning from your mistakes
24. Forgetting where you've applied and interviewed
25. Stopping your job search while you wait for a response
Sen. Barack Obama said that Democrats will know their presidential nominee after the final two primary states vote next week and that in his view, the general election campaign officially will begin.
I think Saturday will be important, put the Michigan-Florida issue behind us," Obama said Wednesday on a flight from Denver, Colorado, to Chicago, Illinois.
The party's Rules and Bylaws Committee meets this weekend to consider what to do about delegations from Florida and Michigan, which broke ranks to hold primaries earlier than party rules allowed.
And at that point, all the information will be in," Obama said, referring to Sunday's vote in Puerto Rico and Tuesday's primaries in Montana and South Dakota.
"I suspect that you know whatever remaining superdelegates will make their decisions pretty quickly after that.
By most tangible measures, the general election fight between Obama and the presumptive Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain, has begun.
The Republican National Committee has focused its full firepower on Obama for months, and this week, its Democratic counterpart took on McCain after his team accused Obama of campaign trail gaffes and distortions.
CNN.com/Live will stream live coverage of the meeting from start to finish on Saturday.
By CNN's count, Obama is 48 delegates shy of the 2,026 needed to clinch the Democratic presidential nomination and 198 delegates ahead of Clinton.
The World Bank announced on Thursday that it is making $1.2 billion available in grants and loans to combat the global food crisis, including some $200 million for those most at risk in the world¡¯s poorest countries.
¡°These initiatives will help address the immediate danger of hunger and malnutrition for the two billion people struggling to survive in the face of rising food prices,¡± said World Bank Group President Robert B. Zoellick in a statement.
Furthermore, they will ¡°contribute to a longer-term solution that must involve many countries and institutions,¡± he said.
The bank also announced that it would increase next year its overall support for global agriculture and food to $6 billion, up from $4 billion in 2008.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=3164865
Sen. Barack Obama says he may travel to Iraq between winning the Democratic nomination and the November general election.
¡°I think that if I¡¯m going to Iraq, then I¡¯m there to talk to troops and talk to commanders. I¡¯m not there to try to score political points or perform,¡± Obama said Wednesday. ¡°The work they¡¯re doing there is too important.
Obama said the subject of a trip came up after the presumptive Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, suggested that the two men visit Iraq together. Obama has called the proposal ¡°nothing more than a political stunt.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=3164176
BOGOTA, Colombia (CNN) Flooding in central Colombia has left at least 14 people dead, 100 injured and 100,000 homeless over the past week, officials said Wednesday.
Torrential downpours have caused the Magdalena River, the nation's principal waterway, to overflow. The flooding has flattened houses, killed animals and crops, made highways impassable and isolated entire villages.
"We have emergencies in 26 [of a national total of 32] departments and 70 municipalities," said Walter Cote, director of Socorro Nacional for the Colombian Red Cross.
"That signifies very complex movement in isolated sites and that makes our operation very difficult, expensive and, at times, problematic due to issues of security," he told CNN en Espa&ntilde;
The downpour has been thrashing the country for three months.
But the storms have worsened in recent days, causing a number of rivers to overflow and unstable areas to collapse in landslides.
Government officials were taking precautions.
"We are not going to run risks," said Diego Palacio, Colombia's minister of social protection. "We are going to persuade people who are on riverbanks or islands that they have to leave immediately.
The government has declared a state of highest alert in almost half the country and has activated agencies to help people who have lost their homes to the floods.
Federal authorities are offering help through the Red Cross, the Civil Defense and firefighters.
In some regions, flood-related illnesses tied to insufficient hygiene have begun to break out, especially among children.
Many Colombians are donating food, medicine and blankets, which the Red Cross has taken to emergency sites.
But Colombians are preparing for more difficulty:
Meteorologists predict more rain across much of the country in the next three weeks.
"The number of people may increase sharply that is to say, if we continue as we are going, the number of people in need could increase by 50 percent to 100 percent.
Authorities estimate that Red Cross warehouses containing emergency supplies will go empty within a week.
Lorena Ochoa withdrew from the Ginn Tribute event on Wednesday, putting the top-ranked player's duel with tournament host Annika Sorenstam on hold.
Ochoa left for Mexico on Tuesday night, saying in a statement that her uncle was ill.
"I am very sorry to have to withdraw," Ochoa said. "I need to be with my uncle and my family right now.
Ochoa has won six of 13 LPGA tournaments this season while Sorenstam, who Ochoa surpassed last season to take the top spot, has three wins in her final year on the LPGA Tour before retirement.
"She is a tremendous ambassador for our game, and we will miss her this week," Sorenstam said.
"That being said, family comes first and I know she has a very close family. I respect and support her decision and wish them the best.
Ochoa looked like she would win the inaugural Ginn Tribute last year, holding a two-stroke lead against Nicole Castrale with two holes to play.
But Castrale caught Ochoa on the 71st hole to force a play-off, then watched the world's best drive into a marsh on the first play-off hole.
Ochoa leads the money list with more than $1.83 million earned in nine events this season.
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (CNN) Argentine farm groups went on strike Wednesday for the third time in nearly three months to protest high export taxes.
The farm groups said they would suspend grain and beef sales until Monday to protest a 44 percent export tax on agricultural products such as soy and sunflower seeds.
Argentina is the world's second-largest corn exporter and third-largest soybean exporter.
The farm groups said they would go to Congress, the Catholic Church and the Supreme Court to resolve the crisis, which has presented a formidable challenge to President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner's government since the tax was imposed March 11.
Fernandez says the tax is justified and has accused the striking farmers of extortion.
exports, blocking roads and emptying supermarket shelves.
The farmers lifted the blockades and began negotiations with the government, only to resume striking a few weeks later.
Earlier this month, negotiations resumed without success.
On Monday the government called off negotiations after a protest Sunday against agricultural policies in the eastern city of Rosario, the Argentine Agrarian Federation said.
The protest drew hundreds of thousands of people, the group said.
"The solution is in [the government's] hands, and it is what all Argentines are asking for," the statement said.
Canadian women are being asked to volunteer their undergarments in an international effort to shame Myanmar's ruling junta into giving citizens greater access to humanitarian aid and human rights. Organizers launched the Canadian edition of the Panties for Peace!
campaign this week with a call for women to send their underwear to the Myanmar embassy in Ottawa.
The campaign plays off regional superstitions that contact with women's panties can sap a man's power.
Activists claim the fear is shared by the leaders of the country's military regime.
Spearheaded by a pro-democracy group based in Thailand, the campaign was launched in the fall to draw attention to human rights abuses against women in the country.
WASHINGTON (CNN) A Chinese woman pleaded guilty Wednesday to helping a spy provide the Chinese government with U.S. military secrets about arms sales to Taiwan.
Yu Sin Kang, a Chinese citizen living legally in the United States, admitted serving as an intermediary for the delivery of classified information from agent Tai Shen Kuo to the Chinese government.
Kang, 33, faces up to 10 years in prison when she is sentenced August 1 in federal court in Virginia.
Kang's plea marks the third and final guilty plea in what the U.S. government has called a "significant" conspiracy to obtain sensitive information on U.S. weapons destined for Taiwan.
Authorities touted the prosecutions against Kang and her co-conspirators as part of efforts to combat "aggressive" Chinese government espionage programs that the U.S. government had not seen since the Cold War with the former Soviet Union.
Officials alleged that Gregg Bergersen, a weapons systems policy analyst for a Defense Department agency in Arlington, Virginia, sold highly classified information to Kuo, 58, a naturalized citizen who lives in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Kuo is said to have handed the information to Kang, a lawful resident alien also living in New Orleans.
Kang in turn allegedly gave the information to a spy for the Chinese government.
Kuo pleaded guilty May 13 and faces a maximum life sentence at his August 8 sentencing.
Bergersen admitted handing over the secrets in exchange for gifts including dinners and a trip to Las Vegas.
He said he was duped into believing that Kuo was working for a Taiwanese business that would hire him.
Bergersen faces up to 10 years in prison at his sentencing, set for July 11.
(CNN) Actress Cameron Diaz talks candidly about love, guys, friends, family and charting her own course.
Casual style
Diaz doesn't strive to be taken seriously.
Her style is relaxed, never more evident than with her wardrobe.
I want to feel like I can go anywhere, whatever I'm wearing.
She has paired them with a simple black sweater and added a dash of glitz with a crystal-and-gold cocktail ring from Barneys.
"I'm Cuban, so I'm drawn to things that sparkle. I like to use accessories to give things a bit of my own flavor.
Men
So when you make a reported $15 million per movie, how do you make the call that someone is boyfriend material? "I trust my judgment," she says.
And though she won't divulge whom she's spending time with, she's clear on what she's looking for. "My list is all about balance.
Not that her life has gone exactly as planned.
"Am I going to have a baby? Who knows?
Family
Diaz lives 45 minutes from her family and has always spent a great deal of time with them.
She raves about her parents, crediting them with fostering her sense of humor.
"They just celebrated their 39th wedding anniversary. They're just really good, cool people."
Sadly, after this interview was conducted, her father, Emilio Diaz, passed away unexpectedly.
"My dad was so loved by so many people, and his humor and spirit will always live in our hearts."
In her interview, Diaz remembered how her dad taught a then scrawny young girl how to fight bullies in school.
"He said he'd always back me up if I got in trouble. He is a good man, stand up and loyal.
Oil prices held steady below $129 a barrel Wednesday in Asia after dropping more than $3 in the previous session on a growing sense that soaring prices have cut demand for gasoline and other fuel.
The normally busy summer driving season in the U.S. kicked off with the just-ended Memorial Day weekend, and some analysts are predicting that data will show it had a lackluster start.
"It definitely was lower than (previous) Memorial Day weekends," said Tom Kloza, publisher and chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service in Wall, N.J.
The United States is the world's largest energy consumer in terms of total use, and fluctuations in demand there can have an outsized impact on international
Also, since Americans are particularly reliant on their cars dues to a lack of mass transport in all but a few cities and they have to drive longer distances to their jobs, their consumption of gasoline is closely watched.
Midday in Singapore, light, sweet crude for July delivery was up 6 cents at $128.91 a barrel in electronic trade on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
The contract fell $3.34 to settle at $128.85 a barrel Tuesday, the first day of trade after the Memorial Day holiday.
Tuesday's drop was oil's biggest one-day decline since March 31.
YOKOSUKA, Japan (CNN) The oldest active ship in the U.S. Navy, the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk, made its final departure from Japan on Wednesday to be decommissioned after nearly half a century of service.
The Kitty Hawk, with sailors lining its decks, pulled away from Yokosuka port just south of Tokyo to the cheers of hundreds of schoolchildren and the sounds of brass bands.
The Kitty Hawk, the last conventionally powered aircraft carrier in the Navy, is to be replaced later this summer by the USS George Washington, a nuclear-powered carrier.
After leaving Japan, the Kitty Hawk will make a stop at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii and then travel on to the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Washington, to be decommissioned.
, was assigned to Japan in 1998.
It has since made 20 deployments in the western Pacific and participated in Operation Enduring Freedom in Iraq.
It was the oldest active ship with the longest total period of active service in the Navy.
"Since it arrived in August 1998, the Kitty Hawk has been a visible symbol of strength in a rapidly changing world," U.S. Ambassador to Japan Thomas Schieffer said. "Goodbye Kitty Hawk, hello George Washington.
The Kitty Hawk and its battle group are the centerpiece of the 7th Fleet, the largest in the Navy, with 40 to 50 ships, 120 aircraft and about 20,000 sailors and Marines.
Roughly 21 of the ships are based in Japan and the Pacific island of Guam, while the others rotate out of ports in Hawaii and the U.S. West Coast.
The George Washington is scheduled to be based at Yokosuka starting in August.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, whose swift appearance at disaster sites has made him one of the nation's most popular figures and earned him the nickname Grandpa Wen, now has a profile on Facebook.
It's not clear who set up Wen's profile;
the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the State Council Press Office both told CNN they were not aware of the page.
Facebook, one of the Web's most popular social networking sites, allows users to create personal profiles.
Fake profiles abound, however, with dozens for President Bush and a handful for Mother Teresa.
At least one other profile of Wen exists on the site.
By early Wednesday just two weeks since the profile's creation on May 14 about 14,000 Facebook users had signed on as Wen's "supporters."
By comparison, Bush's profile boasted about 11,700 supporters, according to a feature on the site "Browse the Politicians."
U.S. presidential candidate, Sen. Barack Obama, led everyone, with 862,000 supporters.
Just hours after the earthquake struck on May 12 in southwestern China, Wen traveled to the hardest-hit Sichuan province, consoling and grieving with survivors.
More than 67,000 people have been killed in the disaster.
In January, when China suffered the worst winter storms to hit there in 50 years, Wen turned up at a rail station and apologized to the millions of travelers left stranded across the country.
The page lists his interests as Chinese literature and the most American of pastimes, baseball.
(CNN) Same-sex couples in California may be able to obtain marriage licenses on June 17, state officials said Wednesday.
The California Supreme Court struck down the state's ban on same-sex marriage as unconstitutional in a May 15 ruling, clearing the way for the state to become the second to legalize such marriages.
The state Department of Public Health which serves as State Registrar and oversees vital records said in an announcement that June 16 is the last day the state Supreme Court can rule on any requests for re-hearing.
It released new marriage license forms for counties to use beginning the following day.
However, the "general information" page for California marriage licenses still stated as of Wednesday that "only an unmarried male and an unmarried female may marry in California.
The California Supreme Court issued the ruling in a consolidated case involving several gay and lesbian couples, along with the city of San Francisco and gay rights groups.
A lower court had ruled San Francisco acted illegally in issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples in 2004.
In its 4-3 ruling, the state Supreme Court called marriage a "basic civil right.
Opponents of same-sex marriage have said a constitutional marriage amendment should be placed on the November ballot, and that national efforts should be made to generate a federal marriage amendment.
A constitutional amendment initiative that would specify marriage is only between a man and a woman is awaiting verification by the California Secretary of State's office after its sponsors said they had gathered enough signatures to place it on a statewide ballot.
Twenty-two nations are particularly threatened by the global food crisis that has seen soaring prices increase hunger, leading to protests and riots in some countries, the United Nations said Wednesday.
A report prepared by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization for a summit in Rome next week said the countries are vulnerable because they suffer from chronic hunger and are forced to import food and fuel.
The report said Eritrea, Niger, Comoros, Haiti and Liberia are particularly affected.
The three-day conference that opens Tuesday is expected to draw a number of world leaders.
The FAO said it will provide a "historic chance" to relaunch the fight against hunger and poverty and boost agricultural production in developing countries.
High oil prices, growing demand, flawed trade policies, panic buying and speculation have sent food prices soaring worldwide.
Food riots have occurred in Haiti, Egypt and Somalia this year.
The crisis underlines "the fragility of the balance between global food supplies and the needs of the world's inhabitants," said the FAO's director-general, Jacques Diouf.
The report warned that the world must prepare for further sharp price increases and continued market volatility.
"We hope that world leaders coming to Rome will agree on the urgent measures that are needed to boost agricultural production" while protecting the poor from rising prices, Diouf said.
Eritrea, Burundi, Comoros, Tajikistan, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Haiti, Zambia, Central African Republic, Mozambique, Tanzania, Guinea-Bissau, Madagascar, Malawi, Cambodia, North Korea, Rwanda, Botswana, Niger, Kenya.
WASHINGTON (CNN) NASA rushed Wednesday to get a special pump on board shuttle Discovery to fix a balky toilet at the international space station, as the launch countdown got under way.
The space station's Russian-built toilet has been acting up for the past week.
The three male residents have temporarily bypassed the problem, which involves urine collection, not solid waste.
Russian space officials are providing the pump to launch aboard Discovery on Saturday.
The shuttle's seven astronauts arrived at Kennedy Space Center a few hours ahead of the start of countdown Wednesday afternoon.
At the same time, a NASA employee was en route to Florida from Russia with the 1¨ö-foot-long pump and related hardware, which was packed in a diplomatic pouch and carried onto the commercial jetliner as 35 pounds of hand luggage.
To make room for the pump inside Discovery's crammed cabin, NASA was going to pull out some wrenches, a spare part for the space station's oxygen generator, and a microbe-killing device for use in the European space lab.
"Clearly, having a working toilet is a priority for us, so some of these things that we didn't need for the next six months or so could wait," said payload manager Scott Higginbotham.
NASA is also squeezing in a Disney action figure, Buzz Lightyear.
The toy popularized by the 1995 movie "Toy Story" will spend several months at the space station as part of an educational program for math and science teachers and their students.
Sen. John McCain strongly criticized Sen. Barack Obama Wednesday for not visiting Iraq in more than two years and for turning down the Arizona senator's suggestion that the two should make a joint trip to the country.
"Sen. Obama has been to Iraq once a little over two years ago he went and he has never seized the opportunity except in a hearing to meet with Gen. [David] Petraeus," McCain said at a campaign event in Reno, Nevada.
"My friends, this is about leadership and learning.
Again raising the issue of Obama's willingness to meet with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, McCain also said of the Illinois senator, "He wants to sit down with the president of Iran but hasn't yet sat down with Gen. Petraeus, the leader of our troops in Iraq?
Obama last visited Iraq in January, 2006 for a two-day tour of the country.
McCain's comments come the same day the Republican National Committee launched a clock on its Web site noting how many days it has been since Obama traveled to Iraq, and three days after his supporter Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, suggested the presumed Republican nominee and Obama tour the country together.
McCain later said he agreed the Democratic presidential contender should accompany him on an upcoming trip, adding that he would "seize that opportunity to educate Sen. Obama along the way.
Obama spokesman Bill Burton declined the invitation and called the move a "political stunt.
"The American people don't want any more false promises of progress, they deserve a real debate about a war that has overstretched our military and cost us thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars without making us safer," he added.
But psychologists who study happiness often report a different picture.
Being the mom of a young child (especially one under 3) is rewarding, but also a real strain on your mood.
"Moment to moment, you may be exhausted, frustrated, sometimes angry," says Peter Ubel, M.D., a professor of medicine and psychology at the University of Michigan.
In fact, on their list of pleasurable activities, moms rank child care lower than eating, exercising, or watching TV, according to a University of Michigan study.
And kid care rates only slightly higher than housework, working, or commuting!
"Kids do bring joy," says Daniel Gilbert, Ph.D., a psychology professor at Harvard University and author of "Stumbling on Happiness." "They bring transcendent moments that outweigh all the hard work.
It's just that children do not increase your average daily enjoyment.
The happiness paradox
One reason for the discrepancy between moms and experts: selective memory.
When psychologists ask moms in a general way if they like spending time with their kids, the overwhelming majority say they do because they're thinking of fun activities like reading a book or playing in the park.
When they're specifically asked to describe their actual daily routine, they remember the hours they spent struggling to get their child dressed or ready for bed.
Maybe, though, the cold calculus of psychological science is missing the intensity of joy that time spent with your child can bring.
"There are little moments that are grand-slam home runs," says Gilbert.
Luckily, those moments can overcome your daily frustrations.
"Happiness is more than just that smiley feeling," says Karen Reivich, Ph.D., a research associate in the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania.
The first step to being a happier mom, then, is to value what you do to feel that it's important.
The next step is to find ways to make it more enjoyable. Here's how:
-Admit when you're stressed
-Get enough sleep
- Savor the moment
- Take the long view
- Reconnect with your spouse
- Say thanks
The Democratic Party is likely to meet rule-breaking Florida and Michigan halfway when it comes to seating their delegates at the national convention, two members of the rules committee said Wednesday.
Such a move may help Sen. Hillary Clinton close the delegate gap with front-runner Sen. Barack Obama but not overtake him, said sources familiar with party deliberations.
The Democratic National Committee's Rules and Bylaws Committee meets Saturday in Washington to consider what to do with Florida and Michigan, which broke ranks to hold primaries earlier than party rules allowed.
As punishment, both state parties were told that they would not be represented at all when the party officially nominates a presidential candidate at the August convention in Denver, Colorado, and they are challenging those sanctions.
Clinton and her supporters have been pressing for a compromise that seats as many delegates from the two states as possible.
Clinton's Web site encourages people to write to the Rules and Bylaws Committee.
"There is one number that we are going to be satisfied with, and that is 2.3 million people having their votes counted," Clinton supporter Tina Flournoy said.
About 600,000 people voted in Michigan and about 1.7 million in Florida.
The party needs "to recognize the January primary votes in both of those states," Clinton campaign co-chairman Harold Ickes said Wednesday.
KATHMANDU, Nepal (CNN) &#8212; Nepal¡¯s newly elected leadership changed the country from a monarchy to a republic just before midnight Wednesday, a historic move that ended more than 240 years of autocratic rule in the country.
After approving the move by an overwhelming vote, the body said it would send a letter to 60-year-old King Gyanendra and his family informing them that they have 15 days to vacate the royal palace.
Of the 564 members of the assembly present for the vote, only 4 voted to keep the monarchy.
(CNN) &#8212; More than 100 nations meeting in Dublin, Ireland, agreed Wednesday on a treaty that would immediately ban all cluster bombs, a spokesman for the Cluster Munition Coalition told CNN.
In addition to calling for a total, immediate ban of the weapons, the international accord calls for strong standards to protect those injured by them and to make sure that contaminated areas are cleaned up as quickly as possible and that the weapons are immediately destroyed, said Thomas Nash, coordinator for the group.
Though some of the biggest makers of cluster bombs, including the United States, Russia, China and Israel, were not involved in the talks and have not signed the accord, organizers predicted that those nations would nevertheless be pressured into compliance.
Hundreds of truck drivers parked their rigs on roadways in London and in other cities across Britain on Tuesday to protest a more than 30 percent increase in the price of diesel fuel in the past year.
Around 600 and 1,000 trucks from a range of companies took part in the protest said Peter Carroll, a trucking company owner and protest organizer.
Diesel now costs on average &pound; 1.28 ($2.52) a liter in the UK.
That would make it nearly $11.50 a gallon (4.54 liters) compared to the U.S. price of $3.93.
The drivers plan to ask British Prime Minister Gordon Brown for help.
After a rally at Marble Arch, some of the protesters march about two miles to the prime minister's residence at Downing Street to hand him a letter, Carroll said.
"I think the fuel crisis in the UK has touched a common nerve," he said. "Everyone is talking about it, so I don't think he'll turn a deaf ear to it this time.
The demonstration scheduled for London was the largest of several planned across Britain on Tuesday, Carroll said.
Other protests were planned for Edinburgh, Scotland and Cardiff, Wales.
Manchester United have warned Real Madrid that they may report them to FIFA over their continued public pursuit of Cristiano Ronaldo.
"Manchester United has watched with growing irritation the comments attributed to Real Madrid over their alleged desire to sign Cristiano Ronaldo," the statement said.
the player is on a long-term contract and his registration is held by Manchester United; The player is not for sale.
"The club will have no alternative but to report Real Madrid to the world governing body, FIFA, if it continues to behave in this totally unacceptable fashion.
Ronaldo, who was United's top scorer with 42 goals last season, has made no secret of his desire to eventually play in Spain, but United are determined to hold on to their prize asset who has four years left to run on his current deal at Old Trafford.
The winger joined up with the Portuguese national squad, who are preparing for Euro 2008, shortly after United beat Chelsea on penalties to win the Champions League.
Eva Longoria Parker has taken time to dish out Frostys and french fries at a Wendy's fast-food restaurant.
The "Desperate Housewives" star worked the drive-through at the restaurant Tuesday to help kick off the Father's Day Frosty Weekend, an event that donates 50 cents for every Frosty sold to the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption and its signature program Wendy's Wonderful Kids.
The Corpus Christi Caller-Times reported in its online edition that Longoria Parker worked at Wendy's from 1991 to 1994.
While the current star of Wisteria Lane dished up fast food, her husband, Tony Parker of the San Antonio Spurs, was preparing for Game 4 of the Los Angeles Lakers-Spurs National Basketball Association playoff matchup in San Antonio.
A glitch with a Mars orbiter relaying commands from Earth delayed plans for the Phoenix Mars Lander's second day of activities Tuesday, NASA officials said.
The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter turned its UHF radio off, possibly because of a cosmic ray, cutting off communications with the lander, said Fuk Li, manager of the Mars exploration program for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
But Li and others said it's not a significant problem.
"All this is is a one-day hiccup in being able to move the arm around, so it's no big deal," said Ed Sedivy, program manager for the Phoenix flight system for Lockheed-Martin Corp. in Denver.
Li said that the orbiter was programmed to respond as it did, but that orbiter team members were trying to get the radio back on.
It has a second radio aboard that might be used instead, though reprogramming would be needed.
Since landing on Mars on Sunday, Phoenix has delighted scientists with the first-ever peek of the planet's unexplored northern latitudes.
(CNN) Weddings are supposed to be a time to celebrate new beginnings.
But for Shay Nowick, whose friend asked Nowick to be a bridesmaid at her wedding, it was the beginning of the end of their friendship.
Even before the wedding, Nowick says their relationship had been "rocky.
"She was one of those friends who made you feel bad if you didn't call," Nowick, 36, a technology director in San Francisco, says of her former pal.
Still, she wanted to support her friend on her special day.
But as the wedding approached, Nowick says, she felt overwhelmed by her friend's bickering and constant demands.
On the big day, smiles were few and far between.
"By the end of the day, it was clear we weren't going to be friends," she says.
Her friend hung up on her, Nowick says, and that was that.
When friends grow apart, commit acts of betrayal or demand too much time and energy, what's the best way to end the relationship?
There are right ways and wrong ways, says Kerry Patterson, a consultant on human interaction in Provo, Utah. "It's one thing when it dies a natural death, but when it's one-sided, you have to be really sensitive.
The most common way people choose to break up is to withdraw and stop communicating, says Patterson, author of "Crucial Confrontations:
Tools for Resolving Broken Promises, Violated Expectations and Bad Behavior."
In such cases, the other person should be able to pick up on the cues.
That's what happened to Nicolette Schumacher, 24, a sales account manager in San Francisco.
After living together for four years and helping each other through everything from boyfriends to bad hair days, her best friend "just disappeared.
"We had no falling-out, no fight. We were really good friends," says Schumacher.
Schumacher got the hint, but she didn't know why.
It's like losing a family member," she says.
Having a conversation with the friend about what happened and why might open the door to a painful and unproductive negotiation or it could save the friendship.
Schumacher, the sales account manager from San Francisco, would have appreciated having that conversation.
"I just feel bad because I don't know what I could have done. There's nothing I can think of.
If a friend is breaking up with you, Patterson says, "you can be gracious and say you don't want to be needy, or you can ask for feedback.
But no matter who's doing the breaking up and how, Patterson says, the main thing is to be careful with your friend's feelings.
Oil prices fell below $130 a barrel Tuesday on a growing sense that soaring gas and oil prices have cut demand for fuel during the normally busy U.S. summer driving season.
At the pump, meanwhile, retail gasoline prices rose, but only slightly, leading to renewed speculation that gas may follow the normal seasonal pattern of peaking around Memorial Day, then declining over the summer.
Last week's surge in oil prices drove gasoline prices sharply higher just before the long Memorial Day holiday weekend in the U.S.
"I think that we're going to see that that is the peak or very close to it," said Michael Lynch, president of Strategic Energy & Economic Research Inc. in Winchester, Mass.
Lynch thinks energy investors are selling on recent data showing that Americans are driving less due to high prices including weekly Energy Department reports that demand for gasoline is falling and a Federal Highway Administration report showing Americans drove fewer miles in March.
Energy Department data showing demand for gasoline over the Memorial Day holiday period won't be released until next week.
LONDON, England (CNN) Humanitarian aid workers and United Nation peacekeepers are sexually abusing small children in several war-ravaged and food-poor countries, a leading European charity has said.
Children as young as 6 have been forced to have sex with aid workers and peacekeepers in return for food and money, Save the Children UK said in a report released Tuesday.
After interviewing hundreds of children, the charity said it found instances of rape, child prostitution, pornography, indecent sexual assault and trafficking of children for sex.
"It is hard to imagine a more grotesque abuse of authority or flagrant violation of children's rights," said Jasmine Whitbread, chief executive of Save the Children UK.
"They offered us 100 Haitian gourdes ($2.80) and some chocolate if we would suck them. I said, 'No,' but some of the girls did it and got the money."
It believes that thousands more children around the world could be suffering in silence.
"People don't report it because they are worried that the agency will stop working here, and we need them," a teenage boy in southern Sudan told Save the Children.
The charity's research was centered on Ivory Coast, southern Sudan and Haiti, but Save the Children said the perpetrators of sexual abuse of children could be found in every type of humanitarian organization at all levels.
Save the Children is calling for a global watchdog to tackle the problem and said it was working with the U.N. to establish local mechanisms that will allow victims to easily report abuse.
The United States should scrap a significant portion of its nuclear arsenal, Sen. John McCain said Tuesday in a speech laying out his nuclear security policy.
McCain also spoke about canceling the development of nuclear "bunker-busting" bombs and working with Russia and China to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.
It is my hope to move as rapidly as possible to a significantly smaller force," the presumptive Republican presidential nominee said at the University of Denver.
McCain advisers described the senator's policy as "significantly different" from that of President Bush in its goals and approach.
Protesters interrupted McCain's speech four times.
The hecklers were escorted out of the room and shouted down by others in the audience chanting the candidate's name.
"This may turn into a longer speech than you had anticipated," McCain said with a wry grin after one interruption.
McCain linked his vision to that of President Reagan, an icon to conservatives, many of whom have been suspicious of the senator.
"A quarter of a century ago, President Ronald Reagan declared, 'Our dream is to see the day when nuclear weapons will be banished from the face of the Earth.
Reacting to the speech, a spokesman for Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic front-runner, said that the substance of it mirrored Obama's positions but that McCain has no track record of leading on the issue.
(CNN) As rising gas prices leave drivers with ever-heftier tabs at the pump, Americans have started looking for ways to reduce the drain on their budget.
For some, transitioning away from a one-person, one-car lifestyle has proved rewarding.
Janaki Purushe, a 22-year-old genetic researcher living in Rockville, Maryland, bikes just about everywhere she goes.
"When I had the opportunity to finally plan my own life after I graduated college," Purushe explains, "I took into consideration where I was going to shop, where my friends live, where my boyfriend lives, and I definitely tried to plan the location of my home around where I was going.
Now, although she still has a car, Purushe bikes to work every day.
I feel like I'm getting more out of my days.
In March, Americans drove 11 billion fewer miles than in March of 2007.
When rising gas prices coincided with a baby on the way for Lucas and Naomi Smith, they knew they had to make some quick changes help keep life affordable.
Between insurance, gas and the depreciation of the car's value, Lucas Smith says the couple saves about $350 a month.
In making room in the budget for the baby, the Smiths each also gave up their cell phones and cable TV.
Sen. Barack Obama on Tuesday rolled out ideas he said will help stabilize the U.S. housing market, while saying President Bush's response was "too little, too late.
He also called opponent Sen. John McCain "out of touch" with people struggling to keep their homes.
"We've had enough of the can't-do, won't-do, won't-even-try approach from George Bush and John McCain," said Obama, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination. "We can't afford another president who can't be bothered to stand up for working people.
It's time for a change.
Obama said he'd propose a $10 billion foreclosure prevention fund that would help homeowners modify their home loans to avoid foreclosure and bankruptcy or help them sell the home if the payments grow beyond their means.
The Illinois senator also proposed amending bankruptcy laws to protect people trapped in predatory or misleading home loans and said that, as president, he'd raise penalties on lenders who break home-loan laws.
(CNN) Myanmar's military rulers have extended the five-year detention of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, prompting a chorus of international disapproval.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the junta's decision was "regrettable.
"The sooner restrictions on Aung San Suu Kyi and other political figures are lifted, the sooner Myanmar will be able to move towards (being an) inclusive nation, reconciliation, the restoration of democracy and the full respect for human rights," Ban said.
U.S. President George W. Bush said he was "deeply troubled" about the decision.
"The United States calls upon the regime to release all political prisoners in Burma and begin a genuine dialogue with Aung San Suu Kyi.
The UK Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, said: 'I was saddened, if not surprised, to learn that the Burmese Government has, once again, decided to extend the house arrest of Aung San Suu Kyi. Along with some 2,000 other political prisoners in Burma, Aung San Suu Kyi lost her freedom for simply expressing a desire to bring democracy to Burma.
Suu Kyi won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991.
She has become the face of the pro-democracy movement in Myanmar and the focus of a global campaign to free her.
Suu Kyi is the daughter of the country's martyred independence leader, Gen. Aung San.
Her National League for Democracy party is the country's largest legal opposition group, and it retains the loyalty of millions of citizens despite two decades of repression.
The junta has confined Suu Kyi in her home for 12 of the last 18 years.
Her latest house arrest began in 2003 and has been renewed annually for the last five years.
It is unclear if Suu Kyi's confinement had been extended for six months or for a year as there were conflicting reports.
Because Myanmar's government exercises tight control of news within the country, exile groups are often the only source of information about what is happening inside.
Two exile groups Mizzima and the Democratic Voice of Burma said the detention was extended for six months but a government source, speaking on condition of anonymity told The Associated Press it was extended by 12 months.
Suu Kyi's lawyer, Jared Genser, said he did not know how long the confinement would be but he added any length of time would be illegal because Myanmar's law states Suu Kyi could only be held in confinement for five years.
"They should have released her or put her on trial," Genser said. "Their failure to do so not only flouts their own law but international law."
A New York state judge has ruled that Dell, one of the world¡¯s leading computer companies, and its financing unit engaged in fraud, false advertising, deceptive business conduct and abusive debt collection practices.
Supreme Court Justice Joseph C. Teresi will hold further proceedings to determine how much restitution Dell will have to pay to its customers, the decision said. Dell said disagreed with Teresi¡¯s decision.
¡°Our goal has been, and continues to be, to provide the best customer experience possible,¡± Jess Blackburn, a spokesman for the company, told CNN in a written statement.
In all, four total aftershocks rattled the area Tuesday, all of them above magnitude 4.5, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).
Xinhua reported the newest aftershocks at 5.4 and 5.7 magnitudes, citing the China National Seismological Network. The USGS said they measured 4.5 and 5.0 magnitude. The Chinese news agency said they struck the southwest China town of Qingchuan in Sichuan Province, and neighboring Ningqiang in Shaanxi Province.
A total of 63 people were injured in Qingchuan alone by the new aftershocks, Xinhua said.
Warren Buffett, whose business and investment acumen has made him one of the world's wealthiest men, was quoted in an interview published Sunday as saying the U.S. economy is already in a recession.
Asked by Germany's Der Spiegel weekly whether he thinks the U.S. could still avoid a recession, he said that as far as the average person is concerned, it is already here.
But people are already feeling the effects of a recession.
"It will be deeper and longer than what many think," he added.
Omaha-based Berkshire has about $35 billion in cash and is looking to invest.
Berkshire's subsidiaries include insurance, clothing, furniture, natural gas, corporate jet and candy companies.
Berkshire also has major investments in such companies as Coca-Cola Co. and Anheuser-Busch Cos.
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (CNN) A bomb exploded on a crowded commuter train in a southern suburb of Sri Lanka's capital Monday, killing nine people and wounding at least 72 others, police said.
The parcel bomb had been placed in the luggage rack on the train, which was bound for the southern town of Panadura, 27 kilometers (17 miles) from Colombo, police said.
Investigators blamed the country's Tamil Tiger separatist movement for the attack, which occurred about 5:30 p.m. (1200 GMT, 0800 ET) in the southern suburb of Dehiwala.
Many of those on the train were office workers headed home at the end of the workday, police said.
The bombing came amid a nationwide alert triggered by the discovery of at least three packages, in three different towns, that contained bombs.
It followed allegations by the Tamil Tigers, who are fighting for an independent Tamil homeland in northern Sri Lanka, that government forces had killed 16 civilians in an attack on rebel-held territory in the Wanni region Friday.
The rebels also said the government killed an infant and a 17-year-old girl when warplanes bombed the area the same day.
Bayer Leverkusen have turned to former German international striker Bruno Labbadia in a bid to revive their fortunes in the Bundesliga next season.
Defeat on the final day of the Bundesliga season saw Leverkusen slip to seventh in the standings and miss out on a place in the UEFA Cup.
Coach Michael Skibbe paid the price and was fired last week with Labbadia being appointed as his replacement on Monday with a two-year contract.
"We were looking for a coach that's fresh and fits in our system," Leverkusen business manager Wolfgang Holzhaeuser told the Associated Press.
Labbadia, who was Italian-born, played twice for Germany's national team and 328 Bundesliga games for several teams, including Bayern Munich and Werder Bremen.
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) Academy Award-winning director Sydney Pollack, who achieved commercial and critical success with the gender-bending comedy "Tootsie" and the period drama "Out of Africa, has died.
Pollack died of cancer Monday afternoon at his home in Pacific Palisades in Los Angeles, surrounded by family, said agent Leslee Dart.
He had been diagnosed with cancer about nine months ago, said Dart.
Pollack, who often appeared on the screen himself, worked with and gained the respect of Hollywood's best actors in a long career that reached prominence in the 1970s and 1980s.
Last fall, Pollack played Marty Bach opposite Clooney in "Michael Clayton," a drama that examines the life of a fixer for lawyers.
The film, which Pollack co-produced, received seven Oscar nominations, including best picture and a best actor nod for Clooney.
Pollack was no stranger to the Academy Awards.
In 1986, "Out of Africa" a romantic epic of a woman's passion set against the landscape of colonial Kenya, captured seven Oscars, including best director.
Over the years, several of his other films, including "Tootsie" and "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?"
Pollack's last screen appearance was in "Made of Honor," a romantic comedy currently in theaters, where he played the oft-married father of star Patrick Dempsey's character.
In recent years, Pollack produced many independent films with filmmaker Anthony Minghella and the production company Mirage Enterprises.
The Lafayette, Indiana, native was born to first-generation Russian-Americans.
In high school, he fell in love with theater, a passion that prompted him to forgo college and move to New York and enroll in the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theater.
Studying under Sanford Meisner, Pollack spent several years cutting his teeth in various areas of theater, eventually becoming Meisner's assistant.
After appearing in a handful of Broadway productions in the 1950s , Pollack turned his eye to directing.
two daughters, Rebecca and Rachel; his brother Bernie; and six grandchildren.
Iraqi soldiers rounded up six teenagers in northern Iraq who were being trained, against their will, to carry out suicide bombings for al Qaeda in Iraq, the Interior Ministry said Monday.
Troops conducting house-to-house searches in Mosul found six teens, ages 15 to 18, who were being trained to perpetrate attacks against Iraqi security forces, said ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul Karim Khalaf.
Insurgents had threatened to kill the boys or their families if they refused to comply with the training, Deputy Interior Minister Kamal Ali Hussein told reporters.
"The Saudi insurgent threatened to rape our mothers and sisters, destroy our houses and kill our fathers if we did not cooperate with him," one of the youths told The Associated Press in Mosul.
The boys were rounded up as part of the Mother of Two Springs operation targeting al Qaeda in Iraq in Mosul and Nineveh province.
The teens had been trained in recent weeks, Khalaf said.
A Saudi national a suspected al Qaeda in Iraq operative had been one of their trainers, but he was believed to have died in a military operation, Khalaf said.
It is not known where or when he was killed.
The group of teens included the son of a female physician, the son of a college professor and four youths who belonged to families of poor vendors.
BARBOURSVILLE, West Virginia (CNN) One young shopper at a Wal-Mart in West Virginia had to watch out for more than falling prices.
A 12-year-old girl picking up a seedless watermelon from a bin was stung Sunday by a tan, inch-long scorpion that had apparently stowed away in a shipment from Mexico.
Megan Templeton, of Barboursville, was taken to the hospital as a precaution but later released.
Her father, William Templeton, said the pain was a little worse than a bee sting.
He initially did not believe his daughter when she said she had been stung by a scorpion, but then he saw it scurry underneath a box.
It was captured by Wal-Mart employees.
Most of the nearly 2,000 kinds of scorpions are not dangerous to humans.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Monday that the country's foreign minister has resigned for leaving classified documents in a nonsecure location.
Harper said he accepted the resignation of Maxime Bernier, who has come under fire in recent weeks after it was reported that his ex-girlfriend had previous relationships with men who had ties with organized crime.
This is a serious error," Harper said.
Harper said that Bernier's controversial relationship with a woman linked to the Hells Angels was not a factor in the decision.
We must always accept responsibilities for the documents that are classified," Harper said. "The minister has immediately acknowledged the gravity of this mistake.
Harper did not say what the documents were, where they were left or if they were shared with others.
Harper said that David Emerson, the international trade minister, will take over as interim foreign affairs minister.
(CNN) A passenger who landed at Tokyo's Narita airport over the weekend has ended up with a surprise souvenir courtesy of customs officials a package of cannabis.
A customs official hid the package in a suitcase belonging to a passenger arriving from Hong Kong as part of an exercise for sniffer dogs on Sunday, Reuters.com reported.
However, staff then lost track of the drugs and suitcase during the exercise, a spokeswoman for Tokyo customs said.
Customs regulations specify that a training suitcase be used for such exercises, but the official had used passengers' suitcases for similar purposes in the past, domestic media reported.
Tokyo customs has asked anyone who finds the package to return it.
Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe has warned against outside influences in next month's run-off election, likening one American diplomat to a "prostitute" and threatening to oust another from his country. "Zimbabwe cannot be British, it cannot be American.
Yes, it is African," said Mugabe, whose speech Sunday was quoted Monday in The Herald, the state-run newspaper. "You saw the joy that the British had, that the Americans had, and saw them here through their representatives celebrating and acting as if we Zimbabwe are either an extension of Britain or ... America.
You saw that little American girl [U. S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer] trotting around the globe like a prostitute..."
Mugabe went on to say that U.S. Ambassador to Zimbabwe James McGee would be expelled from the country if he "persisted in meddling in Zimbabwe's electoral process," the newspaper reported.
The fallout from Zimbabwe's stalled election has brought international criticism, with Frazer taking the most emphatic stance.
In April, Frazer accused Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe for nearly three decades, of "trying to steal the election" and "intimidating the population and election officials as well.
The first election was March 29.
An announcement of the winner of the presidential election was delayed for weeks as opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai claimed he had won.
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, after a long delay, ruled that neither candidate had won the required majority of votes, and scheduled a runoff election for June 27.
Since the March balloting, there have been numerous reports from Tsvangirai's party and church groups about kidnappings, torture and other violence, including the deaths of opposition party members.
Mugabe denies his supporters were responsible for election-related violence.
BOGOTA, Colombia (CNN) Relatives and friends of the hundreds of men and women held hostage in the jungles of Colombia held out hope for their release now that the leader of the country's largest leftist guerilla group is dead.
Government officials announced Saturday that the founder and leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) Manuel Marulanda, alias Tirofijo (Sureshot) died in the jungle of cardiac arrest in March.
Senior FARC rebel commander Timoleon Jimenez on Sunday confirmed Marulanda's death and said Alfonso Cano, a longtime ideologue for the group, has replaced him.
Holding out hope that Marulanda's death will result in change was Magdalena Rivas, whose son Elkin Hernandez was abducted by the group more than nine years ago.
Luis Eladio Perez, who was held by FARC for seven years before his February release, said he believes a path toward a negotiated solution could be opened for the release of hostages, estimated to number 750.
They include politicians like former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, military police and three U.S. citizens.
(CNN) Six UNICEF staffers arrived in Myanmar on Monday after being granted access to enter areas hardest hit by the cyclone in a sign the nation's secretive military junta may be keeping its promise.
The team will assist five local workers in assessing needs in the devastated Irrawaddy Delta.
They are expected to remain in the region for a week and map out the heavily-affected areas that have been inaccessible to aid organizations until now.
The decision "is seen as a positive step forward and a kind of openness that the (U.N.) Secretary General has been pushing for in the past few days," UNICEF Emergency Communication Officer Mike Bociurkiw told CNN.
The low-lying Irrawaddy Delta, known as the country's rice bowl because it produces up to 60 percent of its staple crop, bore the brunt of the May 2 storm.
The cyclone wiped out crops and flooded the area with salt water, imperiling future harvests.
Bodies still lined the shore in some spots, aid workers reported.
About 130,000 people either died or are still missing, according to the United Nations.
Myanmar's government has put the death toll at 78,000.
Until now, Myanmar's military leaders have prevented foreign agencies from doing a needs assessment and insisted that any aid be distributed by its soldiers and volunteers.
That demand runs counter to the policy of many agencies.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon spent the weekend in Myanmar and guided a conference of 52 donor nations on Sunday.
At the meeting, countries pledged in excess of $100 million to help Myanmar recover and said more money would be forthcoming once aid groups are granted access to the worst-affected areas a condition the junta agreed to.
(CNN) Job seekers often forget that seasonal jobs aren't only for gift wrappers and department store Santas during the holidays.
The warm seasons bring a whole slew of work that makes finding a job for the summer months an easy affair.
Here are some positions to consider as you head out on your summer job hunt:
1. Childcare workers
When children are no longer in class, parents who have jobs outside the home are suddenly forced to find something for them to do eight hours each day.
During the summer months, parents take refuge in childcare, whether in the form of a private caretaker or a professional facility.
2. Restaurant servers
With sunny weather comes the ability to dine alfresco, which means people will find any excuse to eat out all summer long.
Restaurants hire more staff, such as hosts, hostesses and servers, to accommodate the increase in patrons.
3. Sales associates
Working in retail is the tried and true rite of passage for many teenagers, and it's also a good seasonal job for experienced workers who have established customer service skills.
Not to mention all the other gadgets you wind up buying, like sporting equipment, landscaping materials and a barbeque grill that you don't need but can't resist.
4. Lifeguards
The best refuge from the sun is a day at the pool or water park.
If you don't mind dealing with hyper children and relish the chance to soak in the rays while getting paid to monitor swimmers, look into being a lifeguard.
5. Office assistants
Employees go on vacation, which leaves the company short on help during this time.
Also, employers know how many summer hires are available and are eager to finally tackle projects they didn't previously have enough staff to complete.
6. Hotel and resort staff
When vacationers want to get away from their daily grind, they like to be pampered in full-amenity hotels and resorts.
Somebody's got to do the legwork, which includes working the front desk and attending to other visitor needs.
7. Amusement park attendants
These mammoth amusement parks are filled with employment opportunities for the summer job seeker from working the rides to selling souvenirs to wearing a mascot costume.
The first pictures from NASA's Mars Phoenix Lander, which successfully touched down near Mars' north pole Sunday, showed a pattern of brown polygons as far as the camera could see.
"It's surprisingly close to what we expected and that's what surprises me most," said Peter Smith, the mission's principal investigator.
The landing on the Red Planet's arctic plains which ended a 296-day journey was right on target, a feat NASA's Ed Weiler compared to landing a hole-in-one with a golf ball from 10,000 miles.
The landing dubbed the "seven minutes of terror" was a nerve-wracking experience for mission managers, who have witnessed the failure of similar missions.
In mission control at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, they celebrated the lander's much-anticipated entry.
"It was better than we could have imagined," Barry Goldstein, project manager for the Phoenix mission, told CNN.
The Phoenix's 90-day mission is to analyze the soils and permafrost of Mars' arctic tundra for signs of past or present life.
CHENGDU, China (CNN) Chinese military engineers are prepared to dynamite a potentially dangerous "quake lake" created when landslides dammed a river after this month's earthquake in which more than 65,000 people were killed, state-run media reported Monday.
Authorities are concerned the swelling lake will burst as water from the Jianhe river in Beichuan county in China's southwestern Sichuan province rises behind the earthquake-created dam, the Xinhua news agency reported.
"The lake ... may cause a devastating flooding if the barrier bursts," Xinhua said.
Authorities want to control the flow of water rather than have the dam give way all at once by creating a spillway.
Helicopters transported military experts armed with dynamite and heavy equipment to the site Monday morning.
About 1,800 Chinese soldiers and police were already at the site.
More than 30 of the so-called quake lakes were created by the 7.9-magnitude quake that devastated the region on May 12.
A strong aftershock on Sunday killed at least eight people, injured about 1,000 others and destroyed more than 70,000 homes in China's Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi provinces.
The official toll from the original quake has now risen to 65,080, China's Civil Affairs Ministry said Monday. Another 360,058 people were injured and 23,150 are missing, according to the ministry.
Shaanxi experienced the highest death toll as a result of the aftershock, with four people losing their lives.
One each died in Sichuan and Gansu.
The aftershock damaged more than 200,000 other homes, according to state media. It also damaged another dam, cutting off several more roads in the region.
Former President Bill Clinton said that Democrats were more likely to lose in November if Hillary Clinton is not the nominee, and suggested some were trying to "push and pressure and bully" superdelegates to make up their minds prematurely.
"I can't believe it. It is just frantic the way they are trying to push and pressure and bully all these superdelegates to come out," Clinton said at a South Dakota campaign stop Sunday, in remarks first reported by ABC News.
Clinton also suggested some were trying to "cover up" Sen. Clinton's chances of winning in key states that Democrats will have to win in the general election.
The people they want her.
Oh, this is so terrible: She is winning the general election, and he is not.
Oh my goodness, we have to cover this up '
The former president added that his wife had not been given the respect she deserved as a legitimate presidential candidate.
(CNN) &#8212; Former Georgia Congressman Bob Barr was nominated officially Sunday as the Libertarian candidate for president.
Barr, who played a prominent role in the impeachment of former President Bill Clinton, told supporters at the Libertarian National Convention in Denver, ¡°We have only 163 days to win this election.
Some GOP observers are watching to see if Barr will draw votes away from the presumptive Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, in the general election.
He was elected to the House of Representatives in 1994 and represented a conservative district in the Atlanta suburbs for four terms.
In his last term, Barr became an increasingly vocal critic of President Bush.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=3160338 (CNN) &#8212;
Iran is still withholding critical information that could determine whether it is trying to make nuclear weapons, the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a restricted report.
The nine-page report, obtained by CNN on Monday, details a number of recent meetings with Iranians officials who deny conducting weapons research and continue to stymie the United Nations¡¯ nuclear watchdog agency.
Iran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, namely energy for power lines, and in the past has described interactions with the IAEA as positive.
hints at the frustrations of the IAEA investigators seeking clear answers about the program.
LONDON, England(CNN) Britain's largest union is merging with United Steelworkers, creating the first trans-Atlantic labor organization, the two labor groups said Sunday.
UNITE, which represents more than 2 million workers in Britain's transportation, energy and public sectors, among others, is set to join United Steelworkers, which has some 850,000 members in the United States, Canada and the Caribbean.
UNITE spokesman Andrew Murray said "the finishing touches" were worked out at a meeting between UNITE and Steelworkers representatives last week.
The unions have joined forces because both have been left behind by globalization, Murray said.
"While big business is global, and labor is national, we're going to be at a disadvantage.
Murray said the new super-union's structure was still being worked on.
He said its two component parts would maintain their separate identities, at least at first.
He added that the new grouping hoped to enlist other foreign unions.
"There's a number of legal complexities," he said. "This is only very much a first step.
Murray said an official announcement would be made at the Steelworkers' Constitutional Convention in Las Vegas, beginning in June.
FORT WORTH, Texas (CNN) Another memorable shot, and another victory, for Phil Mickelson's impressive ledger.
Instead, it was the 140-yard wedge from heavy rough that set it up:
when Mickelson had to hit under one tree and over another, the ball clipping branches while headed sky-high.
"I'm as surprised as anybody I was able to make a 3 from over there.
Once Mickelson hit the ball "it just came off perfectly," he said he couldn't see it through the branches.
So he took a couple of steps before jogging through the trees into an opening just in time to see the ball fall back to earth near the flag.
One of Mickelson's best shots ever?
"Probably top five," Lefty responded, pointing out that he had already discussed that with his wife, Amy.
NEW DELHI, India (CNN) At least 35 people have been killed in three days of riots over class discrimination in the west Indian state of Rajasthan.
Members of the Gujjar community part of India's centuries-old, complex social caste order have engaged in clashes with police officers, who have opened fire in four districts, CNN's sister network, CNN-IBN reported.
They are demanding a bigger share of government jobs and education benefits.
Hundreds of supporters took turns camping on rail tracks in the Rajasthan city of Bharatpur, as the bodies of those killed by police fire lay in a field nearby, the station reported.
India's constitution outlaws caste-based discrimination, and barriers have broken down in large cities.
Prejudice, however, persists in some rural areas of the country.
As a result, the Indian government has put in place an affirmative action plan that sets aside job and educational quotas for the disadvantaged groups that it classifies as Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes.
These communities, the government believes, needs extra assistance to overcome centuries of discrimination.
(CNN) The first-ever landing of a probe near Mars' north pole happened smoothly on Sunday, NASA confirmed.
The Mars Phoenix Lander, completing a 296-day, 422 million-mile journey, closed in on the Red Planet with a 50-50 chance of a successful touchdown on its arctic plains, NASA officials said.
The landing dubbed the "seven minutes of terror" was a nerve-wracking experience for mission managers, who have witnessed the failure of similar missions.
Despite that, they could hardly contain their excitement.
In mission control at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, they celebrated the lander's much-anticipated entry.
The mission of the Phoenix is to analyze the soils and permafrost of Mars' arctic tundra for signs of life past or present.
KATHMANDU, Nepal (CNN) A 76-year-old Nepalese man reached the summit of Mount Everest on Sunday and became the oldest person to climb the world's highest mountain, a tourism official said.
Min Bahadur Sherchan reached the 8,848-meter summit early in the morning with his climbing guides, said a Nepal Tourism Ministry official, Ramesh Chetri.
Sherchan was just 25 days away from his 77th birthday, Chetri said.
He beat the record set last year by Japanese climber Katsusuke Yanagisawa, who scaled the peak at age 71.
Sherchan was in good health and was descending from the summit, Chetri said.
The former soldier climbed smaller mountains before Everest and has been an active sportsman, Chetri said.
He said about a dozen climbers scaled Everest on Sunday following one of the busiest weeks in the mountain's climbing season.
A veteran Sherpa guide scaled Everest on Thursday for a record 18th time.
Appa, who like most Sherpas goes by only one name, reached the summit along with several colleagues.
He was among more than 80 climbers to reach the summit that day the largest number ever in a single day from the Nepalese side of the peak.
Mountaineers were able to resume Everest climbs on May 9 after the Nepalese government lifted a temporary ban ordered to prevent protests against China's rule in Tibet during an ascent by Chinese climbers carrying the Olympic torch.
The Chinese torch team scaled the summit on May 8 from the northern Tibetan side of Everest and Nepal lifted the ban a day later.
LONDON, England (CNN) A British teenage actor playing a minor role in the upcoming "Harry Potter" film was stabbed to death during a brawl in London on Saturday, police said.
Rob Knox, 18, was stabbed after he got caught up in a fight outside a bar in southwest London early Saturday, London's Metropolitan Police said in a statement.
Knox plays Ravenclaw student Marcus Belby in the upcoming film "Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince," the sixth installment of the popular series set for release in November.
Warner Bros., the studio that is producing the film, said it was shocked by the news.
Knox was one of five young men taken to various hospitals after the brawl, police said.
Among them was a 21-year-old who has since been arrested on suspicion of murder.
The fight did not appear to be gang-related, police added, but it puts the number of violent teenage deaths in London at 14 so far this year.
BRUSSELS, Belgium (CNN) A large cargo plane crashed at the end of a runway and split in two while trying to take off Sunday at Brussels airport, authorities said.
Four of the five crew members on board the Boeing 747 were slightly injured and were hospitalized, said Jan Van der Cruysse, spokesman at Brussels Airport.
"The plane is very seriously damaged," he said.
The aircraft cracked in two after it crashed at the end of runway 220, which lies very close to a rail line and houses.
Rail services to and from the airport were suspended as a safety precaution, however the crash did not affect other flights at the airport, Van der Cruysse said.
Francis Vermeiren, mayor of the nearby town of Zaventem, said the plane did not catch on fire when it crashed after attempting to take off.
Vermeiren was coordinating rescue efforts at the airport.
CANNES, France (CNN) The French film "The Class," a frank tale about classroom life using real students and teachers at a junior high school, won top honors Sunday at the Cannes Film Festival.
Directed by Laurent Cantet, "The Class" ("Entre les Murs") was the first French film to win the main prize, the Palme d'Or, at Cannes since "Under Satan's Sun" in 1987.
The docudrama was shot in a raw, improvisational style to chronicle the drama that unfolds over one school year.
The win was a unanimous decision among the nine-member Cannes jury, said Sean Penn, who headed the panel.
"The movie that we wanted to make had to resemble French society, had to be multifaceted, a bit teeming, complex, and had to sometimes portray frictions that the film didn't try to erase," Cantet said.
Italian films won the second-place grand prize and third-place jury prize.
Matteo Garrone's "Gomorrah," a study of the criminal underworld in Naples, took the grand prize, while Paolo Sorrentino's "Il Divo," a lively portrait of former Premier Giulio Andreotti, won the jury award.
Benicio Del Toro won Cannes' best-actor prize for "Che," Steven Soderbergh's four-hour-plus epic about Latin American revolutionary Che Guevara.
"I'd like to dedicate this to the man himself, Che Guevara," said Del Toro.
He also thanked Soderbergh, "who got up every day, forced me to this. ... He was there pushing it, and he pushed all of us.
Soderbergh directed Del Toro to the supporting-actor Oscar for 2000's "Traffic.
Sandra Corveloni was chosen as best actress for "Linha de Passe," in which she plays the mother of four brothers struggling to make better lives for themselves in a Brazilian slum.
It was her first role in a feature film.
Colombia¡¯s largest leftist rebel group on Sunday confirmed the death of its leader, Pedro Antonio Marin, also known as Manuel Marulanda Velez and nicknamed ¡°Tirofijo,¡± also known as ¡°Sure Shot.
Marulanda, 74, died March 26 of a heart attack in one of the forested hideouts used by FARC, Colombia¡¯s Revolutionary Armed Forces, according to a taped speech by FARC commander Timoleon Jimenez, also known as ¡°Timochenko.
Jiminez said Marulanda was replaced by Alfonso Cano, a longtime ideologue for the group.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=3158995
CHENGDU, China (CNN) A powerful 5.8-magnitude aftershock hit China's Sichuan province Sunday, reportedly damaging more than 70,000 homes in the region where at least 60,000 people were killed by a powerful earthquake on May 12.
State media said at least two people died and more than 480 were hurt as a result of the latest seismic jolt, which came as Chinese officials warned that 69 dams in the province damaged in the original quake were in danger of bursting their banks.
The province has experienced dozens of aftershocks since a devastating 7.9-magnitude earthquake on May 12.
More than 70,000 homes in the area were damaged by the aftershock, according to local television reports.
The aftershock was felt in Chengdu, one of the largest cities in Sichuan province and about 150 miles from
A CNN employee, on the 24th floor of a high-rise hotel, reported that the building swayed.
On Saturday, when China's Premier Wen Jiabao gave United Nation Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon a dramatic look at the damage, a strong aftershock shook the town they were in.
Meanwhile, the death toll from this month's earthquake in China reached 62,664, a government official said Sunday. Another 23,775 are still missing.
At the Sunday news conference, a civil affairs ministry official said rescue workers have pulled alive 6,537 people from the rubble of the May 12 earthquake.
The earthquake has left more than 5,000 children without their parents and more than 4,000 elderly without caregivers, China's state-run news agency said Sunday.
A Water Ministry official said at the same conference that 69 dams are in danger of bursting in Sichuan province.
An apparent tornado toppled buildings in a central Iowa town, trapping several people, as twisters swept across the Midwest on Sunday evening.
that they said caused considerable damage and flung debris as it moved east at 23 miles per hour.
The National Weather Service confirmed a tornado in Hugo, just north of Minneapolis, and authorities also reported twisters in nearby Coon Rapids and Blain.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=3158983
The parliament has tried 19 times to vote on a new president, but failed because of disagreements over how to share power in a new Cabinet.
That agreement, reached in Doha, Qatar, under the mediation of an Arab League committee, paved the way for the election.
Cindy McCain, wife of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, made $6 million in 2006, according to tax returns released Friday afternoon.
She paid more than $1.7 million in taxes that year, according to the returns.
The campaign released only the top two summary pages of her returns.
The McCains have separate personal assets and file taxes separately under the terms of a prenuptial agreement.
Cindy McCain is the daughter of a millionaire Arizona Anheuser-Busch beer distributor whose net worth has been widely estimated to be in the tens of millions.
On the return, she listed her occupation as ¡°executive.
Hillary Clinton said Friday she regrets comments that evoked the June 1968 assassination of Robert Kennedy as part of her explanation for why she was staying in the presidential race late into the primary season.
¡°Earlier today, I was discussing the Democratic primary history, and in the course of that discussion mentioned the campaigns that both my husband and Senator Kennedy waged in California in June in 1992 and 1968, and I was referencing those to make the point that we have had nominating primary contests that go into June. That¡¯s an historic fact,¡± she told reporters.
Clinton¡¯s campaign initially defended the remarks, saying that the New York senator had been drawing a historical parallel and ¡°any reading into it beyond that is inaccurate and outrageous.
The statement drew a quick, sharp response from Democratic front-runner Barack Obama¡¯s campaign, which said Clinton¡¯s comment ¡°was unfortunate and has no place in this campaign.
Oil prices rose above $135 a barrel for the first time Thursday, with supply worries, global demand and an ever weakening U.S dollar driving crude futures up.
The world's top energy watchdog is preparing a sharp downward revision of its oil-supply forecast, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.
By midday in Europe, the contract stood at $134.37 a barrel in electronic trade on the New York Mercantile Exchange, up $1.20 on Wednesday's close of $133.17.
Investment bank Goldman Sachs last week revised its oil price forecast for the second half of 2008 from $107 to $141 a barrel.
But some analysts saw the new target becoming a reality much sooner.
Barack Obama is quietly beginning his search for a running mate.
A veteran Democratic activist in Washington told CNN that former Fannie Mae CEO Jim Johnson has accepted Obama¡¯s request for him to begin a screening/selection process for the No. 2 spot.
Johnson performed the same role in 2004 and 1984 for then-Democratic presidential nominees John Kerry and Walter Mondale.
The activist, a party operative who has been involved in democratic presidential campaigns and conventions dating back more than 20 years, said it is his information that the process is ¡°at a very early point but that within the campaign itself they have been informally thinking about it for a while.
Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton declined to comment on the report.
NEW YORK (CNN) Forget the Empire State Building.
Some New York tourists are eager to see the city's other landmarks:
Carrie's stoop, Charlotte's gallery and that restaurant where Samantha threw a martini in a boyfriend's face.
Fans of "Sex and the City" have long arrived here eager to see the $500 shoes, the Cosmopolitan-drinking fashionistas and the glamorous serial daters for themselves.
Now, with the movie follow-up to the show set to premiere later this month, a number of them are planning trips so that they can see "Sex and the City" ... in the city.
Along with three female friends, she's planning to relax at a spa mentioned on the show, take a "Sex and the City Hotspots" tour and see the movie on its opening weekend.
"The producers have said that New York City is the fifth lady of the show," says Lisa Blythe Perlman, a guide for the hotspots tour. "Eighty percent of the show was filmed on location.
The tour company says it has already seen advance purchases more than double for the May 30 opening weekend.
Fertitta, who peppers his conversations with journalists with mentions of the show, said he was surprised on a recent visit to China when he found himself flooded by questions from local female reporters about the series.
"They look at this as a window into New York City," he said.
LONDON, England (CNN) One of Francis Williams' favorite stories to tell is about the time he was pulled over for speeding.
Williams, who had been in London on business, was driving home through the English countryside when a police officer stopped him and wanted to know two things:
It turned out the response to the second question would help Williams resolve the first:
"And [the police officer] said, 'Do you know, my wife has bought some of that.
The answer to the first question was subsequently forgotten.
Williams, who describes himself as the "Lunar Ambassador to the United Kingdom," is the owner of MoonEstates.
As proof of purchase, new property owners receive a silver tin containing a personalized "Lunar Deed" and a moon map with a tiny black X marking their tract's approximate location.
Most of the land Williams sells is in the northwest, in an area known as Oceanus Procellarum, or Ocean of Storms a desolate lava plain formed by volcanoes billions of years ago.
Williams received his license to sell lunar land in the UK from Dennis Hope.
In 1980, the Nevada-based entrepreneur claimed ownership of the moon after finding what he calls a loophole in the 1967 United Nations Outer Space Treaty, which forbids countries from owning the moon but, according to Hope, does not forbid individuals from owning it.
Hope, who estimates he has sold over 500 million acres of moon land, said he immediately filed a "declaration of ownership" with the U.N. along with the United States and Russian governments.
After 28 years, the moon mogul still has not received a reply.
"I have never heard from them on that note ever," Hope told CNN in a phone interview.
While the U.N. may have ignored Hope's lunar land claims for almost three decades, it is unlikely the organization will be able ignore what could soon become a question of increasing international importance: Who, exactly, does own the moon?
"At some point the world community needs to come together and draft some new convention or treaty," said Paul Dempsey, director of the Institute of Air and Space Law and McGill University in Montreal. "It is an open wound that needs to be healed. "
EINDHOVEN, Netherlands (CNN) Philips Electronics NV says it has developed a three-dimensional television.
The prototype combines slightly different angles of the same image to create video that appears to have different depths.
At its annual presentation of corporate research Tuesday, the company has also showed models of a low-energy water purifier for use in developing countries and a flat light that is transparent like ordinary glass until it is turned on.
Philips, the world's largest lighting company, uses ultraviolet light for the water purifier and LEDs, or light-emitting diodes, for the illuminating glass surface.
Vitamin D is becoming an increasingly important player in a healthful diet.
Over the past 10 years, a spate of research has linked it to an impressive and diverse array of potential benefits.
In addition to vitamin D's well-known function of increasing calcium absorption and thereby helping encourage healthy bone growth, it has shown promise in helping to prevent certain cancers, heart disease, diabetes, and osteoarthritis.
However, while many in the scientific community are excited about its promise, they have yet to agree on how much you need and where to obtain it.
Vitamin D is unique in many ways.
At the time of its discovery in 1919, vitamins A, B, and C were already identified;
D was the next letter in line, so that was the name given to the compound.
However, vitamin D behaves like a hormone in the body, relaying chemical messages something no other vitamin does.
For example, vitamin D signals the intestines to absorb calcium from foods and to regulate its uptake by bone cells.
Some nutrients, such as vitamin C, are put to work immediately by the body in the form in which they are consumed.
Vitamin D, however, requires processing.
"Vitamin D is a key component in helping the body respond to many different kinds of assaults and stimuli," says Robert Heaney, Ph.D., professor of medicine at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska.
"In the absence of it, you're asking the body to defend itself with one hand tied behind its back.
The AI for vitamin D is 200 International Units for adults under age 50, 400 IU for those 51 to 70, and 600 IU for those age 71 and above.
As new studies continue to showcase vitamin D's potential benefits, more scientists are calling for increased recommendations.
Food
Foods naturally rich in vitamin D are scarce.
Seafood options top the list
cod liver oil, salmon, mackerel and tuna.
they also contain heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids.)
Milk is fortified with 100 IU per 8-ounce serving. Some yogurts and cheeses also contain vitamin D, as do breakfast cereals and juices. CookingLight.com:
Sunlight
Every time sunlight warms our skin, your body produces vitamin D.
However, sunlight is unreliable and several factors influence its ability to induce vitamin D production, including:
the angle of the sun, the latitude in which you live, you skin pigmentation, age, and use of skin-care products containing sun-protection factor (SPF).
Source 3: Supplements
The key is buying the right type of supplement.
Most multivitamins are fortified with the current AI for vitamin D;
TUXTLA GUTIERREZ, Mexico (CNN) A donkey is doing time in southern Mexico for assault and battery.
The animal was locked up at a local jail that usually holds people for public drunkenness and other disturbances after it bit and kicked two men near a ranch in Chiapas state, police said Monday.
Officer Sinar Gomez said the donkey will remain behind bars until its owner agrees to pay the men's medical bills.
"Around here, if someone commits a crime, they are jailed," Gomez said, "no matter who they are.
The owner, Mauro Gutierrez, told The Associated Press he would try to reach a friendly arrangement to pay the men's bills, estimated at $420.
The victims said the donkey bit Genaro Vazquez, 63, in the chest on Sunday and then kicked 52-year-old Andres Hernandez as he tried to come to the rescue, fracturing his ankle.
"All of a sudden, the animal was on top of us like it was rabid," Hernandez said.
Chiapas police have thrown animals in the slammer before, including a bull that devoured corn crops and destroyed two wooden vending stands in March.
In 2006, a dog was locked up for 12 days after biting
His owners were fined $18.
The prices of homes sold in the first quarter of 2008 posted a record decline, according to a new report from the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight.
Initial claims for unemployment benefits fell last week, according to a U.S. Labor Department report issued Thursday.
The number of people filing for state jobless benefits decreased by 9,000 to 365,000 in the week ended May 17, the report said.
The consensus estimate of economists surveyed by Briefing.com was for a slight increase to 372,000.
¡°Today¡¯s report is consoling for now, but you have to be wary,¡± said Robert Brusca, chief economist at Fact and Opinion Economics.
A newspaper reporter from Baquba and a TV cameraman from Baghdad have been killed, the latest journalist deaths in a country that has been called ¡°the world¡¯s deadliest nation for the press.
Afaq TV said one of its cameramen, Wisam Ali Odah, was killed by a ¡°U.S. sniper¡± in the Ubaidi section of New Baghdad, in eastern Baghdad.
Fighting there between U.S. troops and militants on Wednesday led to what the Interior Ministry said were 14 deaths.
The U.S. military said 11 militants were among those killed.
An Iraqi Interior Ministry official confirmed the killing and said the U.S. military opened fire randomly on people after a number of roadside bombs detonated.
¡°Coalition forces only engage hostile threats and take every precaution to protect innocent civilians.
We have not confirmed that any Iraqi civilians were killed as a result of this operation,¡± the U.S. military said.
A bomb attached to a guards¡¯ cabin at the Algerian Embassy in western Baghdad exploded Wednesday night and wounded five guards.
The Interior Ministry confirmed the incident, saying the strike occurred in the Mansour neighborhood.
In 2005, insurgents in Iraq kidnapped and killed two Algerian diplomats.
An Internet statement posted at that time in the name of al Qaeda in Iraq claimed the group killed those two.
Iraq has been trying to persuade Arab states to send ambassadors to Baghdad and many of those embassies are in the Mansour neighborhood.
A Chinese policewoman is being hailed as a hero after taking it upon herself to breast-feed several infants who lost their mothers or whose mothers couldn¡¯t feed them after China¡¯s devastating earthquake.
Officer Jiang Xiaojuan, 29, the mother of a 6-month-old boy, responded to the call of duty and the instincts of motherhood after the magnitude 7.9 quake struck on May 12. ¡°I am breast-feeding, so I can feed babies.
I didn¡¯t think of it much,¡± she said. ¡°It is a mother¡¯s reaction, and a basic duty as a police officer to help.
A Colombian prosecutor called Thursday for an investigation into 12 people, including an American professor, for alleged ties to members of a leftist rebel group in Colombia.
He said three of the five Colombians are lawmakers.
The 7.9-magnitude quake injured 288,431 people, with another 29,328 missing, authorities said.
In the midst of the devastation, China¡¯s central government has announced it will allocate $10 billion, or 70 billion yuan, for the country¡¯s reconstruction fund, according to state media.
As Iraqi security forces worked to restore peace in Baghdad¡¯s Sadr City, American soldiers killed 11 well-armed militants in a nearby neighborhood of the capital, the U.S. military said.
The 11 ¡°Special Group criminals¡± were killed in several incidents in the New Baghdad section of eastern Baghdad, the military said.
Both Sadr City and New Baghdad are largely Shiite, and fighting raged for weeks in Sadr City between troops and militants until a recent peace deal took hold.
The death toll from a May 12 earthquake in China has risen to 51,151, government officials said Thursday.
The government reported injuries to 288,431 people, with another 29,328 missing.
Fifty-four people were sickened by toxic fumes at a hospital in southern Japan Wednesday when a man vomited after drinking pesticide to commit suicide.
An official with Red Cross Hospital in Kumamoto said the 34-year-old man later died while the people who were sickened were ¡°progressing favorably.
Eleven of the 54 people who were sickened were doctors;
another 20 were staffers at the hospital in the city of Kumamoto.
The liquid pesticide the man consumed was later identified as chloropicrin, which was used to produce tear gas during World War I and induces tears and vomiting.
Earl Wesley Berry was executed Wednesday for abducting and killing a Mississippi woman more than 20 years ago in the nation¡¯s second execution since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that lethal injection was constitutional.
15 p.m. ET) at Parchman prison, 15 minutes after the injections began, said Kent Crocker, a communications officer for the state Department of Corrections.
Before the Supreme Court¡¯s decision, no executions had taken place nationwide for seven months.
Two suicide bombers died when their explosives-laden truck detonated near a border crossing in northern Gaza on Tuesday morning, the Israeli military said.
According to Israel Defense Forces, no one was injured on the Israeli side of the border, but a number of buildings sustained major damage near the Erez crossing.
The truck blew up about 165 feet (50 meters) from the border crossing terminal, which Israeli soldiers man.
Israeli aircraft struck a car that also was involved in the attack.
The car was used to pick up two other militants who had been riding in the truck, the Israeli military said.
At least one of the bombers was a Palestinian militant from Islamic Jihad, according to sources with the group.
Islamic Jihad and Fatah claimed responsibility for the attack, the sources said.
Both of the Democratic presidential candidates were campaigning in Florida Wednesday, but for two very different reasons.
Fresh from her win in Kentucky, Sen. Hillary Clinton will be pushing for the Democratic National Committee to seat the Florida¡¯s delegates at the national convention.
The committee stripped the state of its delegates because its violated party rules by holding its primary on January 29, earlier than allowed.
Sen. Barack Obama will be focused more on November as he campaigns in the state, which is expected to once again play a critical role as a swing state in the general election.
South Korea President Lee Myung-bak apologized to the nation Thursday for failing to fully understand their concerns about mad cow disease, the South Korean news agency, Yonhap, reported.
Lee was responding to public protests after his government¡¯s decision last month to allow imports of U.S. beef.
¡°The government¡¯s efforts to listen to and understand public opinions have been insufficient,¡± he said. ¡°I feel it is deeply regrettable.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Thursday arrived in Myanmar, where he planned to push the country¡¯s ruling military junta to accept an outpouring of international aid for millions of cyclone victims.
Myanmar¡¯s leaders have been slow to allow foreign aid in the country, and prevented foreign agencies from doing a needs assessment after the storm.
The government also insisted that any aid that came in be distributed by their soldiers and volunteers, which went against the policy of many agencies.
Ban plans to tour the devastated Irrawaddy Delta in southern Myanmar on Thursday.
The coastline of the Andaman Sea was especially hard-hit, and aid workers have reported that bodies still line the shore in some spots.
The U.N. leader said he will meet with Senior Gen. Than Shwe, leader of the junta that rules the country, also known as Burma.
The chief security officer for Iraq¡¯s Transportation Ministry was gunned down on an eastern Baghdad highway Wednesday, an official with Iraq¡¯s Interior Ministry told CNN.
Abdul Karim Muhsan was killed when at least four gunmen in two cars intercepted his vehicle on the Mohammed al-Qasim highway in eastern Baghdad at around 2:40 p.m. and shot at him, using pistols with silencers, the official said.
Meanwhile, four people were killed and 12 others were wounded in two car bomb attacks in Baghdad Wednesday, the interior ministry official said.
Surrounded by family members, Sen. Edward Kennedy left a Massachusetts hospital Wednesday morning, a day after his doctors announced that he has a malignant brain tumor.
Kennedy waved to the crowd of reporters and onlookers and gave a ¡°thumbs up¡± sign before getting into a car.
The 76-year-old Democrat was hospitalized Saturday after suffering a seizure at his home in Hyannisport, Massachusetts.
Three politicians viewed by pundits as possible running mates for Republican presidential candidate John McCain will join the senator at his Arizona home this weekend, but campaign officials said Wednesday the gathering is purely social.
Among the 18 guests expected at the presumptive nominee¡¯s ranch in Sedona are Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, one of McCain¡¯s former rivals for the GOP¡¯s presidential nomination.
But senior McCain adviser Charlie Black told CNN, ¡°He is definitely not interviewing anyone, and this weekend is not about that process.
The House ethics committee voted Wednesday to investigate Rep.
the New York congressman who admitted to fathering a child out of wedlock with the woman who bailed him out of jail on a drunken-driving charge this month.
The committee will investigate Fossella¡¯s arrest in Alexandria, Virginia, on May 1, when police say he was pulled over after running a red light and registered a blood-alcohol level of 0.17 percent &#8212;
Fossella has said he will not seek re-election.
A former Colombian army soldier, who told authorities he had a grenade, was holding about 19 people hostage Wednesday at a government pension office in Bogota, officials said.
They said the man contended the amount of his pension was less than promised.
The man, who identified himself as Edgar Paz Morales, said he wanted to talk to an army general or a member of the media so he could read a statement, officials told CNN.
If that is done he would then give up the grenade, and free the office workers and customers being held hostage, they said he told them.
The Fed lowered its economic growth forecast for the year.
At the same time, it raised its projections for inflation and unemployment.
This created a difficult economic combination that made the Fed¡¯s latest decision to cut rates a ¡°close call¡± according to the minutes from last month¡¯s Fed meeting.
Asian nations are beginning to focus on the reconstruction needs of Myanmar, devastated by Cyclone Nargis in early May, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Wednesday.
Thailand has pledged to provide rice feed and farming equipment to its neighbor , and an international donors conference is scheduled Sunday in Yongon, Myanmar, largely to discuss the country¡¯s future.
The Dalai Lama said Wednesday he is ¡°happy¡± to attend this summer¡¯s Olympic Games in Beijing, China, if he is invited.
The exiled Tibetan spiritual leader was speaking to reporters during a 12-day visit to Britain that also includes a meeting with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
Former world number one Lindsay Davenport, as well as American compatriots Meilen Tu and Meghann Shaughnessy have pulled out of the French Open, which starts on Sunday.
Davenport, 31 and a mother since last June, said she had pulled out for "personal reasons.
Tu says she is "insufficiently recovered" from a hip complaint, while Shaughnessy is suffering from a left knee injury.
The trio will be replaced in the women's draw by Canadian Aleksandra Wozniak, Taiwan's Su-Wei Hsieh and Colombia's Catalina Castano.
Meanwhile, Argentine Guillermo Coria, the 2004 Roland Garros runner-up, will replace injured Andy Roddick in the men's draw.
Despite Hillary Clinton's landslide victory in Kentucky, Barack Obama has won a majority of pledged delegates in the race for the Democratic nomination.
Clinton won Kentucky by more than 30 points, but Obama's share of the state's 51 delegates was enough put him over the threshold, according to CNN estimates.
Obama is expected to pick up at least 14 delegates in Kentucky, and by CNN estimates, that will give him 1,627 of the 3,253 pledged delegates at stake in all of primaries and caucuses.
Obama will also pick up a win in Oregon, CNN projects, giving him the larger share of the state's 52 delegates.
Obama's top strategist, David Axelrod, said getting the pledged delegate majority was an "important milestone," but not the end of the trail.
Neither candidate is expected to reach the 2,026 delegates needed to win the Democratic nomination.
That means the race is likely to be settled by "superdelegates" party leaders and officials who will cast votes at the Democratic convention in August.
Speaking in Iowa, where he won the first-in-the-nation caucuses, Obama told supporters, "it was in this great state where we took the first steps of an unlikely journey to change America.
Obama continued to look to the general election, focusing his attacks as he has for the past week on Sen. John McCain, while commending Clinton for "her courage, her commitment and her perseverance.
"This year's Republican primary was a contest to see which candidate could out-Bush the other, and that is the contest John McCain won," he said.
EGU VILLAGE, Ethiopia (CNN) A year of drought and soaring food prices has threatened the lives of tens of thousands of Ethiopian children.
"We have nothing to feed our children," said Egu's village elder. "We are losing our children day by day.
Ethiopia's Health Ministry, along with UNICEF, monitors the health of thousands of children here, but the number of areas they have been able to regularly visit has been cut in half this year.
The small rains that normally allow Ethiopian farmers to plant a second crop each year did not come this year, adding to an already critical food shortage.
"It's an open crisis, and there are more people than we expected, than the government expected, who need additional food," said Bjorn Ljungqvist, head of UNICEF Ethiopia.
There is a crucial shortfall in the supply of therapeutic foods used to treat children with severe acute malnutrition, the UNICEF official said.
The UN's children's agency is appealing for $10 million to pay for emergency needs of more than 7 million children under 5 as well as pregnant and nursing mothers in 325 drought-affected districts.
The World Food Programme supplies the emergency food for UNICEF, but rising food prices mean it could not guarantee aid for all the areas in need.
"Unless you get immediate assistance the risk is, you fall into severe malnutrition and eventually death, so unless our supporters come in immediately for this, we fear that is what is going to happen in the country," said Jakob Mikkelse, the program's nutrition and education chief.
Egu is a village UNICEF is no longer able to visit on a regular basis.
If we were not here, those children who we had found now with severe acute malnutrition would have died at home," UNICEF Emergency Nutrition Project Officer Samson Dessie said.
UNICEF estimates that 6 million Ethiopian children under the age of 5 are at risk and that more than 120,000 have only about a month to live.
TOKYO, Japan (CNN) Hello Kitty, Japan's ubiquitous ambassador of cute, has built up an impressive resume over the years.
Japan's tourism ministry on Monday named Hello Kitty as its choice to represent the country in China and Hong Kong, two places where she is wildly popular among kids and young women.
Officials hope tapping into that fan base will lead to a bigger flow of tourists into Japan and push the country closer to the goal of attracting 10 million overseas visitors every year under the "Visit Japan" campaign.
Last year the number of foreign tourists traveling to Japan hit a record high of 8.35 million, up 60 percent since the government began the marketing effort in 2003.
Arrivals from China and Hong Kong, who accounted for 16.5 percent of visitors to Japan last year, are poised this year to become the second-largest group of tourists after South Koreans.
At a press conference, Sanrio Co. President Shintaro Tsuji, whose company created the toy cat, called Hello Kitty's new appointment "an honor" and pledged the feline would "work hard to attract many visitors.
Japan's other goodwill tourism ambassadors include Korean singer Younha, Japanese actress Yoshino Kimura and Japanese pop/rock duo Puffy AmiYumi.
Designed in 1974 by Sanrio, Hello Kitty first appeared on a plastic coin purse.
Her image today has become one of the most powerful brands in the world, adorning some 50,000 products in 60 countries.
Hello Kitty one of mascot-obsessed Japan's biggest hits as a toy character is often seen on lunch boxes, jewelry and many other accessories.
In China, Kitty-fever has already broken out.
A multi-million-dollar musical featuring Hello Kitty opened earlier this year in Beijing and is in the midst of a national tour.
"Hello Kitty's Dream Light Fantasy" is then scheduled to travel to Malaysia, Singapore and the United States over its three-year run.
The White House on Tuesday dismissed an Israeli media report that President Bush intends to attack Iran before his term ends in January.
"An article in today's Jerusalem Post about the president's position on Iran that quotes unnamed sources quoting unnamed sources is not worth the paper it's written on," the White House said in a statement hours after the Israeli newspaper published the report on its Web site.
The Jerusalem Post article cited an Israeli Army Radio report quoting a "senior official in Jerusalem" that a "senior member of the president's entourage" claimed Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney thought military action was called for against Tehran.
But Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates were opposed, the official told Army Radio, according to the newspaper.
"As the president has said, no president of the United States should ever take options off the table, but our preference and our actions for dealing with this matter remain through peaceful diplomatic means. Nothing has changed in that regard," the statement said.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack also called the report "nonsense.
Rice, Gates and Bush "are all on the same page regarding Iran," he said.
McCormack said the three all "support the efforts to find a diplomatic resolution to all the various issues involving Iran in the international system.
YANGON, Myanmar (CNN) As Myanmar began a three-day mourning period Tuesday, the World Bank reiterated that it cannot provide financial assistance or loans to the cyclone-ravaged country because of unpaid debts.
"Basically the situation is the same as for the past decade," said spokesman Peter Stephens. "Myanmar has been in arrears since 1998 and legally we cannot lend to a country in arrears.
The news came as farmers and aid groups warned of a future food crisis after the cyclone destroyed swathes of fertile rice-growing land.
Farmer U Han Nyunt told CNN shortages were likely because productive land and seeds had been ruined.
"We are all going to die here," Nyunt said. "But not because of the cyclone. We will die because we have no food.
However, there was cause for fresh hope Monday after the military junta which rules Myanmar decided to accept aid from its neighboring countries.
It followed an emergency meeting in Singapore of the 10 countries that make up the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
In addition, the World Bank said while it could not provide financial assistance, it had promised to assist ASEAN with disaster assessment and relief work in the country.
Stephens said the World Bank would assist ASEAN by teaming up with officials who had experience in reconstruction efforts from the 2004 earthquake and tsunami in Indonesia's Banda Aceh.
"The World Bank's role normally only comes in later, during reconstruction anyway," Stephens said. "At this stage, the relief coordination is very much in the hands of the U.N.," led by ASEAN.
The U.N. and ASEAN Monday announced a joint international pledging conference, to take place Sunday in Yangon, Myanmar's main city.
The ASEAN assessment team would travel to Myanmar on Wednesday to gauge the impact of the disaster and the scope of aid needed.
The same day, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is expected to arrive in an attempt to "accelerate relief efforts," a spokesman said.
In addition, ASEAN countries committed to send 30 medical personnel for a total of 270 to help with the medical needs of the displaced population.
Its heat powers the solar system.
Its light makes life on Earth possible.
Its gravitational pull keeps planets in orbit around it.
The sun is, in every sense of the word, a superstar.
But despite its familiarity, there is a lot we don't know about it.
Now, scientists are planning humanity's closest visit yet to our most familiar star.
The NASA Solar Probe, an unmanned spacecraft scheduled for launch in 2015, will explore some of the burning questions scientists have about the sun.
The probe "takes us to where space weather and, indeed, everything that directly affects life on Earth, starts," said Loren Acton, research professor of physics at Montana State University and member of the NASA team that produced the mission definition report.
The project, which costs around $750 million, will be able to withstand inconceivably high temperatures up to 2,600 degrees Fahrenheit.
The probe is being developed at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory.
NEW YORK (CNN) A New York City college student sued actress Lindsay Lohan, claiming the "Mean Girls" star took her mink coat without permission and kept it for more than two weeks.
Maria Markova says in a lawsuit filed Monday that the 21-year-old Lohan took the $12,000 golden sheared mink coat while in the nightclub 1 Oak on January 26.
The 22-year-old Markova's lawyer, Merrill Cohen, says Lohan had been sitting next to her client.
Cohen say Markova next saw her coat on Lohan in a photo in OK!
She says Markova got the coat back on February 14.
Cohen says the lawsuit, filed in Manhattan's state Supreme Court, asks unspecified damages.
Lohan's lawyer, Blair Berk, said it would be inappropriate to comment on the case.
Sen. Joseph Lieberman is urging Google Inc. to take down YouTube videos that he said al Qaeda and "other terrorist organizations" use to encourage violence and disseminate propaganda.
In a Monday letter to Eric Schmidt, chief executive officer of Google, Lieberman asked that YouTube "implement its own policy against this offensive material," by removing the videos.
Lieberman, the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, also wants YouTube staffers to have a system that will prevent the video from reappearing.
The letter follows the committee's staff report on terrorists' Internet use. Read the report
YouTube is a subsidiary of Google Inc.
"Many of the videos produced by one of the production arms of al Qaeda show attacks on U.S. forces in which American soldiers are injured and, in some cases, killed," wrote Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut.
"The community guidelines state that 'graphic or gratuitous violence is not allowed.
YouTube said Monday on its blog that it had removed a "number of videos" from its site after examining several videos that Lieberman's staff said "violated YouTube's Community Guidelines.
The videos that were removed "depicted gratuitous violence, advocated violence, or used hate speech," YouTube said.
The statement did not say how many videos were removed, and it was not immediately clear when they were taken down.
Forum Films, the Israeli distributor of the soon-to-be-released "Sex and the City" movie, said advertising posters and billboards won't be hung in Jerusalem and Petah Tikva because residents there don't want the word "sex" on display, said company spokesman Arye Barak.
The Israeli company that is handling outdoor advertising for the movie asked to have the word "sex" removed from the posters because it would bother people in those cities, Barak said.
Ads for the movie, based on the popular TV series, were to go up elsewhere in Israel on Tuesday night, said an official at Maximedia, the outdoor ad company.
Alternative outdoor ads will not be hung in Jerusalem and Petah Tikva, though the movie is heavily advertised on TV, the Internet and in newspapers, Barak said.
The worldwide release of the movie is scheduled for May 29.
Nor is this the first time that "Sex and the City" has run afoul of Israeli religious sensibilities.
Several years ago, a poster and billboard campaign showing star Sarah Jessica Parker in a skimpy, sequined dress was quickly pulled and replaced with new ads of her in a dress that covered her arms, back and thigh.
VIENNA, Austria (CNN) Oil prices spiked to a new trading high Tuesday, sweeping toward $130 a barrel as supply concerns intensified the momentum buying that has lifted crude deeper into record territory.
The June contract for light, sweet crude traded as high as $129.46 on the New York Mercantile Exchange before settling back to $129.10 up $2.05.
This latest surge comes after OPEC's president was quoted as saying his organization will not increase its output before its next meeting on September 9.
The contract reached a new closing high of $127.05 Monday after Algerian Energy Minister Chakib Khelil, president of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, was quoted by a government newspaper as saying it will not increase its output during the United States' summer driving season, which begins this weekend.
Concern about supply has recently become the primary driver of the market, replacing earlier worries about a weakening dollar, and not even Saudi Arabia's promise last week of an additional 300,000 barrels of crude a day could alleviate those new concerns.
Despite that pledge from the world's leading oil producer and the U.S. move to temporarily stop filling government stockpiles, prices have shown no indication of stopping their record run.
Sen. Hillary Clinton will win the Democratic primary in Kentucky by a wide margin, CNN projects.
With 23 percent of precincts reporting, Clinton was leading Barack Obama by 12 percentage points.
But polls leading up to the primary showed Clinton with a commanding lead beating Obama by about 30 percentage points.
According to exit polls in Kentucky, Clinton won among men, 62-32 percent, and among women, 67-27 percent.
She also beat Obama across all age groups, income groups and education levels.
Eighty-nine percent of Tuesday's voters in Kentucky were white, according to the exit polls.
Among them, Clinton won 72-22 percent.
Nine percent of the voters were African-American and they overwhelmingly broke for Obama, 87-7 percent.
The exit polls from Kentucky also suggest a deep division among Democrats.
Two-thirds of Clinton's supporters there said they would vote Republican or not vote at all rather than for Obama, according to the polls.
Forty-one percent of Clinton supporters said they'd cast their vote for John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, and 23 percent said they would not vote at all.
Just 33 percent said they would back Obama in the general election, according to the polls.
Those numbers are even worse for Obama than in West Virginia one week ago, where 36 percent of Clinton voters said they would back him in the fall.
The results come as Obama is poised to take a majority of the pledged delegates after voters weigh in Tuesday in Kentucky and Oregon.
Sen. Edward Kennedy¡¯s seizure Saturday was caused by a malignant tumor in his brain, the hospital treating the Massachusetts senator said Tuesday.
Kennedy, 76, was airlifted to Massachusetts General Hospital after suffering the seizure on Saturday.
After a battery of tests, doctors determined that the incident was caused by the tumor.
¡°Preliminary results from a biopsy of the brain identified the cause of the seizure as a malignant glioma in the left parietal-lobe,¡± said the statement, from Kennedy¡¯s doctors.
Many of the victims are Zimbabweans who have fled repression and dire economic circumstances in their homeland.
Evidence of the violence was seen in smoke rising from burned homes in one Johannesburg neighborhood.
Locals angry about the rising number of foreigners arriving in South Africa had set homes ablaze.
Firefighters said they had fought more than 100 such blazes since Thursday.
World number six Andy Roddick has withdrawn from the French Open because of a right shoulder injury.
The American, who lost in the first round at Roland Garros the last two years, retired from the semifinals of the Rome Masters on May 10.
He then skipped the Hamburg Masters but had been expected to play this week at the World Team Cup in Duesseldorf.
His brother John announced the withdrawal on Monday at the World Team Cup.
He said that his brother had been hopeful of a good performance at the French Open this year.
"He's been playing well all year and he was excited to be playing on the clay and really had a good frame of mind in practice and in his matches.
Roddick won his only Grand Slam title at the 2003 U.S. Open.
He has reached three other major finals, losing to Roger Federer twice at Wimbledon and once at the U.S. Open.
At the French Open, Roddick's best showing came in his debut in 2001 when he reached the third round.
He reached the second round in 2004 and '05, but has lost in the first round four times.
The French Open starts on Sunday.
A suicide bomber killed 10 people on Sunday after attacking a bakery on a Pakistan army base near the northwestern city of Peshawar, according to police and the Pakistani military.
Nineteen others were wounded in the suicide attack in Mardan, in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, according to a Pakistani military news release.
The bomber also died in the attack, which happened between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. local time (1500-1600 GMT, 1000-1100 ET), police said.
The province is part of Pakistan's tribal regions along the border with Afghanistan.
The new government, led by the party of the late premier Benazir Bhutto, has been trying to negotiate peace deals with tribal leaders in the region.
The latest attack was the deadliest in more than two months and could complicate the government's efforts, The Associated Press reported.
The talks have already been hampered by a suspected U.S. missile strike that left several dead in a nearby tribal area, AP said.
SYDNEY, Australia (CNN) Australian authorities have started the controversial killing of about 40 kangaroos on the outskirts of the capital Canberra, animal rights activists said Monday.
Between 20 to 40 kangaroos were tranquilized and then killed with lethal injections by defense contractors, said Angie Stephenson, project manager of Animal Liberation New South Wales.
She said a baby kangaroo was trampled and killed when the animals were rounded up into a pen.
The Defense Department said last week it would begin killing the eastern gray kangaroos at the abandoned military site outside Canberra after a proposal to truck them to remote forest land proved too costly.
Authorities say the overabundant kangaroos are crowding out other native species, but many animal rights activists are against the killing of Australia's beloved national symbol.
Stephenson said there were a handful of activists at the site Monday to witness the killing, and that dozens more were expected to gather in the coming days.
The issue has split Australians over the merits of killing kangaroos to protect rare lizards and insects that share their grassy habitat.
Despite Sen. Barack Obama's commanding lead in the delegate count, Sen. Hillary Clinton campaigned hard Sunday, telling voters she's "running for the toughest job in the world.
Clinton is favored in Kentucky, while polls show Obama with a comfortable lead in Oregon.
Clinton has faced calls to drop out of the race since she trails Obama across all fronts pledged delegates, superdelegates and the popular vote.
Clinton has recently been claiming a lead over Obama in the popular vote, a debatable claim, especially because the Democratic National Committee doesn't count the votes of Florida and Michigan, which Clinton does.
Florida and Michigan were stripped of their delegates for scheduling their primaries too early, and Clinton was the only top-tier candidate whose name was on the ballot in Michigan.
Clinton's campaign also excludes the caucus states in their popular vote count.
According to CNN's latest count, Obama leads Clinton in total delegates 1,904 to 1,717.
A candidate needs 2,025 to clinch the Democratic nomination.
Clinton encouraged her Kentucky supporters to vote in the upcoming primary, saying Sunday, "If we get everybody turned out, it's going to send a great message to our country that you don't stop democracy in its tracks."
Meanwhile Obama, who's been campaigning in Oregon, focused his attacks on Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) A top militant who once served as a general in the military under Saddam Hussein was arrested on Monday, Iraqi officials said.
Abdul Khaleq al-Sabawi, al Qaeda in Iraq's leader in the Nineveh province city of Mosul, was arrested in Tikrit, according to Iraq's Interior Ministry.
The arrest is considered part of the Mother of Two Springs offensive against al Qaeda in Iraq in Mosul because Nineveh officers carried out the raid.
Interior Ministry spokesman, Maj. Gen. Abdul Karim Khalaf said al-Sabawi is now being interrogated.
Khalaf didn't elaborate on the operation, but said no shots were fired during the arrest.
The Mother of Two Springs operation focuses on militants in the Mosul area.
Iraqi government officials call Mosul the last big urban stronghold for al Qaeda in Iraq.
The operation has netted 1,330 detainees since the start of last week's crackdown, with 240 of them being released, Khalaf said.
He said the operation has been "smooth," and no shots have been fired.
Five roadside bombs were detonated against security forces without serious casualties since the offensive started, Khalaf said.
Last week, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki announced an amnesty plan in Nineveh for some militants.
The amnesty plan which began May 16 and will be in effect for 10 days applies to people who were "duped and carried weapons" against security forces, but "whose hands are not covered in blood.
Those who have committed crimes against civilians do not qualify for the amnesty.
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (CNN) Marine scientists surveying a large undersea mountain chain were amazed to find millions of tiny starfish swirling their arms to capture food in the undersea current.
An expedition by 19 scientists studied the geology and biology of eight Macquarie Ridge sea mounts.
They are part of a string of underwater volcanoes dormant for millions of years that stretches 1,400 kilometers (875 miles) from south of New Zealand toward Antarctica.
The scientists also investigated the world's biggest ocean current the Antarctic Circumpolar Current amid expectations they would find evidence of climate change in the Southern Ocean.
While the expedition's cameras found a high density of cardinal fish and huge coral, the vast collection of brittle stars was the highlight of the voyage.
"I've personally never seen anything like this all these animals, the sheer volume all waiting for food from the current," expedition member and marine biologist Dr. Mireille Consalvey said Monday. "It challenged what we as scientists thought we knew.
Expedition leader and marine biologist Ashley Rowden said starfish usually only covered slopes away from the top of the undersea mountains.
"It was unique in that it hasn't been found on the tops of sea mounts before ... [and] it was over a relatively large area" of about 60 square miles, he said.
"It got us excited as soon as we saw it," Rowden said of the site, dubbed "Brittle Star City.
The starfish are about 0.4 inch across, with arms about 2 inches long.
The expedition began March 26 and returned to port in New Zealand's capital Wellington on April 26.
Crowds gathered in the devastated city of Chengdu shouted "Farewell, friends!" and "Rebuild!"
as China began three days of national mourning Monday to honor the tens of thousands killed by last week's massive earthquake.
The death toll in worst-hit Sichuan province, southwestern China, rose to at least 34,073 with another 245,109 people hurt, Chinese government officials said Monday.
Even rescue workers paused from the job of clearing debris and searching for survivors to mark the moment.
In Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan, the three minutes was followed by shouts of support for the recovery effort, CNN correspondent Eunice Yoon said.
"During the moment of silence they were all holding hands, some of them were weeping... They are in a state of utter disbelief and utter shock that so many people have died," said Yoon.
Meanwhile, at least 200 rescue workers have been buried by mud slides during the past three days, a transport ministry official told the official Xinhua state news agency.
Earlier, Xinhua reported that two women had been pulled alive from the rubble of a collapsed residential building in the Sichuan county of Beichuan.
The Olympic torch relay was suspended during the mourning period, China's state-run television announced.
The torch was going to be in the eastern cities of Ningbo and Jiaxing in Zhejiang Province on Monday, then in Shanghai on Tuesday and Wednesday.
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (CNN) South Africa's police chief said Monday that violence directed at foreign nationals had killed 22 people over the past week.
The attacks have been concentrated in Johannesburg's poorest areas, and many of the victims were Zimbabweans who have fled repression and dire economic circumstances.
The Nelson Mandela Foundation issued a statement condemning the "senseless violence" that police say was sparked a week ago in Johannesburg's Alexandra Township.
"We join the rest of South Africa in deploring this violence," said Achmat Dangor, CEO of the Nelson Mandela Foundation, according to a statement released on Monday.
"Whatever the underlying causes they have to be addressed, but this senseless violence is not a solution. "
Police said those behind the attacks accused the foreigners of stealing jobs, carrying out criminal activities and benefiting from social services such as free housing meant to benefit South Africans.
Police arrested more than 200 people during the violence for offenses including rape, murder, robbery and theft.
Many have sought refuge at police stations.
Some women have told police they were raped as part of an effort to drive the immigrants out.
South Africa's police director Govindsamy Mariemuthoo said 22 people had been killed in the past week.
The Red Cross estimates some 3,000 more were displaced.
The attacks were concentrated in some of the poorest parts of South Africa where locals are jobless, hungry and in need of basic services such as clean water, sanitation and housing.
South African President Thabo Mbeki called for an investigation into the violence.
He has been reluctant to describe it as xenophobic because many South Africans have criticized his government for not doing enough to deal with the crisis in neighboring Zimbabwe.
It's well past the kids' bedtime, but no one is nagging the preschoolers and kindergartners to brush their teeth and go to sleep.
Instead, they're dressed to the nines (the girls, anyway) in full princess regalia before heading to a poolside pirate party, complete with fireworks, to get up close and personal with Goofy and all of his pirate friends aboard the Disney Wonder.
Others are busy in the shipboard Oceaneer Club playing the latest video games, watching movies in seats designed to look like clam shells and climbing on the pirate ship play structure.
All of this is after they've seen a brand-new Broadway-style show "Toy Story:
The Musical," featuring all of their favorite characters from the popular film and dined like royalty at dinner where the waiters not only knew their names but also performed magic tricks and were happy to get them anything they liked at no extra charge (a side of salmon with your chicken fingers ... no problem!)
Of course, vacationing with young children isn't always a vacation for parents.
Just ask Ethan and Hannah's parents, Mike and Jayme Sitzman.
No one wants to get up to take a child to the bathroom three times before the main course is served!
But the families that recently cruised aboard the Wonder for three days agree that Disney Cruise Line does all it can to ensure that the more than 1,000 kids onboard, 45 percent of them seven and younger as well as the parents and grandparents have as stress free a getaway as possible.
They congregate at one of the three pools did I mention it is shaped like Mickey Mouse ears where there is a water play area just for toddlers, a water slide, an ice cream stand, another for fruit and yet another for chicken fingers, pizza and burgers most of the day and evening.
"I'm even relaxed watching the kids at the pool," laughs Kalen Walker, cruising with her 7 and 5 year olds. "This really works.
It's the Disney difference, says the ship's youth activities manager, Shannon Quinn, who oversees a multilingual staff of more than 50 counselors, all of whom come aboard with substantial experience working with children.
The staff will also do all they can to provide one-on-one care when needed for special needs kids, she says, even logging their food allergies into the computer.
(CNN) How do you know when you've crossed from a rough patch into a burnout?
Burnout creeps up and you don't know until you're in the midst of it, says Dr. Todd Dewett, author of the book "Leadership Redefined. "
If you're not sure whether you're just having a bad day or are experiencing something worse, here are some signs that you're burning out, according to Dewett:
Your professional relationships don't matter anymore
The quality of your work isn't want it used to be
Recognizing that you're burned out is a good first step, but it won't mean much unless you take action to change the situation.
Talk about it, both to yourself and to other people, Dewett suggests.
When you share your newfound realization with the important people in your life, you make a strong commitment to doing something about it, he says.
Here are some other ways to beat burnout:
Figure out what new responsibility you are capable and willing to assume and ask that it be given to you.
Analyze each goal and figure out what skills you will gain, what new experiences you will have and whom you might meet.
Have a plan.
Create a list of skills you need to obtain, people you need to network with, financial items to take care of, and overall steps you need to take to get into a job or business that you are passionate about.
If Nintendo has their way your living room could be the new big thing in exercise.
With its new game "Wii Fit" hitting stores Monday, Nintendo is looking to bring exercise into the home, making people more aware of their bodies and starting to create a comfortable, fun environment to get healthy.
Personal trainer and fitness expert Robert Dothard said making exercise available and enjoyable in your home means reaching an audience of people who often feel embarrassed walking in to a traditional gym.
"If someone is not in good shape you know and they are in the public gym and they're not performing well it's an uncomfortable feeling.
"Wii Fit" which retails for $90, comes with the game and a "balance board" which is used to calculate your Body Mass Index, weight and measure shifts in your balance at the beginning of each session.
Users then choose different workouts from the categories of strength training, aerobics, yoga and balance.
Each area features different short workouts ranging from a minute to upwards of 10 minutes including push-ups and skiing, jogging and seeing how many times you can spin Hula Hoops.
During each game an area is displayed on the screen to show where your core balance should be.
It's one of the functions that Dothard, who took the game for a test run, thinks is the most effective and important because it makes you aware of whether you reap the most benefits out of exercising.
ANKARA, Turkey (CNN) A law extending a smoking ban in Turkey to most enclosed areas including taxis, ferries and shopping malls came into effect Monday in the nicotine-addicted nation.
As of midnight, outdoor smoking was also banned in locations such as stadiums and playgrounds.
A ban on lighting up in bars, restaurants and coffeehouses will be implemented next year.
Smoking was already barred on buses and airplanes and in larger offices.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Islamic-rooted government expanded the ban to most enclosed places as part of an attempt to reduce smoking rates in the country and the effects of second-hand smoke.
Around 40 percent of Turks over the age of 15 are smokers, consuming around 17 million packs a day, according to Yesilay, an organization devoted to fighting alcohol, drug and tobacco abuse.
The government says around 160,000 people die annually in Turkey from smoking-related ailments.
The law, passed by Parliament in March, calls for a fine of 50 Turkish lira ($40) for people who light up in smoke-free areas.
But enforcing smoking bans has in the past been difficult and it is not unusual to see people lighting up next to no-smoking signs in public places.
Taxi driver Huseyin Erdogan, who is not related to the prime minister, says he does not think the bans will help him get off cigarettes.
According to the World Health Organization, nearly two-thirds of the world's smokers live in 10 countries led by China and India and followed by Indonesia, Russia, the U.S., Japan, Brazil, Bangladesh, Germany and Turkey.
Turkey is also among the world's main tobacco growers along with China, India, the U.S. and Brazil, and one of the top exporters.
Several major cigarette producers blend Turkish tobacco in their products.
Sen. John McCain Monday faulted Sen. Barack Obama for downplaying the threat from Iran and again called the Democratic front-runner's judgment "reckless," the latest jabs in a foreign policy fight that could continue to the general election.
Obama's willingness to sit down with the Iranian president demonstrates Obama's lack of understanding of international relations, McCain said during a speech in Chicago, Illinois.
"Such a statement betrays the depth of Senator Obama's inexperience and reckless judgment," McCain said. "Those are very serious deficiencies for an American president to possess.
Obama quickly responded during a speech in Billings, Montana, asking why the presumptive Republican presidential nominee was afraid to talk to Iran and that it was the "Bush-McCain" war policy in Iraq, not diplomacy, that would make Iran stronger.
"Make no mistake, Iran is the single biggest beneficiary of a war in Iraq that should have never been authorized and should have never been waged," the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination said.
"Thanks to George Bush's policy, Iran is the greatest threat to the United States and Israel and the Middle East for a generation. John McCain wants to double down on that failed policy.
McCain said Obama did not have an appropriate grasp of the danger Iran poses to the U.S.
"Senator Obama claimed that the threat Iran poses to our security is 'tiny' compared to the threat once posed by the former Soviet Union," McCain said during a speech in Chicago.
"Obviously, Iran isn't a superpower and doesn't possess the military power the Soviet Union had, but that does not mean that the threat posed by Iran is insignificant.
Nelly Avila Moreno, 45, whose nom de guerre was Karina, said she and her long-time male companion made the decision jointly to abandon the FARC group, based in the jungle, at 5 a.m. Sunday.
She said pressure from Colombian soldiers had been key to their decision, and she called on her fellow rebels to follow her example.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=3151948
A U.S. Navy S-3 Viking aircraft apparently inadvertently strayed into Venezuelan airspace Saturday night, U.S. officials confirmed Monday.
Tom Casey, deputy State Department spokesman, said the pilot ¡°recognized his error and contacted a Venezuela tower to acknowledge that.
The aircraft had taken off from a base in Curacao as part of Joint Interagency Task Force South, which conducts counterdrug operations in South America, a U.S. military official told CNN. The official declined to be named because he is not authorized to speak publicly about the event.
At a news conference in Caracas, Defense Minister Gustavo Rangel Briceno said Venezuela believes that the United States military had intentionally breached Venezuelan air space, adding that the U.S. ambassador will be summoned to the Foreign Ministry to explain the incident.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon is expected to visit cyclone-struck Myanmar this week in an attempt to ¡°accelerate relief efforts¡± in the aftermath of the devastating storm, which may have killed more than 100,000 and affected 2.5 million others, the UN said Sunday.
Ban is scheduled to arrive Wednesday for a three-day visit.
especially the Irrawaddy Delta in southern Myanmar &#8212; also known as Burma, the UN said in a release.
¡°The whole purpose of the trip is to accelerate the pace of disaster relief,¡± said Ban spokeswoman Michele Montas.
who arrived in Myanmar Sunday &#8212; have been critical of the slow delivery of aid and humanitarian workers under Myanmar¡¯s ruling military junta.
A senior rebel leader in Colombia surrendered Sunday &#8212; the latest major blow for insurgents who have waged war against the Colombian state for 40 years.
surrendered after commanding rebel soldiers with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC as the group is known by its Spanish acronym, the Colombian defense ministry said.
The Colombian government blames Moreno for the 1983 death of the father of President Alvaro Uribe, who took office in 2002 with a vow to crush the rebels.
The president sent a message to Moreno about two weeks ago, officials said, promising that she would be safe if she turned herself in.
Moreno commanded rebel troops in northwestern Colombia, the government said.
She turned herself in to authorities in the state of Antioquia.
(CNN) Despite Sen. Barack Obama's commanding lead in the delegate count, Sen. Hillary Clinton campaigned hard Sunday, telling voters she's "running for the toughest job in the world.
Clinton spent her weekend in Kentucky, which, along with Oregon, holds its Democratic contest Tuesday.
Clinton is favored in Kentucky, while polls show Obama with a comfortable lead in Oregon.
Speaking in Bowling Green, the senator from New York said it was a "treat" to have the whole state to herself since Obama would not be returning there.
Clinton has faced calls to drop out of the race since she trails Obama across all fronts pledged delegates, superdelegates and the popular vote.
Clinton has recently been claiming a lead over Obama in the popular vote, a debatable claim, especially because the Democratic National Committee doesn't count the votes of Florida and Michigan, which Clinton does.
BEIJING, China (CNN) &#8212; China announced Sunday that it will suspend the Olympic torch relay from Monday until Wednesday to observe a three-day mourning period for victims of last week¡¯s earthquake, according to state-run television.
The torch was going to be in Zhejiang Province, Ningbo City and Jiaxing City on May 19, then in Shanghai on May 20-21.
KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) A suicide attacker detonated his explosives Sunday in Musa Qala, killing himself and four civilians, the Helmand province police chief said.
The attack happened at approximately 7:15 p.m. local time in Musa Qala¡¯s main market, police chief Mohammad Hussain Andewal said.
Eight others were wounded in the attack, including five police and three civilians.
Two of the civilians were critically wounded; the rest were not seriously hurt.
Afghan troops backed by NATO troops recaptured Musa Qala from Taliban forces in December.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) &#8212; Shiite militants and U.S.-backed Iraqi forces two sides that agreed to a cease-fire last week fought overnight in Sadr City, killing four people and wounding 38, Interior Ministry and hospital officials said Sunday.
A spokesman for radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr said the fighting does not mean an end to the newly negotiated peace agreement.
Neither side agreed on what caused the fighting in the stronghold of al-Sadr's Mehdi Army militia.
Major Gen. Qassim Atta, a Baghdad security plan spokesman, said "outlaw groups" using various weapons attacked Iraqi army checkpoints in the heart of Sadr City, a densely populated Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad.
Iraqi forces were the only shooters, al-Obeidi said.
(CNN) &#8212; Almost 33,000 acres of the Everglades National Park were burning Sunday morning, fire officials said, the latest in a series of wildfires that have scorched parts of Florida in May.
The fire, which threatened private property as well as an endangered bird, started Friday, the the Southern Area InterAgency Management Blue Team said.
The announcement comes two weeks after Microsoft abruptly stopped its pursuit of Yahoo, withdrawing a sweetened $46 billion offer, saying it would not make a hostile bid for the Internet company.
In response, Yahoo issued a statement in the evening, saying the company is open to ¡°pursuing any transaction which is in the best interest of our stockholders,¡± and that the company would be willing to evaluate alternative transactions, including ¡°any Microsoft proposal.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) &#8212; A suicide bomber Sunday struck a bakery on a Pakistan army base near the northwestern city of Peshawar, killing at least 11 people, according to police.
Another 18 were wounded in the suicide attack in Mardan, in Pakistan¡¯s North West Frontier Province, a police official said.
The province is part of Pakistan¡¯s tribal regions along the border with Afghanistan.
The new government, led by the party of the late Benazir Bhutto, has been trying to negotiate peace deals with tribal leaders in the region
says Arab leaders ¡°sacrificed¡± Palestinians and calls on his followers once again to liberate Palestine.
¡°Even if all the leaders have sacrificed the Palestinian issue in its entirety, we are not relieved of the responsibility. ¡¦ Each one of us is responsible for the death of our people in Gaza.
The speaker also calls on Egyptian militants to end the blockade on Gaza:
¡°They are the only ones close to its borders and they must work on breaking this siege.
The message seemed to be a follow-up to a similar statement Friday, in which the speaker reiterated jihadist opposition to the existence of the Jewish state and its policies, and told listeners that ¡°liberating¡± Palestine should be the aim of every Muslim.
tests determined Kennedy had not suffered a stroke.
¡°Over the next couple of days, Sen. Kennedy will undergo further evaluation to determine the cause of the seizure, and a course of treatment will be determined at that time,¡± said Dr. Larry Ronan, Kennedy¡¯s primary care
He added that Kennedy was ¡°resting comfortably, and watching the Red Sox game with his family. ¡±
(CNN) Foreseeing the future is a tricky business.
Why, for instance, should Hollywood moguls have paid much attention when the USB standard emerged in the mid-90's?
It simply made hooking computers to keyboards, printers and joysticks easier.
Nothing could seem further from their glitzy world.
How times change.
Now USB ports are to be found in $300 portable video players and $3,000 50-inch plasma HDTVs.
And they accept flash memory devices, which have undergone a revolution in storage capacity storing a dozen movies is not a problem.
So in retrospect it was only a matter of time before entrepreneurs tried out this idea: public kiosks that allow consumers to download movies directly onto a USB memory device, to be watched later on their portable video players, computers, or TVs.
Today an Irish startup called PortoMedia has tested the idea in some home markets, and a few U.S. trial cities are to be announced shortly.
Business is being lined up in 30-plus countries, it says, and the service works equally well in Tokyo or small-town India.
Its MoviePoint kiosk allows customers to download DVD-quality films in about 20 seconds onto its MovieKey, a USB memory device that costs between $20 and $100, depending on the storage capacity (from 2 to 15 movies).
The films are burned onto the MovieKey with the relevant license at the point of purchase, using Microsoft DRM (digital rights management).
Consumers have several options on the licensing front.
the movie expires 48 hours from hitting Play, or you can play it three times within 30 days, or it never expires (in which case you've purchased it).
Now Hollywood is paying attention.
A number of major studios have agreed to let their movies be rented through MoviePoint kiosks, and investors in the startup include some big-name film execs.
SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (CNN) &#8212; President Bush Sunday called on the leaders of Middle East nations to build on the momentum of the ¡°hopeful beginnings¡± of democracy in the region that he said were exemplified by Turkey, Egypt, Afghanistan, and Iraq.
¡°We have seen the stirrings of reform from Morocco and Algeria to Jordan and the Gulf States,¡± Bush told the World Economic Forum on the Middle East.
Bush spoke in the Egyptian resort city of Sharm El-Sheikh on the final day of his Middle East trip, which he began in Israel on Wednesday.
BEIJING, China (CNN) &#8212; China on Monday began three days of national mourning as the death toll from last week¡¯s devastating earthquake mounted and rescue workers continued to search for survivors among the rubble.
The national flag was lowered to half mast at 4:58 a.m. at Beijing¡¯s Tian¡¯anmen Square as 2,600 people watched the ceremony, state-run media reported.
Another 220,109 were wounded in the major quake, the Xinhua news agency said.
But amid the bleak toll, survival stories emerged. Rescuers pulled at least 64 people alive from debris.
Dominican Republic President Leonel Fernandez, who led the island nation out of dire economic times, was re-elected to a third term on Saturday, according to election results.
Fernandez took nearly 54 percent of the vote in a multi-party race, avoiding a runoff.
His main rival, center-leftist candidate Miguel Vargas, took roughly 40 percent of the vote and said he accepted the results shortly after Fernandez declared victory.
In an exclusive interview with CNN en Espanol, Fernandez called on opposition members to work with him to continue efforts that have turned the Dominican Republic into one of the fastest-growing economies in the Caribbean.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=3150497
Two weeks after Cyclone Nargis devastated Myanmar, the country¡¯s reclusive junta leader Than Shwe visited a refugee camp outside Yangon , according to video broadcast on state television.
PARIS (CNN) Divers trained in archaeology discovered a marble bust of an aging Caesar in the Rhone River that France's Culture Ministry said Tuesday could be the oldest known.
The life-sized bust showing the Roman ruler with wrinkles and hollows in his face is tentatively dated to 46 B.C. Divers uncovered the Caesar bust and a collection of other finds in the Rhone near the town of Arles founded by Caesar.
Among other items in the treasure trove of ancient objects is a 1.8-meter (5.9 foot) marble statue of Neptune, dated to the first decade of the third century after Christ.
"Some (of the discoveries) are unique in Europe," Culture Minister Christine Albanel said.
The bust of Caesar is in a class by itself.
"This marble bust of the founder of the Roman city of Arles constitutes the most ancient representation known today of Caesar," the ministry statement said, adding that it "undoubtedly" dates to the creation of Arles in 46 B.C.
The site "has barely been skimmed," L'Hour told The Associated Press, adding that a new search operation will begin this
He said the Arles region, in the Provence region of southern France, with its Roman beginnings, and the Rhone are "propitious" for discoveries.
Albanel called the find "exceptional" and said that the Caesar bust is "the oldest representation known today" of the emperor.
Breast cancer patients with low levels of vitamin D were much more likely to die of the disease or have it spread than patients getting enough of the nutrient, a study found adding to evidence the "sunshine vitamin" has anti-cancer benefits.
The results are sure to renew arguments about whether a little more sunshine is a good thing.
The skin makes vitamin D from ultraviolet light.
Too much sunlight can raise the risk of skin cancer, but small amounts 15 minutes or so a few times a week without sunscreen may be beneficial, many doctors believe.
While the vitamin is found in certain foods and supplements, most don't contain the best form, D-3, and have only a modest effect on blood levels of the nutrient. That's what matters, the Canadian study found.
Only 24 percent of women in the study had sufficient blood levels of D at the time they their breast cancer was diagnosed.
Those who were deficient were nearly twice as likely to have their cancer recur or spread over the next 10 years, and 73 percent more likely to die of the disease.
"It's the first time that vitamin D has been linked to breast cancer progression.
But people shouldn't start downing supplements, she warned.
Experts don't agree on how much vitamin D people need or the best way to get it, and too much can be harmful.
They also don't know whether getting more vitamin D can help when someone already has cancer.
"We have no idea whether correcting a vitamin D deficiency will in any way alter these outcomes," said Dr. Julie Gralow, a cancer specialist at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Indiana Jones doesn't give up his secrets lightly, and neither does the man pulling his strings.
Director Steven Spielberg has tried to keep chapter four of the archaeologist's big-screen adventures, "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," under wraps as tight as an ancient mummy's.
The stealth approach has whipped up a frenzy of expectation and doubts about the movie's quality as he prepares to unveil it in front of the world's toughest audience, critics at the Cannes Film Festival.
The film premieres here Sunday, just four days before it opens in theaters worldwide.
"He is the only one in the world who keeps his cards face down on the table until the 11th hour, 59th minute, 59th second, and nothing deters him from doing that," said Jeffrey Katzenberg, Spielberg's partner at DreamWorks.
Revealing their cards at Cannes, with its notoriously snooty press corps, is a critical risk for Spielberg, executive producer George Lucas and star Harrison Ford.
Hollywood trade paper Variety quipped that Indiana Jones was entering the "Kingdom of the Critical Knives," and reporters have joked that Cannes might prove a new Temple of Doom for Indy.
Two years ago, the first press screening of "The Da Vinci Code" drew open laughter from Cannes critics, whose harsh reviews spoiled the film's premiere a day later and set the stage for a worldwide critical drubbing.
Sen. Barack Obama slammed President Bush on Friday for launching "exactly the kind of appalling attack that's divided our country and that alienates us from the world.
He also accused Sen. John McCain for "embracing" the president's "attacks on Democrats," and "suggesting that I wasn't fit to protect this nation that I love.
"So much for civility," Obama said at a town hall meeting in Watertown, noting that McCain had talked about the need for civility in politics earlier Thursday.
Obama was responding to Bush's remarks in Israel on Thursday that some want to "appease" the terrorists.
White House officials denied Obama was a target of Bush's remarks.
But privately, White House aides indicated the criticism was aimed at various Democrats, including Obama and former President Jimmy Carter.
In speaking at an event marking the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Jewish state, Bush said, "Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along.
"We have heard this foolish delusion before.
Democrats, including Obama's rival for the nomination, Sen. Hillary Clinton, condemned the president.
"After almost eight years, I did not think I could be surprised about anything that George Bush says, but I was wrong," Obama said.
That is launch a political attack targeted toward the domestic market in front of a foreign delegation," he said.
Shania Twain and husband-producer Robert "Mutt" Lange are splitting up after 14 years of marriage.
The 42-year-old Canadian country superstar and 59-year-old Lange married in 1993 and have a 6-year-old son named Eja.
Lange and Twain, best known for her hits "Man!
I Feel Like A Woman!" and "You're Still the One," recently opened a hiking trail on their property in New Zealand.
Lange produced three of Twain's albums:
1995's "The Woman in Me," 1997's "Come on Over" and 2002's "Up!"
President Hu Jintao arrived in southwestern China on Friday to observe the country's devastated earthquake zone, state-run media reported.
As frantic search-and-rescue efforts entered a fifth day, the official death toll hovered around 20,000.
Providing some hope in the midst of horror, rescuers pulled a student from the debris of Beichuan Middle School, 80 hours after the quake collapsed the building, China's Xinhua news agency reported.
Rescuers said they could hear weak yell for help from under the building's rubble and are "expecting more miracles," according to state-run media.
Hu flew to Mianyang in the hard-hit Sichuan province, which has become
Thousands of people who were uprooted around the region have taken shelter at the city's main sports gym and other facilities.
Reports say 7,395 people have died and 18,645 are trapped in debris in the city.
Xinhua reported 135,000 Chinese troops and medics are involved in the rescue effort now in 58 counties and cities.
Rescuers from Russia, South Korea and Singapore were expected to arrive soon.
Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, Germany, Vietnam and Poland were among the countries providing humanitarian assistance, according to Xinhua.
The magnitude 7.9 earthquake rocked southwestern China on Monday afternoon, shattering communities, leveling dozens of schools and burying transportation routes with landslides.
More than 4.3 million homes collapsed or sustained damage because of the quake, according to the Chinese Embassy in Washington.
(CNN) Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden will address the West in a new message, according to a banner ad from the group's production wing posted on Islamist Web sites known to carry messages from al Qaeda and bin Laden.
"To the western nations, soon, God willing, A new speech by the Lion of Islam Sheikh Osama Bin laden, The reasons of the struggle in the 60th anniversary of the Israeli Occupation," the banner reads.
It was not known whether the message would be audio or video or when it might be posted.
In the past, messages were available from an hour to two days after the initial posting.
Bin Laden's last message came March 20, when in an audiotape he called Iraq "the perfect base to set up the jihad to liberate Palestine."
In an audiotape released the previous day, bin Laden condemned European countries for siding with the United States in Afghanistan and for allowing the publication of cartoons considered insulting to Islam's prophet, Mohammed.
ATHENS, Greece (CNN) A nine-year-old girl who went to hospital suffering from stomach pains was found to be carrying her embryonic twin, doctors in central Greece said Thursday.
"They could see on the right side that her belly was swollen, but they couldn't suspect that this tumor would hide an embryo," hospital director Iakovos Brouskelis said.
The girl has made a full recovery, he said.
Andreas Markou, head of the hospital's pediatric department, said the embryo was a formed fetus with a head, hair and eyes, but no brain or umbilical cord.
Markou said cases where one of a set of twins absorbs the other in the womb occur in one of 500,000 live births.
The girl's family did not want to be identified, hospital officials said.
LILONGWE, Malawi (CNN) Madonna will not know until next week whether a Malawian boy she found in an orphanage in 2006 will become a permanent member of her family, her lawyer said Thursday.
Lawyer Alan Chinula had expected the judge to rule on the adoption Thursday but said the hearing was delayed after a Malawian human rights group presented arguments on "shortcomings" in the southern African nation's adoption laws.
Chinula said the group was not challenging the adoption and he expected it to be approved next week.
The pop star and her husband, film director Guy Ritchie, were not present at Thursday's hearing in the Malawian capital.
Chief Social Welfare Officer Simon Chisale, the official overseeing the adoption, paid the Ritchies two home visits, writing in a report that Madonna was a "perfect mum" for David.
Local human rights activists have accused the government of bending Malawi's strict adoption laws because of Madonna's celebrity status.
David's mother died when he was just a month old.
His father has said he believed he could not care for him alone, and that placing him in an orphanage was the best way to ensure David's survival.
The father has said he did not object to Madonna adopting David.
Madonna found David while establishing charity projects in Malawi.
She is currently funding her own and six other orphanages in the country.
For 10 years, Barbara's gut told her she needed to get a new doctor for her daughter, and for 10 years, she didn't listen, even as her daughter got sicker and sicker.
The doctor had diagnosed irritable bowel syndrome when Barbara's daughter was 13.
Day after day, year after year, she had bloody diarrhea.
At age 23, weighing just 112 pounds at 6 feet tall, her daughter became so sick and malnourished she ended up in the hospital.
Barbara's intuition told her the doctor wasn't giving her daughter the right treatment, but she just couldn't tell him.
"It was like my tongue was bolted to my bottom mouth, and I couldn't get the words out. I didn't want to offend him.
I was paralyzed," said Barbara, a high-ranking university administrator.
But in this situation, it was like I had a different personality. I felt like I'd reverted to childhood," she added.
Research on women's interaction with doctors is limited, but a number of women's health experts say they had noticed trends among female patients that didn't see as frequently in men.
Feeling paralyzed and voiceless in the doctor's office is one of the major health care mistakes women make, says Dr. Christiane Northrup, author of "Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom.
Here, from Northrup and other women's health specialists, are five mistakes women make at the doctor's office.
1. Women don't question doctors
"Being at a doctor's office often puts the patient in the position of 'child' and the doctor in a position of 'parent,' " Northrup said.
Northrup's solution: "Always take someone with you who will ask the questions you are afraid to ask.
2. Women tend to over-research
According to the Pew Internet Project, women are more likely to look up health information on the Internet.
In a telephone survey, 69 percent of women said they'd looked up information about a specific disease or condition, compared with 58 percent of men.
Although doing your own research is a good thing, Dr. Pamela Peeke says her female patients are more likely to become overwhelmed by what they read.
"Women are much more likely to come in with hundreds of pages of Internet printouts under their arms, and they've become convinced they have all sorts of diseases," she said.
3. Women don't recognize gender bias
Several studies have shown that women's medical problems are more likely to be interpreted as emotional issues or complaining.
," advised Dr. Nieca Goldberg, author of "Women are Not Small Men." "You don't want to go to a doctor who says, 'Now, honey, it's not all that bad.'
4. Women interpret their own symptoms
Instead of just giving the doctor the facts, women sometimes also offer their own interpretations, which can put their own health at risk.
For example, she's seen women who are having heart attacks tell the doctor that they think it's just indigestion.
"This could be dangerous if you're in the ER having a heart attack," Goldberg says. "You don't want to lead the doctor down the wrong path.
Goldberg's advice: Just state the facts, and let the doctor do the interpreting.
There'll be time for questions afterwards if you think the doctor's diagnosis is wrong.
5.
This is what happened to Barbara, who asked that her last name not be used for fear of retribution from other doctors in her small town.
She says her gut told her that her daughter's doctor didn't have the right diagnosis.
When she and her daughter finally found a new doctor, he said her daughter didn't have irritable bowel syndrome at all; she had ulcerative colitis.
"There are literally hundreds of situations in which a woman's gut intuition is spot-on, but she talks herself out of it so as not to make waves," Northrup said. "We women are suckers for wanting to be loved.
LONDON, England (CNN) A surge in violent knife crimes has prompted London police to introduce a new program that will rely on mobile, airport-style scanners and hand-held metal detectors for use against people suspected of carrying concealed weapons.
The new program, called Blunt 2, started this week in one borough and should be in place in all 32 London boroughs within the next few months, said a Metropolitan Police spokesman, who asked not to be identified in line with police rules.
The scanners have been in use by police for several years, but many more have been purchased and they will now be used much more aggressively under a law that gives police the right to search people without having to demonstrate beforehand that there is reasonable
cause to believe they are committing a crime, the spokesman said.
"We've put it in under Section 60 of the Public Order Act, which is slightly more in your face," the spokesman said. "We can give officers on the ground the powers to go ahead and do it.
We've got 550 metal detector wands and 244 search arches that can be used.
If there's a problem, we can place them outside a row of shops or a shopping center and check people going in.
He declined to name the borough where the program started.
London's reputation as a generally safe city has been rocked this year by a marked increase in stabbings, with more than 100 reported in the capital so far this year.
Parents are waiting at schools destroyed by the devastating Chinese earthquake hoping their children will be pulled from the debris but hope is fading.
There are scattered success stories around Sichuan province but as time goes on they will be fewer.
The government estimated death toll rose Thursday to around 20,000 but could eventually top 50,000, Xinhua reported.
In Beichuan, parents of middle-school students waited, hoping recovery teams would pull their children alive from the rubble of a middle school but search teams Thursday could only recover bodies.
"There are teenagers wearing jeans and gym shoes and their bodies are twisted," CNN's John Vause said, reporting from just outside the school. "The expression on one girl's face was just pain she was dead.
Similar scenes were unfolding across a vast expanse of southwestern China.
The 7.9-magnitude earthquake hit Monday afternoon, when thousands of children were in class.
Chinese authorities have confirmed that at least several hundred children died in schools in one town alone and an untold number have perished in schools elsewhere.
"Anyone buried in an earthquake can survive without water and food for three days," said Gu Linsheng, a researcher with Tsinghua University's Emergency Management Research Center told The Associated Press. "After that, it's usually a miracle for anyone to survive.
Premier Wen Jiabao has ordered extra soldiers and medics and 90 more helicopters for rescue missions in Sichuan province.
Some international assistance is being allowed in the quake's aftermath.
LAGOS, Nigeria (CNN) Flames from a ruptured fuel pipeline swept through homes and a school in a Nigerian village Thursday, killing about 100 people and injuring 20 others, a Red Cross official said.
Road construction machinery pierced a pipe carrying refined fuel through a village on the distant outskirts of the main city of Lagos, spreading flames into the surrounding area, Nigerian Red Cross disaster coordinator Suleman Maikubi said.
Many children fled the school before it was completely engulfed in fire, and Red Cross officials were working to reunite children with parents who rushed to the scene.
Maikubi said it was unclear how many children were among the roughly 100 people killed.
About 20 people were injured and taken to a hospital for treatment, but fire-control teams were on the scene and bringing the blaze under control, he said.
Pipeline fires are common in Nigeria.
More than 400 people died in two similar pipeline explosions in Lagos in 2006, and at least 40 died in December.
Authorities frequently blame the disasters on criminal gangs who break into the pipelines to siphon fuel for sale, attracting crowds of people who come in their wake to scavenge for fuel.
Billionaire investor Carl Icahn is setting out to oust Yahoo Inc.'s board of directors for "irresponsible" and "unconscionable" actions that led Microsoft Corp. to withdraw a $47.5 billion offer to buy the slumping Internet pioneer.
In a letter sent Thursday to Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock, Icahn wrote that outraged Yahoo shareholders had urged him to lead a campaign to replace Yahoo's 10 directors at the company's July 3 annual meeting in hopes of bringing Microsoft back to the bargaining table.
"I believe that a combination between Microsoft and Yahoo is by far the most sensible path for both companies," Icahn wrote.
Cuban used part of that windfall to buy the Dallas Mavericks, an National Basketball Association franchise that he still owns.
Yang is one of Yahoo's directors and has been trying to engineer a turnaround since taking the job of CEO 11 months ago.
He withdrew the bid May 3 after Yang and Filo, acting on behalf of the Yahoo board, held out for $37 per share a price that Yahoo's stock hasn't reached in more than two years.
Yahoo shares rose 30 cents to $27.44 in morning trading Thursday.
YANGON, Myanmar (CNN) Myanmar's junta warned Thursday that legal action would be taken against people who trade or hoard international aid as the cyclone's death toll soared above 43,000.
It was the first acknowledgment by the military government, albeit indirectly, of problems with relief operations in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis.
The warning came amid reports that foreign aid was being sold openly in markets and that the military was pilfering and diverting aid for its own use.
The ruling junta has been blasted by aid agencies for refusing to allow most foreign experts into the hard-hit Irrawaddy delta and not responding adequately to what they say is a spiraling crisis.
Relief workers also reported that some storm survivors were being given spoiled or poor-quality food rather than nutrition-rich
New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a statement Wednesday that it had confirmed an Associated Press report that the military had seized high-energy biscuits that came from abroad and instead distributed low-quality, locally produced biscuits to survivors.
Thursday's radio announcement obliquely denied the military was misappropriating aid.
"The government has systematically accepted donations and has distributed the relief goods immediately and directly to the victims," it said.
Elisabeth Byrs, spokeswoman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said aid workers who visited all the major markets in Yangon found no evidence of hoarding or sale of relief goods.
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies spokesman Matthew Cochrane said the organization also had not received any such reports.
Democrats on Thursday condemned President Bush's insinuation that they would be appeasing terrorist states by holding talks, with one going so far as to call his remarks "bulls**t."
Joe Biden, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that if the president disagrees so strongly with the idea of talking to Iran, then he needs to fire his secretaries of state and defense, both of whom Biden said have pushed to sit down with the Iranians.
This is malarkey. This is outrageous. Outrageous for the president of the United States to go to a foreign country, sit in the Knesset ... and make this kind of ridiculous statement," he said.
"He's the guy who's weakened us. He's the guy that's increased the number of terrorists in the world. His policies have produced this vulnerability the United States has."
Biden later told Wolf Blitzer on "The Situation Room" Thursday that he didn't mean to use a curse word.
"I shouldn't have used that word. I came off the elevator and was confronted with what had happened, and I responded.
The president, at Israel's 60th anniversary celebration in Jerusalem, suggested that some Democrats were acting in the same way some Western leaders did when they appeased Hitler in the runup to World War II.
(CNN) The video is hard to turn away from. A sobbing 16-year-old sits in her bedroom and, staring into a camera, says she has been raped.
I didn't want to do it this way, but it's the only way I know that's going to work, that someone out there in the world is gonna listen to me.
The teen, whom CNN interviewed but is not identifying by her last name, is among dozens of young people who are turning to social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace to talk about sexual assault.
It's a chance to communicate without having to face someone or fear their judgment.
Some people are seeking legal advice and medical information, and many younger victims believe that they can warn others about their accused attacker, counselors say.
There also are people like Crystal, whose case was dropped by the Orange County, Florida, state attorney's office, who feel slighted by the justice system.
"Most young women feel like they want somebody to know that someone did this to them.
Advocates worry that victims are divulging too much information.
The postings include their names, photographs and hometowns.
But Crystal is probably one of the few who have gone so far as to post a plea for help on YouTube.
Because anything posted on the Web is available forever through an Internet search, a rape survivor must consider how they would feel if that information were dredged up in the future, counselors said.
By making themselves or their IP address available, victims open themselves to unreliable and unprofessional advice and the harsh judgment of their peers.
Hillary Clinton's decisive win in West Virginia caused John Edwards to throw his support to Barack Obama, the Illinois senator's aides said.
Edwards was concerned that the Clinton storyline that Obama can't win white, working-class voters was becoming too damaging to Obama and the party, aides said.
Obama had been courting Edwards for four months.
Since Edwards abandoned his presidential bid in January, he and Obama have talked regularly, Obama said.
As late as Monday, Edwards told CNN's Larry King that he wasn't prepared to make an endorsement.
"What I don't want to do is contribute to the divide," he said. "At least for this moment, I think the reasonable thing for me to do is let voters make their decision.
But Clinton's crushing win in West Virginia on Tuesday highlighted Obama's weakness with working-class white voters, a segment of the electorate that may prove pivotal in November.
Among white voters without a college degree, Clinton defeated Obama by 50 percentage points.
Among white voters making less than $30,000 a year, Clinton's margin of victory was more than 60 percentage points.
"The reason I'm here tonight is because the Democratic voters have made their choice, and so have I," Edwards told a boisterous crowd in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Wednesday.
"There is one man who knows in his heart that it is time to create one America, not two, and that man is Barack Obama." Edwards also praised Clinton's candidacy.
In a preview of the political onslaught Michelle Obama may face in the fall, the Tennessee Republican Party unveiled a new Web video Thursday that highlights her controversial comment earlier this year saying she was proud of America ¡°for the first time in my adult life.
The four-minute video coincides with a visit to the state by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama¡¯s wife for a Democratic Party event Thursday evening.
It features several Tennesseans saying why they are proud of American while repeatedly cutting to Mrs. Obama¡¯s comments. ¡°The Tennessee Republican Party has always been proud of America.
To further honor the occasion of Mrs. Obama¡¯s visit, the Tennessee Republican Party has requested the playing of patriotic music by radio stations across the state,¡± said a statement on the party¡¯s Web site that accompanied the video.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=3147842
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez dismissed as ¡°a clown show¡± the Interpol report Thursday declaring that computers found in Ecuador by the Colombian military belonged to leftist rebels.
In a news conference with international news media held at the presidential palace in Caracas, Chavez called Interpol¡¯s secretary general, Ronald Noble, a ¡°gringo¡± policeman and ¡°a tremendous actor.
¡± Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has said the computers contain evidence that Chavez supported the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.
Chavez accused him of having ¡°no shame.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=3147303
World number one Justine Henin is quitting professional tennis with immediate effect, she told a press conference in Belgium on Wednesday.
"It is a new beginning for me. I feel like I already lived three lives.
I gave the sport all I could and took everything it could give me," she added.
"I take this decision without the least bit of regrets.
It is my life as a woman that starts now.
Henin, who is 26 on June 1, has headed the official WTA rankings for 117 consecutive weeks.
She has won seven grand slams and was due to defend her French Open title later this month.
Henin was the dominant player in the women's game last year, winning 10 of 14 tournaments, including two grand grand slams and became the first player in history to win more than $5 million in a season.
She has won all the grand slams except Wimbledon and took Olympic gold in Athens in 2004.
"Justine was a great opponent. She always challenged herself to play her best tennis no matter what the circumstances."
While exit polls from the West Virginia primary seemed to suggest the party is deeply divided between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, a new poll out Wednesday suggests either candidate would easily beat Republican John McCain in the fall.
According to a new Quinnipiac University poll, both Democratic candidates beat McCain by a gap well outside the margin of error.
The poll carries a margin of error of plus or minus 2.4 points and was conducted from May 8-12.
Clinton and Obama's relatively strong standing against McCain in the poll appear to dispel notions that Democratic party may be unable to come together around one candidate in the fall, even as West Virginia exit polls reported majorities of both candidates' supporters would not support the other candidate in the general election.
Barack Obama has personally apologized to a Michigan television reporter for referring to her as "sweetie" as she tried to ask a question.
The comment came earlier Wednesday when WXYZ reporter Peggy Agar asked Obama at a campaign stop, ¡°How are you going to help the American auto workers?
Obama told Agar to "hold on, sweetie," and said he would address that issue with her later.
According to WXYZ, Obama personally left a voice message for Agar Wednesday afternoon, apologizing for both not answering the question and for calling her "sweetie.
"That's a bad habit of mine," Obama said in the message. "I do it sometimes with all kinds of people.
Obama also took some heat in Pennsylvania last month for referring to a factory worker as "sweetie.
Angelina Jolie is indeed expecting twins, and it was Jack Black who let the news slip with a "Brady Bunch" crack.
Long rumored to have two children by Brad Pitt on the way, Jolie confirmed the news during a side-by-side "Today" show interview with Black, her "Kung Fu Panda" co-star.
The twins will be the fifth and sixth children for Jolie and Pitt.
She didn't volunteer the information until Black dropped the hint, joking that the couple will "have as many as [the] Brady Bunch when you have these.
"It's confirmed?" asked "Today" interviewer Natalie Morales.
"Yeah, yeah, we've confirmed that already," Jolie said. "Well, Jack's just confirmed it actually.
Excerpts of the interview will air tonight on "Access Hollywood," with the full interview airing Thursday on NBC's "Today.
BEIJING, China (CNN) The death toll in China's outbreak of hand-foot-mouth disease has risen to 42 children, with the capital Beijing reporting its first case Wednesday, state media said.
The child died on the way to a hospital Sunday, health authorities told the Xinhua news agency.
Another child died of the virus at a Beijing hospital, but that death was counted in the child's home province of Hebei, which neighbors Beijing, the news agency said.
So far, the virus has sickened 24,934 children on the Chinese mainland, authorities said. All 42 people who died have been children.
The deaths are blamed on enterovirus 71, or EV-71, one of the most common causes of hand-foot-mouth disease (HFMD).
The official count of infections has increased dramatically in recent days since an order issued late last week by the Ministry of Health mandating that all cases be reported.
HFMD is not related to foot-and-mouth disease, which affects farm animals.
HFMD can be caused by a number of intestinal viruses, of which EV-71 and Coxsackie A16 are among the most common.
In mild cases, EV-71 causes cold-like symptoms, diarrhea, and sores on the hands, feet and mouth.
Severe cases can cause fluid to accumulate on the brain, resulting in polio-like paralysis and death.
There is no treatment for severe EV-71 infections nor does a vaccine exist.
Adults with well-developed immune systems can usually fend off the virus, but children are particularly vulnerable to it, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Public health officials expect the number of cases to peak this summer, since the disease thrives in warm weather.
The virus is a concern for Chinese officials as the nation prepares to host the Summer Olympic Games starting August 8.
Taiwan had a large outbreak of HFMD in 1998 with 78 deaths, and smaller outbreaks in 2000 and 2001, according to the CDC.
WASHINGTON (CNN) A ruling on whether California should legalize same-sex marriage is expected Thursday from the state's supreme court.
The decision will be announced about 1 p.m. ET, according to the court's Web site.
Several gay and lesbian couples, along with the city of San Francisco and gay rights groups, had sued to overturn state laws allowing only marriages between a man and a woman.
If the state justices rule in favor of the plaintiffs, California would become the second state to allow same-sex couples to legally wed. Massachusetts adopted the practice in 2004, and gay couples don't need to be state residents to wed there.
Five other jurisdictions around the world have legalized same-sex marriage:
Belgium, the Netherlands and the Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec.
San Francisco officials in 2004 allowed gay couples in the city to wed, prompting a flood of applicants crowding the city hall clerk's office.
The first couple to wed then was 80-year-old Phyllis Lyon and 83-year-old Dorothy Martin, lovers for 50 years.
"We have a right just like anyone else to get married to the person we want to get married to," Lyon said at the time.
One issue before the justices is whether San Francisco's laws carried legal weight when the rest of the state banned gay marriages.
The state law in question is the Defense of Marriage Act, Proposition 22.
Oral arguments in the case in March lasted more than three hours, a sign of the political and legal issues at stake.
Groups saying they were promoting a pro-family agenda had vowed to fight a statewide law on same-sex marriage.
LONDON, England (CNN) British police will take no legal action against Grammy-award-winning singer Amy Winehouse, who was arrested last week for drug offenses, her spokeswoman said Thursday.
"They have now concluded their enquiries and no charges will be brought," according to a statement from her publicist, Tracey Miller.
She was questioned by police last Wednesday, arrested for alleged possession of a controlled drug, and released on unconditional bail a day later.
Winehouse, 24, is well-known for her song "Rehab," which describes the singer's reluctance to enter a clinic.
She won five Grammy awards this year three for "Rehab" as well as Album of the Year and Best New Artist.
Winehouse has battled drug addiction and spent about two weeks in a rehabilitation clinic in January.
Police started investigating her in January after obtaining a leaked home video that showed her smoking something in a glass pipe minutes after she was heard saying she had just taken six tablets of the anti-anxiety drug Valium.
The Sun, Britain's top daily tabloid, made the 19-minute video public.
It said the video was shot in Winehouse's East London home.
The Metropolitan Police investigated after receiving a copy of the video from The Sun.
Winehouse entered rehab last year.
In October, she and her husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, were arrested at a Norwegian hotel for marijuana possession.
Last Wednesday's arrest was the second time in a week Winehouse was questioned by police.
Police brought her in the previous Friday and issued her with a caution for assault after Winehouse admitted slapping a man in a Camden bar in north London.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) At least 22 people were killed and 40 wounded in a suicide bombing Wednesday evening in Abu Ghraib, Iraq, an Interior Ministry official said.
The bomber detonated his explosives at a gathering of mourners in the predominantly Sunni city about 20 miles west of Baghdad.
Police in the nearby city of Falluja said the gathering was for the principal of a technical school in the village of Abu Minasir in Abu Ghraib.
The principal was shot dead Monday.
The principal's cousin is a senior police officer in Falluja, and his brother is a leading member of the Sons of Iraq or Awakening, a movement of anti-al Qaeda Sunni groups in the area.
Police and Awakening members have been a target for al Qaeda in Iraq.
In a separate incident, a female suicide bomber attacked an Iraqi army checkpoint south of Baghdad and killed two Iraqi soldiers Wednesday, an Interior Ministry official said.
The official said the bomber detonated an explosive vest, killing an Iraqi commander and a soldier.
The U.S. military also confirmed the incident and said the attacker appeared to be in her late teens.
The Interior Ministry said four people were wounded.
But in announcing the listing, Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne said the decision should not be "misused" to regulate global climate change.
But it should not open the door to use of the Endangered Species Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles, power plants, and other sources," said Kempthorne.
While there are an estimated 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears now in the Arctic, scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey predict two thirds of the world's polar bears will disappear in the next 50 years because of a decline in Arctic sea ice.
Controversy over the status of the polar bear is tied to the fact that this is the first time a species has been considered for listing specifically because its habitat is threatened by global warming.
Some environmental groups are wary of some of the climate change caveats to the decision, saying it weakens protection for the animals.
"This decision is a watershed event because it has forced the Bush administration to acknowledge global warming's brutal impacts," said Kassie Siegel, climate program director at the Center for Biological Diversity.
The administration's attempts to reduce protection to the polar bear from greenhouse gas emissions are illegal and won't hold up in court," said Siegel.
(CNN) An Austrian man has confessed to killing five members of his family with an ax, Vienna police said Wednesday.
The man walked into a Vienna police station in the early hours of Wednesday morning and told authorities he had killed his wife and seven-year-old daughter early Tuesday, police spokesman Michael Braunsperger said.
The man, a self-employed public relations consultant according to The Associated Press, said he had also murdered both his parents and his father-in-law in the cities of Ansfelden and Linz, respectively, the spokesman said.
Police then found the five victims, who had all been killed with an ax, Braunsperger said.
The man said his motive was "financial difficulties.
"He said he'd been speculating on the financial markets and had lost everything, so he... wanted to spare his family the shame," Braunsperger said.
"He is completely matter of fact ... almost without emotion," criminal investigator Thomas Stecher told a news conference, AP reported.
The case is likely to unnerve Austrians on the heels of a highly-publicized incest case in Amstetten, outside Vienna.
Josef Fritzl, 73, confessed last month to holding his daughter captive in a cellar below the family home for 24 years, repeatedly raping her, and fathering seven children with her.
One of the babies died.
Fritzl told his wife their daughter had run away, and he and his wife adopted three of the children.
Hillary Clinton on Wednesday reiterated her vow to stay in the Democratic presidential race, but she said it would be a "terrible mistake" for her supporters to vote for John McCain over Barack Obama.
"Anybody who has ever voted for me or voted for Barack has much more in common in terms of what we want to see happen in our country and in the world with the other than they do with John McCain," Clinton said on CNN's "The Situation Room.
"I'm going to work my heart out for whoever our nominee is. Obviously, I'm still hoping to be that nominee, but I'm going to do everything I can to make sure that anyone who supported me ... understands what a grave error it would be not to vote for Sen. Obama.
Clinton was responding to a question from a CNN iReporter who asked why she thought so many of her supporters would choose McCain over Obama. Watch the question
Exit polls out of West Virginia indicate that only 36 percent of Clinton's supporters would vote for Obama if he were the nominee.
A bare majority of Obama's voters said they would vote for Clinton over McCain.
"Just as Sen. Clinton herself has questioned Obama's qualifications to be president and enact change, so do many of her supporters. The biggest mistake would be to raise taxes and prematurely withdraw from Iraq like Clinton and Obama have proposed," he said.
Clinton trounced Obama on Tuesday, carrying West Virginia by a 41-point margin.
Because she trails him in pledged delegates, in superdelegates and in the popular vote, she's faced calls to drop out of the race.
LONDON, England (CNN) Britain's Ministry of Defense has released files on UFO sightings dating back to the 1970s, including witness accounts and the government's response.
The ministry on Wednesday released the files as part of a four-year project to transfer all of the UFO documents to the National Archives to make them available to curious members of the public.
The documents include hundreds of police reports taken from witnesses who describe seeing lights or strange objects in the sky, from southern England and Wales up to Northern Ireland. The files released Wednesday cover 1978 to 1987.
The rest, dating from the 1950s and covering recent history, will be released over the coming years.
Reported sightings typically describe various shapes and colors of lights, moving in formation or hovering in the sky.
Witnesses reported orange, red, white and green lights that were diamond-shaped, square, or cigar-shaped.
They reported them to police, who have a standard 16-question form specifically for UFO sightings.
In one sighting in January 1985, a man near Cardiff, Wales, was closing his living room curtains when he saw an object in the sky.
He said it moved "up and down like a bouncing ball," then disappeared behind a mountain.
Two other police officers in Edgware, north London, reported seeing an object in the sky in June 1984.
They viewed it with binoculars for an hour and sketched a picture, showing a white sphere with a ring of blue and red lights.
"The object moved erratically from side to side, up and down and to and fro, not venturing far from its original position," the officers wrote.
The Ministry of Defense said it examined the reports and held onto the records solely to determine whether enemy aircraft had infiltrated British airspace.
Once it was determined that no enemy aircraft were in the sky, it did not investigate further.
"The Ministry of Defense has no other interest or role regarding UFO matters and does not consider questions regarding the existence or otherwise of extraterrestrial life-forms," it said Wednesday.
The earthquake that struck China's Sichuan Province this week, killing thousands of people, caused an estimated $20 billion in damage - most of it uncovered by insurance, a catastrophic risk modeling firm said Wednesday.
And given the precarious state of the U.S. economy, aid agencies say the ability of Americans to help the Chinese people recover and rebuild may be limited.
China's Xinhua news agency reported Wednesday that the death toll from the quake - which measured 7.9 on the Richter scale - had risen to 14,866.
An unofficial tally of deaths in individual communities - as reported by the news agency over several days - puts the toll at 19,565, with thousands more said to be trapped or missing.
Though the risk modeling firm, AIR Worldwide, cautioned that there is a high level of uncertainty in insured loss estimates in China, they believe only $1 billion of that - 5% of the total assessment - is in insured damage.
By contrast, the tornadoes that swept through the middle part of the United States last week caused in excess of $1 billion in insurance claims, and the bill for 2005's Hurricane Katrina was about $40 billion.
"That [$1 billion] is a very low claim - imagine if only 5% of America had home insurance," said Robert Hunter, the director of insurance for the Consumer Federation of America.
"The problem is most foreign countries don't have insurance.
AIR, which estimates the total property value in the area is about $215 billion, said the insurance market is still developing in China.
"That's why AIG (AIG, Fortune 500) is so interested in moving into China," said Hunter. "As the middle class grows, there will be increased demand.
Former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards will endorse Sen. Barack Obama at a Wednesday evening rally in Michigan, Obama¡¯s campaign said.
Edwards dropped out of the Democratic race in late January after poor showings in the early contests, in which he racked up just 19 delegates to the party¡¯s August nominating convention in Denver.
He told NBC last week that Obama, the current Democratic front-runner, is the party¡¯s likely nominee.
Both Obama and the other remaining Democrat, Sen. Hillary Clinton, had sought Edwards¡¯ blessing.
Edwards said last week that it was ¡°fine¡± for Clinton to continue making her case, but expressed concern that a continued campaign could damage the party¡¯s prospects in November.
Edwards served a single Senate term from North Carolina and was the Democratic vice presidential candidate in 2004.
As mudslides, debris and fallen rocks blocked rescuers and aid workers from China¡¯s quake-hit areas, Premier Wen Jiabao on Thursday ordered 90 more helicopters for rescue missions in Sichuan province, state-run media reported.
Since the 7.9-magnitude quake struck Monday, China has dispatched 20 choppers for dropping food and water, transporting the injured and delivering rescuers, Xinhua reported.
Rescuers continued their attempts to save those trapped beneath the rubble at schools, businesses and homes.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=3145830
Veteran striker Henrik Larsson is making a surprise return to the international arena after being named in Sweden's squad for the European Championship finals.
The 36-year-old Larsson retired from the national team after the 2006 World Cup, but has kept playing for Helsingborg in the Swedish league and led his team with six goals in this season's UEFA Cup.
"I think football is extremely exciting and I love playing football.
I wasn't counting on playing football this long and above all that I would be doing this well.
It will be Larsson's sixth major championship he was a substitute for Sweden in the 1994 World Cup and his experience could be needed on a team that has been plagued by injuries to key players.
Oil prices are holding steady in Asia after falling back from an overnight trading record near $127 a barrel hit on concerns Iran may consider cutting oil production.
Light, sweet crude for June delivery dropped 8 cents to $125.72 a barrel in electronic trade on the New York Mercantile Exchange by midmorning Wednesday in Singapore.
Oil prices hit a trading record of $126.98 a barrel Tuesday before falling back to settle at $125.80.
Analysts said traders reacted quickly overnight to the news that Iran's government was considering cutting crude oil production.
Jim Ritterbusch, president of energy consultancy Ritterbusch and Associates in Galena, Illinois, said traders were reacting to news reports that Iran's government is considering cutting crude oil production.
In later news reports, Iranian officials denied that production cuts were imminent, but said a reduction has been discussed.
Sen. Hillary Clinton used her big win in West Virginia on Tuesday to make her case that she has a better chance of beating the Republicans in the general election.
"I am more determined than ever to carry on this campaign," she told supporters in Charleston, West Virginia. "I am in this race because I believe I am the strongest candidate.
I can lead this party to victory in the general election if you lead me to victory now.
With half of the results in, Clinton was ahead of Sen. Barack Obama by a margin of more than 2-1.
Clinton has faced calls to drop out of the race because she trails Obama in delegates won, states won and the popular vote this primary season.
Clinton also now trails Obama when it comes to the support of superdelegates, and her campaign is $20 million in the red.
Howard Wolfson, Clinton's communication director, said the New York senator is "in until the very end.
In an e-mail to supporters, the Clinton campaign called West Virginia a "tremendous victory.
"It's clear that the pundits declaring this race over have it all wrong. The voters in West Virginia spoke loud and clear they want this contest to go on.
Clinton's win won't do much to cut into Obama's lead:
West Virginia had just 28 delegates at stake, and those will be awarded proportionately.
DELHI, India (CNN) India is on high alert after a series of near-simultaneous explosions killed at least 60 people and wounded 150 others in a top tourist spot, government and local officials told CNN-IBN.
Bicycles and rickshaws were strewn about the streets, with pools of blood nearby, in the northwestern city of Jaipur.
Motorcycles, pieces of which were found at nearly every bomb site, appear to have been used in the attacks, said Rajasthan Home Minister Gulab Chand Kataria.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but Indian government officials including Minister of State for Home Affairs Shriprakash Jaiswal were quick to label it a terrorist attack.
The eight explosions started at about 7:30 p.m. (1400 GMT) and detonated within 12 minutes of each other, police said.
The bombs exploded within about 500 meters (0.3 mile) of each other in Jaipur's old city, which is frequented by tourists.
An ninth bomb was defused, according to H.G. Raghavendra, a Jaipur city official. He described all the bombs as "medium intensity. "
"There is no reason to panic," he told CNN-IBN. "Everything is under control."
One blast struck near Hanuman Temple, which was crowded with Hindus worshipping Hanuman, the religion's monkey god.
Another struck near a market area inside Jaipur's walled city where tourists and locals frequent restaurants and shops.
Many of the casualties were taken to SMS Hospital, the largest government hospital in Jaipur.
People gathered outside the hospital to hear news about friends and relatives;
the hospital issued an urgent appeal for blood donations.
The state of Rajasthan, where Jaipur is located, was placed on alert, local officials said.
Delhi police officials said they too were on high alert after the blasts and were receiving regular updates from Jaipur on developments in the investigation.
The Deputy Chief Minister for the state of Maharashtra, R.R. Patil, said the entire state was also on high alert.
Mumbai is in the state of Maharashtra.
HOLYHEAD, Wales (CNN) A man who dressed up as Darth Vader, wearing a black garbage bag for a cape, and assaulted the founders of Britain's first Jedi church was given a suspended sentence Tuesday.
Arwel Wynne Hughes, 27, attacked Jedi church founder Barney Jones a.k.a. Master Jonba Hehol with a metal crutch, hitting him on the head, prosecutors told Holyhead Magistrates' Court.
He also whacked Jones' 18-year-old cousin, Michael Jones or Master Mormi Hehol bruising his thigh, in the March 25 incident.
Unfortunately for Hughes, the incident was recorded on a video camera that the cousins had set up to film themselves in a light saber battle.
"Darth Vader!
" Hughes shouted as he approached.
Hughes claimed he couldn't remember the incident, having drunk the best part of a 10-liter (two-and-half-gallon) box of wine beforehand.
"He knows his behavior was wrong and didn't want it to happen but he has no recollection of it," said Hughes' lawyer, Frances Jones.
District Judge Andrew Shaw sentenced Hughes to two months in jail but suspended the sentence for one year.
Barney Jones, his brother Daniel and cousin Michael set up the Church of Jediism, Anglesey order, last year.
It claims about 30 members.
Jedi is the faith followed by some of the central characters in the "Star Wars" films.
In the 2001 United Kingdom census, 390,000 people 0.7 percent of the population listed Jedi as their religion.
(CNN) China's giant pandas are believed to be safe after Monday's earthquake, but concern is growing over how they will get their next meals.
Authorities confirmed Tuesday that captive animals in two of China's major panda reserves were alive, according to Xinhua, China's official news agency.
The Wolong Giant Panda Reserve Center in southwest Sichuan province is home to about 86 giant pandas, who were reported safe Tuesday.
Staff and critters at neighboring Chengdu Panda Breeding and Research Center were also reported safe, according to a spokesperson for the Atlanta Zoo, which has two pandas on loan from the wildlife reserve.
The mountainous, densely wooded region is the natural habitat for most of the 1,200 giant pandas living in the wild, making it an obvious location for research bases like Wolong and Chengdu.
Giant pandas roam the forest in "open cages" that are meant to provide them with a safe, natural environment that will prepare them for release.
With the safety of the pandas confirmed, the animals' caregivers are left to determine how resources like food and medical supplies will reach the bases, which contain breeding facilities and triage centers.
Bamboo, the pandas' primary source of food, is a major agricultural product in the region, but whether it can be supplied to the pandas despite infrastructure damage is open to question.
Zobor said the WWF had confirmed the safety of staff members based in Beijing but had not received word on the conditions in Wolong.
David Wildt with the Smithsonian's National Zoological Park in Washington says scientists in Wolong have overcome threats to the giant panda population before.
Thanks to a collaborative effort with American scientists, the Wolong staff was able to reverse the trend.
"Because of their efforts, the population is on the rise today.
Wildt said that Chinese scientists have also addressed the issue of alternative food sources.
They're not a complete substitute, but they meet the needs of a basic high-fiber diet," said Wildt, who has worked with two pandas that the Smithsonian has on loan from Wolong.
"Right now, we're mostly concerned about the staff. If the staff is fine, then the animals will be fine," Wildt said.
Rounding up a lot of the usual suspects, the Cannes Film Festival presents a lineup from an illustrious if somewhat predictable gang of regulars, including Clint Eastwood, Steven Soderbergh, Woody Allen, Atom Egoyan and Wim Wenders.
Then there's Steven Spielberg who's not quite a newcomer, since he's been at Cannes before.
The new "Indiana Jones" flick opens worldwide May 22, four days after its Cannes premiere, giving the movie a similar global rollout that preceded blockbuster "E.T."
This is the same kind of movie in that (Cannes is) kind of the perfect launching pad, because we can bring the whole world there," said Frank Marshall, producer on the "Indiana Jones" movies.
"It's perfectly timed for our release worldwide.
In its 61st year, the world's most-prestigious film festival sometimes catches heat for including too many glossy Hollywood productions, such as past opening-night film "The Da Vinci Code" or action spectacles such as "Matrix Reloaded" and "X-Men: The Last Stand.
While this year's festival, which opens Wednesday, also includes the cute and cuddly animated comedy "Kung Fu Panda," featuring the voices of Jack Black, Angelina Jolie and Dustin Hoffman, the rest of the schedule is mostly serious cinema, much of it from past Cannes luminaries.
Eastwood returns with "Changeling," a child-abduction drama starring Jolie, while Soderbergh is showing "Che," his two-part epic on revolutionary Che Guevara, featuring Benicio Del Toro.
Wenders offers "Palermo Shooting," a thriller about a photographer pursued by a mysterious gunman, and Egoyan presents "Adoration," centered on a youth who reinvents himself in cyberspace.
LONDON, England (CNN) A picture of an overweight woman lying naked on a couch, painted by the British artist Lucian Freud, is expected to set a record for any work by a living artist when it goes up for auction Tuesday night.
Christie's auction house in New York expects the life-size 1995 portrait to sell for between $25 million and $35 million.
Christie's calls it a "bold and imposing example of the stark power of Lucian Freud's realism," depicting "the forceful and undeniable physical presence of people and things.
Tilley, now 51, told CNN she was initially embarrassed to pose naked for the artist but they soon grew comfortable in the studio so comfortable, in fact, that she confessed to falling asleep while posing.
The painting challenges modern notions of beauty and elicits a reaction from everyone who sees it.
That may have been precisely the aim of Freud, who told London's Tate Gallery in 2002 that he wanted his paintings to "astonish, disturb, seduce, convince."
Freud, 85, has been described as Britain's greatest living realist painter.
He is the grandson of psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud and came to London from Germany when he was a child.
With Tilley, Freud said he was "very aware of all kinds of spectacular things to do with her size, like amazing craters and things one's never seen before," according to the 2002 interview with the Tate.
He added, "I have perhaps a predilection towards people of unusual or strange proportions, which I don't want to over-indulge.
Freud painted the portrait of Tilley over nine months in 1995.
Tilley said she posed for eight hours a day, two or three days a week.
She had been introduced to the artist through a mutual friend, Australian performance artist Leigh Bowery, who also posed for Freud.
It was Bowery's idea for Tilley to pose for Freud, so he arranged a meeting.
Tilley still works full time at the job center in London's West End and calls her new-found fame "a bit bizarre."
She laughs as she describes how she now has to arrange her schedule to accommodate media interviews.
Fashion designers are giving new life to worthless candy wrappers, newspapers and plastic bags; turning trash into trendy tote bags, purses and jewelry.
From "post-consumer and industrial waste" comes durable, funky accessories reportedly worn by celebrities such as Lindsay Lohan, Cameron Diaz and Petra Nemcova.
One self-described eco-fashion label, Ecoist, has partnered with Coca-Cola, Luna Bar and Aveda to create handbags made from misprinted and discontinued packaging.
"We tap into that source of waste because it is reliable, and unfortunately, it's abundant," Ecoist co-founder Jonathan Marcoschamer said. "We believe that for the next few years, there's going to be a significant amount.
How about 7.6 billion tons of waste? That's how much American companies toss each year, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
During the past four years, Ecoist said, it has sold more than 100,000 accessories created by its designers in Peru and Miami, Florida.
The bags some of them one-of-a-kind are priced from about $30 for smaller versions to about $180 for larger ones.
"For now, we're an immediate solution for many of these companies to utilize waste for something that's creative and promotes environmental awareness," Marcoschamer said. Ecoist isn't alone.
RootPhi and Timbuk2 scrambled to identify and remove the offending bags from its limited collection of prototypes.
Perry Klebahn, Timbuk2's CEO, acknowledges that Target wasn't technically wrong. "The onus was on us to talk to Target and get them to say OK, in this particular case, to grant us a license.
"What's great here is that no two bags are the same.
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) Maggie O'Connor minces garlic for a Mexican lasagna while across the kitchen Melissa Thornton chops basil for a turkey wrap.
They're 10- and 11-year-old girls getting a lesson in cooking and healthy eating.
They're also learning how to have a positive image of their bodies.
"I think you need to balance things," said Thornton, a fourth-grader from Atlanta, Georgia.
Not only is her mother peeking over Melissa's shoulder as she works, but so is clinical psychologist Dina Zeckhausen, founder of the Eating Disorders Information Network.
She gathered eight moms and their daughters on a recent Sunday afternoon at The Cook's Warehouse in Atlanta.
Zeckhausen's goal is to help the mothers be effective role models, especially when it comes to eating.
They want to raise healthy daughters. They don't want to pass their own anxieties down to their girls.
The National Eating Disorders Association notes there has been unprecedented growth of eating disorders in the past two decades.
The group estimates up to 10 million Americans suffer from the condition.
Ninety percent of those who battle anorexia and bulimia are female.
Zeckhausen urged the moms gathered in the kitchen to eliminate what she called "negative body talk.
"It's important that you don't put yourself down in front of your daughter," explained Zeckhausen. "She has an adult woman's body in her future and she's looking to you in terms of how to feel about that body. She's taking notes whether you know it or not. "
The death toll from Monday's 7.9-magnitude earthquake in central China exceeded 12,000 Tuesday, as soldiers apparently working without equipment used their hands to move rubble and reach victims at the epicenter.
Sichuan provincial military commander Xia Guofu led more than 300 soldiers and disaster workers into the epicenter of the quake Wenchuan county in Sichuan Province on Tuesday.
The soldiers estimated 3,000 people of the town's population of 12,000 survived the quake.
They also reported more than 70 percent of the roads in the town were damaged, and almost all bridges had collapsed.
On Monday, rescuers were stranded outside Wenchuan because of roads blocked by boulders and rocks.
They pulled more than 1,000 people from under debris but did not say how many were survivors, according to the disaster relief headquarters of the Chengdu Military Area Command.
On the way to Wenchuan, a reporter for China's official Xinhua news agency said he encountered five men who escaped the disaster.
Tan Bin, 56, a resident in the Shuimo Township of Wenchuan, said they had walked more than 30 miles (50 kilometers) from Wenchuan.
"When the quake happened, we couldn't stand straight, and we held each other's hands and ran out of our factory," he said.
A senior official with the Sichuan provincial government said Tuesday the death toll was still rising, Xinhua reported.
He said another 26,206 people were injured and as many as 3.5 million homes were destroyed.
More than 25,000 people were trapped under rubble, most of them 18,645 in Mianyang City, about 30 miles northeast of the epicenter, according to Xinhua.
(CNN) Myanmar's government seems unaware of the scope of the death and destruction Cyclone Nargis wrought on the country more than a week ago, a U.S. military commander said Tuesday.
Timothy Keating, head of the U.S. Pacific Command, was on the first of three U.S. aid flights allowed into Myanmar this week.
He described meeting with a Myanmar three-star general who opened up a map of the country and pointed to the areas worst-hit by the cyclone.
"[He said] people are coming back to their villages, they're planting their crops for the summer season, the monsoon will come and wash all the saltwater out of the ponds.
The United Nations estimates that between 63,000 and 100,000 people died as a result of Cyclone Nargis.
The United States has pledged $16.25 million in aid to the country.
The two U.S. aid flights that arrived Tuesday carried water, blankets, plastic sheets, mosquito nets and other relief supplies, the U.S. military said.
Together with a third flight that arrived in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, on Monday, the planes carried 70,000 pounds of supplies.
Keating said he offered Myanmar the assistance of thousands of U.S. sailors and Marines, plus U.S. military aircraft.
we will have to discuss them with the prime minister, and we will get back to you when we have a decision,' " he said. "It may be days; it may be longer.
The cyclone hit Myanmar on the night of May 2, but junta leaders have been reluctant to allow foreign aid workers into the country.
The delay has caused concern among aid agencies and foreign governments and sparked unusually strong remarks from U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who blasted the junta's "unacceptably slow response.
The U.N. said the World Food Program was getting in only 20 percent of the food needed because of logistical problems and government restrictions, The Associated Press reported Tuesday.
"There is obviously still a lot of frustration that this aid effort hasn't picked up pace," spokesman Richard Horsey told AP.
There was also concern Tuesday about the quality of relief supplies reaching storm victims.
CARE Australia staff have found rotting rice being distributed to people in the worst-hit Irrawaddy Delta, its director in Myanmar, Brian Agland, told AP.
"I have a small sample in my pocket, and it's some of the poorest quality rice we've seen," he said. "It's affected by saltwater, and it's very old.
A former Yangon resident now living in Thailand told AP that angry government officials told him that high-energy biscuits rushed into Myanmar on the World Food Program's first flights were sent to a military warehouse.
Sen. Hillary Clinton will win West Virginia's Democratic primary by a wide margin, CNN projects.
As polls closed on Tuesday, it was too early to tell exactly how big the margin of victory was.
Her campaign is hoping a big win will raise doubts about Barack Obama's electability in the general election.
Clinton trails Obama in delegates won, states won and the popular vote this primary season.
Clinton also now trails Obama when it comes to the support of superdelegates, and her campaign is $20 million in the red.
Clinton's win won't do much to cut into Obama's lead West Virginia had just 28 delegates at stake. Those delegates will be awarded proportionately.
Clinton has continued to tout her electability, saying she's the stronger candidate to go up against Sen. John McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee, in November.
"I'm winning Catholic voters and Hispanic voters and blue-collar workers and seniors, the kind of people that Sen. McCain will be fighting for in the general election," Clinton said.
Bill Clinton won West Virginia in 1992 and 1996. George W. Bush took the state in 2000 and 2004.
Exit polls in West Virginia suggest a strong division among Democrats.
Almost as many of Clinton's West Virginia supporters would vote for McCain as would for Obama, the polls show.
If Obama were the Democratic nominee, 36 percent of Clinton supporters would vote for him in the fall, the polls found.
But 35 percent said they'd cast their vote for McCain instead.
A bare majority of his West Virginia supporters 51 percent said they would back Clinton in the fall, but 31 percent said they'd vote for McCain.
Sen. John McCain took his weeklong environmental tour to Washington state Tuesday, addressing the need for reducing the nation¡¯s dependency on foreign oil and sparking investment in environmentally friendly technology.
The presumptive Republican presidential candidate spoke at an environmental roundtable at Cedar River Watershed Education Center in North Bend, Washington.
along with California, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada and Oregon &#8212; where voters count the environment as a top issue.
McCain said Tuesday that coming up with new forms of clean energy is ¡°a national security issue when we¡¯re dependent on more than $400 billion a year in imported oil from countries that don¡¯t like us very much. ¡¦ Some of that money is helping terrorist organizations.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=3145019
Rescuers struggled to reach some of the hardest-hit areas of southwestern China on Tuesday after a massive earthquake that left a death toll well above 12,000.
Rescuers found at least 500 dead in the Chinese district at the epicenter of the magnitude 7.9 earthquake Tuesday, while heavy rain, collapsed bridges and damaged roads complicated efforts to get troops and aid workers to the worst-hit towns.
The Monday afternoon quake¡¯s epicenter was in the county of Wenchuan, Sichuan Province, about 1,500 km (960 miles) southwest of Beijing.
During a visit to a school in Shifang, where more than 100 children were trapped beneath rubble, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao promised that saving lives was a top priority.
Inter Milan midfielder Maniche is the surprise absentee from Luiz Felipe Scolari's 23-man Portugal squad for Euro 2008.
The 30-year-old former Porto, Chelsea and Atletico Madrid player has made 47 appearances for his country and played a central role in Portugal's run to the Euro 2004 final and the 2006 World Cup semifinals.
However, he has mostly been on the bench at Inter since moving from Spain four months ago.
Scolari appears to lack options in attack, selecting Benfica's Nuno Gomes, who has scored just one league goal in the past five months, as well as Helder Postiga of Panathinaikos who has won 10 caps and last played for Portugal nine months ago.
Werder Bremen's Hugo Almeida, the third striker, also has just 10 caps and last featured in August.
However, Portugal's strength lies in midfield with Cristiano Ronaldo, Nani, Ricardo Quaresmo and Deco among others.
Portugal will meet Turkey, the Czech Republic and Switzerland in Group A.
Airbus on Tuesday announced new delays on deliveries of the superjumbo A380 this year and next, saying it needs more time and resources to get the planes ready.
The European aircraft maker said in a statement Tuesday that it will deliver 12 planes in 2008 instead of 13, and 21 planes in 2009 instead of 25.
It said deliveries for 2010 will be discussed with customers in the coming weeks.
The A380, the world's biggest passenger plane, was plagued by production delays that repeatedly pushed back the delivery of the first jet to Singapore Airlines last year.
Airbus said it will take more time to determine the financial impact of the revised delivery schedule and the extent of additional costs.
Airbus, which is owned by European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co., has delivered four A380s to Singapore Airlines so far, and 17 more are in various stages of production.
South Korean officials said Monday they have killed all poultry in Seoul, the capital, to curb the spread of bird flu following a new outbreak of the disease in the city.
Quarantine officials destroyed 15,000 chickens, ducks, pheasants and turkeys raised in farms, restaurants, schools and homes in the capital, said Kim Yoon-kyu, a Seoul Metropolitan Government official.
The Seoul government said the slaughter was necessary to contain the disease.
The slaughter began Sunday night, hours after authorities confirmed Seoul's second outbreak of bird flu in less than a week.
The slaughter did not affect parrots, parakeets and canaries because they have little chance of spreading the disease, Kim said.
On Monday night, government tests confirmed the latest outbreak in Seoul was caused by the deadly H5N1 virus, said Yoon Young-ku, a spokesman at the Agriculture Ministry.
The tests also confirmed two additional outbreaks of the virus in Busan, bringing to 31 the total number of outbreaks in South Korea, he said.
(CNN) Old-fashioned American bakeries are popping up everywhere on the body-conscious West Coast.
The place
An unexpected perk along a lonely stretch of warehouses in Culver City, Bluebird Caf&eacute;
, with its shaded patio and turquoise window frames reminiscent of a friendly caf&eacute;
in Mexico, is as welcoming as its menu is comforting.
Crayola-bright cupcakes and lunches of tuna melts, meatloaf sandwiches and chicken salad tempt a crowd from nearby studios and production houses.
Can't decide between blue, red, orange, green, white or chocolate frosting?
The goods
Only four flavors of cake vanilla, chocolate, coconut and red velvet and catch-as-catch-can specials like pumpkin, banana and lemon.
As caterers whose repertoire has long included cupcakes, chef Bill Dertouzo and partner Susan McAlindon of Dainties Cupcakes were well positioned to ride the retro wave.
The cupcakes come in striped boxes with inner rings to hold them securely.
You can even get a box for one.
But unless it's a gift, a single rarely makes it out the door.
McAlindon says customers love the boxes but usually just ask for a napkin, peel away the paper on the spot and bite into what Dertouzo calls their "own little package of love and joy.
The goods
Chocolate ganache dipped devil's food cupcakes injected (and topped) with delicately and variously flavored whipped cream.
EL FASHER, Sudan (CNN) Sudan sought support Monday from the U.N. Security Council in its escalating conflict with Chad, which shut down the border and shut off trade between the two countries earlier in the day.
Sudan cut diplomatic ties Sunday, accusing its western neighbor of helping train rebels who attacked a suburb of Khartoum, Sudan's capital, over the weekend.
Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamed, Sudan's ambassador to the United Nations, told reporters that he expected the Security Council, and especially its permanent members, to "use their leverage on Chad.
"This is a moment of truth for the international community to draw its own conclusion from this incident," he said. "It can send a message to Chad to desist from acts of destabilization.
Mohamed likened Saturday's attack by hundreds of Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) rebels on the suburb of Omdurman to the attacks on New York and Washington on September 11, 2001.
"We expect that the council's sentiment recognize what it means to us when our national capital is attacked," he said.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon issued a statement through his spokesman expressing "grave concern" over the attack and continued fighting.
"He strongly condemns the use of armed force and military means by JEM for the achievement of political ends, and calls for an immediate cessation of fighting and a renewed commitment to a peaceful resolution of outstanding issues," he said.
the Bold, a high-end model that further demonstrates the company's desire to make tools for both work and play.
The Bold, or 9000, has twice the screen resolution of the current Curve model, making for a very sharp display.
It matches the resolution, but not the size, of the screen on Apple Inc.'s iPhone, which has emerged as a potent competitor in the "smart phone" category.
AT&T Inc. on Monday said it would be the exclusive U.S. carrier for the Bold.
Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM didn't announce a price for the Bold, nor agreements with specific carriers. It said the phone would be available from various carriers this summer.
AT&T is the only U.S. operator with a cellular broadband network compatible with the initial Bold model.
Later versions could work on the Sprint Nextel Corp. and Verizon Wireless networks, according to RIM co-chief executive Mike Lazaridis.
Like the Curve and the Pearl, BlackBerry's consumer-oriented phones, the Bold has a full-size headset jack and a camera that can also capture video.
At the same time, it has dual-band Wi-Fi, a feature previously only found on a model aimed at the corporate market.
The Bold will also have exchangable back plates in different colors, a first for a BlackBerry.
Small service stations are running into a problem as gasoline marches toward $4 a gallon in the United States:
Thousands of old-fashioned pumps can't register more than $3.99 on their spinning mechanical dials.
Many of the same pumps can only count up to $99.99 for the total sale, preventing owners of some sport utility vehicles, vans, trucks and other gas-guzzlers to fill their tanks all the way.
As many as 8,500 of America's 170,000 service stations have old-style meters that need to be fixed about 17,000 individual pumps, said Bob Renkes, executive vice president of the Petroleum Equipment Institute of Tulsa, Oklahoma.
They top out at $3.999, only 30 cents above the price of regular gas at the station.
"In small towns, where you don't have the volume, there's no way you can afford to pay for the replacements for these old pumps," Colville said. "It's just not economically feasible.
Yet job seekers have committed these interview gaffes and worse, according to CareerBuilder.com's annual survey of the worst interview mistakes.
To ensure your interview is smooth and error-free, follow these five tips.
Do some research:
When you walk into a job interview, knowledge of the company's history, goals and current activity proves to the interviewer that you are not only prepared for the interview, but also that you want to be a part of the organization.
Don't lie:
If the conversation drifts to a topic you're not knowledgeable about, admit you don't know the answer and then explain how you would go about finding a solution.
Displaying your problem-solving skills is better than babbling about something you don't understand.
Although interviewers often try to create a comfortable setting to ease the job seeker's nerves, business decorum shouldn't disappear.
Avoid offering personal details that can be controversial or have no relevance to the position, such as political and religious beliefs or stories about a recent break-up.
Know what to expect: Expect to hear staple interview questions:
These open-ended questions are harder to answer than they sound, so think about your responses before the interview.
Put on a happy face:
The interview is not the time to air your grievances about being wronged by a past boss.
How you speak about a previous employer gives the hiring manager an idea of how you'll speak about him or her once you've moved on.
Apple Inc. said Monday its online stores in the U.S. and UK are sold out of the iPhone, a sign supplies are being winnowed ahead of the launch of the device's next generation featuring faster Internet surfing speeds.
The Cupertino-based company confirmed that the iPhone is out of stock online, but added that brick-and-mortar stores run by Apple and iPhone carriers including AT&T Inc. might still have units available.
Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris declined to comment on reasons for the shortage and on Apple's plans for an update to the device, which is widely expected to be unveiled in June at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco.
meet its goal of selling 10 million of the hybrid iPod-cell phone-Internet surfing gadgets by the end of 2008.
So far, Apple has sold 5.4 million iPhones, according to the latest data as of the end of March.
One way Apple is expanding the iPhone's reach is by inking deals with wireless carriers around the world, even breaking with its pattern of requiring exclusivity to sell in a certain country.
On Monday, four mobile providers in the Asia-Pacific region announced partnerships with Apple to bring the iPhone to their regions later this year.
LONDON, England (CNN) It is one of the most hotly anticipated movies of the year and after years of feverish speculation, Sex and the City the movie, premieres in London Monday night.
There have also been protests that the film will open in London.
Not surprisingly, American fans believe its spiritual home is in New York and that it should be seen there first.
Such is the secrecy surrounding the plot of the film that the four actresses Sarah Jessica Parker, Cynthia Nixon, Kim Cattrall and Kristin Davis will give a speech before the curtain goes up Monday asking the audience, not to disclose the plot, London's Daily Telegraph reports.
But the two week gap between premiere and nationwide release dates is not deterring London fashionistas eager to see their icon Carrie Bradshaw on the big screen.
HSBC Holdings PLC reported Monday that first-quarter profit was better than in the same period a year ago despite a US$3.2 billion write-down on subprime mortgage assets in the United States.
HSBC shares rose 2 percent on the London Stock Exchange after the announcement US$17.26.
The bank did not release the figures for its first quarter, but is scheduled to report first-half earnings in August.
Analyst Alex Potter at Collins Stewart says the report of higher first-quarter profit "is a claim few banks in Europe will be able to make.
He adds that "the outlook statement is very muted but this is hardly a surprise, whereas the U.S. performance was well above worst fears." Potter says "HSBC remains a safe haven.
JERUSALEM (CNN) A rocket fired by Palestinian militants in Gaza on Monday struck a house in southern Israel, killing one woman, according to Israeli medical emergency services.
The attack came as Egypt's top intelligence official tried to negotiate an end to the violence between Israel and militants in Hamas-controlled Gaza.
It was the second fatal strike on Israel in recent days.
A mortar attack from Gaza on Friday killed an Israeli man in his yard in southern Israel and wounded three others, the Israel Defense Forces said.
There has been a steady increase in rocket and mortar launchings from Gaza since Hamas took control of Gaza last year, but the strikes rarely cause casualties.
Egypt's top intelligence official, Omar Suleiman, met with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and other Israeli officials on Monday in Jerusalem.
He hopes to end the Gaza-Israel violence, which threatens a broader attempt to negotiate a peace agreement with the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank.
Suleiman said releasing Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier who was captured by Gaza militants nearly two years ago, is central to any agreement.
"We hope that with this package which we are working [on] that we will make indirect negotiation between the Israelis and the people who are abducting Gilad Shalit to release him, to make a new atmosphere for continuing the negotiation for [a] two-state solution," he said.
Sen. Barack Obama took the lead in the race for superdelegates on the eve of a contest that's expected to fall easily into Sen. Hillary Clinton's column.
Tom Allen of Maine, Dolly Strazar of Hawaii, Sen. Daniel Akaka of Hawaii and Keith Roark of Idaho all endorsed Obama Monday, giving him a lead of four superdelegates for the time being.
Obama and Clinton face off Tuesday in West Virginia, where polls show Clinton ahead by more than a 40-point margin.
Under pressure from some to withdraw from the race, Clinton insists that West Virginina, where only 28 delegates are at stake, is a key state in the fight for the White House.
She said again Monday that no Democratic candidate since 1916 has gone on to win the White House without first winning West Virginia.
"West Virginia is making a decision that has far-reaching consequences to send a message to people what you expect from your next president," she said at a stop in Clear Fork, West Virginia.
Clinton currently trails Obama across all fronts superdelegates, pledged delegates and the popular vote, according to CNN's latest estimates.
Obama leads in the race for superdelegates, 277 to Clinton's 273, and he's ahead in the overall delegate count, 1,869 to 1,697.
At the beginning of the year, Clinton led the superdelegate race by more than 100.
Clinton has vowed to stay in the race until someone gets enough delegates to clinch the nomination.
Bolivia¡¯s president Monday set an August date for a vote of confidence that he called for last week intended to give him a new mandate and strengthen his hand against movements for autonomy in several states.
¡°Personally, I have no fear of the people,¡± President Evo Morales told reporters in a signing ceremony at the presidential palace in La Paz. ¡°The people should say the truth about their authorities. This is another way for the people to judge their elected officials.
In a televised address, Morales announced that the referendum on his administration and the governors of the nation¡¯s nine departments will be held August 10.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=3143510
An earthquake powerful enough to be felt throughout most of China left thousands of people dead Monday and thousands more trapped &#8212;
The Chinese government said at least 8,600 people were dead, but that the death toll was sure to rise as authorities began to reach some of the worst-hit areas. An expert told CNN the 7.9-magnitude quake is the largest the region has seen ¡°for over a generation.
Nearly all the confirmed deaths were in Sichuan Province, but rescuers could not immediately reach the epicenter of Wenchuan, because roads linking it to the provincial capital, Chengdu, were damaged, state-run news agency Xinhua reported.
President Hu Jintao ordered an all-out effort to help those affected, and Premier Wen Jiabao traveled to the region to direct the rescue work, Xinhua reported.
Powerful storms killed at least 21 people in three states over the weekend, including an Oklahoma mother who died while huddling over her infant.
The baby boy survived with facial injuries.
Many other people were left to sift through piles of wreckage and debris on Sunday, wading through overturned cars, fallen trees and the remains of homes.
one in a small community just east of Carthage in Jasper County, Missouri; one in an area of Purdy in Barry County, Missouri.
The storms moved to the southeast, killing another person in Laurens County, Georgia.
Serbia¡¯s pro-Western President Boris Tadic declared victory Sunday in the country¡¯s parliamentary elections, despite a challenge to his bloc from nationalist groups.
This is a great victory for Serbia¡¯s European future.
Tadic¡¯s coalition, the Coalition for European Serbia, held about 38 percent of the vote, for about 103 seats, according to preliminary results from the Belgrade-based Center for Free Elections and Democracy, or CeSID.
NEW YORK (CNN) When it comes to sex, Isabella Rossellini is an animal.
They're just some of the creatures the actress impersonates in her new project, "Green Porno.
" The series of short films, commissioned by the Sundance Channel, is a showcase of how small creatures get down to the business of reproducing.
Rossellini hopes you'll find the two-minute flicks amusing.
She also wants you to learn something along the way, such as the fact that snails are hermaphrodites.
And perhaps more interestingly, that the saucy mollusks engage in a decidedly rough form of foreplay.
Of course, you can't beat the praying mantis when it comes to aggressive copulating.
The female bites the head off the male during sex.
"With a lot of insects, a lot of females eat the male."
Costumed as a different critter in each of the eight films, Rossellini perhaps best known to American audiences for her roles in the film "Blue Velvet" and the TV series "Alias" shares tidbits like these, not all of them so gruesome, and demonstrates the appropriate technique.
But before you reach for the dimmer switch and start cranking Barry White tunes, know that her mate in each scene is made of ... well ... cardboard.
Consider it small-time porn for the small screen.
CANBERRA, Australia (CNN) Koalas are threatened by the rising level of carbon dioxide pollution in the atmosphere because it saps nutrients from the eucalyptus leaves they feed on, a researcher said.
Ian Hume, emeritus professor of biology at Sydney University, said he and his researchers also found that the amount of toxicity in the leaves of eucalyptus saplings rose when the level of carbon dioxide within a greenhouse was increased.
Hume presented his research on the effects of carbon dioxide on eucalyptus leaves to the Australian Academy of Science in Canberra.
An increase in carbon dioxide favors the trees' production of carbon-based anti-nutrients over nutrients, so leaves can become toxic to koalas, Hume said.
Some eucalyptus species may have high protein content, but anti-nutrients such as tannins bind the protein so it cannot be digested by koalas.
Hume estimated that current levels of global carbon dioxide emissions would result in a noticeable reduction in Australia's koala population in 50 years due to a lack of palatable leaves.
Out of more than 600 eucalyptus species in Australia, koalas will only eat the leaves of about 25, Hume said.
Changing the toxicity levels in the trees could further reduce the varieties that koalas find palatable, he said.
"Koalas produce one young each year under optimal conditions, but if you drop the nutritional value of the leaves, it might become one young every three or four years," Hume said.
(CNN) World War II was over, but as the 1940s gave way to the 1950s, a new evil lurked in the land.
It attracted a youthful audience boys, mostly who fell victim to its colorful images, dripping in red, and gave money to its purveyors.
The United States had a new menace, they said, one whose name started with "c" and whose first syllable rhymed with "bomb.
"The country was fixated on this," said David Hajdu, author of the recently released "The Ten-Cent Plague,¡± a history of the era.
These had names such as "Tales from the Crypt," "Shock SuspenStories" and "Justice Traps the Guilty," and they told stories of crime and horror.
Hundreds of millions sold every month, at 10 cents a throw.
They were the most popular form of entertainment in America," he said.
The fact that such entertainment was primarily aimed at children and teens raised the ire of authorities, including social scientists, newspaper columnists and political leaders.
These works, they believed, were causing crime and degeneracy. They had to be stopped.
(CNN) It may be small, but Florence contains a quarter of the planet's UNESCO world heritage sites, which can be overwhelming for first-time visitors.
With this ratio of classics per square meter, it's impossible to see everything in one visit so don't try.
A good starting point is Florence's cathedral, the Duomo (Piazza del Duomo), which dominates the city's skyline.
Climb up the inside of Brunelleschi's 15th-century dome and admire the views from the cupola.
If you only visit one museum, pick carefully.
For sculpture, head to the Bargello. For art, it has to be the Uffizi Galleries.
But not all of Florence's wonders are indoors, so take advantage of the clement weather and cross the Roman Ponte Vecchio Bridge, famous for the jewelry shops that line it, to the Boboli Gardens.
Take a picnic and climb up to the top of the gardens, congratulate yourself on escaping the crowds and admire the view.
If you only have time for a flying visit, check out the unbelievable ice-cream colours of Michaelangelo's tomb in Santa Croce church (Piazza Sta Croce);
when you're done, pick up some impeccably made leather purses from Scula del Cuoio, a leather school next door.
If you are looking for something more offbeat, try the Museo La Specola, a zoology museum where you can find eerily accurate wax models of corpses, a multitude of stuffed animals and other Victorian museum curiosities.
While the quintessential pairing of ripe tomatoes and lettuce is certainly enjoyable, a good salad can be so much more.
Adding fruits, nuts, and other well-chosen ingredients offers a welcome change
More importantly, incorporating a few more nutritious ingredients is an easy way to serve a more healthful dish.
Choose among them to suit your palate and your needs.
Most leafy greens contribute folate, the B vitamin critical to red blood cell health and the reduction of neural tube birth defects like spina bifida.
Good to know:
Lutein is better absorbed when combined with a splash of oil, particularly olive oil.
So a classic vinaigrette not only tastes great on your salad, but it may also help you absorb more nutrients.
Fruits
All fruit provides abundant good nutrients (vitamin C and potassium, in particular).
Blueberries contain polyphenol compounds called anthocyanins and proanthocyanins that may play a role in preserving memory.
Grapes also offer polyphenols.
Good to know:
The fiber in fruits can help lower blood cholesterol levels and reduce risk of heart disease.
Nuts and seeds
One-fourth cup of nuts or seeds adds nearly five grams of high-quality protein, as well as generous amounts of vitamin E, fiber, minerals, and arginine, a compound that helps blood vessels to function.
Good to know:
A report in Harvard Men's Health Watch suggests that as little as two ounces of nuts per week might lower your risk of heart disease.
Onions
What they add:
Onions are plentiful sources of disease-fighting phenols and flavonoids, both potential cancer fighters and weapons against some chronic diseases.
Good to know:
Pungent yellow onions and red onions measured high.
Seafood and other proteins
What they add: Fatty fish like salmon or tuna offer omega-3 fats, which help lower the risk for heart disease.
Good to know:
Fish, skinless chicken, or small amounts of cheese can also help boost the protein content of salads.
(CNN) After days of stonewalling, the Myanmar government is ready to accept aid from around the world for victims of Saturday's deadly cyclone, the country's U.N. ambassador said Friday.
Myanmar's ambassador to the United Nations, Kyaw Tint Swe, made his statement during a special U.N. session during which several diplomats slammed the Myanmar government.
British Ambassador John Sawers called Myanmar's refusal to let aid workers in as the death toll mounts "an appalling crisis" and labeled the government's actions "inexplicable and inexcusable.
The Myanmar envoy responded, "We are ready to speed up and strengthen our relief effort. We will accept aid from any corner.
The ambassador from Singapore tried to defuse the anger aimed at Myanmar, urging those in the special session not to politicize the situation.
John Holmes, the U.N. coordinator for humanitarian affairs, told the delegates that the death toll from Cyclone Nargis ranges from 63,000 to 100,000, well above the Myanmar government's announced toll of 22,000
Most of the victims were in the Irrawaddy Delta, where as many as 6 million people lived. The low-lying region bore the brunt of the storm.
Officials have said that about 2,000 square miles of land there is under water.
The victims' plight could worsen this week as heavy rain is forecast, according to The Associated Press.
But Holmes said the exact scale of the catastrophe is unknown because of the government's refusal to let disaster assessment teams into the country.
HONG KONG, China (CNN) Back in the good old days of the Internet, the hacker was a teenager motivated by high-tech pranks and bragging rights.
Today, the online thief could be anyone with 'Net access after a quick buck.
"Hacking has escalated from a destructive nature to financial gain through phishing, targeting people for bank account details, and siphoning accounts from there," says Derek Manky, security researcher at Fortinet.
"It's a very sophisticated ecosystem, with organizations and services for hire," he continues.
"There's a lot of money floating around, a lot of people involved. Once the infrastructure and networks are in place, you start building that foundation, which can be further leveraged and taken to next level: denial of services, cyber warfare, espionage.
In the Web 2.0 world of ubiquitous, seamless, horizontal communication, information wants to be free.
But just as easily as it can be uploaded, downloaded and shared, it can be accessed and exploited by individuals with a different agenda.
While online communities in particular continue to grow through friendly social networking sites, underground cybercrime syndicates continue to thrive on these on-screen relationships based on sharing and trust.
TOKYO, Japan (CNN) A U.S. Marine accused of raping a 19-year-old Japanese woman last year was found guilty Thursday of "committing wrongful sexual contact and indecent acts," the U.S. military said, but he was acquitted of rape.
The sentencing hearing for Lance Cpl. Larry A. Dean, 20, is scheduled to begin on Friday.
Local media reported that the four men met the woman in a restaurant in Hiroshima on October 14, 2007, then allegedly attacked and raped her in a car in nearby parking lot.
Japanese authorities investigated but decided in November not to file charges.
Dean also was found guilty of conspiracy to commit indecent acts and two minor charges.
He was acquitted of conspiracy to kidnap or rape.
The case is similar to a recent alleged sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl involving a U.S. Marine on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa.
Staff Sgt. Tyrone Luther Hadnott, 38, was charged last month with the rape of a child under 16, abusive sexual contact with a child, making a false official statement, adultery and kidnapping, the military said.
In February, Japanese authorities released Hadnott after the girl dropped the allegations, but the Marine Corps conducted its own investigation to see if Hadnott violated codes of military justice.
MEXICO CITY, Mexico (CNN) Mexico's federal police chief was shot to death early Thursday in a northwestern Mexico City neighborhood, the country's public safety department said.
Edgar Eusebio Millan Gomez was shot nine times, including in the throat, a statement from the department said.
The murder of Millan, who played an active role in the Mexican government's fight against drug cartels and organized crime, is the latest in a string of killings of police and military personnel.
Since taking office in 2006, President Felipe Calderon has deployed some 24,000 troops to fight the drug cartels, and many see the slayings as retaliation against the president's actions.
Millan and his two bodyguards, Leobardo Plata Hernandez and Daniel de la Vega Hernandez, came under fire in the street in Colonia Guerrero, in Mexico City, about 2:30 a.m., the department said.
The bodyguards were also shot, but were not seriously wounded, it said.
Police have detained a man, Alejandro Ramirez Baez, in the shooting, the department said.
Calderon condemned the attack in a statement on his Web site.
The government of Mexico expresses its deepest sympathy" for "the cowardly assassination of an exemplary official committed to the security of Mexican families," the statement said.
But Calderon said in his statement, "The Mexican government will re-enforce its head-on fight against crime," he said.
In January, Millan used similar words to describe the government's struggle against the drug cartels.
Oil is trading above $124 a barrel in Asia after a record settlement in the previous session.
By midmorning Friday in Singapore, light, sweet crude for June delivery had gained 64 cents to $124.33 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
The contract rose 16 cents on Thursday to close at a record finish of $123.69 a barrel.
Analysts say bullish momentum and renewed expectations that the dollar will continue to weaken against foreign currencies such as the euro and yen are likely to keep pushing oil to new records.
Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is living in virtual darkness after the devastating cyclone that struck the country blew the roof off her house, a neighbor said Thursday.
It was not clear if Suu Kyi was injured or whether she had enough food and water.
The neighbor said the electricity connection to Suu Kyi's dilapidated lakeside bungalow was snapped in Saturday's cyclone.
It seems no one cares for her," said the neighbor, who was contacted by telephone from Bangkok. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.
Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has lived under house arrest for about 12 of the last 18 years for leading an internationally hailed movement for democracy in Myanmar, which has been ruled by the military with an iron fist since 1962.
CNN spoke with "the Queen of Clean," Linda Cobb, a New York Times best-selling author and television personality. Cobb, who owns three cats, knows a thing or two about getting the best of pet messes.
What can pet owners do about pet hair?
Cobb:
You can use what's called a soot and dirt removal sponge.
You simply run it over a lampshade [or the] upholstery on your furniture, and it actually pulls the hair right off.
You can also use a damp sponge.
Another good thing to use is rubber gloves.
Dip them into water keep a bucket of water near you shake off the excess water and rub that over the upholstery, and the hair will collect on the rubber gloves.
The other thing you need is a really good vacuum cleaner.
I have found that I prefer one that has a bag in it.
I use an Oreck XL.
If you're using a canister vacuum, you have to take it out and then shake it into the trash, which puts all of that dust and that dander and that cat hair and everything else back up into the air.
If you have someone in the house that is sensitive to cats, has an allergy from them or something like that, there is a product called Allerpet that you can actually just spray on to your pet, and it neutralizes the enzymes in the saliva, which is what people are usually allergic to.
This is something that even if the cat licks itself, it won't hurt it.
What about pet accidents?
Cobb:
If you've got a hairball, or spaghetti didn't agree with the dog, accident on the carpet, the first thing you do is scream and run to get the paper towels and start trying to pick it up, which drives it down into the carpet fibers.
Instead, reach for your baking soda.
Sprinkle on a really heavy coat, and I mean heavy, so that it's completely covering it totally.
The baking soda will pull the liquid, the bile, the acids from the accident up into it away from the carpet.
Once it's dry, you take the suction hose from your vacuum and simply vacuum that up, and many times you can't even tell there was an accident there.
For pet urine, the first thing you want to do is put a very heavy, heavy pile of paper towels on it, stand on it, draw all the urine you can away from the carpet.
Then pour on club soda and do the same thing.
Then you can go in to neutralize it with about a half a cup of water quarter cup of white vinegar.
If you have any odor, you want to use an odor eliminator to remove that.
Now, that's not a spray that smells like lavender or oranges or flowers.
An odor eliminator has no odor.
The race for the Democratic presidential nomination is "alive and well" and must continue, according to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
"The people should all have the opportunity to speak as long as two candidates wish to compete in those primaries and caucuses," Pelosi said during a news conference Wednesday to promote Democratic energy proposals.
"In a few weeks, we will be on our way to nominating the next president of the United States.
Sen. Hillary Clinton is facing renewed pressure to drop out of the race following Tuesday's double-digit loss to Sen. Barack Obama in North Carolina and a narrow win in Indiana.
Pelosi, D-California, said either candidate would be a great president.
She said the "tremendous turnout" is "something positive that is coming out of this race.
Asked if she could see any path to victory for Clinton, Pelosi said, "You never know in elections.
Clinton on Wednesday fended off calls for her to step aside.
"There is no cause for alarm, sometimes you [have] got to calm people down a little bit," Clinton told thousands of cheering supporters at a Washington fundraiser called "Generations of Women for Hillary.
"I understand that some people are getting a little nervous, and I have to say that there really is no cause for nervousness, because we will have a unified Democratic Party," she said.
"I will work my heart out for the nominee of our party, and I believe that Sen. Obama will work as hard as he can for the nominee of our party.
Clinton added the differences between her and Obama are minimal compared with the Democrats' differences with Sen. John McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee.
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) Dr. Anne Nedrow gets the e-mails every day e-mails from women patients linking to Web sites of dubious quality.
One patient wrote Nedrow enthusiastically about an herb to treat low libido.
Another e-mail contained a link to a site for a nutritional drink.
Again, Nedrow wrote back pointing out that the Web site actually belonged to the company that made the drink, hardly an objective source.
Patients sometimes have a hard time discerning objective from subjective, and reliable from unreliable information on the Internet.
So we asked her, and three other women's health experts, for their favorite sites on women's health.
*Gynecological health
Dr. Christiane Northrup, an obstetrician-gynecologist and author of three books on women's health, says when it comes to infertility, she recommends The Fertile Soul and Fertile Heart, which focus on complementary and alternative therapies.
Also, on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's page on assisted reproductive technology, you can look up success rates for fertility clinics nationwide.
For questions about menstrual issues, Northrup recommends The Red Web Foundation, a nonprofit organization the fosters positive views of girls' and women's bodies and menstrual cycles.
*Heart disease
The word is out: Heart disease isn't a man's issue.
Women have heart attacks, too, and often the signs are very different from those men see.
Nedrow recommends the National Institute of Health's section on women and heart health.
Nedrow also recommends Reynolds Risk Score, a site specially designed for women to calculate their risk of having a heart attack or stroke in the next 10 years.
The American Heart Association also has a risk calculator for women.
*Breast cancer
Dr. Carolyn Runowicz, past president of the American Cancer Society and herself a breast cancer survivor, recommends the Susan G. Komen for the Cure site as well as the site for the Gynecologic Cancer Foundation.
Dr. Pamela Peeke, clinical assistant professor of medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, also recommends the Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation Web site.
The worst of the nation's credit crisis may have passed, U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Wednesday, though he acknowledged rising gas prices will blunt the effect of 130 million economic stimulus checks.
He ruled out a second stimulus package for now.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Paulson said the turmoil that has gripped Wall Street and that took a turn for the worse again in March has eased somewhat. "There's progress," he said.
"I think we're closer to the end of this" than to the beginning.
A prolonged housing slump, a severe credit crisis and soaring energy costs have pushed the economy to the edge of a recession.
To help cushion the blow, the Bush administration and Congress speedily enacted a $168 billion stimulus package of tax rebates for people and tax breaks for businesses.
With oil costs surging to record levels and gasoline prices hovering around all-time highs above $3.60 a gallon, Paulson acknowledged that pain at the pump would diminish the impact of the stimulus payments that are designed to give the economy a jump-start.
"Obviously, the high price of gasoline is unwelcome and is a challenge and is a headwind," he said.
The first batch of rebate payments started hitting bank accounts last week through direct deposits.
Paulson said the steep slump in housing, which has depressed home sales and prices, remained "the biggest risk to the economy."
Although he said he didn't know when the worst of housing's problems will pass, he suggested there will still be strains in the months ahead.
The legend of Jack Daniel reaches all the way back to the moment he was born.
Unfortunately, nobody knows exactly when that was.
Some records show that Jasper Newton "Jack" Daniel came into the world on September 5, 1846.
His tombstone, however, says 1850.
Strange, because his mother died in 1847.
All of this might not normally matter, but Jack's birth date is important to his overall legend, which proudly proclaims him "the boy distiller."
So perhaps it's best we begin when Jack was first introduced to whiskey, which we know was early in life.
He ended up at the home of Dan Call, a preacher at a nearby Lutheran church and the owner of a general store.
There, Reverend Call also happened to sell whiskey that he distilled himself.
Jack quickly became determined to learn the craft.
If that legend is true, then Jack began selling his own Tennessee whiskey only three years later;
the famous black labels on the company bottles proudly pronounce, "Established and Registered in 1866.
In reality, no documents support that myth.
Jack may have been a teenage moonshiner, but he didn't register his business with the federal government until 1875.
And by then, Jack would have been the more booze-appropriate age of 29.
Whatever legends exist, one thing is certain:
Jack Daniel had a brilliant mind for marketing.
Even as a youngster, Jack understood that if people remembered him, they would remember his whiskey.
To that end, he decked himself out in a formal knee-length coat, a vest, a tie, and a wide-brim planter's hat, and was never caught out of "uniform" again.
Perhaps Jack's greatest coup was the name he gave his high-quality product Old No. 7. Naturally, nobody seems to know why.
Jack believed the number seven was lucky. Jack was honoring a merchant friend who owned seven stores that distributed Jack's liquor.
NEW YORK (CNN) Early on in the new "Sex and the City" film and don't worry, we're not spoiling the plot here Carrie and longtime love Mr. Big are in bed together.
A passionate interlude?
Nah, they're just reading.
Except they both need glasses, and there's only one pair.
These two, who fogged up the small screen with their sexual chemistry during the TV series?
Yes, and that small moment is a sweet acknowledgment that they've both aged.
The series may be alive and well on TBS reruns. But it's been a full decade since "Sex and the City" premiered on HBO, bringing us sex columnist Carrie, her three gal pals, and their lustful urban quest for love, good sex and even better clothes.
How does "Sex and the City" get around the age issue?
In interviews with The Associated Press over the weekend, the cast answered that question unanimously: It doesn't.
"When we started cobbling together the movie, we knew there was only one road we could take," said Sarah Jessica Parker, who stars as Carrie and co-produced the film.
"You cannot pretend we're 32, still running around New York drinking with liberty and looking for interesting sexual partnerships. It would have been vulgar. None of us wanted to do that.
And so the film begins not where the series left off four years ago, but in the present.
Russia's lower house of parliament confirmed former President Vladimir Putin as prime minister Thursday, beginning a new era in Russian politics a day after his chosen successor took over the top role.
The Duma approved Putin by a vote of 392 to 56.
New President Dmitry Medvedev had nominated Putin to the post of prime minister just hours after taking the oath of office Wednesday in a ceremony at the Kremlin.
"For me it's clear that the government can only be strong and effective if it can fully rely on the legislative power," Putin told the house.
"Based on those principles, I intend to build my relationship with the state Duma. I expect that you will take the same attitude and the same approach. "
Putin, who spent the past eight years as Russian president, could be taking a great deal of power with him to the premiership.
He and Medvedev, Putin's ally and protege, have said they will rule jointly from their respective offices.
During his time in office, Putin created a network of loyal officials on every level of government all appointed, not elected. Putin indicated that tight control could continue.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) The leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, was arrested in the northern city of Mosul, the Iraqi Defense Ministry spokesman said Thursday.
Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammed al-Askari said the arrest of al-Masri, also known as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, was confirmed to him by the Iraqi commander of the province.
"The commander of Ninevah military operations informed me that Iraqi troops captured Abu Hamza al-Muhajir the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq," al-Askari told The Associated Press by telephone.
Al-Masri, an Egyptian militant, took over al Qaeda in Iraq after Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed June 7, 2006 in a U.S. airstrike northeast of Baghdad.
The U.S. military in Baghdad said "we are currently checking with Iraqi authorities to confirm the accuracy of this information."
Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said that Mosul police "arrested one of al Qaeda's leaders at midnight and during the primary investigations he admitted that he is Abu Hamza Al-Muhajir.
News of the arrest was also reported by Iraqi state television.
The state channel, Iraqiya, said that Minister of Interior Jawad al-Bolani would reward Mosul police for the capture.
Interior Ministry spokesman Khalaf told the station by phone that a source close to the al Qaeda leader informed Mosul police that al-Masri would be at a house in the city's Wadi Hajar area at midnight Wednesday.
"The police raided this house and arrested him. During the primary investigation, he confessed that he is Abu Hamza Al-Muhajir, the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq.
Now a broader investigation of him is being conducted," he said to Iraqiya.
If confirmed, the arrest would represent a major blow to al Qaeda in Iraq, which has been on the run for the past year following an influx of thousands of U.S. troops and a shift in alliances by Sunni tribesmen in western Anbar province, and elsewhere.
Myanmar's military government began allowing aid agencies into the country Thursday to respond to the dire needs of those who survived the killer storm but is still being criticized for acting too slow.
Myanmar Radio and Television (MRTV-4) announced that shipments from Bangladesh, China, India, Singapore, Italy and Thailand arrived Thursday at Yangon's international airport.
The state-run station said the military was using helicopters to deliver medicine, food and several generators throughout the Irrawaddy delta, the hardest-hit region, specifically in the areas around Bassein and Pyapon.
The secretive military junta that rules Myanmar says more than 22,000 people died after Nargis struck Friday into Saturday, but the top U.S. diplomat in the country said the toll could exceed 100,000.
Tim Costello, president of World Vision Australia, a Christian aid group, told CNN Thursday that the Myanmar government estimates 60,000 people are missing.
The tropical cyclone hit with a force equal to a Category 4 hurricane stronger than U.S. hurricane Katrina in 2005 with winds in some areas topping 240 kilometers per hour (150 mph).
As many as 6 million people lived in the delta, the low-lying region that suffered the brunt of the storm.
Sen. Barack Obama said Thursday the most important thing he could achieve as president would be to deal with Iraq and the threat of al Qaeda in Afghanistan while improving ¡°our influence around the world.
In his first interview since the North Carolina and Indiana primaries, the Democratic presidential candidate said he thinks the United States¡¯ influence around the world has been diminishing.
Nearly a week after a volcano erupted in Chaiten, Chile, disgorging its contents across a wide area of the Andes mountains, authorities finished evacuating the area most affected.
Though the eruption has been continuous, it increased at midnight Wednesday, powered by a massive explosion, then returned to its steady discharge of ash, officials said.
many of whom had sought to remain to care for their cattle &#8212; among the approximately 5,000 residents inside the 30-kilometer exclusion zone, said Carmen Fernandez, director of Chile¡¯s Office of Emergency.
By Thursday morning, only about 100 people &#8212; primarily police, military and journalists &#8212; remained in the immediate vicinity of the volcano, she said.
Second-half substitute Juninho converted from an 88th-minute free kick and Lyon beat second-division Sedan 1-0 on Wednesday to reach its first French Cup final since 1976.
The Brazilian midfielder hit a swerving shot from 37 meters that flew over the wall and past goalkeeper Patrick Regnault, who had made several saves earlier to deny the six-time defending French league champion.
Coach Alain Perrin rested Juninho and other Lyon key players such as Karim Benzema.
But, after Regnault denied Kader Keita and Hatem Ben Arfa with fine saves, he called on both Juninho and Benzema midway through the second half.
Chasing its seventh straight French league title, Lyon leads Bordeaux by two points with two rounds remaining.
The farmers said they would go on strike for eight days until May 15.
They are protesting a 44 percent export tax on products such as soybeans and sunflowers.
Farmers nationwide went on strike shortly after the government implemented the tax, on March 11, but they suspended the strike in early April to allow time for negotiations. On Tuesday, the farmers said the government had agreed to re-examine the issue of taxes on exports.
The renewed strike will include demonstrations along roads.
But the farmer said they do not plant to block roads as they did in March, according to Eduardo Buzzi, leader of the Agrarian Federation. "At no time will we sponsor or support roadblocks," he said.
He added that roadblocks could happen even though it's something the federation "does not want and isn't looking for," according to a report in Telam, the national news agency of Argentina.
In addition, the farmers said, they plan to halt grain exports during the eight-day period.
The Argentine cabinet chief, Alberto Fernandez, criticized the decision.
"I think we should be more sensible," he said.
EVEREST BASE CAMP, Tibet (CNN) The Olympic flame reached the top of the world Thursday morning, carried to the summit of Mount Everest by climbers wearing oxygen masks to breathe in the thin air of the earth's highest point.
A 21-year-old Tibetan woman the youngest member of the expedition carried the flame atop the peak.
15 p.m. ET Wednesday), about two hours ahead of schedule.
"They were very motivated; they were very excited," journalist Tomas Etzler said from the Everest base camp at 5,360 meters (17,600 ft).
The climbers started their ascent at 3 a.m. Thursday (3 p.m. Wednesday) along the Tibetan side of Everest, known there as Chomolungma.
Twenty-two of the 31 climbers were Tibetan.
The torches and fuel used in the relay were specially developed by Chinese research, allowing the flame to continue burning at such high elevations, Etzler said.
Lawmakers have overwhelmingly elected Brian Cowen to be Ireland's new prime minister.
Cowen received support Wednesday from all three parties in the government of predecessor Bertie Ahern.
Cowen is expected to reshuffle the Cabinet within hours.
Posts to be filled include Cowen's former positions of deputy prime minister and finance minister.
Police erected barriers outside the parliamentary building to contain more than 1,000 Cowen supporters who chanted and sang in celebration of his victory.
Many traveled by chartered bus from Cowen's power base in the rural Irish midlands.
Cowen says he is "looking forward to it, and getting ready for the action."
BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNN) Labor union members and anti-government Hezbollah supporters blocked roads with mounds of sand and burning tires Wednesday to demand higher salaries for public workers, protests that paralyzed the airport and much of the capital.
Gunshots could be heard, but the origins were unclear.
Lebanese soldiers set up checkpoints and patrolled the streets, as did civilian members of the Shiite militant group Hezbollah, who blocked the route to the airport and staged a sit-in downtown.
The General Labor Confederation called off the strike after a few hours for security reasons and said it would be rescheduled.
Hezbollah was harshly criticized by Lebanon's top Muslim spiritual leader, who said it was using the demonstrations as a political opportunity.
Members of Lebanon's other major Shiite party, Amal, also participated.
The road to the airport was blocked.
The Lebanese Cabinet recently raised the minimum wage for employees like school bus drivers and trash collectors from $200 a month to $330 a month, and workers say that's insufficient, given rising prices for food and other commodities.
In a rare display of anger toward Hezbollah, the highest Sunni spiritual authority in Lebanon criticized the group of taking advantage of the strike by turning it into a political opportunity and accused members of fomenting violence in Beirut.
"This strike is turning into a [civil] disobedience and an invasion to the streets of Beirut, carried out by militant gangs," charged the grand mufti, Sheikh Mohammed Rashid Qabbani. His speech was carried by the LBC network and Qatar-based Al-Jazeera.
"We used to think that Hezbollah is concerned with fighting the Israeli occupation, and all of a sudden it is turning to be a militant force to occupy Beirut, and this is why we call upon the Arab and Islamic nations to help us and stop these harmful aggressions in Lebanon," Qabbani said.
BEIJING, China (CNN) China has tightened visa controls ahead of the Olympic Games, with invitation letters and hotel reservations required for some travelers, the government acknowledged Tuesday after weeks of insisting the entry process was business as usual.
That is, in the approval process we are more strict and more serious with the procedure," Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said.
The changes come amid fears the summer games will be disrupted by protesting activists or possibly terrorists a concern deepened after the troubled progress made by the international Olympic torch relay.
The flame's round-the-world tour was dogged by protests in London, Paris and other cities where demonstrators voiced their disapproval at Beijing's clampdown on a broad uprising among Tibetans against Chinese rule.
In a country where control has long been paramount, China is facing unprecedented challenges when an estimated half million visitors come to Beijing in August for the Olympics, along with 10,500 international athletes and 18,000 journalists.
There have been numerous reports of foreigners being kicked out of Beijing because of tightening visa restrictions.
The government seems to be targeting students, apparently fearing some might mount pro-Tibet demonstrations during the games.
But travelers, bloggers, foreign embassy officials and travel agents are also complaining that they are having trouble getting visas to stay in the country during the Olympic period.
Qin said the policies would "be maintained for a period of time," but did not give further details.
Sen. Barack Obama took a major step Tuesday toward securing the Democratic presidential nomination.
He not only scored a convincing victory in North Carolina, but he also made Hillary Clinton's path to the nomination even more difficult by finishing closely behind her in Indiana.
Clinton vowed to soldier on, telling supporters at an Indiana rally that "it's full speed on to the White House.
Obama on Wednesday morning has a larger lead in pledged delegates as well as the overall popular vote.
For Clinton, time for a rebound may be slipping away.
With North Carolina and Indiana in the rearview mirror, six contests and 217 pledged delegates remain.
In addition to wooing the dwindling pool of voters remaining in this nomination battle, Clinton and Obama are actively pursuing the roughly 280 uncommitted superdelegates, aides said.
These party insiders and elected officials who are granted special voting privileges at the national convention eventually will determine the next Democratic nominee.
Pressure is on Clinton to find a way somehow to halt what increasingly looks like an unstoppable Obama march to the nomination and keep the superdelegates from rushing to his corner before the primary season ends June 3.
Superdelegates will be closely monitoring Clinton's financial situation to assess her continued viability.
One of her main challenges in the next month will be to raise enough money to compete with Obama in the final contests.
Clinton loaned her presidential race $6.4 million over the last month, her campaign said, an indication of her deteriorating financial position.
NEW YORK (CNN) Sunday night is getting less steamy.
Oxygen's "Talk Sex" call-in show with colorful septugenarian educator Sue Johanson is ending its run after six seasons, the network announced Tuesday.
The final show airs at midnight Sunday.
Her show, derived from a Canadian radio program that began in 1984, offered practical advice and the latest information on sexually transmitted diseases.
It was all the more colorful hearing it from a Toronto-based nurse who looked and sounded like your grandmother.
"I have been on television for 32 years," she said. "I think it's time. I figured if we haven't got it by now, we're not going to get it.
She said she enjoyed working with Oxygen and wasn't pushed out.
The only editing Oxygen ever did was to urge her not to use a particular slang for penis.
"Talk Sex" is Oxygen's most-popular late-night show, and its ratings among young viewers this season were the best ever, the network said.
Material from the show will continue to be available on Oxygen's Web site and on demand.
Johanson said she isn't retiring and will continue to give lectures.
"I'm a ham," she said. "I love a large audience.
Microsoft is not pursuing other deals following the withdrawal of its $47.5 billion takeover bid for Yahoo, chairman Bill Gates said Wednesday.
Gates said in Tokyo that the company put "a lot of effort" in the talks with Yahoo and had decided that the two should pursue "independent paths.
Over the weekend, Microsoft withdrew its three-month-old unsolicited bid for Yahoo after seeing the impasse with the Internet search engine's board over a mutually acceptable sales price.
"Now at this point, Microsoft is focused on its independent strategy," Gates told reporters at a news conference in Tokyo.
Those comments seemed to set a different tone than on Tuesday in South Korea, where he said the company was not ruling out alternative partnerships after the failure to buy Yahoo.
Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer had orally offered to pay $33 per share or $47.5 billion for Yahoo, up from an initial bid valued at $44.6 billion, or $31 per share.
Yahoo's board wanted $37 per share a price that the company's stock has not reached in more than two years.
Microsoft trails Google in the online search and advertising markets, and the bid for Yahoo was an attempt at turning that around.
"We certainly are concerned about what we saw on the tape," Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey told reporters Wednesday afternoon.
"But having said that, we do expect them to maintain a standard of conduct on the street that is above reproach," he said.
Ramsey earlier said an internal investigation was underway into the incident caught on video Monday by WXTF-TV.
The video shows at least a dozen police officers pulling the suspects out of a car after a vehicle chase Monday night.
At least eight officers are seen either kicking, punching or striking the suspects with batons while the men lie restrained on the ground.
Two men are struck at least 20 times each.
Ramsey said a sergeant and five officers have been removed from street duty in connection with the incident so far.
He said he has been in contact with the district attorney's office, which will receive a copy of the tape and decide whether to file criminal charges.
Authorities are still in the process of identifying the officers on the tape, he said, and have sent the video to be enhanced. "We're going to continue our investigation," he said.
"It is not acceptable, of course, to do anything less than the professional standards we expect from our police officers," Mayor Michael Nutter said. "The behavior that was at least exhibited on the tape is unacceptable.
Russia's new president Dmitry Medvedev wasted no time in knuckling down to work naming his predecessor Vladimir Putin as his new prime minister two hours after he was sworn in.
Two months after winning the election, Medvedev, 42, was inaugurated as president Wednesday at the Kremlin before 2,300 invited guests in a ceremony with marching soldiers and military music. He became the third Russian president since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Within hours, Medvedev named Putin as prime minister, according to the ITAR-TASS news agency.
Putin's new role and his position as head of the ruling United Russia Party raise questions about how much power Medvedev will actually have.
The inauguration featured Putin almost as much as the new president.
Putin delivered the first speech and stood just behind Medvedev when he was sworn in to his four-year term.
"I fully understand the burden of responsibility that I will be shouldering," Medvedev said in his inaugural speech. "I want to thank from my heart President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin for his invariable personal support that I have always felt, and I am sure that this will continue.
Medvedev won the March 2 election with an overwhelming majority but almost no campaign platform, said Oksana Antonenko of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. Now that Medvedev has taken office, his real work begins, she said.
TOKYO, Japan (CNN) A strong earthquake struck off the coast of Japan early Thursday, the national Meteorological Agency said, waking up people 100 miles away in Tokyo.
Two people suffered minor injuries from falling furniture, public television broadcaster NHK reported.
An 18-year-old man was hit when his stereo speakers fell onto his bed, and a 25-year-old man was hit by objects rattled off shelves.
There were no other immediate reports of injuries or damage from the magnitude 6.8 earthquake, NHK said.
No tsunami warning was issued.
The earthquake occurred at 1:45 a.m. offshore at a depth of about 25 miles, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The epicenter was about 100 miles northeast of Tokyo.
A second quake with a magnitude of 5.3 struck the same area about 30 minutes later, and more aftershocks could follow, Tamotsu Aketagawa, an official who monitors earthquakes for the country's Meteorological Agency, told The Associated Press.
"Since it was a very large-scale earthquake, we would expect to see some modest aftershocks," he said.
Japan is one of the most earthquake-prone countries in the world because it sits atop four tectonic plates.
Tokyo has not been hit by a major quake since 1923, when 140,000 people died in the Great Kanto Earthquake.
The drawn out Democratic presidential race is producing "negative dividends in terms of strife within the party," said a key Senate supporter of Sen. Hillary Clinton's White House bid.
A day after the Indiana and North Carolina primaries bolstered Sen. Barack Obama's candidacy, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California and a superdelegate, said she wants to talk to Clinton to "see what her view is on the rest of the race.
Feinstein, who described herself as "very loyal" to Clinton, said "the question comes whether she can get the delegates that she needs and I'd like to know what the strategy is to do that.
Superdelegates made up of governors, senators, House members and various other party officials or members are also known as unpledged delegates.
They are free to choose the candidate they like, while pledged delegates are assigned in primaries and caucuses.
Obama and Clinton are running such a tight race that after millions of votes and months of campaigning, neither candidate is expected to have the 2,025 delegates needed to seal the nomination before the August convention, and the superdelegates could send a candidate over the top.
Many superdelegates pledge allegiance to a candidate well before the party convention, but they can change their minds.
Feinstein predicted her party will unify in order to defeat presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain of Arizona.
But she said there is "an emotional component in all of this.
Just as I feel loyal to Sen. Clinton, others feel loyal to Sen. Obama and we're in the same party and it makes it very difficult.
So I think we want to minimize that as much as we can.
Feinstein said she called Clinton two days ago but hasn't yet heard back from the New York senator.
Amy Winehouse has been arrested on suspicion of drugs possession, police and her spokesman said Wednesday.
Winehouse's spokesman, Chris Goodman, said the arrest is connected to a video that is alleged to show the troubled singer taking drugs at a party in her home in north London.
Britain's The Sun tabloid in January published still images from a video that it claimed showed Winehouse inhaling fumes from a small pipe.
The images were said to have been filmed during a party at her London home.
Based on the same data, 70,000 people are missing in the Irrawaddy Delta, which has a population of nearly six million people, Villarosa said.
A United Nations official said nearly 2,000 square miles (5,000 square km) of the hard-hit delta are still underwater.
Villarosa also said about 95 percent of the buildings in the region were destroyed when Cyclone Nargis battered the area late Friday into Saturday.
Dutch coach Marco van Basten has named Real Madrid forwards Ruud van Nistelrooy and Arjen Robben in his preliminary 30-man squad for Euro 2008. Van Nistelrooy underwent surgery on his right ankle in March and only returned to full training late last month.
Meanwhile, Robben, who has suffered a string of injuries this season, scored as Madrid beat Osasuna 2-1 on Sunday to retain their Spanish league title.
Joining Van Nistelrooy and Robben in the squad are Liverpool pair Dirk Kuyt and Ryan Babel.
Van Basten will cut the squad to 26 players on May 16.
The final 23-player squad has to be announced by May 28.
The Netherlands, whose only major title came at the European Championship in 1988, are in what is widely regarded as the toughest group at the June 7-29 tournament in Austria and Switzerland.
Group C also includes world champions Italy, France and Romania.
Captain and goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar will join the squad late in its preparations as Manchester United play in the Champions League final against Chelsea in Moscow on May 21.
TOKYO, Japan (CNN) Hundreds of pro-Tibet demonstrators protested in Tokyo on Tuesday as Chinese President Hu Jintao arrived for the first state visit by a Chinese president in nearly a decade.
The president arrived to the sound of applause and well-wishes from supporters while protesters demonstrated a few miles away, in downtown Tokyo.
They shouted "Free Tibet!"
and carried signs that said "The Genocide Olympics.
Tibet is a thorny issue between the two nations, but Japan has indicated it is encouraged by weekend talks between Chinese officials and envoys of the Dalai Lama. Protesters said those talks are not enough and urged stronger action.
"But (Prime Minister Yasuo) Fukuda is not listening to our voices.
Hu is in Tokyo as a state guest in a sign of warming relations between the two nations.
Japan hopes to discuss global warming, food safety and oil exploration in the East China Sea.
Hu is scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, the Japanese emperor and business and political leaders.
Sen. Hillary Clinton will narrowly win in Indiana, CNN projects, edging out Sen. Barack Obama by a 2-percent margin.
The focus of the contest shifted to Lake County, home to 8 percent of Indiana's population.
There were 115 delegates at stake in North Carolina and 72 in Indiana.
Obama earlier claimed a decisive victory in North Carolina.
With 99 percent of precincts reporting, Obama held a 14-point lead over Clinton.
But today, what North Carolina decided is that the only game that needs changing is the one in Washington," Obama told supporters in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Obama took an overwhelming 91 percent of the black vote in North Carolina, according to exit polls, while Clinton claimed only 6 percent.
Clinton took 59 percent of the white vote compared to 36 percent for Obama, according to the polls.
Clinton told her supporters in Indianapolis, "it's full-speed on to the White House."
The senator from New York turned her attention to the upcoming contests in West Virginia, Kentucky and Oregon.
Surging prices for copper, zinc and nickel have some in Congress trying to bring back the steel-made pennies of World War II and maybe using steel for nickels, as well.
Copper and nickel prices have tripled since 2003 and the price of zinc has quadrupled, said Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Illinois, whose subcommittee oversees the U.S. Mint.
Keeping the coin content means "contributing to our national debt by almost as much as the coin is worth," Gutierrez said.
A penny, which consists of 97.5 percent zinc and 2.5 percent copper, cost 1.26 cents to make as of Tuesday. And a nickel 75 percent copper and the rest nickel cost 7.7 cents, based on current commodity prices, according to the Mint.
That's down from the end of 2007, when even higher metal prices drove the penny's cost to 1.67 cents, according to the Mint.
The cost of making a nickel then was nearly a dime.
Gutierrez estimated that striking the two coins at costs well above their face value set the Treasury and taxpayers back about $100 million last year alone.
On Tuesday, the House debated a bill that directs the Treasury secretary to suggest a new, more economical composition of the nickel and the penny.
PARIS, France (CNN) Interpol has launched a global appeal to identify a man who is pictured sexually abusing young boys in hundreds of images on the Internet.
Tuesday's appeal is the second time that Interpol an organization that facilitates global cooperation among police agencies has asked for the public's help in identifying a suspected pedophile.
The first time, last October, led to an arrest ten days later.
The man is featured in 100 photographs sexually abusing at least three boys between the ages of six and 10, Interpol said.
The suspect in the latest case is a white man, shown with gray, thinning hair in six photos released by Interpol.
He appears to be in his late 40s or early 50s in the images.
Interpol said that despite two years of investigations, it and other police agencies have so far been unable to determine his identity, nationality or whereabouts.
Interpol posted six photos of the suspect on its Web site.
The pictures came to light in 2006, when Norwegian authorities discovered them in the possession of a man they arrested.
"While these images were only discovered two years ago, we believe the photographs were taken between April 2000 and May 2001, so clearly this man will be older than he appears in the pictures," Kristin Kvigne, assistant director of Interpol's Trafficking in Human Beings unit, said in a news release.
Last October, Interpol disseminated pictures of another man whose face appeared in more than 200 images of sex acts with children.
It dubbed its operation Vico, because the images were thought to have been taken in Vietnam and Cambodia.
Ten days later, Christopher Paul Neil a 32-year-old Canadian man who had been working as an English-language teacher in South Korea was arrested in Thailand and charged with child abuse.
Following the success of that operation, the organization's general assembly approved a resolution allowing Interpol to seek public help in child sex abuse investigations.
Chile's Chaiten volcano spewed clouds of gray smoke, hot rocks and toxic gas on Tuesday, forcing authorities to issue an evacuation order for the more than 200 people who remained in the town of Chaiten, emergency officials said.
The country's emergency office said the evacuation order was issued after the volcano erupted around 8:45 a.m., emitting pyroclastic flows or mixtures of hot, dry rock fragments and hot gases.
Five boats will transport the remaining emergency officials, reporters, residents and others from the town, government spokesman Francisco Vidal told CNN en Espanol.
Three helicopters were assisting, the country's emergency office said.
"We hope that this takes place in the most optimal way," President Michelle Bachelet said, according to her Web site.
Video showed the evacuees wearing face masks and carrying luggage as they walked toward the shore.
Most parents held their children by the hand.
The evacuees will be transported to Castro, across the Moraleda Canal, or to Puerto Montt, about 125 miles (200 kilometers) north of Chaiten.
The majority of the some 4,000 Chaiten evacuees are staying in those two cities, the country's emergency office said on its Web site.
Some residents from nearby Futaleufu were also evacuated.
A small contingent of police and military remain in Chaiten, officials said.
The volcano, which is about about 750 miles (about 1,210 kilometers) south of the Chilean capital, Santiago, began erupting early Friday, raining gray ash onto Chaiten.
Zimbabwe state media have reported that the ruling party has opened its runoff campaign, urging President Robert Mugabe's supporters to get out to vote and denouncing violence.
The state-owned Herald quotes ZANU-PF spokesman Nathan Shamuyarira as saying Monday many supporters did not vote during the first round on March 29 because they assumed there was no threat to Mugabe's rule.
Electoral commission officials announced on Friday that opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai won the most votes, but not the simple majority needed to avoid a runoff with second place finisher Mugabe's.
The opposition has dismissed those results as fraudulent, claiming Tsvangirai won outright, and has not yet said whether he would contest a runoff.
Electoral commission officials announced Friday neither Mugabe nor Tsvangirai won a simple majority in March, making a runoff necessary.
Intensifying violence, food shortages and widespread drought are driving an increasing number of Somalis to seek asylum in Yemen, the United Nations' refugee agency said Tuesday.
More than 15,000 refugees have arrived in the Yemeni port city of Aden since January, compared with 7,166 people in the first four months of 2007, according to a spokesperson for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Many of those seeking asylum brave treacherous boat trips across the Gulf of Aden.
Consequently, the number of boats landing in Aden has jumped from 60 to 361 since January while the number of fatalities has remained constant, according to UNHCR.
The agency attributed the surge to strife in Somalia, where riots continued in the capital city of Mogadishu for the second day Tuesday.
According to news reports, Somali soldiers killed at least two people Monday during the protests over rising food prices.
Somali refugees pay as much as $150 to cross the Gulf of Aden in search of asylum.
Because of its proximity to the war-torn country, Yemen is a common destination for Somalis fleeing economic hardship, famine and war.
Yemen is also an attractive location because Somalis receive automatic refugee status in the fellow Muslim country.
New smuggling routes across the Red Sea have also led to increased numbers of refugees in Yemen, according to the UNHCR.
Refugees often die before reaching Yemen because of dangerous sea conditions and overcrowded vessels.
(CNN) Most people are vaccinated against pertussis as kids.
But here's a surprise:
It's come roaring back since an all-time low in the 1970s, largely due to waning immunity in adults who received shots in early childhood.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) now recommends that all adults get a pertussis booster shot to strengthen their immunity, yet only 2 percent of adults have had their shots updated.
Experts say that's just one of several vaccines you may need now.
* Whooping cough vaccine:
The good news: If you get your regular tetanus-diptheria (Td) booster every 10 years, you won't need an extra jab for pertussis.
Vaccine makers have added a pertussis component to that booster, so next time you're due for your Td booster request the Tdap.
And there's no harm in getting the Tdap as long as two years have passed since your last Td booster.
If pertussis isn't caught in the first few weeks, the infection may take three months to run its course.
The greatest danger is to babies, who almost always catch it from unvaccinated adults.
* Chicken pox vaccine:
Varivax
More than 90 percent of women in their childbearing years are immune to chicken pox because they had it as kids.
The rest should be vaccinated before they try to get pregnant because catching the illness during pregnancy can lead to devastating birth defects.
Once you get the vaccine (which was introduced in 1995), the CDC says you should delay trying to conceive for at least one month, due to the small risk that the fetus can get the virus from the vaccine.
Chicken pox complications are much more frequent and severe in adults than children and can include life-threatening pneumonia and encephalitis (brain inflammation).
And people who've had it are also at risk for shingles.
*Shingles vaccine:
Zostavax
If you've had chicken pox, you have a significant risk of developing shingles, a painful reawakening of the chicken pox virus.
Worse, in nearly 50 percent of cases in adults in their 50s, shingles progresses to postherpetic neuralgia, an often agonizing form of nerve damage that can linger for years.
*The mumps vaccine:
MMR booster
The measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine, a must for kids, is back in the adult-vaccine lineup, too.
Mumps can be painful and sometimes dangerous.
There's the textbook swelling of salivary glands around the neck, but some women also suffer from inflammation of the ovaries.
In rare instances, mumps can trigger life-threatening encephalitis.
* Travelers' diseases vaccine:
Influenza outbreaks frequently occur on cruise ships, even during summer voyages to northern destinations like Alaska.
In addition, visitors to Asia should talk to their doctors about vaccine protection against typhoid and Japanese encephalitis.
Visitors to the "meningitis belt" of central Africa should get a meningococcal vaccine.
And yellow fever vaccines are important for travelers to much of South America and parts of Africa.
*Hepatitis B vaccine:
Recombivax HB or Engerix-B
Both vaccines protect against the hepatitis B virus, which is spread through sexual contact or contaminated needles and blood.
An infection can lead to dangerous liver disease.
Oil futures blasted to a new record near $122 a barrel Tuesday, gaining momentum as investors bought on a forecast of much higher prices and on any news hinting at supply shortages.
Retail gas prices edged lower, but appear poised to rise to new records of their own in coming weeks.
A new Goldman Sachs prediction that oil prices could rise to $150 to $200 within two years seemed to motivate much of Tuesday's buying, although a falling dollar and increasing concerns about declining crude production in Mexico and Russia contributed, analysts say.
The Energy Department raised its oil and gasoline price forecasts, but also predicted that high prices will cut demand more than previously thought.
Light, sweet crude for June delivery jumped to a new record of $122.73 a barrel before retreating to settle up $1.87 at $121.84 on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Oil prices have nearly doubled from about $62 a barrel a year ago, which Goldman sees as a sign that the world is in the midst of a "super spike" in oil prices.
Analyst Arjun Murti said in a research note released Monday that prices would ultimately force demand to fall sharply.
Not everyone shares Goldman's view.
Tim Evans, an analyst at Citigroup Inc., countered Goldman's analysis with a note predicting that crude prices could as easily fall to $40 a barrel as rise to $200 over the next two years because supplies are, as Evans put it, comfortable.
WASHINGTON (CNN) About 100 people, including students majoring in homeland security and criminal justice, were arrested Tuesday in an undercover drug sting at San Diego State University, officials said.
Among those arrested, 75 were students, one of them a criminal justice major charged with possession of guns and cocaine, authorities said.
One student allegedly dealing cocaine was a month short of obtaining a master's degree in homeland security at the California school and worked under campus police as a student community service officer.
Campus police initiated the investigation about a year ago, after a student's fatal overdose in May 2007, said university President Steve Weber.
About five months ago, as the investigation evolved, campus police sought and received help from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
There was a second overdose death in February at a fraternity house.
In addition to facing criminal charges, the students have been suspended from school and evicted from campus housing, he said.
Twenty-one people who are not students were arrested recently on a variety of drug charges, officials said.
Damon Mosler, chief of the narcotics division for the San Diego County District Attorney's Office, was surprised by what he described as the dealers' openness about what they were doing.
Officials say the evidence seized as part of Operation Sudden Fall includes four pounds of cocaine, 50 pounds of marijuana and 350 ecstasy pills.
Authorities also took one shotgun, three semiautomatic pistols and $60,000.
In all, authorities confiscated more than $100,000 worth of drugs, Mosler said.
Bags of marijuana weighing four or five pounds would sell for $4,000 to $5,000, he said, and a kilogram of cocaine would sell for about $17,000.
Sen. Barack Obama will win the North Carolina Democratic primary, CNN projects, but the race in Indiana is still too close to call.
Obama will pick up the larger share of North Carolina's 115 delegates.
With 21 percent of Indiana precincts reporting, Sen. Hillary Clinton leads Obama 57-43 percent.
There are 72 delegates at stake in Indiana.
Poll workers in Indiana and North Carolina reported heavy turnout in the two primaries that could be pivotal in the Democratic presidential nomination battle.
Turnout in the North Carolina Democratic primary was expected to reach 50 percent, according to Gary Bartlett, executive director for the North Carolina Board of Elections.
That figure would far exceed the 15 percent to 30 percent that usually turn out for a primary, he said.
The Indiana secretary of state's office said turnout was high throughout the day.
Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita will not release official figures until the end of the day, but said turnout looked more like a general election than a primary.
According to early exit polls, half of Clinton's supporters in Indiana would not vote for Obama in a general election match up with Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.
A third of Clinton voters said they would pick McCain over Obama, while 17 percent said they would not vote at all.
Forty-eight percent of Clinton supporters said they would back Obama in November.
Obama got even less support from Clinton backers in North Carolina where 45 percent of Clinton supporters said they would vote for him over McCain.
Thirty-eight percent of Clinton supporters said they would vote for McCain while 12 percent said they would not vote.
Obama voters appear to be more willing to support Clinton in November.
In Indiana, 59 percent of Obama backers said they'd vote for Clinton, and 70 percent of Obama backers in North Carolina said vote for her against McCain.
(CNN) The leader of an apocalyptic New Mexico church who claims to be the Messiah was arrested Tuesday on sex charges, state police said.
Wayne Bent, who also goes by the name Michael Travesser, was arrested at the compound that is home to his Lord Our Righteousness Church, called Strong City by members.
He was being interviewed, said state police spokesman Peter Olson.
The arrests come after three children were removed from the compound late last month.
A Tuesday post on the group's Web site said Bent was arrested Tuesday morning.
"I was told by the agent in charge of the case that the arrest warrant specified charges of three counts of sexual contact with a minor, and three counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor," said the post, written by an unnamed follower. "The bail was set at half a million dollars.
The Lord Our Righteousness Church was founded in 1987 by former Seventh-day Adventists, according to the group's Web site. "Since that time, many have joined who do not have their roots in Adventism.
Bent said on the Web site that God revealed to him in 2000 that he is the Messiah.
Last month, authorities removed two girls and a boy from the compound.
The reasons for their removal are not publicly known, but the removals gained attention because they came after more than 400 children were removed from the Texas ranch of an offshoot Mormon sect that practices polygamy. Those children remain in state custody.
Bent has acknowledged having sex with his followers, but authorities will not divulge who the alleged victims are.
The United Nations and the Red Cross began distributing relief supplies Tuesday to people affected by the devastating cyclone that hit Myanmar Friday.
The first relief to arrive came from stocks that were already in the country, as aid agencies struggle to transport supplies into Myanmar from abroad and to distribute them to the areas that need them most.
Clearing roads is a high priority in order to move supplies urgently to the population in need,¡± the World Health Organization said in a written statement.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=3137441
Troubled pop star Britney Spears will be allowed to spend more time with her sons under modified custody arrangements agreed upon at a hearing Tuesday, attorneys for Spears¡¯ ex-husband, Kevin Federline, told reporters afterward.
While an order giving Federline custody of 2-year-old Sean Preston and 1-year-old Jayden James remains in place, attorney Mark Vincent Kaplan said Spears¡¯ time with the children will gradually be extended.
He said Federline is pleased with the agreement, and he and his attorneys feel that Spears has stabilized in the months following two hospitalizations earlier this year.
A court spokesman also read a statement from Spears¡¯ parents, Jamie and Lynne, which said they are pleased with their daughter¡¯s progress and with the outcome of the hearing.
Thousands of people rioted in the streets of the Somali capital on Monday to protest rising food prices and shops' refusal to accept Somali currency.
Witnesses said two protesters were shot dead by Somali soldiers who were guarding buildings that were attacked by demonstrators.
"It is saddening that the very government which is supposed to support him killed him."
Abdi Ud, a journalist with Somalia's Shabelle Media Network, said the protesters were angry because Mogadishu shopkeepers refused to accept Somali shillings and instead demanded payment in U.S. dollars.
Shops throughout the city closed down in fear of the demonstrations, he said.
The United Nations recently warned of "a deteriorating humanitarian situation" in Somalia as a result of soaring food prices and a worsening drought.
"About 2.6 million Somalis now need assistance more than a third of the country's population, representing a rise of 40 percent since January," according to a May 2 U.N. news release.
The problem in Mogadishu has been compounded by heavy fighting between Somali government forces, backed by Ethiopian troops, and Islamist fighters.
The U.N. says 7,000 people fled the capital after bloody battles last month, joining a population of displaced Somalis that aid groups estimate tops 1 million.
A Malaysian minister has shot down a colleague's plan to restrict women who travel abroad alone.
Foreign Minister Rais Yatim had wanted the women to carry a letter from parents verifying the reason for the journey.
He said this would weed out genuine travelers from those being used as drug carriers.
But Home Minister Syed Hamid Albar said Monday such a plan "will not be practical."
(CNN) Heavy snow and high winds have delayed climbers from carrying the Olympic flame to the top of the world's highest peak.
Chinese officials said at a Monday media briefing that winds gusts were measured up to 140 mph (225 km/h) on Everest's north slope, making a climb too treacherous to attempt.
A snow storm buried camps erected along the route, an official said.
Secrecy kept journalists at the base camp from knowing when the climb to Everest's peak 8,850 meters (29,035 feet) above sea level might begin.
One official said the events were going according to plan, but he declined to elaborate on what the plan was.
A team of 50 climbers, staged since last month at the advanced base camp needs four to six days of good weather to reach the summit and return down the mountain, one official said.
Despite the secrecy ahead of the effort, elaborate technical plans are in place so that China's official television network CCTV can broadcast the ascent live.
A camera is expected to follow the flame to the peak, if all goes as planned.
(CNN) Britain's Prince Harry was honored on Monday for his recent military service in Afghanistan, which was cut short after news of his mission became public.
The 23-year-old was among 170 members of his regiment who were awarded the Operational Service Medal for Afghanistan at the Combermere Barracks in Windsor, west of London.
Dressed in desert camouflage, he received the medal from the Princess Royal his aunt Anne while his brother Prince William, father Prince Charles and girlfriend Chelsy Davy watched in support.
Britain's Press Association reported that he grinned and blushed as the princess pinned the medal on his chest, and that they chatted before he moved off smiling.
Harry served for about 10 weeks in Helmand Province earlier this year before details of his deployment were reported around the world, having intended to complete a four-month detachment.
His commanding officer in Afghanistan, Lieutenant Colonel Edward Smyth-Osbourne, who hands over command of the Household Cavalry Regiment this week, was also present at the ceremony, PA reported.
After the ceremony, Harry and his comrades marched across Windsor from their barracks to a church for a thanksgiving service.
The march was supported by hundreds of members of the public, including retired housewife Joey Jones, 82.
"I thought I would come to support the soldiers and especially because Prince Harry was parading," she told PA.
"I think they have a rotten job and for what they're doing out there we should show some support."
The death toll from the Myanmar cyclone is more than 15,000 people, Myanmar's government has said.
Survivors were facing their third night without electricity in the aftermath of the historic cyclone that also clogged roads with thousands of downed trees.
Diplomats were summoned to a government briefing Monday as the reclusive southeast Asian country's ruling military junta issued a rare appeal for international assistance in the face of an escalating humanitarian crisis.
A state of emergency was declared across much of the country following the 10-hour storm that left swathes of destruction in its wake.
The death toll of more than 15,000, official sources told the Chinese state-run news agency Xinhua, makes the weekend cyclone the deadliest natural disaster to hit Myanmar in recent history, according to figures compiled by a U.N.-funded disaster database.
The toll eclipses that from a 1926 wind storm the killed about 2,700 people in the country, according to the database.
The government of neighboring Thailand said Myanmar's leaders had already requested food, medical supplies and construction equipment, AP reported.
The first plane-load of supplies was due to arrive Tuesday, a Thai spokesman said.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement he was "deeply saddened by the loss of life and the destruction suffered by the people of Myanmar" and pledged to mobilize international aid and assistance as needed.
A United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination team is on stand-by to assist the government in responding to humanitarian needs if required, the statement said.
BERLIN, Germany (CNN) Police discovered the bodies of three dead babies in a freezer of a single-family home in western Germany, and their mother is the only suspect in the case, authorities said Monday.
The freezer was in the cellar of a house in the city of Wenden, and the babies appeared to have died shortly after birth, police said.
She admitted all three of the dead babies were her children, and said she "possibly" was the person who put the babies in the freezer.
The woman, 44, her husband, 47 and their three children, ages 24, 22, and 18, live in the home.
One of the children found the corpses by chance when opening the freezer to look for food.
The child noticed the freezer was cluttered and decided it needed to be cleaned, then found the corpses wrapped in towels and newspapers and placed in three plastic bags buried under piles of items.
One of the newspapers dated from December 1988, leading police to believe that was when that body was placed there.
They said none of the five family members at the house purportedly ever noticed the woman was pregnant.
It's a tale of homeland security concerns blocking wildlife management, and the hue and cry that ensues.
When most people think of jaguars, they think of the jungles of Central and South America, not the remote desert ranges between the United States and Mexico.
That region is known as mountain lion country, and that's what rancher Warner Glenn thought he was tracking when he saddled up his mules on a summer day 12 years ago near Douglas, Arizona.
Glenn has hunted mountain lions for 60 years, since he was eight years old.
But Glenn was stunned when he saw what his hunting dogs had chased up to a high mountain perch.
The rancher took what's believed to be the first photo of a live jaguar in the United States. But it wasn't his last.
In 2006, some 40 miles away, Glenn and his hunting party again cornered a jaguar a different one.
Jaguars, an endangered species, have a breeding population in northern Mexico.
Scientists believe there are no more than 120 left in the wild there.
It's believed that since 1910, the cats are only visitors north of the border.
But Glenn and other conservationists worry that the possible return of breeding jaguars to the United States could be stopped in its tracks.
The reason: the border fence.
Last month the Department of Homeland Security waived 30 environmental laws to finish 470 miles of the fence by the end of the year.
Mountain lion tracker Jack Childs also worries about the impact of the fence on local wildlife, especially the jaguar.
Childs captured the first video of a live jaguar in the late summer of 1996, a few months after Warner Glenn.
"I knew historically there had been a few jaguars sighted in Arizona but in the last hundred years never in any numbers.
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) Marion Ravenwood might have been speaking for us all when she set eyes on Indiana Jones for the first time in years.
"Indiana Jones.
I always knew someday you'd come walking back through my door.
It's been 19 years since Indy literally rode off into the sunset in "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade," but like Marion, could anyone doubt that the world's most famous tomb raider would come back into our lives one day?
For 27 years, Indy has stood as one of cinema's ultimate Everyman heroes, a poster boy for the idea that there are some good men you can never, ever keep down.
He's just like us," said George Lucas, who dreamed up the character and re-teams with director Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford as Indy for "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," due out May 22.
"He makes lots of mistakes," Lucas said.
"He kind of goofs up.
He's just an average Joe that's always in over his head that somehow seems to get through it.
The new movie co-stars Cate Blanchett as Irina Spalko, a Russian operative with crisp black bangs who's after the Crystal Skull of Akator, an ancient artifact that could help the Soviet Union dominate the world.
Ray Winstone plays a new Indy ally, and the film also co-stars John Hurt and Jim Broadbent.
"Raiders" fans are thrilled over the return of Karen Allen as Marion, while Shia LaBeouf plays Indy's new sidekick, Mutt Williams.
Fans have speculated that Mutt is the love child of Indy and Marion, though the filmmakers won't say.
Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton hit each other hard Monday, a day before contests in North Carolina and Indiana that could break the deadlock over who will be the Democratic nominee for president.
The Democratic rivals traded shots over Clinton's proposal that the government do away with the federal gas tax for the summer and make up the budget shortfall by taxing what she calls oil companies' "windfall profits.
Obama has dismissed the proposal, saying it's unlikely to help consumers or to become law, prompting Clinton to accuse him of being out of touch with "the hard-working American consumer and the middle class.
... I guess I'm just feeling more of the concerns that people have, and they want relief," she said on CNN's "American Morning" on Monday.
Obama denied being insensitive.
"I understand how badly people are hurting.
If we're serious about helping them, let's provide them some relief, but let's not pretend that we're doing something by suggesting a gas tax holiday that will not be paid for and frankly, it is very unlikely that you'd see President George Bush sign," he said in a separate interview on the same program.
The two also exchanged accusations over Clinton's recent comment that the United States could "obliterate" Iran if the Islamic state were to attack Israel with nuclear weapons.
Clinton said she intended to communicate that "there would be a very, very high price to pay" if Iran attacked the U.S. ally, but that "nobody wants to go to war with Iran."
Obama is ahead of Clinton in the North Carolina polls, while CNN's latest poll of polls suggests Clinton is up in Indiana after the two have long been tied there.
A week after becoming involved in an embarrassing incident with three male cross-dressers, international soccer phenomenon Ronaldo Luis Nazario de Lima has unburdened himself before the news media, declaring, ¡°I am completely heterosexual.
In his first public discussion of the event, the AC Milan player &#8212;
recounted his version of events in an interview Sunday with Brazil¡¯s TV Globo program ¡°Fantastico,¡± saying, ¡°I regret it.
He said he thought he was dealing with female prostitutes, and tried to cancel the rendezvous when he found they were not, but they then tried to extort money from him in return for not telling the media about the incident.
Prostitution is not a crime in Brazil. Police are investigating whether extortion, which is a crime, may have been involved.
As night fell on Myanmar Monday, some survivors faced their third night of darkness in the aftermath of the historic cyclone that robbed them of electricity, clogged roads with thousands of downed trees and, the government said, took more than 10,000 lives.
Tropical Cyclone Nargis pummeled Yangon for more than 10 hours from Friday night into Saturday, dumping 20 inches of rain and pounding some areas with 150-mph (140 k/hr) winds.
Video from the scene showed residents in some areas hacking their way through downed trees and trudging through knee-deep, swirling brown water.
Thousands of tropical trees had been ripped up and thrown down, some into roadways.
¡°This has pushed people to the edge,¡± said Hakan Tongkul, with the United Nation¡¯s World Food Programme, who spoke to CNN from Yangon. ¡°All that they have has been blown away.
Yahoo shares fell more than 16 percent Monday as hopes for the once-dominant Internet icon dimmed following Microsoft's withdrawal of a $47.5 billion takeover bid.
The sell-off wiped out nearly half the gain in Yahoo's stock price since Microsoft made its initial offer on January 31 in an effort to challenge online advertising and search leader Google.
The downturn left Yahoo's market value about $14 billion below Microsoft's last offer.
In late-morning trading Monday, Yahoo shares shed $4.69, or 16.4 percent, to $23.98, below Friday's close of $28.67, when investors were still hopeful about a deal.
Microsoft shares rose nearly 2 percent, or 57 cents, to $29.81.
The shares had declined 10 percent to $29.24 since the bid, reflecting concerns that the proposed marriage would turn into a complicated mess that would enable Google to grow even stronger.
Shares in Google went up nearly 2 percent, or $11.15, to $592.44.
NEW YORK (CNN) Tom Hanks is supporting presidential hopeful Barack Obama.
Hanks has taken to his MySpace.com page to pledge his support for Obama, who is competing to be the first black president.
Obama, who faces rival Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, has also been endorsed by Oprah Winfrey, Bruce Springsteen and Scarlett Johansson.
Celebrity Endorsement.
"History with a capital 'H' is going to be made this November, no matter who the president-elect is. I want Barack Obama to be president of this country, a country that once said people with his skin color were only three-fifths of a human being.
"It's because of his character and vision, and the high road he has taken during this campaign. He has the integrity and the inspiration to unify us, as did FDR and Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy and even Ronald Reagan when they ran for the job.
The actor says Obama and Clinton have each "pretended to eat cheese-steak sandwiches and go bowling," "committed gaffes" and distanced themselves from supporters who could damage their campaigns.
But Hanks thinks an Obama presidency could bring about a "seismic shift," and "live up to the great promise once shaped by our founding fathers."
Signing off, the star says: "I'm Tom Hanks, I wrote and approved this message, and I'm now going to turn off the camera.
BEIJING, China (CNN) More than 8,500 Chinese children have contracted hand-foot-mouth disease, and although it is a common childhood illness, its rapid spread and the 24 children it has killed have raised concerns in China, state-run media reported Monday.
The reported number of infected children all are below the age of 6 increased dramatically Monday.
State-run media had initially said 6,300 children were infected, but reports from other provinces increased the number by more than 2,000.
Hand-foot-mouth has no relation to the foot-and-mouth disease that affects farm animals.
The provincial government has quarantined patients and controlled movement in and out of Fuyang, the town in Anhui province where the outbreak started in mid-March, and where the 22 children died.
Authorities there have closed the schools and kindergartens, and are spraying the streets with disinfectant.
Extra beds crowd hospital corridors to deal with sick, feverish and in some cases dying children.
"We have to do more prevention work and to inform the people about the virus so they can do more to keep away from it," said Chinese Vice Health Minister Liu Qian.
In milder cases, EV-71 can cause cold-like symptoms, diarrhea, and sores on the hands, feet and mouth.
But more severe cases can cause fluid to accumulate on the brain, resulting in polio-like paralysis and death.
There is no effective antiviral treatment for severe EV-71 infections and no vaccine is available.
Adults' well-developed immune systems usually can fend off the virus, but children are vulnerable to it, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The virus has now surfaced in half a dozen provinces in China, plus the capital Beijing, according to state-run media.
"We don't know yet if these are separate outbreaks or if it has spread from one source," said Dr. Hans Troedsson of the World Health Organization. "I think it's from different sources but we don't know that yet."
Officials in Fuyang have been accused of sitting on information of the outbreak last month even as children were dying.
But a WHO official said weeks passed between the outbreak in mid-March and the first reports by local officials because they did not know what they were dealing with.
Health officials are also concerned about the outbreak because the deaths occurred in two regions, Anhui and the southern province of Guangdong.
The WHO warned that hand-foot-mouth disease is a summer illness public health officials expect the number of cases to peak in June or July.
Sen. John McCain said Monday the tenor of the immigration debate has hurt the way Hispanic voters view the Republican Party.
"I believe the majority of Hispanics share our view that the border must be secured, and the border must be secured first," McCain said in Phoenix, Arizona.
"But they also want us to have an attitude which I think most Americans do, that these are God's children and they must be taken care of."
The senator from Arizona used Cinco de Mayo as a launching pad for a new Spanish-language Web site on Monday, and he emphasized his stance on immigration and border security as he tried to court the Hispanic vote.
When President Bush was re-elected in 2004, he received 44 percent of the Hispanic vote, but that was before the divisive political debate erupted over illegal immigration.
McCain is seen as a moderate Republican when it comes to immigration reform, but the conservative base of his party has taken a hard-line approach on the issue.
In 2005, McCain angered some in his party when he and Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy unsuccessfully pushed for a comprehensive immigration reform bill that included a path to citizenship.
McCain now says he would focus first on securing the borders before offering other ways to deal with illegal immigration.
Illinois Sen. Barack Obama on Sunday accused Sen. Hillary Clinton of echoing the ¡°bluster¡± of President Bush when she threatened to ¡°obliterate¡± Iran if it used nuclear weapons against Israel. ¡°This kind of language is not helpful,¡± he told NBC¡¯s ¡°Meet the Press¡± Sunday morning.
¡°When Iran is able to go to the United Nations complaining about the statements made and get some sympathy, that¡¯s a sign that we are taking the wrong approach.
Clinton, the New York senator and former first lady, stood her ground on ABC¡¯s ¡°This Week,¡± saying warnings of ¡°massive retaliation¡± are needed to keep the Islamic republic in check.
The Bush administration has accused Iran of working to obtain nuclear weapons, an allegation officials in Tehran deny.
¡°They have to know that they would face massive retaliation. That is the only way to rein them in.
the city of Yangon, Irrawaddy, Pegu and the states of Karen and Mon.
All flights to Yangon, the former capital, were canceled.
The military rulers of Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, put the death toll around 200, according to media reports.
disappeared,¡± said Khin Maung Win with the Democratic Voice of Burma &#8212; a broadcast media group run by opposition expatriates.
HAVANA, Cuba (CNN) Computers went on sale Friday for Cubans' private use, the latest in a series of goods to become available under the communist government's new president.
At about $750 apiece, the QTech brand computers are within the reach of only a few Cubans, whose average monthly salary is $17.
Fewer still will be able to gain the government permission needed to gain access to the Internet from their homes.
President Raul Castro recently announced that electrical devices, including DVD players, electric rice cookers and mopeds that run on rechargeable batteries would be made available to the public.
Computers were on that original list, but shipments of the products only recently arrived on the island, officials said.
Many electrical devices had been forbidden during the "special period" that Cubans endured after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Cubans with access to dollars can also buy cell phones and book hotel reservations other recent changes also ordered by Raul Castro, who was elected president in February after brother Fidel gave up the job because of poor health.
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) A mug shot of the 21-year-old actress, who has been in and out of rehab after two arrests last year on drunken driving and cocaine charges, was prominently featured Friday in an advertisement attacking legislation for devices that measure a driver's blood alcohol level before their vehicle can start.
The full-page black-and-white ad appeared in USA Today on Friday and was paid for by the American Beverage Institute, a trade group that supports the interests of the alcohol industry.
The ad reads "Ignition interlocks are a good idea for" above Lohan's mug shot from her July 24, 2007, arrest and "But a bad idea for us" above smaller photos of people drinking.
"The reason that we used Lindsay Lohan is because she's had multiple DUIs that have been high profile," American Beverage Institute managing director Sarah Longwell told The Associated Press.
Lawmakers in several states have passed bills that would require drunken driving offenders to pay for and install an ignition interlock system.
Under many such laws, the interlock requirement extends to first-time offenders driving while "highly intoxicated" or with a blood alcohol level of 0.15 percent or higher.
"USA Today is idiotic to run such an irresponsible advertisement suggesting that drinking and driving is some kind of American 'tradition' we should protect," Lohan's lawyer, Blair Berk, said in a statement.
The American Beverage Institute stood by its use of Lohan's image.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) Former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said Friday that the ruling coalition on May 12 will reinstate judges who were ousted by President Pervez Musharraf last year.
The date was announced a day after Sharif a leading member of the new coalition wrapped up talks with coalition partner Pakistan People's Party leader Asif Zardari in Dubai on how to restore the judges.
Sharif said at a news conference in Lahore, Pakistan, that a parliamentary resolution would be introduced to restore the judges.
The coalition government had vowed to reinstate the judges within 30 days of taking office a deadline that expired Wednesday night.
In the wake of an emergency order that Musharraf issued last November, at least 60 judges were arrested some jailed and others placed under house arrest.
The arrests included nearly all of the justices on Pakistan's Supreme Court, which was set to rule against the legitimacy of Musharraf's third term in office.
Shortly after taking office last month, the PPP-led coalition government ordered the release of all the judges, but the two leaders had disagreed over how the judges would be restored to office.
The failure of the coalition government to fulfill its promise of restoring the judges within 30 days had local media and many analysts questioning whether the coalition was fracturing, but both sides insist it is not in jeopardy.
The PPP the party of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto who was assassinated last year won the majority of seats in February's parliamentary election ousting Musharraf's ruling party from power.
CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts (CNN) The Internet is setting a new standard for celebrity.
The Internet allows the masses to wrest control of fame from traditional media, creating micro-celebrities with the click of a mouse, says David Weinberger of the Harvard Berkman Center for Internet and Society.
Weinberger focused on the Internet celebrity in his keynote address at ROFLCon (pronounced roffle-con), a conference on Internet culture held at MIT.
Some say ROFLCon is the biggest gathering of micro-celebrities ever: "the Internet, in person," as one organizer said.
Among the panelists: "gem sweater" fashionista Leslie Hall, "Tron Guy" Jay Maynard, Fark.com founder Drew Curtis and World of Warcraft character Leeroy Jenkins (born Ben Shultz).
If you've never heard of these people, don't worry.
At least a few Internet users have, and that's all that matters.
It is what makes Internet celebrity so different from the tabloid-fodder fame of folks like Paris Hilton and Brittney Spears.
Traditional celebrity lives and dies based on raw numbers: how many magazines mention them, how many television shows feature them, how many people talk about them around the water cooler.
Internet fame can be more intimate, Weinberger says, more of a personal connection between the one and the few.
A key question at ROFLCon is what makes one meme succeed when thousands of others fail.
Geoffrey Golden of Meteor Games says, "If we had the answer, we would be gazillionaires. It's what marketers, what everyone is trying to figure out.
The most successful meme today is LOLcats, pictures of cats captioned with a unique blend of text speak, fractured grammar and Internet in-jokes.
The main repository can be found at a site called I Can Has Cheezburger, which gets millions of page views every day.
The word-of-mouth spread of any given meme is another aspect of how Internet fame differs from traditional celebrity.
Even the slickest PR effort can fail miserably if Internet users choose to ignore it.
Adam Lindsey, who created a computer language spinoff of LOLcats called LOLcode, said, "If it is successful, all you are is sort of a midwife helping it into the world.
If you try to control a meme, so enjoy it without ego and let it take itself wherever it wants to go.
HAVANA, Cuba (CNN) Cuba said Wednesday that its crucial tourism industry appears to be recovering from a two-year slump, with a 15 percent increase in visitors during the first quarter of the year.
The number of international visitors topped the 1 million mark on Monday, 22 days faster than last year, state-controlled news media reported.
Officials credited well-attended conferences and trade fairs for the increase, singling out an ongoing gathering dedicated to cultural tourism that has attracted more than 1,000 visitors.
Maria Elena Lopez, a vice minister of tourism, reported a 15 percent increase in foreign visitors this year compared with the first three months of 2007, but she did not provide further data, according to the Communist Party daily Granma.
The number of foreign tourists peaked at about 2.32 million in 2005, but slipped to 2.15 last year, according to official statistics.
Officials said the decline of 70,000 visitors in 2007 cut revenues by nearly $14.5 million below 2006 levels a blow to a nation that has turned to tourism to generate much of its hard currency revenue.
Canada, Britain, Spain and Italy rank as top sources of visitors to the island.
Rafael Nadal's clay-court supremecy continued on Thursday, with the Spaniard winning his 100th match from 101 on the surface to reach the quarterfinals of the Barcelona Open.
Defending champion Nadal worked hard for one hour, 45 minutes to beat close friend and 16th seed Feliciano Lopez 6-4 6-3.
"This is one of my favorite events and playing Feliciano is always tough," said Nadal, who had his left shoulder taped after complaining of pain in recent days.
He faces title defences here and in Rome before the French Open after winning his fourth straight title in Monte Carlo against Federer last
One of Osama bin Laden's sons has been denied British residency because authorities believe his presence in the country would cause "considerable public concern," the man's wife said Thursday.
Omar Osama bin Laden, a 27-year-old metals trader, had hoped to live in Britain with his British-born wife.
The couple lives in Cairo, Egypt, but she is eager to return to her country, where she has a home.
His wife, Zaina Alsabah, said his residency application was rejected, and showed The Associated Press a statement from the couple's legal firm quoting a British consular officer who said his residency in Britain would not be "conducive to the public good.
Omar has not renounced his father, but says he wants to be an "ambassador for peace" between Muslims and the West.
The couple plan a 3,000-mile horse race across North Africa to draw attention to the cause of peace.
Alsabah said the couple would appeal the residency rejection.
Omar one of bin Laden's 19 children raised a tabloid storm last year when he married the 52-year-old British woman, Jane Felix-Browne, who changed her name to Zaina Alsabah.
Osama Bin Laden is believed to be hiding in the Pakistan-Afghan border region.
President Bush urged Congress on Thursday to approve $770 million in new global food aid to be made available beginning in October.
"That's just the beginning of our efforts," he said at the White House. "I think more needs to be done.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, promised quick action.
Riots have broken out in Egypt, Haiti, Yemen, Bangladesh and other nations in response to the rising price of food, which has gone up 43 percent internationally over the past year, a White House official said.
On Tuesday, the United Nations formed a task force to look at the problem.
Of the $770 million, $395 million will be spent on emergency food aid, $225 million on direct assistance to the U.S. Agency for International Development and $150 million for development assistance, also through USAID, White House officials said after Bush's speech.
The majority of the assistance is to be sent to Africa, with none of it targeted for North Korea, where dire food shortages have been under way for months, the White House officials said.
In a ritual that would terrify most mothers, Indian villagers have cheered as screaming babies were dropped from a 50-foot temple tower.
For 500 years, worshippers at a Muslim shrine in western India have continued the tradition a rite considered to bring good health and good luck to the children.
Villagers say no babies have been injured during the ritual, which is practiced by Muslims and Hindus in Musti village in the district of Solapur, in the state of Maharashtra.
But critics want the practice banned, with many saying it's unsafe.
"The state has to interfere," said Sanal Edamaruku, founder and president of Rationalist International and the Indian Rationalist Association.
The group supports secularism and freedom of expression.
Videos of the chaos and horrified reactions after the July 7, 2005, London transit bombings were shown to jurors Thursday in the trial of three men charged with conspiracy in the case.
One of the videos shows the explosion of a train seconds after it leaves the Liverpool Street Station heading for Aldgate East.
As dust and smoke fill the tunnel, people on the platform rush away, and police head toward the blast.
Another shows bystanders running and ducking for cover after one of the bombers detonated his rucksack on the No. 30 bus.
Four bombs were detonated on underground trains at Liverpool Street, Russell Square and Edgware Road, and on a double-decker bus at Tavistock Square.
Fifty-two people and the four bombers were killed, and at least 900 people were injured.
Links to the edited videos were posted on the Web site of London's Metropolitan Police, and were played in Kingston Crown Court where Mohammed Shakil, 31, Waheed Ali, 24, and Sadeer Saleem, 27, are accused of aiding the bombers
Two weeks after the July bombings, an attempted second wave of bombings struck other trains and a bus, but the devices failed to explode properly.
Metropolitan Police said some clips were not released, to protect the identities of members of the public.
A new national poll suggests the battle for the Democratic presidential nomination between Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama is a virtual tie.
¡°In mid-March, Obama had a 52 percent to 45 percent edge over Clinton, but his support has dropped six points while she has not gained any ground,¡± says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.
So why is Obama losing support?
More than two thirds say they've had no effect at all,¡± says CNN Senior Political Analyst Bill Schneider.
¡°The bigger problem appears to be Obama's string of losses to Clinton in big states like Pennsylvania and Ohio. Those losses have not driven up Clinton's support. But they may have created doubts about Obama's ability to win,¡± says Schneider.
A new poll suggests that President Bush is the most unpopular president in modern American history.
"The previous all-time record in CNN or Gallup polling was set by Truman, 67 percent disapproval in January 1952."
While Gallup polling goes back to the 1930s, it wasn't until the Truman years that they began surveying monthly approval ratings.
CNN Senior Political Analyst Bill Schneider adds, "He is more unpopular than Richard Nixon was just before he resigned from the presidency in August 1974.
President Nixon's disapproval rating in August 1974 stood at 66 percent
The poll also indicates that support for the war in Iraq has never been lower.
Thirty percent of those questioned favored the war, while 68 percent opposed it.
"Americans are growing more pessimistic about the war," Holland said. "In January, nearly half believed that things were going well for the U.S. in Iraq; now that figure has dropped to 39 percent.
The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll was conducted by telephone from Monday through Wednesday among 1,008 adult Americans. The poll's sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.
AMSTETTEN, Austria (CNN) A man who previously rented an apartment from a now-73-year-old man accused of holding his daughter captive in his cellar for 24 years told CNN Thursday he saw the man¡¯s son enter the basement.
Alfred Dubanowsky said he rented a ground-floor apartment at Josef Fritzl¡¯s home from 1995 through 2007.
He said there was a verbal agreement between Fritzl and the house¡¯s tenants that they were not to enter the cellar or the garden or photograph the premises or they would be kicked out.
Police said Fritzl confessed to keeping his daughter Elisabeth in the basement for more than two decades, where he repeatedly raped her and fathered seven children with her &#8212;
Dubanowsky said he saw Fritzl¡¯s son, also named Josef Fritzl, enter the cellar. He also saw the elder Fritzl enter the basement frequently at night.
(CNN) When a 'Yellow Dragon' roars, Beijing listens.
These huge, sky-blackening dust storms sweep across Asia in March and April, bringing with them millions of tons of sand from inner Mongolia and depositing it in China and on across the Korean peninsula to Japan.
During the past few years the storms have grown in ferocity and scale, and they are at the vanguard of an advancing Gobi desert that threatens more than 400 million people in the Chinese provinces of Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Ningxia and Shaanxi.
The economic toll has been estimated to cost the Chinese economy $6.5 billion per year.
But desertification is not limited to China and it is fast becoming a serious global problem that will only be exacerbated by climate change.
In the Chinese provinces of Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang the causes are reasonably straightforward, and in many ways they area is an exemplar of the situation in developing countries worldwide.
Rapid population growth has put enormous pressure on agricultural systems that have been pushed towards unsustainable farming practices in order to cope with demand.
As a result huge amount of marginal land has been taken in as pasture, overgrazed to the point of exhaustion, and now farmers are being forced to watch the topsoil literally blow away on the spring winds.
In Africa demand for water has shrunk Lake Chad by 95 percent since the 1960s, leaving only sand and scrub.
In Kazakhstan desertification has meant that nearly 50 percent of cropland has been abandoned since 1980.
The Sahara is advancing into Ghana and Nigeria at the rate of 3,510 square kilometers per year.
Because desertification is often caused by population pressure, effective control is hard to achieve and many solutions are focused on dealing with the symptoms rather than the root cause of the problem.
The Chinese government is creating a forest belt stretching 2,800 miles (4,500 kilometers) to block the advancing sands of the Gobi desert and diminish the effect of the sandstorms.
The African Union is seeking support to fund a similar "Green Wall" to hold back the Sahara.
In Algeria officials hope that the inauguration of the 250,000 hectare Taghit National Park will slow the advance of the sands.
GUADALIX DE LA SIERRA, Spain (CNN) In a mountain meadow an hour from Madrid roams an enormous stud bull who's called Alcalde. It means "the Mayor.
"During his life, he's produced at least 580 bulls," said his owner, bull breeder Victoriano del Rio an average of 40 bulls per year sired by the Mayor since he was about 3 years old.
He was stabbed with a lance but still charged at the matador, del Rio recalls.
His bravura saved him from the matador's deadly final sword, and the stud was sent back to the pasture, to get busy with the cows.
Many of the Mayor's offspring have proved to be some of the toughest bulls in Spanish bullfights.
And that's a key in the huge bullfight industry, because many say it's not just the matadors but also fierce bulls that make a great fight.
But the Mayor is now 16 years old, and nearing his end.
So his owner has decided to clone him.
He has hired ViaGen, a company in Austin, Texas, that has already cloned other livestock.
Del Rio says he'll pay ¢æ30,000 (about $47,000) to clone the stud, including the company's fees, plus transportation and other costs.
ViaGen declined to comment for this story but experts say this would be one of the first fighting bulls ever cloned.
(CNN) Maybe you really can't have the best of both worlds if you're a teen starlet, no matter what the Hannah Montana song says.
One set, some candid snapshots with Miley cuddling up to her boyfriend and flashing a green bra, were leaked onto the Internet.
The other, a collection of posed come-hither shots by photographer Annie Leibovitz, were taken under the consenting eyes of parents, handlers and editors at Vanity Fair magazine.
The photos are coming to light just as Miley's career is exploding.
She just signed a reportedly seven-figure deal for her memoirs and starts production on the first Hannah Montana feature film in May.
Since most of Miley's fans aren't even old enough for their own green training bras yet, the emergence of the racy images calls into question the viability of an entertainment empire balanced on the delicate, developing shoulders of an adolescent girl.
"I took part in a photo shoot that was supposed to be 'artistic' and now, seeing the photographs and reading the story, I feel so embarrassed," Miley said in a statement.
The most controversial of the images, which appear in the June issue of Vanity Fair, is the classic, "Guess what I just did" pose, showing Miley apparently topless, with a silk bedsheet gathered around her chest, her hair and lipstick mussed.
"It really bothers me that Miley is the one apologizing for all this," says Susan Olsen, who played Cindy on The Brady Bunch.
More than half of Yellowstone National Park's bison herd has died since last fall, forcing the government to suspend its annual slaughter program.
More than 700 of the iconic animals starved or otherwise died on the mountainsides during an unusually harsh winter, and more than 1,600 were shot by hunters or sent to slaughterhouses in a disease-control effort, according to National Park Service figures.
As a result, the park estimates its bison herd has dropped from 4,700 in November to about 2,300 today, prompting the government to halt the culling program early.
of the Buffalo Field Campaign, a group seeking to stop the slaughter program for good.
Government officials say the slaughter prevents the spread of the disease brucellosis from the Yellowstone bison to cattle on land near the park.
Brucellosis can cause miscarriages, infertility and reduced milk production in domestic cattle.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that half of Yellowstone's bison herd is infected with the bacterium.
Previously, under the Interagency Bison Management Plan, wandering bison were sent to slaughter without being tested for brucellosis.
(The meat which experts say is safe to eat if cooked and hides were distributed to Native American groups.)
Now the program has been further curtailed; no bison have been killed in the past week.
We're required to keep bison and cattle separate," National Park Service spokesman Al Nash said.
Soccer star Ronaldo has gone into hiding after a run-in with cross-dressing prostitutes that prompted police to investigate whether to charge one with trying to extort money from the striker.
The AC Milan player, who is in his native Brazil recovering from a knee surgery, canceled two TV appearances, and local media say he will continue physiotherapy at his home.
Police say Ronaldo committed no crime, but he was accused by one prostitute of using drugs and not wanting to pay.
Authorities say there was no evidence drugs were involved.
Prostitution is legal in Brazil.
"He admitted to everything, he wanted to have fun," police inspector Carlos Augusto Nogueira said. "But he committed no crime at all, it was immoral at best."
Ronaldo acknowledged to police he knew they were prostitutes but did not realize they were cross-dressers until getting to a motel Sunday night, when one allegedly tried to extort him to hide the story from the media, according to police.
The AC Milan striker told police he offered to pay the transvestites anyway, but before he left one of them allegedly asked for $30,000 to hide the story from the media.
Paul Scholes powered Manchester United into an all-English Champions League climax in Moscow on May 21 with the only goal of a tense semifinal clash against Barcelona at Old Trafford.
The veteran midfielder made the breakthrough after 14 minutes to put United through 1-0 on aggregate to face the winners of Wednesday's second leg between Chelsea and Liverpool.
It was a superb strike from 25 meters by Scholes after he was given the ball in a dangerous area and the United player's first in Europe this season.
Scholes, making his 101st Champions League appearance, took full advantage after Barcelona failed to clear their lines following a surging run from Ronaldo.
Scholes was banned when United beat Bayern Munich to lift the trophy nine years ago in their last final appearance and manager Alex Ferguson said he will be the first name on the team sheet in Russia.
"It's a great feeling, marvellous for this club. This club deserves to be in the final.
It's fantastic," added Ferguson. "They (Barca) chased the goal and they had to gamble but the fans got us over the line."
(CNN) Power returned slowly to Venezuela on Tuesday night, a few hours after widespread outages blacked out nearly half the country, trapping people in elevators, stalling subways, filling streets with pedestrians and forcing hospitals to switch to emergency generators.
30 p.m. ET) there was a blackout on a national level that was produced by an explosion, which is being investigated" in the Guri hydroelectric power station, Caracas Mayor Juan Barreto said.
"That produced a blackout in 16 states of the country, particularly those of the central north coastal area.
The city's emergency plan kicked in, and about 400 firefighters in training had reported for duty to help, he said. City firefighters had gone to 37 buildings in the capital to free people from elevators.
Minister of Interior and Justice Ramon Rodriguez Chacin blamed a fault in a generator at the plant in Guri, which caused a high-voltage power transmission line to overheat.
In taking the line out of service, power was disrupted to other areas.
In all, about 40 percent of the country was blacked out, officials said.
SUFFOLK, Virginia (CNN) Virginians faced a massive cleanup project Tuesday after at least three tornadoes damaged dozens of homes and injured more than 200 people.
Officials said Tuesday morning that a search of the wreckage had turned up no fatalities.
Most of them are minor, so in many ways, we are blessed," Suffolk Mayor Linda Johnson said.
At least 200 were injured Monday in Suffolk, where a twister destroyed several homes and businesses, said Bob Spieldenner of the Virginia Department of Emergency Management.
About 140 homes were destroyed, damaged or deemed uninhabitable, CNN's Rob Marciano reported from Suffolk.
The storm hit the 138-bed Sentara Obici Hospital, though Spieldenner said the facility was still operational and accepting patients.
A second tornado struck Colonial Heights, about 60 miles northwest, near Richmond, injuring at least 18 people, he said.
A third twister damaged several homes near Lawrenceville, about 70 miles south of Richmond, said Bryan Jackson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, which confirmed all three tornadoes.
Gov. Tim Kaine declared a Virginia-wide state of emergency as hazardous weather continued through the central part of the state.
The top executives at Microsoft and Yahoo have not held any recent discussions to break an impasse that threatens to turn Microsoft's 3-month-old takeover bid into a slugfest.
According to Brad Smith, software maker Microsoft's general counsel, not even a key weekend deadline brought the two sides together.
Responding to a question Monday, Smith said no meetings have been scheduled among executives at Microsoft and Internet pioneer Yahoo.
The lack of communication is the latest sign of a chasm that has developed since Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer lashed out at Yahoo's board in an April 5 letter.
Microsoft is expected to disclose its response to Yahoo's defiance this week.
Smith declined to comment Monday on Microsoft's next measures.
Most analysts believe Microsoft wants Yahoo badly enough to attempt a hostile takeover, a risky process that would probably include a mudslinging campaign to replace Yahoo's 10 directors with board members more receptive to a deal.
(CNN) The United Nations is establishing a task force to address the global food crisis, which is "increasingly resulting in social tension," the world body said Tuesday.
"Mounting hunger and increasing evidence of severe malnutrition is evident and the capacities of humanitarian agencies to meet these needs is under severe strain, particularly as pledged funding remains undelivered," the U.N. Chief Executives Board said in a communiqu&eacute;.
The task force's first priority will be to meet the World Food Program's emergency requirement of $775 million, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said at a news conference in Bern, Switzerland.
"The first and immediate priority issue that we all agreed was that we must feed the hungry," said Ban, who will lead the task force.
"Without full funding of these emergency requirements, we risk again the specter of widespread hunger, malnutrition and social unrest on an unprecedented scale. We anticipate that additional funding will be required.
He also asked the international community, particularly developed countries, to honor outstanding pledges to the WFP.
The skyrocketing cost of food has triggered violence in some countries, including Haiti, Bangladesh and Egypt.
Ban said Tuesday that farmers in developing countries can no longer afford to plant as many crops as they once did because of the rising cost of fertilizer and energy.
"We must make every effort to support those farmers so that in the coming year we do not see even more severe food shortages," Ban said.
said a U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization initiative has called for $1.7 billion to provide some developing countries with seeds and other materials such as fertilizers to boost food production.
The International Fund for Agricultural Development, another U.N. agency, is giving $200 million to "poor farmers in the most affected countries," the communiqu&eacute;
Police, medical professionals and those who know Josef Fritzl are beginning to piece together how he led a double life for more than two decades in small town Austria.
At his home on Ybbsstrasse in the quiet town of Amstetten, east of Vienna, Fritzl, a 73-year-old retired electrician, lived with his wife, Rosemarie, and their three children.
But with them also lived three of the children Fritzl fathered by his daughter Elisabeth, imprisoned in a basement dungeon with another three of the children she bore after being raped repeatedly by him.
Fritzl told his wife that his missing daughter had dropped off the children at the house because she could not take care of them, police said
, and he forced his daughter to write letters to strengthen his case.
It was a deception he maintained from 1984 until just days ago.
Police spokesman Franz Polzer said that Rosemarie Fritzl was unaware of the deception.
"Let me also add that we know the suspect not only possessed an increased sexual potency, he's also very dynamic, imperious and quite authoritarian in his conduct and relationship to his existing family," Polzer said Monday.
He bought food for his captives and took it to them in evening.
Clinical psychologist Dr. Kristina Downing-Orr said, "What is chilling about this case is the cold, sociopathic detachment that Josef F[ritzl] went through year after year, decades even, to hide his crimes.
"It was as if there was no remorse, no empathy for his daughter, for his grandchildren, for his wife. That's what's chilling.
PARIS, France (CNN) A French judge said Tuesday it was not within his jurisdiction to ban an Internet video of motor racing chief Max Mosley with prostitutes but ordered the French recall of newspapers containing photos of the scene.
Judge Joel Boyer said he couldn't ban access to Web site of the British tabloid the News of the World, which had carried a video with images of the scene, because the site is Britain-based and owned.
Mosley's lawyer, Philippe Ouakrat, had requested the site be restricted in France because the FIA, the governing body for motor sports that Mosley heads, is based in Paris.
However, Boyer said French law did cover copies of the newspaper printed in France and
He ordered a penalty of euro1,500 ($2,335) per infraction be applied if the recall is not respected.
The News of the World reported earlier this month that Mosley engaged in sex acts with five prostitutes that involved Nazi role-playing.
A video posted on the newspaper's Web site showed a man identified as Mosley arriving at an apartment and then engaging in various sex acts with several women, at least one in a prisoner's uniform, while also speaking German.
Mosley admits to visiting the prostitutes, but denies there were Nazi overtones to the encounter.
The allegations are particularly sensitive because Mosley is the son of the late Oswald Mosley, leader of Britain's fascist movement before World War II and a friend of Adolf Hitler.
Mosley is suing the News of the World's parent company for breach of privacy.
PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania (CNN) A newlywed couple spent the night in separate jail cells she in her wedding gown after police said they brawled with each other, then members of another wedding party, at a suburban Pittsburgh hotel.
The fight started Saturday night after a reception when he knocked her to the floor with a karate kick in the seventh-floor hallway of a Holiday Inn, according to police.
It escalated when she attacked two guests from another wedding party who came to her aid, police said.
The melee moved to an elevator and then to the lobby, where the couple threw metal planters at the two guests of the other party, causing minor injuries, police charged.
"It was pretty wild," Ross police Sgt. Dave Syska said.
Dentist David W. Wielechowski, 32, of Shaler, and Christa Vattimo, 25, had married a month earlier in the Bahamas but repeated their vows Saturday at a reception for 150 guests.
They were checking into their room when the argument began, police said.
Police arrived to find the dentist lying on the lobby floor and his bride screaming, they said.
Authorities charged them both with simple assault, criminal mischief and disorderly conduct, and the bride with an additional count of public intoxication.
They face a May 7 preliminary hearing.
A district judge considered issuing a restraining order against Wielechowski, but his new bride declined the measure.
The couple declined comment upon their release Sunday morning.
She left with her father, still dressed in her white gown.
Wielechowski left alone, sporting a swollen eye, tuxedo pants, a bloody T-shirt and one shoe.
Airbus said Tuesday that the European planemaker is conducting a "major review" of its planned delivery schedule for its A380 superjumbo, which has been plagued by past delays.
Speaking at a company site in the United Arab Emirates, CEO Thomas Enders was quoted by a spokesman as acknowledging that reaching Airbus' goal of delivering four A380s per month by 2010 won't be easy.
"We're currently conducting a major review" of the superjumbo program, Enders said at the opening of an Airbus material and logistics center in Dubai, headquarters of A380 customer Emirates Airlines.
His comments were relayed by Airbus spokesman Stefan Schaffrath.
The spokesman withdrew earlier comments saying Airbus is "confident more than ever" about the program that he had attributed to Enders.
Airbus has previously said it is committed to handing over 13 A380s in 2008, 25 in 2009, and 45 in 2010.
Airbus is reviewing whether workers and suppliers are ready for the change, and whether the delivery schedule can be maintained, Schaffrath said.
Vivid Entertainment is releasing a sex tape allegedly starring Jimi Hendrix.
The Los Angeles-based adult entertainment company said they obtained the sex tape from a memorabilia collector.
The 11 minutes of footage, reportedly shot in a hotel room about 40 years ago, features Hendrix or someone who looks like him engaged in various sexual acts with two women.
The company said they consulted with experts to authenticate the footage.
But Charles R. Cross, author of the Hendrix biography "Room Full of Mirrors," has seen the film and doubts the man is Hendrix.
Cross said the face and nostrils of the man depicted in the video don't match Hendrix.
He also said the man in the tape is wearing more rings than Hendrix was known to wear.
Hendrix, who headlined the legendary Woodstock Festival in 1969, died of a drug overdose in 1970.
Britain¡¯s Prince William made a surprise visit to Afghanistan this week &#8212; serving as part of the air crew that made the 30-hour trip from England.
William, 25, is a second lieutenant in the British Army who received his pilot¡¯s wings from the Royal Air Force earlier this month.
He was briefed on military operations in Afghanistan, according to a spokesman at Clarence House, the royal residence in London.
Sen. Barack Obama said Tuesday he was ¡°outraged¡± by comments his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, made a day earlier at the National Press Club and ¡°saddened by the spectacle.
¡°I have been a member of Trinity Church since 1992. I have known Rev. Wright for almost 20 years,¡± he said at a news conference in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. ¡°The person I saw yesterday is not the person I met 20 years ago.
Obama said he was outraged by Wright¡¯s remarks that seemed to suggest the U.S. government might be responsible for the spread of AIDS in the black community, and his equating of some American wartime efforts with terrorism.
¡°What particularly angered me was his suggestion, somehow, that my previous denunciation of his remarks were somehow political posturing,¡± said Obama, who added that Wright had shown ¡°little regard for me¡± and seemed more concerned with ¡°taking center stage.
KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) A suicide attack in eastern Afghanistan which killed 18 people and wounded 41 others on Tuesday targeted a government poppy eradication team, Afghanistan's Interior Ministry said.
The incident occurred in the Khogyani district of Nangarhar province, authorities told CNN.
The bomber struck an outdoor meeting, where tribal leaders listened to the team and the district governor discuss the plans to eradicate poppies used to produce opium.
The Afghan Interior Ministry said the attack showed the connection between terrorists and drug trafficking.
The U.S. State Department said in a recent report that poppy production in Afghanistan was at record levels, a grim assessment for NATO-led troops fighting Taliban militants.
The Taliban is thought to be trafficking in drugs to finance insurgent activities.
While efforts had been made to reduce opium cultivation, the industry made a resurgence last year because there were no alternative livelihoods for residents.
Of the people killed in Tuesday's attack, 11 were police officers and seven were civilians, the ministry said.
A security source said one of the police officers was the district police chief.
A provincial hospital official said of the 41 people wounded, 23 received serious injuries.
"If the goal of the insurgents was to target ISAF troops operating in the area, they failed," said spokesman Brig. Gen. Carlos Branco.
"If the insurgents' goal was to injure and kill Afghan citizens, they succeeded.
President Hamid Karzai was warned of a weekend assassination plot against him, Afghanistan's intelligence chief said Tuesday, acknowledging that failings by the security services allowed militants to launch the attack.
Meanwhile, a suicide assault killed 18 people, including 11 police, in an eastern province, officials said.
Thirty-six people, including two Australian journalists, were wounded.
Amrullah Saleh told Parliament that the plot to kill Karzai was hatched last month and that the gunmen had rented the hotel room they opened fire from 45 days before the attack.
Karzai and other dignitaries escaped unharmed from Sunday's assault during a ceremony in Kabul marking Afghanistan's victory over the Soviet occupation of the country in the 1980s.
Three other people died, including a lawmaker.
Three of the attackers were also killed in a gun battle with security forces after the assault, Karzai's government said, but the Taliban said three insurgents got away.
"We passed this information to the national security [advisor] and to the president of Afghanistan.
Despite stringent measures by security services to protect the event, "the result is that we failed," Saleh said.
An Afghan intelligence official has said that about 100 people were rounded up for questioning after the attack Sunday.
Some of them had since been freed, officials say.
DALLAS, Texas (CNN) A Dallas man who spent more than 27 years in prison for a murder he didn't commit was freed Tuesday, after being incarcerated longer than any other wrongfully convicted U.S. inmate cleared by DNA testing.
Supporters and other people gathered outside the court erupted in applause.
"No words can express what a tragic story yours is," state District Judge Mark Stoltz told Woodard at a brief hearing before his release.
Woodard, cleared of the 1980 murder of his girlfriend, became the 18th person in Dallas County to have his conviction cast aside.
That's a figure unmatched by any county nationally, according to the Innocence Project, a New York-based legal center that specializes in overturning wrongful convictions.
As for the other, "we don't believe her testimony was accurate," Roetzel said.
Like nearly all the exonorees, Woodard has maintained his innocence throughout his time in prison.
It's official: Barack Obama has offered the vice presidency to an 82-year-old woman.
At a town hall meeting in Wilmington, North Carolina, Monday supporter Jean Weiss stood up to ask a question and began by telling the Illinois senator that he's "captured her heart" with his foreign policy stands.
"When you said 'yes I will sit down with all my enemies, we're gonna sit around the table, we're gonna work this thing out,'" Weiss said, "sir, that was not naivet&eacute; &#8212; that was wisdom.
She then moved on to a question about water supply.
"Before I answer the question," Obama said, "I just want to know&#8211;
will you be my running mate?
"That¡¯s my running mate there," Obama said as she trotted back to her seat, her arms in the air.
"She is 82 years old.
A new poll out Monday appears to bolster Hillary Clinton's argument that she is in a better position than rival Barack Obama to beat John McCain in a general election match up.
According to a newly-released poll from The Associated Press and Ipsos, Clinton would beat McCain by a wide 9-point margin, 50 percent to 41 percent.
But when Obama faces McCain, the two are statistically tied &#8212; Obama holds a two point edge over McCain, within the poll's margin of error.
a demographic that is key to winning several swing states.
(CNN) The call girl involved in the sex scandal with former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer filed a lawsuit Monday suing the founder of the "Girls Gone Wild" video series for more than $10 million.
In the complaint filed in Miami, Florida, Ashley Alexandra Dupre says she was vacationing in Miami Beach when she was approached by agents and representatives of the defendant, Joe Francis, and offered alcoholic drinks.
While intoxicated, Dupre was persuaded to expose her breasts and then told to sign a release form, according to a statement from her legal counsel, Richard C. Wolfe.
Wolfe contends that Dupre "was 17 years old and therefore not legally competent to enter into a contract with the defendants.
Dupre was the high-priced call girl, known as "Kristen," documented in court papers as the woman Spitzer arranged to meet at Washington's Mayflower Hotel in February.
Spitzer's involvement turned up in a federal investigation of suspicious transfers from his checking account.
The investigation led agents to the alleged organizers of a prostitution ring, four of whom were charged in a criminal complaint in March.
Spitzer resigned when a leak identified him as a client of the ring.
In March, Francis was negotiating to pay Dupre $1 million to appear in the "Girls Gone Wild" magazine and on the company's touring bus.
The deal fell through when Francis found he already owned video footage of Dupre.
Francis said Monday he and his company "have nothing to worry about.
"But I think it's ironic that she charged Gov. Spitzer $2,000 for sex and she wants to charge me 10 million for taking some naked pictures of her," Francis told CNN. "I feel like I'm getting a raw deal."
JAKARTA, Indonesia (CNN) Hundreds of people burned a mosque Monday in the West Java province of Indonesia, police said.
Around 300 people attacked the Al Furqon mosque about 1 a.m., damaging a nearby school, police said.
The mosque belonged to the Ahmadiyah sect considered heretical by many in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation.
The attack happened after negotiations to remove a sign with the name of the sect, police said, and comes a week after religious scholars, government officials and prosecutors recommended the sect be outlawed for "deviating from Islamic principles," The Associated Press reported.
"We heard the attackers chanting 'burn, burn' and 'kill, kill,"' a sect member, Zaki Firdaus, told AP. "It was horrifying.
Firdaus said around 200 sect members had escaped the mosque before the attack.
A sect spokesman, Syamsir Ali, told AP that efforts to ban Ahmadiyah beliefs had prompted an escalation of violence against adherents.
(CNN) A 30-year-old dolphin at Sea World has died after colliding with another dolphin while performing aerial tricks, the Orlando, Florida, amusement park said Monday.
The incident occurred about 4:30 p.m. Saturday at the Discovery Cove area of the park, according to a statement by Sea World spokeswoman Becca Bides.
The animals were in the center of the lagoon and not near guests, she said.
The other dolphin, Tyler, is being watched by veterinarians but appears to be fine, Bides said.
"While it is not unusual to have two animals performing aerial behaviors at the same time, we are reviewing the situation to ensure even such a random incident does not occur again.
Four Palestinian siblings ages 1 to 6 and their mother were killed Monday when Israeli tank shells hit their house, Palestinian medical and security sources said.
One militant was killed and another was wounded in the morning attack, the sources said.
In a written statement, the Israel Defense Forces said it targeted from the air two Palestinian gunmen carrying bags who were approaching Israeli soldiers.
"A big explosion erupted at the scene following the attack indicating the presence of bombs and explosives in the gunmen's bags," the statement said. "As a result of this big explosion, extensive damage was caused to a house that was near the gunmen and uninvolved civilians were hit.
"The IDF spokesperson wishes to stress that the responsibility for the killing and injuring of uninvolved civilians lies with the terrorist organizations which operate from within civilian populations using them as human shields and risking their lives by keeping bombs and explosives near them.
Palestinian medical and security sources said the children ages 1, 3, 4 and 6 were killed when three shells hit their house in Beit Hanoun, a city in northern Gaza.
An IDF spokeswoman said a tank fired shells toward Palestinian militants and an Israeli aircraft fired at an armed Palestinian approaching Israeli forces.
One Israeli soldier was lightly wounded, she said.
In a separate attack, the IDF said it launched an airstrike on an armed militant in Gaza, but no one was hit.
Zimbabwe's opposition leaders declared Monday that the country's opposition has won control of parliament for the first time in history and that President Robert Mugabe must concede defeat.
Putting months of bickering behind them, opposition leaders Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara stood united to order Mugabe to step aside.
"In a parliamentary democracy, the majority rule," Tsvangirai said alongside Mutambara at a news conference in South Africa. "He should concede that ... he cannot be president.
More than a month after the elections, results from the presidential race have not been announced.
Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change, maintains that he won the presidency outright although independent observers say he fell just short of the votes needed to avoid a runoff.
Meanwhile, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission has been conducting a recount of 23 parliamentary seats from the March 29 elections.
LONDON, England (CNN) Scientists in the UK are seeking 150 women to eat chocolate every day for a year in the cause of medical research.
The trial, at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, eastern England, will test whether a natural compound found in cocoa, the main ingredient of chocolate, could cut the risk of heart disease among women with diabetes.
A Belgian confectionist has created the special chocolate bar containing high levels of flavonoids a plant compound that has been shown to reduce heart risk factors to be used in the experiment.
Soy, another natural source of flavonoids, has also been added to the bar.
Participants, who must be postmenopausal women under the age of 70, will have their risk of heart disease tested on five occasions during the year to see whether change occurs.
"The hypothesis of this exciting study is that flavonoids may improve the level of protection against heart disease over and above that provided by conventional drugs," said Dr. Ketan Dhatariya, a consultant in diabetes at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital.
"If the trial confirms this, it could have a far-reaching impact on the advice we give to postmenopausal women who have type 2 diabetes.
Deaths due to heart disease among women increase rapidly after the menopause.
For women who suffer from type 2 diabetes, the risk of heart disease is up to three and a half times higher.
Type 2 diabetes is caused when the body fails to produce enough insulin or produces insulin that doesn't work properly and is frequently linked with obesity.
"Despite postmenopausal women being at a similar risk to men for developing cardiovascular disease, to date they are under-represented in clinical trials," said Professor Aedin Cassidy, Professor of Diet and Health at UEA, who is heading the research.
"We hope to show that adding flavonoids to their diets will provide additional protection from heart disease and give women the opportunity to take more control over reducing their risk of heart disease in the future."
United Airlines and US Airways are in very advanced talks towards a merger and an announcement is expected within two weeks, according to a source familiar with the negotiations.
The source has asked not be named because the source has not been authorized by the airlines to discuss the talks.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=3128454
A tornado destroyed several homes and business in southeastern Virginia on Monday, possibly injuring dozens people, weather and city officials confirmed.
Video footage from the scene showed roofs torn off homes, cars flipped over, trees snapped in two and a caved-in section of a newly constructed shopping center.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=3128445
Though it looks like a space-aged android playing the harmonica, it's actually a device designed to protect you in a biological or chemical attack.
The so-called Oxygen Generating Mask creates its own oxygen from the carbon dioxide and moisture exhaled by the wearer.
It promises 15 to 30 minutes of breathing time with no clunky oxygen tank, and it sells for about $200.
The product was one of hundreds on display recently at a massive homeland security trade show where everything from mobile command centers, tiny surveillance cameras, robots and a soldier's helmet equipped with a video camera were on display.
Companies ranged from industry giants like Northrop Grumman to smaller ones like Oxy 911, the South Korean company that designed the oxygen mask.
Govsec 2008 provides a chance for companies to pitch their wares in an effort to secure some of the millions of dollars in government contracts.
"People come to the show to look at what types of products meet not only their homeland security goals, but all their security needs," says Kristina Tanasichuk, the director of Govsec, short for the Government Security Conference and Exposition.
Thousands of police, firefighters, homeland security experts and military officials weaved their way between 450 vendor booths.
SEOUL, South Korea (CNN) A North Korean soldier defected across the demilitarized zone and sought asylum in South Korea on Sunday, according to a South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman.
It was the first defection in 10 years of a commissioned North Korean military officer, according to Yonhap, an official South Korean news agency.
The 28-year-old second lieutenant walked across the heavily-fortified border at about 3 p.m. Sunday, a Defense Ministry spokesman said.
The soldier, identified by his surname Ri, told South Korean soldiers he wanted asylum, an unnamed South Korean military official told Yonhap.
"He is being questioned by the joint review committee of related offices, but I understand he has made it clear that he wishes to stay in the South," the official told Yonhap.
The Defense Ministry official told CNN that it was unusual for a commissioned officer to defect, although Yonhap reported that an enlisted member of the North's Korean People's Army crossed the border last year.
Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said the only way his party would lose the general election is if Democrats "lose to ourselves first" because they are not unified.
Dean said he agrees with Sen. Chris Dodd that if the party goes to the convention divided, they will hand the election to Sen. John McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee.
"I think if we go in divided we'll come out divided, and it'll be much harder to win," he said on CNN's American Morning.
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are in a neck-and-neck race for the Democratic nomination.
Neither candidate can capture the 2,025 delegates needed to secure the Democratic nomination with wins in the remaining Democratic contests, meaning the party's superdelegates will probably decide who gets the Democratic nomination.
Superdelegates are party leaders and officials who vote at the August convention for the candidate of their choice.
Dean said he doesn't have a problem with the superdelegates waiting to make their decision until after primary season ends on June 3, but he says sooner is better than later.
"There's no reason for folks not to make up their mind by the end of June as opposed to the end of August. And that would give us an extra two months to heal the party and to avoid having a really divisive convention," he said.
The Democrats next face off on May 6, when Indiana and North Carolina hold their contests.
Recent polls show Obama with a comfortable lead in North Carolina, but a tight race in Indiana.
She and Obama are now dead even at 47 percent among likely Democrats, according the newly released numbers from Gallup.
"I'm convinced that the wrong way to go is to turn over your lives to the government and hope it will all be fine," McCain told a group of supporters at Miami Children's Hospital.
"We must move away from a system that is fragmented and pays for expensive procedures toward one where a family has a medical home ... where the focus is on affordable quality outcomes."
McCain is expected to travel to Pennsylvania, Ohio, Colorado and Iowa this week as part of his "Call to Action tour."
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=3128436 BEIJING, China (CNN) Human error was to blame for China's worst train accident in more than a decade, China's official news agency reported.
Two passenger trains collided in eastern China's Shandong province Monday morning, killing at least 70 and injuring 420, the Xinhua said.
in Shandong Province at 4:43 a.m., the report said. Xinhua said the collision was the deadliest train accident in the country since 1997.
"It [the train] toppled 90 degrees to one side and then all the way to the other side," a passenger named Zhang was quoted in Xinhua. "When it finally went off the tracks, many people fell on me and hot water poured out of their thermos flasks.
Local villagers joined police officers and medical workers in the rescue effort, breaking train windows with farm tools to pull out stranded passengers, Xinhua said.
"We were still sleeping when the accident occurred," she said. "I suddenly woke up when I felt the train stopped with a jolt. In a minute or two it started again, but soon toppled.
Xinhua said investigators had ruled out terrorism as a cause of the crash.
Sen. John McCain on Monday rejected a "big government" takeover of the health care system, saying he wants to empower families to make more medical decisions.
"I've made it very clear that what I want is for families to make decisions about their health care, not government, and that's the fundamental difference between myself and Sen. Obama and Sen. Clinton," McCain told reporters in Miami, Florida, referring to the two remaining Democratic presidential candidates, Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
"They want the government to make the decisions, I want the families to make decisions," he said.
During a speech at the Miami Children's Hospital in Miami, Florida, McCain said he was ready to take on the "parochial interests" in health care and challenged doctors, hospitals, drug manufactures and insurance providers to do a better job of holding down costs.
"We must move away from a system that is fragmented and pays for expensive procedures, toward one where a family has a medical home, providers coordinate their efforts and take advantage of technology to do so cheaply, and where the focus is on affordable quality outcomes," McCain said during a speech at the Miami Children's Hospital in Miami, Florida. Watch McCain call for families to make decisions &raquo;
McCain said that health care in the U.S. was "too expensive" and called the more than $2 trillion the nation spends annually on health care "staggering.
"These costs are a threat to the ability of Americans to have health insurance, the gateway to better health care. These costs are a threat as well to the ability of American workers to build a better life," he said.
"Rising costs of health care and health insurance have squeezed the wages that workers earn and consumed the budgets of their families.
Rafael Nadal became the first player since 1914 to win four consecutive Monte Carlo titles with a straight-sets win over great rival Roger Federer.
"Winning four times here is unimaginable," said Nadal, who matches Anthony Wilding of New Zealand (1911-14) in claiming four successive titles here.
Federer had glimpses of success, not least in the second set when he established a 4-0 lead after breaking Nadal twice but his relative weakness on clay was exposed as his opponent rallied.
The first set was a close one with both men broken before Federer earned a second break when Nadal sent a long lob over the head of the Swiss and out of play.
That made the score 4-3 in Federer's favour on his serve but Nadal broke back.
A referendum attempting to save historic Tempelhof airport the Cold War-era hub of the Berlin Airlift failed on Sunday.
Preliminary results released by the Berlin state election authority showed the majority of the 530,231 ballots cast were in favor of keeping the airport open.
But they accounted for only 21.7 percent of the 2.4 million eligible voters, short of the 25 percent needed for the vote to count.
Tempelhof, built in 1923, has the capacity to accommodate 1.5 million passengers annually, but actual traffic in 2007 was 350,000 a tiny fraction of the 20 million who used Berlin's three airports last year.
The city government plans to close Tempelhof in October as part of plans for a large central airport southeast of the German capital.
The airport's backers have been appealing to Berliners' emotions to keep open Tempelhof, the hub of the Berlin Airlift where the Allies supplied the city with food and fuel from June 1948 to May 1949 during a Soviet blockade.
Oil prices have hit an all-time high near US$120 a barrel after a weekend refinery strike closed a pipeline system that delivers a third of Britain's North Sea oil to refineries in the U.K.
Light, sweet crude for June delivery rose to a record US$119.93 a barrel on Monday in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
The contract eased back to US$119.32 a barrel by midmorning in Singapore, up 80 cents from Friday's close of US$118.52.
BP PLC on Sunday shut down the pipeline that carries more than 700,000 barrels of oil a day because of a 48-hour walkout by employees at a refinery in central Scotland.
The shutdown comes amid other supply outages that have helped to support oil against a strengthening dollar.
BEIJING, China (CNN) A pre-dawn collision Monday between two passenger trains in eastern China killed at least 43 people and injured 247, a state news agency reported.
Witnesses said a train traveling from Beijing to the coastal city of Qingdao derailed and hit a second train at about 4:40 a.m., Xinhua News Agency said.
The crash happened in the city of Zibo in Shandong province. The second train had been traveling from Yantai to Xuzhou.
News photos showed the derailed train laying at the bottom of a ditch, with rescuers removing passengers from a carriage that had fallen onto its side.
Survivors with white sheets wrapped around their shoulders stood or sat near the wreckage.
The second train did not fall into the ditch, but a news photo showed one of its carriages resting perpendicular to the track.
The head of the Ministry of Railways, Liu Zhijun, was headed to the site to oversee rescue efforts, the Web site of the Shandong government said.
In January, 18 people died when a train hurtling through the night at more than 120 kilometers per hour (75 mph) slammed into a group of about 100 workers carrying out track maintenance near the city of Anqiu in Shandong province.
Xinhua said the latest accident had cut traffic on the Jinan-Qingdao railway, which links the provincial capital of Jinan with Qingdao.
MEXICO CITY, Mexico (CNN) A moderate earthquake of 5.8 magnitude struck southwestern Mexico on Sunday night, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Rafael Abreau of the USGS said there were no reports of damage from the earthquake, which was centered about 54.5 miles (87.7 kilometers) below ground, and about 100 miles (161 kilometers) south-southwest of Mexico City.
Abreau said the USGS had received reports that the earthquake had been felt in the country's capital.
Because of the depth of the earthquake, Abreau said, "we may see some minor damage.
"Yes, it scared us," Julio Lara, 38, a parking attendant in downtown Mexico City told The Associated Press. "It was strong.
The earthquake struck at 7:06 p.m. local time (8:
(CNN) Like most stories that end up with a man mowing his friend's lawn in a dress, it started out innocently enough.
As Klein continued to slim down, they made a bet:
Whoever could get down to 200 pounds first would be the winner, and the loser would have to mow the winner's yard in a dress.
Klein started building his man cave in Pasadena, Maryland, so he could have the bar of his dreams and a home theater.
He worked on his basement for more than a year and ended up losing 65 pounds in the process more than enough to win his bet with Harrell.
Klein said his friends wanted to talk about two things while he was building his man cave:
how his amazing bar was coming along and how they thought Harrell would lose the bet.
The bet was popular with everyone Klein and Harrell knew.
Their wives even started a dress committee, to make sure the loser was appropriately attired, and their kids delighted in the prospect of seeing Dad in a dress.
To lose weight, Klein said, Harrell played golf and cut out chips, while he adopted a balanced, calorie-restricted diet and spent at least six hours a day on the man cave, which took most of his free time.
Klein did all the electric wiring, worked on the framing and put three coats of paint on all the walls and ceilings.
He attributes his weight loss success to replacing TV-watching with hard work.
"I lost at least 10 pounds on the painting alone," he said. "My neck was sore for weeks.
At the height of summer, Klein's man cave was finished, and he decided it was time to step on the scales.
Harrell was 208 pounds, and Klein was 195.
At the party Klein threw to show off his new bar and theater, Harrell was ready.
With some help from the dress committee, Harrell became Klein's newly acquired, frock-sporting landscaper.
The wives had sewn two pink strapless dresses together to fit Harrell and then layered on accessories like a bow-topped headband and a corsage.
All decked out, Harrell graciously mowed Klein's front yard, with 80 people cheering him on.
Australia will begin withdrawing 200 troops from nearby East Timor on Sunday because security in the restive nation has improved since rebel soldiers wounded the president, the prime minister said.
Sunday's withdrawal will reduce Australia's troop commitment there to 750 the same level as before East Timor's President Jose Ramos-Horta was shot in February outside his home near the capital, Dili, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said in a statement Saturday.
"This drawdown in Australian forces reflects the improved security situation," Rudd said.
Ramos-Horta, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, nearly died in the Feb. 11 attack by mutinous soldiers.
East Timor's Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao escaped unharmed from an ambush of his motorcade the same day.
Most of the suspects in both attacks have been captured.
The president's guards killed rebel leader Alfredo Reinado.
With 750 troops, Australia will remain leader of a 900-strong international force that was invited by East Timor's government two years ago to restore order.
Dozens of people have been killed in clashes between government troops and mutinous soldiers in Dili, and more than 150,000 others were forced to flee their homes.
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Sunday that race is not the reason he is struggling to attract working-class votes and insisted he can win over uncommitted superdelegates by showing he is "best able to not just defeat John McCain, but also lead the country.
Speaking in a broadcast interview, Obama also brushed aside a challenge from Sen. Hillary Clinton to debate before the May 6 primaries in Indiana and North Carolina. "I'm not ducking. We've had 21" debates, he said.
Trailing in delegates and the popular vote, Clinton has been stepping up the pressure on Obama for more debates before the upcoming primaries, which are crucial to her candidacy.
She also has been reaching out to uncommitted Democratic superdelegates in hopes of capitalizing on her Pennsylvania primary victory.
Clinton's Pennsylvania victory was buoyed by support from working-class and white voters, but Obama dismissed the notion Sunday that race will be a factor in the presidential election.
"Is that going to be the determining factor in a general election?
Addressing whether superdelegates should back the candidate with the most pledged delegates and popular vote, Obama said he believed voters will be frustrated if Democratic superdelegates choose to back the trailing candidate.
He expressed confidence that he can convince superdelegates he is more electable.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) A female suicide car bomber attacked an Iraqi security forces checkpoint in eastern Baghdad on Sunday, killing at least three Iraqis and wounding 14, an Interior Ministry official said.
An Iraqi policeman and soldier were among those killed, the official added.
The suicide bomber detonated her taxi near Shaab Stadium, a mostly Shiite area in eastern Baghdad, the Interior Ministry said.
Suicide attacks by women are becoming more prevalent.
Two female bombers struck in Diyala province on Monday and Tuesday.
In March, a female suicide bomber, apparently targeting Shiite worshippers just before evening prayer services on a busy street, killed dozens in Karbala.
In a development related to the Sadr City violence, an adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki told CNN on Sunday that military assaults against militias in Baghdad will end if the militias meet certain conditions.
and keep out of the affairs of Iraqi security forces, government institutions and reconstruction projects.
"Al-Maliki's logic is for the government to do what it wants and the way it wants," said Sheikh Salah al-Obaidi, a top aide to al-Sadr.
(CNN) Beaches along the San Diego, California, coast will be closed Saturday after a 66-year-old man was fatally attacked by what authorities suspect was a great white shark.
Dave Martin, a retired veterinarian, was pronounced dead shortly after the incident, which occurred about 7 a.m. Friday (10 a.m. ET) at Solana Beach, California.
Martin was in a group of nine swimmers "when he was bitten across both thighs by what is believed to be a great white shark," according to a statement issued by the San Diego County Sheriff's Department.
"Some of the other swimmers looked back to see the victim up out of the water flailing, and (he) was pulled back under the
He came up screaming and was helped to shore by four of the swimmers.
Martin was taken to a nearby lifeguard station, and a medical helicopter was called in, but he apparently bled to death at the scene, the statement said.
The incident occurred in the Fletcher Cove area of Solana Beach near a popular surf spot known as Table Tops, one of the main access areas to Solana Beach, said Sheriff's Lt. Mike McClain.
A sheriff's helicopter was scanning the beaches for the shark, and nearby beaches were contacted, Solana Beach officials said in a statement posted on the city's Web site.
Swimmers were ordered out of the water, and a 72-hour swimming advisory was posted for an 8-mile stretch of beach, said Capt. Craig Miller of the city's marine safety department.
The beaches remain closed and will be patrolled throughout the weekend, city and county officials told The Associated Press.
Hundreds of workers at Scotland's only oil refinery began a 48-hour strike on Sunday, forcing BP to shut a pipeline system that delivers almost a third of Britain's North Sea oil.
BP said it had completed the closure of the Forties Pipeline System by 6 a.m. (0500 GMT), when 1,200 workers at the Grangemouth refinery in central Scotland walked off the job.
The pipeline brings in 700,000 barrels of oil a day from the North Sea to BP's Kinneil plant, which is powered from the Grangemouth site.
50 million ($99 million) a day in lost production.
The government urged motorists not to hoard fuel, saying there would be enough to go around.
It wants to avoid a repeat of scenes in 2000 when motorists were forced to line up at gas stations as truckers angry at heavily taxed fuel brought Britain to a standstill by blockading refineries.
20 ($40) per visit Saturday, and lines of cars formed beside some pumps.
A number of stations reported they had run out of gas and diesel.
KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) Taliban militants opened fire at a military ceremony in the capital Sunday morning.
A lawmaker, tribal leader and 10-year-old child were killed, but President Hamid Karzai escaped unhurt, according to an official and a statement from Karzai's office.
The attack also wounded more than 12 people, including a member of parliament, a Health Ministry official said.
The attack occurred at a Mujahedeen Victory Day ceremony, observing the 16th anniversary of Afghanistan mujahedeen fighters' overthrow of President Mohammad Najibullah's Soviet-backed regime.
Small arms fire erupted as a military band played the Afghan national anthem and as soldiers fired a 21-gun salute with artillery rounds.
The people standing did not react for several seconds, but security guards shielded Karzai and whisked him away from the reviewing stand.
Other dignitaries quickly scrambled to safety.
Karzai appeared on state-run television fewer than two hours later and called on citizens to remain calm.
The Health Ministry official said lawmaker Fazel Rahman Samkanai died from injuries sustained in the attack.
A presidential statement said Nasir Ahmad Latifi, a council head of the Qezelbashan ethnic group, and a 10-year-old child were killed.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mojahed issued a statement, claiming responsibility.
When the national anthem started they started the attack. Three were killed and three have survived," the statement said.
A diplomatic source said a mortar round landed near the stand.
Among those who had to leave was a wedding party of about 50 people stuck in the area overnight.
City spokeswoman Elisa Weaser said the group was being guided to a safe route out.
There were no injuries reported and no homes destroyed in the fire, but as it spread, some homes were threatened, causing the mandatory evacuation orders for about 400 houses. City Manager Elaine Aguilar said a gardening shed was destroyed.
When it comes to campaign commercials, Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are going where no candidate has gone before.
Barack Obama's already approaching $70 million.
Obama outspent Clinton on ad buys in Pennsylvania by slightly more than 2-to-1, and Tracey says Obama is outspending his rival for the Democratic presidential nomination by about the same ratio in Indiana and North Carolina, which hold primaries May 6.
Clinton "has been able to dictate the tempo in the last few contests, be that Texas, Ohio and then Pennsylvania," Tracey said. "What she has to continue to do is dictate the tempo of this race with her TV ads.
Obama fundraising machine has built an advantage in money to buy ads, but Clinton's win in Pennsylvania could help close the gap.
"Hillary Clinton's victory in Pennsylvania was extremely important. It has given her that boost in momentum that she needs going into Indiana and North Carolina, and it has helped her fundraising tremendously at a time when she's at a severe disadvantage to Barack Obama," CNN Political Editor Mark Preston said.
Republican Sen. John McCain has spent just less than $10 million on ads.
He has the luxury of already having sewn up his party's nomination while the Democrats continue to battle.
The woman, identified as 42-year-old Elisabeth F., has been missing since 1984 when she was 18 years old, police said at a news conference.
(CNN) North Korea prepared to host the international torch relay for the first time ever Monday, a day after scuffles marred the relay in South Korea's capital of Seoul.
On Sunday, the torch completed the 17th leg of its protest-plagued global relay in Seoul with Chinese students vastly outnumbering demonstrators.
A man doused himself with gasoline and tried to set himself on fire but was stopped by police.
Scuffles broke out several times along the route in Seoul between demonstrators and Chinese students waving their country's red flag.
At least 8,000 riot police were deployed to guard the 15-mile (24 kilometer) route, which started at Olympic Park, built when Seoul hosted the Summer Games in 1988, and winds down at City Hall in central Seoul.
"They will try their best to prevent any kind of intervention," said Gi Hyung Keum, spokesman for the South Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.
An hour before the start of the relay, thousands of Chinese students thronged the park plaza, singing songs and chanting "One China, One World" slogans.
About 30,000 Chinese students study in South Korea.
In other recent Asian legs of the relay, a large number of Chinese students have attended.
In Bangkok, Thailand, students told CNN the Chinese Embassy there provided their transportation and gave them shirts to wear.
As in several past stops, demonstrators protesting China's policy toward Tibet turned out at the rally.
They were joined by other demonstrators critical of how China forcefully deports North Korean refugees back to their impoverished country when they escape into China.
Under the North Korean penal code, leaving the country without state permission can be considered an act of treason, punishable by heavy penalties including imprisonment and forced labor, said Kay Seok of Seoul's Human Rights Watch.
"And depending on the result of the interrogation, they will be sent to labor camps for a few months or to prison for a few years.
A minivan carrying five armed men exploded near an Iraqi Army checkpoint in northern Baghdad Friday afternoon, wounding three soldiers and killing the men in the car, an Interior Ministry official told CNN.
The official said the soldiers gestured to the vehicle to stop, but the men began firing guns instead.
When the soldiers fired back, the minivan exploded, the official said.
During his two months in power, Cuban President Raul Castro has implemented a series of changes affecting life in Cuba in a variety of ways.
The 81-year-old charismatic leader handed off the power to his 76-year-old brother in February after having been in poor health since July 2006.
Raul has moved quickly.
And the government is studying a proposal that would allow Cubans to travel abroad without first seeking permission.
Heavy security flanked torchbearer Senichi Hoshino, manager of the Japanese national baseball team, as he started the relay in Nagano home of the 1998 Winter Olympic Games.
Police officers quickly tackled the man, dragging him away before arresting him.
The original starting point of the Nagano relay, the city's famed Zenkoji Temple, declined to participate because of China's crackdown on Buddhist monks in Tibet, forcing officials to move the start of the relay.
The torch ends its round-the-world jaunt in August in Beijing.
The "Transformers" co-star tops FHM's annual 100 Sexiest Women in the World poll of FHM readers.
The 21-year-old model-actress beat out the likes of Angelina Jolie (No. 12), Rihanna (No. 14), Kim Kardashian (No. 17), Paris Hilton (No. 77) and last year's champion, Jessica Alba (No. 3).
Fox debuted on the annual list in 2006 at No. 68 and ranked at No. 65 in 2007.
Joining her in the top 10 this year are in descending order Jessica Biel, Alba, Elisha Cuthbert, Scarlett Johansson, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Hilary Duff, Tricia Helfer, Blake Lively and Kate Beckinsale.
Britney Spears came in at No. 100.
Current "Dancing with the Stars" contestant Shannon Elizabeth (No. 46) returned to the ranking after being absent last year, joining professional dancers Cheryl Burke (No. 40) and Karina Smirnoff (No. 78).
FHM said nearly 9 million votes were cast for the 14th edition of the annual poll.
TOKYO, Japan (CNN) A 14-year-old Japanese girl killed herself by mixing laundry detergent with cleanser, releasing fumes that also sickened 90 people in her apartment house, police said Thursday as they grappled with a spate of similar suicides.
None of the sickened neighbors in Konan, southern Japan, was severely ill, although about 10 were hospitalized, authorities said.
The deadly hydrogen sulfide gas escaped from the girl's bathroom window and entered neighboring apartments.
The girl's suicide Wednesday night was part of an expanding string of similar deaths that experts say have been encouraged by Internet suicide sites since last summer.
A 31-year-old man outside Tokyo killed himself inside a car early Thursday by mixing detergent and bath salts, police said.
A local police spokesman refused to give further details, but Kyodo News agency reported that the man put a sign reading "Stay Away" on the car window.
At a business hotel in Shiga prefecture in western Japan, a man in his 30s was found dead Thursday morning by employees who noticed a strange smell coming from his room, according to national broadcaster NHK.
Shiga police said officials are investigating the incident as a case of suicide by hydrogen sulfide gas but could not elaborate.
According to Kyodo, there was toilet cleaner and bath powder nearby, along with a sign outside that read, "Poisonous gas being emitted.
Nagoya police said they could not comment on the case, but Kyodo said that fire officials called to the scene did not detect hydrogen sulfide gas.
The method has alarmed officials because of the danger that bystanders can be hurt.
"It's easy, and everyone can do it," said Yasuaki Shimizu, director of Lifelink, a Tokyo-based group specializing in halting suicides. "Also, there is a lot of information teaching people how to do it on the Internet.
Police say they have not tallied the number of detergent-related suicides, but media reports suggest that it has reached about 30 this year, including several cases in which others were also sickened.
She mixed detergent with a liquid cleanser in her bathroom, police said.
The door was closed, and she had affixed a sign on the outside warning, "Gas being emitted," Kyodo reported.
Most of those sickened nearby complained of sore throats, and about 30 people were evacuated to a nearby gymnasium.
Hydrogen sulfide gas is colorless and characterized by an odor similar to that of rotten eggs.
When inhaled, it can lead to suffocation or brain damage.
The U.S. military in Japan has charged a Marine with rape and other violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice in the alleged sexual assault of 14-year old girl in Okinawa.
In February, Japanese authorities released Hadnott after the girl dropped the allegations against him, but the Marine Corps conducted its own investigation to see if Hadnott violated codes of military justice.
The rape accusation against Hadnott stirred memories of a brutal rape more than a decade ago and triggered outrage across Japan.
Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda deplored as "unforgivable" the allegations against Hadnott.
The U.S. military in Japan also formed a sexual assault prevention task force after the incident.
More than 40,000 U.S. troops are stationed in Japan, most of them on Okinawa.
Anti-American sentiments boiled over in 1995 after three American servicemen kidnapped and gang-raped a 12-year-old Okinawan schoolgirl.
North Korea says progress was made during a visit this week by a U.S. delegation meant to resolve stalled talks on its nuclear program.
The North's Foreign Ministry said Thursday that it discussed technical matters with the U.S. officials about its promised declaration of its nuclear program.
The North says the negotiations were "sincere and constructive" and that "progress was made there."
It gave no further details about results of the talks. The U.S. delegation arrived in Seoul earlier Thursday, but the Americans have not yet commented publicly on the trip.
(CNN) If you were a zebra, how would you spend your days?
Daniel Rubenstein, director of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University, has been pursuing this question for years.
He and collaborators spend their summers in Kenya trying to figure out how endangered zebras form social networks, avoid predators, and interact with the livestock and herders in the area.
ZebraNet, a collaborative project that Rubenstein co-founded with Princeton engineering professor Margaret Martonosi, studies zebra behavior through data from GPS locators on collars around zebras' necks.
Just like the positioning systems in cars, the collars collect information about the whereabouts of the zebras, as well as their velocities and turning angles.
The team is particularly interested in the Grevy's zebra, an endangered species whose numbers have dropped to only about 2,000.
Data from the GPS collars have given Rubenstein and associates an unprecedented view of how Grevy's zebras balance the opportunities for acquiring food and water with the risks of being killed by lions.
The ability to gather data about nocturnal animals has always been limited, but with GPS collars recording data every eight minutes, the researchers learned a lot about zebra behavior at night.
The team, which includes several graduate students, found that zebras graze in the open plains during the day, moving slowly in straight lines, while lions rest under trees in wooded areas.
"They're like grass vacuum cleaners, chip-clipping away at the vegetation as they move," Rubenstein said of the zebras.
, the lions leave the woodlands to go hunting in the plains, and the zebras move into the woodlands, moving deliberately and quietly.
They spend about 60 percent of the night in the woodlands, and the rest of the time in the plains, moving quickly and erratically while the lions hunt there.
"By using this remote sensing ability, we've been able to show the zebras change behavior markedly when they use the plains at night to minimize the risk of being preyed upon by lions," Rubenstein said.
Injured Alex Rodriguez rejoined the New York Yankees, but was not in the starting lineup for Thursday night's game against the Chicago White Sox.
The All-Star third baseman has not played since leaving Sunday's game in Baltimore because of a strained right quadriceps.
He got treatment in New York on Monday, then went to Miami to join his wife, who gave birth to the couple's second daughter.
He passed out cigars Thursday in the clubhouse to celebrate.
"Leg's good. I got treatment the last several days at the University of Miami," Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez said he hoped to return to the lineup Friday night for the start of a three-game series in Cleveland against the Indians, the team that beat the Yankees in the AL playoffs last fall.
"Since the injury I have not run," Rodriguez said.
S&Atilde; O PAULO, Brazil (CNN) Brazil's Air Force has suspended its search for a Roman Catholic priest who vanished after sailing into the air attached to hundreds of balloons. The cleric's family chartered a private plane to continue the hunt.
The Rev. Adelir Antonio de Carli has been missing since Sunday, when he lifted off from the port city of Paranagua strapped to 1,000 balloons.
Denise Gallas, the treasurer of de Carli's parish, said Thursday that the priest's family chartered a twin-engine plane.
The cleric's former flight teacher called his disappearance a "tragedy foretold.
Paragliding instructor Marcio Andre Lichtnow, who gave courses to the Rev. Adelir Antonio de Carli three years ago, described him as a "headstrong, anxious individual who was always in a rush.
"After two or three months, I asked him to abandon the course because of these personality traits, which are not the ideal profile for a paraglider," Lichtnow said. "So what happened comes as no big surprise.
The 41-year-old priest lifted off wearing a helmet, an aluminum thermal flight suit, waterproof coveralls and a parachute.
But less than an hour in, de Carli told his support crew by satellite phone that he would not be able to complete the planned flight to the city of Dourados, 465 miles (750 kilometers) away, according to team member Jose Carlos Bom.
"He told us he was beginning to descend over the ocean but never said he was about to crash into the water," Bom said. "There was never any panic in his voice.
For the next eight hours, until his phone went dead, de Carli maintained contact with the team, using a GPS device to report his position as he descended.
Human beings may have had a brush with extinction 70,000 years ago, an extensive genetic study suggests.
The human population at that time was reduced to small isolated groups in Africa, apparently because of drought, according to an analysis released Thursday.
The report notes that a separate study by researchers at Stanford University estimated that the number of early humans may have shrunk as low as 2,000 before numbers began to expand again in the early Stone Age.
"This study illustrates the extraordinary power of genetics to reveal insights into some of the key events in our species' history," said Spencer Wells, National Geographic Society explorer in residence.
"Tiny bands of early humans, forced apart by harsh environmental conditions, coming back from the brink to reunite and populate the world. Truly an epic drama, written in our DNA.
Wells is director of the Genographic Project, launched in 2005 to study anthropology using genetics. The report was published in the American Journal of Human Genetics.
Studies using mitochondrial DNA, which is passed down through mothers, have traced modern humans to a single "mitochondrial Eve," who lived in Africa about 200,000 years ago.
The migrations of humans out of Africa to populate the rest of the world appear to have begun about 60,000 years ago, but little has been known about humans between Eve and that dispersal.
Eastern Africa experienced a series of severe droughts between 135,000 and 90,000 years ago, and researchers said this climatological shift may have contributed to the population changes, dividing into small, isolated groups that developed independently.
Today, more than 6.6 billion people inhabit the globe, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
MILAN, Italy (CNN) A stuntman was seriously injured in a car crash while filming an action sequence for the new James Bond movie on a famously winding lakeside road in northern Italy, a local official said Thursday.
The London-based production company for "Quantum of Solace" said that an experienced stunt driver of an Alfa Romeo car remained hospitalized in serious condition following the accident Wednesday.
A second stunt driver in the same car also was injured, but less seriously.
It noted that neither director Marc Forster, Daniel Craig nor any other cast members were at the location when the accident occurred.
The identities of the stunt drivers were not released.
A spokesman for the town of Limone sul Garda, where crew have been filming for the past two weeks, said the Alfa Romeo crashed into a wall during a chase sequence involving a truck and Bond's Aston Martin along the Gardesana, a curvy, two-lane lakeside road with gorgeous panoramas and many tunnels.
A helicopter on standby during the filming flew the seriously injured stunt driver to Verona, where he underwent surgery, said town spokesman Marco Girardi, who also was acting as a liaison to the production company.
He said the driver suffered serious head injuries.
He said that the filming was scheduled to wrap up Wednesday, and that they were in the final hours when the accident occurred.
The accident was the second on the Bond set in four days, after an Aston Martin being delivered to the set skidded off the road in heavy rain and landed in Lake Garda on Saturday.
No one was injured and the car was later fished from the lake.
On Thursday, the production company was packing up equipment, including cars, to close the set.
Chinese stocks soared Thursday after the government cut a tax on stock transactions in a move widely seen as an effort to boost slumping markets.
The rebound came as many global markets are recovering modestly after being battered since the start of the year amid worries about the U.S. credit crisis and slower global growth.
The jump came after the government announced late Wednesday that it was cutting a stamp tax on share transactions to 0.1 percent from 0.3 percent.
The communist Beijing government keeps its markets isolated from global money flows, and most shares are off-limits to foreign buyers.
But investors are watching them closely for signs of a possible recovery, and markets abroad often react to swings in Chinese prices.
The latest tax measure took effect Thursday, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.
Chinese stock prices have fallen sharply since October, ending a boom that began in mid-2006.
WASHINGTON (CNN) After meeting Thursday at the White House, President Bush and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas expressed hope that peace can be achieved in the Middle East before Bush's term ends in January.
"I assured the president that a Palestinian state is a high priority for me and my administration," Bush told reporters as Abbas looked on. "A viable state, a state that doesn't look like Swiss cheese, a state that provides hope.
Bush lauded Abbas as a man who "rejects the idea of using violence to achieve objectives, which distinguishes him from other people in the region.
That remark was an apparent reference to leaders of Hamas, which won a majority of seats in the Palestinian legislature in 2006.
The State Department considers Hamas to be a terrorist organization, and U.S. officials have refused to hold direct talks with it.
"I am confident we can achieve the definition of a state," Bush said.
I also believe strongly that when history looks back on this moment and a state is defined, that the Palestinian people will thank you for your leadership.
For his part, Abbas thanked Bush for the peace initiative he launched at a conference last November in Annapolis, Maryland, where Israeli, Palestinian and U.S. participants agreed to a two-state solution as a goal.
"We believe that you actually are truly seeking a true, genuine and lasting peace in the Middle East, and I am certain that you would like to see an agreement and settlement before the end of your term," he said.
He added, "We are doing everything we can in order to seriously negotiate and reach a peace that would be satisfactory to both the Palestinian side and the Israeli side, a peace that would be promoted throughout the world . "
A covert nuclear reactor destroyed last year in Syria would have been capable of producing plutonium and likely was "not intended for peaceful purposes," the White House said Thursday.
A senior U.S. official told CNN Thursday that the reactor was weeks or months away from being functional when it was bombed by Israel in September.
A White House statement said North Korea may have assisted Syria's nuclear activities.
"We have long been seriously concerned about North Korea's nuclear weapons program and its proliferation activities," the statement said. "North Korea's clandestine nuclear cooperation with Syria is a dangerous manifestation of those activities.
A working reactor would make Syria the first Arab nation with nuclear capability and potentially put nuclear weapons in the hands of a regime the United States accuses of committing human rights abuses and supporting international terror groups.
The nation's most senior intelligence officials briefed key lawmakers Thursday on Israel's bombing of the facility.
Asked why former weapons inspector David Albright and other experts have said Syria was not close to getting the reactor functional, the U.S. official said such comments are coming from people who are "only half-read-in on" the intelligence.
The president's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, CIA Director Michael Hayden and Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell told congressional committees what the administration knows about
MIAMI, Florida (CNN) Florida drivers can order more than 100 specialty license plates celebrating everything from manatees to the Miami Heat, but one now under consideration would be the first in the nation to explicitly promote a specific religion.
The Florida Legislature is considering a specialty plate with a design that includes a Christian cross, a stained-glass window and the words "I Believe.
Edward Bullard, the plate's sponsor, said people who "believe in their college or university" or "believe in their football team" already have license plates they can buy.
The new design is a chance for others to put a tag on their cars with "something they believe in," he said.
If the plate is approved, Florida would become the first state to have a license plate featuring a religious symbol that's not part of a college logo.
The problem with the state manufacturing the plate is that it "sends a message that Florida is essentially a Christian state" and, second, gives the "appearance that the state is endorsing a particular religious preference," said Howard Simon, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida.
The "I Believe" license plate still has a way to go before it reaches the roads.
The proposal is part of a package of license plates being debated in the Senate and ready for a floor vote.
In the House, the bill that would authorize the plate has passed one committee 8-2.
Some lawmakers say the state should be careful.
Kelly Skidmore said she is a Roman Catholic and goes to Mass on Sundays, but she believes the "I Believe" plate is inappropriate for the government to produce.
I don't want to see a Torah next. None of that stuff is appropriate to me," said Skidmore, a Democrat who voted against the plate in committee.
Florida's specialty license plates require the payment of additional fees, some of which go to causes the plates endorse.
Sen. John McCain blasted the Bush administration and all levels of government Thursday for the failed response to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.
"We know we didn't have the right kind of leadership ... where government agencies were getting information from watching cable television rather than have a flow of information," McCain said during an event at Xavier University in New Orleans.
"It was not only a perfect storm as far as its physical impact ... it was a perfect storm as far as the federal, state and local governments' inability.
"Never again will there be a mismanaged natural disaster," he said, later assuring the crowd that "it will never happen again in this country; you have my commitment and my promise.
McCain was in New Orleans on the fourth day of a tour through some economically struggling Democratic states, trying to convince voters that he's not the typical Republican.
and Inez, Kentucky.
The Arizona senator toured New Orleans' 9th Ward, the neighborhood hit hardest by Hurricane Katrina, and discussed the tough times ahead for the poverty-stricken area.
"Americans have not forgotten New Orleans."
Actor Wesley Snipes was sentenced Thursday to three years in prison after being convicted on three misdemeanor counts of failing to file tax returns &#8212;
A U.S. envoy said Thursday that the opposition leader in Zimbabwe beat President Robert Mugabe in that nation¡¯s recent presidential election.
Jendayi Frazer, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for Africa, told CNN Thursday that she believes Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai beat Mugabe in the March 29 election.
The results of the election have not been announced and a recount is under way.
(CNN) The overnight long-haul doesn't have to be a killer. Follow some simple steps to survive the red-eye flight.
1.The right seat
Window seats are best for catching some sleep, as there is something to lean against.
You also don't risk being woken by a neighbor clambering past to get to the toilet.
Seats at the front of the plane are the quietest.
The worst seats are on the back row, as often they don't recline.
Some seats on exit rows also do not recline and here bags must be stowed in lockers which means you'll have to keep getting up to get at belongings.
Sleep-inducing goodies to pack in the carry-on bag include ear plugs, comfy socks, and noise-canceling ear phones.
Travel pillows may be awkward to carry, but they are proven at improving sleep by supporting the head.
An eye mask can also minimize interference from a neighbor's light and video screen.
3.Perfect timing
Try to resist the urge to nap.
The idea is to acclimatize to the new time zone as quickly as possible.
So if you arrive in the morning, try to push through to bed time.
But don't over-do it the day after.
A big night out is not the best idea, but early morning meetings could help you hit the ground running.
Skip coffee in the airport and especially when the trolley comes round during the flight.
Set your alarm to wake up half an hour before the plane touches down.
This will provide enough time to use the bathroom, gather possessions and acclimatize to the new day.
Computer and consumer electronics giant Apple announced fiscal second-quarter sales and profits on Wednesday that beat Wall Street's expectations thanks to a 51% increase in Macintosh sales.
But the stock dipped slightly after-hours as Apple gave sales and earnings guidance for its third-quarter that may have disappointed investors.
Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) posted net income of $1.05 billion, or $1.16 per share, up 36% from a year ago and beating analysts' forecasts of $1.07 per share.
Sales topped $7.51 billion, up 43% from the same quarter a year ago.
Analysts polled by Thomson Financial were expecting revenue of $6.96 billion.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs boasted about the company's strong results.
"With over $17 billion in revenue for the first half of our fiscal year, we have strong momentum to launch some terrific new products in the coming quarters," Jobs said in a statement.
Shares of Apple surged more than 4% initially after-hours but then slipped as much as 4%.
That followed a 1.7% gain in regular trading.
The pullback could be due to Apple's forecast for its fiscal third-quarter.
The company said that it expects sales of $7.16 billion, roughly in line with consensus estimates of $7.2 billion.
But it also said it expects earnings of about $1.00 per share, significantly below expectations of $1.10 per share.
Cristiano Ronaldo missed an early penalty as Manchester United earned a 0-0 draw in the first leg of the Champions League semifinal at Barcelona's Nou Camp stadium on Wednesday night.
The 23-year-old hit the stanchion high outside goalkeeper Victor Valdes' left-hand post in the third minute after Gabriel Milito handled his header from a Paul Scholes corner.
It was United's best chance in a game dominated by the home side, who had the best of possession with some silky moves but failed to find the killer pass in the final third of the pitch.
goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar made a string of saves, especially in the second half, but was not often seriously tested.
Barcelona were boosted by the return of Argentina forward Lionel Messi, who started alongside Samuel Eto'o up front, with Thierry Henry on the bench after also being cleared following an illness.
Barcelona continued to press until the final whistle, but still could not create a clear-cut opportunity.
WASHINGTON (CNN) An animal rights group is offering $1 million to any scientist who can create lab-grown meat that is commercially viable and indistinguishable in taste from the real thing.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) said the money would go to the first scientist who could create and market such a meat by the summer of 2012.
The group said the scientist had to be able to produce the meat in large enough quantity so it could be sold in 10 U.S. states at a price competitive to the prevailing chicken price.
Further, the meat had to have "taste and texture indistinguishable from real chicken flesh to non-meat eaters and meat eaters alike."
A taste-test panel would determine if the lab-produced meat fitted the criteria.
The group said research had already begun to produce in vitro meat that is, meat created from animal stem cells placed in a medium to grow
"We're still several years away from having in vitro meat be available to the general public.
PETA said it was supporting the endeavor because more than 40 billion chicken, fish, pigs and cows were killed every year for food in the United States in "horrific ways.
"Chickens are drugged to grow so large they often become crippled, mother pigs are confined to metal cages so small they can't move, and fish are hacked apart while still conscious all to feed America's meat addiction," it said. "In vitro meat would spare animals from this suffering.
Kathmandu, Nepal (CNN) A U.S. citizen holding a "Free Tibet" banner has been turned back from the slopes of Mount Everest, a Nepalese army officer said.
The incident comes as authorities in Nepal tighten security on Mount Everest in advance of the scheduled arrival of the Olympic torch in early May.
An international torch relay has been dogged by pro-Tibet protesters in several cities around the world.
The Olympic flame arrived in Australia on Wednesday morning after a relatively incident-free run in Indonesia.
The U.S. citizen was turned back Monday, the army officer told CNN on condition of anonymity.
Organizers plan to take the Olympic torch to the summit of Everest in early to mid May.
Nepal has about 25 security personnel on the mountain, including 15 soldiers trained in mountain warfare, the army officer said.
Security forces on the mountain have permission to shoot mountaineers engaged in anti-Chinese activities, according to a Home Ministry official.
BERLIN, Germany (CNN) A German warship was involved in fending off Monday's pirate attack on a Japanese tanker near the coast of Somalia, a spokesman for the German armed forces said Wednesday.
The German warship Emden was in the area Monday when it received a distress call from the tanker Takayama, said Frigate Captain Roland Vogler-Wander, a spokesman for the German armed forces in Potsdam, Germany.
The distress signal from the Takayama was "Tanker is being threatened by boat with weapons and being fired upon," Vogler-Wander said.
He said the Emden was 50 nautical miles away at the time and immediately set a course for the Japanese ship at full speed.
The tanker's owner said no one on board suffered injuries in the attack , which Yemen's state news agency, Saba, blamed on Somali pirates.
The 150,000-ton Japanese tanker was 440 kilometers east of the Yemeni port of Aden en route to Saudi Arabia when the attack took place, according to a statement from the owner, Nippon Yusen K.K.
Piracy has been rampant in the waters off Somalia for years, and Monday's attack followed several recent incidents of piracy in the same area.
Pirates seized the crew of a luxury French yacht off the coast of Somalia on April 4.
The crew members were later released after the pirates received a ransom for them.
WASHINGTON (CNN) Workers in Southeast Asia's shrimp industry suffer regular abuse and sometimes live in what amounts to virtual slavery, a human-rights organization said Wednesday.
Sexual and physical abuse, debt bondage, child labor and unsafe working conditions are common in Thailand and Bangladesh's shrimp processing factories, the Solidarity Center said in a 40-page report.
The Solidarity Center describes itself as "an international nonprofit allied organization of the AFL-CIO established to provide assistance to workers around the world.
Workers told Thai police who raided one factory in September 2006 "that if they made a mistake on the shrimp peeling line, asked for sick leave, or tried to escape, they could expect to be beaten, sexually molested, or publicly tortured," according to the report.
"Behind the walls, the police found a scene that one report described as 'little short of medieval,' with hundreds of workers literally trapped inside the compound, living in squalid conditions, forced to work long hours, and subjected to physical, emotional, and sexual intimidation and abuse.
Women and girls were stripped naked and publicly beaten as a form of discipline.
The report says the owner of the factory, who was charged with some offenses, received little in the way of punishment.
"Despite widespread worker rights abuses, including child labor and human trafficking, the owner was charged only with employing children under 15 and failing to provide holidays and time off. Though these charges are serious, they were treated as first-time labor code violations.
The owner initially only paid a fine of about $2,100 and has returned to work.
" The report, "The Degradation of Work:
The True Cost of Shrimp," also contains information from interviews with workers in Thailand and Bangladesh.
"They additionally alleged that they had unexplained deductions from their pay, that they worked without a written contract, and that native Thais and migrant workers were segregated by the use of colorcoded uniforms.
The 13-year-old son of Tom Cruise is following in his father's footsteps.
Connor Cruise, the adopted son of Tom Cruise and ex-wife Nicole Kidman, has a minor, non-speaking part in the upcoming Will Smith drama "Seven Pounds," a spokesman for Columbia Pictures confirmed Tuesday.
Connor Cruise shot his part over two days more than a month ago, playing Smith as a young man and mostly shown in photographs.
The movie, which is still in production, co-stars Rosario Dawson and is directed by "The Pursuit of Happyness" filmmaker Gabriele Muccino.
The drama follows the story of a man who affects the lives of seven strangers.
Cruise and Kidman also have an adopted daughter, 15-year-old Isabella.
Kidman is pregnant with her first child with hubby singer Keith Urban.
LONDON, England (CNN) Women can influence the gender of their child with what they eat before they conceive, according to new research that lends scientific support to age-old superstitions about pregnancy.
The discovery shows higher calorie intake prior to conception can significantly increase the chances of having a son while women on restricted diets are more likely to produce daughters.
Scientists at Britain's Oxford and Exeter Universities, who studied eating habits of 740 women during their first-time pregnancies, say that their findings seem to back certain traditional links between diet and gender while disproving others.
"We were able to confirm the old wives' tale that eating bananas and so having a high potassium intake was associated with having a boy, as was
a high sodium intake," research leader Fiona Mathews, a specialist in mammalian biology at Exeter University, told the Guardian newspaper.
In fact, more calcium meant they were again more likely to have a boy.
Mathews said the study pointed to a simple technique to influencing the chances of a male birth:
Shortly after the recent election in Zimbabwe, one farmer there told CNN that 10 of his workers were ambushed by militiamen and severely beaten.
The farmers did not vote for Mugabe, they say.
Mugabe representatives have denied that any retaliatory attacks have been going on in the wake of the March 29 presidential and parliamentary election.
No results have been announced in the election; a vote recount is under way.
The delay, now almost four weeks long, has sparked local and international concern that Mugabe is trying to rig the election.
Despite denials from the government, three farmers told CNN on Wednesday that Zimbabwean farmers and their paid workers are continually being targeted in retaliation for not voting for Mugabe.
Stories such as these have brought an international response.
Human Rights Watch released a statement Saturday about the attacks saying that supporters of Mugabe's ZANU-PF party are targeting backers of the opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change.
"Torture and violence are surging in Zimbabwe," said Georgette Gagnon, Africa director for Human Rights Watch. "ZANU-PF members are setting up torture camps to systematically target, beat, and torture people suspected of having voted for the MDC in last month's elections.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Wednesday urged the international community to speak out.
More than 100 Sri Lankan soldiers were killed and another 400 wounded Wednesday when troops attempted to advance toward a stronghold of the Tamil Tigers rebel organization, highly placed army sources told CNN.
The incident happened before dawn, when troops manning a defense line in the northern Sri Lanka village of Muhamalai attempted to advance toward the rebel stronghold of Kilinochchi in the northern Wanni region, the sources said.
The village is on a thin isthmus linking mainland Sri Lanka to the Jaffna peninsula.
Troops made an attempt to open a third front in the Wanni region by advancing south, Army officials said.
Their ultimate aim was to reach Kilinochchi the power center of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil, better known as the Tamil Tigers.
"The rebels feigned they had withdrawn from their first line of defenses in well-dug-out trenches," one official said. "After the troops backed by battle tanks reached the area, the rebels sprung a fierce attack.
The incident deals a setback to military efforts to weaken the Tamil Tigers.
Government leaders and military commanders vowed early this year to "eliminate" the rebels by the end of the year, but later extended the deadline into 2009.
Until Wednesday, the heavy fighting had remained focused in the western coastal town of Mannar and the northeastern coastal area of Weli Oya.
The race for the Democratic Party U.S. presidential nomination has taken a fresh turn after Hillary Clinton re-ignited her White House bid with a decisive win over frontrunner Barack Obama in Pennsylvania.
She won the state by 10 percentage points, but is still trailing in the national race to become the Democratic candidate to run against presumptive Republican candidate John McCain.
"I won that double-digit victory that everybody on TV said I had to win, and the voters of Pennsylvania clearly made their views known that they think I would be the best president and the better candidate to go against Sen. McCain", she told CNN.
"Voters got to look at both of us, consider both of us. I was outspent three to one, and the results were just enormously exciting and gratifying to me," she added.
A loss in Tuesday's primary a voting process that selects delegates for a national convention later in the year where the candidate for November's presidential elections will be formally chosen could have spelled an end to Clinton's campaign.
Nationwide, Obama is currently ahead in the race.
And unless "the wheels come off his wagon," he was likely to hold that lead, said David Gergen, a former adviser to both Republican and Democratic candidates.
According to CNN's latest count, Obama leads in the delegate count 1,694 to Clinton's 1,556.
WASHINGTON (CNN) U.S. intelligence officials will tell members of Congress on Thursday that North Korea was helping Syria build a nuclear facility, according to a source familiar with internal administration discussions.
The facility in question was bombed by Israeli planes in September.
The United States and Israel have refused to comment on what the target of the strike was.
Thursday's briefings to intelligence, foreign relations and armed services committees in both chambers of Congress are intended to show that the building hit was a North Korean-designed reactor being built with assistance from Pyongyang, the source said.
It is less clear whether North Korea had provided or was about to provide essential fuel components to Syria, according to the source.
The United States has softened its demand that North Korea publicly admit to having a program to develop highly enriched uranium and to having provided Syria with nuclear technology, key questions that have left the negotiations stalled for months.
more important to get a handle on the program than to have North Korea "confess" past nuclear sins.
The original agreement in the six-party talks did not deal with proliferation.
Sen. Hillary Clinton rode the momentum of her Pennsylvania win into Indiana on Wednesday, with her campaign saying it is on pace to raise $10 million in 24 hours.
Clinton reported raising $20 million in all of March, according to campaign finance reports filed last weekend.
Sen. Barack Obama raised more than twice as much last month, taking in $41 million for his campaign.
Obama's camp touted a big boost for his campaign Wednesday:
endorsements from 49 John Edwards supporters.
Edwards, a former North Carolina senator who dropped out of the Democratic presidential race in January, has yet to endorse a candidate.
Indiana and North Carolina hold primaries May 6, the next date on the primary calendar in what has become a protracted and, at times, bruising fight for the Democratic nomination.
Obama is leading in North Carolina, and it's a tight race in Indiana, according to recent polls.
Both Democratic candidates picked up superdelegates Wednesday, with Obama getting the support of Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry and Clinton receiving a nod from Tennessee Rep. John Tanner.
Clinton and Obama both planned to stump in Indiana on Wednesday, following Clinton's decisive win in Pennsylvania.
With the win, Clinton will pick up 81 of Pennsylvania's 158 delegates, and Obama won 69, CNN estimates.
Eight delegates have yet to be allocated.
One man was arrested Thursday after a minor scuffle ahead of the start of the Olympic torch relay in Australia, police said.
The scuffle took place at Reconciliation Place, where the relay begins, according to police, who said the man was interfering with the start of the relay. They gave out no further details.
The incident took place shortly before the relay was to begin, prefaced by a ceremony of cleansing and dancing conducted by Aboriginal Australians.
Demonstrators have vowed to show up 500-strong for the torch relay, and police have countered with special powers to stop and search them.
Shortly before the flame arrived in Canberra, police arrested a man and a woman who were trying to unfurl a banner on Sydney¡¯s Harbour Bridge.
ROME, Italy (CNN) Troubled Italian airline Alitalia got an emergency short term loan of 300 million euros ($478 million) from the Italian government Tuesday, a government official told CNN.
The airline must return the money by the end of the year, the official said.
Outgoing Prime Minister Romano Prodi called the loan "an act of responsibility" aimed at staving off bankruptcy and the possibility of thousands of lay-offs, according to Italian media reports.
Sylvio Berlusconi, the former prime minister who won the post again earlier this month, had asked Prodi's government to approve the loan.
The government approved the loan after Air France-KLM yanked its bid to purchase the state-run airline.
Alitalia had accepted an offer from the French-Dutch group, but union leaders blocked the sale.
The company's board of directors, at its April 8 meeting, "reiterated the Company's need for substantial financial support," according to a press release.
As of February 29, Alitalia's books showed a ¢æ1.4 billion ($2.2 billion) debt, up nearly 7 percent from the end or January.
(CNN) A Lufthansa flight en route to New York diverted to Shannon Airport in Ireland after a 2-year-old girl died on the flight, Irish and airline officials said.
The flight originated in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and was bound for John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, with a stopover in Frankfurt, Germany, the press office for the Irish police force Garda said.
The girl died during the Frankfurt-to-New York leg of the trip, and the plane was redirected to Ireland, landing there about 2:30 p.m., Garda said.
The cause of death is unknown, and a post mortem exam will be conducted Wednesday, Garda said. Police are investigating the circumstances of the toddler's death.
Crude futures have risen on concerns about unstable supply, firm global demand and a weakening U.S. dollar.
Light, sweet crude for June delivery rose 12 cents in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, midmorning in Singapore Wednesday.
Senator Hillary Clinton edged rival Sen. Barack Obama in the Democratic primary in Pennsylvania, saying victory showed she had the better shot at winning in November than he.
"It's a long road to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and it runs right through the heart of Pennsylvania," she told supporters in Philadelphia Tuesday night.
Her top advisers had called the state a must-win to stay in the race.
"For six weeks, Senator Obama and I have criss-crossed this state meeting people up close, being judged side by side, making our best case," she said to cheering supporters. "You listened and today you chose.
Obama congratulated Clinton on her win and said his campaign closed what had been a huge margin in her favor. Watch Obama claim his campaign's own victory
"There were a lot of folks who didn't think we could make this a race when it started," he said at a campaign rally in Evansville, Indiana, where Democrats will go to the polls May 6. "They thought we were going to get blown out.
Obama leads in overall votes, states won and pledged delegates.
And unless "the wheels come off his wagon," Obama was likely to hold that lead, said David Gergen, a former adviser to both Republican and Democratic candidates.
With 80 percent of Pennsylvania precincts reporting, Clinton was leading Obama 55 to 45 percent.
A total of 158 delegates to the convention were at stake.
Injured Alex Rodriguez was not in the New York Yankees' lineup Tuesday night against the Chicago White Sox.
A-Rod, batting .308 with four homers and 10 RBIs, strained his right quadriceps Sunday at Baltimore. Morgan Ensberg was listed as the starting third baseman against Chicago.
Rodriguez will rejoin the team on Thursday. He will be re-evaluated then to see how well his quadriceps has responded to treatment. It was unknown when he would play again.
The third baseman was in Miami, where his wife gave birth to their second daughter Monday night.
"We'll make that evaluation on Thursday, where we think he's at," Girardi said. "One thing you can't do is rush him and then lose him for a long period of time.
But then again, the Yankees need him back whenever he's ready.
ALBANY, New York (CNN) A postal worker is credited with saving a 1-year-old girl's life by catching her after the baby fell out of a second-story window in Albany, New York.
Lisa Harrell was delivering mail to a home late Monday morning when she noticed a baby in a window above the front door.
Harrell says the next thing she knew, the baby had fallen into her arms.
When the baby's mother realized what had happened, she ran outside and grabbed the girl from Harrell.
The woman thanked Harrell and then ran down the street to her mother's house.
Paramedics checked the baby at the scene but found no injuries.
No charges are being filed against the mother, who says she had placed her daughter on a bed that was up against the window.
The mother said her back was turned when her daughter crawled out the open window.
KIEV, Ukraine (CNN) Shining with Orthodox golden domes that rise from forested hilltops, crisscrossed by narrow cobblestone streets, and speckled by quiet, leafy parks, Kiev draws visitors with an Eastern European charm.
And for those who seek the exotic artifacts of the Soviet era Lenin statues, imposing bronze monuments and colonnaded subway stations Kiev has those too.
Founded more than 1,500 years ago, Kiev is one of the oldest and historically richest cities in Eastern Europe.
The site of the ancient Kievan Rus state, forerunner of the Russian empire, it is considered the birthplace of Slavic civilization.
The city endured the Mongol-Tatar invasion, was an important provincial capital in the Tsarist and Soviet eras and in 1991 finally became the capital of an independent Ukraine.
Today, Kiev strives to be a proper European city, at the same time preserving its unique Slavic appeal.
Cut in two by the broad Dnieper river, the city is a mix of medieval onion-domed Orthodox cathedrals, elegant turn of the 20th century buildings and some stubbornly durable artifacts of the Soviet times, including giant statues and gloomy apartment blocks on the city's outskirts.
Begin your tour with Khreshchatyk street, Kiev's calling card, a broad avenue lined with grand Stalin-era brown brick buildings and chestnut trees.
On weekends, when Khreshchatyk is closed to traffic, it is especially pleasant to walk and gives you a chance to mix with the local crowd glamorous young women walking hand in hand with their lucky suitors, teenagers dancing to hip hop music and retirees taking their giggly grandchildren for a stroll.
Khreshchatyk is at its best in May, when the chestnuts the city's symbol are in full bloom and they fill the air with a delicate sweet aroma.
The street culminates with Maidan Nezalezhnosti, or Independence Square, where Ukrainians made history in 2004 by staging the peaceful Orange Revolution that overturned a fraudulent election and brought a pro-Western opposition leader to power.
Aside from the revolution, Maidan is noted for the soaring 130-foot statue of a young woman in the national costume representing the newly independent Ukraine.
Many Ukrainians appreciate the statue's political significance though question its taste.
Kiev is dotted with hundreds of medieval Orthodox cathedrals and monasteries a reminder that it was here that the state of Kievan Rus (parts of modern-day Ukraine, Russia and Belarus) became Christian.
In 988 A.D the Slavic prince Volodymyr marched his servants into the Dnieper to be baptized and eventually converted the whole region to Christianity.
If you don't have time for all of the churches, make sure you see at least three:
St. Sofia and St. Michael cathedrals, both just up the hill from the Independence Square, and the landmark Kiev Pechersk Lavra, also known as the Cave Monastery, overlooking the Dnieper.
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) Former "Baywatch" star David Hasselhoff has been in the hospital to have something removed above his eye, his publicist says.
His publicist, Judy Katz, told The Associated Press on Monday that "he's fine, he had something removed, he's coming out tonight.
She said he was taken to the University of California, Los Angeles Medical Center on Saturday, and that rumors that Hasselhoff checked into rehab were not true.
Hasselhoff was treated in a hospital for alcoholism in October.
Former President Bill Clinton denied Tuesday he had accused Sen. Barack Obama's campaign of "playing the race card" during an interview Monday.
A recording of the former president making the comment is posted on the WHYY Web site.
It says he made the comment in a telephone interview with the Philadelphia public radio station Monday night.
Clinton was asked whether his remarks comparing Obama's strong showing in South Carolina to that of Jesse Jackson in 1988 had been a mistake given their impact on his wife Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign.
"No, I think that they played the race card on me," said Clinton, "and we now know from memos from the campaign and everything that they planned to do it all along." Listen to the full interview
But outside a Pittsburgh campaign event Tuesday, a reporter asked Clinton what he had meant "when you said the Obama campaign was playing the race card on you?
Clinton responded: "When did I say that and to whom did I say that?"
Clinton commented just before the South Carolina primary that "Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in '84 and '88. Jackson ran a good campaign. And Obama ran a good campaign here.
NEW YORK (CNN) Children should be screened for heart problems with an electrocardiogram before getting drugs such as Ritalin to treat hyperactivity and attention-deficit disorder, the American Heart Association recommended Monday.
Stimulant drugs can increase blood pressure and heart rate. For most children, that isn't a problem.
But in those with heart conditions, it could make them more vulnerable to sudden cardiac arrest an erratic heartbeat that causes the heart to stop pumping blood through the body and other heart problems.
About 2.5 million American children and 1.5 million adults take medication for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, according to government estimates.
Stimulant drugs, like Ritalin, Adderall and Concerta, help children with ADHD to stay focused and control their behavior.
The medications already carry warnings of possible heart risks in those with heart defects or other heart problems, which some critics said were driven more by concerns of overuse of the drugs than their safety.
The heart group is now recommending a thorough exam, including a family history and an EKG, before children are put on the drugs to make sure that they don't have any undiagnosed heart issues.
said Dr. Victoria Vetter, a pediatric cardiologist at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and head of the committee making the recommendation.
The label warnings were added after a review by the Food and Drug Administration of its databases found reports of 19 sudden deaths in children treated with ADHD drugs and 26 reports of other problems including strokes and fast heart rates between 1999 and 2003.
There were also reports of heart problems in adults; the committee didn't look at adults.
An EKG can detect abnormal heart rhythms that can lead to sudden cardiac arrest. Children who are already on ADHD drugs should also be tested, Vetter said.
If problems are found, the child should be sent to a pediatric cardiologist.
Sen. Barack Obama scored big with new Democrats in Pennsylvania, early exit polls show.
One out of every seven Democratic party voters was not registered as a Democrat at the beginning of the year, and 60 percent of them cast their ballot for Obama, according to the exit polls.
Sen. Hillary Clinton fared better with voters who made up their mind in the last week, the exit polls showed.
Fifty-eight percent of those voters said they chose the New York senator.
That includes voters who made up their mind in the aftermath of last week's heated Democratic debate.
African-American voters in Pennsylvania supported Obama by a substantial margin.
According to exit polls, 92 percent cast their vote for the Illinois senator, compared to 8 percent for Clinton.
Clinton got the support of older voters, with 61 percent of those 65 years or older backing her, according to the polls.
She also received more support than Obama among white males, with 55 percent voting for her.
Clinton on Tuesday acknowledged her White House bid is on the line in Pennsylvania.
A CNN poll of polls on Tuesday suggested Clinton is in a position to pull off the victory over Obama.
After Pennsylvania, Indiana and North Carolina hold votes in two weeks as the primary season rolls on toward its end in June.
JAKARTA, Indonesia (CNN) The Olympic torch relay ran its course without major incident in Indonesia on Tuesday, with torch-bearers circling a track around Jakarta's main sports stadium in front of invited guests and journalists.
Indonesian police arrested six pro-Tibet protesters and took down anti-Chinese banners and signs outside the sports complex, according to a protest organizer.
Police said they were charged with not having a permit to stage a protest.
The Olympic flame's run was limited to a track around the Senayan Sports Complex to prevent disruptions from protesters, something that has marred the relay in several other cities, the Indonesian Sports Committee said. The relay was shortened to just over 4 miles (7 km).
Spectators could strain for a glimpse of the far-away flame through a fence.
Spokesman Enrico Soekarno of the Indonesian Society for a Free Tibet said police moved in on protesters before the relay began after a "provocateur" who he suspected came from police ranks infiltrated his group and began a scuffle.
Six people were arrested after they tried to stop police from taking their signs, Soekarno said.
The 80 runners, including celebrities, athletes and political figures, carried the torch about 80 yards each.
The next stop for the flame is Canberra, Australia where the torch relay will take place on Thursday.
White House hopeful Hillary Clinton needs a big victory in Tuesday's crucial Pennsylvania primary election as she aims to regain ground on Barack Obama in the race for the Democratic Party's U.S. presidential nomination.
Clinton, a New York senator who has consistently performed well in larger states and enjoys core support among traditional Democratic voters, carried a seven-point lead over Obama in polls going into the vote in the key northeastern state.
But analysts say anything less than a double-digit win for Clinton would make Obama a clear favorite for the nomination as the party seeks a challenger to face Republican nominee-elect John McCain in November's presidential election.
Early exits polls indicated Obama scored big with new Democratic voters in the state while Clinton fared better with voters who made up their mind in the final days of campaigning.
They also indicated the economy was the number one issue.
Obama currently leads in the delegate count and the popular vote and has won more states.
With just a handful of smaller states still to vote, a win for the senator for Illinois on Tuesday would be decisive, analysts say.
Obama called Pennsylvania an "uphill climb," but said his campaign has showed he can compete in a big state.
"We've won twice as many states, we've won the popular vote by fairly substantial margins, we've got a very big lead in pledged delegates and we competed, win or lose.
A CNN poll of polls on the eve of the Pennsylvania primary gave Clinton a seven-point advantage over Obama, 50 percent to 43 percent with seven percent undecided.
Election officials in Philadelphia reported ¡°robust¡± but not record-breaking turnout in Tuesday¡¯s hard-fought Democratic primary, a contest seen as critical for Sen. Hillary Clinton¡¯s presidential hopes.
Clinton led Sen. Barack Obama in published polls going into the primary, the biggest remaining contest of the Democratic presidential race.
In addition, CNN exit polls showed late-deciding voters choosing Clinton by a wide margin, 58 percent to 42 percent.
The polls close at 8 p.m. ET.
The Olympic flame arrived in Australia Wednesday morning following a relatively incident-free run in Indonesia.
The torch will be carried about the city on Thursday, and officials there have vowed not to cut the 20 km course despite threats of pro-Tibet protests.
Torchbearers include long-distance runner Ron Clarke, who set 17 world records during the early 1960s and lit the cauldron at the 1956 Games in Melbourne, Australia, and swimmer Ian Thorpe, a five-time gold medalist.
South Africa coach Carlos Alberto Parreira resigned on Monday to return to Brazil to be with his family and ill wife, leaving the national football team in disarray just two years before the country hosts the 2010 World Cup.
"After 36 years of marriage, I can't say 'No.'"
South African federation president Molefi Oliphant said Parreira wanted to be with his wife, Leila.
"The coach has dilemma, a family dilemma," he said. "The health of his wife has deteriorated.
Parreira was hired 16 months ago after resigning as Brazil coach.
He put together a young and inexperienced team which suffered a series of poor results and were eliminated in the first round of the African Cup of Nations in Ghana earlier this year.
But Parreira's tactics seemed to be paying off when South Africa beat Paraguay 3-0 in a friendly last month.
Parreira's resignation takes effect on May 2.
He will continue as technical advisor, and his two assistant coaches Jairo Leal and Pitso Mosimane will remain.
Parreira said he would help officials find a new coach tasked with building South Africa into a credible force for the 2010 World Cup.
SAO PAULO, Brazil (CNN) A Roman Catholic priest who floated off under hundreds of helium party balloons was missing Monday off the southern coast of Brazil.
Rescuers in helicopters and small fishing boats were searching off the coast of Santa Catarina state, where pieces of balloons were found.
The Rev. Adelir Antonio de Carli lifted off from the port city of Paranagua on Sunday afternoon, wearing a helmet, thermal suit and a parachute.
He was reported missing about eight hours later after losing contact with port authority officials, according to the treasurer of his Sao Cristovao parish, Denise Gallas.
Gallas said by telephone that the priest wanted to break a 19-hour record for the most hours flying with balloons to raise money for a spiritual rest-stop
for truckers in Paranagua, Brazil's second-largest port for agricultural products.
Some American adventurers have used helium balloons to emulate Larry Walters who in 1982 rose three miles above Los Angeles in a lawn chair lifted by balloons.
A video of Carli posted on the G1 Web site of Globo TV showed the smiling 41-year-old priest slipping into a flight suit, being strapped to a seat attached to a huge column green, red, white and yellow balloons, and soaring into the air to the cheers of a crowd.
According to Gallas, the priest soared to an altitude of 20,000 feet (6,000 meters) then descended to about 8,200 feet (2,500 meters) for his planned flight to the city of Dourados, 465 miles (750 kilometers) northwest of his parish.
Carli was some 30 miles (50 kilometers) off the coast when he last contacted Paranagua's port authority, Gallas said.
Carli had a GPS device, a satellite phone, a buoyant chair and is an experienced skydiver, Gallas said.
"He knew what he was doing and was fully prepared for any kind of mishap."
A newspaper report says Cuban President Ra&uacute; l Castro wants to improve relations with Mexico.
El Sol de Mexico's Mario Vazquez Rana recently sat down with Castro in Havana.
He said in an article published Monday that the Cuban leader told him he wants Mexico and Cuba to return to the close friendship the two countries once shared.
Relations between Mexico and Havana deteriorated under former Mexican President Vicente Fox, who criticized Cuba's human rights record.
But President Felipe Calderon restored full relations with Cuba after succeeding Fox in 2006.
The Mexican leader has said he wants to continue to have warmer ties with the communist island.
CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN) An epidemic of gunfire rattled the city during the weekend, with at least 32 people shot and six killed.
Police Superintendent Jody Weis blamed an excess of guns and gangs for the rash of violence.
At the time of that news conference, the toll was 26 separate shootings and four deaths.
Later, three more shootings were reported within two hours on the West Side late Sunday and early Monday, resulting in two more deaths and four more people wounded, police said.
The other weekend shootings were scattered all over the city.
Police said they included gang shootings, drive-by attacks, and even one case in which someone used an AK-47 to shoot up a plumbing supply store.
Authorities did not immediately say whether any of the shootings were thought to be related.
During the same weekend last year, there were 19 shootings, including four homicides, and 21 shootings were reported during the same weekend in 2006, Chicago police statistics show.
On Saturday, the Police Department issued new statistics showing that the city's murder rate for March was down about 1 percent from March 2007.
Oil prices spiked to a record $117.40 a barrel after a Japanese oil tanker was attacked in Middle Eastern waters, off the east coast of Yemen.
The 150,000-ton tanker Takayama was attacked about 440 kilometers (270 miles) off the Yemen coast in the Gulf of Aden while it was heading for Saudi Arabia, its Japanese operator, Nippon Yusen K.K., said in a statement posted on its Web site.
None of the ship's 23 crew members was injured, and the extent of damage to the tanker was under investigation, the company said.
Kyodo News agency reported that the Japanese tanker was leaking fuel after it was fired on by a rocket launcher from a small boat.
News of the attack pushed crude oil futures higher into record territory.
"There's clearly some geopolitical tension in the market," said Mark Pervan, senior commodity strategist at the ANZ Bank in Melbourne, Australia. "This will die down, but the market is pretty jittery at the moment," he said.
Light, sweet crude for May delivery fell back quickly after pushing to $117.40 a barrel.
Last Friday, it rose to touch $117 for the first time after an attack on a Royal Dutch Shell PLC pipeline by the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta the main militant group in Nigeria's restive south.
Brent crude futures for June rose 23 cents to $114.15 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange in London.
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) Julia Abrantes spent hours cleaning her house and primping in front of a mirror before heading to John F. Kennedy airport in New York.
She was there to pick up the love of her life, whom she had met on the Internet.
Abrantes was the victim of romance fraud:
"He wound up winning my heart.
Abrantes isn't alone. Dating sites like Match.com, which says it has a membership of more than 15 million, are growing in popularity.
But with the increased interest in Internet dating comes more people willing to prey on those looking for love online.
She said the site has had more than 30,000 members since its start in June 2005.
The number of broken hearts aside, romance fraud costs victims millions of dollars each year.
Of her 30,000 members, Sluppick said, 883 people have reported their financial losses.
There were 206,884 complaints regarding Internet fraud last year, costing victims more than $239 million, according to the FBI Internet Crime Report.
Romance fraud is a process, often taking place over several months, Sluppick said.
"They get the person to where they actually believe they have a relationship with the scammer. This can be a long process, sometimes up to six or eight months."
Twice a day, 7-year-old Hannah Austin exhales all the air from her lungs.
She then takes a puff of a low-dose steroid from a purple inhaler, holds her breath for a few seconds and exhales.
Like nearly 7 million other children in the United States, Hannah, a second-grader from Smyrna, Georgia, has asthma.
This simple exercise with the inhaler allows her to breathe easier.
But on a day when the air quality is poor, she often struggles to catch her breath.
"We know that environmental pollutants have a very significant impact on children with asthma," said Dr. Avril Beckford, a pediatrician in Austell, Georgia.
Children are more vulnerable to the effects of air pollution because their lungs don't fully form until they are adolescents, the American Academy of Pediatrics noted.
The leading pediatricians group added that "because children spend more time outdoors than do adults, they have increased exposure to outdoor air pollution.
"If you live near a polluted area of a city, it's like the child is smoking," said best-selling author and pediatrician Bill Sears. "We all know what smoking does for the lungs.
Sears called the long-term effect of air pollution on a developing child devastating.
"Children do not grow as well because they do not breathe as well.
(CNN) Whether you keep quiet because you're afraid of embarrassing yourself or you don't think your questions mean much, you should start speaking up.
"A colleague once said to me, 'I can tell more about a person by the questions they ask than by what they tell me,'" says Edith Onderick-Harvey, president of Change Dynamics Consulting, an executive consulting firm.
"The same is true for managers. Questions about the broader organization's goals and priorities, your role in achieving those and asking for feedback tell your boss you are focused on a career with the organization, not just a job.
Here are questions to ask your boss that can help your career.
"
Employees often forget that their performances are graded in some form or another.
In order to understand how your work is quantified, you should be speaking the same language as your boss.
Find out if your manager is only concerned with numbers and results or if with how you achieve them also matters, Onderick-Harvey advises.
Then, you base your future work on his or her priorities.
2."What areas do I need to develop to advance my career?
This question shows your boss you are in control of your future and are not waiting for someone else to make things happen, Onderick-Harvey says.
Don't be so focused on looking for your weaknesses that you forget to ask about your strong points.
This question isn't an excuse to beg for a compliment; it's an opportunity to show the boss you want to steer your own career.
4. "How often are performance evaluations conducted and who is in charge of them?
Basic questions such as this one are crucial to your performance, says Dr. Ivonne Chirino-Klevans, professor at Walden University.
Understanding the mechanics of your job should be a top priority at all times.
Make sure you know if you have quarterly or annual goals to aim for and how they impact your daily tasks.
5. "What are the options for growth within the organization?
Although you might expect this question only belongs in a job interview, it's worth asking even after you've been employed for a few years.
With four-digit inflation and violent Maoist guerrillas, Peru for many years was hardly the place for a seaweed wrap in a swank hotel.
But nowadays, relative peace and a booming economy draw boutique travelers to the Andean terrain and ancient ruins that were previously the domain of brave, budget-conscious backpackers.
Celebrity tourists Bill Gates and Cameron Diaz both recently visited Machu Picchu, where $965 a night gets you a room with a view of the famous Inca citadel.
In nearby Cuzco, elevation 11,500 feet, you can have extra oxygen pumped into your room for $30 a night.
Yet as free-market President Alan Garcia speeds the development of Peru's high-end tourism sector, he is sparking a standoff with local residents who say they won't benefit from the boom.
Earlier this year, protesters shut Cuzco's airport and blocked the only rail line to Machu Picchu to make their point.
they shouted in demonstrations:
"Cuzco is not for sale!
It is a longtime paradox in Peru, where the economy expanded 9 percent in 2007 for the ninth year in a row.
But poverty persists, especially in many of the highland tourist destinations, affecting some 44 percent of the 27 million population.
The government touts tourism as a job-generator.
But most protesters don't work in the industry and are more focused on the need for good education and health care things they say a few dozen more waiter and bellhop jobs won't fix.
"Most of the Cuzco area lives off of agriculture," said Gonzalo Valderrama, 30, a local anthropologist who joined the protests. "Just because there is more tourism investment, it does not necessarily benefit those who live in the surrounding state.
Tourist entries at Lima's Jorge Chavez International Airport increased from 998,000 in 2002 to more than 1.8 million last year, according to Peru's Foreign Trade and Tourism Ministry, thanks in part to an award-winning publicity campaign launched two years ago.
DETROIT, Michigan (CNN) Kim Fenske drives a bus in Colorado by day, but when he's not working, he zooms around the mountains in a 2007 Toyota Prius.
Fenske, an attorney by training who has also worked as a forest ranger, was an environmentalist long before hybrid cars like the Prius hit the market.
But he recently decided to go one step further and make an environmental statement with his car.
"My decision is a very political decision. I want to get people in this country off their dependency on foreign oil," said Fenske, 48, who lives at the Copper Mountain ski resort near Frisco, Colorado.
U.S. registrations of new hybrid vehicles rose 38 percent in 2007 to a record 350,289, according to data to be released Monday by R.L. Polk & Co., a Southfield-based automotive marketing and research company.
Hybrids made up just 2.2 percent of the U.S. market share for the year, but they were growing steadily even as overall sales declined 3 percent.
Lonnie Miller, director of industry analysis at Polk, said rising gas prices may affect some buyers, but they're not the main driver of hybrid sales.
Instead, he thinks sales jumped in 2007 because buyers had more options, including the new Nissan Altima, Saturn Aura and Lexus LS600h hybrid sedans and hybrid versions of the Chevrolet Tahoe, GMC Yukon and Mazda Tribute sport utility vehicles.
"The gas price thing is a constant that is keeping consideration in their minds," Miller said.
Another important factor is that hybrids have been on the market long enough for consumers to trust the technology, Miller said.
The Prius, the second mass-market hybrid after the Honda Insight, went on sale in the U.S. in 2000.
The Prius remained the best-selling hybrid in 2007, commanding 51 percent of the hybrid market, up from 43 percent in 2006 despite the influx of new hybrids.
Hundreds of flag-waving Chinese students gathered at the starting and ending points of the Olympic torch relay in Kuala Lumpur Monday, far outnumbering the handful of people who carried pro-Tibet signs.
Heavy security was in place to protect the 80 runners carrying the Olympic torch along a 10-mile (16 km) route through the Malaysian capital, ending at the Petronas Twin Towers.
About 500 Chinese students attended the relay, carrying pro-China signs and heckling the few people taking a pro-Tibet stand.
The Chinese students wore identical shirts with the slogan "One Dream, One Nation," and many of them had Chinese flags painted on their faces, according to witnesses.
An Olympics organizer said the Chinese Embassy arranged for the students to
Several of the students told CNN that the Chinese government provided their transportation to the event and gave them the flags and shirts.
"As soon as spectators saw what she was doing, they immediately mobbed her, hitting her with flags," said Brad Kesler, an American tourist who was there to watch the start of the relay.
Kesler said the woman was holding the sign and not yelling.
At least two other people carrying pro-Tibet signs were carried away by police.
It was not clear if they were detained because of a disruption or if they were removed for their own safety.
About 1,500 people attended the relay's start in Independence Square, according to witness estimates.
Few of them appeared to be local residents a member of the Malaysian Olympics council explained it was a work day.
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) It was a classic case of monster envy that led to the rise of "Cloverfield," the horror hit about a 350-foot creature stomping through New York City.
Visiting Tokyo with his son a few years ago, producer J.J. Abrams was struck by the omnipresence of Godzilla in toy stores half a century after the giant reptile first terrorized Japan.
"This iconic character had really maintained his position," Abrams told The Associated Press in an interview to promote Tuesday's DVD release of "Cloverfield," which set a record for January debuts with a $40 million opening weekend.
Impossible III" and the upcoming "Star Trek.
With longtime TV collaborators Matt Reeves directing and Drew Goddard writing the screenplay, Abrams set out to create a homegrown beast beyond the guy-in-a-lizard-suit quaintness of "Godzilla" flicks, bringing the creature-feature into modern times.
What they hit on was a refreshing mix of monster mayhem and the amateur-video style of "The Blair Witch Project" .
Shot for less than $25 million, a bargain price in Hollywood, "Cloverfield" heightened its documentary realism by using a cast of unknowns and maximized its limited budget for visual effects by offering scattershot images of the monster and devastation as the characters run for their lives.
Abrams and distributor Paramount used similarly clandestine tactics to sell the film, keeping the title under wraps until shortly before its release and offering trailers and online marketing to make movie-goers ask one another, "What in the world is this film?
Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are wrapping up their push in Pennsylvania with sharp attacks a day before the state's crucial primary.
Both candidates have been launching waves of robocalls, tough mailers and matching attack ads, spending an estimated hundreds of thousands of dollars a day.
Obama on Monday was scheduled to make his final stops in McKeesport and Pittsburgh, where Clinton has been strong.
Clinton was set to campaign in Philadelphia, following rallies in Scranton, Pittsburgh and Harrisburg.
Obama has outspent his rival in Pennsylvania, thanks in part to his hefty fundraising.
He raised $41 million in March, compared with Clinton's $20 million, according to the latest campaign finance reports.
In March, Obama spent about $31 million on his presidential campaign, compared with Clinton's $22 million.
Clinton began April in debt, according to financial reports filed over the weekend with the Federal Election Commission. She had about $32 million cash on hand, but only $9 million of that total represents funds that can be spent in the primary races.
Meanwhile, Obama has $51 million cash on hand, with $42.5 million that can be spent in the primaries, according to reports.
At least $23 million of the money Clinton had in the bank was set aside for the general election, compared with $8 million set aside by Obama.
The reports also showed Clinton owes more than $10 million, meaning she was in the red even before stepping up TV advertising in Pennsylvania.
"The numbers are what they are," Clinton adviser Howard Wolfson said on a conference call with reporters.
A Russian fighter jet has shot down an unmanned Georgian spy plane as it flew over the breakaway region of Abkhazia, Georgia's air force commander said Monday.
The two countries' presidents discussed the incident by telephone Monday in what Georgian leader Mikhail Saakashvili termed a "difficult conversation.
Col. David Nairashvili, Georgia's air force commander, told The Associated Press that video footage recorded by the plane before it was shot down Sunday shows the attacking jet to be Russian.
The incident occurred over Abkhazia, a region that has had de-facto independence since breaking away from the Georgian government in the 1990s.
After talks with former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, Hamas¡¯ exiled leader Khalid Meshaal said Monday the militant group has no plans to recognize Israel.
¡°We agree on the (Palestinian) state with the borders of June 4, 1967, Jerusalem as its capital, fully sovereign without settlements, the right of return, but without the recognition of Israel,¡± Meshaal said at a news conference in Damascus, Syria.
Earlier in the day, Carter said that Hamas is prepared to accept peace with Israel if the Palestinian people approve any agreement that may be negotiated with the Jewish state.
condemnation from the U.S. and Israeli governments. They have criticized him for engaging in diplomacy with a group that both governments consider a terrorist organization.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=3119271
Fifth seed Serena Williams defeated Russia's Vera Zvonareva 6-4 3-6 6-3 to capture the $1.3 million Family Circle Cup, her third tournament title of the year.
Sunday's victory in Charleston was the American's first clay court title since the 2002 French Open.
Williams is 19-1 in matches this year, and is expected to climb from ninth to sixth in the world following the 31st success of her career.
Unlike earlier matches at the tournament, Williams started strong winning the first set and scattering 10 aces during the match.
"I just wanted to get that first set under my belt, and thank God I did because I lost the second," said Williams.
"I've played her a few times, so I really know her game she's a real fighter and she never stops.
Williams improved to 5-1 against Zvonareva, who should rise to No. 14 in the rankings by making the final.
ACCRA, Ghana (CNN) The U.N. chief warned Sunday that the world must urgently increase food production to ease skyrocketing prices and pledged to set up a task force on a crisis threatening to destabilize developing nations.
The cost of food has increased by around 40 percent since mid-2007 worldwide, and the strain has caused riots and protests in countries such as Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Haiti and Egypt.
"We must make no mistake, the problem is big.
If we offer the right aid, the solutions will come," Ban said at the opening of a a five-day U.N. conference on trade and development in Ghana's capital, Accra.
"One thing is certain, the world has consumed more than it has produced" over the last three years, he said.
Ban blamed a host of causes for the soaring cost of food, including rising oil prices, the fall of the U.S. dollar and natural disasters.
He said he would put together a special task force to help deal with the problem and called on the international community to help.
He said the U.N. World Food Program plans to raise $750 million per year to help feed 73 million people in 80 countries.
"We need a real world and not the world of economic theories," Ban said. "I will work on this right now with a sense of urgency.
Six decades of single-party rule in Paraguay came to an end on Sunday after Colorado Party candidate Blanca Ovelar conceded a loss to former Catholic bishop Fernando Lugo, who claimed the historic win on his promise to help the poor.
With more than half of the 14,000 precincts reporting, Lugo, backed by the Patriotic Alliance for Change, claimed 41 percent of the votes, according to the preliminary results reported by the government's election department.
Ovelar had 30 percent of the votes before she stepped down as a candidate, and Lino Oviedo, of the National Union of Ethical Citizens, had 21 percent.
Nearly 2 million Paraguayans turned out at the polls Sunday, with two-thirds of the nations 2.8 million registered voters participating.
Lugo, the 56-year-old ex-bishop, was a popular candidate as he campaigned to support the Paraguay's indigent population.
There was only one round in the election and a majority was not needed to win.
"I believe that the politics of exclusion long practiced in this country doesn't have a future," Lugo has said.
LONDON, England (CNN) British military officials on Sunday said Prince William had not breached any rules when he used a Royal Air Force helicopter to drop in at his girlfriend's house.
The prince, second in line to the throne, landed a Chinook helicopter normally used for transporting troops in a field next to the home of Kate Middleton, according to the News of the World tabloid.
The paper said the trip had caused fury among some in the military who saw it as a waste of time and money at a time when British forces are thinly-stretched, fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Ministry of Defense said the maneuver was part of a planned training exercise designed to help the prince learn to fly in combat situations.
"Battlefield helicopter crews routinely practice landing in fields and confined spaces away from their airfields as a vital part of their training for operations," a statement said.
"These highly honed skills are used daily in conflict zones such as Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Ministry said that due to a shortage of landing fields available for practice, an offer to land near the Middleton house on April 3 was readily accepted.
It said no one got on or off the aircraft, which spent 20 seconds on the ground.
Britain's air forces have already come under criticism for allowing William, 25, to fly a Chinook to attend a bachelor party, accompanied by his brother, Prince Harry.
William, a second lieutenant in the British Army, graduated as a pilot earlier this month following a detachment to the Royal Air Force.
The car being used in the latest James Bond film plunged into a lake in northern Italy while being driven to the set.
Producers say the driver of the Aston Martin was taken to a hospital with minor injuries.
Italian state TV has shown footage of the smashed, black car being hoisted out of the water.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Baghdad Sunday for unannounced talks with Iraqi leaders as fighting with Shiite militias raged a few miles away.
But Rice¡¯s talks with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki focused on Iraq¡¯s successes in its recent military operation in Basra and its work on key legislation, including an oil and gas law that ¡°will be completed soon,¡± al-Maliki¡¯s office said.
¡°It is indeed a moment of opportunity in Iraq thanks to the courageous decisions taken by the prime minister and a unified Iraqi leadership,¡± Rice said Sunday. She praised ¡°the Iraqi security forces which have fought very bravely in this recent operation.
Rice is in the region for a meeting with Iraq¡¯s neighbors in Kuwait on Tuesday.
Two days of fighting between government and Ethiopian troops and Islamic militants in Somalia¡¯s capital Mogadishu has left 81 cilvians dead and more than 100 wounded, a local human rights group reported Sunday.
Sudan Ali Ahmed, the head of the Mogadishu-based Elman Human Rights Group, accused the rebels of using civilians has human shields, while the transitional government¡¯s Ethiopian allies shelled residential neighborhoods with tanks and artillery.
Large numbers of civilians have been fleeing two neighborhoods in the northeastern part of the capital where the fighting has been taking place, witnesses reported, joining a population of displaced Somalis that aid groups estimate already tops 1 million.
(CNN) Q:
I'm heading to Europe this summer, and I want to bring my cell phone, but international roaming looks expensive.
How do I keep costs down?
When in Rome, do as the Romans do.
Switch out your SIM card the little chip in the phone that carries your account information for a prepaid local one, and pay local rates.
Don't be intimidated by the prospect.
The SIM card, or Subscriber Identity Module, is almost always located in the phone's battery compartment.
You'll probably have to remove the battery to get at it, but you don't need any special tools.
If you can't figure it out, get a European to show you they're used to switching SIM cards when they switch carriers.
You do need to do some homework first, but it's worth it, unless you're just staying in the foreign country for a few days.
U.S. carriers generally charge about $1.29 per minute for international roaming, while local prepaid rates are around 20 U.S. cents per minute for outgoing calls, and incoming calls are free.
There are a couple of hurdles here, though.
For one, not all U.S. phones work in Europe because of differing radio frequencies and technologies.
The chance that your phone will work are best if your carrier is T-Mobile USA or AT&T Inc., but check your manual or the carrier's Web site to see if you have a "world phone.
Except for a handful of models, Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel Corp. phones don't work in Europe (and don't use SIM cards), but do work in parts of South America.
If you do have a "world phone," it still has to be unlocked for it to accept a SIM card from another carrier. Contact the carrier:
It may give you the code to unlock the phone. Otherwise, an independent cell-phone store may be able to do it for a fee.
Putting a local SIM card in your phone means you're now using a local number.
Two days of fighting between government and Ethiopian troops and Islamic militants in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, left 81 civilians dead and more than 100 wounded, a local human rights group reported Sunday.
Sudan Ali Ahmed, the head of the Mogadishu-based Elman Human Rights Group, accused the rebels of using civilians has human shields, while the transitional government's Ethiopian allies shelled residential neighborhoods with tanks and artillery.
"We are condemning the warring sides in the strongest terms for violating human rights and committing war crimes against civilians," Ahmed said.
a population of displaced Somalis that aid groups estimate already tops 1 million.
A witness told CNN that Ethiopian troops seized a mosque in one of the neighborhoods where the worst fighting was taking place.
The Ethiopians left the bodies of six elderly men outside the mosque around noon Sunday and were separating men and boys from the neighborhoods and arresting them, the witness said.
"The Ethiopians are firing heavy weaponry into areas where civilians are heavily populated, while the Islamic militants are firing mortars and RPGs [rocket-propelled grenades] from within those areas," Ahmed said.
"So the exchange is causing a civilian casualty toll which is unspeakable.
Somali Prime Minister Nur Hassan Nur Ade had no immediate comment on the latest fighting, the latest in a lengthy insurgency against his government and its Ethiopian backers.
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) A middle-aged woman arrives at yoga class, a guide dog beside her wheelchair.
She slides onto a mat on the floor and begins warming up with help from the instructor, stretching her knee and leg muscles to the side.
Another person, an overweight student, sits and places his feet on brick-like props to enable him to stretch higher.
This is the scene at the Shepherd Center in Atlanta, Georgia, where students attend weekly adaptive yoga class.
Post-surgical conditions, Parkinson's disease, stroke and arthritis may also cause some impairment. "Pretty much if you name a health condition, yoga can help with it," she says.
Physical therapist Sarah Knopf says the class' popularity is due to many patients asking what else they can be doing to strengthen their bodies or overcome a health challenge quicker.
"A lot of patients with MS, for example, don't do well if they get overheated.
If you are doing yoga in a gym, it's a little faster-paced.
Instructors say one benefit of adaptive classes is that more than one or two people in the group are doing something differently.
Protests against Tibetan independence have continued Sunday in several Chinese cities, according to the country's state-run news agency.
Demonstrators also expressed their anger about what they see as biased reporting of the Tibet story by Western media organizations including CNN.
Protesters gathered outside the French supermarket Carrefour in several Chinese cities including the northwestern city Xi'an, and the northeastern city Harbin and eastern city Jinan, the agency reported.
The demonstrators expressed anger at the way protests disrupted the Olympic torch relay in Paris on April 7.
During Sunday's demonstrations in China, some held banners condemning "Tibet secessionists in France tearing up the Five-Star Red Flag," according to Xinhua.
Protesters were also heard shouting anti-CNN slogans.
This criticism comes after remarks recently made by CNN commentator Jack Cafferty.
On Saturday about 1,500 pro-Chinese demonstrators gathered outside of CNN's bureau in Los Angeles demanding that a Cafferty apologize and be fired from the network over comments critical of China and the U.S. government's relationship with it.
On April 9, Jack Cafferty, a commentator on CNN's "Situation Room" program, used the term "goons and thugs" while describing the conditions in China years ago.
Cafferty issued a clarification of his remarks Monday, saying the comments referred to the Chinese government, not its people.
(CNN) Two years ago, Stephanie Kaster of Manhattan set out to plan the birthday party of a lifetime for her daughter.
So she booked a fondue restaurant, hired a musical troupe to perform as the Wiggles (her daughter's favorite group) and ordered a four-layer cake.
Each guest took home a Fisher-Price guitar and custom CD.
Some birthday parties now rival weddings in scale and price with some costing tens of thousands of dollars.
Whatever the reason, it's keeping Corinne Dinsfriend in business.
She owns Over the Top Productions in Orange County, California, a full-service children's birthday-party planning company.
"We really promote a healthy balance of living year round," Dinsfriend says, "but it's OK to indulge your child once a year, because it's about making a memory."
Each Over the Top party has a theme and is run by a team trained in child development, says Dinsfriend.
Her events from tea parties with fine china to military-themed parties led by former Marines usually take six weeks to plan and cost as much as $10,000.
That's small potatoes compared with some celebrations.
FAO Schwarz, the New York City toy retailer, rents out its store several nights a week for parties.
Even more extreme is the $10 million that former defense contractor David H. Brooks of Long Island reportedly spent in 2005 on his daughter's bat mitzvah.
That soiree, at the storied Rainbow Room in Rockefeller Center, featured 50 Cent, Don Henley and Aerosmith, among others.
President Bush and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak said Saturday that there still is a chance to make progress on eliminating North Korea's nuclear weapons programs, urging critics to see what Pyongyang says in a required declaration before deciding whether nations are being too lenient.
"We need persistent patience, ladies and gentlemen," Lee said, accompanied by Bush at the presidential retreat where the leaders met for two days of talks. "It's difficult to convince North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons programs, but it is not impossible.
Nuclear talks between North Korea and five other nations, including the United States and South Korea, are stalled over whether Pyongyang will hand over a promised full declaration of its nuclear programs its uranium enrichment program as well as alleged proliferation activities in return for concessions.
The North made unprecedented progress last year, including closing its working plutonium reactor, but work slowed in a dispute over how much the North had to reveal in the declaration, due in December.
But Bush critics, especially in the right wing of the Republican Party, claim that the president is lowering the bar for the nation he once included in his "axis of evil. " They say Bush appears more interested in striking a deal with Pyongyang before he leaves office than in making North Korea honor its pledge.
In his comments defending his administration's approach, the president stressed the importance of establishing effective ways to verify whatever North Korea says.
He added, "Obviously, I'm not going to accept a deal that doesn't advance the interests of the region.
NEW YORK (CNN) Pope Benedict XVI called on American Catholics to understand that "real freedom" means surrendering to the will of God, in an address to an enthusiastic crowd of 60,000 Sunday at New York's Yankee Stadium.
"We think of the successive waves of immigrants whose traditions have so enriched the Church in America," Benedict said in his homily.
"In this land of religious liberty, Catholics found freedom not only to practice their faith, but also to participate fully in civic life, bringing their deepest moral convictions to the public square and cooperating with their neighbors in shaping a vibrant, democratic society," he said.
While he praised the U.S. Catholic Church for uniting "a widely diverse flock in the profession of the faith," Benedict a strict traditionalist also worked to guide American Catholics toward a more conservative view of doctrine.
In a reference to that issue, the pope cited "the inalienable dignity and rights of each man, woman and child in our world including the most defenseless of all human beings, the unborn child in the mother's womb.
While he did not bring up the cases of abuse of young people by priests that have rocked the U.S. Catholic Church in recent years, the pope did mention "scandal.
"Praying fervently for the coming of the Kingdom also means being constantly alert for the signs of its presence, and working for its growth in every sector of society.
It means not losing heart in the face of resistance, adversity and scandal," he said.
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama haven't crossed paths yet during their weekend barnstorming across Pennsylvania, but they have invoked each other's names at virtually every whistle-stop during the final blitz before Tuesday's primary.
Each candidate says the other is unfit to lead the country.
Obama has countered by taking aim at Clinton over her acceptance of money from political action committees, her health care plan and her Washington experience.
But the most oft-repeated charge the one mentioned at virtually every stop is negative campaigning.
"I just heard that my opponent has put out an ad attacking my health care plan, which is kind of curious because my plan covers everybody, and his leaves out 15 million people, just leaves them out in the cold," Clinton said at a campaign rally in York, Pennsylvania, on Saturday.
"Instead of attacking the problem, he chooses to attack my solution."
For his part, Obama accused Clinton of looking to create "fake controversy" around him in the race's final days.
"In the last few months, she's launched what her campaign calls a 'kitchen sink' strategy of negative attacks, which she defends by telling us that this is what the Republicans would do. She says that's how the game is played," he told a Philadelphia crowd.
In Paoli, Pennsylvania, he accused her of "slash-and-burn politics.
A court commissioner on Thursday authorized various lawyers representing Britney Spears and her family to be paid more than $372,500 out of Spears' funds.
Commissioner Reva Goetz ordered the attorneys paid from Spears' assets, which are under the control of her father, James Spears, and attorney Andrew Wallet.
They have had control of the pop star's finances and estate since she was hospitalized twice in January.
Goetz scheduled the next conservatorship hearing for May 29
The son of the new Dutch defense chief was killed Friday by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan, and the Taliban claimed that they deliberately made him a high-profile victim of their deadly insurgency.
Lt. Dennis van Uhm, 23, was one of two Dutch soldiers killed in the explosion 7 miles (12 kilometers) northwest of Camp Holland, the Dutch military base in restive Uruzgan province, spokesman Lt. Gen. Freek Meulman said.
Two more soldiers were injured, one critically.
Meulman was standing in for Gen. Peter van Uhm, who was installed as defense chief only on Thursday and would likely have delivered the news had his son not been among the victims.
Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi claimed that the militants knew in advance about van Uhm's movements.
"When he came out, the Taliban planted a mine, which killed him," Ahmadi said in a phone call from an undisclosed location.
The Dutch government, however, rejected the claim.
"Our information is that there is no indication of any link between this cowardly deed and the fact that it was the son of the defense chief," Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende said in The Hague.
Balkenende and a military spokesman, Lt. Col. Robin Middel, refused to comment when asked whether van Uhm, who began his tour of duty in Afghanistan only about two weeks ago, received any special protection.
The attack raised the Dutch death toll in Afghanistan to 16 since the government made the unpopular decision to send 1,650 troops to fight in the NATO force in August 2006.
President Bush and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak opened two days of talks Friday focusing on North Korea's unfulfilled pledge to disclose its nuclear activities and a U.S. free-trade deal with South Korea that faces an uphill battle in Congress.
Bush hopes to strengthen sometimes-shaky U.S.-South Korea ties under Lee, a pro-American conservative who took office in late February and made the United States his first overseas trip.
Their get-to-know-you meeting took on renewed importance when South Korea announced Friday it would lift its ban on U.S. beef imports.
The dinner menu at the secluded presidential retreat in Maryland? Texas black Angus beef tenderloin.
South Korea was the third largest foreign market for U.S. beef before it banned imports in December 2003 over the possibility of mad cow disease.
On North Korea, Bush is embracing Lee's get-tough rhetoric against its communist neighbor.
But the talks between North Korea and the U.S., China, Russia, South Korea and Japan are at an impasse over how the North should make good on its pledge to declare its nuclear and proliferation activities.
Lee is the first South Korean president to be invited to Camp David, and the visit, under picture-perfect blue skies, was evidence of Bush's hope that U.S.-Korean relations will get even stronger under the new leader.
Serena Williams set up a quarterfinal match against Maria Sharapova at the Family Circle Cup, overcoming a sprained ankle and sluggish performance to beat Katarina Srebotnik 4-6 6-4 6-3 on Thursday.
The second-seeded Sharapova beat Tatiana Perebiynis 7-5 6-2.
The Russian star, coming off her first clay-court title last week at Amelia Island, is looking for her fourth tournament victory of the year.
Williams, a two-time tournament winner this year, slipped and fell near the net when trailing 4-3 in the first set.
Sharapova and Williams have met six times before, with Williams holding a 4-2 advantage.
But the two have never met on clay.
"We've always had really tough battles," Sharapova said, who lost twice to Williams last year at the Australian Open and at Miami. "I'm looking forward to getting my revenge.
SHANGHAI, China (CNN) In between selling tickets and greeting customers, Min Min turned his curvy 6-feet-tall frame to survey the spacious dance hall and revealed he is no ordinary doorman at this extraordinary place.
"When I first started this, it was only a dozen or so of us," reminisced the former factory worker-turned-drag queen.
"Now 300 people or more come each night."
Tucked away in a rundown neighborhood in the city's northeast, Lai Lai sits atop a public bathhouse, and features cracked wooden floors and a primitive sound system.
Its location and facilities, however, belie its prominence in a community that thrives almost entirely underground.
Every weekend, men flock here to unleash their ballroom dancing skill as well as their true identities for three treasured hours.
Lai Lai's "gay nights" are only on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.
They waltzed, jitterbugged and rumbaed in pairs to the nostalgic Mandarin tunes churned out by a live band on the small stage.
"You won't see this anywhere else," said Min, organizer of this regular gathering, himself a middle-aged gay man whose dual passions lie in ballroom dancing and performing in drag.
Patrons pay a mere 5 yuan (70 U.S. cents) to enter and enjoy cheap drinks a bottle of beer costs just 3 yuan.
Observing from the sidelines, one of Min's fellow drag queens known as Teacher Zhang noted most older gay men don't feel comfortable going to the more expensive bars or clubs frequented by the younger generation.
"It's a totally different culture and environment in those places, while everyone fits right in here," said the 58-year-old former soldier and retired school administrator.
"It's a rare outlet for people to relax, to find friends or sex.
Realizing he was gay at an early age, Zhang like many gay men in China married a woman because of family and social pressure.
He is expecting to become a grandfather this autumn.
"They have seen me perform folk dance in drag, but I will never let them see me in an intimate situation with another man."
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday that proving North Korea's claims of its past nuclear activities is likely to take a long time, but establishing a process to do so could advance a long-stalled nuclear agreement.
What we need to know is that we've got appropriate means for verification.
A team of U.S. officials will be traveling to Pyongyang shortly to negotiate details over how to verify the long-awaited North Korean accounting of its nuclear activities, Rice said.
If the talks succeed, North Korea could produce a "declaration" of its nuclear history by the end of the month as part of a deal the United States has been working on with Pyongyang, senior officials told CNN last week.
In an addendum to the main agreement, North Korea also would "acknowledge" concerns about its proliferation activities and its uranium enrichment activity and agree to continue cooperation with a verification process to ensure no further activities take place.
The United States softened its demand that North Korea publicly admit to having a highly enriched uranium program and to providing Syria with nuclear technology, key issues that stalled negotiations for months.
(CNN) An US Airways pilot who aviation officials say accidentally fired his handgun in the cockpit during a flight will be fired, a spokesman for a flight officers group said.
The airline has begun the termination process for Capt. James Langenhahn, said Mike Karn, vice president of the Federal Flight Deck Officers Association.
Langenhahn told police that he was stowing his gun in the cockpit of a jet preparing to land in Charlotte, North Carolina, last month when it accidentally fired.
The federal Transportation Security Administration is investigating the incident.
In an e-mail, US Airways representative Morgan Durrant said the company's policies prevent it from commenting publicly on a personnel matter.
Karn said his group, which represents pilots who are federally trained and allowed to carry firearms on flights, will fight the termination.
"This was accidental not intentional," Karn said. "This is not the way to treat a long-term pilot.
He said he did not know how long Langenhahn, 55, has been a pilot for US Airways but said he is a veteran with the airline.
The bullet from the H&K USP .40-caliber handgun penetrated the left side of the jet's fuselage but did not hit any crucial wiring or instrumentation, the TSA said.
The gun discharge was the first public incident of its kind in the history of the Federal Flight Deck Officer program, which has trained thousands of pilots to carry weapons in an effort to improve aviation safety.
Created in the wake of the September 11 attacks, the program was approved by Congress as part of the Homeland Security Act on November 25, 2002.
North Korea may be on the brink of another famine as a result of last year's devastating floods, the worldwide increase in food prices, and a malnourished population, the United Nations warned on Thursday.
"North Korea ... faces a dire food shortage," U.N. World Food Program spokesman Paul Risley said at a Bangkok, Thailand, news conference. "Because of high global food prices it will be very difficult for the government of DPRK to purchase food on global markets to make up the difference.
The Democratic Republic of North Korea is still recovering from a famine in the 1990s that is believed to have killed about a million people and left many children permanently stunted, according to the New York-based Human Rights Watch.
Nearly 40 percent of North Korea's young children remain "chronically malnourished," according to a recent survey by the WFP and UNICEF.
And this year, the isolated communist country is expected to see the largest harvest deficit since 2001, according to the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization.
"We're very concerned that this year the food shortfall of 1,600,000 tons of rice and wheat will mean that malnutrition will increase and that children will receive less food than they are really needing to receive," Risley said.
The price of rice and other staple foods has doubled over the past year, it said.
"Its harvest in the past year was virtually destroyed by floods that occurred in August of 2007," Risley said.
The WFP said Pyongyang significantly cut the U.N. group's operations in 2006. Before the cut, the program had been assisting more than 6 million North Koreans;
"It is increasingly likely that external assistance will be urgently required to avert a serious tragedy."
BERLIN, Germany (CNN) Police are investigating who might have decapitated scores of animals and drained them of their blood in a west German city, a spokesman said Thursday.
Over the past year the corpses of 21 rabbits, three chickens and four wild birds have been found headless in and around the city of Bochum, police spokesman Volker Schuette said.
Police have formed a special commission to investigate the grisly discoveries, but so far have no clues about who may have killed the animals.
"There is a person out there who urgently needs to be arrested," Schuette said, describing the acts as "very disturbing.
Police urged people with information to come forward, saying the suspect may have been seen smeared with blood because he or she would drain the animals' blood and take their heads.
In one case, two rabbits were decapitated while three others were taken from the same pen in a person's yard.
The next day, another rabbit was decapitated and left in the same pen.
"That was naturally particularly awful for the owner to know that the suspect was back a day later on their property," Schuette said.
Samsung Group chairman Lee Kun-hee and three company officials were indicted Thursday after a four-month investigation into corruption allegations, according to a special prosecutor.
They were not arrested, however, because that would cause an enormous disruption to the company, according to the prosecutor.
Samsung has annual sales of nearly $160 billion, accounting for 18 percent of South Korea's economic output.
Investigators started looking into Samsung in January after a former company lawyer alleged the company created slush funds worth $200 million.
However, an investigation found no evidence supporting an allegation that the company bribed government officials and prosecutors, a prosecutor said on Thursday.
"We can't accept the results of the investigation," said Lee Sang-min, an official at People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, the largest South Korean civic group. "It's nothing but an attempt to condone (wrongdoing by) Samsung," the group told The Associated Press.
Samsung apologized "for causing concerns," Lee Soon-Dong, president of Samsung's strategic planning office, said, according to a company press release.
Samsung was preparing reform plans and plans to outline them in a news conference next week, the release said.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) A suicide bomber killed at least 50 people and wounded 60 Thursday by setting off an explosive vest in a crowd mourning the deaths of two sons of a Sunni Arab tribal leader, the Iraqi military said.
Mourners had gathered to pay condolences to Sheikh Ibrahim Aref al-Azzawi, whose two sons were gunned down two days ago, police and Iraqi army officials said.
Both sons were members of the local Awakening Council, a movement of predominantly Sunni Muslims who have joined forces with the U.S. and Iraqi governments in battling Islamic jihadists loyal to al Qaeda in Iraq.
The sheikh is not a member of the local Awakening Council, but police suspect he and the mourners were targeted because of their sympathies toward the movement, which is cutting into what has been the insurgents' base of support.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but the jihadist group has been trying to scare people away from joining the movement which also includes some former insurgents and is attempting to counter its inroads.
In Baghdad on Thursday evening, seven Awakening movement members died in two attacks.
Saad al-Nuaimi, an Awakening Council leader in the southern Baghdad district of Dora, was killed in a drive-by shooting on a bridge, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said.
Al-Nuaimi's son, who was in the car with him, was wounded.
A roadside blast killed at least six members of an Awakening Council in the capital's northern neighborhood of Adahmiya, the official said.
Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday again acknowledged the pain the Catholic Church's sexual abuse scandal has caused and reached out personally to some of the victims.
The pope, along with Boston Cardinal Sean O'Malley, met with a group of people abused by clergy, said the Rev. Federico Lombardi, a papal spokesman.
The pope spent a few minutes privately with each of the five or six victims, some of whom were in tears, Lombardi told The Associated Press.
"This was a big deal; I think that it has surprised everybody," Vatican journalist Delia Gallagher said.
"From the beginning, Pope Benedict decided he was going to address that. This personal contact for him was something pretty important.
The meeting was believed to be the first between a pope and the victims of clergy sexual abuse, the AP reported.
The latest stop on the Washington portion of the pope's U.S. tour was an interreligious gathering at the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center.
Earlier, celebrating Mass under blue skies in center field at Washington's new ballpark, the pope gave a 20-minute homily that focused on hope, repentance, unity and reconciliation among the 70 million Catholics in the United States.
"No words of mine could describe the pain and harm inflicted by such abuse. It is important that those who have suffered be given loving pastoral attention."
During the Mass, the pope said the church has worked "to deal honestly and fairly with this tragic situation" and to ensure that children are safe.
(CNN) You know how good it feels when you fish a $10 bill out of your jeans pocket right before it hits the wash. Imagine coming into hundreds of dollars from a savings bond or a bank account you forgot about.
You may get a letter from a company saying you have unclaimed money or property, and for a fee, you'll be able to reclaim it.
There's almost $33 billion in unclaimed money from old payroll checks, utility refunds, trust distributions, stocks, banking or checking accounts, certificates of deposit and the contents of safe deposit boxes, according to estimates by the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators.
Property is considered abandoned if there has been no activity on it for more than three years, according to Steve Larson of NAUPA.
There is no time limit to claim most abandoned property.
In fact, years from now, your great-great grandchildren could claim it.
To find your hidden money, go to http://www.missingmoney.com/, an official database for the NAUPA that has records from most state unclaimed property programs.
You can also link to your individual state unclaimed property program.
Former President Carter met with senior Hamas officials in the Egyptian capital Thursday, rankling the Israeli and U.S. governments, which say it runs counter to their policies of not negotiating with terrorists.
Carter told an audience at the American University in Cairo that the meeting lasted about three hours.
Senior Hamas officials Mahmoud al-Zahar and Saeed Seyam traveled from Gaza to Cairo on Wednesday for the meeting.
Carter said the two Hamas officials indicated that they would accept a peace agreement with Israel if the plan were approved through "a referendum of the Palestinian community.
"It's my dream and my hope that someday in my lifetime, hopefully this year, we'll see a major breakthrough," said Carter, who met with al-Zahar and Seyam after talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
Carter had requested Israeli permission to go into Gaza but was refused.
The 83-year-old former president was on the fourth day of a nine-day "study mission" to the Middle East as part of his "ongoing effort to support peace, democracy and human rights in the region," according to the Carter Center's Web site.
On Wednesday, he met with a number of Palestinian civil society leaders in Ramallah in the West Bank, including former Deputy Prime Minister Nasser Shaer
, to whom he reportedly gave a hug, which is an Arab tradition.
On Friday, Carter will go to Syria, where he plans to meet with Hamas' exiled political leader, Khalid Meshaal.
During his stop in Israel, most officials including Prime Minister Ehud Olmert refused to meet with Carter, angry over his insistence that Israel should talk to Hamas, which is considered a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States and the European Union.
Ironically, Carter is doing what many Israelis would like their government to do, according to a recent survey.
The poll found that 64 percent of Israelis think a dialogue should be opened between the Israeli government and Hamas.
WASHINGTON (CNN) Al Qaeda is still operating within Pakistan's mountainous tribal region bordering Afghanistan, and the United States lacks a "comprehensive" plan for meetings its national security goals there, said a U.S. government study released Thursday.
Despite the United States providing $10.5 billion in military and economic aid to Pakistan, a key U.S. ally, the Government Accountability Office said it "found broad agreement ... that al Qaeda had regenerated its ability to attack the United States and had succeeded in establishing a safe haven" in Pakistan's Federally Administrated Tribal Areas.
Of the $10.5 billion in U.S. aid, more than half $5.8 billion was specifically provided for the tribal region, the GAO said.
rather, we found that there was no comprehensive plan that integrated the combined capabilities of Defense, State, USAID [U.S. Agency for International Development], the intelligence community," GAO said.
The Defense Department said it agreed with the report's findings, according to letters attached at the end of the GAO report, but the State Department disagreed with them, saying there was a comprehensive plan in place.
A letter from Kathleen Turner, a spokeswoman for the office of the Director of National Intelligence, said that office and the National Counterterrorism Center concurred with the report's assessment that the United States has not met its national security goals in the tribal region but maintained that there was a plan in place.
USAID said that it generally agreed with the report's recommendation for a comprehensive plan but that work in the tribal areas should be guided by the Pakistani government's own FATA Sustainable Development Plan from 2006.
In their last face-to-face meeting before a crucial primary showdown in Pennsylvania, Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama went back and forth over recent campaign-trail controversies before staking out differences on taxes and the economy.
In the end, both conceded their opponent is capable of defeating Republican John McCain for the presidency in November while maintaining they would have the best chance of the two.
Yes," Clinton said when pressed to answer whether Obama, the senator from Illinois, could win.
Media reports have said Clinton and her campaign have been quietly courting support, chiefly from Democratic superdelegates who could decide a close race at the party's convention, by arguing that Obama is not electable.
"Now, I think I can do a better job obviously that's why I'm here," said Clinton, who promised she will "do everything I possibly can to make sure that one of us takes the oath of office next January.
Obama said Clinton could win, too.
"One thing I'm absolutely certain of is, come August when we're in Denver, the Democratic Party will come together," he said.
The candidates spent nearly half of the debate, hosted by ABC News, tilting over flare-ups that have been fodder for journalists, partisans and pundits for the past few weeks.
Much of the fire was leveled at Obama, who once again answered questions about controversial statements by his former pastor and his own comments that some rural Pennsylvanians are "bitter.
Internet search leader Google Inc. posted a first-quarter profit that soundly beat Wall Street¡¯s estimates, news that may assuage concerns that online advertising might succumb to a U.S. economic downturn.
Many on Wall Street had expected a weaker report from Google due to fears that the slowing economy was weighing on sales.
But Google¡¯s net income rose 30 percent to $1.31 billion, or $4.12 per share.
their final meeting before Tuesday¡¯s primary in Pennsylvania.
Rocker Bruce Springsteen has endorsed Barack Obama for president.
¡°At the moment, critics have tried to diminish Senator Obama through the exaggeration of certain of his comments and relationships,¡± said the New Jersey native, in a statement posted on his Web site Wednesday.
¡°While these matters are worthy of some discussion, they have been ripped out of the context and fabric of the man's life and vision¡¦ Over here on E Street, we're proud to support Obama for President.
In February, Springsteen had resisted making a choice between Obama and Hillary Clinton, telling USA Today that "there are two really good Democratic candidates for president.
I admire and respect them both enough to wait and see what happens.
But he praised Obama, who cited Springsteen as the person he would most like to meet in an interview with People magazine.
"I always look at my work as trying to measure the distance between American promise and American reality," he told the paper. "And I think (Obama's) inspired a lot of people with that idea: How do you make that distance shorter?
Springsteen backed Sen. John Kerry's unsuccessful 2004 presidential bid.
(CNN) It appears the global food crisis can be averted.
The solution? The humble potato.
It held a conference this month about the potato being the "food of the future.
But it's not the only one hailing the qualities of the dirty spud.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has declared 2008 the International Year of the Potato to raise awareness of the tuber's importance in addressing global hunger, poverty, and threats to the environment.
Can the potato really do all of that? According to the United Nations, yes.
Potato farming is ideally suited to places where land is limited and labor is abundant, conditions that characterize much of the developing world, the FAO says.
Potatoes are nutritious, too:
They have the highest protein content of root and tuber crops (around 2.1 percent), half the daily recommended intake of vitamin C, and a fifth of the recommended daily value of potassium.
In declaring 2008 the year of the potato, the FAO said it wanted to focus world attention on the role the potato can play in providing food security and alleviating poverty.
It noted the potato the Number 4 food crop worldwide is already a staple food in the diet of the world population.
Back at the International Potato Center in Peru, where potatoes were first cultivated 8,000 years ago, they're trying to provide farmers with poor resources some help in cultivating more and better potatoes.
Premier-elect Silvio Berlusconi is not ruling out a possible tie-up between struggling Alitalia and Air France-KLM, Italian news agencies reported Wednesday.
But he said Alitalia would have to keep its role as Italy's flagship carrier because of its role bringing tourists to Italy.
But it has said the offer stands should the Italian government and unions want to accept it. Berlusconi, who won Monday's national elections, has been pushing
Israeli airstrikes and ground battles with Palestinian militants on Wednesday left 21 dead, most of them Palestinians, according to Palestinian security sources.
A Reuters cameraman and two bystanders were killed in an apparent airstrike near El Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, according to Hamas security sources and Palestinian medical sources.
Ten other Palestinians five militants and five civilians were also killed near El Bureij in an Israeli airstrike, Hamas security sources said.
It is unclear if it was the same incident that killed the journalist.
Later, in a statement, the Israeli military said: "We wish to express sorrow for the death of the Palestinian cameraman.
On that note, it should be emphasized that the area in which the cameraman was hurt is an area in which ongoing fighting against armed extreme and dangerous terrorist organizations occurs on a daily basis."
The statement added, "The presence of media photographers and other uninvolved individuals in areas of warfare is extremely dangerous and poses a threat to their lives."
Reuters identified the cameraman as Fadel Shana, 23, and said he was getting out of the vehicle when an explosion killed him and two bystanders.
Witnesses said it was caused by an Israeli airstrike.
Earlier in the day, three Israeli soldiers were killed when troops exchanged gunfire with Palestinian gunmen who were making their way toward the border between Gaza and Israel, just south of the Nahal Oz crossing, an army spokesman said.
The stunned bank teller, an avid coin collector, recognized the coins as being the same set that had been stolen from his house and called police, said Saskia Schneider, a police spokesman for the western German city of Dortmund.
Police said the 36-year-old man recently broke into the home of the coin collector in Dortmund and made off with coins worth $80,000.
had two days to be happy about it," she said, before he decided to deposit the coins for safe-keeping.
His caution, Schneider said, led to his capture. Police have charged him with burglary.
MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) Life behind bars in a Russian women's prison is not glamorous.
Convicted murderers serve time alongside thieves and drug dealers with few luxuries.
But inmates of Women's Correctional Colony No. 5 are undeterred.
Every year, this prison in western Russia stages a contest to find the most beautiful inmate.
"I think a woman should be pretty when she is in prison, just as much as when she's free," said 19-year-old Anna Ivanova, as she put on silver eyeshadow and frosted lipstick.
Dressed in a white lacy dress with her hair curled and pinned, it's hard to imagine she has still a year of her sentence to serve.
Contestants are judged on skills such as hairdressing.
Some sing their own songs or show judges how they have choreographed their own dance.
Some competitors dress in blue two-piece outfits for a belly-dancing routine. One, dressed in black with a red flower in her hair, did a Spanish dance.
The contest is not just about looking beautiful to win a crown:
Parole is not a prize winners get warm blankets, chocolates, and tea but the prison chief considers the pageant an important step toward rehabilitation.
"They are involved in social activities, which is one of the criteria for earning early parole," said Colonel Elena Kuznetsova, director of the prison in Vishny Volochek, about 217 miles (350 km) northwest of Moscow.
"And they are women," she said. "Regardless of where they are in correctional institutions or free they need to feel like women.
The dollar sank to an all-time low against the euro Wednesday with U.S. inflation coming in three times as high as expected in March, on top of escalating food and energy prices.
It was the quickest rise in 16 years.
The euro surpassed its previous record of $1.5912 set on April 10.
The euro rose because inflation overseas will likely muffle calls for the European Central Bank to lower its interest rate from four percent.
The bank's primary mission is to combat inflation.
The British pound, which slipped Tuesday on a series of dour economic reports, climbed to $1.9762 from $1.9619.
The dollar slipped to 100.84 Japanese yen from 102.04 yen following reports in the media that Merrill Lynch & Co. will announce $6 billion to $8 billion in new write-downs Thursday.
The Wall Street Journal said Merrill's expected write-downs would bring the total since October to more than $30 billion and would mean the company's third straight quarterly net loss.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Labor Department reported that wholesale prices rose by 1.1 percent last month, while analysts had been expecting 0.4 percent.
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) The truth is finally out there about the new "X-Files" movie title.
The second big-screen spinoff of the paranormal TV adventure will be called "The X-Files:
I Want to Believe," said Chris Carter, the series' creator and the movie's director and co-writer.
Distributor 20th Century Fox signed off on the title Wednesday.
The title is a familiar phrase for fans of the series that starred David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson as FBI agents chasing after aliens and supernatural happenings.
"I Want to Believe" was the slogan on a poster Duchovny's UFO-obsessed agent Fox Mulder had hanging in the cluttered basement office where he and Anderson's Dana Scully worked.
"I Want to Believe" comes 10 years after the first film and six years after the finale of the series, whose opening credits for much of its nine-year run featured the catch-phrase "the truth is out there.
Due in theaters July 25, the movie will not deal with aliens or the intricate mythology about interaction between humans and extraterrestrials that the show built up over the years, Carter said.
Instead, it casts Mulder and Scully into a standalone, earthbound story aimed at serious "X-Files" fans as well as newcomers, he said.
So there's a whole new audience that might have liked the show. This was made to, I would call it, satisfy everyone.
Hardcore fans need not worry that the movie will be going back to square one, though, Carter said.
The movie will be true to the spirit of the show and everything Mulder and Scully went through, he said.
Taking antioxidants like vitamins A and E to prolong life may actually have the opposite effect, new research has found.
A review of 67 studies involving more than 230,000 people found "no convincing evidence" that the vitamins prolonged life, the Press Association reported.
"Even more, beta-carotene, vitamin A, and vitamin E seem to increase mortality," according to the researchers.
However, other health specialists said the research was "flawed" and the supplements were safe to take.
The review, published by The Cochrane Collaboration, involved trials on beta-carotene, vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin E, and selenium.
The experts said the studies involved different doses of each antioxidant. A total of 232,550 people were involved.
"We found no evidence to support antioxidant supplements for primary or secondary prevention," they added. "Beta-carotene, vitamin A and vitamin E given singly or combined with other antioxidant supplements significantly increase mortality.
There was no evidence vitamin C increased longevity.
The unauthorized, nearly three-minute video of a noisy operating room showed doctors and nurses laughing, giggling and cheering.
At one point, a hand appeared with a cell phone camera taking a close-up picture of the surgery.
As a doctor gingerly pulls out the six-inch long canister from the male patient's rectum, someone shouted, "Baby out!" amid loud cheers.
The doctor then removed the canister cap and sprayed the contents toward the crowd of nurses and doctors viewing the procedure.
It remains unclear who shot the video and who posted it on YouTube, but the person who posted it removed it from the Web site Wednesday.
The video has angered the unidentified patient, who plans to press charges, his lawyer Guiller Ceniza said Wednesday.
The government-run Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center in the central city of Cebu, where the surgery took place, is conducting an investigation, a spokesman said Wednesday.
Dr. Emmanuel Gines said more than 10 people were involved including staff and medical and nursing students from a nearby operating room.
He said the hospital took videos of surgeries of peculiar cases, but only with the consent of the patient.
Dr. Jose Sabili, president of the Philippine Medical Association, said the group would conduct an investigation if a formal complaint was filed.
Doctors found violating medical ethics could be suspended or expelled from the association, which would result in the suspension or termination of their state health insurance accreditation.
The results of the investigation could also be used by the Professional Regulations Commission to suspend or revoke their licenses, Sabili said.
Health Undersecretary Alexander Padilla said the Health Department would conduct a separate investigation.
The 39-year-old patient received surgery on January 3, three days after a New Year's drinking spree and a "one-night stand" with a male partner, Ceniza said.
He said his client was too drunk to remember how the body spray canister ended up in his body.
for the results of the hospital's investigation, expected later in the week.
The Supreme Court, in a 7-2 ruling, upheld Kentucky's use of lethal injection as a means of executing prisoners, ruling that the method used in some 35 states is properly and humanely applied.
All but one of the states that perform executions use the three-drug mixture.
"Kentucky has adopted a method of execution believed to be the most humane available," wrote Chief Justice John Roberts for the majority. "If administered as intended, that procedure will result in a painless death.
Kentucky inmates Ralph Baze and Clyde Bowling Jr. brought suit in federal court three years ago, questioning that state's three-chemical mixture and the procedures used to administer it.
They claim the first drug sodium thiopental which renders the prisoner unconscious, wears off too quickly, and that some prisoners are actually awake and able to feel pain as the procedure continues.
The immediate impact of the ruling is that it will allow states to resume executions, which had been on hold since September while the high court considered this appeal.
No executions are scheduled in the next few weeks.
LONDON, England (CNN) New technology that can "see" through clothing and detect what's underneath can now be used to scan crowds, making it a potentially effective tool to prevent terrorist attacks in public places.
The ThruVision T5000 camera picks up Terahertz rays, or T-rays, which are naturally emitted by all objects and can pass through fabric or even walls.
The camera can then image metallic and non-metallic objects hidden under clothing on still or moving subjects without revealing any body detail, according to its British manufacturer, ThruVision Limited.
While similar technology is being unveiled at airports around the world, the T5000 is designed to be used in large, open areas.
With a range of 25 meters, the T5000 can screen people in public places, thus avoiding bottlenecks at border crossings or security checkpoints.
Amid privacy concerns, ThruVision Chief Executive Clive Beattie said the image produced by the camera did not reveal detailed anatomy.
Explosives, liquids, narcotics, weapons, plastics, and ceramics can all be detected by the camera's imaging technology, which the company says is completely safe.
Astronomers use T-ray cameras to see through dust and clouds in space.
The company sees uses for its camera at high-profile sites like political or business venues, and outdoor areas like tourist attractions and sports arenas.
The camera is already in use in London's Canary Wharf financial area.
Some said the camera was going too far and invading privacy, but others said they are willing to put safety before privacy concerns.
I don't care that they can see through me, because they can see me anyway.
Some experts said the intrusion of the camera was not worth the benefit.
"What we should consider is how much we want to lose aspects of our privacy in order to attain a sort of notional security," said David Murakami Wood, director of the Surveillance Studies Network, which deals with surveillance and privacy issues. "In most cases this isn't real security it's a sense of safety that has very little real effect.
Colombian President Alvaro Uribe on Wednesday defended his country¡¯s actions last month, when his military forces attacked a leftist rebel camp inside Ecuador, a move widely interpreted as a violation of its territorial sovereignty.
More than two dozen people were killed in the attack, including four Mexicans and Raul Reyes, the second in command of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. ¡°The problem is very simple,¡± Uribe told CNN en Espanol in this seaside resort, where he was attending a meeting of the World Economic Forum.
¡°For 40 years, Colombia has suffered from FARC terrorism.
And six years ago, Colombia made the decision to overcome terrorism totally &#8212; terrorism that assassinates pregnant women, mutilates little girls, kidnaps people, places car bombs.
Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama will debate each other Wednesday night for the first time in nearly two months.
The two Democratic presidential candidates will face off at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, just six days before the Pennsylvania primary. There is much at stake for both.
This will be the 21st Democratic debate, and although that seems like a lot, much has happened since their last debate, in Ohio in late February.
While Obama was riding an 11-contest winning streak back then, Clinton won comeback kid honors when she took three of the four primaries held March 4.
But Obama still leads Clinton in states won, pledged delegates to the Democratic convention and the overall popular vote in the primaries and caucuses held so far this campaign season.
Clinton needs to change the momentum in the battle for the Democratic nomination, and the best way to do that is to win big in Pennsylvania.
But a new CNN Poll of Polls puts Clinton's lead at just 5 points over Obama in Pennsylvania, down from a double-digit lead two weeks ago.
"This is probably her last opportunity to change the momentum in the campaign," CNN Senior Political Analyst Bill Schneider said.
The senator from Illinois will most likely have to explain, yet again, just what he meant when he told campaign donors at a San Francisco-area event 10 days ago that small-town Pennsylvania residents are "bitter" over their economic circumstances and "cling" to their guns and religion.
The failure to release the results of last month¡¯s Zimbabwe elections could cause the situation in that country to deteriorate further, with ¡°serious implications¡± for its people, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned Wednesday.
In unusually blunt remarks in a special U.N. Security Council session, Ban said he was deeply concerned at the uncertainty created by the failure to release the results of the March 29 elections.
Tensions have risen and violence has broken out in the southern African nation after opposition candidate Morgan Tsvangirai declared victory over incumbent President Robert Mugabe a few days after the voting, based, the opposition said, on results posted outside polling stations.
Olympic judo champion Yvonne Boenisch of Germany plans to boycott the opening ceremony at the Beijing Games.
"I want to send a signal and I will not take part in the opening ceremony," Boenisch told German television network ZDF.
Boenisch said she would also wear a wrist band in protest over China's crackdown in Tibet, but ruled out skipping the games themselves.
If there were a boycott, thousands of dreams would be ruined," she said.
German Olympic officials have pledged to send a team to China.
Boenisch became the first German woman to win a judo gold medal at the 2004 Olympics in Athens where she triumphed in the under 57-kg category.
Despite a weekend of negative coverage following his controversial remarks about some small town Americans, Barack Obama appears to be holding steady or making gains in the next three primary states, according to a just released poll.
Most surprisingly, the new LA Times/Bloomberg poll shows Obama ahead of Hillary Clinton by 5 points in Indiana (40 to 35 percent), a state with demographics that favor the New York senator and one where other recent polls have shown her with a lead.
The poll also shows Clinton only holds a 5 point lead in Pennsylvania (48 to 43 percent).
That margin is among the slimmest measured between to the two candidates and is significantly less than the double digit lead Clinton held there two weeks ago.
In North Carolina, the new survey shows Obama with a 13 point lead (47-34 percent), a margin that is consistent with other recent polls in that state.
Pennsylvania votes April 22 while Indiana and North Carolina vote two weeks later on May 6.
Should Clinton win in Pennsylvania, some political observers have said she must score a victory in at least one of the May 6 states to make a compelling argument to continue her presidential campaign.
The poll was conducted over five days (April 10-14), the majority of which came after Obama's now famous "bitter" comments first surfaced.
Bernie Peng reprogrammed Tammy Li's favorite video game, "Bejeweled," so a ring and a marriage proposal would show up on the screen when she reached a certain score.
Li reached the needed score and said yes.
Word of the romantic feat in December filtered out after Peng, a financial software programmer, posted details on his blog.
The reprogramming was a tricky task and took him a month.
The couple plan to marry over Labor Day weekend, and PopCap, the Seattle company that makes "Bejeweled," will fly the couple to Seattle as part of their honeymoon.
"Most video game companies would frown on people manipulating their games," said Garth Chouteau, a spokesman for PopCap.
"But it won him a woman. As a bunch of geeks, we have to say, 'Bernie, hats off to you.'
The company is also supplying copies of "Bejeweled" to hand out as favors to the wedding guests.
In the hugely popular game, players score points by swapping gems to form vertical and horizontal chains.
UNITED NATIONS (CNN) On the tenth anniversary of Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot's death, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appealed Tuesday for the senior leaders of the regime to be brought to justice.
"I would like to remind the international community of the urgent importance of bringing to closure one of history's darkest chapters," Ban said in a statement.
The secretary-general said he hoped that the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia "will soon deliver long-overdue justice for the people of Cambodia.
"The United Nations and the Royal Government of Cambodia remain actively engaged in efforts to hold the Khmer Rouge senior leaders and those most responsible accountable for their horrific crimes," he said.
Five former Khmer Rouge leaders have been detained and will face the ECCC, most of them on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The ECCC, which was established by both the United Nations and Cambodia, became operational in 2006, but the first formal hearings took place in fall of last year.
More than 2 million people died during the party's efforts to transform Cambodia into an agrarian utopia before troops from neighboring Vietnam overthrew the regime.
Remnants of the Khmer Rouge continued to battle Cambodia's government into the 1990s before they fragmented in the middle of the decade.
The tribunal, which includes three Cambodian and two international jurists, is expected to continue until at least 2010.
Crude oil prices surged Tuesday settling at a new record high above $113 a barrel as the U.S. dollar weakened further against the euro.
Light, sweet crude for May delivery settled at a record $113.79 a barrel after touching a new trading high of $113.99 a barrel in early morning electronic trading.
The previous high of $112.21 was set April 9.
"The path to $115 is cleared," said Stephen Schork, publisher of the oil trading newsletter The Schork Report.
Ringing dollar bell The latest surge in crude prices is partly due to weakness in the U.S. dollar, analysts said.
As the dollar has dropped versus the euro, many investors have flocked to commodities such as oil and gold to preserve the value of their assets.
The euro bought $1.5865 early Tuesday, up from $1.5808 the previous session.
In London, Brent crude futures rose $1.79 to $111.63 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.
SEOUL, South Korea (CNN) The co-founder of MySpace said he believes the popular online hangout is poised to succeed in South Korea after closely scrutinizing U.S. Internet services that have faced challenges making inroads here.
Speaking after the launch of MySpace's Korean-language version in Seoul, Chris DeWolfe said he was confident about its prospects in a country that has proved difficult for foreign online services such as Google.
He noted the Korean-language site included the exclusive function "Minilog," a way for Korean youths to jot down everyday thoughts and feelings in a few hundred characters.
Capitalizing on Asian affinity for fancy stationery, the function has options to personalize stamps and backgrounds to resemble different types of notebook paper.
cultures in every country," DeWolfe told a forum at Seoul's elite Yonsei University in the South Korean capital Seoul. "We believe that people use Web sites differently in every country.
MySpace is expected to face stiff competition from local social-networking sites such as Cyworld in a local market that has typically shunned U.S. online services popular elsewhere in the world.
It is one of the few global markets, for example, where Google Inc. is not the dominant search engine.
MySpace, a unit of media mogul Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., also plans to launch a site for India later this week.
Last week, it expanded its offerings for Latinos based in the United States.
Some who attended the forum where DeWolfe spoke expressed skepticism about MySpace.
"I think one major problem facing MySpace is whether and how they can overcome the language barrier," said Lee Da-young, a 20-year-old university student. "I wonder how many Koreans can communicate with those abroad in English.
Kang Ji-hye, a 29-year-old office worker, said South Koreans prefer to stick with the familiar.
The British treasury chief made a pitch Tuesday for China's $200 billion state investment fund to invest in the UK as he visited Beijing amid strains over Tibet and China's trade surplus.
"We welcome the creation of the Chinese sovereign wealth fund and its potential for investing in our country," Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling said after meeting China's top finance reform official, Vice Premier Wang Qishan, for talks on financial cooperation.
Darling said ahead of his trip that he would express British concern about China's crackdown in Tibet and appeal for restraint. But he made no mention of the issue as he and Wang appeared briefly before reporters following their meeting.
Darling is the highest-ranked British official to visit China since Prime Minister Gordon Brown's office said last week he would skip the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics in August.
Brown's decision came amid demands by activists for foreign leaders to boycott the ceremony in protest over Beijing's crackdown on protests in Tibet.
But his office said the decision was unrelated to those demands and was not a gesture of protest.
The meeting was the first in an annual series of high-level dialogues that are meant to promote trade and financial cooperation between Beijing and London.
Darling was accompanied by executives of British and European banks and a London private equity firm.
Brown visited Beijing in January and said Britain welcomed investment by China's government fund.
That was a break with other Western officials who have expressed concern that such funds might have political motives and have suggested they should face restrictions.
WASHINGTON (CNN) Federal prosecutors Tuesday urged a Florida judge to sentence actor Wesley Snipes to three years in prison and fine him $5 million to demonstrate to taxpayers that refusal to pay income taxes carries severe penalties.
One week after vowing to crack down on "tax defiers," the Justice Department filed court papers seeking the maximum penalty for the three misdemeanor counts on which Snipes was convicted.
"The fact that Snipes was acquitted on two felony charges and convicted 'only' on three misdemeanor counts has been portrayed in the mainstream media as a 'victory' for Snipes," the government document says.
"The troubling implication of such coverage for the millions of average citizens who are aware of this case is that the rich and famous Wesley Snipes has 'gotten away with it.'
"For nearly a decade Snipes has engaged in a campaign of criminal tax conduct combining brazen defiance with insidious concealment," the prosecutors say.
The document says Snipes shipped millions of dollars to accounts in Switzerland, Antigua and the Isle of Man to avoid taxes.
"Given defendant's income, earning capacity, and financial resources, both disclosed and undisclosed, the United States submits that a fine of at least $5 million is warranted," the sentencing recommendation says.
"In the defendant Wesley Snipes, the court is presented with a wealthy, famous and inveterate tax scofflaw. If ever a tax offender was deserving of being held accountable to the maximum extent for his criminal wrongdoing, Snipes is that defendant," it says.
He is not a killer, but the state of Louisiana is determined to execute Patrick Kennedy for his crime.
The New Orleans native faces that reality as he sits on death row at Louisiana's maximum security prison, the largest prison in the nation.
The Louisiana State Penitentiary, or Angola Prison, is the size of Manhattan and surrounded on three sides by the Mississippi River.
Unlike the 3,300 inmates awaiting execution nationwide including the 94 other men at Angola Kennedy, 43, is a convicted rapist.
The victim was his 8-year-old stepdaughter.
For the first time in 44 years, a state is preparing to execute a man for a felony other than murder.
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday on whether Louisiana can use capital punishment in child rape cases.
The constitutional question before the justices is whether the death penalty for violent crimes other than homicide constitutes "cruel and unusual" punishment.
The high-profile examination of the death penalty also raises anew a national debate over selective prosecution and race.
"A lot of people think there should not be the death penalty [in this case] because the child survives," said Kate Bartholomew, a sex crimes prosecutor in New Orleans. "In my opinion the rape of a child is more heinous and more hideous than a homicide.
Kennedy was sentenced to die in 2003 for sexually assaulting his stepdaughter in her bed.
The crime occurred in a quiet neighborhood in Harvey, across the big river from New Orleans.
BOGOTA, Colombia (CNN) The highest active volcano in Colombia erupted Monday night, prompting authorities to order the evacuation of up to 15,000 people.
The Nevado del Huila volcano erupted at 11:08 p.m. Monday (12:
08 a.m. Tuesday ET), according to the Colombian Institute of Geology and Mining.
The eruption amounted to a "Level Red" the institute's most severe designation for volcanoes but authorities told Caracol Radio that darkness made it difficult to gauge precisely what had happened.
Monitoring equipment confirmed an eruption, but authorities do not know whether it has produced a column of smoke or spilled lava, Marta Cavache, an official with the Colombian Institute of Geology and Mining, told the radio station.
Authorities warned of possible avalanches and urged local officials to monitor the volume of rivers near the volcano, Caracol reported.
Nevado del Huila, about 155 miles (250 kilometers) southwest of Bogota, has a summit of 17,598 feet (5,364 meters).
Its first documented eruption occurred in the 16th century.
President Vladimir Putin accepted the leadership of the dominant United Russia party Tuesday, securing his grip on power for when he leaves the Kremlin and becomes prime minister next month.
He was quickly approved as leader in a unanimous vote during a party congress that mixed promises of a bright Russian future with traditions from the Soviet past.
Putin's decision to lead United Russia, announced just three weeks before he cedes the presidency to his hand-picked successor, Dmitry Medvedev, left little doubt that he intends to remain at the forefront for years to come.
Putin cast the move as a step toward European-style democracy for Russia and said it would ensure that Russia's political bosses and bureaucrats functioned as a "single organism" for the good of the people.
"Today even more than before, we need the consolidation of political forces and the spiritual unity of our people," he said after all 577 delegates raised their blue, red and white cards in unison to approve his nomination.
But Putin's decision could undercut the authority of Medvedev.
Like the unanimous vote, it evoked memories of the Soviet era, when the Communist Party chief held the real power and the formal head of state was little more than a figurehead.
Speaking before Putin, Medvedev said he supported Putin taking the party leadership, calling it a "logical and timely" step.
WASHINGTON (CNN) A smiling Pope Benedict XVI arrived in the United States on Tuesday afternoon to start the six-day, two-city journey that will take him from the White House to the halls of the United Nations.
The papal plane, Shepherd 1, touched down at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland to cheers from a crowd of invited guests gathered for the event.
After he stepped off the plane, Benedict did not kiss the ground, as his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, often did during visits.
The pontiff was greeted by President Bush, first lady Laura Bush and their daughter Jenna, each of whom shook his hand.
It was believed to be the first time an American president has greeted a world dignitary on arrival at Andrews.
"It had the look and feel of a monumental and historic event," CNN's Brian Todd reported.
This is the first U.S. papal visit since the attacks of September 11 and Benedict's first visit to the United States.
There will be a welcoming ceremony for the pope on the South Lawn of the White House on Wednesday.
Benedict is to speak before meeting with U.S. cardinals and bishops.
One of the stated goals of the pope's visit is to energize the U.S. Catholic community:
the largest in the world, with an estimated 70 million members.
Three years after succeeding Pope John Paul II, Benedict is likely to address the sex scandal within the Catholic Church, the church's relationship with other faiths, the U.S.-led war in Iraq and the upcoming U.S. presidential election, said John Allen, a CNN Vatican analyst.
The fallout from the sex scandal has had a serious impact on the U.S. Catholic Church in terms of its finances, its moral authority and the demoralization of Catholics.
During the flight from Rome to Washington, the pope told reporters aboard that he was ashamed of the problem.
A gas-tax holiday, government-backed mortgages they're all part of an economic-revival plan that a top aide to GOP Sen. John McCain described Tuesday as "big and ambitious."
The presumed Republican nominee also wants to create an alternative system for paying income taxes and double the income tax exemption for dependents, McCain said during a Tuesday speech at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
McCain would let Americans choose between the new system and the present one.
"Americans do not resent paying their rightful share of taxes what they do resent is being subjected to thousands of pages of needless and often irrational rules and demands" from the Internal Revenue Service, he said.
"We are going to create a new and simpler tax system and give the American people a choice.
The presidential candidate also called for doubling the federal income tax exemptions for dependents, from $3,500 to $7,000.
Oil analyst Tom Kloza on Tuesday called McCain's proposal "a quick fix for people who believe cheap gas is their birthright. It's not a prudent thing to do.
Kloza also said reducing demand is one of the best ways of lowering gas prices.
Specter will continue to perform his Senate duties and conduct his campaign for re-election to a sixth term, but will undergo 12 weeks of chemotherapy, the written statement said.
Hodgkin¡¯s disease is a cancer of the lymphatic system.
The recurrence was found during a routine scan, which flagged small lymph nodes in Specter¡¯s chest and abdomen, the statement said.
Antoine Ghonda, a Congolese lawmaker and former foreign minister, said the crash killed at least 18 people while roughly 66 others &#8212; including five crew members &#8212;
Those numbers from Ghonda, who is in touch with Congolese Interior Ministry officials, are down sharply from earlier estimates that as many as 75 were dead.
It was unclear whether those estimates included people on the ground.
According to a manifest obtained by the U.S. Embassy there were 79 passengers and five crew members aboard the plane when it crashed.
A United Nations driver who had seen the crash site and visited area hospitals had told CNN that the number of dead appeared to be far fewer than originally reported.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=3112148
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) Pakistan's National Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution Monday calling for a United Nations probe into the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
The move is not surprising given that Pakistan's new government and parliament is dominated by a coalition led by Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party.
Party members and Bhutto's family have repeatedly called for such an investigation since she was killed December 27 after a campaign rally in Rawalpindi, south of the Pakistani capital of Islamabad.
The resolution calls for an international inquiry into the people behind the killing, the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan said.
Until now, President Pervez Musharraf has balked at calls for a United Nations inquiry.
His government before it was ousted from power after parliamentary elections in February had contended that the killing was orchestrated by Baitullah Mehsud, who as leader of the Pakistani Taliban has ties to al Qaeda.
The CIA reached the same conclusion. But two nationwide polls conducted this year found that a majority of Pakistanis believe Musharraf's government was complicit in Bhutto's assassination.
The cause of Bhutto's death is not clear.
Her family has refused to carry out an autopsy.
But Bhutto aide Sherry Rehman who had been riding in the car behind Bhutto's when it was attacked called the government's conclusion "the most bizarre, dangerous nonsense.
Rehman told CNN in February that the party wanted to look beyond "the hand that pulled the trigger" to focus on who organized and paid for the killing.
And the former prime minister's husband, Asif Ali Zardari, has called for an international and independent investigation, one under the auspices of the U.N.
The resolution Monday takes the party one step closer toward that goal.
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) It's that time of year when New Orleans slathers up and chills out.
Never mind how spring temperatures tend to sizzle.
Get a big hat, plenty of suntan lotion and everything will be cool in the Big Easy for the last weekend of April and the first weekend of May.
The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Fest that smorgasbord of music, food and fun allows music enthusiasts to plan an itinerary around everything from musical lectures and demonstrations to impromptu parties.
And, oh yes, big-name acts and niche music abounds.
Fans stake out spots in front of stages or under shade trees at the Fair Grounds Race Track, chowing down on boiled crawfish, po-boys, fried chicken and even sushi.
"There is nothing else like it," said singer Aaron Neville, whose performance at the festival this year is his first gig in his hometown since Katrina hit.
Before the hurricane, Neville traditionally closed out the second weekend of the festival with his brothers, in addition to doing a turn in the gospel tent.
For Neville, New Orleans hasn't been the same since Hurricane Katrina roared through in August 2005, flooding 80 percent of the city including his house.
"I had 10 feet of water at my house," he said.
While Neville has been around Jazz Fest for three decades, the fest itself will be 39 years old when it opens for the weekend of April 25-27.
Opening day headliners will include Sheryl Crow and Allison Krauss as well as reggae master Burning Spear. Music the first weekend also includes the Count Basie Band featuring Patti Austin, Archie Bell and Billy Joel.
There is also plenty of music and food available for visitors after Jazz Fest closes each day for those with the energy remaining to do more.
NAIROBI, Kenya (CNN) At least 11 members of a Kenyan gang were killed Monday in a confrontation with police following protests in the capital city of Nairobi and other parts of the country, local media reported.
The Mungiki gang set up roadblocks and burned cars to protest the suspicious killing of their imprisoned leader's wife.
Truckloads of police intervened, wielding batons and firing tear gas and live ammunition to clear the streets of protesters.
The unrest came a day after President Mwai Kibaki implemented a power-sharing agreement with opposition leader Raila Odinga.
The deal was intended to end several weeks of chaos and violence in the once-stable country that followed the disputed December 27 election.
More than 1,000 people were killed and another 300,000 driven from their homes in fighting that took on ethnic overtones.
The Mungiki militia, who are loyal to President Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe, has been accused of carrying out some of the killings.
It started as a religious sect, but over the years has morphed into a gang that runs protection rackets particularly in the slums.
Local media reported that gang members burned up to 40 cars in one section of the capital.
Migwi, who spoke to CNN at a township in Nairobi that houses a slum, said he had not noticed any dead bodies. But, he added, "they will die later from the injuries.
The bodies of Mungiki leader's wife and her driver were found in a forest last Wednesday. Her throat had been slit;
the driver was bludgeoned to death, according to media reports.
Family members allege that police killed the pair.
Last year, the state-funded Kenya National Commission on Human Rights blamed the police of more than 400 "extra judicial" killing of Kikuyu males during a crackdown on the Mungiki gang for extortion and other violent acts.
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) The directors of Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines reached agreement on a merger deal that if approved would create the world's largest airline.
Delta CEO Richard Anderson will head the merged carrier, which will retain the Delta name.
Both airlines emerged from bankruptcy protection last year.
Delta also announced on Monday it reached an agreement with its pilot union to extend the existing collective bargaining agreement through the end of 2012.
Officials said the new airline would provide employees great job security and stability in the face of rising fuel costs and competition.
Customers also stand to benefit from the merger with competitive fares and more flight choices, officials said.
"We said we would only enter into a consolidation transaction it is was right for all of our constituencies," Anderson said in a statement. "Delta and Northwest are a perfect fit.
Northwest CEO Doug Steenland said the combined airline "will be able to overcome the industry's boom-and-bust cycles.
But Northwest's pilots' union quickly announced that it opposed the proposed merger, complaining that Delta and its pilots' union had come to their agreement without input from the Northwest pilots.
"This agreement clearly disadvantages NWA pilots both with respect to economic issues and seniority list integration," said union chairman Dave Stevens.
"A merger built on this unstable foundation is likely to put the combined airline in a position similar to that of US Airways.
Stevens said that such a labor relations scenario would combine with current economic problems including the rising price of oil "to place the Northwest pilots and all other Northwest employees at greater risk than as a stand-alone carrier."
Oil prices rose to an intraday trading record above $112 a barrel Tuesday after the U.S. dollar fell further and crude supplies to the U.S. and elsewhere were disrupted.
The main driver of crude's rally was a decline in the greenback relative to the euro on Monday, analysts said.
Crude oil's recent run above $100 a barrel has been largely attributed to a steadily depreciating U.S. currency because a weakening dollar prompts investors to seek a safe haven in hard commodities such as oil and gold.
Light, sweet crude for May delivery rose to $112.48 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange midmorning in Singapore Tuesday, surpassing the previous trading record of $112.21, set last week. The May contract has since retreated to
$112.36 a barrel, up 60 cents from Monday's record close of $111.76 a barrel.
Monday's news from Wachovia supported oil prices by making the U.S. dollar less attractive, said Victor Shum, an energy analyst with Purvin & Gertz in Singapore.
In London, Brent crude futures rose 61 cents to $110.45 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.
Toni Braxton won't return to the stage on the Las Vegas Strip until at least next month.
Braxton was released the following day, but last week's shows were canceled.
She is due to resume her show at the Flamingo Showroom on May 6.
The exact cause of Braxton's chest pain hasn't been made public.
She has been treated in the past for pericarditis, a viral inflammation of the heart.
Braxton is a six-time Grammy winner for songs including "Un-break My Heart."
China reduced the number of executions it carried out last year but still executed more people than any other country in the world, Amnesty International said Tuesday in its annual report on the death penalty worldwide.
Iran remains the country with the second-highest number of executions, with 377 killings that included a man stoned for adultery, the human rights group said.
The number of American executions fell to its lowest level in about 15 years, putting it fifth in the world with 42, Amnesty officials said.
Amnesty analysts said that early in 2007 China reformed the way capital cases are handled, leading to a substantial reduction in executions.
They said at least 470 people were put to death, from 1010 in 2006.
But they cautioned that the actual number is undoubtedly higher, and warned that any drop may be temporary.
Piers Bannister, a death penalty researcher at Amnesty, said the group fears that the slowdown is only a "logjam" that will lead to a rise in executions once a review by China's top court of all capital cases is concluded.
More than 60 offenses in China are punishable by the death penalty, including drug trafficking and embezzlement, Bannister said.
Amnesty reported that three countries Iran, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia put people under the age of 18 to death, the youngest a 13-year-old executed in Iran in April.
In all, at least 3,347 people were sentenced to death in 51 countries, and as many as 27,500 people are estimated to be on death row, Amnesty said.
Zimbabwe's High Court ruled Monday that it would not force the troubled African country's electoral commission to release the results of the March 29 presidential vote, two journalists at the court told CNN.
Zimbabwe's opposition party had been hoping that the court would act to end more than two weeks of election deadlock, having accused President Robert Mugabe of holding back the release of the results.
The ruling was a rejection of a petition filed on April 4 by the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), which has claimed victory for its candidate Morgan Tsvangirai in lieu of any official results.
"No one is going to steal this election," Biti said. "Mugabe is exposing himself, the SADC (Southern African Development Community) has exposed his weaknesses, but the people of Zimbabwe have made their voices heard."
Government spokesman Bright Matonga said the ruling was "the right judgment" because it allowed the electoral commission to complete a thorough review of results, The Associated Press reported.
Matonga rejected claims that the court was biased toward the ruling party, arguing that the opposition was willing to apply to the court because it expected an impartial ruling.
Zimbabwe is under international pressure to release the results, amid concerns that Mugabe is stalling the process in order to remain in power.
Zimbabwe's state-run newspaper, The Herald, has indicated that neither Mugabe nor Tsvangirai received enough votes in the election to avoid a runoff.
A candidate must receive 50 percent plus one vote to win without a runoff.
Dozens of lawyers crowded into a west Texas courtroom Monday as a judge started to sort out what to do with more than 400 children taken from a polygamist sect¡¯s ranch amid allegations of abuse.
A custody hearing for the 416 children placed in temporary custody after a search of the YFZ (Yearning For Zion) Ranch outside nearby Eldorado is set for Thursday.
¡°I am very proud of all Texas lawyers today,¡± she said. ¡°If we let them do their job we are going to see the system does work.
Walter Veltroni conceded to Silvio Berlusconi in the Italian election Monday, signaling a return to power for the 71-year-old former prime minister.
NEW YORK (CNN) Best-selling author J.K. Rowling said Monday that her efforts to halt a publisher's "Harry Potter" encyclopedia have been crushing her creativity.
Rowling told a New York court that she had stopped work on a new novel because the federal lawsuit had "decimated my creative work over the last month.
Rowling is suing RDR Books to stop publication of Steven Vander Ark's "Harry Potter Lexicon" on the grounds that her copyrights are being violated.
"This book constitutes wholesale theft of 17 years of my hard work," she testified Monday.
RDR's lawyer, Anthony Falzone, has defended the lexicon as a reference guide.
Falzone called it a legal effort "to organize and discuss the complicated and very elaborate world of Harry Potter.
The showdown between Rowling and Vander Ark is scheduled to last most of the week in U.S. District Court.
The writer will spend her breaks in the seclusion of a jury room away from any die-hard Potter fans.
The trial comes eight months after Rowling published her seventh and final book in the series.
The books have been published in 64 languages, sold more than 400 million copies and spawned a film franchise that has pulled in $4.5 billion at the worldwide box office.
Rowling is a fan of the Harry Potter Lexicon Web site that Vander Ark runs. But she draws the line when it comes to publishing the book and charging $24.95.
She also says it fails to include any of the commentary and discussion that enrich the Web site and calls it "nothing more than a rearrangement" of her own material.
David Saul Hammer, a lawyer for RDR Books, said the publisher would not challenge the claim by Rowling that much of the material in the lexicon infringed her copyrights.
But the judge will decide whether the use of the material by the small Muskegon, Michigan, publisher was legal because it was used for some greater purpose, such as a scholarly pursuit.
it will undoubtedly have a significant, negative impact on the freedoms enjoyed by genuine fans on the Internet," she said. "Authors everywhere will be forced to protect their creations much more rigorously, which could mean denying well-meaning fans permission to pursue legitimate creative activities.
In court papers, Vander Ark, 50, said he was a teacher and school librarian in Byron Center, Mich., before recently moving to London to begin a career as a writer.
He said he joined an adult online discussion group devoted to the Harry Potter books in 1999 before launching his own Web site as a hobby a year later.
In his court statement, Vander Ark still sounds like a fan, saying the lexicon "enhances the pleasure of readers of the Potter novels, and deepens their appreciation of Ms. Rowling's achievement.
But the affection no longer seems a shared experience.
Riots from Haiti to Bangladesh to Egypt over the soaring costs of basic foods have brought the issue to a boiling point and catapulted it to the forefront of the world's attention, the head of an agency focused on global development said Monday.
"This is the world's big story," said Jeffrey Sachs, director of Columbia University's Earth Institute.
"The finance ministers were in shock, almost in panic this weekend," he said on CNN's "American Morning," in a reference to top economic officials who gathered in Washington. "There are riots all over the world in the poor countries ... and, of course, our own poor are feeling it in the United States.
World Bank President Robert Zoellick has said the surging costs could mean "seven lost years" in the fight against worldwide poverty.
"While many are worrying about filling their gas tanks, many others around the world are struggling to fill their stomachs, and it is getting more and more difficult every day," Zoellick said late last week in a speech opening meetings with finance ministers.
"The international community must fill the at least $500 million food gap identified by the U.N.'s World Food Programme to meet emergency needs," he said.
"In just two months," Zoellick said in his speech, "rice prices have skyrocketed to near historical levels, rising by around 75 percent globally and more in some markets, with more likely to come¡±
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) A string of car bombs shook Mosul, northern Iraq's largest city, on Monday, killing 12 Kurdish troops and a civilian and wounding several others, U.S. and Iraqi authorities reported.
In the nearby city of Tal Afar, three people died and nearly three dozen were wounded when a suicide attacker blew himself up at an Iraqi soldier's funeral, the U.S. military reported.
U.S. and Iraqi forces in Mosul have been bearing down on Islamic jihadists loyal to al Qaeda in Iraq for several weeks.
Most of the deaths in the explosions there occurred in the western district of Rabiaa, where the 12 Kurdish Peshmerga militia fighters were killed, the U.S. command in northern Iraq reported. Another five Peshmerga troops were wounded in that attack, the U.S. military said.
Microsoft Corp.'s operating systems run most personal computers around the globe and are a cash cow for the world's largest software maker.
But you'd never confuse a Windows user with the passionate fans of Mac OS X or even the free Linux operating system.
Fans of the six-year-old operating system set to be pulled off store shelves in June have papered the Internet with blog posts, cartoons and petitions recently.
They trumpet its superiority to Windows Vista, Microsoft's latest PC operating system, whose consumer launch last January was greeted with lukewarm reviews.
No matter how hard Microsoft works to persuade people to embrace Vista, some just can't be wowed.
For them, the impending disappearance of XP computers from retailers, and the phased withdrawal of technical support in coming years, is causing a minor panic.
A longtime technology journalist, Gruman is more accustomed to writing about trends than starting them.
But after talking to Windows users for months, he realized his distaste for Vista and strong attachment to XP were widespread.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) Richard Butler, the CBS journalist rescued by Iraqi soldiers in the southern Iraqi city of Basra on Monday, described a quick escape and "brilliant" military work that ended his two long months of captivity.
"The Iraqi army stormed the house and overcame the guards and burst through the door and I had my hood on, which I had to have on the whole time. And they shouted something at me and I pulled my hood off," Butler told TV cameras.
"And they ran me down the road.
Butler, who is British, was freed Monday by chance during Iraqi military operations that have been ongoing for weeks in the city, and later was handed over to the British military.
News footage showed him hugging and shaking hands with people after he fled a house in the Basra neighborhood of Jabaliya.
"Thank you and I'm looking forward to seeing my family and friends at CBS. And thank you again," he said.
When asked whether the Iraqi army was "good," Butler called the army "brilliant.
Maj. Gen. Mohammed al-Askari, Iraq Defense Ministry spokesman, told CNN that Butler was freed by soldiers at about noon Monday.
When troops approached the house, four men opened fire on soldiers and a 30-minute gunfight ensued.
One person was eventually detained and three people fled, one of whom was wounded, the ministry said.
CBS was pleased to hear the news.
"We are incredibly grateful that our colleague, Richard Butler, has been released and is safe.
He was taken on February 10 in Basra while on assignment for CBS News.
He is apparently in good condition," a CBS spokeswoman said.
The office of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who has a large base of support in Basra, got involved in talks to release the men.
After a weekend of playing defense about his "bitter" comments, Sen. Barack Obama went on offense Monday against his Democratic rival and the presumptive Republican nominee.
Obama mocked Sen. Hillary Clinton for throwing back a shot of whiskey in front of TV crews over the weekend and said she must think she's "doing me a favor" by attacking him and toughening him up for a fall race against Republican Sen. John McCain.
"I'm sure that Sen. Clinton feels like she's doing me a favor because she's been deploying most of the arguments the Republican Party will be using against me in November and so it's toughening me up.
Clinton has been hitting Obama hard after he referred to some small-town Pennsylvanians as "bitter" people who "cling to guns and religion" at a fund-raiser last week.
Obama later said the remarks were badly phrased but accurate.
On Sunday, Clinton called the comments "elitist, out of touch and frankly, patronizing," and added, "You know, the Democratic Party, to be very blunt about it, has been viewed as a party that didn't understand and respect the values and the way of life of so many of our fellow Americans.
Top seed Maria Sharapova won her first claycourt title by defeating Dominika Cibulkova 7-6 6-3 in the final of the WTA Amelia Island tournament on Sunday.
It was the first championship on clay for the 20-year-old Sharapova, who had been 0-3 in previous showings.
Cibulkova put up stout opposition in the first set against an opponent who had enjoyed rest on Saturday after being given a walkover in the semifinals because Lindsay Davenport was unwell.
The 34th-ranked Slovak was appearing in her maiden WTA Tour final
Cibulkova had made an impressive run through the draw, upsetting No. 2 Anna Chakvetadze, 11th-seeded Amelie Mauresmo and No. 14 Victoria Azarenka.
A U.S. missile overshot its target and struck a troop vehicle, injuring two U.S. soldiers and two Iraqi civilians, and setting houses on fire in eastern Baghdad, the military said.
The accidental strike on the U.S. vehicle came Saturday as U.S. and Iraqi security forces battled Shiite militants in the capital, fighting that continued into Sunday.
An "air weapons team" spotted militants setting up roadside bombs in the New Baghdad district Saturday afternoon and launched a Hellfire missile, the military said.
Fighting erupted more than a week ago as the coalition forces worked to stop roadside bombings and rockets that are being launched toward central Baghdad's International Zone.
The Hellfire missile fired by the U.S. military "overshot its intended target and struck a coalition forces vehicle, starting it and nearby houses on fire," the military said.
the other broke a leg, the military said.
"This afternoon's events are unfortunate and our apologies go out to those innocent civilians who were affected," said U.S. military spokesman Col. Bill Buckner. "We take every precaution possible when going after the enemy, an enemy who has no concern for the safety or security of the Iraqi people.
Just before the incident, a Hellfire missile hit a group of militants placing bombs in the same area, killing two of them, the military said.
In a separate development, an Interior Ministry spokesman said about 1,300 police and soldiers were dismissed after refusing to fight or neglecting their duties during last month's crackdown in Shiite strongholds.
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) Britney Spears' motoring misfortunes continue.
The pop star was involved in a minor traffic accident late Saturday.
No one was injured and no vehicles were damaged, authorities said.
California Highway Patrol Officer Patrick Kimball says Spears was driving her 2008 Mercedes on the eastbound Ventura Freeway just east of the 405 freeway when the nighttime accident occurred.
Spears was in stop-and-go traffic when her car struck a 2006 Nissan in front of her that had stopped.
The Nissan then pushed forward into another vehicle.
No damage was noted to any of the vehicles.
The Highway Patrol took a report and no one was cited.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf is accusing Western leaders and media of politicizing the Olympics by criticizing China's human rights record and its policy in Tibet.
"First of all, we consider Tibet an inalienable part of China," he said in an interview with China Daily on Sunday. If "anyone is harboring or abetting the separatists, we condemn that.
Musharraf is in Beijing to meet with various Chinese officials.
Last week the international leg of the Olympic torch relay set off protests in London, Paris and San Francisco.
The relay received warmer receptions over the weekend in Argentina and Tanzania.
The torch was due to arrive in Oman on Monday, the only stop in the Middle East for the relay.
The United States, Great Britain and other Western nations have urged the Chinese government to exercise restraint in dealing with the sometimes violent demonstrations held by Tibetan monks.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he would not attend the opening ceremony in Beijing in August.
And while U.S. President George Bush has not committed to attending the opening, he does plan to attend the Games.
Last month, the U.S. State Department released a report saying the Olympic host has one of the most repressive human rights record in the world.
"You cannot superimpose the human rights and democracy environment of a Western country onto other countries," Musharraf added. "That is the error that the West and the Western media makes. This does not work at all and this must stop.
He also said he would cooperate with China a historical ally to Pakistan in the fight against terror.
The two nations have had a close relationship for decades, with Beijing providing economic, military, and technical assistance to its neighbor.
BEIJING, China (CNN) Restaurants could be among the last havens for smokers in Beijing as the city tries to ban public smoking ahead of this summer's Olympics, a state-run newspaper reported Monday.
Lighting up in restaurants, bars and Internet cafes will continue to be allowed even after a citywide public smoking ban comes into force May 1, as long as the venue has provided separate smoking and nonsmoking areas, the China Daily reported.
"Originally, we wanted restaurants to keep 70 percent of the areas smoke-free, but owners of Chinese restaurants both big and small worried the plan would hurt their business," Zhang Peili, an official with Beijing's municipal government supervising the ban, told the newspaper.
"It is difficult for us to control smoking in restaurants. It's just part of the culture," he said.
China is home to 350 million smokers a third of the global total.
Beijing pledged to hold a smoke-free Olympics and last month proposed a smoking ban in government offices, sports venues, hospitals and museums.
Last week Chinese media reported it would also be extended to elementary, secondary and primary school campuses.
Last October, Beijing banned smoking in the city's 66,000 taxis, threatening drivers with a 200 yuan ($29) fine if they are caught.
In 2005 China ratified World Health Organization rules that urged it, within three years, to restrict tobacco advertising and sponsorship, put tougher health warnings on cigarettes, raise tobacco prices and taxes, curb secondhand smoke, prohibit cigarette sales to minors and clamp down on smuggling of cigarettes.
Jimmy Carter reiterated the sentiments of many Democratic Party leaders on Sunday by saying that it would be a ¡°serious mistake¡± for superdelegates to choose the candidate with fewer total delegates.
Carter is the latest in a series of prominent Democrats to say that nullifying the popular vote would be a flawed approach.
He said that he ¡°basically agreed¡± with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who on March 15 stated "if the votes of the superdelegates overturn what's happened in the elections, it would be harmful to the Democratic party.
Heading into the key Pennsylvania primary on April 22, Hillary Clinton trails Barack Obama by 171 pledged delegates.
Even well-known supporters of Clinton have declared publicly that she needs to come first in the popular vote to win the nomination.
"I'm a very aggressive supporter of Senator Clinton, but I think you need at least a popular vote,¡± Gov. Jon Corzine, D-New Jersey, expressed in an interview on April 3. Later that day, Rep.
John Murtha, D-Pennsylvania echoed the governor¡¯s position, saying ¡°she has to be ahead in the popular vote to have any chance at all of getting this nomination.
Though Carter has not officially endorsed a candidate and made no such announcement on Sunday, he hinted last week that he is going to vote for Obama.
"My town, which is home to 625 people, is for Obama, my children and their spouses are pro-Obama. My grandchildren are also pro-Obama¡¦ As a superdelegate, I would not disclose who I am rooting for but I leave you to make that guess," he said.
BEIJING, China (CNN) China has arrested nine Tibetan Buddhist monks who it says bombed a government building in Tibet, state media reported.
The monks were part of a monastery in the Himalayan town of Gyanbe where the bombing was carried out on March 23, Xinhua said.
In recent days, China has ratcheted up its claims that a "clique" loyal to exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, is behind the violence in Tibet.
China has accused Tibetans of planning suicide attacks to sabotage the summer Olympic Games as part of their campaign to push for independence.
The Dalai Lama, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, has spoken out against violence and denied fomenting the unrest.
The Xinhua report on the monks' arrests said the men used a homemade bomb, then ran away from the scene.
The Chinese government has drawn international criticism for its crackdown last month on demonstrations to coincide with the 49th anniversary of a failed Tibetan uprising.
The protests, which began peacefully but turned violent, have thrown a shadow over the Olympics, being staged in Beijing in August.
Tibet's self-proclaimed government-in-exile puts the death toll from those protests at more than 100, but Chinese government restrictions make it difficult to confirm that number.
Chinese authorities have reported a death toll of 19, and say most of those killed were "innocent victims."
(CNN) An Italian artist missing for nearly two weeks while on a tour to promote peace has been found dead in Turkey, her Web site and Turkish media outlets reported Saturday.
Giuseppina Pasqualino di Marineo, known as Pippa Bacca, was hitchhiking with a friend from Milan, Italy to Jerusalem dressed in wedding dresses as part of what they called "Brides on Tour.
She disappeared March 31 while traveling through Turkey.
The Italian and Turkish governments, along with Interpol, had been involved in the search for her, the Italian Foreign Ministry said.
Turkish station NTV and di Marineo's Web site said her body was found Friday night near the village of Gebze, on the eastern edges of Istanbul.
The station said an autopsy was still under way and that di Marineo's body would be returned to Italy.
NTV said police had a suspect in the case who burned di Marineo's ID papers and had inserted his own SIM card into di Marineo's mobile phone.
Di Marineo's Web site said the suspect led police to the body, which was buried in a forest under a few centimeters of earth.
The Web site for di Marineo's project said it was her "dream" to hitchhike across the war-torn areas of the Balkans and Mediterranean dressed as a bride to promote peace.
"That's the only dress we'll carry along with all stains accumulated during the journey," she wrote.
The two planned to visit artists, craftsmen, museums, and youth clubs along the way.
A summit of Southern African leaders, meeting to discuss Zimbabwe's electoral stalemate, concluded Sunday with a weak declaration that appealed for a quick release of the results and the conclusion that the country is not in crisis.
The one-day summit in Zambia's capital, Lusaka, was seen by observers as a test of the Southern African Development Community's willingness, capability and resolve to sort out the vote fiasco, which resulted from the March 29 election.
The 14-member group has failed in the past to condemn Mugabe for alleged electoral fraud and human rights abuses.
It also offered to send observers if a second round of elections was warranted.
The report did not condemn the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission's decision to recount votes in at least 23 districts where Mugabe's Zanu-PF party claims discrepancies even before the release of results of all votes cast.
Commission chairman Justice George Chiweshe said that a recount would be held April 19, according to the state-run Sunday Mail.
Mugabe, Zimbabwe's president for 28 years and under pressure on diplomatic and domestic fronts to resolve the crisis, initially planned to attend the summit, but did not.
Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of main opposition party the Movement for Democratic Change, attended the summit and expected it to take a strong stance against Mugabe's government and demand that he relinquish power.
Balloting was set to continue through Monday to determine who will lead Italy's 63rd government since the end of World War II.
The charismatic billionaire, representing the center right, is running against former Rome Mayor Walter Veltroni of the center left.
They are the main contenders among 32 candidates vying to replace Romano Prodi, who stepped down as prime minister in January.
Part of the reason for the continual collapses of Italy's governments is the country's arcane electoral laws, which give the many small parties in parliament a disproportionate share of power and influence.
Opinion polls give him a good chance of winning his third term in 14 years.
The 71-year-old Berlusconi is not considered too old for the job, nor has his health been an issue, despite the fact that he has had bypass surgery since leaving office.
Elections are also being held for all seats in Parliament, with 36 parties in the race.
KATHMANDU, Nepal (CNN) The former communist rebels known as Maoists emerged Sunday as early leaders in Nepal's historic elections for an assembly that could formally abolish a 240-year monarchy.
But by Saturday, the Maoists had won 34 of the 63 constituencies for which results had been declared so far, election officials said.
The Maoists, formally known as the Communist Party of Nepal, are also leading in 58 of the 110 constituencies where counting continues, according to reports in the state-run Radio Nepal.
For 10 years, the Maoists carried out an insurgency to replace the monarchy with a republic. The violence claimed 13,000 lives.
The elections come two years after a peace accord in November 2006 ended the fighting.
The country's monarch, King Gyanendra, gave up most powers earlier that year after an uprising against his direct rule.
International observers declared the elections a success, despite violence that left three people dead one of them a candidate gunned down in front of a polling station.
Twenty others people were killed in pre-election violence.
U.N. election observers had feared the violence would be much higher.
Nepal's election commissioner estimated turnout of about 60 percent much higher than previous elections.
Voters in Nepal are electing an assembly that will decide whether the country continues its 240 years as a monarchy or becomes a republic, as most expect.
The 601-member constituent assembly will prepare a new constitution.
I find Lin walking in a festering landscape of rotting food, plastic bags and junk at the Mae Sot garbage dump in Thailand near the Thai-Myanmar border.
His home is a makeshift shelter made from salvaged bags, cloth and wood.
Lin is one of about 300 refugees in the dump who survive on other people's trash.
Their daily routine follows the same pattern:
They mill about the dump, waiting for the next truck to arrive, hoping for enough discarded food to get them through the day.
Lin pokes through the rubbish with a machete.
He says he collects bottles and plastic for three cents a sack.
He shows me his feet, which were filthy and ribbed with cuts.
A recycling firm offers the closest thing to steady employment for Lin and his family. It buys what bottles and plastics Lin and others salvage.
Life under the military junta in Myanmar can be brutal.
The country's economy is collapsing, and torture and rape under the country's military regime is commonplace.
Lin's new mother decided to flee to Thailand in search of a better life. She found a garbage dump instead.
Still, she says scavenging for food in the dump is actually an improvement on her previous life.
The United Nations established refugee camps in Thailand for those who flee Myanmar, but the camps are reserved only for victims of political persecution.
As a result, these refugees are trapped in the garbage dump not enough money to go elsewhere and no prospects back home.
Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki tapped opposition leader Raila Odinga as prime minister Sunday as part of a long-awaited power-sharing deal aimed at settling an dispute over December¡¯s elections that led to widespread violence.
Odinga¡¯s appointment marks the first time Kenya¡¯s government has had both a president and prime minister.
Kibaki also named a 40-member coalition Cabinet on Sunday, and thanked Kenyans for their patience during prolonged talks with Odinga¡¯s Orange Democratic Movement to reach an agreement.
¡°I want to assure you all that I will do everything possible to ensure that our country, Kenya, is steered along the path of peace, unity and stability,¡± Kibaki said in a statement.
The incumbent Kibaki narrowly won a new term in December amid allegations the vote was rigged, sparking weeks of chaos and violence.
The United Nations estimates that about 1,000 people died and another 300,000 were driven from their homes.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met Sunday in Jerusalem to discuss the situation in Gaza, with Abbas calling for Israel to allow more supplies into the territory, the chief Palestinian negotiator told CNN.
Abbas told Olmert that he fully backs Egyptian efforts to reach a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas leaders in Gaza, according to negotiator Saeb Erakat.
Olmert and Abbas met last Monday for the first time in nearly two months, recommiting to a U.S.-sponsored push to achieve a peace agreement by the end of the year.
Abbas also is scheduled to meet President Bush on April 24 at the White House.
(CNN) An explosion in a southern Iranian mosque killed 12 people and wounded more than 200 after evening prayers Saturday night, Iran's Fars news agency reported.
While an initial report said a homemade bomb exploded, a local police commander said it appeared to be a case of negligent handling of live munitions inside the mosque.
The blast and fire occurred about 9 p.m. Saturday in the Rahpouyan-e Vessal cultural center section of Shohada Hosseiniyeh mosque in the city of Shiraz, Iran's state-run news agency reported.
Survivors were being treated at 12 hospitals, the agency reported.
Iran's Fars news agency estimated 800 people, mostly young, were gathered at the mosque Saturday to hear a prominent local cleric's sermon denouncing Baha'i and Wahhabi faiths both of which are considered heretical by some Shiites.
Fars' initial reports said a homemade bomb was to blame, but provincial police Commander Ali Moaeyri later said it "was not sabotage.
"Some live munitions may have been left behind at that location, which could have been the cause of the explosion," Moaeyri said.
"Sacred Defense" is a local reference to the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s.
Shiraz prosecutor Hojatoleslam Jaber Baneshi told Iran's official news agency, the IRNA, that a committee was investigating the cause. He did not rule out sabotage.
Shiraz a historical city of more than 1 million people is known for being home to many scholars, artists and poets, and for local craftsmanship of rugs and metalwork.
Which Democrat is winning the battle for religious voters?
God only knows.
So far this year, Hillary Clinton has maintained an edge among Roman Catholics, many of them the Hispanic and working-class white voters who have been among the most loyal members of her base.
Thanks in large part to that support, many surveys had also given her a slight edge over Barack Obama among white Democratic voters who attended church of any kind regularly.
But in exit polls, the category of regular church-goers those who attend services once a month or more were more likely to choose Obama.
For years, the evangelical community has largely supported Republican presidential candidates.
Conservative Christian activists, drawn by the party's stands on abortion, gay marriage and other social issues, have been among the GOP's most reliable foot soldiers.
But this year, evangelical leaders have split over presumptive Republican nominee John McCain, who is struggling to mend fences with some evangelical luminaries like James Dobson who have expressed disappointment with his selection.
During the primary season, former Baptist minister Mike Huckabee appealed directly to evangelicals as one of their own but in opinion polls conducted early in the primary season, those voters preferred either Democrat to the former Arkansas governor.
Last summer, in one of the first Democratic events of its kind, the party's leading presidential candidates discussed their faith and how it has spared their policy positions in a forum co-sponsored by CNN.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=3108483
See the light
To take advantage of that energizing blue boost, lift your shades the minute you get up or take a 30-minute walk first thing in the morning.
And go outside as often as you can during the day, says Scott Campbell, Ph.D., director of the Human Chronobiology Laboratory at New York.
2. Get pumped with protein
Eat plant- and animal-based protein throughout the day an egg or high-protein cereal for breakfast, 10 almonds midmorning, a cup of low-sugar yogurt in the afternoon and your stamina should stabilize.
3. Lend a hand
How to Recharge Your Life 30 Seconds at a Time."
"There may be a single mom in your family who needs a babysitter or a lonely neighbor who'd love to chat.
4. Breathe hard more often
Lift weights, roll out the exercise ball, or do five minutes of yoga in the morning.
Climb a few flights of stairs at lunch and jog after dinner.
then breathe out slowly, imagining you're pulling your navel toward your spine.
5. Bag a new brew
As a result, white tea has the highest concentration of L-theanine, an amino acid that, according to recent research, stimulates alpha brain waves to boost alertness while producing a calming effect.
And because a cup of white tea contains less caffeine (15 milligrams) than other teas (up to 50 mg) and coffee (120 mg), it's more hydrating, another key for sustaining energy.
6. Tackle the blahs in bursts
Shake up your routine for 15 minutes at a time to get an energy boost.
Change your walking route, sample a new food, garden for a few minutes, or pick up a pencil and draw.
Start small;
tackling a really big new project may just pile on more stress.
And think of your mini-task as a chance to renew, not another thing on your to-do list.
7. Get hands-on help
Don't have time for a 30-plus-minute session? Try self-acupressure.
Rub the muscle between your thumb and your forefinger for three to five minutes;
you should feel a little ache there and then an overall sense of ahh.
8. Take a tech-free break
Even though both men and women say that their cell phones allow job worries to affect their home lives, only women experience the opposite effect the spillover of home concerns into work.
Give yourself at least an hour a day when you completely unplug from electronic devices.
That chance to check in and connect with yourself will re-energize you.
9. Meditate for a minute
Find a quiet place (even if it's the bathroom) and mentally focus on an image that brings you pleasure: the ocean, a flower, the sun, your cat;
continue to keep the image in your mind's eye as you breathe deeply (roughly 10 seconds for each inhale and exhale).
With a little practice, you'll become more skilled at maintaining focus and can add more short meditations to your day, whenever you need revitalizing.
10. Clean up your sleep
The buzzword in sleep science these days is "sleep hygiene," and it's about more than clean sheets it helps you create an atmosphere that's restful, so you'll sleep well and wake up energized without the need for sleeping pills.
Sleep hygiene usually includes three areas:
fully darkening your bedroom (turn your alarm clock away from you if the display gives off too much light), regulating room temperature to a moderate coolness (too hot or too cold, and you'll wake up), and using white noise (a fan or quiet music) to help induce sleepiness.
WASHINGTON (CNN) The United States is close to finalizing a deal with North Korea over its nuclear program, senior State Department officials tell CNN.
In the deal being discussed, North Korea would finish disabling its nuclear reactor and provide a full accounting of its plutonium stockpile, the officials said.
In an addendum to the main agreement, North Korea also would "acknowledge" concerns about its proliferation and uranium enrichment activities and agree to continue cooperation with a verification process to ensure no further activities, the officials said.
Negotiations over the nuclear agreement stalled for months when North Korea balked at publicly admitting to a highly enriched uranium program and to providing Syria with nuclear technology.
In softening its demand for a full declaration from North Korea, the United States concluded it is more important to get North Korea to surrender its weapons-grade plutonium than risk the deal fall apart all together, officials said.
The officials said it is less important to have North Korea "confess" to its past activities than it is to find a formula under which the parties have an understanding of North Korea's nuclear program.
In exchange, they said, North Korea would be removed from the United States' list of state sponsors of
terrorism and would have sanctions removed under the Trading with the Enemy Act.
"We have found a formulation which is probably good enough" to address North Korea's past behavior, one official said.
North Korea has allowed U.S. officials, including Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, to visit a missile factory believed to have been used for uranium enrichment in an effort to prove there were no "ongoing" enrichment activities.
Hill told CNN it is still important to resolve North Korea's uranium and proliferation activities, but North Korea's plutonium is the more immediate threat because it can be used to make nuclear weapons.
"North Korea still has difficulty admitting things publicly," Hill said. "We still have to deal with the proliferation issue and the HEU [highly enriched uranium] program, but it is very important to get a plutonium declaration that is not only accurate but is completely verifiable.
The United States also wants the deal to address Japan's questions about North Korea's alleged abductions of more than a dozen Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s, officials said.
NEW YORK (CNN) A nude photo of France's first lady was auctioned Thursday for $91,000, about 30 times more than anticipated, the Christie's auction house said.
The image was taken by photographer Michel Comte in 1993, when Carla Bruni-Sarkozy was one of the world's most sought-after models.
The 13-by-10-inch photo was bought by an anonymous bidder on behalf of a collector, Christie's said.
It was part of a selection of photographs auctioned by collector Gert Elfering that also included nude photos of models Lauren Hutton, Gisele Bundchen and Kate Moss.
The money from the sale of the Bruni-Sarkozy photo will go to the Swiss charity Sodis, which provides clean drinking water to developing nations, Christie's said.
A late-night call to French President Nicolas Sarkozy's office was not immediately returned Thursday.
The office previously declined to comment on the sale, saying it concerned the leader's private life.
Sarkozy divorced his second wife in October and married the Italian-born former model, now a successful singer, in February after a quick courtship.
Bruni-Sarkozy made her first state visit as France's first lady in late March with a two-day trip to Britain, where she and her husband attended a lavish banquet held by Queen Elizabeth II.
(CNN) Eight Florida teenagers six of them girls will be tried as adults and could be sentenced to life in prison for their alleged roles in the videotaped beating of another teen, the state attorney's office said Thursday.
Three of them are also charged with tampering with a witness.
The only attorney for the teens who has been publicly identified did not return calls from CNN, and his assistant cited the gag order as the reason.
The video shows a brutal scene:
The 16-year-old victim is punched, kneed and slapped by other girls.
She huddles in the fetal position, or stands and screams at her attackers, but the assault continues.
Authorities say the eight teens said they were retaliating for insults posted on the Internet by the attack victim.
Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd called the March 30 attack "animalistic.
"I've been involved in law enforcement for 35 years, and I've seen a lot of extremely violent events, but I've never seen children, 14 to 18 years of age, engage in this conduct for a 30-minute period of time and then make these video clips," he said.
Police say the teens planned to post the video on YouTube.
The victim, a 16-year-old from Lakeland, Florida, was hospitalized, and still has blurred vision, hearing loss, and a swollen face, her mother told CNN on Wednesday.
The video shows only girls doing the beating; Judd said the boys acted as lookouts.
Manager Joe Girardi shook up the struggling New York Yankees' lineup before Thursday night's game against the Kansas City Royals.
Hideki Matsui started in right field for the first time since 2005, while Alex Rodriguez batted third.
He had hit cleanup in the first nine games, and in 156 of the 158 games he started last year.
Jorge Posada was in the cleanup spot.
The Royals started left-hander John Bale against the Yankees, who had scored two runs in 19 innings entering the game and with 25 runs this season had the second-lowest total in the AL.
On the season, the Yankees were 11-for-66 (.167) with runners in scoring position.
We've had some guys who have played a bunch of days in a row and we're facing a left-hander, so we'll get some of our right-handers out there.
Girardi said he was comfortable with Matsui in right, and Matsui said it was a matter of focus.
"Obviously, I'm not as used to right field, so I need to pay attention to things I'm not used to. I haven't had as much opportunity to play in the outfield as I have in the past, but it doesn't affect me because I've played out there so much in the past,'' Matsui said through an interpreter.
The channel Televen says "The Simpsons" has been replaced in its 11 a.m. slot by "Baywatch Hawaii.
The change was made Friday after the National Telecommunications Commission opened an administrative proceeding saying it had received complaints from some viewers about "The Simpsons.
The agency says showing "The Simpsons" during a time slot for all viewers could violate Venezuela's Law of Social Responsibility in Radio and Television.
China's currency nudged past 7.0 yuan to the U.S. dollar Thursday, a milestone bound to please Beijing's trading partners and dismay exporters struggling to remain competitive in overseas markets.
The official Xinhua News Agency reported that the yuan was trading at 6.9920 to $1 the first time it has ventured below the 7 yuan mark since the government loosened the unit's peg to the dollar in 2005.
The yuan has gained about 18 percent in value since then.
That has made Chinese-made products more expensive overseas while shrinking the yuan-denominated value of profits from exports.
The stronger yuan is squeezing China-based exporters, including multinationals, at a time when they already are wincing at surging costs for labor, energy and materials.
"Our costs keep rising and the dollar is falling so we make less money than ever before," said a quality control manager at EI Global, an exporter of small promotional items.
The United States wants the yuan to appreciate faster, and some American lawmakers are calling for punitive tariffs on Chinese imports.
Washington reported a $256.3 billion trade deficit with China last year, its highest on record with any country.
During a visit to Beijing last week, U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson reiterated calls for Beijing to let the yuan trade more freely.
KOROLYOV, Russia (CNN) A Russian Soyuz spacecraft carrying South Korea's first astronaut docked successfully at the international space station on Thursday.
The Soyuz TMA-12 craft and its passengers Yi So-yeon, a South Korean bioengineer, and cosmonauts Sergei Volkov and Oleg Kononenko hooked up with the orbiting station two days after its launch from the Baikonur cosmodrome.
"The docking went on as scheduled in automatic mode," Mission Control spokesman Valery Lyndin said.
The flight was the first mission for all three space travelers.
"Our cosmonauts had no experience but, as you saw, everything went successfully," Vitaly Davydov, deputy head of Federal Space Agency, said at a news conference at Russia's Mission Control in Korolyov just outside Moscow.
Ko San, a mathematician, was originally supposed to fly on the Soyuz.
He was relegated to the backup crew in March after he was accused of removing technical materials from a cosmonaut training center library without authorization. Yi, Ko's backup, replaced him on the primary crew.
Russian space officials referred to Yi as a space flight "participant," a title reflecting her status as a commercial space traveler.
Pak Hong Yul, the head of South Korea's space agency, sounded somewhat vexed when Russian officials said they were referring to Yi as a "participant" of space flight because of her lack of previous space experience.
"No matter what she is called, she is our first Korean astronaut," Pak snapped.
Yi is to return to Earth on April 19, along with two of the station's other current occupants, American astronaut Peggy Whitson and flight engineer Yuri Malenchenko.
Islamic terrorists planned to attack Beijing, Shanghai and other Chinese locations with poisonous gas and explosives to sabotage the Summer Olympic Games, China announced Thursday.
Chinese authorities arrested 35 suspects during a 10-day series of raids that ended on Sunday, according to a statement from the Ministry of Public Security.
The raids in Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, also netted about 21 pounds (9.5 kg) of explosives, eight detonators, two explosive devices, and some propaganda materials for "holy war.
"We know that their goal was very clear that is, specifically to sabotage the staging of the Beijing Olympics," Communist Party Secretary Wang Lequan said.
The Xinjiang autonomous region in northwestern China is home to about 19 million people, most of them Muslims and other minorities.
The terrorists planned to target hotels in Beijing and Shanghai that were frequented by foreigners, as well as government buildings and military bases, according to the ministry's statement.
The group also planned to kidnap foreign journalists, tourists and Olympic athletes "to make influences on international communities to undermine the Beijing Olympics," the ministry said.
In a previous raid in January, 10 people were arrested in Xinjiang in connection with another plot targeting the Games, according to Thursday's statement from the Public Security Ministry.
Chinese authorities also recovered jihadist propaganda and bomb-making equipment during that raid.
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) When your child has an emergency, you want a hospital with child-sized medical equipment, pediatricians who are right there (or at least minutes away), and little things like cartoons in the examining room.
But how do you find a child-friendly ER and what are other ways to prepare for a trip to the ER with your child?
1. Find the right hospital
Do this now, when everything's calm, not when your child's bleeding profusely.
You live near a children's hospital.
This is a no brainer go there.
Find a hospital close to you with this list of children's hospitals in the U.S.
There's a children's hospital in your area, but a general hospital is closer.
This is a little trickier.
Dr. Emory Petrack, former chief of emergency medicine at Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio, says when it's a "truly critical emergency," get to the nearest hospital. (Truly critical emergencies include severe pain, trauma with multiple injuries, and difficulty breathing).
"The child can receive initial emergency treatment and can be stabilized as needed," he says, and transferred to a children's hospital if necessary.
On the other end of the spectrum, if it's a relatively small problem (a minor burn, for example, or a cut that requires a few stitches) it may not be worth a long trip to a pediatric hospital, says Dr. Joseph Luria, medical director of the Emergency Department at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.
Luria says if the problem is in between minor and life-threatening, it could well be worth the trip to the children's hospital.
You live far away from a children's hospital.
In this case, you've got some detective work to do.
You have to figure out which hospital in your area is the most child-friendly.
"Child friendly means both good medical care and staff that work well with babies and children," Petrack says.
Keep in mind there may not be a "kid-certified" ER within a reasonable distance from your home.
You can still take your child to a local hospital (and you should in case of an emergency);
Petrack recommends asking your pediatrician and other parents for recommendations.
2. Keep a list of your child's medications with you at all times
In an emergency, you don't want to be digging through your rattled brain for the name of the medicine your child takes, the dosage, and how often she takes it.
Have them written out and with you at all times.
If your child has a medical condition, you should also keep a health history with you at all times.
The Bank of England has cut its base lending rate a quarter-point to 5 percent, the lowest rate in 17 months.
But a number of analysts still say that further rate cuts are needed.
The widely expected decision comes in the face of contrary pressures from rising inflation, sagging house prices and falling consumer confidence.
The bank's key rate hit its recent peak of 5.75 percent in July and stayed there until December.
The last time the rate was as low as 5 percent was November 2006.
The Bank of England's head of markets, Paul Tucker, last week said rates would fall "gradually" and that the central bank was prepared to tolerate increased slack in the economy to counterbalance inflationary pressures.
NEW YORK (CNN) When Aaron Jones walks Gozer, his Rottweiler-hound mix, people cross the street to avoid them.
"He's the nicest dog I know," said Jones, 33, of Oakland, California. "It's hard to understand all the fear.
Gozer isn't aggressive and doesn't look mean or bark, Jones insists people are afraid of the dog purely because it's big and black.
According to animal shelter officials, big, black dogs like Gozer have more trouble finding a happy home than do other dogs.
Some shelters even have a name for it: "Big black dog syndrome.
Nobody tracks the problem nationally, and local shelters often keep only limited data on the sizes, breeds and colors of the dogs that are adopted or put down, according to the Humane Society and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
"But anecdotally," said Stephen Musso, executive vice president of the ASPCA, "that's what we hear from shelter after shelter: Big, black dogs just don't get adopted.
At the city animal shelter in Rogers, Arkansas, big, black dogs almost always make up the bulk of the animals put to sleep each month.
Last month, 13 of the 14 dogs killed by the city were large and black mostly Labs, shepherd mixes, pit bull mixes and Rottweillers, said Rhonda Dibasilio, manager of the city Animal Services Department.
It's not just that large dogs can be frightening:
Animal shelters say black dogs of all sizes are difficult to photograph for online listings, and are hard to spot against the shadows of their crates and cages in dimly lighted kennels.
People are often wary of dark dogs because it's difficult to read their expressions, said Paul Nicosi, the dog behavior specialist at Bide-A-Wee animal shelter in New York City.
Without defined eyebrows, a playful grin might be construed as an angry grimace, he said.
"There isn't a lot of contrast between black eyes and a black face, so people can't get a handle on how the dog is feeling," Nicosi said.
President Bush on Thursday said "serious and complex challenges" remain in Iraq that will prevent further withdrawals of U.S. troops this summer despite a reduction in violence in the past year.
Speaking after two days of congressional testimony by the top U.S. officials in Iraq, Bush credited his deployment of nearly 30,000 additional troops last year for a "major strategic shift" in the conflict.
The president also announced he will reduce combat tours from 15 to 12 months, citing the heavy strain on troops and their families.
The shortened tours would apply only to troops deployed on or after August 1 and would not cut back tours for those currently in Iraq.
"Our nation owes a special thanks to the soldiers and families who have supported this extended deployment," Bush said.
Bush's progress report on Iraq comes after he met with Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, U.S. ambassador to Iraq.
Petraeus and Crocker spent two days this week on Capitol Hill testifying on the status of the 5-year-old war.
The president said there is "much work ahead" in Iraq but noted cooperation from the Iraqis is stronger than ever.
No one wants to achieve this goal more than the Iraqis themselves," he said.
NARITA, Japan (CNN) The Dalai Lama said he supports China's hosting of the Summer Olympics on Thursday, but insisted that nobody had the right to tell protesters demanding freedom for Tibet "to shut up.
"I really feel very sad the government demonizes me. I am just a human, I am not a demon.
Protests have been held in cities around the world in a show of sympathy for Tibet, where anti-government riots erupted last month.
Parades of the passing of the Olympic torch have faced massive demonstrations, most recently in San Francisco.
The Dalai Lama said the demonstrators had the right to their opinions, though he called for nonviolence.
"Nobody has the right to tell them to shut up. One of the problems in Tibet is that there is no freedom of speech.
Chinese authorities have tightly restricted access to Tibet and Tibetan areas of western China, where protests also broke out.
The crisis is the expression of their (Tibetans') deep regret," he said.
Japan's government has been relatively quiet about the violence in Tibet and, out of deference to Beijing, does not deal officially with the Dalai Lama.
The IOC has stripped the medals from Marion Jones' United States relay team-mates at the 2000 Olympics because of her doping history.
The International Olympic Committee executive board on Thursday disqualified the athletes who won gold in the 4x400-meter relay and bronze in the 4x100m relay in Sydney.
IOC legal adviser Francois Carrard, who assisted the disciplinary panel investigating the case, said the U.S. Olympic Committee had been ordered to return the medals.
The decision follows the admission by Jones last year that she was doping at the time of the Sydney Olympic Games.
She returned her five medals last year and the IOC formally stripped her of the results in December. Jones won gold in the 100m, 200m and 4x400m relay, and bronze in the long jump and 4x100m relay.
Jones' team-mates on the 4x400m squad were Jearl-Miles Clark, Monique Hennagan, LaTasha Colander-Richardson and Andrea Anderson.
The 4x100m relay squad also had Chryste Gaines, Torri Edwards, Nanceen Perry and Passion Richardson.
The runners had previously refused to give up their medals, saying it would be wrong to punish them for Jones' violations.
They have hired a U.S. lawyer to defend their case, which could wind up in the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
"The decision was based on the fact that they were part of a team, that Marion Jones was disqualified from the Sydney Games due to her own admission that she was doping during those games," IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies said.
"She was part of a team and she competed with them in the finals.
The top U.S. military officer warned Thursday he is ¡°deeply concerned¡± about the situation in Afghanistan, adding that maintaining troops in Iraq is harming overall U.S. military capabilities.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the United States needs more troops to hold areas of southern Afghanistan and to train local army and police personnel.
The chief executive of American Airlines, which has grounded about 2,000 flights in the past two days &#8212; delaying and stranding more than than 140,000 passengers &#8212;
¡°I am profoundly sorry for having gotten into this situation,¡± American CEO Gerard Arpey told reporters Thursday afternoon, referring to the Federal Aviation Administration order that MD-80 jets be grounded for inspections at American and other airlines.
LONDON, England (CNN) A London department store has started selling coffee for $100 a shot.
If the price sounds unappealing, then shoppers also have to overcome the unusual method of cultivation, which sees the coffee beans harvested from the faeces of an Indonesian jungle cat.
Even so, the Peter Jones store says the luxury blend called Caff&eacute;
Raro is one of the world's rarest and most premium coffees.
Raro combines Jamaican Blue Mountain and Kupi Luwak, two extremely rare coffees.
The beans of Kupi Luwak are harvested after first being ingested by Civet cats and only around 260 kilos of the coffee is produced each year.
The coffee, which went on sale yesterday, is either available at $100 for a shot at the Peter Jones Espresso Bar, or shoppers can buy 100g packs of the coffee beans to take away for the same price.
"It's not exactly flying off the shelves it's very expensive after all but customers are buying it," Barkhuzen said.
The proceeds from the coffee sales will go to charity.
Sen. John McCain, in an effort to woo women voters, spent Thursday with the hosts of ABC's "The View" a show targeted at women, a key voting bloc.
McCain got a warm welcome but offered a businesslike greeting: handshakes for the hosts.
"Barack Obama gave us a hug," co-host Joy Behar told him.
Then he was coaxed into some hugs, a telling lesson for the Republican candidate to embrace a giant challenge: the gender gap.
That gap is something the Arizona senator needs to tackle, said Carly Fiorina, a McCain adviser and former Hewlett-Packard CEO.
"We need to acknowledge that it exists, and we need to be up front in saying we want to narrow that gap, we are going after the woman vote and he needs to be communicating aggressively both directly and through his surrogates with women all over this country," she said Thursday.
A recent Pew survey from March 19-22 showed McCain's support among women lagging far behind that of his Democratic rivals.
According to Pew, Obama leads McCain among women, 53 percent to 40 percent.
Sen. Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, leads McCain among women, 56 percent to 39 percent.
Australian Open finalist Jo-Wilfried Tsonga has been ruled out of France's Davis Cup quarterfinal against the United States this weekend because of a right knee injury.
"Tsonga felt pain in his right knee which was similar to the pain he felt playing doubles in Miami last week," said a statement from the French Tennis Federation (FFT).
Clement will team up with Michael Llodra in the doubles while Richard Gasquet and Paul-Henri Mathieu play the singles.
Violence raged for a fourth straight day in Baghdad's Sadr City, leaving 20 more Iraqis dead on Wednesday.
At least seven people were killed and 38 others wounded in a mortar attack and gunfire, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said.
Six people died in clashes between U.S. and Iraqi forces and members of the Mehdi Army, the militia of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
Five people were killed and 14 others were wounded when attackers fired at a tent of mourners for a person killed in this week's fighting.
An unmanned aerial vehicle killed two "armed criminals" attacking security forces, the U.S. military said.
The International Zone, the seat of U.S. power in Baghdad known as the Green Zone, was hit again Wednesday by rockets or mortars, the U.S. Embassy said.
The U.S. military said Shiite militants backed by Iran have been staging such attacks.
Wednesday's violence falls on the fifth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad.
It also comes as the two top American officials in Iraq, commanding Gen. David Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, U.S. ambassador to Iraq, testify before U.S. congressional committees about the status of the war.
They said Tuesday that Iranian agents and weapons are fueling the ongoing strife there and that further U.S. troop withdrawals will have to wait.
Clashes in Sadr City, a Shiite enclave in the capital, has killed 67 Iraqis and wounded 243 since Sunday, and nine U.S. troops have died in Baghdad during the same period.
Zimbabwe's High Court will wait until Monday to issue its ruling on whether it will order the Electoral Commission to release the March 29 presidential results, a journalist at the courtroom told CNN.
"Given that it was an urgent matter ... we thought it would be earlier," MDC lawyer Andrew Makoni said.
Lawyers for the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission had earlier claimed it would be too dangerous to release the results of the country's recent presidential elections, and warned that they may not comply with any court order to make them public, the journalist told CNN.
The High Court resumed deliberations Wednesday on whether to order the Electoral Commission to go public with the results of the March 29 election, the journalist said.
Meanwhile, attorneys for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change argue that Zimbabweans are anxious to know the results of the election, and so is the international community.
Zimbabwe is under international pressure to release the results amid concerns of heightened political tensions
The country's state-run newspaper, The Herald, has indicated that neither President Robert Mugabe nor challenger Morgan Tsvangirai received enough votes in the election to avoid a runoff.
But because the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission has yet to announce the results, it is unclear whether a runoff is required.
(CNN) Scoring bargain accommodations in Rome can be as tricky as deciphering ancient ruins.
But you're in luck: We've done the homework and unearthed nine charming, affordable hotels.
* ALBERGO DEL SOLE AL BISCIONE
First impression:
One of Rome's oldest working hotels built on the site of the ancient Theater of Pompey and in business since the 15th century the Albergo exudes a sense of shabby chic that only a place with this much history could pull off.
Wood-beamed ceilings, tall windows and rough-hewn furnishings are pleasantly reminiscent of an old farmhouse rather than a city-center hotel.
Some of the 59 rooms have access to the communal terrace, but you'll pay more. Budget Travel gallery:
The hotel affords gorgeous views of church domes and rooftops from flower-lined terraces with tables and benches.
Ignore the gaudy '70s-style neon sign out front and try not to be put off by the gaggles of tourists milling around the lobby.
Free WiFi?
Credit cards accepted:
Details:
solealbiscione.it.
Double with shared bath from ¢æ90 ($138), double with a private bath from ¢æ100 ($153), double with terrace access from ¢æ160 ($245).
Lower weekly rates (with the sixth night free) are available in June.
* THE BEEHIVE
First impression:
A hip, eco-conscious hotel that reflects the tastes and personal touches of its owners, a couple transplanted from L.A.
Beaded lamps, surfing-inspired prints and mod furnishings make for six appealing and spacious rooms.
Three self-catering apartments, which share a bathroom, a kitchen and common areas, are located about 15 minutes off-site in Esquilino, Rome's Chinatown.
The pervasive sense of understated style and wellness:
a garden with lemon and fig trees; an organic vegetarian caf&eacute;
The owners' cat, Ingmar, has free run of the place, so those with feline allergies take note.
If you're looking for privacy first and foremost, the communal feeling might be off-putting.
Free Wi-Fi?
cash only for apartments.
Details:
Private rooms from ¢æ75 ($114), dorm beds from ¢æ22 ($34) per person, apartment rooms from ¢æ60 ($92).
* HOTEL ANTICO BORGO DI TRASTEVERE
First impression:
The hotel is classic Trastevere:
quiet cobbled streets outside, exposed-beam ceilings inside accompanied by the smell from wood-burning pizza ovens and the chime of church bells.
A 13th-century private residence, the 12-room hotel retains much of its original appeal thanks to hand-painted floor tiles, heavy wooden shutters and idiosyncrasies like nooks and sloped ceilings.
Staying in Trastevere has increasingly come to mean losing a night's sleep.
But this hotel is safely across viale Trastevere, just far enough into the quiet part of the neighborhood to save guests from sacrificing shut-eye.
Rooms are tiny, and the staff can be difficult, especially if you need to make a special request or require help arranging anything extra.
Free Wi-Fi?
Credit cards accepted: Amex, MC, Visa.
Details:
hoteltrasteverehouse.it.
BANGKOK, Thailand (CNN) The bodies of 54 migrant workers from Myanmar were found Wednesday suffocated in a freezer on the back of a truck, police said.
Torsak Harnsanam, a police officer at Suksumran Police Station in Ranong province in southern Thailand, said a village chief alerted police at 10 p.m. (11 a.m. ET) that he had found the truck.
Police investigated and, in addition to discovering the bodies, found 67 other migrants from Myanmar who were alive inside the freezer, Harnsanam said.
Some survivors were taken to a hospital in a nearby village; others were jailed.
Survivors told police they sneaked into Ranong province from Myanmar's Victoria Point by fishing boat, according to reports from The Associated Press.
They were then packed into a small container truck for a trip to Phuket.
Ranong province is located about 467 kilometers (290 miles) south of Bangkok just across from Myanmar's Victoria point.
The province is regarded as a major trading route between the two countries, the AP reported.
Thailand has long depended on inexpensive labor from neighboring countries, including Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, which formerly was known as Burma.
The Thai government allows only a small number of immigrants from those countries, which has led to a number of smuggling cases.
There are about a million Myanmar workers registered to work in Thailand, and an additional million estimated to be in the country illegally to work mostly as laborers, the AP reported.
Some of the Myanmar migrants flee their country to escape armed conflicts between ethnic minority rebels and the Myanmar army, and others for lack of economic opportunity in their impoverished country, one of the poorest in Asia.
Many of those Myanmar migrants who do make it to Thailand, many illegal workers, wind up being abused by their employers.
The London-based human rights group Amnesty International found in a 2005 report that workers from Myanmar take jobs that Thais consider too dirty, dangerous or demeaning, the AP reported.
WASHINGTON (CNN) Abu Ubaida al-Masri, a senior al Qaeda commander suspected of helping plan the 2005 London subway bombings, died of natural causes in Pakistan, U.S. counterterrorism officials said Wednesday.
Al-Masri was considered an explosives expert and one of the terrorist network's top figures, with close ties to Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri.
One U.S. official described him as a "very bad, bad guy.
According to the official, al-Masri died several months ago in Pakistan, possibly from hepatitis.
A Pentagon source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said military officials had "no reason to doubt" reports that al-Masri had died.
Officials described him as a longtime jihadist who first fought against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.
Al-Masri fled Afghanistan after the U.S. invasion that followed those attacks, but continued to operate along the mountainous border region with Pakistan.
Officials said he helped plan external attacks and train jihadists to carry out those plots.
The baby, Lali, apparently has an extremely rare condition known as craniofacial duplication, where a single head has two faces.
"My daughter is fine like any other child," said Vinod Singh, 23, a poor farm worker.
Lali has caused a sensation in the dusty village of Saini Sunpura, 25 miles east of New Delhi.
When she left the hospital, eight hours after a normal delivery on March 11, she was swarmed by villagers, said Sabir Ali, the director of Saifi Hospital.
"She drinks milk from her two mouths and opens and shuts all the four eyes at one time," Ali said.
Rural India is deeply superstitious and the little girl is being hailed as a return of the Hindu goddess of valor, Durga, a fiery deity traditionally depicted with three eyes and many arms.
Up to 100 people have been visiting Lali at her home every day to touch her feet out of respect, offer money and receive blessings, Singh told AP.
"Lali is God's gift to us ," said Jaipal Singh, a member of the local village council. "She has brought fame to our village.
Village chief Daulat Ram said he planned to build a temple to Durga in the village.
"I am writing to the state government to provide money to build the temple and help the parents look after their daughter," Ram said.
Lali's condition is often linked to serious health complications, but the doctor said she was doing well.
"She is leading a normal life with no breathing difficulties," said Ali, adding that he saw no need for surgery.
The world economy will slow sharply this year, according to an International Monetary Fund forecast, with the United States sliding into a recession amid housing, credit and financial slumps.
The IMF, in a World Economic Outlook released Wednesday, slashed growth projections for the United States the epicenter of the woes and the global economy as a whole.
Economic growth in the United States is expected to slow to a crawl of just 0.5 percent this year, which would mark the worst pace in 17 years, when the country last suffered through a recession, the IMF said.
The United States won't fare much better next year; the IMF projected the U.S. economy will grow by a feeble 0.6 percent in 2009.
"The U.S. economy will tip into a mild recession in 2008 as the result of mutually reinforcing cycles in the housing and financial markets," the IMF said.
Many private economists and members of the U.S. public believe the country has already fallen into its first recession since 2001.
For the first time, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke acknowledged last week that a recession was possible.
An increasing number of analysts think the U.S. economy, which grew by 2.2 percent in 2007, started shrinking in the first three months of this year and is still contracting.
Under one rough rule, if the economy contracts for six straight months it is considered to be in a recession.
A panel of experts at the National Bureau of Economic Research that determines when U.S. recessions begin and end, however, uses a broader definition, taking into account income, employment and other barometers.
Looking at other countries, the IMF trimmed its projection for Germany, with economic growth slowing to 1.4 percent this year and weakening to 1 percent in 2009.
In Britain, growth will slow to 1.6 percent this year and next. France also will see growth decelerate to 1.4 percent this year and 1.2 percent next year.
Japan's economy will expand by 1.4 percent this year and 1.5 percent next year, which would mark a loss of momentum from last year. Canada's growth would slow to 1.3 percent this year and pick up slightly to 1.9 percent next year.
MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) A cult member who spent several months holed up in a cave with dozens of other people anticipating the end of the world claimed Wednesday that two women died and were buried inside.
The former cave-dweller, Vitaly Nedogon, relayed his claims to Russian TV journalists, according to Anton Sharonov, a spokesman for the administration of Penza, a region southeast of Moscow.
The official said Nedogon did not report the information to police or authorities.
Once the rest of the apocalyptic sect leaves the cave, investigators will move in to try to confirm Nedogon's report, Sharonov said.
Nedogon and others left the cave, said to be near the village of Nikolskoye, about 700 kilometers (435 miles) from the Russian capital, about a week ago, after part of its ceiling collapsed.
He claimed two women died at different times during the cult's seclusion, which began in November 2007.
One woman died of cancer and the other from excessive fasting, he told the media.
"However," Sharonov told the Russian news agency Interfax, "the Penza regional administration is of the view that these deaths must be proven legally, which is possible only if all the people leave the cave so that investigative officials can examine it.
Sharonov said those who remain in the cave told Penza officials during negotiations that they would come out by the Russian Orthodox Easter, on April 27.
He said officials believe 11 people are left in the cave, but only nine will be alive if Nedogon's report is true.
According to Interfax, Penza Deputy Governor Oleg Melnichenko, who is leading the local effort to resolve the situation, said he was unaware of any deaths in the cave.
The cave ordeal began when Kuznetsov, the group's leader, told his followers to hide themselves to await the end of the world, which he predicted would take place in May.
They had threatened to commit mass suicide if authorities tried to intervene.
Thirty-five sect members are believed to have entered the cave initially, Interfax said.
The husband of hostage Ingrid Betancourt vowed Wednesday to plunge off into jungle villages to hunt for clues to her situation following the failure of government-backed effort to aid her.
"I want to talk to the people ... to see if she is alive or not, what her state of health is," Juan Carlos Lecompte said after he landed in San Jose del Guaviare, a steamy provincial capital in eastern Colombia.
Lecompte told reporters he would drive to outlying villages to seek information.
He said he had come to learn about her situation, but has not had any contact with the leftist rebels holding her.
A citizen of both France and Colombia, Betancourt was campaigning for Colombia's presidency when she was kidnapped in 2002.
Former hostages who spent time with Betancourt say they believe she has hepatitis B and suffers from depression.
But we don't know if she has hepatitis," said her ex-husband, Fabrice Delloye, to Associated Press Television News in Paris, France, on Wednesday.
Chances of a quick release seemed remote after leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, rejected a request by France, Switzerland and Spain to treat and possibly rescue her.
In a statement posted on the Internet on Tuesday, the FARC said it would not unilaterally release hostages and would only exchange Betancourt and other captives for rebels imprisoned in Colombia and the U.S.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said Paris will not abandon efforts to free Betancourt and that he planned to travel to the region soon.
Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich warned Americans Wednesday not to be overly optimistic that the U.S. economy might rebound by the end of summer.
Reich, who served under the Clinton administration in its first term, suggested there is a small chance the United States is heading toward a depression.
After disappearing for about 45 minutes after a public torch-lighting ceremony, the Olympic flame emerged along a route different from the one that had been planned in San Francisco.
Anti-Chinese protesters and Beijing supporters had lined the streets along the planned route along the city¡¯s waterfront hours ahead of when the relay was to begin.
They took the Olympic flame and the runners with their torches to various locations.
NEW YORK (CNN) Harry Potter is headed to The Great White Way.
Daniel Radcliffe, the star of the "Harry Potter" movies, will make his Broadway debut on September 5, playing the disturbed stable boy in a revival of Peter Shaffer's play, "Equus," it was announced Tuesday.
Radcliffe, 18, earned rave reviews for his performance in the London production of the Tony Award-winning play.
He also received loads of media attention for appearing naked onstage a departure from his wholesome image as the bespectacled boy wizard in the big-screen adaptations of J.K. Rowling's best-selling fantasy novels.
Thea Sharrock directs.
Richard Griffiths, who portrays Harry's mean Uncle Vernon in the "Potter" movies, reprises his London role as the psychiatrist who treats the stable boy, who has blinded six horses.
Palestinian militants who infiltrated Israel from Gaza killed two Israeli civilians and wounded several others Wednesday, Israeli police and ambulance services told CNN.
The attack at the Nahal Oz border crossing happened after an intense barrage of mortar fire that led Israeli troops to believe that either a kidnapping attempt or an effort to infiltrate Israel was under way, an Israel Defense Forces officer who didn't want to be named said.
Four militants were involved two were killed and two escaped back to Gaza, the IDF officer told CNN.
The militants did not enter Israel through any of the tunnels at the border crossing, which is just outside Gaza City, the officer said.
The crossing, which is the main transit route for delivering fuel supplies to Gaza, normally is open from 7:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., but has been closed until further notice, he added.
"This attack on the main energy supplier for the Gaza Strip demonstrates Hamas' total disregard for the well-being of the civilian population
in Gaza," Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said.
"We hold them responsible and accountable.
A source in the Popular Resistance Committees said the aim of the joint operation was to abduct an Israeli soldier.
LONDON, England (CNN) British Prime Minister Gordon Brown will skip the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics.
He became the second major world leader after German Chancellor Angela Merkel to decide to stay away from the opening ceremonies, although Brown's office insisted Wednesday that he was not boycotting the Olympics and would attend the closing ceremony.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said last month that he was debating not attending the opening ceremony.
Asked whether U.S. President George W. Bush would go to the opening portion of the Olympics, White House press secretary Dana Perino demurred, citing the fluid nature of a foreign trip.
"It is extremely premature for me to say what the president's schedule is going to be" in August, she said.
Hillary Rodham Clinton and others have urged Bush to consider staying away from the opening ceremony as a way to underscore U.S. concerns about the recent unrest in Tibet and questions about China's relationship with Sudan.
Brown, too, has been under intense pressure from human rights campaigners to send a message to China.
But his decision not to attend the opening ceremony is not an act of protest, a spokeswoman for his office said, speaking anonymously in line with government policy.
She said the decision was made weeks ago and was not a stand on principle.
"There is absolutely no change in our position.
The leader of Britain's Liberal Democrat party, Nick Clegg, told British Broadcasting Corp. that Brown "seems to do the right thing late in the day when he is forced to do so because of public opinion.
Sen. Hillary Clinton on Wednesday argued that she is the only presidential candidate capable of ending the war in Iraq.
"One candidate will continue the war and keep the troops in Iraq indefinitely. One candidate only says he will end the war," she said while campaigning in Pennsylvania.
"And one candidate is ready, willing and able to end the war and to rebuild our military while honoring our soldiers and our veterans.
The senator from New York tried to make her case that Sens. Barack Obama, her Democratic rival, and John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, can't be trusted to end the war.
Her comments come one day after she told Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, U.S. ambassador to Iraq, that it would be "irresponsible" to continue American military involvement there.
Before a backdrop reading "Solutions for a Strong Military," Clinton accused McCain of wanting to keep troops in Iraq "for up to 100 years," an allegation the Republican's campaign has disputed.
In response, Republican National Committee spokesman Alex Conant accused Clinton of not listening to Petraeus and Crocker.
"Sen. Clinton's calls for retreat would leave Iraq to the terrorists and lead the U.S. into a wider and more difficult war in the future. It's clear Clinton is listening to her party's left-wing base and not Gen. Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker," he said.
Clinton's plan calls for withdrawing troops within 60 days of her becoming president, in consult with military advisers.
Unlucky goalkeeper Petr Cech dealt Chelsea's Champions League plans a blow after suffering a facial injury that has delayed his comeback by two weeks.
But Cech needed surgery on Sunday after what Chelsea called "a training ground accident which left him with lacerations to his lip and chin.
The surgery means Carlo Cudicini will continue in goal at least for the return clash against Turkey's Fenerbahce, with Chelsea trailing 2-1 after the first leg.
A two-week absence would also rule Cech out of Premier League meetings against Wigan and Everton.
WASHINGTON (CNN) The International Monetary Fund's executive board has approved a broad financial overhaul plan that could lead to the eventual sale of a little over 400 tons of its substantial gold supplies.
The sale cannot occur without congressional approval as well as legislative action in many of the 184 other nations that are members of the Washington-based lending institution.
IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn welcomed the board's decision Monday to propose a new framework for the fund, designed to close a projected $400 million budget deficit over the next few years.
It is "a landmark agreement that will put the institution on a solid financial footing and modernize the IMF's structure and operations," he said in a statement.
of $100 million over the next three years that will include up to 100 staff dismissals.
"We have made difficult but necessary choices to close the projected income shortfall and put the fund's finances on a sustainable basis, but in the end it will make the fund more focused, efficient and cost-effective in serving our members," said Strauss-Kahn, a former French finance minister.
The IMF said the board agreed to revamp the fund's income model from one that primarily relies on lending to one that generates money from various sources.
In recent years, IMF lending has dried up as many of those countries have built up reserves to prevent them from having to borrow again from the IMF, which often puts severe restrictions and conditions on its loans.
The declining interest payments led to the IMF's budget gap.
Actual sale of the gold cannot start immediately because the U.S. member on the IMF board cannot vote for it until Congress approves.
Congress has made approval conditional on a broad range of operational changes that Strauss-Khan has pledged to carry out to preserve the relevancy of the 64-year-old organization, whose mission is to promote global financial stability.
Under the plan, the IMF would sell the 403 tons, or nearly 13 million ounces, of gold for about $11 billion over several years.
The IMF would keep $4.4 billion on its books, and the remaining $6.6 billion would go into an investment account.
The IMF, which has sold gold before, said it would coordinate the sales with central banks in an effort to prevent market disruptions.
"Gold sales would be conducted in a transparent manner with strong safeguards to ensure that they do not add to official sales and avoid any risk of market disruption," the IMF said in a statement.
The Democratic presidential race is tightening in Pennsylvania ahead of its April 22 primary, according to a new CNN analysis of recent polls in the key campaign state.
In the latest CNN "poll of polls" conducted March 26 through Saturday, Sen. Hillary Clinton holds a 7-percentage point lead over Sen. Barack Obama 49 percent to 42 percent;
That gap is 4 percentage points narrower than a similar CNN poll of polls conducted March 26 through Wednesday.
In that average, Clinton led the senator from Illinois 51 percent to 40 percent.
American Research Group (April 5-6), Muhlenberg College (March 27-April 2) and Quinnipiac (March 24-31). This average does not have a sampling error.
A decisive win in Pennsylvania's April 22 primary vote is seen as crucial for Clinton as she seeks to finish the primary season with enough momentum to convince the party's undecided superdelegates to give her the nomination.
But according to University of Pennsylvania professor Donald Kettl, some of the "air [is] starting to slip out of Hillary Clinton's tires. " So what's behind the shift?
"Obama has outspent Hillary Clinton three to one just on television advertising in Pennsylvania. He spent more than $3 million dollars trying to get his name out and his message out to Hillary Clinton's $1 million dollars," said Mark Preston, a CNN political editor.
Kettl said Obama also seems to do better when voters get to see more of him, like during his recent six-day bus tour throughout Pennsylvania.
"Bowling in Altoona, getting on buses and going around to different parts of the state including Harrisburg ... you have a feeling that the crescendo is starting to build," he said.
Until now, Clinton had maintained a consistent double digit lead in the state.
She has the strong support of the state's popular Gov. Ed Rendell and Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter.
Clinton also has traditionally done well with working class voters a group with considerable influence in the upcoming primary.
Political observers point out that polls are not votes, and there's still a lot of time for anything to happen.
According to the latest CNN count, Obama has 1,629 delegates, with 1,414 pledged delegates and 215 superdelegates, according to the latest CNN count.
Clinton has 1,486 delegates, with 1,243 pledged delegates and 243 superdelegates.
A total of 2,024 delegates is needed to win the Democratic nomination. It's unlikely either candidate will win the necessary delegates before the national convention in August.
BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan (CNN) A Russian capsule carrying two cosmonauts and Korea's first astronaut blasted off from the Baikonur cosmodrome Tuesday, en route to the international space station.
The Soyuz TMA-12 craft lifted off on time, roaring into the evening skies over Kazakhtsan's barren steppes before turning down range.
South Korean bioengineer Yi So-yeon, 29, and cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Sergei Volkov will spend two days in the cramped capsule before docking at the orbiting station.
Live footage broadcast from inside the capsule showed Yi smiling and waving and giving the thumbs-up sign.
"Everything is in order," Volkov said.
Ahead of the launch, Yi told cheering Russian and Korean well-wishers, including her family, that she felt great as she was escorted to the launch facility.
" Yi's father and younger brother also saw her off.
Alexander Volkov, Sergei's father, said earlier that he had mixed feelings as he said farewell to his son.
"It's hard for me because I know what is ahead for them and I know how hard it is," he said.
Yi has expressed hope that her historic journey will encourage the reunification of the divided Korean peninsula.
The South Korean government has a $20 million (¢æ12.7 million) deal with Russia to co-sponsor the flight in exchange for Yi's trip.
She was among 36,000 applicants for the job in a 2006 nationwide competition, and plans to conduct 18 scientific experiments during her nine days on the space station.
But Ko was replaced by Yi in March after Russian officials accused him of the unauthorized removal of technical manuals from the Star City cosmonaut training center near Moscow.
The U.S. space agency NASA said Yi was also the youngest female astronaut.
About 50 journalists from the Korean SBS network are in Baikonur to cover the flight.
In the South Korean capital, Seoul, thousands were gathered in front of City Hall to watch a live telecast of the launch.
President Lee Myung-bak told a Cabinet meeting that he hoped the event would boost interest in space business and research.
"Today is a very meaningful day in sending Korea's first citizen into space," he said.
Sri Lanka's air force intensified bombing raids on rebel positions Monday after a suicide attack killed a cabinet minister and 14 others, military officials said.
Fighter jets and helicopter gunships attacked rebel Tamil Tiger positions in northern Sri Lanka, according to military claims that could not independently verified.
The raids came a day after a suicide bomber exploded at the start of a marathon race outside the capital city Colombo, killing Jeyaraj Fernandopulle, who was minister of highways and chief government whip in Parliament.
Fernandopulle was waving the starting flag for the race which was part of the Hindu New Year celebration in Weliveriya town, police said.
His body was brought to Parliament to lie in state, and a funeral is scheduled for Thursday.
The bombing killed 13 others and wounded 83, including 16 who police said were in critical condition.
It was the latest attack since the government's January withdrawal from a cease-fire with the Tamil Tigers.
The rebel group has fought for an independent Tamil homeland in northern Sri Lanka for more than two decades.
Nearly 200 people have been killed in a wave of attacks on buses, train stations and other public places since the start of the year.
MADRID, Spain (CNN) Mad cow disease has killed two people since December in the Castilla Leon region north of Madrid, a regional health authority spokeswoman told CNN Monday.
The first death occurred December 28 and the next was February 7, in hospitals at undisclosed locations in the sprawling Castilla Leon region, which encompasses numerous provinces north of Madrid, said the spokeswoman, who asked not to be identified.
Regional health officials reported the findings to Spain's national network that monitors mad cow disease and to a European monitoring network based in Edinburgh, Scotland, she said.
Spain's Ministry of Health did not immediately confirm the deaths.
But the Carlos III Health Institute, which is part of the national monitoring network, on its Web site confirmed the deaths.
FRANKFURT AN DER ODER, Germany (CNN) A German woman convicted of killing eight of her babies must serve the maximum 15 years in prison, a court ruled Monday.
Sabine Hilschenz, 42, was convicted in 2006 of killing eight of her newborn babies and burying them in flower pots and a fish tank in the garden of her parents' home near the German-Polish border.
The eight children were born between 1992 and 1998.
Hilschenz also was suspected in the death of a ninth child in 1988, but the statute of limitations did not allow for that case to be tried.
After her original conviction on manslaughter charges in a state court in Frankfurt an der Oder, on the Polish border, she was given the maximum 15-year prison sentence.
But the Federal Court of Justice ruled last year that the lower court had not sufficiently considered the possibility of diminished capacity in making its recommendation, and sent the case back for reconsideration.
In its ruling Monday, the court in Frankfurt an der Oder said it found no grounds for the claim of diminished responsibility.
Hilschenz declined to testify at her original trial said at
a hearing this year that she had a serious problem with alcohol in the years when the children were born and could not remember how they died.
Her defense attorney had asked for a revised sentence of less than 10 years in prison.
International Olympic Committee head Jacques Rogge has said he is "very concerned" about unrest in Tibet, but downplayed talk of a boycott of the Beijing Games.
"I'm very concerned with the international situation and what's happening in Tibet," Rogge said on Monday in Beijing.
"The torch relay has been targeted. The International Olympic Committee has expressed its serious concern and calls for a rapid peaceful resolution in Tibet," Rogge said in a brief speech at the meetings' opening ceremony.
China is facing rising criticism ahead of the August Olympics on issues from its crackdown on anti-government protests among Tibetans to its close relations with Sudan.
Demonstrators challenging China's policies in those areas tried to grab the Olympic torch and snuff out the flame as it passed through London on Sunday.
Rogge's comments were his strongest yet on the growing political storm surrounding the Games, underscoring rising
concern over the potential that such protests would tarnish the Olympic movement.
Rogge acknowledged that "some politicians have played with the idea of boycotts," but added: "As I speak today, however, there is no momentum for a generalized boycott.
"We need the unity of the Olympic movement to help us overcome the difficulties. Our major responsibility is for offering good games to the athletes who deserve them," Rogge said.
"The athletes deserve and the world expects it, and the unity of the Olympic movement will deliver it.
Rogge was in the Chinese capital to meet with officials from national Olympic committees and members of the IOC, in the last major consultations ahead of the August Games.
"Any politician who is pushing for a boycott is committing a serious error," Mario Vazquez Rana, the president the Association of National Olympic Committees, said on Saturday.
"For me a total boycott, a partial boycott, is totally out of the question."
Osage County." Bob Dylan won a special music citation.
The citation for the 66-year-old Dylan noted his "profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power.
Junot Diaz, a 40-year-old native of the Dominican Republican who moved to New Jersey as a boy, won the fiction prize for "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.
Daniel Walker Howe won for history for "What Hath God Wrought:
The Transformation of America, 1815-1848.
Howe, a professor emeritus at Oxford and UCLA, was a finalist for the 2007 National Book Critics Circle Award for "What Hath God Wrought," which examines America from the Battle of New Orleans to the end of the war with Mexico.
John Matteson won for biography for "Eden's Outcasts:
The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father."
Matteson teaches English at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
Saul Friedlander won the general nonfiction award for "The Years of Extermination:
Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945.
Two prizes were awarded for poetry:
Robert Hass for "Time and Materials" and Philip Schultz for "Failure.
Hass, 67, is a former U.S. poet laureate who grew up in San Francisco and still lives in the Bay area.
Schultz is founder of the Writer's Studio in New York and former director of New York University's graduate creative writing program.
David Lang won the music award for "The Little Match Girl Passion," which premiered Oct. 25 at Carnegie Hall in New York.
(CNN) Breweries and beer lovers around the country are celebrating the 75th anniversary of the return of beer on April 7, 1933, as the Prohibition era was drawing to a close.
It wasn't quite the end of Prohibition, and it wasn't quite beer, but after 14 thirsty years, it was close enough.
What became available that day was only 3.2 percent alcohol by weight (compared with up to 5 percent in full-strength beer), but still, it was a step up from the virtually alcohol-free "near beer" that had been sold since 1920. "It's a big deal.
The whole industry of beer has gotten together to say this date is definitely historic," said Julia Herz, spokeswoman for the Brewers Association, which represents smaller "craft" brewers.
In St. Louis, Missouri, megabrewer Anheuser-Busch is throwing a big bash, complete with historical exhibits and an appearance by the company's famous Clydesdale horses.
Remnants of Prohibition survive today in the form of state-owned liquor stores and local laws that, for example, prevent sales of alcohol on Sundays or in grocery stores.
Some counties remain entirely dry, banning alcohol sales altogether, and 3.2 beer is still sold in six states (Colorado, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Oklahoma and Utah), according to Modern Brewery Age magazine.
And there are those who think a beer-related anniversary is nothing to celebrate.
"It is the product of choice for underage drinking," said Michael Scippa, advocacy director for the Marin Institute, an alcohol industry watchdog group.
"We're not neo-Prohibitionists or teetotalers," he said. "We're not trying to tell adults what to do.
" He said his group just wants the industry to operate more responsibly.
Yahoo continued to reject Microsoft's $44.6 billion unsolicited bid for the company Monday.
The Internet company is not opposed to some sort of financial deal, but the current offer is too low, chairman Roy Bostock and chief executive Jerry Yang said in a letter responding to Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer.
Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) sent a letter to Yahoo (YHOO, Fortune 500) on Saturday, threatening to offer the deal directly to stockholders if the company's board did not respond by April 26.
Bostock and Yang pointed to Yahoo's three-year financial plan, its new AMP advertising management platform and the fact that the company recently reaffirmed its first-quarter and year-end outlook as reasons they believe the Microsoft bid was low.
Ballmer's letter acknowledged Yahoo's search for third-party bids from other companies such as Google (GOOG, Fortune 500), News Corp. (NWS, Fortune 500) and Time Warner (TWX, Fortune 500), but questioned why the company refused to negotiate with Microsoft.
The company said it was open to a transaction from any potential buyer, including Microsoft, but that it would reject anything below what it considers "full value.
SYDNEY, Australia (CNN) A teenage boy was killed in a shark attack Tuesday morning off Australia's eastern coast, health officials said.
"We had multiple paramedics en route to the scene as well as the rescue helicopter, but tragically the young boy has died at the scene," New South Wales Ambulance spokeswoman Penelope Little told Sky News television.
Scientists say there are an average of 15 shark attacks a year in Australian waters one of the highest rates in the world but on average just over one per year are fatal.
Three protesters scaled the Golden Gate Bridge Monday and unfurled a "Free Tibet" banner, a likely precursor to large protests when the Olympic torch arrives Wednesday in San Francisco, California.
The banner read, "One World.
One Dream.
Free Tibet.
Those who climbed cables from which the bridge is suspended are members of Students for a Free Tibet, said group spokesman Tenzin Dasang.
The three were arrested along with four others at the site.
All seven were charged with felony conspiracy and misdemeanor nuisance, said California Highway Patrol Officer Mary Ziegenbein. The climbers also were charged with misdemeanor trespassing.
The incident forced the closure of one northbound lane of the bridge.
The climbers who were on the bridge for about three hours came down voluntarily about 1:15 p.m. (4: 15 p.m. ET) after workers with the Golden Gate Bridge District began cutting down their banner, Ziegenbein said.
Dasang said he has heard of many people planning to protest in San Francisco against China's human rights record.
But it will be large," said Dasang, 22, during a phone interview in which he said he was near the bridge. "I heard from Tibetans that now live all over the U.S. and even abroad who are coming here.
The Olympic flame is on a 130-day journey that will take it through 23 cities on five continents and then throughout China, culminating at the Olympics opening ceremony in Beijing August 8.
The San Francisco protest comes the same day as a demonstration in Paris, France, disrupted the torch relay many times.
TOKYO, Japan (CNN) At first glance, the man and woman at the nightclub look like any other couple on a date.
It's business.
The woman, a successful executive, has joined a growing number of professional women in Japan in forking out from $1,000 to $50,000 a night for male companionship.
The women pay for a man to lavish them with undivided attention.
Now a new breed of entertainer has cropped up think of them as male geishas.
"I give women things that men normally don't do, like complimenting their appearance," says one host, 24-year-old Yunosuke, who only goes by his single host name. "I make women happy.
And they make him happy:
"They like to wear nice things, so I try to look prettier for them all the time.
What drives the business boom is an increase in the earning power of Japanese women, according to Air Group, a company that owns a chain of "host" clubs.
"Japanese women are now working hard and making more money," says Yuko Takeyama, a woman in her early 30s who manages Air Group. "The see this as a way to de-stress.
Women love being treated well without the pressures that come with dating, she says.
Yunosuke's customer from the nightclub agrees.
"It's the same as spending money on a trip or buying something."
(CNN) The best leaders let go of the fantasy and become fully present and responsive to the complexities of each new situation.
They're the ones the few, the proud, the downright worshipped who earn their followers' respect.
To become one of them, you need to turn bad-boss behaviors on their head to find your way toward good-boss techniques.
* Bad-boss self-concept:
As a leader, I'll be a higher-up.
Good-boss self-concept:
As a leader, I'll have to go lower down.
The bad-boss tales I've heard include many stories of managers demanding the undoable, responding to objections by simply reiterating that it had to be done.
This creates nothing but hostility.
* Bad-boss target setting:
Now that I'm the boss, I give orders to others.
Good-boss target setting:
Now that I'm the boss, I bring order to what others do.
Many people thrill to giving orders or critiques but have unclear, uninformed or ambivalent ideas about what they're actually trying to accomplish.
Leading well means forming a crystal clear image of what must happen and communicating that precisely.
After giving an assignment, ask that person to describe the task in their own words.
* Bad-boss position on feedback:
Now everyone must tell me when I'm right.
Good-boss position on feedback:
Now everyone must tell me when I'm wrong.
When a problem arises:
Clearly tell your subordinate what you really think.
2. Describe the facts that led you to this opinion.
3. Ask to be disconfirmed;
in other words, honestly request that people tell you where you're wrong.
* Bad-boss protection strategy:
As a boss, I'll be protected from taking blame.
Good-boss protection strategy:
As a boss, I'll protect others by taking blame.
The successful bosses I interviewed emphasized that a good leader helps her followers feel safe from the dangers that come from both inside and outside the organization.
An incompetent supervisor, on the other hand, feels that the best way to secure her position is to appear faultless, and works mightily to make clear who fouled up or even to lay blame on a scapegoat.
* Bad-boss problem solving:
Being the boss means I can avoid problems.
Good-boss problem solving:
Being the boss means I must seek out problems.
You can tell if you're making mistakes as a leader because things go wrong not just one catastrophic computer snafu but repeated errors.
Bad bosses turn away from these realities.
They don't discuss problems;
they just hunker down and hope the issue will go away.
It won't. Untreated, a minor concern becomes a major issue becomes a catastrophe.
This is the core of good leadership, whether you're managing a corporation, your immediate family, or just your own life.
Sen. John McCain said Sunday he hasn't seen signals Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is interested in running as vice president.
His comments follow a report that Rice is angling for the No. 2 spot on the Republican presidential ticket.
"I missed those signals," McCain told reporters on his campaign plane. "I think she's a great American.
I think there's very little that I can say that isn't anything but the utmost praise for a great American citizen, who served as a role model to so many millions of people in this country and around the world.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack also denied Monday Rice was interested in the job.
"She plans on going back West of the Mississippi to Stanford when she's completed her work as Secretary of State.
The comments come after Dan Senor, a leading Republican strategist, suggested on ABC Sunday that Rice is mounting a behind-the-scenes campaign to be McCain's running mate.
"Condi Rice has been actively, actually in recent weeks, campaigning for this," Senor, a former Bush administration official said.
Seven election officials in Zimbabwe have been arrested, accused of undercounting votes for President Robert Mugabe, state-run television reported Monday.
Results of the March 29 presidential election have not been announced, but the state-run newspaper has indicated that neither Mugabe nor challenger Morgan Tsvangirai received enough votes to avoid a run-off.
Zimbabwe¡¯s high court is considering a petition to force the country¡¯s Electoral Commission to release the results.
The remaining portion of the Olympic torch relay was canceled Monday amid massive protests against China¡¯s human rights record, according to French police.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) Iraq's top Shiite religious leaders have told anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr not to disband his Mehdi Army, an al-Sadr spokesman said Monday amid fresh fighting in the militia's Baghdad strongholds.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki demanded Sunday that the cleric disband his militia, which waged two uprisings against U.S. troops in 2004, or see his supporters barred from public office.
But al-Sadr spokesman Salah al-Obeidi said al-Sadr has consulted with Iraq's Shiite clerical leadership "and they refused that.
Al-Sadr's followers have accused the government, which is dominated by al-Sadr's leading rivals, of trying to cripple their movement before provincial elections in October.
The Sadrists hold about 30 seats in Iraq's 275-member parliament and were part of al-Maliki's ruling coalition until August.
The cleric withdrew his support over al-Maliki's refusal to demand a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops.
Fighting in Baghdad continued through the weekend after al-Maliki issued his call for the Mehdi Army to disband.
U.S. aircraft struck targets in two Shiite districts of Baghdad on Monday, with Iraqi officials reporting at least 18 dead.
And three U.S. soldiers were killed in action Monday, bringing the number of U.S. combat deaths to nine in the past two days and 4,023 since the war began.
In addition, nine Iraqis were killed and 65 were wounded in clashes that lasted into Monday morning in Sadr City, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said.
Al-Sadr has called for a mass demonstration in Baghdad on Wednesday against the U.S. presence in Iraq.
Sen. Hillary Clinton called on President Bush Monday to boycott the opening of this summer's Olympic Games in Beijing, China.
"These events underscore why I believe the Bush administration has been wrong to downplay human rights in its policy towards China," said Clinton.
"At this time, and in light of recent events, I believe President Bush should not plan on attending the opening ceremonies in Beijing, absent major changes by the Chinese government.
"Americans will stand strong in support of freedom of religious and political expression and human rights," Clinton said. "Americans will also stand strong and root for the success of American athletes who have worked hard and earned the right to compete in the Olympic Games of 2008.
Last month, Clinton who has long advocated a tougher approach toward the Chinese government declined to call for a U.S. boycott of the Olympic Games, but called for greater pressure leading up to the summer event in Beijing.
Sen. Barack Obama has said he is torn in his views on the issue.
"I'm of two minds about this," said the Illinois senator in a CBS interview last week. "On the one hand, I think that what's happened in Tibet, [and] China's support of the Sudanese government in Darfur, is a real problem.
But, he added, "I'm hesitant to make the Olympics a site of political protest because I think it's partly about bringing the world together.
Last summer, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson then a Democratic presidential candidate said the United States should boycott the Olympics entirely if China did not take a more active role in ending the conflict in Darfur.
Fourth seed Nikolay Davydenko won the Sony Ericsson title in Miami on Sunday with a surprise 6-4 6-2 victory over Spanish second seed Rafael Nadal.
Davydenko, the first Russian to win the title in its 24-year history, dominated the one hour, 22 minute contest and never allowed Nadal to find his rhythm.
"I had never played very well here in Miami," said Davydenko.
"Now I have won my second Masters Series title and it's crazy for me. "
Davydenko picked up his first title of the year, and 12th of his career, after beating crowd favorite and sixth seed Andy Roddick in the semifinals before overcoming world number two Nadal.
"He was playing unbelievable tennis and there was nothing I could do," said Nadal, who is still without a title this year.
Davydenko broke Nadal early but the Spaniard broke back at love when the Russian netted a forehand to level the first set at 2-2.
Nadal held but Davydenko won six of the next seven games to seize command of the match.
Davydenko, who was down a match point earlier in the tournament, stunned even himself by using the same racquet throughout the week.
"I want to keep forever this racquet," he said.
(CNN) Thousands of police are expected to protect the Olympic torch as it makes its run through Paris in a few hours.
Extremely tight security, however, could not stop determined human-rights activists in London on Sunday.
The torch relay was disrupted several times and police made more than two dozen arrests.
Thousands of French police were expected to protect the Olympic torch relay Monday as it departs from the Eiffel Tower and crisscrosses Paris amid threat of protests, news services reported.
Paris police had conceived a security plan to keep the torch in a safe "bubble," The Associated Press reported.
French torchbearers will be encircled by several hundred officers, some in riot police vehicles and on motorcycles, others on skates and on foot.
On Monday, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said all options remained open for Paris concerning a possible boycott of the opening of the Beijing Olympics, the AP reported.
In London on Sunday, the Olympic torch was met with widespread protests and scuffles between demonstrators and police as thousands turned out to protest Olympic host China's human rights record and its recent clampdown on Tibet.
Some demonstrators threw themselves at the torch, and at least one tried to snatch it away.
Another tried to put out the flame with a fire extinguisher.
They were quickly pushed back and cuffed by Metropolitan Police, which said its officers made 36 arrests on a variety of charges.
HONG KONG, China (CNN) Few issues in the environmental movement get people as riled as plastic.
Yet despite what appears to be widespread public outrage at the harmful environmental impacts of plastic bottles and bags in particular perhaps the most ubiquitous items in modern day life recycling rates have remained fairly stale overall while production levels have in many cases gone up.
Take plastic bags, which, depending on whom you ask, have now reached production levels of anywhere from 500 billion to 5 trillion units a year.
Only 1 percent is recycled globally each year.
Plastic bottles meanwhile are among the most readily recycled plastic products of all, yet in some countries, as much as 90 percent of water bottles end up in landfills.
In 2005, 43 billion gallons hit worldwide stores;
in 2006 it had risen to 47 billion gallons.
Sales of bottled water in the U.S. have now overtaken sales of milk and are close to outselling beer.
Historically, such increases in sales have run parallel to drops in recycling rates, unfortunately.
In 1995, when there was just 1.95 billion pounds of polyethylene terephthalate ("PET 1") bottles in circulation in the U.S., the country boasted recycling rates of nearly 40 percent.
By 2005, when retailers were stocking up to 5 billion pounds of PET bottles, recycling rates had dropped to 23 percent.
Some blame an immature recycling market in the U.S. for not being able to handle higher volumes of plastic;
a lack of infrastructure has effectively held the market's development back.
Others say increasing production levels are overwhelming consumers. It's certainly possible:
Americans threw away six times as many water bottles in 2004 as they did in 1997 when there were far fewer in circulation.
Today, despite the fact that 80 percent of American households have access to plastic recycling programs, only around one in four of them take their plastic bottles to the recycling bins.
More than 200 women and children have been removed from a Texas ranch that's home to members of a polygamist sect, but authorities have not identified the girl who called them with allegations of abuse.
The 16-year-old girl, who called authorities last week with allegations of physical and sexual abuse at the compound, may be in the group and using a different name, Marleigh Meisner, a spokeswoman for Texas Child Protective Services, said at a news conference Sunday.
"I am confident that this girl does indeed exist," Meisner said. "I am confident that the allegations that she brought forth are accurate.
Since Thursday, authorities have removed 159 children and 60 adults from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) compound in Eldorado, Texas.
Eighteen of the girls have been taken into state custody.
Authorities believe all "had been abused or were at immediate risk of future abuse," a state spokesman said.
The others are now housed at a shelter in San Angelo about 45 miles north of Eldorado where they are being questioned about abuse, Meisner said.
Many of the adults at the shelter are parents or relatives of the children, she said.
Warren Jeffs, the 52-year-old leader and "prophet" of the 10,000-member FLDS, was convicted in Utah last year on two counts of being an accomplice to rape, charges related to a marriage he performed in 2001.
He still faces trial in Arizona on eight charges of sexual conduct with a minor, incest and conspiracy.
Critics of the sect say it forces girls as young as 13 into arranged marriages. Meisner said the adults cooperated with child protection officials as authorities continued their search for more children.
The rogue church bought 1,900 acres near Eldorado four years ago and built what it calls the YFZ Ranch.
WASHINGTON (CNN) A new brain-scan study may help explain what's going on in the minds of financial titans when they take risky monetary gambles sex.
When young men were shown erotic pictures, they were more likely to make a larger financial gamble than if they were shown a picture of something scary, such as a snake, or something neutral, such as a stapler, university researchers reported.
The arousing pictures lit up the same part of the brain that lights up when financial risks are taken.
"You have a need in an evolutionary sense for both money and women. They trigger the same brain area," said Camelia Kuhnen, a Northwestern University finance professor who conducted the study with a Stanford University psychologist.
The study involved 15 heterosexual young men at Stanford University.
Each man made more than 50 gambles under brain scans.
Stanford psychologist Brian Knutson, a lead author of the study, says it's all about the power of emotion and arousal and our financial decisions.
The trigger doesn't have to be sex it could be chocolate or a winning lottery ticket.
Kuhnen said the same link could hold true for women, but they didn't test it because it is more difficult to find an erotic image that would appeal to many different heterosexual women compared to heterosexual men.
This all makes sense to Harvard economist Terry Burnham, author of the book "Mean Genes."
Burnham said it could be all summed up in a famous line from the movie "Scarface.
Then when you get the power, then you get the women.
Actor Charlton Heston died at his Beverly Hills home at the age of 84 Saturday, his family said.
Heston, known for portrayals of larger than life figure including Moses and Ben Hur, was suffering the late stages of Alzheimer's disease.
Heston's wife of 64 years, Lydia, was at his side at the time of his death, according to the family statement.
Heston is survived by a son, a daughter and three grandchildren.
While no funeral plans have been announced, the family said it would hold a private memorial service.
The Internet Movie Database listed 126 movies and television production credits for Heston, starting in 1941.
He rose to fame in the 1950s with starring movie roles including Ben Hur, for which he won an Oscar.
He played Moses in the "Ten Commandments.
Heston was also known for his political activism.
He was a high-profile supporter of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his civil rights movement.
He attended King's 1963 March on Washington and stood near the podium as King delivered his "I have a dream" speech.
He was president of the National Rifle Association from 1998 to 2002, a role that cast him as a conservative.
Heston was born John Charles Carter in Evanston, Illinois, on October. 4, 1924.
He took the surname Heston after his mother divorced and remarried when he was 10.
(CNN) 1. Clean up your act
Get rid of all the junk that accumulates in your bedroom.
Don't use it as a dumping ground for kids' art projects, laundry, newspapers and magazines.
No one feels sexy going to bed in a warehouse.
First get everything up off the floor, store the things that warrant it and trash the things that don't.
Clear of the surfaces of chests and tables, and only replace what is meaningful or pretty.
You don't want to see anything that reminds you of chores or obligations.
Can the can lights
There's nothing sexy about a well-lit room.
Place a pair of lamps with ivory shades on each side of your bed, and make sure the bulbs are no more than 60 watts.
For even more impact, replace the white bulbs with pink tinted bulbs.
3. Scents and sensibility
Get rid of anything that doesn't smell great.
Remove the laundry hamper to a bathroom or closet.
Evict the dog, just for one night.
Wash everything, down to the mattress pad in good detergent.
And make up your bed with the sheets folded back the sheets invitingly, the way they do in fine hotels.
Choose a scented candle with care.
One that's too floral will be off-putting to a man.
A better bet is one that smells fresh and clean, like Jo Malone's Grapefruit candle.
The flicker of candlelight will enhance your sexy lighting scheme.
4. Soundtrack
Turn off the television!
Better yet, banish it from the bedroom.
The bedroom should be for two things only: sleep and sex.
Install a small stereo in your bedroom and play your favorite music it's a great mood enhancer.
Hang curtains and a thick rug fabric absorbs sound.
5. Ban the Beanie Babies
The bedroom is your own private sanctuary, but beware what message you're sending by using it as a display case for your hobbies.
Stuffed animals are a no-no, as are too many tiny pillows.
6. Take a look
Add a mirror somewhere.
It doesn't have to be attached to the ceiling, but a cleverly positioned mirror, or even a mirrored piece of furniture, can really spice things up.
Plus, you might discreetly catch of a glimpse of the proceedings.
Microsoft set the clock ticking for Yahoo to accept its $41 billion buyout offer in a letter to the Internet pioneer's board Saturday, warning that if a deal wasn't reached by April 26 the software maker would launch a hostile takeover at a less attractive price.
"If we have not concluded an agreement within the next three weeks, we will be compelled to take our case directly to your shareholders, including the initiation of a proxy contest to elect an alternative slate of directors for the Yahoo board," wrote Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer.
"If we are forced to take an offer directly to your shareholders, that action will have an
undesirable impact on the value of your company from our perspective which will be reflected in the terms of our proposal," he wrote.
In the letter, Ballmer said Yahoo's search share and page views, two measures of the strength of the Web portal company's business, appear to have fallen since the offer was made at the end of January.
At the time, Microsoft's cash-and-stock offer was valued at $44.6 billion, or 62 percent above Yahoo's market value. Judging by Friday's closing share prices, the deal is now worth just under $41 billion.
Yahoo's board formally rejected Microsoft Corp.'s bid in February, saying it undervalues the company.
Since then, the Silicon Valley company has explored alliances with Google Inc., News Corp.'s MySpace.com and Time Warner Inc.'s AOL, but no alternative to Microsoft's offer has surfaced.
SANAA, Yemen (CNN) A housing complex used by foreigners in Yemen's capital came under attack late Sunday, with explosives shattering windows but causing no injuries, U.S. and Yemeni officials said.
The U.S. Embassy in Yemen said "three explosive rounds" hit the compound in the upscale Haddah neighborhood. Two rounds exploded inside the compound and another blew up outside the building, it said in a statement.
"The embassy advises all U.S. citizens to exercise caution in this area of the city," the statement said.
Some rolled suitcases and carried boxes to vehicles with diplomatic plates. Women huddled in idling cars, while children lugged backpacks.
One of the Yemeni security officials, describing himself as the head of security in the area, said the blast was caused by multiple "projectiles.
"Broken windows ... were all that resulted from the projectiles' attack," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to speak to the media. No one was injured, he added.
The two other security officials, who also spoke on condition of anonymity for the same reason, corroborated his account.
A witness said a blast shook the neighborhood.
"I heard a big blast that shook the southern suburb, but there was no fire or smoke coming out of the area," said Mohammed Omar, 30, who lives in the same area.
Yemen, the poorest country in the Arab world, is Osama bin Laden's ancestral homeland and has a persistent al Qaeda movement that has attacked and killed foreigners on several occasions.
Two people were killed and eight others were wounded Sunday in continued clashes there.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President George W. Bush failed to resolve their differences over U.S. plans for a missile defense system based in eastern Europe but said they had agreed a "strategic framework" to guide future U.S.-Russian relations after bilateral talks Sunday.
Speaking at a joint press conference after their meeting in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi, Putin told journalists he had voiced Russian concerns about U.S. plans to establish missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic.
But Putin expressed cautious optimism that the two sides could find a way to cooperate over missile defense and described his eight-year relationship as Russian president with Bush as "mostly positive," The Associated Press reported.
I will not conceal that one of the most difficult issues was and remains missile defense in Europe," said Putin, who will be replaced by Russia's president-elect Dmitry Medvedev next month. "Our fundamental attitude toward the American plan has not changed.
Bush said the U.S. still had work to do to convince Moscow that the missile defence system was not intended as a threat to Russia, saying the system was "defensive, not offensive" and that people should accept that "the Cold War is over," AP said.
"We've got a lot of way to go," Bush admitted.
The U.S. president also met Medvedev, Putin's successor, describing his as a "straightforward fellow." "You can write down, I was impressed and look forward to working with him," he told reporters.
Bush said he expected his first peer-to-peer meeting with Medvedev to come at July's G8 leaders summit in Japan.
This weekend's summit is the final meeting between Bush and Putin as presidents and follows both leaders' attendance at last week's NATO summit in Romania.
That summit also highlighted differences between Washington and Moscow over U.S.-backed proposals to extend the military alliance to include the former Soviet republics of Ukraine and Georgia.
Russia opposes the proposed expansion, fearing it will reduce its own influence over its neighbors.
NATO leaders also approved membership plans for Croatia and Albania.
LONDON, England (CNN) Passengers faced more travel misery at Heathrow's new terminal Sunday after heavy snow and continued baggage handling problems led to further cancellations and delays.
British Airways, the sole occupiers of the Terminal 5, said 126 flights have been canceled Sunday.
The snow is the latest blow to the airline's hopes of finally running a full schedule from the terminal it opened with great fanfare last week.
Since operations began at the terminal, hundreds of flights have been canceled, a backlog of thousands of bags remains and passengers have been forced to spend the night in the gleaming new building.
BA said air traffic control had reduced the number of aircraft that could take off and land per hour on Sunday
Earlier, both the airports runways were temporarily shut down briefly as workers removed ice from the tarmac.
Meanwhile, airport operator BAA PLC, said it had fixed a computer problem with the terminal's state-of-the-art baggage handling system that began on Saturday.
On Saturday, the airline said 12 short-haul flights had been canceled, and departure boards at the airport showed delays of up to three hours.
The airport operator, BAA, said its staff had identified the problem and were considering how to solve it without creating further disruptions.
"We apologize to British Airways and all passengers who have been affected and can assure them that our specialist staff are working hard to resolve the problem and keep disruption to BA's operation to a minimum.
The computer problems have meant airline staff have had to deal with bags manually, taking more time than would normally be needed, a British Airways spokeswoman said on condition of anonymity in line with company policy.
"We are urging BAA to resolve these issues as soon as possible," she said.
Passengers flying with British Airways have been advised to check flight information regularly before traveling to the airport.
Prince Philip, the husband of Britain¡¯s Queen Elizabeth, was released from the hospital on Sunday where he was admitted last week with a chest infection, Buckingham Palace said.
Philip, who also has the title of Duke of Edinburgh, will return to Windsor Castle to continue his recuperation, the palace said. His engagements for Monday have been canceled.
A planned 31-mile relay of the Olympic torch Sunday in London quickly turned into a dramatic scene of widespread protests, as thousands took to the streets to demonstrate against China¡¯s actions in Tibet.
London Metropolitan Police said there were approximately 30 arrests ¡°for a range of public order offences.
Some protesters threw themselves at the torch, and at least one tried to snatch it away.
Zimbabwe's High Court is expected to announce Monday whether it can order the country's electoral commission to release the results of last weekend's presidential election, a lawyer for the commission said.
Zimbabwe's main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, submitted a petition to the High Court on Friday to order the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to release the figures from the March 29 election.
The hearing began on Sunday.
Also during the weekend, dozens of veterans loyal to longtime President Robert Mugabe invaded white-owned farms in two provinces and tried to force the white farmers out.
Daniel Calingaert, a Zimbabwe analyst for U.S.-based Freedom House, said Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party wields "quite a bit of influence" over the High Court.
Zimbabwe's state newspaper, The Sunday Mail, reported that the ruling party has asked the electoral commission to recount the presidential ballots because of an "overarching and unpleasant case of misposting of votes.
The newspaper also quoted a ZANU-PF official as saying that the party has rejected an offer from the opposition MDC to form a national unity government, saying such a coalition would be "like mixing water with fire.
Last weekend's election presents the most formidable challenge to Robert Mugabe's 28 years of rule in Zimbabwe.
His party has said he is willing to enter into a runoff with MDC leader and presidential candidate Morgan Tsvangirai if the electoral commission calls for one.
Under Zimbabwean law, a runoff must be held within 21 days after the commission announces results.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) Three U.S. soldiers were killed and 31 others wounded in two rocket attacks Sunday afternoon in Baghdad, the U.S. military said.
on the International Zone, also known as the Green Zone, killed two soldiers and wounded 17 others about 3:30 p.m., a military official said.
A separate attack about 30 minutes earlier killed one soldier and wounded 14 at a U.S. military outpost in Rustamiya in southeastern Baghdad, the military said.
Sunday's fatalities bring the death toll of U.S. troops in the Iraq war to 4,022.
Nearly 30,000 others have been wounded in action.
Earlier Sunday, fighting between U.S. troops and the Mehdi Army militia loyal to Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr left at least 20 dead and 52 wounded in Baghdad's Sadr City, according to an Iraqi Interior Ministry official.
Sunday's fighting came as Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki demanded al-Sadr disband his Mehdi Army and threatened to bar al-Sadr's followers from the political process if the cleric refused.
"A decision was taken yesterday that they no longer have a right to participate in the political process or take part in the upcoming elections unless they end the Mehdi Army," al-Maliki said.
A spokesman for al-Sadr, Sheikh Salah al-Obeidi, said that any effort to bar Sadrists from participation in politics would be unconstitutional and that any decision to disband the Mehdi Army is not the government's to make.
Sen. Hillary Clinton will stop telling an emotional story about a uninsured pregnant woman who died after being denied medical care, Clinton's campaign said.
A hospital has raised questions over the accuracy of the story, and Clinton's campaign has said although they had no reason to doubt the story, they were unable to confirm the details.
In the story, Clinton describes a woman from rural Ohio who was making minimum wage at a local pizza shop.
The woman, who was uninsured, became pregnant.
Clinton said the woman ran into trouble and went to a hospital in a nearby county but was denied treatment because she couldn't afford a $100 payment.
In her speeches, Clinton said the woman later was taken to the hospital by ambulance and lost the baby.
The young woman was then taken by helicopter to a Columbus hospital where she died of complications.
The New York senator heard the story during a campaign visit to a family's living room in Pomeroy, Ohio, in late February.
Bryan Holman was hosting the candidate and told Clinton the story.
She has repeated it frequently since then.
While Clinton never named the hospital in her speech, the woman she was referring to was treated at O'Bleness Memorial Hospital in Athens, Ohio.
The hospital said the woman did indeed have insurance, and, at least at their hospital, she was never turned away.
Hospital Chief Executive Officer Rick Castrop in a statement said, "we reviewed the medical and patient accounts of the patient" after she was named in a newspaper story about Clinton's stump speech.
"There is no indication that she was ever denied medical care at any time, for any reason. We clearly reject any perception that we ever denied any care to this woman.
(CNN) Researchers have discovered the oldest piece of gold jewelry ever found in the Americas, an academic journal reported Tuesday.
A team found the gold necklace near Lake Titicaca in Peru, according to the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
It's 4,000 years old 600 years older than any other gold jewelry discovered in the Western Hemisphere.
The anthropologist who discovered the gold, Mark Aldenderfer, told CNN on Tuesday night that he sensed the importance of his find after noticing a glint while excavating a site with human remains.
That's when I knew we had something special," he said. "This was a complete shock.
He found the necklace about seven years ago, he said, but researchers kept quiet for fear that looters would raid the site. They also wanted to allow time for chemical analysis before announcing their discovery on Tuesday.
Video footage from Peru shows a necklace of nine gold tubes separated by 10 stones.
The find is important, Aldenderfer said, because it signals the early emergence of a desire for status among people who lived as relative equals without a formal leadership system.
The Andean people of that time, Aldenderfer said, had recently settled down after many generations as hunter-gatherers. Formal kings would not emerge for hundreds of years.
The person who wore the gold necklace may have sought to distinguish himself with a status symbol, Aldenderfer said.
The artifact is in the custody of the National Institute of Peru and may be displayed in a museum, he said.
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) With her 18th chart-topper "Touch My Body," Mariah Carey has passed Elvis Presley for the most No. 1 singles on the Billboard Hot 100, and is now second only to the Beatles.
"That's a completely different era and time ... I'm just feeling really happy and grateful.
Carey's single is the new No. 1 single on Billboard's Hot 100 singles chart: The song also is No. 1 on the trade magazine's digital download chart thanks to a precedent-setting 286,000 downloads in its debut week.
the Beatles are the all-time leaders with 20.
Carey, 38, said this is the most enjoyable point of her nearly two-decade old career, and that's her priority these days, not trying to set sales records or even making pop history.
"I've gone through enough of my life worrying about that kind if thing," said Carey.
MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) Russia expects to sell at least three submarines to Venezuela in a deal to be inked when President Hugo Chavez visits next month, Russian news media reported Friday.
The Interfax news agency and the daily Kommersant cited unnamed military-industrial officials as saying that the subs would be diesel-electric models, of the Varshavyanka class.
The contract's signing will likely be timed with the visit of ... Chavez to Moscow, which is expected in May," the official was quoted as saying by Interfax.
Meanwhile, the daily Kommersant said Venezuela was seeking four submarines in all at a cost of $1 billion.
The paper said the deal would be signed when Chavez travels to Moscow for the inauguration of incoming President Dmitry Medvedev.
During a visit to Russia last year, Chavez said that his country needs submarines to protect itself against its enemies foremost among them the United States.
At that time, a top Rosoboronexport official said discussions centered on as many as five so-called "Project 636" Varshavyanka submarines.
The ships, known in NATO terms as Kilo-class, are Russia's most advanced non-nuclear submarine.
China, India and Iran, among others, have all purchased the subs in recent years.
Caracas already has purchased some $3 billion worth of arms from Russia, including military helicopters, Kalashnikov rifles and Sukhoi fighter jets.
Kommersant said Venezuela also was negotiating to buy 12 Il-76 military transport aircraft.
BUCHAREST, Romania (CNN) Russian President Vladimir Putin struck a conciliatory note in talks with NATO leaders Friday, claiming that a new Cold War was in "nobody's interests" despite terse disagreements over the future expansion of the alliance and U.S. moves to install missile defense bases in eastern Europe.
Speaking to reporters at NATO's summit meeting in Bucharest, Putin warned that the proposed extension of NATO membership to the former Soviet republics of Ukraine and Georgia would be seen in Moscow as a direct threat to Russian security.
"Let's be friends, guys, and engage in an honest dialogue," Putin said.
NATO Secretary-General Jaap De Hoop Scheffer said the atmosphere of the talks, attended by NATO's 26 leaders, had been "constructive" and "frank and open," AP reported.
On Thursday, NATO members decided not to allow Georgia and Ukraine to begin the process towards membership, recognizing strong objections from Moscow.
But in a nod to U.S. President George W. Bush, who had strongly made the case for the two countries to be fully admitted to the alliance, NATO promised future membership to the pair at a later date. Albania and Croatia were also invited to join.
Russia opposes NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia, concerned that the alliance's eastward march will erode its influence in those countries.
"This agreement is an important step in our efforts to protect our nations and our NATO allies from the growing threat posed by the proliferation of ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction," the U.S. State Department said in a statement.
Gordon's late free throws seal Bulls 101-98 win over Cavaliers
Ben Gordon's five late free throws rallied the Chicago Bulls to a 101-98 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA on Thursday.
Chicago's Larry Hughes scored 19 points in the second half against his former team as the Bulls _ with nothing left to play for this season _ came from 17 points down in the second half to snap a six-game road losing streak.
(CNN) Do you think you will be using a personal computer for the rest of your life?
But then once personal computing and online communications have been installed into your life, they're hard to uninstall.
So let's refine the question:
Will you own a personal computer for the rest of your life? Maybe it's too late to stop needing computers, but is it necessary to actually own one now that they're so ubiquitous?
The same question is being asked about automobiles.
Car-sharing programs like Flexcar have spread rapidly in gridlocked cities from London and Los Angeles to Tokyo.
Many urbanites have happily ditched their own wheels in favor of such programs.
Computer-sharing is even easier.
You simply use computers wherever you find them, either by keeping all your data online or on a USB flash drive that holds all your files, applications and settings.
Both approaches are becoming increasingly viable, and combined they're even more effective. But why bother?
Witness the slum residents in India who face toxic exposure while recycling computer parts.
Recent gatherings like the Greener Gadgets Conference in New York highlight the concerns.
Few consumers, though, are likely to sacrifice their gadgets just for the sake of being green.
"They may be buying expensive solar panels and hybrid cars, but I don't see them giving up their laptops and iMacs any time soon," says Michael Ann Strahilevitz, a marketing professor at Golden Gate University in San Francisco who studies consumer interest in green issues.
There's a whole ecosystem now of portable applications and online forums catering to these folks.
And it's not just USB flash drives that can be used: iPods and cheap portable hard drives work just as well as long as they can plug into a USB port.
If you frequently have access to available computers, this approach can work and boost your green credentials.
LONDON, England (CNN) Supermodel Naomi Campbell has been arrested at Heathrow Airport's Terminal 5 for allegedly spitting at a police officer, Sky News television reported Thursday.
A London Metropolitan Police spokesman said a woman was arrested at the terminal for an assault on police, but refused to disclose her identity or give her age.
Campbell, a British fashion model, has a history of getting physical with assistants and employees, and has attended an anger management program.
(CNN) Ten people were killed Thursday after fire swept through a house outside Brockway, Pennsylvania, authorities said.
The blaze started about 2:45 a.m., said Pennsylvania state Trooper Mark Schrecengost.
"The fire crews arrived within minutes and ... the house was engulfed." Schrecengost told The Associated Press.
The 10 people killed ranged in age from 4 months to 40 years old, authorities said at an afternoon news conference.
The Delullo children were the son and daughter of one of the two survivors, 20-year-old Elizabeth Peterson.
Witnesses said Elizabeth Peterson ran to a neighbor's house to get help, according to the AP.
Her brother, James Peterson, 11, also escaped the fire.
Fire marshals were at the scene trying to determine the cause, but Trooper Bruce Morris told the AP the fire did not appear to be suspicious.
Brockway is about 80 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.
LONDON, England (CNN) China's ambassador to London may pull out of the Olympic torch relay planned for this weekend, officials at the Chinese Embassy said Thursday.
Ambassador Fu Ying had been due to be one of the 80 people carrying the Olympic flame across the British capital on Sunday, and her participation had drawn the ire of pro-Tibet groups angry at China's clampdown on protesters there.
The British Broadcasting Corp. said Ying had already pulled out, but the Chinese Embassy said only that she was weighing her options.
"I cannot confirm or deny the report," embassy spokesman Liu Weimin said, explaining that Ying had been assigned to accompany a Chinese delegation on its visit to London.
instructed to be with the delegation this weekend, but she is still trying to see whether she can meet both demands.
Protests also are planned in London, and police said they were deploying about 2,000 officers to guard the torch as it makes its way along its 31 mile- (50 kilometer-) route.
The Free Tibet Campaign, one of the groups planning to demonstrate Sunday, said it welcomed news that the Chinese ambassador was considering staying out of the ceremony.
"Clearly it shows that China, for the first time in a long time, is on the defensive about Tibet," Free Tibet spokesman Matt Whitticase said.
WASHINGTON (CNN) The number of Americans who believe that the country is ready for a black president is rising, a poll released Thursday suggested.
More than three quarters, 76 percent, of respondents in a CNN/Essence Magazine/Opinion Research Corp. poll said the country is ready to be led by an African-American, up 14 percentage points since December 2006.
Some of the rise can be attributed to the success of Sen. Barack Obama in the Democratic presidential primaries, said Keating Holland, CNN's polling director.
Obama leads Sen. Hillary Clinton in states won, in delegates pledged and in the overall popular vote in the primaries and caucuses held.
The poll also indicates that more whites than blacks think the country is ready for
a black president. Of the white Americans surveyed, 78 percent said the country is ready, as opposed to 69 percent of African-Americans polled.
"Drawing on their own life experience, blacks are a little more skeptical than whites. But blacks, too, have come around, particularly after the Iowa caucuses demonstrated that Obama could win in an overwhelmingly white electorate," said Bill Schneider, CNN senior political analyst.
The poll also suggested that more Americans think the country is ready for a black president than a female president.
Sixty-three percent of those surveyed say the country is ready for a female president, 13 points lower than those who say the country is ready for a black president.
The poll asked whether the country is ready for a black or female president, not whether respondents would vote for a black or female president.
The poll was conducted by telephone from March 26 to April 2, with 2,184 Americans questioned, including 1,014 blacks and 1,001 whites.
SEOUL, South Korea (CNN) North Korea cut off dialogue with South Korea on Thursday, claiming the peninsula was on the brink of another war.
North Korea also accused South Korea of driving their relationship to "confrontation and catastrophe."
The country said it was stopping dialogue after South Korea failed to apologize for remarks one of its generals made this week.
The general said South Korea would attack suspected nuclear weapons sites in North Korea if the North tried to attack the South with atomic bombs.
The communist nation said it would take unspecified "military actions" to punish South Korea.
The news comes as South Korean President Lee Myung-bak called for dialogue in the midst of escalating tensions between the two nations.
"We want the North to come to the dialogue table with a more sincere attitude.
North Korea has bristled in response to Lee's promised tougher stance toward the North. He took office in late February.
"South Korea's conservative regime is driving the north-south relations to confrontation and catastrophe, blatantly swimming against the trend of the era of independence, reunification, peace and prosperity," an unidentified spokesman for the Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland said in a statement broadcast by state-run media in North Korea.
Lee called North Korea's threats "undesirable" on Thursday during a meeting of the country's ranking generals, Yonhap reported.
"Since my inauguration, North Korea has intensified tension across the border," Lee said. "But I don't expect the situation to deteriorate further. "
HARARE, Zimbabwe (CNN) Zimbabwean government forces Thursday began cracking down on the main opposition party, raising fears of a political crisis, according to witnesses and an opposition spokesman.
The forces raided at least two hotels in the capital, including one that houses foreign journalists, a witness said.
Four journalists unaccredited by the Zimbabwean government were taken away, he said.
New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller confirmed that Barry Bearak, a Pulitzer Prize-winning correspondent based in Johannesburg, South Africa, was taken into custody.
"He was apparently one of a number of Americans and other foreign nationals rounded up today," Keller said. "An American consular official who visited him at the central police station reported that he was being held for 'violation of the journalism laws.
"We are making every effort to assure that he is well treated, and to secure his prompt release," Keller said.
The identities of the other journalists seized in the raid were not immediately known.
Tendai Biti, secretary-general for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, said his party's offices in another Harare hotel were also raided by Zimbabwean forces.
Some of the rooms were ransacked, The Associated Press reported.
The action targeted "certain people ... including myself," Biti told the AP.
"It is quite clear he has unleashed a war," he said, referring to Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.
(CNN) More than 55,000 cases of dengue, a sometimes deadly mosquito-borne disease, have been reported in a southeastern Brazilian state in the past four months, authorities said Thursday.
The disease has killed 67 people this year in Brazil's Rio de Janeiro state, the state's ministry of health reported.
The ministry of health did not identify whether the deaths were attributed to the more severe form of dengue, dengue hemorrhagic fever, which "can be fatal if unrecognized and not properly treated," the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
The CDC said that with treatment, fatalities due to dengue hemorrhagic fever, which is characterized by abnormal internal or external bleeding, can be less than 1 percent.
Dengue fever, the more common form of dengue, is caused by four closely related viruses.
All of them are carried by infected mosquitoes, mainly the Aedes Aegypti mosquito, the CDC said.
The Rio de Janeiro health ministry said 513 of its 57,010 cases of dengue were that of dengue hemorrhagic fever.
The CDC estimates that there are 10 million cases of dengue around the world each year.
Mosquitoes carrying dengue viruses breed in stored, exposed water, including places as shallow as jars, discarded bottles and plant saucers, according to the World Health Organization.
Dr. Ali Khan of the CDC emphasized prevention. "Wear long sleeves, loose, baggy pants and make sure you're using good insect repellant.
Symptoms of dengue fever include high fever, severe headache, backache, joint pains and eye pain, nausea, vomiting and a rash, according to the CDC.
There is no vaccine to prevent dengue fever or dengue hemorrhagic fever, the CDC said.
Two prominent supporters of Hillary Clinton suggested Thursday the New York senator needs to best rival Barack Obama in the total popular vote to have any chance at winning her party¡¯s presidential nomination.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=3099213
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice criticized the Chinese government Thursday for sentencing human rights activist Hu Jia to jail and said the United States soon will launch new human rights talks with Beijing.
Hu used the Internet to publicize his criticism of the Chinese system and the activities of other dissidents. He was sentenced to three and a half years in jail.
(CNN) The second-in-command of al Qaeda has said the terrorist group does not kill innocents and that its leader Osama bin Laden is healthy, according to a transcript of an audio tape released by radical Islamist Web sites.
Ayman al-Zawahiri made his remarks in response to questions solicited on a Web site close to al Qaeda.
The questions asked his views about Egypt and Iraq as well as Hamas, the militant Islamic group that seized control of Gaza last year.
They also referred to attacks by al Qaeda and affiliated groups that have killed scores of civilians in Muslim nations, such as Algeria, Iraq and Morocco.
Al-Zawahiri, who led an Egyptian Islamic militant group that joined forces with bin Laden in the 1990s, said innocents who have been killed in attacks by al Qaeda or affiliated groups died as a result of "unintentional error" or because they were used as "human shields" by "the enemy.
Al-Zawahiri defended a December attack in Algeria hospital sources said it killed 60 people because one of its targets was a United Nations building and the "United Nations is an enemy of Islam and Muslims," according to the transcript.
He said "bin Laden is healthy and well," the transcript said, but that even if he "doesn't become ill, he must die one day.
Al-Jazeera broadcast an audiotape last month on which a voice identified as bin Laden's declared "Iraq is the perfect base to set up the jihad to liberate Palestine.
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson on Wednesday sharply disputed Bill Clinton's reported claim that Richardson promised to endorse Hillary Clinton's bid for the White House. "I never did," Richardson said.
We made it very clear to him that he shouldn't expect an endorsement after that meeting.
Bill Clinton's comments reportedly came during a recent meeting with some California superdelegates.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported the former president got "red faced" when the subject of Richardson came up and said, "Five times to my face (Richardson) said that he would never do that.
In the interview Wednesday, Richardson acknowledged he was "very close to endorsing" Clinton, but decided not to after the campaign got "nasty.
Fourth seed Jelena Jankovic booked a semifinal place at the Sony Ericsson Open in Key Biscayne after Russian Elena Dementieva retired while trailing in the second set of their quarterfinal clash.
Jankovic led 6-1 3-1 when 10th seed Dementieva, battling an apparent back injury for which she received treatment after the first set, decided she could not continue.
Serb Jankovic, who had saved five match points in her battling second-round victory over Sweden's Sofia Arvidsson, will now face the winner of the final quarterfinal between Russian duo Dinara Safina and Vera Zvonareva.
to make her first final of 2008 having lost in the final four at the Australian Open, Dubai and Indian Wells tournaments this year.
A news report says the North Korean military has rejected South Korea's response to its recent provocations.
In a statement sent Thursday to the South, a North Korean general threatened the country would take unspecified "countermeasures" against its neighbor, Yonhap news agency reported, without citing any source.
The Defense Ministry could not immediately confirm the report.
The exchange comes after the South complained earlier this week over North Korean comments threatening to turn the country into "ashes.
The North's tirade was prompted by South Korea's top officer saying last week that Seoul could strike suspected North Korean nuclear facilities if it had signs of an imminent atomic attack.
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak said Thursday that the officer's comments "were a natural answer" in response to lawmakers' questions at a parliamentary hearing.
In the past week, North Korea has also test-fired missiles and expelled South Korean officials from a jointly run industrial zone, apparently in angry response to the tougher policies of South Korea's new conservative government.
Lee was personally targeted in a North Korean propaganda missive earlier this week that labeled him a "traitor" and warned that the South would face unspecified consequences for Lee's pro-U.S. policy.
A survey of sex therapists concluded the optimal amount of time for sexual intercourse was 3 to 13 minutes.
The findings, to be published in the May issue of the Journal of Sexual Medicine, strike at the notion that endurance is the key to a great sex life.
If that sounds like good news to you, don't cheer too loudly.
The time does not count foreplay, and the therapists did rate sexual intercourse that lasts from 1 to 2 minutes as "too short.
Researcher Eric Corty said he hoped to ease the minds of those who believe "more of something good is better, and if you really want to satisfy your partner, you should last forever.
The questions were not gender-specific, said Corty. But he said prior research has shown men and women want foreplay and sexual intercourse to last longer.
Dr. Irwin Goldstein, editor of the Journal of Sexual Medicine, cited a four-week study of 1,500 couples in 2005 that found the median time for sexual intercourse was 7.3 minutes.
(Women in the study were armed with stopwatches.)
It's difficult for both older men and young men to make sexual intercourse last much longer, said Marianne Brandon, a clinical psychologist and director of Wellminds Wellbodies in Annapolis, Maryland.
"Most people's sex lives are not as exciting as other people think they are.
Fifty members of the Society for Sex Therapy and Research in the U.S. and Canada were surveyed by Corty, an associate professor of psychology at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, and student Jenay Guardiani.
Thirty-four members, or 68 percent, responded, although some said the optimal time depended on the couple.
Corty said he hoped to give an idea of what therapists find to be normal and satisfactory among the couples they see.
"People who read this will say, 'I last five minutes or my partner lasts eight minutes,' and say, 'That's OK,' " he said.
DARWIN, Australia (CNN) A man rescued his wife from the jaws of a crocodile in remote northern Australia by jumping on its back, police said Thursday.
The woman, 36, suffered leg and hand injuries in the attack late Wednesday in an Outback creek where the couple were swimming, Northern Territory Police spokesman David Wright said.
But the 2.5-meter (8-foot) reptile released the woman and fled when the man jumped on its back.
"It was real Crocodile Dundee stuff," Wright said, referring to the 1986 movie featuring an Outback hunter who can kill crocodiles with a knife.
The attack happened 100 miles southwest of Darwin, Australia's northernmost city, where the woman was taken to treat wounds that included eight teeth punctures in her thigh.
The names of the couple were not released.
"The husband's very swift and diligent actions have saved the day," Royal Darwin Hospital general manager Len Notaros told reporters.
It was the fourth close call involving a crocodile this year in the Northern Territory.
Last week, police opened fire on a crocodile as it closed in on a drunken 27-year-old man who had accepted a dare to swim out to an offshore crocodile trap, and last month a crocodile nearly snatched a 27-year-old Israeli tourist from his boat on a river.
In January, a man rescued his colleague from a crocodile's jaws but accidentally shot the unlucky co-worker in the process.
Asked at a campaign event if he'd consider Gore for his cabinet, Obama immediately said he would.
" I will make a commitment that Al Gore will be at the table and play a central part in us figuring out how we solve this [climate change] problem," Obama said.
Obama also said he talks with the former vice president on a "regular basis," and often consults with him on climate change issues.
Could Gore serve alongside Bill Clinton in an Obama administration?
Last November, the Illinois senator said he'd offer the former president a job "in a second.
"There are few more talented people [than Clinton]," Obama said then.
A two-day strike at a Vietnamese factory that makes Nike sneakers has ended, but the plant remained closed after workers returned and violence erupted, a union official said.
About 17,000 of Ching Luh's 21,000 employees reported to work Wednesday morning after the labor union and management of the Taiwanese-owned plant reached an agreement to increase monthly wages by 100,000 dong ($6) amid record-high inflation, said labor union head Pham Thi Lap.
Police were called to the plant located in southern Long An province in the Mekong Delta when a brawl broke out and it was closed, Lap said.
No one was seriously injured, but several workers were beaten during the melee, she added.
"The workers overwhelmed the police and factory guards," Lap said. "Things went out of control, and we had to call in more police to restore order.
The factory, which makes shoes for U.S. sportswear giant Nike, will remain closed for the next three days for security reasons, said Nguyen Van Thua, a provincial trade union official.
"We are encouraged by the labor union and the provincial government in helping to find a fair and timely resolution to the current work stoppage," George Lin, factory general manager said in a statement Wednesday.
off the electricity and they threw chairs at the other workers who tried to switch it on," one said.
JAKARTA, Indonesia (CNN) About 50 students broke into a Dutch consulate compound in Indonesia Wednesday to protest a film by a Dutch lawmaker that many Muslims consider anti-Islamic.
The protesters tore off the gate of the embassy in the city of Medan and ripped down a flag, said Dutch Embassy spokeswoman Gonneke de Ridder.
Local television carried pictures of police dispersing and rounding up demonstrators.
Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim nation.
The 15-minute film, "Fitna," features disturbing images of terrorist acts juxtaposed over verses from the Quran to paint Islam as a threat to Western society.
It has been posted on several Web sites, including Google Video and YouTube.
Dutch Prime Minister Jan Beter Balkanende has said his government worried that Geert Wilders' film could provoke a violent backlash.
The film has prompted protests in other parts of the Muslim world.
Soon after its release last month, hundreds of angry Muslims rallied in Pakistan, where the government temporarily blocked access of YouTube over a trailer for Wilders' film.
The protesters burned the Dutch flag and called on Pakistan to cut ties with the Netherlands.
The Dutch government and others, including the European Union and the Organization of the Islamic Conference, have rejected the film.
The OIC has 57 member states over four continents and claims on its Web site to be the second largest inter-governmental organization, after the United Nations.
In its statement, it urged the international community to condemn the showing of the film and asked the Dutch government to prosecute the author of the documentary under Dutch law.
"My intention was not to offend in any way, but to show the truth at least the truth as I see it," Wilders told CNN.
"And if the truth hurts and could be offensive, well, this of course is not my problem.
The film opens with passages from the Quran, interspersed with graphic images of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the United States.
beheadings of hostages; executions of women in hijab, the traditional Muslim attire;
and footage, with subtitles, of Islamic leaders preaching inflammatory sermons against Jews and Christians.
NEW YORK (CNN) Among the rare manuscripts to be offered for sale at Sotheby's auction house Thursday is an 1864 letter in which Abraham Lincoln replies to the abolitionist pleas of 195 young boys and girls.
The "Little People's Petition" asked him "to free all the little slave children of this country.
Lincoln wrote, "Please tell these little people I am very glad their young hearts are so full of just and generous sympathy and that, while I have not the power to grant all they ask, I trust they will remember that God has, and that, as it seems, He wills to do it.
Although Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation had declared freedom for all slaves held in areas "in rebellion" against the United States as of January 1, 1863, full abolition of slavery was not accomplished until adoption of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution late in 1865.
The letter, from the Dr. Robert Small Trust, is expected to go for between $3 million and $5 million, which would make it the most expensive Lincoln manuscript sold, Sotheby's spokeswoman Lauren Gioia said in a news release.
It is part of a collection of pieces that is expected to bring as much as $12 million, she said.
About 20 Lincoln documents are among the 111 items for sale from the Small Trust.
Also included are other documents from U.S. presidents, including pages from George Washington's diary and correspondence from Thomas Jefferson and John Adams; a rare document signed by both Meriwether Lewis and William Clark;
France has agreed to send a battalion of troops to eastern Afghanistan, a NATO spokesman has said.
James Appathurai told reporters at a briefing that the move will help NATO meet Canada's requirement that it send more troops to the volatile southern province of Kandahar, where Canadian troops are based.
Canada agreed this month to extend its commitment of about 2,500 troops until 2011 so long as NATO contributes more troops to Kandahar.
There is a "clear unity in the alliance" that the mission in Afghanistan must succeed, Appathurai said.
Though 25 NATO allies and 13 other countries have contributed forces, the bulk of the recent fighting has been done by U.S., Canadian, British and Dutch troops.
Appathurai also said Thursday that he did not expect NATO applicants Georgia and Ukraine to be put on a membership action plan this summit but, he said, the general sense in terms of membership for the two countries is not "whether, but when.
U.S. President George W. Bush has pushed for the admission of Ukraine and Georgia to the military alliance.
However, Russia which is not a NATO member has expressed concerns about the former Soviet republics joining NATO, which has already made members of other former Soviet countries Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia.
Appathurai also said a general consensus could not be reached on Macedonia's bid, because of Greece's objections.
Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern (uh-HERN) said Wednesday he will step down May 6 after almost 11 years in office.
¡°Never in all the time I served in public life have I ever put my interests ahead of the public good.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=3097698
Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said NATO is close to having the number of troops it needs for Afghanistan, where 47,000 foreign troops take part in the NATO-led mission.
NATO's role in Afghanistan has divided the alliance amid concerns that some countries aren't sharing the same combat burdens.
This week's summit of NATO leaders in Romania has also exposed divisions within the military alliance over U.S. plans to locate missile defense bases in eastern Europe as well as disagreement over the cases for membership of former Soviet republics of Ukraine and Georgia.
"I'm optimistic that we will leave the summit ... with more troop commitments, which is necessary in Afghanistan," Scheffer told CNN from Bucharest, Romania, where the summit is being held.
He said NATO is close to have the number of troops its military advisers recommend.
U.S. President George W. Bush has called on NATO members to send more troops to Afghanistan.
Citing a recent recording from al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden that threatens attacks on Europe, Bush said the war in Afghanistan must be won.
"I think if tomorrow we get clarification on troop support ... the people of Afghanistan are going to be more than grateful.
Bush also said he was confident of persuading NATO members to back U.S. missile defense plans, which includes building bases in member states Poland and the Czech Republic.
"It looks to me that the agreement is coming together," Bush said, adding that Russian President Vladimir Putin should welcome NATO as "a group of nations dedicated to peace.
Bush is due to meet Putin on Sunday in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi.
He is also due to hold talks with Putin's successor-elect, Dmitry Medvedev, who is due to replace Putin next month and is expected to appoint his predecessor as prime minister.
President Robert Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party has lost control of the lower house of parliament, according to results released Wednesday by Zimbabwe's Electoral Commission.
The results are not yet final, but it appears the opposition Movement for Democratic Change and its allies will secure a majority in Zimbabwe's 210 seat lower house of parliament.
While this gives the MDC significantly more power, certain legislation needs a two-thirds majority to pass Zimbabwe's parliament, which it appears the MDC has not secured.
The electoral commission said it would soon begin releasing results from the upper house, the Senate.
The news came as the main opposition party in Zimbabwe said its leader had won the presidential elections, an assertion the country's information minister disregarded as an attempt to wreak "mayhem and panic.
Despite claims that there will be a runoff to determine the impoverished African nation's next leader including a report in Zimbabwe's state-run newspaper the MDC says Morgan Tsvangirai won the election flat out.
MDC Secretary-General Tendai Biti called for longtime President Robert Mugabe to step down.
Mugabe, who was prime minister before taking the presidential post in 1987, has been in power since Zimbabwe's independence 28 years ago.
"President Morgan Richard Tsvangirai has won this election, not in respect of the gross vote, but in attaining the majority required," Biti said.
Mugabe's other challenger, Simba Makoni, received 7 percent of the vote.
Fifteen U.S. House members asked President Bush Tuesday not to attend the Olympic Games in Beijing to protest China's human rights records.
The call follows comments from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who earlier said Bush should boycott the August 8 opening ceremony.
President Bush has said he intends to meet China's president during a trip to see the Olympics.
In a letter, the House members 14 Democrats and one Republican pointed to China's crackdown on anti-government protesters in Tibet. They urged the president to "reconsider" his decision.
"It would be clearly inappropriate for you to attend the Olympic Games in China, given the increasingly repressive nature of that country's government," the letter said.
"The Olympic Games are the most honorable, venerated, and prestigious international sporting events in the world.
Your attendance at these Games will only serve to enhance China's honor and prestige as the host country of the Olympics.
A spokesman for Rep. Maxine Waters, a Democrat from California who led the group, said the congresswoman had earlier urged for a boycott of the Games.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said he may skip the opening ceremony. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she will skip the Olympic Games. Britain's Prince Charles said in January he has "no plans to attend the ceremony.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang has said that the Olympic Games should not be politicized.
"We hope to enhance mutual understanding, friendship and cooperation with other peoples through the Games," Qin said in a statement on the ministry's Web site. "We must follow the purpose of the Olympics and not politicize the games.
Despite increasing calls from the international community to release election results, Zimbabwe has yet to provide any data on the presidential race three days after voters went to the polls.
The lack of information is fueling confusion and widespread speculation about the future of President Robert Mugabe.
But a spokesman for Morgan Tsvangirai, MDC leader and Mugabe's main challenger, denied that report and said the party is not negotiating with Mugabe.
Tendai Biti, secretary-general of MDC, also said that talks are not under way between MDC and Mugabe's ZANU-PF party.
Biti told CNN the MDC believes challenger Morgan Tsvangirai won enough votes to force a run-off election with Mugabe.
Earlier, ZANU-PF officials had said they, too, were preparing for a run-off.
Biti asserted that with results in from 180 constituencies, the MDC has won 67 percent of the vote meaning that even if Mugabe carries the other 30 constituencies, he could not avoid a run-off.
ZANU-PF has also denied talks were under way between the parties, saying it, too, is preparing for a run-off.
Tensions are high in the southern African country that has never seen a transition of power.
Mugabe has led Zimbabwe since the country won independence from the United Kingdom in 1980.
Zimbabwe's Electoral Commission has announced the results of more than half of the 210 parliamentary seats, with Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front holding a slight lead.
A Zimbabwe diplomat told CNN the delay in releasing the presidential results is simply to ensure every vote is counted.
"This is a new phenomenon," said Zimbabwe's ambassador to the United Nations, Boniface Guwa Chidyausiku, noting that four simultaneous elections were held Saturday.
The arrests were made in Melilla, a Spanish enclave of about 68,000 people on Morocco's Mediterranean coast, with Spanish Civil Guards acting on international arrests warrants issued by Morocco, the ministry said in a written statement.
Moroccan authorities have linked one of the suspects, Ali Aarass, to the Casablanca bombings in May 2003 that killed 33 bystanders and 12 suicide bombers.
He is suspected of Islamic extremist activities during the past 16 years, the Spanish statement said. The other man, Mohamed El Bay, is wanted
for alleged involvement with a terrorist network that Moroccan police broke up last February, when they arrested 30 people suspected of plotting attacks against Moroccan government targets, it said.
Moroccan police seized numerous weapons in the February raids and later contacted European police for help in locating other suspects in the group.
Spain has arrested more than 300 suspected Islamic extremists since the Madrid train bombings of 2004 that killed 191 people, although not all of the suspects remain in jail.
Police arrested a senior Taliban commander who escaped twice from prisons in Afghanistan, nabbing him during a clash in the country's south that left three insurgents dead, an official said Tuesday.
The militants, led by Taliban commander Mullah Naqibullah and dressed in police uniforms, ambushed a police convoy Monday north of the Helmand province capital of Lashkar Gah, provincial police chief Mohammad Hussein Andiwal said.
It was the third time that authorities have arrested Naqibullah.
Two months ago, Naqibullah managed to escape from the prison run by the Afghan intelligence service in Lashkar Gah, Andiwal said.
Previously he had escaped from a prison in the capital, Kabul.
Helmand is the world's largest opium-producing province and the scene of fierce clashes between militants and Afghan and foreign troops.
Squadron Leader Iain Bright, a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force, said their troops targeted four insurgents "as they were digging.
In a separate incident, a mine struck a civilian vehicle Tuesday in southwestern Nimroz province, killing the driver and wounding two civilians, said provincial police chief Mohammad Ayub Badakhshi.
SAN FRANCISCO, California (CNN) Marine biologists studying wild octopuses have found a kinky and violent society of jealous murders, gender subterfuge and once-in-a-lifetime sex.
The study by researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, who journeyed off the coast of Indonesia found that wild octopuses are far from the shy, unromantic loners their captive brethren appear to be.
The scientists watched the Abdopus aculeatus octopus, which are the size of an orange, for several weeks and published their findings recently in the journal Marine Biology.
They witnessed picky, macho males carefully select a mate, then guard their newly domesticated digs so jealously they would occasionally use their 8-to-10-inch tentacles to strangle a romantic rival.
" male octopuses put on feminine airs, such as swimming girlishly near the bottom and keeping their male brown stripes hidden in order to win unsuspecting conquests.
"If you're going to spend time guarding a female, you want to go for the biggest female you can find because she's going to produce more eggs," said UC Berkeley biologist Roy Caldwell, who co-wrote the study.
"It's basically an investment strategy.
Shortly after the female gives birth, about a month after conception, the mother and father die, researchers said.
"It's not the sex that leads to death," said Christine Huffard, the study's lead author. "It's just that octopuses produce offspring once during a very short lifespan of a year."
PARIS, France (CNN) The French markets regulator said Tuesday it has found evidence of insider trading at EADS, the parent company of Airbus.
In a report following an 18-month investigation, regulator AMF also alleged EADS had misled financial markets by failing to meet standards on the publication of information.
While AMF's announcement did not mention Airbus specifically, its investigation was triggered when top management and shareholders carried out suspicious share trades in the time before EADS revealed severe delays to the production of the Airbus A380 superjumbo jet in June 2006.
Word of those delays caused shares in EADS to drop by a quarter at the time.
EADS had reported in March 2006 that certain executives and major shareholders had sold shares during a pre-approved window , but AMF decided to investigate whether anyone who sold those shares knew the bad news about the delays was coming.
Aviation analyst Howard Wheeldon, of brokerage firm BGC Partners in London, said the French investigation initially involved 21 people.
"What they actually knew or didn't know in terms of the delay, (whether) there would be a delay announcement forthcoming it's very difficult, it's very complicated," Wheeldon told CNN. "But I do seem to get the impression that the French regulatory authorities have got a long way down the line.
French reports about the investigation have previously pointed to former EADS Director Noel Forgeard, who was fired soon after the delay announcement in June 2006.
Forgeard made a profit of some $3 million when he sold his stock in March 2006, and his three children also sold stock options.
Christian Streiff was hired in July of 2006 to clean up the problems at Airbus, but he resigned in October of that year after the company announced another lengthy delay in A380 production.
OSLO, Norway (CNN) A dwarf crocodile in Norway was recuperating Tuesday from a kidnapping ordeal that included having his mouth taped shut, an aquarium director said.
Taggen, a 4-year-old crocodile, was reported missing Monday from his cage at the Bergen Aquarium after his captors broke the latch over the weekend and took the reptile, said marine biologist Kees Oscar Ekeli, the aquarium's director.
After the theft of the 27-inch-long croc made national news in Norway, the kidnappers handed him over to reporters from the TV-2 television network through a middleman late Monday, reports said.
A reptile enthusiast later claimed responsibility for the theft, telling national media he took Taggen to protest the reptile's poor cage conditions.
It was not known whether police would take the man, Vaalen Gaanev of the Web site reptilweb.no, into custody for questioning.
Taggen is a Paleosuchus Trigonatus, also known as a Schneider's dwarf caiman.
Ekeli said the smooth-fronted caimans are among the world's smallest species of crocodile.
Ekeli said Gaanev's claim of poor care was "idiotic" and that conditions at the aquarium are excellent.
LONDON, England (CNN) British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said he does not plan to boycott August's Olympic opening ceremonies in Beijing or the torch relay in London this weekend.
"I think we've got to bear in mind that although there's a huge amount of controversy now surrounding the Olympics because of what's been happening in Tibet, the Dalai Lama himself has made it clear he doesn't want there to be a boycott of the Olympics," Brown told reporters at his monthly news conference.
"I think we've got to bear in mind the views around the world that the Olympics should go ahead as a sporting occasion.
The Olympic torch relay is scheduled to pass through London this Sunday on its way to the Olympics in Beijing, China, and Brown said he would be there to welcome it.
Brown said he would also attend the opening ceremonies for the Olympics because London was hosting the next summer games in 2012.
Questions about an Olympic boycott intensified last month after China began a crackdown on anti-Chinese demonstrators in Tibet.
Brown repeated his call for dialogue between the Chinese government and the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader.
Carla Bruni-Sarkozy has been appointed by Gordon Brown to inject more style and glamour into British life if you believe a report in the UK's Guardian newspaper.
She is set to join British Prime Minister Brown's "government of all talents" and move to London for three months to take advantage of the "Carlamania" that is gripping the country.
You've probably as much chance of that happening as pigs flying, except because it's April Fool's day it's penguins not pigs (the BBC has footage compiled by former Monty Python Terry Jones).
The Sun, a UK tabloid, trumpeted a stretching operation for Mrs Sarkozy's husband, French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
"Doctors reckon they will be able to add an amazing five inches [12.7cm] to his height in just over a year," The Sun said.
"When surgery is completed he will be an inch taller than his stunning ex-model wife Carla Bruni [Sarkozy].
In the animal kingdom, National Geographic's latest cover features Paris Hilton as part of a "wild animal" theme. Inside, a photo of a lion is made up of dozens of images of women's bare chests, AP reported.
In producing its two-hour documentary, "Eyewitness to Murder:
The King Assassination," CNN Presents turned to the people who were there that day and others personally involved in the movement to tell their first-hand stories of a tragedy that still resonates today.
CNN sought out these critical witnesses and others with pained memories and personal knowledge to tell the story in their own words, rather than depend on official reconstructions of the murder case.
Among those interviewed: five policemen on the scene or on duty that day, three men in the firehouse, two of the garbage workers whose city-wide strike brought the civil rights leader to Memphis, the medical examiner who plotted the trajectory of the fatal bullet, and the former Ku Klux Klan lawyer who became James Earl Ray's first attorney.
Ray's younger brother, Jerry, shared his story of how he stayed in touch with James during the prison escapee's year on the run and was at his bedside when Ray died almost 30 years after his guilty plea in King's death.
The documentary draws on James Earl Ray's personal hand-written account at the time, which describes how he purchased his white Mustang and the 30-06 rifle left
The former Lorraine Motel is now the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, and its president, Beverly Robertson, allowed CNN unprecedented access not only to the second-floor balcony where King was killed, but also to the museum's remarkable display of the evidence, including Ray's rifle and his prison radio, both left behind as he drove away.
The Democratic presidential candidates are criss-crossing Pennsylvania this week, dropping in at gas stations and truck stops to convince voters they've got the best plan to tackle soaring gas prices and big oil profits.
Clinton likened herself Tuesday to Sylvester Stallone's Rocky Balboa character, but said the big fight ahead isn't just against her opponent, Sen. Barack Obama, but also against the country's oil crisis.
While beating back calls from some of her opponent's supporters to step down, Clinton has taken to lashing out at the Bush administration's oil policy.
"The president is too busy holding hands with the Saudis to care about American truck drivers who can't afford to fill up their tank any longer," she said.
Obama, meanwhile, said Monday a crackdown is needed on oil companies.
"[We] need a president who can stand up to big oil and big energy companies and say enough is enough," Obama said Monday.
Clinton and Obama held events a mile apart Monday in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Both focused on energy issues.
"It's affecting the business pretty bad, because as gas prices are higher, the rates of the cabs are higher. And the customers are complaining," a cab driver said.
In Washington Tuesday, top executives from five of the biggest oil companies Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell, BP, Chevron and ConocoPhillips were grilled before Congress over their growing profits and corporate tax breaks.
"To our knowledge the next plan of the Tibet Independence forces is to organize suicide squads to launch violent attacks," Wu Heping, spokesman for China's Ministry of Public Security, said at a news conference, according to a translation of his remarks by The Associated Press.
"They claim they fear neither bloodshed nor sacrifice," he said.
He did not provide details or evidence, and Samdhong Rinpoche, prime minister of Tibet's exiled government, dismissed the accusation.
group or people. Now, our suspicion is that the PRC (People's Republic of China) might be staging such a violent act in the name of Tibetan people to mislead the world community," he said in Dharamsala, India.
"It is our ... suspicion, otherwise there is no ground to claim that some Tibetan people or group is planning to (use) suicide bombers or something like that," the Tibetan prime minister said.
Beijing blames the Dalai Lama and his followers for violence that erupted amid protests for Tibetan independence last month.
China has drawn international criticism for its crackdown on the demonstrations, which began peacefully on the 49th anniversary of a failed Tibetan uprising.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy appealed Tuesday for leftist rebels to free former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, saying she is "in danger of imminent death."
Addressing Manuel Marulanda, a leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, Sarkozy said in a televised national address that Betancourt "doesn't have the strength to withstand this endless captivity, which is turning into a tragedy."
FARC has held Betancourt, who has dual French citizenship, for more than six years.
Hostages whom the rebel group recently freed said she is in poor health, and other reports have said she began a hunger strike February 23, the sixth anniversary of her captivity. "So, you who lead FARC, you now have a date with history," Sarkozy warned.
Liberate Ingrid Betancourt and those hostages who are the weakest!"
Established as the military wing of the Colombian Communist Party in 1964, FARC is Colombia's oldest, largest and best-equipped Marxist rebel group, according to the U.S. Department of State.
Several nations, including the United States, classify it as a terrorist group.
FARC has long justified hostage-taking as a legitimate military tactic in a drawn-out, complex civil war that has involved right-wing paramilitary groups, government forces and drug trafficking.
The group holds roughly 750 hostages in Colombia's jungles.
Sen. Hillary Clinton embraced the role of underdog and vowed not to quit as she and her rival in the Democratic presidential contest, Sen. Barack Obama, stumped across Pennsylvania on Tuesday.
Entering to the theme song from the "Rocky" movies, Clinton compared herself to Rocky Balboa, the boxing hero played by Sylvester Stallone, during an address to the AFL-CIO in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
"Sen. Obama says he's getting tired of the campaign. His supporters say they want it to end," she said.
"Could you imagine if Rocky Balboa had gotten halfway up those art museum stairs and said, 'Well, I guess that's about far enough'?
That's not the way it works," Clinton said, referring to a famous scene in the first "Rocky" movie.
"Let me tell you something. When it comes to finishing the fight, Rocky and I have a lot in common. I never quit," she said.
Neither Clinton nor Obama will win the 2,024 delegates needed to capture the nomination outright, meaning the superdelegates probably will determine the Democratic nominee.
Obama currently leads Clinton in delegates 1,625 to 1,486, according to CNN estimates. Obama also leads in the overall popular vote.
Clinton recently has fended off calls from prominent Obama supporters including Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont to drop out of the race.
They said the battle will weaken the Democratic nominee before he or she gets a chance to take on the presumptive Republican candidate, Sen. John McCain.
Roma captain Francesco Totti has been ruled out of Tuesday's first leg Champions League quarterfinal clash against Manchester United at the Olympic Stadium.
The talismanic striker, who scored the equaliser with a stunning free-kick in Saturday's 1-1 Serie A draw at Cagliari, suffered a thigh injury during the game and has not recovered in time.
"At the end of Saturday's match Francesco Totti complained of pain in his left thigh," read a brief statement on the Roma official website.
He must undergo a period of rest while the situation is monitored in the next few days.
Roma coach Luciano Spalletti was forced to play Totti at Cagliari despite the striker struggling with a right knee injury as midfielders Daniele De Rossi and Simone Perrotta and forward Mirko Vucinic were all serving one-match bans.
Totti, who is the Giallorossi's top scorer with 14 goals this season, is optimistic of being fit for the second leg at Old Trafford.
"He's disappointed not to be playing on Tuesday but he is determined to try to be ready for the return leg," said Totti's personal trainer Vito Scala.
United manager Sir Alex Ferguson said: "Obviously Totti is an inspirational figure in the Roma side but I'm sure that the experience of coach Luciano Spalletti and the rest of the players will overcome his loss.
NEW DELHI, India (CNN) India's soccer captain, Bhaichung Bhutia, has refused to carry the Beijing Olympic torch during its run in the Indian capital later this month to protest Chinese authorities' crackdown on recent protests in Tibet.
The Indian Olympic Association, which is organizing the flame's run in New Delhi on April 17, has invited several top Indian athletes, including Bhutia, P. T. Usha, Milkha Singh and Gurbachan Singh Randhawa, for the event.
An Indian sports official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters said Tuesday that Bhutia faxed his decision to the Indian Olympic Association on Monday.
Bhutia is the first athlete to refuse to run with the torch.
Bhutia is from India's northeastern Sikkim state, which borders China.
North Korea's media criticized South Korea's new president for the first time since his inauguration in a blistering rebuke, warning Tuesday that Seoul's pro-U.S. policies could lead to "irrevocable catastrophic consequences.
The lengthy article in the North's main Rodong Sinmun daily came amid a series of provocations by the communist nation that have stoked tensions on the divided peninsula.
Over the weekend, a North Korean military commentator threatened to turn the South into "ashes" in a pre-emptive strike, responding to comments by a South Korean military commander that Seoul could target suspected North Korean nuclear sites if there were signs of a pending attack from Pyongyang.
The North's moves were aimed at swaying new conservative South Korean President Lee Myung-bak from taking a tougher stand on his communist neighbor.
It said the South should not meddle in ongoing international nuclear talks that include the U.S. by demanding disarmament as a precondition for North-South cooperation.
How can you tell the difference between a regular, patience-trying job search and an unsuccessful one?
you send will result in an interview, but some of them should. Another clue is if you are getting called for interviews but you never get called back for a second round or receive an offer.
If you find your job hunt isn't giving you anything but a stress headache, ask yourself the following questions:
will prove not only that you're qualified for the job but that you also have an attention to detail.
Think about this: There is only one of you and there are thousands of job openings.
The more people know you're looking for a job, the better your chances of finding one are.
With so many job seekers competing for the same position, you have an edge if you are referred by a friend or colleague of the hiring manager.
*Do I know something about the companies I'm applying to?
"Tell me what you know about the company" or "Why would you fit in well here?" have become staple interview questions, so don't be caught off guard.
Shrugging your shoulders and saying, "I don't know" isn't going to score you points.
Look at the company's Web site and read press releases and newspaper articles to see what's going on with your prospective future boss.
In addition to preparing for the interview, you'll also learn whether or not the company and its culture are a right fit for you.
Former Vice President Al Gore on Monday launched a three-year, multimillion-dollar advocacy campaign calling for the U.S. to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.
The Alliance for Climate Protection's campaign, dubbed "we," will combine advertising, online organizing and partnerships with grassroots groups to educate the public about global warming and urge solutions from elected officials.
An advertising campaign will equate the climate-change movement with other grand historic endeavors, like stopping fascism in Europe during World War II, overcoming segregation in the United States and putting the first man on the moon.
Some advertisements will feature bipartisan pairs, such as the Rev. Al Sharpton with Pat Robertson and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with former Speaker Newt Gingrich, Zoi said.
Some of the money for the campaign comes from Gore himself.
Zoi said he contributed his personal profits from the book and movie, "An Inconvenient Truth," a $750,000 award from his share of the Nobel Peace Prize and a personal matching gift.
"When politicians hear the American people calling loud and clear for change, they'll listen," Gore, the former Tennessee senator and 2000 presidential candidate, said in a statement.
The "we" campaign Web site hopes to change that by offering ideas on conserving energy at home and work and guidance for those who want to do more, like writing to their elected officials.
(CNN) Teri Garr is known for her acting roles in "Tootsie" and "Friends," but one man in Hollywood will probably remember her best for the way she wields a hammer.
"My phone rings at 4:30 in the morning," says Garr, "and this woman says 'Is this Teri Garr? Because I've been sleeping with your boyfriend since August.
The caller had decided to spill the beans after catching the guy in bed with yet another woman.
And then for some reason I saw a hammer and I threw that in the box, too.
Enraged, Garr says she drove to her boyfriend's house in 1990 and did what many a scorned woman has only dreamed of:
She smashed all his windows.
Vengeance can be appealing when a relationship ends badly.
But should you indulge?
Revenge fantasies are normal, says Jeffrey Kaye, a San Francisco psychologist who specializes in couples counseling.
"There is a certain element of wanting to set things right according to some universal truth an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. But when revenge is acted out on the other person and not just fantasized about, it can be quite destructive and self-defeating.
Men have taken their share of revenge.
In 2005, a British man hung a sign over a highway telling his wife he wanted a divorce.
In 2006, Nicholas Bartha, a New York City doctor, blew up his townhouse to avoid giving it to his ex after he was ordered to pay her several million dollars in their divorce case. He died from injuries caused by the blast.
But as the saying goes, "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
"Women aren't afraid to go for the jugular," says Christine Gallagher, founder of RevengeLady.com and author of "The Woman's Book of Revenge:
Tips on Getting Even When 'Mr. Right' Turns Out to Be All Wrong.
Gallagher, who says she thinks women find revenge empowering because "they no longer feel like a foolish victim," carried out her own vengeful deed:
She unscrewed the door of her cheating ex's Audi, inserted a marble in the frame, then screwed it back together.
It took mechanics months to find the cause of the rattling.
At last they pulled out the marble and a note: "You finally found it, you f****r." Whatever you do, be careful not to cross the line into illegal behavior.
Leon Borstein, who does matrimonial litigation in Manhattan, says many forms of revenge could be considered criminal.
Yearly inflation in the 15 nations that use the euro hit a new record high of 3.5 percent in March, the EU statistical agency Eurostat said Monday.
Inflation was 3.3 percent in February, running far above the European Central Bank's guideline of just under 2 percent as worries over banks' reluctance to lend has held it back from the usual move of cooling inflation by hiking borrowing costs.
The rate represents the fastest pace of price increases since Eurostat started keeping records 12 years ago for the countries that launched the common currency in 1999.
Eurostat's figure is a first estimate, which it will confirm on April 16.
In recent months, high prices for transport fuel, heating oil, bread , dairy products and vegetables have pushed up the rate and are blamed for holding back household spending eating into one of the main drivers of economic growth in the region.
CANBERRA, Australia (CNN) Plans to slaughter 400 kangaroos living on an abandoned military site near the capital of Australia have been put on hold due to public opposition, the Defense Department said Monday.
Instead, the department said it has asked the local government to consider moving the animals which have been blamed for ruining the habitat of rare lizards and insects to another site.
A report released earlier this month recommended the immediate slaughter of the animals to protect lowland native grasslands and threatened species, and said relocating them would be inhumane.
Scientists say eastern gray kangaroos are abundant and are destroying the native grassland of threatened species like the grassland earless dragon and the striped legless lizard.
More than 60 species of kangaroo exist throughout Australia and while a few species are endangered, others have thrived on Outback land that has been cultivated for grazing.
Federal environment protection laws allow wild kangaroos to be hunted, and they are killed by licensed hunters under a quota system.
The meat is used for human consumption and pet food, and the pelts for soft toys and other items.
Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar a superdelegate holdout from a traditional swing state backed fellow freshman Sen. Barack Obama Monday morning.
While Obama rival Sen. Hillary Clinton began the presidential campaign with a massive advantage in Congressional endorsements, Klobuchar's endorsement now gives Obama a 13-11 edge over Clinton among their Democratic Senate colleagues.
Clinton maintains a 243-212 advantage among superdelegates 800 or so elected officials and party activists who are free to cast their vote how they wish in the most recent CNN count.
But since Super Tuesday on February 5, Obama has added more than twice as many to his total as she has, 106-50.
Since the March 4 contests, the trend is greater than 3-to-1.
Clinton's count would be greater but the party has not resolved the thorny question of how to seat the Florida and Michigan delegations.
Currently, neither state will be allowed to send pledged or superdelegates to the summer convention.
Last week, a group of major Clinton donors who had donated roughly $24 million to the party over the past decade sent a message to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who had made public comments urging superdelegates to nominate the pledged delegate leader, calling on her to reconsider her position.
Pelosi has not endorsed a presidential candidate;
neither have such high-profile party leaders as former Vice President Al Gore, former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, Jesse Jackson and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.
Obama maintains a slight lead over Clinton among pledged delegates, which are awarded based on vote totals though neither will be mathematically able to earn enough support in that category to capture the nomination prior to the party convention in late August.
NASSAU, Bahamas (CNN) A Bahamas jury ruled Monday that Anna Nicole Smith's son died from an accidental drug overdose, just like his mother.
The seven-member jury, which deliberated for less than two hours, recommended no criminal charges in the September 2006 death of 20-year-old Daniel Smith.
The son of the former Playboy playmate died after coming to the Bahamas to meet his new baby sister on Sept. 10, 2006.
His mother died early the next year in Florida from an accidental drug overdose at age 39.
Police had said there was no evidence of homicide, and autopsies found that Daniel died from a combination of drugs, including methadone and antidepressants.
But Bahamian authorities ordered the inquest amid widespread speculation over the circumstances surrounding his death.
Neil McCabe, an attorney for Anna Nicole's mother, Virgie Arthur, said she was disappointed in the ruling because she suspected foul play was involved.
Arthur has claimed previously that Anna Nicole's boyfriend and attorney Howard K. Stern played a role in both deaths, but she did not provide evidence.
Why would he all of a sudden take a massive dose of methadone?
"I have no control over them," he said of Arthur and her attorneys.
Magistrate William Campbell said the jury's decision ended the case as far the courts in the Bahamas were concerned.
The inquest began in November and heard from more than two dozen witnesses
Anna Nicole's former boyfriend, Larry Birkhead, testified that Daniel was a troubled young man who struggled with drugs and alcohol. But Stern said he was surprised at the autopsy report and said he had never seen Daniel using drugs.
Mid-way through Barack Obama's six-day bus tour across Pennsylvania, it's hard not to think of Iowa.
The rural landscape, the chilly weather and even Obama's stump speech bear an eerie resemblance to those first days on the campaign trail.
However, on this tour the first multi-day bus tour since the Illinois senator's days of campaigning in South Carolina the pace has slowed.
Obama even admitted Saturday that he is campaigning at a more "leisurely" pace these days, because the April 22 contest is still weeks away.
It's also probably fair to say that there isn't as much at stake here as there was in Iowa the first primary of the season.
Pennsylvania, while often called a "big state," may not have the kind of power of the early states.
"It's just hard to get questions and have a lot of interaction," Obama said of the arena-style events that are more akin to rock concerts than political events.
"Off the record" stops or OTRs have been common.
These quick trips have traditionally been to restaurants or local factories where Obama often meets with workers during shift changes.
Zimbabwe's government Monday began releasing the results of the weekend parliamentary vote, but offered no data on the hotly contested presidential race.
President Robert Mugabe is facing the most formidable challenge to his 28-year rule from two opponents, including his former finance minister, Simba Makoni, who is running as an independent.
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change, led by presidential contender Morgan Tsvangirai, announced Sunday that it had won enough votes in Saturday's presidential and parliamentary election to end the 84-year-old incumbent's reign.
But a group of non-governmental organizations monitoring the election released exit polling data Monday that indicated the race possibly headed for a runoff vote.
Mugabe was second with 41.8 percent, and Makoni third with 8.2 percent.
Election authorities have released no data on the presidential race.
Government officials said it takes time to verify and "harmonize" the counts.
The United States, which has raised concerns about election fraud in the southern African country, called on Zimbabwe's government to make sure "the counting of the votes ... ensures the will of the people is heard," State Department spokesman Tom Casey said Monday.
It is unlikely that Mugabe will receive any congratulations from the U.S. if he emerges as the victor.
Speaking to reporters during her trip to the Middle East, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called the long-time president and his government "a disgrace to the people of Zimbabwe and a disgrace to southern Africa and to the continent of Africa as a whole.
HAVANA, Cuba (CNN) Cuba will allow its citizens to stay in hotels previously reserved for foreigners, the latest in a series of decisions to lift bans on goods and services that the average Cuban can't afford.
The prohibition on staying in foreigners-only hotels unnerved many Cubans, who complained that foreigners were being afforded rights that were denied to ordinary citizens.
Cubans will be allowed to stay in the hotels beginning at midnight Monday, said employees at several Havana hotels. Word of the change came from Tourism Ministry officials, the employees said.
For most Cubans, the measure is largely symbolic, as hotel rates are unaffordable.
The hotel announcement comes after the government lifted a ban last week on Cubans owning cell phones. That privilege, too, will be too costly for most Cubans.
The Cuban government did not say how much cell phones will cost, but it currently costs more than $120 to activate a line.
The relaxed rules represent the first nuts-and-bolts changes since February when Ra&uacute;
The Cuban government also recently approved the sale of computers, microwaves and DVD players to Cubans items previously sold only to foreigners and companies.
Before the ban on staying in hotels was lifted, Cuban critics called the restrictions "tourist apartheid.
In a video that made the rounds on the Internet in February, a student asked the president of Cuba's National Assembly why Cubans could not travel freely to such resorts.
On average, more than 2 million tourists visit Cuba annually.
The country's Tourism Ministry recently announced that at least 10 hotels will be built in the capital, Havana, between 2008 and 2010.
N'DJAMENA, Chad (CNN) Six French aid workers convicted of plotting to kidnap African children for adoption in Europe have been released from prison following their pardon by Chad's president, according to the French Justice Ministry.
The six workers from a charity called Zoe's Ark had tried to take the 103 children to France for adoption, claiming they were evacuating orphans from Sudan's Darfur region.
But investigations showed the children were Chadian, and that most had at least one parent or close adult relative.
After convictions in Chad, the six were transferred to France to serve their eight-year sentences. A Chadian middleman was also sentenced to eight years.
The case had inflamed anti-French sentiment in Chad, but President Idriss Deby raised the possibility of a pardon after French support helped him ward off a rebel attack on his capital in February.
Deby officially pardoned the seven convicts Monday, state radio announced.
A French Justice Ministry spokesman interviewed on France Info radio said that all six Zoe's Ark aid workers would be released "during the coming hours."
Liverpool delivered a vital blow in the battle for fourth place in England's Premier League with a 1-0 victory over city rivals Everton on Sunday.
While Chelsea earlier reclaimed second place after a 1-0 win over visiting Middlesbrough, Liverpool moved five points clear of its neighbor through Fernando Torres' 28th goal of the season.
Torres equaled the club record of scoring in six successive home league games.
Chelsea defender Ricardo Carvalho scored in the sixth minute to lift the Blues back above Arsenal and to within five points of leader Manchester United.
The Portuguese center-back headed home Wayne Bridge's free-kick for his first goal this season after Chelsea went into the game without injured top scorer Frank Lampard.
Chelsea now have 71 points, one more than the Gunners, who rallied from 2-0 down to halt a five-match winless streak and beat Bolton 3-2 on Saturday.
France is ready to take in Colombian rebels freed from jail in their homeland in exchange for hostage Ingrid Betancourt, Prime Minister Francois Fillon said Sunday.
France made a similar offer to take in jailed FARC members in December, but is pressing ever harder for freedom for Betancourt, who holds dual French and Colombian citizenship.
In Bogota, Colombian presidential spokesman Cesar Mauricio Velasquez welcomed France's offer to take in rebels, calling it "very important.
Velasquez said Colombia's government will "fulfill its word" of freeing jailed rebels if the FARC releases hostages.
"France is ready to do everything necessary to permit the liberation of Ingrid Betancourt and taking in FARC militants is part of this effort," Fillon said in an interview on the TV station TF1.
In return for the hostages' release, rebels would have to promise not to return to FARC, which has been fighting for decades to topple the Colombian government.
Welcome to India's wine country.
This sleepy town in western India, long famous for its grapes, has become the subcontinent's Sonoma Valley, the heart of a $100 million industry that has seen annual growth of more than 25 percent annually since 2003.
A taste for wine is now a sign of sophistication among Indians who have grown wealthy as the economy has boomed, and scores of wineries have opened in recent years to quench their thirst.
"With more education and more affluence, it's very natural for a population to drink more wine.
The wine business is still relatively small, especially considering India's population of 1.1 billion.
In 2006, Indian winemakers sold roughly 940,000 cases of wine domestically and 60,000 cases overseas, up from 530,000 domestic cases and 30,000 overseas in 2003, according to industry figures.
Indian winemakers face a significant challenge gaining a foothold in this country where alcohol is still largely frowned upon for religious and cultural reasons, and many of those who do drink nearly all men are just fine with their whiskey-and-sodas.
But winemakers of all sizes, from international spirits giants to mom-and-pop home brewers, see huge potential in India's booming market.
Most Indian bottles cost around $10, making them far more affordable than foreign wines, which can cost several times what they would in Europe or the U.S. due to heavy taxes and import duties.
The wine importing business is also murky with gray-market bootleggers and improperly stored bottles, making locally produced wine an attractive option.
Aloha Airlines said Sunday it will halt all passenger service after Monday, signaling the end of an airline that has served Hawaii for more than 60 years.
Aloha, which filed for bankruptcy for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on March 21, was a casualty of fierce competition and rising fuel prices.
The airline said it will stop taking reservations for flights after Monday.
"We simply ran out of time to find a qualified buyer or secure continued financing for our passenger business," said Aloha President David Banmiller in a statement.
airlines in 2006, triggering a local airfare war.
"Unfortunately, unfair competition has succeeded in driving us out of business," he said.
Aloha said tickets for flights after Monday will not be honored.
It said it is working to have United Airlines accommodate passengers with tickets for Aloha's mainland to Hawaii flights.
The company said air cargo services are to continue.
Aloha Airlines was founded in 1946.
A strict curfew was extended indefinitely in the Iraqi capital Sunday as the death toll mounted from clashes between government troops and Shiite Muslim militants.
Fighting sparked by a government-led push against "outlaw" militias in the southern city of Basra had left more than 280 people dead by Saturday, according to Iraqi authorities.
The unrest has stretched across southern Iraq's Shiite heartland up to Baghdad, where a ban on pedestrian and vehicle traffic was kept in place just hours before it was due to expire Sunday morning.
U.S. warplanes and British artillery struck targets in Basra on Saturday, a British spokesman said.
Another Basra airstrike killed 16 "criminal fighters," and a joint U.S.-Iraqi patrol killed 13 more fighters in southeastern Baghdad's Suwayrah district, U.S. commanders reported.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki compared the "outlaws" to al Qaeda and vowed not to leave Basra, where he is personally leading the operation, "until security is restored.
"We will continue to stand up to these gangs in every inch of Iraq," he said.
Al-Maliki has given the militants until April 8 surrender their arms to a guns-for-cash program that was scheduled to end at midnight Friday.
Supporters of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose Mehdi Army militia has borne the brunt of the fighting, say they have been unfairly singled out by the crackdown.
Al-Sadr's political party holds 30 seats in Iraq's parliament and once held seats in al-Maliki's cabinet, quitting last year after the prime minister refused to set a deadline for U.S. and coalition troops to leave.
WELLINGTON, Florida (CNN) The owner of a wildlife sanctuary was attacked by two cheetahs Saturday and hospitalized with about 40 puncture wounds to her extremities and back, authorities said.
Berens owns and operates Panther Ridge Conservation Center, which provides homes for exotic cats, authorities said.
The cheetah moved toward the ball quickly and knocked her to the ground.
The cheetah then pounced on her and began biting and clawing her, said Gabriella Ferraro, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission spokeswoman.
At some point the other cheetah attacked her as well, Ferraro said.
Ferraro said the cheetahs remain on the property in cages.
NEW YORK (CNN) There's never been a better time to be a bargain hunter.
Here are some tips and strategies to help you get the best price.
First, try your hand at haggling.
A Consumer Reports survey released in November indicates that more than 90 percent of people who haggled over furniture, electronics and appliances, floor and demonstration models scored a lower price on at least one purchase during the past three years.
And the weaker the economy, the stronger your bargaining power.
"Retailers are doing whatever they can to bring consumers in," said Robert Spector, a retail historian and author of the forthcoming book "The Mom & Pop Store.
Where will you get the most out of your haggling? Big-ticket items, says Tod Marks of Consumer Reports, a nonprofit consumer product rating company.
"Any product with a large product margin is ripe for haggling," he said.
That includes furniture, mattresses and jewelry.
Expensive computers or TVs are another area where consumers may have some wiggle room.
And where you haggle makes a difference.
The longer merchandise lies around, the better chances you have of getting a deal.
The retailer doesn't want to take up that precious store space for products that aren't selling.
Even if you don't think you'll get a deal, it can't hurt to take a chance.
To improve your chances of getting the price you want:
Keep the conversation polite.
Don't go into a store demanding to negotiate.
Ask the retailer to work with you.
Do your homework. Check the price at other stores.
If you find something that's cheaper, print out the ad or find a flyer and bring it with you.
Inspect the product to see whether there are any flaws, like a missing button or a scratch.
Talk to the person who has the power to bargain with you.
If you don't think you're getting anywhere with a sales associate, ask for the store manager or a supervisor.
Offer to pay in cash as an incentive.
If you use a credit card, the credit company will charge a transaction fee to the retailer that's between 2 and 8 percent.
Paying in cash is more attractive to the merchant.
Beijing has tightened security ahead of the Olympic torch's arrival after demonstrations by protesters during its passage through Greece.
Greek officials handed over the Olympic flame to organizers of the Beijing Games in Athens amid small protests by a pro-Tibetan group.
Protesters at the marble Panathenian Stadium chanted "Save Tibet" and unfurled a banner that read "Stop Genocide in Tibet.
Twenty-one demonstrators were detained seven Indians, a Nepalese and 13 Greeks and were all to be released without charge, police said.
The torch was expected to arrive in Beijing early Monday aboard an Air China flight, allowing the government a brief respite before the relay sets off on a problematic, month-long world tour.
Authorities have given few details about a torch ceremony Monday at in Tiananmen Square, the heart of China's capital.
The flame goes Tuesday to Almaty, Kazakhstan at the start of the 20-country, 137,000-kilometer (85,100-mile) global journey with protests expected in several major cities.
The grandiose relay is the longest in Olympic history and has the most torchbearers a sign of the vast attention lavished on the Games by China's government, which hopes to use it to showcase China's rising economic and political power.
(CNN) From krill to king crabs, the collapse of a portion of the Wilkins Ice Shelf in Antarctica could mean many changes for wildlife at the bottom of the world.
Most inhabitants of our planet will never get a firsthand look at a polar bear at the North Pole or a penguin at the South.
But polar scientists already see changes in plants and animals from rapidly warming temperatures.
"Because of their extreme environments, they tend to be highly sensitive to temperature changes," said marine biologist James McClintock of the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
"Therefore, what we see happening in the poles should be taken as warning of what may be coming elsewhere," said McClintock, who studies the physiology and ecology of aquatic and marine invertebrates in Antarctica.
According to the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center, in the past 50 years, the western Antarctic peninsula has undergone the biggest temperature increase on Earth:
Although krill may never be as majestic as whales or as adorable as penguins, these small shrimp-like crustaceans in the waters of the Antarctic are crucial to the region's ecology.
And they might be among the first in the animal kingdom to have to adapt to warming temperatures.
Scientists already are observing declines in polar krill populations that could be tied to a decrease in annual winter sea ice.
"As babies, krill live under the sea ice and graze on microalgae. With a decline in sea ice, there is less habitat for young krill," McClintock said.
Another warming ocean event that scientists are studying closely is the migration of king crabs.
Marine remotely operated vehicles have captured photos of these giant crabs on the Antarctic Slope, where underwater land starts to rise up to the southernmost continent.
It's the first time in tens of millions of years that these predators have appeared that close to Antarctica.
Crabs and other marine invertebrates die when the water is too cold, because they cannot flush magnesium out of their systems.
But even slightly warmer seawater allows the animal to regulate that element.
McClintock says that if these new predators keep moving, they could wipe out other Antarctic species. Snails, brittle stars, sea spiders and some marine worms have evolved without armor and other protections they would need to survive alongside the king crab.
Sen. John McCain this week begins a bus tour of five states that he says helped shape his views and make him the politician who will carry the GOP torch in the upcoming presidential election.
The presumptive Republican nominee heads to Mississippi on Sunday, where the tour kicks off the following day.
McCain will swing through Virginia, Maryland, Florida and Arizona in the upcoming week.
According to campaign officials, the purpose of the tour is to "introduce John McCain to the American people in an intimate way," and add significance to his "remarkable American tale.
McCain is now trying to style himself as the most attractive option for voters in November, while Democratic rivals Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are still in a delegate-by-delegate battle to become their party's nominee.
Clinton this weekend shot down calls by Obama backers to drop out of the race, and Obama said Clinton should remain in race "as long as she wants.
Obama leads Clinton in total delegates 1,625 to 1,486, but it's likely neither candidate will get the necessary 2,024 delegates needed to clinch the nomination before the Democratic National Convention in August.
Christopher Dodd and Patrick Leahy, said Friday that Clinton should rethink her chances of overcoming that deficit and consider folding her campaign.
Leahy, of Vermont, said Clinton "has every right, but not a very good reason, to remain a candidate for as long as she wants to.
Speaking in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, Obama said he did not discuss Leahy's call for Clinton to drop out with the Vermont senator, who serves as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
"My attitude is that Senator Clinton can run as long as she wants," the Illinois senator said.
SEOUL, South Korea (CNN) North Korea threatened South Korea with destruction Sunday after Seoul's top military officer said he would consider attacking the communist nation if it tried to carry out a nuclear attack.
The statement from North Korea's official news agency marked the third straight day of bellicose rhetoric from the North, which is angry over the harsher line the South's new president has taken against the country since assuming office last month.
"Everything will be in ashes, not just a sea of fire, if our advanced pre-emptive strike once begins.
On Friday, North Korea test-fired a barrage of missiles into the sea and warned it would "mercilessly wipe out" any South Korean warships that violate its waters near their disputed sea border.
Such rhetoric by North Korea at times of increased tensions is not rare, and it comes just two days before a scheduled visit to South Korea by the chief U.S. negotiator in North Korean nuclear disarmament talks.
Sunday's statement also warned that the North would suspend all scheduled inter-Korean dialogue unless Seoul retracts and apologizes for the remark by its new top military leader.
Kim Tae-young, chairman of the South's Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a parliamentary hearing Wednesday that the military would strike a suspected North Korean nuclear weapons site if Pyongyang attempts to attack the South with atomic bombs.
His office later said he was talking about a general military principle dealing with outside threats, not about launching an unprovoked pre-emptive attack on the North.
South Korea's Defense Ministry said Sunday that it would decide whether to send a response to the North over its demand for a retraction in a few days.
Sen. Hillary Clinton on Saturday rejected calls by supporters of rival candidate Barack Obama to quit the Democratic presidential race, and Obama said Clinton should remain in race "as long as she wants.
"The more people get a chance to vote, the better it is for our democracy," the New York senator and former first lady told supporters at a rally in Indiana, which holds a May 6 primary.
I thought we of all people knew how important it was to give everyone a chance to have their voices heard and their votes counted."
Clinton has won primaries in the biggest states so far, but Obama has won more total contests and leads her in the race for delegates to the party's August convention in Denver where the Democratic nominee will be formally ratified.
Two of Obama's leading supporters, Sens.
Christopher Dodd and Patrick Leahy, said Friday that Clinton should rethink her chances of overcoming that deficit and consider folding her campaign.
Leahy, of Vermont, said Clinton "has every right, but not a very good reason, to remain a candidate for as long as she wants to.
Speaking in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, Obama said he did not discuss Leahy's call for Clinton to drop out with the Vermont senator, who serves as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
"My attitude is that Sen. Clinton can run as long as she wants," the Illinois senator said.
LONDON, England (CNN) A small plane crashed into several homes in a neighborhood outside London Sunday afternoon, killing all five on board, Scotland Yard reported.
The private aircraft, with a two-person crew and three passengers on board, apparently hit the roof of a residential building in the town of Farnborough, about 25 km (15 miles) southeast of London.
One house was destroyed and part of a neighboring property was damaged, said the London Fire Brigade, which sent eight fire engines and 40 firefighters to battle the blaze.
The homeowners of the destroyed residence were away on vacation, neighbors said.
Britain's Air Accident Investigation Unit has been informed of the crash, she said.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=3092587
The statement was accompanied by demands that the Iraqi government issue a general amnesty to his followers and release any being held. The statement was distributed across Iraq and posted on the Internet.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who had vowed not to leave Basra until his government reclaimed control of the city, called al-Sadr's statement a "step in the right direction" and said he hoped it would help to stabilize the region.
Witnesses reported continued clashes throughout the day in Basra even after Sunday's announcements. But Iraqi authorities said after al-Sadr's announcement they would lift an indefinite curfew that had been imposed on Baghdad since Thursday.
The curfew is scheduled to be lifted 6 a.m. Monday (11 p.m. Sunday ET), said Gen. Qassim Atta, an Iraqi military spokesman.
"Life will return to all of Iraq as before," he said.
we as the government of Iraq believe this effort will be in the common interest and help the security efforts that the government is working to achieve.
The fighting has been heaviest in Basra, Iraq's second-largest city and major oil port, and a U.S. military analysis of the battle indicated the government push was not going as well as American officials had hoped, several U.S. officials said Friday.
But Hayden and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, said the Iraqis did not consult them before launching their offensive.
Graham said the militia fighters that Iraqi troops are battling are backed by Iran, which he said was "killing Americans" by arming the militias.
Al-Sadr's political movement holds 30 seats in Iraq's 275-member parliament and was once a partner in al-Maliki's ruling coalition. The party quit the government in 2007 after al-Maliki refused to demand a deadline for the withdrawal of U.S. troops.
U.S. airstrikes killed at least 15 people in Baghdad neighborhoods known to be Mehdi Army strongholds Sunday morning, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said.
A pair of high-profile backers of Sen. Barack Obama have called on his rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton, to drop out of the race for the Democratic nomination for president.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, issued the most unvarnished statement Friday, saying Clinton "has every right, but not a very good reason, to remain a candidate for as long as she wants to.
Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut, who sought the Democratic nomination for president himself but threw his support behind Obama after dropping out of the race in January, expressed a similar sentiment Thursday.
"But if you have enough people rallying behind what appears to be the likely choice, and I believe the choice is Barack Obama ... then I think you have to step up to the plate and say, 'Enough is enough.' We want this to be over with.
Larry Sabato, a professor of politics at the University of Virginia, said the Obama campaign was probably behind the remarks. "Those things don't just happen," he said.
"They must have gotten some encouragement from the Obama hierarchy. Senators like Leahy and Dodd can occasionally pop off, but not in a situation like this.
Obama has 1,625 delegates to Clinton's 1,486, according to the latest CNN estimate.
(CNN) Efraim Diveroli's father hoped his son would become a doctor or lawyer.
What he got instead is a 22-year-old international arms dealer who faces a congressional inquiry for allegedly selling old Chinese ammunition to the U.S. military to equip allies in Afghanistan.
The papers also reveal the company struck it big in 2007 with contracts totaling more than $200 million to supply ammunition, assault rifles and other weapons to the Afghan National Army and police.
The company's contract said it would get the ammunition from Hungary.
But Army investigators found what the Afghan military got included corroded ammunition made in China as long as 46 years ago.
The New York Times reported Thursday that AEY shopped stockpiles and ammo dumps in old Soviet bloc allies, from Albania to Kazakhstan. Albania was a big customer for Chinese armaments in the 1960s and '70s, the Times reported.
But in a hint of where the then-19-year-old's future was heading, he wrote, "I definately (sic) have the desire to be very successful in my business and this does take up alot (sic) of my time.
For now, relatives say Efraim Diveroli is out of the country.
CNN attempts to contact him have not been successful.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=3090761
SEOUL, South Korea (CNN) North Korea fired short-range missiles off its western coast Friday, a South Korean defense source said, according to South Korea's Yonhap news agency.
The South Korean Defense Ministry and Joint Chiefs of Staff told CNN they are trying to confirm reports of the missile launches.
South Korea's presidential office dismissed reports of the missile launches as part of "ordinary military training" by the communist state.
"The government regards North Korea's missile firing as merely a part of its ordinary military training," presidential spokesman Lee Dong-kwan told Yonhap.
The reported firings came a day after the Seoul government pulled 11 of its diplomats from an industrial park the two countries operate in North Korea.
Their departure followed comments made last week by South Korean Unification Minister Kim Ha-joong .
He said it would be hard to expand the industrial complex without North Korean progress on denuclearization.
North Korea cited the minister's remarks as a reason for demanding that the South Korean diplomats leave, Yonhap
SANTA MONICA, California (CNN) Tracey Ullman prefers pathetic.
"I don't want to be the pretty girl.
"You know, I've always wanted to be the ugly stepsister or the person with the problem.
Styled as a day in the life of America, "State of the Union" takes Ullman from coast to coast in a flurry of fast-flying impersonations.
Ullman produced the five-episode series with her husband, Allan McKeown.
"The show's title gives me an excuse to take the nation's pulse," says the British-born actress, who became a U.S. citizen in 2006 after living here more than two decades.
On the "State of the Union" premiere (10 p.m. EDT Sunday), Ullman's cast of characters includes a weary illegal-immigrant worker in Manhattan, a tractor-riding farmer's wife in North Carolina, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, political pundit Arianna Huffington, former "Sopranos" star Tony Sirico, soccer superstar David Beckham and Lindsay Lohan's mom.
Upcoming episodes include Ullman's takes on Helen Mirren, Cameron Diaz, Renee Zellweger, and, in a send-up of Angelina Jolie's philanthropic efforts, a superstar from Malawi who comes to the U.S. to adopt American kids.
But Ullman has a special fondness for a character named Gretchen Pincus, a tacky, teary-eyed, low-rent lady who meets her convict-husbands on the Web site deathrowpenpals.com.
To go full-Gretchen, Ullman decided to smoke during production after 21 years of abstinence.
"To wear cheap clothes, put in some horrible front teeth with a big gap, smoke 10 cigarettes and, like, just sob that's heaven on a stick for me," Ullman says.
The long-awaited opening of a multi-billion dollar new terminal at London's Heathrow airport suffered a major setback Thursday when a high-tech baggage handling system malfunctioned, causing major delays amid flight cancellations.
CNN's Richard Quest said passengers with baggage were no longer being checked in as the airport's Terminal 5 should have been entering one of the busiest periods of the day.
I understand that the entire baggage system has failed and they've stopped checking in passengers with baggage," Quest said.
Heathrow's new terminal, which cost $8.6 billion and was two decades in the making, boasts sophisticated luggage system designed to handle 12,000 bags an hour.
British Airways, the only airline using the terminal, confirmed that passengers could now only check in with hand luggage.
"We sincerely apologize to those customers who have suffered disrupted journeys or baggage delays. We always knew the first day would represent a unique challenge.
Initial glitches in the baggage handling led to the cancellation of at least 34 flights on Thursday.
"It's almost open," Jeff Bryan joked after he and his wife spent 90 minutes waiting for their luggage after an overnight British Airways flight from Miami to Heathrow. "We didn't mind because we're not in a rush, but a lot of people were," he told The Associated Press.
Later a "flash mob" protest, involving several hundred demonstrators opposed to airport expansion, took place at T5. CNN's Richard Quest, describing the protest, said the day had started out well for BAA but was turning into a "shambles."
The protesters stripped off their outer clothes at 11 a.m. to show red T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan "Stop Airport Expansion.
Made up of local residents and environmental groups, the demonstrators are concerned that a third runway and a sixth terminal will be created at Heathrow, the world's busiest international airport.
WASHINGTON (CNN) The National Transportation Safety Board said Thursday that it is investigating an incident in which a panel separated from the wing of a Boeing 757 while it was in flight last week.
The incident occurred Saturday on US Airways Flight 1250 from Orlando, Florida, to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the NTSB said in a statement. The separation occurred over Maryland.
The aircraft landed in Philadelphia about 30 minutes later, and none of the 174 passengers or six crew members aboard was injured.
The panel, on the trailing edge of the upper side of the left wing, broke loose and struck several windows toward the rear of the aircraft, causing the outer pane of one window to crack, the agency said.
NTSB investigators are using a computer program to pinpoint the area where it might be and will notify local authorities that an aircraft part may be there, the statement said.
The plane's cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder have arrived at the NTSB laboratory in Washington, the agency said, and are being evaluated.
A company accused of supplying corroded and decades-old Chinese ammunition to the Afghan Army and police has been suspended by the U.S. government for violating its contract, according to U.S. Army documents obtained by CNN.
Miami Beach, Florida-based AEY Inc. is under criminal investigation by the government for allegedly misrepresenting what the company was providing the Afghan security forces.
Under the contract, AEY said it would supply ammunition manufactured in Hungary.
But an investigation by the Army found most of the bullets were made in China, a violation of the contract, according to the documents.
U.S. regulations bar companies from purchasing weapons or ammunition from a Chinese military company directly or indirectly, according to U.S. military officials.
U.S. government investigators also took numerous photographs of the ammunition showing that it was improperly packaged and corroding, according to the documents.
On Wednesday, a letter from the Department of the Army to AEY's president, Efraim Diveroli, informed him that his company is suspended from contracting with the U.S. government until the investigation is complete.
The Army documents show that since 2004 the company entered agreements with the U.S. government that totaled about $10 million.
the company won contracts totaling more than $200 million to supply ammunition, assault rifles and other weapons to the Afghan National Army and Police.
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) The truth about "The X-Files" sequel some of it, anyway is now out there.
"X-Files" creator Chris Carter, writer Frank Spotnitz and other crew members gathered Wednesday to discuss the TV series and declassify some information about the upcoming film.
The popular Fox paranormal drama, which aired from 1993 to 2002, starred David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson as FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully
"It's true to Mulder and Scully, who they are and where they would be this point in their lives and all of the experiences that they've had.
The series first made the leap to the big screen with 1998's "The X-Files:
Fight the Future.
" Plans for another film were grounded in 2005 when Carter sued Fox over syndication profits for the show. The lawsuit was later settled.
Carter, who also directs the new movie, said it takes place in the present and uses a story envisioned when the series ended.
While the show's sprawling alien mythology isn't part of the plot, Carter said there is a reference to Scully's seemingly supernatural son, William, who was born in season eight and later given up for adoption.
The film is due out July 25.
Carter was tightlipped about the title.
"I can't tell you," he said. "I know what I want it to be, but Fox has some ideas of their own."
Bickering between Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama could affect Democratic turnout in the general election, suggests a poll released Thursday.
Sixteen percent of Clinton supporters questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey said they are not likely to vote in the general election if Obama is the Democratic nominee.
An equal number of Obama supporters said they'll sit it out come November if Clinton is their party's nominee.
"The problem for the Democratic Party in November may not be crossover votes: Clinton supporters choosing [Sen. John] McCain in the fall if Obama wins the nomination or Obama voters doing likewise if Clinton gets the nod," CNN polling director Keating Holland said.
"The real problem may be that those disaffected Clinton or Obama supporters may just stay at home in November, which could cost the party dearly in some key states.
"If the Obama stay-at-home vote is largely African-American, that will affect Democrats' chances on the ballot in several Southern states and could take states like Virginia off the table completely," Holland said. "It might even hurt Democrats in states where the party relies on heavy turnout in large urban areas, such as Pennsylvania and Ohio.
"And if the Clinton stay-at-home vote is predominantly female, that will hurt the party everywhere," he added.
But polls are just snapshots of how people feel at the moment.
If the Democrats can come together and agree on a nominee, most of the ill will could be just a memory by November.
The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll was conducted by telephone from Friday through Sunday, with 1,019 Americans questioned, including 227 registered Democrats who said they support Clinton and 218 registered Democrats who said they back Obama.
TACOMA, Washington (CNN) At a time when she really needed a miracle, Annamarie Ausnes found one in an unusual place.
Last fall, Ausnes, 55, was one of nearly 75,000 Americans in need of a kidney.
Today, she is recovering from a successful kidney transplant thanks to her local Starbucks barista.
Sandra Andersen only knew Ausnes as her upbeat morning customer who always ordered a short cup of coffee.
When both of her kidneys began failing, she was placed on a kidney transplant waiting list.
"I was kinda losing a little hope," said Ausnes.
for God to please send me an angel.
Andersen recalls one particular morning last October when her customer's normally cheerful demeanor had changed.
"I could tell that she just wasn't feeling real well," said Andersen.
Her kidneys were failing rapidly and no one in her family was a match. Without hesitation, Andersen said she would test for her.
Even more so because Andersen didn't even know Ausnes' name. Andersen can't explain it either.
I knew I had to find out as much info as possible," recalls Andersen.
After getting her blood tested, she signed a release to become an organ donor and began an interview process to move forward.
Then the day came when she was able to break the good news to Ausnes.
On March 11, Andersen and Ausnes underwent a kidney transplant at Virginia Mason Hospital in Seattle, Washington. The surgery was successful.
Andersen says her kidney started working faster in Ausnes than the hospital expected.
"We're just excited to get together for lunch sometime soon!
Defense Secretary Robert Gates has formally ordered the Air Force, Navy and Defense Logistics Agency to conduct an inventory of all U.S. nuclear weapons and nuclear weapon-related materials to make sure all items are accounted for, according to a Pentagon memo released Thursday.
The order comes in the wake of the discovery last week that four nuclear warhead fuses were accidentally shipped to Taiwan in 2006.
Pentagon officials said at a news conference Tuesday that Gates would call for the review in addition to a full investigation into how the shipment to Taiwan from a Defense Logistics Agency warehouse happened 18 months ago.
The inventory review, which will involve thousands of items, is due to Gates in 60 days.
Pentagon officials said the request was ordered, in part, because this latest incident comes after the August 2007 accidental flight of six nuclear-tipped cruise missiles on a B-52 bomber across the country. Four officers
including three colonels were relieved of duty last year after a B-52 bomber mistakenly carried six nuclear warheads from North Dakota to Louisiana, the Air Force said.
A six-week investigation uncovered a "lackadaisical" attention to detail in day-to-day operations at the bases involved in the incident, an Air Force report said.
The curfew, which took effect at 11 p.m. Thursday (4 p.m. ET), bans pedestrian, motorcycle and vehicle traffic through 5 p.m. Sunday, said Gen. Qassim Atta, an Iraqi military spokesman.
Sixteen rockets were fired Wednesday and 12 on Tuesday.
U.S. Embassy workers in Iraq were told to remain in secure buildings and wear protective clothing as rockets continued to rain down on Baghdad's International Zone.
Also called the Green Zone, the International Zone is a heavily fortified central Baghdad district housing the U.S. Embassy and Iraqi government offices.
A senior U.S. official says the insurgents may have had recent training allowing them to conduct more precise targeting of the rockets, believed to be made in Iran.
Meanwhile, the name of the U.S. government official killed in the attacks Thursday has not been released, an Embassy spokesman said.
Another U.S. employee, Paul Converse, died Wednesday from wounds he sustained Sunday, officials said.
And a U.S. soldier was killed by a roadside bomb in eastern Baghdad on Thursday, the U.S. military reported.
Iraq's parliament called a special session for Friday to address the crisis caused by three days of fighting between government troops and Shiite fighters. Meanwhile, Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called for an end to attacks on his followers.
Fighting between Iraqi government troops and what officials call rogue or outlaw members of Shiite militias has spread through southern Iraq's Shiite heartland to Baghdad since the launch of a government crackdown in Basra on Tuesday.
Three days of fighting have left more than 100 Iraqis dead.
Casualty figures from Basra weren't available Thursday, but the number of deaths is expected to rise from the 40 to 50 reported Wednesday.
The fighting threatens to unravel a seven-month cease-fire by al-Sadr's Mehdi Army.
Al-Sadr issued a statement Thursday urging "all groups to adopt a political situation and peaceful protest and to stop shedding the Iraqi blood," according to a senior member of his movement.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who has been overseeing the operation in southern Iraq, has ordered militants to surrender their weapons by Saturday.
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama on Thursday laid out their proposals to reinvigorate the economy as they attacked Sen. John McCain's plan as ineffective.
Clinton said McCain's plan "does virtually nothing to ease the credit crisis or the housing crisis.
"He'd rather ignore the credit crisis and the mortgage crisis or blame middle-class families instead of offering solutions on their behalf," Clinton said during campaigning in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Speaking from New York, Obama said Thursday the United States must address "the immediate crisis in the housing market" in order to recharge the economy.
While this is consistent with Sen. McCain's determination to run for George Bush's third term, it won't help families who are suffering, and it won't help lift our economy out of recession," Obama said.
McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, outlined his plan to address the housing situation earlier this week.
His campaign released a statement Thursday calling the housing crisis a "complex problem that deserves a careful, balanced approach that helps the homeowners in trouble, not big banks and speculators that acted irresponsibly.
Obama said the government should play a role in improving Americans' well-being "by providing stable macroeconomic and financial conditions for sustained growth; by demanding transparency; and by ensuring fair competition in the marketplace."
He called for immediate relief for those affected by the housing crisis, revamping the regulatory framework and boosting the economy with an additional $30 billion stimulus package.
Beijing invited about two dozen international journalists to tour Tibet's capital, Lhasa, to show them the city is calm after recent anti-China protests.
But the protest by about 30 monks at the sacred Jokhang Temple showed that Lhasa is anything but calm.
yelled one young Buddhist monk, according to The Associated Press, one of the news organizations allowed on the tour.
Other news organizations allowed on China's tour of Tibet included The Wall Street Journal, USA Today and the Financial Times.
In its reporting of the temple incident, China's official news agency, Xinhua, said the monks "stormed into a briefing by a temple administrator to cause chaos."
Chinese officials closed off the temple after the monks' protest.
As for the 1993 pictures of the president's bride in her birthday suit, predictably recycled by the British tabloids, members of the public I encountered were universally on Carla's side.
"Typical media" they sniffed.
"That was then, this is now. Good luck to her.
At times the visit has been almost a case of "the president came too.
It reminded me of when President John F. Kennedy, on tour in Europe at the time First Lady Jackie Kennedy was an international fashion icon, thanked his hosts in one city for "allowing me to accompany my wife here.
But Monsieur Sarkozy, determined to bury the image of the "President Bling Bling" in shades and chunky watches amid the pomp and pageantry the British do so well, scored his own success too with a fiery speech to lawmakers calling not just for entente cordiale but for a new fraternite or brotherhood between the two nations.
His passionate oration earned him a genuine standing ovation from the hard-boiled parliamentarians.
SEOUL, South Korea (CNN) Eleven South Korean diplomats left an industrial park their country runs with North Korea on Thursday after North Korea "demanded their withdrawal," a spokesman for South Korea's government said.
Their departure follows comments made last week by South Korean Unification Minister Kim Ha-joong.
North Korea cited the minister's remarks as a reason for demanding that the South Korean diplomats leave, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported.
The diplomats left around 1 a.m. Thursday, said Kim Ho-nyeon, spokesman for the South Korean Unification Ministry.
Five South Korean civilian employees continue to work at the Kaesong office, the ministry said.
"We express deep concern over the North's unilateral demand," Kim said. "All responsibility resulting from the measure lies with the North Korean side.
The Kaesong industrial park is a potent sign of reconciliation efforts between the two Koreas.
It hosts about 70 South Korean manufacturers and employs nearly 24,000 North Koreans, according to Yonhap.
The two countries agreed last year to expand the complex.
Japanese scientists and origami masters hope to launch a paper airplane from space and learn from its journey back to Earth.
A prototype passed a durability test in a wind tunnel this month and Japan's space agency adopted it Wednesday for feasibility studies.
In a test outside Tokyo in early February, a prototype about 2.8 inches long and 2 inches wide survived Mach 7 speeds and broiling temperatures up to 446 degrees Fahrenheit in a hypersonic wind tunnel.
David Beckham's 100th cap ended in disappointment as France beat England 1-0 in their friendly international at the Stade de France on Wednesday.
Beckham was substituted just after the hour mark by which time the home side had taken a firm hold and led through Franck Ribery's penalty after 32 minutes.
"Straight from when I started playing for England I never dreamed I'd get 100 caps, and hopefully beyond.
Beckham's replacement David Bentley of Blackburn also failed to make an impression as England labored to their first defeat under new coach Fabio Capello.
He dashed out rashly to haul down Nicolas Anelka with Ribery easily beating the Portsmouth man from the resulting spot-kick.
"We played against a top-level team and I think we did well."
The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Sen. Barack Obama's controversial former pastor, has canceled his plans to speak at church services in Houston, Texas, this weekend in the wake of the recent uproar over portions of his past sermons.
The clips in question include several racially charged statements and accusations the U.S. government has adopted policies to systematically oppress African-Americans.
Wright was scheduled to speak at three services Sunday at Houston's Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church.
But the Rev. Marcus Cosby, the church's pastor, said Wright decided to cancel the appearances amid safety concerns.
"He canceled for largely personal reasons," Cosby said, adding that recent uproar has led to threats against Wright, his family and his church the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.
The church, Cosby said, had planned to take extra security precautions for Wright's services this weekend, but said the decision to cancel the appearances was Wright's entirely.
Cosby said his church had not received any threats directly ahead of Wright's scheduled appearances.
Cosby said Wednesday that Wright's remarks have been largely taken out of context because the media has only aired "snippets of the sermons, without the beginning or the end.
"I think given all we have heard and seen, he would not have been my pastor," Clinton said at a news conference in Greensburg, Pennsylvania.
A Southern California McDonald's restaurants official says Egg McMuffin inventor Herb Peterson has died in Santa Barbara at age 89.
Monte Fraker, vice president of operations for McDonald's restaurants in Santa Barbara, said Peterson died peacefully at his home Tuesday.
Peterson came up with idea for the signature McDonald's breakfast item in 1972.
He began his career with McDonald's as vice president of the company's advertising firm, D'Arcy Advertising, in Chicago.
He wrote McDonald's first national advertising slogan, "Where Quality Starts Fresh Every Day," and eventually became a franchisee.
SAN FRANCISCO, California (CNN) After nearly 19 years of marriage, Robin Williams and his wife are getting divorced.
Marsha Garces Williams filed a petition for dissolution of marriage on March 21 in San Francisco Superior Court, citing irreconcilable differences.
The two met when Garces Williams worked as a nanny for Williams' son Zachary, whom he had with his previous wife, Valerie Valardi.
Robin and Garces Williams also have two children together, Zelda and Cody.
Williams, 56, won an Academy Award for his role in the film "Good Will Hunting."
He also starred in the 1980s sitcom "Mork & Mindy," and has acted in a number of movies including "Dead Poets Society" and "Patch Adams.
Williams' agent Mara Buxbaum confirmed that the couple is splitting, but had no further comment.
NEW YORK (CNN) Having a big belly in your 40s can boost your risk of getting Alzheimer's disease or other dementia decades later, a new study suggests.
It's not just about your weight.
While previous research has found evidence that obesity in middle age raises the chances of developing dementia later, the new work found a separate risk from storing a lot of fat in the abdomen.
That abdominal fat, sometimes described as making people apple-shaped rather than pear-shaped, has already been linked to higher risk of developing diabetes, stroke and heart disease.
"Now we can add dementia to that," said study author Rachel Whitmer of the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research in Oakland, California.
She and others report the findings in Wednesday's online issue of the journal Neurology.
The study involved 6,583 men and women who were ages 40 to 45 when they had checkups between 1964 and 1973.
As part of the exam, their belly size was measured by using a caliper to find the distance between their backs and the surface of their upper abdomens.
For the study, a distance of about 10 inches or more was considered high.
The researchers checked medical records to see who had developed Alzheimer's or another form of dementia by an average of 36 years later.
At that point the participants were ages 73 to 87.
Analysis found that compared with people in the study with normal body weight and a low belly measurement:
Participants with normal body weight and high belly measurements were 89 percent more likely to have dementia.
Overweight people were 82 percent more likely if they had a low belly measurement, but more than twice as likely if they had a high belly measurement.
Obese people were 81 percent more likely if they had a low belly measurement, but more than three times as likely if they had a high measurement.
Whitmer said there's no precise way to translate belly measurements into waist circumference. But most people have a sense of whether they have a big belly, she said. And if they do, the new study suggests they should get rid of it, she said.
Dr. Jose Luchsinger of the Columbia University Medical Center in New York, who studies the connection between obesity and Alzheimer's disease but didn't participate in the new work, cautioned that such a study cannot prove abdominal fat promotes dementia.
Dr. Samuel Gandy, who chairs the medical and scientific advisory council of the Alzheimer's Association, said the results fit in with previous work that indicates a person's characteristics in middle age can affect the risk of dementia in later life.
WASHINGTON (CNN) Two U.S. Air Force F-15s escorted two Russian Bear long-range bombers out of an air exclusion zone off the coast of Alaska, U.S. military officials said Wednesday.
U.S. radar picked up the Russian turbo-prop Tupolev-95 planes about 500 miles off the Alaska coast.
The U.S. fighters from Elmendorf Air Force Base were dispatched to meet the bombers and escorted them out of the area without incident, the officials said.
The United States maintains the air exclusion zone off the coast of Alaska, barring unidentified aircraft or aircraft that don't file flight plans inside that area.
The last case of Russian aircraft approaching the U.S. coastline or ships in the Pacific was in February.
Then, four Bear bombers flew near the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz, with one of them flying about 2,000 feet from the Nimitz's deck.
Russia's Defense Ministry said at the time there was no violation of flight regulations during the incident.
A ministry official described the flights as standard operating procedure for air force training.
Meanwhile, U.S. military officials say the incidents are not a concern. They say it's the Russian military flexing its ability and presence.
WASHINGTON (CNN) President Bush called Chinese President Hu Jintao Wednesday to express his concern about China's crackdown on protesters in Tibet, the White House said.
Bush also "encouraged the Chinese government to engage in substantive dialogue with the Dalai Lama's representatives and to allow access for journalists and diplomats," the statement said.
Protesters say about 140 of their number have died in the past several weeks during the longest-running uprisings in Tibet against Chinese rule in 20 years.
The protests have brought a spotlight to China's spotty human rights record and embarrassed its Communist leaders in the weeks before the Olympic Games in Beijing.
Chinese authorities have issued a much lower death toll and said most of those killed were "innocent victims" Han Chinese targeted by Tibetans.
The U.S. will not boycott the Olympics, the White House has said, maintaining the games are about athletics, not politics.
The protests have been timed to coincide with the run-up to the Summer Olympic Games in Beijing in August.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Tuesday he was leaving open the possibility he may skip the opening ceremonies because of the protests.
Bush and Hu also discussed issues including Taiwan; North Korea's denuclearization; and Burma, the White House statement said.
Bush also told Hu a mistake was made in shipping nuclear missile fuses to Taiwan, The Associated Press reported.
National security adviser Stephen Hadley said the president broached the subject only briefly during the call.
The U.S. military delivered to Taiwan electrical fuses for an intercontinental ballistic missile, raising concerns about relations between the U.S. and China.
French president Nicolas Sarkozy has started his first official visit to the UK the day after it was reported that an auction house is to sell nude pictures of his new wife.
Sarkozy and his wife, the former supermodel Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, were greeted by the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall after the presidential plane landed at London's Heathrow airport Wednesday morning.
The French couple then traveled to Windsor, outside London, where they were greeted by Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh before being taken to the castle in a state carriage procession.
The French president's schedule included a full state banquet at Windsor Castle on Wednesday night, where he is staying as the guest of the queen.
In the speech to lawmakers, Sarkozy said his government is willing to commit more troops to the war in Afghanistan, calling the fight there "crucial" to the NATO alliance.
"We cannot afford to see the Taliban and al Qaeda returning to Kabul. Whatever the cost, however difficult the victory, we cannot afford it. We must win.
Sarkozy did not provide details of any additional deployment, which he said would depend on NATO's support for a broader development strategy for Afghanistan.
Away from the politics, Sarkozy's wife was attracting as much, if not more, attention than her husband during the two-day visit.
Auction house Christie's is to sell photographs of former model Bruni-Sarkozy, taken by Michel Comte in 1993, in New York next month, The Associated Press reported Tuesday.
AGRA, India (CNN) A two-year-old girl was rescued Wednesday after spending 27 hours trapped inside a narrow well outside the Indian capital of New Delhi.
Video footage from the scene showed a man emerge carrying the girl, named Vandana.
She fell 45 feet into the uncovered well while playing Tuesday night in a village near Agra, a northern Indian city outside New Delhi.
The girl was taken by ambulance to a hospital to be checked out, according to District Magistrate Mukesh Kumar Meshram.
"The girl is normal, according to the doctors, and there is a possibility (she is) suffering from dehydration," Meshram said.
Her mother was kept away from the well because of rescuers feared she would become emotional and upset the child, but her father was constantly talking to her to keep her conscious, authorities said.
in to help, and rescuers dug a parallel well to tunnel into where Vandana was trapped.
Officials said the girl frequently asked for fruits and sweets, which was sent to her with the help of a rope.
Oxygen was also pumped inside the well through tubes to prevent any suffocation, CNN-IBN reported.
It was the sixth time a child had fallen into an open pit or uncovered well in India over the past two years.
On January 30, rescuers successfully retrieved a six-year-old boy from a 40-foot well in the southern Indian state of Karnataka.
President Bush plans to visit Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Russian coastal town of Sochi next month at Putin's invitation, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley told reporters Wednesday.
Bush intends to visit Sochi after a stop in Croatia on April 5, Hadley said.
"This is an opportunity for the two leaders to meet, assess what progress has been made and see whether we can come together with a framework that can ... consolidate areas where we're cooperating together, maybe resolve some outstanding issues such as missile defense, and provide a platform for the relationship of the two countries going forward," Hadley said.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates went to Moscow, Russia
, earlier this month to meet with Putin, he noted, and "progress was made."
A Russian delegation was also visiting Washington on Wednesday, he said.
In the Moscow meetings, the United States attempted to allay Russian fears about America's plans to install interceptor missiles in eastern Europe.
The Bush administration said the defense system, components of which are to be set up in Poland and the Czech Republic, is designed to defend against attacks from "rogue states," not from Russia.
In addition, America said the system would not be made operational unless Iran test-fires a missile that could threaten Europe.
Putin, who becomes prime minister this spring, proposed during a July visit with Bush in Maine, that the missile defense system be based in countries more friendly to Russia, such as Azerbaijan or even Iraq.
The United States has offered to give Russian monitors access to the missile sites and to negotiate limits to the system over time.
KARACHI, Pakistan (CNN) A man with suspected links to a suicide bombing that killed 150 people at a rally last year for Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was ordered freed from custody Wednesday for lack of evidence, an investigator said.
Qari Saifullah Akhtar was arrested in Lahore last month, and was transferred to police in Karachi for questioning in connection with the October attack.
On Wednesday, a court ordered Akhtar freed because authorities had insufficient evidence to continue holding him, said police investigator Nawaz Ranjha.
Ranjha said police were still collecting evidence and could arrest Akhtar again in the future.
Bhutto named Akhtar as a suspect in the Karachi bombing.
Akhtar's lawyer has said his client denies any involvement and has sought to halt sale of Bhutto's book, titled "Reconciliation:
Islam, Democracy and the West.
Meanwhile, police in the eastern city of Lahore said another bombing suspect died Wednesday in custody there.
The man, identified as Mohammed Afzal, allegedly had purchased the truck used in a March 11 suicide bombing at a federal building in Lahore, a police statement said.
The bombing killed 21 people.
Afzal's cause of death could not be determined, and an autopsy would be conducted, the statement said.
For the second time in three days, Sen. Hillary Clinton told reporters that the pledged delegates awarded based on vote totals in their state are not bound to abide by election results.
It's an idea that has been floated by her or a campaign surrogate nearly half a dozen times this month.
Sen. Barack Obama leads Clinton among all Democratic delegates, 1,622 to 1,485, in the latest CNN count.
"Every delegate with very few exceptions is free to make up his or her mind however they choose," Clinton told Time's Mark Halperin in an interview published Wednesday.
"We talk a lot about so-called pledged delegates, but every delegate is expected to exercise independent judgment," she said.
Clinton's remarks echoed her Monday comments to the editorial board of the Philadelphia Daily News.
Clinton also made similar comments in a Newsweek interview published two weeks ago.
Some states require their delegates to support the candidate they are pledged to but most do not.
Earlier this month, Clinton adviser Harold Ickes first raised the prospect that pledged delegates were not legally bound to vote as election results indicate an idea that has drawn sharp criticism from supporters of rival Obama.
"Despite repeated denials, the Clinton campaign has again admitted that they will go to any length to win," Obama spokesman Bill Burton said again Wednesday.
Iraq's prime minister Wednesday gave Shiite militants battling security forces in Basra a 72-hour deadline to surrender as the death toll from two days of fighting that threatens to undo efforts to stabilize Iraq neared 50.
Nuri al-Maliki gave the ultimatum a day after clashes erupted in the southern oil port city and Baghdad between Iraqi and U.S. security forces and fighters aligned with the Mehdi Army the militia of hard-line Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
The fighting has killed 40 to 50 people in Basra, 18 others in Baghdad and left scores injured.
Officials say the dead in Basra include Iraqi troops, police, civilians and militiamen.
In a further incident Wednesday, three U.S. government officials were seriously injured as militants targeted the International Zone in Baghdad, a U.S. Embassy spokeswoman said.
The renewed violence in Basra and Baghdad threatens to unravel a seven-months-long suspension of Mehdi Army activities, a much-praised cease-fire called by al-Sadr that the U.S. military says has decreased violence across Iraq.
A Basra city council official said that the latest fighting erupted when security forces entered Mehdi Army strongholds, where militiamen were armed with machine guns, grenades, rockets and mortars.
The fighting erupted as al-Sadr's political organization launched a nationwide civil disobedience movement to protest recent arrests of its members.
Fighting between Iraqi security forces and supporters of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr continued for a second day Wednesday.
Firefights between security forces and al-Sadr supporters in Basra killed at least 50 on Tuesday.
Separately, a mortar round hit a residential building in central Baghdad, killing one person and wounding four others.
The fighting erupted as al-Sadr's political organization launched a nationwide civil disobedience movement to protest recent arrests of its members.
The discord threatens to unravel a much-praised cease-fire by the cleric's militia, the Mehdi Army, which U.S. commanders have credited with helping ease the sectarian warfare that gripped Iraq in 2006.
An official with Basra's Provincial Council, speaking on condition of anonymity, told CNN that at least 50 people were killed and 120 wounded Tuesday.
The dead included Iraqi troops, police, civilians and militiamen, the official said.
In addition, at least 30 Iraqi security force members were kidnapped by militia fighters in Basra, he said.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is personally overseeing efforts to restore order in Basra, said Ali Hadi, an official in the prime minister's office.
He said al-Maliki met with high-ranking Iraqi security officers ahead of a push against militia fighters, which was launched early Tuesday.
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (CNN) As a strike by farmers continued for a 13th day Tuesday with no solution in sight, its impact was visible on meagerly stocked supermarket shelves in cities.
Butchers and supermarkets were among the first hit.
"We are looking for alternative suppliers because within 24 to 48 hours, we will have no more meat," said Miguel Calvete, who runs a Chinese supermarket in the capital.
Hundreds of Argentines took to the streets of the capital, where they banged pots and pans in support of the striking growers, who are protesting an increase in export taxes for their products.
One economist warned that the strike could result in more serious problems than short-term scarcity.
"The fewer products and goods available to place on the shelves, the more room for increasing prices.
Argentine President Cristina Fernandez was unswayed, referring to the growers' demands as "extortion" and saying the increases on agricultural products are justified.
"About 95 percent of soybeans are exported. They're not exported in Argentine pesos, they're exported in euros, in dollars. But the costs are Argentine costs.
The farmers' federations, for their part, announced that the strike will continue for an indeterminate period of time.
"We thought this was going to generate a conciliatory discussion, but it has had the opposite effect," said Alfredo Rodes, executive director of the Confederation of Rural Associations of Buenos Aires and La Pampa.
He said the taxes go directly to the central government, not to the provinces where the farmers live, and he accused the government of demanding "practically half" of farmers' production in taxes.
But traffic jams still occurred, inconveniencing many people.
"There are kids who are trying to get to school, and they're not arriving."
VIENNA, Austria (CNN) About 70 vehicles slammed into each other Tuesday in heavy snowfall on a motorway in northwestern Austria, killing one person and injuring at least 37 others.
Police in the province of Upper Austria said five of the injured people were seriously hurt.
A Spanish woman who lived in Switzerland was killed, they said. Further details about her were not immediately available.
Some people were believed to be trapped in their vehicles and rescue efforts were hampered by the snow, police said.
Police said the accident happened on the westbound A1 autobahn between the towns of Seewalchen and St. Georgen, northeast of Salzburg.
That section of the autobahn has been closed in both directions.
The speed limit is 80 miles per hour.
David Beckham will finally make his milestone 100th international appearance for England in Wednesday's prestige friendly against France in Paris.
England coach Fabio Capello says L.A. Galaxy legend Beckham will play some part in the match at Stade de France where Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand will captain the side.
"I could not possibly make him come from the USA and not play him," Capello said at a news conference Tuesday.
I know what he can give to a team. As for the future, we will have to see.
Beckham did not play in Capello's first match in charge against Switzerland at Wembley last month because the coach decided he was not fit enough during the Major League Soccer offseason.
Only four other players have accrued 100 caps or more for England Bobby Charlton, Bobby Moore, Billy Wright and Peter Shilton.
And all four led the team out on their centenary appearance.
LONDON, England (CNN) A Web site that encourages girls as young as seven to give virtual dolls breast implants and put them on crash diets has caused concern among parents and children's activists.
The provocatively named "Miss Bimbo" Web site launched in the UK last month and is described as a "virtual fashion game for girls.
Girls are encouraged to compete against each other to become the "hottest, coolest, most famous bimbo in the whole world.
When a girl signs up, they are given a naked virtual character to look after and pitted against other girls to earn "bimbo" dollars so they can dress her in sexy outfits and take her clubbing.
They are told "stop at nothing," even "meds or plastic surgery," to ensure their dolls win.
Users are given missions, including securing plastic surgery at the game's clinic to give their dolls bigger breasts, and they have to keep her at her target weight with diet pills, which cost 100 bimbo dollars.
Breast implants sell at 11,500 bimbo dollars and net the buyer 2,000 bimbo attitudes, making her more popular on the site.
And bagging a billionaire boyfriend is the most desirable way to earn the all important "mula" or bimbo dollars.
Working, it seems, is a bit of a chore in bimbo world.
The site says: "Bimbo dollars is 'the cabbage,' 'bread,' the 'mula' you'll need to buy nice things and to get by in bimbo world.
To earn some bimbo cash you will have to (gasp) work or find a boyfriend to be your sugar daddy and hook you up with a phat expense account!
The advice on feeding the dolls is even more spurious, encouraging them to feed the dolls "every now and then" even though they want to keep their Bimbos "waif thin."
The British version already has nearly 200,000 players, most of whom are girls aged between 7 and 17, according to the Web site.
Although it is free to play, when the contestants run out of virtual dollars they have to send cell phone text messages costing $3 each or use PayPal to top up their accounts.
Parents' groups are horrified that the game is taking off in Britain, fearing it could send the wrong message about eating disorders and plastic surgery to young girls
Bill Hibberd, of parents' rights group Parentkind, told the Times the game sends a dangerous message to young girls.
"But the danger is that a nine-year-old fails to appreciate the irony and sees the Bimbo as a cool role model. Then the game becomes a hazard and a menace.
Asian and European market have surged as investors returned from the Easter holiday in a mood to buy, encouraged by upbeat U.S. housing numbers and overnight gains on Wall Street.
Markets in Hong Kong and Australia, both of which were closed since Thursday, have jumped on easing concerns about the global credit crisis that has battered stocks since the start of the year.
Japan's Nikkei 225 index climbed to close up 2.1 percent at 12,745 after closing flat Monday, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng was up 6.4 percent to 1,356.3.
In Europe, where major markets were closed since Thursday, stocks advanced strongly.
In Britain, the FTSE 100 rose 3.2 percent to 5,673, while Germany's DAX gained 3 percent. France's CAC 40 was up 3.2 percent.
Investors also were heartened by news that JP Morgan Chase & Co. raised its offer for Bear Stearns fivefold to $10 a share from $2 a share.
The new offer signals that investors' losses might not be as sizable as feared.
"The offer gives the market renewed confidence, indicating that after further assessment, the situation at Bear Stearns may not be as bad as initially thought," said Jamie Spiteri, head of trading at Shaw Stockbroking in Sydney.
There was some optimism about the U.S. housing sector, which has been at the heart of the credit problems.
The National Association of Realtors that Monday said sales of existing homes rose 2.9 percent in February, the first gain since last July.
SANTIAGO, Chile (CNN) A Finnish tourist was detained after allegedly stealing a piece of volcanic rock from one of the massive Moai statues on Easter Island.
A native Rapanui woman told authorities she witnessed the theft Sunday at Anakena beach and saw Kulju fleeing from the scene with a piece of the statue in his hand.
Kulju used his hands to tear off the earlobe, which fell to the ground and broke into pieces measuring 8 to 12 inches each, Easter Island Police Chief Cristian Gonzalez told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.
Kulju ran away with at least one of the pieces from the 13-foot tall Moai, he said.
"Fortunately, this type of thing does not happen every day, but it does happen, and it is almost impossible to control because on Easter Island there are sites of great archaeological value everywhere and the park guards cannot prevent all such incidents," Easter Island government official Liliana Castro told the AP.
Damaging Moais is punishable under a law protecting national monuments.
While some of the island's 400 Moais are more than 70 feet tall, most have an average height of 20 feet and weigh about 20 metric tons.
The statues gaze out on the south Pacific more than 2,300 miles west of Chile, which annexed Easter Island in the 19th century.
The Moais were nominated, but not chosen, as one of the new seven wonders of the world, selected by average citizens in a global poll conducted by a nonprofit organization last year.
About 3,800 people, the majority of them ethnic Rapanui, live on 70 square-mile Easter Island.
Barack Obama and his wife released their tax returns from 2000 to 2006 on his campaign Web site Tuesday, and the Illinois senator challenged Sen. Hillary Clinton to release hers.
Later, Clinton said she expected to release her tax returns "shortly, I hope within the next week.
The Obama campaign said Clinton should immediately release her 2006 return, pointing to her decision to lend her campaign $5 million earlier this year.
The Obama camp also cited former President Bill Clinton's $20 million payout from supermarket holding company Yucaipa as a reason why the couple should release the documents.
The Obama campaign said that company invests in tax shelters in the Cayman Islands.
Clinton has promised to release 2007 returns sometime after this year's April 15 income tax deadline, just a few days before Pennsylvania's April 22 primary.
"Senator Clinton recently claimed that she's 'the most transparent figure in public life,' yet she's dragging her feet in releasing something as basic as her annual tax returns," Obama's communications director, Robert Gibbs, said in a statement.
"Senator Clinton can't claim to be vetted until she allows the public the opportunity to see her finances particularly with respect to any investment in tax shelters.
But Clinton made her own challenge to Obama during a press conference in Greensburg, Pennsylvania.
"Now he should release his records from being in the state Senate and any other information that the public and the press need to know from his prior experience.
According to the 2006 return, Obama and his wife, Michelle, earned over $991,000 in 2006 and paid $277,431 on the income.
WASHINGTON (CNN) The United States is working with the Egyptian government to figure out the details of a shooting incident in the Suez Canal involving a cargo vessel contracted by the U.S. military.
Egypt's state-run news agency and other media reports say one person was killed and at least two others wounded on Monday when the U.S. security team aboard the vessel fired on a small boat that approached it.
But the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and a military spokeswoman said they had no reports of casualties, noting that they had accounted for all warning shots fired at the small boat.
When asked about the discrepancy, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack was vague, calling it an "incident" involving "a cargo ship that was contracted by the U.S. Department of Defense to transit U.S. Department of Defense materials ... through the Suez Canal.
"Our ambassador is working with senior levels of the Egyptian government to understand what happened," McCormack said. He said the ambassador's discussions are an effort "to make sure that it doesn't happen again.
According to the embassy statement and a senior U.S. military official, several small boats approached the Global Patriot, a cargo vessel contracted by the U.S. Navy's Military Sealift Command.
"The boats were hailed and warned by a native Arabic speaker using a bullhorn to warn them to turn away," the embassy statement said.
After a warning flare was fired, one of the small boats continued to approach the ship, prompting the U.S. forces on board to fire two sets of warning shots which landed
in the water, about 20 yards to 30 yards in front of the boat.
"All shots were accounted for as they entered the water," the statement said. When asked about reports of a fatality, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Fifth Fleet in Bahrain said they had no indications of any casualties in the incident.
The Egyptian security official, speaking to AP on condition of anonymity, said merchants often use small boats to try to sell cigarettes and other items to ships transiting the Suez Canal.
The merchants know not to approach military vessels , he told AP, but the fact that the Global Patriot was a civilian vessel may have led to confusion.
PARIS, France (CNN) French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Tuesday that he cannot rule out the possibility he might boycott the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics if China continues its crackdown in Tibet.
Sarkozy has come under increasing pressure to take a stance on the unrest. He said he had not yet made a decision on what to do, but the mere suggestion of a boycott represented a clear threat to Chinese authorities.
A French boycott of the August 8 opening ceremony would have added resonance because France will hold the rotating EU presidency during the August 8-24 Olympic Games.
Asked whether he supported a boycott, Sarkozy said he could "not close the door to any possibility.
" A spokesman for the president confirmed that Sarkozy was referring to a possible snub of the August 8 opening ceremony.
"Our Chinese friends must understand the worldwide concern that there is about the question of Tibet, and I will adapt my response to the evolutions in the situation that will come, I hope, as rapidly as possible," the president said during a visit with a military regiment in Tarbes in southwest France.
Violent protests in Tibet, the most serious challenge in almost two decades to China's rule in the region, are forcing human rights campaigners and governments to re-examine their approach to the Olympic Games.
ceremony boycott by heads of state and government, as well as royalty an idea that has gained the support of many French.
The issue of athletes boycotting the opening ceremony or the games is not being talked about in France.
In a CSA poll for Liberation newspaper, 53 percent of respondents said they were "rather favorable" to the idea of Sarkozy staying away from the opening ceremonies.
The poll of 959 people by CSA agency for the daily paper was conducted Thursday and Friday.
JACKSON, Missouri(CNN) Debbie Shank breaks down in tears every time she's told that her 18-year-old son, Jeremy, was killed in Iraq.
When her family reminds her that he's dead she weeps as if hearing the news for the first time.
Shank suffered severe brain damage after a traffic accident nearly eight years ago that robbed her of much of her short-term memory and left her in a wheelchair and living in a nursing home.
One of their biggest was with Wal-Mart's health plan.
Eight years ago, Shank was stocking shelves for the retail giant and signed up for Wal-Mart's health and benefits plan.
Two years after the accident, Shank and her husband, Jim, were awarded about $1 million in a lawsuit against the trucking company involved in the crash.
After legal fees were paid, $417,000 was placed in a trust to pay for Debbie Shank's long-term care.
The Shanks didn't notice in the fine print of Wal-Mart's health plan policy that the company has the right to recoup medical expenses if an employee collects damages in a lawsuit.
The family's attorney, Maurice Graham, said he informed Wal-Mart about the settlement and believed the Shanks would be allowed to keep the money.
"We assumed after three years, they [Wal-Mart] had made a decision to let Debbie Shank use this money for what it was intended to," Graham said.
The Shanks lost their suit to Wal-Mart.
Last summer, the couple appealed the ruling but also lost it.
One week later, their son was killed in Iraq.
"They are quite within their rights. But I just wonder if they need it that bad," Jim Shank said.
We wish it could be more flexible in Mrs. Shank's case since her circumstances are clearly extraordinary, but this is done out of fairness to all associates who contribute to, and benefit from, the plan.
Jim Shank said he believes Wal-Mart should make an exception.
"My idea of a win-win is you keep the paperwork that says you won and let us keep the money so I can take care of my wife," he said.
The U.S. Defense Department accidentally shipped ballistic missile components to Taiwan, the Pentagon said Tuesday.
Four nose-cone fuses for intercontinental ballistic missiles were shipped instead of the helicopter batteries that Taiwan had requested, Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne said.
The fuses were shipped to Taiwan in fall 2006 and kept in a warehouse there.
The Taiwanese military informed the United States last week about their presence on the island.
"There are no nuclear or fissile materials associated with these items," Wynne said.
Ryan Henry, principal deputy undersecretary of defense for policy, said, "In an organization as large as DOD, the largest and most complex in the world, there will be mistakes. But they cannot be tolerated in the arena in strategic systems, whether they are nuclear or only associated equipment, as was in this case."
Henry said the parts were 1960s technology, designed for use with Minuteman ballistic missiles.
WASHINGTON (CNN) A chunk of Antarctic ice about seven times the size of Manhattan suddenly collapsed, putting an even greater portion of glacial ice at risk, scientists said Tuesday.
Satellite images show the runaway disintegration of a 160-square-mile chunk in western Antarctica, which started February 28.
This is the result of global warming, said British Antarctic Survey scientist David Vaughan.
Because scientists noticed satellite images within hours, they diverted satellite cameras and even flew an airplane over the ongoing collapse for rare pictures and video.
"The cracks fill with water and slice off and topple... That gets to be a runaway situation.
While icebergs naturally break away from the mainland, collapses like this are unusual but are happening more frequently in recent decades, Vaughan said.
The collapse is similar to what happens to hardened glass when it is smashed with a hammer, he said.
The rest of the Wilkins ice shelf, which is about the size of Connecticut, is holding on by a narrow beam of thin ice.
Larger, more dramatic ice collapses occurred in 2002 and 1995.
Vaughan had predicted the Wilkins shelf would collapse about 15 years from now.
Scientists said they are not concerned about a rise in sea level from the latest event in Antarctica, but say it's a sign of worsening global warming.
Such occurrences are "more indicative of a tipping point or trigger in the climate system," said Sarah Das, a scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.
But some supporters fear he's not making the most of his time.
Just back from his eighth trip to Iraq, McCain returned to the campaign trail Monday in Chula Vista,California, with last week's words from Osama bin Laden in hand.
"He urged Palestinians and people of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Saudi Arabia to quote 'help and support the mujahadeen brothers in Iraq, which is greatest opportunity and the biggest task,' " McCain said.
It's proof, he argued, that Democrats are dead wrong about the war in Iraq.
"My Democrat opponents, who want to pull out of Iraq, refuse to understand what's being said ... the central battleground is Iraq in this struggle against radical Islamic extremism," he said.
Absent from McCain's remarks to California veterans was any mention of the new grim death toll released Monday: 4,000 U.S. troops in the war zone he just visited.
Asked about the toll, McCain responded with a personal story of one soldier's heroism.
"I wear a bracelet on my hand not only as a symbol of the sacrifice that a brave young man named Matthew Stanley made but that of 4,000 other brave young Americans who have served and sacrificed," McCain said. "My prayers go out to those families every day, not just on the day that 4,000 brave young Americans have sacrificed.
McCain continues to challenge Democrats to admit the military surge in Iraq is working.
With plans to unveil new policy ideas this week on the economy one of McCain's weak spots and a speech on national security, McCain advisers insist they're on track.
He's been traveling the country for cash since effectively locking up the nomination six weeks ago but still seriously lags behind the Democrats' coffers.
McCain raised $11 million in February, compared with $55 million for Sen. Barack Obama and $34.5 million for Sen. Hillary Clinton.
Injury-hit France recalled striker David Trezeguet to their squad to face England in a prestigious friendly international at the Stade de France on Wednesday.
Juventus ace Trezeguet has been left out in the cold by France coach Raymond Domenech since September 2007 and was omitted from the original selection.
But injuries to fellow strikers Thierry Henry, Louis Saha and Karim Benzema have seen Trezeguet back in the fold.
France captain Patrick Vieira is also out through injury but he told reporters on Monday that he was delighted by Trezeguet's return. "I am very happy (for Trezeguet)," Vieira said.
"He is having a great season and is scoring a lot of goals.
Trezeguet is stop scorer in Italy's Serie A with 17 goals and is also France's third all-time highest scorer with 34 goals.
Domenech had not selected Trezeguet since the 1-0 home loss to Scotland in 2008 European Championship qualifying.
Now, three months ahead of the summer tournament, Trezeguet has another chance to stake his claim.
(CNN) Siena seems to be every Italy connoisseur's pet town.
More than a sum of places to see, Siena itself is the sight.
Grab a gelato, join in the evening stroll, and end up at the town's glorious red brick main square, Il Campo.
Lean up against a pillar as the setting sun plays games with the colors of the stone and the sky.
At twilight, first-time poets savor that magic moment when the sky turns into a rich blue dome as bright as the medieval tower that holds it high.
Seven hundred years ago, Siena was a major military power in a class with Florence, Venice and Genoa.
With a population of 60,000, it was even bigger than Paris.
To say that Siena and Florence have always been competitive is an understatement.
In medieval times, a statue of Venus stood on Il Campo.
After the plague hit Siena in the 14th century, the monks blamed the pagan statue.
The people cut it to pieces and buried it along the walls of Florence.
Siena's loss became our sightseeing gain, as its political and economic irrelevance pickled it Gothic.
Today, Siena's thriving historic center, with traffic-free, red brick lanes cascading every which way, offers Italy's best Gothic city experience.
While Florence has the blockbuster museums, Siena has an easy-to-enjoy soul:
For those who dream of a Fiat-free Italy, this is it.
Sit at a cafe on Il Campo.
Five Tibetans were arrested for deadly arson attacks stemming from the anti-China riots that erupted this month, China's government announced Monday.
A Chinese Ministry of public security official said the suspects have confessed to two arson incidents that killed 10 people in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa, according to the state-run news agency Xinhua.
In the second case, two males were detained for setting fire to a motorcycle shop on March 15, which resulted in five deaths including an 8-month-old boy and his parents, according to Xinhua.
The Tibetan government in exile said at least 80 people were killed by police, but Chinese officials put the death toll at 13.
ARLINGTON, Virginia (CNN) A suburban Washington man was bitten Monday by a rattlesnake that found its way into his luggage, a fire department spokesman said.
"He felt a sharp pain, brought his hand out and saw the bite," said Benjamin Barksdale, assistant chief and chief fire marshal of the Arlington County, Virginia, Fire Department.
Andrew Bacas zipped his bag shut and called 911 at about 9:30 a.m. ET, the official said.
"He was conscious and alert but a little anxious," Barksdale said of the victim.
"We took the bag outside and used a [carbon dioxide] fire extinguisher to freeze the snake," killing it, Barksdale said.
Bacas, a high school rowing coach, had been on a six-day trip to Summerton, South Carolina, with about 80 students, said Mike Krulfeld, director of student activities at Yorktown High School in Arlington.
Krulfeld said he did not think the incident was a student prank.
The Web site of the school's crew team warned members to take precautions unpacking from the trip, adding, "It's advisable to open bags and unpack outdoors.
"It got into his bag somehow at the location where they were staying," said Kay Speerstra, executive director of the Animal Welfare League of Arlington. "Nobody noticed it until he was unpacking, and then he definitely noticed it.
Speerstra said the snake was about 10 inches long and appeared to be a juvenile.
If you're seeing your grocery bill go up, you're not alone.
From subsistence farmers eating rice in Ecuador to gourmets feasting on escargot in France, consumers worldwide face rising food prices in what analysts call a perfect storm of conditions.
Freak weather is a factor.
But so are dramatic changes in the global economy, including higher oil prices, lower food reserves and growing consumer demand in China and India.
The world's poorest nations still harbor the greatest hunger risk.
Clashes over bread in Egypt killed at least two people last week, and similar food riots broke out in Burkina Faso and Cameroon this month.
But food protests now crop up even in Italy.
And while the price of spaghetti has doubled in Haiti, the cost of miso is packing a hit in Japan.
"It's not likely that prices will go back to as low as we're used to," said Abdolreza Abbassian, economist and secretary of the Intergovernmental Group for Grains for the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. "Currently if you're in Haiti, unless the government is subsidizing consumers, consumers have no choice but to cut consumption.
It's a very brutal scenario, but that's what it is.
No one knows that better than Eugene Thermilon, 30, a Haitian day laborer who can no longer afford pasta to feed his wife and four children since the price nearly doubled to $0.57 a bag.
Their only meal on a recent day was two cans of corn grits.
In Egypt, where bread is up 35 percent and cooking oil 26 percent, the government recently proposed ending food subsidies and replacing them with cash payouts to the needy.
In Japan, the ethanol boom is hitting the country in mayonnaise and miso, two important culinary ingredients, as biofuels production pushes up the price of cooking oil and soybeans.
A two-pound bottle of mayonnaise his risen about 10 percent in two months to as much as 330 yen (nearly $3), said Daishi Inoue, a cook at a Chinese restaurant.
"It's not hurting us much now," he said. "But if prices keep going up, we have no choice but to raise our prices.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (CNN) Shuttle Endeavour pulled away from the international space station Monday and headed for home after a heartfelt farewell between the two crews.
It culminated 12 days of shared work, the longest mission of its kind.
The 10 space travelers performed a record-tying five spacewalks, put together a space station robot and provided a new Japanese compartment and resident for the orbiting complex.
"In my mind, in my view, it's been an extraordinary mission," said LeRoy Cain, chairman of the mission management team.
Before the hatches were closed in the late afternoon, a few hours before the shuttle's undocking, astronaut Garrett Reisman pretended he was going to float into Endeavour.
Space station commander Peggy Whitson grabbed him around the waist and pulled him back.
Reisman flew up aboard Endeavour to replace French astronaut Leopold Eyharts, who was going home on the shuttle.
They embraced and patted each others' backs as they parted company; the other astronauts did the same.
"Up to you, Garrett. It's your turn," said Eyharts, who spent 1¨ö months at the international space station, less time than planned because of the previous shuttle flight's delay in getting him there.
NAHA, Japan (CNN) At a Zen Buddhist temple in southern Japan, even the dog prays.
Mimicking his master, priest Joei Yoshikuni, a 1 1/2-year-old black-and-white Chihuahua named Conan joins in the daily prayers at Naha's Shuri Kannondo temple, sitting up on his hind legs and putting his front paws together before the altar.
It took him only a few days to learn the motions, and now he is the talk of the town.
"Word has spread, and we are getting a lot more tourists," Yoshikuni said Monday.
Yoshikuni said Conan generally goes through his prayer routine at the temple in the capital of Japan's southern Okinawa prefecture (state) without prompting before his morning and evening meals.
I think he saw me doing it all the time and got the idea to do it, too," Yoshikuni said.
The priest is now trying to teach him how to meditate.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. on Monday moved to assuage shareholders of Bear Stearns & Co. by increasing its offer to acquire the ailing investment bank to $10 per share from the bargain-basement price of $2 per share.
There was a backlash last week among Bear Stearns shareholders who felt the original deal undervalued the 85-year-old institution.
JPMorgan Chase Chief Executive Jamie Dimon spent most of the week trying to woo Bear Stearns employees, who collectively own about a third of the company.
"We believe the amended terms are fair to all sides and reflect the value and risks of the Bear Stearns franchise," Dimon said in a statement, "and bring more certainty for our respective shareholders, clients, and the marketplace.
The new deal values Bear Stearns at about $1.19 billion still a small fraction of what the company was worth before its sudden near-collapse earlier this month.
It also includes a provision for JPMorgan to buy 95 million new Bear Stearns shares immediately, which gives it a 39.5 percent stake in Bear before shareholders have even voted.
The amended offer was Dimon's attempt to ward off any competition, and quickly move on with the acquisition.
NEW YORK, (CNN) The ex-wife of French President Nicolas Sarkozy tied the knot Sunday night at the famed Rainbow Room in New York's Rockefeller Center, French newspapers have reported.
Though details about the nuptials have been kept under wraps, Le Figaro and Liberation said in Monday editions that Cecilia Ciganer-Albeniz the former Mrs. Sarkozy married Richard Attias, an events planner. The two dailies didn't identify their sources.
The wedding ceremony and reception at the 65th floor Rainbow Room, which offers panoramic views of New York, culminated three days of private festivities, Le Figaro said on its Web site.
The ceremony was scheduled to draw 150 guests and began with a party on Friday at Attias' house in Connecticut, the report said.
Photographers snapped photos of Ciganer-Albeniz and Attias as they emerged together Saturday evening from a car to see the Abba-inspired musical "Mamma Mia!" at a Broadway theater.
Attias, a 48-year-old Moroccan-born multi-millionaire, is the president of Paris-based Publicis Events Worldwide.
Ciganer-Albeniz left Sarkozy in May 2005 to live with Attias, but returned to Sarkozy's side in the run-up to France's presidential elections last spring.
Last month, the French leader married Carla Bruni, the Italian-born singer and former model. Their quick courtship led to a glitzy February wedding.
Ciganer-Albeniz had tried to keep her wedding plans secret but word leaked out earlier this month when Versace announced that the couple had chosen the Milan fashion house to dress them for their nuptials.
She reportedly canceled the order and requested a new couturier following Versace's announcement.
The Supreme Court has rejected a conservative group's legal fight to air commercials promoting a movie critical of Sen. Hillary Clinton.
The case, rejected on jurisdictional grounds, was appealed after a federal District Court refused to issue a preliminary injunction clearing the way for the promotions.
At issue was whether broadcast ads promoting the 90-minute documentary "Hillary:
The Movie" are subject to strict campaign finance laws on political advocacy, or would be considered a constitutionally protected form of commercial speech.
The appeal was of a decision earlier this year by a special three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court in Washington. The decision meant the group if it now chooses to air any broadcast ads must indicate by name its sponsorship and disclose its political donors.
" 'The Movie' is susceptible of no other interpretation than to inform the electorate that Senator Clinton is unfit for office, that the United States would be a dangerous place in a President Hillary world, and that viewers should vote against her," wrote the judges in their ruling.
The law also requires an on-screen notice of the group financing such ads, as well as public disclosure of all donors to the sponsoring organizations.
And the Justice Department said the Supreme Court had no authority to accept the case at this stage, contending that a federal appeals court in Washington should first tackle it.
The justices apparently agreed with the Justice Department, noting in their brief order that the appeal was "dismissed for want of jurisdiction. " The case now goes back to the three-judge District Court panel for final resolution.
He said the group will "continue to do movies, including one on [Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack] Obama. And of course will want to market them.
The movie is already available on DVD and will soon be shown in about nine theaters, according to a public relations firm for filmmaker David Bossie, who heads Citizens United.
Ads for the movie are also on the Internet, which is not subject to federal regulation.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) Pakistan's deposed chief justice made his first public appearance in four months on Monday, soon after newly-elected prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani vowed to release all judges held since last year.
Gilani, a long-time aide to slain opposition leader Benazir Bhutto voted in by Pakistan's new parliament, moved to free the officials arrested last November when President Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency.
Hundreds of people swarmed the residence of former chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry through a gap in the concertina wire fence surrounding it, hoping to see him walk free following four months under house arrest.
However, he returned inside after appearing on his porch and waving and accepting gifts from his supporters.
Chaudhry and other judges had threatened to legally challenge the right of former army chief Musharraf to be president, and he responded by purging the courts of 60 top officials.
Pakistan's state-run news agency quoted a senior Islamabad administrator as saying that all judges detained under the government of Musharraf were now free following Gilani's edict.
"The prisoners are free today," said Chaudhry's lawyer Aitzaz Ahsan, The Associated Press reported.
Sen. Hillary Clinton's aides blasted Sen. Barack Obama's campaign Monday after a major Obama supporter referenced the blue dress at the heart of former President Bill Clinton's impeachment scandal.
Gordon Fischer, a former chair of the Iowa Democratic Party and part of Obama's Iowa support team, also compared Bill Clinton unfavorably to Joe McCarthy.
McCarthy was a senator who was known for leveling accusations that people were Communists or spying for the Russians in the 1950s.
"Bill Clinton cannot possibly seriously believe Obama is not a patriot, and cannot possibly be said to be helping instead he is hurting his own party. B. [Bill] Clinton should never be forgiven.
Fischer was referring to Bill Clinton's comments over the weekend that a race between Sen. John McCain and Hillary Clinton would be a contest between two people who love their country.
Some Obama supporters including former Air Force Gen. Tony McPeak have interpreted that statement as an attack on Obama's patriotism.
Fischer, who endorsed Obama last fall, later removed the post from his blog and replaced it with an apology.
OLYMPIA, Greece (CNN) Greece condemned human rights protesters who disrupted the Olympic torch lighting ceremony Monday.
The brief disruption unnerved thousands of spectators, dignitaries and Olympic officials who packed into the sprawling ancient stadium to watch actresses posing as priestesses light the Olympic flame from the sun's rays.
More protests, however, followed later as the torch relay began.
A Tibetan woman covered herself with red paint and lay on the ground, forcing torchbearers to weave around her as other protesters shouted "Flame of shame.
"The government condemns every attempt to interfere with the ceremony for the lighting of the Olympic flame through actions that have no relation at all with the Olympic spirit," said Evangelos Antonaros, Greece's junior government spokesman.
"We have Tibetans popping out of every corner protesting during the torch relay. It will be very difficult to guard this relay."
Jacques Rogge, International Olympic Committee president:
"We have expressed our deep concern for what happens in Tibet.
"We've also of course expressed the wish that this should be resolved peacefully as soon as possible. But of course yes, violence is not compatible with Olympic values.
He said he was engaged in a "silent diplomacy" with Beijing on Tibet.
Police confirmed they had detained three French protesters, members of the Paris-based media rights group Reporters Without Borders.
"If the flame is sacred then so are humans. We cannot let the Chinese seize the Olympic flame, a symbol of peace, without denouncing the dramatic situation of human rights in the country."
Broadcast live, the stunt left Greek commentators speechless, but in China, state TV cut away to a pre-recorded scene, according to the Associated Press, preventing millions of Chinese viewers from watching the tumultuous start to their nation's Games.
President Bush expressed sympathy Monday for the families of the 4,000 Americans killed in the war in Iraq, promising to make sure their loved ones "were not lost in vain."
"One day, people will look back at this moment in history and say, 'Thank God there were courageous people willing to serve, because they laid the foundations for peace for generations to come,' " Bush told reporters after a meeting at the State Department.
Military officials reported four U.S. soldiers died Sunday in a roadside bombing in Iraq, bringing the American toll in the war to the milestone of 4,000 deaths, including eight Defense Department civilians.
The war entered its fifth year last week.
Of the 4,000 U.S. military personnel killed in the war, 3,263 have been killed in attacks and fighting and 737 in non-hostile incidents, such as traffic accidents and suicides.
During a briefing with reporters Monday, White House press secretary Dana Perino said the president "definitely feels the loss.
"He gets a report about every single soldier who passes away," she said. "And he always pauses a moment to think about them and to offer a prayer for their loved ones and their family and friends.
Bush also held a two-hour National Security Council videoconference Monday with his top commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad.
"With 4,000 American lives lost and thousands injured, many of them permanently, Americans are asking how much longer must our troops continue to sacrifice for the sake of an Iraqi government that is unwilling or unable to secure its own future," said Pelosi, D-California.
Top seed Serbian Ana Ivanovic won the Pacific Life Open WTA title in Indian Wells on Sunday with a 6-4 6-3 victory over second-seeded Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova.
Ivanovic, the Australian Open runner-up, used a fierce forehand to defeat Kuznetsova and claim her sixth career title.
"Every important ball she hit winner on the line. It was on the line, on the line, on the line.
"She had an outstanding first set," Kuznetsova, the 2004 US Open champion, added. "She played better.
Kuznetsova still stayed with Ivanovic until the ninth game, when the Serbian earned a break.
Ivanovic, 20, has now won five of her six meetings with Kuznetsova, with whom she has traded the second and third spots in the world rankings this year.
(CNN) The biggest showcase in the build-up for the Olympics begins on Monday, March 24, with the lighting of the Olympic torch in ancient Olympia, Greece.
It signifies the start of the international Olympic torch relay and in keeping with the rest of the Beijing Olympics' preparations it's on a grand scale.
Featuring a cast of thousands of torch bearers and covering more than 85,000 miles, the international relay route is a whirlwind tour of 23 cities across five continents in 34 days.
At the end of the international part of the relay the torch will wind its way through mainland China, with the highlight its ascent up Mount Everest in May, before ending up in Beijing for the pomp and pyrotechnics of the opening ceremony on August 8.
Each city that will host the torch has nominated a number of runners to carry it through it streets.
Australian Olympic heroes Ian Thorpe and Ron Clarke will be two of the bearers as it makes it way through Canberra, while elsewhere national sporting champions, members of the public, as well as the inevitable corporate sponsors, will be taking their turn holding the specially designed torch.
Traditionally, the torch relay has been a chance for the International Olympic Committee and host country to highlight the positive ideals of the Olympic movement.
"Journey of Harmony" is its official theme, and given the backdrop of violence and unrest in Tibet and worldwide protests, the organizers will be hoping it will be just that.
At a news conference on March 19, Jiang Xiaoyu, executive vice president of BOCOG, reiterated that the torch relay program was intended to "convey the message of peace and harmony" and that any attempts to disrupt the torch relay were "against the spirit of the Olympic Games ... those activities will not win hearts and minds of people and therefore are doomed to failure."
There have been some fears that the arrival of the Olympic torch could even spark violent protests against China, but there has been no talk of banning the torch by national Olympic committees.
Russian Olympic Committee spokesman Gennady Shvets told the Associated Press that Russia was "absolutely not" considering canceling the torch relay.
Using a Russian expression to underline the position that the Olympics and related events should not be colored by politics, he said: "The flies and the cutlet are separate."
Yalcin Aksoy of the Turkish Olympic Committee also told reporters there was no question of the torch not coming to his country or being refused, and that such a move would be against the Olympic spirit. "No one should mix politics with sports," he said.
Four U.S. soldiers died in a roadside bombing in Iraq on Sunday, military officials reported, bringing the American toll in the 5-year-old war to the grim milestone of 4,000 deaths.
A fifth soldier was wounded in the attack, which took place about 10 p.m. (3 p.m. ET).
Meanwhile, estimates of the Iraqi death toll range from about 80,000 to the hundreds of thousands, with another 2 million forced to leave the country and 2.5 million people displaced within Iraq, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.
President Bush ordered U.S. troops into Iraq on March 19, 2003, after months of warnings that then-Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was concealing stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and efforts to build a nuclear bomb.
U.N. weapons inspectors found no sign of banned weapons before the invasion, and the CIA later concluded that Iraq had dismantled its weapons programs in the 1990s.
Hussein's government fell in early April 2003, and Iraq's new government executed him in December 2006.
The news of the 4,000 mark came on the same day that Iraq's national security adviser urged Americans to be patient with the progress of the war, contending that it is "well worth fighting" because it has implications about "global terror.
"This is global terrorism hitting everywhere, and they have chosen Iraq to be a battlefield. And we have to take them on," Mowaffak al-Rubaie said Sunday on CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer.
HONG KONG, China (CNN) It is commonly said that we know more about the Moon than the deep blue sea.
Despite the fact that the sea takes up 95 percent of the world's living space, just 7 percent of it has been properly studied and sampled, according to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).
We don't even know how many species of marine life even live in the world's oceans.
But the fish we do know about, we are particular keen on catching to eat.
The problem, we are told, is we are catching too many of them, and we have a finite time period available to us to fix the problem before it is too late.
In the past 20 years, the UN says we have managed to double both the percentage of fish stocks facing collapse from 15 percent in 1987 to 30 percent last year as well as the amount that are overexploited, from 20 per cent to around 40 percent.
UNEP's report, "In Dead Water" released in January, says as much as 80 percent of the world's main fish catch species have now been "exploited beyond or close to their harvest capacity".
We are now being told that if we carry on fishing at the rate we do, by 2048 all of the species that we currently fish for food will have disappeared.
In words not to be taken lightly, UNEP is now warning that unless governments around the world enforce some radical changes right now, we could be in the process of witnessing "a collapsing ecosystem".
One billion people around the world rely on fish as their main source of protein, while 2.6 billion of us get at least 20 percent of our animal protein intake from it.
A new statement attributed to al Qaeda's No. 2 figure, Ayman al-Zawahiri, calls on Muslims to attack Western interests in defense of the Palestinians in Gaza.
The audio statement was posted on radical Islamist Web sites Sunday evening, and gave little indication when it was produced.
The speaker urges Muslims to take action rather than hold protests in support of the Palestinians, which he says will do no good.
"If you let the people of Gaza be killed today, while you shout and demonstrate, tomorrow the events will turn around and the Crusaders and the Jews will kill you instead, and others will do nothing but shout back and demonstrate," he says.
Hamas, an Islamic party considered a terrorist organization by the United States, Israel and the European Union, seized control of Gaza from the Palestinian Authority's ruling Fatah party in 2007.
Israeli troops have restricted supplies and power to Gaza and conducted periodic airstrikes and raids in an effort to halt the near-daily firings of Palestinian rockets into southern Israel since then.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) Pakistan has entered an "era of real democracy" according to President Pervez Musharraf , who said Sunday that he hoped the incoming government would maintain the pace of growth the nation has enjoyed.
"My brothers and sisters," Musharraf said, addressing a crowd at a military ceremony celebrating Pakistan's national day, "you are seeing that a new era of real democracy has begun in Pakistan.
"I am hopeful that this government will maintain the political peace in Pakistan, and will maintain the fast pace of Pakistan's socio-economic development."
The national day commemorates March 23, 1940, when Muslims in what was then part of India adopted a resolution to establish a homeland of their own.
Musharraf, who seized power in a 1999 coup but stepped down as army chief last November, attended the ceremony as a civilian.
He was dressed in a white sherwani, a traditional South Asian coat-like garment.
Fighter jets spewed colored smoke as they formed the shape of a heart overhead.
Flatbed trucks rolled past Musharraf's viewing stand carrying pieces of missiles that make up the country's nuclear arsenal.
On Saturday, the Pakistan People's Party one of two parties that won the majority of National Assembly seats in the parliamentary elections held last month named its candidate for prime minister.
The candidate, Yousaf Raza Gilani, was parliament speaker in the administration of former PPP leader Benazir Bhutto, who was slain during a campaign rally last year.
The discovery of millions of extra ballots proves that President Robert Mugabe intends to rig next week's elections in his favor, Zimbabwe's main opposition party said Sunday.
Tendai Biti, secretary general of the Movement for Democratic Change, said that leaked correspondence from the election commission showed it had asked the company that is printing paper ballots to make 9 million.
However, the African country has an electorate of 5.7 million registered voters, he said.
Also, 600,000 postal paper ballots were requested for soldiers and police officers, Biti said.
Postal ballots are usually requested for civil servants serving abroad, and the total number of soldiers and police in Zimbabwe add up to no more than 50,000, he said.
Mugabe survived a hotly contested presidential challenge from MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai in 2002 amid widespread accusations of vote rigging.
The president's other challenger this time is former Finance Minister Simba Makoni, who recently announced his bid to unseat Mugabe and was promptly booted out of the ruling party.
Last week, New York-based Human Rights Watch raised doubts about the elections, saying it was likely to be "deeply flawed.
"As the elections near, all indications are that once again the people of Zimbabwe will not be able to freely exercise their civil and political rights and vote for the candidates of their choice," the nongovernmental organization said in a 48-page report.
WASHINGTON (CNN) People should throw away cantaloupes from a Honduran manufacturer believed to be linked to a salmonella outbreak.
The Food and Drug Administration issued the alert Saturday for melons from Agropecuaria Montelibano.
Grocers are advised to remove from their stock any cantaloupes from this company. People should check with stores to see whether recently purchased cantaloupes came from Honduras.
So far, 50 people have become sickened in 16 states and nine have become ill in Canada after eating the cantaloupes.
No deaths have been reported, although 14 people have been hospitalized, the FDA said.
The government also is seeking to detain all cantaloupes shipped to the United States by Agropecuaria Montelibano.
The FDA said it was taking this step while it continues to investigate the outbreak with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and individual states.
To reduce the risk of contracting salmonella or other foodborne illnesses from cantaloupes, the FDA recommends:
Purchasing cantaloupes that are not bruised or damaged.
If buying fresh-cut cantaloupe, refrigerate or surround it with ice.
Washing hands with hot, soapy water before or after handling fresh cantaloupes.
Scrubbing whole cantaloupes by using a clean produce brush and cool tap water immediately before eating.
Cutting away and not eating bruised or damaged areas of the cantaloupe.
Discarding leftover cut cantaloupe if left at room temperature for more than two hours.
Symptoms of foodborne salmonella infection include nausea, vomiting, fever, diarrhea and abdominal cramps.
With restive Tibetan areas swarming with troops and closed to scrutiny from the outside world, China's government has turned up efforts to put its own version of the unrest before the international public.
Information barely trickled out of the Tibetan capital Lhasa and other far-flung Tibetan communities, where foreign media were banned and thousands of troops dispatched to quell the most widespread demonstrations against Chinese rule in nearly five decades.
The Chinese government was attempting to fill the information vacuum with its own message, saying Sunday through official media that the restive areas were under control.
The government has also disseminated footage of Tibetan protesters attacking Chinese and accusations of biased reporting by Western media via TV, the Internet , e-mail and YouTube, which is blocked in China.
The media barrage underscored that the government campaign is moving into a new phase of damage control ahead of the much-anticipated Beijing Olympics in August.
On Sunday, Communist Party newspapers accused the Dalai Lama of orchestrating the riots in Tibet to try to mar the Olympics and overthrow the area's communist leaders.
It was China's latest attempt to demonize the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader in the eyes of the Chinese public, which is strongly supportive of the Olympics.
"The Beijing Olympics are eagerly awaited by the people of the whole world, but the Dalai clique is scheming to take the Beijing Olympics hostage to force the Chinese government to make concessions to Tibet independence," the People's Daily said.
Xinhua issued several reports Sunday saying life was returning to normal in areas where protests took place in the wake of the Lhasa riots.
LONDON, England (CNN) Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling has revealed she thought of killing herself while penniless and suffering from depression as a single mother, according to a report in Britain's Sunday Times newspaper.
At the time, Rowling had separated from her first husband and was living in a cramped apartment with her baby daughter.
She was able to afford the rent only after a friend paid the &pound; 600 ($1,189) that she needed, the newspaper quoted her as telling a student reporter at Edinburgh University.
"We're talking suicidal thoughts here, we're not talking 'I'm a little bit miserable,'" Rowling said.
"Mid-twenties life circumstances were poor and I really plummeted. The thing that made me go for help . . . was probably my daughter.
"She was something that earthed me, grounded me, and I thought, this isn't right, this can't be right, she cannot grow up with me in this state.
Rowling said she then sought professional help.
While the 42-year-old has spoken before of her battle with depression, it was the first time she had admitted that she contemplated suicide, the newspaper said.
It was then that Rowling began writing the first Harry Potter book, which was eventually published in 1996.
Since then, more than 325 million books translated into 64 languages have been sold around the world and Rowling is now one of the world's richest women.
Vice President Dick Cheney said Sunday it will take "painful concessions" from both Israelis and Palestinians to achieve the Bush administration's vision of a Palestinian nation alongside Israel.
After meeting with Palestinian leaders in the West Bank, Cheney reiterated that the administration wants to see an "independent, viable, democratic and peaceful Palestinian state.
"Achieving that vision will require tremendous effort at the negotiating table and painful concessions on both sides," Cheney said at the news conference with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
"It will also also require a determination to defeat those who are committed to violence and who refuse to accept the basic right of the other side to exist.
Abbas thanked Cheney for the administration's financial support and commitment to a two-state solution, but the two men had notably different views on the obstacles impeding the peace deal.
While Abbas cited Israeli military operations and settlement expansions as the major deterrents to peace, Cheney homed in on the rockets that have been hurtling into Israel from Hamas-controlled Gaza.
they also kill legitimate hopes and aspirations of the Palestinian people," he said.
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (CNN) The Web site where Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders was promoting his not-yet-released anti-Koran film has been suspended by its U.S. hosting service.
The site formerly showed the film's title, "Fitna" "Coming Soon" and an image of a gilded Koran.
Now it shows a note that the company Network Solutions is investigating whether the site violates its terms of service.
While the exact contents of the 15-minute movie, due to be released by March 31, are unknown, Wilders has said it will underscore his view that Islam's holy book is "fascist.
Dutch officials fear the movie could spark violent protests in Muslim countries, similar to those two years ago after the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in a Danish newspaper.
Wilders has said he will release his movie on the Internet after television stations refused to air it.
"If necessary, I'll go hand out DVDs personally on the Dam," he said, referring to Amsterdam's central square.
A Dutch court will hear a complaint lodged by Muslim groups seeking to bar Wilders from releasing the film March 28, but there is no legal barrier preventing Wilders from releasing his film before then.
Facing fire from some fellow Democrats for his decision to endorse Sen. Barack Obama, Gov. Bill Richardson said Sunday he still considers himself loyal to the family that helped make his political career.
I served under President Clinton. But I served well. And I served the country well.
And he gave me that opportunity," Richardson told "Fox News Sunday.
"But you know ... it shouldn't just be Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton," he said.
Richardson was secretary of energy under the Clinton administration, a post that helped bring him to national prominence and win the governorship of New Mexico in 2002.
Richardson, who abandoned his presidential bid January 10, endorsed Obama on Friday as the Democratic nominee.
He called Sen. Hillary Clinton Thursday to tell her of his decision, Clinton's campaign said.
"Both candidates have many great endorsers, but the voters, not endorsers, will decide this election, and there are still millions of voters in upcoming contests who want to have their voices heard," Clinton spokesman Jay Carson said.
VATICAN CITY (CNN) Pope Benedict XVI marked Easter Sunday in a rain-drenched appearance in which he renewed calls for peace in Iraq, the Holy Land and Tibet.
A white canopy on the steps of St. Peter's Basilica protected the 80-year-old pontiff from a downpour while thousands of pilgrims, tourists and Romans braved thunder and wind-whipped rain to attend Easter Mass in the square.
On Easter, Christians celebrate their belief in the resurrection of Jesus two days after he was crucified.
Thanks to the apostles' preaching about the resurrection, "thousands and thousands of persons converted to Christianity," Benedict said.
In a speech at the end of the Mass in St. Peter's Square, Benedict said that on the joyous day of Easter, "in particular, how can we fail to remember certain African regions, such as Darfur and Somalia, the tormented Middle East, especially the Holy Land, Iraq, Lebanon and finally Tibet, all of which I encourage to seek solutions that will safeguard peace and the common good."
Benedict denounced "selfishness, injustice, hatred and violence" between individuals and peoples.
"These are the scourges of humanity, open and festering in every corner of the planet, although they are often ignored and sometimes deliberately concealed, wounds that torture the souls and bodies of countless of our brothers and sisters," he said, speaking over the sound of heavy rain in the square.
Jamie Lee Curtis went shirtless to pose for AARP The Magazine.
Curtis is shown sporting gray hair and wading in water up to her chest on the cover of the magazine's May/June issue, which will be available Monday.
Curtis, who is married to Christopher Guest and the mother of two children, says she reached a turning point two years ago when a tabloid published a photo of her and gave her weight as 161 pounds. "I was like, 'How dare you I'm not 161 pounds!
Over the course of a year, I dropped about 20 pounds," Curtis says.
"Now, I get up at (5 a.m.) every day, filled with energy. I play tennis three times a week, and I do yoga.
Japanese star Daisuke Matsuzaka and his teammates were a little weary from the long flight as they made their way to the hotel.
Red Sox president Larry Lucchino says the players are tired, but looking forward to playing some baseball.
MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) A Russian man is accused of murdering a hairdresser over the price of a haircut.
Prosecutors said 33-year-old Vadim Tikhonov killed the woman who cut his hair in a Siberian barber shop when she tried to stop him from walking out without paying after complaining that 100 rubles ($4.10) was too much.
They said he grabbed a hammer and hit her on the head, then took out his knife and stabbed her 12 times.
The Omsk region prosecutor's office said Tikhonov was arrested a month after the October killing.
It said he told police he killed the woman because he did not want to pay for the haircut, and did not have the money.
BEIJING, China (CNN) Among all the protests, pollution concerns and talk of boycotts surrounding the Beijing Olympics, a more basic problem has arisen for organizers: the toilets.
At the more than 30 test events held by organizers, the presence of squat toilets at many of the new and renovated venues has drawn frequent complaints.
"We have asked the venues to improve on this, to increase the number to sit-down toilets," Yao Hui, deputy director of venue management for the Beijing organizers, said Wednesday. "Many people have raised the question of toilets.
The issue came up again over the weekend when the San Diego Padres played the Los Angeles Dodgers at the new Olympic baseball venue.
The portable toilets trucked in were of the style used widely in Asia, but rarely in the West.
Yao suggested it would be difficult to change every permanent toilet in the 37 venues, 31 of which are in Beijing.
So he said the focus would be on satisfying three groups of visitors: athletes, journalists and the Olympic family, meaning primarily VIPs.
He said renovation was underway at the three most striking venues for the Olympics, the 91,000-seat "Bird's Nest" National Stadium, the "Water Cube" and the National Indoor Stadium.
He said most of the toilets there "should be" the sit-down style.
Beijing is expecting about 500,000 foreigners to attend the August 8-24 games.
"Most of the Chinese people are used to the squat toilet, but nowadays more and more people demand sit-down toilets," Yao said. "However, it will take some time for this transition.
Beijing is reported to be spending at least $40 billion on the venues and related infrastructure, all designed to feature a modern country that has grown in three decades to a political and economic powerhouse.
"I believe the Olympic games will be a great opportunity for us to speed up this transition," Yao said. "I believe the situation will get better and better."
(CNN) A total of four earthquakes the strongest of them a powerful 7.2 magnitude quake hit western China on Friday, the U.S. Geological Survey reported.
The Chinese Seismological Network also reported the quakes estimating the initial quake at 7.3 on the Richter scale and reporting a fifth tremor about two hours afterward.
There were no immediate reports of damage or fatalities, a spokeswoman for the seismological network said.
She said the quake happened in Yutian County, a remote region in the Kunlun Mountains far from any residential areas.
The quakes hit the border area of western China's Xinjiang and Xizang regions starting at about 6:30 a.m. local time, according to the USGS.
Their epicenters were all at least six miles under the Earth's surface.
The USGS considers earthquakes between 7.0 and 7.9 to be "major" earthquakes.
The temblor was followed about 17 minutes later by a magnitude-5.3 aftershock, according to the USGS.
PARIS, France (CNN) A French woman severely disfigured by facial tumors has been found dead just two days after a court rejected her request for an assisted suicide.
Medical examiners were Thursday looking into the death of 52-year-old Chantal Sebire whose case had prompted nominally Roman Catholic France to reexamine its stance on euthanasia to determine whether anything illegal had taken place.
It was not immediately clear how Sebire died.
The Dijon prosecutor has also opened an investigation into her death, although it has not yet been determined that an autopsy will take place, according to the prosecutor's office.
Sebire had suffered from esthesioneuroblastoma, a rare and incurable form of cancer for eight years, developing tumors in her nasal passages and sinuses that distorted her face and caused her nose and eyes to bulge.
The woman from Dijon, in eastern France, said drugs were ineffective against the excruciating pain caused by the condition and there was no reason doctors should not be permitted to hasten her death.
Some of my bones are eaten into. I don't have any more upper and lower jaws," she said in an interview last month, according to an Associated Press translation.
Sebire insisted there was no reason her doctors should not be permitted to help her commit suicide.
"I ask to be helped to die because I don't want this tumor to have the last word. I didn't fight for seven and a half years to have it having the last word," she said in the February interview, according to the Associated Press translation.
Assisted suicide is illegal in France, however.
The law permits only passive euthanasia removing feeding and hydration tubes when a person is in a coma, or inducing a coma and then removing the tubes.
Sebire's lawyer had tried to convince a French court that it was "barbaric" to put her through the ordeal of dying slowly in an artificial coma, something that could take up to two weeks while her three children looked on in anguish.
The court turned down the appeal Monday.
At the same time, Sebire wrote a letter to French President Nicolas Sarkozy appealing for help, but he responded by suggesting top doctors should reexamine her for a second opinion.
Her plight and the questions it raised caused so much public debate in France that when Sebire was found dead Wednesday night, it made front-page news in heavyweight papers including Le Figaro and Le Parisien.
David Beckham has been recalled to the England squad and is set to win his 100th cap in the prestige friendly international against France next Wednesday.
New England coach Fabio Capello left the football icon out of his first match against Switzerland, citing his lack of match fitness, but has relented for the testing match at the Stade de France against the 2006 World Cup runners-up.
Beckham, 32, takes his place in an initial 30-strong squad which will be whittled down to 23 after this weekend's Premier League matches.
Arsenal youngster Theo Walcott also wins a recall to the senior squad while Middlesbrough defender David Wheater is a surprise inclusion.
Chelsea's John Terry and Frank Lampard, who both missed the Switzerland win,
are included after recovering from injuries, but there is no place for Manchester United's highly-rated young goalkeeper Ben Foster.
Beckham was back in action for his Major League Soccer side Los Angeles Galaxy against Dallas in a pre-season friendly last week, but, if selected, will go into the match with no competitive action under his belt since last autumn.
"He's a great player and I think he would help any national team in the world," said Lalas.
(CNN) The vast majority of Africans have no access to a toilet, according to preliminary data from a World Health Organization report to be published later this year.
The WHO-UNICEF Joint Monitoring Program for Water Supply and Sanitation said the data shows 62 percent of Africans and 2.6 billion people worldwide have no toilet at home "and thus are vulnerable to a range of health risks.
"Sanitation is a cornerstone of public health" said WHO's Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan.
"Improved sanitation contributes enormously to human health and well-being, especially for girls and women.
"We know that simple, achievable interventions can reduce the risk of contracting diarrheal disease by a third.
The use of toilets and hand-washing with soap prevents the transfer of bacteria, viruses and parasites that might otherwise contaminate water supplies, soil and food.
"Nearly 40 percent of the world's population lacks access to toilets, and the dignity and safety that they provide," said Ann M. Veneman, UNICEF executive director.
"The absence of adequate sanitation has a serious impact on health and social development, especially for children.
European markets were jittery again Thursday following losses earlier in the week, while US shares played more positively and Asia markets continued to showed marked contrasts.
In Europe, the FTSE 100 closed down 50.40 points or 0.91 percent at 5,495, while the French CAC 40 fell 0.49 percent or 22.23 points to 4,534.
In Germany the Dax 30 ended the day at 6,320, dropping 41.23 or 0.65 per cent
Wall Street played more positively, with the Dow Jones closing up 261.66 or 2.16 percent at 12,361 and the Nasdaq up 2.18 percent or 48.15 points to 2,258 by 1830 GMT.
In Asia stocks swung heavily Thursday, with Hong Kong's Hang Seng falling sharply by 758.72 points or 3.47 percent to 21,108.
In contrast the Nikkei 225 was up 2.48 percent or 296.28 points to 12,260.
In China, the Shanghai Composite Index ended the day up 2.5 percent or 97 points at 3,948 although at one point it fell to 3,516, it's lowest point for more than nine months.
Several markets were shut Thursday due to public holiday.
It was the first explosion in Kilauea's main Halemaumau Crater since 1924, scattering debris over about 75 acres, said Jim Kauahikaua, scientist-in-charge at Hawaiian Volcano Observatory on the Big Island.
The 4,190-foot volcano has been erupting from fissures along its side steadily for more than a quarter-century.
Hawaii Volcanoes National Park draws thousands of people daily, with a visitors center and lodge near the crater rim.
No lava erupted as part of the 3 a.m. explosion.
That suggests it was caused by hydrothermal or gas buildup, Kauahikaua said.
Scientists monitoring the summit say that there's a "remote possibility" of an eruption inside the half-mile-wide crater, but that it's unlikely because other indicators of an eruption aren't present.
The explosion followed three months of increased activity in the crater, which has been releasing high levels of sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide, said observatory geochemist Jeff Sutton.
The park had previously closed a part of the road near the gas emissions, and that area was expanded Wednesday following the explosion.
Officials shut off the road at the Kilauea Military Camp toward the Jaggar Museum and observatory. Only volcano employees were allowed inside that part of the park.
Rocks shot from the explosion damaged a wooden fence that visitors used to peer into the crater and created hazards across roads and paths.
Al-Jazeera broadcast on Thursday an audiotape on which a voice identified as Osama bin Laden declares "Iraq is the perfect base to set up the jihad to liberate Palestine.
The voice calls on "Muslims in neighboring countries" to "do their best in supporting their mujahedeen brothers in Iraq.
"My speech to you is about the siege of Gaza and the way to liberate it," he said.
"The Gaza siege is a direct result of Annapolis," he adds, apparently referring to the site of November's summit in Annapolis, Maryland, where Israeli and Palestinian leadership agreed to work toward a two-state plan.
The speaker called for armed revolt in the Middle East.
"Palestine and its people have been suffering from too much bitterness for almost a century now on the hands of the Christians and the Jews.
Though the voice sounds like bin Laden, CNN has not been able to confirm that it is him.
However, a radical Islamist Web site reported earlier Wednesday that a statement from bin Laden was coming soon.
Bin Laden, who was behind the terrorist network's September 11 attacks, has been in hiding since the U.S. assault on Afghanistan that followed those strikes.
His last public statement was an audio message issued in December, when he urged his followers in Iraq to continue battling U.S. troops there.
Wednesday marked the fifth anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
MIAMI, Florida (CNN) A woman on a boat died after a spotted eagle ray leaped from the water off the Florida Keys Thursday and struck her, officials said.
The force of the blow pushed the woman backward and she died when she hit her head on the boat deck, officials said.
"It's just as freakish of an accident as I have heard," said Jorge Pino of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. "The chances of this occurring are so remote that most of us are completely astonished that this happened."
The commission identified the woman as Judy Kay Zagorski, 57, of Pigeon, Michigan.
The woman was seated or standing in the front of the boat as her husband piloted the vessel at about 25 mph out of a channel, Pino said. "The ray just actually popped up in front of the vessel," he said. "The father had not even a second to react.
It happened instantly and the woman fell backwards and, unfortunately, died as a result of the collision."
The accident happened off the coast of Marathon, about an hour's drive south of Miami.
The woman, who was with her husband and children, was taken to the Mariner Hospital in Tavernier, where she was pronounced dead.
Pino said he had seen rays leap into the air, but added, "it's very rare for them to collide with objects."
The spotted-eagle ray weighed about 75 to 80 pounds and had a six-foot wingspan, said Pino.
Spotted eagle rays can have a wingspan of up to 10 feet and can weigh 500 pounds, it said.
Sen. Hillary Clinton's bid for the White House suffered a blow Thursday when Michigan's state Senate adjourned without passing a bill to schedule a new Democratic primary.
The Senate's inaction makes it nearly impossible that a re-vote will occur.
Michigan held a primary in January, but the Democratic National Committee stripped the state of its delegates for scheduling the contests too early.
Sen. Barack Obama, in an interview with CNN's Larry King Thursday, responded to the Michigan decision.
"We're going to abide by whatever rules the Democratic National Committee puts forward, as we've done from the start," Obama said. "But I think that there should be some way for us to make sure that they're seated, figure out how their votes should count.
"I'm confident that some solution can be resolved that makes sure that they're represented.
When asked if he thinks there could be chaos at the DNC Convention in Denver in August, Obama said he believed it would be resolved by then.
"I'm confident that Democrats will come together, because we recognize there's so much at stake," Obama said.
The Clinton camp, in particular, had been pushing for a re-vote because it believed the New York senator would have done well, and it viewed the re-vote as an opportunity to narrow the lead that Obama has built up in the delegate count.
Clinton won the Michigan primary in January with 55 percent of the vote.
She was the only major candidate on the ballot.
DHARAMSALA, India (CNN) Tibet's spiritual leader Thursday said he was powerless to stop anti-Chinese violence as authorities in Beijing acknowledged for the first time that unrest had spread into neighboring Chinese provinces.
The official Xinhua News Agency said there were "riots in Tibetan-inhabited areas in the provinces of Sichuan and Gansu." Both provinces neighbor Tibet.
The Xinhua report blamed the incidents on supporters of the Dalai Lama.
On Thursday, Xinhua quoted police as saying officers opened fire and wounded four rioters "out of self-defense" on Sunday in what it called "Tibetan-inhabited Aba County in southwestern Sichuan Province.
The number of people killed in the violence remained in dispute.
The Tibetan government-in-exile said at least 80 people were killed by police, but local authorities and Xinhua said only 13 people died.
On Wednesday, new video suggested that security forces in Tibet had yet to gain control of Tibet and neighboring provinces which have suffered eruptions of anti-Chinese violence since last week.
Chinese authorities have arrested dozens of people and nearly 200 more surrendered to police for their admitted involvement in the deadly violence, Xinhua reported.
Sen. Hillary Clinton was in the White House on multiple occasions when her husband had sexual encounters with Monica Lewinsky, according to newly released documents.
The National Archives on Wednesday released more than 11,000 pages of Clinton's schedule when she was first lady.
Sen. Barack Obama's campaign pushed for the documents' release, arguing that their review is necessary to make a full evaluation of Clinton's experience as first lady.
But the documents also provide a glimpse into Clinton's life during her husband's publicized affair.
The scandal involving former president Bill Clinton and Lewinsky, first broke in the national media on January 21, 1998.
According to the documents, Hillary Clinton started that day at a private meeting in the White House.
She later made an appearance at a college in Baltimore, Maryland, and stayed there until late in the afternoon before returning to the White House for a black-tie dinner.
The schedules reveal where Clinton was, but provide no indication of how she dealt with the controversy.
The documents cover nearly 2,900 days.
An additional 27 days will be posted in the near future, the archives said.
Rafael Nadal came back to win the final five games and beat Jo-Wilfried Tsonga on Wednesday in an intense, crowd-pleasing rematch of their Australian Open semifinal.
Nadal, the defending Indian Wells champion, avenged his lopsided loss in Melbourne with a scrappy 6-7 7-6 7-5 victory in the fourth round of the Pacific Life Open.
Top seed Roger Federer, bidding for his fourth Indian Wells title in five years, cruised to a 6-3 6-4 victory over Ivan Ljubicic to also move into the quarterfinals.
James Blake and Mardy Fish, the two U.S. players remaining in the men's competition, each won to advance to the quarterfinals.
Blake took a 6-4 6-2 victory over Richard Gasquet, and Fish beat two-time Indian Wells champion Lleyton Hewitt 7-5 3-6 7-6.
After Tsonga, a hard-hitting Frenchman, went up 5-2 in the third set, Nadal held serve the rest of the way and broke Tsonga's serve in the ninth and 11th games to take a 6-5 lead. With the crowd beginning to cheer even as he set up for the shot, the Spaniard capped the match by slamming an overhead past Tsonga.
out for revenge, but acknowledged that the match was significant in another way.
He believes Tsonga has the potential to move into the top three or four spots, saying, "He has an unbelievable forehand.
Maria Sharapova ran her 2008 record to 18-0 and gained the women's semifinals on Wednesday with a 7-6(2), 6-1 victory over defending champion Daniela Hantuchova.
Sharapova won the tournament in 2006, and Hantuchova has taken the title twice, the first time in 2002.
Second-seeded Kuznetsova, trying to return to the final for a second straight year, lost to Radwanska in the Australian Open third round but made sure there would be no repeat this time.
The Russian jumped out to 4-0 in the first set, and after losing her serve to love for 3-3 in the second, broke back immediately and served out.
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) Stop that $1 million check: It turns out the call girl linked to Eliot Spitzer had already shed her clothes for "Girls Gone Wild" as an 18-year-old while partying in Miami, Florida, the video company's founder said Tuesday.
Joe Francis reached out to Ashley Alexandra Dupre, now 22, with an offer of $1 million to appear in a non-nude spread for his company's new magazine, plus a chance to join the "Girls Gone Wild" tour bus, his company announced Tuesday.
Did anyone think to check the archives?
"It'll save me a million bucks," Francis said Tuesday.
"It's kind of like finding a winning lottery ticket in the cushions of your couch.
Francis said at that point, his offer was off the table:
He said his employees got to work on pulling the footage and planned to offer it on the Web site by Tuesday evening, with a free sampling on the front page and the rest available with a $29.95 monthly subscription.
According to a "Girls Gone Wild" press release, Dupre visited Miami in 2003 to celebrate her 18th birthday. After fighting with a friend and getting thrown out of her hotel, Dupre found a nearby "Girls Gone Wild" bus, the company said.
She signed legal papers and spent a full week on the bus, filming seven full-length tapes that included nudity and same-sex encounters, according to the company.
"I personally ended up buying her a Greyhound bus ticket back home to North Carolina," Francis said.
Kuwait's leader dissolved parliament on Wednesday and called for early elections, after the Cabinet resigned this week following a power struggle with the government.
New elections have been set for May 17, according to Kuwait's state-run news agency, KUNA.
According to Kuwait's constitution, elections must be held within 60 days of dissolving parliament.
Kuwait's parliament, made up mostly of opposition politicians, has been locked in a feud with the government which it accuses of corruption and abuse of power.
Al-Sabah said he tried to get lawmakers and government ministers to reconcile their differences, but they only inflamed the situation through their statements to the media.
South Korea's food authorities will send a fact-finding mission to a Chinese factory that produces a popular snack food found to contain a suspected rat's head.
The Korea Food and Drug Administration said Thursday it will send investigators to the factory that produces popular shrimp crackers for South Korea's leading processed food company Nongshim after the suspected animal part was found.
Nongshim has apologized for the incident and is recalling the snack from shops across South Korea.
Pakistan's new parliament elected the country's first female speaker Wednesday from the party of assassinated opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.
Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party came in on top in February 18 elections and is preparing to lead a new coalition government united against U.S.-backed President Pervez Musharraf, whose supporters were routed in the polls.
Still, her party has yet to resolve a potentially damaging wrangle over who should be the next prime minister.
Bhutto's son and political heir flew to Pakistan on Wednesday to help resolve the matter. The elevation of the 51-year-old Mirza, who bears a striking resemblance to Bhutto, was a formality;
she was nominated by her party the day before.
As the result was read out, lawmakers slapped their desks loudly by way of applause.
Mirza stood, smiled modestly and repeatedly touched her forehead in a gesture of thanks to her peers.
Elahi, whose party is Musharraf's main political prop, pledged his "full cooperation" in the assembly.
KATHMANDU, Nepal (CNN) Two Communist Party workers and a candidate for a small leftist political party were killed less than a month before a historic vote in Nepal, police said Wednesday.
Gunmen raided the home of National People's Front candidate Kamal Prasad Adhikari, shooting him four times Tuesday night after he refused to come out of the house in the southeastern town of Nepalganj, police said.
He died in a hospital Wednesday morning.
The killing came after the European Union and the United Nations expressed concerns about pre-election violence in Nepal.
The election will set the makeup of Nepal's 601-member constituent assembly, which will decide the fate of the country's monarchy and prepare a new constitution.
The U.N. Mission in Nepal, which is helping the country's effort to hold fair elections, expressed its "deep concern" over Adhikari's killing.
"Violence and threats against candidates represent a serious obstacle to the creation of a free and fair atmosphere for the election, and all efforts
A police official said the killing is under investigation. But according to local reports, Janatantrik Terai Mukti Morcha claimed responsibility for the attack.
It is one of the largest and oldest armed groups pushing for the rights of the ethnic Madhesi people in southern Nepal.
Adhikari was to represent the National People's Front, also known as Rastriya Jana Morcha a splinter group of the Communist Party of Nepal in the April 10 vote.
Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura appointed the popular cartoon robot cat as "anime ambassador," handing a human-sized Doraemon doll an official certificate at an inauguration ceremony, along with dozens of "dorayaki" red bean pancakes his favorite dessert piled on a huge plate.
Komura told the doll, with an unidentified person inside, that he hoped he would widely promote Japanese animated cartoons, or "anime.
"Doraemon, I hope you will travel around the world as an anime ambassador to deepen people's understanding of Japan so they will become friends with Japan," Komura told the blue-and-white cat.
The appointment is part of Japan's recent effort to harness the power of pop culture in diplomacy.
This year, the ministry plans to arrange showings of a Doraemon film in Singapore, China, Spain, France, and at other Japanese diplomatic missions around the world.
Doraemon, through voice actress Wasabi Mizuta, promised Komura that "Through my cartoons, I hope to convey to people abroad what ordinary Japanese people think, our lifestyles and what kind of future we want to build.
Created by cartoonist Fujiko F. Fujio, Doraemon is a Japanese cultural icon and is popular around the world, especially in Asia.
The robotic cat travels back in time from the 22nd century and uses gadgets such as a "time machine" and an "anywhere door" that come out of a fourth-dimensional pocket on his stomach to help his friends, allowing them to travel anywhere and to any time they wish.
Astro Boy, another cartoon icon, was named last November as ambassador for overseas safety.
KINSHASA, Congo (CNN) A park ranger has been arrested for allegedly masterminding the massacre of endangered mountain gorillas, conservationists said Wednesday.
Honore Mashagiro, a ranger in Congo's Virunga National Park, is the chief suspect in the slaying last summer of 10 gorillas who belonged to a group known to environmentalists as the Rugendo family.
Mashagiro is accused of arranging the mass killing to deter conservationists who were trying to prevent the destruction of the animals' rainforest habitat, the international conservation group WildlifeDirect said.
Loggers cut down the forest's trees to make charcoal, a lucrative business.
"This threatened the gorilla habitat, so when the rangers tried to protect the forest, he allegedly orchestrated the gorilla massacres to discourage them," the group said.
Only about 700 mountain gorillas remain in the world, an estimated 380 of them in the Virunga range.
About 100 are believed to live on the Congo side of the border.
Virunga National Park is located in a lawless swath of eastern Congo, bordering Rwanda and Uganda, that the country's government has struggled to bring under control for years.
Established in 1925 as Africa's first national park, it was classified as a U.N. World Heritage site in 1979.
WildlifeDirect called the arrest of Mashagiro "a major breakthrough" and said his pending prosecution is "a moment of hope for all of us.
TORONTO, Canada (CNN) A Canadian university ruled Tuesday against expelling a first-year engineering student accused of cheating through an online study group on Facebook.
Chris Avenir's apparent exhortation to fellow Ryerson University engineering students to "input solutions" to assignment problems on the social networking site raised the ire of a professor.
On Tuesday, the 18-year-old was told that while he wouldn't be expelled he would receive a zero on the assignment section of the chemistry course, which was worth 10 percent of his final grade.
Despite that, Avenir still passed the course.
The case captured headlines around the world, with bloggers debating whether Web postings constituted cheating.
"Chris in our view is still innocent, so it is still too bad that he got zero for that 10 percent," said Nora Loreto, president of the Ryerson Students' Union.
"But considering we were facing expulsion I think this is a victory, certainly a broader victory for the students at Ryerson.
Last term, Avenir became administrator of the online group Dungeons/Mastering Chemistry Solutions.
In all, 147 classmates used the group to swap tips on assignments.
Avenir's supporters argued the online group he ran was no different from any kind of homework help or tutoring circle.
Earlier, London's FTSE 100 ended down amid banking sector fears
The slides came on top of plunging oil and gold prices, and just a day after a U.S. Federal Reserve rate cut aimed at lifting some of the economic gloom.
The Dow slid 293.89 points, or 2.37 percent, to close at 12099. The Nasdaq and S&P suffered similar percentage losses.
The Dow slumped after investors initially tried to push stocks higher in the morning on better-than-expected earnings from Morgan Stanley.
"This is standard profit-taking after a rally," said Dave Rovelli, managing director of U.S. equity trading at Canaccord Adams.
He told CNNMoney.com that although the Fed news from the previous session and the financial news from Wednesday's session were positive, credit crisis fears remain.
Britain's biggest mortgage lender Halifax Bank of Scotland saw shares dive nearly 20 percent at one point before recovering as the bank robustly denied rumors of liquidity problems that revived fears over the impact of the global credit crunch.
Early gains, mirroring a bounce in Asian stocks, were lost as the market fell flat, leaving London's FTSE 100 index 56.1 points down at 5550 at 1640GMT as retailers warned of tough conditions.
The French CAC40 and German DAX30 also fell slightly, down 0.41 percent and 0.25 percent respectively.
LONDON, England (CNN) The parents of missing Madeleine McCann have accepted &pound; 550,000 ($1.1 million) libel damages and an apology over stories published in two British newspapers that alleged they were involved in the disappearance or death of the girl.
In a statement read by the couple's spokesman, Clarence Mitchell, outside the High Court in London on Wednesday, the McCanns said they were "pleased that Express Newspapers have today admitted the utter falsity of the numerous grotesque and grossly defamatory allegations that their titles published.
The McCanns accepted the damages and the couple said the money will go towards the Find Madeleine campaign.
The Daily Express and Daily Star, both owned by Express Newspapers, printed an apology on the front page of their Wednesday editions apologizing to Kate and Gerry McCann for suggesting the couple was responsible for the death of their daughter.
The newspapers said there was no evidence to back up a series of articles they printed alleging the parents had a role in their daughter's disappearance or death. "Kate and Gerry are completely innocent of any involvement in their daughter's disappearance," the newspapers wrote.
Both papers said they had paid "substantial" sums to Madeleine's Fund as a way of expressing their regret.
The fund is a nonprofit company that says it was set up to help find Madeleine, support her parents and bring to justice anyone who played a role in her disappearance.
"Kate and Gerry, we are truly sorry to have added to your distress," the Daily Express wrote. "We assure you that we hope Madeleine will one day be found alive and well and will be restored to her loving family.
Just 31 percent of Americans approve of how President Bush is handling his job, according to a poll released Wednesday, the fifth anniversary of the start of the Iraq war.
Sixty-seven percent of those questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey disapprove of the president's performance.
The 31 percent approval number is a new low for Bush in CNN polling, and 40 points lower than the president's number at the start of the Iraq war.
"Bush's approval rating five years ago, at the start of the Iraq war, was 71 percent, and that 40-point drop is almost identical to the drop President Lyndon Johnson faced during the Vietnam War," said CNN polling director Keating Holland.
"Johnson's approval rating was 74 percent just before Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin resolution in 1964, which effectively authorized the Vietnam War. Four years later, his approval was down to 35 percent, a 39-point drop that is statistically identical to what Bush has faced so far over the length of the Iraq war," he said.
Predictably, Democrats and Republicans don't see eye to eye when it comes to Bush:
64 percent of Republicans approve of Bush's job performance, while just 9 percent of Democrats do.
The president's approval rating has been below 35 percent since October and has not cracked 40 percent since September 2006.
Still, Bush's approval number is still better than the lowest number for his father, George H.W. Bush, who bottomed out at 29 percent in July 1992;
"Lame-duck presidents presiding over unpopular wars or struggling economies have gotten low approval ratings in the past." Holland said.
"By contrast, lame ducks like Ronald Reagan, Dwight Eisenhower and Bill Clinton had robust approval ratings in their final years in office, but each one was presiding over good economic times and a country at peace.
The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll was conducted by telephone with 1,019 adult Americans from Friday through Sunday.
(CNN) A new statement attributed to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden condemns European countries for siding with the United States in Afghanistan and for allowing the publication of cartoons considered insulting to Islam's prophet, Mohammed.
"This is the greater and more serious tragedy, and the reckoning for it will be more severe," the speaker in the five-minute audio recording says.
The identity of the speaker could not be independently determined.
However, a radical Islamist Web site reported earlier Wednesday that a statement from bin Laden was coming shortly.
Bin Laden, who was behind the terrorist network's September 11 attacks, has been in hiding since the U.S. assault on Afghanistan that followed those strikes.
His last public statement was an audio message issued in December, when he urged his followers in Iraq to continue battling U.S. troops there.
Wednesday marked the fifth anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
New video from China suggests that security forces have yet to gain complete control of Tibet and neighboring provinces which have suffered eruptions of anti-Chinese violence since last week.
Film of a crowd some on horseback attempting to storm a government building has been shot by a Canadian television crew that managed to gain access to a Chinese town in Gansu province despite attempts by Chinese authorities to keep foreign media away from the region.
Meanwhile UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao says he is ready to talk to the Dalai Lama if the Tibetan spiritual leader renounces violence and demands for Tibetan independence.
Brown said he spoke with Wen on Wednesday, pressing his government for constraint in dealing with the protesters.
But Chinese officials hold firm in their stance that the Dalai Lama masterminded the violence to undermine the Beijing Olympics and that he has demanded Tibetan independence.
Wen on Tuesday called the Dalai Lama's renunciations "nothing but lies.
The Dalai Lama, who threatened Tuesday to resign as leader of Tibet's government-in-exile if the violence got out of control, met Wednesday with leaders of several Tibetan activist groups.
The younger activists, in defiance of their pacifist spiritual leader, demand Tibetan independence and are hoping to derail the Beijing Olympics.
The head of the Beijing Olympics said efforts by Tibetan activists to promote an international boycott of the Summer Games are "doomed to failure."
He also rejected demands by Tibetan activists that the Olympic torch relay be routed away from Tibet.
Artists and other creative types are having their way with hotel rooms and they're thinking way outside the box.
Amsterdam, Netherlands: The Winston
Located in the Red Light District on the oldest street in Amsterdam, the Winston, now owned by the English hotel group St. Christopher's, has quite a past.
The previous owner, the late Frans Verlinden, cultivated a bohemian atmosphere in the 1980s and '90s, with "hookers, journalists, filmmakers, but most of all, artists" as frequent guests, explains manager Donald Kauwoh.
Verlinden spearheaded the art-hotel trend and hired artist Aldert Mantje to select colleagues to decorate rooms and install temporary exhibits.
The anime-inspired Playnation room, by Adriaan Koster and Menno Schenk, sports psychedelic swirls and patterns on the walls, and a giant 3-D gold robot in the corner.
Singapore: The New Majestic
When hotelier Loh Lik Peng renovated a hotel built from four Chinatown shop houses in 2006, he collaborated with the Asian Art Options collective to find artists to paint murals in all 30 rooms.
Justin Lee riffs off pop culture in three of the rooms.
The one titled Da Jie ("Big Sister") features Mickey Mouse ears containing double-happiness symbols.
Nice, France: The Windsor
Inspired by a 1987 Belgian exhibition of artist-decorated rooms, Bernard Redolfi commissioned one artist a year to transform one of the Windsor's rooms.
The hotel is now owned by his niece Odile Payen-Redolfi, who continues the tradition.
So far, 25 of the 57 rooms have received the treatment.
French photographer Raymond Hains lived in Room 40 for three years; when he left in 1995, he installed a portrait of himself taken there.
In Room 65, Ben Vautier spray painted phrases in French (such as "I dreamed that I fell in love with the stranger in Room 17") in red, yellow, and blue on the walls.
Moves to punish China over its handling of violence in Tibet gained momentum Tuesday, with a novel suggestion for a mini-boycott of the Beijing Olympics by VIPs at the opening ceremony.
Such a protest by world leaders would be a huge slap in the face for China's Communist leadership.
France's outspoken foreign minister, former humanitarian campaigner Bernard Kouchner, said the idea "is interesting.
Kouchner said he wants to discuss it with other foreign ministers from the 27-nation European Union next week.
The idea of skipping the August 8 opening ceremony "is less negative than a general boycott," Kouchner said. "We are considering it.
Asked about Kouchner's statement, China's U.N. Ambassador Wang Guangya said:
"Certainly I think what he said is not shared by most of the people in the world.
Prince Charles already has said he will skip the Olympics.
He supports Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, who has been living in exile since an uprising against Chinese rule in 1959.
International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge said last month that he expects many heads of state including President Bush, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy to attend the opening ceremony.
U.S. Olympic Committee spokesman Darryl Seibel said there are no rules forcing athletes to attend opening ceremonies.
"We strongly encourage our athletes to participate in opening ceremonies," Seibel said. "It is a tremendous honor to walk into the Olympic Stadium behind the flag of your nation, and to do so in a ceremony honoring and celebrating athletes from around the world.
(CNN) Choking back tears, the president of East Timor said goodbye Wednesday to the Australian hospital staff who took care of him for five weeks following an assassination attempt at home.
President Jose Ramos-Horta, 58, looked thin and walked gingerly as he left the hospital where he had been recuperating after rebels shot him in the back during a coordinated attack in East Timor's capital, Dili, on February 11.
Ramos-Horta said he expects to stay in Australia for a few more days so doctors can monitor his progress. He intends to return to his country "in a few weeks' time," he said.
The president told hospital staff that he remembered "every detail" from the moment he was shot, the Australian Associated Press reported.
"On the way to the heliport I fell off the chair a few times because there were no belts," the national news agency quoted Ramos-Horta as saying.
Authorities blamed the attack on rebel soldiers led by leader Maj. Alfredo Reinado.
He was killed in the assault, along with another attacker and a presidential bodyguard.
About 600 East Timorese soldiers were dismissed in March 2006 after they went on strike against alleged discrimination in the military.
Reinado, the Australian-trained former head of East Timor's military police, joined the revolt and became its leader.
He was later captured, but broke out of prison and returned to lead disaffected troops.
The coordinated attack on February 11 also targeted the country's prime minister Xanana Gusmao the same day. He escaped unhurt.
After the assassination attempt, Australia sent more than 200 troops and police to help stabilize East Timor.
Ramos-Horta shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1996 for his work on behalf of the East Timorese people during the country's quarter-century occupation by Indonesia.
As he left the hospital Wednesday, the president issued this appeal to his countrymen:
"My message to my people, the people back home, is please forgo violence, hatred, with weapons, with machete, with arson," he said. "We only destroy each other, destroy the country."
TOKYO, Japan (CNN) Japan's upper house of parliament voted down the nomination of former Finance Ministry bureaucrat Koji Tanami as central bank chief, leaving that seat vacant from Wednesday for the first time since World War II.
The ruling coalition Tuesday proposed Tanami, 68, now governor of Japan Bank for International Cooperation, to head the Bank of Japan.
The opposition, which controls the upper house of parliament, then announced it would veto him.
The political deadlock is a major embarrassment for Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda's government, which has faced calls to show leadership as the stewards of the world's second-largest economy amid rising worries of a global financial downturn.
The upper house rejected Tanami in a 125-112 vote, the second time in a week that the opposition rejected a government-backed candidate for Bank of Japan head.
Last week, the opposition, led by the Democrats, rejected the government's first pick, Bank of Japan Deputy Governor Toshiro Muto also because he was a former Ministry of Finance bureaucrat.
The confrontation has brewed for weeks.
The world's second largest economy is in danger of slipping into a recession after six years of moderate growth, battered by the plunging dollar, volatile stock markets and soaring oil prices.
The five-year term of current Bank of Japan Governor Toshihiko Fukui ends Wednesday.
Five years after he green-lighted the war in Iraq, President Bush will mark the anniversary by calling the debate over the conflict "understandable" but insisting that a continued U.S. presence there is crucial.
"The answers are clear to me," Bush says, according to excerpts of his speech to be delivered at the Pentagon on Wednesday, the day the war began in 2003.
"Removing Saddam Hussein from power was the right decision, and this is a fight America can and must win.
Almost 4,000 American troops have died in the war, a painful toll that Bush acknowledges in his remarks.
"No one would argue that this war has not come at a high cost in lives and treasure, but those costs are necessary when we consider the cost of a strategic victory for our enemies in Iraq."
Bush contends that the troop surge he ordered in January 2007 has been a success and was necessary at a point when "the fight in Iraq was faltering.
"For the terrorists, Iraq was supposed to be the place where al Qaeda rallied Arab masses to drive America out. Instead, Iraq has become the place where Arabs joined with Americans to drive al Qaeda out."
Still, large-scale attacks by terrorists and insurgent groups continue in Iraq.
Bombings killed six Iraqis and wounded 51 in northeastern Baghdad and Mosul on Tuesday, and the death toll from a Monday suicide bombing in Karbala rose to 50.
In the excerpts, Bush acknowledges critics of the war including Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and says that they "can no longer credibly argue that we are losing in Iraq, so now they argue the war costs too much.
Recently, two economists wrote a column suggesting that the war in Iraq will wind up costing the United States more than $3 trillion.
PARIS, France (CNN) The French trader accused of massive fraud at banking giant Societe Generale has been released from prison following a court order in Paris earlier Tuesday.
Jerome Kerviel had been in jail for more than a month while investigators probe Societe Generale's trading losses of more than $7.2 billion.
The bank attributed the losses to fraud by Kerviel, who traded European index futures for the bank.
However, he has now been released under conditions which restrict him from leaving the Paris region, The Associated Press reported.
While out of Paris' grim LaSante prison, Kerviel will be under judicial control, CNN's Jim Bittermann said before his release.
The judge can restrict Kerviel's movements or who he talks to.
Prosecutors have said they wanted to keep Kerviel jailed to prevent him from speaking to accomplices.
A date for his trial has not been set.
French authorities detained another trader on March 12 as part of the case but released him without charge the next day.
A lawyer for Kerviel, Guillaume Selnet, said the detention of the second trader was merely a tactic by investigators to make the case seem larger than it really is.
Selnet pointed out that authorities briefly detained another trader last month, shortly before Kerviel's previous detention hearing.
"They are doing exactly the same thing now, which is simply putting up a smokescreen immediately before the hearing in order to make people believe that Jerome has accomplices that have not been identified," Selnet told CNN last week.
An interim report from independent board members at Societe Generale concluded that Kerviel alone was responsible for the losses, which the bank announced in January.
Kerviel has been charged with abuse of confidence and illegal use of computers for his role in the losses but has not been charged with fraud.
JERUSALEM (CNN) German Chancellor Angela Merkel told Israel of Germany's "Holocaust shame," and asserted its support for the Jewish state during an unprecedented speech to the Knesset on Tuesday.
Germany and Israel are linked "in a very special way" by the memory of the Holocaust, in which 6 million Jews were killed under Nazi Germany and its allies in World War II, she said in the first address a German chancellor has ever made to the Knesset.
"I bow my head before the survivors and I bow my head before you in tribute to the fact that you were able to survive.
Anti-Semitism, racism and xenophobia "must never take root again in Germany or in Europe," she said, and vowed to battle any flare-ups.
Speaking to the Knesset, Angela Merkel also spoke of Germany's unwavering support for Israel calling the Iranian president's nuclear ambitions "a major danger" not only to Israel, but to the world as well.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said his country's nuclear program is intended for peaceful purposes only, but Merkel told the Israeli parliament that he needs to provide clear evidence supporting that assertion.
Merkel said she supports the two-state solution to the Mideast conflict, discussed last November by the key parties in Annapolis, Maryland.
It calls for Israelis and Palestinians to live side by side in separate states.
She called rocket attacks by Palestinians into Israel "a crime," and said they do nothing to solve the conflict.
But she noted that effecting a two-state solution would require "strength to make painful compromises.
More than 100 people surrendered themselves to police and admitted involvement in the deadly clashes last week between police and anti-Chinese protesters in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa, according to China's state-run Xinhua news agency.
The number of people killed in Friday's clashes remained in dispute.
The Tibetan government in exile said at least 80 people were killed by Lhasa police, but local authorities and Xinhua said only 13 people died.
"Those who surrender and provide information on other lawbreakers will be exempt from punishment," Xinhua quoted a police notice as saying.
Doje Cering, 25, told Xinhua he smashed a red car and a white van with stones during the protests.
He said he was drunk at home when he heard someone shouting at him to get out or they would burn down his house.
He told Xinhua he blindly followed them.
Baema Chilain, vice-chairman of the regional government, told Xinhua some people had turned in money they had looted.
A preliminary investigation showed the violence caused losses exceeding 99.1 million yuan, or about $14 million, as of Tuesday night, Xinhua said, citing the regional department of commerce.
Kenyan lawmakers unanimously approved a power-sharing deal Tuesday aimed at salvaging a country once seen as one of the most stable and prosperous in Africa, bringing together two men whose dispute over the presidency unleashed weeks of deadly violence.
Under the deal approved Tuesday, Odinga will fill a newly created post of prime minister.
"Let us make up our minds," Kibaki told lawmakers Tuesday in urging them to pass the deal, saying the agreement was necessary to rebuild the nation.
More than 1,000 people died and a half-million displaced from their homes in the violence.
Much of the violence was ethnic, pitting other tribes against Kibaki's Kikuyu, long resented for their dominance of politics and business here.
Odinga will likely be sworn in within days.
The men agreed to share power February 28 under mounting pressure from leaders in Africa and beyond, including the United States, which issued veiled threats about its future relationship with Kenya's leaders.
The leaders now must try to heal a divided nation, as well as restore one of Africa's most promising economies.
Kenya, one of the most tourist-friendly countries in Africa, has seen up to $1 billion in losses linked to the turmoil.
Sen. Barack Obama in a speech Tuesday addressed the controversy surrounding his former minister, using it as an opportunity to challenge Americans to take a closer look at race relations.
Wright recently retired as pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, where the senator from Illinois worships.
Some of Wright's old sermons came under fire after a news report last week turned some of his most controversial comments into a YouTube phenomenon.
In one, the minister said America had brought the September 11 attacks upon itself.
In another, he said Sen. Hillary Clinton had an advantage over Obama because she is white.
Speaking before a relatively small, diverse crowd, Obama emphasized his upbringing as "the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas.
Unlike many of Obama's campaign events where he generally appears onstage backed by an overflow crowd of supporters this time Obama took the stage alone, backed by a row of U.S. flags.
"I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible," he said. "It's a story that hasn't made me the most conventional candidate.
But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts that out of many, we are truly one."
The U.S. Federal Reserve cut a key short-term interest rate by three-quarters of a percentage point Tuesday. The federal funds rate, an overnight bank lending rate that affects how much interest consumers pay on credit cards, home equity lines of credit and auto loans, was cut to 2.25 percent.
Reaction to the Fed announcement was initially tepid as investors were betting on a full 1 percent cut, but by the end of the day the Dow had risen another 200 points to close 420 up at 12393.
after a little pullback," said Matt King, chief investment officer at Bell Investment Advisors.
It is the sixth cut in the past six months and comes at a time when the Fed is trying to keep the U.S. economy from slipping into recession although many think it's already entered one.
Interest rate cuts are usually viewed as beneficial for the economy since they typically lead to more lending.
But some experts think lower rates won't solve the credit crunch paralyzing Wall Street.
Others are worried the rate cuts will cause a continued weakening in the value of the dollar and a further spike in commodity prices
Europe's main stock markets also rebounded after sharp losses the previous day, with London's FTSE 100 index jumping 3.54 percent by 1700 GMT.
The American Embassy in Yemen was the target of a mortar attack Tuesday, the U.S. State Department said, contradicting a suggestion from the Yemeni government the attack targeted a school where 13 were injured.
"Our conversations in Yemen have led us to the conclusion that the attack was directed against our embassy," according to a statement released Tuesday evening. "Since this is an ongoing investigation, we are not going to talk about the specifics of the case.
Earlier, a source with knowledge of the circumstances surrounding Tuesday's mortar attack in the capital city of San'a but unauthorized to speak on the record told CNN there was a "clear and strong indication" the U.S. embassy was targeted.
"My strong belief is that there is almost no doubt this is an effort directed at the U.S. embassy," the source said.
The Yemeni government said the attack Tuesday which injured 13 students, three critically, at the Seventh of July school for girls, near the embassy could have stemmed from a personal dispute involving the school's headmistress.
Yemen's ambassador to the United States, Abdulwahab Abdulla al-Hajjri, said the attack was "a private dispute.
"The target was someone inside the school," al-Hajjri said. "It had nothing to do with the U.S. Embassy. The U.S. Embassy was not a target.
Yemeni soldiers guarding the embassy were hurt in the attack. The U.S. Embassy will be closed Wednesday.
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh condemned the attack and offered rewards to anyone who assists in the investigation, according to Saba, Yemen's official news agency.
(CNN) A Ukrainian policeman has died of injuries sustained in clashes between Serbian demonstrators and U.N. forces in Kosovo, a U.N. spokesman said Tuesday.
The policeman died late Monday in a French military hospital, U.N. spokesman Alexander Ivanko said from Pristina.
The policeman was among about 40 U.N. police who were hurt in the clashes earlier in the day.
Twelve soldiers from NATO's force in Kosovo, or KFOR, were also hurt, Ivanko said.
Doctors have said that a Serb protester is in a coma and suffering severe injuries to the brain after the clashes at a U.N. courthouse, AP added.
A local journalist said about 20 others, mostly protesters, were taken to a hospital for treatment of shock, and a Serb member of the Kosovo police force was being treated for a gunshot wound.
Mitrovica was calmer Tuesday, U.N spokesman Ivanko said.
"It seems to be relatively quiet," he said. "There was some rock throwing at KFOR in north Mitrovica. Otherwise, everything's fine."
The clashes began when the U.N. and NATO forces tried to remove about 300 Serbian demonstrators who had taken over a U.N. building in north Mitrovica a divided Kosovo town where ethnic Serbs control the northern half and ethnic Albanians control the southern half.
It was some of the worst violence since Kosovo declared independence from Serbia last month and led the United Nations to withdraw its international police personnel from the area, leaving KFOR in charge of security.
The Serbs took control of the building Friday and the United Nations tried over the weekend to negotiate with them to leave, Ivanko said.
The Serbs had been told very clearly as early as Sunday night that the U.N. forces would move in to take control, he said.
Ivanko said the protesters also threw rocks, Molotov cocktails, and firecrackers at police. NATO troops responded with tear gas, Ivanko said.
The violence prompted the United Nations to evacuate all international police personnel from northern Mitrovica.
JAKARTA, Indonesia (CNN) Indonesia has temporarily grounded all Adam Air flights starting Wednesday because it says the discount airliner "failed to implement quality standards for its aircraft.
"The operational specification of Adam Air will be revoked. In effect, Adam Air will not be allowed to operate any airplanes effective 12 a.m. Wednesday, 18 March 2008," according to a statement from Indonesia's civil aviation chief, Budhi Muliawan Suyitno.
On January 1, 2007, Adam Air Flight 574 crashed, killing all 102 people on board.
For more than a week after the Adam Air flight disappeared off the radar screens, Indonesian authorities scoured the mountainous terrain of western Sulawesi province and the Java Sea for any sign of the missing aircraft, but found nothing.
The suspension will last for three months, according to Bambang Ervan, a spokesman for Indonesia's Air Transport Directorate.
Adam Air's permit was revoked because it "failed to implement quality standards for its aircraft, including pilot training and supervision in accordance with standard operational procedures," Ervan said.
Adam Air CEO Adam Suherman told CNN the airline is not surprised by the Air Transport Office's announcement.
He said the airline had to suspend its operations Tuesday morning because one of its main investors pulled out, causing the airliner financial problems.
(CNN) Science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke, who co-wrote the epic film "2001:
A Space Odyssey" and raised the idea of communications satellites in the 1940s, has died at age 90, an associate said.
Clarke had been wheelchair-bound for several years with complications stemming from a youthful bout with polio and had suffered from back trouble recently, said Scott Chase, the secretary of the nonprofit Arthur C. Clarke Foundation.
He died early Wednesday at a hospital in Colombo, Sri Lanka, where he had lived since the 1950s, Chase said.
"He had been taken to hospital in what we had hoped was one of the slings and arrows of being 90, but in this case it was his final visit," he said.
As a Royal Air Force officer during World War II, Clarke took part in the early development of radar.
In a paper written for the radio journal "Wireless World" in 1945, he suggested that artificial satellites hovering above fixed spot above Earth could be used to relay telecommunications signals across the globe.
He is widely credited with introducing the idea of the communications satellite, the first of which were launched in the early 1960s.
But he never patented the idea, prompting a 1965 essay that he subtitled, "How I Lost a Billion Dollars in My Spare Time.
Clarke wrote dozens of novels and collections of short stories and more than 30 non-fiction works during a career as a writer that began in the 1950s.
He served as a television commentator during several of the Apollo moon missions and co-wrote a 1970 account of the first lunar landing with the Apollo 11 crew.
He was knighted in 1998.
Australian Open semifinalist Jelena Jankovic reached the fourth round of the Pacific Life Open on Monday with a straight-sets win over Japanese veteran Ai Sugiyama.
"Especially with the wind you cannot lose your concentration, because as soon as you do that you start making a lot of errors, and then you lose your rhythm," added Jankovic, who said her four double-faults in the second set were a direct result of the conditions.
"I'm healthy at the moment, and that's why you can see me smiling more on the court, compared to the beginning of the year, where I was not really being myself because I was hurt and I couldn't enjoy my game.
Jankovic's compatriot Ana Ivanovic, the top seed, headlined women's action Monday at the $5.7 million tournament that features both a WTA tier one draw and an ATP Masters Series event.
Ivanovic, whose runner-up finish to Sharapova at the Australian Open propelled her to number two in the world, faces Italy's Tathiana Garbin.
(CNN) A truck flipped on its side Sunday on a highway in Sacramento, California, and let loose its cargo of honey bees.
"There was somewhere between six [million] and 16 million of them running around out there," Officer Steve Merchant of the California Highway Patrol told CNN.
The bees stung cops and firefighters who tried to corral them.
They prompted authorities to warn drivers to roll up their windows and turn off their air conditioning lest a vent suck in a bee or two.
"People were being stung left and right," Merchant said. "It was an ugly, ugly scene.
The bees escaped from their crates when a big rig carrying more than 400 colonies, or hives, flipped on its side on Highway 99 shortly before 10 a.m.
The colonies were packed in crates that were unloaded from the trailer and reloaded on to other trucks.
Officials do not yet know what caused the truck to turn on its side, but said they think the driver may have been driving too fast.
The load was bound for Yakima, Washington.
The bees had likely been used to help pollinate an almond orchard in Sacramento, California, the Sacramento Bee newspaper said.
In the United States, the honeybee, the world's premier pollinator, experienced a dramatic 40 percent decline, from nearly six million to less than two and a half million, in the last two decades.
In 2005, for the first time in 85 years, the United States was forced to import honeybees in order to meet its pollination demands.
Back in Sacramento, authorities had contained and cleaned up the mess by 5 p.m.
They didn't know how many bees remained unaccounted for, but they were getting no calls from panicked motorists.
"In this instance," Merchant said, "no news is good news.
MADRID, Spain (CNN) A drummer for the Swedish pop group ABBA has died after an apparent accident at his home in Spain, a Civil Guard spokeswoman said Monday.
Ola Brunkert was found dead late Sunday at his home in the town of Arta on Spain's Mediterranean island of Mallorca, the spokeswoman said.
Police believe Brunkert may have fallen against a glass partition separating his home's kitchen from the garden, and the glass broke and fatally cut his throat, she said.
An official cause of death is pending until after an autopsy.
Brunkert, born in 1946 in Sweden, played drums on ABBA's first single, "People Need Love," according to Abba's official Web site.
He was not among the four best-known members of ABBA whose faces adorned the album covers Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Bjorn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Agnetha Faltskog but he was a key supporting musician for the group as it achieved stardom.
The group's hits included "Dancing Queen," "Waterloo," "Take a Chance on Me" and "Knowing Me, Knowing You.
"Ola toured with ABBA in 1977, 1979 and 1980," the official Web site said. "Together with bass player Rutger Gunnarsson, Ola is probably the only musician to appear on all ABBA albums he was one of the most frequently used Swedish session musicians during the 1970s.
KARBALA, Iraq (CNN) A female suicide bomber apparently targeting Shiite worshippers killed at least 40 people and wounded at least 65 in Karbala on Monday, according to an Interior Ministry official.
The incident occurred one-half mile from the Imam Hussein shrine of Karbala.
Karbala is a Shiite holy city, and the Imam Hussein shrine is one of Shiite Islam's holiest locations.
The shrine marks the burial spot of Hussein bin Ali, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed, who was killed in battle nearby in 680.
No more information was immediately available about the blast southwest of the capital city, Baghdad.
Earlier Monday, in Baghdad, a roadside bomb exploded near an Iraqi police patrol, killing one officer and wounding another, the Interior Ministry told CNN.
The first attack took place about 8:30 a.m. in the upscale Mansour neighborhood, where law enforcement officials have come under frequent attacks in recent weeks.
, two American soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb north of Baghdad, officials said.
The incident occurred about 12:20 p.m. as the soldiers were "conducting a route-clearance combat operation north of Baghdad," according to a news release.
The names of the soldiers were not immediately released.
After weeks of negotiations, the Florida Democratic Party said Monday it will not hold a second primary in the state.
The state party's leaders have been seeking a way to have Florida's delegation seated at the Democratic National Convention.
"We researched every potential alternative process from caucuses to county conventions to mail-in elections but no plan could come anywhere close to being viable in Florida," said state party chairwoman Karen Thurman in an e-mail sent to Florida Democrats late Monday afternoon.
Thurman said the decision now falls to the DNC Rules & Bylaws Committee, which is scheduled to meet again next month.
But it is not clear whether that committee has the power to make a final decision, or whether it will fall to the Credentials Committee, which will decide in August which delegations will be seated at the presidential nominating convention in Denver.
The national party stripped Florida of its delegates last year, along with Michigan, when both states scheduled their primaries in January in violation of DNC instructions.
She took 50 percent of the vote to Sen. Barack Obama's 33 percent.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao Tuesday dismissed the Dalai Lama's claim of "cultural genocide" in Tibet as lies and blamed supporters of the Dalai Lama for the violent protests over China's rule of Tibet.
Speaking at the closing annual session of China's legislature, Mr Wen said China's response to the protests was restrained.
The United States has urged Chinese restraint after days of violent protests in Tibet, even as a deadline passed for anti-Chinese protesters to surrender.
Exiled Tibetan independence campaigners say at least 80 people died while Chinese authorities put the figure lower.
U.S. State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey said the United States is very concerned about the Chinese crackdown on Tibetan protesters.
"We continue to urge restraint on the part of the Chinese government in terms of how it responds to these protesters.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, according to wire service reports from Moscow, said: "We have really urged the Chinese over several years to find a way to talk with the Dalai Lama, who is a figure of authority, who is not a separatist, and to find a way to engage him and bring his moral weight to a more sustainable and better solution of the Tibet issue.
In a news conference in Beijing on Monday, Champa Phuntsok, the head of Tibet's regional government, blamed the violence on "a small group of separatists and criminals" who take their lead from exiled followers of Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.
On Sunday, the exiled Dalai Lama condemned China's action in his homeland, accusing Beijing of "cultural genocide.
Shops, schools and businesses were open Monday in Tibet's capital, Lhasa, but tensions remained high throughout the territory and three neighboring provinces after days of deadly clashes.
Xinhua reported Monday that 160 locations in Lhasa were burned by rioters, including "banks, a press establishment, shops, schools and hospitals."
The state-run news agency quoted police in Tibet giving protesters a deadline of midnight Monday "to stop their criminal activities and offering leniency to those who surrender themselves. "Those who surrender and provide information on other lawbreakers will be exempt from punishment," Xinhua quoted a police notice as saying.
For starters, healthy kids come in a wide range of shapes and sizes, and they don't grow at a steady rate, either.
Your child can look very different from your friends' kids or from his own siblings at the same age and still be completely normal.
* What influences growth
At birth:
A baby's size when he's born is based partly on genetics.
Firstborns tend to be smaller than subsequent children because the uterus is smaller and tighter in first-time moms.
Boys are larger than girls, and multiples, boys and girls, are smaller than average.
Some environmental factors that can influence a newborn's size:
the mother's weight very heavy women tend to have larger babies
a mom's chronic illness diabetics, for instance, often have very large babies.
During the first two years:
A baby's growth is based on a combination of her birth size and the size she's genetically programmed to be:
A small newborn who's going to be a big child will grow faster in the first two years than a big baby who's going to be a small child.
Both weight gain and increases in height come in short bursts of what can seem like rapid growth which is why kids can sometimes look almost chubby one month but lean the next.
The duration of a growth spurt, as well as how much a child grows during one, differs from child to child (and from spurt to spurt in the same child).
But it's not uncommon to see a visible difference in a very short time.
No one knows what causes a kid to shoot up one month and not another, but there does seem to be a seasonal pattern.
"Although we don't have a good explanation for it, children seem to grow fastest in the summer and slowest in the fall," says Joseph Gigante, M.D., associate professor of pediatrics at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital in Nashville.
Doctors do know what triggers growth in the first place:
It's the human growth hormone, a chemical produced in bursts throughout the day but released largely during sleep.
That's why it's important for kids to get the shut-eye they need throughout childhood and adolescence.
After infancy, the tween and teen years are the period of most rapid change.
for boys, it starts about two years later and lasts until age 17 or so.
Girls typically stop growing about three years after they've had their first period, but boys continue to grow throughout their teens.
Markets across Asia and Europe suffered heavy losses as the fallout from the shock sale of Bear Sterns continued but Wall Street recovered most of its losses on a dramatic Monday.
Banking stocks made steep losses after Bear Sterns one of Wall Street's most venerable names was acquired for a pittance.
Engineered by the U.S. Federal Reserve, JP Morgan bought the investment bank for $2 a share, valuing the bank at $236 million compared to nearly $70 per share last week and a high last year of $159 per share.
The sale was rushed through to beat the opening bells in Asia but it didn't stop stocks from plummeting in Asia or Europe.
In Europe Monday, the FTSE 100 fell by 3.86 percent to 5,414 and the French CAC 40 fell to 4,431, losing 3.51 percent.
The German Dax suffered most, dropping 4.18 percent to 6,182.
The European banking sector was particularly hard hit, with UBS whose stock has dipped 62 per cent in the last year down 13.9 percent, AP reported, while Credit Suisse fell 8.6 percent and Deutsche Bank dropped 4.3.
In Asia Japan's Nikkei closed 454.09 down at 11788, losing 3.7 percent, while the Hang Seng fell 1,152.5 to 21085, a fall of 5.18 per cent.
In early trading Monday, the Dow dropped 103.72 to 11847, a fall of 0.87 percent, but managed to just claw into positive territory by the end of the day by 21.16 points or (0.18 percent).
Despite those figures, more stocks fell in price Monday than rose on the New York Stock Exchange.
The Nasdaq fell 1.6 percent to 2177, losing 35.48.
JERUSALEM (CNN) Israel and Germany strengthened their ties on Monday in one of the highlights of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's three-day visit to mark the 60th anniversary of Israel's creation.
Merkel and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert chaired a joint session of members of the two countries' Cabinets, at which both governments signed off on a range of projects, including in education, the environment and defense.
Germany already has similar arrangements with France, Italy, Spain, Poland and Russia, but it was the first time Israel had entered into such an agreement since it formed diplomatic ties in 1965.
At a joint news conference, Olmert praised Germany's friendship it is one of Israel's strongest allies in Europe and its second biggest trading partner, after the U.S.
"What is important is that we are not forgetting anything," Olmert said in a reference to the Nazi Holocaust.
"But we are also not giving up the opportunity and the obligation to act together to ensure a better future for our peoples, the region and the whole world.
Six million Jews perished in the Nazi genocide during World War II, and about 250,000 elderly survivors live in Israel.
"The German government, keeping in mind its responsibility for the Holocaust, expresses its determination to shape a joint future by holding the first German-Israeli consultations," she wrote in the guest book.
On Tuesday, Merkel will address the Knesset, becoming the first foreign head of government to speak to Israel's parliament.
In the past, the honor has been reserved only for heads of state and monarchs.
A majority of Democrats would like to see Barack Obama rather than Hillary Clinton win their party's presidential nomination, according to a national poll out Monday.
Fifty-two percent of registered Democrats questioned in a new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey say the senator from Illinois is their choice for president, with 45 percent supporting Clinton.
The poll also suggests Democrats are more enthusiastic about an Obama victory (45 percent) than for a victory by the senator from New York (38 percent).
The two remaining major candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination are locked in a fierce battle for their party's presidential nomination, with Obama holding a slight lead both in delegates and the overall popular vote in the primaries and caucuses to date.
Obama's biggest support comes from men, younger voters and independents who lean Democratic," CNN polling director Keating Holland said. "Clinton does best among women, older voters and whites.
One interesting difference, unlike the exit polls in many states, there is no difference in the national poll between college-educated Democrats and those who never attended college.
The nomination could hinge on two major matters:
superdelegates and the possibility of do-over primaries for Florida and Michigan.
The two states broke national Democratic Party rules by moving up the dates of their primaries to January.
None of the major Democratic candidates campaigned in the two states, and Obama's name wasn't even on the ballot in Michigan.
The national Democratic Party also banned Florida and Michigan's delegates from attending the party's national convention this summer.
But with the fight for the nomination nearly deadlocked and the reality that winning both Florida and Michigan is crucial for the Democrats to take back the White House in November, there's now a movement toward letting both states vote again.
The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll was conducted by telephone March 14-16, with 1, 019 Americans questioned, including 463 registered voters who identify themselves as Democrats or independents who lean Democratic.
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) Atlanta was scrambling back to normalcy Monday, but city officials warned it could take time to clear the devastation left by a tornado that swept through the city's downtown Friday evening.
The storm damage made travel even more difficult in a city where traffic and road construction already make commutes tedious for thousands.
Drivers were warned to exercise caution and patience coming into the downtown area, which still bore the wounds of the Friday twister.
The tornado, which packed winds of up to 130 mph, slammed into skyscrapers as well as landmarks like the CNN Center and the Georgia Dome, where thousands had gathered for the Southeastern Conference basketball tournament.
"You are coming into a zone that has a lot of safety issues," Atlanta Police Department spokeswoman Judy Pal said at a Sunday news conference. She added that if you don't have business downtown, "please stay out of the city.
Dozens of streets remained blocked Monday as cleanup crews gathered debris and downed limbs and trees, piling it on sidewalks or in Dumpsters that had been lugged into cordoned-off roads.
On Sunday, crews were still working to repair scores of traffic lights throughout the city, said Donna Owens, the city's deputy commissioner of public works.
Two neighboring counties were helping with the repairs.
The mayor's office advised people traveling downtown to take public transit.
The agency was serving meals and counseling victims over the weekend.
On Sunday, 45 people remained in one of the agency's shelters, said spokesman Ruben Brown.
The agency also was using three roving canteens, which were providing hot meals and beverages to victims.
Buzz Weiss, spokesman for the Georgia Emergency Management Agency, noted that 22 counties in the state were impacted by severe weather Friday and Saturday.
Hillary Clinton said Monday she is the only candidate who would exercise the leadership needed to end the war in Iraq.
"Sen. [Barack] Obama holds up his original opposition to the war on the campaign trail, but he didn't start working aggressively to end the war until he started running for president.
So when he had a chance to act on his speech, he chose silence instead," Clinton told an audience at George Washington University.
"President Bush is determined to continue his failed policy in Iraq until he leaves office. And Sen. [John] McCain will gladly accept the torch and stay the course, keeping troops in Iraq for up to 100 years if necessary.
Obama gave a speech in 2002 opposing the war, an address he references often in his campaign stump speech.
Clinton cited Obama's repeated promise to start bringing "combat troops out in 16 months."
She pointed to a recent BBC interview by now-former Obama policy adviser Samantha Powers in which Powers said Obama "will, of course, not rely on some plan that he's crafted as a presidential candidate or a U.S. senator.
The Clinton campaign has highlighted those comments because of what they say is a contradiction between Obama's rhetoric and action on Iraq.
"But giving speeches alone won't end the war, and making campaign promises you might not keep certainly won't end it. In the end, the true test is not the speeches a president delivers, it's whether the president delivers on the speeches.
At a campaign rally in Monaca, Pennsylvania, Obama disagreed with Clinton's assessment.
"I opposed this war in 2002, I opposed it in 2003, 4, 5, 6 and 7.
I have been consistent in saying that we have to be as careful getting out as we were careless getting in.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) Pakistan's parliament convened Monday and within minutes, it was apparent that the session in the coming days will devolve into a showdown between the newly-elected lawmakers and beleaguered President Pervez Musharraf.
More than 300 lawmakers elected last month took the oath of office in the brief ceremony in the National Assembly.
An overflow crowd watched the historic proceedings, with reporters sitting on one another's laps in the crowded press gallery.
Breaking tradition, the outgoing speaker of the house did not shake the new members' hands or greet them as they walked up the sign the roll book.
For their part, the opposition lawmakers said they would take their oaths under the constitution "as it was on November 2, 2007." Party members slapped their hands on tables in thunderous applause.
Musharraf imposed a state of emergency and suspended constitutional rule on November 3, 2007.
He also amended the constitution soon afterward to provide himself and the military blanket immunity for actions taken during the emergency rule.
Two parties won the majority of National Assembly seats in the February 18 parliamentary election.
The Pakistan People's Party (PPP) is home to assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and is now led by her widower, Asif Ali Zardari.
Neither men has seats in the assembly, and they watched the opening day ceremonies from the gallery.
Musharraf did not attend.
Members of Bhutto's party wore ribbons, with a picture of the slain prime minister, on their chests.
One member asked that a prayer be said for Bhutto who was assassinated last December as she left a campaign rally in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi.
The PPP has said it is ready to form a government with its coalition partners, including its once-rival, PML-N.
It also has said it plans to reform Pakistan's government.
While the coalition has agreed to work with Musharraf, it has also said it would reinstate ousted Supreme Court justices within 30 days of parliament's first session.
The United States is urging Chinese restraint after days of violent protests in Tibet, even as a deadline passed for anti-Chinese protesters to surrender.
Exiled Tibetan independence campaigners say at least 80 people died while Chinese authorities put the figure lower.
U.S. State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey said the United States is very concerned about the Chinese crackdown on Tibetan protesters.
"We continue to urge restraint on the part of the Chinese government in terms of how it responds to these protesters.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, according to wire service reports from Moscow, said: "We have really urged the Chinese over several years to find a way to talk with the Dalai Lama, who is a figure of authority, who is not a separatist, and to find a way to engage him and bring his moral weight to a more sustainable and better solution of the Tibet issue.
In a news conference in Beijing on Monday, Champa Phuntsok, the head of Tibet's regional government, blamed the violence on "a small group of separatists and criminals" who take their lead from exiled followers of Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.
On Sunday, the exiled Dalai Lama condemned China's action in his homeland, accusing Beijing of "cultural genocide.
Shops, schools and businesses were open Monday in Tibet's capital, Lhasa, but tensions remained high throughout the territory and three neighboring provinces after days of deadly clashes.
Xinhua reported Monday that 160 locations in Lhasa were burned by rioters, including "banks, a press establishment, shops, schools and hospitals."
(CNN) Imagine you and your favorite travel partner dangling in your own private little gondola, gliding silently for 40 minutes as you cross the Mer de Glace or "sea of ice."
You're near where Switzerland, Italy and France come together to "high five" the sky. Miles (literally) above Chamonix, you're riding Europe's highest lift.
Your Alpine adventure starts in the touristy French resort town of Chamonix.
This lift is Europe's highest and most spectacular.
The modern gondola is big enough for dozens of people.
Chamonix shrinks as trees fly by, soon replaced by whizzing rocks, ice and snow, until you reach the top.
Up there, even sunshine is cold.
The air is thin.
People are giddy.
Fun things can happen on top, if you're not too winded to join locals in the Halfway-to-Heaven tango.
From the viewpoint, the Alps spread out before you.
In the distance is the bent little Matterhorn (called "Cervin" in French).
You can almost reach out and pat the head of Mont Blanc, at 15,771 feet, the Alps' (and Europe's) highest point.
To both save a little money and enjoy a hike, you can buy a "Rambler" ticket to the top of the Aiguille du Midi, but only halfway back down.
This gives you a chance to look down at the Alps and over at the summit of Mont Blanc from that lofty lookout.
From there you can catch a train at Montenvers back to your starting point, Chamonix.
But for the ultimate Alpine joyride, grab a private gondola at Aiguille du Midi and continue on to Italy for what must be Europe's most breathtaking border crossing.
The town of Aosta, your best valley home base, is a two-hour bus ride from the base of the lift in La Palud (hourly departures, change in Courmayeur).
If you don't go on to Italy, you can return from Helbronner Point back to Chamonix. The resort town, a convenient train ride from Paris or Nice, is packed in August but surprisingly easy and affordable the rest of the year.
If you like the Alps, you'll love Chamonix, where hikers and non-hikers alike can enjoy vast mountain vistas with little effort. And when you tire of the mountains, Italy is just next door.
World number three Svetlana Kuznetsova had to work hard to reach the fourth round of the Indian Wells women's tournament by overcoming Slovakian Dominika Cibulkova 6-1 4-6 6-3.
Kuznetsova's next opponent will be Denmark's Caroline Wozniacki, a 6-0 6-2 winner over Japan's Aiko Nakamura.
In other women's matches, fourth-seeded Maria Sharapova, the Australian Open champion who has yet to lose a match this season, was to take on Greece's Eleni Daniilidou.
Defending champion and fifth seed Daniela Hantuchova of Slovakia was up against China's Zheng Jie.
Other women's seeds in action included number eight Dinara Safina of Russia and ninth-seeded Shahar Peer of Israel.
Four of the 12 people wounded in the weekend bombing of an Islamabad restaurant are U.S. FBI agents, the bureau confirmed Sunday.
The attack occurred Saturday when a bomb was hurled over a wall surrounding the Luna Caprese restaurant, an outdoor cafe frequented by Westerners, journalists and diplomats.
In addition to wounding the agents, the explosion killed a Turkish woman and wounded a fifth American, three Pakistanis, a person from the United Kingdom and someone from Japan, authorities said.
A high-ranking federal source had earlier told CNN that the agents' wounds included deep lacerations, concussions and fractures.
The four, who were eating dinner together at the time of the attack, were not believed to have been targeted, the source added.
An air ambulance took the agents to a hospital.
Government officials have not said who they believe is responsible for Saturday's attack, but they suspect al Qaeda and Taliban-linked militants from Pakistan's tribal region, who have carried out similar attacks in the past.
NEW YORK (CNN) Halle Berry doesn't just play a mom in movies anymore.
The father is 32-year-old model Gabriel Aubry. The two met while shooting a Versace ad in Los Angeles two years ago.
Berry told Oprah Winfrey on her show last year that playing a mother in her latest movie, "Things We Lost in the Fire," helped convince her that motherhood was for her.
"I think it validated that I was meant to be a mother because every day I dealt with the character as a mother and thinking as a mother," Berry said.
"It let me know that I must be a mother.
Berry won the best-actress Oscar for 2001's "Monster's Ball."
She also won an Emmy and a Golden Globe for 1999's "Introducing Dorothy Dandridge.
Berry had said she and Aubry don't plan to marry, but feel fully committed to each other.
It's built like a flying saucer.
The home "landed" on a twisting road leading to Chattanooga's Signal Mountain in 1970 just after television executives grounded the run of the original "Star Trek" series.
It will be sold to the highest bidder Saturday.
The circular house ultramodern when it was built is ringed with small square windows and directional lights and perched on six "landing gear" legs.
It has multiple levels, three bedrooms, two baths and an entrance staircase that retracts with the push of a button.
Terry Posey, an agent with Crye-Leike Auctions of Cleveland, Tennessee, said the current owner has had the property only four months and didn't want to comment.
John Kleeman of Litchfield, Connecticut, an attorney and space culture enthusiast, said he knows of variations of the flying saucer design in Florida, Connecticut and California.
The flying saucer designs popped up about the time of the moon landings.
The Chattanooga home's unusual shape sort of like two white Frisbees pasted together poses some interior decorating challenges.
"It really looked like a spaceship ready to take off," said realtor Lois Killebrew, who handled an open house at the first sale of the Chattanooga home decades ago.
The late Curtis W. King and his family built the unusual home because "they liked to do unusual things," Killebrew said.
Asian stocks plunged Monday after JPMorgan Chase said it would acquire troubled U.S. investment bank Bear Stearns.
Hong Kong's benchmark index fell as much as 5.4 percent in early trade Monday as investors worried about U.S. financial markets.
Japan's benchmark Nikkei stock index fell more than 4 percent.
The Korea Composite Stock Price Index in Seoul declined more than 3 percent.
Markets in Australia and New Zealand also fell.
News of the acquisition of Bear Stearns, one of the world's largest and most venerable investment banks, came just before the opening of markets in Tokyo and Seoul.
The buyout was aimed at averting a bankruptcy and a spreading crisis of confidence in the global financial system.
The Fed and the U.S. government swiftly approved the all-stock deal.
"We are worried about the next step," Shim Jae-youb, a strategist at Meritz Securities in Seoul, said of nagging concerns in Asia that the trouble in big U.S. banks was unlikely to be contained just to Bear Stearns.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 194.65, or 1.60 percent, to 11,951.09 in New York on Friday after dropping as much as 313 points earlier.
Glaciers are shrinking at record rates and many could disappear within decades, the U.N. Environment Program said Sunday.
Scientists measuring the health of almost 30 glaciers around the world found that ice loss reached record levels in 2006, the U.N. agency said.
The west coast of North America, which gets much of its water from glaciers in mountain ranges such as the Rockies and Sierra Nevada, also would be affected, it said.
He urged governments to agree stricter targets for emissions reductions at an international meeting next year in the Danish capital, Copenhagen.
On average, the glaciers shrank by 4.9 feet in 2006, the most recent year for which data are available.
LIMA, Peru (CNN) Archaeologists have discovered the ruins of an ancient temple, roadway and irrigation systems at a famed fortress overlooking the Inca capital of Cuzco, according to officials involved with the dig.
The temple on the periphery of the Sacsayhuaman fortress casts added light on pre-Inca cultures of Peru, showing that the site had religious as well as military aims, according to researchers.
It includes 11 rooms thought to have held mummies and idols, lead archaeologist Oscar Rodriguez told The Associated Press.
The team of archaeologists that made the discoveries believes the structures predated the Inca empire but were then significantly developed and expanded.
it has a sequence," Washington Camacho, director of the Sacsayhuaman Archaeological Park, told the AP on Thursday.
"The Incas entered and changed the form of the temple, as it initially had a more rustic architecture.
Archaeologists are still waiting for carbon dating tests, but Camacho said their calculations about the facilities' age are supported by historical references such as ceramics and construction style.
Previous carbon-14 dating of Sacsayhuaman revealed that the Killke culture constructed the fortress in the 1100s, said Peruvian archaeologist Luis Lumbreras, former director of Peru's National Culture Institute and an expert on Cuzco's pre-Incan cultures. He was not involved in the dig.
The Killke occupied the region from 900 to 1200 A.D., prior to the arrival of the Incas.
"These recent discoveries add to our knowledge of Sacsayhuaman, confirming again the aggregate nature of the fortress," Lumbreras told The Associated Press.
The Inca empire, based in the ancient city of Cuzco, flourished along the western edge of South America during the 1400s, prior to the arrival of the Spanish.
Today, Cuzco is Peru's main tourism hub and a launching point for visitors to the jungle-shrouded ruins of Machu Picchu, 40 miles northwest.
The temple lies a little under a mile from zigzagging walls of the Sacsayhuaman fortress, alongside an enormous rock formation
believed to be one of the fortress' burial mounds.
"The temple is one of the most important in the Sacsayhuaman site," Camacho said.
The discovery of the temple reveals "the sacred ceremonial nature of the Killke," Lumbreras said. "Previously we thought Sacsayhuaman was simply a military fortification, but we now see it was a very complex ceremonial center.
(CNN) The death toll rose to nine Sunday in the aftermath of a series of blasts at an Albanian army depot, officials said.
The latest body was found about noon under the rubble of a destroyed home near the army warehouse where the blasts took place, Strazimiri said.
The explosions at the depot, near the capital city of Tirana, on Saturday also injured 243.
Government officials have not yet determined the cause of the blasts but think they were not intentional.
The explosions, which started at about noon, occurred as workers were trying to dismantle a stockpile of munitions, Prime Minister Sali Berisha said on his Web site.
According to Albanian officials, the program to dismantle the munitions is being overseen by an American company based in South Carolina called Southern Ammunition, and is funded by a $30 million grant from the U.S. government.
The size of the stockpile is unclear, but government officials said about 6,000 metric tons of munitions already have been deactivated
NEW YORK (CNN) Emergency workers on Sunday continued searching for victims or survivors of a crane collapse that killed four construction workers and injured 17 others at a four-story townhouse in Manhattan.
Crews used search dogs and heat-sensing cameras as they looked through the rubble, The Associated Press reported.
Three of the injured were in critical condition after Saturday's collapse, authorities said. Five firefighters had minor injuries.
Ten neighborhood residents were among those hurt, three of them critically, when a portion of the crane detached and "completely destroyed" the townhouse, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Saturday.
Dismantling the crane, which remains balanced on a building, will be a risky undertaking, Lt. Gov. David Paterson said just two days before he replaces Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who announced his resignation last week.
"While we would never want these types of tragedies in New York City, this is actually the best-prepared place for it to happen," Paterson said Saturday.
The crane also caused extensive damage to an 18-story residential high-rise across the street from the construction site.
Other nearby buildings have been evacuated, officials said.
A piece of steel fell and sheared off one of the ties holding the crane in place, causing it to detach and topple, Stephen Kaplan, an owner of Reliance Construction Group told AP.
"It was an absolute freak accident," Kaplan said. "All the piece of steel had to do was fall slightly left or right and nothing would have happened. "
Kaplan added that the company had subcontracted the work.
State officials inspected the crane Friday and found no violations.
Cheney left Sunday on a 10-day trip that includes visits to Oman, Saudi Arabia, Israel, the Palestinian territories and Turkey.
His trip coincides with the fifth anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, which has tainted the U.S. image in the Mideast and changed the balance of power in the region.
Bush went to Israel and the West Bank in January.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice just got back from a troubleshooting mission there, and Bush is to return in May.
Sen. John McCain, the soon-to-be GOP presidential nominee, and other lawmakers are visiting Israel this week.
Bush, who relaunched formal peace talks last fall at a conference in Annapolis, Maryland, has turned a Mideast peace deal into a signature foreign policy goal for his remaining months in office.
But violence in the Gaza Strip and southern Israel has hampered talks between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
BASSETERRE, St. Kitts (CNN) The president of the International Olympic Committee rejected the idea of boycotting the Summer Games in Beijing over China's crackdown in Tibet, saying it would only hurt athletes.
"We believe that the boycott doesn't solve anything," Jacques Rogge told reporters Saturday on this Caribbean island.
"On the contrary, it is penalizing innocent athletes and it is stopping the organization from something that definitely is worthwhile organizing.
On a six-day tour of the Caribbean, Rogge expressed condolences for the victims and said he hopes calm will be restored immediately.
"The International Olympic Committee has consistently resisted calls for a boycott of the Olympic games," Rogge said.
He declined to comment further on Tibet during a brief news conference.
The head of the Swiss Olympic Committee told state-owned DRS radio that he is against a boycott but wants the IOC to intervene with China over the troubles in Tibet.
IOC vice president Thomas Bach said the committee will speak with China about human rights, but boycotting the games "would be the wrong way because that will cut lines of communication.
European officials joined the IOC in urging Beijing to end the violence and engage in dialogue, but also said politics should not intrude on the spirit of the games.
"The Olympics must be held in an atmosphere of true brotherhood," EU Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Franco Frattini told Italy's ANSA news agency. "Otherwise this feast of sport would be seriously at risk.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. said Sunday that it is buying troubled Wall Street firm Bear Stearns, amid deepening fears that Bear's demise could have sent shockwaves across already shaky financial markets.
The deal values Bear Stearns at $236 million, or just $2 a share.
Shares had closed at $30 on Friday, down 47 percent that day.
"Effective immediately, JPMorgan Chase is guaranteeing the trading obligations of Bear Stearns and its subsidiaries and is providing management oversight for its operations," said a statement released Sunday by JPMorgan.
Shareholders must approve the deal, which is expected to close by the end of June.
The deal has already been approved by the Federal Reserve and other regulators, according to the statement.
The Fed is providing special emergency financing for up to $30 billion in Bear Stearns assets.
"JPMorgan stands behind Bear Stearns," said Jamie Dimon, chairman and chief executive of JPMorgan.
"Bear Stearns clients and counterparties should feel secure that JPMorgan is guaranteeing ... risk," he continued.
Bear Stearns was on the brink of financial collapse Friday when JPMorgan and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York said they would provide the brokerage a short-term loan.
(CNN) The Dalai Lama on Sunday called for an international probe of China's treatment of Tibet, which he said is causing "cultural genocide" of his people.
The exiled spiritual leader of Tibet spoke at a news conference Sunday in Dharamsala, India, two days after violent clashes between pro-autonomy demonstrators and Chinese security forces in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital.
A spokesman for the self-declared Tibetan exile government said it has confirmed at least 80 deaths in Friday's violence and that protests were continuing outside the capital Sunday, further undermining China's hopes of a smooth run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Tibet Watch, a group based in Dharamsala, India, said 34 people have died in the Nwaga County area
The dead include women and children, the group said in an e-mail, adding they were killed by Chinese police attempting to stop the protests.
Eight bodies were brought to the Nagaba Kirti monastery, the Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy in Dharamsala said. Of the eight, two are the bodies of monks, the center said.
The Dalai Lama said China, as the world's most populous nation, deserves to host the Olympics but it must look seriously at repairing its human rights record "in order to be a good host.
He laughed at suggestions that the exile government was fueling the anti-Chinese protests, saying it was the natural result of deep resentment caused by China's treatment of Tibetans as second-class citizens in their own land.
English rivals Arsenal and Liverpool were paired in the quarterfinals of the Champions League in Friday's draw while Manchester United will meet AS Roma once again in a repeat of last year's memorable clash at the same stage.
Premier League leaders Arsenal or 2006 Champions League winners Liverpool could face another English team in the semifinals if Chelsea overcome Turkish opponents Fenerbahce.
German representatives Schalke tackle Barcelona in the other quarterfinal.
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger believe his side's draw to be the most difficult of the quarterfinal matchups.
"Compared to Fenerbahce and the history of Manchester United against Roma, you would say yes, but you can say the same for Liverpool," said Wenger.
"You would ideally prefer European opposition, but you know that you will have to play an English team at some stage if you want to go to the final.
Manchester United were unbeaten in their two Group F matches against Roma this season, winning 1-0 at Old Trafford and drawing 1-1 in Rome.
In the return United gave one of their finest ever display in European competition, pulling off an exhilarating 7-1 victory.
President Hugo Chavez dared the U.S. on Friday to put Venezuela on a list of countries accused of supporting terrorism, calling it one more attempt by Washington to undermine him for political reasons.
Chavez said the "threat to include us on the terrorist list" is Washington's response to his government's successes in the region.
Connie Mack and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, both Florida Republicans, have called for the State Department to add Venezuela to its list of terror sponsors, which includes North Korea, Iran, Syria, Sudan and Cuba.
They have expressed concerns about what they call Chavez's close ties to Colombia's leftist rebels.
"Let them make that list and shove it in their pocket," Chavez said in a televised speech.
"We shouldn't forget for an instant that we're in a battle against North American imperialism," Chavez said. "On this continent, they have us as enemy No. 1."
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday during a visit to Brazil that all U.N. nations, including Venezuela, have an obligation to go after terrorists and keep them from operating within their borders.
The comment was largely a warning for Chavez, who U.S. officials suspect has lent support to Colombian rebels.
In recent days, Rice and President Bush have sharpened their rhetoric against Chavez while praising Colombia and other Latin American allies.
Chavez said Rice's visit to Brazil and Chile this week is aimed at mounting "pressures" against "our government and against me. "
A Chicago minister who delivered a fiery sermon about Sen. Hillary Clinton having an advantage over Sen. Barack Obama in the presidential race because she is white is no longer a part of the Obama campaign.
In another sermon, Wright had said America had brought the September 11 attacks upon itself.
The announcement of Wright's departure from the Obama camp came after the Illinois senator on Friday denounced some of the ministers's sermons, calling them "inflammatory and appalling.
"I categorically denounce any statement that disparages our great country or serves to divide us from our allies," Obama wrote on the liberal Web site Huffingtonpost.com about recently surfaced sermons from Wright his longtime pastor at the Trinity United Church of Christ.
"I also believe that words that degrade individuals have no place in our public dialogue, whether it's on the campaign stump or in the pulpit," Obama continued. "In sum, I reject outright the statements by Rev. Wright that are at issue.
The sermons in question became the subject of scrutiny earlier this week after being highlighted in an ABC News report.
At one December service, Wright argued Clinton's road to the White House is considerably easier than Obama's because of his skin color.
Barack was," Wright says in a video of the sermon posted on YouTube. "Barack knows what it means to be a black man living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people.
Hillary ain't never been called a 'nigger! ' Hillary has never had her people defined as a non-person.
In his statement Friday, Obama said he had not personally heard the controversial sermons.
"But because Rev. Wright was on the verge of retirement, and because of my strong links to the Trinity faith community, where I married my wife and where my daughters were baptized, I did not think it appropriate to leave the church.
Canada's House of Commons voted Thursday to extend the country's military mission in Afghanistan until 2011, with the stipulation that NATO send reinforcements to the volatile Kandahar province.
Most of Canada's 2,500 troops in Afghanistan are in Kandahar as part of the NATO-led mission to stabilize the war-torn country.
Their presence has sparked controversy in Canada, with the Bloc Quebecois and the New Democratic Party calling for an immediate troop withdrawal.
Supporters of the mission argued that Canadians have made progress in providing schools, health care and clean water for thousands of Afghans.
They said the improving conditions would be impossible without troops ensuring a secure environment for aid workers and local residents.
The Canadian mission in Afghanistan was to end next February.
It has claimed the lives of 80 soldiers and a diplomat, according to The Associated Press.
Thursday's motion, passed with a 198-77 vote, brought Harper's Conservative party and the opposition Liberals together on the issue.
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) Harry Potter was the center of seven novels, but he'll star in eight films.
The final book in the wildly successful series will be made into two films, the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday.
Producers are expected to announce Thursday that J.K. Rowling's last "Potter" installment, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," will be split into two parts on the big screen.
"It was born out of purely creative reasons," producer David Heyman told the Times. "Unlike every other book, you cannot remove elements of this book.
The two final "Potter" films will be shot concurrently, much like the blockbuster trilogy based on J.R.R. Tolkien's epic fantasy novel "The Lord of the Rings.
Filming on the sixth "Potter" flick, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," began in September.
"It's been brilliant," said star Daniel Radcliffe. "It's also, I think, the funniest of the films so far.
The signing came after nearly two full days of talks in Dakar, Senegal, between Sudan President Omar al-Beshir and Idriss Deby, the president of Chad.
Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade facilitated the talks, and United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon met with officials from both nations and witnessed the signing of the agreement at about 10 p.m.
"The idea is to get the governments of Sudan and Chad to normalize their relations with each other and to halt any action that would allow for the cross-border movement of rebel factions or armed factions of either side that could hurt the other country," said United Nations spokesman Farhan Haq.
Each country accuses the other of supporting armed rebel groups that cross the border to attempt to destabilize the government.
The rival nations' armies have skirmished several times.
As recently as Thursday, just hours before the agreement was signed, Chad issued a communiqu&eacute; saying rebels from Sudan had crossed the border.
Chad is still recovering from a failed attempt last month by rebels to overthrow Deby's regime.
The United Nations says the swelling number of Darfur refugees and other displaced people living in eastern Chad is causing serious strain on the region.
Kingsley Amaning, the U.N.'s humanitarian coordinator for Chad, said more than 10,000 people from Darfur, in Sudan, have fled into 12 official refugee camps in eastern Chad.
Haq said the United Nations, which has peacekeeping troops in the Darfur region, will work to assure Sudan and Chad carry out the terms of Thursday's deal.
The countries have signed several peace agreements in the past, only to see renewed violence flare up.
The United States and North Korea made progress Thursday in overcoming obstacles that have stalled a major nuclear disarmament deal but remained short of a breakthrough, the chief U.S. negotiator said.
Assistant U.S. Secretary of State Christopher Hill told reporters that the talks in Geneva were probably the most substantive that Washington has had with North Korea since problems developed in December over disarming Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program.
"We certainly are further along in this consultation than we were when I arrived this morning," Hill said after meetings with North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan. "There has been progress.
Hill said he wanted to report to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice before going into more detail.
Kim separately denied allegations that North Korea had a secret uranium enrichment program or that it had any connection with a nuclear program in Syria.
Hill went into the Geneva discussions insisting that Pyongyang fully reveal all details of its nuclear weapons program.
We're already some 10 weeks behind," Hill said, referring to the North Korean commitment to make a full declaration of its program by December 31.
BRASILIA, BRAZIL (CNN) U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Thursday urged nations such as Venezuela to meet their U.N. obligations and keep terrorists out of their territories.
But borders cannot be a means by which terrorists hide and engage in activities that kill innocent civilians," Rice said after meeting with Brazilian leaders on a two-day trip to South America.
Rice planned to visit Chile after her stop in Brazil, using the opportunity to engage leaders who the Bush administration says have been helpful to U.S. economic and anti-terrorism efforts.
Left out of Rice's itinerary are those countries that have been critical of the United States, including Argentina.
When asked whether the U.S. was considering designating Venezuela a state sponsor of terror, Rice said: "We will watch the situation and act accordingly."
Serbian President Boris Tadic has dissolved parliament and called early elections for May 11, following disagreements over Kosovo and the European Union.
The Serbian government proposed the move this week, becoming frustrated after clashing with pro-Western Tadic and his party over the issues in cabinet.
"This is a new chance for us to reinforce the capacities for the defense of the country's sovereignty and territorial integrity, to improve our economy perspective through the European integration process, to confirm the democratic capacity of our society, and to change things for the better," Tadic said in a statement posted on national news agency Tanjug's Web site.
Kosovo infuriated Serbia by declaring its independence last month.
That sparked divisions in Serbia about whether to keep pursuing membership in the European Union given that several EU nations have recognized Kosovo's independence.
"The Serbian government no longer has a united and common policy, which ... prevents the government from performing its basic constitutional function and conducting the policies of the Republic of Serbia," the government proposal said.
Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica had said he might resign if Tadic did not call early elections.
Kosovo, which is mainly populated by ethnic Albanians, declared independence from Serbia on February 17.
However, Serbia which regards the region as integral to its history and culture has refused to accept the move as being legal, and conservatives do not want to join the EU unless its member states retract any recognition of Kosovo.
ATHENS, Greece (CNN) Greek authorities rescued 278 passengers and 35 crew members Thursday after a cruise ship ran aground near the island of Poros, said Greece's Ministry of Merchant Marine.
The Greek-flagged Georgis hit a barren inlet as it was coming in to dock in Poros, about a mile away, the ministry said.
It had embarked from the port city of Piraeus near Athens and was touring the nearby islands of Poros and Hydra.
The evacuation operation took about two hours, with the the last person being plucked off the ship by early evening.
Passengers and crew were transferred to another vessel, authorities said.
Last April, a Greek-flagged cruise ship carrying more than 1,000 passengers ran aground on a rocky reef while trying to dock at harbor of the holiday island of Santorini. The boat later sank.
The captain and five other senior crew members of were charged with negligence and violating international maritime rules.
A 35-year-old woman who sat on her boyfriend's toilet for so long that her body was stuck to the seat had a phobia about leaving the bathroom, the boyfriend said.
The case drew nationwide attention after Ness County Sheriff Bryan Whipple said it appeared the Ness City woman's skin had grown around the seat in the two years she apparently was in the bathroom.
"We pried the toilet seat off with a pry bar and the seat went with her to the hospital," Whipple said. "The hospital removed it."
McFarren, 36, said he can't be certain how long Pam Babcock stayed in the bathroom because "time just went by so quick I can't pinpoint how long.
" He said beatings she received in her childhood caused her phobia.
But McFarren said she moved around in the bathroom during that time, bathed and changed into the clothes he brought her.
He brought food and water to her.
They had conversations and had an otherwise normal relationship except it all happened in the bathroom.
McFarren said he finally called police February 27 after he became worried because Babcock was acting groggy like she didn't know what was going on, except she was awake.
LONDON, England (CNN) A British man accused of faking his death in an insurance scam pleaded guilty to fraud Thursday.
His wife denied involvement, and will stand trial later this year.
John Darwin, 57, admitted obtaining money by deception and obtaining a false passport.
Darwin made headlines in December when he walked into a London police station claiming to have amnesia.
He had been declared dead after disappearing while canoeing off the English coast in 2002.
Police accused Darwin and his wife Anne of staging the death to collect his &pound; 25,000 ($50,000) insurance policy.
Sentencing was adjourned.
World stock markets were shaken Thursday as problems facing the ailing U.S. economic juggernaut continued to send ripples of fear through investors.
The price of gold topped $1,000 an ounce for the first time ever, and investors dumped the dollar which hit a 12-year low against the Japanese yen and slumped to new lows against the euro.
Meanwhile, oil was also continuing its soar skywards, hitting $111 a barrel before sliding back to below $110.
CNN International's Business Editor Todd Benjamin says the activity is all based on the belief that the U.S. is in recession.
Gold futures reached $1,001 on the New York Mercantile Exchange before dropping slightly to $997.10.
In uncertain times, it is seen as a safer bet for investors, and has risen 20 percent this year.
Because gold is bought and sold in U.S. dollars, it has also become much cheaper for investors holding overseas currencies and central banks around the world have stepped in along with big hedge funds among others.
"They are not looking for gold to give them substantial returns in the medium term, but they're looking for something to give them wealth protection.
NEW YORK (CNN) The woman alleged to have been hired by New York governor Eliot Spitzer reportedly revealed Thursday she had gone without sleep since the scandal broke earlier this week and said she did not want to be thought of as a monster.
Ashley Alexandra Dupre, reportedly identified in court documents as a call girl known as "Kristen," appeared in court on Monday as a witness against four people accused of operating a high-class prostitution ring allegedly used by the disgraced Democrat.
Spitzer, an ally of Hillary Clinton and a rising star within the Democratic Party who made his name as a corporate crime-busting district attorney, announced his resignation Wednesday after reports of his connection to the Emperors Club VIP prostitute ring emerged.
Dupre or Spitzer are accused of any crime.
Dupre, born Ashley Youmans, from New Jersey, told the New York Times:
Writing on her MySpace page, the 22-year-old said she had been "broke and homeless" and had abused drugs since leaving home aged 17 to pursue a singing career in New York.
Identified as "Client 9" in court documents, Spitzer is alleged to have met Dupre at the Mayflower hotel in Washington last month.
Federal agents have determined Spitzer used the prostitute ring eight times in recent months and had him under surveillance twice this year, sources familiar with the investigation said Wednesday.
Sen. Hillary Clinton apologized to a gathering of black newspaper publishers Wednesday for a top fundraiser's controversial comments that Sen. Barack Obama's race has helped his candidacy.
The New York senator found herself in the hot seat after the remarks by Geraldine Ferraro a former New York congresswoman, Democratic vice presidential candidate and Clinton supporter.
"I rejected what she said and I certainly do repudiate it," Clinton said at the National Newspaper Publishers Association meeting in Washington.
Ferraro resigned from the campaign Wednesday after widespread criticism over her comments about Obama's race, originally published late last week in the Torrance, California, Daily Breeze.
"If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman, he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is.
Clinton was asked about remarks her husband, former President Bill Clinton, made while on the trail for his wife in South Carolina last month in which he seemed to imply that Obama's success in South Carolina would largely be based on his race.
She even apologized for President Bush's lackluster response regarding Hurricane Katrina.
"I apologize and I am embarrassed that our federal government so mistreated our citizens.
Clothed in a black robe, she strains under her husband's weight.
Murtada, a 29-year-old taxi driver, was once a proud husband and father.
A bomb blew off both his legs above the knee.
"I was under the car. I saw my legs were severed, just flesh and skin. I was holding my legs, bleeding.
Helpless, the daily burden is now on Shada.
She carries Murtada when he needs to be moved.
She can't even leave the house because of the constant care she provides her husband.
"I want to work, but I can't really because then who will stay with my husband?"
Since the war began, the estimates of wounded Iraqis have ranged from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of people.
According to Iraq's Health Ministry, 25 percent of the wounded have lost at least one limb.
Murtada is one of these grim stats, and his life is now a nightmare.
He has stumps where his legs used to be and hasn't been able to get prosthetics.
Life has forced Shada to tap into a physical and emotional strength she did not know she possessed.
Their 3-year-old son helps care for his father.
This small family lives in a small rented house in a Shiite neighborhood in western Baghdad.
Shada has endured many tough times amid war and conflict.
Her brother was shot dead and her father died because of poor health care.
Neighbors have helped the family financially, and Shada tries to make ends meet by selling gasoline on the street.
But the circumstances have forced the man she relied on to rely on her.
I cannot go to the markets because of him. I am asking people for help because I cannot leave him alone in the house.
Andy Roddick will not be taking part in this summer's Olympic Games in Beijing, instead opting to play in an ATP tournament in the United States.
Roddick, who bounced back to form with a superb win at the ATP tournament in Dubai last week, beating Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, says he wants to prepare properly for the U.S Open.
"My goal every summer is to win the U.S. Open," Roddick said in a statement released by Legg Mason organizers.
The Washington tournament runs August 11-17 with the U.S. Open beginning on August 25.
Roddick, world ranked number six, won his lone major championship at the 2003 U.S. Open.
He claimed Legg Mason titles in 2001, 2005 and 2007.
I cared a lot. It's not the biggest thing in our sport, but it's the biggest thing in sports.
The online demonstrations in virtual locations including China's Tiananmen Square, Cuba's Revolution Square and North Korea's Kim Jong Il Square were taking place to mark the first Online Free Expression Day, Reporters Without Borders (RWB) said in a statement.
"We are giving all Internet users the opportunity to demonstrate in places were protests are not normally possible," the statement said.
"At least 62 cyber-dissidents are currently imprisoned worldwide, while more than 2,600 Web sites, blogs or discussions forums were closed or made inaccessible in 2007. "
As well as China, Cuba and North Korea, the list highlighted 12 other countries where Internet freedoms are restricted: Belarus, Myanmar, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and Zimbabwe.
A further 11 countries were named as "countries under watch: " Bahrain, Eritrea, Gambia, Jordan, Libya, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Thailand, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.
The report also criticized Western companies for cooperating in cyber-repression, citing the case of U.S. company Yahoo!
providing information to Chinese censors which resulted in a journalist, Shi Tao, being jailed for 10 years.
Around 5,400 demonstrators had joined the protests by 1300 GMT, including more than 2,000 in China, described by RWB as "the world's biggest prison for cyber-dissidents.
Avatars gathered in a virtual Tiananmen Square carried banners reading "Free Speech before the Olympic Games!"
A suicide bomber rammed his sedan into a convoy carrying U.S. troops near the Kabul airport Thursday, killing at least six civilians and wounding 18 others, authorities said.
Four American troops who were part of the convoy suffered "scratches," in the explosion, said Lt. Col. David Johnson, a spokesman for U.S. forces.
In recent months, Afghanistan has seen a surge in deadly attacks targeting police officials and American and coalition forces.
In January, two suicide bombers and several gunmen in police uniforms attacked a luxury hotel in Kabul.
A Norwegian journalist was killed, along with at least seven other people, in the brazen attack on Serena Hotel.
Norway's foreign minister, Jonas Gahr Stoere, was in the hotel at the time and escaped unhurt.
Last month the U.S. Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell said a resurgent Taliban has regained control of between 10 and 11 percent of Afghanistan.
HONG KONG, China (CNN) Hong Kong officials gave kindergarten and primary school children an early break for the Easter holiday in the midst of a deadly flu outbreak.
Health Secretary York Chow made the decision late Wednesday to call off classes for two weeks, through March 28.
"All primary schools, special schools and kindergartens and child care centers will be closed in the hope of slowing down the spreading of flu and provide a chance for schools to clean up and make a better environment," York said.
The government has ordered an investigation after three children died over the past week of the outbreak.
Officials say five of his classmates are sick and hospitalized, while 30 others are displaying similar flu-like symptoms.
By imposing the two-week break from school, health authorities are hoping to slow the spread of influenza.
"The decision was made due to a rising trend of flu infections within the community," he said. "We estimate this peak season of influenza will continue for a few weeks.
Hong Kong developed an action plan after a deadly outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) five years ago.
The flu-like illness killed 299 people between February and May of 2003, according to the World Health Organization.
SARS affected more than 8,000 people between November 2002 and July 2003 in what the WHO deemed a "global threat" nearly 800 of those who contracted the disease died from it.
WASHINGTON (CNN) The United States Treasury Department announced sanctions Wednesday against a Bahrain bank accused of helping Iran's alleged nuclear proliferation activities.
The Treasury Department said Future Bank B.S.C. is controlled by Iran's Bank Melli, which has already been sanctioned "for facilitating Iran's proliferation activities.
"Bank Melli goes to extraordinary lengths to assist Iran's pursuit of a nuclear capability and ballistic missiles, while also helping other designated entities to dodge sanctions," said Stuart Levey, under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence.
"Banks and other entities owned or controlled by Bank Melli pose a serious threat to the integrity of the international financial system," Levey said.
Future Bank was started in 2004 in a joint venture between Bank Melli; Bank Saderat, also an Iranian bank; and a private bank based in Bahrain.
Under the designation, any bank accounts and financial assets in the United States must be frozen, and American citizens will not be permitted to do business with the bank.
Bahrain "has taken responsible steps to try to prevent Future Bank from abusing the country's financial system," Levey said.
"Bahraini authorities have been closely monitoring Future Bank and took some steps after Treasury's designations of Banks Melli and Saderat to attempt to prevent abuse by this institution."
DES MOINES, Iowa (CNN) Attention, cat haters:
Those not claimed will be destroyed.
Mayor Vance Trively says that the southwest Iowa town of 200 people is being overrun by dozens of feral cats and needed to do something.
"You can't just let them keep multiplying in town," Trively said Tuesday.
Town officials approved the bounty after receiving numerous complaints, ranging from a cat attacking a small dog to a dozen cats showing up at the bowl when a resident tried to feed his own cat.
Under the new policy, stray cats without collars will be taken to a veterinarian in the nearby town of Sidney Randolph has no vet clinic where they'll be kept "for a time for people to claim them," the mayor said.
If no one does, they'll be euthanized and buried.
"I'm concerned about children, people trying to capture these cats that don't have knowledge of what they're doing, being scratched or injured or inhumanely handling these cats for five bucks. Is it worth it?
"You couldn't get a donation to save a cat in this town for the life of them," Trively said.
Since the bounty went into effect March 1, two cats one of them pregnant have been turned in.
(CNN) Southwest Airlines was inspecting 44 planes Wednesday after an "ambiguity related to required testing" was found during a review of records, the airline said.
Earlier this week, Southwest placed three employees on administrative leave and began conducting an internal investigation into the allegations that it flew planes without proper inspections.
The FAA should have "immediately undertaken a review of the airline's records.
"Had such a review been conducted, FAA would have found or prevented the 'ambiguity' in Southwest's maintenance, which Southwest has discovered after its own review of its records this week," the committee statement said.
The 44 planes included five that were already out of service for scheduled maintenance checks plus one that "was already retired," the company said in a news release Wednesday afternoon.
Taking the other 38 planes out of service for inspection resulted in the cancellation of "approximately 4 percent of today's Southwest flights," the release said.
It said other such service interruptions could occur in coming days because of "the ongoing internal review of Southwest's maintenance programs, policies, and procedures."
Authorities broke up a march Thursday by 100 Tibetan exiles who had planned to trek from the northern Indian city of Dharamshala to Tibet's border in a protest at China's rule over their homeland.
Once inside the vehicles, the protesters furiously banged on windows and continued to chant, "Free Tibet!
The protesters, who planned to reach the border for a confrontation with Chinese authorities just before the Beijing Olympics begins in August, were only three days and 75 km into the march when police stopped the march.
The protesters wanted to capitalize on the massive event to spread their anti-China message.
"As long as the issue of Tibet is not resolved, we will resist China occupation," said Tsewang Rigzin, president of the Tibetan Youth Congress and one of the march organizers.
The Indian government, which sponsors 130,000 Tibetan exiles, had said it would enforce an order that bans the marchers from leaving the Dharamshala district, which is home to the Tibetan exile government and the
Rigzin said his group is acting independently of the government or the Dalai Lama.
"What we are saying is that we are Tibetan, and we belong to Tibet and we need to go back to our country," he said. "It's as simple as that.
Protesters gathered near the Chinese Embassy in New Delhi on Wednesday, where one Tibetan woman shouted:
"Stop genocide in Tibet. No Olympics in China until Tibet is free.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates has dismissed as "ridiculous" any suggestion that the resignation of America's military chief in the Middle East signals the United States is planning to go to war with Iran.
William Fallon resigned Tuesday as chief of U.S. forces in the Middle East and Central Asia after just a year in the post, citing what he called an inaccurate perception that he is at odds with the Bush administration over Iran.
Fallon, the head of U.S. Central Command, was the subject of a recent Esquire magazine profile that portrayed him as resisting pressure for military action against Iran, which the Bush administration accuses of trying to develop nuclear weapons.
In a written statement, Fallon said the article's "disrespect for the president" and "resulting embarrassment" had become a distraction.
"Although I don't believe there have ever been any differences about the objectives of our policy in the Central Command area of responsibility, the simple perception that there is makes it difficult for me to effectively serve America's interests there," Fallon said.
In Washington, Defense Secretary Gates told reporters at the Pentagon he accepted Fallon's resignation "with reluctance and regret.
Fallon, a 41-year veteran of the Navy, took over as chief of Central Command in early 2007.
Gates said he will be replaced by Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey, his deputy, who commanded an Army division in Iraq in the early days of the war and led efforts to train the Iraqi military.
The perception that Fallon has opposed a drive toward military action against Iran from within the Bush administration dates to his confirmation hearings in January 2007, when he told the Senate the United States needed to exhaust all diplomatic options in its disputes with the Islamic republic.
Oil had traded as low as at $107.09 following the report's release on Wednesday morning.
In its weekly inventory report, the U.S. Energy Information Administration, a government agency that measures oil and gas supplies, said crude stocks rose by 6.2 million barrels last week.
Analysts were looking for a rise of 1.6 million barrels, according to a Dow Jones poll.
Gasoline supplies rose by 1.7 million barrels, significantly more than the 300,000 barrel rise that analysts had forecast.
The government said gasoline stockpiles are well above average for this time of year.
Sources told CNN the probe began when a bank informed the U.S. Treasury Department about suspicious transfers of money from Spitzer's accounts.
Wiretaps on suspected members of the ring, authorized in January, yielded more than 5,000 telephone calls and text messages and another 6,000-plus e-mails, according to court papers.
Spitzer built his career on rooting out public corruption and became a national figure with a series of high-profile Wall Street investigations
"I will try once again outside of politics to serve the common good.
With Spitzer's resignation, Lt. Gov. David Paterson who is legally blind is set to become New York's first African-American governor.
"I am stepping down from your finance committee so I can speak for myself and you can continue to speak for yourself about what is at stake in this campaign," Ferraro wrote in a letter to Clinton.
"The Obama campaign is attacking me to hurt you. I won't let that happen.
Ferraro told CNN she sent the letter to Clinton Wednesday afternoon.
Ferraro stirred controversy with her recent remarks that Obama's campaign was successful because he was black.
"I am who I am and I will continue to speak up," she said.
The former congresswoman also criticized the Obama campaign for efforts she characterized as trying to block her First Amendment rights.
Ferraro who said she raised about $125,000 for Clinton's campaign said she was not asked to step down by Clinton or her staff.
Ferraro told CBS' "The Early Show" that she would not stop raising money for the New York senator's presidential bid.
She also blamed Obama's chief strategist, David Axelrod, for misinterpreting her remarks.
Ferraro also told ABC's "Good Morning America" that "every time" someone makes a negative comment about Obama, they are accused of racism.
AUSTIN, Texas (CNN) John Cho thinks he has a cult following now as Harold in the "Harold & Kumar" movies he ain't seen nothing yet.
"Right after I got the gig, a friend of a friend e-mailed me and said, you know, `Congratulations, I'm so happy for you, and also I just wanted to impart to you how great a
"And he also went on to claim that `Star Trek' is the predecessor to the iPod, cell phones and all that.
And this is the first time everyone knows what I'm talking about. "
Naturally, Cho can't say much about the film, given Abrams' typical reticence about his projects.
"But I think he sees it as a favor to fans to keep everything on the down-low because he's a very enthusiastic moviegoer, and he wants to be surprised and he wants things to be kept from him until the last minute," Cho said of the director, who also created the TV series "Lost."
This is one of the great fantasies of my life.
The motive for the attack in the western city of Tran was not immediately clear.
Police said the attacker, a 67-year-old Bulgarian man, had previous convictions for sexual abuse.
Officials said the two wounded teenagers, age 12 and 15, had been hospitalized and were expected to survive.
The gunman, identified as Asen Iliev, fired several times at the children with a legally owned shotgun and then fatally shot himself, police said.
The shooting was the worst in a series of incidents over the past week at state homes for handicapped or abandoned children, where neglect and abuse are rampant, according to recent media reports.
On Sunday, a 9-year-old girl was badly hurt after jumping from the third floor of a children's home in Sofia.
After Wednesday's shootings, Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev promised to review legislation on homes for children deprived of parental care.
TOKYO, Japan (CNN) Japan's upper house of parliament on Wednesday voted to reject the government nomination for Bank of Japan chief.
The opposition, which controls the legislative chamber, has for days threatened to block central bank Deputy Gov. Toshiro Muto's appointment, which came last week, accusing the government of bulldozing bills and using strong arm tactics to push their own personnel decisions.
The term of current Bank of Japan Gov. Toshihiko Fukui ends March 19.
The stalemate in the legislature over who will head the central bank of the world's second largest economy is a major embarrassment to the Japanese government, coming at a time when fears are growing about a global slowdown.
In the upper house, legislators voted 129-106 against the appointment of Muto, 64.
a twist, the opposition approved one of the government appointments for deputy, former BOJ Executive Director Masaaki Shirakawa, 58, now a Kyoto University professor, who won 230 supporting votes from the chamber, while seven legislators opposed him.
The government nominee for the other deputy post, Takatoshi Ito, 57, professor at the University of Tokyo, was voted down along with Muto.
Nguyen Ba Thuoc, vice director of Vietnam Post and Telecommunication Corp., told reporters Wednesday that Vinasat No. 1 satellite is scheduled to be launched on April 12 and will be ready for use a month later.
The satellite, which has a medium transmission capacity, will help improve Internet, television and telecommunication transmission in Vietnam.
It will also contribute to the country's natural disaster prevention work.
TOKYO, Japan (CNN) Jerome White Jr. took the stage wearing an oversized baseball cap, baggy jeans and two gold chains an aspiring singer from the United States.
The Japanese crowd heard a beat reminiscent of American-style hip hop but then White started to sing.
White stunned the crowd with a unique hip hop version of enka, melodramatic Japanese folk music that resonates with the elderly but tends not to interest the young.
"Amazing and strange," said Yoshimitsu Otaka, shaking his head as his country's music flowed flawlessly from the lips of a man who grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
"This is among the best enka I've heard and it's from a foreigner.
Others have taken to White's music, as well his first CD single opened at number 4 in Japan in its first week.
White first heard the music from his Japanese grandmother, who moved to the United States with her Army husband after World War II.
"Every time I'd go to her house, she'd be playing enka music in the background," he said. "Whenever I'd sing it for her, she'd be really, really excited and happy.
After graduating from the University of Pittsburgh, White moved to Tokyo to learn more about his heritage and teach English.
On a whim, he entered a karaoke contest.
He didn't win, but it led to a record deal with Victor Entertainment.
"My music is still true enka, just with a little more soul and rhythm," he said. "And if it helps younger Japanese learn about this music, then that makes me happy."
Fernando Torres fired Liverpool into the Champions League quarterfinals with the only goal against 10-man Inter Milan in the San Siro on Tuesday.
Liverpool join three other English teams Chelsea, Manchester United and Arsenal in the next stage, making this the first time four teams from the same country have made it to the final eight.
Torres controlled a cross inside the area and beat Inter goalkeeper Julio Cesar with a low shot in the 64th minute.
Inter played the last 40 minutes a man down after defender Nicolas Burdisso was sent off with his second yellow card.
Liverpool, who won the tournament in 2005 and lost in the final last year, advanced with a 3-0 aggregate after winning 2-0 at Anfield in the first leg three weeks ago.
They follow in the footsteps of Arsenal who a week earlier won in the San Siro to eliminate Inter's groundsharing rivals AC Milan.
Barcelona, AS Roma, Schalke and Fenerbahce also have made it to the quarterfinals, but Premier League clubs will dominate Friday's draw.
"I don't think anyone will want to play us in the last eight," said Liverpool skipper Steven Gerrard, who saluted Torres.
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates (CNN) Six people were killed, at least 40 were injured and dozens of vehicles burned Tuesday when hundreds of cars collided on a fog-shrouded Persian Gulf highway.
Media in the United Arab Emirates reported four separate accidents, the largest involving more than 200 cars, on the highway connecting the cities of Dubai and Abu Dhabi on Tuesday.
The biggest wreck began in the early morning near Ghantoot, about seven kilometers (4.5 miles) from Dubai.
At least 25 cars burned among the 200 that piled up as the fog and high speeds made for a deadly mixture, police said.
The scope of the accident and limited visibility delayed rescue efforts until around noon, media reports said, when helicopters began taking the injured to hospitals.
The accident resulted in a 20-kilometer (12-mile) traffic jam that lasted for several hours.
Smaller accidents accounted for up to 100 damaged vehicles, according to media reports.
Traffic accidents are a leading cause of death in the United Arab Emirates because drivers often travel at high speeds, according to the U.S. State Department.
"Unsafe driving practices are common, especially on intercity highways," the State Department says on its travel Web site.
The dollar fell to a new low against the euro on Tuesday, but reversed course after the U.S. Federal Reserve, European Central Bank and Bank of England announced another joint effort to soothe money markets with fresh short-term credit.
The euro initially soared to $1.5495, bolstered by a better-than-expected reading of investor sentiment from Germany.
The rise in the ZEW institute's monthly confidence index a closely watched indicator for Europe's biggest economy defied analysts' predictions of a slight decline.
The report pushed the euro above its previous high of $1.5463, set Friday.
But when the Fed, ECB and Bank of England announced that they were joining with other central banks to ramp up efforts to provide more relief in the credit crisis, making as much as $200 billion in cash available to cash-strapped financial institutions, the euro dropped as low as $1.5293.
Ashraf Laidi, chief foreign exchange strategist for CMC Markets in New York, said the announcement pushed the euro lower because it all but eliminated the chance for a rate cut by the Fed before its next meeting.
"This coordinated central bank injection of liquidity totally cancels the changes of an inter-meeting rate cut for the Fed and this provides temporary support for the U.S. dollar," Laidi told The Associated Press.
DAYTON, Ohio (CNN) The world's first attack aircraft to employ stealth technology is slipping quietly into history.
The inky black, angular, radar-evading F-117, which spent 27 years in the Air Force arsenal secretly patrolling hostile skies from Serbia to Iraq, will be put in mothballs next month in Nevada.
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, which manages the F-117 program, will have an informal, private retirement ceremony Tuesday with military leaders, base employees and representatives from Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico.
The last F-117s scheduled to fly will leave Holloman on April 21, stop in Palmdale, California, for another retirement ceremony, then arrive on April 22 at their final destination:
The Air Force decided to accelerate the retirement of the F-117s to free up money to modernize the rest of the fleet.
10 were retired in December 2006 and 27 since then, the Air Force said.
Seven of the planes have crashed, one in Serbia in 1999.
Stealth technology used on the F-117 was developed in the 1970s to help evade enemy radar.
While not invisible to radar, the F-117's shape and coating greatly reduced its detection.
A total of 558 pilots have flown the F-117 since it went operational.
Sen. Barack Obama on Tuesday called a comment by Geraldine Ferraro, a top Clinton fundraiser, that he was a major presidential contender only because he is a black man "patently absurd.
"I don't think Geraldine Ferraro's comments have any place in our politics or in the Democratic Party. They are divisive," he told the Allentown Morning News.
"I think anybody who understands the history of this country knows they are patently absurd. And I would expect that the same way those comments don't have a place in my campaign, they shouldn't have a place in Senator Clinton's, either," he added.
Earlier, Obama's top strategist, David Axelrod, called for Clinton to sever ties with Ferraro.
He said the comment by Ferraro, a former New York representative coupled with Clinton's "own inexplicable unwillingness" to deny that he [Obama] was a Muslim during a recent interview was part of "an insidious pattern that needs to be addressed.
Axelrod was reacting to a comment by Ferraro, the Democratic Party's vice presidential nominee in 1984, that appeared in the Daily Breeze of Torrance, California, on Friday.
"If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman, he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is.
Axelrod called on the New York senator to drop Ferraro from her finance committee.
"When you wink and nod at offensive statements, you're really sending a signal to your supporters that anything goes," Axelrod said.
WASHINGTON (CNN) China, host of the summer Olympics, is an authoritarian nation that denies its people basic human rights and freedoms, harasses journalists and foreign aid workers and tortures prisoners, the United States charged Tuesday.
China is still among the world's human rights abusers despite rapid economic growth that has transformed large parts of Chinese society, the State Department said in an annual accounting of human rights practices around the world.
Torture in China includes the use of electric shocks, beatings, shackles, and other forms of abuse, according to the report.
It includes an account of a prisoner strapped to a "tiger bench," as device that forces the legs to bend sometimes until they break.
The report details the lengths some Chinese officials have taken to enforce China's well-known "one child" policy, and says forced relocations went up last year.
"The government continued to monitor, harass, detain, arrest, and imprison journalists, Internet writers, and bloggers.
Sen. Barack Obama claimed victory in Mississippi's Democratic primary Tuesday.
Mississippi had 33 pledged delegates up for grabs, which will be allocated proportionally.
The state's Democratic voters were sharply divided among racial lines, exit polls indicate.
As has been the case in many primary states, Obama won overwhelming support from African-American voters.
And black voters make up nearly 70 percent of registered Democrats.
But Mississippi white voters overwhelmingly backed the New York senator, supporting her over Obama 72 percent to 21 percent.
According to the Associated Press, only two other primary states were as racially polarized neighboring Alabama, and Clinton's former home state of Arkansas.
The exit polls also indicated roughly 40 percent of Mississippi Democratic voters said race was an important factor in their vote, and 90 percent of those voters supported Obama.
Clinton's campaign issued a statement congratulating Obama on his win, and said they "look forward to campaigning in Pennsylvania and around the country as this campaign continues."
Pennsylvania is the next battleground for the Democrats. It holds its primary on April 22 and has 158 delegates at stake.
Obama also finished first in the Texas Democratic caucuses.
The caucuses were held last week, but the race was not called until Tuesday night.
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (CNN) Snakes including one 10-foot anaconda are increasingly invading the eastern Amazon's largest city, driven from the rain forest by destruction of their natural habitat, the government's environmental protection agency said Tuesday.
The agency, known as Ibama, has been called out to capture 21 snakes this year in Belem, Brazil, a sprawling metropolis of 1.5 million people at the mouth of the Amazon River, Ibama press officer Luciana Almeida said by telephone.
In normal years, Ibama gets no more than one or two calls a month, she said.
But the captured snakes included a 10-foot anaconda, usually a jungle recluse.
"Imagine finding a 3-meter [10 foot] snake in your plumbing.
Almeida said Ibama believes the increase in snakes is a result of rising deforestation by loggers, ranchers and developers in the Amazon jungle surrounding the Belem urban area.
"Deforestation destroys their habitat, so they come to the city," she said.
Ibama has a veterinary team that captures the snakes and takes them to a zoo or to an outlying park to release them, Almeida said.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) Two suicide bombers exploded a car Tuesday at a building containing the offices of Pakistan's national investigative agency, destroying it and killing and wounding people inside.
Police said 17 people died and 175 were wounded in the attack in Lahore, and three more were killed in a separate suicide bombing in an area of the city known as Model Town.
The Federal Investigation Agency is a national investigative agency similar to the FBI in the United States and is surrounded by heavy security.
Two suicide car bombers drove their vehicle into the eight-story building housing the offices of the Federal Investigation Agency at about 9:30 a.m., according to the agency.
Lahore police describe the building, where about 1,000 people work, as destroyed.
Another suicide bomber drove a van into a house being used by an advertising agency in a residential area known as Model Town, killing at least three people.
Just a week ago, twin suicide bombers set off explosives at the Pakistan Navy War College in Lahore, killing at least five people. In January, a suicide bomber apparently targeting police detonated an explosive outside a court in the city, killing at least 23 people.
President Pervez Musharraf and Caretaker Prime Minister Mohammadmian Soomro strongly condemned the attacks.
"The acts of terrorism cannot deter government's resolve to fight the scourge with full force," Musharraf said, according to the Associated Press of Pakistan.
Soomro said every effort would be made to catch the culprits and punish them.
The White House also released a statement condemning the attack and offering condolences to the families of the victims.
"We will stand with the Pakistani people as they seek to live in a democratic society free from this needless violence.
Ousted Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra says he will plead innocent when he appears in the Supreme Court on Wednesday in one of two corruption cases against him.
The court session comes just a day before he begins a month-long trip back to England, for which the court granted him permission Tuesday.
Thaksin told journalists that his court appearance would be a routine one to "just ... deny" all the charges against him.
"We can prove our innocence," said Thaksin, who was ousted by a September 2006 military coup for alleged corruption and abuse of power.
Thaksin faces conflict of interest and malfeasance charges related to his wife's purchase of a prime piece of Bangkok real estate in 2003 .
She bought the land from a government agency despite an anti-corruption law barring politicians and their spouses from doing business with state agencies.
The court granted Thaksin, who owns English Premier League soccer team Manchester City, permission to leave Thailand on Thursday for a month, his spokesman said.
"Thaksin told the court he needed to go back to England to look after his soccer team and do some private business," Pongthep Thepkanjana said.
The court's secretary, Rakkiat Pattanaphong, said Thaksin must report back to it on April 11.
Thaksin, who became a billionaire in telecommunications, bought Manchester City during his 17 months of post-coup exile.
The team, which has slipped to eighth place in the Premier League after a poor run of results, plays Tottenham on Sunday.
Thaksin, who was prime minister in 2001-2006, has insisted he has no interest in returning to politics and has said he plans to devote himself to charity work, sports and his family.
He claimed that in his last few months as prime minister
Mehdi Kazemi, 19, had originally sought asylum in Britain, where he was taking classes on a student visa, because, he said, his boyfriend had been executed in Iran after saying he and Kazemi had been in a gay relationship.
Britain's Home Office rejected his request, prompting Kazemi to flee to Netherlands.
Tuesday's decision by the Council of State the highest administrative court in the Netherlands means Kazemi could face deportation to Britain, which he fears will send him back to Iran.
Council spokeswoman Daniela Tempelman said the council decided it must comply with the Dublin Regulation and return Kazemi to Britain.
Under the Dublin Regulation, European Union member nations agree that an application for asylum submitted in any EU country would be handled by that country alone.
The regulation seeks to ensure that an asylum seeker is not redirected from nation to nation simply because none will take responsibility.
Kazemi's initial appeal for asylum in the Netherlands, made in October, was rejected.
He then appealed unsuccessfully to a regional court in December.
Tempelman said that in order for the Dutch court to consider Kazemi's asylum application, he needed to prove that Britain did not handle his asylum application properly, but he wasn't able to prove any wrongdoing on the part of the British government.
Kazemi now has exhausted his chances for appeal in the Netherlands and, according to Tempelman, could be returned to Britain on a short notice.
The British government about six months ago accepted the Dutch request to take him back.
Kazemi's lawyer will have the option of taking his case to the European Court of Human Rights to request an "interim measure" that could allow Kazemi to stay in Europe until further notice.
Gay rights activists in Europe and Iran are also researching Kazemi's case.
"When Britain is prepared to send a young man back to possible execution, that is inhumanity on a monumental scale," said Peter Tatchell, an activist for gay campaign group OutRage. "And I hang my head in shame, as a British citizen.
In a written statement, Britain's Home Office said that even though homosexuality is illegal in Iran and homosexuals do experience discrimination, it does not believe that homosexuals are routinely persecuted purely on the basis of their sexuality.
Early exit poll results show Democratic voters divided in Mississippi.
Of those who voted for Barack Obama, 42 percent said they would be satisfied if Hillary Clinton was the nominee, according to the exit polls.
Among Clinton voters, only 16 percent said they would be satisfied if Obama wins the party's top spot.
The exit polls are based on surveys of 925 voters in Mississippi's Democratic primary.
Mississippi has 33 Democratic delegates up for grabs Tuesday, and with the race so tight, every delegate counts.
Obama leads Clinton in the overall delegate count 1,591-1,467, but neither candidate is close to the 2,025 delegates needed to clinch the Democratic presidential nomination.
Clinton is coming off last week's wins in Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island.
Obama won the caucuses in Wyoming on Saturday, taking seven of the 12 delegates at stake.
Recent polls show Obama with a double-digit lead over Clinton in Mississippi.
Between 125,000 and 150,000 voters were expected to cast ballots Tuesday, according to Pamela Weaver of the Mississippi Secretary of State's Office.
World marathon record holder Haile Gebreselassie of Ethiopia is unlikely to take part in the event at the Beijing Olympics. His agent Jos Hermans said:
"His dream is to run in two hours and three minutes and to be the first to do that.
It's more important for him than to win another gold medal.
Hermans said that Gebreselassie planned to run in the 10,000 meters in Beijing but would first have to qualify for the Ethiopian team, which will be selected after the May 24 meeting in Hengelo.
The International Olympic Committee has already voiced concern over distance events at the Olympics in August and has said that the marathons could be called off if the conditions posed a danger to athletes' health.
(CNN) It's happened to all of us: You print something from the Web, and all you get is a sheet of paper with nothing but a URL or something equally useless.
GreenPrint, software that analyzes what a computer sends to a printer.
Then, the software automatically eliminates these pages from the print job.
Users can reselect the pages if desired and deselect any other pages they don't want to print say, the pages of legal jargon at the end of an airline reservation.
GreenPrint also allows users to avoid printing altogether by saving documents as PDF files.
"The average employee prints about 10,000 pages a year, and roughly 20 percent of that is waste," Hamilton said from his GreenPrint office in the Old Town section of Portland, Oregon.
"We estimate if [GreenPrint] got into widespread use, in the U.S. alone it would save tens of millions of trees a year and hundreds of millions of pounds" of polluting carbon-dioxide gases.
Now, GreenPrint is offering a free version of the software for non-business use, supported by advertising.
Tens of thousands of people have downloaded the program in the weeks since its January 28 debut.
"Our goal is nothing short of ending wasteful printing worldwide," Hamilton said.
And Hamilton said that more than two dozen Fortune 500 companies are testing out the product.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) At least 20 people were killed and 50 others were wounded Tuesday in three suicide bombings in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore, a high-ranking police official told CNN.
Two of the attacks targeted an office of the Federal Investigation Agency one at the main gate and the other inside.
At least 16 people were killed in that blast, which happened shortly before 9:30 a.m.
A police official said up to 1,000 people normally work there.
The Federal Investigation Agency is a national investigative agency similar to the FBI in the United States and is surrounded by heavy security.
A third suicide bomber exploded outside a house being used by an advertising agency in a residential area known as Model Town, killing at least four people.
Caretaker Prime Minister Mohammadmian Soomro strongly condemned the "terrorist blasts" and expressed sorrow over the loss of life, the Associated Press of Pakistan reported.
He said every effort would be made to catch the culprits and punish them.
Just a week ago, twin suicide bombers set off explosives at the Pakistan Navy War College in Lahore, killing at least five people and wounding at least 16.
In early January, a suicide bomber, apparently targeting police, detonated an explosive outside a court in Lahore, killing at least 23 people and injuring more than 58.
Matt Damon's family is expanding:
The actor and wife Luciana are expecting another baby, his rep Jennifer Allen tells PEOPLE exclusively.
The current PEOPLE Sexiest Man Alive, 37, and his wife, 32, stepped out Sunday night at the Empire Film Awards in London &#8211; with Luciana glowing (and sporting a baby bump).
This is the third child for the family:
Daughter Isabella was born in June 2006, and Luciana has a 9-year-old daughter, Alexia, from a previous marriage.
The actor is currently shooting the CIA thriller Green Zone in Morocco.
MEXICO CITY (CNN) When Manuel Uribe went out on a date, he made all the necessary arrangements:
But even the open road wasn't big enough to handle Uribe's dream of celebrating a budding romance and his success in losing about 440 pounds.
Uribe was halfway to a picnic near his Monterrey-area home on Sunday when one of the posts holding a sun-shielding tarp over his bed hit an overpass.
"We were going to celebrate that I've been losing weight for two years and that it was my girlfriend's birthday," Uribe said in a telephone interview.
"The saddest part was that I couldn't fulfill my dream of taking my girlfriend out to eat.
Uribe says that after losing weight on a high-protein diet he started two years ago, he's down to about 800 pounds.
Last year, Uribe left his house for the first time in five years.
Six people pushed his iron bed on wheels out to the street as a mariachi band played and a crowd gathered to see the man who once weighed 1,235 pounds.
At the time, the 42-year-old mechanic rode through the streets of his native San Nicolas de los Garza to enjoy the sun and wave to neighbors.
Uribe weighed more than 250 pounds as an adolescent, and he just kept growing.
Since the summer of 2002, Uribe has been bedridden, relying on his mother and friends to feed and clean him.
He drew worldwide attention when he pleaded for help on national television in January 2006.
Uribe says despite the setback, he still hopes to go out with his girlfriend on June 11, when he will turn 43.
COLUMBIA, South Carolina (CNN) BMW says it will cut 7.5 percent of its work force in Germany over two years while increasing production in the U.S. by more than 50 percent by 2012.
"This is completely driven by the plunge in the dollar," said Greg Gardner with Oliver Wyman, publisher of the Harbour Report on automotive manufacturing activity. "It is untenable to produce at a much higher cost in Germany.
That means European goods cost more for Americans to buy.
By building the cars in the U.S., BMW can save money on the lower dollar and on wages since its South Carolina workers make less than German workers, Gardner said.
The declining dollar also means BMW and other foreign automakers likely will start buying locally for more of the parts used by their U.S. plants, he said.
That shift in production has led to the cuts at home for the Munich-based luxury car maker.
BMW's head of personnel, Ernst Baumann, said last month that 5,600 jobs would be cut by the end of the year.
That's on top of 2,500 positions already eliminated.
In the U.S., BMW Manufacturing Co. in Greer expects to increase production to 240,000 cars by 2012, company spokesman Bobby Hitt said last month.
That's up from 155,000 last year.
"Conceivably, as the volume increases and the manufacturing system at the Spartanburg, South Carolina plant improves, costs may come down enough to cut prices of their cars," Gardner said.
The company has not said what impact the increase in production will have on employment in Greer, which has about 4,500 permanent employees and up to 900 temporary employees.
A vast array of pharmaceuticals including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an Associated Press investigation shows.
To be sure, the concentrations of these pharmaceuticals are tiny, measured in quantities of parts per billion or trillion, far below the levels of a medical dose.
But the presence of so many prescription drugs and over-the-counter medicines like acetaminophen and ibuprofen in so much of our drinking water is heightening worries among scientists of long-term consequences to human health.
In the course of a five-month inquiry, the AP discovered that drugs have been detected in the drinking water supplies of 24 major metropolitan areas from Southern California to Northern New Jersey, from Detroit, Michigan, to Louisville, Kentucky.
For example, the head of a group representing major California suppliers said the public "doesn't know how to interpret the information" and might be unduly alarmed.
How do the drugs get into the water?
People take pills.
Their bodies absorb some of the medication, but the rest of it passes through and is flushed down the toilet.
Then, some of the water is cleansed again at drinking water treatment plants and piped to consumers.
And while researchers do not yet understand the exact risks from decades of persistent exposure to random combinations of low levels of pharmaceuticals, recent studies which have gone virtually unnoticed by the general public have found alarming effects on human cells and wildlife.
WASHINGTON (CNN) Is the United States the "greatest country on earth?"
You hear that a lot, or phrases like that, during this presidential campaign.
Candidates may attack other candidates, or the sitting president, but they never attack the idea that America is special, a "city upon a hill." "The last, best hope of Earth.
It's part of America's ideology and its tradition of political rhetoric.
To many Americans' ears, it sounds normal.
But to citizens of other countries it's sometimes jarring, as if Americans put their country ahead of any other, as if the United States thinks it has the right to tell the rest of the world what to do.
We went to the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C. and asked visitors if they agree America "knows best" and the United States has an obligation to spread its values around the world.
Almost everyone we talked with did not agree.
"I have a lot of pride in our government however, at the same time, it is ours and I don't think that it is right to force it on other people.
Jermane Bonilla, from Los Angeles, said he thinks the United States is a special country, "the most powerful nation on earth and the most beautiful country on earth, in my mind."
But, he told us "it might not be the same model that everybody should be using.
They're not the exception, it turns out. In their book, "America Against the World," Pew Research Center President Andrew Kohut and journalist Bruce Stokes say it's more often U.S. leaders who want to impose American values in other countries not the American people.
The authors analyzed international surveys of people around the globe going back to the 1980's as well as more than 100,000 interviews in 60 countries.
"Contrary to widespread misconceptions, Americans' pride in their country is not evangelistic.
The American people, as opposed to some of their leaders, seek no converts to their ideology.
Citizens of many other countries, too, may think their national way of life is the best but, these authors say, "they don't dominate the globe.
An endangered and secretive animal rarely seen in the wild has been caught on camera in West Africa.
There are thought to be less than 3,000 pygmy hippos left in the wild, and there had been concern for their future because of wars, poaching and their habitat being destroyed.
Despite its size it can grow to almost six feet in length and weigh 300 pounds (136 kilograms) the pygmy hippo is one of the most elusive and secretive large mammals on the planet.
It is rarely seen in the wild where it survives in isolated pockets in rivers and swamps in the dense west African forests of countries including Ivory Coast, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.
Experts from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) set up special hidden cameras in Liberia's only national park and the first images of the wild pygmy hippos were recorded within the first three days.
Pygmy hippos are much smaller in size and spend more time on land than their giant relatives, where they feed on leaves and other swamp vegetation.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) At least five U.S. soldiers on foot patrol were killed and three others wounded in a suicide bombing Monday in Baghdad, U.S. military officials in Iraq said.
They were with Multi-National Division-Baghdad. An Iraqi interpreter also was wounded in the explosion, the officials said.
Initial reports indicate the bomber was wearing an explosive vest.
"Five soldiers paid the ultimate sacrifice on behalf of the Iraqi and American people. I ask you remember these fallen heroes and their families as well as their wounded brethren in your thoughts and prayers," said Col. Allen Batschelet, chief of staff for Multi-National Division-Baghdad.
"We remain resolute in our resolve to protect the people of Iraq and kill or capture those who would bring them harm."
The explosion marks the deadliest attack against the U.S. military since five soldiers were killed January 28 in a roadside bombing in Mosul.
Troops killed a Saudi insurgent whose network was responsible for that attack.
Earlier, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said one person was killed and eight people were wounded in a suicide bomb attack targeting a U.S. military convoy in western Baghdad.
It is not clear if the U.S. and Iraqi reports are about the same incident.
gasoline prices were poised Monday to set a new record at the pump, having surged to within half a cent of their record high of $3.227 a gallon.
Oil prices, meanwhile, surged above $108 to a new inflation-adjusted record and their fifth new high in the last six sessions on an upbeat report on wholesale inventories.
The national average price of a gallon of gas rose 0.7 cent overnight to $3.222 a gallon, 69 cents higher than one year ago, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service.
That record will likely be left in the dust soon as gas prices accelerate toward levels that could approach $4 a gallon, though most analysts believe prices will peak below that psychologically significant mark.
In its last forecast, released last month, the Energy Department said prices will likely peak around $3.40 a gallon this spring;
Retail gas prices are following crude oil, jumped 24 percent in a month on its way to setting new inflation-adjusted records four times last week.
On Monday, crude prices surged to yet another record after the Commerce Department said wholesale sales jumped by 2.7 percent in January, their biggest increase in four years, according to Dow Jones Newswires.
Light, sweet crude for April delivery rose $2.74 to $107.89 on the New York Mercantile Exchange after earlier setting a new trading record of $108.17.
ROME, Italy (CNN) A Vatican official has listed drugs, pollution and genetic manipulations as well as social and economic injustices as new areas of sinful behavior.
Monsignor Gianfranco Girotti said in an interview published on Sunday by the Vatican's daily newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, that known sins increasingly manifest themselves as behavior that damages society as a whole.
Girotti, who heads the Apostolic Penitentiary, a Vatican body that issues decisions on matters of conscience and grants absolutions told the paper that whilst sin used to concern the individual mostly, today it had a mainly a social resonance, due to the phenomenon of globalization.
Catholic teaching distinguishes between lesser, so-called venial sins, and mortal sins.
behavior, Girotti denounced "certain violations of the fundamental rights of human nature through experiments, genetic manipulations.
He also mentioned drugs, which weaken the mind and obscure intelligence; pollution; as well as the widening social and economic differences between the rich and the poor that "cause an unbearable social injustice.
Girotti said the Catholic Church continued to be concerned by other sinful acts, including abortion and pedophilia.
His comments came at the end of a week-long Vatican conference on confession.
Federal prosecutors have unsealed a 47-page affidavit that details a nearly 2¨ö-hour rendezvous that took place in a Washington hotel room last month between New York's Gov. Eliot Spitzer and a prostitute.
The affidavit does not mention Spitzer by name, but a source with knowledge of the case said the subject identified as Client 9 is the governor.
According to the affidavit, Kristen called Lewis about 9:32 p.m. Wednesday, February 13, and told her she was in Client 9's room number 871 at the Washington hotel.
Four minutes later, Client 9 was in the hotel, Lewis told Kristen in another call.
At that time, Kristen told Lewis Client 9 had left and she had collected $4,300.
Spitzer, who has not been charged, went before reporters Monday to confess to an undisclosed personal indiscretion, saying he had acted "in a way that violates my obligations to my family, that violates my or any sense of right and wrong."
He did not deny the allegations, which were first revealed Monday in the New York Times, nor did he take questions.
Spitzer is married with three children.
Spitzer, who built his career on rooting out public corruption as New York attorney general, became a national figure with a series of high-profile Wall Street investigations. He is also known for prosecuting prostitution rings.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) Pakistan's attorney general Monday rejected a plan by opposition lawmakers to reinstate the country's ousted Supreme Court justices within 30 days of parliament's first session.
In an interview with GEO TV, Malik Mohammed Qayyum called the opposition's move a futile attempt and reiterated that President Pervez Musharraf's dismissal of the judges was legal under the constitution.
Musharraf has yet to convene parliament, but has said he will do so within two weeks.
The ousted justices are at the heart of the political crisis that began in Pakistan last year.
Musharraf removed nearly all of the Supreme Court bench in November, days before it was set to rule against the legitimacy of his third term in office.
Speaking on Sunday, Asif Ali Zardari, head of the Pakistan People's Party, and Nawaz Sharif, head of the Pakistan Muslim League-N, said they would restore the justices within 30 days of parliament's first session, which they demanded Musharraf immediately convene.
They spoke at a joint news conference shortly after signing an agreement to make their parties' coalition official.
PPP, the party of assassinated Benazir Bhutto, and PML-N won the majority of seats in Pakistan's February 18 parliamentary election
Zardari Bhutto's widower and Sharif vowed to uphold the Charter for Democracy, a document signed by the once-rival opposition parties last May.
The document would restore the powers of the prime minister that were stripped away when Musharraf seized power in a 1999 coup, including the power to dissolve parliament and appoint military chiefs.
Despite their victory in parliamentary elections last month, a coalition led by Musharraf's party still has a considerable number of seats in the Senate.
Sen. Barack Obama Monday flatly rejected suggestions he would be a vice presidential running mate for Sen. Hillary Clinton.
Clinton, Obama's rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, and her husband, former President Clinton, have suggested a joint Clinton-Obama ticket with Obama in the second slot.
President Clinton Saturday suggested a Clinton-Obama ticket would be "unstoppable.
"He would win the urban areas and the upscale voters. She would win the rural areas that we lost when President Reagan was president," he said while campaigning in Pass Christian, Mississippi.
"If you put those two things together, you'd have an almost unstoppable force.
Obama forcefully shot that idea down.
I'm running for president of the United States of America," Obama told supporters during a rally in Columbus, Mississippi.
Obama won the Wyoming caucuses Saturday, where he picked up seven delegates. Clinton won five delegates.
BEIJING, China (CNN) China will maintain its one-child policy for at least another decade, the country's family planning minister said in an interview published Monday.
The policy, begun in the 1970s, prohibits most couples from bearing more than one child.
Nearly 200 million Chinese will enter child-bearing age in the next 10 years, minister Minister Zhang Weiqing told the China Daily newspaper.
He said abandoning the policy during this period would cause "serious problems and add extra pressure on social and economic development. "
"After the new birth peak ends, we may adjust the policy if there is a need," he said.
China's population, which now stands at about 1.3 billion, is growing at the rate of 0.6 percent and is expected to peak around 1.6 billion by 2050, according to the U.S. State Department.
China's Communist Party first implemented the one-child rule three decades ago amid fears that the country would not be able to feed a skyrocketing population.
The policy has prevented about 400 million births, the China Daily said.
In rural areas, the law allows for a second child under certain circumstances.
And the guidelines are also looser for ethnic minorities with small population.
Enforcement varies but usually takes the form of fines to discourage extra births.
While the policy has helped curb population growth, it has also led to forced sterilizations in some parts of the country, the State Department said.
Because of a traditional preference for male heirs, many Chinese have aborted female fetuses, according to human rights groups.
Even within the country, there have been growing calls in recent years for the law to be overhauled, the China Daily said.
Some Chinese worry that the law has led to a gender imbalance.
They also worry about China's aging population.
Those 60 years of age and older are expected to make up more than 200 million in the next seven years, according to government figures.
CAYENNE, French Guiana (CNN) A European rocket lifted off from French Guiana early Sunday on a mission to bring oxygen, food, water and equipment to the international space station.
The rocket will carry 21 tons of cargo to the space station, according Arianespace, the commercial arm of the 13-country European Space Agency.
It is the first of nine missions that Arianespace has arranged from this South American country to service the station over the next several years.
RICHMOND, Virginia (CNN) State legislators passed a law Saturday that would require adults who French kiss a child younger than 13 to register as a sex offender.
Those convicted of tongue-kissing a child would be guilty of a misdemeanor, punishable by up to one year in jail and a $2,500 fine.
The bill now heads to Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, who said he supports the legislation.
Delegate Riley Ingram, R-Hopewell, introduced the bill on behalf of a woman whose 10-year-old daughter was French-kissed by the 62-year-old husband of her babysitter.
The only crime prosecutors could charge the man with was contributing to the delinquency of a minor, which did not require that he register as a sex offender.
Ingram and other members of the House fought to make the crime a felony, but later gave in to senators who thought that classifying it as a felony was too harsh.
Ingram said he was satisfied that a conviction would land someone on
French voters have sent a warning to President Nicolas Sarkozy and his conservative government, favoring leftists in the first round of local elections that were seen as a test for his presidency and his reform agenda.
Pollsters' projections showed the Socialists and their allies in the lead in key cities from Sunday's first round but overall, the left's lead was slim, and the decisive runoffs a week away remained an open battleground.
That could put the long struggling leftists on track for gains in the runoff voting March 16, reversing defeats in the last municipal voting in 2001.
Voters are choosing mayors and other local leaders in more than 36,000 towns and cities nationwide.
The president himself sought to infuse them with national import. Analysts warned that the bid could backfire on the increasingly unpopular president, and that the overall outcome could affect Sarkozy's appetite for reforms to the euro zone's No. 2 economy.
Segolene Royal, the Socialist who lost her presidential race against Sarkozy last spring, said France was punishing Sarkozy for the rising cost of living and meager increases in pensions, among other issues.
A bomb on a highway median strip in Sri Lanka's capital Colombo killed one person and wounded another three early Monday, police said.
A beggar detonated the device when he tried to pick up what appeared to be a parcel left on the median strip, police said.
The bombing is the latest to hit Sri Lanka since the government's January withdrawal from a cease-fire with the Tamil Tigers.
The rebel group has fought for an independent Tamil homeland in northern Sri Lanka for more than two decades.
More than 180 people have been killed in a wave of attacks on buses, train stations and other public places since the start of the year.
The South Korean government has named a female mechanical engineer as its first person to go to space after replacing its initial choice at the request of Russian space authorities.
The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology said at a news conference Monday that Yi So-yeon will replace Ko San as the country's choice to fly on a Russian Soyuz capsule to the International Space Station in early April.
The astronaut will work aboard the International Space Station for about a week with two Russian cosmonauts, conducting scientific experiments.
The mission will make South Korea the world's 35th country and Asia's sixth to send an astronaut into space.
Since 1992 South Korea has had 11 satellites launched, mostly for space and ocean observation and communications, according to the ministry.
LONDON, England (CNN) Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher walked out of a London hospital Saturday morning where she spent the night after feeling "unwell" during a dinner at the House of Lords.
Thatcher, 82, was admitted to St. Thomas's Hospital near Parliament for tests Friday night, the former PM's spokeswoman Gillian Penrose said.
Thatcher appeared alert and strong as she walked from the hospital and stepped into a waiting car.
She paused briefly to wave to people gathered to watch her departure.
Nicknamed the "Iron Lady" by the Soviet press after a 1976 speech criticizing communism, Thatcher enjoyed a close working relationship with U.S. President Ronald Reagan, with whom she shared similar conservative views.
Although her doctors advised against public speaking, a frail Thatcher attended Reagan's 2004 funeral, saying in a pre-recorded video that Reagan was "a great president, a great American, and a great man.
"And I have lost a dear friend," she said.
Thatcher was elected head of the Conservative Party in 1975 and took office as prime minister when the Conservatives won control of the government in 1979.
She won re-election in 1983 and 1987, but was forced to resign three years later during an internal leadership struggle after she introduced a poll tax levied on community residents rather than property.
The unpopular tax led to rioting in the streets.
In her first term, Thatcher reduced or eliminated many government subsidies to business, a move that lead to a sharp rise in unemployment.
By 1986, unemployment had reached 3 million.
She retired from public life following a stroke in 2002 and suffered several smaller strokes after that.
She was named Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven after leaving office.
Thatcher was Britain's first and only female prime minister and the first 20th century British leader to win three terms.
(CNN) Malaysia's prime minister took the oath of office for a new five-year term Monday, rejecting calls to resign after an unprecedented electoral setback that has shaken the country's political landscape, the Associated Press reported.
Abdullah Ahmad Badawi was sworn in at 11:10 a.m. (0310 GMT) in front of King Mizan Zainal Abidin, the constitutional monarch, and dozens of government dignitaries in the national palace's glittering throne room. The ceremony was telecast live.
"I pledge to carry out my duties honestly and with all my abilities," Abdullah said, reading out the oath. "I pledge to protect and uphold the Constitution.
In a surprise upset, Malaysia's ruling party, which has retained power since the nation declared independence in 1967, fell short of a two-thirds majority Saturday amid rising inflation, crime and ethnic tensions.
The protest vote gave the opposition alliance a third of parliament and control of five states, according to the Associated Press.
"Political tsunami," read the headline of Malaysia's The Star newspaper.
The National Front's loss raised questions about the future of its party leader, Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.
His predecessor, Mahathir Mohamad, has called for his resignation, The Associated Press reported, a prospect Badawi shot down in a news conference after preliminary results were announced.
His National Front coalition won 137 of the 222 seats at stake, or less than 62 percent, the Election Commission announced in releasing preliminary results, according to state news agency Bernama.
The opposition alliance of the Democratic Action Party, the People's Justice Party and the Islamic Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, or PAS claimed 82 seats, or 37 percent.
Badawi has been battling demonstrations against alleged vote fraud for weeks and demanded an overhaul of Malaysia's electoral commission before the election.
Last fall, more than 30,000 protesters gathered in the streets and faced squads of police with water cannons.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) Shortly after making their coalition official, Pakistan's main opposition parties on Sunday called on President Pervez Musharraf to immediately convene parliament.
The leaders of both parties vowed to restore Pakistan's deposed judges within 30 days after the first session of parliament.
Musharraf said Saturday that he would call parliament into session within two weeks.
Musharraf sacked nearly all of the country's Supreme Court justices and many other judges across the country shortly after declaring a state of emergency in early November.
The emergency order was lifted six weeks later, but none of the justices were reinstated.
Former Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and several other of the sacked justices remain under house arrest.
Their supporters say they were ousted because they were set to rule against the legitimacy of Musharraf's third term in office.
Asif Ali Zardari, head of the Pakistan People's Party, and Nawaz Sharif, head of the Pakistan Muslim League-N, spoke Sunday at a news conference outside Islamabad shortly after signing an agreement to make their parties' coalition official.
They have not named a nominee for the prime minister post, saying that announcement will happen when parliament is called into session.
PPP, the party of slain opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, and PML-N won the majority of seats in Pakistan's February 18 parliamentary election
When asked about working with Musharraf's government, Zardari Bhutto's widower said the coalition believes the new prime minister will be able to work with the office of the presidency in harmony.
The Venezuelan government on Sunday announced it is re-establishing normal diplomatic ties with Colombia after the two South American countries resolved their differences over Colombia's recent cross-border attack on rebels in Ecuador.
The move follows a meeting of the presidents of Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador in the Dominican Republic on Friday.
They signed a declaration to end a crisis sparked by the attack, when Colombian troops killed a rebel leader and 21 others inside Ecuadoran territory.
"The Venezuelan government will send to Bogota, immediately, diplomatic personnel charged with representing the republic before the government of Colombia," the Venezuelan government said in a statement posted online Sunday. "In the same manner, the Venezuelan government has communicated to the Colombia authorities their disposition to receive in Caracas, in a short time, the diplomatic personnel of the sister republic."
"With the promise not to ever again assault a brother country and the request for forgiveness [by Colombia], we can consider this very serious incident resolved," Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa said Friday.
Correa, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe shook hands at the end of what had been a contentious meeting of the Rio Group of Latin American leaders.
In the accord, the leaders condemned Colombia's action and affirmed that no country has the right to violate the territory of another.
The diplomatic spat began March 1 when Colombian troops and police crossed into Ecuador and killed 22 people.
The dead included Luis Edgar Devia Silva, known as "Raul Reyes," the second-in-command of the leadership council of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC in its Spanish acronym.
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (CNN) A train slammed into a chartered bus on Sunday killing 18 people and injuring 50, police said.
The crash occurred about 2 a.m., when the bus drove into the path of an approaching train in Dolores, about 125 miles south of the capital.
Television footage showed the bus lying on its side and a number of derailed train cars.
Seats, luggage and clothing were scattered as far as 200 feet from the point of impact.
Local media reported the bus driver survived and is in police custody.
All but one of the casualties were passengers on the train and bus, police said.
The bus was coming from the beach resort of Mar de Ajo on its way to San Miguel, outside the capital of Buenos Aires, according to a sign on the bus.
Buenos Aires Province Governor Daniel Scioli visited the scene and said it was a "day of pain in the province and the nation."
After losing Democratic contests in the delegate-rich states of Ohio and Texas this week, presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama won the Wyoming Democratic caucus Saturday.
Obama led rival Sen. Hillary Clinton by 61 percent to 38 percent, with all of the precincts reporting.
The caucus thrust the state, which has only 12 delegates, into the spotlight because the close race between Obama and Clinton means that every delegate counts.
With slightly more than 600 delegates left at stake, every remaining contest is crucial to both candidates.
The two are separated by fewer than 100 delegates, CNN estimates, with Obama leading Clinton 1,527 to 1,428.
CNN estimates that Obama will win at least seven delegates and Clinton will win at least four, with one delegate still outstanding. Five of Wyoming's 12 delegates will be allocated at the state convention, which will be held Memorial Day in Jackson, but the allocation will be based on caucus results.
"We are thrilled with this near split in delegates and are grateful to the people of Wyoming for their support," Clinton's campaign manager, Maggie Williams, said in a statement.
"Although the Obama campaign predicted victory in Wyoming weeks ago, we worked hard to present Sen. Clinton's vision to the caucus-goers, and we thank them for turning out today.
On Friday, both senators were in Wyoming to lure last-minute votes.
Clinton held town hall meetings in Cheyenne and Casper, and also dispatched former President Clinton to help drum up support.
Obama spoke at a town hall meeting in Casper, using the opportunity to criticize Clinton's 2002 vote on the war in Iraq.
"I will bring this war to an end in 2009, so don't be confused ... when Senator Clinton is not willing to acknowledge that she voted for war," he said.
NEW YORK, New York (CNN) The New York Police Department has released photos of a bicycle and a suspect in Thursday's Times Square recruitment center bombing.
The photo of the suspect, extracted from surveillance footage and released on Friday, shows someone riding a bicycle away from the scene shortly after the explosion. The second photo shows a metallic blue bicycle that was found abandoned in trash nearby.
Authorities are offering a $12,000 reward for information in that leads to an arrest in the case.
Authorities were re-examining an incident that happened last month at the U.S.-Canadian border, New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly told CNN Friday.
A car with three people was halted as it crossed from New York into Canada, a senior U.S. government official told CNN, and the car was searched as a matter of routine, the official said.
Anarchist-type material was found, the official said, and in a backpack, agents found pictures of New York, including ones of Times Square, at least one of which showed the recruiting station.
The people told authorities that they had been visiting New York City for a week. At some point, two of the three both men ran off.
The Canadians then forwarded the information to the New York police liaison officer in Canada, who alerted police. However, it was eventually determined by the Canadians and NYPD that the incident posed no threat.
The official said he strongly doubts a connection will be found between the information garnered from that incident and the Times Square bombing.
Chinese officials told the state-run media Sunday that they successfully thwarted two terrorist attacks, including one targeting the Summer Olympic Games.
Officials blamed both attacks on separatists operating out of an autonomous region in northwest China.
The news agency did not provide additional information on the plot.
The autonomous region is home to about 19 million people, most of whom are Muslims and other minorities.
Many of them oppose Beijing's rule.
Also Sunday, another Chinese official told Xinhua that a China Southern Airlines plane was forced to land because "some people were attempting to create an air disaster.
The flight had taken off from Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
The militants' attempt to hijack the plane was foiled by the flight crew, the official said. Wang Lequan, chief of the Xinjiang regional committee of the Communist Party of China, said the government was prepared to strike against the "three evil forces" in the region:
terrorists, separatists and extremists.
"We are prepared to strike them when the evil forces are planning their activities," he told Xinhua.
Moments after his challenger conceded, Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero thanked a crowd of cheering supporters for Sunday's win by his Socialists in Spain's parliamentary elections.
"Thanks to all the citizens who have participated," Zapatero said. "And thanks from my heart to the citizens who have, with their votes, given a clear victory to the Socialist Party.
With 89 percent of the vote tallied, Zapatero's Socialists had 44 percent of the vote, followed by Mariano Rajoy's conservative Partido Popular with 40 percent. Sunday's turnout was put at 75.4 percent late in the day.
Zapatero has ruled with a plurality since 2004, when he and Rajoy first faced each other in a general election.
At the PP headquarters, the mood was somber among the several hundred people who showed up outside the building.
Campaign Chief Pio Garcia Escudero said he would wait for the votes to be counted.
As of 6 p.m. Sunday, turnout was running 2 percentage points below the turnout of 2004.
That year, overall turnout was 75 percent.
This year, Zapatero appears to have overcome concern about a faltering economy and the death on Friday of a former Socialist town councilman, who was killed in an attack in northern Spain which was blamed on Basque separatist group ETA.
The election four years ago, held in the wake of the Madrid train bombings that killed 191 people, gave Zapatero's Socialists an upset victory.
Zapatero's first decision upon taking office in 2004 was to pull Spain's troops out of Iraq.
Zapatero has put Spain in the vanguard of European social policy, legalizing gay marriage and making divorces easier to obtain.
Roman Catholics staged a mass demonstration in Madrid last December to blast the government policies.
(CNN) The 103 Chadian children whom six French charity workers were convicted of attempting to kidnap will soon be reunited with their families, the United Nations' children agency said Friday.
The children have been living in an orphanage in Abeche, in eastern Chad, since late October.
The charity had said the children were orphans from Sudan's war-torn Darfur region and were being taken to foster families in France.
However, other charities determined that most of the children were from Chad, not Sudan, and had at least one living parent.
Beginning next week, a UNICEF team will travel to Abeche, Adre and Tine to facilitate reuniting the 21 girls and 82 boys, aged 1 to 10, with their families.
Chad's government has approved the move, UNICEF said.
Interviews with the children indicated that the majority were from villages near the cities of Adre and Tine along the Chadian-Sudanese border, according to a November statement from the Red Cross, UNICEF, and the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.
The kidnapping scandal attracted international attention, with French authorities reacting angrily to the charity's trip, calling the group's actions "illegal and irresponsible.
However, French President Nicolas Sarkozy intervened on the six's behalf after a Chadian court sentenced the six aid workers to eight years of hard labor in Chad, and the central African nation handed them over to France to serve their sentences.
In late January, a French court sentenced Eric Breteau the group's leader Emilie Lelouch, Alain Peligat, Philippe van Winkelberg, Dominique Aubry and Nadia Merimi to eight years in a French prison.
(CNN) The presidents of Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela, entangled in a crisis sparked by a raid by Colombian forces into Ecuador, plan to join other Latin American leaders at a summit Friday.
Colombian forces killed 22 people in the cross-border raid, which targeted a rebel group that has fought the Colombian government for more than 40 years.
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known by its Spanish acronym FARC, has operated out of camps in Ecuador, according to Colombia's government.
Colombia has apologized for conducting an attack inside Ecuador, but it also has said the killing of a senior leader of FARC in the raid was the most significant blow in more than four decades of warfare between the Colombian government and the group, which the United States and European Union label a terrorist organization.
After the raid, Ecuador and Venezuela, leftist allies that border Colombia, moved troops toward the frontier and denounced the rightist government of Colombia.
They have urged other countries in Latin America to condemn Colombia's actions, efforts that paid off as Nicaragua broke diplomatic relations with Colombia on Thursday.
President Rafael Correa of Ecuador would like the Rio Group to "categorically reject the aggression against Ecuador," according to a statement on an Ecuadoran government Web site.
His counterpart in Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez, says that Colombia should "accept that it made a mistake," he said, according to the Bolivariana News Agency.
Foreign ministers from across Latin America met Thursday in a prelude to the presidential meetings scheduled for Friday.
They said they hoped for a calm resolution to the crisis.
"We have to see everything every action that can be seen to bring about a peaceful solution," said David Choquehuanca, the Bolivian foreign minister.
Alejandro Foxley, the Chilean foreign minister, said he worried that Colombia's action would set a "bad precedent in a region that, more than anything, needs to be united.
"The promotion of peace is an essential value of democracy," he said, "and you're not going to see any integration in Latin America or South America if those of us in the various countries don't actively cooperate so that these acts never happen again.
JERUSALEM (CNN) Authorities closed the Palestinian territories Friday, a day after a gunman from East Jerusalem opened fire at a Jewish seminary school, killing eight students.
The general closure of the West Bank and Gaza went into effect early Friday morning and "will be lifted according to security assessments," a statement from Israel Defense Forces said.
A Jerusalem police spokesman identified the shooter Friday as Ala Abu Dehein from East Jerusalem's Jabel Mukaber neighborhood.
He was employed as a driver and held an identity card that Israel issues to Palestinians who live in East Jerusalem.
Hundreds of Israelis gathered at the school Friday to mourn the students who were killed in Thursday's attack.
The grief-stricken crowd spilled outside the school and onto the surrounding streets.
The students, ages 15 to 26, died Thursday night when a gunman armed with an automatic weapon and a handgun slipped into the school and began shooting.
Their bodies were wrapped in white-and-blue cloth and laid on benches in the school's courtyard.
At least nine others were wounded before an off-duty Israel Defense Forces officer shot the gunman dead, Jerusalem District Police commander Aharon Franko said.
Heightened tensions prompted Israeli authorities to beef up security, prompting the closures of the Palestinian territories and limiting access for many young men to the Al Aqsa Mosque in Old Jerusalem.
"Israel is at the forefront of the struggle against terrorism and will continue to defend its citizens, who are exposed to this threat on a daily basis," Israel's Foreign Ministry said in a written statement.
TORONTO, Canada (CNN) A first-year Ryerson University student is being accused of cheating after helping to run an online study group on Facebook.
Chris Avenir is accused of academic misconduct because of the site, where 146 classmates swapped tips on homework questions.
The 18-year-old computer engineering student faces an expulsion hearing Tuesday before the engineering faculty appeals committee.
Avenir, who is still attending classes at the Toronto school pending his hearing, can take his case to the university senate if he loses that appeal.
Kim Neale of the student union, who will represent Avenir at the hearing, says the incident has sent shock waves through student ranks.
Neale told the Toronto Star the Facebook site is no different than any study group working together on homework in a library.
Andy Roddick used his strong serve to upset Rafael Nadal 7-6 6-2 to reach the semifinals of the Dubai Tennis Championships.
The sixth-seeded American closed the match with one of his 17 aces, and had numerous service winners against the second-seeded Spaniard.
One ace was 149.75mph, breaking the Dubai serve record he set a day earlier. "I knew I was going to hit it well, from the first point.
Roddick had several love games in the match, using his powerful forehand to keep Nadal at bay.
"The way he was serving tonight, it's tough," Nadal said. "You feel a lot of pressure when you're serving.
Nadal said he made too many errors on his forehands on crucial points.
Roddick will next face new tournament favourite Novak Djokovic for a place in the final after the third seed overwhelmed Russian Igor Andreev 6-2 6-1.
(CNN) For two years, Kara Johnson tried it all:
scratching posts, bottles of citrus spray, even little plastic covers for the nails of her two cats.
Nothing deterred them from doing serious damage to her house and each other with their tiny claws.
Sofas were reduced to shreds, shoes to tatters.
The cats inflicted three serious eye injuries on each other.
And then, Johnson and her boyfriend couldn't find an apartment without proving the pets were declawed.
Finally, last month, they were during a routine surgery that removes the nails and part of the bones they grow from.
Such is the polarizing debate over cat declawing.
"It's permanently crippling and it should never be performed by anyone," says Laura Brown, an animal care specialist at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).
Nancy Peterson, feral cat program manager for the Humane Society, urges vets to educate cat owners about destructive scratching.
"Cats start to scratch at a very early age, about 8 weeks or so, which is often the age they're being adopted into a family," she says.
But Peterson says many vets reflexively offer surgery and give little information about alternatives.
"Many people don't realize exactly what this surgery is.
She then chose a veterinarian with care, opting to drive two hours from home to use a doctor she trusts.
"We don't have children and don't plan to have children," she says, "so they are our children.
(CNN) Forbes' list of the world's wealthy has named Warren Buffett the richest person on the planet, surpassing his friend and philanthropic partner Bill Gates who had held the title for 13 consecutive years.
The American investor and philanthropist is worth an estimated $62 billion, up $10 billion from a year ago thanks to surging prices of Berkshire Hathaway stock, according to Forbes magazine's annual ranking of the world's billionaires.
Mexican telecom tycoon Carlos Slim Helu was named the world's second richest man, with a net worth of around $60 billion, up $11 billion since last March.
For the first time, Forbes' rich list named more than 1,000 billionaires from around the world, with 226 newcomers.
The total net worth of the group is $4.4 trillion, up $900 billion from 2007.
This year's survey finds an increasing number of the world's richest coming from emerging markets, including China, India and Russia.
Two years ago, 10 of the top 20 billionaires were from the United States. This year, there are only four.
India is now home to four of the 10 richest people in the world, the highest number for a single country.
But the United States still holds the top spot as the country with the most billionaires Americans account for 42 percent of the world's billionaires and 37 percent of the total wealth, according to Forbes.
Discount air carrier Southwest Airlines flew thousands of passengers on aircraft that federal inspectors said were "unsafe" as recently as last March, according to detailed congressional documents obtained by CNN.
Documents submitted by FAA inspectors to congressional investigators allege the airline flew at least 117 of its planes in violation of mandatory safety checks.
In some cases, the documents say, the planes flew for 30 months after government inspection deadlines had passed and should have been grounded until the inspections could be completed.
On Thursday, the FAA initiated actions to seek a $10.2 million civil penalty against Southwest for allegedly operating 46 airplanes without conducting mandatory checks for fuselage cracking.
"The FAA is taking action against Southwest Airlines for a failing to follow rules that are designed to protect passengers and crew," said Nicholas A. Sabatini, the FAA's associate administrator for aviation safety, in a written statement.
Calling it "one of the worst safety violations" he has ever seen, Rep. James Oberstar, D-Minnesota, is expected to call a hearing as soon as possible to ask why the airline put its passengers in danger.
HONOLULU, Hawaii (CNN) Hawaii tourism officials are looking to China and South Korea to help offset continuing declines in the number of visitors from Japan, the state's largest source of foreign tourists.
The interest in those markets comes at a time when the overall number of tourists to Hawaii is also declining.
Nearly 7.4 million visitors came to the islands last year, a drop of 1.2 percent from 2006.
While arrivals in January increased over the same month last year, the number of visitors in 2008 is expected to decline by 1.4 percent.
"I wouldn't bet the mortgage on the fact that January is going to continue," said Rex Johnson, head of the Hawaii Tourism Authority.
While January saw a surge in Canadian visitors, arrivals from Japan dropped by 5.2 percent.
More than 1.3 million Japanese visited Hawaii last year.
Marsha Wienert, state tourism liaison, said more Japanese visitors are not returning to Hawaii after their first trip in favor of new, cheaper destinations, such as Taiwan.
While state tourism officials are trying to increase tourism from Japan, they are also turning to China and South Korea.
South Korean tourist arrivals have been hovering at around 35,000 a year far below the high of 123,000 in 1996.
Visitors from the country must currently apply for a visa in person at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul before they leave for the United States.
Short-term visitors from Japan and selected other nations, in contrast, may enter the United States without obtaining a visa in advance.
Tourism officials say they hope South Koreans will be able to do the same by the end of 2008 or the beginning of next year under a law signed by President Bush last year that allows more countries to qualify for visa waivers.
She added that Hawaii also expects to see increases in visitors from China, where the islands could not actively promote themselves until recently.
But Frank Haas, assistant dean of the school of travel industry management at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, said the Chinese face many obstacles in traveling to Hawaii.
They must apply for visas in person and don't have convenient flights to the state, he said.
He added that while the country has a growing middle class, it does not have the spending power of Japan.
Election officials in Texas have resumed counting votes from Tuesday's caucuses after overwhelming turnout pushed the caucuses later than expected.
State Democratic Party officials say that final results from Tuesday's caucuses won't be certified until county-level conventions convene on March 29, but that they expect to release their last batch of unofficial results Thursday evening.
Officials stopped counting caucus results early and resumed later in the day Wednesday before calling it a night.
Sen. Barack Obama led with about 56 percent of state delegates in the caucuses, compared to about 44 percent for Sen. Hillary Clinton, with about 41 percent of the state reporting by Thursday morning.
Clinton won the state's primary 51 percent to Obama's 48 percent.
The state party awards the delegates proportionally statewide Clinton earned 65 delegates to Obama's 61.
The caucuses determine how the remaining third of Texas' delegates are allocated.
Clinton also won Tuesday in Ohio and Rhode Island, while Obama won Vermont.
The Texas Democratic Party estimates 1.1 million Texans attended the precinct conventions, doubling the 508,000 who voted in 2006.
NEW YORK (CNN) Whoopi Goldberg says her friend Patrick Swayze who was recently diagnosed with pancreatic cancer is the reason she won an Oscar for "Ghost.
"When I won my Academy Award, the only person I really thanked was Patrick," Goldberg recalled Thursday on ABC daytime talk show "The View.
Goldberg, who starred alongside Swayze in the 1990 film, earned a best supporting actress trophy for her portrayal of psychic Oda Mae Brown, who helps slain businessman Sam Wheat (Swayze) communicate with his grieving fiancee and solve the mystery of his murder.
The 52-year-old actress-comedian said Swayze persuaded director Jerry Zucker to cast her in the film amid "some resistance."
According to Goldberg, Swayze said, "I'm not making this movie unless you put Whoopi Goldberg in there."
Swayze, 55, has been undergoing treatment for pancreatic cancer, his representative Annett Wolf said Wednesday.
In a statement released by Wolf, Swayze's physician Dr. George Fisher said he was "optimistic" about the "Dirty Dancing" actor's prognosis for battling the disease:
"Patrick has a very limited amount of disease and he appears to be responding well to treatment thus far.
Goldberg said she hadn't spoken to Swayze about his health.
Security camera footage shows a person approach a Times Square military recruiting office and ride away on a bicycle shortly before a bomb damaged the building Thursday morning.
The video, shown by Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, shows the person approach the station on the bicycle, get off and walk up a metal ramp to the door.
After about a minute, the person returns to the bike and rides away.
Less than two minutes later, a bright flash and a cloud of white smoke signal the explosion.
A witness at the scene saw the person on the bicycle, but couldn't tell the sex or race because the individual was wearing a hooded jacket that "covered most of the face," Kelly said.
However, police suspect the cyclist was male because the witness described the person as being large.
A 10-speed bike in good condition was later found in a trash bin not far from the scene. Police said they were trying to determine if it was the bicycle seen in the video.
No one has taken responsibility for the attack, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.
"Whoever the coward was that committed this disgraceful act on our city will be found and prosecuted to the full extent of the law," Bloomberg said.
The recruiting office, one of the nation's busiest, has been the site of periodic anti-war protests, The Associated Press reported.
LONDON, England (CNN) Five people got the lavish ride of a lifetime as the only passengers on a transatlantic flight, causing environmental groups to criticize the major carrier for leaving a wasteful carbon footprint.
Using about 68,000 liters (15,000 imperial gallons) or 13,000 liters per passenger of jet fuel for the nine-hour trip from Chicago to London, American Airlines is being accused of unnecessary waste.
Each passenger left a footprint of 35.77 tons of carbon dioxide, enough to drive an average car 160,000 kilometers (100,000 miles).
"Flying virtually empty planes is an obscene waste of fuel. Through no fault of their own, each passenger's carbon footprint for this flight is about 45 times what it would have been if the plane had been full," Friends of the Earth's transport campaigner Richard Dyer said.
Because of a mechanical malfunction, AA flight 90 was 14 hours late leaving Chicago's O'Hare airport on February 8.
Though most passengers made other arrangements to London, five lucky passengers unable to be rebooked made the 6,400 kilometer (4,000 mile) flight in business class, with two crew members per passenger.
American Airlines said it chose to continue with the flight because of the full load of passengers waiting at London's Heathrow airport to return to the United States.
"With such a small passenger load we did consider whether we could cancel the flight and re-accommodate the five remaining passengers on other flights," says American Airlines' European spokesperson Anneliese Morris.
"However, this would have left a plane load of west-bound passengers stranded in London Heathrow who were due to fly to the U.S. on the same aircraft.
Environmental groups such as Friends of the Earth say that international governments should hold the aviation industry accountable for the amount of CO2 they produce each year, and point to instances like this to show that airlines should pay a fuel tax to rein them in.
"Governments must stop granting the aviation industry the unfair privileges that allow this to happen by taxing aviation fuel and including emissions from aviation in international agreements to tackle climate change," Dyer said.
Oil prices steadied Thursday after rising to a record near $106 a barrel due to a surprising drop in U.S. crude supplies and a new low for the dollar against the euro.
Also supporting oil prices were OPEC's decision to hold its output steady and an escalating crisis involving three oil-producing South American nations.
By the afternoon in Europe, light, sweet crude for April delivery was unchanged from the previous day's close at $104.52 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Some traders attributed the sudden jump to news of a minor blast early Thursday that damaged a military recruiting station in Times Square.
No one was injured in the incident, police said.
On Wednesday, the April contract had jumped US$5 to settle at a record US$104.52 a barrel and later rose to US$104.95 in post-settlement electronic trading.
Earlier this week, oil prices broke the previous inflation-adjusted price record of US$103.76, set in 1980 during the Iran hostage crisis.
In London, Brent crude fell 14 cents to US$101.50 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.
JERUSALEM (CNN) A gunman opened fire on people inside a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem on Thursday, killing at least eight, police and rescue officials said.
Dozens of police officers were scouring the campus and surrounding streets.
Outside the school, scores of Israeli men gathered from surrounding neighborhoods, demanding justice for the attack.
Police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld said the attacker "opened fire on innocent youngsters studying. A number of students have been killed.
The gunman was carrying an AK-47 and a pistol and had time to swap weapons during the massacre.
Police are trying to identify the gunman and figure out how he managed to enter the large three-story school situated in a bustling residential neighborhood with little notice.
Israeli police and ambulance officials said eight people were killed by the attacker, who was shot dead.
Eight people were injured, five of them seriously, according to police. Most of the victims were students in their teens and 20s, medical officials said.
"There was no alert or warning about this attack," Franko said. He added an off duty Israel Defense Forces officer fatally shot the attacker.
The attack comes in the wake of a large-scale Israeli offensive in Gaza that began last week and killed more than 100 people.
Two Israeli soldiers have also been killed.
Fawzy Barhoom, a spokesman for Hamas which controls Gaza, said: "This operation came directly after the attack committed inside Gaza. This operation is a normal response."
But Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said in a written statement, "The Palestinian Authority condemns any attack on innocent civilians."
The attack was carried out on the Merkaz Harav yeshiva in the Kiryat Moshe neighborhood of west Jerusalem. It is one of the largest seminaries in Israel, with about 500 students in the yeshiva and 200 in an advanced graduate program.
An Israeli Foreign Ministry statement said: "Tonight's murder of yeshiva students during a religious event expresses at its most deplorable the fundamentalist-extremist foundations, in the name of which Palestinian terrorism operates.
Sen. Barack Obama raised $55 million in February, his campaign reported Thursday, setting a record for political fundraising in one month.
The amount far outpaces the $35 million his rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Hillary Clinton, raised over the same period.
The Illinois Democrat set the previous record in January when he raised $36 million.
The campaign said 727,972 donors contributed to the campaign in February.
More than half of them were first-time contributors.
A majority of the money, $45 million, was raised online, the campaign said.
More than 90 percent of the donations were under $100, and more than half were under $25.
Less than $1 million of the funds raised in February can only be used if Obama receives his party's nomination, the campaign said. All the rest may go toward campaigning in the primary season.
Clinton and Obama's battle for the Democratic presidential nomination took on new energy this week when after Clinton's comeback victories in Ohio and Texas Tuesday.
The Clinton campaign has been raising $3 million a day since Clinton's victories Tuesday, a campaign adviser tells CNN.
The next big prize is Pennsylvania, which holds its primary on April 22.
The two candidates are separated by less than 100 delegates, CNN estimates, with Obama currently leading Clinton 1,520 to 1,424.
Researchers have uncovered a rare photograph of a young Helen Keller with her teacher Anne Sullivan, nearly 120 years after it was taken on Cape Cod.
The photograph, shot in July 1888 in Brewster, shows an 8-year-old Helen sitting outside in a light-colored dress, holding Sullivan's hand and cradling one of her beloved dolls.
"It's really one of the best images I've seen in a long, long time," said Helen Selsdon, an archivist at the American Federation for the Blind, where Keller worked for more than 40 years.
"This is just a huge visual addition to the history of Helen and Annie.
For more than a century, though, the photograph was hidden in an album that belonged to the family of Thaxter Spencer, an 87-year-old man in Waltham.
Turkish troops fired artillery shells into northern Iraq on Wednesday nearly a week after Turkey completed its eight-day ground offensive targeting Kurdish militants, an Iraqi official told CNN.
Irbil is one of the three provinces compromising Iraq's Kurdish region.
Yawer said Turkish helicopters were seen in the area during the strike but said that the choppers were not involved in the attack.
The border conflict has wider implications for the Middle East and Asia, with the United States concerned that prolonged cross-border fighting would serve to destabilize the region, where Kurdish separatists pose challenges to power in Iran and Syria, as well as Turkey &raquo;
Turkish troops launched a ground offensive on the evening of Feb. 21 "to prevent the region from being used as a safe haven by the terrorists and to contribute to the internal peace and stability of Iraq in the long run.
It was the first significant Turkish ground offensive into Iraq since the 2003 overthrow of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, and it ended after Iraqi and U.S. officials urged Turkey to make the foray as brief as possible.
A total of 240 rebels, 24 troops, and three village guards were killed, the Turkish military said.
LONDON, England (CNN) Cocaine-abusing celebrities are glamorizing the use of narcotics and encouraging more young people to use illegal substances, the United Nations drug control agency has warned.
The annual report from the International Narcotics Control Board warns that treating stars "leniently" by allowing them to get away with drug crimes undermines faith in the criminal justice system and has a damaging effect on adolescents.
"They get more lenient responses by the judiciary and law enforcement, and that is regrettable," Professor Hamid Ghodse, a member of the INCB, told the UK's Press Association Wednesday.
"There should not be any difference between a celebrity who is breaking the law and non-celebrities.
"Not only does it give the wrong messages to young people, who are quite impressionable, but the wider public becomes cynical about the responses to drug offenders," Ghodse said.
Last month, acclaimed singer Amy Winehouse was questioned by police after a video emerged which appeared to show her smoking crack.
Last fall she was arrested and fined in Norway for possessing marijuana.
Winehouse was due to appear in a Norwegian courtroom to contest the drug charges at the end of February. The hearing was postponed indefinitely, PA said, after the court approved a request from Winehouse's lawyer. Watch how celebrity drug scandals affect children &raquo;
Despite losing modeling contracts in the wake of the revelations, she later won fresh jobs and remains one of the world's top models.
The report found that Britain, along with Spain and Italy, have some of the highest rates of cocaine abuse in the world.
The report also expressed concerns on rising opium production in Afghanistan.
Malaysia's government has intensified efforts to portray opposition figure Anwar Ibrahim as a political turncoat, days ahead of general elections that will determine whether he poses a legitimate threat to the ruling coalition.
Newspapers linked to the ruling National Front coalition published numerous reports Thursday that quoted top government officials accusing Anwar of having shown no respect for ethnic minorities when he was deputy prime minister between 1993 and 1998.
Anwar now leads the People's Justice Party, which is contesting the most number of parliamentary seats of any opposition group in Saturday's ballot.
ROME, Italy (CNN) Pope Benedict XVI plans to meet with Muslim scholars and religious leaders this autumn at a Catholic-Muslim seminar in Rome, the Vatican said Wednesday.
Two dozen scholars and leaders will be meeting November 4-6.
The pope who will be receiving the seminar participants is scheduled to meet with Muslim scholars on the last day of the conference.
The announcement came after prominent Muslims and Catholics held talks at the Vatican this week in which they agreed to establish a Catholic-Muslim forum and to organize the November seminar.
"The theme of the seminar will be 'Love of God, Love of Neighbor,'" the Vatican said in a news release.
"Theological and Spiritual Foundations" will be the sub-theme on the first day. "Human Dignity and Mutual Respect" will be the topic on the second day.
A public session will be held on the third day.
The Roman Catholic Church has been working to foster dialogue with Muslims in recent years, especially in light of comments made by Benedict in September 2006.
He angered Muslims when he quoted a 14th century Byzantine emperor who characterized some of the teachings of Islam's prophet, Mohammed, as "evil and inhuman" and "spread by the sword.
The pope and the Vatican, however, have worked to forge dialogue and reconciliation with the Muslim world, including a visit to Turkey by the pope in November 2006.
MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) Ukraine's government will force the company that manages its natural gas supplies to pay off its debts to Russia's Gazprom to resolve a crisis that reduced the flow of gas supplies into Ukraine and threatened to disrupt European gas supplies, Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said Wednesday.
Tymoshenko denied a report that her country would divert some of the gas that passes through the country on its way from Russia to Europe to make up for Gazprom's decision to cut Ukraine's gas supply in half because of the failure to pay.
Gazprom cut its shipments to Ukraine in half because the Ukraine company Naftogaz defaulted on paying for the commodity, the Russian gas company said Tuesday.
informed by Ukraine that it was diverting some of the gas that passes through the country on its way from Russia to Europe to make up for the reduction.
Tymoshenko, in a statement released Wednesday, denied any disruption of the gas flow to Europe.
"Ukraine is a reliable partner and we do not violate our obligations a jot concerning natural gas export to the European states," she said.
The statement also said her government would pass a resolution Wednesday that "will oblige" Naftogaz to pay the past-due gas bills.
The crisis comes less than a month after the leaders of Russia and Ukraine met in Moscow and agreed in principle on a price for natural gas for 2008.
On Tuesday, Gazprom said it was halting 25 percent of its gas deliveries beginning at 8 p.m. Moscow time (noon ET).
(CNN) A hijacker armed with explosives took 10 Australian tourists hostage on a bus in northwest China Wednesday, before police shot him dead, media in both countries reported.
The man released all but two of the hostages shortly after taking them captive, but held on to a woman and the group's translator, Australian media said, quoting the country's Department for Foreign Affairs and Trade.
The man had demanded that police let him move to another bus and then drive to an airport, China's state-run news agency, Xinhua said.
The Xinhua News Agency also identified the hijacker as a man called as Xia Tao, who took control of the bus in the tourist city of Xi'an.
Police complied, in part to avoid violence in a downtown area of the Shaanxi province.
Once the bus approached an airport toll booth and their attempts at negotiations failed, police shot the man, the Xinhua news agency said.
The woman and her translator were unharmed.
Janaline Oh, a spokeswoman for the Australian Embassy in Beijing told The Associated Press she could not confirm that the man had been shot. Police in Xi'an did not answer telephone calls.
She also said said nine hostages were released early in the incident and taken to safety. She said a 48-year-old woman from New South Wales was not immediately released and that Chinese police had to intervene to rescue her.
PAGE, Arizona (CNN) Federal officials have started a flood in the Grand Canyon in hopes of restoring its ecosystem.
The torrent will flow for three days from the Glen Canyon Dam on the Arizona-Utah state line.
It began Wednesday morning.
The canyon's ecosystem was permanently changed after the construction of the Glen Canyon Dam in 1963.
The Colorado River downstream used to be warm and muddy, but now it's cold and clear.
The shift helped speed the extinction of four fish species and push two others, including the endangered humpback chub, near the edge.
Officials hope the flooding will stir up sediment and redistribute it through the canyon.
OPEC on Wednesday accused the U.S. of economic "mismanagement" that it said is pushing oil prices to record highs, rebuffing calls to boost output and laying blame at the feet of the Bush administration.
Oil prices surged past $104 a barrel for the first time after the OPEC announcement and the release of a U.S. government report showing a surprise drop in crude oil stockpiles.
The 13-nation Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said it would maintain current production levels because crude supplies are plentiful and demand is expected to weaken in the second quarter.
OPEC President Chakib Khelil told reporters the global market is being affected by what he called "the mismanagement of the U.S. economy," and that the U.S.'s problems
White House spokesman Dana Perino said Wednesday that President Bush was "disappointed" OPEC didn't do more to rein in prices, which some say are pushing the U.S. economy into recession.
Although OPEC opted not to intervene, it did pledge to maintain "constant vigilance" over the market.
BERLIN, Germany (CNN) Germany's Defense Ministry said that it would take very seriously a parliamentary report indicating that the nation's soldiers are more overweight than average civilians, a spokesman said Wednesday.
Ministry spokesman Thomas Raabe said the ministry was carefully analyzing the report, issued Tuesday by the parliamentary commissioner for the military, Reinhold Robbe, and would provide a summary of its own findings by midyear.
His report drew on a study conducted by sports physicians at the University of Cologne showing that 40 percent of all soldiers between the ages of 18 and 29 are overweight
, compared with 35 percent of German civilians the same age.
President Bush endorsed Sen. John McCain for president on Wednesday, saying the presumptive Republican nominee has the "character, courage and perseverance" to lead the country.
McCain thanked the president for his support and the work he has done in the Oval Office.
"I appreciate his endorsement, and I appreciate his service to our country," said McCain, adding that he wanted Bush at his side as much as possible on the campaign trail.
But he said the 2008 run for the Oval Office was not his battle.
Addressing the calls for change in the presidential campaign, Bush said McCain would be steadfast to one of his administration's policies.
"He's not gonna change when it comes to taking on the enemy," Bush said of the senator from Arizona.
Protecting the American people was the No. 1 job of a president and McCain understood that, Bush said.
"He's gonna be a president who will bring determination to defeat an enemy," Bush said.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) Iraqi forces fighting oil theft have been working to recruit young men from tribes that long have been aiding the smugglers, the country's oil minister told CNN.
"This is what we are going to do in any area where we are going to develop an oil or gas field or lay a new pipeline or carry out any new activity," Hussein al-Shahristani told CNN on Monday. "We are going to recruit people from the very community.
Oil is Iraq's key industry.
The country's budget for 2008 is $48 billion, al-Shahristani said, and a conservative accounting of revenue from the oil sector is about $39 billion to $40 billion.
Al-Shahristani said Iraq's current oil production is about 2.5 million barrels per day and current export level is about 2 million barrels per day.
He said monthly revenue from oil sales is about $5 billion.
He likened the people in Iraq's oil region who work with oil smugglers to farmers in Afghanistan who grow and sell poppies to insurgents for drug production:
They are poor and they need to earn a living.
Al-Shahristani said Iraq plans to change the hearts and minds of people who have been helping smugglers and pipeline saboteurs, particularly in southeastern Iraq, where most of the country's lucrative oil industry is based.
The tribes along the pipelines have been aware of and have helped facilitate smuggling activities, he said.
Sen. Barack Obama Wednesday challenged Sen. Hillary Clinton's claim that she was the best candidate to take on Sen. John McCain in the fall.
"If the suggestion is somehow that ... she's going to have a better record than I have and will be better able to withstand Republican attacks, I think that's an issue that should be tested," the Illinois Democrat told reporters Wednesday.
"I think that I am in a much stronger position to run against the Republicans than she is, otherwise I wouldn't be running for president," Obama said.
The argument over who would be the best candidate to take on McCain will likely dominate the Democratic race over the next seven weeks as the campaigns turn their attention to the Pennsylvania primary on April 22.
The battle between Clinton and Obama took on new life after Clinton broke Obama's 12-contest winning streak Tuesday night.
Clinton won in Texas, Ohio, and Rhode Island, while Obama won Vermont.
Many of her supporters had said she had to win both Texas and Ohio to continue to challenge Obama for her party's nomination.
The next two Democratic contests are the Wyoming caucuses on Saturday and the Mississippi primary on March 11.
Fresh from her dramatic wins in Texas and Ohio, Clinton claimed she could go "toe-to-toe" on national security issues with McCain.
McCain locked up the Republican presidential nomination Tuesday night by winning Texas, Ohio, Vermont and Rhode Island.
"People who voted a month ago didn't know who the Republican nominee was going to be. They didn't perhaps factor in that it will be about national security because, indeed, with Senator McCain, that's what it will be about," Clinton told CNN Wednesday.
"I have a lifetime of experience. Senator McCain has a lifetime of experience.
Senator Obama's campaign is about one speech he made in 2002," she said, referring to the Illinois Democrat's speech in which he announced his opposition to the then-pending invasion of Iraq.
But Obama said the voters had rejected Clinton's argument that she was more experienced candidate.
"I have not seen any evidence that she is better equipped to handle a crisis.
"If the only criteria is longevity in Washington, then she's certainly not going to beat John McCain on that," he said.
WASHINGTON (CNN) An attack into Ecuadoran territory by Colombia was criticized Wednesday by South American states trying to defuse tensions between the two nations.
The Organization of American States passed by voice vote its planned solution to ending the crisis that arose Saturday, when Colombia's military attacked a rebel camp in neighboring Ecuador.
Since then, Ecudaor has broken off relations with Colombia, and Venezuela says it has moved troops to its border with Colombia.
In the resolution passed Wednesday, the OAS called the attack "a violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ecuador and of principles of international law" and noted that it led Ecuador to break relations with Colombia.
Insulza and composed of four ambassadors designated by him, to visit both countries to investigate the matter, "and to propose formulas for bringing the two nations closer together.
OAS foreign ministers are to meet March 17 in Washington "to examine the facts and make the pertinent recommendations," the resolution concluded.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Wednesday that he saw little chance of war erupting among Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela.
Gates added that the United States would not need to assist its Colombian allies should armed conflict break out.
But the organization's resolution did not mollify everyone.
The Texas caucuses which offer up about a third of the state's delegates are still too close to call.
CNN's latest delegate count has Obama with 1,520 delegates to Clinton's 1,424. To clinch the Democratic nomination, a candidate must get 2,025 delegates.
But because the Democratic delegates are allocated proportionally, the race appears to be headed to the party's convention in August.
It's a lot like Ohio demographically.
Like in Ohio, she has the support of the very politically active governor, Ed Rendell.
The nearly 800 superdelegates various party leaders and officials who cast their vote at the convention are free to vote for the candidate of their choice.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday now is not the time for superdelegates to wade into the fight.
"There are still many voters unheard from yet, and I think that our candidates both have the capacity to inspire, to bring out a big vote that will hold us in good stead in November, and I think that now is not the time for anybody to weigh in."
Pelosi said she was confident the nominee would be decided before the Democratic convention in August, and that she was "never among those who believed this would be resolved by now."
She argued that the prolonged campaign is good for the party, and offers Democrats a chance to "make a clear distinction" about their differences with Republicans on a range of issues.
While Democratic contenders fight for their party's bid, McCain can turn his attention to the general election.
Meanwhile, another big question looms over the election what do the Democrats do with Michigan and Florida?
The Democratic candidates had agreed not to campaign in either state, and Clinton was the only major candidate on Michigan's ballot.
"If the [Democratic National Committee] wants to talk about another Florida presidential primary, but not paid for by the taxpayers of Florida they have already paid $18 million for the presidential primary that was held. If the DNC were to pay for another election, then that might be considered," said Florida Sen. Bill Nelson, a Democrat.
Scores of flights were canceled Wednesday after thousands of airport workers walked off their jobs at several German airports.
"Either the public employers make an offer with clear salary increases and without increased work hours, or we will show them our strength," Bsirske said at a rally at the airport.
Ver.di has called for an 8 percent raise for Germany's 1.3 million public service workers, backdated to January 1.
In Berlin where subway, tram and bus workers launched a 10-day strike Wednesday ver.di wants pay increases of up to 12 percent.
At Germany's second biggest airport, in Munich, 100 of 462 planned flights for Wednesday morning were canceled, spokesman Peter Pruemm said. Another 69 flights were canceled in Hamburg.
Cristiano Ronaldo fired Manchester United into the Champions League quarterfinals on Tuesday when his second leg goal at Old Trafford clinched a 2-1 aggregate triumph over Lyon.
That put him within two of matching George Best's club-record from 1967-68, when United went on to win their first European Cup.
Wes Brown crossed the ball to Anderson, whose shot from the edge of the area was blocked by a combination of Lyon right back Francois Clerc and Ronaldo. Clerc stumbled and went to ground, while Ronaldo regained possession and shot past Gregory Coupet.
Karim Benzema, who has been upset at playing on the left, was restored to lead the front line from the center at Old Trafford.
While goalkeeper Edwin Van der Sar knocked away Kim Kallstrom's fierce shot in the 29th, United stamped their authority on the first half.
ORLANDO, Florida (CNN) The creator of the Backstreet Boys and 'N Sync has agreed to plead guilty to charges he laundered money and made false statements during a bankruptcy proceeding.
Lou Pearlman will appear in court Thursday, according to a 47-page plea agreement released Tuesday.
Federal prosecutors accuse Pearlman of lying to investors to raise millions of dollars for fake companies.
They say the total loss to investors is estimated at more than $300 million.
(CNN) Sexually unfulfilling marriages aren't limited to new parents or aging baby boomers with hormone imbalances.
They can ensnare even the relatively young and the recently married.
When they are unable to blame kids, stress or physical issues, many couples struggle unhappily to identify and resolve the problems behind their lackluster sex life.
Couples end up in sexually unfulfilling marriages for a variety of reasons, says Marty Klein, a licensed marriage counselor and certified sex therapist in Palo Alto, California.
Laura Berman, a Chicago sex therapist and relationship expert, agrees.
Those who believe passion inevitably fades may downplay the sex factor, picking someone they think would be a good father or a good wife even if they're not an ideal lover, Berman adds.
Other couples enter into relationships with so-so chemistry because they think they're in love and overlook key differences, says Klein.
Therapists generally define "sexless" marriage as having sex less than about 10 times a year, and they estimate 1 in 5 couples are in such a relationship.
"A dry spell is only a problem if the couple thinks it is," he says.
"There are plenty of couples who don't have sex and don't think there's anything wrong with it. And there's others that are in a lot of pain about it.
Klein notes that the expectation of eternally passionate sex may be setting people up to fail.
Try traditional gender roles:
Men may become more sexually assertive if they feel more in control, and women may feel more desire for a mate with newfound machismo.
Engage in exciting activities:
Whether it's trying an extreme sport like skydiving or snowboarding, or exploring new options in the bedroom, activities that get the pulse racing can open the brain's dopamine centers and increases desire.
Talk about it:
Couples also would benefit from simply communicating with their partners about what they want in bed.
"There is no secret to hot sex," says Klein. "Sexy lingerie and dinners out are no substitute for an honest conversation about sex.
Sen. Hillary Clinton got her campaign back on track with projected wins in the Texas, Ohio and Rhode Island primaries.
Obama, who claimed victory in Vermont, had won 12 straight contests since Super Tuesday on February 5.
Texas also held Democratic caucuses Tuesday, but it was too close to declare a winner.
Obama congratulated Clinton on her victories but downplayed his losses.
No matter what happens tonight, we have nearly the same delegate lead as we had this morning, and we are on our way to winning this nomination," Obama told supporters in Texas.
Read about McCain's victory McCain won primaries in Texas, Ohio, Vermont and Rhode Island, giving him more than the 1,191 delegates needed to clinch the GOP nomination.
"I am very, very grateful and pleased to note that tonight, my friends, we have won enough delegates to claim with confidence, humility and a great sense of responsibility, that I will be the Republican nominee for president of the United States," McCain told supporters Tuesday night.
Mike Huckabee dropped out of the Republican race after the results came in.
"It's now important that we turn our attention not to what could have been or what we wanted to have been, but now what must be and that is a united party," Huckabee told a crowd in Dallas.
a six-limbed creature that they have dubbed 'hexapus.
Which is what makes 'Henry' as staffers at Blackpool Sea Life Centre in northwest England have dubbed their find so unique.
"If you look closer between the legs, there's webbing that attaches each of the arms together," John Filmer of the Sea Life Centre told CNN Tuesday. "You'd assume if he'd lost one of his legs in an accident, there would be space for an arm to grow back.
"But there's no space for two extra legs to grow back. That's just how he is.
Staffers called others zoos and aquariums and scoured the Internet to see if there were records of similar creatures.
"No one has ever heard of another case of a six-legged octopus," said display superviser Carey Duckhouse.
'Henry' was picked up from a local zoo along with seven other octopodes for a new exhibit at the center.
No one noticed his missing legs until he attached himself to the inside of his glass tank.
(CNN) The military is investigating a "shocking and deplorable" YouTube video that seems to show a Marine throwing a puppy off a rocky cliff.
The black-and-white puppy makes a yelping sound as it flies through the air.
"That's mean, that was mean," one companion says off-camera, addressing the alleged puppy thrower by his last name.
The fate of the animal is not known.
The Marine is identified on the video and in other Internet postings as a lance corporal stationed at Marine Corps Base Hawaii in Kaneohe.
It's not clear where the video was shot, although the man who appears to throw the puppy and another Marine are in full combat gear with helmets.
YouTube.com had taken down the video by 12:30 p.m. ET Tuesday "due to terms of use violation," according to a banner on the Web site.
"This is a shocking and deplorable video that is contrary to the high standards that we set for every Marine," Marine Corps spokesman Maj. Chris Perrine said at a news conference Monday night.
"We will investigate this and take appropriate actions," Perrine said.
Perrine added that the majority of Marines conduct themselves honorably.
"There are many examples of Marines who adopt pets and bring them back from Iraq and demonstrate their compassion on a daily basis," he said.
If the video is deemed legitimate, the lance corporal could face a charge of conduct unbecoming a Marine, Perrine said.
I think every Marine is upset about this video," he said.
Security officers prevented the two bombers from entering the Pakistan Navy War College in the eastern city of Lahore, according to a statement issued by the Pakistani military's Inter-Services Public Relations agency.
One of the explosions set off a chain reaction in a campus parking lot, with gas cylinders in nearby storage sheds exploding and cars powered by compressed natural gas catching fire, the ISPR said.
Local reports said 19 were injured.
Authorities immediately closed off access to the college and put the city on high alert.
The college, located in the busy center of Pakistan's second-largest city, trains senior naval officials from Pakistan and other countries.
Michael Mullen, met with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in Rawalpindi to discuss the security situation in the country.
Pakistan has experienced a wave of deadly attacks, most of them suicide bombings, that it blames on Islamic militants.
Four army personnel were killed in the bombing of a bus in Rawalpindi on Monday.
Sen. Hillary Clinton claimed victory in Ohio, a state considered a must-win for her campaign.
Clinton earlier broke Barack Obama's 12-contest winning streak with her victory in Rhode Island.
"For everyone here in Ohio and across America who's been ever been counted out but refused to be knocked out, for everyone who has stumbled but stood right back up, and for everyone who works hard and never gives up this one is for you," Clinton said before supporters in Columbus. "You know what they say," she said.
Obama was projected to take Vermont, but the contest in Texas was too close to call.
Sen. John McCain swept all four Republican contests on Tuesday to become his party's presumptive nominee.
McCain won primaries in Texas, Ohio, Vermont and Rhode Island, giving him more than the 1,191 delegates needed to clinch the GOP nomination.
"I am very, very grateful and pleased to note that tonight, my friends, we have won enough delegates to claim with confidence, humility and a great sense of responsibility, that I will be the Republican nominee for president of the United States," McCain told supporters Tuesday night.
Mike Huckabee dropped out of the Republican race after the results came in.
"It's now important that we turn our attention not to what could have been or what we wanted to have been, but now what must be and that is a united party," Huckabee told a crowd in Dallas.
McCain is slated to go to the White House on Wednesday to receive the endorsement of President Bush, according to two Republican sources.
President Bush will officially endorse John McCain's presidential run Wednesday at the White House. The two men will have a private lunch followed by a joint public statement.
The move by the president, who remained neutral throughout the Republican primary process, comes after a victory in Texas that gave McCain more than the 1,191 delegates required to claim the GOP nomination.
The Arizona senator's remaining primary season rival, Mike Huckabee, withdrew from the presidential race Tuesday night.
Sen. John McCain swept all four nominating contests on Tuesday to become the Republican presidential nominee.
McCain won primaries in Texas, Ohio, Vermont and Rhode Island, giving him more than the 1,191 delegates needed to clinch the GOP nomination.
On the Democratic side, Sen. Hillary Clinton was projected to break Barack Obama's 12-contest winning streak with a victory in Rhode Island.
Obama was projected to take Vermont, but the contests in Ohio and Texas were too close to call.
McCain is slated to go to the White House on Wednesday to receive the endorsement of President Bush, according to two Republican sources.
The Arizona senator's campaign his second run for the White House was largely written off for dead last summer amid outspoken opposition from the party's conservative base, a major staff shakeup and disappointing fundraising.
But McCain said earlier Tuesday that he was confident he would emerge as the presumptive nominee by the end of the night.
McCain overwhelmingly won moderates and conservatives in Ohio, but he lost the evangelical vote to Mike Huckabee, according to exit polls.
Obama's campaign pressed to extend voting by one hour in two Ohio counties.
"Due to reports of ballot shortages in Cuyahoga and Franklin counties, we requested a voting extension in those counties," said Obama spokesman Bill Burton.
Republican presidential front-runner John McCain took a large step toward clinching his party's presidential nomination with wins in Tuesday night's GOP primaries in Ohio and Vermont, according to CNN projections. CNN projected McCain the winner in those states shortly after polls closed, based on exit polling.
Wins in Texas and Ohio alone would give him more than the 1,191 delegates needed to claim the GOP nomination, and workers at McCain's Texas headquarters had a sign with the magic number ready to be unveiled after the last polls close at 9 p.m. ET.
But McCain said he was confident he would emerge Tuesday night as the presumptive nominee.
"There were times, obviously, when my political campaign was not viewed as the most viable in America, as you probably know," he told reporters in San Antonio, Texas. "In fact, I was reminded of the words of Chairman Mao, who said it's always darkest before it's totally black.
McCain already has been turning his fire on the Democrats, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, for whom Tuesday's races in Ohio and Texas are seen as pivotal.
But Huckabee, who won the Iowa caucuses and most of the GOP primaries in the Deep South, said Tuesday that he was still hoping for a win in Texas.
McCain had amassed 1,047 delegates before Tuesday, according to CNN estimates just 144 shy of the GOP's magic number.
MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) Ukraine's natural gas company on Tuesday threatened to begin diverting gas supplies headed for western Europe, after Moscow warned it would halve gas deliveries to Ukraine in a long-running debt dispute.
Russia's state-controlled gas monopoly, OAO Gazprom, on Monday reduced shipments to Ukraine by about a third and on Tuesday threatened a further 25 percent cut if Ukraine did not resolve a dispute over debts and contracts by the evening.
Much of the gas that western Europe buys from Russia comes in pipelines that cross Ukraine.
Gazprom has promised that gas destined for Europe would not be affected by the dispute.
But Ukraine's natural gas company, Naftogaz, said in a statement it "reserves the right to resort to adequate and asymmetrical measures to defend the interests of Ukrainian consumers.
Company spokesman Valentyn Zemlyansky said it could divert supplies bound for western Europe. "We don't rule that out Europe must also understand to what extent Ukraine can be bent," Zemlyansky told The Associated Press.
Gazprom last month threatened to cut supplies to Ukraine over a US$1.5 billion (euro990 million) debt dispute, timed to coincide with Yushchenko's visit to Moscow.
That cutoff was avoided by a last-minute agreement between Yushchenko and President Vladimir Putin.
But documents formalizing that agreement have not been signed by Ukraine's natural gas company.
BEIJING, China (CNN) China's legislature, the National People's Congress, kicks off its annual two-week session Wednesday.
Aside from rubber stamping the Communist Party leadership's policies, the gathering is expected to discuss the Beijing Olympics, increased defense spending, Taiwan's referendum on independence, and the environment.
China's official news agency Xinhua boasts that the 3,000 delegates to congress come from many walks of life throughout the country and that this year's session will be more open than ever before.
China's top leaders are officially chosen by and answer to the National People's Congress, but they've always mirrored the choices of the Communist Party Congress, which met last year.
The stage was also set for parliament by Monday's convening of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) which Xinhua describes as China's top political advisory body.
This orchestration of China's government runs in five-year cycles, starting with the first congress in 1956.
This year marks the first annual session of the 11th congress.
The Communist Party's second-ranking official, Wu Bangguo, will preside over the parliament's televised opening Wednesday in Beijing's Great Hall of the People.
Premier Wen Jiabao will then deliver the "government work report" the equivalent of a "state of the nation" address looking back at the past year and outlining plans for the next year and beyond.
Laws and government policies always pass with overwhelming majorities.
While secret balloting is used to elect top officials from state president to the ministers and top judges only one nominee runs for each post.
Still, dissenting voices have been increasingly heard in and outside the session halls and through the media in recent years.
During the two-week session, delegates will consider the national economic and social development plan for 2008 and this year's national budget.
They are also expected to discuss a blueprint to revamp the government bureaucracy, which will involve merging overlapping ministries and possibly reducing the number of cabinet-level agencies from 28 to about 20.
The avowed aim is to boost government efficiency, cut cost and turn the bureaucracy into a "service-oriented government.
The State Environmental Protection Agency is expected to be elevated into a full-fledged ministry to give it more teeth, personnel and a bigger budget,
President Hu Jintao, National People's Congress chief Wu Bangguo and Premier Wen Jiabao are each expected to be re-elected to five-year terms.
Sources said Xi Jinping is expected to be elected as state vice president and Li Keqiang as executive or Number two vice premier in charge of macro-economic affairs.
If so, this would jibe with the Communist Party Congress decision last year to line up Xi and Li as presumptive successors to top party and government posts.
WASHINGTON (CNN) Fourteen Americans are in custody as part of a global crackdown on a well-organized child porn ring that used sophisticated encryption technology, the FBI and Justice Department announced Tuesday.
Justice Department officials described it as a "vast child exploitation enterprise" that included graphic images, such as ones showing toddlers engaged in various sexual and sadistic acts.
The suspects allegedly used Internet newsgroups and large file-sharing networks to trade and share images and videos.
They also distributed more than 400,000 lewd pictures and movies, the Justice Department said.
Authorities said the advanced technology the suspects allegedly used to both share the images among themselves and sell the material to others made them especially hard to track down.
It may take years for authorities to find the victims, Tidwell told the AP, adding that 20 of the children seen in the images have been identified and rescued so far.
If found guilty, the suspects could face a sentence ranging from 20 years to life in prison.
The FBI said 22 people were taken into custody overall, including people in Australia, Canada, Germany and England.
Three polling stations in Jefferson County in eastern Ohio were relocated Tuesday because of flooding that could have prevented people from voting, election officials said.
County residents unable to get to their designated polling places because of bad weather were given the option of casting provisional ballots Tuesday in Steubenville, the county seat, at the offices of the Board of Elections, officials said.
Freezing rain glazed roads in northern Ohio throughout much of the day, including the cities of Cleveland and Dayton, weather forecasters said.
Clear weather was expected in most of Texas, although there was a possibility of icy roads Tuesday morning in the extreme northeast corner of the state, according to the National Weather Service.
Northern Vermont was under a winter storm warning, with a wintry mix of snow, sleet and freezing rain expected from late Tuesday afternoon into Wednesday, the weather service said.
Heavy rain was in the forecast for Rhode Island, but it wasn't expected to start until late Tuesday after the polls have closed.
Elsewhere, stormy weather moved through the South Monday night and
A possible tornado touched down late Monday in southern Mississippi, slashing through a National Guard barracks and injuring 14 guardsmen, according to a sheriff and a military spokesman.
The National Weather Service received two reports of tornadoes Monday in Mississippi, and numerous reports of hail and damage from high winds in a swath from eastern Texas to Alabama, according to the weather service's Web site.
The weather service predicted severe thunderstorms in parts of the Southeast Tuesday night, with possible tornadoes and damaging winds in the Carolinas.
Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain will win the Vermont primaries, CNN projects.
Vermont gives Obama his 12th consecutive win and puts McCain 17 delegates closer to clinching the Republican nomination.
In addition to Vermont, Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island are also holding contests Tuesday.
In Texas, Sen. Hillary Clinton holds a two-to-one advantage over Obama with Hispanic voters, while Obama has the overwhelming advantage with black voters in the state's Democratic primary, according to CNN's exit poll.
These early surveys provide a snapshot of the race, but are not conclusive on who will win the critical contest.
Eighty-three percent of blacks voted for Obama, while 16 percent supported Clinton, according to the exit poll.
Some say Clinton must win the Democratic contests in Texas and Ohio if she is to continue to compete with Obama, who has won 11 contests in a row going back nearly a month.
"If Obama wins Texas and Ohio, it's game over," said CNN senior political analyst Bill Schneider.
Obama appeals most strongly to younger voters while older voters favor Clinton.
Among those age 60 and older, Clinton leads Obama 67-31 percent.
The same pattern holds true in early exit polling from the Texas Democratic primary.
Among voters aged 18 to 29, Obama leads Clinton 61-39 percent, and among voters 60 and older, Clinton leads Obama 63- 36 percent.
While Tuesday is an important primary day for Democrats, it could also be a turning point for Republicans.
McCain could win enough delegates to mathematically secure his party's nomination Tuesday, though he has been the presumed GOP nominee for weeks.
PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island (CNN) Voters in four states will go to the polls Tuesday with a good chance at making the difference in deciding the Democratic and Republican presidential nominees.
It could be the most consequential day so far in the race to the White House.
The results in Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island and Vermont could mathematically put Sen. John McCain of Arizona over the top when it comes to winning enough delegates to secure the GOP nomination.
They also could determine whether the fight between Sens.
Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois for the Democratic nomination ends this week or continues into the spring.
Obama comes into the March 4 primaries with momentum on his side, thanks to his 11 straight victories in contests dating back nearly a month.
He has 1,378 pledged delegates and superdelegates to Clinton's 1,269.
Neither candidate is close to the 2,025 needed to win the Democratic nomination.
"If Obama wins Texas and Ohio, it's game over," said CNN senior political analyst Bill Schneider.
"If Clinton wins Texas and Ohio, it's game on until someone can figure out how to reach a majority of delegates. That may not happen until the Democratic National Convention in late summer.
If Clinton and Obama split Texas and Ohio, it's a new game.
Texas and Ohio are the biggest prizes Tuesday 193 Democratic delegates are at stake in Texas and 141 in Ohio.
But Texas also has a strong African-American population, and Obama has dominated the black vote so far this year.
In Ohio, Clinton has a slight lead, because of the large number of union and blue-collar workers and Catholic voters, groups that, along with women and senior citizens, are considered her base.
For the Republicans, it is not a question of who but when.
Sen. John McCain of Arizona has 1,047 delegates, 144 shy of the 1,191 he needs to lock in the Republican nomination.
Bert van Marwijk will succeed Marco van Basten as coach of the Netherlands on a two-year contract after the European Championship finals in Austria and Switzerland in June.
Van Marwijk, who now coaches Dutch club Feyenoord, will begin his new job in July and has signed through the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, the Dutch soccer federation said Monday.
Van Basten, a former Dutch star striker, previously announced he would be leaving.
He will become coach of the Dutch team Ajax coach next season.
The 55-year-old Van Marwijk previously coached at Borussia Dortmund in Germany and before that at Feyenoord, leading the team to the 2002 UEFA Cup title.
His 2000-04 stint made him the longest-serving coach in Feyenoord's history.
A robotic spacecraft circling Mars has snapped the first image of a series of active avalanches near the planet's north pole, scientists said Monday.
The image, taken last month, reveals at least four avalanches of fine ice and dust breaking off from a steep cliff and settling on the slope below.
The landslides were spied by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter during a routine tracking of seasonal changes.
It is rare for scientists to catch a natural event in action on the surface of Mars.
Most of the landscape that has been recorded so far has not changed much in millions of years.
Scientists were unsure what set off the avalanches and whether they occur frequently or only during the spring.
(CNN) Battling blustery weather, a Lufthansa Airlines flight scraped its wing on the ground during a landing attempt in Hamburg, Germany, over the weekend.
The plane recovered and landed safely the second time around, the spokesman said.
Dramatic amateur video of the incident that appeared on the Internet showed the Airbus A320 teetering as it tried to land during the brutal winter storm on Saturday.
As it nears the tarmac, one wing visible scrapes the ground.
"As we were about to touch down, a gust of wind pressed the left wing towards the ground," a Lufthansa pilot identified only as Oliver A. said in a statement.
Airline spokesman Wolfgang Weber said the left winglet, a fin at the end of the wing scraped the ground after a gust of wind tipped the plane.
(CNN) From butterflies to grizzly bears, we know where the wild things are.
* Stingray City, Grand Cayman
The clear, shallow water of Grand Cayman's North Sound teems with southern stingrays.
They began to congregate here because it's where fishermen cleaned their catch.
Now, they come for handouts from tourists.
* Depoe Bay, Oregon
From now until June, Oregon's "whale-watching capital" welcomes roughly 18,000 gray whales en route to Alaska.
Visit the Whale Watching Center in Depoe Bay to learn the best spots to view the grays.
(Insider's tip: Northbound whales, which migrate now, swim closer to shore than southbound winter travelers.)
Spring Whale Watch Week, when center volunteers will be stationed along the coast to provide viewing tips and facts, starts March 22.
* Assateague Island National Seashore, Virginia and Maryland
During spring and fall, this area's famed wild horses spend much of their time grazing the Virginia and Maryland coastlines.
The best way to see the privately owned Virginia herd is aboard the Pony Express Nature Tour cruise.
Captain Mark Coulbourne knows where the horses hang out (tours run May through October).
On land, hike or bike the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge's 1 1/2-mile Woodland Trail to an observation platform overlooking the ponies' habitat.
* Big Pine Key, Florida
This is the only place in the world to see the pint-size Key deer.
A subspecies of Virginia white-tailed deer, they stand just 30 inches tall at the shoulder.
Go to the National Key Deer Refuge in the early morning or at dusk for the best viewing you may spot a newborn during the April-to-May fawning season.
Stop at the visitor center before heading to an observation platform, or hike trails to see the deer.
* Maui, Hawaii
Many green sea turtles (or honu) that gather off Maui's shores eventually make their way to Maluaka Beach, also known as Turtle Town.
To view the sea turtles in their natural habitat, grab your snorkel or scuba gear.
* Stonington Peninsula, Michigan
You're likely to find many at Peninsula Point, a resting spot on the Upper Peninsula.
Visitors can climb the 40-foot lighthouse for a bird's-eye view of the butterflies' journey across Lake Michigan, or observe them resting in the surrounding cedar trees.
Pack a picnic, and don't forget a camera.
* Delaware Bay, Delaware
Head here to visit one of the world's largest spawning grounds for horseshoe crabs.
These crustaceans are protected at five community-based sanctuaries Broadkill Beach, Slaughter Beach, Fowler Beach, Pickering Beach and Kitts Hummock, all accessible to the public.
There are also plans for a horseshoe-crab museum and research center in Milton (the only other museum of this kind is in Japan).
* Mosquito Bay, Puerto Rico
Often called bio bay, this is one of the best places in the world to experience bioluminescence, a natural glow produced by living organisms.
You can observe the glowing dinoflagellates (a type of microscopic algae) throughout the year, but the best time to visit is during a new moon when the night sky is darkest.
*San Simeon, California
Winter is a great time to observe one of California's largest resident populations of elephant seals.
Visit Friends of the Elephant Seal's Web site to learn about these funny-looking marine mammals and to get recommendations for the best places to find them.
*Knight Inlet, British Columbia
To see black bears and grizzlies, head to Knight Inlet, northwest of Vancouver.
The Knight Inlet Lodge, open June through mid-October, offers three-, four- and five-day packages.
A boat takes guests to a channel brimming with salmon and to other areas the bears frequent.
The Old North Church, a beacon for Paul Revere's famous warning of the movement of British forces, and a symbol of the American Revolution, has gone high-tech with the installation of light-emitting diodes, or LEDs.
The energy-efficient lights illuminate ceiling vaults inside the church, whose steeple was used to display two lanterns as a signal about British troop movements on April 18, 1775 the night described in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's famous poem, which included the line:
The 18 strips of LEDs inside church's sanctuary replacements for old-fashioned incandescents may seem an anachronism at the most visited historic site in a city with a rich Revolutionary War legacy.
But the lights are tucked into crown molding, illuminating the graceful white ceiling arches while the lights themselves are hidden from direct view by tourists and worshippers below.
"What we've added is light, and beauty," said Ed Pignone, executive director of the Old North Foundation of Boston, which oversees the 285-year-old church.
One of the church's annual half-million visitors agreed the installation was done with historic sensibility.
"It's completely transparent and invisible," said Jim Peluso of Richmond, Virginia, one of a handful of Old North visitors on a chilly winter Friday.
"I guess it's no different than adding running water, or an HVAC system in the church, right?
The LEDs were donated by Philips Solid-State Lighting Solutions, which planned to announce the Old North installation Monday.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, heading home after a two-day visit to Iraq, again touted his country's closer relations with Iraq and reiterated his criticism of the United States.
"No one likes them," Ahmadinejad told reporters prior to returning to Iran, referring to the predominantly U.S. makeup of coalition forces in Iraq.
"We believe that the forces which crossed oceans and thousands of kilometers to come to this region should leave this region and hand over the affairs to the peoples and government of this region," Ahmadinejad said.
In a news briefing on Monday, Ahmadinejad said the two countries, which fought an eight-year war in the 1980s, had signed memorandums of understanding, such as economic and border agreements, and would sign many more.
He contrasted his trip, which was advertised in advance, with the "stealth" visits of others, a reference to visits by U.S. officials who sometimes do not broadcast their visits to Iraq for security reasons.
The United States has accused Iran of supporting insurgent groups in Iraq.
He said coalition forces "shouldn't interfere in the affairs of regional countries" and "should allow the region's countries to run their own affairs.
In Washington, U.S. State Department Deputy Spokesman Tom Casey said the United States supported Iraq's efforts to conduct its "diplomatic relations the way it sees fit.
Asian business schools are getting better than ever that's the message from the latest Financial Times ranking of global MBAs, which lists three Asia-based programs in the top 20.
The annual league table by the London-based business newspaper, now in its 10th year, is traditionally seen as perhaps the most authoritative global ranking, assessing worldwide MBAs on a series of criteria ranging from alumni salaries and experiences to course diversity and academic research.
This year's top 100 remains, as ever, dominated by U.S. and European schools.
61 of the 100 are based in the U.S. or Canada, while 27 are European.
The top five schools are the same as last year, although not all in the same order, with the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton school leading the rankings again.
While China's Ceibs school, based in Shanghai, remains at 11, it is now joined by two other Asian MBAs, both new not only to the top 20 but to the entire top 100 ranking.
UNITED NATIONS (CNN) The U.N. Security Council approved a third round of sanctions against Iran on Monday, sending a strong signal to Tehran that its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment is unacceptable and becoming increasingly costly.
For the first time, the resolution bans trade with Iran in goods which have both civilian and military uses and authorizes inspections of shipments to and from Iran by sea and air that are suspected of carrying banned items.
The vote was 14-0 with one abstention from Indonesia.
Iran's U.N. Ambassador Mohammad Khazee told the council just before the vote that the government would not comply with the "unlawful action" against its "peaceful nuclear program.
"Iran cannot and will not accept a requirement which is legally defective and politically coercive," he said. "History tells us that no amount of pressure, intimidation and threat will be able to coerce our nation to give up its basic and legal rights.
Iran insists its enrichment activities are intended only for peaceful civilian purposes, but the U.S., the European Union and others suspect its real aim is to make atomic weapons. Enriched uranium can be used as fuel for nuclear energy or nuclear weapons.
The resolution introduces financial monitoring on two banks with suspected links to proliferation activities, Bank Melli and Bank Saderat.
It calls on all countries "to exercise vigilance" in entering into new trade commitments with Iran.
The resolution also orders countries to freeze the assets of 12 additional companies and 13 individuals with links to Iran's nuclear or ballistic missile programs and require countries to report the travels of those Iranians.
Tuesday could be the most consequential day to date in the race to the White House.
There's a good chance voters in Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island and Vermont will make the difference in deciding the Democratic and Republican presidential nominees.
The results of those four states could mathematically put Sen. John McCain of Arizona over the top when it comes to winning enough delegates to secure the GOP nomination.
For the Republicans, it is not a question of who but when. Sen. John McCain of Arizona has 1,047 delegates, 144 shy of the 1,191 he needs to lock in the Republican nomination.
Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois for the Democratic nomination ends this week or continues into the spring.
He has 1,378 pledged delegates and superdelegates to Clinton's 1,269.
Neither candidate is close to the 2,025 needed to win the Democratic nomination.
The big question surrounding Clinton is how many states she needs to win Tuesday to keep going.
Former President Bill Clinton said in February if his wife wins Ohio and Texas, she'll go on to win the nomination.
The flip side, of course, is that if she doesn't win those two big states, will she give up her quest for the White House?
"If Obama wins Texas and Ohio, it's game over," said CNN senior political analyst Bill Schneider.
Texas and Ohio are the biggest prizes Tuesday 193 Democratic delegates are at stake in Texas and 141 in Ohio.
CNN's poll of polls, an averaging of the most recent surveys in each state, suggests the race is extremely tight, with Obama ahead by 2 points in Texas and Clinton ahead by 5 in Ohio.
But the polls also indicate there are still many undecided voters in both states.
KATHMANDU, Nepal (CNN) A United Nations helicopter caught fire and crashed Monday in a mountainous region in eastern Nepal, killing at least 10 of the 12 people on board, according to Nepal's home ministry.
The status of the remaining two passengers is not clear; local citizens aiding in the rescue effort believe no one survived the crash.
Ministry spokesman Mod Raj Dotel said five of the 12 on board were Nepal citizens.
He said the helicopter crashed near Bhawasa, about 145 kilometers (90 miles) east of Kathmandu.
The U.N. Mission in Nepal said it lost contact with the helicopter about 4 p.m. (1030 GMT).
In a written statement, UNMIN confirmed "there were fatalities," and said it would have more details once its team arrived at the crash site.
UNMIN spokesman Kieran Dwyer said the helicopter was carrying U.N. staff from several countries, and their identities will be released Tuesday after their families have been contacted.
The helicopter was flying to Kathmandu from the a Maoist cantonment in Sindhuli, about 200 km east of the capital, Dwyer said.
It is one of seven cantonments across Nepal where UNMIN is monitoring the arms and armies of the former Maoist rebels, who signed a peace deal with the government more than a year ago.
Former newspaper baron Conrad Black is in federal prison.
Federal Bureau of Prisons spokesman Mike Truman says Black reported Monday to a low-security prison near Coleman, Florida.
Black and his co-defendants were convicted of fraud last July for allegedly siphoning money out of the company.
The biographer and member of the British House of Lords also has been ordered to pay $6.1 million in restitution.
Black had sought to stay free on bond on grounds there was a strong possibility his conviction would be reversed, but a Chicago federal appeals court denied his request last week.
"We will explore necessary countermeasures, including further strengthening all deterrents," the North's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
The North, which successfully tested a nuclear bomb in 2006, commonly uses the word "deterrent" to refer to its nuclear weapons program.
While the North's military had previously condemned the war games, which began Sunday and involve tens of thousands of South Korean and American troops, the Foreign Ministry comment represents the highest form of official communication from Pyongyang's reclusive government.
In the statement, carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency, the ministry said the military maneuvers demonstrate that Washington "is seeking a hostile policy to stifle our republic by force.
The North claims the U.S. wants to invade the communist country, an accusation Washington has repeatedly denied.
But the U.S. has cautioned against overestimating the impact of the performance, saying warmer ties will depend on whether the North keeps its commitments under a nuclear disarmament deal struck last year.
Washington has accused Pyongyang of not fully disclosing its nuclear programs under the agreement reached with the U.S. and other regional partners.
The U.S.-South Korean military exercises, scheduled to run through Friday, involve computer-simulated war games and field drills.
About 27,000 American troops, the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier and an undisclosed number of South Korean soldiers were taking part, according to the U.S. and South Korean militaries.
Evidence found in computers seized in a raid over the weekend suggests that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez recently gave the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia $300 million, Colombia's national police chief said Monday.
Speaking at a news conference, Gen. Oscar Naranjo also said evidence in the computers suggests FARC had given Chavez 100 million pesos when he was a jailed rebel leader.
FARC has fought to overthrow the Colombian government for 40 years.
Chavez had no immediate response to the allegations involving him.
Naranjo said other evidence in the computers suggests FARC purchased 50 kilograms of uranium this month.
Meanwhile, Colombia said Monday it won't send troops to its southwest and northeast borders, where Venezuelan and Ecuadoran military forces were to be separately deployed after a Colombian raid into Ecuador.
The Saturday raid, which Ecuador's President Rafael Correa said violated his nation's airspace, left two Colombian rebels dead.
Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos denied Colombia had violated Ecuadoran airspace, but Correa and Chavez assailed the raid as an infringement of Ecuador's sovereignty.
Chavez ordered 10 battalions of troops to the Colombian border Sunday and closed Venezuela's embassy in Bogota.
He said Venezuela would have declared war on Colombia if its troops had attacked targets in Venezuela.
Chavez called the attack "a cowardly murder" and blamed the United States, a close ally of Colombia.
He further called Uribe a criminal, liar and gangster.
Correa and Chavez are two of several leftist presidents who have been elected in Latin America in recent years. Uribe is a rightist with close ties to the United States.
DILI, East Timor (CNN) The man who allegedly shot and critically wounded East Timor's president last month was in custody Sunday after surrendering to police, military officials said.
Amaro da Costa turned himself in without a fight late Saturday, handing over two automatic weapons and some ammunition, Lt. Col. Filomeno Paixao told reporters in the capital, Dili.
Da Costa, an ex-policeman, allegedly shot President Jose Ramos-Horta outside his home on February 11, two military sources told The Associated Press, citing several witness accounts.
Ramos-Horta is recovering from multiple rounds of surgery in an Australian hospital, while Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao escaped unharmed from an ambush on his motorcade the same day.
BERLIN, Germany (CNN) A storm dubbed "Emma" slammed into Europe Saturday with high winds and heavy rain, killing at least two people, authorities said.
A man died near the western German town of Wissen early Saturday when a tree toppled by the storm fell on the car he was riding in, Wissen police told CNN.
The man was in a group of four people driving home from work when they encountered a tree in the road.
As they were turning around, the other tree fell on the car.
In Oberpfaffenhofen, in Bavaria, Germany, a car struck and killed a 72-year-old man who was riding a motorbike, after a gust of wind blew the man into the wrong side of the road, police spokesman Wolgang Goergmaier said.
In a separate incident in Bavaria, a wind gust pushed a tour bus off the road, sending the vehicle into a ditch. It rolled over, injuring five people, one of whom was hospitalized, Goergmaier said.
Also in Germany, a train conductor was injured when a high-speed train, the Inter City Express, struck a toppled tree, according to Martin Walden, spokesman for Deutsche Bahn rail service.
Toppled trees on train tracks were triggering massive delays in railway service all across Germany, with rail lines closed in many locations, Walden said.
Several airports across Europe were posting delays as of Saturday night Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich and Amsterdam, among others, said CNN forecaster Kevin Corriveau.
Europe began feeling the effects of Emma late Friday night, according to Deutchscher Wetter Dienst (DWD), Germany's national weather service.
German authorities were urging residents to stay indoors until the worst of the storm had passed, especially in the northwest part of the country and the southern Alps.
NEW YORK (CNN) Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony have reportedly named their newborn twins Max and Emme.
Lopez's manager, Simon Fields, confirmed the babies' names to People magazine on Friday.
The twins were born at a Long Island hospital on February 22, with 5-pound, 7-ounce Emme arriving about 15 minutes before her 6-pound brother.
The hospital's name was not disclosed.
Fields said then that Lopez, a first-time mother at 39, was "thrilled" at the babies' arrival.
The 38-year-old Anthony has three other children.
The babies arrived a day after both their parents were named as winners of Latin music's "Premio Lo Nuestro" awards.
Lopez won this year's award for best solo pop singer, while Anthony was named salsa artist of the year.
(CNN) Armenian opposition leader Levon Ter-Petrosian appealed to his followers to go home Sunday to avoid the kind of violent clashes between police and protesters that left nine people dead over the weekend.
Ter-Petrosian vowed he would continue to protest the election results peacefully through legal means.
Aides drove through the capital city of Yerevan playing the appeal over loudspeakers and by Sunday, few demonstrators remained on the streets.
Chaos in the former Soviet republic could affect the stability of the region, which plays an important role in producing and supplying oil and gas to the West.
Armenia, population 3 million, lies a east of Turkey, south of Georgia and north of Iran.
"We will avoid any public meeting and marches, and we will concentrate on the constitutional court where we are expecting the case to be heard and discussed (Tuesday)," opposition spokesman Arman Musinyan told CNN Sunday.
The clashes Saturday over alleged election fraud killed at least nine people and injured 17 police officers, a government official told CNN Sunday.
Armenian President Robert Kocharian declared a state of emergency Saturday night that he hoped would bring order to Yerevan.
The state of emergency could last until March 20, officials said.
The protests began soon after the Feb. 19 presidential election, when Ter-Petrosian lost to Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisian, the handpicked successor of the outgoing president.
The opposition party immediately accused the government of vote fraud and demanded that the results be voided.
The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) monitored the election and concluded that it was mostly in line with international standards, although it did include some criticism in its report.
Four crew members on board a Japanese whaling ship in Antarctic waters were injured Monday when an anti-whaling group threw butyric acid on board, a top Japanese official said.
Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Itsunori Onodera announced the incident at an international seminar for African and Asian delegates to the International Whaling Commission.
Onodera said someone on the activist boat, the Steve Irwin, threw bags of butyric acid aboard the Japanese vessel the Nisshin Maru.
Onodera did not elaborate on the extent of the injuries, simply telling the audience that the crew complained of injuries after the bags of acid hit the ship.
"The crew deployed over two dozen bottles of rotten butter, sending a stench throughout the whale killing ship that will remain for days," a statement from the group said.
The acid is known for its foul odor it's what you smell when butter turns rancid.
A third-minute goal from Uruguayan international Marcelo Zalayeta gave Napoli the three points and it could have been worse for the leaders had Zalayeta converted a penalty 15 minutes from time.
Napoli made a flying start against the champions and a blunder by Inter keeper Julio Cesar saw the ball come to Zalayeta who scored with a clever chip.
With AC Milan held to a 1-1 draw by Lazio last night, the Viola's victory moved them four points clear of the Rossoneri in the race to finish in the Champions League qualifying spots.
Udinese strengthened their claims for a UEFA Cup place with a 2-0 win at home to Atalanta - Fabio Quagliarella and Antonio Di Natale grabbing the goals in the first half.
Ecuador's President Rafael Correa withdrew his government's ambassador in Bogota, Colombia, and ordered troops to the country's border following a Colombian raid against leftist rebels inside Ecuador.
In a televised address, Correa called a raid by Colombian national police and air force one day earlier a "massacre" that killed civilians.
The strike at dawn Saturday killed two leading figures in the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a Marxist movement that has fought a guerrilla war against the country's government for some 40 years.
The incident has triggered a crisis among the three countries, as Venezuela President Hugo Chavez also ordered 10 battalions of troops to the Colombian border and the closure of Venezuela's embassy in Bogota.
Chavez pledged to "support Ecuador in any circumstance," he said on his weekly talk show, "Alo Presidente," or "Hello, President."
"We don't want war, but we will not allow the North American empire which is the master and its sub-President [Alvaro] Uribe and the Colombian oligarchy to divide, to weaken us. We will not allow it.
The three countries are neighbors, with Colombia, a U.S. ally, squeezed between Ecuador, to the southwest, and Venezuela, to the east.
Also on Saturday, Correa told reporters in Quito that Uribe told him the raid occurred after a FARC column fled across the border and fired at Colombian forces, who "had to defend themselves.
But Correa said his forces investigated Uribe's claims and discovered that the Colombian planes attacked the guerrillas as they slept in a camp 2 km ( 1.2 mi) inside Ecuador. "Of course Ecuadoran air space was invaded," he said.
He said Colombian ground forces then crossed into Ecuador and retrieved Reyes' body, leaving the others.
KATHMANDU, Nepal (CNN) About 12,000 refugees were without homes Sunday after a fire blazed through a camp in southeastern Nepal destroying more than 1,200 huts, officials told CNN.
Authorities do not yet know definitively what caused the Saturday night fire at the Goldhap refugee camp.
A police officer at the scene told CNN that the blaze may have started from a kerosene lamp inside one of the homes.
The makeshift homes are made of bamboo, mud and thatch.
The fire left only 300 of the more than 1,500 homes standing, said Home Ministry spokesman Mod Raj Dotel.
The government has offered $50,000 in relief to the refugees left without homes in the fire.
The Red Cross and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees office are assisting with tents and non-food items.
It is one of seven camps in southeastern Nepal where 106,000 refugees from neighboring Bhutan are housed.
The refugees of ethnic Nepalese origin have been living in the camps since 1992 after Bhutan's government expelled them because it says they are non-nationals.
Bhutan is considered one of the world's most isolated countries and the government strictly regulates foreign influences, including tourism, to preserve the country's Buddhist culture.
Bhutan allegedly stripped the minority ethnic Nepalis of their citizenship and forced them into exile in an attempt to create a homogenous culture, according to the independent non-governmental group Human Rights Watch.
Many of them have taken up arms and have launched a violent Maoist rebellion, the group said.
Bhutan and Nepal are separated by a strip of land belonging to India.
(CNN) A teenager has been formally charged for the killings of her mother and two young brothers, a crime that has left the family's tiny Texas town reeling.
Police are not releasing the daughter's name because she is a juvenile.
Bond was set at $500,000 each, said Rains County Sheriff David Traylor.
The teenage girl's father, Terry Caffey, was shot in the head but survived and is helping police.
Caffey, who is in critical condition, was able to crawl 300 yards to a neighbor's home and later identified one of the suspects, said Traylor.
The father is currently out of ICU and is on his way to surgery to have four slugs removed, the sheriff said.
Carl Johnson, a family friend, told The Associated Press he saw the bloody trail left by Terry Caffey who dragged himself to a neighbor's house.
The killings, which police say were prompted when the daughter was forbidden to date one of the suspects, occurred in the Alba, Texas, home of Terry and Penny Caffey on Saturday morning. .
The home was burned as well as a medical supplies van outside, said Traylor.
In the ashes, authorities found the body of Penny Caffey, 37, and the 8- and 13-year-old boys.
"Early on in the investigation it was revealed that the juvenile and one of the suspects were dating and made to break up," Traylor wrote in a release.
The relationship was with Wilkinson according to Traylor.
"There hasn't been a murder here in 18 years," said Orvin Carroll, longtime mayor of Alba a town of about 430 people east of Dallas.
Japan's main stock index plunged more than 4 percent in Monday morning trade, driven by concerns about the state of the U.S. economy and the dollar's weakness against the yen are driving Tokyo stocks down.
The benchmark Nikkei 225 stock index lost 551.22 points, or 4.05 percent, to 13,051.80 in early trade Monday.
Worries over the U.S. economy spurred declines across the Asia-Pacific markets early Monday.
The Korea Composite Stock Price Index fell 49.62 points, or 2.9 percent, to 1,662.00 after about the first 40 minutes of trading.
Steelmaker Posco declined 3.4 percent to 512,000 won, while shipbuilder Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. dropped 3.8 percent to 367,000 won.
Australian shares plunged by almost 3 percent when markets opened Monday, responding to large falls on Wall Street last week and rising fears about a recession in the United States.
The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index fell 166.8 points, or 2.99 percent, to 5405.3 points in the first 10 minutes of trade, while the broader All Ordinaries index lost 158.3 points or 2.79 percent to 5516.4.
In New York on Friday, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 315.79, or 2.51 percent, to 12,266.39.
The drop sent stocks lower for February, the fourth straight month of declines.
" I am so disappointed, I thought I could see it through to the end and come back with our guys and the colonel himself.
He added, "I suppose I think deep down inside it would be quite nice to have a bath ... but, no, I'd like to still be out there with the guys ... I would love to go back out. I want to go out very very soon.
Harry was welcomed home by his father and brother Saturday, a day after he was quickly withdrawn from deployment.
Prince Harry walked off an RAF transport plane, along with several dozen other British soldiers, at 11:45 a.m. Saturday.
Charles told reporters he was "enormously proud" of Harry and said he now understood what the families and loved ones of soldiers endured when they were serving abroad.
The prince had been deployed in Afghanistan since December.
Major news outlets had agreed to keep the information secret for security reasons, but a Web site broke the news blackout Thursday.
That prompted the British military to withdraw the prince for security reasons four weeks before the end of his 14-week deployment.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Sunday ordered 10 battalions of military forces to the country's border with Colombia, and ordered the closure of Venezuela's embassy in Colombia's capital city of Bogota.
Chavez made the moves in reaction to an operation carried out at dawn Saturday by Colombia's national police and its air force in Ecuador, which resulted in the death of the second-in-command of the FARC rebels group, Luis Edgar Devia Silva, known as "Raul Reyes.
FARC is the Spanish acronym for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. The Marxist group has been trying for some 40 years to overthrow the Colombian government and is estimated to be holding 750 hostages in the jungles of Colombian.
In the past two months, Chavez has brokered FARC's release of six of them.
Reyes, who was a member of the seven-man FARC leadership council known as the general secretariat, played a key mediation role in their release.
Also killed was Guillermo Enrique Torres or "Julian Conrado," who was a key FARC ideologue.
"I put Venezuela on alert, and we will support Ecuador in any circumstance," Chavez said Sunday on his weekly talk show "Alo Presidente," or "Hello, President.
"We don't want war, but we will not allow the North American empire which is the master and its sub-President [Alvaro] Uribe and the Colombian oligarchy to divide, to weaken us. We will not allow it.
Chavez said Saturday that the Colombian government had violated Ecuador's sovereignty and added that, had the operation been conducted on Venezuelan soil, he would have declared war against Colombia.
"Following what happened yesterday, peace talks are halted until the Israeli aggression stops," Palestinian spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina said Sunday.
"That is the decision which the President [Mahmoud Abbas] adopted and so Israel should know that this aggression won't just pass and the continuous Israeli provocation and aggression upon the Palestinian people won't lead to peace.
Israel is responding to ongoing rocket fire from Palestinian militants in Gaza "deliberately and continuously target(ing) civilian population centers," Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev told CNN.
"Did they really expect that Israel would sit by as a government and do nothing while they send rocket after rocket into civilian areas in Israel trying to kill our people?
The Israeli military carried out three airstrikes in Gaza on Sunday;
one of the strikes targeted the Gaza City home of a slain militant responsible for manufacturing rockets, according to Palestinian security sources.
The two-day death toll in Gaza has surpassed 70, with most of the deaths occurring on Saturday, the deadliest day of Israeli-Palestinian fighting in a year.
Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama tried to convince Ohio voters they have what it takes to fix the economy as they campaigned before contests that could decide the Democratic presidential nomination.
Delegate-rich Ohio and Texas hold contests on Tuesday, along with Rhode Island and Vermont.
In Ohio, Clinton and Obama have been focusing largely on the economy and the North American Free Trade Agreement, which many Ohioans blame for the loss of manufacturing jobs.
"I've been around, doing this work for 35 years," Clinton fresh from an cameo appearance on "Saturday Night Live" told voters at Westerville North High School in suburban Columbus, Ohio.
Obama on Sunday spoke with voters in the rural southeast Ohio town of Nelsonville. He credited "green jobs" with helping "reduce dependence on foreign countries for oil," but said such towns face difficult economic times.
"I will be honest with you about the challenges we face, and creating economic development and jobs here in this community will be challenging," he said. "It's not going to be easy.
He added, "I'm hopeful about the future of all towns across Ohio and across the country that are struggling.
Clinton is banking on Tuesday's primaries to break the Obama's 11-contest winning streak.
Even Clinton's husband, former President Bill Clinton, has suggested that if she does not win in Ohio and Texas, her campaign would face a dramatically difficult challenge overtaking Obama.
A "poll of polls" calculated by CNN indicates competitive races in both states.
In Ohio, the poll of polls showed Clinton at 48 percent, Obama at 43 percent and 9 percent undecided.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in Baghdad Sunday for the start of a historic two-day trip, said "visiting Iraq without the dictator is a good thing.
The Shiite-led Iraqi government rolled out the red carpet, literally, for Ahmadinejad as he became the first Iranian president to visit Iraq, a country that was a bitter enemy when Saddam Hussein's Sunni government was in power.
Ahmadinejad, at a joint news conference with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, said the trip "opens a new chapter in bilateral ties with Iraq.
"We have had good talks in a friendly and constructive environment," Ahmadinejad said. "We have the same understanding of things and the two parties are determined to strengthen their political, economic and cultural cooperation.
Later in the day, Ahmadinejad met Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
Both al-Maliki and Talabani have made official trips to Iran since taking office.
At a joint news conference with al-Maliki in Baghdad's Green Zone, Ahmadinejad did not hide his disdain for the United States and its leadership.
"(U.S. President) Bush always accuses others without evidence and this increases problems," Ahmadinejad said. "The Americans have to understand that Iraqi people do not like America."
The United States has accused Iran of supporting some insurgent groups in Iraq, including supplying EFPs, the deadliest and most sophisticated type of roadside bomb.
Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated his handpicked successor Dmitry Medvedev on his projected victory in Sunday's presidential vote at a Red Square rock concert broadcast on Russian TV.
Incomplete returns showed Medvedev with a hefty lead in Sunday's presidential election.
While there is more than one candidate in the elections, Medvedev a longtime close aide to Putin faced no serious opposition in his presidential bid.
With 65.75 percent of the precincts reporting, Russia's Central Election Commission said Medvedev was leading with 69.09 percent of the vote.
"This means that we can maintain the course that was proposed by President Putin," Medvedev said.
The commission said Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov was in second place with almost 20 percent of the vote, followed by populist nationalist Vladimir Zhirinosvsky and a largely unknown Andrei Bogdanov.
Medvedev is expected to capitalize on the success of Putin's tenure as president, who remains incredibly influential and powerful in Russia.
Many Russians believe he has led the country out of the poverty and uncertainty of the 1990s and is responsible for the current national economic boom.
NEW YORK (CNN) In papers filed for a lawsuit in Manhattan, J.K. Rowling says she feels betrayed by a fan, Steven Vander Ark, for his role in trying to publish an unauthorized reference work, "Harry Potter Lexicon.
Vander Ark is editor of a Web site containing a fan-created collection of essays and encyclopedic material on the Potter universe, including lists of spells and potions found in the books, a catalog of magical creatures and a who's who in the wizarding world.
Rowling said she was especially irked that the site's owner and the lexicon's would-be publisher, RDR Books, continued to insist that her acceptance of free, fan-based Web sites justified the efforts.
She said she intends to publish her own definitive Harry Potter encyclopedia.
"If RDR's position is accepted, it will undoubtedly have a significant, negative impact on the freedoms enjoyed by genuine fans on the Internet," she said. "Authors everywhere will be forced to protect their creations much more rigorously"
Rowling brought the lawsuit last Halloween along with film company Warner Bros., which owns the intellectual property related to the Potter books and movies.
RDR Books publisher Roger Rapoport has said the lexicon would not compete with any official encyclopedia written by Rowling.
On its Web site, RDR Books said it was "determined to publish this book for the benefit of Harry Potter fans everywhere.
In the past, Rowling had singled out the Web site and its editor for praise.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) A suicide bomber killed at least 11 people attending the funeral of a police officer killed hours earlier in northwest Pakistan on Friday, an official told CNN.
A police source at Swat province's special branch of police said there were 30 dead and 50 to 55 people injured in the blast, which occurred in Minora, Swat's capital.
He said the attack took place on a funeral procession and caused an electricity blackout, which made it difficult to ascertain exact casualty numbers amid the confusion.
Local reports also said the death toll was as high as 40 or 50, with some saying that top local officials were among the dead.
The death toll was expected to rise overnight.
Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema, citing reports, said that many of the injuries were serious.
He also said the attack was probably the work of militants operating in Swat and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, which have long been havens for foreign fighters.
Earlier Friday, a bomb in Lakki Marwat, also in northwest Pakistan, killed the district superintendent of police for whom the funeral was being held, according to the Web site of the country's Office of Inter-Services Public Relations.
LONDON, England (CNN) Prince Harry is immediately being withdrawn from Afghanistan because of the media's disclosure of his deployment there, the British Ministry of Defense said Friday.
The prince has been deployed to Afghanistan since December.
"This decision has been taken primarily on the basis that the worldwide media coverage of Prince Harry in Afghanistan could impact on the security of those who are deployed there, as well as the risks to him as an individual soldier," the Ministry of Defense said in a statement issued Friday.
The ministry termed "regrettable" the decision of "elements of the foreign media" to reveal Prince Harry's service in Afghanistan.
"I am very disappointed that foreign Web sites have decided to run this story without consulting us," Dannatt said.
Withdrawing Prince Harry from Afghanistan was "a decision that has been made by the defense staff, and I think everybody will respect that to be the right decision," British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Friday.
"What matters is the safety of Prince Harry.
The 23-year-old prince holds the rank of cornet equivalent to a second lieutenant and serves as a forward air controller with a group called Joint Tactical Air Control, or JTAC.
he said in a recent interview
Prince Harry is the younger son of Prince Charles, the heir to the British throne, and the late Princess Diana, who died in a Paris car crash in 1997.
Evander Holyfield has raised the prospect of a rematch of his infamous world heavyweight title fight with Mike Tyson despite both men being into their 40s.
Holyfield took Tyson's crown in an epic bout in 1996, but it was their second fight a year later that is remembered for all the wrong reasons with Tyson disqualified for biting a chunk out of his opponent's ear.
Holyfield, 45, has revealed he is considering an offer from 41-year-old Tyson's camp to meet in the ring for a third time.
"I said, 'It all depends on what they are going to give us - because I'm gonna catch a lot of flak if I say I'm fighting Mike Tyson again.
He is believed to have held on to a large portion of his career earnings, but, by contrast, Tyson has suffered well-publicized financial problems.
Oil prices surpassed $103 a barrel Friday as continued weakness in the U.S. dollar and the prospect of lower interest rates attracted fresh capital to the oil market.
Light, sweet crude for April delivery jumped to a new trading record of $103.05 a barrel in Asian electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange before slipping back to $102.92 a barrel, up 33 cents.
The contract jumped $2.95 to settle at a record $102.59 on Thursday.
The ferry, carrying more than 100 passengers, capsized Thursday after hitting a cargo vessel on the Buriganga River.
The new bodies were found inside the hull of the wooden ferry MV Saurav after it was pulled out of 45 feet (13.7 meters) of water early Friday, said A.S.M. Maniruzzaman, a police officer at the scene of the accident.
Most of the 39 dead were women and children who were traveling on the lower deck of the boat, Maniruzzaman said
It sank near shore in the calm river after colliding with a small cargo vessel and many people were able to swim to safety, Maniruzzaman said.
He said the cargo vessel was slightly damaged, and it was not known if anyone aboard it was hurt.
A teenage survivor said a fishing boat rescued her as she swam toward shore.
Area residents joined police and fire department divers in searching for those missing.
PARIS, France (CNN) One fireman was killed and at least 27 other people were injured Thursday when gas leaking from a downtown street in the Rhone Valley city of Lyon exploded.
Authorities said firemen answered a call about the smell of leaking gas shortly before noon local time ( 6 a.m. ET) in the center of the city.
As they were investigating, the gas exploded, sending the facade of a building crumbling down on firemen.
Among the injured are three people in critical condition, officials said.
Initial reports indicate construction workers nearby may have accidentally severed a natural gas line.
The Interior Minister, Michele Alliot-Marie went to the scene.
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) An international fugitive accused of killing his wife in New Zealand, stuffing her body into the trunk of a car and then abandoning the couple's 3-year-old daughter at a train station last year has been captured in the U.S. state of Georgia, authorities said.
Nai Yin Xue had been sought by authorities in three countries since September, when a small girl was found abandoned at a Melbourne, Australia, train station.
Surveillance footage from the station showed a man bringing her into the building and through security.
The child became known internationally as "Pumpkin," after the kind of sweater she was wearing the "Pumpkin Patch" brand but she was identified as Qian Xun Xue.
Officers responding to a "wanted person" call found a crowd of people at the complex, none of whom spoke English, police said.
But they were holding a Chinese-language newspaper and pointing to a photograph of a man.
An interpreter was brought to the scene and determined the group was detaining a man they said was wanted for killing his wife in New Zealand, police said.
Officers went into an apartment and saw the man, later identified as Xue, being held on the floor.
Initially, the man gave police several different names but was clearly the man in the newspaper photograph, Chamblee police told CNN. A search of his person found a New Zealand driver's license bearing the name Nai Yin Xue.
Xue, who holds dual citizenship in China and New Zealand, was featured on the television show "America's Most Wanted" twice.
But it was the Chinese newspaper that led to his capture.
According to his "wanted" poster issued by New Zealand police he was known to have contacts in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego. He also was a self-proclaimed master of martial arts.
"America's Most Wanted" reported the sightings, saying that authorities believed Xue was homeless and frequenting Chinese restaurants and martial arts studios.
Xue, who speaks virtually no English, was being held in the DeKalb County, Georgia, jail Thursday afternoon, police said.
SUNNYVALE, California (CNN) Yahoo Inc. is facing seven shareholder lawsuits alleging the slumping Internet pioneer bungled its response to Microsoft's unsolicited takeover bid.
The Sunnyvale-based company provided a breakdown of the suits in an annual report filed Wednesday with the Securities and Exchange.
The documents didn't provide any new information about Yahoo's attempts to shoo away Microsoft, which is threatening to pursue a hostile takeover unless a friendly deal can be negotiated.
Yahoo's board believes Microsoft's offer, originally valued at $44.6 billion, is insufficient.
Microsoft, though, has stood firm and is now preparing to overthrow Yahoo's 10-member board, which includes the company's co-founder and chief executive, Jerry Yang.
Most analysts believe Microsoft will do whatever it takes to buy Yahoo.
Redmond-based Microsoft has invested heavily in honing its own search engine and advertising technology, but neither it nor Yahoo have helped close the gap with Google, which dominates Microsoft and Yahoo in U.S. search queries and related advertising revenue.
France has renewed its plea to Colombian rebels to free more hostages, particularly politician Ingrid Betancourt, after the release this week of four captives.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Thursday urged Betancourt's release, calling it a matter "of life or death," according to The Associated Press.
At least two hostages freed Wednesday alluded to the poor health of Betancourt, 46, a former Colombian presidential candidate with dual French and Colombian citizenship.
"The survival of the most weakened hostages, like our compatriot Ingrid Betancourt, who has marked her sixth year of detention by the FARC, is at stake," French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said in a statement late Wednesday, using the Spanish acronym for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.
The FARC on Wednesday freed former Colombian lawmakers Gloria Polanco, Orlando Beltran, Jorge Eduardo Gechem and Luis Eladio Perez in a deal brokered by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
These ex-legislators were among an estimated 750 hostages held in the jungles of southern Colombia.
The International Committee of the Red Cross picked up the four in a jungle clearing of a rebel area in Colombia and flew them to Caracas, Venezuela.
They were reunited there with their families and met with Chavez.
Last month, the rebel force released two hostages in a deal also brokered by Chavez, whose left-wing political philosophy comes closer than that of Colombia's rightist leaders to the doctrines of the FARC, a force that was organized in the 1960s as a Marxist army intent on overthrowing the Colombian government.
The FARC has justified hostage-taking as a legitimate military tactic in a long-running and complex civil war that also has involved right-wing paramilitaries, government forces and drug traffickers.
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (CNN) Two of the four white students who were seen in a video allegedly mocking black housekeepers and serving them stew seemingly laced with urine have apologized for taking part, their lawyer confirmed to CNN Thursday.
Attorney Nico Naude said the men have been "described, depicted and crucified" in the media as racists.
The two, Roelof Malherbe and Schalk van der Merwe, said in the statement they are not racists and "most certainly had no intention of humiliating or degrading the employees concerned or black people in general or of detrimentally affecting their dignity."
The University of Free State Thursday identified Malherbe and Van der Merwe as two of the men in the video and said they are current students, according to a statement on the university Web site. Wednesday, the university said they had been banned from campus.
The university statement said the other two in the video are now-former students Danie Grobler and Johnny Roberts.
Malherbe and Van der Merwe said in their statement they had acted without malicious intent when they participated in making the video.
They apologized "for any embarrassment which they may unintentionally have caused to any person or group of persons including parents," the statement said.
The video, which surfaced Tuesday, showed four white students putting five black female housekeepers at their university dormitory in Bloemfontein through a series of "competitions" in the style of the program "Fear Factor.
It sparked an immediate uproar on the campus and among human rights groups in South Africa.
The university denounced the video as a gross violation of human dignity and said Thursday it has officially reported the matter to the director of public prosecution, a statement on its Web site said.
Rebounding from weak fundraising in January, Sen. Hillary Clinton is expected to raise $35 million in February a figure rival Sen. Barack Obama's campaign said it would surpass, a campaign official said Thursday.
The $35 million would be Clinton's biggest fundraising mark yet and represents a remarkable recovery for her campaign.
"We've raised considerably more than that," Obama spokesman Bill Burton said.
Obama told reporters on his campaign plane Thursday, "I have no idea how much money we've raised, but we've been paying our bills. Right now, I believe we're doing very good.
That would make February an astounding fundraising month for the Democrats. At that rate, both candidates would break records for contestants in a primary fight.
The Clinton official spoke on condition of anonymity because the figure was to be formally announced later in the day. The official said almost all the money raised in February was for the primary election.
The campaign averaged about a $1 million a day online alone.
Despite her increased fundraising, Obama is still outspending her in the crucial March 4 primary states of Ohio and Texas.
As of Tuesday, Obama had spent a total of $7.5 million in advertising in the two states. Clinton had spent $4.6 million.
(CNN) Serbia will not give up its claim on breakaway province Kosovo or its bid to become a member of the European Union, Serbian President Boris Tadic said in an interview published Thursday.
Kosovo declaration of independence sparked anger in Serbia, but picked up quick support from EU nations including Germany and the UK.
Serbia and Kosovo's minority Serb population considers the province the heart of the Serb nation, but the majority ethnic Albanians wanted independence from Belgrade.
The Associated Press reported Thursday that about 170 of the 800 Serb officers in the Kosovo police force have either quit or not shown up for work since the independence declaration.
Dozens more are threatening to leave, police officials told AP.
He added, "The people understand that we should be EU members, that this is in our national interest. We're not going to relinquish Kosovo or becoming EU members.
Kosovo's parliament declared the country's independence from Serbia on February 17, setting up a confrontation with Serbia and its longtime ally Russia, which demanded that the move be declared "null and void.
"If the Albanians are going to get everything and the Serbians are going to lose everything, there will be a problem.
He added, "This is also in Europe's interest. Some of the countries that have illegally recognized Kosovo have committed a historic error.
Kenya's rival politicians have signed a peace deal to end the violent post-election crisis in which hundreds died.
President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga agreed to form a coalition government after weeks of wrangling, mediator Kofi Annan said.
Once bitterly divided, President Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga were shown on Kenyan television sitting together at a desk during a public ceremony and signing the deal in front of a crowd.
"We on our side are completely committed in ensuring that this agreement will succeed. The ball has moved partially from the hands of the negotiators and ourselves to the court of parliament.
Kibaki said that his government "will fully support implementation of the agreement reached under the national dialogue and reconciliation process until we achieve the results we all want.
The agreement calls for an act of parliament within two weeks that would change the country's constitution, creating the position of prime minister to "coordinate and supervise" the government and its ministries.
The National Accord and Reconciliation Act 2008 establishes that the president, vice president, prime minister and other ministers will form the government's cabinet with the addition of two deputy prime ministers who will be appointed by the president.
The act also stipulates that ministers cannot be fired without written permission from their party.
Hundreds have been killed and more than 300,000 have been displaced since the post-election violence started, according to the Kenya Red Cross.
LONDON, England (CNN) The UK's Prince Harry has been serving on the frontline in Afghanistan and seen combat, the UK Ministry of Defense confirmed Thursday.
He was deployed 10 weeks ago and his fellow soldiers were sworn to secrecy.
The prince's status is currently being reviewed, the Ministry of Defense said.
Harry is third in line to the British throne and serves with the Blues and Royals.
"As far as I'm concerned I'm out here as a normal JTAC on the ground and not as Prince Harry" he said.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said: "The whole of Britain will be proud of the outstanding service he is giving. For the last 10 weeks, he has joined the thousands of members of the British Armed Forces who have served with such distinction in difficult circumstances in Afghanistan since 2001."
The head of the British Army, Chief of the General Staff Sir Richard Dannatt, said Harry's deployment had been kept secret after striking an agreement with the media.
British and international media including CNN had agreed not to report Harry's deployment because of security concerns for him and his unit.
The military confirmed the operation after a U.S. Web site broke the news blackout.
Dannatt said: "What the last two months have shown is that it is perfectly possible for Prince Harry to be employed just the same as other Army officers of his rank and experience.
"His conduct on operations in Afghanistan has been exemplary. He has been fully involved in operations and has run the same risks as everyone else in his Battlegroup.
Dannatt added that he and senior commanders will now be reviewing Harry's deployment.
Last year, the military ruled Harry could not be sent to Iraq because publicity about the deployment could put him and his unit at risk.
It is a slow but steady trickle all day long at the Hamilton County Board of Elections: The Ohio presidential primary is Tuesday, but turnout is already smashing records.
In the 2000 presidential primary campaign, 10,371 absentee ballots were requested. Four years later, there were 9,600 requests.
More than 40,000 just in the Cincinnati area, part of an unprecedented early and absentee voting pattern across the state.
It is in part due to aggressive pushes by both Democratic campaigns.
Some Barack Obama campaign ads end with information about early voting, and to visit his Cincinnati campaign headquarters is to see an effort both to get voters to cast their ballots early and on a call-and-rides list for next Tuesday.
"More people are telling us they are going to be voting in the Democratic primary," Eric Rademacher, associate director of the Institute for Policy Research at the University of Cincinnati tells CNN.
"And when we look at our polls over time, we are seeing a little bit of a dip in the number of people who are self identifying as Republicans.
Excluding caucuses, some 22 million Democratic votes have been cast in the primaries held to date.
For Republicans, the number is 14.1 million.
One reason Republicans cite now is the fact that the Democratic contest is highly competitive while the Republican race is all but over. But GOP turnout has been down since the beginning of the year even when the Republican race was wide open.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has publicly flirted with the idea of a run for the White House as an independent, says he will not run for president.
The 66-year-old billionaire had publicly repeated that he was not a candidate for president in recent months, while leaving open the option that he could become one.
Bloomberg mentioned in his editorial that he would work to "steer the national conversation away from partisanship and toward unity;
At a summit designed to bridge the divide between Democrats and Republicans, Bloomberg said in January partisanship is limiting the nation's progress.
"People have stopped working together, government is dysfunctional, there's no collaborating and congeniality," he said. "America is being held back.
Bloomberg was elected mayor of New York in 2001, two months after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center.
Arsenal striker Eduardo da Silva has been released from hospital following the broken leg he suffered in a tackle against Birmingham City last weekend, the Premier League club have revealed.
"The club can confirm that Eduardo has now been released from hospital, where he had been since sustaining his injury against Birmingham City," an Arsenal statement said.
"Eduardo would like to once again thank everyone for the overwhelming messages of support he has received.
The incident was deemed so horrendous the host broadcaster covering the match refused to show replays of the tackle during the game.
Eduardo, whose injury has ruled him out of the remainder of Premier League season and the Euro 2008 finals in Austria and Switzerland, underwent surgery on Saturday in Birmingham before being transferred to a London hospital.
NEW YORK (CNN) Whoopi Goldberg has accepted an apology from producer Gil Cates for not including her in a montage featuring Oscar hosts during Sunday's Academy Awards telecast.
Cates called her Tuesday and "talked about the fact that he had made an oversight, pure and simple.
He said, 'You know I love you,' " Goldberg said Wednesday on ABC daytime talk show "The View.
Goldberg, who called Cates a "great gentleman," accepted his apology.
A gunman fired into a crowd of people at a Los Angeles bus stop Wednesday, wounding seven, including children, authorities said.
The shooting happened near a middle school, but not on school grounds.
The school was placed on lockdown after the incident, but parents later were allowed to pick up their children.
The shooting victims range in age from 10 to 68, police said.
Two a 49-year-old woman and a 12-year-old boy were in critical condition.
Four of the victims were 14 or younger.
Police do not know the motive behind the shooting, but believe the gunman was targeting one of the victims, de la Torre said.
Authorities were searching for the gunman, described as an African-American male aged 20 to 25, wearing a white T-shirt and blue jeans.
The white students made a video of the incident, which they staged in reaction to the university's efforts to integrate its residences, according to a statement from the University of the Free State.
The protesters on Wednesday included black and white students who later marched to the residence where the video was made and demanded that it be shut down, witnesses said.
The video surfaced on Tuesday but was made in September, the university said.
In the video, white male students at Reitz Residence are seen encouraging at least three black female housekeepers to participate in what the students call the "Reitz Fear Factor," an apparent reference to the television show in which contestants eat live worms or compete in other feats.
In one scene from the video, a student mixes what looks like a beef stew in a plastic bowl and adds garlic and other items.
Then he tells the camera he will add the "special ingredient.
The student then urinates into the mixture, which he later stirs up and puts in a microwave. Other students can be heard laughing on the tape.
The next scene shows a different student urging at least three housekeepers to drink cups full of the stew, saying, "This is our dorm's 'Fear Factor.'
We want to see who has the best 'Fear Factor.
The women, on their knees, spit the stew into buckets after tasting it.
Some appeared to vomit, but the women also laughed during the incident as the student urged them on.
At the end of the video, a message appears on the screen in Afrikaans saying, "That, at the end of the day, is what we think of integration.
University officials and human rights groups in South Africa denounced the video.
"The executive management of the [university] condemns this video in the strongest possible terms as a gross violation of the human dignity of the workers involved," said UFS Rector Frederick Fourie in a statement posted on the university's Web site.
Later Wednesday, Fourie met with the employees seen in the video and apologized to them, a statement from the university said.
Counseling is being provided for the workers, it added.
The students involved in the video have been identified and will be suspended, Fourie said, and charges against the men will be filed with the South African Police Service.
ROME, Italy (CNN) Italy's food fraud police say they have seized about 1,000 hams because the meat was branded with fake Parma prosciutto trademarks.
But the ham wasn't made by Italy's premier prosciutto makers, who can use the name Parma, the Italian city famed for the delicacy.
The dry-cured Parma ham must age for at least a year in special conditions.
Police believe consumers have already bought and ate some of the prosciutto.
TOKYO, Japan (CNN) U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Japan on Wednesday on a mission to smooth tensions created by rape allegations against two U.S. service members and to try to jump-start stalled North Korean nuclear talks.
Rice's whirlwind visit includes meetings with Japan's prime minister, defense minister and foreign minister.
Emotions have run high against the U.S. military mostly located on the Japanese island of Okinawa after the arrest of a U.S. Marine in the alleged rape of a 14-year-old Japanese girl as well as allegations that a U.S. Army employee raped a Filipino woman.
Rice was expected to express sentiments, possibly condolences, for the alleged actions of the service members at an evening news conference with Japanese Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura, CNN's Kyung Lah reported.
Before coming to Japan, the secretary of state's Asian tour has been dominated by North Korea and efforts to jump-start denuclearization talks as she met with officials in China and South Korea.
"That is specifically why she was in the region why she was hoping that Japan, China and South Korea might together be able to push along these six-party talks and get North Korea to denuclearize.
There has been very little progress in the talks in the past two months, although North Korea officials say efforts to dismantle the facility continue, but at a slower pace.
Similar cases have fueled resentment of the U.S. military presence.
More than 40,000 U.S. troops are stationed in Japan, most of them on Okinawa.
They were placed there under a security alliance after Japan was defeated in World War II.
A Cathay Pacific Airways pilot was fired after he buzzed a U.S. airfield without permission while taking delivery of a Boeing 777-300ER passenger jet, the airline said Wednesday.
The Hong Kong-based carrier which would not identify the pilot said it was still investigating the January 30 fly-by at Paine Field, 30 miles north of downtown Seattle and home to a Boeing plant.
Cathay spokeswoman Carolyn Leung said the pilot was dismissed last week because he did not seek or obtain approval for the fly-by, which has been done several times before at air shows with the airline's permission.
Hong Kong's South China Morning Post newspaper reported Sunday that the airline's chairman, Christopher Pratt, was on the plane when the pilot, Capt. Ian Wilkinson, swooped back over the Boeing plant shortly after taking off.
of the stunt were posted on YouTube and the Web site of a Seattle-area plane spotter, Matt Cawby.
The 777-300ER is 242 feet long, weighs about 350 tons and is listed at $264 million.
BRISBANE, Australia (CNN) A 16-foot python stalked a family dog for days before swallowing the pet whole in front of horrified children in the Australian tropics, animal experts said Wednesday.
The boy and girl, aged 5 and 7, watched as the scrub python devoured their silky terrier-Chihuahua crossbreed Monday at their home near Kuranda in Queensland state.
Stuart Douglas, owner of the Australian Venom Zoo in Kuranda, said scrub pythons typically eat wild animals such as wallabies, a smaller relative of the kangaroo, but sometimes turn to pets in urban areas.
"It actively stalked the dog for a number of days," Douglas said.
By the time Douglas arrived, all that could be seen of the dog was its hind legs and tail.
The zoo manager, Todd Rose, said pythons squeeze their prey to death before swallowing it whole.
The 5-year-old dog would have been suffocated within minutes.
"The lady who was there threw some plastic chairs at the snake, but you've got to remember that this is about 50 kilograms (110 pounds) of aggressive muscle," Rose said.
Removing the half-swallowed dog could have harmed or even killed the python, Rose said, because dogs have sharp teeth and claws that could do the snake internal damage if it were wrenched out.
The snake was still digesting the dog at the zoo Wednesday.
The European Union fined Microsoft Corp. a record $1.3 billion on Wednesday for charging rivals too much for software information.
EU regulators said the company charged "unreasonable prices" until last October to software developers who wanted to make products compatible with the Windows desktop operating system.
Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) immediately said that these fines were about past issues that have been resolved and the company was now working under new principles to make its products more open.
The fine is the largest ever for a single company and the first time the EU has penalized a business for failing to obey an antitrust order.
The penalty far outweighs a a March 2004 decision that fined Microsoft $613 million and ordered it to
share communications information with rivals within 120 days, taking an appeal to an EU court that it lost last September.
The company delayed complying with the EU order for three years, the EU said, only making changes on Oct. 22 to the patent licenses it charges companies that need data to help them make software that works with Microsoft.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) Turkey's armed forces stepped up their offensive against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq on Wednesday amid rising diplomatic tensions between Baghdad and Ankara.
Defying Iraqi and U.S. calls for Turkey to wind up the six-day operation, a top Turkish diplomat said there was no "timetable" for the incursion following talks in Baghdad with Iraqi counterparts.
In Baghdad, Ahmet Davutogulu, chief foreign policy adviser to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said the campaign was targeted solely against Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militants responsible for cross-border attacks against Turkish targets.
"The objective is the elimination of the PKK terrorism," Davutogulu said, addressing a press conference with Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari.
Davutogulu said the incursion, which has resulted in dozens of militant deaths, was not meant to violate Iraqi sovereignty.
He underscored the fact that "no country can tolerate the presence of the terrorist groups next to our territories attacking civilians.
"I am glad to say that the Iraqi government showed its clear cooperation during our counterterrorist activities. "
He said Iraq condemned the action and wanted Turkey's troops to leave "as soon as possible." But he said Iraqi officials had expressed their "willingness" to work with Turkey over the issue of PKK terrorism.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who was due to visit the Turkish capital, Ankara, on Wednesday, has also called for Turkey to wrap up military operations as promptly as possible.
Dozens of Kurdish militants and five Turkish soldiers were killed overnight in northern Iraq during Turkey's offensive against separatist guerrillas there, according to the Turkish military.
The Turkish military's Web site said 77 militants" five soldiers and three pro-Turkish village guards were killed Tuesday night.
The number of militants killed in the nearly week-long operation is 230.
The House approved $18 billion in new taxes on the largest oil companies Wednesday as Democrats cited record oil prices and rising gasoline costs in a time of economic troubles.
The money collected over 10 years would provide tax breaks for wind, solar and other alternative energy sources and for energy conservation.
Those companies earned $123 billion last year.
Senate Democratic leaders said they would put the bill on a fast track and try to avoid a Republican filibuster.
The White House said the bill unfairly takes aim at the oil industry. President Bush is expected to veto the legislation if it passes Congress.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Maryland, noted it was two years ago, when oil cost $55 a barrel, when Bush said oil companies need no government subsidies to pursue more oil or gas.
"Do these companies need taxpayer subsidies to look for new product? They don't need any incentive.
Republicans said the measure unfairly targeted a single industry.
The top Republican on the Ways and Means Committee, which developed the tax proposals, he cited statistics that show that oil companies already pay more taxes than many other industries.
JERUSALEM (CNN) At least three Israeli missiles hit the Palestinian Interior Ministry in Gaza Wednesday, hours after Palestinian militants fired more than 40 Qassam rockets into southern Israel.
One of those rockets struck near a college, killing one person, according to the Israeli military and emergency medical services.
The Palestinian rockets are a near daily occurrence but have only occasionally injured or killed people.
The strike at the ministry injured several people, according to Palestinian sources.
Another rocket hit the building several minutes later, the sources said.
The ministry strike was part of a series of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza in retaliation for the rocket attack.
The Israeli military late Wednesday confirmed six airstrikes in Gaza. The targets were rocket manufacturing and launching sites and a headquarters building, the Israelis said.
Apart from the one death and one injury Wednesday by Palestinian rockets that hit Sapir College, near Sderot, no other injuries were reported from the rockets.
Another Israeli airstrike targeting a rocket cell in northern Gaza killed one civilian and injured three others just outside Jebalya, Palestinian medical and security sources said.
The Israeli military confirmed it carried out the airstrikes in northern Gaza, but offered no details.
Deposed Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is expected to return to Thailand on Thursday after 17 months in exile, a pro-Thaksin Web site said.
Soon afterward, he is expected to report to the country's Supreme Court to faces charges of corruption and abuse of power.
The anti-Thaksin People's Alliance for Democracy, which in the past has staged numerous demonstrations denouncing his rule, told CNN on Tuesday that it did not have any plans to protest on Thursday.
Thaksin is a 58-year-old telecommunications tycoon who owns the English Premier League Manchester City Football Club.
His party won two landslide victories before he was deposed in a bloodless military coup in September 2006.
In December's parliamentary elections, allies of Thaksin, the People Power Party, won nearly half the seats in the lower house and paved the way for his return.
(CNN) Colombian rebels Wednesday freed four hostages held for more than six years, said a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Colombia.
The hostages former Colombian legislators were released in the southern jungles of the country around midday, said ICRC spokesman Yves Heller in Bogota.
They were flying in two Venezuelan helicopters directly to the Venezuelan border town of Santo Domingo after being freed near San Jose del Guaviare, Colombia, Heller said.
Two doctors were with the ICRC team that picked up the four from San Jose del Guaviare.
They were also to meet there with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who brokered the operation.
Heller identified the four as Gloria Polanco, Luis Eladio Perez, Orlando Beltran and Eduardo Gechem.
The four have been among an estimated 750 hostages held in Colombia's jungles by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.
Heller described the effort as "an excellent collaboration" among the ICRC and the Venezuelan and Colombian governments.
Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama engaged in a pointed exchange over al Qaeda in Iraq on Wednesday.
McCain questioned whether Obama was aware of the al Qaeda base.
Obama's response was: "There was no such thing as al Qaeda in Iraq until George Bush and John McCain decided to invade Iraq.
McCain was in Tyler, Texas, and Obama was in Columbus, Ohio.
"It's a remarkable statement to say that you would send troops back to a place where al Qaeda has established a base where they have already established a base.
McCain's comments come in response to remarks Obama made Tuesday night in a debate with Sen. Hillary Clinton.
He was asked if the president would have to right to go back into Iraq in order to suppress an insurrection after downsizing the U.S. troop presence.
"I always reserve the right for the president ... to make sure that we are looking out for American interests," Obama said. "And if al Qaeda is forming a base in Iraq, then we will have to act in a way that secures the American homeland and our interests abroad.
The latest exchange comes as a new poll suggests McCain would pose a tough match for the eventual Democratic nominee.
Obama is the front-runner for the Democratic nomination.
Clinton trails by 97 delegates, but 370 delegates are up for grabs next Tuesday.
According to a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll, McCain would be in tight races with either of the remaining Democratic presidential candidates.
McCain is statistically tied with Obama, 44 percent to 42 percent, and ahead of Clinton by 6 points, 46 percent to 40 percent.
The poll's margin of error was plus-or-minus 3 percentage points.
Maria Sharapova has dropped out of this week's Dubai Championships because of a viral illness.
The Russian is unbeaten this year after winning the Qatar Open title on Sunday, following her triumph in January's Australian Open
"I flew to Dubai right after my final in Doha and woke up on Monday feeling really fatigued and stuffed up with a cough.
intend to come back to Dubai next year and hopefully have a great tournament.
"I think it's a lot of flying which has done it," she said.
Sharapova will be replaced in the Dubai draw by lucky loser Akiko Morigami, the world number 50 from Japan.
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (CNN) A tiny Alaska village eroding into the Arctic Ocean sued two dozen oil, power and coal companies Tuesday, claiming that the large amounts of greenhouse gases they emit contribute to global warming that threatens the community's existence.
The city of Kivalina and a federally recognized tribe, the Alaska Native village of Kivalina, sued Exxon Mobil Corporation, eight other oil companies, 14 power companies and one coal company in a lawsuit filed in federal court in San Francisco.
Kivalina is a traditional Inupiat Eskimo village of about 390 people about 625 miles (1005 km) northwest of Anchorage. It's built on an 8-mile (13-km) barrier reef between the Chukchi Sea and Kivalina River.
Sea ice traditionally protected the community, whose economy is based in part on salmon fishing plus subsistence hunting of whale, seal, walrus, and caribou.
But sea ice that forms later and melts sooner because of higher temperatures has left the community unprotected from fall and winter storm waves and surges that lash coastal communities.
"We normally have ice starting in October, but now we have open water even into December so our island is not protected from the storms.
Relocation costs have been estimated at $400 million or more.
A spokesman for Exxon Mobil, Gantt Walton, said the company was reviewing the lawsuit and had no immediate comment on it.
Reached by phone in Boston, attorney Matt Pawa said other lawsuits have been filed seeking damages from global warming, but this is the first one that has a "discretely identifiable victim.
Damage to Kivalina from global warming has been documented in official government reports by the Army Corps of Engineers and the General Accounting Office, Pawa said.
The suit was filed in California because that's where many of the defendants are located or do business, Pawa said.
SAO PAULO, Brazil (CNN) Naomi Campbell has been hospitalized in Sao Paulo and is being treated by one of Brazil's top specialists in infectious disease, the hospital's press office said Tuesday.
A publicist for the 37-year-old British supermodel confirmed Campbell was treated at a hospital and had a small cyst removed. There were no other details.
"Naomi Campbell was admitted to hospital ... to have a small cyst removed," her publicist, Jeff Raymond, said in a statement.
"Following the successful procedure, she is now resting and is looking forward to getting back to work. She would like to thank the doctors who have kindly looked after her.
Campbell, a frequent visitor to Brazil, celebrated Carnival earlier this month in the northeastern city of Salvador.
She was hospitalized Sunday in Sao Paulo's Sirio Libanes Hospital.
She is under the care of David Uip, a specialist in infectious diseases, and gynecologist Jose Aristodemo Pinotti, the hospital said in a statement.
"The patient and her advisers have determined that the hospital's medical staff will not issue any formal or informal information on her medical condition," the hospital statement said.
Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch will be put up for sale at a public auction next month unless the pop star pays the more than $24 million he still owes on the property, according to a Tuesday court filing.
Financial Title Co. filed the notice of trustee's sale with Santa Barbara County Superior Court, setting the auction date for March 19.
Julie Wagner, a manager at the San Francisco-based title company, confirmed that Jackson's property was set for auction.
Court documents obtained by Fox News warn Jackson that he has until the date of the auction to take action to keep his lavish Los Olivos estate.
MIAMI, Florida (CNN) The leader of a shark tour whose customer was mauled to death Saturday was warned that his practice of allowing people to swim close to hungry sharks could lead to tragedy, a colleague said.
Markus Groh an Austrian lawyer died after being gnawed during a dive led by Jim Abernethy's south Florida company.
Groh, 49, died from loss of blood resulting from the shark attack near the Bahamas, The Miami-Dade Medical Examiner's Office said.
Neal Watson, a president of the Bahamas Diving Association, told CNN he implored Abernethy to stop what Watson considered a dangerous practice: Cageless shark dives specifically targeting dangerous shark species.
The shark dives are advertised on the Web site of his company, Jim Abernethy's Scuba Adventures.
In shark-dive excursions, dead fish and fish entrails are used to attract the sharks and bring them close to the divers.
Cageless dives put divers and sharks in close proximity, without a metal underwater cage protecting the diver.
Shark feeding was banned in Florida in 2001, so dive operators take customers out to Bahamian waters, Watson said.
Watson said that he had sent a letter to members of the Bahamas Diving Association in July 2007 urging them to stop cageless dives with about 10 dangerous species.
NEW YORK (CNN) Warning to Starbucks junkies who usually get a fix on their way home from work: You're out of luck on Tuesday.
Starbucks, which last week announced 600 layoffs, plans to temporarily close its 7,100 U.S. stores on Tuesday for three hours of employee training.
The coffee chain said the in-store training program which will begin at 5:30 p.m. local time, would foster enthusiasm in its 135,000 U.S. employees and improve the quality of drinks made by Starbucks baristas.
"We believe that this is a bold demonstration of our commitment to our core and a reaffirmation of our coffee leadership," said chief executive Howard Schultz in a statement.
Stores that normally stay open beyond 8:30 p.m. will resume service after the training session is finished.
But for those who still need their afternoon dose of caffeine, there is a cheap alternative.
Dunkin' Donuts - "to ensure that no coffee lover is denied a delicious espresso-based beverage" - announced that it will offer small lattes, cappuccinos or espresso drinks for a promotional price of 99 cents on Tuesday from 1 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Starbucks has seen rising competition from privately-held Dunkin' Donuts and McDonalds recently, and welcomed founder Schultz back as CEO in January after a lackluster performance by the company in the latter half of 2007.
(CNN) A magnitude 4.7 earthquake shook Britain early Wednesday, centered on the east coast north of London, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.
"It felt pretty scary," Haydn Jones of Nottingham, who lives in a third-floor apartment, told CNN.
He said he has lived abroad in Japan and knew immediately what it was, but felt that a lot of those in England "didn't really know what was going on.
Jones likened the feeling to "someone very big and angry jumping on the ceiling below you, rather than the floor.
He believed the shaking lasted about 10 seconds, but said, "time sort of stands still for you." He said there was no damage in his area.
The USGS classifies earthquakes of magnitude 4.0 to magnitude 4.9 as "light.
Earthquakes frequently hit Britain between 200 and 300 annually, according to the British Geological Survey, although most have a magnitude of less than 2. Earthquakes with a magnitude of 4.0 to 4.9 hit mainland Britain about once every two years and strike beneath the North Sea about once per year.
Britain's strongest recorded quake was the North Sea quake of June 7, 1931, with a magnitude of 6.1.
It was felt across the British isles and in northwestern Germany. The quake killed one person.
BANGKOK, Thailand (CNN) Deposed Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is expected to return to Thailand on Thursday after 17 months in exile, a pro-Thaksin Web site said.
Soon afterward, he is expected to report to the country's Supreme Court to faces charges of corruption and abuse of power.
The Web site on Tuesday urged supporters to greet the former prime minister at the airport at 9 a.m. local time (0200 GMT), and thousands are expected to congregate.
The anti-Thaksin People's Alliance for Democracy, which in the past has staged numerous demonstrations denouncing his rule, told CNN on Tuesday that it did not have any plans to protest on Thursday.
If the decision stands, it will null the possibility of clashes between the two camps on Thursday.
In December's parliamentary elections, allies of Thaksin, the People Power Party, won nearly half the seats in the lower house and paved the way for his return.
Thaksin has said he would not re-enter politics when he comes home.
He said that he and his family had "suffered enough" but that he wanted to face the charges against him and prove his innocence.
The billionaire leader is accused of abusing the country's system of checks and balances and bending government policy to benefit his family's business.
In the real estate transaction, the wife is accused of purchasing undeveloped land for about a third of its estimated value. Thaksin also faces separate charges of concealing assets.
Three national polls of Democrats show Sen. Barack Obama is the front-runner for the nomination. But what's behind this latest momentum?
If you average the "poll of polls" AP-IPSOS, USA Today/Gallup and CBS/New York Times Obama leads Clinton 50 percent to 40 percent, with 10 percent unsure.
In two different polls, around 70 percent of Democrats polled believe Obama will get their party's nomination.
When Democrats were asked about the general election, the New York Times-CBS News poll showed Obama had the best chance of beating Sen. John McCain 59 percent to Clinton's 28 percent. And it's not just Democrats.
The USA Today-Gallup poll asked Republicans which Democrat would McCain have a better chance of beating.
Well, they said the same thing about me when I started running in New York.
I was wasting my time and my money," Clinton recently said. "But I trust the voters, and frankly that's who matters.
They give McCain a solid lead over Clinton, according to the New York Times-CBS News poll.
But independents abandon McCain for Obama.
Pakistani opposition leader Nawaz Sharif, who was banned from taking part in last week's elections because of criminal convictions, is planning to contest the by-elections. Several hurdles stand in his way.
But if he can overcome them, Sharif may plant himself in the running for the prime minister's slot in the new government.
Both Sharif and his brother, Shahbaz, will run, said Ahsan Iqbal, spokesman for the Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N).
The party captured the second most number of votes in the Feb. 18 parliamentary elections.
PML-N is currently in talks with slain opposition leader Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) to form a coalition government.
PPP, which won the majority of parliamentary seats, has yet to name a candidate for the prime minister post.
If Sharif succeeds in winning a seat in parliament through the by-elections, he could push the coalition to nominate him as their prime minister candidate.
As its reason, the commission cited Sharif's criminal record that dates back to the late 1990s.
North Korean officials have invited rock guitarist Eric Clapton to play a concert in the communist state, a diplomat at the country's embassy in London said Tuesday.
The diplomat confirmed reports in the British media that Clapton had been officially invited to Pyongyang the first such invitation to a Western rock star to the isolated nation.
"Eric Clapton is a well-known musician and guitarist, famous throughout the world," said the official, who declined to give his name. "It will be a good opportunity for Western music to be understood better by Koreans.
Clapton's North Korean debut may not be imminent, however.
Spokeswoman Kristen Foster said the 62-year-old musician had not agreed to play any dates in the country.
"Eric Clapton receives numerous offers to play in countries around the world," she said. "There is no agreement whatsoever for him to play in North Korea, nor any planned shows there.
The New York Philharmonic played in Pyongyang on Tuesday, and North Korean State Symphony Orchestra is due to perform in London and the English city of Middlesbrough in September.
The Financial Times reported the invitation to Clapton was in return for the Korean orchestra's British tour.
Clapton is regarded as one of rock's greatest guitarists, with a string of hits since the 1960s including include "Layla," "Cocaine" and "Tears in Heaven."
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (CNN) Argentinians planning to travel to the northern part of the country, Brazil and Paraguay were lining up for vaccinations Tuesday, because of a yellow fever breakout that has killed at least 21 people in the region.
Public health officials recommend that anyone planning to travel to an affected area get the vaccine which is effective for a decade 10 days before arriving.
Concern in Argentina began last month, when health authorities reported finding 17 dead monkeys in Pinalito Park, in the San Pedro Department of Misiones Province.
But the Ministry of Health's Dr. Hugo Fernandez pointed out that the last documented case of yellow fever among people in Argentina was in 1841.
¡°That put us on alert, and we have put in place all the necessary controls since January of this year."
The Ministry of Health recommended that residents and travelers to the "high-alert" area in northern Argentina, near the borders of Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay, also receive the vaccine.
On Monday, Paraguay's Ministry of Health and Social Welfare confirmed 16 cases, eight of them fatal, in two areas in the center of the country San Pedro Department and Central Department.
Brazil had tallied 13 deaths, the country's Ministry of Health said.
People contract yellow fever from the bite of an infected mosquito. The disease causes fever, muscle pain, headaches, shivering, nausea and vomiting, the World Health Organization says.
Most people improve after three or four days, but some enter a second "toxic" phase that causes fever, jaundice and blood in the vomit, the health organization says.
About half of the people who enter the second phase of yellow fever die within 10 days.
Yellow fever typically is found in tropical regions of Africa and Latin America.
A "significant equipment failure" at a substation west of Miami triggered Tuesday afternoon's blackouts around southern Florida, affecting 700,000 customers, a Florida Power & Light official said.
Utility spokeswoman Aletha Player said an investigation is ongoing, and provided no details of the failure. She said power was expected to be restored by 5:30 p.m ET.
The failure occurred at 1:09 p.m. and knocked out power to customers north of Miami on both the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, state and local authorities and utility officials said.
It also triggered the automatic shutdown of the Turkey Point nuclear power plant south of Miami, federal regulators reported.
The failure knocked out power to customers in 35 southern Florida counties and spread into the northern Florida peninsula. The affected region ultimately ranged from Miami to Tampa on the state's west coast and Brevard County, home to Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center, on the east.
A strong cold front and scattered thunderstorms moved through the region, including one that prompted a tornado warning for Fort Lauderdale, the National Weather Service reported.
But a National Weather Service meteorologist told the southern Florida-based Sun-Sentinel that there were no major storms in the area at the time electricity went out that would cause such a large failure.
In Washington, officials at the Department of Homeland Security said there was no immediate concern that terrorism was behind the outage.
(CNN) One of five Britons believed to have been kidnapped May 29 in Baghdad pleaded Tuesday with the British government to release prisoners sought by his captors so "we can go home.
In a video released Tuesday on the Arabic-language network Al-Arabiya, the man says, "My name is Peter Moore. I have been held here for nearly eight months.
Moore appears alone in front of what appears to be a red curtain.
"We condemn the release of videos such as this, which are greatly distressing to the families of those involved.
Our thoughts are with them at this difficult time.
"We urge those holding the group to release them immediately. We are in close contact with the Iraqi authorities and doing everything we can to try and secure a swift release.
The five Britons were seized along with two Iraqis from an Iraqi Finance Ministry building in Baghdad and were said to have been taken toward the Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City.
An Al-Arabiya anchor said Tuesday, "Al-Arabiya received a tape that had a statement and a video showing a man who appears to be a British hostage. The video is signed by a group calling itself the Shiite Islamic Resistance in Iraq.
"The statement was addressed to the British people, asking them to demand that their government release nine Iraqis that have been detained for a year now and, in return, the organization vows to release five British hostages that they've had for several months.
Sen. John McCain's campaign said the Republican presidential hopeful has the "constitutional right" to opt out of the public election funds program.
In a letter issued Monday to the chairman of the Federal Election Committee, McCain's lawyer said the Arizona senator has the right to withdraw from the program because it is voluntary and he has not used funds from it.
Democrats argue McCain used expected funds as collateral to get a multimillion dollar loan last year, but McCain's camp denied that.
The National Democratic Party has filed a formal complaint with election officials, saying McCain is trying to skirt election laws by opting out of the program.
"He used the possibility of public financing with a bank loan," Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean said Tuesday on CNN's "American Morning."
But if the FEC, which regulates campaign financing, were to side with the Democrats, it could severely hurt his campaign, because the public financing system also imposes a spending cap on candidates.
PYONGYANG, North Korea (CNN) The focus is music, but politics is the underscore.
The New York Philharmonic Orchestra performed its historic concert in Pyongyang, North Korea Tuesday night, the first-ever performance by a U.S. orchestra in that country.
In a country where music like most aspects of life is tightly controlled, the performance carried heavy symbolism.
The program opened with the North Korean national anthem, followed immediately by the U.S. national anthem, and also includes Antonin Dvorak's "New World" Symphony and George Gershwin's "An American in Paris.
The program also included the late New York Philharmonic conductor Leonard Bernstein's "Overture to Candide" performed without a conductor, as if it were Bernstein himself before the audience, Maazel told them.
As the concert drew toward its conclusion, the orchestra performed the folk song, "Arirang," beloved in both North and South Korea.
The concert, which was broadcast live on North Korean television and radio, was to be the highlight of a 48-hour visit that includes master classes and an open rehearsal for North Korean music students, according to the orchestra.
On Thursday, the Philharmonic will perform in Seoul, South Korea, before returning to the United States.
"We are here to make music," said Lorin Maazel, the orchestra's musical director, earlier.
But Zarin Mehta, president of the orchestra, said diplomats from Washington and Pyongyang both told him the trip should help in normalization of relations between the two nations that have often been at odds.
Part of the agreement for North Korea's denuclearization that was announced last year included an increase in cultural exchanges.
The Oscars are a ratings dud.
Nielsen Media Research says preliminary ratings for the 80th annual Academy Awards telecast are 14 percent lower than the least-watched ceremony ever.
Nielsen said Monday that overnight ratings are also 21 percent lower than last year, when "The Departed" was named best picture.
The least-watched Oscars ceremony ever was in 2003, when there were 33 million viewers.
About 8,000 of the 30,000 "surge" troops sent to Iraq in 2007 will not go home as planned this summer, the Pentagon said Monday.
"The transfer of responsibility for detention operations has not progressed as rapidly as we would like to the Iraqis, so there's a need to have that force sustained, as well," Ham said.
President Bush ordered nearly 30,000 additional troops to Iraq in January 2007 to pacify Baghdad and its surrounding provinces.
He said top U.S. commanders are debating whether to make further withdrawals after July.
The U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, is scheduled to issue another report on the progress of the war in April, and Ham said it would be "premature" to discuss further withdrawals now.
Critics say the political goals of the surge an Iraqi settlement of the nearly 5-year-old war have not yet been accomplished.
Deposed Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra will return to Thailand from 17 months of exile abroad Thursday to fight corruption charges, a pro-Thaksin Web site and one of his lawyers said.
The Web site posted a picture Tuesday of the deposed prime minister with his right hand raised giving the victory sign, along with his son and a crowd of supporters, superimposed over an image of Bangkok's international airport.
It urged supporters to greet Thaksin at the airport at 9 a.m. Thursday.
"poised to return." He said Thaksin will surrender to police when he arrives and seek his release on bail.
Thaksin was ousted in a September 2006 military coup for alleged corruption and abuse of power.
His diplomatic passport, which was revoked after the coup, was returned to him last week and opened the door for his return.
Rakkiat Wattapong, the Supreme Court secretary general, Monday said Thaksin would be detained when he arrives in Thailand.
Thaksin was abroad at the time he was ousted and now lives mostly in London.
After his allies won the December elections and formed a new government, Thaksin said he planned to return.
LONDON, England (CNN) Four Greenpeace activists breached security at Heathrow Airport on Monday to climb on top of a British Airways plane and protest plans to build a third runway, the environmental group and airport authorities said.
The four activists were atop the Airbus A320 for about an hour and a half before airport security plucked them off in a cherry-picker crane and police arrested them, authorities said.
Greenpeace said it wanted to highlight the environmental damage a third runway will cause, but a Heathrow spokesman called the group's actions "irresponsible.
"Climate change can be beaten, but not by almost doubling the size of the world's biggest airport," said protester Anna Jones, 27.
" Greenpeace said it had planned the protest for many months.
"We may have exposed a hole in security at Heathrow, but it's not as big as the hole in (Prime Minister) Gordon Brown's climate change policy," said Sarah Shoraka, 30, another of the protesters.
A Heathrow spokesman who spoke on condition of anonymity said authorities were investigating the "unlawful protest.
Wednesday is the deadline for the government's public consultation on whether a third runway should be built.
Heathrow is the main airport in Britain and one of the biggest in the world.
But despite its size Heathrow has only two runways, and the government and airlines have for years called for the construction of a third.
Opponents complain of the environmental impact, noise, pollution, and destruction to local property a third runway would create.
(CNN) Think Barack Hussein Obama has it rough campaigning for president with a name like that?
The three men are among dozens of others with equally colorful names who are competing for legislative seats in Meghalaya, a remote northeast Indian state, on March 3.
There are about 60 seats up for grabs, 331 candidates vying, and no shortage of unusual names.
They're reflective of the names here," David R. Syiemlieh, professor of history at the North Eastern Hill University in the capital city of Shillong, told CNN on Monday.
Meghalaya ("Abode of the Clouds") is a state of 2.6 million people.
It's predominantly Christian but hasn't always been.
When the indigenous tribes first converted to Christianity, the locals named their children after the missionaries who preached to them.
Subsequent generations started favoring words and names they were familiar with but didn't have a good understanding of.
"But it doesn't mean that they relate to Hitler or Frankenstein.
Prashant Naik, the chief electoral officer of the state, told CNN that a candidate's name matters little to the electorate because so many voters and politicians themselves have peculiar ones.
"You have Australia, you have New Zealand, there's even a Thailand," Naik said. "I don't think that should matter in how people vote.
It certainly hasn't in Hitler Marak's case.
He has been elected to public office before, with one of his stints as forestry minister.
"Maybe my parents liked the name and hence christened me Hitler," he once told the Hindustan Times newspaper. " I am happy with my name, although I don't have any dictatorial tendencies.
LONGYEARBYEN, Norway (CNN) A vast underground vault storing millions of seeds from around the world is scheduled to open this week in a mountain on a remote island near the Arctic Ocean.
Dubbed the "Doomsday Vault," the seed bank is considered the ultimate safety net for the world's seed collections, protecting them from a wide range of threats including war, natural disasters, lack of funding or simply poor agricultural management.
The Norwegian government paid to build the vault in a mountainside near Longyearbyen, in the remote Svalbard islands between Norway and the North Pole.
Building began last year, and the vault is scheduled to open officially Tuesday.
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, as it is officially known, can hold as many as 4.5 million seed samples and will eventually house almost every variety of most important food crops in the world, according to the Global Crop Diversity Trust, which is paying to collect and maintain the seeds.
The United Nations founded the trust in 2004 to support the long-term conservation of crop diversity, and countries and foundations provide the funding.
"The seed vault is the perfect place for keeping seeds safe for centuries," said Cary Fowler, executive director of the trust. "At these temperatures, seeds for important crops like wheat, barley and peas can last for up to 10,000 years.
The vault sits at the end of a 120-meter (131-yard) tunnel blasted inside the mountain.
Workers used a refrigeration system to bring the vault to -18 degrees Celsius (just below 0 degrees Fahrenheit), and a smaller refrigeration system plus the area's natural permafrost and the mountain's thick rock will keep the vault at least -4 C (25 F).
The idea for the Arctic seed bank dates to the 1980s but only became a possibility after the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources came into force in 2004, the Norwegian government said.
The treaty provided an international framework for conserving and accessing crop diversity.
Svalbard is designed to store duplicates of seeds from seed collections around the world.
DEUTSCHNEUDORF, Germany (CNN) Digging will resume Tuesday at a site in the southeastern German town of Deutschneudorf, where treasure hunters believe there are almost 2 tons of Nazi gold and possibly clues to the whereabouts of the legendary Amber Room, a prize taken from a Russian castle during World War II.
"Drilling will begin around noon, and we hope to hit the cave," Heinz Peter Haustein, one of the two treasure hunters and a member of Germany's parliament, said in a news release.
Digging was stopped more than a week ago amid safety concerns, as authorities and the treasure hunters feared that the shaft might collapse and that the cave if it is there may be rigged with explosives or poisonous booby traps.
At a news conference Friday, Christian Hanisch, the other treasure hunter, said that geological surveying equipment had located a possible cave about 30 feet under the surface containing "precious metals that can only be either gold or silver.
The instruments would not have reacted to any other metal like copper.
Hanisch pointed out that his father, who was a navigator in the Luftwaffe, the Nazi air force, was one of the troops said to have been involved in hiding art, gold and silver.
He said that when his father died, he left coordinates leading to the spot in Deutschneudorf. "It's not about getting the reward," Hanisch said at the site. "I just want to know if my father was right and if my instincts were right.
Haustein, who is paying for the expedition, said he hopes that finding the gold could lead to the Amber Room, whose interior is made completely of amber and gold.
It was looted by the Nazis from a castle in St. Petersburg, Russia, after Adolf Hitler's forces invaded the Soviet Union in 1941.
The room looked so majestic, many called it "the eighth wonder of the world."
It disappeared after the war, and today a replica stands in its place in St. Petersburg.
Although parts of the Amber Room have resurfaced, the vast majority remains missing.
The New York Philharmonic Orchestra is preparing to play a historic concert in North Korea on Tuesday but no word yet on whether leader Kim Jong Il will attend.
In a country where music like most aspects of life is tightly controlled, symbolism will be heavy in the performance.
Among the tunes on the play list are "The Star Spangled Banner" and "An American In Paris"
And in the orchestra, a symbol of North Korea's history Michelle Kim, who was born in South Korea to parents who fled from the North.
"This might not solve the problems with the U.S. politically but it will be in their hearts as something to remember," said assistant concert master Kim.
Conductor Lorin Maazel added: "I have conducted orchestras in countries where I don't speak the language but I speak the language of music and so do they. We get along instantly.
Tuesday's concert in Pyongyang is part of an extended Asian concert series that has already taken the orchestra to Taiwan, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing.
The New York Philharmonic has performed in 420 cities in 58 countries, including a trip to the former Soviet Union in 1959.
At the time of the announcement, the group said it accepted an invitation from North Korea's Ministry of Culture only after discussing it with the U.S. State Department.
WASHINGTON (CNN) The White House said Monday it is in "constant dialogue" with Iraq and Turkey about the Turkish military operation against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq.
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said: "The Iraqis are talking with the Turks and we think that type of dialogue is important. We are in constant dialogue to make sure this is handled in a way that is narrowly targeted to hit the PKK, to limit or hopefully cause no civilian casualties.
The Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, has spent two decades fighting for autonomy for Kurds in southeastern Turkey, with some of its attacks launched from inside northern Iraq.
Turks regard the PKK as terrorists and point to indiscriminate PKK attacks against civilians as well as police and military targets over the years.
Turkey has been taking cross-border military action against the PKK since the group launched attacks last fall on targets in Turkey from bases in Iraq's Kurdish region.
Turkish forces, backed by the air force, began a ground operation last Thursday night against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq the first significant Turkish ground offensive into Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime.
While the United States is supportive of Turkey's efforts to fight terror, it is concerned that it might generate regional instability.
Turkish troops in northern Iraq were working to take over rebel strongholds and hideouts and render them useless, and to disrupt logistical supply lines.
Turkey's military said Monday that 41 more rebels were killed in the fighting, bringing the militant death toll in its operation to 153.
Two more military fatalities were report, bringing that total to 17.
The North Koreans haven't seen this many Americans since the Korean War, but they are pulling out all the stops.
For a nation President Bush labeled as part of the "axis of evil," it was not an impressive sight: a dilapidated concrete hulk, built with few resources back in the early '80s.
But it did produce plutonium, enough to make a few bombs and to test-fire a nuclear weapon 18 months ago.
North Korea shut down Yongbyon last summer under an agreement with the United States and four other nations in the nuclear disarmament negotiations.
We saw the vital nuclear fuel rods being removed and neutralized under 20 feet of water.
And there are American technicians from the Department of Energy on-site helping with all of this. It seems a far cry from the hostility conjured by the axis of evil.
As we were being shown around Yongbyon, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra was landing in Pyongyang, the first time a major U.S. cultural group has visited North Korea since the war in the early '50s.
Both sides seem to be looking for a less hostile relationship, and as the U.S. nuclear negotiator says, "They don't like our words; maybe they'll like our music.
NAIROBI, Kenya (CNN) Kofi Annan has threatened to leave as mediator in the tense Kenyan power-sharing talks if a quick agreement is not reached, a senior aide to former U.N. chief said Monday.
Negotiating teams for Kenya's government and opposition left the talks after only half a day Monday.
Sources close to the negotiations said the talks had reached a standstill
Annan, the former U.N. secretary-general and chief mediator in the process, expressed displeasure.
"After four hours of intense negotiation this morning, the team made almost no progress on reaching an agreement on government," Annan said in a statement. "I had to conclude that they were not capable of resolving the outstanding issues.
Annan met with leaders of both sides Monday to implore them to come to an agreement.
Annan on Friday asked for both President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga to "give their negotiators clear instructions so that we can more swiftly to a conclusion," sources with Annan's team said.
But sources close to the negotiations said there remained definite sticking points to finding a solution.
Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are in a statistical dead heat in Texas, according to a poll released eight days before the state's crucial presidential primary.
In the CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released Monday, 50 percent of likely Democratic primary voters said Obama is their choice for the party's nominee, while 46 percent backed Clinton.
But taking into account the poll's sampling error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points for Democratic respondents, the race is a virtual tie.
"The 2-point gain for Obama and the 4-point drop for Clinton are both within the poll's sampling error, so although the survey appears to indicate some movement toward Obama, we cannot say for certain that he has gained any ground since last week," said CNN polling director Keating Holland.
Two recent polls by other organizations also show the race statistically even.
Texas and Ohio, which both hold primaries March 4, are considered must-win states for Clinton.
Obama has won the past 11 contests and is ahead in the overall battle for delegates, 193 of which are at stake in Texas.
The new survey indicates John McCain is the clear favorite in Texas for the Republican presidential nomination.
Among likely Republican primary voters, 56 percent said the senator from Arizona is their choice for nominee.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee won the backing of 31 percent of those questioned, and Rep.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=3053480 SEATTLE (CNN)
 Microsoft Corp. said it will stop making HD DVD players for its Xbox 360 video game system after Toshiba Corp. ceded the high-definition video format battle to Sony Corp.'s Blu-ray.
Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) said Saturday it would continue to provide standard warranty support for its HD DVD players.
"HD DVD is one of the several ways we offer a high definition experience to consumers, and we will continue to give consumers the choice to enjoy digital distribution of high definition movies and TV shows directly to their living room, along with playback of the DVD movies they already own," Blair Westlake, a corporate vice president of Microsoft's media and entertainment group, said in a written statement.
Microsoft was one of HD DVD's main backers, along with Intel (INTC, Fortune 500) and Japanese electronics maker NEC Corp.
But support for the HD DVD waned as major movie studios Sony (SNE) Pictures, Walt Disney (DIS, Fortune 500) Co., News Corp.'s (NWS, Fortune 500) Twentieth Century Fox and Warner Bros. Entertainment picked Blu-ray to distribute high-def DVDs.
Wal-Mart (WMT, Fortune 500) Stores Inc said it would only sell Blu-ray players and discs.
Microsoft said it is looking at how the HD DVD technology it has developed, such as HDi.
The Redmond-based software maker said the decision to stop selling HD DVD players won't have a material impact on its video game business.
SEOUL, South Korea (CNN) Hard-charging former businessman Lee Myung-bak took the oath of office as South Korea's new president Monday, vowing to revitalize the economy, strengthen relations with the U.S. and deal with nuclear-armed North Korea.
"Economic revival is our most urgent task," Lee said in his inauguration speech.
Lee also vowed to boost ties with the United States and called for summits with North Korea as needed, according to an advance copy of the speech.
a decade of liberal rule that critics say hindered economic growth, was too soft on communist North Korea and fomented tension with traditional close ally Washington.
Officials and ordinary citizens attended the inauguration in near-freezing temperatures, along with foreign dignitaries including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda.
Lee, the 10th man to be South Korea's president and the first to come from a business background, overwhelmingly won December's election on a promise to make the economy his top priority.
He calls this his "747" pledge, meant to evoke a soaring jumbo jet.
Lee, 66, says he will slash regulations, initiate tax reforms, streamline government and draw in more foreign investment.
South Korea's economy grew 4.9 percent last year and 5 percent the year before, but Lee says it has underperformed.
Though Lee has vowed to broadly continue Seoul's policy of detente with the North, he says he will maintain a more critical eye.
His liberal predecessors Roh Moo-hyun and Kim Dae-jung gave unconditional aid and concessions as part of reconciliation efforts.
Lee says if leader Kim Jong Il abandons his nuclear programs, the South will launch massive investment and aid projects in the impoverished North to increase its per capita income to $3,000.
Lee also said he will bolster Seoul's strategic ties with the U.S. to help resolve the nuclear issue.
Police found the body of a woman on the doorstep.
Inside, they found the bodies of a 5-year-old boy and two girls, ages 8 and 9. Officers also found the body of a man with a shotgun beneath him.
Police did not immediately know the motive for the shootings or the relationship of the victims.
The teenager who called 911 was hospitalized in stable condition, Rodriguez said.
"It is an extreme shock to this community," Rodriguez told radio station KNX-AM.
Yorba Linda is a bedroom community in Orange County, 40 miles southeast of Los Angeles.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) The Pakistan People's Party, which swept the parliamentary elections last week on Sunday called for an end to military operations in the southwestern Pakistani province where intelligence officials believe Taliban leaders may be holed up.
In a resolution issued Sunday after a meeting of top leaders, the PPP called on the army to immediately stop its operation in Balochistan, a province near the Afghan border.
The party also asked that all prisoners, be released and said it would work toward giving "maximum provincial autonomy" to the area.
"The PPP on behalf of the people of Pakistan apologizes to the people of the province of Balochistan for the atrocities and injustices committed against them and pledges to embark on a new highway of healing and mutual respect," the party said in a news release.
Militants in Balochistan, a province rich in natural gas, have been fighting Pakistani military forces for self-rule.
For years, they have complained that the government has paid little attention to them and their economic needs.
More recently, the province has seen an influx of Afghan refugees.
And the Afghan government believes that key Taliban leaders may be hiding among them.
Earlier this month, Pakistani security forces shot and wounded a well-known Taliban operative, Mansoor Dadullah, there.
The PPP is expected to lead the new Pakistani government after gaining the most number of seats in parliamentary elections held February 18.
Party leader Asif Ali Zardari the widower of slain former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto had said earlier that a new government would take a more reconciliatory approach toward the militants fighting for greater autonomy.
The Coens also won best director and best adapted screenplay, and Javier Bardem, who played killer Anton Chigurh, won best supporting actor.
Daniel Day-Lewis won best actor for his performance as a misanthropic oilman in "There Will Be Blood.
"My deepest thanks to the members of the Academy for whacking me with the handsomest bludgeon in town," Day-Lewis said as he accepted the award.
As he accepted his first Oscar, Bardem, one of Spain's top actors, thanked his directors.
French actress Marion Cotillard won her first Academy Award for her portrayal of singer Edith Piaf in "La Vie en Rose.
In a highly competitive race, Tilda Swinton nabbed the best supporting actress Oscar for her portrayal as lawyer Karen Crowder in the legal drama "Michael Clayton.
The Academy Awards opened with host Jon Stewart joking about the writers strike that ended last week.
Stewart, who is hosting the Academy Awards for the second time, and his writing staff had been rushed even more than usual this year because of the recently concluded writers strike.
Among the eight nominations for "No Country for Old Men," the Coens had four.
"Blood" also had eight nominations, and Day-Lewis' performance as Daniel Plainview won the best actor Oscar.
"Juno" is the only best picture nominee to top $100 million at the box office, ensuring it a rooting interest from moviegoers.
Ellen Page has received plaudits for her performance as the title character, and screenwriter Diablo Cody famously a former stripper has become one of Hollywood's "it" scribes.
(CNN) Japan launched a rocket Saturday carrying a satellite that will test new technology that promises to deliver "super high-speed Internet" service to homes and businesses around the world.
The rocket carrying the WINDS satellite a joint project of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries lifted off its pad at 5:55 p.m. (0855 GMT).
If the technology proves successful, subscribers with small dishes will connect to the Internet at speeds many times faster than what is now available over residential cable or DSL services.
The Associated Press said the satellite would offer speeds of up to 1.2 gigabytes per second.
The service initially would focus on the Asia-Pacific region close to Japan, a JAXA news release said.
"Among other uses, this will make possible great advances in telemedicine, which will bring high-quality medical treatment to remote areas, and in distance education, connecting students and teachers separated by great distances," JAXA said.
The rocket was launched from Japan's Yoshinobu Launch Complex at the Tanegashima Space Center.
LONDON, England (CNN) The world's first biofuel-powered commercial aircraft touched down in Amsterdam on Sunday following a demonstration flight from London's Heathrow Airport hailed as a first step towards "cleaner" flying.
The Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747 flight was part of a joint initiative with planemaker Boeing and engine manufacturer GE Aviation to develop a "sustainable aircraft fuel.
" No passengers were onboard.
Virgin Atlantic President Richard Branson said the test flight would help the airline to use clean fuel sooner than expected.
"The demonstration flight will give us crucial knowledge that we can use to dramatically reduce our carbon footprint," Branson said in a statement.
"Virgin Group pledged to invest all its profits from its transportation companies towards developing clean energy and with this breakthrough we are well down the path to achieving our goals.
Some studies suggest that converting land for crops such as palm oil used for biofuel can generate far more in carbon emissions than the savings delivered by the fuel.
Increased use of biofuels could also prompt food shortages, campaigners warn, as greater areas of farmland are turned over to biofuel production.
"If Virgin was really serious about reducing the aviation industry's impact on the environment it would support calls for aircraft emissions to be included in the (UK government's) Climate Change Bill."
WASHINGTON (CNN) Hundreds of pro-Serbian activists gathered Sunday outside the White House to decry Kosovo's secession from Serbia this month and to demand the Bush administration retract its recognition of Kosovo as an independent country. "Shame on Bush!"
chanted members of the Kosovo Relief Committee and the group Stop Terrorizing Orthodox People, who marched with Serbian flags and signs that read: "Kosovo: A Threat, Not a Country.
Rally organizers charged the Bush administration ignored international law by recognizing Kosovo's secession and warned separatist movements in other countries would attempt to declare independence themselves.
Also on Sunday, the U.S. ambassador to Serbia called on the country's leaders to do more to protect foreign diplomatic missions.
"I'm very angry at what happened," Ambassador Cameron Munter said of the attack on the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade.
Protesters smashed windows and set fire to part of the building, The Associated Press reported.
"It had better not happen again," said Munter.
In addition to the U.S. Embassy, protesters attacked other Western interests including the embassies of Britain and Germany, as well as a McDonald's restaurant and Nike shop.
On Saturday, Serbian authorities said they had arrested nearly 200 rioters who took part in the violence.
Serbia's minister Slobodan Samardzic said Saturday that the United States which backed Kosovo's breakaway and was among the first countries to recognize its secession was the "main culprit" for the violence, AP reported.
Meanwhile, up to 1,000 Serbian protesters gathered Sunday in the ethnically divided northern Kosovo town of Mitrovica as protests continued one week since Kosovo's break from Belgrade, AP said.
U.N. police in riot gear had formed a cordon across the main bridge separating the tense town's Serb and ethnic Albanian sides.
Serbs also staged anti-independence rallies on Sunday in Geneva, Switzerland, Vienna, Austria, and other European capitals.
WASHINGTON (CNN) Ralph Nader is entering the presidential race as an independent, he announced Sunday, saying it is time for a "Jeffersonian revolution.
And I want everybody to have the right and opportunity to improve their country," he told reporters after an appearance announcing his candidacy on NBC's "Meet the Press.
Asked why he should be president, the longtime consumer advocate said, "Because I got things done."
He cited a 40-year record, which he said includes saving "millions of lives," bringing about stricter protection for food and water and fighting corporate control over Washington.
Nader's decision, which did not come as a surprise to political watchers, marks his fourth straight White House bid fifth if his 1992 write-in campaign is included.
The two contenders for the Democratic nomination were quick to pounce.
"He thought that there was no difference between Al Gore and George Bush and, eight years later, I think people realize that Ralph did not know what he was talking about," Sen. Barack Obama said a town hall meeting Sunday.
Nader was criticized by some Democrats in 2000 for allegedly pulling away support from Democrat Al Gore and helping George Bush win the White House.
Noting that he ran on the Green Party ticket that year, Clinton said Nader "prevented Al Gore from being the 'greenest' president we could have had.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) A suicide bomber killed at least 40 Shiite pilgrims and wounded 60 others Sunday as the pilgrims made their way to Karbala to commemorate one of the holiest days of the Shiite calendar, the Interior Ministry said.
Women and children were among the casualties, the official said. Most of those killed or wounded were pilgrims.
It marked the second deadly attack on pilgrims Sunday, the official said.
The bomber detonated an explosive vest in Iskandariya about 3 p.m. while the pilgrims were en route to Karbala for al-Arbaeen, the official said.
Earlier Sunday, militants armed with guns and grenades attacked a group of pilgrims in southern Baghdad, killing three people and wounding more than 30 others, officials said.
The wounded included two police officers, the ministry said.
Iraqi officials had expected problems for pilgrims and issued a ban on carts in Baghdad on Friday.
Every year, thousands of pilgrims amass in Karbala for al-Arbaeen, which commemorates the end of a 40-day mourning period for Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed.
He died in battle in the 7th century, and is buried in Karbala, about 60 miles southwest of Baghdad.
Karbala's main holy site is the gold-domed Imam Hussein Shrine.
HAVANA, Cuba (CNN) Fidel Castro's nearly five decades of rule ended Sunday when Cuba's National Assembly chose his younger brother Raul to be the country's new president.
The lawmakers' selection, which had been widely expected, came five days after Fidel Castro, 81, announced his resignation in a letter published in the state-run newspaper Granma.
In his address to the National Assembly, the 76-year-old Raul Castro proposed that "we consult Fidel" on important decisions.
The 614 members of the legislative body passed that motion unanimously.
The lawmakers also announced that Jose Ramon Machado, a man of Raul Castro's generation, had been elected first vice president of the Council of State, despite the expectation of some that the post would go to someone younger.
Juan Almeida Bosque, Abelardo Colomi Ibarra, Carlos Lage Davila, Esteban Lazo Hernandez and Julio Casas Regueiro were elected as the Council's other vice presidents, according to Granma.
In his letter of resignation published in the newspaper, he cited his "critical health condition" and said, "It would be a betrayal to my conscience to accept a responsibility requiring more mobility and dedication than I am physically able to offer. "
Turkish troops backed by air support attacked Kurdish rebels Thursday in northern Iraq, the Turkish military said.
At least 24 suspected Kurd militants were killed, the Turkish military reported, adding it suffered 5 casualties.
The incursion against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in Iraq began around 7 p.m. Thursday.
"The Turkish Armed Forces, which values Iraq's territorial integrity and its stability, will return as soon as planned goals are achieved," the military said.
The PKK has spent two decades fighting for autonomy for Kurds in southeastern Turkey.
A Pakistani television station was abruptly shut down Friday, after it allowed two broadcasters who had been banned by the government to appear on air, a station official said.
Talat Hussain, executive director of news and current affairs for Aaj TV, said Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf disapproved of the journalists.
Musharraf's spokesman, Maj. Gen. Rashid Qureshi, said he was unaware of the incident and would contact the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority about the suspension of transmission.
Aaj TV was taken off the air at 10 p.m. (10 a.m. ET), Hussain said. It was not known when the station could resume operations. Instead of programming, viewers are greeted with the message:
"Dear Users, Please note Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) temporarily suspended transmission of independent news TV channels till further instructions.
Hussain said the regulatory authority had called Aaj TV and warned the station against allowing the broadcasters on the air.
The journalists were identified as Nusrat Javed and Mushtaq Minaz.
Musharraf suspended Javed from broadcasting earlier this month because of critical comments he made about the president, according to the Pakistani Web site, PK Politics.
It was not immediately known why Minaz was banned.
The British parliament passed legislation on Thursday that the government needs to make Northern Rock PLC the first sizable British bank to be nationalized in 25 years.
News of an emergency loan to the struggling Northern Rock from the Bank of England last September had triggered the first run on a British bank in more than a century.
On Thursday night, the House of Commons approved the nationalization legislation by a margin of 126 votes.
The bill then went back to the House of Lords, where its legislators first rejected three provisions of the bill.
The Lords had wanted an independent audit of the bank's accounts within three months, followed by annual checks.
The nationalization plan has caused a political and public backlash in Britain, despite Prime Minister Gordon Brown's assertion that state control is the best option for taxpayers who have already funded subsidies to Northern Rock to the tune of 55 billion pounds ($107 billion; ¢æ73 billion).
SEATTLE (CNN) Starbucks Corp. said Thursday it has laid off about 220 support staff - who worked at the coffee retailer's headquarters and in field operations - and will leave about 380 open jobs unfilled.
Chairman and Chief Executive Howard Schultz announced the 600-job reduction in an e-mail to Starbucks' more than 170,000 employees, calling it a difficult decision aimed at sharpening the company's focus on customers.
Unfortunately, we have not been organized in a manner that allowed us to have a laser focus on the customer.
The vast majority of laid-off employees worked in the U.S. - about one-third at the company's Seattle headquarters and the rest in regional field offices. Support staff include people who work on marketing, finance, human resources, communications and supply chain management.
None of the cuts include baristas or store managers, and none of the jobs being left open include store employees or district managers who oversee store operations, the company said.
Starbucks, which has been struggling amid a faltering economy, its own rapid growth and increased competition from cheaper rivals, also said it will replace its East and West divisions with four new ones:
NAIROBI, Kenya (CNN) Feuding Kenyan political parties are close to a deal that could help end recent post-election violence, according to mediators in the settlement talks.
"I'm beginning to see light at the end of the tunnel," Kofi Annan, former U.N. Secretary-General and chief mediator in the process, said Thursday.
The political parties who are trying to broker a power-sharing arrangement were able to outline a "joint proposal that had been largely agreed on the governance structure," according to a statement released to CNN.
Foreign Minister Moses Wetangula told CNN: "We have made tremendous progress and we have considerably narrowed our differences between the two parties. Reaching a conclusion is very close.
"A derailment of discussions is not an option available to both sides.
The political deal could help end a spate of violence that has occurred in the country since a disputed election in December.
The death toll has reach about 1,000 lives and has left thousands displaced since the election.
Officials from both sides said the negotiations have centered around the creation of the post of prime minister.
Both sides have agreed in principle to create the post but not agreed on how much power a new prime minister will have.
For a new prime minister post to be created, Kenya's constitution would have to be changed.
They have also agreed to set up an independent committee to investigate irregularities in the December 27 election and suggest reforms.
TORONTO, Ontario (CNN) Canada's Conservative government says the country's troops will leave southern Afghanistan in 2011.
The compromise with the opposition Liberals lessens the likelihood of an early national election.
The Liberals have said one of their conditions for extending the mission is that it ends in 2011.
The Conservatives initially said they would review the mission then.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper unveiled the new motion on Thursday. Harper is under pressure to withdraw Canada's troops from Afghanistan after the deaths of 78 soldiers and a diplomat.
The mission is set to expire in 2009 unless lawmakers extend it.
Support for the extension is conditional on NATO providing more troops and equipment to back up Canadian forces in the south, the former Taliban stronghold.
The security alert rose from level 2, which had been in effect since the start of the train bombings trial last year, to level 3 the maximum alert, the Interior Ministry said.
Maximum alert means police will be backed by the armed forces in patrolling transport hubs, shopping areas, sporting events, landmark buildings, the headquarters of the political parties and their campaign events, and other potential terrorist targets, the ministry said.
The coordinated bombings on four morning commuter trains killed 191 people and wounded more than 1,800 on March 11, 2004, just three days before the last general elections.
A trial that began in February 2007 ended with convictions last October against 21 defendants, including about a dozen Islamic extremists for their roles in the attacks and also some Spaniards convicted of supplying explosives used in the bombings.
"The Interior Ministry has activated the maximum alert to fully guarantee security for citizens during the campaign process that concludes with the elections on March 9," an Interior Ministry statement said.
In switching to maximum alert, Spanish authorities have not spoken publicly of other specific targets, but they point out that al Qaeda statements regularly mention Spain, among other countries, as a target.
Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero won an upset victory in 2004 after the train bombings and quickly fulfilled his campaign pledge to withdraw Spain's troops from the U.S.-backed coalition in Iraq, which many saw as a reason why Spain had become a target for Islamic terrorism.
The two-week campaign begins officially at midnight Friday.
But Chen didn't identify the women in the photos, which appear to show Chen and several female stars including singer Gillian Chung and actress Cecilia Cheung either performing sex acts or in sexually suggestive poses.
"These photos were very private and have not been shown to people and were never intended to be shown to anyone," Chen said at a press conference, adding that the photos were stolen from him and distributed without his approval.
Hong Kong police have already arrested several people in connection to the photos.
LONDON, England (CNN) British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Thursday that British territory was used to transport two suspects in the CIA's rendition program.
The British government previously had said it played no part in the program.
The foreign secretary said Thursday's revelations were the result of "new information" the United States gave to Britain last Friday.
The U.S. State Department said it regretted Britain was given wrong information and called it "an administrative error."
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said: "We express regret that we initially provided inaccurate information to a good friend and ally.
Miliband told the House of Commons that two flights, each carrying a U.S. detainee, refueled in 2002 in Diego Garcia, a British territory in the Indian Ocean.
Miliband said the U.S. government had assured Britain that no U.S. detainees were ever held on Diego Garcia.
He said the planes only refueled at the U.S. facility on the island, and the detainees never left the plane.
He said a U.S. investigation showed no record of any other rendition through Diego Garcia or any other UK territory since then.
Then-Prime Minister Tony Blair assured the government's Intelligence and Security Committee last March that the United States had never rendered any detainees through the UK or its overseas territories since Sept. 11, 2001.
Miliband said the government had a "deep disappointment" about the late news of the rendition flights, but he said Britain believed the United States acted "in good faith" when it made the initial assurances that no flights had taken place.
Sens. Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois will face off in a Democratic presidential debate in Austin Thursday.
The debate, to be held on the campus of the University of Texas, will air live on CNN, CNN International and CNN.com from 8 to 9:30 p.m. ET.
For both candidates, a great deal is at stake. This is the first time in three weeks that the two remaining major Democratic White House hopefuls have debated.
A lot has changed since the two debated in Hollywood, California, on January 31.
Just five days later, Clinton and Obama both scored big victories on Super Tuesday, splitting two dozen contests from coast to coast.
But then Obama went on a winning streak, capturing 10 straight contests, including Tuesday's primary in Wisconsin and caucuses in Hawaii.
Texas is the biggest prize that day, with 193 Democratic delegates up for grabs.
With so much at stake, Clinton needs a very strong performance in Thursday's debate, the only time the two candidates will share the same stage in Texas before the state's primary.
She has to raise doubts about Obama and get Democrats to rethink whether they really want to rally behind him," CNN senior political analyst Bill Schneider said.
He's riding a winning streak and leads Clinton by more than 140 pledged delegates, but he faces some challenges in Texas, a state with a large Latino population. Clinton's done quite well with such voters so far this primary season.
The debate broadcast in Spanish on Univision is his chance to break through that firewall," Schneider said.
The company wants to make it easier for developers to create software that work with its products.
The Redmond, Washington-based software company said Thursday it will ensure open connections to its high-volume products by publishing technical information about them on its Web site.
With Thursday's announcement, Microsoft is hoping to make it easier for software developers to make products that work well with the Vista computer operating system, Office word processing application and other key Microsoft products.
Google Inc. has been successful in encouraging developers to make add-ons for Google's maps and other popular services.
Google is increasingly challenging Microsoft's dominance in software products.
The EU said in a statement Thursday it has seen four other similar statements in the past from the world's largest software maker.
The EU also said it would welcome any move toward "genuine interoperability." And regulators added they'll continue to check if Microsoft is complying with antitrust rules.
At least 10 people have died and thousands have been left homeless after torrential rains inundated large parts of Ecuador, officials said Thursday.
Authorities said the rains, which began a week ago, were the worst in a quarter century.
Civil defense officials said more than 10,000 families have been affected.
os north of Guayaquil was the hardest hit of nine provinces affected, civil defense officials said.
In Los R&iacute; os province, five people died when an ambulance drove into a hole at the side of a street at dawn Thursday.
A newborn boy, his parents, a doctor and a driver were killed.
Streets also were flooded in the capital of Quito.
On Wednesday, President Rafael Correa declared a state of emergency and ordered 2,000 members of the army and the police to help rescue workers.
Correa increased by $25 million the $10 million he already had allocated for the emergency efforts.
Cristina Medina, a spokeswoman for the Ecuadorean Red Cross, said provinces most heavily affected were along the Pacific coast, where drinking water was often in short supply.
In some towns, high waters forced entire neighborhoods to evacuate, Medina said.
UEFA have been urged to investigate a laser beam incident involving Manchester United's Cristiano Ronaldo.
The Portugal winger was left dazzled before the 1-1 draw against Lyon in the Champions League on Wednesday.
Carlos Tevez came off the bench to equalise three minutes from time after Nani's cross caused confusion in the Lyon defense.
United would now appear to be in the driving seat for a place in quarterfinals with the teams due to meet in the second leg at Old Trafford.
But the French club could be subject to an investigation before then by European football's governing body over one of their supporters aiming a laser at Ronaldo.
"We reported the matter to UEFA before the game. We noticed it in the warm-up and they (UEFA) are aware of it.
A spokesman for UEFA indicated they required more information from referee Luis Medina Cantalejo and match delegate Jan Damgaard before commenting further.
"We have a whole range of different disciplinary measures, beginning with a warning, then fines and so on," the spokesman added.
The New York Times was criticized Thursday not only for claims in a story about Sen. John McCain's relationship with a lobbyist but also for its use of unnamed sources.
The newspaper reported on its Web site Wednesday and in its print edition Thursday that aides to McCain's 2000 presidential campaign were so worried about the relationship they confronted McCain and the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman.
Also, some McCain advisers were concerned the relationship had become romantic, the newspaper reported.
McCain's senior campaign adviser, Charlie Black, called the newspaper's report "a smear campaign.
"Look, this is a simple case of the largest liberal newspaper in America trying to run a smear campaign against the integrity of the new conservative Republican nominee for president," he said.
"They do it by printing false rumors and gossip unsourced," Black said.
McCain's lawyer, Robert Bennett, attacked the premise of the story.
"I think they went with the story before they had the evidence," Bennett said during an appearance on CNN. "If you really analyze the story it's like a big piece of cotton candy.
On Thursday, McCain denied having a close relationship with Iseman and said he was "very disappointed in The New York Times piece, it's not true."
The Times issued a statement Thursday saying it stands by its reporting and that "the story speaks for itself.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) Two leading figures in Pakistani politics said Thursday their parties will work together in the national parliament after scoring big wins in elections earlier this week.
Former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Asif Ali Zardari, the husband of slain former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, called the deal a "national consensus and said it would extend into provincial assemblies.
Zardari said Thursday that he and Sharif "intend to stay together in parliament.
A spokesman for Musharraf has said the president is willing to work with other political parties, but Zardari said Musharraf's input is not welcome.
And Sharif asked sarcastically:
Parliamentary elections took place Monday, and even though formal results have not been announced, it was clear from preliminary Election Commission results that Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party, now headed by Zardari, and Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-N dominated.
If the two leading opposition parties can fold smaller groups and independent candidates into their coalition, they could gain the two-thirds majority in parliament needed to impeach Musharraf.
The election result has also raised questions for the U.S. which considers Musharraf an ally in its war on terror.
Washington, so far, does not know what emphasis the new parliament will place on counterterror, especially as many Pakistanis disapproved of the way Musharraf has used the "war on terror" to explain many of his unpopular moves.
Angry demonstrators protesting Kosovo's independence from Serbia attacked the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade on Thursday, throwing rocks, breaking windows and setting fires.
Serbian TV showed someone trying to set fire to the U.S. flag at the embassy, which was closed and unstaffed when the masked protesters attacked.
Riot police fired tear gas at the rioters and lines of armored vehicles were on the streets before the embassy perimeter was secured.
A State Department official told CNN "things are under control.
Kosovo declared independence last Sunday and the United States was among the first countries to offer official recognition of its split from Serbia.
One charred body believed to be a protester was found in the U.S. Embassy compound, embassy spokesman in Belgrade William Wanlund said.
The only Americans at the embassy during the violence were Marines, who are all said to be accounted for.
Bratislaw Grubacic, chief editor of VIP magazine in Belgrade, said police reported 32 people injured, including 14 police officers. Teresa Gould, a translator for Belgrade TV, said the Croatian Embassy next door also was attacked.
Smaller groups attacked police posts outside the Turkish and British Embassies in another part of the city but were beaten back, The Associated Press reported.
On Thursday, Italy became the latest European nation to recognize Kosovo's sovereignty, AP reported.
Russia and China continue to oppose Kosovo's declaration of independence while Spain has expressed concern that recognition will give momentum to secessionist movements in other countries, such as the Basques in northern Spain.
Carlos Tevez stepped off the bench to grab a late equalizer for Manchester United in their Champions League knock-out round first leg match with Lyon in France.
Tevez ghosted in at the far post to grab a 1-1 draw after Karim Benzema had opened the scoring for the French champions with a superb individual effort.
But the Argentine's 87th-minute goal will give United confidence going into the return leg at Old Trafford in two weeks, as they seek to reach the quarterfinals of the competition they won in 1999.
Ryan Giggs returned to the United side to make his 100th Champions League appearance and was named captain after being rested for Saturday's FA Cup victory was against Arsenal.
Cristiano Ronaldo, Owen Hargreaves and Paul Scholes were also back in the starting line-up against a Lyon team who have won the French title six seasons in a row.
Wayne Rooney was employed as the solitary striker, with Tevez starting the game as one of the substitutes.
The 20-year-old striker had his back to goal when Toulalan played the ball through.
There seemed little on, but Benzema turned quickly and got between Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic before stealing the shot into the corner.
Ferguson decided to switch things around four minutes later and brought on Nani and Tevez for Giggs and Scholes.
United had more attacking options as they went in search of the equaliser.
Investigators in Japan are investigating a second reported sexual assault connected to the U.S. military, police said Thursday.
Investigators said they are looking into allegations that a member of the U.S. Army raped a Filipino woman on the island of Okinawa.
Last week, police detained a U.S. Marine in the alleged rape of a 14-year-old girl on Okinawa a case that has stirred outrage across Japan.
It was not immediately clear whether the suspect in the second case was a soldier or a civilian employee at the military's sprawling base in southern Japan, where tens of thousands of troops are based.
The U.S. Army said commanders are aware of the second allegation and are looking into it.
Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda condemned the alleged incident as "unforgivable," and the U.S. military confined troops to their bases or off-base homes for "a period of reflection" as of Wednesday morning, except for work, worship, school or medical appointments, according to a news release from Camp Butler on Okinawa.
The U.S. military said it formed a sexual assault prevention task force after the incident.
BEIJING (CNN) SpongeBob SquarePants, Mickey Mouse and Pokemon are officially persona non grata on Chinese prime time.
China is extending a ban that virtually locks out all foreign cartoons from airing between 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. in a bid to protect its fledgling domestic cartoon industry.
According to a new ruling Wednesday by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, no foreign cartoons or programs introducing foreign cartoons can be shown during "the golden hours" on all domestic cartoon channels and children channels starting May 1.
The move is intended to help "spur the domestic cartoon industry," the agency said.
Only domestic cartoons approved by SARFT are allowed to be aired, according to the regulations.
In recent years, a huge influx of foreign cartoons, especially from Japan, have flooded the airwaves, becoming highly popular with Chinese children.
Recent regulations have been aimed at allowing the country's struggling animation studios space to compete.
WASHINGTON (CNN) Russia has clamped down on Human Rights Watch, refusing its executive director, Kenneth Roth, a visa to travel to Moscow, following a 72-page report on Russia's suppression of free speech.
Roth was to release the report in Moscow.
In a statement on the New York-based Human Rights Watch Web site, Roth said that new Russian rules block dissent and interfere with the work of nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs.
"With the new rules, NGOs live under a looming threat of harassment," said Roth. "And this is a serious threat to freedom of expression in Russia."
U.S. State Department Sean McCormack on Wednesday called the prevention of Roth from traveling to Russia "a very unfortunate incident.
"Russia and any country that aspires to the pathway to democracy can only benefit from free, open and peaceful airing of views regardless of whether they are supportive ... or whether it's critical of the government and its policies," McCormack said.
The incident coincided with suggestions by Russian President Vladimir Putin's likely successor Dmitry Medvedev that foreign NGOs and the British Council, an international cultural body funded by the British government spy on Russia, The Associated Press reported.
In an interview with the weekly Itogi, Medvedev suggested supporting Russian actions that led the British Council to suspend operations at its offices in St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg, AP reported.
DARWIN, Australia (CNN)- East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta was slowly being returned to consciousness by doctors who have kept him sedated since he was shot in an assassination attempt last week, his spokesman said Thursday.
Ramos-Horta has undergone surgery five times since the February 11 shooting in Dili, the East Timorese capital, and has been heavily sedated at a hospital in northern Australia to help him stay still and avoid pain.
Suspected rebels shot Ramos-Horta, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, near his home on February 11.
Doctors are pleased with the progress of his recovery and were allowing him to regain consciousness, said Luke Gosling, a Ramos-Horta aide who is with him in Darwin.
He is slowly waking up," said Gosling. "He has started saying a few words to close family.
(CNN) A Dutch tourist says she recently spotted missing 4-year-old Madeleine McCann at a French restaurant near Montpellier, McCann family spokesman Clarence Mitchell said Wednesday.
The tourist said she recognized Madeleine from the many media reports about the child's May 3 disappearance and may have even seen the well-publicized defect in the little girl's eye, Mitchell said.
"She and a friend saw a child that they immediately took to be Madeleine," said Mitchell. "They actually called out her name.
"A man who was with the child scooped the child up and took her out of the cafe before the girls could take a photograph with their mobile phones," he said.
Mitchell said there is a surveillance tape of the girl in the L'Arche restaurant and Madeleine's parents are hoping to be able to use it to determine if it is their missing daughter.
But The Associated Press, quoting an unnamed police official, is reporting that investigators have determined it was not the missing child.
Police watched the closed-circuit video footage, and despite the child looking like Madeleine, it was not her, said the official, who did not want his name published because he is not authorized to speak to media about the case.
Her parents, who were vacationing with her in Portugal, have said she disappeared from their room at a resort while they dined in a nearby restaurant.
Despite a global search and the attention of celebrities like Virgin Chairman Richard Branson, author J.K. Rowling and soccer star David Beckham, there have been no major breaks in the case.
LONDON, England (CNN) Amy Winehouse and Paul McCartney set their recent troubles aside to steal the show Wednesday at the Brit Awards, the British music industry's most prestigious prizes.
Rockers Foo Fighters and British bands Take That and Arctic Monkeys were all double winners at Britain's equivalent of the Grammys.
Winehouse, 24, has had a tumultuous 12 months since she was named best female British act at last year's Brits.
She won five Grammys earlier this month a rare high point in a year of erratic behavior, canceled concerts, tabloid headlines and a spell in drug rehab.
McCartney, who has spent the last week in court trying to settle his acrimonious divorce from Heather Mills, closed the show with a crowd-pleasing medley of hits, including "Hey Jude" and "Live and Let Die" a song he co-wrote with his deceased first wife Linda.
"I just think British music is the best.
Grown-up boy band Take That took the British single of the year prize for its song "Shine" and also was named best live act.
The spiky pop quartet Arctic Monkeys was named British group of the year and also took the British album of the year prize for "Favourite Worst Nightmare.
The show, hosted by rock elder statesman Ozzy Osbourne and his family, was largely free of surprises.
Most winners are selected by a vote of more than 1,000 industry members, including representatives from record companies, the media, retailers, record producers, disc jockeys and promoters.
The British single, British breakthrough act and British live act prizes are decided by public phone or online voting.
Oil futures rallied again Wednesday, pushing briefly past $101 a barrel after the U.S. Federal Reserve lowered its forecast for economic growth this year, convincing energy investors that the central bank will slash interest rates further.
The Fed said damage from the housing slump and problems in the credit markets will slow economic growth to between 1.3 percent and 2 percent this year, down from a previous forecast for GDP growth of between 1.8 percent and 2.5 percent.
Oil investors can interpret such news in one of two ways:
On Wednesday, they definitively chose the latter view.
"The Fed was ... the catalyst to get us going here," said Phil Flynn, an analyst at Alaron Trading Corp. in Chicago.
The contract for March delivery of light sweet crude, which was expiring later Wednesday, rose 73 cents to settle at a record $100.74 on the New York Mercantile Exchange after earlier rising as high as $101.32, a new trading record.
In London, April Brent crude fell 14 cents to settle at $98.42 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) A judge put the brakes on Britney Spears' driving-without-a-license case Wednesday after her lawyers said they don't believe the troubled pop star is capable of resolving the matter.
The attorneys also don't believe Spears, 26, is capable of giving a deposition or signed declaration, Flanagan said.
Earlier this month, a judge placed Spears under the conservatorship of her father and an attorney after more than a year of increasingly bizarre behavior by the singer.
Spears hit a parked car on August 6, 2007, and left without notifying the owner.
She was originally cited for hit and run and driving without a license, but the hit-and-run charge was dropped.
An interim report issued Wednesday by independent board members of the French bank Societe Generale has concluded that a trader working alone was responsible for amassing trading losses that exceeded $7.2 billion.
"The author of the fraud started taking his non-authorized, directional positions in 2005 and 2006 for small amounts, but in an important manner beginning in March of 2007," the report said, adding that the bank did not become aware of events until late last month.
Last week, Kerviel's lawyer said the bank must have known about and condoned his deals.
Kerviel has been charged with abuse of confidence and illegal use of computers for his role in the losses but has not been charged with fraud.
He faces up to three years in prison.
In addition to a criminal investigation, there are ongoing investigations by the French banking regulatory commission and French senate finance committee.
Societe Generale stockholders also have filed suit against the bank.
WASHINGTON (CNN) U.S. Navy gunners in the Pacific were watching the sea and sky Wednesday, waiting for perfect conditions to take a kill shot on an errant satellite 150 miles above them.
They have just a 10-second window to fire, a Pentagon official said, and may not be able to take their shot on their first opportunity at 10:30 p.m. ET Wednesday (6: 30 a.m. GMT Thursday).
The cruiser USS Lake Erie will get one 10-second window each of the next nine or 10 days to fire an interceptor missile that will destroy the faltering spy satellite before it can tumble to Earth and possibly release a cloud of toxic gas.
The Pentagon said the window of opportunity to strike the 5,000-pound satellite opened Wednesday, when the space shuttle Atlantis landed in Florida.
The Pentagon wanted to be sure the shuttle would not be struck by any debris from a destroyed satellite.
But the official said conditions have to be perfect, and that was not the case Wednesday with swells in the Pacific Ocean west of Hawaii running slightly higher than Navy would like.
CNN meteorologist Chad Myers said six- to eight-foot swells were reported in the area through Wednesday night and were not expected to come down until Friday or Saturday.
The Mehdi Army cease-fire that has been credited with helping to reduce violence in Iraq since August could end soon, a spokesman for the radical cleric who heads the Shiite militia said Wednesday.
If Muqtada al-Sadr doesn't issue a statement by Saturday extending the cease-fire, the freeze will be over Sunday, said Sheikh Salah al-Obeidi, a spokesman for the cleric.
Speaking from Najaf, the Shiite holy city in southern Iraq, al-Obeidi said the message has been conveyed to Mehdi Army members across the war-ravaged nation.
Although the U.S. military has not had contact with al-Sadr, it is encouraging the cleric to continue the cease-fire, saying it would be "a productive and positive step" in rebuilding Iraq, said Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad.
News of al-Sadr's impending directive came as Smith expressed concern that Shiite militants from the Iranian-backed Special Groups had staged deadly attacks in Baghdad this week.
On August 28, al-Sadr called for a temporary suspension of Mehdi Army activity, including attacks on police and rival factions.
At the time, he said the six-month suspension would allow his militia to be restructured.
The cease-fire followed bloody battles between al-Sadr's militia and fighters from the Badr Organization, the armed wing of the rival Supreme Islamic Council of Iraq, headed by Abdul Aziz al-Hakim. More than 50 people were killed and scores were injured in the skirmishes in Karbala, Baghdad and Babil province.
(CNN) The commander of NATO forces in Kosovo said Wednesday he does not plan to step up security in the tense north despite violent attacks by Kosovo Serb which forced the temporary closure of two boundary crossings between Kosovo and Serbia.
United Nations officials described the violence as a "one-time incident" and said the situation Wednesday was calm.
Groups of Kosovo Serbs attacked the two boundary crossings Tuesday, setting fire to buildings and cars, UNMIK (United Nations Mission in Kosovo) officials said.
The crossings are along the administrative boundary line between Kosovo and Serbia.
The U.N. special representative to Kosovo, Joachim Ruecker, said the attacks were unacceptable.
Ruecker said the United Nations was talking with leaders in northern Kosovo to discuss the violence.
"Over the past 24 hours, the situation has been calm and quiet in Kosovo," UNMIK spokesman Alexander Ivanko said.
"Of course we have police patrols and KFOR is patrolling all over Kosovo, but we still expect the situation to continue to be normal.
A spokeswoman for KFOR, NATO's mission in Kosovo, said Kosovo's border with Serbia remained open except for the two crossing points attacked Tuesday.
Lt. Col. Valerie-Claire Bermond said the two crossing points were closed while KFOR rebuilt the installations destroyed in the attacks.
They were reopened Wednesday.
The husband of assassinated Benazir Bhutto has called for a government of national unity but failed to say how it would work with President Pervez Musharraf.
Asif Ali Zardari, co-chair of the Pakistan People's Party, made his comments as U.S. President Bush said he hoped the new Pakistan government would be "friends of the United States.
Zardari, Bhutto's widower, is also scheduled Thursday to meet Nawaz Sharif, whose own party came second in Monday's election.
PPP Senator Mian Raza Rabbani said coalition options would be discussed with Sharif but the PPP will not talk to Musharraf's parliamentary allies.
I think the democratic forces of the world will stand with Pakistan and democracy.
"The people of Pakistan have spoken and the parliament will be functional and every decision and every relationship will be according to the parliament and the democratic forces of Pakistan.
Although the parliamentary elections do not directly affect Musharraf, the poor showing of his allies is widely seen as dissatisfaction with his rule and has raised questions about whether he can stay on as president.
A U.S. official who is not authorized to speak for attribution said Wednesday the elections "cast doubt" on Musharraf's future, but said it was too early to know whether Musharraf will remain president.
The commission says the PPP People's Party led by Benazir Bhutto until her assassination in December has received 86 seats for the 342 seat National Assembly.
Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-N party has 66, and the PML-Q party, which backs Musharraf, received 40 seats.
A smattering of small parties won 80 seats, and 70 other seats 60 for women and 10 for minorities are to be assigned according to the percentages each party gained in the election.
David Pizarro and Alessandro Mancini were on target as AS Roma recovered to take a 2-1 lead over Real Madrid in their Champions League knockout round first leg clash on Tuesday.
Real captain Raul stunned the Stadio Olimpico with an early goal but the hosts held their nerve to hit back and they take a vital lead to Spain in two weeks time.
Brazilian winger Mancini crossed from the left and the ball eventually broke to Pizarro whose effort from the edge of the box deflected off the Gago and over Casillas into the net after 24 minutes. Totti had been largely quiet but on 58
minutes he sprang to life to create a goal for Mancini who rounded Casillas before squeezing the ball home from a tight angle.
With 10 minutes to play Real coach Bernd Schuster made a double change bringing Dutchman Royston Drenthe and Brazilian Julio Baptista on for Robben and Mahamadou Diarra.
TOKYO, Japan (CNN) The U.S. military imposed tight restrictions on all personnel in Okinawa Wednesday, limiting troops to bases, places of work or off-base housing, amid a furor over the arrest of a Marine on suspicion of rape.
The restriction, which tightens a midnight curfew for enlisted personnel on the southern Japanese island, started early Wednesday and was indefinite, the U.S. Forces Japan said in a statement.
The arrest last week of 38-year-old Staff Sgt. Tyrone Luther Hadnott in the alleged rape of a 14-year-old girl in Okinawa has sparked outrage in Japan, which is host to some 50,000 U.S. troops under a security treaty.
The Marine admitted to investigators that he forced the girl down and kissed her, but
The tensions have been compounded in recent days by allegations of additional less serious crimes by American troops.
Japanese leaders have deplored the behavior and accused the U.S. military of lax discipline.
The Japanese government lauded the move.
"The government welcomes the decision by the U.S. military to take strict measures," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
"Japan plans to have close consultations with the U.S. for appropriate prevention measures for a mid- and long-term to be taken by the U.S. side.
The new restrictions ban military personnel from leaving their bases except for official business, work, worship or travel to and from off-base housing.
"This period of reflection will allow commanders and all service members an opportunity to further review procedures and orders that govern the discipline and conduct of all U.S. service members serving in Okinawa," the military statement read.
U.S. Ambassador Thomas Schieffer traveled to Okinawa last week to express his sadness over the alleged rape.
SINGAPORE (CNN) Singapore Airlines said Tuesday an A380 superjumbo flight was canceled due to a fuel pump defect, the first major technical glitch to ground the world's largest passenger jet.
The carrier said the fuel pump problem was detected when the plane's engine was started ahead of departure Monday night on a flight from Singapore to Sydney.
"Airbus and our own engineers have dedicated teams to try to address these issues quickly, but last night's fuel pump defect took much longer to fix," Singapore Airlines said in an e-mailed statement to The Associated Press.
The airline said it had to switch to using a Boeing 747-400, which seats fewer people than the Airbus jet, because a replacement of the fuel pump failed to solve the problem.
The company's second A380 could not be used as it was undergoing maintenance.
Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain will win in Wisconsin, CNN projects.
The victory marks the ninth consecutive win for Obama over rival Hillary Clinton since a split-decision on Super Tuesday two weeks ago.
"The change we seek is still months and miles away," Obama said Tuesday night in Houston, Texas. "It is going to take more than big rallies.
It is going to require more than rousing speeches ... it is going to require something more because the problem that we face in America today is not the lack of good ideas.
It's that Washington has become a place where good ideas go to die," he said.
Obama and Clinton have turned their attention to Ohio and Texas, which hold contests on March 4. Early voting began in Texas on Tuesday.
In the Republican race, Wisconsin gives McCain at least 13 more delegates;
24 more delegates are to be awarded to the winner of each congressional district.
As Obama has emerged as the front-runner in the Democratic race, McCain has increasingly directed criticism toward him.
"I will fight every moment of every day in this campaign to make sure Americans are not deceived by an eloquent but empty call for change," McCain told supporters Tuesday night.
"Our purpose is to keep this blessed country free, safe, prosperous and proud," McCain said.
McCain is the presumptive nominee for his party, but he must pick up 1,191 delegates to seal the nomination.
CNN estimates McCain has gathered 894 delegates.
While the Arizona senator leads by a wide margin in the delegate count, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has said he intends to stay in the race.
"We see the last stand only when somebody has 1,191 delegates," Huckabee said Tuesday.
Southeast Asian countries told Myanmar barring pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi from elections because she once was married to a foreigner would be odd and not in keeping with the times.
However, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the region's main political and economic bloc, which includes Myanmar, is powerless to do anything, Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo said late Tuesday.
ASEAN ministers met, as a government panel in military-ruled Myanmar on Tuesday completed writing the draft of a new constitution.
Guidelines used to draft the new charter bar Nobel laureate Suu Kyi from national office because she was married to a foreigner her late British husband, Michael Aris and enjoyed the privileges of a foreign national.
Government critics have called the constitutional process undemocratic because it has been closely directed by the military with no input from independent parties.
Authorities have said the new charter would lead to a general election in 2010 and replace one scrapped when the current junta took power in 1988.
MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) Natalia Bessmertnova, a Soviet-era prima ballerina who danced with the Bolshoi Ballet for decades, died Tuesday, a spokeswoman for the ballet said.
Bessmertnova died at a Moscow hospital after suffering from a grave illness, Yekaterina Novikova said, but she would not specify the cause of death.
Russian media reported that Bessmertnova had kidney trouble.
Bessmertnova was a top dancer at the Bolshoi from 1961 until 1995, the year she and other performers staged a one-night strike after the ballet's longtime artistic director Yuri Grigorovich, her husband, quit during a dispute with management amid plans for his replacement.
Their refusal to perform "Romeo and Juliet" prompted the first cancellation in the ballet's history of more than two centuries.
In addition to Juliet, Bessmertnova also danced the leading female roles "Giselle," "Ivan the Terrible," "The Angara" and "The Golden Age.
Bolshoi director Anatoly Iksanov called Bessmertnova's death "a huge loss for the Bolshoi Theater and to our whole culture," the ITAR-Tass news agency said.
"The Bolshoi Theater mourns the death of the outstanding ballerina, one of the world's most celebrated Giselles," the theater said on its Web site.
Bessmertnova was born in Moscow to a doctor and a homemaker.
She showed an early interest in dance and soon displayed talent to match, joining the Bolshoi immediately after graduating from the theater's developmental school.
She was named a People's Artist of the U.S.S.R. in 1976 and was a laureate of the Soviet Union's Lenin Prize and State Prize.
She was a gold medalist at the prestigious Varna International Ballet Competition in 1965 and was awarded France's Pavlova Prize in 1970.
In recent years, Bessmertnova had worked with Grigorovich on projects such as the Benois de la Danse Prize, for which he served as chairman of the jury.
A funeral service, open to the public, will be held Friday at the Bolshoi, the theater said.
SEWARD, Alaska (CNN) There are thousands of glaciers in Alaska, and seeing some up close will surely be a highlight of any trip you might be planning to the 49th state this summer.
You can see glaciers from the deck of a ship, paddling in a canoe, by floatplane or helicopter, or by driving and hiking to a park.
Most Alaska cruises include a day at sea sailing past glaciers.
This is a regular part of your cruise, so you don't pay extra and you don't have to sign up for anything.
You'll likely see the glaciers calving where sections of them crack and float away or crumble into the sea.
"Anytime you have a glacier exiting into a lake or body of water, there is the prospect that it will calve," said Roman Motyka, an associate professor of geology and geophysics at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks.
"But as the climate has warmed, glaciers have melted and become thinner and more susceptible to calving.
There are numerous options for seeing glaciers by helicopter or small plane.
Typically you'll get a terrific view from the air and then land on the glacier.
Be prepared for sticker shock.
Booking on your own, glacier flightseeing tours with sled dog rides run nearly $450 (less if you skip the dog ride) through Alaska Flightseeing Tours of Juneau or Alpine Air Alaska in Girdwood or Godwin Glacier Dogsled Tours in Seward.
Flightseeing tours may be cancelled if the weather is bad.
In addition to Mendenhall in Juneau, there are several Alaska glaciers that are easy for tourists to drive and hike to, including Portage Glacier south of Anchorage, Matanuksa Glacier near the Glenn Highway two hours east of Anchorage, and Exit Glacier near Seward.
Last summer almost 400,000 people visited Mendenhall.
It's just 12 miles by car or cab from downtown Juneau.
A city bus drops you off a mile from the park visitor center, or take a shuttle or tour bus right into the park.
It's worth visiting a glacier like Mendenhall or Exit by land even if you're also going flightseeing.
BY CATAMARAN, CANOE AND OTHER SMALL VESSELS
Phillips Cruises and Tours offers a "26 Glaciers in One Day" tour ($139) aboard a high-speed catamaran from Whittier, 60 miles southeast of Anchorage, to see glaciers in Prince William Sound.
Alaska Railroad offers a canoe adventure ($185) to Spencer Glacier in Spencer Lake aboard a 10-passenger canoe.
The lake is a short train ride from Anchorage and you get to walk on the glacier.
From Juneau, you can approach Mendenhall Glacier by kayak or canoe through Alaska Travel Adventures.
The trips take between three and four hours, with two hours in the water;
(CNN) Angry Serbs torched checkpoints between Serbia and Kosovo and triggered explosions Tuesday to protest Kosovo's independence declaration and international recognition of the breakaway state.
Border crossings in northern Kosovo, staffed by U.N. and Kosovo's multiethnic police and customs service, were set on fire by Kosovo Serbs as a symbol of their desire to rejoin Serbia.
The U.S. and some European Union nations were among the first to recognize Kosovo's sovereignty, but other world powers including Russia and China have opposed the secession, warning of a return to conflict in the region.
U.S. President George W. Bush on Tuesday justified recognizing Kosovo as an independent nation, saying that doing so will bring peace to a region scarred by war.
History will prove this to be a correct move to bring peace to the Balkans," he told reporters in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania.
The declaration by Kosovo's government on Sunday sparked widespread celebration from its majority of ethnic Albanians, but its minority Serb population still generally wants to be part of Serbia.
In the northern Kosovo town of Mitrovica, divided between Serbs and ethnic Albanians, tensions have continued to mount.
The U.S. move to recognize Kosovo as an independent nation prompted Serbia to pull its ambassador to the United States and warn other countries that recognize Kosovo that diplomatic action would be taken.
Tours of duty for U.S. soldiers in Iraq may be cut from 15 months to 12 if current improvements in security hold up, the U.S. commander in Iraq said Tuesday.
Gen. David Petraeus said the move could be announced around the time of his next scheduled report to Congress on the progress of the war, in April.
"I think the Army will be able to make an announcement later this spring," Petraeus told CNN. "We have had discussions about that, and some time around the time of the testimony, I think that the Army can lay out tour lengths that will be back to what was normal.
Petraeus' comments came the same day that a survey of military officers was published saying the Iraq war has strained U.S. forces to the point where they could not fight another large-scale war.
The survey was published in Foreign Policy magazine and the Center for a New American Security.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates ordered Army deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan extended from a year to 15 months last April, a move aimed at keeping current force levels in the war zones for another year.
But Gen. George Casey, the chief of staff of the Army, told a congressional committee in September that the extended deployments "are not sustainable" and had left the service "out of balance.
Petraeus is expected to remain as the top U.S. officer in Iraq until President Bush leaves office in January 2009 almost a two-year tour in a still fragile country.
The United States is withdrawing five combat brigades dispatched last year to Iraq to pacify the Iraqi capital and its surrounding provinces.
In an exclusive interview at his Baghdad headquarters, Petraeus told CNN he will recommend halting further withdrawals after July but he insisted more troops will be coming home from the nearly 5-year-old war.
"It's about the pace and the tempo and size of those reductions over time.
(CNN) Police have recovered two of the four Impressionist paintings stolen earlier this month in a daring museum heist, police in Zurich, Switzerland said Tuesday.
The Monet and van Gogh oil paintings were in good condition, police said, and the search continued for the other two a Cezanne and a Degas.
It was not clear how long the car, an Opel Omega with stolen license plates, had been parked on the lot, police said.
"The two paintings, worth about 70 million francs($64 million), are in good condition and are still protected by the original glass covering," police said in a statement.
Three masked men stole the four paintings in what police called a "spectacular" heist Feb. 11 at the E.G. Buhrle Collection among the finest collections of Impressionist and post-Impressionist art in the world.
The paintings recovered Monday are Monet's "Poppies near Vetheuil" and van Gogh's "Blossoming Chestnut Branches."
Still missing are Degas' "Count Lepic and his Daughters" and Cezanne's "Boy in a Red Vest.
The four paintings are worth a total of about $163 million (180 million Swiss francs).
A reward of $91,000 (100,00 Swiss francs) has been posted for information leading to the return of the paintings, police said.
A Zurich police task force, which includes an art expert, had received tips from around the world, police said.
There was no single driver behind oil's sharp price jump;
investors seized on an explosion at a 67,000 barrel per day refinery in Texas, the falling dollar, the possibility that OPEC may cut production next month, and continuing tensions between the U.S. and Venezuela.
Gasoline and heating oil prices in the U.S. appeared to be leading the advance, rising faster in percentage terms than oil due to the explosion Monday at Alon USA's Big Spring, Texas, refinery, which could be shuttered for two months.
"The refinery fire in Texas is making people a little concerned," said Michael Lynch, president of Strategic Energy & Economic Research Inc. in Amherst, Mass.
It was the first time since January 3 that oil had been above $100.
WASHINGTON (CNN) The U.S. embargo on Cuba will remain in place despite Fidel Castro's announcement that he's resigning as Cuba's leader, Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte said Tuesday.
Asked whether Castro's resignation would change U.S. policy, Negroponte said, "I can't imagine that happening any time soon."
President Bush said the move should spark "a democratic transition" for the communist island nation.
"The international community should work with the Cuban people to begin to build institutions that are necessary for democracy and eventually this transition ought to lead to free and fair elections," Bush said at a news conference in Rwanda during his five-nation tour of Africa.
"The United States will help the people of Cuba realize the blessings of liberty."
Castro said he was stepping down Tuesday as president of Cuba and commander in chief of its military, according to a letter published in the country's state-run newspaper, Granma.
The United States and Cuba, which have no formal diplomatic relations, have been at odds for decades, but tensions between the two countries have increased in the past two years.
The Bush administration has tightened the four-decades-old U.S. embargo on the island, curtailed visits home by Cuban-Americans and limited the amount of money Cuban-Americans can send to relatives.
The United States also has been working on plans for a post-Castro Cuba.
A 2006 report by the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba laid out the framework for Washington's possible response in the event of Castro's incapacitation or death.
response could include tens of millions of dollars in humanitarian and economic aid but might also be dependent on a transitional government that's committed to democracy.
Castro transferred powers to his brother Ra&uacute; l after receiving treatment for intestinal problems in 2006.
l Castro is considered more pragmatic than his older brother but hasn't shown any inclination to invite the United States to launch a full-scale democratic push and overhaul of the country's institutions.
WASHINGTON (CNN) The Supreme Court refused Tuesday to offer help to Hurricane Katrina victims who want their insurance companies to pay for flood damage to their homes and businesses.
The justices rejected appeals from Xavier University and 68 other individuals and businesses seeking to allow their lawsuits against the insurers to go forward.
Xavier asked the court to step in after the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the policies did not cover damage from floods, even those that resulted from man-made failures such as the collapsed levees in New Orleans.
Other cases working their way through state courts have so far reached differing conclusions.
A Louisiana appeals court has said that language excluding water damage from some insurance policies was ambiguous.
The Louisiana Supreme Court will hear arguments in that case on February 26.
Xavier and the other plaintiffs had asked the federal court to allow the state Supreme Court to rule on their suits as well.
The 5th Circuit refused and the U.S. high court upheld that ruling on Tuesday.
Democratic rivals Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton offered up their solutions for fixing the subprime mortgage crisis as people in Wisconsin braved the single-digit weather to cast their votes.
The Democratic contenders, speaking in states that hold critical primaries March 4, were already looking ahead of the Democratic primary in Wisconsin the biggest of the three states up for grabs Tuesday.
Clinton told an audience in the Cleveland suburb of Parma, Ohio, that more needs to be done to aid cities. "I think we have to think more creatively. We can't just do the same things over and over again," the New York senator said.
In San Antonio, Texas, Obama said predatory lenders who are now in financial trouble spent millions lobbying Congress, and some contributed heavily to Bush's campaign.
He called the situation "an outrage.
"It didn't have to be this way. For some time we'd been warned that the problems in the housing market could spill into other corners of the economy," Obama said in his opening remarks.
"And yet rather than stop it from happening, George Bush's Washington was an enabler, caving in to lobbyists and letting our economy go down a dangerous road.
Clinton and Obama were running a tight race for the Democratic nomination, while on the Republican side, presumptive nominee Sen. John McCain was hoping voters could help him finally knock his last major rival out of the race.
McCain said he was guardedly optimistic about Tuesday's Wisconsin primary.
"I think I can appeal not only to our Republican base, but to independent voters," McCain told reporters after a rally in the Milwaukee suburb of Brookfield.
In addition to Wisconsin, Washington state and Hawaii were holding contests Tuesday.
Obama also was looking for a win in the Hawaii Democratic caucuses, the state where the Illinois senator was born and still has family.
Obama leads Clinton in the overall delegate count 1,263 to 1,212, according to CNN estimates.
The estimate includes the support of superdelegates, the party officials and elected officials who are free to vote for any candidate at the party's national convention.
The ruling party of Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf admitted defeat in parliamentary elections Tuesday, and one senior opposition leader said it was now time for the president to step down.
Nawaz Sharif, who was ousted from power in Musharraf's bloodless coup in 1999, was one of the winners from Monday's election.
His Pakistan Muslim League-N party was coming second having won 67 seats, with only a few results still to be confirmed.
Only the Pakistan People's Party of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated in the run-up to the elections, won more national assembly seat 92 so far.
The Musharraf-allied Pakistan Muslim League-Q had won 38 seats in preliminary results at 2 a.m. Wednesday (9 p.m. Tuesday).
He has closed his eyes. He has said before that he would go when the people want him to do so and now the people have given their verdict.
Sharif, like Bhutto, returned from exile late last year to compete in the elections.
The two big opposition parties if they form a coalition and get the support of smaller groups and independent candidates could gain the two-thirds majority in parliament needed to impeach Musharraf.
Thousands of ecstatic Pakistanis, waving placards and singing, took to the streets Tuesday as the results began trickling in.
"We concede and congratulate the people who have won the elections," Mushahid Syed Hussain, general secretary of the Pakistan Muslim League-Q, told CNN.
Shahar Peer became the first Israeli to compete in a WTA Tour event in the Gulf Arab region Monday, defeating Slovenia's Andreja Klepac 6-3 6-4 to reach the second round in the Qatar Open.
Peer and Klepac played before about 50 spectators. Despite the empty stands, Peer was pleased with the reception.
Peer was barred from playing in Doha for two years when she underwent military training.
The government prevented her from competing in countries that do not have diplomatic relations with Israel.
Peer visited shopping areas in Doha and ate at a Moroccan restaurant with tournament director Ayman Azmy.
She said she discussed the situation with Israeli and tour officials before deciding to compete in the tournament.
"Also, officials in Israel said there is no problem to play in Qatar. I have been provided proper security by the organizers, so I feel fine being here.
The six Gulf Arab countries, all U.S. allies, do not recognize Israel, but Qatar maintains low-level ties to the Jewish state.
(CNN) Fidel Castro announced his resignation as president of Cuba and commander-in-chief of Cuba's military on Tuesday, according to a letter published in the state-run newspaper, Granma.
Castro, 81, temporarily handed power to his younger brother Raul Castro in July 2006 after undergoing intestinal surgery.
In December 2007, a Cuban television news anchor read a letter reportedly written by Fidel Castro promising he would not "cling to office" or be an impediment to rising young leaders.
Castro reigned in Havana with an iron hand, defying a punishing U.S. economic embargo designed to dislodge him.
Castro received treatment for intestinal problems in 2006 and transferred many powers to his brother, Raul, who is generally seen as more pragmatic and has been less inclined to deliver the kind of long-winded speeches for which his brother is famous.
In Miami, Florida, the news came as no surprise to Janisset Rivero, the executive director of Cuban Democratic Directorate, a group that works with dissidents in Cuba.
(CNN) Former first lady Nancy Reagan was taken to a suburban Los Angeles hospital "as a precaution" Sunday after a fall at her home, an aide said.
The 86-year-old Reagan will remain overnight for observation at a hospital in Santa Monica, California, said Joanne Drake, chief of staff for the Reagan Foundation.
Her office said the former first lady was in good spirits.
"She is doing well and is visiting with friends in her room," Drake said in a written statement issued Sunday night.
Drake told The Associated Press that Reagan is staying in the same room where former President Ronald Reagan stayed after he broke his hip at home in 2001.
Reagan is the widow of former President Ronald Reagan, whose 1981-1989 administration is revered by the current Republican party.
WASHINGTON (CNN) Amtrak passengers will be subjected to random screening of their carry-on bags as part of a new security initiative that will include armed officers and bomb-sniffing dogs patrolling platforms and trains, an Amtrak spokeswoman said Monday.
Details of the new effort, which were first reported by The Associated Press, will be announced Tuesday, the spokeswoman, Tracey Connell, said.
Unlike airlines, Amtrak has had few visible changes to security since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, but in recent years trains have been the targets of terrorism.
In 2004, bombings of commuter trains in Madrid, Spain, killed 191 people.
A series of bombings in London in 2005, most of them on subway trains, killed 52 people.
And security experts have long pointed out the vulnerabilities associated with rail travel and the difficulty in securing trains.
Amtrak chief executive Alex Kummant told AP the new measures are not a response to a "new or different specific threat," but rather, he said, "just the correct step to take.
Amtrak plans to roll out the new "mobile security teams" on the Northeast Corridor between Washington and Boston.
The Transportation Security Administration, which already conducts sporadic deployments of security teams, called VIPR teams, to train stations around the country, welcomed the Amtrak initiative.
"Anytime security is enhanced, we are very supportive" TSA spokesman Christopher White said.
BEIJING, China (CNN)- An explosion at an illegal mine disguised as a wild boar farm killed 24 people, a Chinese government news agency reported Tuesday.
The explosion in Wu'an City in the northern Hebei Province happened on Sunday,
More than 30 people were initially trapped after the explosion, the agency reported. A rescue operation lasted until just after midnight on Tuesday, according to the news agency.
Five of the survivors were injured and were in stable condition at a hospital, Xinhua said.
The explosion happened at a tunnel whose entrance is located in a pigpen at the farm, the agency said. The cause was not immediately known.
China's mining industry is the most dangerous in the world, averaging 13 deaths a day from fires, explosions and floods.
The U.S. Navy will likely attempt to shoot down a faulty spy satellite Thursday, the day after the space shuttle Atlantis is scheduled to land, two officials told CNN Monday.
Because the 5,000-pound satellite malfunctioned immediately after launch in December 2006, it has a full tank of fuel.
The Navy plans to fire at the satellite as it enters Earth's atmosphere at an altitude of about 150 miles.
Officials want the missile to hit the edge of the atmosphere to ensure debris re-enters and burns up quickly.
The Missile Defense Agency estimated the cost of a sea-based attempted intercept at $40 million to $60 million.
Without any intervention, Pentagon officials have said they believe the satellite would come down on its own in early March.
The option of striking the satellite with a missile launched from an Aegis cruiser was decided upon by President Bush after consultation with several government and military officials and aerospace experts, said Deputy National Security Adviser James Jeffrey.
NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said there's nothing the military can do to make the outcome worse.
If we shoot and barely touch it, the satellite is just barely in orbit" and would still burn up somewhat in the atmosphere, Griffin said.
"If we shoot and get a direct hit, that's a clean kill and we're in good shape," he added.
A cyclone with sustained winds of 69 mph swept across Madagascar on Sunday, knocking out power in some areas and making damage assessment difficult. "No one has been able to get there yet.
CARE workers hoped to take a helicopter over the hardest-hit areas later Monday. Young said bad weather prevented an earlier flyover.
Young said information has trickled out about the storm, including one assessment from a man who rode out on a motorbike.
He told CARE officials that roads were impassable by car and that there was heavy damage.
Young said many people in the country of 19.4 million live in huts.
"The huts are not very strong," he said. "The houses are made of local materials.
WASHINGTON (CNN) A frog the size of a bowling ball, with heavy armor and teeth, lived among dinosaurs millions of years ago intimidating enough that scientists who unearthed its fossils dubbed the beast Beelzebufo, or Devil Toad.
Yet it seems to be a close relative of normal-sized frogs who today live half a world away in South America, challenging assumptions about ancient geography.
The discovery, led by paleontologist David Krause at New York's Stony Brook University, was published Monday by the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"This frog, if it has the same habits as its living relatives in South America, was quite voracious," Krause said. "It's even conceivable that it could have taken down some hatchling dinosaurs.
Krause began finding fragments of abnormally large frog bones in Madagascar, off the coast of Africa, in 1993.
They dated back to the late Cretaceous period, roughly 70 million years ago, in an area where Krause also was finding dinosaur and crocodile fossils.
But only recently did Krause's team assemble enough frog bones to piece together what the creature would have looked like, and weighed.
The largest living frog, the Goliath frog of West Africa, can reach 7 pounds.
But Krause teamed with fossil frog experts from University College London to determine that Beelzebufo isn't related to other African frogs.
It seems to be a relative of South American horned frogs, known scientifically as Ceratophrys.
Popular as pets, they're sometimes called pacman frogs for their huge mouths.
Like those modern frogs, Beelzebufo had a wide mouth and powerful jaws, plus teeth.
Skull bones were extremely thick, with ridges and grooves characteristic of some type of armor or protective shield.
The name comes from the Greek word for devil, Beelzebub, and Latin for toad, bufo (pronounced boo-foe).
BEIJING, China (CNN) China's inflation accelerated in January to 7.1 percent its highest rate in 12 years after devastating snowstorms worsened food shortages, setting back government efforts to cool rising prices, according to data reported Tuesday.
Economists are warning that inflation could rise further in coming months due to food shortages and high costs for coal and other industrial materials before easing later in the year.
January's sharp rise in consumer prices was driven by an 18.2 percent hike in food costs from the same period a year ago, the National Bureau of Statistics reported on its Web site.
The inflation surge could complicate government efforts to keep the fast-growing economy from overheating.
NEW DELHI, India (CNN) The brother of a man accused of being the mastermind in a kidney-transplant scheme has been arrested by India's elite police force.
India's Central Bureau of Investigation arrested Jeevan Rawat, who is being accused of assisting his brother Amit Kumar in a kidney-buying, -selling and -stealing scheme.
It follows Friday's arrest of a Delhi police officer on corruption charges in the case, along with six other officers who have been named but not arrested.
A Delhi police official said the officers are accused taking bribes from and turning a blind eye to the kidney-selling ring that spanned more than a decade.
Police arrested Inspector Ravinder Kumar Singh for allegedly accepting almost $50,000 dollars from the ring to release one of its doctors only days before a raid that unveiled the international kidney-selling racket.
Investigators said Upendra Kumar was the person freed after the officer was paid off.
Upendra was later captured and police said he confessed to being a close aid of Amit Kumar.
Kumar was on the run for two weeks before being captured in neighboring Nepal.
Upendra Kumar, Amit Kumar and Jeevan Rawat are accused of buying, coercing, or stealing kidney's from poor uneducated laborers in order to sell them to foreigners or wealthy Indians who wanted kidney transplants.
(CNN) If a shooter came into some of the biggest classrooms at the University of California-Berkeley, recent graduate Scott Alto wonders whether students would be able to protect themselves.
Alto said some of the big lecture room doors don't have locks and others open out to the hallway on the Berkeley campus, something he thinks leaves students on campus vulnerable to an attack.
"In some of these rooms at Berkeley, that just wouldn't be possible.
After the shooting at Northern Illinois University last week, students on campuses across the country are wondering whether they are safe.
Some students say they want the administration to install security features such as extra cameras and metal detectors.
Others are calling on them to fix broken blue emergency lights.
Some students, professors and campus police officers argue a person determined to kill cannot be stopped, but say they are doing everything they can to put a proper security system in place.
* Liann Casey of Miami, Florida, Florida International University
At my old school, University of Miami, they have "blue light" poles distributed all throughout the campus with emergency phones directly linked to the campus police.
They claim that the police will be there within minutes of your call.
At orientations and events, the campus police regularly set up a table to promote campus safety and gave away pens with emergency numbers on them. Help never seemed far away.
* Elizabeth Fitzgerald of Boulder, Colorado, University of Colorado-Boulder
The whole "blue light" system is a joke here.
Blue lights with buttons on them to dispense the authorities to the area are "strategically" planted around campus for students to utilize in an emergency. The locations are insane.
Most of the time they are in a place in which an attack would probably never happen because it is off a major campus road or by major dorms ... places where there are always people at all hours of the night.
In the legitimate "dark corners" of campus, you find a blue light once in a blue moon.
It's better than nothing ... but it's such a weak attempt at security.
* Joseph Riedel of Washington, American University I attend American University in Washington, D.C.
I generally feel pretty safe on our campus.
Our school has taken some pretty aggressive measures in recent years, such as installing emergency call boxes around campus, live monitoring surveillance cameras in parking lots, and frequent security checks around campus at night.
LONDON, England (CNN) The father of Princess Diana's boyfriend attacked the British Royal family Monday with a series of insults and accusations at the inquest looking into how the couple died.
Mohamed Al Fayed, father of Dodi, repeated his allegations of a massive cover-up involving the Royal family, paparazzi and for the first time Diana's sister. He has previously included British intelligence services in the alleged plot.
Al Fayed, who spent most of the day in the witness box, let out a torrent of allegations that members of the royal family were racist.
He has previously blamed Prince Philip for the deaths, insisting that the royal family couldn't bear the prospect of a Muslim marrying the princess.
"Diana suffered for 20 years from this Dracula family," Al Fayed said Monday.
Al Fayed, owner of London's famed Harrods department store, began his testimony by reading a statement saying Diana told him in July 1997, the month before the crash, that she feared for her life.
He said Diana told him her ex-husband Prince Charles, and the queen's husband Prince Philip, wanted to "get rid" of her.
For the first time Al Fayed implicated Diana's sister, Lady Sarah McCorquodale, in the alleged cover-up.
He said he spoke to her about the wooden box after the crash, but the fact that the contents were later stolen is evidence that she tried to conceal them, he said.
Al Fayed has previously said that Diana was pregnant with Dodi's child at the time of the crash, although British and French police investigations into the crash have discounted this.
At the inquest, Al Fayed testified that Diana and Dodi were engaged and planned an announcement the Monday after the crash.
Video provided to CNN shows an al Qaeda in Iraq firing squad executing one-time allies fellow Sunni extremists who were not loyal enough to the terror organization, coalition military analysts said.
In the video provided by coalition military officials, armed men wearing masks are shown standing behind nine kneeling men, all of whom are wearing blindfolds or hoods with their hands presumably tied behind their backs.
"Al Qaeda in Iraq, which is foreign led and foreign dominated here inside Iraq, is killing off other Sunni groups that are certainly not supportive of the government of Iraq, currently, or of the foreign occupation, but are not sharing the same ideology that al Qaeda in Iraq has," Rear Adm. Gregory Smith said.
The video was recovered late last year during a raid on a compound near Samarra that was being used for killing and torture, a coalition official said.
A number of documents some found in the same raid bolster the coalition notion that al Qaeda in Iraq is waging a violent campaign against its former allies, intelligence analysts said.
Samarra is the site of a February 2006 attack on al-Askariya Mosque, revered by Shiites.
The attack set off a wave of sectarian violence between Shiites and Sunnis, who were suspected of perpetrating the attack.
The northern Iraqi city lies in Salaheddin province, one of four provinces where coalition forces have beefed up operations against Sunni militants.
VILLIERS-LE-BEL, France (CNN) More than 1,000 police raided housing projects outside Paris early Monday, detaining over 30 people in a bid to find rioters who led an outburst of violence last year, police said.
Police raided Villiers-le-Bel and three neighboring towns as part of the investigation into November riots, police said.
Violence erupted in the town's housing projects, populated largely by families of immigrant background, after two teenage boys were killed in a motorbike crash with a police car.
Police and local officials said it was an accident but many residents were unconvinced.
Some of President Nicolas Sarkozy's rivals condemned the raids as a bid to look tough on security ahead of next month's municipal election, noting that the media was alerted in advance to the operation.
The action comes just after Sarkozy announced a sweeping plan to better integrate poor suburban youth and tackle the racism they often face in the job market.
Marie-Therese de Givry, prosecutor in the regional seat of Pontoise, said 33 people were arrested, raising the number from about 20 cited earlier by police.
Most of those detained had been known to police, mainly for previous violence, according to police.
Delinquents and drug traffickers may have been among those arrested.
Political rivals of the government criticized the magnitude of the raid and the advance alert for the media.
"When cameras accompany massive police operations in an (electoral) period, I think it's a way to influence opinion, to scare," said Segolene Royal, Sarkozy's former Socialist rival for the presidency, calling the raid a "spectacle.
Similarities between the words of Sen. Barack Obama and Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick have raised eyebrows and attracted traffic on YouTube.
A central passage in a speech Obama gave Saturday aimed at convincing voters that his campaign is not just about lofty rhetoric is adapted from one that Patrick used in his 2006 campaign, the Obama campaign said when asked about it.
The controversy is lost on the Massachusetts governor, who endorsed Obama.
Obama's campaign had Patrick call the New York Times over the weekend and issue a statement.
"Senator Obama and I are long-time friends and allies.
We often share ideas about politics, policy and language," Patrick said in the statement.
"The argument in question, on the value of words in the public square, is one about which he and I have spoken frequently before.
"They often riff off one another. They share a world view," Axelrod told the Times about Obama and Patrick. "Both of them are effective speakers whose words tend to get requoted and arguments tend to be embraced widely.
Responding to attacks from Democratic rival Sen. Hillary Clinton that he offers words while she offers action, Obama has been arguing that words matter.
Just words. 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.'
'We have nothing to fear but fear itself.' Just words, just speeches!
(CNN) The United States officially recognized Kosovo the Balkan province which split from Serbia on Sunday as an independent nation on Monday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in a written statement.
In response, Serbia ordered its ambassador to the United States to return home, the Serbian Embassy said.
Tadic asked the U.N. Security Council to annul the declaration of independence.
"I'm asking this question of you because if you cast a blind eye to this illegal act, who guarantees to you that parts of your countries will not declare independence in the same way?
European Union nations Monday were also starting to individually recognize Kosovo as the world's newest nation but had not agreed collectively on the way forward.
UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown said: "Britain will now formally recognize Kosovo as an independent sovereign state.
France said it would recognize Kosovo, and is in the process of confirming that in writing. Germany indicated its support would come.
But other EU nations including Greece, Spain and Romania have signaled that they would not follow suit amid concerns about the precedent that such a move would set.
Two pro-Russian separatist provinces in Georgia South Ossetia and Abkhazia were looking to use Kosovo's move to help them declare their own independence.
But the U.S. and EU say that Kosovo's move is not the precursor for a wave of declarations of independence.
President Bush has responded affirmatively to a request from Kosovo to establish diplomatic relations between our two countries.
"The unusual combination of factors found in the Kosovo situation including the context of Yugoslavia's breakup, the history of ethnic cleansing and crimes against civilians in Kosovo, and the extended period of U.N. administration are not found elsewhere and therefore make Kosovo a special case.
Kosovo cannot be seen as a precedent for any other situation in the world today.
Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois is a statistical dead heat in Texas, which holds primaries March 4.
In the survey, out Monday, 50 percent of likely Democratic primary voters support Clinton as their choice for the party's nominee, with 48 percent backing Obama.
But taking into account the poll's sampling error of plus or minus 4¨ö percentage points for Democratic respondents, the race is a virtual tie.
"One reason the race appears to be tight is that Texas Democrats are having a hard time choosing between two attractive options," says CNN polling director Keating Holland.
"Likely Democratic primary voters would be equally happy if either candidate won the nomination, and they don't see a lot of difference between them on several top issues.
"Roughly a quarter of likely voters say they could change their minds in the next two weeks and not surprisingly, those people are splitting roughly equally between Clinton and Obama.
Many political strategists and analysts consider Texas and Ohio which also holds a March 4 primary must-win states for Clinton.
Obama has won the past eight contests and is now ahead in the overall battle for delegates, 193 of which are at stake in Texas.
Results from Pakistan's first parliamentary elections in six years are trickling in after an election day held with relatively little violence and so far no overt signs of tampering.
In the first three counts to finish, the provincial assembly seat in Baluchistan went to the Pakistan People's Party the party of assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto while two independent candidates won seats from the northern tribal areas, said Chief Election Commissioner Qazi Muhammad Farooq.
Incomplete returns showed the PPP running strong in its traditional provincial strongholds of Sindh and Baluchistan, Pakistani television reported.
And the Pakistan Muslim League-N, led by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, was reported leading in the cities of Rawalpindi and Lahore.
Sharif was overthrown in the 1999 coup that brought President Pervez Musharraf to power; like Bhutto, he returned from exile late last year.
Another 47 parties fielded candidates in the race.
Election officials say final official returns were not expected for two more days.
Though voters are choosing a parliament, the ballot is also a referendum on Musharraf, whose political survival hangs in the balance.
Musharraf said Monday that "Whatever the result, we will accept it with grace.
If either of two main opposition parties win a two-thirds majority in parliament, they could take steps to impeach Musharraf. That also could happen if the opposition parties together capture two-thirds of the seats in parliament and then form a coalition.
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates (CNN) A license plate with nothing but the number "1" on it went for a record $14 million at a charity auction Saturday.
The oil-rich UAE began auctioning off vanity license plates last May.
Ordinary automobile license plates issued to drivers here and even most other vanity series plates carry both Arabic and Western numerals and script, defining the issuing city and country.
Proceeds from the auctions, which are held in a lavish hotel here, go to a rehabilitation center for victims of traffic accidents.
On Saturday, 90 license plates were auctioned off in all, raising a total of $24 million.
The previous five such events raised more than $50 million.
PRAGUE, Czech Republic (CNN) Czech President Vaclav Klaus has been narrowly re-elected to a five-year term, officials said Friday.
Klaus got the support of 141 deputies and senators in the third round of voting at a joint session of the upper and lower chamber of the Czech legislature.
His challenger, U.S.-based economist Jan Svejnar, finished second with 111 votes.
A third candidate, Jana Bobosikova, was nominated by the Communist Party but dropped out of the race shortly before the voting began, citing lack of support.
"I will be the president of all Czech citizens," Klaus said after his narrow victory.
Klaus got votes mainly from the ruling Civic Democratic Party and its coalition partner, the Christian Democrats.
(CNN) Emergency crews have rescued 26 Chinese crew members whose boat began taking on water off the northern Philippines Sunday night, the state-run Chinese news agency reported.
The crew members were rescued after their Panamanian-registered cargo ship started to sink, the Xinhua news agency reported Monday.
A passing Japanese vessel picked up the crew members, but the ship's captain and a technician remained aboard to try to rescue goods, the news agency said.
Their fate is unknown, the news agency said.
The Philippine Coast Guard told CNN that the boat sunk around 5 p.m. Sunday (0900 GMT).
HOUSTON, Texas (CNN) Military plans to shoot down a damaged U.S. spy satellite carrying toxic fuel will not concern the crew aboard the international space station, commander Peggy Whitson said Saturday.
The military hopes to smash the satellite as soon as next week just before it enters Earth's atmosphere with a missile fired from a Navy cruiser in the northern Pacific Ocean.
It was unclear how close the satellite will be to the space station when it is shot down.
Whitson, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and French astronaut Leopold Eyharts will still be in orbit 215 miles above Earth when the satellite is targeted.
The satellite will be about 150 miles up when the shot is fired.
"So, no, we're not worried about it," Whitson said in a news conference with the 10-person shuttle-station crew.
Atlantis and its seven astronauts will be safely back on Earth before the Pentagon takes aim.
Left alone, the satellite would be expected to hit Earth during the first week of March.
Military and administration officials said the satellite is carrying fuel called hydrazine that could injure or even kill people who are near it when it hits the ground.
It lost power and its central computer failed almost immediately afterward, leaving it uncontrollable.
BEVERLY HILLS, California (CNN) The end of the Hollywood writers strike means the Oscar show will be the usual star-studded, fashion-filled extravaganza, organizers promised.
"The strike, the bad news, is past us," Sid Ganis, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, said Thursday.
Forest Whitaker, Helen Mirren, Jennifer Hudson, Miley Cyrus, George Clooney and Nicole Kidman will be among the presenters.
Others include Denzel Washington, Martin Scorsese, Cate Blanchett, Cameron Diaz, Harrison Ford and Tom Hanks.
Had the three-month writers strike not ended Tuesday, the Academy still would have put on a "B" show.
Ganis said some elements of the "B" show also were likely to work their way into the telecast.
(CNN) A slaughterhouse that has been accused of mistreating cows agreed Sunday to recall 143 million pounds of beef in what federal officials called the largest beef recall in U.S. history.
Keith Williams, a U.S. Department of Agriculture spokesman, said investigators have found no cases of illness related to the recalled meat.
But Dick Raymond, the undersecretary of agriculture for food safety, said there was a "remote probability" that the meat from the Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Company in Chino, California, could cause illness in humans.
It surpasses a 1999 ban of 35 million pounds processed meat, The Associated Press reported.
Raymond said cattle that had lost the ability to walk since passing pre-processing inspections were slaughtered without an inspector having examined them for chronic illness a practice he said violated federal regulations and had been going on for at least two years.
"We do not know how much of this product is out there at this time. We do not feel this product presents a health risk of any significance," he said.
About 37 million pounds of the meat went to school lunch programs and other federal nutrition programs since October 2006, said Ron Vogel, of the USDA's Food and Nutrition Service.
In January, the Humane Society of the United States accused Hallmark/Westland of abusing "downed" cattle, releasing video that showed workers kicking cows, jabbing them near their eyes, ramming them with a forklift and shooting high-intensity water up their noses in an effort to force them to their feet for slaughter.
Federal inspectors halted operations at the plant earlier this month after finding "clear violations" of USDA regulations.
California prosecutors on Friday announced animal cruelty charges against two former employees of the plant.
A penny saved is not necessarily just a penny earned.
One man's collection of rare American cents has turned into a $10.7 million auction windfall.
The collection of 301 cents featured some of the rarest and earliest examples of the American penny.
It included a cent that was minted for two weeks in 1793 but was abandoned because Congress thought Lady Liberty looked frightened.
The coins came from the collection of Burbank resident Walter J. Husak, the owner of an aerospace-part manufacturing company.
Justine Henin won her first title in her own country when she lifted the Diamond Games trophy in Antwerp on Sunday. The top seed was too good for Italian challenger Karin Knapp, winning the final 6-3 6-3 in 90 minutes.
Henin, beaten in the Australian Open quarterfinals a month ago by Maria Sharapova had little difficulty against the number 47 Italian playing in her first final.
Henin broke twice for a 5-2 lead in the first set but dropped serve in the eighth game as Knapp kept the contest alive, 3-5.
Henin took the opener after 40 minutes on her third opportunity as Knapp put an approach into the net.
In the second set, Henin broke for 4-2 and closed out victory on her first match point.
It was the 41st title of Henin's which includes seven grand slam trophies.
The Belgian's two previous appearances in Antwerp ended with defeat in the 2002 final and 2003 semifinal.
The British government announced Sunday it is moving to nationalize on a temporary basis the struggling mortgage lender Northern Rock.
The government had insisted it preferred a commercial solution to nationalization.
Describing the plan as being in the interests of the British taxpayer, Darling said legislation would be put before Parliament Monday to move the bank into state hands.
Darling confirmed that Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group and Northern Rock's own board had prepared commercial bids to buy the bank, but said the government's advisers at the investment bank Goldman Sachs had concluded "the numbers did not stack up and the better deal was temporary public ownership.
Northern Rock, Britain's fifth-largest mortgage lender, has dogged Brown and his government since last September, when rumors of its financial difficulties led retail depositors to line up to withdraw their money in Britain's first run on a bank since Victorian times.
Since then, $52 billion guaranteed by the government with public money has been pumped into the bank to keep it afloat.
A suicide bomb exploded in a crowd of people gathering to watch dog fighting, killing at least 80 people and wounding dozens more in the western section of Kandahar, Afghanistan Sunday morning, according to Afghan officials
Kandahar provincial Governor Assadullah Khalid put the death toll at 80, while another government official said the number wounded was around 50.
Wire reports say Hakim Jan, an ex-police chief of the province who in the past opposed the Taliban, died in the blast.
The sport, banned under the Taliban, is one of few forms of public entertainment in Afghanistan. The matches also invite discreet gambling on the dogs.
Kandahar, Afghanistan's second-largest city and a former stronghold of the Taliban, has been scene of some of NATO's heaviest fighting since 2001
With the Democratic presidential race tied to a complex delegate system, the Clinton and Obama camps went after each other Sunday over "superdelegates.
Superdelegates delegates to the National Democratic Convention are not selected based on the party primaries and caucuses in each U.S. state, but rather based solely on their status as current or former elected officeholders and party officials.
They are free to choose the candidate they like.
"'Superdelegates' doesn't mean that they should leap over the will of the people in a single bound," joked Sen. Barack Obama's chief political strategist David Axelrod on CBS' "Face the Nation.
But Sen. Hillary Clinton's communications director Howard Wolfson told CBS that those approximately 800 delegates "are supposed to vote their conscience.
And Lanny Davis, a former White House special counsel supporting Clinton, told CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer" that Obama "very ironically wants to change the rules of the game in the middle of the game.
Obama leads in the overall delegate count and among pledged delegates, who are assigned based on primaries and caucuses.
Clinton has more superdelegates supporting her, and the overall count is close.
Neither is expected to have enough pledged delegates to win the nomination before the party's convention in August.
Upcoming contests this week in Wisconsin, Washington state and Hawaii are expected to favor Obama, but the campaigns are looking to March 4, when delegate-rich Texas and Ohio hold their contests.
Clinton is aiming for those critical victories that could help her recover in both the delegate count and the fight for political momentum.
Clinton is also hoping for a win in Pennsylvania in April.
Pakistani Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud paid out more than $7,000, including money to purchase suicide jackets, for the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the chief Pakistani investigator said Sunday.
Four suspects in custody said Mehsud also planned the December 27 attack, Chaudhry Abdul Majeed told reporters.
A day after Bhutto's death, Pakistan's government announced that Mehsud was behind the attack.
The CIA later reached the same conclusion.
But two recent nationwide polls in Pakistan found a majority of Pakistanis believe President Pervez Musharraf's government had a role in her killing.
Two of the suspects told a judge on Wednesday that they provided the suicide bomber with a house, transportation, a pistol and the suicide jacket he allegedly used in the attack that killed the opposition leader and nearly two dozen others, Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema said.
Both were at the Rawalpindi park when Bhutto was assassinated, according to Majeed.
He said the bomber was motivated to carry out the attack because his friend was killed after Pakistani security forces stormed the Red Mosque in Islamabad last year to rout Islamic extremists holed
FIFA President Sepp Blatter has condemned the Premier League's plans to play matches overseas and even hinted it could harm England's bid for the 2018 World Cup. "This will never happen.
At least this will not happen as long as I am the president of FIFA," said Blatter, who remains president until 2011.
"Those that are richer than the others, they have more responsibility and what the Premier League is trying to do is contrary to this responsibility.
Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore announced last week that its clubs supported a plan to stage a 39th round of games in five countries starting in the 2010-11 season.
Blatter believes the FIFA executive committee will oppose it.
"This does not take into consideration the fans of the clubs and it gives the impression that they just want to go on tour to make some money," he said.
The FIFA president's criticism follows strong opposition from UEFA counterpart Michel Platini and Asian federation chief Mohamed bin Hammam.
Sen. Barack Obama Friday knocked Sen. Hillary Clinton for taking lobbyists' money and said she was too much a part of "business-as-usual in Washington" to bring about reform.
The Illinois Democrat's comments come after Clinton Thursday questioned his record of standing up to special interests.
"The problem we have is not a lack of good ideas," Obama said in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Friday. "It's that Washington today is a place where good ideas go to die.
Clinton has sharpened her attacks on Obama in recent days, possibly in response to the do-or-die situation she is facing over the next couple of weeks.
"There's a big difference between us speeches versus solutions, talk versus action.
Speeches don't put food on the table. Speeches don't fill up your tank or fill your prescription or do anything about that stack of bills that keeps you up at night," she said during a campaign stop Thursday in Youngstown, Ohio.
Obama received significant boost to his campaign Friday when he received the backing of the 1.9 million-member Service Employees International Union.
"We have an enormous amount of respect for Sen. Clinton, but it's now become clear members and leaders want to become part of an effort to elect Barack Obama the next president," union president Andy Stern said during a conference call announcing the union's endorsement.
Obama also received the endorsement of the 1.3-million member United Food and Commercial Workers Union Thursday afternoon.
Northern Illinois University on Friday identified the man who fatally shot five people in a classroom as Steven P. Kazmierczak, whom police described as an award-winning student "revered" by colleagues and faculty.
Concealing a shotgun in a guitar case, and tucking three other guns under his coat, Kazmierczak walked into a geology class in an NIU lecture hall Thursday afternoon and began firing, police said.
The graduate student stopped to reload his shotgun before he took his own life, police said.
Kazmierczak was a student about 175 miles away at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, police said, and there "were no red flags" warning of any violent behavior.
One of Kazmierczak's advisers said that she enjoyed having him as a student and that he was "a nice person; he was a nice kid.
"I found Steven to be a very committed student, extremely respectful of me as an instructor and adviser," said Jan Carter-Black, an assistant professor in the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's School of Social Work.
Carter-Black and Chris Larrison another School of Social Work associate professor who knew Kazmierczak described the gunman as pleasant, considerate and flexible.
"I was so surprised to see this today," Larrison said.
Kazmierczak worked on a research project concerning mental health clinics under him, he said.
"It doesn't fit with the Steven" he knew, Larrison said.
American basketball is planning to create up to five new European franchises who would compete for the NBA Championship, according to a report by Sports Illustrated.
The astonishing claims come hard on the heels of plans by the football's English Premier League to play matches overseas and underline the growing trend of globalization in major sports leagues.
This was further evidenced by Super Bowl champions New York Giants playing a regular NFL season game against the Miami Dolphins at Wembley Stadium in London, but the NBA's leaked plans go far beyond that.
The plans are understood to include the formation of a European division with five new teams in major markets.
The teams would play a full 82-game schedule and compete for the NBA championship.
It is not the first time that Stern has entertained the concept of overseas expansion.
He broached the idea in 2003, saying at the time that the league would look into European expansion within a decade.
The number of European and overseas players has steadily increased in the NBA and basketball enjoys a particularly high profile in Spain, France, Italy, Greece and the Balkans.
The NBA has played regular-season games in Japan and Mexico, and played exhibition contests this season in London and Rome.
LONDON, England (CNN) Former Georgian opposition leader and billionaire businessman Badri Patarkatsishvili died of natural causes, British police said Thursday.
His sudden death and a police statement that the case was "suspicious" led to speculation that Patarkatsishvili was murdered, even though his spokesman said the cause of death was heart failure.
Patarkatsishvili was accused of plotting a coup last year against Georgia's pro-Western President Mikheil Saakashvili and organizing widespread anti-government demonstrations which led the president to call early elections.
The voting took place last month, and Saakashvili was re-elected.
"Following initial inquiries and the post mortem carried out last night, Surrey Police can confirm that at this stage there is no indication that the sudden death of Badri Patarkatsishvili was from anything other than natural causes," a police statement said.
Inquests are standard in Britain whenever a person dies suddenly.
TOKYO, Japan (CNN) Japan's central bank kept interest rates unchanged Friday amid growing worries about a global slowdown.
The unanimous decision, which came at the end of a two-day Bank of Japan policy board meeting, had been widely expected.
The market is awaiting for signs about the future direction for monetary policy from comments by outgoing Bank of Japan Governor Toshihiko Fukui expected later in the day.
Much of last year, the question had been on when the BOJ would raise rates.
But the global economic turmoil set off by the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis has scotched that view.
ATHENS, Greece (CNN) A strong earthquake and an almost equally strong aftershock struck southern Greece just after midday Thursday, U.S. and Greek experts said.
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) reported on its Web site that the initial 6.7 magnitude quake was centered about 140 miles (230 km) southwest of the capital, Athens, and was located about 12 miles offshore.
The Athens Geodynamic Institute said an aftershock measuring 6.4 on the Richter scale which is no longer used by the USGS rumbled through the same region soon afterward.
The USGS also measured the aftershock at 6.4 magnitude and said it took place about two hours after the initial quake.
The aftershock was centered 45 miles southwest of Kalamata and 150 miles southwest of Athens, the USGS reported.
Experts and civil authorities had warned residents to get out of buildings and remain outside until the forecasted aftershock hit.
There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage from either the earthquake or the aftershock, according to Greek media, which said the quake could be felt as far south as the island of Crete.
The earthquake hit the country's Methoni region the site of heightened seismic activity in recent months.
Due to its fault lines, Greece is one of the most quake-prone countries in the European Union.
The last major earthquake there was in 1999 and left about 100 people dead.
Chad's president declared a nationwide state of emergency Thursday, telling citizens that tightened controls are needed to restore order after recent rebel attacks.
In a speech broadcast on national radio and television, President Idriss Deby said he signed a decree increasing the government's powers for 15 days, beginning Friday, as provided for in Chad's constitution.
Deby said the decree instituted "measures important and urgent to maintain order, guarantee stability and assure the good functioning of the state.
Forces loyal to Deby battled rebels February 2-3 in and around the capital of this former French colony in Central Africa.
The measure empowers regional governors to control the movement of people and vehicles, bans most meetings, allows the government to control what is published in the press, and imposes a curfew from midnight to 6 a.m.
After the 15-day period, the national assembly decides whether to allow an extension of the state of emergency. Earlier Thursday, French
officials said the rebels were hovering around the town of Goz Beida, in a region where European Union peacekeepers are to deploy over the next three months to protect refugees from Sudan's troubled Darfur region.
Amid a discussion of trade in 1973, Chinese leader Mao Zedong made what Secretary of State Henry Kissinger called a novel proposition: sending tens of thousands, even 10 million, Chinese women to the United States.
he asked. "We can give you 10 million.
After Kissinger noted Mao was "improving his offer," the chairman said, "We have too many women.
" "It is such a novel proposition," Kissinger replied in his discussion with Mao in Beijing.
BANGKOK, Thailand (CNN) The Karen National Union secretary-general was shot and killed Thursday in what the ethnic rebel group is calling an assassination by the Myanmar junta, a KNU official told CNN.
Two gunmen attacked Man Sha at his home in Mae Sot, a town on the Myanmar-Thailand border, the official said.
He described Man Sha as one of the most important people in the rebel group, which he said has received numerous warnings that Myanmar's military leaders planned to target and kill KNU leaders.
KNU is a major rebel group that operates in the border area that is trying to establish autonomy for the Karen ethnic minority.
The government of Myanmar, also known as Burma, blames the KNU for waging attacks to destabilize the military junta that has run the country for two decades.
WASHINGTON (CNN) The U.S. military may try within days to shoot down a failed satellite using a missile launched from a Navy ship, officials announced Thursday.
Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at the Pentagon that the window to accomplish the mission could begin in three to four days.
While much space trash and debris have safely crashed to Earth after burning up in the atmosphere on re-entry, authorities said what makes this 5,000-pound satellite different is the approximately 1,000 pounds of frozen toxic hydrazine propellant it carries.
Without any intervention, officials believe the satellite would come down on its own in early March.
If it came down in one piece, nearly half the spacecraft would survive re-entry and the hydrazine heated to a gas could spread a toxic cloud roughly the size of two football fields, Cartwright said.
Hydrazine is similar to chlorine or ammonia in that it affects the lungs and breathing tissue, the general said.
The option of striking the satellite with a missile launched from an Aegis cruiser was decided upon by President Bush after consultation with several government and military officials and aerospace experts, said Deputy National Security Adviser James Jeffrey.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson both acknowledged problems in the U.S. economy Thursday, but both said they believe the nation will avoid falling into recession.
The two made their comments at a hearing before the Senate Banking Committee about the economy. Their testimony comes in the wake of troubling economic readings that have raised recession fears on Wall Street.
But while Paulson and Bernanke repeatedly insisted they expect the economy to avoid shifting into reverse - thanks in part to a series of interest rate cuts by the Fed and a $170 billion economic stimulus package signed by President Bush Wednesday - they conceded the economy faces additional headwinds.
Bernanke and Paulson both said the outlook for the economy is noticeably worse than it was as recently as a few months ago, and both expect cuts in official growth forecasts from the administration and the Fed in upcoming months.
The Fed is currently predicting 1.8% growth for this year, but Bernanke said a new forecast would be finalized next week.
The Council of Economic Advisors' most recent estimate was for the economy to grow by 2.7% in 2008.
Bernanke said he believes major banks and Wall Street firms are likely to take additional earnings hits tied to bad investments in subprime mortgages.
That could lead to tighter lending standards and contribute to an overall slowdown.
"More expensive and less available credit seems likely to continue to be a source of restraint on economic growth," Bernanke said.
But he added he's not worried about bank failures because he thinks banks entered the current downturn with sufficient capital and have been able to raise additional funds.
(CNN) For some, Valentine's Day can be heavenly. For others, it's just plain hell.
Four years ago, she and her live-in boyfriend the guy she thought she would marry were having a pre-Valentine's Day brunch when Sullivan leaned over and whispered a few sweet nothings in his ear.
" says Sullivan, 32, who works in marketing.
But can you give me until summer to make a final decision '
Home alone on February 14 in the apartment they shared, she decided to snoop through her ex-boyfriend's e-mail and discovered he'd had contact with several other women while they were together.
Sullivan isn't alone in dreading Valentine's Day.
Thanks to super-sized expectations and over-the-top commercialization, February 14 has gone from a sentimental aside to a pressure-filled gauntlet lined with chocolate boxes, tennis bracelets and cheesy stuffed bears.
"The holiday's designed to make you feel (bad)," says Judy McGuire, author of "How Not to Date."
That way, anything that happens is good.
Most women will admit they like to celebrate, but a fancy night on the town isn't necessary.
"Sometimes, hanging out at home can be a lot more fun than going out to some restaurant filled with couples," says author McGuire.
Russian President Vladimir Putin offered biting criticism Thursday of what he called European "double standards" and stood by his country's long-standing objection to Kosovo's plan to declare independence.
Putin addressed a myriad of reporters' questions 100 in all at the annual presidential news conference, his final one before his term ends.
He described his two terms as president as "gifts from the Russian people and from God" and said he would stand by the country's basic law "that this term is the final term. "
Putin used his last news conference with more than 1,300 journalists and lasting almost five hours to highlight differences between Russia and the West.
At the request of Serbia a close ally of Russia the United Nations Security Council held a private debate on the matter on Thursday.
Both the EU and the United States fully back independence for Kosovo, a province of Serbia that has been under U.N. control since shortly after NATO warplanes forced out Serbian forces in 1999.
But Putin ridiculed the organization's name and said perhaps it should concentrate on "teaching their wives to make borscht" rather than teaching countries how to run their elections.
He said Russia has "fully implemented" all of its commitments with its European partners, including the OSCE.
His remark was met with laughter.
NAIROBI, Kenya (CNN) Kenyan negotiators trying to end the violent ethnic tensions that erupted after the disputed presidential elections last year have reached some sort of a political agreement and will continue talking next week, a spokesman for the mediators said.
But a government spokeswoman specified the agreement is not a substantive one.
Nasser Ega-Musa told CNN on Thursday that Kofi Annan, the former U.N. secretary-general who was asked to help settle the dispute, will outline the agreement at a news conference Friday in Kenya.
Ega-Musa, spokesman for the panel of eminent African personalities on the national dialogue of reconciliation chaired by Annan, said Annan will release the text of the agreement that was signed by both parties. "The talks will resume on Monday morning," Ega-Musa said.
Chief government negotiator Martha Karua, asked about the negotiations at the Nairobi airport, said, "All I can say is that the talks are progressing" and that a substantive agreement has not been hammered out.
Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is being sent to Kenya in the coming few days to support efforts to end violence there.
President Bush announced the mission in Washington on Thursday.
Kenyan opposition party spokesman Salim Lone said that Rice's trip to Kenya is a "very positive step.
Earlier this week, both sides in the disputed December 27 presidential election in Kenya agreed not to pursue a recount or audit of the votes.
Both sides have agreed on the creation of an independent committee to investigate irregularities in the election and suggest reforms.
The head of Hezbollah threatened "open war" against Israel as mourners gathered in Beirut Thursday for the funeral of a senior commander in the Islamic militant group organization killed this week.
In a separate rally in the Lebanese capital, supporters of the former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri gathered to mark the third anniversary of his assassination in a massive car bomb attack.
Officials estimated hundreds of thousands of people were taking part in the two rallies with around 10,000 police and security force members working through pouring rain to keep the peace between the rival crowds.
Addressing supporters in a pre-recorded message delivered via a giant video screen, Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah accused Israel of being behind a blast in the Syrian capital, Damascus, which killed militant commander Imad Mughniyeh on Wednesday.
Israel has flatly denied involvement in Mughniyeh's death
"You have crossed the borders," Nasrallah said, accusing Israel of extending the simmering conflict between Israel and Hezbollah beyond the Lebanese frontier.
"With this murder, its timing, location and method Zionists, if you want this kind of open war, let the whole world listen: Let this war be open.
Israel's military chief Thursday ordered his forces to "take the necessary steps" to protect the country's border with Lebanon.
Hezbollah militants are active in Lebanon, and have pounded northern Israel with Katyusha rockets in the past, sparking a war with Israel in the summer of 2006.
(CNN) A person shot 18 people Thursday at Northern Illinois University's DeKalb campus outside Chicago, then fatally shot himself, the school said, citing police.
Many victims were shot in the head, said Theresa Comitas, spokeswoman for Kishwaukee Community Hospital, about 10 minutes from the school.
At least three victims are in critical condition, eight are in stable condition and six are in good condition, a hospital official tells CNN.
One of the wounded was transferred by helicopter to Rockford Hospital, she said. There were no fatalities at the hospital, she said.
A law enforcement official being briefed on the situation told CNN that the shooter used at least one shotgun.
Kevin Mcenery said he witnessed the shooting.
"Close to 30 shots were fired."
"He was wearing a black shirt, dark pants, black hat.
He started with a shotgun, then turned to a pistol.
Friday classes also are canceled at the school's DeKalb campus.
The 113-year-old school is 65 miles west of downtown Chicago and has an enrollment of more than 25,000.
A spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives told CNN that some of its agents were already on the scene to assist.
Sen. Hillary Clinton on Thursday sharpened her attacks on Democratic rival Sen. Barack Obama as she faces what even her supporters admit are must-win situations in Texas and Ohio in the weeks ahead.
At a campaign stop at a General Motors Corp. plant in Youngstown, Ohio, the senator from New York accused Obama of caving in to special interests.
"Well, he told people he stood up to the nuclear industry and passed a bill against them. But he actually let the nuclear industry water down his bill the bill never actually passed."
Clinton was referring to a 2006 bill that Obama drafted after an Illinois nuclear power plant was found to have released radiation into surrounding groundwater.
Obama's original bill would have required power plants to notify the public and government officials when any radiation was released, but subsequent versions had less stringent reporting requirements, The New York Times reported.
The bill was never voted on by the full Senate.
Clinton also accused Obama of supporting "billions of dollars of breaks for the oil industry" by voting for an energy bill she opposed and said he did not support the workers of a Maytag Corp. plant that closed in his home state of Illinois.
Reacting to Clinton's charges, Obama spokesman Bill Burton said his candidate "doesn't need any lectures on special interests from the candidate who's taken more money from Washington lobbyists than any Republican running for president.
"Sen. Clinton may have said that attacks and distortions are the 'fun' and 'exciting' part of the campaign, but they're exactly what everyone else in America is tired of," Burton said.
The New Zealand Olympic Committee denied attempting to prevent athletes from commenting on political issues at the Beijing Games.
"This is an affront to free speech which is guaranteed by New Zealand's Bill of Rights and our Olympic officials are not entitled to take that right away," lawmaker Keith Locke said.
Athletes would be free to comment on the regime in China if they wished to do so, spokesperson Ashley Abbott said.
"If one of our athletes were asked their feelings on an important issue it would be absolutely their prerogative to answer as they see fit," Abbott told National Radio.
"At this stage we're really comfortable with our athletes' agreement, and the athletes are also," she said, adding Locke's claims were "incorrect and out of context.
Locke said New Zealand and Belgium were the only nations attempting to curb political comment by athletes.
"Our Olympic officials should not be imitating the Chinese regime by muzzling Kiwi athletes who might be disturbed by some of what they see in China," Locke said.
The White House on Wednesday issued an order expanding sanctions against Syria, saying the nation's leaders have engaged in a pattern of violating human rights in their own country and harmed the peace and stability of other nations in the region, including Iraq.
In the executive order, President Bush accuses Syria of actions "including, but not limited to, undermining efforts with respect to the stabilization of Iraq.
The order expands similar sanctions imposed in 2004.
No officials are named in the order.
"The United States will continue to stand with the people of Syria and the region as they seek to exercise their rights peacefully and to build a brighter future," said a statement released by the White House.
The 2004 ordered banned U.S. exports to Syria, except for food and medicine, allowed the U.S. Treasury Department to seize the property of Syrians involved in terrorism and banned flights between the United States and Syria.
The White House statement also says Syria "continues to undermine Lebanon's sovereignty and democracy, imprison democracy activists, curtail human rights, and sponsor and harbor terrorists."
PORT CANAVERAL, Florida (CNN) It's been 10 years since Disney started its cruises with the Disney Magic ship, followed in 1999 by Disney Wonder.
Two more Disney ships will launch in 2011 and 2012.
That, along with the appeal of the Disney brand, has ensured the cruise line's success.
Christine Koubek, who reviewed the Wonder for the Web site CruiseCritic.com, said that "what Disney Cruise Line does best is prove that 'elegant' and 'family friendly' don't have to be mutually exclusive.
Disney is a great choice for families that want excellent supervised children's programs as well as activities they can enjoy together.
For adults, Disney ships offer nightclubs, classes, fitness centers, an adult-only restaurant called Palo, and wine, beer and martini tastings.
For families with young children, Disney's nurseries, Flounder's Reef, take infants as young as 12 weeks old and toddlers up to 3.
Some cruise lines keep parents on call to change diapers, but the Flounder's Reef staff takes care of that for you.
Disney's Magic and Wonder also have pools with separation filtration systems that allow diapered toddlers to swim.
And each stateroom has a bathroom with a bathtub also relatively uncommon on non-luxury cruise ships.
There are also scheduled opportunities onboard to meet characters like Mickey and Cinderella, and to attend character breakfasts like the ones that are so popular in Disney parks.
On Disney Magic, teenagers hang out at the Stack, a teen-only lounge area with a dance floor, Internet cafe, big-screen plasma TV and video games.
The ships also offer full-fledged musicals in onboard theaters.
This year, a new musical of "Toy Story" will premiere on the Wonder.
Disney Cruise spokesman Jason Lasecki says the company plans to keep the show exclusively for its cruise passengers.
More than 92 percent of the Writers Guild of America members who cast ballots Tuesday in Los Angeles and New York voted to end their work stoppage over residuals for writing in the digital age, including new media and the Internet. The new deal is for three years.
WGA members walked off the job November 5 after talks broke down over how writers are paid for the use of their material on the Internet and DVDs, among other issues.
The vote meant that the Academy Awards ceremony on February 24 will be the usual scripted gala, the AP reported.
It's unclear how soon new episodes of scripted programs will start appearing, because production won't begin until scripts are completed, the AP reported.
It will take at least four weeks for producers to get the first post-strike episodes of comedies back on the air; dramas will take six to eight weeks, the AP said.
Verrone said the WGA achieved two of three goals through negotiations with the studios.
The first goal relates to writers' "jurisdiction" in new media, Verrone said, meaning that any content written by guild members specifically for new media, such as the Internet or cell phones, will be covered by their contract.
The second goal relates to reuse of content in new media, Verrone said. The agreement bases payment for reuses on a distributor's gross formula for residuals, "so that when they get paid, we get paid," he said.
The third goal, which Verrone said the guild did not achieve, was to shore up writers' shares of the revenue from animation and reality television.
(CNN) Space, the final frontier, is about to add an Asian flavor.
Kimchi, South Korea's popular pickle dish, has been approved for an historic space mission later this year, according to news reports.
The food will blast off along with South Korea's first astronaut after being approved by Russian space authorities, the Yonhap news agency reported.
The approved menu includes fresh and cooked kimchi, spicy chili paste, rice, bean paste soup, instant noodles, sweet cinnamon punch, ginseng teas and a mixed grain and vegetable bar, Yonhap reported, quoting the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI).
The approved foods were developed after two years of research by KARI and the Korea Food Research Institute, Yonhap said.
Presently, only U.S.- and Russian-made meals are served in the International Space Station.
Ko San, a 30-year-old computer science engineer, will be South Korea's first astronaut to travel into space on a Russian-made rocket on April 8.
He is expected to spend more than a week at the space station, Yonhap said.
Roger Clemens said Wednesday he received only vitamin shots from Brian McNamee, but the ex-trainer insisted before a House panel that every injection contained steroids or other performance enhancers.
Clemens sat mere feet from his chief accuser as the two men, both under oath, offered lawmakers starkly conflicting accounts about the injections McNamee administered years ago.
The committee's chairman, Rep. Henry Waxman, said, "Someone isn't telling the truth.
"If Mr. McNamee is lying, then he has acted inexcusably and he has made Mr. Clemens an innocent victim," Waxman said . "If Mr. Clemens isn't telling the truth, then he has acted shamefully and he has smeared Mr. McNamee. I don't think there is anything in between."
Clemens told reporters afterward that he was "very thankful and very grateful" for the chance to answer the allegations.
In a nearly direct exchange with McNamee, Clemens told the House panel that McNamee injected him with vitamin B-12 on three occasions, but never with steroids or other illegal substances.
McNamee who served as Clemens' trainer until 2007 countered that he injected Clemens with only testosterone, the steroid Winstrol or human growth hormone.
Clemens' testimony to the panel examining performance-enhancing drug use in America's pastime also failed to jibe with an affidavit provided by fellow New York Yankees ace Andy Pettitte, who has told the committee that in 1999 or 2000 Clemens "told me he had taken HGH.
Saying Pettitte was and will remain a close friend, Clemens said he believes Pettitte made a mistake.
UNITED NATIONS (CNN) The situation for children caught in conflict remains "grave and entirely unacceptable" because 58 groups in 13 countries still recruit and use child soldiers, according to a senior U.N. official.
Undersecretary-General Radhika Coomaraswamy told the U.N. Security Council this week that in addition to being pressed into service, children in several countries are also killed, maimed, abducted and raped and denied access to humanitarian groups.
She cited a recent report from Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to the Security Council on Children and Armed Conflict that named 58 groups in 13 countries "responsible for the recruitment and use of child soldiers.
The 13 countries where groups that recruit child soldiers operate are Afghanistan, Burundi, Central African Republic, Congo, Myanmar, Nepal, Somalia, Sudan, Chad, Colombia, Philippines, Sri Lanka and Uganda, according to the report.
Coomaraswamy noted that 16 "persistent violators" have been on a list of groups that perpetrate these crimes for five years and urged the Security Council to "make good on its promise" to take concrete and targeted measures against these offenders.
In 2005, the council passed a resolution establishing a group to monitor and report on countries and groups using child soldiers.
Coomaraswamy, the top U.N. envoy on children and armed conflict, said the monitoring has produced results, but that more needed to be done.
Legal action has been taken against recruiters of child soldiers in Congo and there have been several convictions in Sierra Leone, she said.
Ivory Coast has been taken off the list of offenders altogether because of actions it has taken, including the release to UNICEF of about 3,000 child fighters.
"In spite of the impressive progress, I regret to report that the overall situation of children affected by conflict remains grave and entirely unacceptable," Coomaraswamy said.
She urged the Security Council, charged with investigating the use of child soldiers, to expand its focus
A Hezbollah commander suspected in some of the deadliest terrorist attacks of the last 25 years and a reputed role model for Osama bin Laden has been killed in Syria, Hezbollah TV said Wednesday.
Imad Mughniyeh died in an explosion in a residential section of the Syrian capital, Damascus, said Hezbollah's television station, Al-Manar.
Hezbollah blamed Israel for the killing, but Israeli officials denied involvement.
"Israel rejects the attempt by terrorist elements to ascribe to it any involvement whatsoever in this incident," Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in a statement.
The FBI said it was awaiting official confirmation of Mughniyeh's death and the details.
the ongoing fight against terrorism as one major terrorist will no longer be around to commit additional acts of terror against Americans and others in the world," FBI Special Agent Richard Kolko said.
U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack called Mughniyeh "a cold-blooded killer, a mass murderer and a terrorist who was responsible for [ending] countless lives.
"The world is a better place" without the Hezbollah commander, McCormack said.
Western intelligence agencies long suspected Mughniyeh in the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, that killed 63 people.
He also is suspected in the truck bombing that year of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, an attack that killed 241 people and preceded the U.S. military withdrawal from Lebanon.
LONDON, England (CNN) London police said Wednesday they had carried out one of Britain's largest simultaneous drug raids, using more than 500 officers to target suspects at more than 30 addresses in a massive pre-dawn operation.
Officers from London's Metropolitan Police arrested 22 people on suspicion of drug trafficking and money laundering, a police statement said.
The operation took seven weeks to plan, police said.
As helicopters hovered overhead, 520 officers raided the addresses, which are scattered across the capital.
At one address, officers had to use an earth mover to gain entry, police said.
"It was believed the network (was) converting drugs money into 500 Euro notes to launder vast cash profits believed to (be) up to 3 million pounds ($6 million) a week," the police statement said.
Police said the suspects arrested Wednesday are believed to be the top-tier and key players involved in the movement and distribution of cocaine and cannabis throughout the UK.
They are believed to have "substantial" connections in Europe, using those contacts to traffic drugs into Britain, police said.
Zimbabwe's main opposition group Wednesday said they will participate in presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled for March.
But the Movement for Democratic Change ruled out running with Simba Makoni a former member of Robert Mugabe's government who has announced his own plans to run for president.
MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai said Wednesday from Johannesburg: "We intend to (take part) with the full confidence of the support of the people of Zimbabwe.
Tsvangirai rejected any possibility of teaming up former Finance Minister Makoni, who recently announced his bid to unseat Mugabe and was promptly booted out of the ruling ZANU-PF party.
"Mr. Simba Makoni is just as guilty as part of the ZANU-PF elite which has destroyed our country," Tsvangirai said. "He as an individual may have some residue of respect, but they are guilty by omission and by commission over the last 30 years.
Makoni's campaign marks the first public challenge to Mugabe's grip on power from within his own party.
It is unclear if he can get that support after being expelled from the party.
Mugabe, who turns 84 next week, has been Zimbabwe's only ruler since it achieved independence from Britain 28 years ago.
Under Mugabe's rule, once-prosperous Zimbabwe has suffered an economic crisis, with routine shortages of food, electricity and foreign currency.
The most recent estimate of the nation's inflation rate said it exceeds 24,000 percent, but economists say it is much higher.
DILI, East Timor (CNN) The rebels jumped from two cars, firing machine guns as they stormed the compound of President Jose Ramos-Horta.
"Traitor!
Traitor!
" they shouted, hunting for the Nobel Peace Prize winner.
In one of the most detailed accounts yet of Monday's assassination attempt, a guard described how he killed fugitive rebel commander Alfredo Reinado before the president returned from an early morning walk on the beach.
"I shouted Alfredo's name and then opened fire at his head with my machine gun because he was wearing a bulletproof vest," the guard told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because he is prohibited from talking to the media about the attack.
"I fired many times, I don't know how many times," said the guard, who was back on duty Tuesday in his uniform.
then shot the president in the chest and stomach.
Along with a separate strike against the prime minister an hour later, the events plunged East Timor into fresh crisis just six years after it voted to break free from decades of brutal Indonesian rule.
Doctors on Wednesday said Ramos-Horta who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his nonviolent campaign against the 24-year occupation was stable and recovering well from gunshot wounds, but remained in "extremely serious" condition at an Australian hospital.
Parliament extended a 48-hour state of emergency by 10 days until February 23 due to concerns about more unrest.
Funerals for the rebels will be held Thursday and plans were under way to issue arrest warrants for 18 suspects in the shootings.
Al Qaeda has begun an online propaganda campaign, targeting German-speaking Muslims with increasing amounts of terror-related content, German security officials have told CNN.
German State Secretary of the Interior August Hanning has said he is worried that the authorities "will not be able to thwart all terror plots in the future.
Jihadist videos obtained by CNN, and narrated and subtitled in German, call on German-speaking Muslims to join the "Holy War" against what they call an "American led coalition against Islam that Germany and Austria are a part of."
CNN has also seen excerpts of what German intelligence officials say is a 16-hour long, professionally produced bomb-making tutorial.
While the video is narrated in Arabic, German officials say it is so well produced that even non-Arabic speakers can understand it.
The tutorial instructs viewers in the production of various forms of homemade explosives;
German officials say these bombs, if produced according to the instructions, would work and could be potentially devastating.
Last summer three men were arrested in Germany for allegedly plotting bomb attacks against Americans resident in the country.
Two of the men were German converts to Islam and one was a Turk living in Germany.
The German Interior Ministry has said since that it is worried al Qaeda might be preparing to make attacks in Germany, although it does not want to create panic and believes there is no evidence of an imminent outrage.
Germany has so far escaped the type of large-scale al Qaeda terror attack that has hit other parts of Europe such as Madrid in 2004 and London in 2005.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) Two suspects arrested last week confessed to a Pakistani judge Wednesday that they helped arm the suicide bomber blamed for assassinating Benazir Bhutto, an Interior Ministry spokesman told CNN.
The two men identified as Hasnain Gul and Rafaqat were part of a five-man team behind the former prime minister's assassination, including the suicide bomber, a senior police investigator told CNN.
Both were at the Rawalpindi park where Bhutto was assassinated on December 27 as she left a political campaign rally, said investigator Chaudhry Abdul Majeed.
The other two suspects one of them named Karamullah are still at large, he said.
The two suspects told the judge in Wednesday's court appearance that they provided the suicide bomber with a house, transportation, a pistol, and the suicide jacket he allegedly used in the attack that killed the opposition leader and nearly two dozen others, Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema said.
They identified the bomber by two aliases, Saeed and Bilal, according to Majeed.
Cheema said the bomber apparently was unable to get through security to attend Bhutto's rally, so he carried out the attack as she left the Rawalpindi park.
Pakistani and British investigators concluded that Bhutto died when the force of the suicide blast caused her to slam her head onto an escape hatch on her SUV.
The two suspects were arrested last Thursday in Rawalpindi, the headquarters of Pakistan's military leadership outside Islamabad, where Bhutto was killed, Cheema said.
Police are still holding Aitzaz Shah, 15, and Sher Zaman, who were detained last month in Dera Ismail Khan in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province.
Pakistani officials have been vague on Shah and Zaman's links to Bhutto's killing, and have said they have not been named as official suspects.
Pakistan's government has concluded Bhutto's assassination was orchestrated by Baitullah Mesud, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban who has ties to al Qaeda a conclusion the CIA supports.
Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama, moving into front-runner status following a week of eight straight wins, is facing a new rival, exchanging fire with John McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee.
In what could be a preview of the general election, the two exchanged jabs over Iraq and the economy, sure to be key issues in November.
McCain criticized the Democrats for speaking in "platitudes" about Iraq.
Look at the record ... not the rhetoric, not the platitudes, but the principles and the philosophy," he said.
McCain later took aim directly at Obama for lacking specifics.
"But there is going to be time when we have to get into specifics, and I have heard not every speech he has given obviously, but they are singularly lacking in specifics, and that's when as the campaign moves forward, we will be portraying very stark differences."
Those comments are among McCain's most pointed attack at Obama to date, a clear sign the Republican nominee apparent is increasingly viewing the Illinois senator as the Democratic front-runner.
With a sweep in the Potomac primaries on Tuesday, Obama moved into the lead in the race for Democratic delegates on the strength of eight straight primary and caucus wins.
Obama returned fire while campaigning in Wisconsin on Wednesday, saying, "It's clear he knows who his opponent's going to be, and I'm looking forward to a great debate on the issues with John McCain."
Obama criticized McCain's stance on the war and said, "We can't keep on spending money that we don't have on a war that should have never been fought and should have never been authorized.
He also took aim at McCain's economic philosophy, saying, "George Bush may not be on the ballot this fall, but his tax cut and his economic policies are,"
"If you want the same as we've had in the last seven years, then I think John McCain's going to be a great choice," Obama said. "But if you think we need something new ... then I hope that you will stand with me and vote for me.
Tuesday's victories means that Obama for the first time has a lead over Clinton in the delegate count 1,253 to 1,211, according to CNN estimates.
Andy Murray made a winning start at the Marseille Open as he returned to action for the first time since his opening round defeat to eventual finalist Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the Australian Open on January 14.
Murray beat Jesse Huta Galung of the Netherlands 6-4 6-4.
Murray decided to miss Britain's Davis Cup tie away to Argentina last week, citing an injury, but he was widely criticized, even by brother Jamie.
Once he had taken the set Murray looked much more assured and will next play either France's Sebastien Grosjean or Stanislas Wawrinka of Switzerland.
Romanian Andrei Pavel quit his match against Frenchman Julien Benneteau after suffering a recurrence of back trouble that surfaced in last weekend's Davis Cup tie with France.
(CNN) Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi on Wednesday dissolved parliament to pave the way for new elections.
The country's king, Sultan Mizan Zainal Abidin, approved the decision, Abdullah told reporters in a televised news conference to announce his decision.
Election authorities plan to meet Thursday to set a date for new elections, which could be held in early March, said Baradan Kuppusamy, a journalist who has covered numerous Malaysian elections.
Abdullah's term as prime minister was to expire in June 2009, and Parliament would have been dissolved and new elections held then, had Abdullah not acted, Kuppusamy said.
Concerns have been simmering over rising food and fuel prices that many analysts expect to worsen next year, Kuppusamy added.
Malaysian prime ministers traditionally have sought the dissolution of parliament several months before the end of their term in hopes their party would prevail in fresh elections, Kuppusamy said.
Abdullah's coalition party, the National Front, was expected to choose him to continue as prime minister if it captures a majority of seats in the next elections, Kuppusamy said.
The parliament was the 11th for the southeast Asian country, a constitutional monarchy, since its independence in 1957.
The Children's Commissioner for England, who oversees children's rights, has called for a ban on the ultra-sonic gadget, known as "The Mosquito," which disperses young people by emitting sharp, piercing sounds.
The device causes discomfort to younger ears by exploiting their ability to hear very high frequencies a power which declines once they reach their 20s.
But human rights groups say the machine infringes civil rights and creates a divide between young and old.
"I have spoken to many children and young people from all over England who have been deeply affected by ultra-sonic teenage deterrents.
Aynsley-Green said about 3,500 of the devices are in use across England to split up gatherings of youth in areas such as parks and shops.
"These devices are indiscriminate and target all children and young people, including babies, regardless of whether they are behaving or misbehaving," he added.
Youth leaders backed the campaign, adding that The Mosquito fails to address the root problems of anti-social behavior among youths and may even push teenagers to congregate in unsafe areas.
The company says The Mosquito has proved popular with shop keepers who buy it to move along gatherings of teenagers and anti-social youths.
Railway companies have also placed the device to discourage youths from spraying graffiti on trains and station walls, Compound Security said.
Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama will claim victory in all three contests in the Potomac primaries, CNN projects.
Residents cast votes Tuesday in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia.
Obama had a substantial lead over Hillary Clinton in Virginia, and McCain was ahead of Mike Huckabee by about 9 points, according to CNN projections.
"The change we seek swept through Chesapeake and over the Potomac," Obama told supporters. Tuesday night.
In the District of Columbia, Obama was leading Clinton 76-24 percent, and McCain was leading Huckabee 67-17 percent, with about 90 percent of precincts reporting.
McCain is leading Huckabee 812 to 217 in total delegates, according to CNN estimates.
A GOP candidate needs 1,191 delegates to secure the nomination.
McCain saluted Huckabee after the results came in but turned his campaign toward the general election, saying he would offer "a better understanding of the challenges we face" than either of the Democratic front-runners.
"We know where either of their candidates will lead this country, and we dare not let them," he said, without mentioning the Democratic candidates by name.
Obama's wins give him more delegates than Clinton.
According to CNN calculations, Obama has 1,195 delegates to Clinton's 1,178.
Superdelegates, a group of almost 800 Democratic Party officials and leaders, are not required to make their votes public and are free to change their minds.
Clinton turned her attention to Texas, which holds its primary on March 4.
(CNN) A Swedish appeals court has fined a kennel owner $3,100 (20,000 kronor) for refusing to sell a puppy to a woman because she is a lesbian, the state news agency said.
The 51-year-old kennel owner told the woman she did not trust homosexuals and had read that transvestites sexually abused animals, according to the TT news agency.
The news agency reported that the woman contacted the kennel, located in a suburb of the capital city Stockholm, inquiring about a puppy advertised for sale.
The woman told the kennel owner she and her partner would have plenty of time to care for the dog since both were students.
But when she let slip she was a lesbian, the kennel owner who is also a woman put an end to the sale.
The court's decision on Monday upheld an earlier ruling by a district court against the kennel owner.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=3039184
MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) Averting what could have been another gas crisis across Europe, Russia and Ukraine have fixed a price on natural gas for 2008 while Kiev has promised to pay its 2007 gas debts.
The last-minute deal mirrored a similar situation in 2006, when Russia briefly cut off gas supplies to Ukraine over pricing differences.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine President Viktor Yushchenko announced on Tuesday they had reached agreement on the gas issue at a news conference in Moscow following their talks.
The Russian natural gas company, Gazprom, had threatened to stop supplying gas to Ukraine on Monday, then extended the deadline until Tuesday evening while talks continued.
The two leaders said several other issues between the countries had been resolved, as well.
Yushchenko said Ukraine will pay its gas arrears of 2007 and will be a stable transit supplier to Western Europe.
A final agreement will be signed in the next few days and payment for gas already used will begin shortly, Putin said.
After the gas cut-off in 2006, EU leaders called for solutions that would allow the union to avoid being a victim of disputes between Russia and other former Soviet republics.
France's new first lady said in an interview published Tuesday that despite her whirlwind romance with President Nicolas Sarkozy, she expects the marriage to last a lifetime.
Carla Bruni, a model-turned-singer, told the newsweekly L'Express that her first meeting with Sarkozy was love at first sight.
The Italian-born Bruni and Sarkozy tied the knot February 2 at the presidential Elysee Palace.
"I didn't hesitate," after meeting him, Bruni said in her first interview since becoming first lady.
The discretion surrounding the quiet exchange of vows at the Elysee Palace contrasted with the couple's public romance, which caught the world's attention.
It was the first marriage for Bruni, 40, and the third for the 53-year-old Sarkozy.
He married Bruni less than four months after his divorce from Cecilia Sarkozy.
Bruni has a short answer for those who thought the marriage came too fast: "Wrong.
"Between Nicolas and me, it wasn't quick, it was immediate," L'Express quoted her as saying.
Bruni has never made a secret of her relationships with the rich and famous, from Donald Trump to Mick Jagger. But she suggested that Sarkozy was different from the others.
Bruni said she does not like the idea of divorce and said she would be a no-nonsense first lady of France.
"I don't yet know what I might do as first lady, but I know how I will do it: seriously," she said.
LONDON, England (CNN) Princess Diana's brother-in-law denied Tuesday during the British inquest into her death that he was in Paris directing a plot to kill her in 1997.
Robert Fellowes, who is married to Diana's sister Jane and was formerly private secretary to Queen Elizabeth II, testified at the coroner's inquest that he was in Norfolk in eastern England on the August night that Diana and her boyfriend Dodi Fayed were in a fatal car crash in Paris.
The British inquest into the August 31, 1997 deaths began October 2 after a decade of British and French police investigations and French court proceedings.
Fayed's father, Mohamed Al Fayed, has claimed that Fellowes now Lord Fellowes had commandeered a communications post at the British Embassy in Paris on the night to send messages to an intelligence agency as part of a murder plot.
He also revealed that the palace, after consulting the government, decided not to initiate an investigation of the interception of embarrassing telephone calls involving Diana and her former husband, Prince Charles.
Roberto Devorik , a friend of Diana, has testified that she thought Fellowes hated her.
"I'm sad if she felt that," Lord Fellowes said.
"Clearly the events of the 1990s made our relationship more complicated," he said, adding:
"I was very fond of her then as I always had been and sad that she had not had a happier and more stable time in those troubled years.
The company that makes the ubiquitous, addictive BlackBerry smart phones said Tuesday it was still looking into what caused the second widespread service disruption in less than a year.
RIM said no messages were lost, and voice and text messaging services were unaffected.
"It is too early to determine root cause at this time, but RIM does have a team addressing this issue in order to define the problem and prevent it in the future," the company said in a statement.
The BlackBerry service, which lets users check e-mail and access other data, has become a lifeline for many business executives and is increasingly popular among consumers with smart phones like the BlackBerry Pearl.
Gold, who worked most of Monday on a laptop while traveling, plans to ask his company to buy him a backup smart phone from a rival like Palm Inc., which makes the Treo, in case BlackBerry service goes on the blink again.
RIM has 12 million subscribers worldwide and has deals with scores of wireless carriers to offer the BlackBerry service around the world.
LA PAZ, Bolivia (CNN) President Evo Morales declared a national disaster Tuesday after weeks of heavy storms resulted in widespread flooding blamed for scores of deaths, particularly in northeastern Bolivia.
In addition to 60 deaths, the heavy rain that began last November has left more than 43,000 people homeless, according to official figures. Five people are reported missing.
Dozens of families have been evacuated from hills around the El Beni region's capital city of Trinidad, where they have taken refuge.
Inside Trinidad, the only scarce water was potable water.
The rainfall during this year's rainy season may exceed last year's total by 50-100 centimeters, according to studies in this area of the Amazon basin.
"There's nowhere to go," said Kenia Alvarez, who is also homeless in Beni. "The water is rising more.
International aid was visible, with helicopters from Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela ferrying in supplies.
Danish authorities said Tuesday they have arrested three people who allegedly were plotting a "terror-related assassination" of a cartoonist whose drawing of the Prophet Mohammed sparked rage in the Muslim world two years ago.
The Danish Security and Intelligence Service said police arrested a 40-year-old Dane of Moroccan origin and two Tunisians.
The operation took place in the Aarhus area of western Denmark at 4:30 a.m. local time following lengthy surveillance, the intelligence service said.
The target of the plot, the intelligence service said, was the cartoonist for the Danish newspaper Morgenavisen Jullands-Posten, which first published the controversial drawings in September 2005. The paper identified the cartoonist as Kurt Westergaard.
"Not wanting to take any undue risks (the intelligence service) has decided to intervene at a very early stage in order to interrupt the planning and the actual assassination," the statement by Jakob Scharf, the agency's director general, said.
"Thus, this morning's operation must first and foremost be seen as a preventive measure where the aim has been to stop a crime from being committed.
Demonstrations erupted across the world in early 2006 after other newspapers reprinted the images months later as a matter of free speech. Some turned deadly.
WASHINGTON (CNN) Terrorists increasingly favor using women as suicide bombers to thwart security and draw attention to their causes, a new FBI-Department of Homeland Security assessment concludes.
The assessment said the agencies "have no specific, credible intelligence indicating that terrorist organizations intend to utilize female suicide bombers against targets in the homeland. "
But it points out that women have been reported as attackers in the Russian breakaway republic of Chechnya and in India, Iraq, Pakistan, the Palestinian territories, Sri Lanka and Turkey.
The notice was distributed Monday to law enforcement officials throughout the United States, and CNN obtained a copy of it.
Officials want to make sure security officers are alert to the possibility of female bombers and to familiarize themselves with behavior patterns that such attackers have used in the past.
"Even as military and security forces are paying more attention to the use of female operatives, terrorists are adapting their suicide attack tactics to compensate for enhanced security measures," the advisory said.
The assessment highlighted the February 1 bombings in Baghdad in which two women, who appeared to have Down syndrome, attacked two pet markets.
The attacks forced FBI and DHS officials to rethink a belief that those responsible for such incidents had the mental discipline "to accomplish the operation. "
The two agencies also echo what experts have said before that "female suicide bombers may have an advantage over their male counterparts in accessing targets."
For example, the assessment points out women can hide explosives in prosthetic devices that mimic the look of pregnancy.
The Australian government apologized Wednesday for years of "mistreatment" that inflicted "profound grief, suffering and loss" on the country's Aboriginal people.
New Prime Minister Kevin Rudd read the apology Wednesday to Aborigines and the "Stolen Generations" of children who were taken from their families.
"To the mothers and fathers, to the brothers and sisters we say sorry. And for the indignity and degradation on a proud people and a proud culture we say sorry.
For 60 years, until 1970, the Australian government took mixed-race Aboriginal children from their families and put them in dormitories or industrial schools, claiming it was protecting them.
As a result of the policy, "stolen" children lost contact with their families and heritage, received poor education, lived in harsh conditions, and often endured abuse.
He said that the apology was the start of a new approach towards Aborigines which included helping them find their lost families, closing pay gaps and a 17-year difference in life expectancy between Aborigines and white Australians.
He said new policies would be introduced to provide better healthcare and education to Aborigines.
"The mood of the nation is for reconciliation now," Rudd said.
(CNN) Fighting in the volatile Sudanese region of Darfur has sparked a another wave of refugees into Chad and left a Red Cross employee dead, according to international agencies.
The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said on Monday that more than 12,000 people have fled militia attacks over the last few days from Sudan's Darfur region to neighboring Chad, still recovering from a recent attempt by rebels there to topple the government.
"All the new refugees we talked to said they did not want to go back to Darfur at this point, they wanted to be transferred to a refugee camp in eastern Chad.
This latest influx of refugees in Chad aggravates an already deteriorating security situation across this politically unstable region of Africa.
Before the latest flight into Chad, the UNHCR and its partner groups "were taking care of 240,000 Sudanese refugees in 12 camps in eastern Chad and some 50,000 from Central African Republic in the south of the country."
The International Committee of the Red Cross said on Monday that one of its employees was killed in western Darfur last week during fighting.
The victim is a 45-year-old Sudanese national and father of six children.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon last week deplored the acts, urged all parties to stop hostilities, and said "all parties must adhere to international humanitarian law, which prohibits military attacks against civilians.
Sen. Barack Obama will win the Virginia Democratic primary, CNN projects based on exit polls. The polls closed at 7 p.m. ET, and the Republican race between Sen. John McCain and Mike Huckabee remains competitive.
Obama also finished ahead of Sen. Hillary Clinton in all five of the Democratic contests last weekend.
Residents in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia were voting Tuesday.
Polls in Maryland and the District of Columbia close at 8 p.m.
At stake in the primaries are 168 Democratic delegates and 113 total GOP delegates.
Virginia election officials also predicted a higher than normal turnout of 30 to 40 percent for the state's primaries.
High turnout was reported in the northern part of the state and in Richmond and Charlottesville, according to Virginia Board of Elections spokeswoman Susan Pollard.
There were reports of 45-minute lines in counties around Richmond, she said.
Mark Coakley, the general register for Henrico County said the turnout in his Richmond-area county was record breaking.
"It's our first ever-dual primary so regardless it would be record breaking," he said.
At an Alexandria, Virginia, polling station, election officials said they were seeing a steady turnout.
We started out with over 20 people at the gate when we opened up the doors at 6 a.m.," election official Chris Tatem said.
Argentina and Chile will host the 2009 edition of the Dakar Rally, which was canceled this year because of fears of terrorism in Africa.
Organizers said Monday the race will start in Buenos Aires on January 2 and finish in the Argentine capital 16 days later.
The full route will be announced Tuesday in Argentina by Patrice Clerc, who runs the company that organizes the rally.
The threat of terrorist attacks pushed the element of risk to levels organizers deemed unacceptable.
The race, once known as the Paris-Dakar, was canceled following warnings from the French government about safety after the al-Qaida-linked December 24 slaying of a family of French tourists in Mauritania.
WASHINGTON (CNN) Amir Khan says he becomes frustrated and humiliated every time he enters the United States and federal agents search his computers.
Khan, a Pakistani-born U.S. citizen, says it has happened five times since 2003.
He says agents with U.S. Customs and Border Protection have even forced him to give them access to password-protected, confidential information from his company and his banking records.
An IT consultant who travels to Europe, Turkey and Pakistan, Khan says he has cooperated with the questions and searches but feels by now border agents should know he doesn't pose a threat.
Situations for travelers such as Khan are at issue in a lawsuit filed last week by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Asian Law Caucus in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
The San Francisco, California-based foundation, which works to defend people's rights in the digital world, says it knows of more than a dozen cases in which electronic devices such as cell phones, BlackBerries, MP3 players and laptops have been searched by customs agents.
In some cases, they have been confiscated and never returned.
The Customs and Border Protection defends the searches, saying the agency does not need to show probable cause to look inside suitcases or laptops.
Russ Knocke, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, equates searches of electronic devices to those of papers in briefcases.
But Marcia Hoffman, an attorney for the foundation, says the searches go too far.
"Your laptop computer may contain your financial records, your e-mail with your friends and your family and your co-workers, records of the Web sites you visit, confidential business information," Hoffman says.
the government can search your sensitive personal information at the border.
East Timor declared a state of emergency Tuesday after attacks on the country's top leaders in a failed coup left the president in "extremely serious" condition with gunshot wounds.
The assassination attempt Monday against President Jose Ramos-Horta and the failed attack on Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao East Timor's the independence icons thrust the desperately poor country into a fresh crisis amid fears of more unrest and political turmoil.
Surgeons operated on Ramos-Horta for three hours overnight to remove bullet fragments and repair his chest wounds, Dr. Len Notaros, the general manager of the Royal Darwin Hospital, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. Tuesday.
"His condition remains extremely serious but by the same token, stable," Notaros said. "The next few days will be the telling point.
Ramos-Horta, who won the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize for his nonviolent resistance to the decades-long Indonesian occupation, was shot in the chest and stomach by gunmen in two cars around dawn Monday, officials said.
Rebel soldiers separately attacked Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao's motorcade an hour later.
He escaped unhurt. The country's top fugitive, Alfredo Reinado, and one of his men were killed in the attack on the president.
Acting President Vicente Gutterres announced the two-day emergency in an address on national television.
The order allows authorities to ban demonstrations and gives police extended powers of search and arrest.
WASHINGTON (CNN) American fighter jets intercepted two Russian bombers, one of which buzzed a U.S. aircraft carrier in the western Pacific over the weekend, U.S. military officials told CNN Monday.
One of them twice flew about 2,000 feet over the deck of the USS Nimitz Saturday while another flew about 50 miles away, officials said.
U.S. Defense officials said four F/A-18A fighter jets from the Nimitz were in the air.
The Russians and the U.S. carrier did not exchange verbal communications.
Russian bombers have been making flights over the western Pacific for several months.
In September, two U.S. F-15 fighters scrambled to intercept a plane that came within 50 miles of the coastline.
Among the latest, on September 5, six F-15s from Elmendorf Air Force Base, adjacent to Anchorage, Alaska, intercepted six Russian bombers about 50 miles from the northwest coast of Alaska.
Oil prices fell Monday, retreating after spiking to almost $93 a barrel on Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's threat to cut off oil sales to the United States in retaliation for legal moves by Exxon Mobil to seize some of his country's assets.
The spike came after Chavez on Sunday accused the Irving, Texas-based oil company of acting in concert with Washington, and vowed that "the outlaws of Exxon Mobil will never again rob us.
Exxon Mobil has gone after the assets of Venezuelan state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela in U.S., British and Dutch courts in challenges to the nationalization of a multibillion dollar oil project by Chavez's government.
Crude rose on word that oil exports from Nigeria, Africa's biggest oil producer and a major U.S. supplier, could fall by as much as 1 million barrels a day due to the nation's deteriorating security situation and planned maintenance.
Nigeria is locked in a long-running battle with rebels intent on hurting the nation's oil industry infrastructure.
Brent crude fell 46 cents to $91.48 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange in London.
He's the most prominent Democrat yet to take a side in the presidential election, but two sources close to Al Gore tell us not to expect the former vice president to endorse either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama any time during the primary season.
The sources say Gore talks with both Clinton and Obama, and is on good terms with both.
Gore also will want to work closely with whoever wins the nomination to promote an environmental agenda.
sources close to both Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi say neither individuals have endorsement plans.
(CNN) Police in northern India have arrested six Islamic militants who were headed to the country's financial capital, Mumbai, to carry out suicide attacks on the stock exchange, officials told CNN Monday.
The stock exchange in Mumbai is the oldest in Asia and one of the largest in the world and a symbol of the country's rapidly growing economy.
The train station that the militants allegedly targeted is used daily by thousands of commuters in the metropolis of more than 11 million people.
Yash told CNN that the militants are members of Lashkar e-Tayyiba (Army of the Pure).
The group is one of several fighting against Indian rule in the disputed Himalayan territory of Kashmir.
The U.S. State Department has designated the group as a terrorist organization, which has claimed responsibility for several attacks against Indian troops and civilians over the years.
Yash, who heads Uttar Pradesh's anti-terrorism task force, said the six men were headed to Mumbai in two groups, both armed with weapons and grenades.
The militants had surveilled the area, set up a safehouse and were awaiting word from their superiors, he said.
One of the men is suspected to have been involved in a New Year's Day attack on a paramilitary camp in Uttar Pradesh that killed eight people.
Information from him tipped police off to the others Saturday, Yash said.
The Himalayan territory of Kashmir has been the source of bitter dispute and two wars between India and neighboring Pakistan.
Both control parts of the region which is predominantly Muslim.
The State Department said Lashkar e-Tayyiba has several thousand members in the Pakistan-controlled part of Kashmir and called it one of the three largest and best-trained groups fighting against India.
Pakistani security forces on Monday shot and wounded a well-known Taliban operative in southwestern Pakistan near the Afghan border, the military said.
Dadullah and five others were seized near the Gaddal post in Qila Saifullah, a town in Baluchistan province in Pakistan on the border with Afghanistan, according to Lt. Col. Baseer Haider Malik.
Malik said the group had been trying to enter Pakistan from Afghanistan.
One of the five militants was killed, and Dadullah and the four others were taken into custody in Quetta, according to Javeed Iqbal Cheema, Interior Ministry spokesman.
NATO's International Security Assistance Force at the time called his death a "serious blow" to the resurgent Taliban in the region.
(CNN) Swiss police were scrambling Monday in search of three masked men who stole four Impressionist paintings worth about $163 million (180 million Swiss francs) Sunday in a heist police characterized as "spectacular.
The three men entered the E.G. Buehrle Collection among the finest collections of Impressionist and post-Impressionist art in the world in Zurich, Switzerland, at around 4:30 p.m. CET (8: 30 a.m. ET), police said.
One of the men threatened personnel at the museum's front door with a pistol and forced them to the ground, police said, while the other two men went into an exhibition room and stole four oil paintings by Paul Cezanne, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet and Vincent van Gogh.
Afterward, the three men loaded the paintings Monet's "Poppies near Vetheuil," Degas' "Count Lepic and his Daughters," Van Gogh's "Blossoming Chestnut Branches" and Cezanne's "Boy in a Red Vest" into a white car parked in front of the museum and then drove off, police said.
Police said the men were wearing dark clothes and hoods, and one of them spoke German with a Slavic accent. They were all of average height, police said.
There is a reward of $91,000 (100,00 Swiss francs) for information leading to the return of the paintings, police said.
The Swiss art heist follows the recent theft in Switzerland of two paintings by Pablo Picasso, Bjoern Quellenberg, a spokesman for the Kunsthaus, a major art museum in Zurich, said.
In that theft, thieves stole the paintings, the 1962 "Tete de Cheval" ("Horse's Head") and the 1944 "Verre et Pichet" ("Glass and Pitcher") by Picasso.
They were on loan from a German museum and valued at $4.5 million when they were stolen February 6, according to news reports.
(CNN) Aid workers have launched emergency responses to help people in rugged and poverty-stricken central and western Afghanistan, enduring what the United Nations is describing as "the harshest winter in nearly 30 years.
Hundreds of deaths have been reported this winter as a result of the frigid temperatures, which have dipped to minus 30 degrees Celsius, or minus 22 degrees Fahrenheit.
The more mountainous regions have seen up to 180 centimeters, or nearly six feet of snow, and many of the regions slammed by the snow and cold are poorly accessible.
The United Nations says many entities are trying to deal with the problem: several U.N. agencies, Afghan provincial authorities, the Afghan National Disaster Management Authority.
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a recent report that "some 329 fatalities have been reported" in Herat, Farah, Badghis, and Ghowr provinces
The humanitarian group Oxfam said more than 500 people have died in the region.
Oxfam is distributing blankets and coal and launched a program to employ 150 people to clear snow.
"While the snow has mounted and the temperature has plunged to the low teens in parts of Afghanistan, most of those who have lost their lives since December were either elderly people or children.
And the extreme conditions continue to make life miserable for tens of thousands of others," Oxfam said in a statement last week.
The International Organization for Migration is distributing blankets, sweaters and shawls to 2,500 internally displaced families in three camps in Herat province,
Serena Di Matteo, head of the IOM sub-office in Herat, said, "many of these people live in incredibly poor structures with practically no protection from the cold and have almost nothing."
WASHINGTON (CNN) Six men being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, will go before military commissions and could face the death penalty if it is judged they were involved in the September 11, 2001, attacks, a general said Monday.
The men will be treated like members of the U.S. military during their judicial proceedings, he said.
The government plans to make the proceedings as public as possible, said Brig Gen. Thomas Hartmann.
"It's our obligation to move the process forward to give these people their rights," he said. "We are going to give them rights that are virtually identical to the rights we provide to our military members."
Despite Hartmann's guarantees, Charles Swift, a former U.S. Navy attorney, said the process will not afford detainees an adequate defense.
He also raised concerns that trying and executing the men unfairly could make them martyrs in the eyes of extremists.
Hartmann, the legal adviser to the military commission trying the men, announced Monday that the government will seek the death penalty against the six detainees, including alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.
Among the charges leveled against the men are murder and conspiracy "in violation of the law of war," attacking civilians and terrorism.
Four of the suspects will also be charged with hijacking, Hartmann said.
Though the proceedings will not be televised, Hartmann said the government intends to keep the proceedings as open as possible except when classified information is presented that could compromise national security.
LONDON, England (CNN) The head of the Anglican Church has moved to defuse the row he sparked by suggesting that that some aspects of Muslim Sharia law could become part of UK law.
Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has faced calls to resign from senior members of his church following a BBC interview in which he suggested the introduction of some parts of Sharia was "unavoidable.
His comments Thursday provoked widespread criticism from politicians, including UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who dismissed the idea.
Addressing the General Synod, the Church of England's national assembly, Monday Williams said he "took responsibility" for any "unclarity" and "misleading" choice of words and possible distress or misunderstanding they had caused, both to Christians and the public at large.
But he added: "I believe quite strongly that it is not inappropriate for a pastor of the Church of England to discuss the perceived concerns of other religious communities and try to bring them into better public focus."
Sharia law is a legal and social code designed to help Muslims in their daily lives.
It has proved controversial, however, because of its use in some Muslim states to justify suppression of women's rights and extremely brutal forms of punishment, including beheadings.
In his BBC interview, Williams strongly criticized the implementation of Sharia to suppress human rights. However, he said that Muslims should not have to choose between "the stark alternatives of cultural loyalty or state loyalty.
He also said that at present "certain provisions of Sharia are already recognized in our society and under our law.
Illinois Sen. Barack Obama carries momentum from a sweep of weekend contests into this week's primaries in Maryland, the District of Columbia and Virginia. New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, is coming off a campaign shake-up, while her advisers are seeking to lower expectations for this month's Democratic contests.
Obama came out ahead in Sunday's Democratic caucuses in Maine after wins in Saturday's Louisiana primary and Democratic caucuses in Nebraska, Washington and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
With 99 percent of precincts reporting in Maine, Obama was leading Clinton 59 percent to 40 percent.
At stake are 24 delegates to August's Democratic national convention in Denver.
Those contests gave him a lead over Clinton in pledged delegates to the convention, but Clinton still held a narrow edge over Obama when "superdelegates" elected officials and party leaders are included in the tally, according to CNN estimates.
Those states have high concentrations of voters who have been strong Clinton supporters Latinos in Texas and blue-collar workers in Ohio and Pennsylvania.
"It's hard to see a win for Sen. Clinton into March, into Ohio and Texas, which I think was what they're counting on," Trippi told CBS' "Face the Nation." "But even that's in jeopardy, I think, as Obama builds some momentum here.
A 69-year-old who was previously convicted of torching a palace has been arrested in connection with a fire that destroyed Namdaemun, South Korea's oldest wooden structure and a national treasure, authorities said on Tuesday.
Similarities between the Sunday night fire and the 2006 blaze led to the investigation of a man identified only as Mr. Chae, said Kim Young-Su, chief of police of the Namdaemun police station.
Chae had served time in prison for the palace fire.
Chae confessed to starting the fire, saying he was upset by a land grievance that led him to start the 2006 fire and by the sentence he was handed in that case, Kim said.
Chae said he chose Namdaemun because it was easily accessible by public transportation and yet situated in a lightly populated area where the fire was unlikely to hurt people, according to police.
Namdaemun was more than 600 years old and stood at the center of Seoul, having served as a main gate into the capital for centuries.
The gate was considered a national symbol to Koreans around the world.
Jerome Kerviel, the man at the center of a multi-billion trading scandal will be jailed while the investigation into his alleged fraud is conducted, his lawyer confirmed to CNN Friday.
A court in Paris decided Friday that Kerviel should be detained 11 days after he was released following questioning.
The trader is an employee from Fimat, a subsidiary of Societe Generale, the prosecutor's office said. Kerviel, who traded European index futures
Bank officials and the Paris prosecutor have previously said they believe Kerviel acted alone, though prosecutors have interviewed others, including mid-level managers, as part of their probe.
Kerviel, who could be sentenced to three years in prison, is free under judicial control while the case continues.
In his first public comment on the scandal earlier this week, Kerviel told French news agency Agence France Presse that he would not take all of the blame for the losses.
Adding to the alleged fraud, the bank also announced a nearly-$3 billion writedown because of the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis.
A fire has destroyed Namdaemun, South Korea's oldest wooden structure and a national treasure, fire officials said Monday.
Authorities are investigating the cause of the fire, which started around 9 p.m. Sunday and burned for hours.
More than a hundred firefighters poured water on the more-than-600-year-old structure, trying to save it.
President-elect Lee Myung-bak visited the scene and deplored the landmark's destruction. "People's hearts will ache," he told officials, The Associated Press reported.
The gate was closed to the public for nearly a century before being reopened in 2006 after a renovation, according to AP.
South Korea's Cultural Heritage Administration said it would take at least three years to fully restore the gate and it would cost some $21 million, the AP reported.
(CNN) The risk of being jolted by 1,500 volts of electricity hasn't scared them off. Neither have fears of falling off the speeding electric trains.
The state transit agency told the English-language newspaper Jakarta Post that it hopes the "unique approach" will deter passengers riding illegally on rooftops.
Trains are the cheapest and fastest form of transportation for office workers commuting between the capital city Jakarta and neighboring towns.
Throngs of thousands cram the trains during the morning and evening rush hours, making it impossible for everyone to snag space inside packed cars.
Under the new plan, security officials at each station will "mark" roof riders with dye as trains depart. When the passengers disembark at their destination, officials can then easily identify them.
"We will confiscate their IDs and give them a ticket," Akhmand Sujadi, regional spokesman for the transit agency Kerata Api, told the newspaper. "We will send a copy of the ticket to their family, their local neighborhood unit head, their employer, or, if they're students, their headmasters.
The offenders can reclaim their ID cards once they write a letter "regarding their behavior, to be signed by the person who received their ticket.
More than 320,000 passengers rode trains to and from work every day last year, the newspaper reported.
The crush of passengers meant revenues of 248 billion Rupiahs ($26.8 million) for the system.
But many commuters prefer to ride on top of passenger cars either due to a lack of space inside or because they can't afford the ticket, which start at 1,000 Rupiahs ($0.11)
At least 53 rooftop riders died in the last two years, the newspaper reported.
(CNN) Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez threatened Sunday to cut off his country's oil shipments to the United States if a court ruling goes forward ordering Venezuelan assets be frozen in a case brought by Exxon Mobil.
Last week, Exxon Mobil obtained a court order freezing up to $12 billion of Venezuela's state-owned oil company's worldwide assets after the Chavez government forced the company out of two joint ventures last year.
Britain's High Court barred Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. (PdVSA) from selling assets up to that amount, Exxon Mobil spokeswoman Margaret Ross said last week.
The judgment stems from Venezuela's June decision to take control of two projects it had entered into with Exxon, the world's largest publicly traded oil company.
The United States is Venezuela's biggest customer for the oil-rich nation's petroleum products, importing about 1.4 million barrels of oil per day from Venezuela, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
(CNN) East Timor President and Nobel laureate Jose Ramos-Horta was shot twice, while Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao escaped unhurt Monday in coordinated attacks blamed on rebel troops, officials said.
Ramos-Horta was shot twice in the back, and one of the bullets tore through his abdomen, Foreign Minister Zacarias da Costa said.
But the wounds were not life-threatening, he added.
Gusmao was convening an emergency meeting of the island's government in Dili, Deputy Prime Minister Jose Luis Gutteres told CNN.
"The prime minister is in control of the situation," da Costa said, adding that the overall situation in the country was "stable" and calm.
Ramos-Horta was in surgery at an Australian military hospital in Dili and was to be flown to a military hospital in Darwin in Australia's Northern Territory.
Killed in the attack were a bodyguard for the president and two attackers, da Costa said.
One of them was rebel leader Maj. Alfredo Reinado, said Gutteres.
Reinado, the Australian-trained former head of East Timor's military police joined the revolt and became its leader.
He was later captured but broke out of prison and returned to lead disaffected troops, said Damien Kingsbury, an analyst at Australia's Deakin University.
Illinois Sen. Barack Obama will win Sunday's Democratic caucuses in Maine, sweeping the weekend's presidential contests, CNN projects.
At stake are 24 delegates to August's Democratic national convention in Denver, Colorado.
Obama's projected victory followed wins in Saturday's Louisiana primary and Democratic caucuses in Nebraska, Washington and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
After Saturday's results and a split decision in last week's "Super Tuesday" contests, Clinton shook up her campaign Sunday by replacing campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle with a longtime adviser Maggie Williams, her campaign announced Sunday.
"Although the next several states that hold nominating contests this month are more favorable to the Obama campaign, we will continue to compete in them and hope to secure as many delegates as we can before the race turns to Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania," read a statement from Clinton's campaign.
Those states have high concentrations of voters who have been strong Clinton supporters Latinos in Texas, and blue-collar workers in Ohio and Pennsylvania.
But Joe Trippi, an adviser to former Democratic contender John Edwards, said Sunday Obama had "a full head of steam" after Saturday's wins and was poised to win this week's "Potomac Primaries" in Maryland, the District of Columbia and Virginia.
YANGON, Myanmar (CNN) Myanmar's military government, a target of sharp international criticism for failing to hand over power to a democratically elected government, announced Saturday that it will hold elections in 2010.
The junta also said a national referendum to approve a new constitution will be held in May.
"The time has now come to change from military rule to democratic civilian rule," official announcements on state radio and television said.
It was the first time the government has set dates for stages of its so-called road map to democracy.
But the announcement was unlikely to mollify critics who say that the proposed constitution will likely be unfair and undemocratic.
Suu Kyi's party reacted cautiously, noting the lack of detail on how the referendum would be carried out.
Most of the country's leading pro-democracy activists are in jail, many in connection with anti-government demonstrations in August and September.
At least 30 people died in the crackdown, according to a U.N. estimate.
The stars are filing in on the red carpet for Sunday's 50th annual Grammy Awards, and among the early arrivals have been Corinne Bailey Rae, Montgomery Gentry and Sergeant Pepper.
Keys is set to sing a "duet" with a virtual Frank Sinatra as well.
"I hope to one day be as classic as he [is]," she told CNN.
Most of the 100-plus honors are given out before the show, which will air on CBS at 8 p.m. ET.
"To win a Grammy is the highest honor for a musician," she said. "It's a big honor and an exciting night forever.
One person who won't be around in person to accept awards is singer and songwriter Amy Winehouse, but she may be taking home a number of trophies anyway.
Winehouse, the British singer and songwriter who has been in the news in recent months more for her public misbehavior than her music, is up for six awards Sunday night, including nominations in the big four general categories album of the year, song of the year, record of the year and best new artist.
CBS will air the show from Los Angeles' Staples Center.
LONDON, England (CNN) An apparent false alarm early Sunday triggered a massive air-sea rescue operation to evacuate over 500 workers from an oil rig in the North Sea, police and the British coast guard said.
23-year-old woman who works on the rig was taken on shore in connection with the incident, according to the local police force coordinating the operation.
Grampian police are expected to formally detain and question the British woman once she is on land, a spokesman for the force said.
Jake Molley, from the British Offshore Workers Union, said it appeared the alert was the result of "someone with an overactive imagination.
In a statement, Britannia Operator Limited, the oil company operating the rig, said the alert was raised following an allegation by a worker that there was a suspicious device on the installation.
The British Press Association said the incident was sparked by threats made by a woman on board the vessel.
A total of 14 helicopters, including five Royal Air Force helicopters, were scrambled to the Safe Scandinavia rig described as "a floating accommodation unit" after emergency services were contacted early Sunday, British coast guard spokesman Fred Kaygill told CNN.
A bomb disposal unit was also deployed to the scene.
Kaygill called it a "security incident" and said "it is in no way, shape or form related to terrorism.
Britannia said 161 of the rig's workers were evacuated to two nearby platforms before the operation came to a halt.
British athletes selected for this year's Olympic Games in Beijing will be asked to sign a contract that forbids them from criticizing China's human rights record.
Graham Nathan, spokesman for the British Olympics Association (BOA), told CNN that "British athletes will have to sign a contract promising not to comment on any politically sensitive issues.
He added that they won't go further than what is required by the International Olympic Committee charter which restricts demonstrations of political propaganda at an Olympic Games.
Athletes who refuse to sign the agreement will not be allowed to travel to compete in the Games from August 8-24, according to a sunday newspaper report.
British Olympic team members have long been required to sign a contract, but for the first time the commitment will include an undertaking not to comment on any politically sensitive issues.
The document refers athletes to Section 51 of the IOC charter which "provides for no kind of demonstration, or political, religious or racial propaganda in the Olympic sites, venues or other areas.
Shadow culture secretary Jeremy Hunt hit out at the ruling, telling Sky News: "I think the BOA have been a little bit heavy-handed on this.
"They, I think, have rather over-interpreted (the IOC charter) by making all our athletes sign this declaration.
"I think that given America, Canada, Australia are explicitly saying that their athletes can say what they want when they go to Beijing, I think it is inappropriate to put this restriction on our athletes.
One of the boy's legs, which was partially severed by the blast, was amputated, and doctors said they were unsure whether they could save his other leg, Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon said Sunday, according to The Associated Press.
The boy's 19-year-old brother was also hurt by shrapnel from the Qassam rocket, which landed in the southern Israeli town of Sderot Saturday evening, officials said.
He was said to be in moderate condition in hospital.
Palestinian militants have fired more than 40 Qassam rockets into southern Israel from Gaza over the weekend.
The short-range homemade missiles are fired from Palestinian territories into Israel communities on almost a daily basis.
During a visit to Sderot, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned there would be tough retaliation for the rocket attack, AP reported.
The first Israeli strike Saturday night killed a Hamas militant in the town of Rafah, an Israeli military spokeswoman said.
The militant was involved in weapons smuggling, she said.
The other airstrikes, also directed at Hamas, targeted a training camp in Khan Younis, a weapons cache in Rafah and a weapons warehouse in Gaza City, the spokeswoman said.
Officials in Olmert's government and the opposition have been demanding harsh military action against the rocket fire.
According to the Jerusalem Post, Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit was one of many who called for a broad military offensive.
Nevertheless, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert resisted pressure Sunday to launch a broad offensive against Gaza rocket squads.
"There is no doubt that the pain is felt by all; the outrage is natural," he said in remarks at the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting Sunday.
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton has replaced her campaign manager with a longtime adviser, Maggie Williams, the campaign announced Sunday.
Patti Solis Doyle has been reassigned to a senior adviser's job, the Clinton campaign announced in a memo to its staff.
The move came a day after Sen. Barack Obama swept three Democratic contests, giving him considerable momentum heading into Sunday's Maine caucuses and three primaries Tuesday.
At stake are 24 delegates.
With Obama's wins Saturday in Louisiana, Nebraska, Washington and the Virgin Islands, the Illinois senator took the pledged-delegate lead over Clinton 971-915, according to CNN calculations.
But Clinton has a 224-135 edge among superdelegates, which leaves her leading the Democratic race 1,139-1,106, according to CNN's calculations.
Tuesday, Clinton and Obama will compete for 15 pledged delegates in the District of Columbia, 70 in Maryland and 83 in Virginia.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) The death toll in the bombing of a political gathering on Saturday has risen to 27 with more than 50 people wounded in the attack, according to an Associated Press report.
The attack, which is likely to raise fears about greater election violence in Pakistan, took place in the town of Charsada in Peshawar province between 5:30 p.m. and 6 p.m.
The Awami National Party is a Pashtun nationalist group based in Pakistan's North West Frontier.
Abdul Waheed, 22, who suffered burns from the blast, said the bomber struck as a member of the party was reciting verses from Islam's holy book, the Quran.
Television footage from the blast site, located in the sprawling residence of a party activist, showed the meeting hall littered with bloodstained clothes, police caps and overturned chairs.
Policeman Mohammed Khan told Associated Press two policemen were among the dead, and several children had been killed or injured.
Interior Minister Hamid Nawaz said the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber who was "very close to the stage" where party officials were assembled, The Associated Press reported.
Local party leader Afrasiab Khattak was addressing the rally at the time but told Dawn television he was unhurt.
Nawaz said Islamic militants had threatened to attack all political parties in northwest Pakistan before parliamentary elections on February 18.
Sen. Barack Obama swept Saturday's Democratic contests, giving him considerable momentum heading into Sunday's Maine caucuses and three primaries Tuesday.
John McCain, however, was handed a starkly different message from the GOP, as voters in Louisiana and Kansas indicated they weren't ready to support the Arizona senator. Washington, however, backed the Republican front-runner over former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, according to state party officials.
McCain's camp congratulated Huckabee on the victories but with an air of confidence, saying that Huckabee threatened only to chip away at McCain's substantial lead in the GOP race for the presidential nomination.
"The reality is that John McCain is the presumptive nominee of our party," said campaign spokesman Brian Rogers. "We'll campaign in these upcoming states as long as Gov. Huckabee is in the race, but our main focus is on uniting the Republican Party for victory in November.
Though CNN calculations estimate that Huckabee would need to snare hundreds more delegates to catch McCain, the Democrats are in a much tighter race.
With Obama's wins in Louisiana, Nebraska, Washington and the Virgin Islands on Saturday, the Illinois senator took the pledged-delegate lead over rival Sen. Hillary Clinton 918-885, according to CNN calculations as of Sunday afternoon.
But if you count Clinton's 223-to-131 edge among superdelegates, Clinton is still leading the Democratic race 1,108 to 1,049, according to CNN's Sunday calculations.
They want to write a new chapter in American history.
Clinton was unfazed by Saturday's upsets and continued to present herself as the most viable candidate to defeat McCain in the general election.
"If I'm your nominee, you will never have to worry that I will be knocked out of the ring because I do have the strength and experience to lead this country," she said. "And I am ready to go toe-to-toe with Senator McCain whenever and wherever he desires."
The popular anti-wrinkle drug Botox and a competitor have been linked to dangerous botulism symptoms in some users, cases so bad that a few children given the drugs for muscle spasms have died, the government warned Friday.
The Food and Drug Administration's warning includes both Botox, a wrinkle-specific version called Botox Cosmetic, and its competitor, Myobloc, drugs that all use botulinum toxin to block nerve impulses, causing them to relax.
In rare cases, the toxin can spread beyond the injection site to other parts of the body, paralyzing or weakening the muscles used for breathing and swallowing, a potentially fatal side effect, the FDA said.
Botox is best known for minimizing wrinkles by paralyzing facial muscles but botulinum toxin also is widely used for a variety of muscle-spasm conditions, such as cervical dystonia or severe neck spasms.
The FDA said the deaths it is investigating so far all involve children, mostly cerebral palsy patients being treated for spasticity in their legs.
The FDA has never formally approved that use for the drugs, but some other countries have.
While the FDA said the problems may be related to overdoses, it also has reports of side effects with a variety of doses.
LONDON, England (CNN) Britain's Home Office has signed an extradition order that will send accused terrorist Abu Hamza al-Masri to the United States for prosecution, CNN has confirmed.
Al-Masri, a one-eyed, hook-handed preacher, already is imprisoned in Britain for inciting racial hatred at his North London mosque.
His legal team has 14 days to appeal the decision.
If he does not appeal, he could be handed over to U.S. authorities within 28 days.
Al-Masri, who lost both hands and one eye working in Afghanistan, is the highest-profile radical Islamic figure in Britain.
He formerly preached at the Finsbury Park Mosque in London.
His followers included the so-called "shoe bomber" Richard Reid who was convicted of trying to light a bomb in his shoes on a trans-Atlantic flight and Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person to be charged in the United States in connection with the September 11, 2001, terror attacks.
The Egyptian-born cleric began serving a seven-year prison sentence in 2006 after being convicted in a British court of soliciting murder and inciting racial hatred.
But he is also facing 11 terrorism-related charges in the United States, which has promised to press for his extradition when British law allows.
If al-Masri is given a prison sentence following a U.S. trial, he would return to England to complete the rest of his sentence there before flying back to be imprisoned in the United States.
Chad's president claimed his government was in control of the entire country Wednesday, speaking to journalists for the first time since rebels tried to remove him from power.
A Western source and local sources said the rebels had been pushed back to about 70 km (44 miles) north of the capital of N'Djamena, after flooding the
city Saturday in an attempt to overthrow the government.
The fighting forced thousands to flee, most of them going to Kousseri, Cameroon, just across a river from N'Djamena.
That would mean French troops, who are already in the capital, could use force against the rebels. Four U.S. embassy staff members have set up temporary operations at N'Djamena's airport.
"There still are a number of other Americans out there, including some in fairly remote areas who have expressed an interest in leaving, and we're going to continue to work to assist them to be able to do so," State Department spokesman Tom Casey said Wednesday.
The embassy staff have helped evacuate about 75 Americans in recent days, including 16 yesterday, officials said.
(CNN) Sen. John McCain cemented his front-runner status Tuesday, according to CNN projections.
Democratic voters remain evenly split over which of their candidates they would rather see get the nomination.
Sen. Barack Obama won more states Tuesday, but Sen. Hillary Clinton won states with higher delegate counts.
McCain capped the night by taking California and its 170 delegates.
On the Democratic side, Clinton took California, according to CNN projections.
While most Republican contests are winner-take-all, most Democratic contests are awarded proportionally based on the number of congressional districts won.
Clinton took the larger share of California's 370 Democratic delegates.
"We know what we need is someone ready on day one to solve our problems and seize those opportunities," Clinton said Tuesday. "Because when the bright lights are off and the cameras are gone, who can you count on to listen to you, to stand up for you, to deliver solutions for you?
McCain also won Connecticut, Illinois, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, Delaware and Arizona, his home state, according to CNN projections.
McCain has gathered 514 delegates so far in his presidential campaign, including tonight's projections.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has 177 delegates, and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has 122.
Romney got wins in Alaska, Colorado, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana and Utah.
"One thing that's clear this campaign's going on," Romney said. "I think there's some people who thought that it was all going to be done tonight, but it's not all done tonight. We're going to keep on battling.
In addition to Georgia, Huckabee picked up Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee and West Virginia.
To clinch the nomination, a Republican candidate must win 1,191 delegates.
Tuesday's contests did not produce a front-runner on the Democratic side.
"Our time has come, our movement is real and change is coming to America," Obama said Tuesday.
The biggest prizes that Obama won were his home state of Illinois and Georgia, and a larger share of the 288 delegates in those states.
Obama also won Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota and Utah.
Between those states, he would be awarded the larger share of 278 delegates.
Clinton was also projected to win her home state of New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts, and the larger share of the 329 delegates at stake in those states.
Clinton also won Arizona, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Tennessee, and the larger share of the 235 delegates in those states.
(CNN) Vote counting has begun across the U.S. on one of the key dates in the race to become the next U.S. president with projected wins for each of the major runners.
Super Tuesday has some of the biggest prizes of the primary season including California, New York, Illinois, New Jersey, Missouri and Georgia up for grabs as voters make their party choices in 24 states and American Samoa.
In the Democratic races, CNN projections indicated wins for Hillary Clinton in New York, Tennessee, Oklahoma and Arkansas where her husband was once governor.
Barack Obama has CNN-projected wins in his home state of Illinois, Georgia, Delaware and Alabama.
On the Republican side, CNN projects Arizona Senator John McCain to win New York, Illinois, New Jersey, Connecticut and Delaware;
Clinton cast her vote in the New York's Democratic presidential primary Tuesday morning at an elementary school polling station with her husband and daughter.
She has campaigned on the contention that her eight years as first lady and Senate experience makes her more qualified than Obama, who has been a U.S. senator for just four years.
"We just need a president who's ready on day one to turn the economy around and become commander in chief and get our country back on the right track." Clinton said Tuesday
Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean told CNN "I dare say this is not going to be over certainly tonight, and maybe not for a month from now."
More than four-fifths of the 2,025 delegates needed to clinch the Democratic presidential nomination and more than 1,000 of the 1,191 necessary delegates on the Republican side are at stake.
McCain, out on the streets of Manhattan with former New York Mayor Rudy Guiliani who is backing him after dropping out of the Republican race last week said he is the Republican who can win the White House by gaining the support of independent voters.
We will continue to lead and we will be, as Ronald Reagan said, a shining city on a hill.
Meanwhile Romney, speaking to CNN's "America Morning" from Charleston, West Virginia, said that a victory for him in California and other key states would "indicate the conservative voices in our party are standing up.
(CNN) Voters across America are heading to the polls for what could be a pivotal day in deciding which Democratic and Republican presidential hopefuls face off in the race to the White House.
Some of the biggest prizes of the primary season California, New York, Illinois, New Jersey, Missouri and Georgia are up for grabs on "Super Tuesday", when voters make their party choices in 24 of the states, as well as American Samoa.
At stake are more than four-fifths of the 2,025 delegates needed to clinch the Democratic presidential nomination and more than 1,000 of the 1,191 necessary delegates on the Republican side.
This year's presidential race is generating more interest than usual because of its open nature.
The Republican battle between Arizona senator John McCain, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee could be decided in Tuesday's vote with more than 1,000 of the 1,191 delegates needed to clinch the presidential nomination at stake.
While last-minute polls indicate Romney has gained ground against McCain in California, Romney is likely to split races with Huckabee in the South, Republican strategist John Feehery said.
"In the Northeastern states and Midwest, I think John McCain is going to win," Feehery said. "I think it's really hard for Mitt Romney to get this nomination.
The Democratic race between Illinois senator Barack Obama and New York senator Hillary Clinton, is already extremely close, with neither side expected to deliver a knock out blow.
Obama has taken first blood, with Democratic Party supporters voting abroad in Indonesia where Obama spent four years of his childhood picking him over Clinton.
But Obama and Clinton are likely to split the delegates fairly evenly, Democratic analyst Peter Fenn said.
California is clearly up for grabs now ... Unless one or the other gets annihilated, I think they go on to many more Tuesdays.
Obama garnered 49 percent of registered Democrats, while Clinton trailed by just 3 percentage points.
NAIROBI, Kenya (CNN) The man chosen to be chief mediator between fighting factions in Kenya has withdrawn after reservations were expressed by the Kenyan government.
Details of why the government were concerned at Cyril Ramaphosa's proposed role were not immediately apparent.
A spokesman for Kofi Annan, who has been overseeing efforts to resolve the crisis, said the former U.N. secretary-general "reluctantly accepts" Ramaphosa's withdrawal.
He told The Associated Press he could not function as mediator "without the complete confidence of both parties."
News of his rejection came as the two sides resumed talks.
Violence has been sweeping through Kenya since elections at the end of December, when opposition leader Raila Odinga accused President Mwai Kibaki of rigging the vote to win re-election.
At least 863 people have died and another 261,000 have been driven from their homes, the Kenyan Red Cross said.
The New York Giants' thrilling win over the New England Patriots was the most-watched Super Bowl ever, with 97.5 million viewers, Nielsen Media Research said Monday.
The game eclipsed the previous Super Bowl record of 94.08 million, set when Dallas defeated Pittsburgh in 1996.
More people watched Sunday's game than all but one American television broadcast ever, the "M-A-S-H" finale in 1983, which was seen by 106 million viewers.
The game had almost all the ingredients Fox could have hoped for:
a tight contest with an exciting finish involving a team that was attempting to make history as the NFL's first unbeaten team since 1972. But the Giants ended New England's bid for perfection, 17-14.
The average price of an ad was $2.7 million for 30 seconds.
Raymond Jacobs, believed to be the last surviving member of the group of Marines photographed during the original U.S. flag-raising on Iwo Jima during World War II, has died at age 82.
Jacobs died January 29 of natural causes at a Redding hospital, his daughter, Nancy Jacobs, told The Associated Press.
Newspaper accounts from the time show he was on the mountain during the initial raising of a smaller American flag, though he had returned to his unit by the time the more
famous AP photograph was taken of a second flag-raising later the same day.
However, other negatives from the same roll of film show the radioman is Jacobs, said retired Col. Walt Ford, editor of Leatherneck.
Jacobs was honorably discharged in 1946.
He was called up during the Korean conflict in 1951 before retiring as a sergeant, his daughter said.
Jacobs retired in 1992 from KTVU-TV in Oakland, where he worked 34 years as a reporter, anchor and news director.
BOGOTA, Colombia (CNN) Millions of Colombians wearing white T-shirts marched in their homeland and abroad Monday, to demand the country's largest rebel group stop kidnapping people and release those it holds.
The idea of the protests against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as the FARC, was born less than a month ago on the social networking Web site Facebook, and more than 100,000 people in 165 cities around the world confirmed their participation.
The protests were concentrated in Colombia and Latin American capitals, though there were smaller protests in other places including Spain, Sweden, Hungary, France, Italy, India and the United States.
In Colombia's capital, the protest swelled, with long lines of people shouting "Freedom!
Freedom!
In between reports, the channels aired proof of life videos of hostages who remain captive in the FARC's camps in the jungle.
An estimated 4.8 million people turned out for 387 different events across Colombia, according to police operations commander Gen. Jose Riano.
"I hope the FARC is listening," said former hostage Clara Rojas, who took part in the march in the capital. She was freed last month after nearly six years in captivity.
Colombia's government says the FARC is holding more than 700 hostages, including three U.S. military contractors and former French-Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, whom it is trying to swap for imprisoned rebels.
Talks between the rebels and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez recently led to the release of two hostages, including Rojas.
The FBI is gearing up to create a massive computer database of people's physical characteristics, all part of an effort the bureau says to better identify criminals and terrorists.
But it's an issue that raises major privacy concerns what one civil liberties expert says should concern all Americans.
The bureau is expected to announce in coming days the awarding of a $1 billion, 10-year contract to help create the database that will compile an array of biometric information from palm prints to eye scans.
Kimberly Del Greco, the FBI's Biometric Services section chief, said adding to the database is "important to protect the borders to keep the terrorists out, protect our citizens, our neighbors, our children so they can have good jobs, and have a safe country to live in.
But it's unnerving to privacy experts.
"It's the beginning of the surveillance society where you can be tracked anywhere, any time and all your movements, and eventually all your activities will be tracked and noted and correlated," said Barry Steinhardt, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Technology and Liberty Project.
The FBI already has 55 million sets of fingerprints on file.
In coming years, the bureau wants to compare palm prints, scars and tattoos, iris eye patterns, and facial shapes.
A lot will depend on how quickly technology is perfected, according to Thomas Bush, the FBI official in charge of the Clarksburg, West Virginia, facility where the FBI houses its current fingerprint database.
"Fingerprints will still be the big player," Bush, assistant director of the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services Division, told CNN.
The FBI says it will protect all this personal data and only collect information on criminals and those seeking sensitive jobs.
BEIJING, China (CNN) Monday brought welcome relief to millions of Chinese migrant workers desperate to see their families, as the nation's transportation system seemed to be getting back on its feet after being paralyzed by a historic winter storm.
Still, as some roads became traversable, more and more images of devastation from the past couple of weeks became apparent.
The government has already estimated damage from the storm the worst in 50 years at more than $7 billion.
Prime Minister Wen Jiabao said Monday that "electricity supply is gradually resuming and transport services are basically back to normal, and the country's production and life are in normal conditions," according to state-run Xinhua news agency.
The Ministry of Civil Affairs said at least 223,000 homes have been crushed and another 862,000 damaged, according to Xinhua.
More than 250,000 passengers made it safely onto trains in a 24-hour period, said Xian Wei Xiong, Guangzhou's transportation director.
Jiao Meiyan, director general of China's National Meteorological Center, predicted "fairly good weather in most of south China" through the end of
the week, giving the nation a chance to clear clogged highways and move goods.
Still, forecasters warned temperatures could be freezing at night.
Another cold front is expected to sweep through China in the coming week, but is expected to be short and relatively mild.
Iran fired a rocket from its newly inaugurated space center Monday, laying the groundwork for what it says will be the future launch of its first domestically produced satellite, the semi-official FARS news agency reported.
Monday's launch came a short time after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad inaugurated the center Monday, according to the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency.
Ahmadinejad said Iran's first step in the field of space technology had been taken wisely and precisely, IRNA reported.
"With the launch, Iran has joined the world's top 11 countries possessing space technology to build satellites, and launch rockets into space," state TV said.
In February 2007, Iran announced the launch of "its first satellite into space," the state-run Iranian Students News Agency reported at the time. But the satellite did not reach orbit.
Amid fears in the West that Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons, some experts believe Iran's space program is possibly a cover to improve its military ballistic missiles.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) Assassinated Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto's party will restart its campaign this week to unseat President Pervez Musharraf's ruling party from parliament following the end of its self-imposed mourning period.
Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party stopped campaigning for a 40-day period after her December 27 assassination.
Other opposition parties recently restarted their campaigns after a temporary suspension in observation of the holy month of Muharram, which ended last week.
Security will be tight at upcoming political rallies and it is unclear if Pakistanis will stay away in large numbers, fearing a repeat of the attack that left Bhutto and 28 others dead after a PPP rally in Rawalpindi, near Islamabad.
Opposition parties are hoping to seize on Musharraf's rising unpopularity to wrest control of the parliament.
Elections in Pakistan have always taken place amid allegations of fraud, but analysts say this time the fears of slanted elections carry more weight because the upcoming vote follows a particularly tumultuous year.
"2007 was decisively anti-democracy," analyst Ahmed Bilal Mehboob said. "It really shattered the hopes.
In a recent poll, just 15 percent of Pakistanis believed the election will be free and fair.
"Mr. Musharraf cannot afford to hold free and fair elections because if he does that, he loses very badly," said former Pakistani premier and opposition leader Nawaz Sharif.
Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-N party will participate in the election, despite its concerns about vote rigging.
But Musharraf's ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Q party said "the system is fair.
With a new poll showing their race in a virtual dead heat nationally, the Democratic presidential candidates are making their final pitches Monday to voters before Super Tuesday.
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama made campaign swings in the Northeast as nearly two dozen states get ready to hold contests in what will virtually be a national primary.
At a roundtable discussion in New Haven, Connecticut, Clinton returned to two issues she repeatedly has touched on, health care and the economic concerns of the middle class.
And even if you make what used to be considered good wages, they don't cover the increase in costs, in everything from energy to health care.
During the roundtable discussion at Yale University, Clinton became teary-eyed a moment that harkened back to her much talked-about display of emotion on the eve of the New Hampshire primary when she was introduced by Penn Rhodeen, a public interest lawyer who worked with Clinton when she was in college.
Obama on Monday emphasized his ability to attract independents and Republicans in an appearance in East Rutherford, New Jersey, home of the new Super Bowl champions, the New York Giants.
Obama was introduced by actor Robert De Niro and joined on stage by Sen. Edward Kennedy. Kennedy is a Massachusetts Democrat and a fan of the New England Patriots, the team the Giants beat Sunday night.
And for me to be able to bring a Patriots fan to the Meadowlands the day after the Super Bowl is like bringing the lion and the lamb together," Obama said.
The senator from Illinois also said he would be the best candidate to beat Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the emerging front-runner in the GOP presidential race, because of his early opposition to the Iraq war.
In a January 14-17 CNN/Opinion Research poll, Clinton led Obama 42 percent to 33 percent. That poll also had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.
Those five surveys were done by CNN/Opinion Research, Gallup, Pew, ABC and CBS.
Lewis Hamilton endured racist taunts from spectators during Formula One testing at Barcelona's Montmelo circuit, Spanish media reported on Sunday.
The 23-year-old from Britain, F1's first black driver, was jeered and insulted when he moved between the McLaren motorhome and the team's garage.
Circuit director Ramon Pradera instructed staff to erect barriers around the team's paddock for Hamilton's safety, the reports said.
"We would like to make a plea to the fans to behave correctly," Pradera said. "No type of offensive behavior can be tolerated.
Hamilton has become an unpopular figure in Spain because of his rivalry with former McLaren team mate, Spaniard Fernando Alonso, who has now switched back to Renault. A McLaren representative said:
" McLaren has raced and tested on Spanish circuits for many years and everyone connected with the team regards Spain and Spanish people with great affection, Lewis included.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) An explosion near a bus carrying army personnel killed four people in Pakistan on Monday, police told CNN.
The explosion happened close to a market and near the military's general headquarters in Rawalpindi, said Bustan Khan, assistant sub-inspector of the Rawalpindi police. The attack occurred about 7:30 a.m. Monday (2:
The bus was destroyed and as many as 20 people were wounded in the explosion, acccording to the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan.
The blast occurred on a road running through a bazaar near the offices of the army's engineering department, police official Abdul Waheed told the Associated Press.
It was not immediately clear which branch of the armed forces the passengers were from. Police said the army had cordoned off the area.
In recent months there have been a series of suicide bombings in Rawalpindi, a city where the army has its headquarters about seven miles (10 km) from the capital Islamabad.
President Pervez Musharraf also stays in the city.
On December 27, opposition leader Benazir Bhutto and about 20 others died in a gun and bomb attack in Rawalpindi.
Before that, a series of attacks hit security forces and employees of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, including two suicide bombings against a bus of ISI employees and an army checkpoint on November 24 that killed up to 35 people.
California first lady Maria Shriver on Sunday endorsed Sen. Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination for president, becoming the latest member of the Kennedy clan to line up behind the senator from Illinois.
" California's primary is the largest of about two dozen contests scheduled for this week's Super Tuesday contest.
"I would ask you to go out, to follow your heart, to be proud that you're doing that, and remember that so goes California, so goes the nation," she said.
Shriver is the niece of Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy and President Kennedy.
During Sunday's event, Schlossberg appeared with Shriver, Obama's wife, Michelle, and talk-show host Oprah Winfrey.
"I'm proud to be standing here not just with these women, but with all of you different races, different age groups I'm sure, Democrats and independents alike because you believe," she said.
"You believe in each and every one of yourselves, most importantly. And you believe that you have found someone who believes in you.
Members of the Kennedy clan are split in the race between Obama and Hillary Clinton, the New York senator and former first lady who leads published polls in California. Former Maryland Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, the daughter of Robert Kennedy, and her brother Bobby and sister Kerry are backing Clinton.
(CNN) Software giant Microsoft said Friday it had made an unsolicited offer to buy Internet search engine operator Yahoo! with a cash and stock bid worth $44.6 billion.
to gain illegal control over the Internet, The Associated Press reported.
The critical remarks, posted online Sunday by Google's top lawyer, represented the Mountain View-based company's first public reaction to Microsoft's unsolicited bid for Yahoo! since the offer was announced, AP reported.
"Microsoft's hostile bid for Yahoo! raises troubling questions," David Drummond, Google's chief legal officer, wrote, AP reported.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said the move marked the "next major milestone for the Washington-based company.
Yahoo! shares rose nearly 60 percent in pre-market trading on news of the approach, while Microsoft shares were down 2.6 percent, CNN Money reported.
The announcement comes with Microsoft and Yahoo!
seeking to compete with Google in the lucrative online advertising market, currently worth $40 billion and expected to grow to $80 billion within three years.
"Microsoft's consistent belief has been that the combination of Microsoft and Yahoo! clearly represents the best way to deliver maximum value to our respective shareholders, as well as create a more efficient and competitive company that would provide greater value and service to our customers," Microsoft CEO Ballmer said in a letter to Yahoo! 's board of directors.
Earlier this week, Yahoo! announced plans to lay off 1,000 employees by mid-February, citing what CEO Jerry Yang described as "headwinds" facing the company.
It also reported lower fourth-quarter earnings though still ahead of Wall Street's modest expectations for the firm.
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (CNN) Twelve people were killed and almost 100 wounded, most of them students, when a woman blew herself up near a train as it was pulling into a station Sunday in Sri Lanka's capital, Colombo, police said.
Five students and a coach from D.S. Senanayake College, a prestigious grade school in Colombo, were killed.
A student from another Colombo private school Holy Family Convent College also was killed, as were two college students and a policeman.
The two other victims have not been identified.
The blast occurred just hours after a grenade detonated inside Sri Lanka's central zoo Sunday morning, wounding at least six people.
Sunday, a holiday in Sri Lanka, is a time when hundreds flock to the zoo and other attractions.
Police said they think the attack at the zoo was intended to cause panic rather than casualties.
The suicide bombing took place as a train was pulling into Fort Station the country's main railway station in Colombo's city center, authorities said.
The casualties included both passengers in the train and others who were waiting on the platform, police said.
The government blamed the rebel group, the Tamil Tigers, for the train blast saying the group often uses suicide bombers in its attacks.
In recent days, Sri Lanka already in chaos as government and rebels continue a deadly battle has seen a rise in civilian casualties despite heightened security ahead of the country's independence day celebrations Monday.
On Saturday, a bomb explosion on a bus in a tourist town north of Colombo on Saturday killed 20 people and sent at least 68 others to the hospital, authorities said.
The island nation in southeast Asia has been in turmoil since the government withdrew from a cease-fire January 16 between its forces and the separatist Tamil Tigers.
Germany insists it will not send more troops to Afghanistan and it will not move them to the restive south, despite a reported request from the United States.
Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung said Friday that the 3,200 German troops already in Afghanistan fulfilled Germany's mandate, and that he felt the country was doing enough to support the NATO mission.
Jung spoke at a news conference after German news outlets reported U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates had sent a letter in which he "demanded" greater participation in southern Afghanistan.
Jung did not speak about the letter's contents, but the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper reported the it was "formal and direct" and written in an "unusually sharp tone.
Gates' letter requested a contribution to a reinforcement of 3,200 troops for the NATO mission in southern Afghanistan, the newspaper reported, especially with the helicopter units and paratroopers in the south.
"Gates speaks of a threatening division in the alliance and warns of a loss of reliability," the paper reported. "He describes the overstretching of U.S. armed forces.
Jung said he would not move or increase the number of German troops, who are currently based in the north.
"We've agreed to a clear division of the regions we will cover," Jung said.
Pentagon spokesman Brian Whitman said Gates had sent letters to several defense ministers asking them to provide troops to replace the 3,200 U.S. Marines being sent to Afghanistan.
Two days after reaching a plan with the Kenyan government to end violence that has wracked the country for more than a month, the opposition party asked both the United Nations and the African Union to send in peacekeepers.
"The level of violence in Kenya is unprecedented. It's on a terrifying scale and it has not really diminished," Salim Lone, spokesman for the Orange Democratic Movement, told CNN from London.
The killing continued over the weekend, as machete-wielding tribal gangs roamed the western part of the country, torching homes and hunting each other down.
"The security forces seem incapable of stopping this carnage, and in some cases, they actually stand by while the killing goes on," Lone said. "For sure, international assistance is needed.
ODM leader Raila Odinga called for peacekeepers in Kenyaduring a meeting with Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon at the African Union summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
"People who have lived together for generations have, after the fraudulent election, turned on each other," Lone said.
The spasm of political violence erupted soon after the December 27 elections, when Odinga accused President Mwai Kibaki of rigging the vote to win re-election.
Bloody street battles between supporters of Kibaki a member of the Kikuyu tribe and Odinga , who belongs to the Luo tribe, soon took on ethnic overtones.
At least 863 people have died and another 261,000 driven from their homes, the Kenyan Red Cross said.
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (CNN) Brazilian beauties wearing only sequins led carnival parades lasting until dawn Sunday as second-division samba groups used a kaleidoscope of colorful dancers and floats to launch the biggest part of Rio's five-day bash.
Led by a two-story golden lion, the samba group Estacio de Sa kicked off the party in a hail of fireworks and roars from crowds waving the flags of their favorite samba groups at the 85,000-seat Sambadrome stadium.
Backlit with a purple neon glow, the towering float was surrounded by scores of dancers in skintight lion costumes and followed by an army of women spinning in gold and red hoop skirts and elaborate headdresses fashioned from crystal globes and feathers.
only a warm-up for a bigger competition among the city's top 12 samba schools, which mount 80-minute parades on Sunday and Monday nights to impress a panel of judges and be declared the year's champion.
Two girls ages 16 and 7 were killed early Sunday and 12 people were injured in the small southeastern city of Sabara when a tractor-trailer carrying a band hit them during the "Mama Africa" street carnival party, the city reported on its Web site.
The Web site of the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper said the truck's brakes failed, but the city did not cite a cause.
After two straight days of sunny weather in Rio de Janeiro, rain poured down Sunday and threatened to swamp the parade at night, making it difficult for the samba groups to pull off their elaborately scripted routines with hundreds of dancers and multiple floats.
General Motors Corp. will introduce a new hybrid full-size pickup and a concept hybrid truck this week at the Chicago Auto Show, betting that pickup drivers have been itching to jump on the hybrid bandwagon.
GM says the 2009 GMC Sierra hybrid gets a 25 percent improvement in fuel economy without compromising performance, while its GMC Denali XT concept a low-slung, muscular utility vehicle gets 50 percent better fuel economy than a comparable small pickup.
The SUVs are expected to go on sale early this year, while the Silverado and Sierra are scheduled to hit the market at the end of 2008.
The two-mode system got a lot of buzz late last year at the Los Angeles Auto Show, where the hybrid Chevrolet Tahoe was named the 2008 Green Car of the Year by the Green Car Journal.
Like single-mode hybrid systems now used by Toyota Motor Corp., Ford Motor Co. and others, the two-mode runs without the gas engine at low speeds.
But at higher speeds, the electric motor in the two-mode hybrid contributes more power.
The two-mode system also is better for towing.
Mark LaNeve, GM's vice president of North America sales, service and marketing, has said the company expects about 5 percent of pickup drivers to opt for the hybrid system.
GM sold 208,243 Sierras in 2007.
(CNN) Carrying blankets and bed sheets on their heads, thousands of refugees fleeing fighting in Chad's capital N'Djamena crossed a drought-stricken river to get to neighboring Cameroon Sunday, local officials and journalists said.
The violence in Chad has opened up a new conflict next to Sudan's war-torn Darfur region, where more than 200,000 people have died since early 2003 and 2.5 million people have been forced into refugee camps.
Government forces, under the direction of Chad's President Idriss Deby, continued a bloody battle for power in N'Djamena against the rebels, according to a French military spokesman.
Between 2,000 and 3,000 rebel soldiers armed with rifles roamed N'Djamena's streets in pickup trucks, the spokesman said.
The rebels entered the city on Saturday, local officials and journalists said.
Chadian Ambassador to the United States Mahamoud Adam Bechir said the rebels were mercenaries supported by the government in neighboring Sudan.
He said Sudan wanted to destabilize Chad's government.
Both the Sudanese and Chadian governments have previously accused one another of fomenting violence in the other's country by giving support to rebel groups.
On Sunday, the Chadian refugees flooded the Cameroon town of Kousseri, which lies just across the border from N'Djamena, according to Helene Caux, a spokeswoman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva.
Some 1,600 French forces are helping evacuate hundreds of foreign nationals from N'Djamena;
400 foreign nationals left on Saturday and another 400 were slated to leave on Sunday.
Also on Sunday, 103 U.N. staff were evacuated from the Chadian capital to the west African country of Gabon.
Incumbent Boris Tadic narrowly won a second term as Serbia's president after a runoff Sunday with ultranationalist rival Tomislav Nikolic, according to preliminary figures from election monitors.
Nikolic was an ally of former Yugoslav strongman Slobodan Milosevic, and he supports closer ties with Russia, Serbia's historical ally.
He forced Tadic into a runoff in the first round of voting January 20, leading a field of nine with about 39 percent of the vote.
Looming over the campaign was the drive for independence by the Serbian province of Kosovo, which has been under U.N. administration and policed by NATO peacekeepers since 1999.
Both Tadic and Nikolic opposed independence for the majority-Albanian province, which nationalists consider the cradle of Serb civilization.
But Jelena Subotic, an analyst at Georgia State University in Atlanta, said the candidates differed in "how they will deal with the political reality.
"What this does, actually, is it allows Tadic a little more breathing room domestically to prepare Serbian public opinion for what is pretty obviously an inevitable conclusion," Subotic told CNN.
PARIS, France (CNN) French President Nicolas Sarkozy married former model Carla Bruni on Saturday at the Elysee Palace, according to the official who performed the ceremony.
"The bride wore white; she was ravishing, as usual," Francois Lebel, mayor of Paris' eighth arrondissement, or neighborhood, told Europe-1 radio.
"The groom wasn't bad either.
It was a historic occasion, "the first time in the history of the Republic that a president has got married in office," as Lebel said.
Sarkozy, 53, and Bruni, 40, were married in the presence of about 20 close family and friends, Lebel said.
"I wished them a lot of happiness," he said.
Under French law, couples must tie the knot before a mayor to make their union official.
At a news conference in January, Sarkozy revealed that the relationship was "serious" and hinted that wedding plans were in the works.
Sarkozy's approval ratings dropped during their courtship in part, analysts say, because many older, more traditional voters were put off by his glitzy, jet-setting style.
During their romance, Sarkozy was nicknamed the "bling-bling president" by the media.
He reportedly gave Bruni a pink heart-shaped diamond Dior engagement ring, while she gave him a Swiss-made Patek Philippe watch.
The wedding was the third for Sarkozy, who has three children.
It was the first for Bruni, an Italian-born heiress who had a major modeling career and a well-publicized love life.
Bruni, now a singer, dated rockers Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton, tycoon Donald Trump and actor Vincent Perez.
She has a young son, Aurelien, from a relationship with philosophy professor Raphael Enthoven.
GUANGZHOU, China (CNN) Last week, a rare winter storm paralyzed China's transportation system as millions tried to get home to celebrate the holiday the only chance for many migrant workers to see their families all year.
China's state-run Xinhua news agency said Friday that 95 percent of rail traffic had "returned to normal." But Guangzhou's train station remained packed with a backlog of hundreds of thousands of travelers hoping to get home for the holiday.
A young woman was trampled in a stampede at the train station Friday, and later died of her injuries, according to Xinhua.
Police officers tried to keep order.
One officer lifted a small child above the crowd as the child's mother clutched the officer's coat.
A woman who fainted was carried over the mob to receive medical help.
China Sunday announced it has deployed over 300,000 People's Liberation Army forces to southern China in what it described as a "war on wintry weather.
The winter storm China's worst in 50 years has already been blamed for the deaths of at least 63 people around the country, including 25 who died when a bus plunged off a slippery mountain road in the southwestern Guizhou province.
The government has reported $7.5 billion in damage from the storm.
The government also announced a $700 million plan to help farmers whose crops have been destroyed.
After transportation around the country began to be shut down Saturday, authorities called on millions of migrant workers to forgo their annual Lunar New Year trip home.
"For the sake of their safety, and relieving the stress on transport, I advise migrant workers to stay in the cities where they work," Zheng Guogang, chief of the China Meteorological Administration, told the state newspaper, China Daily.
But for an estimated 200 million people, the annual trek is a critical opportunity to see family and the vast majority travel by train.
The storm spiraled into a crisis in some areas, with authorities worried about potential loss of critical supplies.
Some have already lost power, and local authorities say diesel and even rice could run out in a matter of days.
The remaining contenders for the presidency kicked off their final maneuvers for Super Tuesday, fine-tuning their closing messages in appearances on the Sunday talk shows and fanning out across the nation for an exhaustive list of last-minute campaign stops.
Sen. John McCain of Arizona expressed some hope of clinching his party's nomination Tuesday and, minutes later, found himself speaking on live national television with Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York, who has vowed she is the Democrat best prepared to beat him in a general election.
Smiling and exchanging pleasantries briefly on "Fox News Sunday," the two apparently unaware they'd appear together live between their separate interviews from different cities vowed that if selected for their parties' nominations they would have a "respectful" debate focusing on serious "differences.
Clinton is locked in a neck-and-neck race with Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.
I think we got a lot of good momentum and a lot of endorsements and crowds who are enthusiastic, and we're working hard, and I'm guardedly optimistic.
Obama, on CBS' "Face the Nation," reiterated his argument that because many Republicans consider Clinton "polarizing," he stands a better chance of drawing "independents and others that Clinton cannot.
But a series of polls showing him closing the gap on Clinton's national lead including in California, the most delegate-rich prize in Tuesday's race left Obama's campaign enthusiastic about his prospects to clinch a large number of delegates Tuesday.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) Two mentally disabled women were strapped with explosives Friday and sent into busy Baghdad markets, where they were blown up by remote control, a top Iraqi government official said.
The bombs killed at least 98 people and wounded more than 200 at two popular pet markets on the holiest day of the week for Muslims, authorities said.
In both bombings, the attackers were mentally disabled women whose explosive belts were remotely detonated, Gen. Qasim Atta, spokesman for Baghdad's security plan, told state television.
Atta said the women were strapped with dynamite and ball bearings, citing members of the bomb squad. The explosives were detonated via cell phone, he said.
An Atta aide said that people referred to the bomber at central Baghdad's al-Ghazl market as the "crazy woman" and that the bomber at a second market had an unspecified birth disability.
U.S. military officials referred to the two attacks as suicide bombings, saying both women detonated the explosive devices.
The U.S. officials also gave a much lower casualty toll, with 27 civilians dead and 53 others wounded.
The Pentagon attributed the attacks to al Qaeda in Iraq and made no reference to the mental conditions of the women.
"By targeting innocent Iraqis, they show their true demonic character," said Lt. Col. Steve Stover, spokesman for the Multi-National Division-Baghdad.
WASHINGTON (CNN) U.S. Coast Guard planes and ships were searching Friday for a Japanese balloonist who disappeared off the Alaska coast while flying from Japan to the west coast United States.
Friends of balloonist Michio Kanda, who was on a solo flight, last heard from him via satellite phone at 9 a.m. Alaska time (6 p.m. GMT) Thursday, said USCG Petty Officer Levi Read.
When he missed three subsequent scheduled calls over the next six hours, they called the Coast Guard, Read said.
Read said two Coast Guard C130 Hercules planes conducted searches Thursday 435 miles south of Adak, Alaska, the balloonist's last known position. The searches continued Friday and are ongoing, Read said.
Two Coast Guard cutters are also headed for the area, but both are at least a day away, he said.
Read said the balloonist, who was heading for Portland, Oregon, is equipped with provisions and a survival suit.
Kanda holds the world record for the longest-duration balloon flight, with a time of 50 hours and 38 minutes, according to the World Air Sports Federation.
In that January 1997 flight, he and Hirosuke Takezawa flew from the Canadian provionce of Alberta to the U.S. state of Montana, according to the federation.
NAIROBI, Kenya (CNN) The Kenyan government and opposition parties have reached a four-point plan to end weeks of bloodshed, former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan announced at a news conference Friday.
taking measures to address the humanitarian crisis; and promoting "reconciliation, healing and restoration," Annan said.
The fourth item, which could take up to a year, aims for a resolution to the political crisis, the former secretary-general said.
The plan includes an agreement to disband illegal armed groups, to refrain from making "irresponsible and provocative" statements, and to hold joint meetings to promote peace and reconciliation.
It also calls on police to end "brutality" and "excessive force.
The Kenyan Red Cross says the violence has claimed at least 863 lives and driven 261,000 from their homes since incumbent Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki claimed the December 27 election over Orange Democratic Movement leader Raila Odinga.
Annan also called for the "the protection and assistance and safe return of all internally displaced persons."
The World Health Organization issued a statement Friday saying many internally displaced Kenyans are living in crowded makeshift camps with "poor shelter, water supply, sanitation ... food shortages, no cooking fuel, precarious access to health care and shortages of antibiotics.
The England manager telephoned the 32-year-old midfielder on Wednesday and broke the news to Beckham who is just one appearance short of becoming the fifth man to earn 100 England caps but assured him he could be part of his future plans.
"I have selected a squad of 30 players as I think it is important that all the players are equal from the beginning.
"We will use the time between now and our first World Cup qualifying match in September to look at the players and find the best formula for the England team. I will also look at players who have not been included in the squad this time. "I know there has been a lot of discussion about David Beckham.
Beckham will be disappointed by the news, especially as he has been training with Arsenal during his holiday Major League Soccer's close season to get fit for Capello's first game.
(CNN) A Vietnamese woman caught cooking a tiger carcass was sentenced to two and a half years in jail, state media reported Thursday.
A Hanoi court convicted Nguyen Thi Thanh, 41, for "violating regulations protecting rare wild animals."
She was arrested last September after police raided a house that she rented in the capital city of Hanoi and found dead tigers, bear arms, monkey bones and elephant tusks.
Officers found Thanh and three accomplices cooking tiger carcasses, the Thanh Nien daily reported.
The three men received suspended sentences, ranging from 24 to 30 months, the daily said.
The woman told police she sold the animals' bone marrow for 6.5 million Vietnamese dong ($400) per gram to traditional medicine men, according to reports at the time.
Such medicine men think tiger bones and other parts can cure arthritis and other joint ailments, according to the Humane Society of the United States.
Tigers are universally threatened, with only about 100 still living in Vietnam, the World Wildlife Fund said.
The southeast Asian country has banned trafficking in endangered animal parts.
Last year, the Vietnamese government unearthed 38 cases of illegal trafficking that involved 503 endangered animals, local media said at the time.
Royal Dutch Shell, Europe's largest oil company, reported a $31.3 billion yearly net profit on Thursday, due to divestments and higher oil prices.
It represented a 23 percent rise from last year's figure of $24.4 billion, while sales rose 12 percent to $356 billion.
The results came on the back of a 60 percent rise in fourth-quarter net profit of $8.47 billion, up from $5.28 billion.
Sales for the final quarter rose to $107 billion from $75.5 billion despite a fall in production.
The Anglo-Dutch company's production was 3.4 million barrels of oil and equivalents per day, down 5.5 percent from 3.6 million in the same quarter a year ago.
Chief executive Jeroen van der Veer described the results as "satisfactory" overall, noting that the company had weak refining margins but "launched new (production) projects ... and achieved exploration successes.
Societe Generale's cross-town rival BNP Paribas said Thursday it is considering a bid for the French bank, weakened by a fraud scandal that has cost it billions.
"We are only thinking about SocGen because all European banks are thinking about it," BNP Paribas' spokeswoman Christelle Maldague said.
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (CNN) A judge issued an order Thursday prohibiting a Rio samba group from parading during carnival with a float depicting naked bodies of Holocaust victims.
Judge Juliana Kalichszteim issued the injunction in response to a lawsuit by the Jewish Federation of Rio de Janeiro, which asked for the float be removed from this city's famed carnival parade next week, said Lara Voges, a spokeswoman for the judge.
The judge said the float could be used in the parade, but that organizers of the Viradouro samba group must remove mannequins meant to represent dead bodies from the Holocaust.
The Jewish Federation praised the judge's decision.
"It's inadmissible that they could have a parade float depicting dead Jews and a live Hitler on top of them," said federation spokesman Jose Roitberg.
BERLIN, Germany (CNN) German police have charged a robbery suspect after matching his DNA to that found on a piece of salami spat out at a crime scene.
The bitten-off chunk of the telltale sausage was discovered at a building that had been broken in to in the southern city of Darmstadt in April, police said Thursday.
The 37-year-old man was taken into custody in early January after police ran his name through their computers at a highway spot-check and found he was wanted for several other crimes.
Once in custody, he was linked to the Darmstadt break-and-enter through the DNA sample on the salami and charged.
But it seems the rejected meat was not the robber's only slip up:
he has been charged with a total of 19 break-ins after other links were found.
The man, whose name was not released, remains in custody while police investigate.
LONDON, England (CNN) Poland will withdraw its troops from Iraq by the end of October, according to a spokesman for the Polish military Thursday.
October 31 will be the last day of the Polish presence in Iraq, Major Dariusz Kacperczyk said, speaking from Warsaw.
The precise date of withdrawal and when security would be handed over to local forces in Qadisiya, the southern Iraqi Shiite province where most Polish troops in Iraq are based, are still being determined, he said.
"One thing we know for sure is that after the last day of October, there will be no more Polish soldiers in Iraq," Kacperczyk said.
Poland's new prime minister, Donald Tusk, has promised to bring the troops home from Iraq, where
Poland has one of the larger non-U.S. contingents.
There are around 900 Polish troops in the war-torn country, with most in the Qadisiya capital of Diwaniya, some in Baghdad and others in the southern city of Kut.
Twenty-two soldiers from Poland have lost their lives during the nearly five year war in Iraq.
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama will duel for Super Tuesday votes Thursday night as the Democratic presidential hopefuls face off for the first time together minus former Sen. John Edwards.
The event is the first Democratic debate since Obama's convincing victory Saturday in South Carolina.
On Tuesday, Clinton won the Florida primary, a contest her campaign said helped the senator regain momentum even though it awarded no delegates.
That amount will allow Obama to expand his television ad buys greatly in the 20-plus states holding primaries or caucuses Tuesday.
The Clinton campaign would not indicate how much money it had raised in the same time period.
Mike Gravel, the other Democratic presidential candidate still in the race, was not invited to participate in the debate because he did not meet certain criteria, including support in national polls.
In a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll conducted January 14-17, Gravel received less than 1 percent.
The economy is likely to dominate Thursday's debate, as both candidates look to appeal to supporters of Edwards and his brand of economic populism.
As many as 121 Army soldiers committed suicide in 2007, a jump of more than 20 percent over the year before, officials said Thursday.
The rise came despite numerous efforts over the past year to improve the mental health of a force stressed by a longer-than-expected war in Iraq and the most deadly year yet in the now six-year-old conflict in Afghanistan.
Internal briefing papers prepared by the Army's psychiatry consultant earlier this month show there were 89 confirmed suicides last year and 32 deaths that are suspected suicides and still under investigation.
More than a quarter of the combined total about 34 died while serving a tour of duty in Iraq, an increase from 27 in Iraq the previous year, according to the preliminary figures.
The report also showed an increase in the number of attempted suicides and self-injuries some 2,100 in 2007 compared to less than 1,500 the previous year and less than 500 in 2002.
The rate has fluctuated over those years, with the low being 9.1 per 100,000 in 2001.
Elspeth Ritchie, the psychiatry consultant to the Army surgeon general, has said that officials found failed personal relationships, legal and financial problems and the stress of their jobs have been main factors in soldiers' suicides.
MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) Russian authorities are investigating the recent killing of a model-turned-bodyguard.
One notable client was Russian boxer Kostya Tszyu.
A carjacker pulled Loginova out of her Porsche Cayenne Sunday in Moscow.
Loginova grabbed onto the door handle as the car picked up speed and she was dragged along the street before letting go as the car sped away.
"An intruder just threw her out of the car" Russian police stated, "She grabbed the door handle, but when the car picked up speed, she let go.
Her fearlessness proved fatal.
Loginova died on the scene from serious cranial injuries.
The vehicle was later found abandoned in southern Moscow.
Luxury car theft is common in Moscow.
Loginova told Maxim magazine in a recently taped interview that she fought off a car thief just four months ago.
"I stepped out of my car and closed the door when I suddenly saw a young man near me. He grabbed me by the arm in which I was holding the car keys," she was quoted as saying.
"By reflex, I used a jiu-jitsu technique.
I twisted his arm and hit him on the face with my elbow.
The guy obviously was not expecting such a reaction.
He fell down on the rear windshield, which gave me enough time to grab my gun.
He immediately jumped into his Honda and drove away,"
Those who knew her said she was never deterred by danger.
For many Russians she was a feminine icon, bridging the glamorous world of modeling and the rough underbelly of Russian crime.
"I think she was kind and sweet, not like a terminator, not like Sigourney Weaver in 'Aliens'" said Igor Cherski from Maxim magazine "but I feel that she was not afraid of anything, there was no fear in her eyes."
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (CNN) High-technology services across large tracts of Asia, the Middle East and North Africa were crippled Thursday following a widespread Internet failure which brought many businesses to a standstill and left others struggling to cope.
Industry experts are blaming damage to two undersea cables but it is not known what caused the damage.
Reports say that Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain Pakistan and India, are all experiencing severe problems.
Nations that have been spared the chaos include Israel whose traffic uses a different route and Lebanon and Iraq.
Many Middle East governments have backup satellite systems in case of cable failure.
Stephan Beckert, an analyst with TeleGeography, a research company that consults on global Internet issues, said the damaged cables collectively account for the majority of international communications between Europe and the Middle East.
The two cables damaged are FLAG Telecom's FLAG Europe-Asia cable and SeaMeWe-4, a cable owned by a consortium of more than a dozen telecommunications companies, Beckert said.
He added the options while those cables are repaired were re-routing traffic around the globe or using an older undamaged cable that has less capacity both of which would cause usage delays.
Kuwait's Ministry of Communications said the problem could take two weeks to solve, according to a statement carried by the state news agency, KUNA.
Rajesh Chharia, president of India's Internet Service Providers' Association, explained that some firms were trying to reroute via Pacific cables and that companies serving the eastern US and the UK were worst affected.
Besides the Internet, the outage caused major disruption to television and phone services, creating chaos for the UAE's public and private sectors.
The outage led to a rapid collapse of a wide range of public services in a country which proudly promotes itself as a technological pioneer.
WASHINGTON (CNN) A senior al Qaeda terrorist who allegedly plotted and carried out attacks against U.S. and coalition forces was killed in Pakistan, a knowledgeable Western official and a military source told CNN Thursday.
He was identified as Abu Laith al-Libi, 41, who was on the military's most wanted list.
Al-Libi was thought to have been involved in the February 2007 bombing at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan while Vice President Dick Cheney was visiting.
The knowledgeable Western official said al-Libi was "not far below the importance of the top two al Qaeda leaders" Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Radical Islamist Web sites acknowledged al-Libi's death.
"May God have mercy on Sheikh Abu Laith al-Libi and accept him with his brothers, with the martyrs," said a eulogy posted on a main Islamist site, Al-Ekhlaas.
Al-Libi was of Libyan descent and was believed to have been in the Afghan-Pakistani border region, according to the U.S. military.
He was a significant, senior al Qaeda figure who had taken on a more prominent role in the organization in recent years, and was responsible for plotting attacks, some of which targeted U.S. and coalition forces as well as Afghan officials, a U.S. counterterrorism official told CNN.
In an earlier role, he was a leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which
eventually merged with al Qaeda and was responsible for planning attacks throughout North Africa and the Middle East, the counterterrorism official said.
The official described al-Libi as part of al Qaeda's inner circle, who helped fill the void created by the capture or death of other senior people in the organization.
Al-Libi could have been killed by a missile fired from a drone operated by the CIA and other U.S. government agencies.
The U.S. military placed al-Libi on its most wanted list in 2006, behind bin Laden, al-Zawahiri and Taliban leader Mullah Omar.
In October, the U.S. announced rewards ranging from $20,000 to $200,000 for al-Libi and 11 other mid-level Taliban and al Qaeda leaders.
The terrorist appeared in a 2002 audio recording posted on an Islamist Web site, saying al Qaeda had regrouped and intended to expand its war to include assassinations and attacks against infrastructure.
He also appeared in a 2004 video that showed him participating in an attack on an Afghan army base.
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) An Oscars contingency plan that would include history, film clips and out-of-the-ordinary concepts for the awards show is in the works, academy president Sid Ganis told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
With the writers strike dragging dangerously close to the February 24 telecast, the film academy is planning two Oscar shows:
"The show we would love to do and ... a show that we would prefer not to do," Ganis said.
The traditional, star-studded glamour-fest is in the works in case an agreement is reached.
If not, organizers are working on a second show that will include "history and packages of film and concepts that are not normally ones that we would have for the show if we were moving straight ahead.
The show will go on regardless of talks status, he said.
"We have an obligation to the art form to present the Oscars, so we have to deal with the possibility of not being able to do the show because of pickets or agreements not being concluded," Ganis said.
Meanwhile, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is talking with striking writers, said spokeswoman Leslie Unger.
"We have made contact with the guild," Unger said. "We want to be able to do the kind of Oscar show that we always do, and we want to create the circumstances that will allow us to do that.
Nominations for the 80th Academy Awards were announced last week.
Final ballots were mailed Wednesday to the 5,829 voting members of the academy.
Cristiano Ronaldo increased his goal tally this season to 27 in all competitions as his double against Portsmouth saw Manchester United return to the top of the Premier League on goal difference from Arsenal with a 2-0 victory.
The 22-year-old Portuguese sensation put United ahead in the 10th minute when he beat the offside trap to collect Nani's pass and slip the ball across goalkeeper David James.
Ronaldo added a spectacular second just three minutes later with an unstoppable free-kick over a static Portsmouth wall that left James no chance.
United and Arsenal both lie on 57 points, but United have a five-goal better goal difference than their rivals.
Meanwhile, Chelsea equalled a club record of nine successive wins in all competitions, set in 2005 under Jose Mourinho, with a 1-0 success at home to Reading.
The victory means the Blues are now unbeaten in 75 consecutive league games at Stamford Bridge and they remain in third place four points behind the top two.
Everton and Tottenham shared a 0-0 draw at Goodison Park, with the hosts remaining in fourth place.
Andy Johnson came closest in the second half for Everton when he found himself unmarked in front of goal following a sharp turn but his shot was saved by Radek Cerny.
(CNN) Fishermen in Bangladesh beat a rare river dolphin to death because they had not seen "this kind of creature before," according to local news accounts.
The fishermen then tried to sell the body of the Ganges River dolphin as a rare fish.
Elisabeth Fahrni Mansur, who works with the Bangladesh Cetacean Diversity Project, told CNN that the mammal was trapped in the low waters of a tidal channel.
"It wasn't dumped in front of a museum," Mansur added. "The animal was taken to a visitor center where it will be prepared for an exhibit.
The Ganges River dolphin inhabits the murky waters of the Ganges River and can be spotted only when it surfaces to breathe.
Thus, they are very rarely seen, according to the World Wildlife Fund Web site.
Unlike its marine counterpart, these fresh-water dolphins have a pudgy body and an extra-long and sharp-toothed snout.
The World Conservation Union places the total population of the dolphins at 4,000 to 5,000.
It classifies the Ganges River dolphin as an endangered species.
The air-breathing mammals sometimes die after they find themselves stranded in shallow waters, Mansur said. The construction of dams has reduced the flow of fresh water in many parts of Bangladesh.
The dolphin population is also dwindling because they sometimes get caught in a fisherman's net.
BEIJING, China (CNN) Two cargo ships collided on China's Yangtze river Wednesday morning, killing at least 15 sailors, the state-run news agency said.
A cargo ship, with 17 crew members on board, sank after it crashed into another ship about 1730 GMT Tuesday), Xinhua said.
Rescue crews were able to pull out one sailor. Fifteen died, and a sixteenth person was still missing, the news agency said.
Authorities did not say what caused the collision.
Two ships were also left stranded on the snow-covered bank of the river as heavy snow and sleet brought parts of the country to a standstill earlier in the week.
The Yangtze is the third longest river in the world, running 6,300 kilometers (about 3,900 miles).
Recently its water levels have dropped to record lows.
Measured in Wuhan's Hankou District, the water level fell to 13.98 meters, the lowest compared with the same time of year since records began in 1866.
The drop has affected shipping, fishery and water supply in the region.
Front-runners John McCain and Mitt Romney attacked each other's conservative credentials as they fought for their party's top spot during the final showdown before the Super Tuesday contests.
The sharpest exchange in the debate came when Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, was asked about the McCain campaign's charge that he once said he favored a strict timetable for removing troops from Iraq.
"By the way, raising it a few days before the Florida primary, when there was very little time for me to correct the record, falls in the kind of dirty tricks that Ronald Reagan would have found reprehensible.
But McCain, the Arizona senator who has strongly backed President Bush's Iraq policy, accused Romney of hedging after public support for the war waned.
The debate, sponsored by CNN, the Los Angeles Times and Politico.com, took place at the Reagan Presidential Library.
The event came as the GOP's four remaining candidates jockey for position going into next Tuesday, when more than 20 states will be holding primaries or caucuses.
McCain, who has won primaries in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida, hopes to solidify himself as the front-runner, while Romney, the winner in Michigan, Nevada and Wyoming, tries to stop McCain's run to the nomination.
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani dropped out of the race and endorsed McCain hours before the debate began.
And late Wednesday, CNN reported that California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was in the audience for the debate, planned to endorse McCain Thursday.
A heavy overnight snowstorm blanketed Jerusalem and other parts of the Holy Land in white on Wednesday, closing schools and stores and grounding public transportation.
The sense of excitement among Israelis, used to warm Middle Eastern weather, was palpable.
Children threw snowballs on slushy streets, and weather reports topped local newscasts, eclipsing an upcoming government report on the 2006 war in Lebanon that could pressure Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to resign.
Snow often falls in Jerusalem once or twice each winter, but temperatures rarely drop low enough for it to stick.
The city is not designed to deal with snowy weather. Schools shut, most public places closed down and many people stayed home from work.
LONDON, England (CNN) An advertisement portraying a scantily clad schoolgirl seductively twirling her hair is offensive, a British watchdog agency said Wednesday in demanding that low-cost airline Ryanair not run it again.
Ryanair Holdings PLC said the ruling by the Advertising Standards Authority was absurd and the airline had no intention of honoring it.
The agency said the ad's headline "HOTTEST back to school fares" combined with the model's pose in an empty classroom "appeared to link teenage girls with sexually provocative behavior.
The ad ran last summer in three newspapers.
The agency said the advertisement was likely to cause "serious or widespread offense" and demanded Ryanair not run it again.
Ryanair spokesman Peter Sherrard said in a statement that many British newspapers regularly run pictures of topless or partially dressed women.
"It is remarkable that a picture of a fully clothed model is now claimed to cause 'serious or widespread offense,"' Sherrard said. "This isn't advertising regulation, it is simply censorship.
The authority said the newspapers which originally ran the ad have agreed not to carry it again.
The agency has no enforcement powers, but it can refer advertisers to Britain's Office of Fair Trading for legal action.
The complaint comes two days after French President Nicolas Sarkozy's spokesman said the president plans to take legal action against Ryanair for using a photo of him and girlfriend Carla Bruni in another advertisement.
That ad, published Monday in the French daily Le Parisien, shows the smiling couple with a comic book speech bubble coming from Bruni's head saying:
Automaker BMW said Wednesday 2007 sales soared more than 14 percent as buyers clamored for its mix of BMW sedans, sporty Mini and luxury Rolls-Royce cars and said it was on track for higher sales this year.
Sales of its motorcycles decreased by nearly 3 percent.
"We expect a new record sales volume figure in 2008, with stronger growth in the first half of the year and more moderate growth in the second," BMW Chief Executive Norbert Reithofer said.
Shares of BMW were up more than 1.9 percent to 38.16 euros ($56.37) after the results were announced.
BMW said the United States remained its single biggest market for its BMW and Mini cars, with combined sales up 7.1 percent to 335,840 in 2007.
Its home market, Germany, was second, with 284,523 cars sold last year.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (CNN) The space station's two American astronauts went out on a riskier-than-usual spacewalk Wednesday to fix one of two equipment failures that have crippled their power system and threatened to stall construction.
Commander Peggy Whitson and Daniel Tani replaced a motor needed to tilt a solar wing toward the sun, taking extra precautions to avoid being shocked.
As soon as the new motor was hooked up, electricity began flowing through the unit.
The tilting mechanism stopped working in early December, exasperating a power problem that arose three months earlier when a solar wing rotating joint jammed up and had to be shut down.
Wednesday's spacewalk was especially hazardous because of the risk of being shocked.
For safety, Whitson and Tani waited until the international space station was on the dark side of Earth, then carefully undid fasteners and disconnected cables, and pulled out the old electric motor.
Whitson and Tani performed virtually the entire job in the darkness of night, pausing during the daytime swings around Earth when 160 volts of electricity would course through the cables.
As an added precaution, the spacewalkers were advised not to point any nonessential lights at the solar wing in question to prevent power generation.
It was the first spacewalk for Tani since his 90-year-old mother was killed in a car accident outside Chicago just before Christmas.
Flight director Holly Ridings said Tani has been coping extremely well, and that his work has not been affected.
Tani was supposed to return to Earth in December aboard Atlantis, but his trip home was delayed because of problems with the fuel gauges in the shuttle's external tank.
NASA is now aiming for a February 7 liftoff after replacing a bad connector at the bottom of the tank.
Wednesday's spacewalk fell on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the launch of NASA's first satellite, Explorer 1.
The very next day, Friday, will mark the fifth anniversary of the Columbia disaster.
The U.S. Federal Reserve on Wednesday cut a key interest rate for the second time in just over a week, reducing the federal funds rate by a half point.
That decrease had been the biggest one-day move in more than two decades.
The half-point cut Wednesday followed news that the economy had slowed significantly in the final three months of last year with the gross domestic product expanding at a barely
discernible pace of 0.6 percent, less than half what had been expected.
In a brief statement explaining their decision, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues said that "financial markets remain under considerable stress.
The Fed move was approved on a 9 to 1 vote.
Richard Fisher, president of the Fed's Dallas regional bank, dissented, preferring no change in rates.
The rate cut marked the fifth time that the Fed has cut the funds rate since it started with a half-point cut on September 18 in response to the severe credit crisis which hit global markets in August.
TOKYO, Japan (CNN) Ten Japanese were sickened, including a child who fell into a coma, after eating Chinese-made dumplings contaminated with insecticide, police and health officials said Wednesday.
Three people in western Hyogo prefecture (state) and seven in Chiba prefecture near Tokyo suffered severe abdominal pains, vomiting and diarrhea after eating the frozen dumplings imported from China by a Japanese company, the Health Ministry said.
A 5-year-old girl in Chiba regained consciousness after falling into a coma, and her mother, two brothers and a sister were in serious condition, Chiba police official Masaru Hiratsu said.
Investigators found traces of an organic phosphorus insecticide called methamidophos in the dumplings, their containers and the patients' vomit
, the ministry said in a statement. Authorities were attempting to determine the source of contamination.
The ministry ordered the dumplings' importer and distributor, JT Foods Co. Ltd. an affiliate of Japan's largest tobacco company to recall the product.
The dumplings were imported in November from Chinese manufacturer Hebei Foodstuffs Import & Export Group Tianyang Food Processing, the ministry said.
Japan's minister in charge of food safety, Fumio Kishida, said the incident prompted "grave concerns" and vowed to take urgent measures.
JT Foods distributed 13 tons of dumplings each in Chiba and Hyogo, the ministry said.
Britain's highest court decided Wednesday that a rapist who won the lottery while in prison may be sued by his victim even though the statute of limitations ran out 20 years ago.
The decision by the Law Lords effectively changes British law, giving victims of deliberate assault the right to sue after the current six-year limit expires, the woman and her attorney said.
A, said through her attorney that she was "delighted and relieved" at the decision.
Iorworth Hoare was serving a life sentence for the 1988 rape of Mrs. A when, in 2004, he bought a single lottery ticket while on day release.
Hoare won &pound; 7 million, which at the time was worth about $13 million.
"I'm both delighted and relieved that my appeal to the House of Lords has been successful and that I have succeeded in changing a law which will provide others in the future with a means of achieving justice," said Mrs. A, in a statement read by her lawyer, Sandra Baker.
Under previous law, victims of deliberate assault like Mrs. A only had six years in which to sue their attacker, after which no legal action was allowed.
Wednesday's decision by the Law Lords allows victims of deliberate assault the same right to sue their attackers after the time limit has expired.
"I hope that many others in the future will be able to benefit from the change in the law which I helped bring about.
The House of Lords is the final court of appeal in the United Kingdom for civil cases.
BEIJING, China (CNN) China's worst winter in more than half a century showed no signs of abating Wednesday as forecasters warned of three more days of snow and sleet.
The weather has paralyzed transportation, frozen the power grid and delivered a $4.5 billion hit to the economy, according to figures released Wednesday by the Civil Affairs Ministry.
The situation is compounding economic problems for China.
Destroyed crops have resulted in increased food prices, while the inability to transport goods has further inflated prices and led to shortages at stores.
China's railways and roads are the lifeblood for its manufacturing sector, one of the fastest growing in the world.
Automakers Toyota and Ford halted their China-based production this week.
The transportation stoppage has had a domino effect, preventing the delivery of coal, which is vital to China's power plants.
That is amplifying China's energy problems.
In Guangzhou, hundreds of factory workers who had saved money all year to visit their families during China's Lunar New Year filled the city's train station, waiting for trains that were not expected to arrive for days.
Up to half a million people have camped out in the southern city for nearly a week, hoping to get home for the holiday.
Factories in the province of Guangzhou shut down Wednesday ahead of the February 7 holiday with workers joining the masses around the train station hoping the government would deliver on its promise of quick action and immediate relief for those trying to make it home.
I don't know how I will get home," one man said.
The winter precipitation had caused at least 49 deaths due to collapsed roofs and treacherous travel conditions, the Ministry of Civil Affairs and local officials said.
Nearly a million police have been dispatched to help keep roadways open as thousands of vehicles have become stranded in the snow and ice, according to Chinese Ministry of Public Safety spokesman Wu Heping.
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani ended his GOP presidential race and endorsed rival Sen. John McCain of Arizona on Wednesday.
"This is a man who is prepared to be president," Giuliani said of his "old friend.
Giuliani said McCain gives the Republican Party the best chance to hold onto the presidency.
"I am very proud to endorse my friend and fellow Republican a hero John McCain," Giuliani said at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley California, two hours before the Republican presidential candidates were to face each other in their final debate before the Super Tuesday contests next week.
Meanwhile, two Republican sources told CNN that California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is in discussions about endorsing McCain.
One of the sources said, "you can safely describe the conversations as progressing and productive."
The second source described the endorsement as "more than expected" and said the conversations were aimed at arranging a Thursday announcement.
"I made it clear before I had to make this decision [to drop out] that had I not run, I'd be supporting John McCain," Giuliani told reporters on a flight to Burbank, California, for the debate.
Giuliani, who had staked his presidential campaign on a Florida win, had a disappointing third-place finish in the state's Republican primary Tuesday night.
He largely skipped the early voting states to put all his energy into Florida.
Police on Wednesday tried to determine what charges to file against the men who held up to 52 hostages in a botched bank robbery in central Venezuela before being detained.
The men stormed a bank in the town of Altagracia de Orituco, in the state of Guarico, and took hostages just before noon on Monday before releasing a few during negotiations with police.
The number of hostages ranged from 30 to 52, including a pregnant woman and a 15-day-old infant, and most were held for 28 hours.
The robbers were under the influence of "stimulants," said Ramon Rodriguez Chacin, the Venezuelan minister of the interior and justice.
Authorities allowed the captors to leave the bank by ambulance on Tuesday, with five hostages being used as human shields, after the men threatened to kill their captives, authorities told CNN.
Those hostages who remained inside the bank were then freed, and the captors later released their "human shields" on a highway near Caracas.
Authorities detained four captors after intercepting them on a road leading to the western part of the country, and one other was unaccounted for, the Bolivarian News Agency reported.
The U.S. military is developing contingency plans to deal with the possibility that a large spy satellite expected to fall to Earth in late February or early March could hit North America.
Air Force Gen. Gene Renuart, who heads of U.S. Northern Command, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the size of the satellite suggests that some number of pieces will not burn up as the orbiting vehicle re-enters the Earth's atmosphere and will hit the ground.
"We're aware that this satellite is out there," Renuart said. "We're aware it is a fairly substantial size. And we know there is at least some percentage that it could land on ground as opposed to in the water.
A U.S. official confirmed that the spy satellite is designated by the military as US 193.
It was launched in December 2006 but almost immediately lost power and cannot be controlled.
It carried a sophisticated and secret imaging sensor but the satellite's central computer failed shortly after launch.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the information is classified as secret.
Renuart added that, "As it looks like it might re-enter into the North American area," then the U.S. military, with the Homeland Security Department and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, will either have to deal with the impact or assist Canadian or Mexican authorities.
But he cautioned that officials won't have much detail on where or when it will crash until it begins to move through the atmosphere and break up.
Renuart added that there does not as yet appear to be much concern about sensitive technologies on the satellite falling into enemy hands.
The satellite includes some small engines that contain a toxic chemical called hydrazine which is rocket fuel.
But those qualities don't come cheap.
The venue for the downhill skiing and snowboarding events in the 2010 Winter Olympics plus the nordic events nearby has become a haven for those who want luxury near their lift lines.
The standard daily lift ticket is $81.
All-day adult group lessons begin at $77, with lift ticket.
Fancy hotels such as the Four Seasons, the Fairmont Chateau, the Westin Resort and Spa and not one but two Pan Pacific palaces seem to be at every turn inside Whistler Village.
The pulsing, main pedestrian walk of shops, bars, restaurants and two grocery stores even has a wine shop at the base of Whistler ski area.
Some hotels want two-night minimums. Then there's the currently unfavorable currency exchange rate, eh?
Local merchants and many of Whistler's 3,400 employees seemingly all perky, in their 20s and many from New Zealand, Australia or Great Britain push the fact that theirs is a four-season resort.
Ski season runs from November through June, with the spring months usually spent on higher Blackcomb Mountain, elevation 7,500 feet (Whistler Mountain tops out at 7,160 feet).
Blackcomb's summer glacier skiing and snowboarding are tentatively scheduled to run through July 27.
Some of Canada's world-class mountain bikers live at Whistler or at Squamish, the small town midway between Vancouver and Whistler along B.C. Highway 99.
SAN FRANCISCO, California (CNN) The number of chinook salmon returning to California's Central Valley has reached a near-record low, pointing to an "unprecedented collapse" that could lead to severe restrictions on West Coast salmon fishing this year, according to federal fishery regulators.
The sharp drop in chinook, or "king," salmon returning from the Pacific Ocean to spawn in the Sacramento River and its tributaries last fall is part of broader decline in wild salmon runs in rivers across the West.
The population dropped more than 88 percent from its all-time high five years ago, according to an internal memo sent to members of the Pacific Fishery Management Council and obtained by The Associated Press.
the shrinking number of spawners;
some scientists believe it could be related to changes in the ocean linked to global warming.
Some fishermen and environmentalists believe the sharp decline is related to increased water exports from the San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta.
It supplies drinking water to millions of people in dry Southern California, as well as irrigation for America's most fertile farming region.
"It's time to reduce pumping of delta waters before we destroy the fish and wildlife species we appreciate so much in California," said Mike Sherwood, an attorney for Earthjustice.
More worrisome is that only about 2,000 2-year-old juvenile chinooks used to predict returns of adult spawners in the coming season returned to the Central Valley last year.
Not long ago, salmon restoration efforts in the Sacramento watershed were being touted as a wildlife management success story.
But recent years have seen populations dwindle in many Western rivers, and scientists are trying to understand why.
The council plans to meet in Sacramento in March to discuss possible restrictions, including a complete closure of the salmon season that begins in May.
Final decisions will be made in April.
(CNN) Two of Turkey's main political parties are pushing for a constitutional amendment to lift bans on headscarves at public universities, a move that has caused concern among Turkey's secular population.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan initiated the move, saying it would create equality in Turkey's higher education.
The constitutional commission will discuss the proposal submitted by the AKP and MHP parties in the coming days before sending it to the floor for a vote.
If approved, it would need President Abdullah Gul's approval, which is expected.
Bans on headcoverings were imposed in the early 1980s by Turkey's universities because they were seen as political symbols and conflicted with Turkey's secular governing system.
The proposal to change Turkey's constitution sent chills through Turkey's secular population.
"This is a direct threat to the republic and its foundations," said Deniz Baykal, leader of Turkey's main secular party, CHP.
Another CHP lawmaker said she fears that if the proposal is enacted, parents will feel pressure to have their daughters wear headscarves, even in elementary school.
Mustafa Akaydin, head of Turkey's Higher Education Commission, is against the proposal.
He said that allowing headscarves would be a rejection of Turkey's secular system of government.
"It is an attempt to create a counterrevolution," Akaydin said. "It will be a breaking point.
The Higher Education Commission will meet Friday in Ankara to discuss the proposed changes.
BRISBANE, Australia (CNN) A golf course in tropical Australia has a new water hazard:
a crocodile that took up residence in a lake at the 14th hole.
Club owner Don Matheson in the Queensland state city of Townsville said the small, freshwater crocodile posed no "significant threat" to people, but that the club doesn't allow them on the course.
The meter-long (3-foot, 4-inch) crocodile moved into the lake at the Willows Golf Club during flooding that followed heavy rains in recent weeks, Matheson said, adding that he'll ask wildlife authorities to place the animal back in the wild.
Wildlife authorities last week warned residents in the Queensland tropics to be alert for crocodiles and snakes carried onto properties by floodwater.
Sen. John McCain claimed victory in Florida's Republican primary, and Sen. Hillary Clinton took the state's Democratic contest Tuesday night.
The results in the Republican race might have delivered a fatal blow to the campaign of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who was a distant third as results came in Tuesday night.
Two GOP sources with direct knowledge of Giuliani's plans said he will drop out of the race and endorse McCain at an event in California on Wednesday.
"I'm proud I ran a positive campaign," he told supporters. "I ran a campaign that was uplifting."
With 81 percent of Republican precincts reporting, McCain held a 36-31 percent lead over former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.
Giuliani had 15 percent of the vote, followed closely by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee who held 14 percent.
A top campaign official from McCain's camp has been in "ongoing discussions" with Giuliani's campaign about endorsing McCain's candidacy, a GOP official familiar with talks told CNN Tuesday.
A source close to Giuliani confirmed that discussions were taking place and said there is talk among the staff that an endorsement could come Wednesday in California.
The source said McCain and Giuliani need to talk, but "we are working to make it happen.
McCain, who cultivates an image as a maverick, has been in the senate for four terms after two terms as a U.S. congressman.
With about 82 percent of Democratic precincts reporting, Clinton had 50 percent of the vote.
Illinois Sen. Barack Obama was in second with 33 percent, and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards was in third with 14 percent.
Republicans penalized the state as well, but took away only half of their 114 delegates.
The economy is overwhelmingly the top issue for voters in Florida's primary, according to early exit polls.
NAIROBI, Kenya (CNN) Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Tuesday pleaded with Kenya's government to take "extraordinary measures" to protect civilians hours after an opposition lawmaker was killed outside his home.
Hundreds have died in fighting sparked by last month's presidential election, which opponents insist was rigged to ensure Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki's re-election.
"Kenya, which has long been a stable and peaceful country, today is in turmoil with innocent men, women and children being hounded and killed," Annan told Kenya's National Assembly before heading into talks with Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga.
Annan's speech came as police and demonstrators clashed in Nairobi and hours after gunmen killed opposition lawmaker Mugabe Were in a car outside his house.
About 100 supporters also gathered in Kisumu, Kenya's third-largest city, in a show of anger over Were's killing, prompting police to fire tear gas and bullets to disperse them, the Kenya Broadcasting Corp. reported.
Odinga said he suspected "the foul hands of our adversaries" in the shooting death of Were, a parliament member from the Orange Democratic Movement, according to The Associated Press.
During his assembly address, Annan called on Kenya's leaders to stop the "downward spiral into chaos that is threatening this beautiful country.
"[We] must stress our common humanity and uphold respect for human rights and the dignity of others."
Police in India have broken up what they call a global organ-trafficking scheme and are hunting its alleged mastermind, a doctor identified as Amit Kumar.
Authorities Tuesday asked for the public's help in tracking down Kumar after a raid last week on a home in Gurgaon, a city near New Delhi.
Police characterized the scheme as an attempt to harvest kidneys from the poor and sell the organs to wealthy patients.
At least one doctor was arrested, police said, and at least two patients one from Greece and the other from the United States initially were detained before being freed.
Gurgaon Police Commissioner Mahendra Lal said the doctor confessed the ring carried out about 500 transplants over about 10 years in five states across India.
Lal said four doctors as well as nurses, medical technicians and others were involved in the scheme, working out of a house in Gurgaon with an operating theater.
Police also said they discovered a worldwide roster of 48 people waiting for transplants.
Kumar, who also uses the alias Dr. Santosh Rameshwar Raut, may not be in India anymore, police said.
Under Indian law, the sale of human organs is illegal, but the country has a flourishing black market. There have long been reports of poor Indians selling their kidneys and even giving them up by force in some cases.
The problem is extensive enough for the Indian Health Ministry to be developing new legislation that lawmakers hope will stop the illegal organ trade.
Instead, he brought them to the house in Gurgaon, they said. "The surgery has been done professionally, there's no doubt, by someone who is qualified and seems to know his job," said Sanjay Narula, a surgeon who is caring for the victims now.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=3027348 LEICESTER, England (CNN) Four men have pleaded guilty to offenses linked to a plot to kidnap a British Muslim soldier on leave and behead him in a garage.
Parviz Khan, Basiru Gassama, Mohammed Irfan, and Hamid Elasmar entered their pleas several weeks ago, but the media were restricted from reporting the matter until Tuesday, when two other men went on trial alongside the four.
The four also admitted charges related to sending equipment to terrorists.
Leicester Crown Court was told that Khan, 37, devised the plot to kidnap and kill the soldier and send equipment to terrorists in Pakistan and along the Afghan border.
A jury heard that Khan intended to behead the soldier "like a pig" and release footage of the killing on the internet, the British Press Association reported.
Street entertainment quarter with the help of drug dealers, the agency added.
Irfan, 31, and Elasmar, 44, admitted helping Khan supply the equipment.
The two men on trial, Amjad Mahmood and Zahoor Iqbal, are also accused of having a role in the plot but both deny the charges.
Mahmood, 32, denies knowing about the plot and failing to tell anyone.
Russia warned the United Nations and European Union Tuesday against taking any unilateral steps with Kosovo, saying such action would create a "destructive precedent.
EU leaders agreed last month to send an 1,800-strong force of police and legal officials to Kosovo to maintain stability after a declaration of independence, which is expected in the next few months.
"We are hoping that the U.N. secretary-general and our partners realize the destructive implications of unilateral scenarios and actions violating the U.N. Charter and will refrain from taking steps that can create a destructive precedent for international relations," Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin said in a written statement.
"We understand that the European Union wants to play a more active role in the Kosovo issue, but it is only possible if these conditions are fulfilled," he said.
new international civilian presence in Kosovo would require approval from the U.N. Security Council, where Russia has a permanent seat.
Since 1999, the United Nations has been running the Serbian province with NATO peacekeepers, who still number about 16,000.
An EU official, however, denied Russian claims that the EU force would violate existing U.N. resolutions.
The official, who did not wish to be named, said the resolutions allowed for an international presence in the province, not necessarily from the U.N.
He also insisted that most governments around the world "agree that Kosovo is an EU responsibility.
Kosovo's push for independence has been a major factor in the Serbian presidential race.
Ultranationalist challenger Tomislav Nikolic faces pro-Western incumbent Boris Tadic in a runoff Sunday.
BEIJING, China (CNN) Six workers have died building venues for the 2008 Beijing Olympics over the last five years, an acknowledgment Monday that came after a series of clarifications by a Chinese official.
He later said two died there and then added there were six worker deaths in total at all sites, without elaborating on the other four deaths.
Li Yizhong, minister of the State Administration of Work Safety, said last week he was unaware of work-related deaths on the project but promised to investigate.
Greece four years ago, Olympic protesters in Athens held a memorial service for 13 workers killed during round-the-clock construction for the 2004 Games.
The Sunday Times of London reported this month at least 10 workers had died at venues for the Beijing Olympics and said Chinese officials were covering up the accidents.
The newspaper said Chinese authorities have covered up the deaths and doled out large payments to guarantee the silence of fellow workers who witnessed the accidents.
We have punished the related personnel.
After the news conference, he again revised his answer, saying six workers had died at all venues over the last five years. He did not say where the other four deaths had taken place.
Floridians are voting Tuesday in a primary battle that could play a crucial role in deciding the Republican presidential nominee.
Tuesday's vote may have little impact on the Democratic presidential race, however, because the party's national leadership said it would not allow Florida's delegates to participate in the national convention because of a squabble over scheduling.
Sen. John McCain of Arizona and former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts appear to be neck-and-neck in the Republican primary.
If Romney comes out on top, the battle for the GOP presidential nomination will be up in the air.
The primary calendar is playing in Florida's favor.
Other than Republican caucuses in Maine this weekend, Florida is the last contest before the coast to coast primaries and caucuses on February 5, known as Super Tuesday.
"Romney and McCain are competing in Florida's crucial Republican primary as very different candidates, on very different core GOP issues.
Romney, on the economy, as the multimillionaire businessman who says he knows how to fix it and says Sen. McCain doesn't get it," said CNN political correspondent Dana Bash.
McCain calls security and the war on terror the transcendent issue," she added.
McCain, Romney and the three other candidates engaged in a civil debate in Florida Thursday night.
But since Friday, the McCain and Romney camps, and the candidates themselves, have fired away at each other over the war in Iraq, the economy, illegal immigration and border security, campaign finance reform and the environment.
And the negative attacks are not just occurring at campaign events and being reported by the media.
BEIJING, China (CNN) In a rare move for a Chinese politician, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao apologized Tuesday to the hundreds of thousands of people stranded in train stations across the country as the worst winter weather in half a century combined with crippling power problems nearly brought travel to a standstill for millions trying to go home for the Chinese New Year holiday.
"I apologize to you all," said Wen, using a bullhorn to address stranded travelers at a train station in Hunan province. "We are currently trying our best to repair the system.
Then all of you can go home for the Chinese New Year," the premier said, bringing applause from the crowd.
Chinese media replayed the apology several times.
Chinese President Hu Jintao called an emergency meeting of the policy-making politburo and promised quick action and immediate relief for those trying to make it home.
Wen flew out of Beijing en route to Hunan province on Monday night, but had to detour to neighboring Hubei province because of the bad weather.
He completed his trip by train, arriving in Changsha City, Hunan's capital, on Tuesday morning, the Xinhua reported.
Brutal winter weather has pounded China's central, eastern and southern sections, stranding hundreds of thousands of travelers ahead of the holiday.
More than 300,000 passengers who wanted to board trains at the Guangzhou station were stranded in the city as heavy snowfall knocked out power and greatly slowed rail operations in Hunan province, along a line serving Beijing and Guangzhou, Chinese media reported.
Manchester United have been drawn at home to Arsenal in Monday's draw for the fifth round of the FA Cup.
The last 16 meeting of the top two in the Premier League is sure to be the clash of the round with both sides still in contention for the treble including the Champions League.
United reached the fifth round by beating Tottenham Hotspur 3-1 with Cristiano Ronaldo scoring twice, while Arsenal saw off Newcastle 3-0.
in the oldest cup competition in the world and with United and Arsenal meeting at Old Trafford this is sure to be whittled down further for the sixth round.
The other two Premier League sides have both been handed trips to second-tier opposition, with Middlesbrough traveling to Manchester City's conquerors Sheffield United and Portsmouth visiting Preston, who hammered Derby in the fourth round.
The U.S. State Department's top Koreas expert launched a mission to advance a stalled nuclear disarmament deal, heading Tuesday to South Korea and planning to travel this week to China and North Korea, the U.S. Embassy said.
The accord aimed at halting North Korea's nuclear programs appeared at a standstill after the communist nation missed a December 31 deadline to declare all its nuclear programs.
North Korea has said it provided a statement, but the United States says that statement was incomplete.
The State Department official, Sung Kim, was to arrive in South Korea later Tuesday and planned to leave Wednesday for Beijing and travel Thursday to Pyongyang before returning to Washington on Sunday, embassy spokesman Max Kwak said in Seoul.
A mine exploded Monday on a road in southern Somalia, killing four people three members of the medical humanitarian group Medecins Sans Frontieres and a journalist.
Also killed was journalist Hassan Kafi Hared, 36.
The remote-controlled mine erupted as he was walking to a news conference in Siyad Village in northern Kismayu, said the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ).
Hared is the second journalist to be killed this year, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
The first, 38-year-old Norwegian reporter Carsten Thomassen, died Jan. 15 in a suicide bomb attack in Kabul.
In a written statement, a representative of U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said he condemned the killings and "demands a thorough investigation by the authorities."
LONDON, England (CNN) A London court Monday found five men guilty of Britain's biggest ever cash robbery.
A jury at the Old Bailey court convicted the men after a five-month trial, a court spokesman said.
Sentencing was expected as early as Tuesday, the spokesman said.
The men were convicted of the February 2006 holdup of the Securitas AB cash depot in Tonbridge, Kent, about 30 miles southeast of London.
garage owner Roger Coutts, 30 and Emir Hysenaj, 28, a postal worker were convicted.
John Fowler, 59, was cleared of all charges.
Investigators said the take from the holdup topped &pound; 53.1 million, which was slightly more than $92 million at the time.
26.5 million stolen from the Northern Bank headquarters in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in 2004.
Investigators said the perpetrators held the depot manager's wife and 9-year-old son hostage as they forced the manager to let them inside the facility.
20 millions of the stolen money, along with hoods, guns, and body armor believed to have been used in the heist.
NEW YORK (CNN) Sylvester Stallone says he used human growth hormone to get buff for the new "Rambo" movie, and defends its use.
"HGH (human growth hormone) is nothing," the 61-year-old actor tells Time magazine in its February 4 issue.
"Anyone who calls it a steroid is grossly misinformed.
Because it is nearly undetectable, HGH has become a substance of great concern in major league baseball and other sports battling allegations of rampant doping.
"Testosterone to me is so important for a sense of well-being when you get older," Stallone says.
"Everyone over 40 years old would be wise to investigate it because it increases the quality of your life.
Mark my words. In 10 years it will be over the counter.
(CNN) Britain's Prince Charles will not attend the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing and a group that campaigns against China's human rights record said Monday that the future monarch's decision was in solidarity with its aims.
Free Tibet Campaign officials said they had written to the Prince of Wales asking him to stay away from the event, which begins on August 8.
However, it was not clear if the prince had been invited to attend he is believed to have gone to an Olympics only once before, when his sister Princess Anne competed in Montreal in 1976.
The Princess Royal's daughter, Zara Phillips, is hoping to represent Britain in equestrian at the event this year.
Her father, Captain Mark Phillips, won a gold medal at the 1972 Munich Games.
A spokeswoman for the Prince of Wales told CNN Monday that his office did not comment on private correspondence, but said, "There are no plans to attend the ceremony.
The Free Tibet group told the prince a long-time supporter of Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama that human rights conditions in China and the small Himalayan nation had deteriorated since China was awarded the summer sporting showpiece, despite its promises to improve them.
"With all that in mind, we asked the prince not to go to the Games because to do so would represent the tacit endorsement of the worsening human rights situation in Tibet," spokesman Matt Whitticase told CNN.
Whitticase said his group received a prompt response from the prince's deputy private secretary, informing it of the prince's decision to stay away.
The Free Tibet Campaign said the letter from the prince's office read:
"As you know, His Royal Highness has long taken a close interest in Tibet.
You asked if the Prince of Wales would be attending the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics in 2008.
His Royal Highness will not be attending the ceremony. "
Whitticase said his group was now asking other high-profile leaders to follow the prince's "principled example. "
There was no immediate reaction from Beijing.
Earlier this month, a foreign ministry spokeswoman told the state news agency that some groups were trying to politicize the Games "to slur China's image and to put pressure on the Chinese government.
"No country in the world is perfect in human right issues," spokeswoman Jiang Yu told Xinhua. "The Chinese people are enjoying many rights that they have never enjoyed before.
PARIS, France (CNN) A French court sentenced six charity workers to eight years in prison on Monday for the attempted kidnapping of 103 children in Chad.
A court in Chad had sentenced the members of the charity Zoe's Ark to eight years of hard labor in Chad last month.
But after French President Nicolas Sarkozy intervened, Chad handed them over to France to serve their sentences.
The public prosecutor had asked the French judge to convert the Chadian sentence which does not exist in French law to eight years in prison.
They have been identified by France's state radio as Eric Breteau the group's leader Emilie Lelouch, Alain Peligat, Philippe van Winkelberg, Dominique Aubry and Nadia Merimi.
Two weeks ago they appeared in front of a judge in the Paris suburb of Creteil, when the public prosecutor asked that the Chadian sentence be converted to a term in prison, a court of appeals spokeswoman told CNN.
The Zoe's Ark workers were charged in October last year, having been arrested along with three French journalists and seven members of a Spanish charter flight company as they tried to leave the country with the children on a plane bound for Paris.
The journalists and flight crew were subsequently released.
Sudan, and had at least one living parent.
The six were reportedly also ordered to pay $87,000 to each of the 103 children in their African sentencing, but it has not yet been revealed if the French court upheld that part of the punishment.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) A group of gunmen Monday released at least 30 students and teachers who had been held for several hours inside a primary school in northwest Pakistan, according to Pakistani officials and local police.
The hostages were unharmed, and the hostage-takers were handed over to the custody of tribal elders who had been helping police negotiate an end to the standoff, the officials and police said.
The tribal leaders later released the gunmen.
Police said the kidnappers will not be held or charged for their actions, and were set free after giving up their weapons.
Before storming the school, the hostage-takers had seized a health official in the nearby town of Karak in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, Pakistani Interior Minister Nisar Memon told CNN.
He stressed that the gunmen are local criminals not members of the Taliban or al Qaeda militant groups who carry out such kidnappings for ransom payments.
Police confronted the kidnappers and engaged them in a firefight, killing one, Memon said.
The remaining four to seven kidnappers released the health official and fled to the neighboring town of Bannu, pursued by police, the minister said.
Karak and Bannu are about 75 miles (123 km) south of Peshawar near Pakistan's border with Afghanistan.
Speaking at a news conference in London, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf called the situation a "desperate" act.
"These were extremists who were being chased, actually, and they took refuge in the school," Musharraf said at a joint news conference with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
"So they didn't go really to take the children as hostage. It was incidental that they entered the school to hide themselves but in the process then to hide, they took those students hostage.
He and Brown hailed the reports that the children were released.
Asian stocks tumbled Monday as traders took their cues from Wall Street, where persistent worries about a possible U.S. recession sent shares sinking Friday.
India's benchmark stock index dropped 4.6 percent in early trading and Hong Kong's market slid 4.7 percent by midday.
U.S. stock index futures also were down, suggesting that shares could drop again when the market opens in New York.
In an anomaly, Australia's main stock index gained 5 percent, or 280.50 points, to close at 5,886.30.
Investors around the world have been jittery for weeks about a U.S. slump, which would likely weaken demand for exports and drag on global growth.
There is also concern about a worldwide credit crunch triggered by rising defaults in risky U.S. mortgages, which has led to mountains of bad assets at major American and European banks.
Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 index fell nearly 4 percent, erasing much of its 4.1 percent jump from Friday.
In mainland China, the Shanghai Composite Index fell 7.2 percent.
uncertainty over the U.S. economy, uncertainty over China's economy," said Rob Hart, an analyst with Morgan Stanley in Hong Kong.
"People are also worried about contagion in Europe. If the U.S. slows down, will it trigger a slowdown in Europe?"
European stocks fell slightly Friday amid ongoing speculation about potential problems in the banking sector.
Sen. Edward Kennedy backed Sen. Barack Obama for president Monday, saying, "It is time again for a new generation of leadership.
"It is time now for Barack Obama," the Massachusetts senator and brother of the late President Kennedy added.
Patrick Kennedy, and his niece, Caroline Kennedy, before a screaming capacity crowd of students at American University in Washington.
"Like you, we want a president who appeals to the hopes of those who still believe in the American dream," he said.
"I've found that candidate.
After Kennedy spoke, Obama told the boisterous crowed:
I know the cherished place the Kennedy family holds in the hearts of the American people.
The Illinois Democrat said he would work to carry on the vision the senator's brother laid out when he was president nearly five decades ago.
"The dream has never died ... it lives on in those Americans, young and old, rich and poor, black and white, Latino and Asian and Native American, gay and straight, who are tired of a politics that divides us and want to recapture the sense of common purpose that we had when John Kennedy was president of the United States of America," Obama said.
"That is the dream we hold in our hearts," Obama said.
And that is the kind of leadership I intend to offer as president of the United States of America.
Kennedy said he has always planned to "support the candidate who inspires me, who inspires all of us, who can lift our vision and summon our hopes and renew our belief that our country's best days are still to come.
President Bush's last State of the Union will focus on Iraq and the economy, but he also will say he is entering a congressional fray over earmarking taxpayer dollars, administration officials said.
"Our enemies in Iraq have been hit hard," the president will say, according to excerpts released by the White House.
"Some may deny the surge is working, but among the terrorists there is no doubt. Al Qaeda is on the run in Iraq, and this enemy will be defeated," he is expected to say.
Bush will continue to urge patience with the nearly 5-year-old Iraq war, saying more time is needed for the Iraqi government to reach a political settlement and to lock in security gains made since he dispatched nearly 30,000 additional U.S. troops there a year ago.
Democrats have tried to wind down the war since taking control of Congress in January 2007, and their leaders continue to make clear their patience has run thin.
"He'll tell us the war has turned a corner and that victory is in sight," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, said last week, adding that Americans have heard that refrain many times since Bush's declaration of victory in May 2003.
"Five years, nearly 4,000 deaths and half a trillion dollars later, the mission is still not accomplished," Reid said.
Bush is expected to say that although the "economy is undergoing a period of uncertainty," the American people "can be confident about our economic growth." Interactive: Bush's message over the years &raquo;
NAIROBI, Kenya (CNN) The violence plaguing western Kenya's Rift Valley spread to the country's Western Province Monday, according to an official with the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Reports of "a series of instances" of violence were coming from Kisumu and Kakanega in Western Province, an area where violence earlier this month had abated, ICRC spokesman Bernard Barrett said Monday.
But he added that the reports were preliminary and "still too confusing" to quantify.
Kenya's Western Province is the area near its border with Uganda.
The result has been a new wave of displaced people "several thousand forced from homes or fleeing in fear," Barrett said.
The ICRC has set up new camps to accommodate them because they represent a wider variety of tribal groups, some of whom "might not feel comfortable living with those in the established camps.
But "the situation is better than it was in previous days," in the Rift Valley cities of Naivasha and Nakuru which were the focus of violence over the weekend.
Rumors spread by cell phone text messages predicting imminent attacks by one group or another were heightening tensions, he said.
In Nakuru, 95 miles northwest of the capital, 60 people have been killed and hundreds more have been wounded by gang members wielding machetes and clubs since violence broke out Thursday.
In nearby Naivasha, boulders and burning tires blocked the streets, forcing drivers to stop as gang members searched for tribal enemies.
On Sunday, members of one tribe needed protection just to walk down the street.
Security forces fired tear gas and live ammunition to disperse the crowds.
As many as 30 people were herded Sunday into a building and burned to death, the Red Cross said; several others were hacked to death by people wielding machetes.
The death toll in Naivasha was not clear.
The Kenyan Red Cross went Monday to the city morgue not to count bodies but to ensure that proper methods were in place so that the bodies could be identified and family members could find out what happened, ICRC's Barrett said.
The government says 600 to 650 people have been killed in all, but the opposition says at least 1,000 have died.
More than 200,000 people have been displaced in the turmoil, according to the Kenyan Red Cross.
Alleged multibillion-dollar rogue trader Jerome Kerviel was freed Monday after French authorities preliminarily charged him with abuse of confidence and illegal access to computers.
Kerviel, 31, is implicated in what may be the largest securities fraud case against an individual.
Banking giant Societe Generale has said Kerviel's trades for the firm resulted in $7.2 billion in losses.
But Kerviel's attorney claimed victory Monday because the preliminary charges failed to include fraud.
Judge Renaud Van Ruymbeke refused a prosecutor's request for Kerviel to continue to be held for questioning.
"He is free," said Kerviel's lawyer Christian Charriere-Bournasel. "He is free and he has been cleared of the charge of fraud, which has been repeatedly emphasized by the Societe Generale Bank.
However, lawyers said that Kerviel, if found guilty of the abuse of confidence charge, could be sentenced to seven years in prison.
Societe Generale Bank shares fell nearly 4 percent to ¢æ70.94 (about $104) Monday, according to The Associated Press.
Kerviel has been cooperative and has admitted exceeding his credit limit in order to make fraudulent transactions involving European index futures, said Paris prosecutor Jean-Claude Marin.
"I exploded my credit line," Marin quoted Kerviel as saying about the loss, the largest by an individual in the securities business.
Marin requested that Kerviel be charged Monday because, under French law, a suspect may be held for only 48 hours without charge.
BEIJING, China (CNN) Chinese workers and army soldiers were racing to sweep snow-covered highways and unclog railway routes for millions of travelers trapped by cold weather.
More than 67 million people have been affected by the weather and economic losses are expected to reach as much as $3 billion, Chinese officials say.
Blizzards have snapped power lines and destroyed houses and farmland, prompting fears of food and energy shortages.
Twenty-four people have died and some 827,000 people have been evacuated in 14 different provinces, the Ministry of Civil Affairs said Monday.
In the past week, the snowstorms have hit the provinces in central, eastern and southern China places that are used to mild winters, not extreme wintry blasts.
The snow and sleet have paralyzed roads, railways and airports, leaving tens of millions of travelers marooned, officials say.
Many of them are bound for home ahead of the traditional Lunar New Year, also known as the Spring Festival, which falls on February 7.
For several days before and after that day, an estimated 178 million Chinese will travel by train, and 22 million more by plane, officials say.
Millions more will take long-haul vans and buses.
The Lunar New Year travel is China's busiest travel period of the year.
But the cold snap is hampering travel plans.
Railway and highway routes have been brought to a standstill, several regional airports have been closed and many provinces have imposed power "brownouts" to conserve energy.
Even the local stock market seems affected by the nasty weather.
The Shanghai composite index dropped by more than 7 percent on Monday, dragged in part by investors' concerns over the damage caused by the foul winter weather.
Worst hit were transport and power stocks.
Chinese premier Wen Jiabao has ordered urgent measures to unclog the transport jam and ensure a steady supply of food and energy.
"Let us mobilize urgently and work as one to wage this tough battle against the disaster," he said in an emergency meeting. "Let's ensure that the people enjoy a joyful and auspicious Spring Festival.
But more miserable weather is expected.
China's weather bureau Monday issued a rare "red alert," warning of more severe snowstorms in the coming days.
If so, the number of stranded travelers will surely swell.
BEIJING, China (CNN) The "Watercube," one of the two iconic venues for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, was unveiled on Monday.
Known officially as the National Aquatics Center, the Watercube has been dubbed the "cool" building of the Games.
The building's design and its translucent, blue-toned outside skin make it look like a cube of bubbles like "bubble wrap.
Forty-two gold medals well be handed out at the Watercube during the Olympics, which start August 8.
It was the public's first look at the building after a little more than three years of construction.
The venue has 6,000 permanent and 11,000 temporary seats.
Like the 91,000-seat National Stadium the "Bird's Nest," which will be completed in March both are seen as works of art and will anchor the Olympic Green area.
While some argue the gargantuan "Bird's Nest" could become a white elephant, the Watercube has been built to be converted to a shopping area and leisure center with tennis courts, retail outlets, nightclubs and restaurants.
"This building was designed for use after the games," said John Pauline of PTW Architects, one of the lead architects on the Watercube. "We were looking at 30 or 40 years from now.
The outside skin is made of a Teflon-like material ETFE (ethylene-tetrafluoroethylene). Composed of two layers, it's separated by an interior passage that allows the building to breathe like a greenhouse.
The Watercube was built at a cost of more than US$200 million (euro136 million), with donations of US$110million (euro75 million) from people in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.
Organizers will stage a swim meet in the Watercube on Friday to test the facilities.
Serbian third seed Novak Djokovic claimed a dramatic triumph at the Australian Open when he defeated unseeded Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 4-6 6-4 6-3 7-6 in Sunday's final.
Djokovic's first Grand Slam victory gave his country its first 'major' triumph, but he had to battle all the way against surprise package Tsonga who enjoyed the support of the crowd.
The 20-year-old Djokovic had not lost a set in six matches including his stunning success against hat-trick chasing holder Roger Federer in the semifinals.
But with Muhammad Ali lookalike Tsonga coming out swinging as he did in his straight-sets upset over second seed Rafael Nadal in their last-four clash, that streak came to a sudden end when the Frenchman broke twice to take the opener in
"You feel the expectations and pressure, so I'm very happy with the way I dealt with the pressure," Djokovic said.
"Coming on against a player with nothing to lose he was going for the shots and he was very dangerous, especially in the first set I was pretty nervous.
He is the youngest player to win the title since Stefan Edberg defeated Mats Wilander in 1985 and as well as Tsonga, the Serb also had to overcome cramps.
Thailand's parliament chose a prime-minister-elect on Monday, according to Thai television.
The parliament's choice, Samak Sundaravej, will become prime minister of Thailand if the king confirms the parliament's choice.
The return of parliamentary rule after 16 months of military rule follows elections in December in which the People Power Party (PPP), the party of deposed Thai leader Thaksin Shinawatra, won nearly half the seats in the lower house.
Billionaire businessman Thaksin was ousted in a military coup after allegations of widespread corruption in his government.
He remains in exile in Britain.
Samak is a political ally of Thaksin.
Pojamarn Shinawatra appeared before the Supreme Court and was released on 5 million baht (about $168,000) bail and ordered not to leave the country.
Samak has already said that if he became prime minister he would amend the constitution to allow the deposed leader to return to Thai politics.
At least four Lebanese opposition protesters were killed Sunday in the southern suburbs of Beirut while protesting the government's electricity rationing, according to Lebanese army sources.
The army sources gave no details on how the protesters died but said the "situation" is "gradually coming under control.
" An investigation has begun into the riots and deaths.
Seven people were killed, hospital and security officials told The Associated Press.
Lebanese troops fired their guns into the air to disperse protesters in the suburb of Shiah, and one of the bullets struck Ahmed Hamzah, who later died in a hospital, a spokesman for the opposition movement Amal told CNN.
But the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation quoting the Amal movement said a sniper fatally shot the protester while he was trying to help the army resolve the violent protests.
LBC said the sniper was not a member of the Lebanese army.
Amal, a mostly Shia Muslim political party, is headed by Lebanon's parliament speaker, Nabih Berri.
A Lebanese lawmaker from the Hezbollah party called for an investigation into the killings but also urged protesters to return home.
Sunday's clashes were confined to mostly Shiite areas.
ATHENS, Greece (CNN) Archbishop Christodoulos of the Greek Orthodox Church died Monday after a battle with cancer, church officials told CNN.
Christodoulos was the spiritual leader of roughly 15 million Greek Orthodox Christians worldwide, including about 10 million in Greece.
He had led the church for 10 years, boosting membership after a period of declining attendance and internal turmoil.
The archbishop also addressed centuries-old grievances with the Roman Catholic Church.
He received the late Pope John Paul II in Athens in 2001 on the first papal visit to Greece in nearly 1,300 years.
During his visit to Greece, the pope asked for forgiveness for sins committed against Orthodox Christians during the 1,000 year split between the two traditions.
The remarks drew applause from Christodoulos.
The 2001 declaration followed a roasting by Christodoulos, who told the pope that an apology was needed for grievances ranging from the Great Schism of 1054 to a lack of publicly expressed concern over the divided island of Cyprus.
"Traumatic experiences remain as open wounds on (the Greek people's) vigorous body," Christodoulos said. "Yet until now, there has not been heard even a single request for pardon.
Church authorities have scheduled a meeting of the Holy Synod, the church's governing body, for 2 p.m. Monday to discuss the election of a successor.
Church rules say that the Holy Synod should set a date for the election of an archbishop within 20 days of a leader's death.
Christodoulos died about 5:15 a.m. Monday (10: 15 p.m. Sunday E.T.) at his home in an Athens suburb, church officials said.
He had battled liver cancer for several months and traveled to the United States in an unsuccessful attempt to get a transplant.
He declined hospital treatment in the last several days.
The church declared three days of mourning and said that the archbishop's body will be placed on public display before his burial in a few days.
More than 90 percent of people in Greece belong to the Greek Orthodox Church.
Christodoulos was elected church leader in 1998 and is credited with reinvigorating the vast institution, according to reports from The Associated Press.
He helped create church Web sites and radio stations, and frequently issued detailed checklists on how black-clad Orthodox priests should conduct themselves in public.
He was regularly named Greece's most popular public figure in opinion polls, the AP reported.
(CNN) Saddam Hussein let the world think he had weapons of mass destruction to intimidate Iran and prevent the country from attacking Iraq, according to an FBI agent who interviewed the dictator after his 2003 capture.
According to a CBS report, Hussein claimed he didn't anticipate that the United States would invade Iraq over WMD, agent George Piro said on "60 Minutes," scheduled for Sunday broadcast.
"For him, it was critical that he was seen as still the strong, defiant Saddam. He thought that (faking having the weapons) would prevent the Iranians from reinvading Iraq," said Piro.
During the nearly seven months Piro talked to Hussein, the agent hinted to the Iraqi that he answered directly to President Bush, CBS said in a posting on its Web site.
"He told me he initially miscalculated ... President Bush's intentions. He thought the United States would retaliate with the same type of attack as we did in 1998 ... a four-day aerial attack," Piro said.
"He survived that one and he was willing to accept that type of attack.
Once it was clear that an invasion was imminent, Hussein asked his generals to hold off the allied forces for two weeks, Piro said.
"And at that point, it would go into what he called the secret war," the agent said, referring to the insurgency.
But Piro said he was not sure that the insurgency was indeed part of Hussein's plan.
Hussein had the ability to restart the weapons program and professed to wanting to do that, Piro said.
"He wanted to pursue all of WMD ... to reconstitute his entire WMD program.
Hussein said he was proud he eluded U.S. authorities who searched for him for nine months after the U.S.-led invasion, Piro said.
He got rid of the protective detail that he traveled with, really just to change his signature.
Hussein was hanged in 2006.
(CNN) Five young men died Saturday when the car they were in drove off the end of a private airstrip near Ocala, Florida, became airborne for 200 feet and slammed into an oak tree, authorities said.
"This had to be the worst vehicle crash that I have ever seen during my career," said Randy Robinson, a spokesman for the Emergency Medical Services Alliance with 27 years on the job.
The 2008 BMW was split in two in the wreck, which happened at 3:45 a.m., said Lt. Mike Burroughs, a spokesman for the Florida Highway Patrol Troop B.
He told CNN the victims 18 to 20 years old and all from the area were declared dead at the scene.
Burroughs said it was not clear how the car got onto the private Greystone community airstrip the same one actor John Travolta uses for his aircraft but the car was driving north on Runway 36, which is 1.5 miles long.
"It is evident that the driver of the vehicle saw he was approaching the end of the runway," Burroughs said.
"He attempted a braking maneuver and the vehicle slid sideways off the end of the runway.
The car flew through the air for 200 feet, he said, and struck an oak tree 15 feet off the ground, splitting the vehicle in two.
The engine block of the BMW was completely dislodged and wreckage from the car was found over a 200-square-foot area, the FHP spokesman said.
It was not known if the victims were wearing seat belts and the agency was awaiting the results of toxicology tests from the medical examiner's office to find out if alcohol or drugs played a role, Burroughs said.
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (CNN) A "national electrical emergency" has been declared in South Africa where power cuts are affecting millions of people and casting doubt over plans to host the football World Cup in 2010.
Authorities on Friday outlined steps to combat the problem that is stirring anxiety about the future of the largest economy in Africa.
The power has gone off across the country frequently in the last few weeks sometimes for up to five hours at a time as demand exceeds supply.
President Thabo Mbeki has admitted that his government failed to plan properly after being warned about possible shortages years ago.
The Department of Public Enterprises said power interruptions constituted a national emergency and outlined steps that could bring higher energy prices and more conservation.
"The unprecedented unplanned power outages must now be treated as a national electricity emergency situation that has to be addressed with urgent, vigorous and coordinated actions," Public Enterprise Minister Alec Erwin told journalists.
"We are viewing the next two years as being critical," he said.
In two years, South Africa will hosting the World Cup finals with 300,000 visitors expected.
The South African Tourism Services Association said this week the crisis jeopardized the World Cup.
"Will people come to SA to see them if they know they will be going back to hotels and guest houses with no power? That means no hot meals, no clean laundry, no lights," said Michael Tatalias of the tourism association, according to The Associated Press.
LAS VEGAS, Nevada (CNN) Miss Michigan Kirsten Haglund, a 19-year-old aspiring Broadway star, was crowned Miss America 2008 on Saturday in a live show billed as the unveiling of the 87-year-old pageant's new, hipper look.
Haglund, of Farmington Hills, Michigan, sang "Over the Rainbow" and walked a crowd-pleasing strut in a black and gold bikini to clinch the title.
She beat Miss Indiana Nicole Elizabeth Rash, the first runner-up, and Miss Washington Elyse Umemoto, the second runner-up for the $50,000 scholarship and year of travel that comes with the crown.
Haglund, who studies music at the University of Cincinnati, grew up in a pageant family.
Her mother is an active volunteer, and her grandmother Iora Hunt, competed for the crown as Miss Michigan 1944.
Haglund, a cheery, classic blond, wore a revealing silver sequined dress and black bikini during the evening gown and swimsuit portions of the pageant.
As her platform issue, she promised to advocate for awareness of eating disorders, an illness from which she has recovered.
The show was the latest in a series of attempts to find an audience with a younger demographic after more than a decade of declining ratings.
Usually tame by modern TV standards, the swimwear competition kicked it up a notch.
Most contestants wore black bikinis, and some struck provocative poses and twirled as the audience howled.
Contestants also wore blue jeans and added a bit of humor to the traditional opening number, the parade of states.
The long-struggling pageant had promised a new look for this year's beauty battle.
"Entertainment Tonight" reporter Mark Steines was the master of ceremonies of the show.
Clinton Kelly of TLC's hit "What Not to Wear" also helped with the hosting duties.
Colombia's problems with violence particularly labor strife could get worse unless Congress approves a free-trade deal with the country, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said.
Rice's visit Friday is the latest, most high-profile one in a coordinated campaign by Colombia and the White House to win over skeptical Democrats and revive the trade pact, which was first signed in 2006 but has not yet been passed by Congress.
"[I'm here] to say very strongly that whatever the challenges facing Colombia, they are not going to be easier if this free-trade deal does not pass," Rice said Thursday in the Andean nation's second-largest city, Medellin. "In fact, they will be harder.
Colombia is the world's most dangerous country for labor organizing.
Rice and nine Democratic lawmakers met in Medellin with union leaders who oppose the deal to hear complaints that President Alvaro Uribe has failed to stamp out the violence, including murder.
"There's not a country in the world where the list of martyrs is as long as it is in Colombia," said Carlos Gutierrez, head of the CUT labor umbrella organization that represents Colombia's 530,000 unionized workers.
More than 700 trade unionists have been killed in Colombia since 2001, according to the government.
Only a small fraction of the killings have been solved.
Rice acknowledged that Colombia is still wracked by violence related to its half-century civil conflict, but she said as a staunch ally and caretaker in the war on drugs, the country deserves continued U.S. support.
"The Bush administration's support for the free-trade deal is not because we believe that the Colombian story is perfect or complete," Rice told reporters, "but because we believe that in the context of the growth and economic activity that the free trade agreement will produce, Colombia will be better able to meet its problems.
JAKARTA, Indonesia (CNN) Former Indonesian dictator Suharto the "smiling general" who ruled his country with an iron fist for three decades died Sunday at a hospital in Jakarta, said his doctor. He was 86.
He was rushed to Pertamina Hospital on January 4 for treatment of a failing liver, heart and lungs, his doctors said.
He had been suffering at home for five days.
His death comes just a day after his doctors said he appeared to be making a remarkable recovery.
"My father passed away peacefully," cried Suharto's eldest daughter, Tutut, according to The Associated Press. "May God bless him and forgive all of his mistakes.
A week of national mourning was declared by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who is taking charge of a state funeral after Suharto's body is flown by Air Force planes to the family mausoleum.
In a televised address, Yudhoyono called on "the people of Indonesia to pay their last respects to one of Indonesia's best sons and national leader who has done very great service to his beloved nation.
Suharto, who, like other Indonesians, only has one name, was president of Indonesia from 1967 until he was forced to resign amid immense political pressure and mass street protests in 1998.
Poor health kept him from court after he left office.
Suharto was vilified as one of the world's most brutal rulers and was accused of overseeing a reign of corruption and, later, economic decline.
Most of the political killings blamed on Suharto took place in the 1960s.
Later about 300,000 people were killed, disappeared or jailed in the fight for independence in East Timor, Aceh and Papua, human rights groups and the United Nations say.
But he is also credited with shaping modern Indonesia, a mainly Muslim country of 235 million people, by boosting its economy and making the sprawling archipelago a regional power.
As the five-day World Economic Forum wrapped up in the remote ski resort of Davos, the event's co-chairs gathered for one last effort to steer the agenda away from market turmoil and promote its goals of achieving positive global change.
But the meeting which began a day after the U.S. Federal Reserve made a surprise 0.75 point rate cut as it struggled to calm roller coaster financial markets, a move that drew mixed reaction in Davos was racked with recession anxieties to the last.
There was also criticism that the annual meeting of more than 2,500 global powerbrokers often criticized for being little more than a talking shop had shied away from key discussing issues such as the conflict in Darfur.
"People have to keep in mind, throughout history we have always had cycles, people shouldn't be surprised," JP Morgan CEO James Dimon, one of the event's co-chairs told the closing debate, hosted by CNN's Hala Gorani.
"In the past 10 or 20 years world economies have taken two billion people of poverty. We have the chance to do amazing stuff, the cycle will turn one way or the other," he said.
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, meanwhile, stressed the crucial role of economics in ending conflict, underscoring his role as Middle East peace envoy and the Davos meeting's efforts to shake its image as a corporate schmooze-fest.
"If there is economic development then the politics is easier. If the people are poor and miserable then it is harder," he said.
Blair added that he was confident efforts to tackle climate change would bear fruit, "but no one should underestimate the scale of the challenge.
Suspected Islamic extremists arrested last week in Barcelona were planning al Qaeda-style attacks in Spain, Germany, France, Britain and Portugal, according to an informant who "infiltrated" the group, Spain's El Pais newspaper reports.
"If we attack the metro [subway system in Barcelona], the emergency services can't get there," one of the suspected suicide bombers told the informant, El Pais reported on Saturday. "Our preference is public transport, especially the metro.
El Pais reported that it had access to the informant's testimony to Spanish officials.
The judge who ordered 10 suspects held for allegedly plotting a suicide attack in Barcelona, cited in his rulings the testimony of an informant. CNN has viewed the rulings.
Spain's Interior Minister last Friday said an informant warned of a planned suicide attack against Barcelona's metro on the weekend of January 18 to 20. But he added that, for now, "there is only the testimony of an informant" regarding the timing.
Spain's attorney general, Candido Conde-Pumpido, said last week that the cell could have contained six suicide bombers, two explosives experts and two ideologues.
Judge Ismael Moreno, in rulings last Wednesday, wrote that the informant had named three suspected suicide bombers and an explosives expert, all of whom had traveled from Pakistan to Barcelona since last summer.
The judge ordered these four men held, out the total of 10 jailed suspects who are from South Asia. They include nine Pakistani nationals and a man from India, who is Muslim.
A court-appointed translator told CNN that all 10 suspects testified during their arraignments that they were innocent.
The informant had traveled by train from France to Barcelona on January 16, a few days before police made arrests in Barcelona, El Pais reported Saturday.
A day earlier, the newspaper reported that the informant worked for French intelligence.
Sen. Barack Obama sought Sunday to use his South Carolina victory to expand his appeal, saying the first Southern primary reflects what Americans are looking for.
Speaking to ABC's "This Week," Obama argued that the result in South Carolina "speaks extraordinarily well, not just for folks in the South, but all across the country. I think people want change.
But Sen. Hillary Clinton noted that both she and her top Democratic rival "have won a primary and a caucus."
And she told CBS' "Face the Nation" that the election ultimately is not about the candidates, but "about what we're going to do as a country and the lives of the people watching us.
Clinton also suggested that the dynamic in the tightly contested race for the Democratic presidential nomination could shift again in two days when Florida holds its primary.
"I'll be there Tuesday night," Clinton said.
Florida's delegates are not slotted to count in the race, and the Democratic candidates opted not to campaign there, steps called for by the Democratic Party as a way of penalizing the state for moving its primary to an earlier date.
Many Florida Democrats have complained they want their votes counted, and Clinton has called on the party to seat delegates from Florida and Michigan which was similarly penalized at the party convention this summer.
Both Clinton and Obama as well as former Sen. John Edwards, who has not won any of the early states are pouring their energy and money into Super Tuesday, the biggest single-day showdown of the race.
The majority of white voters in the primary supported his rivals, exit polls showed.
Speaking Sunday to ABC during a campaign stop in Macon, Georgia, Obama said South Carolina voters showed they "want to get beyond some of the racial politics that, you know, has been so dominant in the past. We're very encouraged as we go to the February 5 states."
Unless more is done to tackle growing extremism in countries including Pakistan, Afghanistan could once again fall into terrorist hands with dire consequence for the region and the world, the country's president warned Friday.
Hamid Karzai said "misguided policy objectives" of unnamed countries or organizations were continuing to fuel violence in Afghanistan, although he was confident al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was no longer within its borders.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with CNN on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Karzai also reluctantly accepted his image as "a puppet of America" but he shied away from accepting reported U.S. doubts that NATO troops lacked the training to combat the Taliban. Asked if he agreed with a
recent assessment by U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates reported in the L.A. Times that NATO forces lacked the necessary skills, Karzai said he was not able to comment, but the fight needed to be more focused in Afghanistan and beyond.
"I believe there has to be a bigger effort, a more robust effort concentrated on the right objective," he said.
"The truth is that without the United States in Afghanistan, Afghanistan would be a very poor, miserable country, occupied by neighbors and al Qaeda and terrorists."
A fire charred the top of two of three wings of the Monte Carlo Resort and Casino on Friday, causing no major injuries but forcing visitors and employees to evacuate, authorities said.
A bit over an hour after it began, the fire was fully contained, according to the fire departments in Las Vegas and Clark County.
Firefighters would remain at the hotel until "the fire is completely knocked out," said Clark County Fire Chief Steven M. Smith.
It was mainly an exterior fire, although there might have been slight damage to some rooms, he told CNN after a news conference.
The cause of the fire was unknown. Welders had been working on the roof.
The hotel has more than 3,000 rooms, including 211 penthouse suites, and conference rooms.
The more expensive rooms are on the top floors.
The hotel was built in 1996 for $344 million. It is in the heart of the resort corridor.
The Monte Carlo, a subsidiary of MGM Mirage, has about 3,000 employees.
Bendtner complained of being struck by his Gunners team-mate in the second half of Tuesday night's 5-1 Carling Cup defeat by Tottenham, but no action will be taken by the FA.
Both players will be written to to remind them of their responsibilities.
The FA requested a copy of the relevant television footage to assist their investigation after referee Howard Webb confirmed he did not witness the whole event.
But having viewed the footage, Webb felt it was inconclusive and could not recommend issuing retrospective charges against any player.
Bendtner, who had scored an own goal earlier in the match, became involved in a heated altercation with Adebayor and appeared to complain of being headbutted by the Togo international.
Arsenal captain William Gallas stepped in to try to calm matters down before then being confronted himself by the angry young Danish striker.
Webb intervened to restore order and yesterday Adebayor apologised for the bust-up with Bendtner.
"I think that we should have been more calm during the game and although I was pleased to get a goal back for the team when I came on, I am sorry for the disagreement with my team-mate Nicklas.
The New York Times endorsed Arizona Sen. John McCain for the Republican presidential nomination over Rudy Giuliani and the rest of the GOP field, strongly criticizing the former mayor of its home city.
In endorsements posted on its Web site for Friday's editions, the Times also endorsed New York Sen. Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination.
"Senator John McCain of Arizona is the only Republican who promises to end the George Bush style of governing from and on behalf of a small, angry fringe," the paper's editorial board wrote.
"With a record of working across the aisle to develop sound bipartisan legislation, he would offer a choice to a broader range of Americans than the rest of the Republican field.
The endorsement anticipated readers asking how the New York paper could reject Giuliani, a man it endorsed for re-election in 1997 and praised for his work cleaning up crime in the city and during the time of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
"The Rudolph Giuliani of 2008 first shamelessly turned the horror of 9/11 into a lucrative business, with a secret client list, then exploited his city's and the country's nightmare to promote his presidential campaign," the paper writes, describing Giuliani as "a narrow, obsessively secretive, vindictive man.
Giuliani played down the harsh words, suggesting that the Times has a liberal editorial staff that often disapproved of him.
"I changed welfare, I changed quality of life, I took on homelessness I did all the things that they think makes you mean and I believe show true compassion and true love for people.
The paper praised Clinton's chief rival, Sen. Barack Obama, but called Clinton more qualified for the job.
"Mrs. Clinton has more than cleared that bar, using her years in the Senate well to immerse herself in national security issues, and has won the respect of world leaders and many in the American military.
The Democratic editorial contrasts Clinton and Obama calling her "the brilliant if at times harsh-sounding senator from New York" and him "the incandescent if still undefined senator from Illinois.
CLEVELAND, Ohio (CNN) A group of 55 greyhounds rescued after a life of racing are helping to save more canine lives with the donation of their blood.
The dogs, most owned by professors, technicians and students at the Ohio State University veterinary school, visit the school several times a year to give blood.
Greyhounds represent the bulk of the donors, and with good reason because they typically have a universal blood type that any dog can receive.
Greyhounds also have big neck veins that make drawing blood easy, said veterinarian Guillermo Couto, who works with the animal blood donor program at OSU.
Dog owners say their pets show no reluctance to donate blood. "He knows where we're going.
As soon as we pull up to the veterinary hospital, he's like dragging me," said Sarah Nash, 26, of Kent, a senior veterinary student who adopted her greyhound, Kenyon, three years ago.
But the animals, like humans, sometimes need blood because of illness, injury or surgery, Couto said.
Couto said any suggestion of a "donor mill" wasn't fair because the dogs have homes and only come to the clinic to give blood and get a checkup.
The dogs get free food and veterinary care.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), said the arrangement sounded like a way to assure good adoptive homes for greyhounds.
"To think they are in good, loving homes and they have been rescued from a difficult racing life that's a positive thing," said Daphna Nachminovitch, a PETA spokeswoman.
Most of the OSU donors give blood four or five times a year.
Like humans, dog blood donations are one pint, which can provide several blood products.
Danny Glover has been convicted in Niagara Falls, Ontario, for trespassing in a hotel during a union rally in 2006.
Glover, who wasn't in court, was convicted Thursday along with UNITE HERE union representative Alex Dagg and Ontario Federation of Labour President Wayne Samuelson.
Canadian Niagara Hotels charged the three with trespassing at their Sheraton on the Falls property during a September 16, 2006, protest.
The 60-year-old Glover took part in the protest as part of a larger campaign that aims to increase salaries and improve working conditions for hotel workers in the U.S. and Canada.
UNITE HERE represents 50,000 hotel, food service, garment and manufacturing workers across Canada and 450,000 in North America.
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said Thursday that the United States is "ready, able and willing" to send troops to Pakistan if the government of the South Asian nation is interested.
U.S. military officials have told CNN that commanders are reviewing a classified planning order that could result in troops going to Pakistan for training purposes if Pakistan's government approves.
The announcement comes as Pakistan's government faces what Gates called increased efforts by al Qaeda.
Musharraf and other Pakistani leaders, however, have repeatedly said it is their military not that of the United States that will fight elements of al Qaeda and the Taliban that are believed to live and train in the mountainous region of Pakistan that borders Afghanistan.
"We will continue the dialogue, but we would not do anything without their approval.
Analysts say the visible presence of U.S. troops particularly a large ground force could provoke anti-American sentiment among many Pakistanis.
"The presence of U.S. forces in Pakistan would be hugely inflammatory for the rest of the country and probably would destabilize Pakistan in a more serious way than it is right now," said Frederick Barton of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank. "So, clearly, training is the best thing we can do.
Pakistani opposition leader Imran Khan, in comments to CNN International, predicted that a heavy U.S. military presence in the tribal areas along the Pakistan-Afghan border would make the situation worse, not better.
"If the U.S. sends its troops into the tribal areas, it will be a bigger quagmire than Iraq," said Khan, a former cricket star seeking the nation's presidency. "It will be the biggest disaster U.S. could commit.
FOLSOM, Pennsylvania (CNN) The skies won't seem especially friendly to anyone taking off from Philadelphia International Airport if they notice what a suburban couple wrote on the roof of their home.
"(Expletive) U FAA," the message reads, though one letter of the profane word is substituted with an underline.
Below that it is a picture of a plane with a slash through it and the words "no fly zone.
Homeowner Michael Hall and his girlfriend, Michaelene Buddy, are angry that jets have been flying over their house since last month, when the Federal Aviation Administration altered departures heading out of Philadelphia. Hall says he has to sleep with earplugs.
So they issued their complaint in roof sealant and 7-foot-tall letters about two weeks ago.
"Just doing it made me feel better, but I'd still like to say what I wrote directly to the idiot head of the FAA," Hall told the Philadelphia Daily News for Thursday's editions.
The flight changes are part of a massive restructuring of the airspace over the congested corridor between New York and Philadelphia.
The couple's Ridley Township home is in Delaware County, southwest of Philadelphia.
The county argues in a lawsuit that the FAA's environmental-impact study violated federal regulations and that the new flight paths will only marginally reduce airport delays.
(CNN) Twenty members of the Polish Air Force returning from a flight-safety conference have been killed when a transport plane crashed in the northwest of the country.
Authorities had initially said the crash on Wednesday evening killed seven people.
A general was among the 16 passengers and four crew members who were killed, Defense Ministry Col. Cezary Siemion said.
The Spanish-built CASA transporter crashed near the town of Miroslawiec, a few hundred kilometers northwest of Warsaw, around 7 p.m. (1700 GMT).
The passengers had attended the 15th annual Flight Safety Conference, held in Warsaw on Wednesday.
The plane took off from Warsaw and was making several stops before returning to its home base in Krakow.
Officials said it was the first accident in Poland involving a CASA transporter, which is generally considered an extremely reliable aircraft.
Siemion said investigators were working to determine the cause of the crash, which occurred as the plane was about to land.
"Soldiers, husbands and fathers have died, and that is the most tragic result of this catastrophe," Prime Minister Donald Tusk said, according to The Associated Press.
Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga met Thursday for the first time since last month's bitterly disputed election, under the auspices of former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
"Today, we have taken the first vital steps in resolving the electoral dispute and conflict that has ravaged this country for nearly a month now," said Odinga, who shook hands with Kibaki following Thursday's meeting.
"After being sworn in as your duly elected president of Kenya, I will personally lead our country in promoting unity, tolerance, peace, and harmony among Kenyans.
The one-hour meeting was intended to "break the ice," Kenya's Foreign Minister Moses Wetangula had said earlier.
The three men were alone in the room, without any aides, in an effort "to show we support genuine dialogue," Wetangula said.
Annan arrived in Kenya on Tuesday to help resolve the dispute that has resulted in widespread ethnic violence, although some say tensions had been simmering long before the December 27 vote.
More than 500 people have been killed in the violence that followed the election in which Kibaki kept his post.
Odinga, the Orange Democratic Movement candidate for president, and his supporters claim the election was rigged, and international observers noted some irregularities
After the vote, supporters of Kibaki, a member of the Kikuyu tribe, battled with supporters of Odinga, a member of the Luo tribe, in bloody street fights that often involved machetes.
French banking giant Societe Generale said Thursday it had uncovered an "exceptional" fraud case that cost it a staggering ¢æ4.9 billion ($7.2 billion).
The bank said one of its traders, a French man in his 30s, had made "fraudulent" transactions involving European index futures that were beyond his permitted trading limits, then created false transactions to cover his tracks.
Adding to the pain, the bank said it has taken a financial hit as a result of exposure to the subprime mortgage market in the United States.
Contacted by CNN, the bank would neither confirm nor deny that name as the identity of the trader.
The bank said it discovered the fraud over the weekend and confirmed it was an isolated case.
"This activity, concealed and hidden, was of an enormous size and was running considerable risks to the bank and to a lot of operators," chief executive Daniel Bouton told a news conference shortly after the bank announced the fraud.
The fraud at Societe General is the largest-ever fraud by an individual in the securities business.
It eclipses the case of British trader Nick Leeson, whose losses of more than $1.6 billion led to the collapse of Barings Bank.
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) "Cloverfield" is the first adrenaline-pumping monster hit of the year, bringing in more than $40 million dollars on its opening weekend.
The thriller is told from the point of view of five young New Yorkers using their handheld camera.
But for some viewers, being "part" of the movie is making them sick literally.
One blogger on the popular movie database IMDB.com said, "I had to get up and leave the theater for nearly 20 minutes just to keep from hurling.
" Other moviegoers have reported being nauseated and dizzy.
Most viewers are unaffected by the film, but for those who are, experts say the problem is in their heads.
"This is a classic case of vertigo," said Dr. Michael G. Stewart, chairman of otorhinolaryngology (ear, nose and throat medicine) at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weil Cornell Medical Center.
Vertigo is caused when a person's balance system gets confused.
Your body feels a strong visual sensation of movement but in reality, you aren't moving at all.
AMC theaters across the country have posted signs warning moviegoers of potential "side effects associated with motion sickness similar to riding a roller-coaster.
So why does the film style affect some viewers and not others?
"People have different levels of susceptibility, similar to how some people cannot ride on a small boat without getting sick," Stewart said. "It's just a natural variation.
The good news is, experiencing vertigo is rare for most people.
So if you are itching to see "Cloverfield" but are worried you might get sick, experts recommend taking a dose of over-the-counter anti-vertigo medicine, sold under such brand names as Bonine and Dramamine II. "It might not protect you from all the symptoms, but it could, and it certainly can't hurt," Stewart said.
Another tip is to briefly close your eyes during the movie.
It may be enough to recalibrate your sensors and soothe your symptoms long enough to finish the movie.
And if you're really concerned, just wait to rent the movie.
"When you are on your couch, you have perspective around the screen so your mind knows the movie is moving and the room isn't.
Just days away from the Florida primary, Rudy Giuliani has lost his grip on the state he once called "crucial" to his presidential chances.
Giuliani, who has finished in the single digits in every contest so far, largely skipped the early voting states to focus on Florida and the Super Tuesday states voting on February 5.
The former New York mayor once led in Florida and most national polls, but his plummeting numbers are causing some to question his strategy.
"Rudy has fallen like the Dow Jones industrial average," said Bill Adair, chief editor of the St. Petersburg Times. "What's happened is he gambled on Florida and put all his chips on Florida, and it's beginning to look like he gambled wrong."
Giuliani's poor finishes have cast doubt on his viability, Adair said on CNN's "American Morning.
"What he miscalculated on is McCain and Romney and Huckabee all come with some momentum into Florida because they won other states, and Rudy doesn't have momentum," he said.
So far, McCain has won New Hampshire and South Carolina; Romney took Wyoming, Nevada and Michigan; and Huckabee came in first in Iowa.
As concerns about the economy top the worries of Republican voters, Giuliani's launched an ad that touts his fiscal record as mayor, and he's been touting his plans to cut taxes.
ROME, Italy (CNN) Italy's prime minister lost a confidence vote Thursday in the Senate and will be resigning his office.
Romano Prodi, in office for 20 months, had only a slim chance of surviving the vote.
Observers had said a Senate loss could spell a new period of instability in Italian politics.
Addressing senators before the vote, Prodi asked them to back him so he can continue to implement the reforms introduced by his government.
He said the Italian economy had been improving under his mandate.
Prodi acknowledged that he would have to make some changes in his leadership, but he told the senators that the country needed continuity in government and that his was legitimately elected by the people.
Prodi met Thursday morning with President Giorgio Napolitano, after which he decided to go ahead with the Senate vote Thursday evening.
Knowing he faced likely rejection, Prodi could have decided to resign before the vote.
His decision to go ahead with it was seen by some as a complicated political gamble.
Now that Prodi has lost the Senate vote, Napolitano could name a new prime minister, but he will most likely call for snap elections.
It is a scenario that Prodi's Senate foes have said they want to avoid.
DAVOS, Switzerland (CNN) Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf lashed out Thursday at what he called Western "intellectual arrogance" toward his country, angrily dismissing claims that rising unpopularity has undermined his authority.
He also dismissed allegations that he cannot be trusted to hold free and fair elections as "totally absurd.
Musharraf, who was forced to impose a state of emergency last year to quell violent protests but failed to prevent the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, sought to defend his embattled leadership and record in combating terrorism.
" Musharraf told CNN in an exclusive interview on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
"Why doesn't it understand that we maybe are a developing country, we have our flaws, we believe in constitution, we know how to run government, we are not such clueless people who do not know how to run a country, we have our own brains."
He added, "Unfortunately there is a degree of, may I say, intellectual arrogance that I see in the West which thinks that these developing countries are some kind of people who do not know how to govern, they do not know anything.
Musharraf has been accused by Western critics and his political opponents of rolling back democracy in Pakistan in an effort to maintain power.
The president, whose security forces are often accused of colluding with militant elements in Pakistan, defended his record on tackling terrorism but insisted he was not working for the West, despite close alliance with Washington.
"Do not create such misconception that we are backtracking, we are following a multi-pronged strategy: military, political, socio-economic.
And we are doing very well.
MEXICO CITY, Mexico (CNN) One of the reputed leaders of the powerful Sinaloa drug cartel was formally charged Wednesday and transferred to the same maximum-security prison from which his boss escaped in a laundry cart seven years ago.
Alfredo Beltran Leyva was charged with drug trafficking, organized crime and illegal weapons stockpiling, the Mexican attorney general's office said in a statement.
He was transferred before dawn to the Puente Grande prison in the western state of Jalisco, the statement said.
The Sinaloa cartel's alleged top boss, Joaquin Guzman, escaped from Puente Grande in January 2001 after bribing guards who hid him in a laundry cart.
Maria Sharapova just keeps getting better at the Australian Open.
Sharapova, who lost in the final last year to Serena Williams, will play the winner of Thursday's second semifinal between Serbian player Ana Ivanovic and Slovakia's Daniela Hantuchova.
The 20-year-old Sharapova, who hasn't dropped a set in six matches at Melbourne Park this year, won her first major at Wimbledon in 2004, then added the U.S. Open title in 2006.
"I had a bit of a letdown, I was too good for my own level," Sharapova said of her first-set lapse. "But I'm really happy to get back in the final.
The start of the match was delayed for about 10 minutes when rain began falling in the warmup, forcing organizers to close the roof at Rod Laver Arena.
SEATTLE, Washington (CNN) Faced with growing competition from cheaper rivals, Starbucks Corp. is selling small cups of drip coffee for $1 with free refills as part of a test in its hometown.
That's about 50 cents less than the Seattle-based coffee retailer normally charges for an 8 oz. cup of joe, though prices vary from store to store.
cup of premium roast at competitors like McDonald's and Dunkin' Donuts is $1.07 and $1.39, respectively, the companies said Wednesday.
Starbucks said in statement e-mailed Wednesday by spokeswoman Bridget Baker that the test "is not indicative of any new business strategy. "
"Testing is a way of life for us, as we are constantly looking for new ways to connect with the customer and provide the best Starbucks experience," the statement said.
In the second price hike in a year, Starbucks in July raised the average price of its coffee and other freshly made drinks in most of its U.S. stores by 9 cents, citing the rising cost of dairy products and other essentials.
Price increases have helped shore up revenue as traffic in U.S. stores flattened and then declined last quarter for the first time since the company went public in 1992.
But Schultz said he believes the company's main problem was it lost its focus on customers in recent years as it concentrated on growth.
He has downplayed the threat from a growing cadre of competitors, saying the company has always faced tough competition.
Starbucks is the world's largest chain of coffee houses, with more than 15,000 stores in 44 countries.
LONDON, England (CNN) British authorities told CNN Wednesday they are examining a home video that shows singer Amy Winehouse smoking something in a glass pipe minutes after she is heard saying she had just taken six tablets of the anti-anxiety drug Valium.
Scotland Yard said it had received the video from The Sun newspaper, which made it public Tuesday.
A Grammy-nominated singer, Winehouse's alleged battle with drugs have garnered constant headlines.
Her hit song "Rehab" describes her reluctance to enter a rehabilitation center, which she did last summer.
The Sun posted an edited 2:12 portion of the video on its Web site.
Her UK label, Island Records, issued a statement saying, "We are deeply disappointed and upset by these latest revelations and are doing everything we can to offer Amy our full support in dealing with her problems.
In October, Winehouse and her husband were arrested at a Norwegian hotel for marijuana possession, and soon after fans booed her on stage as she slurred and stumbled her way through her songs.
In December, tabloids published pictures of Winehouse with a mystery white powder in her nose.
She was also photographed wandering barefoot on a London street, wearing only jeans and a bra, and appearing disoriented.
Winehouse received six nominations for next month's Grammy Awards, including record and song of the year for "Rehab" and best album for "Back to Black.
LONDON, England (CNN) Two British teenagers have been sentenced to nine months in prison for trying to smuggle cocaine out of Ghana, a spokesman for Britain's Foreign Office said Wednesday.
The spokesman, who declined to be named, said the girls would not have to serve the full sentence because they had already spent more than six months in jail.
The 16-year-olds were arrested on July 2 last year as they tried to board a plane in the African country's capital, Accra, carrying hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of cocaine.
A Ghanaian court found them guilty in November of possessing drugs and trying to smuggle them out of the country.
The Bush administration said Wednesday it is too early to remove North Korea from a U.S. terrorism blacklist, a major demand by Pyongyang in international nuclear disarmament negotiations.
On Tuesday, Dell Dailey, the State Department's counterterror chief, told reporters that North Korea appears to have complied with the criteria needed to be removed from the list.
But White House press secretary Dana Perino, asked Wednesday if the administration was about to remove the North from the list, said: "No. Right now where we are is waiting on the North Koreans to provide a complete and accurate declaration of their nuclear activities.
The United States maintains that removing the North from the U.S. terrorism list is linked to North Korean progress on meeting commitments under a six-nation nuclear deal to disarm.
BANGKOK, Thailand (CNN) The world's rush to embrace biofuels is causing a spike in the price of corn and other crops and could worsen water shortages and force poor communities off their land, a U.N. official said Wednesday.
Speaking at a regional forum on bioenergy, Regan Suzuki of the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization acknowledged that biofuels are better for the environment than fossil fuels and boost energy security for many countries.
Foremost among the concerns is increased competition for agricultural land, which Suzuki warned has already caused a rise in corn prices in the United States and Mexico and could lead to food shortages in developing countries.
She also said China and India could face worsening water shortages because biofuels require large amounts of water, while forests in Indonesia and Malaysia could face threats from the expansion of palm oil plantations.
Initially, biofuels were held up as a panacea for countries struggling to cope with the rising cost of oil or those looking to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The European Union, for example, plans to replace 10 percent of transport fuel with biofuels made from energy crops such as sugar cane and rapeseed oil by 2020.
But in recent months, scientists, private agencies and even the British government have said biofuels could do more harm than good.
Rather than protecting the environment, they say energy crops destroy natural forests that actually store carbon and thus are a key tool in the fight to reduce global warming.
Spears, 26, and her ex-husband Kevin Federline, 29, are battling over custody of their two sons, Sean Preston, 2, and Jayden James, 1.
An emergency court hearing was requested to discuss the pop star's visitation rights.
Gordon kept that order in effect during another emergency hearing last week.
Spears also arrived at court for that hearing but then quickly turned around and left, chased by photographers.
A Superior Court spokesman said no changes in the order suspending Spears' visitation rights were made.
LONDON, England (CNN) The sole survivor of the crash that killed Princess Diana has told a court he still cannot remember the incident but does not support the conspiracy theories surrounding it.
Bodyguard Trevor Rees, formerly known as Trevor Rees-Jones, was the front-seat passenger in the Mercedes that carried Diana, her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed, and their driver, Henri Paul.
He sustained serious injuries in the August 31, 1997 crash and testified that he received anonymous phone calls and letters after the accident, threatening him to keep quiet.
He said the caller told him to keep quiet, saying, "We know who you are, we know where you are, and we know where you live.
Rees, who still has a visible scar from the accident over his left eye, told the court he remembers nothing new about the crash, which, he has said, was an accident.
He has said the last thing he remembers that night was leaving the Ritz Hotel in Paris, and that his next memory is more than a week later, in his hospital bed, when his parents told him everyone else in the car was dead.
He denied the security services paid him to change his story.
At the time of the crash, Rees was working for al Fayed's security team and was assigned to guard Dodi Fayed. He was also protecting the princess because she was Fayed's companion on the trip.
Ten Air Force Reserve F-16 fighter jets were the cause of the lights seen over parts of central Texas earlier this month that many believed to be UFOs, according to an Air Force Reserve news release.
The F-16s were on a nighttime training mission over the Brownwood Military Operating Area on January 8, near Stephenville, Texas, the statement said. A military operating area is airspace designated for military training, according to Air Force officials.
The Air Force reported it had no aircraft flying that night, which left people wondering what they saw.
A spokesman for the Air Force Reserve fighter wing, Karl Lewis, said the error in the reporting resulted from an internal communications problem between offices at the base.
The release said the planes were in the area between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m., about the time many people reported seeing the lights, according to reporting at the time.
Lewis said the planes were from the 457th Fighter Squadron based at the reserve base outside of Fort Worth, Texas.
The U.S. rollercoaster day followed sharp declines in European markets while many Asian benchmark indexes enjoyed gains.
In London, the FTSE 100 closed down 2.28 percent, or 130.8 points, while Paris' CAC closed down 4.25 percent and Frankfurt's Dax down 4.88 percent.
The losses across Europe on Wednesday wiped out initial gains at the start of the day's trading after London and Paris had both closed ahead on Tuesday.
Earlier, Asian markets, which had suffered the most damage earlier in the week, enjoyed healthy gains with Hong Kong's Hang Sen rallying more than 10 percent and Japan's benchmark Nikkei gaining more than 2 percent.
But there were gains in Australia where the S&P/ASX200 index rose 4.4 percent to close at 5,412.3 after losing 7.1 percent the day before Korea, Singapore and India.
Commenting on the earlier stocks rebound, CNN International's Financial Editor Todd Benjamin wrote in his blog: "We've seen a fundamental shift in global market psychology in less than 24 hours, the big question now is 'is it sustainable?
"A lot will depend on earnings and economic data. The fear of recession in the world's biggest economy hasn't gone away.
The big problems remain. The fallout from the sub-prime crisis continues, housing values continue to fall, consumers are retrenching, earnings are under pressure."
MADRID, Spain (CNN) The Spanish judge overseeing the arraignment of 10 terrorism suspects said Wednesday that they had "planned to carry out a series of suicide attacks" last weekend on public transportation in Barcelona.
In a sequence of six-page rulings, one for each of the 10 suspects he ordered to be held in jail after their arraignments.
The ruling said three suspected suicide bombers had traveled from Pakistan to Barcelona since October, with the most recent one arriving as late as mid-January.
The three had followed another Pakistani man the alleged explosives expert who had just arrived after a five-month stay in Pakistan.
"This pattern is common in Islamic extremist groups, which to carry out an attack usually send in the suicide bombers shortly before it will occur," the judge wrote.
Twelve men were arraigned Wednesday, but Moreno allowed two to go free.
Those two Pakistani nationals who had been arrested with the others were released for lack of evidence, according to their court-appointed lawyer and a court source.
The 10 who were kept in custody include eight Pakistani nationals and two Indian nationals who are Muslim.
The suspects were arrested last weekend in Barcelona and taken to Civil Guard headquarters in Madrid, where they were questioned.
Authorities announced the arrests on Saturday.
Spanish and other European intelligence agencies told Spanish police that the suspects were acquiring bomb-making materials.
These included four timers to activate bombs, Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said Saturday.
The Interior Minister said authorities searched five homes in Barcelona and seized the four timers along with computer information.
Spanish news media reported that authorities became alarmed recently when a known Pakistani militant arrived in Barcelona.
More than 250 suspected Islamic extremists have been arrested in Spain since the Madrid train bombings killed 191 people and wounded more than 1,800 on March 11, 2004, the Interior Ministry has told CNN.
But many of the suspected Islamic radicals arrested in Spain since the train bombings were accused only of financing or recruitment for Islamic terrorist activities.
Israel said Wednesday it expects Egypt to "solve the problem" after at least 50,000 people crossed the downed Gaza-Egyptian border to buy supplies.
Palestinians, running out of fuel, food and other supplies after Israel closed Gaza border crossings, poured into Egypt through blown-out and torn-down breaches in the border wall.
Egyptian guards stood by without intervening, and Egypt's Foreign Ministry spokesman announced that the nation would remain open to the needy "as long as this is a humanitarian crisis.
"We are not opening the Rafah crossing just for everybody to cross we're opening it because it's a very dire humanitarian situation," said spokesman Hassam Zaki.
After the "shopping spree," Zaki said, "We expect everyone to go back to Gaza to their homes within a short period of time."
Israel's Foreign Ministry said the open border posed a security risk.
"When the exit [from Gaza] is open, so is the entrance," ministry spokesman Aryeh Mekel said. "Hamas and other terrorist groups may use this opportunity to smuggle weapons and terrorists into Gaza.
The exodus followed Israel's closing of its Gaza border crossings Friday to punish Gaza's Hamas leadership after days of rocket attacks on southern Israel.
Mindful of its diplomatic pact with Egypt, Israel's Foreign Ministry issued a tersely worded call for Egypt to "ensure that the border operates properly, in accordance with the signed agreements" and "Israel expects the Egyptians to solve the problem.
Israel's border closings have left Hamas-controlled Gaza cut off from food, fuel and other necessities.
(CNN) A man who rescued a co-worker from the jaws of a crocodile in northern Australia also accidentally shot him in the process, police said.
The second man, Zac Fitzgerald, shot the crocodile, causing it to let go of Grant's arm. But a second shot that Fitzgerald fired struck Grant in the upper right arm, said Northern Territory police spokeswoman Katie Fowden.
Grant, who is in his late 20s, was flown to a hospital for treatment of both the bullet and the crocodile wounds. His injuries were not life-threatening, Fowden said.
The two men are workers at a crocodile farm in Darwin, the capital city of the Northern Territory.
Tottenham ended more than eight years of failure against bitter rivals Arsenal in some style with a resounding 5-1 victory at White Hart Lane to book a trip to Wembley in the League Cup final where they will play either Chelsea or Everton.
Tottenham should have put the tie beyond doubt after dominating the first leg at the Emirates Stadium a fortnight ago, but following a late goal from Theo Walcott to earn a 1-1 draw, Arsenal still had it all to play for.
However, despite adding experience in the form of captain William Gallas, Alex Hleb and, from the bench Cesc Fabregas and Togo frontman Emmanuel Adebayor, this proved one game too far for Arsene Wenger's emerging side, who nevertheless still have bigger prizes in their sights.
Dimitar Berbatov flicked the ball on to Jenas, who charged towards the edge of the area, before side-stepping Justin Hoyte.
The home side went 3-0 ahead early in the second half when Berbatov flicked the ball onto Aaron Lennon in the center circle.
Michael David, who had been staying at an Ellsworth motel, sold four 10-milligram methadone pills for $15 each last week, Police Chief John Deleo said.
He then went to a convenience store and bought lottery tickets and other merchandise and went back to his motel room, where he was busted.
"I guess it will be up to a judge to decide, but it's in our possession right now as proceeds from a drug transaction," Deleo said of the winning ticket.
An official at the jail said David was not available for comment.
Sen. Hillary Clinton on Tuesday said Sen. Barack Obama had become frustrated by his losses in New Hampshire and Nevada, and she also accused her opponent of not backing up his words with action.
The bitter exchange continued the sharp confrontations from Monday night's Democratic debate in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
The sniping came four days before Saturday's Democratic primary in South Carolina. This first Democratic primary in the South is crucial.
"The events of the last 10 or so days, particularly the outcomes of New Hampshire and Nevada, have apparently convinced him to adopt a different strategy.
"He came last night looking for a fight, and he was determined and launched right in, and I thought it was important to set the record straight."
Responding to Clinton's comments during a conference call with reporters Tuesday, Obama said the senator from New York and former President Clinton have been "attacking me in ways that are not accurate.
"Sen. Clinton announced while we were still in Iowa that this was going to be her strategy and called it the 'fun part' of campaigning. I don't think it's the fun part to fudge the truth," he said.
It makes them cynical," Obama said.
"It's important for our campaign to not only make sure the record is correct when folks are saying things that don't jive with the facts but also that we are sending a message to voters that we're going to bring about a different kind of politics over the long term.
A recent national poll showed 59 percent of black Democrats backing Obama, compared with 31 percent for Clinton.
The support marks a sharp increase from the early days of the campaign and may be a big factor in South Carolina, where as many as half the voters in the Democratic primary will be African-Americans.
Clinton, who scored victories in the New Hampshire primary and Nevada caucuses, could use a win in the state to paint herself as the clear front-runner going into Super Tuesday.
Obama, who won the Iowa caucuses, would shift momentum to himself after Clinton's back-to-back wins, while Edwards needs a victory to shed his image as a perennial third-place finisher.
NEW YORK (CNN) The New York City Board of Health voted unanimously Tuesday to require all city chain restaurants to post calorie data on their menus.
Chain restaurants already must make the calorie counts of their menu items publicly available, but beginning March 31 they will have to put the numbers on menu boards and menus.
" The expectation is that the information will help combat obesity in New York, a city in which 54 percent of adults are overweight or obese, according to a 2005 Community Health Survey.
"Today, the Board of Health passed a regulation that will help New Yorkers make healthier choices about what to eat;
living longer, healthier lives as a result," Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, city health commissioner, said in the news release.
The New York Restaurant Association sued the Board of Health in an attempt to block the measure, claiming it would violate its members' First Amendment rights.
Chuck Hunt, spokesman for the association, said the group is "considering options, one of which is the intent to pursue further litigation against the city."
KARACHI, Pakistan (CNN) Some of the toughest criticism of Pakistan's pro-democracy movement comes from an unlikely source:
the 25-year-old niece of Benazir Bhutto, who says Pakistani party politics do nothing but support military rule.
"At this stage, we are in a state in Pakistan where so-called democratic forces are only interested in coming into office. So ultimately, they only prop up dictatorships," she told CNN from her home in Karachi.
She raised her voice as she described what she feels is the core of Pakistan's political problems:
the lack of a true democratic culture. Instead, she said, the country is run by power grabbers.
"Ultimately to them, it's a game of revolving chairs. As long as they get to be in one, they don't care who's in the other one."
Fatima Bhutto said her aunt played this "game of revolving chairs" at huge costs to the Bhutto family, shattering the clan's unity.
In 1996, Fatima Bhutto's father, Murtaza Bhutto, was gunned down by Pakistani security forces in front of the family compound.
His widow blames her sister-in-law for the killing, because Murtaza had become a political rival.
Fatima Bhutto was estranged from her aunt and had not spoken to her since Benazir Bhutto returned to the nation for Pakistani elections.
Benazir Bhutto was killed in a bloody December 27 attack.
Her niece says now that Benazir Bhutto has herself been killed, she does not look back in anger.
"We also have to take into account that Benazir Bhutto died bravely and that the attack on her is ultimately an attack on her country," she said.
She added that she did attend her aunt's funeral.
LONDON, England (CNN) Britain's economic growth could slow sharply in the near term amid an ongoing credit squeeze and increasing inflation, Bank of England Governor Mervyn King said.
Fears that the British economy could cool significantly have grown amid days of market turmoil sparked by fears that the collapse of the U.S. subprime mortgage market over the summer could be dragging the country into a recession.
Britain has already downgraded its 2008 GDP growth forecast to between 2 percent and 2.5 percent, well below the 3.1 percent growth in 2007 and its pre-credit crisis estimate for 2008 of between 2.5 percent to 3.0 percent.
(CNN) A coldblooded killer and a coldblooded tycoon led the Oscar nominations Tuesday, with a lawyer suffering from an ethical crisis also earning a strong showing.
"No Country for Old Men," the Coen brothers' film about a brutal killer and laconic sheriff pursuing a man across the scrub of west Texas, earned eight nominations for the 80th Academy Awards, including nods for best picture, best director and best supporting actor (Javier Bardem).
The film tied "There Will Be Blood," Paul Thomas Anderson's movie about the rise of an oil tycoon, which received nominations for best picture, best director and best actor (Daniel Day-Lewis).
best picture, best director (Tony Gilroy), best actor (George Clooney), best supporting actor (Tom Wilkinson) and best supporting actress (Tilda Swinton).
Also winning seven nominations was "Atonement," the drama about a relationship threatened by a child's lie.
The film earned nominations for best picture and best supporting actress (Saoirse Ronan).
The fifth best picture nominee is "Juno," the story of a pregnant high schooler in search of a couple to adopt her child.
The nominations were announced Tuesday morning from Beverly Hills, California.
Jason Reitman received a best director nomination for "Juno," considered this year's sleeper in the "Little Miss Sunshine" mode.
And two longtime actors who had never been nominated for Oscars 83-year-old Ruby Dee and Hal Holbrook, soon to turn 83 also both received recognition for their supporting performances in "American Gangster" and "Into the Wild," respectively.
But the biggest question facing the Oscars is: Will anybody show up?
The status of the ceremony has been in flux because of the still-unsettled Writers Guild of America strike, which began November 5.
Though Oscar organizers have said their show will go on regardless of the strike, the Screen Actors Guild said in a statement that it will honor writers' picket lines, leaving many celebrities to decide whether they want to attend the ceremony.
The Oscars will take place February 24 from Hollywood's Kodak Theatre. Jon Stewart is scheduled to host.
The broadcast will air on ABC.
Battered by slow revenue growth and the popularity of social networking Web sites, Yahoo! Inc. is poised to lay off hundreds of workers, according to published reports.
The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal have both reported on the slumping Internet icon's cost-cutting plans, citing people familiar with the matter.
Precisely how many of Yahoo's roughly 14,000 employees will lose their jobs hasn't been determined, the newspapers said.
The payroll purge was first reported over the weekend by Silicon Alley Insider, a blog focused on investments in technology and media.
The blog said Yahoo had drawn up a list of 1,500 to 2,500 jobs that could be eliminated, but Monday's reports indicated management doesn't expect the cuts to be that deep.
The problems have slowed Yahoo's revenue growth even as spending on online ads accelerates.
That trend has devastated Yahoo's stock, which has plunged by nearly 50 percent since the end of 2005.
Yahoo shares finished last week at $20.78.
With shareholders clamoring for a shake-up, Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang took over as the company's chief executive last June, replacing former movie studio mogul Terry Semel.
Since Yang became CEO, Yahoo's stock price has declined by 25 percent while Google shares have surged by more than 15 percent.
LUCKNOW, India (CNN) Conservationists and scientists scrambled Tuesday to determine what has killed at least 50 critically endangered crocodile-like reptiles in recent weeks in a river sanctuary in central India.
Everything from parasites to pollution has been blamed for the deaths of the gharials massive reptiles that look like their crocodile relatives, but with long slender snouts.
The bodies, measuring between five and 10 feet long, have been found washed up on the banks of the Chambal River since early December, according to conservationists and officials.
The precise number of gharials that have died remains unclear, with the Gharial Conservation Alliance saying 81 bodies have been found since early December, but Chief Wildlife Warden D.N.S Suman put the number of dead animals at 50.
Conservationists believe there are only about 1,500 gharials left in the wild, many of them in a sanctuary based along the Chambal, one of the few unpolluted Indian rivers.
The Chambal contains the largest of three breeding populations in the world.
In early December, officials found the bodies of at least 21 gharials over three days.
The bodies have continued washing ashore in the weeks since.
The latest clue to what's killing the rare reptiles is an unknown parasite that scientists found in the dead gharials' liver and kidneys, according to Dr. A.K. Sharma of the Indian Veterinary Research Institute.
Others believe the gharials may have died after eating contaminated fish from the polluted Yamuna river, which joins the Chambal in the state of Uttar Pradesh.
Pathological tests confirmed lead and cadmium in the bodies of the dead gharials, said Suman, the wildlife official.
The gharial, also known as the Indian crocodile, was on the verge of extinction in the 1970s, but a government breeding program that has released several hundred into the wild has raised their numbers.
Actor Heath Ledger was found dead Tuesday of a possible drug overdose in a Lower Manhattan apartment, the New York Police Department said.
"Pills were found in the vicinity of the bed," police spokesman Paul Browne told CNN. "This is being looked at as a possible overdose, but that is not confirmed yet."
The pills appeared to be over-the-counter sleeping medication, said police spokeswoman Barbara Chen.
Ledger was unresponsive when he was found by a housekeeper who had gone to wake him for an appointment with a masseuse in the Soho apartment, Browne said.
A crowd of onlookers, photographers and reporters gathered outside the apartment building after news of Ledger's death was reported.
Ledger was born in Perth, Australia, and named Heathcliff Andrew after the main characters of Emily Bronte's "Wuthering Heights."
He began acting at a local theater as a child.
Ledger's first American film was the teen comedy "10 Things I Hate About You" in 1999, and he immediately attracted attention from Hollywood.
He also played a supporting role in "Monster's Ball," among other films.
But Ledger was perhaps best known for his 2005 portrayal of Ennis Del Mar in "Brokeback Mountain," about two cowboys who had a secret romantic relationship.
markets opened sharply down on Tuesday but fought back from the session lows amid a second day of turmoil on global markets.
Asian markets Tuesday suffered a second rough day, European markets were able to take advantage of news about U.S. rate cuts, and the U.S. markets rebounded after initially sliding.
The U.S. central bank cut two key interests rate by three-quarters of a percentage point in a bid to stave off heavy losses on U.S. stocks.
It also lowered its discount rate the rate at which banks can borrow directly from the Fed from 4.75 to 4 percent.
U.S. stocks have tumbled in 2008 so far on growing fears that the credit and housing market crises will send the economy into recession, if it's not already there.
The emergency measure was the Federal Reserve's biggest interest rate cut in since 1984.
At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down about one percent.
The broader S&P 500 index surrendered 1.1 percent and the Nasdaq lost two percent.
"Today I have withdrawn my candidacy for president of the United States," Thompson said in a statement.
"I hope that my country and my party have benefited from our having made this effort. Jeri and I will always be grateful for the encouragement and friendship of so many wonderful people.
Thompson entered the race in September, long after his Republican rivals had announced their candidacies and began raising money.
Thompson was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1994 and represented Tennessee for eight years.
Short of cash and sinking in national polls, Thompson had staked his hopes on South Carolina, where a strong showing could have reinvigorated his flagging campaign.
"He's really been good lately, but it's too late," CNN analyst Bill Bennett said of Thompson after South Carolina returns started to come in. "If you're a Southern conservative and you can't make it in South Carolina, it's over.
PARIS, France (CNN) President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan played down the impact of recent attacks in a region that borders Afghanistan, saying Tuesday they were "pinpricks" that his government must manage.
Musharraf, in Paris as part of an eight-day trip through Europe aimed to rebuild Western support for his embattled government, rejected claims that the violence was a sign of a resurgent Taliban in the South Waziristan region.
His comments came as Islamic militants attacked a fort in the troubled region Tuesday, sparking fighting with government forces that left five troops and 37 fighters dead, the army said.
"There is no Taliban offensive being launched," he said at a conference at the French Institute of International Relations think tank, referring to the extremist Islamic militia that once ran Afghanistan.
"These are pinpricks that they keep doing and we have to manage all of that."
Tuesday's attack, the second this month, occurred in the lawless tribal region where al Qaeda and Taliban-linked militants operate.
The militants targeted the Lahda Fort, which houses paramilitary troops, and a nearby observation post in a pre-dawn raid in South Waziristan, the military said in a statement.
Musharraf, a top U.S. ally in its war on terrorism, was in Paris to meet with French president Nicolas Sarkozy on the second leg of his tour.
It was business as usual for Roger Federer as he put his third round scare at the Australian Open behind him to ease past 13th seed Tomas Berdych in straight sets to reach the quarterfinals.
Djokovic, who has yet to drop a set in the tournament, saw off Hewitt 7-5 6-3 6-3 on Rod Laver Arena.
Ferrer beat compatriot Juan-Carlos Ferrero 7-5 3-6 6-4 6-1.
"He made a couple of unforced errors and he was very tired and exhausted from the Baghdatis match a few nights ago, so I used my opportunity.
Awaiting Federer in the quarterfinals is American James Blake, the 12th seed easing past Marin Cilic of Croatia 6-3 6-4 6-4.
(CNN) Less than a month before key elections in Pakistan, embattled President Pervez Musharraf on Monday began an eight-day visit to Europe to shore up international support for his country, wracked by political turmoil and a strengthening Islamic insurgency.
"Pakistan understands the significance of the European Union, the significance of its role in the future, especially in the political disputes around the world," he told reporters.
Musharraf also praised Solana for being "extremely well-informed" about the complicated situation in Pakistan.
The Pakistani leader heads to France and then to Switzerland for the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, which starts Wednesday and wraps up Friday. He plans to end his European trip in the United Kingdom.
Pakistanis head to the polls on February 18 to choose a new parliament in a vote that is widely expected to deliver a blow to Musharraf's ruling Pakistan Muslim League party.
He placed the country under a six-week state of emergency late last year, during which he ousted most of the Supreme Court justices who had been expected to nullify his election victory on constitutional grounds.
Musharraf says the emergency measure and other suspensions of democracy have been necessary to restore security in Pakistan, where clashes between government forces and Taliban and al Qaeda militants have intensified in recent weeks.
Speaking earlier Monday, Musharraf urged the West to be patient with his nation as it tries to establish a democracy.
Since hosting the 1996 Super Bowl, Phoenix and its suburbs have been preening and preparing for the return of the NFL's biggest game.
The last crucial piece finally fell into place in 2006 when the state-of-the-art University of Phoenix Stadium opened in Glendale, west of Phoenix.
Bob Sullivan, president of the Arizona Super Bowl Host Committee, knows the pressure is on to not only put on the "world's largest neighborhood party," but entice the NFL to come back a lot sooner than 12 years.
Tourists comprise the other audience Arizona wants to win over.
For the last year, the committee has been pushing a "come early, stay late" campaign.
The 150,000 visitors expected to travel here pumping an anticipated $200 million into the local economy are being urged to stretch their trip to take in some sights.
"Go up to Sedona, go to Tucson ... experience more of what the state has to offer than its ability to put on a Super Bowl," Sullivan said.
The dry weather and 200-plus manicured golf courses create a real oasis in this desert valley.
Visitors of all ages, however, can find a strong pulse in the beating night clubs of Scottsdale or Arizona State University hangouts in Tempe.
Travelers can have their pick of chic, artsy enclaves and four-star restaurants, and cactus-dotted landscapes rich with the history of the Old West and American Indian culture.
(CNN) A judge in Malaysia sentenced an Indonesian man to five years in prison for burying his day-old baby alive in a jungle, a local newspaper reported Tuesday.
Ramlee Basa-ruddin took the infant from his 20-year-old girlfriend about 12 hours after she gave birth, and buried the girl alive in a shallow hole behind their house, the New Straits Times said.
Basa-ruddin, 38, pleaded guilty to unintentional homicide in the January 8 incident in the southern Johor state.
Magistrate Judge Nor-syahid Malik was quoted in the newspaper as saying he could not imagine the "level of cruelty" in the man's crime.
"To bury your own child when it is the duty of a father to protect and nurture his offspring," the judge said. "Your crime deserves a punishment befitting its ghastliness and to serve as a lesson to society.
The judge also sentenced Ramlee to an additional year in prison and to four strokes of the cane because the Indonesian man was in the country illegally.
(CNN) The Saudi lawyer who represented a woman kidnapped and raped by seven men said his license to practice has been reinstated.
Lawyer and human rights activist Abdul Rahman al-Lahem told CNN's Nic Robertson that the Justice Ministry has reinstated his license.
Al-Lahem had previously told CNN that the Saudi judge revoked his license as punishment for speaking to the media about his client's case, which attracted international attention.
His client, an engaged teenager, was raped by seven men who found her alone with a man unrelated to her.
She has said she was meeting with the man to retrieve a photograph. The attack took place in Qatif in March 2006.
The seven rapists were sentenced to two to nine years in prison but she also was sentenced to 200 lashes and six months in prison for having violated the kingdom's strict Islamic law by being alone with an unrelated man.
The woman's sentence provoked outrage in the West and cast light on the treatment of women under Saudi Arabian law.
Under Saudi law, women are subject to numerous restrictions, including a strict dress code, a prohibition against driving and a requirement that they get a man's permission to travel or have surgery.
Last month, Minister of Justice Abdallah bin Mohammed al-Sheikh, in a phone call to a Saudi Television newscast, said the lawyer's license had never been revoked.
"Such decisions are made through institutions in the kingdom," he said. "The punishment of the lawyer or any lawyer does not come from a reaction.
NAIROBI, Kenya (CNN) Kenyan Foreign Minister Moses Wetang'ula said hopes were high that former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan can start a dialogue to help resolve Kenya's political crisis.
But Wetang'ula pointed out that only Kenya's courts can decide if President Mwai Kibaki's government is legitimate.
Annan, who is expected to arrive in Nairobi Tuesday, follows a visit by European Union development commissioner Louis Michel, who met with Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga over the weekend.
The international community has pressured Kenyan leaders to resolve the election crisis as soon as possible, and stop violence that has killed at least 500 people.
Wetang'ula said Annan would serve as a "facilitator to dialogue" and not as a "mediator."
He said they would not negotiate "the validity or otherwise of President Kibaki being in office.
"The dialogue is going to see how, as Kenyans, we can resolve the problems that have arisen from an electoral dispute," Wetang'ula said in an interview with CNN Monday.
U.S. Ambassador to Kenya Michael Ranneberger said Washington "wants a recommitment by President Kibaki and Raila Odinga to meet one on one under the aegis of Kofi Annan, as soon as possible.
The EU's Michel met with Kibaki and Odinga on Saturday.
An EU spokeswoman said Michel was not trying to broker a deal, but was in Kenya to "collect first-hand information.
"We had a very nice discussion about the political situation in the country, the crisis that we are having," Odinga said after the meeting. "We told him our point of view.
Michel, meanwhile, said that the lack of stability in the nation "is good news for the extremists and anti-democratic forces.
But he also knows that substantial problems have to be resolved.
Four decades after Martin Luther King Jr.'s death and just weeks after Barack Obama's win in the Iowa caucus a CNN poll finds more Americans than ever before believe the country is ready for a black president.
Seventy-two percent of white Americans and 61 percent of black Americans surveyed in a new CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll released Monday say the nation is ready for a black commander in chief.
That number is higher than it was two years ago, when 65 percent of whites and 54 percent of blacks felt the same way.
It's also higher than the proportion of either men or women 64 percent and 65 percent, respectively who currently believe the nation is ready for a woman in the White House.
The top six concerns for both whites and blacks in making their presidential choice this year are exactly the same in the following order the economy, Iraq, terrorism, health care, gas prices and Iran though blacks place a higher level of importance on all those issues.
Roughly four in 10 individuals in both groups say that the country has fulfilled all, or at least a great deal, of King's dream.
However, they have different views on whether King's dream will ever be fully realized in the United States.
When asked whether race relations will always pose a problem in the United States, about half of black Americans, 52 percent, said yes and just 43 percent of whites shared that view.
When posed the same question in 1993, 55 percent of blacks and 53 percent of whites thought race relations would always be a problem for the United States.
The survey, which includes interviews with 1,393 adult Americans, including 743 whites and 513 blacks, was conducted by telephone January 14-17 and has a sampling error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.
Thailand's parliament reopened Monday, marking the end of 16 months of military rule and the return of democracy.
Newly elected lawmakers in immaculate white ceremonial uniforms attended the opening in the sumptuous surroundings of the Thai parliament building in Bangkok.
The return of parliamentary rule follows elections in December in which the People Power Party (PPP), the party of deposed Thai leader Thaksin Shinawatra, won nearly half the seats in the lower house.
Billionaire businessman Thaksin was ousted in a military coup after allegations of widespread corruption in his government.
He remains in exile in Britain.
In his absence current PPP leader Samak Sundaravej will probably be announced as the next prime minister at the head of a ruling coalition.
The selection of new prime minister is schedule to take place Friday.
It remains to be seen what role, if any, Thaksin will play in a future government.
Samak has already said that if he became prime minister he would amend the constitution to allow the deposed leader to return to Thai politics.
Analysts are uncertain, however, how much influence Thaksin who won three elections and is still immensely popular in his homeland could exert from abroad.
"He has a lot of influence right now because he's behind the scenes. He's probably providing cash flow but once they have power in their hands they will be more independent of him," Chris Baker, an author on Thai politics, told CNN.
ELLSWORTH, Maine (CNN) His lottery ticket was a $1,000 winner, but police have seized it saying it was bought with proceeds from an illegal drug sale.
Michael David, who had been staying at an Ellsworth motel, sold four 10-milligram methadone pills for $15 each last week, Police Chief John Deleo said.
He then went to a convenience store and bought lottery tickets and other merchandise and went back to his motel room, where he was busted.
"I guess it will be up to a judge to decide, but it's in our possession right now as proceeds from a drug transaction," Deleo said of the winning ticket.
An official at the jail said David was not available for comment.
A bus carrying pilgrims to Hindu shrines in southwestern India careened over the side of a steep hill Sunday night, killing 37 and injuring more than 40 others, police said.
Five children were among the dead, said Nikhil Gupta, the police superintendent in Nashik, about 160 km (100 miles) east of Mumbai.
He said the crash happened about 9:45 p.m. (4: 15 p.m. GMT) on a poorly lit rural road outside Nashik, which is home to about a dozen Hindu temples.
The bus was only made to seat 45 people but was carrying about 80 passengers when it crashed, Gupta told AP.
The pilgrims were on their way back to Mumbai after visiting three temple sites when the accident occurred.
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) New research out Monday may have expecting moms rethinking their drinking habits.
A new study has found that pregnant women who consumed more than 200 milligrams of caffeine a day, equivalent to about two cups of coffee, had twice the risk of miscarriage as the women who consumed no caffeine at all.
The findings are published in Monday's Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
Previous studies have found similar results, but Dr. De-Kun Li, lead author and investigator with the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research, is quick to point out the significance of his findings.
"We were able to address the issue of if the increase is really due to caffeine or due to women changing their drinking patterns. Other studies have reported the same results but had some biases in the research.
In comparison, 25.5 percent of women who consumed more than 200 mg of caffeine a day miscarried.
Although there was an increased risk for women who consumed fewer than 200 mg of caffeine a day, the lead investigator says the increase is not statistically significant.
Researchers say it made no difference whether the caffeine came from coffee, soda, tea or hot chocolate.
Caffeine is dangerous during pregnancy, Li said, because it can cross through the placenta to the fetus and can be difficult for the fetus to metabolize the caffeine.
Caffeine may influence cell development and decrease blood flow to the placenta, he added.
If arteries are constricted it may restrict blood flow which can result in miscarriage.
Israel agreed Monday to relax a blockade of Gaza after fuel shortages left residents struggling with severe power cuts amid concerns from aid agencies of a humanitarian crisis.
It closed all border crossings between Israel and the Palestinian territory on Friday after days of rocket attacks on southern Israel.
The block on the entrance of fuel, food, and medicine has led to long lines at bakeries, left hospitals without heat and gas stations closed.
The Israeli government said any Palestinians who need medical treatment would be allowed to cross. Much of Gaza was in the dark Sunday night and Monday.
use of generators was limited for fear the fuel used to operate them would run out.
At Shiffa Hospital in Gaza City, patients lay next to blank monitors and other equipment that was turned off.
CNN's Ben Wedeman said from Gaza one hospital had lights only in the intensive care unit, and that doctors on the wards were using candles and flashlights.
John Ging, head of the United Nations' Relief and Work Agency in Gaza, told CNN by phone from Gaza that hospitals had switched off their heating systems to preserve power. Ging said residents were "living day to day.
Stock markets around the world plummeted Monday, prompted by pessimism about U.S. President George W. Bush's plans to boost the U.S. economy.
From Paris to Mumbai to Tokyo, it was one of the worst days for stocks since the terror attacks of September 2001, as share prices in Asia, Europe and the Americas all plunged by significant amounts;
If the United States slips into recession, Americans may buy fewer goods, especially those from overseas.
That's why shares from Toyota in Tokyo to BMW in Frankfurt were down heavily.
Markets in Europe reacted with London's FTSE 100 Index down 5.5 percent at 5,578.20;
the CAC-40 in Paris down 6.8 percent to 4,744.15; and Frankfurt's DAX dropping 7.2 percent to 6,790.19.
In Japan, the benchmark Nikkei 225 index closed on 13,325.954 points, a slide of 3.9 percent and its biggest dip in two years.
Shanghai's Composite index fell 5.1 percent.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng index suffered its largest percentage drop since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 when it fell 5.5 percent to 23,818.86 points.
In North America, the Toronto stock exchange fell 4.75 percent, while Mexico City closed down 5.35 percent.
On Friday U.S. President George W. Bush announced an economic stimulus plan involving a $145 billion tax relief package.
(CNN) The state funeral for explorer Sir Edmund Hillary who conquered Mount Everest is taking place in New Zealand.
Guests filled Auckland's Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral and an overflow area next door for a service.
Among the guests were politicians, mountaineers and friends.
Lady Hillary sat with family and Prime Minister Helen Clark.
In the congregation were members of Nepal's Sherpa community and Buddhist monks.
In front of them, Hillary's coffin was draped in a New Zealand flag and covered in wreaths.
As the service began, Sherpas laid Tibetan prayer scarves on the coffin.
In Nepal, school were due to ring bells as the service started.
Hillary's son, Peter, told the congregation: "Adventure was compulsory growing up in the Hillary household. He took us to the most extraordinary places.
His daughter, Sarah spoke of a childhood where Sir Edmund was planning expeditions, and coming home to a family eager to see him again.
"When asked at primary school what my father did, I was unable to find an answer.
We mourn as a nation because we know we are saying goodbye to a friend.
Four soldiers, rifles at rest, stood guard as ordinary New Zealanders said goodbye to a national hero, whose achievements are known around the world.
Hillary, who was 88, died at Auckland City Hospital on January 11.
On May 29, 1953, Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, a Sherpa guide, became the first men to climb the 29,035 feet to the top of Everest and safely return.
He was also a strong supporter of environmental causes and worked to improve the lives of Nepal's Sherpas.
(CNN) Malaysia expects to send home at least 200,000 foreign workers by next year to open up more jobs for its citizens, a local newspaper reported Sunday.
About 2.3 million foreign workers are employed in the southeast Asian country, Home Affairs Ministry Secretary-General Raja Azahar Raja Abdul Manap told the daily newspaper, Star.
The government plans to cut down the number to 1.8 million by 2009 and trim another 300,000 by 2015, the official told the paper.
The country will apply stricter standards to achieve its goals, he said.
It won't renew the work permits of unskilled workers after five years. Skilled workers will have up to 10 years.
The goal is to reduce foreign labor in a country that's heavily dependent on it.
Foreign workers make up 21 percent of the 11 million-strong labor force in Malaysia. Unemployment in the country is about 3.5 percent.
The majority of the workers come from Indonesia, with Nepal and Bangladesh a distant second and third, according to a 2004-2005 economic report prepared by Malaysia's finance ministry.
Most foreign workers are employed in the manufacturing, petroleum and construction sectors and as household help, the report said.
Venus Williams reached the Australian Open quarterfinals for the first time in five years, beating Poland's Marta Domachowska 6-4, 6-4 on Monday at Melbourne Park.
The Wimbledon champion will face fourth-ranked Ana Ivanovic in the quarterfinals.
Williams, in her first tournament since withdrawing from the season-ending champion at Madrid in November due to illness, lost the 2003 Australian final to sister Serena and hadn't gone beyond the fourth round in the season-opening major since.
Venus Williams has six Grand Slam singles titles, but her run to the 2003 final remains her best performance in Australia.
Serena Williams, the defending
Serena will play No. 3 Jelana Jankovic, and Henin will face Sharapova.
CAIRO, Egypt (CNN) Omar bin Laden has a message for his father, Osama: "Find another way.
The son of the most-wanted man in the world spoke Sunday to CNN in a quiet, middle-class suburb about an hour outside Cairo, Egypt.
Omar, who works as a contractor, said he is talking publicly because he wants an end to the violence his father has inspired violence that has killed innocent civilians in a spate of attacks around the world, including those of September 11, 2001.
This bomb, this weapons, it's not good to use it for anybody,' " Omar said in English learned in recent months from his British wife.
He said he hasn't spoken to his father since 2000, when he walked away from an al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan with his father's blessings.
He said he has no idea where his father is, but is confident he will never be caught because locals support him.
Now, Omar and his wife are preparing to launch a movement far different from the one his father Osama launched.
They are pursuing a movement for peace.
At first glance, Omar appears to have little in common with the man who has eluded international efforts to find him.
The 26-year-old's hair is bound in neat braids, he drives a Jeep and is married to a British national twice his age.
But the physical resemblance quickly sinks in, even without the long beard his father favors.
It is a resemblance Omar doesn't avoid.
"Being Osama's son, I don't hide it. I don't hide my name," he said.
Omar said he left al Qaeda because he did not want to be associated with killing civilians.
Omar said his father did not try to dissuade him from leaving al Qaeda.
Sitting by his side throughout the hour-and-a-half interview was Omar's wife, Zaina.
The two are organizing a multi-month horse race through North Africa in the name of peace, set to kick off this year.
But getting sponsors to line up behind the name bin Laden has been difficult.
"It would probably have been easier to do a race without having Omar's name, but then the race would just be a race, it wouldn't be a race for peace," Zaina said.
Omar said his relationship with his father was limited.
He is the fourth of 11 children born to Osama's first wife, and he is one of 19 children Osama has fathered.
"Most of the time he busy, so busy, all the day he's busy [with] his friends. He was working a lot.
MADRID, Spain (CNN) The search is back on for words to the Spanish national anthem.
The lack of lyrics in Spain's anthem has long created awkward moments for winning Spanish athletes at the Olympics.
They stand on the podium silently or hum along while winning athletes from other nations sing when their anthem is played during their moment of triumph.
With the summer Olympic Games fast-approaching, the Spanish Olympic Committee stirred the lyric-writing impulses of Spaniards by sponsoring a competition to provide words for the anthem.
The committee announced plans for renowned Spanish tenor Placido Domingo to sing the lyrics on Monday.
Then, suddenly, the committee discarded the winning lyrics.
"Once Spaniards heard these lyrics, they sparked a lot of controversy, even rejection," Alejandro Blanco, president of the Spanish Olympic Committee, told a packed news conference this week.
The now-discarded winning lyrics had begun with, "Viva Espana," or "long-live Spain," and critics complained that phrase harkened back to the right-wing dictatorship of General Francisco Franco, who led a military uprising in 1936 against the elected government and won a Civil War, ruling Spain until his death in 1975.
Spain is made up of many different peoples, and five languages are spoken across the country.
The Catalans in the northeast and the Basques in the north already have their own national songs with lyrics.
Getting agreement on any lyrics to the national anthem is no easy task and would ultimately have to be approved by Parliament.
The president of the Spanish Olympic Committee conceded he doesn't know when there will be lyrics for the anthem, and many here say there isn't enough time to get lyrics approved before the Aug. 8 start of the Summer Olympic Games in Beijing. Yet the search goes on.
"We will continue with the idea of an anthem with lyrics," Blanco said.
The creature-feature "Cloverfield" became the first monster hit released in 2008, debuting with $41 million, a record opening for January, according to studio estimates Sunday.
Paramount's tale of a giant reptile causing chaos in New York City surpassed the $35.9 million premiere weekend of the "Star Wars" special edition in 1997, the previous best for January.
Opening in second-place was 20th Century Fox's romantic comedy "27 Dresses," starring Katherine Heigl as a perpetual bridesmaid.
It pulled in $22.4 million.
The weekend's other new wide release, Overture Films' crime comedy "Mad Money," with Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah and Katie Holmes plotting a Federal Reserve Bank heist, opened at No. 7 with $7.7 million.
Overall business surged, with the top-12 movies taking in $135.3 million, up 39 percent from the same weekend last year.
The film benefited from cryptic marketing that sent young moviegoers on a scavenger hunt to decode clues about the movie's plot, images and even its title,
"Then fortunately, they delivered a movie that was as unique and engaging as people had hoped from the marketing campaign.
Japanese stocks plunged Monday morning after Wall Street declined at the end of last week amid pessimism over the U.S. government's plans to forestall recession.
The benchmark Nikkei 225 index lost 466.01 points, or 3.36 percent, to 13,395.28 points by the end of the morning session on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
It rallied at the end of last week, gaining 2.6 percent over two days.
We're back to were we were last week (before the rally)," said Kazuhiro Takahashi, general manager at Daiwa Securities.
Wall Street investors as well drew little comfort from Bush's plan for about US$145 billion worth of tax relief to encourage consumer spending.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 59.91, or 0.49 percent, to 12,099.30 on Friday. Tokyo shares fell broadly, led by metals, real estate and insurance shares.
On Friday major Asian markets recovered from early plunges on the hopes that Washington will soon propose measures to keep the U.S. economy from sliding into a recession.
JAKARTA, Indonesia (CNN) Former Indonesian dictator Suharto moved his hands and spoke in a whisper Sunday in what doctors called a "miraculous" recovery from a potentially fatal blood infection after more than two weeks on life support.
Suharto, 86, was hospitalized January 4 with severe kidney, lung and heart trouble.
His condition deteriorated rapidly a week ago when he developed pneumonia and sepsis, a blood infection particularly dangerous for the elderly.
Preparations had begun for a state funeral, the family mausoleum was put in order and passes were handed out to the media for a memorial service after his heart briefly stopped.
"We believe he has a strong will to live, maybe because he trained as a soldier and was a real fighter.
Although Suharto remains in intensive care, he whispered Sunday in response to questions and lifted his hands to scratch.
Doctors say his heart and lungs are stable, and is ready to begin basic physiotherapy and speech training.
Dr. Hadiarto Mangunegoro, a physician treating Suharto, called his recovery "miraculous because he has survived sepsis, which is life threatening."
Doctors treated the blood infection with antibiotics.
Beijing will use the strictest standards to control emissions and curb pollution for the Summer Olympics but it will be an uphill task, the host city's mayor was quoted as saying Sunday.
Guo Jinlong vowed to finish preparations for the August 8-24 Games and provide services in "high-level and high-caliber ways," the official Xinhua News Agency cited him as saying.
So far, Beijing has begun shutting down blast furnaces in the city's biggest steel company to improve air quality.
It is expected to enact temporary traffic restrictions to ease bumper-to-bumper traffic and help reduce vehicle exhaust that creates the gray haze that often blankets the capital.
Saturday's results in Nevada and South Carolina did little to establish a clear front-runner in either party's race for presidential nominee. New York Sen. Hillary Clinton won Nevada but captured fewer delegates in what is shaping up as two-person race.
She has what little momentum there is on the Democratic side, having won in New Hampshire and Nevada after Illinois Sen. Barack Obama won in Iowa.
Almost half of voters in the 2004 Democratic primary there were African-American.
"It's a dead-even race, and it goes on to South Carolina," David Axelrod, Obama's political strategist, said Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation.
"They can try to spin a 6-point loss into whatever they want," Clinton campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson said on the same program. "But the fact is, Sen. Clinton won a resounding victory.
We focused relentlessly on the issues that the people care about, most certainly the economy.
South Carolina also is shaping up to be the last stand for former Sen. John Edwards. He won the state's primary in 2004 but is coming off a disappointing finish Saturday in Nevada, where he got only 4 percent of the vote. "I got my butt kicked.
Florida will be the final Democratic contest before Super Tuesday, February 5, when voters will pick their favorites in 24 diverse states.
Among Republicans, Arizona Sen. John McCain appears to have a slight edge coming off his win in South Carolina.
But only three in 10 voters there who said they voted for McCain characterized themselves as Republicans, raising questions about whether he can capture the party's conservative base.
While former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney won big in Nevada, the race there was largely uncontested. Romney finished fourth in South Carolina after passing up campaigning there to concentrate on Nevada.
"If you can win those two states Michigan and Nevada it means you have put together quite a coalition and have been able to make the kind of inroads you have to make to take the White House," Romney said Saturday afternoon from Florida.
Diplomatic efforts to solve the violent fallout from Kenya's disputed elections continued over the weekend with a visit from the European Union's development commissioner Louis Michel, who met with President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga.
"We had a very nice discussion about the political situation in the country, the crisis that we are having," Odinga said after the Saturday meeting. "We told him our point of view.
Michel, meanwhile, said that the lack of stability in the nation "is good news for the extremists and anti-democratic forces.
"President Kibaki, of course, recognizes that there is a serious problem in his country," Michel said. "He is very concerned about that. There is a need for dialogue, cooling down and trying to get peaceful solutions.
Kenyan media reported that marauding youths armed with spears, bows and arrows and machetes were destroying homes around the town of Eldoret, near the border with Uganda.
The Kenyan Sunday Nation newspaper quoted the local district commissioner Abdi Halake, who said that six people were killed and 50 houses were burned to the ground in the weekend violence.
The Rift Valley town of Eldoret has been the scene of much of the post-election violence, which has resulted in at least 600 deaths and driven thousands from their homes.
Michel's trip came ahead of the arrival of an African Union delegation led by Kofi Annan expected Tuesday.
The former U.N. Secretary General will try to mediate between the warring political factions.
His visit was delayed after he was struck down with flu.
Ultra nationalist challenger Tomislav Nikolic led pro-Western incumbent Boris Tadic in Serbia's presidential election Sunday, according to exit polls, but a runoff appeared certain in a race dominated by Kosovo's push for independence.
Exit polling by Serbia's Center for Free Elections in Democracy (CESID) indicated Nikolic an ally of the late Yugoslav strongman Slobodan Milosevic leading the field of nine with about 39 percent of the vote.
The biggest issue in the race has been the possible secession of the majority-Albanian province of Kosovo.
The territory has been under U.N. administration since the end of the 1999 NATO bombing campaign that halted Milosevic's campaign of "ethnic cleansing" against the Albanians, who make up about 90 percent of Kosovo's 2 million people.
The outcome of the election could determine whether Serbia forges closer ties with the West or drifts further toward Russia.
But Tadic is a western-leaning leader who has pushed for Serbia to join the European Union, while Nikolic supports closer ties with a resurgent Russia, the Serbs' historical ally.
Edward Joseph, an analyst at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, said the election has Serbia balanced "on a knife's edge.
"There is a clear choice there, and Nikolic's election would indeed be a setback for Serbia and increase its isolation," Joseph told CNN.
The estimated turnout of 61 percent "shows the intensity of the division in Serbia and the intensity of the concern about this election," he said.
Interior Secretary Kamal Shah confirmed the arrest of two people in the town of Dera Ismail Khan in North West Frontier province, and said one a teenage boy had confessed involvement in the December 27 attack that killed Bhutto.
In North West Frontier province, a senior intelligence official said the 15-year-old suspect in the Bhutto assassination told investigators that a five-person squad was dispatched to Rawalpindi, where Bhutto was killed, by Baitullah Mehsud, a militant leader with strong ties to al Qaeda and an alliance with the Taliban in nearby Afghanistan.
In Dera Ismail Khan, a town 170 miles southwest of Islamabad where the teenager was arrested, a district police commander said the suspect had made
(CNN) The family of missing British child Madeleine McCann released two sketches Sunday of a man who may be linked to her disappearance last May from a holiday resort in Portugal.
The first sketch of a moustached white man with olive-colored skin and collar-length dark scraggly hair was composed based on the recollection of a 50-year-old woman who was staying in a villa near the McCann family last year.
The second sketch shows the same man walking with his hand tucked into the pockets of his light-colored pants.
He is wearing a green shirt and a brown jacket.
"We want to know who he is and we want to know where he is," said family spokesman Clarence Mitchell, speaking to reporters.
He urged the man to come forward so that police can rule him out as a suspect if they determine that he is not involved in Madeleine's disappearance.
Gail Cooper, on whose description the sketch was drawn, said she first saw the man on April 20 a few days before Madeleine's disappearance.
He was walking by himself in a heavy downpour on an otherwise deserted beach, she said.
The man drew attention to himself "by looking odd and out of place," Mitchell said.
That afternoon, when Cooper's husband went shopping, the man paid her a visit, Mitchell said.
She described him as "sallow-skinned and scruffy," and said that he claimed to be collecting money for an orphanage in a nearby village.
When Cooper returned to Britain and heard about Madeleine's disappearance, she told British police about the man, and her account was given to police in Portugal, Mitchell told CNN.
The McCanns were not aware of the evidence provided by Cooper until recently, Mitchell said.
Several British newspapers came across the information and gave it to the family.
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (CNN) Gaza City was plunged into darkness Sunday after Israel blocked the shipment of fuel that powers its only electrical plant in retaliation for persistent rocket attacks by Gaza militants.
The power cut forced already beleaguered Gazans to stock up on food and batteries in anticipation of dark, cold days ahead.
Gaza officials warned the move would cause a health catastrophe while a U.N. agency and human rights groups condemned Israel.
"We have the choice to either cut electricity on babies in the maternity ward or heart surgery patients or stop operating rooms," Gaza Health Ministry official Dr. Moaiya Hassanain said.
Israel justified the cutoff because of continuous rocket attacks by Gaza militants.
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Arye Meckel said the Gaza Strip continues to receive 70 percent of its electricity supply directly from Israel, which would not be affected, and another 5 percent from Egypt.
Officials from the ruling Islamic militant group Hamas shut down the plant just before 8 p.m. and Gaza City went dark, Gaza Energy Authority head Kanan Obeid said. TV crews and reporters were invited to witness the shutdown.
Minutes later, residents started a candlelight march as a protest.
Live Associated Press TV pictures showed dots of light moving slowly up a darkened main street.
That changed Thursday when Defense Minister Ehud Barak ordered all crossings into Gaza closed because of a spike in rocket barrages, cutting off fuel supplies.
Several weeks ago, Israel reduced the fuel supply as a pressure tactic.
A defiant Hamas said its attacks on Israel would not cease because of the sanctions.
The U.N. organization in charge of Palestinian refugees warned the blockade would drastically affect hospitals, sewage treatment and water facilities.
Israeli Cabinet minister Zeev Boim said that rather than condemning Israel, the U.N. should condemn Palestinian militants for firing rocket barrages at Israel.
The report describes the Boeing 777 hitting problems 600 feet off the ground and descending rapidly, just making it onto Heathrow land.
"At approximately 600ft and two miles from touch down, the Autothrottle demanded an increase in thrust from the two engines but the engines did not respond.
"Following further demands for increased thrust from the Autothrottle, and subsequently the flight crew moving the throttle levers, the engines similarly failed to respond.
The AAIB says that it will carry out further analysis of the flight data recorders and that examination of the aircraft systems and engines is ongoing.
As the Boeing 777 approached Heathrow's south runway, it appears to have lost power, forcing the emergency landing.
Captain Peter Burkill made a public statement Friday praising his crew, especially Coward, who did a "most remarkable job.
"Flying is about teamwork, and we had an outstanding team on board yesterday," Burkill said.
"I want to thank the passengers, too, for their calmness and good sense in extremely unfamiliar circumstances.
The CIA believes extremists associated with a Pakistani tribal leader are responsible for the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, according to a U.S. intelligence official.
The official, who spoke under condition of anonymity, said the agency concluded that Baitullah Mehsud the leader of the Pakistani Taliban who has ties to al Qaeda was behind the attack.
The U.S. intelligence community was first cautious about drawing the same conclusion as the Pakistanis.
But after reviewing various other intelligence, the CIA agreed Mehsud played a role in Bhutto's killing, the U.S. official said.
The CIA viewpoint was first made known in a Washington Post interview with CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden published Friday.
Mehsud operates out of the tribal areas of northwestern Pakistan.
Pakistani officials have blamed Mehsud's forces for a number of attacks directed against the government, including one this week in which Islamic militants overran a military outpost in South Waziristan.
U.S. officials and terrorism experts are increasingly worried about the stability of Pakistan.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday designated actor and activist George Clooney a U.N. "Messenger of Peace.
The actor, who has been campaigning for an end to the 4¨ö-year war in Darfur and humanitarian aid for the millions caught up in the conflict, will become the ninth U.N. peace envoy.
Clooney joins fellow actor Michael Douglas, Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel, primate expert Jane Goodall, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim, Brazilian author Paulo Coelho, Japanese-American violinist Midori Goto, and Olympic equestrian competitor Princess Haya of Jordan.
World number one Roger Federer stepped up his bid for an Australian Open title hat-trick on Thursday when he swept aside French veteran Fabrice Santoro to reach the third round.
"I always enjoy the match against Fabrice," said Federer who won 6-1 6-2 6-0 and is chasing his 13th major title.
"First time I played him, he totally dismantled me. Showed I had a lot of things to work on.
Long a crowd favorite, using guile to make up for lack of power and with slices and dices, Santoro was sharp, too, committing only four unforced errors as he broke Andre Agassi's record of 61 Grand Slam tournaments.
Federer won the last 10 games, ended it with a serve-and-volley as Santoro edged in almost to the service box, then clambered over the net to embrace the Frenchman.
North Korea is unlikely to give up its nuclear weapons before President Bush leaves office, a U.S. official said Thursday.
"North Korea is not serious about disarming in a timely manner," Jay Lefkowitz, the president's envoy on North Korean human rights, told an audience at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.
"It is increasingly likely that North Korea will have the same nuclear status one year from now that it has today.
Lefkowitz's comments are at odds with Bush administration statements, which tout a recent agreement by North Korea at the six-party talks to abandon its nuclear program in exchange for aid and better relations with the United States as one of its few foreign policy successes.
He criticized China and South Korea U.S. partners in the talks along with Russia and North Korea for not doing enough to push Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear program because of their own bilateral relationships with the North.
The United States "assumed that both countries shared our strong desire that North Korea not be permitted to possess a nuclear program and arsenal," Lefkowitz said.
In response to Lefkowitz's comments, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said in a statement.
"Under agreements reached in the six-party process, North Korea has committed to declare all its nuclear programs and to disable the three key nuclear facilities at Yongbyon as an initial step toward eventually abandoning all its nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs.
"While it's unfortunate that North Korea has not yet provided a complete and correct declaration, we continue to work with Japan, South Korea, China and Russia in urging North Korea to fulfill its commitments in this regard.
We believe the Six-Party framework gives the region and the world the best opportunity to realize the goal of a denuclearized Korean Peninsula.
Merrill Lynch, the world's largest brokerage, on Thursday posted a fourth-quarter loss of nearly $10 billion after writing down some $14.6 billion worth of investments and trades slammed by the ongoing credit crisis.
The company posted a net loss after preferred dividends of $9.91 billion, or $12.01 per share, compared to a profit of $2.3 billion, or $2.41 per share, a year earlier.
Merrill Lynch had negative revenue of $8.19 billion, down from revenue of $8.39 billion a year earlier.
The results missed Wall Street's projections for a loss of $4.70 per share on revenue of $702.1 million, according to Thomson Financial.
However, analysts have not been able to make accurate projections since the summer, when investment banks began taking on large losses due to the collapse of the subprime mortgage market.
ANTANANARIVO, Madagascar (CNN) A self-destructing palm tree that flowers once every 100 years and then dies has been discovered on the Indian Ocean island of Madagascar, botanists said Thursday.
The name of the giant palm and its remarkable life cycle will be detailed in a study by Kew Gardens scientists in the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society published Thursday.
It does not flower for maybe 100 years and when it's like this it can be mistaken for other types of palm," said Mijoro Rakotoarinivo, who works for the London botanical gardens in Madagascar.
"But then a large shoot, a bit like an asparagus, grows out of the top of the tree and starts to spread. You get something that looks a bit like a Christmas tree growing out of the top of the palm," he said.
The branches of this shoot then become covered in hundreds of tiny white flowers that ooze with nectar, attracting insects and birds.
But the effort of flowering and fruiting depletes the tree so much that within a few months it collapses and dies, said botanist Dr. John Dransfield, author of the study.
The world's fourth largest island, Madagascar is renowned for its unusual flora and fauna, including 12,000 species of plant found nowhere else in the world.
The palm tree, which grows to 66 feet in height and has about 16-foot leaves, is only found in an extremely remote region in the northwest of the country, some four days by road from the capital.
Local villagers have known about it for years although none had seen it in flower until last year.
(CNN) Tom Cruise expounds on his beliefs in Scientology in a 2004 video that made its way onto the Internet this week.
"I think it's a privilege to call yourself a Scientologist, and it's something you have to earn," Cruise says at the beginning of the video.
The video was shown at a 2004 Scientology ceremony honoring Cruise for his humanitarian work.
The video has since been taken off YouTube, but an interview portion remained available on the celebrity Web site gawker.com on Thursday.
"The Cruise Indoctrination Video Scientology Tried To Suppress" is the title of gawker.com's presentation.
"You have to watch this video," the site says.
"It shows Tom Cruise, with all the wide-eyed fervor that he brings to the promotion of a movie, making the argument for Scientology," which it calls "the bizarre 20th-century religion.
Cruise talks over a repetitive guitar-riff soundtrack, and appears to be answering questions, though an interviewer is not seen or heard.
A second part of the video, made available to CNN by the publisher of a new unauthorized biography of Cruise, shows Cruise accepting Scientology's Freedom Medal of Valor award and exchanging military-like salutes with Scientology chairman David Miscavige to audience applause.
In the video by the publisher, Cruise also salutes a portrait of L. Ron Hubbard, cited on the church's Web site as the founder of "the only major religion founded in the 20th century."
In the video, Cruise puts emphasis on the latter role.
A Scientologist "has the ability to create new realities and improve conditions," Cruise says.
The Web site defines Scientology as "the study of truth."
Cruise embraces that in the video.
WASHINGTON (CNN) A House committee chairman on Thursday denounced the Bush administration's planned sale of oil drilling rights in a prime polar bear habitat in Alaska, saying its impact on the bear population is unknown.
Ed Markey, chairman of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, spoke out against the White House's planned sale, set for February 6.
He said the drilling should not go forward until the impact of climate change and invasive industrial activity on the animals is known.
Markey's committee heard testimony about how global warming and drilling activity would affect the polar bear population on Wednesday.
"We shouldn't be selling the drilling rights in this important polar bear habitat before deciding how we are going to protect them," Markey said as the hearing opened.
This must not be the case for the polar bear.
"In the most thorough study to date, an Interior Department scientist ... determined that under current trends, disappearing sea ice would result in a two-thirds drop in the world population of polar bears, resulting in the disappearance of polar bears from Alaska by 2050," said a statement released by Markey.
In December, President Bush signed the Energy Independence and Security Act, which included a provision calling for Congress to pass legislation opening access to "domestic energy sources such as the outer continental shelf and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge," according to a fact sheet
on the White House Web site.
LONDON, England (CNN) A former London police chief said Thursday that Princess Diana would not have died in Paris if she had been willing to accept protection from British officers.
In turn, he was accused by a lawyer of being part of a conspiracy to murder the princess and her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed.
"I totally refute it as a blatant lie," said Lord Paul Condon, who headed London's Metropolitan Police from 1993 through 1999.
Condon said he pleaded with Diana to reverse her decision in December 1993 to dispense with Royal Protection officers.
Those officers continued to accompany her only when she traveled with her sons, Prince William and Prince Harry.
Michael Mansfield, a lawyer for al Fayed, suggested that after Diana's death, Condon had suppressed information about her fears of dying in an arranged car crash.
Condon said there were several meetings about Diana's security in December 1993 and January 1994.
However, Condon said he was off work for nearly four weeks during that period because he had been injured in a serious auto accident.
If that had not been the sequence of events, I might have demanded face-to-face meetings with her," Condon said. "But I honestly don't think it would have changed her mind.
Mansfield suggested that Diana did not trust the police.
"That was wrong, but I think it was a view that I think I would have found it very hard to change her mind about.
A set of lyrics proposed only last week for Spain's wordless national anthem have been yanked amid criticism that they smacked of the country's right-wing past and did not reflect its rich cultural diversity.
Alejandro Blanco, president of the Spanish Olympic Committee, which in June organized a contest seeking proposals for lyrics and got 7,000 entries, said four stanzas announced Friday as the official candidate were being shelved because of a "lack of consensus.
The proposed lyrics started off with the "Viva Espana!"
rallying cry of the late Gen. Francisco Franco's dictatorship and called on Spaniards to "love the fatherland.
That drew criticism from many Spaniards, who said the words seemed to hark back to Franco's obsession with Spain as a unitary state fending off the independence-minded zeal of regions like Catalonia and the Basque country.
A gala event scheduled for Jan. 21, at which Spanish tenor Placido Domingo was to sing the lyrics for the first time, has been canceled, Blanco said at a news conference.
NAIROBI, Kenya (CNN) Young men armed with machetes hurled stones at police who fired back tear gas in a slum in Kenya's capital Thursday, but most of the country was quiet as opposition protests over a disputed presidential election appeared to lose steam.
Residents hid indoors and crouched on the floors of shops as young men ran past in Nairobi's Mathare slum.
Police fired tear gas down dirt alleyways and gunshots into the air.
Opposition leader Raila Odinga called for three days of demonstrations that began Wednesday.
Turnout has been low, however, and there have been few of the serious clashes or torching of homes that immediately followed the announcement of results from the December 27 election.
President Mwai Kibaki won a second term according to official results, but observers said the count was rigged.
"Our rallies will continue until the government sits down with us and seeks a solution," opposition spokesman Salim Lone told The Associated Press.
"Calling off rallies would be admitting defeat to those who first stole the presidential election and are now killing innocent protesters on sight."
Government spokesman Alfred Mutua repeated Kibaki's position that the opposition should take its grievances to court and said the administration "is very open to dialogue."
This week, 13 nations, including the United States and Britain, increased pressure on rival politicians to find a solution, threatening to cut aid to the government "if the commitment of the government of Kenya to good governance, democracy, the rule of law and human rights weakens.
Late Wednesday, the United Nations launched an appeal for nearly $42 million to help half a million Kenyans affected by the violence.
U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes said the money was needed to provide food, shelter, health care and other services for the next six months.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates, criticized by some for comments indicating NATO forces in southern Afghanistan are not up to par, praised them Thursday for their "valor and sacrifice," which has caused the Taliban "significant losses.
He also assured other countries that the planned deployment of of 3,200 Marines to Afghanistan this spring is not because of any shortcomings by forces already there.
The troops were requested by the International Security Assistance Force.
"It reflects the fact that NATO and U.S. commanders believe they need more troops to take advantage of last year's military successes "to keep the pressure on the Taliban and to accelerate the training of the Afghan national security forces," Gates said.
"As I said before the House Armed Services Committee last month, allied forces from the United Kingdom, Canada, Netherlands, Australia, Denmark and other nations have stepped up to the plate and are playing a significant and powerful role in Afghanistan.
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (CNN) The British Council on Thursday denounced a Russian "campaign of intimidation," which it said had made it impossible to continue operating in two Russian cities.
The statement from the the British Council came after Russian authorities briefly detained the head of the council's St. Petersburg office this week and summoned local staff from the St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg offices for interviews.
The council said security officials also visited the staff at their homes.
"The interviews had little do do with their work and were clearly aimed at exerting undue pressure on innocent individuals," British Council Chief Executive Martin Davison said.
"Our paramount consideration is the well-being of our staff and I feel we cannot continue our work without significant risk to them.
Davison said the British Council had suspended operations in both cities because Russia had made it impossible for them to continue operating.
This month, Russia's Foreign Ministry ordered the St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg offices to shut, saying they were operating illegally and avoiding paying taxes.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Thursday that the British Council had complied with all tax laws and that Russia had failed to substantiate its allegations.
Davison said it was wrong to draw the British Council, a cultural organization, into an international political dispute.
The dispute with the British Council is the latest in a diplomatic tit-for-tat that has been escalating since late 2006, when former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko was fatally poisoned in London.
Britain requested the extradition of its prime suspect in the case, Moscow-based businessman Andrei Lugovoi, but Russia refused to hand him over.
Britain then expelled Russian diplomats from London, leading Russia to expel British diplomats from Moscow.
Miliband said Russian officials have said privately that the actions stem from the Litvinenko murder.
"We regard as entirely separate issues Mr. Litvinenko's murder and the activities of the British Council," Miliband said.
More than 200 flights were canceled nearly a fifth of the day's flights, airport operator BAA said.
Passengers expecting to fly out of Heathrow were warned to contact their airline before traveling to the airport, just west of London.
The chaos was caused by a Boeing 777 British Airways flight from Beijing making a crash landing at 12:42 p.m. (7:
For a short while, the southern runway was closed leaving only the northern runway open.
Other London-area airports handled extra flights while Heathrow capacity was reduced.
In Scotland, travelers were also warned to check before home if they were flying south.
Donald Morrison, spokesman for BAA Scotland which operates a number of airports in the country, said: "Obviously because Heathrow is such a busy airport there's going to be a knock-on effect on flights and this will affect Scottish passengers.
"There will obviously be a number of passengers who will delayed as the airport plays catch-up.
Air crash investigators are trying to work out why a Boeing 777 landed short of the runway at London Heathrow airport, skidding on grass and ripping apart sections of the aircraft.
An investigator who has been briefed on the incident told CNN the plane's captain "is claiming there wasn't power when he needed it.
Passenger Paul Venter told the UK Press Association: "The wheels came out and went for touchdown, and the next moment we just dropped. I couldn't tell you how far.
Images showed the Boeing 777 BA flight 38 from Beijing, China grounded on tarmac after touching down several hundred meters short of the airport's south runway, close to a perimeter road, with its emergency chutes deployed and white fire-fighting foam covering the engines.
The undercarriage, left wing and left engine of the aircraft were severely damaged, as if it had skidded across the ground.
At least one of the plane's wheels had been torn off.
The most visible damage was to the left wing, which was covered in mangled metal where it meets the fuselage.
Tire tracks hundreds of meters long could be seen in the grass behind the plane, which was surrounded by fire engines and other emergency vehicles.
Eyewitness Neil Jones said the plane had made a "very, very unusual approach" to the airport and sounded louder than usual, PA reported.
In a statement, British Airways said all 136 passengers and 16 crew members had been evacuated from the plane with six minor injuries taken to hospital.
"We are very proud of the way our crew safely evacuated all 136 passengers on board," Walsh said in a statement.
(CNN) Two anti-whaling activists who were seized by a Japanese whaling vessel two days ago have been handed over to Australian government officials on a ship in the Antarctic, Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced Thursday.
Australian citizen Benjamin Potts and British citizen Giles Lane, both members of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, jumped on board the Yushin Maru No. 2 Tuesday to deliver a letter saying the vessel was violating international law and Australian law by killing whales.
The anti-whaling group accused the crew of the Japanese vessel of kidnapping the men.
Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said the Japanese government which formally approached Australia to assist in the transfer did not lay out any conditions for the transfer, in which the men were brought on board the Australian ship, the Oceanic Viking.
Sea Shepherd claims Japan's Institute for Cetacean Research, which is backing the operations, had said it would release the two activists if Sea Shepherd agrees to stop interfering in its whaling operations.
The Japanese Fisheries Agency said Thursday it would readily hand over the two men.
At a news conference earlier, the agency released pictures of broken bottles they claim group members threw at the ship.
They also released a photo of the two activists relaxing and drinking tea aboard the Yushin Maru.
"For some time, for 10, 15 minutes, I understand, they were tied to a GPS mast," Tomohiko Taniguchi of Japan's Foreign Ministry told CNN. "The Japanese crew members feared that two crew members from Sea Shepherd might do something violent. "
He said Potts and Lane boarded the vessel without permission.
Japan has been hunting whales in the Antarctic and apparently plans to kill as many as 1,000 this winter.
Kevin Keegan has sensationally returned to Newcastle after being named as the Premier League club's new manager in succession to Sam Allardyce.
And, with Keegan watching from the stands, Newcastle cruised into the fourth round of the FA Cup with a 4-1 win over Stoke City despite playing most of the match with just 10 men.
Keegan took Newcastle to promotion back to the top flight in 1993 and came close to winning the league title in the 1995-96 season when they famously led Manchester United by 12 points before finishing as runners-up.
He went on to manage Fulham, England and Manchester City but has been out of the game since leaving City in 2005 after a largely unsuccessful spell with the club.
Harry Redknapp had been first choice for Newcastle owner Mike Ashley and chairman Chris Mort but he last week opted to stay at Portsmouth.
LONDON, England (CNN) Popular social networking site Facebook has been asked to remove the Scrabulous game from its Web site by the makers of Scrabble, agencies have reported.
Mattel released a statement saying: "Letters have been sent to Facebook in the U.S. regarding the Scrabulous application.
"Mattel values its intellectual property and actively protects its brands and trademarks.
"As Mattel owns the rights to the Scrabble trademark outside the U.S. and Canada we are currently reviewing our position regarding other countries.
Hasbro owns the rights to the game in the U.S. and Canada.
According to Mattel's UK office, the online version of the popular board game was created by a third-party organization based in India.
Facebook surpassed MySpace and Bebo as the UK's most popular social networking site just last year with more than half a million daily users.
The official Scrabble Web site says that more than 100 million sets of the game have been sold in 29 different languages in 121 countries worldwide since its launch in 1948.
NEW YORK (CNN) A biography and 4-year-old video of Tom Cruise are calling attention to the actor's belief in Scientology.
Andrew Morton, author of "Tom Cruise:
"This is a fair, evenhanded treatment of Tom Cruise's life," Morton said Tuesday on NBC's "Today" show. "He's a man who deserves attention.
The church responded with a 15-page statement, calling the book "a bigoted, defamatory assault replete with lies" and saying Cruise "is a Scientology parishioner and holds no official or unofficial position in the Church hierarchy.
Rogers & Cowan, the publicity firm that represents Cruise, issued a statement criticizing Morton for not interviewing "one person who has known or worked with Tom" in the past 25 years.
The statement also derides Morton for writing "outlandish and malicious lies to sell books.
The video was still on gossip Web site Gawker.com on Tuesday.
He discusses his faith while the soundtrack to his "Mission:
Impossible" films plays in the background.
Morton has also written books about Princess Diana, Madonna and Monica Lewinsky.
(CNN) Musician Ike Turner died of a cocaine overdose, the San Diego County Medical Examiner's Office said Wednesday.
"The cause of death for Ike Turner is cocaine toxicity with other significant conditions," Supervising Medical Examiner Investigator Paul Parker told CNN.
Contributing conditions included high blood pressure and emphysema, he said.
Turner, who died December 12 at age 76, was perhaps best known for the blues, soul and funk music he and his then-wife Tina performed with the Ikettes during the 1960s and 1970s.
A janitor alerted police after he found the package in a garage of an apartment building in Goteborg, the country's second-largest city, police spokesman Jan Strannegard said.
The package was humming and vibrating suspiciously, so police took no chances and sent out a team of explosives experts.
After having cordoned off the area, they opened the package with bomb disposal equipment, only to find the battery-operated device inside.
"The package was vibrating when the janitor found it, but I think it had sort of died out by the time it was disarmed," Strannegard said.
Modern-day South Beach is still a vibrant monument to the Art Deco designs of the late 1920s and '30s.
The narrow streets are lined with hotels and buildings designed with curved edges, porthole windows and pastel-colored facades, all touchstones of the style.
The Miami Design Preservation League is offering tours of the Art Deco district guided, recorded and one that can even be done listening on a cell phone.
She wore palm tree-shaped earrings, a gold-and-black speckled visor and a T-shirt promoting the annual weekend event celebrating Art Deco, which was scheduled this year for January 18-20.
"I think it's incredibly important to preserve the buildings," Brigham said. "They have a much more human scale than skyscrapers.
One stop on the tour is the Amsterdam Palace at Ocean Drive and 11th Street.
It is of Mediterranean Revival design, which features decorative columns, arched windows, clay barrel tile roofs and rough stucco walls.
Today it's known as Casa Casuarina, a five-star luxury hotel.
Next up are three small hotels facing the ocean just north of the palatial villa.
The Cardozo was named for one of the first Jewish justices on the U.S. Supreme Court, Benjamin Cardozo.
"People used a variety of names (for hotels).
Attorney Yale Galanter said Simpson planned to use his Miami, Florida, home to secure bond. But the judge insisted that he put down 15 percent in cash $37,500.
"I don't want him out of the jail until the 15 percent is paid.
The judge scolded Simpson, saying he wasn't taking the matter seriously.
Simpson's bail bondsman, Miguel Pereira of Florida- based You Ring, We Spring, took the witness stand as prosecutors attempted to prove Simpson violated terms of his release on bail as he awaits a robbery trial.
"I understand 100 percent," said Simpson, dressed in a navy blue jail jumpsuit.
His trial is set to begin on April 7.
(CNN) A former congressman has been charged in connection with his work for an Islamic charity accused of funneling money to an Afghan warlord, prosecutors announced Wednesday.
The money laundering, conspiracy and obstruction of justice charges against former Michigan Rep. Mark Deli Siljander are part of a 42-count indictment released by the U.S. attorney's office in Kansas City, Missouri.
Siljander "vehemently denies the allegations in the indictment and will enter a not guilty plea," said his attorney, James Hobbs.
Prosecutors allege Siljander's co-defendants the directors of an Islamic charity hired him to get the organization off a list of agencies suspected of links to terrorism and paid him with stolen U.S. government funds.
A Senate committee named the Islamic American Relief Agency as a group with suspected links to international terrorism in 2004.
The group then unlawfully kept about $84,000 in USAID funds and used the money to pay Siljander to lobby on its behalf, said John Wood, the U.S. attorney in Kansas City.
The money was funneled through other nonprofit agencies to hide its origin, according to Wood.
Siljander is accused of lying to federal agents and prosecutors about his work for the group, which allegedly steered $260,000 to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar an ally of the Taliban and al Qaeda.
The United States named Hekmatyar a "specially designated global terrorist" in 2003.
The money was sent between 2002 and 2004 to accounts in Peshawar, Pakistan.
Some of the funds were supposed to go toward renovating buildings Hekmatyar owns in a refugee camp in Pakistan in order to run an orphanage, according to the indictment.
Siljander's attorney said his client did nothing wrong.
"Mr. Siljander was never an officer of the Islamic American Relief Agency, nor was he ever involved in any alleged efforts by IARA to engage in any prohibited financial transactions with any U.S.-designated terrorist, including Gulbuddin Hekmatyar," Hobbs said.
Siljander served three terms in the House of Representatives before losing to a Republican primary challenger in 1986.
He later served as a U.S. delegate to the U.N. General Assembly late in the Reagan administration.
He now operates a consulting and public relations firm based in suburban Washington.
The battle for the Democratic presidential nomination heads west Saturday with caucuses in Nevada, where unions and a large Hispanic population are heavily expected to influence the results.
For years, the region was excluded from playing a significant part in nominating presidential candidates, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid used his clout to move up his state's caucuses, increasing Nevada's profile on the primary calendar.
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, respectively the top Democratic campaigns are bringing in hundreds of extra staff and volunteers to Nevada.
The GOP also is holding caucuses Saturday in Nevada, but most Republican candidates will be focusing their attention that day on the South Carolina primary.
The Democratic race in Nevada appears tight, with the two front-runners in a statistical tie.
Former Sen. John Edwards has the support of 25 percent.
The survey's margin of error is plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Nevada is one of the fastest-growing and most diverse states, with one in every five people a Hispanic and a heavily unionized work force.
Some of America's closest NATO allies reacted with surprise and disbelief Wednesday to reported comments from Defense Secretary Robert Gates suggesting that their troops fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan are not up to the job.
The Dutch Defense Ministry summoned the U.S. ambassador for an explanation of a Los Angeles Times article that said Gates complained about soldiers from Canada, Britain and the Netherlands not knowing how to fight a guerrilla insurgency.
In Britain, Conservative lawmaker Patrick Mercer said Gates' reported comments were "bloody outrageous.
"I would beg the Americans to understand that we are their closest allies, and our men are bleeding and dying in large numbers," Mercer, a former British infantry officer, told The Associated Press.
"These sorts of things are just not helpful among allied nations.
The United States has regularly criticized Germany, France, Italy and other allies that refuse to allow their troops in Afghanistan to join U.S. forces on the front line against the Taliban in the insurgents' southern strongholds.
According to the LA Times, Gates raised doubts about countries that have sent significant numbers of combat troops to fight in the south, often in the face of widespread opposition at home.
"Most of the European forces, NATO forces, are not trained in counterinsurgency.
NATO's Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer moved quickly to defend the allied troops.
PARIS, France (CNN) A Paris court convicted French oil giant Total SA on Wednesday over the 1999 sinking of an aging and rusting tanker in rough seas, which caused France's worst-ever oil spill.
The court found Total guilty of maritime pollution and fined it the maximum penalty of $560,000.
It also ordered Total and three other defendants to pay total damages of $285 million the first time in France that a criminal court has awarded damages for an oil spill.
The court acquitted Total on a separate charge of complicity in endangering people and property.
The Erika, carrying fuel oil owned by a unit of Total, split in two and sank in rough seas off western France on Dec. 12, 1999.
Nearly six million gallons of oil leaked into the Atlantic, killing up to 75,000 birds and blackening beaches.
The verdict was a stinging blow for Total, France's biggest company by market value.
The Paris court faulted the company for "carelessness.
The 15 defendants all maintained their innocence; the four-month trial ended in June.
A year after the 1999 sinking, the European Union agreed on tighter controls on maritime safety, notably the phasing out of single hull tankers like Erika.
A subsequent investigation by France's Bureau of Inquiries into Sea Accidents blamed lack of maintenance and corrosion aboard the tanker as the main causes for the spill.
Officials and environmentalists from regions affected said the disaster cost an estimated $475 million as the spill coated nearly 240 miles of French coastline.
NAIROBI, Kenya (CNN) CNN reporter Zain Verjee was shot in the back with a tear gas cannister on Wednesday as running battles erupted between police and protesters after country's opposition leader called for three days of nationwide demonstrations against the outcome of last month's presidential elections.
Police shot three protesters in Kibera, a slum on the outskirts of Nairobi, a witness told CNN, and other officers fired tear gas to try to thwart thousands of protesters.
Officers and paramilitary forces were also out in force around Kibera and in other parts of the Kenyan capital.
They also patrolled the western town of Kisumu, in the Rift Valley, where many shops were closed in anticipation of violence.
Verjee, who was unhurt in the incident, was hit while filming a standoff between opposition protesters and police lines at Uhuru Park in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, where the opposition had planned a protest march.
"Mass action is not a good idea," one man said.
"Me personally, I'm afraid," said one woman.
The opposition said it wants to use peaceful street protests to pressure the government to come to some sort of genuine power-sharing deal with Odinga.
BEIJING, China (CNN) Wei Wenhua was a model communist and is now a bloggers' hero a "citizen journalist" turned martyr.
The construction company manager was driving his car when he witnessed an ugly scene:
a team of about 50 city inspectors beating villagers who tried to block trucks from unloading trash near their homes.
Wei took out his cell phone and began taking pictures.
By the time it was over, the 41-year-old Wei was slumped unconscious. He was rushed to the hospital but was dead on arrival.
His death earlier this month continues to stir controversy.
In China's mainstream media and in the blogosphere, angry Chinese are demanding action.
In one day alone, more than 8,000 posted comments.
China's burgeoning economy allows a relatively freer flow of information.
Millions have opened blogs, too. Mobile phone users also reached more than half a billion in September, according to the government.
But silencing these citizen journalists is getting more difficult.
Days after Wei's January 7 death, a government official in Tianmen city, Wei's hometown, was fired, four others detained and more than 100 placed under investigation.
Chinese authorities now appear to be taking these cases seriously.
Islamic militants overran a border fort in northwestern Pakistan during a pitched battle Wednesday, killing seven Pakistani troops and leaving more than a dozen unaccounted for, a military spokesman said.
The militants breached the walls of the colonial-era outpost along the Afghan border with explosives and seized the fort after a firefight that lasted about 12 hours, said army Lt. Col. Baseer Hadier Malik.
The outpost is in a part of the tribal territory of South Waziristan that is a stronghold of Taliban warlord Baitullah Mehsud the man the Pakistani government has named a prime suspect in the December 27 assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
About 300 fighters armed with rifles and rocket-propelled grenades took part in the assault against a garrison of 40 members of Pakistan's paramilitary Frontier Corps, Malik said.
They remained in control of the base late Wednesday.
Malik told CNN that 15 border guards escaped and seven were killed, leaving 18 missing.
Pakistan has attempted to crack down on the largely lawless tribal areas along the Afghan border under U.S. pressure.
U.S. intelligence concluded in 2007 that the Taliban and its al Qaeda allies have carved out a new safe haven in that region, using it to stage attacks inside Afghanistan.
Medullary bone, a type of tissue present in modern birds when they are developing eggs, has been found in three dinosaur fossils, researchers report in Monday's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The dinosaurs were aged 8, 10 and 18, indicating they reached sexual maturity earlier than previously thought.
In modern birds, medullary tissue lines bones for only a few weeks when they are producing eggs and is then reabsorbed.
Finding it in dinosaurs, which are believed to be the ancestors of birds, sheds light on their reproduction also.
Most dinosaurs lived to only about age 30, though some reached 60, the researchers said.
The study was done by Sarah Werning, a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, and Andrew Lee, also a graduate student at Berkeley when the work was done.
"This is an exciting finding, because age at sexual maturity is related to so many things," the students' adviser, said Kevin Padian, a professor of integrative biology and a curator in UC Berkeley's Museum of Paleontology.
Werning said in a statement that pinpointing the age of reproductive maturity "opens up so many complementary avenues of dinosaur research.
You can talk about dinosaur physiology, lifespan, reproductive strategies. And you could use this technique to look at all kinds of extinct animals.
Steven Gerrard fired a hat-trick as Liverpool thrashed crisis club Luton 5-0 at Anfield to book their place in the fourth round of the FA Cup.
Victory came as a timely boost for manager Rafa Benitez who heard this week that his job had been offered to Juergen Klinsmann.
Robbie Keane scored the only goal at the Madejski Stadium after 15 minutes to put Tottenham into the next round at the expense of Reading.
The Fox ratings superpower returns for its seventh season on Tuesday, and will doubtless dominate January through May as it did last year and the year before that.
It could even attract a bigger audience in 2008, thanks to the Hollywood writers strike.
But Nigel Lythgoe, an executive producer for the show, downplayed speculation that the lack of alternative programming as a result of the strike could equal more viewers for "Idol.
But the other networks are so intimidated by the most-watched show on American television that "they don't really schedule anything around 'Idol' anyway," he added.
"American Idol" has reached a plateau in the ratings, down only 1 percent from 2006 (30.7 million average viewers) to 2007 (30.4 million).
The finale with winner Jordin Sparks was seen by 31.2 million, according to Nielsen Media Research.
Lythgoe acknowledged that the show suffered last year when finalists failed to top the excitement and star quality of performers from previous seasons;
MELBOURNE, Australia (CNN) Police were forced to use pepper spray to subdue three spectators and five were ejected from the grounds at the Australian Open on Tuesday.
A match between last year's finalist, Fernando Gonzalez of Chile, and Greece's Konstantinos Economidis was stopped for five minutes while police ejected the spectators, tournament officials and police said.
Police said those ejected will be forced to stay away from Melbourne Park for 24 hours, and if they are previous offenders, they will have to stay away longer.
Last year, Serbian and Croatian fans clashed at the tournament, some using sticks and flag poles. Police and private security guards ejected about 150 spectators on the first day of the tournament.
Gonzalez, who won in straight sets, said the spirited behavior Tuesday by Chilean and Greek fans reminded him of a Davis Cup match.
I saw that they threw spray.
Gonzalez, who said he has never seen pepper spray used at a match, said a few spectators yelled at him in Spanish.
Economidis, who was beaten 6-4 7-6 6-1, said he had never experienced crowd problems like that before.
It's really something that nobody wants."
Mary Blilie had been at Big Sky Resort in Montana for just one day but had already snapped more photos of her kids than she had in a long time.
That's because when Blilie, now a Minneapolis engineer, was a kid her family skied here every winter, and after a 17-year hiatus, she was determined to create some of those same happy memories for her own two children, as well as her nieces and nephews who, along with their parents, had come along for the trip down memory lane.
"No one gets too bothered about anything," she explains.
And the skiing couldn't be better some 400 inches of snow a year.
"My son doesn't want to leave," said Sandy Itkoff, of Los Angeles, who was a guest at Moonlight Basin.
Whatever your age, you can't help but be impressed by the sheer beauty of the place the huge rugged mountains, the snow covered trees, the vistas that seem to go on forever.
Skiing here can be a good deal too, parents say, with kids 10 and under skiing free and adult lifts at Moonlight Basin ($51 a day) and Big Sky ($75) less than at many other major resorts.
(Consider that a daily ticket at Aspen this season is $87) Junior tickets for tweens and teens are less as well.
There are only a few restaurants in the Big Sky base area and just one at Moonlight Basin:
BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNN) A car bomb struck a U.S. Embassy vehicle Tuesday as it traveled along a coastal highway north of Beirut, killing at least three Lebanese civilian bystanders, according to American and Lebanese officials.
The driver of the embassy vehicle suffered minor injuries, and the sole passenger walked away unscathed, U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. Both were Lebanese nationals, he said.
An American citizen who happened to be in the area suffered non-life-threatening injuries, the spokesman said.
Lebanese internal security forces said three Lebanese civilian bystanders were killed in the explosion in Beirut's Dora area, contradicting earlier reports of four.
Twenty-one others including the American bystander were wounded in the explosion, which was caused by a 15-kilogram (33-pound) bomb placed in a car before the explosion, the security forces said.
The United States is outraged by the terrorist attack, said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who is traveling with President Bush in Saudi Arabia.
"I want on behalf of our country to say to those who were wounded, and certainly to the families of those who were killed, that our condolences are with them," she added.
A communique issued by the U.S. Embassy in Beirut said the embassy vehicle was apparently the intended target of the attack, and identified the driver and passenger as Lebanese security personnel for the embassy.
But McCormack cautioned against jumping to any conclusions on the intended target.
"We don't yet have a full picture of exactly what happened, who is responsible, who is exactly being targeted," he told reporters during the State Department's daily briefing.
"We will see over the next day or two ... where the facts lead us.
Citing security concerns, McCormack would also not address unconfirmed reports that the vehicle was part of a convoy for departing U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Jeffrey Feltman.
A U.S. Embassy statement said Feltman canceled a farewell ceremony that he was to host Tuesday night "out of respect to the victims of today's terrorist explosion.
NAIROBI, Kenya (CNN) Kenya's opposition party struck a significant blow against the government as its candidates were elected as the house speaker of parliament and deputy speaker in the third round of voting Tuesday.
Kenneth Marende was elected in a 105-101 vote over the government candidate, Francis Ole Kaparo, who had been speaker since 1993.
Farah Maalim, also a member of the opposition Orange Democratic Movement, was elected deputy speaker.
The parliamentary votes mark a significant win for opposition leader Raila Odinga.
It was the first session of the parliament since last month's disputed and deadly presidential elections and the first time President Mwai Kibaki and Odinga had been in the same room since votes were cast.
Kibaki's party members arrived hours before the session began, in part to prevent Odinga's Orange Democratic Movement members from taking their benches.
Odinga had earlier said he would sit on the government side of parliament because his party won more seats in the parliamentary elections.
He took a spot in the opposition leader's side, and refused to look at Kibaki as the president entered the chambers.
"The standing orders are very clear," Odinga said. "They say the majority party is the government party. We are the majority party, and therefore we are going to be sitting on the government side, because we expect the minority party to sit on the opposition benches."
The speaker's election required a two-thirds majority for the first two rounds and a simple majority in the voting reaches a third round, said analyst Macharia Munene, an international relations professor at Nairobi's United States International University.
More than 600 people died in a widespread and ethnically motivated killing spree after Odinga accused Kibaki of rigging the December 27 vote to win his re-election.
Odinga said that, despite all the violence, he would be prepared in a new government to work with, but not under, Kibaki.
He called on the president to negotiate on power-sharing and to set a date for new elections.
Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan was expected to arrive Tuesday night to take over mediation efforts in the dispute.
However, he has had to postpone the effort for a couple of days because he "was taken ill with a severe flu" on his way to the airport in Geneva.
"Mr. Annan very much regrets this delay but he is in touch with other members of the panel of eminent African personalities.
Jobs also confirmed the consumer electronics company's foray into online movie rentals, revealing an alliance with all six major movie studios to offer films over high-speed Internet connections within 30 days after they're released on DVD.
It comes standard with an 80-gigabyte hard drive, with the option of a 64GB flash-based solid state drive as an upgrade.
The machine doesn't come with a built-in optical drive for reading CDs and DVDs, a feature Jobs says consumers won't miss because they can download movies and music over the Internet and access the optical drives on other PCs and Macs to install new software.
Trading in Apple stock was heavy Tuesday, the first day of the Macworld Conference & Expo in San Francisco. It fell 5.52 percent to $168.91 at midday.
It was the first visit by a spacecraft to Mercury in three decades.
The closest approach occurred a little after 2 p.m.;
"I haven't seen so many smiles around this place for a long time," said project scientist Ralph McNutt. "It's an incredibly upbeat, very happy situation. Everybody's really enjoying this moment.
Messenger needed a gravity assist from Mercury this is the first of three fly-bys in order to get into orbit around the planet in 2011.
The spacecraft was launched in 2004.
The last time a spacecraft flew past Mercury was in 1975, by NASA's Mariner 10.
This time, Messenger will provide views of the opposite side of the planet, never before seen by a spacecraft.
More than 1,200 images are expected to be beamed back.
Data should begin arriving on Earth on Tuesday, McNutt said.
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (CNN) President Bush urged OPEC nations on Tuesday to put more oil on the world market and warned that soaring prices could cause an economic slowdown in the United States.
"High energy prices can damage consuming economies," the president told a small group of reporters traveling with him in the Mideast.
The president spoke to reporters before meeting late Tuesday with Saudi King Abdullah, whose country holds the world's largest supply of oil.
Bush said U.S. consumers are feeling the pain of rising oil costs, which topped $100 a barrel this month.
"When consumers have less purchasing power, it could cause the economy to slow down," Bush said. "I hope OPEC nations put more supply on the market," he added. "It would be helpful.
At the same time, he noted that the higher prices are guided by supply and demand, and that there is little excess capacity in the marketplace.
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries next meets February 1 in Vienna, Austria, to consider increasing output.
" ##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=3012803
ROME, Italy (CNN) Pope Benedict XVI has canceled a planned visit to a prestigious Italian university after a protest by academics and students attacked his views on Galileo, the Vatican confirmed Tuesday.
The pope had been due to give a speech at La Sapienza university in Rome Thursday to open its academic year.
However, the visit drew criticism from academics at the university who signed a letter demanding that the trip be called off.
Separately, students protested outside the university, carrying banners insisting the university is a lay institution and the pope is not welcome.
"Given the events of the past days regarding the visit of the Holy Father to La Sapienza university upon the rector's invitation, which was scheduled to take place Thursday, January 17, it was decided to postpone the event," the Vatican said in a short written statement.
Father Ciro Benedettini, a spokesman for the Vatican, confirmed to CNN the academic protests had prompted the cancellation.
In the letter, academics pointing to a speech the pope gave at the same university as a cardinal in 1990 claimed he condones the 1633 trial and conviction of the scientist Galileo for heresy.
In comments made 15 years ago when he was still a cardinal, Pope Benedict is reported to have called the trial "reasonable and just.
During his speech, the pope then Cardinal Ratzinger quoted an Austrian philosopher Paul Feyerabend, saying, "At the time of Galileo, the church remained more loyal (or faithful) to reason than Galileo himself.
Andreas Srova, a physics professor at the university, said it would have been inappropriate for the pope to appear for the inauguration.
"We have no objections to the pope visiting at any other time when there can be exchanges of opinion, but not at the inauguration," he said.
CNN's Rome bureau chief Alessio Vinci said it was quite extraordinary for the pope to cancel the visit just because of the objections of the students and professors.
It Is especially surprising, he said, given that this is the same pope that made a controversial visit to Turkey last year.
Pope Benedict went to the predominantly Muslim country despite strained relations between the Vatican and the Islamic world following a lecture the pope gave at a German university in which he made unflattering comments about the Islamic faith.
Stocks tumbled Tuesday after Citigroup's steep quarterly loss and a big drop in retail sales exacerbated fears of a recession.
The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) lost around 277 points, seeing its biggest one-day point loss of 2008.
The decline left the Dow at a 9-month low.
The broader S&P 500 (INX) index lost 2.5 percent and fell to a 10-month low.
Treasury prices rallied as investors sought safety in government debt, sending the 10-year note yield down to a nearly four-year low.
Oil and gold prices fell.
After the close Tuesday, Intel (INTC, Fortune 500) reported quarterly results and an outlook that disappointed investors, sending shares of the chipmaker tumbling in after-hours trade.
The short-term outlook for the market looks pretty miserable, said Donald Selkin, director of research at Joseph Stevens.
The vehicle belonging to the suspect in the killing of a pregnant Marine was found outside a motel in North Carolina, police tell CNN.
Marine Cpl. Cesar Armando Laurean, charged with first-degree murder of 20-year-old Cpl. Maria Lauterbach, remains at large.
License plates on the truck at the hotel matched those on a black Dodge pick-up registered to Laurean, Onslow County authorities said.
Police were alerted to the presence of the truck, in Morrisville, North Carolina, by a tip about 1 p.m., Onslow County Sheriff Ed Brown told CNN.
The hotel is off Airport Boulevard near Interstate 40, across the highway from Raleigh-Durham International Airport.
Brown cautioned that the discovery does not necessarily indicate that Laurean is nearby.
The sheriff noted that investigators over the weekend found Lauterbach's ATM debit card at a Durham, North Carolina, bus station and that investigators received several tips from people that Laurean's truck was seen there.
Authorities also received reports Sunday from people who said they saw Laurean at a bus station in Shreveport, Louisiana.
She died from blunt trauma to the head, a prosecutor said Tuesday.
District Attorney Dewey Hudson announced the results after an autopsy on Lauterbach, but he acknowledged that questions remain.
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both called for an end to a bitter fight in a racially charged debate that has roiled the Democratic presidential contest over the last few days.
At a news conference Monday in Reno, Nevada, Obama said that he is "concerned about the tenor the campaign has taken in the last couple days.
"I think that I may disagree with Sen. Clinton or Sen. Edwards on how to get things done, but we share the same goals. We're all Democrats, we all believe in civil rights, we all believe in equal rights," said the senator from Illinois.
"I think they're good people, they are patriots and they are running because they think they can lead this country to a better place, and I don't want the campaign in this stage to degenerate into so much tit-for-tat back-and-forth that we lose sight of why all of us are doing this.
"If I hear my own supporters engaging in talk that I think is ungenerous or misleading or in some way is unfair, then I will speak out forcefully against them, and I hope the other campaigns take the same approach," he said.
After Obama's statement, Clinton released her own remarks, saying the heated rhetoric "I know does not reflect what is in our hearts.
"We differ on a lot of things ... but when it comes to civil rights and our commitment to diversity, when it comes to our heroes President John F. Kennedy and Dr. King Sen. Obama and I are on the same side," she said.
"And in that spirit, let's come together, because I want more than anything else to ensure that our family stays together on the front lines of the struggle to expand rights for all Americans. "
British ninth seed Andy Murray became the first high-profile casualty at the Australian Open with a 7-5 6-4 0-6 7-6 (7-5) defeat to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga of France on Monday.
"I don't think it's the end of the world.
Second seed Rafael Nadal, the only player to beat Roger Federer at the last 10 Grand Slams at the last two French Opens battled past Serbian qualifier Viktor Troicki in a night match on center court.
The Spanish left-hander finally prevailed after two hours and 35 minutes, winning 7-6 (7-3) 7-5 6-1, and will next play Frenchman Florent Serra in the second round.
Commissioner Scott Gordon then ruled that a January 4 emergency order suspending her visitation rights and giving custody to Federline would remain in effect.
This is a grave situation for all," Federline's attorney, Mark Vincent Kaplan, said outside the courthouse.
Although Federline thought the ruling was correct, Kaplan said, "his goal, his hope for the future is at some point he will be able to parent the children with the participation of their mother.
Spears married Federline in 2004 and filed for divorce in 2006.
MySpace has reached an agreement with more than 45 states to change to help prevent sexual predators and others from misusing it, state officials said Monday.
Several states' attorneys general said in a statement that the huge social networking Web site has agreed to add several protections and participate in a working group to develop new technologies, including a way to verify the ages of users.
MySpace, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., will also accept independent monitoring and changes the structure of its site.
The agreement was announced in Manhattan by attorneys general from New Jersey, North Carolina, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Ohio and New York.
Legal authorities have long been seeking greater controls for networking sites to prevent predators from using them to contact children. "We thank the attorneys general for a thoughtful and constructive conversation
on Internet safety," MySpace Chief Security Officer Hemanshu Nigam said in a written statement. "This is an industrywide challenge, and we must all work together to create a safer Internet.
He said the agreement includes measures "to provide a safer online experience for teens, and we look forward to sharing our ongoing safety innovations with other companies.
Opposition leader Nawaz Sharif accused Pakistan's president Monday of blindly following America and ordering anti-terror operations that have left the country "drowned in blood.
Sharif's tirade against President Pervez Musharraf came as troops and militants clashed near the Afghan border, leaving 30 dead. Separately, a bomb concealed on a motorbike in the southern city of Karachi killed at least nine people and wounded 52.
"The whole of Pakistan is drowned in blood.
The former prime minister reiterated his demand for Musharraf to step down and for a government of national unity to take power and oversee the February 18 parliamentary elections.
Opposition parties say the current caretaker administration is biased and the elections will be rigged in favor of the pro-Musharraf ruling party allegations Musharraf denies.
The latest violence underscored the volatility of Pakistan as the nation heads into the elections.
The United States and other Western nations are hoping the vote will usher in a period of stability as the country battles rising attacks by al Qaeda and Taliban militants.
Sharif's speech was his first major campaign event since the December 27 assassination of another key opposition leader, Benazir Bhutto.
The city's reputation for violence and the difficulties that arise from not speaking Portuguese make it even more important that tourists get some guidance about how to jump in.
The locals have barely recovered from their New Year's hangovers and are already preparing for the five-day-long, no-holds-barred pre-Lenten bash.
Foreigners in the know are flocking to the hillside shantytowns, where the city's top carnival groups hold weekly rehearsals to polish this year's theme songs and to the Sambadrome stadium where free technical rehearsals offer a taste of the Samba
party in the street, watch the Samba parade from the stands or dance in the parade itself.
Most of the larger samba groups allow tourists to join their contingents as long as they wear the costumes, known as "fantasias."
The elaborate costumes can cost anywhere from $282 to $1,412, and provide revelers with a very different perspective.
The upside of parading is the thrill of singing and dancing under the stadium's bright lights before a huge crowd.
once the parade is over, revelers are left standing outside the stadium in a brilliant, slightly silly-looking getup, with few options aside from returning to the hotel to watch the rest of the parade on TV.
Brazilians like foreigners to at least try to dance.
Of course, they laugh at all the misguided footwork, but it's better if foreigners loosen up than be wallflowers.
(CNN) The Macworld Conference & Expo, Silicon Valley¡¯s largest technology trade show, opens Monday.
But the moment everyone is waiting for comes Tuesday morning, when Steve Jobs makes his annual keynote address at San Francisco¡¯s Moscone Center.
What can Jobs do to top that?
Nobody has yet shouted out ¡°Bingo! ¡± in middle of a Steve Jobs presentation &#8212;
a moment brilliantly anticipated in IBM¡¯s buzzword Bingo TV ad (link) &#8212; but this could be the year.
A Skinny MacBook.
Macbook air, thin, nano and mini &#8212;
LED backlit screen, under 3 lbs., half as thick as today¡¯s MacBooks, 32, 64 or even 128GB solid-state flash drive, priced around $1,600.
iPhone updates.
A bump in capacity from 8GB to 16GB and maybe 32GB is expected, as well as a preview of the software developers toolkit (SDK) promised for February.
A 3G iPhone and a Newton-type tablet are reported to be in the works, but not yet ready for prime time.
Movie rentals.
This is the item Hollywood is following most closely.
It¡¯s been widely reported that Fox and Disney are likely to make movies available on iTunes for overnight rental (at $3 to $5 for 24 hours) or for purchase for roughly the price of a shrink-wrapped DVD.
If, as rumored, Paramount, Lions Gate and Warner Bros join them, the flood of fresh video content could breath new life into the Apple TV.
DRM-free Music.
if Jobs did not use this opportunity to announce a significant expansion of the DRM-free offerings in the iTunes Store, especially after the last of the major labels announced last week that they were putting their music on Amazon.com (AMZN) without copy protection.
BRUSSELS, Belgium (CNN) European Union regulators said Monday they were again investigating software giant Microsoft Corp. this time on suspicion of abusing its market position by squeezing out competing Internet browsers and software rivals dependent on Microsoft programs.
The European Commission opened two formal probes, the first move against the company since a court four months ago backed the EU in a long-running legal battle over Microsoft's actions in using its ubiquitous Windows operating system to elbow into new software markets.
Microsoft said it would cooperate fully with the Commission's investigation and provide any and all information necessary.
, saying this usually depended on "how complicated the issues are and the level of cooperation that we receive from the company under investigation.
Although regulators did not specifically name Microsoft's latest operating system, Vista, they will look at some of its features such as desktop search.
The EU is also wading into a row between Microsoft and open source developers backed by International Business Machines Corp. by looking into Microsoft's open format for archived documents Office Open XML.
The first new probe triggered by a complaint from Norway's Opera Software ASA will look at whether Microsoft illegally gives away its Internet Explorer browser for free with Windows.
Opera had called on the EU to strip Internet Explorer out of Windows or carry alternative browsers.
The second investigation will examine whether Microsoft withheld information from companies that wanted to make products compatible with its software including Office word processing, spreadsheet and office management tools, some server products and Microsoft's push into the Internet under the name of the .NET framework.
Since Microsoft supplies the software to the vast majority of home and office computers, rivals complain that refusal to give them interoperability information shuts the door on a huge potential market.
BRUSSELS, Belgium (CNN) The Smurfs led by Papa Smurf and Smurfette kicked off a year of 50th birthday celebrations Monday with Smurfberry cake and sasparilla juice.
The late cartoonist Pierre Culliford best known by his pen name, "Peyo" first introduced the tiny blue figures in a comic strip in October 1958.
He called them Schtroumpf;
they became known worldwide as the Smurfs.
The Smurfs, forest dwellers who live in little white-capped mushroom homes, developed their own "Smurf" language in which nouns and verbs were interchanged.
Their debut on U.S. television in 1981 launched their global rise to stardom and made the Smurfs a household name.
A Smurf is a Pitufo in Spanish, a Schlumpf in German, Nam Ching Ling to the Chinese, a Sumafa in Japan and Dardassim in Hebrew.
To mark 50 years of Smurfdom, organizers are planning everything from a 3-D animation feature film expected to be released next year to new comic book collections.
Peyo's widow and two children will help kick off a European birthday tour in Brussels.
The Smurfs celebration will continue in Paris and Berlin.
The Smurfs also will team up with the UNICEF to promote children's rights and education worldwide, said Yves Willemont of UNICEF Belgium.
UNICEF and the Smurfs joined forces two years ago to raise the plight of ex-child soldiers in Africa.
(CNN) At least five people and a suicide bomber were killed in a Monday attack on a luxury hotel in Kabul, while six others were wounded, officials said.
The dead included an U.S. citizen and a Norwegian newspaper reporter, Carsten Thomassen, 38.
He died in the hospital of wounds from the blast, said Thomassen's newspaper, Dagbladets.
"I'm again very much surprised by this terrorist attack," Ban said.
Initially, Zemari Bashary, a spokesman for Afghanistan Interior Ministry, said the blast from the suicide bomber caused the casualties, but a witness disputed that report.
"I believe all of them were killed by gunfire," Robert Stewart, a U.S. witness who had arrived with colleagues at the Serena Hotel for dinner and to use the gym.
And one, if not two insurgents, had run through the parking area toward the front of the building. The suicide bomber apparently came in right after that and blew himself up outside the building," Stewart said.
He added, "At the same time, the insurgents got inside the gym near the front of the building and shot point-blank three or four of the people working out; I believe that was where the American may have been killed.
Stewart said he had seen two Norwegians and a Filipino woman who had been shot.
The Filipino woman had been shot "critically through the lung," he said.
He and others administered first aid to victims until Afghan police and military secured the building and evacuated the wounded, he said.
BOGOTA, Colombia (CNN) The same leftist rebel group that released two long-held hostages three days ago has kidnapped six tourists at a remote beach on Colombia's Pacific coast, a spokeswoman for the Colombian navy said Monday.
The kidnapping by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, the Spanish acronym by which the group is known, took place at dusk Sunday when a motorboat with the tourists went ashore at Morromico beach in Choco province.
The boat had set sail with 19 passengers from Bahia Solano, a port farther north, the spokeswoman said.
It said rebels then selected six of the passengers and led them into the nearby jungle.
The spokeswoman said one of them is a man with a Norwegian father and a Colombian mother.
In its online edition, El Tiempo, Colombia's largest daily newspaper, said the Norwegian was a teacher at a prestigious Bogota university.
It said his wife, a biologist, along with a hotel owner and a small businessman, also were among the victims.
The FARC released Clara Rojas and Consuelo Gonzalez on Friday after holding them for six and 6¨ö years, respectively.
Rojas was an aide to former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, whom the rebels also are holding hostage. Gonzalez is a former Colombian congresswoman.
The Colombian government estimates FARC is holding around 750 hostages.
The rebels have said they want to swap a small group, including Betancourt and three U.S. anti-drug contractors, for a larger group of jailed guerrilla fighters. The remainder are being held for ransom.
Creating a replacement heart for some of the sickest patients may be one step closer, if new research in rats pans out in humans.
It's similar to taking a house and gutting it, then rebuilding everything inside.
In the human version, the patient's own cells would be used.
"We took a rat heart and used soap to wash out the cells of the heart," said Doris Taylor, director of the Center for Cardiovascular Repair, Medtronic Bakken professor of medicine and physiology and lead author of the study. The process is called "decelluarization."
The soap moved through the heart's blood vessels, dissolving existing cells, which dropped out of the bottom.
The rebuilding started with injecting new heart cells, in this case cells from baby lab rats, and pumping them through the heart.
The goal is to increase options for human heart patients.
According to the American Heart Association, more than 80 million Americans have some form of cardiovascular disease.
Heart disease is the No. 1 cause of death in men and women in the United States each year, killing nearly 900,000 people in 2004.
Former President Clinton on Monday complained about attacks from Sen. Barack Obama on Sen. Hillary Clinton in the latest back-and-forth bickering between the two rival Democratic presidential campaigns.
"I've got before me a list of 80 attacks on Hillary that are quite personal by Sen. Obama and his campaign going back six months that I've had pulled," he said, speaking to CNN contributor Roland Martin on WVON-AM's "The Roland S. Martin Show" based in Chicago, Illinois.
At a campaign rally Monday in Reno, Nevada, Obama said he is "concerned about the tenor the campaign has taken in the last couple days.
"I think that I may disagree with Sen. Clinton or Sen. Edwards on how to get things done, but we share the same goals. We're all democrats, we all believe in civil rights, we all believe in equal rights," said Obama.
"I think they're good people, they are patriots and they are running because they think they can lead this country to a better place and I don't want the campaign in this stage to degenerate into so much tit-for-tat back-and-forth that we lose sight of why all of us are doing this.
Obama also warned his supporters to play fair.
A recording of comments Sunday by Black Entertainment Television founder Bob Johnson that appeared to criticize Obama's admitted past drug use were played on Martin's show.
Johnson later said he was referring to Obama's community organizing efforts.
The ATM card of slain Marine Maria Lauterbach was found in a Durham, North Carolina, bus station over the weekend and the truck of the Marine suspected of killing her was reported in the area, police said Monday.
The search for that suspect, Cpl. Cesar Armando Laurean, was "Earthwide," Onslow County Sheriff Ed Brown said at a news conference Monday.
He said the FBI is offering a $25,000 reward to anyone providing information leading to Laurean's capture.
Brown said he expected Laurean was getting help in hiding and asked friends or family to turn in the Marine corporal if he makes contact.
A warrant for Laurean's arrest on murder charges was issued over the weekend.
The FBI said Monday it has also obtained a federal warrant for Laurean's arrest on charges of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.
Electronic billboards with the wanted poster for Laurean will soon be appearing across the country, the FBI said.
Brown said evidence shows Lauterbach, who was eight months pregnant at the time of her disappearance, was killed on or about December 15, four days before she was reported missing to local law enforcement authorities.
LONDON, England (CNN) Princess Diana's relationships with two Muslim men provoked an outburst from her mother, who called her daughter "a whore", Paul Burrell, the princess's former butler, told an inquest Monday.
Burrell, who returned to Britain from his home in Florida to give evidence, was the first star witness of the London inquest, now in its fourth month.
His role as confidant to Diana, who died in a Paris car crash on August 31, 1997, along with her boyfriend Dodi Fayed and hotel security chief Henri Paul, meant his testimony was eagerly anticipated.
Burrell, whom the late princess once called "my rock," cast doubt on whether Diana was ready to marry Fayed.
According to Burrell, the princess was still "holding a candle" for former boyfriend and heart surgeon Hasnat Khan who she called "her soulmate" when she started dating Fayed "on the rebound.
Burrell told the inquest that Diana asked him to listen in on a conversation in June 1997 with her mother, Frances Shand Kydd, who died in 2004 and who was critical of her relationship with Muslim men.
"She called the princess a 'whore' and she said that she was messing around with 'effing Muslim men' and she was 'disgraceful' and said some very nasty things," Burrell said.
He agreed that, as a result of such calls Diana, decided not to talk to her mother again.
Diana's 18-month relationship with Khan ended around the same time she started seeing Fayed in July 1997.
Burrell said Diana had asked him at one point to investigate how a private wedding with Khan might take place, given that Khan is Muslim.
Khan had not proposed to the princess, Burrell said, adding that Khan was "the man she loved more than any other."
He said he spoke to Diana about the possibility that Fayed would give her a ring shortly before her death.
Burrell said he suggested to the princess that she wear it on the fourth finger of her right hand, rather than the left, as is customary with engagement rings.
Burrell also told the inquest he did not believe Prince Philip, Queen Elizabeth's, husband was involved in Diana's death.
But Burrell said that he knew Prince Philip very well and that he could not have been behind the deaths.
"Plus the princess was the mother of his grandchildren.
Why would he want to harm her?
Actors and filmmakers skipped the Golden Globes because of the two-month-old strike by the Writers Guild of America, which had planned pickets outside the show if organizers had tried to do their usual televised ceremony.
Globe planners and NBC canceled the three-hour star-studded bash in favor of an hour-long news conference at which clips of film and TV nominees were shown and reporters from entertainment news shows announced winners.
On strike since November 5, the Writers Guild of America refused to let union members work on the star-studded banquet-style show, prompting actors to boycott the ceremony rather than cross picket lines.
Although the guild called off pickets it had planned outside the news conference, the strike left one of Hollywood's brightest and giddiest nights in shambles.
The news conference format was a far cry from a ceremony whose star wattage would have been powered by the likes of Julia Roberts, Tom Hanks, George Clooney, Denzel Washington, Blanchett, Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie, who all had acting nominations.
Copies of the traditional glossy program booklet for the 65th annual Globes were still on hand for reporters covering the event.
Along with photos of previous winners and past Globe soirees, the program included welcome letters from Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, himself a Globe winner for best acting debut with 1976's "Stay Hungry.
The fate of Hollywood's biggest night, the February 24 Oscars, remains uncertain.
Oscar organizers insist their show will come off as planned, with or without the writers.
With two best-picture categories, the Globes traditionally have had a good shot for one of its movie winners to come away with the top prize at the Oscars.
But the Globes have not correctly forecast an Oscar best-picture winner in four years, the last one being "The Lord of the Rings:
The Return of the King.
Ruud van Nistelrooy scored two late goals as Spanish champions Real Madrid defeated bottom side Levante 2-0 on Sunday to re-establish their seven-point lead over Barcelona at the top of the Primera Liga table.
A staggering 36 points separated Real and Levante before kick-off but on the pitch there was little to choose between them before Dutch striker van Nistelrooy's stole the points with his 10th and 11th goals of the campaign.
a surprise 1-0 defeat at Almeria on Sunday.
Espanyol had not lost since a 2-1 defeat to Recreativo Huelva at the end of September but an 87th minute goal from Kalu Uche ended that run.
Villarreal are now breathing down their necks after a 4-3 comeback win over Deportivo La Coruna.
These island vacations make falling in love even more fun.
Bermuda
Bermuda has long been a choice vacation spot for lovers. Topping their list:
Elbow Beach on the south shore, which was named "Best Place for Falling in Love" by The Bermudian magazine.
bermudatourism.com.
Manhattan, New York
Hopeless romantics will always find inspiration in the Big Apple.
Restaurants are everywhere, but couples flock to the West Village's One if by Land, Two if by Sea (considered one of the best places in the city to pop the question).
For skyline views, head to Top of the Rock, the observation deck crowning the GE Building at Rockefeller Center.
On Valentine's Day, adults visiting between 9 p.m. and midnight receive a free glass of champagne;
rockefellercenter.com.
For a different view of the island, try a Manhattan Harbor Brunch Cruise for two aboard a 1920s-style yacht;
866/973-7436, xperiencedays.com, or iloveny.com.
Big Island, Hawaii
The Mauna Lani Resort, on the Big Island's Kohala coast, indulges romantic guests with its Lava Love getaway package.
For at least three nights, health-conscious couples may stay in a deluxe oceanfront suite and enjoy sunrise workouts on the beach;
800/367-2323 or maunalani.com.
Whidbey Island, Washington
Stress starts to melt away as you step off the ferry onto this Washington island, just one hour north of Seattle.
Rich in natural beauty, Whidbey Island is also home to picturesque towns and romantic B&Bs.
Journeying north, drop by Greenbank Farms for wine and cheese before climbing the Admiralty Head Lighthouse for a gorgeous view of the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
Toast to your travels at the new Frasers Gourmet Hideaway in Oak Harbor;
whidbeycamanoislands.com.
The Grove Isle Hotel & Spa, Miami, Florida
Secluded on a 20-acre island in Biscayne Bay, The Grove Isle Hotel & Spa provides a relaxing escape from the big city nearby.
A pool and jogging path overlook the bay, as do 49 bayview rooms.
Dine at the acclaimed oceanfront Baleen restaurant, and spice things up with the Tantra Lovers Island Escape package;
800/884-7683 or groveisle.com.
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (CNN) Greenpeace said Monday it has disrupted the Japanese whale hunt off Antarctica by chasing the fleet's whale processing factory ship out of the whaling zone.
The six-vessel fleet "scattered and ran" early Saturday when it realized the Greenpeace vessel Esperanza was "heading toward them at high speed," Greenpeace expedition leader Karli Thomas told New Zealand's National Radio.
The fleet's three whale hunter vessels "can't operate without the (factory ship) Nisshin Maru there to process the kill," she added.
Greenpeace has pledged to take nonviolent action to try to stop the ships from killing whales, which in the past has led to activists in speed boats trying to put themselves between whales and Japanese harpoons,
A spokesman for Japan's whale hunt called Greenpeace's actions illegal and demanded it stop its disruptive actions.
"Greenpeace actions are illegal under international law (and) it's time the public stopped treating Greenpeace as heroes," Glenn Inwood, spokesman for the Institute of Cetacean Research, in Tokyo, Japan, said Monday.
"It's time the public saw this fringe group for what they really are:
environmental imperialists who are trying to dictate their morals to the world.
Japan dispatched its whaling fleet to the icy waters of Antarctica in November to kill about 1,000 whales under a program that Tokyo says is for scientific purposes, but which anti-whaling nations and activists say is a front for commercial whaling.
Under worldwide pressure, Japan last month abandoned its plan to include 50 humpback whales in this season's hunt the first major hunt of humpback whales since the 1960s.
BEVERLY HILLS, California (CNN) The tragic romance "Atonement" was named best drama Sunday at a Golden Globes event that was deflated from star-studded revelry to dry, news conference-style awards announcement because of the Hollywood writers strike.
The bloody stage adaptation "Sweeney Todd:
The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" was chosen as best musical or comedy.
Its star, Johnny Depp, won for best actor in a musical or comedy for the title role, playing a vengeful barber who slits the throats of his customers in the adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's stage musical.
"Atonement," which led Globe contenders with seven nominations, stars Keira Knightley and James McAvoy.
Daniel-Day Lewis was named best dramatic actor for the historical epic "There Will Be Blood," in which he plays a baron of California's oil boom in the early 20th century whose commercial interests put him at odds with a young preacher.
LONDON, England (CNN) British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said he supports plans to allow hospitals to take dead patients' organs without their prior consent.
Writing in a British newspaper Sunday, Brown said the change was needed to cover a shortfall in donors which led to more than 1,000 people in Britain dying each year awaiting transplants, a situation he called an "avoidable human tragedy.
In an article in the Sunday Telegraph, he said there were currently more than 8,000 people in the country awaiting organ donation but only 3,000 transplants were carried out each year.
Under the present system people must sign up to an organ donor register if they want to give up their organs after they die.
A total of 14.9 million people around 24 per cent of the population are on the register.
However, Brown said he backed moving to a system of "presumed consent" whereby a dead person's organs would automatically be available for transplant unless individuals had opted out of the national register or family members objected.
The proposals are closely modeled on the donor system in Spain where Brown said around 35 people per million had their organs used by hospitals.
This compares with 13 donors per million in Britain and 25 per million in America, he added.
Although in Spain consent is presumed by law, families are still asked to give their permission for the donation to go ahead.
The system is managed by dedicated transplant co-ordinators who talk to grieving relatives, often within a few hours of death, to seek their consent.
Brown said he wanted to start "a serious debate" about the issue of organ donation, which remains contentious especially among many faith groups and patients' rights bodies who argue the decision should be left to the patients and their families alone.
"It is a sensitive issue, and one on which many different
points of view need to be heard.
For the first several years of its existence, the Golden Globes like many other Hollywood awards were an insular affair.
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which began presenting the awards in 1944, was content to rent a ballroom at a local hotel, hand out trophies to stars or their representatives and generally sponsor a good time.
It wasn't until the late '50s that the awards were televised and then only in Los Angeles and not until 1966 that they received a national broadcast of their own.
(In 1964 and 1965, the Globes were presented on a special segment of "The Andy Williams Show.")
And it's only in the last decade or so, after years of bouncing from network to network, that the Globes have established themselves as a major attraction, consistently with one broadcaster NBC and just as consistently one of the highest-rated awards shows of the year.
This year, however, it's forward into the past more or less.
There will be no red carpet on which celebrities can show off the latest fashions.
There won't even be much in the way of partying afterward, since many of the studios have canceled their after-awards bashes.
Instead, hamstrung by the ongoing writers' strike and actors' refusal to cross the picket line, the Globes will be presented as a one-hour press conference on NBC at 9 ET Sunday night.
The press conference will air from the Beverly Hilton, home to the Globes since the early '70s.
"Access Hollywood" hosts Billy Bush and Nancy O'Dell are scheduled to announce the honors.
At 10 p.m., the network is airing a rerun of "American Gladiators.
Despite the situation created by the strike, the Globes are still considered a key forecaster of the Oscars.
This year, the Globes' leading nominee is "Atonement," the period drama based on the Ian McEwan novel about a shattered love affair.
Authorities on Sunday said they were zeroing in on Marine Cpl. Cesar Laurean, charged with first-degree murder in the death of Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach.
Witnesses said a man fitting his description was seen either on a bus or getting off a bus that was heading to Texas.
But Onslow County, North Carolina, Sheriff Ed Brown cautioned, "That doesn't mean he has to be tied to going that same direction.
We believe it may have just been a pass-through. We received information he may be headed into Texas," Shreveport police Chief Henry Whitehorn Sr., told The Associated Press.
He added, "I think it will be a short vacation for Mr. Laurean."
When asked why Laurean wasn't arrested when he was seen on Saturday night, Brown said it was because he wasn't sighted by law enforcement. "We told the folks in the general public, don't try to detain him."
Brown said police believe Laurean "could be a dangerous and violent person if he was put in a corner."
Laurean has been charged with first-degree murder in the death of Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach, although authorities have not positively identified the body as hers.
Former Indonesian President Suharto's condition worsened Sunday, as his family granted doctors permission to take him off life support when they see fit, CNN's Richard Quest has reported.
Doctors at Pertamina Hospital said they will continue to keep Suharto, 86, on a ventilator until all his organs stop functioning.
They pegged his chances of recovery at "50-50" and called his condition "very critical.
Marjo Subiandono, the chief presidential doctor said that "He is now in very critical condition, worse than yesterday," according to reports carried by The Associated Press.
As Suharto's heart and lungs showed further decline, his family remained at his bedside Sunday afternoon reciting verses from the Quran.
Subiandono added that there were difficulties with Suharto's blood flow and that his breathing pipe had to be cleared early Sunday after indications it was becoming clogged, AP reported.
"His blood pressure dropped to 80/90 over 40," Subiandono said. "He is still breathing with the help of a ventilator.
On Saturday, Indonesia's attorney general made an offer to Suharto's family to settle civil claims of $1.5 billion that the ex-president is accused of stealing from the state during his 32-year regime.
Lawyers for the family told CNN they were rejecting the offer because it was inappropriate to talk about the corruption case during such a difficult time, and because Suharto has denied doing anything wrong.
Suharto was rushed to Pertamina Hospital in Jakarta on January 4 for treatment of a failing liver, heart and lungs, his doctors said.
(CNN) South Africa's embattled police commissioner resigned Sunday as president of Interpol, a day after he took an extended leave of absence from his police duties, the international crime-fighting agency said in a statement.
Interpol's Secretary-General Ronald Noble received a resignation letter on Sunday from Jackie Selebi, who is facing charges of corruption related to his role as police commissioner, the agency said.
The charges are not related to his leadership role in Interpol.
In the letter, Selebi said he was resigning because he did not wish the allegations against him "to bring the good work of this august body into disrepute.
"Based on my experience of working with Mr. Selebi in his capacity as delegate, vice president and ultimately president of the organization, he has always conducted himself and acted in a way to enhance global security and police co-operation worldwide," Noble said in a statement.
On Saturday, South African President Thabo Mbeki told a news conference in Pretoria, South Africa, that Selebi had been given an "extended leave of absence" from his police duties, but that he was not being sacked.
The National Prosecuting Authority said it will charge the police chief with "corruption and defeating the administration of justice," Tladi Tladi, a spokesman for the agency told CNN.
Tladi said the corruption charges were linked to Agliotti "to a certain extent.
Agliotti recently received a 10-year suspended prison sentence in a drug case after entering into a plea bargain.
He is also accused of involvement in the 2005 killing of mining magnate Brett Kebble, according to South African media reports.
VIENNA, Austria (CNN) Iran's leaders agreed to answer all remaining questions about their country's past nuclear activities within four weeks in talks with the U.N.'s chief nuclear inspector, his spokeswoman said Sunday.
The four-week deadline is meant to wrap up an IAEA probe of past Iranian nuclear programs.
A diplomat familiar with the talks said that investigation now was focused on the most delicate aspects of Iran's past atomic work, including programs linked to U.S. suspicions the country conducted experiments linked to nuclear arms.
ElBaradei on Sunday ended a two-day visit to Tehran that included unprecedented meetings with both Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The diplomat said ElBaradei pressed his case for the need for Iran to suspend uranium enrichment, a key U.N. Security Council demand.
President Bush said Sunday that Iran is threatening the security of the world, and that the United States and Arab allies must join together to confront the danger "before it's too late.
Bush said Iran funds terrorist extremists, undermines peace in Lebanon, sends arms to the Taliban, seeks to intimidate its neighbors with alarming rhetoric, defies the United Nations and destabilizes the entire region by refusing to be open about its nuclear program.
"Iran is the world's leading state sponsor of terror," Bush said in a speech he delivered about midway through his eight-day Mideast trip that began with a renewed push for an Israeli-Palestinian peace pact an accord he said whose "time has come.
Bush also chided U.S. allies who have withheld civil liberties, saying governments will never build trust by harassing or imprisoning candidates and protesters.
"You cannot expect people to believe in the promise of a better future when they are jailed for peacefully petitioning their government," Bush said. "And you cannot stand up a modern, confident nation when you do not allow people to voice their legitimate criticisms."
Bush gave the speech on democracy in one of the few countries in the region the United Arab Emirates where democracy has been virtually ignored.
In other countries in the region, especially Egypt, the fight between democracy activists and autocratic governments has been much more pointed and controversial.
He called on the Palestinians to reject extremists, although he did not mention the Islamic radical group Hamas, which has gained control of Gaza.
JERUSALEM (CNN) Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas agreed Sunday to authorize peace talks, which could begin Monday, according to the offices of both leaders.
Olmert and Abbas said they would tell negotiating teams to "conduct direct and ongoing negotiations on all final status" and core issues, the prime minister's office said.
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni is slated to meet with former Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei on Monday, said Aryeh Mekel, a spokesman for Livni.
However, he said the meeting may only be to discuss procedural issues regarding the negotiations, rather than the core issues themselves.
The announcement regarding the negotiations came three days after President Bush's visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories.
Much of Bush's eight-day trip to the Mideast is centered on the ambitious task of sealing an elusive peace agreement between the two sides.
During his stay in Israel, Bush called on Israeli and Palestinian leaders to make "painful" concessions in reaching a peace agreement including dismantling "terrorist infrastructure" and ending Israel's "occupation" of Palestinian territory.
"There should be an end to the occupation that began in 1967," Bush told reporters in Jerusalem on Thursday.
"The agreement must establish a Palestine as a homeland for the Palestinian people, just as Israel is a homeland for the Jewish people.
"Security is fundamental," he said. "No agreement and no Palestinian state will be born of terror.
Abbas called Thursday on Israel to comply with the terms of the road map, a U.S.-supported peace plan agreed upon in 2003.
Under the road map, Israel must halt West Bank settlement activity and Palestinians must dismantle militant groups.
Israeli leaders have said they are committed to the road map, and have called on Palestinian leaders to abide by their obligations.
"We are fully satisfied with the outcome that we reached through this visit with President Bush," Abbas said.
LONDON, England (CNN) British twins who had been separated at birth learned they were related only after they had become husband and wife, a senior British lawmaker said.
The couple's identities have been protected for legal reasons.
Their case was first highlighted by Lord Alton of Liverpool during a discussion on donor conception in the House of Lords in December, but only came to light Friday.
The peer told the House of Lords that a court annulled the union as soon as the twins' true relationship became known.
"They were never told that they were twins," he said during the Dec. 10 debate on a law covering human fertility and embryology.
No further details about the couple have emerged, and it is not known when the marriage took place or how long they were together before they discovered the truth.
Adoption groups said Friday the case proves the need for openness and transparency during the adoption process.
Mo O'Reilly, director of child placement for the British Association for Adoption and Fostering, said released a statement saying: "Thirty or 40 years ago it would have been more likely that twins be separated and brought up without knowledge of each other.
However, she said, greater emphasis in recent years on ensuring adopted siblings stay in touch meant this "traumatic" case will remain "incredibly rare.
Daisy O'Clee, a spokeswoman for the agency, said that of more current concern is the lack of legislation surrounding fertility treatment.
Under British law the parents of a donor-conceived child do not have to declare that fact on the child's birth certificate, O'Clee told CNN.
Lawmakers will vote Tuesday on whether to pass a law covering human fertility and embryology that would relax the rules on who can have fertility treatment.
O'Clee warned that in its present form the proposal does little to address the rights of donor-conceived children.
(CNN) An A380 superjumbo bound for Sydney came loose from a tow truck and partially rolled onto grass at Singapore airport.
No-one was injured in the incident involving the world's biggest airliner, a Singapore Airlines spokesman said, but passengers were taken off so the plane could be repositioned and inspected for any damage.
A truck being used to push back the plane in preparation for the flight "experienced some form of failure" causing it disconnect from the aircraft, a Singapore Airlines spokesman said.
"As a consequence of the failure on the truck, the aircraft ... came into contact with the grass verge off the airport tarmac.
"It is too early at this time to know the cause of the incident but Singapore Airlines will investigate this quickly, and is filing reports with the appropriate Singapore authorities," the spokesman said.
The airline made arrangements for as many customers as possible to continue on their journey from Changi Airport to Sydney aboard a Boeing 747-400.
Singapore Airlines received its first A380 in October last year to become the first carrier in the world to operate the double-decker aircraft, which it is currently using for the Singapore-Sydney route.
Changi Airport, which is home to the Singapore Airlines A380 fleet, has declared itself ready to handle the plane.
It widened and lengthened existing runways and widened runway shoulders to allow the plane to maneuver.
Airports around the world have had to make changes to accommodate the A380, such as enlarging runways and gates and bringing in vehicles which can tow the plane and lift high enough to reach its upper decks.
JACKSONVILLE, North Carolina (CNN) Police have found a "cavity" in the back yard of the suspected killer of a pregnant Marine and are no longer looking anywhere else for her, Onslow County Sheriff Ed Brown said Friday evening.
There's a "strong indication" of human remains in the cavity, said District Attorney Dewey Hudson.
The hunt continues for suspect Cpl. Cesar Armando Laurean, whom Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach had accused of raping her.
"She is dead, and she is buried.
Lauterbach, who was eight months pregnant, was said to be buried in a shallow grave in a wooded residential area of Onslow County, but her body had not yet been recovered, Brown said.
Brown said Laurean, a 21-year-old from Nevada, is believed to have left the Marine base about 4 a.m. Friday, driving a black Dodge pickup with North Carolina license plate TRR 1522.
Laurean repeatedly refused to meet with investigators, finally telling them that his attorney wouldn't let him.
Brown said a witness came forward at 8 a.m. Friday with a statement and evidence that convinced authorities Lauterbach was dead.
Brown wouldn't name the witness, or describe Lauterbach's cause of death, except to say she died "from an injury.
The interior of Laurean's home was being searched Friday night, Brown said.
Laurean's wife was still in Onslow County and had talked briefly with authorities. Brown described her as cooperative.
He said he did not know where Laurean was headed, but "my suspicion would be, he's trying to get there quick."
A reporter who asked military officials why Laurean hadn't been taken into custody after Lauterbach reported the alleged rape was told there were indications that Lauterbach and Laurean carried on "some sort of friendly relationship" after she filed the complaint against him.
"The information developed over the last 24 hours leads us to believe that she still had some kind of contact" with him, said Paul Ciccarelli, agent in charge of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service at Camp Lejeune.
Ciccarelli also said the rape investigation is still active.
David Beckham said he would be 'honored' to help England in its bid to host the 2018 World Cup following another meeting with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Thursday.
Beckham, who hopes to achieve his 100th cap in Fabio Capello's first match as England coach against Switzerland at Wembley next month, played a high-profile role promoting London's ultimately successful bid for the 2012 Olympics.
"Being English, to bring the World Cup back to England would be something really special and I would be honored to be involved in that.
The 32-year-old Beckham, who had a one-hour private meeting with Brown at 10 Downing Street on Tuesday, gave the prime minister a guided tour of his east London soccer academy on Thursday.
"David Beckham is known in every part of the world," said Brown who has already spoken in support of England hosting the 2018 showpiece.
SAMBURU, Kenya (CNN) Kenya, one of the most prosperous and tourist-friendly countries in Africa, has seen up to $1 billion in losses linked to the bloody turmoil following President Mwai Kibaki's disputed re-election, officials said.
In the days after the December 27 vote, riots and ethnic violence erupted from the coast to the rural highlands, killing some 500 Kenyans, displacing thousands, and prompting the Nairobi stock exchange to close and shops and restaurants to padlock their doors.
More than 5,000 tourists who had been expected to arrive at the coast this week canceled trips at the last minute, according to an official of the Kenya Tourism Federation who asked that his name not be used because he was not allowed to speak to the media.
Tourism's high seasons are December to March and then July to September.
The effects stretch far beyond tourism.
The turmoil also has driven up prices of staple foods such as bread, maize flour and some vegetables because of roadblocks along main roads.
The transport problems also led to temporary fuel shortages in the region because supplies got stuck at the port in Mombasa.
Conservationists in parks such as the Masai Mara say they rely on tourism to keep the parks up and running.
NEW DELHI (CNN) An Indian car manufacturer unveiled its much-anticipated $2,500 "people's car" on Thursday a four-wheel passenger vehicle which it hopes will provide a much-needed transportation option for the poor.
Tata Motors is billing the Nano as the world's least expensive four-wheel vehicle, with the first batch to hit the Indian market in the second half of this financial year.
Skeptics have questioned whether the car meets safety and emissions standards.
Others are concerned that the ultra-cheap vehicle could dramatically tax India's already poor infrastructure and contribute to the country's existing urban gridlock.
Chief U.N. climate scientist Rajendra Pachauri, who shared last year's Nobel Peace Prize, said last month that he was "having nightmares" about the prospect of the low-cost car, reported The Associated Press.
"If you're talking about urban environment, it will cause serious problems," Jamie Leather, a transport specialist with the Asian Development Bank, told AP. "It's a major concern.
But company chairman Ratan Tata said the Nano met both Indian and European emission standards and that it had been designed to pass international crash test standards.
It would average about 50 miles per gallon, he told AP.
Tata, which is in talks with Ford over a buyout of Jaguar, expects the car to sell domestically for the first two to three years and says that it is still exploring exporting options.
The company is yet to decide whether it will set up additional plants outside India or export the finished product.
The basic model of the car will cost $2,500, plus additional taxes and transportation costs.
It will be produced in a manufacturing plant being built in the northeastern Indian state of West Bengal.
The plant will have an initial production capacity of 250,000 vehicles per year, possibly expanding to 350,000.
AP reported that in 2005, Indian vehicles released 219 million tons of carbon dioxide, the leading greenhouse gas blamed for global warming.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) American warplanes Thursday pounded a region of Iraq considered a "safe haven" for al Qaeda in Iraq, dropping 38 bombs in the first 10 minutes of the attack, the U.S. military said.
The bombardment near the Arab Jabour area on the southern outskirts of Baghdad is part of a new countrywide push against insurgents called Operation Phantom Phoenix, the military said.
Forty targets were hit simultaneously, with a total of 40,000 pounds of bombs dropped, according to a military news release.
The attacks follow a series of "kinetic strikes" there since December 31, a military official said.
The official said the area is one of the last insurgent "safe havens" in the agricultural region that includes sprawling fields and farmlands.
Targets included suspected cache sites for explosives and roadside bombs, and the aim was to "neutralize" the threat before the troops go in, the official said.
Some of the targets were along the Tigris River.
The operation "required extensive planning to prevent collateral damage and to prevent the use of any area for attacks into Baghdad and against coalition forces," according to the news release.
"The Air Force provided two B-1 bombers and four F-16 fighter jets, aiming at three large target areas. Each bomber passed over twice and the F-16s followed to complete the set," the release said.
A U.S. military spokesman said the operation would be countrywide, "though it is clear al Qaeda in Iraq is attempting to regain strength and establish new support areas in northern Iraq. "
The raids were southwest of Mahmoudiya and in Baghdad, Mosul and Samarra.
LAHORE, Pakistan (CNN) A suicide bomber killed at least 23 people and injured more than 58 others after detonating an explosive outside a court in Lahore on Thursday, police said.
The exact number of casualties varied, but state-run news agency the Associated Press of Pakistan said 22 police officers and one passerby were killed.
Reports of another explosion triggered a dash toward a supposed second blast site, but those reports proved unfounded, said Aftab Cheema, senior superintendent of Lahore police.
The suicide blast occurred in the city's commercial district, moments before lawyers were set to begin a rally outside the high court in the eastern Pakistani city to protest the rule of President Pervez Musharraf.
Caretaker Prime Minister Mohammadmian Soomro said in a statement that those who committed this "cowardly act" were "neither believer of any religion nor of any human ethics."
Police said about 100 uniformed and plainclothes officers were at the scene ahead of the rally when the bomb went off about 11:45 a.m. Pakistan time (6: 45 a.m. GMT).
Many of the wounded were taken to Mayo Hospital in Lahore, said medical superintendent Fayyaz Ahmad Ranjha.
In recent months, Pakistan has been besieged by a wave of suicide attacks that has claimed several hundred lives.
The blast comes a day before the start of the month of Muharram, a holy period of mourning, when religious tension are high.
It also follows the death of Bhutto, who was killed at a rally in Rawalpindi, south of the Pakistani capital Islamabad, on December. 27.
While the cause of her death is still unclear, a bomber blew himself up near her limousine.
Lawyers in Lahore have been holding rallies every Thursday to protest the government's crackdown on the judiciary and imprisonment of lawyers and judges across the country.
The shaky five-minute video aired on Iran's Press TV widely viewed as the mouthpiece for Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps and was posted on Press TV's Web site.
U.S. National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said Sunday's incident in the Strait of Hormuz "almost involved an exchange of fire between our forces and Iranian forces."
Iran maintains that it was a routine communication and accuses the United States of exaggerating the incident for political purposes.
The Iranian video is shot from a watercraft that does not appear to be moving.
For the first 2¨ö minutes, the camera zooms in on what appears to be three U.S. coalition warships, some distance away, and a helicopter flying above the vessels.
About halfway into the video that was released on the Web site, a bearded man in an orange safety vest and a checkered scarf appears on the camera and begins speaking over the radio to one of the U.S. warships.
The silhouettes of the U.S. naval ships can been seen on the horizon, a long distance away.
The voice from the U.S. ship states that it is operating in international waters.
After several calm radio exchanges between the two, and at least one edit on the video, it cuts to a blue speedboat with men in orange vests on board, speeding away from the U.S. warships toward the camera.
A U.S. Navy official said the Iranian video "appears to be truthful showing three ships making a transit of the Strait of Hormuz.
But, he added, "Clearly the video is edited to include only the verbal context the Iranians wanted to include.
On Tuesday, the Pentagon released a videotape shot from the bridge of the USS Hopper showing five fast boats racing back and forth near the convoy.
Iranian officials accused the Pentagon of forging the video it released and said the United States timed the release to coincide with the eve of President Bush's trip to the Middle East.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said in a speech Thursday that the central bank is prepared to continue lowering interest rates in order to help keep the economy on track.
He also reiterated that the Fed does not believe the economy will slip into a recession this year.
"We stand ready to take substantive additional action as needed to support growth and to provide adequate insurance against downside risks," Bernanke said in prepared remarks before the Women in Housing and Finance and Exchequer Club in Washington, D.C.
However, some economists suggested that rate cuts may be too late to stop a recession.
Wall Street interpreted Bernanke's comments to mean that there is now an increased likelihood the Fed will lower its key federal funds rate by a half percentage point, to 3.75 percent, at the conclusion of its two-day meeting on Jan. 30.
"A half-point cut is certainly on the table and it's about time. The Fed has a lot of work to do," said James Glassman, senior economist with JPMorgan Chase.
To that end, investors are pricing in a 92 percent chance that the Fed will lower rates by a half-point on Jan. 30, according to federal funds futures listed on the Chicago Board of Trade.
A confidante of Princess Diana said Thursday that Prince Philip wrote two letters to the princess which were derogatory and cruel.
Simone Simmons, who practices "energy healing" and met Diana in 1993, told a coroner's inquest that the princess had shown her two letters from Philip written in 1994 and 1995, near the end of Diana's marriage to Prince Charles.
Simmons agreed with a suggestion by a lawyer that the letters "made cruel and disparaging observations about the propriety of the conduct of Diana.
The couple, pursued by photographers, died in a car crash in a Paris road tunnel in August 1997.
Fayed's father, Mohamed Al Fayed, claims the couple were the targets of a conspiracy directed by Prince Philip, the husband of Queen Elizabeth II.
On Wednesday a former police bodyguard for Diana said that the security team protecting her in Paris contributed to her death through their hostility to paparazzi photographers.
Ken Wharfe, who was Diana's personal protection officer from 1987 to 1993, told a British coroner's inquest that tensions with photographers could have been eased by setting up a brief photo of the princess with her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed.
"The very fact that ... they played this cat and mouse game ... was to me the beginning of the end," he testified.
Sen. John Kerry on Thursday endorsed Sen. Barack Obama for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, saying the senator from Illinois is a "candidate to bring change to our country.
The senator from Massachusetts made the announcement in front of an enthusiastic crowd in Charleston, South Carolina, 16 days ahead of the state's Democratic primary.
Kerry said he was stirred by the way Obama "eloquently reminded us of the fact that our true genius is faith in simple dreams and insistence on small miracles.
The endorsement could be seen as a blow to former Sen. John Edwards, who was Kerry's running mate in the 2004 election.
The endorsement shouldn't come as a surprise to Edwards, who was publicly critical of Kerry's campaign after the earlier election.
"When we were running against each other and on the same ticket, John and I agreed on many issues," Edwards said. "I continue to believe that this election is about the future, not the past, and that the country needs a president who will fight aggressively to end the status quo and change the Washington system and to give voice to all of those whose voices are ignored in the corridors of power."
Kerry made an oblique reference to the other candidates in the race "with whom I have worked and who I respect" in his speech Thursday.
A source suggested senator's support for Obama will be a big boost because Kerry "remains one of the most popular figures in the Democratic Party and [has] an e-mail list with millions of addresses."
Obama on Wednesday picked up endorsements from two key unions in Nevada, which holds its caucuses January 19.
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (CNN) Sir Edmund Hillary, the unassuming beekeeper who conquered Mount Everest to win renown as one of the 20th century's greatest adventurers, has died, New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark announced Friday.
The gangling New Zealander devoted much of his life to aiding the mountain people of Nepal and took his fame in stride, preferring to be called "Ed" and considering himself just an ordinary beekeeper.
In reality, he was a colossus. He was an heroic figure who not only 'knocked off' Everest but lived a life of determination, humility, and generosity," Clark said in a statement.
Hillary's life was marked by grand achievements, high adventure, discovery, excitement and by his personal humility.
Humble to the point that he only admitted being the first man atop Everest long after the death of climbing companion Tenzing Norgay.
He had pride in his feats.
Returning to base camp as the man who took the first step onto the top of the world's highest peak, he declared: "We knocked the bastard off.
The accomplishment as part of a British climbing expedition even added luster to the coronation of Britain's Queen Elizabeth II four days later, and she knighted Hillary as one of her first act.
But he was more proud of his decades-long campaign to set up schools and health clinics in Nepal, the homeland of Tenzing Norgay, the mountain guide with whom he stood arm in arm on the summit of Everest on May 29, 1953.
In his 1999 book "View from the Summit," Hillary finally broke his long public silence about whether it was he or Norgay who was the first man to step atop Everest.
Next moment I had moved onto a flattish exposed area of snow with nothing by space in every direction," Hillary wrote.
To our immense satisfaction we realized with had reached the top of the world.
Before Norgay's death in 1986, Hillary consistently refused to confirm he was first, saying he and the Sherpa had climbed as a team to the top.
It was a measure of his personal modesty, and of his commitment to his colleagues.
Without fanfare and without compensation, Hillary spend decades pouring energy and resources from his own fund-raising efforts into Nepal through the Himalayan Trust he founded in 1962.
It was on a visit to Nepal that his first wife, Louise, 43, and 16-year-old daughter Belinda died in a light plane crash March 31, 1975.
Hillary remarried in 1990, to June Mulgrew, former wife of adventurer colleague and close friend Peter Mulgrew, who died in a passenger plane crash in the Antarctic.
He is survived by his wife and children Peter and Sarah.
Honored by the United Nations as one of its Global 500 conservationists in 1987, he was also awarded numerous honorary doctorates from universities in several parts of the world.
German zookeepers in Nuremberg will bottle-feed a four-week-old polar bear and rear it away from its mother after concerns the mother would eat her cub, officials said Thursday.
The cub, which doesn't yet have a name, was being cared for at Nuremberg City Zoo, where it was resting under heat lamps and is drinking formula.
"It's gaining weight, it's very hungry, it drinks a lot of milk," said Alexandra Foghammar, a spokeswoman for the city.
The zoo announced Thursday that the cub is female.
Wednesday, the zoo said keepers decided to take the cub away from its mother, Vera, because the mother was showing signs of being upset and confused, taking her baby in and out of the animals' enclosure.
"We were 100 percent sure that the baby was going to die if we didn't take it away from her," Nuremberg zoo director Dag Encke told Time magazine. "This would have been a death verdict for the cub.
The zoo confirmed earlier this week that its other female polar bear, Vilma, had eaten her two offspring. The zoo said it feared Vera would do the same, so it took her cub away as a precaution.
Since then, the cub is thriving in the care of humans, but Vera seems to miss her cub, Foghammar said.
"She walks around and is searching for the baby, but the responsible persons for the zoo say this is normal. It will continue for three or four days. It's a normal situation.
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson dropped out of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination Thursday after fourth-place showings in the campaign's first contests.
"Our legislature starts next week, and I intend to put my full efforts behind our No. 1 priority extending health insurance to every New Mexican by the end of my term."
While praising each of the remaining contenders, he also urged them to swear off personal attacks against one another.
"To do otherwise could result in another four to eight years of more of the same, and that would be the biggest tragedy of all," Richardson said.
Richardson, who served as United Nations ambassador and energy secretary in the Clinton administration, drew 5 percent of the vote in Tuesday's New Hampshire primary.
He received 2 percent in last week's Iowa caucuses, far behind leading Democrats Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards.
As the Latino governor of a swing state, Richardson was interviewed as a possible running mate for Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry in 2004, but told reporters he remained committed to finishing his term as governor.
He won a second term in 2006.
He said he raised about $22 million during his yearlong campaign far short of the $100 million-plus claimed by Clinton, the Democratic winner in New Hampshire.
"Despite overwhelming financial and political odds, I am proud of the campaign we waged," he said.
Two hostages freed by Colombian rebels have landed in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, where dozens of their friends and family carrying flowers clapped and embraced them.
The pair are Consuelo Gonzalez, a Colombian politician who had been in custody for more than 6¨ö years, and Clara Rojas, an aide to fellow hostage and former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt. The rebels have not agreed to release Betancourt.
She then embraced her daughter Maria Fernanda.
"It's the best day of my life," Maria Fernanda told a reporter afterward. "This is a dream become reality."
Many of the relatives greeting Rojas and Gonzalez wore T-shirts reading "Liberty for everyone!" a reference to the several hundred remaining hostages.
After the tramac reunion, they were taken to the presidential palace, where Chavez embraced them both repeatedly.
They were picked up by two Red Cross helicopters and flown to the Venezuelan border town of Santo Domingo, where they strode about 100 yards to a waiting jet, which took off a few minutes later for Caracas.
Both women thanked Chavez in telephone conversations videotaped by the rescuers. "You're helping us, president, return to life.
The FARC is a leftist insurgent force that has sought to overthrow the Colombian government since the late 1960s.
It holds about 700 hostages in the jungles of Colombia.
Last year, the group struck a deal with Chavez to release three of them Gonzalez, Rojas and Emanuel, Rojas' 3-year-old son by one of the rebels.
David Nalbandian is a major injury doubt for the Australian Open next week after injuring his back in practice and withdrawing from the Kooyong Classic warm-up tournament.
Argentine star Nalbandian ended the 2007 season by claiming the Masters Series events in Madrid and Paris, beating Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal in the process, and was tipped to be a major contender at Melbourne Park.
"This best thing is to rest and get treatment. In two or three days, start hitting slowly again and see how it goes.
LAS VEGAS, Nevada (CNN) Best Buy Inc.'s chief executive said Tuesday that he is "very nervous" about being able to supply customers with the millions of digital TV converter boxes needed ahead of the shutdown of most analog TV transmissions in 13 months.
"I think it's one of the biggest risks our industry has," vice chairman and CEO Brad Anderson told an industry audience at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
Full-power television stations will turn off their analog signal on February 17, 2009, after which they will broadcast in digital only.
Viewers who receive their signals through an antenna instead of cable or satellite and don't have a digital-ready TV will have to buy a converter.
The Nielsen Co. estimates that 14.3 million households rely on over-the-air television broadcasts for programming.
Still others have sets that receive analog broadcasts as a complement to cable, satellite or digital sets in the same household.
"The number of converter boxes that is going to be required could put tremendous pressure on us to solve all those problems" in a short time, said Anderson.
"We're very nervous about the potential risk. Once it gets turned off, it could be very interesting," he added.
The airwaves to be vacated by the analog transmissions will be auctioned by the federal government to providers who will use them for wireless broadband services.
Customers are likely to look to specialty electronics stores like Circuit City and Best Buy for guidance ahead of the transition.
"From a category standpoint, I think it's great it's getting people to talk a lot about HD and what technology they have in their home," he said.
But he acknowledged that a lot has to be done to prepare.
"The clock's ticking and this is coming very quickly," he said.
The company plans to have converter boxes in stores by April.
(CNN) A search is under way for a pregnant 20-year-old Marine who has been missing from Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, since December 14.
Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach could give birth at any time, Onslow County Sheriff Ed Brown told the Jacksonville, North Carolina, Daily News on Monday.
The sheriff's department said Lauterbach's mother said that her daughter, of Montgomery, Ohio, had witnessed an incident at Camp Lejeune and was to testify about it.
Sheriff's department officials said evidence causes them to be concerned about Lauterbach's disappearance, WITN reported.
The Marine's car was found Monday at Jacksonville's bus station, Brown told the Daily News, and her cell phone had been found at Camp Lejeune's front gate on December 20.
Her mother reported her missing on December 19, and told the sheriff's department "that she was very suspicious that something bad may have happened to her daughter," the department said in a news release.
Investigators told the Marine Corps Times that a withdrawal from Lauterbach's bank account was made on December 14 and said there was "suspicious activity" on the account 10 days later.
December 14 was also the last time Lauterbach's cell phone was used, authorities told the Marine Corps Times.
The Raleigh News and Observer, citing Brown, reported that the woman's mother said her daughter phoned home or her relatives up to 12 times a week and the mother became concerned when she did not hear from her daughter for five days.
Lauterbach is a personnel clerk assigned to Combat Logistics Regiment 27, 2nd Marine Logistics Group, II Marine Expeditionary Force, the Marine Corps said.
She joined the service on June 6, 2006.
But the novice screenwriter also has written a sweet movie that's shaping up as a surprise hit.
"Juno," a sardonic comedy about a pregnant 16-year-old who becomes a "cautionary whale" for her classmates, has rolled out to more and more theaters, picking up rave reviews and Oscar buzz along the way.
Entertainment Weekly recently ranked her 38th on a list of the 50 smartest people in Hollywood. "It's insane, it really is.
"I really feel like I have adrenaline fatigue or something.
Among the expected blockbusters "National Treasure" and "I Am Legend" it finished a surprising third at the box office last weekend.
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (CNN) The Maldives government will discuss awarding a national honor to a 15-year-old boy scout who foiled an assassination attempt on the leader of their tiny nation by grabbing an attacker's knife, an official said Wednesday.
Mohammed Jaisham Ibrahim instantly became a household name after a man jumped out of a crowd of well-wishers and lunged at President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom on Tuesday.
The teenager suffered wounds to his hand in the scuffle.
"The Cabinet will discuss it and it's a lengthy process," government spokesman Mohammed Shareef said by telephone from the capital, Male.
Residents of the Maldives have showered praise on the 15-year-old.
"Jaisham our national hero saves the president," the Midhu Daily newspaper cheered in a headline.
After the attack, Gayoom addressed the nation in a radio broadcast, thanking the teenager and calling for calm, according to the Web site of the Minivan newspaper.
"We should not resort to violence even if we have differences between the parties," Gayoom was quoted as saying.
A police Web site identified the attacker as Mohamed Murshid, 20.
No motive was given, and other details were not disclosed.
Apple Inc. will scrap online pricing policies across Europe for iTunes music downloads and soon charge consumers in Britain and the rest of Europe the same amount, the company and the European Union said Wednesday.
Apple charges about 9 cents more per song in Britain compared with prices in nations that use the euro.
EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes welcomed the agreement, saying it would "allow consumers to benefit from a truly single market for music downloads" across the 27-nation bloc.
Apple said it will lower prices for music on its British iTunes site "within six months" to match prices charged at 16 iTunes stores across Europe and "reconsider" ties with companies if they do not
Hundreds of Kenyans fearing new political violence fled the country's west Wednesday, but the president urged refugees not to abandon their homes and insisted he would hold onto power despite allegations he stole an election.
Diplomats worked to end a conflict that has killed more than 500 people since the December 27 presidential vote.
Kibaki made his first trip to a trouble spot, addressing more than 1,000 refugees in western Kenya, many of whom had fled blazing homes, pursued by rock-throwing mobs wielding machetes and bows and arrows.
Nobody is going to be chased from where they live," Kibaki said at a school transformed into a camp for the displaced in the corn-farming community of Burnt Forest.
"Those who have been inciting people and brought this mayhem will be brought to justice." He indicated he would not consider demands for a new election or vote recount.
Hundreds of Kenyans fled the western town of Kisumu, fearing more strife after Kibaki named half of a new Cabinet, a lineup packed with his allies.
The Cabinet members announced by Kibaki included no portfolios for members of Odinga's party.
LAKELAND, Florida (CNN) About 50 cars crashed on a highway blanketed by fog and smoke from a brush fire in central Florida on Wednesday, and local officials said at least three people were killed.
A stretch of nearly 15 miles of Interstate 4 between Tampa and Orlando was closed by several accidents, including the 50-car pileup.
The conditions cleared in late morning, showing mangled, charred trucks and cars pinned underneath some tractor-trailers.
Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd did not say how many people were injured.
Workers were still trying to rescue one man pinned beneath an overturned truck.
One of the first accident victims was a sheriff's deputy, Judd said.
The deputy told Judd that conditions on the road worsened suddenly.
"'It was clear, it was a little foggy, then it was total darkness,"' Judd recounted the deputy saying.
The sheriff said the deputy was shaken up, but helped move people to safety as vehicles continued to crash the sounds of metal grinding and gnashing in the darkness.
The Florida Highway Patrol is investigating the crash and the role of smoke from the fire that started as a controlled burn and grew out of control.
Judd said he was "exceptionally concerned" about the decision to start a fire during dry conditions and days after a freeze likely added more tinder.
MIAMI, Florida (CNN) A federal judge has rejected attempts to block former Panamanian leader Gen. Manual Noriega's extradition to France to face money laundering charges.
Wednesday's ruling from U.S. District Court Judge Paul Huck may at last clear the way for Noriega's transfer from a U.S. prison cell to France.
But it's not expected to happen soon:
Noriega's attorneys have said they would immediately appeal a negative ruling to a federal appeals court in Atlanta, Georgia.
Huck ruled he is satisfied France has provided assurances Noriega will be treated as a prisoner of war in accordance with the Geneva Conventions even though he might not be specifically labeled a POW by France.
Noriega's attorney, Frank Rubino, said he disagrees with the judge.
"And we believe that the Geneva Convention clearly prohibits the extradition of a prisoner of war and requires immediate repatriation back to his own country.
He told CNN he will appeal to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, as expected, a process expected to take at least several months.
Noriega has had POW status while serving a drug racketeering sentence in the United States.
That allowed him privileges not given to other prisoners, including a larger cell, better food and other special conditions.
The former dictator was captured January 3, 1990, after holing up for 10 days in the Vatican Embassy in Panama City following the December 20, 1989, U.S. invasion of Panama.
He was convicted in 1992 of eight counts of drug smuggling and racketeering and sentenced to 40 years in federal prison, later reduced to 30 years.
Noriega was the first foreign head of state to be tried and convicted of a crime in the United States.
He was due to be released last September in Miami, Florida, and petitioned the court to send him to Panama, which has requested his return to face murder and corruption charges there.
He has already been tried in absentia in Panama.
However, the United States has opted to give precedence to France's request that he be sent there to be tried on less serious charges of money laundering.
He has already been tried in absentia in France.
His extradition to France would land him in a cell to begin serving a 10-year sentence.
The 73-year-old former dictator is said to be in poor health and wants to serve any remaining time in Panama.
Noriega was not at Wednesday's hearing.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) Six U.S. soldiers were killed Wednesday in Iraq when a bomb exploded in a booby-trapped house while they were on patrol north of Baghdad, the military announced.
Four soldiers were also wounded in the attack and evacuated to a coalition forces hospital, Multi-National Corps-Iraq said.
The troops were taking part in Operation Iron Harvest a new drive against Islamic militants in northern Iraq after a spate of attacks on local anti-insurgent groups.
The operation is part of a nationwide push against jihadists loyal to al Qaeda in the provinces of Diyala, Salaheddin, Nineveh, and Tameem.
In addition, about 15,000 Iraqis are taking part in anti-insurgent groups known as Concerned Local Citizens or Awakening Councils.
The groups will perform defensive security tasks during the operation, the U.S. military said.
The new push comes just short of a year since President Bush ordered almost 30,000 additional troops to Iraq to secure Baghdad and its surrounding provinces.
Al Qaeda in Iraq has been deeply rooted in Muqdadiya, about 62 miles north of Baghdad, since about 2004.
Wednesday's deaths occurred in an agricultural area on the north side of the Diyala River from the city.
The U.S. military has conducted operations there in the past and has frequently come under fire.
A study published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine estimates that 151,000 Iraqis died of violent causes between March 2003, when the war began, and June 2006.
This is much lower than a national survey published in the Lancet journal that put the number during the same period at more than 600,000, but higher than the figures compiled from media reports by the Iraq Body Count, which registered more than 47,000 deaths, the study said.
The World Health Organization provided technical assistance for the journal survey, and interviewers were employees of Iraq's Health Ministry.
The study was paid for by the U.N. Development Group Iraq Trust Fund, the WHO and the European Commission.
The study, which also included a mental health survey, cost $1.6 million.
"Assessment of the death toll in conflict situations is extremely difficult and household survey results have to be interpreted with caution," said study co-author Mohamed Ali, a WHO statistician quoted in a WHO news release about the study. "However, in the absence of comprehensive death registration and hospital reporting, household surveys are the best we can do.
Violence became a "leading cause of death for Iraqi adults and was the main cause of death in men between the ages of 15 and 59 years during the first three years after the 2003 invasion," the study said.
Stolen paintings by Pablo Picasso and Candido Portinari returned home to applause Wednesday, while police tried to find out who masterminded the robbery at a Brazil museum.
The paintings, worth millions of dollars, were recovered Tuesday when a suspect led police to a house on the outskirts of Sao Paulo, said chief police inspector Mauricio Lemos Freire.
Museum employees and onlookers applauded when the paintings arrived.
Two suspects were in custody, and the Estado de S. Paulo newspaper reported they had been promised $2.8 million for the heist.
Freire and museum President Julio Neves said they would not comment on the newspaper reports.
Eventually, the museum will install security and surveillance equipment equivalent to that at the Louvre in Paris, Neves said.
James Bond has two new Bond Girls.
Olga Kurylenko and Gemma Arterton will co-star in the latest installment of the 007 franchise opposite Daniel Craig, Columbia Pictures has announced.
For Craig's second appearance, Kurylenko, a Ukrainian model-turned-actress, "will play the dangerously alluring Camille, who challenges Bond and helps him come to terms with the emotional consequences of Vesper's betrayal," the studio says.
Kurylenko's screen credits include "Hitman" and "Paris, je t'aime.
Arterton will portray MI6 Agent Fields.
She appears in the upcoming "RocknRolla," directed by Guy Ritchie.
Columbia spokesman Steve Elzer had no details Tuesday on Arterton's character.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) Samina Rajput speaks in hushed tones about her husband, Asif, who was killed alongside former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in the December 27 attack that convulsed the nation.
"He always used to say ... 'I am ready to sacrifice my life for the party and my country,'" Rajput says.
She clings to a weathered book with newspaper clippings of her husband, a 28-year-old Bhutto supporter who had great political ambitions.
He wanted a brighter and freer Pakistan, Rajput says, as she turns the delicate pages of the scrapbook.
Suicide bombings like the attack that killed Bhutto and more than 20 of her supporters, including Asif, have intensified in recent months in Pakistan.
Nineteen suicide attacks including a failed attack on Bhutto's life in October have killed close to 400 people and wounded nearly 1,000 others in the last three months, according to government officials.
Pro-Taliban militants with ties to al Qaeda are carrying out the attacks, according to analysts and government officials.
CNN terrorism analyst Peter Bergen says the number of suicide bombings in Pakistan has "reached unprecedented levels in the past year.
"The reason for this rise is because al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban have morphed together ideologically and tactically, and both see themselves at war with the Pakistani state," Bergen says.
"Many of the suicide attacks have been aimed at Pakistani politicians, officials and soldiers.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has vowed to fight militancy and religious extremism, going after Taliban and al Qaeda within the country.
Pakistan's ambassador to the United States, Mahmud Ali Durrani, recently told CNN that the Pakistani military is "totally focused on destroying al Qaeda and the Taliban network and not just one person.
Still, the suicide bombers are succeeding, targeting political parties, rallies, military installations and anyone seen as a threat.
Meanwhile, civilians are caught in the crossfire.
Shaun Wright-Phillips pushed his England claims in front of new national coach Fabio Capello by inspiring 10-man Chelsea to a dramatic 2-1 Carling Cup semifinal first leg home win over Everton.
Wright-Phillips struck the breakthrough goal for the holders after 26 minutes when he steered a shot beyond goalkeeper Tim Howard and in off the far post.
Yakubu Ayegbeni had left Chelsea fighting to hold onto their trophy when he fired a 64th minute equalizer nine minutes after the home club had Mikel John Obi red carded for a reckless challenge on Phil Neville.
Instead it was Chelsea who grabbed the glory on the night and Wright-Phillips told Sky Sports:
"The character, team spirit and everything we showed today when down to 10 men - Everton are a hard team with good players.
"It's easy to lose games, we had to stay compact and concentrate."
LONDON, England (CNN) In many ways he's a typical war blogger:
William Henry "Harry" Bonser Lamin's descriptions of grueling battles compete with complaints about cramped quarters and apologies for his irregular updates.
But the postings from the twentysomething English laceworker are from the trenches of World War I nine decades ago.
His letters are being posted now 90 years to the day to the Internet by Lamin's grandson, Bill.
And like Harry's family at the time, readers don't know if his most recent update will be his last.
"People are coming back to see if there's another letter, if he's survived, to see what he's doing," Bill Lamin, a 59-year-old schoolteacher, told The Associated Press from Praa Sands in Cornwall, southwestern England. "It captures people.
Lamin said he found the letters as he was clearing out his parents' home several years ago.
He said the response from readers, many of whom say they lost relatives in WWI, has been overwhelming.
The soldier's Internet profile complete with a photo of him in uniform has drawn more than 25,000 hits.
"I was not sure I could be bothered to transcribe all the letters but now I feel I have no choice," Lamin said.
His grandfather served in the 9th Battalion of York & Lancaster Regiment, which was part of the 23rd Army division.
Many of the entries are run-of-the-mill:
complaints about uncomfortable barracks in England, comments on the hot weather in France and thanks to his family for packages and cigarettes.
But other posts speak to the horror of a conflict that claimed millions of lives across Europe.
"We have had another terrible time this week the men here say it was worst (sic) than the Somme advance last July," Harry wrote on June 11, 1917, when his unit was engaged at the battle of Messines Ridge near Ypres, Belgium.
As of Tuesday, no letters from Harry Lamin have been posted this year;
the last two letters, containing Christmas greetings, were dated December 30, 1917.
"People are saying they're rooting for Harry, they want him to survive.
When I read the letters, I go back 90 years;
Despite the revamped ceremony announced Monday by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the Screen Actors Guild said it was encouraging its members to skip the show in support of the two-month walkout by the Writers Guild of America.
"The WGA informed us they will picket the event on Sunday," the actors guild said in a statement.
Later, as he made a presentation, Clooney said, "Our hope is that all of the players involved will lock themselves in a room and not come out until they finish. We want this to be done.
Nikki Blonsky, also on the red carpet, said she was undecided about whether to attend the revised Golden Globes, where she is a nominee for "Hairspray.
"The writers are the backbone of the business, so we don't want to lose them in any way," she said.
The press association president Jorge Camara said, "We are all very disappointed that our traditional awards ceremony will not take place this year and that millions of viewers worldwide will be deprived of seeing many of their favorite stars celebrating 2007's outstanding achievements in motion pictures and television.
(CNN) A teenager described as a Boy Scout saved Maldivian President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom from a knife attack Tuesday, a presidential spokesman said.
The assailant "aimed at the president from about 10 feet away, but another young boy about 15 years old maybe one feet away jumped to prevent him," spokesman Mohamed Shareef said.
The boy "came in the way and grabbed the knife," Shareef told The Associated Press. "One brave boy saved the president's life.
The attacker's knife was wrapped in a national flag, Shareef said. "The knife touched the president's shirt but not his body," he said.
Jaisham received a hand wound and was flown to the capital of Male for treatment because he could not move some of his fingers, Shareef told AP.
Gayoom was unhurt, Shareef said.
The president was visiting one of those islands, Hoarafushi, to inaugurate an energy project, Shareef said.
Police arrested the attacker, he said.
Senator Hillary Clinton claimed a come-from-behind victory in New Hampshire's Democratic primary late Tuesday, edging out her Senate colleague, Barack Obama, after placing third in the Iowa caucuses.
Flanked by her husband, former President Bill Clinton, and daughter Chelsea, the New York senator told supporters she "found her own voice" in the five days since her third-place showing in Iowa, and promised them "we are in it for the long run.
"Now let's give America the kind of comeback that New Hampshire has just given me," she said.
Solid support from registered Democrats and women were crucial, results from exit polls suggest.
With 89 percent of precincts reporting, CNN projected Clinton the winner of the first-in-the-nation primary with 39 percent of the vote to Obama's 37.
But Clinton was ahead of Obama 45 percent to 34 percent among those who said they were registered Democrats.
Those voters made up a majority 54 percent of all those respondents.
Clinton also claimed the majority of women's votes, according to the polling.
That's in contrast to last week's Iowa caucuses, in which Obama surprised observers by stealing the female vote from Clinton.
"If I had a single word, the word would be 'women,' " said CNN political analyst Bill Schneider. "She got the women back."
Meanwhile, U.S. Senator John McCain won the New Hampshire state primary in the race to become the Republican party's presidential candidate.
Despite New Hampshire's comparatively small population, the state carries an importance disproportionate to that size as it is the first state to go to the polls rather than caucus in the presidential election race.
In exit polls, voters from both parties rated the economy their top issue and the war in Iraq second but concerns about illegal immigration rated third among Republicans, while Democrats said health care was just behind Iraq.
In his victory speech Tuesday, McCain made joking reference to a similar speech by Bill Clinton, who coined the term "Comeback Kid" when he did well in New Hampshire as a presidential hopeful.
"I am past the age when I can claim the noun kid ... but tonight we sure showed them what a comeback looks like," he said.
With 64 percent of Republican precincts reporting, McCain had 37 percent of the vote.
Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney was second with 32 percent, and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, the winner of last week's Iowa GOP caucuses followed with 11 percent.
Former Tennessee Senator Thompson has nearly abandoned New Hampshire, while former New York Mayor Giuliani has concentrated his attention on later primaries.
MADRID, Spain (CNN) Spain's main private abortion clinics began a five-day strike Tuesday to protest a crackdown on centers accused of carrying out illegal operations.
Spain allows abortion in the first 12 weeks in cases of rape and within the first 22 weeks if there is a risk of fetal deformation.
It is also allowed at any time when a pregnant woman's physical or mental health is deemed as being in danger, with a doctor's certification.
Just over 100,000 abortions were carried out in Spain in 2007.
Some clinics were accused of carrying out abortions using fake medical certificates.
The Association of Clinics Accredited for the Interruption of Pregnancies said in a statement it was launching the strike to protest the raids.
"It's incomprehensible that while the option of abortion is provided for and recognized by the national health system and facilitated by accredited clinics, authorities allow the persecution of women and professionals involved," it said.
The association said it had sought talks with regional and national authorities to resolve the matter in recent weeks but to no avail.
The organization said women who had appointments for abortions during the strike had either been tended to before the stoppage or were given new appointments.
LONDON, England (CNN) Representatives of the parents of missing toddler Madeleine McCann are in talks with a production firm about making a documentary following the ongoing search for their daughter, a spokesman said Tuesday.
Discussions are at "a very early stage" but the production would be an "observational documentary," Jim Gallagher, a spokesman for the talent and entertainment agency IMG, told CNN.
Gallagher said program maker Darlow Smithson owned by IMG had held "a preliminary meeting" with representatives of Gerry and Kate McCann, whose daughter went missing in May last year from the family's holiday apartment in Portugal.
The McCanns were named as official suspects in September by Portuguese investigators.
They deny any involvement in the disappearance, saying they believe Madeleine may have been abducted by pedophiles and taken to North Africa.
"Discussions are still at a very early stage and the issue of money has never been raised," Gallagher said.
IMG is the world's largest talent and entertainment agency.
British production firm Darlow Smithson's previous credits include "Touching The Void," an award-winning drama-documentary about the fight for survival of two British climbers lost on a mountain in the Andes.
The May 3 disappearance of the British child made headlines around the world.
Her parents said she disappeared from their hotel room at a resort in Praia da Luz, Portugal, while they dined in a nearby restaurant.
Her parents embarked on a high-profile campaign to highlight their daughter's plight, traveling throughout Europe and Africa.
Despite a search stretching around the world and the support of celebrities like Virgin Chairman Richard Branson, author J.K. Rowling, and soccer star David Beckham, there have been no major breaks in the case.
In December, the McCanns released a Christmas appeal for people who know what happened to come forward.
European shops saw trading crash in November, the EU statistics agency said Tuesday, adding to signs that the economy may be slowing.
Retail trade in the nations that share the euro shrunk 1.4 percent from a year ago the biggest annual drop since records began in 1997 and 0.5 percent from October, the EU statistics agency Eurostat said Tuesday.
The shopping slowdown comes as year-on-year inflation over the last two months runs at its highest level since euro cash was introduced in 2002, with people paying more for energy and food holding back the domestic demand that could lift the economy.
It needs instead to encourage banks to keep lending in the wake of a financial market crisis that made them fearful of taking on new risks.
The full impact of the credit crisis on Europe's economic growth is still uncertain, but tighter borrowing conditions could hit hard by making it tougher for companies to get a loan and homebuyers from securing a mortgage.
"We are certainly aware of the fact that 2008 will be one of the more difficult years for the EU," Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa whose country holds the EU's six-month rotating presidency told reporters at a news conference at Brdo Pri Kranju in Slovenia.
"It would be unrealistic of us not to expect certain problems because of the issues that we have witnessed in the financial markets, because of rising price of oil and food and the impact of these price increases," he said.
But he said strong growth over the past two years and the creation of millions of new jobs provided "a new momentum, a new basis for further growth.
PARIS, France (CNN) French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Tuesday that his relationship with former supermodel Carla Bruni is a "serious matter," but he would not reveal a date for their wedding.
Referring to his relationship with Bruni, Sarkozy said, "It's a serious matter, but the date won't be fixed today. It is serious. You will find out when it happens.
Sarkozy spoke at a news conference two days after a French newspaper reported the couple planned to marry in February.
Of marriage to Bruni, Sarkozy revealed, "I've thought a lot about this.
Speculation about the French leader and Bruni has been rife ever since the two were photographed together during a day trip to Disneyland Paris last month.
The two toured Jordan over the weekend and spent the Christmas holiday together in Egypt.
Sarkozy divorced his wife of 11 years, Cecilia, in October. The couple had been dogged by persistent rumors of infidelities on both sides and said the divorce was by "mutual consent.
The divorce, Sarkozy said, "wasn't the happiest period of my life.
The president laughed at being asked about his relationship at all, noting the French media rarely touched on the private lives of his predecessors, while his love life is front-page news.
"With Carla, we decided not to lie," Sarkozy said.
"We didn't want to hide.
The French weekly paper Le Journal Du Dimanche reported Sunday, quoting unnamed sources, that Sarkozy plans to wed Bruni on Feb. 8 or 9 and has already given her a heart-shaped diamond engagement ring.
A Sierra Leone clergyman brought the horrors of his country's civil war to a courtroom Tuesday, becoming the first survivor of the carnage to testify at the war crimes trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor.
Alex Tamba Teh, a soft-spoken pastor and teacher, recounted watching young boys methodically hack off the hands and feet of another teenager, hearing the terrorized screams of women being raped, stepping over corpses too many to count and being forced to help unload weapons for Sierra Leone rebels from a Liberian helicopter.
Prosecutors accuse Taylor, 59, of orchestrating the atrocities in Sierra Leone from his presidential palace in Liberia's capital, Monrovia.
Taylor has pleaded not guilty to all 11 charges.
Tamba Teh, 47, provided only tenuous links between Taylor and the rebels he is accused of supporting, particularly the Revolutionary United Front.
But his testimony was a riveting account that brought home the brutality of the civil war and gave a voice to the tens of thousands of victims who suffered through the 10-year conflict.
Tamba Teh said he was among about 250 civilians captured by rebels in April 1998 in the diamond mining district of Kono.
The men were separated from the women and children, and taken to a shelter near a mosque, where a rebel commander known as "Rocky" told the pastor to pray for his fellow captives before mowing them down with a machine gun.
Rocky later told another commander called "Rambo" that he had killed 101 men.
A group of child soldiers known as a Small Boys Unit beheaded the corpses with machetes and cutlasses, Tamba Teh said.
LONDON, England (CNN) Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the son of the assassinated Pakistani leader Benazir Bhutto, said Tuesday that he fully intended to take on a political role in his homeland but only after he has completed his studies at Oxford University.
The 19-year-old gave his first full news conference since taking on the role of party chairman of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), the party his mother led until her death two weeks ago.
Zardari said he was asked to take on the role because the party felt it was important to keep a link with his mother "through the bloodline.
He paid tribute to his "courageous" mother. "We have lost our best hope but not our only hope," he said.
He said his mother's death had made him more "resilient.
Zardari will take no part in upcoming elections which will be contested by his father and Bhutto's widower Asif Ali Zardari.
Before a packed audience, the young student looked composed but admitted he was nervous as he asked members of the press to respect his privacy during his upcoming studies.
Zardari is studying history at Christ Church College and has three more years of his course to run.
Asked if he was afraid for his own safety in the wake of his mother's assassination, he said: "I fear for my privacy.
He said the best solution to tackling extremism was to end what he called the "dictatorship" rule of incumbent Pakistani leader Pervez Musharraf.
Zardari said "dictatorship feeds extremism" and went on to accuse the United States of "supporting dictators.
Zardari, who has lived most of his life in Dubai and Britain following his mother's exile from Pakistan, denied suggestions that he would not be able relate to the Pakistani people.
He is the third generation of his family to assume a leading role in the PPP the party was set up by his grandfather Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, Pakistan's first elected prime minister.
Asked if he felt it was inconsistent with democracy to continue a dynasty, he said it was up to the Pakistani voters to decide.
Zardari made his first public appearance before the world only three days after his mother's death when he was announced as the new chair of the Pakistan's People's Party.
During that appearance he spoke only briefly raising his voice as he invoked the words of his mother.
"My mother always said democracy is the best revenge," he said.
DECANI, Serbia (CNN) Pristina, Kosovo's gritty capital, is the most logical starting point, if only because Austrian Airlines and a handful of other carriers fly daily there from Vienna and a few other European cities.
Don't be put off by Pristina's drab communist-era apartment blocks and muddy trash-strewn streets.
The city is working hard to clean up its act, and tucked among the tenements are some of southeastern Europe's most lively cafes and bars.
Demographically, it's much like Dublin: a youthful city where half the population is under age 25.
The best of Kosovo is just a two-hour drive to the west, where the settlement of Pec (known to Albanians as Peja;
and yes, where the beer is brewed) rises from the forested foothills of the craggy range that forms the border with Montenegro.
Or roughly the same journey to the south, where the picturesque city of Prizren offers a glimpse of remarkably unspoiled and intact Turkish baths and other Ottoman Empire architecture.
In Prizren, wander the banks of the River Bistrica, which winds through the town, and haggle with the merchants selling hand-crafted silver jewelry and embroidered cloth.
Indulge in a cappuccino the Kosovar version is especially decadent, topped with a thick dollop of cream and chocolate syrup.
Climb the hill and take in the panoramic views from Prizren's 11th century Kalaja Fortress.
Back down in town, check out the Mehmet Pasha Mosque, built in 1561, and its hexagonal mausoleum; and the larger Sinan Pasha Mosque with its Baroque paintings and ornaments.
Although Kosovo is unquestionably Albanian, arguably its greatest treasures are its Serbian Orthodox churches and monasteries.
The elegant exterior of the church, built with sumptuous slabs of pale yellow onyx and light violet breccia marble, is a marvelous combination of Gothic, Byzantine and Romanesque features.
Equally lovely is the courtyard, where the scraggly bearded Serb monks offered safe haven to Albanian refugees during the war.
DECANI, Serbia (CNN) The Visoki Decani Monastery is nestled in a stunning canyon ringed by rugged mountains, but it's not the altitude that takes your breath away.
Step inside the 14th century Serbian Orthodox abbey, inhale the fragrant myrrh that perfumes the frescoed interior, and suddenly you're transported through the ages to a bygone era of monks, marauders and martyrs.
It's a rare Balkan oasis a place of unspeakable beauty, sanctity and solitude.
Decani is among the delights that await in Kosovo, the breakaway southern Serbian province that seems destined to become Europe's newest country.
"Kosovo is an intriguing place and full of paradoxes and surprises for any first-time visitor," says Verena Knaus, co-author with Gail Warrander of the newly released "Bradt Guide to Kosovo.
But for the adventurous seeking a glimpse of a region still colored by the medieval collision of Slavs and Ottoman Turks, and spiced by Islam and the mysteries of Eastern Orthodoxy, Kosovo is deliciously uncharted territory.
That's a fair enough question to ask about a place where a 1998-99 war between ethnic Albanian insurgents and Serbian troops killed 10,000 people, and where ethnic strife still occasionally erupts.
About 16,000 NATO peacekeepers patrol the province, which is roughly the size of Belgium or Connecticut, and visitors can count on plenty of warm Balkans hospitality.
Voting is under way in the New Hampshire Primary, a key early contest in the U.S. presidential race, where Republican and Democratic campaigners are vying for support in their bids to be chosen as their party's presidential candidate. Ballots ran low in some polling stations six hours before the last polling stations close at 8 p.m., indicating a larger-than-expected turnout, representatives of New Hampshire's secretary of state said.
Despite its comparatively small population, New Hampshire has traditionally carried an importance disproportionate to its size due to its status as the first state to go to the polls in the U.S. primary calendar.
On the Democratic side, Barack Obama is aiming to press home his advantage over main rival Hillary Clinton following his success in last week's Iowa caucus.
John Edwards, Bill Richardson, Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel are also competing for the Democratic nomination.
"I'm never a frontrunner; I'm always the underdog," Obama said Tuesday as he tried to persuade undecided voters.
Among the Republicans, John McCain and Mitt Romney appear to be the frontrunners, with both seeking a morale-boosting victory after rival Mike Huckabee claimed victory in Iowa.
Fred Thompson, Ron Paul and Duncan Hunter also remain in the Republican race.
"We are going to prove that you can't buy an election in the state of New Hampshire and we are also going to prove that negative attack ads don't work either," McCain said Monday in a jab at Romney, his main rival according to state opinion polls.
Former Tennessee Senator Thompson has nearly abandoned New Hampshire, while former New York Mayor Giuliani has concentrated his attention on later primaries.
A strong performance in New Hampshire can give a candidate valuable momentum, enabling them to rally supporters and raise extra campaign funds going forward to the crucial "Super Tuesday" primaries on February 5 when voters in 24 states will participate in primary elections.
WASHINGTON (CNN) As President Bush prepared Tuesday to head to Israel and the West Bank for the first time as commander-in-chief, he called a confrontation between U.S. Navy warships and Iranian boats in the Strait of Hormuz "a provocative act.
The incident happened Sunday in the narrow shipping channel that leads in and out of the Persian Gulf.
"It's a dangerous situation, and they should not have done it, pure and simple," Bush said during a news conference in the White House Rose Garden. "I don't know what their thinking was."
The U.S. ships received a "threatening" radio transmission indicating the boats were closing in on them and the U.S. ships would "explode," said Vice Adm. Kevin Cosgriff, commander of the Bahrain-based U.S. 5th Fleet.
Bush now turns his attention to a mission aimed at spurring the fragile Mideast peace process.
Speaking to reporters, Bush said he hopes to get Israelis and Palestinians to agree on clear definitions of a future independent Palestinian state.
"They need to have a vision that competes with the terrorists and the killers who murder the innocent people to stop the advance of democracy," Bush said.
The president said he also intends to work with "Arab friends and allies on this very issue" and remind them of the strategy and obligations "they have to help this vision become a reality.
Security is tight ahead of Bush's scheduled arrival on Wednesday.
So much so that large parts of Jerusalem and much of the West Bank, including Ramallah, will be, in effect, shut down.
To minimize his exposure, Bush will do most of his traveling by helicopter, but some stops on in his itinerary, particularly in the West Bank, are reachable only by car and on foot.
That, security analysts say, will be the most dangerous time for the president.
During his tour of the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority will aid U.S. security teams in protecting the president.
On Friday, Bush is scheduled to depart Jerusalem for Kuwait.
He will then head to Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
He returns to Washington next Wednesday.
Roger Federer has a severe stomach virus and has pulled out of an exhibition tournament less than a week away from the Australian Open.
Federer told officials at the Kooyong Classic on Monday that he became ill after arriving in Australia last Friday from his training base in Dubai.
" The doctors have advised me that I should take a couple of days off and recuperate so that I am able to be 100 percent for the start of the Australian Open.
Federer, aiming for his third straight Australian Open title, hopes to resume training by Wednesday or Thursday.
Tournament officials also said that Germany's Tommy Haas has withdrawn.
Haas said he still hopes to be ready for the Australian Open, which begins Jan. 14.
Russia's Nikolay Davydenko has been picked as one replacement player at Kooyong, with another to be named later.
Britney Spears' hospitalization and concerns over whether the continuing Hollywood writers strike would keep next week's Golden Globes ceremony off the air dominated red-carpet chatter at the 2008 Palm Springs International Film Festival gala.
"It's always sad when a program may have to be canceled," John Travolta , who was honored with an Ensemble Performance Award, told AP Television.
Many Globe nominees were in Palm Springs collecting statuettes from the film festival, including Daniel Day-Lewis (Desert Palm Achievement Award), Ellen Page (Chairman's Vanguard Award) and Travolta's "Hairspray" co-star Nikki Blonsky (Rising Star Award).
Blonsky said she was hoping and preparing for a last-minute resolution that would permit actors to attend the Globes.
"A girl's gotta cover her back and have a dress, just in case," she said.
The fate of Britney Spears was the other red-hot topic on the Palm Springs red carpet.
Gary Zerola's dark, brooding looks and his work on behalf of foster children helped earn him a spot on People magazine's list of America's "Most Eligible Bachelors" and a tryout for the TV reality show "The Bachelor.
But authorities now say Zerola had another, darker sideline as a rapist who preys on young women.
He also faces charges in Florida, where authorities say he force-fed drugs to an 18-year-old woman, then raped her in a Miami Beach hotel in October while free on bail in the Massachusetts assaults.
Prosecutors say Zerola met all three women in bars, charmed them, then attacked them when they refused to have sex.
In the 2006 case, he allegedly took the woman shopping at Neiman Marcus, where he bought her a $700 dress and $250 shoes before trying to rape her in his Boston apartment.
The Gary Zerola described by prosecutors is far different from the man friends say dedicated himself to helping children.
The youngest of seven children, Zerola was placed in foster care at age 3 after his parents split up and his mother became ill.
Most Asian markets fell on Monday amid worries about a recession in the U.S. after figures last week showed weaker-than-expected job growth.
Japan's benchmark index fell to its lowest in nearly a year and a half, while Hong Kong's stock market sank 1.2 percent and Taiwan's key index tumbled 4.1 percent.
Stocks in China and India bucked the regional trend to climb higher.
It fanned concerns about a slowdown in the United States, a vital export market for Asian companies.
Japan's benchmark Nikkei index lost 190.86 points, or 1.3 percent, to 14,500.55 points, its lowest since July 18, 2006.
That follows a 4 percent plunge on Friday, the first day of trading in 2008 in Tokyo.
"The Hang Seng Index may drop to 26,000 to 26,500 points this week.
LAS VEGAS, Nevada (CNN) Once celebrated for cameras that made their own prints, Polaroid Corp. plans to update the concept this year by selling a portable printer for images on cell phones and digital cameras.
And like those old Polaroid instant-film cameras, the new printers should have a wow factor:
The 8-ounce printers, a bit bigger than a deck of cards, are due to go on sale around back-to-school time for about $150, Polaroid and Zink announced Monday at the International Consumer Electronics Show.
Once connected to a phone or camera by Bluetooth wireless or the USB port, the printers need less than a minute to churn out 2-inch-by-3-inch pictures, which can be peeled off a backing and used as stickers.
The Zink technology, which uses heat to activate minuscule dye crystals embedded in the photo paper, won raves at the influential Demo conference a year ago.
But until the CES announcement, Zink had not lined up any partners who would bring its technology to market.
Polaroid is a natural fit, and not just because of its photo-printing history.
Zink was founded in 2005 by private investors who bought many technologies from Polaroid as it was coming out of bankruptcy.
Now Zink and Polaroid are based in the same complex in Waltham, Massachusetts.
Zink also announced that Tomy Co. would be its partner in Japan.
Prices and availability dates were not disclosed.
The Georgian electoral commission has yet to declare an official result.
"We really proved that democracy can work and freedom can prevail," Saakashvili, the hero of Georgia's "Rose Revolution" in 2003, told CNN in an interview Monday.
Saakashvili resigned as president in November, leaving speaker of the parliament Nino Burjanadze to temporarily fill the post.
Saakashvili claimed 52.8 percent of the vote, while opposition leader Levan Gachechiladze had 27 percent, Central Elections Commission Chairman Levan Tarkhnishvili said.
A few precincts and some votes from abroad remained to be counted, but the outstanding votes are not enough to change the outcome, Tarkhnishvili added.
By surpassing the 50 percent mark, Saakashvili avoided a second-round runoff with Gachechiladze.
The presidential vote called after Saakashvili was criticized for a crackdown against violent anti-government protests in November won the backing of international observers, who said it was, "in essence," consistent with most international standards.
This view was not shared by the Russian government, which claimed the vote was marked by "numerous offenses against election legislation on the part of the authorities.
TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) The heaviest snowfall in more than a decade has left at least 21 people dead in Iran some buried under avalanches, some frozen to death and others killed in traffic accidents, state media reported Monday.
The storm forced schools and government offices to close, blocking major roads and leading to the cancellation of all domestic and international flights.
As much as 22 inches of snow has fallen in areas of northern and central Iran since Saturday, said meteorologist Ali Abedini.
"At least 21 people have been killed and 88 others injured ... as a result of heavy snow," state-run radio reported.
"Some died of the severe cold, some were buried under avalanches and others died after their cars overturned on snow-covered roads.
The cold weather has caused problems for residents in western Iran, with about a dozen towns suffering from gas cuts due to a surge in demand and a cut in gas exports from Turkmenistan.
Government officials have urged citizens to reduce their notoriously high consumption of gas to ensure there are no further cuts or shortages.
Authorities have also urged Iranians to cancel unnecessary travel and warned that the snowfall would continue in the coming days.
Two of the front-runners in New Hampshire are trying a very different strategy than President Bush used to win.
While Bush said he wanted to be a "uniter, not a divider," he employed a very partisan strategy masterminded by Karl Rove that entailed motivating the Republican faithful to support him at the polls and attacking the Democrats.
Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic front-runner after his impressive win in Iowa last week, and Sen. John McCain, who is neck and neck with Mitt Romney in the Republican race in New Hampshire, are trying something different.
They are portraying themselves as "uniters" with messages meant to appeal not only to the party faithful but Independent voters as well as members of the opposition party.
Obama and McCain regularly make appeals to Independent voters while on the campaign trail.
"At this defining moment in our history ... we have the chance to pull Democrats and Republicans and Independents together and stand up once and for all and say we are one nation, we are one people and our time for change has come," Obama told a boisterous crowd in Concord, New Hampshire last Friday, fresh from his win in Iowa.
Reaching out to Independent voters is critical to any candidate if he or she wants to come out on top in the Granite State, St. Anselm political professor Paul Manuel told CNN.
Both Obama and McCain are viewed favorably by the electorate.
Moreover, a majority of the opposition party holds favorable opinions of Obama and McCain.
Nearly half, 54 percent, of Republican primary voters in New Hampshire have a favorable opinion of Obama, while 62 percent of New Hampshire Democratic voters view McCain favorably.
Voters view McCain's and Obama's main rivals for their respective parties' nominations Republican Mitt Romney and Democrat Sen. Hillary Clinton very differently.
Only 15 percent of Republicans view Clinton favorably and 16 percent of Democrats have a positive view of Romney.
The poll's margin of error is plus-or-minus 5 percentage points.
Lying in a hospital bed in this rural hub of Kenya's Rift Valley, a man describes surviving two machete wounds to his head and multiple slashes to his hands.
Nearby, another machete-attack survivor, John Machana, said he thought he was a dead man when he was attacked.
Both men are among the hundreds of thousands of Kenyans victimized by a weeklong spate of violence that has left nearly 500 people dead after the nation's disputed presidential election.
Witnesses and victims have said in some regions gangs of men are terrorizing people with machetes.
The Kenyan Red Cross says it is trying to meet the needs of more than a half-million affected Kenyans, including more than 250,000 people who have been driven from their homes.
Officials in Molo say the victims just keep coming by the hundreds.
Pastor George Keliuki presides over the Baptist church in Molo.
Thousands have taken refuge in the church's back yard.
OTTAWA, Ohio (CNN) A British citizen who spent two decades on Ohio's death row was released from jail Monday after pleading no contest to three charges related to a fire that killed a 2-year-old girl.
Ken Richey, who once came within an hour of being executed, walked free for the first time since he was convicted of setting an apartment fire that killed the toddler in 1986.
Prosecutors approved the deal after an appeals court overturned Richey's conviction and death sentence last year.
The deal let Richey, a U.S.-British citizen, go home to Scotland without admitting that he had anything to do with the fire.
Richey pleaded no contest to attempted involuntary manslaughter, child endangering.
As part of the deal, Richey, 43, agreed to exit the country within a day, and plans to leave for Scotland on Tuesday.
Prosecutors told him they were worried about threats against Richey, his family and attorney said.
He'll be free, though, to return to the United States, because he's a citizen.
Richey had been set to get out three weeks ago until a trip to the hospital for chest pains delayed his release.
He's been in a county jail in Ottawa since then.
Richey's case has generated limited interest in Ohio, but his name is a familiar one in Britain where there is no death penalty.
He drew support from members of the British Parliament and the late Pope John Paul II.
Richey plans to spend his first night of freedom playing video games and watching movies Superman III, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and Transformers said his brother, Steve.
He'll leave for Scotland on Tuesday and stay with his mother in Edinburgh.
He's said he might live on a farm, travel around Scotland, or maybe open his own nightclub.
He also wants to write a book and speak out against the death penalty.
Five Iranian Revolutionary Guard boats "harassed and provoked" three U.S. Navy ships early Sunday in international waters, the U.S. military said Monday, calling the encounter a "significant" confrontation.
An Iranian official, however, said it was not a serious incident, the state-run news agency IRNA reported.
U.S. military officials said the incident occurred early Sunday morning in the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow shipping channel leading in and out of the Persian Gulf.
They said that as the guided missile destroyer USS Hopper, the guided missile cruiser USS Port Royal and the guided-missile frigate USS Ingraham were entering the Persian Gulf, five Iranian boats approached them at high speed and swarmed them.
The Iranian boats made "threatening" moves toward the U.S. ships and in one case came within 200 yards of one of them, the U.S. officials said.
The U.S. Navy also received a radio transmission that officials believe came from the Iranian boats.
When the U.S. ships heard that radio transmission, they took up their gun positions and officers were "in the process" of giving the order to fire when the Iranians abruptly turned away, the U.S. officials said.
After the radio transmission, one of the Iranian boats dropped white boxes into the water in front of the U.S. ships, the officials said.
It was not clear what was in the boxes, the officials said.
A Pentagon spokesman characterized the incident as "perplexing" and "cause for real concern.
"Such actions are dangerous and could have quickly escalated into something much worse," said Geoff Morrell, Pentagon press secretary.
MOLO, Kenya (CNN) Kibaki on Saturday appeared to offer a way out of the stalemate with the opposition over the disputed elections, announcing he was ready to form a government of national unity.
Opposition leader Raila Odinga said he and his Orange Democratic Movement were ready to negotiate with the president without preconditions.
Odinga's party had earlier insisted Kibaki must resign before talks could take place.
U.S. Envoy Jendayi Frazer on Monday said she was able to get Kibaki and Odinga to agree to talk under the mediation of the African Union's chairman by relaying the concerns of the Kenyan people.
Ghanaian President John Kufuor, the AU chairman, is expected to arrive in Kenya Tuesday evening to mediate the talks between the two, Frazer said, which has led Odinga's party to cancel a planned rally earlier that day.
World number two Rafael Nadal was routed by fourth-seeded Mikhail Youzhny 6-0 6-1 in the final of the Chennai Open in a quickfire 57 minutes on Sunday.
The error-prone Nadal saw his hopes of launching the year with a title vanish as the Russian hit winners from the baseline and executed deft drops.
"Rafa was not Rafa," Youzhny said.
Nadal was clearly feeling the after effects of his grueling semifinal victory over third-seeded compatriot Carlos Moya.
Their three hours 54 minutes battle Nadal saved four match points was the longest three-set match on the ATP Tour in 15 years.
"Maybe I was a bit tired after the long semifinal, but I lost the final because Mikhail played very well," Nadal said.
MADISON, Wisconsin (CNN) Dozens of cars were involved Sunday in pileups that killed at least two people on a foggy stretch of highway.
The Wisconsin State Patrol shut down Interstate 90 east of Madison in both directions, causing a traffic backup of about five miles, according to a Wisconsin State Patrol dispatcher who declined to give her name.
One person was killed.
A second person was killed in that pileup.
At least three dozen vehicles were involved in the two pileups, Steeber said.
Thirty-five people were taken to Madison hospitals, three with life-threatening injuries, she said.
Two people were discharged from Meriter Park Hospital after treatment for minor injuries, spokeswoman Mae Knowles said.
LAUDERHILL, Florida (CNN)-A 12-year-old boy beat a toddler to death with a baseball bat because she was crying while he was trying to watch TV, authorities said.
The boy, who was not identified, was arrested Saturday on first-degree murder charges, Lauderhill police spokesman Lt. Mike Cochran said.
He was arraigned in juvenile court Sunday and remained in custody, but it was not clear if he had an attorney or if anyone else would be charged in the girl's death.
Cochran said the boy confessed to authorities that he was home alone Friday baby-sitting a 10-year-old girl and the 17-month-old girl and became angry when the toddler began to cry.
The relationship between the three was not clear.
The girl, Shaloh Joseph, was rushed to a hospital where she was pronounced dead of blunt force trauma to the head, Cochran said.
The Miami Herald identified the boy's mother as Guerla Joseph.
The latest new TVs, MP3 players, computers and pretty much any other shiny and expensive gadget you can think of will be on display next week in Las Vegas, Nevada, long before they make their way to your local big-box electronic store.
Organizers of the International Consumer Electronic Show say more than 20,000 new products will be on display.
The show is huge, with about 2,700 exhibitors crowded into the 1.8 million-square-foot exhibit space.
About 150,000 people mostly tech insiders, journalists and bloggers are expected to attend the show.
It's not open the public, so CNN talked to a handful of tech bloggers, who will be covering the event.
Dan Tower, men's gift editor "There's going to be so much sizzle at CES about the latest greatest and hi-def and wireless and home theater and stuff that at a personal level I will enjoy seeing, but as a matter of practicality, in terms of a gift, some of these things really don't hit the mark. So I really want to see products that you could probably see under the tree in 2008 or that you could get for Fathers' Day.
"In terms of trends, videogaming is absolutely out of hand and I think the Wii has captured everyone's heart and imagination. Not that everyone can get one at this point.
"I think every kid out there probably had the Wii on his list for the holidays and they didn't need Gifts.com to tell them that, but where we come in is in suggesting a really cool accessory that the kid's going to lose his mind over.
RAWALPINDI, Pakistan (CNN) Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's assassination was her own fault, the country's president, Pervez Musharraf, said in an interview that aired Sunday on U.S. television.
"For standing up outside the car, I think it was she to blame alone nobody else. Responsibility is hers," the former general told CBS' "60 Minutes.
Bhutto was killed December 27 in Rawalpindi, south of the Pakistani capital Islamabad, while she was standing in an armored moving car after rallying supporters for now-postponed parliamentary elections.
The cause of her death is not clear though no autopsy has been carried out.
Meanwhile, detectives from Britain's Scotland Yard on Sunday once again examined the white Land Cruiser that Bhutto was riding in when she was assassinated, Pakistan's state-run news agency said.
The team of five detectives arrived in Pakistan Friday after Musharraf agreed they should work alongside Pakistani agencies to determine how Bhutto was killed and who was responsible for her death.
On Saturday, the team spent more than two hours at the park.
Musharraf said he expected the Scotland Yard investigators to help "solve all the confusion" surrounding the case.
Bhutto's husband, Asif Ali Zardari, wants a United Nations inquiry into his late wife's assassination.
The Pakistan interior ministry say the former leader died when she hit her head on the lever of her car's sunroof after ducking for cover after a suicide bomb attack on her convoy.
Television's "Dr. Phil" McGraw said Britney Spears was released from a hospital Saturday but still needs psychological help, the syndicated programs "Entertainment Tonight" and "The Insider" reported in a press release.
"My meeting with Britney and some family members this morning in her room at Cedars leaves me convinced more than ever that she is in dire need of both medical and psychological intervention," McGraw told the programs.
The incident at Spears' home lasted several hours.
A Los Angeles police spokeswoman said Friday that officers at the scene determined that paramedics "needed to be called" but it was unclear why.
At an emergency hearing Friday, a court commissioner suspended Spears' right to visit sons Sean Preston, 2, and Jayden James, 1.
TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) Iran has expelled a German diplomat for "undiplomatic" behavior, the Foreign Ministry said Sunday.
The expulsion comes after a media report claiming that Germany expelled an Iranian consular attache last July after he apparently attempted to acquire equipment that could be used for uranium enrichment.
On Sunday, a German Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said she could only "confirm that a German diplomat has left Iran.
The German weekly Der Spiegel reported last month that an Iranian consular attache had been expelled last July.
Germany is among the countries negotiating with Iran over its nuclear program, which the U.S. and others fear intends to build atomic weapons.
Iran insists its nuclear program is peaceful.
The relationship between Germany and Iran has been strained at times since Iran's 1979 revolution.
Al Qaeda video messages of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri can now be downloaded to cell phones, the terror network announced as part of its attempts to extend its influence.
As of Saturday, eight previously recorded videos were made available including a recent tribute to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the former al Qaeda in Iraq leader killed by U.S. forces in Iraq in June 2006.
"The elite jihadi media group presents the first batch of al-Sahab videos to be downloaded to cell phones," the announcement said.
He said the group has been releasing them for years, but that between September and December, a few video messages did not come with versions for cell phones. "They might just be filling
in some of the gaps, or just trying to release some that had come out before," Venzke said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.
Videos playable on cell phones are increasingly popular in the Middle East.
The files are transferred from phone to phone using Bluetooth or infrared wireless technology.
Warner had been the largest media company releasing videos in both formats, until now steering clear of a struggle that, reminiscent of the VHS vs. Beta fight in the early 1980s, has left many consumers confused and waiting to see which technology will emerge as the industry standard.
"Warner Brothers' move to exclusively release in the Blu-ray disc format is a strategic decision focused on the long term and the most direct way to give consumers what they want," Barry Meyer, chairman and CEO of Warner Brothers, said in a written statement.
"The window of opportunity for high-definition DVD could be missed if format confusion continues to linger.
Warner Home Video will continue releasing high-definition videos in the HD DVD format until the end of May.
Currently, Sony Pictures, 20th Century Fox and Disney release their high-definition videos exclusively for Blu-ray, which is owned by Sony.
Paramount and Universal Pictures release for HD DVD which is backed by Toshiba and Microsoft.
PARIS, France (CNN)- A French newspaper said Sunday that recently divorced French President Nicolas Sarkozy may marry former supermodel-turned-singer Carla Bruni, his new girlfriend, next month.
Under the headline "Marriage Imminent," the weekly Le Journal du Dimanche said the two would marry Feb. 8 or 9.
The report said Sarkozy gave a heart-shaped, pink-diamond ring to Bruni as a sign of their engagement in December, less than a month after they met.
The pair has been photographed repeatedly in public in recent weeks:
The 50-minute tape titled "An Invitation to Reflection and Repentance" was released by As Sahab, al Qaeda's video production wing.
In it, Gadahn renounces his citizenship to protest the imprisonment of Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman, a blind Egyptian Muslim leader serving a life sentence for his role in the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center;
Gadahn displays his passport to the camera, rips it in half and says, "Don't get too excited I don't need it to travel anyway.
The video also refers to the Annapolis Conference, indicating it was produced after last November 27, when the conference was held.
National Security Council Spokesman Gordon Johndroe said the U.S. president would not be deterred.
"His comments are indicative of an al Qaeda ideology that offers nothing but death and violence," Johndroe told CNN in a written statement.
The self-proclaimed American jihadist, also known as Azzam the American, is on the FBI's Most Wanted List, with a reward of up to $1 million for information leading to his capture.
Gadahn was indicted in 2006 on charges of treason and offering material support for terrorism, the first American charged with treason since World War II.
Both the president of Kenya and the leader of the country's main opposition party are willing to meet with the African Union to find a solution to their political stalemate one that stemmed from a disputed election and led to the deaths of hundreds in a week-long ethnic cleansing spree, a senior U.S. official told CNN.
Ghanaian President John Kufuor, who chairs the African Union, is expected to arrive in Kenya in the next several days to mediate between the two leaders, the official said.
Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki had said Saturday he was ready to consider a government of national unity.
The official appeared to pour cold water on the calls for new elections, telling CNN the three-to-six months timeline that Odinga is proposing is "impractical.
The official did not directly respond to whether the United States applied strong pressure on both sides, saying only that "both sides value our relationship and see the U.S. as a neutral player.
America is also pushing to get the ban on live broadcasts lifted, the official said. The country plunged into a news blackout after the government suspended all broadcasts as violence engulfed the capital following the re-election of incumbent president Kibaki in the controversial election on December 27.
Two days before New Hampshire's Democratic primary, Sen. Barack Obama has opened a double-digit lead over Sen. Hillary Clinton in that state, a new CNN-WMUR poll found Sunday.
Support for former Sen. John Edwards, who edged out Clinton for second place in Iowa, dropped from 20 percent in Saturday's poll to 16 percent.
The poll, conducted by the University of New Hampshire, surveyed 341 likely Democrats and 268 Republicans likely to vote in Tuesday's primary.
It had a sampling error of 5 percentage points.
But in Saturday's poll, Clinton and Obama were tied on that measure, and now Obama has a 42 percent to 31 percent edge over Clinton on electability.
And CNN Senior Political Analyst Bill Schneider said the poll "strongly suggests an Obama surge in New Hampshire.
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson ranked fourth among the Democratic contenders with 7 percent, while Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich trailed at 2 percent.
Former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel had less than one half of 1 percent support.
The big difference was in third place, where Huckabee whose upset win in Iowa came after being outspent by millions of dollars by Romney passed former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's.
In Saturday's poll, Giuliani had 14 percent and Huckabee had 11 percent; those numbers were reversed on Sunday.
Near-complete returns from Georgia's presidential election show pro-western President Mikheil Saakashvili winning a majority of the vote, the head of the former Soviet republic's electoral commission said Sunday.
But the outstanding votes are not enough to change the outcome, Central Elections Commission Chairman Levan Tarkhnishvili said.
Saakashvili claimed 52.8 percent of the vote, while opposition leader Levan Gachechiladze had 27 percent, Tarkhnishvili said.
Saakashvili, the hero of Georgia's "Rose Revolution" in 2003, was elected in a landslide four years ago.
Georgia is a former Soviet republic on the Black Sea.
Observers with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said the vote had been "the first genuinely competitive presidential election in the country, enabling the Georgian people to express their political choice.
In a statement released Sunday, the group said Georgia's election commission had carried out an extensive voter education campaign in a short timeframe and operated transparently. Overall polling had been organized and relatively peaceful, it added.
But it acknowledged some cases of voter intimidation and some technical flaws such as a slow counting process and admitted that in some cases the commission's members had acted in a partisan manner, "not always observing the neutrality required of an election administration.
Two other groups of international observers released signed statements that the voting was free and fair.
More than 2,000 election observers and 160 media organizations from around the world had converged on Georgia.
Just four years ago, Saakashvili won with 96 percent of the vote an election that came just two months after he led his own anti-government protest that came to be known as the "Rose Revolution.
BOGOTA, Colombia (CNN) Preliminary DNA tests indicate a 3-year-old foster child is the son of a woman being held captive by leftist rebels, Colombian officials announced Friday.
"There is a very high probability that Juan David belongs to the family of Clara Gonzalez de Rojas," Mario Iguaran Arana, the country's chief federal prosecutor, said at a news conference.
The boy, known as "Emmanuel," has been at the center of a hostage drama that raised hopes the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia would liberate some of their hostages.
The rebel group, known as FARC for its Spanish acronym, had agreed to release three hostages as part of a deal brokered by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
FARC said it would release Emmanuel along with his mother, Clara Rojas, and another woman, Consuelo Gonzalez, but the mission to free the captives fell apart December 31, when the rebel group said it could not release the hostages because of Colombian military operations in the area, according to a FARC statement Chavez read on Venezuelan television.
Colombian President Alvaro Uribe denied the group's assertion, saying there were no combat operations in the area near the rebels, and he said the rebels could not release the three hostages because they
He raised the possibility that Emmanuel, who was born in captivity to Rojas, was living in a foster home in the Colombian capital of Bogota.
On Friday, Iguaran Arana said initial DNA results will be checked against tests being done in European labs to verify the child's identity.
However, a statement on the Venezuelan government's Web site from earlier Friday said the Colombian government had not allowed Venezuela to participate in the DNA testing.
Established in 1964 as the Colombian Communist Party, FARC is Colombia's oldest and largest Marxist rebel group, according to the U.S. Department of State.
The United States, the European Union and Colombia classify it as a terrorist group.
SAN JOSE, California (CNN) Citing disagreements with the organization, Intel Corp. said Thursday it has abandoned the One Laptop Per Child program, dealing a big blow to the ambitious project seeking to bring millions of low-cost laptops to children in developing countries.
The fallout ends a long-simmering spat that began even before the Santa Clara-based chipmaker joined the OLPC board in July, agreeing to contribute money and technical expertise.
Intel decided to quit the nonprofit project and the OLPC board because the two reached a "philosophical impasse," Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy said.
Meanwhile, Intel will continue with its own inexpensive laptop design called the Classmate, which it is marketing in some of the same emerging markets OLPC has targeted.
Both sides shared the objective of providing children around the world with the use of new technology, "but OLPC had asked Intel to end our support for non-OLPC platforms, including the Classmate PC, and to focus on the OLPC platform exclusively," Mulloy said.
"At the end of the day, we decided we couldn't accommodate that request.
The One Laptop program was founded in 2005 by Nicholas Negroponte, former Media Lab director at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Intel believed all along that there is a need for multiple alternatives to meet the needs of children in poor countries, Mulloy said.
WASHINGTON (CNN) Mike Huckabee and Barack Obama, the front-runners in the race for the White House after Thursday's Iowa caucuses, offer clearly different views on Iraq.
Obama, a Democratic U.S. senator from Illinois, opposed the war in Iraq from the beginning.
He supports the concept of a "phased withdrawal," a gradual pullout of a brigade or two of U.S. troops from Iraq each month for 16 months.
"There's no military solution to this," Obama said during a debate last April.
"We've got to have a political solution, begin a phased withdrawal, and make certain that we've got benchmarks in place so that the Iraqi people can make a determination about how they want to move forward.
Republican Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, supported the war at the start and now supports Gen. David Petraeus' strategy of cautiously reducing troops levels only as security improves.
If we leave, Iraq's neighbors on all sides will face a refugee crisis and be drawn into the war. "
Former England captain Lawrence Dallaglio has quit international rugby and will bring down the curtain on his club career at the end of the current season.
Dallaglio, 35, was a World Cup winner with England in 2003 and played his final game for his country as they were beaten by South Africa in the 2007 final in Paris.
But Ashton, who was criticized in Dallaglio's recent autobiography, is expected to favor younger players as he begins rebuilding the team.
Combative forward Dallaglio, whose Test career spanned 12 years and 85 caps, pre-empted that decision when he made the official announcement on Thursday.
"I know a lot of people will look at the recent World Cup and events afterwards but it was always my intention to retire from rugby at the end of this season," he said.
Ashton paid tribute to Dallaglio's contribution to the game saying: "Lawrence has made a massive and influential contribution to his country and to London Wasps and I wish him all the best for the rest of this season and the future.
Dallaglio had previously retired in 2004 but returned to the international fold two years later.
A law school student and former beauty pageant contestant who has posed for a racy calendar while brandishing a weapon has been accused of kidnapping, biting and threatening a former boyfriend with a handgun.
Kumari Fulbright, 25, who is midway through her second year in law school, faces a long prison term if convicted of kidnapping, armed robbery, aggravated robbery and two counts of aggravated assault.
Fulbright, who competed for the Miss Arizona title in 2005 and 2006, recently completed a semester-long unpaid stint clerking for a federal judge, U.S. District Judge Raner Collins, his office said.
She also poses wearing a shiny black bikini in a 2008 calendar that features women holding guns.
In the December 18 indictment, Fulbright is accused of holding and torturing her 24-year-old ex-boyfriend in early December with the help of three other men, including another man she had previously dated.
Fulbright invited the man to her apartment, then excused herself to shower, said police spokesman Sgt. Fabian Pacheco.
Authorities said the man was taken to another home, where the assault continued, then taken back to Fulbright's house, where she guarded him with a gun.
A police complaint said the suspects stole the victim's wallet, money clip with $500 to $600, and his cell phone and briefcase.
PARIS, France (CNN) Alain Ducasse has already taken haute cuisine to great heights, in menus for the Concorde jet and for astronauts.
But opening a restaurant in the Eiffel Tower comes with its own challenges.
Though only 410 feet up, there's no gas cooking because of safety concerns.
All the decor had to be light so as not to weigh on the 118-year-old iron structure.
And because space is tight, food is washed and prepared in an underground kitchen.
The celebrity chef's new endeavor called the Jules Verne, like the restaurant it replaced opened for its first dinner in late December.
"I think our only alternative in this monument is to be 100 percent French," he told The Associated Press.
"Beautiful products, perfect technique, perfect harmony, a few precise, reduced sauces, (everything) in harmony with French wines," he said.
Ducasse says the menu price is "accessible to everyone": about $108 for lunch and $216 for dinner, without wine. He shrugged off a question about whether setting up in France's most famous landmark with more than 6.7 million visitors last year might be too touristy for his elite brand.
"For us, the Eiffel Tower is a restaurant more than a place to visit," the 51-year-old chef said, adding that he hopes to cultivate the right mix of tourists and Parisians.
The restaurant seats up to 120 and takes reservations.
To get to the restaurant, diners take a private elevator ascending to one set of tunes and descending to another.
The setting's main attraction is the panoramic view of Paris.
The ceiling lighting is by designer Herve Descottes, who lit up the Mona Lisa in the Louvre, and it's crisscrossed by glowing lines that mimic the traffic patterns of Paris.
The lighting is gentle, so the view isn't obscured at night.
As for the cuisine, the dinner menu includes roasted imperial langoustine with sauteed green vegetables and black truffles; pan-seared beef tournedos and fresh duck foie gras with souffled potatoes and Perigueux sauce;
The use of lethal injection will be expanded in China to replace execution by shooting, a senior legal official said in an interview with a government-owned Chinese newspaper.
Currently around half of all the people's courts carry out executions by lethal injection, Xingchang told the paper.
Although it does not release official statistics of its executions, China is believed to execute more people than any other country, according to human rights groups.
Based on available public reports, Amnesty International estimated that in 2006 China executed at least 1,010 people around 60 percent of all executions across the world.
During the same period there were 53 executions in the United States.
He gave no timetable for the shift to lethal injections, which were first introduced as a method of execution in China in 1997.
China has attempted to reform its capital punishment system following reports in 2005 of executions of wrongly convicted people, and criticism that lower courts arbitrarily impose the death sentence.
NEW YORK (CNN) "Clint Eastwood's my hero," Denzel Washington says. "That's the model. He's the guy.
At this stage of his career, the two-time Oscar winner is most interested in going the actor-turned-director route, citing George Clooney, Sean Penn and Ben Affleck as examples.
He likes the idea of staying behind the camera, rather than pulling double duty as filmmaker and performer as he did in his 2002 directorial debut "Antwone Fisher" and now "The Great Debaters.
Washington wanted to stay behind the camera for his latest film, but Harvey Weinstein, whose company put up the money along with Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Films, wanted to ensure the movie had the star power of the strikingly handsome, 6-foot leading man and upped the budget to have him in front of camera too.
And I said all right, all right," Washington says, adding matter-of-factly that casting himself is "not bad casting."
While he was happy to get a Golden Globe nomination for his muscular performance as a Harlem drug lord in "American Gangster," Washington sounds particularly tickled by the best-picture Globe bid for "The Great Debaters."
He says it felt like the first time he received a best-actor Academy Award nod 20 years ago, for "Cry Freedom.
In talking about the new movie in a conference room at NPR's midtown Manhattan studios, Washington is garrulous actually, almost giddy.
He laughs often and is quite animated in discussing the life-affirming tale of the debate team at all-black Wiley College that took on major, predominantly white universities in 1935 and won.
Barack Obama will win the Iowa Democratic caucus and Mike Huckabee will be the Republican winner, CNN projects, based on early results.
Rudy Giuliani, who has turned the focus of his campaign to the February 5 "Super Tuesday" primaries, trailed with 4 percent.
Huckabee's victory can be attributed to his overwhelming support among evangelical voters and women, according to CNN analysis of entrance polls.
Polls taken as Iowans entered the first-in-the-nation caucuses show a tight race for both parties.
Caucus-goer Kathy Barger, inside a Democratic caucus site in Walnut, Iowa, said the room she is in is packed to the brim with a line out the door.
"There are bodies in every available space in the room.
The White House hopefuls were campaigning down to the wire in Iowa today, determined to reach as many people as possible before the 1,781 caucuses that started at 7 p.m.
A Libyan took over as president of the U.N. Security Council Thursday, capping the nation's climb back to respectability.
But its ambassador said Libya's past ordeal under U.N. sanctions puts it "in a very difficult position when we speak about imposing sanctions against another country.
The rapid ascent of Libyan Ambassador Giadalla Ettalhi to this month's revolving council presidency, occurring during the first month that Libya has ever been allowed onto the council, is a remarkable turnabout for the north African nation long seen as a sponsor of terrorism.
The council, which oversees global peace and security, is the only U.N. body whose decisions are all binding.
Among its tools are economic sanctions, arms embargoes, financial sanctions, travel bans and military actions.
The council presidency rotates monthly among members, based on alphabetical order in English.
The job requires setting the monthly agenda and running council meetings, but it does not give an ambassador automatic entry into talks exclusive to the most powerful members.
Libya also enjoyed its highest-level contact between the two countries Thursday, in a meeting between U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Libyan Foreign Minister Abdel-Rahman Shalqam.
(CNN) At least four people have been killed and 52 injured six critically after a car bomb exploded in the Turkish city of Diyarbakir Thursday, prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said.
The explosion in the southern Turkish city of Diyarbakir killed at least four people Thursday.
In a nationally televised address broadcast from Ankara, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan blamed terrorists for the blast, but offered no evidence.
Some local media sources later put the number of dead as high as five, with 68 wounded, including 30 troops, The Associated Press reported.
Security officials told CNN Turk that a car bomb was detonated by remote control during a military convoy's passage through a busy section of the city center.
At least one soldier was among those wounded in the explosion, which occurred about 4:55 p.m. (9: 55 a.m. ET), damaging nearby buildings and incinerating at least six vehicles, most of them parked cars.
The explosion site includes a shopping mall, a luxury hotel, a military post and military housing.
The wounded were taken to a military hospital in the largely Kurdish city, in southeastern Turkey, which has a population of 1.5 million.
The city had been quiet since September 12, 2006, when a bomb killed more than 10 people, five of them children.
PRAGUE, Czech Republic (CNN) Members of a Czech art group who hacked into television broadcasting with images of a hoax nuclear explosion were charged and will have to stand trial, a state prosecutor said Thursday.
A freeze-frame from the Web cam shows an image of a nuclear explosion.
The six members of the Prague-based Ztohoven group were charged last month with spreading false information and face up to three years in jail if convicted, said Dusan Ondracek, the state prosecutor in the northern town of Trutnov, who is in charge of the case.
The trial could begin by the end of January, Ondracek said.
In December, the project was awarded the NG 333 prize for young artists by Prague's National Gallery together with a cash prize of 333,000 koruna (US$18,350).
Meanwhile, the country's attorney general called for a recount and independent investigation into the December 27 election in which incumbent President Mwai Kibaki was declared the victor over opposition candidate Raila Odinga.
Violent protests ensued after results were announced Sunday and the number of dead has surpassed 300 people.
At a Nairobi morgue on Thursday, Odinga toured freezing rooms of the dead and saw the bodies of babies and children piled on shelves, according to an Associated Press report.
It was unclear when those in the morgue died, but Odinga supporters said some died on Thursday.
Odinga called off a "million man" rally planned for a Nairobi park on Thursday, but not before police clashed with his supporters heading to the event.
Odinga supporters carried white flags, olive branches and protest signs as they tried to get to Uhuru Park, where the rally was to have been held.
Government forces used tear gas and water cannon to disperse the crowds.
Odinga called the meeting despite a government ban on such gatherings, having been forced to abandon his first attempt on Monday soon after the onset of the conflict.
Despite this week's two failed gatherings, the opposition Orange Democratic Movement now hopes to hold one Friday to protest the result of the elections.
Meanwhile, Kenyan Attorney General Amos Wako called for a recount and a government of national unity, according to a statement from his office.
Wako, who has been Kenya's attorney general since 1991, oversaw the nation's transition from one-party rule to democracy that year.
Light, sweet crude for February delivery eventually fell 44 cents to settle at $99.18 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after earlier rising to $100.09, a trading record.
One day after oil prices briefly touched $100 for the first time, the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration said crude inventories fell by 4 million barrels last week, much more than the 1.7 million barrel decline analysts surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires, on average, had expected.
by 600,000 barrels, countering analyst expectations that distillate supplies would fall by 600,000 barrels.
And supplies of gasoline rose by 1.9 million barrels, more than the 1.3 million-barrel increase analysts had expected.
"Any surprises (in the report) are more the result of false expectations as opposed to anything truly remarkable in the data," said Tim Evans, an analyst at Citigroup Inc. in New York, who added that crude inventories often fall this time of year, while distillate and gasoline supplies typically increase.
February gasoline fell 2.75 cents to settle at $2.5414 a gallon on the Nymex, and February heating oil fell 2.13 cents to settle at $2.7191 a gallon.
February natural gas fell 17.6 cents to settle at $7.674 per 1,000 cubic feet.
Voters will soon have their say in the 2008 presidential election as Iowans gather to pick their candidates in the first-in-the-nation caucuses.
On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards have been at the top.
The front-runners in the Republican race are Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney, according the the poll.
The White House hopefuls are campaigning down to the wire in Iowa today, determined to reach as many people as possible before the 1,781 caucuses that start at 7 p.m.
The Iowa Democratic Party said 124,000 people participated in the 2004 caucuses, while the Republican Party of Iowa estimated that 87,000 people took part in the 2000 caucuses.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has said assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto ignored government warnings and defended himself against accusations that he had a role in her slaying.
He also admitted Thursday he is not satisfied with the investigation into her death, making his comments to reporters in a rare news conference held in English.
"Frankly, I consider the question below my dignity to answer, but however I would like to answer it," Musharraf told the reporter from Britain's Sky News.
feudal and I'm not a tribal I have been brought up in a very educated and civilized family which believes in values, which believes in principles, which believes in character.
"My family, by any imagination, is not a family which believes in killing people, assassinating, intriguing. And that is all there I want to say.
Later, he accused Bhutto of "ignoring" warnings from the government and detailed the security provided to the former prime minister in Liaquat Bagh, the Rawalpindi park where she was killed last week.
"She was informed of the threat to her, the first time about three to four weeks back when she wanted to the same place," Musharraf said.
"The intelligence agencies knew there was a threat and we told her not to go.
More than 1,000 police were patrolling the park where Bhutto's convoy passed last Thursday, and government snipers patrolled each building's rooftop, Musharraf said.
Bhutto was traveling in a bulletproof vehicle, and had handpicked the head of her security detail, he said.
Musharraf pointed out that no one else in the vehicle was injured when gunshots rang out, followed by suicide blast that killed nearly two dozen people in the crowd.
"Nobody gets hurt (inside the car), only she when she ... decides to rise above the sunroof," he said.
He expressed his dissatisfaction with the way investigators immediately cleaned the area where Bhutto was killed, possibly wiping away key forensic evidence.
"But if you are meaning that they did it by design to hide evidence no.
France's most drastic measure to curb smoking went into effect Wednesday with a full ban on lighting up in cafes, restaurants and discotheques.
The bold move is a massive change for a country where the cigarette came to symbolize the French way of life.
We caught one at the counter this morning," said Maria Boyer at a cafe near the famed Champs-Elysees.
"I just ask people to be nice and avoid the fines," she said, noting that cafe owners who ignore the ban must pay up, too.
About a quarter of France's 60 million people smoke.
The Health Ministry said one in two regular French smokers died of a smoking-related illness, and about 5,000 non-smokers die each year from secondhand smoke.
Banning smoking everywhere but in private homes and in the streets is the latest measure in a progressive crackdown that began 15 years ago with the start of steady price hikes on cigarettes and a requirement that public places create non-smoking areas the first curb on smoking in cafes.
Restaurants and other so-called places of conviviality were given an extra 11 months to apply a full ban.
(CNN) Malaysia's health minister has resigned after being caught on videotape having sex with a female friend the country's national news agency said Wednesday.
At the time, the 61-year-old also added that he would not resign from his post or his party, the Malaysian Chinese Association, which is part of the ruling National Front coalition.
But news agency Bernama said Wednesday that Chua had resigned from both the post and the party, and his departure was effective immediately.
had apologized to her and his three children.
"It is a difficult time for all of us but we have accepted his regret and apology," she told Bernama.
In his admission at a press conference in Malaysia on Tuesday, Chua said the woman was a "personal friend" but did not elaborate.
Who has done this and why it was done is obvious. Who made this tape is not important any more," he told The Associated Press.
Olympic champion sprinter Justin Gatlin will challenge his four-year doping suspension and may take the case to federal court, his attorney said.
A three-member arbitration panel cut Gatlin's suspension in half to four years in a 53-page ruling released Tuesday.
The sprinter tested positive for excessive testosterone at the Kansas Relays in April 2006.
Then 19 years old, Gatlin had been taking the medication for attention deficit disorder since childhood.
He had stopped taking the medication three days before the competition, but small amounts were still detected.
Christopher Campbell, a former Olympic wrestler who has dissented in several arbitration panel rulings against athletes, accused anti-doping organizations of "behaving as if they are above the law.
"In these situations, they are nothing more than bullies preying on the vulnerable," Campbell wrote. "The federal government should take a serious look at this practice.
Under the panel's ruling, Gatlin would be eligible to run on May 25, 2010.
That would prevent him from defending his 100-meter title at the Beijing Olympics this August.
If the sprinter can get his first offense erased, it would likely result in a two-year ban that would expire this May, a month before the U.S. Olympic trials.
BEIJING, China (CNN) A growing number of rich and powerful people in central China are brazenly flouting the country's one-child policy, a newspaper said Wednesday.
The violations in Hubei province are leaving local family planning officials powerless, the Beijing Morning Post reported.
In one case, a person was fined $106,000 for having a second child, the highest amount ever in Hubei, but has only paid $14,000, the paper said.
The report said 1,678 people, including government officials, were punished in 2007 for not adhering to the policy, which has been in place for almost 30 years.
Under the mandate, most urban couples are limited to one child and rural families to two in an attempt to control population growth and conserve natural resources in the world's most populous country.
In order to have another child people also remarry, keep a second wife in the house, or fake a divorce, the paper said.
The fire in downtown Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang region, had been burning all night after it started in a building that normally has more than 2,000 people selling clothes, toys and various commodities, the state-run Xinhua News Agency said.
Xinhua said 181 firefighters and 48 fire engines were trying to contain the fire.
It was not known how it started.
One of TV's favorite schoolgirls is starting to grapple with some growing pains, and so is her real-life counterpart, 16-year-old Jamie Lynn Spears, sister of that other Spears.
So what will she do as the show's third season ends and her school chums ponder a fourth season without Zoey?
I don't know," Spears says teasingly during a late-November phone interview from her home in Kentwood, Louisiana.
Zoey's dilemma is not altogether unlike Spears' own, as the actress, now a high school junior and pregnant, ponders her future.
"I'm going to try to graduate before I do anything else," she says of taking on another TV series or future film roles after "Zoey 101" ends.
She declines to discuss her famous sister, Britney, although she says she has no plans to follow her to California.
But her reluctance, she quickly adds, doesn't have as much to do with avoiding the paparazzi as it does with leaving Louisiana.
SANTIAGO, Chile (CNN) About 700 people were evacuated as a volcano erupted Wednesday in southern Chile, rocking the area with explosions and spewing lava and ash.
But the Llaima volcano's eruptions were slowing by Wednesday afternoon, so a larger evacuation did not appear necessary.
The evacuees included about 200 tourists, National Forest Service employees and others in the surrounding Conguillio National Park, about 400 miles south of Santiago.
Hundreds spent the night outside or in shelters in Melipeuco, a town of 5,000 near the Llaima volcano.
Others fled to communities farther away, but most were returning Wednesday.
Chile's Emergency Bureau director, Carmen Fernandez, said a larger evacuation wasn't necessary despite television images showing thick smoke and lava flowing from the crater.
"There are no signs yet of an increased risk," Fernandez said.
The bureau said the eruption was decreasing Wednesday and explosions were less frequent and milder, even as Argentina reported a heavy presence of gas and ash across the border.
The 9,400-foot high Llaima, one of the most active among some 60 active volcanos in Chile, has not had a major blast since 1994.
Police are investigating whether several items found in the enclosure of a tiger who fatally mauled a 17-year-old man show that the animal was attacked or taunted, San Francisco Zoo spokesman Sam Singer said Wednesday.
Police are examining a large rock, a tree branch and other items, Singer said.
San Francisco Police Chief Heather Fong has said that a shoe print found on the railing at the tiger enclosure is being examined to determine if one of the victims climbed over the rail or threw their leg over the side.
"Corrections" are under way at the habitat as the zoo prepares to reopen Thursday, he said.
The zoo's large cats will be kept indoors until workers complete the improvements to their enclosure.
A memorial area will be on display Thursday near the entrance to the zoo and visitors are encouraged to bring mementoes and tributes both to the mauling victim and Tatiana.
In the final hours before the Iowa caucuses, candidates are trying to gain the support of the undecided and make sure their supporters show up.
Three Democrats and two Republicans are virtually tied at the top, according to the latest CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll, and last-minute decisions from undecided voters could push a candidate to the head of the pack.
This week's poll shows that 17 percent of likely Democratic caucus-goers said they are still trying to decide which candidate to support, and more than a quarter of Republican caucus-goers said they are still trying to decide.
Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, who has been on a 36-hour tour through Iowa, attended a rally around midnight and made stops throughout the morning Wednesday.
Edwards has been trying to convince voters that his passion for change comes from the heart, saying he is the one who is going to help the little guy more than the others.
The New York senator's camp has passed out door hangers telling people the stakes are high and they have to vote.
While Clinton's campaign is telling voters she has the track record to make good on her promises, the campaign for Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois is telling voters to hope for something different.
Campaigns were working to finalize massive get-out-the-vote efforts to get their supporters to the caucuses Thursday.
While all of the Democratic candidates were in Iowa on New Year's Day, the Republicans were spread across the country, possibly reflecting the fact that the Iowa contest has come down to a race between Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney.
Romney's camp, however, is focusing on the voters who have committed to him and not those who are still undecided.
The former Massachusetts governor has an extensive computer database and his campaign is calling supporters to make sure they get to the caucus.
Huckabee, who doesn't have the funds and organization of his chief rival, is relying on the passion among evangelicals and the coalitions who support him to push him ahead Thursday.
The race between Romney and Huckabee has become heated in recent weeks, with Romney airing commercials attacking the former Arkansas governor for his record on immigration and tax policy.
Romney leads with the backing of 31 percent of likely Republican caucus-goers and Huckabee has 28 percent.
In the Democratic race, the poll shows Clinton and Obama essentially tied for the lead in Iowa.
Edwards is in third place in the poll at 22 percent.
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana(CNN) The bloodiest city in the country in 2006, reeling from crime in its struggle to recover from Hurricane Katrina, got even worse in 2007.
New Orleans registered 209 homicides last year, a nearly 30 percent increase from the 161 recorded in 2006.
The FBI's rankings for 2007 will not be out until much later in the year, but New Orleans' population is thought to be 295,450, which would mean a rate of about 71 homicides per 100,000 people.
Even the most generous population estimate in 2006 put the number of people in the city that year at 255,000.
That meant a real homicide rate of 63.5 per 100,000 residents in New Orleans.
To compare that number with some other notoriously bloody cities, the rate for Gary, Ind., was 48.3 and Detroit's was 47.1.
The killings are drug-related or retaliatory for the most part, police have said.
The upswing comes despite continued patrols by the National Guard and state police and the addition of two new classes of police recruits in the past year.
But beefed-up policing efforts can only do so much, said Rafael Goyeneche, executive director of the Metropolitan Crime Commission of Greater New Orleans.
"This city is beginning to do some things that I've been waiting 25 years to see," Goyeneche said. "I think there is a renewed sense of purpose; people are focused and demanding more than what was in play before Katrina hit.
New York's and Chicago's 2007 homicide totals were the lowest in more than 40 years, and in Philadelphia, slayings dipped slightly after reaching a nine-year high in 2006.
Post-election violence in Kenya brought international pleas for calm Wednesday amid mounting concerns over the legitimacy of President Mwai Kibaki's narrow victory in last week's vote.
Kenyan government officials said at least 209 people had so far been killed and around 75,000 forced to flee their homes as gangs of machete-wielding young men roamed the streets.
The Associated Press said more than 300 people were dead amid reports of horrific attacks, including the torching of a church where people who had sought refuge were burned alive.
Tensions could worsen Thursday when opposition leader Raila Odinga plans a huge protest rally in Nairobi.
"All Kenyans are invited to Uhuru Park," a statement on Odinga's campaign Web site said, and some party officials said at least a
The government has banned all rallies and Kenya's police commissioner sent a reminder Wednesday, telling citizens the gathering "has not been authorized and is therefore illegal.
Meanwhile, in an article published Wednesday in The Herald, Kenya's oldest newspaper, the head of the country's electoral commission, Samuel Kivuitu, was quoted as saying he did not know who had won the election.
Kivuitu said he had been pressured to announce the results, AP reported.
His remarks came after international election observers voiced doubts over the conduct of last week's vote.
Ghanaian President John Kufuor, the head of the African Union, was due to arrive in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, on Wednesday to act as a mediator, an AU spokeswoman told AP.
U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Wednesday that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had spoken to Odinga and would speak with Kibaki later Wednesday.
"It is important for the Kenyan people and their democracy to work within the confines of their law and constitution to find a political way forward and, most importantly, to bring about an end to the violence," McCormack said.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (CNN) A Saudi blogger arrested in December could be freed soon, a spokesman for the kingdom's Interior Ministry said Wednesday, but no details of any charges against him were released.
Fouad al-Farhan, operator of the Web site alfarhan.com, was arrested December 10.
In an e-mail posted on the site since his arrest, he told friends that he faced arrest for his support of 10 reform advocates the Saudi government accuses of supporting terrorism.
Maj. Gen. Mansour al-Turki, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry in Riyadh, told CNN that al-Farhan was jailed "because he violated the regulations of the kingdom. "
"He is being interrogated for local law violations," al-Turki said. "The violation is not a security matter.
Al-Turki said al-Farhan would be released in the near future, but "no date has been set.
"I don't believe he will remain in detention long. They will get the information that they need from him and then they will let him go," he said.
Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy governed by strict Islamic law.
Though Saudi King Abdullah raised hopes for reform when he assumed the throne in 2005, news outlets remain censored, and Internet access is restricted, according to the U.S. State Department's latest human rights report on the kingdom.
Al-Farhan, 32, is one of the few Saudi Web commentators who uses his own name, according to the U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists.
"Detaining writers and holding them for weeks without charge is appalling," CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon said in the statement.
In the e-mail posted on his Web site, al-Farhan said a senior Interior Ministry official promised he would remain in custody for three days at most if he agreed to sign a letter of apology.
An apology for what?
Apologizing because I said the government is [a] liar when they accused those guys to be supporting terrorism?"
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said Wednesday that British investigators are heading to Pakistan to help clear up the confusion surrounding Thursday's assassination of Benazir Bhutto.
"I am very thankful to [British] Prime Minister Gordon Brown that when I made this request he accepted that," Musharraf said in a nationally televised address.
The Scotland Yard team, he said, "will solve all the confusion" surrounding how Bhutto died last week.
Britain's Metropolitan Police Services confirmed that it is sending a small team of counterterrorism police "to provide support and assistance in the investigation into the death of Benazir Bhutto.
The United States welcomed Pakistan's decision to consult with British investigators.
"It's very important that a transparent and comprehensive investigation move ahead quickly," said White House Press Secretary Dana Perino.
Asked if the United States would aid in the investigation, National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said he had no information on whether Pakistan had requested U.S. assistance.
The United States has offered to send forensic specialists from the FBI, according to the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan.
Bands of armed men invaded Port Harcourt, the center of Nigeria's oil industry Tuesday, attacking two police stations and raiding the lobby of a major hotel.
Word that several Mexican oil export ports were closed due to rough weather added to the gains, as did a report that OPEC may not be able to meet its share of global oil demand by 2024.
Light, sweet crude for January delivery rose $4.02 to $100 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, according to Brenda Guzman, a Nymex spokeswoman, before slipping back to $99.48.
"I am the man in the tape," Health Minister Chua Soi Lek said Tuesday, referring to DVDs that began circulating in his home state last week showing him performing sexual acts with an unidentified woman in a hotel room.
Speaking in Johor during a 12-minute news conference, Chua, 61, apologized to his wife, three children and supporters.
Chua, a former physician and one of Malaysia's fastest rising political stars, said the woman in the tape was a "personal friend" but refused to
"I would like to emphasize that I did not make the tape myself.
Who has done this and why it was done is obvious.
Cua said he had no intention of relinquishing his Cabinet post or his vice presidency in the Malaysian Chinese Association.
MCA President Ong Ka Ting called for an emergency party meeting Wednesday to discuss the scandal, which is already providing political ammunition for opposition groups that often raise allegations of government immorality and misconduct.
NEW YORK (CNN) What's gonna happen Wednesday night?
That's the sort of question seldom raised about late-night talk TV, whose hosts keep the audience content with variations on a durable formula, night after night, gag after gag, guest after guest.
But the late-night landscape is about to change, and no one not the hosts, not the viewers knows how it will look.
What everybody does know is, on Wednesday, five late-night hosts will return to work.
Each host is sure to be stoked after having been sidelined since the writers strike began eight weeks ago.
Welcome back, guys!
But there's a twist.
Thanks to an agreement with the Writers Guild of America forged just last week, two of the hosts David Letterman and Craig Ferguson will be accompanied by their writing teams.
It's a different story for Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien and Jimmy Kimmel.
They will be deprived of their writers' services while, on the fly, they retool the talk-show format and, relying on improvisation, do, well, who knows what?
Consider the writerless shows: NBC's Leno-led "Tonight" (which airs opposite Letterman) and "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" (against CBS' Ferguson), as well as ABC's "Jimmy Kimmy Live.
PORTLAND, Oregon (CNN) The FBI is making a new stab at identifying mysterious skyjacker D.B. Cooper, who bailed out of an airliner in 1971 and vanished.
THE FBI this week released new details that the agency hopes will jog someone's memory.
The man calling himself Dan Cooper, also known as D.B. Cooper, boarded a Northwest flight in Portland for a flight to Seattle on the night of November 24, 1971, and commandeered the plane, claiming he had dynamite.
In Seattle, he demanded and got $200,000 and four parachutes and demanded to be flown to Mexico.
Somewhere over southwestern Washington, he jumped out the plane's tail exit with two of the chutes.
On Monday, the FBI released drawings that it said probably are close to what Cooper looked like, along with a map of areas where Cooper might have landed.
"Who was Cooper?
Did he survive the jump?
We're providing new information and pictures and asking for your help in solving the case," the FBI said in a statement.
He hadn't specified a route for the plane to fly and had no way of knowing where he was when he went out the exit.
CANBERRA, Australia (CNN) Australia's new government has banned taxpayer-funded massages for pampered bureaucrats as part of an austerity drive, a minister said Wednesday.
Assistant Treasurer Chris Bowen said public service chiefs have been told that they and their staff must pay for their own back rubs in the new government's clampdown on public sector largesse and waste.
But they don't get one," Bowen told Sydney radio 2UE.
Bowen's Labor Party, which was elected to government on November 24, has long railed against the free massages provided for some privileged public servants.
"There are lots of public servants that work very, very hard and they need to be rewarded, but we've taken the view that this is not an appropriate way of rewarding them," Bowen said.
While not all public servants are eligible for the perk, those that were spent an average of $176 for the year.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has established a task force to cut waste in a public service that he said became bloated during the previous government's 11-year rule.
The public sector massages cost up to $13 for 15 minutes.
ISLAMABAD (CNN) The Election Commission of Pakistan will delay parliamentary elections for at least a month, sources in the commission told CNN Tuesday.
The delay comes amid unrest following the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
The government plans to make a formal announcement Wednesday, the sources in the commission said Tuesday.
The elections, originally scheduled for January 8, will take place some time in February, they said.
Bhutto's party and another major opposition party had urged the government not to delay the elections.
But various provincial government representatives had suggested that the government hold elections after the Muslim holy month of Muharram, Commission Secretary General Kanwar Dilshad said at a press conference Tuesday.
The holiday, which follows a lunar calendar, will begin around January 9 and end about February 6.
His party urged that the government go ahead with elections on January 8.
The United States had kept its distance from the issue, saying it was up to the Pakistanis to decide the timing of the elections.
A U.S. Embassy official based in Pakistan, speaking on the condition of anonymity, had said the United States "wants to see the election held," but that "we would not object to" a postponement.
"Our greater concern would be if the elections are postponed indefinitely," he said.
Election offices in 13 districts of Sindh province were destroyed after Bhutto's assassination, Dilshad said.
Sindh is Bhutto's home province and was the main base of her support.
Bhutto, 54, was killed Thursday in an attack that involved a gunman and an explosion in Rawalpindi, outside of the capital Islamabad.
Her party and the Pakistani government dispute the cause of her death.
BANGKOK, Thailand (CNN) Princess Galyani Vadhana, the elder sister of Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej, died Wednesday, the royal palace announced. She was 84 years old.
Galyani's passing came after the 80-year-old king himself recovered from the symptoms of a stroke after being hospitalized for three weeks in October.
Both were tended to at Bangkok's Siriraj Hospital.
Galyani had been hospitalized since June, after doctors found she had abdominal cancer.
In a statement issued hours before her passing, the palace said Galyani's kidneys were not functioning and her breathing had weakened.
The late princess was noted for her interest in the arts, especially theater and classical music, a taste cultivated when she, like the king, was educated in Switzerland, where she spent much time until later life.
NAIROBI, Kenya (CNN) Gangs of young men armed with machetes are roaming the streets in Kenya as post-election violence threatens to engulf the country.
Police officers detain an opposition supporter on Monday during riots at the Kibera slum in Nairobi.
At least 148 people have been killed and about 75,000 have fled their homes since President Mwai Kibaki won a narrow victory, according to Kenyan government officials.
The Associated Press reported a higher number about 275 have died since Saturday.
Much of the violence is between supporters of Kibaki from the majority Kikuyu tribe and backers of opposition leader Raila Odinga, who is from the Luo tribe.
In a particularly disturbing incident, a mob appears to have burned a church filled with Kenyans seeking refuge from the violence.
The Red Cross told The Associated Press that at least 50 were burned to death at the church, some of them children.
As many as 200 people were at the church, about 185 miles northwest of Nairobi, KTN reporter Tony Biwott told CNN.
"I'm sure there were more than 15 but I couldn't count the ones who were ashes," he said in a phone interview.
The wounded sustained gunshot wounds, burns and cuts from a panga, a machete-like weapon, the Red Cross said.
The national police commissioner has said in Kenyan society, churches are considered sacred and no one would expect such violence there.
He said an investigation into the incident is under way.
About 120 people are reported dead and over 1,000 injured countrywide, according to The Red Cross.
Foreign Minister Raphael Tuju said the government is committed to taking control.
"If the tear gas doesn't work then unfortunately they have to use live bullets," he told CNN. "The president has been sworn in, the elections are over, the Kenyans have to accept the results, the opposition has to accept the results."
The United States has withheld congratulations for Kibaki, citing concerns of voting problems, even though Kibaki has claimed victory.
DES MOINES, Iowa (CNN) The presidential candidates began the new year making their pitches to undecided voters and working hard to motivate their supporters to get out and participate in Thursday's Iowa caucuses.
It is crunch time as campaigns offer everything from babysitting services to snow shovels to help supporters get to the caucuses.
The candidates were crisscrossing Iowa, appearing at rallies, house parties, restaurants wherever voters can be found.
Also the campaigns and independent groups working here are making aggressive outreach efforts through phone banks and canvassing.
A new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll out Tuesday shows both the Democratic and Republican races to be tight, with Sens.
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama essentially tied for the lead in the Democratic race in Iowa and Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee neck-and-neck in the Republican race in the Hawkeye State.
But even with the hundreds of campaign appearances, phone calls to voters and a barrage of television ads in the last few months there are still a large number of undecided voters.
The Iowa contest could prove decisive in the tight Democratic contest.
Among Democrats, Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York wins the most support, with 33 percent of likely Democratic caucus-goers backing Clinton and 31 percent supporting Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois.
But taking into account the survey's sampling error of 4.5 percentage points in the Democratic race, the race is virtually tied.
Former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina is in third place in the poll at 22 percent.
The Catholic Church celebrates January 1 as its World Day of Peace, and during a midmorning Mass in St. Peter's Basilica, the pope called for "the gift of peace:
for our families, our cities and the whole world.
"We all aspire to leave in peace, but real peace ... is not the simple conquest of man or the result of political agreements: it is above all a divine gift," Benedict said.
At the same time, the pope added, peace is a "commitment that must be pursued with patience."
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) On the day she died, Benazir Bhutto planned to hand over to visiting U.S. lawmakers a report accusing Pakistan's intelligence services of a plot to rig parliamentary elections, sources close to the slain former Pakistani prime minister told CNN Tuesday.
Patrick Kennedy, D-Rhode Island, and Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pennsylvania.
A top Bhutto aide who helped write the report showed a copy to CNN.
"Where an opposing candidate is strong in an area, they [supporters of President Pervez Musharraf ] have planned to create a conflict at the polling station, even killing people if necessary, to stop polls at least three to four hours," the document says.
The report also accused the government of planning to tamper with ballots and voter lists, intimidate opposition candidates and misuse U.S.-made equipment to monitor communications of opponents.
"Ninety percent of the equipment that the USA gave the government of Pakistan to fight terrorism is being used to monitor and to keep a check on their political opponents," the report says.
The Pakistani government denied the allegations, with two Pakistani diplomatic sources calling the report "baseless."
Rashid Qureshi, a spokesman for Musharraf, called the accusations "ridiculous" and said the election will be "free, fair and transparent.
One Bhutto source said the document was compiled at her request and said the information came from sources inside the police and intelligence services.
The election had been scheduled for January 8, but in the wake of Bhutto's assassination, the Election Commission is expected to announce Wednesday that it will delay the vote at least four weeks into February, sources at the commission said.
Sen. Latif Khosa, who helped put the report together, accused the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence of operating a rigging cell from a safe house in the capital, Islamabad.
The goal, he said, is to change voting results electronically on election day.
"The ISI has set up a mega-computer system where they can hack any computer in Pakistan and connect with the Election Commission," he said.
Khosa said he could make no link between Bhutto's assassination and the report.
PARIS, France (CNN) As a look, it is about as quintessentially French as it gets.
All the same, from the New Year enjoying a cigarette while you sip on your cafe au lait will become a thing of the past.
France is extending its ban on smoking to include bars, discotheques, restaurants, hotels, casinos, as well as its fabled cafes.
In spite of the health dangers, about 13.5 million people smoke out of a population of 60 million with around 26 percent of 15 year olds estimated to smoke, according to 2002 figures from the World Health Organization.
A smoking ban was first introduced in France in February this year to cover workplaces, schools, airports and hospitals.
The new restrictions will only apply to the inside of premises, meaning smokers are still free to light up on the
Even so, enforcing the ban may prove tricky in a country well known for its cafe culture.
To soften the blow, the authorities have agreed to an amnesty over the New Year holiday and will not fully enforce the new arrangements until Wednesday.
After that time, any smoker caught will face a fine of ¢æ450 ($662), while hotel and bar owners who fail to prevent smokers from lighting up on their premises will be fined ¢æ750 ($1,100).
France has lagged behind many of its European neighbors in bringing in legislation to curb smoking in public places.
Since then Italy, Spain, Belgium and Britain have followed suit with similar bans.
Iran said Sunday that it will begin operation of the country's first nuclear power plant in the summer of 2008 using half its 1,000 megawatt capacity, the official news agency IRNA reported.
"Half of the capacity of the Bushehr nuclear power plant will be launched in the summer of the coming year," IRNA quoted Mottaki as saying.
After months of delay, Russia began shipping nuclear fuel to Bushehr in mid-December and completed its second delivery on Friday.
The Iranians have said Russia will send a total of 82 tons of nuclear fuel in eight shipments.
Tehran heralded the initial shipment as a victory, saying it proved its nuclear program was peaceful, not a cover for weapons development as claimed by the U.S. and some of its allies.
Russia's decision to begin shipping nuclear fuel to Iran followed a U.S. intelligence report released earlier this month that concluded Tehran had stopped its nuclear weapons program in late 2003 and had not resumed it since.
Iran says it never had a weapons program.
WASHINGTON (CNN) In a last-minute nudge to North Korea, the U.S. State Department said Sunday it was "unfortunate" that Pyongyang had not supplied a complete declaration of its nuclear programs before a Monday deadline but signaled it would continue disarmament talks with its allies.
Under a deal struck in February, North Korea began to disable its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon which produced weapons-grade plutonium for the bomb it tested in 2006 in exchange for economic and energy assistance.
But it has yet to document its past and present nuclear secrets, another condition of the deal.
"It is unfortunate that North Korea has not yet met its commitments by providing a complete and correct declaration of its nuclear programs and slowing down the process of disablement," State Department spokesman Tom Casey said in a written statement Sunday evening.
"We will continue to work with our close allies Japan and South Korea, and partners China and Russia, as we urge North Korea to deliver a complete and correct declaration of all its nuclear weapons programs and nuclear weapons and proliferation activities and complete the agreed disablement. "
"The United States is committed to fulfilling our obligations under the Six Party agreements as North Korea fulfills all its obligations," Casey said.
Sunday's statement follows a December 1 personal letter from U.S. President George W. Bush to North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, urging his government to fulfill its end of the bargain.
Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson has reportedly fined his players a total of one million pounds ($1.98m) after their pre-Christmas party ended in sordid front-page headlines.
Old Trafford chief Ferguson also reminded his superstars that he will not hesitate to sell any player who believes he is bigger than the Premier League club. Ferguson has taken a hard line with players throughout his career and his latest comments come after the December 17 players' party ended in allegations of rape.
Ferguson has also expanded on his dislike of the celebrity lifestyle now enjoyed by many high-profile players.
"What annoys me about some players today is this personal glory thing. "They score a goal and then knock players out of the road so they can have their own private, personal gratification and praise from the fans. It's ugly seeing these kind of celebrations.
They no longer go to the small Italian restaurants but to the big and bright places.
The head of England's Professional Footballers' Association also issued a warning to the game's highly-paid stars.
Iraqi security forces were on high alert Sunday around Baghdad and in the Sunni heartland north of the capital as the country marked the one-year anniversary of Saddam Hussein's execution.
Iraq army Brig. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi said security forces were "ready and prepared for any emergencies that might happen.
In Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, hundreds of people and school children visited his burial site to pay homage and lay flowers.
Some gave fiery speeches while others just stood quietly by the tomb in a large mausoleum in the Tigris River village of Ouja the small hamlet just outside Tikrit where Saddam was born.
The tomb was covered in Iraqi flags and flowers and flanked by large pictures of a smiling Hussein.
Hussein is buried next to his sons Odai and Qusai, who died in a gun battle with U.S. forces in a 2003 in the northern city of Mosul.
Footage of Hussein's December 30 execution, filmed on a mobile phone and showing the former Iraqi leader being taunted just before he was hanged, was leaked to the media and shown across the world.
It provoked an outcry, particularly among many of Iraq's Sunni Arabs, and sparked a horrific day of violence that left 80 people dead from bombings and other attacks.
Hussein was executed shortly after being convicted on charges of killing 148 Shiite men and boys in Dujail, north of Baghdad, after a botched assassination attempt in 1982.
Benazir Bhutto's 19-year-old son will succeed her as chairman of the Pakistan People's Party, which will take part in upcoming elections, officials announced Sunday. Bilawal Zardari, speaking in English at a news conference, said:
"I am thankful for the CEC [Central Election Commission] for imposing their trust in me as chairman of the Pakistan People's Party.
"Like all chairmen of the PPP, I will stand as the symbol of the federation. The party's long and historic struggle for democracy will continue with renewed vigor, and I stand committed to the stability of the federation.
"My mother always said democracy is the best revenge."
Bhutto had named her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, to head the Pakistan People's Party in her will, which was read on Sunday, but he handed over the position to the couple's son, PPP official Makhdoom Amin Faheem said.
The party accepted that decision in a meeting following the reading of the will.
Party officials told CNN that the younger Zardari, who attends Oxford University in England, will take over as chairman once he completes his studies.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown spoke to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf on the telephone Sunday, and the Pakistani leader agreed to consider international support for the investigation into Bhutto's death, according to a statement from Brown's office.
Musharraf's government has previously rejected international help, specifically from Britain.
LAFAYETTE, Indiana (CNN) A woman whose diamond ring vanished while she was making fudge for a bake sale was despondent after scouring her home and finding no sign of it.
But Linda Vancel recently got a sweet surprise:
A relative of the woman who bought the fudge found the ring when he bit into a piece of the candy.
"It's a very sentimental ring," Vancel said of the white gold ring her mother, who died 15 years ago, wore for 50 years before passing it on.
Linda Rhoades bought the fudge during a bake sale in West Lafayette.
She took some of it to her sister-in-law's father, Charles "Red" Matson, in hopes of cheering him up after recent health problems.
When Matson snacked on a piece of the fudge, he bit into something hard the ring.
Rhoades said Matson called her and said, "Well, Linda, it's got chocolate all over it, but it doesn't look adjustable.
It's got a stone that's really shiny.
Vancel said she had scoured her home, even dumping the trash can on the kitchen floor to sort through the rubbish for the ring.
Finally she thought to track down Rhoades and sent her a long-shot e-mail, which Rhoades returned as soon as she got back from vacation.
"Sometimes there's so much negative in the world, to hear a story like this is reassuring.
(CNN) Police in Phoenix, Arizona, appealed Sunday for help in finding a 24-year-old man known as "Psycho" who is a suspect in Saturday's shootings of six people and a dog.
A spokesman for the Phoenix Police Department described the suspect, Jose Francisco Mendoza, as a 5-foot, 9-inch tall Latino man.
Sgt. Joel Tranter said two police officers responded Saturday evening to a 911 report of a disturbance at a house in a suburb of Phoenix.
When they arrived, they were met with gunfire from Mendoza, who was standing in the street, Tranter said.
Though the officers returned fire, neither they nor Mendoza was hurt, Tranter said in a news release.
Calls to police from inside the house reported that several people had been shot, he said.
Police sealed the neighborhood and entered the house, where they found five shooting victims;
a sixth was found in front of the house, Tranter said. A dog was also critically wounded, Tranter said.
The six victims, who were taken to a hospital, have not been identified publicly.
They were all described as being in stable condition.
Police found a gun in a second house, leading them to believe Mendoza is unarmed, Tranter said.
VILLAVICENCIO, Colombia (CNN) With its fearsome record of kidnapping and violence, Colombia's largest guerrilla army might seem a nightmare group to encounter. But not to Oliver Stone.
The American filmmaker is jumping at a chance to meet with a group the U.S. classifies as a terrorist organization.
Leaving the glamour of Hollywood far behind, Stone arrived in the steamy Colombian city of Villavicencio on Saturday as part of a mission led by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to retrieve three hostages held for years by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.
"I have no illusions about the FARC, but it looks like they are a peasant army fighting for a decent living," Stone said in an interview with The Associated Press at his hotel bar.
Stone is part of an international delegation expected to fly by helicopter as early as Sunday into the country's eastern jungles, an area the size of France, to collect the captives:
former congresswoman Consuelo Gonzalez, Clara Rojas and her young son Emmanuel, who was fathered by one of her guerrilla captors.
Chavez personally invited Stone to join the rescue delegation after the pair, who say they are mutual admirers, met for the first time last week in Caracas.
Dispatching rescue helicopters from Venezuela on Friday, Chavez joked that Stone was President Bush's emissary to the operation, while Stone called Chavez "a great man.
"This release could be a new start, a break in the ice and the release has been well-propelled forward by Chavez," said Stone. "The important thing is that we build momentum so everyone can be released.
The mission also gives Stone a chance to get the lay of Colombia's political landscape for two upcoming movies.
He is also producing of one of two rival Hollywood biopics about Pablo Escobar, history's most infamous cocaine trafficker.
The movie, which Stone hopes to film in Colombia, is based loosely on a book by Escobar's brother, Roberto.
NAIROBI, Kenya (CNN) Kenya's government has suspended all live television broadcasts as violence engulfed Nairobi following the re-election of incumbent president Mwai Kibaki.
A senior official from the Kenyan Television Network said it had been ordered to stop live broadcasts as rioters went on the rampage.
Kenyan television had earlier broadcast an address from the chairman of the electoral commission announcing that Kibaki had narrowly defeated Raila Odinga, of the opposition Orange Democratic Movement, winning by slightly more than 231,000 votes of the more than 8.9 million votes cast.
A top media executive said on condition of anonymity that the decision to suspend broadcasts had "taken back democratic process by 15 years.
Police denied there had been violence following the announcement of the result, which was contested by Odinga's party who accused the government of "doctoring" the count.
But a CNN crew witnessed plumes of smoke rising over the Kibari slum, a stronghold of support for the opposition and the scene of pitched battles between rioters and police on Saturday.
Witnesses said rioters were setting fire to buildings in protest at the result,
Following a swearing-in ceremony, Kibaki insisted the elections were "free and fair" and called upon opposition parties to set aside their differences and to "let us all work together to build consensus.
The U.S. State Department echoed the president's sentiment and congratulated Kibaki on his re-election.
A spokesman for the State Department called on all Kenyans to abide by the results so that the nation can move forward.
According to AP reports, at least 14 people have been killed in election-related violence since Thursday's voting in Kenya.
Nine died Sunday in the Mathare shantytown, AP reported.
Kibaki's slim margin of victory is a marked difference from his win five years ago, in a landslide election.
He had run on promises to fight corruption.
He has seen his authority erode amid a number of high-profile corruption scandals in his government.
He faced a serious challenge from Odinga, a flamboyant politician who hails from the minority Luo tribe and has won support from rural and urban voters after promising to share the wealth among all the people.
Beijing will allow Hong Kong to directly elect its leader by 2017 and all its lawmakers by 2020, the territory's chief executive said Saturday.
Donald Tsang said the move was a "most important step" in the former British colony's political future.
The government in Beijing has been debating Hong Kong's political development and had been expected to announce its decision later Saturday on a timetable for allowing direct elections.
Tsang, however, announced the decision during a televised press conference early Saturday.
(CNN) Conflicting reports about what caused the death of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto are fueling questions about the circumstances of her assassination.
Video footage of Thursday's attack on Bhutto contains a murky shot of a hand firing a pistol three times, but the Pakistani government said Bhutto who was standing through her vehicle's sunroof was not hit.
The latest explanation Friday by Pakistan's Interior Ministry said Bhutto, 54, died from a fractured skull after hitting her head on a piece of the vehicle.
Immediately following the gunfire, a suicide bomber ignited explosives near Bhutto's motorcade.
Cheema added that the lever was stained with blood.
Cheema's version of events conflicts with that of the government-run news agency Associated Press of Pakistan, which at first quoted the Interior Ministry as saying shrapnel from the bomb blast killed Bhutto.
The suicide bomb killed more than 20 others, and at least 100 were wounded.
On Thursday, an initial report from the Interior Ministry said Bhutto died of a gunshot wound to the neck.
Bhutto's death did not result from a bullet or shrapnel, Cheema said, and nothing entered her head.
Dr. Mussadiq Khan of Rawalpindi General Hospital, who treated Bhutto before she was declared dead, said she had "a big wound" on the side of her head "that usually occurs when something big, with a lot of speed, hits that area.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2994068
KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) Two foreign nationals working for the European Union and the United Nations have left Afghanistan after the government ordered them out for allegedly trying to talk to the Taliban, officials from the international organizations said Thursday.
Nilab Mubarez, a spokeswoman for the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), said Mervyn Patterson, a tribal affairs expert, left the country before the 48-hour deadline set by the Afghan government.
An EU official said Michael Semple, who had been the acting head of the EU mission in Afghanistan, had also left the country.
Mubarez said the United Nations was continuing its discussions with Afghan authorities to allow Patterson to return.
A provincial Afghan official in Helmand said the men were "talking with the enemies of Afghanistan.
UNAMA spokesman Aleem Siddique said Patterson and Semple were in Helmand to talk to the people there and find out their needs and concerns a process which he said includes talking to people who may not support the government.
But Siddique denied the men were trying to contact the Taliban.
"We do not talk to the Taliban" he said. "If there are any talks with the Taliban, these talks must be led by the government of Afghanistan.
Mischa Barton was arrested for misdemeanor driving under the influence after her car was stopped by sheriff's deputies early Thursday morning in West Hollywood.
Her arrest was first reported by Hollyscoop.com.
KATHMANDU, Nepal (CNN) Rescuers searched for a third day as 26 people remained missing after the collapse of a bridge spanning the Bheri River in western Nepal, police said.
Sixteen bodies have been recovered the majority of them of women and children.
"Today we will search for the missing in the river with rafts," police superintendent Bahadur Jang Malla said on Thursday from Surkhet.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, army and police rescue teams searched as many at 20 miles (30 kilometers) downstream, looking for bodies.
The 120-yard-long bridge spanned the snow-fed river in the Surkhet district, about 280 miles (450 kilometers) southwest of Kathmandu.
The number of people on the bridge at the time of the collapse is estimated at between 700 and 1,000, said Nepal police officer Nibandha Budha.
The men, women and children taking part in the final day of a Hindu festival were crossing the bridge from one religious site to another when the structure gave way, police said.
Meanwhile, a government engineer overseeing Nepal's suspension bridge division said the bridge should have been able to hold more than the 1,000 people believed to have been on it when it collapsed on Tuesday.
"Although we have to examine the bridge before we come to a definite conclusion, there must have been a defect in the building of the bridge," said engineer Mani Ram Gelal. "A knot could have been loose.
TOKYO (CNN) Rising energy costs triggered the biggest jump in Japanese consumer prices in almost a decade while industrial production slumped, the government said Friday, clouding the outlook for the world's No. 2 economy.
The nation's jobless rate unexpectedly fell to 3.8 percent in November, but overall the mixed data cements expectations that the Bank of Japan will keep interest rates unchanged for some time, even as energy-fueled inflation accelerates.
The nationwide core consumer price index, which excludes volatile fresh food prices, jumped 0.4 percent in November compared to the same month a year ago, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said.
The reading was above analysts' expectations and marked the fastest rise since a 1.8 percent increase in March
It was also the index's second straight month of gains following a 0.1 percent rise in October.
The core CPI was lifted by a 5.4 percent jump in energy prices.
Gasoline prices surged 10.8 percent on year.
The Bank of Japan has looked for a rise in consumer prices as a sign the country has fully emerged from years of deflation.
Still, the central bank has been cautious to hike rates too quickly amid concerns over the U.S. subprime loan crisis and the possible impact of the global economic slowdown on Japan's economy.
The Bank of Japan kept its key interest rate unchanged at 0.5 percent at its policy meeting earlier this month, still the lowest rate among major industrialized countries.
November from the previous month, the first drop in two months.
Industrial output rose 1.7 percent in October after falling 1.4 percent in September, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said.
The ministry also said manufacturers polled expect that their output will rise 4.0 percent on month in December, but will be flat in January.
Offering some respite was an unexpected drop in the country's jobless rate to 3.8 percent in November from 4.0 percent a month earlier.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said the total number of jobless was down 130,000 on year, marking the 24th consecutive month of decline.
Airlines and service providers seeking to deliver high-speed Internet services to passengers say they've learned from Boeing Co.'s 2006 decision to pull the plug on its ambitions to outfit its planes with a similar service.
"We wanted to attack every one of the things that were inhibitors in that first-generation system," said Jack Blumenstein, chief executive of Aircell LLC, which is providing service for American and Virgin.
Aircell licensed a band three times the size of LiveTV's for $31 million and plans to offer broader Internet services, including Web surfing, for about $10 a flight what Boeing had charged for the first hour.
Boeing had deals with major international carriers such as Germany's Lufthansa AG and Japan Airlines Corp., but large U.S. carriers several of which filed for bankruptcy in the aftermath of September 11 balked at investing in extra services.
Boeing spokesman John Dern said the aircraft maker had no plans to re-enter the business and was leaving such services to others.
EWING, New Jersey (CNN) Convicted sex offenders who used the Internet to help them commit their crimes will be banned from using the Internet under a measure signed into law Thursday.
The bill applies to people who, for example, lured a potential victim through e-mail or other electronic messages.
"We live in scary times," said Acting Gov. Richard J. Codey, who signed the bill because Gov. Jon S. Corzine is vacationing in the Caribbean.
Under the law, sex offenders will have to let the state Parole Board know about their access to computers.
Convicted sex offenders will have to submit to periodic, unannounced examinations of their computer equipment and install equipment on their computers so their use can be monitored.
Parole officers can also order polygraph tests for convicts suspected of violating the Internet ban, said Parole Board Chairman Peter Barnes.
The Parole Board currently supervises about 4,200 paroled sex offenders whose sentencing guidelines call for lifetime supervision regardless of whether their offenses involved the Internet.
The board last month approved new rules banning those convicts from using Internet social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace.
The Parole Board imposed the new restrictions after state officials discovered, after subpoenaing several sites, hundreds of profiles registered to convicted sex offenders.
No federal law restricts sex offenders' Internet use.
Florida and Nevada are the only other states to impose such restrictions.
"When Megan's Law was enacted, few could envision a day when a sex offender hiding behind a fake screen name would be a mouse-click away from new and unwitting victims," she said.
BEIJING, China (CNN) Japan's prime minister will hold summit talks with Chinese leaders Friday on a number of thorny issues, with a stop at the birthplace of Confucius indicating his desire for warming ties between the Asian giants.
The countries have a history of animosity stemming from disputes over territory, wartime history and a regional rivalry, but Yasuo Fukuda's four-day visit his first as prime minister follows several friendly meetings between leaders and a Chinese warship's historic port call to Japan.
Fukuda will hold talks with President Hu Jintao, Premier Wen Jiabao and legislative chief Wu Bangguo on Friday.
Duhamel's publicist, Ruth Bernstein, said her client recently popped the question to the pop star, whose debut solo album is titled "The Dutchess." She did not release any other details.
Duhamel, 35, told Best Life magazine in a recent interview that he's been dating 32-year-old Fergie for about three years and that they have bought a house together.
Duhamel is the star of NBC's "Las Vegas," and appeared in the action movie "Transformers.
Fergie, whose name is Stacy Ann Ferguson, is a member of the Black Eyed Peas. Her hit song "Big Girls Don't Cry" from "The Dutchess" has been nominated for a Grammy award in the best female pop vocal category.
Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated Thursday in Rawalpindi, was the first female prime minister of Pakistan and of any Islamic nation.
She led Pakistan from 1988 to 1990 and again from 1993 to 1996.
Bhutto, 54, spent eight years in self-imposed exile in Great Britain and Dubai after President Farooq Leghari dismissed her second administration amid accusations of corruption, intimidation of the judiciary, a breakdown of law and order, and undermining the justice system.
She was found guilty of corruption and sentenced to five years in prison.
The conviction was later overturned but she remained in exile until this year.
She returned to Pakistan in October after President Pervez Musharraf signed an amnesty lifting corruption charges.
In a September 26 interview on CNN's "The Situation Room," Bhutto said she expected threats against her life as she prepared to lead a push for the restoration of democracy in Pakistan.
"After military dictatorship an anarchic situation developed, which the terrorists and Osama (bin Laden) have exploited," she told CNN's Wolf Blitzer.
Bhutto narrowly escaped injury on October 18 when a suicide bombing near her convoy in Karachi killed 126 people.
Bhutto was the daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, former president and prime minister of Pakistan, who was hanged in 1979 for the murder of a political opponent two years after he was ousted as prime minister in a military coup.
Her brother, Murtaza, was killed along with six others in a 1996 shootout with police at his home.
Another brother, Shahnawaz, died mysteriously in France in 1985.
"I put my faith in the people of Pakistan, I put my faith in God. I feel that what I am doing is for a good cause, for a right cause to save Pakistan from extremists and militants and to build regional security.
Benazir Bhutto earned degrees from Radcliffe College and Oxford University and received an honorary degree from Harvard University in 1989.
She leaves her husband of 20 years, Asif Ali Zardari, two daughters and a son.
President Bush, on his ranch in Crawford, Texas, said Bhutto "refused to allow assassins to dictate the course of her country.
"We stand with the people of Pakistan in their struggle against the forces of terror and extremism," Bush said. "We urge them to honor Benazir Bhutto's memory by continuing with the democratic process for which she so bravely gave her life."
The body of Pakistan's assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was being flown home Friday, as sporadic violence was reported in cities across the country.
The Interior Ministry said she died from a gun shot wound to the neck, fired by an attacker who then detonated a bomb killing 22 other people.
Police fired on a crowd, killing two people, in the city of Khairpur in the Sindh province, GEO TV reported.
In Peshawar, officers used tear gas and batons to break up a demonstration, the station said.
Many obliged, shuttering shops or rushing home from work, and surrendering the streets to protesters who set fire to banks, shops, gas stations and more, Pakistani media reported.
Ahmad said that he saw dozens of burned-out cars as he drove home from work.
A one-mile strip leading to Bhutto's Karachi house was a "ghost town," he said.
Bhutto's body was being transported to the family's ancestral graveyard in Gari-Khuda Baksh in Sindh province, where she will be buried later Friday, said Sen. Safdar Abbasi, a leader of her Pakistan People's Party.
Her coffin body was removed from Rawalpindi General Hospital late Thursday carried above a crowd of grieving supporters.
Bhutto spent her final moments giving a stirring address to thousands of supporters at a political rally in a park in Rawalpindi, a city of roughly 1.5 million that is 14 km (9 miles) south of the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.
Kenyans were voting Thursday in tight presidential and legislative elections which could see an incumbent leader voted out of office for the first time since the country's independence.
President Mwai Kibaki was facing a challenge from opposition leader Raila Odinga, a flamboyant politician who for weeks has accused his rival of corruption.
Voters were also choosing 210 lawmakers and more than 2,000 provincial authority members.
Despite fears of violence, voting appeared calm.
One man told CNN he was excited to vote because he feels it's the most important election in Kenya's history since independence in 1964.
Another man, who is 82, said he was voting to encourage Kenyan youth to do the same.
Harun Owade, a 30-year-old mechanic, had been waiting in line to vote since 3:30 a.m. in Kibera, home to at least 700,000 people in a maze of potholed tracks and ramshackle dwellings.
We will put the politicians to the test.
Many others, however, don't feel they have benefited from the economic boom.
Odinga has openly appealed to them to vote out the incumbent so they can share the wealth.
The election could be a test for Kenya's young multi-party democracy.
Suspicion swirled around Islamic extremists Thursday as news spread that former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto had been assassinated.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said the killers were the same extremists his country has been battling.
He vowed he would not rest until they are tracked down.
President Bush blamed "murderous extremists who are trying to undermine Pakistan's democracy" and said authorities must bring them to justice.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband also pointed to "extremist groups.
Several groups had something to gain from Bhutto's death, said Vince Cannistraro, a 27-year CIA official who ran the agency's counterterrorism operations from 1989 to 1991.
"Clearly al Qaeda and Islamic fundamentalists had expressed hatred toward her," Cannistraro said. "They would be No. 1 on the list.
Bhutto returned to Pakistan on October 18 after eight years in self-imposed exile.
Bombers attacked her convoy after her arrival, killing at least 140 of her supporters.
"Don't forget that this was a suicide bombing," he said.
"That's a technique we have seen used by the Taliban and al Qaeda.
MOUNT WASHINGTON, New Hampshire (CNN) Neither strong wind nor high flames bothered Nin the cat during a dozen years patrolling the Northeast's highest peak as mascot of the Mount Washington Observatory.
It's retirement that bums him out.
The regal ex-stray with a bright white coat and black splotches was carried off the mountain Wednesday for the last time and will live with some park rangers in the valley below due to old age and a recent infection claiming the last of his teeth.
"He's 17 or 18 years old, so he's getting up there. We wanted to do the most humane thing for him," said Scot Henley, executive director of the nonprofit weather observatory.
Nin is moving in with Diane Holmes and Mike Pelchat, rangers at Mount Washington State Park, after years of petting and pampering from visitors and researchers alike.
"I am the latest in a long and famous line of Observatory felines," reads Nin's profile on the facility's Web site. "I ... find it very unnerving to head down the mountain (especially since they only take me to the vet's!).
Nin was never fazed by the gusty wind and bad weather.
He was a welcome pal to legions of meteorologists and scientists passing through during weekly stints taking weather measurements in hurricane-force wind and heavy fog.
The observatory isn't expected to be feline-free for long.
The Conway Area Humane Society is evaluating successors to take over by the end of January, Henley said.
They're looking for a new cat who is friendly, not spooked by bad weather and has the wits to know when to come in out of a storm.
RAWALPINDI, Pakistan (CNN) Pakistan's former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated Thursday after addressing a large gathering of her supporters.
Bhutto died of a gunshot wound to the neck, the Pakistani Interior Ministry said.
The attacker then blew himself up.
The bomb attack killed at least 22 others, doctors said.
John Moore, a photographer for Getty Images, said Bhutto was standing through the sunroof of her vehicle, waving to supporters, when two shots rang out.
Bhutto fell back into the vehicle, and almost immediately a bomb blast rocked the scene, sending twisting metal and shrapnel into the crowd, he added.
Police sources told CNN the bomber, who was riding a motorcycle, blew himself up near Bhutto's vehicle.
Bhutto was rushed to Rawalpindi General Hospital less than two miles from the bombing scene where doctors pronounced her dead.
Her body was removed from the hospital carried above a crowd of supporters late Thursday night, and a Pakistan Air Force plane is flying the body to Sukkur, accompanied by her husband and three children, said Pakistan People's Party leader Sen. Safdar Abbasi.
Bhutto is scheduled to be buried in the ancestral graveyard of the Bhutto family at Gari-Khuda Baksh in Sindh province Friday afternoon.
Chaos erupted at the hospital when former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif arrived to pay his respects to Bhutto less than three hours after her death.
Hundreds of Bhutto supporters crammed into the entrance shouted and cried, some clutching their heads in pain and shock.
Sharif called it "the saddest day" in Pakistan's history. "Something unthinkable has happened," he said.
Sharif said his party will boycott Pakistan's January 8 parliamentary elections in the wake of the assassination.
President Pervez Musharraf said the killers were the same extremists that Pakistan is fighting a war against, and announced three days of national mourning.
Police warned citizens to stay home as they expected rioting to break out in city streets in reaction to the death.
Rioters burned tires and blocked roads in Karachi and other cities, police sources said.
Police fired on an angry mob, killing two people, in the city of Khairpur in the Sindh province, Geo TV reported.
President Bush said those responsible "must be brought to justice" and praised Bhutto as a woman who had "fought the forces of terror."
Manchester United strolled to a 4-0 away win over struggling Sunderland to return to the top of the English Premier League on Boxing Day.
The champions might have been expecting an awkward afternoon on their trip to the Stadium of Light to play a team managed by their former captain Roy Keane, but the reality was very different.
England international striker Wayne Rooney opened the scoring with a deft 20th-minute finish, and French star Louis Saha doubled the lead 10 minutes later.
half performance with a trademark free kick on the stroke of the interval which left home goalkeeper Craig Gordon with no chance. Ronaldo departed to warm applause from both sets of supporters just before the hour mark as Korean Park Ji-Sung was handed his first taste of first-team action since undergoing knee surgery in March.
At 70, without a thing left to prove, Jack Nicholson is sharpening his political edges.
Not that he'll be showing up at any presidential campaign rallies.
"I, by choice, am not an activist at this point," Nicholson said. "I think Sean Penn is the greatest living American in a certain way, because he's a man of action.
I feel by being a neutralist in this area, in my actual field of endeavor I can be more effective.
"You do not become militant if you wish to be a successful propagandist.
Because all you will do is preach to the choir and further entrench your opposition.
Yet he also won't criticize President Bush:
Nicholson was last politically active during George McGovern's 1972 campaign against Richard Nixon, and he points to his beliefs at that time in explaining why he left that realm of the public eye.
"I wanted to do solar energy. I wanted to legalize drugs versus the terrorist problem, which I was aware of in the '70s. Because where else are they getting illegal money at that level?
Harlem is the historic capital of black American culture, but like many New York neighborhoods, it is rapidly changing.
Big retailers like Old Navy, Starbucks, Payless, Staples and Blockbuster are ubiquitous.
On 125th Street near Fifth Avenue, bulldozers clear a vacant lot for an upscale hotel.
Old-timers worry that redevelopment will wipe out mom-and-pop stores and affordable housing, along with the area's distinct character.
Certainly Harlem's appeal to tourists has never been stronger.
Japanese visitors queue up at Sylvia's, the famous soul food restaurant.
But how does a visitor find the real Harlem amid all the changes?
And what is the real Harlem anyway?
Restaurants
Anywhere you walk in the community is history," said Clarence Cooper, manager of Sylvia's.
Sylvia's is Harlem's best-known eatery (328 Lenox Ave.
near 126th Street) and can get very busy at peak times like Sunday brunch.
The $4.50 express breakfast on a weekday at the counter (8-10 a.m.) is a nice alternative.
near 116th) opened in 2005 with good reviews for its healthy Chinese food.
Shopping
African Paradise, which sells jewelry, wallets, sculptures and other African imports, is expected to move from 27 W. 125th St. in mid-January.
"Change is good, but when they start improving, they push people out of stores and apartments.
Bus tours
Each year, about 40 percent of the 3 million people using Gray Line's hop-on, hop-off buses around New York take the "Uptown Loop," which includes Harlem and stops on 125th Street across from the Apollo Theater.
Heavy security prevented media from approaching Sarkozy's entourage at the airport and the couple was whisked off in a convoy of Egyptian presidential security cars to Luxor's famed Old Winter Palace hotel on the east bank of the Nile.
Wearing sun glasses and dark casual clothes in balmy Egyptian winter weather, they turned to wave to a crowd of onlookers and media as they walked up to the hotel, appearing relaxed and at ease with the media attention.
Security was stepped up around the hotel and at the three archaeological sites Sarkozy and Bruni were to visit the Luxor Temple, the city's museum and the Karnak Temple.
In Paris, France-2 television reported Bruni and Sarkozy would spend three days at the Winter Palace.
French media also reported that the couple would travel to the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheik on Thursday.
Sarkozy is scheduled to start an official visit to Egypt on Monday, when he meets President Hosni Mubarak, the French Embassy in Cairo said.
Sarkozy, 52, and Bruni, 39, first surfaced as a couple earlier this month on a visit to Disneyland Paris.
Their appearance, captured by the French media, came two months after the French president's divorce from his wife of 11 years, Cecilia.
Bruni, 39, and an Italian-born French citizen, is a longtime model who won critical and public acclaim for her first folk album in 2003, singing in a raspy, whispery voice.
She has dated a range of famous men, including Mick Jagger and Donald Trump, and has also reportedly been linked to singer Eric Clapton and actor Vincent Perez.
SEATTLE (CNN) Amazon.com said Wednesday its 2007 holiday season was its strongest to date, with Nintendo Wii game systems and the "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" DVD among its top-selling products.
The online retailer said it sold about 17 Nintendo Wiis per second when the product was available.
The fifth Harry Potter movie led DVD sales, followed by "Planet Earth:
The Complete BBC Series" and "Pirates of the Caribbean:
At World's End.
Other products that sold well included Garmin GPS systems, the Apple MacBook and KitchenAid stand mixers.
Amazon.com's (AMZN, Fortune 500) said it experienced its strongest holiday sales on Dec. 10, as customers ordered more than 5.4 million items, or 62.5 items per second.
The company shipped products to more than 200 countries, with more than 3.9 million units sent on its peak day.
RICHMOND, Virginia (CNN) As an Army surgeon in the Middle East, Dr. Keith Rose watched a colleague bleed to death when a truck in his convoy was hit with a rocket-propelled grenade.
Rose could not get his comrade a tourniquet, which could have helped control the bleeding on his wounded leg, and sat along the mangled wreckage and talked with him as he took his last breath.
"It really kind of frustrated me," Rose said.
Once he returned to the U.S., Rose approached BlackHawk, a provider of military and law enforcement gear, with an idea to create clothes with built-in tourniquets.
The system being tested for use in military uniforms, called Warrior Wear, has eight tourniquets two in each sleeve and pant leg.
"No matter how good the tourniquet is, if you can't get it on the person at the right time, it doesn't work," said Rose, who does tactical medicine consultation and medical work overseas.
"It's something that is so basic, so cost effective and so overwhelmingly life changing," he said.
The Norfolk-based company said the clothing should be available for retail around the end of March.
"Tourniquets have allowed many people with devastating injuries to come back that in another time and another place would have died," said Col. Patricia R. Hastings, director of the Army's Department of Combat Medic Training based at Fort Sam Houston in Texas.
"If you can save a medic a few minutes of time so he can concentrate on saving your life ... it has great possibilities," Hastings said.
And with the concept of battlefields changing, Rose said the system is more vital than
"The way wars are fought now ... there's no defined lines of engagement," Rose said. "The average cook could be hit with a rocket attack while he's carrying potatoes to the mess hall. "
Advances in body armor have made protecting the core of a body easier, but more than 60 percent of injuries in military and law enforcement conflicts today are to the extremities, said Terry Naughton, director of industrial security at BlackHawk.
Naughton said 10 percent of deaths are from injuries where blood loss was uncontrollable.
"We are confident that the day that this hits the field, that lives will be saved," Naughton said.
"And if we save one person, we've done our job.
The well-publicized landing of 40 Iranian Jews in Israel on Tuesday spurred glee among some Israelis and the immigrants themselves and drew public scorn from a surprising quarter in Iran two officials from its centuries-old Jewish community.
One of them described the emigration as a "misinformation" campaign and defended their lives under the government of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Other Iranian Jews have immigrated to Israel over the years.
The group that sponsored the immigration is the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, based in Chicago. It says it wants to help Jews flee such persecution.
The group receives money from evangelical Christians.
Eckstein said immigrants received $10,000 each because they left behind possessions to go to Israel.
Soldiers, police and volunteers dug for survivors of landslides that killed as many as 78 people Wednesday in western Indonesia, including dozens who were celebrating the cleanup of a mud-covered home, a rescue official said.
Authorities were trying to get heavy-lifting equipment to affected villages on the main island of Java, said search and rescue chief Eko Prayitno, but blocked roads were hampering the efforts.
Days of torrential rain triggered the landslides as well as floods that inundated thousands of houses elsewhere in the country.
Sixty-one people were buried by a landslide in Karanganyar district just as they were having a dinner to celebrate the successful clean up of one mud-covered home, he said.
Seventeen others were feared dead in nearby Wonogiri district, after it was hit with 12 hours of nonstop rain.
The landslides occurred on the third anniversary of the Asian tsunami, which killed 230,000 people in a dozen nations.
Seasonal rains and high tides in recent days have caused widespread flooding across Indonesia the world's fourth most-populous nation where millions of people live in mountainous regions and near fertile flood plains close to rivers.
Floods were reported in numerous locations elsewhere on Java, as well as on Sumatra and Sulawesi islands.
When Japan's prime minister heads to China for a summit Thursday, he'll face conditions his predecessors haven't enjoyed for years:
Signs of improving relations have been gathering pace, helping to push aside long-standing disputes over territory, wartime history and a regional rivalry.
"Both sides want better ties, but they can't change the fact their relations are fraught with problems," said Hisashi Takahashi, international relations professor at Sophia University in Tokyo. "The question is, whether they can keep on talking, because the problems are going to take a long time to tackle.
In recent months, a Chinese warship dropped anchor off Tokyo, the first military visit by the communist nation to Japan since World War II.
High-level economic talks in Beijing brought together the largest number of Cabinet officials from the two countries since they opened diplomatic ties 35 years ago.
"China attaches great importance to the Prime Minister Fukuda's visit, and is ready to make joint efforts with Japan to enhance political mutual trust, expand common interests, and deepen practical cooperation," Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang told reporters Tuesday.
China is Japan's No. 1 trade partner;
"Fukuda is looking to earn popularity points, while China is working on its foreign policy image with the Olympics coming up," Sophia University's Takahashi said.
President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela said Wednesday that three hostages held by Colombian rebels could be freed with hours.
Chavez said his forces had airplanes and helicopters ready to retrieve the hostages at a moment's notice.
The hostages have been held for several years by the left-wing Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as the FARC for its Spanish acronym.
On Wednesday, Chavez stood before a map showing Venezuela and Colombia and pointed out several airports on the Venezuelan side of the frontier where the freed hostages could arrive.
He said he had considered options for a clandestine operation, but decided that would be too risky.
Hostages who could be freed include Clara Rojas, who was kidnapped in 2002 while she managed the campaign of Sen. Ingrid Betancourt, a candidate for the Colombian presidency, Chavez said.
They also include Rojas' son, Emmanuel, who was born in captivity, and Consuelo Gonzalez, a former Colombian congressman, he said.
Betancourt could be freed with other hostages later, Chavez said.
The FARC has been engaged in a long-running war in Colombia that has involved right-wing paramilitaries, left-wing rebels, government forces and drug traffickers.
PANAMA CITY, Panama (CNN) The sole survivor of a plane crash that killed two Americans and a Panamanian pilot was awake and talking Wednesday, a doctor said.
Francesca Lewis, 13, apparently fell out of the plane or was ejected on impact, her mother, Valerie Lewis, told CNN on Wednesday.
The girl endured two days in the rugged mountains of Panama, in frigid temperatures and heavy rain, before rescuers stumbled upon her in the wreckage on Christmas Day.
"She's doing all right," Valerie Lewis said. "She is having tests done at the hospital right now, and so far things seem good.
Francesca apparently was disoriented when her rescuers saw her under a wing of the wrecked plane, her mother said.
Rescuers carried the girl on a stretcher for three and a half hours in torrential rain over rugged terrain to a helicopter.
The small plane disappeared Sunday in a mountainous area of Panama.
Authorities found the bodies of pilot Edwin Lasso, American businessman Michael Klein and Klein's 13-year-old daughter, Talia, about 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, according to a statement posted on the Web site of Panama's civil protection agency.
Francesca and Talia were friends.
Rescuers planned to retrieve the three bodies Wednesday, said Thomas Mesa, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Panama City.
Klein, a 37-year-old hedge fund manager, was vacationing with the two girls when they took the flight Sunday to photograph a volcano in Chiriqui province, about 285 miles west of Panama City.
Radio contact with the flight was lost about noon Sunday.
Authorities and hundreds of volunteers spent the last two days searching the dense jungles and mountainous terrain, but heavy rain in the area had hampered recovery efforts.
"So many people tried to help, and at great effort and sacrifice, and through the Christmas holiday.
SAN FRANCISCO, California (CNN) The person mauled to death by a Siberian tiger at the San Francisco Zoo on Christmas was 17-year-old Carlos Sousa of San Jose, California, the San Francisco medical examiner's office said Wednesday.
The area where the 300-pound female named Tatiana killed the teen and attacked two men was declared a crime scene. The survivors, whose identities have not been released, are in stable condition, according to a surgeon at San Francisco General Hospital.
"They rested overnight after they were taken to the operating room for cleaning and closure of their wounds," Dr. Rochelle Dicker told reporters. "Right now, I can tell you that they're in good spirits, and they look absolutely fantastic.
San Francisco Police Chief Heather Fong said police secured the area to gather evidence and witness statements.
Earlier, authorities searched the San Francisco Zoo four times and are certain that there are no more victims of the tiger, which escaped from her pen.
They used infrared and heat-sensing tools and also walked the area between where the tiger is believed to have gotten out of her cage and a cafe where the attacks took place.
"There were no other tigers that were lose in the zoo and no more victims," Fong said Wednesday.
Tatiana was held in an exhibit area that included a 20-foot moat and an 18-foot wall, said zoo director Manuel Mollinedo.
It's possible the tiger jumped from her enclosure, but authorities have not determined how the animal escaped.
The zoo remained closed Wednesday while officials investigated, Mollinedo said.
The zoo is expected to reopen Thursday, but the lion house, the zoo's big-cat exhibit, will remain closed "until we get a better understanding of what actually happened.
(CNN) A judge sentenced six French aid workers to eight years hard labor Wednesday after convicting them of trying to kidnap 103 children in the central African country of Chad.
The judge also fined each of the six defendants to pay ¢æ60,000 ($87,000) to each of the 103 children, according the CNN Paris-based affiliate, BFM-TV.
That order would require each defendant to pay a total of ¢æ6,180,000 ($8.9 million.)
Authorities detained members of the French charity, Zoe's Ark, in October as they tried to fly 103 children from Chad to France.
The charity said the children were orphans who had fled the nearby war-torn Sudanese region of Darfur, but aid agencies later said the children were from Chad, not Sudan, and that they were not orphans.
The head of Zoe's Ark, Eric Breteau, said after the verdict that he and his colleagues may "have been lied to" about whether the children were from Sudan or Chad and whether they were orphans.
"We are really sorry because our intention was never to separate families," he told France 2 in N'Djamena, the capital of Chad.
Antonia Van Winkelverg, the wife of convicted aid worker Philippe Van Winkelverg, blasted the sentence in an interview with France 2.
But Chadian prosecutor Alain Kagonbe tld BFM-TV: "It was a very merciful ruling, and if that ruling had been rendered by the French justice system it would have been the same.
The court in Chad also sentenced two people from Chad and Sudan to four years in prison.
Landslides triggered by heavy rains on the Indonesian island of Java have killed scores of people, with at least 61 feared dead, a search and rescue official told CNN Wednesday.
According to Sutarso, who only goes by one name, about 100 people are assisting with the search, but are not able to reach all areas.
Heavy equipment to help in clearing the debris is en route.
David Beckham is eager to play under new England manager Fabio Capello despite the stormy relationship the two shared at Real Madrid.
Capello dropped Beckham from Real Madrid when the former England captain announced his move to play for the Los Angeles Galaxy in Major League Soccer.
But Beckham won back his place and helped Madrid win the Spanish league title last season.
"There were ups and downs with me and the manager at the time but he brought me back into the team and he had the belief in me to put me back in the team," Beckham said.
Capello, who has won 14 trophies with four different clubs, was appointed manager of England's ailing team on December 14.
The Alyeska Resort, long considered a niche venue for locals and adventure skiers, is undergoing a $25 million expansion to lure larger groups of winter vacationers, families especially, to the peaks of south-central Alaska.
The resort's owner, a wealthy real estate investor and self-professed ski junkie from Utah, has stoked big changes at the Girdwood institution, from new conveyor-belt lifts for beginners and snowmaking machines, to refurbished guest rooms and healthier menus.
III, who bought the resort last year, is also negotiating with the U.S. Forest Service to build a lift that would open hundreds of acres of raw terrain in the Chugach Mountains to highly skilled off-piste skiers and snow-boarders.
But the top priority, Byrne said, is making steep and rugged Mount Alyeska less daunting for novices.
"Alyeska has lots of great expert terrain, which I love, but what we really need now is more good beginner and intermediate terrain," Byrne said by phone from his home in Alta, Utah. "In the long run, we need to offer the complete package.
This season, the resort is offering new ski-school classes and has carved out some mellower runs to give skiers and snowboarders more options on the mountain.
At the low end, group lessons start at $45 for young children.
More than a month after Cyclone Sidr tore across Bangladesh killing more than 3,000 people and affecting at least 8.7 million, photojournalist John Cobb visited badly hit areas and contributed this story for CNN.
As I walked into Rajashwer village in southern Bangladesh, the only sign of human habitation was tarpaulins strung up along the river bank.
The heart of the village looked as though it had been through a tumble dryer.
Possessions were knotted into the branches of fallen trees, corrugated metal roofs and wooden walls were scattered and smashed beyond repair.
The last time I saw such scenes was three years ago, in the aftermath of the 2004 Indian ocean tsunami.
Typical of many coastal villagers, Kanchan has lost not only his home, but also his livelihood.
He is a fisherman, but most boats and nets were destroyed during the cyclone.
His neighbor, Soleman Khan, lost seven members of his family during the cyclone.
The body of Soleman's eldest son was found, still clinging to his two dead children.
The cyclone resulted in far fewer fatalities than the 2004 tsunami.
In large part this was due to an effective early warning system and training for people in disaster risk reduction.
But the United Nations estimated It has nevertheless affected 8.7 million people and damaged or destroyed a quarter of a million homes.
CHICAGO (CNN) Warren Buffett's investment company announced Tuesday it will pay $4.5 billion for 60 percent of Marmon Holdings, a private company of more than 125 manufacturing and service businesses.
Berkshire Hathaway, based in Omaha, Nebraska, said it plans to acquire the remaining 40 percent of Marmon over the next five to six years depending on future earnings of Marmon, according to a statement released Tuesday by both companies.
Marmon is owned by trusts for the benefits of the Pritzker family of Chicago, the family that developed the Hyatt Hotel chain.
Before the closing, Marmon said it will make a "substantial distribution of cash and certain assets to the selling shareholders," according to the statement.
Brothers Jay and Robert Pritzker acquired Marmon in 1953 when it was a small manufacturing operation in Ohio, according to the release.
In 2002, Jay's son Tom Pritzker took over as chairman.
"Our transaction was done just the way Jay would have liked it to be done no consultants or studies," Buffett said in the statement. "I am pleased that over the next five to six years, we will be partnering and working ... in continuing to build Marmon.
Billionaire investor Buffett is CEO and chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, which has more than 60 subsidiaries.
Across all regions, the weekend snowstorm's death toll is at 22.
Denver saw up to 7 inches of snow, resulting in a handful of flight delays.
United Airlines canceled about 50 flights in Denver and some in Chicago to catch up from delays caused by an earlier Midwest storm.
Besides Colorado, snow fell in parts of Wyoming, Minnesota and the Nebraska Panhandle, sometimes making travel difficult.
A semi trailer slid off Interstate 80 in Wyoming and overturned near Chappell during the snowstorm, and numerous other vehicles went into ditches on the interstate and other highways, Cheyenne County Sheriff's Deputy Fred Wiedeburg said. No injuries were reported.
In Nebraska, the most snow reported was 8 inches, five miles north of Harrisburg in Banner County.
HONG KONG, China (CNN) Supporters of deposed Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra won nearly half the seats in the lower house of parliament, making them the clear favorites to lead a new government, according to official results, Thailand's election commission announced Tuesday.
According to Apichart Sukakanon, chairman of Election Commission of Thailand, the People Power Party captured 233 of 480 seats in Sunday's parliamentary elections, followed by the military-backed Democrat Party with 165 seats.
The results will be ratified on Jan. 4.
Earlier on Tuesday, Thaksin said he would return from exile early next year and face corruption charges against him.
Thaksin told a news conference in Hong Kong that he hoped to return by February 14 St. Valentine's Day or April at the latest after Thailand's new government is in place.
People Power Party leader Samak Sundaravej said a new parliament controlled by the PPP would put in place an amnesty to allow Thaksin's return and amend the constitution to allow Thaksin to eventually return to politics.
Nevertheless, the Associated Press reported that Thaksin was adamant he would not return to politics.
"I am quitting politics, I am not going back to politics. I will not take any political position except when they want any ideas," the AP reported him as saying.
However he later indicated that he could change his mind if the situation in Thailand changed.
Samak is expected to be the next prime minister once he pulls together a coalition of parties that would give the PPP a majority of seats in parliament.
Samak moved quickly to establish a coalition, telling CNN in a phone interview that at least two other political parties had agreed to join the PPP.
Thaksin, speaking in Hong Kong, said he would not return to politics after his return to Thailand.
He said that he and his family had "suffered enough" but that he wanted to face the charges against him and prove his innocence.
He congratulated the PPP for "bringing back democracy" to Thailand and said that December 23, the date of the elections, should be known as a "reconciliation day.
About 5,000 candidates from more than three dozen parties vied for the 480 seats in the parliament's lower house.
In most cases, their names didn't appear on the ballot; voters had to remember them by assigned numbers.
The Election Commission is expected to look into fraud and irregularities cases on Tuesday.
The lower house must open within 30 days after the election day January 22.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) Dozens of people picking up cylinders of cooking gas were victims of a suicide car bomb attack Tuesday morning in the northern Iraqi city of Baiji.
The explosion killed at least 25 people and wounded 80 others, a Salaheddin police official said.
A suicide car bomber slammed into a truck loaded with cooking gas cylinders at a checkpoint manned by Iraqi soldiers and members of a local Awakening Council a grass-roots movement that fights al Qaeda in Iraq.
A number of people were killed in secondary explosions when cooking gas cylinders exploded, the police official said.
Iraqi security forces and U.S.-led coalition forces were on the scene of the attack.
A U.S. military statement said the casualty toll was 20 dead and 80 wounded.
Baiji Police Chief Saad Nufoos was dismissed from his post as a result of the attack, according to an Iraqi Interior Ministry official.
Baiji is about 125 miles (200 kilometers) north of Baghdad.
In a second suicide attack, a bomber blew himself up in the middle of a funeral procession in western Baquba, killing nine people and wounding 20 others, a Baquba police official said.
Casualties included members of another Awakening Council.
Among the dead was the local head of the Brigades of 20th Revolution, a former Sunni insurgent group that is now an ally of the U.S. military.
According to police, the funeral was for Auday Mohammed Hassan, also an Awakening Council member whom gunmen had killed inside his Baquba house hours earlier.
Baquba is in Diyala province about 35 miles (56 kilometers) north of Baghdad.
Al Qaeda in Iraq fighters have launched aggressive attacks against Awakening Councils in Diyala province in recent weeks.
NEW DELHI, India (CNN) Call centers and other outsourced businesses such as software writing, medical transcription and back-office work employ more than 1.6 million young men and women in India, mostly in their 20s and 30s, who make much more than their contemporaries in most other professions.
They are, however, facing sleep disorders, heart disease, depression and family discord, according to doctors and several industry surveys.
Experts warn the brewing crisis could undermine the success of India's hugely profitable outsourcing industry that earns billions in dollars annually and has shaped much of the country's transformation into an emerging economic power.
Heart disease, strokes and diabetes cost India an estimated $9 billion in lost productivity in 2005.
But the losses could grow to a staggering $200 billion over the next 10 years if corrective action is not taken quickly, said a study by New Delhi-based Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations.
The outsourcing industry would be hardest hit, it warned.
Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss wants to enforce a special health policy for employees in the information technology industry.
The outsourcing industry has come under fire because the sedentary lifestyle of its employees combined with often stressful working conditions makes them more vulnerable to heart disease, digestive problems and weight gain than others.
Some complain of psychological distress.
A recent survey by Dataquest magazine and technology consulting company IDC showed sleep disorders topped health complaints among outsourcing industry workers.
Sleep and digestive disorders, doctors say, can grow into bigger problems:
"Even Hitler didn't wake up going, 'let me do the most evil thing I can do today.' I think he woke up in the morning and using a twisted, backwards logic, he set out to do what he thought was 'good.'
The quote was preceded by the writer's observation: "Remarkably, Will believes everyone is basically good.
Over the weekend, dozens of celebrity gossip Web sites posted articles about the comment, many saying that Smith believed that Hitler was a "good" person.
I am incensed and infuriated to have to respond to such ludicrous misinterpretation.
Greeted by joyous relatives and a crowd of reporters, about 40 Iranian Jews landed in Israel on Tuesday, leaving behind their lives in the Islamic republic for new homes in the Jewish state.
Family members screamed in delight and threw candy at the newcomers as they emerged into the airport reception hall after a long bureaucratic procedure.
"I feel so good," said Yosef, 16.
He and his brother Michael arrived with their parents and a sister and were greeted by their grandparents, who went to Israel six years ago.
The brothers declined to give their family name to protect relatives still in Iran.
The new arrivals were sponsored by the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, a charity that funnels millions of dollars from evangelical donors each year.
Michael, 15, said he told all his friends where he was going, and they wanted to come along.
"I was scared in Iran as a Jew," he
Israel's military advocate general said the use of cluster bombs by the country's armed forces during last year's war with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon was done so in accordance with international law and, as a result, he will not file charges against any military officers who ordered their use.
The findings were reported by Brig. Gen. Avihai Mendelblit on Monday.
"Based on the evidence gathered by the Investigating Officer, it was clear that (the) majority of the cluster munitions were fired at open and uninhabited areas, areas from which Hezbollah forces operated and in which no civilians were present.
The enormous collateral damage and civilian casualties in southern Lebanon caused an outcry by rights groups and Arabs governance about the use of cluster bombs.
Last January, preliminary findings of a State Department investigation into Israel's use of U.S.-made cluster bombs in the war showed the Israeli army likely violated agreements with the United States governing their use, a State Department report said.
"There may likely could have been some violations," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.
The State Department sent a report to Congress laying out the preliminary findings, he said.
KATHMANDU, Nepal (CNN) Rescuers were searching through the night Tuesday for hundreds of people who fell into a river after a footbridge collapsed during a religious festival in Nepal.
They're still there, and they're still looking for bodies," journalist Manesh Shrestha told CNN from Nepal's capital, Kathmandu.
The suspension bridge in remote Surkhet collapsed with as many as 1,000 Hindu pilgrims on it, police said.
While many swam to safety, about 200 people who were on the bridge were missing, police said. Only 15 bodies had been recovered so far.
Rescuers took 20 women and 12 men to a hospital, police added.
"The bridge collapsed because there were hundreds of people on it," said Nepalese police officer Nibandha Budha. "They had gone to the river for a three-day Hindu religious festival on the occasion of full moon.
The 120-yard-long bridge spanned the Bheri River in the Surkhet district, southwest of Kathmandu.
The river is fed by snow from the Himalayas.
Seven hundred to 1,000 people were on the bridge when it gave way, Budha said.
Many people were just standing on the bridge rather than crossing it, adding to the stress on the structure, Shrestha said.
He added that most of the people on the bridge were women and children, and that women in Nepal are not encouraged to learn how to swim.
The bridge linked two temples involved in the festival, which was in its final day, he said.
Nepalese soldiers, police officers and civilians were involved in the rescue effort, which was hampered by darkness and the remoteness of the location.
A Maoist insurgency that began in 1996 ended with a cease-fire in November 2006. The crown prince massacred 10 members of the royal family and killed himself in 2001.
A government was established in 2004 but dissolved in 2005.
CIENFUEGOS, Cuba (CNN) Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez presided Friday at a regional petroleum summit in Cuba, pressing his efforts to counter U.S. influence in Latin America and the Caribbean by suggesting more of his neighbors could pay for cheap oil with goods or services in lieu of cash.
In his opening speech to the Petrocaribe summit in Cienfuegos, a southern coastal city about 155 miles from Havana, Chavez said his plan to provide low-cost oil to the region should go beyond financing mechanisms.
Providing fuel in return for locally produced goods or services has been an option for some time under Venezuela's current Petrocaribe pact, which supplies oil to the region through long-term, low interest financing.
Chavez also called for creating an international fund to promote solar, wind, geothermal and other alternative energy sources.
Venezuela has the largest oil reserves outside the Middle East.
It is South America's largest oil exporter and the fourth-largest supplier of crude to the United States.
Chavez said Petrocaribe members' collective debt for Venezuelan crude is currently near $1.2 billion and is expected to grow to $4.5 billion by 2010.
He is promoting Petrocaribe as part of a larger effort to create a regional confederation from Argentina to Cuba that will help the region counter U.S. influence.
Petrocaribe allows nations to repay Venezuela over up to 25 years with 1 percent interest as long as the price of crude is above $40 a barrel.
Venezuelan Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez told reporters Friday evening that Petrocaribe would establish a group to look at ways its members could pay for crude with products or services without becoming burdened with financial debt.
He called it "a new mechanism, like the one we use with Cuba."
Staff at some of Britain's busiest airports have voted to stage three strikes in the new year, their union said Friday.
Workers at seven airports, including London's Heathrow and Gatwick, decided to take action after airport operator BAA announced its intention to change its employee pension plan, the Unite union said.
Unite said the strikes would lead to severe disruptions during a normally busy period, while BAA called on the union to return to talks.
The first strike will be for 24 hours on January 7, the second will be for the same length on January 14, and the third will be for 48 hours starting January 17.
Edinburgh, Stansted, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Southampton are the other airports affected.
LONDON, England (CNN) The nine newest members of the European Union were celebrating on Friday after border controls officially were lifted, allowing them to move freely within the EU's passport-free zone.
At midnight Thursday, the EU expanded the zone to embrace the eastern and central European countries that joined in 2004 Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia.
The nine, including three former Soviet republics, joined 15 already enjoying the benefits under the Schengen agreement.
European Commission President Josi Manuel Barroso welcomed the extension of the Schengen zone, which will make it possible to travel 2,500 miles from Estonia to Portugal without having to show a passport.
"Together we have overcome border controls as man-made obstacles to peace, freedom and unity in Europe, while creating the conditions for increased security," Barroso said.
The occasion was marked by special border ceremonies, including one on Germany's eastern border with Poland and the Czech Republic at Zittau.
Barroso attended along with luminaries including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
Despite the celebrations, the expansion has prompted security fears that illegal immigrants, drug smugglers or terror suspects could find it easier to cross into Europe from its eastern borders.
To counter these concerns, the European Commission has spent 1 billion euros ($1.5 billion) on security improvements along its eastern fringes, including thermal imaging to track illegal migrants.
Since July, Poland has seen a steep increase in the number of asylum seekers crossing into the country, many from Chechnya
and other ex-Soviet states, the agency said in a statement.
The agency said there were reports that smugglers were spreading rumors that the borders would be closed to asylum seekers under the new arrangements, prompting the influx and leading to overcrowding at centers that house migrants in eastern Poland.
Although the new rules mean travelers can move freely without a passport, they can still be asked to carry documents by any of the countries concerned.
KATMANDU, Nepal (CNN) Nepal's governing coalition on Sunday moved away from its long-standing monarchy toward a republic, but the change will be implemented only after general elections slated to be held by next spring.
"The seven parties, including the Maoists, agreed to amend the constitution to include the phrase that Nepal 'will be a federal democratic republic,' " Arjun Narsingh KC, a spokesman for the Nepali Congress Party which heads the government, said in a telephone interview.
The agreement calls for the republic to be implemented only after the first meeting of the constituent assembly, KC said.
Nepalis are slated to vote for the constituent assembly, thereby ending the 240-year-old monarchy and preparing the ground
Sunday's agreement with the former Maoist rebels ends months of political deadlock that had stalled the peace process.
The second time, slated for November 22, was delayed after the former Maoist rebels pulled out of the government demanding that Nepal be declared a republic and the electoral system be changed to one of full proportional representation.
More than 13,000 people were killed in the 10 years of fighting in the country between the state and the communist rebels.
Under Sunday's agreement, 58 percent of the 601 members of the assembly will be elected through proportional representation and 42 percent through a single-winner voting system among the candidates.
A French journalist kidnapped while producing a television documentary about human trafficking in Somalia said he is "quite okay," and has been allowed to use a mobile phone to talk to his girlfriend in France, according to a short phone interview he gave to a Somali journalist.
Members of a tribal clan who took Gwen Le Gouil hostage last Wednesday have demanded an $80,000 ransom for his release, indicating the kidnapping is financial and not political, according to Mohamad Mohamed, the editor of Radio Garowe, which broadcasts from northern Somalia's Puntland province.
The president of the breakaway Somalia region of Puntland has been critical of Le Gouil for traveling without government consent in the area to work
Another Somali journalist a member of the same clan as the kidnappers took photographs showing Le Gouil appearing relaxed, in a cave with two guards standing behind him, their faces covered and holding AK-47 machine guns.
Le Gouil said he was unaware of what efforts were being made to pay the ransom and gain his release.
Blair, who had long been a member of the Church of England, converted to the Catholic faith during a Mass held Friday night at a chapel in London, the Catholic Church said.
"It can be confirmed that Tony Blair has been received into full communion with the Catholic Church by Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor," the head of the church in England and Wales, the church said in a statement.
"I'm very glad to welcome Tony Blair into the Catholic Church," the statement quoted Murphy-O'Connor as saying.
"For a long time he 's been a regular worshipper at Mass with his family and in recent months he's been following a program of formation for his reception into full communion.
Our prayers are with him, his family and his wife at this joyful moment in their journey of faith together," Murphy-O'Connor said.
There had long been speculation that Blair planned to convert to Catholicism.
His wife, Cherie, is Roman Catholic, the couple's children have attended Catholic schools, and Blair had regularly attended Catholic, rather than Anglican, services.
Blair, who is now a Middle East peace envoy, met Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican in June.
The former prime minister told the BBC this year that he had avoided talking about his religious views while in office for about 10 years for fear of being labeled "a nutter.
The Church of England has said that less than 10 percent of its members are regular churchgoers.
Julio Baptista scored the only goal of the game to give Real Madrid a 1-0 win at bitter rivals Barcelona sending the champions seven points clear in the Primera Liga and ending the Catalan side's 100 per cent home record this season.
The 30-time champions have 41 points from their 17 games, with Barcelona in second place on 34 points.
Neither side had many chances in a scrappy first 35 minutes in which the biggest threats came from the free-kicks of Real winger Wes Sneijder.
At the other end, Real's Iker Casillas once again proved his credentials as one of the best goal keepers in Europe when he produced two wonderful reaction saves in rapid succession to thwart Ronaldinho and
A suicide bombing attack on a military convoy killed at least five civilians and one soldier Sunday in troubled northwestern Pakistan, an army spokesman and police said.
The dead and injured have been transported to a hospital, he said.
Arshad provided no further details, but a local police official said that the attack in fact killed three soldiers.
Queen Elizabeth II will use YouTube to send out her 50th televised annual Christmas message, a British Sunday newspaper reported.
Buckingham Palace plans on posting archive footage on the video sharing Web site, including her maiden Christmas Day television speech sent out to Britain and its former colonies in 1957, The Sunday Times reported.
The palace plans to post the first of the archive footage on the queen's royal YouTube "channel" on Sunday, the report said.
"The royal channel is a way of bringing the queen's Christmas message to more people of all ages across the world and keeping up with technological innovation as the queen has always done," the newspaper quoted a royal spokeswoman as saying.
(CNN) Turkish warplanes Sunday carried out a new round of attacks against Kurdish rebel positions in northern Iraq, Iraq's deputy minister of Kurdish regional government forces said.
Jabbar Yawar said three planes bombed positions in a mountainous area north of Irbil for about an hour.
There were no civilian casualties, since civilians had abandoned the area due to fear of Turkish attacks, Yawar said, adding that he did not know whether any Kurdish rebels were killed.
On Saturday, Turkish aircraft pounded the border area for more than two hours in hopes of routing PKK rebels, Yawar said.
Last week, Turkey's ambassador to the United States, Nabi Sensoy, said his country's maneuvers against Kurdish militant targets in northern Iraq were based on intelligence provided by the United States.
The PKK has spent two decades fighting for autonomy for Kurds in southeastern Turkey, staging some attacks from northern Iraq.
The United States and the European Union consider the group a terrorist organization.
Elsewhere in Iraq, a roadside bomb targeting an Iraqi Army convoy killed at least two civilians and wounded four others in southeastern Baghdad's Zafaraniya district about 8 a.m. Sunday, according to an Interior Ministry official.
A bomb blast shattered windows of a home owned by the director of the Human Rights Ministry's provisional branch in Kut about 100 miles south of Baghdad injuring several residents early Sunday, the official said.
Loyalists of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra won nearly half the seats in Thailand's parliamentary elections Sunday in a striking rebuke to the generals who forced the billionaire populist from power in 2006.
The failure of the pro-Thaksin People's Power Party to capture an absolute majority in the 480-seat lower house of parliament opens the way for his opponents to form a government despite the PPP's substantial mandate.
Complete results were due Monday.
"I would like to call for all political parties to join us in forming a strong government," PPP leader Samak Sundaravej said at a news conference. "I will certainly be the prime minister.
He said Thaksin, who was in Hong Kong, had telephoned to offer his congratulations after hearing the results.
The second-place Democrat Party took 165 seats.
"If the PPP succeeds in forming the government, the Democrat Party is ready to be in the opposition to protect the people's interest. However, if the PPP fails to form a government, the Democrat Party is also ready to form a government," said Democrat Party leader Abhisit Vejajjiva.
The PPP got most of its support from the rural north and northeast, where Thaksin's programs, including universal heath care and generous village development funds, won a hard-core following.
The Democrats ran strongest in Bangkok, where the 2006 movement to oust Thaksin was centered.
Only seven parties of 39 running won parliamentary seats.
About 60 percent of 45 million eligible voters cast ballots for about 5,000 candidates.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is known for his political maneuvers.
Putin, a black belt, said Friday that he and Yasuhiro Yamashita, a world and Olympic judo champion from Japan, have made an instructional video together.
The news came after Putin got a message of greeting from Yamashita during an opening ceremony at Toyota Motor Corp.'s new assembly plant near his hometown of St. Petersburg.
"I think it will be coming out in January or February.
Two years ago, Putin and Yamashita attended a judo lesson in St. Petersburg together, helping students practice holds at the judo school. He had met Yamashita during a visit to Tokyo the previous month.
Putin co-authored a judo manual several years ago.
His physical fitness helped build his popularity among Russians after years with the hard-drinking and chronically ill Boris Yeltsin, who died in April, as president.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday that 2007 was a "busy and challenging year, but also a positive one" for U.S. foreign policy.
a year-end news conference at the State Department, Rice said challenges remained in Iraq but noted they were ones of how to build on gains made in the past year.
The so-called surge of additional troops this year, she said, made an "undeniable dent" in curbing violence and restoring security in the country.
As for Iran and Syria, Rice said the U.S. remains "open to better relations," but negotiations with Iran will stall as long as Tehran keeps up the enrichment of uranium. "As long as the Iranians are talking and practicing enrichment, you're not going anywhere," she said. "In fact, they are using the cover of negotiations to perfect enrichment technology.
Rice said she and President Bush will work with Israelis and Palestinians and help turn their "discussions into substantive agreements.
In Lebanon, the Bush administration will support the government to help "marginalize" violent extremists, according to Rice.
Rice said the United States has a one-China policy and that the administration does not support independence for Taiwan. She called Taiwan's referendum to join the United Nations under its name a "provocative" move.
Rice also said the United States expected North Korea to provide a comprehensive declaration of its nuclear
She said the contention the United States has adopted a go-it-alone foreign policy, a recent accusation by Republican presidential contender Mike Huckabee, was "just simply ludicrous.
Everton cemented their place in the last 32 of the UEFA Cup with a superb 3-2 Group A victory at AZ Alkmaar, ending the Dutch club's proud unbeaten home record in Europe that stretched back over 32 matches.
Everton got off to a perfect start and took the lead after just 63 seconds.
Andrew Johnson shook off the attentions of David Mendes da Silva to score at the near post.
It was the striker's fourth goal of the season he was also on target in the victory against West Ham at the weekend.
AZ hit back in the 12th minute when Demmy de Zeuw strode forward, but his effort cleared the bar.
However, they equalised in the 17th minute with a swift counter-attack when Graziano Pelle clipped a shot into the corner after good work by Simon Cziommer.
But Everton regained the lead and made sure of four wins from four in group A for the third time in the 80th minute when James Vaughan showed a cool head to send his effort into the corner after being set up by Victor Anichebe.
The result means that AZ fail to qualify from the group, continuing their dismal season under coach Louis Van Gaal.
First-year medical students are some of the biggest hypochondriacs around.
Bombarded with information about every disease under the sun, they start to imagine they have them all.
In their minds, every mole is skin cancer. A nosebleed is surely a sign of a tumor.
"People get terribly anxious," says Dr. Arthur Barsky, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. "One woman who came to see me was convinced she had melanoma.
She brought in 20 pages of color photos of various skin lesions, trying to figure out which one looked most like hers.
And now, because of the Internet, we can all be first-year medical students.
We can all develop what's called "medical student syndrome."
Of course, health information on the Internet can be truly useful.
But how do you know when you're using it constructively, and when you've gone off on a medical wild goose chase?
"I think it's fairly easy to cross that line," says Robin DiMatteo, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside.
you feel worse after Web surfing instead of better
"Plan in advance what you want to find out, what the question is you're trying to answer, and how much time you're willing to spend on it," he says.
"If you find yourself exceeding those limits, you should ratchet it down.
"I was studying for an exam on the pancreas, and I became convinced I had a rare type of pancreatic tumor.
Thieves broke into the Sao Paulo Museum of Art and made off with paintings by Pablo Picasso and Candido Portinari in a brazen heist lasting three minutes Thursday morning.
"This is a highly professional job, done by people who knew exactly what they were doing," said the lead Sao Paulo police investigator on the case, Marcos Gomes de Moura.
"Everything indicates they were sent to do it by some wealthy art lover for his own collection someone who, although wealthy, was not rich enough to buy the paintings," Moura added.
Sao Paulo police have sent alerts out to try to stop the paintings from leaving Brazil, Moura said.
Security cameras captured video images of three men entering the museum but little else, and the images are of poor quality, he said.
Police were interviewing 30 museum employees in connection with the crime, but Moura said all of the guards were longtime employees, none with less than 10 years on the job.
Local media reports estimated their value at around $100 million, but Cosomano and other curators said it is difficult to put a price on them because the paintings had not gone to auction.
The company also said China's government-controlled investment vehicle has invested $5 billion to help replenish its capital.
Like Citigroup and Bear Stearns before it, Morgan Stanley appears to have found the allure of deep sovereign fund coffers too good to resist.
But will these funds eventually exact a pound of flesh for their investment?
"Morgan Stanley may be taking a page out of the 1980s Wall Street playbook," said Boston University School of Law Professor Charles Whitehead, who spent 20 years in the banking industry. "However, there remains an open question about whether sovereign wealth funds raise issues unanticipated by earlier waves of purely private investors.
Throughout the 1980s, Japanese investors armed with the strong yen snapped up high-profile U.S. real estate deals like Rockefeller Center in New York City.
This time around, foreign governments, flush with dollars from either trade surpluses or oil, are sponsoring even bigger investments in financial companies that could give them a more influential role on Wall Street.
In October, Bear Stearns Cos.
The chat, retrieved from a computer hard disk, was among new evidence prosecutors used to justify re-arresting the three in November, Hans Mos said.
New technology that was not available to authorities in 2005 was utilized to find that chat and more between two of the three suspects as well as others, he said.
Mos' office said Tuesday they will not prosecute the three in Holloway's disappearance, effectively closing the case unless new evidence comes to light.
In the chat, Mos told CNN's Susan Candiotti, one of the suspects said, "The fact that she's dead is not good," referring to Holloway.
But, he said, authorities did not find any further discussion of Holloway's death or how she died.
She failed to show up for her flight home the following day, and her packed bags were found in her hotel room.
Rep. Tom Tancredo abandoned his long-shot bid for the Republican presidential nomination Thursday and endorsed Mitt Romney's candidacy, saying the Massachusetts Republican "can go the distance.
Tancredo, a Colorado Republican, is a fierce proponent of stricter illegal immigration laws, but his campaign struggled to gain traction with Republican primary voters, despite many naming illegal immigration as a top concern.
put illegal immigration on the national agenda.
"I am ecstatic about the fact that we can say we have made remarkable progress along those lines," Tancredo said during a press conference in Des Moines, Iowa. "According to Newsweek, the Tancredo campaign has already won.
After announcing he was dropping out of the race, Tancredo endorsed Romney's presidential bid, saying that Romney supported his stance on illegal immigration and national security and that the former Massachusetts governor could win the presidency.
Of the likely Republican Iowa caucus-goers interviewed for the poll, 20 percent said immigration was the most important issue in deciding who they will support.
Steve King of Iowa, a friend of Tancredo's who shares his tough approach on immigration, announced he was backing former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee instead.
(CNN) Buildings collapsed, power lines were knocked out and gas pipes ruptured when a powerful earthquake hit the northeastern coast of New Zealand late Thursday.
Media reports in New Zealand, citing the government, listed the quake reportedly felt as far south as the city of Christchurch at 6.8 magnitude.
The U.S. Geological Survey put it at 6.6.
But local resident Phil Robinson, who recently moved to New Zealand from the United Kingdom, told Television New Zealand that the quake had caused serious damage to the city.
"Everything was bedlam for about 15 or 20 seconds," Robinson said. "We gather several properties in town have been damaged. It's had a serious effect on lots of people in the city.
Robinson said communications were "patchy" and it was difficult to make telephone calls on both landlines and cell phones.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Civil Defense and Emergency Management confirmed to The Associated Press that three buildings in Gisborne had collapsed.
"Most of the damage is utilities gas, water and electricity.
Television New Zealand said there were no reported injuries and that despite suffering minor damage, Gisborne hospital was operating normally.
The network reported eye witnesses saying the city of Gisborne was covered in glass.
MINA, Saudi Arabia (CNN) The 60-year-old Egyptian farmer spent years scraping together $11,000 to bring his wife and son here to perform Islam's hajj pilgrimage.
They have slept for days in tiny one-person tents near the Hajj's sacred sites and walked for miles from ritual to ritual despite his wife's bad knees.
But Mohammed Abdel-Salam Ali said they were not going to let the hardship ruin their journey to answer God's calling.
"It's hard, but it's also beautiful," Ali said Thursday, sitting in his small plastic tent on the roadside at Mina, the ancient spot in the desert outside Mecca where for the second day more than 3 million pilgrims stoned symbols of the devil.
For many Muslims, performing the Hajj is a lifelong dream, a chance to fulfill a requirement of their faith and win forgiveness for their sins.
The rituals at Mina commemorate Abraham's stoning of Satan, who is said to have appeared three times to the prophet to tempt him.
It is symbolized by three "pillars" long stone walls called the Jamarat which pilgrims pelt with pebbles.
On Wednesday, the ritual's first day, pilgrims threw seven stones at the largest one.
On Thursday and again on Friday, they pelt all three with seven stones each.
Over the years, the stoning ritual has been one of the most dangerous of the Hajj, with stampedes that have killed scores.
A crush of pilgrims in 2004 killed 244 people, and the following year more than 360 were killed when several pilgrims tripped over baggage while others behind them kept pushing ahead.
After that accident, Saudi authorities tore down the platform around the Jamarat and built a new one with more entrances and exits, and they plan to expand it to a total of five levels in coming years.
(CNN) A few seconds could have made all the difference in the fate of a family who spent three days lost in the snowy California woods, according to the helicopter pilot who found them.
The father of the family, Frederick Dominguez, came running out of the culvert where they had sought shelter when family members heard the sound of the California Highway Patrol helicopter Wednesday afternoon.
"Had he not been moving, we would not have seen him, because the tree line was very dense and he came climbing out of the culvert," helicopter pilot Steve Ward told CNN on Thursday. "We were just very lucky.
Dominguez had arranged branches to spell the word "help" near the culvert, but rescuers didn't see that until they were turning the helicopter around after spotting Dominguez.
Dominguez and his three children had been lost in the snow since Sunday, when they set out to cut down a Christmas tree.
They sought shelter first in a lean-to they made of branches, then in the culvert under a road.
Dominguez said his daughter Lexi, 14, was the first to hear the helicopter overhead.
Thursday, Lexi was hospitalized after complaining that her feet hurt.
Trying to protect their cold, wet feet from frostbite was an ongoing problem while the four were lost in the forest.
Through their three-day ordeal, the oldest son, Chris, 18, tried to keep his younger brother and sister optimistic.
But it was hard to stay hopeful lost in rugged terrain, in heavy snow, with no food and few warm clothes.
They removed their sodden socks in an effort to stay warm and dry while they waited for rescue, according to the rescuers who found them.
While the family huddled in the culvert, Lexi led them in impromptu singalongs.
"Someone would say, sing this song, and I would be like, OK," she recalled.
The four were reported missing Monday night by Dominguez's former wife and the children's mother, Lisa Sams, according to police in Paradise, California, a town of 27,000 people north of Sacramento.
SEOUL, South Korea (CNN) President-elect Lee Myung-bak said Thursday he would not shy away from criticizing North Korea's authoritarian regime, the day after his landslide win ended a decade of liberal rule that has fostered unprecedented reconciliation on the divided peninsula, The Associated Press reported.
"If we try to point out North Korea's shortcomings, with affection, I think that would go a long way toward improving North Korean society, " AP reported.
The victory by Lee of the conservative Grand National Party marks a shift to the right in Seoul after a decade of liberal presidents who pursued a "sunshine" policy of engaging the North and largely refrained from criticism of its human rights record, AP reported.
Lee pledged to work for a nuclear-free Korean peninsula and strengthen Seoul's alliance with the United States. "The most important thing is for North Korea to get rid of its nuclear weapons," he said, AP reported.
"The North's abandonment of its nuclear programs is the way for the North to develop" its economy, Lee said.
He said the divided Koreas can open a new era of cooperation through demilitarization.
He also told reporters he will press North Korea to improve its human rights record, AP reported.
Lee, a former Seoul mayor and Hyundai executive currently facing investigation amid allegations of fraud, will take office in February.
Lee's main rival was Chung Dong-Young of the United New Democratic Party.
Chung, 54, a former television news anchor and unification minister, earlier told reporters he "humbly accepted the people's choice. I hope [president]-elect Lee Myung-bak will do a good job for the country.
Third-placed independent candidate Lee Hoi-Chang also congratulated Lee.
Supporters gathered outside the Grand National Party headquarters in Seoul broke into cheers as television stations started to report news of Lee's victory.
Lee, 66, broke from the pack of candidates by virtue of his rags-to-riches life story and his business background.
He had collected trash to put himself through college, then rose to become one of the youngest CEO's of Hyundai Construction, earning himself the nickname "The Bulldozer.
The frontrunner throughout the campaign, Lee promised economic reform aimed at raising annual growth to seven percent per year and establishing South Korea among the world's top seven economies.
But the election was thrown into uncertainty Monday when the National Assembly voted to investigate accusations of fraud against him after political opponents released a video clip of him saying he founded an investment company at the center of stock manipulation charges.
Lee will take over from Roh Moo-Hun, who had promised reform and clean governance.
But scandal has marred his five-year term, with a string of Cabinet officials forced to resign over corruption allegations and Roh himself surviving an impeachment attempt in 2004.
Critics have also challenged Roh's economic policies, saying he raised taxes, created higher unemployment and caused real estate prices to soar.
At the same time, he improved relations with North Korea and became only the second South Korean president to meet with his counterpart in the North.
Roh offered his congratulations to Lee on Wednesday.
"We respect the people's choice shown in this election," presidential spokesman Chen Ho-se on said in a statement, AP reported.
Lee is to take office in February.
Families of the victims of Northern Ireland's worst terror attack in 30 years of violence have criticized police over their handling of the case after a man accused of carrying out the atrocity was found not guilty on 29 counts of murder.
Sean Hoey was cleared Thursday on more than 50 charges relating to the 1998 bombing in the town of Omagh that killed 29 people and wounded more than 300 as well as other bombings and murders in Northern Ireland.
"It was an appalling catalogue of failure on behalf of the police," said Michael Gallagher whose son, Aidan, was killed in the bombing.
, forensic scientists and prosecution lawyers all shared responsibility for the courtroom failure.
All the resources over the last nine-and-a-half years have not got us anywhere.
Senior police officers said they deeply regretted that victims and their families had not seen anyone brought to justice over the bombing.
"Our primary focus will continue to bring all those responsible for these crimes, most notably the Omagh bombing, before the courts," a police statement said. "Our investigations will continue and we would ask anyone with information about these crimes to come forward.
The Omagh bombing caused international outcry and gave fresh impetus to efforts to create a lasting peace between nationalist Catholics and pro-union Protestants in Northern Ireland.
The Real IRA, which broke away from the mainstream Provisional IRA to protest the Northern Ireland peace process, ultimately claimed responsibility.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) More militants from Libya are turning up in Iraq, U.S. military researchers say.
U.S. Military Academy researchers studying documents note the continuing predominance of Saudis among foreign fighters.
But an "apparent surge" in Libyans could be tied to "the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group's (LIFG) increasingly cooperative relationship with al Qaeda," a West Point report says.
The Libyan group officially joined al Qaeda on November 3, according to the report, called "Al Qaeda's Foreign Fighters in Iraq:
A First Look at the Sinjar Records.
The 30-page report reviewed documents seized in a September raid in the Sinjar area close to the Syrian border.
The data at that time was called "an al Qaeda Rolodex" by one official.
The report lists the identities of 595 foreign nationals who entered Iraq between August 2006 and August 2007.
Of those, 244, or 41 percent, were Saudis, and 112, or 18.8 percent, were Libyans, the report said.
Others were from Syria, Yemen, Algeria, Morocco and Jordan.
The report said that previous research found no more than 4 percent of foreign fighters were Libyan. But the records indicate that Libyans began arriving in Iraq almost all by way of Syria in greater numbers in May.
The report said that most of these recruits hail from cities in northeastern Libya, where "jihadi-linked" militants have a strong presence" and that Libyan fighters were more likely than other nationalities to be labeled as suicide bombers.
"Recent political developments in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the prevalence of Libyan fighters in Iraq, and the evidence of a well-established smuggling route for Libyans through Egypt, suggests that Libyan factions (primarily the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group) are increasingly important in al Qaeda," the report said.
The average age of the fighters was 24 to 25, and the median age was 22 to 23.
The age of the oldest fighter crossing into Iraq was 54 and the youngest was 15.
The report cited "several weaknesses" among the militants that can be exploited, including political disagreements within the ranks.
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (CNN) Science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke listed three wishes on his 90th birthday:
for the world to embrace cleaner energy resources, for a lasting peace in his adopted home, Sri Lanka, and for evidence of extraterrestrial beings.
"I have always believed that we are not alone in this universe," he said in a speech to a small gathering of scientists, astronauts and government officials Sunday in Colombo where he lives.
The British-born author, who moved to Sri Lanka in 1954, has written more than 100 sci-fi books, including "2001:
A Space Odyssey.
Clarke, who suffers from post-polio syndrome and is confined to a wheelchair, cut a cake as Sri Lanka's president, visiting astronauts and scientists sang "Happy Birthday.
"Sometimes I am asked how I would like to be remembered," Clarke said. "I have had a diverse career as a writer, underwater explorer and space promoter.
Nedo Sonetti resigned as coach of Serie A bottom club Cagliari on Wednesday and Marco Giampaolo refused an offer to return in charge of the struggling Italian outfit.
The first time was in December 2006, but the club reinstated him in February and he helped them avoid relegation.
Last month, Cagliari sacked Giampaolo again and rehired Sonetti who had also coached the club previously.
"Dignity and pride don't have a price," read a statement released by Giampaolo's lawyer, according to the ANSA news agency.
Cagliari lost 2-0 at home against Inter Milan at the weekend, keeping the club in last place in the Serie A.
WASHINGTON (CNN) The Bush administration on Wednesday called "pernicious and troubling" a New York Times article on the White House's role in the destruction of CIA interrogation tapes.
Citing unnamed administration officials, the Times article says at least four top White House lawyers took part in discussions with the CIA between 2003 and 2005 over whether to destroy videotapes of the interrogations of two al Qaeda operatives.
Among those involved in the discussions, according to the Times' sources, were former White House counsel and later Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and former Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers, who succeeded Gonzales as White House counsel.
and John B. Bellinger III, who was the National Security Council's top lawyer until January 2005.
A subheadline on the Times article reads, "White House Role Was Wider Than It Said.
"The New York Times' inference that there is an effort to mislead in this matter is pernicious and troubling, and we are formally requesting that NYT correct the sub-headline of this story," a statement from the White House press secretary's office says.
The White House release said administration officials have generally declined to comment on the matter and denied making any misleading statements.
It said the "no comment" policy would continue.
¡°We will instead focus our efforts on supporting the preliminary inquiry under way, where facts can be gathered without bias or influence and later disseminated in an appropriate fashion," it said.
One source told the Times that some officials expressed "vigorous sentiment" for destroying the tapes.
Others asserted that no one at the White House supported the tapes' destruction.
(CNN) The only copy of the Magna Carta in the United States, regarded as the earliest declaration of human rights, will be returned to the National Archives by the man who purchased it for more than $21.3 million.
The document, which was on loan to the Archives from 1988 until earlier this year, was sold Tuesday at Sotheby's auction house in New York.
The vellum manuscript, which dates back to 1297, was issued by King Edward I and is credited with memorializing the rights of man into English law.
It is one of 17 known documents, grouped under the collective heading of the Magna Carta, conceived of as the foundation for liberty and democracy.
The winning bid came from David Rubenstein, former aide to the Carter administration, and co-founder and managing director of the Carlyle Group, a global private equity firm based in Washington D.C, according to Sotheby's.
Rubenstein expressed his intention to return the manuscript to the National Archives in Washington where it had been displayed alongside the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States.
He said he feared "the only copy in America would escape," and described his purchase as "a gift to the American people. "
The Magna Carta previously was owned by the Perot Foundation, who purchased it from an English family in 1983.
"The most extraordinary document in the world was placed up for auction and the most perfect outcome was achieved."
GAUHATI, India (CNN) A man who stuck his arm into the tiger enclosure at a zoo in northeast India bled to death Wednesday after two big cats tore off his limb as his family and dozens of visitors watched, a zoo official said.
The man, identified as 50-year-old Jayaprakash Bezbaruah, avoided zoo safety precautions in an apparent attempt to photograph the two adult Bengal tigers up close, said Gauhati zoo warden Narayan Mahanta.
"The animals grabbed his limb and tore it apart at the shoulder.
Bezbaruah, who had been visiting the zoo with his wife and two children, was rushed to a local hospital but died of blood loss, said Mahanta.
"I have never encountered such a bizarre incident in my 11 years as a wildlife official. It was shocking," Mahanta said.
An online commentator who said next year's Beijing Olympics would force ordinary Chinese to live "like pigs and dogs" has been detained for nearly a week on a charge of subversion, his wife said Wednesday.
Though Beijing encourages Internet use for business and education, it tightly controls Web content, censoring anything it considers critical of or a threat to the Communist Party.
Press freedom and human rights groups say China has jailed dozens of people for writings posted online.
Wang Dejia, who uses the pen name Jing Chu, has written numerous online articles about sensitive topics in China for example, backing Taiwan's bid for U.N. membership and criticizing Beijing for human rights abuses against journalists and dissidents.
Officers confiscated his computer, memory cards, books and banking documents.
"The public security bureau said he was anti-communist," she told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.
Family members were told they were not allowed to visit Wang, who had often been under surveillance but never previously detained, his wife said.
In July, he told the Epoch Times, a newspaper linked to the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement, that China's central government was ignoring the needs of common Chinese in the lead-up to the Olympics.
Instead, he said, the Communist Party was most concerned about cracking down on dissidents and building new venues.
A Pakistani express train derailed early Wednesday morning, killing at least 41 people and injuring at least 135 others, police said.
The Karachi Express was traveling from Karachi to Lahore, carrying more than 1,000 people when it derailed at about 2:25 a.m. (4: 25 p.m. ET Tuesday) near the town of Sialabad, about 250 miles (400 km) north of Karachi, railway officials said.
Journalist Aftab Borka reported from the scene that about 12 of the 17 cars in the train were off the tracks and overturned.
Rangers, police and local residents responded for rescue work, according to railway officials, who said another train has arrived at the crash location to carry the injured to Lahore.
Other injured were taken to a nearby hospital, Junaid Qureshi, director of operations for Pakistan Railways, told CNN. He said the number of casualties is expected to rise.
The cause of the derailment was unknown, he said, and officials have not ruled out the possibility it was the result of a terrorist attack.
The Associated Press reported that officials said at least 56 people had been killed and 150 injured.
Political leaders cobbled together a five-party interim government Wednesday, ending 192 days of political deadlock and acrimony that revealed how differently Dutch-speaking and Francophone Belgians see the future of their bilingual nation.
That will also give more time to agree on constitutional reforms designed to grant more autonomy to Dutch-speaking Flanders and Francophone Wallonia.
Guy Verhofstadt, the outgoing premier, is to be sworn in Friday as head of the interim cabinet of Christian Democrats and Liberals each split into Dutch- and French-speaking camps and Francophone Socialists.
The United States is pushing Japan to suspend its hunt of humpback whales, and the American ambassador to Tokyo said Wednesday an agreement to stop it may have already been reached.
Japan dispatched its whaling fleet last month to the Southern Pacific in the first major hunt of humpbacks since the 1960s.
Word of a possible delay in the hunt came as the Australian government said it would send planes and a ship to conduct surveillance of Japanese whaling ships off Antarctica.
"I think we had an agreement this morning or last night between the United States and Japan that humpback whales would not be harvested, I think, until maybe the international whaling conference in June," Schieffer said.
A Japanese official said there was no written agreement to halt the hunt, but acknowledged that Tokyo could be considering changes to its whaling program in light of the fierce international opposition to the hunt.
"To take the concerns and anger of Australian people and other people into consideration, I think the Japanese government has started to have an intensive discussion about what steps should be taken," said Tomohiko Taniguchi, a Foreign Ministry spokesman.
"But at the moment I have heard no action, or no decision as to whether or not any sort of halt would be done this time around during this research season," he said.
Japan takes more than 1,000 whales a year under the scientific program allowed under International Whaling Commission rules.
This year, Japan plans to take some 50 humpbacks.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniya has said he would be willing to negotiate a cease-fire with Israel but Israel is reacting coolly.
Speaking by phone to an Israeli television reporter, Haniya said such a deal would call for Hamas to stop firing rockets into Israel and for an end to the Israeli military's targeted killings of Palestinian militants.
Haniya's remarks were first reported Tuesday night.
The overture follows a series of punishing Israeli attacks against Palestinian militants in the past two days.
At least 11 people have been killed, including a senior leader of the radical Islamist group Islamic Jihad.
But Israeli officials were dismissive of Haniya's comments.
Israeli President Shimon Peres called Haniya's comments a "pathetic attempt to move international attention from the crimes of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad of shooting at innocent civilians.
He said if militants stopped firing rockets, then "Israel will immediately hold its fire, so there is no need for negotiations.
Shaul Mofaz, one of Israel's deputy prime ministers, told Israeli radio "mediation is something to think about, but one thing needs to be made clear: 'til the firing stops, we must continue with the policy that we are taking in Gaza and not stop for even one hour.
Israel has refused to negotiate with Hamas, which took control of Gaza in June, until it agrees to submit to international benchmarks including the renouncing of violence and recognition of the Jewish state.
Since June, Gaza has been living under tough economic sanctions put in place by Israel and the international community, prompting an increasingly dire humanitarian situation in the coastal region of 1.5 million people.
According to the Israeli military, more than 3,600 rockets and mortars have been fired from Gaza into Israel since Israel pulled out its troops and settlements from Gaza in 2005.
The military said the number of rocket attacks has more than doubled since Hamas seized control of Gaza in June.
France is willing to take in Colombian guerrillas as part of a deal to secure the release of hostages held by the country's leftist rebel group, the French prime minister said Wednesday.
French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said the guerrillas, imprisoned in Colombia, could be freed in France as part of a swap deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.
In exchange, FARC then would release the hostages it holds deep in Colombia's jungles, he said.
Former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt who has dual French-Colombian nationality is among the FARC's hostages in Colombia.
The French government has made Betancourt's release a priority.
NEW YORK (CNN) Now that 16-year-old Jamie Lynn Spears has a bun in the oven, the young actress and singer's budding career may be over before it had a chance to really take off.
With her bright brown eyes and adorable, small-town girl smile, Jamie Lynn has charmed millions of young viewers for the past three years, as the star of "Zoey 101."
The hit Nickelodeon sitcom is about a group of girls who help integrate an all-boys academy.
The series, which is one of the highest rated on the Nickelodeon channel, earned an Emmy nomination in 2005 for Outstanding Children's Program.
In 2006, Spears won the Kids Choice Award for Favorite Television Actress.
She appeared to be doing all the right things, at least publicly.
No club hopping, no tales of drug or alcohol abuse.
Playing the role of the "good girl" to her older sister's "naughty" reputation, was great for Jamie Lynn's clean image and could have ultimately been good for her bank account.
"In a year when the 'High School Musical' soundtrack is the second-best selling CD of the year and the Hannah Montana tour is the most in-demand concert ticket, to lose the children's entertainment market as Jamie is certainly in danger of doing is a huge problem," said Joe Levy, managing editor of Rolling Stone magazine.
Now that she's morphed from role model to cautionary tale, whether Jamie Lynn's fans will abandon her remains to be seen.
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (CNN) Not even Santa is safe in Rio de Janeiro.
A helicopter carrying a Santa Claus to distribute gifts at a Christmas party came under fire when it flew over a Rio shantytown, authorities said Wednesday.
The chopper was hit by two rifle shots Sunday, but no one was injured and the aircraft returned safely to its base, police inspector Aldari Vianna said by telephone.
Gang members apparently attacked the helicopter thinking it belonged to the police, Vianna said.
It's not unusual for gangs to shoot at police helicopters in Rio de Janeiro, one of the most violent cities in the world, with a homicide rate of about 50 per 100,000 people.
The Santa Claus, who did not want to identify himself, was later
transported by car to the party for children in another poor neighborhood where he distributed about 700 gifts.
"As a Santa Claus, I was very sad to see the children frustrated," he said, according to the Agencia Estado news service. "They were expecting Santa to arrive by helicopter and that didn't happen.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) Coalition forces found 26 bodies buried in mass graves and a bloodstained "torture complex" with chains hanging from walls and ceilings and a bed connected to an electrical system, the military said Wednesday.
The troops were conducting an operation north of Muqdadiya, Iraq, when they made the discovery.
From December 8-11, the troops who found the complex also killed 24 people they said were terrorists and detained 37 suspects, according to a statement issued by Multinational Division North at Camp Speicher in Tikrit.
The moves were part of an operation called Iron Reaper that has been in progress across northern Iraq for the past few weeks.
and operating base, the military said.
Iraqis had told the military about the site during an earlier operation.
"Evidence of murder, torture and intimidation against local villagers was found throughout the area," the military statement said.
Ground forces first found what appeared to be a detention facility.
As they cleared the area, they found several bodies.
Eventually, 26 bodies were uncovered in mass graves next to what were thought to be execution sites, the military said.
The detention facility was one of three connected to the torture complex, Multinational Division North said. One of the facilities appeared to have served as a headquarters building and a torture facility, it added.
The operation netted nine weapons caches, which have been destroyed, the military said.
They included anti-aircraft weapons, sniper rifles, more than 65 machine guns and pistols, 50 grenades and a surface-to-air missile launcher and platform, the statement said.
Also found were mines, pipe bombs, rocket-propelled grenades, mortar tubes and rounds and 130 pounds of homemade explosives.
Most Saudi Arabia citizens interviewed in a poll oppose terrorism and want closer ties with the United States.
Ten percent of Saudis have a favorable view of the al Qaeda terrorist network, according to a survey by Terror Free Tomorrow, an international public opinion research group based in Washington.
Fifteen percent said they have a favorable view of al Qaeda's leader, Saudi exile Osama bin Laden, the poll found.
"I think that the people of Saudi Arabia have so overwhelmingly turned against bin Laden, al Qaeda and terrorism in general that nine out of 10 of them look at all three unfavorably," the group's president, Ken Ballen, said Monday.
Though the desert monarchy's ruling family has close ties to the United States, it was also the home of 15 of the 19 suicide hijackers behind al Qaeda's September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington.
The kingdom also has been the target of a spate of al Qaeda attacks since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and the origin of a large share of the Islamic militants implicated in suicide bombings in Iraq.
Pollsters questioned 1,004 Saudi adults in Arabic between November 30 and December 5, according to the group.
Brazil midfielder Kaka completed a virtual sweep of annual awards Monday by winning FIFA's World Player of the Year accolade for 2007.
The Milan playmaker received 1,047 points, ahead of Argentine Lionel Messi on 504 and Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo with 426 in a vote by national team captains and managers.
On the women's side, Marta of Brazil captured the award with 988 points, ahead of Birgit Prinz of Germany with 507 and Cristiane of Brazil with 150.
He also won European soccer's Golden Ball and World Soccer magazine's player of the year award.
"Tonight is a really special night for me," Kaka said after being handed the trophy.
He is the fifth different Brazilian to win the title joining Ronaldo who has won the trophy three times Ronaldinho (2), Romario (1) and Rivaldo (1).
"When I was young, I dreamed of becoming a professional player for Sao Paolo and playing one game for the national team," Kaka said.
Before the award ceremony at Zurich's opera house, Kaka owed his success this year to his club.
Kaka led Milan to a 2-1 victory over Liverpool in the Champions League final last season.
While planning her vacation to New York, Lisa Werness was so horrified by the prices in Manhattan that she opted for cheaper lodging in Brooklyn where she scored a room rate of just $400 a night. "Don't remind me.
Now, with 8,500 hotel rooms under construction in the city a growth of more than 10 percent that crunch could ease ever so slightly in the coming months.
By comparison, it took from 1998 to 2007 to make a leap of the same size.
"One of the challenges that New York has always had is having enough rooms for tourists," said Sean Hennessey, CEO of industry consulting firm Lodging Investment Advisors.
"Most of the time the corporate travelers are willing to pay more than the tourists, and the tourists kind of get crowded out.
But it has fewer hotel rooms than less-popular spots including Las Vegas, Chicago, the Los Angeles metro area and Atlanta, according to Smith Travel Research.
The resulting shortage leads many travelers seeking an affordable room to head far afield of the usual tourist draws, and hotel developers have taken notice, with new lodging under construction or recently opened in Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, Long Island and beyond.
Even with the weak dollar making his trip to New York a bargain, London resident Mike Jones still found the price tag on his Brooklyn hotel room shocking.
"All the hotels in Manhattan are pretty much full at whatever rate they want to charge," said the 56-year-old, whose travel agent
Even when he decided to stay in Brooklyn for its cheaper prices, he ended up with a bill for close to $600 a night, he said, adding, "That's crazy.
Saudi King Abdullah has pardoned a rape victim who had been sentenced to 200 lashes and six months in prison in a case that sparked international attention, a Saudi newspaper has reported
Al-Jazirah newspaper quoted a Saudi Justice Ministry official saying King Abdullah issued a royal pardon Monday the same day that the Hajj, the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, begins in Saudi Arabia.
The victim's husband told CNN he has not received an official letter regarding her pardon, but considers it to be legitimate since it was announced in an official Saudi newspaper.
He thanked King Abdullah for the pardon, saying: "This fatherly care and noble gesture will help (in) lifting the emotional and psychological stress and suffering that our family has been enduring.
Saudi sources told CNN that the king's pardon was not related to the beginning of the Hajj nor the Eid al-Adha festival that follows, which is normally when the Saudi monarch issues amnesty for prisoners.
Saudi Arabia's Justice Minister Abdullah Bin Mohammad al-Sheikh told al-Jazirah newspaper that the king felt the pardon would be in the best interests of the Saudi people, and the decision did not reflect any lack of confidence in the Saudi justice system.
The White House welcomed King Abdullah's decision, but National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe stressed that "this is obviously a matter for the Saudi Arabians and King Abdullah.
A major donors conference to raise funds for the Palestinians has gone beyond expectations, with donors pledging $7.4 billion to help build a Palestinian state, organizers said Monday.
Other delegations at the Paris meeting are offering aid in kind, such as the International Monetary Fund, which said it would provide monitoring of the Palestinians' promised reforms to reassure donors that their money would be used efficiently.
Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad called the pledge of money a "vote of confidence" in the Palestinians.
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said the support of donors needed to be repaid in the coming months with steps to create a lasting settlement.
"Over the next few months, we have to show people our capability of
The Paris conference focuses on short-term priorities for the Palestinians, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy said those include providing immediate support for the Palestinian people particularly those living in Gaza and stabilizing the Palestinian economy.
It follows on the heels of last month's peace talks in the U.S. in which Israeli and Palestinian leaders vowed to negotiate a final-status agreement by the end of 2008.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said France would donate $300 million, and the United States was expected to pledge more than $500 million.
JAKARTA, Indonesia (CNN) Researchers in a remote jungle in Indonesia have discovered a giant rat and a tiny possum that are apparently new to science, underscoring the stunning biodiversity of the Southeast Asian nation, scientists said Monday.
Unearthing new species of mammals in the 21st century is considered very rare.
The discoveries by a team of American and Indonesian scientists are being studied further to confirm their status.
The animals were found in the Foja mountains rainforest in eastern Papua province in a June expedition, said U.S.-based Conservation International, which organized the trip along with the Indonesian Institute of Science.
"The giant rat is about five times the size of a typical city rat," said Kristofer Helgen, a scientist with the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. "With no fear of humans, it apparently came into the camp several times during the trip.
The possum was described as "one of the worlds smallest marsupials.
A 2006 expedition to the same stretch of jungle dubbed by Conservation International as a "Lost World" because until then humans had rarely visited it unearthed scores of exotic new species of palms and butterflies.
Papua has some of the world's largest tracts of rainforest, but like elsewhere in Indonesia they are being ravaged by illegal logging.
Scientists said last year that the Foja area was not under immediate threat, largely because it was so remote.
"It's comforting to know that there is a place on Earth so isolated that it remains the absolute realm of wild nature," said expedition leader Bruce Beehler.
LONDON, England (CNN) Princess Diana denied any intention of marrying Dodi Fayed in a conversation just a few days before the couple died, a friend testified Monday.
Lady Annabel Goldsmith, testifying at the British inquest into the couple's deaths, said Diana had remarked that she needed another marriage "like a rash on my face.
Goldsmith, 73, said she would never forget those words because they were the last she had heard from Diana.
Fayed's father, Mohamed Al Fayed, has claimed the couple was the target of a plot directed by Queen Elizabeth II's husband, Prince Philip partly motivated, he alleges, by a desire to prevent Diana from marrying a Muslim.
Goldsmith said Monday that Diana clearly was having a "wonderful" time with Fayed, reporting that she had "never been so spoiled.
She might have been having a wonderful time with him, I'm sure, but I thought her remark that she needed marriage like a rash meant that she was not serious about it.
Other witnesses have questioned whether the romance had developed to the stage of an intention to marry.
Diana's friend Rosa Monckton last week testified that it was "difficult to judge" the intensity of Diana's romance with Fayed, but Monckton said "it was clear to me that she was really missing Hasnat" Khan, a heart surgeon with whom she had had an affair.
Monckton testified that Diana said nothing of an engagement during a telephone conversation on August 27.
"She would have called me if she was going to do that," Monckton said.
Monckton also disputed Al Fayed's claim that Diana was pregnant.
Goldsmith also rejected the pregnancy claim.
Diana's stepmother, Raine, Countess Spencer, testified that she also doubted the couple were engaged but thought it "highly likely" that the relationship could have progressed to marriage.
CENTRAL ISLIP, New York (CNN) A jury on Monday convicted a millionaire couple of enslaving two Indonesian women they brought to their mansion to work as housekeepers.
Mahender Murlidhar Sabhnani, 51, and his wife, Varsha Mahender Sabhnani, 45, were each convicted of all charges in a 12-count federal indictment that included forced labor, conspiracy, involuntary servitude, and harboring aliens.
Prosecutors said the women were subjected to repeated psychological and physical abuse and were forced to work 18 hours or more a day.
The Sabhnanis, who have four children and operate a worldwide perfume business out of their Muttontown home on Long Island's Gold Coast, could face up to 40 years in prison, although attorneys predicted the punishment would be considerably
He is from India, and she is from Indonesia, but both are naturalized U.S. citizens.
One of the couple's daughters, Dakshina, collapsed in the front row as the verdict was read, prompting the judge to clear the courtroom while medical personnel attended to her.
Defense attorney Jeffrey Hoffman said he would appeal.
"Apparently, the jury was taken by the histrionics ..." of the Indonesian women, he said.
Fellow defense lawyer Stephen Scaring said another of the Sabhnanis' children, daughter Tina, told him:
"We never did anything to anybody, how could this happen to us in America?
Prosecutors refused to comment until court proceedings were completed.
Prosecutors called it a case of "modern-day slavery." Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Lesko said in closing arguments the poorly educated women worked as housekeepers for $100 or $150 a month all of which was sent to their relatives back home.
Lesko said the women, known only as Samirah and Enung, were subjected to "punishment that escalated into a cruel form of torture" that ended when one of the women fled on Mother's Day.
Allegations of abuse included beatings with brooms and umbrellas, slashings with knives, being made to repeatedly climb stairs and take freezing cold showers as punishment for misdeeds that included sleeping late or stealing food from trash bins because they were poorly fed.
Samirah, the woman who fled the house in May, said she was forced to eat dozens of chili peppers and then was forced to eat her own vomit when she failed to digest
the peppers, prosecutors said.
"This did not happen in the 1800s," Lesko said. "This happened in the 21st century.
Enung testified that Samirah's nude body once was covered in plastic wrapping tape on orders from Varsha Sabhnani, who then instructed Enung to rip it off.
They also said the couple went on frequent vacations that would have given the two women ample opportunity to flee.
The Sabhnanis spent nearly three months in jail until a judge approved a bail package that required them to post $4.5 million and pay an estimated $10,000 a day for security monitoring while they were kept under house arrest.
MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) Russia said Monday it has begun fuel deliveries to an atomic power station in Iran that has been at the center of international concerns over Tehran's nuclear program.
Atomstroiexport, Russia's nuclear power equipment and service export monopoly, completed the first stage of deliveries on Sunday, the Russian Federal Atomic Energy Agency said.
The head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, Reza Aghazadeh, was quoted by Iran's Fars News Agency as telling Iranian state television that the shipment arrived Monday.
Atomstroiexport, the Russian monopoly, is building the $1 billion Bushehr plant under the control of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations' nuclear watchdog agency.
The Russian foreign ministry and nuclear officials said the fuel delivery was under full IAEA safeguards.
"The Bushehr plant is 95 percent completed and I promise the Iranian nation that the electricity generated by this nuclear plant will enter the country's electricity network next year," Aghazadeh said, in comments carried by Fars.
A statement on the Russian Foreign Ministry's official Web site Monday said Iran had provided additional written guarantees that the fuel can only be used at and for the Bushehr plant, and that the spent fuel will be returned to Russia for utilization and storage.
Construction of the plant was expected to be completed in September, Interfax said, but was delayed because of lack of financing and delayed equipment deliveries from other countries.
Atomstroiexport hopes to announce a new date for completing the construction in late December, Interfax said.
BOSTON, Massachusetts (CNN) Northern New England should brace for as much as 18 inches of snow as a winter storm, blamed for three deaths, blows through the Great Lakes states late Sunday.
Motorists slid off roads as the storm cut visibility and iced over highways with drifts, sleet and freezing rain.
The National Weather Service posted winter storm warnings from Michigan, which could get 14 inches of snow in some areas, to Indiana and all the way to Maine.
About a foot of snow had fallen in parts of Chicago and Ann Arbor, Michigan, with 10 inches in Vermont.
"Our biggest advice right now is stay home," said Maine State Police Sgt. Andrew Donovan.
Visibility in the blowing snow was less than 200 yards, and in stronger gusts "if there's a car in front of you, you can't even see it," he said.
Every available plow truck was at work in Vermont, said Reggie Brown, highway department dispatcher in Montpelier. "Everybody's out and running," he said.
Illinois Department of Transportation spokesman Mike Claffey said 1,000 trucks were out clearing snow Sunday.
The Hancock County Sheriff's Office in northwestern Ohio declared roads off limits to nonemergency vehicles, threatening anyone else traveling through the county with arrest.
Wind gusts as high as 40 mph blew snow around and diminished visibility.
The storm canceled hundreds of flights at airports in Chicago, where Midway Airport measured 10 inches of snow Sunday morning.
In Maine, most of Portland International Jetport's inbound and outbound flights were canceled, said city Transportation Director Jeff Monroe.
Numerous flights were canceled at Buffalo Niagara International Airport.
Many churches called off Sunday services because of the hazardous driving conditions.
"I don't want folks to venture out because we're having church and they feel obligated," the Rev. Glenn Mortimer said after calling off services at Wakefield-Lynnfield United Methodist Church in Wakefield, Massachusetts.
He noted that some people still hadn't completely dug out from Thursday's storm that dumped more than a foot of snow on parts of Massachusetts.
Both Eastern Michigan University and the University of Connecticut postponed winter commencement ceremonies scheduled for Sunday.
At Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, strong winds collapsed a fabric dome used for hospitality events before and after games.
The storm also didn't stand in the way of dedicated Christmas shoppers.
"The reason we came out in the storm early, early, is that we knew there would be no lines," Michael McGrath, 48, of Boston, said as he stomped along partly shoveled downtown sidewalks.
"It was true. The stores were empty.
Slippery roads were blamed for two traffic deaths in Michigan and one in Wisconsin.
More than 100,000 customers were blacked out Sunday in parts of Pennsylvania, utilities reported.
Scattered outages caused by heavy snow and freezing rain also were reported in Vermont, state officials said.
The storm came less than a week after an ice storm blamed for at least 38 deaths, mostly in traffic accidents, in the middle of the country.
Thousands of homes and business still had no electricity in parts of Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri.
(CNN) Osama bin Laden's top lieutenant warned in a video statement released Sunday that Iraqi tribal leaders who side with U.S. troops against al Qaeda fighters would face reprisals when Americans leave Iraq.
"I warn those individuals from among the armed factions who have been involved in cooperation against the Mujahedeen that history is recording everything, and that they will lose both their religion and life," Ayman al-Zawahiri said.
"The Americans will soon be departing, God permitting, and won't keep defending them forever.
And let them look at the fate of America's agents in Vietnam and the fate of the Shah of Iran. Intelligent is he who learns from other's mistakes," he added.
Al Qaeda's No. 2 called such Iraqi leaders "traitors" and "scum.
Al-Zawahiri also criticized Lebanon's Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, for agreeing to let the Western-backed Lebanese government determine whether the disputed, Israeli-held territory known as Shebaa Farms belongs to Lebanon or Syria.
The criticism marked a reversal for the al Qaeda leader, who had praised Hezbollah's performance in the month-long 2006 war between the Shiite militia and Israeli troops.
Asia's dynamic economic growth is expected to slow modestly in 2008 as its biggest economies grapple with emerging problems, from inflation in China to appreciating currencies in India and Japan.
The expected slowdown in the U.S. economy a vital export market and higher oil prices also cloud Asia's outlook.
In China, worries persist that the economy is overheating.
Inflation hit a peak of 6.5 percent this year, while real estate and stock prices also have soared, posing a challenge to policymakers whose options are limited by China's continued controls on the currency and capital markets.
Nearly two-thirds of Americans say they believe the Constitution guarantees each person the right to own a gun, according to a poll released Sunday.
In all, 65 percent said they thought the Constitution ensures that right, and 31 percent said it did not.
Men and people living in rural areas were most likely to say the Constitution guarantees the right to own a gun.
Nearly three quarters of men (72 percent) said they believed so, versus 26 percent who did not.
More than half (58 percent) of women said they believed so, versus slightly more than a third (35 percent) who did not.
"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed upon.
Some have interpreted those words to mean that everyone has a right to own a gun; others say the amendment protects only the right of citizens to form a militia.
Men and women draped in white robes circled the Kaaba, Islam's holiest site, seven times in a ceremony anticipating the official start of the pilgrimage on Monday.
King Abdullah has invited 1,000 guests to this year's Hajj, including Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
During the next two days, an estimated 2.5 million pilgrims will move out of Mecca to Mount Arafat for Tuesday's climax of symbolically stoning the devil.
By Friday, more than 1.6 million pilgrims had arrived in Mecca, according to the Central Hajj Committee.
The Health Ministry said about 254 pilgrims, many who were elderly, have died of natural causes since arriving.
The pilgrims are massed in tent cities on the outskirts of Mecca.
For many believers, the Hajj is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to cleanse their sins in what is one of the most important rites for Muslims.
This year's Hajj takes place amid increasing worries across the Islamic world over the bloodshed in Iraq and Afghanistan and recent terror attacks by al Qaeda-linked groups, including last week's twin suicide bombings in Algeria that killed at least 37 people.
Tensions also have increased between the two main sects of Islam, Sunnis and Shiites, who come together in the five days of Hajj rituals centered around Mecca, the traditional birthplace of Islam's Prophet Muhammad.
Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab countries who are all U.S. allies have been worried over Iran's increasing regional influence.
Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz said the kingdom is capable of maintaining security and preventing any attempt to threaten the safety of the pilgrims.
Maj. Gen. Saleh Mohammed al-Shihri, commander of the Central Control of the Hajj Security, said 1,150 cameras have been placed in several areas to monitor the area. Several helicopters, fitted with these cameras, will also hover over the pilgrims.
Nayef said no extra security precautions will be put in place for Ahmadinejad.
The Iranian leader was scheduled to arrive in Mecca on Monday, Iranian state media has reported.
Around 4,000 African National Congress delegates were expected to vote late Sunday for their choice to head the party.
Mbeki, who is facing a leadership challenge from Jacob Zuma, the ANC's charismatic deputy president, made a nearly three-hour speech to delegates in which he acknowledged the splits in the party.
He also took a veiled swipe at Zuma, saying the ANC needed leadership "seized with ethical fervor."
Zuma was sacked by Mbeki as vice president in 2005 after his financial adviser was jailed for corruption.
The 65-year-old Zuma, who still faces the possibility of being charged himself, was also cleared of rape after a controversial trial.
Even so, Zuma is widely expected to secure the nomination of the party members.
His populist approach has won him support among ANC rank and file, comparing favorably with Mbeki's style of leadership, which is seen by many party members as autocratic and aloof.
Zuma's growing status was very much in evidence as his supporters chanted their backing for him, pointedly refusing to join in the standing ovation that followed Mbeki's three-hour speech at the conference in the northeastern city of Polokwane.
Several close allies of the president, including Zuma's ex-wife Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, were booed by Zuma's supporters.
Although Mbeki in charge since 1999 can stay on as president until his term finishes in 2009, analysts say it would be difficult for him to do so if he lost the backing of his party.
Opponents of Zuma warn that if he came to power he would pander to reactionary elements in South Africa.
Analysts, however, say that no matter who wins the ANC leadership vote the result of which is expected in the coming days the biggest loser will be the party itself, which has been robbed of its moral authority because of the infighting.
Witnesses at the conference said the mood was somber and much less celebratory than at previous conferences.
For the last man on Earth, Will Smith sure has a lot of friends.
Everyone else on Earth is in the movie theater," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Media By Numbers.
The 20th Century Fox family flick "Alvin and the Chipmunks," starring Jason Lee in a big-screen take on the cartoon critters, opened a strong No. 2 with $45 million.
"Chipmunks are diurnal animals and they do hibernate, but not right now.
Overall business soared, with the top 12 movies taking in $153.6 million, up 39 percent from the same weekend a year earlier, when Smith also was No. 1 with a $26.5 million debut for "The Pursuit of Happyness.
Three hospital workers have been suspended after they allegedly stole bodies from a morgue at the clinic and tried to sell the remains, officials said Sunday.
The three, whose names were not released, had worked at Vienna's Kaiser Franz Josef Hospital and were arrested after hospital administrators received a tip and alerted police, authorities said.
Investigators said the trio allegedly sent e-mails offering to sell the bodies to "interested parties," who were not further identified.
Prosecutors said they were still trying to determine how much money the suspects were asking for the human remains and ascertain whether any bodies actually had been sold.
NEW DELHI, India (CNN) Nearly 300 communist prisoners overpowered guards and escaped from a prison in restive eastern India Sunday, police said.
Rahul Sharma, the superintendent of police, said 299 of 377 inmates fled from the Dantewada prison, 350 miles south of Raipur, the capital of Chhattisgarh state.
The jailbreak occurred while dinner was being served.
"The inmates overpowered the prison guards and fled amid gunfire," Sharma told the New Delhi Television news channel.
Sharma said three prison guards and two inmates were wounded in the shooting.
He described those who escaped as "supporters" of leftist insurgents in the region.
Police reinforcements were searching for the escapees in darkness, he said.
Eastern India is a stronghold of communist rebels who have been fighting for more than two decades demanding land and jobs for agricultural laborers and the poor.
Thousands of people have been killed in the insurgency.
The guerrillas, who claim to be inspired by Chinese revolutionary Mao Zedong, have often targeted police and government officials, whom they accuse of colluding with landlords and rich farmers to exploit the poor.
LONDON, England (CNN) Josephs and Marys in search of a room at the inn this Christmas are being made an offer they can't refuse.
British hotel chain is promising free accommodation to couples who share their first names with the couple from the Christian Nativity story.
Almost 30 Josephs and Marys had already signed up for the free night's stay at the Travelodge, said Shakila Ahmed, a spokeswoman for the hotel chain.
"The 'gift' of a free night's stay is to make up for the hotel industry not having any rooms left on Christmas Eve over 2000 years ago when the original 'Mary and Joseph' had to settle for the night in a stable," the company says on its Web site.
The offer is good at any one of the chain's 322 hotels in the United Kingdom, the Web site says. The couples must bring proof of identity and must prove that they are in a long-term relationship.
"If you satisfy the criteria, you get a free night in a family room for two adults and two children," Ahmed said. "There's also parking space for a donkey if needed," she joked.
Ahmed said the offer, which will run from Christmas Eve to Twelfth Night had been very well-received.
"We've had a lot of interest. I think people like the fact that it resonates with the Nativity story at a time when the actual meaning of Christmas often becomes forgotten in festive overkill," she said.
Couples can register their names at a special e-mail address set up by Travelodge, which has hotels across the Britain, Ireland and Spain, Ahmed said.
British troops Sunday handed over responsibility for security in the southern Iraqi province of Basra, a major milestone in the scaling-back of the foreign military presence nearly five years after the U.S.-led invasion.
"As you step up, we step back," the British commander, Maj. Gen. Graham Binns, told Iraqi troops and political officials, at a transfer ceremony broadcast live on Iraqi state television.
The changing of the guard came on the same day that Iraq resumed train service from Basra to Baghdad after a four-year hiatus.
The handover of Basra became official with the signing of a "memorandum of understanding" by Iraqi and British officials.
Britain has been in command of the south since the Iraq War began, with its troops based in Basra.
Roughly 5,000 British troops are there now.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown's government has announced plans to cut forces to about 4,500 by the end of December.
National Security Adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie said the transfer means that Basra police will be the first called to respond to any security incident, and will be backed up by the Iraqi Army as needed.
British troops could be called in to help, but it would be coordinated through the office of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in Baghdad, he said.
"Our help will continue to be one of assistance, not interference, to support not to direct, to listen not to ignore, to understand not to fear," Binns said.
International health experts have been dispatched to Pakistan to help investigate the cause of South Asia's first outbreak of bird flu in people and determine if the virus could have been transmitted through human contact, officials said Sunday.
A man and his niece from the same area who had slaughtered chickens were also suspected of having the virus.
Another person in a separate case who slaughtered poultry in nearby Mansehra, 15 miles away, also tested positive for the disease, he said.
Details surrounding the cases remained confusing, with Pakistan's Health Ministry issuing a statement Saturday saying six people had initially tested positive for the virus last month, while the WHO said eight had been reported.
Specimens were never collected from one of the brothers who died, and many of those who tested positive experienced only mild symptoms and were not hospitalized, Hartl said.
He added a team of WHO experts have been sent to Pakistan to help determine the cause.
He said all four brothers were believed to have worked on a farm and poultry outbreaks had earlier been reported in the area. But one brothers, Mohammed Tariq, said only one sibling worked on the farm.
Police are investigating Sunday a lift at a popular ski resort in central Japan that had suddenly broke down, trapping 90 people inside gondolas for about 12 hours before they were rescued, officials said.
Rescuers had to climb the snow slope at the Ontake ski resort in Nagano prefecture (state), force open the door of the 17 gondolas to bring down passengers one at a time to the ground about 20 meters (66 feet) below with a rope, prefectural police spokeswoman Akiko Fuseya said.
The lift's 26 other six-seater gondolas were vacant.
After the time-consuming process, the last passenger was rescued past midnight Saturday, nearly 12 hours after the accident was reported to police earlier in the day, Fuseya said.
ISTANBUL, Turkey (CNN) Turkish warplanes and long-range missiles attacked Kurdish rebel positions in the mountains of northern Iraq near the Turkish border early Sunday, according to Turkish military officials.
The air attack, which began around 1 a.m. and last for more than three hours, targeted Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) outposts in the Qandil mountain, the statement said.
Turkish ground troops launched long-range missiles at the PKK positions after the air attack, the statement said.
All warplanes returned safely to their bases in Turkey, the military said.
Jamal Abdullah, a spokesman for Iraq's autonomous Kurdish Regional Government said the targets of the attack appear to be PKK fighters in the border area, but there are reports of civilian casualties in nearby villages.
Tensions have been high along the Iraqi-Turkish border, with Turkey threatening to launch a full-scale cross-border offensive against separatist guerrillas from the PKK.
Those militants have launched actions against Turkish troops from northern Iraq and have been fighting the Turkish government forces in southeastern Turkey.
The Turkish military government received approval from the parliament in October to take military action "at any time."
There are tens of thousands of Turkish troops near the border area.
The United States, the Iraqi government and the Kurdish Regional Government had pursued diplomatic efforts over the past two months to keep Turkey from launching an offensive against the PKK.
North Korea delivered a verbal response Friday to a letter President Bush sent to North Korean leader Kim Jong Il earlier this month about the progress of nuclear talks, officials said.
Details of the response were not immediately released but senior State Department officials said the gist was that North Korea plans to hold up its end of the bargain and expects the United States to do the same.
Bush's letter indicated six-party talks aimed at denuclearization of the Korean peninsula were at a "critical juncture.
Casey said the Bush letter, dated December 1 and addressed to "Mr. Chairman," was intended to show the United States is serious about keeping the process moving.
"I got his attention with a letter," Bush told reporters Friday, referring to Kim.
North Korea is facing a December 31 deadline to hand over a document declaring its past and present nuclear secrets.
However, chief U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill, who hand-delivered Bush's letter, said differences remain over what should go into that document, and it is unclear how "full and complete" it should actually be.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf was expected to lift a six-week-old state of emergency and restore Pakistan's constitution Saturday, just a day after tweaking the charter to shore up his legal defenses.
Musharraf may also move to restore the credibility of January elections by suspending local mayors and scrapping a two-term limit for prime ministers, Attorney General Malik Mohammed Qayyum said Friday.
The U.S.-backed leader cast Pakistan into turmoil and raised serious doubts over the credibility of next month's parliamentary elections by imposing a state of emergency on November 3.
Musharraf purged the judiciary, jailed thousands of opponents and silenced television news channels after he suspended the constitution and declared emergency rule on November 3.
The U.S.-backed leader said he acted to prevent political chaos and give authorities a freer hand against Islamic militants, though critics accuse him of a last-ditch power grab before the previous Supreme Court could declare his continued rule illegal.
Qayyum said government legal experts were finalizing the changes and that they would be announced before Musharraf lifts the emergency on Saturday, but provided no details.
"The president will lift the emergency to restore the constitution and the fundamental rights," he said.
A postcard featuring a color drawing of Santa Claus and a young girl was mailed in 1914, but its journey was slower than Christmas.
The Christmas card was dated December 23, 1914, and mailed to Ethel Martin of Oberlin, apparently from her cousins in Alma, Nebraska.
It's a mystery where it spent most of the last century, Oberlin Postmaster Steve Schultz said.
Ethel Martin is deceased, but Schultz said the post office wanted to get the card to a relative. That's how the 93-year-old relic ended up with Bernice Martin, Ethel's sister-in-law.
She said she believed the card had been found somewhere in Illinois. "That's all we know," she said.
The card was placed inside another envelope with modern postage for the trip to Oberlin the one-cent postage of the early 20th century wouldn't have covered it, Martin said.
"But wherever they kept it, it was in perfect shape."
LONDON, England (CNN) Fantasy author Terry Pratchett has admitted that he has been diagnosed with a rare form of Alzheimer's disease but says he plans to continue writing his multi-million selling Discworld books.
Pratchett, 59 whose books have, according to his Web site, sold more than 45 million copies worldwide in 33 languages suffered what he called a "phantom stroke" earlier this year.
In a statement titled "an embuggerance" on the Web site of Discworld illustrator Paul Kidby, Pratchett says that he has been diagnosed with what he terms "a very rare form of early onset Alzheimer's.
"I would have liked to keep this one quiet for a little while, but because of upcoming conventions and of course the need to keep my publishers informed, it seems to me unfair to withhold the news," says Pratchett, who has a strong following among fans of fantasy fiction.
"All other things being equal, I expect to meet most current and, as far as possible, future commitments but will discuss things with the various organisers," he continues.
"Frankly, I would prefer it if people kept things cheerful, because I think there's time for at least a few more books yet.
Pratchett adds that work is continuing on his next book "Nation" and that the "basic notes are already being laid down for Unseen Academicals.
"I know it's a very human thing to say 'Is there anything I can do', but in this case I would only entertain offers from very high-end experts in brain chemistry.
Pratchett's Discworld novels, of which 36 have been published to date, are set in a fantasy universe through which the author satirizes modern-day life.
Pratchett, who began writing while a provincial newspaper journalist in the 1960s, received the Order of the British Empire "for services to literature" from the Prince of Wales in 1998.
SAN FRANCISCO, California (CNN) Scientists think they have discovered the energy source of auroras borealis, the spectacular color displays seen in the upper latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere.
New data from NASA's Themis mission, a quintet of satellites launched this winter, found the energy comes from a stream of charged particles from the sun flowing like a current through twisted bundles of magnetic fields connecting Earth's upper atmosphere to the sun.
The energy is then abruptly released in the form of a shimmering display of lights, said principal investigator Vassilis Angelopoulos of the University of California at Los Angeles.
Results were presented Tuesday at the American Geophysical Union meeting.
In March, the satellites detected a burst of Northern Lights over Alaska and Canada.
During the two-hour light show, the satellites measured particle flow and magnetic fields from space.
To scientists' surprise, the geomagnetic storm powering the auroras raced 400 miles in a minute across the sky.
Angelopoulos estimated the storm's power was equal to the energy released by a magnitude 5.5 earthquake.
"Nature was very kind to us," Angelopoulos said.
Although researchers have suspected the existence of wound-up bundles of magnetic fields that provide energy for the auroras, the phenomenon was not confirmed until May, when the satellites became the first to map their structure some 40,000 miles above the Earth's surface.
Scientists hope the satellites will record a geomagnetic storm next year and end the debate about when the storms are triggered.
LONDON, England (CNN) Software giant Microsoft unveiled some of its future technology at its fourth annual Innovation Day in Brussels on December 4.
And from virtual family organizers to tabletop touch-screens, their vision of the future sees technology move from the traditional desktop computer to become seamlessly integrated in all aspects of our lives.
One key area that's set to change, says Microsoft, is user interface.
MD of Microsoft Research, Cambridge, Andrew Herbert told CNN, "Sitting at a keyboard with a screen in front of us is an old-fashioned view of computing. Technology is going to be around us, it's going to be much easier to use.
Developments in touch-screen technology have resulted in large screens that can be used by multiple people, creating table-top tools for collaboration at work.
And along with touch-screens, voice recognition will make our interaction with computers much more natural.
"We'll think less of one person, one computer," he continued. "It'll be people working together in an environment with lots of computers that you can interact with.
Touch-screens will also play a role in the home, according to the Microsoft-funded "Living Tomorrow" project.
They showed off a large electronic touch-screen family organizer integrated into the wall of a fridge, which included shopping lists and menus compiled from product bar codes, a family calendar and virtual sticky notes.
"It's the idea of social computing holding families together.
That technology is in development and still prohibitively expensive for widespread use, but Microsoft expects the cost of the component parts LCDs, cameras and sensors to fall significantly in the coming years.
JAKARTA, Indonesia (CNN) An Indonesian man died of bird flu, bringing the death toll in the country worst hit by the virus to 93, a Health Ministry official said Friday.
Authorities were trying to ascertain how the 47-year-old man contracted the deadly H5N1 strain of the disease, which has infected 115 people in Indonesia.
The man began showing signs of illness on December 2 and died Thursday night at a hospital in the capital, Jakarta, after being admitted with a fever, cough and other flu-like symptoms, said spokesman Joko Suyono.
The victim lived in the industrial town of Tangerang, 40 kilometers (25 miles) west of Jakarta.
And its 93 deaths now account for almost half of the recorded fatalities worldwide, according to figures from the World Health Organization.
Almost all cases have originated from sick poultry, but experts fear it will mutate into a strain that can pass more easily from human to human.
Indonesia, which has millions of backyard chickens, is a potential hotspot for a global bird flu pandemic, scientists have warned.
Kremlin critic and former world chess champion Garry Kasparov will not run in Russia's presidential election after authorities repeatedly blocked supporters' efforts to hold a nominating conference, his spokeswoman said Thursday.
Under election law, Thursday is the last day that potential candidates for the March 2 vote have to hold such conferences.
Spokeswoman Marina Litvinovich accused the government of pressuring landlords to not rent to the coalition, Other Russia.
Since leaving chess, Kasparov has become a vociferous critic of President Vladimir Putin's government, cobbling together a disparate coalition of nationalists, left-wing activists and liberals to try to generate broad opposition.
Kasparov would have had little chance of winning the election, which almost certainly will be won by Dmitry Medvedev, the first deputy prime minister who got Putin's powerful endorsement.
But the difficulty of obtaining a hall for a nominating meeting highlighted the array of impediments faced by opposition groups in Russia.
Opposition forces frequently complain that they are denied venues for their meeting.
Police violently dispersed a number of opposition rallies organized by Kasparov's group this year, and Kasparov was jailed for five days after a rally in Moscow last month.
Drug maker Novartis AG said Thursday it will cut 2,500 jobs worldwide by 2010 in an attempt to save $1.6 billion in costs.
Novartis already had announced in October that it would cut 1,260 jobs in U.S. pharmaceuticals marketing and sales.
"We have taken the opportunity given the short-term down-cycle in our pharmaceuticals business to initiate this project," Chief Executive and Chairman Daniel Vasella said.
The job cuts represent about 2.5 percent of Novartis' global work force.
Novartis said in October that its third-quarter earnings more than tripled due to large divestments, but poor pharmaceuticals sales meant 1,260 U.S. job cuts and a reorganization of its divisional management.
Novartis (Charts) shares have slipped more than 8 percent this year.
New Jersey lawmakers have voted to abolish the death penalty in the state, sending the governor a bill he has already said he will sign.
The measure will make New Jersey the first state in more than 40 years to outlaw capital punishment.
New Jersey has not put anyone to death since 1963, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
A spokesman for Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine said the bill probably will be signed into law within a few days, after the exact text is reviewed closely.
Some Republicans had argued police killers and terrorists should still be eligible for execution, but Democrats, who control both houses, backed the change.
"This vote marks a new chapter in our nation's 30-year experiment with capital punishment," said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, which opposes executions.
"New Jersey lawmakers are demonstrating sound judgment in abandoning capital punishment after learning of its costs, the pain it causes victims' families, and the risks the death penalty poses to innocent lives.
The last states to ban the death penalty were West Virginia and Iowa in 1965.
One of Sen. Hillary Clinton's top advisers is stepping down after saying Sen. Barack Obama's admission of past drug use would hurt his chances in a general election matchup.
Earlier Thursday, Clinton personally apologized to rival Obama for Shaheen's remarks.
Obama accepted her apology, according to David Axelrod, the top political strategist for the Obama campaign.
Obama earlier brushed aside the adviser's remarks, saying they were probably the result of the latest poll numbers, which show the two candidates tied in the first primary state, New Hampshire.
"The Republicans are not going to give up without a fight ... and one of the things they're certainly going to jump on is his drug use," Shaheen said.
The latest back-and-forth between the two Democratic campaigns on the issue of Obama's electability came as a new CNN/WMUR poll showed the two candidates statistically in a dead heat in New Hampshire.
Clinton stands at 31 percent, with Obama 1 percentage point behind, well within the poll's margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.
EDINBURGH, Scotland (CNN) U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Thursday pushed European allies for more troops to re-energize efforts in southern Afghanistan, where the Taliban insurgency has increased its attacks in the 18 months since NATO took command of the war.
Gates also must worry about sagging public support.
Opening two days of talks with allied defense and diplomatic officials, Gates hoped to stir discussion of forming an overarching strategy for Afghanistan that could be adopted by NATO government leaders at a summit next April. It was not clear that all NATO members agree such a plan is even needed, and no firm decisions on a way forward were expected in Edinburgh.
British Defense Secretary Des Browne, in a statement released Thursday, said military power can only be part of the solution in Afghanistan.
"We must build on our hard won military gains and go further to help the people of Afghanistan to provide their own security, governance and economic development," said Browne.
And while he did not provide specifics on the type of aid needed, he said, "We must give the Afghan authorities the support they need to deliver the kind of success that we all recognize is vital, not just for security in Afghanistan, but for security in the wider world.
Gates had one-on-one meetings Thursday with Canadian Defense Minister Peter MacKay and Australia's new defense minister, Joel Fitzgibbon.
Then he attended a dinner hosted by Browne and joined by their counterparts from the other NATO allies with troops in southern Afghanistan: the Netherlands, Canada, Australian, Romania, Denmark and Estonia.
President Robert Mugabe's party on Thursday nominated him as its sole candidate for presidential elections next year even though the 83-year-old veteran's policies are widely blamed for Zimbabwe's economic collapse.
At a convention attended by nearly 10,000 delegates, all ten provinces declared they endorsed Mugabe as candidate for the March poll.
Mugabe told his party faithful in the opening ceremony broadcast on state television and radio he would not abandon them or the people as a whole in times of hardship.
"She's the best thing in my life, and I have never been happier.
"Tony has been nothing short of the perfect husband," said the 32-year-old actress, who stars on ABC's "Desperate Housewives.
Alexandra Paressant made the allegations in an interview with celebrity gossip Web site X17.
Parker and Longoria were married in a civil ceremony July 6 in Paris.
BALI, Indonesia (CNN) Negotiations over a new agreement on global warming were expected to go down to the wire as the United States and the European Union remained at loggerheads over how to replace the 10-year-old Kyoto Protocol.
The United Nations climate change conference in Bali is in its final hours, and negotiations are expected to last well into the night as the summit wraps up mid-day Friday local time.
The Europeans are pushing for an agreement that contains specific numbers for emissions cuts, but Washington wants to leave room for future negotiations, including next month's U.S.-sponsored climate talks in Hawaii.
The EU delegation has balked at that stance, saying it would render January's major emitters meeting "meaningless.
Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, fresh from accepting the Nobel peace prize for his work on climate change awareness, sided with the Europeans.
"My own country, the United States, is principally responsible for obstructing progress here in Bali. We all know that," he said. "But my country is not the only that can take steps to ensure that we move forward in bali with progress and with hope.
Gore accepted the Nobel peace prize on Monday, alongside the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
In an interview with CNN, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon leaned toward the United States' position, stressing that Bali negotiations have to be "based on realistic and practical assessment.
"Somewhere down the road, quantifiable targets on emissions reductions" would be discussed, he said, adding that "launching the process (is) very important.
Japan and Canada have taken positions in line with the United States, while Australia's position is uncertain.
Washington is balking at suggestions by the EU that any agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol on global warming should require developed countries to cut their emissions by 25 to 40 percent of 1990 levels by 2020.
The Bush administration says Europe is moving too fast in its efforts to find a replacement for the Kyoto treaty, which expires in 2012.
The shrill tone of Thursday's public statements indicated the behind-the-doors negotiations were difficult.
Rescuers in a shaken city on Wednesday extracted the living and the dead from the crumpled remains of U.N. offices in Algiers that were bombed by an al-Qaeda affiliate.
Victims included U.N. staff from around the world, police officers and law students.
Rescue work was focusing on five or six people who were in the basement of the U.N. building at the time of the attack and who could still be alive, said the chief of the emergency team, Djamal Khoudi.
Earlier in the day, seven survivors were pulled from beneath chunks of concrete, Khoudi said.
One 40-year-old woman was transferred to a hospital where both her legs were amputated, he said.
The attacks and their targeting of the United Nations drew international condemnation.
Islamic insurgents have been battling Algeria's government for 15 years, but have largely focused on symbols of Algeria's military-backed government and civilians.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged all nations on Wednesday to stand united against terrorism, calling it "the scourge of our times.
"This attack on the U.N. is an attack on us all and our highest ideals," he said in a video address from Bali, Indonesia, to the 192-member General Assembly.
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) To Johnny Depp, freedom means simplicity and anonymity.
" 'Didn't you used to be Johnny Depp?' That will be the clincher.
The 44-year-old star of "Sweeney Todd," which opens Christmas Day, talked with the magazine about the lessons he's learned over his two decades in Hollywood.
His friend and mentor Marlon Brando taught Depp to keep his private life private.
"That's your world and it's nobody else's business," he recalls Brando saying. "It's not anybody's entertainment.
A self-described people-watcher, Depp says he's learned to enter restaurants through the kitchen and hotels through the parking garage.
While he loves his work, Depp says he's "not a great fan of all the stuff that goes along with it.
"I don't want to be a product," he says. "Of course you want the movies to do well. But I don't want to know ... who's hot now and who's not and who's making this much dough and who's boffing this woman or that one.
RAMALLAH, West Bank (CNN) Palestinian pedestrians gawked at the unusual sight of female police officers directing traffic in Ramallah on Wednesday, the first batch of women to venture into a job traditionally reserved for men in the West Bank.
The women wore uniforms of navy blue pants and light blue shirts and many donned navy blue headscarves, a sign of Muslim modesty.
Some male police officers sneered at the women as they directed traffic and kept pedestrians from jaywalking on their first day on the job.
The new recruits are part of the first class of Palestinian policewomen who recently completed a European Union-sponsored training program, part of a broader EU effort to improve ill-equipped Palestinian law enforcement agencies.
In addition to directing traffic, their duties also include conducting traffic patrols, house searches and security checks on women in prisons and universities.
Roles of authority for women are widely frowned upon in conservative Palestinian society, but several bystanders said they were impressed.
"This is wonderful watching Palestinian women enforcing law and order," said Fuad Murar, 59.
Ashjan Abu Srour, a 23-year-old policewoman, wore an Islamic headscarf, as she coaxed an elderly couple to walk on the sidewalk, not on the road.
"I was a little afraid in the beginning, because our society imposes a certain lifestyle for women," Abu Srour said.
Seven Manchester United supporters were taken to hospital after violence flared before the 1-1 Champions' League draw against Roma in Italy.
British Embassy officials in Rome said five fans received stab wounds while two others, including a 16-year-old boy, needed treatment for being drunk, the Press Association reported.
An embassy spokeswoman said: "Seven Manchester United supporters were taken to hospital after fighting broke out on the Pont Duca d'Aosta bridge which fans cross over the river to get to the stadium.
"The situation in the stadium is now fine and everything is running smoothly."
The embassy had warned travelling fans beforehand not to use the Pont Duca d'Aosta bridge because it was habitually used by Roma's notorious Ultras - a following of hardcore fans.
Roma coach Luciano Spalletti condemned the latest violence. "It's difficult to give a comment on what has happened," said Spalletti.
After watching a video replay of the ugly scenes, Spalletti added: "These people are sick."
TOKYO, Japan (CNN) The age-long animosity between cat and mouse could be a thing of the past with genetically modified "fearless" mice that Japanese scientists say shed light on mammal behavior.
Using genetic engineering, scientists at Tokyo University say they have successfully switched off the rodents' instinct to cower at the smell or presence of cats showing that fear is genetically hardwired and not learned through experience, as commonly believed.
But mice with certain nasal cells removed through genetic engineering didn't display any fear," said research team leader Ko Kobayakawa.
"The mice approached the cat, even snuggled up to it and played with it," Kobayakawa said.
The findings suggest that human aversion to dangerous smells like that of rotten food, for example, could also be genetically predetermined, he said.
Kobayakawa said his findings, published in the science magazine Nature last month, should help researchers shed further light on how the brain processes information about the outside world.
BRAMPTON, Ontario (CNN) Aqsa Parvez would leave home each morning wearing track pants and a Muslim head scarf.
Once the 16-year-old got to school, she would remove the scarf and change into close-fitting jeans.
But, her friends said, her parents got wind of what she was doing.
Parvez soon began showing up at school with bruises on her arms.
The killing has ignited a debate in Canada about the conflict between first- and second-generation immigrants who struggle to maintain traditional Muslim values and their children's desire to fit into Western culture.
Canada has about 750,000 Muslims.
Parvez, whose family is of Pakistani origin, was rushed to the hospital in critical condition Monday after her father made an emergency call in which he claimed to have killed her, police said. She later died.
Police spokesman Wayne Patterson said authorities were working to determine the motive and refused to confirm it was over the hijab, the traditional Muslim head scarf.
A lawyer for the father said there was "more to the story than just cultural issues.
But friends said Parvez was planning to leave home in Mississauga, Ontario, because of tensions with her family over her decision to stop wearing her head scarf at high school.
They said she often had bruises and that she predicted days before her death that her father would "kill her.
According to her friends, Parvez wore the hijab when she started school at Applewood Heights last year. But after getting teased about the head scarf, she stopped wearing it a few months ago.
An autopsy revealed that the cause of death was "neck compression," or strangulation, police said Wednesday.
Muhammed Parvez, a frail 57-year-old cab driver, appeared unemotional during his brief appearance at a Brampton court.
Muhammed Parvez's lawyer, Joseph Ciraco, said the family is distraught.
"It's clearly a tragedy," he said. "You've got a sister that's gone and a father and brother in jail.
"We've heard what's being said in the newspapers and her friends about the cultural problems at home. From my brief discussions with the family, there's more to this story than just the cultural issues, which could play a part," Ciraco said.
The nominees are scheduled to be announced for the 65th annual Golden Globe Awards Thursday morning and it appears to be a wide-open race.
So far, only the Coen brothers' "No Country for Old Men," which has dominated year-end critics' lists, appears to be a shoo-in for a nomination.
However, the Globes often opt for star power as much as critical praise, which means that "Michael Clayton," featuring George Clooney's powerhouse performance, is also a likely pick.
The Globes also give out awards in the comedy/musical field, and in this area nominations are likely to go to "Knocked Up," "Hairspray" and the soon-to-be-released "Sweeney Todd.
Aside from Clooney's work in "Clayton," Globe acting nominations may go to Tommy Lee Jones, who earned raves for both "No Country" and "In the Valley of Elah";
Cate Blanchett, as a mid-'60s version of Bob Dylan in "I'm Not There";
and Daniel Day-Lewis, who is receiving great notices for his work as a misanthropic oil baron in another critics' favorite, Paul Thomas Anderson's "There Will Be Blood.
One award is certain: Steven Spielberg will receive the Cecil B. DeMille Award for his "outstanding contribution to the entertainment field" from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the Globes organization.
The Globes are scheduled to be awarded January 13, 2008, at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, California.
A Muslim man jumped to the aid of three Jewish subway riders after they were attacked by a group of young people who objected to one of the Jews saying "Happy Hanukkah," a spokeswoman for the three said Wednesday.
Friday's altercation on the Q train began when somebody yelled out "Merry Christmas," to which rider Walter Adler responded, "Happy Hanukkah," said Toba Hellerstein.
Two women who were with a group of 10 rowdy people then began to verbally assault Adler's companions with anti-Semitic language, Hellerstein
One member of the group allegedly yelled, "Oh, Hanukkah. That's the day that the Jews killed Jesus," she said.
When Adler tried to intercede, a male member of the group punched him, she said.
"A Muslim-American saved us when our own people were on the train and didn't do anything," Adler said.
Adler pulled the emergency brake and the train stopped at DeKalb Avenue station, where police came on board.
All vehicles were banned from the largely Shiite city of Amara Wednesday after three car bombs ripped through a market district, killing at least 27 people and wounded 151, officials said.
Baghdad was also hit by violence on Wednesday.
A car bomb there killed five Iraqi civilians and wounded 15 others, an Interior Ministry official told CNN.
Maj. Gen. Abdul Karim Khalaf, head of the Interior Ministry's National Command Center, confirmed the casualty figures in the Amara bombing.
He and a committee were headed to Amara to investigate the incident.
He said the ministry fired the city's police chief in the aftermath of the attack.
Maysan Gov. Adil Muhawdar Radhi announced the vehicle ban, which he said will be in place through Thursday.
He said additional security measures have been put in place in the city.
The first bomb, in a car parked in a commercial area, detonated about 9:30 a.m. As onlookers gathered, the second one exploded in a nearby garage a few minutes later.
It was followed by a third bomb in the garage a few minutes after that. Ambulances and police raced to the scene.
Al-Forat, an Iraqi TV station affiliated with the Supreme Islamic Council of Iraq political movement, reported that most of the casualties were women and children.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, in a statement, denounced the attack.
At least 21 people died in eastern China's Zhejiang province early Wednesday when a 28-story apartment building caught fire, rescuers said, according to China's Xinhua news service.
The fire broke out around 8:20 a.m. in central Wenzhou city and took more than 200 firefighters and 33 fire engines to extinguish it, Xinhua reported.
At one point, the blaze trapped hundreds of residents in the building known as Wenfu Mansion.
According to witnesses, the fire started in a flower shop on the first floor and rapidly spread to an entertainment venue on the second floor, before engulfing the building in smoke.
WASHINGTON (CNN) Scientists think they have figured out why pregnant women don't lose their balance and topple over despite ever-growing weight up front.
Evolution provided slight differences from men in women's lower backs and hip joints, allowing them to adjust their center of gravity, new research shows.
This elegant engineering is seen only in female humans and our immediate ancestors who walked on two feet, but not in chimps and apes, according to a study published in Thursday's journal Nature.
"That's a big load that's pulling you forward," said Liza Shapiro, an anthropology professor at the University of Texas and the only one of the study's three authors who has actually been pregnant . "You experience discomfort. Maybe it would be a lot worse if (the design changes) were not there.
Harvard anthropology researcher Katherine Whitcomb found two physical differences in male and female backs that until now had gone unnoticed:
One lower lumbar vertebra is wedged-shaped in women and more square in men;
and a key hip joint is 14 percent larger in women than men when body size is taken into account.
The researchers did engineering tests that show how those slight changes allow women to carry the additional and growing load without toppling over and typically without disabling back pain.
"They are experiencing a pretty impressive challenge. Evolution has tinkered ... to the point where they can deal with the challenge.
"It's absolutely beautiful," she said. "A little bit of tinkering can have a profound effect.
Walking on two feet separates humans from most other animals.
And while anthropologists still debate the evolutionary benefit of walking on two feet, there are notable costs, such as pain for pregnant females.
Animals on all fours can better handle the extra belly weight.
The back changes appear to have evolved to overcome the cost of walking on two feet, said Harvard anthropology professor Daniel Lieberman.
When the researchers looked back at fossil records of human ancestors, including the oldest spines that go back 2 million years to our predecessor, Australopithecus, they found a male without the lower-back changes and a female with them.
But what about men with stomachs the size of babies or bigger?
What keeps them from toppling over?
Their back muscles are used to compensate, but that probably means more back pain, theorized Shapiro, who added: "It would be a fun study to do to look at men with beer bellies to see if they shift their loads.
DUBAI (CNN) A court in Dubai sentenced two men Wednesday to 15 years in prison for the rape and kidnapping of a 15-year-old French boy.
The boy's mother, Veronique Robert, was visibly upset after the sentence was read and promised to appeal.
Robert, a French journalist, brought the case to the media's attention in recent months in an effort to shed light on what she deemed to be injustices in the pro-Western emirate of Dubai.
Robert said Wednesday's sentence was too lenient for a crime that she believes is tantamount to attempted murder because one of her son's attackers was knowingly HIV-positive at the time of the rape.
She refrained from asking the death penalty for her son's attackers, but said she hoped the sentence would be much longer.
A spokesman for the Dubai government, Habib al Mulla, told CNN the sentence was in accordance with international standards and was not lenient.
The case began in July, when the two men, 36 and 18, kidnapped and raped the French teenager at knifepoint.
Robert contacted French diplomats, who took up the allegations with Dubai authorities.
Al Mulla said police action was swift and arrests were made within 24 hours.
But Robert has said the case was botched from the start, beginning with her son's examination by a doctor who said her son was gay.
Homosexuality in Dubai is illegal, and the teen could have faced as much as a year in prison.
Robert's son has since returned to France and was not in court for Wednesday's sentencing.
Robert has also said Dubai authorities repeatedly concealed evidence confirmed in court papers that one of the attackers was HIV-positive.
Robert said her son, who is still awaiting test results to find out whether he has the virus, could have gotten treatment much sooner had they known.
Dubai authorities deny any evidence was concealed.
The mother has already filed suit in courts in Paris and Geneva, Switzerland seeking compensation from Sheikh Khalifa, president of the United Arab Emirates, and the prime minister and vice president of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed al Maktoum.
Robert said she will drop all her pending cases if the government sets up rape clinics, recognizes the status of rape victims, and takes precautions after rape against sexually-transmitted diseases.
ROME, Italy (CNN) A strike by Italian truck drivers that has caused shortages of food, fuel and medicine across the country has ended at least for now.
A spokesman for Italy's government told CNN the strike was called off after a Wednesday meeting between government and labor leaders in which the government made an offer to settle truckers' grievances.
Representatives for labor unions represented in the strike, however, said the strike has merely been suspended.
They said union leaders wanted to talk to members before accepting what was described as a "take it or leave it" offer from the government.
Truckers are demanding more money to compensate for rising fuel prices, which in Italy is mostly a result of taxes.
Truck drivers had defied a government order Wednesday to halt what they had said would be a five-day strike.
Organizers of the strike, which began early Monday morning, said participation was massive, with 99 percent of trucking companies taking part.
Already gas stations have been closed for lack of fuel, and supermarkets mostly those in large cities have shortages of produce and dairy goods.
Trucks carrying fuel and medicines for hospitals and pharmacies have been let through, but pharmacists warned there could be shortages of medicine in the long run.
Italy's Transport Ministry demanded the strikers return to work Wednesday because of "damages to the community," but the truck drivers said they would continue striking.
More than 24 hours after twin bombings killed dozens in the Algerian capital, rescue workers continued to search for nearly a dozen people trapped beneath the debris of a partially collapsed United Nations building.
The latest official death toll from the Algerian government is 31 including five foreign nationals but hospital sources say that more than 60 were killed in the bombings and that number could rise, as 11 people are still missing and are feared dead.
Rescue teams worked through the night, pulling out seven people alive from the rubble by 2 a.m. Wednesday.
They held out little hope for the 11 still missing by late Wednesday afternoon.
U.N. spokeswoman Marie Okabe said Wednesday at least nine U.N. staff members were killed in the bombing, while several others are still missing.
"Hopes for finding any survivors have dimmed," she said.
The bombing near the U.N. offices happened minutes after another suspected truck bomb detonated near Algeria's Constitutional Council which oversees elections and Supreme Court.
That blast struck a bus outside the targeted building, killing many of those on board, according to Algeria's state-run news agency.
Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori, already convicted of abuse of authority, denied in a second trial Wednesday that he was aware of a military death squad even though he lived at army headquarters when the group operated.
He said he moved to the base for his family's safety.
If convicted, he faces up to 30 years in prison and a fine of some $33 million.
He said one of the first steps he took was to order the five intelligence agencies in the different branches of the armed forces and police to share information and answer directly to him via the National Intelligence Service, which was controlled by Vladimiro Montesinos.
Fujimori also denied that Montesinos, his closest adviser, was ever a friend.
Tiger Woods was voted PGA Tour player of the year by his peers Tuesday, the third straight year he won the award and the ninth time in his 11 years as a pro.
Woods also won player of the year from the PGA of America, a points-based system. The PGA Tour award is a vote and Phil Mickelson was only other player on the ballot.
Woods won seven times, including the PGA Championship for his 13th career major.
It gave him another sweep of PGA Tour awards named after three of the biggest names in history the Jack Nicklaus Trophy for player of the year, the Arnold Palmer Award for leading the money list ($10.8 million) and the Byron Nelson Trophy for having the lowest scoring average (67.79).
Liverpool delivered a final emphatic chapter in their Champions League comeback on Tuesday when they mauled Marseille 4-0 to reach the last-16 knockout phase.
Steven Gerrard, Fernando Torres, Dirk Kuyt and Ryan Babel were on target in France as the Reds finished their Group A campaign with three straight wins to qualify against the odds.
We are disappointed it came down to the last game. "We needed to perform tonight.
We knew we'd got the quality so we're very happy with the performance."
Marseille had beaten every English team to have played at the Velodrome, including Liverpool in the UEFA Cup in 2004.
But the Merseysiders have a superb recent record in the Champions League they won it in 2005 and lost to AC Milan in the final last year and once again proved the masters with Torres outstanding.
ROME, Italy (CNN) Tweety may get a chance to take the witness stand and sing like a canary.
An Italian court ordered the animated bird, along with Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and his girlfriend Daisy, to testify in a counterfeiting case.
In what lawyers believe was a clerical error worthy of a Looney Tunes cartoon, a court in Naples sent a summons to the characters ordering them to appear Friday in a trial in the southern Italian city, officials said.
The court summons cites Titti, Paperino, Paperina, Topolino the Italian names for the characters as damaged parties in the criminal trial of a Chinese man accused of counterfeiting products of Disney and Warner Bros.
Instead of naming only the companies and their legal representatives, clerks also wrote in the witness list the names of the cartoons that decorated the toys and gadgets the man had reproduced, said Fiorenza Sorotto, vice president of Disney Company Italia.
"Unfortunately they cannot show up, as they are residents of Disneyland," Sorotto joked in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.
"It certainly pleased us that the characters were considered real, because that's what we try to do.
The Naples court will have to rewrite the summons, although this will probably delay the trial, said Disney lawyer Cristina Ravelli.
"Let's hope the characters will not be prosecuted for failing to appear," Ravelli quipped.
NEW YORK (CNN) George Washington's commissioned gold medal that was given to Marquis de Lafayette, the French revolutionary who supported the American Revolution, was sold Tuesday at auction for $5.3 million, Sotheby's announced.
La Fondation de Chambrun, in Chateau La Grange, Lafayette's home 30 miles (48 km) east of Paris, beat out two other bidders.
"The medal is a symbol of the bond and friendship between America and France," said Christophe Van de Weghe, a Manhattan art dealer who represented the foundation.
The medal, shaped like an eagle and believed have its original ribbon and red leather box, will be displayed in Lafayette's bedroom, Van de Weghe said.
It also might be displayed at Mount Vernon, Washington's former home and slave plantation in Virginia.
Washington, Lafayette and others in 1783 formed the Society of the Cincinnati, a group devoted to maintaining the Revolution's ideals, and eagle badges were given to members.
The medal auctioned Tuesday was made to Washington's specifications.
After Washington's death, the medal was presented to Lafayette by Washington's family;
it was consigned to the auction by Lafayette's great-great granddaughter.
The pre-sale estimate was $4 million to $10 million.
Israeli forces made forays into northern and southern Gaza Tuesday morning in operations targeting Palestinian militants, killing up to six, according to Palestinian sources and the Israel Defense Forces.
Israel carried out airstrikes against Qassam rocket launch sites in the north.
IDF said the strikes killed two militants, while Palestinian security sources said one member of Islamic Jihad was killed.
In southern Gaza, Palestinian security sources said 30 Israeli tanks and bulldozers entered the territory early Tuesday morning and were conducting house-to-house searches after shutting down the main road between Rafah and Khan Yunis.
Four Islamic Jihad members were killed by Israeli fire, according to Palestinian security and medical sources.
In addition, the Palestinian sources said nine Palestinians were injured, including two journalists.
TOKYO, Japan (CNN) Pirates released a Japanese tanker and its 22 crew members off the Somali coast Wednesday and all the crew are unharmed, a U.S. Navy spokesman said.
The 6,253-ton chemical tanker Golden Nori was seized off Africa six weeks ago
The Golden Nori, carrying crew from Myanmar, the Philippines and South Korea, was seized in late October off the east coast of Somalia.
One of the two South Korean crew members escaped and was rescued by a passing vessel in early November.
Andrew Mwangura, head of the Kenya-based East Africa Seafarers' Assistance Program said Monday that the hostage takers have demanded $1 million ransom and threatened to kill all 22 crew if their demands were not met.
Yoichi Oda, a Japanese official in charge of crisis management, said that the Japanese government has not received any ransom demands from the hostage-takers.
The chemical tanker was carrying up to 40,000 tons of highly explosive benzene.
The U.S. Navy in late October came to the aid of the vessel, with the guided missile destroyer USS Porter at one point opening fire to destroy pirate skiffs tied to it.
The U.S. military has recently intervened several times to help ships hijacked by Somali pirates.
LONDON, England (CNN) A lock of John Lennon's hair is being put up for sale.
Lennon gave Betty Glasow, the Beatles' hairdresser, the lock of hair in a copy of his book "A Spaniard in the Works."
In the dedication he wrote, "To Betty, Lots of Love and Hair, John Lennon.
On Wednesday, fans will have the chance to bid on the hair and other autographed photos and Beatles memorabilia when they go up for auction in Worthing, in southern England.
The book with the hair still inside could fetch as much as $6,200, said Nick Muston, director of Gorringes auction house.
Glasow, who kept the Beatles' moptops trimmed on the set of the films "A Hard Day's Night" and "Help!
" decided to sell the items because she wanted fans to have them, Muston said.
"She feels that rather than these things being stuck in a drawer with nobody enjoying them, real enthusiasts [could] get their hands on these things," Muston said.
Other items in the sale include signed photographs of the Beatles dedicated to Glasow, including one where George Harrison signed the photo George "Dandruff" Harrison.
Another lot includes a program, ticket and screw from one of the seats at a 1965 Beatles Christmas Concert at Hammersmith Apollo in London, where fans ripped out seats so they could dance in the aisles.
Glasow has also worked with a number of actors.
Peter Ustinov, from "Death on the Nile";
NEW YORK (CNN) A former CIA agent who participated in interrogations of terror suspects said Tuesday that the controversial interrogation technique of "waterboarding" has saved lives, but he considers the method torture and now opposes its use.
Former CIA operative John Kiriakou also told CNN's "American Morning" that he disagrees with a decision to destroy videotapes of certain interrogations, namely of al Qaeda's Abu Zubayda.
Waterboarding begins by placing a suspect on a table with the suspect's feet slightly elevated, said Kiriakou, who was waterboarded several years ago as part of his CIA training.
Once a suspect is secured on the table, interrogators wrap his or her face in a cellophane-like material, Kiriakou said.
"There is a bladder, or a water source, above the head with water pouring down on the mouth, so no water is going into your mouth, but it induces a gag reflex and makes you feel like you're choking," Kiriakou said.
Kiriakou said he lasted only a few seconds during his training because his body felt like it was seizing up almost immediately.
"It's entirely unpleasant," Kiriakou said. "You are so full of tension that you tense up, your muscles tighten up. It's very uncomfortable.
SYDNEY, Australia (CNN) Officials conceded Tuesday that Australia's welfare system failed a girl who was removed from a remote Aboriginal community after being sexually abused at age 7, then gang raped at age 10 when she was returned to live in the town.
The case has drawn outrage in Australia after it was revealed that nine males who pleaded guilty to the second rape were paroled or had their sentences suspended by a judge who said the victim had probably consented to having sex with them.
Officials in Queensland state said Monday they would launch appeal proceedings against District Court Judge Sarah Bradley's decision not to hand down custodial sentences in connection with the girl's rape in Aurukun township on Cape York in 2006.
Bligh has also announced a review of all sexual assault cases on the cape a remote, tropical region dotted by giant cattle farms and tiny Aboriginal outstations in the past two years, amounting to about 75.
As anger surrounding the case roiled Australia, Bligh on Tuesday confirmed news reports that the girl was first sexually assaulted at Aurukun in 2002, by several juveniles who did not face court.
One welfare officer responsible for sending the girl back to Aurukun has been fired and two others have been suspended, she said.
In sentencing, Bradley told the offenders that the victim "was not forced and she probably agreed to have sex with all of you" but warned them that having sex with anyone younger than 16 was illegal and they could end up in prison.
Aboriginal leaders have condemned the ruling as too lenient, and have demanded Bradley be stood down.
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on Monday said he was "disgusted and appalled" by the reports of the case, and that sexual violence against women and children should be treated with zero tolerance.
The man tipped to be Russia's next president said Tuesday he wanted incumbent President Vladimir Putin to become the country's next prime minister.
Dmitry Medvedev said on Russian state television that he has asked Putin to head the government if he wins elections scheduled for March next year. The announcement comes only a day after Putin's United Russia party formally nominated Medvedev to be the party's candidate for the presidential elections. Russian law bars Putin from seeking a third term as president.
"I call upon him to agree in principle to head the Russian government after the elections of the new president," Medvedev, currently the deputy prime minister, told state television.
Medvedev, who is also chairman of the state energy giant Gazprom, said he wanted Putin to remain at the center of Russian political life because it was important to "continue the 'political' course that has been started in the late 1990s.
A former lawyer who hails from Putin's native St. Petersburg, Medvedev, 42, managed the president's election campaign in 2000 and is considered part of Putin's inner circle of advisers.
With Putin's backing and no major political figures announcing plans to run against him, Medvedev looks likely to coast to victory in next year's presidential elections.
Putin, who has consolidated power in the hands of the Kremlin during his eight years in power, had already made it clear he was keen to play a role in Russian politics after he left office.
pro-democracy groups accuse him of trampling on democratic freedoms and stifling free speech. Opposition leaders said the job offer to Putin was "predictable.
Asian stocks fell sharply Wednesday morning after Wall Street took a nosedive due to disappointment over the U.S. Federal Reserve's smaller-than-expected cut in its key rate.
Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 index fell 294.85 points, or 1.84 percent, to end morning trading at 15,749.87 points on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
The index rose 0.76 percent the day before.
Hong Kong's blue chip Hang Seng Index lost almost 3 percent in early trading before rising off the low.
"We see any pullback in the local market today, following the overnight U.S. market plunge, as a good buying opportunity, as the asset inflation story in Hong Kong remains solid," said Ernie Hon, a strategist at ICEA.
In South Korea, the Korea Composite Stock Price Index, or Kospi, fell 1.52 percent to 1,895.87 by early afternoon.
The Dow Jones industrial average plunged 294.26 points, or 2.14 percent, to 13,432.77.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Tuesday international pressure on Iran has been effective and may need increasing despite a U.S. intelligence report that Tehran stopped work on nuclear weapons fours years ago.
Olmert, speaking at the Israeli Institute for National Security Studies, said it was down to the United States, Russia, China and key European Union nations to keep the pressure on Iran.
The U.S. National Intelligence Estimate on Iran released last week said Iran halted work toward a nuclear weapon while under international scrutiny in 2003 and is unlikely to be able to produce enough enriched uranium for a bomb until 2010 to 2015.
The assessment reversed a 2005 report that found the Islamic Republic was "determined to develop nuclear weapons despite its international obligations and international pressure.
Olmert said the intelligence report launched "an exaggerated debate" that caused some to believe it signaled a U.S. "retreat from its support of Israel," a belief the prime minister called "groundless.
"The United States led the global campaign against Iran and mobilized its full international strength to set in motion the adoption by the U.N. Security Council of two resolutions imposing sanctions on Iran, since America was convinced that Iran constitutes a real threat to peace in the region and to vital American interests," he said. "This has not changed.
He went on: "Israel supports the tightening of the economic sanctions on Iran and its continued isolation until it fulfills the recommendations of the Security Council and suspends all activities to enrich uranium.
Former President Alberto Fujimori was convicted and sentenced to six years in prison on Tuesday on a charge of abuse of authority stemming from an illegal search he ordered as his government imploded in scandal seven years ago.
Supreme Court Judge Pedro Guillermo Urbina declared that Fujimori was guilty of abusing his power when he ordered an aide to pose as a prosecutor and search the luxury apartment of the wife of his spy chief without a warrant in November 2000.
He also fined him the equivalent of $134,900.
He faces three other trials on charges that include murder, kidnapping and corruption.
He faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted for his alleged role in the killings, which came amid a government crackdown on a bloody Maoist insurgency.
Fujimori showed little emotion during Tuesday's hearing.
After the sentence was read, Fujimori consulted quickly with his defense lawyer and then addressed the judge, saying he was "partially" appealing the sentence and the fine. He did not elaborate.
The trials are taking take place at the police base on the eastern outskirts of Lima where Fujimori is being held.
ALGIERS, Algeria (CNN) Rescuers are sifting through the rubble of the United Nations headquarters in Algiers hoping to find survivors after a powerful bomb ripped off the building's facade and leveled nearby U.N. offices.
It was one of two suspected car bombs that struck Algiers within 10 minutes of each other.
the official government count is at least 26, but hospital sources in Algiers told CNN affiliate BFM-TV that 76 people were killed in the two blasts.
A statement from the United Nations said 45 people were reported killed.
Algerian Interior Minister Noureddine Yazid Zerhouni blamed a militant Islamic group with ties to al Qaeda for the attacks, which also targeted a building housing Algeria's Constitutional Council and Supreme Court.
In a posting on an Islamist Web site, the group al Qaeda Islamic Maghreb claimed responsibility.
In the posting, the bombers were identified as Sheikh Ibrahim Abu Othman and Abdel Rahman Abu Abdel Nasser al-Asimi.
It said two trucks were filled with "no less than 800 kg (1,763 pounds) of explosives.
At least 10 U.N. staffers were among those killed, according to U.N. spokeswoman Marie Okabe.
The offices of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees located across the street from the U.N. headquarters were leveled by a blast that struck about 9:30 a.m. (3: 30 a.m. ET) Tuesday.
"Our offices are basically destroyed now, nothing works," UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond said from its Geneva headquarters.
He said rescuers are working into the night trying to get to the trapped U.N. workers. "It's a very serious situation still with the U.N. in Algiers," he said.
In a strongly worded statement, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned what he called "an abjectly cowardly strike against civilian officials serving humanity's highest ideals under the U.N. banner.
"The perpetrators of these crimes will not escape the strongest possible condemnation and ultimate punishment by Algerian authorities and the international community," Ban said in the written statement.
He said he has sent senior advisers and other top U.N. officials to head to Algiers to assist in the investigation and rescue effort.
A suicide car bomber detonated outside the homes of former Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi and Sunni politician Saleh Mutlaq in western Baghdad, killing at least two police officers, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said.
Allawi's office said the blast occurred at a police checkpoint near the headquarters of Iraqi National Accord, Allawi's secular political party.
Three vehicles and concrete blast barriers were destroyed, the official said.
The International Zone, also known as the Green Zone, is the seat of Iraq's government as well as U.S. military and diplomatic agencies.
Ronaldinho will not be leaving the Nou Camp during the January transfer window, Barcelona supremo Joan Laporta has insisted.
The Brazil forward has been linked with Chelsea and AC Milan, but club president Laporta said after the 2-1 triumph over Deportivo La Coruna that Ronaldinho is staying put.
"We are not going to sell Ronaldinho," he said. "We are not in contact with any other team (about selling him)."
The 27-year-old Ronaldinho, who is in his fifth campaign with Barcelona, is under contract until the end of June 2010.
His penalty equaliser five minutes before half-time against Depor was his sixth goal of the season.
The win leaves Barca second in La Liga, four behind Real Madrid.
LONDON, England Jose Mourinho has turned down the chance to become England's new supremo after discussions with Football Association hierarchy.
The former Chelsea manager said he had talked with the FA's chief executive Brian Barwick and Trevor Brooking but after "deep and serious thinking" decided he does not want to succeed sacked Steve McClaren.
"After Steve McClaren left the England football team, my representatives maintained contact with the FA," said Mourinho in a statement on www.gestifute.com, his agent Jorge Mendes' Web site.
"In that sense, I had myself useful discussions with Brian Barwick and Trevor Brooking where we exchanged ideas to evaluate the entire situation about the England squad and set the goals in case of real invitation being addressed to me.
"After deep and serious thinking, I decided to exclude myself from being England manager despite being a fantastic position for me.
"I reiterate my respect for the English football and, after three good years in England, I firmly believe that the England squad will soon be back to their usual great results."
Mourinho was the overwhelming fans choice to take charge and his decision to reject the job leaves the FA with four other top candidates.
Marcello Lippi, who mastermined Italy's 2006 World Cup triumph, compatriot Fabio Capello, the former Real Madrid coach, have made it known they would like to take charge of England.
Former Germany coach Juergen Klinsmann, now based in the United States, is another option.
The first cargo train providing regular service across the border between the two Koreas in more than a half century left Tuesday for the North.
The service is one of the tangible results of an October summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun that outlined a series of joint projects.
"I expect a day will come when South Koreans visit North Korean tourist attractions freely by train," Shin Jang-chul, whose parents are from what is now North Korea, told reporters before departing.
South Korea hopes the inter-Korean railway will ultimately be linked through North Korea to Russia's Trans-Siberian railroad and allow an overland route connecting the peninsula
The cargo rail service is likely to give a further boost to the sprawling Kaesong complex, which marries South Korean technology and management expertise with North Korea's cheap labor.
CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN) A federal judge Monday sentenced former media tycoon Conrad Black to 6.5 years in prison for his role in defrauding shareholders and skimming $60 million from his Hollinger International newspaper conglomerate.
Black, 63, was convicted in July of mail fraud and obstruction of justice.
During Monday's sentencing hearing, Black was also ordered to pay a $6 million fine.
"This sentence will send a message that you do not engage in this type of behavior," said U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve. "The court's sentence should adequately deter others from engaging in this conduct.
His associates Peter Atkinson of Oakville, Ontario, Jack Boultbee of Victoria, British Columbia, and Mark Kipnis of Northbrook, Illinois were also due to be sentenced on Monday.
Atkinson, Kipnis and Boultbee were also convicted of mail fraud.
Black left the court without speaking to reporters.
Prosecutors had initially recommended that all four defendants serve 15 to 20 years in prison.
U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said he was pleased with the outcome.
"Maybe I'm just dumb," he said, "but having to spend six and a half years in prison doesn't sound too relieving to me."
In the early 1990s, Hollinger International controlled 60 percent of Canadian newspapers in addition to hundreds of dailies worldwide, including the Chicago Sun Times, the Montreal Gazette, Britain's Daily Telegraph and the Jerusalem Post.
Black resigned as chairman and chief executive officer of Hollinger in 2004 after an internal investigation into shareholders' complaints that he and other executives were lining their pockets with company funds.
Weeks after his November 2004 resignation, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil fraud lawsuit against Black, as well as Hollinger International's former deputy chairman and chief operating officer, David Radler, and Hollinger International.
A year later, Fitzgerald brought eight criminal fraud charges against Black, and a warrant was issued for his
In a non-compete, the seller agrees in exchange for a payment not to compete in the buyer's market.
Black renounced his Canadian citizenship in 2001 to become a British citizen and was awarded a place in the British House of Lords.
He took the title Lord Black of Crossharbour.
The judge ruled that Black will serve his sentence in a U.S. prison, not a Canadian prison as the defense has requested.
Political parties in Belgium have been unable to form a ruling coalition since the June 10 general election, leaving the country without a government for half a year.
The prime minister was expected to raise the issue during his weekly audience with the king on Monday, said Koert Debeuf, a spokesman for Verhofstadt's office.
Belgium's political crisis may be the result of years of problems finally rearing their heads, said Hugo Brady, a research fellow at the Center for European Reform in London.
I think theory may have intervened finally," Brady said, in a reference to how the nation was constructed.
Elections pit Flemish parties in Dutch-speaking Flanders against French-speaking parties in Wallonia.
Every EU member nation is sending a representative to attend a formal signing of the treaty in the Portuguese capital.
If the Belgians are unable to send one, it may delay the signing of the treaty.
ORLANDO, Florida (CNN) Backstreet Boy Howie Dorough is single no more.
Fellow Backstreet Boys bandmates were in attendance as Dorough, 34, married Leigh Boniello at St. James Cathedral in a traditional Catholic ceremony, People and OK! magazine reported on their Web sites.
"The wedding took place as planned and all went well," attorney Jason L. Turner said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.
Dorough, also known as Howie D, proposed to his girlfriend of six years last New Year's.
"She wasn't expecting it, and I was quite nervous more nervous about proposing to her in front of 40 family and friends than about performing in front of 40,000 people onstage," Dorough told People earlier this year.
LONDON, England (CNN) Princess Diana and her boyfriend Dodi Fayed had selected a ring because the couple intended to announce their engagement within a month, a jeweler testified Monday.
Alberto Repossi told the inquest into the couple's deaths on August 31, 1997, that they visited his store in Monte Carlo a few weeks earlier, on August 5.
Shortly afterward, Repossi said Fayed telephoned to say "that he needed this ring for the end of August because at the beginning of September their engagement would be announced.
Other witnesses at the inquest have expressed skepticism about an engagement, and whether the couple chose a ring in early August.
Fayed's father, Mohamed Al Fayed, has claimed that the impending announcement of an engagement, and the princess' alleged pregnancy, provoked a murderous plot against the couple directed by Prince Philip, the husband of Queen Elizabeth II.
The couple died in a car crash which French and British police have blamed on their driver, Henri Paul.
Repossi said that Diana and Fayed picked a ring from his "Dis-moi oui" ("Tell me yes") range by early August and that the jeweler had sent it to Italy
Last week, Claude Roulet, who was assistant to the president of the Ritz Hotel and assisted Fayed in choosing a ring from Repossi's shop in Paris, testified that the "Dis-moi oui" ring was chosen only hours before the couple died in a car crash.
Roulet said the ring had been suggested late in the day by Repossi's wife, Angela, and that Fayed apparently made his decision purely on price and did not look at the ring.
Fayed's butler, Rene Delorm, testified last week that Fayed had confided only on August 30 that he intended to propose to Diana.
Later, as the couple left the hotel, Delorm said he raised his eyebrows
Somali pirates who seized a Japanese tanker six weeks ago have threatened to kill the 22 crew members unless a $1 million ransom is paid, a maritime official said Monday.
The Golden Nori is carrying crew from the Philippines, South Korea and Myanmar.
"Somali pirates holding the Japanese ship are demanding $1 million," said Andrew Mwangura, head of the Kenya-based East Africa Seafarers' Assistance Program.
"They are also saying we are going to kill the crew if our demands are not met.
Deaths are rare during such hijackings. The chemical tanker was anchored in Somali waters and carrying up to 40,000 tons of highly explosive benzene.
The U.S. Navy in late October came to the aid of the vessel, with the guided missile destroyer USS Porter at one point opening fire to destroy pirate skiffs tied to it. The pirates, though, remained aboard the tanker.
The U.S. military has recently intervened several times to help ships hijacked by Somali pirates.
Somali pirates are trained fighters, in some cases linked to powerful Somali clans, outfitted with sophisticated arms and equipment.
They have seized merchant ships, ships carrying aid, and once even a cruise ship.
Somalia has not had an effective central government since dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown in 1991.
Now the weak transitional government and its Ethiopian allies are battling an Iraq-style Islamic insurgency.
The British man who reappeared five years after he was believed to have drowned, appeared in court Monday, and his wife was charged with two counts of deception.
25,000 ($50,000) by deception and making an untrue statement to procure a passport, a spokeswoman for the court told CNN.
He entered no plea, the spokeswoman said.
The first charge dates back to May 2003, when Darwin is accused of obtaining money fraudulently from Unat Direct Insurance Management Ltd. by falsely claiming that he had been killed in an accident the previous year.
25,000 by cash transfer and the other relating to obtaining &pound; 137,000 by cash transfer.
She is expected in court Tuesday, police said.
She was arrested by police Sunday after she flew in to Britain on a flight from via Atlanta, Georgia.
She had been living in Panama City, Panama.
Detective Superintendent Tony Hutchinson said Darwin may have gone under the name of "John Jones" and grown a long brown beard during his absence.
The International Olympic Committee has rejected an attempt by Tibet to field its own team at the 2008 Beijing Olympics
More than 100 Tibet supporters including some Buddhist monks waved banners and Tibetan flags outside the IOC headquarters Monday, as delegates from the unofficial Tibetan National Olympic Committee met with the organization's officials to discuss the request.
"The IOC is not in a position to accept our application," said Wangpo Tethong, a president of the Tibetan group.
Michel Filliau, a senior IOC official who took part in the meeting, said a rule change in 1996 meant only national committees from countries recognized by the international community can take part in the Olympics.
A special exemption is granted to those territories whose national committees were recognized before 1996, said Filliau, who directs the IOC's relations with national committees.
The Palestinian territories, Hong Kong and Taiwan which competes as Chinese Taipei are among those that benefit.
The possibility of a Tibetan participating as an "independent Olympic athlete" also won't happen, IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies said. "In this particular case, athletes from the region would fall under the National Olympic Committee of China," Davies said.
Beijing dismissed outright the request from Tibet, which has been controlled by China since 1951.
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (CNN) Cristina Fernandez was sworn in Monday as Argentina's first elected female president, completing a rare husband-wife transfer of power that the nation hopes will ensure continued recovery from an economic meltdown.
Half a decade after the financial blowout, which her husband and departing President Nestor Kirchner has called an "economic hell," Fernandez embarked on a four-year term, challenged with prolonging a recovery that has seen annual growth rates above 8 percent.
"The government that is coming is going to be much better than the one that's now leaving," Kirchner said.
in Congress, controlled by Fernandez's forces, applauded as the 54-year-old leader took her oath.
Scores of police blocked streets around Congress for the inauguration attended by fellow South American presidents.
Fernandez won 45 percent of the vote against a divided opposition on October 28.
She joins Michelle Bachelet in neighboring Chile as the second female president in South America.
Fernandez seems unlikely to alter Kirchner's alliance with Latin American leftists, including Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, but she could forge better ties with the next U.S. president
At home, the new president will try to correct some lingering headaches from the Kirchner term:
inflation that private economists estimate in the double digits, corruption scandals and a sputtering energy crisis.
Barcelona closed the gap at the top on leaders Real Madrid to four points with a 2-1 win over struggling Deportiva La Coruna in the Nou Camp on Sunday.
Xavi Hernandez scored the winner for Barca after 71 minutes to secure a vital three points.
It was their eighth successive home victory on the trot and notable for the return to action of star striker Samuel Eto'o after a long injury layoff.
In earlier play on Sunday, Atletico Madrid enhanced their claims for a Champions League spot with a tempestuous 1-0 victory over neighbors Getafe as four players were sent off.
Referee Carlos Clos Gomez handed out 15 cards, four of them red as both sides finished with nine men.
The party of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif announced Sunday that it would participate in Pakistan's parliamentary elections next month after failing to convince rival Benazir Bhutto to join a boycott.
Greater participation will make the balloting look more open, bolstering President Pervez Musharraf's democratic credentials, which took a hit over his November 3 declaration of a state of emergency and his dismissal of independent-minded judges.
But having by the opposition in the field also will siphon votes and seats from Musharraf's party, weakening the U.S.-backed leader.
Movement, comprised of 33 parties and political groups led by Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-N, met Sunday to cobble together a joint stance.
At the end of the talks Sharif's party announced its participation.
The other groups will decide on their own whether to stay away.
Still, in the current volatile political environment, last-minute snags remain possible, with several opposition leaders claiming the government is preparing to rig the vote.
BERLIN, Germany (CNN) Karlheinz Stockhausen, whose innovative electronic works made him one of the most important composers of the postwar era, has died at age 79.
Stockhausen, who gained fame through his avant-garde works in the 1960s and '70s and later moved into composing works for huge theaters and other projects, died Wednesday, Germany's Music Academy said, citing members of his family.
No cause of death was given.
He is known for his electronic compositions that are a radical departure from musical tradition and incorporate influences as varied as the visual arts, the acoustics of a particular concert hall, and psychology.
Stockhausen was considered by some an eccentric member of the European musical elite and by others a courageous pioneer in the field of new music.
Stockhausen sparked controversy in 2001, when he described the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States as "the greatest work of art one can imagine" during a news conference in the northern German city of Hamburg, where several of the suicide pilots had lived.
The composer later apologized, but the city still canceled performances of his concerts.
Stockhausen was born in the village of Moedrath near Cologne in western Germany on August 22, 1928.
His father was killed in World War II and his mother also died, leaving him orphaned as a teenager.
After completing his studies in musicology, philosophy and German literature at the University of Cologne, he went on to study under composer Olivier Messiaen in Paris from 1952 to 1953, where he also met his French contemporary Pierre Boulez.
Stockhausen wrote more than 280 works, including more than 140 pieces of electronic or electro-acoustic music and brought out more than 100 different albums.
He was known for conducting nearly all of the premiere performances of his works.
LONDON, England (CNN) How do you make a good travel experience out of a business trip?
There may be times when quick and efficient transfers and check-ins are what is most important from a excursion, but with the holiday season almost upon us, even the most hardened road warriors will be forgiven for thinking more about winding down for the year than business.
Some airlines use the Christmas and New Year period to discount their business class seats and offer some extra perks.
With the weak dollar, transatlantic carriers have been full to the brim with leisure and business travelers keen to take advantage of favorable exchange rates.
All-business class airline Silverjet has spotted an attractive way to get bums on seats and give time-pressed business travelers a helping hand in their Christmas present buying with a retail therapist.
Passengers on the airline's flights from London to New York and Dubai get the benefit of British journalist Lucia van der Post's extensive shopping knowledge.
For many, though, Christmas shopping might seem more a chore rather than a good way to make the most of their down-time on a business trip.
Falling short of a personal assistant or good old fashioned butler to do the leg work for you, an online concierge service could the next best thing.
GetFriday and Ask Sunday are two companies catering for a growing demand among time-poor professionals and business travelers for someone else to deal with life's tedious chores.
For $15 an hour, customers with GetFriday an Indian company based in Bangalore are paired with a personal assistant.
The customer can call or email their overseas assistant, calling them by their first name (for that personal touch) and request almost anything, from helping to draft documents to more everyday chores such as paying bills that they might not be able to pay because they are away on business.
Canadian company Trufflepig is a bespoke travel firm that caters for high-end travelers and those with a demanding disposition to be shown something exceptional.
Founder Charlie Scott and his small team of luxury travel hunters use their extensive travel knowledge and local contacts to organize trips catered to their clients' desires and budgets, either giving them a detailed itinerary or putting them in contact with locals or guides.
MONROVIA, Liberia (CNN) Officials have confirmed the presence in Liberia of mass graves which are believed to hold the remains of people massacred during the country's 14-year civil war.
Jerome Verdier, chairman of Liberia's Truth and Reconciliation Commission headed a team that visited the four villages where the graves are located.
The commission had gone to the villages to encourage residents to share their past with the truth commission and were led to the graves, located in Lofa County on Liberia's border with Guinea and Sierra Leone.
The smallest grave is believed to hold 78 people, while the largest has as many as 500 bodies, said Verdier.
"The mass graves that we saw are something the people are living with," he said. "In some places, they have the full names of those who were buried."
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (CNN) Hugo Chavez and leaders of six other South American nations launched a regional development bank Sunday that the Venezuelan leader is touting as the continent's answer to U.S.-influenced international lenders.
With as much as $7 billion in expected startup capital, backers say the Banco del Sur, or Bank of the South, will offer Latin American countries loans with fewer strings attached than those given by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund or the Inter-American Development Bank.
The leaders signed the "founding act" at a ceremony at Argentina's presidential palace hosted by President Nestor Kirchner and his wife, president-elect Cristina Fernandez, who takes office Monday.
South American dignitaries and government officials cheered after the leaders signed the accord on a glass-topped table, backed by flags of their South American nations.
"This is the start of a historical moment," said Bolivian President Evo Morales, whose country is the continent's poorest.
He praised the bank as a new tool to fight poverty and ease inequalities and criticized what he characterized as heavy-handed lending practices of international lenders who demand austerity prescriptions as conditions for extending credit.
"Only strong and united can South America occupy its rightful place among nations," Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said. "This will be the first international bank truly controlled by the nations of our continent.
Earlier, Chavez said the bank is "aimed at freeing us from the chains of dependence and underdevelopment.
The institution is one of several far-reaching proposals under Chavez's ambitious call to unite Latin American countries in a "confederation of republics."
His vision also includes a transcontinental natural gas pipeline and trade alliances.
Critics note much remains to be determined about how the bank will operate and say it might turn out to be a largely symbolic project used by Chavez to spread his oil-financed influence.
But others call it a bold stroke for Latin America's financial independence.
Finance ministers of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela will sit on the bank's board.
Officials say it will dispense loans for projects from road-building to anti-poverty programs and regional integration plans such as cross-border rail lines.
Venezuelan officials say the bank's loans will be issued at interest rates similar to those of other international lenders.
The bank will be headquartered in Caracas, with Bolivian and Argentine branches.
Los Angeles police arrested a 21-year-old Loyola Marymount University student in connection with an online threat to shoot people on campus, officials said Saturday.
Police arrested Carlos Huerta, a senior at Loyola, for investigation of making criminal threats.
Huerta was taken into custody Saturday night near his apartment on campus.
Huerta is suspected of posting a message that he would shoot and kill as many people as possible on campus before being killed himself by police, authorities said.
The anonymous threat appeared on a chat board called Juicycampus.com, used primarily by college students.
University officials reported the threat to police around 11:30 a.m. Saturday, said Los Angeles Police Department spokesman Officer Mike Lopez.
Officers were dispatched to patrol the campus as a precaution, and campus entrances were restricted.
Investigators working with campus officials were eventually able to determine that the threat had come from the computer registered to Huerta, police said.
After 20 years covering politics, I'm a hard sell. I've seen every gimmick known to politicians:
train trips, hang gliders, pyrotechnics and "intimate" conversations with voters in barber shops, front porches, diners and ice cream shops. Lord knows I have seen hundreds of endorsements.
But the Double "O" show, coming to an early primary state near you, was something else again.
There was an "Iowa for Obama" sign on the wall, adorned with white Christmas tree lights.
There were a couple of signs, but no fireworks, no hang gliders, just Oprah and Obama and thousands of their closest friends packed into a cavernous arena in downtown Des Moines.
Gayle King (Oprah's BFF) told one of the women seated next to her that Oprah was up until three in the morning writing her speech introducing Obama.
She told people backstage she was nervous.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) Authorities imposed a curfew in Hilla on Sunday after a roadside bomb killed a provincial police chief and two other officers, an official with the Interior Ministry said.
"Today, Iraq has lost a dear son and a brave military leader, a citizen that always abided by the law, the constitution and values of rights and justice," Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said in a statement about the death of Maj. Gen. Qais al-Mamoori.
The Babel provincial police chief was traveling outside Hilla, south of Baghdad, when an explosion struck his convoy, officials said.
Two police officers were wounded in the blast.
Local provisional authorities implemented the curfew starting at 2 p.m. minutes after the bomb, the Interior Ministry official said, adding that the curfew will continue until further notice.
The authorities also announced a three-day mourning period after what they called the police chief's "assassination.
"This criminal act is one of a series of assassinations that took place recently in the south," Talabani said, noting that the governors of Wasit and Diwaniya provinces have been killed as well.
The assassinations have been "aimed at preventing" stability and the rule of law, he said.
Talabani condemned the "cowardly act" and called for the perpetrators to be brought to justice.
LONDON, England (CNN) The wife of "Canoe Man" John Darwin, presumed dead until he walked into a London police station earlier this month, has been arrested on her return to the UK, police have told CNN.
Anne Darwin, 55, was arrested by officers when she arrived at Manchester airport in northwestern England at 0925 GMT Sunday on a flight from Atlanta, Georgia, a spokesman for Manchester police said.
She was detained, the spokesman said, after a request from Cleveland police, which is investigating fraud allegations and which covers the area of northern England where Darwin and her husband lived at the time of his disappearance.
She has not been charged and is now at Hartlepool police station for questioning.
John Darwin, 57, was charged by Cleveland police in Saturday evening with making an untrue statement to procure a passport and obtaining money transfer by deception, Detective Sgt. Iain Henderson of Cleveland Police said Saturday.
John Darwin is to appear Monday before Hartlepool magistrates court, Henderson said, when police plan to ask for him to be remanded in custody.
Henderson added that John Darwin was "fit and well.
Darwin came to worldwide attention after he walked into a police station in London on December 1 and told police officers he was suffering from amnesia and had no memory of the past five years.
He did so after the remains of a red canoe he paddled into the North Sea, off northeastern England, washed up on shore near his home in Seaton Carew in March 2002.
Despite an extensive search involving police, coastguards and the Royal Navy, no trace was found of the prison officer and former teacher.
Within 24 hours his canoe's paddle was recovered by police near the area where he was thought to have disappeared.
Two months later the remains of his canoe washed up.
He was declared dead by a coroner in 2003, 13 months after his disappearance in March 2002.
Henderson said the police had received many calls, both from the UK and overseas, in response to their appeals for information about John Darwin's whereabouts since he was last seen.
Shortly after he went to police, John Darwin was reunited with his two sons, Mark and Anthony, now aged 31 and 29, who last week released a joint statement saying the reappearance of their father was "a huge shock.
The sons said their father claimed to have no memory of the past seven years.
"We have spoken with John and he appears to be in good health, however he currently has no memory of events since June 2000," they said.
NEW WESTMINSTER, British Columbia (CNN) A pig farmer accused of being Canada's worst serial killer was found guilty Sunday of six counts of second-degree murder, which carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison.
The verdict ended the trial of Robert 'Willie' Pickton on the first six of 26 murder charges in the deaths of women, most of them prostitutes and drug addicts from a seedy Vancouver neighborhood.
Pickton, 58, was tried for the killings of Mona Wilson, Sereena Abotsway, Marnie Frey, Brenda Wolfe, Andrea Joesbury and Georgina Papin.
The defense acknowledged that their remains were found on Pickton's farm outside Vancouver, but denied he was responsible for their deaths.
The jury of seven men and five women began its deliberations Friday night.
They had the option of finding Pickton guilty of first-degree murder, second-degree murder or manslaughter or not guilty on any of the six counts.
Pickton listened to the verdict with his head bowed.
He will receive a mandatory sentence of life in prison and will not be eligible for parole for at least 10 years.
The jury was deliberating Sunday whether to extend that 10-year period.
Two jurors, both women, wiped tears from their eyes while the verdict was read.
Prosecutors have said Pickton will be tried for the 20 other murder charges but no date has been set.
Last week, Judge James Williams reviewed the transcript of a videotape in which Pickton is heard telling an undercover police officer that he had planned to kill one more woman before stopping at 50, taking a break and then killing another 25 women.
Prosecution witness Andrew Bellwood had testified that Pickton told him how he strangled his alleged victims and fed their remains to his pigs.
A black-clad man armed with a rifle opened fire on worshippers at a Colorado Springs, Colorado, megachurch Sunday afternoon, wounding several people, church and hospital officials reported.
Rob Brendle, an associate pastor at New Life Church, said the attack took place inside the church after a late-morning service and that the suspect was fatally shot.
But police spokesman Lt. Fletcher Howard said he could confirm no fatalities, and that all of the shooting occurred outside the church, in the parking lot.
"When we got here, there were victims out here in the parking lot and everyone else was in the church," he said.
He said a suspect was in custody, but police do not know the motive for the attack nor any relationship between the suspect and the victims.
Howard would not confirm the number of wounded, but added, "We have some people that are in shock, which is to be expected after an event like this takes place.
Lt. Lari Sevene, a spokeswoman for the El Paso County Sheriff's Department, said the attack took place shortly after 1 p.m. and said possibly two or three people were wounded.
Francis Hospital in Colorado Springs, told CNN that several victims were taken to the hospital.
The shooting at New Life Church came about 12 hours after a shooting at a missionary training center in Arvada, outside Denver, left two people dead and two wounded.
The gunman in that incident is still being sought by police.
As of Sunday afternoon, there was no known connection between the two incidents.
Arvada and Colorado Springs are about 70 miles apart.
An ice storm grounded airline flights and knocked out power to thousands of customers from Oklahoma to Illinois on Sunday.
Two traffic deaths were blamed on icy roads in Oklahoma.
Ice as much as a half-inch thick coated roads and tree limbs in parts of extreme southeast Kansas and northeastern Oklahoma.
An additional three-quarters of an inch of ice was possible by late Monday in some areas of Oklahoma, the National Weather Service said.
At Kansas City International Airport, 18 flights had been canceled by midmorning Sunday, and 13 flights were called off at St. Louis Lambert International Airport.
Blunt's office said tens of thousands of people were without power in central, southwest and northeast Missouri.
Utilities in Oklahoma reported nearly 37,000 homes and business without electricity during the afternoon Sunday.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown flew into southern Iraq Sunday to rally troops who are handing over the last region under their control to Iraqi forces this month.
Britain plans to give responsibility for Basra province to Iraqi forces in mid-December, relinquishing the last of four regions of southern Iraq it occupied after the 2003 invasion.
"We have managed now to get Iraq to a far better position ... we're able to move to provincial control and that is thanks to what you have achieved," Brown told
The leader's unannounced visit signals the start of what Britain hopes will be the transition from a military mission in Iraq to one aimed at aiding Iraq's economy and providing jobs.
Britain's contingent of 4,500 troops in Iraq will fall to 2,500 by the spring.
NEW YORK (CNN) Billy Joel has released a new pop single, the anti-war "Christmas in Fallujah.
" Just don't expect to hear his voice on it.
At 58, Joel felt he was too old to sing the song, which was inspired by letters the Piano Man received from soldiers in Iraq.
So he gave it to Cass Dillon, a 21-year-old singer-songwriter from Long Island.
I've had my time in the sun. I think it's time for somebody else, maybe, to benefit from my own experience.
Dillon said he was thrilled to be asked by Joel.
"When someone of that stature, with that history of great songs behind him with such a huge catalog asks you to sing something he's written, there's nothing you can do but be completely honored to perform," Dillon said in a statement.
"Christmas in Fallujah" went on sale Tuesday on Apple Inc.'s iTunes.
Net proceeds will be donated to Homes for Our Troops, which builds homes for severely wounded veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan.
LONDON, England (CNN) The British man who reappeared five years after he was thought to have drowned changed his identity during his disappearance and tried to buy a catamaran to go "sailing around the world," a boat dealer said Friday.
It comes as a judge in Hartlepool Magistrates' Court in northeast England granted police another 36 hours to question John Darwin, 57. Police had sought a warrant for an extension of his detention.
Robert Hopkin, of Gibraltar, said Darwin came to see him in November 2005 over the sale of a 60-foot catamaran worth &pound; 45,000 ($91,000).
Gibraltar is a British territory on the southern tip of Spain.
Hopkin said Darwin introduced himself as John Jones and that he acted "a little bit suspicious.
Darwin walked into a police station in London last week, and claimed to have amnesia.
He was arrested late Tuesday on suspicion of fraud.
His wife, Anne, is believed to be in the United States after leaving Panama on a flight late Thursday, a Panamanian immigration representative told CNN.
The remains of a kayak he paddled into the North Sea off the coast of Seaton Carew had washed up on shore the year before.
Hopkin, the boat dealer, described his meeting with Darwin to CNN.
"He said the boat was for him and his partner and he was going sailing around the world," Hopkin said.
Hopkin said the sale fell through after Darwin walked away from the deal.
The catamaran owner said he only realized Darwin was the same man who had come to visit him when he received a call from police in Britain investigating the missing man, who had traced paperwork to his business.
On Thursday, the couple's sons said they feared they may have been the victims of a "huge scam" carried out by their own parents.
In a joint statement released by police, Darwin's sons, Mark, 31, and Anthony, 29, said they were in an "angry and confused state of mind" and they wanted no further contact with their parents.
A Cleveland Police spokeswoman said Friday they wanted to speak to Anne Darwin.
However we can confirm that if and when Mrs. Darwin does appear in Britain then police want to speak to her as a matter of urgency," the spokeswoman said.
Following media reports Thursday that Anne Darwin had confessed to knowing her husband was alive, the sons said: "If the papers' allegations of a confession from our mam are true, then we very much feel that we have been the victims in a large scam.
Anne Darwin was tracked down by reporters to her new Central American home in Panama City where she moved six weeks ago.
The British tabloid newspaper the Daily Mirror reported that the wife broke down crying when she was shown a photograph, which appeared to show her posing with her husband in the Panamanian capital last year.
Reacting to the photo, Anne Darwin, who had earlier said in a statement released through her sons that she had not seen her husband in the last five years, said "my sons are never going to forgive me," the paper reported.
through a rollercoaster of emotion," said the sons' statement, released through Cleveland Police, the force investigating the case.
NEW YORK (CNN) The September crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators by the Myanmar military junta was bloodier than the government admitted to, Human Rights Watch said in a report released Friday.
"The crackdown ... is far from over," said Human Rights Watch Asia Director Brad Adams. "Harsh repression continues, and the government is still lying about the extent of the deaths and detentions.
According to the group, the claims in its 140-page report are based on more than 100 interviews with eyewitnesses in Myanmar and Thailand.
Myanmar's military junta has acknowledge 10 deaths during the demonstrations and crackdown, but there are reports that hundreds.
In mid-October, the government admitted to detaining more than 2,900 people, but said most had been released.
"The report documented the killing of 20 people in (Yangon), but Human Rights Watch believes that the death toll there was much higher, and that hundreds remain in detention," the group said in a statement.
Human Rights Watch said it was unable to gather information on killings and detentions from other cities and towns where demonstrations took place.
In late November, U.N. envoy Paulo Sergio Pinheiro said as many as 110 were believed to have been killed during the demonstrations including 40 Buddhist monks.
Video smuggled out of the secretive country has shown unarmed protesters being beaten by government security forces, and one man a Japanese journalist shot and killed at close range.
"It's time for the world to impose a UN arms embargo and financial sanctions, to hurt (Myanmar's) leaders until they make real changes," said Adams.
"Countries like China, India and Thailand have the responsibility to take action to help hold the generals accountable and to end this long nightmare of military repression."
PARIS, France (CNN) French officials are trying to determine who sent a parcel bomb that exploded Thursday in a Paris law office, killing a female assistant who opened the package.
The blast seriously injured a lawyer standing nearby, but his injuries are not life-threatening, French Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said
Speaking from the scene hours after the blast, Alliot-Marie said a courier delivered the "makeshift" letter bomb a short time before it detonated at approximately 12:50 p.m. (6: 50 a.m. ET).
She said two explosive devices were inside the parcel one detonated and the other did not.
The package containing explosives was delivered to a fourth floor law office in a building on the Boulevard Malesherbes in Paris' 8th district, near the Champs-Elysees.
The office handles civil and commercial work, according to Paris prosecutor Jean-Claude Marin, who is participating in the investigation. It is unclear why it would be the target of an attack, Marin said.
He added it was unclear who the package was addressed to because of the extent of the damage.
Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe called it "a despicable act which must be condemned."
(CNN) Natascha Kampusch, the Austrian teenager who was held prisoner for eight years in a basement, will have her own television chat show, her media adviser confirmed to CNN Thursday.
The 19-year-old made headlines around the world after she escaped from a subterranean bunker below the house of Wolfgang Priklopil in a suburb of Vienna 16 months ago.
Her captor killed himself by throwing himself under a train only hours after she fled.
Kampusch will be hosting a show on the Austrian television station Puls 4, Wolfgang Brunner, her adviser said.
A pilot episode of the show has already been filmed and the first episodes are expected to air some time in February, Christina Patzl, a spokeswoman for Puls
The teenager chose Huemer because she regularly listened to his show during her captivity, she said.
Kampusch was only 10 years old when she was kidnapped on her way to school in March 1998.
For most of her ordeal she was kept in a tiny underground dungeon by Priklopil. After her dramatic escape she emerged pale and ghostly white.
In the last 16 months, Kampusch has been transformed into a media personality, appearing on television shows around the world.
On her new Web site, launched in association with the television station, studio photos of the teenager sit alongside a short video in which she personally welcomes visitors to the site.
The teenager is thought to have been flooded with book and film offers for her story.
She said careful consideration was being given to the teenager's mental well-being and the program makers were in constant contact with her therapists throughout the filming process.
MONROVIA, Liberia (CNN) Officials have confirmed the presence in Liberia of mass graves which are believed to hold the remains of people massacred during the country's 14-year civil war.
Jerome Verdier, chairman of Liberia's Truth and Reconciliation Commission headed a team that visited the four villages where the graves are located.
The commission had gone to the villages to encourage residents to share their past with the truth commission and were led to the graves, located in Lofa County on Liberia's border with Guinea and Sierra Leone.
The smallest grave is believed to hold 78 people, while the largest has as many as 500 bodies, said Verdier.
"The mass graves that we saw are something the people are living with," he said. "In some places, they have the full names of those who were buried."
PARIS, France (CNN) French President Nicolas Sarkozy has made a direct appeal to a Colombian rebel group to release a French citizen held hostage for the last five years.
Video footage of Ingrid Betancourt who also holds Colombian citizenship emerged last week showing her looking emaciated and worn out.
Betancourt, who was kidnapped in 2002 while she was campaigning for the Colombian presidency, has become a cause celebre in France.
Sarkozy made an appeal to her captors the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as FARC on French television late Wednesday.
To see Ingrid among her family this Christmas," the French president said, in an appeal on the television station TF1.
Sarkozy directed his impassioned appeal to the leader of the FARC rebels, Manuel Marulanda, to release the French-Colombian politician.
"You must save a woman in danger of death. You can show the world that FARC understands humanitarian imperatives. Monsieur Marulanda, you carry a great responsibility," Sarkozy said.
The plight of Betancourt, who is a French citizen through an earlier marriage, was further highlighted by her son Lorenzo, who unveiled a giant still picture from the recent footage of his mother in front of Paris City Hall on Wednesday.
"I think the French president will do everything he can to help us, but he must make all efforts possible as soon as possible.
We are at a turning point, and maybe a last turning point," he told French television at the unveiling ceremony, hours before Sarkozy's address.
Betancourt was among a group of 45 hostages that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was attempting to release through a prisoner exchange deal which would have seen 500 FARC guerrillas set free.
The exchange bid collapsed, however, after the Colombian president accused Chavez of breaking an agreement.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) Scores of lawyers rallied outside the house of Pakistan's ousted chief justice to demand his reinstatement on Thursday in the latest demonstration against emergency measures imposed by the country's crisis-hit president.
The protest came as opposition leader Nawaz Sharif tried to breach security outside the home of the former chief justice Iftikhar Muhammed Chaudhry in Islamabad to try to meet with him.
Chaudhry has been kept in his home since November 3, when President Pervez Musharraf imposed a state of emergency, using it to crackdown on opponents, including members of the judiciary likely to block his new term as president.
A spokesman for Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League told CNN that Sharif would attempt to talk with Chaudhry, who was among judges sacked by Musharraf.
Musharraf, who quit as military chief and was installed for a second five year term last month, has drawn criticism from nuclear-armed Pakistan's Western allies for the emergency, which he says will end ahead of a January 8 election.
The officer cited risks to security and law and order as reasons for keeping him under wraps and restricting access to his home.
Outnumbering protesters three to one, hundreds of Pakistani security force members, some dressed in riot gear, stood behind barbed wire and concrete blocks that blocked off one of the roads leading to Chaudhry's house.
Scores of protesters chanted "Go Musharraf!
Chaudhry has issued key rulings that have weakened Musharraf's grip on power including lifting the exile imposed on Sharif, an outspoken critic of Musharraf, the man who ousted him from power in a 1999 military coup.
Sharif returned to Pakistan last month, ending seven years in exile in Saudi Arabia..
Earlier this week Sharif was disqualified from participating in Pakistan's January parliamentary elections because of a previous criminal conviction, a party spokesman said.
NEW DELHI (CNN) A Tibetan woman said Wednesday that she pulled out of a beauty pageant in Malaysia after organizers, reacting to pressure from Beijing, told her halfway through the event that she could only participate if she added "China" to her "Miss Tibet" title.
Tsering Chungtak, 22, was allowed to participate in the preliminary rounds of the Miss Tourism contest for one week, but was later told by the organizers to either wear a sash labeled "Miss Tibet-China" or quit, she told reporters after her return to the Indian capital, New Delhi.
Participants from 30 countries are vying for the title of Miss Tourism , to be selected on Saturday in Malaysia.
"I felt that this was not acceptable to me at all," Chungtak said wearing a sash labeled "Miss Tibet" on her long cream-colored dress.
Chungtak said the founder of the pageant told her on December 1 about the Chinese pressure over the issue that a Tibetan could only participate as a Tibetan Chinese.
"When the organizers allowed me to take part in the preliminaries this time, I thought that there was a change in the Chinese policy," she said.
Chungtak, a student of sociology in a New Delhi college, was crowned Miss Tibet in 2006 at a contest in the northern Indian town of Dharmsala, home to a majority of Tibetan exiles and the seat of their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.
"The Tibetan issue is same as ever.
China is in control of Tibet and there is no freedom in Tibet," she said.
LINCOLN, Nebraska (CNN) The troubled teen who killed eight people and himself at an Omaha, Nebraska, mall was placed in a mental health treatment center five years ago after making homicidal threats toward his stepmother, a state official said Thursday.
At one point during that period Hawkins also filed a report with police alleging he was molested by a roommate at one of the facilities.
The case was resolved internally, according to the report.
Hawkins was sent to Piney Ridge Center in Waynesville, Missouri, on May 18, 2002 a day after his 14th birthday.
The center specializes in mental health and substance abuse services, according to its Web site.
Landry said Hawkins was placed at the center because of "homicidal threats to his stepmother.
"He also had two psychiatric hospitalizations, and has been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder, mood disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, and parent-child relationship problems," Landry said.
According to Landry, Hawkins' treatments were extensive, and cost the state $265,000 while he was in its custody.
"This tragedy was not a failure of the system to provide appropriate quality services for a youth that needed it," he said.
Maruca-Kovac described Hawkins on CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360" Wednesday night as "kind of like a pound puppy that nobody wanted.
Paraphrasing a suicide note he left in their home, she said, "He didn't want to be a burden to people and [said] that he was a piece of s - all of his life and that now he'd be famous.
Hawkins' body was found on the third floor of the Von Maur store inside Westroads Mall.
Omaha Police Chief Thomas Warren said Hawkins visited with a friend before going to the mall, and he sent a text message to a girl, apparently a recent ex-girlfriend.
He also left voicemail for his mother, Warren said.
Maruca-Kovac told CNN Hawkins left the house Wednesday about 11 a.m., and called her about two hours later, sounding upset.
"He just said he wanted to thank me for everything I'd done for him ... and he was sorry," Maruca-Kovac said.
He told her he had been fired that day from his job at McDonald's, she said.
"I said, 'Come home and we'll talk about it.'
"He said, 'It's too late.' He said he'd left a note explaining everything.
The suicide note left at Maruca-Kovac's home was turned over to police, who wouldn't divulge its contents.
This past summer, Hawkins tried to enlist in the U.S. Army but was turned down, a source familiar with the situation told CNN.
"He said he'd had a rough time in his life and wanted to see about changing it," Army Sgt. Edward Dust said.
Hawkins had been on antidepressants but stopped taking them because they made him feel "weird," Maruca-Kovac said.
"When he first came and lived with us, he was in the fetal position and chewed his fingernails all the time, and was unemployed, and hopeless. After awhile, he got a job and came out of that," Maruca-Kovac told CNN.
He also got a haircut, and seemed happier, she said.
A friend, Shawn Saunders, told CNN, "It's still hard to imagine the guy that I knew, that I used to hang out with, was capable of something like this."
He added, "I'm not sure the level of depression, I just know he was on antidepressants the last couple of months.
I guess it was just getting worse over time with the loss of his job and I guess issues he had going on with the girlfriend at the time.
BRUSSELS, Belgium (CNN) U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice won support from European allies Thursday for new U.N. sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program.
NATO foreign ministers agreed to stay the course in seeking fresh measures at the United Nations to persuade Iran to stop uranium enrichment and reprocessing despite a new U.S. intelligence report that concluded the country halted it nuclear weapons ambitions in 2003.
Earlier Thursday, ahead of Rice's meetings in Belgium, the leaders of both France and Germany expressed similar sentiments, calling for a two-pronged approach of pressure and negotiations with Iran.
"I think we are in a process and that Iran continues to pose a danger," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in Paris at a joint news conference with French President Nicolas Sarkozy in response to the new American findings that were released Monday.
Sarkozy, who supports Washington's view, said he backs new sanctions.
"The threat exists," he said.
In Brussels, Rice held talks with European and Russian officials to bolster the U.S. case in her first face-to-face sessions with world powers that are considering new sanctions since the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate was made public.
"I don't see that the NIE changes the course that we're on," Rice told reporters, as she flew to Belgium for talks that will include discussions with former Cold War foe Russia, which, along with China, has resisted new Iran sanctions.
Ahead of formal alliance meetings on Friday, Rice met Thursday with the foreign ministers of Italy, Belgium and Britain, as well as European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana and NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.
Rice also sees Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on Friday.
Israeli officials maintain that Iran still is working aggressively to build nuclear arms, despite the new U.S. conclusions.
The Islamic regime in Tehran strongly opposes Israel's existence and frequently boasts of its ability to strike the Jewish state with long-range missiles.
WASHINGTON (CNN) The CIA destroyed videotapes of interrogations of al Qaeda suspects because they no longer had "intelligence value" and they posed a security risk, CIA director Michael Hayden said Thursday.
The tapes were made in 2002 and destroyed in 2005, Hayden said in a letter to CIA employees obtained by CNN.
They were made as "an internal check" on the CIA's use of harsh interrogation techniques, believed to include waterboarding, a technique that involves restraining a suspect and pouring water them to produce the sensation of drowning.
The agency made the decision to destroy the tapes "only after it was determined they were no longer of intelligence value and not relevant to any internal, legislative, or judicial inquiries," Hayden said.
A government official with knowledge of the tapes said the tapes were of al Qaeda operative Abu Zubayda and another detainee.
Hayden said the agency began taping interrogations after the 2002 capture of Zubayda, whose "defiant and evasive" response to "normal questioning ... made imperative the use of other means to obtain the information.
"To meet that need, CIA designed specific, appropriate interrogation procedures," Hayden wrote. "Before they were used, they were reviewed and approved by the Department of Justice and by other elements of the executive branch.
"What matters here is that it was done in line with the law," he said.
Information obtained from Zubayda under the new interrogation procedures led investigators to al Qaeda member Ramzi bin al Shibh, Bush said, and information from Zubayda and bin al Shibh led investigators to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks.
Critics have questioned the importance of the information obtained from Zubayda, and the entire question of what type of interrogation techniques are appropriate for use by the United States became a key issue in the confirmation process for Attorney General Michael Mukasey.
WASHINGTON (CNN) President Bush has sent a letter to North Korean leader Kim Jong Il urging him to disclose his country's nuclear programs fully, the White House said Thursday.
The president sent the letter Saturday, along with letters to other leaders of nations participating in six-party talks about Pyongyang's nuclear program, said National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe.
Bush also spoke by phone Thursday with Chinese President Hu Jintao, according to China's Xinhua news agency.
"In these letters, the president reiterated our commitment to the six-party talks and stressed the need for North Korea to come forward with a full and complete declaration of their nuclear programs, as called for in the September 2005 six-party agreement," Johndroe said in a statement.
Bush and China's Hu discussed bilateral relations and the Iranian and Korean Peninsula nuclear issues, Xinhua reported.
Along with Beijing, South Korea, Russia and Japan have been participating in the talks, which were spurred after North Korea defiantly conducted its first known nuclear weapons test in 2006, prompting international condemnation and sanctions.
Pyongyang also is suspected of sharing its nuclear technology with other nations.
North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency reported that Bush's "personal letter" was delivered Wednesday by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill to North Korean Foreign Minister Pak Ui Chun during Hill's trip to Pyongyang.
North Korea has agreed to a December 31 deadline to disable a key nuclear facility that produced materials for nuclear weapons.
The disabling project has been going well at three sections of North Korea's Yongbyon complex, Hill said Wednesday, including its fuel fabrication facility, reactor and reprocessing center.
The goal is to disable Yongbyon so North Korea can't easily make nuclear weapons, according to a transcript of Hill's comments to reporters in Beijing.
North Korea is required under a February agreement to present a list of all its nuclear facilities, materials and programs by December 31.
But the United States and North Korea cannot agree on what items need to be on the list.
Hill characterized discussions only as a "useful exchange."
Second-placed Nancy moved to within five points of French league leaders Lyon after snatching a late 1-1 draw at 10-man Toulouse.
Swedish striker Johan Elmander, who netted a hat-trick in Sunday's 4-3 defeat at Bordeaux, opened the scoring in the 18th minute.
However, the home side had goalkeeper Nicolas Douchez sent off just after the break and coach Elie Baup was then banished from the touchline 10 minutes from time.
Nancy pressed home their numerical advantage and Malonga's goal in the final minute leaves fourth-from-bottom Toulouse two points above the relegation zone.
Liga after a 1-1 draw on Wednesday night.
The result leaves Sevilla in 12th position and Osasuna in 13th in the table.
HAVANA, Cuba (CNN) Cuban state security agents followed anti-government protesters into a Catholic Church this week, detaining about a dozen dissidents after hitting and kicking some of them, according to witnesses.
Some 25 dissidents marched peacefully to a church Tuesday in the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba to request a Mass for a dissident arrested earlier in the week, said Elizardo Sanchez, a leading dissident based in Havana.
Sanchez said state security officers attacked the protesters when they arrived at the church and many of them ran inside.
"The repressors, headed by a lieutenant colonel and other state security officers, desecrated the church of Santa Teresita after kicking open one of the doors and savagely attacking the peaceful dissidents," he said in a statement.
He said officers "punched, kicked and used pepper gas."
Five dissidents remain in detention, he added.
The Cuban government did not immediately respond to the accusations.
It considers the splintered dissident groups "mercenaries" who receive money from the "enemy government" in Washington to undermine the Cuban revolution.
"It was a deployment of violence," the Rev. Jose Conrado Rodriguez, the church's priest, said by telephone.
He said he was taking a bath when he heard screams coming from the church annex, where he leads larger services.
He said the dissidents already had been detained when he made it downstairs but witnesses told him the officers had used "violence and gas" against about a dozen protesters.
The priest said he demanded an explanation but that a lieutenant colonel merely told him relations between the state and church were good.
"They should recognize that they made a mistake.
Communist Cuba frowned on religion for decades, but relations between the Catholic Church and government warmed after Pope John Paul II's visit in 1998.
BERLIN, Germany (CNN) Celebrity polar bear Knut who won the hearts of millions around the globe as a roly-poly orphan cub celebrated his first birthday Wednesday with a cake made from 300 eggs and 20 pounds of marzipan.
The Berlin Zoo pulled out all the stops to fete its star attraction, who has gone from a fluffy white powderpuff of a cub to a full-grown polar bear with a cheeky curiosity and a penchant for muddying his coat by rolling in the dirt.
Children were given free entry to the zoo to help celebrate Knut's birthday, and proceeds from sales of slices of the cake will go toward the zoo's foundation, officials said.
But Knut no longer a tiny cub, thanks partly to his penchant for croissants probably won't get a taste of his own birthday cake.
Abandoned at birth, along with a twin brother who only survived a couple of days, Knut first attracted attention when Berlin's media picked up the story of his main caregiver camping out at the zoo to give the cub his bottle every two hours.
By that time, Knut was a three-month old white furball, with button eyes and his own fan club.
Knut has generated more than $14 million for the zoo over the past year in with Knut toys, books and other trinkets, and drawing more than double the number of visitors.
Now that he is grown, the zoo does not have room to keep Knut permanently and are considering other offers from zoos in Europe, with an eye to finding him a mate, officials say.
Thomas Doerflein, who raised Knut by hand, cuddling him and playing with him in addition to feeding him from a bottle, told Germany's Bild newspaper on Wednesday that he hopes the bear will soon find a new home.
CARACAS, Venezuela (CNN) Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Wednesday denied he bowed to voters' rejection of a referendum only at the prodding by the military and said he would continue to push for sweeping constitutional changes.
"Get ready, because a new offensive is coming," Chavez said after breaking into a news conference being given by the military high command to address issues surrounding Sunday's vote. "If the people collect the signatures, the reform can be submitted for a referendum again."
The referendum, which would have opened the door for Chavez to hold on to power indefinitely and moved the country toward institutionalized socialism, lost 51 percent to 49 percent, according to official results.
In contrast to the conciliatory tone he took in announcing the victory of the "No" forces early Monday, he heaped scorn on the opposition's "Pyrrhic" victory Wednesday, saying that "they're now filling it with sh .
"It's a piece of sh victory, and ours they can call it a defeat, but it was courageous, full of valor, full of dignity," he said at the Miraflores presidential palace with his top military commanders.
Chavez and his defense minister, Gustavo Rangel Briceno, rejected media reports that sectors of the military pressured Chavez to accept the defeat of his proposals after delays in announcing the referendum results.
Despite the widespread use of computers to tally the votes, the Electoral Council did not release results for more than nine hours after polls closed.
As the night wore on, opposition leaders, who had access to their own data, publicly called on officials to announce the results.
The independent newspaper El Nacional, citing unidentified government officials, reported that military officials had pressured Chavez to concede during late-night deliberations.
Also hinting at such a military role was former Defense Minister Raul Baduel, who played a key role in turning back a coup attempt against Chavez in 2002 but broke ranks last month over the proposed changes.
Chavez lashed out at Baduel during the Wednesday press conference, calling him a "traitor" who had been "bought by the (U.S.) empire.
(CNN) A 19-year-old gunman who killed eight people and then himself Wednesday at the Westroads Mall in Omaha, Nebraska, left a suicide note, police said.
Chief Thomas Warren of the Omaha Police Department called the shooting "premeditated," but said it "appears to be very random and without provocation.
Surveillance cameras may have captured the shooting, Warren said.
"We'll be here throughout the night, it's a very extensive crime scene," he said.
Police identified the gunman as Robert A. Hawkins of Nebraska.
They have recovered an SKS assault rifle and the suspect's vehicle.
Hawkins had lived for about the past year and a half with Debora Maruca Kovac, who told CNN she took him in because he reminded her of a "lost puppy that nobody wanted.
Kovac said she found Hawkins' suicide note and called his mother.
Kovac said that Hawkins and his girlfriend had recently broken up and he had just lost his job at a McDonald's restaurant.
The gunman's victims include five women and three men, Warren said.
Police have yet to determine whether they were mall employees or customers.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he is "extremely concerned" about the delay in electing a new Lebanese president, a hiatus that has gone "well past the constitutional timeframe.
"It is now time for this matter to be resolved without further delay," the secretary-general said in a statement issued on Wednesday.
The inability of Lebanon's parties to settle on a candidate arises from a power struggle between pro-Western parties and parties like Hezbollah that have the support of Syria.
Lebanon has been without a president since November 23, when the term of Emile Lahoud expired.
The Lebanese Parliament, which elects the president, has been unable to settle on a candidate.
Lebanese Christian opposition leader Michel Aoun said last week he could support the candidacy of Lebanon's army chief, Gen. Michel Sleiman, to become the country's new president.
Aoun is himself backed for the presidency by Hezbollah.
North Korea is rushing toward an end-of-year deadline to disable a key nuclear facility that produced materials to make nuclear bombs, the United States said Wednesday.
the fuel fabrication facility, the reactor and the reprocessing center, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said.
The goal is to disable Yongbyon by the end of the year, so North Korea can't easily make nuclear bombs, according to a transcript of Hill's comments to reporters in Beijing.
One potential hurdle is a declaration spelling out what North Korea has been hiding.
Under a deal made in February, North Korea is required to hand over a list of all its nuclear facilities, materials and programs by December 31.
But the United States and North Korea cannot agree on what items need to be on the list.
HONG KONG, China (AP) Police armed with riot shields and batons were called in to subdue angry tourists from mainland China who clashed with tour guides in the tiny gambling enclave of Macau, police said Wednesday.
The tourists were apparently unhappy that the guides had taken them to too many shops, when they wanted to see historical sites in the territory that Portugal returned to China in 1999, the South China Morning Post newspaper said.
Two or three officers were sent to resolve the dispute Tuesday which involved more than 100 tourists, police spokesman Pun Siu-tong said.
However, the tourists turned on the police, attacking and injuring one officer and then surrounding a police car to prevent the officers from leaving, he said.
40 police armed with riot gear and batons were then dispatched to the scene, he said, denying earlier reports that the police were from Macau's riot squad.
Local TV footage showed police swinging truncheons to beat back crowds of tourists, some of them elderly.
Four police officers were slightly injured, he said.
Five tourists were charged with creating a public disturbance and confronting police, he added.
Macau lawmaker Antonio Ng said the incident had damaged the territory's reputation.
"It's unfortunate that armed police were involved," Ng said.
Macau a former sleepy backwater has become a tourist hotspot in recent years as several big-name U.S. casino operators such as Las Vegas resort owners Sheldon Adelson and Steve Wynn develop the retail and gambling industry.
Macau is the only place in China where gambling is legal.
More African countries should send peacekeepers to Somalia, where an Islamic insurgency has killed thousands of civilians this year, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Wednesday.
Rice was in the Ethiopian capital, where the African Union is headquartered, to meet with African leaders after expressing growing unease about deteriorating security and faltering peace deals in a number of countries on the continent.
The United Nations has said Somalia is facing the worst humanitarian crisis in Africa.
Uganda has about 1,800 troops in Somalia, officially as the vanguard of a larger African Union peacekeeping force, though so far no other countries have sent reinforcements.
Ethiopia, which sent soldiers to Somalia late last year to wipe out Islamic militants, is not part of the peacekeeping force and hoping to withdraw.
"We do believe the Ethiopian forces should not have to stay in Somalia past a certain point, and that will require peacekeeping forces, very robust peacekeeping force, and so that will be part of my discussions here," Rice said.
Peacekeepers have tried to pacify Somalia before, with tragic results.
More than a decade ago, a massive U.N. relief operation was launched for thousands of civilians left starving because of fighting in Somalia.
But 1993 attacks by Somali militiamen that brought down two Black Hawk helicopters and killed 18 U.S. servicemen were followed by the withdrawal of U.S. troops and the eventual end of the U.N. peacekeeping operation.
"The Somali leadership is going to have to really reach out to all the elements that are not associated with terrorism," Rice said.
He has to find a way to broaden his base of support.
A British man who reappeared five years after he was thought to have drowned in a canoeing accident has been arrested on suspicion of fraud, police confirmed Wednesday.
Police, who are trying to piece together the movements of John Darwin over the last five years, have made a public appeal for information over his whereabouts.
They are also investigating the authenticity of a photo published in British tabloid newspaper the Daily Mirror, which claims to show Darwin alongside his wife in an apartment in Panama City, Panama in July 2006.
The 57-year-old was presumed dead in 2002 after he went missing after going canoeing in the North Sea off the coastal town of Seaton Carew, in northeast England.
In an appeal for public help, Detective Superintendent of the Cleveland Police, Tony Hutchinson, said: "There will be people out there who know exactly where he has been, what he has been doing and where he has been living.
Hutchinson said police reopened the investigation into the disappearance three months ago, when information about Darwin's finances came to light.
"One side is that he has suffered amnesia, but the other side is that some criminal case has occurred," he said.
Darwin, a prison officer and former teacher, was declared dead by a coroner in 2003, 13 months after he went missing.
But on Saturday Darwin walked in to a police station in central London and told officers: "I think I am a missing person", a spokeswoman for Cleveland Police, the local force investigating the case, told CNN.
Hutchinson said he appeared to be "in apparently good health tanned and well-nourished."
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday called a U.S. intelligence report that downgraded his country as a nuclear threat "a declaration of victory" for the Iranian nuclear program.
But President Bush said later that Iran needs to "come clean" on its nuclear program by detailing past actions and future intentions.
"The Iran nuclear issue is a problem and continues to be a problem," Bush said.
Bush called on Tehran to suspend nuclear enrichment that it says is for civilian purposes but that the U.S. leader says could covertly be converted for military use.
Ahmadinejad said this week's U.S. National Intelligence Estimate saying Iran had stopped nuclear weapons work in 2003 was vindication. "The report said clearly that the Iranian
"Today, Iran has turned to a nuclear country, and all world countries have accepted this fact," the Iranian president was quoted as saying.
During a televised speech made from Ilam province in western Iran, Ahmadinejad said earlier reports from the United States had been based on "shoddy intelligence.
The Bush administration has for years warned that Iran's development of nuclear power plants and enriched uranium masked an effort to produce an nuclear bomb.
KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) Four boy actors in the movie "The Kite Runner" have left Afghanistan out of concern they could be ostracized or subjected to violence because of a rape scene in the movie, a film executive said.
"The Kite Runner," which had its world premiere on Tuesday in Hollywood, is based on the 2003 best-selling novel by Afghan-American writer Khaled Hosseini.
In the story, the main character witnesses the rape of his friend but does nothing to stop it.
Although the film is not scheduled for release in Afghanistan, there are concerns that pirated DVDs could reach Kabul and some residents might react violently to the rape scene.
The four boys, each accompanied by a relative, left Afghanistan and arrived in the United Arab Emirates on Friday, said Megan Colligan, executive vice president of marketing for Paramount Vantage, which is releasing the film.
Studio executives felt they should get the boys out of the country before "The Kite Runner" opens December 14 in the United States, Colligan said.
"We were told that what really might trigger any sort of reaction would be pirated copies of the film entering the country, which could set off widespread rumors about the content.
In September, the father of one of the boys told The Associated Press he had asked that the rape scene be cut from the film.
But the film's producers, Bennett Walsh and Rebecca Yeldham, said they were surprised by the Mahmidzada's comments at the time, adding that they had already spoken with the families of the actors and addressed their concerns about the scene.
(CNN) Actor Brad Pitt plans to focus on rebuilding New Orleans and extending his family, he told CNN's Larry King but acting may not be in his long-term future.
"I think it's really more of a younger man, younger woman's game.
He hasn't ruled it out completely "I'd like to drop in if I'm still invited every few years or so," he told King but he said he wants to pursue some other interests as well.
"At this point, I'd rather it takes so much time, [and] there's just other things I'd rather be doing," said Pitt, who soon turns 44, during the course of a freewheeling interview.
Right now, Pitt's primary goal is to help rebuild New Orleans.
On Monday, the actor announced plans to build 150 eco-friendly homes in the Louisiana city's Lower 9th Ward, an area devastated by Hurricane Katrina.
In the storm's aftermath, the community's housing stock was largely demolished, leaving many of its residents living in trailers.
Pitt, who purchased a French Quarter mansion in New Orleans earlier this year with Angelina Jolie, said he's met 9th Ward residents who "did everything right" worked hard, bought homes, sent kids to college but now feel abandoned.
"This was a man-made failure. This should not have happened.
"But it can be fixed," he said.
Pitt said his Make It Right project won't stop with rebuilding the Lower 9th Ward.
The ultimate goal is to build eco-friendly homes throughout New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.
Pitt gave $5 million to Make It Right.
He also acknowledged that he's uncomfortable being a celebrity.
Celebrity, though, is useful when he can leverage it for a good cause, he added.
He doesn't like, however, how the paparazzi use his four children.
"They call out my kids by name, shove cameras in their faces," Pitt said.
Despite the unwelcome attention, Pitt told King that he wants more children with Jolie. "We're just getting started," he said.
He called Jolie a "fantastic" mother.
"Dedicated, kids first," he said. "[She's] really inventive and great fun to them and very, very protective.
He and Jolie rarely argue, he said.
"No, not really," he said. "[We] challenge each other a lot. Have good fun with that.
(CNN) A gunman killed eight people and wounded five others Wednesday at the popular Westroads Mall in Omaha, Nebraska, before apparently turning the gun on himself, police said.
"We do not believe that we have any other shooter," said Sgt. Teresa Negron.
"The person we believe to be the shooter has died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. "
Seven people died at the scene, and two a man and a woman died after reaching Creighton University Medical Center.
Three of the wounded are in critical condition.
The shootings began just before 2 p.m. at the Von Maur store inside the shopping complex.
The gunman had a rifle and most of the victims were shot inside the store, Negron said.
Police were still trying to identify the dead and were looking for a vehicle the gunman may have used to come to the mall.
After the shootings began, shoppers and employees streamed out of the building with their hands up.
Some described hiding in clothes racks, dressing rooms and bathrooms after hearing the shots.
"I was standing around getting ready to go back to work and all of a sudden I heard this bang, bang, bang it sounded like someone shooting fireworks," a witness told CNN affiliate KETV. "I ran to get away from whatever was happening.
Shoppers described scenes of horror as they fled the mall.
"We heard about 35, 40 shots, and on our way our we did see someone down by the escalator, bleeding," Jennifer Cramer told KETV.
Another witness said people started running frantically from the Von Maur area saying there was a shooting.
"Immediately after that, there was a series of maybe 20 to 25 more shots up on the third floor."
She said she saw a man shot on the second floor and "at least four or five" people brought out on gurneys.
As news of the shooting spread, people gathered outside the mall, checking on loved ones who were inside.
The shopping center will be closed until at least Thursday, police said.
The 2012 London Olympic Games could go over its 9.3-billion pound ($19.1B; 12.9B euro) budget, a top official admitted on Tuesday.
John Armitt, the chairman of the Olympic Delivery Authority, told a British parliamentary committee that the 2.7-billion pound ($5.5B; euro3.7B) fund set aside for budget overspend may not be enough.
In March, the British government announced the budget for building the Olympic venues and regenerating east London had leapt to 9.3 billion pounds from the 3 billion pounds estimated in the bid documents. Part of that new
budget was the 2.7-billion pound contingency.
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (CNN) Tens of thousands of striking miners took to the streets in Johannesburg Tuesday in a protest over safety levels in the industry.
Some 30,000 protesters gathered outside the Chamber of Mines in the city center to call for greater safeguards for miners after 226 miners died underground this year to September, the National Union of Mineworkers said.
Superintendent Lungelo Dlamini, a spokesman for Johannesburg police, said police estimated that at least 5,000 people attended the rally, though he said that the figure could be as high as 30,000.
Dlamini said the event was peaceful and there had been no arrests.
The 270,000-member mineworkers' union, which called the one-day action, said it was the first industry-wide strike to hit the mining sector in the country's history.
South Africa is a leading producer of gold and platinum and has some of the deepest mines in the world some over two miles underground.
However, the mineworkers' union said not enough is being done to protect the safety of its members, with the number of deaths on the job for 2007 already surpassing the figure for all of 2006 by 27.
Speaking on the phone from the rally, union spokesman Lesiba Seshoka said the protest sent a "clear message" to mine owners that action needed to be taken.
We need action," Seshoka said, estimating that around 30,000 people were present for event.
The union had earlier predicted that around 40,000 of its members would join the protest march.
The protest follows a high-profile accident in October at Harmony Gold's Elandrand mine.
A shaft elevator malfunctioned, trapping 3,200 workers underground for almost two days.
After the incident, Thabo Mbeki, South African president, ordered a safety audit of all the country's mines.
Tens of thousands of people in yellow shirts, waving yellow flags, packed the streets around the Grand Palace in Bangkok, where Bhumibol made a rare public appearance from the balcony of his ceremonial Throne Hall only the sixth such appearance in his 61-year reign.
Dressed in a gold brocade robe, Bhumibol stepped onto the balcony and sat in a golden throne as the crowd erupted in shouts of "Long Live the King!"
Bhumibol's birthday is a national holiday in Thailand and has become a day of nationwide tribute to the man who is the most influential figure in modern Thai history.
Regarded by some as semi-divine, he is known for his lifelong dedication to helping Thailand's needy.
Bhumibol is a constitutional king with no formal political role, but has repeatedly brought calm in times of turbulence and is considered the country's moral authority.
President George W. Bush will travel to the Mideast in January as he pursues a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians during his final year in office, U.S. National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe has said.
Johndroe confirmed that Bush will make the trip, but would not divulge details of his itinerary.
Israeli television reported Bush will stop in Israel a significant event because it would be Bush's first visit as president, although he did go as governor of Texas.
He did, however, leave the door open for a possible trip in the future.
The president has also said he will travel to Africa in early 2008.
It was unclear whether the Mideast trip will be in conjunction with that journey.
Following last week's Mideast conference in Annapolis, Bush appointed former NATO commander and retired Marine Gen. James Jones to an advisory role in the Middle East peace process.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced that Jones will assume the role of special envoy for Mideast security, advising Rice and Bush as the White House seeks to play an active role in advancing the peace process in the region.
Police arrested an army soldier who allegedly took part in last week's botched coup attempt, as he tried to board a flight to the U.S. at Manila airport Wednesday, officials said.
Alvin Celestino was caught on his way to board a Northwest Airlines flight to Detroit, national police chief Avelino Razon said.
He had a U.S. visa but did not have travel permission from authorities, Razon added.
A seven-hour standoff was led by 14 officers who walked out of their trial Thursday on earlier insurrection charges and immediately commandeered the Peninsula Hotel in Manila.
Most of them surrendered after government forces drove an armored carrier through the front entrance and fired tear gas and warning shots.
Police had earlier said they were still searching for at least four suspects, including a marine captain, who escaped the hotel.
Prosecutors filed rebellion charges Monday against 36 dissident military officers and their supporters.
The rebels, led by Sen. Antonio Trillanes, a former navy lieutenant charged with a similar failed power grab in 2003, and U.S.-trained army Brig. Gen. Danilo Lim, demanded President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's resignation due to a string of corruption scandals and human rights abuses.
Both had been detained for their alleged roles in past coup plots.
A suicide car bomber rammed a minibus filled with Afghan National Army soldiers south of Kabul Wednesday, killing 13 people, including six soldiers, said military spokesman Gen. Mohammed Zahir Azimi.
There were no military casualties in that attack, according to NATO.
In other violence Tuesday, a NATO service member was killed and two others wounded when an explosion struck a patrol in southern Afghanistan, according to a statement from NATO's International Security Assistance Force.
The name and nationality of the dead soldier was being held, and the wounded personnel's injuries were not considered to be life threatening, the statement said.
The attacks coincide with the visit of U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who was meeting with military commanders, his Afghan counterpart, Abdul Rahim Wardak, and Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
He arrived Monday for his third visit to the war-torn nation since being confirmed as Pentagon chief.
(CNN) Debra Lafave, a former Florida middle school teacher convicted of having sex with a student, was arrested Tuesday for "inappropriate but non-sexual contact" with a teenage coworker, the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office said.
The association violated the terms of Lafave's probation, which forbade her to have contact with anyone under 18, the sheriff's office said.
"I can only characterize this as somewhat of a bizarre and unusual violation," said Lafave's attorney, John Fitzgibbons.
Lafave, 27, pleaded guilty in November 2005 to having sex with a 14-year-old boy and was sentenced to three years under house arrest and seven years of probation.
Lafave was also required to register as a sex offender and abide by numerous conditions.
She was arrested after corrections officers interviewed a 17-year-old girl, who worked at a restaurant where Lafave had been employed since January 2006, according to the violation report from Florida's Corrections Department.
The teenager told the officers that Lafave discussed "non-work related issues such as family problems, friends, high school, personal life, boyfriend issues and sexual issues in both private one-on-one conversations" with her and in group settings, according to the report.
The co-worker will turn 18 on January 2, Fitzgibbons said.
She was ordered to quit the restaurant job and now works as a receptionist in her mother's barber shop, the report said.
TOKYO, Japan (CNN) Musicians of the world are getting a new kind of artistic freedom with technology that eliminates the challenging chore of tuning.
Robotics technology developed by German company Tronical Gmbh in partnership with Gibson Guitar Corp. enables Gibson's newest Les Paul model to tune itself in about two seconds.
For users who purchase the add-on technology, the guitar recognizes pitch.
Then, its processor directs motors on its six tuning pegs to tighten or loosen the strings accordingly.
Tronical has offered its "Powertune System" online and through retailers in Germany since March, according to the company's Web site.
The Gibson Les Paul guitar model with Blue Silverburst finish goes on sale globally this Friday.
Nashville, Tennessee, guitar maker Gibson and Tronical said Powertune is the world's first self-tuning technology, and Gibson says it is particularly useful for beginners, who tend to find tuning a headache.
The Les Paul Silverburst model is to cost about $2,780 in Japan and $2,499 in the U.S., with self-tuning offered for $900 extra.
Powertune is also listed online for about $800, and Tronical says it can be installed on many different models of electric guitars without leaving a mark.
guitars with the technology come preset with six types of tuning to play different kinds of music.
They also can remember a player's additional original tuning styles, by listening with a microphone to the sounds of the strings.
To set the instrument to a particular tuning, the user pulls a knob, turns it to the desired style, indicated with a blue light, and then pushes the knob back in.
An electric signal travels up the strings to the motors on the tuning pegs.
The system is powered by a rechargeable lithium-ion battery.
Gibson hopes to sell 4,000 of the first limited-edition "robot guitars" worldwide, with 10 percent of those sales expected in Japan, said Yasuhiko Iwanade, president of Gibson Guitar Corp. Japan.
BANGKOK, Thailand (CNN) A Buddhist monastery that provided a hospice for AIDS patients has been closed down by the regime in Myanmar, which is also still arresting dissidents, the top U.S. diplomat in the country said last week.
The monastery, in the biggest city Yangon, was raided last Thursday.
"Apparently, it was ordered closed. No one knows why," said Shari Villarosa, charge d'affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Myanmar.
Villarosa spoke to reporters last Friday during a visit to Bangkok in neighboring Thailand.
Three military trucks arrived outside the Maggin Monastery and told everyone inside to leave, according to the online edition of The Irrawaddy, a news magazine run by Myanmar exiles in Thailand.
The AIDS patients were moved by the authorities to an unknown location, it said.
The monastery, which also gave AIDS treatment, was raided during the junta's crackdown on pro-democracy activists in September for involvement in monk-led protests.
We are getting reports on a daily basis of people being picked up," Villarosa said.
"It raises questions about the sincerity of the military in pursuing what we will consider to be a genuine dialogue leading to national reconciliation.
Amnesty International said earlier the junta had arrested a dozen activists and Buddhist monks this month, despite assurances that the crackdown had stopped.
At least 15 people were killed and nearly 3,000 people detained during the September crackdown.
The regime says all but 90 people have been freed, but Amnesty said 700 were still in custody.
Monasteries in Yangon remained deserted, Villarosa said, adding that she believed a "considerable number" of monks were detained.
Ali Hassan al-Majeed (aka "Chemical Ali"), Sultan Hashem Ahmed and Hussein Rashid were sentenced to death in June for their roles in the 1988 Anfal campaign, an Iraqi army operation in Kurdish-dominated northern Iraq that killed tens of thousands of people.
Many Sunni Arabs and U.S. officials don't think Ahmed and Rashid should be executed because such a move could anger Sunnis.
After the toppling of Hussein's Sunni-dominated government and the emergence of the Shiite-dominated power structure, Sunni Arabs began supporting the insurgency.
The United States since has made it a political priority to include Sunnis in the Iraqi power structure.
At the same time, Iraq's Shiites might be angry if the three men aren't executed.
Shiites were persecuted under Hussein, and they want to punish convicted members of the former regime.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki wrote a letter to President Bush last week asking him to order the military to hand over the three men, the official in al-Maliki's office said.
On Sunday, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte told reporters in Baghdad that there are disagreements on what to do about the situation.
"Once the government of Iraq has reached a consensus on what they wish to do about these detainees, we will then take action, but at the moment the government of Iraq itself has not reached its own consensus as to what to do about this situation. So we await that," Negroponte said.
President Bush said Tuesday that Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah "knows our position loud and clear" on the punishment of the victim of a gang rape.
However, Bush said he did not recall having raised the issue during a recent telephone conversation with the king.
The woman was sentenced to 200 lashes and six months in prison for violating the kingdom's strict Islamic law by being alone with an unrelated man before the rape.
"And our opinions were expressed by [White House press secretary] Dana Perino from the podium.
Asked whether he personally had pressed King Abdullah about the matter, Bush responded, "I talked to King Abdullah about the Middle Eastern peace. I don't remember if that subject came up.
A British teacher who was jailed over the naming of a teddy bear said Tuesday that she "got a bit more than I bargained for" during her stint in Sudan.
"I am just an ordinary middle-aged primary school teacher," Gillian Gibbons said after arriving in London.
Gibbons was arrested on November 25 on a charge of blasphemy for allowing a class teddy bear at the school where she was teaching to be named "Mohammed.
Her case set off a flurry of international diplomacy, ending with her pardon Monday by Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.
Gibbons, smiling and gripping the hand of her son John in the arrival lounge at the airport, said she was overwhelmed by the support she had received from British officials, friends and well-wishers.
"I was very upset to think that I might have caused offense to people," she added.
The teacher said she did not want her experience to put people off visiting Sudan where she said she had a "fabulous time" and which she described as an "extremely beautiful place.
Asked what she thought about her sentencing she said it was "a very delicate area."
Historic Tempelhof Airport which played a key role in the Berlin airlift in the wake of World War II will close to passengers in 2008, Germany's top administrative court confirmed Tuesday.
Several airline companies that use the centrally located Tempelhof airport tried to block the closure.
The money-losing Tempelhof is scheduled to shut on October 31, 2008.
Companies using Tempelhof including Lufthansa and Brussels Airlines will be required to reroute their flights to Berlin's Schoenefeld airport starting November 1.
Tempelhof, which opened in 1923, was expanded under the Nazis into a huge, horseshoe-shaped complex.
Tempelhof the closest of the city's three international airports to downtown Berlin is now used only for short-haul flights with small aircraft.
WASHINGTON (CNN) Iran remains a danger to the world even though it stopped a program to develop a nuclear weapon four years ago, President Bush said Tuesday.
A declassified summary of a National Intelligence Estimate released by the U.S. government on Monday said Iran had stopped working toward a nuclear weapon in 2003 and is unlikely to be able to produce enough enriched uranium for a bomb until at least 2010.
, Iran ripped the Bush administration for rhetoric that came before Monday's release of the estimate.
"U.S. officials have so far inflicted ... damage on the Iranian nation by spreading lies against the country and by disturbing public opinion, therefore, they have to pay the price for their action," Iranian government spokesman Gholam-Hossein Elham is quoted as saying on the Web site of the official Islamic Republic News Agency.
In another posting, IRNA called the updated estimate "a necessary and positive step in Tehran-Washington relations, but undoubtedly is not sufficient.
"The U.S. administration should know that only admitting a mistake is not enough," the IRNA report said.
But Bush said Tuesday he saw the latest estimate on Iran as "a warning signal."
The latest estimate shows "Iran needs to be taken seriously as a threat to peace," Bush said.
Britain on Tuesday also called for continued pressure on Iran.
"The report confirms that we were right to be worried about Iran seeking to develop nuclear weapons, and it also shows that the sanctions program and international pressure were having some effect," a spokesman for Prime Minister Gordon Brown said.
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak echoed Bush's comments Tuesday.
"Iran is a main threat to the world and Israel," Barak said. "The entire world and the state of Israel should prepare to deal with this threat and thwart it.
Iran's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, said Tuesday that even the allegations that Tehran was pursuing a nuclear weapon up to 2003 were false.
"I categorically reject any allegation that Iran has had before, has now and will have [such a program] because a nuclear weapon is not in our defense decree," Soltanieh said.
"We are of the belief that a nuclear weapon would create a vulnerability and therefore we are and have and will be against nuclear weapons," he said.
(CNN) Israel early Monday began releasing hundreds of Palestinian prisoners who are aligned with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, as part of a goodwill gesture.
Israeli authorities said none of the approximately 445 detainees members of Abbas' Fatah party had been implicated in deadly attacks against Israelis.
Israel freed more than 250 Palestinian detainees in July and another 86 in October.
An estimated 11,000 Palestinians are still held in Israeli prisons.
In October, a government spokesman described the releases as part of the "Israeli government policy of strengthening the moderates" in the Palestinian territories.
Abbas has been involved in a political power struggle against Gaza-based leaders of Hamas, a rival movement that Israel considers terrorist.
Hamas is in charge of the Palestinian government in Gaza and calls for the destruction of Israel.
In a summit last week in Annapolis, Maryland, Abbas and Israeli President Ehud Olmert agreed to work toward a Palestinian state over the next year.
Officials in the Bush administration said at the time they hoped the summit would lead to strengthening of the Abbas government's infrastructure after the split between Fatah and Hamas.
LONDON, England (CNN) Artist Mark Wallinger won Britain's prestigious Turner Prize for a fiercely anti-war exhibit based on a lone protester's six-year vigil outside British parliament.
"State Britain," which replicated the posters of peace protester Brian Haw, won Wallinger the $51,000 payout that comes with Britain's best-known and most provocative art award.
He is the last dissenting voice in Britain.
Haw began his round-the-clock vigil in June 2001 to protest the sanctions imposed on Iraq and, later, the invasion by Britain and the United States.
His encampment grew to include polemical posters, wooden crosses, teddy bears, and graphic images of children maimed or killed by U.S. weapons.
Most of his paraphernalia was impounded by police last year.
But Wallinger meticulously reproduced everything from Haw's weather-beaten poster decrying President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair as "baby killers" to the demonstrator's tarpaulin shelter and tea-making area.
The items were exhibited at the Tate Britain gallery in central London.
The Turner Prize judges said Wallinger's exhibit "demonstrates art's unique ability to engage with contemporary political issues" and managed to "communicate an unpalatable political truth.
The Turner Prize, named for 19th-century landscape painter J.M.W. Turner, was established in 1984 to honor young artists.
NEW YORK (CNN) Think you're smarter than a fifth-grader?
Japanese researchers pitted young chimps against human adults in tests of short-term memory, and overall, the chimps won.
That challenges the belief of many people, including many scientists, that "humans are superior to chimpanzees in all cognitive functions," said researcher Tetsuro Matsuzawa of Kyoto University.
"No one can imagine that chimpanzees young chimpanzees at the age of 5 have a better performance in a memory task than humans," he said in a statement.
Matsuzawa, a pioneer in studying the mental abilities of chimps, said even he was surprised.
He and colleague Sana Inoue report the results in Tuesday's issue of the journal Current Biology.
One memory test included three 5-year-old chimps who'd been taught the order of Arabic numerals 1 through 9, and a dozen human volunteers.
They saw nine numbers displayed on a computer screen.
When they touched the first number, the other eight turned into white squares.
The test was to touch all these squares in the order of the numbers that used to be there.
Results showed that the chimps, while no more accurate than the people, could do this faster.
One chimp, Ayumu, did the best.
Researchers included him and nine college students in a second test.
This time, five numbers flashed on the screen only briefly before they were replaced by white squares.
The challenge, again, was to touch these squares in the proper sequence.
That indicates Ayumu was better at taking in the whole pattern of numbers at a glance, the researchers wrote.
Even with six months of training, three students failed to catch up to the three young chimps, Matsuzawa said in an e-mail.
He thinks two factors gave his chimps the edge.
For one thing, he believes human ancestors gave up much of this skill over evolutionary time to make room in the brain for gaining language abilities.
The other factor is the youth of Ayumu and his peers.
The memory for images that's needed for the tests resembles a skill found in children, but which dissipates with age.
In fact, the young chimps performed better than older chimps in the new study.
(Ayumu's mom did even worse than the college students).
Ronaldo, who was runner-up to Kaka in the voting for European Player of the Year last week, took his goal tally for the season to 13, and he has been on target in each of his last five matches.
It was not a vintage United display but Fulham rarely threatened to pick up their first away win in the Premiership since September 2006.
The home team made a strong start and Carlos Tevez could have scored twice in the first five minutes.
But in the 10th minute Steve Davis failed to head a Ryan Giggs corner kick clear and Nemanja Vidic nodded the ball back into the area where Ronaldo volleyed it high into the net.
It was a welcome success for United after their lapse at Bolton last week and lifted them above Chelsea and Liverpool to keep the pressure on Arsenal.
The Gunners, still unbeaten in the league, have a game in hand which will be played at Newcastle on Wednesday.
BEIJING, China (CNN) Food prices are set to rise around the globe after years of decline, with climate change making it harder for the world's poorest to get adequate food, according to a report released Tuesday.
Rising global temperatures as well as growing food consumption in rapidly developing countries such as China and India are pressuring the world food system, meaning that food prices will rise for the foreseeable future, according to the International Food Policy Research Institute.
Joachim von Braun, the director of the Washington-based research group, said food prices have been in a declining trend since scientists began developing high-yield plant varieties decades ago, "but the days of falling food prices may be over.
"The last time the world experienced such food price increases was in 1973 to 1974 ... but today the situation is completely different.
For one, the climate risk and climate change situation has increased, the climate vulnerability has increased," von Braun told reporters in Beijing.
The institute said in a report that hunger and malnutrition could rise as poor agricultural communities most sensitive to the environment, such as in Africa, are hurt.
Dependency on food imports will also increase as cereal yields decline in those countries.
The world's agricultural production is projected to decrease by 16 percent by 2020 due to global warming, the report said, with land used for certain crops shrinking.
For example, it said land to grow wheat could almost disappear in Africa.
It said growing demand in rapidly developing countries such as China and India for processed food and expensive meat and dairy products is driving up prices for those goods, as well as for staple grains used to feed cattle.
In addition, switching to crops used for biofuels will also reduce the amount of available food and increase prices, it said.
Trade barriers for food should be eliminated, especially in developed nations, the report recommended, so small farmers can earn more money.
"A world facing increased food scarcity needs to trade more, not less," the report said.
Stocks slipped Monday afternoon as investors welcomed the White House's pledge to aid subprime mortgage holders, but continued to worry about how the housing and credit market crisis will hurt the economy in the long run.
The Dow Jones industrial average (Charts) lost 0.4 percent. The broader S&P 500 (Charts) index lost 0.6 percent.
The tech-fueled Nasdaq (Charts) composite lost 0.9 percent.
Treasury prices rose, lowering the corresponding yields, as investors sought safety in government debt.
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, speaking at the National Housing Forum Monday, said the United States is aggressively pursuing relief for struggling subprime mortgage holders.
The comments initially gave some stability to the markets, but any gains were short lived, with stocks turning lower again in the afternoon.
Financial, housing and technology were the leaders on the downside.
Pakistan election officials on Monday disqualified opposition party leader and former former prime minister Nawaz Sharif from participating in January parliamentary elections.
A spokesman for Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League told CNN Monday that Sharif had been barred by the election commission because of a previous criminal conviction.
Sharif filed paperwork for his candidacy last week, although he had left open the possibility that he would boycott the election in protest of a state of emergency imposed by President Pervez Musharraf.
Sharif returned to Pakistan last month, ending seven years in exile in Saudi Arabia.
He had first returned in September, but Pakistani authorities deported him within hours of his arrival.
Sharif was convicted of terrorism, hijacking and tax evasion after Musharraf seized power in 1999.
He was released in 2000 in exchange for agreeing to 10 years of exile in Saudi Arabia.
He retained his Pakistani citizenship, but has not been allowed to travel to Pakistan or directly take part in Pakistani politics.
Iran has expelled Canada's ambassador, Canadian Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier said Monday in a statement.
We will continue to monitor the well-being of the other embassy staff in Tehran.
The minister said he believes the expulsion "is an unfortunate and unjustified consequence" of Ottawa's failure to approve any of Iran's proposed candidates to be ambassador to Canada.
Bernier said the Canadian Embassy in Tehran will be headed by a charge d'affaires for now. "We strive to keep our lines of communication open," he said. " ... As always, Canada remains prepared to receive an Iranian ambassador provided a suitable candidate is presented.
Recently, Iran's supreme court ordered a review of the death of Zahra Kazemi, the Canadian photojournalist who tied in custody after being arrested outside of a Tehran prison in 2003, The Associated Press news service reported.
Authorities said she died after falling ill.
Her son believes she was tortured and raped before being killed, the AP reported.
"Her tongue was massive, and she insisted on trying to put the entire thing in my mouth. She was very forceful with it, and I started choking.
Bad kissers have little chance of getting to second base.
In a study published recently in the scientific journal "Evolutionary Psychology," 59 percent of men and 66 percent of women said they've been in the position of being attracted to someone until they kissed the person.
"At the moment of the kiss, there's a very complicated exchange of information ... that may tap into underlying evolved mechanisms" cluing us in on whether we're genetically compatible, explains Gordon Gallup, co-author of the study and professor of psychology at the State University of New York at Albany.
"A kiss can be a deal-breaker in terms of whether a relationship will flower or flounder, so to speak.
For men, kissing is more often used as a means to an end namely, to gain sexual access.
Men also are more likely to literally kiss and make up, using kissing to attempt reconciliation.
Women on the other hand use kissing as a mate-assessment technique, Gallup notes.
They subconsciously evaluate mating potential from the chemicals in their partner's saliva and breath, for instance.
Women also use kissing as a bonding gesture, as well as to monitor the status of the relationship.
If her partner's kissing frequency or technique suddenly changes, that perhaps is a sign of his waning interest.
Other gender differences uncovered by Gallup's research:
Men show a greater preference for tongue contact and open-mouth kisses.
Men are more willing than women to have sex with someone without kissing, as well as to have sex with someone they are not attracted to or consider to be a bad kisser.
Women place more importance on kissing throughout a relationship, whereas men place less importance on it as the relationship progresses. .
Improve your kiss
Like other skills, one's kissing technique can be improved upon.
Michael Christian, author of "The Art of Kissing" (under the pen name William Cane), offers classes, and there's a myriad of how-to books and DVDs.
To improve your technique, Christian suggests switching up your repertoire with different types of kisses:
Vacuum kiss, in which you suck the air out of your partner's mouth while kissing
Neck kiss, in which you kiss up and down your partner's neck
"Lip-o-suction," in which you kiss the upper lip while your partner kisses the lower lip, and then you reverse.
Bad kisses, on the other hand, are relatively easy to pinpoint.
Varying the speed, intensity and style can help.
"Her tongue was massive, and she insisted on trying to put the entire thing in my mouth. She was very forceful with it, and I started choking.
Bad kissers have little chance of getting to second base.
In a study published recently in the scientific journal "Evolutionary Psychology," 59 percent of men and 66 percent of women said they've been in the position of being attracted to someone until they kissed the person.
"At the moment of the kiss, there's a very complicated exchange of information ... that may tap into underlying evolved mechanisms" cluing us in on whether we're genetically compatible, explains Gordon Gallup, co-author of the study and professor of psychology at the State University of New York at Albany.
"A kiss can be a deal-breaker in terms of whether a relationship will flower or flounder, so to speak.
For men, kissing is more often used as a means to an end namely, to gain sexual access.
Men also are more likely to literally kiss and make up, using kissing to attempt reconciliation.
Women on the other hand use kissing as a mate-assessment technique, Gallup notes.
They subconsciously evaluate mating potential from the chemicals in their partner's saliva and breath, for instance.
Women also use kissing as a bonding gesture, as well as to monitor the status of the relationship.
If her partner's kissing frequency or technique suddenly changes, that perhaps is a sign of his waning interest.
Other gender differences uncovered by Gallup's research:
Men show a greater preference for tongue contact and open-mouth kisses.
Men are more willing than women to have sex with someone without kissing, as well as to have sex with someone they are not attracted to or consider to be a bad kisser.
Women place more importance on kissing throughout a relationship, whereas men place less importance on it as the relationship progresses. .
Improve your kiss
Like other skills, one's kissing technique can be improved upon.
Michael Christian, author of "The Art of Kissing" (under the pen name William Cane), offers classes, and there's a myriad of how-to books and DVDs.
To improve your technique, Christian suggests switching up your repertoire with different types of kisses:
Vacuum kiss, in which you suck the air out of your partner's mouth while kissing
Neck kiss, in which you kiss up and down your partner's neck
"Lip-o-suction," in which you kiss the upper lip while your partner kisses the lower lip, and then you reverse.
Bad kisses, on the other hand, are relatively easy to pinpoint.
Varying the speed, intensity and style can help.
WASHINGTON (CNN) Iran halted work toward a nuclear weapon under international scrutiny in 2003 and is unlikely to be able to produce enough enriched uranium for a bomb until 2010 to 2015, a U.S. intelligence report says.
A declassified summary of the latest National Intelligence Estimate found with "high confidence" that the Islamic republic stopped an effort to develop nuclear weapons in the fall of 2003.
The estimate is less severe than a 2005 report that judged the Iranian leadership was "determined to develop nuclear weapons despite its international obligations and international pressure. "
But the latest report says Iran which declared its ability to produced enriched uranium for a civilian energy program in 2006 could reverse that decision and eventually produce a nuclear weapon if it wanted to do so.
Enriched uranium at low concentrations can be used to fuel nuclear power plants, but much higher concentrations are needed to yield a nuclear explosion.
"We judge with moderate confidence that the earliest possible date Iran would be technically capable of producing enough highly enriched uranium for a weapon is late 2009, but that this is very unlikely," the report says.
A more likely time frame for that production is between 2010 and 2015, it concludes.
Monday's report represents the consensus of U.S. intelligence agencies.
U.S. National Security adviser Stephen Hadley expressed hope after Monday's announcement, but he said Iran remains a serious threat.
He said technology being developed for Iran's civilian nuclear power program could be used to enrich uranium for use in weapons, and that Iran is continuing to develop ballistic missiles.
Hadley said the intelligence community came to the new conclusions on Tuesday, based on information gathered over the past few months, and President Bush was briefed about them on Wednesday.
He said U.S. policy toward Iran has not changed because of the new report.
A canoeist who UK authorities believed was dead has turned up alive five-and-a-half years and around 360 km (225 miles) from where he was last seen.
In March 2002 a red canoe belonging to John Darwin, then 51, was found wrecked on the seafront near his home of Seaton Carew, Hartlepool in northern England.
He was presumed dead by everyone, including his wife and two sons
until he walked into a police station in London on Saturday evening and told officers that he was a missing person.
His father Ronald Darwin, 91, in comments reported by the UK's Press Association, said that he always believed his son would turn up.
I'll tell him a lot more too, but I'm extremely happy now.
Darwin said that he believed his son to have suffered amnesia, caused when he was hit by a car at the age of four or five.
A British teacher convicted of insulting religion in Sudan by allowing her students to name a teddy bear "Mohammed" has left Khartoum on a flight home, the British Foreign Office said Monday.
"I have great respect for the Islamic religion and would not knowingly offend anyone, and I am sorry if I caused any distress," Gibbons said in a statement read by Sayeeda Warsi, one of two Muslim lawmakers who traveled to Sudan to secure her release.
Gibbons, 54, was sentenced to 15 days in jail last Thursday.
She left Sudan on an Emirates flight to London via Dubai hours after the courts ruled she should be deported after completing her sentence.
The Briton will land early on Tuesday morning at London's Heathrow Airport, where she is expected to make a statement to the media.
Gibbons also praised the "kindness and generosity" of the Sudanese and said she would be sad to leave her job at Unity High School and would miss her students "terribly.
The pardon came following efforts by Nazir Ahmed and Sayeeda Warsi, Muslim members of Britain's House of Lords, to persuade the Sudanese government that releasing Gibbons would create international good will toward their country.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown welcomed news of Gibbons' pardon. "Common sense has prevailed," Brown said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has declared his party's controversial parliamentary victory a mandate to cement power.
Putin's United Russia Party had 64.1 percent of the vote from nearly 98 percent of precincts reporting, according to the Central Election Commission enough to form a majority with 70 per cent of seats in the Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament, party leader Boris Gryzlov said.
Putin was top of United Russia's list of candidates, guaranteeing him a parliamentary seat and allowing him to extend his influence when his presidential term ends in 2008, perhaps as prime minister.
But the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) questioned the fairness of the polls.
"We can not say there were fair elections," said Luc van den Brande, head of the OSCE delegation, Monday.
AC Milan's Brazilian midfielder Kaka has been named European player of the year, lifting France Football's Ballon d'Or award.
The 25-year-old Kaka was a major factor in AC Milan's triumphant Champions League campaign.
The runner-up was Manchester United's Portuguese winger Cristiano Ronaldo with Barcelona's Argentinian midfielder Lionel Messi finishing third.
"This is very special for me - it culminates an astonishing year for me," Kaka said.
"It's the top prize around and the only way to win something like this is to play for a team like AC Milan. It's great to be part of a team that wins.
He was part of Brazil's 2002 World Cup winning squad, although he was limited to just 19 minutes as a substitute against Costa Rica.
He was top scorer in last season's Champions League, helping Milan to avenge their loss to Liverpool in the 2005 final.
MADRID, Spain (CNN) Members of the Basque separatist group ETA have shot dead a Spanish civil guard and seriously wounded another in southern France, Spanish officials said.
It is the first fatality blamed on ETA in nearly a year.
The separatist group claimed responsibility for a December 30, 2006, car bomb at the Madrid airport that killed two men and destroyed a parking garage.
The two plainsclothes civil guard officers were in Capbreton, France, to meet with French police about joint operations against ETA, which traditionally uses France as a base for its attacks in Spain, a Spanish Interior Ministry spokeswoman told CNN.
It appeared the ETA gunmen recognized the civil guards at a cafe where they had breakfast, the spokeswoman said.
The gunmen followed the guards when they left the cafe, and shot them while they were getting into their car, she said.
She said there were three ETA suspects two men whom authorities believe are responsible for the shooting, and a woman.
The ETA suspects fled in a car, later leaving it to commandeer a second car, the spokeswoman said.
They held a French woman and her son but quickly released them, she said.
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero canceled his schedule for the weekend and made a statement offering condolences to the slain civil guard's family, as well as words of support for the other civil guard who is in a French hospital.
"Those who did this will be arrested and tried, and will pay for this.
Spanish and French interior ministers who were attending a meeting in Germany, abruptly left the meeting to return to France.
ETA, which the United States and European Union list as a terrorist group, is blamed for more than 800 killings.
ETA declared a "permanent" cease-fire in March 2006, raising hopes for an end to the violence, but the car bomb at Madrid's airport shattered the fledgling peace process.
CARACAS, Venezuela (CNN) Venezuelan voters narrowly rejected a constitutional referendum that would have bolstered President Hugo Chavez's embrace of socialism and granted an indefinite extension of his eligibility to serve as president, the National Electoral Council reported early Monday.
About 51 percent of voters opposed the amendments, while approximately 49 percent were in favor of them.
Don't feel burdened," Chavez told supporters immediately after the results were announced.
More than nine million of Venezuelan's 16 million eligible voters went to the polls Sunday.
President of the National Electoral Council, Tibisay Lucena, said the process "shows the entire world that we are a democratic country."
Chavez, in what he called a talk "from my heart" acknowledging the results, thanked those who opposed his proposal, saying the election had proven that Venezuelan democracy is maturing.
Thousands of people gathered in the streets, many of them university students who worked to defeat the measure, burst into singing their country's national anthem upon hearing the news.
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and his team were formally sworn in as Australia's new government Monday, nine days after sweeping to power in elections that ended more than 11 years of conservative rule.
Rudd, 50, has put global warming and keeping Australia's resource export-fueled economic boom at the top of his priorities list, and was due to call his first Cabinet meeting later Monday.
Rudd was the first of 30 ministers to take the oath of office before Governor General Michael Jeffery on Monday in ceremonies broadcast nationally, formalizing the hand-over of government from ousted prime minister John Howard.
Among the ministers are Australia's first female deputy prime minister, Julia Gillard.
Rudd has moved quickly to bring Australia into international talks on fighting global warming, and to head off potentially thorny relations with the United States and key Asian neighbors.
The emphatic victory for Rudd's Labor Party swings Australia toward the political left and puts it at odds with key security ally Washington on two crucial policy issues Iraq and global warming.
The day after sweeping to power in general elections on November 24, Rudd held meetings with government officials about the mechanics of signing the Kyoto Protocol on cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
Britain, New Zealand and Indonesia noted that Rudd's election would boost international efforts to address climate change Howard had refused to sign the Kyoto pact.
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) Heavy metal fans aren't usually seen making bids at high-end auctions, but they turned out in numbers to snatch up a coat with embroidered bats, sneakers with skulls on them and other items put up for sale by Ozzy Osbourne.
"We had Ozzy fans bidding against these sophisticated fine art buyers, which you don't see every day," said Darren Julien, whose company, Julien's Auctions, ran the charity sale Friday and Saturday. "For the most part the metalheads were outbidding the art crowd.
Bidders came from as far as Germany to try to buy belongings from the Beverly Hills mansion formerly owned by the rocker and former star of "The Osbournes" reality show.
Items featured on Osbourne's hit MTV show were the most popular, Julien said.
The bat coat sold for $3,300, the skull sneakers brought in $2,625 and a pair of the rocker's trademark round glasses went for $5,250.
Julien said the "Ozzy factor" made ordinary items command big-ticket prices. An oversized coffee cup that Osbourne often clutched while the cameras rolled sold for $1,625.
A dog bed given to Osbourne's wife, Sharon, by Elton John brought in $2,375.
Fine art buyers were interested in items such as a sculpture by French artist Edouard Drouot ($10,500) and a painting by Gabriel Joseph Marie Augustin Ferrier ($5,312).
Julien said Osbourne almost did not want to part with his prized pool table because he cherished the memories of playing with his kids as they were growing up.
The table eventually ended up on the auction block and it brought in $11,250.
The auction brought in $800,000 more than twice the amount Julien predicted.
All proceeds from the sale go to The Sharon Osbourne Colon Cancer Program at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
ROME, Italy (CNN) A general transport strike by workers in Italy demanding more investment in the sector forced the cancellation of hundreds of flights and idled trains, ships and buses across the country on Friday.
National carrier Alitalia canceled 217 national and international flights before a four-hour walkout by air sector workers beginning at 11 a.m. (5 a.m. EST).
Air One, Italy's No. 2 carrier, said that only nine flights would be guaranteed.
The workers are protesting planned cuts in transport funding in the new budget as well as the declining fortunes of the main companies in the sector, starting with the money-losing Alitalia, which the Italian government is struggling to sell.
Railway company Trenitalia canceled hundreds of trains and warned of further delays as rail workers walked off their jobs at 9 a.m. for an eight-hour protest.
Ship departures were delayed by 24 hours, while commuters struggled to get to work in their own cars as local transportation was idled for eight hours starting at different times in cities across Italy.
The city of Rome avoided further disruption by making a late-night deal Thursday with taxi drivers.
The drivers had staged wildcat strikes and traffic blockages for two days to protest plans by city officials to grant 500 new licenses.
The city did not go back on its plans but agreed to discuss with unions how and when the new licenses will be released.
Sudan's president Omar al-Bashir on Monday morning will meet with two British lawmakers to discuss a possible pardon for a British teacher convicted of insulting religion, presidential palace sources told Time magazine's Sam Dealey on Sunday.
The announcement came shortly after the two British lawmakers in Khartoum since Saturday to secure the release of Gillian Gibbons announced they were delaying their planned departure from the capital, a move widely interpreted as a sign of progress.
Their efforts have been complicated by pressure from hard-liners for Gibbons to serve out the last week of a 15-day sentence for having allowed her students to name a teddy bear "Mohammed."
Riot police were deployed Sunday around the capital, but there were no signs of major protests, Dealey said.
She has apologized to a faculty member offended by the toy's name, Dealey told CNN.
Pro-democracy candidate Anson Chan, a hugely popular former government official, won a seat in Hong Kong's legislature Monday, a win she hailed as a victory for democracy in the southern Chinese territory.
Chan received 175,874 votes, or about 54.6 percent, of the ballots cast in Sunday's election, according to official results announced early Monday.
The race, billed as a referendum on democracy, was one of the most keenly watched and closest fought elections since the territory was returned to China a decade ago.
Her closest opponent, former security chief Regina Ip, who had the backing of Beijing-allied parties, received 137,550, or 42.7 percent of votes.
Six other candidates vying for the seat in Hong Kong made vacant when a lawmaker died earlier this year received 1 percent or less each, according to the electoral officials.
Political analysts said they expected the territory's communist leaders in Beijing to keep a close eye on the election, but cast doubt on whether the outcome would lead to any real change for Hong Kong.
BALI, Indonesia (CNN) World powers meeting at a U.N. climate change conference in Indonesia this week won't be able to craft a meaningful plan to address global warming without cooperation from the United States, the top emitter of greenhouse gases, the U.N.'s climate chief said Sunday.
The United States refused to sign the last major international treaty on reducing greenhouse gases, undermining its effectiveness.
Delegates from 190 nations will gather on the resort island of Bali on Monday for one of the largest global warming conferences ever, bringing together about 10,000 people including Hollywood luminaries, former Vice President Al Gore, fishermen and drought-stricken farmers for two weeks of marathon discussions.
Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.
Among the most contentious issues will be whether emission cuts should be mandatory or voluntary and how to help the world's poorest countries adapt to a warmer climate.
Yvo de Boer, general secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, said the role of the United States "would be critical" in the discussions and that delegates must come up with a roadmap that's embraced by Washington.
"To design a long-term response to climate change that does not include the world's largest emitter and the world's largest economy just would not make any sense," he told reporters.
The United States, which along with Australia refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol, said ahead of the Bali talks that it was eager to launch negotiations, but has been among industrialized nations leading a campaign against mandatory emission cuts.
But now the United States finds itself isolated at the conference, given that Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, whose party swept to power in general elections just one week ago, immediately put signing the Kyoto pact at the top of his international agenda.
President Bush, trying to fend off charges that America is not doing enough, said this week that a final Energy Department report showed American emissions of carbon dioxide, a leading greenhouse gas, declined by 1.5 percent last year while the U.S. economy grew.
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) Elizabeth Taylor returned to the stage Saturday night, after persuading striking TV and film writers to briefly put down their picket signs.
The Writers Guild of America agreed not to picket the Paramount Pictures lot when actress and AIDS activist Taylor gave a benefit performance of A.R. Gurney's play "Love Letters" with James Earl Jones.
The guild lowered the picket line because "this worthy event is happening solely through the efforts and underwriting of Dame Elizabeth Taylor, who is not only a longtime member of the Screen Actors Guild, but an outspoken supporter of the Writers Guild," Patric Verrone, president of the western chapter of the guild, said in a statement.
She smiled for the cameras as her boyfriend, industrialist Jason Winters, wheeled her into the theater.
Taylor, 75, said she would not cross picket lines December 1, which was World AIDS Day. She said she asked the writers union for a "one night dispensation" so she and her guests could enter the studio with a clear conscience.
"The Writers Guild of America has shown great humanity, empathy and courage by allowing our little evening to move forward," Taylor said in a statement.
More than 500 people, including California first lady Maria Shriver, paid $2,500 per ticket for the one-night performance.
At least 10 traffic deaths have been blamed on weather-related traffic accidents.
Winter storm warnings were in effect into Monday in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine and into Tuesday in parts of New York state.
On the other side of the weather system, warnings were issued for parts of Michigan, where freezing rain and sleet was predicted to turn to all snow late Sunday.
The National Weather Service said a foot of snow was possible in the mountains of northern New England, with the potential for 20 inches in northern Maine.
In higher elevations of upstate New York, 13 inches of snow was possible.
"It's kind of a mess probably the best way to term it in one word," meteorologist Bob Kilpatrick said in Albany, New York.
With snowfall that light in New Jersey, and a changeover to rain expected later Sunday in places, the New Jersey Turnpike Authority salted its roads Sunday and didn't bother to plow.
"Compared to what's happening in the Midwest, we've kind of got it easy right now," said Joe Orlando, a spokesman for the authority.
Hundreds of flights into the New York City area's three main airports Kennedy, Newark Liberty and LaGuardia were delayed as long as two hours Sunday because of wind and ice.
Two indicators of the state of the war in Iraq appeared favorable in November, when fewer fighters entered Iraq from neighboring countries and fewer Iraqi civilians killed, according to two reports on Sunday.
Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, the No. 2-ranking U.S. commander in Iraq, told CNN fewer weapons and fighters entered Iraq from Iran and Syria over the past month.
And Iraq's Interior Ministry said civilian deaths caused by war-related violence in Iraq dropped for a third straight month in November.
Odierno said the U.S. military is "pleased" with Syria's improvement.
The U.S. military maintains that explosively formed penetrators a sophisticated and powerful type of roadside bomb are made in Iran and their components are shipped into Iraq by the Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force, the Iranian unit accused by the United States of training and arming insurgents.
Early returns gave President Vladimir Putin's party a wide lead in Russia's parliamentary elections Sunday, a trend that could allow Putin to continue wielding power past the end of his presidential term.
With 40 percent of the votes in, Putin's United Russia Party garnered 63.1 percent of the vote enough to form a majority in the Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament, party leader Boris Gryzlov said at a news conference.
"The election is vindication that Vladimir Putin is the country's national leader, and that the Russian voters support the political course he has taken in the last eight years," Gryzlov said.
The Russian leader, whom critics accuse of undermining political and media freedoms during his eight years in office, has said he would consider taking the post of prime minister if his party won a landslide victory.
Gryzlov said he expected to meet with Putin later Sunday to discuss the results.
The opposition Communist Party received 11.4 percent of the vote, and two other parties, Liberal Democratic Party and the pro-Putin Fair Russian Party, received 9.5 and 7.5 percent of the vote.
The remaining six parties on the ballot failed to meet the 7 percent threshold for representation in the Duma.
But Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov told journalists that his party did not believe the initial results, and said the party planned to conduct a vote count of their own.
He also said Communists would rally in across the country for several days to protest what they believe is biased counting.
CARACAS, Venezuela (CNN) Venezuelans turned out Sunday to vote on whether to approve broad constitutional changes that would bolster President Hugo Chavez's embrace of socialism and grant an indefinite extension of his eligibility to serve as president.
It was not immediately clear how many of the 16 million Venezuelans eligible to vote actually did so, but the president of the National Electoral Counsel, Tibisay Lucena, said the process "shows the entire world that we are a democratic country.
In Caracas, Chavez clad in his trademark red shirt and cradling his grandson made the sign of the cross and voted, then took his paper ballot and placed it in a box.
"For me, it's a very happy day," he said.
He dipped his right pinky in ink, collected his paper receipt from the voting machine and then gave an uncharacteristically short talk with the news media.
"Let's wait for the results tonight," he told reporters. "We'll accept them, whatever they may be."
Chavez called Venezuela's electoral system "one of the most transparent in the world," and said its voting machines are among "the most modern of the world.
At stake are 69 amendments proposed by Chavez, who has said he wants to steer Venezuela toward full socialism a state his detractors describe as full totalitarianism.
The most controversial amendment would do away with term limits, thereby allowing the 53-year-old former paratrooper, who has already served almost eight years in power, to hold it indefinitely as long as he is re-elected.
At present, the president's term runs six years, and current law would not allow Chavez to run again after his term ends in 2012.
In addition, the autonomous Central Bank would be placed under presidential control, and the maximum working day would be cut from eight hours to six hours.
Minimum voting age would also be cut from 18 years to 16 years.
LONDON, England (CNN) The European Union's foreign policy chief said Friday he was "disappointed" by the latest talks with Iran over the nation's nuclear program, a failure that could result in more sanctions for the Middle Eastern nation.
The five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France plus Germany, had agreed to draft a new resolution imposing further financial and visa restrictions if there were no new steps forward in the nuclear stand-off by the end of November.
The council already has imposed sanctions on Iran for failing to meet requirements set out by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog.
"I have to admit that after five hours of meetings, I expected more," said Javier Solana after Friday's meeting in London.
Saeed Jalili, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, made clear that his country is adamant about advancing its nuclear activities.
"We will defend our rights and at the same time we welcome further negotiations," Jalili said.
Jalili and Solana spoke separately to reporters after their talk.
Tehran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful, civilian purposes.
But leaders in the United States and other countries, including some European nations, have expressed concerns that Iran may be pursuing nuclear weapons under the guise of a nuclear energy program.
(CNN) In recent months, PopSci has covered various scientists' plans to curb global warming through carbon sequestration, mainly by feeding it to algae to make biofuel, or burying it underground.
Today, a company called Skyonic announced a novel new system, Skymine, which uses the carbon dioxide emitted from smokestacks to make baking soda.
According to Skyonic CEO Joe David Jones, the system will be powered by waste heat from factories, and will produce food-grade baking soda.
Last year, the utility company Luminant installed a pilot version of the system at its Big Brown Steam Electric Station in Fairfield, Texas.
There's still quite a bit of work to be done to make the current system viable on a large scale, but the baking soda idea offers solutions to some of the economic problems posed by other carbon sequestration methods.
For starters, according to Jones, the stuff can be sold for home or industrial use or buried harmlessly in landfills or abandoned mines.
Jones apparently got the idea for the SkyMine system while watching a Discovery Channel show with his kids. He pulled out an old college science textbook and immediately turned to a passage about converting C02 to baking soda.
He'd found it interesting years ago and highlighted it for future reference
ROCHESTER, New Hampshire (CNN) Police took into custody a man they say walked into Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign office in Rochester, New Hampshire, and took several people hostage Friday.
The man, Lee Eisenberg, claimed to have a bomb strapped to his chest, but it turned out to be road flares held with duct tape, police said.
"I am very grateful that this difficult day has ended so well. All of my campaign staff are safe," Clinton said outside her Washington home. "I want to thank them for their extraordinary courage and coolness under some very difficult pressures and dangerous situations.
The situation began when Eisenberg walked into the office at about 1 p.m., Maj. Michael Hambrook of the New Hampshire State Police told CNN affiliate WMUR-TV.
On Friday afternoon, one of the hostages contacted the CNN Washington bureau and then put Eisenberg on the phone.
The hostage and Eisenberg called CNN multiple times throughout the afternoon and talked to CNN staffers.
Eisenberg said he had mental problems and couldn't get anyone to help him.
CNN assumed Eisenberg could be watching CNN's broadcast and chose not to report his calls to avoid compromising the safety of the hostages.
A woman with a baby was released by the hostage-taker early on, she told a witness, Lettie Tzizik, who spoke to WMUR.
A man has just walked into the Clinton office, opened his coat and showed us a bomb strapped to his chest with duct tape,' " the Web site reported.
Bill Shaheen, chairman of Clinton's New Hampshire campaign, told WMUR the people held were volunteers.
Clinton, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, was scheduled to speak at 3 p.m. at a Democratic National Committee event, but canceled the talk because of the situation, DNC Chairman Howard Dean said.
New manager Juande Ramos found the magic formula as Tottenham overturned a two-goal half-time deficit to defeat Denmark's Aalborg 3-2 in their UEFA Cup clash at White Hart Lane.
Spurs first-team coach Gus Poyet admitted the double substitution had been a risk for Ramos.
"It was a big decision for Juande and it worked," Poyet told ITV4. "It is that sort of situation where you have to go for the game because you have nothing to lose."
In the same group Hapoel Tel Aviv scored a shock 2-1 win away to Getafe having lost their opening two games.
Stelios Giannakopoulos scored a dramatic stoppage-time equalizer to leave Bolton's UEFA Cup hopes on a knife-edge after a 1-1 draw against Aris.
It was Bolton's their third successive draw and they may need a victory against Red Star in Belgrade next Thursday to progress.
Diego Forlan gave Atletico Madrid the lead on the stroke of halftime in their 2-0 home Group B victory against Aberdeen. Atletico sent on Simao at the start of the second half and the Portuguese winger scored number two after 60 minutes.
An audio recording attributed to Osama bin Laden called on Europeans to abandon Afghanistan and accused NATO troops of killing women and children there.
"The majority of the victims of your bombardments were women and children.
You targeted them and killed them on purpose.
You knew very well that our women don't fight, but you targeted them even at weddings.
Your purpose is to demoralize the mujahedeen, but this will do you no good."
A U.S. counterterrorism official told CNN an intelligence community analysis indicates the voice is that of the Saudi exile, and that the message appears to contain no specific, credible threat.
It includes references to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who took office in June, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who was elected in May. Watch what experts make of the new message &raquo;
The speaker also repeats his claim of sole responsibility for the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington, which killed nearly 3,000 people.
He says Afghanistan's Taliban militia, which allowed al Qaeda to operate from the territory it controlled, had no advance knowledge of the plot.
Bin Laden and Taliban leader Mohammed Omar escaped the U.S. invasion in 2001, and bin Laden was last thought to be hiding in the rugged mountains along the Afghan-Pakistani border.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the tape sounded like old news.
He said Afghan children are receiving medical care and vaccinations that they would not have received before the ouster of the Taliban, but "there is a lot more work to be done.
RIALTO, California (CNN) Rodney King, whose 1991 police beating sparked widespread rioting in Los Angeles and other U.S. cities, was recovering Thursday after being slightly wounded by gunfire.
Rialto, California, Police Department Sgt. Don Lewis said King was grazed on his face, arms, back and torso. The wounds were superficial.
Lewis said that after King was shot Wednesday night, he rode his bicycle from San Bernardino to his home in Rialto, before calling police about 11:40 p.m.
Information on possible suspects or the hospital where King was treated were not immediately available.
Four officers were charged with assault with a deadly weapon and excessive use of force but were acquitted of state charges on April 29, 1992.
The three days of rioting that followed left 55 people dead and 2,000 injured.
There were 12,000 arrests and about $1 billion in property damage in Los Angeles.
Two of the officers, Sgt. Stacey Koon and officer Laurence Powell, were later convicted of federal civil rights violations.
Since then, King has had a handful of run-ins with the law, including a guilty plea in 2004 to driving under the influence of a controlled substance and reckless driving.
On the blank canvas of "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly," Julian Schnabel's first stroke was an image of glaciers falling into the sea.
"For me, I needed that key to open up this Pandora's box of memory and imagination," the painter-filmmaker says in an interview. "I needed that. If those glaciers are not in the movie, I don't have a movie.
The reason the film needed such a visual (and many others) is because it's largely from the perspective of a man paralyzed by a stroke, left with full consciousness but only the use of his left eye.
"He traded his body, essentially, in order to be a great artist," says Schnabel.
In Bauby's memoir, published just two days before his death at 44, Bauby calls his submerged state the "diving bell.
He writes: "My diving bell becomes less oppressive, and my mind takes flight like a butterfly. There is so much to do. You can wander off in space or in time, set off for Tierra del Fuego, or for King Midas' Court.
For the movie version of these "bedridden travel notes," Schnabel who rose to fame in the '80s as a painter also decided to take flight..
Somewhere in all of that and in the book 'Perfume,' I found some kind of a meditation on the interior life.
Asian stocks rallied Thursday, tracking an overnight surge on Wall Street, amid a brightening outlook for the U.S. economy a key export market for Asian companies.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index soared more than 4 percent to close at 28,482.54 points.
The Nikkei 225 index was up 2.4 percent to close at 15,513.74.
On the Chinese mainland, stocks also rallied, with the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index jumping 4.2 percent a day after it ended at a three-month low.
Markets in Australia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines advanced.
(CNN) A New Zealand teenager has been questioned in connection with a scheme by hackers to remotely take over more than 1 million computers worldwide and use them for criminal activity, New Zealand police and the FBI said Thursday.
The FBI has identified at least 2.5 million unsuspecting computer users who have been victims of so-called "botnet" activity.
Hackers install viruses, worms and other attack programs that allow them to take over the computers and use them to commit cyber crimes.
The FBI tracked down the teen and believes the 18-year-old, known by the cyber alias "AKILL," was the ringleader of an international botnet group know as the "A-team," responsible for infecting more than 1 million computers.
"Today, botnets are the weapon of choice for cyber criminals," said FBI Director Robert Mueller in a statement.
"They seek to conceal their criminal activities by using third-party computers as vehicles for their crimes.
In 2005 the FBI launched Operation Bot Roast to combat botnet attacks, which the bureau estimates have caused $20 million in losses and theft.
EL DORADO, Kansas (CNN) A body found in Kansas appears to be that of a missing college student who led a secret life as an Internet porn star, police said Thursday.
Authorities said the preliminary physical description of the body found about 50 miles east of El Dorado matches that of missing college student Emily Sander.
Investigators refused to give details about the state of the body or how it was found.
That site was temporarily inaccessible Thursday.
But Police Chief Tom Boren insisted Thursday that Sander's Internet activity had no connection to her disappearance.
"The issue of the Internet and the spinoff of that has been literally crippling our investigation," Boren said. Police said publicity about Sander's explicit photos brought a flood of tips, many of them false leads.
Boren said the cause of death was not yet known. An autopsy is planned.
Sander, 18, was last seen leaving an El Dorado bar Friday with Israel Mireles.
Mireles became the focus of a nationwide search after police found large quantities of blood in a Kansas motel room where he was staying.
Authorities are looking for Mireles, 24, and his 16-year-old pregnant girlfriend.
The rental car Mireles was driving was found abandoned Tuesday in Vernon, Texas, where he has relatives.
Investigators interviewed family members and planned to bring the vehicle back to Kansas for processing.
"We feel they know where he is at, but they haven't shared that with us," Boren said.
Dozens of people gathered Wednesday in El Dorado for a candlelight vigil for her.
The turnout moved her grandfather, Clement Sander, who said Emily Sander's disappearance shows tragedy can suddenly strike anyone.
President Bush on Thursday called on Congress to approve billions of dollars in additional funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan before lawmakers leave for their Christmas break.
He said the Army will have to shut down bases and start furloughing between 100,000 and 200,000 civilian workers by mid-February if Congress does not clear the funds.
"Pentagon officials have warned Congress that the continued delay in funding our troops will soon begin to have a damaging impact on the operations of this department," Bush said Thursday. "The warning has been laid out for the United States Congress to hear.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates already has ordered the Army and Marine Corps to plan for cutbacks, including civilian layoffs, termination of contracts and reduced operations at bases, The Associated Press reported.
A $50 billion war spending bill, which would have required U.S. troops to begin leaving Iraq within 30 days, passed the House but stalled last week in the Senate with Republicans balking at the withdrawal provision.
The $50 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan that was approved by the House is about a quarter of what the administration requested.
Congressional Democrats have disputed that, saying the Pentagon could shift existing funds to continue the efforts.
"He cannot have it both ways.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf announced Thursday that he will end a state of emergency on December 16 ahead of upcoming elections a key demand by the United States and opposition leaders.
"At the moment, the dust is settling down and everything is in control," Musharraf said.
"The election will take place according to constitution on the eighth of January.
He called on all opposition parties to "follow the rules ... and all the directives of the election commission."
The president had previously insisted that the state of emergency, imposed on November 3, must remain until the January 8 vote was completed, saying it was needed to ward off attacks from Islamic extremists.
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Washington welcomed the move.
"We look to the candidates and the people of Pakistan to fully participate in these free and fair elections," she said.
Perino urged Pakistan's government to ensure that citizens "be able to voice their opinions, that they be able to assemble, and that they be able to have the freedom of the press that they had before the emergency order was in place.
Earlier, Musharraf declared his new term as a civilian leader "a milestone in the transition of Pakistan to the complete essence of democracy.
Opposition leaders had threatened a boycott to the upcoming elections to protest Musharraf's emergency order, arguing it has been used by him to consolidate power.
Dramatically played out on live television, an opposition politician and rebel military officers surrendered to government forces after taking over a luxury hotel in Manila.
"We're going out for the sake of the safety of everybody," Philippines Sen. Antonio Trillanes said.
The senator made the decision to give up after the military peppered the inside of the hotel with tear gas.
An armoured personnel vehicle was also seen firing into the lobby of Manila's Peninsula hotel and later rammed through the front entrance of the building.
"The situation is contained within the Peninsula hotel, Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro told CNN.
Teodoro said no one was injured, but Associated Press reported that at least two people were injured.
The standoff began hours earlier when a group led by Trillanes and Army Brig. Gen. Danilo Lim bolted from a court hearing on charges linked to a failed 2003 coup attempt. Watch footage of troops storming the hotel in Manila &raquo;
"What happened, to me, was clearly either an attempted rebellion or an attempted coup d'etat," Teodoro said.
Philippines military and police personnel had been surrounding the hotel, where the group was asking for President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to step down.
The Tamil Tiger rebel group set off a bomb at the entrance of a popular department store in a Colombo suburb Wednesday evening, killing 17 people and wounding 36 others, the military said.
The blast would mark a rare attack by the separatist group on a purely civilian target in recent years, though civilians have been killed in attacks on government and military targets.
The military blamed the rebels for the blast in a statement to the media.
Rebel spokesman Rasiah Ilanthirayan did not answer repeated calls from The AP seeking comment.
Fearing the bombings were only the first in a wave of attacks, officials decided to close all the schools in the Western Province which includes Colombo for the rest of the week, and security officers warned Sri Lankans to be on high alert.
Hundreds of students clashed with police and national guard Wednesday in a series of protests days ahead of a referendum tabled by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
At least 600 students from the private Metropolitan University in Caracas pelted the security forces with rocks, while the police responded with tear gas and water cannons in a clash that lasted at least four hours.
"To say 'No' to the referendum is to say 'No' to Chavez" read some of the placards the students paraded.
Such gatherings have raised tensions ahead of Sunday's referendum on reforms that would allow Chavez indefinite re-election, increase presidential terms from six to seven years and help the Venezuelan leader establish socialism in Venezuela.
Meanwhile, one of Chavez's two ex-wives urged Venezuelans to reject the slate of proposed constitutional changes that would greatly expand his executive power.
Urging Venezuelans to vote "no" in Sunday's referendum on the changes to the nation's charter, Maria Isabel Rodriguez compared approving the referendum to a "leap into the dark.
Rodriguez, a journalist, also urged opponents to go to the polls to prevent possible vote-rigging.
"It will be more difficult for fraud to take place if we all vote," Rodriguez said at a news conference Tuesday.
She divorced Chavez in 2004.
Chavez declared Tuesday that the referendum "cannot fail" and that its success will "open the path to a new nation.
For nearly three decades, astronomers have said Venus probably had lightning ever since a 1978 NASA probe showed signs of electrical activity in its atmosphere.
Now a magnetic antenna on the European Space Agency's Venus Express probe proved that the lightning was real.
"We consider this to be the first definitive evidence of abundant lighting on Venus," David Grinspoon of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science told reporters Wednesday at a briefing in Paris.
The finding is significant because lightning affects atmospheric chemistry, so scientists will have to take it into account as they try to understand the atmosphere and climate of Venus, he said.
The lightning is cloud-to-cloud and about 35 miles above the surface, said University of California, Los Angeles geophysics professor C.T. Russell, lead author of a paper on the Venusian
A judge in Niagara Falls, New York, has apologized for jailing nearly four dozen people over a ringing mobile phone in his courtroom, his attorney said Wednesday.
In removing City Court Judge Robert Restaino from office Tuesday, the state Commission on Judicial Conduct called his decision to lock up 46 people after no one claimed ownership of the phone "a gross deviation from the proper role of a judge."
But Restaino's lawyer, Terrence Connors, said Wednesday the judge "profoundly apologizes for his actions" during the March 2005 hearing and will appeal the panel's ruling.
But the commission found Restaino's conduct so egregious that his 11 years of service and clean record did not matter.
According to the commission report, Restaino was presiding over a domestic-violence case when a ringing mobile phone interrupted proceedings.
When no one took responsibility for the ringing phone, Restaino ordered that court security officers search for the device.
About 70 defendants were in the courtroom that day to take part in a monitoring program for domestic violence offenders.
After all the defendants denied having the phone or knowing who it belonged to, Restaino sent 46 people to jail.
Fourteen who were unable to make bail were handcuffed and jailed for several hours.
Convoys of buses carrying Iraqi refugees are heading from Damascus to Baghdad, marking the first time that some of the 1.5 million Iraqis who fled to Syria are returning home as part of an organized plan.
The repatriation effort, sponsored by the Iraqi government, began Tuesday and is expected to last a few days, Iraqi officials said.
The convoys will travel nearly 500 miles.
Iraqi forces will protect the convoys once they cross into Anbar province and will accompany the buses to the capital.
"I want to leave because the security situation in Iraq is much better and the atmosphere is less dangerous," Abu Ali, a refugee from Baghdad, is quoted as saying in a report from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
But a fellow refugee told the UNHCR he had no choice but to take a bus back to Baghdad.
The refugee agency reports that monetary considerations, including lack of work in Syria and expired visas, are cited by 70 percent of refugees as why they are returning to Iraq.
The first wave of 800 refugees, which left Damascus on Tuesday, is expected to arrive in Baghdad on Wednesday, Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said.
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (CNN) More than 200 years ago, rats jumped ship for Rat Island.
The muscular Norway rat climbed ashore on the rugged, uninhabited island in far southwestern Alaska in 1780 after a rodent-infested Japanese ship ran aground.
It was the first time rats had made it to Alaska.
Since then, Rat Island, as the piece of rock was dubbed by a sea captain in the 1800s, has gone eerily silent.
The sounds of birds are missing.
That is because the rats feed on eggs, chicks and adult seabirds, which come to the mostly treeless island to nest on the ground or in crevices in the volcanic rock.
"As far as bird life, it is a dead zone," said Steve Ebbert, a biologist at the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge, whose 2,500 mostly uninhabited islands include the Aleutian chain, of which Rat Island is a part.
State and federal wildlife biologists are gearing up for an assault on the rats of still-uninhabited Rat Island, hoping to exterminate them with rat poison dropped from helicopters.
If they succeed, the birds will sing again on Rat Island.
And it will be the third-largest island in the world to be made rat-free.
A visitor to the island 1,700 miles from Anchorage doesn't have to look far to find evidence of vermin.
The landscape is riddled with rat burrows, rat trails, rat droppings and chewed vegetation.
Certain plants are all but gone.
"You go to Rat Island and there are hardly any chocolate lilies," said Jeff Williams, another refuge biologist.
The same for songbirds and seabirds.
Rats have all but wiped out the seabirds on about a dozen large islands and many smaller islands in the refuge, which is home to an estimated 40 million nesting seabirds.
Puffins, auklets and storm petrels are most at risk because they leave their eggs and young for extended periods while foraging.
Norway rats typically have four to six litters a year, each containing six to 12 babies.
One pair of rats can produce a population of more than 5,000 rats in an area in one year.
The state also is mailing out 15,000 "Stop Rats!"
brochures to educate mariners on how to control rats aboard boats and keep them from going ashore.
Rats are excellent swimmers.
The assault on the rats of 6,871-acre Rat Island could begin as early as next October.
NEW YORK (CNN) When teen music stars approach the age of consent, they often test the boundaries of what's appropriate by taking on projects with adult content.
"American Idol" champ Jordin Sparks took the opposite approach as she sought out material for her CD debut.
"I wasn't really sure what I wanted to sing about," Sparks said, "but I knew what I didn't want to sing about.
"I wanted to stay away from 'Oh, put your hands all over me'-type thing, because I haven't experienced that yet so the fact that I would sing it would be really dumb plus I don't feel comfortable singing stuff like that," Sparks, who turns 18 in December, said with a giggle.
It's that kind of wholesome charm, along with her powerhouse voice and striking good looks, that endeared her to "American Idol" audiences this year, making her the youngest winner in the TV phenomenon's six-season history after defeating semifinalist Blake Lewis.
And on her Jive Records self-titled debut, record executives and Sparks herself wanted to make sure she retained that sweet-as-pie image.
"She's one of the most beautiful people I've ever met on this planet ... You immediately get a sense of who she is and her values," says Jive A&R executive Jeff Fenster, who helped Sparks and her management team select songs for the album.
"You have to make a record that is representative of who the artist is. We tried to keep that in mind from the beginning of the process," he says.
"I said to her from the beginning, a big part of my goal was to help her make a record that she was proud of and represented who she is, and I think she felt that way at the end of the day.
To that end, the "Jordin Sparks" CD is decidedly family friendly much like the talent competition that launched her career.
Thanks to her "American Idol" success, and her age, Sparks' fan base has a large kid contingent, but also includes the parents and grandparents who, along with their children, watched as the Arizona teen went from a potential also-ran to the odds-on favorite to win it all.
Sparks wanted to make sure that she didn't alienate any age group with the material she chose.
"I never really thought of targeting a specific audience.
SUSSEX, Virginia (CNN) A judge on Tuesday scheduled an April 2 trial date for jailed Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick on two state felony dogfighting charges.
Vick's lawyer, Lawrence Woodward, requested a jury trial during the 5-minute session.
The suspended NFL star did not attend the hearing in Surry County Circuit Court.
Vick is being held at a Warsaw, Va., jail after surrendering on Nov. 19 to begin serving time for a federal dogfighting conspiracy conviction.
Vick faces up to five years in prison when he is sentenced Dec. 10 in the federal case.
The two state charges beating or killing or causing dogs to fight other dogs, and engaging in or promoting dogfighting also are punishable by up to five years in prison each.
The court also set trial dates of March 5 for co-defendants Quanis L. Phillips and Purnell A. Peace and a May 7 trial for Tony Taylor.
Vick's lawyers have indicated they will fight the state charges on the grounds he can't be convicted twice of the same crime.
Vick and three co-defendants pleaded guilty to the federal charge in U.S. District Court in Richmond.
Ten protesters from the animal-rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals stood outside the courthouse holding placards with pictures of injured dogs and the messages "Report Dogfighters!"
and "Dogs Deserve Justice.
LONDON, England (CNN) Princess Diana saw her lover, Dodi Fayed, dying in front of her when she opened her eyes after her car crash in Paris, according to evidence presented at an inquest into her death Wednesday.
The patrol officer was passing the Pont de l'Alma Tunnel in Paris at 12:30 a.m., moments after the couple's Mercedes crashed, and was flagged down by passers-by.
In a series of statements to fellow police and French magistrates, which were read to the jury at the High Court in London, Dorzee told how he struggled to hold back a crowd of hostile paparazzi.
French and British police have concluded that Paul, the acting security chief at the Ritz Hotel in Paris, was well over the legal alcohol limit when the accident occurred.
Previous testimony has said Fayed and Paul were pronounced dead at the scene, while Diana died after emergency surgery in a hospital.
Dorzee described the photographers who chased
Diana's car as "vicious and repellent" and said they repeatedly insulted him and argued with each other, one being overheard saying to another: "It's your fault.
Dorzee said he immediately recognized Diana while looking in the back of the car.
Although he could see she was bleeding, he said she appeared to be in the best condition of anyone in the car.
"The princess had half-turned round in relation to her initial position and her head was between the two front seats, facing sideways and she could see her boyfriend just in front of her," the officer said.
I think that she said, 'My God,' on seeing her boyfriend dying. At the same time she was rubbing her stomach, she must have been in pain.
Then she put her head down again and closed her eyes.
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (CNN) NATO is acknowledging YouTube as its new battleground in the six-year war on Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, as the military alliance posts formerly secret surveillance and attack video.
The strategy aims to counter years of propaganda video posted on the Internet showing Taliban attacks on NATO forces which fighters use to claim that NATO's position in the Afghan war is deteriorating.
"The Taliban, who are literally cave-dwellers, are doing better than we are on a key battleground and that's video," said NATO spokesman James Appathurai. "They deploy with videographers.
They have DVDs out in an hour, we don't.
Wielding video cameras like weapons, fighters quickly upload images of their attacks and create a valuable morale booster for their supporters.
Now, after much internal debate, NATO has begun declassifying and posting top secret combat video on YouTube and other Web platforms to try and beat the Taliban at its own game.
"We're, in a sense, winning the tactical battles, but we're not focusing enough on the strategic battle, which is public opinion," said Appathurai.
NATO made several video excerpts available to CNN.
One excerpt shows an armed Taliban fighter disguised as a woman in a full burqa, taking refuge with women and children to avoid being targeted by NATO.
One disturbing NATO video begins with a birds-eye view of a home in southern Afghanistan where NATO said a high-level Taliban meeting was taking place.
Before NATO helicopters took aim at the house, a small boy is posted at the door as a human shield, forcing the NATO chopper pilot to hold fire.
Information is a crucial tool in any war, but is especially important in Afghanistan where the Taliban's deeds, words and images have portrayed a deteriorating security landscape, with NATO soldiers on the run.
NATO officials argue that this is far from the truth and the country has experienced significant development and growth with constant attention being paid to security problems.
Appathurai said there are hundreds of military combat videos that show the true extent of Taliban engagement and the brutality of their tactics.
time convincing NATO allies to declassify this sensitive, secret video for wide release.
Gillian Gibbons, 54, is being held by police in the capital Khartoum after she asked her class of seven-year-olds to come up with a name for the toy as part of a school project, Robert Boulos, the head of Unity High School told CNN.
It is expected that she will appear in court Thursday, Sudan state media reported.
A British Foreign Office spokeswoman said Gibbons had been charged under Article 125 of Sudan's constitution, the law relating to insulting religion and inciting hatred.
The spokeswoman said the Sudanese ambassador had been summoned to the offices of the British Foreign Secretary David Miliband to discuss the case.
Gibbons was arrested under the country's Islamic Sharia law after parents of some of her students complained to police.
Under country's law, the offense is punishable with 40 lashes, a jail term of up to a year or a fine.
Gibbons' arrest was announced in Arabic on the state-run news agency's Web site.
Although there is no ban in the Koran on images of Allah or the Prophet Mohammed, likenesses are considered highly offensive by Muslims.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Tuesday he was "very sorry" about Gibbons' arrest and that the British Embassy in Khartoum was "giving all appropriate consular assistance to her.
Brown said all efforts were being taken to ensure her early release and that government officials were in touch with the teacher's family in the northern British city of Liverpool.
WASHINGTON (CNN) President Bush on Wednesday told CNN he would personally "facilitate" peace negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis, saying the formation of a democratic Palestinian state was the best way to bring peace to the region.
"It is also important for the broader Middle East.
Bush's comments come a day after a summit at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, in which Israeli and Palestinian leaders agreed on a framework for future peace talks.
The sides set the end of 2008 as a goal for completing a peace treaty.
The framework for negotiations was agreed to by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
Abbas is currently in a bitter power struggle with Hamas for control of Palestinian territory.
Hamas, which currently controls Gaza, opposed negotiations and supports continued armed resistance against Israel.
Hamas, which the United States and Israel label a terrorist group, won Palestinian legislative elections in 2006, ousting the long-ruling Fatah party that Abbas heads.
Abbas dissolved the Hamas-led government earlier this year after Hamas forces seized control of Gaza.
When asked whether the peace process can overcome opposition from Hamas, Bush said "the best way to defeat those terrorists and radicals ... is through a vision based upon liberty.
"If that happens, then there's not going to be a deal that will last.
Bush said the attendance of numerous Arab states, including Saudi Arabia and Syria, at Tuesday's summit was "quite an accomplishment.
Asked why Syria, which the United States accuses of funding terrorism, was invited to the conference Bush said other Arab nations requested it and that "We wanted to make sure as many Arab nations came as possible.
"We have our differences with Syria, no question about it.
When asked why Iran's leadership was not invited to the conference, Bush said "they would not be constructive" and "weren't going to come anyway" based on recent comments from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
"This is a man who doesn't believe in democracy and freedom and peace," Bush said.
Arsenal lost both their unbeaten record this season and leadership of Group H after slumping to a 3-1 Champions League defeat at Sevilla.
A youthful Gunners side took the lead in the 11th minute through Eduardo da Silva, but Sevilla hit back to claim a deserved win and join Arsenal in the last 16.
Arsenal had not been beaten in a competitive match since the start of April, a run of 28 games, and came into the match three points clear at the top of the English Premier League.
In contrast, Sevilla have lost seven of their 12 Primera Liga matches and already find themselves 14 points adrift of Real Madrid.
The Spaniards had also lost their last two league games and suffered a 3-0 defeat at the hands of Arsenal in the opening round of group matches, but Manolo Jimenez's side were faster out of the blocks tonight with Kanoute going close early on.
The result means Sevilla will finish top of the group if they win at Slavia Prague in their final match.
However, a draw and a win for Arsenal at home to Steaua Bucharest will see the London side finish top.
China displayed the first image of the moon captured by its Chang'e 1 lunar probe at a gala ceremony Monday, marking the formal start of the satellite's mission to document the lunar landscape.
The black and white image clearly showed craters on the moon's surface.
China hopes the probe, launched late last month, will have surveyed the entire surface of the moon at least once by early next year.
Chinese officials, however, have played down talk of such competition, saying Beijing wanted to use its program to work with other countries and hoped to join in building the international space station.
In 2003, China became only the third country in the world after the United States and Russia to send a human into Earth's orbit, following that up with a two-man mission in 2005.
But Sun said China had no plans to put a man on the moon yet.
"For the time being we have no plans to send any Chinese onto the moon," he said.
UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Tuesday that officials were working to secure the early release of a British teacher who faces being whipped in Sudan after she allowed her class to name a teddy bear "Mohammed.
Gillian Gibbons, 54, was arrested Sunday after she asked her class of seven-year-olds to come up with a name for the toy as part of a school project, her head teacher told CNN.
Robert Boulos, the head of Unity High School in the capital Khartoum, said naming the teddy bear was "a totally innocent mistake" and that Gibbons had never intended to cause offense.
Classmates took turns taking the teddy bear home with them, accompanied by a diary with the bear's name written in the front of it, Boulos said. "All this is a very sensitive area.
I asked her (Gibbons) why she had done it and she said she didn't chose the name, the children did," Boulos told CNN.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Tuesday he was "very sorry" about Gibbons' arrest and that the British embassy in Khartoum was "giving all appropriate consular assistance to her.
He said all efforts were being taken to ensure her early release and that government officials were in touch with the teacher's family in the northern British city of Liverpool.
The school teacher has been accused of blasphemy and is being held by police in Khartoum, Kirsty Saunders, British Foreign Office spokeswoman told CNN.
Although there is no ban in the Koran on images of Allah or the Prophet Mohammed, likenesses are considered highly offensive by Muslims.
So far Gibbons has yet to be charged with any offense, however, under Sudanese law, insulting Islam is punishable with 40 lashes, a jail term of up to six months or a fine, she said.
NEW YORK (CNN) Bookstores are lined with the works of novelists who've never seen their creations make it to the silver screen or who've been burned when they do.
So count Dennis Lehane among the doubly fortunate few.
Then Ben Affleck made his highly acclaimed directorial debut last month with "Gone Baby Gone."
Within days came word that Martin Scorsese would direct the author's "Shutter Island" next year, with Leonardo DiCaprio in final talks to star.
With that last bit of fortuitous news, Lehane pronounces himself almost embarrassed.
His talent is not, he insists, originality of plot, going so far as to say his plots "could be found on an episode of 'CSI' or 'Law & Order.
¡¯¡± He's merely happy to take credit for doing what he does very well, which is to write meaty, morally ambiguous, thought-provoking crime novels centered in the seamiest parts of Boston.
No, his explanation for his success is simpler: Pure luck.
"I am just the luckiest guy on the planet," he says.
FRANKFURT, Germany (CNN) Deutsche Telekom AG is ending its 16-year sponsorship of professional cycling because of a series of doping cases.
The telecommunications company has sponsored a team since 1991.
Recently known as T-Mobile, they were considered one of the leading teams in the sport.
"We arrived at this decision to separate our brand from further exposure from doping in sport and cycling specifically," Deutsche Telekom said in a statement on Tuesday.
Deutsche Telekom's exit comes just weeks after Adidas announced it would end its sponsorship of the team, and is a further blow to cycling, which has suffered a series of doping scandals.
Patrick Sinkewitz, who was sacked by the team earlier this year, recently admitted to doping offences while competing for T-Mobile, and several of the team's former riders, including former Tour de France winner Jan Ullrich, have either admitted to or been implicated in doping scandals.
Deutsche Telekom only recently agreed to honor its sponsorship contract until 2010, but reserved the right to terminate it at any time.
The team is now set to race under the name 'Team High Road' in 2008, according to their management company, High Road Sports.
"T-Mobile's decision to end its involvement in professional cycling is a challenge for the sport and our team," said team chief Stapleton.
"High Road Sports holds a ProTour team license and will seek authorization of the change in the team's identity and operations from the governing body, the UCI.
LONDON, England (CNN) The conception of Adolf Hitler was never going to make for easy reading.
But late American novelist Norman Mailer's explicit rendition of the incestuous encounter between the genocidal German dictator's parents has won the writer one of the world's most dubious literary prizes.
Mailer, who died of renal failure last month at 84, was one of five candidates for the annual "Bad Sex in Fiction Award" which aims to highlight crude and tasteless descriptions of sex in modern novels.
In a ceremony at the In & Out Club in central London, the judges paid homage to a "great American man of letters," adding: "We are sure that he would have taken the prize in good humor."
LISBON, Portugal (CNN) Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe says he will attend an upcoming Europe-Africa summit, ensuring his standoff with Britain will overshadow efforts to forge stronger political and economic ties between the two continents.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown reiterated he would stay away from the December 8-9 meeting in Lisbon because of Mugabe.
Britain is one of the sharpest European critics of Mugabe's regime, accusing him of economic mismanagement, failure to curb corruption and contempt for democracy.
"Given the circumstances of the last 10 years and our attempts to give assistance in Zimbabwe, which have been thwarted and resisted, it is not possible for us to attend this summit and sit down with President Mugabe," Brown said in London
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair stayed away from the first EU-Africa summit in Cairo seven years ago because of Mugabe's presence, and in 2003 a planned EU-Africa summit in the Portuguese capital was called off when some African nations balked at the EU's refusal to invite Mugabe.
Portugal, which holds the EU's rotating presidency, wants the summit of the 27-nation EU and the 53-member African Union to usher in closer cooperation between the continents and counter the influence of China, which has invested billions of euros (dollars) in Africa in recent years.
At the insistence of the AU, Portugal invited all Africa's leaders.
In Brussels, EU officials said that South African President Thabo Mbeki had said he would boycott if Mugabe was not invited.
Even in Europe, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said her government was in favor of all countries being invited.
African leaders say that while they may not support Mugabe's policies, they believe dialogue is the best way to address Zimbabwe's economic and political crises.
African leaders also are loath to be seen as abandoning one of their own under pressure from a former colonial power.
Asked Tuesday about the summit, Mugabe told Portugal's national news agency Lusa during a visit to Mozambique: "Yes, I'm going.
The wife of missing adventurer Steve Fossett has asked a court to declare him dead.
Fossett was last seen in early September, flying a single-engine plane on a pleasure flight from a Nevada ranch.
A month-long search for the plane was unsuccessful.
She asked that the will of her husband of 38 years be admitted to probate.
He had planned to fly over the Nevada desert for two to three hours, and was expecting to return for lunch to the Minden, Nevada, ranch, from which he departed.
He was carrying a single bottle of water and had no parachute, lawyers for Mrs. Fossett said in the court documents.
At 3 p.m., when he had not returned, a search began that ultimately included thousands of volunteers.
It continued until October 2.
"No one involved in the search holds out any hope that Fossett is still alive," the petition said.
Rick Rains, a sheriff's supervisor of the San Diego County Sheriff's Department, said Fossett's plane was last spotted at 11 a.m. less than 20 miles from the ranch's airport. "Given the timeline and the sighting of Fossett's plane, I believe he was within 20 to 25 miles of the ranch when he crashed," Rains said.
The dollar rebounded from a 2 1/2-year low against the yen Tuesday in Asia after Citigroup Inc. said it will receive billions of dollars in investment from a Middle Eastern government fund.
It fell to &yen; 107.28 yen earlier, its lowest in 2 1/2 years.
The announcement Monday by Citigroup the largest bank in the U.S. that has recently suffered massive losses due to the nation's housing market slump raised speculation that there won't be a serious U.S. credit crunch if the company's finances improve, traders said.
"Up until this moment, the biggest source of concern is the possibility of a credit crunch," said Mamoru Arai, senior vice president of foreign exchange at Mizuho Corporate Bank.
The decision by the investment arm of the Abu Dhabi government to pump $7.5 billion into Citigroup has raised hopes U.S. banks, despite losses from the subprime mortgage market implosion, "can still raise funds," Arai said. "So there's a feeling in the markets that a credit crunch could be averted.
That triggered speculation that global investors won't pull out of risky investments funded by borrowing the yen at Japan's low interest rates.
But the higher likelihood that investors will maintain their yen-carry trades lifted the dollar.
Washington Redskins safety Sean Taylor died Tuesday, a day after he was shot by "an intruder who forcibly entered his residence," Miami police said.
He didn't make it," said Taylor's former attorney, Richard Sharpstein, on CNN's "American Morning.
Redskins owner Daniel Snyder said Tuesday that team members will wear a special patch on their uniforms, and Taylor's number, 21, on their helmets, during this weekend's game. Watch a vigil outside hospital Monday night &raquo;
Many of Taylor's fans "loved him because [of] the way he played football," said his father, Florida City Police Chief Pedro Taylor, in a statement to the news media.
"Many of his opponents feared him, the way he approached the game. Others misunderstood him, many appreciated him and his family loved him. I can only hope and pray that Sean's life was not in vain that it might touch others in a special way," Chief Taylor said.
I think he was a real leader for us.
Indonesia's environment minister said Tuesday that global warming was to blame after the capital of Jakarta was partially flooded, forcing thousands of people to flee homes and cutting off a highway to the international airport.
Authorities used pumps to lower water levels, which reached 6 feet (1.8 meters) in the worst-hit areas and washed more than a mile inland Monday, said Iskandar, an official at Jakarta's flood crisis center.
At least 2,200 houses were inundated, some with chest-deep water.
"I haven't seen it this bad in several years," said Toki, a police officer who was directing traffic around a flooded area near Sukarno-Hatta airport, where thousands of passengers were stranded.
Environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar said global warming was at least partially to blame, causing sea levels to rise and making coastal cities like Jakarta especially vulnerable to flooding and monsoon storms.
prepared to host the U.N. climate change conference from Dec. 3-14, which aims to start negotiations on a replacement for the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions that expires in 2012.
The sprawling archipelagic nation is one of the largest contributors of carbon dioxide emissions, due to the rapid pace of deforestation, but experts say it is also at risk of becoming one of the biggest victims of global warming.
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) A federal court has ordered a Kuwait-based contractor to pay nearly $5 million in damages to the family of a U.S. military officer killed in Iraq a rare court decision holding a contracting company accountable for its actions in the war.
Army Lt. Col. Dominic "Rocky" Baragona was just an hour away from a U.S. base in Kuwait ultimately headed home to the United States when a tractor-trailer operated by Kuwait and Gulf Link Transport Company slammed into his Humvee on May 19, 2003, killing him instantly.
Baragona, a West Point graduate, was 42 years old and the highest-ranking soldier to have died in the war at the time.
His family filed a wrongful death suit against KGL.
Earlier this month, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia sided with the family, holding the Kuwait company negligent in Baragona's death for failing to provide safe passage on the three-lane road where the accident occurred.
A key issue in the judge's decision was whether a U.S. court had jurisdiction over a foreign contractor and whether there was a legal basis to find it negligent.
Ultimately, Judge William Duffey found that there was.
"The court enters judgment in the amount of $4,907,048 to be paid by KGL in a single lump payment," the judge wrote in his 12-page decision issued on November 5.
KGL has received millions of dollars in U.S.-government contracts.
On its Web site, the company says it "performs multiple operations such as providing of vehicles and equipments to customers," including the U.S. Army and coalition forces.
It also boasts of having more than $1 billion in market capitalization.
The court decision comes at a time when Congress has been closely scrutinizing contractors and seeking ways to hold the companies accountable for their actions in war zones.
PARIS, France (CNN) The Paris suburbs were again rocked by riots after a second night of lawlessness Monday caused widespread destruction and left scores of police injured, according to French authorities and media reports.
An angry mob repeatedly clashed with riot police and torched cars and buildings in the town of Villiers-le-Bel, north of Paris, after two teens on a motorcycle were killed following a collision with a police car Sunday night.
Rioters bombarded police with baseball bats, Molotov cocktail bombs and bottles filled with acid as the violence spread to the nearby towns of Longjumeau and Grigby Monday night.
The 15- and 16-year-old boys, both sons of African immigrants, according to police, died when their motorbike hit a patrol car in Villiers-le-Bel.
Some residents, populated largely by immigrants and their French-born children, accused police of fleeing the crash scene.
However, three eyewitnesses, interviewed on TV, said the police stayed and tried to revive the two boys with mouth to mouth resuscitation.
More than 60 police officers were injured in Monday night's confrontation, with five kept in hospital in a serious condition, according to reports in a number of French newspapers.
A spokesman for the police authorities in the Val d'Oise prefecture refused to confirm the numbers of police injuries, telling CNN that police feared the information could further enflame the already tense situation.
The police spokesman said 60 cars, a library and car dealer's showroom had been set on fire in Villiers-le-Bel.
He said a police station had also been damaged and 15 garbage cans torched.
Security was tightened Tuesday, with helicopters deployed to patrol over the town, the spokesman said.
French president Nicolas Sarkozy, then serving as the interior minister, provoked controversy at the time by referring to the rioters as "scum.
Sarkozy, currently on a state visit to China, had urged residents Monday to "cool down and let the justice system determine who is responsible for what."
A spokesman for the president's office told CNN Tuesday they were continuing to monitor the situation.
ANNAPOLIS, Maryland (CNN) Israeli and Palestinian leaders will "immediately launch" peace talks aimed at creating a Palestinian state alongside Israel and they hope to finish negotiations before 2009, President Bush announced Tuesday.
Both sides also agreed to form steering committees which will begin meeting December 12.
Thereafter, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will meet every two weeks to follow up on the negotiations and offer assistance, the statement says.
The three leaders are scheduled to meet again Wednesday.
Earlier, there were concerns a work plan would not be agreed upon.
Olmert and Abbas showed up to meet Bush on Tuesday morning without a joint statement, a senior State Department official said.
Bush then called on the Israeli and Palestinian foreign ministers to huddle with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and come up with a statement, which they did as the three leaders met separately, the official said.
The document does not contain specifics about the contentious issues dividing the Israelis and Palestinians, Bush said.
Rather, it focuses on principles that will guide future talks, such as a commitment to "bring an end to bloodshed, suffering and decades of conflict" and a promise to "propagate a culture of peace and nonviolence," Bush said.
The document is intended to provide guidelines for talks on the testier sticking points, such as settlements, timelines, the role of the international community, the fate of Jerusalem and the labeling of Israel as a "Jewish state.
Arabs and Palestinians have opposed calling Israel a Jewish state because, they say, it would preclude many refugees from returning to Israel, and the label fails to account for thousands of Arabs residing there.
Some of those issues are addressed in the so-called "road map" to peace established in 2003 by the Mideast Quartet composed of the U.S., U.N., Russia and European Union.
Bush said Tuesday that Abbas and Olmert have agreed "to immediately implement their respective obligations" under the "road map. "
The issue of Jerusalem also poses problems.
After Bush's announcement, Abbas said Tuesday that he will not back down on his demand that East Jerusalem be named the capital of any future Palestinian state.
Nor will he relent on his calls for Israel to dismantle its outposts in the West Bank, he said.
"Our purpose here in Annapolis is not to conclude an agreement. Rather, it is to launch negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians," he said. "For the rest of us, our job is to encourage the parties in this effort and to give them the support they need to succeed. "
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh denounced the Annapolis summit in a televised address Tuesday.
"The Palestinian people will not be bound by anything the Palestinian Authority agrees to in Annapolis," he said.
David Beckham and his Los Angeles Galaxy teammates held a workout at the Olympic stadium on Monday before substantially less than the sellout crowd of 80,000 that is expected there for an exhibition match the following night.
The English star appeared to be concerned about his left ankle several times, clutching it during training and having treatment on the pitch, but Los Angeles coach Ruud Gullit said Beckham will play hopefully all 90 minutes in the friendly against Sydney FC on Tuesday night.
The former Manchester United and Real Madrid midfielder said he was just rearranging his clothing around the ankle.
On Sunday, Beckham was accused of snubbing a group of child cancer survivors.
But Beckham said he did not see the children waiting outside his hotel as he arrived from the airport under police escort.
China has signed an ¢æ11.7 billion ($17.4 billion) deal for 160 commercial planes from Airbus, a spokeswoman for the European aerospace giant has told CNN.
The announcement of the deal coincides with a state visit by French president Nicolas Sarkozy to China.
The second day of Sarkozy's trip provided a further boost for French business as the French firm Areva secured a contract to build two nuclear reactors.
According to the French daily newspaper Le Monde, the deal with the China Guangdong Nuclear Power Corporation (CGNPC) in southern China is worth ¢æ8 billion ($11.8 billion).
Amelia Xu, a senior communications officer with Airbus, which is based in the French southern city of Toulouse, said the company had negotiated two deals.
The first deal is to provide 150 aircraft to the China Aviation Supplies Export and Import Group. The second will mean the delivery of 10 planes to China Southern Airlines, Xu said.
The Airbus deal is for the manufacturer's medium-sized aircraft, including 110 of its A320s and 50 A330s.
The deal will not, however, be for any of the new A380 super jumbo jets that went into service earlier this year.
Even though the battered housing market and credit crisis have created turmoil in financial markets, economists expect global growth to slow rather than collapse next year, according to a report released Monday.
The global economy has shown resilience to the strains in the core of the financial system, which has intensified in recent weeks, Citigroup's (Charts, Fortune 500) Economic and Market Analysis group said.
The forecast "reflects the judgment that the current stresses from the U.S. housing sector, high oil prices, a weak U.S. dollar and the recent financial turmoil will not overwhelm the global economy," Lewis Alexander, chief economist and head of economic and market analysis at Citi, wrote in the report.
But, the level of uncertainty around the outlook is "unusually high," he added.
The group's annual report detailed its outlook on the markets and economy, as well as its view on monetary policy, the pricing of risk and emerging market economies' vulnerability to external shocks.
Strong productivity growth, solid household finances and a lack of imbalances outside of the housing sector should benefit the U.S. economy, the report said.
Europe's economy also shows signs of resilience, despite the widening fallout of the ongoing credit crisis.
The report said emerging markets should remain robust next year, driven by growth in most of Asia.
Citi economists also expect many major central banks to ease policy in the coming months, including another interest rate cut of 100 basis points from the Federal Reserve.
SYDNEY, Australia (CNN) Newly elected Australian leader Kevin Rudd renewed a commitment Monday to apologize to indigenous Aborigines for past indignities.
The issue of apologizing for policies that helped make the continent's original inhabitants its most impoverished minority is a highly divisive one in Australia.
The practice did not end until the 1970s.
The Labor Party leader said his government would offer the apology on behalf of the nation early in his first term suggesting a timeframe of next year.
"It will be early in the parliamentary term," Rudd told reporters in Brisbane.
"We will frame it in a consultative fashion with communities, and that may take some time.
Outgoing Prime Minister John Howard angered many of Australia's 450,000 Aborigines and their supporters by steadfastly refusing to offer an apology, arguing this generation should not be made to feel guilty for mistakes of the past.
Polls show most people support an apology, and Rudd had promised to do so if he was elected.
Rudd's sweeping victory over Howard in Saturday's elections ended almost 12 years of conservative rule in Australia.
He immediately put signing the Kyoto Protocol on curbing greenhouse gas emissions at the top of his international agenda.
Rudd's policy on Kyoto leaves the United States isolated as the only industrialized country not to ratify the pact.
His plan for the phased withdrawal of Australia's 550 combat troops from Iraq also poses challenges for Canberra's relations with Washington.
PORTLAND, Oregon (CNN) Picking a Christmas tree is typically a matter of taste.
Now a handful of growers in the top Christmas tree producing state of Oregon want people to consider another factor how "green" a tree is.
They've created a system to help consumers identify trees grown under certain environmental standards.
"Consumers like to do the right thing," said Joe Sharp, managing partner of Yule Tree Farms and co-founder of the Coalition of Environmentally Conscious Growers. "We are just helping with education.
This is the first year the coalition's program will be seen in the market.
More than 200,000 tags will hang on trees, indicating the trees were farmed by the coalition's standards.
Water and soil conservation measures are reviewed, and biodiversity and worker safety are also considered.
The trees are not organically grown, but the coalition says the measures help mitigate some of the environmental dangers of Christmas tree farming, such as excessive use of pesticides and contribution to erosion.
"Now when consumers buy a tree, they can be sure that the tree was grown with the best intentions for the environment in mind," Sharp said.
Only a fraction of the trees on corner lots and at garden centers will bear the tag, however.
The coalition is hoping to take the tag system nationwide, providing an edge in the multimillion-dollar business.
Nearly 29 million households bought a fresh Christmas tree in 2006, according to the National Christmas Tree Association.
Oregon is the top producer in the country.
ROME, Italy (CNN) Luciano Pavarotti's widow has sued two friends of the late tenor for $44 million, claiming their comments about her marriage were defamatory, her lawyer said Monday.
Nicoletta Mantovani filed the lawsuit last month after warning that speculation about the state of her marriage to Pavarotti would not be tolerated, her lawyer said.
Pavarotti died September 6 of pancreatic cancer at age 71.
Soon after, friends close to the tenor told Italian media that he had been unhappy in the marriage, and that Mantovani was fighting his grown daughters from an earlier marriage over his estate.
"Since the comments did not cease and were, in fact, reiterated Mantovani had no choice but to file the lawsuit," lawyer Anna Maria Bernini said, confirming weekend reports in the small daily L'Informazione, based in Pavarotti's hometown of Modena.
"She is doing it to protect her sense of respectability privately for the sake of her daughter and the memory of the maestro, publicly for her image and any future professional activity," Bernini said.
Mantovani had a daughter with Pavarotti: Alice, who is 4.
The tenor also had three daughters from his first marriage.
The two people named in the lawsuit are longtime Pavarotti friends Franca Corfini Strata, wife of the singer's dietician, and Lidia La Marca, wife of conductor Leone Magiera, who often performed with Pavarotti.
Mantovani is seeking $22 million in damages from each woman, Bernini said.
She said Mantovani intends to donate any award to charity.
(CNN) Kevin DuBrow, the lead singer of the 1980s heavy metal band Quiet Riot, has died, CNN has confirmed.
DuBrow died at his home in Las Vegas, Nevada, according to TMZ.com.
The Clark County coroner's office was examining the body to determine the cause of death, according to TMZ.
I've just lost my best friend," Quiet Riot drummer Frankie Banali told CNN. "Out of respect for both Kevin and his family, I won't comment further.
I love him too much.
Quiet Riot hit the top of the charts with its 1983 album, "Metal Health," considered by some sources as the first heavy metal album to hit No. 1.
The album was driven by the group's cover of Slade's "Cum on Feel the Noize," which hit the Top 40.
The band's other hits included "Bang Your Head (Metal Health)" and another Slade cover, "Mama Weer All Crazee Now.
The band formed in the mid-1970s behind DuBrow and guitarist Randy Rhoads, who later joined Ozzy Osbourne's band and died in a tour accident.
But the band's rushed follow-up, "Condition Critical," didn't do as well, and DuBrow started taking shots at other L.A. bands, such as Motley Crue and Ratt, according to Allmusic.com.
Within a few years, the band had mutinied (leaving DuBrow at a hotel in Hawaii while other members returned to California) and taken on a new lead singer.
The bad blood prompted a lawsuit from DuBrow.
By the 1990s tempers had calmed and the band got together again, putting out a live album in 1999 and a new studio set, "Guilty Pleasures," in 2001.
According to Allmusic, the band broke up once more after its release.
A powerful typhoon that weakened into a tropical storm blew Tuesday toward Japan, leaving at least 12 people dead in the Philippines, officials said.
Four other people remain missing from Tropical Storm Mitag, as another weather disturbance Tropical Depression Hagibis continued to approach western Palawan island, disaster relief officials and forecasters said.
A weakened Mitag was moving northeast close to northern Batanes Islands at 15 kph (9 mph), with 75 kph (47 mph) winds near the center and gusts of up to 90 kph (56 mph).
It was forecast to be 210 kilometers (130 miles) south of Okinawa, Japan by Wednesday morning.
Most of the fatalities drowned over the weekend in the eastern provinces of Camarines Sur and Camarines Norte, before Mitag changed course and roared into the coastal town of Palanan, further north in Isabela province.
Two villagers also were reported missing Monday when their house was swept away by raging river currents in the northern mountain province of Apayao, officials said.
After hitting land, Mitag veered toward the country's mountainous northern provinces, where authorities evacuated thousands of people due to fears of landslides.
The typhoon flooded at least 50 villages in Isabela, a province of more than a million people.
A swollen river in the provincial capital, Ilagan, engulfed at least 10 houses, whose residents fled to safety late Sunday, officials said, adding that most of Isabela had no power.
The Agriculture Department estimated losses at $2.5 million, still a fraction of the $246 million incurred during last year's typhoons.
Al Qaeda's TV production unit promised on Monday a new message from Osama bin Laden would be made public soon.
"Soon, God willing, a new message from the lion Sheik Osama bin Laden, may God protect him, to the Europeans," says a banner posted Monday on a radical Islamist Web site by the production unit, As-Sahab.
Nor did the banner say whether the message would be video or audio only.
The last message purported to be from bin Laden was an audiotape broadcast last month on the Arabic-language satellite television network Al Jazeera.
That message urged al Qaeda in Iraq and other groups in that country to unify their forces and speak with one voice, that of the Islamic nation. The message included no dated references, making it impossible to determine when it was taped based on its contents.
The tape marked the first time bin Laden spoke directly to the militants.
In September, an audio message purportedly from bin Laden urged "jihad" against Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. That message titled "Come to Jihad:
A Speech to the People of Pakistan" was recorded over a montage of old video, and began with bin Laden reciting prayers and citations from the Quran in Arabic.
Club-wielding police fought stone-throwing rioters in the northern suburbs of Paris for a second night Monday, with at least five officers suffering injuries during the clashes, authorities said.
The riots began Sunday night, after two teenagers on a motorcycle were killed in a collision with a police car in the town of Villiers-le-Bel, the Val d'Oise police prefecture reported late Monday.
The melees come two years after riots in other Paris suburbs populated largely by immigrants and their French-born children.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, speaking in Beijing while on a visit to China, called for calm while an investigation in the crash is under way.
Rioters set ablaze at least 60 cars, as well as a police station, library and car dealership in Villiers-le-Bel, police said.
The clashes had spread across six towns by Monday night, they said.
The 15- and 16-year-old boys killed in the Sunday evening wreck were both sons of African immigrants, police said.
They died when their motorbike hit a patrol car in the town of Villiers-le-Bel, police said.
Some residents of the town, which is heavily populated by immigrants, accused the police officers of fleeing the scene without helping the boys. Police said the teens drove through a red light without wearing helmets and on an unregistered bike.
(CNN) Sudan has arrested a British teacher for insulting faith and religion, the British Foreign Office said Monday.
Numerous media reports say Gibbons was arrested after allowing her class of 7-year-olds to name a teddy bear "Mohammed.
That could be seen as an insult to the Prophet Mohammed, the reports said.
Blasphemy is punishable with 40 lashes under Islamic Sharia law, Britain's Press Association news agency reported.
Gibbons asked the children to pick a name for the bear as part of a lesson on animal habits at Unity High School, PA said.
A British Embassy spokesman in Khartoum was quoted as saying the naming of the bear did not cause immediate trouble.
"The children chose the name because it is very common here," the spokesman told PA.
Unity director Robert Boulos told Reuters news agency that Gibbons was arrested Sunday at her home on school grounds after a number of parents made a complaint to Sudan's Ministry of Education.
He said she had since been charged with "blasphemy," an offense he said was punishable with up to three months in prison and a fine, Reuters.com reported.
Gibbons left the northwestern English city of Liverpool for Sudan in July, PA said.
A family spokeswoman told the agency: "I have spoken with her children and they do not want to say anything and aggravate the situation over there.
Boulos told Reuters he had decided to shut the school until January for fear of reprisals.
The school on its Web site calls itself a "British international school" teaching children aged 4 to 18.
"This is a very sensitive issue," Boulos was quoted as saying on Reuters.com.
BAGHDAD (CNN) Soldiers manning a checkpoint near Baghdad stopped a wedding convoy to find that the purported bride and groom were wanted terror suspects, an Iraqi Defense Ministry official said Monday.
The Army set up the checkpoint last week in the Taji area, about 12 miles (20 kilometers) north of Baghdad.
The soldiers became suspicious of the convoy because its members save the "bride" were all male and because one of the cars in the convoy did not heed orders to stop, the official said.
Also, soldiers said, the people in the car seemed nervous and the groom refused to lift his bride's veil when soldiers asked him to, according to the official.
Soldiers ordered everyone out of the car, the official said.
Upon inspecting the convoy, soldiers found a stubbly-faced man, Haider al-Bahadli, decked out in a white bride's dress and veil.
Bahadli was wanted on terror-related charges, as was his groom, Abbas al-Dobbi, the official said.
Two other terror-related suspects were detained as well.
Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf, under pressure to end a state of emergency that critics say he is using to keep his grip on power, is to quit as army chief and take an oath of office for a third presidential term on Thursday.
The announcement came as former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, ousted but Musharraf in a 1999 coup and banished to Saudi Arabia, returned to the country to register for forthcoming elections, ruling out an alliance with the president.
The news of his imminent change to civilian status drew a muted reaction from the United States, which has repeatedly called on Musharraf to remove his uniform.
"Musharraf has committed to stepping down from the Army, and we urge him to honor his commitments," National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.
Qureshi said Musharraf will make farewell visits to the army, air force and navy headquarters on Tuesday and Wednesday before standing down the next day.
Musharraf has named Lt. Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani a former head of Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence agency to take his place as military chief.
Arif Nizami, editor of the Pakistani daily, The Nation, said Kiyani is generally regarded as "in the same mold as General Musharraf.
"Musharraf has chosen a successor very carefully who will continue his policies and he will be as pro-western as General Musharraf is," Nizami told CNN International last month.
WASHINGTON (CNN) President Bush expressed optimism Monday after meetings with Israeli and Palestinian leaders about reviving the stalled Mideast peace process.
Bush's White House talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas came on the eve of a conference in Annapolis, Maryland, among representatives of more than 40 countries, including a wide array of Arab nations such as Syria and Saudi Arabia.
During a photo session for reporters after talks with Abbas, Bush said the United States can't impose Mideast peace "but can help facilitate it.
Abbas said he hoped the conference would trigger expanded negotiations with Israel that would lead to a permanent peace deal, calling the event a "historic initiative."
Earlier, Olmert also met with Bush, explaining to reporters that this visit was different "because we're going to have lots of participants involved.
"I hope we're going to launch a serious process of negotiations between us and the Palestinians," said Olmert. "This will be a bilateral process but the international support is very important."
Bush, Olmert and Abbas will attend a Monday dinner hosted by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Bush is expected to speak at the State Department dinner.
The Bush administration is hoping the conference will trigger final status talks on major issues such as Jerusalem and Israeli borders.
U.S. officials are looking for a commitment by the Palestinians and Israelis to carry out previous agreements linked to the so-called "road map" plan for Mideast peace.
Administration officials also said they hoped the summit would lead toward the strengthening of the Palestinian government's infrastructure after the recent split between Abbas' Fatah party and Hamas.
Abbas has been involved in a political power struggle against Gaza-based leaders of Hamas, a group which Israel considers terrorist and which opposes the Jewish state.
Palestinian protesters, anxious about possible concessions by the Abbas delegation have taken to the streets with demonstrations.
Olmert's administration has been plagued by low approval ratings in opinion polls in the wake of Israel's 2006 war against Lebanon-based Hezbollah militants.
Syria and Saudi Arabia agreed to attend the conference just days ago after a push from the Arab League, which agreed to participate following a meeting on Friday.
The Syrian decision to send its deputy foreign minister comes less than three months after Israeli warplanes attacked a site in Syria reported to be a facility linked to nuclear weapons.
SYDNEY, Australia (CNN) An Australian man was shot to death after complaining about a neighbor's loud music, news reports and police said Monday.
Stephen Holmes, 41, died on a neighbor's front lawn in Wollongong, just south of Sydney, late Saturday after being shot in the chest, New South Wales state police said in a statement.
The father of four was killed after complaining to a neighbor about the loud music coming from his house, according to reports in Fairfax and News Ltd. newspapers.
Police said Holmes died in an altercation with another man, but refused to disclose who the other party was or whether they were arguing about the music, saying the matter was still under investigation.
Police said they have launched a manhunt for a suspect in the killing.
AC Milan battled to a 2-1 win at Cagliari for their fourth win in 12 Serie A games this season, rallying after falling behind to an early home goal.
Alberto Gilardino grabbed the equalizer for Milan in the 61st minute with Andrea Pirlo grabbing the winner from a free kick with four minutes remaining.
Milan, now on 17 points, are trailing leaders and city rivals Inter Milan by 11 points.
French international striker David Trezeguet scored his 11th goal of the season to open the scoring just before the half hour mark.
Juventus move to second, three points behind Inter, on goal difference from Roma and Udinese who beat Siena 2-0.
Fabio Quagliarella and Antonio Di Natale scored the goals.
Depleted by injuries or suspension to seven first-team regulars and without coach Cesare Prandelli, Fiorentina hung on for a 0-0 tie against Reggina.
Eight people died Sunday after a section of stands at a soccer stadium in northeastern Brazil collapsed as cheering fans jumped up and down at the end of a game, police said.
At least nine people fell through a section of the highest bleachers at the Fonte Nova stadium in the coastal city of Salvador, and eight were killed, said Maj. Edmilson Tavares of the city's federal police.
Tavares said it was not clear what caused the collapse, but Brazilian media reports said the 56-year-old stadium recently came under heavy criticism for the precarious condition of its stands.
Tavares said he could not immediately confirm how many people had been injured, but Globo TV reported dozens were hurt.
(CNN) A Russian judge sentenced opposition leader Garry Kasparov to five days in jail Sunday, a day after the chess champion-turned-politician and other protesters were arrested at a pro-democracy demonstration in Moscow.
Kasparov was charged and sentenced Sunday for organizing an unsanctioned procession, resisting arrest and chanting anti-government slogans.
The chess grandmaster said his conviction is part of a government effort to harass him.
"Everything you heard here is a lie," he told reporters outside the courtroom. "All my rights were violated from the outset, from the moment of my detention.
Kasparov said his arrest was intended to ensure that President Vladimir Putin's party holds on to power.
Though Russia's constitution prohibits a third consecutive term, Putin is expected to attempt to retain power in some form.
"We are absolutely against Putin's plan and his political course, because it leads us to the Third World," said Boris Nemtsov, a Russian opposition leader. "It leads to abuse of power, lawlessness and bureaucracy, uncontrolled corruption.
Kasparov told CNN his arrest came after protesters delivered a written resolution demanding fair elections to the Russian Central Electorate commission.
Authorities have been cracking down on a growing coalition of Soviet-era dissidents, leftists and democrats who are demanding that next Saturday's elections be fair.
"The United States is concerned by the aggressive tactics used by Russian authorities against opposition protesters yesterday in Moscow," National Security Council Spokesman Gordon Johndroe said in a written statement Sunday.
"We are troubled that Garry Kasparov and other leaders of the opposition have been arrested and detained. We call for them to be given proper access to legal counsel and fair treatment in processing.
Kasparov was detained briefly in April during at another anti-Putin protest.
That time, Kasparov was fined $38 for participating in the rally.
Two strong earthquakes that struck eastern Indonesia overnight killed at least one person and injured 45 other people, a senior health ministry official said Monday.
Dozens of buildings were reportedly destroyed or damaged.
Several hours later, a powerful aftershock hit the same region.
"Everyone panicked, they were running from their houses, some to the hills," said Agung Prasetyo, a local police officer, adding that the ground shook violently for around 30 seconds.
Rustam Pakaya, the top disaster official at Indonesia's Health Ministry, said in a statement that one child had died and 45 other people were injured by the quakes. He gave no more details.
State news agency Antara said dozens of buildings were either destroyed or damaged, while witnesses said electricity was temporarily cut in some places, including a hospital, which was briefly evacuated.
Earlier on Sunday, a third earthquake rattled residents on the west coast of Sumatra island.
Scores of people fled from their homes in the region, which has been hit by a series of powerful earthquakes in recent months.
Indonesia, the world's largest archipelago, is prone to seismic upheavals due to its location on the so-called Pacific "Ring of Fire," an arc of volcanoes and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.
SAN ANTONIO, Texas (CNN) Someone in Italy placed the winning bid of $3.8 million on Friday in an online auction for an unpopulated, one-house Texas town.
The town also includes a pavilion, an 85-year-old dance hall, a tractor shed, a three-bedroom house, plus peach and pecan orchards.
But before town owner Bobby Cave signs the deed over, he must ensure the eBay bid is legitimate.
Cave said that unlike the usual items bought through eBay, there are no contractual obligations when it comes to real estate.
"There's just not any way to insist that a guy from Italy write me a check for three million," said Cave, 47, an Austin, Texas, real estate agent.
Bridgeville, in northern California, was the first town ever put on the eBay auction block.
Typhoon Mitag slammed into the northeastern Philippines after killing at least six people, while a deadly storm that blew away days earlier headed back, complicating emergency preparations across the country, officials said Monday.
Mitag roared into the coastal town of Palanan in Isabela province late Sunday, its sustained wind slightly weakening but remaining deadly at 140 kilometers (87 miles) per hour with gusts of up to 170 kph (105 mph), government forecaster Noel Trigonero said.
After hitting land, the howler veered toward the country's mountainous northern provinces, where authorities, fearing landslides, evacuated hundreds of people, officials said.
CLEARWATER, Florida (CNN) Linda Hogan has filed for divorce from her wrestler husband Hulk Hogan, a newspaper reported Friday.
Hulk Hogan, whose real name is Terry Bollea, told the St. Petersburg Times that he had no idea his wife had filed for divorce.
He was informed by a reporter that Pinellas County court records showed that the paperwork was submitted Tuesday.
Family spokesman Adam Handelsman referred calls to another spokesman, who did not immediately respond Friday night.
The couple star in the VH1 reality TV series "Hogan Knows Best," with their two children.
On November 7, Hogan's son, 17-year-old Nick Bollea, was arrested on reckless-driving charges after a car crash.
Clearwater police said Bollea crashed his 1998 Toyota Supra on August 26 while street racing against a silver Dodge Viper driven by a friend.
A report said Bollea was driving faster than 60 mph in a 40 mph zone.
Bollea, who was wearing a seat belt, was not seriously injured.
The Hogans moved to a $12 million bayfront estate on Miami Beach in 2006.
They had previously lived in Clearwater, near Tampa.
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (CNN) Beauty pageant organizers were investigating Sunday who doused a contestant's evening gowns with pepper spray and spiked her makeup, causing her to break out in hives.
Beauty queen Ingrid Marie Rivera beat 29 rivals to become the island's 2008 Miss Universe contestant, despite applying makeup and wearing evening gowns that had been coated with pepper spray, pageant spokesman Harold Rosario said.
Rivera was composed while appearing before cameras and judges throughout the competition. But once backstage, she had to strip off her clothes and apply ice bags to her face and body, which swelled and broke out in hives twice.
"We thought at first it was an allergic reaction, or maybe nerves," Rosario said. "But the second time, we knew it couldn't have been a coincidence.
Rivera's clothing and makeup later tested positive for pepper spray.
Someone also stole Rivera's bag containing her gowns, makeup and credit cards.
And a bomb threat forced pageant officials to postpone the last day of competition on Thursday, said Magali Febles, director of the Miss Puerto Rico Universe pageant. Pageant organizers said the hoped to catch and expose whoever was responsible for the pranks.
They said, however, they were handling the investigation themselves and police are not involved.
Beauty competitions in the U.S. Caribbean territory are fierce, drawing boisterous audiences and accusations of rigged results.
Rivera, who won Miss World Caribbean in 2005, had been a target of controversy from the start of competition, as rivals complained she was too experienced and should be disqualified.
"But I said, 'I am with God and this is my goal, regardless of the results.
"After seven years of total stalemate, President Bush with [Secretary of State Condoleezza] Rice are providing an opportunity for us and the Israelis to resume the negotiations," chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat said.
Erakat told CNN's "Late Edition" the inclusion of the wider international community will correct the mistakes of the last Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in the United States.
Syria and Saudi Arabia agreed to attend in the final days leading up to Tuesday's conference, after a push from the Arab League, which agreed to participate following a meeting on Friday.
Syria, which the U.S. State Department calls a sponsor of terrorism, announced Sunday it would send Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal al-Miqdad, rather than its foreign minister, to Tuesday's conference, according to Syria's state-run news agency SANA.
Israeli government spokeswoman Miri Eisen welcomed Damascus' decision to attend.
The fact that they're choosing to send somebody who is openly Syrian ... [to] a conference which is all about the Israeli-Palestinian track is an important one."
"The whole world is coming to tell Palestinians and Israelis, 'We are standing shoulder to shoulder with you,' " Erakat said. "This is significant.
Erakat is part of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' delegation, which arrived at Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, on Saturday night, as anxiety over possible Palestinian concessions prompted protesters to take to the streets of Gaza.
The Israeli delegation, led by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, arrived Sunday.
Erakat agreed that no "magic stick" would emerge from the 24-hour meeting in Annapolis, Maryland, but said it would provide the basis for talks that should begin the day after Tuesday's meeting.
Erakat told CNN his team is open to discussing land swaps, meaning that if Israel takes parts of the West Bank, then the Palestinian Authority could take parts of Israel for a future state.
On Monday, President Bush will hold separate White House meetings with Olmert and Abbas.
Rice will hold a dinner Monday evening for all the delegations at the State Department, and Bush will speak.
On Wednesday, the president again will meet the Israelis and Palestinians at the White House.
Australian opposition leader Kevin Rudd greeted jubilant supporters Saturday night, as he promised changes in environmental, education and workplace policies as Australia's new prime minister.
"I will be a prime minister for all Australians," the head of the center-left Labor Party told the cheering crowd.
"Let us be the generation that seizes the opportunity of today to invest in the Australia of tomorrow. That's the mission statement we have as the next government of this country.
"I want to do it with all of us working together," said Rudd, 50.
In his concession speech, Prime Minister John Howard told supporters that he leaves government with Australia "stronger and prouder and more prosperous than it was 11 and a half years ago."
With less than 75 percent of the vote counted, the Labor Party has won 83 of the 150 seats in Parliament, a net gain of nearly two dozen from the last election, according to the country's Web site results.
Labor garnered about 53.41 percent of the vote, according to the Web site.
Labor's victory over Howard's center-right Liberal-National coalition ends Howard's quest for a fifth term.
Howard, 68, has been a staunch supporter of President Bush's decision to go to war in Iraq.
A section of a bridge collapsed Saturday as thousands of hungry cyclone victims stampeded toward aid workers delivering rice in southwestern Bangladesh, officials said.
Villagers have become desperate for food and other aid as relief workers struggle to bring in adequate supplies.
Rescuers used cranes to remove concrete slabs from the collapsed 30-foot section to search for people feared crushed underneath, while frantic villagers gathered by the river to search for loved ones.
The U.S. Navy was planning to begin distribution as early as
The U.S. Navy delivered 3,000 gallons of drinking water to hard-hit Barisal district on Friday, U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Amy Vrampas said.
"We've been told that water was the most crucial," she said.
With many wells destroyed by the cyclone, there is a critical need for clean water supplies to prevent the spread of cholera and severe diarrhea.
At least 3,199 people were killed by the November 15 cyclone, according to the Bangladeshi army, and the country's Disaster Management Ministry says 1,724 people remain missing.
(CNN) Authorities in Galveston, Texas, say they know the identity of a little girl whose body washed ashore in a box last month, and that the girl's mother and another person have been arrested.
Investigators believe the child they dubbed "Baby Grace" is actually 2-year-old Riley Ann Sawyers, the Galveston County Sheriff's office said in a statement.
Police say they have arrested the girl's mother, Kimberly Dawn Trenor, 19, and Royce Clyde Zeigler II, 24, both of Spring, Texas.
They are charged with injury to a child and tampering with physical evidence, police said.
Their bonds are set at $350,000 each.
Maj. Ray Tuttoilmondo with the Galveston County Sheriff's office confirmed that arrests had been made and said more information would be released at a Monday morning news conference.
On October 29, a fisherman discovered the body in a blue Sterilite plastic container on an uninhabited island in Galveston's West Bay.
Police dubbed the dead girl "Baby Grace," and asked the public for help in identifying her.
A medical examiner said the child's skull was fractured, and a forensic dentist estimated her age at 2 to 3 years.
The other sketch, a close-up rendering of the child's face, shows a fair-skinned toddler with long blond hair.
Thousands of Hindu protesters met water cannons and tear gas in Malaysia's capital on Sunday while demanding equal rights and consideration from the government.
Some protesters threw rocks at the water cannon trucks, but others were urging peaceful demonstrations.
The AP quoted witnesses who saw people being beaten and dragged into trucks by police.
Police stopped protesters as they tried to take a petition to the British High Commission.
Talks were under way for authorities to allow six protesters to deliver the petition, should the crowd disperse.
The rally rooted in complaints that the ethnic Malay Muslim-dominated government discriminates against minorities was the largest protest in at least a decade involving ethnic Indians, the country's second-largest minority population after ethnic Chinese.
The ethnic Indians are generally the most underprivileged.
Earlier this month, riot police used water hoses and tear gas against thousands of protesters demanding electoral reform, the largest demonstration in Kuala Lumpur in nearly a decade.
The violence spurred the creation of programs that give Malays privileges in government jobs, contracts and education.
He arrived at Lahore's airport on a jet provided by the Saudi government at around 6:30 p.m. (8:
He emerged amid a crowd of uniformed security personnel and throngs of cheering supporters at the airport, where security was on high alert.
Speaking to CNN just moments before his plane departed from Medina, Saudi Arabia, Sharif denied reports that he struck a deal with President Pervez Musharraf's government that would allow him to return to Pakistan.
"I haven't met any Pakistani government functionary over the last eight years, although there were a lot of overtures from the Pakistani side to meet me and to talk to me," Sharif said Sunday afternoon.
He said he has not changed his position on Musharraf, the man who overthrew him in a bloodless military coup in 1999.
He was quickly deported back to Saudi Arabia by Musharraf's government when he tried to return in September.
Political observers doubt he will be turned away this time.
Pakistani police set up on roadblocks leading into Lahore and the government had warned Sharif supporters they would be blocked from entering the city.
Pakistani police launched a crackdown on Sharif supporters ahead of his arrival, arresting several hundred at their homes and stopping hundreds more who were traveling to Lahore to welcome him, authorities and eyewitnesses told CNN.
Sharif who leads the opposition party Pakistan Muslim League said he has been talking to Bhutto "trying to find common ground" in uniting the opposition to Musharraf's government.
"We both have been interacting over the past few days, so let's see what comes out of it," Sharif said.
Sharif, like other opposition leaders, was highly critical of Bhutto for discussing a power-sharing government with Musharraf.
Those talks ended when Musharraf imposed a state of emergency on Nov. 3.
Sharif said that while his alliance the All Pakistan Democratic Movement (APDM) is preparing to participate in the January elections, they will only take part if Musharraf withdraws the emergency declaration and releases opposition members who have been jailed.
"Everything that was done must be reversed and drawn back completely," he said.
"You must have a level playing field for free and fair elections.
A Canadian cruise ship struck submerged ice off Antarctica and began sinking Friday, but all 154 people on board, including Americans and Britons, took to lifeboats and were plucked to safety by another cruise liner.
Chilean navy vessels in the area lost sight of the stricken MS Explorer early Friday evening, hours after the pre-dawn accident near Antarctica's South Shetland Islands, and wreckage indicated it had gone under completely, according to a navy press officer who declined be identified in accordance with department policy.
The crew and 91 passengers were taken to a Chilean base and no injuries were reported, although they reportedly endured subfreezing temperatures for several hours in bobbing lifeboats before being picked up by a Norwegian vessel.
Photos released by the Chilean navy showed the ship lying nearly on its side surrounded by floating blocks of ice.
But by then the ship's entire crew, and 91 passengers from more than a dozen nations _ including 23 Britons, 17 Dutch, 13 Americans, 10 Canadians and 10 Australians _ had been evacuated, according to the tour operator.
They're all accounted for, no injuries whatsoever.
The Philippines and Vietnam stepped up the evacuations of tens of thousands ahead of the landfalls of two separate typhoons expected on Saturday.
In Vietnam, officials were evacuating 200,000 people, as Typhoon Hagibis neared the nation's southern coast, days after unleashing deadly landslides and floods in the Philippines, The Associated Press reported.
The typhoon was packing 133 kph (83 mph), AP reported.
Meanwhile, the Philippine National Red Cross was preparing in "full force" for Typhoon Mitag's arrival, Benjamin Delfin of the Red Cross told CNN.
Families in "most of the vulnerable areas prone to landslide and those families living (along) the coastline" have been evacuated, he said.
As Mitag bore down on the Philippines, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo ordered mass evacuations, the government reported.
Some 40,000 people in the province of Albay were being forced to evacuate, it said.
The typhoon is blamed for killing at least 10 people, the Philippine government reported on its Web
SINGAPORE (CNN) Oil prices were little-changed Friday as the market turned its attention to OPEC for signals on whether the cartel will raise production to ease record prices.
Light, sweet crude for January delivery added 14 cents to $97.43 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, midday in Singapore.
Gasoline prices added 0.19 cent to $2.439 a gallon (3.8 liters), while natural gas futures rose 1.3 cents to $7.563 per 1,000 cubic feet.
On Wednesday, the contract fell 74 cents to settle at $97.29 a barrel during the New York floor session, retreating from an intraday record of $99.29 a barrel touched during electronic trading earlier in the day.
A swoon in global stock markets also depressed
oil prices Wednesday. Energy investors worry that falling equities are a symptom of weakening economies that would use less oil and gasoline.
Oil inventories fell 1.1 million barrels last week, according to the Energy Department's Energy Information Agency.
Analysts surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires had forecast, on average, an increase of 700,000 barrels.
Cushing inventories, though, rose 1.2 million barrels, their first substantial increase in weeks, and the largest since the end of August.
BEIJING, China (CNN) A landslide on a mountainside in central China earlier this week buried a bus carrying as many as 27 people, police told CNN on Friday.
The long-distance passenger bus was last seen when it stopped at a police checkpoint on Tuesday, about 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the Hubei province spot where the landslide occurred.
Officials suspected the bus was crushed in the landslide after it was determined to be missing.
Work crews later confirmed the bus was indeed buried, and hundreds of rescuers worked to excavate the vehicle.
No bodies have yet been retrieved in the painstaking effort, slowed by the presence of huge, heavy boulders at the site.
The landslide also killed a laborer at a rail tunnel work site above a highway. Another was injured and two are missing.
The landslide tore a 50-yard gash on a mountainside Tuesday and raised concern that the massive reservoir of the Three Gorges Dam, 120 miles (200 km) away, was wreaking ecological havoc in the region, according to the Associated Press.
The bus was traveling from Shanghai to Lichuan city, AP reported, and all told as many as 30 or more people may have been killed.
The accident occurred amid growing criticism of the ecological impact of the $22 billion Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest hydropower project.
A government meeting in September warned about an increase in landslides and other seismic activity as the reservoir level was raised over the past year and sent water seeping into slopes, undermining hillsides of soil and shale.
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) In Hollywood, Santa Claus comes in all stripes, from the childlike Edmund Gwenn in "Miracle on 34th Street" to North Pole draftee Tim Allen in "The Santa Clause" flicks to gutter-mouth Billy Bob Thornton in "Bad Santa.
The latest incarnation is a thoroughly modern Santa:
Overworked, stressed-out over his whitening hair, battling to maintain inventory, and squaring off against an efficiency expert who wants to downsize St. Nick out of a job.
As played by Paul Giamatti in "Fred Claus," Santa tries to keep the ho-ho-ho in his voice despite a weight problem and a centuries-old case of sibling rivalry involving his black-sheep brother (Vince Vaughn).
"I just got such a kick out of seeing Santa Claus as a human being with, like, his issues of being a saint and having to take care of everyone, and how he's carrying that," said "Fred Claus" director David Dobkin.
The movie mold for Santa was established by Gwenn in 1947's "Miracle on 34th Street."
Richard Attenborough did a sturdy take on Gwenn's character in a 1994 remake, while Ed Asner played an endearingly wayworn Santa in Will Ferrell's 2003 comedy "Elf.
In "Fred Claus," Giamatti does a weary, harried Santa trying to keep everybody happy his corporate overseers, his needling wife (Miranda Richardson), his adoring but judgmental mom (Kathy Bates), his legion of elves and all the kids of the world.
Complicating matters is brother Fred, a huckster who hits up his sibling for some quick cash and reluctantly agrees to work it off at the North Pole.
Fred's spent eons envying Nick, the favorite son who could do no wrong.
Jessie Nelson, a producer on "Fred Claus" who came up with the story, said the idea hit her one night as she tucked her young daughter in bed.
Then I began to think, it must be so hard to be Santa Claus' brother, because he's this perfect kid.
He's jolly, he's always giving away his birthday presents, he's laughing all the time.
DETROIT, Michigan (CNN) The Romantics have filed a federal lawsuit against Activision Inc., the maker of "Guitar Hero," saying the popular video game infringes on the band's rights by featuring a soundalike recording of its 1980 hit "What I Like About You.
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in the group's hometown of Detroit, seeks unspecified damages.
The song is one of about 30 songs featured on "Guitar Hero Encore:
Rocks the '80s."
The band also is seeking an injunction that could take the best-selling game off store shelves.
The band's attorneys tell the Detroit Free Press for Thursday's edition that Activision properly secured permission to use "What I Like About You," allowing it to record a cover version.
BALTIMORE, Maryland (CNN) A two-month old dolphin calf at the National Aquarium is being nursed by three females, the aquarium announced.
While it is known that female bottlenose dolphins can spontaneously produce milk if a calf is present, the practice is not well documented and aquarium staff are carefully watching the process.
The unnamed male calf was born to a dolphin named Jade, who is being helped in her nursing duties by the mother-daughter team of Chesapeake and Shiloh, the aquarium said in a statement issued Tuesday to announce the birth.
Aquarium officials are compiling a list of possible names for the calf, which appears to be thriving.
interact with the trainers and toys, the aquarium said.
Dolphin calves are fragile and not easily handled during their first two to three months of life, and trainers at the aquarium are leaving the nursing duties to its mother and her helpers.
KAMPALA, Uganda (CNN) Britain's Queen Elizabeth II on Thursday commended the Ugandan government for its efforts to end "devastating conflict" in northern Uganda, where a rebel group has waged a brutal 20-year insurgency.
On Friday, the queen will open the biennial Commonwealth Heads of Goverment summit, which Uganda is hosting for the first time.
Uganda is also to be commended for its contribution to peacekeeping in Somalia, which is "a tribute to the courage and professionalism of Uganda's armed forces," the 81-year-old monarch told the Ugandan parliament.
The queen commended Uganda on making, "considerable advances in spite of periods of adversity," since her last visit to the country in about 50 years ago.
BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNN) Less than 24 hours before the Lebanese president's term will expire, no one has been chosen to replace him.
Emile Lahoud's presidential term is set to end Friday at midnight (5 p.m. ET).
Parliament was scheduled to meet Friday to try for a fifth time to elect a president, but there were indications that the session would be canceled.
Pro- and anti-Syrian lawmakers had come to no agreement over a compromise candidate to replace the pro-Syrian Lahoud.
The Syrian- and Iranian-backed opposition has suggested it might form a rival government.
The army and other security forces were on full alert as the nation braced itself for possible violence.
The election has been overshadowed by assassinations and attempted assassinations of anti-Syrian politicians.
In the past two years, four members of the Lebanese parliament have been assassinated.
Meanwhile, members of the Western-backed parliamentary majority were holed up Thursday inside a Beirut hotel meeting in emergency session.
A general who is a powerful Christian leader, backed by Syria and allied with Hezbollah, appeared Thursday on television offering himself as a compromise candidate.
But his offer was rejected by the Western-backed majority led by Saad Hariri, son of the assassinated prime minister.
For the past few weeks, top-level mediators from France, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and other countries have been trying unsuccessfully to break the deadlock.
Some analysts suggested the president could name an interim military governor and House Speaker Nabih Berri hinted that he might postpone elections.
The foreign ministers of France, Italy and Spain issued a statement saying they have tried everything, and it is now up to the Lebanese to craft a solution.
Lebanese presidents are elected by the National Assembly for a six-year term and may not serve consecutive terms, according to the CIA Factbook.
BEIJING, China (CNN) European companies believe China is trying to avoid fully carrying out its free-trade pledges, according to a survey released Thursday ahead of a visit by European Union leaders for talks on trade, currency and other disputes.
Report by the European Chamber of Commerce in China adds to mounting complaints that Beijing is violating World Trade Organization commitments by trying to nurture Chinese companies at the expense of foreign rivals.
"People see that government bodies are trying to avoid (carrying out WTO pledges) more actively, so that is bad news," Joerg Wuttke, president of the European chamber, said at a news conference.
European leaders plan to lobby China to lower barriers to imports and foreign investment and ease currency controls when
the two sides meet next week in Beijing, according to EU officials.
Europe has shown greater urgency lately about pressing China for action to narrow its swelling trade surplus, an area where Washington has long taken the lead in lobbying Beijing.
Both the U.S. and EU accuse China of improperly using tax, investment and other policies to promote the growth of Chinese champions in industries ranging from oil to banking while putting foreign companies at a disadvantage.
The investment climate is "not getting better," said Wuttke, who is the China manager for German chemical company BASF AG.
The number of European companies complaining about China's rampant product piracy is about the same as last year, he said.
The EU delegation is led by the president of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, and Prime Minister Jose Socrates of Portugal.
Also next week, European currency officials are to meet separately with Chinese officials to seek an easing of controls on China's currency, the yuan.
The EU, United States and other trading partners say the yuan is kept undervalued, giving Chinese exporters an unfair price advantage and adding to the country's surplus.
The survey of 220 European companies found "the majority are skeptical about the government's ability and willingness to implement WTO regulations," said a report by the European chamber.
Some 38 percent thought Beijing is "actively seeking loopholes to circumvent, avoid or delay" carrying out WTO pledges, it said.
At the meetings next week, "we hope that the leaders of both nations will discuss opening their markets or keeping them open and try to get rid of protectionist arguments in both regions," Wuttke said.
BEIJING, China (AP) Stuck in a crowd of about 200 other tourists, Zhong Jian and her friends waited for an hour to buy tickets for a boat cruise down the scenic Li River before giving up. Their problem:
The resulting public backlash is prompting the government to rethink its tightly regulated national holiday policy.
Most Chinese cannot take a break when they want.
Rather, the government has set three weeks a year as national holidays.
Factories and offices shut down giving many workers time off they might otherwise never get.
But putting so many of the country's 1.3 billion people on the move at one time is causing a huge national headache.
Under a proposal issued earlier this month, the government suggested paring the weeklong May break to one day and making three new one-day holidays out of traditional celebrations including grave-sweeping day, the dragon boat festival and the mid-autumn festival.
The plan has set off a lively debate in the state-run media.
Some hail the changes as a boost for traditional culture, and others say the change isn't enough.
They call for the system to be scrapped completely in favor of letting people choose their own holidays.
Changes in holidays are another measure of how the country's economic modernization is remaking Chinese society.
After coming to power, communist China's founders eliminated many traditional festivals in an attempt to engineer a break with what they considered the feudal past.
In 1999, with the economy limping and ordinary Chinese hoarding their earnings in banks, the government decided that longer vacations would encourage people to spend money.
The Lunar New Year, Labor Day (May 1) and National Day (October 1) breaks were lengthened to full weeks called "Golden Weeks.
Travel spending hit 14 billion yuan ($1.9 billion) during that year's October break, according to government figures.
In 2007, tourists spent 64.2 billion yuan ($8.6 billion) in the same period, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
Travelers overrun popular destinations such as the Great Wall, Beijing's Forbidden City and sacred Mount Tai in eastern China.
Fed up, many middle-class Chinese are traveling abroad over the three Golden Weeks to avoid the hordes at home.
Meanwhile, a growing number of companies are staggering breaks, even though the law requires them to pay employees three times their daily salaries to work during holidays to eliminate production shutdowns.
Economists have cheered the new government plan as a good first step toward alleviating congestion and pushing tourism companies to improve service.
Ultimately, some experts argue, the government should stop ordering people when to take a break and instead mandate a paid-vacation system, as many other countries have.
The changes could be put into place next year, state media has said.
Authorities have said that they will incorporate suggestions from businesses and the public in the final plan.
PARIS, France (CNN) Striking French rail workers overwhelmingly were voting Thursday to return to work after a transport-crippling, nine-day walkout to protest President Nicolas Sarkozy's retirement reforms, initial figures indicated.
Rail workers appeared to be ceding in the standoff between Sarkozy and the unions a symbolic first battle and a crucial test in the president's broad campaign of economic and social change for changing France.
Returns so far show wide support for bringing an end to the strike a day after the start of negotiations with the government, France's SNCF rail authority said.
"We think a dynamic of return to work has begun," SNCF spokeswoman Julie Vion said.
On Thursday, the few trains running were still crammed with commuters and getting around Paris remained a challenge, with at least one commuter train line shut entirely and traffic at a near standstill on other subway routes, officials said.
About 540 of the usual 700 high-speed TGV trains were running nationwide, the SNCF said the best level of TGV service since the strike began.
Amid widespread passenger discontent with the strikes, several groups of workers from the SNCF and Paris' public transit authority, RATP, voted Wednesday to return to work.
The transport strikes were triggered by Sarkozy's plan to reform special retirement benefits for certain public sector workers.
Under the reform, all workers will have to work for 40 years to qualify for full pensions, compared to 37.5 years now.
Sarkozy said Tuesday he would not back down on the reforms, and opinion polls suggest most French disapprove of the walkouts.
But the mere fact that negotiations started was seen as a step forward.
Representatives for rail unions and management agreed Wednesday on a schedule for negotiations and a list of subjects to be covered in future meetings.
The next meeting was set for Monday.
The government has put a one-month deadline on the talks.
They are protesting a law passed earlier this year allowing universities more freedom to attract private funding and raise tuition.
LAHORE, Pakistan (CNN) Pakistan has been suspended from the Commonweath a 53-nation organization made up of the UK and its former colonies.
A meeting in Uganda decided on the move "pending the restoration of democracy and rule of law in the country," a Commonwealth statement said.
Pakistan imposed emergency rule on November 3. The Commonwealth statement said:
"The situation in Pakistan continued to represent a serious violation of the Commonwealth's fundamental political values.
The suspension means no further Commonwealth programs will be carried out in Pakistan, and Pakistan cannot participate in any of the organization's business, said Michael Frendo, the foreign minister of Malta who chaired Thursday's meeting.
Earlier, Pakistan's Supreme Court cleared the way for another five-year presidential term for General Pervez Musharraf.
The court, newly filled with Musharraf allies, sided with him on the final legal challenge to his candidacy.
Musharraf has said he will step down as Pakistan's military chief before taking the oath this weekend as president.
He removed nearly all of the Supreme Court justices shortly after declaring the state of emergency.
On Wednesday Pakistan police released Pakistani opposition party leader Imran Khan from the Dera Ghazi Khan city jail in Punjab province, police sources said.
The former cricket star and leader of the Movement for Justice party staged a hunger strike and had said he would do so until the Supreme Court justices fired by Musharraf were reinstated.
Khan's party has campaigned for an independent judiciary.
Police seized Khan last week after he appeared at a student rally at the University of Punjab in Lahore, police said.
He had been on the run after escaping from house arrest days after the November 3 emergency order was imposed.
Sweden sealed their place at Euro 2008 with a 2-1 Group F victory over Latvia in Solna which rendered Northern Ireland's bid to win in Spain irrelevant.
Marcus Allback opened the scoring within a minute of kick-off, but Swedish hearts were in their mouths when Juris Laizans equalised after 26 minutes.
Sweden got off to a dream start when Zlatan Ibrahimovic provided a cross from the right for Allback to head home from close range.
The victory means Sweden secure their place in Austria and Switzerland by finishing second in the group behind group winners Spain.
An unlikely victory in Gran Canaria, combined with Latvia beating Sweden, would have seen the Province secure a place in Euro 2008 and end their long absence from a major finals.
WASHINGTON (CNN) Even infants can tell the difference between naughty and nice playmates, and know which to choose, a new study finds.
Babies as young as 6 to 10 months old showed crucial social judging skills before they could talk, according to a study by researchers at Yale University's Infant Cognition Center published in Thursday's journal Nature.
The infants watched a googly eyed wooden toy trying to climb roller-coaster hills and then another googly eyed toy come by and either help it over the mountain or push it backward.
They then were presented with the toys to see which they would play with.
Nearly every baby picked the helpful toy over the bad one.
The babies also chose neutral toys ones that didn't help or hinder over the naughty ones. And the babies chose the helping toys over the neutral ones.
"It's incredibly impressive that babies can do this," said study lead author Kiley Hamlin, a Yale psychology researcher. "It shows that we have these essential social skills occurring without much explicit teaching.
There was no difference in reaction between the boys and girls, but when the researchers took away the large eyes that made the toys somewhat lifelike, the babies didn't show the same social judging skills, Hamlin said.
A study last year out of Germany showed that babies as young as 18 months old overwhelmingly helped out when they could, such as by picking up toys that researchers dropped.
David Lewkowicz, a psychology professor at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton who wasn't part of the study, said the Yale research was intriguing.
But he doesn't buy into the natural ability part.
He said that the behavior was learned and that the new research doesn't prove otherwise.
"Infants acquire a great deal of social experience between birth and 6 months of age and thus the assumption that this kind of capacity does not require experience is simply unwarranted," Lewkowicz told The Associated Press in an e-mail.
But the Yale team has other preliminary research that shows similar responses even in 3-month-olds, Hamlin said.
Researchers also want to know if the behavior is limited to human infants.
The Yale team is starting tests with monkeys, but has no results yet, Hamlin said.
Italian investigators are awaiting the results of crucial DNA tests on evidence related to the murder of British student Meredith Kercher, as the latest suspect arrested in the case awaits his extradition to Italy.
A source in the Perugia prosecutor's office told CNN the results would likely be released on Thursday evening.
Both are considered prime suspects in the killing of Kercher, 21, whose half-naked body was found with a stab wound to the neck earlier this month at her villa in Perugia, north of Rome.
German police are holding another suspect, Rudy Hermann Guede, 20, who was arrested Tuesday near Mainz and is awaiting extradition to Italy.
Congolese bar owner Patrick Lumumba, 38 who was arrested in Perugia along with Knox and Sollecito was released Tuesday after two weeks in custody.
Sollecito has said he was at home the night that Kercher was killed.
A judge filed preliminary charges against former President Jacques Chirac on Wednesday in a probe of suspicions that people were given fake jobs while he was mayor of Paris, his lawyer said.
The case is one of several hanging over Chirac, who had kept investigators at arm's length while he was president by using the immunity that comes with the post.
Under French law, preliminary charges mean the investigating judge has determined there is strong evidence to suggest involvement in a crime.
(CNN) It may not be the most appetizing reading before a hearty holiday meal, but the New England Journal of Medicine is devoting part of its Thanksgiving issue to a giant hairball and not the feline kind.
After a scan of the woman's abdomen showed a large mass, doctors lowered a scope through her esophagus.
Ronald M. Levy and Srinadh Komanduri, gastroenterologists at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, Illinois.
For the uninitiated, a bezoar is a hairball.
"On questioning, the patient stated that she had had a habit of eating her hair for many years a condition called trichophagia," they wrote.
"It seemed like she'd been doing this for several years," Levy told CNN.
The woman underwent surgery to remove the mass of black, curly hair, which weighed 10 pounds and measured 15 inches by 7 inches by 7 inches, the doctors said.
Five days later, she was eating normally and was sent home.
A year later, the pain and vomiting were gone, the patient had regained 20 pounds "and reports that she has stopped eating her hair.
Reached at his home in Chicago, Levy said he had no idea whether the journal's timing of the publication on Thanksgiving was intentional.
Either way, he said, it would not affect the gastroenterologists' holiday dinner plans "We don't get fazed by much."
MADRID, Spain (CNN) A Spaniard who went on television to beg his estranged girlfriend to marry him getting down on his knees, crying and offering an engagement ring, only to be rejected is now a suspect in her stabbing death, officials said Wednesday.
Ricardo Navarro, 30, and his former partner, a Russian woman identified only as Svetlana, took part in a popular daytime talk show last week.
"I love you. You only live once, as you told me, and I want to spend mine with you," Navarro said on a program called Diario de Patricia on the network Antena 3.
Everything," Navarro said, his voice quavering.
The woman, also 30, was found with her throat cut four days later in the elevator of her apartment building in the eastern city of Alicante, and died on Monday.
Her last name has not been released because it is court policy not to name victims of gender violence, said an official at the Superior Court of Justice of Valencia, which covers neighboring Alicante.
Police arrested Navarro.
He went before a judge Wednesday for a preliminary hearing.
He has not been formally charged.
Boomerang, the company that produces the program for Antena 3, said the televised meeting was arranged as a surprise at Navarro's request so he could try to make up with his girlfriend.
Program staffers, acting on their own, have tried to contact the woman's relatives in Russia.
"There is no cause and effect relationship," Limon said, noting the killing was four days after the show.
The host of the program, Patricia Gaztanaga, began Tuesday's show by expressing sorrow for the victim and her family.
The Russian woman leaves behind a small daughter from another relationship.
"None of us who take part in this program could imagine that something like this was going to happen," Gaztanaga said.
Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo ordered the evacuation of thousands of people in the eastern Philippines ahead of a powerful tropical storm, officials said Wednesday.
In one province alone, officials estimated that up to 200,000 people would be evacuated to gymnasiums, churches and schools by Friday when Tropical Storm Mitag was forecast to make landfall.
And in Vietnam, the government said Tropical Storm Hagibis was expected to hit the country's southern region Saturday.
"It's still far, and that means we still have time to conduct preparedness," Cruz
Recent rains have saturated the ground around Mayon volcano in Bicol, and the president was worried there could be a repeat of last year's landslides and flash floods that killed more than 1,000 people, said Anthony Golez, deputy director of the Office of Civil Defense.
Gov. Joey Salceda of Albay, where last year's Typhoon Durian unleashed tons of volcanic debris that wiped out entire villages, said some schools will be used as temporary shelters.
Evacuations also were reported from the provincial capital of Legazpi and nearby Daraga township, Cedric Daep, executive officer of the Albay disaster office, said.
NEW YORK (AP) The Rockefeller Center Christmas tree is going "greener" with energy-saving lights replacing old-fashioned bulbs on the towering evergreen this year.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he hoped the change to the midtown Manhattan display will inspire the tens of millions of New Yorkers and tourists who see the tree every year.
"Now they will see an example of green leadership which may inspire them to make greener choices in their own lives," Bloomberg said Tuesday.
The 84-foot-tall Norway spruce will be covered with 30,000 multicolored light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, strung on five miles of wire.
Using the energy-efficient LEDs to replace incandescent bulbs will reduce the display's electricity consumption from 3,510 to 1,297 kilowatt hours per day.
The daily savings is equal to the amount of electricity consumed by a typical 2,000-square-foot house in a month.
The owners of Rockefeller Center, Tishman Speyer, also showed off a new 365-panel solar energy array that will generate electricity on the roof of one of the complex's buildings, the largest privately owned solar roof in Manhattan.
After the official tree lighting ceremony on November 28, the Christmas tree will be illuminated from 5:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. most days through the first week of January.
The Rockefeller Center tradition was started in 1931, when construction workers building the first part of the office building complex erected a 20-foot Balsam fir amid the site's mud and rubble.
LOS ANGELES (CNN) Almost 70 years after "The Wizard of Oz" premiered at Grauman's Chinese Theatre, a few of the film's Munchkins made a grand entrance there Tuesday to receive a collective star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Seven of the surviving actors who played the inhabitants of Munchkinland in the 1939 classic attended the ceremony, arriving in a horse-drawn carriage and trailed by a marching band.
A yellow carpet, resembling the film's yellow brick road, led them to the stage.
One tap-danced, and another sang.
you have touched our hearts," former Munchkin Mickey Carroll, 88, told the crowd.
Carroll was joined by former Munchkin colleagues Ruth Duccini, Jerry Maren, Margaret Pellegrini, Meinhardt Raabe, Karl Slover and Clarence Swensen.
"I'm as proud today as my mother would have been," said Joey Luft, the son of Judy Garland.
Garland, who played the movie's wide-eyed orphan, Dorothy Gale, died of a drug overdose in 1969.
Carroll was one of more than a hundred adults and children who were recruited for "Oz" to play the natives of what author L. Frank Baum called Munchkin Country in his 1900 book "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
They only made $125 a week while filming, followed by decades of recognition, Carroll told The Associated Press by phone before the ceremony.
"I'm not a Munchkin, I'm an entertainer," Carroll noted. "But the movie is great because we all grew up with it.
DUBLIN, Ireland (AP) The only salmon farm in Northern Ireland has lost its entire population of more than 100,000 fish, worth $2 million, to a spectacular jellyfish attack, its owners said Wednesday.
The Northern Salmon Co. Ltd. said billions of jellyfish in a dense pack of about 10 square miles and 35 feet deep overwhelmed the fish last week in two net pens about a mile off the coast of the Glens of Antrim, north of Belfast.
Managing director John Russell said the company's dozen workers tried to rescue the salmon, but their three boats struggled for hours to push their way through the mass of jellyfish.
All the fish were dead or dying from stings and stress by the time the boats reached the pens, he said.
Russell, who previously worked at Scottish salmon farms and took the Northern Ireland job just three days before the attack, said he had never seen anything like it in 30 years in the business.
The sea was red with these jellyfish and there was nothing we could do about it, absolutely nothing," he said.
The species of jellyfish responsible, Pelagia nocticula popularly known as the mauve stinger is noted for its purplish night-time glow and its propensity for terrorizing bathers in the warmer Mediterranean Sea.
Until the past decade, the mauve stinger has rarely been spotted so far north in British or Irish waters, and scientists cite this as evidence of global warming.
Russell said the company, which bills its salmon as organic and exports to France, Belgium, Germany and the United States, faces likely closure unless it receives emergency aid from the British government.
"It's a disaster," he said.
Pakistan police Wednesday released jailed Pakistani opposition party leader Imran Khan, who had been on a hunger strike, police sources said.
Khan, a former Pakistani cricket star, had previously said he would continue his hunger strike until the Supreme Court justices fired by President Gen. Pervez Musharraf are reinstated.
Khan was seized by police last Wednesday after surfacing at a student rally at the University of Punjab in Lahore, police said.
He was facing anti-terrorism charges.
Khan had been on the run after escaping from house arrest days after the Nov. 3 emergency order was imposed. Watch a report on Khan's arrest &raquo;
He was released Wednesday from the Dera Ghazi Khan city jail in Punjab province, police sources said.
Khan heads the Movement for Justice party, which campaigns for an independent judiciary in Pakistan.
He has been an outspoken critic of Musharraf's removal of nearly all of the Supreme Court justices shortly after declaring a state of emergency on Nov. 3.
That will pave the way for Musharraf to take the oath of office for a third five-year term as president.
Striking railway workers have carried out "a coordinated campaign of sabotage" on the tracks of France's high-speed TGV rail network, setting fire to cables and signal boxes and causing delays of up to three hours, France's national rail authority said Wednesday.
The rail authority, government and unions all condemned the acts.
In a statement, the French National Railway Company, SNCF, said the attempts to destroy the lines were aimed at preventing services from resuming.
A large fire on the TGV Atlantic line damaged 30 km (18.6 miles) of cable along the signaling network, forcing high-speed trains to be rerouted along slower lines, the SNCF said.
Another fire along the TGV East line slowed service.
The authority said it dispatched teams to identify the areas of damage and repair them, and that police were also investigating.
French Transport Minister Dominique Bussereau denounced "grave abuses" and described the coordinated character of the acts as "unacceptable.
Unions also condemned the acts of vandalism "committed by cowards.
Crude oil prices rose above a record $99 per barrel Wednesday as worries about inadequate winter supplies in the Northern Hemisphere and news of refinery problems stoked bullish sentiment.
The declining U.S. dollar and speculation that the U.S. Federal Reserve will again cut interest rates also boosted prices.
Some investors put their money into oil contracts, betting that gains in their price will offset dollar weakness.
"The market is now really looking at $100 a barrel as the next target to hit," said Victor Shum, an energy analyst with Purvin & Gertz in Singapore.
Brent crude for January delivery was little changed at $95.88.
"The mythical $100 per barrel is of course within reach for today with or without the help of the weekly statistics.
(CNN) U.S. presidential candidates Wednesday condemned Saudi justice after a rape victim was sentenced to 200 lashes and six months in jail.
Calling the decision "an outrage," Sen. Hillary Clinton urged President Bush to protest the decision to the Saudi authorities.
"The Bush administration has refused to condemn the sentence and said it will not protest an internal Saudi decision," the Democrat presidential front-runner said in a statement.
"I urge President Bush to call on King Abdullah [of Saudi Arabia] to cancel the ruling and drop all charges against this woman.
The decision to punish the victim of a gang rape "is an appalling breach of the most fundamental human rights," said Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards.
"I am outraged that President Bush has refused to condemn the sentence," he said.
IBF champion Wladimir Klitschko and WBO titleholder Sultan Ibragimov will fight February 23 at Madison Square Garden to unify two of the four heavyweight world titles.
Regarded by many as the best of the current heavyweights, Klitschko (49-3, 44 knockouts) tops the independent IBO rankings.
Ibragimov (22-0-1, 17 knockouts) pounded out an unanimous decision against Evander Holyfield last month.
MSG president Steve Mills and Klitschko's management confirmed the fight Tuesday.
Holyfield lost heavyweight boxing's last unification fight in 1999, dropping his WBA and IBF belts to WBC champion Lennox Lewis.
The current fractured state of the title in boxing's marquee division is blamed in part for a slide in the sport's popularity.
The other two heavyweight champions are Ruslan Chagaev of the WBA and Samuel Peter of the WBC.
A fourth suspect in the killing of a 21-year-old British woman in Italy has been arrested in Germany, Italian police and German prosecutors said Tuesday.
Rudy Hermann Guede was arrested by chance after being caught on a train without a ticket by the German authorities in the town of Mainz, near Frankfurt, German prosecutors have said.
Perugia police chief Arturo De Felice said Italian police had known for a couple of days that Guede, 20, of Ivory Coast, was believed to be in the Mainz area.
De Felice told CNN that computer information had traced Guede to Mainz.
The police chief refused to confirm reports in the Italian media that Guede was located after police traced to an Internet cafe in the town messages he had sent on the social networking Web site Facebook.
A spokesman for the prosecutor's office in Koblenz, near Mainz, said the suspect is expected to be deported to Italy in the coming days.
Investigators found the body of Kercher half-naked with a stab wound to the neck on November 2 at her home in Perugia, where she was studying as an exchange student at the Umbrian city's university.
A report issued by an Italian judge last week suggested that the British student may have been sexually assaulted at knifepoint before she was killed in her bed.
Guede was identified after police found a bloody fingerprint on a pillow at the scene of the crime.
Still being held in connection with the death are Amanda Knox, 20, Kercher's American roommate and Raffaele Sollecito, 23, Knox's Italian boyfriend.
MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) A doomsday cult leader whose followers are barricaded inside a cave in southern Russia will be taken to the site in an attempt to secure the release of several children, according to a government official.
The 29 cult members including four children as young as 18 months retreated last month to the hideout in the Penza region, about 640 kilometers (400 miles) southeast of Moscow, threatening to blow themselves up if the authorities tried to intervene.
Self-declared prophet Pyotr Kuznetsov, who was not with his followers, is now in a psychiatric hospital but will be taken to the site Wednesday to seek the release of the children, Yevgeny Guseynov, a regional government official, told The Associated Press.
Russian Orthodox monks and priests have already tried to contact the cult members who are reported to be mostly women, but members refused to speak to them, AP reported.
"True Russian Orthodox Church," say they will ignite gasoline canisters if authorities try to force them out, Guseynov told CNN.
He said officials would also try to find experienced negotiators.
"There is no talk whatsoever of any sort of storming" the site, he said.
The cult excavated the cave system themselves after Kuznetsov told his followers to hide themselves away to await the end of the world, which he predicted will take place next May, according to Russian media reports.
Although the cult members have been exchanging letters with Kuznetsov, they are mistrustful of his intervention because they believe he is acting under the influence of the Russian government, Guseynov said.
Kuznetsov was charged Thursday with setting up a religious organization associated with violence.
"I've met the man, and he's definitely mentally sick, big time," Guseynov told CNN.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) At least seven people were killed in and around the Iraqi capital Tuesday, including two coalition service members and the director of the Iraq Geological Survey.
The deaths came as the United States and Iran agreed to hold new talks on security in war-ravaged Iraq.
The two coalition service members were killed and 12 were hurt in a helicopter crash southeast of Baghdad, according to Multi-National Force-Iraq.
Initial reports indicated the crash was "not the result of enemy fire," the military said.
Earlier, Moussa Jaafar, the survey director, was in a car driving through a Shiite neighborhood in northwestern Baghdad when gunmen opened fire on his car, an Interior Ministry official said.
Jaafar and another passenger were killed, and the driver was wounded, the ministry official said.
Another person was killed in a roadside bombing in a Shiite neighborhood in southwestern Baghdad. The blast also injured six people, the official said.
A separate roadside bombing, in a Shiite neighborhood on the eastern side of the city, left three people wounded, the official said.
Ending such violence will be the focus of the new round of talks between the U.S. and Iran, though a date has not yet been set for the session, said U.S. Embassy spokesman Philip Reeker.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said it will occur in "the near future," according to the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency.
The talks follow three previous meetings between U.S. and Iranian officials in Baghdad.
The U.S. dollar fell to an all-time low against the 13-nation euro Tuesday as traders awaited housing data from Washington.
In morning European trading the euro bought $1.4767, up from $1.4667 late Monday in New York.
The British pound rose to $2.0597 from $2.0497 in New York, while the dollar rose to purchase 110.42 Japanese yen from 109.85.
The euro and the pound have been climbing steadily against the dollar since August amid fears for the health of the U.S. economy, stoked by the subprime credit crisis.
NEWARK, New Jersey (CNN) Security screeners at the Newark airport could almost open a department store with all the banned items:
nine bottles of wine, three sets of kitchen knives, a replica antique gun, pool cues, golf clubs and baseball bats.
a two-headed snake (Newark); 10 human eyeballs floating in liquid for medical purposes (O'Hare Airport in Chicago); and a collection of hermit crabs carried by a family returning from the Gulf of Mexico (San Antonio).
Lara Uselding, a spokeswoman for the Transportation Security Administration, said airlines can accept some unusual items with advance planning, as long as they are not prohibited by the TSA.
That was the case with the snake, which was going through Newark to appear on "Live with Regis and Kelly" with a zoo curator. It was eventually checked.
But other prohibited items must either be placed in checked baggage, given to someone not traveling or left in a car.
Some airports offer paid services to mail objects home.
Belongings that are voluntarily surrendered become property of the federal government, which discards all food and liquids.
This year, screeners have intercepted more than 185,000 prohibited items at Newark.
Screeners were criticized last week after a government report revealed that investigators had been able to smuggle liquid explosives and detonators past airport security.
Many passengers forget about the rules in their effort to avoid checking baggage.
-Security screening tips
*Arrive early
*Put any loose metal items, like coins, in a carry-on bag
*Pack carry-on bags as neatly as possible and layer items.
For example, a layer of clothes, then a layer of electronics, then a layer of toiletries
*Put large electronics, like laptops, in a separate bin
*Wear shoes and clothing that are easy to remove before passing through the metal detector
*Make sure liquids are in bottles containing no more than 3 ounces each, and put the bottles in a single quart-sized clear plastic bag.
*The liquid restriction applies only to carry-on bags.
Pack larger quantities of liquids and gels in checked baggage.
Travelers not familiar with the rules should place all liquids, gels and aerosols in checked baggage
*Do not travel with wrapped packages.
A security officer may need to unwrap and inspect them.
If traveling with gifts, wrap them after reaching your destination
LONDON, England (CNN) Britain's tax and customs service lost banking and personal data of 25 million people nearly half the country's population when two computer disks disappeared in an internal mail service, the Treasury chief said Tuesday.
Paul Gray, the Revenue and Customs chairman, has resigned over the error, which happened when officials sent the disks to a government audit office.
Treasury chief Alistair Darling said the delivery was not being tracked and was missing for three weeks before any alarm was raised.
The disks contained details on 7.25 million families in Britain claiming child benefit a tax-free monthly payment available to everyone with children.
The figure represents almost half the families in Britain, and the majority of the country's children.
Britain's population is about 60 million.
The information on the disks included the names of parents and children, their addresses, dates of birth, national insurance numbers and banking details.
"I regard this as an extremely serious failure," Darling told lawmakers in the House of Commons.
He insisted there was no evidence the data had fallen into the hand of criminals and said police were involved in the hunt for the missing disks.
Major Asian markets recovered from an early swoon Tuesday with investors in Japan leading an afternoon turnaround by snapping up stocks that had been battered in recent weeks.
But smaller bourses in Australia, Malaysia and the Philippines sank amid lingering concerns about U.S. housing and banking woes and their broader impact on the U.S. economy, a key export market for Asia.
But by afternoon trading, even jittery investors in Japan were beginning to feel the market had overcompensated, says Tomochika Kitaoka, equity strategist at Mizuho Securities Co. in Tokyo.
Since the start of November, Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 index had dropped more than 10 percent through Monday to its lowest since July 2006.
By day's end, the Nikkei index, which fell as much as 1.9 percent earlier, rose 1.1 percent to finish at 15,211.52 points.
Tokyo's recovery heartened investors in Hong Kong, where the Hang Seng index, down as much as 3.8 percent, climbed 1.1 percent to 27,771.21.
In mainland China, the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index gained 0.5 percent to 5,293.70, while Singapore's benchmark index bounced back 0.8 percent.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) Elections for Pakistan's national assembly and its four provincial assemblies have been scheduled for January 8, and thousands of people jailed under emergency rule reportedly have been released, officials said Tuesday.
Opposition parties, including those of former Prime Ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, have indicated they would boycott elections so long as the emergency declaration and suspension of the constitution remained in place.
Opposition party leader and former cricket star Imran Khan launched a hunger strike in jail, saying he would keep it up until the Supreme Court justices sacked last month by Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, were reinstalled.
Khan was jailed last week after escaping house arrest.
In Karachi, police Tuesday cracked down on journalists protesting media curbs under the emergency declaration, according to witnesses and police sources.
More than 180 were arrested, and several were badly beaten up by the baton-wielding police including two journalists who were in critical condition the witnesses and sources said.
A spokesman for Pakistan's Interior Ministry announced Tuesday that nearly all of the estimated 5,500 opposition politicians, lawyers, human rights activists and journalists arrested in the wake of the order will be released.
KANSAS CITY, Missouri (CNN) The father of two children whose remains were found in a shallow grave more than three years after they disappeared confessed publicly and was charged Tuesday in their shootings.
Porter, 44 already is serving a 38-year prison term for kidnapping his son, Sam, 7, and daughter, Lindsey, 8, to terrorize their mother.
He was charged Tuesday with two counts of first-degree murder.
Speaking to reporters after a brief court appearance, Porter admitted he killed his children, apologized and said he thinks about them all the time.
"I can't get them out of my mind," he said as he was escorted from the courtroom to a sheriff's van.
The children's bones were found
in September in a wooded area near the Missouri River in nearby Sugar Creek and were identified using dental records.
The children had been missing since Porter picked them up at their mother's house for a weekend visit in the summer of 2004.
Porter offered no explanation for shooting his son and daughter.
According to the probable cause statement filed with the charges, Porter told investigators that he had planned to kill his children for at least a day before he picked them up from his estranged wife, Tina Porter;
the couple have since divorced.
Jackson County prosecutor Jim Kanatzar said before the hearing that the children were killed with a handgun, but he did not provide additional details.
He said he would decide within the next month whether to seek the death penalty.
During Tuesday's hearing, a judge read the charges and not-guilty pleas were entered for Porter, who appeared in an orange prison jumpsuit, shackled at his wrists and ankles.
Laboratory teams on two continents report success in a pair of landmark papers released Tuesday.
It's a neck-and-neck finish to a race that made headlines five months ago, when scientists announced that the feat had been accomplished in mice.
The "direct reprogramming" technique avoids the swarm of ethical, political and practical obstacles that have stymied attempts to produce human stem cells by cloning embryos.
Scientists familiar with the work said scientific questions remain and that it's still important to pursue the cloning strategy, but that the new work is a major coup.
"This work represents a tremendous scientific milestone the biological equivalent of the Wright Brothers' first airplane," said Dr. Robert Lanza, chief science officer of Advanced Cell Technology, which has been trying to extract stem cells from cloned human embryos.
The White House lauded the papers, saying such research is what President Bush was advocating when he twice vetoed legislation to pave the way for taxpayer-funded embryo research.
At this point, the technique requires disrupting the DNA of the skin cells, which creates the potential for developing cancer.
creating transplant tissue that in theory could be used to treat diseases like diabetes, Parkinson's, and spinal cord injury.
But the DNA disruption is just a byproduct of the technique, and experts said they believe it can be avoided.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will travel to Annapolis, Maryland, next week where they hope to jump-start the long-dormant Mideast peace process.
Few details have been given about the summit, and a State Department spokesman said he was not ready to say who had been invited.
Several media reports this week said the United States was trying to garner the support and attendance of Arab nations, which are considered critical to any peace talks.
Invitations will be sent to dozens of countries and organizations and more than 100 people are expected to attend, spokesman Sean McCormack said.
McCormack would not discuss the date for the meeting or its agenda, but Abbas aide Nabil Abu Rudeineh said the summit will begin November 27.
Events in Washington are expected before and after the summit.
Condoleezza Rice spoke on the telephone with Israeli and Palestinian officials Tuesday, McCormack said.
Both sides were working on a statement of principles before the summit and on "what happens after Annapolis." That document has not materialized, McCormack said.
The Annapolis summit, he said, should be viewed as "a beginning of a negotiation" that the United States hopes will result in Israel existing alongside a Palestinian state.
On Monday, as Olmert prepared to meet with Abbas in Jerusalem, the Israeli Cabinet voted to release 441 Palestinian prisoners as a goodwill gesture toward Abbas.
The striking civil servants who include teachers, hospital workers, tax collectors, customs officials and post office staff planned a march Tuesday afternoon in Paris and other parts of the country.
The one-day civil servants strike was not expected to cripple those services, however.
The teachers union said about half its members would still be in the classrooms, so classes would be combined to make up for the teacher absences.
The streets of Paris were already filled with traffic and pedestrians as commuters, unable to take the trains, resorted to other means to get to work.
A dwindling number of transport workers were supporting the open-ended walkout.
Still, the small number of striking workers was able to disrupt services because it represented train drivers, conductors, and others crucial to the operation of the lines.
The French finance minister said Monday the strikes were costing the economy an estimated ¢æ350 million ($517 million) a day. "It's a real worry for the French economy," Christine Lagarde said.
Five days after Cyclone Sidr struck Bangladesh, an overwhelming stench filled the air Tuesday as rotting bodies and animal carcasses floated in pools of stagnant water around the coastal city of Patharghata.
Villagers complained about lack of government help and suggested the official death toll estimates were far lower than the reality they see, according to CNN's Cal Perry who arrived there Tuesday.
The Bangladesh Red Crescent chairman has said the death toll could reach 10,000.
The last official death toll from Cyclone Sidr, one of the worst storms to strike the impoverished country in recent years, issued Monday was 3,114, but many areas of the South Asian nation remained unreached by relief workers.
Gen. Ahmad made his estimate Tuesday as he visited a food distribution site on a small island off southern Bangladesh that was swamped by the storm, destroying 95 percent of the 500 homes and the whole rice harvest, CNN's Dan Rivers reported.
Most of the residents of the tiny Island were evacuated to inland shelters ahead of the storm, keeping the number of deaths there to a minimum, Gen. Ahmad said.
"Where is the government?" the farmer asked.
In areas where the official government estimate listed just hundreds dead, villagers told Perry there were in fact thousands with many bodies still unrecovered.
NEW YORK (CNN) Broadway producers canceled shows through the Thanksgiving holiday weekend after the Sunday night collapse of talks aimed at ending a nine-day-long strike by stagehands.
A source close to the talks blamed a split inside the local union for the stalled talks, according to a theater columnist.
"We are profoundly disappointed to have to tell you that talks broke off tonight, and that no further negotiations are scheduled," said Charlotte St. Martin, executive director of the League of American Theatres and Producers, in a written statement.
Local 1 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees said producers walked out of the weekend negotiations late Sunday after telling the stagehand representatives that what the union "had offered was simply not enough.
New York Post theater columnist Michael Riedel said his sources close to the talks told him national negotiators were close to reaching a deal, but local union leaders objected.
"The local guys, the guys who belong to the union that represent the Broadway stagehands, their leadership rebelled against that deal, and I'm hearing that there's a split in the union," Riedel told CNN Radio.
Riedel said Broadway shows raked in $30 million during last year's Thanksgiving week.
The strike has silenced and darkened 27 Broadway stages since it began November 10.
The producers' statement Sunday evening said the decision to extend the show cancellations through November 25 was "out of respect for our public and our loyal theatergoers, many of whom are traveling from around the world.
"We presented a comprehensive proposal that responded to the union's concerns about loss of jobs and earnings and attempted to address our need for some flexibilities in running our business," St. Martin said.
"The union rejected our effort to compromise and continues to require us to hire more people than we need.
The union represents 3,000 property persons, stage and studio electricians, set carpenters, sound designers, audio technicians, moving-light operators, riggers and special effects people in New York.
Both sides agreed to hold marathon weekend talks in an effort to restart the shows for Thanksgiving.
Earlier talks ended on November 8, just before the union walked out on strike.
The Italian football league has closed a section of Atalanta's stadium for four months after rioting by fans two weeks ago.
A group of Atalanta supporters, who sit in the "curva nord" or north bend of the Atleti Azzurri D'Italia stadium, attempted to smash through a barrier and force their way onto the field at the start of a Serie A match against AC Milan on November 11.
"Perhaps I didn't expect such a strong sanction but given that this incident has been seen all over the world, we can't close our eyes.
The crowd rioted on the same day that a policeman fatally shot a Lazio fan at a highway rest stop.
Italian politicians later threatened to suspend all domestic fixtures in the wake of the violence.
The policeman, named as Luigi Spaccarotella, has been charged with murder.
NARITA, Japan (CNN) Japan started fingerprinting and photographing arriving foreigners Tuesday in a crackdown on terrorists, despite complaints that the measures unfairly target non-Japanese.
Nearly all foreigners age 16 or over, including longtime residents, will be scanned.
The only exceptions are diplomats, government guests and permanent residents such as Koreans who have lived in Japan for generations.
Tokyo has staunchly backed the U.S.-led attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan, raising fears Japan could be targeted by terrorists.
Officials said the new security measures, while inconvenient for visitors, were necessary.
"There are people who change their names, use wrongly obtained passports, and pretend to be other people," said Toshihiro Higaki, an immigration official at Narita International Airport near Tokyo. "The measure also works as a deterrent.
The fingerprints and photos will be checked for matches on terrorist watch lists and files on foreigners with criminal records in Japan.
People matching the data will be denied entry and deported.
Japan is the second country after the United States to implement such a system, said Immigration Bureau official Takumi Sato.
He said there had been no reports of trouble since the checks began Tuesday morning.
Critics, however, said the measures discriminate against foreigners and violate their privacy.
A group of nearly 70 civic groups from around the world delivered a letter of protest Monday to Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama.
"We believe that your plans ... are a gross and disproportionate infringement upon civil liberties, copying the most ineffective, costly and risky practices on border management from around the world," the letter said.
Immigration officials say the bureau plans to store the data for "a long time," without saying how long.
It is unclear how many people will be affected;
Japan had 8.11 million foreign entries in 2006.
Concerns about extremists coming into Japan spiked when reports emerged in May 2004 that Lionel Dumont, a French citizen with suspected links to al Qaeda and a history of violent crime, repeatedly entered the country on a fake passport.
Dumont, who was later sentenced to 30 years in prison in France, was reportedly trying to set up a terror cell when he lived undisturbed in Japan in 2002 and 2003.
Last month, Justice Minister Hatoyama came under fire over his assertion that a friend of his had an acquaintance who was a member of the al Qaeda terrorist group.
SYDNEY, Australia (CNN) Nicholas Jake Barton, the great-grandson of former British prime minister Winston Churchill, pleaded guilty Tuesday to knowingly taking part in a multimillion dollar ecstasy racket.
Barton was arrested at his Sydney home in June last year during a series of raids in which police seized some 250,000 ecstasy tablets worth around 15 million Australian dollars (US$13 million; ¢æ8.9 million).
The 33-year-old Briton, who is the son of James Barton and Arabella Spencer Churchill, pleaded guilty before Sydney's Local Court to knowingly taking part in the supply of a commercial quantity of a prohibited drug.
The charge carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (CNN) Cambodia's U.N.-backed genocide tribunal arrested the former Khmer Rouge head of state and charged him Monday with crimes against humanity and war crimes, a spokesman said.
Khieu Samphan was the last of five senior officials of the brutal regime to be taken in custody ahead of a long-delayed genocide trial.
Police arrested Khieu Samphan, 76, at a Phnom Penh hospital where he had been undergoing treatment since November 14 after a stroke.
Officers held his arms to support him as they led him to a police car, which sped away in a heavily guarded convoy to the tribunal's offices.
Khieu Samphan later was "formally charged with crimes against humanity and war crimes" during his appearance before the co-investigating judges, said tribunal spokesman Reach Sambath.
In a milestone, the tribunal opened its doors Tuesday for its first public courtroom proceeding.
Kaing Guek Eav, who headed the regime's notorious S-21 prison and torture center, entered the tribunal for a pretrial hearing to appeal his detention ahead of trials scheduled to begin in 2008.
Kaing Guek Eav and one other suspect, former Khmer Rouge ideologist Nuon Chea, were detained earlier this year on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The U.N.-assisted tribunal was created last year after seven years of contentious negotiations between the United Nations and Cambodia.
Khieu Samphan's defense team will include French lawyer Jacques Verges and a veteran Cambodian legal expert, the tribunal's defense support section said.
In an interview with The Associated Press in 2004, Khieu Samphan said he has known Verges since he was a student in France in the 1950s, when the two were active in student movements against French colonialism and the French war in Vietnam.
Khieu Samphan's Cambodian lawyer is Say Bory, the former president of the Cambodian Bar Association and a member of the constitutional council, the country's highest legal body. Say Bory currently is legal adviser to former King Norodom Sihanouk, the statement said.
After years of delays, the trial is expected to begin in 2008.
Most historians and researchers believe the radical policies of the Khmer Rouge, which sought a utopian communist state, led to the deaths of at least 1.7 million Cambodians through starvation, disease, overwork and execution.
In "Reflection on Cambodian History Up to the Era of Democratic Kampuchea," Khieu Samphan said the Khmer Rouge only wanted what was best for Cambodia.
He wrote that the Khmer Rouge was resilient "in the struggle to defend national sovereignty, (and) in demanding social justice.
The genocide tribunal formally placed them in provisional detention for up to a year.
Private Flash radio reported Monday that a 45-year-old man had died after his car fell into a flooded ditch in northern Greece.
Earlier an Indian immigrant drowned in Megara, near Athens, after he fell into a torrent.
The area was expecting more flooding Monday from the release of dam waters upstream in Bulgaria.
Mudslides kept cleanup crews busy in parts of the Peloponnese, while rising waters in the Alphios River threatened area villages.
Irish actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers, star of the Henry VIII soap opera "The Tudors," has been charged with public drunkenness and breach of the peace at Dublin Airport, police said Monday.
Dublin Airport Police said they called Ireland's national police force, the Garda Siochana, after Rhys Meyers refused repeated requests to calm down.
Ryan Tubridy said he was surprised and sorry to hear of the actor's arrest.
He said Rhys Meyers had chatted with everybody who wanted to meet him back stage, and was drinking nothing more threatening than "a big mug of milky tea.
French commuters faced a sixth day of travel headaches Monday as transit unions continued a strike which was costing the national rail authority an estimated 20 million euros ($29 million) a day.
Fewer than half of the 700 high-speed TGV trains were running Monday, said Phillipe Routier, a spokesman for the rail authority SNCF.
Roughly a third of trains to the Paris suburbs and 68 percent of national mainline Corail trains were running Monday, Routier said.
Labor unions called the strike last week, angry over plans by French President Nicolas Sarkozy to reform a special category of pensions.
The strikes are widely seen as a test of Sarkozy's political will, and the government has so far stood firm in the face of the striking unions, refusing to negotiate on the central issue of retirement age.
Iraqi soldiers detained two American security guards along with several other foreigners traveling Monday in a private security convoy after they opened fire in Baghdad, wounding one woman, an Iraqi military spokesman said.
U.S. military and embassy officials had no immediate information about the report, which follows a series of recent shootings in which foreign security guards have allegedly killed Iraqis.
Those arrested included two American guards, along with 21 people from Sri Lanka, nine from Nepal and 10 Iraqis, al-Moussawi said.
He earlier said an Italian, nine people from Bangladesh and one from India were detained but later retracted that statement.
"We have given orders to our security forces to immediately intervene in case they see any violations by security companies.
The members of this security company wounded an innocent woman and they tried to escape the scene, but Iraq forces arrested them," al-Moussawi told The Associated Press.
The role of private security guards has become controversial since a September 16 shooting in which Blackwater guards allegedly killed 17 Iraqi civilians.
SYDNEY, Australia (CNN) Nicole Kidman told a courtroom Monday how she was reduced to tears and feared a car accident after a celebrity photographer pursued her two years ago.
Kidman, who wore a gray knee-length skirt, cream-colored blouse and pale pink cardigan and had her long, curly hair drawn up in a loose bun, appeared calm and composed during the session in the New South Wales state Supreme Court.
Kidman described hunkering down in the car's back seat leaning over in her chair in the witness stand to demonstrate to try to avoid being spotted by photographer Jamie Fawcett.
She said the trip quickly turned into a hair-raising chase as a vehicle carrying Fawcett and another vehicle, believed to contain his assistant, lurched through traffic around Kidman's car.
"I was frightened and I was worried there was going to be an accident," Kidman said.
Kidman said she was "really, really scared" during the car ride and that she was "in tears and distressed" by the time she reached her parents' house.
Fawcett, a well-known celebrity photographer in Sydney, is suing The Sun-Herald newspaper for defamation over an article that said he was Sydney's most disliked freelance photographer and was determined to "wreak
Kidman described two other times that Fawcett had allegedly been intrusive when trying to photograph her once while she was on her honeymoon with country music star Keith Urban in Tahiti in mid-2006, and once after Christmas in Sydney last year.
She said he was one of the reasons she employed full-time security guards.
"I have been pursued many times," Kidman said. "I have had this happen in relation to this particular man ... so many times.
I employ people 24 hours to protect myself because I don't feel equipped to handle things," she said.
MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) Priests have tried unsuccessfully to persuade members of a doomsday cult to leave a cave in southern Russia where they remain barricaded inside despite the intervention of their leader.
The cult members including four children holed themselves up in a ravine in the Penza region, about 640 kilometers (400 miles) southeast of Moscow, earlier this month, threatening mass suicide if the authorities try to intervene, a government official said.
Priests went again Sunday, but the followers refused to listen to their arguments, a security official added.
The 29 members of the cult, which calls itself the "True Russian Orthodox Church," say they will ignite gasoline canisters if authorities try to force them out, regional administration spokesman Yevgeny Guseynov told CNN.
Guseynov said officials would try to find experienced negotiators.
"There is no talk whatsoever of any sort of storming" the site, he said.
With efforts to persuade the cult members to leave the cave so far proving futile, authorities have enlisted the 43-year-old leader to try to get them out.
Although the cult members are exchanging letters with Kuznetsov, they are mistrustful of his intervention because they believe he is acting under the influence of the Russian government, Guseynov said.
The cave dwellers are also refusing to speak to Russian Orthodox priests brought in to negotiate, he said.
A trained engineer, Kuznetsov did not let his followers watch television, listen to the radio or handle money, according to Russian media reports.
The cult members have gathered enough food supplies to last until spring, according to the agency.
of Nikolskoye incorporating teams of local police, officers from the Russian Ministry for Emergency Situations and medical staff.
Guseinov said specially trained negotiators have arrived on the scene to talk with the cult members.
The negotiators are trying to persuade them to accept food, medicine and hot water to bathe the children, he said.
The Pakistani Supreme Court, packed with judges appointed in recent days by President Pervez Musharraf, dismissed five major petitions against him Monday contesting the validity of his re-election, the nation's attorney general said.
The move brings Musharraf closer to taking the oath of office for a new term as president.
Pro-democracy activists have said the new supreme court's decisions have no validity.
Hours after declaring a state of emergency on Nov. 3, Musharraf dismissed nearly all of Supreme Court judges, along with suspending the constitution, imposing severe media restrictions, and clamping down on opposition protests that followed.
U.S. President George W. Bush and other international leaders have called on him to restore democracy in Pakistan by ending the
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte said Sunday that he had expressed to Musharraf the United States' displeasure with Pakistan's emergency rule and urged him to lift the order and release all political detainees ahead of elections.
Survivors of a storm that killed more than 3,000 people in the impoverished nation of Bangladesh grieved and buried their loved ones Monday as they waited for aid to arrive.
The number of dead killed from Cyclone Sidr now at 3,114 is expected to rise yet further as the South Asian nation continues to assess the damage.
The Bangladesh Red Crescent fears the death toll could be 5,000 perhaps even reaching as high as 10,000.
On the way to a shelter, Mridha lost contact with his wife, mother and two children.
The next morning he found their bodies.
The Category 4 cyclone raked Bangladesh's southwest coast on Thursday with maximum sustained winds of 241 km/h (150 mph), destroying fishermen's hamlets and villages.
Thousands are still missing, while an estimated 280,000 others are unable to return to their homes which were wiped out by the storm.
Most houses in the region are made of flimsy materials such as bamboo and corrugated iron, and had no chance of withstanding the storm's powerful winds.
(CNN) A Saudi Arabian human rights attorney is asking the government to allow him to represent a woman who was gang-raped and then sentenced to prison for speaking out about the case.
The attorney, Abdulrahman al-Lahim, had his license revoked last week by a judge for speaking to the Saudi-controlled media about the case, al-Lahim told CNN.
The judge more than doubled the sentence against al-Lahim's 19-year-old client because she spoke to the media about the case, a court source told Arab News, an English-language Middle Eastern daily newspaper.
The woman who was initially sentenced in October 2006 to 90 lashes had her sentenced increased to 200 lashes and was ordered to serve six months in prison under Saudi Arabia's strict Islamic law.
Al-Lahim had petitioned the court to sentence the attackers to the death penalty, but instead the court agreed to increase their jail sentences, which had been two to three years, to two to nine years, al-Lahim said.
The case has sparked outrage among human rights groups.
Human Rights Watch said it has called on Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah "to immediely void the verdict and drop all charges against the rape victim and to order the court to end its harassment of her lawyer.
The woman, who is married, and an unrelated man were abducted and she was raped by a group of seven men more than a year ago, the lawyer said.
The male victim was also given an increased sentence of 200 lashes and six months in prison, al-Lahim said.
The man and woman were attacked after they met so she could retrieve an old photograph of herself from him, according to al-Lahim.
Citing phone records from the police investigation, al-Lahim said the man was trying to blackmail his client.
Al-Lahim said the man tried to blame his client for insisting on meeting him that day.
It is illegal for a woman to meet with an unrelated male under Saudi's Islamic law.
HONG KONG, China (CNN) Pro-Beijing candidates delivered a crushing blow to Hong Kong's pro-democracy camp, sweeping up nearly a third of the district council seats up for grabs, according to election results Monday.
Although district councilors have little real power, the election had been seen as a litmus test of the public's appetite for democratic reform amid an economic upturn, and the democrats' popularity ahead of more important legislative polls next year.
The Beijing-backed Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong won 115 out of 364 seats, nearly double the seats it won in the last elections.
The main opposition Democratic Party secured 60, or slightly more than half the number of candidates it fielded.
Juan Manuel Vargas scored in the 70th minute to help Peru tie five-time World Cup champion Brazil 1-1 on Sunday at Monumental Stadium in South American qualifying for the 2010 World Cup.
Kaka opened the scoring in the 39th minute for Brazil with a clear shot past Peru goalkeeper Diego Penny.
Brazil was sluggish and missed several chances to score, despite the return of Ronaldinho from an ankle injury.
Peru, which tied Paraguay 0-0 and was shut out by Chile in its first two World Cup qualifying matches last month, hasn't qualified for a World Cup since 1982.
Brazil is tied with Colombia for third place in the region with five points.
On Wednesday, Brazil will face Uruguay in Sao Paulo, and Peru will play Ecuador in Quito.
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (CNN) Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Sunday that OPEC's members have expressed interest in converting their cash reserves into a currency other than the depreciating U.S. dollar, which he called a "worthless piece of paper.
The hardline Iranian leader's comments also highlighted the growing challenge that Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil producer, faces from Iran and its ally Venezuela within the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
"They get our oil and give us a worthless piece of paper," Ahmadinejad told reporters after the close of the summit in the Saudi capital of Riyadh. He blamed U.S. President George W. Bush's policies for the decline of the dollar and its negative effect on other countries.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez echoed this sentiment Sunday on the sidelines of the summit, saying "the empire of the dollar has to end.
"Don't you see how the dollar has been in free-fall without a parachute?" Chavez said, calling the euro a better option.
Iran and Venezuela have proposed trading oil in a basket of currencies to replace the historic link to the dollar, but they had not been able to generate support from enough fellow OPEC members many of whom, including Saudi Arabia, are staunch U.S. allies.
During Chavez's opening address to the summit on Saturday, the Venezuelan leader said OPEC should "assert itself as an active political agent." But Abdullah appeared to distance himself from Chavez's comments, saying OPEC always acted moderately and wisely.
But by Sunday, it appeared that Saudi Arabia had compromised.
Iran's oil minister went a step further and said OPEC will form a committee to study the dollar's affect on oil prices and investigate the possibility of a currency basket.
Iraqi Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani said the committee would "submit to OPEC its recommendation on a basket of currencies that OPEC members will deal with."
Abdullah tried to take the focus off the dollar debate, announcing the donation of $300 million to set up a program to study the effect of the oil industry on the environment.
Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates also agreed to donate $150 million each to the fund, Prince Saud Al-Faisal, Saudi Arabia's foreign minister, said Sunday.
The run-up to the meeting was dominated by speculation over whether OPEC would raise production following recent oil price increases that have approached $100.
But cartel officials have resisted pressure to increase oil production and said they will hold off any decision until the group meets next month in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
Then butchers at this Japanese fishing village went to work, turning a motorized winch to haul the beast ashore.
Finally, the meat was chopped into brick-sized blocks, weighed and priced for townsfolk who lined up for their purchases.
"Coastal people have been eating whale for 400 years and we have a right to decide what we eat," declared Yoshinori Shoji, head of the Gaibo Hogei whaling company, based in Wada, a two-hour drive east of Tokyo.
These days, that tradition is much harder to maintain.
Even though the 1986 international moratorium on commercial whaling applies more to the high seas than to Japanese coastal outfits, it has severely cut supply, driving prices higher and speeding the meat's plunge in popularity.
The ban also restricts the types of smaller whales that can be hunted, such as a former favorite of the coastal operations the minke.
Small-time whalers now commercially hunt only whales that are not regulated internationally.
Japan's coastal whalers also suffer from a global PR problem.
Amid an active anti-whaling movement, many people in Europe, the United States, Australia and New Zealand consider killing whales an environmental and moral crime, and grisly scenes such as the ones in Wada reinforce the image of whaling as barbaric.
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (CNN) Khieu Samphan, the former Khmer Rouge head of state, was arrested Monday by a U.N.-backed genocide tribunal after being taken from a hospital where he was being treated following a stroke, officials said.
Police escorted Khieu Samphan from a Phnom Penh hospital, where he had been admitted Wednesday.
They held his arms for support and led him to a police car, which sped away in a convoy of a half dozen police vehicles.
"Khieu Samphan, the former head of state of Democratic Kampuchea was arrested," said tribunal spokesman Reach Sambath, referring to the official name of Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge regime.
Twenty-seven miners were rescued Monday less than five hours after a landslide trapped them deep below ground in a gold mine west of Melbourne, Australia, police said.
When a landslide blocked the mine's main entrance, one of the trapped men, using his personal cell phone, called 000 Australia's equivalent to 911 from about half a mile (one kilometer) under ground.
He told authorities that none of the miners was seriously hurt, said Sgt. Carla Coslovich, a spokeswoman for Victoria's state police.
The men were extracted via a caged bucket that was lowered from a crane through a ventilation shaft into the mine, she said.
"It's amazing that they were able to establish contact" from so far below ground, she said, adding that the contact was "minimal.
German police announced Sunday they stopped two teenagers from carrying out a rampage at their Cologne high school and that one of the students committed suicide after being confronted.
The attack was planned for Tuesday, police said, and may have been intended to coincide with the anniversary of a school shooting last year in Germany.
One of the suspects, age 17, committed suicide Friday after police and a high school teacher confronted him about his Web page, which featured material glorifying the Columbine shootings, Jurgen Laggies, a spokesman for Cologne police told CNN.
The Web page contained photographs of the 1999 U.S. school shooting and links to Web pages celebrating the massacre, Laggies said.
German news outlets reported he died after intentionally stepping in front of a tram in Cologne, Germany.
In 1999, two students killed 13 people at Columbine High School, in Littleton, Colorado, before both committing suicide.
After Cologne police were alerted to the plot to attack the Georg-Buechner Gymnasium in the western district of Junkirdors, they confiscated two crossbows, two air guns and a list of intended victims, Laggies said.
Police also uncovered instructions in the students' papers on how to build a pipe bomb, though there was no evidence of an actual bomb, he said.
A roadside bomb killed three Iraqi children and injured seven as they gathered around American troops handing out toys on Sunday, police and government officials told CNN.
Other insurgent attacks on Sunday hit a government security convoy and an Iraqi military academy, officials said.
Another roadside bomb wounded three Iraqi civilians when it struck their car in northern Baghdad's Kasra neighborhood Sunday morning, the official said.
The U.S. military also destroyed a vehicle loaded with mortar launchers parked in northeastern Baghdad's Qahira neighborhood, 20 minutes after five mortar rounds landed on a joint Iraqi-American security station Sunday morning, the official said. There was no word on casualties.
The party of a former Kosovo Albanian guerrilla leader who has promised to make Kosovo independent from Serbia is heading for victory in the country's elections, according to unofficial results.
With nearly two-thirds of the votes counted, Hashim Thaci's Democratic Party is leading with 35 percent, according to results on the Web site of the pro-democracy group Democracy 2007, which is monitoring the election.
The Democratic Party's share of the vote means it will most likely have to form a coalition government.
Thaci, an ex-leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army who was accused of acts of terrorism and was forced into hiding by former Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic, said his first priority when he takes office will be to declare formal independence from Serbia, reports in the Serbian media said.
Ethnic-Albanians make up the majority of the population in Kosovo, which remains a province of Serbia.
The United Nations has given Albanians and Serbs until December 10 to reach a deal on the future running of the province.
An accidental explosion and fire on a natural gas pipeline in eastern Saudi Arabia on Sunday killed 28 people and left 12 missing, Saudi officials said.
An unspecified number were wounded in the blaze, which did not disrupt gas supplies, Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi told reporters during a summit of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries in Riyadh.
National oil company Saudi Aramco said the fire broke out just after midnight while contract workers were linking a new pipe to the line during maintenance work.
Aramco is the world's largest oil producer, located on the country's east coast.
Its Hawiyah plant produces 310,000 barrels a day of ethane and liquefied natural gas.
"The company is taking all necessary measures to guarantee the continuation of the normal gas output," the company said.
The fire occurred about 19 miles from the Hawiyah plant.
Five Aramco employees were among the 28 who were killed, said the company, which did not provide information about the other workers.
A Saudi adviser to Saudi Arabia's oil ministry said there was no link between the explosion and the OPEC summit.
"This is purely maintenance related," the adviser said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Bangladesh's death toll from Cyclone Sidr has reached an estimated 2,000 people, officials said Sunday, amid fears that it could skyrocket to five times that number.
The chairman of the Bangladesh Red Crescent Society said he is concerned the deaths blamed on Thursday's Category 4 cyclone could reach between 5,000 and 10,000.
Thousands are missing, while an estimated 280,000 others are unable to return to their homes that the storm wiped away in the impoverished South Asian nation.
Bangladeshi President Iajuddin Ahmed helped distribute aid to survivors Sunday, but hundreds went empty-handed as security officials struggled to hold back the angry crowd.
The storm raked Bangladesh's southwest coast with maximum sustained winds of 150 mph (240 kph).
Most houses in the region made of flimsy materials such as bamboo and corrugated iron stood little chance of withstanding the the powerful winds.
A relative helped to steady the girl's mother, Khadija, who was overwhelmed with sadness.
"I have lost my daughter, so I am a victim of the cyclone as well."
The storm-damaged area is crisscrossed by a huge river delta that surged as Sidr pushed through, wiping out villages and littering the river's shores with debris.
SAO PAULO, Brazil (CNN) An 18-foot whale that entered the Amazon River and swam about 1,000 miles upstream has been trapped for a second time on a sandbar, Brazilian news media reported Sunday.
Local residents spotted the minke whale a few miles from where it was freed on Friday near Santarem, a city in the Amazon rain forest, the Jornal do Brasil reported.
Brazil's Environmental Protection Agency had called off its search for the whale late Friday after losing track of the mammal in the Tapajos River.
The whale ran aground for the first time Wednesday in Brazil.
The Globo television network broadcast images of dozens of people gathered along the river splashing water on the animal, whose back and dorsal fin were out of water and exposed to the hot Amazon sun.
The minke whale is the second smallest of the baleen whales after the pygmy right whale.
The International Whaling Commission Scientific Committee estimates there are about 184,000 minke whales in the central and northeast Atlantic Ocean.
(CNN) A court in Saudi Arabia increased the punishment for a gang-rape victim after her lawyer won an appeal of the sentence for the rapists, the lawyer told CNN.
The 19-year-old victim was sentenced last year to 90 lashes for meeting with an unrelated male, a former friend from whom she was retrieving photographs.
The seven rapists, who abducted the pair and raped both, received sentences ranging from 10 months to five years in prison.
"However, we were shocked that they also changed the victim's sentence to be six months in prison and 200 lashes.
The judges more than doubled the punishment for the victim because of "her attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media," according to a source quoted by Arab News, an English-language Middle Eastern daily newspaper.
Judge Saad al-Muhanna from the Qatif General Court also barred al-Lahim from defending his client and revoked his law license, al-Lahim said.
The attorney has been ordered to attend a disciplinary hearing at the Ministry of Justice next month.
Al-Lahim said he is appealing the decision to bar him from representing the victim and has a meeting with Justice Minister Abdullah bin Muhammad bin Ibrahim Al-Sheikh on Monday.
"Currently she doesn't have a lawyer, and I feel they're doing this to isolate her and deprive her from her basic rights," al-Lahim said.
"We will not accept this judgment and I'll do my best to continue representing her because justice needs to take place.
Al-Lahim said he wanted the Justice Ministry to take "a very clear standing" on the case, saying the decision is "judicial mutiny against reform that King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz started and against Saudi women who are being victimized because of such decisions.
Women are subject to numerous restrictions in Saudi Arabia, including a strict dress code, a prohibition against driving and the need for a man's permission to travel or have surgery.
Women are also not allowed to testify in court unless it is about a private matter that was not observed by a man, and they are not allowed to vote.
The Saudi government recently has taken some steps toward bettering the situation of women in the kingdom, including the establishment earlier this year of special courts to handle domestic abuse cases, adoption of a new labor law that addresses working women's rights, and creation of a human rights commission.
DONETSK, Ukraine (CNN) A methane blast ripped through a coal mine in eastern Ukraine early Sunday, killing at least 63 miners in the ex-Soviet nation's worst mining accident in years, emergency officials said.
More than 360 miners were rescued but 37 others remained trapped inside the mine one of Ukraine's largest and deepest with a raging fire hampering efforts to save them, officials said.
The explosion occurred around 3 a.m. (8.p.m. Saturday ET) more than 3,300 feet deep inside the Zasyadko mine in the regional capital Donetsk, the heart of the country's coal mining industry, the Emergency Situations Ministry said.
Twenty-eight were hospitalized, the ministry said.
The accident the worst in Ukraine in seven years highlighted the lack of attention to safety in a country with some of the world's most dangerous mines.
President Viktor Yushchenko blamed his Cabinet for not doing enough to reform coal mining and ordered an official panel to investigate the accident and bring those responsible to account.
Local authorities declared three days of mourning for the dead miners.
Dozens of teary-eyed relatives gathered at the mine's headquarters in Donetsk waiting for news on their loved ones.
As grim-faced officials emerged to announce the names of the workers found dead, the relatives broke into sobs and cries, some fainted.
It was the deadliest mine accident in Ukraine since an explosion at the Barakova mine in the eastern Luhansk region killed 81 miners in March 2000.
Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, a native of the mining region, visited the site about 450 miles southeast of Kiev, pledging to help victims' families.
"This accident has proven once again that a human is powerless before the nature," he said.
Experts say Ukraine's mines are dangerous largely because they are so deep, typically running more than 3,280 feet underground. In comparison, most European coal beds lie at a depth of 1,640 to 1,970 feet.
Methane is a natural byproduct of mining, and its concentration increases with depth.
More than 75 percent of Ukraine's some 200 coal mines are classified as dangerous due to high methane concentrations.
Safety violations and negligence add to the problem.
Michael Owen's first-half injury overshadowed England's 1-0 victory over Austria in a friendly international in Vienna.
The Newcastle striker was withdrawn after 32 minutes with a thigh strain and is out of Wednesday's final Euro 2008 qualifier with Croatia at Wembley.
His absence, along with that of Wayne Rooney, is a major setback for coach Steve McClaren.
Peter Crouch headed the only goal a minute before half-time from a corner by David Beckham, who lasted 62 minutes of his comeback appearance from a knee injury.
Owen's exit heralded the introduction of Jermain Defoe for one of his rare appearances and the Tottenham man must now have a good chance of starting next week.
In his familiar right-wing position, Beckham looked off the pace and was replaced in the second half by Aston Villa winger Ashley Young for his England debut.
Low-lying areas of Bangladesh could face more flooding this weekend as a tropical cyclone that has killed hundreds heads inland, a forecaster said Friday.
Local officials said at least 500 people were killed.
But a United News of Bangladesh report put the death toll at at least 1,100.
The storm is moving northeast, according to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center.
Forecasters predicted dry, clear weather with no wind in Bangladesh for the next two days, good news for search-and-rescue teams looking for casualties.
Lindsay Lohan was a jailbird for just 84 minutes Thursday, becoming the latest celebrity to serve less than a day for a drunken driving offense.
Lohan, 21, turned herself in to the Los Angeles County women's detention center in Lynwood at 10:30 a.m.
She was searched, fingerprinted and placed in a holding cell in the inmate reception area but got to keep her street clothes, sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore said.
"She was cooperative," he said.
Lohan was released at 11:54 a.m.
Her original daylong sentence was reduced because she met criteria that took into account overcrowding at the lockup and the fact that her crime was nonviolent, Whitmore said.
In fact, 30 to 50 women are granted early releases from the facility every day, he added. An e-mailed message seeking comment from Lohan's publicist was not immediately returned.
In May, the star of "Mean Girls" and "Freaky Friday" was arrested after crashing her Mercedes-Benz into a tree in Beverly Hills.
The chase ended in Santa Monica, where police arrested Lohan for being behind the wheel. In both cases, Lohan was found in possession of small amounts of cocaine.
North and South Korea agreed Friday to launch cross-border rail service for the first time in more than half a century, the latest sign of improving relations between the two sides.
The rail's December 11 opening will also mark one of the first tangible results of a summit last month between South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang.
Friday's agreement, reached after the first talks between the countries' prime ministers since 1992, also calls for the South to start building shipyards in North Korea and repairing a major highway and a railroad in the impoverished country next year.
"This agreement demonstrates both sides' commitment to carry out the summit declaration," South Korean Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung said at the end of the three days of talks in Seoul.
The North also agreed Friday to allow South Koreans to use the Internet and mobile phones inside the Kaesong area.
Police in Lahore lifted the house arrest against opposition leader Benazir Bhutto Friday, allowing the former prime minister to go free for the first time since Tuesday.
The move came hours before Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's hand-picked caretaker government was to be sworn in.
Bhutto has called on Musharraf to step down and said negotiations between her Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and him have hit a dead end.
Her remarks came Tuesday after Pakistani police surrounded the house where she is staying to prevent her from leading a Lahore-to-Islamabad march.
Her supporters were also arrested.
Bhutto has entered into talks with her successor and rival, former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, on forming an alliance against Musharraf.
Sharif himself is exiled from Pakistan after Musharraf ousted him in a bloodless coup in 1999.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte is scheduled to arrive in Pakistan on Friday for weekend meetings with Musharraf and other Pakistani officials.
Negroponte will convey to Musharraf how seriously the United States views his imposition of emergency rule and will suggest he rescind it, senior U.S. State Department officials told CNN.
(CNN) A student found four nooses in a classroom at Central Michigan University earlier this week, the school said Thursday.
The student found the nooses in a section of the Engineering and Technology Building typically used by senior engineering students.
They were made of compressed gas lines that are typically used in laboratory work, according to a news release.
Michigan state Sen. Hansen Clark said he met with the university president to discuss how to handle the incident.
He plans to make a statement Friday on whether the university will ask federal authorities to investigate the case.
"There was no reason for the nooses to be hung like that," Hansen said. "The community is looking at this as a racist act.
Students and employees at the school's Mount Pleasant, Michigan, campus are being questioned about the incident, university Police Chief Stan Dinius was quoted as saying in the news release.
The university police department is offering a $500 reward for information about the nooses.
"This type of activity will not be tolerated at CMU and we realize that we have much to do to continue our mission of raising awareness and educating everyone on diversity issues," President Michael Rao said in a news release.
Mount Pleasant, a town of about 26,000, is located about 70 miles north of Lansing, Michigan.
BERLIN, Germany (CNN) A three-day strike by a German train drivers' union halted travel across the country Thursday as the workers extended the action to include passenger trains.
With most train services stopped on the tracks, commuters squeezed into local trams and buses or used their cars instead, leading to traffic jams.
Deutsche Bahn, which runs Germany's railways, arranged 500 extra buses to run as a replacement service.
The departures board at Berlin's Hauptbahnhof, the main train station, displayed long delays or no service at all.
Deutsche Bahn said two-thirds of long-distance high-speed trains were operating along with 50 percent of regional services.
The 30,000-member GDL train drivers' union began the strike Wednesday, demanding Deutsche Bahn give them a separate wage deal from the other two train unions and a pay rise of 31 percent.
Advance warning of the strike meant most commuters were prepared to make other travel arrangements Thursday, but it appeared the labor dispute was starting to irritate the public.
The headline in the Berlin tabloid BZ read, "Train drivers, you're striking on our nerves! "
A recent poll by German broadcaster ZDF, however, indicated public sympathy for the train drivers, with 57 percent of those polled saying the strike was justified.
Thirty-five percent of respondents said the stalemate was the fault of Deutsche Bahn, 17 percent blamed the union, and 44 percent assigned equal blame.
The strike halted production at an Audi plant in Brussels because two trains carrying parts from Slovakia were unable to complete the trip, Audi spokesman Graeme Lisle said.
He said it affected production of only 200 cars and that work at the plant would resume Monday.
Economists have said if the strike lasts longer than three days, it could cost around ¢æ50 million ($73 million) a day.
MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) Members of a Russian doomsday cult barricaded themselves in a cave to wait out the end of the world as the cult's leader underwent psychiatric exams Thursday, Russian media reported.
The cult leader is in police custody awaiting proceedings on charges that he set up an organization "whose activity is associated with violence on citizens and instigation to refuse to perform their civil duties," according to the state-funded Itar-Tass news agency.
Four children are among 29 cult members holed up in a ravine in Russia's Penza region, where they apparently dug a cave.
One of the children in the cave is 18 months old, reported Itar-Tass. Temperatures in the cave are below 54 degrees Fahrenheit (12 degrees Celsius), the Russian news agency reported.
The cult members have refused law enforcement requests to come out or release the children, and they have threatened to commit suicide if police resort to force, according to Russian state television.
The cult, which calls itself the "true Russian Orthodox Church," believes the end of the world will come in May 2008.
Prosecutors announced Thursday they are opening criminal proceedings against the cult's leader, Father Pyotr Kuznetsov.
Kuznetsov, 43, is "under the supervision of investigators," Olig Troshin, a Penza prosecutor, told Itar-Tass.
A law enforcement source in Penza told the Russian news agency Interfax that Kuznetsov "is being examined by psychiatrists.
Several clergymen, police officers and agents of the Russian Ministry for Emergency Situations are outside the cave.
A very dangerous phenomena is happening in Russia's religious life.
He added, "What we're seeing in Penza right now is a most vivid example of what could happen to a country, to a society, if this society is deprived of proper religious education.
WASHINGTON (CNN) Perhaps it was one of those eureka moments, when the scientists realized they had discovered a new dinosaur with mouth parts designed to vacuum up food.
The 110 million-year-old plant eater, discovered in the Sahara Desert, was to be unveiled Thursday by the National Geographic Society.
Discoverer Paul Sereno named the elephant-sized animal Nigersaurus taqueti, an acknowledgment of the African country Niger and a French paleontologist, Philippe Taquet.
Sereno, a National Geographic explorer-in-residence and paleontologist at the University of Chicago, said the first evidence of Nigersaurus was found in the 1990s and now researchers have been able to reconstruct its skull and skeleton.
While Nigersaurus' mouth is shaped like the wide intake slot of a vacuum,
it has something lacking in most cleaners hundreds of tiny, sharp teeth to grind up its food.
The 30-foot-long Nigersaurus had a feather-light skull held close to the ground to graze like an ancient cow.
Sereno described it as a younger cousin of the North American dinosaur Diplodicus.
Its broad muzzle contained more than 50 columns of teeth lined up tightly along the front edge of its jaw.
Behind each tooth more were lined up as replacements when one broke off.
Using CT scans the researchers were able study the inside of the animal's skull where the orientation of canals in the organ that helps keep balance disclosed the habitual low pose of the head, they reported.
Nigersaurus also had a backbone consisting of more air than bone.
(CNN) A video showing the last moments of a Polish immigrant, who died after Canadian police shot him with a stun gun at Vancouver International Airport, has been made public.
Robert Dziekanski, 40, was traveling to join his mother, who lives in British Columbia, when he ended up spending about 10 hours in the airport's arrivals area, The Canadian Press said.
The video shows Dziekanski, who had never flown before, becoming agitated.
It then shows Mounties purportedly shocking Robert Dziekanski with a Taser device after confronting him. Dziekanski did not speak English.
The recording was captured by bystander Paul Pritchard on October 14 and was in police hands until he threatened legal action and it was returned to him last week, The Canadian Press reported.
"Probably the most disturbing part is one of the officers uses his leg and his knee to pin his neck and his head to the ground," Pritchard told CBC News.
The dead man's mother, Zofia Cisowski, told CBC News that Tasers should not be used by police.
The incident is being investigated by police, Canada's national police complaints commission and by the coroner, CBC News reported.
David Beckham has returned to the England side after a four-game absence for Friday's friendly international with Austria in Vienna.
The LA Galaxy midfielder last appeared for his country in the friendly with Germany in August but has missed the previous four Euro 2008 qualifiers with a knee injury.
Beckham has been chosen by England coach Steve McClaren despite his recent lack of match action and will earn his 98th cap against Austria.
McLaren has awarded a first cap to goalkeeper Scott Carson, who is on loan at Aston Villa this season from Liverpool.
Carson has created a favorable impression with Martin O'Neill's side and has been preferred to regular goalkeeper Paul Robinson.
But there is disappointment for Carson's Villa team-mate Gareth Barry despite his encouraging displays in the recent double header with Russia and the home clash with Estonia.
The Villa skipper has made way for Frank Lampard, who is also back in the starting line-up for the first time since the Germany game.
In total, McClaren has made five changes from the side beaten 2-1 by Russia in Moscow.
Shaun Wright-Phillips, the injured Wayne Rooney, the suspended Rio Ferdinand, Barry and Robinson are missing from that line-up with Carson, Wayne Bridge, Beckham, Lampard and Peter Crouch all restored.
An explosion destroyed a real estate office Thursday in Spain's northwest Galicia region but no one was hurt, officials said.
The pre-dawn blast occurred in the town of Cangas.
Police said it had been set deliberately but the explosion did not appear to be the work of the Basque separatist group ETA.
The site of the blast is about 100 meters from the town hall in Cangas.
It destroyed a real estate office in the ground floor of a building and also caused damage to nearby buildings, the Interior Ministry office in the regional capital A Coruna said.
Bomb disposal experts from the police cordoned off the site as they searched for traces of the explosive.
More trains were running and there were fewer traffic jams Thursday after the French government proposed negotiating with transport unions striking over pension reforms.
Of the long-distance trains, operator TGV reported that 150 out of 700 were running Thursday, compared to 90 the day before.
The Paris Metro subway system appeared to slowly be coming back online.
Seven labor unions went on strike late Tuesday, angry over plans by French President Nicolas Sarkozy to reform pensions.
The reforms focus on special pension plans that allow some workers mostly train drivers to retire as early as 50.
But Wednesday night, the government sent a letter to union heads saying it would be willing to discuss all other issues and negotiate sector by sector to arrange a return to work.
Public support for the striking workers was low, with recent polls suggesting a majority of French backed the government's firm stance in the face of the unions.
(CNN) Chilean President Michelle Bachelet arrived in the quake zone, announcing a state of emergency and promising aid after three powerful aftershocks rattled the region Thursday, according to state-owned media.
The aftershocks magnitudes 6.2, 6.8 and 5.6 struck within 13 minutes of each other and came a day after a 7.7-magnitude temblor shook northern Chile, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Thousands of homes were reportedly damaged or flattened.
Bachelet declared states of emergency in Tocopilla, Maria Elena and Quillagua, the state-owned television station TVN reported.
"We are arriving with help, and we are going to continue bringing everything necessary," Bachelet said in a statement on the government's Web site.
Emergency housing, mattresses and medicine are scheduled to be sent to the area, the statement said.
Four Cabinet ministers accompanied Bachelet to help coordinate aid and recovery efforts, according to The Associated Press.
The government is flying materials to Tocopilla to build a field hospital, said Ricardo Lagos Weber, secretary general for the Chilean government.
Tocopilla is located about 780 miles (1,245 kilometers) north of the capital, Santiago.
In all, Weber said, 14 tons of aid and 500 emergency housing units were being shipped into the area.
A government official told AP that Argentina, Ecuador, Spain, Peru, Venezuela and Japan have offered aid as well.
The government is estimating that 4,000 structures were damaged or destroyed, leaving 15,000 people homeless, Weber said.
Weber said declaring the area a disaster zone would speed the arrival of aid.
An Italian policeman is to be charged with "voluntary homicide" in relation to the shooting incident which claimed the life of a Lazio fan at the weekend.
The policeman, named in the Italian media as Luigi Spaccarotella, has admitted firing the shot, according to his lawyer Francesco Molino.
"Lugi has always admitted firing the shot but in an accidental manner."
Molino claimed that he had been informed that the investigating magistrate would file a formal charge of "voluntary homicide" against his client.
Gabriele Sandri, 26, was shot at a motorway service station near Arezzo after police had intervened in skirmishes involving rival fans.
"We don't know the motives but whatever they are it's an unforgivable act. The gun is a last resort, even for members of the security forces: unless someone has pointed a pistol at you, you cannot shoot.
He said: "They clearly belonged to the occupants of the car where the dead man was."
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf picked at least seven allies Thursday to fill posts in the "caretaker" government, according to state-run media.
Musharraf made the announcement as he faces increasing political pressure to step down as the nation's military leader and to end a state of emergency he declared November 3.
Most of the leaders from Pakistan's opposition parties have been jailed or placed under house arrest.
Many have been charged under anti-terrorism statutes.
In Karachi, police have cracked down on opposition rallies, jailing hundreds of demonstrators.
Two boys were killed in a Thursday rally held in support of opposition leader and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, police sources said.
The deaths were the first reported fatalities since Musharraf's emergency order was announced. Watch outrage spill into Pakistan's streets Wednesday &raquo;
Bhutto was placed under house arrest earlier this week to prevent her from leading a march from Lahore to the capital, Islamabad.
However, the house arrest was lifted Thursday and hundreds of police officers outside her home were dispersing, police sources said.
Despite promising fairness in his government appointments, Musharraf has named several allies to fill interim posts;
atop the list is Senate Chairman Mohammad Mian Soomro, who was appointed prime minister, the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan reported.
DHAKA, Bangladesh (CNN) A powerful cyclone slammed into Bangladesh on Thursday night, tearing down flimsy houses, toppling trees and power poles, and forcing hundreds of thousands to flee their homes in the low-lying nation.
Tropical Cyclone Sidr swept in from the Bay of Bengal packing winds of 149 mph (240 kilometers per hour), buffeting southwestern coastal areas within a 155-mile radius of its eye with heavy rain and storm surges predicted to reach 20 feet high.
Sidr's eye crossed the Khulna-Barisal coast near the Sundarbans mangrove forests around 9:30 p.m. (11: 30 a.m. ET), the Bangladesh Meteorological Department said.
It was centered over the Baleshwar River in Barguna district.
In the coastal districts of Bagerhat, Barisal and Bhola, residents said the storm flattened thousands of flimsy straw and mud huts, and uprooted trees and electric poles.
At least 620,000 people had moved into official shelters and 3.2 million people were expected to be evacuated in all, said Ali Imam Majumder, a senior government official in Dhaka.
No casualties were immediately reported, but rescue teams were on standby, forest official Mozharul Islam said in Khulna.
Communications with remote forest areas and offshore islands were temporarily cut off.
"We have taken all precautions," Majumder said.
Bangladesh, a low-lying delta nation, is prone to seasonal cyclones and floods that cause huge losses of life and property.
The coastal area bordering eastern India is famous for the mangrove forests of the Sundarbans, a world heritage site that is home to rare Royal Bengal Tigers.
The Meteorological Department had put the country's three major maritime ports Chittagong, Mongla and Cox's Bazar on the highest level of alert.
Ferry service and flights were halted across the coastal region.
GENEVA (CNN) An 84.37-carat white diamond touted by Sotheby's for its size and beauty sold at auction Wednesday to Guess clothing company founder Georges Marciano for just under $16.2 million.
The jewel the largest top-quality, brilliant-cut white diamond ever to appear at auction had been valued by Sotheby's at between $13.3 million and $17.8 million.
Marciano's winning bid, made by telephone, came to $16,189,769 including the buyer's premium. It was just short of the all-time auction record for a stone or piece of jewelry, a record held by the same Sotheby's branch in Geneva for a 100.1-carat diamond that fetched $16.5 million in 1995.
"We had interest from all over the world," said David Bennett, the auction house's chairman of jewelry for Europe and the Middle East.
"This sale said a lot about the jewelry market internationally, especially the diamond market.
The diamond has received the highest possible grading, Sotheby's said.
It is D-color, or finest white, has flawless clarity, and its cut, polish and symmetry have all been graded excellent, it said.
Ron Cohen, the owner of the Los Angeles-based Clean Diamonds, was the seller of the gem.
Cohen said he purchased it from Angola's national diamond company two years ago, and knew immediately he had found something special.
"The size and especially the quality of the rough material was extraordinary," he told The Associated Press by telephone. "I only hope I will one day come across another stone like that one.
The white diamond already has been showcased in Hong Kong, Paris, New York, Rome, Los Angeles, London, Dubai and Bahrain.
The auction Wednesday also featured other diamonds, colored stones and gems from the world's leading jewelers.
Thierry Henry helped Barcelona claim a rare away win, but they were far from impressive in seeing off third division side Alcoyano 3-0 in Tuesday's Spanish Cup round of 32 first leg clash.
Henry who played despite French coach Raymond Domenech asking for him to be released to join the national squad for their Euro 2008 qualifier opened the scoring in the 25th minute.
Eidur Gudjohnsen added a second from the penalty spot in the 89th minute and rising teenage star Bojan Krkic added a third deep in injury time.
In other matches, holders Sevilla were held to a 1-1 draw at third division Denia, while Athletic Bilbao avoided an upset by recovering from 2-0 behind to draw 2-2 at second division Hercules.
The 37-year-old actor is featured on the cover of People's annual issue, on newsstands Friday.
Damon, who is married to Luciana Bozan, said the honor came as a surprise. "You gave an aging suburban dad the ego boost of a lifetime," he says in a letter published in the magazine.
Damon, who has a 1-year-old daughter, Isabella, with Bozan, says "all the campaigning" by Clooney and Pitt had finally paid off.
"Unfortunately, after all those years out on the trail, the meet and greets, the fundraisers, the stump speeches, I've finally come to terms with the fact that this is a mantle I wasn't meant to hold," he says in the letter, which was signed "Matty.
"Don't get me wrong, though. I was really shocked and happy (Lucy said I actually blushed) when I heard the news.
People's "sexiest man alive" list began in 1985 with Mel Gibson.
Others on the list: Clooney (1997 and 2006), Pitt (1995 and 2000), Denzel Washington (1996) and Johnny Depp (2003).
Damon won a screenwriting Oscar with Ben Affleck in 1998 for "Good Will Hunting." Both Damon and Affleck starred in the movie.
"The state of emergency will be lifted on November 16, and we will switch to a normal life mode," Nino Burdzhanadze, a close ally of Georgia's President Mikhail Saakashvili, said in parliament Wednesday.
Saakashvili introduced the 15-day nationwide state of emergency on Nov. 7 after police violently dispersed opposition protests in the capital.
The United States and other Western nations have strongly urged Saakashvili to quickly remove the measure, which banned independent newscasts.
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Matthew Bryza said Tuesday after talking to the Georgian leadership and opposition in Tbilisi that he had been given official assurances that the state of emergency will be lifted Friday.
By naming a date, Bryza appeared to put up pressure on Saakashvili to act.
Saakashvili has previously accused Moscow of attempting to overthrow his government by staging the recent opposition protests, and said the crackdown was necessary to prevent the country from sliding into chaos.
NEW YORK (CNN) Gleaning stem cells from cloned monkey embryos, as a team of Oregon researchers has done, is an impressive step.
But it probably won't lead to medical treatments any time soon.
One hurdle is ethical and political.
Human embryos have to be destroyed to produce stem cells.
That has aroused opposition to human embryonic stem cell research, and it led the Bush administration to restrict federal funding for it.
Scientists say that has slowed science in this effort.
Another hurdle is the inefficiency of the process.
Even if the method described by scientists Wednesday works in humans, it would demand too much of a precious resource women's unfertilized eggs.
The promise of producing stem cells by cloning is that they can be genetically matched to a particular patient.
So theoretically, doctors should be able to transplant tissue created from them into that person without tissue rejection.
And presumably, such transplants could help treat such conditions as diabetes and spinal cord injury.
The process used in the new experiment is "quite inefficient," Shoukhrat Mitalipov of the Oregon National Primate Research Center in Portland told reporters Wednesday.
He and his colleagues reported getting two batches of stem cells that required using about 150 monkey eggs apiece.
That's far too many if one hopes to use human unfertilized eggs, which are cumbersome to obtain from women.
If further work can get that down to maybe five to 10 eggs per stem cell batch, "we will be closer to clinical applications," Mitalipov said.
Volunteers helped evacuate thousands of people Wednesday from Bangladesh's southern coast and the government warned ships to seek shelter as a cyclone roared offshore.
The Bangladesh Meteorological Department issued a bulletin putting the low-lying country's three major maritime ports Chittagong, Mongla and Cox's Bazar on the highest alert.
Authorities suspended operations at the country's main seaport, Chittagong, while volunteers helped thousands of people move to cyclone shelters and other safer areas along the southern coast, state-run Bangladesh Television said.
The cyclone was in the Bay of Bengal, about 420 miles (675 km) south-southwest of Cox's Bazar, with winds of up to 134 mph (215 kph), forecasters said.
The southern seaside resort town of Cox's Bazar appeared deserted after the warning was issued Wednesday evening, with rough seas.
Bangladesh, a South Asian nation crisscrossed by river deltas, routinely suffers large-scale loss of life and property from cyclones and floods.
Don't count Andy Key as one of those Elvis Presley fanatics who insist the King never died.
Key, 38, said he's "open to the possibility" Presley is alive, but he's counting on there being enough skeptics out there to make his new business a success.
Included in the collection are photographs, books, FBI files
Key said he'd like the museum to complement the tourist attraction in Tupelo, Mississippi, where Presley was born and bought his first guitar. He's considering opening it in Laurel, Jackson or Hattiesburg, Mississippi.
Elvis Presley Enterprises, which manages Graceland, the King's estate and mansion in Memphis, Tennessee, previously has said it has no comment on the museum, a transformed coin-operated laundry 55 miles west of St. Louis.
Abukar Mursal stopped going outside to play after a bullet grazed his back during a soccer game in Mogadishu, the wretched seaside capital where he was born.
Abukar, just 15 years old, simply added sports to his list of banned activities no joining up with militiamen patrolling the streets.
And finally, no soccer with his friends. "In Mogadishu, fighting is everywhere," Abukar told The Associated Press some three months after he fled the city in a car packed with his parents, three siblings and other relatives.
"Every morning we heard bullets. I thank God we left that place.
After more than a decade of chaos, some aid groups now are focusing on the psychological problems of Somalia's children of war.
"The children from Mogadishu have seen dead people in the streets, wounded people in the streets," said Ibrahim Haji, a counselor for the aid group World Vision Somalia.
Often, Haji can tell if children have just arrived from Mogadishu by the way they act.
The aid base offers a place to relax there are soccer balls, Frisbees and small classrooms with mats where children can take naps.
Abukar, who said he associates mostly with kids from Mogadishu who have been through similar experiences, now lives in a camp with relatives and comes to the World Vision center to play soccer and to rest.
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) Iran's former senior nuclear negotiator has been charged with passing classified information to foreigners, including the British Embassy, the Iranian intelligence minister said Wednesday, according to the official IRNA news agency.
Hossein Mousavian, the top negotiator under reformist former President Mohammad Khatami, was briefly detained in May, again on suspicion of espionage, according to the semiofficial Fars news agency.
"He has been informed of the charges that he has given the British Embassy information contrary to the security of the country," IRNA quoted Intelligence Minister Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejehi as saying.
"From the viewpoint of the Intelligence Ministry, he is a criminal.
This is definite and provable. But the decision (on the case) rests with the judge," Ejehi said, according to Fars.
On Monday, hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad blasted critics of his nuclear policies as "traitors"
But Ejehi named Mousavian directly, saying "influential persons have called the judge and tried to get him (Mousavian) acquitted.
Ahmadinejad has moved to exert greater control over the nuclear issue, replacing Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, with a close loyalist, Saeed Jalili a step that angered even some conservative politicians.
The president has long faced domestic criticism that he was failing to improve the worsening economy, and has needlessly worsened the nuclear standoff with the West with his inflammatory speeches.
Mousavian's successor, Hasan Rowhani, delivered an unusually sharp rebuke to Ahmadinejad last month, saying he was making more enemies for Iran with his policies.
Iran's refusal to suspend uranium enrichment has been the main trigger for existing U.N. sanctions and the threat of new ones.
Iran, which says it has a right to enrich to generate power, has repeatedly said it will not mothball its program.
A senior general warned Wednesday that Russia could deploy short-range missiles to Belarus as part of efforts to counter the planned deployment of U.S. missile defense sites in Europe, Russian news reports said.
Gen. Vladimir Zaritsky, the chief of artillery and rocket forces for the Russian Ground Troops, said that "any action meets a counteraction, and this is the case with elements of the U.S. missile defense in Poland and the Czech Republic," the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.
The U.S. plan would install a radar base in the Czech Republic and 10 interceptor missiles in Poland both former Soviet satellites that are now NATO members.
It is part of a wider missile shield involving defenses in California and Alaska that the United States says are to defend against any long-range missile attack from countries such as North Korea or Iran.
Russia strongly opposes the idea, saying Iran is decades away from developing missile technology that could threaten Europe or North America, and it says the U.S. bases will undermine Russia's own missile deterrent force.
LONDON, England (CNN) Britain is to ramp up security at air and rail terminals as part of sweeping new anti-terror measures that will see buildings bomb-proofed and citizens placed under more surveillance, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Wednesday.
Brown told parliament the measures were a response to the attempted terrorist attacks in June in which a group of al Qaeda-linked foreign-born doctors launched unsuccessful attacks in the UK.
In London a car bomb was found parked near a crowded London nightclub while in Glasgow an explosives-laden vehicle was driven into an airport terminal.
They "will require not just military and security resources, but more policing, more intelligence, and an enhanced effort to win hearts and minds," Brown said.
Under Brown's plans, buildings will be made more explosion-resistant and public places more physically protected to minimize shrapnel in the event of a car bomb.
The prime minister said the government would work with architects and designers to encourage them to build with blast-resistant materials and introduce traffic control measures like large barriers or vehicle-exclusion zones.
The government will step up security at railway stations, where it will introduce random baggage and passenger screening.
Airport terminals, ports, and other "sensitive installations" will also see enhanced security, Brown said.
As many as 160 "counterterrorism advisers" will work with theaters, restaurants, hotels, sports venues, hospitals, schools, and places of worship to train civilian staff to identify suspicious behavior, Brown said.
The current security budget of 2.5 billion pounds ($5 billion) will increase to 3.5 billion pounds ($7 billion) by 2011, Brown said.
Despite growing international pressure, Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, gave no indication that he will lift his emergency declaration before upcoming parliamentary elections, telling reporters, "I don't take any ultimatums from anyone.
He delivered that message in an interview with The Associated Press on Wednesday, days before he is scheduled to talk with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad this weekend.
Senior State Department officials told CNN that Negroponte will convey to Musharraf how seriously the United States views his imposition of emergency rule and will suggest he rescind it.
As the pressure mounted Wednesday, Imran Khan, a former Pakistani cricket captain who turned to politics, was jailed in Lahore after turning up at a student rally.
And opposition leader Benazir Bhutto remained under house arrest Wednesday.
Musharraf is also under pressure from the British Commonwealth, which has threatened to suspend Pakistan from the 53-nation alliance if he does not lift the emergency order by November 22.
Asked about that threat, Musharraf told the AP, "I don't take any ultimatums from anyone.
Asked what message he will deliver to Negroponte, Musharraf was vague. "We'll talk," he said, but noted that "we are not here to satisfy foreign concerns.
Negroponte is expected to arrive in Islamabad late Friday for talks Saturday and Sunday with Musharraf, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and other Pakistani officials, State Department officials told CNN on Wednesday.
He has also expressed a wish to meet Bhutto.
Roads into the city were jammed as commuters turned to their cars.
About 500,000 French employees, mostly in the transportation sector, qualify for this plan.
The vast majority of France's 27 million workers do not.
The strikes coincide with the commercial launch of a new Eurostar service connecting Paris Gare du Nord with the new St. Pancras terminal in Waterloo.
Services are not expected to be disrupted, but passengers alighting in Paris will be unable to make connections.
The strikes are the second industrial action to face Sarkozy since he took office earlier this year promising to revive France's economy and open up the job market by stripping away enshrined labor protections.
Shortly after the strike began, French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said the government is "firm" but would not be "confrontational.
(CNN) Two people are dead, 100 are injured and dozens of construction workers are believed trapped in a collapsed roadway tunnel after Chile was rocked by a magnitude 7.7. earthquake Wednesday, officials said.
40 a.m. ET) and was centered 40 km (25 miles) east-southeast of Tocopilla, a city of about 24,000 people.
The area is about 1,245 km (780 miles) north of Santiago.
The quake was felt in Peru and Bolivia, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
The number of dead and injured could rise as officials venture to the more remote areas and rural and indigenous communities of Chile's desert.
About 50 workers were believed to be inside the 793-meter (2,600-foot) Pedro Galleguillos tunnel at the time of the quake.
The tunnel is about 14 km (8.5 miles) north of Tocopilla and its exit paths collapsed.
The Chilean Navy is moving heavy equipment into the area to assist in the rescue operations.
Repair work on the tunnel, completed in 1994, began on October 1 and was to be finished early next year.
The quake sent terrified residents into the streets in dozens of cities, Chile's state-owned television station said.
Several aftershocks the strongest measuring magnitude 5.7 have rocked the area.
The Tocopilla hospital was itself damaged in the quake, and authorities were considering relocating patients to other hospitals in the area, the government said.
Municipal official Ljubica Ukurtovic, in an interview with Chilean TV station TVN, said "approximately 100 people" had sought treatment at the hospital.
Ricardo Lagos Weber, minister of government affairs, who made a statement from Santiago an hour after the quake hit, said information from isolated areas in the far north was coming in slowly.
Officials were headed to the area from Santiago to evaluate the damage, TVN correspondent Amaro Gomez-Pablos said.
The temblor was centered at a depth of 60 km (37 miles), the USGS said.
A tsunami warning was issued for the South Pacific coast after the quake hit, but was canceled within an hour.
Rafael Nadal met his match in fellow Spaniard David Ferrer as he crashed to defeat in three draining sets at the season-ending Masters Cup on Tuesday.
World number two Nadal succumbed 4-6 6-4 6-3 as he suffered the same fate as top-ranked Roger Federer who surprisingly lost his match on Monday in the round robin stage in Shanghai.
The Spanish rivals showed little respect for each other's serves the pair combined for five breaks in the first set alone and Ferrer didn't hold serve until his fourth attempt on his way to losing the opener when he netted a forehand.
But it was the tenacious Ferrer who finally sealed victory in a match that lasted two hours and 40 minutes.
Ferrer made a better start to the second, saving four break points in a close-fought fifth game and later earning two set points on Nadal's serve and taking the second as his rival flighted a forehand long.
At least two people were killed Tuesday in an explosion at the entrance of the Philippine parliament, including a lawmaker who apparently was the target of the blast, Chief Geary Barias of the National Regional Capital Police said. Barias said Rep.
Wahab Akbar of Basilan province who has been the subject of threats in the past was killed in the 8 p.m. (7 a.m. ET) explosion, which came from a bomb that police believe was planted on a motorcycle near Akbar's vehicle.
Another lawmaker's driver also was killed, Barias said.
Two other legislators were among the injured, the police chief said.
Speaker of the House Jose De Venecia condemned what he called a "criminal and despicable act by a terrorist or an anarchist.
Two men who say they helped O.J. Simpson forcibly take sports memorabilia during a confrontation in a Las Vegas hotel room testified Tuesday that Simpson asked them to carry guns and "look menacing.
Their testimony contradicts Simpson's assertions that he had no idea weapons were involved in the incident.
Walter Alexander and Michael McClinton agreed to testify after reaching plea bargains with prosecutors.
They said Simpson had instructed them to deny guns had been used during the September 13 altercation with two sports memorabilia dealers at the Palace Station hotel.
Their testimony came during the third day of Simpson's preliminary hearing in Clark County Justice Court, which will continue Wednesday morning.
Stocks surged Tuesday, with the Dow climbing nearly 320 points, after comments from executives at Goldman Sachs and other major banks reassured investors worried about the ongoing fallout from the credit market crisis.
Wal-Mart's earnings report and a nearly 4 percent slide in oil prices also played a role in the day's advance.
The Dow Jones industrial average (Charts) added just under 320 points, posting its second-biggest, single-day advance of the year.
The S&P 500 (Charts) index added 2.9 percent and the Nasdaq composite (Charts) added 3.5 percent.
The Russell 2000 (Charts) small-cap index jumped 2.9 percent.
Oil and gold prices plunged.
While the day's advance was positive, it doesn't indicate a new direction for the market going forward, the analysts said.
"If you look at the market over the last month, it doesn't take much to get investors whipped into a frenzy," said Chris Johnson, chief investment officer at Johnson Research Group.
NEW DELHI (CNN) A man in southern India married a female dog in a traditional Hindu ceremony in a bid to atone for stoning two dogs to death, a newspaper reported Tuesday.
The 33-year-old man married the sari-draped dog at a temple in the southern state of Tamil Nadu on Sunday after an astrologer said it was the only way to cure himself of a disability, the Hindustan Times newspaper reported.
P. Selvakumar told the paper that he had been suffering since he stoned two dogs to death and strung them up in a tree 15 years ago.
"After that my legs and hands got paralyzed and I lost hearing in one ear," the paper quoted him as saying.
Family members chose a stray female dog named Selvi who was then bathed and clothed for the ceremony.
The groom and his family then had a feast, while the dog got a bun, the paper said.
(CNN) Shuffling through airport security in your socks or sitting in traffic may seem like a breeze compared with the stresses of settling in under the same roof with family.
Tensions often run high during the holidays, but there are polite and effective ways to manage those tricky interactions.
Your mother expects you home for Thanksgiving and your in-laws are demanding an audience with their grandchildren.
Talk about your arrangements before the visit and make the necessary preparations.
You might feel that your energetic kids will drive the rest of the extended family crazy.
Discuss it with them and be honest about your preferences.
*Be realistic, but optimistic
Think positively, but don't get carried away and expect everything to be perfect.
Tangled family issues aren't going to disappear for the holidays, so you want to be prepared to defuse them delicately.
Short visits are better in cases where you expect to be in close quarters with someone who nags or criticizes you.
You can ignore the criticism or try to positively counteract it.
If you're having a hard time, plan to call a friend or go out for a walk with someone you feel comfortable with.
And if a situation is really making you uncomfortable, talk to the parties involved about how it makes you feel.
Remember that you're a guest.
Try to find time for relaxation and your personal routine when there are openings in the schedule.
And always, always bring a host or hostess gift.
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) There was a time around 1997 when no matter where you were in the car, on the StairMaster, at the dentist's office you couldn't help but hear "My Heart Will Go On," the soaring Celine Dion ballad from "Titanic.
Resistance was futile. It did go on an example not just of great marketing, but of the kind of movie theme song that no longer exists.
They became "a souvenir" of the theatrical experience, as six-time Oscar-nominated songwriter Diane Warren puts it.
For decades, theme songs like "Evergreen" or "Arthur's Theme" or "(I've Had) The Time of My Life" were huge radio hits, often hitting No. 1 on the pop chart and going on to win the Academy Award for best original song.
But in the past few years, filmmakers like Cameron Crowe and Wes Anderson have been more likely to choose pre-existing songs to punctuate a moment or create a certain mood.
It seems there's just no room on the pop charts any more for an "Up Where We Belong" (from "An Officer and a Gentleman") or a "Take My Breath Away" (from "Top Gun").
Eminem's "Lose Yourself" rap from the 2002 film "8 Mile" is the rare recent Oscar winner that's also had radio success as catchy as "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" was from 2005's "Hustle & Flow," it wasn't exactly radio-friendly.
What made those songs work, Warren said, is that "they're hit songs, first and foremost.
LONDON, England (CNN) The glistening treasures of King Tut, the popular name of the famous Egyptian boy-king Tutankhamun, are fascinating a new generation of Londoners more than 25 years after the first exhibition was greeted with fanfare on British shores.
The artifacts are part of a fresh exhibit that arrives in London this week called "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs.
Exhibit organizers say they have sold and reserved 325,000 tickets ahead of the opening day on Thursday and predict more than 1 million visitors by the end of the year-long show.
The exhibit is inside London's former Millennium Dome, now renamed The O2.
It presents 50 objects from Tutankhamun's tomb and more than 70 artifacts from other royal graves of the same dynasty, all of them between 3,300 and 3,500 years old.
While visitors will be able to see King Tut's royal diadem the gold crown which was discovered on the head of Tut's mummified body, they will not be able to see his gleaming golden death mask, which remains at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
Visitors will also not be able to see the king's face, which was revealed to the public for the first time in Egypt this month.
It is preserved inside a climate-controlled plexiglass container in Luxor, Egypt, near the Valley of the Kings.
Treasures which are on display include one of the gold and precious stone-inlaid "coffinettes" which contained Tut's mummified internal organs.
There is also a small ebony and ivory chair which the king sat on as a child, along with his crook and flail.
Other items include a ceremonial gold dagger from Tutankhamun's reign, an ancient dog collar, a turquoise and gold-colored cosmetics container, statues which guarded the tombs of Tut's relatives, and coffins.
It was 1972 when the first exhibition of King Tut's treasures came to London as part of a tour which also went to the United States.
It sparked a King Tut frenzy and the exhibit was a sellout;
lines snaked around the British Museum and the wait to get in was as long as eight hours.
The exhibition was much smaller then, with only 55 objects on display.
Still, the show in London attracted 1.7 million visitors, which remains a record for UK museums.
Denmark's center-right prime minister declared victory in Tuesday's election after near-complete returns showed his governing coalition defeated the left-wing opposition.
"Everything indicates that the government can continue," Anders Fogh Rasmussen told jubilant supporters of his Liberal Party.
He called it "historic" that a Liberal-led government had been re-elected for a third term.
He spoke shortly after the leader of the key opposition party conceded defeat in an election that focused on immigration, welfare and taxes.
There was broad agreement on keeping the cradle-to-grave welfare state.
A total of 808 candidates ran, representing nine parties with 12 independents.
Denmark's jobless rate is at 3.1 percent, the lowest in three decades, and the economy grew 3.5 percent last year.
French transport workers went on strike Tuesday evening, marking the second major showdown with French President Nicolas Sarkozy over his plan to reform pensions.
Shortly after the strike began, French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said the government is "firm" but would not be "confrontational.
In an interview on the French television network TF1, Fillon said, "It is necessary that this strike end as soon as possible.
One major factor is that, according to the polls, the majority of French people are not behind the unions.
A poll published Monday by the Paris daily newspaper Liberation showed 59 percent of those responding supported the government while only 35 percent backed the unions.
A half-hour before Tuesday's strike was to begin, Sarkozy, Fillon and Transport Minister Dominique Bussereau met with the directors of the national and regional rail systems as well as the directors of the public electric and gas utility companies EDF and GDF.
scheduled to continue into the weekend, according to a spokeswoman for the SNCF, the national railways.
Railway workers began putting down their tools at 8 p.m. (1900 GMT) Tuesday, and they expect to be joined 12 hours later by transport staff in Paris, the agency spokeswoman Agnes Grisoglio said.
BANGALORE, India (CNN) Two-year-old Lakshmi Tatma, an Indian toddler born with four arms and four legs, made her first public appearance Tuesday, a week after surgeons in India successfully removed her additional limbs.
"She is coping very well," lead surgeon Dr. Sharan Patil said.
Several of her doctors, all of them smiling, described her recovery over the past week "very steady and good progress," one saying she is "out of the woods" as far as serious medical issues are concerned.
The operation a week ago lasted 27 hours and involved a team of some 30 surgeons, all specialists in pediatrics, neurosurgery, orthopedics, and plastic surgery, working in eight-hour shifts.
Lakshmi's extra limbs were part of a conjoined twin which stopped developing in the womb.
It had a torso and limbs but no head, and was joined to Lakshmi at the pelvis.
Doctors said that without the surgery, Lakshmi would have been unlikely to survive beyond early adolescence.
The surgery involved the removal of the extra limbs and the repositioning of Lakshmi's organs.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) An Iraqi Kurdish official said two Turkish military aircrafts crossed into Iraqi border space on Monday and dropped stun grenades on an uninhabited border area in an apparent attempt to locate targets there.
But Jamal Abdullah, spokesman for Iraq's Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), told CNN that these actions did not amount to airstrikes despite news reports that say Turkish helicopter gunships attacked targets in northern Iraq.
Abdullah, in an interview with CNN on Tuesday, said the action occurred in the Bas-Agha village area of Zakho district in Duhuk province.
Tensions have been high along the Iraqi-Turkish border, with Turkey threatening to launch a full-scale cross-border offensive against separatist guerrillas from the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or
Those militants have launched actions against Turkish troops from northern Iraq and have been fighting the Turkish government forces in southeastern Turkey, where the violence has been steady.
Turkey's semi-official Anadolou Agency reported that four Turkish soldiers were killed and nine others were wounded on Tuesday in fighting in Turkey's Sirnak province in the southeast.
The United States, the Iraqi government and the autonomous KRG have launched diplomatic efforts to keep Turkey from launching an offensive against the PKK.
Turkey has said in recent weeks that time is slipping away and it will make the moves it sees fit to deal with the guerrillas if Iraq and the United States fail to quell their activities.
But the Turkish government, which received approval from the parliament to take military action, is primed to take such action.
There are tens of thousands of Turkish troops near the border area.
The Iraqi government has formed a ministerial crisis group to deal with the problem.
The total economic impact of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is estimated at $1.6 trillion by 2008, a congressional committee said in a report released Tuesday.
That is nearly double the $804 billion in direct war costs the White House requested so far from Congress, the Joint Economic Committee said.
The committee estimated $1.3 trillion in war costs by the end of 2008 for Iraq, and the remainder for Afghanistan.
The total war costs could grow to $3.5 trillion by 2017, the committee estimated.
The higher total economic impact comes from, among other things, the cost of borrowing money to pay for the war, lost productivity, higher oil prices and the cost of health care for veterans, the committee said.
The cost for a family of four would go up to $46,400 from 2002 to 2017, the committee said.
"We of the baby boom generation and our children and grandchildren will be paying for this war for a very long time to come.
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino accused the Democrats of releasing the report for partisan reasons and to "muddy the waters" after a series of positive reports from Iraq including a reduction in violence, increased economic capacity of the country, and signs of continued political reconciliation "from the bottom up.
LAHORE, Pakistan (CNN) Former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto on Tuesday called on President Gen. Pervez Musharraf to immediately step down in the wake of a mass crackdown on the opposition this week.
Protesters in Karachi, meanwhile, reportedly opened fire on two police stations in protest as Bhutto remained under house arrest in Lahore, according to The Associated Press.
"It's time for him to leave," said Bhutto in a phone interview with CNN Tuesday morning, as Pakistani riot police arrested her supporters.
Bhutto's remarks were welcomed by another former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif.
Speaking from Saudi Arabia, he called for the divided opposition to join forces against Musharraf, who declared a state of emergency and suspended democracy earlier this month.
Bhutto's comments marked the first time she had called on Musharraf, who is both president and army chief, to completely give up power.
Bhutto said that while she had tried to work with Musharraf on a "roadmap to democracy," the arrests of thousands of people on Monday had convinced her that he must go.
"There's a total trust deficit," Bhutto said, confirming that she has been placed under house arrest for seven days.
In her CNN interview, she also addressed media reports that Musharraf may have her deported.
But I have not been given any indication of whether I will be taken out of this house arrest or whether I will be taken to my own house or to any unknown destination," Bhutto said.
"So I'm totally in the dark at this moment on what this regime is planning to do with me.
Asked if she would leave the country if the government tried to force her out, Bhutto replied, "No, I won't go. Pakistan is my country.
Musharraf struck back in an interview in the New York Times Tuesday, saying Bhutto had "no right" to ask him to step down.
He also questioned her popularity and her claim that she would win the elections, the article said.
"Let's start the elections and let's see whether she wins," Musharraf said, according to the newspaper.
World No. 1 Roger Federer lost consecutive matches for the first time for more than four years when he crashed 4-6 7-6 7-6 to Fernando Gonzalez of Chile on Monday at the Masters Cup.
Defending champion Federer went down for the first time in 11 meetings against Gonzalez and admitted:
"It was a tough loss. I thought I played pretty good. I wish I had an excuse.
Andy Roddick overcame a second-set lapse and beat fourth-seeded Nikolay Davydenko 6-3 4-6 6-2.
Federer will likely have to beat Roddick and Davydenko to reach the semifinals.
But the Swiss has proved vulnerable over the last month, falling twice to David Nalbandian, first in Madrid, then again in the third round at Paris.
The last time that Federer lost two matches in a row was in 2003 when he fell in the third round at Hamburg, then the first round at the French Open.
A thick plume of black smoke covered the sky over London Monday as blaze broke out in a disused warehouse on the site of the 2012 Olympics.
Fire crews were investigating the cause, but it was not thought to be terror-related.
At least 15 engines and 75 firefighters were called in to tackle the height of the blaze in a disused warehouse in the east of the city.
A thick column of black smoke, believed to have been caused by burning diesel fuel, could be seen for miles over the city.
The Olympic Delivery Authority, coordinating construction for the 2012 Games, said the fire was located within the Olympic site, behind a bus depot. The fire sparked initial alarm in London,
which was targeted with deadly attacks by Islamic extremists in 2005, but police said it was not thought to be terror related..
The site of the fire was less than a mile from Stratford International, a station serving the Eurostar train.
It is also close to the Canary Wharf business district and London's City Airport which was not affected.
If you think being a secret agent is all just one giant adrenaline rush, think again.
Our mission on the other side of the world:
Retrieve a missing nuclear trigger before it falls into enemy hands.
We don't know whom to trust in Kandahar.
Welcome to Operation Spy at the International Spy Museum (www.spymuseum.org) in Washington, D.C.
"Today intelligence is the first line of defense against ideology-driven terrorism, nuclear proliferation, and other threats to our country," explains Peter Earnest, executive director of the International Spy Museum, who spent 36 years at the CIA.
The kids loved Operation Spy and the spy tools in the museum's permanent exhibits a Soviet listening device hidden inside the heel of a target's shoe, a lipstick pistol and poison gas gun nearly as much as they loved the gift shop, which offered every spy toy imaginable.
Asian markets fell sharply Monday after Wall Street declined at the end of last week on renewed concerns about U.S. mortgage problems.
European markets were mixed.
Major banks warned last week of further losses in their debt portfolios, raising investor concerns that the credit market slump isn't abating.
"Basically, the subprime loan issue still drags on, and there is no prospect of what can end the problem," said Shinichi Ichikawa, chief strategist at Credit Suisse of the declines in Asian markets.
Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 index fell 2.5 percent, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng dropped 3.9 percent.
In South Korea, the Korea Composite Stock Price Index, or Kospi, fell 3.4 percent.
Both the Hang Seng and the Kospi fell more than 4 percent during intraday trade, and the Nikkei dipped below 15,000 points for the first time since July 2006.
Police said there was nothing to suggest a suspicious cause.
France's CAC-40 slipped 0.3 percent to 5,506.78 and Germany's DAX declined 0.3 percent to 7,786.
In the U.S., stock futures were lower as investors brace for potentially more bad news from some of the nation's banks.
On Friday, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 1.7 percent to 13,042.7.
Donda West, mother of hip-hop mogul Kanye West, may have died because of complications from surgery, the Los Angeles County Coroner's office said Monday.
An autopsy to be performed Wednesday may make clear the cause of death.
West died Saturday at the age of 58, a representative of her son's record label, Island Def Jam, confirmed, adding that "the family respectfully asks for privacy during this time of grief.
Lt. Fred Corral, watch commander for the Los Angeles County Coroner's office, told CNN the office is investigating West's death due to "possible complications of surgery."
He added that it is not known whether complications arose during or after surgery.
West died Saturday night at 8:29 p.m., Corral said.
Attempts were made to revive her, but were unsuccessful.
She regularly attended her son's concerts, and was at his performance at the MTV Video Music Awards in September.
The oil tanker split in half and spilled more than 1,000 tons of fuel oil, and environmentalists expressed concern that the effects of the spill would last for years.
The official Russia Today Web site said five bodies were recovered.
Two of those were confirmed to be sailors from the sunken ships, and Interfax said the other three were also believed to be seamen from the ships.
The Russian Rescue Service said 80 of its experts were working in the Black Sea along with 112 personnel from the Russian Navy's Black Sea fleet, who were focusing on the fuel cleanup.
Three helicopters and 11 rescue boats were part of the joint operation, the rescue service said.
The ships sank Sunday during a fierce storm which generated hurricane-force winds and gigantic waves in the Black Sea and the Azov Sea to the north.
At one point on Sunday, officials described 20-foot waves and 78 mph winds.
Four of the ships sank in the Kerch Strait, which connects the Black Sea and Azov Sea and separates Russia from Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula.
Among them were Turkish vessels, a Georgian and a Greek ship.
BEIJING, China (AP) European Union leaders will press China for faster action on its swelling trade gap and currency controls at a summit this month, the EU ambassador to China said Monday.
The comments reflect growing European urgency over China's multibillion-dollar trade surpluses.
"We want more attention to our specific needs, our specific concerns, in intellectual property, in product safety, in opening Chinese markets which are still not fully open, in welcoming our investment," Ambassador Serge Abou said at a news conference.
An EU delegation led by Prime Minister Jose Socrates of Portugal, which holds the presidency of the 25-nation group, is due in Beijing on Nov. 28 to Chinese leaders.
A day earlier, finance officials from the two sides meet to discuss currency concerns.
European leaders will press Beijing for action to lower barriers to foreign investment and to let its currency, the yuan, rise more quickly in value, Abou told reporters.
Despite contentious trade issues, Abou said EU-Chinese relations are positive.
He said the meeting was taking place in an air of "optimism and self-confidence" on both sides.
The wide-ranging agenda also includes discussion of closer European-Chinese cooperation in science, environmental protection and combating global warming, according to Abou.
(CNN) So, what exactly is news in a virtual world?
CNN aims to find out by opening an I-Report hub in Second Life, a three-dimensional virtual world created entirely by its residents.
There, CNN will look to those most familiar with the virtual world the Second Life residents themselves to determine what constitutes news "in-world.
Developer Linden Labs opened Second Life to the public in 2003.
According to its Web site, Second Life is inhabited by millions of "residents" from around the globe.
However, traffic at any given time hovers around 40,000 users.
Just as CNN asks its real-life audience to submit I-Reports user-generated content submitted from cell phones, computers, cameras and other equipment for broadcast and online reports the network is encouraging residents of Second Life to share their own "SL I-Reports" about events occurring within the virtual world.
"The thing we most hope to gain by having a CNN presence in Second Life is to learn about virtual worlds and understand what news is most interesting and valuable to their residents," said Susan Grant, executive vice president of CNN News Services.
When Second Life residents observe an in-world event they deem newsworthy, they can take snapshots, shoot video, or write a report about the event and submit to CNN.
Submissions selected by CNN I-Report producers will go back into Second Life for residents to view throughout the virtual world.
LONDON, England (CNN) An outbreak of bird flu has been detected on a poultry farm in eastern England, British officials said Monday.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said tests had revealed avian influenza in turkeys on the premises near Diss on the border of Norfolk and Suffolk.
The agency said all birds on the infected premises will be culled, including approximately 5,000 turkey, 500 geese and over 1,000 ducks.
Initial tests revealed the H5 strain of the virus, the statement said.
However, the agency said full confirmation results which would show whether this outbreak involved the far more contagious H5N1 strain were still being awaited.
While various bird flu strains can be transmitted to humans who are in close contact with infected birds, the H5N1 is of particular concern because health officials fear that it could mutate and be spread from human to human.
The agency said it expected results on the more dangerous H5N1 strain to take at least two days.
A two-mile protection zone and a six-mile surveillance zone are being established around the infected premises, the agency said.
A spokeswoman said the agency was informed of the outbreak on Sunday.
She said inspectors visited the farm to carry out tests and that restrictions were placed on the farm late the same day.
The agency said it is notifying all poultry keepers in Britain and that the European Commission has also been informed.
H5N1 is highly pathogenic and extremely contagious among birds, both by air and contact with feces.
According to World Health Organization figures, 206 people have died worldwide from the H5N1 strain since 2003.
Among birds mortality is close to 100 percent, with many of the infected animals dying on the same day they were infected.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) A legal debate and reconciliation politics have delayed the scheduled executions in Iraq of three Saddam Hussein-era officials and the hiatus is causing an uproar among Iraqi officials.
Sultan Hashem Ahmed, and Hussein Rashid, all from the Sunni-dominated Hussein government, were found guilty of war crimes during the bloody Anfal offensive during the late 1980s in Iraq's Kurdish region.
They were to be executed by hanging within 30 days after an Iraqi appeals court upheld their sentences in early September.
However, the three remain in United States custody amid protests over the case and will remain so until there is a meeting of the minds among Iraqis on how to proceed.
Iraqi law requires that the three members of country's presidency council sign the execution warrants but doesn't address what happens if the leaders don't ratify the executions.
In this case, Jalal Talabani, the Kurdish president and Tariq al-Hashimi, the Sunni vice-president, are unwilling to sign an execution order.
The third member of the council is the Shiite vice-president, Adel Abdul Mahdi.
One Western official close to the case told CNN that Iraqi courts have not addressed whether the absence of a signature constitutes a de facto pardon or a stay of execution.
But Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, addressing the issue on Sunday before reporters, said the Iraqi High Tribunal made a final ruling in the case and an appeals court upheld the ruling.
(CNN) At least seven Palestinians were killed and 55 wounded Monday when Hamas security forces and Fatah gunmen traded fire at a Gaza City rally, according to Palestinian medical sources.
The rally was being held to commemorate the third anniversary of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's death.
Of the 55 wounded, seven are in critical condition, the sources said.
The identities of the dead and wounded were not immediately known.
It is unclear how the incident began; each side blamed the other for firing first.
The Gaza rally began Sunday, the anniversary of Arafat's death, and ended Monday.
Video footage showed crowds of men running through the street as gunfire erupted.
Some protesters were carrying the wounded off the streets and to a waiting ambulance.
Hamas, which took control of Gaza in a violent mid-June siege, sent members of its executive force to enforce security.
Hamas security sources said 130 Palestinians were arrested in the wake of Monday's violence.
Violence had been expected at the rally, which marked the largest Fatah gathering since Hamas took over the area.
Arafat led the Fatah party before his death.
NORRISTOWN, Pennsylvania (CNN) A Pennsylvania teen jailed on suspicion of plotting a Columbine-style attack on his old school exchanged e-mail with the disturbed student who killed eight people in a similar shooting in Finland, the boy's lawyer said Monday.
But J. David Farrell, the attorney for 14-year-old Dillon Cossey, said his client had no warning that Pekka-Eric Auvinen was preparing the rampage that left eight people dead at his high school outside Helsinki.
"We're certain the facts will show in the long run that Mr. Auvinen was acting completely on his own, without any encouragement from my client or anyone else for that matter," Farrell said.
He said the two had been in touch within two months of Cossey's October arrest in suburban Philadelphia, but he said Cossey was shocked by Auvinen's November 7 shootings at his high school in the Finnish town of Jokela.
"He's very saddened that someone he was in touch with committed a violent, deadly act," Farrell said.
Farrell said their correspondence "related to their shared interest in certain video games, Web sites and online videos.
"My client is very clear that there was no discussion by Mr. Auvinen of his intention to commit a criminal act," he said. "I believe that facts will show that Mr. Auvinen did not own a weapon until after my client was detained."
Cossey is awaiting trial in juvenile court on charges stemming from what prosecutors called a plot to attack his former school, Plymouth Whitemarsh, in the Philadelphia suburb of Plymouth Meeting.
The Times of London reported Monday that Auvinen and Cossey met via the social-networking Web site MySpace, where members have set up two groups dedicated to the memory of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold the perpetrators of the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado.
The newspaper also reported that Auvinen had left postings on the MySpace pages.
A search of the family's home in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania, turned up the rifle, about 30 air-powered guns, swords, knives, grenades, a bomb-making book and videos of the Columbine attack.
Pakistan opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was placed under house arrest Monday, a day ahead of a planned march protesting President Pervez Musharraf's declared state of emergency.
Police have declared Bhutto's house in Lahore a "subjail" and sent jail staff to monitor the situation.
When police arrived at the to serve the former prime minister with the house arrest warrant, they were told she was not available to sign it, police said.
Critics see the emergency as an attempt by Musharraf who seized power in a 1999 coup and promised to restore democracy to strengthen his grip over the nuclear-armed country amid calls for him to quit as army chief.
As opposition to emergency rule gathered pace in Pakistan, government sources told CNN that she could be placed under house arrest to prevent her staging a three-day march from the city of Lahore to Islamabad on Tuesday.
They indicated there could be a danger to Bhutto, who was targeted by a deadly suicide bomb attack on October 18 in Karachi as supporters greeted her return from a self-imposed
The U.S., which views Muslim Pakistan as a key ally in its battle against al Qaeda-linked extremism, welcomed Musharraf's vote pledge but renewed calls for the emergency to be lifted.
Holder Justine Henin retained the Sony Ericsson Championships in Madrid on Sunday, fighting back to defeat Maria Sharapova 5-7 7-5 6-3 in three hours, 24 minutes, the longest three-set final in the tournament's history.
Henin becomes the sixth woman to successfully defend the WTA's season-ending championship, her 10th title of the year and 38th of her career.
The Belgian top seed was forced to dig deep, saving five of Russian Sharapova's six break points in the final set, and 14 of 18 overall.
Henin eventually won an epic battle on her fifth match point, breaking after Sharapova netted a drop shot.
Sharapova came into the tournament after a two-month lay-off because of a shoulder injury.
"It's the last day of the season, the last match and 25 wins was great motivation. It's been fantastic and emotional and I just wanted to enjoy this last moment," said Henin, who rushed straightinto the stands to celebrate with family and back-up team.
"In the third set it was mentally and physically tough," said Henin. "We were both dead. But what a way to finish the season.
CRAWFORD, Texas (CNN) U.S. President George W. Bush and German Chancellor Angela Merkel say they will continue to pursue a diplomatic solution to Iran's nuclear program.
Speaking at Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, Merkel said the threat posed by a potential nuclear program in Iran is "a serious one."
But she said she and Bush agreed the Iranian issue can be solved through diplomatic means.
The next step, she said, will be a U.N. Security Council resolution, and work is under way to prepare for that.
If talks with Iranian representatives and Javier Solana, foreign policy chief for the European Union, are unsuccessful, Merkel said, "further steps will have to be made."
Those might include further sanctions, she said.
Germany has reviewed its business ties with Iran, and may make further reductions in those if circumstances warrant, she said.
Bush said, "What the Iranian regime must understand is, we will continue to work together to solve this problem diplomatically, which means they will continue to be isolated.
Both leaders said any Security Council action will require the support of China and Russia.
Bush and Merkel said they had discussed a variety of other subjects, including the Middle East, trade negotiations and climate change.
The number of bombings and suicide attacks has dropped dramatically in the Iraqi capital, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said Sunday, claiming sectarian violence "is closed now.
Meanwhile, a roadside bomb missed a U.S. convoy in eastern Baghdad, killing a 12-year-old girl and wounding four other Iraqis, police said.
Al-Maliki, a Shiite Muslim, told reporters that "terrorist acts" including car bombings and suicide attacks have dropped by 77 percent from last year's high, a sign that Sunni-Shiite violence "is closed now.
"When the sectarian strife is over, then I will not fear the gangs who are running between the provinces," al-Maliki said, an apparent reference to al Qaeda and other Sunni religious extremists that have been driven from the capital.
"The majority of these terrorists are fleeing to nearby countries, and I warned our brothers in the Islamic and Arab countries to be aware in order that they not harm these countries," he said.
Al-Maliki said he was considering an amnesty for those "who were lured or committed some crimes," although he added that the move would not include those "convicted of killings or bombings.
In a sign the government is working toward reconciliation, 70 former members of Saddam Hussein's party were reinstated to their jobs after they joined the fight against al Qaeda in Anbar province, said Ali al-Lami, a senior official with the commission that considered their cases.
Al-Lami told The Associated Press that the former Baath party members included 12 university professors, officers in the disbanded Iraqi army, former policemen and teachers.
MOGADISHU, Somalia (CNN) Neighborhoods in the Somali capital were deserted on Sunday, a day after 17 civilians were brutally killed in the wake of intense fighting between Ethiopian-backed Somali troops and Islamic insurgents, according to witnesses and journalists in Mogadishu.
Witnesses in Mogadishu's al-Baraka neighborhood said the dead included women, the elderly and children as young as 10.
They said all 17 killed were all non-combatants, and blamed the deaths on Ethiopian troops, who are backing interim Somali forces in an attempt to quell an Islamist-led insurgency.
Residents in Mogadishu accuse the Ethiopian forces of targeting civilians in revenge for the killings of its troops.
Witnesses and journalists in the city also say Ethiopian and Somali forces are indiscriminately shooting at anyone, fearing no consequences from the weak government in Mogadishu.
Bakara market Mogadishu's largest public market remained all but deserted Sunday a day after the Ethiopian-backed Somali forces occupied the streets surrounding the bazaar.
The Somali forces scared off traders after firing shots in the air, witnesses said.
The situation had calmed by Sunday, but there were reports of sporadic fighting.
Up to 100,000 people have abandoned the capital in the last two weeks, according to United Nations estimates.
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon warned Friday of a growing humanitarian crisis in Somalia and said 1.5 million people were in need of humanitarian assistance, a rise of 50 percent since the start of the year.
According to local media estimates, 60 to 80 people have been killed since Ethiopian troops launched reprisals after the body of one their soldiers was dragged through the streets by an angry mob Thursday.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) Pakistan's Gen. Pervez Musharraf said Sunday that elections will go ahead in January despite a state of emergency that he said was needed to tackle extremists and ensure free and fair elections.
He said the vote will take place before January 9 but he would not say when the state of emergency would end.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice cautiously welcomed Musharraf's election timeline, calling it a "positive element," but stressing "the state of emergency has got to be lifted, and lifted as soon as possible."
Speaking at his first news conference since the order, Musharraf restated his vow to step down as military chief once a newly installed Supreme Court approves his third term in office.
Musharraf replaced the previous court shortly after issuing the emergency order a move that his opponents said amounts to a power grab.
Opposition leaders believe Musharraf issued the emergency order to avoid an impending ruling that would have nullified his election victory by disqualifying him for another presidential term.
Robbers posed as flower deliverymen to get into an 80-year-old woman's apartment and steal at least $60,000 in savings her husband kept in cash, the victims and police said.
Two bouquet-toting bandits persuaded Carmen Nieves to open her door to them, she said Saturday as police released a surveillance camera photo of the suspects.
They have flowers, they say [my husband sent] them to me, and, besides, they were young kids," said Nieves, whose husband was out at the time of the November 3 robbery.
Police estimated the suspects were between 20 and 30 years old.
Once inside Nieves' apartment on Manhattan's Lower East Side, the thieves bound her hands and feet and ransacked the house until they found the money.
"It was like a tornado," she said.
Nieves and her husband, Michael Rodriguez, 65, said he had planned to take the cash to a bank.
He had mentioned the cache of cash to someone, and he believes that remark may have led to the robbery, he said.
"I worked 47 years, and now I'm retired, and they took all my money," he said.
(CNN) The largest political protest in nearly a decade erupted in Malaysia's capital city, Kuala Lumpur, Saturday with riot police aiming water hoses and tear gas at thousands of protesters gathered to demand electoral reform.
Opposition parties and civic groups demonstrated against alleged fraudulent activity in the electoral process and demanded an overhaul of Malaysia's electoral commission ahead of general elections widely expected for early next year.
Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi had vowed to suppress the demonstration, and on Saturday police had erected roadblocks and ramped up security in an attempt to close down the city's center.
Nevertheless, in defiance of a government ban, between 30,000 and 40,000 demonstrators massed outside the royal palace in Kuala Lumpar, according to media reports.
Opposition group leader and former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim put the number much higher, claiming more than 100,000 people had gathered in the streets.
One witness said police fired tear gas and jets of "chemically-laced water" at hundreds of demonstrators who sought refuge in the city's Jamek mosque and in commercial buildings.
New York-based Human Rights Watch slammed the rally ban and urged the government to support free speech ahead of elections expected to be called early next year.
Human Rights Watch said Malaysian elections have been sullied by vote-buying, the use of public resources by the ruling parties and accusations of bias against the Election Commission.
Opposition party leaders, including Anwar, called the mass meeting to protest alleged fraudulent activity in the electoral process.
"This was an attempt to threaten the people. But I am very proud that Malaysians were not intimidated and turned out in such great numbers and that they behaved peacefully," Anwar said.
MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) At least two sailors died and 23 were missing Sunday when five ships sank in storms in the Black Sea and the Azov Sea, the official Russia Today Web site said.
The strong winds and high surf caused the Volgoneft-139 to split in two, spilling up 560,000 gallons of fuel oil, an official from Russia's Emergency Situations Ministry told CNN.
That is approximately 1,000 tons.
In addition to the five ships that sank, many others were grounded, Russia Today reported.
The weather was hampering efforts to control the spill, which occurred in the Kerch Strait, the official said.
The channel separates the Black Sea from the Sea of Azov.
The spill was moving toward the Ukrainian coast and Russia and Ukraine have set up a joint crisis center to deal with the disaster, the official said.
The Volnogorsk and the Nakhichevan each carrying about 2,000 tons of sulfur also broke apart as a result of the high waves and strong winds, a local transport official told RIA Novosti news agency.
And a third sulfur-transporting vessel, the Kovel, went down later after striking the Volnogorsk, the agency reported.
A spokesman for the federal agency for sea and inland water transport, Aleksandr Davydenko, said conditions in the Kerch Strait were worsening. Twenty-foot waves and winds gusting to 78 mph were making the rescuers' task difficult, Davydenko said.
Emergencies Ministry spokesman Viktor Beltsov says the Volganeft-139 was anchored near the port of Kavkaz.
"At the moment specialists are trying to work out the size of the oil spill and the direction it's heading," he said. "We will alert the respective Ukrainian services if the spill moves in their direction.
Near the city of Sevastopol on the Black Sea, the storm wrecked a freighter carrying scrap metal.
Two of its crew members were found alive, but 15 others were missing.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Il is the most flexible man in the communist country, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun said Sunday as he recalled his summit last month with the reclusive leader.
After carrying out a nuclear test detonation last year, Kim has moved toward dismantling North Korea's nuclear program after receiving pledges of economic aid and political concessions.
Roh met Kim in Pyongyang in October only the second-ever meeting between leaders of the two Koreas since the peninsula's division after World War II. The summit produced a wide-ranging accord on promoting peace and expanding economic cooperation.
"Though I did not have dialogues with many people in the North, I felt that Chairman Kim was the most flexible man," Roh said in an interview with KTV, a government-run cable channel, according to his office.
Roh also described Kim as an outspoken man, adding that Kim was able to make flexible decisions on many practical issues. Roh did not elaborate.
North Korea has pledged to disable its nuclear facilities and declare all its nuclear programs by year's end in return for energy aid and political concessions from the U.S., China, Japan, South Korea and Russia.
Emirates Airline said it signed a massive order for 93 commercial aircraft with an option on 50 more at the opening of the Dubai Airshow on Sunday in deals worth over US$20 billion.
The contracts, which include firm orders for 78 Airbus and 12 Boeing airplanes as well as deals with engine manufacturers, are worth a total of US$23.4 billion, Emirates said in a statement.
The Dubai-based airlines said it was committing close to US$35 billion overall with these deals if an option for 50 additional planes is included.
A police officer accidentally shot and killed a soccer fan Sunday while trying to break up a fight between supporters of rival teams, authorities said.
Enraged by the killing, hundreds of fans rioted in Rome, attacking a police station.
Fans stormed the yard of a police station near the Rome's Olympic Stadium, hurled stones at passing police cars, and smashed windows at the nearby Italian Olympic Committee headquarters.
Hundreds of youths, many with their faces covered by scarves and ski masks, dragged metal barricades and trash bins to block off one end of a bridge spanning the Tiber near the station.
The rioters smashed a window in the police station and set a police vehicle on fire inside the gate.
Sky TG24 TV showed images of flames from what it said was a bus set on fire near the barracks.
Rome's police headquarters said the barracks was under attack but did not give details.
It said some arrests were made but did not give a number.
The ANSA news agency reported that at least 10 police officers suffered injuries near the Rome stadium, but police said there only a few injuries and they were minor.
RAI state TV, reporting from the stadium, said one of its cameramen was injured as well as a cameraman for a private network.
In the Tuscan town of Arezzo, police chief Vincenzo Giacobbe said the fatal shooting of the fan was "a tragic error" that occurred when a police officer intervened in a scuffle between two groups of people along a Tuscan highway.
A U.N. human rights envoy arrived Sunday in Myanmar on a mission to get inside the country's prisons to determine the numbers of people killed and detained since the military regime's crackdown on pro-democracy protesters.
Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, the U.N.'s independent rights investigator for Myanmar, had been barred from visiting the country since November 2003.
He has said he will abandon his visit unless he gets full support from the junta.
Pinheiro has submitted a proposed itinerary for his visit to the Myanmar government, which was still being "fine-tuned," said Aye Win, a U.N. spokesman in Myanmar.
The junta has come under renewed international pressure after it crushed pro-democracy demonstrations led by Buddhist monks in September.
Pinheiro has a history of prickly relations with the ruling generals.
He abruptly cut short a visit in March 2003 after finding a listening device in a room at a prison where he was interviewing political detainees.
Later that year, he accused the junta of making "absurd" excuses to keep political opponents in prison.
Pinheiro's trip comes three days after the departure of U.N. envoy Ibrahim Gambari, who attempted during a six-day visit to kick-start talks between the junta and the pro-democracy opposition.
As a result of Gambari's trip, detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi was allowed Friday to meet the leaders of her opposition party for the first time in three years.
LONDON, England (CNN) Prince Harry and his Zimbabwean-born girlfriend have ended their three-year romance, a newspaper reported Sunday.
The News of the World said Chelsy Davy who has been studying at a college in England while dating the prince broke off the relationship this week.
Clarence House, where Prince Harry lives with his father Prince Charles and his brother Prince William, declined to confirm the report, saying it doesn't comment about the royals' private lives.
Prince Harry, 21, graduated this year from Britain's elite Sandhust military academy after training to become an army officer.
He hopes to one day serve on the front lines if called to wars such as the one being fought in Afghanistan.
WASHINGTON (CNN) Global security experts expressed concern Sunday that Pakistan's nuclear arsenal could wind up in the hands of Islamic radicals after President Gen. Pervez Musharraf last weekend declared a state of emergency.
This is a very dangerous situation," said John Bolton, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
But Bolton told CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer" that he would urge the United States to continue to back Musharraf, whose government has received $10 billion in U.S. aid since 2001.
In the 1980s, some of Pakistan's nuclear labs were controlled by Abdul Qadeer Khan considered responsible for leaking technology to Libya, North Korea and Iran.
Musharraf announced in 2004 that he had pardoned Khan.
Pakistan's nuclear stockpile may be technically secure, Bolton said but the issue isn't whether the weapons are locked away. "It's a political issue," the former U.S. ambassador said. "If the military comes unstuck, if it divides, then the technical fixes won't protect those weapons."
Musharraf is in a difficult spot, Bolton said. "Even the military is filled with Islamic fundamentalists that he's tried to keep in lower positions.
"But they're pervasive," he said. "And he doesn't have the flexibility of a real military dictator.
Bolton urged U.S. officials to consider more than whether Pakistan is being ruled democratically. "I'd have to put securing those weapons at the top of our agenda.
We don't want to see Pakistan, with its bombs, fall into the hands of people like [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad and the mullahs. "
They have not only the bomb, the thermonuclear device, they have the missile that can couple with the bomb, and it can fly all the way to the Mediterranean.
But former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said Pakistan's nuclear weapons are secure, and cautioned against overreacting.
"That nuclear arsenal is, one, dispersed, and second, carefully guarded by the army," he told CNN. "I think in the short or even medium term should things turn badly, we are not going to worry about nuclear weapons in the first instance."
PERUGIA, Italy (CNN) An American student has accused a Congolese pub owner of knifing her British roommate to death, saying she covered her ears to drown out the screams, according to a judge's ruling Friday ordering the woman, her Italian boyfriend and the pub owner kept in jail.
Knox, 20, Raffaele Sollecito, 23, and Diya "Patrick" Lumumba, 38, have been detained since Tuesday as suspects in the sexual assault and killing of Meredith Kercher, 21, who was found dead November 2.
All three deny involvement in the death, their lawyers say.
No charges have been filed, but Judge Claudia Matteini ruled there were "serious indications of guilt" that warranted keeping the three in jail for up to a year while the investigation continues.
The 19-page ruling said that Knox, in her meetings with prosecutors, accused Lumumba of killing Kercher.
Knox has "confused memories, since she had taken hashish in the afternoon," the ruling read.
But it said she told prosecutors Lumumba "had a crush" on her roommate and he and the victim had gone into a bedroom to have sex.
"She made clear that in those moments ... she heard Meredith scream so much that she, being scared, covered her ears.
Under Italian law, suspects can be held without charge if a judge rules there is enough evidence to jail them and there is a chance they might flee, repeat the crime or tamper with evidence.
Prosecutors may later seek to indict the suspects and put them on trial.
The judge said in her ruling that the suspects might try to flee Italy if released.
Kercher's body was found in the apartment she shared with Knox, and police said she died fighting off a sexual attack.
The coroner said Kercher was stabbed in the neck.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) An influential Sunni sheikh active in the reconciliation movement against al Qaeda in Iraq died early Thursday evening in a suicide attack in Khalis, a village about 50 miles (85 km) north of Baghdad, police said.
Sheikh Fa'ez al-Ubeid, head of Khalis Salvation Council and deputy head of the Diyala Support Council, was hosting a gathering at his home when the suicide attacker walked in and detonated his bomb, Khalis police and the U.S. military said.
The police said four other Sunni tribal sheikhs were killed and three were wounded in the attack.
The military said two other Iraqi civilians were killed and another was wounded.
The Diyala Support Council is a group of Sunni and Shiite sheikhs working together in the province.
BEIJING, China (CNN) A gas leak killed 29 coal miners Thursday in southwest China, while another six are missing and presumed dead, state media said.
Xinhua News Agency said the accident happened at the Qunli mine in Nayong county in Guizhou province.
It said rescue workers had recovered 28 bodies. Fifty-two miners were rescued, but one later died.
The cause of the gas leak was not immediately known.
The government warned recently that China's mining industry, the most dangerous in the world, would likely see more accidents as output was boosted to provide heating for the winter months.
China's coal mines average 13 deaths a day in fires, explosions and floods, despite government efforts to improve safety.
In August, 181 miners died when two mines flooded in eastern Shandong province after heavy rains.
Many of the accidents are blamed on mine owners who disregard safety rules and fail to invest in required ventilation, fire control and other equipment.
A smaller number of police who had previously been outside her home providing security remained.
The lifting of the order came as Pakistan suffered its first deadly blast since a declaration of emergency by President Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
The attack, possibly a suicide bomb, at the house of Amir Muqam, Minister for Political Affairs in Peshawar, northwestern Pakistan killed four people Friday, police told CNN. The minister escaped unharmed.
Earlier Friday Washington had called for restrictions on Bhutto to be lifted.
Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the White House's National Security Council, said: "Former Prime Minister Bhutto and other political party members must be permitted freedom of movement and all protesters released. It is crucial for Pakistan's future that moderate political forces work together to bring Pakistan back on the path to democracy."
Bhutto and her supporters had spent much of the day in a standoff against security forces, who placed barbed wire and barricades around her Islamabad home, preventing her attending a planned rally banned by the government, she told CNN.
Riot police began beating Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party supporters when around 50 attempted to cut through the cordons of wire placed around her home.
An armored car carrying Bhutto approached the breach, where she speaking with a megaphone told several hundred police and security forces:
"We are not the enemy; give us way.
Bhutto told the security forces: "Don't stop us, we are not the enemy.
Even you in uniform are my brothers."
However, the security forces refused to back down or let her through, and Bhutto returned to her home.
Bhutto was trying to leave her compound to attend a rally in nearby Rawalpindi a city outside Islamabad where Pakistan's military is based against the state of emergency.
But in Rawalpindi Pakistani security forces fired tear gas and wielded batons to disperse opposition supporters for defying a ban on public gatherings, police sources told CNN.
Kevin Davies scored with eight minutes remaining to earn Premier League strugglers Bolton a superb 2-2 UEFA Cup Group F draw at Bundesliga leaders Bayern Munich.
Bolton arrived in Germany without the likes of star players Nicolas Anelka, El-Hadji Diouf and Ivan Campo, but they started brightly and took a deserved eighth minute lead.
On-loan Liverpool winger Danny Guthrie chipped the ball forward for Ricardo Gardner to fire home a deflected shot the Jamaican international's first goal in nearly five years.
But Bayern drew level a minute later when Lukas Podolski rifled a stunning shot into the corner of the net after Frank Ribery had pulled the ball back.
Bolton goalkeeper Ali Al Habsi kept his team level with a string of fine saves, keeping out a Ribery shot iin the 37th minute and blocking a deflected Mark van Bommel strike just before half-time.
Ribery was again the creator, cutting the ball back for Podolski to score his second goal of the game from close range.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (CNN) A bridge under construction at a marina collapsed Thursday, killing seven workers and injuring 25, nine critically, the head of Dubai police said.
A crane operator at Dubai Marina made a mistake while trying to fix a "steel board" over a group of metallic pillars and accidentally knocked off one of the pillars, police said.
That created a chain reaction that led to the bridge's collapse.
The incident triggered a miles-long traffic jam as police and ambulances scrambled to reach the scene.
While writers picket in Hollywood and New York, the impact of a strike entering its fourth day was being felt beyond the east and west coasts.
In Louisiana, crews on the set of "K-Ville," a Fox police drama set in post-Katrina New Orleans, were filming the last episode written before the strike.
I think we were just starting to get on a roll, and hopefully the writers and the studios will figure it out in the next 30 days to a month and a half.
The strike was also playing havoc with another show on Fox's schedule.
In a press release, the network announced that "24's" premiere, set for January, was "being postponed to ensure that [the seventh season] can air uninterrupted, in its entirety."
Meanwhile, writers returned to the picket lines after their strike forced at least eight prime-time shows, including the popular NBC sitcom "The Office," to halt production.
payments from DVDs and shows offered on the Internet.
Writers have not gone on strike since 1988, when the walkout lasted 22 weeks and cost the industry more than $500 million.
LONDON (CNN) Barbara West Dainton, believed to be one of the last two survivors from the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, has died in England at age 96.
Dainton died Oct. 16 at a nursing home in Camborne, England, according to Peter Visick, a distant relative.
Her funeral was held Monday at Truro Cathedral, Visick said Thursday.
Elizabeth Gladys "Millvina" Dean of Southampton, England, who was 2 months old at the time of the Titanic sinking, is now the disaster's only remaining survivor, according to the Titanic Historical Society.
The last American survivor, Lillian Gertrud Asplund, died in Massachusetts last year at age 99.
Dainton, born in Bournemouth in southern England in 1911, was too young to remember the night when the huge liner hit an iceberg and sank in the Atlantic in April 1912, killing 1,500 people, including her father, Edwy Arthur West.
He waved farewell as the lifeboat carrying Barbara;
and her sister, Constance, was lowered into the ocean, according to Karen Kamuda of the Titanic Historical Society in Indian Orchard, Mass.
His body was never identified.
The Titanic did not have enough lifeboats for all of 2,200 passengers and crew.
Only a small number of those unable to find a place on the boats survived the freezing waters.
Dainton returned to England after the accident.
She married in 1952.
She avoided publicity associated with the Titanic and even insisted that her funeral take place before any public announcement of her death, Kamuda said.
"We're so open with everything and our emotions nowadays, but people at that time, they just didn't talk about it."
Could it be otherwise with 10 people, including a 2- and 4-year-old, crowded into a rented four-bedroom condo trying to eat breakfast and get ready to ski at the same time?
But in the end, for my gang at least, these trips are well worth the trouble and are some of the best times our extended family has together.
DAY ONE
Eva Weinberg, 12, my cousin's daughter, has lost her fleece somewhere in the messy condo.
We get to ski school and she's also lost her four-day lift ticket.
The helpful Crested Butte staff issues another.
Eva joins a "teen" group that consists of other middle-schoolers from around the country.
She's a little tentative, not having skied since last season, but the hip, young instructors put her at ease right away.
Though this is a busy holiday weekend, Crested Butte isn't as crowded as the mega resorts it's only one-fifth the size of Vail which means the kids get more individual attention in ski school and day care.
DAY TWO
Then I meet Dan Beck, ski instructor extraordinaire, who has been here for more than 30 years.
I got injured last year and wonder if I should hang up my skis, but Dan pooh-poohs that notion and takes me up in the chairlift. Spectacular vistas!
Unlike other ski towns, Crested Butte is just a five-minute free shuttle ride from the mountain easy for those toting young kids and safe for teens to explore on their own.
Let the pros teach the kids.
They've had special training and know the terrain better than you could hope to.
"Let us teach the kids and you go off and enjoy yourselves," he insists.
We even have time to stop at the outdoor Ice Bar literally made of ice before we pick up the kids.
Destruction of Indonesia's peatlands to make way for the production of palm oil is leading to a significant increase in greenhouse gas emissions, a problem that will get worse as demand for biofuel grows, Greenpeace reported Thursday.
The environmental group said Indonesia's carbon-rich peatlands are being razed, drained and burned to make way for plantations of oil palm trees, which are used for the production of palm oil.
Palm oil is used in food products ranging from potato chips to cream cheese and is also used for biofuel.
The destruction of the peatlands releases 1.8 billion tons of greenhouse gas each year, Greenpeace said.
That figure represents 4 percent of global emissions from an area representing 0.1 percent of the land on earth.
"We're talking about enormous carbon stores basically being released into the atmosphere when these forests are being burned and cleared," said Andy Tait, a forests campaigner for Greenpeace
Tait said the razing of the peatlands is so destructive that the planting of palm oil trees cannot make up for the greenhouse gases emitted in the process.
In a report released Thursday titled "Cooking the Climate," Greenpeace also said only a third of the land cleared since 1990 has been planted with oil palm plantations. Greenpeace said large food and consumer product companies including Unilever, Nestle,
and Procter & Gamble are driving the peatland destruction because the companies account for a significant volume of global palm oil use.
These companies, Greenpeace said, "are complicit in the expansion of palm oil at the expense of Indonesia's peatlands.
In response to the report, Procter & Gamble said it is committed to sustainable palm oil and shares guidelines on sustainability to its suppliers.
There's a petite new contender ready to tackle America's problems of foreign oil dependency and urban congestion.
Meet the Smart car:
An ultra-compact, Mercedes-designed, head-turning little vehicle that's been negotiating traffic and squeezing into impossibly tiny spaces in Europe for almost a decade.
But choking traffic and rising gas prices have changed that, she said.
The Smart is expected to get at least 40 miles per gallon.
But fuel-economy may be an afterthought for some buyers.
Many are simply expected to purchase the car for the "wow factor" once it hits dealerships in January.
"You get something that looks totally different than anything else on the road," said Csaba Csere, editor-in-chief of Car and Driver magazine. "So if you kind of want to be looked at and want to be the first on your block with the new hardware, the Smart does that.
But Csere advised prospective Smart car buyers to take a realistic look at their driving habits. "I would make sure that a car this small will meet your needs," Csere said.
"If your driving is mostly on city streets or maybe city freeways, the car is going to be fine. But this is not a car that you want to do long distances in on the highway.
The automotive Web site Edmunds.com had a similar verdict.
"As a second, commuting-only car, it's wonderful, but those with room for only one vehicle in the garage may want to consider a larger subcompact or compact car," the Edmunds.com review said.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress Thursday that the central bank is keeping a close eye on the subprime mortgage crisis as well as the recent spike in oil prices.
Bernanke, testifying before Congress' Joint Economic Committee, said that since the Fed last met on Oct. 30-31 and decided to cut interest rates, "financial market volatility and strains have persisted".
"Incoming information on the performance of mortgage-related assets has intensified investors' concerns about credit market developments and the implications of the downturn in the housing market for economic growth," Bernanke said in his prepared remarks.
He also expressed concern that the rise in energy prices - oil is now trading at about $97 a barrel - could lead to both higher inflation and weaker levels of economic growth.
"In addition, further sharp increases in crude oil prices have put renewed upward pressure on inflation, and may impose further restraint on economic activity.
The Fed cut the federal funds rate, a key short-term interest rate, by a quarter of a percentage point on Oct. 31, citing an "intensification" in the housing market's weakness.
But the central bank also hinted in its statement that it may not cut rates again at its next meeting on Dec. 11 since it felt that "strains in financial markets have eased somewhat.
The Dow Jones industrial average plummeted 361 points on Wednesday due to credit market fears the fifth-largest decline this year.
Under intense international pressure to restore democracy in Pakistan, President Gen. Pervez Musharraf announced Thursday that parliamentary elections will be held by Feb. 15 and restated his pledge to step down as the country's military leader.
Elections, originally set for mid-January, had been suspended along with the country's constitution after Musharraf declared a state of emergency on Saturday.
His opponents, the target of widespread arrests and detentions, say it amounts to martial law in Pakistan.
The state of emergency will remain in place for at least a month, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, president of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League, told CNN Thursday.In addition, Pakistan's government Thursday began lifting the media blackout imposed as part of the emergency order, allowing CNN and British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) back on the air.
The White House called Musharraf's announcement a positive first step.
"We think it is a good thing that President Musharraf has clarified the election date for the Pakistani people," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said
Musharraf is under tremendous pressure by the United States and other foreign allies to end the state of emergency and set a date for elections.
President Bush said that he delivered that message personally to Musharraf during a Wednesday phone call.
SEOUL, South Korea (CNN) North Korea expressed gratitude to the United States Thursday for helping one of its ships repel pirates, the latest sign of improving relations between the longtime foes as the North scales back its nuclear program.
The U.S. Navy's help last week to North Korean crewmen fighting off Somali pirates was unprecedented in the half century of hostility between the Cold War foes, a spokesman for the Naval Historical Center in Washington said.
The Navy boarded the North Korean ship Dai Hong Dan to provide medical assistance at the crew's invitation after the crew had overpowered and detained pirates in the waters off Somalia.
in the struggle against terrorism," and pledged to work with the international community to fight terrorism.
"The pirates' recent armed attack on our trading ship was a grave terrorist act perpetrated against a peaceful ship," KCNA said. "We feel grateful to the United States for its assistance given to our crewmen.
Jack Green, a spokesman at the Naval Historical Center in Washington, says the U.S. help to North Korea at sea was unprecedented in recent history.
"They have had cold relationships between the two since the seizing of the USS Pueblo," Green said. "The U.S. is committed to keeping freedom of the seas for all users regardless of our relations, regardless of the owner all the vessels. It has to do with the Navy's strategy on maritime security.
In last week's incident, KCNA said seven pirates disguised as guards boarded the North Korean vessel on October 29 and demanded the sailors pay them $15,000 and move the ship to the waters they want.
KCNA said the USS James E. Williams and a helicopter rushed to the scene and "helped the sailors in fighting, threatening the pirates over walkie-talkie.
The KCNA dispatch was the first reaction from North Korea.
(CNN) Sixty-six passengers and crew were transferred to shore on Coast Guard vessels after their cruise ship was run aground off Virginia on Thursday, U.S. Coast Guard officials and the cruise ship company told CNN.
The Spirit of Nantucket hit something in the Intracoastal Waterway around 5:30 a.m. ET and soon began taking on water, according to the law firm representing the cruise ship company, Cruise West.
"Once the captain noticed that the vessel was taking on water, he made the decision ... to run it aground," Petty Officer Chris Evanson of the Coast Guard said on CNN's "Newsroom.
The ship was on a 10-day cruise from Alexandria, Virginia, to Charleston, South Carolina, Evanson said.
The ship "eased onto a mud shoal at the shoreline" about 25 miles south of the Elizabeth River near Norfolk, Virginia, while damage was assessed, the company statement said.
All the passengers and crew on the ship were ferried by Coast Guard vessels to a nearby landing and taken to a hotel, the statement said.
No injuries were reported, Evanson said, and the company said guests ate breakfast while the Coast Guard readied their departure.
Coast Guard vessels from Portsmouth, Virginia, and Elizabeth City, North Carolina, as well as police and fire units from Virginia Beach, responded to the scene, Evanson said.
The cruise ship is lodged about 3 miles into the waterway from the Atlantic Ocean, he said.
TBILISI, Georgia (CNN) Georgia's pro-Western president said Thursday the country would hold early presidential elections in January to defuse a crisis fueled by protests against him.
President Mikhail Saakashvili also promised to lift within days the nationwide state of emergency that he had imposed late Wednesday after a violent crackdown on anti-government protesters, saying "the situation in Georgia is quickly stabilizing.
The election had been due to take place in late 2008, but Saakashvili said it would now be scheduled for Jan. 5 "to receive the trust of the people.
Troops armed with hard rubber clubs were patrolling the center of the Georgian capital to enforce the state of emergency.
Hundreds of the khaki-uniformed Interior Ministry officers flooded Tbilisi's main thoroughfare, the site of the main protests by demonstrators calling for the U.S.-backed Saakashvili to resign.
The riot police responded to the demonstrators with tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannons.
Saakashvili defended the use of force, saying it was necessary to prevent the former Soviet republic from sliding into chaos as it moves toward integration with the West.
The American-educated Saakashvili, who is trying to shake off centuries of Russian influence and integrate the ex-Soviet republic with the West, accused Moscow of fomenting the protests and expelled three Russian diplomats.
Georgian health officials said 569 people sought medical treatment after the clashes, including 24 police officers, and 28 remained hospitalized Thursday.
The Interior Ministry said 32 protesters were detained.
Classes in schools and universities in Tbilisi were suspended for two days.
Normally noisy, bustling Rustaveli Avenue was quiet.
TUUSULA, Finland (CNN) Flags in Finland were flying at half-staff Thursday and government workers observed three minutes of silence a day after a teenager opened fire at his high school, killing eight people before fatally turning the gun on himself.
Police said the victims all of whom were from the school were apparently picked at random.
Six were students, one was the 61-year-old school headmistress and one was the 42-year-old school nurse.
Ten other people were wounded in the attack.
Jokela High School was closed for the rest of the week, but some of the 460 students gathered there overnight and into Thursday, crying and lighting candles for the victims.
Police identified the gunman as Pekka-Eric Auvinen, a senior at the high school in the southern Finnish town of Tuusula, about 30 miles north of Helsinki.
Auvinen died at a Helsinki hospital late Wednesday of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.
Police said all of his victims had multiple gunshot wounds, most to the upper body and head.
Police said they found 69 shells and more than 320 unused bullets at the scene.
Haapala said everything suggested Auvinen wanted the massacre to be as spectacular as possible, according to STT.
At a news conference Thursday, police said Auvinen had sprayed a flammable liquid, possibly lamp oil, on the walls of the school and that he tried but failed to light it.
A search of his house turned up books and the gunman's writings, which suggest he had "very strong opinions against society," police said.
President Tarja Halonen called the attack "shocking and tragic.
(CNN) Myanmar's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi is "ready to cooperate" with the government and is committed to pursuing a dialogue with the ruling junta, according to a statement the United Nations' special envoy to Myanmar read Thursday on her behalf.
"It is my duty to give constant and serious considerations to the interests and opinions of as broad a range of political organizations and forces as possible," Ibrahim Gambari said, reading the statement from Suu Kyi.
But the Nobel Peace Prize winner said she will continue to be "guided by the policies and wishes" of the opposition political party she heads the National League for Democracy.
In the statement, Suu Kyi also welcomed the appointment of Aung Kyi as the minister of relations, a position the junta created last month to be a liaison between government and Suu Kyi, whom the junta has under house arrest in Yangon.
She has been confined to her home for the better part of almost two decades.
Aung Kyi viewed as a moderate was appointed as the liaison officer amid international pressure following September's bloody crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations.
As many as 110 people are believed to have been killed in the violence, including 40 Buddhist monks.
The protests were sparked by a huge fuel price increase imposed by the military government, and quickly escalated.
Myanmar's military junta said in mid-October that it had detained more than 2,900 people during the crackdown.
Many of them are still believed to be in custody.
Suu Kyi described her October 25 meeting with the liaison officer as "constructive," said the statement read by Gambari.
"I look forward to further regular discussions.
Gambari said he will return this week to New York to brief U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the five-day trip to Myanmar, also called Burma.
ROME, Italy (CNN) Police made a string of arrests across Europe Tuesday, detaining 20 people suspected of involvement in the recruitment of suicide bombers, Italian police said.
Eleven of the arrests were in Italy, in the northern cities of Milan, Reggio Emilia, Bergamo, and San Remo, said. Lt. Col. Sandro Sandulli, the head of the Carabinieri special forces.
Three arrests were in Britain, one in France, and one in Portugal, Sandulli said.
Those arrested are suspected of forming Salafi Jihad terrorist cells which were recruiting suicide bombers and sending them to Iraq and Afghanistan, said Col. Mario Parente, deputy commander of the Carabinieri special forces unit.
Parente said that during the arrests, police found al Qaeda manuals for the production of explosives, detonation devices, and various poisons.
He said the manuals also included details of guerrilla-style war operations.
Salafi is an extreme school of Islamic thought which developed in Egypt and began to have prominence with militant groups there in the late 1960s and has since been adopted by terrorist groups in North Africa, the Middle East, and Europe, said Sajjan Gohel, director of international security at the Asia Pacific Foundation in London.
Italian police said Tuesday's arrests were the result of an investigation, started in 2003, into some Salafi cells which were organized by Tunisians and Algerians.
The main suspect in the operation is a Tunisian who was arrested in 2002 during a separate antiterrorism operation, police said.
The main terrorist cell was based in the northern Italian region of Lombardy and involved what investigators called a "long-term" jihadist program which provided military and ideological training.
Another cell, based in Reggio Emilia, had the goal of creating a grand Islamic "empire" stretching from Morocco to China, police said.
Serena Williams was forced to quit her opening match at the season-ending WTA Championships against Russian Anna Chakvetadze with a knee injury on Wednesday.
American Williams was treated by the tournament doctor before the start of the ninth game and pulled out having lost the first set 6-4 in Madrid.
The fifth-ranked Williams has reached the final in all three previous appearances at the event, which features the top eight players.
Earlier defending champion Justine Henin cruised past Jelena Jankovic 6-2 6-2, breaking serve six times to win her 22nd straight match.
"I was much better today than yesterday. I was in a good rhythm and much more aggressive.
Later Wednesday Ana Ivanovic takes on Daniela Hantuchova.
NORFOLK, Virginia (CNN) To all those people who blurt out "Wow, you're tall!
" as they stare up at George Bell:
He knows.
And now, the world will know, too.
The lanky, 7-foot-8 Norfolk sheriff's deputy is being recognized Thursday by Guinness World Records as the Tallest Man in the United States.
That makes him 2 inches taller than the NBA's current tallest player, Yao Ming, but too short to be the world's tallest living man.
He stands below, according to Guinness, Ukraine's 8-foot-5.5 Leonid Stadnyk and China's Bao Xi Shun, who is 7 feet 8.95 inches.
Bell wears size-19 shoes, pants with a 43-inch inseam and shirts with 45-inch sleeves.
He did play basketball, in college and with the Harlem Wizards and Harlem Globetrotters show teams.
And as for how he feels about being so tall?
"I have no choice but to like it," Bell, 50, said in an interview with The Associated Press.
Bell was to be revealed as America's tallest man on ABC's "Good Morning America" on Thursday, when 200,000 people worldwide were expected to celebrate Guinness World Records Day by attempting to set records of their own.
Guinness began searching for America's tallest man in August.
Bell's ex-wife registered him online, and Guinness spokesman Stuart Claxton said Bell's doctor documented his height.
The Guinness record book now lists only the tallest man in the world, but Bell will be noted along with the tallest men in several other countries in the edition to be published next year.
LONDON, England (CNN) Britain's Queen Elizabeth II opened the country's parliament Tuesday in a traditional ceremony.
The occasion is considered the UK's most important constitutional event of the year and is steeped in history, tradition, and regalia.
Amid pomp and ceremony, the queen was escorted by members of the Household Cavalry riding white horses and wearing their distinctive gold-colored helmets with tall red plumes.
The speech is actually written by the government and approved by the cabinet, symbolizing the right of lawmakers to debate without interference from the monarch.
As a result, the queen "confirms" key bills and measures, rather than announcing them.
There were few surprises in this year's speech, since Prime Minister Gordon Brown already laid out his legislative agenda after he took office in June.
Tackling climate change was a key part of the agenda.
It also wants to introduce a new system of five-year carbon budgets and the creation of a climate change advisory committee.
"My government is committed to protecting the environment and to tackling climate change, both at home and abroad," the queen said. "A bill will be brought forward to make the United Kingdom the first country in the world to introduce a legally binding framework to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
To help battle traffic congestion, which the government predicts will rise by 22 percent over the next eight years, local planners will have more freedom and flexibility to design public transportation networks which suit their individual needs.
As part of tougher measures against terrorist suspects, the government wants to strengthen the monitoring of terrorists after their release from prison and enable police to question suspects after they've been charged.
Iran's nuclear program dominated the list of international concerns.
"My government will continue to work with the United Nations, G8 and European Union to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction, including addressing international concerns over Iran's nuclear intentions," the queen said.
the government's desire to work with the Iraqi government on reconciliation and reconstruction, continued support for the Afghan government against extremism and the narcotics trade, and Britain's "strong commitment" to achieving peace between the Israelis and Palestinians.
NEW YORK (CNN) Michael Jackson knows his reputation as a freak but just ignores it.
"I don't pay attention to that," the 49-year-old singer tells Ebony magazine.
Jackson, a twice-divorced father of three, says he hasn't changed all that much since releasing his blockbuster album "Thriller" nearly 25 years ago.
"That Michael is probably the same Michael here," he says in the magazine's December issue, on newsstands Monday. "I just wanted to get certain things accomplished first.
But I always had this tug in the back of my head, the things I wanted to do, to raise children, have children. I'm enjoying it very much.
Jackson says success "came with a lot of pain.
"I always want to do music that influences and inspires each generation," he says.
Paul McCartney, who is in the midst of a bitter divorce from his second wife, has been photographed kissing another woman in the Hamptons.
Shevell, estranged wife of prominent Nassau County lawyer Bruce A. Blakeman, has a home in the Long Island resort, as does the former Beatle.
She was appointed to the MTA board by then-Gov.
George E. Pataki in 2001.
Shevell is also a vice president of New England Motor Freight Inc., a New Jersey firm run by her father, Mike Shevell.
The Sun said McCartney and Shevell were spotted at a sushi restaurant in Amagansett and at an outdoor cafe.
McCartney is divorcing Heather Mills McCartney.
His first wife, Linda, died of breast cancer in 1998.
Detailed plans for the stadium which will host the 2012 Olympic Games in London were unveiled by organizers on Wednesday.
496 million ($1.04 billion) and will be scaled down to a 25,000 capacity venue after the Games with its main use for athletics.
"In unveiling today's images I want that to be the unveiling of a journey for the next five years," said former Olympic champion Sebastian Coe, head of the London 2012 organizing committee, at a press conference.
The stadium, which will have a roof covering about two thirds of the seating areas, is surrounded by water on three sides.
Construction will begin next year and finish by the summer of 2011.
A U.N. special envoy will meet Myanmar's detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Thursday, the United Nations said, the last day of the envoy's frustrating mission to try to ease the country's political crisis.
But hopes for a breakthrough by the envoy Ibrahim Gambari dimmed Wednesday after the military government rejected proposed talks with Suu Kyi.
Gambari has also failed to meet the country's most powerful figure, junta chief Senior Gen. Than Shwe.
The six-day visit is Gambari's second to Myanmar, also called Burma, since the military killed at least 10 protesters in late September and arrested thousands of people.
Gambari was scheduled to spend time with Suu Kyi, senior members of her National League for Democracy party, other opposition politicians and U.N. workers on Thursday, the U.N. said in a statement released Wednesday.
Prime Minister Thein Sein and Gambari held "detailed discussions" Wednesday on ways to improve Myanmar's cooperation with the U.N. and address the country's socioeconomic, political and human rights issues in the wake of the crisis, the U.N. statement said.
between the junta and Suu Kyi "to start without delay as an indispensable part of any process of national reconciliation," as well as a lifting of restrictions on Suu Kyi and all political prisoners, the statement said.
Three children have been hospitalized over the past 10 days after swallowing beads from Bindeez, named Australia's toy of the year at an industry function earlier this year.
Spin Master Ltd., a Toronto-based toy company that distributes a similar line of toys for Moose Enterprises under the name Aqua Dots, said it is requesting all stores remove the product from shelves in North America.
It could not immediately be learned whether Aqua Dots are made in the same factories as the Bindeez product.
But in a statement, Spin Master said that "out of an abundance of caution," it stopped shipping the item and was working with the Consumer Product Safety Commission and Health Canada.
Scientists say the beads contain a chemical that the human body metabolizes into the so-called "date rape" drug gamma hydroxy butyrate.
The New South Wales state minister for fair trading, Linda Burney, ordered the toys pulled from store shelves Tuesday when it was learned a 2-year-old boy and a 10-year-old girl were admitted to a Sydney hospital after swallowing large quantities of the beads.
A 19-month-old toddler from Queensland also was receiving medical help after eating the beads, the state's chief health officer, Jeannette Young, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.
A statement from the New South Wales Fair Trading Department said the product was supposed to use a nontoxic compound used in glue, but it contained the harmful chemical instead.
(CNN) Growing tensions between Russia and the former Soviet republic of Georgia reached a new stage Wednesday as Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili declared a nationwide state of emergency and expelled several Russian diplomats.
The emergency decree, which must go before parliament for ratification, was part of an effort to quell violent anti-government protests that Saakashvili blamed on Russian officials.
If approved, it would place media outlets under government control, and clamp down on demonstrations.
Earlier Wednesday, security forces used water cannons and tear gas against the crowds in the capital, Tbilisi.
Hospital officials said about 100 people were injured in scuffles with police.
Tens of thousands of Georgians began protesting against Saakashvili last Friday, seeking to oust him.
The demonstrations are the largest in Georgia since the 2003 Rose Revolution that swept pro-Western Saakashvili to power.
"This bloody action of the government will cause the new wave of the mass protest in this country, which may lead to the end of this government," an opposition leader said.
Protesters accuse the president of corruption, authoritarianism and failing to tackle poverty.
Saakashvili has denied the charges, and accused Russian leaders of fomenting the political crisis.
But the Kremlin dismissed Saakashvili's actions and comments as "anti-Russia hysteria," according to the Russian news agency Interfax.
Saakashvili was swept to power on a promise to tackle corruption in the former Soviet satellite state.
However, the country is still struggling to recover from years of post-Soviet economic decay, instability and civil war.
HELSINKI, Finland (CNN) An 18-year-old authorities say shot eight people inside his high school in southern Finland, before turning the gun on himself, has died, police said.
The shooting appeared to have been planned out in graphic videos posted on Internet file-sharing site YouTube.
At a news conference this afternoon, police confirmed the dead numbered two girls, five boys and the school's headmistress at Jokela High in Tuusula, a quiet town around 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of Helsinki.
Ten other people were taken to a hospital with minor injuries.
The shooter, whom police identified as Pekka Eric Auvinen, died at Toolo Hospital, authorities said.
Police said he took his own life.
Police said Auvinen is from Tuusula and who acted alone.
He had no previous criminal record and had never threatened anyone from the school before, they added.
YouTube appeared to have removed 89 videos linked to his account, many of them featuring Nazi imagery, shortly after the incident.
Finnish media reported someone posted a message two weeks ago on the Web site, warning of a bloodbath at the school.
A video posted earlier Wednesday, by "Sturmgeist89," was titled "Jokela High School Massacre - 11/7/2007."
"Sturmgeist89" identified himself as Auvinen, and said he chose the name "Sturmgeist" because it means "storm spirit" in German.
The video showed a picture of the school, which then disintegrated to reveal two images of Auvinen against a red background, pointing a gun at the screen.
The police said at this afternoon's press conference that they had been fired at when they arrived at the school at 11.45 p.m. local time (9.45 a.m. GMT).
They described the scene as chaotic, with some of the 460 students, ranging in age from 12 to 18, breaking windows in an attempt to escape.
When the police's special SWAT unit entered the high school they found the gunman unconscious and in critical condition in the lower lobby of the building with a gunshot wound to his head.
Police assume he tried to take his own life as no officers fired at him.
Several bodies were also found in the same location, where the shooting is believed to have begun, they added.
Police also said that the gun Auvinen used, which was fully licensed, had been purchased less than a month ago on October 19.
The legal age limit to own a gun in Finland is 18, which Auvinen passed in June of this year.
He had a recommendation from a shooting club when he obtained the gun, police added, and practiced sharp-shooting as a hobby at a shooting range.
Pakistani police Wednesday used tear gas on a group of journalists and supporters gathered outside parliament for a demonstration organized by former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, police sources told CNN.
Hundreds of people took part in the demonstration, and many remain outside parliament, the sources said.
Video showed Pakistani forces in uniform with shields and sticks trying to move a razor wire barricade surrounding the protesters.
Other police fired tear gas canisters into the air.
Some of the demonstrators clapped and and chanted slogans, while others raised their Bhutto posters into the air.
Before the clashes began, Bhutto said 400 members of her political party were arrested across Pakistan on Wednesday "without any provocation.
At a news conference, Bhutto called on the people of Pakistan to join protests against President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's statewide emergency rule and his suspension of the country's constitution. Watch Bhutto talk about the crisis &raquo;
Bhutto also is calling for a massive rally on Friday, but a spokesman for Musharraf's government warned that such a demonstration is outlawed under the emergency measures.
Authorities in Punjab province have already barred a rally by Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party.
A spokesman for the government said that large public gatherings are "generally inadvisable and the political parties should refrain from holding public meetings and rallies.
Gunmen opened fire on students returning from a march Wednesday in which 80,000 people denounced President Hugo Chavez's attempts to expand his power.
Terrified students ran through the campus as ambulances arrived.
National Guard troops gathered outside the Central University of Venezuela, the nation's largest and a center for opposition to Chavez's government.
Venezuelan law bars state security forces from entering the campus, but Luis Acuna, the minister of higher education, said they could be called in if the university requests them.
Earlier, Rivero said he had been informed that one person had died in the violence.
The violence broke out after anti-Chavez demonstrators led by university students marched peacefully to the Supreme Court to protest constitutional changes that Venezuelans will consider in a December referendum.
The amendments would abolish presidential term limits, give the president control over the Central Bank and let him create new provinces governed by handpicked officials.
The protesters demand the referendum be suspended, saying the amendments would weaken civil liberties in one of South America's oldest democracies and give Chavez unprecedented power to declare states of emergency.
President Bush and French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Wednesday called on Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf to hold planned elections and to step down from the military.
The United States wants you to have the elections as scheduled, and I want you to take the uniform off," Bush said of his telephone conversation with Musharraf earlier in the day.
On Saturday, Musharraf imposed an emergency order in the country suspending the constitution and arresting hundreds of human rights activists and lawyers in what he said was a necessary move to fight terrorism.
"This is a country of 150 million people, which happens to have nuclear weapons.
This is very important for us that one day, we shouldn't wake up with a government, an administration in Pakistan which is in the hands of the extremists.
Responding to a reporter's question about the absence of Iraq in his speech to Congress earlier in the day, Sarkozy said he sent his foreign minister there recently to show solidarity with the Iraqi people.
"France wants a united Iraq. It's in no one's interest to see Iraq dismantled," the French president said.
In his speech to a joint meeting of Congress, the French president promised to stand firm with Washington on the war in Afghanistan and against Iran's nuclear program.
Rafael Benitez's side, beaten 2-1 by the Turks two weeks ago, surpassed the seven unopposed goals that Arsenal put past Slavia Prague a fortnight ago and that Juventus netted against Olympiakos in 2003.
But Liverpool will now be massively boosted after ending a run of poor form which has also dented their English Premier League title hopes.
Steven Gerrard scored the other.
Chad Johnson has found about 80 diamonds at Crater of Diamonds State Park, but on Monday he nearly threw away his largest find yet.
A cube-shaped rock plucked out of his sifters turned out to be a 4.38-carat, tea-colored diamond.
Johnson, 36, made the dig Saturday at the park and left his equipment in a locker.
Crater of Diamonds State Park, which opened in 1972, is the world's only diamond-producing site open to the public, and visitors can keep the gems they unearth.
The largest diamond found at the park was the 16.37-carat Amarillo Starlight, a white diamond found in 1975.
Johnson's find is the second-largest diamond uncovered at the park this year.
In June, a Louisiana man found a 4.8-carat stone. More than 700 diamonds have been found there this year.
Park officials declined to speculate how much money Johnson could get for the diamond.
Johnson suggested he expects much more than what he is used to getting. "If someone offers me that much money, it's theirs," Johnson said.
Bad reputations tend to stick, even with foods.
Continued negative press about a fruit, vegetable, or beverage is enough reason for many of us to banish it.
Take avocados and peanuts, for example.
Not too long ago they wore a big scarlet "F" for too much fat.
Yet as peanuts and avocados sat languishing on many people's bad-for-you lists, researchers discovered that the fat in these two foods, mostly the monounsaturated kind, is extremely good for the heart and for health in general.
For the common mushroom, the "bad" reputation is a tad subtler. It's not perceived as unhealthy.
But it is often dismissed as diet food, low in calories but with little to brag about nutritionally.
Now that scientists are looking beneath the surface at mushrooms, avocados, and peanuts as well as once-maligned eggs and coffee redeeming qualities for each of these five foods are coming to light.
1. Peanut butter
At least five major studies confirm that eating peanuts can lower risk for coronary heart disease. So it's no leap to think that peanut butter confers the same benefits.
"Suffice it to say that eating peanut butter or peanuts has been associated with lower total cholesterol, lower ldl or 'bad' cholesterol, and lower triglycerides, all of which are associated with lower cardiovascular disease risk," says Richard Mattes, Ph.D., R.D., a professor of nutrition at Purdue University.
2. Eggs
Why they're good for you:
Eggs contain a variety of substances that appear to promote good health.
Choline, a nutrient that is critical to brain function, is one example.
Eggs, it seems, are one of the richest food sources of choline.
Scientists at the University of North Carolina find adding choline to the diets of pregnant animals improves memory performance in their offspring.
3. Coffee
The only thing you get from drinking coffee is a caffeine buzz. Why it's good for you:
The average cup of coffee has hundreds of different chemical compounds.
Some Arizona researchers recently discovered that caffeinated coffee helps improve memory in older adults.
4. Avocado
I shouldn't eat avocados because they're high in fat.
A lot of attention centers on the fact that avocados are rich in monounsaturated fat, the heart-healthy kind.
Yet scientists are now more interested in the active compounds in avocados that might help prevent cancer.
One recent study found that those compounds can inhibit the growth of prostate cancer cells in the laboratory.
5. Mushrooms
Mushrooms are a low-calorie food with little nutritional benefit.
They may be 90 percent water and have only 18 calories per cup, but mushrooms are getting serious scientific attention.
A suicide bombing in Afghanistan that killed at least 35 people and a pipeline attack in Yemen also helped push prices higher.
U.S. light crude for December delivery gained $2.72 to settle at $96.70 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, surpassing the previous closing high of $95.93 set Friday.
Crude, already up more than $2 in morning trade, rose further after the Energy Information Administration issued a report showing worldwide demand unchanged, despite high prices.
EIA said the forecast for oil use growth worldwide in 2008 was unchanged at 1.5 million barrels per day.
This was despite the fact prices have risen 20 percent.
The agency said world oil use would grow by 1.8 million barrels per day in the current quarter, slightly below previous estimates due to a drop in U.S. demand.
The world currently consumes about 85.6 million barrels of oil a day.
Total U.S. petroleum consumption is expected to increase by 0.5 percent in 2007 and 1 percent in 2008, despite the higher oil and petroleum product prices.
Continued economic growth and forecasted colder average temperatures this winter than last winter could combine to push demand higher.
EIA estimates oil prices in the fourth quarter to average $87 a barrel.
NASHVILLE, Tennessee (CNN) If the Country Music Association was going to set up a special dressing room for its entertainer of the year nominees, it would do well to put in a couple of leather couches, a box of cigars, ESPN on the tube and a sign on the door proclaiming, "Men Only.
All five nominees seven if you count Rascal Flatts as three instead of one are men.
It was the same last year and the year before that, and the year before that.
One has to go all the way back to 2001, when the Dixie Chicks were nominated, to find a woman on the list.
By at least one measure, country fans aren't pleased.
A national survey conducted recently by Country Music Television found that 74 percent of respondents thought women should have been included in this year's entertainer category, with Carrie Underwood and Faith Hill the two favorites.
Entertainer of the year is the CMA's top award and is influenced by tour success as well as by album sales, hit songs and other achievements.
The awards will be handed out Wednesday night in Nashville and broadcast live by ABC.
Most years the nominees are veteran acts, or at least established stars who've paid their dues.
This year's nominees are Kenny Chesney, Brad Paisley, Rascal Flatts, George Strait and Keith Urban the same lineup as last year when Chesney won, except that Brooks & Dunn were in the mix instead of Strait.
The absence of women may be more glaring this year because another key category, album of the year, also is without a single female artist.
KNOXVILLE, Tennessee (CNN) A comet that unexpectedly brightened in the last couple of weeks and is now visible to the naked eye is attracting professional and amateur interest.
Paul Lewis, director of astronomy outreach at the University of Tennessee, is drawing students to the roof of the Nielsen Physics Building for special viewings of Comet 17P/Holmes.
The comet is exploding and its coma, a cloud of gas and dust illuminated by the sun, has grown to be bigger than the planet Jupiter.
The comet lacks the tail usually associated with such celestial bodies but can be seen in the northern sky, in the constellation Perseus, as a fuzzy spot of light about as bright as the stars in the Big Dipper.
"This is truly a celestial surprise," Lewis said. "Absolutely amazing.
Until October 23, the comet had been visible to modern astronomers only with a telescope, but that night it suddenly erupted and expanded.
A similar burst in 1892 led to the comet's discovery by Edwin Holmes.
"This is a once-in-a-lifetime event to witness, along the lines of when Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 smashed into Jupiter back in 1994," Lewis said.
Scientists speculate the comet has exploded because there are sinkholes in its nucleus, giving it a honeycomb-like structure.
Experts aren't sure how long the comet's show will last but estimate it could be weeks if not months.
Using a telescope or binoculars help bring the comet's details into view, they said.
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (CNN) Sudan has asked South Africa to mediate on Darfur, the South African foreign minister said Tuesday as attempts to end a conflict that has killed more than 200,000 and forced 2.5 million from their homes appeared to founder.
Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir made the request to his South African counterpart Thabo Mbeki at a meeting Tuesday, a day after a spokesman for U.N. and African Union mediators pressed Darfur rebels to come to peace talks in Libya.
UN-AU-brokered talks opened late last month in the Libyan coastal town of Sirte without several prominent rebel leaders.
Days later, a Sudanese government official said the talks would be postponed until December.
At U.N. headquarters Monday, Ahmad Fawzi, spokesman for the UN-AU mediation team, said the absence of several rebel leaders was disappointing, and pressed them to join the process.
"They are the beneficiaries of this process, and they owe it to their people to come up with a unified position," Fawzi said.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) Baton-wielding police fought with lawyers outside courthouses in Islamabad and Lahore again Tuesday, arresting dozens more as they enforced Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's crackdown on judicial activism.
Three days after Musharraf suspended the constitution and declared a state of emergency, Pakistan's judicial system is in lockdown, with thousands of lawyers jailed and many judges detained in their homes.
Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto arrived in Islamabad from Karachi on Tuesday for meetings with other opposition leaders about how to respond to Musharraf's declaration.
In a telephone call, former Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammed Chaudhry fired by Musharraf on Saturday urged a gathering of lawyers to go to "every corner of Pakistan and give the message that this is the time to sacrifice."
Asked if he had a message for Musharraf, he told CNN International, "He should restore the judiciary, which was working independently in this country for the strengthening of the institution of democracy.
About 3,000 Pakistani lawyers, rounded up since Saturday, sit in jails across the country with no courts operating to which they can appeal for release.
Pakistan has an estimated 12,000 lawyers.
Police earned cash bonuses for beating and arresting hundreds of lawyers Monday who had gathered outside of Lahore's courthouse, police sources said.
Any lawyer who attempted to enter the Lahore or Islamabad courthouse Tuesday was immediately arrested, witnesses said.
Some were grabbed by police as they walked toward the court, sources said.
"Don't be afraid of anything," Chaudhry told the lawyers gathered in Islamabad. "God will help us and the day will come when you'll see the constitution supreme and no dictatorship for a long time.
Chaudhry, who was reinstated to the court in July, has led key rulings that have weakened Musharraf's grip on power.
Six U.S. troops were killed in Iraq on Monday, making 2007 the deadliest for the American military in the Iraq war.
The grim record came despite lower death rates in recent months, which were not enough to offset death tolls that topped 100 during three months in the spring.
Four soldiers were killed when a roadside bomb exploded near their vehicle in northern Iraq's Tameem province; another died in combat in Anbar province.
A sailor was killed in Salaheddin province "as a result of injuries sustained from an explosion while conducting operations," the military said.
According to a CNN count of Pentagon figures, 855 U.S. service members have died so far in 2007.
The next highest death toll was in 2004, when 849 were killed.
The total number of U.S. military deaths in Iraq stands at 3,858, including seven civilian contractors of the Defense Department.
83 deaths in January, 81 in February and 81 in March.
Numbers peaked in the next three months, with 104 deaths in April, 126 in May and 101 in June.
The numbers have dropped from that level since with 79 in July, 84 in August, 65 in September, 40 in October and 11 so far in November.
Civilian deaths have also dropped in recent months, U.S. and Iraqi authorities say.
The Iraq war began in March of 2003 and in that year there were 486 U.S. military deaths.
MADRID, Spain (CNN) Dozens of migrants trying to reach Europe spent three weeks at sea off West Africa's coast and threw nearly 50 bodies overboard after their vessel lost power and supplies dwindled, officials said Tuesday.
The boat, which set out from Senegal with as many as 150 people and apparently traveled hundreds of miles, was found Tuesday by a Mauritanian patrol boat, a Spanish Civil Guard official said.
It was one of the highest death tolls this year among Africans trying to escape poverty and reach Europe's southern gateway.
When the vessel was found, there were 100 people aboard and two dead bodies, the official said under department rules barring her name from being published.
In Mauritania, officials agreed that there were 98 survivors, but otherwise offered slightly different numbers.
Yahfdhou Ould Amar, chief of police for the northern port city of Nouadhibou, said 45 people died in the voyage presumably from hunger, cold and thirst.
The boat apparently set sail from southern Senegal on October 16 with 143 people aboard and its motor failed last week off Morocco's coast, much further to the north.
It was unclear if the boat then turned around or just drifted southward before being intercepted Tuesday, Amar said.
The survivors were exhausted, and many appeared to be in shock, said Mohamed Ould Hamada, head of the Mauritanian branch of the Red Cross in Nouadhibou.
He said the U.N. and other international groups had dispatched teams to help the survivors.
Most of the group were Senegalese, along with some from Mali, Guinea-Bissau and Gambia, Hamada said.
They told relief workers that the captain of the boat had perished.
Hundreds of migrants seeking a better life in Europe die each year while attempting to reach Spain by sailing in simple wooden fishing boats from West Africa to Spain's Canary Islands, just off Morocco's coast.
The trip often takes more than a week.
Spain says increased air and sea surveillance of Africa's coast has led to a sharp drop in the number of people attempting the journey.
At least 35 people including three children and six members of parliament have been killed in a suicide bombing at a sugar factory in northern Afghanistan, the hospital chief in that province told CNN.
Other reports from the region said as many as 100 people were killed or wounded in the blast, and the numbers were expected to rise.
The Associated Press put the death toll at 64, making Tuesday's attack in Baghlan province the deadliest in Afghanistan since the Taliban was overthrown by a U.S.-led coalition in 2001.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned the attack in a statement issued by his spokesman and "expressed his deep sorrow at the martyrdom of a number of Afghan MPs.
"This heinous act of terrorism is against Islam and humanity and I condemn it in the strongest possible terms," Karzai said. "It is the work of the enemies of peace and security in Afghanistan.
Among the lawmakers listed as dead in the president's statement is Mustafa Kazemi, the former commerce minister and spokesman for the opposition, who is also a top warlord in the region.
School children had lined the route where up to 18 national lawmakers and dozens more local dignitaries walked on their way to the factory when the blast went off, prompting local officials to believe that children may be among the dead and wounded.
The visit was part of an economic assistance plan for the northeastern province.
Interior Ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashary blamed the attack, according to AP, on the "enemy of Afghanistan, the enemy of the people of Afghanistan," a term often used to refer to Taliban militants.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy arrived Tuesday in Washington ahead of a planned address to Congress, the first by a French leader in 11 years.
His speech Wednesday to a joint meeting of Congress will come amid improved relations between the United States and France, something Sarkozy has encouraged since his election in May.
In his first few months in office, the French leader has been at pains to show he is an ally of the United States, backing President Bush's hard-line stance on Iran's nuclear program and attempting to heal the wounds over his country's opposition to the Iraq war.
The French leader, whom Bush will host at a White House dinner Tuesday night, has said that he understands Americans were " struck in the heart" by the September 11, 2001, attacks and that they considered French criticism of the Iraq invasion "a betrayal.
Sarkozy's speech to Congress will be the first address by a French leader since President Jacques Chirac's appearance in 1996.
On that occasion, several lawmakers boycotted Chirac as a protest against France's nuclear testing in the South Pacific.
A self-professed Elvis Presley fan, Sarkozy has made no attempt to hide his admiration for the United States.
During the summer, he vacationed in New Hampshire, where he was photographed jogging in a New York Police Department T-shirt.
BANGALORE, India (CNN) Partway through a mammoth 40-hour operation on a 2-year-old girl born with four arms and four legs, surgeons in India said the procedure is going according to plan, with no problems encountered.
The surgery to separate Lakshmi Tatma from her "parasitic twin" continues, he said, with a team of some 30 surgeons.
"We've managed to remove the parasitic twin out of Lakshmi's body and started reconstructing her pelvic bone. We have managed to get the pelvic bone together.
The little girl, he said, has "responded very well. ... Everything is going according to plan.
The task began early Tuesday in the southern Indian city of Bangalore and is expected to go on through the night, with surgeons working eight-hour shifts.
When Lakshmi was born into a poor, rural Indian family, villagers in the remote settlement of Rampur Kodar Katti in the northern state of Bihar believed she was sacred.
As news of her birth spread, locals waited in line for a blessing from the baby.
Her parents, Shambhu and Poonam Tatma, named the girl after the Hindu goddess of wealth who has four arms.
The couple, who earn just $1 a day as casual laborers, wanted her to have the operation but were unable to pay for the rare procedure, which has never before been performed in India.
After Patil visited the girl in her village from Narayana Health City hospital in Bangalore, the hospital's foundation agreed to fund the $200,000 operation.
The operation is being conducted by specialists in pediatrics, neurosurgery, orthopedics and plastic surgery.
Planning for the surgery took a month, Patil said, and Lakshmi spent that month in the hospital.
Her parents are being given regular updates but are not allowed to see their daughter during the operation.
"We do expect that she should be able to walk normally and lead a normal life.
Many villagers, however, remain opposed to surgery and are planning to erect a temple to Lakshmi, who they still revere as sacred.
Patil said Lakshmi's parents are "very practical" and knew the risks of the medical treatment.
Asked about the belief she is a reincarnation of the goddess, he said, "She's a very charming young girl, and I'm sure she'll grow up and be something special."
Brazilian swim star Rebeca Gusmao was suspended Monday by FINA after testing positive for testosterone.
The doping violation stemmed from an out-of-competition test on July 13, swimming's governing body announced.
The confederation dropped Gusmao from the Brazil squad to participate in a World Cup meet in Russia next weekend.
Gusmao, who won four medals at the Pan Ams, was ranked 11th in the world in the 50-meter freestyle.
BANGALORE, India (CNN) Doctors began operating on a 2-year-old girl born with four arms and four legs Tuesday in an extensive surgery that they hope will leave the girl with a normal anatomy, a hospital official said.
The girl is joined to a "parasitic twin" who stopped developing in the mother's womb, while the surviving fetus absorbed the limbs, kidneys and other body parts of the undeveloped fetus.
The rare condition is called isciopagus.
The girl, Lakshmi, is named after the four-armed Hindu goddess of wealth, and some in her poor village in the northern state of Bihar revere her as a goddess.
Others sought to make money from her.
Her parents, Shambhu and Poonam, hid her after a circus apparently tried to buy the girl, according to a report in the Hindustan Times.
Doctors are working to remove the extra limbs and organs so she'll have a normal anatomy at the end of the operation, said Dr. Patil Mamatha of Sparsh Hospital.
Surgery, aimed at removing the extra limbs and organs, began early Tuesday morning.
The hospital's foundation is paying for the operation because the girl's family could not afford the medical bills, said Mamatha.
A team of 30 doctors will participate in the surgery.
Justin Henin might not defend her Olympic gold medal in Beijing next year, fearing the city's air pollution could trigger her asthma.
The top-ranked Belgian withdrew from the China Open in September because of her asthma and is worried she might be forced to skip the Games next August.
"I've had asthma for a few months now and I felt very bad in New York at the end of the (U.S. Open), so Beijing, I was really concerned about that," Henin said Monday at the Sony Ericsson Championships.
"I was pretty disappointed because I wanted to play the (China Open) and get used to the conditions.
Henin said she has since controlled her asthma with the help of a specialist.
"It's true that Beijing is going to be tough with the Olympic Games with the problem I have, but now it seems that everything is under control, which is important because the Olympic Games remain a very important goal for me in 2008," Henin said.
Shia LaBeouf was charged with misdemeanor criminal trespassing after the "Transformers" star refused to leave a Chicago drug store, police said Sunday.
A security guard told LaBeouf that he needed to leave the Walgreens store because he appeared to be drunk, police said.
When LaBeouf, 21, refused to leave, the security guard detained him and called police at about 2:30 a.m., according to police spokeswoman Laura Kubiak.
After he was arrested, police noted that LaBeouf was "very courteous and polite," Kubiak said.
LaBeouf, of Glendale, California, is scheduled to appear in Cook County court on November 28.
The actor is set to co-star with Harrison Ford in "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," due in theaters next year.
SANTIAGO, Chile (CNN) A hacker broke into the Web page of Chile's presidency and planted the flag of neighboring Peru, leaving the site inoperable for about 18 hours until it was restored Monday.
Officials took the site down a few minutes later, leaving a notice: "Because we want to give a better service, we are working for you.
Carlos Portales, political director of the Chilean foreign ministry, said the incident is being investigated.
"It has happened with other Web pages, including some from the United States government, the Vatican," Portales told reporters.
The Santiago daily El Mercurio on Monday reported that officials believe the hacker was a Peruvian.
The Web page carried information about activities of President Michelle Bachelet and about the upcoming Ibero American Summit for leaders from throughout Latin America, Spain and Portugal.
Portales said the incident does not appear related to the summit.
BANGKOK, Thailand (CNN) Trumpets and rhythmic chants echoed across the Chao Praya River on Monday in a rare procession of gilded boats honoring Thailand's 79-year-old king, who has been hospitalized for three weeks and was unable to attend the tribute.
It floated past the ornate riverside Grand Palace and the city's most famous Buddhist temples.
Instead, Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn took his father's seat inside a shaded pavilion at the center of the main barge, as thousands of onlookers crowded the river banks to glimpse the boats.
The bows of the royal barges were adorned with figures of serpents, swans, a seven-headed dragon and other creatures.
Bhumibol has been hospitalized since Oct. 13 after feeling what was described as weakness on the right side of his body, and tests found he was getting "inadequate blood supply to the brain," the palace said.
The palace said last week that Bhumibol, the world's longest-reigning monarch, is steadily regaining strength and can now stand without the assistance of a walker.
Royal Barge processions have marked coronations, Buddhist religious ceremonies and the king's birthday.
Monday's procession marked the end of the three-month Buddhist Lent, but came ahead of celebrations to honor the revered monarch's 80th birthday on
A large stretch of the Chao Praya, the busy waterway that cuts through Bangkok, was closed to boats for several hours Monday.
Several major streets and bridges along the route also were closed during the ceremony.
A team of U.S. experts has begun disabling North Korea's nuclear weapons-making facilities, a U.S. official said, the first time Pyongyang has ever moved to scale back its development of atomic bombs.
U.S. State Department spokesman Tom Casey told reporters Monday in Washington that the disabling of the North's nuclear reactor at Yongbyon "is a positive first step in this process, and we certainly hope to see it continue.
the U.S., China, Japan, South Korea and Russia.
The main U.S. envoy to the talks, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, has said the experts would take steps that would require the North to take at least a year for the reactor to be restarted.
On Tuesday, Japanese Foreign Minister Mashiko Komura said Japan may bear some costs for the disablement of the facilities.
Washington hopes that future talks will yield an agreement for the North to dismantle the facility entirely, and also wants the nuclear bombs Pyongyang is believed to have built to be confiscated.
Sung Kim, the top State Department expert on the Koreas and head of the U.S. team, was due in Seoul later Tuesday to take part in meeting of U.S. and South Korean defense ministers the following day, the U.S. Embassy in Seoul said.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates was arriving in Seoul from China for the previously planned discussions on the U.S.-South Korea alliance.
ROME, Italy (CNN) Police raided a summit of Mafia dons in Sicily on Monday, arresting a longtime fugitive mobster believed by authorities to be vying to become Cosa Nostra's next "boss of bosses.
Salvatore Lo Piccolo, sentenced to life in prison for murder and on the run since 1993, was captured in a morning raid on a house in the countryside outside Sicily's capital, Palermo, police said.
Police also arrested Lo Piccolo's son Sandro another alleged top Mafia figure sentenced to life in prison and wanted since 1998 as well as two men accused of being local bosses, officials in Palermo said.
Investigators believe Lo Piccolo could have emerged from a power struggle as the Mafia's new chief after authorities captured Bernardo Provenzano, the reputed No. 1 of the Cosa Nostra crime syndicate, on a farm near Corleone in April 2006.
"After the arrest of Bernardo Provenzano, it was the turn of the Lo Piccolos," Palermo Police Chief Giuseppe Caruso told the Italian news agency ANSA. "We were on the trail of the bosses for a long time, and this is a great result.
Caruso told Italian state TV that in the last two months, investigators closely watched the house in the village of Giardinello because it was there that Lo Piccolo would huddle with fellow mobsters.
Police then bided their time, reasoning that "surely he was about to hold another operational meeting," Caruso said.
Prosecutors say Lo Piccolo, who is in his 60s, was vying to become Cosa Nostra's top boss with another fugitive, Matteo Messina Denaro, a younger boss from western Sicily.
Denaro has been on Italy's wanted list since 1993 for murder and other crimes.
"Salvatore Lo Piccolo was the only one capable of carrying on Provenzano's legacy," Piero Grasso, Italy's national anti-Mafia prosecutor, told ANSA.
"He was at the head of Cosa Nostra in Palermo and was attempting to climb to the top of the organization.
HANOI, Vietnam (CNN) Floods triggered by heavy rains have killed at least 33 people in central Vietnam as residents braced Tuesday for a tropical storm expected to make landfall later this week.
People in seven coastal areas fell victim to the latest floods, which began Friday.
The floods were the third to hit the region in three weeks.
Officials fear more trouble from Tropical Storm Peipah, which is expected to hit Vietnam Friday.
Officials in the northern Philippines said the storm already killed five people there Monday.
Peipah's 65 mph (100 kph) winds struck the Philippines Sunday evening and moved into South China Sea, forecasters said.
In addition to leaving 33 people dead and at least one missing, the Vietnam flooding cut telephone service to many communities, said provincial disaster official Dang Tao.
"The last two floods already caused a lot of hardship," disaster official Vo Thanh Tien said. "Now another one is coming.
Hoi An Mayor Le Van Giang said about 300 houses in his city, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, were flooded in about three feet (one metre) of water.
"We are seriously concerned, as these old houses are the soul of Hoi An," Giang said. "If they are ruined Hoi An will not be Hoi An anymore.
Last month, Typhoon Lekima left 88 people dead in Vietnam.
NEW YORK (CNN) Christina Aguilera says she's expecting a baby, finally confirming what has become obvious over the past few months.
Aguilera and music executive Jordan Bratman were married in 2005.
Aguilera, who recently wrapped up a world tour in support of her latest album, "Back to Basics," plans to be a working mom.
The United States will help Iraq and Turkey crack down on Kurdish separatists in northern Iraq, President Bush said Monday after meeting with Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Bush told reporters U.S. and Turkish commanders will share intelligence on the rebels.
With Turkey threatening to launch cross-border raids against the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, Bush pointed to the weekend release of eight Turkish soldiers captured by the rebels as evidence that a crackdown is under way.
"I've assured the prime minister that we're working very carefully and closely with people in the Kurdish part of Iraq to help deal with the movement of these people, to help locate and find and stop
Erdogan told reporters his people are demanding action against the PKK, and that a solution to the border crisis must come "in the shortest time possible.
"I'm happy," the prime minister said.
The United States and the European Union consider the PKK a terrorist organization, and Bush called it "an enemy of Turkey, a free Iraq and the United States of America.
Bush said top U.S. and Turkish military officials have set up an arrangement to keep in touch with each other and with the U.S. commander in Baghdad, Gen. David Petraeus.
Somali pirates released a Taiwanese fishing vessel on Monday more than five months after it was seized, a U.S. Navy official said.
It was the third such release in two days.
The pirates left the Ching Fong Hwa 168 in skiffs that took them to shore, said Cmdr. Lydia Robertson of the U.S. Fifth Fleet in Bahrain.
The ship had two Taiwanese and 12 Chinese crew members on board when it was hijacked almost 140 miles (220 kilometers) northeast of the Somali capital, Mogadishu in May.
One of the crew members was killed the following month by the pirates, according to Andrew Mwangura, head of the Kenyan chapter of the Seafarers Assistance Program.
Robertson said the ship had been escorted by a U.S. Navy vessel out of Somali waters and that naval personnel were providing food and medical assistance.
"We encourage pirates to leave the ships," said Robertson.
Alvaro Colom of the center-left National Union of Hope party was declared Monday the official victor in Sunday's presidential election.
"Thanks to the Guatemalan people for making this civic holiday such a marvelous day.
It was the 56-year-old industrial engineer's third try for the presidency and his first to succeed.
"We lost a battle, but we haven't lost the war the war against corruption," Perez told his supporters.
"We are going to support and help with all that is correct for Guatemala, but we are also going to be disposed to be critical.
Analyst Sylvia Gereda said Colom owed his victory to support from the country's rural areas "the area where there is hunger, where there are necessities.
During the coming two months, Colom will put together his transition team and name his cabinet members.
Major campaign issues included policies for reducing Guatemala's high crime rate and violence and the migration of Guatemalans to the United States, where many are working illegally.
Colom, in an August 30 debate co-sponsored by CNN en Espanol and Guatemala's Channel 3, said reducing poverty would help reduce crime while Perez said he would strengthen Guatemala's police and military while getting tough with criminals. Colom's party the National Union of Hope was hard hit by assassinations that marked Guatemala's election season.
In the debate two months ago, he said the killings of 14 members of his party were "without any doubt carried out by organized crime.
Colom said the migrants to the United States are "true heroes who go there to work, not to bother anyone; they go there in search of a dream.
He said he would "build a great nation that will generate hope here in Guatemala and bring hope back to Guatemala."
LAHORE, Pakistan (CNN) The United States has urged Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf to sever his links with the military and reinstate civilian rule.
"Our hope is that he will restore democracy as quickly as possible," President Bush said Monday after a White House meeting with Turkey's prime minister.
Musharraf imposed emergency rule in Pakistan on Saturday, saying the suspension of his country's constitution was made necessary by the growing threat of terrorism and out-of-control judicial activism.
By imposing a state of emergency, Musharraf suspended Pakistan's constitution and put elections that had been scheduled for January on indefinite hold. Press freedoms have been curbed and independent television stations taken off the air.
Bush said Monday he recognized the threat Musharraf faces from extremists, citing past attempts on Musharraf's life, but said the emergency measures "undermine democracy.
"We expect there to be elections as soon as possible and that the president should remove his military uniform," Bush said.
Musharraf is also Pakistan's military chief.
Pakistan is a nuclear power and a key U.S. ally in the war on terror.
Senior U.S. officials said U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Anne Patterson and other senior ambassadors including Britain's met with Musharraf on Monday to raise Washington's concerns with the "heavy-handed" measures taken in Lahore, where police, wielding batons, clashed with lawyers and journalists Monday outside the courthouse.
Ronaldinho scored two trademark free-kicks as Barcelona beat Real Betis 3-0 to move within a point of leaders Real Madrid at the top of the Primera Liga table.
Barcelona started with Ronaldinho, Thierry Henry and Lionel Messi in a three-pronged attack and Betis were soon chashing shadows.
Henry saw his 19th minute header well saved and minutes later the Frenchman watched on in agony as his fierce shot rebounded off the post.
A goal was on the cards and it duly arrived just after the half hour mark with Henry racing onto a slide rule pass from Andres Iniesta
Betis had not won at Camp Nou since 1998 and when Ronaldinho scored his first free-kick it was just a case of keeping the score down.
Barcelona climb to second, level on points with Villarreal, who produced the comeback of the season to defeat Atletico Madrid in a 4-3 thriller.
Atletico had led at 2-0 and 3-2 but were left cursing defensive errors as Turkish substitute Nihat scored twice, including an 89th minute winner, to leave Atletico empty-handed.
Atletico stay fifth, five points behind city rivals Real, who were controversially beaten 2-0 at Sevilla on Saturday night.
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) Hollywood writers and studio representatives began last-ditch negotiations Sunday in an effort to prevent a strike, the writers union said.
A federal mediator called the meeting between the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television producers at an undisclosed location.
The writers' contract expired October 31, and they plan to strike at 12:01 a.m. Monday (3: 01 a.m. ET) if a deal cannot be reached.
The first picket lines would be seen at New York's Rockefeller Center, followed by picket lines at various locations in Los Angeles, the guild said.
The writers want more money from the sale of DVDs and a share of revenue generated by the sale of TV shows and films over the Internet.
The studios say the demands are unreasonable and would hamper attempts to experiment with new media.
J. Nicholas Counter, chief negotiator for producers, called the writers' strike "precipitous and irresponsible" in a prepared statement.
Producers believe progress can be made on other issues but "it makes absolutely no sense to increase the burden of this additional compensation" involving DVDs and the Internet, he said.
The strike would not immediately affect production of movies or prime-time TV programs.
Most studios have stockpiled dozens of movie scripts, and TV shows have enough scripts or completed shows in hand to last until early next year.
Talks between writers and producers will likely impact upcoming negotiations between the studios and unions representing actors and directors.
All those unions believe revenue from content offered on the Internet, cell phones and other platforms will grow tremendously in the years ahead, even though it's now minuscule compared with DVD sales.
Studios argue that it is too early to know how much money they can make from offering entertainment on the Internet and on cell phones, iPods and other devices.
Producers are also uncertain whether consumers prefer a pay-per-view model over an advertising-supported system.
Hundreds of lawyers were arrested across Pakistan Monday as the police continued to enforce President Pervez Musharraf's emergency declaration.
The United States, meanwhile, said it had suspended annual defense talks with Pakistan because of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's emergency declaration and suspension of the country's constitution, a U.S. Defense Department spokesman said.
The twin developments came two days after Musharraf declared a state of emergency across Pakistan, suspended the constitution and widened his powers as president and military chief.
Police on Monday blocked roads leading to courthouses in major cities and in at least one instance a television news crew was detained and their cameras confiscated as they tried to cover what was happening outside of one court.
Police sources told CNN over the weekend that they had a list of 1,500 lawyers and political activists who were to be arrested.
The round up which started Saturday night continued Monday morning with 205 lawyers taken into custody Saislabad, a city in Punjab province.
Another 30 lawyers were arrested in Islamabad and Rawalbini as they gathered for a demonstration, police said.
Pakistan would remain under a state of emergency for "as long as it is necessary," Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said Sunday.
SHANGHAI, China (CNN) Chinese energy conglomerate PetroChina saw its shares triple in value in its trading debut Monday in Shanghai following an initial public offering that raised $8.94 billion a record for a mainland bourse.
Shares in the state-run company, China's biggest oil and gas producer, opened at 48.60 yuan ($6.52), compared with the IPO price of 16.70 yuan ($2.24).
By late morning the shares were trading at 44.99 yuan ($6.03) each, with the overall benchmark Shanghai Composite Index down 0.26 percent at 5,763.00.
Shares in elite companies such as PetroChina, which already trade in Hong Kong and New York, tend to soar in their trading debuts given the strong appetite among Chinese investors for highly valued companies.
The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index has more than doubled in value this year as investors have piled into the market, seeking higher returns than they can earn on bank savings.
The death toll in the widespread flooding in southern Mexico rose to eight on Saturday as rescuers struggled to evacuate people from rooftops and bring supplies to those protecting their homes from would-be looters.
The department of civil defense in Chiapas state, which borders on Guatemala, reported finding seven bodies between Friday and Saturday.
In the neighboring Tabasco where one man died earlier in the week, and where almost 80 percent of the state was covered in water the level of some rivers began to recede slightly Saturday.
The government also said it would reduce water outflows from a dam upstream.
The Tabasco state government said the dam was not in danger, but had no immediate comment on the crocodile rumor.
Officials instead concentrated on supplying food and water to tens of thousands of people at emergency shelters, and others who had decided to ride out the flood on the roofs of their homes, in a bid to discourage looters.
President Felipe Calderon, who surveyed the zone from the air Friday, called the flooding one of Mexico's worst recent natural disasters.
Emergency shelters already held 69,000 flood victims, but tens of thousands more were leaving the state entirely, as food, water and power became increasingly scarce.
(CNN) The United States Sunday praised the Iraqi government for helping to secure the release of eight Turkish soldiers abducted by Kurdish rebels two weeks ago during a battle that heightened tensions along the Iraq-Turkey border.
The soldiers were handed over to Kurdistan regional government officials in northern Iraq on Sunday, before returning to the Turkish military base in Diyarbakir.
Fuad Hussein, chief of staff for the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), said "all eight are healthy and in good condition.
"We applaud the efforts of the Government of Iraq to secure the release of the hostages," according to a statement released Sunday by U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.
"We urge continued, deepened, and immediate cooperation between Iraq and Turkey in combating the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party), which is a common enemy of Turkey, Iraq and the United States. "
The soldiers' release comes a day before Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan meets with U.S. President George W. Bush in Washington.
The Turkish soldiers went missing on October 21 after their unit was ambushed by PKK rebels in southeastern Turkey.
Twelve Turkish soldiers were killed in the ambush.
Hours later, Turkish forces struck back, killing 34 PKK rebels in the border region, according to Turkey's military.
TOKYO, Japan (CNN) Japan's main opposition planned to hold an extraordinary meeting Monday to discuss the party president's offer to step down after his colleagues rejected a proposed alliance with the troubled ruling bloc.
Democratic Party President Ichiro Ozawa's planned resignation comes amid a major standoff between the government and opposition.
Days earlier, his party blocked government efforts to extend a naval mission in support of U.S.-led operations in Afghanistan.
Ozawa said he was resigning to take responsibility for causing tumult within the party over Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda's power-sharing proposal Friday.
"I caused political confusion over Prime Minister Fukuda's coalition proposal," Ozawa told a news conference. "I have therefore decided to resign from my post as president.
DPJ Secretary-General Yukio Hatoyama told reporters he had not accepted Ozawa's resignation and that he hoped to persuade him to reconsider.
"(But) I'm afraid it might be quite difficult to get him to change his mind," he said
In that case, Hatoyama said, the party would have to choose his replacement as quickly as possible.
Ozawa and the DPJ executive committee discussed the possible alliance on Friday a proposal intended to break a deadlock in the Diet, Japan's parliament but the committee voted to reject it.
Citi also said Sir Win Bischoff, chairman of Citi Europe and a Member of the Citi management and operating committees, would serve as interim CEO.
Rubin, a former co-chairman of Goldman, Sachs & Co., has served as the chair of Citi's executive committee, and it was also expected he would take a greater role in leading the company.
"It was the honorable course, given the losses we are now announcing," Rubin said of Prince's resignation in an interview with The Associated Press.
Prince, 57, became chief executive of Citigroup in October 2003.
Many shareholders criticized him openly for much of his tenure, as Citigroup's stock lagged its peers while Prince executed what was called an umbrella model of corporate organization, with several separate lines of business.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) Police defused a parked car bomb just outside the northern Iraqi city of Samarra Sunday morning, near where a car bomb exploded the previous day, killing five Iraqis and wounding 15 others, Samarra police said.
Separately, an advisor to Iraq's finance minister was shot dead as he was driving through western Baghdad's predominantly Sunni al-Jamia neighborhood Sunday morning, an Interior Ministry official said.
A Shiite headmistress of an elementary school in Saydiya in southwestern Baghdad was killed by gunmen Sunday afternoon, the official said.
Also on Sunday, an explosive device detonated underneath a car near the Green Zone in central Baghdad, wounding one civilian, the official said.
LUXOR, Egypt (CNN) The linen wrapped mummy of King Tut was put on public display for the first time on Sunday 85 years after the 3,000-year-old boy pharaoh's golden enshrined tomb and mummy were discovered in Luxor's famed Valley of the Kings.
Archeologists removed the mummy from his stone sarcophagus in his underground tomb, revealing his shriveled leather-like face and body.
"The golden boy has magic and mystery and therefore every person all over the world will see what Egypt is doing to preserve the golden boy, and all of them I am sure will come to see the golden boy," Egypt's antiquities chief Zahi Hawass told reporters under the intense Luxor sun.
Hawass said scientists began restoring King Tut's badly damaged mummy more than two years ago after it was removed briefly from its sarcophagus and placed into a CT scanner for the first time for further examination.
Much of the mummy's body is broken into 18 pieces that Hawass described looked like stones that were damaged when British archaeologist Howard Carter discovered the mummy, took it from his tomb and tried to pull off his famous golden mask.
But Hawass said he fears a more recent phenomenon mass tourism is further deteriorating Tut's mummy.
Thousands of tourists visit the underground chamber every month.
"The humidity and heat caused by ... people entering the tomb and their breathing will change the mummy to a powder.
The only good thing (left) in this mummy is the face. We need to preserve the face," said Hawass, who wore his signature Indiana Jones-style tan hat.
The mystery surrounding King Tutankhamun and his glittering gold tomb has entranced ancient Egypt fans since Carter first discovered the hidden tomb on November 4, 1922, revealing a trove of fabulous gold and precious stone treasures.
Archeologists in recent years have tried to resolve lingering questions over how he died and his precise royal lineage.
Several books and documentaries dedicated to the young pharaoh, who is believed to have been the 12th ruler of ancient Egypt's 18th dynasty and ascended to the throne around the age of 8, are popular around the world.
In an effort to try to solve the mysteries, scientists removed Tut's mummy from his tomb and placed it into a portable CT scanner for 15 minutes in 2005 to obtain a three-dimensional image.
The scans were the first done on an Egyptian mummy.
The results did rule out that Tut was violently murdered but stopped short of definitively concluding how he died around 1323 B.C. Experts for the time though suggested that days before dying, Tut badly broke his left thigh, apparently in an accident, that may have caused a fatal infection.
The CT scan also provided the most revealing insight yet into the life of ancient Egypt's most famous king.
He was well-fed, healthy, yet slightly built, standing at 5 feet, 6 inches tall at the time of his death.
The scan also showed he had the typical overbite characteristic of other kings from his family, large incisor teeth and his lower teeth were slightly misaligned.
The tourists will begin viewing the mummy Monday, Hawass said.
The mummy will remain in the tomb indefinitely unlike other Egyptian royal mummies, who are displayed in museums.
Twenty-four sailors, including four South Koreans, were freed nearly six months after they were abducted by Somali pirates, South Korea's Foreign Ministry said Sunday.
The sailors were aboard two South Korean-owned vessels with a crew of various nationalities when they were seized May 15 off Somalia.
It was not immediately clear how the sailors were freed, or whether any ransom was paid for their release.
The two ships Mavuno 1 and 2 were being escorted to Aden Port in Yemen by a U.S. Navy warship at the request of the South Korean government, the ministry said in a statement.
All 24 sailors were confirmed safe, according to the ministry, adding that the 20 other crew comprised 10 Chinese, three Vietnamese, three Indians and four Indonesians.
"The government strongly condemns the international pirates activities that resulted in innocent sailors seized in high seas and held in captivity for a long time," the ministry said.
South Korea also said it appreciates the U.S. and Somalia's government for helping free the men.
South Korean media have reported that the Somali pirates were demanding between $700,000 and $1 million (¢æ494,000 and ¢æ705,000) in ransom.
Pakistan will be under a state of emergency for "as long as it is necessary," Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said Sunday, a day after Pervez Musharraf suspended the constitution and widened his powers as president and military chief.
In a commentary written for CNN on Sunday, opposition leader Benazir Bhutto called Musharraf's plan "a step to entrench his dictatorship" and called for elections under an independent caretaker government.
But Aziz said it could be months before parliamentary elections scheduled for January will take place.
"The parliament could give itself more time, up to a year, in terms of holding the next elections," Aziz said. "However, at this point, no decision has been made."
The state of emergency had been imposed to "bring more harmony to the pillars of state" and to protect against extremism in the country, Aziz said.
Hundreds of people have been detained.
Earlier in the day, Musharraf's spokesman, Information Minister Tariq Azim Khan, said on Dubai-based GEO TV that parliamentary elections would be delayed indefinitely.
Before imposing the state of emergency, Musharraf had vowed to hold elections no later than January 15.
Washington will review its financial aid package to Pakistan, its key anti-terrorism ally, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday.
But she noted that the situation is complicated because much of the billions of dollars sent to Pakistan fund anti-terrorism measures.
Washington was not consulted about Musharraf's plan, Rice said, adding that she is "disappointed in his decision."
Three French journalists charged in an alleged plot to kidnap African children for adoption in Europe arrived in Paris on Sunday, hours after French President Nicolas Sarkozy held emergency talks in Chad.
But 14 other people remained in custody in the African nation, some facing serious charges that could send them to jail for up to 20 years.
All were arrested last week after workers from Zoe's Ark a French-based charity group were accused of trying to fly 103 children out of Chad in a kidnapping and adoption operation.
Some of the children may never return to their families because it is too difficult to determine their backgrounds, Red Cross spokeswoman Inah Kaloga told CNN on Friday.
Those who remain under arrest in Chad are six members of the French charity, four Chadians and four remaining members of the flight crew.
Some face kidnapping and fraud charges.
Zoe's Ark leader Eric Breteau testified Saturday to a court in the Chadian capital that the three journalists and the flight crew of seven Spaniards and a Belgian were not involved in the alleged plot, court witnesses told CNN.
At least some of the flight crew are scheduled to testify before a judge on Monday.
The three journalists initially had been charged with complicity in the alleged kidnapping attempt.
It's not clear if the charges against them have been dropped.
SAO PAULO, Brazil (CNN) An executive jet crashed into a heavily populated neighborhood of Sao Paulo on Sunday, killing at least eight people and leaving a pile of smoky rubble just months after the city suffered the nation's deadliest air disaster.
The plane, a Learjet 35 belonging to a Brazilian air taxi company, slammed into two houses shortly after taking off, said Lucia Ferreira, a spokeswoman for airport authority Infraero.
The dead included four men, two women, a child and another person, Sao Paulo's state security department said in a statement.
Authorities did not immediately say how many people were aboard the jet, or how many of the dead were in the plane or on the ground.
Investigators were trying to determine the cause of the
But Ferreira said there were no immediate indications that it was related to the Brazilian air traffic chaos and woes including the July 17 crash of a Tam Linhas Aereas SA jetliner, which slammed into a building in Sao Paulo, killing 199 people.
That crash happened at Sao Paulo's Congonhas airport, widely criticized for having a short runway that makes landing tricky during rainy conditions.
The jet that crashed Sunday afternoon took off from the Campo de Marte airport, used by executive jets and helicopters.
It was owned by Reali Taxi Aereo and was en route to Rio de Janeiro, Ferreira said.
One home was destroyed and another was heavily damaged.
More than 60 firefighters were still combing through the debris hours later.
(CNN) The United Nations said Friday it was "disappointed" that Myanmar's government had expelled a top U.N. diplomat, and the Bush administration condemned the action by the ruling military junta in the secretive Asian country.
"The secretary-general is disappointed by the message from the government of Myanmar that it would not want the resident coordinator, Mr. Charles Petrie, to continue to serve," said a statement issued on behalf of U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
U.S. National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe called the expulsion of Petrie, the U.N.'s human rights representative, "outrageous" and noted it came the day before Ibrahim Gambari, the special U.N. envoy to Myanmar, is scheduled to return to the
It is "an insult to the United Nations and the international community," Johndroe said.
The U.S. charge d'affaires in Myanmar , Shari Villarosa, told CNN earlier Friday that Petrie was told he was no longer welcome in the country.
"They say that they are interested in cooperating with the U.N.," Villarosa said, "so this seems very unusual to say the least.
It was unclear whether Petrie was given a deadline to leave the country.
In the statement, a spokesman for Ban said he "has full confidence in the United Nations country team."
Ban has instructed Ibrahim Gambari "to convey his views directly to the authorities" in Myanmar upon his arrival, the statement said.
It will be the second visit to Myanmar in recent weeks for Gambari, who has a five-day visa.
The United Nations does not know who Gambari will be meeting with, but it is hoped that the envoy will facilitate talks between ruling generals and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, an opposition leader and human rights activist who has been under house arrest on and off for nearly 20 years.
In his October meeting, Gambari met with the military junta leadership as well as with Suu Kyi.
More than 70 Buddhist monks marched in the central Myanmar town of Pakokku on Wednesday, dissident sources in Mae Sot told CNN.
The march is the first reported since a government crackdown on peaceful pro-democracy demonstrations in September, in which as many as 110 people are believed to have been killed, including 40 Buddhist monks.
The protests were sparked by a huge fuel price increase imposed by the military government, and quickly escalated.
Myanmar's military junta admitted in mid-October that is detained more than 2,900 people during the crackdown, and many of them are still believed to be in custody.
(CNN) A former employee at Oprah Winfrey's school for girls in South Africa has been arrested as part of an abuse probe, police said Friday.
Lungelo Dlamini, police superintendent in Johannesburg, said the suspect an ex-school matron whose name was not given is accused of physical abuse against girls at the school, including soliciting them for indecent acts.
The suspect will appear Monday at Sebokeng Magistrate Court, a court for family violence, child protection and sexual offenses, Dlamini said.
In a statement, Winfrey said, "I'd like to thank the South African Police Services for bringing this investigation at my Academy to a timely resolution.
The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls opened in January.
Winfrey personally selected the school's 152 pupils, all of them straight-A students from underprivileged backgrounds.
The students get free tuition, uniforms, accommodations and meals at the school in Henley-on-Klip, near Johannesburg.
In a statement issued last month, the academy's CEO, John Samuel, said that an internal inquiry had been launched based on an allegation of misconduct involving a dormitory parent.
According to an article in The Cape Argus, a Cape Town, South Africa, newspaper, the dorm parent allegedly grabbed a pupil by the throat and threw her against a wall, the girl said.
The newspaper said one of the pupils ran away from the school, blaming the alleged abuse.
The criminal probe was opened after a team of three American experts hired by Winfrey gave police the results of their initial investigation, police said.
ANKARA, Turkey (CNN) Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice assured Turkish officials Friday that Kurdish rebels based in northern Iraq were a "common threat" and that the United States would help Ankara in its fight against them.
Speaking after meeting with both Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Ali Babacan, Rice said she had emphasized that the United States is "committed to redoubling its efforts" to help Turkey in its struggle against the rebel fighters.
"We consider this a common threat, not just to the interests of Turkey but to the interests of the United States as well," she said at a joint news conference with Babacan.
calmest part of Iraq, and could set a precedent for other countries, like Iran, who also have conflicts with Kurdish rebels.
But Ankara has been resolute in saying that, unless it hears concrete measures the United States will take against the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, it will launch an attack.
"We have great expectations from the United States, we are at the point where words have been exhausted and where there is need for action," Babacan said.
But he also signaled that Turkey might be willing to consult with Washington before moving ahead with a cross-border attack on the rebels.
Ahead of the talks with Babacan, Rice met with Erdogan, who heads to Washington for talks Monday with President Bush.
As Rice met with the officials, snipers kept watch from nearby buildings and more than 2,000 police officers patrolled the streets.
At a larger demonstration in Istanbul, about 200 marchers organized by the small Communist Party of Turkey chanted "Down with American imperialism" and "Get out Rice.
Kurdish rebel attacks against Turkish positions during the past month have killed 47 people, including 35 soldiers, according to government and media reports.
The PKK, which seeks more rights and autonomy for Turkish Kurds, is labeled a terrorist group by Europe and the United States.
Joe Torre was hired on Thursday to manage the Los Angeles Dodgers, taking the job two weeks after walking away from the New York Yankees.
Torre moved from one storied franchise to another, getting a three-year contract.
The 67-year-old Torre becomes the Dodgers' eighth manager since they moved west from Brooklyn for the 1958 season.
Torre grew up in Brooklyn, rooting for the rival New York Giants and detesting the Dodgers.
"As a kid growing up, you didn't like them," Torre said on WFAN radio in New York less than an hour before the hiring was announced.
"As a player, to me the Dodgers were the Yankees of the National League because ... you either loved them or you hated them.
Torre guided the Yankees to four World Series championships from 1996-2000, and they made the playoffs in all 12 years he managed them.
After New York was beaten in the first round by Cleveland last month, the Yankees offered him a one-year contract with a paycut. Insulted, Torre turned it down.
Helicopter gunships pounded pro-Taliban militants in the mountains of northwest Pakistan on Thursday, reportedly killing as many as 70 in an increasingly bloody conflict between the government and Islamist forces.
Opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, meanwhile, flew to the United Arab Emirates to visit family two weeks after assassins tried to kill her when she returned from self-exile to lead her party in parliamentary elections.
A spokesman said the former premier was expected back in a week.
Violence in the Swat district, where a militant cleric is trying to enforce Taliban-style rule, underlines the expansion of Islamist movements in northwestern Pakistan near the Afghan border that is challenging Musharraf's control.
militants attacked police posts before dawn, and security forces responded with fire from mortars, assault rifles and helicopter gunships.
The mountainous region, long known as a tourist resort, is about 80 miles (129 km) northwest of the capital, Islamabad.
Saudi Arabia could have helped the United States prevent al Qaeda's 2001 attacks on New York and Washington if American officials had consulted Saudi authorities in a "credible" way, the kingdom's former ambassador said in a documentary aired Thursday.
The comments by Prince Bandar bin Sultan are similar to the remarks this week by Saudi King Abdullah that suggested Britain could have prevented the July 2005 train bombings in London if it had heeded warnings from Riyadh.
Speaking to the Arabic satellite network Al-Arabiya on Thursday, Bandar now Abdullah's national security adviser said Saudi intelligence was "actively following" most of the September 11, 2001, plotters "with precision.
"If U.S. security authorities had engaged their Saudi counterparts in a serious and credible manner, in my opinion, we would have avoided what happened," he said.
Bandar was the Saudi ambassador to Washington for nearly 22 years before he was replaced in 2005.
A knowledgeable U.S. official told CNN that Bandar's comments should be taken "with a grain of salt.
On Monday, Abdullah told the BBC that Saudi Arabia had sent warnings to British authorities before the London subway bombings that killed 52 people the city's bloodiest day since World War II.
"We have sent information to Great Britain before the terrorist attacks in Britain," Abdullah said. "But unfortunately, no action was taken, and it may have been able to avert the tragedy.
The September 11 attacks killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. All but four of the suicide hijackers who carried out the plot were Saudi nationals, and after the attacks, the kingdom was widely criticized for having tolerated Islamic militancy.
Champions Real Madrid maintained their superb start to the Spanish season with a 5-1 victory over slumping Valencia in the Mestella on Wednesday night.
It was the fifth defeat in six matches for Valencia and equaled their worst ever home defeat dating back to the 1932-33 season.
The scale of Koeman's task was underlined as it took Real only 45 seconds to make the breakthrough as Brazilian Robinho finished a mazy run to set up Raul for the opener.
Ruud van Nistelrooy added Real's second after 24 minutes when Raul headed on a long ball forward and the Dutch striker scored with a clever chip.
Real were 3-0 up inside half an hour as Sergio Ramos hammered the ball home following a Guti pass.
Robinho was the creator again as he set up Van Nistelrooy for a fourth before the break.
Polish Prime Minister-designate Donald Tusk said his future government would seek to end the nation's military mission in Iraq next year, according to an interview published Wednesday.
Poland, a staunch U.S. ally, sent combat troops to the 2003 war in Iraq and still has some 900 soldiers stationed in the southeast, despite public displeasure with the mission.
Polish troops now primarily train Iraqi forces and renovate schools and hospitals.
"We want to finish the mission in this form in 2008," Tusk was quoted as saying by the daily Polska. He did not elaborate.
A survey released Wednesday by the CBOS institute found that 81 percent of Poles oppose the military mission in Iraq.
The poll of 1,385 adults, conducted Oct. 10-14, gave a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.
Tusk made pulling out of Iraq a top issue in his recent election campaign, in which his pro-European Union party, Civic Platform, ousted the socially conservative government of Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who is to resign November 5.
"Thus far, the Polish government has not been able to answer these questions.
BEIJING, China (CNN) China raised gasoline and diesel prices by almost 10 percent Thursday amid fuel shortages that oil companies blame on a lack of refining capacity due to price controls.
The change was made to narrow the gap between soaring crude oil prices and state-set retail prices, the country's main planning agency, the National Development and Reform Commission, said in a statement.
"To ensure the supply of domestic oil products and the promotion of energy conservation, the state decided to properly increase the prices of oil products," the NDRC said.
It said the price rise also would apply to aviation fuel.
Shortages of diesel and gasoline have led to rationing over the past week, causing long lines at filling stations and disrupting trucking in key export areas.
Some customers and Chinese media accused oil companies of creating phony shortages to force Beijing to raise prices.
On Wednesday, a man was killed in a fight after he tried to cut in line for gas in the central province of Henan, according to police.
The announcement Thursday marked a reversal of a government order in September that froze prices of gasoline and other basic consumer goods in an effort to rein in rising inflation.
Chinese oil refiners are losing money due to low government-set retail prices for gasoline and diesel that prevent them from passing on soaring crude costs to consumers.
Some refineries have stopped processing to avoid losses.
Crude prices have jumped sharply, touching above $95 a barrel in early trading Thursday.
"Prices of railway tickets, natural gas for civilian use and public transportation will not be raised to reduce the impact of the price hikes on the public, and the government will provide subsidies for taxi drivers," it said.
LONDON, England (CNN) Heather Mills McCartney broke her silence Wednesday about her divorce from Paul McCartney, saying in TV interviews that she fears for her life because of death threats and blaming tabloids for her problems.
Mills McCartney appeared on an ITV television morning show to complain about media coverage and to announce that she would seek European legislation to compel newspapers to apologize for untruthful stories.
She also urged the public to stop buying sensationalist newspapers.
"I've had worse press than a pedophile or a murderer and I've done nothing but charity for 20 years. "
"I have a box of evidence that's going to a certain person, should anything happen to me, and the truth will come out," she said.
"It's the tabloids and a certain party, but it is so extreme and so abusive ... I mean, I've been called monster, whore, gold digger, fantasist, liar.
Mills McCartney was also asked in the BBC interview if she feared for her life and she replied, "Yes I do, yes I do.
Paul McCartney has also complained about media coverage of the divorce, which may produce the biggest financial settlement ever in Britain.
LONDON, England (CNN) Police questioned Prince Harry after two rare and legally protected birds were killed on the royal family's estate last week, the prince's press office said Wednesday.
British newspapers reported Wednesday that Prince Harry and a friend were shooting on the royal family's Sandringham estate in Norfolk last week when witnesses saw two hen harriers being shot.
The Times quoted sources saying the prince and his friend were the only two people known to be shooting on the estate when the birds were killed.
A spokeswoman for Clarence House confirmed Harry and his friend were in the area at the time and that police had been in contact with them.
She said police asked them if they had any information about the alleged incident, but she said the prince and his friend replied they had no knowledge of it.
A spokesman for Norfolk Constabulary said only that inquiries were continuing in regards to the incident and the investigation was ongoing.
Hen harriers are some of the most at-risk birds in the United Kingdom with fewer than 20 breeding pairs in England, according to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.
"If two birds have just been shot, that's really bad news," said Gemma Rogers, a spokeswoman for the RSPB, which includes the birds on its "red list" of most-threatened species.
Prince Harry's grandmother, Queen Elizabeth, is patron of the RSPB.
His father, Prince Charles, is an active conservationist and patron of several wildlife charities.
(CNN) Scores of sex offenders in Anderson, South Carolina, will be corralled for Halloween tonight in a move authorities say is needed to keep kids safe as they trick or treat.
"At 5 p.m., we are going to require all of our probation/parole/pardon sex offenders to report to the office and they'll remain here from 5 to 10:30 p.m," agent Gerald Black, with the South Carolina Department of Probation, Parole and Pardon, told CNN affiliate WYFF.
Authorities in Roanoke, Virginia, will do the same.
We have all the offenders in this area that are on probation or parole in one location.
While there's a debate about the need for restrictions and authorities aren't imposing such stringent restrictions everywhere, special limits on sex offenders for the evening are widespread.
Paroled offenders in California have a 5 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew, cannot leave any outside lights on and may not answer their doors except for law enforcement.
Illinois offenders face similar restrictions, including a ban on dressing in a costume.
Sheriff's deputies in Harris County, Texas, have been checking homes of sex offenders for Halloween decorations and are ready to arrest violators.
About 2,000 registered sex offenders in Maryland will be required to post "No Candy" signs on their doors on Halloween night.
Michigan and Wisconsin are among states urging parents to check the state's public sex offender registry before venturing out in search of treats.
Authorities in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, took preventative measures Sunday, arresting 11 sex offenders on probation and parole violations during a sweep of 100 homes, CNN affiliate WISN reported.
One of the Milwaukee offenders was arrested after police found a candy dish
VILLAHERMOSA, Mexico (CNN) A week of heavy rains unleashed massive flooding in southeastern Mexico, killing at least one person and forcing tens of thousands to flee rising waters in Tabasco and Chiapas states.
An unidentified man was killed and about 20,400 people sought shelter Wednesday in Tabasco's oil-rich capital of Villahermosa, the state government said in a press release.
Governor Andres Granier urged residents to evacuate the city where floodwaters reached the rooftops of homes.
"If they do not leave, I'm going to order them out by force," Granier told the Televisa television network.
The flooding, which is not related to Tropical Storm Noel, apparently caused the soil supporting a 10-inch (24.4-centimeter) natural gas pipeline to give way and spring a leak, officials from the state-owned company Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, said.
Tabasco officials said the pipeline had exploded, but that there were no deaths or injuries.
Water also crept up around the huge stone heads of an Olmec Indian archaeological site in Tabasco.
President Felipe Calderon flew to the area Wednesday and offered "all help humanly possible" to the more than 300,000 people of the state whose homes were flooded, damaged or cut off.
In the southern state of Chiapas, 7,000 people were evacuated due to floods, the newspaper El Universal reported.
In Villahermosa, rooftops barely jutted above the surface of brackish waters flooding the city's streets after at least one major river overflowed its banks.
territory, but I can tell you that now, it's more than 70 percent water," Granier said Tuesday, according to a transcript of his comments posted on the state government's Web site. "In 48 hours, our state has been devastated, totally devastated.
Heavy rains started swelling waterways on Sunday, and the Puxcatan and Grijalva rivers' levels were still rising at a dangerous rate Wednesday night.
A Spanish court Wednesday delivered an unexpectedly mixed verdict in the trial of 28 defendants charged in the 2004 Madrid train bombings, convicting three of mass murder but delivering lesser convictions against the others.
The three-judge panel delivered the verdict as most of the defendants watched from wooden benches in a glass-enclosed area of the courtroom.
Each of the eight faced 191 charges of mass murder and more than 1,800 charges of attempted murder.
But there were gasps in the courtroom as the judges convicted only three of the eight prime defendants of the gravest charge mass murder.
The judges convicted four others on lesser charges and acquitted one prime defendant of all charges.
The number of acquittals is likely to disappoint survivors of the attacks and relatives of the victims, who said the trial had dredged up bad memories of the bombings that they could not now put to rest.
As they left court, some victims and families said they felt deprived of justice.
But The Associated Press quoted Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who was elected only days after the bombings, as saying: "Justice was rendered today.
The barbarism perpetrated on March 11, 2004, has left a deep imprint of pain on our collective memory, an imprint that stays with us as a homage to the victims.
Fernando Reinares, a terrorism analyst from the Elcano Royal Institute in Madrid, said he was surprised that there were so many acquittals.
The prime defendants acquitted of mass murder but found guilty of lesser charges included Abdelmajid Bouchar and Youssef Belhadj, both convicted of membership in a terrorist group and sentenced to 12 years in prison.
Hassan el Haski will serve 15 years for leadership in a terrorist group, and Rafa Zouhier will serve 10 years for transporting explosives.
Pierce Brosnan is being investigated by sheriff's officials for an alleged battery in Malibu.
Steve Whitmore, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, said the 54-year-old former James Bond star allegedly committed the battery Friday night outside a Mexican restaurant.
Whitmore said Brosnan wasn't arrested or detained.
He identified the alleged victim as Robert Rosen, but declined to give more details because the investigation is ongoing.
The new Airbus 380 "Superjumbo" has just completed its maiden commercial flight and there are already plans to transform the world's largest passenger plane into the pinnacle of private luxury an executive jet. Two European companies
Germany's Lufthansa Technik and Switzerland's Jet Aviation have announced their intention to convert the enormous airliner into a flying mansion replete with private bedrooms, a movie theater, and a gym fitted with saunas and jacuzzis.
Rumors swept the European media in September that Lufthansa Technik, a subsidiary of Deutsche Lufthansa AG, had received an order for a VIP-configured A380 from Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich.
Abramovich who in 2005 acquired a specially modified Boeing 767ER denied the report.
Hamburg-based Lufthansa Technik also dismissed the reports, but an official said they were anticipating a firm order for the A380 from a different private customer.
"There is definitely a market for an executive version of the Airbus 380," said Bernd Habbel, Lufthansa Technik's head of corporate communications.
Purchases of private airliners have hit record highs, with manufacturers set to deliver more than 1,000 planes in 2007, and industry experts predicting sales of about $200 billion over the next decade.
But most of those planes are relatively small, in the short-haul category of a Learjet
, Cessna Citation or Gulfstream, and usually costing $2 million to $5 million.
The largest corporate jets are usually modified versions of the Airbus 320 or Boeing 737 that sell for about $70 million.
Experts say only national governments and very few of the super wealthy can afford massive price tags that come with the higher category, such as a Boeing 767 that is three times the size of an average executive jet.
WASHINGTON (CNN) The government announced an 11th-hour recall Wednesday to warn consumers that fake Halloween teeth sold by the tens of thousands since last year contain excessive amounts of lead.
The $2 packages of "Ugly Teeth" are only the latest in a long line of Chinese-made toys and novelty items recalled because of lead.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission announced the recall on Halloween, in a late-morning news release.
The agency estimates that since January 2006, retailers have sold about 43,000 eight-piece packages of the party favors.
Amscan Inc. of Elmsford, New York, imported the fake teeth.
The federal agency worked quickly with Amscan to announce the recall, commission spokesman Scott Wolfson.
CBS News reported Monday that a chemistry professor at Ohio's Ashland University tipped off the agency about the joke teeth after testing a variety of Halloween-themed items for lead content.
Paint on the teeth contained 100 times the allowable level of lead, according to the broadcast report.
Millions of Chinese-made toys have been recalled in recent months.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, this week urged the commission's head, Nancy Nord, to resign.
Pelosi said Nord has failed to see the gravity of the situation and continues to oppose Democratic efforts to double her agency's dollars and give it more authority.
NEW YORK (CNN) An Abyssinian cat from Missouri, named Cinnamon, has just made scientific history.
Researchers have largely decoded her DNA, a step that may aid the search for treatments for both feline and human diseases.
The report adds cats to the roughly two dozen mammals whose DNA has been unraveled, a list that includes dogs, chimps, rats, mice, cows and of course, people.
They get more than 200 diseases that resemble human illnesses, and knowing the details of their genetic makeup should help in the search for vaccines and treatments, researchers say.
The list includes a cat version of AIDS, SARS, diabetes, retinal disease and spina bifida, said Stephen J. O'Brien of the National Cancer Institute.
The new work is reported in the November issue of the journal Genome Research by a team including O'Brien and colleague Joan Pontius.
It covers about two-thirds of the DNA of Cinnamon, a research cat that lives at the University of Missouri in Columbia; more complete results are expected next year, O'Brien said.
Richard Gibbs of the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, who led a team that decoded the DNA of a monkey called the rhesus macaque, called the new work "a good outline" of cat DNA.
Scientists are looking forward to the complete version, which will be useful for making detailed comparisons to the DNA of other animals, he said.
The full complement of an organism's DNA is called its genome.
In cats, as in people, it is made up of nearly 3 billion building blocks.
The sequence of those blocks spells out the hereditary information, just as strings of letters spell out sentences.
Decoding a genome, which is called sequencing, means identifying the order of the building blocks.
The new work identified 20,285 genes in the cat, probably about 95 percent of the animal's full complement, O'Brien said.
That is similar to the 20,000-25,000 genes estimated for humans.
Pakistan's former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto abruptly canceled plans to travel abroad Wednesday, saying she had heard rumors the government could impose a state of emergency during her absence.
The opposition leader, who was targeted by suicide bombers when she returned home on October 18 following eight years in exile, had been preparing to go to Dubai to see her husband and three children.
She said at a hastily arranged news conference that senior party aides told her President Gen. Pervez Musharraf might impose emergency measures if the Supreme Court found that his recent election win was unconstitutional. A ruling is expected later this week.
The government denied any such plans.
"I wanted to go to Dubai," Bhutto said. "But when these rumors surfaced, I decided to change my program," she added.
"If fundamental human rights are suspended, we will not accept it. The nation will not accept it, and I know other political parties will also not accept it.
The verdict, which is expected by the end of the week, will be critical for how events unfold in Pakistan. The declaration of a state of emergency would set back a planned transition to civilian rule and prospects of Bhutto and Musharraf forming an alliance against Islamic extremism.
But a suicide blast shattered her homecoming parade in Karachi, killing more than 140 people and raising fears for Pakistan's stability ahead of crucial parliamentary elections.
A boy playing with matches started a Southern California wildfire that scorched more than 38,000 acres, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said Tuesday.
The Buckweed Fire, which destroyed 21 homes on its rampage, began October 21 in the Agua Dulce community.
"Our arson explosive detectives, in conjunction with the Los Angeles County Fire Department investigators, immediately began their investigation, and during the course of the investigation, it led to a juvenile suspect," Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy Tony Moore told CNN's "American Morning" Wednesday.
"After talking with that juvenile, he admitted to playing with matches, and accidentally starting the fire in that area," he said.
The boy, whose name and age were not given, is home with his parents, police said.
According to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, the Buckweed Fire burned 38,526 acres.
The sheriff's department said the fire forced the evacuation of about 15,000 people.
As of Tuesday, 18 of 23 wildfires in Southern California were completely under control, and the remainder were at least 70 percent contained, according to the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
The fires are blamed for 14 deaths and charred more than 508,000 acres, destroying about 1,600 homes.
Five people were arrested in arson probes last week, and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Saturday vowed to "hunt down" people responsible for setting wildfires.
Brazil has been awarded the 2014 World Cup finals, FIFA president Sepp Blatter announced Tuesday.
Blatter said Brazil now has "not only the right, but the responsibility to organize FIFA's World Cup 2014.
Blatter then handed the World Cup trophy to Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who flew in for the announcement.
Soccer for us is a passion, a national passion.
He promised Brazil "will now, with great pride, do its homework." And, he added, "if everything works out well, we will win once again a World Cup.
Brazil was the only candidate to pitch to host football's global showpiece after South American rivals Colombia pulled out of the running in April.
Blatter said the lack of competition from other South American nations was one reason behind FIFA's decision Monday to do away with the rotation system that gave each continent a turn at hosting the World Cup.
The decision takes effect with the 2018 tournament.
Brazilian Sports Minister Orlando Silva, national team coach Dunga, veteran striker Romario and renowned author Paulo Coelho were among those making the trip to Zurich and the final decision was made by FIFA's executive committee after a 30-minute presentation.
Stan O'Neal was known as one of the most ruthless men on Wall Street clawing his way up from an impoverished upbringing in Alabama to run the world's largest brokerage.
After delivering investors a $2.24 billion quarterly loss Merrill's biggest since being founded 93 years ago O'Neal was forced to retire by a board of directors that he mostly picked.
O'Neal's downfall took just six days from the time Merrill reported that record loss though some were surprised it took even that long.
"What did him in so quickly is that O'Neal failed to develop supporters who would defend him and fight hard at the board or executive level," said Richard X. Bove, an analyst with Punk, Ziegel & Co. "One of the reasons is that he fired 26,000 people, some of which were his supporters, and that made him vulnerable.
Whoever replaces O'Neal faces a daunting task so much so that the most widely tipped candidate, BlackRock CEO Laurence Fink, turned down an initial offer but has since engaged the board in active discussions, according to a person with direct knowledge of the offer who was not authorized to speak publicly.
Not long after you cross the little bridge leading over Bayou Petite Anse "Little Cove"' in the Cajun French spoken in these parts whiffs of the spicy fragrance of Tabasco pepper drift through the air.
Stand next to the factory where they pump out the hot sauce at the rate of 600,000 bottles a day, and the powerful essence is enough to make your eyes water and start you coughing.
E.A. McIlhenny invented the blend of peppers, salt and vinegar here after the Civil War, and everything on 2,200-acre Avery Island, from the bayou bridge on, belongs to his descendants.
Visitors can tour the factory where the family still produces the famous condiment, which now generates $250 million in annual revenue, according to the just released book, "McIlhenny's Gold:
How a Louisiana Family Built the Tabasco Empire.
Filled with a multitude of plants, flowers and trees, Jungle Gardens offers a wilder adventure than most botanical gardens.
It's a better way to appreciate the beauty of the place, and more adventurous than driving.
Rabbits freeze in fields, egrets and huge blue herons stalk fish along streams and ponds, deer nibble grass, giant turkey vultures perch in trees, all sizes of turtles sun themselves.
And there are the alligators.
A Madrid court is expected to deliver the verdict and sentence Wednesday for 28 defendants charged in the commuter train bombings that killed 191 people and wounded more than 1,800 in 2004.
Eight of the defendants are prime suspects in the bombings and charged with murder.
Despite the huge potential sentences, none of the defendants would serve more than 40 years, the maximum allowed under Spanish law, which does not permit the death penalty. The other defendants face smaller sentences if convicted on lesser charges like membership in or collaboration with a terrorist group.
All defendants proclaimed their innocence in the opening days of the trial.
The coordinated train bombings struck the morning of March 11, 2004, at Atocha station in central Madrid.
Prosecutors say those on trial are Islamic terrorists who were based in Spain but inspired by al Qaeda.
The five-month trial started in February with 29 defendants, but prosecutors later dropped all charges against one, Moroccan-born Brahim Moussaten, for lack of evidence.
His brother, Mohamed Moussaten, remained on trial, accused of collaborating with terrorism.
The brothers' uncle, Youssef Belhadj, was also on trial, accused of masterminding the bombings.
Superior Court Commissioner Scott Gordon also required that Spears undergo random weekly drug and alcohol tests.
Spears, 25, also must continue meeting with a court-appointed parenting coach, and the youngsters must be in car seats when they are being driven, the ruling states.
The nine-page ruling said Spears could have overnight visits with her kids something she had been seeking.
She will get two visits a week from noon to 7 p.m. and one from noon to 10 a.m. the next morning.
The order also cited some details of an Oct. 19 report submitted by parenting coach Lisa Hacker about her observations of Spears with her children.
However, Hacker was concerned that Spears didn't seem to have "child-centered" interactions, according to the ruling.
During all three of her visits, Spears " rarely engaged with the children in either conversation or play," Hacker said in her report.
Hacker also reported that Spears seemed to have a "lack of general attention at times" but added there was nothing she "would characterize as abusive in a traditional sense.
Spears had filed a request Friday to "terminate or modify" the order, according to court records.
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) Robert Goulet, the handsome, big-voiced baritone whose Broadway debut in "Camelot" launched an award-winning stage and recording career, has died.
The singer died Tuesday morning in a Los Angeles hospital while awaiting a lung transplant, said Goulet spokesman Norm Johnson.
He had been awaiting a lung transplant at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles after being found last month to have a rare form of pulmonary fibrosis.
Goulet had remained in good spirits even as he waited for the transplant, said Vera Goulet, his wife of 25 years.
"Just watch my vocal cords," she said he told doctors before they inserted a breathing tube.
The Massachusetts-born Goulet, who spent much of his youth in Canada, gained stardom in 1960 with "Camelot," the Lerner and Loewe musical that starred Richard Burton as King Arthur and Julie Andrews as his Queen Guenevere.
Goulet played Sir Lancelot, the arrogant French knight who falls in love with Guenevere.
He became a hit with American TV viewers with appearances on "The Ed Sullivan Show" and other programs.
ANKARA, Turkey (CNN) Turkey's prime minister said Tuesday increased military action against separatist Kurdish rebels was "unavoidable" and pressed the United States for a crackdown on guerrilla bases in northern Iraq.
Turkish helicopters pounded rebel positions near the border with rockets for a second day and Turkey brought in troops by the truckload in an operation against mountainside emplacements.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told members of his party in parliament "it is now unavoidable that Turkey will have to go through a more intensive military process.
But he also suggested he was not seeking an immediate cross-border offensive against the rebels of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, holed up in bases in northern Iraq. "The responsibility of leadership does not allow for narrow mindedness, haste or heroism," he said.
"We must remember that Turkey is part of this world and diplomacy has certain requirements," Erdogan added, suggesting the world expected Turkey to exhaust all nonmilitary options.
Erdogan flies to Washington on Nov. 5 for talks with President Bush that could be key to whether Turkey carries out its threat of a major military incursion.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is also expected in Turkey later this week.
"We will openly express that we expect urgent steps from the United States, which is our strategic partner and ally and has a special responsibility regarding Iraq," Erdogan said.
The United States, Iraq and other countries have been calling on Turkey to refrain from a cross-border campaign, which could throw one of the few stable areas in Iraq into chaos.
White House press secretary Dana Perino said Bush's discussions with Erdogan would include "the fight against terrorism in particular our joint efforts to counter the PKK.
Erdogan's Cabinet scheduled a meeting for Wednesday to discuss possible economic measures against groups supporting the Kurdish rebels.
Deputy Prime Minister Hayati Yazici said Turkey was considering a series of sanctions against the self-governing Kurdish administration in Iraq's north.
There has been talk of shutting down the Habur border crossing the only vehicular route into Iraq from Turkey.
Jamal Abdullah, a spokesman for the Iraqi Kurd regional government, complained that economic sanctions "would represent a collective punishment against Kurdistan's people.
He warned that Turkey and the U.S. Army also would suffer if the border crossing was closed.
About 70 percent of U.S. air cargo headed for Iraq goes through Turkey, as does about one-third of the fuel used by the U.S. military there.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) The number of U.S. military and Iraqi civilian deaths has dropped dramatically, according to recent reports, although American military officials said it is too soon to declare a turning point in the conflict.
Thirty-seven Americans have died in October, the lowest monthly figure since March 2006 when 31 perished, according to the U.S. military.
Three soldiers died Tuesday southeast of Baghdad when a roadside bomb struck a U.S. military patrol.
The number of Iraqi civilians killed in September was 844, down from 1,990 in January, according to Iraqi governmental figures provided to CNN.
Slain bodies found dumped in Baghdad dropped from 428 in August to 301 in September and 151 so far in October, the Iraqi Interior Ministry said.
point to a decrease in violence after a year of pitched battles and sectarian strife.
Still, cautious U.S. and Iraqi military officials aren't ready to proclaim a decisive moment in the war, saying such an outlook would require the Iraqi government to do a better job of promoting political reconciliation and compromise.
Other examples of a decline in violence have emerged as well.
An Iraqi commander, Lt. Gen. Abud Qanbar, said last week there have been steep decreases in attacks such as car bombings, terrorist operations against Iraqi security forces and civilians, and sectarian assassination attempts.
Iraqi and U.S. officials point to several factors contributing to this decline:
* The "surge" offensive added nearly 30,000 U.S. troops this year in Baghdad and insurgent-filled regions near the capital such as Anbar and Diyala provinces.
* The Mehdi Army, the militia of the anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, is holding to its cease-fire.
Authorities believe the militia has been responsible for killing Sunnis and rival Shiites.
The tiny 10- by 15-inch oil painting sold for $27,630 at a Hamburg art auction last weekend, Auction House Kunst Kettler said.
The work, "Preparation to Escape to Egypt," was painted by an unknown artist close to Venetian painter Carlo Saraceni between 1605 and 1620, the auction house said Monday night.
The student's identity was not revealed.
TOKYO, Japan (CNN) Japan's justice minister said "a friend of a friend ... is a member of al Qaeda" and had entered the country several times, using various passports, an officer of the Justice Ministry told CNN.
Justice Minister Kumio Hatoyama's comments came during a news conference at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan on Monday when he was explaining Japan's new, tougher immigration procedures, which will require foreigners to provide finger prints and photographs upon entering the country.
"A friend of a friend of mine is a member of al Qaeda involved in a bombing in Bali," Hatoyama said, adding the alleged member of the terrorist network had gone in and out of Japan a number of times two or three years ago.
Later on Monday, Hatoyama held another news conference and tried to clarify his comments, saying, "I am not a friend of the terrorist and I do not know him personally.
According to Hatoyama, he does know a man in a butterfly collectors group he belongs to who said he received a message from a man believed to be involved with a terrorist organization.
The minister said he learned three or four months after the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings that his friend had been given prior warning not to travel to central Bali, site of the terrorist attacks that killed more than 200 people mostly Westerners.
"I didn't know of the terrorist attack plans before the incident took place," Hatoyama said.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura said it was clear that Hatoyama did not directly know the al Qaeda member, but he urged Hatoyama before a Cabinet meeting Tuesday to be more careful in his remarks.
"I fear his comments could lead to misunderstanding," Machimura told reporters. "It would be unfortunate if it was thought that Japan's justice minister had contacts with terrorists.
Hatoyama's statement came during a news conference to discuss a new program to fingerprint nearly all foreigners entering Japan.
The minister appeared to be offering the anecdote as evidence of the program's necessity;
critics have denounced the program as a violation of human rights.
Tokyo's support of the U.S.-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and dispatch of forces to each region have raised concerns that Japan could be targeted by terrorists.
"I know this may cause a lot of inconvenience, but it's very necessary to fight terror," Hatoyama said of the fingerprinting measures.
Tropical Storm Noel weakened Tuesday over most of Cuba after lashing the island's northern coast, but heavy rains continued to deluge the Dominican Republic, Haiti and portions of the Bahamas, forecasters said.
Gen. Luis Luna Paulino, director of civil defense for the Dominican Republic, said 16 people have died there and 16 are missing.
Outlying bands of the storm were expected to reach the southeast edge of Florida on Wednesday night or Thursday morning, before veering from the U.S. coast.
A storm watch means tropical storm conditions, including winds of at least 39 mph (62 kmh), are expected within 36 hours.
However, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said in its 8 p.m. ET Tuesday advisory that Noel's intensity is not expected to change within the next 24 hours.
It was drifting west-northwest at near 4 mph and was clinging to tropical storm status with maximum sustained winds near 40 mph (65 kmh) and higher gusts, forecasters said.
Twenty-four F-16 fighter jets were relocating to Dobbins Air Force Base near Atlanta, Georgia.
Cambodian's prime minister said Tuesday he was severing ties with his adopted daughter, who is a lesbian, but appealed to people not to discriminate against gay people.
I'm quite disappointed," Hun Sen said.
He made the rare revelation about his closely guarded family life during a public speech at a student graduation ceremony.
Cambodian society, like that of neighboring Thailand, is generally tolerant of homosexuality.
In 2004, then-King Norodom Sihanouk announced his support for gay rights, including the right to marry.
Hun Sen said he plans to file a civil court case to disown his adopted daughter so that she cannot claim any inheritance from his family.
"We are concerned that she might one day cause us trouble ... and try to stake her claim for a share of our assets," he said.
The prime minister and his wife, Bun Rany, have three sons and two other daughters.
He said they adopted their third daughter in the mid 1980s when she was 18 days old.
Despite his action toward his daughter, Hun Sen in his speech to the graduating class at the National Institute of Education appealed to parents and society not to discriminate against gay people.
The charges were confirmed by Leonard Vincent, who heads the Africa desk at Paris-based Reporters Without Borders.
Three French journalists are among those charged.
In addition, Vincent said, seven crew members of a Spanish charter company were charged with complicity.
The 16 were being held in the eastern Chadian city of Abeche and were expected to be transferred to the capital, N'Djamena, later in the week, Vincent said.
The group was arrested last week as they tried to put 103 children on a plane to France.
The "rescue mission" was organized by L'Arche de Zoe (Zoe's Ark), a Paris-based charity which said the children were orphans from the Darfur crisis and were being taken to foster families in France.
The Chadian government disputed that, and a spokeswoman for the UNHCR said that based on preliminary interviews with the children, they "most probably" are from Chad.
The arrested French nationals include six members of Zoe's Ark and three French journalists, Vincent said.
"Her editor gave her a camera because she wanted to cover the operation," Vincent said, "but she was also sympathetic to the association as she wanted to host one of the kids.
(CNN) The crew members of a North Korean freighter regained control of their ship from pirates who hijacked the vessel off Somalia, but not without a deadly fight, the U.S. Navy reported Tuesday.
When the battle aboard the Dai Hong Dan was over, two pirates were dead and five were captured, the Navy said.
Three wounded crew members from the cargo ship were being treated aboard the guided-missile destroyer USS James E. Williams.
The captured pirates were being held aboard the North Korean vessel, the Navy said.
The bandits had seized the ship's bridge, while the crew kept control of the steering gear and engines, the Navy said.
The Koreans moved against the attackers after the Williams responding to reports of the hijacking ordered the pirates to give up their weapons, according to the Navy.
When the crew members stormed the bridge, the deadly battle began.
After the crew regained control, Navy sailors boarded the Dai Hong Dan to help with the injured.
North Korea and the United States have no diplomatic relations.
Maria Sharapova has been awarded a place at the season-ending WTA Championships after American Venus Williams withdrew on medical advice.
"The accumulation of matches has taken its toll and I have received several medical opinions to delay my return to competitive tennis," Williams said in a statement.
"I look forward to playing in the New Year for what will hopefully be an even better 2008.
Russia's Sharapova won her debut at the 2004 WTA Championships and has qualified every year since.
"This has been a very frustrating year for me physically, but I'm a big competitor and am determined to compete at the WTA Championships," Sharapova said.
Justine Henin, Jelena Jankovic, Svetlana Kuznetsova, Ana Ivanovic, Serena Williams, Anna Chakvetadze and Daniela Hantuchova also will play in the November 6-11 event at the Madrid Arena.
Wimbledon runner-up Marion Bartoli is the first alternate.
(CNN) A strike by construction workers in one of the world's fastest-growing financial centers stretched into a third day Monday, with workers in the United Arab Emirates demanding better pay and working conditions, police said.
About 2,000 workers in Dubai blocked the main highway to Abu Dhabi, worsening the traffic jams that are already a fixture in this booming economy.
The number of striking workers was slightly fewer than in previous days.
Police said the workers attacked both civilians and police and that there were injuries on both sides.
Police said they responded only after the workers attacked them.
The strikes started Saturday when the workers some of whom are building the Burj Dubai, which will be the world's tallest structure when it is completed next year walked out in a disagreement over pay and working conditions.
Some workers are demanding a raise, while others say they haven't been paid at all.
Police said a government representative addressed the striking workers' grievances.
It was not clear what effect the strikes would have on construction of the Burj Dubai and other buildings in the port city.
Luciano Pavarotti's widow has broken her silence to denounce Italian media reports alleging financial and family problems, saying she never imagined she and the late tenor would be so publicly insulted.
She chose the RAI state television talk show, "Che tempo che fa," conducted by a longtime friend of the family, to speak publicly for the first time since the September 6 death of the great Italian tenor.
She set out to defend herself and Pavarotti against a series of Italian media reports alleging that Pavarotti had left her $26 million in debt
Pavarotti left half of his estate to Mantovani and half to his four daughters.
"Between me and his daughters, there is no disagreement," particularly over Pavarotti's decision to leave Mantovani with the couple's New York properties.
"The press and television that is trying to incriminate that relationship is truly unseemly," she said.
Mantovani said she had never imagined that she would go on TV to discuss such personal issues, but that she felt obliged to set the record straight because Pavarotti could no longer do so himself and because Alice would one day want to learn more about her father.
An attempt by a group of French charity workers to spirit away more than 100 children they claimed were orphans from the Darfur crisis could have seriously damaged relief efforts in the region, a senior aid official told CNN Monday.
Seven crew members of a Spanish charter company and a Belgian pilot were also detained, according to French television reports.
A spokesman for French President Nicolas Sarkozy condemned the actions of the charity workers, which Chadian President Idriss Deby characterized as a case of "straightforward kidnapping
The spokesman told CNN the attempt to remove the children was both "illegal and unacceptable."
Of the French nationals, six of those detained are thought to work for the charity and three are journalists.
The "rescue" attempt was organized by L'Arche de Zoe (Zoe's Ark), a Paris-based aid organization.
Oil prices rose above $93 a barrel to a new trading high in Asia Monday on growing political tensions in the Middle East, a weak dollar and worries about the supply outlook ahead of the winter.
"The strong price is due to supply concerns in general, on top of which we have the geopolitical news," said Victor Shum, a Singapore-based energy analyst with Purvin & Gertz.
Light, sweet crude for December delivery rose as much as $1.34 to $93.20 a barrel, a new intraday record, in early afternoon Asian electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, before slipping back to $93.05.
That was still up $1.19 from Friday's record close of $91.86 a barrel.
The previous trading high was $92.22 a barrel, set Friday.
A rumbling of tensions in the Middle East has worried traders about the disruption of oil exports.
Also, last Friday, gunmen in speedboats kidnapped six workers from an oil vessel off Nigeria's coast, the second attack on an oilfield in a week.
Nigeria is Africa's largest oil exporter and the fifth-largest supplier of crude to the United States.
The dollar's descent against major currencies has drawn investors to crude futures as a hedge against the weakening currency and made dollar-denominated oil futures less expensive to people dealing in other currencies, said David Moore, commodities strategist with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Sydney.
A battalion of about 800 militia forces moved closer to the Turkish border over the weekend, according to U.S. military officials familiar with the latest information from the region.
It was not immediately clear how close to the border the peshmerga, or Kurdish troops, moved.
Neither was it clear whether Kurdish leaders or Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki had requested the troops to move.
Both Iraqi leaders and leaders in the Kurdish regional government have been under pressure to crack down on the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, a rebel group that has triggered a border crisis along Iraq's northern border with Turkey.
Turkish authorities blame the group for the deaths of dozens of soldiers and civilians in recent weeks, and wants Iraq to handle the rebels inside their territory.
However, Turkey has cautioned that it cannot wait indefinitely for Iraq to do so.
The United States and the European Union have designated the PKK a group that is looking to carve an independent state out of parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey as a terrorist organization.
Last week, al-Maliki used the same term when he repeated his intention to shut down the PKK offices in Iraq.
On Saturday, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned that "whenever an operation is needed to be carried out, we will do that. We do not need to ask anything from anyone for that.
A Russian serial murderer dubbed the "Chessboard Killer" was given the maximum sentence of life in prison Monday and ordered to undergo psychiatric therapy for a string of at least 48 murders that terrorized Moscow for years.
A Moscow jury convicted Alexander Pichushkin last week of 48 murders and three attempted murders.
Pichushkin claimed he had actually committed 60 murders, though prosecutors were unable to find evidence to prove that.
Pichushkin earned the nickname "Chessboard Killer" for saying he had intended to kill one person for each of the 64 squares on a chessboard.
In ordering Pichushkin to receive compulsory psychiatric therapy, the judge said the defendant has a mental disorder but is still sane and cannot avoid responsibility for his crimes.
Throughout his trial, Pichushkin gloated over his crimes and ridiculed the police case against him.
If they hadn't caught me, I would have never stopped. Having caught me, they saved many lives." Watch video report on serial killer Alexander Pichushkin
He lured his victims with the promise of alcohol and, after getting them drunk on vodka, he beat them to death and dumped their bodies in the park.
But the crucial lead came in 2005, when a woman Pichushkin worked with at a vegetable store was found dead.
She had left a note at her home saying she was going for a walk with him. Pichushkin said he had been aware of the note but killed her anyway.
MEXICO CITY, Mexico (CNN) Perhaps better known for impossible traffic, kidnappings and some of the world's worst air, Mexico's sprawling capital of 20 million seems like the last place you would go for natural splendor and pristine wilderness.
But with snowcapped volcanos, alpine meadows, deep pine woods and tropical forests all within two hours.
For travelers feeling smothered by Mexico City's claustrophobic chaos, fresh air and wide-open spaces are not far away.
If you are adventurous, and have a smattering of Spanish, ask your hotel or hostel to help you figure out the city's complicated but cheap subway and bus network.
Alternatively, hire a taxi for the day.
But beware that street cabs can be dangerous.
Although more expensive, it's best to take a cab that is either registered with the hotel or waiting at a cab stand. Here are hikes you can easily do from Mexico City.
An hour south of the city, this relatively small mountain is a piece of cake to find:
Getting to Tepozteco:
Still standing, the monastery is open to the public and is easily found at the park's main parking area and entrance, at an altitude of around 9,500 feet .
Starting at the parking area, walk downhill until you reach a small river and a mill pond. From there, pick one of the countless trails that branch off the main path along the river and start exploring.
Before heading back to town, be sure to order a hot chocolate at the restaurant adjacent to the parking area.
To get to Paso de Cortes from Mexico City, take a two-hour bus to the village of Amecameca and then catch a cab on the street;
On a clear day, the view from the saddle is magnificent.
Go to the TAPO bus station at the San Lazaro metro stop.
Take the bus to the town of Amecameca, and take a taxi from there.
You will begin hiking through a thick pine forest on Ajusco's steep lower slopes before breaking the treeline.
Ajusco is best climbed on a clear, sunny day, when you will be able to see the surrounding countryside, Mexico City to the north and perhaps Izta and Popo to the southeast.
The best way to get to Nevado de Toluca is to take a bus to the city of Toluca, at the foot of the mountain, and from there either rent a car or take a taxi the remaining distance.
The best route to the summit is along the knife-edge ridge that begins to rise from near the Lake of the Moon.
MIAMI, Florida (CNN) Cuba issued a tropical storm warning for parts of central and southeastern Cuba in the Camaguey and Las Tunas provinces as Tropical Storm Noel approached the island at 5 p.m. ET.
A still disorganized Noel headed toward the Bahamas late Monday, spurring the government to issue a watch as the storm churned 125 miles southeast of Great Exuma Island, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida.
Noel lashed the Dominican Republic with heavy rain on Monday, causing flooding and mudslides that left 11 people dead in the Dominican Republic, a government spokesman said.
The Associated Press, also citing government officials reported at least 20 people have been killed and another 20 missing.
The storm had been expected to hit Haiti directly but veered toward the Dominican Republic, apparently catching residents off guard.
Schools and shops closed across the Dominican Republic and many roads were impassable.
Communication was cut between many small towns and the capital.
A U.S. Air Force reconnaissance plane went out Monday afternoon to more precisely locate the storm's center.
Maximum wind strength was 50 mph at 5 p.m. ET.
Tropical storm warnings were in effect for the central and southeastern Turks and Caicos Islands;
portions of southeastern Cuba; and part of Haiti.
The hurricane center expected Noel to produce up to 10 to 20 inches of rainfall over the island of Hispaniola, which includes Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
Rainfall could reach 30 inches in some areas.
The rains could cause life-threatening floods and mudslides on the two-nation island, the hurricane center said.
Five to 10 inches of rain was predicted for southeastern Cuba and the central and southeastern Bahamas, with maximum rainfall in some areas of 15 inches.
(CNN) Authorities in Azerbaijan recently uncovered a radical Islamic terror plot against the U.S. Embassy in the capital, Baku, prompting the facility to close its doors to the public Monday, Azerbaijan and U.S. officials told CNN.
As a precaution, Britain also shut its embassy in Baku to the public on Monday "following security concerns nearby," Britain's Foreign Office said.
The terror plot was unraveled after a weekend raid outside Baku that netted several suspected members of the radical group, two U.S. officials who asked not to be identified and a spokesman for Azerbaijan's National Security Ministry told CNN.
U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack stressed that the details "are still unfolding," and the threat "may or may not be" linked to the Saturday raid.
"There were some specific and credible threat information concerning the embassy and plans by militants to in some way do harm to individuals in and around the U.S. Embassy there," McCormack said, noting that no specific individuals were targeted.
Several days ago, an Azerbaijani army officer who had connections to a radical Islamic group seized four assault rifles, a machine gun and 20 hand grenades from his military unit and hid them in the outskirts of Baku, the ministry spokesman and U.S. officials said.
Government security forces tracked down the group and arrested several members during a sweep on Saturday in the village of Mastaga , about 20 miles (32 km) northeast of Baku, the spokesman said.
One suspected member of the militant group resisted arrest and was killed in the sweep, the spokesman said.
He said the terror plot also targeted Azerbaijani government buildings.
The U.S. Embassy in Baku issued a warden message warning Americans in Azerbaijan to take precautions.
Azerbaijan is a former Soviet republic that borders the Caspian Sea, and lies just north of Iran.
McCormack said U.S. authorities are working closely with their counterparts in Baku and will determine when normal embassy operations will resume.
LONDON, England (CNN) Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah has stirred up controversy ahead of a rare visit to Britain which begins Monday, accusing British authorities of ignoring intelligence that could have prevented the 2005 London bombings
In an interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation that aired on Monday, the Saudi king said Britain failed to act on information provided by Saudi security services ahead of the suicide bombings on London's transport network in July 2005, that killed 52 people and injured more than 770.
"We sent information to Great Britain before the terrorist atrocities in Britain, but unfortunately no action was taken and it may have been able to avert the tragedy," the monarch told the BBC.
Monday will mark the first state visit by a Saudi monarch in 20 years.
In the BBC interview, he refused to elaborate on the details of the intelligence, saying that disclosing specific information "may cause sensitivities" between the two countries' security services.
However, he went on to say that Britain was among a number of countries that were not taking the issue of global terrorism seriously.
A British Home Office spokesman strenuously denied that any intelligence from Saudi Arabia had been overlooked in the run-up to the atrocities and that information provided by the Saudis "was materially different from what actually occurred on 7 July and clearly not relevant to those acts.
"We have made it clear that if we had intelligence that could have prevented the attacks we would have acted upon it," the spokesman told CNN.
The spokesman said an investigation by the British Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) published last year found there was no evidence that intelligence passed on by the Saudis could have prevented the bombings.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband pulled out of a meeting with his Saudi Arabian counterpart in London Monday, but the Foreign Office insisted it was for personal reasons and not a snub.
Miliband has just adopted a baby son and is taking time off to look after him, the British Foreign Office confirmed to CNN.
The Foreign Office insisted Miliband's decision
to pull out of the meeting with Saudi's Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal was due to personal reasons and was in no way linked to King Abdullah's comments.
Miliband's duties are being carried out by junior ministers in his absence.
Army Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Dorko was injured Monday when a roadside bomb exploded near his vehicle in Baghdad, Pentagon sources said.
Dorko is believed to be the highest-ranking U.S. military officer injured in the war.
He suffered shrapnel wounds and has been evacuated to Germany, the sources said.
Dorko took command of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Gulf Region Division in Baghdad on October 10, according to the Corps of Engineers Web site.
Also on Monday, the Iraqi army freed seven tribal sheikhs abducted Sunday in eastern Baghdad, Baghdad commander Gen. Abboud Qanbar told al-Iraqia state television.
Qanbar said eight sheikhs had been abducted, but one was killed Sunday while resisting.
The freed sheikhs were Shiite, from Anbakiya tribe, the tribal leader said.
The tribal leader said the body of a Sunni sheikh, who was from the al-Azza tribe, was later found near where the kidnapping took place.
He said the three remaining sheikhs were Sunni.
An Interior Ministry official had originally told CNN that 10 tribal sheikhs seven Sunni and three Shiite had been kidnapped
WASHINGTON (CNN) A U.S. destroyer has entered Somali territorial waters in pursuit of a Japanese-owned ship loaded with benzene that was hijacked by pirates over the weekend, military officials said Monday.
The guided-missile destroyer USS Arleigh Burke entered Somali waters with the permission of the troubled transitional government in Mogadishu, U.S. officials said.
The ongoing operation was confirmed to CNN by two military officials familiar with the details.
Gunmen aboard two skiffs hijacked the Panamanian-flagged Golden Mori off the Socotra archipelago, near the Horn of Africa, said Andrew Mwangura, a spokesman for Kenya's Seafarers' Assistance Programme.
The Golden Mori radioed for help Sunday night.
The Burke's sister ship, the USS Porter, opened fire and sank the pirate skiffs tied to its stern before the Burke took over shadowing the hijacked vessel.
U.S. and NATO warships have been patrolling off the Horn of Africa for several years in an effort to crack down on piracy off Somalia, where a U.N.-backed transitional government is struggling to restore order after 15 years of near-anarchy.
In May, a U.S. Navy advisory warned merchant ships to stay at least 200 miles off the Somali coast.
But the U.S. Maritime Administration said pirates sometimes issue false distress calls to lure ships closer to shore.
The so-called $100 laptops for children may make it to India after all.
Last year,India rebuffed One Laptop Per Child, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology spinoff that created rugged little computers for kids in the developing world.
Mass production of its roughly $190 laptops is expected to begin soon, but with fewer than the several million computers originally envisioned.
Even after hearing the minister's comments, One Laptop Per Child kept talking to Indian officials, companies and non-governmental agencies.
Carla Gomez-Monroy, the education consultant who launched the test, said One Laptop Per Child has learned that working with local partners will be crucial in India, where dozens of languages are spoken.
It also helps that One Laptop Per Child has dropped its initial goal of getting each participating government to buy at least 1 million computers.
And in India's case, she said, it could mean distribution begins as soon as June.
Every week for more than a year of his travels, Jay Lenstrom, the chief executive of Chicago-based Radiate Group, got stuck for several hours at Charlotte Douglas International Airport in North Carolina. He tried to make the best of it.
The U.S. Department of Transportation ranked Newark Liberty International Airport as the worst for on-time arrivals between January and August;
John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City was at the bottom for on-time departures.
New York's other major airport, LaGuardia, also ranked near the bottom in both categories.
If you can arrange to pass through certain airports, your travel trauma is likely to decrease.
Salt Lake City International Airport was No. 1 for on-time arrivals between January and August, while Portland (Oregon) International Airport was tops for on-time departures.
San Diego International Airport also did well, making both lists at No. 3.
Cesc Fabregas grabbed a deserved late equalizer as Arsenal went back to the top of the English Premier League with a 1-1 draw at fellow title chasers Liverpool on Sunday.
It was the 10th goal of the season for the outstanding Spanish midfielder and came after a searching run by Alexander Hleb who delayed his pass perfectly to play in Fabregas, who easily beat Jose Reina from close-in.
Arsenal might have grabbed a late winner as Fabregas hit the post and substitute Niklas Bendtner fired the rebound over with the goal gaping.
Defeat would have been harsh for Liverpool who were much improved on their Champions League defeat to Besiktas and took the lead through a Steven Gerrard free kick after seven minutes.
level on 26 points with Manchester United having played a game less but top on goal scored.
They face the champions in a crunch match next Saturday at the Emirates Stadium.
"Overall it was a great football game," said Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger. "We had enough chances to win," he added.
Authorities are investigating the deaths of two Americans whose bodies were found at one of Hong Kong's most luxurious hotels, police and reports said Saturday.
Cleaning staff found the two men's bodies in a room at the Grand Hyatt hotel on Friday afternoon, a police spokeswoman said, speaking on condition of anonymity due to policy.
The cause of the deaths was not yet known and an autopsy was expected to be carried out later Saturday, the spokeswoman said. Police were not yet treating the deaths as suspicious, she said.
The spokeswoman confirmed both men were U.S. citizens, but said she did not know where they were from.
Grand Hyatt spokeswoman Karen Cheung said it was business as usual at the hotel.
She said she could not reveal any information about the deaths because the investigation was still under way.
(CNN) Spaniards rarely seem at a loss for words except when it comes to their national anthem.
But that could soon change.
The idea for the competition came from the Spanish Olympic Committee, which wanted athletes and fans to have words to sing when the anthem is played at sports events.
"I get a very strange feeling when we have to sing 'la, la, la,'" said Alejandro Blanco, president of the committee.
Thousands of entries have been received since the competition opened in July, and a six-member panel representing music, history, literature, politics, and sports meets next week to start deciding the winning lyrics.
"I think it's going to be a big job for the six of us," said Theresa Zabell, a panel member and former Olympian.
The origins of the anthem are disputed, according to Michael Jamieson Bristow, a composer and music historian.
Some claim it was composed by a German and given as a gift to King Carlos III in 1770, while others believe the tune was originally French and reset for military orchestras in the late 1700s.
Bristow says the music is "rather slow" and "makes a solemn rather than a fiery impression.
Gen. Francisco Franco declared it the official anthem in 1942.
Zabell said the panel has until Dec. 19 to choose a winner, at which point it will hand the winning lyrics to the Spanish parliament for a final vote.
The number of entries isn't the only thing complicating the panel's task.
In a country with a diverse culture and fierce regional pride, choosing words to represent everyone could be impossible.
"We have to take care and not make it overtly political," said Carlos Vaso, a musician and composer. "It should reflect Spanish patriotic values and should include everyone, leaving aside political ideologies.
Language itself is also an issue, because Spanish is not the dominant language everywhere in Spain.
Catalan is spoken in Barcelona, Euskara is spoken in the Basque region, and Galego is spoken in Galicia, in the northwest.
Zabell, who won gold in the sailing events at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona and the 1996 Games in Atlanta, said she's not too worried about trying to please everyone.
"I think we have to find some words that the people that feel proud of being Spanish, and feel proud of the Spanish flag, would want to sing," she said. "If there are people that don't fall in that category, then nobody is going to oblige them.
The sketch is based on an account given by the couple's friend Jane Tanner, who was eating with Jerry and Kate McCann on the evening that the British girl was taken from the family's Portuguese holiday apartment.
Tanner has said that she saw the man walking away from the area of the McCann's apartment but at the time did not realize the relevance.
The impression, which was released yesterday, shows a man of southern European or Mediterranean appearance walking while cradling a child.
The abductor is 5ft 6in (1.7m) tall, of slim build and aged between 35 and 40.
He has straggly or greasy dark hair and is wearing a brown or maroon top and beige chinos.
He is shown carrying a child, whose legs, clothed in the same pyjama bottoms as Madeleine's, can be seen dangling from his arms.
The artist has left blank certain details, such as the face, of which Tanner was uncertain.
Clarence Mitchell, spokesman for the McCanns, said: "This is another important phase of our investigation into Madeleine's abduction and we hope that this picture will be a very important reminder to anyone who was in the area on that night who may have seen this man.
NEW DELHI, India (CNN) Tens of thousands of impoverished Indians arrived in the national capital on Sunday ending a monthlong march to draw attention to the plight of those dispossessed of their land by recent economic development.
An estimated 27,000 protesters waved flags and chanted "Give us land, give us water," as they marched in long, orderly lines to central New Delhi where they plan to hold a massive protest Monday.
The demonstrators, who marched some 185 miles from the central city of Gwalior, say they have not only been left behind in the wake of India's recent economic boom, but have suffered directly from the growth, with many forced from their land to make way for government-backed economic projects.
died in eastern India after clashes between farmers and government supporters over proposed land seizures to create an industrial zone.
"We don't have food, land or water. We are going to Delhi to get this," Rasi Ram, one of the marchers in New Delhi, told the CNN-IBN news channel.
India is trying to attract foreign investment to spur its economy and help develop its largely backward infrastructure.
To that end, it has set up Special Economic Zones, where companies get tax breaks to set up business and factories.
But critics say farmers are often forced from their land or cheated on its value when an area is designated for these projects.
In West Bengal state, three government supporters died in an explosion, a day after an activist who opposes the land grabs was shot dead by supporters of the governing Communist Party of India (Marxist), said Raj Kanojia, the state's inspector general of police.
Farmers in the Nandigram area in West Bengal fiercely resisted efforts by authorities to force land sales at cheap rates to build a shipyard and a petrochemical plant.
The government officially abandoned the plan to acquire 22,000 acres of land in Nandigram in March, but the violence has continued.
(CNN) Six of the seven college students killed in a massive house fire Sunday morning in Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina, attended the University of South Carolina, a university official said Sunday.
"This is a very sad day for the University of South Carolina family," Dennis A. Pruitt, the vice president for student affairs, told reporters.
The seventh fatality is believed to be a Clemson University student, he said.
The six survivors who were treated and released from Brunswick Community Hospital are also USC students, he said.
Pruitt said the bodies were being sent to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, for identification.
"It is difficult to ascertain exactly who was in the house and who was not," Pruitt said, explaining that several area houses were filled with college students visiting for the weekend.
The USC students were affiliated with the Delta Delta Delta sorority and the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity, Pruitt said, although he stressed that the weekend was not an official Greek function.
"It just so happens, as on many university campuses, that certain sororities and certain fraternities hang around together," he said.
One person described as "unaccounted for" was later confirmed dead, Ocean Isle Beach Mayor Debbie Smith told CNN.
She said officials had not yet contacted all the victims' families, and that they were not yet releasing their names.
The mayor said one of the 13 people in the house was related to the house's owner.
Smith said the house was fully "engulfed" in flames around 7 a.m. when the fire department arrived on the scene, about five minutes after the fire department was notified.
She said the house had working smoke detectors, AP reported.
Officials are investigating the cause of the fire, Smith said.
Haiti posted tropical storm warnings along its entire coastline and Cuba placed much of its eastern end under similar advisories Sunday as Tropical Storm Noel gained strength in the Caribbean Sea, forecasters reported.
National Hurricane Center forecasters are projecting Noel will pass over southern Haiti late Sunday and cross the eastern end of Cuba before turning northward toward the Bahamas.
At 5 p.m. ET Sunday, the storm had top winds of 60 mph (96 km/h) and was located about 125 miles (205 km) south-southeast of the Haitian capital Port au-Prince, moving north-northwest at nearly 5 mph.
Noel is the 14th named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season.
It is expected to dump heavy rains over southeastern Cuba, Jamaica and Hispaniola the island shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic with accumulations of 8 to 12 inches.
"These rains could cause life-threatening flash floods and mudslides," the NHC warned.
The storm could drench Puerto Rico, as well, with 3 to 5 inches of rain, the center said.
Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto visited the families of people killed in a suicide bombing attempt on her life, touring a poor neighborhood Sunday in a visit kept secret until the last minute to protect her from another assassination bid.
Bhutto toured the city of Larkana, near her ancestral village, a day after beginning her first trip outside Karachi since the Oct. 18 assassination attempt there shattered a mass rally to welcome her home and left 145 people dead.
Security guards encircled the sports-utility vehicle that carried the two-time premier past hundreds of residents who squeezed into the narrow streets of the Ayoub Colony, a poor neighborhood, to welcome her.
Surrounded by about a dozen policemen and wearing her trademark white headscarf, Bhutto went to the home of Nizamuddin Sammo, a 22-year-old supporter who was killed in the blast, and met with his mother and two sisters, promising them financial assistance from her Pakistan People's Party.
She praised Sammo as a young man who "lost his life in the moment to save democracy ... He did not bow his head before dictatorship and terrorism.
After the bombing, Bhutto had been largely confined to her residence in Karachi, but she has vowed to press on with her campaign for parliamentary elections, slated for January, and not be intimidated by the attempt on her life.
"I found security in that because the terrorists cannot get you unless they know where you are going.
Cheap foreign labor is drawn into the city from the impoverished lower class of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, forming the vital underpinnings to Dubai's spectacular building boom.
The workers have complained about long hours, no minimum wage, harsh living conditions and no legal forums in which to air their complaints about management.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused the United States of applying a double standard in dealing with terrorism by its lack of action against Kurdish rebels who launch attacks against Turkey from northern Iraq.
The Turkish government which so far has restrained itself from undertaking a full-scale military operation amid diplomatic pressure wants Iraq to handle the rebels inside Iraqi territory and has been saying it can't wait indefinitely for Iraq to do so.
The United States, which believes an offensive will make the unstable region even more volatile, is making attempts to stop such an attack.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will be in Ankara Thursday for bilateral meetings with Erdogan and Turkish President Abdullah Gul.
No Turkish incursion into northern Iraq is expected until after Erdogan meets with President Bush at the White House on November 5.
Several major exit polls suggested that first lady Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner won the presidency Sunday by a large enough margin to avoid a runoff.
She would be the first woman in Argentina elected to the post.
She has been compared to U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who like her is a lawyer and senator who soldiered alongside a husband as he rose from small-state governor to his nation's presidency.
Her closest challengers, former lawmaker Elisa Carrio and former Economy Minister Roberto Lavagna, were trying to force her into a November 25 runoff.
She needed 40 percent of the vote, with a lead of more than 10 percent over her nearest rival, to win outright.
Five independent television networks and at least one private radio station reported their exit polling indicated Fernandez has easily won a first-round victory.
Three of the television networks released their numbers, giving Fernandez between 42 and 46 percent of the vote, with advantages of between 19 and 23 percentage points over Carrio.
LONDON, England (CNN) Details emerged Sunday that the British royal family is at the center of an alleged blackmail plot.
Scotland Yard confirmed to CNN that two men have been charged with trying to blackmail an unnamed member of the royal family.
The men aged 30 and 40 appeared behind closed doors at the City of Westminster magistrates' court in London last month each charged with one count of blackmail.
It is being reported in the British press Sunday that the men approached the royal household and suggested that they had video tape of a royal taking part in a sex act.
British newspapers have also said that the alleged blackmailers claimed to have tape of a royal aide snorting cocaine supplied by a member of the royal family.
It is reported that the police were then brought in and that a detective posed as a royal official during a meeting with the alleged blackmailers at a London hotel.
Two suspects were then arrested.
Buckingham Palace said this is a police matter and they cannot comment further.
The judge in this case has banned the media from publishing or broadcasting any information that would lead to the identification of the accused or the alleged victim.
ORANGE, California (CNN) With the number of uncontained fires down to nine in Southern California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger turned his attention Saturday to what he called "the ugly side of human behavior" during and after the disaster.
At least two of the fires were started intentionally and two more have suspicious origins, he said during a news conference, issuing a warning for the arsonists.
"We will hunt down the people that are responsible for that," he said.
"If I were one of the people who started the fires, I would not sleep soundly right now, because we're right behind you," Schwarzenegger said, urging the culprits to turn themselves in.
Authorities said Saturday they were following 1,700 tips about a white Ford F-150 pickup that may be a lead in determining who set the sprawling Santiago Fire in Orange County.
Witnesses reported seeing the 1998-2004 model truck with chrome tubular running boards on Santiago Canyon Road on Sunday afternoon, about the time the Santiago Fire started.
Investigators said this week that the fire had two points of origin, and they found evidence at the scene, although they declined to describe it.
The fire is 35 percent contained down from 50 percent on Wednesday.
It has burned 27,000 acres and destroyed 14 homes.
There is a $250,000 reward for information leading to an arrest.
Authorities also consider the Rosa Fire in San Diego County, which burned more than 400 acres before being fully contained, an arson.
Five people in three counties have been arrested in arson probes, but none has been linked to any of the large fires.
Anyone who tries to rip off vulnerable homeowners and anyone else victimized by the fire will get "no mercy" in finding and prosecuting them, several officials said.
JERUSALEM (CNN) Israel restricted the flow of fuel to Hamas-controlled Gaza on Sunday, a move it vowed to take in response to "the incessant firing of rockets into Israel," an adviser to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said.
Ten Israeli and Palestinian human rights groups are petitioning Israel's Supreme Court to stop the reduction.
The Israeli company Dor Alon supplies fuel to Gaza.
Dor Alon had previously halted fuel shipments following Hamas' takeover of Gaza earlier this year, but restarted them.
It's unclear how the new reductions will affect Gaza's power plant, which is fueled by Dor Alon.
The Israeli daily, Haaretz, reported the power plant received a full supply of fuel Sunday.
But Ahmed Ali, deputy director of Gaza's Petroleum Authority, told The Associated Press that fuel shipments on Sunday were more than 30 percent below normal.
He said Israel delivered 52,835 gallons of diesel fuel, compared to the typical 92,500 gallons on a normal day, and 23,775 gallons of gasoline, instead of the regular supply of 40,000 gallons.
He said Gaza keeps about four days of fuel reserves, the AP reported.
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak approved the fuel cuts Thursday as part of a plan by Israeli security officials looking to stem rocket attacks on southern Israel.
Olmert's government has been under mounting pressure to do something about the rocket attacks.
According to the Israel Defense Forces, about 800 rockets were fired into Israel from June to September, 60 percent more than were fired during the same period in 2006.
Some Israeli officials downplayed the significance of the reduction.
Speaking on Israel Army Radio, Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai said the plan would "gradually [cut] the electricity supply without harming humanitarian sources like hospitals."
And Israeli government spokeswoman Miri Eisin said Israel remains "committed that there will not be a humanitarian crisis" in Gaza as a result of its action
But the human rights groups petitioning Israel's Supreme Court said "the consequences of disrupting electricity and fuel supplies cannot be controlled or predicted."
They are demanding the court "issue an immediate injunction to freeze the aforementioned governmental decision pending its hearing of the petition.
China's supercharged economy grew by a stunning 11.5 percent in the third quarter, surging ahead despite official efforts to cool the boom and putting it on track to overtake Germany as the world's third-largest within weeks, according to data reported Thursday.
Growth exceeded forecasts, but was below the 11.9 percent rate reported in the previous quarter.
It was driven by a double-digit surge in exports and investment in factories and other fixed assets despite repeated interest rate hikes.
Growth for the first nine months of the year was 11.5 percent, the same rate recorded for the first half of the year, the National Bureau of Statistics reported.
But a spokesman said the government has succeeded in keeping the rapid expansion under control.
The communist government wants to maintain fast growth to ease poverty but worries that a runaway expansion or overspending on real estate and other assets could ignite a financial crisis.
Beijing has raised interest rates five times this year to tamp down investment, and economists expect another hike later in the year.
Jurors deliberated for more than five hours before recommending the sentence for Lisa Montgomery.
Montgomery, 39, was convicted Monday of kidnapping and killing Bobbie Jo Stinnett on December 16, 2004, in the victim's home in the northwest Missouri town of Skidmore.
She was arrested the next day in Melvern, Kansas, where she was showing off the newborn as her own.
Montgomery wiped her eyes with a tissue as the jury announced its sentencing decision.
Prosecutors argued that Stinnett's killing and mutilation is the kind of crime for which capital punishment is intended.
Federal prosecutor Roseann Ketchmark said Montgomery had violated Stinnett in the "most wicked way possible," then failed to seek medical attention for the infant, who was four weeks shy of her due date.
Defense attorney Fred Duchardt, who claims sexual abuse during Montgomery's childhood led to mental illness, asked the jury to spare his client's life.
An Iraqi diplomat said that no progress was made in talks with Turkish officials Friday in Ankara about the Iraqi-Turkey border situation and that the Iraqi delegation planned to head back home.
But we told them that the idea of Iraqis conducting military actions against the PKK is not an option." Abawi said.
"But we are ready to cooperate with the Turks to cut down their logistics and financial resources.
A representative with Turkish Foreign Ministry also said the talks did not go well.
The official said Turkey believes the Iraqi delegation talked about the issue with a view to the long term and did not come up with concrete proposals.
The Turkish government wants Iraq to handle the rebels inside its territory and has been saying it can't wait indefinitely for Iraq to do so.
The United States, which believes an offensive will make the unstable region even more volatile, is doing what it can to stop such an eventuality.
"We also told them we are ready to increase all our outposts and checkpoints on the border and to establish such points where the PKK try to cross the borders.
The International Olympic Committee said Thursday that Beijing's air pollution problem means some outdoor events may be postponed for a day or two at next year's Olympics.
With 10 months to go before the Summer Games, air pollution has emerged as one of Beijing's biggest problems in generally smooth preparations.
In an overall positive assessment of Beijing's preparations, an IOC inspection team said air quality was a leading concern and it was monitoring the situation.
Hein Verbruggen, the inspection team leader, said the impact of pollution on athletes' performance was a particular concern.
IOC president Jacques Rogge had warned in the past that pollution might force some outdoor endurance events to be delayed.
Rogge underscored the IOC's concerns in a speech Thursday saying that athletes "need clean and healthy conditions in which to train and compete." But he did not read out a warning to Beijing contained in the prepared text that said "time may be running out.
The IOC inspectors acknowledged some events might be rescheduled for a few days but expressed confidence that special measures would clear the air.
Superior Court Commissioner Susan Speer dismissed the hit-and-run charge after a lawyer for the pop star said his client had paid an undisclosed amount to a woman whose car was hit in a Studio City parking lot.
A charge of driving without a license was not dismissed and a pretrial hearing was scheduled for November 26.
Her attorney, Anne Kiley, said earlier this week that Spears had regained temporary visitation rights of her sons, Preston, 2, and Jayden James, 1.
Oil prices hit a record high Thursday of more than $90 a barrel after reports indicated that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries has no plans to increase production.
Oil had been higher throughout the day, but spiked late afternoon after comments from an OPEC official.
"If it persists for a longer period, then we start worrying. But at this time we don't know what's going to happen next month.
El-Badri also said the cartel isn't having any discussions about increasing production, the Journal reported. OPEC, which supplies about 40 percent of the world's 84 million-barrel-a-day oil habit, agreed to boost production by 500,000 barrels in September, but the move did little to calm oil prices.
There had been speculation that the cartel would again boost production at its next meeting in December.
While Saudi Arabia is generally believed to have the ability to pump about 2 million more barrels a day - the world's only significant remaining spare production capacity - Barakat said they are keeping that in reserve in case of a real supply disruption.
Turkish attacks on Kurdish separatists in northern Iraq and reports of Lebanon firing on Israeli warplanes also pushed prices higher, as traders feared conflicts could spread to the broader Middle East.
A rescuer who tried to help Diana after her Paris car crash said Thursday that the princess spoke as she lay in the wreckage, repeating the words "oh my God" over and over.
Dalby, who was a volunteer French firefighter at the time, told the inquest by videolink from Paris that the car was surrounded by photographers.
The inquest required by British law when someone dies unexpectedly, violently or of unknown causes had been delayed for 10 years because of the two exhaustive investigations by French and British police.
Both concluded that the couple's driver, Henri Paul, was drunk, driving too fast and that the deaths were an accident. Paul also died.
Fayed's father contends that the couple were the targets of a plot orchestrated by Prince Philip, the husband of Queen Elizabeth II.
HENDERSON, Nevada (CNN) Michael Tylo Jr., son of soap opera star Hunter Tylo, has died in a swimming pool accident.
He was pronounced dead just before midnight Thursday at a home in the Las Vegas suburb of Henderson, authorities said.
The 45-year-old actress was in Los Angeles at the time of the incident, show representative Eva Demirjian said. Demirjian declined further comment.
Michael Tylo Jr. was dead when police arrived following a call from an unidentified person, Henderson police spokesman Todd Rasmussen said.
Hunter Tylo's ex-husband Michael Tylo is an assistant professor of film at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
The actress has three other children, Chris, Izabella Gabrielle and Katya Ariel.
STRASBOURG, France (CNN) Sudanese lawyer Salih Mahmoud Osman received the European Union's top human rights award on Thursday for his work in the war torn region of Darfur in western Sudan, the European Parliament said.
The Sakharov Prize, named after the late Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov, is awarded by the EU assembly annually to a person or group judged to have made a particular contribution in the field of human rights or the promotion of democracy and the rule of law.
Osman, 50, is a lawyer with the Sudan Organization Against Torture and has provided free legal aid to victims of human rights abuses in his country for more than two decades.
He deals with victims in Darfur, where more than 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million have been uprooted in years of conflict.
"Despite a high personal risk he still manages to provide help to the victims of the conflict.
Slain Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya and Chinese human rights defenders Zeng Jinyan and Hu Jia, had also been nominated for the prize.
Belarusian opposition leader Alexander Milinkevich received the prize last year. Other past winners include former South African President Nelson Mandela and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
LONDON, England(CNN) AC Milan shrugged off an indifferent season so far to thrash Champions League Group D leaders Shakhtar Donetsk 4-1 at the San Siro on Wednesday night.
Alberto Gilardino and Clarence Seedorf scored twice each for the home side, who bounced back from the 2-1 defeat away to Celtic and Sunday's 1-0 reverse against Empoli in Italy's Serie A.
Milan joined Shakhtar on six points from three outings after inflicting the Ukrainian side's first defeat.
Meanwhile, Benfica joined Celtic on three points in Group D after snatching a late 1-0 victory against the Scottish champions in Lisbon.
Oscar Cardozo scored the winner in the 87th minute after chesting down a pass from Angel Di Maria and firing past keeper Artur Boruc from eight yards.
But Cardozo finally broke the deadlock to hand Celtic an unhappy return to the city where the club won the European Cup in 1967.
LAHORE, Pakistan (CNN) A suicide attacker targeted a police truck Thursday, killing 24 people most of them police in the Taliban-dominated area of North West Frontier province, police sources said.
The attack happened in Mangora, located in the Swat district where Pakistan recently deployed 2,500 troops to maintain law and order.
Police officer Amjad Khan told the Associated Press the blast hit a platoon of 43 Frontier Constabulary troops in a truck near the police district headquarters.
The region has increasingly become a stronghold of local Taliban militants.
Fears over Pakistan's stability were raised last week when a suicide bombing in Karachi, targetting a convoy carrying former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto.
Bhutto Thursday told CNN that she intends to visit her constituency of Larkana on Saturday amid security fears after last week's bombing.
Last Thursday's attack happened hours after her arrival in the southern port city of Karachi.
Bhutto told CNN International that the decision to return to Larkana, her ancestral village, was "a very big dilemma.
Bhutto returned to Pakistan last week after eight years in self-imposed exile.
She intends to seek a third term as prime minister, possibly under a powersharing deal with Pakistan's President, Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto told CNN she suspects members of President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's regime may have been indirectly involved in last week's suicide bombing that targeted her convoy.
"I know General Musharraf trusts them, I respect his trust in them, but I also have my own suspicions," she said.
"All I'm asking is that, please, let an independent inquiry investigate this matter so that it can be laid to rest.
She said she became a target of militants in Pakistan nearly 20 years ago.
"It started way back in 1988 I know who the people were who brought Osama bin Laden back to Pakistan after the end of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
"I have not gone public with the names because I do not want to have an adversarial position with General Musharraf.
Bhutto stressed that Musharraf's regime must go beyond identifying the single suicide attacker and rout out the financiers and sponsors of the October 18 attack and other militant attacks on Pakistani forces and civilians.
The suicide bombing that targeted Bhutto's convoy in Karachi last Thursday killed 130 people hours after her arrival in the southern port city of Karachi.
Myanmar's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest for 12 of the last 18 years met with the country's newly-appointed liaison officer Thursday, Myanmar's state-run television reported.
It was the first time in three years that Suu Kyi had been allowed to leave the house in Yangon.
Amid international pressure following September's bloody crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations, Myanmar's ruling junta named Deputy Minister of Labor Aung Kyi as its liaison officer with the detained Nobel laureate.
Aung Kyi, viewed as a moderate, is the first officially designated liaison appointed by the junta to meet with the opposition leader.
Gambari is expected to arrive in Myanmar the first week of November after the leadership of Myanmar, also called Burma, agreed to move up the date of his arrival, according to a U.N. press release.
He is currently in Beijing as part of a tour of regional capitals "to garner support" for his visit, the United Nations said.
Last month, Gambari met with Myanmar's military junta leadership, as well as Suu Kyi, who has been detained off and on since 1989 after her National League for Democracy won the country's first free multiparty elections but the military junta refused to hand over power.
Suu Kyi has been under house arrest from 1989 to 1995, from 2000 to 2002, and from May 2003 to now.
The United States imposed stiff sanctions against Iran on Thursday, targeting two Iranian military groups and a number of Iranian banks and people it accuses of backing nuclear proliferation and terror-related activities.
"What this means is that no U.S. citizen or private organization will be allowed to engage in financial transactions with these persons and entities," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said. "In addition, any assets that these designees have under U.S. jurisdiction will be immediately frozen."
Rice and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson made the announcement in a brief appearance before reporters on Thursday morning.
supporting Shia militants in Iraq and terrorists in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories;
and denying the existence of a fellow member of the United Nations, threatening to wipe Israel off the map."
the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or the IRGC, and the Quds force, an arm of the IRGC," she said.
She said the sanctions were being imposed "because of the Revolutionary Guard's support for proliferation and the Quds force support for terrorism.
" The United States also designated three Iranian state-owned banks for sanctions, two of them "for their involvement in proliferation activities" and the other "as a terrorist financier," Rice said.
"Iran funnels hundreds of millions of dollars each year through the international financial system to terrorists," Paulson said.
The Revolutionary Guard Corps, he said, "is so deeply entrenched in Iran's economy and commercial enterprises, it is increasingly likely that, if you are doing business with Iran, you are doing business" with the corps.
The move marks the first time the United States has attempted to punish another country's military through sanctions.
Skipper Steven Gerrard admitted Liverpool have "a mountain to climb" after their Champions League defeat away to Turkey's Besiktas on Wednesday night left them facing group elimination.
This time, in the small but intimidating Inonu stadium, Besiktas produced their greatest European victory to leave Liverpool bottom of Group A.
And from then on the Anfield men toiled and labored in an increasingly desperate attempt to avoid a humiliating defeat.
Deivson Bobo made it two with nine minutes left before Gerrard's header gave Liverpool hope but a ferocious final effort failed to save the visitors.
"We are pleased with how we played but disappointed with the result.
We are capable of winning our final three games."
Football dignitaries gathered in Sheffield, northern England, on Wednesday to kick off the 150th birthday celebrations of Sheffield FC the sport's oldest club.
Guests of honor at a service at Sheffield Cathedral included Sepp Blatter, president of football world governing body FIFA, and Massimo Moratti, president of Italian giants Inter Milan who are scheduled to play a friendly against Sheffield FC next month.
Other guests attending a dinner in the club's honor included Real Madrid President Ramon Calderon and England and Manchester United legend Bobby Charlton.
Pele widely recognized as the greatest footballer ever to play the game is also due in town next month to attend Sheffield FC's clash with Inter.
Many more football clubs soon sprung up and by 1862 there were said to be 15 in and around the Sheffield area.
The Football Association which codified the basic rules of the modern game was established in London the following year.
The club currently competes in the Unibond League's First Division South, seven divisions beneath the English Premier League.
Clapton is Good.
The second "o" is critical.
Back in the 1960s, when London graffiti proclaimed "Clapton is God," the brilliant British guitarist was descending into a personal hell.
Eric Clapton traded a heroin addiction for alcoholism, suffered disastrous love affairs, contemplated suicide while armed with a bottle of vodka, a gram of blow and a shotgun.
at 62, Clapton has 20 years of sobriety, a happy marriage and three young daughters.
The Autobiography.
Initially, Clapton planned to sit down for a series of interviews about his life, leaving a collaborator to handle the tweaking and organization.
"So I rewrote that, and then I thought, 'I'll have to write this myself.'
These days, his time is otherwise occupied.
Besides family life, Clapton remains involved with the Crossroads treatment center that he founded nearly a decade ago in Antigua a huge benefit concert was held this past summer.
"I can't stop touring, and I won't," he says emphatically. "I believe I have a responsibility to play for people.
BARBOURSVILLE, Virginia (CNN) Winemaker Luca Paschina arrived from Italy 17 years ago on a mission to bring his craft to Virginia, tailor grape-growing to the local climate and soil, and succeed where Thomas Jefferson failed a couple hundred years before.
As a result, Virginia also is attracting more tourists to partake in wine tastings, local cuisine and stays at nearby inns.
The state has always lured visitors with history and natural beauty, but now it's working to grow this tourism niche by offering Virginia Wine Trails.
The trails suggest itineraries for several regions across the state wineries, restaurants, nearby historic sites and special events.
Barboursville, the sole American venture of Italy's Zonin winemaking family, is a destination on the Monticello wine trail, named after Jefferson's famous estate, where the third president planted European grapes in a doomed effort to produce wine.
It features the three-suite 1804 Inn, which sits next to the four-columned ruins of the Jefferson-designed plantation manor of former Virginia governor James Barbour and overlooks wooded, rolling hills.
After sampling its wines, visitors can dine at Palladio, Barboursville's northern Italian restaurant where chef Melissa Close uses local produce and regional ingredients, such as crab and rockfish from the Chesapeake Bay.
Flying from Singapore to Sydney, Australia, on Thursday, the enormous A380 is carrying passengers who bid up to $100,000 for a seat on the historical trip.
The superjumbo took off on schedule at 8.16 a.m. (0016 GMT) on a 7 1/2-hour flight that launches a new era in air travel.
The Associated Press reported the flight was carrying 455 passengers and a crew of about 30, including four pilots.
Airports have had to redesign terminals to accommodate the world's largest passenger jet, which has a wingspan of nearly 80 meters.
The 6,300-kilometer (3,900 mile) Singapore Airlines scheduled flight will mark the end of a much longer journey for the aircraft, the delivery of which was delayed by nearly two years, with costs running billion of dollars over budget.
Critics also see the jet as an environmental concern at a time when the aviation industry is under pressure as one of the biggest producers of carbon dioxide, seen as a key factor in global warning.
Airbus insists the A380, capable of carrying up to 850 people in all-economy mode, is more fuel efficient and is banking on the jet to open up a
new front in the battle for the commercial skies.
While Airbus is likely to be buoyed by delays to Boeing's rival creation a jet promising faster, more environmentally-friendly flights orders for the 787 Dreamliner aircraft are now in excess of 710 from 51 customers.
In addition to Singapore Airlines, Airbus will also supply 14 customers including British Airways, Virgin, Emirates and Lufthansa with orders totaling 180 aircraft.
Singapore Airlines will begin fully scheduled A380 flights to Sydney on Sunday.
A superjumbo service on the Singapore-London route is expected to start in February.
MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) A Russian man who said he wanted to record a killing for each of the 64 squares on a chessboard was found guilty Wednesday of murdering 48 people in Moscow.
A jury took less than three hours to convict Alexander Pichushkin of the murders, most of which occurred over five years in a sprawling southern park.
He was also found guilty of three attempted murders.
Judge Vladimir Usov read the verdict for one hour, while 33-year-old Pichushkin, standing inside a reinforced glass cage, leaned against the wall and stared at the floor.
The courthouse was packed with journalists and relatives of victims who had closely followed the five-week trial.
Prosecutors recommended the judge sentence Pichushkin to life imprisonment, with the first 15 years to be spent in isolation given the convicted man's violent nature. The judge has not yet set a date for sentencing.
Russia has imposed a moratorium on the death sentence but has not abolished it.
Most of Pichushkin's victims were killed in Bittsa Park, and the serial killer became known as the "Bittsa Maniac.
Pichushkin boasted of killing 63 people one short of filling up the chessboard but prosecutors were able to find evidence only for 48 murders.
At the cramped apartment where he shared a bedroom with his mother, police found his chessboard with numbers on its squares all the way up to 62.
He boasted he had nearly reached the last square, No. 64, by the time police captured him.
They say he killed 11 people in 2001, including six in one month.
Beginning in 2005, he began to kill with "particular cruelty," hitting his intoxicated victims multiple times in the head with a hammer, then sticking an unfinished bottle of vodka into their shattered skulls, prosecutors said.
Pichushkin was arrested in June 2006 after a woman left a note at home saying that she was going for a walk with him and was then found dead.
"It is ludicrous," Gerry McCann, accompanied by his wife, Kate, told Spain's Antena 3 television station in their first TV interview since being named suspects in the case in September.
"It is outrageous," he added, according to an excerpt from the interview that were posted on Antena 3's Web site.
The full interview was to be broadcast later Wednesday.
Some media reports have indicated Portuguese police suspect Madeleine's parents may have accidentally given her an overdose of sedatives, then disposed of her body.
Gerry and Kate McCann have repeatedly dismissed the suggestion.
Portuguese police have declined to comment because Portugal's secrecy laws forbid detectives from speaking about ongoing investigations.
Madeleine McCann vanished May 3, a few days before her fourth birthday, from her family's hotel room during a vacation in Portugal's Algarve region.
After initially focusing on the possibility that she was abducted from her hotel room, police switched their focus to her parents when forensic tests conducted at a government laboratory in Britain found evidence that DNA from Madeleine was in the trunk of a rental car the parents used after her disappearance.
Police named the parents as formal suspects.
They have returned to their home in Britain.
Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. took a $7.9 billion writedown in the third quarter due to bad mortgage bets, well exceeding its initial estimates and raising questions about the bank's future leadership.
The blow is likely to renew credit fears and turn up the heat on Merrill Lynch chief executive Stanley O'Neal.
In the year-ago period, Merrill Lynch reported a net profit of $3 billion, or $3.47 a share, on the same basis.
Net revenue dwindled to $577 million, down 94 percent from $9.8 billion in the same period last year.
Shares of Merrill Lynch fell nearly 3 percent in pre-market trading.
Merrill Lynch said it decided to re-examine its CDO positions "with more conservative assumptions" due to difficult credit markets.
"We expect market conditions for sub-prime mortgage-related assets to continue to be uncertain and we are working to resolve the remaining impact from our positions," O'Neal said in a statement.
Bulger, alleged former leader of the Winter Hill gang in Boston, has been on the run since January 1995 after he was indicted on 18 counts of murder.
Earlier this year, a man meeting his description was spotted in Sicily, Italy.
The FBI Web site, which lists Bulger just beneath Osama bin Laden, says the Irish-American gangster also is wanted on extortion and drug and money laundering charges linked to organized crime in the Boston, Massachusetts, area.
The Web site also carries a video of a man suspected to be Bulger, who goes by the nickname "Whitey," walking around with a younger woman.
China launched its first lunar probe Wednesday, the first step in an ambitious 10-year plan to send a rover to the moon and return it to earth.
State television showed pictures of the Chang'e 1 orbiter taking off with a trail of smoke from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan province in southwestern China.
The Long March 3A rocket carrying the probe blasted off shortly after 6 p.m. (1000 GMT) after officials from the China National Space Administration said weather conditions were good for a lift off. Watch the rocket launch &raquo;
Several thousand people living within 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) of the launch center and under the rocket's trajectory were evacuated two hours before the launch, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
More than 2,000 tourists were also on hand to watch the rocket soar into space after paying 800 yuan ($106).
The Chang'e 1, named after a mythical Chinese goddess who flew to the moon, will orbit Earth while technical adjustments are made, and will enter the moon's orbit by Nov. 5, administration spokesman Li Guoping said when the launch plans were announced Monday.
The project's goal is to analyze the chemical and mineral composition of the lunar surface.
The probe will use stereo cameras and X-ray spectrometers to map three-dimensional images of the surface, and to study the moon's dust.
The 2,300-kilogram (5,070-pound) Chang'e 1 is expected to transmit its first photo back to China in late November, and to conduct explorations of the moon for a year.
ILULISSAT, Greenland (CNN) From the air, Greenland's ice sheet, the second largest on Earth, appears to be perfectly still.
But below the surface, the ice sheet is in constant motion, as ice built up in the interior pushes toward the coast in the form of massive glaciers.
During warmer months, ice from these glaciers melts into the ocean.
It's an age-old process that scientists say has speeded up in recent decades because of global warming.
The fear is that melting ice from Greenland and other Arctic areas could cause sea levels to rise enough to flood low-lying cities, such as Shanghai, China, and New York City, displacing millions of people in the process.
A recent report from the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, made up of scientists from around the world, estimates the sea level rise by 2100 could be as much as 1¨ö feet.
That sea level rise is only based on melt from ice sheets, and does not include a new fast flow of ice we have detected in Greenland that is generating additional icebergs," said Dr. Konrad Steffen, a climate scientist with the University of Colorado.
Steffen estimates sea levels could rise three feet over the next century, a stark prediction that could wreak havoc around the world if it comes to pass.
But global sea levels have been rising at the rate of three millimeters per year since 1993.
For each of the past 17 years, Steffen has spent one month at a remote research site called Swiss Camp, located 300 miles north of the Arctic Circle in Greenland.
He monitors the changing ice sheet through a network of global positioning systems and weather stations, which have recorded a dramatic rise in temperatures since the mid-1990s.
"When you look at our satellite analysis, we can see the melt area of Greenland over 30 years has increased by 30 percent," Steffen said.
LONDON, England (CNN) Campaigners held a day of protests around the world Wednesday to highlight the plight of Nobel Peace Prize winner and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and mark another year of her house arrest in Myanmar.
The protests were taking place outside Chinese embassies in London and 11 other cities one city for each year of Suu Kyi's detention.
The pro-democracy leader has been held for 12 of the past 18 years.
About 100 people turned out for the London protest, some wearing white robes and masks of Suu Kyi's face.
Others had their hands bound with rope and others held chains they say are used to torture political prisoners in Myanmar.
The protesters, who were joined by a group of monks in crimson robes, held posters reading "Free Aung San Suu Kyi Now" and "China's Gain, Burma's Pain.
"The message is that China needs to do more on Burma," said Mark Farmaner, acting director of Burma Campaign UK, referring to Myanmar's former official name.
He said China needs to use its influence with Myanmar's leaders to continue pushing for Suu Kyi's release.
Myanmar's ruling junta has been strongly criticized for last month's violent crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators.
The government has admitted detaining more than 2,900 people from the protests and several hundred are believed to be still in custody.
The day of protest also coincides with the United Nations' 62nd birthday, and organizers said they were using that to urge action from the U.N. Security Council.
"The U.N. must do more than issue statements of concern," said Kate Allen, director of Amnesty International UK.
In a statement earlier this month, the council said it "strongly deplores the use of violence against peaceful demonstrations in Myanmar" and it called on the junta to work towards a dialogue with Suu Kyi.
SAN DIEGO, California (CNN) There were growing signs of optimism Wednesday in the battle against the Southern California wildfires the largest natural disaster in the United States since Hurricane Katrina.
Winds that blew as hard as 101 mph on Sunday dropped to 75 mph on Monday, 50 mph on Tuesday and continued to ease Wednesday.
Meanwhile, dry Santa Ana winds that have fanned the flames, changed direction and began blowing inland from the Pacific Ocean, increasing the humidity and easing the burden on almost 8,900 firefighters in the area.
The rate of burning had slowed significantly by Wednesday as officials continued what they called an "unprecedented effort" to battle the flames.
Still, the fire damage increased to 434,543 acres , said Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The Orange County Fire Authority said it is investigating the Santiago fire that has burned more than 19,000 acres as a suspected arson.
The blaze was about 50 percent contained after destroying 17 structures.
As the fire danger eased, residents were allowed to return to several neighborhoods surrounding San Diego.
The city of Poway except for the High Valley area also began allowing residents to return to their homes.
About 500 homes were lost in the mountainous region in San Bernardino County east of Los Angeles.
The fires have already destroyed 1,664 structures including 1,436 homes and they still threaten 25,000 more, Schwarzenegger said Wednesday.
The human toll is also devastating.
The blazes have killed three people and left 40 hurt, Schwarzenegger said.
The governor will fly over the area Thursday with President Bush, who signed a major disaster declaration Wednesday.
Turkish warplanes and helicopter gunships have been bombing Kurdish separatist positions in Turkey along the Iraqi-Turkish frontier amid continuing diplomatic efforts to avert a major cross-border incursion by Turkish military forces.
CNN Turk, citing Turkish government and military sources, reported the activity and said it had been taking place since Sunday.
The Dogan News Agency also told CNN that aerial strikes had been going on for days, with several F-16 warplanes loaded with bombs taking off from an air base in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir.
Anadolu news agency reported that aircraft-backed "counter-terrorism operations" were "under way" in southeastern Turkey.
Public pressure is mounting in Turkey for the government to authorise a major strike against Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) fighters accused of mounting attacks against Turkish forces and civilians from bases across the border in Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region.
Thousands of mourners took to the streets Tuesday for the funerals of 12 soldiers killed in an ambush Sunday.
The film showed eight men standing against a PKK flag with mountains in the background.
The Web site of PKK's military wing quoted a commander who blamed Erdogan himself for the deaths of the soldiers and "the POWs that we now have.
Turkey's military has confirmed that eight soldiers are missing but not reports that they were taken hostage.
NEWCASTLE, England Newcastle plunged Tottenham manager Martin Jol into even deeper trouble as they won 3-1 to secure a fourth successive Premier League home victory.
Newcastle began brightly and nearly took the lead in the 13th minute when defender Abdoulaye Faye thumped a header against the post from Charles N'Zogbia's corner.
They eventually took the lead on the stroke of half-time when Obafemi Martins outsprinted Michael Dawson to a long ball to fire home his fifth goal of the season.
The home side added a second six minutes after the break when defender Claudio Cacapa was left unmarked to powerfully head home Emre's well-taken corner.
However, substitute James Milner made sure of the points when taking advantage of a Younes Kaboul mistake to volley home a 73rd-minute winner.
Teenager Theo Walcott scored his first goals in Europe to help Arsenal thrash Slavia Prague 7-0 in Group H to equal the highest-ever Champions League victory by any team.
The mood was set as early as the fifth minute when good work from Alexander Hleb on the left set up Cesc Fabregas and the Spanish midfielder curled a superb strike into the top corner of goalkeeper Martin Vaniak's net.
Hleb made it 4-0 after 51 minutes, turning the Slavia defense inside out down the left and drilling a low strike past Vaniak.
Hundreds of thousands of displaced San Diego County residents are navigating around road closures to find refuge in shelters and hotel rooms a safe distance from the wildfires encroaching on their neighborhoods.
At least 10,000 evacuees are staying at Qualcomm Stadium, home to the NFL's San Diego Chargers and the city's primary evacuation center.
The Red Cross has 500 people on the ground operating in five of the area's nearly two dozen shelters and is sending more help.
Many evacuees are staying in area hotels at discounted rates.
The Marriott Hotel in downtown San Diego's historic Gaslamp Quarter has offered fire evacuees a rate $129 per night, about 30 percent lower than their regular rates.
The hotel is nearly full, a desk agent said.
About 20 percent of the guests at Marriott's fully booked marina property are fire evacuees paying more than $100 under the standard $260.
Two San Diego travel companies, San Diego Concierge and Advanced Reservation Systems ((800) 434-7894), are coordinating with hotels with excess inventory to offer those rooms to evacuees at reduced rates, according to the San Diego Convention and Visitors Bureau.
Hotel rooms are scarce, however.
The county has 54,000 rooms and more than half of those were already booked with leisure and business travelers prior to the evacuation orders.
At the Paradise Point Resort and Spa on Mission Bay, 25 rooms opened up Monday night by cancellations due to the fires were quickly rebooked by evacuated families, said Larry Kaufman, the hotel's director of sales and marketing.
Kaufman stayed in the hotel last night after evacuating from his home about 17 miles away.
Downtown the air is clear, he said, but "it was like a sea of black and ash everywhere" when he returned to check on his home this morning.
Fortunately, it appears to be safe from the fires.
Operations at the San Diego International Airport are normal and airlines are maintaining their flight schedules.
The airport encourages travelers to check with their airlines for information on possible delays or cancellations.
Six Asiatic wild elephants were electrocuted as they went berserk after drinking rice beer in India's remote northeast, a wildlife official said Tuesday.
Nearly 40 elephants came to a village on Friday looking for food.
Some found beer, which farmers ferment and keep in plastic and tin drums in their huts, said Sunil Kumar, a state wildlife official.
"There would have been more casualties had the villagers not chased them away," said Dipu Mark, a local conservationist.
The elephants are known to have a taste for rice beer brewed by tribal communities in India's northeast.
Four wild elephants died in similar circumstances in the region three years ago.
"It's great to have such a huge number of elephants, but the increasing man-elephant conflict following the shrinkage in their habitat due to the growing human population is giving us nightmares," said Pradyut Bordoloi, former Assam Forest and Environment Minister.
(CNN) The entertainment industry was not immune to the impact of the fires blazing across Southern California.
At the Santa Clarita Studios in Valencia, California about 30 miles north of Los Angeles some staffers weren't able to get to work Monday, due to traffic on area roadways and concern about their homes, according to Variety.
Two CBS shows, "NCIS" and "The Unit," have sets at Santa Clarita, but neither shut down shooting Monday, according to the industry trade paper.
The Stevenson Ranch fire was near enough that "NCIS" staffers could see the smoke, according to The Hollywood Reporter, another trade paper.
"The Unit" set was functioning normally Tuesday, said CBS spokesperson Susan Marks.
"We've had no interruption to production.
Fox's "24" wasn't quite as lucky on Monday, The Hollywood Reporter reported.
The show was shooting at a Marine Corps air station in Irvine, about 40 miles southeast of Los Angeles, and had to cancel filming at 7:30 a.m. at one of the base's hangars due to smoke from the Santiago fire.
If production units and studios were scrambling, other businesses benefited from the disruption caused by the fires.
A number of upscale Los Angeles-area lodgings, including the Peninsula and Four Seasons hotels in Beverly Hills, reported a flurry of bookings, according to Variety.
with a number of group bookings scheduled for later in the week, the walk-in guests may have to find other arrangements.
Tori Spelling and Dean McDermott's newly renovated bed and breakfast, Chateau La Rue, in Fallbrook, California, about 100 miles southeast of Los Angeles, was also affected.
Malibu, one of the areas most directly affected by the fires, is the home of a number of celebrities, including Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, Mel Gibson, Jennifer Aniston, Victoria Principal and Sting.
Gibson and Principal, who live in in different areas of Malibu, were both evacuated early Monday morning.
The house, a Malibu landmark, was built in 1978.
The fire has shut down a stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway that runs through the area.
LONDON, England (CNN) "Oh, the humanity." When these three words were uttered by aghast radio journalist Herbert Morrison as the LZ129 Hindenburg airship crashed and burst into flames in New Jersey in 1937 it was seen as the end of airships.
The other remaining Zeppelin-class dirigible, the Graf Zeppelin II, was destroyed by the Nazi administration who felt the materials could be put to better use with more conventional aircraft.
But, 70 years on, could the Hindenburg-style airship be experiencing a renaissance?
There are two types of craft that are commonly called "airships."
The first is basically a balloon filled with a lighter-than-air gas, with an attached pod for the pilot and passengers, and tilting propellers to aid with descent and maneuvering.
These are known as 'blimps' and are commonly used for promotional activities, for filming sporting events and by law enforcement agencies for surveillance.
But their limited payload make them unsuitable for other purposes.
The other type of airship is the dirigible.
Like a blimp, a dirigible airship is filled with lighter-than-air gas but it has an internal skeleton.
In recent years the concept of the dirigible airship has been reevaluated because of the environmental need to find lower-carbon methods of freight transportation.
One failed attempt to resuscitate the airship content came from the German company Cargolifter AG in the mid 1990s.
It planned a large airship, the CL160, to be used as a transporter for large and heavy loads.
A giant hangar, one of the world's largest structures, was built in Wiesbaden, Germany for storage and manufacture of these giant craft.
But Cargolifter became insolvent in 2002.
The hangar was sold for a fraction of its construction cost and now houses an indoor water park.
In 2005 the Aeros corporation of Montebello, CA. resurrected the airship concept.
Responding to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)'s "Walrus" program the company was given a $3.2 million grant to develop:
"a very large airlift vehicle concept designed to control lift in all stages of air or ground operations including the ability to off-load payload without taking on-board ballast other than surrounding air.
Aeros plans to begin testing a non-rigid airship, the Aeros 40D, in 2008 to demonstrate the helium compression and decompression system.
Production of a prototype Aeroscraft ML866 has begun, with a test flight planned for 2010.
CARACAS, Venezuela (CNN) Thousands of university students scuffled with police and government supporters during a protest Tuesday against constitutional reforms that would let President Hugo Chavez run for re-election indefinitely.
Police tossed tear gas canisters into the crowd of opposition students after bottle-throwing clashes broke out with a smaller group of pro-Chavez demonstrators near the National Assembly.
Journalists estimated there were about 20,000 protesters, but pro-Chavez lawmakers said there were far fewer.
The students said they fear civil liberties would be severely weakened under the constitutional changes.
"With this reform, the president is going to control everything.
His power will be almost unlimited," said Adolfo Rengifo, 22, who marched alongside other protesters blowing whistles and shouting "Reform, No! Democracy, Yes!
The National Assembly, dominated by Chavez supporters, is poised to approve 67 constitutional amendments that would give the government control over the Central Bank, create new types of cooperative property and extend presidential terms from six to seven years while allowing Chavez to run again in 2012.
To take effect, the reforms must be approved by voters in a December 2 referendum.
"It's clear proof of political discrimination," student leader Stalin Gonzalez said.
Public ombudsman German Mundarain a close ally of Chavez's urged lawmakers Monday to reconsider an amendment that would let the government waive some civil liberties during a state of emergency, allowing authorities to detain citizens without charge.
Chavez, who was re-elected last year on promises of revolutionary change, said the reforms are fully democratic.
(CNN) Liangqiao, a small collection of huts and farms in southern China, is known as a cancer village.
It is where Hu Xiaoping, a husband and father and a farmer, died an agonizing death at age 30 one year after being diagnosed with colon cancer.
His widow, Zhu Chun Yun, blames his death on the brown and rust-colored water from the river, which farmers use to irrigate their crops.
"He said don't eat the rice and don't drink the water.
Residents of Liangqiao say their river is polluted because of the iron-ore mine about 35 miles away, which is run by a nationally owned company.
Mining for iron-ore exposes naturally occurring heavy metals like arsenic and cadmium, which are both carcinogens.
Without proper water treatment facilities, water contaminated with high levels of these metals is hazardous and can possibly cause cancer.
Jingjing Zhang, an environmental lawyer who is working the villagers who want to sue the government, said the Dabaoshan mine has been polluting the Hengshui River for decades.
Twenty-eight people in this village of 400 have died over the last 10 years from cancer a rate much higher than the rest of country.
The overall mortality rate for 2006 was 137 deaths per 100,000 residents.
Pollution is a serious problem throughout China.
The Chinese ministry of health reported that increased pollution has made cancer the leading cause of death in the country.
Small villages like Liangqiao have little recourse against big companies that might be polluting their air or water.
CNN talked to the mine's director who acknowledged environmental issues with the mine, but said it wasn't a problem that could be solved overnight.
He said some of the smaller, privately owned mines should share blame for the problems.
The mine has given the villagers some compensation.
About 1,700 Yuan ($200) for the whole village, Zhang told CNN.
Zhang continues to build her case against the mine, trying to win compensation for medical testing, health care and damage to the village's rice crops.
China is trying to address its pollution problem.
The government hopes to have a dramatically cleaner country by August, when it will be host to the Olympics.
BAGHDAD (CNN) Violence in several Iraqi locations on Tuesday left more than a dozen people dead, according to authorities.
The U.S. military said 11 people, thought to be a mix of insurgents and civilians, were killed near Samarra when a U.S. helicopter crew fired on people who were setting up a roadside bomb.
It said an Apache helicopter crew observed some military-aged males planting a roadside bombing in the Samarra area and "engaged the emplacers," who fled into a house.
The helicopter fired on the structure, killing "five military-aged men" and six civilians.
Five civilians were wounded.
One of those killed was a suspected roadside bomb cell member, it said.
The military said the incident took place northwest of a town called Mukashlah, between Samarra and Tikrit.
Police in Samarra earlier said 10 people were killed and 10 were wounded in the airstrike near the Salaheddin province city, a volatile region during the Iraqi war.
Police said there were reports of women and children among the casualties.
Elsewhere in northern Iraq, a roadside bomb exploded near a minibus northeast of the Diyala province city of Baquba Tuesday morning, killing three Iraqis and wounding eight, police said.
One woman was among the dead and three were among the wounded.
According to authorities, the dead and wounded were members of a family traveling to Baquba for a wedding.
Baquba is north of Baghdad and is the Diyala provincial seat.
Iraq's Interior Ministry said police clashed with gunmen in central Baghdad's Mansour district.
A policeman and a gunman were killed, and three police and two gunmen were wounded.
Coalition forces killed a suspected insurgent and detained 28 people during operations Monday and Tuesday "to disrupt terrorist networks in central and northern parts of Iraq," the U.S. military said.
Troops in Baghdad on Tuesday detained two wanted people and another suspect in an effort "to disrupt the car bombing network in Baghdad," the military said.
U.S. attack helicopter crews in northern Baghdad on Monday targeted insurgents emplacing a roadside bomb, killing one "extremist" and wounding five, the military said.
An Iraqi was killed and 16 people were wounded in two roadside bombings on Monday in eastern Baghdad
Space shuttle Discovery and a crew of seven rocketed into orbit Tuesday in pursuit of the international space station, where a formidable construction job awaits them. Discovery blasted off at 11:38 a.m., ducking through clouds.
Despite a forecast calling for rain right at launch time, the weather ended up cooperating.
Launch director Mike Leinbach wished the crew good luck and Godspeed just before liftoff.
Discovery and its crew are embarking on a two-week mission that is considered the most challenging and complex in the nine years of orbital assembly of the international space station.
The shuttle is carrying up an Italian-built live-in compartment, about the size of a small bus, that the astronauts will attach to the space station.
The name Harmony was the choice of schoolchildren who took part in a national competition.
About 130 of those youngsters traveled to Cape Canaveral to witness the launch.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Tuesday that Iran's controversial nuclear program is "a major issue for the entire world" and called for stronger sanctions against Tehran.
Up to the point where (Iran) stops its nuclear program," he said.
The United States and some allies accuse Iran of secretly trying to develop nuclear weapons.
Tehran, however, insists its program is for peaceful purposes, including generating electricity.
Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, resigned recently and was replaced by Saeed Jalili, the deputy foreign minister and a close ally of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Jalili was set to meet with Javier Solano, the European Union foreign policy chief, on Tuesday in Rome for talks.
Olmert said Solano should make it clear to Iran's negotiator the seriousness with which the rest of the world views the situation.
The United States might delay activating its proposed missile defense sites in Europe until it has "definitive proof" of a missile threat from Iran, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday.
The proposal has already been presented to the Russians, who strongly oppose it.
"We would consider tying together activation of the sites in Poland and the Czech Republic with definitive proof of the threat in other words, Iranian missile testing and so on," Gates said with Topolanek at his side.
The United States wants to build a missile interceptor base in Poland and a radar site in the Czech Republic, but details have yet to be negotiated.
U.S. officials have said that the proposal tying activation of the European sites to proof of an Iranian threat was presented to the Russians by Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice earlier this month.
But Gates' remarks in Prague were the most specific and clear that such a proposition raises the prospect of delay.
Much of the disagreement between Washington and Moscow over missile defense in Europe has centered on the question of when Iran's missile program would reach the stage where it could threaten all of Europe and the United States.
(CNN) The head of the U.N. World Food Programme's Mogasdishu office was released Tuesday after nearly a week in detention, a WFP spokeswoman in Rome confirmed to CNN.
Idris Osman was handed over to the care of WFP staff in the Somali capital early Tuesday, Brenda Barton said.
Somali government troops arrested Osman last Wednesday during a raid on the U.N. compound in Mogadishu that involved up to 60 armed security personnel.
No explanation has been given for Osman's release or the reason for his arrest, which U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned as a violation of international law.
"He (Osman) is safe and well and with our staff in Somalia.
WFP head Josette Sheeran welcomed news of the release.
"We welcome the release of Idris Osman, and are pleased that he will be reunited with his family," Sheeran said in a statement released by the WFP's Rome-based headquarters.
The WFP halted its food distribution program in Mogadishu following the October 17 incident to safeguard the safety of its other staff.
The program had only restarted two days before Osman's arrest.
It was suspended in June following the fatal shooting of a WFP aid worker in the Somali capital.
Barton said the WFP was reviewing whether to lift the suspension of the program, which provides food relief to some 75,000 people in the war-ravaged city.
Somalia has relied heavily on international aid since 1991, when the collapse of its government spawned a decade and a half of civil war.
SAN DIEGO, California (CNN) More than a half million people had been ordered from San Diego County homes Tuesday as wildfires rage from the Mexican border to north of Los Angeles.
About 1,000 homes have been destroyed in San Diego County alone.
A second civilian has died in the wildfires, the U.S. Forest Service said Tuesday afternoon. It provided no details.
Fears grew north of Los Angeles that the winds may fan three wildfires into one monster blaze.
Those fires threaten more than 56,000 homes.
In San Diego County, at least 513,000 residents had been ordered to find refuge in shelters, schools and stadiums as fires pushed into new areas Tuesday.
Twelve thousand more were advised but not ordered to evacuate.
The U.S. Navy ordered sailors out of barracks in the area and onto ships to make room for evacuees.
A spokesman for the county's emergency effort told Sacramento TV station KCRA that the evacuations amount to "a mass migration.
New evacuation orders are being added frequently to the San Diego Office of Emergency Services Web site.
San Diego City Councilman Brian Maienschein is walking neighborhoods and helping compile a list of homes that have been destroyed or badly damaged.
He said officials will post the list on the city's Web site soon.
"People are worried," he said. "They just want to know, even if their homes are destroyed.
And officials said the crisis is far from over.
"It will not end ... until it reaches the ocean or the winds turn around," San Diego Fire Battalion Chief Bruce Cartelli said Tuesday.
"It is just amazing how this fire selects whatever it wants and burns whatever it wants," he told CNN.
Despite toiling in 24-hour shifts, Jackson said he and his fellow firefighters were "holding up pretty good."
What weighed heaviest on them was not so much the physical exertion, he said, but knowing they had failed to protect all of the structures.
For some, the failure was more than a professional concern. "Some of the firefighters their own homes have burned up," he said.
National Guard troops were posted at Qualcomm Stadium, home to the NFL's San Diego Chargers, as it became a temporary home to 12,000 to 15,000 fire evacuees, according to the mayor's office in San Diego.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan rejected reports of an apparent cease-fire offer from Kurdish separatists Tuesday during a visit to Baghdad for talks with Iraqi leaders aimed at defusing tensions along the countries' shared border.
Babacan was responding to Iraqi claims that the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which Turkey accuses of launching attacks on its territory from bases in Iraq, was ready to declare a unilateral truce.
He also said Turkey expected its neighbors to "show solidarity and support for Turkish endeavors for fighting against terrorism.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said the two countries had agreed a "common position" on fighting terrorism and said Iraq would "actively help Turkey overcome this menace.
Turkey has threatened to extend its military campaign against the PKK into northern Iraq, claiming its fighters are hiding in the rugged mountain region. It says the U.S. and Iraq are not doing enough to stop cross-border attacks.
With 60,000 Turkish troops massing close to the country's south-eastern frontier, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government faces growing public pressure to take action following a weekend PKK ambush which left at least 12 Turkish soldiers dead and eight more missing.
Milan goalkeeper Dida has been cleared to play in next month's Champions League match at Shakhtar Donetsk after partially winning his appeal to UEFA against a two-match ban.
"Following Monday's appeals hearing, Dida is suspended for two matches, but one of the matches will now be deferred for a probationary period of one year," said a stement on UEFA's Web site.
UEFA said that their Appeals Body "took note that Dida expressed his sincere regrets as regards his conduct during the match.
AC Milan vice-president Adriano Galliani was satisfied with UEFA's decision. "I believe it is fair I was against the two-game suspension but one seems OK.
"Dida has made a mistake but his error did not hinder anyone, not Celtic, nor any player," said Galliani.
Before her latest film, if anyone had asked Reese Witherspoon what the term "extraordinary rendition" meant, she might have answered with a blank stare.
The words could be bureaucratese for something as innocuous as a tax deduction.
"I don't think I realized what the term was called," Witherspoon told The Associated Press at September's Toronto International Film Festival, where "Rendition" played in advance of its theatrical release Friday.
It doesn't sound like anything that you would connect with the torture and detainment of innocent people.
"Rendition" marks the first release for Witherspoon, 31, since 2005's "Walk the Line," the Johnny Cash film biography in which she played the country-music legend's wife, June Carter Cash.
Though Witherspoon won the best-actress Academy Award for "Walk the Line," the dramatic turn she takes in "Rendition" may surprise fans of the performer best known for breezy comedies such as the "Legally Blonde" flicks and "Sweet Home Alabama.
In "Rendition," Witherspoon plays the wife of an Egyptian-born man (Omar Metwally) suspected of involvement in a Middle East terrorist bombing who is abducted by U.S. authorities and sent overseas for questioning at a secret facility.
Jake Gyllenhaal co-stars as a CIA analyst who comes to question his government's sanctioning of such abusive interrogations.
When space shuttle Discovery blasts off Tuesday, a woman will be sitting in the commander's seat.
And up at the international space station, a female skipper will be waiting to greet her.
It will be the first time in the 50-year history of spaceflight that two women are in charge of two spacecraft at the same time.
It's coincidence, which pleases shuttle commander Pamela Melroy and station commander Peggy Whitson.
"To me, that's one of the best parts about it," said Melroy, a retired Air Force colonel who will be only the second woman to command a space shuttle flight.
"This is not something that was planned or orchestrated in any way.
"This is a really special event for us," Melroy said.
There are enough women in the program that coincidentally this can happen, and that is a wonderful thing. It says a lot about the first 50 years of spaceflight that this is where we're at.
Whitson the first woman to be in charge of a space station arrived at the orbital outpost on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft on October 12.
She flew there with two men, one a Russian cosmonaut who will spend the entire six months with her.
China blocked the establishment of an investigation by the World Trade Organization into its restrictions on the sale of American movies, music and books that the United States requested Monday.
Under WTO rules, China has the right to block the investigation once.
But it cannot delay the panel's establishment a second time, meaning the investigation will most likely be authorized next month.
The case is seen as concerning American filmmakers, online music providers and other U.S. media suppliers who claim to be suffering from what the U.S. calls "less favorable distribution opportunities" in China.
The WTO is already investigating three trade disputes between China and the United States.
China has filed its own complaint over the antidumping duties the United States applies on Chinese paper imports, the first case initiated by Beijing against Washington in five years.
A senior government official on Monday rejected a call from Pakistan opposition leader Benazir Bhutto for U.S. and British experts to help investigate the suicide attack on her homecoming procession from overseas exile.
Bhutto said Sunday she wanted the foreign experts to assist in the inquiry into the Thursday night bombing in Karachi, which killed 136 people, wounded hundreds more, and raised the question of whether campaign rallies would be allowed ahead of upcoming parliamentary elections.
But Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao said foreigners would not be brought into the investigation. "I would categorically reject this," he said.
"We are conducting the investigation in a very objective manner.
Bhutto, who escaped the blast because she had stepped into her armored bus minutes before the bomb went off, has called for an independent inquiry, questioning why many streetlights were not working as her convoy inched its way through the darkness, and noting the chief investigator is a police officer who had been present as her husband was allegedly tortured while in custody on corruption charges in 1999.
"The inquiry should be led by Pakistan, but the government should call on foreign experts so that the killers ... can be brought to justice without any doubts," she said Monday at the Karachi tomb of Pakistan's founding father, Mohammed Ali Jinnah.
She also appealed to the militants, saying, "The terrorists should lay down their arms. If there are any differences in opinion they should be resolved through dialogue.
SAN DIEGO, California (CNN) A quarter-million people fled their homes amid wildfires that had burned 100,000 acres around San Diego County, officials said Monday.
"The situation continues to deteriorate," fire chief Bill Metcalf said at 10 a.m. Pacific Time, with numerous structures lost across the county.
"I think there's a very good possibility it will reach the coast before it's finished," Metcalf said of one of the fiercest blazes.
"It's a tragic time for California," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Monday, declaring a state of emergency in seven counties.
"The wind is our number one enemy right now," he said.
The fast-moving fires are threatening the San Diego Zoo's Wild Animal Park.
The park was closed Monday and some of the animals, like endangered condors, are being moved to a safer location, according to zoo spokeswoman Yadira Galindo.
Video from the Lake Arrowhead area in San Bernardino County showed dozens of homes charred as huge plumes of smoke filled the sky.
Lake Arrowhead resident Michael Beamis said that several houses in the area are on fire, but there are no firefighters around.
Officials believe the fire was started when winds blew down power lines.
Two fires are burning in the area:
the Grass Valley Fire, and the Slide Fire, each covering about 300 acres with no containment.
The U.S. Forest Service confirmed some homes already have been claimed by the fire, but it did not know how many.
KABC has reported that their chopper pilot has seen 40 to 50 homes on fire.
Metcalf said the fires were consuming homes in the communities of Escondido, Rancho Bernardo, Poway, Forest Ranch and Lake Hodges.
NEW DELHI, India (CNN) Wild monkeys attacked a senior government official who then fell from a balcony at his home and died Sunday, media reported.
New Delhi Deputy Mayor S.S. Bajwa was rushed to a hospital after the attack by a gang of Rhesus macaques, but succumbed to head injuries sustained in his fall, the Press Trust of India news agency and The Times of India reported.
Last year, the Delhi High Court reprimanded city authorities for failing to stop the animals from terrifying residents and asked them to find a permanent solution to the monkey menace.
Part of the problem is that devout Hindus believe monkeys are manifestations of the monkey god Hanuman and feed them bananas and peanuts encouraging them to frequent public places.
Over the years, city authorities have employed monkey catchers who use langurs a larger and fiercer kind of monkey to scare or catch the macaques, but the problem persists.
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (CNN) A former Congolese militia leader suspected of war crimes and crimes against humanity made his first appearance at the International Criminal Court at The Hague Monday.
Germain Katanga, 29, is alleged to have committed six war crimes and three crimes against humanity including murder, sexual enslavement, and using child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo's northeast Ituri region.
Katanga wore a dark gray suit, white shirt and dark blue tie.
When the court session began, the judge and lawyers spent about 20 minutes trying to determine which language to use in proceedings.
Katanga spoke in French but said his preferred language is Lingala, one of the national languages in Congo.
Because the court lacked a Lingala translator, the judge asked whether Katanga speaks Swahili, but he said no.
A member of the prosecution then told the court Katanga does indeed speak Swahili because he spoke it with his guard while being transferred to court, but a member of the defense counsel said it is not the language Katanga speaks best.
The court then adjourned to sort out the language issue.
Katanga is not yet charged with the alleged crimes, and Monday's session does not mark the start of his trial.
A date for a hearing to confirm the charges is among the items on Monday's agenda.
Until that hearing, Katanga is considered only a "suspect" of the crimes and is not even formally accused, said Sonia Robla, a spokeswoman for the ICC.
Katanga, who once led the Forces for Patriotic Resistance in Ituri, was arrested in Congo in 2005 and transferred to The Hague last week.
Allegations against him include murder, sexual enslavement, forcing children to fight as soldiers, deliberately attacking civilians, and pillage.
The conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo began after the rebel forces of Laurent Kabila drove former dictator Mobutu Sese Seko from power in 1997.
After Kabila took over, militias backed by neighboring African countries began a war primarily aimed at taking control of Congo's vast mineral resources, which are concentrated in the east of the country.
Kabila's son, Joseph, took power after his father's assassination in 2001 and was formally elected president at the end of last year.
Human rights groups estimate that more than 3 million people have been killed, making it the deadliest conflict since World War II.
Sporadic fighting persists in the country's eastern provinces despite a 2002 peace accord.
LONDON, England (CNN) Jurors at the inquest into the death of Princess Diana have heard an eyewitness account of how a motorcycle raced from the scene of the fatal car crash that killed the British royal and her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed, in 1997.
In a statement read out to the London court, French motorist Grigori Rassinier described how he had been travelling in the opposite direction through Paris' Pont de l'Alma tunnel on the night the accident occurred.
Rassinier said he watched a motorbike emerge from the smoke which engulfed the underpass before speeding away without stopping, the UK's Press Association reported.
"Immediately afterwards I heard a hooter followed by the sound of braking and then saw a motorbike emerge from the smoke," Rassinier said.
It seems improbable that the motorcycle stopped before setting off again. I think that the motorcycle simply had time to slow down or to brake very hard.
Rassinier said he could see two heads in the back of the Princess' Mercedes, which he described as "juddering" in the aftermath of the accident as smoke billowed from the front of the car.
Diana was crushed against the front seat with her hand raised, Rassinier said.
The inquest, which is now entering its fourth week, must decide whether the deaths of Diana, Fayed and their driver Henri Paul on August 31, 1997 were an accident or murder.
(CNN) Al-Jazeera broadcast Monday an audio message purportedly from al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden calling on al Qaeda and other groups in Iraq to unify their forces and speak with one voice, that of the Islamic nation.
The Arabic-language broadcaster said the tape was titled "Letter to the People of Iraq.
The message includes no dated references, making it impossible to determine when it was taped based on its contents.
In the message, bin Laden calls on his followers to be loyal to the Islamic nation, not to individual leaders, groups, tribes or countries.
The tape marks the first time bin Laden speaks directly to the militants.
"I advise myself and the Islamic nation not to follow individuals and countries," he said. "Everything should be seen in the light of Islam.
Addressing the mujahedeen in Iraq as "my brothers," he said, "You have done well to perform your duty, but some of you have been late to another duty, which is to unify your ranks and make them into one line."
Though CNN is not able to confirm that the voice belongs to bin Laden, the Arabic-language broadcaster has aired other tapes of his and the voice sounded like bin Laden's, said CNN Arabic Affairs senior editor Octavia Nasr.
Last month, an audio message from bin Laden called on Muslims to "carry out jihad" against Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
Last month's 23-minute audio message titled "Come to Jihad:
A Speech to the People of Pakistan" was recorded over a montage of old video, and began with bin Laden reciting prayers and citations from the Quran in Arabic.
The tape was subtitled in English, and an Arabic transcript was released.
Terrorism analyst Laura Mansfield told CNN that while the September 20 message was directed at the Pakistani people, "the simultaneous release of transcripts in English, Pashto and Arabic indicate the terror group is looking at a wider audience, including the English-speaking world."
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) Rebels from the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, will announce Monday a unilateral cease-fire following a deadly attack on Turkish forces, a spokesman for Iraqi President Jalal Talabani told CNN.
Talabani has been meeting with leaders in Iraq's Kurdistan region to quell tensions with Turkey after PKK rebels ambushed a Turkish infantry unit early Sunday and killed at least 12 soldiers.
The Firat News Agency reported rebel commander Bahoz Erdal as saying that "right now, these soldiers are hostages in the hands of our forces... We have not harmed them and we will not.
The attack happened in southeastern Turkey, but Turkey's military said the rebels were based in northern Iraq.
Sunday's attack has raised the prospect of a major Turkish military incursion into northern Iraq targeting the Kurdish separatists.
Amid U.S. and Iraqi calls for restraint, Foreign Minister Ali Babacan, currently touring the Middle East, vowed that Turkey would continue to pursue diplomatic efforts.
"But in the end, if we do not reach any results, there are other means we might have to use," he said.
Responding to Sunday's ambush, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged the U.S. to take "speedy steps" toward cracking down on the PKK in Iraq, according to The Associated Press
Erdogan said U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had expressed sympathy and asked "for a few days" in a telephone conversation late Sunday.
In an interview conducted prior to the attack, Erdogan told the UK's Times newspaper that Turkey would do "whatever is necessary" to defend itself.
"If a neighboring country is providing a safe haven for terrorism ... we have rights under international law and we will use those rights and we don't have to get permission from anybody," said Erdogan, who was due to meet UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Monday in London.
Erdogan also said the U.S. risked "losing an important friend" if lawmakers passed a bill declaring as "genocide" the mass killings of Armenians by Turks during World War I.
In addition to those killed and missing, up to 16 soldiers were reported wounded in Sunday's ambush.
The Belgian-based pro-Kurdish Firat news agency released the names of seven Turkish troops it claimed had been captured by separatists.
It said an eighth soldier had also been captured, AP reported.
Turkish forces retaliated to Sunday's attack by killing 34 PKK fighters, according to a statement on an official government Web site.
Cross-border shelling continued on Monday as AP reported sightings of convoys containing dozens of military vehicles headed from the southeast town of Sirnak toward the Iraqi border.
The Bush administration on Monday asked for an additional $42.3 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, bringing the 2008 request for total war funding to $189.3 billion.
The request comes on top of $147 billion already sought for in the wars.
Most of the money goes to Iraq, which is costing the Pentagon an estimated $2 billion a week.
"Parts of this war are complicated, but one part is not and that is that America should do what it takes to support our troops and protect our people," President Bush said in an appearance with members of veterans groups at the White House.
Bush said the money will cover basic operating expenses, plus additional armored vehicles and countermeasures designed to protect U.S. troops from roadside bombs.
"Congress should not go home for the holidays while our troops are still waiting for the funds they need," he said.
The president also called on Congress to finish the appropriations bills that fund the Pentagon and Department of Veterans Affairs before lawmakers' holiday recess, set to begin in mid-November.
Minutes after Bush spoke, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, warned the president not to expect Congress to "rubber-stamp" the latest request.
"In the coming weeks, we will hold it up to the light of day and fight for the change of strategy and redeployment of troops that is long overdue," Reid said.
The Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt returned to prison Monday, two months after he was released on bail, to resume serving a six-year sentence for illegal weapons possession in a case linked to a 1993 bombing that killed 257 people.
He was released on August 22 because the court had still not issued sentencing papers.
The delay occurred because the judgment, which ran to 4,340 pages, needed to be issued to all 100 people convicted in the case.
Dutt is appealing his sentence in the Supreme court.
The actor's case was part of a sprawling Mumbai bombings trial that has dragged on for 12 years.
He maintains he knew nothing about the bomb plot and that he asked for the guns to protect his family his mother was Muslim, and his father, Hindu after receiving threats during sectarian riots in Mumbai.
(CNN) A series of wildfires Sunday in Southern California led to evacuations in some areas, and killed at least one person and injured eight others in San Diego County, according to officials.
Four firefighters and four civilians were hurt in the southeastern part of San Diego County, said Roxanne Provaznik, spokeswoman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
The Sand Diego County blaze, straddling Highway 94, scorched 2,500 acres and destroyed at least one structure, fire officials said.
Provaznik said the firefighters were hurt when flames engulfed their fire engine.
Further north, at least seven fires burned near Malibu, the beach community that is home to dozens of celebrities.
Fires shut down the Malibu section of the Pacific Coast Highway.
Los Angeles County Fire Chief P. Michael Freeman said five single family home and two commercial buildings a glass company and Malibu Presbyterian Church were destroyed in Malibu.
Nine single family homes and five commercial buildings had been damaged, he said of the blaze that consumed 1,200 acres.
The department said about 200 homes in the Malibu area were evacuated.
Freeman said the Malibu area fire began around 4:50 a.m. (7: 50 a.m. ET) Sunday. As of 5 p.m. (8 p.m. ET) the Malibu fire was not under control, he said.
The cause is still under investigation but several downed power lines were found in the area, he said.
Hot weather and Santa Ana winds marked the height of traditional wildfire season this weekend, after one of the driest years on record.
Flames consumed Malibu's landmark Castle Kashan, a fortress-like hilltop home with turrets and arched windows.
Los Angeles Fire Inspector Sam Padilla said the department was encouraging evacuations at the school because aerial views of the fires, fanned by winds, showed some buildings on the campus were threatened.
The residential area Malibu Crest and vacation area Sierra Retreat also were evacuated Sunday, Padilla said.
Residents of the threatened areas include Dick Van Dyke, Mel Gibson, and Olivia Newton John.
Meanwhile, another wind-driven wildfire has burned hundreds of acres of woodland in the Townsend Peak area of California's Angeles National Forest, in the northern section of Los Angeles County, according to U.S. Forest Service spokesman Stanton Florea.
The fire, which started just before 10 p.m. Saturday (1 a.m. Sunday ET) Saturday, threatens a condor habitat and destroyed an out-building, Florea said.
(CNN) Britney Spears has regained temporary visitation rights of her two sons, her attorney said Sunday.
"Yes, she's got visitation with the kids," lawyer Anne C. Kiley told CNN in a telephone interview. "She had this weekend from Saturday morning 'til Sunday at some point.
A court-appointed monitor is accompanying the family during the visitations, which are allowed "several days a week," Kiley said.
People magazine reported that Spears was spotted Saturday driving in her white Mercedes convertible with her sons, Sean Preston, 2, and Jayden James, 1.
Last Wednesday, a court commissioner suspended Spears' visitation rights with her children until she complies with court orders in her custody battle with her ex-husband, Kevin Federline.
Earlier this month, the court awarded full custody of the couple's sons to Federline, Spears' former backup dancer.
Canadian teacher Christopher Paul Neil was the subject of a worldwide lookout posted earlier this month by Interpol, the international police agency, after he was identified as the man in 200 photographs posted on the Internet showing 12 different young males being sexually abused.
A Canadian who had been working in South Korea as an English teacher, he was arrested early Friday in Nakhon Ratchafima, a town about 130 miles northeast of Bangkok.
Neil, 32, kept his head covered with a blue shirt as he was paraded in front of a throng of photographers as he arrived in Bangkok Friday.
He sat silently and without expression as police officials spoke about the case.
Neil, with his head closely shaved but his beard apparently not shaved for several days, wore a T-shirt, jogging pants and sunglasses.
A Thai court Saturday granted investigators their request to keep Neil in jail for 12 days Pao-in said.
Thai officials would consider sending Neil to another country to face charges if there is a request for extradition, he said.
Thai police said the three boys who are expected to be key witnesses against Neil in any trial in their country were between the ages of seven and 14 at the time of their abuse.
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (CNN) Tamil Tiger rebels launched a deadly land and air attack on a Sri Lankan air base early Monday in the northern part of the country, triggering explosions and damaging aircraft, military sources said.
The attack at the air base at Anuradhapura began at 3:10 a.m. with rebels infiltrating the base in the country's north central province.
Residents in the area, who spoke by telephone, said they heard loud explosions and heavy gunfire.
Shortly after the ground attack began, a rebel aircraft bombed the base, the sources added.
Police enforced an unofficial curfew for the area which has been sealed off as fighting continues.
Seven Sri Lankan Air Force personnel have been killed, including an officer and two airmen on the base, a military source said.
Four crew members on a Sri Lanka Air Force Bell helicopter were killed when their aircraft crash landed in Mihintale, near Anuradhapura.
The immediate cause of the crash was not known.
There has been no official response to the incident so far except an admission by Defence Ministry sources that an attack had taken place.
Officials downplayed the incident saying a small group had staged an attack.
Military sources said two Mi-24 helicopter gunships, a U.S. built Beechcraft reconnaissance plane and a Chinese built K-8 fighter jet, were damaged.
However, air force officials declined comment.
Monday's strike was the first major attack on an air force base since the rebels demonstrated their air strike capability in March this year.
The move, analysts say, is a direct retaliation for the month long raids on rebel positions by air force bombers.
It was only a week ago the rebels attacked an army detachment in southern Sri Lanka killing six soldiers.
Kid Rock was arrested early Sunday after a brawl at a restaurant and spent about 12 hours in jail before being released, police said.
The musician stopped at the Waffle House restaurant shortly after 5 a.m. after his performance at The Tabernacle in Atlanta, authorities said.
"He and five members of his entourage were involved in a fight with a male customer inside the Waffle House," said Mekka Parish, a spokeswoman for the DeKalb County Police Department.
The customer recognized a female with Kid Rock's party and exchanged words with her, Parish said.
Kid Rock left in his tour bus and was stopped by police about a mile from the restaurant, Parish said.
The other customer was charged with criminal damage to property, a felony, Parish said. Kid Rock was released from the county jail on bond about 5 p.m.
Asian stocks plunged Monday, dragged down by last week's decline on Wall Street and on the yen's strength against the U.S. dollar.
Traders pinned hopes on bargain-hunting to buoy markets later in the day.
Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 stock index lost 3.20 percent to 16,277.10 points on the Tokyo Stock Exchange by the close of morning trade Monday.
In Seoul, the Korea Composite Stock Price Index was down 3.8 percent at 1895.25 by midday.
Stocks were also down in Australia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, the Philippines and Taiwan.
"The selling pressure is mostly driven by the U.S. sell-off, which is prompting fund managers to unwind global positions," said Derek Lam, trader at Fubon Securities.
to 13,522.02 Friday, as lackluster corporate earnings, renewed credit concerns and rising oil prices spooked investors.
The United States and other nations will not allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon, Vice President Dick Cheney said Sunday.
"Our country, and the entire international community, cannot stand by as a terror-supporting state fulfills its grandest ambitions," Cheney said in a speech to the Washington Institute for Near East Studies.
He said Iran's efforts to pursue technology that would allow them to build a nuclear weapon are obvious and that "the regime continues to practice delay and deceit in an obvious effort to buy time.
If Iran continues on its current course, Cheney said the U.S. and other nations are "prepared to impose serious consequences.
Cheney's words seemed to only escalate the U.S. rhetoric against Iran over the past several days, including President Bush's warning that a nuclear Iran could lead to World War III.
Cheney said the ultimate goal of the Iranian leadership is to establish itself as the hegemonic force in the Middle East and undermine a free Shiite-majority Iraq as a rival for influence in the Muslim world.
Iran's government seeks "to keep Iraq in a state of weakness to ensure Baghdad does not pose a threat to Tehran," Cheney said.
Iran "is a place of unlimited potential ... and it has the right to be free of tyranny," Cheney said.
The body of an 11-month-old girl reported missing after her soldier father returned from a deployment in Iraq was found in the attic of her home, authorities said.
Harmony Jude Creech apparently had been dead for weeks, Harnett County Sheriff Larry Rollins said late Saturday night.
Rollins said the child's mother, Johni Michelle Heuser, told investigators she had found the baby dead in its crib and put the body in the attic of her home.
Neighbors said they had been bothered by a foul smell for several weeks and that the smell only subsided recently when overnight temperatures dropped.
Several neighbors said they had searched their yards for dead animals because of the smell.
Harmony's father, Ronald Earl Creech II, returned to North Carolina from a 15-month deployment in Iraq on Friday hoping to see his daughter.
Harmony was born while he was overseas, police said.
Creech is assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division, which is based at Fort Bragg.
An Amber Alert was issued after the baby was reported missing. Rollins said investigators were still interviewing Heuser, and the investigation continues.
An autopsy will be performed on the child's body to determined how she died, police said.
Police questioned three people Saturday over the bombing of Benazir Bhutto's caravan, which killed at least 136 people and shattered what was intended to be a triumphant return from exile.
The men were linked to a vehicle that police think was used by one of the attackers who threw a grenade at the convoy late Thursday, causing Bhutto's campaign bus to come to a halt, said a senior investigator who spoke Saturday on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the investigation.
Seconds later, a suicide bomber blew himself up with a shrapnel-filled explosive.
Police detained the three men in southern Punjab province a center for militancy and took them to Karachi for questioning.
The senior investigator said police believed the men, who have yet to be charged, hold crucial clues about the bombing.
More than 200 were injured.
Pakistan's government on Saturday denied involvement in the attack, while sporadic violence flared in Karachi, a boisterous city of 15 million people.
Angry over the suicide bombing, supporters of Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party threw stones and burned tires in parts of the city.
Bhutto, 54, hopes to earn a third term as prime minister in January's parliamentary elections.
She returned to Pakistan on Thursday after a self-imposed, eight-year exile.
She was prime minister from 1988 until 1990, when her government was dismissed amid corruption allegations that she denied.
She returned to power in 1993, but again her government was dismissed amid corruption allegations in 1996.
Authorities have recovered the bodies of 15 Central American migrants whose boat capsized in the Pacific Ocean, the Mexican navy said on Saturday.
The vessel was believed to be carrying more than 20 migrants.
Survivor Noemi Martinez, 29, of El Salvador, said the boat departed from Guatemala and capsized Tuesday with more than 20 people aboard, according to Moises Hernandez, regional commander for ministerial police in Oaxaca.
State authorities identified the only other known survivor as Salvadoran Walter Alan, 23.
Search efforts were suspended on Saturday because of heavy rain that flooded rivers and creeks.
Earlier, a military helicopter searched the sea while state authorities combed the beach near the towns of San Francisco Ixhuatan and San Francisco del Mar, about 200 miles
from the Guatemalan border.
In a news release, the navy said the ship apparently was overloaded and capsized in heavy seas.
Illegal migrants who used to travel as stowaways on railway freight cars also have been searching for new routes north since train service was interrupted this year on two railway lines.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki met Sunday with the top U.S. military commander in Iraq to voice his outrage over the reported deaths of Iraqi civilians during a Sunday morning military raid in Baghdad's Sadr City, a government spokesman told CNN.
Al-Maliki expressed his concerns to Gen. David Petraeus over Iraqi reports that 10 to 15 civilians were killed in the raid, spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told CNN's "Late Edition."
The U.S. military said its ground forces are "unaware" of civilian deaths in the early morning raid that it said left 49 "criminals" dead.
During Sunday's meeting, he said al-Maliki "clearly mentioned that this excessive force ... by the Multi-National Forces used against civilians [is] not creating a good atmosphere."
An Iraqi Interior Ministry source told CNN that 15 civilians were killed all men and 52 other civilians were wounded, including women and children.
Sadr City's mayor, Hassan Adhab, told Iraqi state TV there were 10 "martyrs" including a mother and her three children and 42 others were wounded.
Coalition forces were targeting a man they said was a leader in an Iranian-funded kidnapping operation.
U.S. military spokeswoman Sgt. Nicole Dykstra told CNN the target was "neither apprehended nor killed.
Adhab described a bloody scene, saying dozens of sheep were killed in the melee, and military aircraft still hovered over the neighborhood hours after the raid.
JERUSALEM (CNN) A Palestinian militant cell planned to assassinate Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert during a recent visit to the West Bank city of Jericho, Israeli media reported Sunday.
The plot described at an Israeli cabinet meeting Sunday morning was foiled after Israeli security services passed on the identities of the militants to the Palestinian Authority, the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz reported.
However, the alleged plotters all from Fatah, the Party loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas have been released, despite admitting to the plot, the newspaper said, citing an Israeli official.
But a spokesman for Tawfiq Tirawi, the head of Palestinian security services in the West Bank, told CNN the men were still in custody and being interrogated.
The suspected plot was set to coincide with a trip by Olmert to meet with Abbas in Jericho on August 6, Haaretz reported.
Word of the foiled plot came to light Sunday morning when Yuval Diskin, head of Israel's domestic Shin Bet security service, gave details during a weekly meeting of the Israeli cabinet.
According to the newspaper, Diskin told the meeting that the militants were planning to intercept Olmert's convoy as it approached the entrance to Jericho.
There were no specific details of how they planned to attack the Israeli leader.
Diskin said several suspects were arrested by the Palestinians after a tip-off from the intelligence services, and other members of the cell were arrested by Israeli security forces.
A senior political source in Jerusalem told Haaretz that Israel was incensed by reports that the suspects had been freed last week.
The source said Olmert had lodged a complaint with President Abbas.
BEIJING, China (CNN) Three aging members of the nine-member committee that rules China are retiring and their replacements will be selected by the Communist Party's central committee on Monday.
A fourth new member of the Politburo's standing committee will also be selected to replace Executive Vice Premier Huang Ju, who died earlier this year.
The retiring leaders include State Vice President Zeng Qinghong, 68, Wu Guanzheng, the 69-year-old head of China's anti-corruption body, and 72-year-old Luo Gan, who is in charge of the country's police and security apparatus.
There is an unwritten rule among party leaders that they retire when they approach the age of 70.
The Congress, comprised of 2,235 delegates from all over China, meets only every five years.
The elite standing committee, which is
China's top policy-making body, is made up of nine members of the 20-member Politburo, which will also be named Sunday.
(CNN) The United States is urging Turkey to show restraint after Kurdish rebels attacked its forces on Sunday, killing at least 17 Turkish soldiers and wounding 16 others near Turkey's border with Iraq and Iran, according to Turkey's defense minister.
The initial response by Turkish forces was to hit back by killing 32 rebels from the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, in southern Turkey, according to a statement on an official government Web site.
Sunday's deadly attack on Turkish soldiers prompted outrage among citizens in Istanbul, Turkey, who took to the streets in protest.
Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul said that, in addition to the 17 killed, 10 Turkish soldiers were missing after the ambush in southern Turkey.
He denied reports they had been abducted by PKK rebels.
Shortly after the attack, a wedding convoy tripped a landmine in Daglica, Turkey, near the ambush site, a Turkish government source said.
The attack wounded 12 people and is believed to have been the work of PKK rebels, the source said.
There are fears that the escalation in fighting could spill into northern Iraq's Kurdish region, where Turkey insists the PKK leadership is based.
But Iraq denies that, saying PKK leaders are hiding out in rugged mountain areas along the Turkish border that are not controlled by Iraq.
Cross-border shelling between Turkish forces and PKK rebels in northern Iraq continued Sunday.
Iraqi leaders fear Turkish ground forces could make a major push into northern Iraq after Turkey's parliament approved such an incursion in an overwhelming vote last week.
Gonul on Sunday assured U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates that Ankara would not to carry out an imminent ground incursion, but he did not abandon the possibility of sending Turkish troops into northern Iraq, which Gonul called "a safe haven" for PKK rebels.
Gonul and Gates met in Kiev, Ukraine. Gates said: "A major cross-border operation would be contrary to Turkey's interests as well as to our own and that of Iraq.
Iraq's President Jalal Talabani, who is Kurdish, addressed the rising tensions with Turkey during a meeting with Kurdish regional leader Massoud Barzani in Irbil, the capital of Iraq's Kurdistan region.
Talabani reiterated Iraq's demand that PKK rebels lay down their arms, and restated calls for a diplomatic solution.
He also said Sunday that Iraqi forces are unable to find the rebel leaders because of the difficult landscape.
"The Turkish military, with its mightiness, could not annihilate them or arrest them, so how could we arrest them and hand them to Turkey?"
Tariq al-Hashimi, one of Iraq's two vice presidents and a top Sunni Arab leader, met with Turkish leaders last week about the tensions along the Iraq-Turkish border, and said the talks "ended in good results," his office said in a statement.
When asked how Iraq's government would respond to the possibility of Turkish ground forces in northern Iraq, Barzani urged dialogue with Turkey but said Iraqi forces would act "in self-defense.
According to celebrity Web site Hollywood.TV, Spears was pulling out of a Beverly Hills medical building around 5 p.m. when the incident occurred.
Video on the Web site is titled "The Unfortunate Foot Incident," but doesn't show the tire of Spears' car rolling over the cameraman's foot.
Spears honks and the car lurches forward a few feet.
Spears drives off.
Seconds later, the video shows what appears to be a tire mark on the unidentified paparazzo's sock.
Spears' apparent foot bender isn't the first time she's had trouble behind the wheel. She faces hit and run charges and driving without a valid license from an August 6 wreck.
President Bush on Friday set new sanctions against members of Myanmar's military junta and their associates in response to the junta's violent crackdown on democracy protesters.
"We must not turn a deaf ear to their cries," Bush said of those who have taken to the streets for democracy in the Southeast Asian nation.
In late September, the U.S. Treasury Department announced it was freezing the assets of 14 senior members of the government of Myanmar, formerly known as Burma.
Also, the State Department imposed travel restrictions against the same junta leaders.
Bush said Friday he was expanding those sanctions to include 11 more members of the ruling junta.
In addition, 12 individuals associated with Myanmar's government will face U.S. sanctions.
"Burma's rulers continue to defy the world's just demand to stop their vicious persecution," Bush said in explaining the additional sanctions.
Pro-democracy protesters took to the streets of Myanmar in August after the government raised fuel prices as much as 500 percent.
Nearly a month later, Buddhist monks took the lead in the protests and defied military orders that they stop.
Bush called on the junta to release political prisoners and negotiate with the democratic opposition, threatening to increase U.S. pressure if that does not occur.
Second seed Rafael Nadal has been crushed 6-1 6-2 by Argentine David Nalbandian in the quarterfinals of the Madrid Masters.
Nalbandian will now play third seed Novak Djokovic, who defeated Mario Ancic 7-6 6-2, in his first semifinal of the year.
Spaniard Nadal, coming off a 7-6 6-4 win over Andy Murray on Thursday, was slow to Nalbandian's groundstrokes and broken in the third game. A double-fault in the fifth game set up another break chance for Nalbandian, whose forehand clipped the net to skip beyond Nadal
After holding to love, Nalbandian reached Nadal's overhead smash for a crosscourt winner and the set.
"I didn't go in with a clear enough idea of the match I wanted to play.
NEW YORK (CNN) Sony Corp. on Thursday cut the price of its PlayStation 3 game console in the U.S. and announced an even cheaper model that will arrive before the holiday shopping season.
The top-line PlayStation model, with an 80 gigabyte hard drive, now costs $499, down from $599.
That effectively eliminates the lower-end model, which has a 60-gigabyte drive and has sold for $499.
A new low-end model with a 40-gigabyte drive will go on sale November 2 for $399.
Unlike the other PlayStation 3 models, the new one won't be able to play games made for the PlayStation 2.
In a statement, Sony said this was due to a more extensive lineup of games of the PlayStation 3.
The U.S. launch of the 40-gigabyte model was widely expected, since Sony has already announced it for Japan and Europe.
It narrows the price gap with competing game consoles, but the PlayStation is still the most expensive.
Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360 costs $350 and Nintendo Corp.'s Wii costs $250.
Sony has sold 5 million PlayStation 3s since they went on sale in November last year.
FBI agents searched a Las Vegas, Nevada, warehouse owned by illusionist David Copperfield, according to an FBI spokesman, adding that the Wednesday night raid was related to a case based in Seattle.
A lawyer for Copperfield said he was aware of the investigation and that the FBI has contacted Copperfield.
No other information could be made public on the probe, said FBI Special Agent Robbie Burroughs, and it is not immediately clear if Copperfield is a target of the probe.
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) Singer Britney Spears' visitation rights with her children were suspended Thursday until she complies with court orders in her custody battle with her ex-husband Kevin Federline.
Court spokesman Allan Parachini said the order was signed Wednesday by the court commissioner handling her custody case.
Earlier this month, the court awarded full custody of the couple's two sons Sean Preston, 2, and Jayden, 1 to Federline, Spears' former backup dancer.
Last month, a judge ordered Spears to submit to random drug tests after finding she engaged in "habitual, frequent, and continuous use of controlled substances and alcohol.
That order, by Superior Court Commissioner Scott Gordon, provided no details and did not name any specific drugs.
The parents had split custody 50-50, but Federline then asked for the arrangements to be shifted to 70-30 in his favor.
In addition to ordering the twice-weekly drug tests, Gordon ordered Spears to spend eight hours per week working with a "parenting coach," who was to observe her interactions with her children.
Gordon also told both parents to avoid alcohol or "other non-prescription controlled substances" 12 hours before taking custody of the children.
He also barred the exes from making "derogatory remarks about the other party and the other party's family or significant other" during the case.
And he ordered the parents to go through "joint co-parenting counseling" and barred them from using corporal punishment on the boys.
Spears and Federline were married for two years before their divorce became final in July.
(CNN) European leaders on Thursday approved a new treaty that will reshape the European Union's institutions and streamline decision-making.
"With this new treaty, with this agreement, we've managed to get out of a blind alley we've been in for some time," Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates told reporters. "We no longer have an institutional crisis. We're going to be ready to tackle the challenges of the future.
A stalemate was resolved after the Polish delegation accepted a proposal, Socrates said.
The treaty was approved on the first day of a two-day summit in Lisbon, Portugal, which holds the rotating EU presidency.
The treaty would succeed a proposed EU constitution that was scrapped in 2005 after voters in France and Holland rejected it in referenda.
The treaty changes voting procedures, increases the role of the European parliament and includes a charter of fundamental rights.
The treaty lacks the constitution's most contentious elements such as an EU flag and anthem, The Associated Press reported.
EU leaders are to formally sign the treaty in Lisbon on December 13, AP reported.
However, opinion polls show that the majority of people in the main member states believe the treaty should be put to national votes.
Of those questioned in Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain, 70 percent think the treaty decision should go to a vote, according to a poll conducted by the British newspaper The Financial Times.
Another poll in the right wing Daily Telegraph of London showed that 69 percent of British voters support a referendum.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Wednesday told parliament he did not intend to put the treaty to a national vote, insisting the treaty would not lead to a fundamental change in the way Britain is governed.
Ireland is expected to hold a vote on the treaty, the only country planning to do so, because of the requirements of Ireland's constitution.
NEW YORK (CNN) Students at a high school in Virginia prepared Thursday for the funeral of a popular classmate, the victim of a deadly drug-resistant strain of bacteria that has turned up in schools across the country recently.
It's called MRSA, short for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, and is responsible for more deaths in the United States each year than AIDS, according to new data.
Ashton Bonds was a senior at Staunton River High School in Moneta, Virginia, who was diagnosed with MRSA.
After struggling with the infection for a week, the 17-year-old died on Monday.
Students at his school organized a rally, saying the school needed to be cleaned up before they went back to class.
Officials closed all 22 schools in Bedford County for cleaning this week.
The situation at Staunton River High was not an isolated incident.
On Wednesday, school officials in Connecticut confirmed that one student at Weston High School and one at Newton High School had been diagnosed with MRSA.
In Rockville, Maryland, at least 13 students have been diagnosed with MRSA.
Cases have been reported in Ohio, Michigan and other states.
Although school principals have observed that the bacteria predominantly affects student athletes, cases have been reported in children of elementary school age as well.
A study published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association estimates that MRSA infections occurred in nearly 95,000 Americans in 2005.
Based on those figures, an estimated 18,650 people died due to their MRSA infection in 2005.
That death rate is higher than the HIV/AIDS death rate for that year.
BANGKOK, Thailand (CNN) A teacher from Canada suspected of sexually abusing young boys in photographs posted on the Internet has been arrested in Thailand, Thai police said.
A man believed to be Christopher Paul Neil was taken into custody in a town about two hours northeast of Bangkok, police said.
Interpol, the international police agency that issued a worldwide appeal for information in the case last week, said the suspect had been working as an English teacher in South Korea and flew from Seoul to Bangkok last Thursday.
Neil, 32, has been accused of sexually abusing at least a dozen Cambodian and Vietnamese boys, some as young as 6 years old.
He has taught in Thailand, South Korea and Vietnam, The Associated Press reported.
The hunt for Neil began three years ago when German police discovered about 200 online photographs of a man sexually abusing children.
His face was digitally obscured, but a breakthrough in the case came when German police were able to reconstruct a recognizable image, AP reported.
He was identified with the help of hundreds of tips from people who responded to an unprecedented appeal by Interpol for public assistance, AP reported.
Neil will be extradited to Canada, said Kim Scanlan of the Toronto police child exploitation unit.
Canada's sex tourism laws allow prosecution for crimes committed abroad, AP reported.
The British Broadcasting Corporation has announced massive job cuts, saying it plans to sack around 1,800 of its staff.
The BBC said Thursday it also plans to sell off BBC Television Centre, the corporation's landmark headquarters in west London, as part of efforts to plug a $4 billion budget deficit.
In a statement released on its Web site, the broadcaster said it will reduce its original output by 10 percent to focus on fewer, higher quality programs.
Mark Thompson, the BBC director-general, told staff that the changes would mean "a smaller BBC, but one which packs a bigger punch because it is more focused on quality and the content that really makes a difference to audiences.
Jeremy Dear, the general secretary of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), said: "They must withdraw these plans, agree to a framework for negotiations or face the potential of strike action.
BBC, which is paid for by the public through a compulsory license fee, is trying to fill a funding shortfall after the British government awarded it a much reduced settlement earlier this year.
The NUJ said it is a mistake to target news and current affairs coverage for job cuts, since this is traditionally the most respected branch of the corporation.
France's public transportation network came to a halt Thursday as public sector workers staged a series of strikes in what is seen as the first big test for President Nicolas Sarkozy's government.
Airlines were operating as usual, but some flights were delayed because employees were having trouble getting to work.
The walkout began Wednesday night and was expected to last 24 hours, but the backlog of services could mean the effects of the strike last much longer.
There are fears it could impact the thousands of rugby fans heading to Paris for Saturday's World Cup final between England and South Africa. Most international train services were still running, however.
About 80 percent of Eurostar train services between Paris and London were operating Thursday, as were about 60 percent of Thalys high-speed trains between Paris and Brussels, Amsterdam and Cologne.
In addition to the transport sector, power, gas, and some postal workers were also on strike.
In 1995, Prime Minister Alain Juppe backed down after three weeks of strikes in response to his efforts.
About 1.5 million French workers qualify for this plan.
Joe Torre is out as manager of the New York Yankees, rejecting a deal that represented a substantial pay cut after the team failed to make it past the first round of the playoffs for the third straight year.
Torre turned down a $5 million, one-year contract Thursday that still would have made him the highest paid manager in baseball.
Bench coach Don Mattingly is the leading contender to replace Torre, who led the Yanks to 12 straight playoff appearances and won four World Series championships.
"It's a difficult day," general manager Brian Cashman said but it was one Yankees' fans could see coming.
Torre, who took over the team to start the 1996 season, made his decision after traveling fom New York to the team's spring training complex in Tampa.
"It is now time for the New York Yankees to move forward," team president Randy Levine said.
I'm at least 40 minutes into my flight glass of white wine in one hand, book in the other when it suddenly dawns on me that this is no ordinary vacation:
I'm going to Afghanistan.
Women in blue burqas, fields of opium poppies, fierce-looking turbaned men, and tanks churning through dust.
That may well be true, but what I found on a weeklong trip was a surprisingly green country with incredibly welcoming people.
Often peeping from beneath those enveloping burqas I saw strappy high-heeled sandals and crimson-colored toenails.
With suicide attacks in the capital, kidnappings of foreigners and a resurgence of the extremist Taliban in the south, Afghanistan doesn't get many tourists.
Most Western countries advise against all but necessary travel to Afghanistan, while some countries have outright banned it.
The U.S. Department of State warns of "an ongoing threat to kidnap and assassinate U.S. citizens ... throughout the country.
Still, a few travel agencies, many run by former backpackers, will arrange trips there.
For me, it had become a tradition to do something unusual on my birthday.
I have chased hammerhead sharks in Baja, Mexico, explored the jungle lairs of Indonesia's former separatist guerillas and hung out with street kids in China.
This year it was Afghanistan.
After e-mails with friends who lived there, security agencies and by chance, the son of a former Afghan diplomat, I had a loose itinerary: Kabul, Bamiyan, and the Panjshir Valley.
Due to concerns about kidnappings, and lack of a tourism infrastructure, independent travel is not easy or recommended, especially for a single Western woman.
So I had two choices either a foreign-run travel agency in Afghanistan, spending upward of $1,000 a day, or I could hire a driver for a third of the cost.
A friend recommended her driver, Shahabudin Sultani, a soft-spoken Bamiyan native dressed impeccably in a traditional cream Afghan tunic and trousers.
And so at 6:30 a.m., we loaded bottles of water and bags of almonds and apricots into a minivan for the journey.
Although it's only 150 miles from Kabul, the drive to Bamiyan takes over 10 hours along a dirt path that winds high up into the snowcapped Koh-i-Baba mountains before dipping down into a verdant valley.
A faster route from the south is not recommended as it passes through some risky regions.
Dotted along the red craggy cliffs are dozens of fortress-like mud and brick houses with high walls pockmarked by rocket and bullet holes, ubiquitous reminders of war.
War has been a constant in Afghanistan, as regional powers battled for control of the territory often described as the cockpit of Asia, and the Bamiyan Buddhas were silent witness to much of it.
out of the red cliffs when Bamiyan, on the fabled Silk Road that linked Rome to China, was a thriving center of Buddhism and culture.
They survived the violent introduction of Islam in the 7th century, although Islamic leaders ordered that their golden-gilded faces and hands be sliced off.
They escaped the murderous rage of Genghis Khan who lost his favorite grandson at the battle for Bamiyan's Red City in 1221, and razed the entire valley in revenge.
LONDON, England (CNN) A British museum has canceled a lecture by Dr. James Watson, co-discoverer of the DNA double helix, after he claimed black people are less intelligent than whites in a recent newspaper interview.
Watson, who won the 1962 Nobel prize for his part in discovering the structure of DNA, provoked a storm of criticism after his comments were published in the Sunday Times.
The eminent biologist told the British newspaper he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours whereas all the testing says not really.
Watson, 79, had been due to give a lecture at London's Science Museum on Friday but the museum canceled his appearance, saying his comments had "gone beyond the point of acceptable debate.
The American professor's words have been roundly condemned as "racist," with fellow scientists dismissing his claims as "genetic nonsense.
"He should recognize that statements of this sort have racist functions and are to be deeply, deeply regretted," said Professor Steven Rose of the British Open University.
Watson is credited with discovering the double helix along with Maurice Wilkins and Francis Crick in 1962.
In the newspaper interview, he said there was no reason to think that races which had grown up in separate geographical locations should have evolved identically.
He went on to say that although he hoped everyone was equal, "people who have to deal with black employees find this not true".
The British government's skills minister, David Lammy, who is black, called the comments "deeply offensive" and said Watson would only succeed in providing oxygen for extremist political groups.
Deborah Kerr, who shared one of Hollywood's most famous kisses and made her mark with such roles as the correct widow in "The King and I" and the unhappy officer's wife in "From Here to Eternity," has died.
Kerr, who suffered from Parkinson's disease, died Tuesday in Suffolk in eastern England, her agent, Anne Hutton, said Thursday.
For many she will be remembered best for her kiss with Burt Lancaster as waves crashed over them on a Hawaiian beach in the wartime drama "From Here to Eternity.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences nominated Kerr a six times for best actress, but never gave her an Academy Award until it presented an honorary Oscar in 1994 for her distinguished career as an "artist of impeccable grace and beauty, a dedicated actress whose motion picture career has always stood for perfection, discipline and elegance.
"I have never had a fight with any director, good or bad," she said toward the end of her career. "There is a way around everything if you are smart enough.
Kerr was active until the mid-1980s, with "The Assam Garden," "Hold the Dream" and "Reunion at Fairborough" all in 1985.
Kerr is survived by Viertel, two daughters and three grandchildren.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife, Cecilia, have divorced by mutual consent, the couple's attorney told a French radio network.
Europe 1 reported the divorce was finalized Monday.
Elysee Palace announced Thursday the Sarkozys were separating, but offered no further details.
The announcement followed weeks of speculation and rumors that the couple's marriage of 11 years was in trouble.
Cecilia Sarkozy has been increasingly absent from her husband's side since he came to power in May.
Rumors about the marriage intensified this week after a presidential spokesman said Cecilia Sarkozy would skip a state visit to Morocco next week. The spokesman played it down as a simple scheduling announcement.
Cecilia Sarkozy was a smiling figure at her husband's inauguration in May as she stood with the children.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday called on the United States to set a date for withdrawal from Iraq, saying the U.S. military campaign had become a "pointless" battle against the Iraqi people.
Putin used a live Russian TV and radio broadcast to criticize U.S. policy in Iraq, which he said was aimed in part at seizing oil reserves.
Putin said the American battle in Iraq was "useless" and "totally counterproductive" because it was against the Iraqi people.
Putin said he agreed with President Bush that U.S.-led coalition forces should only withdraw once the Iraqi government was in full control of the country.
However, he said the lack of a deadline for withdrawal meant there was no impetus for the Iraqi leadership to take control of the security situation.
"It's totally unacceptable to keep occupation forces there forever," he added.
He also repeated his warning against U.S. efforts to put elements of a missile defense system in Eastern Europe and confirmed his plans to step down from the presidency next year.
Putin was asked about comments attributed to former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright suggesting that Siberia had too many natural resources to belong to one country.
Putin called those remarks "a kind of political erotica" and compared the situation with Iraq.
"I've watched the news, and I liked what Putin said. I think he's a brave and noble man.
KARACHI, Pakistan (CNN) Two explosions killed at least 110 people and injured at least 200 Thursday night near a motorcade carrying former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who returned to the country earlier in the day after eight years of self-imposed exile, police sources told CNN.
Bhutto and those with her were uninjured, and her companions said she reached her family home safely.
Video footage shows her exiting the vehicle after the blasts.
There were conflicting reports on whether there were one or two blasts and whether the bomb was in a car.
Authorities have found what they believe is the body of a suicide bomber.
"We are still working details, but it seems that there was a suicide bombing there," Tariq Azim Khan, Pakistani information minister, told CNN.
"Although the truck that Benazir Bhutto was riding on was surrounded by police cars so the suicide bomber could not get onto the truck and could not get anywhere near it, so he blew himself up and that has caused many casualties, mostly among the policemen who were riding beside the truck."
Other officials said at least one bomb apparently had been placed in a car on the street, where Bhutto's supporters had gathered to see her convoy pass.
One eyewitness told he saw a car explode with three people inside.
Video footage from the scene showed the street jammed with emergency vehicles, and injured victims writhing in the middle of the road.
Bhutto's return angered some sectors in Pakistan because she was a female head of state who is perceived as being aligned with the United States.
The windshield of the vehicle in which Bhutto was riding was smashed by the blasts and a vehicle following hers was totally burned out.
Because the streets were crowded with Bhutto's supporters, who had turned out to greet her, ambulances had difficulty reaching the scene immediately after the blasts.
Onlookers resorted to ferrying the injured to hospitals in private cars.
People's Party Leader Qasim Zia, who was riding on Bhutto's truck, told CNN one of his bodyguards was seriously injured.
The blasts confirmed fears of instability linked to Bhutto's return, which came after she reached an agreement with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf allowing her to seek re-election as prime minister.
Many were bitterly opposed to that deal.
Bhutto told CNN just before returning to her homeland that she was aware of the risks and knew some people wished her harm, but "I'm prepared to take them."
She did, however, tell CNN Wednesday that she wrote Musharraf a letter naming those she feared would make an attempt on her life.
Threats against her, she said, were made by "certain people who have gained a lot through dictatorship.
They have presided over the rise of extremism, they have created safe havens in the tribal areas of Pakistan for the Taliban and other militants and they fear my return."
The United States was swift to condemn what it called "terrorist attacks in Karachi during peaceful political demonstrations.
"There is no political cause that can justify the murder of innocent people," State Department spokesman Tom Casey said in a written statement. "Those responsible seek only to foster fear and limit freedom.
The United States stands with the people of Pakistan to eliminate terrorist threats, and to build a more open, democratic, and peaceful society."
White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said, "extremists will not be allowed to stop Pakistanis from selecting their representatives through an open and democratic process."
As South Korea's Pusan International Film Festival widely recognized as Asia's most important film showcase and market wraps up its 12th year, one thing has become apparent, at least for the domestic industry:
"IT technology is hugely developed in Korea, not HD cinema equipment or technology," says Kang Kyung-il, Manager of Production at CJ Entertainment, South Korea's dominant distributor in terms of volume and market share.
If this proportion seems impressive, it is less so considering the total of 24 contemporary South Korean films screened in the festival, where the HD feature ratio drops to little more than 20 percent.
According to statistics compiled by the Korean Film Council (KOFIC), only 13 out of 134 films produced in 2006 were shot on HD, and none was among the top three grossers of the year:
HD was similarly absent among the award-winners at PIFF.
This year, three films shared the festival's prestigious New Currents award, and of those only "Flower in Pocket" from Malaysia was not shot on 35mm film it was shot on Digi-Beta.
KOFIC has slated 63 films for release in the second half of 2007, with the HD number remaining stable at 13.
The reasons for HD cinema's slow progress are simultaneously obvious and confounding to people in the industry.
On one hand, HD's low production costs make the films easier to budget;
on the other hand, the format's low penetration rate on the market makes the movies difficult to exploit.
SEOUL, South Korea (CNN) Some 35 million of South Korea's total 48 million residents regularly use broadband Internet.
As such, Internet usage is not restricted to the younger generation:
It is not uncommon to see a 45-year-old gentleman indulging himself in the popular online game Lineage II in a local "PC Bang" (Internet cafe).
Still, it's the kids who most actively embrace the bleeding-edge technologies.
This peek into the everyday life of an imaginary South Korean boy named Insoo Kim offers insight into what the life of youths in the rest of the world might be like in the near future.
Insoo Kim, 14, is a typical junior high school student in Seoul.
Like all his classmates, Insoo's main means of communication with his buddies is text messaging.
Insoo doesn't even have to take the phone out of his pocket to send an SMS.
He knows how to slide it open, which buttons to push how many times to reach the "Send SMS" menu option, compose the entire text message, and hit the send button all without even looking at the phone.
This is especially handy when he needs to send an SMS during class.
But these days, Insoo and his friends don't simply use their phones to send an SMS, or to take pictures or listen to MP3 music.
Whenever funny things happen during the day, Insoo and friends shoot video with their phones and send the clip to portal sites, hoping their clips will be featured on the portals' homepages.
In South Korea, UCC (User-Created Content) is synonymous with amateur online videos.
UCC took the Korean market by storm in 2006, and its popularity has stretched well into 2007.
School is over, and the time is now 4:30 p.m. Insoo has a few hours to kill before going to Hakwon, a private special-subject school, so he calls up the owner of a PC Bang and asks for a ride.
The PC Bang offers skilled game players like Insoo perks such as free transportation.
Who knows, one day a kid like Insoo may grow up to become the national Lineage champion, giving the PC Bang he frequented exposure on national TV?
The first thing Insoo does after Hakwon is, of course, turn on the PC.
Insoo has a difficult math problem as homework.
He posts it up on Naver Knowledge iN, a popular online Q&A service with some 70 million entries.
Within about 10 minutes of posting, someone chimes in with a good answer, and Insoo awards him with some "Knowledge Power" points knowledge-based economy in action among 14-year-olds.
On Insoo's Nate On Messenger, provided by the same company behind Cyworld (SK Communications), a small icon pops up next to Insoo's friend's name.
It means he has just posted new Cyworld content.
Insoo clicks on the icon to read the new post and leaves a comment something Insoo is expected to do as a "1-chon" (Cyworld buddy).
Insoo's 12-year-old sister twists his arm to give up the computer so she can post a new entry on her own Cyworld homepage.
Cyworld is regarded as popular among 20-year-old women, which is exactly why an 12-year-old girl aspires to use the service.
Cyworld is not as explosive as it used to be five years ago, but the service continues to see a steady influx of new users, helped by teens such as Insoo's sister.
Speaking of Insoo's sister, she follows every move of Dongbang Shingi, a popular Korean Wave pop group.
Her Cyworld minihompy background music is, of course, Dongbang Shingi's.
Gone are the days when kids bought CDs by their favorite singers.
For the young generation, music is deemed something that must be consumed over the 'Net CDs are for their parents.
To date, Cyworld's minihompy streaming music sales amount to more than 200 million songs, or $100 million in revenue.
Insoo quickly checks out today's fun clips on a host of online humor sites, including the Humor University, and reluctantly lets his little sister use the computer.
Time to purchase a second PC, Insoo thinks but not before he gets his hands on the slick new LG phone, which Insoo's father had promised to buy him if he excels on the upcoming finals.
Visualizing a shiny new LG, Insoo opens up his book for a quick round of reading before going to bed.
UNITED NATIONS (CNN) U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called for the "immediate and unconditional release" of the head of the World Food Programme's Mogadishu office after his arrest, a spokesman said.
Up to 60 "heavily armed and uniformed" Somali troops stormed the WFP office Wednesday morning and seized Idris Osman at gunpoint, but no shots were fired, the agency reported.
Osman was being held at the headquarters of Somalia's National Security Service in Mogadishu, and WFP officials were working to gain his release, the agency said.
The aid agency has received no explanation for his arrest, which Ban's office called a violation of international law, WFP spokesman Marcus Pryer said.
The raid violates a 1946 convention obligating governments to protect U.N. staff and property, a pact Somalia's transitional government agreed to in 2006, Ban's office said.
"The secretary-general calls for the immediate and unconditional release of the staff member.
Somalia has relied heavily on international aid since 1991, when the collapse of its government spawned a decade and a half of civil war.
The U.N.-backed transitional government took power in Mogadishu last December after an Ethiopian-led invasion drove out the Islamic Courts Union, which had seized power from U.S.-backed warlords in mid-2006.
Despite the deployment of an African Union-led peacekeeping force, remnants of the Islamic group continue to battle government and Ethiopian troops in the capital and other parts of the country.
SYDNEY, Australia (CNN) A group of children playing in an Australian park Wednesday opened a suitcase they found floating in a pond and discovered the body of a youngster inside, police said.
Police divers searched the pond in the Sydney suburb of Rosemeadow and sought potential witnesses in a hunt for clues to who the boy was and how he died.
Detective Chief Inspector Gary Clark said identifying the body was difficult because it had been in the water for some time, but officials believed it was a boy between 5 and 10 years old.
A forensic examination of the body would start on Thursday.
The Australian Associated Press news agency reported that one boy said he and his friends were riding scooters when they heard about something in the water.
Police said about 10 children between 10 and 12 years old spotted the black suitcase floating in the pond, Clark said.
The park is surrounded by houses and is a spot for picnics, walking and cycling.
SAN FRANCISCO, California (CNN) The "Mona Lisa" has long been shrouded in mystery, including one long-standing question about the famous lady:
Pascal Cotte announced at a press conference Wednesday that he has found definitive proof that when Leonardo da Vinci painted the original portrait he included "Mona Lisa's" lashes and brows.
Cotte examined the world's most famous painting using a high-definition camera of his own design.
The device scanned a 240-million pixel image using 13 light spectrums, including ultra-violet and infrared.
The resulting ultra-high resolution photograph of 150,000 dots per inch yielded a reproduction of the "Mona Lisa's" face magnified 24 times.
And there Cotte found the evidence he sought a single brushstroke of a single hair above the left brow.
"One day I say, if I can find only one hair, only one hair of the eyebrow, I will have definitively the proof that originally Leonardo da Vinci had painted eyelash and eyebrow," said Cotte.
Possibly faded pigment, Cotte suggested, or possibly a poor attempt to clean the painting.
"And if you look closely at the eye of 'Mona Lisa' you can clearly see that the cracks around the eye have slightly disappeared, and that may be explained that one day a curator or restorer cleaned the eye, and cleaning the eye, removed, probably removed the eyelashes and eyebrow," he said.
Cotte's high resolution camera led him to numerous additional discoveries about the enigmatic artwork.
The infrared layer of the image shows that the fingers of the "Mona Lisa's" left hand were originally painted in a slightly different position than in the final portrait.
Cotte said the change in position was the result of a lap blanket held by Leonardo's model.
In today's faded image the blanket is all but obscured, but the highly detailed camera detected the faded pigment.
"It was really the first time that we have this kind of position of the arm," Cotte said, "and after Leonardo da Vinci, thousands of painters have made a copy of this position but without understanding why we have this position.
The real justification of the position of the wrist is to hold the blanket on her stomach. It's really a great, for me, it's really a great discovery.
One of the results of Cotte's work is a "virtual" restoration of the painting, an exact replica showing the original colors as they would have looked when the painting was new.
The skin tones of Leonardo's model appear as a warm pink and the sky behind her is a glowing blue, far different from the gray-green tint that covers the artwork today.
That dark patina is the result of 500 years of aging, according to Cotte.
The results of Cotte's study are on display at the Metreon in San Francisco, as part of the exhibit "Da Vinci:
An Exhibition of Genius.
The Force may soon be coming to a television near you.
George Lucas is planning a live-action television series spinoff of the "Star Wars" film franchise.
Lucas told The Los Angeles Times he has "just begun work" on the series, which will not include the films' major characters Luke Skywalker or Darth Vader.
"The Skywalkers aren't in it, and it's about minor characters," Lucas told the Times on Tuesday.
Lucas wouldn't reveal details, but joked that the series would be about "the life of robots.
Lucas, 63, already has another television series in the works.
Lucasfilm Animation has been working for months on the computer-animated "Star Wars:
Norman Mailer is recovering in a hospital after surgery to remove scar tissue around his lung, his daughter-in-law said Wednesday.
"He's been getting better every time I see him," Salina Mailer said.
She didn't recall the date of the operation at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan.
Mailer, 84, gained instant literary acclaim with his first book, "The Naked and the Dead," published in 1948 and based in part on his experience as an Army infantryman in the Philippines.
He won Pulitzer Prizes for "The Armies of the Night" and "The Executioner's Song."
His latest book, "The Castle in the Forest," was published this year.
Two goals in the space of four second-half minutes by Roman Pavluchenko gave Russia a crucial 2-1 victory over England in Moscow, to put qualification from Euro 2008 Group E firmly in their own hands.
Wayne Rooney had given England the lead on the half-hour with a spectacular volley, following a flick-on from Michael Owen, for his second goal in five days for his country.
England then wasted chances to increase their lead, notably when Steven Gerrard fired into the side-netting when unmarked at the far post.
The visitors were made to pay for their mistakes when Pavluchenko fired home a 69th minute penalty after Rooney had pulled back Konstantin Zyrianov on the edge of the area.
With England's defense creaking under wave upon wave of Russian attacks, the victory was sealed four minutes later when Pavluchenko reacted quickest in the penalty area to score from close-range.
The result means that Russia will definitely qualify for the finals if they win their remaining two matches in Israel and Andorra.
Group leaders Croatia only need a point from their final two matches away to Macedonia and England to secure their qualification.
So says the bride, Elana Glatt, who was so upset that she sued the florist and alleged breach of contract.
David, and her mother-in-law, Tobi Glatt, who paid for the flowers. The flowers cost $27,435.14. The lawsuit asks for more than $400,000 in restitution and damages.
Stamos Arakas, the florist, said that he and his wife, Paula, tried to match the color of the hydrangeas with a picture Glatt had given them, but explained to her that the colors might not look the same.
"My father used to tell me, 'Don't deal with the lawyers," Arakas said. "Maybe he was right, God bless his soul."
Expressing hope that the future of Tibet and China will move beyond mistrust, the Dalai Lama accepted the Congressional Gold Medal from President Bush Wednesday during a ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda.
"I am deeply touched that this great honor has been given to me, a Buddhist monk born of a simple family," he said.
Earlier, China slammed the United States for bestowing the nation's highest civilian honor on the Dalai Lama, calling the ceremony an affront to the budding relations between the countries.
But the Dalai Lama repeated his stance that he's seeking a "meaningful autonomy" for the Tibetan people, not independence from China.
"Much of the world is waiting to see how China's concepts of harmonious society and peaceful rights would unfold.
Though Bush said the ceremony was not meant to antagonize the Chinese, he made repeated references to religious oppression.
"Americans cannot look to the plight of the religiously oppressed and close our eyes or turn away," Bush said.
Calling the Dalai Lama a "universal symbol of peace and tolerance, a shepherd to the faithful and a keeper of the flame for his people," Bush presented the medallion to the Dalai Lama.
The Turkish parliament has voted to allow its military to make an incursion into Iraq and chase down Kurdish rebels staging cross-border attacks.
Turkey has already massed 60,000 troops in the region and over the weekend it shelled farms across the border.
Jamal Abdullah, an Iraqi Kurdish Regional Government spokesman, reacted to the Turkish vote by saying the solution should be a political and diplomatic one, not a military one.
An incursion across the border would be "violating the sovereignty of another country and is against international laws and treaties," he said.
"We are in intensive talks and dialogue with the Iraqi government on a political, diplomatic and even military level, although we hope it does not reach that level," Abdullah said.
But the chances of such military action raises great concerns in the United States, which fears it would undermine the stability of the American-backed government in Baghdad and jeopardize the supply lines that support U.S. troops in Iraq.
Speaking as news of the vote was announced, U.S. President George W. Bush who said there already are Turkish troops stationed in Iraq said "we are making it very clear to Turkey that we don't think it is in their interests to send troops into Iraq.
LONDON, England (CNN) Widespread strikes are expected to cripple France's transport network just as rugby fans make their way to Paris for this weekend's World Cup final.
Railway workers will join bus, power, gas and some state employees for the action called after President Nicolas Sarkozy refused to back down over planned pension reforms, according to Monique Ricard, spokeswoman for the French railway SNCF.
Trains across France and the Metro Paris's subway system are expected to come to a halt starting Wednesday night, Ricard said.
So far we've been assured the disruptions should be manageable but it remains to be seen," Jessica Chambers, a spokeswoman for the England Rugby Supporters Club.
Prompted by government attempts to cut pension privileges, the strikes will be for 24 hours but could be prolonged to Friday, Ricard said.
Only one in four trains will be running on Thursday, including suburban services linking Paris to its three international airports, she said.
About 80,000 rugby fans are expected to attend Saturday's World Cup final between England and South Africa.
Commercial flights to the French capital were sold out, while thousands of England supporters have booked to travel on the Eurostar rail service from London to Paris.
Eurostar has advised its customers to avoid all travel on Thursday and it has cancelled some of its trains on Thursday and Friday.
High demand has pushed upward the price of a pair of tickets for the final to as much as $3,000 in eBay auctions.
With Paris hotels booked full many fans are staying 30 kilometers (20 miles) outside the city in hotels around Disneyland's Paris resort.
NEW YORK (CNN) Wanna be the first to score a copy of the Spice Girls greatest-hits album?
You'll have to go through Victoria's Secret to get it.
The newly reunited British girl group's CD will be available starting November 13 at Victoria's Secret stores and on the company's Web site in the U.S., Capitol Music Group said Tuesday.
Greatest Hits" features 13 hits, including "Wannabe" and "Spice up Your Life," and two new songs, "Voodoo" and the upcoming single, "Headlines (Friendship Never Ends).
Capitol said the disc will be available nationwide January 15.
The original Girl Power group of the 1990s will also appear at the annual Victoria's Secret fashion show, set to air December 4 on CBS.
The Spice Girls were one of the biggest acts of the '90s with more than 55 million records sold.
The quintet, who broke up in 2001, announced they had reunited at a press conference in London in late June.
Their reunion tour opens December 2 in Vancouver, Canada. Other confirmed dates: San Jose, California, December 4;
5 and December 7; and Las Vegas, Nevada, December.
Other North American tour dates are being rearranged, Capitol Music said, due to the high demand for tickets.
The shows will be the first with all five of the original group since Geri "Ginger Spice" Halliwell quit to pursue a solo career in 1998.
Their last album, "Forever," released in 2000 and without Halliwell, fared poorly.
Other members of the Spice Girls are Victoria "Posh Spice" Beckham, Melanie "Sporty Spice" Chisholm, Emma "Baby Spice" Bunton and Melanie "Scary Spice" Brown.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (CNN) Fulfilling her promise and ending eight years of self-imposed exile, former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto said Wednesday she would return to Pakistan through the southern port city of Karachi on Thursday.
to provide food, clothing and shelter, and fulfill the aspirations of the great people of my country who deserve a better future than they have had in the past.
Bhutto said more than a million people will gather in Karachi on Thursday to welcome her back.
Ahead of her arrival police have sealed roads and readied bomb disposal squads amid fears Islamic militants could try to kill her, The Associated Press reported.
Earlier this month, the office of President Pervez Musharraf announced he had signed a "reconciliation ordinance" that dropped outstanding corruption charges against Bhutto and a number of other politicians.
The move could shore up support for the embattled president and possibly strike a power-sharing deal with the former premier.
According to a Bhutto adviser, the move could "pave the way for Mrs. Bhutto's unhindered return to Pakistan and free and fair elections.
Bhutto hopes to win a third term for herself as prime minister of Pakistan.
That will require a change in the county's constitution and her adviser, Wajid Shamsul Hasan, indicated that a power sharing deal with Musharraf that would allow that change is in place.
SINGAPORE (CNN) Oil prices have fallen in Asia from a trading record of over $88 a barrel yesterday.
The drop came amid expectations that a U.S. fuel report due today will show U.S. crude and gasoline stocks rose last week.
Prices remain supported by concerns that a Turkish incursion into Iraq in search of Kurdish rebels could disrupt crude supplies.
Light, sweet crude for November delivery dropped 10 cents to $87.51 a barrel in Asian electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange by midday today in Singapore.
Oil prices have also been driven higher by recent reports from the U.S. Energy Department, the International Energy Agency and OPEC suggesting oil supplies are flat or falling, as demand is growing.
ANTWERP, Belgium (CNN) The head of De Beers Group which controls 40 percent of the global diamond trade called on traders in Europe, the U.S. and Israel to back African efforts to cut and polish the continent's own gemstones.
Managing Director Gareth Penny said it was logical to help create stability in African democracies through job creation.
"We don't embrace this out of some misguided enthusiasm or altruism, we embrace it because it makes good business sense and because it's the right thing to do," he said.
People will no longer buy 'conflict diamonds' nor will miners invest the billions of dollars needed to extract them, he said.
The illegal trade in "conflict diamonds" sometimes known as blood diamonds has fueled and funded wars in Africa, killing thousands in Angola, Sierra Leone, Liberia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
"We need a strong and stable set of producing companies if we have to maximize future supply.
Manchester United winger Ryan Giggs has signed a contract extension which ties him to the club until the end of June 2009.
The 33-year-old has played 727 matches for United since his debut in March 1991 against Everton with only Sir Bobby Charlton (759) playing more games for the club.
"I would like to thank Sir Alex Ferguson, the fans and everyone at the club for the great support I have received over the years."
The former Welsh international has scored 141 goals and won 18 major titles in his time at Old Trafford, including nine Premier League titles, four FA Cups, two League Cups and one European Cup.
He epitomises the word loyalty he signed here as a 14-year-old schoolboy and is still with the club 20 years on.
"Apart from his playing ability he has a fantastic demeanour and is a great role model to the younger players. I am sure he will be at the club for a long time to come.
MUMBAI, India (CNN) Trading at India's stock exchanges was halted after the benchmark index plunged 8 percent in early trading, as the market regulator moved to curb buying by foreign funds.
The Mumbai Stock Exchange's 30-share Sensex tumbled 1,508 points, or 7.9 percent, to 17,544 points.
The drop came as investors reacted to a plan by the Securities and Exchange Board of India to restrict the issue of participatory notes to overseas investors.
On the broader National Stock Exchange, the 50-company S&P Nifty index plunged 524 points, or 9.3 percent, to 5,143 points.
Hundreds of villagers defied warnings of a major eruption at one of Indonesia's deadliest volcanoes, leaving refugee centers Wednesday and returning to homes along its slopes to tend to crops and animals.
The 5,679-foot volcano last erupted in 1990, killing dozens.
In 1919, a powerful explosion destroyed a hundred villages and claimed 5,160 lives.
Local authorities began mandatory evacuations of around 30,000 people living within six miles of the peak late Tuesday, mostly women, children and the elderly.
Many men refused to leave, according to an Associated Press reporter on the mountain.
On Wednesday morning, hundreds of people left temporary evacuation camps in rented trucks and returned to their villages, complaining they had received no food and saying they must tend crops.
"There was no food at all," said Darmiashiah, a 33-year-old woman who returned to the village of Sugihwaras, well within in the evacuation zone.
Kelud, on Java island about 385 miles east of the capital, Jakarta, is one of the most active of Indonesia's estimated 150 active volcanoes.
"That always happens," the exiled spiritual leader of Tibet's Buddhists said with a laugh, speaking to reporters gathered outside his downtown Washington hotel.
The White House defended the meeting in the president's residence and dismissed Beijing's warning that the talks and the awarding of the Congressional Gold Medal to him on Wednesday would damage relations between the United States and China.
The Dalai Lama is hailed in much of the world as a figure of moral authority, but Beijing reviles the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize laureate and claims he seeks to destroy China's sovereignty by pushing for independence for Tibet, where the Dalai Lama is considered a god-king.
He said that during their meeting, he explained to Bush what was happening in Tibet and said he thanked the president for "showing his concern about Tibet.
"We know each other, and we have developed, I think, a very close friendship something like a reunion of one family," the Dalai Lama said, speaking of Bush.
The Dalai Lama says he wants "real autonomy," not independence, for Tibet.
But China demonizes the spiritual leader and believes the United States is honoring a separatist.
Bush and U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday will present the Dalai Lama, who has lived with followers in exile in India since they fled Chinese soldiers in Tibet in 1959, with the prestigious congressional honor.
China has reacted with anger.
"It seriously violates the norm of international relations and seriously wounded the feelings of the Chinese people and interfered with China's internal affairs.
Chinese state media on Wednesday declared the U.S. "must be held responsible for the consequences.
"We are not willing to see damage done to relations between the two countries, but this event will certainly cast a shadow over the relations," the official China Daily newspaper said in an unsigned editorial.
Myanmar's military junta acknowledged Wednesday that it detained nearly 3,000 people during a crackdown on recent pro-democracy protests, with hundreds still remaining in custody.
The official statement on the front-page of The New Light of Myanmar, a government mouthpiece, said authorities were still hunting for demonstrators who took part in the recent uprising.
"Those who led, got involved in and supported the unrest which broke out in September were called in and are being interrogated," the junta said. "Some are still being called in for questioning and those who should be released will be.
The statement said that 2,927 people had been arrested since the crackdown started and nearly 500 were still in custody.
In their last tally of arrests, the junta said that nearly 2,100 had been detained.
China, which has been uncooperative in past efforts to pressure Myanmar's military rulers, said it supported Gambari's mission.
As Myanmar's closest ally and a permanent member of the Security Council, China is considered key in pushing for change in the Southeast Asian nation.
In Tokyo, Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura said Tuesday that the government was canceling a grant worth $4.7 million for a business education center slated for the Yangon University campus.
In fiscal year 2006, Japan provided grants and technical assistance totaling $26.1 million to Myanmar, according to the latest ministry figures.
TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) Iran should be allowed to pursue its nuclear program for peaceful purposes, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday during the first visit to the country by a Kremlin leader since 1943.
Putin, who is in Tehran to attend a summit of Caspian Sea nations, said that he and the other leaders agreed that "peaceful nuclear activities must be allowed" in the region.
"The Iranians are cooperating with Russian nuclear agencies and the main objectives are peaceful objectives," he said.
Russia is building Iran's first nuclear power plant and has resisted moves by the U.S. and its allies to impose stronger U.N. sanctions against Tehran.
The leaders of Iran, Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan also met Tuesday to reach agreement on issues relating to the sharing and regulating of the Caspian Sea the world's largest inland body of water.
Speaking afterwards, Putin said that no Caspian nation should offer its territory to third parties intent on military action against other countries in the region a reference to rumors that the U.S. planned to use Azerbaijan as a base for a possible attack against Iran, The Associated Press reported.
"The Caspian Sea is an inland sea and it only belongs to the Caspian states, therefore only they are entitled to have their ships and military forces here," added Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Putin's visit is the first by a leader in the Kremlin to Iran since Joseph Stalin's World War II conference meeting with U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
A man has accused Sean "Diddy" Combs of punching him out during a dispute at a trendy Manhattan nightspot, but the rap mogul's lawyer called it a harmless "disagreement.
Police were investigating the report of an assault early Saturday at the club in SoHo, but declined to identify any suspects. Law enforcement officials confirmed news accounts Tuesday that Combs, 37, was the alleged assailant.
Investigators were seeking to locate more witnesses before questioning Combs, said officials, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the investigation hadn't not been completed.
"We hope this matter will be resolved without the filing of any criminal charges as it was a disagreement among acquaintances, not a criminal assault," said the attorney, Benjamin Brafman.
Police said the incident occurred at about 3:30 a.m. inside Kiosk nightclub.
The 31-year-old man told police that he and Combs had been arguing over a woman before Combs punched him in the face, the officials said.
Combs recently placed third in "Hip-Hop Cash Kings" rankings by the Web site Forbes.com, which put his 2006 income at an estimated $28 million.
HOGANAS, Sweden (CNN) Swedish artist Lars Vilks says all he's doing is taking a stand in the name of artistic expression.
Al Qaeda has put a $100,000 price on his head and offered an extra $50,000 for anyone who murders him by slitting his throat after the eccentric artist and sculptor drew a cartoon depicting the Prophet Mohammed as a dog.
"I don't think it should not be a problem to insult a religion, because it should be possible to insult all religions in a democratic way, " says Vilks from his home in rural Sweden.
His crude, sketched caricature shows the head of Prophet Mohammed on the body of a dog.
Dogs are considered unclean by conservative Muslims, and any depiction of the prophet is strictly forbidden.
Vilks, who has been a controversial artist for more than three decades in Sweden, says his drawing was a calculated move, and he wanted it to elicit a reaction.
And if you look at it, don't take it too seriously.
"No one actually loves the truth, but someone has to say it," he says.
Vilks, a self-described atheist, points out he's an equal opportunity offender who in the past sketched a depiction of Jesus as a pedophile.
Vilks' cartoon, which was published in August by the Swedish newspaper Nerikes Allehanda, hasn't reached that level of global protests, although it has stoked plenty of outrage.
Muslims in Sweden demanded an apology from the newspaper, which has stood by Vilks on his freedom of expression stand.
Pakistan and Iran also lodged formal protests with Sweden.
Swedish police, who declined CNN's request for an interview, have advised Vilks to abandon his home.
But the artist still works there by day and travels to a safe house by night.
Eighteen people, including 10 airline workers at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport, appeared in federal court Tuesday on international drug smuggling and distribution charges.
The drugs were hidden in luggage on international commercial flights from the Dominican Republic to JFK, the complaint alleges.
While the diversion was taking place, the defendants used lookouts to watch for law officers.
The leader of the defendants was Henry Polanco, who dealt with the drug suppliers in the Dominican Republic, according to the complaint.
He used employees from Delta, American Airlines and food-services company Aramark to help smuggle the drugs into the United States, the complaint says.
The case "illustrates how conspiracy to smuggle drugs into the U.S. among airport employees compromised our border security," said Mark Lorenti, a special agent with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, in a statement.
The Drug Enforcement Administration said the street value of the drugs is $875,000 for the cocaine, $1.1 million for the heroin and $75,000 for the ecstasy.
Four years after renouncing terrorism and abandoning its WMD programs, Libya Tuesday won a two-year term on the U.N. Security Council.
The U.N. General Assembly approved Tripoli's candidacy for a spot on the 15-member council with 178 votes.
In May 2006, the United States restored full diplomatic relations with Libya and removed it from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, where it had been for 27 years.
Three years earlier, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi had made an abrupt about-face after the fall of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, renouncing support for terrorism and agreeing to give up Libya's missiles and weapons of mass destruction.
In early 2004, Libya handed over its nuclear components and documents related to the country's WMD program , which were taken to a U.S. facility in Tennessee.
Later that year, the United States ended a 18-year trade embargo against Libya and lifted a ban on Americans traveling there.
"They have not fully paid the restitution to the families," said Katherine Flynn, the mother of one of the 270 people were killed in the attack.
"I cannot understand how a nation already under U.N. sanctions is going to become part of the Security Council that puts sanctions on countries," Flynn added. "This is absolutely an abomination as far as I'm concerned.
Speculation surrounds the state of French President Nicolas Sarkozy's marriage following word that the first lady, Cecilia Sarkozy, will not be accompanying her husband on a state visit to Morocco next week.
The Sarkozys have been the subject of gossip for years.
It has been widely reported that Cecilia Sarkozy had a relationship with an advertising executive, while there has been frequent speculation about the president's own alleged relationship with a French reporter.
Since then, however, she's been notably absent from her husband's side.
She didn't attend a luncheon with her husband at U.S. President George W. Bush's Maine vacation home over the summer, citing illness.
The Sarkozy family was vacationing in New Hampshire at the time.
Former president Francois Mitterand not only lived apart from his wife, Danielle, but he maintained a secret second family that turned up in public only at his funeral.
Still, observers say what would shock the French is not a divorce, but the image of a president lacking control of his personal life.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki asked the U.S. State Department to "pull Blackwater out of Iraq," after an Iraqi probe concluded that the private contractors committed unprovoked and random killings in a September 16 shooting, an adviser to al-Maliki told CNN.
Adviser Sami al-Askari told CNN the Iraqis have completed their investigation into the shooting at Nusoor Square in Baghdad.
Al-Askari said the United States is still waiting for the findings of the American investigation, but al-Maliki and most Iraqi officials are "completely satisfied" with the findings of their probe and are "insisting" that Blackwater leave the country.
The U.S. State Department and the FBI are investigating the incident.
Survivors told harrowing stories of being shot at by the guards despite presenting no threat.
The FBI has been in the process of speaking to the survivors.
The first U.S. soldiers to arrive on the scene after the incident told military investigators they found no evidence contractors were fired upon, a source familiar with a preliminary U.S. military report told CNN.
The soldiers found evidence suggesting the guards fired on cars attempting to leave and found weapon casings on the scene matching only those used by U.S. military and contractors, the military source said.
U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Mirembe Natango told CNN by telephone that the Iraqi-U.S. joint commission met and is proceeding with its work on the matter.
"We need to let the joint commission do its work," she said, adding that once the joint commission has finished, it will make policy recommendations.
Blackwater CEO and founder Erik Prince has said the team was attacked and was defending itself at an intersection not far from the heavily guarded Green Zone on September 16.
Seventeen Iraqis were killed, including women and children, and 27 were wounded, according to Iraqi officials.
Prince told CNN Sunday that the guards did not commit "deliberate violence."
LONDON, England (CNN) A man hopped over a security barrier in the British Museum on Monday and tied surgical masks to the faces of two Chinese terracotta warriors in a protest against China's pollution problems.
Security guards stopped the man and escorted him away after alarms sounded, museum spokeswoman Hannah Boulton said.
The man was not arrested and the statues were not damaged, she said.
The exhibition, which took in more than $4 million just on advance sales of 200,000 tickets, includes 19 human figures selected from the more than 7,000 statues discovered in 1974 near the tomb of the ancient Chinese emperor Qin Shihuangdi.
The museum is using a novel approach in exhibiting the statues, allowing visitors to stand almost face to face with the commanding, life-size figures of warriors, archers, horses, musicians, acrobats and a charioteer.
"Part of the point of the exhibit is to see the statues up close," Boulton said.
The environmental protester stepped over a knee-high barrier to attach masks emblazoned with "CO2," the chemical notation for carbon dioxide.
The movement near the statue triggered a silent alarm at the museum's security center, but not before the masks were put on two of the warriors.
Greenpeace and other environmental activists have criticized China for its environmental policies.
China recently surpassed the United States as the world's largest greenhouse gas emitter, according to a June report by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency.
England captain John Terry looks set to play in his side's Euro 2008 qualifier against Russia after flying to Moscow with the rest of the squad on Monday.
The Chelsea central defender, who missed Saturday's 3-0 win over Estonia with a knee injury, returned to training on Monday morning and was given the all-clear to travel for a match which offers England the chance to seal their place in next year's finals.
Provided he suffers no reaction, Terry will return to the center of defence alongside Rio Ferdinand for Wednesday's match on the plastic pitch at the Luzhniki Stadium.
"John Terry will continue to be monitored by the England medical staff and assessed for any reaction," said an England
A win for England would ensure they qualify for the finals in Austria and Switzerland.
PARIS, France (CNN) First Interpol unmasked his face. Now it knows his name.
The international police organization, working off tips from people who responded to a global appeal for help, said Monday it has identified a suspected pedophile shown in Internet photos abusing young boys.
The man, whose face initially was disguised behind a digitalized swirl, is now thought to be on the run in Thailand, Interpol said.
He is said to be an English teacher at a school in South Korea.
While Interpol declined to release the suspect's name, police in Thailand said a 32-year-old Canadian named Christopher Paul Neil is the person sought.
"We believe he is still in Thailand and we are now collecting information from neighboring countries where he committed crimes of pedophilia so we can issue an arrest warrant for him," Thai police Col. Apichart Suribunya said.
Police raided the headquarters of a religious sect in central Japan on Monday and arrested 20 women for allegedly beating a member to death, an official said.
Motoko Okuno, 63, died last month at the Kigenkai sect's headquarters in the city of Komoro, allegedly after a mass beating, according to local news reports.
Police arrested the women late Monday on suspicion of injury leading to Okuno's death, according to a Komoro city police official.
The official refused to give his name, citing policy.
Kigenkai, founded in 1970, is based on Japan's indigenous Shinto religion.
Members sell purified water that they say can cure diseases for about $500 a bottle.
It has about 400 members across Japan, according to news reports.
Among those arrested were a girl as young as 15 and a woman as old as 80, according to the Kyodo News agency.
Some news reports suggested Okuno, who owned a sushi restaurant, was killed as punishment for failing to carry out religious rites.
Residents living near the headquarters told public broadcaster NHK they often heard drums beating from the compound.
(CNN) A man wanted in the videotaped sexual assault of a 3-year-old girl has been arrested, according to police in Nevada.
Chester Arthur Stiles, 37, was arrested following a routine traffic stop around 7 p.m. (10 p.m. ET) Monday night, according to Henderson Police Department spokesman Keith Paul.
Stiles was driving a white Buick Century without a license plate, police said.
During the traffic stop, Paul said, Stiles first presented a California driver's license that "didn't resemble him."
He later admitted to being Chester Stiles.
Stiles has been turned over to Las Vegas Metro Police, who were seeking him in connection with a four-year-old videotape that shows a small girl being sexually assaulted.
The girl, who is now 7, was found last month with her family in Las Vegas after a nationwide search generated thousands of tips.
Stiles, a resident of Pahrump, Nevada, was also sought by the FBI in a separate matter involving state charges of sexual assault and lewdness with a minor under the age of 14.
The tape of the girl's sexual assault was given to authorities by Darren Tuck, who told police he had found it in the desert five months earlier.
Because of the delay, during which police said Tuck allegedly showed the tape to others, he faces charges of exhibiting pornography and possession of child pornography.
He turned himself in to authorities in Nye County, Nevada, on September 30.
Israel and Palestinian negotiators are involved in the most serious effort in "many, many years" to try to end the Mideast conflict, said U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Monday.
"Frankly, it's time for the establishment of a Palestinian state and it's time for Israel to live in the security that is going to come with a peaceful and democratic neighbor," Rice said.
During a joint news conference with Rice, Abbas indicated his negotiators have already agreed on some issues with Israel, but he did not specify which ones.
"The Palestinian and Israeli delegations have started the work in order to prepare the document," said Abbas. "And certainly before we go to Washington this document will be ready." Watch Rice on how she senses a "seriousness" in the talks &raquo;
Moderate Arab nations have not yet said they would attend the conference, according to The Associated Press. No date has been announced for the conference.
That agreement with Israel "must involve looking to improve the lives of Palestinians economically, to improve the lives of the Palestinians in terms of movement and access.
Rice said the United States "sees the establishment of a Palestinian state and a two-state solution as absolutely essential for the future, not just of Palestinians and Israelis but also for the Middle East and indeed to American interests."
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2915426
CARACAS, Venezuela (CNN) The price of sin rose Monday in Venezuela where President Hugo Chavez is on a campaign to make Venezuelans cut back on drinking and smoking.
"Everyone's shocked," said Leonora Marino, owner of Bodegon Marino in Valencia, Venezuela, west of Caracas.
On Monday evening, she was still changing the prices in her store as her customers looked on and complained, she told a reporter.
Alcohol is now 10 percent more expensive;
cigarettes are 20 percent pricier.
"Really, it's difficult to buy at these prices," she said, then joked, "They say they're going to stop eating so that they can continue drinking.
The Venezuelan government is placing a higher tax on alcohol and cigarettes in an effort to cut consumption and prevent what it views as the social, economic and moral consequences of drinking and smoking, said Jose Vielma Mora, superintendent of Seniat, the government body that oversees the collection of taxes.
Taxes on whiskey, brandy, cognac and other drinks that don't come from cane sugar have been raised $1.79 (3,838 bolivares) per liter, the government-run Bolivarian News Agency said.
"It's unfair because, in the end, the consumer is the one who pays," said Fernando Fernandez, a liquor exporter.
Chavez has described whisky as a drink for rich people
The moves represent the first steps toward transforming each Venezuelan into what Chavez calls "the new man."
Chavez has cited the life of revolutionary socialist icon Ernesto "Che" Guevara as an example of how to lead a more pure life.
In April, Chavez told a graduating class of medical students in Caracas, Venezuela, that the level of consumption of alcohol in the country represents a threat to public health and ought to make residents feel ashamed, according to an ABN report.
"The vice causes much harm, not only to individuals, but to the collective health of the nation," said Chavez, who said the dangers result in an increase in car wrecks and domestic violence.
For his part, he has said he drinks too much coffee.
Taxes on cigarette imports have also increased, from 50 percent to 70 percent of the total price.
On the street, some people said they don't understand the motivations for the increase, but predicted their consumption would not change.
"The Venezuelan is not going to stop drinking or smoking," said one person.
Chavez also plans to increase taxes on luxury items such as Hummers, which are imported privately and at great expense. There is no Hummer dealership in the country.
petroleum-rich Venezuela. Last year, car sales increased by about 70 percent, according to the CIA World Factbook.
But Chavez, who was in Cuba Monday visiting communist leader Fidel Castro, said he wants to focus less on material goals for Venezuela's 27 million people, 38 percent of whom live in poverty.
British entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson said Monday he had all but given up hope that explorer Steve Fossett would be found alive.
Speaking on NBC's "Today" show, Branson described his friend Fossett as a remarkable individual who touched the lives of those he knew.
"I think the chances are that he's no longer with us," Branson said. "I think everybody involved has pretty well given up hope, sadly.
Branson said Fossett's wife, Peggy, had written to him to say she was returning to Nevada for one final search but the likely fate of her husband was "beginning to sink in.
Branson paid tribute to Fossett's record-breaking prowess.
He said Fossett had set 125 world records since the age of 55
"Incredible individual," Branson said.
Fossett, who made millions as a commodities broker in Chicago, also completed the 1,165-mile Iditarod sled-dog race, scaled some of the world's best-known peaks, sailed and flew around the world, and set more than 100 aviation and distance records.
The man believed to be responsible for last week's rocket attack on the U.S. Army's Camp Victory was captured in an early morning raid Monday, the U.S. military said.
In addition to the Camp Victory suspect, three other known associates of that man were captured in the Iraq Ministry of Agriculture compound in eastern Baghdad's Rusifiya district.
The four were hiding, which prompted U.S. soldiers to enter the compound to detain them, the military said.
The attack on Wednesday killed two U.S. soldiers and wounded 38 at Camp Victory, which is near Baghdad International Airport.
Two third-country nationals were also wounded in the attack, but the military did not clarify their nationalities.
"We have reason to believe that, through two intelligence-driven operations over the last few days, we now have detained all of the leadership and the key operatives of the indirect fire cell that attacked Victory Base last week," said Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks, Multi-National Division Baghdad's deputy commanding general.
On Sunday, two local journalists and a Washington Post reporter were shot dead in an area between Tikrit and Kirkuk in northern Iraq.
Tikrit police said two journalists working for a local newspaper were killed and three security guards were wounded in the ambush.
the Post, was shot and killed in the southwestern neighborhood of Saidiya, the paper reported in its Monday editions.
"The death of Salih Saif Aldin in the service of our readers is a tragedy for everyone at The Washington Post. He was a brave and valuable reporter who contributed much to our coverage of Iraq," said Leonard Downie Jr., executive editor of The Post, was quoted as saying.
SYDNEY, Australia (CNN) A kayaker fought off an 8-foot great white shark with her paddle on Monday after it knocked her off the craft at one of Australia's most popular beaches.
Linda Whitehurst, 52, was paddling her sea kayak near the eastern resort town of Byron Bay, about 375 miles north of Sydney, when the shark lunged at her, knocking her into the water, the paddler and police said.
It was one of two shark attacks in Australia on Monday.
"I'm going to lose a limb, that was my first thought," Whitehurst told Australian television.
"I had my blade in my hands so I punched at it with my blade.
That was the only way I was going to survive," she said, referring to the double-ended paddle used on sea kayaks.
"I just kept punching, punching, punching" at the shark until it swam away, she said.
Whitehurst made her way back to shore, where she received four stitches in her right arm for a small bite wound.
The local lifeguard association closed the Byron Bay beach, in New South Wales state, for several hours until they located the shark and chased it out to sea using boats, a common practice in Australia when sharks venture close to popular beaches.
Earlier Monday, a 31-year-old man was attacked by a bronze whaler shark while spear-fishing near Australia's Great Barrier Reef in northeastern Queensland state.
The man, who was not identified, was treated onboard his charter boat for a deep cut to his calf muscle before being airlifted by helicopter to a hospital in the northern city of Cairns.
Meet Paris Hilton, grown-up.
"There are a lot of bad people in L.A. Before, my life was about having fun, going to parties it was a fantasy," she tells Newsweek magazine in its October 22 issue, now on newsstands.
"But when I had time to reflect, I felt empty inside. I want to leave a mark on the world.
Hilton says she is now committed to using her celebrity status for the greater good.
There are a lot of misconceptions about me.
Hilton says her dating life isn't as wild as the tabloids make it out to be.
I trust them more. They don't get all girly and mean. Girls have drama."
With its anonymous skyline and mind-numbing traffic, Seoul may not seem like a sci-fi city.
It's where hardcore online gamers get paid as professionals.
It's where social networking, in the form of the incredibly successful Cyworld, has been abuzz since 1999 predating both Facebook and MySpace.
It's also where watching live television on your mobile is an everyday habit.
"DMB phones," as they're known, are so 2005.
These days, consumers are getting ready for the launch of the BluEye by SK Telecom a matchbook-sized projector that simply plugs into your handset to screen mobile videos.
They're also gearing up for the LG Viewty, a high-feature camera phone that shoots videos at 120 frames per second and, in certain markets, uploads the video to YouTube with a single click.
This is the land where tomorrow reigns, as local consumers are all too willing to flaunt the next new thing.
Sanjin Lee, Director of the Ministry of Information and Communication (read:
South Korea's I.T. czar), tells me that Koreans are simply "impatient" and have "I.T. DNA.
This gotta-have-it technolust has in turn forced the government to deliver the future.
The country boasts more than 30 million mobile subscribers out of a population of around 49 million, and more than three quarters of Korean homes enjoy blazingly fast broadband.
LONDON, England (CNN) Some English people have resorted to pulling out their own teeth because they cannot find or cannot afford a dentist, a major study has revealed.
Six percent of those questioned in a survey of 5,000 patients admitted they had resorted to self-treatment using pliers and glue, the UK's Press Association reported.
England has a two-tier dental care system with some dentists offering publicly subsidized treatment through the National Health Service and others performing more expensive private work.
But more than three-quarters of those polled said they had been forced to pay for private treatment because they had been unable to find an NHS dentist. Almost a fifth said they had refused dental treatment because of the cost.
One respondent in Lancashire, northern England, claimed to have extracted 14 of their own teeth with a pair of pliers.
Others said they had fixed broken crowns using glue to avoid costly dental work.
Valerie Halsworth, 64, told British television's GMTV she had removed seven of her own teeth using her husband's pliers when her toothache became unbearable and she was unable to find an NHS dentist willing to treat her.
Halsworth admitted that the first extraction had been "excruciatingly painful."
Sharon Grant, chair of the Commission for Patient and Public Involvement in Health, which commissioned the survey, said: "These findings indicate that the NHS dental system is letting many patients down very badly.
"Where NHS dental services are available, people are happy with the quality of treatment provided but many find the NHS fee system confusing and expensive, with some patients taking out loans to pay for treatment or more worryingly taking matters into their own hands."
PARIS, France (CNN) A suspected pedophile sought in a worldwide Interpol manhunt has been identified and is believed to be in Thailand, the international police organization said Monday.
The man was allegedly shown sexually abusing 12 young Vietnamese and Cambodian boys, apparently ranging in age from six to early teens, in about 200 photographs posted on the Internet. The man's face was disguised in the photos as a digitalized whirl.
Using techniques that neither they nor Interpol would discuss, German police recreated an image of the man's face and released four reconstructed photos of him last week.
Interpol said more than 350 people then supplied tips to authorities worldwide, leading them to identify the man as an English teacher who worked at a school in South Korea.
Interpol said it now knows the suspect's name, nationality, date of birth and passport number, but it did not release that information in its statement.
Interpol again appealed for public help to track him down now.
"Thailand is at the center of an international manhunt, and authorities in the country, in co-operation with Interpol and police around the world, are hunting him down," Interpol's secretary general, Ronald K. Noble, said in a statement.
LONDON, England (CNN) Two planes were involved Monday night in a minor collision at Heathrow Airport, an official with the London Fire Brigade told CNN.
There were no injuries, he added.
A spokesman for British Airways told the UK's Press Association one of their planes was involved.
"Our aircraft had a minor collision with another aircraft in the taxiways. Engineers are inspecting the aircraft to ascertain the damage. The passengers have been offloaded and returned to the terminal building," he told PA.
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (CNN) A Palestinian man managed to stow away in a wheel well of an airplane flying from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore, prompting Malaysian officials to order a probe into how he breached security, reports said Sunday.
Osama R.M. Shublaq stunned the ground crew at Changi Airport when he fell out from the wheel well of the Singapore Airlines aircraft, a Boeing 777-200, shortly after it landed late Thursday, The Star, a Malaysian daily, reported in its online edition.
It said Shublaq was dizzy from a lack of oxygen after the 55-minute flight, but was otherwise unhurt.
Shublaq was detained by Singaporean police and charged with entering the island illegally.
Malaysian Transport Minister Chan Kong Choy expressed dismay at the breach of security at Malaysia's main airport.
"Such an incident should not occur, as the airport area has tight security.
The government has ordered an investigation, Malaysian national news agency Bernama said.
YANGON, Myanmar (CNN) Myanmar's ruling junta restored Internet access but kept foreign news sites blocked, partially easing its crackdown as a U.N. envoy arrived in Thailand on Sunday to rally neighboring governments around demands for democratic reforms in the country.
The junta cut Internet access on September 28, two days after troops opened fire on peaceful protesters and images of the crackdown were plastered on Web sites.
Internet service was intermittently restored earlier this month.
Foreign news Web sites, including the BBC and CNN, however, remained inaccessible along with blogs and overseas-hosted dissident sites, which had provided many inside tightly controlled Myanmar with their only information about the pro-democracy protests.
Earlier this month Gambari met with Myanmar junta leader Gen. Than Shwe during a four-day visit, urging the government to end its crackdown on protesters.
He also met twice with detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
His negotiating efforts have not yet resulted in a dialogue between the government and opposition.
Myanmar's government has said Than Shwe is willing to meet with Suu Kyi "personally" if she gives up her confrontational attitude and renounces support for sanctions against the military regime.
Authorities in the country relaxed a nighttime curfew to cover four hours from 11 p.m. to 3 a.m starting Saturday night.
It was initially 9 p.m. to 5 a.m.
The concessions, however, came amid reports that the government continued to detain dissidents.
Elena Dementieva shrugged off the loss of the opening set to outplay Serena Williams to claim the Kremlin Cup title in Moscow for the first time on Sunday.
Fourth seed Williams looked in control as she took the opening set but only won two further games as Dementieva swept to a 5-7 6-1 6-1 victory.
Dementieva, who was unseeded, was winning her second title of 2007 and will move back into the world top 10.
Williams looked set to
A total of 59 unforced errors for world ranked number seven Williams told the story as Dementieva pocketed the winning purse of $182,000.
Thailand's beloved and influential king was hospitalized Saturday after feeling weakness on the right side of his body, the royal palace said.
His condition improved after doctors administered medicine for eight hours, the statement said. He was kept in the hospital for monitoring.
Bhumibol, the world's longest-serving living monarch, is a unifying figure in Thailand.
People usually turn to him in times of crisis, even though strictly speaking his powers are limited as a constitutional monarch.
Because of the almost universal respect he commands, politicians and civil servants also follow closely any hints of the palace's desires when it comes to policy decisions.
Concern over Bhumibol's health and a potential successor has intensified in recent years as the king has suffered a number of medical ailments, including heart problems.
He underwent spinal surgery in July after suffering years of back pain from lumbar spinal stenosis, a narrowing of the spinal canal that can result from aging.
He also sustained injuries including a fractured rib in June when he fell during a walk outside the palace.
Bhumibol celebrated his 60th year on the throne with lavish festivities last year.
A provincial intelligence official in Iraq's Kurdish city of Dohuk said the shelling set orchards and farmland ablaze, but no casualties were reported.
Firefighters worked until just before daybreak to put out a blaze that scorched fields on farms near the border.
Turkey's military reported Saturday that Kurdish separatist guerrillas attacked villages on its side of the border late Friday, wounding one soldier near the village of Yemisli.
"The Turkish military responded to these unacceptable attacks and will continue to respond," a military statement said.
The most recent shelling began at 10:30 p.m. Saturday and lasted for more than four hours, striking farmlands and adjacent roads used by villagers.
The shelling comes as Turkey's government is threatening to mount a cross-border attack to root out guerrillas from the separatist Kurdistan Worker's Party, or PKK, which has battled Turkish troops in the country's heavily Kurdish southeast since 1984.
Turkey has about 60,000 on Iraq's northern frontier, and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan says he will ask parliament this week to authorize a military incursion a move U.S. officials fear could undermine the stability of Iraq's American-backed government.
U.S. envoys have urged Iraq to crack down on the rebels and held weekend talks in Ankara to persuade NATO ally Turkey to stay its hand.
Iraqi Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammed al-Askari could not confirm Sunday's reports, but restated that Iraq's official position is to resolve all issues with neighboring countries including Turkey diplomatically, based on Iraq's constitution and law.
Defense Minister Abdel Qader Mohammed Jassim has been involved in diplomatic talks with the Turkish Ambassador in Baghdad and has called for resolving these issues "peacefully" and strengthening ties between Iraq and Turkey, al-Askari said.
BANGKOK, Thailand (CNN) Six Western tourists and two Thai guides died after flash floods swept them away while they were exploring a cave at a southern Thai national park, police said Sunday. At least one tourist survived.
The group was trekking through the Khao Sok national park in Surathani province late Saturday afternoon when a heavy rainfall caused flash floods that sent water surging through the cave, which was near a waterfall, Pichan said.
The tourists who died were three Swiss women, one Swiss man, a British man and a 10-year-old German boy, police Lt. Col. Pichan Kanayasiri said.
A British woman, who managed to cling to a part of the cave, was found alive after a long search, Pichan said.
Carroll was shown, in tears, leaving the national park by boat with her rescuers.
It was not immediately clear how large the cave was, but Pichan said a Belgian tourist was killed by a flash flood there several years ago.
"The tourists were inside the cave and didn't know what was happening outside," Pichan said. "They were trapped inside the cave.
The province's governor, Winai Phopradit, said he had ordered the national park to close during the current rainy season.
"We have signs both in English and Thai warning tourists not to go into the cave during heavy rains," he said.
A Vatican official suspended after being caught on hidden camera making advances to a young man said in an interview published Sunday that he is not gay and was only pretending to be gay as part of his work.
In an interview with La Repubblica newspaper, Monsignor Tommaso Stenico said he frequented online gay chat rooms and met with gay men as part of his work as a psychoanalyst.
He said that he pretended to be gay in order to gather information about "those who damage the image of the Church with homosexual activity.
Vatican teaching holds that homosexual activity is a sin.
I was a victim of my own attempts to contribute to cleaning up the Church with my psychoanalyst work," La Repubblica quoted Stenico as saying.
Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi said Saturday that the monsignor had been suspended pending a Vatican investigation.
The Vatican acted after officials recognized Stenico's office in the background of a television program on gay priests that was broadcast on Oct. 1 on La7, a private Italian TV network.
Fidel Castro called in to the Venezuelan president during a television and radio broadcast on Sunday, the first time the ailing Cuban leader has made a live media appearance since February.
The telephone call came minutes after visiting Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez aired a new videotape of their weekend meeting in which he sang revolutionary hymns to Castro and called him "father of all revolutionaries.
Castro said he was moved by Chavez's singing and went on to praise Ernesto "Che" Guevara as a "sower of the conscience.
"I am very touched when you sing about Che," Castro told Chavez during his call to Chavez's "Alo, Presidente!" program referring to revolutionary icon Ernesto "Che" Guevara, to whom the program was dedicated.
"There is electricity in the air," Chavez said, obviously pleased with Castro's call.
The dark-colored painting showed the bars of his cell and a night scene beyond, with a full red moon and a guard tower in the distance. Castro told him he needed to sign his work. "No one knows the merit that this has, that you did this.
Cuban state television was broadcasting Chavez's program live from Santa Clara, where the communist government last week commemorated the 40th anniversary of Guevara's death.
BEIJING, China (CNN) The elite of China's Communist Party opened their five-yearly congress on Monday where they will put forth a blueprint for reforming political institutions, but the steps aim to strengthen one-party rule and will not copy Western democratic models, a spokesman said Sunday.
The congress, held once every five years, is a crucial test of strength for president and party leader Hu Jintao.
He is set to open it Monday with a speech laying out the policy agenda for what is expected to be his final five years in power.
Previewing the gathering's agenda, congress spokesman Li Dongsheng said reforms were geared toward "improving socialist democracy" a catch-phrase for one-party rule.
"Our objective is to build institutions, define regulation and put in place procedures for our democracy," Li told reporters at a news conference at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, where the party's 17th congress will be held.
Li said the party has studied and drawn from other country's political systems, along with its own experiences. "But, we will never copy the Western model of a political system," he added.
Li gave few specifics and declined to answer questions about expected retirements and promotions in the party's ruling Politburo, highlighting the secretive party's extreme sensitivity over personnel issues.
He was referring to Communist Party control over individual leaders, not an attempt to limit the party's unrivaled hold on power.
Li did not elaborate, but the congress is expected to address the case of former Politburo member and Shanghai party boss Chen Liangyu, who became the highest-ranking party member to fall in a decade when he was toppled amid a probe into wide-ranging corruption.
The weeklong congress will offer a measure of Hu's authority after five years in power, especially his ability to maneuver allies possibly including a designated successor into key positions.
Insurgents in Iraq targeted Shiite Muslims on Sunday the second day of the Eid al-Fitr festival in separate attacks that left at least 24 dead, Iraqi officials said.
The deadliest attack happened in Samarra, north of Baghdad, where a car bomb detonated near a mosque in the city's center.
The explosion was followed by clashes between gunmen and Iraqi security forces, according to Samarra police.
At least 18 were killed 10 civilians and eight security officers and 37 were wounded in the blast and gunfight in Samarra, police said.
Insurgents on Sunday also bombed a minibus in Baghdad as it carried pilgrims to one of Shiite Islam's holiest shrines, killing at least six and wounding nine others including women and children Iraqi officials said.
It was unclear where the bomb was placed.
An Iraqi Interior Ministry official said the device was planted on the bus heading to the Imam Musa al-Kadhim shrine in Baghdad's Kadhimiya district.
But the Ministry of Defense said the explosion came from a bomb in a car parked near the bus.
Iraqi police also found and defused an explosive device in a van parked near an air base in central Baghdad.
The deadly bombing in Samarra was the second this weekend in the Shiite holy city, about 75 miles (120 kilometers) north of Baghdad in Salaheddin province.
ISTANBUL, Turkey (CNN) Turkey's top general warned that ties with the U.S., already strained by attacks from rebels hiding in Iraq, will be irreversibly damaged if Congress passes a resolution that labels the World War I-era killings of Armenians a genocide.
Turkey, which is a major cargo hub for U.S. and allied military forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, has recalled its ambassador to Washington for consultations and warned that there might be a cut in the logistical support to the U.S. over the issue.
"If this resolution [that]passed in the committee passes the House as well, our military ties with the U.S. will never be the same again," Gen. Yasar Buyukanit told the daily Milliyet newspaper.
Despite the general's strong words, it is not clear how far Turkey will go to express its dismay to Washington.
Turkey suspended its military ties with France last year after the French parliament's lower house adopted a bill that would have made it a crime to deny that the Armenian killings constituted a genocide.
But there is more at stake for NATO's only Muslim member when it comes to its relations with the U.S.
The Turkish military, and especially the air force, is heavily dependent on the American defense industry, experts say.
Still, when Washington imposed an arms embargo against Turkey in 1975 due to a dispute over Cyprus, Turkey ended all its logistical support to U.S. troops and sharing of intelligence until the embargo was lifted, said Onur Oymen, the country's former permanent representative to NATO.
President Bush has said the resolution is the wrong response to the Armenian deaths, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the measure's timing was important "because many of the survivors are very old.
In an interview broadcast Sunday with ABC's "This Week," Pelosi noted that the resolution would make the U.S. the 24th country to label the killings a genocide.
"Listen, there's no question that the suffering of the Armenian people some 90 years ago was extreme.
In addition, cargo planes fly supplies to U.S. soldiers in remote areas of Iraq from Incirlik, avoiding the use of Iraqi roads vulnerable to bomb attacks. U.S. officials say the arrangement helps reduce American casualties.
Many international historians contend the deaths amounted to genocide, but Turkey says the mass killings and deportations were not systematic and that many non-Kurds also died in the chaos of war.
U.S. officials have urged Turkey not to send troops and appealed for a diplomatic solution with Iraq. The Kurdish region in northern Iraq is one of the country's few relatively stable areas, and the Kurds here are also a longtime U.S. ally.
Speaking to The Associated Press deep in the Qandil mountains straddling the Iraq-Turkish border, some 94 miles from the northern Iraqi Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah, Murat Karayilan, head of the armed wing of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, warned that an eventual Turkish incursion would "make Turkey experience a Vietnam war.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice opened an intense round of Mideast shuttle diplomacy Sunday, struggling to bring Israelis and Palestinians close enough to make a planned U.S.-hosted peace conference worthwhile.
She said intends to return at least once to the Mideast before the conference. Rice said she wanted to "help them narrow differences that they may have about what the nature of this document has to be.
"I also think it's important that the document be substantive enough that it points that there is a way forward toward the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has been told about a plot to assassinate him during a visit to Iran this week, a Kremlin spokeswoman said Sunday.
The spokeswoman, who spoke on customary condition of anonymity, refused further comment.
A spokesman for Iran's foreign ministry, Mohammad Ali Hosseini, denied any such plot had been uncovered, characterizing the news as disinformation spread by Iran's adversaries.
night from Germany after meetings with Chancellor Angela Merkel.
During his visit to Iran, Putin is to meet with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and attend Tuesday's summit of Caspian Sea nations.
He will be the first Kremlin leader to travel to Iran since Josef Stalin attended a 1943 wartime summit with Britain's Winston Churchill and President Franklin Roosevelt.
Officials have reported uncovering at least two other plots to kill Putin on foreign trips since he became president in 2000.
NEW DELHI, India (CNN) A bomb ripped through a packed movie theater in northern India on Sunday, killing at least six people and wounding at least 30 others, authorities said.
The blast in Ludhiana, an industrial town in India's Punjab state, is the second apparent terror attack this week in northern India.
Two people were killed days earlier in the bombing of a venerated Muslim shrine in the neighboring state of Rajasthan.
Sunday's attack occurred on one of the holiest days of the Muslim calendar, Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan, and came weeks before two major Hindu festivals, Dussehra and Diwali.
The Shringar cinema was packed when the blast occurred around 8:50 p.m. in one of its three theaters.
Some 600 people were taking in a recently released Bollywood romance, "Janan Janam Ke Saath," or "Together Through Several Lifetimes," the Press Trust of India news agency reported.
India television broadcast scenes of shattered windows and glass doors in the cinema's lobby, and the CNN-IBN television news channel said some of the wounded had lost limbs in the blast.
A senior police official, Ishwar Singh, told reporters that the explosion was caused by a single bomb.
Six men were killed two who died in the blast and four who later succumbed to their injuries, he said.
At least 30 others were wounded, he said.
Other officials warned that the death toll could rise.
Authorities said Thursday's explosion, which took place in the town of Ajmer, was caused by a small bomb packed inside a tin lunch box that was detonated during evening Muslim prayers.
Police also discovered another bomb at the shrine that had apparently failed to detonate.
But investigators said they interrogated Indian and Bangladeshi pilgrims in connection with the bombing of the Muslim shrine, although they have so far made no arrests.
Officials offered no evidence of a link between the two attacks.
India has routinely blamed Pakistani and Bangladeshi-based Islamic militants for a series of attacks that have rocked the country over the last two years, saying they were meant to provoke violence between India's Hindu majority and Muslim minority.
Relations between Hindus, who make up more than 80 percent of India's population, and Muslims, who account for about 130 million of India's 1.1 billion people, have been relatively peaceful since the bloody partition of the subcontinent into India and Muslim Pakistan at independence from Britain in 1947. But there have been sporadic bouts of violence.
(CNN) U.S. military planners quietly have stepped up a review of alternatives in case the Turkish government restricts U.S. access to Turkish airspace or cuts off access to the air base at Incirlik, Turkey, CNN has learned.
Turkey has threatened such action after congressional moves to declare that the killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in World War I was "genocide.
Turkey now a NATO member and a key U.S. ally in the war on terror accepts Armenians were killed but calls it a massacre during a chaotic time, not an organized campaign of genocide.
The recent rise in tensions between Turkey and the United States has led the military to increase its planning for alternatives, two military officials with direct knowledge of the ongoing assessment said.
"Events have triggered more detailed planning for the curtailment or closure" of access to Turkey, one official said.
The U.S. military already had been considering alternatives to Turkey because of the growing dependence on that country after the cutback of U.S. forces in central Asia in recent years.
But now, with more "detailed planning" under way, the military is considering a variety of options in hopes of being ready for whatever, if anything, the Turks do.
U.S. officials say Turkey's options range from a complete cutoff, including ending overland access routes from southern Turkey into Iraq, to less drastic options that simply restrict U.S. access.
The initial assessment is that any cutoff from current access to Turkey would force the U.S. military into longer cargo flights,
which would mean extra costs for fuel and for wear and tear on equipment.
It may also look for other air hubs in Jordan or Kuwait, officials say
Defense Secretary Robert Gates earlier this week pointed out, "Seventy percent of the air cargo, American air cargo, going into Iraq goes through Turkey. Seventy percent of the fuel that goes in for our forces goes in ... through Turkey ...
"For those who are concerned that we get as many of these mine-resistant ambush-protected heavy vehicles into Iraq as possible, 95 percent of those vehicles today are being flown into Iraq through Turkey.
Turkey on Thursday recalled its ambassador to the United States and warned of repercussions in the growing dispute.
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (CNN) Animal control workers seized dozens of dogs and cats from housing projects in the town of Barceloneta and hurled them from a bridge to their deaths, authorities and witnesses said Friday.
He said the city paid $60 for every animal recovered and another $100 for each trip to a shelter in the San Juan suburb of Carolina.
"They came as if it were a drug raid," said Alma Febus, an animal welfare activist. "They took away dogs, cats and whatever animal they could find. Some pets were taken away in front of children. "
"Some of the animals managed to climb to the highway even though they were all battered, but about 50 animals remained there, dead.
Rivera said he alerted officials, who spread lime over the animals' corpses to control the stench.
Animal shelters are overwhelmed and must kill many of the dogs they receive, according to Victor Collazo, president of the island's Association of Medical Veterinarians.
LONDON, England (CNN) Nurses who didn't wash their hands and left patients lying in soiled beds were cited in an official report blaming mismanagement for the deaths of 90 people who contracted a bacterial infection in hospitals in southern England.
"Significant failings" at all levels contributed to infections of more than 1,000 patients at three hospitals, the Healthcare Commission said Thursday.
The patients were infected with Clostridium difficile, or C. diff, which can cause diarrhea, colitis and other intestinal problems, officials said.
"The Healthcare Commission has passed the copy of the report to us and that is being reviewed," said a spokesman for Kent Police, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with force policy.
the spread of the highly contagious bacterium said nurses at three hospitals run by the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS trust were often too busy to wash their hands and left patients in their own excrement.
Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS trust acknowledged that it had not been prepared for "an outbreak of that size and complexity" but had learned from the mistakes.
The trust's Chief Executive Rose Gibb resigned last week.
Health Minister Ann Keen said the failures, which led to the deaths of patients over a 21/2-year period, must not be repeated.
"Trusts must deliver clean, safe treatment to every patient, every time and where senior management and trust boards fail to act,
they must be held accountable," Keen said.
The trust has also introduced extra cleaners and nurses on affected wards and asked family doctors not to send patients with diarrhea to hospital, measures that will continue until the outbreak ends.
In recent years, Britain's superbug infection rates of bacteria like Clostridium difficile and MRSA have skyrocketed.
In the 1990s, only five percent of in-hospital blood infections were from MRSA, the deadly bacteria resistant to nearly every available antibiotic.
In past years, that figure has jumped to more than 40 percent.
Critics blame the rise on overstretched hospitals that do not have enough money or capacity to catch superbug infections early.
SYDNEY, Australia (CNN) Yes, the trip is long, very long.
That's the short answer to the first question people ask when you say you've been to Australia.
It's about 14 hours from Los Angeles to Brisbane.
For me, a few steps up and down the aisle, a few catnaps, a couple of movies.
I stretched my legs under the seat now and then, trying not to bother the guy in front.
Bloody right!
Seeing little blue penguins muster at nightfall at the Southern Ocean's edge for their ritual march to their nests.
My wife and I had left a Maine winter behind to complete a long-unfinished mission.
We decided now it was time to go.
We worked in a stay in New Zealand in a package arranged by our travel agent.
Like other Aussie cities, Sydney is walker-friendly, with tons of shops and closed-street malls.
Navigating the excellent public transit system is easy;
For a beer (a popular local brand is Victoria Bitter) count on spending at least $3.50. Opera house tours run about $28.
At the beach, February's late-summer water was in the 70s, so the swimming was fine.
But an early-morning stroll along Cairns' seaside promenade and park is a must.
If Cairns is where Australians play, Melbourne is where they work.
Melbourne is a city of tram cars, one of which offers free rides around a perimeter downtown with stops at sites such as Fitzroy Gardens, where Capt. Cook's cottage has been relocated.
The waterfront along the Yarra River is lined with restaurants and shops and, for those so inclined, the grand Crown Casino.
If you're flying from Australia to New Zealand (less than three hours) and you don't have a window seat, try to swap for one. Beg if you must.
I lucked out. The clear day offered breathtaking views of the snow-capped mountains of "The Lord of the Rings" land below as we flew toward Christchurch on the South Island.
you can glide along the river in a flat-bottomed gondola guided by young men outfitted in straw boaters who propel the craft along with long poles, Venice-style.
I chose to leap with clothes on, from a platform 1,300 feet above the city and gleaming Lake Wakapitu. Their advice as I peered to the ledge below:
If you've gone this far, book a ride to Milford Sound, the glacier-carved fjord about five hours from Queenstown.
MEXICO CITY, Mexico (CNN) An aspiring horror novelist was arrested after police discovered his girlfriend's torso in his closet, a leg in the refrigerator and bones in a cereal box, the city prosecutor's spokesman said Thursday.
Nearby they found the draft of a novel titled "Cannibalistic Instincts," said the official, who spoke on customary condition of anonymity.
that body parts were spread throughout the apartment, and that Calva is being investigated in the deaths of three women whose mutilated bodies had been found in and around the capital.
Police had come to Calva's apartment Monday to investigate the disappearance of his girlfriend, Alejandra Galeana, a 30-year-old pharmacy clerk and single mother, according to the prosecutor's office.
Calva also is being investigated in the mutilation killings of
VATICAN CITY (CNN) Pope Benedict XVI appealed Thursday to South Koreans' "inherent moral sensibility" to reject embryonic stem cell research and human cloning after the country decided to let embryonic stem cell research resume.
Benedict also praised South Korea's efforts to halt North Korea's nuclear ambitions in comments to Seoul's new ambassador to the Vatican, Ji-Young Francesco Kim, who presented his credentials to the pontiff.
"It is my ardent hope that the ongoing participation of various countries involved in the negotiation process will lead to a cessation of programs designed to develop and produce weapons with frightening potential for unspeakable destruction," Benedict said.
Separately, the pope noted South Korea's "notable successes in scientific research and development." But he said such research must be carried out with "firm ethical standards" that always respect the dignity of human life.
"The destruction of human embryos, whether to acquire stem cells or for any other purpose, contradicts the purported intent of researchers, legislators and public health officials to promote human welfare," the pope said.
"I pray that the inherent moral sensibility of the Korean people, as evidenced by their rejection of human cloning and related procedures, will help attune the international community to the deep ethical and social implications of scientific research and its utilization," the pontiff said.
YANGON, Myanmar (CNN) Guards at Myanmar's detention centers beat, kicked and slashed protesters rounded up during the crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations, sometimes leaving their victims to die of their injuries, a dissident group said Thursday.
At the United Nations, meanwhile, the Security Council said it "strongly deplores" the violent crackdown by Myanmar's military rulers and called for a "genuine dialogue" between the government and the pro-democracy opposition.
At least a dozen freed prisoners described brutal treatment at detention centers, including one who said "dozens" of detainees were killed, according to the Democratic Voice of Burma, a Norway-based short-wave radio station and Web site run by dissident journalists.
Myanmar's repressive military junta has said 10 people were killed and nearly 2,100 arrested in last month's demonstrations, with 700 later released.
Diplomats and dissidents say the death toll is likely much higher and up to 6,000 people were seized.
The government has long rejected allegations of torture of political prisoners.
"They beat everyone, including women and girls," the dissident group quoted an unidentified female detainee as saying.
"I heard people shouting and crying from the interrogation room and then I saw an army medical surgeon carrying people away," said the woman.
The group said she was held at the Government Technical Institute detention center in Yangon for five days.
The Democratic Voice of Burma also reported Thursday that a 48-year-old detainee, U Than Aung, died at a detention center in Yangon. Detained September 27, he suffered severe internal injuries from beatings and died three days later after being denied medical attention, the group said.
The group also released video of an unidentified man who said "dozens" of detainees died.
Another man was quoted as saying he saw two people die from severe beatings at Yangon City Hall.
Authorities failed to give a boy medical treatment for a gunshot wound and even refused to let him drink water from a toilet before he died, the man was quoted as saying.
Human rights groups have long accused the military government of abuse and torture of prisoners.
The Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, comprised of around 100 former inmates, has put out a report describing homosexual rape, electric shocks to the genitals and other abuse.
The embattled junta on Thursday accused Western powers and foreign media of inciting the protests.
A compromise statement approved Thursday by all 15 U.N. Security Council members including close Myanmar ally China emphasized "the importance of the early release of all political prisoners and remaining detainees.
The United States, Britain and France proposed a stronger text that would have condemned the violence and called for the immediate release of the political prisoners and detainees.
The council statement was read at a formal meeting shortly after the U.N. announced that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was sending his special envoy to Myanmar, Ibrahim Gambari, back to the region next week for consultations with key governments on international efforts to promote talks between the government and the opposition.
The United States and other countries have pushed for international sanctions, but China said that only a more conciliatory approach would work.
"The international community should help in a constructive way to help Myanmar to realize stability, reconciliation, democracy and development.
Authorities, meanwhile, continued their hunt for dissidents and their supporters.
A popular Myanmar actor and social activist, Kyaw Thu, and his wife, Myint Myint Pe Khin, were arrested Wednesday, relatives said Thursday.
Kyaw Thu had openly supported the protest and set up a support committee offering food, water and medical treatment to the monks who participated.
Kyaw Thu went into hiding when his colleague, Zarganar, a comedian known for his anti-government jibes, was arrested September 26.
It was not known what happened to them.
LONDON, England (CNN) Jurors at the inquest into the death of Princess Diana Thursday were shown pictures of her at the scene of a fatal car crash 10 years ago photos a lawyer said made clear the paparazzi "had no compunction" about photographing the victims.
The images were pixilated to obscure Diana's face, and Lord Justice Scott Baker, who is acting as coroner, said none of the images would be released to the public.
The inquest is examining the deaths of Diana and her companion Dodi Fayed in Paris, where the couple had been pursued by paparazzi.
Photographers were among the first to reach the scene of the crash, witnesses have testified.
"It is perfectly clear from the photographs the jury has been through that the paparazzi who were present at the scene of the crash had no compunction about taking photographs of the victims both inside the car and being carried outside the car," said Michael Mansfield, a lawyer representing Fayed's father, Mohamed al Fayed.
One of the photos seen by the jury, taken shortly after midnight on August 31, 1997, showed Diana, identifiable by her blonde hair, on the floor of the back seat of the crumpled Mercedes.
Another showed photographer Romuald Rat squatting next to the open door of the car.
The inquest required by British law when someone dies unexpectedly, violently or of unknown causes had been delayed for 10 years because of the two exhaustive investigations by French and British police.
Both concluded that the couple's driver Henri Paul was drunk, was driving too fast and that the deaths were an accident.
Paul also died.
Fayed's father contends that the couple were the targets of a plot orchestrated by Prince Philip, the husband of Queen Elizabeth II.
Responding to a question from Mansfield, Inspector Paul Carpenter of the Metropolitan Police said he had found no images of the Mercedes' movements after it left the Ritz Hotel until it had crashed in the tunnel.
Earlier, a witness testifying by videolink from Paris recalled seeing motorcycles chasing a Mercedes at high speed on the night Diana died.
Thierry Hackett, who was driving along the route taken by Diana and Fayed after they left the Ritz hotel, also said he saw the Mercedes swerving because, he thought, it was being "hindered by the motorbikes.
Lawyers for the inquest also read statements by people who thought they heard squealing tires and a crash behind them in the Pont d'Alma tunnel, where the couple's car slammed into a pillar, but could not see what happened.
Hackett gave two statements to French authorities soon after the princess' death, but on Thursday he said several times that his memory of the night was now vague.
For instance, he told the inquest that he thought the car that passed him was a large, light-colored German car but he did not know the make. In his statements in 1997, he had said it was a black Mercedes.
Hackett said he saw at least two or three motorcycles chasing the German car he had said four or five in the earlier statements with one pacing the car on the right side.
He said that a motorcycle, carrying two people, passed him at the same time as the German car.
"It was very close. I was a bit scared, they were really close," he said.
In a 1997 statement, Hackett said the big car was swerving: "Clearly the driver of the vehicle was being hindered by the motorbikes.
On Wednesday, Antonio Lopes Borges and Ana Simao told of seeing a black Mercedes race away from a traffic light, pursued by other vehicles, and of seeing the same Mercedes minutes later, crumpled by a collision with a pillar in the tunnel.
The couple, who have a four-year-old daughter, Beatrice Milly, arrived in separate vehicles at the back of the Royal Courts of Justice in central London.
They left in separate vehicles seven hours later without saying anything, The Associated Press reports.
It's not known if they reached an agreement.
Around two dozen reporters and cameramen had assembled around the rear gates of the family section of the building, an expression of the intense media interest the case has generated, as the couple went inside for the first hearing
Mills, 39, was shielded from photographers by a man holding a large black cloth as she entered the building.
McCartney, 65, arrived at court dressed in a dark gray suit, waving to the crowd from his car.
Once inside, the pair made their way to a private court room to work out details of a settlement expected to cost McCartney in excess of $100 million in total payouts, according to some legal experts.
The couple, who first met at a charity event, insisted at the time the split was "amicable" despite widespread reports of a tempestuous relationship between the former Beatle and Mills, an ex-model.
The final settlement is likely to be a single lump sum followed by annual payments to Mills until the couple's daughter reaches 18 years-old, and could include a privacy clause barring either party from speaking publicly about the split.
Estimated at over $100 million, the divorce settlement would be the highest in British legal history but would still fall short of other celebrity divorces.
The singer Neil Diamond lost half his fortune an estimated $150 million when he separated from his wife of 25 years, Marcia Murphy, in 1994, citing irreconcilable differences.
Diamond later said his ex-wife was "worth every penny.
Steven Spielberg paid Amy Irving $100 million after she successfully contested their prenuptial agreement following nearly four years of marriage.
ISTANBUL, Turkey (CNN) An Egyptian plane carrying 133 people to Warsaw caught fire Thursday after making an emergency landing at Istanbul's international airport, local media reported.
It said the aircraft carried 126 passengers and seven crew.
The plane was forced to land in Istanbul due to a technical problem, but its landing gear failed to work properly, Dogan said.
The aircraft landed on its main body, starting a fire, the agency said.
It was not clear if anyone was injured.
The name of the airline was not immediately known.
(CNN) At least three people have been killed and 20 more injured following an explosion at a revered Islamic shrine in the northern Indian state of Rajasthan, CNN sister station CNN-IBN reported on Thursday.
The blast occurred outside Dargah Sharif, a Sufi monument in the state's pilgrimage town of Ajmer, during Iftar, the daily breaking of fast following Ramadan.
At least 500 people were gathered inside, CNN-IBN reported.
Journalist Virendra Arya, who was inside the shrine at the time of the blast, told CNN-IBN that one person died at the scene and another succumbed to fatal injuries en route to hospital.
They also cited similarities to a bomb blast at a Hyderabad mosque in May which killed 11 people.
Rajasthan police chief Kanhiya Lal said markets surrounding the area had been closed and law and order has been restored.
"We will see to it that everything is back to normal by tomorrow and that people can return to pray," he said.
(CNN) The makers of several leading over-the-counter cold medications are voluntarily withdrawing products sold for infants, the Consumer Healthcare Products Association said Thursday.
The trade group said the products were being withdrawn "out of an abundance of caution" and insisted the products are safe when used as directed.
"The reason the makers of over-the-counter, oral cough and cold medicines for infants are voluntarily withdrawing these medicines is that there have been rare patterns of misuse leading to overdose recently identified, particularly in infants, and safety is our top priority," Linda A. Suydam, the association's president, said in a statement.
"It's important to point out that these medicines are safe and effective
when used as directed, and most parents are using them appropriately," she said.
CVS stores planned to stop selling the withdrawn products and store-brand equivalents, it said.
Refunds are being offered if customers return the products.
Last month, federal health officials recommended that the "consult your physician" advice to parents on the labels of cold and cough medicines aimed at young children be dropped and a warning not to use the medications in children under 2 be added.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration will officially consider revising the labels at a meeting next week.
After reviewing reports of side effects over the last four decades, the FDA found 54 child fatalities from over-the-counter decongestant medicines.
The agency found 69 reports of children's deaths connected with antihistamines, which are used to treat runny noses.
Consumer Healthcare Products Association is a trade group representing U.S. manufacturers and distributors of over-the-counter medications and nutritional supplements.
The withdrawal does not affect medicines intended for children ages 2 and older.
The association said it would back any FDA move to change the advice on oral children's cough medicine.
WASHINGTON (CNN) Top Bush administration officials are shifting into damage-control mode after a House committee narrowly approved a resolution that labels the killings of Armenians in Turkey during World War I as "genocide.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee passed the measure 27-21 Wednesday evening, even though President Bush and key figures lobbied hard against it.
The Web site of Turkish President Abdullah Gul carried a statement calling the decision "unacceptable," saying it "doesn't fit a major power like the United States."
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack issued a statement expressing "regret" for the committee's action, warning the resolution "may do grave harm to U.S.-Turkish relations and to U.S. interests in Europe and the Middle East."
The nonbinding House resolution says the deportation of nearly 2 million Armenians from the Ottoman Empire between 1915 and 1923, resulting in the deaths of 1.5 million of them, amounted to "genocide."
Turks strongly reject the genocide label, insisting there was no organized campaign against the Armenians and that many Turks also died in the chaos and violence of the period.
Turkish officials had warned approval of the resolution could jeopardize U.S. relations with their country, a NATO member that has been a key U.S. ally in the Middle East and a conduit for sending supplies into Iraq.
Police in Japan arrested a man who ran an Internet suicide site for allegedly killing a woman who paid him to do so, an official said Thursday.
Kazunari Saito, a 33-year-old electrician, was arrested Wednesday for allegedly giving Sayaka Nishizawa, 21, sleeping pills and suffocating her in April, a police official in Kanagawa said, speaking on condition of anonymity, citing policy.
Nishizawa's father found her body on April 16 in her apartment in Kanagawa, just south of Tokyo.
Police had been investigating the case after a note suggesting suicide was found, but her cell phone and keys were missing, Kyodo News agency reported.
Saito set up his site last year to give tips on how to commit suicide, the agency said.
It was not clear why the woman needed help to kill herself.
TOKYO, Japan (CNN) With steely arms sprouting cables and wires, the WAO-1 robot looks nothing like a relaxation device.
But researchers at Tokyo's Waseda University hope the contraption will soon be deployed to hospitals and spas across Japan to give therapeutic facial massages.
The WAO-1 robot, which stands for Waseda Asahi Oral Rehabilitation Robot 1, is being developed initially for patients with jaw-related medical problems who require facial massages as part of their treatment, according to project leader Atsuo Takanishi.
The robot's arms are fitted with ceramic spheres the size of golf balls, and the spheres roll over the skin. The arms' movements are controlled by a complex set of algorithms designed to emulate massages, while six sensors at the base of the arms measure and adjust the pressure applied by the spheres, Takanishi said.
The technology has to be more refined than those in electric massage chairs because the facial bone structure is much more fragile than back or spine bones, he said.
Another research team member, Ken Nishimura, said the robot could be adjusted to give beauty and relaxation massages.
"This technology can be applied very widely," Nishimura said. "I'm looking forward to a time when this robot will give beauty facials at spas.
The team is set to start clinical trials using the robot in November, according to Takanishi.
The robot, developed with Japan's Asahi University, must be approved by a government safety panel before it becomes available to hospitals or to the public.
Japan is a leader in consumer robots.
A robot that gives shampoos is already widely deployed at hair salons across Japan.
Russia's Vera Zvonareva pulled off a big upset on Wednesday as she beat sixth-seed Amelie Mauresmo of France in their Kremlin Cup opener.
Zvonareva came from a set down to beat former world number one Mauresmo 4-6 6-3 6-4.
Zvonareva then broke her opponent in the second game of the second set and again in the opening game of the third and deciding set.
Mauresmo broke back to level at 4-4 only to make three unforced errors on her serve in the next game, letting the 24th-ranked Russian to successfully serve for the match.
"She took the chances she got," Mauresmo said. "She began pretty bad and I was doing well, but then it went the other way.
"It seems to me that I was playing against myself, surface and balls today, not against her," said Kuznetsova, who had four aces and 55 unforced errors. "I played bad but nevertheless won the match.
NEW DELHI, India (CNN) Some 30 Tibetan exiles protesting Chinese religious policies stormed the Chinese Embassy in New Delhi on Wednesday, with several breaching the front gate and chaining themselves to the flag pole inside, police and witnesses said.
Others repeatedly sprayed "Free Tibet" in red paint on the embassy walls and the main gate before many of the demonstrators were forcibly taken away by Indian police, according to an Associated Press photographer at the scene.
The activists were protesting a recent Chinese order that Beijing must approve all of Tibet's spiritual leaders, known as Lamas.
For centuries, the search for the reincarnation of lamas including Tibet's spiritual head, the Dalai Lama has been carried out by select Tibetan monks.
"This order is an attempt to undermine the influence of His Holiness the Dalai Lama," said Dorjee Bhondup, a leader of the Tibetan Youth Congress who was at the protest.
The protest is one of a series in India against what the Tibetan exiles say are China's continued attempts to subvert Tibetan Buddhist culture and strengthen Beijing's hold on the Himalayan region.
India has been a center for the Tibetan exiles since the Dalai Lama fled there in 1959 after a failed uprising and set up his government in exile in the northern town of Dharmsala.
However, India has tempered its support for the Tibetan cause in recent years as it seeks to improve relations with China.
Last year, to avoid embarrassing visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao, India imposed a series of restrictions on Tibetan activists and protesters.
India's Foreign Ministry had no comment on Wednesday's incident.
Descending from a bus, the activists ran through the embassy's main gate that was guarded by private guards only.
About six of the protesters scaled an inner wall and entered the main embassy compound where they chained themselves to a flag post and waved the Tibetan flag.
After about 15 minutes Indian police arrived and detained the protesters.
Police spokesman Rajan Bhagat said 22 protesters had been detained but no charges would be filed against them.
Bhagat denied there had been a breach of security. "They were taken away because demonstrations are not allowed in that area," he said.
Phones at the Chinese Embassy rang unanswered.
BRASILIA, Brazil (CNN) A truck coming down a hill plowed into rescue workers and gawkers at the site of an earlier collision a double accident that killed least 25 people and injured 87, police said Wednesday.
The first crash occurred when one truck tried to pass another on a curve and smashed into an oncoming bus with about 20 people aboard, said highway police spokesman Adrian Fiamoncini.
Six people on the bus and the truck driver were killed.
"It was a serious accident, but everything was under control," Fiamoncini said. But about 90 minutes later, "all of a sudden, for no reason another truck arrived and ran everybody over, firefighters, police, people who stopped at the scene," Fiamoncini said.
He said it was still unclear why the other truck failed to stop but said it might have lost its brakes.
The second accident killed 18 people, including three firefighters and a policeman, he said.
The driver of the second truck was hospitalized under police custody.
Fiamoncini said many of the injured remained in serious condition and that rescue workers were looking for other victims.
A German man who was taken hostage by Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan in July was freed Wednesday, Germany's foreign minister announced.
The five Afghans captured with the man were also released, according to a statement from German Foreign Minister Dr. Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
"(Rudolf) Blechschmidt is currently in the hands of the Afghan security forces," Steinmeier's statement said. "The German embassy has made telephone contact with him.
Another German who was abducted along with Blechschmidt on July 18, Ruediger Diedrich, was found shot to death on July 21.
Blechschmidt appeared in a video released by his captors in late August, imploring his family and his government to do more to win his release. "I am in very bad shape," he said.
"My medication for my heart issue will run out in three days.
A Myanmar opposition party member died during interrogation and two activists were arrested as the ruling junta pressed its crackdown on the pro-democracy movement, an exile group said Wednesday.
The Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners also said security officers had been threatening dissidents' relatives and neighbors in an attempt to get information on the whereabouts of those involved in last month's anti-government protests, which were brutally suppressed by the military.
The Myanmar exile group, made up of former political prisoners, said authorities had recently informed the family of Win Shwe, 42, that he had died during interrogation in the central region of Sagaing.
He and five colleagues had been arrested on September 26, the first day of the crackdown.
The group said Win Shwe, a member of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD), was cremated at the detention center. The report could not be independently verified.
The alleged death of Win Shwe drew a harsh reaction from the United States.
Washington called for an investigation and threatened further sanctions against the impoverished country also known as Burma.
"The United States strongly condemns the atrocities committed by the junta and calls for a full investigation into the death of Win Shwe during his detention in Burma," White House foreign affairs spokesman Gordon Johndroe said. "The junta must stop the brutal treatment of its people and peacefully transition to democracy or face new sanctions from the United States.
In a USA Today newspaper interview published Wednesday, first lady Laura Bush said Washington was poised to impose more sanctions unless the government loosens its grip on the populace "within the next couple of days.
But State Department spokesman Sean McCormack, asked about new sanctions, offered no timetable.
The death toll from Vietnam's Typhoon Lekima rose to 86 as rescue workers rushed to get aid to thousands of people still stuck in flooded areas, officials said Wednesday.
Eleven more bodies were recovered in the worst-hit province of Nghe An, and one more body was discovered in Son La province.
Nine people were still missing and feared dead.
"The waters are receding, but very slowly," said Do Minh Chinh a disaster official in Thanh Hoa province, where 15 people died.
The International Federation of the Red Cross and the Vietnamese government estimated that about 10 million Vietnamese had been affected by Typhoon Lekima, said Joe Lowry, a Red Cross official from Ninh Binh.
The typhoon washed away 6,000 houses, damaged 52,000 houses and destroyed about 200,000 acres of crops, Lowry said.
initial damage estimate from the typhoon was $131 million.
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) Bobby Brown spent a night in the hospital after suffering a mild heart attack, his attorney said Wednesday.
Brown had severe chest pains Tuesday night and was taken to two hospitals. He was admitted to Tarzana Regional Medical Center in the San Fernando Valley.
"This morning they did diagnose him as suffering from a mild heart attack ... they attributed (it) to stress and diet," said his attorney, Phaedra Parks, in Atlanta.
His father and brother stayed with Brown and he was released Wednesday morning in good condition, Parks said.
"He is in great spirits, he's doing very well," she said. "He's speaking with family members.
Brown thanked fans for their good wishes and hoped to make a scheduled performance Saturday in Los Angeles, his attorney said.
"He just wants the fans to know that he is definitely going to come back full speed ahead," Parks said.
Brown, 38, lives in Southern California.
He is the former husband of Whitney Houston and is seeking custody of their teenage daughter.
(CNN) It was only after a crowd of screaming students ran past Darnell Rodgers in a stairway at his Cleveland, Ohio, high school Wednesday afternoon that he realized he had been shot.
Oh my God,'" said Rodgers, a senior at SuccessTech Academy near downtown Cleveland.
At around 1:15 p.m., a 14-year-old gunman, reportedly upset about a school suspension, was walking the halls firing with a gun in each hand.
He shot 57-year-old as teacher David Kachadourian in the back in addition to shooting a 42-year-old teacher, officials said.
Rodgers suddenly felt his arm "burning," he said, and realized he had been shot in the elbow.
Students at SuccessTech Academy described the gunman as having an "odd" personality.
Witnesses told WKYC the shooter had been suspended for fighting earlier this week.
The 57-year-old, who MetroHealth identified to CNN as Kachadourian, is in stable condition.
The 14-year-old male with a gunshot wound to his side was transported to Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital where he is in stable condition, Eckart said.
Rodgers spoke to reporters after leaving the hospital Wednesday evening.
"I never thought it would personally happen at my school.
Students said they took cover in closets after the school principal announced a "Code Blue" on the intercom.
Friday was already going to be a professional day for faculty and will now be devoted to figuring out how to go about resuming classes on Monday.
SuccessTech is a nontraditional high school, according to local school officials. "Since it is a specialty school," it doesn't have "the typical population of a large high school," said Lisa Matthews of the superintendent's office.
It adds that the curriculum is "problem-based" and "infused" with technology.
LONDON, England (CNN) Prince William, the second in line to the British throne, will be temporarily assigned to the Royal Navy and to the Royal Air Force next year, Buckingham Palace said Wednesday.
The 25-year-old prince will learn to fly helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft as part of a four-month tour with the RAF that starts in January.
In the summer, William will spend time learning about the military's submarines, its surface ships, and the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm, the palace said.
William's assignments follow a year of training as a specialist armored reconnaissance troop leader in the Blues and Royals, where his younger brother, Harry, also serves.
The brothers were both commissioned officers after training at the Royal Military Academy in Sandhurst.
Harry was to go to Iraq, but military chiefs ruled that the publicity surrounding his deployment could put his unit at higher risk, and he was not sent.
first lady Laura Bush in a rare foray into foreign policy called on Myanmar's military junta to "step aside," give up the "terror campaigns" against its people and allow for a democratic Myanmar in a commentary published in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal.
"Gen. Than Shwe and his deputies are a friendless regime," Bush said. "They should step aside to make way for a unified Burma [Myanmar] governed by legitimate leaders.
In Wednesday's commentary, Bush called on Myanmar's military leaders to release Suu Kyi and other opposition leaders so they can meet with and plan for a transition to democracy.
But Ms. Suu Kyi and other opposition leaders have moral legitimacy, the support of the Burmese people and the support of the world.
Myanmar state media has reported that 2,000 people were detained during the demonstrations and the crackdown against them under an emergency law imposed on September 25 banning assembly of more than five people and that 700 of those people have been released.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that Iran must be encouraged to make its nuclear program fully transparent, but also underscored there is no proof it is pursuing a nuclear weapons program.
"We are sharing our partners' concern about making all Iranian programs transparent," Putin said at a news conference after talks with visiting French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
"We agreed yesterday, and Mr. President confirmed it, that Iran is making certain steps toward international community to achieve that.
Sarkozy, on his first presidential visit to Russia, said the two countries had bridged some of their differences over how the world should respond to Iran's nuclear activities.
Sarkozy has hardened France's stance on Iran in recent months, shifting closer to the United States in his insistence on tough U.N. Security Council sanctions and even his mention of the possibility of war.
Putin heads to Iran early next week for a summit of Caspian nations amid heightened international tensions over Tehran's refusal to suspend uranium enrichment activity the U.S. claims is aimed at building weapons but Iran insists is for peaceful purposes.
Sarkozy said Putin's trip to Tehran could encourage Iran to be more cooperative.
"After the trip, there could be a will to cooperate that is essential," he said.
Russia has opposed the U.S.-push for tougher sanctions against Iran and called for more checks and inspections of Iranian facilities by an international nuclear watchdog.
NEW YORK (CNN) More than two dozen employees at Palisades Medical Center have been suspended after accessing the personal medical records of actor George Clooney, who was taken to the North Bergen, N.J., hospital last month after a motorcycle accident.
Clooney was injured, along with his companion Sarah Larson, when the motorcycle they were riding collided with a car in Weehawken, N.J. Clooney suffered a broken rib and skin abrasions and Larson broke her foot.
Hospital spokesman Eurice Rojas said late Tuesday that 27 employees were suspended for a month without pay, after an internal investigation.
Accessing a person's medical records without authorization is a violation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) a federal law that protects the privacy of patients.
"Palisades Medical Center, it's physicians and employees, adheres to a strong code of ethics that respects the privacy and confidentiality of all of our patients," a hospital statement said.
On Tuesday, WCBS television in New York reported that employees were suspended after leaking Clooney's medical information to the press
In a statement released to the media, Clooney said "This is the first I've heard of it. And while I very much believe in a patients right to privacy, I would hope that this could be settled without suspending medical workers.
BEIJING, China (CNN) Police in central China have jailed a 50-year-old woman for posing as a teenage rape victim on the Internet, an official and state media said Wednesday.
The China Daily newspaper reported on its Web site that the woman, identified only by her surname Chen, pretended to be a 15-year-old girl who became pregnant after being raped by her stepfather.
In July she started posing as the girl, calling herself Little Raindrop, the newspaper said.
"She fabricated rumors and mislead the public," said Wang Bing, an official with the propaganda department of the Tianqiao District Public Security Bureau in Jinan city.
been charged with any crime, Wang said. "We're discussing further punishment, maybe re-education through labor," he said.
The UN, European Union and human rights groups have called on China to abolish its system of re-education through labor, which allows authorities to imprison people without trial.
The woman, who is divorced and has one grown daughter, told people during online chats that her stepfather kept her locked up at home, arousing concern among her Internet friends who reported the case to local police, the China Daily said.
more than 300,000 hits," Jinan's local Qi Lu Evening News reported on its Web site.
A migraine pill seems to help alcoholics taper off their drinking without detox treatment, researchers report, offering a potential option for a hard-to-treat problem.
The drug, Topamax, works in a different way from three other medications already approved for treating alcoholism.
The drug costs at least $350 a month, plus the price of doctor's visits.
But side effects are a problem, and it's unclear whether the findings will make a dent in an addiction that affects millions of Americans.
Drowsiness and dizziness are also problems.
"The size of the treatment effect is larger than in most of the other medications we've seen," said Dr. Mark Willenbring of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. "And all the drinking variables changed in the right direction.
The study, published in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association, was funded by the maker of the drug, Johnson & Johnson Inc.'s Ortho-McNeil Neurologics.
The study followed 371 heavy drinkers for 14 weeks.
Top seed Nikolay Davydenko defeated Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 7-6 6-2 on Tuesday to advance to the second round of the Kremlin Cup in Moscow.
After trading breaks early in the first set, the defending champion won the tiebreaker without his French opponent scoring a point.
Fourth-ranked Davydenko then twice broke the 53rd-ranked Tsonga in the second set to close the indoor carpet match.
"It's great to beat someone you've never beaten before," said Mathieu, who lost to Grosjean in their three previous matches.
Meanwhile, Marat Safin struggled to beat fellow-Russian Denis Matsukevitch 7-6 7-5 tp also advance to the second round.
"But he wasn't and dragged me to a tiebreaker in the first set.
YAKIMA, Washington (CNN) Searchers found the remains of the last three of 10 people killed in a plane crash in Washington state, officials said Tuesday.
Searchers found the plane Monday night, along with the bodies of seven of the victims.
The plane had been carrying nine skydivers and a pilot.
Yakima County Sheriff Ken Irwin described the crash scene as horrific.
"You have to remember that it was an airplane falling out of the sky," Irwin said after visiting the scene.
The sheriff said evidence suggests the plane hit the ground at about 70 mph.
Officials did not name any victims, but relatives of some of the skydivers appeared at Tuesday's news conference and stressed what a tightknit group they were.
The wreckage was in an area with steep terrain among heavy timber and brush, just 200 yards from where the last radar signal from the plane was detected, Yakima County Sheriff's Deputy Dan Cypher said Monday night.
The plane, a single-engine Cessna 208 Caravan, fell off radar at 8 p.m. (11 p.m. ET) Sunday, about a half-hour after taking off from Boise, Idaho, bound for Shelton, Washington, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
The wreckage was found in the immediate area of the search focus, Cypher said.
"The teams did smell fuel and followed the odor and came across the wreckage," he said.
Weather conditions were good for the flight, officials said.
The National Transportation Safety Board planned to begin an investigation Tuesday, the sheriff said.
The plane was equipped with an emergency locator transmitter, according to Geoff Farrington of Kapowsin Air Sports, which owns the plane.
The nine skydivers aboard the plane regularly participated in jumps with Skydive Snohomish in Snohomish, Washington, said Elaine Harvey, a spokeswoman for the company.
She said the group had flown into Boise for a skydiving event about 15 miles away in Star, Idaho.
Lindsay Lohan is making plans for life after rehab.
The 21-year-old actress reportedly checked out of the Cirque Lodge, a drug and alcohol treatment center in Utah, on Friday.
Staying sober and out of Los Angeles is Lohan's main priority.
"I'm staying in Utah until it's time to shoot 'Dare to Love Me,' and then I plan on returning to Utah so I can stay focused, and avoid other distractions," she tells OK!
Temptation is always there but now I'll avoid it the right way.
Lohan who recently reunited with her father, Michael Lohan, after a 3¨ö-year estrangement tells In Touch Weekly that her parents' divorce triggered her behavior.
"But all in all, it's better for me now to have them (in my life). It's healthy.
"I just want to apologize to any of my fans that look up to me, especially my younger fans, for setting the examples that I didn't mean to set," she tells In Touch. "That is one of the reasons that I want to change things."
A lack of genetic diversity in the fierce, fox-like creatures has meant the animals' immune system does not try to fight off the disease, spread through biting, according to a study by the University of Sydney's School of Veterinary Science released last week.
The grotesque facial tumors were first spotted in the devil population around a decade ago in the northeast of Australia's island state of Tasmania, where 90 percent of the species has died of the disease.
The affliction is spreading south and west, and scientists estimate that within five years, there will be
no disease-free population in Tasmania the only place in the world where the carnivorous marsupials exist outside zoos.
Seeking to understand how a facial cancer could be contagious, the University of Sydney researchers found that the tumors had originated from a single cell line that was spread through the population by biting.
Because Tasmanian devils are genetically similar, their bodies do not recognize the tumors as foreign cells and do not produce an effective immune response.
"Essentially, there are no natural barriers to the spread of the disease, so affected individuals must be removed from populations to stop disease transmission," lead researcher Katherine Belov said.
By making it difficult for the animals to bite and catch prey, the tumors usually lead to their death from starvation within six months.
Experts fear the remaining healthy animals could become extinct within the next two decades if they are not isolated from the disease.
SHANGHAI, China (CNN) Natalie Williams, a 21-year-old Special Olympics basketball player from Kentucky, says she's never really been treated like a true athletic star.
But that was before she came to the Games in China, which has undergone a major change in its treatment of the mentally disabled.
"They are able to accept special needs people in a way that maybe some other countries do not," Williams says.
Last week, organizers rolled out the red carpet for athletes arriving at the Special Olympics in Shanghai, China.
Never before in the 39-year history of the Special Olympics has there been such an extravagant, star-studded opening ceremony.
And everywhere in this city, there are billboards with the smiling faces of the mentally disabled promoting the Games.
China spent millions ensuring the 7,500 competitors are cared for and more importantly accepted.
That's quite a turnaround for a country whose leadership, less than 20 years ago, refused to even acknowledge any of their citizens were intellectually disabled.
At the time, former Prime Minister Li Peng was quoted as saying, "Mentally retarded people give birth to idiots.
"There's a long way to go there's a long way. But the good news is we're moving," says Tim Shriver, chairman of the Special Olympics.
Turkey said Tuesday it had begun preparations for a military operation into Iraq to chase separatist Kurdish rebels who have launched deadly attacks on soldiers in recent days.
Private NTV and CNN-Turk news channels reported that the government has decided to seek parliamentary authorization to launch a possible cross-border military operation in Iraq to pursue the rebels there.
A statement released after a meeting of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and security officials did not say that such an operation would definitely occur.
Turkey has said it would prefer that the United States and its Iraqi Kurd allies in northern Iraq crack down on the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK.
and political development in Turkey that had sapped support for the group.
The United States opposes a Turkish military operation in the relatively peaceful north of Iraq because it would complicate efforts to stabilize the rest of the country.
MADRID, Spain (CNN) A bomb wounded a local politician's bodyguard in the northern city of Bilbao on Tuesday, in an attack a senior Interior Ministry official blamed on the Basque separatist group ETA.
The bomb exploded as the off-duty bodyguard was alone in his car and was just starting to move it, said the official, Antonio Camacho, the secretary of state for security.
Police, he added, suspect the explosive may have been a limpet bomb, attached beneath the car toward the rear.
We can't yet say if the target was the bodyguard or the politician he protects," Camacho said at a nationally televised news conference.
The guard, Gabriel Gines, 36, was taken to hospital with burns to his face, right hand and shoulder, Camacho said.
Witnesses said he managed to get out of the car after the blast.
Television footage showed him walking out of a nearby cafeteria, where he had taken refuge, and stepping into an ambulance, flanked by emergency workers.
His right hand was bandaged and his left hand held a cell phone.
There was no warning call as sometimes occurs before the explosion near downtown Bilbao, the largest Basque city, an Interior Ministry spokesman told CNN.
No one has claimed responsibility for the incident, which left the bodyguard's car and several others charred from fire.
Several thousand town councilors and other officials in the Basque region have bodyguards due to threats from ETA, which is blamed for more than 800 deaths in its long fight for Basque independence. Many of the bodyguards are police officers;
others, such as the guard injured on Tuesday, are on contract from private security firms.
The politician he protects, a Basque local councilman from the prime minister's ruling Socialist Party, was out of town at the time of the attack.
Friday is a Spanish holiday.
Last week, police arrested 23 leaders of an outlawed Basque pro-independence party, Batasuna, on suspicion of aiding ETA.
On Sunday, a judge remanded 17 of them to jail, released four on bail and dropped charges against the other two.
Batasuna is widely considered to be ETA's political wing, which it denies.
ETA is listed as a terrorist group by the United States and the European Union.
The party of Myanmar's detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Tuesday urged the military junta not to set preconditions for a meeting with her in the wake of a bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protesters.
The junta leaders have offered to meet with Suu Kyi, who is under house arrest, but only on condition she renounce widespread calls for international sanctions against the military regime, which has been widely condemned for breaking up the protests September 26-27.
"The will for achieving success is also crucial and there should not be any preconditions.
The statement, which follows similar ones by NLD figures, came after the junta said it hoped to achieve "smooth relations" with Suu Kyi.
The government is arresting and beating the peaceful Buddhist monks," he told the BBC. "I think that my fellow colleagues will make their decision on their own but I can't say that anybody's going to follow my way.
British government records list a Ye Min Tun as a second secretary at the embassy.
A senior Portuguese detective has been appointed to bring fresh momentum to the controversial investigation into the disappearance of British girl Madeleine McCann.
Paulo Rebelo, a senior criminal investigator at national police headquarters in Lisbon, will now lead the inquiry.
Rebelo will this week move to southern Portugal, where Madeleine vanished on May 3, a Portuguese police spokeswoman said.
The detective has investigated several major cases including allegations of a child sex ring at a state-run children's home.
Rebelo will replace Goncalo Amaral, who was taken off the case after he criticized British police for favoring Kate and Gerry McCann, the girl's parents, who have been named as suspects in the case by Portuguese police.
Madeleine's parents have said she disappeared from their hotel room in a vacation resort in Portugal's Algarve region on May 3 while they dined in a restaurant nearby.
Amaral, who often discussed the McCann case with the news media, is also under investigation for allegedly beating a woman in custody who was later found guilty of murdering her own child in 2004.
The McCanns' spokesman Clarence Mitchell said he hoped Rebelo's priority would be to eliminate the couple from the inquiry.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) The security convoy that on Tuesday fired on a car in Iraq's capital, killing two Iraqi women, was an Australian firm, Iraq's Interior Ministry said.
The firm, Unity Resources Group, has offices in Dubai.
A U.S. State Department official said the company had been providing security for a nongovernmental organization called Research Triangle Institute International, which is a USAID-based subcontractor doing reconstruction work.
Michael Priddin, Unity Resources Group chief operating officer, said in a written statement that initial information indicated the car approached the security team "at speed" and "failed to stop despite an escalation of warnings which included hand signals and a signal fire.
"Finally, shots were fired at the vehicle and it stopped," he said. "Unity is now working with the Iraqi authorities to determine the outcome of this incident.
Iraqi Interior Ministry spokesman Brig. Gen. Abdul Kareem Khalaf said Unity's "four vehicles were driving from the outer Karrada area toward the National Theater in central Baghdad.
"They opened fire and killed two young Christian women who were in the car," he said.
He said the women, ages 30 and 32, were hit by 19 bullets.
Research Triangle Institute International spokesman Patrick Gibbons said "no RTI staff members were involved or present when the incident occurred.
"URG had completed their transportation mission [of RTI personnel] and were returning to their base of operations at the time of the incident," he said.
URG, Khalaf said, apologized to the Interior Ministry and said it is committed to compensating the families of the two women and taking action against its employees, depending on what an investigation reveals.
He added that URG is registered with the ministry and had no prior violations.
Pakistani air force planes swooped down on the country's troubled tribal region on the border with Afghanistan Tuesday, launching a blistering airstrike that left as many as 50 militants dead, Pakistan Army sources said.
Those battles in North Waziristan, part of the country's largely lawless tribal region killed up to 150 militants, as well as 50 government troops, an army spokesman said. Another 20 security forces have been wounded.
According to the army spokesman, the military operation, which was launched Sunday, will continue until peace is completely restored to North Waziristan.
That truce was blamed for an increase in attacks on U.S. troops over the border in Afghanistan, as Taliban fighters were able to prepare, train, and reconstitute weapons supplies without interference from the Pakistani government.
U.S. intelligence officials say al Qaeda has established a "safe haven" in Waziristan, just over the border into Pakistan and that Osama bin Laden is believed to be in the area.
Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, cracked down on al Qaeda militants and arrested many in the Waziristan area before the truce was reached, but critics say he has failed to prevent the militants from gaining strength within the country.
European governing body UEFA has opened disciplinary proceedings against AC Milan and their Brazilian goalkeeper Dida following a controversial conclusion to last week's Champions League clash at Celtic.
UEFA had already launched an investigation into Scottish club Celtic after a fan of the Glasgow club ran onto the pitch to confront Dida in the dying moments of their 2-1 victory over the European champions at Parkhead on Wednesday.
Dida collapsed in a heap after 27-year-old Robert McHendry made contact with the keeper as he ran past before disappearing into the stands.
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (CNN) U.S. citizens Mario R. Capecchi and Oliver Smithies and Sir Martin J. Evans of Britain won the 2007 Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday for groundbreaking discoveries that led to a technique for manipulating mouse genes.
The widely used process has helped scientists use mice to study heart disease, diabetes, cancer, cystic fibrosis and other diseases.
Capecchi, 70, who was born in Italy, is at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. Smithies, 82, born in Britain, is at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.
Evans, 66, works at Cardiff University in Wales.
They were honored for a technique called gene targeting, which lets scientists inactivate or modify particular genes in mice.
That in turn lets them study how those genes affect health and disease.
To use this technique, researchers introduce a genetic change into mouse embryonic stem cells.
These cells are then injected into mouse embryos. The mice born from these embryos are bred with others, to produce offspring with altered genes.
The first mice with genes manipulated in this way were announced in 1989.
More than 10,000 different genes in mice have been studied with the technique, the Nobel committee said.
That's about half the genes the rodents have.
"Gene targeting has pervaded all fields of biomedicine.
Its impact on the understanding of gene function and its benefits to mankind will continue to increase over many years to come," the award citation said.
The medicine prize was the first of the six prestigious awards to be announced this year.
The others are chemistry, physics, literature, peace and economics.
The prizes are handed out every year on Dec. 10, the anniversary of award founder Alfred Nobel's death in 1896.
About 100 students staged a rare protest Monday against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, calling him a "dictator" as he gave a speech at Tehran University marking the beginning of the academic year.
While the demonstrators and hard-line students loyal to Ahmadinejad scuffled in the auditorium, the president ignored chants of "Death to the dictator" and gave his speech on the merits of science and the pitfalls of Western-style democracy, witnesses said.
The hard-line students chanted "Thank you, president" as police looked on from outside the university's gates without intervening.
The protesters dispersed after Ahmadinejad left the campus.
The president faced a similar outburst during a speech last December when students at Amir Kabir Technical University called him a dictator and burned his picture.
Organizers hoped to avoid a similar disturbance Monday with tightened security measures.
They checked the identity papers of everyone entering the campus and allowed only selected students into the hall for the speech, but the protesters were somehow able to gain entrance.
Iran's reform movement peaked in the late 1990s after reformist Mohammad Khatami was elected president and his supporters swept parliament.
But their efforts to ease social and political restrictions were stymied by hard-liners who control the judiciary, security forces and powerful unelected bodies in the government.
BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan (CNN) A crew that includes Malaysia's first astronaut and an American who will become the first woman to command the international space station prepared Monday for blastoff later this week.
The Soyuz-FG rocket is scheduled to blast off from the Central Asian steppe on Wednesday night to take Malaysia's Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, Peggy Whitson of Beaconsfield, Iowa, and Russian Yuri Malenchenko into orbit.
During his 12-day space trip, Shukor is to study of the effects of microgravity and space radiation on cells and microbes, as well as experiments with proteins for a potential HIV vaccine.
The rocket adorned with a Malaysian flag and coat of arms and carrying a Soyuz TMA-11 spacecraft was moved Monday to the launch pad from its assembly site at the Baikonur cosmodrome, which Russia rents from Kazakhstan.
"It's too exciting to be cold," said Shankini Dovaisingam, a Malaysian aerospace engineer observing the final preparations. "It's amazing to see the Malaysian flag on a Soyuz spaceship.
The mission coincides with the last days of Ramadan, the holy month when Muslims fast from dawn until sundown, but Malaysian clerics decreed that Shukor will be excused from fasting while in space.
Shukor's religion also requires that he face Mecca for prayer but clerics decided that the exact location matters only for the beginning of the prayer ritual.
Shukor, 35, will bring a "symbolic" load of Malaysian food to the space station, said Zulkeffeli Mat Jusoh, a program director for the Malaysian space program.
Shukor is to return to Earth on October 21 with two Russian members of the current space station crew.
PARIS, France (CNN) Interpol on Monday took the unprecendented step of making a global appeal for help to identify a man from digitally reconstructed photos taken from the Internet that it said showed him sexually abusing underage boys.
The man's face was disguised by digital alteration, but the images were capable of being restored, according to a bulletin from Interpol the international police agency based in Lyon, France.
Interpol Secretary General Ronald K. Noble said the pictures have been on the the Internet for several years, but investigators have been unable to determine the man's identity or nationality.
"We have tried all other means to identify and to bring him to justice, but we are now convinced that without the public's help this sexual predator could continue to rape and sexually abuse young children whose ages appear to range from six to early teens," Noble said.
He said there is "very good reason to believe that he travels the world in order to sexually abuse and exploit vulnerable children.
Interpol has determined the photos were taken in Vietnam and Cambodia.
"The decision to make public this man's picture was not one which was taken lightly," said Kristin Kvigne, assistant director of Interpol's Trafficking in Human Beings Unit.
The suspect's photo and more information can be seen online at Interpol's Web site.
Potential presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich on Tuesday blasted the modern-day road to the White House as too long, too expensive and verging on "insane.
The former House speaker from Georgia said he will decide whether to enter the GOP presidential field in October.
But in a wide-ranging speech at the National Press Club in Washington, he ridiculed campaign consultants and spin doctors who he said are extending the 2008 campaign.
He said presidential debates have become "almost unendurable.
"These aren't debates," the former Georgia congressman said. "This is a cross between [TV shows] 'The Bachelor,' 'American Idol' and 'Who's Smarter than a Fifth-Grader.
asked Gingrich. "The job of the candidate is to raise the money to hire the consultants to do the focus groups to figure out the 30-second answers to be memorized by the candidate.
This is stunningly dangerous." Watch why Gingrich is "deeply worried" &raquo;
Gingrich said the need to raise tens of millions of dollars has driven campaigns to begin cranking up much earlier than ever. Meanwhile, he said, advisers are telling candidates to begin campaigning "as soon as possible I need a check.
A consortium led by Royal Bank of Scotland PLC won the battle for ABN Amro Holding NV Monday, as the largest takeover ever in the financial industry came a step closer to completion.
The RBS consortium said 86 percent of shares in the Dutch bank had been tendered to its ¢æ70.5 billion ($99.6 billion) bid, enough to meet its "minimum acceptance level" of 80 percent.
The consortium's offer was unopposed after Barclays PLC withdrew its rival bid Friday, saying it had failed to receive even one percent of shares.
The Barclays offer, mostly in shares, was worth at least 10 percent less than the RBS-led bid, which is mostly in cash.
But the saga, which began earlier this year, won't be over until the consortium declares its offer unconditional, expected by Friday.
ABN's boards agreed to merge with Barclays in April, but were later forced to retract that in the face of the consortium's higher bid.
The company's Chief Executive Rijkman Groenink said as recently as last month that he continued to prefer the Barclays deal for strategic reasons, but he conceded the consortium's bid was "financially superior.
RBS shares fell 1.6 percent to close at 560.5 pence (¢æ8.09, $11.43), while ABN Amro rose 0.7 percent at ¢æ37.98 ($53.67).
(CNN) Dallas has long been a sociological curiosity.
And you don't have to drive all over the metroplex (as the locals call the Dallas-Fort Worth area) to have a good time.
All the food, fun and fanciness can be found in the 1.5-mile radius of downtown.
Take restaurants, for example.
Drive down any downtown street and it's clear that food is definitely a big part of Big D.
"Dallas has more restaurants per capita than New York City," says John Crawford, president and CEO of Downtown Dallas, a private organization that serves as downtown Dallas' leading advocate.
He says that in the downtown area alone, there are 250 places to dine, ranging from the elegant French Room (1321 Commerce St.) in the grand Adolphus hotel to family-friendly pizza joint Campisi's (1520 Elm St., Suite. 111).
The fare is versatile, too:
Sure, Dallas does Tex-Mex well, but the town also boasts plenty of places that offer twists on the basic burrito.
Fuse (1512 Commerce St., Suite 100), a hip eatery that opened in 2006, serves up dishes like brisket pot stickers in a style they refer to as "TexAsian.
While the core of downtown Dallas has always been a thriving business district, it only recently began to attract visitors after 5 p.m.
Like most cities, Dallas felt the effects of suburban sprawl in the early '90s.
In fact, as recently as 1996, only 200 people called the central business district home, according to Crawford.
Now he estimates that in the next 18 months, there will be more than 7,000 residents just in the core of downtown.
Crawford and his colleagues believe people are migrating downtown partly because of revitalization efforts and partly because of environmental concerns related to long commutes.
Whatever the reason, visitors to downtown Dallas are certainly benefiting from all of this migration.
"As you get more residential, you get a number of supporting services, and that's probably the reason for the number of restaurants that we have and the level of activity that's occurring," Crawford says.
Don't forget the kids; there's plenty for them downtown, too.
The Dallas World Aquarium (1801 N. Griffin St.) offers marine life from around the globe in its 85,000 gallons of water.
Plus, the rainforest section of the venue has non-sea creatures from South America like monkeys and toucans.
For some history, families can visit The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza (411 Elm St.) in the West End.
The National Historic Landmark District is the site of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
The permanent exhibit focuses on the days leading up to the tragedy as well as the impact it had on the world.
Mild Texas temperatures allow visitors to be outdoors throughout all four seasons.
And since there are more than 200 events every year, there's sure to be some sort of festival or parade going on, no matter when you visit.
So pack your shopping shoes, your love of art and your appetite and head to Big D (cowboy hat optional).
In recent years, this fishing town has turned into a popular rest stop for Inca Trail hikers.
Bus ride:
The quickest way to reach Mncora, about 700 miles north of Lima, is to hop on one of Lan Peru's twice daily flights from Lima to Piura ($225 round trip);
Tear your eyes from the dubbed American movies shown along the way and you may spot a dolphin or two frolicking in the Pacific Ocean.
Beach hotel:
There are two types of lodging:
on the beach like Punta Ballenas Inn ( 011-51/7325-8136) and almost on the beach.
In the case of Hospedaje Costa Norte, you're a minute's walk from the surf.
The rooms surround a courtyard guarded by Pedro, a parrot with a penchant for giving besitos (little kisses) to female guests (011-51/7325-8198, from $10).
Yoga hotel:
Samana Chakra is a new thatched-roof bungalow resort on the northern end of the beach, owned by an ex-marketing director from California and his wife, a Peruvian yoga instructor.
The rate includes breakfast and a daily hatha yoga class (totally optional, of course).
Early risers can even surf with the owners, who ride tandem on a longboard (011-51/1-9830-5896, samanachakra.com).
Taxi fare:
Moto-taxis, three-wheeled motorbikes with a covered backseat for two, are Mncora's primary form of transportation.
The bumpy ride across town costs about a dollar.
For $14 round trip, a moto cabbie will take you into the Amotape Mountains to the thermal hot springs at Poza de Barro.
Surf school:
Mncora's six-foot waves rival those of better-known surf spots in Peru, such as Chicama, but early mornings often bring waves that are ideal for beginners.
Several shorefront surf schools offer 90-minute private lessons.
Tasty lunch:
Fried yucca and ice-cold Brahma beer are the perfect companions to ceviche, the national dish of Peru, made with seafood, maize, crescents of sweet potato and a citrus marinade.
At Cevichera Las Peitas, an entire meal, including ceviche and beer, costs less than $6.
Fruit drink:
The best deal in town is a cremolada (a crushed-ice beverage made with passion fruit, strawberry, orange, or pineapple) at Papa Mo's Milk Bar.
Afghanistan executed 15 prisoners by gunfire, including a man convicted of killing three Western journalists and an Afghan photographer, the chief of prisons said Monday. It was the first time the country had carried out the death penalty in three years.
The mass execution took place Sunday evening according to Afghan law, which calls for condemned prisoners to be shot to death, Abdul Salam Ismat said.
Afghanistan's hard-line Taliban regime carried out executions in public, many of them at the war-shattered Kabul stadium, but the practice stopped after they were ousted from power by the U.S.-led coalition in late 2001.
The killings are the country's first state-sanctioned executions since April 2004.
London-based human rights group Amnesty International denounced the latest executions, saying that President Hamid Karzai had assured
Last week Hamidzada told The Associated Press that Karzai "takes extreme care in execution cases.
"He has been holding on to these cases because he wants to make sure that the justice is served and the due process is complete. He personally does not like executions, but Afghan law asks for it, and he will obey the laws," he said.
The mass executions are likely to complicate relationships between Afghanistan and some NATO countries with military forces in the country.
International troops often take militants prisoner and later hand them over to the Afghan government, but some countries' governments will not let them do so if Afghanistan is known to use capital punishment.
Investigators know who pulled the trigger but still have not determined who ordered the killing of journalist Anna Politkovskaya, the chief investigator said in an interview published Monday.
Politkovskaya, whose persistent reporting of atrocities against civilians in Chechnya had angered the Kremlin but won her international acclaim, was gunned down in the entryway of her Moscow apartment building on October 7, 2006.
Petros Garibyan, the lead investigator in the case, said the murder was political and may have parallels to the 2004 killing of Paul Klebnikov, the U.S.-born editor of Forbes magazine's Russian edition.
Charges have been filed against 11 people, 10 of whom have been arrested, Garibyan said.
He said investigators have identified the gunman but have not yet filed charges against him.
He refused to speculate on who might have been behind the killing, which occurred on President Vladimir Putin's birthday.
His boss, Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika, said in August that the hit on Politkovskaya was ordered by someone living outside the country with the aim of discrediting Putin.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said the number of UK troops in Iraq will fall from the current level of 5,500 to 2,500 by next spring.
Brown had said while in Iraq last week that Britain planned to cut its deployment by 1,000 by Christmas.
Speaking in the House of Commons, Brown said Britain plans to move from leading Iraqi troops into an "overwatch" role in the next two months and then reduce the numbers from 5,500 to 4,500 "immediately after provincial Iraqi control, and then to 4,000.
He said that "in the second stage of overwatch in the spring, and guided as always by advice of military commanders" the reduction will be to 2,500 troops "with a further decision about the next phase made then.
"In both stages of 'overwatch' around 500 logistics and support personnel will be based outside Iraq elsewhere in the region," Brown said.
British troops have been based in Basra, in the southeast region.
Brown said the recent base handover in Basra city in early September is a good sign of things to come since the "present security situation has been calmer.
"Indeed in the last month there have been five indirect fire attacks on Basra Air Station compared with 87 in July.
And while the four southern provinces have around 20 percent of the Iraqi people they still account for less than 5 percent of the overall violence in Iraq.
Brown also announced a new policy helping its local Iraqi staffers.
"Existing staff who have been employed by us for more than 12 months and have completed their work will be able to apply for a package of financial payments to aid resettlement in Iraq or elsewhere in the region, or in agreed circumstances for admission to the UK.
Italian striker Luca Toni struck twice as Bayern Munich moved five points clear at the top of the Bundesliga with a 3-0 home win over Nuremberg on Sunday.
Bayern took the lead in front of a full-house of 69,000 at the Allianz Arena when Toni scored his opener in the 31st minute.
Ze Roberto added a second five minutes from the break and then Toni added a third nine minutes from time to take his tally to eight goals for the season, level with strike partner Miroslav Klose who missed the match with a knee injury.
Coach Ottmar Hitzfeld was delighted with his side's seventh win as they remain the only unbeaten side in the Bundesliga.
Nuremberg remain in the relegation zone and second from bottom having picked up just one win in their last 10 games.
Also on Sunday, Eintracht Frankfurt enjoyed a 2-1 win over Bayer Leverkusen which puts them seventh in the table.
A carnival worker who hit a telephone pole with his SUV blamed the crash on two friends having sex in the back seat.
Frank told Moscow police he was driving near downtown early Saturday while a man and woman were having sex in the rear of the vehicle.
According to a probable cause affidavit, he said the movement caused the SUV to become "tippy" and he lost control of it.
Frank, 22, suffered a minor head wound in the crash and his friends were treated for unspecified injuries, according to the affidavit.
BOSTON, Massachusetts (CNN) Good news for your Viagra-using hamster:
On his next trip to Europe, he'll bounce back from jet lag faster than his unmedicated friends.
The researchers who revealed that bizarre fact earned one of 10 Ig Nobel prizes awarded Thursday night for quirky, funny and sometimes legitimate scientific achievements, from the mathematics of wrinkled sheets to U.S. military efforts to make a "gay bomb.
The recipients of the annual award handed out by the Annals of Improbable Research magazine were honored at Harvard University's Sanders Theater.
A team at Quilmes National University in Buenos Aires, Argentina, came up with the jet-lag study, which found that hamsters given the anti-impotence drug needed 50 percent less time to recover from a six-hour time zone change.
They didn't fly rodents to Paris, incidentally they just turned the lights off and on at different times.
Odd as it might be, that research might have implications for millions of humans.
It was the world's first comprehensive study of sword-swallowing injuries, said co-author Dan Meyer of Antioch, Tennessee, one of only a few dozen active sword swallowers in the world.
Not surprisingly, throat abrasions, perforated esophagi and punctured blood vessels were the most common injuries.
"Most sword-swallowing injuries happen either after another smaller injury when the throat is tender and swollen, or while doing something out of the ordinary, like swallowing multiple swords," said Meyer, who went a month without solid food after doing the latter in 2005.
(CNN) Turkey's prime minister condemned an attack by Kurdish separatist guerrillas that killed 13 Turkish troops and said his cabinet will meet Monday to discuss a response to the attack.
Turkish forces were shelling the guerrillas' escape routes after the attack outside the southeastern province of Sirnak, near Turkey's border with northern Iraq's Kurdish territories, the military said in a statement issued after Sunday's attack.
"This is a heartbreaking situation, losing 13 soldiers after losing 12 civilians only about a week ago," Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a statement from his office. "Cabinet will meet tomorrow and discuss the situation and next steps.
The Kurdistan Workers Party, known as the PKK, has fought Turkish troops in the country's heavily Kurdish southeast for decades.
Erdogan's government also blames the PKK for the killings of a dozen civilians near Sirnak on September 29.
PKK spokesman Abdul-Rahman al-Chadarchi confirmed the attack and said the rebel fighters sustained no casualties, according to a report from The Associated Press.
The separatists have been using northern Iraq as a staging ground for attacks into Turkey, prompting Ankara to mass troops along its border with Iraq's largely autonomous Kurdish region.
Iraq signed an agreement with Turkey in late September to crack down on the militants.
Iran and Syria also have large Kurdish populations, and Iraq's neighbors are wary of Kurdish separatist aspirations.
But Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a longtime Kurdish leader, told CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer" on Sunday that an independent Kurdistan is not a realistic goal.
"I don't think that Turkey or Iran or Syria will accept this, so, we must be realistic," Talabani said.
"Now the interests of the Kurdish people are in the framework of a united, democratic, federative Iraq.
LAS VEGAS, Nevada (CNN) Pamela Anderson and Rick Salomon married Saturday evening between the former "Baywatch" star's performances on the Las Vegas Strip, according to published reports.
Anderson, 40, wore a white denim Valentino dress, according to a report on People magazine's Web site.
The vows were squeezed in between the 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. shows of "Hans Klok's The Beauty of Magic" at Planet Hollywood resort, casino spokeswoman Amy Sadowsky said.
Anderson is starring as a magician's assistant.
Salomon, 38, is best-known for making a sex videotape with Paris Hilton, his girlfriend at the time, and was previously married to actress Shannen Doherty.
Anderson was previously married to singer Kid Rock and Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee.
Rumors of the couple's wedding plans have circulated since they applied for a marriage license last week.
Organizers shut down the course four hours after the start of Sunday's Chicago Marathon because of 88-degree heat and sweltering humidity that left one runner dead and sent at least 49 to area hospitals.
Another 250 were treated at the site.
Chad Schieber of Midland, Michigan, 35, collapsed while running on the South Side and was pronounced dead shortly before 1 p.m. at a Veteran's Affairs hospital, the Cook County medical examiner's office.
"It sounds like he lost his pulse very fast and died on the race course," Chiampas said.
There was another running death Sunday in Arlington, Virginia.
An unidentified runner from Virginia died during the Army Ten-Miler, collapsing near the finish at the Pentagon.
The race started in 70-degree heat and high humidity.
The Chicago race was run in record temperatures, topping the mark of 84 degrees in 1979.
Kenya's Patrick Ivuti leaned at the finish line to edge Jaouad Gharib of Morocco by 0.05 seconds, making him the fifth straight Kenyan to win the race.
A Darfur town under the control of Sudanese troops has been razed, the U.N. said Sunday.
The destruction of the town was in apparent retaliation for a suspected rebel attack on a nearby African Union peacekeeping base.
The town of Haskanita "which is currently under the control of the government, was completely burned down, except for a few buildings," the U.N. mission to Sudan said in a statement.
It said most civilians fled after the September 29 attack on the base but a few returned to search for food and water.
A U.N. official who had just inspected the North Darfur town said Sunday more than 15,000 civilians were fleeing the area.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said the town was destroyed by the Sudanese army and its allied janjaweed militias of nomad Arabs.
HONG KONG, China (CNN) Thousands of people marched through Hong Kong's streets Sunday to demand the right to pick their city's leader and legislature and hoisted yellow umbrellas to form the year 2012 their target year for full democracy.
The demonstrators chanted "One person one vote, the only way to go" and "Universal suffrage in 2012" as they marched to government headquarters.
"We need to have a good political environment in order to sustain our economic development," said one of the participants, 51-year-old businessman Michael Hui.
The former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997 but was promised a wide degree of autonomy under a "one country, two systems" formula.
Beijing has ruled out full democracy for the territory before 2008.
As it stands now, Hong Kong residents don't have the right to vote for the territory's leader, known as the chief executive.
An 800-member election committee, considered partial to the Chinese government, makes the selection.
Only half of the local legislative assembly's 60 lawmakers are also directly elected.
The rest are picked by special interest groups, such as businesses and labor unions.
Many Hong Kongers believe the city is ready for democratic reform, but Beijing loyalists especially those in the business community worry that political changes will create social upheaval and upset the economy.
The government has put forth a document containing various proposals on how and when the city's leader and legislature should be elected.
However, pro-democracy lawmakers who want direct elections as soon as possible have criticized the document, saying it lists too many options.
Neilson Oliveira Lima disappeared from his home in the rural community Pupuai on September 16, said Amazonas state police officer Ailson Carvalho.
"He went in the forest following his father and he got lost. He was found by his cousin, who was out hunting," Carvalho said in a telephone interview from Caraurai, the nearest town. "Nobody knows what he ate or how he survived.
He said nothing about his ordeal except to ask for water.
He was only taken to the hospital in Caraurai, Brazil, days later because of the long distances, Carvalho said.
Evanise de Oliveira Lima, the boy's mother, told CBN Radio that Neilson was thin and scratched but that she expected he would leave the hospital shortly.
"In the jungle near the house, there are jaguars, hawks, snakes," Lima told the radio station. "But his guardian angel and God protected my son."
A bus collided with a train in eastern Cuba, killing at least 28 people and injuring another 73, including 15 in critical condition, state media reported Sunday.
Authorities were still investigating the cause of the crash, which occurred around midday Saturday in the province of Granma, about 500 miles east of Havana, according to a statement read on state television.
The Communist Youth newspaper Juventud Rebelde had only a short story Sunday reporting that the collision took place at a railroad crossing near a bridge in the small town of Veguita, in Yara municipality.
It said a train traveling from the eastern city of Santiago to the coastal city of Manzanillo collided with a bus traveling from Bayamo to the coastal community of Campechuela.
The train dragged the bus to the bridge, where the bus fell.
In June a truck transporting passengers in the same region flipped over, killing 11.
State media said dozens of local residents assisted with rescue efforts or donated blood for the injured.
Attention shifted to Supreme Court deliberations on whether Pakistan's General Pervez Musharraf can claim victory after winning a landslide victory in a presidential election boycotted by nearly the entire opposition Saturday.
Opposition parties that snubbed the vote claimed it was undemocratic and unconstitutional for the U.S.-backed general, who seized power in a 1999 coup, to run while still army chief.
In all, 1,170 federal and provincial lawmakers were eligible to vote.
Musharraf dismissed criticism that the boycott had undermined the legitimacy of the election.
"A majority a vast majority have voted for me and therefore that result is the result.
(CNN) An off-duty sheriff's deputy shot and killed six people in Crandon, Wisconsin, early Sunday before dying himself under circumstances that remain under wraps, the town's police chief said.
The deputy, Tyler Peterson, also worked part-time as a Crandon police officer.
Forest County Sheriff Keith Van Cleve said Peterson was "about 20.
At least two of the victims were Crandon high school students, WTMJ told CNN.
Police Chief John Dennee would not say how Peterson died, but said he was "no longer a threat to the public."
The shootings took place about 2:45 a.m. at a home in Crandon, a town of about 2,000 people located 220 miles north of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Neither Dennee nor Van Cleve would discuss details of the shootings or identify the victims.
The state attorney general's office will investigate the case, Van Cleve said.
Bud Evans, an elder at Praise Chapel Community Church, said relatives of some of the victims of the shooting were gathering at his church.
Recent raids on monasteries turned up guns, knives and ammunition, though it was not yet clear to whom they belonged, according to The New Light of Myanmar, a mouthpiece of the junta.
The government threatened to punish any monks that violate the law, stepping up pressure on clerics who led the protests.
"Monks must adhere to the laws of God and the government," the paper wrote. "If they violate those laws, action could be taken against them.
Security eased in the largest city of Yangon more than a week after soldiers and police opened fire on demonstrators.
At least 135 monks are being held, according to The New Light of Myanmar.
In addition, 78 more people suspected of involvement in the rallies were being questioned by investigators, it said.
Malaysia urged the military regime on Sunday to quickly hold unconditional talks with pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who remains under house arrest, before the world pushes harder for political change.
BEIJING, China (CNN) A storm drenched China's southeast on Sunday after killing five people on Taiwan and prompting the evacuation of 1.4 million people on the mainland, officials said.
In Vietnam, the death toll from a separate storm rose to 55.
Krosa came ashore as a typhoon in China's Zhejiang and Fujian provinces, but weakened and was soon downgraded to a tropical storm, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
It said no deaths or injuries were reported, but the storm wrecked houses and knocked out power in the port city of Wenzhou as torrential rains swept the region.
Some 75,000 fishing vessels in the two provinces were ordered back to port and trips by ferries and sightseeing boats were canceled , the agency said.
Krosa the Cambodian word for crane killed five people Saturday on Taiwan as it knocked out power to 2 million homes and soaked the island, according to Taiwan's Disaster Relief Center.
Two men were killed in suburban Taipei when a landslide buried their house, the center said.
A man died after falling from his balcony in Hsinchu and a woman was electrocuted after falling from her motorcycle in Tainan.
Early Sunday, China's coast guard rescued 27 sailors from a Hong Kong freighter that suffered mechanical failure after it was hit by the storm off Wenzhou, Xinhua said.
In Shanghai, where the Special Olympics is taking place, the city government canceled vacations for flood-control workers and was drafting plans to drain competition sites, the agency said.
Meanwhile, the death toll from Typhoon Lekima, which hit Vietnam's central coast late Wednesday, rose to 55, with another 16 people missing, officials said Sunday.
The death toll in Vietnam's worst-hit central province of Nghe An rose to 22 after eight more bodies were discovered over the past two days, said provincial disaster official Pham Hong Thuong.
"Communication to many parts of the province is still cut off," Thuong said. "The death toll is likely to rise.
Lekima, named after a local fruit, also damaged about 77,000 homes, the government said.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) A Sunni member of Iraq's parliament is in custody after his arrest during a U.S.-Iraqi military raid on a suspected al Qaeda in Iraq gathering, U.S. military and Iraqi officials said Friday.
The military detained the lawmaker, Nayyes Jassem Mohammed, on Saturday in Salaheddin province, Iraqi provincial officials said.
U.S. military spokesman Maj. Gen. Kevin Bergner offered few details about how the parliament member was picked up.
In a statement released later Friday, the U.S. military said Iraqi and U.S. forces detained "23 suspected al Qaeda in Iraq terrorists" during a raid on al Qaeda in Iraq leadership who had gathered to elect a new emir because the previous one had been killed the day before in a firefight.
Ahmed al-Jebouri, security aide to the Salaheddin governor, told CNN the parliament member was attending a wake for a local emir of Hawija and member of al Qaeda in Iraq who was killed by the U.S. military.
Mohammed is a member of the Iraqi Accordance Front, part of the largest Sunni bloc in parliament.
After the raid, the Iraqi and U.S. forces were attacked with three roadside bombs and small arms fire from insurgents who were attempting to flee the area, the military's statement said.
Also Friday, the U.S. military said 25 insurgents were killed in an airstrike on a village near Baquba, but Iraqi authorities said civilians, including women and children, were among those killed.
The military said the airstrike followed a heavy firefight with insurgents using assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.
The U.S. statement said the operation targeted a commander suspected of links to the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force. The suspect was "involved in the movement of various weapons from Iran to Baghdad.
CLARKSVILLE, Tennessee (CNN) A business owner shot and killed himself during a City Council meeting Thursday night after members voted against his request to rezone his property, witnesses said.
After the 5-7 vote Thursday night, Ward stood and walked toward the council.
Fire and police officials attending the meeting immediately ushered the audience of about 50 into the hallway, where several people were sobbing.
"When a gun gets whipped out like that, someone is going to get shot, but I didn't know who," Councilman Bill Summers said.
Mayor Johnny Piper said Thursday's council meeting would be the last held in that room.
Ward had said the rezoning would increase his property value, allowing him to secure a loan to offset debt he incurred when he expanded his shop.
His barber shop was often visited by media reporting on the local economic impact of thousands of soldiers with the 101st Airborne Division being deployed to Iraq.
"If a soldier came in and said he needed a haircut but didn't have any money, Bo would cut his hair and tell him to pay him when he could.
In 2004, Petraeus, sent Ward a postcard during the division's first deployment to Iraq, thanking him for keeping his shop open during the deployment and "giving haircuts to children of our families.
NEW YORK (CNN) Track star Marion Jones pleaded guilty Friday to lying to a federal investigator about taking banned substances.
She asked for forgiveness, adding that she understood that a simple apology "might not be enough and sufficient to address the pain and the hurt I have caused you.
"Because of my actions, I am retiring from the sport of track and field, a sport which I deeply love," she said.
Further, Jones said the example of her "wrong choices and bad decisions" would "be used to make the lives of many people improve."
Jones who had long vehemently denied taking steroids appeared in U.S. District Court in White Plains, New York, before Judge Kenneth Karas.
Jones, 31, told the court that her then coach, Trevor Graham, first gave her steroids in 1999, telling her it was flaxseed oil.
She said she took the steroid known as "the clear," or THG, from that time until 2001, covering her participation in the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia.
Graham has been indicted for allegedly lying to federal investigators. He has pleaded not guilty.
Federal sentencing guidelines suggest Jones could face jail time. She has been ordered back to court on January 11, 2008, for sentencing.
The admission could also cost her the five medals she won at the 2000 Olympic games in Sydney three of them gold.
The admission could also have a ripple effect throughout the sports world, particularly for the investigation into alleged doping by other high-profile athletes.
BALCO has been at the center of a long-running professional sports steroid scandal, including allegations against baseball home run king Barry Bonds.
Jones filed a $25 million defamation lawsuit against Victor Conte, founder of BALCO, in 2004.
(CNN) In August, Jack returned from summer camp that included swims in Texas' Lake LBJ.
Five days after coming home he was dead, killed by a microscopic amoeba.
Jack is one of six people to die this summer in the United States from the naegleria fowleri amoeba.
All were believed by health officials to have contracted the amoeba from swimming in warm, freshwater lakes, rivers or natural springs.
There is no risk from properly chlorinated swimming pools, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The amoeba enters the human body through the nose.
It then travels to the brain, where it begins to feed.
Symptoms of the amoeba's rampage begin 1 to 14 days after infection and resemble the flu.
At the onset of those symptoms the amoeba victim's health swiftly declines.
At this point, says Dr. Kevin Sherin of the Orange County Health Department who is investigating three deaths this summer in Florida, "It's progressing very rapidly and then there's a downhill course for them there.
Folks lapse into a coma, there are abnormal movements of the eyes and a terrible cascade of events leading to the actual death of parts of the brain.
Although exposure to the amoeba is usually fatal, Sherin says a cocktail of drugs can fight the amoeba if administered in time. The key, he says, is identifying the amoeba early.
In the hot summer months when the amoeba flourishes, he said, doctors need to learn to look for the symptoms of an amoeba-related illness.
"If you have a flu-like illness or a bad headache following swimming in a freshwater body and the temperature is over 80 degrees Fahrenheit, be aware of this.
Until this summer there were only 24 known cases of the virus in the U.S. since 1989, according to the CDC.
Health officials cannot explain the spike in cases this summer, except that weather plays a factor.
Another question health officials have is why the amoeba seems to appear more often in young males.
All six victims this summer were male, ages 10 to 22 years old.
One theory, the CDC says, is that young males might be more likely to engage in water sports such as water skiing or wakeboarding.
But other than wearing nose plugs while swimming or staying out of freshwater above 80 degrees Fahrenheit, there is little people can do to prevent exposure to the amoeba.
(CNN) China is one of the largest emerging markets and a top focus for shoemakers fighting for market share.
And as the 2008 Beijing Olympics approach, the intensity is reaching a new high.
Adidas is an official sponsor of the Olympics.
In addition to paying a reported $80 million for the sponsorship position, the company has coordinated a marketing blitz that includes opening an average of two stores a day in the country.
The German company has declared the event will help put it in the No. 1 position in China by 2008, a coveted spot now held by shoe giant Nike.
Nike says China is poised to become its second-largest market in the world by 2009 after the U.S.
its first-quarter earnings reported in September show sales in China jumped 50 percent.
Nike declined to discuss its Olympics marketing plan but says the Olympics is less about advertising than about supporting the athlete.
Both companies may hit $1 billion annually in sales in China by the Olympics, said Terry Rhoades, managing director of Zou Marketing, a sports consultant company in Shanghai.
In third is Chinese company Li Ning a premium local brand but a fraction of the size of its international competitors.
Analysts say Li Ning has a different strength, with its base in the smaller and less urban markets, where brands like Adidas and Nike have not spread.
Li Ning, founded by a former Chinese gymnast, has also ramped up its design team and is sponsoring several Chinese teams slated to be strong contenders in the games.
Sports were once seen as a luxury in China.
But as the middle class has grown and culture has changed, interest has exploded.
Parks and other facilities are being built and opening up to the public.
Basketball has become a top sport, and viewers can watch several NBA games a week in China's major cities.
Companies like Nike and Adidas, which have had a presence in the country for decades, have helped spur the growth with sponsorship of teams and tournaments.
International brands have tried to capture the hearts of the youth who are more consumer-driven and connected than preceding generations.
Young urban Chinese, and a growing minority in the countryside, are like their counterparts from Brooklyn to Bangkok:
They wear athletic shoes, baggy T-shirts and track suits.
The race for market share in China won't end with the Olympics;
Top seed Williams overcame Danish teenager Caroline Wozniacki 6-3 7-5.
Fifth seed Razzano defeated eighth seed Flavia Pennetta of Italy 4-6 7-5 6-3.
"It feels good, it's great to be in the finals," Williams said. "I was like, 'Can I do this?
After losing the first four games in a row and eventually the set, Wozniacki went ahead 2-0 in the second set and then 4-2, taking advantage of Williams' two double faults in the sixth game.
Razzano, from Nimes, won her first WTA title in Guanzhou last Sunday.
She will compete in the Beijing Olympic tournament next year.
The Vatican-sized compound, which will be the world's largest diplomatic mission, has been beset by construction and logistical problems.
"They are substantially behind at this point," and it would be surprising if any offices or living quarters could be occupied before the end of the year, one official told The Associated Press.
Problems identified so far are related to the complex's physical plant, including electrical systems, and do not pose a security risk, said the official, who was not authorized to speak
The official also said the delays would have no direct cost to taxpayers because contractor First Kuwaiti General Trading & Contracting Co. had agreed to deliver for a set $592 million price.
Deputy spokesman Tom Casey said Thursday he was not aware of any new major delay in the opening of the embassy that will sit on a 104-acre site and have working space for about 1,000 people.
Insurgents have gotten better at firing into the heavily guarded zone in attacks this year have killed several people.
The new complex is supposed to be safer, with additional blast walls and other protection.
Spanish police detained more than 20 senior members of an outlawed Basque party that is considered to be the political wing of the armed separatist group ETA on Thursday, officials said.
The Batasuna party officials were arrested in the northern town of Segura on the order of Spain's National Court, a police official said, speaking on condition of anonymity in accordance with force policy.
Spanish news reports said anti-terror judge Baltasar Garzon issued the order.
It was unclear what if any charges they would face, but the party has been outlawed since 2003 and is barred from organizing political activities.
The party's leader, Arnaldo Otegi, has been in jail since June on terrorism charges.
In a separate incident, suspected ETA member Juan Carlos Iriarte Perez, 36, was arrested in Hendaye, France, the Interior Ministry said.
The group wants to establish an independent Basque state from parts of northeastern Spain and southwestern France.
TOKYO, Japan (CNN) A Japanese satellite was injected into lunar orbit, a first for the nation and for Asia, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) confirmed Friday.
The satellite, known as SELENE (Selenological and Engineering Explorer ) and nicknamed "KAGUYA," was launched from Tanegashima Space Center on September 14.
It was injected into orbit on Thursday, JAXA said on its Web site.
The mission consists of a main orbiting satellite at about 100 kilometers (62 miles) altitude and two smaller satellites, the site said.
Researchers will use data gathered by the probes to study the moon's origin and evolution.
The main orbiter will stay in position for about a year, The Associated Press reported.
Messages and signs were collected from more than 412,000 people to be aboard the satellite, JAXA said.
Japan launched a moon probe in 1990, but that was a flyby mission.
It canceled another moon shot, LUNAR-A, that was to have been launched in 2004 but had been repeatedly postponed because of mechanical and fiscal problems, AP reported.
The SELENE satellite mission four years behind JAXA's original schedule comes as China is planning to launch its own lunar probe.
That country's minister of defense and technology told China Central Television in July all was ready for a launch "by the end of the year," AP reported.
China's Chang'e 1 orbiter will use stereo cameras and X-ray spectrometers to map three-dimensional images of the lunar surface and study its dust, AP reported.
The meeting comes after Myanmar's chief military leader, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, said on state television Thursday he would meet with detained Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi provided she give up her calls for sanctions against the country.
The Myanmar government also invited the U.S. Charges d'Affaires in Myanmar, Shari Villarosa, to meet with its leaders on Friday.
They did not indicate what the agenda for the meeting would be, but U.S. State Department spokesman Tom Casey said Villarosa's message would be "the same one we've been giving publicly, and that's that they need to stop repressing their own people, that they need to engage in a dialogue with the opposition.
On Wednesday, Villarosa told CNN's Anderson Cooper the U.S. Embassy was concerned over the apparent disappearance of Buddhist monks.
We've seen a few that seem to be open again, but with a significantly reduced number of monks."
Gambari met with ruling military junta leaders as well as Suu Kyi and other pro-democracy leaders last weekend.
Suu Kyi has been held in varying degrees of detention for 12 out of the last 18 years since 1989, when her National League for Democracy won the country's first free multiparty elections.
The military junta refused to hand over power.
Gambari on Thursday briefed U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who had sent him to Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, in the wake of the military's crackdown on peaceful demonstrations.
BEIJING, China (CNN) A father tied his 10-year-old daughter's hands and feet and watched her swim in a chilly southern China river for three hours in a task he said Thursday would help the girl achieve her dream of swimming across the English Channel.
Huang Li swam more than a mile in the Xiang River on Tuesday, traveling with the current, her father said.
The girl swam by moving like a dolphin and would sometimes paddle with her bound hands.
"Her swimming skills are perfect and she insisted on doing this," Huang Daosheng said in a telephone interview.
The girl, who lives in the city of Zhangjiajie in Hunan province, got the idea after seeing something similar on a local television program, he said.
With the Beijing Olympics less than a year away, sports is grabbing greater attention in an already sports-crazed country.
Huang Li's swim is at least the second time in recent months that a child athlete has drawn media attention.
This past summer, 8-year-old Zhuang Huimin ran 2,212 miles from her home on the southern island province of Hainan to Beijing in 55 days, her father trailing behind her on a motor scooter.
The run drew criticism from some media commentators as excessive for a young child.
News photos showed Huang Li, wearing a skirted swimsuit, being picked up out of the water by her father.
Her ankles were tied together with string and her hands were bound by a strip of cloth.
A newspaper report said the girl was so cold her face had turned blue.
"It's not dangerous because, first, her swimming skills are really good and second, I was swimming with her, staying close to her," the father said.
"I had her when I was 35, so she is my heart.
I would never play around with her life.
The father, a teacher who enjoys swimming, coaches his daughter and said the family does not have enough money for her to have a better coach.
The girl started the sport when she was six and her father said her goal is to one day swim across the English Channel.
Workers rebuilding a 19th century Moscow house dug up the remains of nearly three dozen people, and investigators were trying to determine their identities, a city police official said Thursday.
Police also found a rusted pistol in the estate where the remains of an estimated 34 people were found, said Moscow city police spokesman Yevgeny Gildeyev.
The buildings are located in downtown Moscow, about midway between Red Square and Lubyanka, the headquarters of the KGB, where political prisoners were interrogated and executions carried out.
The Soviet Union in the 1930s experienced a wave of politically motivated killings and purges of the government and Communist Party orchestrated by Josef Stalin's secret police.
The killings reached their apex in 1937 during what came to be known as the Great Terror.
An estimated 1.7 million people were arrested in 1937-38 by the security services alone, and at least 818,000 of them were shot.
LONDON, England (CNN) The driver of the limousine in which Princess Diana and her lover Dodi Fayed were killed spent time in a bar shortly before the 1997 Paris crash, a jury at an inquest into her death has heard.
But the jury also watched video from security cameras at the Ritz that gives no outward sign that Henri Paul was drunk when the Mercedes he was driving crashed in an underpass while being chased by paparazzi, as both French and British police have concluded.
Paul is seen squatting in the lobby of the hotel to tie his shoe laces, shifting his weight from one foot to another and rising steadily.
He is also shown bounding up stairs two at a time.
The jury has already heard that Paul ordered two Ricards - an aniseed spirit - that night after arriving at the hotel.
Next week, the jury is scheduled to travel to Paris to see the crash site, along the River Seine.
They are also expected to hear testimony from the paparazzi who were present after the accident.
In its evidence section, the Web site for the inquest has posted previously unpublished pictures taken by paparazzi of the limo before and immediately after the accident.
One is a closeup looking into the front of the vehicle that shows Diana, Fayed, Paul and Rees-Jones minutes before the crash.
Benazir Bhutto's opposition party will not join a boycott against Saturday's vote that is expected to give Gen. Pervez Musharraf a third term as Pakistan's president, but the self-exiled opposition leader said, "We will not be voting for him.
"We are unable to vote for General Musharraf and he understands this because the PPP stands for democracy and democracy means a distinction between civilian and military.
General Musharraf continues to be chief of army staff, we will not be voting for him. But we will not be resigning.
The last of 3,200 gold miners trapped by a power failure reached the surface late Thursday after nearly two days underground, witnesses reported.
The workers were stuck 1.3 miles (2 kilometers ) underground in the cavernous Elandstrand New Mine after a large compressed air pipe fell down a shaft about 6 a.m. Wednesday (midnight Tuesday ET).
The accident knocked out power and disabled elevators in the mine, which is built like an underground city, complete with trains, trucks and cars.
"I'm happy now because we are out and we are alive," said Granny Makau, one of the freed miners and one of scores of women working at Elandstrand.
Lesiba Sheshoka, a spokesman for South Africa's National Union of Mineworkers, said he could not speak specifically about the conditions at the Elandstrand mine. But he pointed to what he called South Africa's generally poor mine safety record.
According to an official South African government Web site, 202 workers died in mine accidents in 2005, with another 3,961 suffering injuries.
(CNN) At least 30 people were killed Thursday after a plane crashed in a poor, crowded suburb of Kinshasa right after takeoff, according to a Congolese Ministry of Information official.
All 22 on board the plane 16 passengers and six crew were killed, as well as up to eight people on the ground, according to Jean-Pierre Eale, an aide to the Democratic Republic of Congo's information minister.
However, U.N. peacekeeping spokesman Michel Bonnardeaux, citing police reports, said 25 people were killed and two aboard the plane survived a mechanic and a flight attendant who was in critical condition, The Associated Press reported.
The Antonov-26 crashed into at least one house near a crowded marketplace in the country's capital, Kinshasa, Congolese officials said.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said one of the plane's propellers broke off during takeoff and one of its wings was sheared off as it hit a bank of trees, AP reported.
Several witnesses echoed that account to AP, saying the aircraft appeared to be missing a propeller before it crashed.
"The plane clipped several treetops and hit the roofs of three houses, crashing onto its back with its tires in the air," Japhet Kiwa, who lives a few miles away from the airport, told AP.
"There was a huge explosion.
The plane took off from Kinshasa International Airport, also known as N'Djili International Airport, around 10:40 a.m. (5: 40 a.m. ET) en route to Tshikapa in the southern part of the country near the Angolan border, Eale and other Congolese officials said.
A few minutes after takeoff, the plane experienced problems and began dumping fuel before establishing radio contact with the airport's tower, Eale said.
Just as it radioed the tower, the plane crashed into the suburb of Masina, he said.
Video of the scene showed smoldering wreckage, including what appeared to be one of the Antonov-26's two turboprop engines and the charred remains of a building.
Dozens of men hoisted a water hose to douse the flames.
Joseph Prior, director of the local Doctors Without Borders mission, said he and his colleagues treated around 10 or 15 people who suffered third-degree burns after the plane crashed into their homes.
"It was mostly chaos and confusion all over the place," he said. He described the neighborhood as "quite a shantytown" with "lots of ramshackle houses.
The aircraft is owned by local airline El Sam and leased by the Malila company, Congolese transportation official Rashid Patel said.
NEW YORK (CNN) A piece of outer space named for George Takei is in kind of a rough neighborhood for somebody who steers a starship: an asteroid belt.
An asteroid between Mars and Jupiter has been renamed 7307 Takei in honor of the actor, best known for his role as Hikaru Sulu in the original "Star Trek" series and movies.
I was blown away. It came out of the clear, blue sky just like an asteroid.
The celestial rock, discovered by two Japanese astronomers in 1994, was formerly known as 1994 GT9.
It joins the 4659 Roddenberry (named for the show's creator, Gene Roddenberry) and the 68410 Nichols (for co-star Nichelle Nichols, who played Lt. Uhura).
Other main-belt asteroids have been named for science fiction luminaries Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov.
The renaming of 7307 Takei was approved by the International Astronomical Union's Committee on Small Body Nomenclature.
About 14,000 asteroid names have been approved by the panel, while about 165,000 asteroids have been identified and numbered, union spokesman Lars Lindberg Christensen said.
Takei has appeared on NBC's "Heroes" and appears regularly on Howard Stern's satellite radio show.
WASHINGTON (CNN) A weekend incident with racial overtones at a high school for deaf students could result in criminal charges with "enhanced penalties for a hate crime," Metro Police Chief Cathy Lanier said Wednesday.
A black student was held against his will and then released with "KKK" and swastikas drawn on him in marker at the Model Secondary School for the Deaf on Sunday, she said.
No charges have been filed, and no names have been released, Lanier said.
The incident began when a group of black students and a group of white students were in a dorm.
"My understanding is the two groups engaged in friendly horseplay," she said.
But, she said, the groups got "angry with each other.
The two groups separated, she said, but later, six white students and one black student all between the ages of 15 and 19 took one of the black students into a dorm room and "held him there against his will.
"They used markers to write 'KKK' and draw swastikas on the student," Lanier said.
The student was released after about 45 minutes.
He notified dorm and school authorities, who called police.
Lanier said police have identified and interviewed the students involved and the "investigation is ongoing.
Someone is either too cheap to buy his own toilet paper or planning a big prank.
Fond du Lac County Executive Allen Buechel said someone has been repeatedly stealing toilet paper from the men's public bathrooms at the Fond du Lac City County Government Center since June.
Buechel suspects the person comes in once or twice a week around midday and gets about six rolls a week from dispensers. Some rolls weren't even full, he said.
"We don't buy the best toilet paper," Buechel said.
Courthouse officials are on the lookout for suspicious activity.
County sheriff Capt. Dean Will didn't return a call for comment Friday.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) British troop numbers in Iraq will be cut by 1,000 by the end of 2007, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Tuesday, shortly after arriving in Baghdad for talks with Iraqi officials.
The comments came as Brown, on his first visit to the country since replacing Tony Blair, said the southern Basra region where British troops are deployed would be in full Iraqi control in two months, the UK Press Association said.
Britain has been in command of coalition forces in the southern part of the country and has about 5,500 troops in Iraq.
The United States has the highest troop deployment at about 168,000.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki told reporters after the meeting in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone that his troops were ready to assume command in the country's south.
"We are prepared to take over security of Basra within two months and we will," he said, according to PA.
After his talks with Mr al-Maliki, Brown went on to hold further meetings with the US commander in Iraq General David Petraeus and Iraqi deputy prime minister Barham Saleh, who is responsible for economic regeneration.
Chelsea striker Didier Drogba struck a second-half winner against Valencia to give manager Avram Grant his first victory in the Champions League on Wednesday night.
Chelsea had to come from behind at the Mestalla Stadium, where David Villa put Valencia ahead in just the ninth minute.
Cole, who had few first-team chances this season under Mourinho, sent Drogba racing clear with a superb through-ball and the Ivory Coast forward outpaced the defense to slot past keeper Timo Hildebrand.
The Germans moved above Valencia on goal difference, having been beaten 1-0 by the Spaniards in the opening match.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun signed a joint statement Thursday, pledging to begin work on a permanent peace agreement that would replace the cease-fire accord signed at the end of the Korean War.
The reconciliation pact calls for North and South Korean leaders to meet often for discussions, including a visit by a high-ranking North Korean official to Seoul in November.
Military ministers for the two Koreas will meet in Pyongyang on Friday.
Also on the long list of agreements reached during the summit were a proposed exchange of video letters between families separated by the divided Korean peninsula.
The reclusive communist nation has also agreed to disable nuclear facilities at its main Yongbyon reactor complex by December 31, according to a
A U.S. team, including technical experts, will head to North Korea next week and take the lead in making sure the nuclear facilities are disabled, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said Wednesday.
The formal talks between Kim and Roh, which opened on Wednesday, marked the first summit between the split nations in seven years.
On Tuesday Roh became the first South Korean leader to walk across the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone between the two countries.
HANOI, Vietnam (CNN) Typhoon Lekima slammed into Vietnam's central coast Wednesday night, killing two people, destroying hundreds of houses and unleashing floods in one of the country's poorest regions.
The storm made landfall in Quang Binh and Ha Tinh provinces around 7 p.m., packing winds of more than 80 mph, disaster officials said.
Disaster officials had evacuated about 400,000 people from the region, moving them to schools and public buildings further inland.
A 13-year-old boy drowned in Quang Ngai while trying to anchor his family's boat, and another death was reported in Quang Binh province, said provincial disaster official Truong Ngoc Hung.
Hundreds of houses collapsed and the typhoon tore the roofs off scores more, said disaster official Nguyen Duc Tien.
Lekima, named after a Vietnamese fruit, destroyed thousands of acres of rice crops in Nghe An Province, according to officials there.
Lekima was upgraded from a tropical storm to a typhoon as it approached the coast Wednesday afternoon.
Earlier, Lekima appeared to be heading toward southern China, where officials evacuated 100,000 people and called 20,000 fishing boats back to harbor.
YANGON, Myanmar (CNN) The United Nations Human Rights Council is pushing for a fact-finding mission to Myanmar as video smuggled out of the secretive country shows unarmed protesters being beaten by the military regime's security forces.
U.N. envoy Paulo Sergio Pinheiro told CNN International the council "will be in a very strong position to convince the (Myanmar) government ... to receive me" after passing a resolution on Tuesday condemning the violent repression of pro-democracy protests.
The mission would follow a visit by U.N. envoy Ibrahim Gambari who sought to quell the tensions by meeting with junta leaders and pro-democracy leaders, including detained Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
Gambari left Myanmar Tuesday and is expected to brief the U.N. Security Council on his mission later this week.
Pinheiro said his trip would be "somewhat different" than Gambari's visit because it would involve "more fact-finding than a dialogue with the authorities.
Over the weekend, as many as 1,000 people were arrested in Yangon and the streets are controlled by police and soldiers who are checking everyone for cameras and cell phones, witnesses told CNN.
But some video of the protests has made it out of the tightly-controlled country, and seem to contradict the statement by Myanmar's foreign minister U Nyan Win, who said the country's security personnel have "exercised utmost restraint" in dealing with massive demonstrations.
In the video, one man raises his hands above his head, and is beaten with sticks by Myanmar security personnel.
The images show crowds of protesters over the weekend loudly chanting and marching peacefully through the city of Yangon. As Myanmar military descends on the protest, the crowds quickly disperse.
The chants of the demonstrators are replaced by loud orders from the military.
Several of the protesters are bloodied, one slumped inside an alleyway as his friend tries to tend to him while staying out of sight.
A pile of sandals remains in the street, evidence of the stampede that followed the military crackdown.
Demonstrators who weren't fast enough are searched and loaded onto trucks by men who are not wearing uniforms, apparently plain-clothes intelligence officers operating in their midst.
The official death toll from Myanmar's leadership is at 10, but there are reports that hundreds were killed in the wake of the demonstrations, which were led by Myanmar's Buddhist monks.
Pinheiro said the death toll would be among many facts he would investigate if he is allowed into Myanmar.
Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto has accused Islamabad of waging "a typical disinformation campaign" by saying it planned to lift longstanding corruption charges ahead of her planned return to Pakistan for upcoming elections.
"This is just a typical disinformation campaign by the present regime.
She said the move has "totally stalled" talks on a power-sharing deal with Pakistan's President, Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
Speaking on CNN Tuesday, minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmad said a majority of Pakistan's Cabinet ministers agreed that the charges against Bhutto should be lifted, allowing her to participate in parliamentary elections scheduled for later this year or early next year.
He said the decision came out of an emergency session called by Pakistan's Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and was expected to be finalized in the coming days.
Bhutto said she still intends to end her self-imposed exile and return to Pakistan on October 18.
Three bombs Wednesday in Baghdad struck the convoy of the Polish ambassador to Iraq, wounding the diplomat and killing three others in the entourage, including one of his bodyguards, authorities said.
In addition, the explosions killed two Iraqi civilians and wounded 11 others in the downtown Karrada neighborhood.
The convoy's three sport utility vehicles all bearing Polish flags were hit in the blasts, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said.
The ambassador, Gen. Edward Pietrzyk, was evacuated from the scene by a helicopter from Blackwater USA, the security firm that protects U.S. diplomats, a source told CNN.
The deputy chief of the Polish mission said Pietrzyk was released Wednesday afternoon from a U.S. military hospital and was to be taken first to Ramstein Air Base in Germany and then to Poland for further treatment.
Officials said the diplomat had a leg wound and suffered burns in the attack. Watch video from the scene of the attack &raquo;
The deputy said the U.S. military was handling the investigation.
"The terrorists opened fire after the bombing and our guys returned fire," he said.
"We expect the government of Iraq to find those responsible for this deliberate attack and punish them.
Iraqi officials said the strike targeted the convoy, but it was unclear if it was an assassination attempt on Pietrzyk.
Ryan C. Crocker, U.S. ambassador to Iraq, and Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in the country, condemned the attack.
LONDON, England (CNN) Previously unseen footage of Diana, Princess of Wales, taken just hours before she was killed in a car crash, has been shown to the jury at the inquest into her death.
Images taken from a security camera at the Ritz Hotel in Paris show the 36-year-old smiling as she and her lover Dodi Fayed step into an elevator and later walk out of the hotel.
Further footage shows Fayed visiting a jeweler's shop, images that could lend support to claims that he was buying an engagement ring.
Earlier, a British coroner at the inquest said tt may never be known for certain whether Princess Diana was pregnant when she died in the Paris car crash.
Lord Justice Scott Baker told the jury at the inquest into the deaths of the princess and her lover Dodi Fayed that scientific evidence might be unable to demonstrate "one way or the other" whether she was in the early stages of pregnancy.
But he said they would hear "intimate" details of her personal life.
Baker told the 11 members of the jury six women and five men Diana may have been on the contraceptive pill and that evidence she was poised to get engaged to Dodi on the night she died was contradictory.
On Tuesday the judge, who is acting as coroner in the case, told the jury that a famous image taken in summer 1997 showing Diana wearing a swimsuit could not be proof she was pregnant with Dodi's child as she had not started a relationship with him at that stage.
The jury is set to hear "scene setting" evidence, including CCTV and a tourist video.
The inquest to establish cause of death is expected to be a six-month process.
An international aid worker who witnessed the bloody crackdown on weekend pro-democracy demonstrations in Myanmar told CNN she saw bodies lying in the street in front of a pagoda dedicated to world peace, possibly as a warning from the government's security forces.
"There was a body lying on the road, there was another body slumped over the back of the truck," said the woman, who did not want to be identified for security reasons.
"There were crowds gathered approximately 400 meters away but they were not coming closer to help out. And it just looked like (the bodies) had been left there for people to witness, for people to see what they were capable of.
She said the bodies were near Yangon's Kaba Aye pagoda, a gold-domed Buddhist shrine.
Kaba Aye means world peace in Burmese.
She said "there were no military around" during protests she witnessed on Sept. 24.
"They want to see force, they want to see people coming into their country to help them, peacekeepers," she said. "They're expecting the (United Nations), they're expecting action.
Rescuers in South Africa were trying to retrieve nearly 3,200 workers stuck in a gold mine more than a mile deep near Johannesburg, South Africa, a miners union official said.
The workers are thought to be more than 1.3 miles (2 kilometers) underground at Harmony Gold's Elandsrand mine in Carletonville, according to Lesiba Seshoka, a spokesman for South Africa's National Union of Mineworkers.
Carletonville is about 50 miles (80 kilometers ) southwest of Johannesburg.
"It's going to take us an additional 10 hours to be able to rescue them," Seshoka said. "We are not really so sure about what actually happened so, we are keeping our fingers crossed and hoping they'll be OK."
A falling water pipe knocked out power to the elevator that carries men out of the mine, company officials told the South African Press Association.
But Seshoka said the 3,200 workers could be endangered by gases seeping out of the ground, a lack of oxygen or flooding. He disputed the company's account of the situation, which he called "desperate.
There was no emergency exit in the shaft, which had "not been maintained for ages," Seshoka said, according to the press association.
A total of 199 miners were killed in 2005, he said.
WASHINGTON (CNN) A U.S. team, including technical experts, will head to North Korea next week after the communist country agreed to begin disabling its nuclear weapons facilities, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said Wednesday.
Hill's remarks came shortly after the Bush administration said Pyongyang had agreed to disable its nuclear facilities at Yongbyon where plutonium is produced by the end of this year in a deal forged by the so-called six-party talks in Beijing.
By "disable," Hill said, the agreement means making it difficult to restart a nuclear program by sealing the facility and removing certain components that would not be easy to replace.
The goal in the next phase, the assistant secretary of state said, is complete dismantlement, but that could take as long as five years.
In a statement, President Bush said he welcomes the deal, which "maps out additional steps toward our ultimate goal of full and verifiable denuclearization.
"Today's announcement reflects the common commitment of the participants in the Six-Party Talks to realize a Korean Peninsula that is free of nuclear weapons," the president said.
The agreement, thrashed out at the so-called six-party talks in Beijing, was actually signed September 30, but kept under wraps until now.
The Yongbyon complex has been at the center of North Korea's weapons programs for decades and is believed to have produced a nuclear device detonated a year ago by Pyongyang to prove its nuclear capability.
"This is a new and significant step toward denuclearization," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.
He called the deal a "step along the way" and said the United States hopes the agreement will be implemented.
The latest agreement provides for the United States to take the lead in making sure the nuclear facilities actually are disabled.
by the six-party talks will journey to North Korea in the next week at the invitation of the North Koreans to begin disabling North Korea's means of producing bomb making material," Hill said.
UNITED NATIONS (CNN) Myanmar's foreign minister U Nyan Win on Monday blamed intense pro-democracy demonstrations in his country on "political opportunists" and declared that "normalcy has now returned to Myanmar.
His remarks came hours before U.N. envoy Ibrahim Gambari met with Myanmar's military leader, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, The Associated Press cited a foreign diplomat as saying on condition of anonymity.
No details of the meeting on Tuesday in the junta's remote new capital, Naypyitaw, were available.
The reported meeting followed Gambari's talks with senior government officials in Naypyitaw on Saturday and with pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi in Yangon on Sunday to seek a peaceful resolution to the ongoing clashes.
Addressing the U.N. General Assembly, Win defended what he called the government's "seven-step road map" to draft a new constitution and hold elections.
"Recent events make clear that there are elements within and outside the country who wish to derail the ongoing process so that they can take advantage of the chaos that would follow," he said.
"They have become more and more emboldened and have stepped up their campaign to confront the government.
Younes Kaboul scored in injury time to earn Tottenham a remarkable 4-4 Premier League home draw with Aston Villa, sealing a remarkable fightback after trailing 4-1 and possibly saving manager Martin Jol from the sack.
Dimitar Berbatov opened the scoring for Spurs but two goals from Martin Laursen edged the visitors ahead and Gabriel Agbonlahor and Craig Gardner added to the lead.
However, Pascal Chimbonda and Robbie Keane pulled goals back and deep into added time Kaboul found the top corner to level the scores.
Jol appeared a man on the brink after Tottenham fell 4-1 behind but his side dug deep to earn a point on the evening of their 125th anniversary celebrations although they remain third bottom of the table.
Bulgarian striker Berbatov puts Spurs ahead in the 20th minute, powerfully heading home from Tom Huddlestone's corner.
But Villa hit back immediately when England goalkeeper Paul Robinson dropped Gareth Barry's corner, allowing Laursen to prod home after a ricochet off Pascal Chimbonda.
Agbonlahor made it 3-1 five minutes from half-time when he won the ball off Michael Dawson after a Luke Moore flick-on, twisted into the penalty area and finished neatly, low into the far corner of Robinson's net.
With eight minutes remaining Marlon Harewood fouled Darren Bent in the area and Keane fired home the spot-kick.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) British Prime Minister Gordon Brown arrived in Baghdad on Tuesday for meetings with Iraqi government officials, the British Embassy in Baghdad said.
This is Brown's first visit to Iraq since becoming prime minister in June.
The visit comes as unconfirmed reports suggested Brown was considering a reduction in the number of British troops in the southern Iraqi city of Basra.
Reports said as many as 2,000 troops could be home by the spring, according to the British Press Association.
The Basra contingent could fall to little over 3,000 in the next six months, the PA reported, citing The Daily Telegraph newspaper.
In early September Brown dismissed a suggestion that a withdrawal by UK troops from their base in the southern Iraqi city of Basra was a defeat, insisting it was an "organized" move.
He made the comments as 500 British troops completed their withdrawal from Basra Palace.
This is a pre-planned, and this is an organized move from Basra Palace to Basra Air Station."
Ukraine's Orange Revolution allies made a strong combined showing in Sunday's parliamentary elections and looked poised to win a majority that could unseat the prime minister and steer the country more firmly onto a pro-Western course, an exit poll showed.
With reports from more than 40 percent of the polling stations counted, the bloc led by fiery Orange Revolution heroine Yulia Tymoshenko had about 33 percent of the vote, followed closely by Yanukovych's party with 30 percent and Yushchenko's bloc a distant third with about 16 percent, according to the
If the parties of Tymoshenko and Yushchenko come through on their pledge to cooperate, they would together have the majority of seats needed to form a government.
Tymoshenko, smiling triumphantly after the exit polls were announced, said she would meet with Yushchenko on Monday to quickly formalize their new alliance.
"In one or two days we will announce the coalition," Tymoshenko told reporters.
Yuriy Lutsenko, the leader of Yushchenko's party, said it was ready to back Tymoshenko as prime minister after the coalition is formed.
Tymoshenko, clad in immaculate white, pledged that the new government would push strongly for Ukraine to integrate more closely into Europe and quickly join the World Trade Organization.
LAS VEGAS, Nevada (CNN) Wedding bells might not be far off for Pamela Anderson.
The former "Baywatch" star and Rick Salomon applied for and were granted a marriage license late Saturday in Las Vegas, according to the Clark County's Marriage License Bureau.
The license means the couple can get married any time during the next year.
Anderson, 40, has been previously married to singer Kid Rock and Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee.
Salomon, 38, is best-known for making a sex videotape with his then-girlfriend Paris Hilton and was previously married to actress Shannen Doherty.
NATO ships rescued two survivors and spotted three bodies off the coast of a small Red Sea island Monday morning, following a spectacular volcanic eruption the night before, a NATO commander said.
The Yemeni Coast Guard rescued 21 of the 29 Yemeni military personnel who were on the island when the volcano erupted, but they requested help from a nearby six-ship NATO task force en route to the Suez Canal, according to Ken Allan of the Canadian Navy's HMCS Toronto.
The Canadian ship located the first survivor about five miles off the coast of the volcanic island, Allan told CNN's American Morning.
"We managed to pluck him out of the water, after he'd been in there for quite a long time and moments later, my ship, the HMCS Toronto, picked up another survivor, currently down in sick bay receiving medical care from our doctor aboard," Allan said.
Allan said the ships, still in the area searching Monday afternoon, also recovered two men who did not survive.
Four Yemeni military personnel are still missing, he said, adding that they were on Jazirt Atta-Ir island when the volcano erupted.
The island of Jazirt Atta-Ir is located about 85 miles (140 km) from Yemen in the Red Sea.
WASHINGTON (CNN) Airport screeners are giving additional scrutiny to remote-controlled toys because terrorists could use them to trigger explosive devices, the Transportation Security Administration said Monday.
The TSA stopped short of banning the toys in carry-on bags but suggested travelers place them in checked luggage.
"Travelers may encounter additional screening when bringing remote control devices in carry-on baggage," the TSA said.
In addition, anyone carrying such toys, including children, may have to go through secondary screening.
The change was not prompted by any specific intelligence, the TSA said.
Instead, it was made in response to July's National Intelligence Estimate, which concluded the United States will face "a persistent and evolving terrorist threat" in the coming years, and also by generalized threats that noted the use of remote-control toys as detonators.
Authorities allege one of two students arrested in South Carolina in August posted a video on YouTube demonstrating how to use a remote-controlled toy to trigger a bomb.
The arrested men Ahmed Mohamed, 26, and Youssef Megahed, 21 are Egyptian nationals.
Mohamed allegedly told authorities he made the videotape about remote bomb detonation to help people in Arab countries fight infidels.
In a statement on the TSA's Web site, Administrator Kip Hawley said, "We work very closely with law enforcement and intelligence communities about possible methods of attack and it appears that terrorists may have an interest to use these remote-control toys as a means to initiate these devices in a terrorist attack.
Hawley added, "We want to let passengers know that if they see some different security screening related to remote control devices, they know why we're doing it.
A TSA spokesman said the agency is publicizing the heightened scrutiny because it wants to be transparent with the public and let terrorists know "we're on to them."
Stocks rallied Monday, with the Dow closing at an all-time high on bets that the big banks are starting to put the worst behind them - and on hopes that the Federal Reserve will continue cutting interest rates.
The Dow Jones industrial average (Charts) added nearly 192 points to end at an all-time high of 14,087.55.
The previous intraday high was 14,021.95 from July 19.
The tech-fueled Nasdaq composite (Charts) gained 1.5 percent and carved out a new 2007 record, closing at its highest point since Feb. 2001.
The Russell 2000 (Charts) small-cap index jumped 2.4 percent.
"You're seeing a continuation of the recent momentum," said Chris Johnson, CEO of Johnson Research Group.
"It becomes a psychological phenomenon," he said. "Investors know that there are inherent risks in the market, but at the same time, they're rationalizing any bad news."
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (CNN) The fifth in a series of international concerts that Nelson Mandela has used to raise awareness about AIDS will be held December 1 in Johannesburg.
"The 46664 campaign has done great work in putting the global spotlight on the issue of HIV and AIDS
"We will continue to use celebrities from the world of music, sports and entertainment to speak to the youth about the disease.
The concert, expected to attract 30-35 international and local artists and draw a crowd of over 50,000 people, will be held to mark World Aids Day on December 1. Details of the lineup will be announced later this month.
Previous concerts in Cape Town, Spain and Norway boasted some of the world's top musicians including U2, Annie Lennox, Peter Gabriel, Beyonce, Bob Geldof and Angelique Kidjo.
"We are trying to make this concert something very different," said Tim Massey, the international director for the campaign. "This is going to be the greatest concert yet.
The campaign was launched in 2003 by the Nelson Mandela Foundation.
The funds raised through the concerts are used to create awareness of the AIDS pandemic among young people.
An estimated 5.4 million South Africans are infected with the AIDS virus the largest number in any country in the world and about 900 people die each day of the disease.
Massey said about $3 million has been raised through the concerts so far.
(CNN) Talks between U.N. envoy Ibrahim Gambari and Myanmar's secretive military leader were stalled for another day on Monday.
The Associated Press, citing diplomats, said Gambari was taken on a government-sponsored trip to attend a seminar in the far northern Shan state on EU relations with Southeast Asia, instead of meeting with junta leader Senior Gen. Than Shwe.
Gambari had planned to tell him, "about the international outrage over what has happened and will urge him to talk with various people and try to resolve the problems peacefully," Shari Villarosa, charg&eacute; d'affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Yangon, told CNN on Sunday.
Earlier, the United Nations said it was uncertain as to when any meeting with Shwe might take place.
Troops removed roadblocks on Monday and moved into less conspicuous posts, according to The Associated Press.
Myanmar's ruling military junta imposed heavy security restrictions in the former capital last week as pro-democracy demonstrations began to attract tens of thousands of protesters.
Acting to crush the demonstrations, security guards have used increasing force in recent days, resulting in the deaths of at least 10 people, according to media and opposition reports, which CNN cannot independently confirm.
On Monday, a man, who identified himself as Nick, said he saw about 15 bodies floating in a river in Yangon. He described them as both men and women, monks and civilians.
In other developments, Myanmar soldiers have surrounded the campus of a technology school in Yangon, detaining about 2,000 people, who were staging a hunger strike to protest the crackdown on demonstrators, a well-known source with the pro-democracy movement told CNN.
South Korea's president crossed the Cold War's last frontier on Tuesday in a symbolic walk of reconciliation for talks with his North Korean counterpart.
Roh became the first leader from either side to cross the border on foot.
The meeting comes at a time of talks over disarmament, with North Korean negotiators set to respond Tuesday to the latest road map. Last year, the North tested a nuclear bomb, rattling regional stability and leading to a dramatic turnaround in a previously hard-line U.S. policy.
The meeting with the reclusive North Korean leader, announced in early August, was initially scheduled for the end of that month but was postponed after massive flooding in Pyongyang.
A 42-year-old Bosnian man carrying explosives in his backpack tried to enter the U.S. Embassy in Vienna on Monday, but fled when his bag triggered the embassy's metal detector alarm, Austrian officials told CNN.
He was arrested a short time later after dumping his bag, which contained two hand grenades, screws and nails, said Doris Edelbacher, a spokeswoman for the Austrian Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution.
She did not know whether the bag was rigged to detonate.
Austria has not increased its security at
The backpack was taken to a lab, where explosives specialists were examining its contents. "There were a lot of nails in that bag.
Austrian authorities told the AP the bag also contained Islamic literature.
Zurich-based UBS said Monday it will also write down the value of some assets by $3.4 billion (4 billion Swiss francs) because of the subprime mortgage crisis and that its job cuts involve about 1,500 positions.
Chief Executive Marcel Rohner said he would take over as investment banking chief, replacing Huw Jenkins, who will step down to become an adviser.
In addition, Chief Financial Officer Clive Standish will retire.
"UBS operates on the principle that management is accountable to shareholders," said Rohner, who was promoted from deputy CEO in July after the departure of former chief executive Peter Wuffli. "These events have led to the management changes announced today.
Analysts said they were shocked by the severity of the company's exposure, even as they welcomed its openness about the potential 800 million Swiss franc loss.
UBS shares initially fell nearly 4 percent but rebounded to be down 1.6 percent at $52.95 (61.60 francs) in Zurich.
UBS joins several other European banks who are being hurt by rising defaults in the United States market for subprime mortgages, or home loans to borrowers with tainted or weak credit.
UBS, which has extensive operations in the United States, said its global wealth management and business banking and global asset management businesses "continue to record good results," despite the losses in the investment bank.
The Swiss banking regulator, meanwhile, said there was no reason for UBS' banking clients to be concerned, despite the warning of a third-quarter loss.
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) A court has ordered pop singer Britney Spears to give up custody of her children effective Wednesday at noon.
Spears' former husband, Kevin Federline, is to retain custody of their two sons "until further order of the court," according to a ruling by Superior Court Judge Scott Gordon.
Last month, a judge ordered Spears, 25, to submit to random drug tests after finding she engaged in "habitual, frequent, and continuous use of controlled substances and alcohol."
That order, also by Gordon, provided no details and did not name any drugs.
The former couple has been embroiled in a bitter custody fight over their sons, Sean Preston and Jayden.
In addition to ordering the twice-weekly drug tests, Gordon ordered Spears to spend eight hours per week working with a "parenting coach," who was to observe her interactions with her children.
Gordon also told both parents to avoid alcohol or "other non-prescription controlled substances" 12 hours before taking custody of the children.
He also barred the exes from making "derogatory remarks about the other party and the other party's family or significant other" during the case.
And he ordered the parents to go through "joint co-parenting counseling" and barred them from using corporal punishment on the boys.
Spears and Federline were married for two years before their divorce became final in July.
Monday's order comes amid a career freefall for Spears, whose new album is due to be released November 13.
President Vladimir Putin said Monday he would lead the dominant United Russia party's candidate list in December parliamentary elections and suggested that he could later become prime minister.
Putin is barred from seeking a third straight term as president when he steps down in March.
Putin called a proposal that he become prime minister "entirely realistic" but added that it was still "too early to think about it.
He said first United Russia would have to win the parliamentary elections and a "decent, competent, modern person" must be elected president.
The move will likely ensure that United Russia retains a two-thirds majority in the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, enough to change the Constitution.
The White House took note of Putin's move and said it was ultimately a matter for the Russian people.
"We will be paying attention to the upcoming elections in Russia and urge them to conduct those elections in a manner that is free, fair and democractic," National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said Monday.
BERLIN, Germany (CNN) Haile Gebrselassie broke the world record when he won the Berlin Marathon on Sunday.
Gebrselassie won in an unofficial two hours four minutes 26 seconds, shattering the previous best by Kenya's Paul Tergat, by 29 seconds.
Tergat set the mark over the same course four years ago.
Everything went well. I felt last year that I could make it in Berlin.
"This was perfect.
The weather was great - a bit windy - but I still made it and it's a dream come true.
"Don't ask me how proud I am, words can't describe.
"I just want to thank all the German people who helped me on the course, their support made a huge difference.
This was Gebreselassie's second consecutive win in Berlin since he quit track racing after the 2004 Olympics to concentrate on the marathon.
The former world chess champion Garry Kasparov entered Russia's presidential race on Sunday, elected overwhelmingly as the candidate for the country's beleaguered opposition coalition.
Kasparov has been a driving force behind the coalition, which has united liberals, leftists and nationalists in opposition to President Vladimir Putin.
He received 379 of 498 votes at a national congress held in Moscow by the Other Russia coalition, coalition spokeswoman Lyudmila Mamina told The Associated Press.
Kasparov's place on the March ballot was not assured.
His candidacy still needs to be registered and is likely to be blocked.
Kasparov was followed in Sunday's voting by Sergei Gulyayev, a former member of St. Petersburg's Legislative Assembly, who received 59 votes, and former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov with 18, Mamina said.
The Other Russia also chose Kasparov to be one of three candidates to head the coalition's list in parliamentary elections in December.
The others are former Central Bank chairman Viktor Gerashchenko and Eduard Limonov, a provocative writer who heads the banned National Bolshevik Party.
WASHINGTON (CNN) Attacking several tons of woolly mammoth with stone-tipped spears must have taken extraordinary courage and ancient people left paintings to prove they did it.
Now, scientists are approaching mammoths in a different way, extracting DNA from their dense coats in an effort to learn more about them.
Mammoths are extinct, of course.
No one knows if the cause was climate change, hungry Neanderthals or something else but they left behind remains, often frozen in the tundra.
Attempts have been made to sequence their DNA from frozen animals, but that can be complicated by contamination.
Researchers report in Friday's edition of the journal Science, however, that mammoth hair seems to be an excellent source of well-preserved DNA.
"It is important to understand the genetic makeup of an organism before it went extinct," explained lead researcher Stephan C. Schuster of Penn State University.
They try to understand the relationship between different groups of animals, especially ones that are highly endangered, to learn whether those might face a similar fate, said Schuster, an associate professor of biochemistry and molecular biology.
We want to use this to sequence (the DNA from) museum specimens and therefore help to understand the evolution of species by using museum collections that date back several hundred years," Schuster said.
Indeed, the technique could be used to measure the DNA from specimens collected by such naturalists as Charles Darwin, Alexander von Humboldt and Carl Linnaeus.
The DNA collected from the hair is much cleaner and much less damaged than that from other parts of the mammoths, he said, so it is more economic to sequence it.
Schuster explained that keratin, the hard covering of hair, could protect the DNA.
Hair also can more easily be cleaned of contaminants such as bacteria.
Several of the hair samples investigated were up to 50,000 years old.
One of the samples came from the first specimen ever recorded, the so-called Adams mammoth, found in 1799 and dug out of the permafrost between 1804 and 1806.
"We plan to use hair and other keratin-containing body parts, such as nail and horn, to untangle the secrets of populations that lived long ago, so these populations can send a message from the past about what it might have taken for them to survive," Schuster said.
"This discovery is good news for anyone interested in learning more about how species of large mammals can go extinct.
Learning the DNA sequence does not mean that the ancient animal can be cloned or somehow resurrected, Schuster said, adding "this is science fiction.
The furnishing dealer said the name stands for "New Arrival Zone for India" and was not meant to be anti-Semitic.
But Jewish groups said they would file a lawsuit against the company.
"This is an enormous insult to Jews and all right-thinking people and must be retracted," said Jonathan Solomon, chairman of the Indian Jewish Federation.
There are about 5,500 Jews living in India, a predominantly Hindu nation of 1.1 billion people.
handed out in a mall in a northern Mumbai suburb, the Times of India newspaper reported Sunday.
Furnishing dealer Kapil Kumar Todi said he chose the name because "that's what came to my mind," according to the paper.
"It really does not matter to me who feels bad about it," he said.
Some Indians regard Hitler as just another historical figure and have little knowledge about the Holocaust in which 6 million Jews were killed during World War II.
The swastika symbol, which was appropriated by the Nazis, was originally an ancient symbol used in Hinduism, Buddhism and other religions, and is still displayed all over India in hopes of bringing luck.
Last year, a restaurant in Mumbai, India's financial and entertainment capital, changed its name from Hitler's Cross after the city's Jewish community protested.
The restaurant used swastikas on its signs and menus.
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (CNN) A suicide bomber set off a blast that killed at least 15 people Monday at a crowded police checkpoint in northwestern Pakistan, police said.
The bomb, which injured 22 others, apparently was in a rickshaw that was being examined at a police checkpoint around 8:25 a.m. local time in the town of Bannu, said police officer Habib Khan.
He said it was unclear if the blast was detonated by the driver or a female passenger, but that preliminary information suggested it was the woman, who was wearing a burqa.
Bannu police chief Ameer Haamza Mahsud said the casualty figures were high because scores of people were milling about at a nearby bus stand.
The blast killed four police officers and 11 other people, including the bomber, army spokesman Maj. Gen Waheed Arshad said.
Because the attack occurred in a public place, he said he did not believe it was aimed at security forces.
The district hospital in Bannu reported that at least seven of the injured were in critical condition.
Bannu is near the North Waziristan tribal region, about 110 miles south of Peshawar.
In recent months, militants have staged almost daily attacks on security forces in North Waziristan since scrapping a peace agreement with the government.
Militants accused authorities of violating the September 2006 deal by redeploying troops to checkpoints vacated under terms of the accord.
Officials said the troops returned because of deteriorating security.
Pakistan is a key ally of the U.S. in its war on terror and says it has about 90,000 troops in the northwest tribal areas to combat militancy and prevent infiltration into neighboring Afghanistan.
TORONTO, Canada (CNN) A volcano has erupted on a tiny island off the coast of Yemen, spewing lava and ash hundreds of feet into the air, a Canadian naval vessel near the island in the Red Sea reported Sunday.
The Yemeni government asked NATO to assist in searching for survivors on Jabal al-Tair island, which lacks a settled population but includes military installations.
The Yemeni news agency SABA confirmed the eruption and said a military garrison on the island is being evacuated.
It wasn't clear how many people were stationed on the island, which is used for naval control and observation because large cargo ships pass nearby.
Ken Allan, a Navy spokesman, said a NATO fleet just outside the territorial waters of the island reported seeing a "catastrophic volcanic eruption" at 7 p.m. local time (1600 GMT).
The two-mile-long island is about 70 miles (110 kilometers) off the coast of Yemen.
"At this time, the entire island is aglow with lava and magma as it pours down into the sea. We do not have confirmation of how many people were on this island at the time of the eruption," Allan said in an e-mail.
"The lava is spewing hundreds of feet into the air, with the volcanic ash also (rising) a thousand feet in the air," Allan said.
The Canadian Armed Forces said they are trying to locate nine people believed to be at sea after the Yemen coast guard requested help.
The NATO fleet was sailing toward the Suez Canal when it spotted the eruption.
The government of Yemen asked NATO to assist in the search for survivors and the closet ship, the HMCS Toronto, is heading toward the island.
Yemen is a poor tribal Sunni Muslim country at the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula.
Clashes and airstrikes, meanwhile, killed 16 people, capping a week that saw more than 270 people die in insurgency-related violence.
Karzai said Saturday he would be willing to meet personally with Taliban leader Mullah Omar and give militants a position in government in exchange for peace.
But Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi repeated a position he announced earlier this month, saying there would be no negotiations until U.S. and NATO troops withdraw from Afghanistan.
"The Taliban will never negotiate with the Afghan government in the presence of foreign forces," Ahmadi told The Associated Press. "Even if Karzai gives up his presidency, it's not possible that Mullah Omar would agree to negotiations.
But Karzai's spokesman said the government has information of a "serious debate" in some groups of Taliban about how long militants want to continue fighting.
The U.N. and NATO have also said they see similar indications.
"They want to live in peace and have a comfortable life with their families," Hamidzada said. "There is serious debate within their ranks, but this is a process that takes time.
Karzai traveled to the U.N. General Assembly in New York last week, and Hamidzada said that the U.N. secretary-general and the foreign ministers of many countries, "everyone with one voice said we need a comprehensive strategy in dealing with the Taliban both military and diplomatic components.
Dozens of searchers set off into the rugged Nevada backcountry Saturday after analysts scanning radar and satellite images spotted what may be clues to the whereabouts of missing adventurer Steve Fossett.
The formal aerial search by the Civil Air Patrol and Nevada National Guard helicopters ended September 19 after pilots spent more than two weeks scouring an area twice the size of New Jersey.
A new Air Force analysis of radar and satellite images led to this weekend's ground search, plus with three Civil Air Patrol planes flying over the mountainous area.
Volunteers on the ground planned to search during the day Saturday and Sunday, said Gary Derks, the state Department of Public Safety official in charge of the search.
"We have about 50 people on ATVs, horseback, walking anything they can find to get them into the canyon," said Derks.
Some have feared for the unwanted freelancers' safety.
Fossett, 63, who made millions as a commodities broker in Chicago, is the first person to circle the globe solo in a balloon.
Germany became the first team to successfully defend the women's World Cup when they beat Brazil 2-0, with goals from Birgit Prinz and Simone Laudehr in Shanghai.
German goalkeeper Nadine Angerer also saved a penalty from world player of the year Marta, to preserve her side's remarkable record of not conceding a goal in the entire tournament.
Angerer needed a bit of luck when she failed to collect Daniela's eighth minute free kick and Formiga was unable to hit the target from the rebound, and again when Daniela's left foot volley in the 23rd minute flew past her but rattled the woodwork.
But the keeper covered herself in glory in the 62nd minute when, with the Germans 1-0 ahead, Brazil were awarded a penalty when Cristiane was brought down.
Wambach's two goals, and two more from Lori Chalupny and Heather O'Reilly, gave the United States a comfortable win.
Wambach notched six goals in the competition.
A team distracted by the expulsion of goalkeeper Hope Solo pulled together three days after a humiliating 4-0 semifinal loss to Brazil.
Three strong earthquakes struck Sunday near New Zealand and the U.S. territory of Guam in remote parts of the South Pacific, monitoring agencies said.
None of the quakes was expected to cause a tsunami, according to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center or PTWC in Honolulu, Hawaii.
There were also no reports of damages, as the quakes were centered far from land.
A magnitude 7.3 earthquake was registered near New Zealand's uninhabited Auckland Islands, about 300 miles southwest of its southernmost city of Invercargill, the United States Geological Survey said on its Web site.
Earlier, a magnitude 7.1 quake shook the Pacific Ocean about 215 miles southeast of the island of Guam, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.
The USGS put the magnitude at 6.8.
"It was probably too far away from populated areas to cause much damage," Weinstein said.
(CNN) The Iranian parliament on Saturday voted to designate the United States' Central Intelligence Agency and the U.S. Army as terrorist organizations, IRNA, the country's state-run news agency, reported.
The CIA and the U.S. Army "trained terrorists and supported terrorism, and they themselves are terrorists," the parliament said, according to IRNA.
The Iranian parliament said the condemnation was based on "known and accepted" standards of terrorism from international regulations, including the U.N. charter.
The parliament said it condemns the "aggressions by the U.S. Army, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan" and calls on the United Nations to "intervene in the global problem of U.S. prisons in Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and secret jails in other countries," IRNA reported, quoting a statement from Iranian lawmakers.
The Iranian parliament also decried the CIA's and U.S. Army's involvement in the 1945 bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II, U.S. involvement in the Balkans, Vietnam and the U.S. support of Israel.
Of the condemnation, Paul Gimigliano, a CIA spokesman, said, "There are some things that don't even deserve comment. This is one.
National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said he declined to comment "on non-binding resolutions passed by parliaments in countries with dubious records on human rights, democracy and that are state sponsors of terror.
There was no immediate response from the U.S. State Department.
Washington and U.S. military leaders have long accused Iran of training and equipping insurgents in Iraq.
The United States and Iran have not had formal diplomatic relations since 1980 after Iranian militants stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and held Americans hostage for 444 days.
The Iranian lawmakers' condemnation was in apparent retaliation for the U.S. Senate's resolution Wednesday requesting that the United States designate Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, or Quds Force, as a foreign terrorist organization.
(CNN) Darren Tuck, the man who gave police a tape depicting the rape of a 3-year-old girl, turned himself in Sunday to Nye County, Nevada, authorities.
Tuck had recently given police the videotape, saying he found it in the desert, Sheriff Tony De Meo said.
Police said he had the tape for at least five months before turning it in.
He was being sought on a parole violation for failure to pay child support, but police who have said they want to question him further had been unable to locate him.
Tuck, of Nevada, allegedly showed the tape to others, and faces between 10 years to life in prison for exhibiting pornography and one to six years for possession of child pornography, said De Meo.
Tuck's attorney Harry Kuehn said last week on CNN's "Nancy Grace" that Tuck had been "wracked by indecision" as to what to do with the tape once he realized what it was.
"You have to consider what kind of concerns my client had," the attorney said. "He's previously dealt with the sheriff's office in Nye County; it was previously unsatisfactory.
The four-year-old videotape shows the 3-year-old girl being raped in Las Vegas, Nevada. Last week, she was found safe.
Now seven, the girl was found Friday with family in Las Vegas after thousands of tips poured in to police, thanks to an appeal by police to the news media to show the girl's picture.
CNN and other news organizations did so until the child was found, and De Meo asked media to stop showing the picture.
It was very sad for her to find this out."
Authorities have identified Chester A. Stiles, 34, as the suspect in the tape.
A resident of Pahrump, Nevada, he remains at-large, De Meo said.
Pahrump is about 60 miles west of Las Vegas.
Stiles was a distant friend of the girl's family, De Meo said.
Someone close to Stiles has told investigators that Stiles is a "survivalist type" and always carries a weapon, Nye County District Attorney Bob Beckett said.
De Meo addressed Stiles directly on Saturday: "Turn yourself in to your local law enforcement agency," he said.
The FBI is also seeking Stiles on state charges of sexual assault and lewdness with a minor under the age of 14 in a separate matter, De Meo said.
The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad disavowed a Senate resolution calling for dividing Iraq into federal regions, a move Iraqi leaders condemned Sunday as a violation of Iraq's sovereignty.
"As we have said in the past, attempts to partition or divide Iraq by intimidation, force or other means into three separate states would produce extraordinary suffering and bloodshed," the embassy said in a written statement.
"Partition is not on the table," the embassy statement read.
The resolution, which the Senate approved Thursday on a 75-23 vote, called for Washington to support "a political settlement among Iraq's major factions based upon the provisions of the Constitution of Iraq that create a federal system of government and allow for the creation of federal regions.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari told CNN the resolution has caused "a great deal of confusion" in Baghdad.
And Iraqi political parties representing a majority of the country's parliament blasted the proposal as "a threat to Iraq sovereignty and unity.
The constitution Iraqi voters approved in 2005 calls for the creation of federal regions similar to the Kurdish territory in the country's north.
The "fundamental" principle of the resolution is that Iraq will not be "governed from the center anytime soon," said Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden on Thursday.
Biden is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a Democratic presidential candidate.
He has long advocated the division of Iraq into Sunni Arab, Shiite Arab and Kurdish territories that would be loyal to a central government in Baghdad.
A group of rebels stormed an African Union peacekeeping base in Sudan's Darfur region, killing 10 personnel from the AU mission and wounding several more, a U.N. spokeswoman said Sunday.
The deadliest attack in the AU's three-year mission happened overnight, injuring at least eight people and leaving some 25 AU peacekeepers missing, said AU spokesman Assane Ba.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the attack "in the strongest possible terms" in a statement Sunday.
He urged all parties to "recommit" to a peaceful resolution to the conflict and to prepare for peace talks in Libya in October.
AU Commissioner for Peace and Security Said Djinnit said Sunday that the attack occurred in the Haskanita area of Darfur.
AU officers told The Associated Press the attackers were 1,000 rebels from the Sudan Liberation Army.
Only one rebel group signed the peace agreement, and it has done little to stop the fighting between government-backed militias and rebel groups, which the United Nations estimates has killed more than 200,000 people and driven about 2 million from their homes in the past four years.
"We are of the strong opinion here that once identified, those responsible for this attack should bear all consequences," Djinnit said. "There must be some political and legal consequences from this deliberate attack.
A senior AU officer told AP, "There is a war going on between the rebels and the government, and the AU is crunched in the middle."
(CNN) United Nations envoy Ibrahim Gambari met Sunday with Myanmar's detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi in an effort to quell recent tensions between the country's military leaders and protesters, the U.N. confirmed in a news release.
The hour-long meeting took place in the Myanmar city of Yangon.
The encounter was rare because Suu Kyi is under house arrest and has been barred by the government from meeting with foreigners.
Gambari arrived in Myanmar Saturday following a week of protests by citizens and Buddhist monks that were met with increasing force at the hands of government security guards.
Once in Myanmar, Gambari was taken to the isolated bunker-like capital Naypyidaw for talks with senior government officials in hopes of finding a peaceful resolution to the ongoing clashes.
On Sunday he was taken to Yangon the former Burmese capital of Rangoon where one Western diplomat described the scene as "bizarrely normal, dismal.
There is barbed wire up and down the streets. Policemen and soldiers all along the streets (are) just hanging around."
Security reinforcements were brought in, one witness in the city told CNN, to stave off any possible uprising by anti-government protesters, who in recent days have seen a stalwart oppression at the hands of the ruling military junta.
She was awarded the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize for her work aimed at restoring democracy in Myanmar, also known as Burma.
Gambari plans to conclude his visit with Myanmar's leader Senior General Than Shwe, the United Nations said.
The U.N. envoy planned to tell the junta leader "about the international outrage over what has happened and will urge him to talk with various people and try to resolve the problems peacefully," Shari Villarosa, charge d'affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Yangon, told CNN.
meant to quash any hopes protesters may have of staging anti-government demonstrations during Gambari's visit to Yangon which has been at the center of a violent crackdown by the ruling military junta the witness said.
As part of the security clampdown, main roads to the airport were shut and one witness in the city said even loitering on the streets of Yangon was considered risky.
However, protesters have been waiting for their chance to take to the streets to show Gambari "that hope is zero percent," the witness said.
(CNN) A girl who was shown on a videotape being sexually assaulted has been found and is safe, officials in Nye County, Nevada, said Friday.
The detectives say she is in good condition," Nye County Sheriff Tony DeMeo said.
DeMeo said more details would be shared at a news conference scheduled for 10:30 p.m. ET.
The girl is shown in a sex video thought to have been made sometime between January 2005 and May 2007, officials said.
"The easiest way to explain it is if you can imagine the absolute worst things that can happen to a little girl at the hands of an adult male, that has happened and beyond," Nye County sheriff's Detective David Boruchowitz said of the video.
"It is by far the most heinous and horrible thing that you can possibly imagine on there," he said, according to The Associated Press.
Detectives said the child showed little emotion during the rapes, possibly indicating she had been brutalized before.
After attempting without success to find the girl's identity by themselves, police appealed to the news media to show the girl's picture, which CNN and other news organizations did.
Once the girl was found, the sheriff asked the news organizations to stop displaying her picture.
"The picture I want up there is the one of the suspect, Mr. Stiles," DeMeo said.
Police, who had called Chester Arthur Stiles a person of interest, began calling him a suspect late Friday.
DeMeo said Stiles is not the girl's father.
It was not clear what his relationship with the girl may be, though detectives said items in the tape's background indicate she may have been entrusted to his care.
Stiles, 37, whose last known address was Las Vegas, Nevada, is also wanted on an unrelated state warrant on a charge of lewdness with a minor younger than 14 and a federal charge of being a fugitive, DeMeo said, according to AP.
Nevadan Darren Tuck recently gave police the videotape, saying he found it in the desert.
Police said the tape was in his possession for at least five months before he handed it over to authorities.
Tuck was arrested on charges of promoting child pornography and possession of child pornography, both felonies, and released without bail pending an appearance November 26 in Pahrump Justice Court, AP reported. Pahrump is about 60 miles west of Las Vegas.
The top charge carries a possible sentence of up to life in prison.
Investigators don't think Tuck made the tape, Boruchowitz said, according to AP.
Tuck's lawyer, Thomas Gibson of Pahrump, has characterized Tuck as an innocent middleman who should be credited for giving the tape to authorities, AP reported.
SEATTLE, Washington (CNN) A woman who spent eight days trapped in a wrecked vehicle has severe injuries, but her brain function is normal and she can move her arms and legs, her physician said Friday.
Tanya Rider, 33, was found alive but dehydrated at the bottom of a steep ravine in suburban Maple Valley on Thursday, more than a week after she failed to return home from work.
Dr. Lisa McIntyre said during a hospital news conference Friday that while Rider was doing better, she's "not out of the woods yet.
In addition to her kidney failure, she was being treated for extensive sores from lying in the same position for a week and nearly had to have a leg amputated, said her husband, Tom Rider.
Her husband also said Friday he was frustrated by the red tape he had to fight to get authorities to launch a search for his wife more than a week after she disappeared.
"She's a fighter, obviously," Rider said. "She fought to stay alive in the car and she's fighting now.
Authorities found the Maple Valley woman after detecting the general location of her cell phone Thursday morning, then searching along Highway 169 near Renton, southeast of Seattle, the route she took home from work.
They noticed some matted brush, and below it found Rider's vehicle, smashed on its side, State Patrol spokesman Jeff Merrill said.
Tanya Rider left work at a Fred Meyer grocery store in Bellevue on September 19 but never made it home.
When her husband couldn't reach her, he said, he called Bellevue police to report his wife missing.
Tom Rider said he tried that, but "the first operator I talked to on the first day I tried to report it flat denied to start a missing persons report because she didn't meet the criteria," he said.
MIAMI, Florida (CNN) For 11 years, Pedro Zapeta, an illegal immigrant from Guatemala, lived his version of the American dream in Stuart, Florida:
washing dishes and living frugally to bring money back to his home country.
Two years ago, Zapeta was ready to return to Guatemala, so he carried a duffel bag filled with $59,000 all the cash he had scrimped and saved over the years to the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.
But when Zapeta tried to go through airport security, an officer spotted the money in the bag and called U.S. customs officials.
He told the customs officials $59,000. At that point, U.S. customs seized his money, setting off a two-year struggle for Zapeta to get it back.
Zapeta, who speaks no English, said he didn't know he was running afoul of U.S. law by failing to declare he was carrying more than $10,000 with him.
Anyone entering or leaving the country with more than $10,000 has to fill out a one-page form declaring the money to U.S. customs.
Officials initially accused Zapeta of being a courier for the drug trade, but they dropped the allegation once he produced pay stubs from restaurants where he had worked.
After customs officials seized the money, they turned Zapeta over to the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
The INS released him but began deportation proceedings.
For two years, Zapeta has had two attorneys working pro bono: one on his immigration case, the other trying to get his money back.
Zapeta's story became public last year on CNN and in The Palm Beach Post newspaper, prompting well-wishers to give him nearly $10,000 money that now sits in a trust.
Robert Gershman, one of Zapeta's attorneys, said federal prosecutors later offered his client a deal:
He could take $10,000 of the original cash seized, plus $9,000 in donations as long as he didn't talk publicly and left the country immediately.
Zapeta said, "No." He wanted all his money.
He'd earned it, he said.
Now, according to Gershman, the Internal Revenue Service wants access to the donated cash to cover taxes on the donations and on the money Zapeta made as a dishwasher.
Zapeta admits he never paid taxes.
Marisol Zequeira, an immigration lawyer, said illegal immigrants such as Zapeta have few options when dealing with the U.S. government.
On Wednesday, Zapeta went to immigration court and got more bad news.
The judge gave the dishwasher until the end of January to leave the country on his own.
He's unlikely to see a penny of his money.
WASHINGTON (CNN) Satellite photos showing the disappearance of villages and a buildup of army camps offer what researchers say is potential evidence of human rights abuses in Myanmar, the scene of bloody anti-government protests that have drawn tens of thousands of demonstrators.
At least nine people were killed in Myanmar on Thursday, when soldiers with automatic rifles fired into the crowds.
Troops in riot gear also raided Buddhist monasteries on the outskirts of Yangon and beat and arrested dozens of monks, according to witnesses and Western diplomats.
The government said 10 people have been killed since the violence began earlier this week, but British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he believed the loss of life in Myanmar was "far greater" than is being reported.
Myanmar, also known as Burma, has become the focus of international pressure to curtail the violent repression of its citizens.
"We are trying to send a message to the military junta that we are watching from the sky," Aung Din, policy director for the interest group U.S. Campaign for Burma, said Friday at a briefing on the photos.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science said it has compiled satellite images that provide evidence of village destruction, forced relocations and a growing military presence at sites across eastern Myanmar.
Lars Bromley, director of the AAAS Geospatial Technologies and Human Rights project, said he had received more than 70 reports of rights violations.
He then sought before-and-after satellite photos of the regions from commercial firms.
"Physical evidence of reported attacks on civilians sometimes can be subtle compared to the slash-and-burn types of destruction that we saw in Darfur or Zimbabwe. It's also a lush ecosystem where plants can quickly grow to cover burn marks and clouds and terrain often block satellite observation," he said.
Nonetheless, he said he was able to map the locations of 31 of the reported human rights violations.
The military took control of Myanmar in 1962 and since then has regularly clashed with pro-democracy groups.
Her remarks were in a Voice of America interview.
MIAMI, Florida (CNN) Hurricane Lorenzo has made landfall along the east-central coast of Mexico with winds near 80 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center.
"Preparations to protect life and property should have already been completed," forecasters said.
The storm was expected to rapidly weaken as it moved inland, forecasters said.
The storm was moving west at near 8 mph (13 km/h) and was expected to continue on that course.
The Category 1 storm was upgraded from a tropical depression to a tropical storm at 2 p.m. ET Thursday after days of strengthening.
A hurricane warning was in effect for the Mexican Gulf coast from Palma Sola to Cabo Rojo, the NHC said, meaning winds of at least 74 mph (119 km/h) were expected within the warning area within the next 24 hours.
A tropical storm warning, meaning tropical storm conditions are expected within 24 hours, was in effect for an area south of Palma Sola to Veracruz.
"The speed with which this storm is developing is forcing us to react as fast as we can," Ranulfo Marquez, Veracruz's deputy secretary for public safety, told The Associated Press.
A tropical storm watch, meaning tropical storm conditions are possible within 36 hours, was issued for an area north of Cabo Rojo to La Cruz.
Five to 10 inches (13 to 25 cm) of rain are expected, with maximum isolated amounts of up to 15 inches (38 cm), over portions of east-central Mexico, forecasters said.
"These rains could cause life-threatening flash floods and mud slides," according to forecasters at the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida.
GAZA CITY (CNN) Twelve Palestinians have died in attacks in Gaza over the past two days, officials said Thursday.
Last week, the Israeli government declared Gaza "hostile territory," and there has been a spate of attacks since then.
In recent months, Palestinian militants have fired hundreds of unguided and crudely made Qassam rockets into Israel.
A member of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades was killed and three were wounded Thursday when a rocket hit a house in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun, Hamas officials and members of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades said.
The Palestinian sources said the Al-Aqsa militants had fired two or three rockets into Israel when they were spotted by members of the Israel Defense Forces, who returned fire.
The IDF confirmed a strike Thursday in Beit Hanoun, and said it was not an airstrike.
said it targeted a group of armed men who were linked to a location from where a Qassam rocket had been fired earlier.
WASHINGTON (CNN) Researchers who launched an experimental cyber attack caused a generator to self-destruct, alarming the government and electrical industry about what might happen if such an attack were carried out on a larger scale, CNN has learned.
Sources familiar with the experiment said the same attack scenario could be used against huge generators that produce the country's electric power.
Some experts fear bigger, coordinated attacks could cause widespread damage to electric infrastructure that could take months to fix.
CNN has honored a request from the Department of Homeland Security not to divulge certain details about the experiment, dubbed "Aurora," and conducted in March at the Department of Energy's Idaho lab.
In a previously classified video of the test CNN obtained, the generator shakes and smokes, and then stops.
DHS acknowledged the experiment involved controlled hacking into a replica of a power plant's control system.
Sources familiar with the test said researchers changed the operating cycle of the generator, sending it out of control.
The White House was briefed on the experiment, and DHS officials said they have since been working with the electric industry to devise a way to thwart such an attack.
Government sources said changes are being made to both computer software and physical hardware to protect power generating equipment.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) A 40-year-old woman who lived in the southern Baghdad outskirts has died of cholera, the 12th death in Iraq from a recent outbreak of the disease, an Iraqi Health Ministry spokesman said Thursday.
This death comes amid growing concern in war-torn Iraq about the deteriorating infrastructure, and cholera is prevalent in areas where the water quality is poor.
The World Health Organization, which issued an update Tuesday on cholera, blames the outbreak on poor water quality and sewage treatment and cited a shortage of chlorine, which the agency said is "urgently needed" for water treatment.
Cholera is a bacterial ailment that affects the intestinal tract and is usually contracted by consuming contaminated water.
Victims are stricken with a sudden onset of acute watery diarrhea, which can cause death by severe dehydration and kidney failure.
An outbreak of cholera was first reported in northern Iraq last month and has been spreading to other parts of the country, according to the WHO, which issued an update about the problem on Tuesday.
The WHO said that 2,116 cases of cholera have been confirmed across the country, and that more than 30,000 people have been sickened by acute watery diarrhea.
Sixty-eight percent of the lab-confirmed cases have been reported in Tameem province, where Kirkuk is located and where the ailment was first detected.
It spread to the Iraqi Kurdish provinces of Sulaimaniya and Irbil, the organization said.
one in Baghdad; and one in Basra in the southeast, the WHO said.
Iraq is implementing preventive measures "to reduce the risk of transmission to unaffected areas." But it cites "a severe shortage of chlorination products" and the urgent need for proper water treatment.
"Provision of safe water is the highest priority in controlling an outbreak of cholera," according to the WHO.
The Baghdad woman, Majda Ameen, died on Monday in a hospital, where she was admitted seven days before her death.
Her son was diagnosed with cholera as well, the ministry said.
YANGON, Myanmar (CNN) Soldiers reportedly fired into crowds and beat Buddhist monks Thursday, and state media said nine people were killed as Myanmar's military rulers continued its crackdown on anti-government demonstrations.
One witness told CNN monks were at the front of a march in the capital, Yangon, as soldiers waded into it Thursday, while other reports indicated attempts to keep monks off the streets on Thursday.
An American witness said soldiers beat several protesters mercilessly, at least one of them to death.
"The police and military guys started coming toward the crowd, and all of a sudden started beating them and running after them," said the woman, requesting anonymity.
She said she witnessed the violence from a nearby building.
"And in one corner they got around, maybe, five or seven people, and they started beating them so bad for almost five minutes, and then they took them and put them in trucks.
The troops left one person dead on the ground, she said, and they returned a few minutes later to retrieve the body.
She added the monks escaped to safety
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (CNN) Brazil's largest city sold millions of dollars worth of carbon credits at an auction Wednesday in a deal that experts said paves the way for developing countries to make money fighting global warming.
Brazil's Mercantile and Futures Exchange called Sao Paulo's sale of $18.5 million in carbon credits to Dutch-Belgian Fortis Bank the first such sale to be held on a regulated stock market and a significant step toward institutionalizing the carbon market.
Under the Kyoto Treaty on greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, companies that generate large amounts of polluting carbon dioxide and methane can buy offsetting credits from projects that remove contaminants.
Until Wednesday's auction on the Brazil stock exchange, companies such as Fortis mostly purchased credits from individual sellers.
Fortis Bank beat out 13 competing bids to win the rights to emit 808,450 metric tons (891,163 U.S. tons) of carbon dioxide with an offer of $22.90 per metric ton, the exchange said in statement.
It called it the first such sale on a regulated exchange.
"In the past these deals have been worked out in private," said Marcelo Furtado, director of Greenpeace's Brazilian campaign. "It's a victory for society to have this additional accountability.
Benjamin Vitale, Conservation International's Senior Adviser on Eco-System Markets and Finance, said he was not sure if this marked the first time such emission credits had been traded on a regulated exchange, but it certainly was a first for a developing country.
The World Bank says the global carbon market where government and industry limits on carbon dioxide emissions are traded like credits tripled from $7.9 billion in 2005 to $24.4 billion last year.
Fortis has been positioning itself as a broker in the energy market, purchasing credits and selling them to companies that need to meet European pollution standards with offset carbon credits.
An erupting volcano sent ash and steam nearly three miles into the air Tuesday, while mud and rocks raced down the mountainside and injured at least three people, officials said.
The Mount Ruapehu eruption sent mud sweeping through a ski area, prompting officials to evacuate the zone and close nearby roads, local district council spokesman Paul Wheatcroft said.
One mud flow temporarily trapped a snow groomer at a ski area, and two other workers there suffered minor injuries, Wheatcroft said.
"The top of the mountain is black ... that goes out about a half-mile from the summit," vulcanologist Brad Scott said.
About 60 skiers at two ski lodges were evacuated from the mountain before the short, sharp eruption was declared over.
MANCHESTER, England Maltese international Michael Mifsud sent Manchester United crashing out of the English League Cup by scoring twice as Championship side Coventry City pulled off a surprise 2-0 victory at Old Trafford.
Mifsud's brace doomed United to their first home defeat to lower league opponents since York City's triumph in 1995.
There was no such disaster for Chelsea, who gave Avram Grant his first win in control of the side, a comfortable 4-0 victory at Hull.
Two late goals gave Tottenham a home win over Middlesbrough to possibly ease the pressure on manager, Martin Joel but Premier League Aston Villa went down 1-0 at home to Midland neighbors Leicester City from the Championship.
Mifsud, twice voted Malta's sports person of the year, was recruited for Coventry by Mickey Adams, who was sacked two days later.
NEW YORK (CNN) Every year, doctors write approximately 65 million prescriptions for drugs not yet approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the federal agency that regulates prescription drugs.
These drugs, some of which the FDA admits could be dangerous, slip through a "black hole" in the drug approval system, according to one U.S. congressman.
"There's a regulatory black hole that makes it possible for the pharmaceutical companies to get these drugs to the stores that sell them without the FDA being able to monitor it," said Rep. Ed Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts.
When a pharmaceutical company submits a new drug for approval, the FDA gives it a 10-digit number called a National Drug Code.
The FDA provides the number before the drug is approved in order to track it through the approval process.
But pharmacies use this same number as an order number that works whether or not the drug is FDA-approved.
Many doctors and pharmacists seem unaware of this wrinkle in the approval process.
A recent survey showed more than nine out of 10 retail pharmacists didn't know they could be dispensing drugs not yet approved by the FDA.
Though the FDA has known about this problem for more than four decades, it has only recently started cracking down on the practice.
FDA officials said they are issuing more warnings and even pulling some drugs off the market.
While approved for use against malaria, a life-threatening illness, quinine was never approved for its other common usage treatment of leg cramps. The drug has been linked to 665 reports of "adverse events," including 93 deaths, according to the FDA.
PULLMAN, Washington (CNN) Looking to recruit more women, and perhaps date some sorority women, the largest computer club at Washington State University hopes to hold a "nerd auction.
The idea is to trade their computer skills to sorority girls in exchange for a makeover and, possibly, a date.
Ford acknowledged that some of the group's 213 registered members may not be ready for the auction block.
This all began as an effort to recruit more women into computer science programs and a public relations class decided to help.
"Our conclusion was that they need to promote themselves better, then specific ideas were presented to them," said professor Moon Lee, who taught the public relations class. "They made suggestions to work with specific groups such as sororities. Sorority groups tend to have a very good social network.
Ford, who has an undergraduate degree in computer science and is pursuing a master's in business management, has spoken to several sororities, but so far none has committed to the project.
Please keep your clothes on while climbing Mount Everest.
Last year, a Nepali climber claimed the world's highest display of nudity when he disrobed for several minutes while standing on the 29,035-foot summit with the temperature about 14 degrees Fahrenheit.
Other record-setting attempts that sparked controversy included a Dutch man who attempted to scale the peak wearing only shorts.
a god and mountaineering authorities have asked the government to ban disrespectful stunts on Everest, Tshering said.
Mount Everest has always attracted record-setters, including the oldest climber (71 years old), the youngest climber (15 years old), the first climber with one foot and the first blind climber.
In 2005, a Nepali couple exchanged vows on the summit as the first couple to get married on Everest.
Since Mount Everest was first scaled in 1953 by New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Sherpa guide Tenzing Norgay, thousands of people have scaled the mountain.
Elton John said Wednesday that he owns a photo of two naked girls taken by award-winning photographer Nan Goldin that was seized by police at a British gallery.
John confirmed ownership of "Klara and Edda Belly-Dancing" in a statement on his Web site.
He said it is among 149 images comprising Goldin's "Thanksgiving" installation.
Northumbria police said the photo was taken from the BALTIC Center for Contemporary Art in Gateshead, northeastern England.
"The photograph exists as part of the installation as a whole and has been widely published and exhibited throughout the world," the 60-year-old rocker said.
"It can be found in the monograph of Ms. Goldin's works entitled `The Devil's Playground' (Phaidon, 2003), has been offered for sale at Sotheby's New York in 2002 and 2004, and has previously been exhibited in Houston, London, Madrid, New York, Portugal, Warsaw and Zurich without any objections of which we are aware.
The gallery refused, and officials later backed down, saying there was no realistic prospect of securing a conviction in the case.
(CNN) An Italian fashion label has stirred debate by featuring a naked, anorexic model on billboards across the country in an effort to raise awareness of the illness.
French actress Isabelle Caro, 27, who has suffered anorexia for 15 years and weighs just 31 kilograms appears in the adverts next to the slogan "No Anorexia.
The campaign, for fashion label Nolita, Flash&Partners is intended to show the reality of anorexia an illness the company says that "in most cases is caused by the stereotypes imposed on women by the fashion world.
It is set to coincide with Milan Fashion Week, which, along with Madrid, has banned skinny models from its catwalks.
The campaign, by photographer Oliviero Toscani, has been met with mixed response.
While some have praised the adverts for bringing the issue of anorexia out into the open, others believe it could act as a trigger in some people already suffering from the disease.
Luisa Bertoncello, managing director of Flash&Partners said she was "shocked by the explicitness and blatant truth" the photo conveys.
"Today though, the intention of many companies is to use advertising as an instrument to promote social awareness of social evils," she said.
"So it's very interesting that in the end a fashion company has understood the importance of the problem, and with full awareness has found the courage to take the risk that this campaign involves.
Italian minister for health, Livia Turco has also backed the campaign.
"An initiative like this can effectively open an original and privileged communications channel with young people with a message of great impact that can promote responsibility towards the problem of anorexia," she said.
But Fabiola De Clercq, head of the Italian Association for the Study of Anorexia told The Times newspaper that the image could encourage young women to copy Caro and "compete for extreme thinness".
The organizers of Milan Fashion Week, which runs from September 22 to 29, have also stated that the campaign followed their own against anorexia, the paper reported.
HANOI, Vietnam (CNN) A section of a bridge under construction in southern Vietnam collapsed Wednesday, killing at least 52 workers and injuring 97 others, officials said.
The bridge was being built across the Hau River, a branch of the Mekong River, in the southern city of Can Tho.
It is part of a heavily used route linking the Mekong Delta and Ho Chi Minh City.
The collapsed section was more than 98 feet tall and was situated above land on the river bank in Vinh Long province, said Vo Thanh Tong, chairman of the Can Tho people's committee. The four-lane bridge was not yet open to traffic.
Images broadcast on Vietnamese television showed mounds of twisted steel and cables shrouded in dust and smoke.
Dozens of workers in yellow helmets rushed about the wreckage, some carrying stretchers with bloody victims.
At least 52 people were dead and 97 others were injured, said Le Van Ut, the vice chief of police in Vinh Long Province.
The exact number of missing was unknown, but officials said at least 200 people were working on the 328-foot-long section when it buckled at about 8 a.m.
"I expect the death toll to rise, as there still victims trapped under the concrete," said Dang Van Tam, director of Central Can Tho General Hospital.
Local hospitals were overwhelmed and had called in 20 surgeons from Ho Chi Minh City to help.
"We have never had this many patients," Tam said.
Le Viet Hung, vice chief of the Can Tho police, said the scene was "total chaos.
"It sounded like a huge explosion," Hung said. "It's the biggest accident I've ever seen.
The 1.7-mile bridge was started in 2004 and expected to be finished next year.
Officials were still investigating the cause of the accident.
Concrete had been poured into the collapsed section just one day earlier, on Tuesday.
Japan provided a $218 million loan to finance the project, enough to cover 85 percent of the cost, said Yoshifumi Omura, of the Japanese Bank for International Cooperation in Hanoi.
The Vietnamese government provided the rest of the funding.
Scores of insurgents have been killed over the last day during fighting in southern Afghanistan, the U.S.-led coalition said on Wednesday.
Afghan and coalition troops have killed an estimated 104 insurgents in ongoing fighting since Tuesday morning near the Musa Qalah Wadi in Helmand province, the coalition said.
A coalition service member was killed and four others were wounded in the fighting between troops and Taliban militants.
In neighboring Uruzgan province, a battle between Taliban militants and troops Tuesday left more than 65 insurgents dead in a six-hour battle.
The Afghan-coalition patrol had been near the same spot, northeast of Deh Rawod, where more than three dozen insurgents preparing an ambush were killed last week.
"Much like last week's engagement, last night's overwhelming victory by ANSF against the extremists is one more example of this strategy to secure a stable and safe living area for the residents of province. "
Defense Secretary Robert Gates is asking for nearly $190 billion from Congress to help fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, an increase from the amount requested earlier this year.
The secretary is scheduled to testify on Wednesday before the Senate Appropriations Committee on the "global war on terror" request for the 2008 fiscal year. CNN received his prepared statement.
The request covers local force training, equipment repairs and force protection, including new technologies for protecting troops against roadside bombs.
The extra $42 billion would pay for training, base consolidation, and more vehicles designed to withstand bombings.
Gates will ask for $14 billion for force protection, including "$11 billion for 7,000 more MRAP vehicles on top of the 8,000 MRAPs already funded or requested.
He'll also request $9 billion to refurbish equipment, and $6 billion "for training and equipment that will accelerate the deployment readiness of Army units.
Gates, in his prepared testimony released to the media Wednesday morning, acknowledges that "Iraq and other difficult choices America faces in the war on terror will continue to be a source of friction within the Congress, between the Congress and the president, and in the wider public debate.
A young girl photographed in Morocco is not the missing British toddler Madeleine McCann, according to British media reports on Wednesday.
The Evening Standard newspaper featured a new photo of the child, said to be the daughter of a local olive farmer, under the headline "It's not her.
Reporters descended on the remote hillside village of Zinat in the north of the country after the image of the young girl being carried on a Moroccan woman's back was flashed around the world as a possible sighting of four-year-old Madeleine.
But it quickly emerged that the girl in the photograph (pdf) was believed by villagers to be 5-year-old Bushra Binhisa, the daughter of an olive farmer.
Evening Standard journalist Rashid Razaq, who flew to Morocco from London, said he had seen the youngster on Wednesday, the UK's Press Association said.
"She has got a resemblance to Madeleine but when you see her properly, it is obvious it isn't her.
Clarence Mitchell, the McCanns' spokesman, said: "Clearly, if these reports that the girl in the photograph isn't Madeleine are true, it is disappointing news.
"Clearly, the search for Madeleine will continue and I would appeal for everyone to refocus their efforts to achieve her safe return.
The picture, taken out of a moving car, seems to show a Moroccan woman carrying a child on her back while walking along the side of a road.
YANGON, Myanmar (CNN) United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is to send a special envoy to Myanmar amid reports of several deaths in clashes between security forces and thousands of protesters led by Buddhist monks.
"A statement from the main Buddhist organization leading the demonstrations said five monks have been killed," Aye Chan Naing, chief editor of the Democratic Voice of Burma, told CNN from his office in Oslo, Norway.
Myanmar's ruling junta acknowledged that one civilian had been killed and three wounded in the suppression of anti-government protests, The Associated Press reported.
CNN's Dan Rivers, reporting from near the Myanmar-Thai border, said protests had calmed for the night Wednesday in Yangon, the country's largest city.
Meanwhile, Ban's office called on the regime to cooperate with a U.N. envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, due to be "urgently dispatched" to the troubled southeast Asian country.
"He calls on the senior leadership of the country to cooperate fully with this mission in order to take advantage of the willingness of the United Nations to assist in the process of a national reconciliation through dialogue," said a U.N. statement.
Speaking from neighboring Thailand, the spokesman for the resistance organization the National Council of the Union of Burma (Myanmar), Soe Aung, told CNN that at least one monk died after clashes with security forces in Yangon.
The AFP news agency also reported officials as saying that at least three monks had died,
The agency also reported officials as saying that two other monks had been beaten to death.
WASHINGTON (CNN) There is deep concern about the possibility of a terrorist attack in the United States this year because al Qaeda may be recruiting and giving explosives training to Europeans, many of whom can enter the country without a visa, the director of national intelligence told Congress.
On Tuesday, Mike McConnell told the Senate Judiciary Committee the greatest threat comes from al Qaeda.
The terrorist organization could be training operatives to move explosives available on the commercial market from Pakistan's tribal region through Europe and into the United States, he said.
"Europeans in large part do not require a visa to come into this country, so purposefully recruiting an operative from Europe gives them an extra edge into getting an operative or two or three into the country with the ability to carry out an attack that might be reminiscent of 9/11," McConnell said.
His comments echo statements of other senior government officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.
Chertoff has repeatedly expressed concern that terrorists could take advantage of the visa waiver program, which allows most Europeans to travel to the United States without applying for a visa.
On Tuesday, McConnell said he also is concerned the appearance of Osama bin Laden on a recent videotape after the terrorist leader's lengthy absence might be a move designed to trigger an attack.
Congress is again wrestling with how to renew the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Before its summer recess, Congress approved the Protect America Act, which allows the government to intercept, without a warrant, phone calls and e-mails from people outside the United States who are contacting individuals inside the country.
While supporters of the new law say it protects America from terrorists, critics say the law harms Americans' right to privacy.
"I think if we are thoughtful about going about this the way the admiral [McConnell] has suggested, we will find a lot of the disagreement and concern and anxiety and in some cases anger and frustration" said Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.
A bitterly divided Lebanese parliament adjourned Tuesday without officially beginning the process of selecting a new president.
Members of the opposition Hezbollah Party boycotted Tuesday's session, making a quorum impossible to reach.
Instead of entering the parliamentary chamber, the lawmakers stayed in their offices.
Two-thirds of members must attend before an official session can be held. The next session has been scheduled for October 23.
Members of parliament arrived in armored convoys, traveling under the protection of security details.
The downtown area was sealed off as concrete barriers diverted the normal flow of traffic.
Members of parliament (MPs) gathered less than a week after a massive bomb ripped through Christian neighborhood in east Beirut killing at least five people, including anti-Syrian Lebanese parliamentarian Antoine Ghanem.
Over the last two years, four members of parliament have been assassinated and, in their honor, majority MPs placed their pictures in their seats, draped in the Lebanese flag.
The term of current President Emile Lahoud, a pro-Syrian politician, is set to expire on November 24, giving politicians about two months to agree on a replacement.
in parliament, meaning the selection of a new president will require a consensus to win approval.
"At worst though ... we could see the positions become even more entrenched and further apart from each other and making the process toward electing a new president that much more difficult.
Since October 2004, there have been a number of assassinations and attempted assassinations of anti-Syrian politicians, including the February 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, whose killing in Beirut sparked widespread protests that led to the ouster of Syrian forces from Lebanon.
United Nations investigators concluded last year that Hariri's death may be linked to high-ranking Syrian officials.
Syria has denied any involvement in the killings and said the U.N. tribunal investigating Hariri's death is a violation of its sovereignty.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) The Iraqi government said it will file criminal charges against employees of security firm Blackwater USA who were involved a gun battle in Baghdad in which civilians were killed, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said Sunday.
The official said the charges will come within a week.
It is not clear how Iraqi courts will attempt to bring the contractors to trial.
The Iraqi government has no authority over private security firms contracted by the U.S. government, according to a July report from the Congressional Research Service.
It states, "Contractors shall be immune from Iraqi legal process with respect to acts performed by them pursuant to the terms and conditions of a Contract or any sub-contract thereto.
The Iraqi government claims the private contractors, who were guarding a U.S. diplomatic convoy, killed as many as 20 civilians.
Iraqi officials, who claim the shootings were unprovoked, dispute Blackwater's claim that the guards were responding to an attack and said on Saturday they had a videotape showing the Blackwater guards opened fire without provocation.
The incident prompted the Iraqi government to call for Blackwater's expulsion from the country and sparked anger among Iraqis.
U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said earlier this week the Blackwater employees involved in the incident were still in Iraq.
Word of Iraq's intent to file charges came as no surprise.
One day after the shooting, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said his government would punish those responsible.
Blackwater contractors are part of the estimated 25,000-plus employees of private security firms who are working in Iraq, guarding diplomats, reconstruction workers and government officials.
As many as 200 security contractors have been killed in Iraq, according to U.S. congressional reports.
Blackwater resumed its normal operations of providing security to U.S. civilian authorities in Iraq on Friday after a hiatus sparked by concerns among Iraqi and U.S. government officials over last weekend's shootings.
Sheikhly said the Iraqi government has allowed Blackwater to again operate in the streets of Iraq because, otherwise, U.S. troops would have to be pulled from the field to provide security.
Meanwhile, 19 bodies were found by Iraqi police in Baghdad over the weekend, an Interior Ministry official told CNN on Sunday.
YANGON, Myanmar (CNN) About 20,000 people led by Buddhist monks demonstrated against Myanmar's military junta Sunday, in what has quickly become the largest anti-government demonstrations since the failed democratic uprising in 1988.
The 10,000 monks marched from Yangon's famous Shwedagon Pagoda to the nearby Sule Pagoda before passing the U.S. Embassy, witnesses said.
Monks shouted support for detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, while the crowd of 10,000 protected them by forming a human chain along the route.
It was the sixth straight day monks have marched in Yangon, and came a day after they were allowed to walk past Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Suu Kyi's compound in a symbolic gesture of support.
Their activities have given new life to a protest movement that began a month ago after the government raised fuel prices.
A monk gave a speech Sunday calling for Suu Kyi's release and national reconciliation before the monks set off from the Shwedagon Pagoda, the witness said.
The protest was the largest in the latest series to erupt in Yangon.
Earlier Sunday, the government had deployed about 20 pro-junta thugs and 20 riot police on the road leading to Suu Kyi's compound, witnesses said.
A fire truck was parked nearby.
While authorities had not intervened in Sunday's march, plainclothes police trailed behind the marchers and some with shotguns were posted at street corners along the route.
The latest protest movement began Aug. 19 after the government raised fuel prices, but has its basis in long pent-up dissatisfaction with the repressive military regime.
Using arrests and intimidation, the government had managed to keep demonstrations limited in size and impact but they gained new life when the monks joined
Aid agencies were appealing for millions of dollars Friday to help more than 1 million Africans affected by deadly floods that have swept across the continent.
The floods have killed at least 200 people and displaced hundreds of thousands since the summer in central and eastern Africa.
"If we don't get food people will die in this place," Francis Aruo, 28, told The Associated Press in eastern Uganda, one of the hardest-hit regions of Africa. "All our crops are rotten.
The United Nations asked for $43 million for Uganda, where 50 people have died.
Theophane Nikyema, U.N. Humanitarian coordinator for Uganda, said the money will help address the "devastation left behind by the rising tide of water.
The European Commission is planning to send $15.45 million in humanitarian aid to help flood victims, said Louis Michel, the European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid.
The United States was sending $100,000 for Uganda, said Steven Browning, the country's U.S. ambassador.
In Uganda's Amuria District, which was put under a state of emergency this week, more than 500 people were taking shelter in a seven-room schoolhouse, which was meant to open for a new term last week.
"It's a struggle for accommodations," said Gilbert Omeke, the school's head teacher.
I have designated one classroom for expectant mothers and the elderly but so many more don't find space.
Chile's Supreme Court ruled Friday that former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori can be extradited to Peru on five corruption and two human rights abuse charges.
A few hours after Justice Alberto Chaigneau of the Supreme Court made the announcement on Chilean TV, Fujimori was in a helicopter beginning the journey home.
A Chilean prosecutor in June recommended that Fujimori be extradited to Peru to face the charges.
Fujimori then was placed under house arrest in his home in the suburbs of the Chilean capital, Santiago, while awaiting a Supreme Court ruling.
Before moving to Chile, Fujimori had fled Peru for Japan, where he holds dual citizenship, as his decade-long presidency neared its end in 2000.
He attempted to resign from the presidency by fax from Japan, but Peru's congress refused to accept it, instead declaring him morally unfit to govern.
He arrived in Chile in 2005 in what some saw as a possible attempt to return to Peru and seek office there in 2006.
He was under house arrest for six months in Chile, but authorities lifted the restriction last year on the condition he not leave the country.
Peru has alleged Fujimori ordered death squad killings and participated in various acts of government corruption.
George Clooney suffered a broken rib and some scrapes on Friday when the motorcycle he and a friend were riding collided with a car as the actor tried to pass the other vehicle, authorities said.
Weehawken Police Sgt. Sean Kelly said the collision occurred at 3:30 p.m. as Clooney and friend Sarah Larson were traveling north on Boulevard East and sped up to pass on the right a 1999 Mazda Millenia that was preparing to make a right turn.
Kelly said it is not known if the driver of the other vehicle, who has not been identified, had used his turn signal.
Boulevard East is a narrow road with sweeping views of the Manhattan skyline.
"It's a he-said, she-said right now, but you can't pass on the right in Weehawken or anywhere in Jersey," Kelly said.
The 46-year-old actor was treated at Palisades Medical Center in North Bergen and released, spokesman Stan Rosenfield said in a statement.
"He's doing fine," Rosenfield said. "He has a broken rib, it's very painful and it'll take a long time to heal.
Larson suffered a broken foot. Both she and Clooney were wearing helmets, Kelly said.
Clooney's latest film, "Michael Clayton," will be released next month.
Lindsay Davenport continued her dream return to WTA Tour action as she advanced to the quarterfinals of the China Open by defeating eighth seed Eleni Daniilidou 7-5 6-3.
Second-seed Jelena Jankovic of Serbia routed France's Virginia Ruano Pascual 6-0 6-0 to set up a quarterfinal clash with Akiko Morigami.
She defeated Aiko Nakamura 7-5 6-3 in an all-Japanese match-up.
Jankovic, world ranked number three, is aiming for her fifth title this year after going out to Davenport in a bad-tempered quarterfinal match in Bali.
Lebanon's Phalange Party called for a two-day strike Thursday, a day after a powerful bomb blast in Beirut killed an anti-Syrian lawmaker and four other people.
The bombing was the latest in a series of attacks targeting prominent anti-Syrian figures.
Along with the Phalange Party, known for its anti-Syrian stance, the bankers' union and the Ministry of Education backed the strike.
Wednesday's bomb exploded in a huge fireball that ripped through an upscale Christian neighborhood during evening rush hour.
The attack wounded at least 70 people in addition to the five slain, Lebanese security sources said.
The bombing threatens to deepen the country's political turmoil days before a key presidential vote. Watch how Ghanem's death disrupts Lebanese politics &raquo;
Walid Jumblatt, head of Lebanon's Progressive Socialist Party and a parliamentarian, called the killing "a bloody message" as it comes ahead of elections, reducing government supporters' parliamentary majority bloc from 69 to 68 and increasing the difficulty of electing "a free president for Lebanon.
Prime Minister Fouad Siniora vowed that the attack would not derail Lebanon's attempts to choose a president, according to The Associated Press.
Siniora asked the United Nations to include Ghanem's killing in its investigation into the Hariri slaying, the AP reported.
A MoveOn.org political advertisement that criticized the top U.S. commander in Iraq was "disgusting," President Bush said Thursday, accusing Democrats of being afraid to criticize the anti-war group.
Bush told reporters at a White House news conference that MoveOn.org's ad in The New York Times about Gen. David Petraeus was a "sorry deal." The September 10 full-page ad was titled "General Petraeus or General Betray Us?
"I felt like the ad was an attack, not only on Gen. Petraeus, but on the U.S. military," Bush said. "And I was disappointed that not more leaders in the Democratic Party spoke out strongly against that kind of ad.
Bush said that "most Democrats are afraid of irritating a left-wing group like MoveOn.org" and they "are more afraid of irritating them than they are of irritating the United States military." Watch Bush condemn the MoveOn.org ad &raquo;
He said, "It's one thing to attack me. It's another thing to attack somebody like Gen. Petraeus.
Eli Pariser, executive director of MoveOn.org, reacted quickly to Bush's comments.
He lied repeatedly to the American people to get us into the war. Most Americans oppose the war and want us to get out.
During testimony last week before Congress, Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, U.S. ambassador to Iraq, said they believed the U.S. troop increase in Iraq has had some success, an assertion that critics of the war have questioned.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2892038 The new spokesman for Kate and Gerry McCann has insisted that the parents of missing Madeleine are "innocent victims of a heinous crime."
Former BBC reporter Clarence Mitchell has given up his job with the British government to take up the role after Justine McGuinness the McCanns' spokesperson for the past three months stood down last weekend.
Mitchell told reporters on Tuesday: "I am extremely grateful to Kate and Gerry for asking me to return to become their official spokesman.
"To speak on their behalf, therefore, I have resigned from my role as director of the Central Office of Information's media monitoring unit within the Cabinet Office in Whitehall.
"More importantly, I have done so because I feel so strongly that they are innocent victims of a heinous crime that I am prepared to forego my career in government service to assist them.
"Therefore, I wish stress that from now on I am in no way speaking on behalf of the British government.
LIMA, Peru A fiery meteorite crashed into southern Peru over the weekend, experts confirmed Wednesday.
But they were still puzzling over claims that it gave off fumes that sickened 200 people.
Jose Mechare, a scientist with Peru's Geological, Mining and Metallurgical Institute, said a geologist had confirmed that it was a "rocky meteorite," based on the fragments analyzed.
But a team of doctors sent to the isolated site, 3¨ö hours travel from the state capital of Puno, said they found no evidence the meteorite had sickened people, the Lima newspaper El Comercio reported Wednesday.
Modesto Montoya, a member of the team, was quoted as saying doctors also had found no sign of radioactive contamination
He said fear may have provoked psychosomatic ailments.
(Budget Travel) I was sitting on a Croatian beach a few years ago, staring in amazement at the glorious Adriatic Sea, when my traveling companion said, "If you think this is beautiful, you should see Montenegro someday."
That day finally arrived this summer, when my friend Leslie and I decided to celebrate her birthday with a trip to the small country north of Albania and south of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
If you haven't already heard, Montenegro is the latest hotspot in the former Yugoslavia.
Second-home buyers and investors have been pouring money into the country since it declared independence from Serbia last year.
High-end hotel company Amanresorts is even restoring the resort island of Sveti Stefan.
But as we discovered on our journey along the coast, you don't need to spend a fortune to visit Montenegro.
Our first stop is Kotor, a medieval town pressed against craggy mountains on the right arm of the Boka.
After spending the night at the Hotel Marija, a former palace with rooms that face the mountains, Leslie and I hike to the 14th-century Fortress of St. Ivan.
Kotor's narrow streets have yet to catch the morning sun, so there's a slight chill in the air as we begin to scale the 1,350 stone steps to the top.
In Kotor, all roads lead either to the main Square of Weapons or to St. Tryphon Cathedral, which is adorned with cream-colored Korcula stone pillars.
Pizzeria near the church.
(Montenegro's culinary mainstays are pizza, pasta, risotto and grilled fish.)
Then we pop into the Maritime Museum for a look at Kotor's seafaring past.
The next morning is cool and gray.
We pay less than $2 each and board a minibus for a day trip to Perast, 30 minutes down the fjord.
The bus drops us off in a square lined with Venetian Gothic buildings, all in various stages of renovation.
Perast's main attraction is Our Lady of the Rock, a jewel box of a church built on an island.
Silver bas-relief squares cover the church's walls, and a museum displays antique compasses next to piet&agrave;
tapestries.
Dan Rather filed a $70 million lawsuit Wednesday against CBS, alleging the network made him a "scapegoat" for a discredited story about President Bush's National Guard service.
The 75-year-old Rather, whose final months were clouded by controversy over the report, says the complaint stems from "CBS' intentional mishandling" of the aftermath of the story.
The lawsuit, filed in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, also names CBS President and CEO Leslie Moonves, Viacom Inc., Viacom Chairman Sumner Redstone and former CBS News President Andrew Heyward.
(At the time Viacom Inc. owned CBS. But Viacom and CBS Corp. split into two different companies in January 2006.)
Rather, the former anchorman of the "CBS Evening News," is seeking $20 million in compensatory damages and $50 million in punitive damages.
CBS spokesman Dana McClintock said: "These complaints are old news, and this lawsuit is without merit.
Rather narrated the September 2004 report that claimed President Bush skirted some of his duties during his National Guard service and that a commander felt pressured to sugarcoat Bush's record.
Rather maintains the story was true.
CBS fired three news executives and a producer for airing it.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2892016 Deep in Shari Klages' memory is an image of herself as a girl in New Jersey, going into her parents' bedroom, pulling a thick leather-bound album from the top shelf of a closet and sitting down on the bed to leaf through it.
What she saw was page after page of ink-and-watercolor drawings that convey, with simple lines yet telling detail, the brutality of Dachau, the Nazi concentration camp where her father spent the last weeks of World War II.
Arrival, enslavement, torture, death the 30 pictures expose the worsening nightmare through the artist's eye, and add graphic texture to the body of testimony by Holocaust survivors.
Just by looking at the book, she felt she was doing something wrong and was afraid of being caught.
Now, she finally wants to make the album public.
But who drew the pictures? Only Klages' father could know.
The sole clue was a signature at the bottom of several drawings:
Klages, 47, has begun a quest to discover who Porulski was, and how her family came to be the custodian of his remarkable artistic legacy.
City officials in New York have denied Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's request to visit the site of the destroyed World Trade Center next week, a police spokesman said Wednesday.
The controversial, outspoken president wanted to "pay his respects" and lay a wreath at the site of the 2001 al Qaeda attacks during his visit to the U.N. General Assembly, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said, citing Iranian officials.
But workers are rebuilding the foundations of the site, "and it would not be possible for him to go where other people don't go," Kelly told CNN.
Iranian officials have not put in any additional requests to visit the public platforms at ground zero, police spokesman Paul Browne
The Iranian mission to the U.N. said it had not been told of the decision, but in a statement issued Wednesday evening, it called the rejection "unfortunate.
Iran is ruled by a Shiite Muslim government hostile to the fundamentalist Sunni al Qaeda.
Ahmadinejad's predecessor at the time of the September 11 attacks, Mohammed Khatami, condemned them, and Tehran cooperated with the U.S.-led campaign to topple al Qaeda's Taliban allies in Afghanistan that followed.
The United States and Iran have not had formal diplomatic relations since 1980 after Iranian militants stormed the United States Embassy in Tehran and held Americans hostage for 444 days.
Uganda declared a state of emergency Thursday in the worst flood-affected areas of the country as humanitarian workers tried to reach villages that have been cut off by water.
Uganda is among the nations hit hardest by floods that have swept across 17 countries in Africa in recent weeks.
At least 200 people have been killed across the continent, and hundreds of thousands displaced.
In Uganda, floods killed 21 people since August, said deputy police spokeswoman Judith Nabakoba.
A state of emergency allows the government to divert money allocated for other programs to the floods. The government also said it hopes the declaration will spur international help.
"I've lost everything," Martha Amongin, 56, told The Associated Press in Magoro, a town in eastern Uganda that is surrounded by floodwater and has become inaccessible by road. "Life is going to be bad.
The United Nations chartered a helicopter to bring emergency supplies to areas where floods rendered roads impassible. "We are targeting those in direst need.
Many people have had to abandon their homes and are now sheltering in primary schools," said Geoffrey Edong, the World Food Program's regional chief.
"Until we provide them with support and alternative accommodation, they cannot move and the schools cannot operate."
An audio message from al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden released Thursday called on Muslims to "carry out jihad" against Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
The 23-minute 37-second audio message titled "Come to Jihad:
A Speech to the People of Pakistan" is recorded over a montage of old video, and begins with bin Laden reciting prayers and citations from the Quran in Arabic.
The audio fades down, then a narrator translates bin Laden's message into Pashto.
The tape is subtitled in English, and an Arabic transcript was released.
Terrorism analyst Laura Mansfield told CNN that while the message is directed at the Pakistani people, "the simultaneous release of transcripts in English, Pashto, and Arabic indicate the terror group is looking at a wider audience, including the English-speaking world.
More than 100 people, including militant leader Abdul Rashid Ghazi, died when troops stormed the mosque compound.
Mansfield noted that the bulk of bin Laden's message "builds a [legal] case under Islamic sharia [law] justifying why Muslims in Pakistan should take up arms against" Musharraf.
U.S. officials have said intelligence indicates that bin Laden and other senior al Qaeda leaders are operating freely in Pakistan's tribal region near the border with Afghanistan.
Speaking in a joint interview with French television networks TF1 and France 2, Sarkozy said it is clear that Iran "is trying to equip itself with a nuclear bomb.
" But he said diplomatic pressure has spurred other countries to give up nuclear weapons programs before.
Sarkozy said he will lobby for tougher sanctions on Iran when he attends the U.N. General Assembly session in New York next week.
France and fellow European Union members Britain and Germany have led Western powers in negotiations with Tehran over its nuclear program, which Iranian officials insist is aimed at producing civilian electric power.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said Monday it has verified that Iran's declared nuclear material has not been diverted from peaceful uses, though inspectors have been unable to reach conclusions about some "important aspects" of Iran's nuclear work.
But the U.N. Security Council has demanded that Tehran halt its production of enriched uranium, which can be used to fuel nuclear power plants or, in much higher concentrations, to produce a nuclear explosion.
Iran has so far refused that demand, arguing that it has the right to produce nuclear fuel for peaceful purposes under the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty.
JERUSALEM (CNN) The Israeli security Cabinet declared Hamas-controlled Gaza a "hostile entity" Wednesday in response to continued Palestinian rocket attacks.
The unanimous Cabinet vote represents a major escalation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Under a plan proposed by Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Israel would disrupt electrical supplies, reduce fuel shipments to a bare minimum to run hospital generators, and choke off shipments of goods to allow only essential food and medicine to enter Gaza. In addition, it will continue military operations "against terror organizations."
The ministers, however, voted not to disrupt the water supply to Gaza, the home of 1.4 million Palestinians.
Israel Radio reported that Hamas leader Ismail Haniya had met with a leader of Islamic Jihad to push for a halt in the firing of Qassam rockets into Israel.
Israeli Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter said the declaration would enable certain sanctions to be taken, but those sanctions would not cross "the red line when it came to humanitarian needs," he said in a radio interview.
An Israeli government statement said, "The Hamas organization is a terror organization that seized control of the Gaza Strip and turned into a hostile area. This organization carries out hostile actions against the state of Israel and its citizens and are responsible for this activity.
"In addition there will be further limiting on the Hamas government in a way that will limit the transferring of goods to Gaza, reducing the supply of electricity and fuel and will limit the movement of people in and out of Gaza.
In recent months, Palestinian militants have fired hundreds of unguided and crudely made Qassam rockets into Israel, primarily at the southern Israeli city of Sderot.
Last week, a rocket landed in the middle of an army camp, wounding some 69 soldiers.
Seven of them sustained moderate to serious wounds.
AUCKLAND, New Zealand (CNN) Police searching for the mother of a toddler believed to have been abandoned by her father at a train station in Australia found a woman's body locked in the trunk of a car at the family's New Zealand home Wednesday.
The body was not immediately identified but the car was registered to the father of the 3-year-old girl, and the inquiry into the mother's whereabouts is now a homicide investigation, Detective Senior Sergeant Simon Scott said.
Authorities found Qian Xun Xue alone and confused at a station in the southern Australian city of Melbourne on Saturday.
Police in Australia, New Zealand and the United States as well as Interpol are looking for her father, Xue Naiyin, a 54-year-old Chinese-language magazine publisher.
Security video showed a man, believed to be Xue, accompanying the girl in the station then leaving her by an escalator.
He boarded a flight to Los Angeles soon afterward, police said.
Father and daughter had traveled together to Melbourne from New Zealand last Thursday.
Police have said they were gravely concerned about the girl's mother, Anan Liu, also known as Anni, because she had not come forward after news broke about her daughter being found in the train station.
Scott said Wednesday the body was found in a car outside the family home in the northern city of Auckland.
A post-mortem examination would be carried out Thursday to identify the body.
Earlier, Scott had said that police had been called to the home in the past year about "family-violence incidents.
Meanwhile, Liu's mother was planning to travel to Melbourne to pick up her granddaughter, said Pansy Wong, a New Zealand lawmaker and ethnic Chinese community leader who spoke to the grandmother in China's Hunan province.
Qian Xun Xue, who was nicknamed "Pumpkin" by rescuers before she was identified, was born in New Zealand after her parents moved there in 2002.
LANSING, Michigan (CNN) Firefighters cut a hole in the side of a house and used a forklift to extricate a 900-pound man from his second-floor bedroom after a visiting nurse became worried about his health.
Rescue workers were called in Tuesday by the nurse, who determined the 33-year-old man needed medical help, Fire Chief Tom Cochran said.
Cochran said the man had not left his home since 2003.
The man's brother, who lives with him, said he suffers from Prader-Willi Syndrome.
The rare genetic disorder creates a chronic hungry feeling that can lead to overeating and life-threatening obesity.
Rescue workers brought in a forklift, high enough to raise a platform to a hole cut into the wall of the house.
LONDON, England (CNN) European and Asian stock markets rallied Wednesday in the wake of Wall Street's surge spurred by the U.S. Federal Reserve's larger-than-expected interest rate cut.
Key market indicators rose 3 percent in France and more than 2 percent in Britain and Germany after even bigger gains in Japan and Hong Kong.
Investors cheered the Fed's decision on Tuesday to cut its benchmark interest rate by a half percentage point to 4.75 percent, a move aimed at keeping problems in the mortgage market from causing a recession in the U.S. economy a key export market for many Asian and European companies.
"They did the right thing," Joseph Han, a strategist at Daewoo Securities Co. in Seoul, said of the Fed's aggressive cut.
Many analysts expected a quarter-point reduction in the fed funds rate.
After Tuesday's rate cut, the Dow Jones industrial average posted its biggest one-day point gain in nearly five years a surge of 335.97 points.
In afternoon trading Wednesday, the index gained another 81.37 points to 13,820.76.
Britain's benchmark FTSE 100 rose 2.8 percent to 6,460.00.
Germany's DAX gained 2.3 percent to 7,750.84 and France's CAC-40 climbed 3.3 percent to 5,730.82.
Earlier in Asia, Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 stock index soared 579.74 points, or 3.7 percent, to close at 16,381.54 points, marking its biggest point gain in more than five years.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng index jumped 977.79 points, or 3.98 percent, to 25,554.64.
Shares in India hit an all-time high, as the Bombay Stock Exchange's 30-share Sensex surged 654 points, or 4.2 percent, to 16,323.
Stock markets in South Korea, Australia and Singapore also advanced, although Chinese shares faltered.
LOS ANGELES (CNN) Pop singer Britney Spears must submit to random drug tests, a judge has ordered after finding she engaged in "habitual, frequent, and continuous use of controlled substances and alcohol.
The ruling by Superior Court Commissioner Scott Gordon provided no details and did not name any specific drugs, stating only that the findings were "based on the evidence presented.
Spears must also spend eight hours a week working with a parenting coach who will observe her interactions with her children, according to the ruling released Tuesday.
Efforts to contact the singer's lawyers, Marci Levine and Mel Goldman, were unsuccessful late Tuesday.
The ruling comes during Spears' custody battle with ex-husband Kevin Federline.
The documents underscore the bitter nature of the fight over their two sons, Sean Preston and Jayden.
After a closed hearing Monday, Gordon ordered Spears, 25, to undergo random drug tests twice a week.
He told both parents to avoid alcohol or "other non-prescription controlled substances" 12 hours before taking custody of the children.
Critics said her September 9 "comeback" performance on the MTV Video Music Awards was lackluster and said she appeared overweight in her sequined, two-piece costume.
LAS VEGAS, Nevada (CNN) OJ Simpson walked out of the Clark County Detention Center on Wednesday after paying the $125,000 bail set earlier in the day.
Simpson faces 11 charges stemming from an alleged robbery last week in a Las Vegas hotel.
Video from outside the jail shows Simpson, wearing a gray suit and white shirt, get into a car that was immediately driven away.
Simpson had to surrender his passport, but is allowed to return to his home in Miami, Florida, and travel elsewhere in the United States.
Simpson and others are accused of entering a room in the Palace Station Hotel and Casino and pointing guns at two men Alfred Beardsley and Bruce Fromong as they took sports memorabilia, along with Fromong's cell phone and Beardsley's cap and sunglasses.
A fifth suspect, Charles Cashmore, 40, turned himself in Wednesday, according to a source with knowledge of the investigation.
He was one of the two men seen in a surveillance video released Tuesday by authorities.
Police are requesting the public's assistance in "identifying and locating the second suspect [in the video].
Beardsley, 46, considered a key witness, was also arrested Wednesday.
He was booked into the Clark County jail on a fugitive warrant, booking records show.
Beardsley was convicted of stalking in 2003 in California and was sentenced to two years, according to the California Department of Corrections.
It's unclear how much of that sentence he served, but he was still on parole at the time of the alleged Las Vegas robbery.
During Simpson's hearing Wednesday morning, Judge Joe Bonaventure read the charges against the former football star.
Simpson was wearing a blue jail jumpsuit and handcuffs.
He spoke only in direct response to Bonaventure's questions.
The judge told Simpson he must refrain from contacting any alleged victims, witnesses or co-defendants in the case.
The charges include multiple counts of first-degree kidnapping with a weapon, robbery with a weapon, burglary with a weapon, coercion and conspiracy to commit kidnapping and robbery.
The first degree kidnapping charges, which carry a possible life sentence upon conviction, were added Tuesday.
SHANNON, Ireland (CNN) US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice cautioned the UN nuclear watchdog group Wednesday not to interfere with international diplomacy over Iran's alleged weapons program.
The International Atomic Energy Agency "is not in the business of diplomacy," Rice told reporters traveling with her to the Middle East.
Rice was referring to recent comments made by IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei, in which he criticized US rhetoric about Iran.
ElBaradei has called for less emphasis on additional UN sanctions against Iran in favor of enhanced cooperation between the IAEA and Tehran.
Iran has agreed with IAEA requests to answer unresolved questions about its nuclear program.
Iranian officials insist their nuclear program is aimed at producing civilian electric power, but the Bush administration accuses Tehran of working toward a nuclear weapon.
President Bush has called the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran "unacceptable.
Rice said the IAEA agreement with Iran was "a good thing," but "this wouldn't be the first time the Iranians made an agreement only to break it"
She said the UN Security Council is working on a third resolution imposing additional sanctions against Iran for failing to suspend its uranium enrichment program. The elements of a possible resolution will be discussed in Washington on Friday at a meeting of the political directors of the "P5 plus one" Germany and the permanent members of the UN Security Council:
Britain, France, China, the United States and Russia.
Those talks will continue next week in New York when Rice meets with her counterparts on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, she said.
BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNN) A massive bombing in Beirut on Wednesday killed anti-Syrian Lebanese parliamentarian Antoine Ghanem and at least four others, a high-ranking Lebanese official confirmed to CNN.
Ghanem was a Christian Maronite and a member of Lebanon's Phalange Party, which is known to take an anti-Syrian stance.
He is believed to have been the target of the attack.
Fellow parliamentarian Walid Jumblatt, head of Lebanon's Progressive Socialist Party, called the killing "a bloody message," as it comes ahead of elections and will reduce the parliamentary majority from 69 to 68, preventing them from electing "a free president for Lebanon.
Lebanese Broadcasting Corp., citing internal security forces, reported nine people were killed and 40 wounded in the attack.
Former Lebanese President Amine Gemayel expressed his sadness, saying Ghanem was a "very close friend of mine," and adding that his death will have political implications.
He said Ghanem's assassination is "very, very dangerous for the future of democracy in Lebanon."
Gemayel's son Pierre, a Lebanese anti-Syrian parliamentarian, was assassinated last November.
In a written statement, a spokesperson for UN Sceretary General Ban Ki-moon condemned the attack but urged restraint "at this critical time.
The White House said it strongly condemned Ghanem's killing, immediately labeling it as a politically motivated assassination.
The huge explosion ripped through the upscale Christian neighborhood of Horsh Tabet in east Beirut, killing Ghanem and four others and wounding 20, according to the Red Cross and a high-ranking government official.
The powerful blast erupted into a huge fireball and damaged dozens of cars as they filled the streets at 5 p.m. (10 a.m. ET).
Buildings were heavily damaged, and broken glass littered the street.
A short time after the explosion, Lebanese security forces patrolled the streets as a large crowd gathered.
Some companies advertise peak-season prices and discount off-season prices.
But most tour companies advertise the lower off-season prices and charge a supplement to go during popular times.
For European tours, the demand (and, therefore, the price) spikes in late spring and early fall.
Recently there has been a huge new influx of Chinese and Indian tourists on the European scene.
Imagine 200 million people in India, for instance, with enough money to book a tour.
This is one reason why booking hotels is becoming more and more difficult and expensive for American tour organizers.
While Europe is vast and varied, tour groups zero in on relatively few destinations.
Good tour organizers need to diligently navigate the traffic jams.
For instance, to get into the Vatican Museum during the 90-minute "groups only" window (each morning from 8:30 to 10), you must fax your request exactly one month in advance (literally within a 20-minute window of when you want an appointment).
Otherwise your group will have no choice but to wait with the masses for up to several hours in the general admission line.
While individual travelers are accustomed to long lines and have no one to complain to, good tour organizers can't inflict this waste of time on their customers.
When competing with bigger tour companies, small tour organizers need to stress their undeniable strengths.
Any company can and does advertise that it has great guides.
But if a small tour organizer takes small groups (say, 28 people maximum per group versus the standard 40 to 50) who stay in centrally located hotels, its competitive advantage is clear.
Big companies and budget companies routinely book hotels that are far from the center.
Read the promotional literature carefully.
Sleeping "in the Florence area" could mean halfway to Bologna.
BOULDER, Colorado (CNN) Ice cover in the Arctic Ocean, long held to be an early warning of a changing climate, has shattered the all-time low record this summer, scientists say.
Additionally, the European Space Agency said nearly 200 satellite photos this month taken together showed an ice-free passage along northern Canada, Alaska and Greenland, according to news reports.
Ice was retreating to its lowest level since such images were first taken in 1978, according to a report from The Associated Press.
Using satellite data and imagery, the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) now estimates the Arctic ice pack to cover 4.24 million square kilometers (1.63 million square miles) equal to just less than half the size of the United States.
That figure is about 20 percent less than the previous all-time low of 5.32 million square kilometers (2.05 million square miles) set in September 2005
Mark Serreze, senior research scientist at NSIDC, termed the decline "astounding.
"It's almost an exclamation point on the pronounced ice loss we've seen in the past 30 years," he said.
Most researchers had anticipated the complete disappearance of the Arctic ice pack during summer months would happen after the year 2070, he said, but now, "losing summer sea ice cover by 2030 is not unreasonable.
Leif Toudal Pedersen of the Danish National Space Center told the AP that Arctic ice has shrunk to some 1 million square miles.
The previous low was 1.5 million square miles, in 2005.
"The strong reduction in just one year certainly raises flags that the ice (in summer) may disappear much sooner than expected," Pedersen said in an ESA statement posted on its Web site Friday, according to AP.
Scores of peer-reviewed scientific studies have documented a steady, worldwide decline in ice cover, from the sea-bound ice covering the North Pole to the vast, land-based ice sheets that cover the Antarctic continent.
Glaciers, from Greenland to the Alps to Mount Kilimanjaro near the equator, have also been vanishing.
PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania (CNN) It was a serious contribution to the electronic lexicon.
Twenty-five years ago, Carnegie Mellon University professor Scott E. Fahlman says, he was the first to use three keystrokes a colon followed by a hyphen and a parenthesis as a horizontal "smiley face" in a computer message.
To mark the anniversary Wednesday, Fahlman and his colleagues are starting an annual student contest for innovation in technology-assisted, person-to-person communication.
The Smiley Award, sponsored by Yahoo Inc., carries a $500 cash prize.
Language experts say the smiley face and other emotional icons, known as emoticons, have given people a concise way in e-mail and other electronic messages of expressing sentiments that otherwise would be difficult to detect.
Fahlman posted the emoticon in a message to an online electronic bulletin board at 11:44 a.m. on September 19, 1982, during a discussion about the limits of online humor and how to denote comments meant to be taken lightly.
The suggestion gave computer users a way to convey humor or positive feelings with a smile or the opposite sentiments by reversing the parenthesis to form a frown.
Carnegie Mellon said Fahlman's smileys spread from its campus to other universities, then businesses and eventually around the world as the Internet gained popularity.
Computer science and linguistics professors contacted by The Associated Press said they were unaware of who first used the symbol.
"I've never seen any hard evidence that the :
-) sequence was in use before my original post, and I've never run into anyone who actually claims to have invented it before I did," Fahlman wrote on the university's Web page dedicated to the smiley face.
"But it's always possible that someone else had the same idea it's a simple and obvious idea, after all.
Instant messaging programs often contain an array of faces intended to express emotions ranging from surprise to affection to embarrassment.
"I sometimes wonder how many millions of people have typed these characters, and how many have turned their heads to one side to view a smiley, in the 25 years since this all started.
Andriy Shevchenko salvaged Chelsea a draw in their opening Champions League Group B clash against outsiders Rosenborg at Stamford Bridge.
Chelsea had been expected to start in style even though they lacked the liked of injured Frank lampard and Didier Drogba, but the Norwegians had different ideas.
"I think they were not a problem, we were the problem because it's a game you can win (by) five, six or seven.
Chelsea had not scored in their two previous Premier League games and the lack of a cutting edge was all too evident.
Real Madrid launched their Champions League Group C campaign with a 2-0 win over German club Werder Bremen in Spain. Skipper Raul and Dutch marksman Ruud van Nistelrooy were on target for Real in their 300th European outing.
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) The jury in the murder trial of legendary music producer Phil Spector has "reached an impasse" after more than a week of deliberations, the trial judge said Tuesday.
The nine-man, three-woman jury delivered a note to court officials early Tuesday afternoon, warning they were unable to reach a unanimous verdict in Spector's case.
Fidler quizzed jurors as to what might break the deadlock and denied a defense request for an immediate mistrial in the case.
The jury began deliberating September 10 after hearing testimony and arguments since April.
The onetime star of "Barbarian Queen" and the spoof "Amazon Women on the Moon" was found dead in Spector's Alhambra home dubbed "the castle" from a single gunshot wound through the roof of the mouth.
A small amount of blood spattered on Spector's white jacket proves his innocence, they said.
Spector's driver testified he heard a loud noise and saw the producer leave the castle holding a revolver, saying, "I think I killed somebody. "
But under intense cross-examination, he never strayed from the gist of his original call to a 911 emergency operator.
An international team of earthquake specialists says Indonesia faces another potential "giant" quake in the near future.
The scientists, including a team from the California Institute of Technology, says three major quakes in the last week have increased the likelihood of a major disaster.
Smack on the equator, Indonesia's Sumatra island holds the deadliest stretch of ocean in the world.
He is investigating the fault line that sparked the 2004 tsunami and, in recent days, three more powerful quakes.
Galetzka is now examining the evidence that his team believes indicates the arrival another giant earthquake, and possible tsunami.
He has established a network of position-markers, linked by satellite, that show a constant creep, northeast, among the islands on Indonesia's Indian Ocean frontier. The first one was placed in August 2002.
Driven by the plate beneath the Indian Ocean, the entire coastline is flexing, as the earth literally bends.
"Eventually it has got to release in (the form) of giant earthquake," states Galetzka matter-of-factly. It could be a rare magnitude-9 quake, and with the plates so tightly sprung, it will happen sooner, he believes, rather than later.
Whenever I am in Padang I think about my escape routes, almost every moment. "
LAS VEGAS, Nevada (CNN) Prosecutors on Tuesday filed numerous criminal charges against former NFL star O.J. Simpson and three other men in connection with an alleged armed robbery at a Las Vegas hotel last week.
The 11 charges include two counts of first-degree kidnapping with use of a deadly weapon; two counts of robbery with a deadly weapon; and two counts of assault with a deadly weapon.
Prosecutors say Simpson and his co-defendants Walter Alexander, Clarence Stewart and Michael McClinton committed kidnapping because they intended to hold or detain the two alleged victims using a weapon.
McClinton, described as a "key player" in the alleged theft, turned himself in Tuesday evening, a source close to the investigation told CNN.
Also on Tuesday, Las Vegas police released surveillance camera photos of two men they said were unidentified suspects in the incident.
One of the alleged victims, Bruce Fromong, 53, suffered a major heart attack and was in critical condition Tuesday at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, the hospital said.
Simpson and the three others are accused of pointing guns at Fromong and Alfred Beardsley, the other alleged victim, and taking the memorabilia, along with Fromong's cell phone and Beardsley's baseball cap and sunglasses.
Beardsley said he initially thought the alleged robbery was a law enforcement operation.
Simpson, 60, was arrested Sunday.
Before his arrest, Simpson said he was merely retrieving items belonging to him, and that no guns were involved.
Shares in troubled mortgage lender Northern Rock rose on the London Stock Exchange Tuesday, following the British government's vow to guarantee all its savings deposits.
However, it was a small rebound compared to two previous trading days when shares fell more than 30 percent per session.
The FTSE 100 itself was up 100.5 points at 6283.3.
PHUKET, Thailand (CNN) Relatives of the 89 people killed in Sunday's plane crash in Phuket continued to arrive in the Thai resort town on Tuesday to try to identify their loved ones' remains.
Most of those killed were foreign nationals, and about 36 of the bodies still have yet to be identified, according to Thailand's state-run Thai News Agency (TNA).
All of the unidentified victims were foreign nationals, it reported.
The U.S. Embassy in Bangkok said that five Americans were among those killed when the One-Two-Go jet crashed in bad weather as it landed at Phuket's airport on Sunday.
U.S. officials had previously confirmed that four Americans died in the crash, and one survived.
Eight British nationals are believed to have died, according to Foreign Secretary David Miliband.
He said three were still in hospital, with one in a critical condition.
Thailand's Public Health Minister Mongkol Na Songkhla said that of the 41 survivors who remain hospitalized, 38 were in stable condition and three in critical condition, according to TNA.
Flight 269 was carrying 123 passengers and seven crew members when it left Bangkok for Phuket on Sunday afternoon.
Nationalities of the survivors include British, American, Swedish, Iranian, Austrian, Australian, Thai, German, Irish, Italian, Israeli and Dutch, authorities said. Watch a survivor recall the fiery horror &raquo;
One man who arrived in Phuket on Tuesday from Paris described a frustrating process of trying to communicate with Thai officials in his effort to locate the remains of his brother.
For some families, DNA testing may be the only way to positively identify their relatives.
Sen. Barack Obama on Tuesday proposed overhauling the tax code to lower taxes for the poor and middle class, increase them for the rich and make it so most Americans can file their taxes in five minutes.
The tax relief plan he envisions for the middle class alone would mean $80 billion or more in tax cuts, he said.
Obama, an Illinois Democrat who is a front-runner for his party's 2008 presidential nomination, said during a speech at the Tax Policy Center that the present tax code reflects the wrong priorities because it rewards wealth instead of work.
The result, according to Obama? "Gaps in wealth in this country grow wider, while the costs to working people are greater.
His plan means billions in breaks by nixing income taxes for the 7 million senior citizens making less than $50,000 a year, establishing a universal credit for the 10 million homeowners who do not itemize their deductions most of whom make less than $50,000 annually and providing 150 million Americans with tax cuts of up to $1,000.
Obama also said he would repeal the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans.
"We've lost the balance between work and wealth.
"Hey, that's the boy I just saw on TV!" a voice shouted out from the beach.
Frightened and excited, the 5-year-old Iraqi boy shrieked and laughed as his father lifted him to safety as each wave crashed around their legs.
It was the first time either of them had seen the ocean.
The "voice" belonged to a member of the Valley Peak church group from nearby Chatsworth having a father and child day at the beach.
"We'd like to pray for Youssif and his family. Can you ask if they will accept this?
The reply: "Of course," said Youssif's mother, Zainab.
The group of Christian fathers and children surrounded the boy and his dad, falling to their knees and locking arms.
Youssif and his father stood at the center of the circle holding hands. Watch Youssif being happy again &raquo;
"They are going to need strength and patience, and God, just put your hand on little Youssif and his family," one of them said, head bowed in prayer.
Other beachgoers witnessed the scene, joined in and dropped to their knees more than 30 people in all.
Watching the scene, the outpouring of warmth from total strangers, Zainab wept, tears running down her face.
The fringes of Typhoon Wipha lashed northern Taiwan, where schools, offices and the stock market closed.
A construction worker was killed when the storm's winds knocked down scaffolding, Taiwan's Disaster Relief Center said.
City authorities ordered schools closed Wednesday in Shanghai, a city of more than 20 million and China's financial hub.
Chinese state-run television showed families being evacuated from their fishing boats and other vessels.
The typhoon, whipping up waves up to 36 feet high, was moving northwest toward the Chinese mainland.
By midnight local time, the typhoon appeared to be weakening and looked likely to hit land early Wednesday further south of Shanghai than originally forecast, the official Xinhua News Agency reported, citing local meteorologists.
Wipha, a woman's name in Thai, was upgraded from a tropical storm Monday. Watch CNN's international weather forecast &raquo;
"The typhoon is very likely to develop into the worst one in recent years," said a man who answered the phone at the city's meteorological bureau. As is common with Chinese officials, the man identified himself only by his surname, Fu.
The deadliest storm to hit the China coast in recent years was Typhoon Winnie in 1997, which killed 236 people.
Kenny Miller scored a memorable debut goal from 30 meters out to give Derby a first Premier League win of the season against Newcastle and lift them off the bottom of the table.
The Scottish striker looked up to find goalkeeper Steve Harper off his line before sending a piledriver into the roof of the net after 38 minutes hauling Derby above Bolton at the foot of the table in the process.
Miller, who was forced out of Scotland's famous 1-0 win over France in Paris last week with a hamstring problem, far outshone Owen who looked jaded after two match-winning displays for his country.
Newcastle manager Sam Allardyce took off Owen, unable to repeat his England heroics against the basement club, for Obafemi Martins after 55 minutes as the Magpies desperately sought a cutting edge.
"We had good pace, moved the ball around very well, created a lot of chances and thoroughly got what we deserved tonight," said Derby manager Billy Davies.
ST. GEORGE, Utah (CNN) A young woman who said she was forced to enter an arranged marriage at age 14 testified Monday that she never complained to her mother or sisters that she was being raped.
"I never told anyone," the woman, now 21, said during cross-examination at the trial of polygamous-sect leader Warren Jeffs.
Jeffs, president of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, is charged with two counts of rape as an accomplice.
Prosecutors say he used his influence to push the girl into a ceremonial marriage with a 19-year-old cousin in 2001 and force her to have sex.
Last week the woman testified that she sobbed through the wedding and had to be coaxed by Jeffs and her mother when asked to say "I do."
She hid in a bathroom after the ceremony at a Nevada motel.
Defense attorney Tara Isaacson challenged her earlier testimony and her statements to police in 2006.
The woman said Jeffs never specifically spoke to her about having sex because the FLDS faithful didn't use that word.
She acknowledged her mother had a "great deal of influence" on her to go ahead with the marriage ceremony.
The woman has been the only witness through nearly three days of trial.
She recalled last week how she avoided sex for weeks but could no longer deny her husband when he said it was "time for you to be a wife and do your duty.
Wanting to die, she said she subsequently swallowed two bottles of over-the-counter pain reliever.
He was my patriarch," she said of her cousin.
"And I was risking my spiritual salvation by questioning my husband and not becoming one with him.
The woman said she sought an FLDS divorce, known as a release, from Jeffs but was denied.
She finally left her three-year marriage and the FLDS church in 2004 after becoming pregnant with another man's child.
CNN and The Associated Press generally do not name people alleging sexual abuse.
Jeffs, 51, has been president of the FLDS church since 2002.
Followers see him as a prophet who communicates with God and holds dominion over their salvation.
Ex-church members say he reigns with an iron fist, demanding perfect obedience from followers.
If convicted of the charges, he could spend the rest of his life in prison.
Polygamy, a practice central to FLDS religious beliefs, is not an issue in the case because the three-year marriage between the cousins was monogamous.
The gender gap has widened when it comes to hygiene, according to the latest stakeout by the "hand washing police.
One-third of men didn't bother to wash after using the bathroom, compared with 12 percent of women, said the researchers who spy on people in public restrooms.
Two years ago, the last time the survey was done, only one-quarter of men didn't wash, compared with 10 percent of women.
The latest study was based on observations last month of more than 6,000 people in four big cities.
And a recent Harris Interactive survey found 92 percent of Americans said they usually or always wash up after using the bathroom.
But researchers for the American Society for Microbiology found that only 77 percent actually do, when it comes to public restrooms.
Atlanta's Turner Field baseball stadium again was the worst.
New York was Second City to Chicago in cleanliness.
In restrooms at the Windy City's Shedd Aquarium and Museum of Science and Industry, 81 percent of men and women combined washed their hands, compared to 79 percent at the Big Apple's Penn and Grand Central train stations.
I saw them almost as soon as I walked into the Ithaca Farmers Market:
These spectacular-tasting apples, many of them heirloom varieties, were grown on a local farm by Cornell horticulture professor Ian Merwin and his wife, Jackie.
Nearby another Cornell scientist and his wife sold their bumper crop of squash and pumpkins in brilliant shades of red, orange and yellow.
No more proof was needed of the relationship between Cornell and local farmers in the lush, rolling farmland of the Finger Lakes district in west-central New York.
In two visits to the area last fall, my husband and I returned to Ithaca again and again for the terrific used bookstores, unusual crafts and vibrant ethnic restaurants.
Events this fall include Apple Harvest Fest, September 27-30, and Ithaca's annual used book sales, October 6-8, 13-15 and 20-23, with a quarter-million books for sale.
The landscape was formed 2 million years ago, when a series of glacial advances and retreats scooped out north-south river valleys to form the deep basins that became the lakes.
One of the best ways to explore the region is by bike.
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) The same television networks that bring chilling news of war, natural disaster and economic woes into American homes will try to make amends this fall by offering viewers an escape route.
In a retreat from reality (if not reality shows), the 2007-08 TV season is rife with dramas in the supernatural and science-fiction genres, populated by heroes who draw on extraordinary gifts to battle the bad guys.
"Heroes" is a key word here;
the success of NBC's sci-fi series has fired up the hopes and, possibly, the imagination of the TV industry.
Or ABC's "Pushing Daisies," about a man who can revive the dead to solve crimes.
Or NBC's "Journeyman," in which a reporter becomes a time traveler able to change events.
Or "Bionic Woman," also NBC, an update of the 1970s show about an accident victim with a rebuilt chassis.
Then there's Fox's "The Sarah Connor Chronicles," drawn from the "Terminator" movie franchise, and "New Amsterdam," with a New York detective who was made immortal by an Indian spell cast in 1642..
CW has "Reaper," the humor-tinged tale of a 20-something slacker who discovers that his parents sold him out to the devil and he's now gainfully employed as Satan's bounty hunter.
NBC's "Chuck," in which a computer geek's brain mysteriously downloads government secrets, also goes for laughs.
As with any industry, television is attempting to give its customers what they want, said Tim Brooks, co-author of "The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable Shows" and an executive who's worked for several networks.
"We don't see more of the 'chalk-line TV' " coming this fall, said Brooks, referring to the long-dominant "CSI" school of gritty crime drama.
"We want something escapist, upbeat ... shows that take you out of the world of Osama bin Laden, and politicians throwing mud at each other, and Katrina.
"The world is so heavy and dark," he observed.
Powerful politicians work just across the way.
In our imaginations, there are gorgeous bronze statues everywhere.
Welcome to Pompeii.
The scene we're trying to visualize would have taken place before 79 AD when the city, according to our guide Fulvio Jesu, was a prosperous community known for its wine and its houses of prostitution.
Jesu has been leading tours of Pompeii for nearly 30 years and on this hot summer morning, he has brought his teenage daughter along to help our big group of families.
The original Roman streets are uneven.
There's no multimedia presentation, no snack shop in the ancient city, no place to buy a drink just a guide droning on.
Following an earthquake in 62 AD, some of Pompeii had been rebuilt and then, less than two decades later, Mt. Vesuvius, which had been considered extinct and, in fact, was covered with vineyards and homes, erupted so quickly that it buried Pompeii and a nearby city, Herculaneum, in minutes.
The "rain of fire" lasted for three days.
More than 10,000 people died, their bodies buried beneath 30 feet of molten ash.
During our tour, we saw plaster casts of some of the bodies archeologists found.
The kids, of course, loved the casts.
BEIJING, China (CNN) A man in southern China appears to have died of exhaustion after a three-day Internet gaming binge, state media said Monday.
The 30-year-old man fainted at a cyber cafe in the city of Guangzhou Saturday afternoon after he had been playing games online for three days, the Beijing News reported.
Paramedics tried to revive him but failed and he was declared dead at the cafe, it said.
The paper said that he may have died from exhaustion brought on by too many hours on the Internet.
The report said that about 100 other Web surfers "left the cafe in fear after witnessing the man's death.
China has 140 million Internet users, second only to the U.S..
It is one of the world's biggest markets for online games, with tens of millions of players, many of whom hunker down for hours in front of PCs in public Internet cafes.
The explosion at the House of Xiaoxiang restaurant in south China's Hunan province Sunday night occurred as 30 guests gathered for a dinner hosted by a villager involved in a local dispute, a statement from the local Public Security Bureau said.
The man from Wenjiashi township in Hunan's Liuyang city allegedly told guests he wanted to treat them to dinner and apologize for the dispute, which involved "family matters," the statement said.
Attacks using homemade bombs in business disputes or personal grudges are reported frequently in China, where most gun ownership is illegal but explosives are widely available.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) Iraqi officials Monday condemned the weekend killings of eight civilians during a Baghdad street battle involving American security contractors and said they would shut down Blackwater, the company involved.
Blackwater said its employees acted in self-defense.
The U.S. State Department said it plans to investigate what it calls a "terrible incident.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to express regret for the weekend killings, both governments said.
In addition to the fatalities, 14 people were wounded, most of them civilians, an Iraqi official said.
Sunday's firefight took place near Nusoor Square, an area that straddles the predominantly Sunni Arab neighborhoods of Mansour and Yarmouk.
The ministry said the incident began around midday, when a convoy of sport utility vehicles came under fire from unidentified gunmen in the square.
The men in the SUVs, described by witnesses as Westerners, returned fire, the ministry said.
Blackwater's employees were protecting a U.S. official when they were hit by "a large explosive device, then repeated small-arms fire and to the point where it disabled one of the vehicles, and the vehicle had to be towed out of the firefight," said Marty Strong, vice president of Blackwater USA.
A senior industry source said Blackwater guards had escorted a State Department group to a meeting with U.S. Agency for International Development officials in Mansour before the shootings.
An Interior Ministry spokesman, Brig. Gen. Abdul Kareem Khalaf, said, "We have revoked Blackwater's license to operate in Iraq.
As of now they are not allowed to operate anywhere in the Republic of Iraq.
A European Union court on Monday dismissed Microsoft's appeal against an EU antitrust order that ordered it to share communications code with rivals and sell a copy of Windows without Media Player.
It also upheld a $689 million fine the largest ever levied by EU regulators.
It also said regulators had clearly demonstrated that selling media software with Windows had damaged rivals.
Microsoft can appeal the decision to the EU's highest court, the European Court of Justice, within two months.
"I don't want to talk about what will come next," said Microsoft lawyer Brad Smith in answer to questions about the possibility of an appeal.
"We need to read the ruling before we make any decision.
LAS VEGAS, Nevada (CNN) Prosecutors said they anticipate filing charges "within the next few days," against O.J. Simpson and other defendants in an alleged armed robbery involving sports memorabilia.
Simpson is expected to appear in court Wednesday when charges are likely to be filed, said Las Vegas Township Justice Court Judge Nancy Oesterle said Monday, who is briefing media on the case.
She said Township Justice Court Judge Ann Zimmerman was reviewing paperwork in Simpson's arrest and will determine whether there is probable cause to detain him past Wednesday.
The Hall of Fame running back was arrested Sunday in Las Vegas, Nevada, on robbery, assault, burglary and conspiracy charges, according to police.
A judge must see the arrested person within 72 hours, either in the courtroom or by video, and Zimmerman does all her arraignments in person, Oesterle said.
Las Vegas Township Justice Court Chief Judge Douglas Smith put a "no-bail hold" on Simpson, meaning bail is not an option for him before Zimmerman makes her decision.
Smith considered factors including the likelihood Simpson would flee and his lack of "known ties to the Las Vegas community," according to someone who spoke with Smith, Oesterle said.
Simpson, 60, is in isolation at a Las Vegas jail.
The audio recording on TMZ.com portrays an angry Simpson ordering people to stay in the hotel room and questioning the audacity of the person he thinks stole from him.
But one of the victims, Bruce Fromong, describes the incident as a "home-invasion type robbery," and police say they've retrieved the guns that were used.
Fromong said Simpson walked in with several companions, two of whom leveled guns at the people in the room. The other victim, Alfred Beardsley, told TMZ.com that Simpson later called him to apologize and said he regretted the incident.
Riccio, who TMZ.com says is the source of the profanity-laced recording, further told KVVU that Simpson entered the room while Riccio was being shown the items.
Also, Nichols said, it is debatable whether every item Simpson took from the hotel room belongs to him.
Simpson was booked Sunday evening on two counts of robbery with a deadly weapon, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon and one count each of armed burglary and conspiracy to commit burglary, Las Vegas police Capt. James Dillon said.
Simpson was being held in isolation at the Clark County jail because he is a high-profile inmate, Dillon said.
A co-defendant, Walter Alexander, faces similar charges in an investigation Dillon has called "dynamic" and ongoing.
Sunday's crash left 88 people dead and investigators trying to determine just what caused the smash at the airport at Phuket in southern Thailand.
One-Two-GO's Web site says the four-year-old company had 13 aircraft and operated 168 flights per week in Thailand.
CARACAS, Venezuela (CNN) Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez threatened Monday to close or take over any private school that refuses to submit to the oversight of his socialist government as it develops a new curriculum and textbooks.
"Society cannot allow the private sector to do whatever it wants," said Chavez, speaking on the first day of classes.
All schools, public and private, must admit state inspectors and submit to the government's new educational system, or be closed and nationalized, with the state taking responsibility for the education of their children, Chavez said.
A new curriculum will be ready by the end of this school year, and new textbooks are being developed to help educate "the new citizen," said Chavez's brother and Education Minister Adan Chavez, who joined him in a televised ceremony at the opening of a public school in the eastern town of El Tigre.
The president's opponents accuse him of aiming to indoctrinate young Venezuelans with socialist ideology.
But the education minister said the aim is to develop "critical thinking," not to impose a single way of thought.
"We want to create our own ideology collectively creative, diverse," the president said, adding that it would help develop values of "cooperation and solidarity.
All schools will be bound to "subordinate themselves to the constitution" and comply with the "new Bolivarian educational system," he said, referring to his socialist movement named after South American independence hero Simon Bolivar.
Anticipating criticism, Chavez said the state's role in regulating education is internationally accepted and it is not possible for a school administrator to insist on autonomy in countries such as Germany or the United States either.
Chavez also noted that previous Venezuelan educational systems carried their own ideology.
"They taught us to admire Christopher Columbus and Superman," Chavez said, adding that education based on capitalist ideology had destroyed "the values of children."
Negotiations and two sets of U.N. Security Council sanctions have failed to persuade Iran to stop its uranium enrichment program, a process that can produce fuel for nuclear power plants as well as material used in atomic weapons.
Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, speaking on RTL radio, called for "more effective sanctions" against Iran if it continues to resist the demands to suspend uranium enrichment.
"We will not accept that such a bomb is made. We must prepare ourselves for the worst," he said, specifying that could mean a war.
"We have decided, while negotiations are under way ... to prepare for eventual sanctions outside the United Nations, which would be European sanctions," he said.
Kouchner was not specific about what penalties Europe might impose, other than to say they could be "economic sanctions regarding financial movements.
GENEVA - The most common type of gorilla is now "critically endangered," one step away from global extinction, according to the 2007 Red List of Threatened Species released Wednesday by the World Conservation Union.
The Ebola virus is depleting Western Gorilla populations to a point where it might become impossible for them to recover.
Commercial hunting, civil unrest and habitat loss due to logging and forest clearance for palm oil plantations are compounding the problem, said the Swiss-based group known by its acronym IUCN.
"We could fit all the remaining great apes in the world into two or three large football stadiums. There just aren't very many left.
In all, 16,306 species are threatened with extinction, 188 more than last year, IUCN said.
"Life on Earth is disappearing fast and will continue to do so unless urgent action is taken," the IUCN warned.
the Western Lowland Gorilla &#8212; has been decimated by the Ebola virus, which has wiped out about a third of the gorillas found in protected areas over the last 15 years.
"In the last 10 years, Ebola is the single largest killer of apes. Poaching is a close second," said Peter Walsh, a member if IUCN's Primate Specialist Group, told the AP.
If it continues, we'll lose them in 10-12 years."
Female gorillas only start reproducing at the age of 9 or 10 and only have one baby about every five years.
Walsh said even in ideal conditions, it would take the gorillas decades to bounce back.
LONDON, England (CNN) Shares in embattled British bank Northern Rock slid further on Monday, with the stock opening 31 percent lower after tumbling by a similar amount last week.
Other blue-chip banking stocks were also down, with Alliance & Leicester falling 8 percent and Halifax Bank of Scotland slipping almost 3 percent.
FTSE 250 Index stock Bradford & Bingley fell 9 percent.
Last week, Northern Rock asked for an emergency Bank of England loan amid the global credit crisis.
The bank had not drawn on the emergency facility by Sunday.
The bank, Britain's fifth-largest mortgage lender, is the first in 15 years to be bailed out by British regulators.
By 8 a.m. on Monday, dozens of people were queuing outside Northern Rock's branch in Birmingham, repeating scenes seen on Friday and Saturday, Britain's Press Association reported.
Police were called in some cities on Saturday to steer panicked crowds away as Northern Rock bank branches closed for the day.
Customers withdrew $2 billion from the bank on Friday, The Financial Times reported, citing an unidentified person described as close to the situation.
Chancellor Alistair Darling and the country's Financial Services Authority tried to assure customers there was no doubt over Northern Rock's solvency.
Press reports said Northern Rock was preparing itself for a sell-off.
That was caused in part by U.S. banks making mortgage loans to Americans with poor credit histories.
Darling insisted on Monday that the economy as a whole was well placed to ride out the international crisis.
BEIJING, China (CNN) China condemned a massive rally organized by Taiwan's president calling for the island's membership in the United Nations, warning Sunday that Beijing was now preparing for a "serious situation.
The statement did not say what constituted a serious situation, although China has long threatened to take military action against Taiwan if it declares formal independence or indefinitely delays unifying with China.
More than 100,000 Taiwanese took to the streets Saturday in support of a planned referendum on U.N. membership, backing President Chen Shui-bian's pro-independence policies and defying previous Chinese threats.
The rally in the southern port city of Kaohsiung was part of an 18-month government-orchestrated campaign to emphasize Taiwan's separateness from the mainland, from which it split amid civil war in 1949.
Beijing regards Taiwan as part of its territory.
Despite the rally's size, the Chinese Cabinet's Taiwan Affairs Office said it proved the U.N. membership campaign was not popular among many Taiwanese.
"However, as the 'U.N. entry referendum' situation is still developing, we will continue to pay close attention and undertake necessary preparations for a serious situation," said the statement, carried by the official Xinhua News Agency.
China has solicited criticism of Chen's referendum from foreign governments and organizations, including the United States, Taiwan's key provider of military and political support.
In an unusually harsh criticism from a U.S. official, Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte last month called the referendum a "mistake" that would steer Taiwan toward "an alteration of the status quo. "
The U.N. entry campaign started in the 1990s, but Beijing has used its clout as a permanent member of the Security Council to keep the issue off the official agenda.
Nearly a month into the worst demonstrations to hit Myanmar in decades, the saffron-robed Buddhist clergy are emerging as the focal point of the anti-government protests.
With dozens of pro-democracy activists behind bars or in hiding, most people are counting on monks who have a role in almost all aspects of society from weddings to funerals to take the lead in challenging the repressive regime in the mostly Buddhist country.
"Monks are our only hope now as they always have been in Myanmar political history," said Hla Myint, a 75-year-old schoolteacher.
"The military rulers can easily crush protests by students and other people.
But brutal suppression of monks usually results in negative consequences and further protests.
Much of the talk on the streets of big cities like Yangon is on a Monday deadline set by monks for the regime to apologize for beating hundreds of them two weeks ago as they marched and chanted Buddhist prayers peacefully in Pakokku, a center of Buddhist learning.
Without an apology, monks across the country have threatened to march Tuesday from their monasteries, cut off communication with the military and their families and refuse alms.
The monks are frustrated and angry," said Zin Linn, information minister for the Washington-based National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma, which is Burma's government-in-exile.
"This boycott is significant because other underground labor unions, underground student unions and activists are calling on one another to join the boycott," he said. "I expect the demonstrations will grow bigger than ever. People may join with the monks and we may see chaos and disorder.
AS Roma took sole possession of first place in the Italian league on Sunday with a 2-0 win at Reggina.
Juan scored in his league debut in the 51st minute and Roma captain Francesco Totti added his second goal of the season in the 85th, after Reggina were reduced to 10 men.
In their first three games, Roma have scored seven goals and conceded none.
Juventus crashed 1-0 against visiting Udinese.
Fresh from a two-goal performance for Italy's national team, Antonio Di Natale headed past Juventus goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon in the 47th minute.
Juventus midfielder Mauro Camoranesi went off in the first half with an apparent muscle problem.
"We had our chances and we didn't take advantage," Juventus coach Claudio Ranieri said.
In the second half, we had trouble.
Champions Inter Milan beat Catania 2-0 with goals from Hernan Crespo and Cesar.
Roma lead the table with nine points, followed by Inter with seven and newly promoted Napoli and Juventus with six each.
The Jodie Foster vigilante flick "The Brave One" scared up $14 million at the box office to become the weekend's top film.
The Warner Bros. tale of revenge transcended gender, appealing to older women as well as men who might naturally be expected to enjoy the violent, R-rated film.
"Revenge movies often appeal to men, but the fact that Jodie Foster was in it brought in the women," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Media By Numbers.
"That combination worked.
While the film's box office take was fairly modest, it is about right for this transition time of year between the summer blockbuster season and the fall Oscar push.
The Warner Bros. film displaced last week's box-office winner, "3:
10 to Yuma," which placed second with $9.2 million in ticket sales.
"After the summer, your midweek business drops substantially and you become a weekend business," said Dan Fellman, head of distribution at Warner Bros. "You need strong reviews to keep your motor going.
Fellman said the film should stand up well against the more youth-oriented films that will fight for the top spot next weekend "Good Luck Chuck" and "Resident Evil.
LAS VEGAS, Nevada (CNN) O.J. Simpson will be charged with a total of six counts of robbery, assault, burglary and conspiracy, Las Vegas police announced Sunday.
Simpson was arrested at his hotel room at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas, where he was staying while attending a friend's wedding, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Capt. James Dillon told reporters.
He was expected to be booked Sunday evening on two counts of robbery with a deadly weapon, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon and one count each of armed burglary and conspiracy to commit burglary, Dillon said.
Simpson requested an attorney and was still at police headquarters late Sunday afternoon, Dillon said.
A co-defendant, Walter Alexander, faces similar charges in an investigation Dillon called "still dynamic and still ongoing.
Alexander, a Nevada resident, was arrested on his way to McCarran International Airport, a source told CNN.
"I don't know why they arrested him," Simpson told CNN on Sunday before his own arrest. "I've stayed in contact with the police, and the truth will come out.
Simpson, 60, is accused of taking sports memorabilia from two men in a Las Vegas hotel room Thursday.
One of the men, Bruce Fromong, described the incident as "a home invasion-type robbery.
Simpson has said the items belonged to him.
Fromong, a collector, told CNN that two men accompanying Simpson pointed guns at the people in the room.
\Simpson has said that he entered the man's room with a group of friends, one of whom was posing as a potential buyer, after being tipped off that some of his personal items were for sale there.
Simpson said his friends helped him carry the items from the room.
Simpson said no guns were involved and that the incident was not a robbery.
But Las Vegas police Lt. Clint Nichols said interviews and searches including the seizure of two guns during the investigation contradict Simpson's account.
"We don't believe anybody was roughed up, but there were firearms involved in the commission of the robbery," Nichols said.
Simpson has maintained his innocence and called the incident a misunderstanding.
But the charges mean he faces the prospect of another prosecution, more than a decade after the June 1994 stabbing deaths of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ron Goldman.
Simpson was ordered to pay the families a total of $33.5 million for the deaths.
"We are still in the process of sorting that out and determining if the properties that were taken were on the turnover agreement that the courts issued in California. That is still in the process of being worked out. "
Bloomsburg University's student government president was charged with drunken driving just weeks after saying the media has unfairly portrayed students as irresponsible.
Bevan recently wrote a letter to the Press Enterprise of Bloomsburg about media coverage of the central Pennsylvania college's annual Block Party, an event critics have described as rowdy and alcohol-fueled.
The stories have "painted BU students with a broad and negative brush and are both inaccurate and extremely unfair to the thousands of responsible, mature Bloomsburg students who are an asset to the school and this community," Bevan wrote.
Dozens of Islamic militants loyal to al Qaeda attacked Shiite Muslim villages north of Baghdad around dawn Sunday, killing more than a dozen people, an Interior Ministry official said.
Iraqi troops and police arrived and chased off the militants, the official said.
Diyala has been the scene of sometimes-intense fighting between Shiite factions in recent months, and coalition forces have taken on militia fighters in Diwaniya.
The al Qaeda raids targeted two villages about 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of Baquba.
The fundamentalist Sunni fighters, armed with guns and rocket-propelled grenades, struck about 6 a.m. Sunday (10 p.m. Saturday ET).
The Sunni fighters killed 14 people, including three children, wounded 10 others and set 12 houses ablaze, the Interior Ministry official said.
Villagers fought back for about an hour before Iraqi police and army units joined the battle, but there were no casualties reported among the attackers.
Greece's conservative prime minister won re-election Sunday with a diminished majority in parliament after a financial scandal and devastating forest fires that killed more than 65 people last month.
The slimmer majority could make it harder for the government to carry out crucial economic and educational reforms, including overhauling Greece's fractured and debt-ridden pension system. "Thank you for your trust.
You have spoken loud and clear and chosen the course the country will take in the next few years," Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis said as thousands of party supporters thronged the streets of central Athens, honking horns, chanting slogans and waving the blue flags of his New Democracy party.
George Papandreou, the leader of the main opposition socialist party PASOK, conceded defeat.
"People sensed that the poor state of public administration, with the scandals and fires, had deeper causes.
The results indicated that New Democracy would win enough seats in the 300-member parliament to form a governing majority after the elections, which were called by Karamanlis six months early.
Both parties appeared to have lost some support following the fires and a financial scandal in which state pension funds bought bonds at inflated prices.
"The electorate's message is that we, too, have responsibility for the state of the nation.
(CNN) A passenger jet crashed Sunday at Phuket International Airport in southern Thailand shortly after landing, killing 87 of the 130 people on board, according to Health Ministry officials.
Passengers and crew including dozens of European tourists scrambled for the One-Two-GO plane's emergency exits, trying to escape as flames spread through the aircraft, witnesses said.
The Thai News Agency reported the aircraft that crashed was a U.S.-made McDonnell-Douglas 82.
The National Transportation Safety Board will assist the Thai government in the investigation, according to a statement on the NTSB's Web site.
Both the NTSB and the Federal Aviation Administration usually deploy investigators to crash sites involving US-made aircraft.
Many of the 43 survivors climbed out of an exit door onto the wing.
William Harding, who witnessed the crash from another One-Two-GO aircraft that had landed just five minutes before, said he saw flames engulf the plane.
The passenger jet skidded off the runway during a landing attempt amid heavy rain and strong crosswinds, according to Thai News Agency, Thailand's national news agency.
The aircraft burst into flames shortly after impact, an eyewitness said.
He said the plane was carrying 123 passengers and seven crew members.
Video showed dozens of ambulances and fire trucks on the scene, which was enveloped in black smoke.
Flights from Phuket International Airport were canceled after the crash, affecting four flights to Bangkok and Hong Kong and about 1,000 passengers, according to Thai News Agency.
The airport is the second-busiest in Thailand, according to the airport's Web site. It's about 20 miles (32 kilometers) from downtown Phuket.
Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who has been living in exile since 1999, says she plans to return to her country on October 18.
But she added she doesn't know whether the government will press charges against her to prevent her from having a role in this year's national elections.
Sharif who leads the opposition party Pakistan Muslim League hoped to return to Pakistan after seven years in exile in Saudi Arabia that followed his ouster by Musharraf in a 1999 bloodless coup.
Musharraf's popularity plunged after placing Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry under brief house arrest in March, a move that sparked violent demonstrations.
Musharraf accused the judge of misusing his powers. Chaudhry was reinstated.
Musharraf was elected president in a 2002 vote that was criticized as unfair.
His five-year presidential term expires in November.
Wayne Rooney is back in Manchester United's squad this weekend after fracturing a foot on the opening day of the season.
"He is desperate to play but but we will take medical advice from the doctor.
What is certain is that Cristiano Ronaldo will be in the starting line-up after serving a three-match ban after being sent off at Portsmouth.
The star duo have only completed one match between them so far this season. "Ronaldo being back is a big plus," said Ferguson. "You miss players who make a difference, who can change the pattern of a game and create opportunities for you.
Carlos Tevez will be available after playing in Australia and Louis Saha is another attacking option for Ferguson, who said:
"We now have enough forward power to improve our chances of scoring.
Ferguson also has setbacks to deal with, though, with Ireland's John O'Shea and Scot Darren Fletcher facing layoffs after being hurt in midweek internationals.
O'Shea hurt a knee in the Czech Republic and Fletcher was injured in a tackle by Patrick Vieira as Scotland won in France.
"Darren will be out for six weeks," said Ferguson.
Lindsay Davenport defeated Julie Ditty 6-1 6-4 Thursday to advance to a quarterfinal matchup against Jelena Jankovic at the Bali Open.
Davenport, who is returning to singles play for the first time since having a child in June, was erratic at times after building a 5-2 lead in the second set.
After dropping serve at 5-3, she broke Ditty for the sixth time to set up a meeting with the top-seeded Jankovic, who reached the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open.
This is what I came back to do, to play some matches and try to play some good players, so I'm excited about it.
Jankovic started slowly against Casey Dellacqua, trailing 0-4 in the first set before rallying for a 6-4 6-4 win.
"I was very erratic and didn't play the way I wanted, but a win is a win.
In other matches, third-seeded Patty Schnyder served for the match before qualifier Sorana Cirstea rallied for a 6-2 5-7 7-5 win. Sara Errani upset fourth-seeded Anabel Medina Garrigues 7-5 4-6 6-4.
Bob Dylan is not at the Toronto International Film Festival.
But six shades of Dylan are present with "I'm Not There," a swirling, shifting ramble through the many lives of one of the most enigmatic figures in music history.
Different actors including Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, Christian Bale and Cate Blanchett play incarnations of Dylan at various phases of his public and private life.
Weird and wild as it is, Dylan liked the concept and gave co-writer-director Todd Haynes the rarest of gifts:
Haynes, whose films include "Safe" and "Velvet Goldmine," was a Dylan fan as a teen but had not listened much to his music again until his late 30s, when he began the screenplay for his 2002 drama " Far From Heaven.
As he burrowed back into the music, Haynes began reading biographies of Dylan and was struck by the man's transformations.
"The thing I just kept hearing from every account of Dylan was about this life of serial change, in a way far more profound to a culture than David Bowie's different chameleonlike changes or Madonna's that would come decades later.
These changes had deep intellectual, cultural, almost physical effects on Dylan's audience," Haynes said.
NEW YORK (CNN) Don't just take a vacation.
Change your life.
they promise transformation.
Ask why someone would choose a yoga vacation and the meditation, body contortions and discipline that goes with it and the answer repeats:
People go for life-changing experiences.
From luxury hotel resorts to rustic retreats, yoga offerings and yoga-centric vacations have increasingly become a carrot to lure vacationers that want more than a fabulous place to stay and entertainment.
The past five years have seen growth in yoga vacations that is emblematic of a larger trend in the travel industry, says Allen Kay, spokesman for the Travel Industry Association.
Google Inc. is bankrolling a $30 million out-of-this-world prize to the first private company that can safely land a robotic rover on the moon and beam back a gigabyte of images and video to Earth, the Internet search leader said Thursday.
If the competition produces a winner, it would prove a major boon to the emerging private spaceflight industry and mark the first time that a nongovernment entity has flown a lunar space probe.
Google partnered with the X Prize Foundation for the moon challenge, which is open to companies around the world.
The race to the moon won't be easy or cheap.
Each rover must also be equipped with high-definition video and still cameras to document the journey.
Whoever accomplishes the feat by the end of 2012 will receive $20 million.
If there is no winner, the purse will drop to $15 million until the end of 2014 when the contest expires.
There is also a $5 million second-place prize and $5 million in bonus money to teams that go beyond the minimum requirements.
Details of the Google X Prize are to be revealed at the WIRED Nextfest technology show in Los Angeles.
"Meals Rejected by Everyone" is a popular nickname for MREs, which stands for Meals Ready to Eat, those brownish polymer pouches filled with precooked food and snacks.
While MREs provide food when there's no way to make it to the mess hall, they are no substitutes for what troops crave.
"They really want pizza and beer," says Judith Aylward, senior food technologist at the U.S. Army Soldier Systems Center in Natick, Massachusetts.
She and a team of food technicians are working hard to improve the quality and the taste of combat food.
And while they haven't been able to give servicemen and women everything they desire, troops are eating a variety of foods far more appetizing than the canned C-rations of World War II, Korea and Vietnam. Explore the history of U.S. combat rations &raquo;
Soldiers now dine on penne pasta with vegetarian sausage in spicy tomato sauce, chicken breast fillet and boneless pork rib.
"I like to eat the chicken breast when on the move because it does not have any gravy, so it will not spill all over and make a mess, and it fills you up," said Army Staff Sgt. Joel Klein, of St. Petersburg, Florida, who served in Iraq.
The beef patty is also a favorite, Aylward says.
"It comes with two slices of wheat snack bread, and we include a package of cheese and BBQ sauce so they can feel like they are eating at McDonald's.
While perennial favorites like spaghetti and beef stew please most palates, old classics have fallen out of favor like Chicken a-la-King, affectionately called by some Chicken a-la-Death.
There are 24 MRE menus, and Italian, Mexican and vegetarian meals are represented.
MILAN, Italy (CNN) Consumer groups held nationwide protests Thursday to draw attention to the burden placed on families by the rising cost of food especially Italians' beloved staple, pasta.
The price of basic commodities are being driven up by middlemen, while farmers and producers earnings remain flat, activists said at protests in Rome, Milan and Palermo.
In the case of pasta, Italians will soon be paying up to 20 percent more for their daily serving of fettuccine, linguine or spaghetti.
Picking on Italians' staple to draw attention to their cause, consumer groups called the one-day pasta strike Thursday, not against eating it, but against buying it.
Since shoppers typically stock up on their pasta, buying multiple packages at a time to always have it on hand, the impact of the strike was mostly symbolic.
The increase in pasta prices is being driven by rising wheat prices worldwide, economists and producers say.
The demand for wheat is the result of several trends, chiefly an increasing demand for biofuels, which can be made from wheat, and improved diets in emerging countries where putting more meat on the table is raising the demand for feed for livestock, said Francesco Bertolini, an economist at Milan's Bocconi University.
As a result, wheat stocks worldwide are being depleted to their lowest levels in decades and grain prices are soaring.
MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) A man accused of killing dozens of people and keeping count of his victims on a chessboard paced back and forth inside a glass cage as a jury was selected Thursday at the start of his murder trial.
Alexander Pichushkin, 33, has confessed to killing at least 62 people, with the goal of marking all 64 squares on the chessboard.
He has been charged with 49 murders, most committed over the course of five years in a sprawling park on the edge of Moscow.
Pichushkin had requested a jury trial, which is relatively rare in Russia, and 12 jurors and six alternates were chosen Thursday.
He looked calm and did not appear to object to any members of the pool.
The questioning of witnesses and presentation of evidence was
If convicted, Pichushkin faces life in prison.
In a police confession broadcast on NTV television shortly after his arrest last year, Pichushkin bragged about what he said was his passion for killing.
The spate of killings in Bittsa Park in southwestern Moscow began in 2001 and terrorized the Russian capital.
Most of the victims were men whom Pichushkin had lured to the park with the promise of a drink, investigators said.
About a dozen relatives of victims attended Thursday's court session to get their first look at Pichushkin. "They must give him life in jail
, so that he will suffer," said the mother of another of Pichushkin's alleged victims.
Pichushkin killed more than 40 people by throwing them into a sewage pit after they were too drunk to resist, chief investigator Andrei Suprunenko said in an interview published this summer.
Three others survived and one identified him, he said.
Pichushkin killed others by hitting them with a hammer, the investigator said.
He was arrested in June 2006 after police found his name and phone number on a piece of paper that a woman who was killed in the park had left for her son.
taken by a subway surveillance camera that showed him accompanying the victim, according to the authorities.
Pichushkin went on to confess to at least 62 murders and led police to the bodies of his victims, investigators said.
The killings in Bittsa Park began almost a decade later.
Police found his chessboard with numbers attached to its squares, all the way to 62, and Pichushkin also used the chessboard to keep stoppers from bottles of vodka he offered his victims, said Suprunenko, the investigator.
JAKARTA, Indonesia (CNN) A strong earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.2 struck late Thursday off the western coast of Sumatra, the same area shaken by a major 8.4-magnitude temblor that killed nine people Wednesday.
The region has been wracked by quakes and aftershocks for the past two days.
The Indonesian government issued, then canceled, a tsunami alert.
There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.
A quake with the same magnitude struck the region several hours earlier, at 5:48 p.m. (6: 48 a.m. ET).
The temblor vibrated under the Celebes Sea at a depth of about 21 km (13 miles).
It was centered about 290 km (180 miles) northeast of Bitung, a city on the northern coast of Sulawesi, and the same distance south-southeast of General Santos, Mindanao, Philippines.
The Pentagon has censored an audio tape of the suspected mastermind of the September 11 attacks speaking at a military hearing cutting out Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's justification for waging jihad against the United States.
After months of debate by several federal agencies, the Defense Department released the tape Thursday.
Cut from it was 10 minutes of a more than 40-minute closed court session at Guantanamo Bay to determine whether Mohammed should be declared an "enemy combatant.
Officials from the CIA, FBI, State Department and others listened to the tape and feared it could be copied and edited by other militants for use as propaganda, officials said.
"It was determined that the release of this portion of the spoken words of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed would enable enemies of the United States to use it in a way to recruit or encourage future terrorists or terrorist activities," said Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman.
"This could ultimately endanger the lives and physical safety of American citizens and those of our allies.
Calling Mohammed a "notorious figure," Whitman added, "I think we all recognize that there is an obvious difference between the potential impacts of the written versus the spoken word.
At his hearing, Mohammed portrayed himself as al Qaeda's most active operational planner, confessing to the beheading of American journalist Daniel Pearl and to playing a central role in 30 other attacks and plots in the U.S. and worldwide that killed thousands of victims.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry declared Galveston, Jefferson and Orange counties disaster areas Thursday in the wake of Hurricane Humberto, a quick-forming storm that hit the state with surprising intensity.
Humberto lost steam as quickly as it developed and was downgraded to a tropical depression by late Thursday afternoon.
Power generators and truckloads of ice and water were being sent to the counties, according to the governor's office.
The state was working to restore power to several areas hit with outages, a news release said.
One death was blamed on the hurricane.
An 80-year-old man was killed Thursday morning when an aluminum roof collapsed on him while he watched the storm.
Humberto surprised forecasters early Thursday by quickly gaining strength before punching southeastern Texas, making landfall just north of Galveston, the National Hurricane Center reported.
The storm, which had grown in a matter of hours from a tropical depression to a Category 1 hurricane, came ashore near High Island in Galveston County around 2 a.m. (3 a.m. ET) with maximum sustained winds of 85 mph.
Humberto was downgraded to a tropical storm late Thursday morning after its winds decreased to 65 mph as it moved across Louisiana, the hurricane center said.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) A key Sunni sheik who united with U.S. forces to fight al Qaeda militants in Iraq was assassinated Thursday by a roadside bomb, officials said.
The bomb struck a convoy carrying Sheik Abdul Sattar Abu Reesha and his security detail, a Ramadi police official and an Interior Ministry official said.
At least two of the sheik's bodyguards were killed and five other escorts were wounded in the afternoon attack.
The council, funded and supported by Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, was formed last year.
Al-Maliki blamed al Qaeda in Iraq for the killing, but said it would backfire against the insurgent group by further isolating it across the country.
The U.S. military and the U.S. Embassy in Iraq also condemned the attack.
"It is with outrage that the United States and Multi-National Force Iraq condemn the assassination" of the sheik, said Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, the day-to-day operational commander in Iraq, in a joint statement with U.S. Embassy in Iraq Charge d'Affaires Patricia Butenis.
killed about a mile from his home, but the deputy head of the Anbar Salvation Council, Sheik Hameed al-Hayyes, said the bomb struck the convoy 50 meters from his home in a heavily secured zone surrounding the house.
Al-Hayyes said Abu Reesha was leaving his home to go to his nearby farm, a daily routine, when he was attacked.
It is unclear if the bomb was remotely detonated or triggered by the convoy.
Al-Hayyes said he suspects al Qaeda may be behind the attack, but could not rule out a rival political group.
After Abu Reesha's killing, the council went on Iraq's state-run television to announce seven days of mourning.
leaders who met with President Bush during the president's surprise visit to Anbar on September 3.
Bush has repeatedly cited successful efforts to bring Anbar tribesmen over to the coalition's side in the fight against al Qaeda in Iraq as evidence of U.S. military success.
Bush is expected to reiterate Anbar's success in a major address Thursday night.
3 Abu Reesha was a prime target for al Qaeda militants and other terrorist groups because of his visible alliance with the U.S. coalition.
Many are wondering what President Bush will say in his prime-time speech to the nation about the Iraq war, but it's worth noting one phrase they surely will not hear: "Stay the course.
But the fundamental question looming over the president's eighth prime-time address on Iraq is this: Regardless of how the president packages this progress report, will it amount to a de facto stay-the-course battle plan?
"You saw a number of lawmakers, Democrats and Republicans ... saying that they were very impressed by especially the military progress they had seen and also the so-called 'bottom-up,' the grassroots change in attitude.
Snow is correct that even the president's critics have to acknowledge that some lawmakers in both parties came from August trips to Iraq saying they had seen some progress on the ground.
Secondly, there is no denying the president's political position has been strengthened slightly since the beginning of the summer, when a growing number of senior Republicans like Sens.
So in the short-term, the president seems to be getting his way more time to run the war on his terms.
Though in the long run there is more danger ahead for Bush, because the continued "surge" plan he's unveiling will keep about 160,000 U.S. troops in Iraq until next summer, when the number might be reduced to roughly 130,000.
Furthermore, the president is going to be seeking a political bounce for a plan to start bringing these 30,000 troops home.
But Army officials have already said they need to pull out many of those troops by next summer because the military is so stretched right now.
LAHORE, Pakistan (CNN) Fifteen soldiers from a Pakistani army unit died in a bombing at their mess hall Thursday, a Pakistani intelligence source said.
The Associated Press said two security officials reported the attack was the work of a suicide bomber.
More than 25 other soldiers were wounded in the bombing at the Terbella Ghazi military base, about 63 miles (100 km) northeast of Islamabad, the source said.
More than 100 people, including militant leader Abdul Rashid Ghazi, died when troops stormed the Red Mosque.
The raid led to the collapse of a long-controversial cease-fire between the government of Gen. Pervez Musharraf and tribal leaders in the lawless territories along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan.
A wave of bombings that followed the Red Mosque siege left dozens dead.
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/US/09/12/youssif.arrives/index.html?eref=edition_us
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) Youssif, the 5-year-old Iraqi boy who was savagely burned by masked men, arrived in the United States late Tuesday with his family the first step toward his lengthy rehabilitation.
For a family whose lives were tortured by the random and brutal violence of Iraq, the sheer magnitude of stepping onto American soil was surreal.
His parents were rendered speechless.
Quite simply they grinned from ear to ear.
They didn't need to speak.
The joy on their faces was palpable.
They had traveled more than 7,500 miles to get help for their son, from war-torn central Baghdad to coastal Los Angeles.
It marked the first time the family had ever left their homeland, let alone flown on a plane.
"Oh my God, it's so green.
Am I in heaven?
"I feel like I'm in a dream," said his father, whom CNN has agreed not to name.
"Someone needs to pinch me."
The family left Amman, Jordan, early Tuesday en route to the United States.
The night before they departed, Youssif didn't sleep a wink.
He woke the family up extra early, shouting, "Let's go!
Let's go!
Youssif, his parents and his infant sister, Ayaa, finished their 24-hour journey in Los Angeles around 11 p.m. PT Tuesday.
The family was then whisked away to the two-bedroom, two-bath apartment where they will be staying during Youssif's treatment.
For the first time in a long time, the family laughed out of pure joy. See Youssif play with his new toys &raquo;
When Youssif walked into the new home, he glanced at the plush wall-to-wall carpet and ordered everyone to take their shoes off. Don't get it dirty, he said.
Standing on the apartment's balcony, Youssif's father turned to Barbara Friedman, executive director of the Children's Burn Foundation.
The story prompted an outpouring of support to get help for Youssif.
More than 12,000 CNN.com users have contributed to a fund set up by the Children's Burn Foundation.
Youssif and his family are expected to be in the United States for six months to a year while he undergoes multiple surgeries and extensive rehabilitation.
Scotland pulled off a tremendous 1-0 victory over France in Paris and enhanced their chances of qualifying for the Euro 2008 finals from a really tough group.
They climbed above group leaders France, who slipped down to third below Italy, who were 2-1 winners in Ukraine. The Scots have 21 points, Italy 20 and France remain on 19.
After surviving a first-half of almost total French domination, lone striker James McFadden fired home a glorious 30-yard drive in the 63rd minute to give Scotland a notable double over the French.
Alex McLeish's side now have two of their last three games at Hampden Park.
to the Scots, who looked unlikely winners for most of the match.
Florent Malouda and Franck Ribery posed early threats before David Trezeguet wasted a good chance.
Darren Fletcher was shown a yellow card for a foul on Malouda, ruling him out of the Ukraine game in October.
Although Andriy Shevchenko was on target for the Ukraine, with a 72nd minute equalizer, two goals from Antonio Di Natale gave Italy an important victory.
LONDON, England (CNN) Rock legends Led Zeppelin are to reform for the first time in 19 years for a one-off concert in London, the band announced Wednesday.
Singer Robert Plant, 59, last week hinted that the band were reforming when a fan asked him about the possibility of a performance.
", the British Press Association reported.
The three surviving original band members Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones will play a concert at the O2 Arena November 26, organized by promoter Harvey Goldsmith.
The show will pay tribute to Atlantic Records co-founder Ahmet Ertegun, whom Robert Plant described as "a close friend and conspirator."
In 1968, Led Zeppelin became the first rock band Ertegun signed to Atlantic, a label which had been better known for soul and R&B music before then.
The Zeppelin performance would also coincide with a new "Best Of Led Zeppelin" CD due to be released in November.
Promoter Harvey Goldsmith said plans are for one show only, and there was no commitment or discussion of a tour or other dates.
The band broke up in 1980 when drummer John Bonham died after a drinking binge.
His son, Jason, will join the band on stage.
The band have played several times since they split, including at Live Aid in 1985.
Money raised from ticket sales will go to the Ahmet Ertegun Education Fund, which provides students with annual scholarships to universities in the United States, UK and Ertegun's native Turkey.
If you think your travel guidebook's phonetic tips for ordering a liter of beer are enough to get you through Oktoberfest without being labeled a Saupreusse (for genteel readers, a dumb tourist), maybe you should stay home.
That's because mastering a little Oktoberfest etiquette such as learning where, when and how to eat and drink what is key to experiencing Munich, Germany's two-week celebration of beer and Bavarian culture.
Despite its name, Oktoberfest begins in late September.
This year which marks the 174th anniversary of the annual festival it runs from September 22 to October 7.
The event began in the early 1800s as a celebration to honor Bavaria and its royal family.
Booths selling beer eventually were added, and by 1896 they had morphed into the now iconic beer tents.
Today, Oktoberfest is the largest folk festival in the world, and according to the Munich Tourist Office last year it saw more than 6.5 million visitors and served up nearly 7 million Mass, or liters, of beer.
The Oktoberfest brews, which are pale ales, tend to be light and sweet with low carbonation.
But beware, these special brews also are about 6 percent alcohol, which is a higher alcohol content than the typical beer you buy in a bottle in the U.S. And be prepared to drink up.
With the exception of wheat beers, the beer is served just one way in 1-liter steins costing about $11.
Don't be surprised if you are asked to pay more than the menu price.
To discourage people from taking off with the steins, you'll pay a deposit that will be refunded when you return the glass.
In Germany, it is a Krug.
As a rule, everyone at the table drinks together, and all glasses are "clinked" before drinking.
The word for cheers is "Prost!
To get a table, arrive before noon, or make a reservation months in advance.
Otherwise, it may be standing room only.
Indoor and outdoor tables have wait staff, but anyone standing can order directly from the windows for beer and food.
The woman who killed her minister husband with a shotgun and is battling her in-laws for custody of her children, cannot appear live on "The Oprah Winfrey Show," a judge ruled.
McNairy County Judge Weber McCraw, who presided over Mary Winkler's criminal trial, said Tuesday she would not be permitted to travel to talk with Winfrey.
The show is produced in Chicago.
According to Winkler's request to travel, she had been asked to appear on Winfrey's live show to discuss "Battered Women's Syndrome" and to "advise the public of the dangers of not recognizing and addressing the symptoms associated with BWS.
Part of Winkler's "Oprah" interview has already been recorded.
A spokesman for the show said the taped interview will air as planned.
She was convicted of voluntary manslaughter, but served only five months in jail, followed by two months in a mental health treatment facility.
She was freed last month.
Winkler is seeking custody of her three daughters, or at least frequent visits.
(CNN) The parents of missing four-year-old Madeleine McCann will not use public donations raised to help find the little girl to fund their legal battle, a spokesman for the parents has said.
Kate and Gerry McCann have been seeking legal advice from top lawyers since they were made "arguidos" or formal suspects over the disappearance of their daughter.
Speaking from the McCann's home village in Rothley in Leicestershire, spokesman David Hughes said: "They have decided not to seek to use those funds for their legal support," the Press Association reported.
In other developments, a prosecutor has applied for the judge hearing the case to seize diaries and correspondence belonging to the McCanns, Portuguese newspaper Jornal de Noticias reported.
It has been speculated that the dairies in question are those kept by Kate McCann.
Another paper also claimed police intend to take some of Madeleine's toys for analysis.
The McCanns reported Madeleine missing on May 3 this year while on holiday in Praia da Luz, in southern Portugal.
Authorities found Madeleine's blood in a car the family rented 25 days after reporting her disappearance in May, a family spokesman said.
And the Portuguese television station SIC, citing police sources, reported that DNA matches to the girl were found in the car.
The couple have not been charged with any crime and have vehemently denied any wrongdoing.
NEW YORK (CNN) Oil prices set new records Wednesday and other energy futures also rose after the U.S. government reported a surprisingly large drop in crude oil inventories and accompanying declines in gasoline supplies and refinery activity.
The report from the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration confirms the view of many investors that oil supplies are tightening even as demand remains strong.
That's why oil prices are rising despite OPEC's decision on Tuesday to boost crude production by 500,000 barrels per day this fall, analysts said.
Despite setting a new price record of $79.89 Wednesday, oil is still well below inflation-adjusted highs above $101 a barrel hit in early 1980.
Prices were also being supported by worries a tropical depression that formed in the western Atlantic on Wednesday will become a hurricane and hit critical Gulf oil and gas infrastructure.
Light, sweet crude for October delivery rose $1.35 to $79.58 on the New York Mercantile Exchange after setting a new trading high of $79.89 earlier.
October gasoline rose 2.86 cents to $2.0097 a gallon.
Heating oil futures rose 2.58 cents to $2.2085 a gallon on the Nymex, while natural gas futures gained 28.3 cents to $6.217 per 1,000 cubic feet.
In London, October Brent crude gained 58 cents to $76.96 a barrel on the ICE Futures Exchange.
MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) The Russian military has successfully tested what it described as the world's most powerful non-nuclear air-delivered bomb, Russia's state television reported Tuesday.
It was the latest show of Russia's military muscle amid chilly relations with the United States.
Channel One television said the new weapon, nicknamed the "dad of all bombs" is four times more powerful than the U.S. "mother of all bombs.
"The tests have shown that the new air-delivered ordnance is comparable to a nuclear weapon in its efficiency and capability," said Col.-Gen. Alexander Rukshin, a deputy chief of the Russian military's General Staff, said in televised remarks.
Unlike a nuclear weapon, the bomb doesn't hurt the environment, he added.
The statement reflected the Kremlin's efforts to restore Russia's global clout and rebuild the nation's military might while the ties with Washington have been strained over U.S. criticism of Russia's backsliding on democracy, Moscow's vociferous protests of U.S. missile defense plans, and rifts over global crises.
Channel One said that while the Russian bomb contains 7.8 tons of high explosives compared to more than 8 tons of explosives in the U.S. bomb, it's four times
While the U.S. bomb is equivalent to 11 tons of TNT, the Russian one is equivalent to 44 tons of regular explosives.
The Russian weapon's blast radius is 990 feet, twice as big as that of the U.S. design, the report said.
Authorities believe he was carrying only one bottle of water.
Searchers have received no signal from either device, and haven't spotted a lower-tech distress signal such as a fire or massive X made of rocks or sticks.
"There's no news of him signaling for help and that's a problem," said David McMullen of Berkeley, Calif., a leader of the hiking group Desert Survivors, whose members frequently venture into some of the country's harshest terrain. "He's either so injured he can't signal or he's perished."
Fossett is a skilled survivalist who climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro and the Matterhorn, and who lived through several failed attempts to circle the globe in a balloon.
Japanese stocks fell Wednesday after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced plans to resign after a string of damaging scandals and a humiliating electoral defeat.
The benchmark Nikkei 225 index dipped 80.07 points, or 0.50 percent, to close at 15,797.60 points on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
The index added 0.72 percent to finish at 15,877.67 the day before.
The broader Topix index, which includes all shares on the exchange's first section, shed 4.12 points, or 0.27 percent, to 1,528.27 points.
Tokyo stocks initially rallied after the first media reports that Abe intended to step down came early in afternoon trade, but soon retreated.
"Abe's resignation would mean that policy decisions regarding such matters as the budget deficit and the possibility of a consumption tax hike will be up in the air for a while," said Norihiro Fujito, senior investment strategist at Mitsubishi UFJ Securities. "This is absolutely negative to the stock market," he said.
Others said Abe's exit could prove positive in the longer term, if it clears the air and allows the ruling Liberal Democratic Party to stabilize after a series of political missteps.
For the near term, traders said, uncertainty is likely to weigh on Japan's financial markets, compounding ongoing concerns over the U.S. credit crisis.
"Tokyo shares will probably have to go through a double whammy of the resignation news and the U.S. subprime woes for a while," said Hiroaki Kuramochi, head of cash equities department at Bear Stearns in Tokyo.
Banks were the main losers on the day;
Mizuho Financial Group fell 2.4 percent to 648,000 yen (US$5,687; euro4,114).
Two months after surviving a giant dust storm, one of NASA's robotic rovers on Mars began a risky drive Tuesday into a crater blasted open by a meteor eons ago.
Scientists want the rover Opportunity to travel 40 feet down toward a bright band of rocks in the Victoria Crater.
They believe the rocks represent the ancient surface of Mars and that studying them could shed clues on the planet's early climate.
On Tuesday morning, engineers sent commands to Opportunity to begin its journey, and the robot signaled a confirmation.
Opportunity's first task will be to "toe dip" into the crater, a move that involves rolling its six wheels below the rim and immediately back out to gauge its footing.
Over the next few days, engineers will check Opportunity's instruments and command it to scale down the crater.
"We expect to have good driving," said John Callas, the rover project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
Opportunity reached the lip of the crater last month and scouted for entry points.
During a July teleconference, NASA managers said the latest mission was risky, but decided to proceed because of what could be learned.
The aging but hardy rovers have been exploring Mars for 3¨ö years far outlasting their primary three-month mission.
YUSUFIYAH, Iraq (CNN) Until recently, Yusufiyah was among the most dangerous places in Iraq.
Located in the so-called "triangle of death," a violent area south of Baghdad, it was the site of frequent clashes between coalition forces and Sunni fighters.
In May, two U.S. soldiers went missing in Yusufiyah and were never found, despite a massive search.
But today, Sunni tribal leaders in this town cooperate with U.S. forces in their battle against foreign fighters and al Qaeda in Iraq.
Kershaw now greets his former enemies with kisses, hears their grievances, spends time in their homes and even shares meals with them.
He is surprised at how far relations have progressed.
"Our hope a year ago was to establish very basic inroads down here," Kershaw said. "We thought the insurgency was far too deep for us to be able to effectively root it out and develop the relationship with the locals.
As happened in Anbar province to the west, local Sunni leaders from this town south of Baghdad finally turned on the al Qaeda extremists in their midst when the death and destruction became too much to bear.
The U.S. military calls the men concerned local citizens.
To further encourage local tribesmen to turn against al Qaeda, the U.S. military pays local sheiks to provide security in their area; they receive up to $10 per man. It's a controversial policy, but one that has helped the U.S. military identify and stop insurgents, Kershaw said.
The next step is to have these young Sunnis join the Iraqi police.
For that to happen, the U.S. military needs the cooperation of the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad.
Iraq's central government is concerned these gunmen might turn into armed militias if the U.S. pulls out and civil war erupts.
To assuage these concerns, Kershaw is registering as many of the local volunteers as possible, taking photographs and retinal scans, hoping leaders in Baghdad will agree to hire them as Iraqi police.
The Second Brigade has lost 53 men in Iraq.
Some of the U.S. soldiers here have a hard time forgiving the Sunnis for what they might have done in the insurgency.
"Our job over here isn't to do what's comfortable for us, and it isn't to do what we want," he said.
"Our job is to do the nation's bidding.
Warner asked the general if U.S. military strategy in Iraq was making America safer.
What I have focused on and what I'm riveted on is how to accomplish the mission of the Multi-National Force-Iraq," Petraeus told Warner on Tuesday. Watch how Republicans challenged Petraeus &raquo;
Petraeus elaborated before the National Press Club on Wednesday.
If a U.S. pullout left Iraq to al Qaeda influence, Petraeus said, "would it be focused in the Levant, in the Magreb, back in Afghanistan, Western Europe, the United States? I don't know that.
Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, went further. "We have to assume that anywhere al Qaeda can find operating room, space, the ability to organize, to consolidate, they're going to use that to come after us," said the ambassador, who had testified side-by-side with Petraeus the past two days on Capitol Hill.
Petraeus said during the hearings Monday and Tuesday that the U.S. military would be able to pull about 30,000 troops from Iraq by July 2008.
The "surge" began in January when President Bush ordered nearly 30,000 additional troops to Iraq in January as part of a campaign to secure Baghdad and its surrounding provinces.
The move came a few hours after Putin dissolved the Cabinet of his long-serving prime minister, Mikhail Fradkov, saying he needed to appoint a government better suited to the election campaign and to "prepare the country" for life after the elections.
The nomination of Zubkov, who has overseen investigations into suspicious financial transactions, caught much of the political elite off guard, which appeared to be Putin's intention.
Most observers said they did not see Zubkov as Putin's successor, but rather as a
caretaker prime minister, perhaps to be replaced closer to the March presidential vote.
In promoting Zubkov, whose nomination could be approved by the lower house of parliament as soon as Friday, Putin showed he is still calling the shots.
Zubkov, who turns 66 on Saturday, is considerably older than most Russian political leaders.
JAKARTA, Indonesia (CNN) An 8.4-magnitude earthquake struck in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Indonesia's Sumatra Island Wednesday evening, killing nine people in Sumatra and shaking buildings hundreds of miles away.
Earlier, one person was reported killed by a fallen tree in Bengkulu province and two died in Padang when the force of the quake damaged the building they were in, according to the Indonesian Social Affairs Department.
The quake in the Indian Ocean shook buildings in Jakarta nearly 640 kilometers (400 miles) away from the epicenter off the coast of Sumatra and sent frightened people into the streets.
Closer to the epicenter, residents of Bengkulu province panicked and fled their homes, said John Aglionby, a reporter for the Financial Times, from Jakarta.
"The panic and concern is likely to continue for some time," he said. Many buildings along Sumatra's western coast collapsed, he added.
The quake struck as the heavily Muslim country prepared for Islam's holy month of Ramadan, set to start in the coming days.
A small tsunami was detected in Padang, on Sumatra several hundred miles northeast of the epicenter according to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.
Indonesia's meteorological center said the small tsunami was not a concern and canceled its tsunami alert several hours after the quake struck, but it issued a new alert after a strong aftershock occurred at 9:40 p.m. (1440 GMT).
The U.S. Geological Survey estimated the aftershock at 6.0.
Indonesia canceled its second alert about 90 minutes later.
A tsunami watch issued by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center after the initial quake remains in effect for at least 24 countries around the Indian Ocean, including Australia, India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Pakistan, Iran, Yemen and Kenya.
The quake was strong enough, however, to be felt in Malaysia and Thailand. Several aftershocks have been recorded, including a 5.7-magnitude temblor about an hour later.
Several commercial skyscrapers in Jakarta were rocked by the quake, some 605 km southeast of the epicenter.
"It's pretty strong and people are being evacuated from the tall buildings," said Andy Saputra, CNN producer in Jakarta.
High-rise buildings also were evacuated in Singapore, 1,100 km northeast of the epicenter, CNN producer Martin Bohley said.
He said he felt shaking for almost a minute.
BERLIN, Chelsea Injured Germany captain Michael Ballack has revealed he was disappointed to be left out of Chelsea's Champions League squad as reports link him with a transfer to Real Madrid.
Ballack is still recovering from the ankle operation he had last April and the injury kept him out of Germany's 2-0 Euro 2008 qualifier win over Wales in Cardiff on Saturday.
This is the first time Ballack has expressed his disappointment at Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho leaving him out of his squad for the Champions League group stage games.
According to British Sunday tabloid paper The People, Ballack was omitted from Chelsea's Champions League squad because he has agreed a switch to Real Madrid.
The 77-times capped Germany international was officially left out because of his injury, but the tabloid reports Ballack has agreed a 200,000-euro deal with Real.
Days after he officially jumped into the Republican race for the White House, former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson finds himself in a statistical dead heat with Rudy Giuliani, according to a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll released Tuesday.
In a similar poll taken in August, Giuliani registered 29 percent, while Thompson, then not an official candidate, was at 22 percent.
CNN senior political analyst Bill Schneider said, "Thompson has the edge among evangelical Republicans and especially among his fellow southerners; that's where Thompson has made the biggest gains.
Specifically, Thompson leads among men, southerners, voters age 50 and older and ideological conservatives.
Conversely, Giuliani leads among women, voters in the Northeast and Midwest, voters under 50 and self-described GOP moderates.
While the CNN/Opinion Research Corp. Poll shows a statistical dead heat, other recent national polls indicate Giuliani continues to hold a lead over Thompson.
A CBS/New York Times poll released Monday showed Giuliani with a 5 point lead over Thompson, 27 percent to 22 percent.
Meanwhile, a USAToday/Gallup poll out Monday had Giuliani with a 12 point lead, 34 percent to 22 percent.
Despite Thompson's entry into the race Wednesday night, 25 percent of registered Republicans polled said they are not satisfied with the GOP candidates virtually the same percentage (26 percent) who were not satisfied in May.
The poll also suggests Democratic front-runner Sen. Hillary Clinton would beat Thompson in a general election by 13 percentage points, 55 percent to 42 percent.
When CNN and the Opinion Research Corp. asked the same question in June, the New York senator edged out Thompson by 4 percentage points, 50 percent to 46 percent.
When paired with Giuliani, Clinton comes out on top by four percentage points, 50 percent to 46 percent.
Clinton was ahead by 1 percent in the same matchup in June, 49 percent to 48 percent.
Meanwhile, Sen. Barack Obama also beats Thompson head to head, 53 percent to 41 percent.
When Obama faces Giuliani head to head, Giuliani wins by 4 percentage points, 49 to 45.
In June, Giuliani topped Obama by 2 points, 48 percent to 46 percent.
According to Schneider, "The main reason Giuliani does better than Thompson [in head-to-head matchups] is that he's better known.
Only 14 percent have no opinion of Rudy Giuliani.
Make a baby.
Ulyanovsk Gov. Sergei Morozov has decreed Sept. 12 a Day of Conception and is giving couples time off from work to procreate.
Couples who give birth nine months later on Russia's national day June 12 will receive money, cars, refrigerators and other prizes.
It's the third year that the Volga River region, about 550 miles east of Moscow, has held the contest.
Since then, the number of competitors and the number of babies born has been on the rise.
"If there's a good, healthy atmosphere at home within the family, if the husband and wife both love each other and their child, they will be in good spirits and that will extend to the workplace.
So there will be a healthy atmosphere throughout the country," he told AP Television News. "The leadership (of the country) is interested in the family.
Russia's population has dropped since the 1991 Soviet collapse, fed by declining birth rates, a low life expectancy, a spike in emigration, a frayed health care system and other factors.
And experts estimate the population could fall below 100 million by 2050.
Ice cover in the Arctic Ocean, long held to be an early warning of a changing climate, has shattered the all-time low record this summer, according to scientists from the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder.
Using satellite data and imagery, NSIDC now estimates the Arctic ice pack covers 4.24 million square kilometers (1.63 million square miles) equal to just less than half the size of the United States.
This figure is about 20 percent less than the previous all-time low record of 5.32 million square kilometers (2.05 million square miles) set in September 2005
Mark Serreze, senior research scientist at NSIDC, termed the decline "astounding.
"It's almost an exclamation point on the pronounced ice loss we've seen in the past 30 years," he said.
Most researchers had anticipated that the complete disappearance of the Arctic ice pack during summer months would happen after the year 2070, he said, but now, "losing summer sea ice cover by 2030 is not unreasonable.
Scores of peer-reviewed scientific studies have documented a steady, worldwide decline in ice cover, from the sea-bound ice covering the North Pole to the vast, land-based ice sheets that cover the Antarctic continent. Glaciers, from Greenland to the Alps to Mount Kilimanjaro near the equator, also have been vanishing.
The loss of land-based ice is predicted to lead to a future rise in sea levels.
A substantial rise in sea level could imperil low-lying areas from Bangladesh to Miami, Florida, to Lower Manhattan, and could magnify the damage from landfalling hurricanes and cyclones.
National broadcaster NHK said Abe made the announcement in a morning meeting with ruling party leaders, citing unidentified top officials of the Liberal Democratic Party.
Abe spokesman Hiroshi Suzuki, deputy Cabinet secretary, said he was aware of the reports but he could not immediately confirm them.
The reports come after Abe's scandal-scarred government lost control of the upper house of parliament in July 29 elections.
Sara Hammon saw some of her sisters pulled out of school to be married to men they didn't know.
She dreaded a similar fate.
And so, she ran away from home before she was old enough to drive legally.
She left behind 19 mothers, 74 siblings, and a father she says could never remember her name, even though he repeatedly molested her.
And, she left behind a culture she says was oppressive for young women.
Hammon recently gave CNN a deeply disturbing account of her life inside the polygamous sect whose leader, Warren Jeffs, goes on trial this week in Utah.
Jeffs is accused of being an accomplice to rape.
The charge stems from his alleged practice of arranging polygamous marriages between child brides and older male followers.
Hammon is not directly involved in the charges against Jeffs, which concern an arranged marriage between a girl, 14 and her 19-year-old cousin.
She left the sect before she could be placed in an arranged marriage.
"Probably the worst part of the whole theology," she said, " is the treatment of women and teaching women that they are not equal to men.
Hammon was born in Hilldale, Utah, and raised in Colorado City, Arizona, towns where followers of Jeffs the President and Prophet, Seer and Revelator of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) freely practice polygamy.
CHENGDU, China(CNN) Heather O'Reilly's goal in the 69th minute earned the United States a 2-2 draw with North Korea in Tuesday's Group B opening game at the Women's World Cup.
The Koreans scored twice while the U.S. was a player short on the field for several minutes in the second half, before O'Reilly tied the score with a shot into the top corner of the net.
Played before a crowd of 35,000 under drizzling rain at Chengdu Sports Center Stadium, the game between the top-ranked Americans and fifth-ranked North Korea Asia's best team and the quickest in the 16-team World Cup field lived up to expectations.
Abby Wambach gave the U.S. a 1-0 lead in the 50th minute with a long-range shot that goalkeeper Jon Myong-hui got her gloves to but was only able to deflect into the net.
Minutes later, Wambach knocked heads with a team-mate in a scramble around goal and exited the field with blood pouring from her face, leaving the Americans with 10 players.
North Korea scored twice in her absence.
Wambach came back on in the 65th minute, and her return seemed to calm things for the Americans. O'Reilly scored minutes later with a clever shot using the outside of her boot.
United States coach Greg Ryan said "It was a very tough call. Abby is such an important player to this team"
Despite its poise, the U.S. looked unnerved at times, as North Korea pressed the Americans in the first half like few teams have.
North Korea always counterattacked, seldom waiting for a slow buildup.
The Americans had trouble keeping possession, but still managed threats in spurts, looking dangerous on several corners and free kicks.
In Tuesday's other Group B tie, third-ranked Sweden were held to a 1-1 draw by African champions Nigeria.
Meanwhile in Group A, Japan scored an injury-time equalizer to draw 2-2 with England in Shanghai.
OPEC agreed late Tuesday to boost its crude oil output by 500,000 barrels a day in an effort to calm markets worried that supplies could grow tight by the end of the year. The surprise move would take effect starting Nov. 1.
Omar Farouk Ibrahim, spokesman for the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, said the increase would be based on the group's current production meaning the 12-nation cartel was adding actual oil to the market.
Ibrahim said OPEC agreed to "vigilantly monitor" fluctuations in the volatile global crude market.
That has sent ripples across all sectors of the economy, including the energy market, by raising fears of a U.S. recession and reduced demand for oil and gasoline.
, and OPEC wanted to send a message to consumers "that we care," he said.
After OPEC's announcement, light, sweet crude for October delivery fell 37 cents to $77.12 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after earlier rising above $78. In London, October Brent crude gained 12 cents to $75.60 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.
NEW YORK (CNN) The consensus is clear:
Britney Spears performed like she was sloshing blindfolded through mud at MTV's Video Music Awards.
But what about the nastiest comments of all those about her body?
"Lard and Clear," read Monday's headline in the New York Post.
Did Spears, lest we forget a mother of two.
More profoundly, in an age where skinny models and skeletal actresses are under scrutiny for the message they're sending young girls, what does it say that we're excoriating a young woman for a little thickness in her middle?
Certainly people were curious to see her.
The show drew 7.1 million viewers Sunday, up 23 percent over last year's VMAs.
Talk of Spears' physique comes amid an increasingly critical focus on overly skinny actresses in Hollywood.
"I kind of feel bad for her," said Shelley Wade, a DJ at New York City pop station Z100. "She looked really nervous.
And then now, I'm looking at all these blogs this morning about how everybody thinks she's fat and I'm like, 'What! Fat '
She wasn't fat.
How all this will impact Spears' career, and sales of her new album, has yet to be seen.
KINSHASA, Congo (CNN) The World Health Organization issued an alert Tuesday urging more doctors to travel to Congo to combat an outbreak of Ebola fever, which kills nearly all of those it infects and has no cure or treatment.
The Congolese government on Tuesday declared a quarantine of the area in southeastern Congo, spokesman Toussaint Tshilobo said.
Experts from Medecins Sans Frontieres are already treating patients, but more help was needed.
The United States' Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and a lab in Gabon confirmed the disease as a hemorrhagic fever, and specifically as Ebola, Health Minister Makwenge Kaput said on national television Monday. He did not provide further details.
According to WHO, five samples have tested positive for Ebola. About 40 more samples are pending.
At least 167 people have died in the affected region over about four months and nearly 400 have fallen ill, said Jean-Constatin Kanow, chief medical inspector for Congo's Kasai Oriental Province.
Some of the patients have improved after being given antibiotics, which would have no impact on Ebola, WHO experts said.
The experts said that led them to suspect that shigella, a diarrhea-like disease, or typhoid has broken out in the same area.
In the Congolese hospital where patients were being treated patients are not being isolated.
That means that patients who have shigella, which is not usually a fatal disease, might be mixed with Ebola patients, putting them at risk at catching the highly fatal fever.
"There's no way we can be sure at this time how many cases are shigella and how many cases are Ebola," said Gregory Hartl, a WHO spokesman.
By the end of August, four villages had been affected and 217 people had come down with the illness, including 103 who died.
Congo's last major Ebola outbreak struck in Kikwit in 1995, killing 245 people.
Ebola is spread through direct contact with the blood or secretions of an infected person, or objects that have been contaminated with infected secretions.
It is not known where the initial infection came from, though medical researchers say it is likely from contact with an infected animal.
Syria accused Israel of a "flagrant violation" of its obligations when it carried out an airstrike inside the country last week, according to a copy of a letter released Tuesday.
Syria called the incursion a "breach of airspace of the Syrian Arab Republic" and said "it is not the first time Israel has violated" Syrian airspace, the letter to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon read.
It also accused the international community of ignoring Israeli actions.
Earlier, a U.N. spokeswoman said Syria had not requested a meeting of the Security Council.
Meanwhile, France the current president of the Security Council said it had received no letter from Syria.
Last week, Syria reported that its aircraft fired on Israeli "enemy aircraft" that flew into northern Syria early Thursday.
The airstrike may have targeted weapons that were destined for Hezbollah militants, according to sources in the region and in the United States. Watch a report on the airstrike &raquo;
The Israel Defense Forces had no comment on the report, and have refused to comment further on the new revelations.
MINDEN, Nevada (CNN) The search for missing aviator Steve Fossett has generated Internet tips and drawn volunteer pilots, though whether the extra aid is helping or hurting the rescue effort is still an open question.
Driven by Fossett's fame and Google search technology that enables couch potatoes to view from their computers high-resolution photographs of the rugged Nevada landscape where he went missing, thousands of amateur volunteers are trying to help the hundreds of official searchers.
"This is kind of a new thing for us," Civil Air Patrol Maj. Cynthia Ryan said Monday, adding that every Google-generated tip is reviewed and the best ones passed on to pilots.
The 63-year-old Fossett, a former commodities trader who was the first to circle the globe in a balloon, was last heard from September 3. Authorities believe he was carrying only one bottle of water, but he is considered an expert pilot and survivalist.
"I am confident in his ability to survive this," Ryan said.
Fossett's wife, Peggy, praised the joint effort, calling it "an incredible collaboration."
In a statement, she said, "Our hopes are high and I am confident of a successful resolution to this search.
PRAIA DA LUZ, Portugal (CNN) The Portuguese prosecutor Tuesday gave a judge the files on the case of Madeleine McCann, the missing British girl who vanished in Portugal more than four months ago, a spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office said.
Luisa Duarte would not say why the files were being handed to the judge. The options could include authorizing further search warrants or changing the status of the girl's parents, who last week were questioned and named "arguidos" suspects in the case.
Kate and Gerry McCann have maintained their innocence, most recently in a blog entry posted by Gerry McCann late Monday.
"We have absolute confidence that, when all of the facts are presented together, we will be able to demonstrate that we played absolutely no part in Madeleine's abduction," McCann's posting said.
A family spokesman said authorities found Madeleine's blood in a car the family rented 25 days after reporting her disappearance in May.
Police put the couple through intensive questioning before declaring them "arguidos," or suspects, on Friday.
If they are charged, the McCanns who left Portugal Sunday to return to their home in Rothley, England will have five days to present themselves to police in Portugal.
In a statement Sunday to reporters at East Midlands Airport, Gerry McCann described as "deeply disturbing" the days since Portuguese authorities named them as suspects in the disappearance of their daughter.
In an interview published in the Sunday Mirror, Kate McCann is quoted as saying of the Portuguese police, "They want me to lie I'm being framed.
Portuguese authorities have not commented publicly on evidence or interviews in the case.
Philomena McCann, the sister of Madeleine's father, told the British network ITN on Friday that police "tried to get Kate to confess to having accidentally killed Madeleine by offering her a deal through her lawyer" in which she would say she killed Madeleine by accident "and then disposed of the body. "
"They are basically saying, 'If you confess Madeleine had an accident, and that I panicked and hid the body in a bag for a month, then got rid of it in a hire car, I'd get two or three years' suspended sentence,'" she is quoted as saying, adding, "Police don't want a murder in Portugal.
The McCanns and their friends and relatives say they are holding out hope that Madeleine will be found alive.
The girl's disappearance more than four months ago received prominent coverage both in the UK and internationally, with celebrities, including soccer icon David Beckham, offering their help to draw attention to the case and raise money for the search.
The parents traveled abroad to drum up support and met with Pope Benedict XVI.
NEW YORK (CNN)- Relatives of September 11 victims bowed their heads in silence Tuesday to mark the moments exactly six years earlier when hijacked planes crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field.
The dreary skies created a grim backdrop, and a sharp contrast to the clear blue of that morning in 2001.
"That day we felt isolated, but not for long and not from each other," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said as the ceremony began in New York.
"Six years have passed, and our place is still by your side.
"We're still very much affected by it on a daily basis," said Tania Garcia, whose sister Marlyn was killed. "It's an open wound, and every year that passes by just get worse and worse and worse."
The firefighters and first responders who helped rescue thousands that day in 2001 and later recovered the dead were to read the victims' names for the first time.
Many of those rescuers are now ill with respiratory problems and cancers, and they blame the illnesses on exposure to the fallen World Trade Center towers' toxic dust.
In Shanksville, Pennsylvania, a memorial honoring Flight 93's 40 passengers and crew began at 9:45 a.m., shortly before the time the airliner nosedived into the empty field.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, seeking the Democratic Party presidential nomination, also attended the ceremonies.
In Washington, President Bush paused for a moment of silence on the South Lawn of the White House, while at the Pentagon, Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke at the wall where the plane broke through.
Pace told the victims' families that their loved ones will always be remembered.
intelligence director Mike McConnell said U.S. authorities remain vigilant and concerned about "sleeper cells" of would-be terrorists inside the United States.
"We're safer but we're not safe," McConnell said on ABC's "Good Morning America.
Even though the World Trade Center ceremony gathering was moved out of ground zero, an estimated 3,500 family members descended briefly into the site to lay flowers near the twin towers' footprints.
WASHINGTON (CNN) President Bush is expected this week to announce his plans for cutting back U.S. troop numbers in Iraq, a senior administration official said Tuesday.
Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in the country, told Congress this week he could see troop numbers sliding by 30,000 which would reduce the number of troops to pre-surge levels by July 2008.
The announcement could come when Bush addresses the nation on television Thursday at 9:01 p.m. ET.
The address is expected to last 10 to 15 minutes.
Bush ordered nearly 30,000 additional troops to Iraq in January a move known as "the surge" in an effort to pacify Baghdad and its surrounding provinces amid rampant sectarian and insurgent warfare.
Petraeus told Congress this week that the first of those units could be sent home in late September, with the rest returning home by mid-July 2008.
A withdrawal of 30,000 troops would bring the number of American troops to about 130,000.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, said Monday in a statement, "The president's strategy in Iraq has failed. It is time to change the mission of our troops to one that will promote regional stability and combat terrorism."
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, said Monday, "Our enemies around the globe gain great advantage by having the United States mired in an Iraqi civil war."
Holders Germany began the fifth women's World Cup on Monday with a stunning 11-0 rout of Argentina the biggest win in the tournament's history.
Prior to the match the United States the top ranked team in the world who will play their first game against North Korea on Tuesday were the firm favorites to win the tournament, but Germany proved they will be major forces with this stunning victory.
Within the hour, the score was 8-0 and the Argentines had buckled for good.
The Germans were in double figures with more than 10 minutes still to run when striker Sandra Smisek scored the 10th goal in the 79th minute.
That completed her hat-trick after hitting the target in the 57th and 70th minutes
Another hat-trick went to Germany's legendary striker Birgit Prinz, 29, playing in her fourth World Cup.
She scored in the 29th, 46th and 59th minutes to become the nation's leading scorer of all time in World Cup play with 12 goals.
The FIFA World Player of the Year in 2003, 2004, and 2005, has been capped more the 150 times and scored more than 100 goals for her country.
Sixteen teams in four groups are competing in the World Cup in five Chinese cities.
The final is on September 30th in Shanghai.
The title of the new "Indiana Jones" movie, directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Harrison Ford, has been revealed.
"Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" will be in theaters May 22, 2008.
The title of the long-awaited fourth installment of the adventure series was announced by Shia LaBeouf, who co-stars with Ford in the film, at the MTV Video Music Awards in Las Vegas on Sunday.
The new Indy adventure, which is set in the 1950s, also stars Cate Blanchett, Ray Winstone, John Hurt, Jim Broadbent and Karen Allen.
Sean Connery, who played dad to Ford's globe-trotting archaeologist in 1989's "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, " will not reprise the role in the new movie.
The series began in 1981 with "Raiders of the Lost Ark," followed by "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" in 1984.
In promotional photos, the 65-year-old Ford appears fit as ever.
On the eve of Tuesday's meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, half a dozen key members Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria and Venezuela all said they believed the markets were amply supplied and suggested the official output quota of 25.8 million barrels a day should stand.
"There is enough crude in the market," Gholam Hossein Nozari, Iran's acting oil minister, told reporters.
But analysts and officials said some Gulf states were pressing for a small but symbolic increase of 500,000 barrels a day to reassure the markets.
Light, sweet crude for October delivery lost 35 cents to $76.35 a barrel in trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, while October Brent crude fell 44 cents to $74.63 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange in London.
Saudi Arabia, OPEC's No. 1 producer and most influential member in the 12-nation group , was the wild card.
The 12 OPEC members are Algeria, Angola, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Venezuela.
(Tribune Media Services) The question isn't whether to go swimming, but which pool to choose. (Tribune Media Services)
The resort also has seven restaurants and the kids will especially like the outdoor fire pit.
Of course, there are organized kids' activities here too, even etiquette classes.
Kids are everywhere in the lobby sushi bar, splashing in the pools, checking out the exotic birds, playing lawn croquet or racing around the property's 450 acres.
You can even hail a gondola and get ferried around the resort's waterways.
It's tough to drag the kids away from a resort like this, but there's so much for families to see and do in and around the seven towns that make up the Palm Springs Desert Resorts (www.palmspringsusa.com).
The streets may be named for a past generation's luminaries like Bob Hope and Frank Sinatra (the kids are bound to ask who they are) and the place may be a haven for golf-playing retirees there are 115 courses here but there is plenty here for 21st-century families whatever your budget and interest.
the sun shines most days of the year.
"Family business is definitely growing here," says Mark Graves, the spokesman for Palm Springs Desert Resorts.
The three terror suspects arrested last week in Germany may have sped up their bombing plot after a loud-talking police officer inadvertently alerted them that they were on a federal watch list, an unnamed source with knowledge of the investigation told CNN.
The men were stopped by a traffic officer in the weeks prior to their arrest last Tuesday.
The traffic stop was described by the head of Germany's Federal Criminal Investigation Office, Joerg Ziercke, as "a setback for the group.
Federal investigators had bugged the vehicle carrying the suspects during the traffic stop and could hear one of the police officers loudly exclaim that the men were on a federal watch list, the source said.
Days later, the men were observed mixing a massive amount of explosive materials that German authorities said could have resulted in a stronger explosion than the terror attacks in Madrid in 2004 and London in 2005.
At that point, investigators moved in and arrested the men at a rental house in west-central Germany.
A spokesman for the federal prosecutor's office said the suspects had been
The men two German converts to Islam and a Turk trained at Islamic Jihad Union camps in northern Pakistan, Ziercke announced Friday.
He said their terror plot, which was aimed at American military installations and other Western targets in Germany, was initially uncovered after U.S. intelligence officials alerted German authorities.
The announcement from the terror group's media arm came only days after bin Laden appeared in his first video in three years, giving an address to the American people, lecturing them to abandon capitalism and democracy and convert to Islam.
"Coming soon, God willing, the testament of the attacks on New York and Washington, Abu Musab Waleed al Shehri, presented by Sheik Osama bin Laden, God preserve him," the banner read.
It showed an image of bin Laden wearing the same black beard and clothes as in the most recent video.
Last year, for example, al-Sahab released a 55-minute video with the last testimonies of hijackers Wail al-Shehri and Hamza al-Ghamdi.
The 30,000 additional troops deployed to Iraq in January could come home by next July, but further American withdrawals would be "premature," the U.S. commander there told a fractious congressional hearing Monday.
"Our experience in Iraq has repeatedly shown that projecting too far into the future is not just difficult, it can be misleading and even hazardous," Gen. David Petraeus said at a joint hearing of the House Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees. "The events of the past six months underscore that point.
The testimony by Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad, was interrupted numerous times by demonstrators.
"The American people want our troops home," one woman shouted. Watch Petraeus say how "surge" has worked &raquo;
Ike Skelton, D-Missouri, the Armed Services Committee's chairman, ordered several protesters arrested for interrupting what he said "may be the most important hearing of the year."
President Bush ordered nearly 30,000 additional troops to Iraq in January as part of a campaign to pacify Baghdad and its surrounding provinces.
Petraeus said that campaign has largely met its military goals, reducing sectarian killings by more than 50 percent nationwide and by more than 80 percent in Baghdad.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, said in a statement, "Today, despite overwhelming evidence that neither goal has been achieved, Gen. Petraeus testified that the surge would last at least until next summer. This is simply unacceptable."
FRANKFURT, Germany (CNN) The world's automakers will make new efforts to win customers over with more environmentally friendly cars at the Frankfurt Auto Show this week as they tout new vehicles with hybrid propulsion and more advanced, cleaner engines.
The show, which runs from Sept. 13-23, will reflect concerns about high gas prices, fuel efficiency and global warming by putting green products and technologies front and center:
Auto industry adviser Ted Grozier said the exhibition will showcase the industry's efforts to reduce reliance on gas-guzzling vehicles.
Indeed, BMW AG, Porsche AG, Volkswagen AG and DaimlerChrysler AG will all be showing cars with low-emission diesel engines.
"Our customers can rest assured that their Mercedes will also in the future meet the most stringent requirements in terms of safety, comfort and effortless superiority, and that they will do so with exemplary green credentials," said DaimlerChrysler Chief Executive Dieter Zetsche.
Swedish automaker Volvo AB, owned by Ford Motor Co., will have its plug-in hybrid concept at the show.
Ford will show off current models under its ECOnetic label that produce a lower level of emissions.
The show is also the chance for automakers to explore new concepts and designs that may or may not take shape on the assembly line.
LEMONT, Illinois (CNN) Playing next to Tiger Woods for two days was daunting enough.
It was when Steve Stricker watched him from 200 yards away on an elevated tee that he realized how tough it would be to beat him Sunday in the BMW Championship.
"If you wanted to win this tournament, you had to make putts," Woods said. "And I just happened to make them today.
The 63 matched Woods' lowest final round to win, and he finished at 22-under 262 to break by five shots the 72-hole.
Mickelson, the Deutsche Bank Championship winner Monday, will have to win to have any hopes of capturing the FedEx Cup and the $10 million prize.
All that mattered at the moment was winning at Cog Hill for the fourth time.
Stewart Cink, Tim Clark and Camilo Villegas all finished in the top 10 and earned enough points to move into the top 30 in the playoff standings and qualify for the Tour Championship.
Also getting knocked out of the top 30 were Jerry Kelly and Aaron Oberholser, who withdrew with hand and wrist injuries and said he would not have been able to play the Tour Championship even if he had made it.
Stricker, the hometown favorite who played at Illinois and grew up across the border in Wisconsin, made four straight birdies through the 10th hole to become the first to reach 19 under.
Woods has won six times in the Chicago area four at Cog Hill, two in the PGA Championship at Medinah. The only place where he has had more victories is the San Diego area, where he has won eight times.
Those are but a few of the words that audience members used to describe Britney Spears ill-fated "comeback" performance at the MTV Video Awards at Las Vegas' Palms Hotel Sunday evening.
When Spears hit the stage the crowd roared. Moments later many were staring in stunned silence.
In the past, Spears has managed to deliver memorable performances (dancing with a yellow python;
At Tao, the restaurant where celebrities like Janet Jackson and Alicia Keys partied after the show, talk of Spears' debacle raged.
Hip-hop mogul (and Janet Jackson's boyfriend) Jermaine Dupri ordered 10 bottles of Patron tequila for the crowd.
"I want everyone in here to get drunk," he yelled. "I want people stumbling home.
We're partying tonight." Impromptu performances by rappers like T.I. and Nelly and singers like Robin Thicke soon followed.
Oscar-winning actor Jamie Foxx also put on a brief show.
He spent much of the evening swigging from a bottle of Dom Perignon as an assortment of women danced around him.
JERUSALEM (CNN) Under threat from Romans ransacking Jerusalem 2,000 years ago, many of the city's Jewish residents crowded into an underground drainage channel to hide and later flee the chaos through Jerusalem's southern end.
The ancient tunnel was recently discovered buried beneath rubble, a monument to one of the great dramatic scenes of the destruction of the Second Temple in the year 70 A.D.
The channel was dug beneath what would become the main road of Jerusalem, the archaeology dig's directors, Ronny Reich of the University of Haifa and Eli Shukron of the Israel Antiquities Authority, said Sunday.
The walls of the tunnel made of ashlar stones 3 feet deep reach a height of 10 feet in some places and are covered by heavy stone slabs that were the road's paving stones, Shukron said.
Several manholes are visible, and portions of the original plastering remain, he said.
Pottery shards, vessel fragments and coins from the end of the Second Temple period were also discovered inside the channel, attesting to its age, Reich said.
The Second Temple was the center of Jewish worship during the second Jewish Commonwealth, which spanned the six centuries preceding the Roman conquest of Jerusalem.
Its expansion was the most famous construction project of Herod, the Jewish proxy ruler of the Holy Land under imperial Roman occupation from 37 B.C.
As Jerusalem was being conquered by the Romans in 70 A.D., numerous people took shelter in the drainage channel and lived inside it until they fled Jerusalem through its southern end, the historian Josephus Flavius wrote in "The War of the Jews.
Tens of thousands of people lived in Jerusalem at the time, but it is not clear how many used the channel to escape
Archeologists think the tunnel leads to the Kidron River.
Shepherds from across the world joined their Spanish colleagues to lead flocks of sheep through the streets of downtown Madrid on Sunday in defense of ancient grazing routes threatened by urban sprawl and manmade frontiers.
While every year Spanish herdsmen protest their rights by herding hundreds of sheep along the capital's exclusive, tree-lined boulevards and luxury store-filled avenues, this year they were joined by colorfully attired shepherds from 32 countries who had been taking part in a world gathering of nomad and transhumance shepherds.
Transhumance is the practice of seasonal livestock movement. In Spain, it involves a million animals sheep, cattle and others.
The Spanish protest, now in its 15th year, seeks to highlight a tradition that has for centuries allowed herdsmen the right to use 78,000 miles of Spanish paths in seasonal livestock migrations from cool highland pastures in summer to warmer low-lying spaces in winter. Some paths have been used annually for more than 800 years.
A relatively modern city by European standards, Madrid inherited its status as capital of Spain's empire only when King Philip II fixed his court here in 1561.
While the routes are protected by Spanish law, modern life including housing developments, highways and railways have eroded time-honored paths.
Around the world, grazing rights are increasingly endangered by modern development, officials said.
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) Jane Wyman, an Academy Award winner for her performance as the deaf rape victim in "Johnny Belinda," star of the long-running TV series "Falcon Crest" and Ronald Reagan's first wife, died Monday morning at 93.
Wyman died at her Palm Springs home, said Richard Adney of Forest Lawn Memorial Park and Mortuary in Cathedral City.
Wyman's film career spanned from the 1930s, including "Gold Diggers of 1937," to 1969's "How to Commit Marriage," co-starring Bob Hope and Jackie Gleason.
Her marriage in 1940 to fellow Warner Bros. contract player Reagan was celebrated in the fan magazines as one of Hollywood's ideal unions. The couple divorced in 1948, the year she won the Oscar for "Johnny Belinda."
After Reagan became governor of California and then president of the United States, Wyman kept a decorous silence about her ex-husband, who had married actress Nancy Davis.
A few days after Reagan died on June 5, 2004, Wyman broke her silence, saying: "America has lost a great president and a great, kind and gentle man.
It was 1936 when Warner Bros. signed Wyman to a long-term contract.
She recalled in 1968: "For 10 years I was the wisecracking lady reporter who stormed the city desk snapping.
In 1937, Wyman married a wealthy manufacturer of children's clothes, Myron Futterman, in New Orleans. She divorced him in November 1938, declaring she wanted children and he didn't.
The following year she gave birth to a daughter, Maureen. They later adopted a son, Michael.
They also had a daughter who was born several months premature in June 1947 and died a day later.
"That same year I made the Knute Rockne movie, I married Jane Wyman, another contract player at Warners," Reagan wrote.
"Our marriage produced two wonderful children, Maureen and Michael, but it didn't work out, and in 1948 we were divorced."
Their daughter Maureen died in August 2001 after a battle with cancer.
Reagan, suffering from Alzheimer's disease, was not well enough to attend.
Her first entry into television came with "The Jane Wyman Show," an anthology series that appeared on NBC from 1955 to 1958.
She quit the show after three years, saying that "putting on a miniature movie once a week" was exhausting.
In 1952 Wyman married Fred Karger, a studio music director.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) Former Pakistani Prime Minister and opposition party leader Nawaz Sharif's attempt to return to Pakistan after seven years in exile ended quickly Monday as police ordered him to board a flight for Saudi Arabia, government officials said.
Sharif was briefly taken into police custody at the Islamabad airport about 90 minutes after he arrived aboard a flight from London.
He was placed on another commercial airliner a short time later for a flight to the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah, where he arrived at approximately 3 p.m. local time (1300 GMT), Pakistani government officials and a Sharif representative told CNN.
Clashes intensified following Sharif's deportation, with his supporters burning tires and blocking roads in Islamabad and the neighboring city of Rawalpindi, police and members of Sharif's party said.
His wife, Kalsoom Nawaz, has vowed to return to Pakistan in coming days to fight on her husband's behalf, she told CNN.
"I really wanted to stay inside the house as is our country's tradition, but dictatorship and cruelty forced me to fight against that
Sharif's brother Shahbaz Sharif, also charged with corruption, said their party will challenge the deportation in court, the report said.
Shahbaz Sharif, who was chief minister, or top executive, of Punjab province, is charged with ordering police to kill five men in Lahore in 1998. At the time of the killings, his brother was Pakistan's prime minister.
This is a tragedy for Pakistan that a dictator is disregarding the people.
"Sharif's deportation is in accordance with law and ethics," Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao told local media, AP reported.
As the jetliner that flew Sharif from London stopped on the tarmac Monday morning, it was immediately surrounded by police commandos who boarded it along with government officials, sources said.
Fearing he might be arrested if he stepped off the plane, Sharif refused to hand over his passport and calmly sat in his airline seat, surrounded by a crush of aides, reporters, and others.
"I have a message of hope, I have a message of tranquility, peace and national reconciliation," Sharif told reporters on the plane.
After 90 minutes of negotiations he was allowed to enter the airport where he was taken into custody and then put on a plane out of Pakistan.
Meanwhile, police used tear gas and batons against Sharif supporters near the airport Monday morning and arrested 635 of them, the sources said.
Federal Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said those taken into custody would be released soon.
Ahead of his arrival, the Pakistani government arrested at least 3,000 Sharif supporters, including members of parliament, police sources said. Most of those arrested were in Punjab province, a stronghold of support for Sharif, police sources said. Also arrested early Monday were Pakistan Muslim League Chairman Zafar ul Haq and Acting President Jawaid Hashmi.
Security around Islamabad's airport was also tightened, police sources said.
Convicted of tax evasion and treason, Sharif was released in 2000 in exchange for agreeing to 10 years of exile.
He has been in exile in Saudi Arabia since then and under the agreement was not allowed to travel or directly take part in Pakistani politics.
Nawaz Sharif said he was not concerned that he would be jailed upon returning to Pakistan because "I am absolutely clean and clear.
"If Musharraf tries to fabricate false cases against me, we will face them." he said.
Musharraf was elected president in a 2002 vote that was widely viewed as rigged.
(CNN) The founder of The Body Shop, which grew from one shop in southern England to an international chain, has died, the chairman of Body Shop International confirmed Monday.
Roddick had revealed in February that she contracted hepatitis C through a blood transfusion while giving birth to a daughter in 1971, according to The Associated Press.
Roddick and her husband stepped down as co-chairmen of the company in 2002, according to the AP.
The Body Shop chain became a massive success selling "green" cosmetics as customers were becoming environmentally aware.
"All of us in The Body Shop family are deeply shocked and saddened to hear the news of Anita's passing.
Roddick had said her business ethics were partly inspired by women's beauty rituals that she discovered while traveling in developing countries.
Roddick's business opposed product testing on animals and tried to encourage development by purchasing materials from small communities in the Third World.
According to AP reports, the Body Shop also invested in a wind farm in Wales as part of its campaign to support renewable energy, and it set up its own human rights award.
The Body Shop has grown into a global phenomenon with nearly 2,000 stores in 50 countries and remains independently run despite being owned by L'Oreal Group.
He knows how to win these things, though, while Novak Djokovic is learning, and that made all the difference in Federer's 7-6 (4), 7-6 (2), 6-4 victory for a fourth consecutive U.S. Open championship and 12th Grand Slam title.
Federer is the first man since Bill Tilden in the 1920s to win the American Grand Slam four years running.
He's won the last five Wimbledon titles, too, along with three overall at the Australian Open.
"To come so close at my age is fantastic, and I hope to break it.
How many Slams can he win?
A California gray whale that was harpooned and shot with a machine gun off the western tip of Washington state has died, officials said.
Coast Guard Petty Officer Kelly Parker said five people believed to be members of the Makah Tribe shot and harpooned the whale Saturday morning.
Petty Officer Shawn Eggert said the whale disappeared beneath the surface in the evening, dragging buoys that had been attached to the harpoon, and did not resurface.
A biologist working for the Makah Indian tribe declared it dead, Eggert said.
Tribe members were being held by the Coast Guard but had not been charged, said Mark Oswell, a spokesman for the law enforcement arm of the National Marine Fisheries Service.
A preliminary report said the whale was shot with a .50-caliber machine gun, Oswell said.
Coast Guard officials created a 1,000-yard safety zone around the injured whale, which was shot about a mile east of Neah Bay in the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
Though the tribe has subsistence fishing rights to kill whales, Oswell said preliminary information indicates the whale may have been shot illegally.
The Makah Tribe has more than 1,000 members and is based in Neah Bay.
Tropical Storm Gabrielle nosed its way back toward the Atlantic Ocean after hitting North Carolina's Outer Banks Sunday afternoon with 50-mph winds, forecasters said.
At 11 p.m. ET, all storm warnings and watches had been discontinued in the area, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida.
The storm was moving northeast at about 10 mph and was expected to continue in that direction and at that speed for the next 24 hours, the NHC said.
It's been primarily contained to the south," said Douglas Hoff, who rode out the storm in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. He gave iReport footage to CNN of heavy surf hitting the area.
"Everything will be a normal day tomorrow," he said.
Storm surge flooding over the North Carolina Outer Banks will gradually subside overnight, the hurricane center said.
With a glitzy name like Surfers Paradise, it's hard to expect more from this Gold Coast town than beachy souvenir shops and all-you-can-eat pancakes.
the moniker itself is preparation for the onslaught of surfboard memorabilia and shoulder-to-shoulder visitors, jostling each other as they rush to the sand and wait to make bookings at the tourist information center.
But something about this place evokes a feeling of guilty pleasure whether it be the flawless beaches a block from the chaos, the countless day tours to everywhere or the simple ability to party all night and lounge all day, free from the need for a single intelligent thought.
Sometimes, that tried-and-true tourism is exactly what you need if only for a few days.
Peak beach season is December-February summer in the Southern Hemisphere.
They come to Surfers not only for the hopping nightlife, waves and beaches which can be found in a multitude of locations along Australia's coast but also because of the avalanche of excursion options.
SeaWorld and a theme park called Dreamworld for families, whale-watching trips for marine enthusiasts and nearby Brisbane tours for steadfast urbanites.
Such a loss could have profound effects on mammals dependent on the sea ice, such as polar bears, now being considered for threatened species status because of changes in habitat due to global warming.
It could also threaten the catch of fishermen.
In the 1980s, sea ice receded 30 to 50 miles each summer off the north coast, said James Overland, a Seattle-based oceanographer for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
"Now we're talking about 300 to 500 miles north of Alaska," he said of projections for 2050.
The NOAA researchers reviewed 20 computer scenarios of the effects of warming on sea ice, used by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change in its assessment report released this year.
The same is likely for the East Siberian-Chukchi Sea region off northwest Alaska and Russia.
In contrast, Canada's Baffin Bay and Labrador showed little predicted change.
FRANKFURT, Germany(CNN) Luxury automakers BMW, Audi and Mercedes reported healthy sales increases for August on Friday, with demand from Asia and the U.S. driving the gains.
BMW AG, the industry's top luxury car company, said its global sales rose 13 percent last month from a year ago, with 99,755 BMW, Mini and Rolls-Royce automobiles sold.
The Munich-based automaker said its August sales were led by demand from U.S. buyers, where it sold 30,638 cars, up 19.3 percent from August 2006. Demand was also up in Germany, with 19,253 cars sold, up 10.8 percent from last year.
Since January, the car maker said sales were up 7.1 percent from the same time last year, with 952,929 vehicles sold.
Rival Audi AG said it sold 66,400 cars worldwide in August, up 4.2 percent from the same month in 2006.
Ingolstadt-based Audi, a unit of Volkswagen AG, said it sold some 656,600 cars since January, up 9.2 percent from the comparable period last year.
The August increases came from higher demand in China, where sales rose 24 percent from January, while in the United States, sales increased 7.1 percent.
"Growth in European export markets, meaning both established Western European markets and new markets in Eastern Europe, is a major factor behind our success," said Ralph Weyler, who oversees Audi's marketing and sales. "We are steadily and consistently increasing our market share in these regions.
But sales in Germany, Audi's home market, slipped by 7.7 percent last month to 18,063 cars sold.
DaimlerChrysler AG, meanwhile, said its Mercedes Car Group saw sales increase 9 percent in August compared to last year, reaching a record 96,200 Mercedes-Benz, Maybach and Smart brands sold.
Demand for Mercedes Car Group vehicles was strong in Asia, where sales rose 22 percent, while in the United States sales edged up 2 percent.
OULU, Finland (CNN) A Japanese man out-"played" challengers to win the Air Guitar World Championship for the second consecutive year at a contest in northern Finland.
Ochi Yosuke received the highest score from a panel of judges in the final late Friday at the Teatria rock club in Oulu, near the Arctic Circle.
Apart from the glory, he received a custom-made Flying Finn electric guitar worth $3,400.
The surprise of the qualifying round was Oulu native Hilkka "Gore Kitty" Suvanto, who has twice before scored the lowest points ever in that round but now achieved a perfect six from many of the judges.
Guillaume "Moche Pitt" de Tonquedec, of France, and Austria's Max "Herr Jaquelin" Heller.
We've seen all the nations, united nations, 'rocking on the free world' and that's good, that's great," de Tonquedec said.
LAS VEGAS, Nevada (CNN) Scores of bikini-clad babes and bare-chested hunks downing drinks by the pool.
Concerts by Kanye West, 50 Cent, Maroon 5 and Joss Stone for crowds that included Jamie Foxx, Sean "Diddy" Combs, Paris Hilton and Ashlee Simpson.
With the MTV Video Music Awards in town, Sin City took its debauchery and extravagance to a whole new level.
The awards, featuring a much-hyped opening number by Britney Spears, are set to air live Sunday from the Palms hotel.
The unpredictable pop star was the talk of the weekend. People bragged about Britney sightings, buzzed about what events she would attend and offered opinions on her chances for a comeback.
Eve played X-Box and West kicked back in a poolside cabana at the Venetian. Ludacris and Nelly collected goodies at the Hard Rock.
And 50 Cent picked up a $62,000 diamond-encrusted watch at Caesars.
The focus turned from freebies to parties once the sun went down.
Christina Aguilera made an appearance at nightclub LAX, Pharrell Williams held a dinner soiree at the Venetian and Maroon 5 and Robin Thicke performed at the House of Blues.
The Hard Rock Hotel was packed to capacity as it hosted concerts by West, 50 Cent and Linkin Park. Hilton, Ciara and Mario Lopez took in 50's poolside show. .
The ever-outspoken West had some less-than-kind words for Spears and MTV.
She hasn't had a hit record in years," he said, apparently miffed that MTV didn't invite him to open the show.
She will "surprise the world," said Sean Garrett, who collaborated with the singer on three new tracks.
DAKAR, Senegal (CNN) Renewed fighting Saturday inside a national park in Congo that is home to endangered mountain gorillas forced rangers to flee for the second time in less than a week, conservationists said.
The clashes between fighters loyal to warlord Laurent Nkunda and government soldiers took place in Virunga National Park, where some of the world's last remaining mountain gorillas live on the slopes of a volcanic mountain range that straddles Congo's border with Rwanda and Uganda, the international conservation group WildlifeDirect said.
Tens of thousands of people have been displaced by the fighting across North Kivu province, where the park is located, and tens of thousands more have fled into neighboring Uganda.
About 300 people rangers and their families fled the park itself on Monday after skirmishes first broke out there.
Concerned about the fate of the gorillas, a few rangers returned Friday.
In the brief time they were there they found only one five-member group outside of the park and "vulnerable to crossfire," WildlifeDirect said.
The rangers reported hearing shelling and gunfire on Friday and Saturday, and fled again before they were able to check on any other gorillas.
"We thought the situation was calming a couple of days ago, but once again the mountain gorillas are in peril and the rangers cannot do their job," the director of WildlifeDirect, Dr. Emmanuel de Merode, said in a statement.
Only about 700 mountain gorillas remain in the world, an estimated 380 of them in the Virunga range.
About 100 of those are believed to live on the Congo side of the border, where nine gorillas have been killed since January. The other 320 live in Uganda's Bwindi Impenetrable Forest.
They have been exposed for nearly a week to fighting," said Norbert Mushenzi, director of the southern sector of the park for the Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature.
One park ranger was shot and killed late last month in a separate patrol post attack at Virunga, officials said.
More than 150 rangers have been killed in the past decade at five national parks in eastern Congo while protecting wildlife from poachers, rebels and illegal miners.
Virunga National Park is established in 1925 as Africa's first national park, it was classified as a U.N. World Heritage Site in 1979.
ROTHLEY, England (CNN) Madeleine McCann's father says the return of his family to Britain without his missing daughter is heartbreaking but it does not mean they are abandoning the search for her.
The McCanns flew from Faro in southern Portugal with their 2-year-old twins Sean and Amelie.
At East Midlands airport in central England, Gerry McCann said the events of the last few days had been deeply disturbing.
"While it is heartbreaking to return to the UK without Madeleine, it does not mean we are giving up the search for her," he said.
The McCanns, their friends and relatives say they are holding out hope that Madeleine is alive and will be found.
The family then traveled to their home in the Leicestershire village of Rothley, 170 kilometers (110 miles) north of London, where dozens of TV camera crews and journalists were waiting.
The McCanns reported that Madeleine had gone missing days before her 4th birthday on May 3 from their holiday apartment in Praia Da Luz in southern Portugal.
The parents told police they had left the girl and her siblings asleep in the unlocked apartment as they dined just meters away, checking on them frequently.
However, later in the evening they discovered she was missing.
The case became a sensation in the British press and then internationally, with celebrities, including soccer icon David Beckham, offering their help.
The parents traveled abroad to drum up support and even met Pope Benedict XVI.
But on Friday police in Portugal named the couple suspects after finding Madeleine's blood in a car the family rented 25 days after reporting her disappearance, a family spokeswoman said.
On Sunday family spokeswoman Justine McGuinness said the McCanns were "returning to Britain after careful thought" and to give their twins a more normal life.
In an interview published in the Sunday Mirror, Kate McCann is quoted as saying of the Portuguese police, "They want me to lie I'm being framed.
Philomena McCann, the sister of Madeleine's father, told the British news network ITN that police "tried to get Kate to confess to having accidentally killed Madeleine by offering her a deal through her lawyer" in which she would say she killed Madeleine by accident "and then disposed of the body.
Numerous friends and relatives of the McCanns have called any allegations of them having harmed the girl ridiculous.
A friend who has known Kate McCann for 30 years agreed that it was "unthinkable" that the McCanns would have harmed their child.
"I've not spoken to them in the last say two or three days, but I'm sure they're probably struggling," Nicky Gill told ITN in Liverpool.
A militant Islamic group that recently renamed itself al Qaeda Islamic Maghreb has claimed responsibility for two suicide attacks that killed dozens in Algeria including an assassination attempt on the country's president.
A statement posted on the group's Web site Sunday said Abu al-Muqdad al-Wahrani strapped with an explosives belt was unable to get past the security guards protecting Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika when he visited the town of Batna on Thursday just east of the capital city, Algiers.
"The martyr was not able to reach his target ... and detonated his belt amid Bouteflika's security cordon," the statement said.
That attack killed 19 and wounded 107 others, state-run news agency Algerie Presse Service reported.
Al Qaeda Islamic Maghreb also claimed responsibility for Saturday's suicide attack on an Algerian Coast Guard barracks in the port of Dellys, some 50 miles (80 km) from Algiers.
The Saturday morning attack killed at least 50 people and wounded 47 others, according to Algeria's state-run media.
Al Qaeda Islamic Maghreb is formerly known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, a militant Islamic group waging war to overthrow the Algerian government.
The group claimed responsibility for a bomb attack in Algiers on the Algerian prime minister's office in April.
Algeria's prime minster was not hurt, but 12 people were killed and 118 were wounded
Congress is expected this week to pick apart U.S. military data suggesting attacks and civilian casualties in Baghdad have sharply decreased in recent months.
Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, is scheduled to testify before Congress beginning Monday, and he is expected to tell lawmakers the troop buildup is producing results.
Petraeus will back the assertion with data indicating a lower incidence of roadside bombs and car bombs in the capital in the months leading up to the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which begins this week.
Joined by Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Petraeus will begin his testimony Monday before a joint session of the House Foreign Affairs and Armed Services committees.
Petraeus spent part of Sunday at the Pentagon completing a final run through before his testimony, a source said.
Meanwhile, the methodology the military is using to gauge violence in Baghdad has already come under fire.
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, a vocal critic of the war in Iraq, has accused the White House of twisting data to suit its needs. Watch why the Pentagon says there's "no such thing" as the Petraeus Report &raquo;
"By carefully manipulating the statistics, the Bush-Petraeus report will try to persuade us that violence in Iraq is decreasing and thus the surge is working," said the Senate's No. 2 Democrat, addressing a Washington think tank last week.
Last month, Iraq suffered the bloodiest single attack of the war when two suicide truck bombers struck villages in northern Iraq's Nineveh province, killing at least 400 people and wounding hundreds more.
ROME, Italy(CNN) Jamaican Asafa Powell set a new men's world 100m record of 9.74 seconds at the IAAF Grand Prix at Rieti, Italy, on Sunday, beating his old mark of 9.77 set in Athens in June 2005.
The 24-year-old Powell dominated the race ahead of Norway's Saidy Ndure Jaysuma (10.07) and 2003 world champion from St Kitts and Nevis, Kim Collins (10.14).
The Jamaican failed to win the 100m title at the Osaka world championships, finishing third in 9.96 seconds behind Americain Tyson Gay (9.85) and Derrick Atkins of the Bahamas (9.91).
"I was in great shape and ready to go, but I made a huge mistake in the final," he lamented at the time.
Powell set his world-record 9.77 in 2005 and equalled it twice last season on the way to being named male athlete of the year.
He is yet to win a major title after false-starting at the 2003 worlds, missing 2005 with injury and finishing fifth at the last Olympic Games.
The Jamaican won last year's Commonwealth title but only after risking disqualification by veering into a competitor's lane during the semifinals.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) Security around Pakistani airports was tightened Sunday, a day before the expected return from exile of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, police sources said.
Sharif said he would return to Pakistan on September 10, following the Pakistani Supreme Court's decision last week to lift the exile order imposed on him following the 1999 coup.
Thousands of Muslim League party workers have been detained ahead of Sharif's return, according to party spokesman Ahsan Iqbal.
Iqbal said the party faithful still planned to converge on the airport to welcome Sharif home.
Hundreds of police reserves have been called into Islamabad ahead of Sharif's arrival, police sources said.
On Friday the government reopened corruption cases against Sharif and a court ordered the arrest of his younger brother, lawyers said.
Sharif was deposed by President Gen. Pervez Musharraf in the 1999 coup and went into exile in Saudi Arabia.
He vowed to return to challenge Musharraf's bid to extend his rule.
His younger brother Shahbaz Sharif, who was chief minister, or top executive, of Punjab province, is charged with ordering police to kill five men in Lahore in 1998.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2878064
Two centuries ago, there were dozens of independent states in the part of Europe that was German-speaking.
Today, there are only four:
Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Liechtenstein.
From the top of a ski lift you can hike the ridge that marks the border of Austria and Liechtenstein.
Liechtenstein is a bowl in the mountains high ridges on the east, milky baby Rhine River still giddy from its tumble out of the Alps running south to north on its west, and the stout and classic Gutenberg Castle guarding the entry to the valley on the south.
About the size of Manhattan, it's!
truly landlocked, with no seaport, no airport, and not even a train station.
Europe's tiny countries have historically offered businesses special tax and accounting incentives.
And that's how the Prince of Liechtenstein, whose 13th-century castle is perched fairy tale-style above his domain, likes it.
The billionaire prince, who looks down on his 4-by-15-mile country, doesn't open his castle to the public.
When I knocked on the door, the guard looked at me like I was nuts.
But anyone can enjoy his views.
And, for a price, you can enjoy a glass of local wine in the prince's wine cellar.
The prince was in the news recently for threatening to actually abandon his principality if his citizens didn't give him more political power.
Liechtensteiners seem pretty easygoing about these things (women didn't claim the right to vote until 1984) and accepted his demands.
Now the Prince of Liechtenstein, apparently, has more real authority than any other royal in Europe
Liechtenstein is made up of 11 villages.
The village of Triesenberg, perched above the valley, gathers around its onion-domed church, which recalls the settlers who arrived here centuries ago from the western part of Switzerland.
country's capital.
Its pedestrianized main drag is lined with modern art and hotels, and borders a district of slick office buildings.
There's so little of interest to tourists in Liechtenstein that souvenir shops stock as many books and postcards on Switzerland in general as they do on Liechtenstein.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2878025
SYDNEY, Australia (CNN) In a rare public exchange highlighting the delicacy of political diplomacy, President Bush told South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun a formal end to the Korean War begins when North Korea halts its secretive nuclear weapons program.
"We spent a lot of time talking about the six-party talks and the progress that is being made in the six-party talks," Bush said.
They agreed there had been progress, with Roh characterizing it as "positive" and "meaningful.
Then, in a rare back-and-forth exchange before the cameras, Roh pressed Bush to be "clearer" on his stance to officially ending the Korean War, which ended in 1953 with a truce, and not a peace treaty, meaning on paper they are still at war.
"I think I might be wrong. I think I did not hear President Bush mention a declaration to end the Korean War just now.
We look forward to the day when we can end the Korean War.
That will happen when Kim Jong Il verifiably gets rid of his weapons programs and his weapons.
Shortly after the news conference ended, Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the White House National Security Council, played down the exchange.
"I really think the interpreter must not have conveyed the president's comments entirely clearly.
[President Bush] made clear in his opening remarks that he told Roh that the U.S. is committed to a peace agreement once North Korea complies."
Deputy National Security Adviser Jim Jeffrey suggested that the incident was caused by "perhaps a translation error."
"The Korean side wanted to hear a specific reiteration of what went on in the meeting," Jeffrey said.
But reporters asked whether the unusual exchange spawned from a translation issue or whether Roh had been unsatisfied with possible differences between what Bush said in the earlier meeting and what he said in front of the cameras.
Stepping in, White House Deputy Press Secretary Dana Perino said there was no tension in the meeting and that "everyone is trying to make a little bit too much of it.
"I can tell you they had a very warm meeting," Perino said.
"The president made a clear statement of his support for ending the Korean War once and for all, and both leaders agreed on that.
Meanwhile on Friday, the chief U.S. negotiator to the six-party nuclear talks said North Korea had invited a delegation of nuclear experts from China, the United States and Russia to the communist country next week to survey nuclear facilities slated to be shut down.
Speaking in Sydney ahead of the annual APEC summit, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill told reporters the delegations will be in North Korea from Tuesday through September 15 to conduct a survey of nuclear facilities slated to be disabled as part of the six-party process.
WASHINGTON (CNN) Early analysis indicates the voice on a recently released videotape is that of Osama bin Laden, a U.S. official said Friday, as President Bush called the tape "a reminder of the dangerous world in which we live.
A transcript of the video, obtained by CNN, shows it contains no overt threats toward the United States.
Some date references, including a mention of Democrats gaining the majority in Congress, may indicate the tape is new.
In the tape, bin Laden calls the Iraq war "unjust" and blames it and a host of the world's other ills on capitalism
Bin Laden also urges Americans to "embrace Islam" as a way to end the war in Iraq, according to the transcript.
"If al Qaeda bothers to mention Iraq, it is because they want to achieve their objectives in Iraq, which is to drive us out and to develop a safe haven," Bush said.
"And the reason they want a safe haven is to launch attacks against America or any other ally. And therefore, it is important that we show resolve and determination to protect ourselves, to deny al Qaeda safe haven and to support young democracies, which will be a major defeat to their ambitions.
The transcript also shows bin Laden blaming global warming on large corporations.
"The life of all mankind is in danger because of the global warming resulting to a large degree from the emissions of the factories the major corporations," it says.
The reference to French President Nicolas Sarkozy and new British Prime Minister Gordon Brown suggests that the tape was recorded this summer.
WASHINGTON (CNN) First lady Laura Bush will undergo "fairly routine" outpatient surgery Saturday to relieve pressure on pinched nerves in her neck, the White House said Friday.
Doctors aren't sure how long Bush has had the pinched nerves, but they were aggravated by a hiking trip to Utah in the spring, said Sally McDonough, the first lady's spokeswoman.
"[Doctors] have been treating it conservatively for months," she said of the treatment that led to the decision to have the surgery
The White House did not say where the first lady will undergo the procedure.
President Bush is in Australia for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.
The pinched nerves led the first lady's doctors to recommend
England manager Steve McClaren suffered a fresh blow before Saturday's Euro 2008 qualifying match against Israel, when Manchester United midfielder Owen Hargreaves aggravated a hamstring injury.
"We are still hoping he will be available for Saturday, and he is definitely not ruled out yet.
England are already without fellow midfielder players David Beckham and Frank Lampard but Liverpool's Steven Gerrard took part in Wednesday's training even though he is recovering from a broken toe.
Lampard has a thigh injury and Beckham a knee problem.
McClaren is keen to include Gerrard at the heart of his side.
Hargreaves, who has previously been troubled by tendonitis in the knee, has yet to play two games in a week after his &pound;
18 million ($36.39 million) transfer to United from Bayern Munich.
England are three points behind leaders Croatia in Group E.
Members of an Australian TV comedy show, one of them dressed as Osama bin Laden, drove through two security checkpoints Thursday before being stopped near the Sydney hotel where U.S. President George W. Bush is staying.
The stunt embarrassed Sydney police who have imposed the tightest security measures in city history for a summit of leaders from Pacific Rim countries, including Bush.
Police arrested 11 cast and crew members from the TV program, "The Chaser's War on Everything," and impounded three vehicles, the Australian Broadcasting Corp., which airs the show, said on its Web site.
Cast members put together a sham motorcade, hiring two motorcycles and three large cars on which they put Canadian flags.
Cast member Chas Licciardello got out of the car dressed in a white tunic and cap and wearing a long, fake, Osama bin Laden-style beard.
"No particular reason we chose Canada," cast member Chris Taylor was quoted as saying on The Sydney Morning Herald's Web site. "We just thought they'd be a country who the cops wouldn't scrutinize too closely, and who feasibly would only have three cars in their motorcade as opposed to the 20 or so gas guzzlers that Bush has brought with him.
"Whatever you think of the humor of 'The Chaser,' the honest truth is they were clearly not going to harm anybody in a physical way," Downer said. "They presumably were, as is the nature of their show, aiming to humiliate a lot of well-known people."
T+L heads south to get a taste of some of Georgia's best homegrown talent.
Quinones
THE PLACE Clifford Harrison and Anne Quatrano, who preach the Alice Waters gospel, opened 36-seat Quinones (1198 Howell Mill Rd., Westside;
dinner for two $144) below their main restaurant, Bacchanalia.
Here, they dream up refined but not fussy 10-course tasting menus composed of heirloom produce from their farm.
New Southern Cooking doesn't get any tastier.
THE SCENE Moguls who own private jets and romantic couples who can't decide whether to dote on each other or on their buttercream-frosted tea cakes (cupcakes for grown-ups).
Table 1280
THE PLACE Part of the new $124 million Renzo Piano extension to the Woodruff Arts Center, Table 1280 (1280 Peachtree St.;
lunch for two $45) is a showcase of elegant minimalism:
two soaring, light-drenched white rooms with little in the way of embellishment but a pair of striking art installations.
Though chef Todd Immel, who trained under the great Gunther Seeger, one of the top toques in the United States, plays it safe here, the setting alone is worth the price of a meal.
THE SCENE By day, cashmere-draped ladies who lunch;
culture vultures at dinner, when the menu gets more ambitious and the space resembles a fantastical glowing aquarium.
Krogbar
dinner for two $40), a pocket-size wine bar from the owners of Rathbun's next door:
the amber lighting and the chic log-cabin feel;
the careful sourcing behind the anchovies, salumi and cheeses;
and the infectious enthusiasm of sommelier Jon Allen (he'll pour you a taste of any of his 50 wines by the glass).
HITS Lemony roasted artichokes;
braised pork with caramelized onions;
dainty almond butter, goat cheese, and apple tramezzini.
A virus found in healthy Australian honey bees may be playing a role in the collapse of honey bee colonies across the United States, researchers reported Thursday.
Colony collapse disorder has killed millions of bees up to 90 percent of colonies in some U.S. beekeeping operations imperiling the crops largely dependent upon bees for pollination, such as oranges, blueberries, apples and almonds.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture says honey bees are responsible for pollinating $15 billion worth of crops each year in the United States.
More than 90 fruits and vegetables worldwide depend on them for pollination.
Signs of colony collapse disorder were first reported in the United States in 2004, the same year American beekeepers started importing bees from Australia.
The virus identified in the healthy Australian bees is Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus (IAPV) named that because it was discovered by Hebrew University researchers.
Although worker bees in colony collapse disorder vanish, bees infected with IAPV die close to the hive, after developing shivering wings and paralysis.
For some reason, the Australian bees seem to be resistant to IAPV and do not come down with symptoms.
Scientists used genetic analyses of bees collected over the past three years and found that IAPV was present in bees that had come from colony collapse disorder hives 96 percent of the time.
But the study released Thursday on the Science Express Web site, operated by the journal Science, cautioned that collapse disorder is likely caused by several factors.
"This research give us a very good lead to follow, but we do not believe IAPV is acting alone," said Jeffery S. Pettis of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Bee Research Laboratory and a co-author of the study. "Other stressors on the colony are likely involved.
This could explain why bees in Australia may be resistant to colony collapse.
Rescuers searched for survivors of Hurricane Felix on Thursday as the death toll from the powerful storm rose to nearly 100, according to The Associated Press.
Ninety-eight Nicaraguans were killed, Abelino Cox told the AP.
Cox is the spokesman for the Regional Emergency Committee in Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua.
The bodies of 25 fishermen were found along Honduras' Miskito Coast, believed to be from a group of 109 Nicaraguan Miskito Indians who sought refuge in canoes when Felix hit, according to The Associated Press.
Authorities rescued 52 Miskito Indians who lived on low-lying reefs and keys off the coast, said Honduran Congresswoman Carolina Echeverria.
They survived the hurricane's deluge by grasping floating objects until help arrived, and bodies that could not be recovered were seen floating in the water, she said.
Jorge Ramon Arnesto Soza, executive secretary of the National System for the Prevention, Mitigation and Attention of Disasters, said the death toll was likely to increase as reports came in from remote areas.
Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras, who memorably performed alongside Luciano Pavarotti as the "Three Tenors," have led tributes to the opera singer who died Thursday at the age of 71 after battling cancer.
"The great tenor, Luciano Pavarotti, died today at 5:00 a.m. at his home in Modena, the city of his birth," his manager, Terri Robson, said in a statement.
"The Maestro fought a long, tough battle against the pancreatic cancer which eventually took his life. In fitting with the approach that characterized his life and work, he remained positive until finally succumbing to the last stages of his illness.
Robson said Pavarotti's wife, Nicoletta Mantovani, daughters and sister, along with other relatives and friends were at his side when he died.
"I always admired the God-given glory of his voice that unmistakable special timbre from the bottom up to the very top of the tenor range," Domingo said in a statement from Los Angeles.
Speaking to reporters in Sweden, Carreras said Pavarotti, whose vibrant high Cs and ebullient showmanship made him one of opera's most beloved performers, was one of the most important tenors in history.
""We all hoped for a miracle ... but unfortunately that was not possible, and now we have to regret that we lost a wonderful singer and a great man," said Carreras.
"We have to remember him as the great artist that he was, the man with such a wonderful charismatic personality, a very good friend and a great poker player.
Pavarotti, who once dreamed of being a soccer player, joined with Domingo and Carreras to perform during the 1990 World Cup in Italy.
Although critics complained that Pavarotti's vocal skills were waning, the trio performed together for 14 years.
"The Three Tenors in Concert," recorded in 1994, remains the best selling classical album of all time.
The mother of Madeleine McCann was interviewed by Portuguese police, as a witness, for a second time on Thursday amid reports of a possible forensic breakthrough in the hunt for the missing British 4-year-old girl.
The UK's Press Association reported Thursday that the UK-based Forensic Science Service (FSS) had uncovered "significant new information" after analyzing evidence taken from the holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, from which Madeleine disappeared.
Portuguese police said they were now giving special attention to the theory that Madeleine, who has been missing since early May, was dead, PA reported.
spokeswoman for the FSS told PA that tests were ongoing:
It's a live investigation and we are working with the police.
Kate McCann was previously interviewed on May 4, the day after Madeleine was reported missing.
Her husband, Gerry McCann, who has already been interviewed twice, was due to speak to police on Friday.
"Gerry and I want to appeal again to the person or people who took her or know who took her to do the right thing.
Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is about to appear in a new video, according to a banner ad posted by al Qaeda's media production company, As Sahab.
The terrorist watch group IntelCenter said it expected the video to be released within 72 hours.
It would come just days before the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks planned and executed by al Qaeda.
It was not clear how old the photograph was. Watch Wolf Blitzer's report on the video &raquo;
She said bin Laden's beard may have been dyed, the AP reported.
A U.S. intelligence official said the intelligence community is waiting to see if a video is, in fact, released.
"The most telling feature is if it is recent," said the official. The content could "say a lot about his situation, his health.
Bin Laden's most recent video appearance came days before the 2004 presidential vote and was widely credited with giving a boost to President Bush's re-election campaign.
It was embarrassing enough that Mark Stahnke woke up in a neighbor's yard without his pants.
Then he remembered they contained a cashier's check for $41,093, meant for his son, and several hundred dollars in cash.
But he got it all back Friday, including the pants, thanks to a man and his dog.
Stahnke said he doesn't know what happened between when he left the bar and when he woke up the next morning, and police were skeptical when he filed a report on Monday.
"We're used to hearing weird stories, but with his intoxication we figured this one would be different, that the amount of money wouldn't be exact," Police Lt. William Graham said.
"How do you get so intoxicated that you lose your pants?
Stahnke said he had met his son at a bar and doesn't remember much afterward.
"I woke up cold not knowing where the heck I was, and I didn't realize it at first because I still had my shoes and socks on," he said. "When I got up, I realized, my God, I don't have any pants."
Tim Curzan's dog, Joe, found the pants at an intersection, according to a police report.
He found the cashier's check and tried twice, unsuccessfully, to deliver it and the cash to where he thought the owner lived.
On Wednesday, the pants were still at the intersection, so Curzan took them to the police, who contacted Stahnke to claim his belongings.
American workers stay longer in the office, at the factory or on the farm than their counterparts in Europe and most other rich nations, and they produce more per person over the year.
They also get more done per hour than everyone but the Norwegians, according to a U.N. report released Monday, which said the United States "leads the world in labor productivity."
Norway, which is not an EU member, generates the most output per working hour, $37.99, a figure inflated by the country's billions of dollars in oil exports and high prices for goods at home.
The productivity figure is found by dividing the country's gross domestic product by the number of people employed.
The U.N. report is based on 2006 figures for many countries, or the most recent available.
"Halloween" came early and closed Hollywood's strong summer season with a record-breaking Labor Day weekend debut.
Rob Zombie's "Halloween" remake, starring Tyler Mane (center), set a Labor Day weekend record.
Sony's comedy "Superbad," the No. 1 movie the previous two weekends, slipped to second place with $15.6 million.
"Death Sentence," 20th Century Fox's revenge thriller starring Kevin Bacon, debuted at No. 8 with $5.2 million.
" 'Halloween' was far beyond anything we've seen on Labor Day," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Media By Numbers.
"It was just a perfect ending to a perfect summer. Hopefully, we can do this every year.
Parts of Southern California sweltered in triple-digit temperatures on Monday as a heat wave stretched into the seventh day and contributed to power outages that left thousands with without air conditioning.
Temperatures soared in the San Fernando Valley with Woodland Hills reporting 102 degrees and Van Nuys at 99, according to the National Weather Service.
Downtown Los Angeles also was expected to see temperatures climb above 100.
Southern California Edison said 20,000 customers in Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, Riverside and San Bernardino counties had no electricity, spokesman Steve Conroy said.
About 3,500 more customers in scattered parts of Los Angeles also were without power, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power spokeswoman MaryAnne Piersen said.
"Probably more than 90 percent of them are due to stress on the system due to the heat," she said. "Different pieces of equipment get fatigued and blow out, so they have to be replaced.
Lightning strikes on grid equipment due to scattered desert thunderstorms also were adding to the strain.
The California Independent System Operator, which oversees the state's power grid, said no major shortages were expected.
But it was urging customers to conserve electricity by setting air conditioning thermostats higher and waiting to use major appliances until after dark.
Relief was in sight with cooler temperatures forecast over the next several days.
"Everyone will see a drop of eight to 11 degrees on Tuesday," said Stuart Seto of the National Weather Service. "By Thursday, things will be getting back to normal."
European Super Cup winners Milan were brought back down to earth at the San Siro on Monday, as Fiorentina held them to a 1-1 draw in Serie A.
Milan, who beat Genoa 3-0 in their opening league game, join Fiorentina as one of seven teams with four points in the league table.
Fiorentina striker Adrian Mutu earned the visitors a point with a 56th-minute header after Milan playmaker Kaka had scored from the penalty spot in the 27th minute.
Earlier, Fiorentina defender Dario Dainelli had conceded a penalty when he tripped Massimo Ambrosini in the area.
Filippo Inzaghi wasted a golden chance to win the match in the 71st minute when Kaka slid the ball across the front of Fiorentina's goal.
Fiorentina could have won it late on but midfielder Zdravko Kuzmanovic hit the post.
"I am always angry when we don't get the maximum points, but in this case we did everything we possibly could," said Milan coach Carlo Ancelotti.
Brian Bonsall, who played Andy Keaton in "Family Ties," pleaded guilty to third-degree assault in a case involving his girlfriend and was sentenced to two years' probation, prosecutors said.
Three other charges against Bonsall, 25, were dismissed under a plea agreement entered on Friday.
He was arrested in March after his girlfriend told police he poured an alcoholic drink on her face while she slept, put her in a choke hold and threw her onto a bed when she tried to leave.
Bonsall told investigators he pushed her down in self-defense after she cut his arm and face with a steak knife.
Bonsall's lawyer, Paul McCormick, said Bonsall went through a 30-day rehab program and has been sober for over five months.
Prosecutor Peter Maguire said Bonsall has been compliant with sobriety monitoring.
McCormick said Bonsall, who is working in construction and playing in a band, has gotten back together with his girlfriend and they are in couples counseling.
Bonsall appeared in three seasons of "Family Ties," the NBC sitcom that helped launch Michael J. Fox's career in the 1980s.
He later appeared in episodes of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and the 1993 film "Father Hood. "
Even the closing of the Bay Bridge could not keep thousands of nostalgic flower children away from San Francisco's Golden Gate Park to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Summer of Love.
More than 100 performers, some who were there the first time around, took the stage Sunday in a free concert to commemorate the year San Francisco became the world's countercultural capital.
An estimated 50,000 people came together to celebrate peace, love and understanding, organizers said, despite the Labor Day weekend shutdown of the bridge connecting Oakland to San Francisco for repairs.
The nine-hour event began with blessings by Native American shamans and ended with Jolie Valente, son of the late Dino Valente of Quicksilver Messenger Service, singing his father's song "Get Together.
San Francisco police said the gathering proceeded harmoniously, with no major incidents reported.
A strip of honey-colored flypaper spirals down from a thumbtack that anchors its now-empty canister.
Speckled with lifeless flies, the canister swings each time the violin bow pokes it.
It's very tight quarters as the string quartet plays everything from Bach and Smetana to Czech folk favorites and 1930s anti-fascism blues.
The string bass player grooves like a white Satchmo his bow sliding in and out between diners.
I'm eating pork and potatoes in a small-town pub in the Czech Republic Trebon.
It could be just about any small town in Eastern Europe, but definitely not Western Europe.
What we think of as Eastern Europe (more correctly Central Europe) comes with old-fashioned flypaper and bandleaders with big moustaches.
It's changing fast and catching up to the West.
The bandleader plays a 100-year-old black wood flute.
The flautist sports a big bushy moustache just like the emperor Franz Josef who looks down from a yellowed poster above the door to the kitchen.
Above the quartet is a high window.
Teenage heads bob into sight straining and craning on tiptoe to look in.
As the night wears on, there are fewer tourists clicking photos and more locals singing along.
Crossing the border into the Czech Republic, I stow my desire for good wine and become a beer lover.
Here, beer is the default drink.
It hits your table like a glass of water does in the States.
On my early trips before I learned that Czech beer is more powerful than other beers I used to have a big beer at lunch and spend the rest of the day wobbly, sightseeing on what I called "Czech knees."
Now, when in the Czech Republic, I resist a momentum-killing beer at lunch and finish each day with a fresh draft beer (tonight's is still trying to kill my momentum as I type).
The man who bought me my beer noted, "These days, with the European Union opening things up, many Poles and Hungarians are going west to France and Germany to get jobs.
But not the Czechs.
We can't find good enough beer anywhere but here.
Our beer keeps us glued to these bar chairs. "
(CNN) Two British soldiers were killed and another soldier and an interpreter were wounded in a bomb blast Wednesday in the Helmand province of Afghanistan, Britain's Defense Ministry said.
Also on Wednesday, Afghan police and coalition troops battled Taliban militants in southern Afghanistan and killed more than two dozen of the insurgents, the U.S.-led coalition said.
The fighting occurred more than 10 miles northwest of the Sangin District Center in Helmand province when militants ambushed Afghan National Auxiliary Police officers and coalition advisers on a combat patrol, the coalition said.
The fighting started when a "squad-size element of extremist Taliban" ambushed "the patrol with small-arms, machine gun and rocket-propelled grenade fire from several buildings within the village limits," the coalition said.
The militants "reinforced their positions with additional fighters and also started firing from an extensive trench line located throughout the village," it said.
Coalition aircraft were called in and pounded "positively identified enemy positions using precision guided munitions.
In eastern Afghanistan's Ghazni province, U.S.-led coalition forces and Afghan soldiers killed "several militants" after armed insurgents attacked the troops early Wednesday.
Iraq's Interior Ministry is regarded as "dysfunctional and sectarian," and the National Police should be "disbanded and reorganized," according to an independent report obtained by CNN.
The report, ordered by Congress, comes less than a week before the White House is expected to provide to lawmakers a highly anticipated assessment of President Bush's addition this year of some 30,000 troops to Iraq.
Part of the reason for the increase was to reduce sectarian killings that have spread throughout much of Iraq since 2006.
It "suffers from ineffective leadership" and "is widely regarded as dysfunctional and sectarian," the report says.
"Such fundamental flaws present a serious obstacle to achieving the levels of readiness, capability, and effectiveness in police and border security forces that are essential for internal security and stability in Iraq," the report says.
Archaeologists digging in northern Israel have discovered evidence of a 3,000-year-old beekeeping industry, including remnants of ancient honeycombs, beeswax and what they believe are the oldest intact beehives ever found.
The findings in the ruins of the city of Rehov this summer include 30 intact hives dating to around 900 B.C., archaeologist Amihai Mazar of Jerusalem's Hebrew University told The Associated Press.
He said it offers unique evidence that an advanced honey industry existed in the Holy Land at the time of the Bible.
Beekeeping was widely practiced in the ancient world, where honey was used for medicinal and religious purposes as well as for food, and beeswax was used to make molds for metal and to create surfaces to write on.
The beehives, made of straw and unbaked clay, have a hole at one end to allow the bees in and out and a lid on the other end to allow beekeepers access to the honeycombs inside.
They were found in orderly rows, three high, in a room that could have accommodated around 100 hives, Mazar said.
But the new find shows that the Holy Land was home to a highly developed beekeeping industry nearly 3,000 years ago.
"You can tell that this was an organized industry, part of an organized economy, in an ultra-organized city," Mazar said.
At the time the beehives were in use, Mazar believes Rehov had around 2,000 residents, a mix of Israelites, Canaanites and others.
Rep. Paul Gillmor of Ohio was found dead in his apartment in the nation's capital Wednesday, leadership aides for both the Republican and Democratic parties said. Gillmor, a Republican, was 68.
House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, told fellow congressmen on the floor of the House that their colleague died "suddenly overnight.
"He was a good friend to all of us," said a somber Boehner. "He's going to be missed by us all.
Gillmor, the deputy minority whip, was in his 10th term in the House, representing the 5th Congressional District in the northwest part of the Buckeye state.
He was a member of the House Committee on Financial Services, and the ranking Republican on the Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit.
Gillmor also served on the Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance and Government Sponsored-Enterprises and the Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity.
He was elected to Congress in 1988, after serving in the Ohio State Senate for 22 years, where he was elected Republican leader five times.
Three senior U.S. Marine Corps officers have been sanctioned in connection with the killings of 24 civilians in Haditha, Iraq, but it was determined they didn't commit any crimes, the Marine Corps said Wednesday.
"While these three officers have served their country and Corps exceedingly well for decades, their actions, inactions and decisions in the aftermath of the Haditha incident did not meet the high standards we expect of Marine senior officer leadership," Gen. James T. Conway, commandant of the Marine Corps, said in a written statement.
Maj. Gen. Richard A. Huck, former commanding general of the 2nd Marine Division;
Huck's letter was "for the actions he took and failed to take in response to the circumstances" surrounding the incident in Haditha, the Marine Corps said in the statement.
Davis was sanctioned for failing to take appropriate action when informed of the incident, and Sokoloski was censured "for his unsatisfactory performance of duty.
The letters of censure, the highest administrative punishment an officer can receive, will be filed in the officers' official military records, the Marine Corps said.
Navy Secretary Donald Winter signed the letters of censure on Wednesday, Marine officials said.
Former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega's extradition to France was stayed Wednesday.
Noriega, 69, is scheduled to be released Sunday from a Florida prison after serving 17¨ö years of his 40-year sentence.
Noriega was captured in January 1990, following a U.S. invasion of Panama in December 1989.
His attorneys have argued that Hoeveler declared Noriega a prisoner of war, according to The Associated Press.
Denis Simmoneau, deputy spokesman for the French Foreign Ministry, said in August that Noriega would be treated as a prisoner of war in France but that he would not officially be given that status.
"He will certainly benefit from the same rights as a prisoner of war, but we will not give him the status of prisoner of war because, obviously, he is not a war prisoner.
LONDON, England (CNN) Police arrested Jude Law after he allegedly attacked a photographer outside his London home.
The actor, however, denied the allegations on Wednesday.
The photographer accused him of trying to grab his camera during a scuffle late Tuesday, Britain's Press Association reported.
The 34-year-old actor, whose films include "The Talented Mr. Ripley," "Alfie," "Cold Mountain," and "Closer," voluntarily went to a West London police station after the incident, his lawyer, Graham Shear, said.
"Mr. Law provided the police with a statement regarding his denials of allegations by a paparazzi photographer against him and made his own allegations concerning the photographer," Shear said.
He said he would not comment further while police were investigating.
Law presented a lifetime achievement award to Michael Caine at a Tuesday night ceremony organized by GQ magazine.
Law recently returned from the Venice Film Festival, where he was promoting the remake of the movie "Sleuth," in which he co-stars with Caine.
ROME, Italy (CNN) Luciano Pavarotti, who has pancreatic cancer, was in "very serious" condition, the Italian news agency AGI reported Wednesday.
The 71-year-old was at home in Modena being cared for by doctors from the local hospital, where he underwent two weeks of tests and treatment in August, the news agency said, without citing any sources.
Calls and e-mails sent to Pavarotti's manager, Terri Robson, were not returned.
Pavarotti was released from the hospital August 25, more than two weeks after he was admitted with a high fever. At the time, Robson denied Italian news reports that he had been treated for pneumonia.
The opera star had surgery for the cancer in July 2006 in a New York hospital.
Pancreatic cancer is one of the most deadly forms of the disease, though doctors said the surgery offered improved hopes for survival.
At the time of the operation, Pavarotti had been preparing to resume his farewell tour.
WASHINGTON (CNN) Six nuclear warheads on cruise missiles were mistakenly carried on a flight from North Dakota to Louisiana last week, prompting a major investigation, military officials have confirmed.
The plane took the cruise missiles from Minot Air Force Base to Barksdale Air Force Base for decommissioning Thursday, the Air Force said.
"This is a major gaffe, and it's going to cause some heads to roll down the line," said Don Shepperd, a retired Air Force major general and military analyst for CNN.
The crew was unaware that the plane was carrying nuclear weapons, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the extraordinary sensitivity and security surrounding the case.
The mistake was discovered after the plane's flight to Louisiana.
"Secretary [of Defense Robert] Gates was quickly informed of this incident ... and he has been receiving daily briefings from Gen. Buzz Moseley, the Air Force chief of staff, on actions that the Air Force is taking and the progress of their investigation," Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell told reporters Wednesday.
Military officials told CNN that the incident was a major breach of security rules surrounding nuclear weapons. One official said that he could not recall anything similar happening.
Once the mistake was discovered, the Air Force immediately began an inventory of all of its nuclear weapons, a military official said.
Maj. Gen. Douglas Raaberg, director of Air and Space Operations at the Air Combat Command in Langley, Virginia, has been ordered to investigate how the nuclear-tipped missiles were flown across the country without anyone knowing, officials said.
A military official told CNN there was no nuclear risk to public safety because the weapons were not armed. Officials believe that if the plane had crashed or the missiles somehow had fallen off the wings, the warheads would have remained inert and there would have been no nuclear detonation, though conventional explosive material in the warhead could have detonated.
Shepperd agreed with military officials that the situation could not have caused a nuclear detonation.
BERLIN, Germany (CNN) German authorities have arrested three men on suspicion of planning attacks on Frankfurt's International Airport and the U.S. military base in Ramstein, according to a statement from the German Attorney General's office.
The suspects are said to be members of an "Islamist-motivated terrorist group" and are expected to go before the judge at the federal magistrate.
"There was an imminent threat," German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung told Germany's ARD broadcaster.
The Sudwestrundfunk public broadcaster reported that two suspects had German citizenship while the third was Pakistani.
It also said the men were arrested Tuesday evening and were close to carrying out the attacks.
Ramstein Air Base is located in western Germany in Rhineland-Palatinate state and is a major transit point for the U.S. military into the Middle East and Central Asia.
VENICE, Italy (CNN) Nobody worry about me, says Bill Murray.
He was just dropping off people after a party when he was stopped in downtown Stockholm driving a golf cart.
The police "asked me to come over and they assumed that I was drunk and I explained to them that I was a golfer," Murray told reporters Monday at the Venice Film Festival, where he appeared before the premiere of his new film "The Darjeeling Limited.
The actor-comedian, who was among the early cast members on NBC's "Saturday Night Live" and was nominated for an Oscar for 2003's "Lost in Translation," said he was in Stockholm last month to play in a pro-am golf tournament, and hitched a ride to a post-event party in a golf cart.
When no one wanted to drive home, he volunteered.
I had about six people in the thing and I dropped them off one at a time and as the last couple were getting out, who wished to be dropped off at a 7-Eleven. ...
Swedish police took a blood test after he refused a breath test.
NEW YORK (CNN) A public school in New York that will teach Arabic language and culture opened Tuesday amid accusations that it will impose a radical Islamist agenda in its classrooms.
About a dozen security guards and police officers were on patrol Tuesday when the Brooklyn school opened, mainly to shepherd the throngs of reporters covering the event.
Carmen Colon was thrilled at the prospect of sending her 11-year-old son to the school.
According to its Web site, International Academy's goal is "to prepare students for college and successful careers and to foster an understanding of different cultures, a love of learning, and desire for excellence in all of its students."
But a group called "Stop the Madrassa" insists there's a more sinister agenda and is demanding the academy be closed.
"We are paying with our public dollar for a religious school, a madrassa," said Pamela Hall, a member of the group.
"In terms of the curriculum, if it's a New York City public school, it has to go by New York City standards," said Deborah Howard. "I'm Jewish. I would never be a part of a school that would in any way be involved with Islamic fundamentalists.
Much of the criticism was directed at the school's Arab-American founding principal, Debbie Almontaser.
Two local tabloids reported claims she had ties to Islamic extremist organizations.
Soon after, Almontaser resigned and the city replaced her with a Jewish principal who doesn't speak Arabic.
BEIJING, China (CNN) China on Tuesday denied a report that its military had hacked into Pentagon computers, saying the allegations were "groundless" and that Beijing was opposed to cybercrime.
The Financial Times, citing unnamed officials, reported Monday that the People's Liberation Army hacked into a computer system in the office of Defense Secretary Robert Gates in June. The attack forced officials to take down the network for more than a week, the report said.
"Some people make groundless accusations against China" that its military attacked the Pentagon, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said at a regular news briefing.
"China is ready to strengthen cooperation with other countries, including the U.S., in countering Internet crimes.
The Financial Times report said the Pentagon was still investigating how much information was stolen, but cited an unnamed person as saying that most of it was probably unclassified.
On Wednesday, The Guardian newspaper in London reported that Chinese hackers launched online assaults against the network at the Britain's Parliament and the Foreign Office. The Guardian cited anonymous government officials.
The British government, its Ministry of Defense and its Foreign Office declined comment on the Guardian report.
And in Beijing, a woman who answered the phone at the spokesman's office of the Foreign Ministry and would not give her name said:
"At yesterday's regular presser, we already answered a similar question.
At the time, Premier Wen Jiabao called the reported hacking a "matter of grave concern" and said China would take "firm and effective action" to prevent such crimes.
The Associated Press reported in July that the State Department was trying to recover from large-scale network break-ins affecting operations worldwide.
Shaquille O'Neal has filed to divorce his wife after nearly five years of marriage, his attorney said Tuesday night.
Attorney Ira Elegant said the petition was filed on behalf of the Miami Heat center in Miami-Dade Circuit Court on Tuesday.
The Heat did not have an immediate comment, and Shaquille O'Neal did not respond to a request for comment made through the team.
According to the filing, which was first reported by The Miami Herald on its Web site Tuesday night, Shaquille O'Neal is asking Shaunie O'Neal to provide a "correct accounting of all money, funds, stocks, bonds, and other securities" that she had access to or obtained during the marriage.
They are the parents of six children;
Shaquille and Shaunie O'Neal had four together, and each had one other before their Dec. 26, 2002 wedding.
The couple has also listed their home on Miami Beach's posh Star Island for about $32 million, or roughly $13 million than they paid for it after O'Neal was traded to the Heat by the Los Angeles Lakers before the 2004-05 season.
Two bomb blasts killed at least 21 people and wounded 74 in Rawalpindi a city next to Islamabad Tuesday morning, Pakistani police and hospital sources said.
One of the explosions was caused by a bomb hidden on a bus carrying government employees, police said.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks, police said.
Pakistan, a key ally of the United States in its war on terror, has been hit by numerous bomb attacks this year.
At least 49 people were killed in bomb attacks across the country on July 19 alone.
Militants linked to the Taliban in the area near the Afghan border say a truce reached with the Pakistani government last September is off.
The Pakistani government has sent tribal elders to meet with militant leaders in the area in hopes of reviving the peace deal.
Now, U.S. intelligence officials say al Qaeda has established a "safe haven" in Waziristan, just over the border into Pakistan, and that Osama bin Laden is believed to be in the area.
Tuesday's record bid took place ahead of the public opening on November 14 of the new stretch of track in southeast England and a new Eurostar terminal at London's St. Pancras station.
The train, which completed the 492-kilometer (306-mile) journey in two hours and three minutes, was the first to travel on a new &pound;
5.8 billion high-speed route which runs for 68 miles from the Channel Tunnel near Folkestone in Kent to central London.
Eurostar chief executive Richard Brown said the train's arrival in London was a great achievement for his company and a massive step forward for rail travel as it tries to compete against low-cost airlines.
Brown said, as he stepped off the train at St. Pancras, that he felt "elated" that a new record had been set.
"We were feeling pretty excited this morning although slightly apprehensive about the journey ahead, but we have proved the success of the high-speed line."
Brown said the company was confident that when scheduled services begin between the French and British capitals on November 14 the journey would take two hours and 15 minutes.
He spoke of his excitement at being involved in the record journey and said he believed the record time would never be beaten. "I feel very honored to have driven the train today," said the 52-year-old.
"It felt very good to be at the controls today and I believe this is a record which will probably never be broken.
Few tourists or residents had expected much trouble, but they woke to dangerous winds, closed airports and forecasts of a direct hit.
"I've been hearing it from the wife, coming to Cabo during the hurricane season," said Derek Dunlap, a 45-year-old engineer from San Francisco.
"I was going to roll the dice, and well, here we go.
Henriette was on a path to drench Mexico's northern deserts, and its remnants are forecast to drop an inch or two of rain on Arizona and New Mexico in the Southwest on Thursday night. Follow Henriette's projected path &raquo;
The Mexican government declared a state of emergency in southern Baja California. See the storm's impact in Los Cabos, Mexico &raquo;
A deep-sea fishing trip was out of the question for Cynthia White, a 64-year-old retiree from Fort Myers, Florida, who spent hours before the storm watching waves break against the resort's famous rock arch.
"We're Florida tourists, so we know what it's about," White said. "It didn't ruin the vacation, but it ain't helping the case.
Henriette claimed seven lives even before it strengthened into a hurricane.
One woman drowned in high surf in Cabo San Lucas on Monday, and the storm caused flooding and landslides that killed six people in Acapulco.
NORTH KINGSTOWN, Rhode Island (CNN) A man has been charged with extorting more than $20,000 from his elderly mother by repeatedly threatening to kidnap her beloved cat and demanding ransom, police said.
Garry Lamar, 47, was arrested Friday and released on $200 bail.
He has been ordered to stay away from his 78-year-old mother, Mary Lamar Grancher.
He started threatening to kidnap his the cat just over a year ago, after his mother kicked him out of her home, accusing him of abuse, North Kingstown Police Sgt. Daniel Ormond said.
During the past year, Lamar allegedly kidnapped the cat once and made kidnapping threats on an almost weekly basis, Ormond said.
Police don't believe the cat was harmed but are continuing to investigate.
Grancher made at least two dozen payments totaling more than $20,000 in cash and checks to her son.
NEW YORK (CNN) The Consumer Product Safety Commission, in cooperation with Mattel Inc., announced late Tuesday that it is recalling about 700,000 Chinese-made toys that have excessive amounts of lead paint.
The recall covers 675,000 units of various Barbie accessory toys that were manufactured between September 30, 2006, and August 20, 2007.
The action also involves 8,900 different toys involving Big Big World 6-in-1 Bongo Band toys from the company's Fisher-Price brand.
Those products were sold nationwide from July 2007 through August 2007.
"We've promised consumers that we'd tell them efficiently and openly if we found any additional affected toys, and that is what we are doing today," Mattel said in a statement.
to everyone affected and promise that we will continue to focus on ensuring the safety and quality of our toys," the company said.
Tuesday's announcement marks Mattel's third major toy recall of Chinese-made products because of lead paint in a matter of a month.
Mattel's last recall, announced on August 14, covered about 19 million toys worldwide.
They included Chinese-made toys that either had excessive amounts of lead paint or had small magnets that could easily be swallowed by children.
On August 1, Mattel's Fisher-Price division said it was recalling 1.5 million preschool toys featuring characters such as Dora the Explorer, Big Bird and Elmo because of lead paint.
That action included 967,000 toys sold in the United States between May and August.
brain damage when ingested by young children.
(CNN) A Taliban commander who masterminded the July kidnapping of South Korean aid workers was among 16 militants killed by U.S.-led coalition forces and Afghan soldiers, according to a police official.
The coalition press center said the military operation was targeting Taliban militants suspected of hiding out in an area in Qarabagh district, in eastern Afghanistan's Ghazni Province.
"During the course of operations the forces were engaged by small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades," the coalition said.
"Qari Mateen, a Taliban commander, who along with Abdullah Jan masterminded the kidnapping of South Koreans, was among the dead militants," Ghazni Police Chief Alishah Ahmadzai said.
He said two Pakistani nationals from the Punjab province and one Arab were among the dead.
The coalition said there were "no indications of injuries or deaths to non-combatants," although some damage was done to buildings and fields.
(CNN) Searchers combed rugged terrain in western Nevada on Tuesday for multimillionaire adventurer Steve Fossett, missing since he left a private airstrip Monday morning in search of test sites.
Fossett is the first person to solo around the world in a balloon, and has broken numerous other flight records.
On Monday, he was scouting a course for an attempt to break the land speed record, said Maj. Cynthia S. Ryan, a Civil Air Patrol spokeswoman.
He had planned to return to the ranch, which is about 30 miles south of Yerington, Nevada, at noon (3 p.m. ET). The search for him began about six hours later, Ryan said.
Fossett did not file a flight plan, which is not required on flights using visual navigation.
When he left, he had four to five hours of fuel for flight, said Ryan.
"Steve took off toward the south and was going to fly southbound, looking around for some dry lake beds for some plans he had for the future," Ryan said.
Those plans, she said, involved testing a vehicle in an attempt to set a world land speed record.
The aircraft, with serial number 635-80, was manufactured by Bellanca, and is registered to the Flying M Hunting Club Inc. in Yerington.
"The ranch he took off from covers a huge area, and Steve has had far tougher challenges to overcome in the past.
Based on his track record, I feel confident we'll get some good news soon.
Virgin Atlantic sponsored the GlobalFlyer, which Fossett flew in 2005 during the first nonstop, solo flight around the world without refueling.
In 2002, he achieved the first solo balloon flight around the world, traveling 20,626 miles in 14 days.
CNN.com interviewed Fossett last year after he published a book about his life's passion for breaking world records, titled "Chasing the Wind.
Asked how long he'll keep going, Fossett answered, "I imagine that when I'm 80 years old and sitting in a wheelchair that I might do something like take a remote control airplane and try and fly it around the world. I plan to be setting and breaking records indefinitely.
The aviator was in Sparks, Nevada, northeast of Reno, in August, preparing a jet racer to break the land speed record at Bonneville Flats in northwest Utah.
Fossett was born in Jackson, Tennessee, but grew up in California, where he attended Stanford University, graduating with a degree in economics in 1966.
Riding all-terrain vehicles in the hilly countryside was a frequent pursuit for 13-year-old Rikki Howard and her 10-year-old sister, Casie Hicks, and their family, a neighbor said Monday.
But the terrain and clumps of brush concealed a derelict mine shaft, not uncommon in a state with a long history of gold and silver prospecting.
On Saturday night Rikki and Casie were riding an ATV, their father ahead of them on a dirt bike outside this northwestern Arizona community, a collection of homes scattered in the desert.
Their father noticed they were no longer behind him.
When the entrance was discovered, the father called out and one of the girls answered, officials said.
Rescuers rappelled into the shaft and found the girls and their vehicle at the bottom.
Rikki was found dead in the shaft.
Casie was upgraded to serious condition Monday at University Medical Center in Las Vegas.
He said he talked to the girls' father. Of the mine, Johnson said, "It's like a serpent's mouth waiting to swallow you up.
Two call girls have dropped assault charges against the nephew of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, Britain's Crown Prosecution Service said Monday.
The two women had alleged they were beaten up by Mohammed al-Sanussi, 26, at his London home on November 17.
Sanussi was arrested after police went to the house.
One of the women, Karen Etchebery, claimed she was followed shortly after going to police.
"I withdrew from the case because I was scared," she told the Sunday Times and the Daily Mail newspapers. The case began three weeks ago in London's Blackfriars court but the judge issued a gag order that shielded al-Sanussi's nationality and all but silenced any coverage of the case.
Al-Sanussi's father, Abdullah, is the head of Libya's intelligence service and Gadhafi's brother-in-law.
Libyan officials also allegedly raised the matter during former British Prime Minister Tony Blair's trip to Tripoli when a major gas deal was announced.
The leader of an Islamist militant group may be among the 39 insurgents killed as Lebanese forces overtook a Palestinian refugee camp where militants had holed up and staged attacks for months, according to a Lebanese official and media reports Monday
Authorities were conducting DNA tests on tissue samples from a body believed to be Shaker al-Abssi, the leader of Fatah al-Islam, said a military source familiar with operations inside the Nahr el-Bared camp near Tripoli.
Though the Lebanese army could not immediately confirm the report, media outlets were reporting that al-Abssi is among the dead.
An army source told Al-Jazeera that al-Abssi's wife and daughter identified his corpse at a Tripoli hospital.
Nasser Adra, a hospital director in Tripoli, told The Associated Press that al-Abssi's wife and two captured militants identified the body.
Adra said, however, he could not officially confirm the identity, according to the AP.
Some Lebanese and Syrian officials have cited links between Fatah al-Islam and al Qaeda, but al-Abssi told the Arabic daily newspaper Asharq al-Awsat in March that his group had no "organizational connection" to al Qaeda.
In 2004, a Jordanian military court convicted al-Abssi and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in absentia for the 2002 murder of Laurence Foley, a U.S. diplomat who was gunned down in front of his Amman home.
Al-Zarqawi, who later became leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, was killed in a U.S. airstrike north of Baghdad last year.
Lebanese Defense Minister Elias Murr repeatedly has said he wants al-Abssi "dead or alive.
VENICE, Italy (CNN) Brad Pitt and his partner Angelina Jolie are ready for another child, the actor said Sunday as he was promoting his new film.
Pitt and Jolie, with children in tow, were in Venice to talk about his film on Western outlaw Jesse James.
The movie is competing for the top Golden Lion award at the city's film festival.
Pitt and Jolie already have four children including a 15-month-old girl, Shiloh, born to the couple.
Jolie has also adopted three children close in age from Cambodia, Ethiopia and Vietnam.
Asked by Italian state TV whether they were ready for a fifth, Pitt replied: "Yeah, we're ready.
He did not indicate whether they planned another biological child or if they would adopt.
Earlier on Sunday, Pitt told a news conference fatherhood was fun and good for his work, though he's not getting much sleep.
"I love it and can't recommend it any more highly although sleep is nonexistent.
Having four small children "makes me much more efficient because when I work, I really have to focus" said Pitt.
Pitt described it as "more a gangster film than a Western.
Mittal Steel Co. NV wrapped up the first part of its $41 billion takeover of rival Arcelor SA by combining with ArcelorMittal.
When the second phase of the deal is completed, it will create the world's largest steel company with about 10 percent of the global steel market.
ArcelorMittal, based in Luxembourg and already operating as a single company, started trading shares Monday on Euro next in Amsterdam, Paris, Brussels and smaller bourses in Spain.
The steel maker will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange from Tuesday when it reopens after the Labor Day holiday.
Arcelor shareholders have not yet formally approved the merger, though more than 90 percent tendered their shares to Mittal's August 2006 offer.
ArcelorMittal has said it will give details on how it plans to move on with the final stages of the deal before the end of September
The second phase will be governed by Luxembourg
Coastal Living(CNN)There's a stillness that permeates the streets and the water in Irvington, Virginia.
The glasslike surface of Carter's Creek is so calm you can't help but touch it to see if you'll cause a ripple.
The scent of warm, dry grass fills the air.
Colors appear softer.
A former steamboat port, Irvington is reestablishing itself as the hub of the state's Northern Neck.
Just three hours from Washington, D.C., the town that George Washington called the "Garden of Virginia" still serves as a quiet getaway from the city.
But now it also offers two fine inns, several upscale restaurants and trendy shops.
The Dandelion once a church parsonage fills its two floors with apparel, accessories and gifts. River Cottage's 19th-century building is as captivating as its merchandise:
Check out the wavy-glass windows and original flooring from Washington, D.C.'s historic ,Willard Hotel.
Although still largely undiscovered, Irvington revels in its new identity as a destination thanks in part to the Tides Inn.
Renovated in 2002, the 480-acre resort features 106 rooms overlooking Carter's Creek and a 64-slip marina.
Guests can golf, bike, play croquet, and take sailing lessons at the resort's Premier Sailing School.
Owner Dudley Patteson says he encourages guests to "step away from what's going on in life and reconnect.
That's easy to do this time of year, when autumn brightens the town's trees, and straw-color mums decorate Victorian porches on King Carter Drive.
ATHENS, Greece(CNN) Sevilla paid a fitting tribute to former full-back Antonio Puerta by storming into the Champions League group phase with a 4-1 win over AEK Athens.
That completed a 6-1 aggregate victory for the Spaniards in a match that was delayed following the untimely death of the Spanish international full-back last week from multiple organ failure following a cardiac arrest during a league match just days earlier.
Double reigning UEFA Cup champions Sevilla had the match and the tie sewn up by half-time after romping into a 3-0 lead.
Two goals from Brazilian striker Fabiano, one from the penalty spot, and a goal from Seydou Keita had the Andalusians in cruise control.
In the second half, Sevilla moved further ahead in the 53rd minute
Sevilla will now face Arsenal, Slavia Prague and Steaua Bucharest in the group stages while AEK will play in the UEFA Cup.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will press for speedy deployment of a 26,000-strong peacekeeping force in Darfur and a quick start to new peace talks to end the four-year conflict there during his visit to Sudan starting Monday.
"I want to create the foundations of a lasting peace and security," Ban told reporters last week.
"My goal is to lock in the progress we have made so far, to build on it so that this terrible trauma may one day cease.
It authorizes a 26,000-strong joint force from the African Union and the United Nations to replace the beleaguered 7,000-strong AU mission now in Darfur by December 31.
Sudan is accused of retaliating by unleashing Arab militias known as the janjaweed and responsible for much of the violence.
Hurricane Felix weakened Monday to a Category 4 storm, but the National Hurricane Center warned it's still dangerous and could strengthen.
As of 8 p.m. ET, Felix was packing 135 mph (215 km/h) winds and its center was 205 miles (325 km) east of Cabo Gracias a Dios on the Nicaragua-Honduras border.
"Felix is expected to remain a major hurricane, at least Category 3, until it makes landfall, and some restrengthening is possible prior to landfall," forecasters said Monday evening.
It is expected to hit the Central American coastline early Tuesday morning, according to the hurricane center based in Miami, Florida.
The Nicaraguan government issued a hurricane warning from Puerto Cabezas northward to the Honduras-Nicaragua border, the center said.
A hurricane watch remains in effect for Honduras west of Limon, for the Caribbean coast of Guatemala, and for the entire coast of Belize.
A watch means hurricane conditions are possible within 36 hours. Felix is expected to impact prime Honduran real estate along the coast.
In addition, the Colombian government Monday afternoon issued a tropical storm warning for Isla de Providencia.
Tropical storm conditions, including sustained winds of more than 39 mph, were forecast there Monday night, the NHC said.
The United States has denied claims from Pyongyang that North Korea has been taken off the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.
The North Koreans have several things they need to do on key areas first."
The official was not authorized to discuss sensitive details of diplomatic discussions on the record, and spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity.
Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, the chief U.S. negotiator, said in Geneva that North Korean officials agreed they "will provide a full declaration of all of their nuclear programs and will disable their nuclear programs by the end of this year.
Hill said the agreement followed "very good and very substantive" talks between the two nations.
"In return for this the U.S. decided to take such political and economic measures for compensation as de-listing the DPRK as a terrorism sponsor and lifting all sanctions that have been applied according to the Trading with the Enemy Act. "This has laid a groundwork for making progress at the plenary session of the six-party talks to be held in the future.
The five nations currently on the State Department's State Sponsors of Terrorism list are Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Syria. North Korea was put on the list in January 1988.
PANAMA CITY, Panama (CNN) Panama blasted away part of a hillside next to the canal on Monday, marking the start of the waterway's biggest expansion since it opened 93 years ago.
In the presence of former President Carter, who signed the 1977 treaty that gave Panama control of the waterway, Panamanian President Martin Torrijos celebrated the start of construction
"We are witnesses to an exceptional and unique act," Torrijos said moments after the explosion.
The $5.25 billion expansion is expected to double the 50-mile canal's capacity
About two-thirds of the cargo that passed through the canal is headed to or from the United States.
China is the Panama Canal's second-largest user.
The new locks, approved in a referendum nearly a year ago, are expected to be ready for use between 2014 and 2015.
The Panama Canal Authority, the autonomous government agency that runs the canal, is borrowing up to $2.3 billion between 2009 and 2011 to help finance the project.
It expects to pay that back by increasing ship tolls an average of 3.5 percent a year.
"I'm proud of the grand plans for this expansion," said Carter, who signed the 1977 treaty with Torrijos' father, strongman Omar Torrijos, that led to the U.S. handover of the canal to Panama on December 31, 1999.
Under Panama's control, canal accidents and the time needed to transverse the canal are down, while revenues have increased.
President Theodore Roosevelt arranged for Panama's independence from Colombia in 1903 to build the canal.
VENICE, Italy (CNN) Owen Wilson is doing well as he recovers from an apparent suicide attempt, and is even making colleagues laugh, the director of his latest film said Monday.
"Obviously he has been through a lot this week," said Wes Anderson, who directed Wilson in "The Darjeeling Limited," one of the films in competition for the Venice Film Festival's top award.
Wilson and Anderson have worked together for more than a decade, in pictures including "The Royal Tenenbaums.
The 38-year-old Wilson was taken by ambulance to a hospital last week after police responded to a call about a suicide attempt at his Santa Monica home.
The day after he was hospitalized, he issued a statement asking for privacy so he could "receive care and heal.
Adrien Brody, who plays one of the brothers, described how it was to work with Wilson on the set.
After being hospitalized, Wilson dropped out of the upcoming DreamWorks movie, "Tropic Thunder," which was already in production in Hawaii.
After months of successive heat waves, heavy rainstorms flooded parts of northern Greece on Sunday.
Fires burned near Polydroso near Mount Parnon, in the southeastern Peloponnese, as strong winds and bone-dry conditions kept fire officials on high alert.
Fire Department spokesman Nikos Diamandis said that major fires in three other provinces of the Peloponnese had been put out, while a blaze on the eastern island of Chios was under control.
While rain would relieve exhausted firefighting units, officials also fear that downpours could cause flooding in fire-stricken areas.
The official death toll rose to 65 Sunday when a seriously burned man on the island of Evia died in a hospital.
Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis, who faces general elections Sept. 16, toured fire-stricken areas Monday.
Karamanlis also visited Tripolis in the Peloponnese.
The Finance Ministry said the European Investment Bank would be making a $1.35 million long-term loan to Greece to help reconstruction efforts, with more to come.
VATICAN CITY, Italy (CNN) A cadet in the Vatican police force was found fatally shot in the head early Monday inside the barracks, in what officials said was an apparent suicide over a breakup with a girlfriend.
The incident rekindled memories of the 1998 murder-suicide behind the Vatican walls, in which a 23-year-old Swiss Guard allegedly killed his commander.
Colleagues found Alessandro Benedetti, 26, mortally wounded in the barracks bathroom Monday morning. He later died at a nearby hospital.
"Early clues lead (us) to believe that the young man wanted to kill himself," Vatican spokesman, the Reverend Federico Lombardi, said in a statement.
Vatican officials said Benedetti was distraught over a recent breakup.
Pope Benedict XVI was saddened at the news and expressed solidarity with the man's family and the police corps, the statement said.
The pope was not at the Vatican at the time; he was at the papal summer residence at Castel Gandolfo, in the hills south of Rome.
Benedetti joined the Vatican police corps in April, the statement said.
He had taken psychological tests and his behavior so far had not raised any worries, Lombardi said.
Security consultants said suicide rates were often higher among law enforcement officers than in the civilian population, primarily because of job pressures.
The Vatican police force, currently about 150-strong, protects the pope and other Vatican officials during public appearances, travel with the pope and deal with crimes inside the Vatican.
It was a Vatican policeman who grabbed a German man who was trying to jump on Benedict's open pope-mobile during a weekly audience in June, in an episode that rekindled debate of the pontiff's security during his public appearances.
The Vatican's other law enforcement force, the Swiss Guards, have ceremonial and some security duties.
The force about 110 men, all of them Swiss Catholics are known for their colorful uniforms.
In May 1998, the Swiss Guards commander and his wife were shot dead in their Vatican apartment.
The Vatican said a disgruntled young corporal, whose body was also found in the apartment, killed them both, then shot himself.
AL ASAD AIR BASE, Iraq (CNN) President Bush made a surprise visit to an Iraqi air base Monday, saying fewer U.S. forces may be able to maintain security at its current level.
During a rally for troops at the base, Bush said any pullout would be made from a position of "strength and success.
The White House is due to deliver to Congress next week an assessment on Bush's increase of 30,000 troops to Iraq this year.
"People shouldn't jump to conclusions until the general and the ambassador report," Bush said.
During a rally later for more than 600 American troops at the base, Bush warned members of Congress who might be anticipating quick reductions in U.S. forces.
Praising the troops, Bush said, "every day you show bravery under incredibly difficult circumstances. I'm incredibly proud to be the commander in chief of such a great group of men and women.
Bush met earlier with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. He also met with Anbar tribal leaders hailing their cooperation with U.S. forces as a success in fighting al Qaeda in Iraq.
"The level of violence is down, local governments are meeting again, police are in control of the city streets and normal life is returning," said Bush.
The president credited Anbar citizens who "rejected the dark vision of al Qaeda" and "organized themselves and they took on the terrorists. "
After exiting the aircraft, David Petraeus, the top war commander, and others welcomed Bush with smiles, salutes and handshakes in the 115- degree heat.
The White House denied the trip was a publicity visit ahead of a report about U.S. troop increases in Iraq to be delivered by Petraeus next week in Washington.
Some U.S. lawmakers have criticized al-Maliki's Shiite-led government for not reconciling with Sunni groups, but Bush has stood by the Iraqi leader and fended off calls for his resignation.
After commanders greeted the president on the tarmac, Bush posed for pictures before being driven in a motorcade to a concrete building on base where a Marine gave him a short briefing with about 20 other troops in fatigues. "How is morale? " asked Bush.
"Very high, sir," said the unidentified Marine.
Far to the south in the Iraqi city of Basra, 500 remaining British troops completed a pullout Monday, a move that Britain said did not represent a major policy shift but a long-planned handover to Iraqi forces.
Monday's visit is Bush's first trip to Iraq outside of Baghdad. The president also traveled to Iraq in 2003 and 2006.
Al Asad Air Base dates to the 1970s, when it was used by Iraqi forces loyal to Saddam Hussein.
It houses about 10,000 U.S. troops, mostly Marines. The facility was captured in April 2003 by Australian special forces.
Bush is accompanied on the Iraq visit by Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, the newly appointed White House official responsible for coordinating Iraq issues.
Also joining Bush on the Iraq visit are U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, national security adviser Stephen Hadley, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Peter Pace.
When you hear about Serena and Venus Williams overpowering opponents, as happened Sunday at the U.S. Open to two recent Grand Slam finalists, it's easy to forget that the sisters are, indeed, individuals.
Venus looks as if she is really enjoying herself out there more than Serena is right now.
If they get by everyone and meet each other, it will be an interesting match.
"That would be awesome because it would mean that there is a Williams in the final," Venus said.
She also noted: "We have one more step.
She will face No. 1 Justine Henin in the quarterfinals at a third consecutive major, having lost to her at the French Open and Wimbledon.
"Yeah, we know each other pretty well," Henin said after beating No. 15 Dinara Safina 6-0 6-2 at night. "I know everyone was waiting for that match, and here we are.
KISII, Kenya (CNN) An oil tanker truck rolled down a hill and smashed into four minibuses in rural Kenya, killing 29 people and injuring more than 30, police said Friday.
The tanker's driver had stopped to refuel Thursday when the vehicle started rolling, according to Police Chief Grace Kaindi in Kisii, about 165 miles west of the capital, Nairobi.
Hospitals treated dozens of people and the death toll was expected to rise.
Kaindi said the accident was still under investigation.
On Tuesday, another crash in the same area of rural Kenya killed 22 people when the bus they were traveling in rammed a truck head-on.
Kisii and the surrounding towns are rural and depend largely on tea farming.
Road accidents are common in much of Africa, where poor road conditions coupled with badly maintained vehicles make for precarious driving conditions.
Five-hundred British troops began withdrawing Sunday from their base in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, the Ministry of Defense said.
Basra is the last of five provinces in southern Iraq that Britain has handed over to the Iraqis.
British forces will remain to train and supervise Iraqi forces.
The withdrawal is part of a plan announced in February by then-Prime Minister Tony Blair, British Embassy spokeswoman Rosie Tapper told CNN.
During their time in Basra, British forces have helped the Iraqis take more responsibility for governing the area, she said.
Previously, the British had handed over two other bases to the Iraqis.
The palace was the third.
The withdrawal from Basra comes at the same time retired Maj. Gen. Tim Cross, the most senior British officer involved in postwar planning, criticized former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in a British newspaper for dismissing warnings that Iraq could fall into chaos.
"Right from the very beginning we were all very concerned about the lack of detail that had gone into the postwar plan, and there is no doubt that Rumsfeld was at the heart of that process," Cross said in the Sunday Mirror.
Despite what you may have read, heard or seen on TV, the summer of 2007 was pretty average for travelers.
That's according to an online poll of more than 100 readers that I ran last week, http://www.elliott.org/archives/2007/08/poll_the_summer.php, and a bigger survey of travelers released at the end of August by insurance company Access America.
About two in 10 readers thought it was worse than average.
5 percent even called it the "best ever.
No one should be shocked by these results.
We journalists are fixated on anything that flies:
big jets, executive jets and private planes.
And for air travelers, it's been a rough couple of months.
But factor in cars which is how most of us get around trains and other mass transit, plus hotels, and you get ... average.
1. Always apply for your passport early.
On January 23, the U.S. government began requiring citizens of the United States, Canada, Mexico and Bermuda to present a passport to enter the United States when arriving by air from any part of the western hemisphere.
Thousands of vacations were postponed or canceled, even after the State Department eased its rules.
This might be a good time to get that passport for your 2008 vacation.
2. Air travel isn't as bad as they say. It's probably worse.
You've seen the stories about how this is supposedly the worst summer for air travel since the Wright Brothers took to the skies.
Don't believe everything you read.
In some respects, it's one of the best summers. Fares are low and the industry's safety record is excellent.
But when it comes to delays, cancellations and customer service, it's been awful. The worst summer ever?
Lesson learned:
Next summer, drive.
3.
Your mama was right when she told you the grass wasn't greener over there.
Anyone who thought they could escape to Europe was sorely mistaken this summer.
The dollar hit a 120-day high of 1.38 against the euro on July 20, at the height of tourist season.
European airlines lost luggage at a record-setting pace in June, with 19 of every 1,000 bags "delayed," according to the Association of European Airlines.
Lesson learned:
4. The roads may be safer than ever, but mind the bridges.
This summer, we learned that the nation's highways have never been safer.
The Transportation Department reported the lowest highway fatality rate ever recorded in 2006 and the largest drop in total deaths in 15 years.
That came as welcome news to summer travelers, most of which get to their vacations by car.
Travel is risky, no matter how you get there.
5. The "S" in TSA doesn't stand for security. It was some summer for the Transportation Security Administration.
When the federal agency wasn't busy busting toddlers for carrying unauthorized sippy cups through a checkpoint or stopping 4-year-old "terrorists" from boarding a flight, it was issuing indecipherable press releases, like this one (http://www.tsa.gov/press/releases/2007/press_release__08082007.shtm) about its latest Secure Flight initiative, in an apparent effort to bore would-be hijackers into surrender.
6. It takes more than high gas prices to ruin a vacation.
Remember all the talk about $4-a-gallon gas prices that awaited us last summer?
At least one survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers predicted disastrous implications on the American vacation, specifically on the hotel industry.
That was back in early June, and fuel prices have taken a sharp downturn since then, tumbling from a peak of around $3.20 per gallon to around $2.80.
We'll never know if the analysts were right because the price of gas headed south. Oh sure, they were annoyed by it the Access America survey singled out fuel prices as the No. 1 travel annoyance this summer, with about eight in 10 travelers complaining about them.
But in conversations I've had with vacationers, it was obvious that they weren't going to let gas prices get in their way of having a good time.
Maybe they would stay with friends instead of checking into a hotel, but by golly, they were going to take their hard-earned three days of vacation.
7.
The weather is a great excuse for ... anything.
This summer seemed to be a continuous meteorological event, from storms that stranded tens of thousands of airline passengers on runways to Hurricane Dean.
Travelers know how unpredictable the weather can be, but this summer they also learned that travel companies especially airlines love to invoke weather as an excuse for their shortcomings.
It is often impossible to prove the weather, or what the travel industry likes to call an "Act of God" had anything to do with your trip interruption.
So when a travel company pulls the weather card, you almost have to become an amateur meteorologist to prove them wrong and get them to take responsibility for your ruined vacation.
When your airline blames the weather, question it.
A group of anonymous software developers said they will soon start selling a program that will allow iPhone owners to use the hugely popular device on cell phone systems around the world and not just with AT&T.
Apple's iPhone, released in the United States two months ago, was engineered to operate for the first two years only on the AT&T system through an exclusive arrangement between Apple and AT&T.
It has not yet been sold outside of the U.S.
Los Angeles software consultant Brett Schulte, who is not affiliated with the developers, demonstrated the software for CNN Friday evening.
An iPhone that had the new software appeared to work on the T-Mobile system just seconds after Schulte replaced the AT&T SIM card with a T-Mobile SIM card.
It took Schulte about two minutes to unlock the iPhone.
The developers would not give CNN their last names, saying "We don't want to be hounded.
The said they would start selling the software, which they haven't yet priced, as soon as their online payment and customer service systems are ready.
They're also waiting for more information from their lawyers.
Apple spokeswoman Jennifer Bowcock told CNN her company has no comment.
AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel said he couldn't speculate on the legality of unlocking the phone, but he added, "When you sign up, you're signing a two-year contract. You're obligated to pay the bill.
Earlier this month, a teenager figured out a way to unlock the iPhone, but his method required disassembly of the unit.
Birmingham, England(CNN) Defender Zat Knight scored on his debut to help Aston Villa defeat Chelsea 2-0 and shatter the London club's seven-month unbeaten Premier League run.
Knight, a $7 million signing from Fulham, had deflected the ball into his own net on the same ground a week earlier in his final league match for Fulham.
But he was delirious with joy after heading the opening goal after 47 minutes and then, with two minutes left, Gabriel Agbonlahor made sure of victory with a second goal.
Chelsea began positively and had strong claims for a penalty when central defender Martin Laursen appeared to wrestle Shaun Wright-Phillips to the ground but referee Mark Clattenburg waved play on.
Then after 47 minutes, boyhood Villa supporter Knight celebrated his debut by putting Martin O'Neill's side in front.
Jose Mourinho's instant response was to take off John Obi Mikel and bring on Claudio Pizarro as he reverted from a 4-5-1 to a 4-4-2 formation.
Mourinho then brought on Joe Cole and Salomon Kalou for Wright-Phillips and Claude Makelele respectively.
Meanwhile, Arsenal turned on the style to beat Portsmouth 3-1 and underline why manager Arsene Wenger believes he can succeed without help from any Russian billionaires.
Wenger's side completely overwhelmed Portsmouth at the Emirates Stadium to extend their unbeaten start to the season despite playing most of the second half with 10 men.
Emmanuel Adebayor opened the scoring from the penalty spot and Cesc Fabregas added a second before Philippe Senderos was sent off.
Tomas Rosicky put the result beyond doubt and Nwankwo Kanu's reply just a minute later was no consolation for the visitors.
Arsenal kept attacking despite Senderos' dismissal and were rewarded for their enterprise with a third goal after 59 minutes.
The result lifted Arsenal to second place in the Premier League on 10 points, behind leaders Liverpool on goal difference.
(CNN) For four months, movie theaters have been dominated by a succession of blockbusters from the usual suspects Bruckheimer, Spielberg, Disney, Rowling supplemented by a handful of newcomers.
Some of these movies have done very nicely, thank you, relative to their production costs but they deserve to do better.
In outline a straightforward guy-gets-girl musical, "Once" is about as far from the Broadway tradition as it could get.
Glen Hansard, from the Irish rock band the Frames, plays a Dublin busker/vacuum repairman who is befriended by an insistent Eastern European immigrant (Marketa Irglova).
She likes his broken-hearted love songs or maybe she just wants to get her Hoover fixed cheap.
She encourages him to record a demo. He gets her playing the piano again.
As the cliche has it, they make beautiful music together.
"Once" works so well by keeping it simple.
It's a story we've seen a thousand times before, but never in this register.
Writer-director John Carney's masterstroke is to make musicians the heart and soul of the picture;
the songs in "Once" really do spring from the characters, and it's thrilling to watch them develop over the course of the movie.
Carney's faith in this simple human connection is a gentle but firm rebuke to the bombast and overkill that infects even the best of today's blockbusters.
There's a similar economy at work in "This Is England," the fifth feature from Shane Meadows.
At 34, the working-class Meadows is one of the most intriguing talents to have come of age during the Thatcher era.
"This is England," his most autobiographical picture to date, is set in a small midlands town in 1983.
Twelve-year-old Shaun is mourning his dad, killed in action in the Falklands.
Shaun is lonely, vulnerable and a ripe target for bullies.
At an age when his identity is up for grabs, he latches onto the kindness shown him by Woody and quickly falls in with him and his skinhead friends.
In short order he has the buzz cut, the Doc Martens, the red braces and the Ben Sherman shirt. His mum is appalled but Woody and the rest aren't thugs and the uniform doesn't mean he's going to war.
A bit like his compatriot Mike Leigh, Meadows develops his films through a long rehearsal process and improvisation, but "This Is England" is more raw and rough-edged than anything Leigh has produced in a while.
And then there's "Rocket Science," another wry, idiosyncratic teen-angst comedy in the indie mold of "Napoleon Dynamite," "Rushmore" and "The Squid and the Whale" (to name but three).
Writer-director Jeffrey Blitz ("Spellbound") isn't going to win any prizes for originality, even if it's true that this plaintive comedy about a stammerer recruited onto the debate team is based on personal experience.
That's not a put-down of "Superbad," by the way.
But movies such as "Rocket Science" deserve some space in the megaplex, too.
BANGKOK, Thailand (CNN) An Airbus A380, the world's largest passenger jet, scraped the tip of a wing on a building at Bangkok's international airport Saturday as it was preparing for a demonstration flight, officials of the aircraft company and Thai Airways said.
The plane, which had been taxiing with journalists and VIP guests on board, suffered minor damage, delaying its planned flight to the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai by just over three hours, they said. There were no injuries.
After more than a one-year delay due to production problems, Airbus is scheduled to deliver its first A380, which seats 555, to Singapore Airlines in October.
The plane that arrived in Bangkok Friday from Airbus headquarters in Toulouse, France, is making a demonstration tour of Asia. It also will visit Vietnam, Hong Kong, and South Korea.
Officials said the accident at Suvarnabhumi Airport was related to the unusually long wingspan of the plane. "It was not due to problems with traffic control or human error of the captain," said Thai Airways President Apinan Sumanaseni.
He said that the left winglet of the plane had been damaged, but that engineers would remove the winglets ahead of the postponed flight.
"The device removed is useful but we can fly without it ... I don't think it will affect the operation of the aircraft at all," said Terry Lutz, the plane's captain and head test pilot for Airbus.
A winglet tips up and back from the end of a wing, improving aerodynamic efficiency.
In press release last month, Airbus said its demonstration tours are meant to help prepare the A380 "for a smooth entry into service.
By mid-August, the A380 already had visited more than 45 airports worldwide, and more than 70 airports will be ready for the plane by 2011, it said.
An Airbus representative said that Saturday's incident would not affect the profile of the plane in Asia.
TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) Iran has reached its long-sought goal of running 3,000 centrifuges to enrich uranium for its nuclear program, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced Sunday in a report on state media.
The U.N. Security Council had threatened a third round of sanctions against the country if it did not freeze the uranium enrichment program which Iran maintains is for peaceful energy purposes, but the U.S. says is to hide a weapons program.
"The West thought the Iranian nation would give in after just a resolution, but now we have taken another step in the nuclear progress and launched more than 3,000 centrifuge machines, installing a new cascade every week," the state television Web site quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.
As recently as Thursday, a report drawn up by International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei, put the number of centrifuges enriching uranium at closer to 2,000 at its vast underground hall at Natanz.
The 2,000 figure is an increase of a few hundred of the machines over May, when the IAEA last reported on Iran.
"They have the knowledge to proceed much more quickly," said a U.N. official.
Former U.N. nuclear inspector David Albright and Jacqueline Shire of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security said the slowdown could be a combination of both "technical difficulties" and "political considerations.
"Iran likely has managed to learn how to operate individual centrifuges and cascades adequately. However, it still may be struggling to operate a large number of cascades at the same time in parallel," they wrote in a report e-mailed to The Associated Press.
A second retired British general slammed the United States over its Iraq policy, saying in a newspaper interview published Sunday that it had been "fatally flawed.
" Maj. Gen. Tim Cross, the most senior British officer involved in the postwar planning, said he had raised serious concerns about the possibility of Iraq falling into chaos but said former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld dismissed the warnings.
The comments come a day after the release of critical comments made by the general who led the British army during the Iraq invasion.
Rumsfeld stepped down as defense secretary in November, one day after midterm elections in which opposition to the war in Iraq contributed to heavy Republican losses.
The comments from the two retired British generals come in the wake of criticism of British military performance in Basra made by U.S. officials and Washington's fears that Prime Minister Gordon Brown is poised to sanction a British troop
Former U.S. Army Gen. Jack Keane, who was vice chief of staff at the time the Iraq war was launched in 2003, said in an interview last week that London had never deployed enough troops to properly stabilize the region around the southern city and allowed a bad security situation to deteriorate further.
North Korea agreed Sunday to declare and disable all its nuclear programs by the end of the year, the chief U.S. negotiator said the first time the communist country has offered a timeline to end its secretive atomic program.
The North Korean envoy, in separate comments, told reporters his country was willing "to declare and dismantle" its nuclear program, but mentioned no dates.
The meetings would help improve chances of a successful meeting later this month with Japan, Russia, South Korea and China in six-nation talks aimed at ending the North's nuclear weapons program and improving relations between North Korea and other countries, Hill said.
Hill said the declaration will also include uranium enrichment programs, which the United States fears could be used to make nuclear weapons.
Hill said earlier Sunday that improving U.S. relations with North Korea will depend on other progress in the talks, saying it "is a relationship that we will continue to try to build step by step with the understanding that we're not going to have a normalized relationship until we have a denuclearized North Korea.
It was a Labor Day weekend for the record books at a Florida hospital, where a woman gave birth to the state's first set of sextuplets.
Five of the babies, who were born more than two months early, were listed in stable condition Sunday at neighboring All Children's Hospital in St. Petersburg, Dr. Roberto Sosa said at a news conference.
He said a medical team was still trying to stabilize one of the boys.
The proud father, Ben Byler, described the birth as "amazing.
The boys were named Brady Christopher, Eli Benjamin, Ryan Patrick, Jackson Robert and Charlie Craig. The girl is MacKenzie Margaret.
"We saw them all and it's quite an experience," said grandfather Jack Kiewra. "I'm very pleased everything went well. We have six new healthy grandbabies and my daughter is fine.
The babies were transported from Bayfront Medical Center to All Children's Hospital shortly after their birth.
KATHMANDU, Nepal (CNN) At least two people were killed and a dozen were wounded when three explosions went off simultaneously in different parts of the Nepalese capital on Sunday.
Among the injured were school students. A blast went off at a bus stop.
The explosion that caused the most injuries was inside a mini-bus, superintendent of police Sarvendra Khanal told CNN.
Police do not know who carried out the attacks, and have refused to speculate.
It's the first time blasts have rocked the capital since former Maoist rebels signed a peace accord last year.
They joined the government earlier this year.
There are a number of armed groups operating in the south of the country, demanding more rights for the ethnic groups in the region.
Those groups have set off bombs in the south, but never in the capital.
(CNN) Felix strengthened into a Category 4 hurricane Sunday afternoon, packing sustained winds of 140 mph, the National Hurricane Center reported.
The second hurricane of the Atlantic season is churning through the Caribbean Sea, the Miami, Florida-based forecast center said.
A Category 4 hurricane has winds between 131-155 mph, storm surges 13 to 18 feet above normal and generally causes extensive damage to shoreline homes, according to the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale.
Felix hit Aruba, Curacao and Bonaire with heavy winds and rain, causing power outages over the weekend. Thousands of tourists took shelter in hotels, The Associated Press reported.
Felix will likely hit Belize Tuesday or Wednesday, then head back over the Gulf of Mexico.
In the Pacific, the Mexican government canceled all warnings Saturday night pertaining to Tropical Storm Henriette, as the storm moved away from Mexico's mainland.
Hurricane Dean was the first hurricane of the Atlantic season, hitting Mexico twice in August.
It first slammed into the Yucatan Peninsula as a Category 5 storm and then hit the Mexican shore again near the key port city of Veracruz as a Category 2 with top sustained winds of 100 mph (160 kph).
BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNN) The Lebanese military took control Sunday of a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon after fighting with Islamist militants who tried to flee, the government announced Sunday.
"We overcame all those terrorists who were willing to destroy our country," Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said in a televised address to the nation.
A Lebanese Army source said 37 militants were killed and an unknown number were captured in clashes at the Nahr el-Bared camp outside Tripoli.
Two soldiers were killed in the fray, bringing to 155 the number of troops killed since May 20, when the standoff with the militants began.
, but the army said they could not confirm that.
In the past, Lebanese Defense Minister Elias Murr has said he wants al-Absi "dead or alive.
On Saturday, Lebanese troops seized control of the house belonging to Abu Hureira al-Absi's deputy commander, Lebanese military officials said.
William Fallon, the head of U.S. Central Command, met with Siniora and Lebanese military chiefs to offer counterterrorism training for Lebanon's military, among other objectives, U.S. military officials told CNN.
The Bush administration has supplied the Lebanese army with ammunition, body armor and night-vision goggles during its three-month battle with Fatah al-Islam militants.
LONDON, England(CNN) David Beckham will miss England's two European Championship qualifiers in September after suffering a sprained medial collateral ligament in his right knee, which will sideline him for six weeks.
Beckham, who has been struggling with an ankle injury, hurt his knee in LA Galaxy's Superliga final defeat to Pachuca on Wednesday.
A scan revealed the full extent of the damage, which will keep Beckham out of England's matches against Israel on September 8 and Russia four days later.
The midfielder was hurt in the 30th minute of the Superliga final, which Pachuca won 4-3 on penalties.
That is also the date for a Galaxy home game against Toronto.
The Galaxy, already a Major League Soccer-worst 3-10 with five drawn, are 13 points behind Colorado for the last Western Conference playoff berth and look out of contention.
LONDON, England (CNN) Exactly a decade to the day since Diana, Princess of Wales, was killed in a car crash in Paris, her youngest son Prince Harry said Friday he wants his mother to be remembered for the way "she made us and so many other people happy.
Diana's elder son, William, 25, also spoke at the special thanksgiving ceremony in the Guards' Chapel.
He read from St Paul's letter to the Ephesians.
The princes delivered their speeches in front of their grandmother Queen Elizabeth II, Diana's former husband Prince Charles, other members of the Royal Family, Diana's family and about 500 guests who had gathered for the ceremony.
However, Charles's wife Camilla stayed away.
She decided not to attend amid criticism that it would be inappropriate for her to be there.
Diana's death at the age of 36, in the early hours of August 31, 1997, stunned the nation and led to a mass outpouring of public grief.
Distraught mourners wept openly in the streets and people flocked to her home, Kensington Palace, leaving behind a carpet of flowers.
Diana and boyfriend Dodi Fayed were killed when the Mercedes-Benz limousine they were traveling in hit a pillar in the Pont de l'Alma tunnel in Paris.
They were being pursued at the time by the paparazzi after leaving the Ritz Hotel.
Driver Henri Paul, who was also killed, was drunk and driving at high speed. Bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones was the sole survivor.
Dodi's father Mohamed al Fayed held two minutes' silence in honor of his son and the princess at his Harrods store in Knightsbridge, London.
Al Fayed maintains that his son and the princess were murdered in a plot by the British establishment and security services.
But a UK police investigation concluded in 2006 that the Paris car crash was an accident and not an elaborate murder plot.
KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) South Koreans released from six weeks of captivity in Afghanistan spoke Friday about their ordeal, describing how they were kidnapped and apologizing to their government for causing trouble.
"While kidnapped, all I could think about was staying alive," Suh Myung-hwa said in an interview shown on South Korean television.
"I didn't feel any pain under captivity, I guess because I was in a panic the whole time, but now that the tension is gone my body aches all over," she said.
The Taliban originally seized 23 South Koreans, but killed two and released two others earlier this month.
Suh and Yoo Kyung-sik, 55, spoke to South Korean media in an interview in their hotel in the Afghan capital, Kabul. Other foreign media were barred from entering the hotel by guards posted at the door.
The group had gone to Afghanistan after ignoring warnings by their government against travel to the country. The government was under intense pressure to bring them home safely and has faced criticism for negotiating with the captors.
"I can't sleep due to concerns that we caused so much trouble," Yoo said in the interview, shown on television. "I feel very sorry.
South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported that some fell to the ground in shock when they were told that two members of their group had been killed.
Yoo said the group was traveling on a chartered bus in southern Afghanistan when two local men got on board with the permission of the driver, who said they were not dangerous. Half an hour later, the men fired shots and stopped the bus, Yoo said.
Later they were moved into a farmhouse. Six days later, they were separated into groups of three or four and kept on the move.
He said his group was moved 12 times, usually on motorbikes or on foot.
South Korean presidential spokesman Cheon Ho-seon said in Seoul the former hostages would be leaving Afghanistan Friday on a flight to Dubai, and would travel from there to South Korea.
"We will do the same thing with the other allies in Afghanistan, because we found this way to be successful," Qari Yousef Ahmadi told The Associated Press via cell phone from an undisclosed location.
A senior Afghan official close to the negotiations alleged Friday the South Koreans also paid a ransom.
I do not want to lie," said the official on condition of anonymity, because of the sensitivity of the topic.
The Taliban has repeatedly denied receiving any money.
Foreign governments would be strongly criticized because ransom payments are thought to encourage kidnappings.
The Afghan government was not party to the negotiations, which took place in the central Afghan city of Ghazni and were facilitated by the International Committee of the Red Cross.
The 20-year-old Russian glamour girl opened her shoulders to blast past overmatched Australian Casey Dellaqua 6-1, 6-0 in just 51 minutes.
That makes it just two games lost in two rounds for the defending champion, who next takes on 18-year-old Polish hope Agnieszka Radwanska.
"I'm feeling really good and that's the best part of being an athlete - just coming out and being healthy.
Fourth seed Svetlana Kuznetsova battled her way into the third round with an unconvincing 6-3 4-6 6-0 victory over Camille Pin.
The Russian, a surprise women's singles champion here in 2004, committed 34 unforced errors to her French opponent's nine.
It wasn't a good second set for sure but there was nothing I could change.
Kuznetsova will next face Anabel Medina Garrigues after the 31st seed beat fellow Spaniard Lourdes Dominguez Lino 7-5 6-2.
ORANGE, California (CNN) Bobby Brown claims in a lawsuit that Whitney Houston has kept him from seeing their teenage daughter.
"I have not seen or spoken to my daughter since early June and I have no prospect of speaking to her anytime soon due to Whitney's actions," Brown declared in Orange County Superior Court filings released last week.
Brown has been trying to overturn a judge's default judgment to nullify the couple's marriage and grant Houston sole custody of 14-year-old Bobbi Kristina.
During a court hearing in April, Houston testified that Brown was "unreliable" and that she didn't need spousal or child support.
Brown disputes her claim, saying he's been involved in their daughter's life and was her
primary caretaker when the couple lived in Atlanta.
When Houston moved to Orange County to undergo drug rehabilitation, Brown said he paid about $10,000 for his wife and daughter to stay at a posh hotel.
In other court filings obtained by the syndicated entertainment TV show "Extra," Houston disputes that she is keeping Brown and their daughter apart and says she "would like him to be involved" in Bobbi Kristina's life.
Houston, 44, and Brown, 38, wed in 1992, when she was at the height of her fame
as a Grammy-winning superstar known for hits such as "I Will Always Love You.
Brown, a former member of New Edition, gained solo fame with singles such as "Don't Be Cruel" and "My Prerogative.
During their 14-year marriage, Brown was arrested for drugs and alcohol, and Houston twice entered drug rehab programs.
(CNN) An Iowa district court ruled Thursday that same-sex couples can marry based on the state constitution's guarantee of equal treatment, court documents show.
The ruling was in response to a December 2005 lawsuit brought by six same-sex couples seeking to wed.
They were denied marriage licenses and claimed such treatment violates equal-protection and due-process clauses in the Iowa constitution.
The Iowa District Court for Polk County advances the case to the Iowa Supreme Court which will make a final decision on same-sex marriage, according to Lambda Legal, a gay and lesbian legal organization representing the couples.
"Couples, such as plaintiffs, who are otherwise qualified to marry one another may not be denied licenses to marry or certificates of marriage or in any other way prevented from entering into a civil marriage pursuant to Iowa Code Chapter 595 by reason of the fact that both persons compromising such a couple are of the same sex.
The six couples are all in long-term relationship - one couple has been together for six years, another couple has been together for 17 years.
"Three of the couples are raising children, others are planning families, and all want the responsibilities of marriage and the protections only marriage can provide," according to the organization.
"We respectfully disagree with the court's decision, and we're going to ask for a stay," said Polk County Attorney John Sarcone.
OSAKA, Japan(CNN) Tyson Gay sprinted into the history books on Thursday as he completed the rare world 100-200 meters double in emphatic fashion in Osaka, Japan.
The American charged to 200m victory in a championship record 19.76 seconds, pulling away from Jamaica's Usain Bolt with team-mate Wallace Spearmon taking bronze.
Bolt was away quickest but Gay took him on the bend before accelerating down the straight to win with room to spare.
Bolt timed 19.91 and Spearmon 20.05.
Gay, who won the 100m on Sunday, becomes only the third athlete to hold both sprint titles after Maurice Greene in 1999 and Justin Gatlin two years ago.
Gay has competed on five of the championships' first six days and had complained of fatigue and a left hamstring twinge.
The 200m time was the second quickest ever seen, 0.3 shy of Michael Johnson's 1996 record.
But I am still tired. Maurice Greene is one of my idols and I am proud to do the double like him.
"Usain Bolt came out so fast and I had to work hard to catch him. I should be thankful to him to make this such a fast race.
Gay and Spearmon's coach, Lance Brauman, was released from prison on Tuesday after serving a year for embezzlement and mail fraud.
MEXICO CITY, Mexico (CNN) More than 10,000 people were evacuated Thursday from Latin America's tallest building where police found a small handmade bomb inside a car parked in the garage, authorities said.
A bomb squad retrieved the device consisting of three metal tubes filled with gunpowder, cables and a cell phone, all tied together with tape from the 740-foot (225-meter) Torre Mayor on Mexico City's main Reforma avenue, the city's Public Security Department said in a news release.
Had the device exploded, damage would have been limited mostly to the car, the department said.
The federal Attorney General's Office is investigating the incident.
An unidentified person called one of the tower's offices to warn that a bomb had been placed inside a car on one of the building's 13 parking levels.
A total of 10,800 people were evacuated from the 55-floor building.
BEIJING, China (CNN) Chinese Finance Minister Jin Renqing has resigned for "personal reasons," the government said Thursday, amid concerns of surging inflation and just weeks ahead of an expected reshuffling of top government positions.
The State Council, or Cabinet, has transferred Jin to a government think tank, where he will be deputy chief, a ministerial-level position.
He has been finance minister since 2003.
"For personal reasons, Jin Renqing requested to resign. The central government agreed to his request and approved appointing him to be deputy director of the Development Research Center of the State Council," the spokeswoman said.
Asked Wednesday about rumors of Jin's departure, Central Bank Vice Governor Su Ning said monetary policy would not be affected by personnel changes at the Finance Ministry.
Jin's transfer comes just six weeks before the opening of a Communist Party congress that occurs twice a decade.
Jin, 63, is one of about 200 members of the Communist Party's Central Committee and formerly headed the State Administration of Taxation.
He is also a former vice governor of the southwestern province of Yunnan and a former vice mayor of Beijing.
Nearly 18,000 people are still missing from the ethnic wars fought in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, the International Committee of the Red Cross said Thursday.
About 13,500 of those missing are from the 1992-95 war in Bosnia, while 2,386 are from the 1991-95 conflict in Croatia and 2,047 from the 1998-99 strife in Kosovo, the ICRC said in a statement on the occasion of the International Day of the Disappeared.
"For years now, ever since the conflict in former Yugoslavia broke out, the ICRC has strived to support the plea of the families of missing persons, hoping to bring about more answers on the fate of their beloved," Paul Henri Arni, the head of
Those missing "may be victims of mass executions thrown into unmarked graves, they may be captured or abducted, they may be arrested at their homes and then die in custody," the statement said.
The disappearance is itself a tragedy, Arni said, but "the other victims are the families suspended in limbo, suspecting their loved ones are dead, yet unable to mourn.
The bloody breakup of former Yugoslavia the worst carnage in Europe since World War II started when the Serb-led Yugoslav army tried to prevent separatists in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo from seceding from the former federation.
An estimated 20,000 people were killed in Croatia, and about 10,000 in Kosovo.
LIMA, Peru (CNN) Relief officials urgently appealed for more aid Thursday for earthquake survivors along Peru's shattered southern coast.
Medical help, blankets and tents top the list, along with food, water and latrines.
Two weeks after the devastating quake, survivors are huddling in cardboard shelters in desperate, unhygienic conditions, said Doctors Without Borders spokesman Francois Dumont, speaking from the village of Guadalupe.
The magnitude-8 earthquake on August 15 leveled most of Pisco, a port city 125 miles southeast of Lima, killing at least 519 people, injuring 1,366 and destroying 40,000 homes.
At least 40 other people remain missing, said Alberto Visual, a director in Peru's civil defense agency.
Despite substantial help initially from Latin America, Europe, Japan and the United States, some 200,000 people still need help to save their lives, said Elisabeth Byrs, spokeswoman for the U.N.'s humanitarian affairs office, which has appealed for $37 million more in donations.
The town of Cabeza del Toro is one of many where survivors are in dire need of help, said Mar Mora, an adviser to the U.N. World Food Program.
"They have not received absolutely anything until now, and they are requesting medical services, tents, food and special assistance for children.
The quake also badly damaged at least 173 churches, monuments and historic buildings, with about one-third completely destroyed, said the director of the National Culture Institute, Cecilia Bakula.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) The approximately 100 Pakistani paramilitary forces who were reported missing Thursday in the region of South Waziristan have been found and are safe, an army spokesman said.
Heavy rains had led them to seek shelter with local tribes, the spokesman said.
The announcement came several hours after the army reported they may have been "kidnapped" by local militants with suspected ties to the Taliban.
The group had been traveling in a convoy from the district capital of Wana to Lahhad a 25-mile (40-kilometer) trip when they were last contacted, Maj. Gen. Wahid Arshad said.
Local militants, some believed to have ties to the Taliban, claimed to have "kidnapped" the soldiers.
Taliban kidnappers Thursday released the seven remaining South Korean hostages and handed them over to Red Cross officials, Afghan and Taliban officials said.
The kidnappers freed the 10 women and two men in three separate groups, a day after South Korea announced its team of negotiators in Afghanistan had reached a deal with them.
The hostages are part of an original group of 23 South Korean Christian aid workers most of them women abducted by Taliban militants on July 19 as they traveled on a bus in Ghazni province in eastern Afghanistan.
The kidnappers later executed two of the South Koreans.
In addition, Seoul promised to halt all Christian missionary work in Afghanistan.
A South Korean presidential spokesman said there was no agreement to pay the captors, nor was there any mention of releasing Taliban prisoners a major demand of the kidnappers.
A fast-moving train carrying hundreds of commuters slammed into an empty train near Rio de Janeiro on Thursday, killing at least eight people and injuring 60, officials said.
"We have to use blowtorches to open the sides of the train cars to reach the people," said Pedro Machado, commander-general of the Rio de Janeiro Fire Department.
Up to 850 people were aboard the commuter train when it crashed into the rear end of an empty train, which was being moved from one track to another, firefighters and train company officials said.
Trains are widely used to commute to downtown Rio from the city's poor northern outskirts.
"Our priority is to give support to the survivors, the passengers trapped in the wreckage, and reduce the number of fatal victims," Col. Souza Filho, the head of Rio de Janeiro's Civil Defense Department, said in an interview with the Globo TV network.
Marcos de Souza, director of the Posse Hospital in Nova Iguacu, said more than 20 people were taken to the hospital for treatment.
"They had fractures in their arms, their faces, everywhere," he said in a televised interview.
He said the hospital had a large emergency ward but was bringing in extra personnel to treat victims.
Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, ousted Sharif from power in a bloodless coup in 1999.
Sharif, who retains his Pakistani citizenship, had been in exile in Saudi Arabia since 2000 and has not been allowed to travel or directly take part in Pakistani politics.
In a speech on Wednesday, Musharraf indicated he might block Sharif's return, according to a report from Pakistan's official news agency.
In an interview with CNN's Nic Robertson last week, Sharif said he had no concerns that he will be jailed upon returning to Pakistan because "I am absolutely clean and clear.
"There are no charges of corruption against me," he said. "If Musharraf tries to fabricate false cases against me, we will face them."
UNITED NATIONS (CNN) Workers found vials believed to contain the poison gas phosgene at a U.N. office building in New York, U.N. officials said Thursday.
U.N. archivists for UNMOVIC, the U.N. chemical weapons agency, unexpectedly turned up samples of material from an Iraqi chemical weapons plant in old files on Friday, U.N. officials said.
The samples were in weapons inspectors' files dating back to the 1990s, but the substance is not believed to pose any immediate danger, the officials said.
The building where the samples turned up is several blocks away from main U.N. Secretariat building along New York's East River. Tests found no toxic vapors in the offices, U.N. spokeswoman Marie Okabe said.
Phosgene is an industrial chemical used to make plastics and pesticides, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Phosgene was used extensively during World War I as a choking agent and caused a majority of the war's gas deaths, according to the CDC.
Phosgene gas and liquid are irritants that can damage the skin, eyes, nose, throat and lungs, the CDC said.
Ewan Buchanan, a spokesman for UNMOVIC, said the substances are in a sealed metal box and wrapped in a plastic bag, "so there is no immediate danger.
Arsenal beat Sparta Prague 3-0 in the second leg of their third qualifying round tie to seal a 5-0 aggregate victory and a place in the Champions League proper for the 10th successive season on Wednesday.
Arsene Wenger's men, comfortably ahead 2-0 from the first leg in Prague two weeks ago, virtually sealed their place in Thursday's draw in Monaco for the last 32 after just seven minutes.
Czech international Thomas Rosicky scored against his former club at the far post following good work from Theo Walcott.
Substitute Cesc Fabregas made it 2-0 after 82 minutes while Eduardo da Silva scored his first goal as an Arsenal player in the closing minutes.
The opening goal took the sting out of the game and
Arsenal were never troubled after that, completing a quartet of English clubs in the group stage along with Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool.
Meanwhile, Two goals by skipper Stanislav Vlcek gave Slavia Prague a shock 2-1 win over Ajax for a 3-1 aggregate victory.
Slavia claimed a Champions League group stage spot for the first time after five failed attempts while Ajax failed to go through for the second time in a row.
Two penalties by Brazil midfielder Diego, one of them controversial, and a Boubacar Sanogo goal gave the German side the win in front of a passionate 40,000 crowd.
MADRID, Spain (CNN) Team-mates, rivals, leading figures from the world of football and thousands of fans have paid their last respects to Sevilla's Antonio Puerta who died on Tuesday, three days after collapsing during a league match.
Over 10,000 fans thronged the streets surrounding the club's Sanchez Pizjuan stadium where a funeral chapel was installed in the early hours of Wednesday morning to honor the 22-year-old player.
The coffin, draped in the club's centenary banner and Spanish national flag, was taken to the stadium to the accompaniment of spontaneous applause and chants of "Puerta amigo, Sevilla esta contigo" (Puerta friend, Sevilla is with you).
Sevilla fans placed prayer candles, scarves and personal tributes at the stadium doors, while lengthy queues formed to file past the coffin.
The player's team-mates went directly to the stadium from the airport after returning from Athens where their Champions League match against AEK had been postponed because of his death.
Thousands more fans lined the route to the city's San Fernando cemetery where the family held a private burial ceremony.
Midfielder Puerta, who won back-to-back UEFA Cups and the King's Cup with Sevilla, collapsed after jogging back towards his own goal 35 minutes into Saturday's game against Getafe.
Although he was able to walk off the pitch he collapsed again in the changing rooms and had to be given cardiac resuscitation before being taken to hospital.
He was treated in the hospital's intensive care unit but was unable to recover from the after-effects of several prolonged cardiac arrests.
Medical experts consulted by the Spanish media said that the collapse was precipitated by a weakness in the right ventricle of the player's heart that can cause arrhythmias.
It is not the first time a Sevilla player has died after collapsing on the pitch.
Striker Pedro Berruezo died as a result of a heart ailment when he collapsed during a second division match against Pontevedra in 1973 at the age of 27.
Berruezo's wife was pregnant at the time and her son, Pedro, is now a professional footballer with Segunda B side (third division) Ceuta.
Something keeps drawing me back to New Zealand.
Part of it is how easy it is to vacation here for a woman traveling alone.
It's safe, tourist-friendly and comparatively cheap for anyone coming from North America or Western Europe.
But mostly it's for moments like these:
watching the bright turquoise sea wash up on the pure sand beach that fringes dark green rainforest.
The soundtrack is the insistent chirping of crickets.
The coast of the Abel Tasman National Park has to be one of the most beautiful places in the world.
The warm weather season begins in late November and early December, but you'll want to plan way ahead for your trip.
(I visited in February, and the cheap airfares were gone by October).
Though there were plenty of serious hikers around, loaded down with tents and sleeping bags, I chose a few creature comforts I mostly stuck to walks I could complete in a day, and I had a rental car and motel accommodation.
Water taxis take day-trippers to points along the Abel Tasman coast, where they can walk part of the coastal track or simply relax on the beach.
For a one-day taste of paradise, park in Marahau and take a water taxi to Anchorage Beach;
the walk back will take about 3 1/2 hours, leaving plenty of time for swimming, sunbathing and lots of photography along the way.
New Zealand conservation authorities are visitor-conscious.
Driving in New Zealand is easy.
It's hard to get lost and there's no danger of traffic jams.
But distances are deceptive, as roads can be twisty and steep.
High on most travelers' lists is Queenstown, "Lord of the Rings" territory and the winter skiing center.
Dutch brewer Heineken reported a 24.8 percent rise in its first-half operating profit to 906 million euros ($1.2 billion) after expansion in emerging markets including Russia, but warned of higher input costs ahead.
Group beer volume rose 8.5 percent in the first half, with consolidated volumes up 9.3 percent.
"Heineken results were better than expected ... The strength of the company lies in the structural focus on premium volumes, which generate a higher margin than the average beer portfolio,"
However the share price fell, as analysts commented that the good news was already priced in and noted news that the company said its heavily-marketed Premium Light beer in the United States would not now break even in 2007 as it had earlier hoped.
By 0720 GMT the shares were down 1.7 percent at 44.65 euros.
In the first half 45 percent of operating profit came from Africa, Central and Eastern Europe and Asia.
Heineken said volumes grew 18 percent in Russia and it had maintained its market share.
Anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has ordered a suspension of his Mehdi Army militia for up to six months for restructuring, a senior aide said Wednesday.
The move follows battles in Karbala and other cities between the Mehdi Army and Badr Organization, the armed wing of the Supreme Islamic Council of Iraq hostilities that left more than 50 people dead and scores injured.
Hazem al-Araji, who read the cleric's order on Iraqi state TV, said it applies to all members of the fighting force.
Suspend the Mehdi Army, with no exception, for a maximum of six months starting from the date of this release, to restructure it in a way that would preserve its ideological principles," al-Araji said. Watch an analysis of the Mehdi Army suspension &raquo;
He also called for an investigation into the Karbala fighting.
In response, Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, a U.S. military spokesman, said, "We have always said we welcome those who want to participate positively in the future of Iraq.
He added that "U.S. forces welcome anyone and any leader who attempts to bring down the violence and rein in criminal behavior.
The cleric has openly opposed violent actions before.
On Tuesday, he called for calm and urged his followers not to attack rivals' offices.
But observers suspect many Mehdi Army fighters are more radical than al-Sadr.
BEIJING, China (CNN) A Chinese man has videotaped a large white animal swimming in the Yangtze river which experts say is a dolphin species unique to China and feared extinct, the official Xinhua agency reported on Wednesday.
The last confirmed sighting of the long-beaked, nearly blind, baiji was in 2004.
After an international team failed to find a single dolphin on a six-week expedition last year the species was classified as critically endangered and possibly extinct.
But the video from central Anhui province may renew slender hopes for the survival of the creatures also known as white-flag dolphins and traditionally considered a deity by local people.
"It was about 1,000 meters (yards) away and jumped out of the water several times.
Wang Kexiong, of the Institute of Hydrobiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said experts at the institute had confirmed the footage was of a baiji.
The report did not say if there were any plans to try and locate the dolphin again, or try and protect it from the river hazards ranging from pollution and aggressive fishing to heavy shipping traffic that originally decimated the species.
In the late 1970s, scientists believed several hundred baiji were still alive, but by 1997 a survey listed just 13 sightings.
Found only in the Yangtze river, it is related to freshwater species found in the Mekong, Indus, Ganges and Amazon rivers.
The government has set up a reserve in a lake in central Hubei province but failed to find any baiji to put in it. The last captive dolphin, Qi Qi, died in 2002.
CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN)-An ambitious plan to blanket the city with wireless broadband Internet will be shelved because it is too costly and too few residents would use it, Chicago officials said Tuesday.
"We realized after much consideration that we needed to reevaluate our approach to provide universal and affordable access to high speed Internet as part of the city's broader digital inclusion efforts," Chicago's chief information officer, Hardik Bhatt, said in a statement.
The plan to blanket Chicago's 228 square miles with wireless Internet access was announced early last year when Chicago leaders said they hoped to become one of the largest cities to offer all-over access to the Web.
Instead, the city said its negotiations with private-sector partners, including EarthLink Inc., have stalled because any citywide Wi-Fi would require massive public financing.
The city had hoped to provide only infrastructure for the network.
Tuesday's announcement makes Chicago the latest in a string of municipalities to encounter troubles with their municipal broadband initiatives because of ballooning budgets and dwindling usage that's led to scant revenue generated by the projects.
"But given the rapid pace of changing technology, in just two short years,"Bhatt said.
Meanwhile, Chicago will be among the first three cities nationwide to have access to a new high-speed wireless network that's part of an emerging technology called WiMax.
WiMax is derived from the same technology as Wi-Fi. Unlike Wi-Fi, which provides wireless Internet access over a several-hundred-foot range, a WiMax signal can blanket a much wider area.
BISHOFTU, Ethiopia (CNN) Ethiopian farmer Fekadu Asfaw stood defiantly before an angry veterinarian, having just beaten his four severely malnourished donkeys.
"They are donkeys, aren't they? They have to be beaten to perform commands," Fekadu said.
Visibly furious, veterinarian Fissiha Gebre-ab turned to other farmers and their beasts of burden nearby with a harsh admonition: "Don't you know the saying that a farmer without a donkey is a donkey, because he has to carry the burden himself?
He continued: "You should treat them humanely. Do not beat them and overburden them. You should also feed them properly if they have to serve you for a long time.
Fissiha treats plenty of donkeys in bedraggled and pitiable condition at his clinic 50 kilometers (30 miles) east of Addis Ababa, in what the founders say is one of only two in Africa a center for improving the health and welfare of donkeys.
Hundreds of donkeys suffering from open back sores, broken hooves, malnutrition and disease come every week through the clinic, which has operating theaters, recovery rooms and a laboratory.
Located inside the University of Addis Ababa's veterinary school in Bishoftu, the Donkey Health and Welfare Project treats the animals for free and gives the farmers who bring them stern advice on how they should care for the beasts.
"Ethiopian donkeys have been abused for centuries due to ignorance, despite their valuable services in time of peace and war," Fissiha told Reuters.
As a result, Ethiopia's donkeys live an average of 9 years, while donkeys in Kenya and
Mexico live an average of 14 years, according to the Web site of the U.K.-based Donkey Sanctuary charity, which founded the Ethiopian clinic in 1999.
By comparison, Fissiha said British donkeys which typically do not face hard farm labor live well over 30 years.
The clinic, supplemented by two mobile clinics, teaches farmers how to shoe the donkeys and also trains veterinarians on proper treatment so they can practice it countrywide.
Since many Ethiopians live at a subsistence farming level, the donkey is a critical part of their life and their main mode of transporting crops to market.
The Society for Protection of Animals Abroad, another British charity, also funds a separate clinic for horses and mules which operates alongside the donkey facility.
Horses, donkeys and mules, which are the best choice for farming in the country's mountainous and rugged terrain, have all played critical roles in Ethiopia's military history.
transport provisions and military equipment during his 1884 Battle of Adwa to defeat Italy's better-equipped army.
(CNN) Iran summoned the Swiss diplomat who represents U.S. affairs to its Foreign Ministry on Wednesday to protest the detentions of eight Iranian delegates in Baghdad, according to Iranian state-run media.
The Iranians who were arrested Tuesday worked for Iran's Energy Ministry and were in Baghdad at the invitation of Iraqi officials to sign an energy supply contract, said Yassin Majid, an aide to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. The delegates were released Wednesday, he said.
Video footage of the Tuesday arrests showed U.S. soldiers escorting 10 people blindfolded and some with their hands bound in front of them from a Baghdad hotel into military vehicles.
A senior U.S. official familiar with the incident told CNN, it was a mistake ordered by a low-level commander, the official said.
The U.S. military has said the delegates' Iraqi security escorts were carrying pistols and a rifle but had no weapons permits.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini called the detentions an "interventionist act," according to the Islamic Republic News Agency.
He further said that Iraqi officials and the Iranian Embassy secured their release so they can continue their work discussing the construction of a power plant in Iraq, IRNA reported.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Tom Casey said Wednesday that the incident is not expected to affect U.S. relations with Iran or Iraq.
"This was something that happened in the routine course of military operations in Baghdad," Casey said. "The issue was handled and looked at.
On Tuesday, President Bush said he has "authorized our military commanders in Iraq to confront Tehran's murderous activities.
"The Iranian regime must halt these actions," he said. "And until it does, I will take actions necessary to protect our troops.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad recently accepted an invitation to visit Baghdad, but no date has been set.
ANKARA, Turkey (CNN) New Turkish President Abdullah Gul approved a pro-EU reformist cabinet on Wednesday which reflected Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's aim to push ahead with stalled political and economic reforms needed to join the bloc.
Gul, who as foreign minister helped Turkey win EU accession talks status in 2005, is the first politician with a background in political Islam to become president in mainly Muslim but constitutionally secular Turkey, over the army's opposition.
After meeting Gul at the presidential palace, Erdogan named Ali Babacan as Gul's successor as foreign minister.
"I prepared the new cabinet as a team who have the skills to realize our goals for the coming period ... I believe we formed a strong team," Erdogan told reporters.
Party won a sweeping victory in parliamentary polls in July but was unable to form a new government because of objections by Gul's secularist predecessor Ahmet Necdet Sezer.
Turks will closely follow the military's reaction to Gul after its top brass snubbed his swearing-in ceremony on Tuesday.
The military elite fears his presidency will lead to a creeping subversion of the secular order.
Turkey's military considers itself the ultimate guardian of the secular republic founded by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and has ousted four governments in the past 60 years.
"I want to say on this meaningful day that we need to unite around the values of our nation, qualities of our republic and common goals more than ever and put aside our differences," Erdogan said earlier to mark Aug. 30 Victory Day celebrations.
Many Turks hope months of political turmoil sparked by the standoff between the AK Party and the secular elite, including army generals, judges and politicians, has come to an end.
Hundreds of Greek fire victims crowded into banks to receive up to $17,732 in aid promised by the government, which has been accused of mishandling the disaster.
With national elections scheduled for September 16 there is speculation that the government's mismanagement of the disaster could damage Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis' bid for re-election.
The payouts began as firefighters gained ground on dozens of fires that have scorched 444,790 acres (180,000 hectares) of the Greek countryside.
At least 63 people have lost their lives after six days of fires.
Greek officials have blamed the fires, which began last Thursday, on arson.
At least seven people have been questioned in connection with the ongoing investigation, but only one remained in custody on Wednesday, according to Greek police.
Karamanlis has suggested that the blazes might have been deliberately set by political extremists ahead of next month's elections.
Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards has demanded an apology from Swedish newspapers for their scathing reviews of the group's performance in the country earlier this month.
"But this time ... I have to stand up ... for our fans all over Sweden ... to say that you owe them, and us, an apology.
Dagens Nyheter said it received the letter from concert organizer EMA Telstar.
Company head Thomas Johansson told The Associated Press that Richards wrote the letter and gave it to him after reading translations of the Swedish reviews.
"There were 56,000 people in Ullevi stadium who bought a ticket to our concert and experienced a completely different show than the one you 'reviewed,"' the letter said.
"How dare you cheapen the experience for them and for the hundreds of thousands of other people across Sweden who weren't at Ullevi and have only your 'review' to go on. "Write the truth. It was a good show.
In his review of The Rolling Stones concert, Aftonbladet's music writer Markus Larsson gave the concert a score of two on a five-point scale, and said Richards appeared "a bit confused.
Richard Jewell, the security guard wrongly suspected and later cleared of setting off a deadly bomb at Atlanta, Georgia's Centennial Olympic Park during the 1996 Olympics, died Wednesday morning, his attorney, Lin Wood, told CNN.
Jewell, 44, died of natural causes at his home in Woodbury, Georgia, according to Meriwether County Coroner Johnny Worley.
Jewell had been suffering from diabetes and kidney failure since February, Worley said.
After 12 weeks of scrutiny following the bombing, Jewell was cleared by the FBI and U.S. Attorney Kent Alexander in an unprecedented government acknowledgment of wrongful accusation.
"I am a man who has lived 88 days afraid of being arrested for a crime I did not commit.
The package turned out to contain a bomb, which eventually killed one person and wounded more than 100.
Initially hailed a hero for moving people away, he was later cast in a different light when the FBI began investigating whether he had set off the bomb to give himself an opportunity to be a hero.
In April, 2005, Eric Robert Rudolph pleaded guilty to the bombing.
Rudolph was captured in Murphy, North Carolina, in May 2003 after one of the largest manhunts in U.S. history.
He is serving four consecutive life sentences plus 120 years for the convictions.
NEW YORK (CNN) Amy Winehouse won't be performing at the MTV Video Music Awards, or anywhere else in the United States anytime soon.
The British retro-soul singer was to perform at the September 9 event in Las Vegas, but her U.S. record label, Universal Republic Records, said Wednesday that all U.S. appearances have been canceled "in a continued effort to support Amy Winehouse's well-being.
It is the latest setback for the gifted but troubled 23-year-old.
Last week, she was photographed with her husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, bloodied and bruised after an apparent fight in a London hotel.
The gossip Web site perezhilton.com has said it received text messages from Winehouse denying Fielder-Civil was responsible for her injuries.
She canceled a series of British concerts and postponed a tour of the U.S. and Canada after British media reported that she was in and out of rehab recently.
Winehouse made her U.S. debut this year with the acclaimed album "Back to Black," but her tabloid troubles have often overshadowed her talent.
She's spoken openly about her past battles with drugs and her penchant for alcohol and marijuana.
(CNN) Pakistan's President, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, has agreed to step down as the country's military chief during negotiations on a power-sharing deal with Pakistan's former prime minister and opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, she told CNN Wednesday.
Pakistani cabinet minister Sheikh Rashid confirmed that Musharraf has agreed to step down as army chief.
Bhutto has previously said she is considering returning as Pakistan's prime minister under Musharraf's government if he steps down as head of Pakistan's military.
She said negotiations between her opposition party and Musharraf involve appointing a caretaker government, holding fair elections and returning to parliament powers that were removed after the 1999 coup in which Musharraf seized power.
A power-sharing deal between Bhutto and Musharraf would require Pakistan's Supreme Court to change the country's constitution to allow Musharraf to seek a third term.
Currently, the constitution calls for an elected official to step down and wait a year before seeking a third term.
, Musharraf indicated he might block former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's return, according to a report from Pakistan's official news agency.
Musharraf said Sharif was told by an unidentified "friend of Pakistan" to "abide by the agreement of not returning to the country before the end of ten years of his exile," the Associated Press of Pakistan (APA) reported.
Eight years ago, Musharraf ousted Sharif from power in a bloodless coup.
Sharif, who retains his Pakistani citizenship, has been in exile in Saudi Arabia since 2000 and has not been allowed to travel or directly take part in Pakistani politics.
Last week, Pakistan's top court lifted the exile on Sharif, clearing the way for the opposition party leader's return for elections scheduled for later this year.
"I don't believe in power-sharing with Musharraf he is a dictator, we are democrats," Sharif said Thursday, shortly after the Pakistani court's ruling.
"How can a democrat share power with a dictator?
Musharraf was elected president in a 2002 vote that was widely viewed as rigged.
Taliban militants have released 12 out of 19 South Korean hostages held in captivity in Afghanistan for more than a month.
The hostages were released into the care of officials of the International Committee of the Red Cross at three separate locations in central Afghanistan close to the city of Ghazni, according to The Associated Press .
The first group of three women were released in the village of Qala-e-Kazi.
Several hours later, four women and one man were released in a desert close to Shah Baz.
The insurgents have said they will free the remaining 7 hostages, whom they are holding in different locations, over the next few days.
On Tuesday, a presidential spokesman said South Korean negotiators in Afghanistan had reached a deal with Taliban militants.
The accord for the South Koreans' release came during one of the bloodiest periods of the Taliban's war against U.S. and NATO forces since the Taliban regime was toppled in late 2001 after the September 11 attacks on the United States.
South Korea's decision to hold face-to-face negotiations with the militants may dismay the United States government, which refuses to talk to the Taliban.
"Maybe they (the Taliban) did not achieve all that they demanded, but they achieved a lot in terms of political credibility," Mustafa Alani, director of security and terrorism studies at the Dubai-based Gulf Research Center, told AP. "The fact that the Koreans negotiated with them directly and more or less in their territory ... is in itself an achievement.
Taliban militants released three South Korean hostages on Wednesday, the first of 19 captives scheduled to be freed under a deal struck between the insurgents and the South Korean government.
The three, all women, were first handed to tribal leaders, who took them to an agreed location where officials of the International Committee of the Red Cross picked them up, according to an Associated Press reporter who witnessed the handover.
The three arrived in the central Afghan village of Qala-E-Qazi in a single car, their heads covered with green shawls. They said nothing to reporters, who were asked by Red Cross representatives not to question them.
Red Cross officials quickly took the three to their vehicles before leaving for an undisclosed location.
To secure the hostages' release, South Korea reaffirmed a pledge to withdraw its 200 troops from Afghanistan by the end of this year and prevent South Korean Christian missionaries from working there. The Taliban apparently backed down on earlier demands for a prisoner exchange.
The accord for the South Koreans' release came during one of the bloodiest periods of the Taliban's war against U.S. and NATO forces since the Taliban regime was toppled in late 2001 after the September 11 attacks on the United States.
"Maybe they (the Taliban) did not achieve all that they demanded, but they achieved a lot
in terms of political credibility," said Mustafa Alani, director of security and terrorism studies at the Dubai-based Gulf Research Center.
State Department spokesman Tom Casey said Tuesday that the U.S. wanted the Koreans returned to their families and stressed that U.S. policy was not to make concessions to terrorists.
The hostages' relatives in South Korea welcomed news of the deal.
South Korean presidential spokesman Cheon Ho-sun said the deal had been reached "on the condition that South Korea withdraws troops by the end of the year and South Korea suspends missionary work in Afghanistan.
Cha Sung-min, whose 32-year-old sister, Cha Hye-jin, was among the hostages, said he was "sorry to the public for causing concern, but we thank the government officials for the (impending) release.
"Still, our hearts are broken as two died, so we convey our sympathy to the bereaved family members," said Cha Sung-min, who has served as a spokesman for the hostages' relatives.
Maria Sharapova, who ruled the 2006 U.S. Open in an elegant, black tennis outfit, dressed in red for the opening match of her title defense on Tuesday and was on fire in a sizzling 6-0 6-1 romp over Italian Roberta Vinci.
"Put on a nice outfit and some makeup, and you're the bomb. "
Sharapova, plagued this season by a right shoulder injury that has limited her to one tournament title, used a shortened service action to ease the strain and was pleased with the results.
The Russian was so dominant she was able to vary her game, serving and volleying occasionally and going to the net at every opportunity.
She won 14 of 19 chances at the net.
"If I can add these things to my game now, it'll only make me a better player in the coming years.
MADRID, Spain (CNN) Sevilla midfielder Antonio Puerta, one of Spain's most promising young players, died on Tuesday three days after collapsing during a Primera Liga match.
"We regret to report that the patient Antonio Puerta died at 14:30 (12: 30 GMT) today.
The death was caused by postanoxic encephalopathy and a multiple failure of his organs caused by the prolonged cardiac arrest that provoked his admission to hospital," the hospital said in a statement.
"Today is one of the saddest days in the history of Sevilla Football Club," A tearful Sevilla president Jose Maria del Nido told reporters.
Sevilla's Champions League third qualifying round second leg against AEK Athens in Greece on Tuesday has been postponed until next Monday.
But Friday's European Super Cup against AC Milan could still go ahead, UEFA said.
the game on Friday into a tribute to Antonio Puerta," said UEFA's William Gaillard, special advisor to president Michel Platini.
"Of course we will respect the Sevilla players if they feel they do not want to play.
AC Milan, Sevilla's opponents the Super Cup, expressed their condolences at the player's death, saying they were prepared to call off the game if necessary.
Puerta collapsed after jogging back towards his own goal 35 minutes into the game against Getafe at the Sanchez Pizjuan on Saturday night.
Team-mates and medical staff immediately rushed to his side and were seen preventing him from swallowing his tongue as he lost consciousness, but he was able to walk from the pitch.
Doctors said that he collapsed again in the changing rooms and had to be given cardiac resuscitation before being taken to hospital.
There have been a number of high-profile deaths related to heart ailments in football in recent years.
Foe who collapsed and died in a Confederations Cup match in 2003 and Miklos Feher of Benfica who died in January 2004.
Casinos such as the Wynn and Sands have already helped this southern coastal Chinese city surpass the Las Vegas Strip as the world's most lucrative gambling center.
Macau's casinos which raked in $6.95 billion in gambling revenue last year, while the Las Vegas strip made $6.69 billion are scattered across the territory.
American billionaire Sheldon Adelson hopes his Venetian Macao Resort Hotel on Cotai will help launch a massive, concentrated resort area he calls the Cotai Strip, after its Las Vegas counterpart.
The 10.5 million-square-foot Venetian twice the size of the Las Vegas original is the largest building in Asia and the second-largest in the world.
The largest building is a Boeing Co. plant in Washington.
The Venetian houses 3,400 slot machines with room to expand to 6,000 and more than 800 gambling tables.
Chinese-style sampans as well as gondolas will sail down canals.
The resort also features a replica of Venice's St. Mark's Square.
Later!
That is the inevitable reply when I ask the kids to take out the trash, clean up their rooms or, while on vacation, pose for a family picture.
They are so loath to pose, in fact, that it's become a family joke.
What will I promise, they laugh, to get them to stop what they're doing long enough to get that perfect holiday-card shot on top of a ski mountain, clustered around a giant turtle in the Galapagos Islands, or on the boat they're sailing in the British Virgin Islands?
But I'm convinced at least a few digital snapshots in our case with lots of goofy faces are the best souvenirs to bring home.
I have a bulletin board full of souvenir pictures next to my desk there's a picture of 7-year-old Melanie and me in Hawaii at sunset;
one of my husband and me on our honeymoon looking impossibly young;
a snapshot of the kids perched on a rock they'd climbed in California's Joshua Tree National Park, and one with my dad outside a villa we'd rented in St. Martin, just a few months before he died.
"As I look back, they all reflect something about our lives.
That's easier than ever these days with pocket-sized digital cameras so simple to use that technology-savvy kids will declare they're the official family photographers.
The teenage hacker who managed to unlock the iPhone so that it can be used with cellular networks other than AT&T will be trading his reworked gadget for a new car.
George Hotz, of Glen Rock, New Jersey, said he had reached the deal with CertiCell, a Louisville, Kentucky-based mobile phone repair company.
Hotz posted on his blog that he traded his modified iPhone for "a sweet Nissan 350Z and 3 8GB iPhones.
"This has been a great end to a great summer," Hotz wrote.
The 17-year-old Hotz said he will be sending the three new iPhones to the three online collaborators who helped him divorce Apple Inc's popular product from AT&T's network.
The job took 500 hours, or about 8 hours a day since the iPhone's June 29 launch.
Hotz made the deal with Terry Daidone, co-founder of CertiCell, who also promised the teen a paid consulting job.
"We do not have any plans on the table right now to commercialize Mr. Hotz' discovery," Daidone said in a statement.
Police were called to Owen Wilson's home because of an attempted suicide report, according to a police log of weekend calls.
The actor's publicist, Ina Treciokas, declined to answer questions Tuesday about whether Wilson attempted to commit suicide.
She said Wilson's statement asking for privacy was all that was being released.
DreamWorks Pictures said in a statement that filming continues on "Tropic Thunder," a comedy starring Wilson.
It was also unknown if Wilson's hospitalization would affect his appearance opposite Jennifer Aniston in the 20th Century Fox comedy "Marley & Me.
A Fox spokesman told Hollywood trade paper Daily Variety that "it's a totally inappropriate question at this time" whether he would appear in the movie.
Wilson's hospitalization could also keep him from helping promote "The Darjeeling Limited," in which he stars alongside Adrien Brody and Jason Schwartzman.
The 38-year-old actor was initially taken by ambulance from his home to Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica on Sunday and later transferred to Cedars.
This time, the question was a little easier for Miss Teen South Carolina.
The 18-year-old got a chance to redeem herself Tuesday on NBC's "Today" show when she was again asked why one-fifth of Americans can't locate the U.S. on a map.
"I would love to re-answer that question," Upton said.
And if the statistics are correct, I believe there should be more emphasis on geography.
That was much better than her previous response, which included "U.S. Americans" and mentions of South Africa and "the Iraq.
A YouTube video of Upton has drawn a couple million hits and thousands of comments, many of them with harsh remarks for the Lexington High School graduate who plans to attend Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina.
"I seriously think I only heard about one or two words of the actual question.
Upton's former principal Creig Tyler remembered her as a well-rounded student.
Miss Teen Colorado Hilary Carol Cruz won the crown.
LONDON, England (CNN) Amy Winehouse's father-in law says fans should stop buying her records to force the singer to seek help for what he called a drug addiction.
Giles Fielder-Civil said he believed Winehouse and his son, Blake Fielder-Civil, had used cocaine, crack cocaine and heroin and were in "abject denial" about their problem.
"I think they believe they are recreational users of drugs and they are in control," Fielder-Civil told British Broadcasting Corp. radio Tuesday. "Clearly they are addicts.
He said fans should send a message to Winehouse "that her addiction and her behavior are not acceptable. "
However, Winehouse's father said a boycott would do little good.
"She has our full support professionally, emotionally and financially," the label said in a statement. "We've advised her to take complete rest during this difficult period and have put all her promotional commitments on hold.
Winehouse, 23, has built her reputation on a soulful voice and a hard-partying image.
Her most recent album, "Back to Black," topped the British charts and produced the hit single "Rehab.
Concern for her health has grown since Winehouse was taken to a hospital earlier this month for "severe exhaustion" and spent a short stint in a rehab facility. She has since canceled a series of British concerts and postponed a tour of the U.S. and Canada.
Last week, newspaper pictures showed Winehouse and Blake Fielder-Civil bloody and bruised, apparently after a fight in a London hotel.
BEIJING, China (CNN) Two Chinese brothers who tunneled their way out of a coal mine collapse after being trapped for nearly six days survived by eating coal and drinking urine, a local newspaper reported on Tuesday.
Brothers Meng Xianchen and Meng Xianyou became trapped while working at an illegal mine in Beijing's Fangshan District late on Saturday, Aug. 18, the latest in a series of disasters to strike the world's deadliest coal mining industry.
Two days later, rescue efforts were called off.
"At first there was no feeling, but then I was so hungry I couldn't crawl any more," Xianchen told the Beijing News.
"Actually, coal is bitter and unsmooth but you can chew up pieces the size of a finger.
In the mine, we picked up two discarded water bottles, and drank our urine. You can only take small sips, and when you've finished, you just want to cry.
He said because they were eating coal, and were in the mine for nearly six days, they did not defecate.
Both said they would not go back into mining.
A gas explosion in an Inner Mongolian mine that was operating illegally killed seven people on Saturday, as officials began handing compensation to families of 181 miners trapped and presumed dead after a flood last week in eastern China.
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (CNN) South Africa's health department said Tuesday it has recalled 20 million potentially defective condoms approved by an official accused of taking bribes from a manufacturer.
Unsafe sex is especially risky in South Africa, which has one of the world's highest HIV infection rates with an estimated 12 percent of its 47 million people infected with the virus.
There are up to 1,000 AIDS-related deaths in South Africa every day and free condom distribution is a crucial part of the government's efforts to combat the spread of the epidemic.
"An official of the South African Bureau of Standards, has put millions of people at risk by illegally passing millions of condoms, which had not met the quality assurance requirements," said health department spokesman Sibani Mngadi.
said even though only a batch of 7 million condoms was affected, the department decided to recall all 20 million condoms supplied by the manufacturer since last year.
(CNN) The defense for former astronaut Lisa Nowak has filed notice that it may claim she was temporarily insane when she accosted a romantic rival and shot pepper spray at her, court documents say.
Nowak, 44, allegedly stalked Air Force Capt. Colleen Shipman and drove hundreds of miles from Texas to Florida before accosting Shipman at Orlando International Airport in February.
Her attorneys filed notice of intent to rely on an insanity defense in Florida's Orange County Circuit Court on Monday.
The court papers lay out a virtual laundry list of mental health diagnoses. Chief among them were obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression, insomnia and a brief psychotic disorder.
Her depression caused Nowak to lose 15 percent of her body weight shortly before her arrest, the court papers say.
Two Texas psychiatrists Drs. Richard Pesikoff and George S. Leventon are expected to testify on Nowak's behalf, the documents state.
"The past six months have been very difficult for me, my family and others close to me," Nowak said last week in her first public statement since her arrest.
"I know that it also must have been very hard for Colleen Shipman, and I would like her to know how very sorry I am about having frightened her in any way."
Nowak has pleaded not guilty to charges of attempted kidnapping with intent to inflict bodily harm, battery and burglary of a vehicle using a weapon.
Her trial is to begin next month.
If convicted, Nowak could face a sentence of up to life in prison.
Police have said Nowak wore diapers to avoid stopping during the 900-mile drive from Houston, Texas, to Orlando.
She allegedly went to the airport early February 5, donned a wig, glasses, hat and raincoat, and followed Shipman from baggage claim to the parking lot.
When Shipman cracked it to talk to her, Nowak allegedly sprayed her in the face with pepper spray.
Nowak was apprehended a short time later as she was throwing her disguise into an airport trash bin, police said.
Nowak has said she went to the airport solely to talk to Shipman, who had been dating Nowak's former love interest, Navy Cmdr. Bill Oefelein, who was also an astronaut.
ATHENS, Greece (CNN) A small fleet of foreign planes and helicopters is buzzing around Greece to try to battle dozens of wildfires that have killed at least 64 people.
In five days of blazes, the destruction is so extensive authorities say they have no way of knowing how many acres have burned and how many people have been injured.
Some 56 new fires broke out yesterday and today, tearing through olive groves, forests, orchards and homes.
Flames are swarming near the birthplace of the Olympic Games in Ancient Olympia. One fire official says there are signs of optimism in that fight.
Greeks were already stunned by deadly forest fires in June and July, and many are blaming the conservative government for failing to respond quickly enough.
The government, which declared a state of emergency over the weekend, said arson might have been the cause of the fires, and several people have been arrested.
MIAMI, Florida (CNN) A federal judge on Tuesday approved the extradition of former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega to France, where he faces a 10-year sentence on a conviction in absentia on money-laundering charges.
Magistrate William Turnoff agreed with the government's case for extraditing Noriega to France
Noriega's lawyer, Frank Rubino, said he would continue to fight the extradition.
He had said Noriega hoped to return to Panama to be closer to his family.
Noriega is scheduled to complete his Florida prison term on September 9.
His attorneys had argued that his status as a prisoner of war meant he should be returned to Panama, but a separate court ruling last Friday rejected that argument.
Noriega also faces possible prison time in Panama, where he is accused of kidnapping, extortion and the murder of political opponents.
Panamanian law provides home detention for anyone 74 years old or older.
Next month, Noriega will have served nearly 17¨ö years of an original 40-year sentence in the United States.
The sentence was later reduced to 30 years, and further shortened for good behavior.
Former Islamist Abdullah Gul has been elected president of Turkey following a contest that has split the nation and drawn opposition from the army.
the division between religion and the state was being threatened by "centers of evil.
"Our nation has been watching the behavior of those separatists who can't embrace Turkey's unitary nature, and centers of evil that systematically try to corrode the secular nature of the Turkish Republic," said General Yasar Buyukanit in a note, posted on the military's Web site.
The military is distrustful of Gul, who served as minister in a banned Islamist party in 1997.
It regards itself as the upholder of secularism, on which the state is built, and has overthrown four governments since 1960, the last 10 years ago.
"The army is back in the barracks but its soldiers are still keeping guard and remain on the lookout," said Dogu Ergil of Ankara University.
(CNN) Sen. Larry Craig said that he "overreacted and made a poor decision" in pleading guilty to disorderly conduct after his June arrest following an incident in a Minneapolis airport bathroom.
Tuesday, in his first public statement on the arrest, the Idaho Republican said he did nothing "inappropriate.
With his wife by his side, Craig said he is the victim of a "witch hunt" conducted by the Idaho Statesman newspaper.
"In pleading guilty, I overreacted in Minneapolis, because of the stress of the Idaho Statesman's investigation and the rumors it has fueled around Idaho," he said. "Again, that overreaction was a mistake, and I apologize for my misjudgment."
A police officer who arrested him June 11 said Craig peered through a crack in a restroom stall door for two minutes and made gestures suggesting to the officer he wanted to engage in "lewd conduct."
Craig's blue eyes were clearly visible through the crack in the door, Minneapolis-St.
Paul International Airport police Sgt. Dave Karsnia wrote in the report he filed.
"Craig would look down at his hands, 'fidget' with his fingers, and then look through the crack into my stall again," Karsnia wrote in documents accompanying the arrest report.
After he was taken for questioning, the police report says, Craig pulled out of a Senate business card and asked the officer: "What do you think of that?
Senate Republican leaders are calling for an ethics committee review. A GOP leadership aide said senators were especially concerned about the business card allegation.
The GOP leadership consists of Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Assistant Minority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi, Conference Chairman Jon Kyl of Arizona, Policy Committee Chair Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, and Senatorial Committee Chair John Ensign of Nevada.
Craig, 62, pleaded guilty August 8 to a misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge in the incident, according to Minnesota criminal records.
Craig told police that he had reached down to the floor to pick up a piece of paper, the officer wrote.
"It should be noted that there was not a piece of paper on the bathroom floor, nor did Craig pick up a piece of paper," Karsnia wrote.
"During the interview, Craig either disagreed with me or 'didn't recall' the events as they happened. "
"At the time of this incident, I complained to the police that they were misconstruing my actions.
Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-California, chairwoman of the Ethics Committee, declined to comment on whether an investigation would be conducted. Her office noted the committee's work is generally confidential.
Craig, Idaho's senior senator, is married with three grown children and nine grandchildren. His seat is up for re-election in 2008.
South Korean negotiators in Afghanistan have reached a deal with Taliban militants holding 19 South Korean Christian aid workers for over a month, a presidential spokesman in Seoul said Tuesday.
Seoul welcomes the deal, but spokesman Cheon Ho-sun cautioned that many details must still be worked out and the aid workers will not be released immediately.
Near the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, Afghan and coalition forces on Tuesday killed two Taliban militants and detained five others.
ANKARA, Turkey (CNN) Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, a former Islamist, is set to be elected Turkey's next president on Tuesday in a move the secular elite says will bring religion back into public life and undermine the secular republic.
Gul has established himself as a respected diplomat since his AK Party was first elected in 2002, securing the launch of Turkey's European Union entry talks.
Armed forces chief General Yasar Buyukanit said on Monday he saw consistent efforts to undermine the secular republic, a statement suggesting the army would not stand on the sidelines if it saw the separation between Mosque and state threatened.
The secular elite and Turkey's generals, who have ousted four governments since 1960, are wary of Gul's Islamist past and alarmed at the prospect of a woman, his wife, wearing the Islamic headscarf in the Cankaya presidential palace.
Gul is set to win the third round of voting when the AK Party only needs an absolute majority to secure the post. In the previous two rounds in the chamber they failed because a two-thirds majority was required.
The AK Party has 341 seats in the 550-seat chamber.
Turkey has been mired in political turmoil since April when the Islamist-rooted AK Party first nominated Gul as their candidate.
In Turkey, the government holds most power but the president can veto laws and appointments of officials, and name judges.
During the past five years of AK Party government, Gul has championed Turkey's EU bid, and helped push through human rights reforms and judicial amendments.
He says he would continue to support the difficult EU process as president.
"I think we'll see a sort of gentlemen's agreement emerge whereby the AK Party won't interfere in the secular nature of public life and the army won't intervene in everything at the political level," said Dogu Ergil of Ankara University.
Like many Vermonters, Deborah Lisi-Baker enjoys the outdoors.
It clears your head just to get to appreciate all the sounds and colors and shapes.
Lisi-Baker, 55, uses a wheelchair, meaning that the trails that lace up and down Vermont's Green Mountains are largely inaccessible to her.
But that may be changing, at least in a small way.
The National Park Service program will be launched in September, according to Gerry Gaumer, spokesman for the agency.
The objective, he said, "is to put all the information on one Web site, where people can access not only trails but also other programs that are accessible," such as museum exhibits, camp sites and visitors centers.
Gaumer said most national parks have some accessible facilities, but the information has never been compiled in one place before.
(The Web link for the program will be made public in September.)
In Vermont, the Baldwin Trail on Mount Independence was dedicated July 1, opening for the public parts of an important Revolutionary War historic site, including archaeological sites and vistas of the Lake Champlain Valley, for the first time.
The 1.6-mile trail has gentle grades and packed surfaces, making it accessible for wheelchairs.
In Killington, the Green Mountain Club has been working this summer to finish a project relocating part of the Appalachian Trail to get it away from roads.
The project has grown to include a new wheelchair-accessible boardwalk.
When it opens this fall, it will be the first section of the Appalachian Trail in northern New England to be designed as wheelchair-accessible.
Nearly 1,000 feet long, it passes a spectacular view of the Thundering Brook falls and through the Ottauquechee River flood plain.
The teenage son of wrestling icon Hulk Hogan was discharged Monday from a Florida hospital after he slammed his Toyota Supra into a palm tree in a wreck local police called "spectacular.
A representative answering the patient information line at Bayfront Medical Center in St. Petersburg, Florida, said Nick Bollea, 17, had been discharged.
Bollea is the son of Hogan, whose real name is Terrence Bollea.
Bollea's passenger in the Sunday crash, John Graziano, 22, remained in critical condition at Bayfront on Monday afternoon, said hospital spokeswoman Nancy Waite.
"Nick is currently at the hospital with John and his family," said Bollea's mother, Linda Hogan, in a statement. "His sole concern is for the well-being of his friend.
On behalf of my family, we ask that your thoughts and prayers be with John and his loved ones."
Nick Bollea was driving at a "high rate of speed" Sunday evening when he lost control of the yellow Supra, said Wayne Shelor, a spokesman for the Clearwater, Florida, police.
The car "inexplicably left the roadway," jumped a median and crashed into a palm tree just east of downtown, Shelor said. "It destroyed the car," he said.
Firefighters had to extract Bollea and Graziano from the wreckage.
Both were flown by helicopter to Bayfront Medical Center, Shelor said.
Police shut down the mile-long Court Street, the main east-west thoroughfare through central Clearwater, as they investigated the accident, he said.
Hogan, one of the top professional wrestlers of the 1980s and 1990s, is featured in the VH1 reality show "Hogan Knows Best."
His son, wife Linda and daughter Brooke regularly appear on the show.
Venus Williams broke the U.S. Open record for fastest women's serve with a 129-mph bullet as she blasted past Hungarian qualifier Kira Nagy 6-2 6-1 in the first round on Monday.
She was joined in the second round by younger sister Serena who battled past Angelique Kerber of Germany 6-3 7-5 in a later match.
The eighth-seeded Williams, an eight-times grand slam winner, needed 77 minutes to dispatch the 19-year-old Kerber.
"I didn't play well at all, at all," said the 25-year-old, who has been bothered by a sore left thumb and was playing in her first match since losing in the Wimbledon quarter-finals to Justine Henin.
Venus Williams said she was surprised at hitting 129 mph during her first service game to tie the speed she reached at Wimbledon earlier this season as the fastest ever at a grand slam.
Brenda Schultz-McCarthy of the Netherlands hit a 130-mph serve in the qualifying event in Cincinnati last year, considered to be the record by the WTA.
European shares notched up a seventh consecutive day of gains on Monday in their longest rising stretch in almost nine months on a day of holiday-thinned trade.
The FTSEurofirst 300 index of leading European shares closed up 0.1 percent at 1,516.34 points for the longest winning streak since early December 2006.
Shares in OMX rose by more than 3.5 percent during the day after The Daily Telegraph said U.S. exchange company Nasdaq may sell its stake in the London Stock Exchange to Borse Dubai and make a joint bid with the Gulf exchange for the Nordic exchange owner OMX.
OMX shares were last up 1.7 percent at 243.5 Swedish crowns.
The National Association of Realtors said the pace of existing home sales fell to a 5.75 million annual rate in July, against expectations for a rate of 5.70 million.
said Commerzbank strategist Ralf Groenemeyer in Frankfurt.
As a female voice coos, "Welcome to space," six passengers in skintight spacesuits unbuckle their seatbelts and somersault in zero gravity, occasionally peeking back at Earth through the private spaceship's large portholes.
Virgin Galactic showed off this animated video promoting the weightless joys of commercial space travel at a trade show for experimental aircraft last month.
The accident at the remote site run by famed aerospace designer Burt Rutan rattled the fledgling space tourism industry, which has enjoyed a honeymoon period since 2004 when Rutan launched SpaceShipOne, the first private manned rocket into space.
Some space experts believe Virgin Galactic is following the right strategy because the accident was of an industrial nature and not directly related to spaceflight.
But eventually customers and the public will demand answers, they say.
Virgin Galactic did privately contact its prized customers known as founders, who have paid the full $200,000 to be among the first to experience four minutes of weightlessness.
Stephen Attenborough, Virgin Galactic's astronaut liaison, reassured the founders in an e-mail that the accident's impact on the first commercial spaceflights expected in late 2009 or 2010 will be "minimal" and that it was "business as usual.
"It hasn't affected Virgin Galactic as a business at all," Whitehorn said. "It hasn't put a stop to anything.
BEIJING, China (CNN) China hit back on Monday after Mattel's massive toy recall, saying designers and importers should also take responsibility for product safety, but promised to punish its own manufacturers who flout standards.
The world's largest toymaker recalled more than 18 million Chinese-made toys this month because of hazards from small magnets that can cause injury if swallowed, just two weeks after it recalled 1.5 million toys due to fears over lead paint.
"I myself looked at some of the samples of these problematic toys, and I found that there is a serious problem with the design.
"While we recognize that Chinese producers should be blamed for those problematic toys, what kind of responsibility should the U.S. designers and the U.S. importers take in this respect?
China is facing growing global pressure to clean up its manufacturing sector and ensure the quality of its exports after a series of scandals involving products ranging from poisonous pet food ingredients to sub-standard toys and tainted toothpaste.
Li has described the storm surrounding Chinese-made goods as politically motivated and unfair, but he has also called for tougher regulation of manufacturers and warned that failure to improve quality was undermining China's trade strength.
On Monday, he blamed differing national standards, misleading statistics and lack of communication for some of the product safety scares that have alarmed foreign consumers.
"For some products, the two countries enforce different standards," Li said of China and the United States, also citing "inaccurate statistics".
But he said the latest Chinese campaign to improve product safety would focus on creating a chain of supervision across the entire production process for both industrial products and food.
Monitoring and inspection of drug manufacturers would also be strengthened, Li said.
"In China, about 3 million workers are working in the toy industry, providing toys to children all across the world," he said.
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) Life is good for Scarlett Johansson.
The actress and aspiring singer just recorded her debut album and has a calendar full of film projects that will keep her busy for months.
At just 22, Johansson has already taken direction from Robert Redford, Brian DePalma, Christopher Nolan and Woody Allen, with whom she's currently working for the third time.
She's shared the screen with John Travolta, Bill Murray, Steve Buscemi and Hilary Swank in roles that have seen her as an outcast, action star and little girl lost.
In her latest project, "The Nanny Diaries," which opened Friday, Johansson stars opposite Oscar nominees Laura Linney and Paul Giamatti.
Speaking by phone from Barcelona, where she's shooting Allen's latest film, Johansson talked with The Associated Press about music, her movie career and how she avoids the pitfalls and paparazzi that plague her Hollywood contemporaries.
Are you Woody Allen's new muse?
SCARLETT JOHANSSON:
We like to work together.
It's an easy working relationship and a really nice friendship, so it works out.
What attracted you to "The Nanny Diaries"?
JOHANSSON:
Shari (Springer Berman) and Bob (Pulcini) were attached to it ... had written the script, and I was a big fan of "American Splendor."
So I met with them ... and we just got along incredibly well.
The three of us spent hours talking about everything, and we have sort of similar upbringings, and we're all from New York.
That's what attracted me to the project to begin with.
How did you like working in your hometown?
JOHANSSON:
New York is such a great city to shoot in. ...
It's been a long time since I've been able to shoot at home and it's just so much fun.
It's wonderful to be able to just see your friends after work, to be able to go home and sleep in your own bed.
What about this album you're releasing?
It's all Tom Waits covers?
JOHANSSON:
I've always been a huge fan of Tom Waits and I had this kind of golden opportunity to make an album however I wanted and it's kind of a dream chance.
Obviously, it's not an album where I'm trying to sound like him.
Has music always been an interest of yours?
JOHANSSON:
I actually started acting because I wanted to be in musicals when I was a little girl.
That's where my dream career was going to be when I was 8 years old, like the young Cosette in "Les Miserables."
Then I started making films and I never ended up doing musical theater.
I've always loved to sing and I've always loved music and listened to lots of music and all kinds of music.
Unlike some of your contemporaries, you're not a famous partier and haven't been arrested for drunk driving.
How do you stay on track?
JOHANSSON:
I don't think necessarily that there's trouble looming around the corner for everyone involved in this industry.
... I have a really wonderful family that's very supportive.
Luckily I never really struggled with any kind of, I don't know, image problems or addictions.
It's hard I think for a lot of youths to avoid these pitfalls.
SANTA MONICA, California (CNN) Owen Wilson was reported in good condition Monday, a day after he was taken from his home by ambulance, a hospital spokeswoman said.
"I respectfully ask that the media allow me to receive care and heal in private during this difficult time," the 38-year-old actor said in a statement released through publicist Ina Treciokas.
Wilson was at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, said hospital spokeswoman Cynthia Harding.
He was initially taken to St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica.
It wasn't known why Wilson was hospitalized, but a neighbor said a police car, fire truck and ambulance were outside the actor's gated house around noon Sunday.
"These guys were kind of taking their time taking a stretcher out of the ambulance, then they went into the house," said neighbor Geoffry White, 61, who lives directly across the street.
Santa Monica Fire Battalion Chief Jose Torres said Monday the department responded to a call that involved Wilson.
Wilson's screen credits include "Wedding Crashers" and "You, Me and Dupree." He was nominated for a screenwriting Oscar for 2001's "The Royal Tenenbaums."
ISTANBUL, Turkey (CNN) Turkey's staunchly secular military said Monday that the strict line between Islam and the state was under attack by "centers of evil" a strong warning ahead of the expected election of a president with a background in political Islam.
Gen.Yasar Buyukanit, chief of the military, said in a note on the military's Web site, that "our nation has been watching the behavior of centers of evil who systematically try to corrode the secular nature of the Turkish Republic.
The statement from the military, which seized power from civilian governments three times in past decades, was issued to mark the 85th anniversary on Aug.
"Nefarious plans to ruin Turkey's secular and democratic nature emerge in different forms everyday," Buyukanit said in the statement.
In April, when Gul's candidacy first came to vote, the military, which had largely stayed out of the public debate, indicated it was willing to become more openly involved.
voting in the Parliament Tuesday.
In the first two rounds of voting, he failed to get support from two-thirds of the Parliament, which was required to be elected for the post.
His party holds 341 of the 550 seats in Parliament.
DAMASCUS, Syria (CNN) Sitting in a room with the top Hamas leader a man Israel would prefer dead is not an easy feeling, knowing that at any second a missile could shatter the building, killing everyone inside, myself included.
Hamas security guards were all around, their automatic rifles draped over their shoulders. The walls were adorned with the pictures of Hamas members who have carried out suicide bombings that have killed hundreds of Israelis.
We sipped coffee uneasily as we waited for Meshaal to emerge for an interview that was more than three years in the making.
Suddenly and without warning, the Hamas leader appeared.
"You are more than welcome," he said in broken English, a common phrase you hear in the Middle East.
He then explained he was more than willing to discuss anything we wished, ranging from a captive Israeli soldier to the peace process to U.S. foreign policy.
The still abducted Israeli soldier, Cpl. Gilad Shalit, was a key part of the interview, and Meshaal was more than willing to talk about him.
Shortly after the interview began, the room filled up with his guards and those that work with Meshaal.
They wanted to hear what he had to say as much as we did.
In the middle of the interview, one of his guards handed him a cell phone.
He had a brief conversation and apologized to us for the interruption.
The answer: "A very powerful Arab leader.
During the interview, it was impossible not to look at our surroundings.
This was a safe house where the leader of Hamas avoids assassination attempts.
The safe house was a simple building.
There were two levels to this safe house upstairs was a reception room with elaborate decorations, framed pictures of the late Sheik Ahmed Yassin and the Al-Aqsa mosque.
A few tables, couches and plastic chairs.
Hamas security was everywhere checking everything and keeping a keen eye on us. Just a request to use the bathroom involved an escort.
Meshaal is a complicated, calculating man.
To his people, he is seen as a humanitarian and as the leader of Hamas. To Israel, the United States and a list of other nations, he is seen as a terrorist.
Israel has openly blamed him for terror attacks across their country.
They also say he is responsible for the abduction of Shalit.
Next month will mark the 10-year anniversary of an assassination attempt on Meshaal's life by the Israeli intelligence organization Mossad.
While Meshaal was living in Jordan in 1997, Mossad agents breached the building in which he was sleeping.
They injected poison into his ear.
The Jordanian authorities quickly discovered what had happened and through pressure from both the Jordanian king and some U.S. officials, Israel eventually provided Meshaal with the antidote he needed to survive.
Why he agreed to talk to CNN at this moment remains a mystery to me.
We started Friday in a hotel lobby, with a member of Hamas sitting at a table with the two of us. As is tradition in the Arab world, we had a cup of coffee while talking with this man, one of my Hamas contacts.
Our phones and BlackBerries were surrendered all electronic equipment except the cameras handed over, put into bags, and our names written on the bags.
From the hotel, we were escorted through the streets of Damascus.
Suddenly the car stopped and we were hurried inside.
Iraqi forces detained the suspected leader of a terrorist cell network believed to be funded by Saddam Hussein's eldest daughter, who is wanted by Iraqi authorities on terrorism charges, the U.S. military announced Monday.
The raid happened Sunday in Hussein's hometown of Tikrit.
It was carried out by Iraqi forces, advised by U.S. Special Forces, the military said.
The network, believed to be funded by Raghad Hussein, has been "linked to a series of attacks on coalition forces" using rocket-propelled grenades and roadside bombs, the military said.
Other leaders of the network have been detained in previous raids, the military said.
Interpol based in Lyon, France issued a Red Notice in the case. That is a request to police anywhere to help track her down and extradite her to Iraq.
She has been living in Jordan under the protection of the royal family.
A helicopter swooped into a village in southern Greece to rescue residents trapped by flames on Monday one of dozens of fires that have torn through village and forest across the country, leaving blackened landscape in their wake. The fires have killed 63 people over four days, destroying everything in their path.
Another scorched the woodland around the birthplace of the Olympics.
A woman found dead on Friday with her arms around the bodies of four children had fled her home the only house left standing in the village, said a neighbor in the Peloponnese town of Artemida.
The home's white walls and red tile roof were unscathed.
A helicopter airlifted five people to safety on Monday from the village of Prasidaki in southern Greece, said fire department spokesman Yiannis Stamoulis.
Another was sent to the village of Frixa.
"So many fires breaking out simultaneously in so many parts of the country cannot be a coincidence," Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis said in a nationally televised address on Saturday.
Several people have been arrested on suspicion of arson since Friday, although some were accused of starting fires through negligence rather than intent.
One man, however, was charged with arson and homicide in connection with a fire near the southern town of Areopolis on Friday that killed six people.
The government appealed for help from abroad, and 19 countries were sending planes, helicopters and firefighters, including France, which dispatched four water-tanker planes and Russia, which was sending three helicopters and an amphibian plane.
WASHINGTON (CNN) President Bush on Monday said he reluctantly accepted the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, whose "good name was dragged through the mud for political reasons.
After months of standing by his top prosecutor and "close friend," Bush spoke briefly in Texas to praise Gonzales, saying the attorney general endured "unfair treatment that has created harmful distraction at the Justice Department.
Bush said it's "sad that we live in a time when a talented and honorable person" is impeded "from doing important work.
Solicitor General Paul Clement will serve as acting attorney general, Bush said, until a nominee has been confirmed by the Senate.
Earlier in Washington, Gonzales announced his resignation, saying, "I have lived the American dream."
Gonzales described public service as "honorable and noble" and thanked Bush for his friendship.
"Yesterday I met with President Bush and informed him of my decision to conclude my government services as attorney general of the United States effective September 17.
Some senior administration officials floated Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff as a possible replacement, but others waved CNN away from Chertoff, saying that his nomination could run into problems because of his role during Hurricane Katrina.
New York Sen. Charles E. Schumer, a Democratic member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, also suggested that a Chertoff confirmation hearing would be contentious.
Schumer, one of Gonzales' chief critics, appealed to the administration "to work with us to nominate someone whom Democrats can support and America can be proud of.
Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee who has criticized Gonzales' leadership of the Justice Department, called his resignation "a major helpful turn of events.
Specter suggested current or former senators, or someone well-known to the committee would be a good nominee to replace Gonzales.
Another name that emerged is Larry Thompson, a former deputy attorney general who currently serves as vice president and general counsel for PepsiCo.
Although Bush had long stood by Gonzales, many members of Congress from both sides of the aisle had called on him to quit after the firing of several U.S. attorneys in 2006 terminations which were alleged to have been politically motivated.
" Rove, another longtime Bush official and his top political adviser, also resigned this month.
"This resignation is not the end of the story," Reid warned.
"Congress must get to the bottom of this mess and follow the facts where they lead, into the White House.
A British newspaper splashed photos of singer Amy Winehouse bloody and bruised across its Friday edition after she allegedly had a fight with her husband.
A gossip Web site reported that Winehouse had said her injuries were self-inflicted.
Police confirmed they had been called to an incident at a London hotel by a concerned member of the public but said no charges were filed.
The singer announced Tuesday that she was postponing her upcoming U.S. and Canadian tour dates after she canceled August performances due to "severe exhaustion.
Britain's Press Association said the couple were staying in the hotel after leaving a drug rehabilitation clinic in Essex, east of London.
The Daily Mail also published photos of Winehouse together with her husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, after the alleged fight.
His face and neck were covered in scratches.
Powerball lottery officials say one winning ticket was sold for Saturday night's $314 million jackpot.
The pot had grown so huge because there had not been a big winner in any of the drawings since late June.
Saturday night's six Powerball numbers are: 2, 8, 23, 29 and 35, with a Powerball of 19.
The jackpot for the multi-state lottery starts over at 15 million dollars for Wednesday night's drawing.
And for people out of luck on Powerball, there is another giant lottery jackpot out there.
MADRID, Spain(CNN) Sevilla's 22-year-old Spanish international Antonio Puerta was in a "very serious" condition in hospital after collapsing with a heart attack during the 4-1 win over Getafe on the opening day of the Primera Liga season.
"He is in the intensive care unit where he has been given assisted ventilation and is experiencing hemodynamic instability.
The prognosis is very serious," said a medical report issued by the Virgen del Rocio hospital in Seville.
The wingback crouched down and then fell to the ground after jogging back towards his own goal 35 minutes into the game at the Sanchez Pizjuan on Saturday night.
Team mates and medical staff immediately rushed to his side and were seen preventing him from swallowing his tongue as he lost consciousness, but he was able to walk from the pitch.
Doctors said that he collapsed again in the changing rooms and had to be given cardiac resuscitation before being taken to hospital.
"The player's life was saved thanks to the rapid intervention of the club doctors and the Red Cross because he had a number of cardiac arrests.
After visiting the hospital on Sunday del Nido said: "Despite the severity of the situation his situation appears to be evolving favorably and the doctors are becoming more optimistic.
Puerta's collapse overshadowed an impressive start to the new campaign by the UEFA Cup holders.
Champions Real Madrid made a winning start by coming from behind to beat neighbors Atletico 2-1 in front of 80,000 at the Bernabeu, while promoted Real Murcia beat Real Zaragoza 2-1 in their opening fixture.
In an incident packed match in Seville, Getafe were off to a flying start when Pablo put them ahead with a superb free kick, but 20 minutes later they were down to 10 men when Francisco Sousa collected his second yellow card.
Puerta was taken off after 35 minutes and two minutes before half-time Getafe were reduced to nine players when David Cortes was dismissed for a challenge on Diego Capel.
Sevilla quickly exploited their two-man advantage
after the break, Navas equalizing from a superb cross from Sergio Duda in the 46th minute.
Two goals in as many minutes put Sevilla in command, Luis Fabiano heading home in the 67th minute and Freddie Kanoute adding the third.
With eight minutes left Alexander Kerzhakov scored Sevilla's fourth with his first touch.
Three men who met on an Internet site that matches up criminals were arrested after battering a woman to death and abandoning her body in a forest, police and Japanese media said on Monday.
The three arrested men allegedly swapped details on a "crime mates" site through their mobile phones, Kyodo news agency reported, and agreed to kidnap a 31-year-old office worker as she walked home late on Friday night.
They never told each other their names, and bashed the woman to death in a car park after she saw their faces, Kyodo said, adding the three robbed the woman of around 70,000 yen ($601).
Nagoya police said they had arrested two unemployed men and a newspaper salesman and charged them with abandoning the body of the woman, who was later found partially buried in sand in the forest around 300 kilometers (190 miles) west of Tokyo.
The Internet-based plot was uncovered when one of the men turned himself in to police on Saturday, saying he was "scared of capital punishment," Kyodo said.
BEIJING, China (CNN) Two brothers have crawled to safety after being trapped for nearly six days in a Chinese coal mine, state media said on Monday.
Rescuers and their family had given them up for dead after 130 hours underground after a tunnel collapsed, the China Daily said.
Brothers Meng Xianchen and Meng Xianyou were trapped while working at an illegal mine in Beijing's Fangshan District late on Saturday August 18.
Two days later, rescue efforts were called off.
"The miners' families were in despair. " the China Daily said.
On Friday, after 130 hours underground, the two finally saw light.
"After crawling out, they collapsed and were rushed to hospital by miners nearby," the report said.
Doctors said the two, both in their 40s, had lost a lot of weight and their kidneys were damaged due to days without food and water.
A gas explosion in an Inner Mongolian mine that was operating illegally killed seven people on Saturday, as officials began handing compensation to families of 181 miners trapped
BEIJING, China (CNN) German Chancellor Angela Merkel is expected to push for tougher global action against climate change and ending human rights abuses in Darfur in meetings with top Chinese officials on Monday.
The visit to China is Merkel's second as Chancellor and comes four months before world environment ministers meet in Bali, Indonesia to try to launch new talks to extend the Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012.
Merkel said on Saturday she would press China for help in ending human rights violations in Sudan's Darfur region.
"China has very close ties with Africa and we will obviously talk about what we can do now to combat the appalling human rights violations in Sudan's Darfur region," Merkel said in a statement at the weekend.
A German government official said the aim of the trip was to deepen relations.
Merkel will meet President Hu Jintao, Premier Wen Jiabao and cultural and civil rights groups on Monday. She heads to Japan on Wednesday where she will also address climate change and economic issues.
Merkel heads to Japan on Wednesday where she will also address climate change and economic issues.
LAHORE, Pakistan (CNN) Pakistan, a South Asian nation with nuclear capability, says it has successfully test-fired a new missile that "can carry all types of warheads.
The army said in a statement that the country on Saturday fired an "air-launched cruise missile called Hatf-8, or Ra'ad which means thunder in Arabic.
The development prompted President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz to congratulate the scientists and engineers involved in the project.
"Pakistan's defense will continue to be strengthened as an imperative of national security, they said, and assured all support to Pakistan's strategic program," the army said.
Pakistan and India, its neighbor and nuclear rival, have carried out missile tests in the past and they have become routine.
Both countries reached an agreement in 2006 that stipulates each will notify the other before conducting missile tests, and a Pakistani government official told CNN that Pakistan informed India about this latest test.
American Tyson Gay blazed down the track in 9.85 seconds to claim the world 100 metres title in Osaka on Sunday, beating world record-holder Asafa Powell into third.
Powell was quickly into the lead but Gay overtook his man in the last 20 meters with the Bahamas' Derrick Atkins claiming silver in 9.91.It was a big disappointment for Powell, who faded to finish in 9.96.
But he had the consolation of hanging on to his 9.77 world record.
Gay claimed his first world title in the second-fastest time this year after his 9.84 seconds in June.
After a clean start Powell was quickest into his stride but lacked the extra gears to contain Gay.Powell has been affected by knee tendonitis and a groin injury but bounced back with 9.90 last month in Rome, the second best time this year.
Gay is also competing in the 200m, which he leads this season with 19.62.
Ohio residents removed piles of waterlogged carpet, couches and upended refrigerators from their homes Sunday.
They began the cleanup from recent flooding that Gov. Ted Strickland called "devastating.
Strickland and Federal Emergency Management Agency officials surveyed damage in the heavily flooded northwest Ohio village of Ottawa, where he walked through the muddy streets.
It's absolutely devastating," Strickland said in a telephone interview.
The governor wants the federal government to declare a major disaster in the parts of north-central Ohio inundated by the past week's powerful storms and record floods that were blamed for at least 18 deaths in the Midwest.
Meanwhile, the remnants of what was once Hurricane Dean soaked Southern California on Sunday afternoon, with as much as three inches of rain falling on the deserts of southwest San Diego County.
In southern Michigan, utility crews had restored power to all but 26,000 of 427,000 homes and businesses left without power two days earlier.
President Bush on Sunday issued a disaster declaration Sunday in five southwestern Wisconsin counties after a Federal Emergency Management Agency assessment a day earlier.
Iraq's former interim prime minister accused Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki of fomenting sectarian violence plaguing the war-ravaged nation.
Ayad Allawi said Sunday he will soon return to Baghdad to "reverse the course in Iraq.
Speaking from Amman, Jordan, Allawi told "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer," that al-Maliki leads a government loyal to Iran and Shiite interests.
Allawi accused the prime minister of "supporting militias to take the rule of law in their hands.
Allawi also said he would like to see the United States begin to withdraw troops immediately, but realizes the process could take more than two years.
"I would play my role in Iraq in whatever capacity is required to change Iraq into an unsectarian country, to a peaceful country, to a democratic country," Allawi said.
"Prime Minister al-Maliki's a good guy good man with a difficult job and I support him," Bush said. "And it's not up to the politicians in Washington, D.C., to say whether he will remain in his position."
A top Indian official Sunday refused to comment on claims that Islamic militants were responsible for attacks in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad that killed at least 44 people.
"These are things that will not be openly discussed ... we can comment when the investigation is complete," Home Secretary Shivraj Patil said at a news conference in Hyderabad.
One explosion, suspected to have been a bomb, occurred as a laser music show was to begin at an outdoor auditorium in Lumbini Park after 7:30 p.m. (10 a.m. ET).
About 500 people were in the audience when the blast ripped through the middle row of seats, killing 10 people, including five college-age students, Reddy said.
"It was a high-intensity blast," said Asaduddin Owaisi, an Andhra Pradesh state lawmaker from Hyderabad. He said it caused carnage at the park.
A second blast happened five minutes later, 8 kilometers (about 5 miles) away at a snack shop in Kothi market a commercial area with large crowds.
At least 34 people were killed, hospital officials said Sunday.
Authorities believe a gas cylinder may have exploded at the shop.
Authorities also found explosives at 16 other locations in and near the city one of India's biggest, Reddy said.
Some of the worst flooding to hit North Korea in decades has killed at least 600 people, double the previous known toll, the official news agency said at the weekend.
The reclusive North had earlier told international aid agencies, and reported in its official media, that 300 people had been killed or were missing after floods and landslides brought about by weeks of heavy rain this month.
"The unusual heavy rain caused huge material losses to the DPRK, creating unprecedented difficulties in people's living and economic construction," the official KCNA news agency said.
"According to the information available from the Central Statistics Bureau, torrential rain, strong winds and landslides left at least 600 people dead or missing and thousands of people wounded," KCNA said in a late Saturday report.
in the capital Pyongyang, much of the North's infrastructure is a shambles, with the communist state still using rail lines and power systems built during Japan's 1910-1945 colonial rule of the peninsula.
The United Nations will launch an appeal early next week for North Korean flood aid of around $15-20 million, a senior U.N. official said on Friday.
The World Food Programme has already started distributing emergency food rations.
(CNN) Another bore hole will be drilled in the Utah mine where six miners were trapped nearly three weeks ago, said Jack Kuzar of the federal Mine Health and Safety Administration on Sunday.
A robotic camera will be used to help officials determine the situation in the mine, said Robin Murphy, director of the Center for Robot Assisted Search and Rescue at the University of South Florida.
She told reporters that there is less than a 50 percent chance of finding any "additional information," describing the rocky and muddy conditions in the mine.
Attempts to contact the miners through five previous bore holes have also been met with silence, and an underground rescue effort was called off last week after a second cave-in killed three rescuers and injured six others.
The search effort will stop if no signs of life are found, Bob Murray, co-owner of the coal mine and CEO of Murray Energy, said earlier this week.
The sixth hole was drilled into the area where the miners were known to be working when the mine collapsed August 6.
Murray told CNN earlier this week that plans were under way to establish a memorial for the missing miners at the site after the mine is closed.
LONDON, England (CNN) Camilla, the wife of Britain's Prince Charles, says she will not attend the memorial service marking the 10th anniversary of princess Diana's death this week.
Camilla had been invited to attend the ceremony by Princes William and Harry and had initially accepted.
However, Clarence House announced on Sunday that she had decided not to go, fearing that her attendance could divert attention from the purpose of the occasion.
"I accepted and wanted to support them, however, on reflection I believe my attendance could divert attention from the purpose of the occasion which is to focus on the life and service of Diana.
"I'm grateful to my husband, William and Harry for supporting my decision. "
A decade after Diana's death, Camilla is Charles's second wife, William and Harry's stepmother, and an established member of the Royal Family.
However, according to one poll, more than half of Britons believed Camilla should not attend the official commemoration.
Women were particularly opposed to Camilla's presence, with 61 percent against.
The memorial service will take place on Friday at the Guards Chapel in London, 10 years to the day after Diana was killed in a high-speed car crash in Paris alongside her lover, Dodi Fayed.
ATHENS, Greece (CNN) The wildfires that have scorched southern Greece, killing dozens of people, reached the ancient city of Olympia, birthplace of the Olympic games, an official said Sunday.
The city is "in danger," said fire department spokeswoman Janis Stamoulis, explaining that the flames are encroaching on an old museum and archaeological center.
None of the city's historical sites has been destroyed, she said.
Officials said Sunday they have arrested and charged two individuals in connection with the fires that have razed dozens of villages and killed at least 51 people, Fire Brigade Officer Nikos Tsogas said Sunday.
One of the individuals is a 65-year-old man, who witnesses said they saw torching areas in the southern Peloponnese region near the town of Areopolis, located 190 kilometers (120 miles) southwest of Athens.
The second person was a 77-year-old woman who reportedly started a fire while cooking in her garden in Zaharo, one of the hardest hit areas in the south.
Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis declared a nationwide state of emergency Saturday night, mobilizing all resources.
In a nationally televised address, Karamanlis suggested the blazes might have been deliberately set by political extremists ahead of next month's national elections. The fires have placed a damper on campaigning.
No one has the right to take human lives and destroy the environment, he added.
Scores of people have been hospitalized with severe burns and respiratory problems, state-run television reported.
A mother, her child and at least seven other people died while trying to flee a burning, wooded area in the mountainous villages in the western Peloponnese, near the town of Zaharo, according to a fire brigade official.
Farther south, six people including two French tourists found by rescue crews in an embrace were killed in a forest fire that swept near their hotel in the town of Areopolis, located 190 km (120 miles) southwest of Athens.
.
A U.S. commander in Iraq said he believes it's not possible to withdraw troops from his region south and east of Baghdad by year's end as an influential senator called for a day earlier.
Army Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, commander of the Multi-National Division-Center, was asked to comment on Republican Sen. John Warner's recommendation that President Bush start withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq by Christmas.
Speaking to Pentagon reporters Friday via teleconference from Iraq, Lynch said, "Only when the Iraqi security forces come forward and say, 'OK, here I am, I'm trained and equipped, I'm ready, I'm the Iraqi army or I'm the Iraqi police,' can I turn those sanctuaries over, and that's not going to happen between now and Christmas.
Lynch, whose operations cover the central part of Iraq, south of Baghdad, said soldiers have been helped by the "surge," or additional troops, and have made strides against militants.
But he said, "If we were to lose that capability, the enemy would come back.
"We would take a giant step backward," said Lynch, adding he needs the troops to fight both Shiite and Sunni militants and to confront significant Iranian influence in the region.
By next spring or summer, however, such a move might be possible if enough progress is made, he said.
Zimbabwe's government introduced a bill Thursday to give Zimbabweans majority ownership of foreign companies, a move critics say will deepen the economic crisis.
If passed it would give the government sweeping powers over how foreign companies, including mines, operate in Zimbabwe.
Critics accuse veteran leader President Robert Mugabe of trying to push through the empowerment bill to extend his patronage and focus attention from Zimbabwe's economic turmoil.
Mugabe is seeking another five-year term in presidential elections next year.
It is likely to pass because Mugabe's ZANU-PF party dominates parliament, analysts say.
Critics say it is reminiscent of Mugabe's controversial policy of seizing white-owned farms to give to landless blacks, which many say triggered the economic crisis.
Empowerment of Zimbabwean companies could drain what little confidence there is left in the country and step up pressure on Mugabe to show he is in control, analysts say.
"There was no doubt they would push it through before the elections because it's designed to garner votes," said economic commentator Eric Bloch.
"What remains to be seen is how vigorously they are going to implement it, but it's certainly going to discourage investors.
Analysts say Zimbabwe's main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) is too weak and divided to pose a political challenge to Mugabe, who has been in power for 27 years.
India's Supreme Court barred the media on Friday from showing nude photographs of a former Bollywood actress, said to have been taken by a camera hidden in the bathroom of the jail where she was imprisoned over a forgery case.
Monica Bedi, who was released on bail from a jail in southern India last month, said the pictures shown by one TV channel on Thursday, whether "genuine" or "morphed", violated her right to life and dignity.
"If indeed the photographs were taken by installing a camera in the bathroom of the prison it was a serious invasion of the right of privacy of the petitioner," her lawyer K.T.S. Tulsi told the court.
A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan agreed with Tulsi.
"We direct all news channels ... to immediately stop telecasting the offending news item," the court ruled.
Bedi, a small-time actress, was extradited from Portugal along with Mumbai underworld figure Abu Salem in 2005 in a high profile passport forgery case linked to India's worst bomb attacks.
Salem is accused of involvement in the Mumbai bomb blasts in 1993 which killed 257 people and is currently facing trial over the attacks.
She was released on bail from jail in the southern city of Hyderabad pending an appeal after a court sentenced her to five years in prison for a similar offence.
Briton Tim Henman announced has that he intends to retire from tennis after the Davis Cup world group playoff against Croatia next month.
In a press conference at Flushing Meadows, where he will play in the U.S. Open next week, the 32-year-old Englishman said persistent back problems had convinced him it was the right time to quit.
"I'd officially like to say that I am going to be retiring after the Davis Cup against Croatia at Wimbledon," said Henman, who reached a world ranking high of four in 2002.
"From a professional point of view it's something I've been thinking about for some time.
" Henman, who will turn 33 on September 6, was forced to pull out of this week's ATP event in New Haven.
He has won just three ATP Tour matches this year and his world ranking has fallen to 92.
Henman has won 11 career singles titles, including one Masters Series crown in Paris in 2003 and won a silver medal in the men's doubles at the Atlanta Olympic Games in 1996.
He reached the semifinals at Wimbledon four times, made the last four at both the French Open and U.S. Open in 2004, and has won 38 of his 52 singles matches in Davis Cup.
Henman said he expected to retain a close connection with the sport.
I'm looking forward to stepping away from things and spending time at home but I'm sure whether it's next year or the year after I'll look at what's out there and I'm sure that will involve tennis.
Henman will play Russian Dmitry Tursunov in the first round at the U.S. Open.
Lindsay Lohan reached a plea deal Thursday on misdemeanor drunken driving and cocaine charges that calls for her to spend one day in jail, serve 10 days of community service and complete a drug treatment program.
She was also placed on 36 months probation, is required to complete an 18-month alcohol education program, pay hundreds of dollars in fines and must complete a three-day county coroner program in which she'll visit a morgue and talk to victims of drunken drivers.
she was ashamed of. "I broke the law and today I took responsibility by pleading guilty to the charges in my case.
"No matter what I said when I was under the influence on the day I was arrested, I am not blaming anyone else for my conduct other than myself. I thank God I did not injure others.
Lohan was charged earlier in the day with seven misdemeanors stemming from two drunken-driving arrests in the last four months.
no contest to two counts of driving with a blood-alcohol level above .08 percent and one count of reckless driving.
Lohan was arrested on May 26 in Beverly Hills, California, and on July 24 in Santa Monica, California.
The soil on Mars may contain microbial life, according to a new interpretation of data first collected more than 30 years ago.
The search for life on Mars appeared to hit a dead end in 1976 when Viking landers touched down on the red planet and failed to detect biological activity.
But Joop Houtkooper of the University of Giessen, Germany, said on Friday the spacecraft may in fact have found signs of a weird life form based on hydrogen peroxide on the subfreezing, arid Martian surface.
That is roughly comparable to biomass levels found in some Antarctic permafrost
, home to a range of hardy bacteria and lichen.
"It is interesting because one part per thousand is not a small amount," Houtkooper said in a telephone interview.
It is a possibility that life has been transported from Earth to Mars or vice versa a long time ago.
Houtkooper is presenting his research to the European Planetary Science Congress in Potsdam, Germany.
Pakistan's embattled leader, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, could face a key challenge to his rule in the coming months following the expected return of two major opposition leaders.
Pakistan's Supreme Court Thursday lifted the exile imposed on former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, ousted from power eight years ago by Musharraf in a bloodless coup.
The move is expected to clear the way for Sharif to run for office in elections scheduled for later this year or early next year.
In addition, opposition leader and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto also plans to return to Pakistan from self-imposed exile and take part in the upcoming elections.
"I don't believe in power-sharing with Musharraf he is a dictator, we are democrats," Sharif said Thursday, shortly after the Pakistani court's ruling.
"How can a democrat share power with a dictator?"
The Bush administration continues to support Musharraf, who it views as a key ally in the war on terrorism.
Administration officials have toned down that support in recent months after intelligence assessments indicated Musharraf's agreement with tribal leaders gave al Qaeda and Taliban militants free rein along the Afghan border.
Millions of dollars and 120,000 square feet later, he's king of a wine country castle complete with drawbridge, dungeons and nifty little slots for the old boiling oil trick.
If neighboring Sterling Vineyards decides to make a move, he says with a chuckle, "We'll be ready.
So far, the chief invaders of Castello di Amorosa "Castle of Love" have been tourists and wine-lovers, eager to get a look at the 13th-century-style Tuscan castle that sits on Diamond Mountain, just south of Calistoga on Highway 29.
The roughhewn walls and ceilings contain bricks hundreds of years old, all imported from Europe there are 850,000 in all.
Medieval masons used lime in their mortar, so did Sattui. In the old days, lamps were made by hand, each a little bit different, so are his.
"We either used old materials or we did it the same way it would have been done, not 100 percent, but to the extent we were able to with modern building codes," he said.
There are 107 rooms on eight levels, four above ground and four below.
Sattui has been making wine in the Napa Valley since the '70s when he started the V. Sattui Winery in St. Helena.
The winery is named after his great-grandfather Vittorio, an Italian winemaker who made wine under the name V. Sattui in San Francisco until Prohibition shut him down.
The castle opened for tours earlier this year and has thousands of visitors already, some coming back for a second or third time.
On a recent tour, Sattui was interrupted when his cell phone rang presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani calling to talk about a fundraiser at the castle.
WASHINGTON (CNN) The Justice Department is giving Britain's largest airline a break, even as it faces one the largest antitrust fines in years.
Representatives of British Airways are scheduled to plead guilty Thursday to two counts of conspiracy and face a likely fine of $300 million for colluding with rival Virgin Atlantic over fuel surcharges on international flights.
As part of its plea deal, British Airways is admitting that between mid-2004 and early 2006 , it colluded with Virgin Atlantic over the surcharges, which were added to fares in response to rising oil prices.
Between 2004 and 2006, fuel surcharges rose from about $10 to about $120 per ticket for a round-trip long-haul flight on BA or Virgin.
The $300 million in criminal fines were the second-largest antitrust sanction by the Justice Department since 1995.
The influential former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee has called on President Bush to start the process of bringing U.S. troops home from Iraq in September.
Sen. John Warner, a Virginia Republican, said Thursday that a pullout was needed to spur Iraqi leaders to action.
He has recommended Bush announce the beginning of a U.S. withdrawal in mid-September, after a report is released from the top U.S. officials in Iraq, and that those troops should be back in the United States by Christmas.
"In my humble judgment, that would get everyone's attention the attention that is not being paid at this time," Warner said.
"I really, firmly believe the Iraqi government, under the leadership of Prime Minister [Nuri] al-Maliki, let our troops down.
In Texas, where Bush is on vacation, National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said the White House appreciated Warner's advice.
But he said the president would wait for the recommendations of Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq, and the American ambassador in Baghdad, Ryan Crocker, before making any decisions.
"That will be the time, in September, to hear these reports and then make decisions about the way ahead," Johndroe said.
But he added, "I don't think that the president feels any differently about setting a specific timetable for withdrawal."
Warner opposed Bush's January decision to send nearly 30,000 additional U.S. troops to Iraq. But he has so far also opposed Democratic efforts to force Bush to start bringing U.S. troops home.
(CNN) At one point in Jared Hutchins' young life, the Beatles were a big problem.
"I had to stop listening to them for a while," said Hutchins, who lives in Cumming, Georgia, and plays the piano, guitar and harmonica.
He said the group's world view "had a negative effect on me," and made him irritable and angry.
"God owns my life, not the Beatles," he said simply.
Although Hutchins said he enjoys a wide range of music from Pink Floyd and Arcade Fire to Christian bands such as Hillsong United he said he has to be careful of what music he listens to, for the same reason he temporarily turned off the Beatles.
Hutchins, a 16-year-old graced with poise and thoughtfulness, is one of many teenagers who say that some part of popular culture, with its ubiquitous references to sex, drugs and violence, has harmed him.
Last year, Hutchins and his Christian youth group attended an Acquire the Fire rally in Atlanta, Georgia, he said.
are the products of the evangelical Christian organization Teen Mania.
For Hutchins, who said he struggled in his early adolescence to fit in and be cool before having a personal experience with God about four years ago, the organization's message is exactly right.
"We don't have to be branded by the culture, we are branded by God," he said.
More than two decades old, Teen Mania estimates it has reached more than 2 million teens with its message "of living completely for Christ.
The organization is sprawling.
In addition to its live stadium rallies, there are BattleCry shirts and hats,books.
There is even a Teen Mania internship, a one-year program called the Honor Academy, based in Lindale, Texas.
There, in arguably the most liberal city in the United States, protesters, armed with megaphones and poster board signs, rallied against BattleCry on the steps of City Hall as the Christian teenagers circled and prayed in a demonstration of their own.
Peterson is a member of Teen Mania's Honor Academy.
And of the critics' contention that the rallies, the organization, the message is neo-conservatism wrapped in Biblical verse? Hutchins smiles, nods patiently.
"I don't go because I have a political agenda," he said, adding that his friends don't, either.
LONDON, England (CNN) Two teenagers have been arrested over the murder of an 11-year-old boy shot dead in Liverpool as he played football, police said on Thursday.
Detectives are questioning a boy of 14 and another aged 18 on suspicion of the murder of Rhys Jones.
He was shot outside a pub by a hooded youth on a bicycle, according to media reports.
Three shots were fired, one of which hit the schoolboy in the neck.
Merseyside Chief Constable Bernard Hogan-Howe said the boy, who lived nearby with his parents and 17-year-old brother, was an innocent victim.
"We need to get these guns off the street and we do not allow people to run around and randomly shoot people," he added.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown told reporters at Downing Street: "The people responsible will be tracked down, arrested and punished.
Police sealed off the area around the pub in the Croxteth area, where Manchester United's Wayne Rooney grew up.
One witness said the boy, a keen Everton fan, was shot after a youth league football match on Wednesday evening.
"The game had just finished when we heard a loud bang and nobody thought anything more of it," an unnamed parent told the Daily Telegraph.
"But as we walked past the Fir Tree pub we noticed a young boy slumped in the corner of the car park.
Police called on the community to help find the killer.
Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said she was "desperately sorry" for the boy's family: "It is awful for them, it is awful for the community," she told BBC radio.
The shooting was the latest in a spate of murders of young people across Britain this year that have focused attention on gang-related violence.
Few stories have touched CNN.com users like that of 5-year-old Youssif, an Iraqi boy who had gone out to play on a January day when he was suddenly grabbed by masked men, doused in gas and set on fire.
CNN.com users responded by the thousands to the story asking how they could help.
But there were tricky and difficult issues the family had to suddenly confront, as several aid organizations quickly offered their services.
Specifically, the family had to make a decision on whether to leave their homeland or stay inside Iraq for treatment.
Further complicating matters is the fact that few aid organizations remain in Iraq;
Leaving one's homeland is never an easy choice to make, even during war.
But the family has decided Youssif should seek treatment in the United States.
The foundation says it will cover all medical costs from surgeries for Youssif to housing costs to any social rehabilitation that might be need for him.
Youssif could be in the United States for up to a year for the various treatments he needs.
When informed of the news in Baghdad, Youssif ran around his house, saying, "Daddy, daddy, am I really going to get on a plane?!
Youssif's father was also cheered by the news.
A member of a Japanese right-wing group was arrested on Thursday after he sent his severed little finger to the ruling party's headquarters in protest at Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's failure to visit a Tokyo war shrine.
The 54-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of making threats after he sent his finger to the Liberal Democratic Party headquarters in Tokyo, said a police official in Okayama Prefecture, western Japan.
"I thought they would ignore me if I just sent the letter, so I put my little finger in as well," Kyodo news agency quoted the man as telling police.
Removing part of a finger is a traditional form of punishment or atonement among gangsters in Japan.
HUNTINGTON, Utah (CNN) Rescuers trying to find six miners will begin boring a sixth hole down into Utah's Crandall Canyon mine Friday, and the search will stop if no signs of life are found, the coal mine's co-owner said.
"This is the last hole," Bob Murray, CEO of Murray Energy, said Wednesday evening.
Murray said work on the sixth hole, which will go down into the area where the miners were known to be working when the mine collapsed August 6, should be completed by Saturday.
"I will never come back to that evil mountain," he said.
Earlier Wednesday, a fifth hole drilled down into the mine found just six inches of open space left between the roof and rubble in an 8-foot-high tunnel, said Jack Kuzar, a district manager with the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration.
Kuzar said the fifth hole would be tested for oxygen, and a camera may be lowered down the shaft, although the small amount of space may limit its usefulness.
Cameras lowered into previous holes drilled into the mountain turned up no signs of the miners, and tests showed that oxygen levels in parts of the mine were too low to sustain human life.
An effort to send rescuers through the collapsed mine tunnel to attempt an underground rescue was suspended last week, after a new cave-in killed three rescuers and injured six others.
A panel of experts brought in to examine the mine after the second collapse determined that it was too unstable to resume the underground rescue.
Signs reading "Bring them home" and "Bob Murray keep your promise" were posted overnight at the rescuers' command post.
Earlier Wednesday, in an interview with CNN, Murray said plans were under way to establish a memorial for the missing miners at the site after the mine is closed.
"We're already discussing how we might go about to honor the trapped miners and make this a site for perpetuity," he said.
LYON, France (CNN) French police have discovered the bodies of three babies hidden in boxes in a house in eastern France, a judicial source said on Thursday.
The mother of the children, who were born in 2001, 2003 and 2006 and all died shortly after birth, admitted on Wednesday she tried to hide them and was held for questioning.
The case is under investigation.
Her partner discovered the first two bodies on Wednesday in a state of decomposition in plastic bags inside the boxes. He alerted the police and told them he was not aware the woman had given birth to the babies.
The mother said she hid the bodies in different places, including a refrigerator, to avoid being discovered and brought them with her when they moved house a year ago.
The case is reminiscent of the so-called "Seoul freezer babies" story, which made headlines in France last year.
French police last year took French woman Veronique Courjault into custody on suspicion of killing her two babies and storing their corpses in a freezer in the family's apartment in Seoul, South Korea.
SAO PAULO, Brazil (CNN) At least 20 prisoners died early Thursday after inmates broke out of a cellblock and set a fire in an apparent attempt to settle scores with a rival gang, Brazilian media reported.
The victims could not escape from their cellblock after the attackers set fire to mattresses at the lockup in the town of Ponte Nova in the south-central Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, according to the Web site of Globo TV.
A spokesman for Minas Gerais state did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment, and telephones to police rang busy.
Globo and the Estado de Minas newspaper reported that authorities put out the fire, but at least 20 prisoners died and authorities were trying to identify them.
The rest of the prisoners were rounded up
The Ponte Nova prison had capacity for 87 inmates, but 187 inmates were being kept there, Globo said.
Many older Americans routinely engage in vaginal intercourse, oral sex and masturbation, a landmark study into a long-taboo subject reported Wednesday.
Sexual activity reported among the 3,005 men and women who participated in the survey did decrease with age, particularly among the oldest participants from 73 percent among those 57 to 64 years of age to 53 percent among those 65 to 74 years of age to 26 percent among those 75 to 85 years of age.
Discussion of the sex habits of American seniors has received little attention, even from scientists.
"If we regard older people as asexual, particularly as physicians, we really miss an opportunity to do important counseling and interventions for people who may benefit from them.
Among the survey's many discoveries was that about half of those 57 to 75 years of age who remained sexually active reported engaging in oral sex.
More than half of men and a quarter of women said they had masturbated during the previous year, a figure that remained constant whether they were sexually active or not.
But not for everybody.
Thirty-five percent of women versus 13 percent of men rated sex as "not at all important.
Across all age groups, women were less likely than men to report having engaged in sexual activity during the previous year.
The disparity was attributed to the fact that women typically outlive men.
Though 78 percent of men ages 75 to 85 had a spouse or other intimate relationship, the figure for women of the same age range was 40 percent.
Asian stocks jumped on Thursday, as growing hopes the worst of the recent credit market storm may be past fueled appetite for riskier assets, hurting government bond prices and sending the yen down.
But stock markets from Seoul to Sydney posted gains of more than 2 percent after signs that U.S. takeover activity could soon recover boosted Wall Street overnight.
"We're back to happy days again," said Tony Russell, senior equities adviser at ABN AMRO Morgans.
MSCI's measure of Asia Pacific stocks excluding Japan was up 3 percent at 0342 GMT, heading for a fourth consecutive session of gains.
Hong Kong blue chips rose 3.2 percent while the index of Hong Kong-listed shares in mainland companies, shot up nearly 4 percent.
NEW YORK (CNN) Anthony Bourdain suffered quietly as he dined on wart hog encrusted with sand, fur and fecal bacteria in the African country of Namibia.
Bourdain, host of the Travel Channel's "No Reservations," finished the meal knowing he would become terribly ill.
But who was he to complain as a VIP guest of the same arid landscape where Angelina Jolie delivered Brad Pitt's baby?
As the sardonic explorer of "No Reservations," an off-the-beaten-path look at cultures and cuisines, he famously chowed down on raw seal in Quebec, eyeballs and all.
He also sampled stinky tofu in China and fermented shark in Iceland.
"If you see me eating on the show, I really eat it, and more often than not I have seconds," Bourdain said before ordering a non-threatening salad at a French restaurant in Manhattan.
He quickly snagged a short-lived Food Network series, "A Cook's Tour," and later jumped ship to star in "No Reservations," which debuted in 2005.
"The show has a voice, and it's very much his voice," said Travel Channel president Pat Younge. "He tells it as he sees it. If it's good that means it's good;
He said, "I gotta wake up tomorrow, look at myself in the mirror. Life is good, do I really need to endorse cat food?
MARIETTA, Georgia (CNN) One of the two young women dubbed the "Barbie Bandits" after a videotaped bank theft pleaded guilty Wednesday and apologized in tears.
I wish I could take it back every day," Heather Johnston, 19, told the judge.
She said she decided to plead guilty to felony theft and misdemeanor marijuana possession because she wanted to take responsibility for her actions.
Surveillance video showed Johnston and Ashley Miller wearing sunglasses and laughing as they appeared to steal nearly $11,000 from a Bank of America branch in Acworth, Georgia on February 27.
They were arrested two days later.
Johnston, who had no prior criminal record, and her parents asked Cobb County Superior Court Judge Mary Staley not to send her to prison.
Assistant District Attorney Jason Samuels recommended three years behind bars for the theft charge and one year for the drug charge, to be served concurrently.
He noted that Johnston was seen smiling during the theft and later laughed about it in a nationally televised interview.
Before her arrested, she had been working in a strip club.
To her family and friends, she said, "If I've embarrassed you or hurt you, which I know I have, then I'm sorry."
GENEVA, Switzerland (CNN) Infectious diseases are emerging more quickly around the globe, spreading faster and becoming increasingly difficult to treat, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday.
In its annual World Health Report, the United Nations agency warned there was a good possibility that another major scourge like AIDS, SARS or Ebola fever with the potential of killing millions would appear in the coming years.
"Infectious diseases are now spreading geographically much faster than at any time in history," the WHO said.
It said it was vital to keep watch for new threats like the emergence in 2003 of SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which spread from China to 30 countries and killed 800 people.
said, new threats have been identified at an "unprecedented rate" of one or more every year, meaning that nearly 40 diseases exist today which were unknown just over a generation ago.
During the past five years alone, WHO experts had verified more than 1,100 epidemics of different diseases.
International assistance may be required to help health workers in poorer countries identify and contain outbreaks of emerging viral diseases such as Ebola and Marburg haemorrhagic fever, the WHO said.
Accidents involving toxic chemicals, nuclear power and other environmental disasters should also be communicated quickly and clearly to minimize public health threats.
HUNTINGTON, Utah (CNN) The Utah coal mine where six miners have been trapped for more than two weeks will be closed if one last rescue attempt fails to find signs they are alive, the site's co-owner said Wednesday.
"We're already discussing how we might ... honor the trapped miners and make this a site for perpetuity," said Bob Murray, co-owner of the Crandall Canyon mine outside of Huntington.
"We are not giving up, however, that there might be life in there.
On Wednesday, rescuers finished boring a fifth hole into the underground space where the men were last believed to have been located, and a sixth hole will be started soon, Murray said.
But if no signs of life are evident, the mine will be shut down and turned into a tomb for the missing workers, he said.
Rescuers have had no contact with the missing men since the mine collapsed August 6.
"But it's very doubtful at this time, and I told the families this three days ago.
Friends and family have identified the six missing miners as Luis Hernandez, Manuel Sanchez, Kerry Allred, Carlos Payan, Brandon Phillips and Don Erickson.
Their relatives have criticized Murray and the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration, accusing them of having given up their loved ones.
Signs reading "Bring them home" and "Bob Murray keep your promise" were posted overnight at the rescue effort's command post.
An 88-year-old Estonian man has been charged with genocide for helping deport hundreds of his countrymen to Soviet camps in 1949, the Estonian prosecutor's office said on Wednesday.
Arnold Meri, a highly decorated Soviet soldier and cousin of the former Estonian president, was allegedly involved in the deportation of 251 Estonian citizens from Hiiumaa Island, off the Baltic state's west coast.
According to Estonia's security police, 43 of them died in Siberian labor and concentration camps and one died en route.
Estonia has been gradually attempting to prosecute those who helped in the deportations of more than 20,000 Estonians, many of them women and children, to Siberia during and after World War Two.
Soviet-ruled Estonia, which regained its independence in 1991, until after the death of Josef Stalin in 1953.
The 1949 wave of deportations Meri was alleged to have assisted came during a Soviet drive to collectivize Estonian agriculture. Many of the victims were well-off landowners whose farms were seized.
"Arnold Meri is alleged to have organized the deportations of Estonian citizens from Hiiumaa Island," State Prosecutor's office spokeswoman Julia Zhmarjova said.
Zhmarjova said the case had been sent to the courts and it was impossible to say how long it would be before judges could indict Meri or to estimate the length of the process.
The punishment for those convicted of genocide under Estonian law is from 10 years to life imprisonment.
Bosses of the O2 arena were cautioned but escaped a fine on Wednesday after two members of the Rolling Stones defied England's new anti-smoking law and lit up on stage.
Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood were pictured smoking on stage during their concert at the new arena on Tuesday night.
The law, which came into force on July 1, prohibits smoking in public indoor places.
More than 20,000 fans watched the ageing rockers kick off the UK leg of their latest tour, A Bigger Bang at the former Dome in Greenwich, southeast London.
"We have reminded the O2 of their obligation to enforce smoking legislation.
"We are satisfied with the assurances they have provided that this will not recur.
"We are sure it was an oversight and are grateful for their co-operation. Along with the rest of the country, we take the smoking ban seriously.
But a source close to the band told The Times: "Ronnie and Keith have been smoking on stage for the last three decades and they're not going to stop for the next two.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (CNN) Adapting to weightlessness was hard.
Readapting to gravity was even tougher for teacher-astronaut Barbara Morgan.
She was too weak and wobbly and hinted that she was nauseous, as well.
"Actually, I was doing some good science back there," she later said with a laugh, referring to how she remained in the crew-transport vehicle following touchdown.
At a news conference six hours after touchdown, she still looked pale and shaky, but was able to walk unassisted.
As for her 13-day flight, it was "absolutely wonderful." Morgan said she can't wait to see what schoolchildren and teachers do with the 10 million basil seeds she carried into space.
The plan is for students to devise mini-greenhouses like the two she left behind at the international space station.
When asked about her future plans, Morgan said with a smile, "My first plan is to get rid of the room spinning, and that should happen pretty soon.
Morgan, 55, was teaching elementary schoolchildren in McCall, Idaho, when she was chosen as McAuliffe's backup.
The 2003 Columbia disaster delayed her mission from fall of that year until now.
Morgan said she wishes she could have devoted more time to education in orbit but knew time would be limited because of the station construction mission.
As it turns out, the flight was shortened by a day because of concerns about Hurricane Dean, and Morgan lost out on an opportunity to speak with children in Lynn, Massachusetts.
She managed to answer questions from youngsters in Boise, Idaho, and Alexandria, Virginia., earlier in the mission, and squeezed in a session with Canadian students at flight's end.
Clashes between Bangladeshi police and students demanding an end to emergency rule spilled into the streets of the capital Wednesday, prompting the government to impose an indefinite curfew.
The government's order came after students rampaged through the streets of Dhaka, setting cars and buses on fire and battling with police, who used batons and tear gas to disperse the protesters.
Wednesday also saw the first death since the clashes erupted two days earlier at the University of Dhaka.
Hundreds of injuries have been reported in the past three days.
There were competing accounts of how the unidentified man died students charged police fatally beat him, but police said the man was killed by a stone thrown by one the protesters.
Demonstrations have spread across the grindingly poor South Asian country in the past three days with students demanding an end to emergency rule, imposed in January when President Iajuddin Ahmed canceled scheduled elections and declared a state of emergency.
The interim government now running Bangladesh is doing so with the backing of the military, which ruled the country until throughout the 1980s.
The protests began when University of Dhaka students called for the removal of an army post from the campus.
The soldiers withdrew a day later after violent protests left 150 injured, but the students' demands escalated and the protests continued.
TERNATE, Indonesia (CNN) At least four people were wounded by gunshots as police repelled thousands of protesters, some throwing rocks and glass shards, at an airport in eastern Indonesia, officials said.
Police first used tear gas and water cannon to disperse the protesters armed with machetes, but later fired into the crowd as they threatened security officers and other people, said Lt. Col. Eddy Purwatmo, local police chief.
He said four protesters were shot in the legs, and six others including four police were seriously injured by rocks as riot police moved in to end the violent protest at Sultan Khairun Babullah Airport in Ternate, the capital of North Maluku province.
Ten people were slightly injured.
The protesters, angry about the exclusion of a candidate from a governorship election, had traveled to the airport to try and stop electoral officials from leaving.
Some protesters blocked roads with garbage, oil drums and glass in an attempt to stop them from reaching the airport, while others destroyed offices and houses in Ternate, forcing schools and business to shut down.
LONDON, England(CNN) A goalkeeping blunder by Paul Robinson to gift Kevin Kuranyi an equalizer and a wonder strike by Christian Pander secured Germany a 2-1 win over England in a friendly international at Wembley on Wednesday.
England were ahead thanks to a well-worked opener from Frank Lampard on nine minutes when Robinson misjudged a cross by Bernd Schneider and palmed the ball into the path of the grateful Kuranyi for a 26th minute leveler.
England almost regained their advantage in the 32nd minute when a free-kick from David Beckham was headed just wide by Alan Smith.
Beckham was also involved moments later as his clever reverse pass saw Lampard bursting through but this time Lehmann was able to keep out his strike.
The misses proved costly as Germany went in front thanks to a 25 meter strike from new boy Pander.
Philip Lahm and Hitzlsperger combined passed before Pander made room for a shot that left the unfortunate Robinson with no chance.
The second half saw a spate of substitutions but no addition to the score with England left to rue missed chances.
Second half substitute, Shaun Wright Phillips, beat two men but his cross was steered over by Lampard.
England captain John Terry also had a headed effort cleared off the line by Lahm, but a weakened German team held out for a deserved win.
Kris Boyd handed Scotland a morale boosting 1-0 victory over South Africa in an international friendly in Aberdeen.
Zimbabwe's inflation rate has leapt to a record high, official data showed on Wednesday, raising pressure on President Robert Mugabe to ease an economic crisis that foes hope will weaken the veteran leader.
Zimbabwe's inflation already the highest in the world hit 7,634.8 percent in July, reminding Zimbabweans there is no relief in sight from daily hardships including chronic food, fuel and foreign currency shortages.
Although the government says the inflation figure is correct, many analysts and critics say it is likely much higher.
The International Monetary Fund said last month inflation may reach 100,000 percent by year-end.
He launched a blitz on inflation by ordering businesses to freeze prices in late June.
The government eased some restrictions on Wednesday.
Mugabe, who remains defiant despite sanctions imposed by Western powers and criticism that his policies are to blame for the crisis, is taking new steps aimed at tightening his grip before seeking another five-year term in next year's elections.
Once a monster Category 5 hurricane, Dean was downgraded to a tropical storm Wednesday as it rapidly lost strength after battering Mexico's eastern coast.
Heavy rain could cause life-threatening flash floods and mudslides in parts of southern and central Mexico, according to the hurricane center.
Up to 20 inches of rain could fall in some areas, it said.
As Dean approached the coast, its winds bent the tall palm trees in Nautla a town of about 3,000 people some 20 miles (32 kilometers) south of where the storm made landfall.
Meanwhile, it was eerily calm in Tuxpan, where people strolled across the bridge spanning the Tuxpan River minutes after the storm came ashore about 45 miles (72 kilometers) to the south.
Dean has fluctuated in strength since slamming into Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula on Tuesday as a Category 5 storm the most extreme level on the Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity.
After losing some intensity crossing the peninsula, Dean regained some strength Wednesday over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
In preparation, Mexican government officials on Tuesday traveled from beach to beach warning people to prepare for the weakened hurricane.
KANSAS CITY, Missouri (CNN) President Bush drew parallels between the aftermath of the Vietnam War and the potential costs of pulling out of Iraq in a speech Wednesday.
"Three decades later, there is a legitimate debate about how we got into the Vietnam War and how we left," Bush told members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, at their convention in Kansas City, Missouri.
"Whatever your position in that debate, one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens, whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like 'boat people,' 're-education camps' and 'killing fields,' " the president said.
"Prime Minister Maliki's a good guy good man with a difficult job and I support him," Bush said.
On Tuesday, Bush had expressed frustration with the pace of progress toward political reconciliation in Iraq, saying if the Iraqi government doesn't "respond to the demands of the people, they will replace the government."
President Bush has frequently asked lawmakers and the American people to withhold judgment on his troop "surge" in Iraq until the report comes out in September.
Bush's speeches Wednesday and next week are the latest attempts by the White House to try to reframe the debate over Iraq, as public support for the war continues to sag.
A recent CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll found that almost two-thirds of Americans 64 percent now oppose the Iraq war.
In addition to his analogy to Vietnam, Bush referred to previous conflicts in Asia in talking about the war against terror in Iraq.
"There are many differences between the wars we fought in the Far East and the war on terror we are fighting today," Bush said. "But one important similarity is that at their core, they are all ideological struggles.
"The militarists of Japan and the Communists in Korea and Vietnam killed Americans because we stood in the way of their attempt to force this ideology on others.
"In the aftermath of Japan's surrender, many thought it naive to help the Japanese transform themselves into a democracy.
Most spas take pride in keeping up with the latest trends, from organic ingredients to Asian massage.
But a half-dozen new spas have opened this year in landmark hotels and historic places.
" For example, a treatment using hot stones, linen wraps and cool aromatherapy cloths was inspired by a Powhatan Indian sweathouse ritual.
Traditional remedies and ingredients also inspired the spa's lavender baths, lemon verbena manicures and massage oils containing cypress, juniper and rosemary.
Any profits the spa makes will be returned to the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
"Everything they do is done with integrity, to preserve the past," said Mearns, who is also former director of the International Spa Association.
In February, the Beach Plum Spa opened in Plymouth at the John Carver Inn, where 75 percent of the guests are visiting Plimoth Plantation to learn about the Pilgrims.
"They do a lot of walking while they're here, and they're tired," said Debra Catania, whose family owns the inn.
Early New Englanders used them in jams.
No recall was announced at that time, but Wal-Mart said in a statement Tuesday that customers who bought one of the products should return it to the nearest store for a refund.
Company spokeswoman Deisha Galberth said 17 sets of tests done on the products found melamine, a contaminant that's a byproduct of several pesticides.
"There were very small amounts of melamine found," Galberth told The Associated Press. "The amounts were so small the laboratory recommended more testing.
Galberth had said late Monday that Wal-Mart pulled the products off store shelves based on the customer feedback but wanted to complete the testing before announcing anything publicly.
More than 150 brands of pet food were recalled earlier this year after U.S. inspectors said wheat gluten from China that was used to make the food was tainted with melamine.
An unknown number of dogs and cats died.
Since then, other Chinese products including tires, toothpaste, seafood, juice, and toys decorated with lead paint have been recalled or have come under scrutiny.
SEOUL, South Korea (CNN) U.S. private-equity fund Lone Star confirmed on Tuesday it is in exclusive negotiations with HSBC to sell its 51 percent stake in Korea Exchange Bank (KEB), with a market value of $4.8 billion.
"The discussions are timely ... it is now time for Lone Star to sell its share to a strategic investor which can bring the bank to a new level of competitiveness," Lone Star chairman John Grayken said in an e-mailed statement.
The U.S. private-equity house's legal battle in South Korea over its $1.2 billion purchase of KEB in 2003 has delayed the bank's sale.
Lone Star canceled a $7.3 billion offer from Kookmin to buy 71 percent of KEB last year.
Recent state-run asset sales have gone to local companies after a public backlash against foreign firms that have racked up heavy capital gains by snapping up distressed domestic companies.
TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency both said on Tuesday they had made progress in talks about Tehran's offer of more transparency aimed at defusing a row over the Iranian nuclear program.
Iran insists its plans are peaceful.
We have a timeline for the implementation," IAEA deputy director Olli Heinonen said after the talks which he said were "good, constructive.
"We have a basic framework of agreement between Iran and the agency," Iranian deputy nuclear negotiator Javad Vaeedi told a joint news conference saying talks yielded "great results," according to a translation of his words by Iran's PRESS TV.
The United States, leading efforts to isolate Iran, has said Tehran must halt sensitive nuclear activity as well as cooperate with the IAEA if it wants to avoid tougher sanctions.
Iran and the IAEA previously held talks in July and earlier this month.
After the July talks, Tehran allowed U.N. inspectors to revisit the Arak heavy-water reactor under construction.
The United Nations has imposed two sets of sanctions since December because of Iran's failure to halt uranium enrichment, a process which can make fuel for power plants or bomb material.
BEIJING, China (CNN) A typhoon killed at least 36 people as it swept across southeast China this week, destroying crops and battering homes, Xinhua news agency said.
Typhoon Sepat, which hit at the weekend and was expected to linger as a tropical depression through Thursday, caused losses of nearly 5 billion yuan ($658 million) in the provinces of Fujian, Jiangxi, Zhejiang and Hunan, Xinhua quoted the Ministry of Civil Affairs and local meteorologists as saying.
Landslides caused at least half the deaths.
A tornado spun off the storm in Zhejiang's manufacturing hub of Wenzhou, which produces everything from shoes to cigarette lighters, killing several people.
Disaster officials in the Philippines said three people drowned in flooding caused by Sepat and parts of the capital and surrounding provinces remained under water.
Taiwan's disaster center said one person had died and several had been injured in the typhoon.
Brown, whose real name is Inga Marchand, was driving a sport utility vehicle on Wednesday when she was stopped for talking on a handheld cell phone and failing to stop at a stop sign, police told The Record of Bergen County.
After a check showed the SUV's registration had been suspended, the 27-year-old rapper gave officers a variation of her real name and a date of birth that was a year off, authorities said.
again for the information, and she gave her correct name and date of birth, authorities said.
She was told to appear in municipal court in Mahwah on September 4.
The traffic stop came a day after Brown was arrested on suspicion of assaulting a neighbor in New York City's Brooklyn borough.
Brown is already on probation after pleading guilty to assault in a 2004 dispute over paying for a manicure.
BELGRADE, Serbia (CNN) A 23-year old Serb was found dead and half-eaten in the bear cage of Belgrade Zoo at the weekend during the annual beer festival.
The man was found naked, with his clothes lying intact inside the cage.
Two adult bears, Masha and Misha, had dragged the body to their feeding corner and reacted angrily when keepers tried to recover it.
Local media reported that police found several mobile phones inside the cage, as well as bricks, stones and beer cans.
MADRID, Spain (CNN) Brazilian midfielder Emerson will return to Italy to play for AC Milan after just one season with Real Madrid.
The Primera Liga side said on their Web site they had reached an agreement to sell the 31-year-old international to the European champions but did not reveal the fee.
Emerson joined Real Madrid from Juventus for an estimated fee of 16 million euros ($21.56 million) last year after the Italian side were punished with relegation following a match-fixing scandal.
The Spanish media accused him of not wanting to play at the Bernabeu in front of a critical Real crowd when Capello left him out of the starting line-up for several home matches.
club was cast into doubt and new coach Bernd Schuster made it clear that he did not feature in his plans.
VIENNA, Austria (CNN) A teenager who escaped a year ago after being kept prisoner for more than eight years has said she considered her captor a "poor soul," and once told him that she would eventually "dance on his grave.
Natascha Kampusch was 10 years old when she was kidnapped in Vienna, Austria, on her way to school in March 2, 1998.
She spent the next 8¨ö years at the mercy of her captor, Wolfgang Priklopil, who largely confined her to a tiny underground dungeon in his home in the Vienna suburb of Strasshof.
The 44-year-old communications technician committed suicide within hours of Kampusch's dramatic escape on August 23, 2006, which marked the end of one of Austria's greatest criminal mysteries.
"All I can say is that, bit by bit, I feel more sorry for him," Kampusch, now 19, said in a 50-minute documentary aired on Austrian television Monday night to mark her first year of freedom.
Kampusch also acknowledged she said goodbye to Priklopil as he lay in a coffin.
Her captor threw himself in front of a commuter train, hours after she fled while he was distracted with a cellphone call.
Kampusch said she still owned clothing she had while in captivity and that she has been back to the house where she was imprisoned.
Lose a game of chess to a computer, and you could bruise your ego.
"The machine isn't that strong, much less so than a muscular man. Even women should be able to beat it," said Atlus spokeswoman Ayano Sakiyama, calling the recall "a precaution.
"We think that maybe some players get overexcited and twist their arms in an unnatural way," she said.
The company was investigating the incidents and checking the machines for any signs of malfunction.
Players of "Arm Spirit" advance through 10 levels, battling a French maid, drunken martial arts master and a Chihuahua before reaching the final showdown with a professional wrestler.
The arcade machine is not distributed overseas.
The United Nations' human rights office on Tuesday accused forces allied with Sudan's government of mass abduction and rape of women and girls in Darfur, acts it said could constitute war crimes.
Its latest report, based on testimony from victims and witnesses, called on Khartoum to investigate reports that about 50 women were forced into "sexual slavery" after an attack on the rebel-held town of Deribat in South Darfur's Jebel Marra region last December.
The abductees, who included many children, were held for about one month, and beaten and raped repeatedly, often in front of each other, the report from the office of U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour said. "Witnesses indicated that the abduction
, rape and other human rights violations that continued throughout the period were committed by the same group of men who conducted the actual attack," it said.
The report concluded that the Sudanese government bore responsibility for the abuses committed by the official Popular Defense Forces militia and the Abu Gasim faction.
Sudan's army had provided air and ground support for the raids which resulted in 36 civilian deaths.
"A series of violations have been committed that constitute both violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law. Some of these may also constitute war crimes," it said.
"The government should issue immediate clear instructions to all troops under its command including PDF and other militias that rape and other forms of sexual violence will not be tolerated, that they constitute war crimes," it continued.
An estimated 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million have fled their homes in Darfur since mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms against the government in the vast western region in 2003.
Support for Nazi ideas in Germany is making people fear for their lives, a government minister said Tuesday.
Wolfgang Tiefensee, the minister responsible for east Germany, was speaking after a mob of about 50 Germans attacked and chased eight Indians through the streets of a small eastern town at the weekend. "People are fearing for their health, people are fearing for their lives," he told reporters.
"Slogans are being chanted in Germany that remind us of the years 1939-1945 (World War Two).
"We can't have this on German streets, we can't have this in schools and at the workplace.
Widespread shock greeted news of the attack during a fair in Muegeln, near Leipzig, late Saturday.
Images of the victims with black eyes and stitches were on the front pages of leading newspapers Tuesday.
Some 70 police were needed to rescue the men and restore order after they fled to a pizzeria and the mob tried to force its way in.
India's ambassador to Germany said she was "very concerned".
"We need to insure that such an event is never repeated," Meera Shankar told daily Der Tagesspiegel Tuesday.
Since German re-unification in 1990, racist violence has broken out sporadically in the poorer east of the country.
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Florida (CNN) The space shuttle Endeavour came home a day early on Tuesday after NASA decided to cut short its mission in case Hurricane Dean shut down Johnson Space Center, which directs the shuttle's re-entry and landing.
The shuttle touched down at Kennedy Space Center at 12:32 p.m. ET, 13 days after its departure on a mission to help assemble parts of the international space station.
NASA made the decision Saturday to bring the shuttle back early, when forecasts for Dean showed the storm could veer to the north in the Gulf of Mexico and possibly force an evacuation of Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.
The astronauts worked through a series of pre-landing procedures Sunday and Monday, including a thorough inspection of the shuttle's wing leading edges and nose cap for any micrometeorite or orbital debris damage that might have occurred while the shuttle has been in space.
Last week, NASA managers determined that the crew would not have to repair heat shield tiles that were damaged 58 seconds after the August 8 liftoff, when a piece of insulating foam fell off the external fuel tank,
"The damage that we saw, after receiving all the engineering tests and analysis, was not a threat to crew safety," John Shannon, deputy shuttle program manager, said last week.
A U.S. soldier killed in Baghdad last week marked the fourth death of an American female service member this month, a toll that hasn't been topped since June 2005.
Eighty-two service women have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to the Pentagon.
In 1994 the U.S. military began allowing women to serve in posts other than front-line infantry, special operations and artillery units.
The highest monthly death toll four troops and a Defense Department civilian came in June 2005.
It also happened in October 2003, November 2003, September 2006 and January 2007.
Block's death came the day after two female soldiers with Multi-National Division-Baghdad Sgt. Princess C. Samuels, 22, of Mitchellville, Maryland, and Spc.
The first death of a female soldier this month came August 9. Sgt. Alicia A. Birchett, 29, a Multi-National Division-Baghdad soldier from Mashpee, Massachusetts, died in "noncombat-related circumstances," according to the U.S. military.
Sixteen female service members have died in Iraq this year, which puts 2007 on track to top the previous record of 20, set in 2005.
Death tolls in other years are 12 in 2003, 19 in 2004 and 15 in 2006.
The number of U.S. military deaths in the war stands at 3,700.
Seven civilian Defense Department employees also have been killed.
CHETUMAL, Mexico (CNN) While Mexico's tourist areas dodged a bullet, President Felipe Calderon Tuesday expressed concern for the Yucatan Peninsula's poor Mayan communities that may have borne the brunt of Hurricane Dean.
The storm charged ashore before dawn as a monster Category 5, the most extreme level on the Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity.
It rapidly lost strength as it traversed the peninsula and weakened to a Category 1 storm, but could still re-strengthen, the National Hurricane Center warned.
Dean emerged back into the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday, entering the Bay of Campeche, which lies in the gulf's southwestern corner.
Dean is expected to hit central Mexico on Wednesday after crossing the bay.
Calderon said the government suspended oil production near the city of Campeche, Mexico's main oil production center, as Dean passed cutting off about 2.5 million barrels of oil per day and evacuated nearly 20,000 workers from oil platforms in the area.
Ancient Mayan ruins in the town of Tulum, south of Cancun, held up well, resident Enrique Perez told CNN.
Of the 20,000 tourists in Quintana Roo, about 13,500 had been evacuated as of Monday evening, said Rosario Ortiz Yeladaque, the state's secretary of government.
In Belize City, Chyla Gill and her family were evacuated to a concrete shelter, Reuters reported.
"We packed for a week because after the hurricane there is always flooding and we can't go back to our houses," she told Reuters.
"We live near a swamp and the crocodiles come out.
Meanwhile, in Jamaica, residents cleaned up fallen trees and debris Monday as the island nation started to recover from its brush with Dean on Sunday.
While electric service was still out and most stores were closed, the international airport in Montego Bay, Jamaica, reopened Monday night, allowing tourists who had been caught in the storm to begin leaving.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2859276 For people seeking U.S. passports, faster service is getting slower.
The summer's maddening backlog in passport applications has forced officials to abandon the old standard of a week's wait for people willing to pay $60 extra for speedy service.
A regular application now takes 10 weeks to 12 weeks.
The State Department announced the policy change a day after officials offered a new estimate of the burgeoning cost of processing the mountain of passport applications.
It will cost nearly $1 billion over three years to handle the surge in applications created by post-September 11 security rules for travel.
Because of the backlog, officials said they will no longer offer assurances that an expedited application will be processed within three business days of receipt.
Instead, people will have to check the State Department Web site to see how fast expedited is.
Factoring in shipping time, expedited service usually takes about three weeks.
Critics saw the announcement as fresh evidence of mismanagement.
"What color is the sky in their world?" said Rep. Steven LaTourette, R-Ohio.
"I can't believe they're proposing a rule where they want to charge you the same amount and in return you're virtually guaranteed to get worse service."
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the agency changed its rules "to ensure that the department can continue to offer this expedited service consistent with its regulations despite increases in demand for expedited passport processing."
Arsenal captain William Gallas will be sidelined for three weeks with a groin injury, the Premier League club said on Monday.
Gallas has consequently pulled out of the France squad for Wednesday's friendly against Slovakia.
The defender was hurt in a challenge by Roque Santa Cruz during Arsenal's 1-1 draw at Blackburn Rovers on Sunday.
"He will be out for three weeks," manager Arsene Wenger told the club's official Web site.
France will also without defenders Lilian Thuram and Julien Escude for this week's friendlies against Slovakia's A and B teams.
Escude has a groin injury and Thuram has an ankle problem, the FFF said.
Coach Raymond Domenech had enlarged his squad to 36 players when he called up Manchester United defender Mikael Silvestre and PSG defender Zoumana Camara.
Premier League referee Rob Styles has been dropped from this weekend's program after awarding Chelsea a controversial penalty in Sunday's match at Liverpool.
Styles gave Chelsea a spot kick when Florent Malouda went down despite minimal contact from Liverpool defender Steve Finnan and Frank Lampard converted to give the London side a 1-1 draw at Anfield.
"On this occasion it was wrong and therefore Rob will not be officiating next weekend.
Hackett, the general manager of Professional Game Match Officials Limited, says he has left a message with Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez apologizing for the blunder.
Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard criticized Styles' performance, saying he "cracked" under pressure on the penalty decision.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) The governor of Muthanna province in southern Iraq was killed by a roadside bomb in the city of Samawa Monday morning, an official with Iraq's Interior Ministry said.
Mohammed Ali al-Hassani was traveling with his bodyguards when the attack took place around 9 a.m. (1 a.m. ET).
The governor was a member of the Supreme Islamic Council in Iraq, the largest Shiite political group in parliament led by politician Abdul Aziz al-Hakim.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki quickly condemned the governor's killing and those who carried it out.
Three of the governor's bodyguards were also killed and three others were wounded.
Meanwhile, at least one person was killed and three others injured when a mortar hit eastern Baghdad's Amin neighborhood Monday at midday, an Interior Ministry official said.
A few hours earlier, three people were killed and 11 injured in the Rusafi district of central Baghdad when a motorcycle rigged with explosives blew up, the ministry said.
BERLIN, Germany (CNN) Eleven people were injured when they fell off the back of a truck during the shooting of Tom Cruise's latest film in Berlin, police said on Monday.
In "Valkyrie," Cruise plays Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, who fronted the failed attempt by a group of largely military conspirators to assassinate Adolf Hitler in July 1944.
The 11 fell from the truck when a side panel burst open as it drove around a corner in central Berlin on Sunday evening, police said.
One of them was seriously hurt and had to remain in hospital.
Filming was halted after the accident.
Cruise has come under fire from politicians and the Stauffenberg family for his role in the movie due to his involvement with Scientology, which the German government views as a cult.
A one-legged Emirati father of 78 is lining up his next two wives in a bid to reach his target of 100 children by 2015, Emirates Today reported on Monday.
Daad Mohammed Murad Abdul Rahman, 60, has already had 15 brides although he has to divorce them as he goes along to remain within the legal limit of four wives at a time.
"In 2015 I will be 68 years old and will have 100 children," the local tabloid quoted Abdul Rahman as saying.
I have to have at least three more marriages to hit the century.
The United Arab Emirates newspaper splashed its front page with a picture of Abdul Rahman surrounded by his children, the eldest of whom is 36 years old and the youngest of whom is 20 days old.
Two of his current three wives are also pregnant.
Abdul Rahman said his large family lived in 15 houses.
Genoa, if you ignore the debate amongst scholars, is the birthplace of Christopher Columbus.
But after visiting the famed historic port, you might wonder why the explorer ever left.
Tricked out in all the wealth of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, it must have been stunning.
Even a half-millennium after its heyday, the Italian port cuts an impressive figure.
This Italian city follows closely behind two of my other favorite cities, San Francisco and Barcelona.
Like both, it has lovely hilly terrain and a seafaring tradition.
Yet, for some reason, Genoa slips under the radar of many guidebooks.
The books we used in two previous trips to Italy carry nary a mention of the city. Our last trip was centered in the Piedmont region around Turin and we decided to add Genoa and the Italian Riviera.
Though Genoa can't elbow past Rome, Venice and Florence amid Italy's must-see cities, it is a fabulous spot.
The prices are reasonable, it is less crowded with tourists, museums abound and it offers wonderful cuisine, with an emphasis on seafood and the local specialty, pesto.
A stroll through the Medieval center peels away the centuries.
The labyrinth of narrow streets lives in nearly perpetual shadow as 500-year-old buildings lean in until they almost meet.
No street follows a straight line for long and it's a challenge to keep a sense of direction.
But getting lost is part of the fun.
Genoa was an important trade center by the third century B.C.
Its sailors have plied the world's trade routes since the Phoenicians and Greeks.
Genoa offered a jumping off spot for the Crusaders.
And, it was a major player in European politics from the 13th through 16th centuries.
Its merchants dumped their profits into stunning palaces lining the renamed Via Garibaldi.
Many of the 16th century palaces are now museums.
And others have courtyards open to the public.
But the waterfront is what really makes Genoa work.
A large portion is renovated with a boardwalk, slips for yachts, a galleon (which was actually built for Roman Polanski's 1986 movie "Pirates"), restaurants, touristy shops and an interesting aquarium and the Galata Museo del Mare (Sea Museum).
NEW YORK (CNN) Dow Jones & Company, Inc. Vice President Paul Ingrassia said Monday he plans to quit.
"I will be leaving probably after the first of the year," Ingrassia said in a brief phone interview. "There just didn't seem to be an appropriate place for me in the company.
Ingrassia, 57, said the decision was unrelated to Dow Jones's agreement to sell itself to Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.
He would not say what he plans to do after leaving.
Ingrassia joined Dow Jones in 1977 as a reporter in the Journal's Chicago bureau, and served as chief in various bureaus.
He won a Pulitzer Prize and a Loeb Award in 1993 with Detroit bureau colleague Joseph White for their coverage of the corporate governance upheaval at General Motors.
In 1998, he was named president of Dow Jones Newswires.
His brother, Larry Ingrassia, edits the business section of The New York Times.
NEW DELHI, India, (CNN) India's Supreme Court granted bail Monday to Bollywood actor , jailed for six years for receiving guns from gangsters involved in the country's worst bombings.
Dutt, 48, began serving his six-year sentence July 31 in a prison in western India less the 16 months he served while awaiting trial over the bomb attacks which killed 257 people in India's commercial capital of Mumbai in 1993.
Dutt's lawyers said the actor could be released from jail in the city of Pune on Tuesday.
He is expected to be released tomorrow," said Karan Singh, one of Dutt's lawyers.
The lawyers had petitioned the court against his conviction.
A three-judge bench headed by the chief justice agreed and said that "the nature of the offence and the evidence is very difficult to examine at this stage", and granted bail to Dutt until the lawyers get a copy of the verdict.
Bollywood, the world's largest movie industry by ticket sales, had backed the actor saying he deserved a second chance because he was impulsive but not dangerous.
On Monday, the industry welcomed his bail.
"It's fantastic news," said top Bollywood producer Ravi Chopra.
"He's learnt the lessons he had to learn and now we hope the court takes a lenient view.
BRISBANE, Australia (CNN) An Australian woman was killed by a pet camel given to her as a 60th birthday present, police said Sunday.
The woman, whose name has not been released, was killed Saturday at her family sheep and cattle ranch near Mitchell, 350 miles west of the Queensland state capital Brisbane, state police Detective Senior Constable Craig Gregory said.
The 10-month-old male weighing about 330 pounds had knocked her to the ground then lay on top of her in what police suspect was mating behavior, Gregory said.
Camel expert Chris Hill agreed with Gregory.
Hill, who has offered camel rides to tourists for 20 years, said young camels are not aggressive but can be dangerous if treated as pets without discipline.
The woman was given the hand-reared camel in March as a birthday present from her husband and daughter.
The fate of the camel is not known.
An autopsy of the woman will determine the precise cause of death within days.
European stocks rose on Monday, as a sharp rally in the mining and industrial sectors helped the market resume Friday's recovery in the wake of the surprise discount rate cut by the U.S. Federal Reserve.
But renewed concerns over the fallout in the U.S. subprime market kept investors on edge and limited the gains.
Europe's benchmark index, down 0.1 percent on the year, is still down 9.4 percent since reaching a 6-1/2 year high in mid-July.
On Friday, the Fed cut the discount rate it charges banks in an emergency move aimed at stabilizing credit markets after days of sharp selloffs.
"If the market volatility and the uncertainty continue, particularly in the credit market, the Fed will probably come with a cut of its Fed funds rate. It's what the market is now looking for," said Bert Jansen, an equity strategist at Exane BNP Paribas in Paris
NEW YORK (CNN) Leona Helmsley, who ran her empire of luxurious Manhattan hotels with an iron fist and went to prison for tax fraud, has died, her publicist said Monday.
Helmsley, who was reviled as the "queen of mean," was 87.
She and fourth husband Harry Helmsley owned such sumptuous properties as the Palace Hotel on Madison Avenue, a block from Saint Patrick's Cathedral, the Park Lane and the New York Helmsley.
She died Monday of heart failure at her summer house in Greenwich, Connecticut, publicist Howard J. Rubenstein told CNN.
Born in Ulster County, New York, and raised in Brooklyn, Leona Helmsley worked as a model and at other part-time jobs.
She married Harry Helmsley in 1972.
The couple's holdings included such landmark buildings as 230 Park Avenue and the Empire State Building, as well as the East Side residential complex called Tudor City.
In the late 1990s, she gave millions of dollars to help rebuild African-American churches that had been burned in the South.
NEW YORK (CNN) Miles Levin was determined to have his say in life, even with cancer ravaging his young body.
Miles blogged on the Web site of Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan.
He isn't the only person to have written about a dying man's journey, but his wit and wisdom and choice of words, captured the imagination of his readers.
His story was circulated well beyond the world of cancer patients and was told by mass media including the Detroit News and CNN.
He launched his blog in 2005 simply welcoming new readers and telling them he'd been stricken by a pediatric cancer called alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma, a cancer that strangles the muscle tissues.
He became a little famous and laughed at himself.
He wrote about the value of life and somehow acquired an almost supernatural ability to appreciate small pleasures such as a sunny day and the presence of a loving family.
When he was too sick to write, his mother, Nancy, chimed in
She quit her full-time job as a psychotherapist to tend to him.
The Sarcoma Foundation, which advocates for better treatment of soft-tissue cancers such as his, awarded him its 2008 Leadership in Courage Award a year early.
Fifteen-thousand bloggers were responding monthly this summer.
In the end, they mostly sent him God's blessing.
The funeral will be private.
A public memorial service at Miles' high school, the Cranbrook School in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, is planned for November.
Sondra Oster Baras is an Orthodox Jew doing an unorthodox job.
"If you had asked me 10 years ago what I would be doing with my life, I don't think I would have told you I'd be in church," she said.
Baras stumps for money from evangelical Christians to support Jewish settlements in the occupied territories land she calls biblical Israel.
This is not just religious ritual.
They support Israel which to them includes Jewish settlements on the occupied West Bank.
Church members tour settlements with Baras and have donated more than a $100,000 to support them.
"If it wasn't for what the Jews brought to Christianity, there would be no Christianity," Christofaro said.
"There is a promise to those who bless Israel to be blessed. Those who curse it will be cursed.
Christofaro and Baras are part of a growing alliance between evangelical Christians and Israelis.
A recent poll found that 59 percent of American evangelicals believe Israel is the fulfillment of biblical prophecy.
Fake-news program "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" is taking a page from serious news organizations this week with on-the-scene reports from the war zone in Iraq.
Correspondent Rob Riggle, who has combat experience as a major in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, spent five days in Iraq last week with "Daily Show" writer Kevin Bleyer and field producer Glenn Clements.
Although "The Daily Show" spends time on topics related to Iraq and often has one of its correspondents appear against a green screen that simulates the Middle Eastern country, it's the first time the show has gone the extra step and visited Iraq.
Riggle, Clements and Bleyer visited several bases including Balad Air Force Base near Baghdad and two forward operating bases over five days.
They performed with other comedians in 120-degree heat on makeshift stages, including a basketball court, then in between shot short videos for "The Daily Show.
"Definitely it was run and gun," said Clements, who with Bleyer ran the handheld camera. "First and foremost, we were there to entertain the troops.
Clements said that there was a YouTube-esque aesthetic to the "Daily Show" videos, which will be about two minutes in length each night.
Riggle said he felt good about being able to be part of a comedy troupe that entertained the troops, saying that comedy and laughter is their escape from the deadly serious work they do every day.
CANCUN, Mexico (CNN) Hurricane Dean picked up intensity as it churned toward Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula Monday.
Dean, with maximum sustained winds near 150 mph (240 kph), could strengthen into a Category 5 storm before making landfall early Tuesday.
A Category 5 hurricane packs sustained winds of 155 mph or more and can inflict catastrophic damage, according to the Saffir-Simpson scale, the standard measurement for hurricanes.
Rain bands were already rolling on shore in the Yucatan even though the storm was more than 200 miles away.
People were urged to complete preparations for an "extremely dangerous" storm.
At 5 p.m., Dean's eye was located about 270 miles (435 kilometers) east of Chetumal, Mexico, the National Hurricane Center said. The storm was moving westward at nearly 20 mph (32 kph).
Chetumal, the capital of the Mexican state of Quintana Roo, was largely empty Monday evening, with little traffic in the streets.
Most of the 130,000 residents in the coastal city appeared to have heeded government warnings to seek shelter or evacuate.
Coastal resorts such as Cancun and Cozumel largely emptied.
Mexico's Interior Ministry declared a state of emergency in the state of Campeche, southwest of Cancun.
In the aftermath of the storm, Jamaica's government declared a state of emergency late Sunday, meaning only essential personnel were allowed to be out in the elements, journalist Kirk Abrahams told CNN.
Ronald Jackson, Jamaica's disaster preparedness director, said at least one house had collapsed, but no one was seriously injured.
The storm has been blamed for at least seven deaths across the Caribbean islands.
Although Haiti was spared a direct hit, the civil protection bureau said at least two people were killed and 10 were injured.
On St. Lucia, police said a man drowned in a river while trying to retrieve a cow.
News media on Dominica reported a woman and her son died in a landslide, and two more people died on Martinique, AP reported, citing local authorities.
Sir Alex Ferguson's early season problems deepened after Geovanni's 31st minute goal settled the Manchester derby in favor of Sven Goran Eriksson's City side and left Ferguson's United without a win in their opening three league games.
His side are two points clear of Chelsea, who salvaged a 1-1 draw at Liverpool with Frank Lampard's 62nd minute penalty.
But more importantly, the United manager was left to contemplate a
It is also the worst start by any defending champions. United lie 16th in the table, trailing their neighbors by seven points and Chelsea by five.
With Rooney, Louis Saha and Ole Gunnar Solksjaer missing injured and Cristiano Ronaldo starting a three-match suspension, Ferguson had little option but to ask Carlos Tevez to operate as a lone striker.
But with Nani, Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes all quick to offer support to the Argentine, there initially seemed little doubt United would have more than enough firepower to overcome a stuttering City.
"We'll enjoy the night but the season is very long... today we had a bit of luck.
TOKYO, Japan (CNN) A Taiwanese jetliner burst into flames Monday morning shortly after landing at the Naha airport on the Japanese island of Okinawa, but 165 passengers and crew got off the plane safely, authorities said.
The Japanese Transport Ministry and the Naha Fire Department said the passengers included 155 adults and two toddlers. The crew was made up of 2 pilots and six flight attendants.
Japanese media reported that a passenger saw a fire in one of the engines before the blast.
The Transport Ministry said the plane arrived in Okinawa from Taipei at 10:31 a.m. local time and stopped on the tarmac three minutes later to evacuate passengers.
This incident is the latest in a series of accidents involving China Airlines.
HOUSTON, Texas (CNN) Space shuttle Endeavour undocked from the international space station a day early Sunday, as NASA kept a wary eye on Hurricane Dean.
Space agency managers worried that the storm would move toward Houston and force them to evacuate to a smaller-staffed makeshift control center at Cape Canaveral, Florida.
"Endeavour departed," space station commander Fyodor Yurchikhin said as ringing bells heralded the shuttle's parting, a tradition borrowed from the Navy.
"Thanks for everything, Scott and Endeavour crew," station resident Clay Anderson said to shuttle commander Scott Kelly. "Godspeed.
"We couldn't have gotten everything accomplished without you guys," Kelly replied.
The shuttle crew, which includes teacher-astronaut Barbara Morgan, had been at the orbiting outpost since August 10.
Morgan, who was Christa McAuliffe's backup on the tragic 1986 Challenger mission, was scheduled to talk to students in Massachusetts on Sunday but that chat was canceled.
Although it was uncertain whether Dean, a Category 4 storm, might strike the Texas coastline later this week, NASA managers said it would be irresponsible not to cut the mission short, especially since most of the tasks had been completed.
In 26 years of space shuttle flight, NASA never has had to call up an emergency Mission Control, although it has been practiced.
Families of the trapped six miners accused those in charge of rescue effort of having "given up" on the missing men.
In a statement read by a spokesman, the families urged the Utah mine's owner and federal officials to drill a hole into the mine large enough to send down a rescue capsule.
"Precious time is being squandered here, and we do not have time to spare," the spokesman, Sonny Olsen. He was flanked by dozens of relatives Sunday.
The families expressed their sorrow for the three men who were killed in a rescue effort Thursday.
But they said they still held out hope "that our loved ones are still alive and are waiting to be rescued.
Rescue teams have drilled four narrow holes into part of the Crandall Canyon mine since the August 6 cave-in.
But after the latest attempt yielded no signals from the miners and found only low levels of oxygen, one of the leaders of the effort said Sunday the vestiges of hope are waning.
"It's likely that these miners may not be found," Rob Moore, vice president of mine operator Murray Energy, told reporters earlier Sunday.
There was no immediate response from the company or from the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration, which the families also criticized.
"We feel that they've given up, and they're just waiting for these miners to expire," Olsen said.
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (CNN) Hundreds of camels have died in Saudi Arabia this week from a mystery ailment.
The Agriculture Ministry has said 232 camels died in the space of four days in the Dawasir Valley, 250 miles south of Riyadh.
King Abdullah has promised compensation for owners, who say the real number of deaths is far higher.
Agriculture ministry officials have denied an infectious disease caused the deaths and blamed them on animal feed supplied by food storage authorities.
"They need to bring in help from abroad to find a solution," said trader Turki Abdelaziz.
Camels are big business in the desert kingdom and are traded by Bedouin tribes for thousands of dollars each.
Authorities have been on the lookout for signs of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu over the last year.
The virus was found in birds in two instances, in March and last year.
Saudi Arabia's Agriculture Ministry has lifted bans on poultry imports.
In a surprise move that sparked a rebound on Wall Street last Friday, the U.S. central bank cut its discount rate by a half-percentage point to 5.75 percent.
It left its benchmark federal funds rate steady at 5.25 percent.
"With the Fed now pulling out all stops in order to head off a credit crunch, it's looking increasingly likely that we have seen the bottom in share markets," said Shane Oliver at AMP Capital Investors in Australia.
This followed a 9.6 percent slump last week its biggest weekly decline in nearly a decade.
Japan's Nikkei average was up 3.7 percent by the end of morning trade, on track for its biggest daily percentage rise since March 2002, and recovering from its biggest one-day fall in nearly six years Friday.
Financial stocks, hardest hit in the recent selloff, led the rebound in markets, driving MSCI's index of Asian financial stocks up 3.7 percent.
Australia's top investment bank Macquarie Bank gained 7 percent, Japan's top lender Mitsubishi UFJ added 3.8 percent, South Korea's top lender Kookmin Bank climbed 3 percent and Singapore's DBS Group, Southeast Asia's biggest bank, put on 5.1 percent.
BEVERLY HILLS, California (CNN) Hollywood stars fondly remembered Merv Griffin at his funeral Friday, including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who credited the creator of "Jeopardy!" and "Wheel of Fortune" with jump starting his own acting career.
Among mourners who filled the Church of the Good Shepherd were former first lady Nancy Reagan, Pat Sajak, Vanna White, Alex Trebek, Dick Van Dyke and Griffin's son, Anthony, and his family.
Schwarzenegger, who attended with his wife, Maria Shriver, gave one of the eulogies.
and "Wheel of Fortune," was 82 when he died Sunday of prostate cancer.
He began his career as a radio vocalist, then began to appear on TV. In 1965, Westinghouse Broadcasting began "The Merv Griffin Show" on syndicated television.
"Jeopardy" began in 1964 and went on to become a huge hit, followed by "Wheel of Fortune" in 1975.
Griffin was to be buried not far away, in Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery, where Marilyn Monroe, Dean Martin, Natalie Wood and other Hollywood notables are interred.
ASTANA/ALMATY, Kazakhstan (CNN) Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev's party won every available seat in a new parliament on Sunday after a flawed vote that the opposition said turned the clock back to totalitarian Soviet rule.
Foreign poll monitors said Saturday's 88.05 percent margin of victory for Nazarbayev's Nur Otan party came in an election that did not meet international election standards.
The Central Asian state has never held a vote judged free and fair.
Six other parties in the poll failed to reach a 7 percent hurdle required to enter the lower house, the Mazhilis, including the main opposition All-National Social Democratic Party (ANSDP) which received 4.62 percent of the vote.
"Kazakhstan has taken a real step towards democracy," the presenter on state-controlled Khabar Television said after a live broadcast of the preliminary results.
We're going back to the Soviet Union, back to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
The poll monitors from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said there was a lack of transparency during the vote count, state media bias in favor or Nur Otan, and too many legal barriers to foster plurality.
Nur Otan will control 98 seats in the 107-seat parliament.
Ahead of the announcement of the results by Central Election Commission chairman Kuandyk Turgankulov, the ANSDP said it had gathered photographic evidence of a range of violations including multiple voting and campaign literature for Nur Otan in polling stations.
Hopes of greater plurality in parliament had been based on Nazarbayev's desire for Kazakhstan to chair the OSCE, a 56-member democracy, rights and security body, in 2009.
He has faced opposition due to his poor record on democracy.
He called the election two years early after enacting constitutional changes that hand the lower house more powers such as naming the prime minister.
They also removed any limit on how many terms he can serve as president.
Some reports suggested all passengers and crew had made it off the airliner, but one report suggested four people might still be trapped on board, a Naha city fire official said.
The Boeing 737 passenger plane had flown from Taipei to Naha, Okinawa's capital, with 155 passengers on board, public broadcaster NHK said. An engine caught fire three minutes after the plane landed, NHK said.
TV pictures showed black smoke billowing from the plane as airport fire crews smothered it in foam.
China Airlines has a troubled safety record with four deadly accidents in the past 13 years, including a crash in the Japanese city of Nagoya in 1994 in which 264 people were killed.
Okinawa is a popular spot for beach holidays and the number of visitors to Japan from other parts of Asia has increased in recent years, with the lifting of visa restrictions.
CINCINNATI, Ohio (CNN)-Roger Federer described his Cincinnati Masters victory on Sunday as the perfect preparation for his bid to win a fourth consecutive U.S. Open title.
The world number one crushed American James Blake 6-1 6-4 to win his 14th Masters Series title and 50th career singles crown.
Despite passing the milestone of 50 titles only a week after his 26th birthday, Federer said he had no designs on the overall men's title record of 109 held by American Jimmy Connors, who played on until he was almost 40.
"I am just trying to have consistent seasons with a lot of titles, as many as possible, and try to focus on the grand slams and the Masters Series.
The U.S. Open starts on Aug. 27.
Afghan police freed a female German hostage from a Kabul neighborhood and arrested a group of kidnappers early Monday, an Interior Ministry spokesman said.
The 31-year-old aid worker was freed during a raid in the western part of the capital not far from the restaurant where she was seized Saturday while dining with her husband, Zemary Bashari said.
The woman's husband was not abducted.
"A group of kidnappers were arrested," Bashari said.
In Berlin, a spokeswoman for Germany's Foreign Ministry confirmed the woman was "in safety at the German Embassy" in Kabul.
On Sunday, Afghan television broadcast what it said was video of the woman, who identified herself as Christina Meier, calling for the release of unspecified prisoners while being prompted by a man.
She said "I am OK" and then read a letter in the Afghan language, Dari, calling for the release of unknown prisoners.
The private Tolo TV, which broadcast the video, did not say how it obtained the material.
Israel on Sunday rejected 50 Africans most of them reportedly from Sudan's Darfur region who had illegally entered the country from Egypt, a government official said.
The move angered many Israeli lawmakers and human rights advocates because of reports that some Sudanese refugees are being killed or mistreated by authorities in Egypt.
According to Israel's Haaretz newspaper, the refugees were arrested Friday evening as they tried to cross from Egypt into Israel.
They were held at a military base in southern Israel before being driven back to Egypt on Sunday, the newspaper reported.
The nationalities of the 50 sent back Sunday were not released, but the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, citing figures from the Israeli military, said nearly all of them had escaped the genocide in Darfur.
Speaking to CNN, Israeli government spokesman David Baker described them as "economic refugees from Africa.
Baker told The Associated Press that Darfurians would not be immune from Israel's ban on unauthorized immigrants.
Israeli law denies asylum to anyone from an enemy state, AP reports.
Sudan's Muslim government is hostile to Israel and has no diplomatic ties with the Jewish state.
A 10-month-old boy was pulled from the ruins of a collapsed church seven hours after an earthquake leveled the Peruvian city of Pisco, local media reported Saturday.
"It was a miracle that he had survived so many hours breathing only dust and death," Romulo Palomino told the state news agency Andina.
"I cleaned him and he started to sneeze and cry.
About 100 congregants perished, according to Civil Defense estimates.
Palomino said his own parents were among them.
"Finding this little one alive is a comfort that I will take with me for the rest of my life," he said.
Palomino brought the infant, whose parents have not been located or identified, to the nearby coastal town of Paracas.
"I'm taking care of him with the little I have, but he needs milk and clothes," his wife, Ana de Palomino, was quoted as saying on Andina's Web site.
The couple's house was destroyed in the quake, which killed at least 540 people.
Authorities in Memphis reported 2 more heat-related deaths Saturday, bringing Tennessee's total to 13.
He had asthma, the Shelby County Medical Examiner's Office said.
Medical Examiner Karen Chancellor warned that individuals with chronic respiratory or heart conditions should take special precautions during this heat wave.
The high temperature in Memphis was 101 on Saturday, according to the National Weather Service, and Sunday's high could reach 102, despite earlier forecasts that weekend temperatures would dip slightly.
As of Saturday, Memphis has had nine straight days of triple-digit temperatures.
Mayor A C Wharton set up a heat wave phone line for people seeking services that can help them escape from the heat, including the locations of cooling centers and free fans for seniors.
The local health department said the city's heat index a measure that factors in humidity to describe how hot it feels has broken 100 every day since June 27.
In Elmore County, an anonymous donor gave county schools 20,160 bottles of water Friday for children to drink on school buses that have no air conditioning. "The kids were so thrilled.
Last summer, a heat wave killed at least 50 people in the Midwest and East. California officially reported a death toll of 143, but authorities last month acknowledged the number may have been far higher.
A 1995 heat wave in Chicago was blamed for 700 deaths.
MONTEGO BAY, Jamaica (CNN) Hurricane Dean skirted the southern coast of Jamaica on Sunday, pounding the island with high winds and surf even as its eye remained offshore.
Jamaica's electrical grid was shut down Sunday in preparation for Hurricane Dean which is classified as a Category 4 storm.
Only a few hundred residents have moved into shelters and many tourists ignored earlier warnings to fly home.
Six homes were destroyed and 200 damaged by winds as the storm's eye stayed well south of Hispaniola the island that includes Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
Dean continues to move on a course that should take it very near Jamaica later Sunday, according to the National Weather Service.
Airlines dispatched a dozen additional flights to retrieve tourists who want to leave the Yucatan resort city of Cancun, Mexico, ahead of the storm, airport spokesman Eduardo Rivadendiera said.
The last airline flights from Jamaica departed Saturday night.
While thousands of tourists flew home, Nicola Madden-Greig, spokeswoman for the Jamaica Hotel Association, said many tourists either had been unable to get a flight or had opted to ride it out in Montego Bay hotels.
Parking lots around the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas, were filled with 1,300 school and commercial buses poised to head south if Dean's path threatens Texas.
Oil rig workers in the Gulf of Mexico were evacuated to Galveston, Texas, on Sunday as a precaution.
One worker said it was the second time in a week he was evacuated because of storms.
All businesses in Jamaica were closed Sunday and a curfew, imposed Saturday evening, remains in effect, the police commissioner said.
The last hurricane to strike Jamaica was Hurricane Ivan in September 2004.
Already the storm has been blamed for at least seven deaths, including the two in Haiti.
Police on St. Lucia said a man drowned in a river while trying to retrieve a cow.
Media on Dominica reported a woman and her son died in a landslide.
Two more people died on Martinique, The Associated Press reported, citing local authorities.
White House press secretary Tony Snow will step down from his position as early as next month, sources inside and outside the Bush administration told CNN on Friday.
When contacted by CNN about his possible departure, Snow said, "I'm not making any announcement."
Snow told conservative talk-show host Hugh Hewitt on Thursday that "financial reasons" may prevent him for serving the remainder of his boss's presidency. "I'm not going to be able to go the distance, but that's primarily for financial reasons."
"I've told people when my money runs out, then I've got to go.
According to The Washington Post, Snow makes $168,000 as the White House spokesman.
CNN has previously reported that Chief of Staff Josh Bolten told senior White House staffers that unless they could commit to staying until President Bush leaves office in January 2009, they should leave by Labor Day.
In March, during surgery to remove a growth from his abdomen, doctors discovered that the cancer had returned and spread to his liver.
Five weeks later, Snow returned to the White House podium and continued to work as the president's chief spokesman as he underwent chemotherapy.
In recent interviews, he indicated that his health situation had stabilized.
When asked about Snow's plans to leave, Perino told CNN, "I've got nothing on that, nor would I speculate."
(CNN) Heavy rains poured into a coal mine in east China's Shandong province Friday, trapping 172 miners beneath the surface, China's Xinhua news agency reported.
Xinhua quoted Zhang Dekuan, deputy secretary-general of Shandong's government, saying that 756 miners were underground when the flooding began, and 584 were rescued.
The accident took place at about 2:30 p.m. (0630 GMT) on Friday in the Zhangzhuang mine in Xintai, a city more than 450 kilometers (280 miles) southeast of Beijing.
Xinhua said that the province's top officials, Communist Party leader Li Jianguo and acting governor Jiang Daming, along with other officials, were at the site. Daming was leading the rescue effort, the agency said.
Poor safety standards make Chinese coal mines among the most dangerous in the world.
About 1,800 coal miners died in accidents during the first half of 2007, the Reuters news service reported. Earlier this month, 69 coal miners were rescued in the central province of Henan after being trapped underground for three days by flooding caused by heavy rain, Reuters reported.
Strong wind and rains lashed Taiwan as Typhoon Sepat made landfall on Saturday, cutting power supplies to more than 70,000 homes and forcing airlines to delay flights.
"In Taitung county, around 10,000 households were out of power, but repairs are already taking place," said an official from Taiwan's disaster center.
Taitung is in the southeast of the island, where preparations for the onslaught have been under way for days as the storm approached from the sea, swiping the Philippines on the way.
There aren't any casualties so far, except for two people who were injured driving in Taitung in the middle of the bad weather," the official said.
At 0030 GMT, the center of the typhoon was 70 kilometers (43 miles) southwest of the eastern coast of Hualien county, with sustained winds of 155 km (97 miles) per hour and gusts up to 191 km (120 miles) per hour.
Some flights from Taipei and Kaohsiung, the two biggest cities in Taiwan, were either postponed or cancelled.
Flights affected were bound for Hong Kong and cities in southeast Asia.
In the Philippines, more than 380,000 people were affected by flooding, with more than 1,800 mainly in the northern province of Pampanga evacuated.
In Cavite, a province south of Manila, 20 families were stranded in five feet (1.5 meters) of flood water as garbage clogged rivers and canals.
There were four minor landslides in the northern city of Baguio, but no reports of casualties.
In the northern parts of Manila, flooding was waist-deep and evacuation centers were bracing for more arrivals.
In Malabon, one of the most densely populated areas of the capital, local radio reported residents renting out boats to pedestrians.
Holder Andy Roddick was dumped out of the Cincinnati Masters on Thursday, beaten 7-6 6-4 by 16th seed David Ferrer of Spain.
The American was made to pay for missing three set points in the 10th game of the match as Ferrer took the tiebreak and then broke in the 10th game of the second set to reach the quarterfinals.
Third seed Roddick looked in control early on but was frustrated by brilliant retrieving from Ferrer, who forced him further and further back behind the baseline.
Ferrer next plays fifth seed Nikolay Davydenko of Russia or Czech 10th seed Tomas Berdych.
Earlier, a resurgent Carlos Moya set up a quarter-final clash with Lleyton Hewitt.
7-5 3-6 7-5 in the third round while the 20th-ranked Hewitt eased to a 6-3 6-3 win over Austrian Juergen Melzer.
Moya, who beat Hewitt to win the title in 2002 and at 31 is the oldest player in the world's top 20, had beaten world number three Novak Djokovic in the previous round.
"I'm very happy I won because I think I was controlling it pretty well until the middle of the second set," Moya told reporters.
"Maybe I relaxed a little bit and he took advantage of that but I was able to come back and once you get to 5-5 in the third it's 50-50.
"We have played some big matches in the past in big tournaments," Hewitt said.
"He's been playing some of his best tennis this year so it's going to be a tough challenge.
Spaniard Nicolas Almagro crushed Finn Jarkko Nieminen 6-2 6-2 to set up a likely quarter-final with top seed Roger Federer, who plays Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis later on Thursday.
A Chinese couple tried to name their baby "@," claiming the character used in e-mail addresses echoed their love for the child, an official trying to whip the national language into line said on Thursday.
"The whole world uses it to write e-mail, and translated into Chinese it means 'love him'," the father explained, according to the deputy chief of the State Language Commission Li Yuming.
While the "@" simple is familiar to Chinese e-mail users, they often use the English word "at" to sound it
Li told a news conference on the state of the language that the name was an extreme example of people's increasingly adventurous approach to Chinese, as commercialisation and the Internet break down conventions.
But earlier this year the government announced a ban on names using Arabic numerals, foreign languages and symbols that do not belong to Chinese minority languages.
Sixty million Chinese faced the problem that their names use ancient characters so obscure that computers cannot recognize them and even fluent speakers were left scratching their heads, said Li, according to a transcript of the briefing on the government Web site (www.gov.cn).
One of them was the former Premier Zhu Rongji, whose name had a rare "rong" character that gave newspaper editors headaches.
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) Tired of global warming doom and gloom?
Here's something new from Hollywood's king of green, Leonardo DiCaprio: there is hope for a brighter future.
Environmental activist DiCaprio's documentary "The 11th Hour" opens in theaters on Friday, and although the film starts with a bleak outlook on issues like global warming, much of the roughly 90-minute movie suggests ways to heal the environment with human, government and corporate action.
The 2006 documentary "An Inconvenient Truth," which told of former U.S. Vice President Al Gore's nearly 20-year struggle to fight global warming, captured widespread attention and earned two Oscars.
Even U.S. President Bush, who has resisted many environmental initiatives, recently called on industrialized nations to develop a plan for reducing carbon emissions that lead to climate change.
warming will increasingly focus on solutions.
DiCaprio, who produced the film, acts as narrator asking questions, which are answered by experts ranging from physicist Stephen Hawking to former Soviet Union Prime Minister Mikhail Gorbachev.
The 32-year-old star of "Titanic" said his concern for the environment dates to his childhood and watching documentaries about the destruction of rain forests and wildlife habitats.
He lives in a solar-powered house and drives a hybrid car.
(CNN) You can do it without knives or needles.
First stop:
the office of dermatologist Dennis Gross, M.D., where his luminous assistant, Magda, applies an exfoliating alpha hydroxy acid peel to my face and neck.
When the (unlined) doctor enters the room, he explains that the change in pH level in the skin created by just one acid peel can generate collagen, the key to skin that ages well.
What speeds up the degeneration?
Sun exposure.
Sun exposure causes up to 90 percent of wrinkles, dark spots, and sagging.
Did you know that a good haircut can make your face look firmer?
"Side-swept bangs soften the lines on your forehead, and growing your hair a few inches below the chin takes attention away from sagging," says New York City stylist Eva Scrivo.
Hormone changes accompanying menopause can cause hair to become thinner and more brittle, so Scrivo recommends emollient shampoos and soft, gentle brushes.
Now, my teeth seem to need a little color correction of their own
"Maintenance is more important than aesthetics," New York City cosmetic dentist Steven Fox advises.
Twice-yearly visits to the dentist, regular flossing, and brushing with an electric toothbrush should keep your mouth healthy, but expect some inevitable age-related deterioration.
Another important aspect to aging beautifully is sleep!
Lack of sleep has been shown to raise levels of cortisol and glucose, causing health problems such as hypertension and type II diabetes, which make you age much more quickly," says James Maas, PhD, professor of psychology at Cornell University and author of "Power Sleep," who recommends 7.5 to 8.5 hours.
"And though we used to think that lying in bed made us slothful, in fact sleep is the best diet there is.
All the gorgeous older women I know carry themselves handsomely; what's that about?
"You need to maintain bone strength for good posture," says Lesley Fein, M.D., director of the Women's Health Program at the Princeton Longevity Center in New Jersey.
NEW YORK (CNN) Brace yourself: In her upcoming movie, Mary-Kate Olsen locks lips with Ben Kingsley.
Their film, "The Wackness," is slated for release next year.
"There is a very passionate scene in the film, which we filmed last week," Kingsley, who won the best-actor Oscar for 1982's "Gandhi," tells the syndicated TV show "Access Hollywood" in an interview scheduled to air Wednesday.
In the film, Kingsley plays a therapist who forms a friendship with a teenage drug dealer (Josh Peck) who trades pot for therapy sessions.
Olsen portrays one of the dealer's customers, who winds up kissing Kingsley's character.
"It's for a few seconds and then we disappear and we never see each other in the movie," Kingsley says.
Though brief, the scene left a good impression on him.
"Mary-Kate has huge energy," he says.
"She is very, very committed to her work.
Olsen, who rose to fame on TV's "Full House," was last seen on the big screen opposite her sister, Ashley, in 2004's "New York Minute.
Kingsley's film credits also include "House of Sand and Fog" and "Schindler's List."
They were released from Taliban custody on Monday, and left Afghanistan on Thursday, the Foreign Ministry said.
The Taliban killed two male hostages and have long said they would kill others unless their demands were met.
But the two women, said to be ill, were released in a "gesture of goodwill.
Nineteen other hostages 14 women and five men are still being held.
Taliban and South Korean officials held talks on Thursday over the fate of the remaining 19 South Korean hostages, a Red Cross official told CNN.
Carla Haddad, a media-relations officer for the International Committee of the Red Cross, confirmed to CNN that the talks took place in the office of the Afghan Red Crescent Society in Ghazni province.
The works and achievements of the influential spiritual leader of the Shia Ismaili Muslims have long been baffling to categorize.
But as this rather enigmatic figurehead pays an official visit to East Africa the results of his work in rural development, education and healthcare on the continent are sparking interest.
In much the same way, he has already attracted attention with investment in small and medium size enterprises which indirectly provide employment for hundreds of thousands in a swathe of countries across the continent.
Prince Karim Al Husseini, who is the 49th Imam of the Isamailis and the 49th Aga Khan, is celebrating 50 years as religious leader and visiting Kenya the country of his childhood.
Through the Aga Khan Development Network, the world's largest private development agency, countries as diverse as Mali, Rwanda, Egypt and Tanzania have benefited from a wide range of projects.
The programs have been aimed at a reduction in poverty, a boost to education, basic health care, micro-finance for the poor and promotion of private enterprise.
there has also been a drive to revitalize certain historic cities and a prize for architecture and the protection of culture.
The Nation Media group was founded by the Aga Khan in 1960 and now has a growing number of newspapers, magazines, and radio and television stations in English and Kiswahili.
It now also operates in Uganda and Tanzania.
The Nation is the most influential media group in East Africa and has its origins in two papers set up to give the region a distinctive, national voice as Kenya and the surrounding countries geared up for independence.
Today the Nation still has an independent stance on major issues and is majority owned and run by Kenyans.
Stocks staged a big comeback Thursday, erasing most of the session's losses by the close as investors worked through the panic about the mortgage and credit markets which was sparked by Countrywide Financial's latest financial problems.
The Dow Jones industrial average (Charts) fell 15 points, erasing virtually all of the day's declines, after plunging as much as 342 points earlier in the session.
The tech-fueled Nasdaq Composite (Charts) index slid 0.3 percent, cutting bigger losses.
Both the Dow and Nasdaq have now ended lower for six sessions in a row.
The broader S&P 500 (Charts) index gained 0.3 percent, erasing the session's losses.
The Russell 2000 (Charts) small-cap index jumped 2.3 percent, rebounding from a recent battering.
Treasury prices rallied as investors sought safety.
The dollar slumped versus the yen and fell versus the euro.
Oil and gold prices tumbled.
"Equity markets went on another roller-coaster ride Thursday," wrote Michael Sheldon, chief market strategist at Spencer Clarke, in a note to CNNMoney. "However, stocks erased almost all of their losses and finished the session with only minor losses as financial stocks rebounded late in the day.
MIAMI, Florida (CNN) Former Chicago gang member Jose Padilla was found guilty Thursday of guilty supporting Islamic terrorism overseas.
Padilla was originally arrested on accusations that he planned to set off radioactive "dirty bombs" in the United States.
Thursday's convictions are not related to those accusations, and prosecutors did not present the "dirty bomb" plot to the jury.
A federal court jury in Miami deliberated for just under two days before handing down the verdict.
 is a significant victory in our efforts to fight the threat posed by terrorists and their supporters."
Padilla's mother, Estela Lebron, told CNN her son will appeal the verdict.
Lebron blamed President Bush for the outcome of the trial and said there was not enough evidence in the case to convict her son.
Padilla attorney Anthony Natale declined to comment on the outcome.
A covert CIA officer who testified in disguise at Padilla's trial said he was given the form in Afghanistan, and a fingerprint expert found Padilla's prints on the form, prosecutors said.
But Michael Caruso, Padilla's defense attorney, said the prints on the form were not consistent with someone who filled out the document.
Padilla was taken into custody in Chicago as he stepped off a flight from Pakistan in 2002, and Bush declared him an "enemy combatant" and had him transferred to military custody.
The number of coalition military deaths in the war in Iraq has reached 4,000.
Most of the fatalities throughout the Iraq war 3,702 have been U.S. military service members.
The nearly 300 others hail from countries, such as Italy, Poland and Ukraine, that have supported the U.S. effort, which began in March 2003.
Of the U.S. deaths, 3,047 came in hostile circumstances and 655 in non-combat situations.
Forty-four troops have died this month.
Britain, which has command of coalition troops in southern Iraq, has suffered 168 deaths, 132 of them in hostile circumstances.
11,500 are from other countries, the State Department says.
Next month, Gen. David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker are scheduled to present a progress report on Iraq to Congress.
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (CNN) Hordes of shoppers desperate to buy sugar amid severe shortages stampeded at a shopping complex in Zimbabwe's second-largest city, killing a 15-year-old boy and a security guard, state media reported Thursday.
A government order slashing prices of all goods and services by about half in June has led to acute shortages of bread, meat, gasoline and other basic commodities in Zimbabwe, which is in its worst economic crisis since independence in 1980.
The 35-year-old security guard died at the scene when a crowd trying to get into the shopping center pushed over a brick pillar
The boy died in a hospital after being admitted with two fractured legs and a broken arm.
About 1,000 people had been lining up to buy sugar as early as 6 a.m., and some scaled over the wall as soon as the guard attempted to open the gate, the report said.
Eyewitness Enos Luphahla said the guard was unlocking the gate when people began pushing forward.
"When he saw the number of people pushing the gate he sensed danger and hid behind the pillar between the two gates. The pressure was however too much for the wall and it fell on him and was trapped under the pillar," he told the newspaper.
Part of the pillar also fell on the boy, he added.
Officials later called police to control the line before the sugar was sold.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) The women are too afraid and ashamed to show their faces or have their real names used.
They have been driven to sell their bodies to put food on the table for their children for as little as $8 a day.
"People shouldn't criticize women, or talk badly about them," says 37-year-old Suha as she adjusts the light colored scarf she wears these days to avoid extremists who insist women cover themselves. "They all say we have lost our way, but they never ask why we had to take this path.
A mother of three, she wears light makeup, a gold pendant of Iraq around her neck, and an unexpected air of elegance about her.
"I don't have money to take my kid to the doctor.
I have to do anything that I can to preserve my child, because I am a mother," she says, explaining why she prostitutes herself.
Anger and frustration rise in her voice as she speaks.
Suha's husband thinks that she is cleaning houses when she goes away.
So does Karima's family.
"At the start I was cleaning homes, but I wasn't making much."
Karima, clad in all black, adds, "My husband died of lung cancer nine months ago and left me with nothing.
She has five children, ages 8 to 17.
Her eldest son could work, but she's too afraid for his life to let him go into the streets, preferring to sacrifice herself than risk her child.
She was solicited the first time when she was cleaning an office.
"At first I rejected it, but then I realized I have to do it.
Both Suha and Karima have clients that call them a couple times a week.
Other women resort to trips to the market to find potential clients. Or they flag down vehicles.
Prostitution is a choice more and more Iraqi women are making just to survive.
"I found this 'thing' through my friend, and I have another friend in the same predicament as mine. Because of the circumstance, she is forced to do such things.
"At this point there is a population of women who have to sell their bodies in order to keep their children alive," says Yanar Mohammed, head and founder of the Organization for Women's Freedom in Iraq.
"Most of the women that we find at hospitals [who] have tried to commit suicide" have been involved in prostitution, said Basma Rahim, a member of Mohammed's team.
The day after an 8.0-magnitude earthquake shook southern Peru, killing at least 400 people and injuring 1,500, residents of one hard-hit city yelled "Help us!
Garcia, who traveled the 260 kilometers (160 miles) southeast of Lima in a helicopter Thursday, said arrangements were being made to get water and food into Pisco.
Shortly afterward, a spokesman for the Peruvian Embassy in Washington said supplies had already begun to flow toward Pisco from the south.
Garcia said one of the priorities was ordering at least 150 coffins.
More than 200 people died in Pisco, and almost 70 percent of the city of 68,000 residents was destroyed, Minister of Health Carlos Vallejos told Andina television. "There aren't any buildings that are in good condition.
Even the very modern buildings around the central plaza are totally destroyed," Vallejos said, calling Pisco a city in crisis.
An America TV Peru reporter said she could see no sign of police to quell looting.
Several health centers in Pisco were so damaged they could not operate, said Dan Epstein, a spokesman for the Pan American Health Organization, based in Washington.
People searched for missing relatives amid the wreckage of a church that collapsed Wednesday night as services were being held.
Several children wandered aimlessly. "Oh, my God, who do these little children belong to?"
But the deputy emergency relief coordinator for the United Nations, Margareta Wahlstrvm, said 450 people were killed.
In addition, almost 400 houses were destroyed, she said.
More than 11 smaller earthquakes occurred in the hours following the original temblor most a few miles from its epicenter, but some also in central Peru.
TOKYO, Japan (CNN) Temperatures hit record highs in Japan on Thursday as a heat wave swept through the country, leaving at least seven people dead over the last few days.
In Tajimi city, 400 km (250 miles) west of Tokyo, the mercury hit 40.9 degrees Celsius (105.6 Fahrenheit), topping the previous record of 40.8 logged in 1933, the Meteorological Agency said.
At least seven elderly people have died from heatstroke in the last two days, including a 59-year-old man found dead in his living room in a city near Tokyo on Thursday.
The summer heat and humidity result in greater use of air conditioners, boosting electricity demand.
TEPCO raised supply to 60.10 million kilowatts by 0200 GMT on Thursday, from an original plan to supply 58.80 million kilowatts earlier in the day.
"After taking those measures, we were able to raise supply by 1.3 million kilowatts," the official said.
On Wednesday, peak power demand was 51.89 million kilowatts.
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) Lindsay Lohan was sued Tuesday for assault and negligence by a woman who was a passenger in a car the actress is accused of chasing while under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
Lohan "put me through one of the most frightening experiences of my life," Tracie Rice said in a statement after the lawsuit was filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court.
"What Miss Lohan did that night was extremely dangerous and reprehensible.
An e-mail sent to Lohan's publicist and a telephone message left for her attorney weren't immediately returned.
Lohan, 21, was arrested for investigation of misdemeanor driving under the influence and with a suspended license and felony cocaine possession after last month's pre-dawn chase that ended in Santa Monica.
The lawsuit doesn't provide a reason for the chase.
However, two men who claim they were unwilling passengers in the car driven by Lohan have said she was upset with the daughter of Michelle Peck.
Peck was driving the vehicle carrying Rice.
Rice "was convinced that their lives were in danger and that they had to outrun the pursuing car or they might be killed," the lawsuit said.
Rice got out and ran toward police officers and saw a woman, who turned out to be Lohan, run from the SUV toward her, she contended.
"Police officers approached all of them with guns drawn," the lawsuit said.
Lohan was arrested a short time later.
European shares tumbled on Thursday to a 5-month low, as worries over the credit market continued to weigh, while a drop in oil prices dragged shares of energy companies lower.
At 0711 GMT, the pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index was down 2 percent, at 1,462.64.
Europe's benchmark index, which is down 1.4 percent on the year, has lost 10.6 percent since reaching a 6-1/2-year high on July 13.
Among the worst hit, BNP Paribas lost 3 percent, while Royal Bank of Scotland dropped 2 percent.
The yen jumped to five-month highs, as currency carry trades were unwound, while emerging market bonds, stocks and currencies were dumped in favor of safe-haven government bonds amid worries about spreading U.S. subprime mortgage problems.
The latest scare was set off by worries that Countrywide Financial, the largest U.S. mortgage lender, could face bankruptcy if liquidity worsens.
and attempting to reassure investors.
South Korea's KOSPI skidded nearly 7 percent, as the market played catch-up to the region's tumble after a holiday on Wednesday.
Roger Federer made a smooth start to his Cincinnati Masters title bid by beating Frenchman Julien Benneteau 6-3 6-3 but Rafael Nadal was forced to retire and Novak Djokovic lost on Wednesday.
An early break set Federer, looking for his 50th career title, on his way and after taking the first set, he broke in the seventh and ninth games of the second set for victory.
The Swiss top seed and world number one will play Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus or Argentine Juan Ignacio Chela in the third round.
"It gives you a fright when you see some people retiring and others, like Djokovic, who had the tournament of his life last week, losing quite comfortably," Federer said in a courtside interview.
"It puts extra pressure on you so I'm happy I am the one to survive.
World number two Nadal quit when trailing Argentine Juan Monaco 7-6 4-1 in their second-round match, citing cramp in his left forearm and dizziness.
"I wasn't grasping the racket very well and I wasn't feeling very well when I went to the court. I couldn't play more than three balls on every point. I didn't have power in the legs.
World number 25 Monaco now plays American Sam Querrey, who upset 13th seed Mikhail Youzhny of Russia 5-7 6-3 6-4.
HELSINKI, Finland (CNN) Nokia warned consumers that 46 million batteries used in its mobile phones could overheat and offered to replace them for free, while it negotiates with battery maker Matsushita over who would bear the costs.
Nokia, the world's top cell phone maker, said about 100 incidents of such overheating had been reported globally, but none had involved serious injuries or property damage.
Replacing the batteries would have some financial impact, but Matsushita would pay part of the costs, Nokia said.
Analyst Richard Windsor of Nomura estimated the cost to Nokia at a maximum of 100 million euros ($137 million).
Mobile phone maker Sony Ericsson, owned by Sony Corp. and Ericsson, said it depends mostly on batteries from Sony and does not use Matsushita batteries.
Last year, Sony was hit by hefty costs for the recall of 9.6 million laptop PC batteries that could overheat and catch fire.
Matsushita said there had been a rare problem in the process of manufacturing battery cells core components of battery packs rather than in the design of the batteries.
"We are still in discussion with Nokia about how to divide the replacement cost," said Matsushita spokesman Akira Kadota.
The battery packs in question were assembled in China, but battery cells were manufactured in Japan, Kadota said.
Nokia spokeswoman Marianne Holmlund said that in similar cases in the car industry, less than half of consumers eligible for replacement had used the option.
Malaysian police have arrested a man who practiced as a dentist for 29 years although he had no medical training and treated patients at his home in a cast-off examining chair.
The impostor's closest brush with the dental profession was during the years 1962 to 1978, when he assisted an army dentist by carrying his bag on visits to plantation workers' homes, the New Straits Times reported on Wednesday.
"I watched the doctor diagnose and treat problems with teeth," the paper quoted the unidentified man as saying when officials raided his home this week. "I also saw how he would extract teeth and make models and measurements for dentures.
The 63-year-old man, who convinced his neighbors he was a retired army dentist after being told he was too old to work as a dentist's assistant, charged 20 ringgit ($5.76) for extractions and 130 ringgit for dentures, the paper said.
Health officials seized antibiotics, painkillers, syringes and bottles of Chinese medicine during the raid, but they needed more than six men to carry off his 1940s-era examining chair, tossed away by the Malaysian army in 1978.
He could face a fine of up to 30,000 ringgit or a six-year jail term, or both.
MEMPHIS, Tennessee (CNN) A woman was found dead near Graceland on Wednesday as thousands of fans filled the tourism complex to mark the 30th anniversary of Elvis Presley's death.
The woman, 67, was found dead inside a tent at a campground near Graceland.
Seven people in Memphis have died from the heat in a little more than a week, officials said.
Fans come to Memphis from all over the world and line up for hours in preparation for a graveside procession to pay homage to Elvis Presley on the anniversary of his death.
The procession winds up Graceland's long, sloping driveway, past Presley's grave in a small garden beside the house.
"If you're back at the backside of that crowd, you're like five hours away from going up the hill," said Jack Soden, chief executive of Elvis Presley Enterprises, the company that manages Graceland and its sprawling tourist complex.
The vigil is the most popular and solemn anniversary event in a weeklong string of concerts, dances, movie screenings and other festivities put on by Graceland.
A particularly large crowd was expected Wednesday amid a brutal heat wave, with temperatures predicted to hit 104 degrees.
Mary Powell of Salinas, Kansas, who took her post at 5 a.m. to be sure to get near the front of the line, took periodic breaks to visit Graceland's air-conditioned visitor center and souvenir shops.
For the vigil, fans gather in the four-lane street in front of Graceland for an opening ceremony.
As the procession starts, they light candles from torches lit by an eternal flame at the grave.
CARSON, California (CNN) David Beckham scored his first goal for Los Angeles Galaxy in their SuperLiga semifinal against D.C. United on Wednesday, striking with a free kick in the 27th minute.
The 32-year-midfielder, wearing the captain's armband in his first start for the Major League Soccer (MLS) club, curved one of his trademark strikes into the top left corner of the net from 25 meters, leaving goalkeeper Troy Perkins stranded.
Beckham, hampered by an injured left ankle for the last two months, had made only two fleeting appearances for the Galaxy since joining them last month.
(CNN) A magnitude 7.9 earthquake struck off the coast of central Peru on Wednesday evening, killing 17 people and leaving 70 hurt, Peruvian media reported.
Pan Americano TV showed footage of traffic lights in the capital Lima swaying with the quake.
Some Lima residents were sobbing after the temblor, while others appeared to be praying.
"This has been the most terrifying experience we've had," Gladys Tarnawiecki told CNN from her home in Lima.
The quake shook inland towns, as well as cities near the coast and the mountains.
There were power outages in Lima, Reuters reported, and people ran into the streets in panic as the tremor shook office buildings.
The quake also prompted a tsunami warning for Peru, as well as Chile, Ecuador and Colombia.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center also issued a tsunami watch for Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, Mexico and Honduras.
The quake was felt for two minutes, according to Peruvian media. Broken windows were reported in Lima, and mobile phone service was interrupted.
The quake struck at 6:41 p.m. (7: 41 p.m. ET) and was centered 25 miles (61 kilometers) west-northwest of Chincha Alta, Peru, and 90 miles (161 kilometers) south-southeast of Lima, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
And at 7:19 p.m., another smaller quake of 5.9 magnitude occurred, centered 30 miles (48 kilometers) south-southwest of Ica, Peru, and 180 miles (290 kilometers) south-southeast of Lima.
WASHINGTON (CNN) The U.S. government is involved in intense discussions over naming all or part of Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group in a move that would effectively declare "open season" on the organization, a senior official told CNN.
If made, the designation would come in the form of an executive order from President George W. Bush, the State Department official said.
An Iranian official dismissed the report as "psychological-propaganda warfare."
Such a move would allow the Treasury Department to go after the finances of the group and those who do business with it.
Asked to comment on the reports that the Guard Corps may be named a terrorist group, National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe would only say:
We continue to urge Iran to play a constructive role in the region, and to stop providing support to terrorist organizations.
Mattel Inc. the largest U.S. toy company, recalled millions more Chinese-made toys on Tuesday due to hazards from the magnets and lead paint, and warned it may recall additional products as it steps up testing.
"We knew about the situation, because since March some toys had been recalled due to magnetic-parts problems," an official with the China Toy Association, who declined to be identified, told Reuters.
The new recall involves about 18.2 million magnetic toys globally, including 9.5 million in the United States.
About 253,000 Pixar Sarge die-cast toy cars with lead paint were also recalled.
Lead has been linked to health problems in children, including brain damage.
The China Toy Association would meet the Commerce Ministry and quality watchdog later in the day to discuss the recall, the official added.
President Hugo Chavez predicts renewed political upheaval in his nation again.
Chavez, seeking to transform Venezuelan society along socialist lines, will present his blueprint for constitutional reform Wednesday.
He unexpectedly announced late Tuesday that he would unveil his project before crowds of supporters at the National Assembly.
His critics accuse him of becoming obsessed with power and seeking to become a lifelong leader just like his close friend Fidel Castro.
Chavez rejects allegations that he poses a threat to democracy.
"I have faith that we are going to convince the immense majority of Venezuelans of the necessity and the immediate benefits that this is going to bring the country," Chavez said in a televised interview.
"They are going to launch a campaign tomorrow to try to distort the text and the spirit of the proposal.
Many lawmakers say they support the idea of eliminating presidential term limits, but they argue the same rules should not apply to state governors and mayors.
Hundreds of U.S. and Afghan soldiers have embarked on a major operation against militants in the eastern Afghan region of Tora Bora, near the border with Pakistan, officials have told CNN.
Air and ground strikes underway in the remote mountain region are aimed at large numbers of militant fighters.
The troops are targeting "hundreds of hardened al Qaeda and Taliban in dug-in positions," said officials familiar with the intelligence.
The operation started two days ago in the region, where al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was once thought to be hiding.
The Bush administration has been criticized for not sending enough ground forces to Tora Bora in December 2001 to capture the militant after the invasion that toppled the Taliban.
"U.S. and Afghan forces engaged al Qaeda and other violent extremist fighters in eastern Afghanistan during a combined arms assault using precision munitions. There have been no substantiated reports of civilian casualties in this engagement," said Capt. Vanessa R. Bowman, a U.S. Army spokeswoman.
"The targets were carefully chosen to pinpoint enemy positions and eliminate the likelihood of harming innocent civilians," she said.
"This region has provided an ideal environment to conceal enemy support bases and training sites, as well as plan and launch attacks aimed at terrorizing innocent civilians, both inside and outside the region.
Also Wednesday, a manager at a private British security firm in Afghanistan was shot and killed in the capital Kabul, a spokesman for the company said.
"We did lose a manager today in Kabul to unknown assailants," Christopher Beese, spokesman for ArmorGroup International, said Wednesday.
Police in Germany found six young Italian men shot in the head execution-style outside a train station in the western city of Duisburg Wednesday in an attack officials believe was part of a feud between organized crime clans.
Five of the victims were dead when authorities arrived on the scene. The sixth died en route to the hospital.
All were aged between 16 and 39, police said.
30 p.m. ET Tuesday,) according to police spokesman Hermann Josef Helmich.
The victims were found in two vehicles.
The group is similar to the Sicilian Mafia but based in Italy's southern Calabria region and believed to be involved in drug and arms trafficking and extortion.
"People from Calabria have a very strong presence in Germany but so far they had kept a low profile, trying not to attract attention.
Detectives were called to the area of Duisburg after a pedestrian heard the shots and stopped a patrol car, police spokesman, Reinhard Pape, told AP.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) The death toll in the suicide bombings Tuesday in northern Iraq has risen to at least 500, local officials in Nineveh province said Wednesday.
Iraqi Army and Mosul police sources earlier put the number at 260, but said it was likely to rise.
320 were reported wounded.
The Tuesday truck bombs that targeted the villages of Qahtaniya, al-Jazeera and Tal Uzair, in northern Iraq near the border with Syria, were a "trademark al Qaeda event" designed to sway U.S. public opinion against the war, a U.S. general said Wednesday.
Brig. Gen. Abdul Karim Khalaf, an Interior Ministry spokesman, said there were three suicide trucks carrying two tons of explosives. At least 30 houses and other buildings were destroyed.
"We still have a great deal of work to do against al Qaeda in Iraq, and we have great deal of work to do against al Qaeda networks in northern Iraq," Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner, a Multi-National Force-Iraq spokesman, said Wednesday.
The office of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki blamed Sunni extremists for the "monstrous crime."
Ashraf Qazi, the U.N. secretary-general's special representative for Iraq, called the attack an "abominable crime aimed at widening the sectarian and ethnic divide in Iraq.
Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney is likely to be out of action for two months after breaking his left foot against Reading on Sunday.
Rooney will miss England's two Euro 2008 qualifiers in September but United manager Alex Ferguson said the striker could be fit in time for the tie with Estonia on October 13.
"It will be two months out," Ferguson told reporters on Monday.
"They have options for the games against Israel and Russia in September.
Rooney is definitely out of England's friendly against Germany on August 22 and the home matches against Israel on September 8 and against Russia four days later.
BEIJING, China (CNN) If you're planning a trip to Beijing for the 2008 Summer Olympics, but you fear you may tire of Olympic fever and flag-waving throngs, don't despair.
Beijing has rich offerings when it comes to art, music, groovy boutiques and quiet temples.
Visitors are stunned into submission by the Forbidden City, the Great Wall and Tiananmen Square, then quickly shuttled to buying sprees at the Pearl Market or Silk Street.
But this kind of Beijing experience is not for everybody.
Cui Jian, a lifelong Beijinger and China's most famous rock star, says he never sends visitors to the Great Wall or Forbidden City.
"I am not really interested in all that Kingdom Culture, stuff that shows this was once the greatest kingdom city or something," said the veteran rocker who performed "Wild Horses" with the Rolling Stones last year in Shanghai.
"The Great Wall? I think a lot of people died building that wall.
Cui recommends you instead soak up the atmosphere in the 798 art district in the city's eastern Dashanzi neighborhood.
The 1950s-era factory zone has been transformed into a bohemian oasis with galleries, cafes, bookstores, outdoor sculptures, and graffiti splashed on old factory walls.
Artist and fashion designer Feng Ling, a transplant from south China's Chengdu, has a studio in 798 and a house in the suburbs.
She goes to Dashanzi's At Cafe for its good selection of red wine, Italian food and art.
"You can meet people from all over the world here," Feng said.
When he comes home these days, Wu likes to wander around the Baiyun Guan or White Cloud Taoist Temple.
It has dynastic charm without the tourist crush and is a wonderful place to while away the afternoon.
At the Nali Mall in the Sanlitun bar district, you'll find a warren of tiny boutiques selling clothes, shoes and jewelry.
Expect to bargain.
The offerings are a mix of local design plus some imports and knockoffs.
Beijing is most conveniently seen by taxi, but keep in mind that you contribute to the city's ever-present shroud of smog with every trip.
Consider taking the subway or grabbing a "sanlunche," or three-wheeled rickshaw, if you are not going too far.
The Beijing city government stopped giving out new rickshaw licenses a few years ago, so most are illegal but police generally turn a blind eye especially if a foreigner is on board.
For nightlife, rock star Cui reeled off a few clubs where he likes to go for live music: New Get Lucky Bar, Nameless Highland and CD Cafe.
Police in eastern Indian have detained the trainer of a five-year-old boy who gained fame for his marathon runs, a senior police official said.
The coach, Biranchi Das, has been accused by the boy's mother of torturing Budhia Singh.
According to police, the boy has also accused his coach of torture and criminal intimidation.
"We have apprehended him and he is being questioned now," said Y.B. Khurania, the deputy inspector general of police in Orissa on Monday. "We have not yet arrested him.
Das denied the allegations against him were true.
I never assaulted him since he was staying with 60 other children in a sports makeshift hostel.
Singh is living with his mother in a slum in the state capital of Bhubaneshwar.
In 2006, Singh attempted to run a 43-mile marathon, sparking protests from child rights activists.
They found the child to be undernourished, anemic and under cardiac stress.
Budhia Singh's father died when the boy was 7 months old.
Das, who met the family two years ago, has said he has raised Singh as his son.
TALLINN, Estonia (CNN) An Estonian man who was caught driving a car even though he is blind has been at it again, police said on Monday, and this time he faces jail.
Police first arrested the man, 20, a week ago.
"We arrested the same blind man driving his car again on Saturday in the town of Torvandi, near Tartu (in southern Estonia)," said Marge Kohtla, a spokeswoman for Tartu police district.
There were three people in the car with him giving him instructions.
She said police wanted the court to jail the man for 30 days and confiscate his car.
Capricious, mercurial or just unlucky?
President Nicolas Sarkozy unexpectedly arrived alone for the informal gathering at a Bush family compound in Maine on Saturday, near the luxury lakeside residence where the French leader and his wife are spending their holidays.
Sarkozy said his wife was suffering from a severe sore throat and could not make the journey, but the fact Cecilia was spotted shopping with friends on both Friday and Sunday raised eyebrows back home.
"Cecilia has set a new record for making a swift recovery," a news reader said dryly on France Inter radio on Monday.
weeks after Cecilia made a spectacular foray into international politics by apparently helping to broker the release of Bulgarian medics imprisoned in Libya, and left commentators puzzling over her motives.
After playing virtually no part in her husband's election campaign earlier this year, she famously failed to turn out to vote for him in the second round ballot on May 6.
This snub provoked widespread speculation that the couple, who briefly separated in 2005, were set to divorce, but Cecilia proved the gossip-mongers wrong by turning up at her husband's inauguration ceremony and stealing the show in a stylish dress.
A bridge under construction as a tourist attraction in central China collapsed, killing at least 22 people and leaving 46 missing, China Central Television reported Tuesday.
The official Xinhua News Agency said 64 people were rescued, including 22 who were injured when the 1,049-foot bridge spanning the Jiantuo River in Hunan province collapsed Monday.
The cause of the collapse was under investigation, it said.
The bridge in Hunan's Fenghuang county had four decorative stone arches and was scheduled to open at the end of this month, Xinhua said.
The bridge collapsed as workers were removing scaffolding from its facade, Xinhua said.
CCTV showed bulldozers plowing through the rubble, overturning chunks of stone and concrete mixed in a tangle of steel reinforcement bars.
Most of the people working on the bridge were local farmers, the agency said.
Construction accidents in China are frequent, with contractors often opting for shoddy materials to cut costs and using migrant laborers with little or no safety training.
In its annual report on road safety last year, the Ministry of Communications categorized 6,300 of the country's bridges as dangerous because of serious damage to their "structural components," the China Daily newspaper reported Tuesday.
The actress and her actor husband, Johnathon Schaech, have officially parted ways a year and a half after he filed for divorce.
The pair's split was finalized in Superior Court on Friday, according to court documents obtained by CelebTV.com.
Applegate, known for her role as ditzy daughter Kelly Bundy on TV's "Married ... With Children," and actor Schaech married in October 2001.
They separated in November 2005, citing irreconcilable differences, according to court papers.
Schaech filed for divorce December 5, 2006.
Applegate has starred in movies including "Anchorman:
The Legend of Ron Burgundy," and earned a 2005 Tony Award nomination for her Broadway role in "Sweet Charity.
and 2005's "Sea of Dreams.
NEOSHO, Missouri (CNN) A man with a machine pistol stormed a southwestern Missouri church where his relatives were praying, shouting "liars, liars" as he opened fire and killed three people, police said Monday.
Police identified the gunman as Eiken Elam Saimon, 52.
Saimon shouted "liars, liars, you're all liars" before opening fire with a semiautomatic machine pistol commonly known as a Tech-9, Police Chief David McCracken said.
When police arrived, Saimon had surrounded himself with 30 to 40 hostages in the sanctuary and "he was holding a female hostage at gunpoint," the chief said.
Witnesses told police that Saimon held a gun to one man's head and asked if anyone in the church was willing to trade their life for the man's, an investigator said.
After no one stepped forward, the gunman shot the hostage, he said.
Five people were wounded in the Sunday afternoon attack at the church in Neosho, about 120 miles northeast of Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Wounded were Jim Handy, Melihna Tarra, Dahnny Jack and Handy Kendey.
The wounded were transported to area hospitals, at least one of them by helicopter.
One of them required surgery, and two others were still in the hospital Monday, McCracken said.
Police received a report about 1:54 p.m. (2: 54 p.m. ET) that someone was shooting inside the 100-year-old First Congregational Church.
Saimon had three guns, including the 9 mm semiautomatic Tech-9 and a small-caliber handgun, McCracken said.
He ordered the children in the church to leave without their parents, McCracken said. The kids were all accounted for and were not harmed, he said.
The shooter was holding as many as 50 people hostage inside the church when officers arrived, authorities said.
Police apprehended Saimon without incident after a hostage negotiator spoke with him for five or 10 minutes, McCracken said.
Stocks rose and emerging market assets posted modest gains on Monday after moves by central banks to inject money into the banking system reassured investors, prompting them back into riskier assets.
The European Central Bank injected liquidity into the euro money market again on Monday, easing market tensions triggered by liquidity concerns in the banking system hit by troubles in risky U.S. subprime mortgages.
The ECB and authorities in Asia carried on a global campaign for a third day to prevent money markets seizing up after the recent revelations by financial institutions of their exposure to crumbling credit markets.
While moves by central banks raised concerns that the liquidity problem was far more serious than previously anticipated, they helped calm tensions and shift investor focus back to strong corporate and economic fundamentals.
"Companies still have strong balance sheets, strategic M&A has further to go," said Teun Draaisma, strategist at Morgan Stanley. The U.S. bank has moved to overweight equities and cut allocation to cash following a recent fall in stocks.
MSCI's main world stock index was up nearly half a percent, having fallen 7.3 percent from lifetime highs hit only a month ago.
Europe's FTSEurofirst 300 index was up 1.7 percent, rebounding from a nearly 5 percent sell-off during the last two sessions.
BEIJING, China (CNN) The head of a Chinese manufacturer whose lead-tainted Sesame Street toys were the center of a massive U.S. recall has killed himself, a state-run newspaper said Monday.
Cheung Shu-hung, who co-owned Lee Der Industrial Co., committed suicide at a warehouse over the weekend, apparently by hanging himself, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported.
"When I rushed there around 5 p.m., police had already sealed off the area," the newspaper quoted a manager surnamed Liu as saying. "I saw that our boss had two deep marks in his neck.
Though the report did not give a reason for Cheung's apparent suicide and the company declined to discuss the matter Lee Der was under pressure in a global controversy over the safety of Chinese made products.
It is common for disgraced officials to commit suicide in China.
This month, Mattel Inc., one of the largest U.S. toy companies, was forced to recall 967,000 plastic preschool toys made by Lee Der because they were decorated with paint found to have excessive amounts of lead.
The toys, sold in the U.S. under the Fisher-Price brand, included likenesses of Big Bird and Elmo, as well as the Dora and Diego characters.
Days later, Chinese officials temporarily banned Lee Der from exporting products.
The recall was among the largest in recent months involving Chinese products, which have come under scrutiny worldwide for containing potentially dangerous high levels of chemicals and toxins.
In the Lee Der suicide, an official who answered the telephone at the company's factory in the southern city of Foshan on Monday said he had not heard of the news.
A man at Lee Der's main office in Hong Kong said the company was not accepting interviews and hung up.
After the recall, Lee Der maintained that its paint supplier, Cheung's best friend, supplied "fake paint" used in the toys, the Southern Metropolis Daily said.
"The boss and the company were harmed by the paint supplier, the closest friend of our boss," Liu, the manager, was quoted as saying.
A Moscow court began trying a supermarket porter who prosecutors say murdered 49 people over a 14-year period, which would make him Russia's worst serial killer in a decade.
His lawyer said 33-year-old Alexander Pichushkin had confessed to most of the murders, but it was unclear how many.
The jury must decide whether or not he is of sound mind.
"My client understands that he is to blame for most of these murders," Pichushkin's lawyer, Pavel Ivannikov, told reporters outside the courtroom after a fifteen-minute hearing.
Pichushkin scowled as he was brought into Moscow City Court under heavy guard for a preliminary hearing at which he opted to be tried by a jury, instead of a panel of judges.
If convicted, Pichushkin called the "Bitsevsky Maniac" by Russian media after the Moscow park where many of the alleged victims were killed would be Russia's most deadly serial killer since Andrei Chikatilo, convicted in 1992 of 52 murders.
Prosecutors say Pichushkin befriended many of his victims in Bitsevsky park by inviting them to drink vodka with him, then bludgeoned them to death with a hammer.
Some of the victims had fragments of glass pressed into their skulls.
Prosecutors also say Pichushkin confessed to the murders in police custody.
Russian media reported that for every person he killed, he placed a coin on a chess board and that he had been planning to cover all 64 squares on the board.
Another elderly woman who was also in the court, Tamara Klimova, came home from holiday to discover her husband was missing. The body was not found for five years. Prosecutors now believe he was killed by Pichushkin.
"I would like him to be handed over to the people so that they can tear him apart," Klimova told reporters.
Turkey's ruling AK Party decided on Monday to re-submit Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, an ex-Islamist, as its candidate for president, party sources said.
AK Party sources told Reuters that Gul would visit opposition party leaders on Tuesday to try to garner support for his bid.
He is then likely to hold a news conference in parliament to formally announce his candidacy, they said.
The country's secular elite, including powerful army generals, derailed an earlier attempt to have parliament elect Gul as president, a move that triggered early parliamentary elections which the AK Party won decisively last month.
Secularists oppose Gul because of his Islamist past and the fact his wife wears the Muslim head scarf.
Gul, who denies any Islamist agenda, has already signaled he wants to run again.
The cabinet debated the presidential election on Monday and talks continued late into the evening at the AK Party's executive board.
Earlier, Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Ali Sahin said ordinary Turks and AK Party officials favored Gul's candidacy, fueling expectations that Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's government will defy the army generals after its re-election.
WASHINGTON (CNN) An emotional Karl Rove characterized his tenure in the White House as a "witness to history" as he announced his resignation as President Bush's senior political adviser at the end of this month.
"It's not been an easy decision.
Speaking to reporters outside the White House with Bush at his side, Rove said discussions about his departure began last summer.
Rove, who has held a top position in the White House since Bush took office in January 2001, is to stand down on August 31.
Rove said earlier Monday that his resignation as was not forced and that he plans to spend his post-White House career writing a book and teaching.
Perhaps Bush's most powerful White House aide, Rove submitted his resignation to Bush on Friday, he told CNN's Suzanne Malveaux in an e-mail.
Rove has been subpoenaed to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee investigating the firings of some U.S. attorneys, but the White House said Rove, as an "immediate adviser" to the president, cannot be ordered to testify.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, the committee's chairman, issued a statement following Rove's announcement saying Rove has "acted as if he was above the law.
Leahy added, "There is a cloud over this White House, and a gathering storm. A similar cloud envelops Mr. Rove, even as he leaves the White House.
Rove did testify before a federal grand jury about the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity after Plame's husband, former ambassador Joe Wilson, became a critic of the war in Iraq.
The resignation sparked speculation over whether Rove will soon join the campaign of a GOP candidate.
But a Wall Street Journal article on Monday in which news of Rove's pending resignation came out said Rove will "offer advice, if asked, but at 56 years old says he is done with political consulting."
Other White House officials who left after the election include White House counselor Dan Bartlett, budget director Rob Portman, chief White House attorney Harriet Miers, political director Sara Taylor and deputy national security adviser J.D. Crouch.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld left his job immediately following the election, as the Iraq war's influence on voters became clear.
After the announcement, Bush and Rove were headed to the president's ranch in Crawford, Texas.
Rove intends to return to Washington over the weekend, according to a White House official.
Rove said the first thing he plans to do after leaving the White House is "go dove hunting in West Texas with family and friends, then drive my wife and the dogs to the beach.
Rove plans to write a book about his days with Bush and eventually teach politics on the university level.
"Obviously it's a big loss to us," said deputy White House press secretary Dana Perino. "He is a great colleague, good friend and a brilliant mind.
Two female South Korean hostages were set free Monday by a group of Taliban militants who kidnapped them and 21 others more than three weeks ago in Afghanistan, an Afghan official told CNN.
The governor of Ghazni province, Mirajudin Patan, said the two female hostages, who have been reported to be seriously ill, were freed Monday, 25 days after they were first taken by militants.
Patan said the pair were now in the political offices in the Ghazni province's capital, also called Ghazni.
They have been identified as Kim Kyung Ja and Kim Jina.
"They were able to walk and appeared to be well, but they were very emotional and were crying," Reuters reported the witnesses as saying.
The Associated Press also reported that the two women broke into tears after seeing international Red Cross officials at a U.S. base.
The women said nothing to waiting reporters, who had been alerted to the handoff, as they got out of a dark gray Toyota Corolla driven by an Afghan elder and into one of two waiting Red Cross SUVs, AP said.
The pair wore wore scarves on their heads, khaki trousers and a traditional Afghan shirt that hangs to the knees.
Both carried bags with them, AP said.
News that the women might be released came over the weekend after a Taliban spokesman said the militant group would free them as a gesture of "goodwill," and "without any condition or return."
Denmark(CNN) Biking the back lanes of the island of Aero, I came to a lonely little church.
Wandering through its graveyard, I noticed the names on every tombstone ended in "sen." The inscriptions, such as "Here lies Christian Hansen at anchor with his wife.
He'll not weigh until he stands before God" seem to fit the salty charm of this tiny island on the south edge of Denmark.
Aero statistics:
It's 22 by 6 miles, with 7,000 residents, 350 deer, seven pastors, no crosswalks, three police officers and a pervasive passion for the environment.
Along with windmills, Aero has one of the world's largest solar power plants.
Each town has a fine 12th-century church.
The interiors are still painted, as a Gothic church would have been.
A long stick with an offering bag comes equipped with a ting-a-ling bell to wake those nodding off.
Little ships hanging in the nave are perhaps memorials to lost sailors.
A portrait of Martin Luther hangs in the stern keeping his Protestant hand on the rudder.
The current pastor,a Janet, is the first woman on the list.
A lane leads downhill, dead-ending at a rugged bluff called Vodrup Klint.
If I were a pagan, I'd worship here the sea, the wind and the chilling view.
The land steps in sloppy slabs down to the sea.
While the wind at the top could drag a kite-flier, the beach below is ideal for sunbathing.
I can't see Germany, which is just across the water, but I do see a big stone that commemorates the return of the island to Denmark from Germany in 1750.
As they do all over Europe, churches mark pre-Christian holy sites.
In a field adjacent to the next church, stands the Langdysse Tingstedet a 6,000-year-old dolmen.
This was an early Neolithic burial place.
I roll back into my hometown of Aeroskobing.
The sun is setting, so I roll right on through to the sunset beach where a row of tiny huts line the strand and where each local enjoyed a first kiss.
It's a perfect Danish scene where small is beautiful, sustainability is just common sense, and a favorite word, hyggelig, takes cozy to unknown extremes.
MOGADISHU, Somalia (CNN) The general director of a local independent radio station in Mogadishu was killed in a roadside bomb explosion Saturday while coming home from the funeral of a murdered colleague shot earlier that day, a journalist with Shabelle Radio told CNN on Sunday.
Ali Iman Sharmarke, the general director of Somali media house Horn Afrik, was riding in a car that was part of a larger convoy when a roadside bomb exploded, killing him and wounding two passengers.
Shabelle journalist Aweys Osman Yusuf said Sharmarke's car was in the middle of a convoy and it appeared that his car was the target of the attack.
"My colleagues told me all other cars passed where the bomb was planted and only that car when it came into the area the bomb exploded," he said.
Sharmarke was attending the funeral of Mahad Ahmed Elmi, the director at Capital Voice a second FM station of Horn Afrik.
According to Yusuf, as of Sunday, 13 FM stations were off the air and have been since midday Saturday.
Another Somali journalist, Yasmin Mayow, said "from today I am afraid to go to work as journalist and I can see now the target is local journalists being threatened and killed," according to a translation provided by Reuters.
Over the weekend another journalist was attacked.
On Friday night three gunmen shot and wounded Abdi Omar Jimale, a radio journalist working for Radio Baidoa, the journalist's mother said.
Jimale was attacked at his home in northern Mogadishu and hospitalized at Keysaney hospital,
CALCUTTA, India (CNN) A faulty air conditioner exploded Sunday at a McDonald's restaurant in the eastern Indian city of Calcutta, killing one person and seriously injuring three others, police said.
The explosion happened early in the morning before the restaurant opened, killing a passer-by, said city Police Commissioner Prasun Mukherjee.
"Three others were admitted to hospital in serious condition," he said.
Mukherjee said that there was no evidence of sabotage, and that initial investigations indicated that a faulty air conditioner exploded, possibly setting off gas canisters in the kitchen.
The powerful blast ripped the front off the shop and shattered car windows on the busy street outside.
"The explosion was deafening, and I saw a person lying in blood when the
Tiger Woods survived a few anxious moments on the back nine to clinch his fourth U.S. PGA Championship and 13th major title with a two-shot victory Sunday.
Three strokes clear going into the final round, the world number one fired a one-under-par 69 for an eight-under total of 272, finishing ahead of fellow American Woody Austin (67) at a sun-baked Southern Hills Country Club.
South African Ernie Els birdied four of the first 10 holes on his way to a six-birdie 66 and third place at five under.
Woods, who claimed his 59th PGA Tour title, became only the third player to win at least four PGA Championships.
Fellow Americans Jack Nicklaus and Walter Hagen won five apiece.
"I made a mess of it there on 14," Woods told reporters, referring to his third and final bogey of the day. "Woody was playing well and Ernie Els was making a move and I just knew I needed somehow to bear down.
The scene sums up what's so nice about visiting Northern California's Lake County.
Even with a burgeoning wine scene, Lake County is still first and foremost a haven of water recreation and summertime fun. If you're looking for the opposite of tony Napa, it doesn't get much more un-Napa than this.
The fun center of the wine country
Though that element certainly still exists, now there are also a few very sophisticated restaurants and hotels (the Blue Wing Saloon and the Tallman Hotel, most notably), as well as 10 or so worthwhile wineries.
Among those is the only boat-in winery we've ever heard of.
Roy Disney, of Disney's Boat Rentals, sets us up at the boat launch in Lakeport, instructing us to head east first to "the Narrows," where the north arm of the lake connects to the south arm, before the lake gets choppy.
He tells us how to use Mt. Konocti the once-active volcano that looms several thousand feet above the lake as a landmark, and invites us to call his cell phone if we lose our bearings.
Not just your basic, average everyday, ordinary, run-of-the-mill, ho-hum fairy tale, "Stardust" is a dazzler very nearly from first to last, a live action film that rivals the best recent animated features for imagination and wit.
The movie combines many of the archetypes of a classic bedtime story.
First, there's Tristran (Charlie Cox), an intrepid young hero from the wrong side of the tracks (or so he thinks), embarking on a romantic quest to bring back a fallen star as a token of his love for beautiful, aloof Victoria (Sienna Miller).
This quest takes him from an English village "Wall" into another land, Stormhold, a magical realm where the star in question has transformed into Yvaine (Claire Danes).
Then there's the wicked witch Lamia (Michelle Pfeiffer) and her two evil sisters.
Their magic is on the wane, but a fresh injection of stardust will restore their youth and vitality.
Whatever you make of the young folk, there's no question that the real star power emanates from a delectably witchy Michelle Pfeiffer and Robert De Niro, very droll as a pirate captain by the name of Shakespeare who has a surprising skeleton in his closet.
For a generation that grew up on "The Princess Bride," it's got to feel like a long-overdue happy ending.
"Stardust" is rated PG-13 and runs 128 minutes.
PRISTINA, Serbia (CNN)-The diplomatic troika leading new talks on Kosovo says that dividing the territory remained an option if Serbs and Albanians agreed to it.
Western policy on Kosovo has previously ruled out partition as a potential spark for regional conflict.
"It is the principle of the troika to be prepared to endorse any agreement which both parties manage to achieve. That includes all options," the European Union's envoy on the troika, Wolfgang Ischinger, told a news conference Sunday.
Other members of the troika are the United States and Russia.
Western diplomats have argued that splitting Kosovo in two could revive insurgencies among ethnic Albanians in Serbia's southern Presevo Valley and neighboring Macedonia.
The territory has been run by the United Nations since 1999, when NATO carried out a bombing campaign to drive out Serb forces and halt the killing and expulsion of Albanians during a two-year separatist war.
Kosovo's 90-percent Albanian majority demands independence.
Central banks came to the aid of investors Friday by pumping extra cash into the world's financial systems, helping temper fears of a liquidity crisis that helped the major U.S. stock indexes sharply cut losses.
The blue-chip Dow Jones industrial average slipped 31.14 points, or 0.23 percent, to end an exceptionally volatile day at 13,239.54.
Earlier, the Dow lost more than 200 points to plunge to a session low at 13,057.86.
But the broad Standard & Poor's 500 index managed to eke out a gain of 0.55 of a point, or 0.04 percent, to finish at 1,453.64.
The Nasdaq composite index dropped 11.60 points, or 0.45 percent, to close at 2,544.89.
The central banks' aid came too late for bourses in Asia and Europe where stock prices fell sharply.
In New York, U.S. crude oil prices recovered some lost ground, finishing the day lower but still above $71 a barrel.
Worldwide, central banks have injected at least $326 billion into their financial systems in the past 48 hours in an effort to prevent a global liquidity crunch that has its roots in the riskiest end of the U.S. mortgage market.
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) Merv Griffin, the entertainer turned impresario who parlayed his "Jeopardy" and "Wheel of Fortune" game shows into a multimillion-dollar empire, has died.
Griffin died of prostate cancer, according to a statement from his family that was released by Marcia Newberger, spokeswoman for The Griffin Group/Merv Griffin Entertainment.
From his beginning as a $100-a-week San Francisco, California, radio singer, Griffin moved on as vocalist for Freddy Martin's band, sometime film actor and TV game and talk show host.
But his biggest break financially came from inventing and producing "Jeopardy" in the 1960s and "Wheel of Fortune" in the 1970s.
It was in 1948 that Martin hired Griffin to join his band at Los Angeles' Coconut Grove at $150 a week.
With Griffin doing the singing, the band had a smash hit with "I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts," a 1949 novelty song sung in a cockney accent.
The band was playing in Las Vegas, Nevada, when Doris Day and her producer husband, Marty Melcher, were in the audience.
They recommended him to Warner Bros., which offered a contract.
In 1965, Westinghouse Broadcasting introduced "The Merv Griffin Show" in syndicated TV.
Mervyn Edward Griffin Jr. was born in San Mateo, south of San Francisco on July 6, 1925, the son of a stockbroker.
His aunt, Claudia Robinson, taught him to play piano at age 4, and soon the boy was staging shows on the back porch of the family home.
"Every Saturday I had a show, recruiting all the kids in the block as either stagehands, actors and audience, or sometimes all three," he wrote in his 1980 autobiography.
"I was the producer, always the producer.
After studying at San Mateo Junior College and the University of San Francisco, Griffin quit school to apply for a job as pianist at radio station KFRC in San Francisco. The station needed a vocalist instead. He auditioned and was hired.
Griffin and Julann Elizabeth Wright were married in 1958, and a son, Anthony, was born the following year.
The couple divorced in 1973 because of "irreconcilable differences.
MONTREAL, Canada (CNN) Serb Novak Djokovic produced the performance of his career to beat world number one and defending champion Roger Federer 7-6 2-6 7-6 to win the Montreal Masters on Sunday.
"This is the best tournament of my career," Djokovic told the crowd.
"I won a (Masters) in Miami but here I beat the number three (Roddick) in the quarters, the number two (Nadal) in the semis and in the final, I beat the number one.
Federer had been the overwhelming favorite to win his third Masters crown in Canada in as many appearances but instead suffered his first defeat in five meetings against Djokovic after producing 48 unforced errors.
attacked the Federer backhand relentlessly throughout, ripping forehands up the line for a series of winners.
Djokovic broke in the opening game of the third set only to let a 4-2 lead slip as the Swiss hit back to 4-4.
Federer praised Djokovic's performance.
"He is definitely one of the best players in the world and he deserved to win today," he said.
A Chinese court on Sunday sentenced a television reporter to one year in jail for fabricating a report that Beijing dumpling makers used cardboard as a filling.
The official Xinhua news agency said the journalist, Zi Beijia, was convicted after an open court hearing of "infringing the reputation of commodities". He was also fined 1,000 yuan ($132).
Zi, a temporary reporter for Beijing television, was arrested after it emerged that he apparently had cooked up a report that local makers of steamed dumplings were softening cardboard by soaking it in caustic soda and then flavoring it with pork juice.
The report caused a stir, not least because China is under international scrutiny for exporting food and other products that safety inspectors have found to be tainted or substandard.
Four soldiers three of them part of the U.S.-led coalition, one of them NATO were killed Sunday in separate combat incidents in eastern Afghanistan, according to coalition and NATO statements.
The three coalition soldiers died Sunday after sustaining wounds in an explosion during fighting in Nangarhar province, along the border with Pakistan, the Coalition Press Information Center said.
An interpreter also was killed in the blast, the center reported.
In addition, "one coalition forces service member was wounded in the strike and was transported to a nearby coalition forces medical center for treatment," according to a news release.
The soldiers' names and nationalities were not released.
In southern Afghanistan, a NATO soldier was killed during an attack Sunday, NATO's International Security Assistance Force said.
The statement did not provide the location of the attack or the nationality of the soldier killed.
"Our thoughts at this very difficult time are with the friends, family and colleagues of those who have been killed and injured," ISAF spokeswoman Lt. Col. Bridget Rose said.
U.S. and NATO troops have been battling a resurgent Taliban in southern Afghanistan for months.
Last week, Taliban militants attacked the same coalition outpost, Firebase Anaconda, in Uruzgan province three times in five days.
Several Taliban militants were killed in two attacks on the base Saturday, and about 25 insurgents were killed by U.S. troops, backed by airstrikes, Tuesday when the insurgents ambushed the base from three directions, the coalition reported.
Military action and diplomacy are key in the fight against a rise in Taliban extremism currently plaguing Pakistan, the country's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, said during a joint Afghan-Pakistani peace jirga in Kabul.
"Talibanization and extremism, however, represents a state of mind and requires more comprehensive, long-term strategy where military action must be combined with a political approach and socioeconomic development," he added. The Pakistani leader, whose
nearly eight-year rule is being challenged by opposition activists and Islamic militants, said he has witnessed "the rise of extremism, militancy and violence tearing at the fabric of our society.
But Musharraf, influenced in part by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, held off on the move. On Sunday Musharraf addressed what he considers "three dimensions" of the "problem.
The first is the "core of violence and conflict" that typifies terrorist groups.
"Foreign militants" who belonged to groups such as al Qaeda and the Taliban, who are not prepared to reconcile and give up violence, created other problems, Musharraf said.
"There is the phenomenon of Talibanization and other forms of extremism," he said.
Such extremism was seen in July during the siege of Islamabad's Red Mosque, where students had hoped to impose Taliban-style Islamic law on the capital.
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone (CNN) Sierra Leone counted votes on Sunday from its first elections since U.N. peacekeepers left two years ago and early results showed a run-off might be needed to choose the new president.
On the streets of the dilapidated capital Freetown, people huddled around radios in shops and kiosks as local networks broadcast initial returns from Saturday's presidential and parliamentary polls.
Voters turned out in huge numbers on Saturday for elections billed as a test of the West African country's stability after an 11-year civil war fueled by "blood diamonds" and infamous for its brutality.
Unofficial results showed Ernest Bai Koroma of the opposition All People's Congress (APC) comfortably ahead in Freetown and the north of the ex-British colony, which contain about half its 2.6 million voters.
With more than 5 percent of votes tallied, the ruling Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) candidate, 69-year-old Vice President Solomon Berewa, was performing more strongly in the south, populated by the Mende ethnic group.
If no presidential candidate wins more than 55 percent, a runoff will be held in September.
Sierra Leone ranks second from bottom of the U.N. Human Development Index.
Expectations of change, whoever wins, are huge.
We need freedom, food, water, electricity and jobs," said Mohamed Ba, sitting outside a wooden kiosk in downtown Freetown, radio in hand. "But I don't trust the politicians.
Sierra Leone received $1.6 billion in debt relief last year, but still relies on donors for a third of its budget.
KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) Taliban militants holding 21 Korean hostages in Afghanistan will release two female hostages who are unwell, a Taliban spokesman says.
Taliban spokesperson Qari Yousuf Ahmad confirmed to CNN late Saturday that the release would take place.
He said the group's "leadership council has decided today that the two female hostages who are under custody of the Taliban without any condition or return, and as a gesture of good will, will be released, so that the Korean government, people and others would try to decide regarding the freedom of the rest of the hostages, and release our prisoners and accept our demands.
"Therefore since these two are sick and are women, so we will release them without any condition or return.
The Taliban earlier said South Korean and Taliban representatives began face-to-face meetings Friday night to negotiate the release of the hostages.
The talks continued Saturday.
Talks were being held in Afghanistan's Ghazni province, and the negotiators discussed a Taliban prisoner-hostage swap.
Taliban militants kidnapped 23 South Korean volunteer workers on July 19 when they were traveling on a bus from Kabul to Kandahar.
India asked doctors to cancel vacations Friday and rushed food and medicine to flooded regions where disease has stricken thousands of people.
A wild storm hit Pakistan's largest city, pushing the death toll from a particularly calamitous South Asia monsoon season past 2,000.
Relief workers said there was an acute shortage of clean drinking water and medical supplies parts of northern India, where storms have been heavier than usual this year.
With flooding from two weeks of rains finally receding in northern India, monsoon storms moved west.
Heavy winds and rains lashed the Pakistani city of Karachi, destroyed homes and flooding streets.
At least 22 bodies were pulled from collapsed homes, said Anwar Kazi, a spokesman for the private relief service Edhi Foundation.
Residents waded through waist-deep water in parts of the city of 15 million people, local television showed.
Vital to farmers whose crops feed hundreds of millions of people, the monsoon season runs from June to September as the rains work their way across the subcontinent.
At least 2,090 people have died this year, double the number killed last year.
Nearly 600 people have died in the past two weeks alone.
The rainfall has been unevenly distributed across India this year due to unusual monsoon patterns, according to the country's Meteorological Department.
While parts of central India received less rain, the north faced stronger storms for longer than usual.
Argentine striker Carlos Tevez completed his move to Manchester United on Friday, the Premier League champions said.
A Premier League spokesman confirmed the registration.
Last week West Ham released Tevez's registration following a deal with his agent Kia Joorabchian, who reached a two million pounds ($4.05 million) settlement with the London club to end a long transfer saga which centred on who owned the striker.
Tevez, 23, is available for Sunday's league season-opener against Reading but manager Alex Ferguson said he would more likely to feature against Manchester City on August
"Carlos surprised us in the training sessions last week," he said.
"After the Copa America, and with only a short holiday, I thought he might need more training. But he did very well and looked in great shape.
Pakistan's president has "agreed in principle" to address the closing session of the current joint Afghan-Pakistani meeting that he originally declined to attend, Pakistan's Foreign Ministry said Friday.
The meeting, a "joint peace jirga," is being held in the Afghan capital, Kabul. Gen. Pervez Musharraf was to attend but bowed out at the last minute.
"President Karzai said that the president's personal participation would be a source of support and encouragement for the jirga process. The president agreed in principle to address the closing session of the joint peace jirga," the ministry said.
A crisis had been brewing in Pakistan at the time he called Karzai and told him he couldn't make a personal appearance.
Pakistani leaders were considering the imposition of a state of emergency because of the growing security threats in the country's lawless tribal regions.
But Musharraf, influenced in part by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, held off on the move.
Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz leads the Pakistani delegation at the event. Relations between Musharraf and
GHAZNI, Afghanistan (CNN) Two top Taliban leaders and four South Korean officials met face-to-face for the first time Friday to negotiate the fate of 21 hostages who the militants have been holding for three weeks, an Afghan official said.
A Taliban spokesman said two members of the group's top council had been promised safe passage by the Afghan government to meet with the South Korean negotiators.
The meeting began Friday at 4 p.m. at the office of the Afghan Red Cross in the central Afghan city of Ghazni, near where the South Koreans were kidnapped on July 19, said the Afghan official, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to release the information.
Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi said the militants would not kill any of the 21 remaining South Korean hostages until the face-to-face meetings have been held.
Two men among the group of 23 South Koreans kidnapped on July 19 have already been killed.
The captors have repeatedly threatened to kill more of the Koreans if their demands to release Taliban prisoners held by the Afghan government and the U.S. military are not met.
The Afghan government has said it will not release prisoners, because it could encourage more kidnappings.
So far, there has been no sign of a breakthrough between the Taliban and Afghan officials and local tribal elders.
The South Korean government has issued guidelines to its aid organizations telling them to leave Afghanistan by the end of the month for safety reasons, a South Korean Embassy official said on condition of anonymity due to policy. Last month, the government banned its citizens from traveling to Afghanistan.
In South Korea, a spokesman for the hostages' families said on Friday the mothers of several hostages five women and a translator will travel to the emirate of Dubai next week to seek help from the Arab world in securing their loved ones' release.
The 23 South Koreans were abducted in the Qarabagh district of Ghazni province as they traveled by bus from Kabul to the southern city of Kandahar.
Afghan authorities say talks with the Taliban, who have demanded the release of Taliban prisoners, are the best way to resolve the problem.
LAS VEGAS, Nevada (CNN) Some people come to Las Vegas to enjoy the clear skies and hot days.
But at a new spa that opened at Caesars Palace, there is a treatment room where it snows all year long.
Welcome to Qua's Arctic Ice Room, where "snow" gently descends from a domed ceiling through mint-infused air chilled to 55 degrees.
The Romans enjoyed cooling down after a hot soak, and spa operators say such rapid cooling of the body has proven health benefits.
"Even coming from somewhere that had a horrible winter, it was still very enjoyable," said Angela Wagner, a 35-year-old physician from northern Indiana. "I had been in the heat wrap and the sauna and the whirlpools.
When it opened in November, Qua doubled the size of Caesars' previous spa to 50,000 square feet, and other spas, such as Spa Bellagio at The Bellagio hotel-casino and Canyon Ranch SpaClub at The Venetian have or are expanding, as well.
Every major resort on the Strip has a spa facility, each touting a special feature or unique therapy, often from Asia or Europe, for relief from the excitement of gambling, relaxation after a big business trip or to prepare for a night on the town.
"They want something new and different and do something they can't get at home.
Qua's ice room, the only one of its kind in the United States, comes from the millennia-old European bathing tradition of using snow to cleanse the body, said Don Genders, a partner of Eurospa Technologies LLC, the room's creator.
Ice is available in the room for those who want to rub it on steaming skin.
It's made from 98 percent water and 2 percent chemical solution that is harmless.
BEIJING, China (CNN) A panda once believed to be male and sent to Japan to breed with a female without success gave birth to twin cubs this week, state media reported on Thursday.
The panda, "Jinzhu", gave birth to two female cubs on Monday at the Wolong Nature Reserve in the mountainous southwestern province of Sichuan, 11 years after being declared male at birth in 1996, Xinhua news agency said.
Jinzhu was sent to Japan in 2000 to mate with a female, the report said.
Jinzhu was sent back to China in 2002, with experts arguing the panda was either a hermaphrodite or had "undeveloped" sexual organs.
It was not until 2005 that scientists discovered nine-year-old Jinzhu's ovaries were positioned in the wrong place, and gave her a two-hour operation to make her a "normal girl", Xinhua said.
Jinzhu subsequently mated with a male in March 2007 and gave birth 142 days later, Xinhua said.
The giant panda is one of the world's most endangered species and is found only in China.
NEWARK, New Jersey (CNN) A tire importer said Thursday it would recall 255,000 Chinese-made tires it claims were defective because they lack a safety feature that prevents tread separation.
The small company, based in Union, was ordered by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in June to recall as many as 450,000 tires that it bought from Hangzhou Zhongce Rubber Co. since 2002.
The recall is among a series of recent problems involving imports from China.
Products including toys, toothpaste, seafood and pet food have been recalled.
NHTSA ordered the recall after Foreign Tire Sales told the agency that some of Hangzhou Zhongce's tires were made without a safety feature, called a gum strip, that helps bind the belts of a tire to each other.
Hangzhou Zhongce has denied that, asserting that the design did not include a gum strip.
It sued Hangzhou Zhongce in U.S. District Court in Newark on May 31, charging that its tests found that the tires may fail earlier than tests provided by Hangzhou Zhongce showed.
The fourth tire, a Michelin, was the proper size, but mismatched tires pose a risk, the Chinese company said.
The company added that it has not yet been allowed to examine the vehicle and does not know if the accident was caused by tire failure.
LAHORE, Pakistan (CNN) U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice helped persuade Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf to hold off declaring a state of emergency, high level Pakistani government sources said Thursday.
Musharraf was said to be considering the move, which would bolster military rule and suspend democratic freedoms, amid security concerns that pose the biggest threat to army chief's rule since he seized power in a coup in 1999.
U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack confirmed that Rice called Musharraf early Thursday, characterizing it as a "good discussion," without providing details.
that the state of emergency remained a viable option for Pakistan's leader, according to CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr.
Pakistan information minister Tariq Azim said the state of emergency could still be an option, particularly if the situation deteriorated in the country's North West Frontier Province, which borders Afghanistan.
"As you know there have been problems in the North-West Frontier of Pakistan, there have been suicide bombings, three Chinese have been killed there and further we have got a situation on our borders with Afghanistan where the 'war on terror' is going on," Azim said.
Musharraf was elected to president in a 2002 vote that was widely viewed as rigged.
His five-year presidential term expires in November and he is seeking to retain his position as president and army chief.
That would significantly weaken Musharraf's grip on power in Pakistan.
The July 31 report from the International Crisis Group warned against imposing a state of emergency, saying it would be a move by Musharraf to retain the current "lame-duck parliament" so he can secure re-election "before the people can express their will by voting for the new parliament.
Elections are scheduled sometime around the turn of the year after Musharraf's term as president expires, as well as his army chief position.
The National Assembly's term also expires at the end of the year.
The Pakistani leader announced Wednesday he would skip a highly anticipated meeting on Thursday with his Afghan counterpart and tribal leaders, citing "engagements in the capital.
OSLO, Norway (CNN) A chunk of an Arctic glacier broke into the sea and triggered a huge wave that injured 18 people on a sightseeing boat, almost all of them British tourists, Norwegian officials said on Thursday.
Four people were seriously hurt in the accident by Hornbreen glacier on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard and were flown south to a hospital in Tromsoe on the mainland.
The others were treated at a local hospital, mostly for minor injuries.
"The glacier calved (split off) and a big wave washed over the boat," Elisabeth Bjoerge Loevold, acting governor of Svalbard, told Reuters. "The boat rocked back and forth and passengers fell on the deck.
The small cruise vessel, the Alexey Maryshev, was carrying about 50 British tourists and a crew of 20 Russians.
Loevold said 17 of those injured in the accident late on Wednesday were believed to be British and the other a Russian crew member, who was among those seriously hurt.
Boats are meant to stay clear of glaciers around Svalbard, which is about 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) from the North Pole, in case chunks fall off.
WASHINGTON (CNN) Charges have been dropped for two Marines accused in the 2005 killings of Iraqi civilians in Iraq, the U.S. Marine Corps said Thursday.
Lance Cpl. Justin I. Sharratt had been charged with shooting three Iraqi civilians in the aftermath of a roadside bombing in Haditha, and Capt. Randy W. Stone had been charged with dereliction of duty in failing to properly report facts connected to the murders.
Stone's error did not warrant any action under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, said Lt. Gen. James Mattis, the general overseeing the case.
Twenty-four civilians were killed in what a human rights group and military prosecutors said was a house-to-house rampage by Marines after a bomb exploded, killing a Marine.
Sharratt's attorney, Gary Myers, said last year, "Our view has been and continues to be that these were combat-related deaths.
The theory that Sharratt killed three men was "incredible" and relied on contradictory information from Iraqis, Lt. Col. Paul Ware, the hearing officer, said last month, The Associated Press reported.
Three other Marines were charged in the killings. Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, Sgt. Sanick Dela Cruz and Lance Cpl. Stephen Tatum were charged with premeditated murder in the civilian deaths.
Wuterich also is charged with making a false official statement and trying to get another Marine to make a false statement.
ROME, Italy (CNN) Luciano Pavarotti has been hospitalized in stable condition with a fever in his hometown of Modena, in northern Italy, officials and his manager said Thursday.
The 71-year-old tenor, who underwent surgery for pancreatic cancer last year, was brought to Modena's Polyclinic on Wednesday and was being kept under observation.
Doctors were expected to release him in coming days, according to separate statements from the hospital and his manager, Terri Robson.
The opera great was vacationing at his holiday home in Pesaro, an Adriatic seaside resort 125 miles southeast of Modena, when his doctor noticed that he had a fever and decided to admit him to the hospital for tests, Robson said.
Pavarotti had been preparing to leave New York in July 2006 to resume a farewell tour when doctors discovered a malignant pancreatic mass, Robson said at the time.
Pancreatic cancer is one of the most dangerous forms of the disease, although doctors said the surgery offered improved hopes for survival.
Pavarotti's wife said in a newspaper interview last month that he was reacting well to radiation therapy.
"He's reacting well to a fifth cycle of radiotherapy. He's fighting like a lion and he has never lost his heart, also because a family he adores is by his side.
According to Mantovani, the tenor was considering resuming the "Pavarotti and Friends" benefit concert that used to take place annually in Modena.
LONDON, England (CNN) The long-threatened Yangtze River dolphin in China is probably extinct, according to an international team of researchers who said this would mark the first whale or dolphin to be wiped out due to human activity.
The freshwater dolphin, or baiji, was last spotted several years ago and an intensive six-week search in late 2006 failed to find any evidence that one of the rarest species on earth survives, said Samuel Turvey, a conservation biologist, at the Zoological Society of London, who took part in the search.
He said the dolphin's demise which resulted from overfishing, pollution and lack of intervention might serve as a cautionary tale and should spur governments and scientists to act to save other species verging on extinction.
The team, which published its findings in the Journal of the Royal Society Biology Letters on Wednesday, included researchers from the United States, Britain, Japan and China.
The survey was also authorized by the Chinese government, Turvey said.
During the six-week search, the team carried out both visual and acoustic surveys and used two boats to twice cover the dolphin's 1,669 kilometer range stretching from the city of Yichang just downstream from the Three Gorges dam to Shanghai.
"We covered the whole range of the dolphin twice," Turvey said. "It is difficult to see how we could miss any animals."
The dolphins will now be classified as critically endangered and possibly extinct but Turvey said there is little chance any remaining baiji are alive.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) Pakistan's president, General Pervez Musharraf, will skip a highly anticipated Thursday meeting with his Afghan counterpart and tribal leaders along the mountainous border region between their two countries, his government announced on the eve of the conference.
The Pakistani leader, whose nearly eight-year rule is being challenged by opposition activists and Islamic militants, cited "engagements in the capital" for his decision to skip the meeting.
Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz will lead the Pakistani delegation to the Joint Peace Jirga, Musharraf's office announced Wednesday.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai announced the planned meeting Sunday, as he prepared to meet with President Bush at the presidential retreat at Camp David, Maryland.
Relations between Musharraf and Karzai have been chilly for some time, as Afghan officials have accused Pakistan of allowing Taliban and al Qaeda fighters to regroup and carve out a new safe haven along Pakistan's largely lawless northwestern frontier.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Musharraf "has good reason" for staying in Islamabad.
He refused to elaborate, but said Karzai and Musharraf had discussed the matter and "the process is moving forward.
"And they both have an interest in seeing greater cooperation between Afghanistan and Pakistan in fighting violent extremism. It's important to the future of both countries.
Taliban fighters and their al Qaeda allies were driven from power in Afghanistan after al Qaeda's September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.
But the Islamic fundamentalist movements continue to battle U.S. and allied troops and attack Afghan schools and government installations in an ongoing insurgency.
HONG KONG, China (CNN) Lenovo Group, the world's No. 3 maker of personal computers, wants to take over a mid-tier PC manufacturer valued at about $800 million to bolster a barely profitable European arm a plan which sent its shares almost 3 percent higher.
Lenovo, just starting to turn around its U.S. operations, said on Tuesday it was in exclusive talks to buy PC maker Packard Bell BV which claims third place in the European consumer computer market but which analysts estimate is ranked seventh or eighth from principal owner John Hui.
If successful, the deal would allow the Chinese giant to quickly capture market share in a region where it is ranked sixth and barely profitable, while it continues to digest and revive a global PC business bought from IBM in 2005, analysts say.
It commanded 8.3 percent of the global market, according to research house IDC, ahead of Acer's 7.2 percent but just slightly more than half of second-placed Dell's 16.1
On Tuesday, the Hong Kong Economic Journal reported that Lenovo and Taiwan's Acer had vied for Packard Bell, which Hui bought from NEC in October of 2006. Lenovo denied Acer was involved.
Lenovo's shares soared 61 percent in the second quarter, versus the Hong Kong benchmark index's 10 percent rise, as investors cheered improvement in its international business.
To drive future sales to consumers, the company now plans to launch a range of notebooks in January and desktops in March or April, rounding out its product range.
Lenovo's PCs are tailored primarily for corporations and governments.
BERLIN, Germany (CNN) A collection of recordings taken from Adolf Hitler's headquarters at the end of World War II includes works by Jewish musicians and Russian composers, according to a German magazine report.
The weekly Der Spiegel said the daughter of a World War II Soviet military intelligence officer showed it a collection of about 100 records her father took from the Reich chancellery in Berlin when the city fell to the Red Army in 1945.
Alongside predictable recordings, such as the overture to "The Flying Dutchman" by Hitler favorite Richard Wagner, the collection included works by composers from Russia, whose people were regarded as subhuman by Nazi ideologues, according to the report.
Artur Schnabel, a Jewish pianist from the Nazi leader's native Austria, also is among
The Schnabel family left Germany when Hitler rose to power and became U.S. citizens in 1944.
It was not clear exactly whom the records belonged to, whether Hitler himself actually listened to them, or where in the chancellery they were found.
BEIJING, China (CNN) A proud China invited the world to the 2008 Beijing Olympics with a dazzling song-and-dance and fireworks display, but cheers and shouts of 10,000 beaming citizens could not mask fears about pollution.
The crowds gathered on the vast Tiananmen Square, overlooked by a giant portrait of Mao Zedong, the founder of Communist China, in front of a brightly lit Gate of Heavenly Peace, exactly a year before the Games begin.
Police, some with sniffer dogs, had to force back the hundreds who milled around the edges hoping to get a glance of the festivities, watched by Chinese leaders and International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge.
"The world is watching China and Beijing with great expectation," Rogge said. "Athletes also have great expectations and they are all looking forward to competing in the state-of-the-art Beijing venues.
He earlier said that some competitions might have to be moved if continuing efforts by organizers to clean up the city's notoriously smoggy air were unsuccessful.
One pensioner, wiping make-up from her face after taking part in a display of traditional folk dancing in a Beijing park, said she was very happy. "Thirty years ago, we would never have thought that we could host such an event," she said. "China was not strong enough to host the Olympics, but now we are."
Questions about pollution were answered by some with a shrug and the assurance that "it's much better than it used to be".
Not everybody in the city was wrapped up in the one-year countdown, however.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) Iraqi and coalition troops overnight killed about 30 people in Baghdad's Sadr City most of them in an airstrike as they targeted a militia cell with suspected links to Iran, the U.S. military said.
The Iraqi Interior Ministry said at least 11 people were killed and 15 wounded in the same violence in the sprawling Shiite slum.
Iraqi hospital and police officials said civilians were killed in the raid, but the U.S. military said civilians were not among the dead, Reuters reported.
In the background of the violence, tens of thousands of Shiites were walking on their annual pilgrimage to the Kadhimiya shrine in northwest Baghdad; Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki traveled to neighboring Iran;
and an international meeting was held in Damascus, Syria, dealing with border security in Iraq.
The Interior Ministry official said elements of the Mehdi Army were involved in Wednesday's fighting.
In Tehran, al-Maliki was to meet with the top leaders of the country, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, according to Iran's Islamic Republic News Agency.
They discussed security and energy projects.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (CNN) Space shuttle Endeavour roared into orbit Wednesday carrying teacher-astronaut Barbara Morgan, who was finally fulfilling the dream of Christa McAuliffe and the rest of the fallen Challenger crew.
Endeavour and its crew of seven rose from the seaside pad at 6:36 p.m., right on time, and pierced a solidly blue sky.
They're expected to reach the international space station on Friday.
Once Endeavour was safely past the 73-second mark of the flight, the moment when Challenger exploded shortly after the call "Go at throttle up," Mission Control exclaimed, "Morgan racing toward space on the wings of a legacy.
Immediately after the shuttle reached orbit, Mission Control announced, "For Barbara Morgan and her crewmates, class is in session."
McAuliffe's mother, Grace Corrigan, watched the launch on TV from her home in Massachusetts. "I'm very happy that it went up safely," she said.
More than half of NASA's 114 Teacher-in-Space nominees in 1985 gathered at the launch site, along with hundreds of other educators, all of them thrilled to see Morgan continue what McAuliffe began.
Midway through the flight, Morgan, 55, will speak with students in Idaho, where she taught elementary classes before moving to Houston in 1998 to train as a full-fledged astronaut, the first teacher to do so.
If the mission is extended from 11 days to 14 days as planned, thanks to a new station-to-shuttle power converter, she'll have a chance to answer questions from students in two other states.
The space station is currently almost 250 tons and 57 percent complete.
NASA plans to wrap up construction in 2010 when the shuttle program ends.
Endeavour's liftoff had been scheduled for Tuesday, but last week NASA delayed the flight by a day because of a leaky valve in the crew cabin that needed to be replaced.
JAKARTA, Indonesia (CNN) A powerful earthquake shook buildings and caused panic on the densely-populated Indonesian island of Java, but there have been no reports of injuries and no tsunami alert.
The quake, measured at magnitude 7.5 by the U.S. Geological Survey, struck shortly after midnight in a part of the sea dotted with oil rig platforms, Financial Times journalist John Aglionby told CNN International.
According to CNN's Kathy Quiano, the shaking caused many in the capital to flee their homes.
"We felt the earthquake in Jakarta, it was pretty strong and went on for at least a minute," Quiano said.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said there was no threat of a tsunami, because the quake was too deep.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the quake was centered 100 kilometers (62 miles) east of Jakarta, at a depth of 289 kilometers (180 miles). It occurred about 32 kilometers (20 miles) from shore.
"Earthquakes of 7.5 and over happen approximately 18 times a year," said John Bellini of the USGS.
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (CNN) Olympic 400 meters champion Jeremy Wariner ran a personal best of 43.50 seconds at the DN Gala meeting on Tuesday to equal fellow-American Quincy Watts as the third fastest man ever.
Only his agent Michael Johnson and Butch Reynolds have run faster while Watts clocked the same time at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.
Wariner, who defends his world title in Osaka, Japan, this month, told reporters the race was "pretty much perfect".
"I'm happy to get a PR (personal record), and it feels great to go into the world championships half a second faster than all the rest," he said.
On a cloudless, hot day Wariner relegated compatriot Kerron Clement into second place nearly a second behind in 44.48.
"If I run like this in Osaka, I can almost guarantee a 43.3 run.
Johnson set the world record of 43.18 at the 1999 Seville world championships.
Croatian Blanka Vlasic won the women's high jump, improving her world's year best by one centimeter to 2.07 meters on her third attempt.
Vlasic then attempted to break the 20-year-old world record but failed with all three attempts at 2.10.
World record holder Asafa Powell had a less inspiring day but still managed to win the men's 100 meters, overcoming a poor start to win in 10.04 seconds.
"Normally, 10.04 is a joke," said Powell. "It was not a good race. I got a bad start but I managed to accelerate and catch up.
Ethiopian Olympic 10,000 meters champion Kenenisa Bekele set a stadium record and a year's best in the men's 3,000 meters, clocking seven minutes 25.79 seconds.
American Me'Lisa Barber beat her compatriot Sanya Richards into second place in the women's 100 meters, winning in 11.03 seconds with Richards 0.02 behind.
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) Flicks from female directors are flooding today's theaters more than ever, and the movies are as diverse as the women themselves.
Yet the struggle for equality, recognition and respect continues.
Moving beyond the traditional female arena of romantic comedies, these new films range from Kasi Lemmons' critical smash "Talk to Me," starring Don Cheadle as a sharp-tongued disc jockey, to the upcoming romance from hell "2 Days in Paris," the culmination of actress Julie Delpy's 20-year battle to reach the director's chair.
Despite the recent bumper crop of films, however, the statistics for female directors remain dismal.
Of the roughly 13,400 members of Directors Guild of America, only about 1,000, or 7 percent, are listed as female directors.
No woman has ever won an Academy Award for best director, and only three have ever been nominated: Lena Wertmuller for 1975's "Seven Beauties," Jane Campion for 1993's "The Piano" and Sofia Coppola for 2003's "Lost in Translation."
This year has seen tremendous work from actress Sarah Polley, making her writing and directing debut at just 28 with the stirring Alzheimer's drama "Away From Her."
Australian Cherie Nowlan gave us the family comedy "Introducing the Dwights," and Zoe Cassavetes followed in the footsteps of father John Cassavetes with her first feature, the indie "Broken English.
Shari Springer Berman co-directed the big-screen adaptation of "The Nanny Diaries" (out August 24) with her husband, Robert Pulcini.
Helen Hunt's directorial debut, the romantic comedy "Then She Found Me," premieres at September's Toronto International Film Festival.
CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN) At a debate in front of thousands of labor union activists Tuesday, Sen. Barack Obama's Democratic presidential rivals blasted him for his remarks about Pakistan.
Last Wednesday, the Illinois senator said that if it were necessary to root out terrorists, he would send U.S. forces into Pakistan without the country's approval.
"You can think big, but remember, you shouldn't always say everything you think if you're running for president, because it has consequences around the world," Sen. Hillary Clinton said during a 90-minute Democratic presidential forum in Chicago sponsored by the AFL-CIO.
Chicago is Obama's hometown, and Clinton's statement drew boos.
The New York senator responded, "We don't need that right now.
Despite the frosty reception, Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd joined Clinton in criticizing Obama.
He said Obama's stance could undermine Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, the country's military ruler, who has been a U.S. ally in the fight against al Qaeda.
"If we have actionable intelligence on al Qaeda operatives, including [Osama] bin Laden, and President Musharraf cannot act, then we should," Obama said. "That's just common sense.
But Clinton countered by saying that while U.S. forces might have to pursue action inside Pakistan "on the basis of actionable intelligence," it was "a very big mistake to telegraph that and to destabilize the Musharraf regime, which is fighting for its life against the Islamist extremists who are in bed with al Qaeda and the Taliban.
"Remember, Pakistan has nuclear weapons. The last thing we want is to have al Qaeda-like followers in charge of Pakistan and having access to nuclear weapons. "
Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware responded later in the debate, noting that the strategy Obama outlined was already U.S. policy.
MEXICO CITY, Mexico (CNN) Mexican telecom billionaire Carlos Slim has overtaken Microsoft founder Bill Gates as the world's wealthiest man with riches of $59 billion, according to Fortune magazine.
Fortune, which tracks the performance of the world's top companies, said Slim has increased his net worth by $12 billion so far this year based on the market value of his companies listed on stock exchanges.
Gates, the Microsoft founder and perennial No. 1, had a net worth estimated to be at least $58 billion, the magazine said.
Slim, the son of a Lebanese immigrant, owns Latin America's largest cell phone company, America Movil.
In July, a respected Mexican financial journalist announced that Slim had overtaken Gates as the world's richest man but the magnate said he did not care.
Gates and billionaire U.S. investor Warren Buffett, who was the second-richest person in the world until Slim overtook him this year, have been giving more of their money to charity in recent years.
Slim also backs philanthropic causes and last week announced a $300 million plan to build 100 schools in Mexico.
HANOI, Vietnam (CNN) Vietnamese rescuers are moving thousands of people to higher ground on Tuesday after a storm dumped heavy rain in the central region, killing 14 people, officials said.
Another 15 people were missing.
Most of the deaths were in the Central Highlands coffee-growing region where flash floods swept away people, houses, rice and corn crops over the weekend, the government said in its disaster report on Tuesday.
The depression, with winds of up to 49 km (30 miles) per hour at its center, was 130 km (80 miles) northeast of the central province of Quang Binh early on Tuesday and moving slowly northwest.
and a swathe of coastal provinces where rivers rose to dangerous levels on Tuesday, the government said.
In the central coastal province of Ha Tinh, lightning killed a woman and one son and injured another son in their house, state-run Voice of Vietnam radio said on Tuesday.
Rescuers were ordered to evacuate 15,500 people in seven coastal and Central Highlands provinces, including Daklak and Lam Dong, and give them emergency food aid, the government said.
Tropical storms and typhoons often strike Vietnam from August to October.
Last year, 10 storms hit the country and about 500 people were killed by floods and landslides, the government said.
The weekend storm was the second of six expected to hit Vietnam this year, state forecasters said.
GHAZNI, Afghanistan (CNN) A group of 75 Taliban militants tried to overrun a U.S.-led coalition base in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday, a rare frontal attack that left more than 20 militants dead, the coalition said in a statement.
A joint Afghan-U.S. force repelled the attack with mortars, machine guns and air support.
Two girls and two Afghan soldiers were wounded during the fight in Uruzgan province, it said.
Meanwhile, South Korean officials and Taliban leaders were expected to agree Tuesday on a meeting place to negotiate the release of 21 South Korean hostages, an Afghan politician said.
The South Koreans and Taliban representatives have been talking by phone for several days and planned to determine a location for their first face-to-face talks by the end of the day, said Gov. Marajudin Pathan, the leader in Ghazni province, where the Koreans were kidnapped.
Pathan said that the meeting is likely to take place in Ghazni province, but could not provide any further details.
The Afghan and U.S. presidents ruled out making any concessions to the Taliban militants during their meetings.
South Korean Foreign Minister Song Min-soon cautioned that the country should be prepared for a protracted ordeal, noting that other hostages in Afghanistan had been held an average of 35 days.
A purported Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, said the meeting between Karzai and Bush had "no result," and that militant prisoners must be released in exchange for the lives of South Korean hostages or there will be a "bad result.
MORONI, Comoros (CNN) An outbreak of cholera has killed eight people and infected scores of others on the Comoros islands since July, a senior doctor said, blaming the food at traditional wedding parties for spreading the disease.
"The cholera epidemic has killed five this month and three in July," Abdoulbar Youssouf, the director general of El-Marouf hospital, the Comoros' largest, told Reuters.
Mohamed Moundhiri Djoubeiri, the doctor in charge of the cholera ward at El-Marouf, said traditional feasts were to blame for spreading it.
"The government should ban big dinners during the epidemic periods," he said.
DETROIT - Chrysler became an American company again Friday as Cerberus Capital Management gained a controlling share from Chrysler's German owners and started on the long road to restoring the 82-year-old automaker's luster - and profits.
DaimlerChrysler AG transferred an 80.1 percent stake in Chrysler to New York-based Cerberus, one of the world's largest private equity firms, in a $7.4 billion deal.
The German automaker retained a 19.9 percent interest in the new company, Chrysler LLC.
"After months of uncertainty, then a period of transition, we are beginning a new chapter in Chrysler's proud history - and we have the chance to write a terrific story," Chrysler Chief Executive Tom LaSorda said in an e-mail to employees.
"Going private means we can bring laser-like focus to our business and make the long-term investments needed to compete," LaSorda said.
In a letter to employees, Daimler Chairman and former Chrysler chief Dieter Zetsche said the company made the right decision.
"As a company we've become faster and overall more efficient," he said. "Our balance sheet is strong.
Jim McTevia, a Detroit restructuring consultant, said Chrysler was in a precarious position before the deal. "I really believe that had this not taken place, Chrysler would have ultimately been sold off in pieces," he said.
"I do think now that Chrysler has a very bright future.
Cerberus Chairman John Snow said Cerberus plans to keep Chrysler's management team in place and give it the freedom to implement its restructuring plan.
Part of that plan is the introduction this month of the redesigned 2008 Dodge Caravan and Chrysler Town & Country minivans, which are critical products for Chrysler.
"We are excited about realizing this monumental opportunity to help bring an American automotive icon back to a path for profitability and long-term success," Snow said Friday in a news release.
Former Chrysler executive Wolfgang Bernhard, a senior adviser to Cerberus, is expected to be named chairman of the board at Chrysler, but there was no announcement about Bernhard on Friday.
DaimlerChrysler shares fell $2.06, or 2.3 percent, to $89.12 Friday on the New York Stock Exchange.
Bayern Munich survived a scare against Wacker Burghausen, beating the third division side in a penalty shoot-out in the first round of the German Cup on Monday.
Bayern won 4-3 on penalties after the match had finished 1-1 at the end of 120 minutes.
Burghausen stunned the 13-times Cup winners by scoring first in the 61st minute.
Thomas Neubert headed in a free-kick from David Solga corner to put the amateur side ahead.
Germany striker Miroslav Klose got the equaliser in the 79th minute, outjumping two defenders to head a Franck Ribery corner in at the far post.
Bayern had chances galore against the team from the town near the Austrian border but 18-year-old Burghausen keeper Manuel Riemann was outstanding, stopping shots from Klose, Ribery, Hamit Altintop, Mark van Bommel and Bastian Schweinsteiger.
"We have seen a good game, both sides created their chances and it could have gone either way," said Bayern coach Ottmar Hitzfeld.
Full compliments to Burghausen. They grew in stature as the game went on and performed well against my side.
This city almost erected a billboard outside Jamestown, Virginia, to congratulate it on its 400th birthday and remind everyone St. Augustine passed that milestone four decades ago.
It would have said, "Happy birthday to our younger brother," former Mayor George Gardner said.
Jamestown got a lot of attention this past spring celebrating the anniversary of its founding on May 14, 1607, making it the oldest English settlement in the nation.
Queen Elizabeth paid a visit, and so did President Bush.
But St. Augustine is the nation's oldest city, and its 442nd birthday celebration is scheduled for August 28-September 1, including historical re-enactments, entertainment, and yes, a Thanksgiving feast.
St. Augustine was founded September 8, 1565, by Spaniard Pedro Menendez de Aviles and his expedition of 500 soldiers, 200 sailors and 100 farmers and craftsmen.
Some brought their wives and children.
They, not the Pilgrims, celebrated the first Thanksgiving in the New World. The first schools, hospitals and banks in what is now the United States were built here.
Not that many Americans know about it.
"We speak English and we're reared in ... English historical traditions, which have tended to depreciate what the Spanish have contributed to history," said Bill Adams, the city's director of Historic Preservation and Heritage Tourism.
Historians have tended to "write the Spanish out of their history books or diminish their contributions. So Americans have inherited that.
Adams says St. Augustine is also to blame for why it gets no respect compared to Jamestown and Plymouth, Massachusetts, where the Pilgrims settled in 1620.
But, he said, St. Augustine's contribution to American history should be celebrated and believes it will get more notice with the growing Hispanic population of this country and the upcoming 450th anniversary in 2015.
The king and queen of Spain, who visited in 2001, will be invited back.
As if they did not already have enough to worry about, Formula One leaders McLaren could face the real risk of Fernando Alonso walking out at the end of the season.
"One thing's for sure, Alonso won't be at McLaren next year," a senior figure at another team told Reuters at the Hungaroring.
While nothing is certain in Formula One, other than that there will always be intrigue and speculation, the sentiment was strong enough for team boss Ron Dennis to face questions about the Spaniard's future.
inevitability that these things are rumored and discussed in other teams," he told reporters after a race that saw Alonso stripped of pole position and demoted five places on the starting grid.
Hamilton, elevated to pole, led every lap and celebrated his third win in 11 races to go seven points clear of his disgruntled team-mate.
He said afterwards that Alonso, who finished fourth, had not spoken to him since Saturday, adding: "I don't know if he has a problem.
I don't hold grudges over anyone. But if he doesn't want to speak to me, then that's for him to decide.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (CNN) - NASA has delayed next week's launch of space shuttle Endeavour by one day because of unexpected work to fix a leak in the crew cabin, officials said Friday.
Engineers installed a new valve Thursday to replace a leaky one in Endeavour's crew cabin.
Although the unit tested fine, NASA ran out of time to meet a Tuesday launch, said NASA spokesman George Diller.
The replacement valve was taken from Atlantis.
The space agency has only three weeks to launch the lander before being forced to wait two years, and officials have indicated they would probably put that flight ahead of Endeavour's.
BEIJING, China (CNN) Ronaldinho delighted Chinese fans by scoring with a trademark free kick in a 3-0 win for Barcelona over Beijing Guoan on Sunday.
Barcelona took the lead in the first match of their Asian tour, a friendly to mark the one-year countdown to the 2008 Olympics, with a curling left-foot shot from Mexican teenager Giovani dos Santos in the 10th minute.
Andres Iniesta made it 2-0 just before the hour mark before Ronaldinho sealed the win.
The Brazilian, probably the most popular player in China, had twisted his ankle in training on Saturday but he came on for the second half in place of new signing Thierry Henry.
In the 78th minute, Barcelona won a free kick about 25 meters from goal and the 30,000 fans at the Fengtai Stadium.
LONDON, England (CNN) International bans were slapped on British farming exports Monday as the country scrambled to contain an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, halting work at a vaccine lab suspected to be the source of the infection.
The bans came shortly before Britain's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs reported another herd has shown signs of the highly contagious disease and may be infected.
More than 50 cattle are involved in the latest suspected case, and culling has begun, the agency said.
The European Union said it would restrict all live animals, fresh meat and milk products from mainland Great Britain after laboratory results Friday confirmed the disease was found in cattle at a farm in Surrey County, England.
"On Saturday night, we took the voluntary decision to suspend all production here at our Pirbright center," said David Biland, managing director for pharmaceutical company Merial Animal Health.
Over the weekend, Britain's DEFRA said the strain of the virus identified in the new farm outbreak was the same as one produced at the Pirbright laboratories a few miles away.
The Pirbright site is home to Merial Animal Health and the government-run Institute for Animal Health, which both use that strain of the foot and mouth virus for research and to develop vaccines.
Culling of the 38 infected cattle in Surrey was completed Saturday, DEFRA said in a posting on its Web site.
Cattle on two additional sites that together make up the enterprise and animals on an adjacent farm were also culled.
Foot-and-mouth disease affects cattle, swine, sheep, goats, deer and other animals, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Environment Secretary Hilary Benn said that the IAH carries out tests on foot-and-mouth at Pirbright, while Merial manufactures animal vaccines for the authorities in the UK and abroad.
"We do know that last month they were manufacturing a batch of vaccine that included this strain," he said.
BANGKOK, Thailand (CNN) Thai policemen who break rules will be forced to wear hot pink armbands featuring "Hello Kitty," the Japanese icon of cute, as a mark of shame, a senior officer said Monday.
Police officers caught littering, parking in a prohibited area, or arriving late among other misdemeanors will be forced to stay in the division office and wear the armband all day, said Police Col. Pongpat Chayaphan.
Hello Kitty, invented by Sanrio Co. in 1974, has been popular for years with children and young women.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy lost his temper with two American news photographers covering his vacation Sunday, jumping onto their boat and scolding them loudly in French.
The confrontation came Sunday afternoon as Sarkozy and companions were headed for open water in a boat on Lake Winnipesaukee when he spotted Associated Press photographer Jim Cole and freelancer Vince DeWitt aboard Cole's boat, which was outside a buoy barrier monitored by the New Hampshire Marine Patrol.
Before Sarkozy spotted him, Cole had driven his boat up to the patrol boat, identified himself and received permission to be there.
"And then he noticed us taking pictures and his happy demeanor diminished immediately.
The men said they watched through their lenses as Sarkozy pointed toward them and his boat began moving in their direction.
Coming alongside Cole's boat, Sarkozy, clad only in swim trunks, jumped aboard and began shouting at them.
"The president was very agitated, speaking French at a loud volume very rapidly," DeWitt said.
Sarkozy picked up DeWitt's camera but then put it down.
A woman then spoke up in English and relayed Sarkozy's request to be left alone, DeWitt said. The woman did not identify herself.
"I am naturally ready to answer all your questions, and maybe afterward you will resume covering the news and other topics, and leave me tranquilly with my family.
MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) Russia on Monday deployed new air defense systems capable of shooting down ballistic missiles, and the air force chief said the weapon could be used to protect 2014 Winter Olympics in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.
-Gen. Alexander Zelin said he already had made an official proposal to use the S-400 missile defense system to provide security for the games.
"The organizing committee will prepare the city for the Olympics, while we will prepare air-defense systems and ensure the security of the games," Zelin was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.
Russia has strongly opposed U.S. plans to deploy missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic.
JERICHO, West Bank (CNN) Ehud Olmert on Monday became the first Israeli prime minister to visit a Palestinian town since the outbreak of fighting seven years ago, meeting under heavy guard with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to talk about the creation of a Palestinian state.
Accompanied by two helicopters, Olmert arrived by motorcade at a five-star hotel just a few hundred yards from a permanent Israeli army checkpoint on the outskirts of Jericho.
The meeting ended three hours later, and Olmert's convoy left Jericho.
However, it posed a challenge to Olmert's security detail, since Abbas' security forces in the West Bank are still weak. Abbas' troops failed to prevent Hamas militants from seizing the Gaza Strip by force in June.
The Abbas-Olmert meeting is one in a series of sessions meant to prepare for an international Mideast conference in the U.S. in November.
However, both sides appear to have conflicting expectations.
The Palestinians hope the two leaders will sketch the outlines of a final peace deal, to be presented to the U.S. conference, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat said Monday.
However, Olmert suggested a slower pace.
David Baker, an official in Olmert's office, said the core issues would not be discussed now.
The leaders will discuss humanitarian aid to the Palestinians and Israeli security concerns, as well as the institutions of a future Palestinian state, Baker said.
Both sides said the meeting will also deal with easing daily life in the West Bank, including the removal of some of the checkpoints erected after the outbreak of the second Palestinian uprising in September 2000.
Palestinians in Jericho appeared to have low expectations from Monday's meeting.
Mahmoud Santarisi, 35, said he would be pleased if the meeting led to the removal of one Israeli checkpoint and allowed him to visit Jerusalem, off-limits because of Israeli security restrictions.
Nearly 200,000 U.S.-supplied rifles and pistols meant for Iraqi security forces are unaccounted for in Iraq, according to a report to Congress.
Loose record-keeping caused the Pentagon and the U.S. command in Iraq to lose track of about 110,000 AK-47 rifles and 80,000 pistols provided to the new Iraqi national police and army, the Government Accountability Office told Congress.
The investigative arm of Congress, the GAO also found that 250,000 pieces of body armor and helmets can't be accounted for.
The report also says a review of the 2007 property books shows continuing problems with missing and incomplete records.
The report, issued July 31, follows an October accounting by the Defense Department's special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, which put the number of weapons missing at close to 500,000.
Auditors were unable to determine whether the weapons which included heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers were stolen, being used by insurgents or still in the hands of Iraqi units.
A Pentagon official in Baghdad, who asked not to be identified, said some of the weapons went back to Iraqi forces and some were destroyed.
But he conceded some of them may be missing.
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said Monday he is not aware of any reports that show U.S. weapons designated for Iraqi security forces have been found in the hands of insurgents.
The missing weapons mostly dated back to former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's rule, and none had serial numbers, the official said.
A police officer shooting at a snake apparently killed a 5-year-old boy who was fishing at a nearby pond, officials said.
Moments later, a second shot hit Austin in the head.
at them and firmly lodged," Wade said.
"What I was told is that the owner of the home either suggested or agreed that they should go ahead and shoot the snake, and then everything happened from there.
"Then two officers came out of the brush over there," he told The Oklahoman. "They didn't tell us they were the ones who had been shooting or that they had shot him. They didn't admit a doggone thing.
The boy was pronounced dead at an Oklahoma City hospital, about 25 miles north of Noble.
Wade refused to identify the officer but said the person had been placed on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Monday that the Taliban still endanger innocent people, but they pose no significant threat either to his government or to its institutions.
Karzai said he is working to root the Taliban out from their mountain hideouts.
For his part, Bush described the Taliban, who ruled Afghanistan and harbored al Qaeda before the September 11, 2001, attacks, as "brutal coldblooded killers" with "a vision of darkness.
Bush noted that speculation last spring that the Taliban would launch an offensive against Karzai's government was countered by a U.S., NATO and Afghan offensive.
Bush said Afghanistan's 110,000 troops are being aided by 23,500 U.S. troops and 26,000 troops from other nations.
In addition, more than 640 coalition troops most of them Americans have been killed.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) A suicide bomber drove an explosives-laden truck into a village near the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar on Monday, killing at least 28 people and wounding 50 others, an Iraqi army official said.
At least 19 of those killed were children, Brig. Gen. Najim Abdullah told The Associated Press.
The blast left a 10-foot crater in the ground and damaged 10 homes in the Shiite Turkmen village of Qubbak, about six miles (10 kilometers) northeast of Tal Afar, the army official told CNN.
In Baghdad, three roadside bombs detonated in various neighborhoods, killing at least 11 people and wounding 33 others, according to the Iraqi Interior Ministry.
Another bomb in the Ghadir neighborhood of southeastern Baghdad killed three people and wounded 11 others.
A robotic dirt and ice digger blasted off Saturday on a 422 million-mile journey to Mars that NASA hopes will culminate next spring in the first landing within the red planet's arctic circle.
The unmanned Delta II rocket carrying the Phoenix Mars Lander rose from its seaside pad at 5:26 a.m., exactly on time, and hurtled through the clear moonlit sky.
If all goes as planned a big 'if,' considering only five of the world's 15 attempts to land on Mars have succeeded the spacecraft will set down on the Martian arctic plains on May 25, 2008.
It will then spend three months scooping up soil and ice, and analyzing the samples in minuscule ovens and mixing bowls.
The Phoenix Mars Lander won't be looking for evidence of life on Mars but rather traces of organic compounds in the baked and moistened samples.
Such compounds would be a possible indicator of conditions favorable for life, either now or once upon a time.
If organic compounds are present on Mars, they're more likely to have been preserved in ice.
That's why NASA is aiming for the planet's high northern latitudes, where ice is almost certainly lurking just beneath the surface.
"We're really going there just to understand whether the conditions might have been hospitable for microbial life at some point," said the University of Arizona's William Boynton, lead scientist for the oven experiment.
WEMBLEY, England Dutch goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar saved all three penalties he faced in the shootout as Manchester United beat Chelsea 3-0 on spot-kicks after a bruising 1-1 draw in the FA Community Shield match at Wembley.
Ryan Giggs gave United a first-half lead with his first senior goal at Wembley in 17 appearances but Florent Malouda equalized and neither side gave an inch after that.
"This is a little revenge for the FA Cup final.
The defeat completed a bad day for Jose Mourinho, who had suffered a serious blow on the eve of the match when John Terry suffered reported medial knee ligament damage in training.
The Chelsea captain was forced to watch from the sidelines at Wembley and could be out for up to four weeks.
As if that was not bad enough, Didier Drogba and Claude Makelele had also joined Terry, Michael Ballack, Andriy Shevchenko and Wayne Bridge on a growing injury list on Saturday.
United were the more fluent force for much of the game.
They had the first sight of goal when Giggs seized on a deflected pass from Cristiano Ronaldo, only for Petr Cech to save well.
His perfectly-weighted pass sent Patrice Evra clear down the left and the French defender crossed towards Giggs, who showed great awareness to lift a first-time shot into the top corner.
But Chelsea drew level just before half-time.
Malouda refused to let Rio Ferdinand block him as he chased Ashley Cole's lofted pass and, aided by a tug on United defender's shirt, the France winger got in front off him to poke the ball past van der Sar.
On a blisteringly hot afternoon, Rooney and Tal Ben Haim did little to cool the temperature.
With a short swing, a half stare and an emphatic clap of his hands, Barry Bonds rounded the bases.
"The hard part is over right now," Bonds said.
High above the field in a private box, baseball commissioner Bud Selig was a reluctant witness to history.
Choosing to overlook the steroid allegations that have dogged the San Francisco slugger, Selig watched Bonds tie Hank Aaron's home run record his mouth agape, hands stuffed in pockets and nary a cheer on his lips.
It had been eight days and 28 plate appearances since Bonds hit his 754th home run, and he came out for early batting practice Saturday, hoping to break his slump.
He did it quickly, leading off the second inning.
"No matter what anybody thinks of the controversy surrounding this event, Mr. Bonds' achievement is noteworthy and remarkable," Selig said in a statement.
Aaron was not in attendance.
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (CNN) U.S. pop star Madonna's attempts to adopt a Malawian child hit a snag after the court-appointed official on the case was refused permission to travel to Britain.
One of Malawi's leading weeklies reported on Sunday that the Minister of Women and Child Development Kate Kainja refused to allow Penstone Kilembe to travel to assess the suitability of Madonna and her husband, film director Guy Ritchie.
The minister was not immediately available for comment, but Kilembe confirmed the minister had stopped him making the trip.
Madonna took David Banda last October when he was 13 months old after his father Yohane Banda had placed him in an orphanage following the death of his wife.
The High Court of Malawi appointed Kilembe to travel to
Britain twice and was to have relied on his testimony in ruling whether Madonna should adopt the child in a hearing next year.
The Malawi News newspaper reported that the minister accused Kilembe of obtaining an air ticket and money from Madonna without government approval.
"We have already contacted Madonna that someone else and not Kilembe will come to assess her, because we feel Mr Kilembe personalized the whole issue when other people can go," the Minister told the newspaper.
Kilembe dismissed suggestions that he personally asked Madonna for an air ticket.
"What this means is that the whole adoption process may crumble and David sent back to his village," he told Reuters.
a human rights lawyer who led a 65-member rights group challenge to Madonna's adoption, also said the minister's decision could halt the adoption process.
"The Minister cannot change what the court set by having another person to do the assessment, the court will not listen to anyone else apart from the one it appointed," he said.
Actor-comedian Eddie Murphy publicly acknowledged on Friday having fathered a child out of wedlock with Spice Girls singer Melanie Brown, who brought a paternity suit against him earlier this week.
A brief statement issued by Murphy's publicist said the 46-year-old star of "Dreamgirls" and the "Beverly Hills Cop" movies "always has and will continue to honor his responsibilities as a father.
"Mr. Murphy and Ms. Brown dated very briefly and never made any plans of ANY sort," the statement said.
The statement concluded by saying Murphy "views this as a private matter, and as such, will not be making any further comments about it.
Murphy had never publicly acknowledged paternity before.
Brown filed suit against Murphy in Los Angeles Superior Court on Wednesday, seeking to legally establish his paternity and seeking unspecified child support for the 3-month-old girl.
A DNA test in June confirmed that Murphy is the father of Brown's baby, Angel Iris Murphy Brown, who was born in April.
The couple dated last year and Brown, 32, known as Scary Spice as a member of the British pop phenomenon, listed Murphy as the father on the child's birth certificate.
Celebrity magazines reported this week that Murphy had become engaged to his girlfriend of 10 months, Tracey Edmonds. Murphy has five children from his first marriage to Nicole Mitchell, which ended in divorce in April 2006.
The Spice Girls announced in June they would be reuniting for a world tour starting in December.
MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota (CNN) As investigators probed what caused an interstate bridge packed with rush-hour traffic to collapse into the Mississippi River this week, Minneapolis police Saturday night issued a statement naming the eight people including a 2-year-old girl still missing in the murky waters.
"Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of Richard Chit, Peter Hausmann, Greg Jolstad, Vera Peck, Christina Sacorafas, Sadia Adam Sahal, Hannah Sahal and Scott Sathers as they anxiously await any news," the police statement said.
Chit, 21, was in the car with his mother, Peck; Hausmann was driving to pick up a friend;
Jolstad was working on the bridge construction project; and Sacorafas was on her way to dance class, but had left a voice mail message saying she was delayed by traffic and running late.
Meanwhile, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board said Saturday that federal investigators finished inspecting the south side of the collapsed bridge, helping to clear the way for the state of Minnesota to begin moving damaged cars and debris to secure areas.
In addition, said Mark Rosenker, NTSB chairman, a camera aboard an FBI helicopter produced a high-definition, three-dimensional image Saturday of the center portion of the bridge and other areas impossible to reach on the ground.
Rosenker said nothing significant was discovered on the south side of the bridge, and attention
was now shifting to the north, which buckled vertically. The FBI images will be a great aid, he said.
The vehicles, some of which remain on the bridge deck, will be examined for clues to how people may have died or been injured, Rosenker said.
The Senate passed a bill Friday night that would authorize up to $250 million for rebuilding, and the measure was in the House on Saturday.
Five people were killed in the disaster, and at least eight are missing thought to be trapped in submerged cars or under debris.
President Bush surveyed the huge chunks of concrete and twisted metal Saturday and pledged the federal government would "eliminate roadblocks" and "cut through paperwork" to rebuild the bridge as quickly as possible.
I bring prayers to those who wonder whether they'll ever see a loved one again," Bush said.
Coalition troops killed the al Qaeda terrorist who masterminded the February 2006 attack on Samarra's al-Askariya mosque and set off continuing violence and reprisal killings between Sunnis and Shiites, the U.S. military said Sunday.
Haitham Sabah al-Badri, the al Qaeda emir of greater Samarra, was killed by an airstrike Thursday east of Samarra, said Rear Adm. Mark Fox during a news conference.
"Eliminating al-Badri is another step in breaking the cycle of violence instigated by the attack on the holy shrine in Samarra," Fox said. "We will continue to hunt down the brutal terrorists who are intent on creating a Taliban-like state in Iraq. "
The coalition forces called in close air support, killing al-Badri and the three others, the release said.
El-Badri's death was first reported Saturday by a high-ranking Iraqi Interior Ministry official.
In addition to the February attack that collapsed the mosque's dome, another bombing in June destroyed the shrine's two remaining minarets.
Two mortar rounds struck a gas station in a mainly Shiite neighborhood in eastern Baghdad on Sunday, killing at least 11 people and wounding 15 others, a spokesman with Iraq's Interior Ministry said.
Suicide bombers attacked two gas stations Wednesday, killing 70 people, Reuters reported.
A U.S. soldier has been sentenced to 110 years in confinement for participating in the rape of a 14-year-old girl and the killings of her and her family in Iraq, an Army spokeswoman said.
British Airways posted a 28 percent rise in quarterly operating profit on Friday to beat analysts' forecasts, but warned a weak dollar and soaring fuel prices would slow full-year revenue growth and raise costs.
Earnings before interest and taxes for the three months to end-June rose to &pound;
263 million ($534 million), BA said in a statement to the London Stock Exchange.
Europe's third-largest airline said a consortium it belongs to that includes U.S. private equity firm TPG was working on due diligence of Spanish airline Iberia.
BA said its operating margin rose to 12 percent versus 9.2 percent in the same period a year earlier.
"Profits are up as a result of the steps we took last year to control costs and strengthen our business," said Chief Executive Willie Walsh.
BARABANKI, India (CNN) Torrential rains overnight compounded the misery of 2 million marooned Indian villagers, killing another 11 people and raising the death toll from house collapses and floods in South Asia to 240, officials said Sunday.
Helicopters have dropped food to hundreds of thousands of people left homeless.
At least 240 people have been killed in India and neighboring Bangladesh, and 19 million driven from their homes in recent days.
The South Asian monsoon season runs from June to September as the rains work their way across the subcontinent, a deluge that scatters floods and landslides across the region and kills hundreds of people every year.
Helicopters continued food drops with packets containing gram powder, salt, candles and match boxes to stranded villagers in India.
The flood water was receding in eastern Bihar state where nearly 10 million people have been effected in 19 of the state's 36 districts, said Manoj Srivastava, the disaster management secretary.
People have started returning to their homes in India's northeastern state of Assam, where nearly 200,000 people have been living in government and makeshift camps since last week. There have been no rains there since Thursday, helping improve the flooding situation.
The number of dead in Bangladesh has risen to 81, the country's information ministry said.
Raging floodwaters have battered 38 out of 64 districts in the delta nation of 145 million people.
Fakhruddin Ahmed, head of Bangladesh's military-backed interim government, visited the northwestern district of Sirajganj on Saturday.
So far this year, some 14 million people in India and 5 million in Bangladesh have been displaced by flooding, according to government figures.
Embassies and American interests "at home and abroad" are prime targets for terrorist attacks, American al Qaeda member Adam Yahiye Gadahn said in a newly released al Qaeda-produced video.
"We shall continue to target you at home and abroad just as you target us at home and abroad ... ," Gadahn also known as Azzam the American says in the video provided to CNN by www.LauraMansfield.com, a Web site that analyzes terrorism.
Later in the video, which is about an hour long and takes the form of a documentary, the self-proclaimed American jihadist makes explicit threats against the United States and U.S. interests, singling out embassies and consulates. Watch a silent excerpt of the video &raquo;
"These spy dens and military command and control centers from which you plotted your aggression against Afghanistan and Iraq and which still provide vital moral, military, material and logistical support to the crusade shall continue to be legitimate targets for brave Muslims ... until and unless you heed our demands: Stop the crusade and leave the Muslims alone," he said.
FBI spokesman Richard Kolko told CNN that investigators are analyzing the video for any indication of Gadahn's whereabouts.
"The increased messaging from al Qaeda could represent different things and our analytical personnel, working with (intelligence community) partners, review every message for clues and leads," Kolko said.
He noted that the content of Gadahn's message is nothing new.
"There is no shortage of al Qaeda making noise that they intend to attack the U.S. or its interests overseas," Kolko said. "We are concerned, but that is why we do our job every day.
CNN's senior editor for Arab affairs, Octavia Nasr, said Gadahn's threats are focused, making them one of his strongest messages to date.
"With this message he is serving as an al Qaeda propaganda tool and the terror group's mouthpiece and instigator," Nasr said.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf will meet with one of his prominent critics, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, this week to discuss efforts to battle militants who have established a haven in Pakistan.
Musharraf has been the target of intense criticism since a U.S. intelligence assessment reported last month that al Qaeda and Taliban insurgents were operating freely along Pakistan's porous, mountainous border with Afghanistan.
Karzai, appearing on CNN's "Late Edition," said he will meet with Musharraf after he meets with President Bush on Sunday and Monday in Camp David, Maryland.
Karzai, who has accused Musharraf of ignoring the insurgents hiding in Pakistan's northern periphery, offered tepid praise Sunday for the neighboring head of state.
He applauded Musharraf for taking "some very strong measures" against extremists in Pakistan, namely the recent handling of militants holed up in Islamabad's Red Mosque.
"I would believe as the situation demands, all of us should be doing everything we can," Karzai said. "I hope we can all speed up, increase and bring more effectiveness into this fight in this whole broader region, not in selective areas.
Karzai and Musharraf met with Bush at the White House in September, sparking speculation over their chilly relationship after the two shook hands with Bush, but not with each other, at a public reception. Watch Karzai discuss the problems that his nation faces &raquo;
The White House said Karzai and Musharraf had already greeted each other with handshakes before the reception.
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/08/03/iraq.soccer.reut/index.html
BAGHDAD, Iraq Weeping tears of joy and pride, Iraq's soccer champions arrived home on Friday to celebrate the Asian Cup victory that inspired their nation, but heavy security meant few Baghdadis were able to join the party.
There is no happier moment," goalkeeper Noor Sabri told Iraqiya state television in the airport arrival lounge, choking back tears as other players behind him sobbed.
"I don't know what to say. All I can say is congratulations to the mothers of the martyrs," he said, paying tribute to victims of his country's sectarian strife.
Hundreds of Iraqis managed to negotiate a series of security checkpoints in blistering summer heat to reach the airport in the hope of catching a glimpse of their heroes.
"People have been dancing and chanting and singing all day. We haven't gotten tired," a government employee who was at the airport told Reuters.
But most of the city remained locked down in a weekly curfew for the Muslim day of prayer. The majority of Iraqis would see the players only on television.
The team, nicknamed the Lions of Mesopotamia, were due to be whisked to the "Green Zone" for an official ceremony inside the heavily fortified compound that protects U.S. and Iraqi authorities.
After the final whistle in their 1-0 defeat of heavily favored Saudi Arabia.
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) Massive dogs belonging to "Mission: Impossible" star Ving Rhames attacked and killed a live-in caretaker at the actor's Los Angeles home Friday, police said.
The caretaker, whose name was not released by authorities, was found dead on the front lawn of Rhames' gated home in an expensive Brentwood neighborhood, covered in dog bites, a Los Angeles police spokesman said.
Several large dogs were running loose on the property when police responded to the scene shortly after 7:15 a.m. (10: 15 a.m. ET) and animal control officers took three huge bull mastiffs and an English bulldog into custody.
"It appeared that the person suffered a number of injuries as a result of the dog mauling," Sgt. Lee Sands said. "There were numerous dog bites all over his body, but the exact cause of death is pending the coroner's ruling.
Sands said four dogs, the largest weighing nearly 200 pounds, were being quarantined as part of an investigation into the attack.
He said it was not yet clear how many of the dogs had taken part in the mauling or why they had turned on the caretaker.
The victim, who worked for Rhames for two years and lived on the property, was pronounced dead at the scene.
Representatives for Rhames, who is out of the country shooting a film, had no immediate comment.
CAMP PENDLETON, California (CNN) A Marine was sentenced Friday to 15 years in prison after being convicted of unpremeditated murder and other charges in connection with the death of a civilian in Hamdaniya, Iraq, last year.
Marine Sgt. Lawrence Hutchins III was also reduced in rank to lowest-level private and given a dishonorable discharge.
In addition to the unpremeditated murder conviction, Hutchins was found guilty Thursday on charges of larceny, making a false official statement and conspiracy in connection with the April 26, 2006, incident.
The conspiracy conviction includes conspiracy to commit murder, conspiracy to commit larceny, conspiracy to obstruct justice and conspiracy to make false official statements.
Hutchins was found not guilty of kidnapping, assault, housebreaking and obstruction of justice.
Another Marine, 24-year-old Cpl. Marshall Magincalda, was expected to be freed from prison Friday after having served 448 days for his conviction on a charge of conspiracy to commit murder in the Hamdaniya incident.
He was sentenced earlier Friday to the time he had served and a reduction in rank to private.
Magincalda was acquitted of murder Wednesday but was found guilty of larceny and housebreaking.
Hutchins and Magincalda were among seven Marines and a Navy medic from Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, who were accused of taking part in the killing of 52-year-old Hashim Awad.
The Marine squad initially reported that Awad had planned to detonate a roadside bomb against their patrol.
But several residents of Hamdaniya, including the victim's relatives, gave a different account, prompting a criminal investigation.
Prosecutors accuse Hutchins, the squad leader, of dragging Awad from his home, shooting him in the street and then making it look as if he had planned to ambush American troops.
NEW YORK (CNN) A group representing thousands of taxi drivers said last week it will idle cabs in September if the city goes ahead with a plan to require installation of GPS tracking systems.
Starting October 1, as the city's 13,000 taxis come up for inspections they must have the GPS equipment along with touch-screen monitors that will let passengers pay by credit card, check on news stories and look up restaurant and entertainment information.
If the Taxi & Limousine Commission abandons the GPS part of the plan, "then there's room to sit down and talk," said , executive director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, which counts more than 8,400 members.
, the group will specify the date, duration and other details of the potential work stoppage next month.
The Taxi Workers Alliance an advocacy group rather than a labor union said GPS devices would be an invasion of drivers' privacy because they could track cabs' movements.
Taxi officials say the two systems could boost ridership and drivers' incomes by eliminating the need for cash, while giving drivers useful traffic tips and giving passengers a better chance of finding lost items.
The alliance organized a one-day strike in 1998 to protest plans to raise taxi owners' liability insurance requirements and other changes.
LOS ANGELES, California (AP) Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie are saying goodbye to "The Simple Life.
The program, which debuted on Fox in 2003, threw the privileged duo into everyday situations.
This season, the reality show reunited Hilton, 26, and Richie, 25, as drama camp counselors after they feuded and filmed their parts separately for the previous season.
"In this last escapade, Paris and Nicole write their own play in tribute to their decades-long friendship, enlisting the help of celebrity counselor Sally Kirkland to lead the production," E! said in a release.
The high-living Hilton and Richie have routinely made headlines with their behavior and the legal repercussions that followed.
Last week, Richie, 25, was sentenced to nearly four days in jail after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge of driving under the influence of drugs.
Richie must complete her jail time by September 28.
Richie had a previous DUI conviction, in June 2003, involving alcohol.
Hotel heiress Hilton spent 23 days in jail for violating probation in an alcohol-related reckless driving case.
She was initially released after three days for medical reasons but a judge intervened and she was sent back to jail after one just one night out.
Also soothing jitters about the fallout from the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis, Moody's said the impact was limited for Asian banks due to smaller exposures.
"A rise in the U.S. market, higher Chicago futures and the stabilizing yen should help Japanese stocks, especially exporters and others with good earnings results," said Hiroichi Nishi, a general manager of equity marketing at Nikko Cordial Securities.
Market heavyweight Samsung electronics advanced 2.2 percent and top lender Kookmin Bank added 1.2 percent.
"We're likely to gain following the lead of U.S. markets, although advances are likely to come in spurts given that there's still not enough confidence global markets have initiated a sustained recovery," said Kim Hak-kyun, an analyst at Korea Investment and Securities.
In Australia, investors sold Rio Tinto, sending its shares down 0.8 percent, but advances of 0.6 percent for rival miner BHP Billiton and 2.6 percent for Macquarie Bank helped drive the benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index up 0.2 percent.
Andy Roddick saved three break points in the third set and ended the match with a break of his own to beat 15th-seeded Radek Stepanek 6-3, 1-6, 7-5 on Thursday night at the Legg Mason Tennis Classic.
Roddick's patience was tested all night by Stepanek, who had 20 aces and didn't face a break point in the final set until the last point of the match.
Stepanek, also broken late in the first set, set up Roddick's match point by hitting a forehand long. He ended the match with a backhand into the net.
In the first set, Roddick had four break point-chances with Stepanek serving at 3-4, and took the lead when Stepanek's backhand volley sailed long.
He closed out the set in the next game with one of his 23 aces.
Second-seeded Tommy Haas had considerably less trouble earning his spot in the quarterfinals, beating No. 16 Michael Russell 6-3, 6-4.
Haas, playing in his first tournament since Wimbledon, where he withdrew with a torn stomach muscle, jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first set and a 3-1 advantage in the second.
He finished with 10 aces and never faced a break point.
Gael Monfils advanced to the round of eight for just the third time all year by beating Michael Berrer 6-7 (5), 6-3, 6-3.
Monfils will play the winner of a match between third-seeded Marat Safin and Robert Haase scheduled for later Thursday.
Karlovic, who served 37 aces in his two matches, will play Paul Capdeville.
Soon-to-be-jailed celebrity socialite Nicole Richie said she is pregnant by her boyfriend, singer Joel Madden of the rock band Good Charlotte.
I'm almost four months," said Richie, 25, in an interview with ABC's Diane Sawyer that will air Thursday.
The waif-like daughter of singer Lionel Richie pleaded guilty Friday to driving under the influence of drugs and was sentenced to four days in jail.
"I have a responsibility and it's something that I did wrong, and if I could personally apologize to every single person that has lost a loved one from drunk driving I would," Richie said.
Richie rose to fame as hotel heiress Paris Hilton's co-star on the reality series "The Simple Life."
Hilton spent three weeks behind bars in June for violating her probation in a drunken-driving case.
Richie was stopped in December when police said she was seen driving the wrong way on a Los Angeles freeway.
MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota (CNN) The search for bodies in the Mississippi River was painstakingly slow as divers navigated debris and coped with low visibility after Wednesday's deadly bridge collapse, officials said.
Vehicles are scattered along the broken remains of the Interstate 35W bridge.
About 15 divers from local counties did a bank-to-bank search Thursday afternoon and found 11 vehicles, including an 18-wheeler, said Lynn Schwartz, Communication Specialist for the Bridge Collapse Command Center.
Vehicles with bodies inside are being taken out of the river, while empty ones are being marked and left in the water, she said.
Eight people are still missing, said Hennepin County Sheriff Richard Stanek.
"[We] don't have a hard understanding of how many vehicles are underneath the bridge and that won't be known until there's an opportunity to get some heavy equipment in to move the bridge or portions of it," said Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty Thursday.
Stanek said conditions in the Mississippi River were treacherous, as the twisted steel and blocks of pavement were pushed around by river currents.
He said the search could go on for five days or longer.
Four people were confirmed dead after the disaster.
Officials said at least 79 people were injured.
President Bush will visit the disaster site Saturday.
Transportation Secretary Mary Peters said $5 million was being made available immediately to pay for traffic flow adjustments and debris removal.
The bridge fell 60 feet, about six stories, into the river.
Investigators will try to reassemble it to determine what caused the collapse, said Mark Rosenker, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board.
Security camera video showed the Interstate 35W bridge's center section collapsing into the river in less than four seconds.
The northern end of the span appeared to drop first, and the southern end followed.
CNN obtained the video from a source who asked to remain unidentified because they were not authorized to distribute it publicly.
"This particular section of freeway was under repair," Minneapolis fire Chief Jim Clack said.
"We don't know yet what caused the collapse.
A school bus filled with more than 50 children who were returning from a summer field trip was among the vehicles on the bridge when it collapsed.
Tony Wagner, the president of a local nonprofit social services group that organized the trip, said eight of the kids, ages 5 to 14, were hospitalized.
Mark Lacroix, who lives on the 20th floor of an apartment building near the bridge, told CNN he saw the last seconds of the collapse.
"I heard this massive rumbling and shaking ... and looked out my window," Lacroix said.
"It just fell right into the river."
According to the Minneapolis Riverfront District Web site, the steel arch bridge was opened in 1967.
A 2001 study conducted by the Minnesota Department of Transportation found "several fatigue problems" in the bridge's approach spans and "poor fatigue details" on the main truss.
The study suggested that the design of the bridge's main truss could cause a collapse if one of two support planes were to become cracked, although it said a collapse might not occur in that event.
ROME, Italy (CNN) A Sicilian mother took away her 61-year-old son's house keys, cut off his allowance and hauled him to the police station because he stayed out late.
Tired of her son's misbehavior, the pensioner in the central Sicilian city of Caltagirone turned to the police to "convince this blockhead" to behave properly, La Sicilia, one of Sicily's leading newspapers, reported on Thursday.
The son responded by saying his mother did not give him a big enough weekly allowance and did not know how to cook.
"My son does not respect me, he doesn't tell me where he's going in the evenings and returns home late," the woman was quoted as saying.
"He is never happy with the food I make and always complains. This can't go on.
Police helped the squabbling duo make up and the two returned home together, with the son's house keys and daily allowance restored.
Move over Scarlett Johansson! Mikhail Gorbachev is the new face of Louis Vuitton.
Shot by photographer Annie Leibovitz, the ads focus on travel a "core value" for the company that started in 1854 as a trunk-maker, the statement said.
Gorbachev is featured in a car, a Vuitton bag at his side and the Berlin Wall in the background.
Graf and Agassi are shown snuggling in a hotel room bed.
A vampy Deneuve sits perched on a Vuitton suitcase in a foggy train station or is it a movie set?
Vuitton said it was making donations to former Vice President Al Gore's The Climate Project to fight global warming and Green Cross International, founded by Gorbachev to promote sustained development.
The campaign which is to run alongside more traditional fashion ads that in past seasons have featured Johansson will appear in magazines in September, the statement said.
A train crash in a remote location in central Democratic Republic of Congo killed at least 68 people, the United Nations peacekeeping force said on Thursday.
"There are 68 dead and 128 severely wounded," U.N. mission spokesman Kemal Saiki said.
"Survivors of the accident have been transported by foot or by bicycle 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) to the nearest hospital," he said.
This afternoon we sent a helicopter with doctors, nurses, and local authorities.
At the moment, they are on the ground there," said Alexandre Essone, a MONUC public information officer in Kananga.
"We suspect there still may be people trapped under the wagons. We need heavy machinery, though, to lift these wagons," Essone said.
The peacekeeping force, the United Nations' biggest, is in Congo to help the huge, chaotic country recover from a five-year war that began in 1998, since then an estimated 4 million people have been killed by violence or related hunger and disease.
The United Nations may expand its role in Iraq, according to a new draft resolution the U.N. Security Council is considering.
The resolution would expand the U.N. mandate in Iraq to include fostering "regional dialogue" on matters such as border security, energy and refugees.
The United Nations also would work with the Iraqi government to "resolve disputed internal boundaries" and on "planning, funding and implementing reintegration programs for former combatants.
A copy of the draft, which CNN obtained Thursday, calls for the extension of the mandate for another year after the current one expires next week, on August 10.
U.S. State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey had no comment on the draft.
Currently, the mandate calls for the mission to "play a leading role" in helping the government with its electoral machinery and constitutional development.
It is also mandated to advise on promoting human rights, working toward national reconciliation, developing civil and social services, coordinating development
The draft calls for these roles to continue, but would expand the mandate to include other activities.
It calls on the mission to promote a "national dialogue and political reconciliation" process that would be "inclusive.
The top U.N. envoy to Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello, and 21 others were killed in an August 2003 bombing at U.N. headquarters in Baghdad.
A South Korean delegation has arrived in the Afghan province where 21 Koreans are being hostage in an attempt to hold direct talks with Taliban kidnappers and end the two-week ordeal.
The Taliban have killed two Korean hostages, accusing the Afghan government of not negotiating in good faith and ignoring their demand to release rebel prisoners.
"They say they have come to hold direct talks with the Taliban," he said.
The Taliban kidnapped 23 South Korean church volunteers, 18 of them women, in Ghazni province on the main road south from Kabul in July. Two male Koreans have since been killed.
South Korea and the United States, which has more than 20,000 troops in Afghanistan, agreed not to use force to free the hostages, but Afghan troops warned villagers of a possible offensive in the area where the captives are held.
South Korean Foreign Minister Song Min-soon and U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte met on the sidelines of a regional security forum in the Philippines on Thursday.
"They agreed that both countries will not use any kind of force," a South Korean diplomat said.
The remaining 21 hostages were alive, but two of the women were seriously ill and could die, a Taliban spokesman said.
AC Milan's Italy defender Alessandro Nesta has retired from international football, he told a news conference on Wednesday.
Nesta follows Roma's Francesco Totti, who made a similar decision last month, in choosing to concentrate on club commitments.
Nesta was forced to miss last July's World Cup final victory over France because of a groin injury and has only featured once for Italy since October's 3-1 Group B victory against Georgia in a Euro 2008 qualifier.
The former Lazio center back was not included in Roberto Donadoni's squad for the European Championship qualifiers in the Faroe Islands and Lithuania in June after asking to be left out because he was getting married.
, 30, asked to take an extended break from playing for the Azzurri following the World Cup and went on to score 26 Serie A goals last season to scoop the European Golden Boot.
He blamed worries about his health for the decision.
Italy have several options to replace Totti but look stretched at the back with few suitable candidates to cover for ageing central defenders Fabio Cannavaro and Marco Materazzi.
Floyd Mayweather Jr. has agreed to come out of retirement to fight Ricky Hatton, the British boxer's father Ray said on Wednesday.
Hatton is expected to move up a division from light welterweight for the fight, which will probably be staged on December 8 in Las Vegas where he beat Jose Luis Castillo in June to retain his IBO title.
"The contract provided what we wanted and we are officially signed up and our lawyers have told us that the Mayweather camp have also signed," Ray Hatton was quoted as saying by the BBC.
"Now we're just waiting for the date and venue to be made official.
The 30-year-old Mayweather said he was retiring following his victory over Oscar De La Hoya to win the WBC super-welterweight title in May. However, the prospect of facing Hatton, 28, has ensured his return to the ring.
At least seven people were killed when an interstate bridge in Minneapolis, Minnesota, collapsed Wednesday evening, in what the governor called a "catastrophe of historic proportions.
The accident occurred shortly after 6 p.m. (7 p.m. ET) when dozens of cars were on the bridge.
At least 60 people were taken to local hospitals, according to Minneapolis Fire Chief Jim Clack. See photos of the disaster &raquo;
All survivors have been taken off the bridge, said Minneapolis police Chief Tim Dolan during a news conference Wednesday night.
Crews have searched 50 cars and will be looking for more possible victims, but the mission has changed from a rescue to a recovery mode.
"We have confirmed that this will be a very tragic night when it is over," said Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak.
Recovery operations have ended for the night because conditions became dangerous for workers as darkness set in.
"There's too much debris in the river to continue in the river tonight.
Mark Lacroix, who lives on the 20th floor of an apartment building near the bridge, told CNN he saw the last seconds of the collapse.
Another witness was walking on a pedestrian bridge nearby when he saw the disaster. "There were several cars completely just crushed.
I saw some policeman walk up to the drivers' windows and look and and kept walking on by, so either the person was deceased or not in the car," Joe Costello said.
Gov. Tim Pawlenty said inspections of the 40-year-old bridge in 2005 and 2006 found no structural defects, but a 2001 study conducted by the Minnesota Department of Transportation found "several fatigue problems" in the bridge's approach spans and "poor fatigue details" on the main truss.
Toy-maker Fisher-Price is recalling 83 types of toys including the popular Big Bird, Elmo, Dora and Diego characters because their paint contains excessive amounts of lead.
The worldwide recall being announced Thursday involves 967,000 plastic preschool toys made by a Chinese vendor and sold in the United States between May and August.
It is the largest for Mattel since 1998 when Fisher-Price had to yank about 10 million Power Wheels from toy stores.
In an interview with The Associated Press on Wednesday, David Allmark, general manager of Fisher-Price, said the problem was detected by an internal probe and reported to the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
The recall is particularly alarming since Mattel, known for its strict quality controls, is considered a role model in the toy industry for how it operates in China.
Fisher-Price and the commission issued statements saying parents should keep suspect toys away from children and contact the company.
The commission works with companies to issue recalls when it finds consumer goods that can be harmful.
Under current regulations, children's products found to have more than .06 percent lead accessible to users are subject to a recall.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2813348
A powerful earthquake rattled Vanuatu in the South Pacific early Thursday, causing cracks in roads and buildings and prompting brief evacuations due to tsunami fears, officials said.
The 7.2 quake struck at 4:08 a.m. (1708 Wednesday GMT) and was centered 30 miles southeast of the town of Luganville, the U.S. Geological Survey reported.
He said the quake did not trigger a tsunami, but people living alongside a river were evacuated because officials feared one.
Some buildings and a bridge over a river also sustained cracks.
It was the first earthquake with a magnitude of at least 7 in 122 days, said Waverly Person, a geophysicist with U.S. Geological Survey's National Earthquake Information Center in Colorado.
Vanuatu, formerly called the New Hebrides Islands, is part of the Pacific "Ring of Fire" a zone of frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions 25,000 miles long that encircles the basin of the Pacific Ocean.
Vanuatu lies 1,400 miles northeast of Sydney, Australia.
The final scene of a television documentary said to show an Alzheimer's patient "passing away" was actually filmed three days before his death, the UK's ITV said on Wednesday, fuelling a row over fake TV.ITV's Director of Television Simon Shaps said the sequence of events in "Malcolm and Barbara:
In publicity material issued to promote the film, ITV had said it ends with moving scenes as Malcolm Pointon, the subject of the documentary, "passes away".
"The film maker responsible ... has now confirmed that the film does not portray the moment of Malcolm's passing, which was in fact some days later," Shaps said in a statement.
"This will be made clear at the end of the film on transmission and should have been made clear earlier.
Television chiefs have come under intense pressure to improve standards after a series of deceptions were uncovered.
The latest row erupted after the family of the 66-year-old composer from Cambridgeshire said the cameras did not film the moment he died.
France has agreed to sell anti-tank missiles to Libya as part of a broader military agreement, the son of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi was quoted as saying by French newspaper Le Monde on Wednesday.
"You know this is the first arms supply deal between Libya and a Western country," Saif al-Islam said, adding he expected more to be signed shortly.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy clinched an accord on defense and signed a memorandum of understanding for a nuclear energy deal when he visited Tripoli last week, after helping to free foreign medics imprisoned in Libya.
Sarkozy denied Wednesday the release was secured by an arms agreement, answering a question from journalists as to what deal had been offered by France by saying: "None."
France has not revealed details of the defense deal, but Islam told Le Monde it was groundbreaking.
Then, we will buy from France anti-tank Milan missiles worth 100 million euros [$136 million], I think.
The European Union lifted an arms embargo on Libya in October 2004, but Islam said the ban had effectively remained in place, blaming the Germans for putting the brakes on possible deals.
Islam said Libya had been negotiating with France for a long time: "We have asked Sarkozy to speed things up.
Sarkozy flew to Libya hours after helping secure the release of six foreign medics held in jail for eight years for allegedly infecting Libyan children with HIV.
"Now that the case of the nurses is sorted out, this is a golden opportunity opening up," Islam said.
Britney Spears threw a baby bottle and threatened two photographers after they took pictures of her leaving a Las Vegas spa, the photographers said in a statement Tuesday.
and cursed at Andrew Deetz, a photographer who says he was beaten by Spears' bodyguard on Thursday, according to a statement released by Deetz's lawyers.
Deetz, 24, is preparing to sue, his lawyers said.
The other photographer involved was Kyle Henderson, 23.
They both work for a celebrity photography company called Flynet Pictures, which sells to such publications as People and US Weekly, according to Daniel Kogan, a spokesman for Deetz's lawyers.
One bodyguard, Cesar Julio Camera, 37, pushed Henderson against the wall until Wynn security intervened and asked Henderson to leave, the statement said.
As they were about 30 paces away and walking in the opposite direction, Camera attacked Deetz from behind, threw him on the ground and punched and kicked him until security pulled him off, it said.
Afterward, Spears ran toward Henderson but was stopped by security, and then threw a baby bottle at him, it said.
Camera also told Deetz on July 23 outside the Lisa Kline boutique in Beverly Hills, "I have unfinished business with you," the statement alleged.
and "turn, turn, turn! " seconds before their Airbus A320 skidded off the runway in Sao Paulo and slammed into a building last month, flight recorder transcripts revealed Wednesday.
According to transcripts read before a congressional commission investigating air safety in Brazil, the pilots were unable to activate the spoilers aerodynamic brakes on the plane's wings as they sped down the short, rain-slicked runway.
Spoiler nothing," says pilot Henrique Stephanini Di Sacco, 53, giving the first indication that something is wrong.
Lima's last words are: "Go!
" The recording ends with screams and a woman's voice, followed by an explosion.
The July 17 crash at Congonhas airport killed all 187 aboard the jetliner and 12 people on the ground in Brazil's deadliest air disaster.
Marco Maia, said he believes mechanical failure was behind the crash.
"From what we have determined, we can confirm that the machine failed," Maia told reporters in Brasilia.
A four-lane interstate bridge spanning the Mississippi River collapsed during evening rush hour Wednesday, sending vehicles and tons of concrete crashing into the water.
The entire span of the Interstate 35W bridge collapsed about 6:05 p.m.
A tractor-trailer caught fire, and flame and black smoke billowed into the sky.
There was no official word on injuries, but dozens of rescue vehicles were there.
Divers were also in the water.
Some people were stranded on parts of the bridge that aren't completely in the water
The Getty Museum has reached a compromise with Italy after a bitter dispute over antiquities in its collection that Rome says were looted, the Italian Culture Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.
The deal will allow Getty, the wealthiest U.S. art institution with an endowment of over $5 billion
, to keep one of the key items on the list, a limestone and marble statue of Aphrodite, until 2010.
The two sides continue to disagree on one of the other most important items, the bronze Statue of a Victorious Youth, sometimes known as "the Getty Bronze".
Earlier this year, Getty agreed to return four artifacts to Greece which Athens said had been smuggled and sold illegally.
The museum has come under pressure over allegations of acquiring ancient art pieces illegally when a former Getty curator was charged with art theft and a Trust chairman resigned in 2006 following controversies over art looting.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2812990
Melanie Brown filed a Superior Court petition Wednesday that seeks to legally establish Eddie Murphy as the father of her 4-month-old daughter.
"We just don't comment on Eddie Murphy's personal life," he said.
Brown, aka Scary Spice of the Spice Girls, dated Murphy last year. The 32-year-old singer gave birth to her daughter April 3.
She listed Murphy as the father on the birth certificate.
Murphy has five children from his marriage to Nicole Mitchell Murphy, who filed for divorce in 2005. Brown also has an 8-year-old daughter.
A fuel tanker packed with explosives detonated Wednesday at a gas station in western Baghdad, killing at least 50 people and wounding 60 others, the Iraqi Interior Ministry said.
Ten cars were damaged in the early afternoon blast that sent a dark cloud of smoke over the Mansour district of the Iraqi capital.
Footage from the scene showed firefighters trying to extinguish the tanker, which was charred along with nearby cars and gas pumps.
Earlier Wednesday, at least 15 people were killed and 20 others were wounded when a suicide car bomb exploded in a busy square in Baghdad's Karrada district, the Interior Ministry said.
Thamir Sami, 33, told The Associated Press he was carrying clothes from his store to his car when the explosion rocked the area.
Other motorists and I helped evacuate the wounded before the ambulances came."
Karrada, on the eastern side of the Tigris River, is usually one of the more stable areas in the capital but has been hit by a string of bombs in the past 10 days.
The Brazilian football association (CBF) formally submitted its plans for staging the 2014 World Cup on Tuesday but kept the details close to its chest.
Brazil last staged the World Cup in 1950 and is the only country bidding to stage the 2014 version, having benefited from FIFA's decision to rotate the World Cup between different continents.
"For the time being Brazil has not yet been given the World Cup," Blatter said shortly ahead of Tuesday's formal handover.
Blatter said that FIFA would begin inspections of all aspects of Brazil's bid at the end of August before taking its final decision on October 30 following a meeting of the organization's executive committee.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2812897 British Airways has been hit with almost &pound;
270 million ($547 million) in fines after reaching settlements with U.S. and UK authorities for price fixing on fuel surcharges.
Arch rival Virgin Atlantic Airways blew the whistle on BA last year after individuals at the two carriers discussed proposed changes to fuel surcharges for long flights.
Virgin won immunity in the UK, where the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) fined BA 121.5 million pounds in the OFT's biggest-ever civil penalty.
The U.S. Department of Justice fined BA $300 million (&pound;
148 million) as part of a wider investigation that also resulted in a fine for Korean Air Lines and notice that Virgin and Germany's Lufthansa would have to pay restitution to customers.
The fines, already the biggest in BA's history, could have been higher if the airline had not admitted wrongdoing.
"Had BA not made admissions and cooperated from the outset, they would have been fined many millions of pounds more ... tens of millions of pounds," OFT director of cartel operations Simon Williams said in a telephone interview with Reuters.
Two senior BA executives quit last October after being linked to the investigation and in May BA set aside &pound;
The Pentagon announced Tuesday the next scheduled rotation of U.S. troops to Iraq, while evidence of deadly sectarian violence continued to line the streets of Baghdad.
Under the plan, about 20,000 Army and Marine Corps frontline combat units are scheduled to begin deploying late this year and into 2008.
It has been widely acknowledged among the military that under the current deployment scenario, there are not enough U.S. forces to maintain the troop increase after spring 2008.
The U.S. military death toll in Iraq for July is at least 73, making it the lowest monthly tally in the war since last November, when 70 American forces died.
Police found 44 bodies across Baghdad in the last two days, the Iraqi Interior Ministry said Tuesday.
The bodies believed to result from Sunni-Shiite sectarian fighting bring the number of corpses found in Baghdad in July to 612.
A U.S. Apache AH-64 helicopter was forced to land Tuesday in Baghdad after coming under attack by ground fire, the U.S. military said. The military described the incident as a "precautionary landing" east of the New Baghdad district.
The location was in the Mandali area of Diyala province, and the prime target was a top member of al Qaeda in Iraq, who was among those those detained, the military said. Also Tuesday, Iraqi and U.S. security forces detained 13 suspected militants in eastern Iraq, the U.S. military said.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2812508
Top seed Andy Roddick blasted 18 aces to defeat Tomas Zib 6-4 6-2 and storm into the third round of the $600,000 Washington Classic on Tuesday.
Roddick successfully landed 61 percent of his first serves to keep his Czech opponent off-balance throughout the one-hour match.
"I was hitting aces and when I was hitting good first serves they weren't coming back. "I was really pleased with my serve tonight.
Roddick had little trouble with Zib although he had never played the 31-year-old Czech Davis Cup player ranked 151st in the world.
"Regardless of how the other person plays, you have to play to your strengths," said Roddick. "If you start playing someone else's game obviously it's not going to work as well.
That's the stuff you learn as the match goes on.
The 24-year-old Roddick broke Zib once in the first set and twice in the second.
Bancroft family members owning 32 percent of Dow Jones & Co. voting stock have agreed to support Rupert Murdoch's $5 billion buyout offer, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.
That represents about half of the family's 64 percent ownership of the company's voting shares, likely more than enough to seal the News Corp deal, the Journal reported, citing unnamed sources.
The Bancrofts have been deliberating over whether to accept Murdoch's $60-per-share bid since it was announced in early May.
Dow Jones shares rose 11 percent in anticipation of the deal.
Dow Jones "will be part of News Corp," John Prestbo, editor and executive director of Dow Jones Indexes, told reporters in Chicago. Prestbo said the information came from an internal company memo.
However, Dow Jones spokeswoman Linda Dunbar denied the rumors.
"There was a Reuters story this morning quoting John Prestbo, editor and executive director of Dow Jones Indexes, please disregard his comments which were misunderstood.
Military doctors violate medical ethics when they approve the force-feeding of hunger strikers at the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, according to a commentary in a prestigious medical journal.
The doctors should attempt to prevent force-feeding by refusing to participate, the commentary's three authors write in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.
"In medicine, you can't force treatment on a person who doesn't give their voluntary informed consent," said Dr. Sondra Crosby of Boston University, one of the authors.
"A military physician needs to be a physician first and a military officer second, in my opinion.
As of Tuesday, 20 of 23 fasting detainees at Guantanamo were being fed liquid meals through flexible tubes inserted through their noses and throats, said Guantanamo spokesman Navy Cmdr. Rick Haupt. The strikers are protesting conditions at the camp and their open-ended confinement.
A few physicians have declined to participate in force-feeding, although the specific number has not been tracked, Haupt said.
The military does not punish doctors who won't participate in force-feeding, Haupt wrote Friday in an e-mail response to questions from The Associated Press.
A mass hunger strike began at Guantanamo in August 2005 and reached a peak of 131 detainees.
Last year, the military started strapping detainees in restraint chairs during tube feedings to prevent the prisoners from resisting or making themselves vomit.
Department of Defense spokeswoman Cynthia Smith said force-feeding is done "in a humane and compassionate manner," using a method that is consistent with procedures used in U.S. federal prisons.
"No patient receives any medical treatment unless medically necessary," Smith said.
About 360 men are still held at Guantanamo on suspicion of terrorism or links to al Qaeda or the Taliban.
The families of the remaining 21 South Korean hostages being held in central Afghanistan say they have all but lost hope for the survival of their loved ones after a second hostage's body was recovered.
The Afghan government has ruled out a prisoner swap and has urged the Taliban to release the women being held.
The bullet-riddled body of Shim Sung-min was found Tuesday in the Chahor Devor area of the Ghazni province, the same province where the 23 South Koreans were kidnapped from their bus on July 19, according to an Afghan Interior Ministry official.
"We still hold the same faith but after the death of Pastor Bae and Shim Sung-min, the families are in greater pain," the families said in a joint statement read on Korean TV by the mother of Lee Sun-young, a 37-year-old woman held by the Afghan captors.
"It's almost impossible to have hope for the remaining 21 hostages. Which parents can sit still when their child is dying before their eyes?
The South Koreans are members of a church group and came to Afghanistan to perform volunteer medical aid.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told CNN that Shim was killed Monday, hours after Taliban leaders had threatened to kill more hostages if Afghan leaders did not give in to their demands to release rebel prisoners.
In their statement, the families pleaded with the United States "to be more actively involved" and get more countries to cooperate in the negotiations to free the hostages.
"The Korean government awhile ago announced there's a limit and (there) are things that can't be solved," they said in the statement. "But we still believe in the government and that it's doing the best to protect its people. "
"Please don't use force.
Forest fires have razed 35,000 hectares on Spain's Canary Islands, just as the tourist season reaches its peak, forcing the evacuation of more than 12,000 people, the island government said on Tuesday.
Summer temperatures of around 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) have been exacerbated by strong winds, laying waste to large mountainous and pinewood areas and forcing the closure of several motorways on the biggest island, Tenerife.
Details on how many tourists were affected were not available.
As emergency services battled with blazes on the islands of Gran Canaria, Tenerife and La Gomera, Spain's Environment Minister Cristina Narbona said the situation was "very alarming", promising more fire-fighting planes would be sent to the islands.
A judge on Monday ordered that a forest ranger who admitted to starting the original fire on Gran Canaria be held in solitary confinement. He had been angry over his work contract, the archipelago's supreme court said.
Fires burned an average 140,000 hectares of land a year in Spain from 1990 to 2004, but they have become more frequent in recent years and many of them are started deliberately.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2811918
An Indian court jailed Bollywood star Sanjay Dutt for six years on Tuesday for acquiring illegal weapons from gangsters involved in India's worst bombings that killed 257 people in 1993.
Dutt, 48, was cleared of conspiracy charges in the serial blasts in India's financial capital of Mumbai, but was found guilty of unauthorized possession of an automatic rifle and a pistol.
"It was an eminently dangerous act," judge Pramod Kode said. "With the punishment of a minimum of five years and maximum of 10 years it can in no way be a minor offence or of a less grave nature."
Dutt's trial has transfixed India and fans of Bollywood, the world's largest film industry by ticket sales.
He has millions of dollars riding on him in films under production.
The actor is the most high-profile among 100 people, mostly Muslims, found guilty in the bombings trial, one of the world's longest-running court cases.
The 1993 Mumbai attacks were ordered by India's most wanted man, Dawood Ibrahim, a Muslim, to avenge the razing of a 16th-century mosque by Hindu zealots in 1992 and subsequent Hindu-Muslim riots in India, police say.
Ibrahim is believed to be hiding in Pakistan, but the government in Islamabad denies this.
Dutt's lawyers had urged that the actor, who found fame playing gangsters and anti-heroes, be set free for his good behaviour during his bail.
Son of legendary film couple Sunil Dutt and Nargis, the heavy-set actor has been on bail since 1995 after more than a year in prison during initial investigations into the blasts.
He is expected to appeal.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2811914
Rolandas Milinavicius has been charged with two counts of murder in the shooting deaths of Inga Contreras, 25, and Martynas Simokaitis, 28.
All three are from the eastern European nation of Lithuania but had been living in Atlanta, Georgia, authorities said.
Milinavicius, who was having financial problems, told police he shot the two Thursday after they kept asking for more pay, said police in East Point, which is just outside Atlanta.
"He told us that he was under a lot of stress," East Point police Capt. Russell Popham said. "Unfortunately, he decided to take his anger out with violence.
Atlanta, started RM Auto International two years ago, hoping to meet the demand for American cars in Lithuania.
Milinavicius, 38, turned himself in two days after the shootings and confessed to the killings, Popham said. "As I understand, the employees were not really happy about the pay, and they had questioned him about it over the course of time," Popham said. "That morning he said he just snapped.
Contreras and Simokaitis were cremated and an informal memorial service was held at Simokaitis' cousin's apartment over the weekend.
"It doesn't make any sense," the cousin, Jaunius Simokaitis, of Fayetteville, said Monday. "If he was having money problems, these two would have been the ones to help him get out of debt. They would have helped him make that money.
BERLIN, Germany (AP) No more croissants for Knut the polar bear cub the Berlin zoo is putting its most famous resident on a diet.
Knut, whose legendary cuteness has doubled zoo attendance since his debut in March, is now 8 months old and weighs about 132 pounds.
More than Knut's actual weight, it was his physical appearance that persuaded the zoo's staff to make the change, zoo veterinarian Andreas Ochs said Tuesday.
"If Knut would live outdoors, this wouldn't be so bad he would simply build up his fat reserves for the winter," he said.
However, in captivity, the bear won't need to fend off a grim winter.
Knut, who now gets a special porridge of milk, meat, cod liver oil and vitamin supplements, will soon graduate to fish and solid meat.
But his four daily meals will be reduced to three and "extras like croissants will need to be dropped," Ochs said.
The Berlin daily B.Z. quoted Knut's keeper, Thomas Doerflein, as saying that "Knut likes to nibble in between meals.
Knut and his brother were rejected by their mother at birth.
The brother died after four days, but Knut survived and was raised by zookeepers.
A volcano in the central Philippines spewed ash early Tuesday, blanketing fields and villages as far as three miles away, but there was no immediate sign of a major eruption, scientists said.
The 5,150-foot Mount Bulusan volcano has been showing signs of unrest with on-and-off ash and steam explosions since March 2006.
An ash explosion can occur there anytime," said Bella Tubianosa from the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology.
She said the latest burst sent ash falling three miles west of the volcano, which is about 240 miles southeast of Manila.
Television reports said the ash column caused panic in the surrounding area, with residents running out of their homes.
Villagers have been warned not to venture into a 2.5-mile "permanent danger zone" around the volcano.
The Philippine archipelago lies on the Pacific Ocean's "Ring of Fire," where volcanic activity and earthquakes are common.
The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously on Tuesday to authorize up to 26,000 troops and police in an effort to stop attacks on millions of displaced civilians in Sudan's Darfur region.
Expected to cost more than $2 billion in the first year, the combined United Nations-African Union operation aims to quell violence in Darfur, where more than 2.1 million people have been driven into camps and an estimated 200,000 have died over the last four years.
The resolution allows the use of force in self-defense, to ensure freedom of movement for humanitarian workers and to protect civilians under attack.
But the measure, which has been watered down several times, no longer allows the new force to seize and dispose of illegal arms.
Now they can only monitor such weapons.
Gone also is a threat of future sanctions but British Prime Minister Gordon Brown warned on Tuesday that "if any party blocks progress and the killings continue, I and others will redouble our efforts to impose further sanctions.
"The plan for Darfur from now on is to achieve a cease-fire, including an end to aerial bombings of civilians;
Specifically, the text authorizes up to 19,555 military personnel and 6,432 civilian police.
Dimitar Penev has been reappointed coach of Bulgaria for their remaining Euro 2008 qualifiers, the 62-year-old told reporters on Monday ahead of his second stint in charge.
"I'm the new national team's coach but we can talk about the details at tomorrow's (Tuesday's) news conference," he said after leaving the Bulgarian Football Union (BFU) executive committee's meeting.
Penev replaces Hristo Stoichkov, who quit in April to take charge of Spain's Celta Vigo. Levski Sofia's Stanimir Stoilov was appointed caretaker for the qualifiers against Belarus last month.
In his first spell in charge, Penev guided the Balkan country to the semifinals of the 1994 World Cup in the U.S. and qualified the side for Euro 96 in England.
BFU's president Borislav Mihaylov said recently that the new coach would be chosen after consulting with the players.
Some of the team's key figures, including captain Dimitar Berbatov have already said Penev would be the right man.
They visit third-placed Netherlands on September 8.
MADRID, Spain Spanish climbing specialist Iban Mayo became the latest rider to fail a drugs test after it was revealed he had tested positive for EPO during the Tour de France, it was announced by his Saunier Duval team on Monday.The 29-year-old, who finished 16th in the Tour behind compatriot Alberto Contador, has been suspended by his team.
"The Saunier Duval team were notified by the International Cycling Union (UCI) that Iban Mayo had tested positive for EPO following a test on July 24 which was a rest day on the Tour de France," read a statement on the team's website.
If that is confirmed as positive as well, we will proceed to rescind his contract.
He has always passed the UCI's tests and the internal controls. It's bad news.
French Anti-Doping Agency (AFLD) president Pierre Bordry confirmed the agency had known there would be another positive test.
If it is confirmed, Mayo will be the third rider to have tested positive on the Tour.
The Celtics have a deal in place for Kevin Garnett that not only will restore the hopes of the league's winningest franchise, but it will also make traditional Eastern basketball relevant again.
The Celtics have boldly shown the Knicks and 76ers that the old powerhouses still can compete against the warm-weather capitals of San Antonio, Miami, Dallas and Phoenix.
They were also negotiating an extension of three to four years with Garnett, who has two years and $45 million remaining on his current contract with Minnesota.
Garnett may amend his 15 percent trade kicker worth an additional $6.75 million over the next two years in exchange for the extension.
With their new All-Star trio of the 31-year-old Garnett, Paul Pierce (who turns 30 in October) and the 32-year-old Ray Allen, who was acquired in a draft-day deal with Seattle, the Celtics should instantly join Cleveland and Detroit among the favorites in the East.
If Boston is able to finish its rotation by acquiring a veteran point guard (such as Tyronn Lue or Brevin Knight) and another center (Dale Davis?) to complement Rondo and Kendrick Perkins, respectively, the Celtics could be headed for their first NBA Finals since the Larry Bird era of five Finals appearances from 1981-87.
A U.S. delegation arrives in Beijing on Tuesday on a five-day fact-finding mission on food and drug safety amid a series of health scares about the "made in China" label.
The United States stepped up inspections of imports from China after a chemical additive in pet food caused the death of pets there this spring.
Since then, poisonous ingredients have been found in Chinese exports of toys, toothpaste and fish, while the deaths of patients in Panama was blamed on improperly labeled Chinese chemicals that were mixed into cough syrup.
Following the mission, China and the United States would begin discussions to develop bilateral agreements on food and feed safety and on drug and medical-device safety, the statement said. The two countries hope to have "strong, action-oriented documents" by December, it added.
Last week, EU Consumer Protection Commissioner Meglena Kuneva urged China to step up export quality. She said she had seen some improvement in how China handled EU warnings of faulty or substandard goods, but much more was needed to be done.
Earlier this month, the head of China's General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said the visitors from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration would specifically discuss a dispute over China's seafood exports.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is currently on a visit to China where he is due to press for faster appreciation of the yuan and other financial reforms.
The body of a second South Korean hostage killed was found Tuesday in the Chahor Devor area of Ghazni province in central Afghanistan, according to an Afghan Interior Ministry official.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid, in a telephone interview with CNN Monday, said that hostage Shim Sungmin had been killed Monday.
The announcement came hours after Taliban leaders had threatened to kill more of the 22 Korean hostages they have been holding if Afghan leaders did not give in to their demands to release rebel prisoners.
A South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman also confirmed the body was that of Shim Sungmin.
Taliban spokesman Qari Mohammad Yousuf said the Taliban, who had already killed one hostage, would begin killing the others if the Afghan government did not act.
The Afghan government has ruled out a prisoner swap and has urged the Taliban to release the women being held.
The 23 South Koreans members of a church group in Afghanistan to perform volunteer medical aid were kidnapped 11 days ago from their bus in Ghazni province.
One of them Bae Hyung-Kyu, 42, a pastor at the church attended by the hostages and the leader of their group was shot and killed.
Elephants long revered in India as symbols of wisdom and good fortune are no longer allowed in Mumbai, formerly known as Bombay.
"We want to keep the poor elephants off city roads.
It is sad to see them walking with traffic going past," said Shree Bhagwan, a senior official in the Maharashtra state forestry department. The ban, India's first, took effect last week, Bhagwan said.
Before the ban, 14 elephants worked in Mumbai.
They begged for their handlers, participated in religious ceremonies or became status symbols at weddings.
When not working, the elephants were chained to posts and unable to move. Most lived under busy highway overpasses.
"It would have been ideal to build rescue centers first and then issue the ban," said N. Jayasimha, a lawyer with the People for Ethical Treatment of Animals. "But the order is positive and a step in the right direction.
Police were forced to release an elephant handler arrested after the ban went into effect because there was no way to look after the elephant, which spent five hours chained outside the police station.
Some 3,600 tamed elephants live in India, including some 1,000 in northeastern Assam state, where they work in logging.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2810972
Pro-Taliban fighters seized an Islamic shrine in restive northwestern Pakistan and renamed it after the Red Mosque, where dozens of militants died this month in a showdown with government forces in the capital, officials said Monday.
The attack drove home the lack of government control in the tribal region, where a local government official said authorities were trying to negotiate the militants' peaceful departure from the shrine.
Three soldiers and four civilians died in other violence in the northwest, where President Gen. Pervez Musharraf is under growing pressure from Washington to crack down on the Taliban and al Qaeda.
U.S. officials have floated the possibility of unilateral military strikes in the tribal regions, a possibility that Pakistan once again strongly rejected.
"Pakistan will not allow any foreign forces to conduct activities inside its territory," Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz told legislators Monday, according to a government statement.
"The integrity and sovereignty of the country will be protected at all cost and no outside interference will be allowed," Aziz said.
Musharraf has been a key ally of Washington in fighting terrorism since the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, but has faced accusations from some quarters in Pakistan of being too closely tied to America.
Atletico Madrid have completed an agreement to sign Spain winger Jose Antonio Reyes from Arsenal on a four-year contract, the Primera Liga club said on Monday.
Atletico said Reyes will have a medical on Tuesday morning and will join the squad on a pre-season tour to Amsterdam.
Media have reported the deal is worth between nine and 12 million euros ($16.40 million).
If the reports are accurate, the move takes Atletico's close-season spending up to 70 million euros following their purchases of striker Diego Forlan, winger Simao Sabrosa, and midfielders Cleber Santana, Luis Garcia and Raul Garcia.
Reyes almost joined Atletico last year but turned them down in favor of a loan move to city rivals Real Madrid, and as a result was forced to pay Atletico compensation.
The 23-year-old, who has won 21 Spanish caps, made 30 appearances with the nine-times European champions, mostly as a substitute, and scored six league goals.
He came on a substitute and scored twice in the 3-1 win over Real Mallorca on the final day of the season. The win secured Real the Primera Liga title.
"I am delighted to be staying in Madrid," said Reyes. "It has been difficult working by myself and not being able to share a pre-season with my colleagues.
Meanwhile, Atletico Madrid have signed an agreement with the local council to move to the La Peineta stadium, the centerpiece of the city's bid for the Olympic Games in 2016, the Primera Liga club's president Enrique Cerezo announced on Monday.
Atletico finished seventh in the Primera Liga last season and are in the second qualifying round for the UEFA Cup.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2810700
News Corp chief Rupert Murdoch is "highly unlikely" to proceed with a $5 billion bid for Dow Jones based on the level of approval the offer has received from Dow Jones' controlling shareholders, a News Corp spokesman said Monday.
Dow Jones' Bancroft family, which controls 64 percent of the company's voting shares, has been asked to decide by the end of Monday whether to support the deal.
A News Corp spokesman said the company would need more support than that from the Bancrofts for the deal to proceed, but he did not specify what percentage of the overall voting shares were sought.
A spokesman for the Bancroft family declined to comment. Dow Jones representatives were not immediately available.
Steve Martin married girlfriend Anne Stringfield during a ceremony at his Los Angeles home, his publicist said.
Former Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey, a friend of Martin's, presided over Saturday's ceremony, Alan Nierob said.
Most of the roughly 75 guests who included Tom Hanks, Diane Keaton, Eugene Levy, Carl Reiner and Ricky Jay were not told that he and Stringfield would wed when they were invited to his home for a "party," Nierob said.
Martin, 61, was previously married to actress Victoria Tennant, whom he divorced in 1994 after about 8 years together, Nierob said.
It was the first marriage for Stringfield, 35, a writer and former staffer for The New Yorker magazine.
The two had dated for about three years, Nierob said.
His other movies include "Planes, Trains & Automobiles," "L.A. Story," "Parenthood," and "Father of the Bride.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Monday that the United States and Britain are engaged in a "generation-long battle" against al Qaeda-inspired terrorism and that Britain "absolutely" shares President Bush's philosophy on the war on terror.
"There should be no safe haven and no hiding place for those that practice terrorist violence or preach terrorist extremism.
But on his maiden voyage to the White House, Brown kept his comments short regarding Iraq, focusing primarily on moving from combat to "overwatch" missions in three of the four provinces for which Britain has responsibility.
As expected, Brown emphasized that the U.S.-British alliance remains strong, but he also said he was disappointed with some aspects of the effort in Iraq namely difficulties "getting political reconciliation within Iraq itself, moving forward the reconstruction and the time it has taken to do so."
He said, however, he was pleased to see "Iraq now building up its own security forces," which he estimated number about 300,000.
Though he avoided discussing his administration's purportedly waning support for Bush's Iraq policy, he did express at least some solidarity with the United States. Watch Brown speak of "duties to discharge" in Iraq &raquo;
"Our aim, as is the aim of the United States government, is threefold: security for the Iraqi people, political reconciliation and that the Iraqis have a stake in the future," Brown said.
Included were climate change, HIV and malaria, global poverty, international trade, the war on terror, the Middle East peace process and Afghanistan, according to Brown and Bush.
Extreme sexual violence against women is pervasive in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and local authorities do little to stop it or prosecute those responsible, a U.N. investigator said on Monday.
Rape and brutality against women and girls are "rampant and committed by non-state armed groups, the Armed Forces of the DRC, the National Congolese Police, and increasingly also by civilians", said Turkish lawyer Yakin Erturk.
"Violence against women seems to be perceived by large sectors of society to be normal," she added in a report after an 11-day trip to the strife-torn country.
Erturk, special rapporteur for the United Nations Human Rights Council on violence against women, said the situation in South Kivu province, where rebels from neighburing Rwanda operate, was the worst she had ever encountered.
The atrocities perpetrated there by armed groups, some of whom seemed to have been involved in the 1994 Rwandan massacres in which 800,000 people were killed, "are of an unimaginable brutality that goes far beyond rape", she said.
"Women are gang-raped, often in front of their families and communities. In numerous cases, male relatives are forced at gun point to rape their own daughters, mothers or sisters," she said.
After rape, many women were shot or stabbed in the genital area, and survivors told Erturk that while held as slaves by the gangs they had been forced to eat excrement or the flesh of their murdered relatives.
Women who have been raped are systematically rejected by their families and society.
About eight million Iraqis nearly a third of the population are without water, sanitation, food and shelter and need emergency aid, a report by two major relief agencies says.
Oxfam and the Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) Coordination Committee in Iraq have issued a briefing paper that says violence in Iraq is masking a humanitarian crisis that has worsened since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
The paper, called "Rising to the Humanitarian Challenge in Iraq," is the latest documentation of the misery faced by Iraqis.
"Eight million people are in urgent need of emergency aid; that figure includes over two million who are displaced within the country, and more than two million refugees.
The population of Iraq is 26 million.
It said that not addressing the needs of Iraqis in urgent need of water, sanitation, food and shelter would further create more unrest in the country.
"Despite the constraints imposed by violence, the government of Iraq, the United Nations, and international donors can do more to deliver humanitarian assistance to reduce unnecessary suffering.
If people's basic needs are left unattended, this will only serve to further destabilize the country.
The report found that about 43 percent of Iraq's population endure "absolute poverty," and that more than half "are now without work.
Child malnutrition rates have jumped from 19 percent before the invasion four years ago to 28 percent now, and there are two million internally displaced people, many of whom have no or little access to food rations.
The number of Iraqis "without access to adequate water supplies" is 70 percent, up from 50 percent since 2003.
The country continues to suffer a "brain drain.
(CNN) A second South Korean hostage held captive by the Taliban in Afghanistan has been killed, a spokesman for the militant group told CNN on Monday.
The body was dropped off in Chardiwal in the province of Ghazni in central Afghanistan, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said in a telephone interview.
He identified the victim as Soon Shineen.
But the district governor of Qara Bagh, Khawaja Mohammad Siddiqi, said no body had been discovered at the location given by the Taliban.
The announcement came hours after Taliban leaders had threatened to kill more of the 22 Korean hostages they have been holding if Afghan leaders did not give in to their demands to release rebel prisoners.
Taliban spokesman Qari Mohammad Yousuf said the Taliban, who had already killed one hostage, would begin killing the others if the Afghan government did not act.
The Afghan government has ruled out a prisoner swap and has urged the Taliban to release the women being held.
The 23 South Koreans members of a church group in Afghanistan to perform volunteer medical aid were kidnapped 11 days ago from their bus in Ghazni province.
One of them Bae Hyung-Kyu, 42, a pastor at the church attended by the hostages and the leader of their group was shot and killed.
Police in southeastern Ghazni province found Bae's bullet-riddled body in the Qara Bagh district, where the Koreans were kidnapped on July 19.
Since then, the Taliban have announced a number of new deadlines that have passed.
Taliban kidnappers and Afghan negotiators resumed talks to free 22 South Korean hostages who were still alive on Monday despite two rebel deadlines expiring.
"The talks and dialogue are going on to persuade the Taliban to release the hostages ... and no incident has happened (to the hostages)," said deputy Interior Minister Munir Mangal, who also heads a government team tasked to release the Christian captives.
Earlier, the Taliban extended its "final" deadline at the request of Afghan mediators, but insisted the release of Taliban prisoners was the only way to settle the crisis.
When asked by Reuters if the government would bow to the Taliban demand, Mangal said "all options" were under deliberation.
The Taliban seized the Korean Christians, most of them women, 11 days ago from a bus in Ghazni province to the southwest of Kabul and killed the leader of the group on Wednesday after an earlier deadline passed.
On Sunday, the Taliban ruled out further talks after they said government negotiators demanded the unconditional release of the hostages and a senior Afghan official said that force might be used to rescue them if talks failed.
The Afghan government had wanted the Taliban to first release the 18 women hostages, but the insurgents demanded the government release its prisoners first, leading to deadlock, said a Kabul-based Western security analyst, speaking on condition of anonymity
after two German aid workers and their five Afghan colleagues were seized by Taliban in neighboring Wardak province.
The body of one of the Germans has been found with gunshots and the Taliban still hold the other along with four Afghans.
Paul Stanley, a singer and guitarist with rock band Kiss, was forced to pull out of a show in California on Friday after his heart started beating at more than twice the normal level, he said on his Web site.
The apparent tachycardia happened while the band was rehearsing for a performance at a casino in San Jacinto, California, about 90 miles (145 km) east of Los Angeles.
A normal heart rate at rest is about 60 to 80 beats a minute, according to the American Heart Association.
Fellow principal Gene Simmons told fans the group would play as a trio, and turned the show into a tribute to his ailing bandmate.
Stanley, born Stanley Eisen, and Simmons co-founded Kiss in New York City in 1973.
Stanley released a solo album last year.
The 3-year-old girl and her mother, who was also in the room during the struggle between 49-year-old Ronald Marquez and officers, were hospitalized, police said. Their condition was unavailable.
The relative who called police said an exorcism had also been attempted Thursday.
Officers arrived at the house Saturday and entered when they heard screaming coming from a bedroom, Tranter said.
A bloody, naked 19-year-old woman who police later determined to be Marquez's daughter and the girl's mother was in the room, chanting "something that was religious in nature," Tranter said.
The officers forced open the door enough for one to enter, leading to a struggle in which an officer used a stun gun on Marquez, Tranter said. After the initial stun had no visible effect, another officer squeezed into the room and stunned him.
Marquez was placed in handcuffs after a struggle with officers and initially appeared normal, but then stopped breathing, Tranter said.
He could not be revived and was pronounced dead at a hospital.
The mother was not arrested, but police will consider criminal charges, Tranter said.
Asian stock markets extended their decline on Monday following further losses on Wall Street, as investors fretted about the health of the U.S. economy amid worries about the fallout from the subprime mortgage market.
Investors fear losses in the subprime sector may spill over into the broader U.S. economy, Asia's top export market, and increasing deterioration in credit markets would hurt chances for more corporate buyouts and dry up funding.
As a result, laws will be harder to enact, threatening policy deadlock and that may be negative for the stock market, said Norihiro Fujito, general manager at Mitsubishi UFJ Securities' investment research and information division.
Electronics components maker Kyocera, Canon Inc. and chip-tester maker Advantest Corp. all shed more than 2 percent.
Elsewhere across the Asia-Pacific region, declines of 1 percent for steel maker POSCO and 1.2 percent for top lender Kookmin Bank helped knock 1 percent off South Korea's KOSPI to fresh three-week lows.
continuing to fall, the outlook does not look good today," said Choo Hee-yeop, deputy general manager of asset management strategy at Korea Investment and Securities.
"But there is a perception that losses have been too much, so the markets don't look like they'll continue seeing steep falls.
Australia's key S&P/ASX 200 index eased 0.5 percent, dragged down by weakness in the major banks.
The big four local banks Commonwealth Bank, National Australia Bank, Westpac Banking Corp. and ANZ Banking Group were all down between 0.4 percent and 0.8 percent.
wo Russian deep-sea submersibles made a test dive in polar waters on Sunday ahead of a mission to be the first to reach the seabed under the North Pole, Itar-Tass news agency said.
As the Arctic icecap thins as a result of global warming, a race is looming to claim ownership of the rich energy resources under the North Pole.
The Russian mission involves a nuclear-powered icebreaker smashing through the ice to clear a path to the Pole for the command ship Akademik Fedorov.
This will launch the submersibles to scoop samples from the seabed for research.
The mission will also plant a flag on the seabed under the Pole to symbolically claim the territory for Russia.
Soviet and U.S. nuclear submarines have often traveled under the polar icecap, but no one has so far reached the seabed under the Pole, where depths exceed 4,000 meters (13,100 feet).
The United States is developing a proposed $20 billion, 10-year arms sales package for Saudi Arabia, a senior administration official confirmed on Saturday.
The proposed sale, first reported in The New York Times, is intended to upgrade the Saudi military's ability to counter possible Iranian aggression in the Persian Gulf region, the official said.
"This is all about Iran," said the official, who spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity because discussions with the Saudis are still going on and the arms sale deal has not been completed.
Israel is expected to raise objections to the arms package, and has expressed concerns about previous Saudi arms deals.
The official said the Bush administration is mindful that Israel must maintain its "qualitative edge" in the region.
, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman.
One of the more controversial proposals will probably be selling the Saudis, for the first time, satellite-guided bombs known as JDAMs.
Other elements under discussion are new naval vessels, an advanced version of air-to-air missiles already used by the United States, and advanced Patriot missiles.
The proposed sale is expected to be a major topic of discussion next week when U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice meet with Saudi officials.
The sale would have to be approved by Congress.
At about 9 a.m., a cart driven by one of the workers hit the elevator doors on the third level of the stadium, opening the doors to the shaft, and then the cart moved forward and fell onto an elevator below, officials said.
The men were rescued by fire crews and transported to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.
One man was in critical condition with head and chest injuries, and another man, who was inside the elevator, was in stable condition with head and arm injuries, police spokeswoman Officer Yolanda Dawkins said.
"The door is approximately 7 feet wide, and the cart was big enough to hit it and somehow open the door and the cart went through," said Dominic Verdi, deputy commissioner of the city Department of Licenses and Inspections.
"This is not something that is a mechanical error. This is an accident.
Aramark did not release the names of the injured workers.
"We are deeply saddened by the injuries suffered by the employees," Aramark spokeswoman Kathleen Keenan said in a statement. "Our thoughts and prayers are with them and their families at this difficult time.
"We will continue to work with the appropriate officials to investigate this situation.
Security officers were stationed outside elevator doors during Saturday night's game between the Phillies and Pittsburgh Pirates, said Danny Williams, spokesman for the fire department.
Sixty-nine miners have been trapped in a flooded central Chinese coal mine operating above its design capacity, state media reported on Monday.
Thirty-three people had managed to escape the state-owned mine, operated by Zhijian Mining, Xinhua news agency said.
China's coal industry is the world's deadliest, killing an average of 13 people a day last year. Most of the deaths occur in private unregulated mines.
The Zhijian mine, which was founded in 1958 during the Great Leap forward, has a designed annual production capacity of 210,000 tonnes, but actually produces 300,000 tonnes every year, Xinhua said
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2809293
First came the world's largest ketchup bottle.
Now this southern Illinois community is after the record for the world's largest ketchup packet.
Collinsville has partnered with the H.J. Heinz Co. to fill an 8-foot-tall, 4-foot-wide plastic pouch with 1,500 pounds of the tomato goop for a school fundraiser.
"That's a lot of ketchup," said Tracey Parsons, a Heinz spokeswoman.
Proceeds will go to the Collinsville Christian Academy, which was damaged by a fire this week.
Hundreds in the city, home to a 170-foot-tall water tower touted as the "World's Largest Catsup Bottle," showed up Saturday to participate in the ketchup filling and other fundraising activities.
The giant packet will be sealed and kept in Collinsville, once home to a ketchup factory, for a few days before being taken to the Pittsburgh-based company's headquarters.
Celebratory gunfire erupted across the capital Sunday when Iraq's soccer team won the Asian Cup, in a 1-0 shutout against champions Saudi Arabia.
An Iraqi woman who was among military workers watching the game from a U.S.-Iraqi military base labeled the team members "heroes.
"This is our victory," said the woman, who was interviewed by CNN but would not allow her face to appear on camera because of security concerns. Iraqi state television showed the players, draped in Iraqi flags, hoisting pewter cups aloft as they reached out for the main trophy held by a player on a dais that had been set up in the field.
Confetti filled the air and fireworks lit up the night sky after the game, which was played in Jakarta.
The Iraqi team's players ran a victory lap around the field before posing for photographs.
The team is scheduled to return Wednesday to Baghdad, where they will be greeted by government officials and awarded a special gift from the prime minister, Jaafar said.
During the past week, as the Iraqis ascended to the finals, dozens of people died in soccer-related violence, some from celebratory gunfire and some from attacks.
down on security in Baghdad.
Spaniard Alberto Contador of the Discovery Channel team has won the Tour de France after finishing safe in the main pack in Sunday's last stage won by Italian Daniele Bennati.
The Lampre rider won the bunch sprint on the Champs-Elysees at the end of the 146km 20th stage from Marcoussis to Paris.
Norway's Thor Hushovd of Credit Agricole was second with German Erik Zabel third for the Milram team.
Australian Cadel Evans of the Predictor Lotto team finished second overall, 23 seconds behind Contador, whose American team-mate Levi Leipheimer was third 31 seconds off the pace.
It is the second smallest winning margin on the Tour since Greg LeMond beat Laurent Fignon by eight seconds in 1989.
I had to fight but it was worth it, it's marvellous," the Spaniard told French TV channel France 2.
The 94th edition of the Tour was marred by doping scandals.
Kazakh Alexander Vinokourov failed a blood doping test and was sent packing with his Astana team. The Cofidis team also pulled out of the race following Italian Cristian Moreni's positive test for testosterone. Dane Michael Rasmussen was sacked by his Rabobank team for lying about his training whereabouts and left the Tour when he was the race leader.
Some riders, including Italian Alessandro Ballan, took a last opportunity to shine by breaking away during the eight laps of the Champs-Elysees that also took the riders on the Quai des Tuileries, Rue de Rivoli and Place de la Concorde.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2809216
President Bush, starting a new relationship late in his presidency, welcomed British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Sunday with casual diplomacy.
In the tranquility of the Catoctin Mountains, Bush and Brown began their brief meeting Sunday night and Monday at Camp David, with an emphasis on private time between the two. Their substantive agenda is familiar:
terror threats, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, crisis in Darfur, stalled trade.
Yet the overarching theme is rapport and establishing some.
Bush is aiming for at least a solid relationship with Brown, shaped around their nations' mutual interests.
That much is expected, but it is far from the kinship Bush had with Brown's predecessor, Tony Blair, who lost favor at home because of his close ties to Bush. Brown arrived by helicopter at Camp David after booming thunderstorms gave way to sunshine.
"It's a great pleasure to be here at Camp David because there's so much history associated with it," Brown told Bush as the leaders exchanged small talk.
En route to the United States, the new British leader said the world is indebted to the United States for taking the lead in the fight against terrorism.
Brown said he would use his visit to strengthen what Britain considers its "most important bilateral relationship.
Brown denied speculation that Britain's relationship with the U.S. was cooling.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's conservative ruling camp suffered a devastating defeat in upper house elections on Sunday, a result that could well force Abe to quit and paralyze policy-making.
"I would like to steadily proceed with education reform and revising the constitution," NHK quoted Abe as saying.
"If the outcome is in line with projections, it was a complete defeat," Hidenao
Abe's coalition will not be ousted from government by a loss in the upper house, since it has a huge majority in the more powerful lower chamber, which elects the premier.
But, with the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan on track to become the biggest party in the chamber, laws will be hard to enact, threatening policy deadlock.
revising the constitution, but the Democrats have been saying that people's everyday lives should come first. I think those policies should be prioritized," said Hirofumi Nemoto, 48, a newspaper seller in Chiba, who said he voted for the Democratic Party.
KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) Taliban leaders said on Sunday their fighters would kill 22 remaining South Korean hostages if the Afghan government did not release rebel prisoners by a new deadline of 0730 GMT on Monday, a spokesman said.
Taliban spokesman Qari Mohammad Yousuf said the deadline had been set by the Taliban leadership council, headed by elusive leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, giving the threat added weight.
"Since the talks between us, the Kabul administration and Korean government have reached deadlock and they are not honest ... hence, we will start killing the hostages if they do not start releasing our prisoners by tomorrow at 12 o'clock," Yousuf told Reuters by telephone from an unknown location.
the Afghan government and South Korean diplomats on one side and Taliban rebels on the other have continually snagged over the rebel demand for Kabul to swap jailed insurgents for the Koreans.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has previously ruled out any deal with the Taliban after coming under harsh criticism for freeing five rebel prisoners in exchange for the release of an Italian hostage in March.
In his first comments on the latest hostage case, Karzai condemned the kidnapping, but did not say whether any deal might be possible.
"Hostage-taking and the abuse of foreign guests, especially women, is against Islam and Afghan culture and the perpetration of this heinous act on our soil is in total contempt of our Islamic and Afghan values," a spokesman quoted him as saying.
In his first comments on the latest hostage case, Karzai condemned the kidnapping, but did not say whether any deal might be possible.
An Afghan minister said on Saturday force might be used if talks
KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) Taliban rebels on Sunday ruled out more talks with the Afghan government over their remaining 22 South Korean hostages and said the release of militant prisoners was the only way out of the crisis.
An Afghan team that was supposed to have held more talks with the Taliban on Saturday could not reach the group because of security concerns in Ghazni province, provincial sources said.
The team hoped to persuade the insurgents to free without condition the Christian volunteers they kidnapped from a bus 10 days ago in Ghazni, south of Kabul.
A deputy interior minister on Saturday told Reuters that force might be used if talks fail.
Qari Mohammad Yousuf, a Taliban spokesman, on Sunday warned against use of force and pressed for the freedom of the rebel prisoners as the main condition for the release of the Koreans.
We have given the government a list of Taliban prisoners who should be released and that is our main demand," he told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location.
"The government needs to deliberate on it and if it wants to use force, then it will jeopardize the lives of the hostages and the Taliban will resist till the last gasp of their breath," he added.
Congress sent President Bush legislation Friday to intensify anti-terror efforts in the U.S., shifting money to high-risk states and cities and expanding screening of air and sea cargo to stave off future September 11-style attacks.
The measure carries out major recommendations of the independent 9/11 Commission.
The bill, passed by the House on a 371-40 vote, ranks among the top accomplishments of the six-month-old Democratic Congress.
The Senate approved the measure late Thursday by 85-8, and the White House said the president would sign the bill.
"It takes a willingness to do things a different way.
The bill elevates the importance of risk factors in determining which states and cities get federal security funds that would mean more money for such cities as New York and Washington and also puts money into a new program to assure that security officials at every level can communicate with each other.
Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman, I-Connecticut, who steered the legislation through the Senate with Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said it would "make our nation stronger, our cities and towns more secure and our families safer.
Republicans generally backed the bill while stressing their own administration's success in stopping another major terrorist attack.
The bill, said Rep. Peter King of New York, top Republican on the Homeland Security panel, "is another step in the right direction building on the steps of the previous 51/2 years.
"These efforts build upon the considerable progress we've made over the past six years," said White House spokesman Scott Stanzel.
Another goal, raising the minimum wage, went into effect last Tuesday, and Democratic leaders still hope for agreement on ethics and lobbying changes before Congress departs for its August recess at the end of next week.
Democrats, after taking over control of Congress, promised to make completing the list a top priority.
House-Senate negotiators finally reached an agreement this week after Democrats worked out a provision satisfying GOP demands that people who report what they in good faith believe to be terrorist activity around planes, trains and buses be protected from lawsuits.
Supporters argue that the unthinkable devastation from the detonation of a nuclear device in an American port makes it imperative to scan cargo before it reaches U.S. shores. As a compromise, it was agreed that the Homeland Security secretary can extend the five-year deadline for 100 percent scanning in two-year increments if necessary.
The massive legislation also contains language requiring the president to confirm that Pakistan is making progress in combatting al Qaeda and Taliban elements within its borders before the United States provides aid to the country.
Hamilton said that one shortcoming of the bill is that it
NASA said Friday it was going to take immediate action after a report raised safety questions about astronauts drinking before flying missions. The space agency said astronauts flew drunk at on at least two occasions, despite warnings from doctors and colleagues that they posed a flight risk.
According to the report, released earlier Friday, interviews with flight surgeons and astronauts "identified some episodes of heavy use of alcohol by astronauts in the immediate preflight period.
Dale said the agency would act immediately on reports of alcohol use, conduct an internal safety review and then "recommend corrective actions."
GHAZNI, Afghanistan The remaining 22 South Koreans kidnapped by the Taliban in Afghanistan are alive, the Afghan deputy interior minister said on Friday, hours after the passing of the latest deadline set by the group.
"They are alive and fine," Munir Mangal, who also heads an Afghan team trying to secure the freedom of the Christian hostages, told reporters in Ghazni.
He said an Afghan delegation was holding talks with the Taliban and had appealed to the group to not issue further deadlines as the government was keen to resolve the crisis "peacefully".
He did not say if the Taliban had accepted the delegation's appeal.
Earlier, a provincial official in Ghazni where the captives are believed to be held, said the Taliban had again extended the mid Friday Afghan time deadline to allow face-to-face talks with the delegation.
The Taliban could not be reached for comment about the fate of the captives and about the reported talks and extension of the ultimatum.
The Taliban spokesman said Afghan authorities had asked for more time after the insurgents presented the government
with a list of eight prisoners it wanted released.
One German and four Afghans snatched separately are also still being held hostage by the Taliban.
Daisy Valdivia is annoyed that someone stole her backyard pool and baffled at how they did it without leaving behind a splash, drip or trace of the 1,000 gallons of water it contained.
Valdivia awoke to find her family's hip-high, inflatable, 10-foot diameter swimming pool gone from her back yard Wednesday.
She's amazed someone could steal the pool that quickly and just wanted to know "what the heck they did with the water," she said.
"We have two grills, chairs, umbrellas , they're much easier to take," she told the paper.
Spectacle Island has a swimming beach, five miles of walking trails dotted with gazebos, and a panoramic vista from the highest point in Boston Harbor.
A five-year, $180 million project buried the waste dump under 6 million tons of dirt and gravel from Boston's Big Dig highway project to create this 105-acre oasis.
Easily accessible via a 10-minute ferry ride from the city, it's now advertised as the harbor's jewel and touted as a "green" park for its solar-powered facilities and compost toilet system.
"It was an eyesore in Boston Harbor that has been turned into something beautiful," said Beth Jackendoff, a park ranger who lives on the island part-time.
"Not only does it have some of the best views you're gonna get in Boston, but it's something that we're going to be able to learn from. It has a theme of reclaiming something.
Wes Austin, a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, thought it would be the perfect place to bring his mother and sister visiting from San Diego.
"It's different, it's close, and there's more nature than you can find in the city," said Austin, 26, of Boston.
At 157 feet above sea level, the spot towers over neighboring islands and boasts a view spanning Boston's skyline and the 40 miles between Salem to the north and the Blue Hills Reservation to the south.
Fishing, hiking, swimming and bird watching are common at one of Boston's best-kept secrets. But most people are there to appreciate Spectacle Island's spectacular views.
Rasmussen's expulsion came just one day after another favorite, Alexander Vinokourov tested positive for blood doping.
The Kazakh's entire Astana team also withdrew from the race.
"The Tour is dead," read the headline in Liberation as the French newspaper said it would no longer publish the daily stage results ahead of Sunday's finish in Paris.
Germany's Bild newspaper said Sunday's arrival in Paris would be a "funeral procession.
They have to begin from zero in order to save the sport, to present to our children new role models.
Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme told reporters Rasmussen's eviction by his team was "the best piece of news we've had in the last eight days" as the race continued on Thursday without a rider in the overall leader's yellow jersey.
"The race will go on for the rest of the riders and we believe it would be an insult to them to stop the race... The majority of the riders are not cheating. And things are changing," said Prudhomme.
A black Labrador retriever who searched for survivors in smoking debris after September 11 and flooded rubble after Hurricane Katrina has died after battling cancer.
Owner Mary Flood had 12-year-old Jake put to sleep Wednesday after a last stroll through the fields and a dip in the creek near their home in Oakley, Utah.
Flood said Jake had been in pain, shaking with a 105-degree fever as he lay on the lawn.
But scientists who have spent years studying the health of September 11 search-and-rescue dogs have found no sign of major illness in the animals.
the largest study conducted of about 20,000 ground zero workers reported last year that 70 percent of patients suffer respiratory disease years after the cleanup.
The results of an autopsy on Jake's body will be part of a medical study on the September 11 dogs that was started by the University of Pennsylvania more than five years ago.
Flood eventually trained Jake to become one of fewer than 200 U.S. government-certified rescue dogs an animal on 24-hour call to tackle disasters such as building collapses, earthquakes, hurricanes and avalanches.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2807358
For a cartoon comedy dependent on how much ruination one homely yellow family can cause, there's an awful lot of drama behind "The Simpsons.
Some predict the big-screen "The Simpsons Movie," opening Friday, will be similarly disappointing.
That's generally taken as a sign that the movie is a stinker, though not always.
Might the same hold true for the first cinematic adventure of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie Simpson?
Fox screened the movie over the weekend for a small group of entertainment reporters. The film delivered some laughs, but it certainly did not bring the house down.
Homer dumps waste from his new pet pig into an already polluted lake, causing an environmental crisis that prompts President Schwarzenegger and his evil aide (Albert Brooks) to seal off the town.
Among the writers were such series veterans as Mike Scully, John Swartzwelder, David Mirkin and Jon Vitti. Watch Groening talk about the fun of cartoon violence &raquo;
Everybody or almost everybody who ran the show or was there at the beginning took part in the first meeting for the movie," Brooks said.
Thoughts of a feature film go back as far as 1992, when "The Simpsons" overseers considered expanding an episode about Krusty the Klown's summer camp into a movie.
After beginning as a series of short animated segments on "The Tracey Ullman Show," "The Simpsons" debuted as a half-hour sitcom during the 1989-90 season on the struggling new Fox network.
The show quickly became a cultural sensation, with omnipresent merchandising, voices by Hollywood A-list guest stars and critics that included President George H.W. Bush, who complained that America needed to be more like "The Waltons" and less like "The Simpsons. "
What made "The Simpsons" so compelling?
Everyone in my view comes from a family like the Simpsons.
Then there was the idea of a cartoon show with all the goofiness kids like laced with snappy, sophisticated, risque dialogue and gags for older crowds.
"You had a veteran like James Brooks who came from writing smart sitcoms (such as 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show' and 'Taxi') and brought that same sensibility now to writing for a cartoon show. That had never been done.
"When it comes to doing the show, there are things we were able to do with Bart five years ago that we're no longer able to do anymore," Brooks said.
The movie is rated PG-13 for "irreverent humor throughout.
Trailers gave away clues to the story line, but the filmmakers and studio have been obsessively diligent about keeping details secret. Groening said he wants viewers to go into theaters the same way most sit down for a weekly episode of "The Simpsons.
The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 311.50 points, or 2.26 percent, to close at 13,473.57.
The Standard & Poor's 500 Index was down 35.43 points, or 2.33 percent, at 1,482.66.
The Nasdaq Composite Index was down 48.83 points, or 1.84 percent, at 2,599.34.
The U.S. space agency NASA on Thursday confirmed it had discovered the apparent sabotage of a noncritical component of the international space station due to be carried up by the space shuttle Endeavour.
Endeavour, fresh from a complete overhaul and the last of NASA's three remaining shuttles to return to flight following the 2003 Columbia disaster, is due to carry out a construction mission to the $100-billion space station.
Endeavour was almost totally rebuilt during its overhaul and was like a new space shuttle, shuttle program manager Wayne Hale told reporters at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where the launch will take place.
Endeavour's seven crew members include teacher-astronaut Barbara Morgan, who trained 22
Endeavour will be carrying a new support beam for the half-finished space station and a replacement gyroscope needed to help the outpost maintain its position in space.
Among the shuttle's upgrades is a new system that will enable the spacecraft to tap into the station's electrical system and stay longer at the outpost. If the power transfer system works properly, NASA plans to extend Endeavour's mission from 11 to 14 days.
That will allow time for the crew to finish extra work preparing the orbital outpost for the arrival later this year and next year of laboratories built by Europe and Japan.
Nearly 5,000 store owners, managers and business executives have been arrested since the government began its campaign to slash prices last month, state media reported Thursday.
Already scarce staple foods, gasoline and many basics have disappeared from shelves because store owners say they can't afford to sell at the new low prices.
The Herald newspaper said that at least 23 owners and managers of shops and gasoline stations had been arrested for overcharging Wednesday, bringing the total to 4,926.
Most of those arrested among them several of the country's top businessmen have been briefly jailed.
Foreign investment, loans and development aid to Zimbabwe have dried up amid years of political and economic turmoil after Mugabe's government began often-violent seizures of thousands of white-owned farms in 2000.
Mugabe rejects criticism that the meltdown is the result of mismanagement and instead blames Western sanctions.
The U.S. military on Thursday reported eight recent troop deaths in Iraq.
A U.S. soldier from Multi-National Division-Baghdad was killed Wednesday "during a small-arms fire engagement" in southern Baghdad, the military said.
Also, a soldier in the Diyala capital of Baquba died Tuesday of wounds from a roadside bomb.
Diyala province is the sprawling territory northeast of Baghdad on the border with Iran.
A soldier was killed Tuesday in Baghdad when a roadside bomb detonated during clearing operations, the military said.
The U.S. military death toll since the war began in 2003 stands at 3638;
seven civilian employees of the Defense Department have also been killed.
In other violence, at least 26 people were killed and at least 75 were wounded Thursday when a car bomb detonated in the main street of central Baghdad's Karrada district, Iraq's Interior Ministry said.
At least one building and several cars were burning after the blast in the predominantly Shiite district, Reuters news agency reported.
A suicide bomber in northern Iraq killed six people, including five police officers. The bomber detonated an explosives belt at a checkpoint in Tal Abta, about 55 miles west of Mosul, police said.
Thirteen people, including 10 police officers, were were wounded.
It cited a special panel studying astronaut health, which found "heavy use of alcohol" before launch that was within the standard 12-hour "bottle-to-throttle" rule, according to Aviation Week & Space Technology.
NASA's space operations chief, Bill Gerstenmaier, said Thursday it would be inappropriate for him to discuss the matter before the report is released on Friday.
"There's not been a disciplinary action or anything I've been involved with regarding this type of activity," he said.
In Washington, the chairman of the House Science and Technology committee said he hadn't seen the report, "but if the reports of drunken astronauts being allowed to fly prove to be true, I think the agency will have a lot of explaining to do.
"That's not the 'right stuff' as far as I'm concerned," said Bart Gordon, D-Tennessee.
A federal judge Thursday ordered the government to pay more than $101 million in the case of four men who spent decades in prison for a 1965 murder they didn't commit after the FBI withheld evidence of their innocence.
The FBI encouraged perjury, helped frame the four men and withheld for more than three decades information that could have cleared them, U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner said in issuing her ruling Thursday.
She called the government's argument that the FBI had no duty to get involved in the state case "absurd.
Peter Limone, Joseph Salvati and the families of the two other men who died in prison had sued the federal government for malicious prosecution.
They said Barboza was protecting a fellow FBI informant, Vincent "Jimmy" Flemmi, who was involved.
A Justice Department lawyer had argued that federal authorities couldn't be held responsible for the results of a state prosecution and had no duty to share information with the officials who prosecuted Limone, Salvati, Henry Tameleo and Louis Greco.
Gertner ordered the government to pay $101.7 million.
"It's been a long time coming," said Limone, who served 33 years in prison before he was freed in 2001. "What I've been through I hope it never happens to anyone else.
Local tribal elders and religious clerics who have respect among the people of Qarabagh district, where the Taliban kidnapped the South Koreans, have been conducting negotiations with the captors for several days.
The negotiations have been held over the telephone, said Ghazni police chief Ali Shah Ahmadzai.
"We will not use force against the militants to free the hostages," Ahmadzai said. "The best way in this case is dialogue.
Waheedullah Mujadidi, who heads the delegation, complained that the Taliban were not being consistent during the negotiations.
The Taliban at one point demanded that 23 jailed militants be freed in exchange for the Koreans. It is not clear how many militants the Taliban want freed or which ones.
Qari Yousef Ahmadi, who claims to speak for the hard-line Islamist Taliban, said they had been contacted by Afghanistan's deputy interior minister, Maj. Gen. Muhammad Munir Mangal, who said the government would make a decision regarding the militants' demands by noon Friday.
"If Kabul administration does not solve our problem ... then we do not have any option but to kill Korean hostages," Ahmadi said. "The Taliban are not asking for money.
When they release the Taliban, we will release the hostages," Ahmadi said by phone from an undisclosed location.
Ahmadi said the 22 hostages were being held in small groups in different locations and were being fed "the same food that our villagers have _ bread, yogurt, rice.
Because of a recent spike in kidnappings of foreigners including an attempt against a Danish citizen Wednesday Afghan police announced that foreigners were no longer allowed to leave the Afghan capital without their permission.
Two Germans were also kidnapped last week.
In the fighting in southern Afghanistan, coalition forces and Afghan troops hit buildings in Helmand province that militants have been using to launch attacks.
More than 50 Taliban were killed and several others were wounded in a 12-hour gunbattle.
"Coalition air support dropped two bombs on the compounds with the greatest concentration of insurgents," the coalition said.
The clash occurred near the village of Musa Qala, where a peace deal struck last year with local elders effectively ceded control of the area to Taliban fighters.
In neighboring Kandahar province, a clash left 10 suspected militants and one policemen dead, said Sayed Afghan Saqib, Kandahar provincial police chief.
A NATO soldier was killed following a clash with militants in southern Afghanistan, the alliance said.
A suicide car bomber, meanwhile, detonated himself near a NATO convoy in Kandahar, but there were no injuries among the troops, said Lt. Desmond James, a Canadian officer at the scene.
Violence has risen sharply in Afghanistan in the last two months.
A powerful earthquake rocked eastern Indonesia on Thursday, sending residents fleeing from swaying homes and hospitals, authorities and witnesses said.
There were no immediate reports of damage.
The quake, which had a preliminary magnitude of 7, triggered a tsunami warning but the alert was quickly lifted after it became clear no destructive waves had been generated, the country's geophysics agency said.
The earthquake struck under the Maluku Sea at a depth of 20 miles, the U.S. Geological Survey said on its Web site. The quake's epicenter was more than 130 miles north of Ternate city.
"We felt a strong tremor for almost a minute, people ran in panic from buildings, said George Rajaloa, a resident in Ternate.
"Children are crying and their mothers are screaming, but there is no damage in my area.
Indonesia, the world's largest archipelago, is prone to seismic upheaval due to its location on the so-called Pacific "Ring of Fire," an arc of volcanoes and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.
In December 2004, a massive earthquake struck off Sumatra island and triggered a tsunami that killed more than 230,000 people in a dozen countries, including 160,000 people in Indonesia's westernmost province of Aceh.
Just over a year ago, another quake-generated tsunami killed around 600 people on Java island.
A federal judge on Wednesday ordered Sudan to pay nearly $8 million to the families of 17 sailors killed in the 2000 terrorist attack on the USS Cole.
The families had sought $105 million, but U.S. District Judge Robert G. Doumar in Norfolk ordered Sudan to pay $7.96 million.
Doumar applied the Death on the High Seas Act, which permits compensation for economic losses but not for pain and suffering.
"It is depressing to realize that a country organized on a religious basis with religious rule of law could and would execute its power for purposes which most countries would find intolerable and loathsome," Doumar wrote in his ruling.
"It is a further tragedy that the laws of the United States, in this instance, provide no remedy for the psychological and emotional losses suffered by the survivors.
The families accused Sudan's government of providing support, including money and training, that allowed al Qaeda to attack the Cole while it was in the harbor of Aden, Yemen, on October 12, 2000.
In March, Doumar found the African country liable for the attack on the now-repaired Navy destroyer.
"I was a little bit disappointed in the overall ruling, because we figured we was going to get more, but I'm happy that that part of the case is over," said Lorrie Triplett, 39, of Suffolk, Virginia, whose husband, Andrew, died on the Cole.
Lawyers representing the Sudanese government did not offer opening statements or closing arguments or question any witnesses.
"Over the past several months, many travelers who applied for a passport did not receive their document in time for their planned travel. I deeply regret that," says Assistant Secretary of State Maura Harty, who is in charge of passports for U.S. citizens.
In an effort to thwart terrorists, the government implemented new rules on January 23 requiring more Americans to have passports.
By summer, more than 2 million Americans were waiting for passports;
half a million had waited more than three months since applying for the travel identification that historically has been ready in six weeks.
The massive backlog has destroyed summer vacations, ruined wedding and honeymoon plans, disrupted business meetings and educational trips.
And Congress has been overwhelmed as constituent pleas for passport help soared from dozens a year to hundreds a month in many offices.
The culprits have variously been identified as inept planning, underfunded preparations, popular misunderstanding of poorly crafted government advertising, unanticipated effects of public debate over immigration, tardy and ill-considered responses to the developing crisis, and even partly on Hurricane Katrina, which damaged the New Orleans processing office.
Poker champion Phil Laak has a good chance of winning when he sits down this week to play 2,000 hands of Texas Hold'em against a computer.
But it's only a matter of time before the machines take a commanding lead in the war for poker supremacy.
Just as they already have in backgammon, checkers and chess, computers are expected to surpass even the best human poker players within a decade.
After defeating an Alberta-designed program several years ago, Laak was so impressed that he estimated his edge at a mere 5 percent.
The two will be in separate rooms, and their games will be mirror images of one another, with Eslami getting the cards that the computer received in its hands against Laak, and vice versa.
The two-day contest, beginning Monday, takes place not at a casino, but at the annual conference of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Sierra Leone outlawed the capture and killing of chimpanzees on Wednesday, declaring a one-month amnesty for anyone keeping a chimp to hand it over to authorities.
"To provide the public sufficient time to surrender chimps in their possession a month's notice is hereby given for chimps to be handed over to the authorities.
The government of the war-ravaged West African nation has established a refuge at Charlotte on the outskirts of the coastal capital Freetown to take in chimps from the public.
Ecologists say Sierra Leone's wild chimpanzee population has declined dramatically from around 20,000 in the 1970s as a result of hunting, incursions on their territory and the trade in pets and animals for scientific research.
Sierra Leone's 1991-2002 civil war, during which drug-fuelled rebels of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) hacked limbs off civilians, drove many of its 6 million inhabitants from the countryside.
Conservationists say that wildlife populations, including chimpanzees, recovered as a result of rural depopulation caused by the war, but the return of villagers after a 2002 peace deal has resulted in the destruction of habitat, more hunting, and trapping of rare animals for sale overseas.
Lebanese troops advanced towards fortified positions of Islamist militants at a Palestinian refugee camp on Wednesday in what political sources said was the start of a final assault to root out the gunmen.
"This is the final phase of the military operation," one Lebanese political source said, adding that he expected the army to capture the whole camp by the end of this week.
The source said there were about 100 people left inside the area controlled by Fatah al-Islam 60 fighters and 40 civilians who include 24 wives of militants and 16 children. Palestinian and U.N. officials had earlier put the number of civilians left in the hundreds.
The Lebanese source said some 200 civilians had left the camp in recent days.
The fighting, which began on May 20, is Lebanon's worst internal violence since the 1975-1990 civil war.
"At its heaviest shortly after dawn, some 20 shells a minute were hitting the camp," said one witness who watched the fighting from a distance. "It was deafening.
German actor Ulrich Muehe, whose haunting portrayal of an East German secret police agent in the Oscar-winning drama "The Lives of Others" won him international renown, has died at the age of 54, his family says.
Muehe, who grew up in the former communist state and saw his own early career marred by Stasi informants, told German newspapers this month that he was suffering from stomach cancer.
He was a veteran of German theatre and had roles in more than thirty domestic and foreign films, but will be remembered internationally for playing Gerd Wiesler, the bald Stasi officer in the film that won a best foreign language Oscar in February.
five years before the fall of the Berlin Wall, Muehe's character is ordered by his Stasi superiors to spy on a prominent playwright who has fallen out of favor with the communist party.
He sets up shop in the attic of the author's building after wiring his telephone and apartment, but after weeks of listening in on his daily life, finds himself sympathizing with his target.
It has been nearly 18 years since the Berlin Wall fell, but the film was credited as being the first to offer both an honest and compelling depiction of Stasi oppression.
Born in Grimma near Leipzig in eastern Germany, Muehe said his experience of living under communist rule had helped him portray the tragic Wiesler character.
This year's Tour de France has taken a disastrous turn after race leaer Michael Rasmussen was sensationally kicked out by his own Rabobank team.
However, the team has learnt that Rasmussen lied to them over where and what he was up to during the month of June when he was in fact in Italy and not in Mexico as he had told them.
Rasmussen had won two stages during the Tour, though, his presence at the race was questioned by several officials and from the race organisers as well.
Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme said: "The important thing is not that he has been sacked by his team but that he will not be at the start of the stage tomorrow."
"Several times he said where he was training and it proved to be wrong. The management of the team received that information several times and today we received new information."
"Wrongly reporting whereabouts is a flagrant violation of UCI rules and is unacceptable," the bank said.
The bank added that its board supported the decision to take Rasmussen off the race and to dismiss him.
At least three people were injured, hospital officials said.
The explosions set off bursts of flames and a billowing stack of black smoke that could be seen for miles.
It was just coming just boom, boom, boom," said witness Tony Love, a former Army soldier.
Car bombers targeted throngs of Iraqis on Wednesday as they spilled into Baghdad streets to cheer a national soccer victory, killing at least 50 people and leaving scores more wounded.
Attacking revelers in the Mansour district of western Baghdad, a suicide car bomber killed at least 30 people and wounded 75, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said.
Later, in the southeastern neighborhood of Ghadir, a second car bomb killed at least 20 and wounded at least 60, the official said.
The attack is near an Iraqi army checkpoint.
Thousands of fans had filled the streets of the capital after Iraqi athletes competing in Malaysia defeated South Korea, catapulting the nation to the Asian Cup finals for the first time.
In addition to the dual Baghdad bombings, random gunfire across the capital led to the deaths of two people and the wounding of 12, the ministry said.
There had been street violence Saturday after Iraq won its quarterfinal game.
Three people died and 25 were wounded during raucous celebrations in which people fired guns into the air.
Iraq and Saudi Arabia play for the championship in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Sunday.
Meanwhile, the top U.S. commander in charge of troops in northern Iraq says that a coalition troop presence will be needed in his region over the next year and a half.
But Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon told CNN on Wednesday that it is possible the number of troops in the north could drop by sometime next year.
The numbers will depend on the situation," said Mixon, who has 23,000 troops under his command.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy met Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi on Wednesday on a trip to deepen relations after helping to resolve a diplomatic standoff that hurt the oil exporter's ties with the West.
Libyan officials said the two countries would sign an accord on cooperation on a military-industrial partnership and another to activate what they called a previous agreement on cooperation on the peaceful uses of nuclear energy.
Sarkozy, who met Gaddafi in a tent in the compound of his Tripoli residence, has said he wants to help Libya return to the "concert of nations" after it freed six foreign medics convicted of infecting hundreds of Libyan children with HIV.
The medics five Bulgarians and a Palestinian left Libya on Tuesday on a French plane accompanied by Sarkozy's wife, clearing the way for a visit by the president.
"I am happy to be in your country to talk about the future," Sarkozy wrote in a book at Gaddafi's residence.
"There will be the signing of an agreement on cooperation on a military-industrial partnership," Libyan Foreign Minister Mohammed Abdel-Rahman Shalgam told reporters shortly before Sarkozy and Gaddafi met.
Libya ended decades of international isolation in 2003 when it agreed to halt a weapons program prohibited by the United Nations and pay compensation for the bombing of a U.S. airliner over Scotland in 1988 in which 270 people were killed.
French-Libyan relations, which had been warm in the 1970s, hit a low during the UTA dispute and French officials spoke of a new era after the compensation deal.
KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) One of 23 South Koreans held hostage in Afghanistan by the Taliban has been killed, and militants have threatened to execute 14 others, a local official and a Taliban spokesman told CNN on Wednesday.
Eight hostages have been released, a South Korean official in Washington said.
Police in southeastern Ghazni province confirmed that the dead man's bullet-riddled body was found in the Qara Bagh district, where the Koreans were kidnapped July 19.
"We found a male dead body of a South Korean who has got 10 bullet holes in his body, bullet holes from head to toe," said provincial police chief Gen. Ali Shah Ahmadzai.
Khawaja Mohammad Siddiqi, the district governor of Qara Bagh, told CNN the executed hostage had been very ill and could not be moved to hospital.
The 14 hostages still being held could be executed by early morning Thursday if demands by Taliban militants aren't met, said Taliban spokesman Qari Mohammad Yousif Ahmadi.
The South Korean was killed, said Ahmadi, because the Taliban's demands of a prisoner release and withdrawal of South Korean troops from Afghanistan were not met.
"Since Kabul's administration did not listen to our demand and did not free our prisoners, the Taliban shot dead a male Korean hostage," Ahmadi said.
"That time is the last deadline," he told Reuters.
Ahmadi told CNN it is likely that the remaining hostages would be killed by 1 a.m. Thursday (
30 p.m. ET Wednesday) if those demands are not answered.
The 23 church volunteers 18 women and five men were seized on the main road south from Kabul last week.
Meanwhile, a German journalist kidnapped in eastern Afghanistan has been freed, the Kunar province governor told CNN.
Qari Mohammad Yousif Ahmadi told CNN it was probable that the remaining hostages would be killed by 1 a.m. Thursday local time (2030 GMT) if the demands weren't met.
Khawaja Mohammad Siddiqi, the district governor of Qara Bagh, said the executed hostage had been very ill and could not be moved to hospital.
Siddiqi said the Taliban were holding the remaining Korean hostages in three different locations.
The 23 church volunteers 18 women and five men were seized on the main road south from Kabul last week.
CNN was unable to confirm the report.
Speaking earlier by telephone to Reuters, Yousif warned the Taliban's latest demand for the release of prisoners in exchange for the remaining hostages was the "last deadline.
"Since Kabul's administration did not listen to our demand and did not free our prisoners, the Taliban shot dead a male Korean hostage," Yousif said.
GHAZNI, Afghanistan (CNN) Afghanistan's Taliban killed one of the 23 South Korean hostages on Wednesday after Kabul failed to free Taliban prisoners, a spokesman for the group said, adding insurgents would kill more if their demands were not met.
"Since Kabul's administration did not listen to our demand and did not free our prisoners, the Taliban shot dead a male Korean hostage," Qari Mohammad Yousuf told Reuters by phone from an unknown location. CNN was unable to confirm the report.
Earlier Yousuf had told Reuters that patience was running out and said rebel prisoners must be freed by 0930 GMT on Wednesday.
The warning came as a German journalist and his Afghan translator were kidnapped in eastern Afghanistan overnight.
The Taliban seized two other Germans and five Afghans last week.
"We had assurance from the Koreans that Kabul will release Taliban prisoners in batches and we will reciprocate," Yousuf told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location.
"We gave them eight Taliban names and they should have been freed by 7 p.m. (1430 GMT) yesterday, but nothing happened ...
"The Koreans should put pressure on Kabul on this, for there is the risk that at any moment, any time something can happen to the hostages.
If by two o'clock today (0930 GMT), the Taliban are not freed, then some of them will probably be killed. Our patience is running out.
Both the Taliban and Afghan government officials had been hopeful of a breakthrough on Tuesday with a Korean delegation negotiating through the mediation of tribal elders.
The Taliban are demanding Seoul withdraw its 200 troops from Afghanistan, something the South Korean government said it had planned to do at the end of this year in any case.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has pledged not to swap prisoners for hostages after being heavily criticized for releasing five Taliban from jail in March in exchange for an Italian reporter.
The 23 Koreans church volunteers 18 women and five men were seized on the main road south from Kabul last week.
Two Germans were abducted in a nearby region a day before.
One of them was found dead, apparently shot by his captors, the other is still being held.
The German reporter and his Afghan translator seized overnight in Kunar province in eastern Afghanistan were trying to reach a village in the Saangar district, where civilians were reported to have been killed in a NATO air strike two weeks ago.
"The pair were abducted in Saangar district of Kunar by the enemies of Afghanistan," said the local governor's spokesman Shah Wasi Mangal.
The Taliban are demanding Germany withdraw its 3,000 troops from Afghanistan, something Berlin has
GHAZNI, Afghanistan (Reuters) Afghanistan's Taliban killed one of the 23 South Korean hostages on Wednesday after Kabul failed to free Taliban prisoners, a spokesman for the group said, adding insurgents would kill more if their demands were not met.
"Since Kabul's administration did not listen to our demand and did not free our prisoners, the Taliban shot dead a male Korean hostage," Qari Mohammad Yousuf told Reuters by phone from an unknown location. CNN was unable to confirm the report.
Earlier Yousuf had told Reuters that patience was running out and said rebel prisoners must be freed by 0930 GMT on Wednesday.
The warning came as a German journalist and his Afghan translator were kidnapped in eastern Afghanistan overnight.
The Taliban seized two other Germans and five Afghans last week.
"We had assurance from the Koreans that Kabul will release Taliban prisoners in batches and we will reciprocate," Yousuf told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location.
"We gave them eight Taliban names and they should have been freed by 7 p.m. (1430 GMT) yesterday, but nothing happened ...
"The Koreans should put pressure on Kabul on this, for there is the risk that at any moment, any time something can happen to the hostages.
If by two o'clock today (0930 GMT), the Taliban are not freed, then some of them will probably be killed. Our patience is running out.
GHAZNI, Afghanistan (Reuters) Afghanistan's Taliban killed one of the 23 South Korean hostages on Wednesday after Kabul failed to free Taliban prisoners, a spokesman for the group said, adding insurgents would kill more if their demands were not met.
"Since Kabul's administration did not listen to our demand and did not free our prisoners, the Taliban shot dead a male Korean hostage," Qari Mohammad Yousuf told Reuters by phone from an unknown location. CNN was unable to confirm the report.
Earlier Yousuf had told Reuters that patience was running out and said rebel prisoners must be freed by 0930 GMT on Wednesday.
The warning came as a German journalist and his Afghan translator were kidnapped in eastern Afghanistan overnight.
The Taliban seized two other Germans and five Afghans last week.
GHAZNI, Afghanistan (Reuters) Afghanistan's Taliban killed one of the 23 South Korean hostages on Wednesday after Kabul failed to free Taliban prisoners, a spokesman for the group said, adding insurgents would kill more if their demands were not met.
Although Beckham played for 12 minutes in his much-hyped Galaxy debut against Chelsea on Saturday, Yallop said the England midfielder needed more time to recover.
"He didn't train today and he is doubtful for tomorrow," Yallop told a news conference in Hollywood on Monday to launch the inaugural SuperLiga competition.
"He's getting normal ice treatment and a lot of massage to try and get the swelling down. His ankle is still a little bit tight, although it has improved over the last week.
But he needs to get to a point where he's comfortable.
"We will have another look in the morning and, if it looks really good, then you never know. He might come on toward the end. But realistically we will probably wait until the weekend.
The Galaxy are scheduled to host Pachuca at the Home Depot Center on Tuesday in their opening SuperLiga match before taking on Mexican club Guadalajara at the Los Angeles Coliseum on Saturday.
The SuperLiga, which offers $1 million to the inaugural champions, is an eight-team competition featuring four Major League Soccer sides from the U.S. and four teams from the Mexican first division.
KABUL, Afghanistan - A purported Taliban spokesman said Wednesday that negotiations for the lives of 23 South Korean hostages have stalled and that the militants planned to kill "a few" of the captives immediately.
Qari Yousef Ahmadi, who claims to speak for the militants, said the Afghan government hadn't responded to any of its demands and that between 11:30 a.m. (3 a.m. EDT) and 2 p.m. (5: 30 a.m. EDT) the militants would kill "a few" of the hostages.
Though some of Ahmadi's statements turn out to be true, he also has made repeated false claims, calling into question the reliability of his information.
Ali Shah Ahmadzai, the provincial police chief, said he thought talks had been on a positive track and said the new threat was a surprise.
"I don't know why they've suddenly changed their mind," Ahmadzai said. "My message to the Taliban is to use tolerance and be patient. This (killing hostages) is against the Afghan culture.
The South Korean hostages, including 18 women, were kidnapped last Thursday while riding a bus through Ghazni province on the Kabul-Kandahar highway, Afghanistan's main thoroughfare.
South Korean negotiators have traveled to Ghazni province to take part in the negotiations.
A German journalist and his Afghan translator have been kidnapped in Afghanistan's eastern province of Kunar, provincial officials said on Wednesday.
"The pair were kidnapped from a house en route to the village.
Afghanistan has seen a wave of kidnappings in the last week.
Taliban rebels are holding 23 South Korean Christians in Ghazni province, south of the capital Kabul.
Two German engineers were seized a week ago and one subsequently died, apparently killed by his Taliban captors.
Defending champion James Blake and top seed Andy Roddick won their opening matches in straight sets at the Indianapolis Championships on Tuesday.
Blake beat 2002 Australian Open champion Thomas Johansson 7-5 7-6 while Roddick, playing his first match since his five-set quarterfinal loss to Frenchman Richard Gasquet at Wimbledon, passed wildcard Alex Kuznetsov 6-4 6-0.
"Luckily I got a lot of confidence coming from the final in LA," Blake said. "I was able to go for my shots when set points down because I was able to have that confidence.
Blake broke Johansson's serve in the 11th game of the first set and then served out the set to love with an ace on the final point.
In contrast, Roddick never offered the 191st-ranked Kuznetsov an opportunity to break his serve.
"I actually don't think I served that well tonight, but I was playing clean tennis," said Roddick, who won the title in 2004 and 2005.
"(Clean tennis) means not a lot of unforced errors and I was pretty well putting the ball where I wanted it.
WASHINGTON (CNN) Don't worry too much, for now, about rising seas caused by melting ice in Greenland and Antarctica.
The big threat this century could come from small thawing glaciers, researchers reported Thursday.
Even though these glaciers contain only 1 percent of the water tied up in the great ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland, they could account for 60 percent of an anticipated rise in the world's sea level by the year 2100.
Sea-level rise is seen as a key consequence of global warming, and much of the concern has focused on the big ice sheets that contain the vast majority of the world's ice.
Researchers writing in the online journal Science Express estimate melting glaciers, which are located all over the globe including in the tropics, could add between 4 and 10 inches to world sea level this century.
While this may not sound like much, consider that some 100 million people live within 3.3 vertical feet of sea level, said Mark Meier of the University of Colorado-Boulder, a lead author of the study.
"If we had almost a foot (of sea-level rise) just due to the small glaciers, add that to the amount due to the ice sheets, which could be appreciable by 2100, and add to that the ocean warming which will cause it to expand in volume, then we get a rise that we can't ignore," Meier said in a telephone interview.
Even a tiny amount of sea-level rise can make a vast inland incursion of water in flat coastal areas, as much or more than 100 times the distance inland as the height of the rise, he said.
Meier said the huge amounts of ice locked in Greenland and Antarctica hold the potential for "some really horrendous sea level rise" as much as 3.3 feet if they ever completely melt.
"Now don't ask me about 1,000 years from now," Meier said. "But for the next few generations we think that we should not ignore the little glaciers."
Islamist militants fired rockets into a northwestern Pakistani town on Wednesday, killing at least eight people and wounding nearly 40, police said, amid mounting violence along the Afghanistan frontier.
He said 31 civilians and seven policemen were wounded.
The attack came a day after a Pakistani Taliban leader blew himself up to avoid arrest by government forces near the Afghanistan border, officials said.
Abdullah Mehsud, 31, who spent more than 2 years in the Guantanamo Bay prison camp before his release a year ago, was second-in-command of a Pakistani Taliban group headed by Baitullah Mehsud.
Baitullah Mehsud's followers have kept up the fight against U.S., NATO and Afghan forces deep inside Afghanistan.
The army says it has killed at least 54 militants since Saturday evening, the same day U.S. President George W. Bush said he was "troubled" by intelligence reports suggesting al Qaeda was becoming entrenched in Pakistani tribal areas.
Britain's Foreign Secretary David Miliband was due to arrive in Islamabad on Wednesday from Kabul on his first trip abroad since Gordon Brown succeeded Tony Blair as prime minister.
"Afghanistan embodies some of the biggest challenges for foreign policy," Miliband said on Tuesday in Kabul. "The challenges and problems are manifold.
FORT MYERS, Florida (CNN) Mindy McCready is free on $1,000 bond after a weekend arrest on misdemeanor charges that she scratched her mother on the face during a scuffle and resisted sheriff's deputies, authorities said.
McCready's mother, Melody Inge, called Lee County sheriff's deputies shortly after 1 a.m. Saturday to report the 31-year-old country singer was intoxicated and causing a disturbance, an arrest report said.
The report said McCready scratched Inge on the face during the disturbance.
McCready denied attacking her mother and told the News-Press of Fort Myers that deputies used excessive force in the arrest.
A booking photo shows a cut on McCready's nose, which the arrest report said she suffered "as she continued to struggle and resist arrest.
"I was holding my baby at the time," said McCready of her 15-month-old son.
Sheriff's Sgt. Larry King said a deputy took McCready's baby and another wrestled McCready to the ground.
McCready had a hit in 1996 with "Guys Do It All the Time," but has struggled in recent years, beginning with a 2004 conviction for fraudulently obtaining prescription painkillers.
She was on probation for that offense when she was charged with driving under the influence in 2005.
A Circuit Court hearing on the probation violation charge is scheduled September 7 in Williamson County, a suburb of Nashville, Tennessee.
Neil Armstrong's 1969 lunar landing may have been a giant leap for mankind, but his big, bulky spacesuit made it look more like a slow shuffle.
For 40 years astronauts have been lumbering around space in the same heavy, energy-sapping suits &#8212;
and that is what Dava Newman, professor of aeronautics, astronautics and engineering systems at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wants to change.
Newman and her team of researchers have just unveiled a promising new prototype called the BioSuit:
a sleek, white, clingy outfit, whose revolutionary design has the potential to make astronauts feel as agile and au courant as Spider-Man.
The new anti-spacesuit spacesuit is made of an elastic, skintight material, lightweight enough to allow astronauts to walk, run or even scale mountains on a moon or planet's surface &#8212; acts that are physically impossible using NASA's current Tin Man-like designs.
it also keeps astronauts alive by creating what scientists call mechanical counter pressure, which balances out the vacuum pull of space.
The spacesuits worn today use gas pressurization &#8212;
The system works, but many scientists consider it to be out of date because it requires bulky equipment and a life support system that weighs almost 300 lbs.
The new suit creates the same kind of pressurized environment, simply by wrapping layers of specially patterned nylon and Spandex fabric tightly around the body, a method that Newman's been working on for seven years.
When the material is properly wrapped, according to maps of the wearer's body in motion, it creates a mobile, skeleton-like shell that protects and supports the astronaut.
When the new suits roll out, each one will be tailored to the individual astronaut and slipped on like a snug wetsuit &#8212;
To work, the BioSuit needs to exert close to one-third of the pressure exerted by the Earth's atmosphere, or 30 kilopascals (kPA).
So far, the suits have consistently given off only 20 kPA.
Movie-based video games are a lot like movie sequels:
The good news about Activision's "Transformers:
The Game" is that it will exceed expectations even among jaded gamers who bought horrible movie tie-ins such as "Ghost Rider" or "Shrek the Third.
It's not a flawless masterpiece, but it succeeds at capturing the over-the-top action in the feature film upon which it's based.
"Transformers:
The Game," like the movie, tells of warring robots the Autobots (good guys) and Decepticons (bad guys) trying to find a powerful artifact, the AllSpark, which is responsible for giving the robots life.
This single-player game first lets you choose whether to play as an Autobot or a Decepticon, each with unique environments and missions.
For example, the Autobot missions begin in a suburban neighborhood, where you first assume the role of a yellow-and-black Transformer named Bumblebee.
As Bumblebee, you must fight Decepticons, transform into a car, race around an open-ended city, protect a teenager who holds the key to finding the AllSpark and so on.
Throughout these campaigns you'll also step into the metal bodies of Optimus Prime, Starscream, Megatron, Jazz, Ironhide and others.
The award-winning game makers at Traveller's Tales (Lego Star Wars series) did a great job giving you the feeling of controlling enormous machines.
Kick an enemy and it flies back 100 feet, taking down trees and walls with it.
Pick up a bus, target an opponent and throw the bus at him. Climb tall buildings, then jump from roof to roof with ease. Transform from a jet into a robot or from a robot into a speeding car.
"Transformers:
The Game" also features gorgeous graphics especially with the Microsoft Xbox 360 and Sony PlayStation 3 versions but this game doesn't rely on just its good looks to keep you interested.
The video game is quite short, only offering about seven or eight hours of play between both sides of the story.
Sure, you can take on optional side missions or replay past missions, but they don't really play out any differently.
And there isn't a multiplayer mode for online battles.
Little strategy is required during combat sequences.
A few punches and kicks and the enemy is down.
But fans of the film looking for a gratifying, albeit short-lived adventure, "Transformers:
The Game" is a good and good-looking action game.
You might consider renting it over the weekend because you may be able to finish the game before the weekend's over.
Zimbabwe's embattled President Robert Mugabe thinks there is a conspiracy against him.
Mugabe opened a new session of parliament Tuesday by saying his government was battling to turn around the economy, which he says is a victim of sabotage by Western and local opponents trying to end his rule.
"Our economy continues to face challenges arising from the illegal sanctions imposed by our enemies," Mugabe told the House of Assembly and the upper Senate.
The 83-year-old leader is expected to push through radical plans to nationalize foreign firms ahead of general elections next year.
Mugabe, in power since independence from Britain in 1980, is seeking re-election despite accusations he has plunged the southern African state into its worst economic
crisis ever through a raft of controversial policies.
Political analysts says proposed legislation before the chambers and Mugabe's national plans could increase uncertainties about Zimbabwe's future.
Mugabe plans to transfer control of all companies, including foreign banks and some mining operations, to locals under the black empowerment bill would further damage an economy already hit by his other controversial policies, they say.
Zimbabwe under Mugabe largely follows British traditions in its parliamentary protocol, including opening annual sessions amid pomp and pageantry.
NBA Commissioner David Stern said Tuesday an FBI probe learned that former referee Tim Donaghy was a "rogue, isolated criminal" who bet on games and that it appeared no other league employees were involved.
Stern vowed that the league would give its full cooperation and conduct an exhaustive review of its security practices.
any official's involvement in gambling shatters the covenant with fans over the integrity of the game. "This is the worst situation I have every experienced either as a fan of the NBA, a lawyer for the NBA or the commissioner of the NBA," he said, calling it "a betrayal of what we know in sports as a sacred trust.
Stern said the investigation involved games that Donaghy, a 13-year NBA veteran, worked over the last two seasons.
Word of the FBI investigation broke Friday with a report that the referee's gambling became known during a separate investigation of organized crime.
"He worked 150 games over the last two years ... we did not want to sort of march people together and say, we are now going to investigate Tim Donaghy ...
"Yes, I'm surprised, but I think no more surprised than the head of the FBI, the head of the CIA, that rogue employees turn on their country in criminal activity despite the best investigative procedures you can possibly imagine.
Stern said the NBA routinely monitors officials, employing 30 observers to ensure one at every game. Every game is also reviewed on video and some are audited by a group supervisor.
Stern said the league hired additional experts this year to audit the auditors evaluating referees.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2804605
A former police officer accused in the videotaped beating of a man in the French Quarter after Hurricane Katrina was acquitted Tuesday by a judge who heard the case without a jury.
"I didn't even find this a close call," said District Judge Frank Marullo.
"This event could have ended at any time if the man had put his hands behind his back," the judge said.
Davis testified Tuesday that he was headed to buy cigarettes in the French Quarter when he asked a police officer what time a curfew took effect that night.
Before the officer could answer, a different officer cut him off, Davis said.
Dr. Frances Smith, who treated Davis at an emergency room, testified that he suffered facial fractures.
Nearly half of all flights in Brazil were delayed or canceled Tuesday for the third straight day as the country's air crisis deepened following a deadly crash last week and a major radar outage.
"You can't get to work, you can't schedule appointments, and you end up wasting your day because you're stranded," university professor Lindomar Rocha said as he waited for a flight at Rio de Janeiro's international airport. Most of the delays and cancellations took place in
the business capital Sao Paulo, where heavy rains Monday forced authorities to close the country's busiest airport for hours, causing a ripple effect of disruptions at other airports.
The downpours caused a small mudslide on the edge of the airfield at Congonhas Airport that spilled over onto a highway that provides access to the terminal.
The mudslide took place at the same airport where an Airbus A320 flown by TAM Linhas Aereas skidded off a rain-slicked runway last Tuesday and crashed into a nearby cargo building and gas station, bursting into flames.
All 187 people on the flight and at least 12 more on the ground were killed in the accident, the deadliest in Brazil's history.
Firefighters are still searching for bodies at the site, which the city plans to turn into a memorial.
President Bush insisted that al Qaeda and al Qaeda in Iraq are part of the same terrorist network, during a speech Tuesday at Charleston Air Force Base in South Carolina.
That would be news to Osama bin Laden.
Bush made his case as a Democratically controlled Congress moves to set timetables for U.S. forces to pull out of the unpopular Iraq war and as the president's job-approval rating dips low in opinion polls.
"However difficult the fight is in Iraq, we must win it, and we can win it," Bush told members of the military who were clad in camouflage.
"Al Qaeda is in Iraq and they're there for a reason," Bush said. "Surrendering the future of Iraq for al Qaeda would be a disaster to our country." Watch Bush tie together al Qaeda and Iraq &raquo;
The president said "al Qaeda's top commander in Iraq" issued an audio statement saying "that he will not rest until he has attacked our nation's capital.
Ahead of the speech, a White House official said Bush would reveal "newly declassified information" about the links between al Qaeda and al Qaeda in Iraq.
"I presented intelligence that clearly establishes this connection," said Bush. "The facts are that al Qaeda terrorists killed Americans on 9/11, they're fighting us in Iraq and across the world, and they're plotting to kill Americans here at home again."
The speech comes a week after a U.S. National Intelligence Estimate named al Qaeda "the most serious terrorist threat" to the U.S. homeland and said that al Qaeda in Iraq was the main group's "most visible and capable affiliate.
Allegedly under the influence and with a small amount of cocaine in her pants pocket, Lindsay Lohan was arrested after chasing the mother of her personal assistant in her car early Tuesday morning, Santa Monica police said.
It happened just five days after Lohan was booked in connection with a May drunken driving charge
Lt. Alex Padilla said the mother of Lohan's personal assistant called police early Tuesday and said she was trying to drive to the Santa Monica, California, police department because someone was chasing her.
She ended up in a parking lot about a block away from the police station, Padilla said.
Police spokeswoman Calisse Lindsey said when officers arrived on the scene after receiving the call at 1:34 a.m. PT, they found Lohan driving the vehicle allegedly chasing the woman who called.
The officers smelled alcohol and administered a field sobriety test, which Lohan failed, Lindsey said.
When taken to the police station, the 21-year-old actress registered 0.12 and 0.13 in blood tests for alcohol levels, the spokeswoman said. In California, the legal limit is 0.08, according to the state's Department of Motor Vehicles.
Officers also found a white powdery substance in Lohan's possession which was determined to be cocaine, Lindsey said.
Lohan's personal assistant had quit her job just hours before the incident involving the assistant's mother, police said.
Lohan left the Santa Monica jail Tuesday morning after posting $25,000 bail, Padilla said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday denounced Britain for making insulting demands that betrayed outdated colonial thinking, in comments likely to escalate a row over the murder of Alexander Litvinenko.
Britain and Russia have each expelled four diplomats in a spat over the murder and Moscow's refusal to extradite the chief suspect in the case.
"What they propose is an obvious vestige of colonial thinking," Putin was shown saying on Russian state television.
Russia has refused, citing its constitution, which forbids the extradition of Russian citizens.
Asked for a reaction to Putin's comments, a Foreign Office spokesman in London told Reuters: "We continue to look for a willingness from the Russian authorities to work constructively with us to bring this crime, committed in the UK, to justice in a British court.
British courts have refused to extradite Berezovsky to Moscow.
"They in London have 30 persons hiding who are wanted by our law enforcement bodies for committing grave and especially serious crimes," Putin said. "But London doesn't give a damn and gives refuge to people accused of committing especially serious crimes.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2804208
Up to 500 people are estimated to have died across Hungary last week, partly due to a heat wave gripping central and southeast Europe, Hungarian medical officials said on Tuesday.
Record-breaking high temperatures also killed 12 Romanians, one man in Macedonia and another man on the island of Corfu, officials said, while firefighters, soldiers and volunteers battled wildfires across a tinderbox southeastern Europe.
At least two people have died, local authorities said.
Britain, however, was experiencing what many said was the worst summer in living memory.
Emergency workers fought to hold back overflowing rivers as the worst floods in 60 years engulfed towns and villages, mainly in central England.
The worst toll appeared to come from Hungary which said the heat wave, touching 41.9 Celsius in one part part of the country may have contributed to the early deaths last week of 500 people.
Scorching temperatures across in France in 2003 led to the early deaths of 15,000 mainly elderly people.
"In this period, in the central area of Hungary ... this (heat) contributed to the premature death of 230 more people which (extrapolated) to a national level means about 500 deaths," said the National Institute of Environmental Health.
Romania, the new deaths pushed the toll from the heat wave up to 30, and 19,000 people have been admitted to hospitals in the region's second devastating hot spell this year.
More than 35 people died in Romania, Turkey and Greece in June when the mercury shot up to 46 Celsius.
The round of negotiations that freed the medics began over the weekend and involved European Union commissioner for foreign affairs, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, chief French presidential aide Claude Gueant and French first lady Cecilia Sarkozy.
The group, accompanied from Libya by Cecilia Sarkozy, was immediately greeted by a delegation of government officials and family members.
"I waited so long for this moment," nurse Snezhana Dimitrova said before falling into the arms of her loved ones, The Associated Press reported.
"I know I am free, I know I am on Bulgarian soil, but I still cannot believe it," 48-year-old nurse Christiana Valcheva told Reuters as the medics and their families wept and hugged each other at the airport.
"This is the result of very tough and long negotiations ... between the European Union and Libyan authorities," Bulgarian Foreign Minister Ivailo Kalfin said. "It has been a long discussion and debate with Libya until we reached this agreement.
According to Kalfin, the deal includes treatments for infected children and humanitarian assistance for their parents. Tripoli and the EU were also to begin discussions on the normalization of political relations.
Kalfin said medical checkups would be the first order of business after the group was welcomed in Sofia.
Fifty of the children were reported to have died.
MADRID, Spain (CNN) Spain's spy agency chief said Tuesday a suspected double agent had been arrested who revealed the names of Spanish spies and other state secrets to a foreign nation.
Spain's SER Radio reported the recipient nation was Russia.
The suspect, Robert Flores Garcia, was arrested Monday morning at his home on Tenerife Island in Spain's Canary Islands.
He passed secrets in exchange for hefty payments from December 2001 to February 2004, said the spy chief, Alberto Saiz, head of the National Intelligence Agency (known by its Spanish initials CNI).
Saiz, at a news conference, refused to publicly identify the recipient country, but Spain's SER Radio, said it was Russia, citing unnamed sources.
Flores resigned from his position at the spy agency in January 2004, Saiz said.
Saiz insisted that Spain's national security was never threatened, nor, he said, was there a threat to security at NATO and the European Union.
The suspect allegedly revealed the names of dozens of Spanish spies, possibly including the seven Spanish spies killed in an ambush south of Baghdad in November 2003, Saiz said.
Flores is suspected of transferring classified material and could face 12 years in prison if convicted, Saiz said.
Saiz said the alleged betrayal occurred at a time when Spain's spy agency was not fully prepared to deal with an inside mole.
KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) Taliban talks with South Korea over the fate of kidnapped South Korean volunteer aid workers in Afghanistan are progressing well, a Taliban spokesman said, adding that he thinks "the situation will be solved peacefully.
The kidnappers have threatened to kill the 23 South Koreans, most of whom are women, if their demands are not met.
They want Afghanistan to release a group of prisoners and South Korea to withdraw its 200 non-combat forces from Afghanistan, which Seoul already plans to do by the end of the year.
"Negotiation is going well between the Taliban and the Korean government, but not the Afghan government," Taliban spokesman Qari Mohammad Yousif Ahmadi said.
The Taliban said on Monday that "since the Afghan government has not sincerely tried to solve the problem, this time we give another 24 hours to the Korean government to solve the matter.
Manchester United midfielder Paul Scholes is to have an exploratory knee operation that will rule him out of the start of next season, the club said on Monday.
"Paul felt his knee in the last game (against FC Seoul) and we've sent him home for scope to see what kind of damage there is," United manager Sir Alex Ferguson told reporters.
The 32-year-old will miss the season-opening Community Shield clash against Chelsea at Wembley on August 5 and the start of Manchester United's title defense against Reading at Old Trafford a week later.
Holly Hunter is well known for playing women teetering on the edge be it the wacky babynapper in "Raising Arizona," the high-strung producer in "Broadcast News" or her Oscar-winning role as the mute bride in "The Piano.
"Just in those 52 pages of the pilot, I got this glimpse of a whole life," says Hunter, noting she was hooked after reading only 15 pages of the script.
"The fact that the series gets to explore this character as a police officer, as a sibling, as a daughter, as a lover ... that three-dimensionality of the character has been a real treat for me. I haven't gotten that kind of three-course meal in a long time.
Hunter's portrayal of an emotionally and morally conflicted woman at once brazen and heroic, creative and destructive is already drawing comparisons to Kyra Sedgwick's Brenda Johnson on TNT's "The Closer," which will precede "Grace" on Monday nights.
Creator Nancy Miller ("The Closer," Lifetime's "Any Day Now") knew Hunter would be a perfect fit for Grace.
A spacewalking astronaut did some massive housecleaning at the international space station Monday, tossing out a camera mounting and an ammonia tank weighing more than half a ton.
"I'll be sending my bill in the mail for trash disposal," Clayton Anderson joked to Mission Control.
"Well, in that case, give Brad Lidge and Roy Oswalt a call and tell them I just hummed a 17,500-mph fastball," Anderson said, referring to the star pitchers for his hometown Houston Astros.
For each celestial toss, Anderson leaned back on the end of the space station's 58-foot robot arm, as far from the space station as possible.
as he shoved the 4-foot camera mounting into space. He repeated the moves an hour later with the bulkier ammonia tank.
The tank had been launched in 2001 to provide spare coolant in case of a leak at the orbiting complex.
The surplus ammonia was never needed, and the tank itself had exceeded its life expectancy.
NASA normally tries to avoid adding to the orbiting junkyard, but officials felt they had no choice in this case.
The equipment had to be removed, and because of a looming 2010 deadline for ending all shuttle flights, NASA does not have room on its remaining missions to return the tank to Earth.
The European Union took the first step on Monday toward sending forces to Chad and the Central African Republican to help the United Nations protect refugees trapped in the violent region bordering Darfur.
Eastern Chad and northern Central African Republic have seen a spillover from the 4-year-old conflict in Sudan's western Darfur region, with cross-border raids by Sudanese militias and the influx of tens of thousands of refugees.
But refugees and villagers in the remote areas have also been victims of fighting by local rebel and government troops, as well as bandits who have turned the Chad-Sudan-CAR triangle into one of the most dangerous and desperate regions on earth.
EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels issued a statement saying they had asked the bloc's military staff to plan a
possible operation "in support of the multidimensional U.N. presence in Eastern Chad and North-Eastern Central African Republic with a view to improving security in those areas.
Asked when EU forces could be sent, an EU official said: "at the end of October at the earliest.
Military staff will start working on a possible year-long 1,500 to 3,000-strong force, but the end result could be different, diplomats said.
U.N. peacekeeping chief Jean-Marie Guehenno urged the EU last week to deploy highly mobile troops supported by helicopters, to help protect a zone in Chad 560 miles (900 kilometers) long by 125-250 miles (200-400 kilometers) wide and a small part of the Central African Republic.
The United Nations would train and support Chadian police while the European Union would protect civilians, humanitarian workers and the U.N. mission, Guehenno said.
Would you rather take your middle-schooler golfing or mountain biking?
Maybe you want to try fly-fishing, white-water rafting or a long alpine slide?
How about racing down an Olympic bobsled track (Park City, Utah, www.parkcityinfo.com), or a state-of-the-art skateboard park (Breckenridge, Colorado, www.gobreck.com)?
If so, then head to Stratton Mountain Resort in Vermont, www.stratton.com, the weekend of July 28.
In fact, a summer trip to a mountain resort can be a downright bargain, with even pricey Snowmass and Vail, Colorado, offering rooms for $100 a night.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2803277
They are the arteries that keep Mumbai's economy ticking, rattling 6 million people a day to offices, shops and factories.
On average 4,000 people die a year on Mumbai's railways, crushed under trains, electrocuted by overhead power lines or killed as they lean from jam-packed carriages to gasp for air. It is perhaps the world's deadliest commute.
At peak hours more than 550 people cram into a carriage built for 200.
Passengers fall to their deaths from moving trains or tumble under the wheels from crowded platforms.
People hang from coaches, balance precariously on the roofs of carriages or risk a ride on the bumpers between cars as they trundle along three lines and through nearly 120 stations.
In the first four months of this year, more than 1,200 people have been killed, according to official figures. Many get run over crossing the tracks, too rushed or tired to use pedestrian overpasses.
His office fined about 30,000 people $12 each last year for breaking rules.
Tickets average about 10 rupees (25 cents).
The British built the first railways in Mumbai in the 1850s, but more recently a lack of investment and a city growing rapidly as migrants flood in has stretched the system to breaking point.
Officials are splashing out on a $2 billion upgrade the first major overhaul since independence in 1947 that will add 180 kilometers (110 miles) of new track and 147 trains over five years.
But even when all these new coaches are rolling, commuter trains will have to carry 1.5 times their capacity at peak hours.
Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe gains access to a reported &pound; 20 million ($41.1 million) fortune as he turns 18 on Monday, but he insists the money won't cast a spell on him.
"The things I like buying are things that cost about 10 pounds books and CDs and DVDs.
Radcliffe's earnings from the first five Potter films have been held in a trust fund which he has not been able to touch.
Doctors found no cancer in the five small growths removed from President Bush's colon, the White House said Monday.
The growths, called polyps, were found during a routine cancer scan that Bush underwent Saturday at the Camp David presidential retreat.
Examinations showed the growths were benign in line with the White House's expectation that none of the five polyps appeared "worrisome.
"The president is in good health," Bush spokesman Tony Snow said. "There is no reason for alarm.
Bush's next cancer scan will be in three years, his press secretary added, saying that is the typical interval between exams given the amount of growths found this time.
There had been a five-year gap between Bush's 2002 colonoscopy and the one the president had over the weekend.
Most polyps are not dangerous, but over time, they can turn cancerous.
To be safe, doctors typically remove the polyps and test them.
Bush, 61, regularly exercises and is considered to be in excellent shape for a man his age.
Bush had temporarily transferred the powers of the presidency to Vice President Dick Cheney during his medical procedure Saturday morning, invoking the rarely invoked 25th Amendment.
Nothing occurred during the 2 hours and 5 minutes of the transfer that required Cheney to take official action, aides said.
Alexander Vinokourov clinched his second victory of this year's Tour de France when he won the 196km 15th stage from Foix on Monday.
The Astana rider, who lost all hope of winning the race when he cracked and crashed on Sunday's 14th stage, went solo 15km from the summit of the Col de Peyresourde to beat Luxembourg's Kim Kirchen of the T-Mobile team.
Euskaltel rider Haimar Zubeldia of Spain came home third, while overall leader Michael Rasmussen retained the yellow jersey.
The Dane was attacked during the last climb by Spaniard Alberto Contador, second in the overall standings, but managed to resist the Discover Channel rider to maintain his race lead of two minutes 23 seconds. "I was about to be
Australian Cadel Evans and Germany's Andreas Kloeden were unable to respond to Contador's violent burst of speed and they finished 56 seconds behind the pair.
The Kazakh, who suffered injuries to his knees during a crash in the first week, attacked at the bottom of the category-one climb and never looked back.
Toyota said it would resume work at two-thirds of its car assembly lines in Japan on Tuesday after an earthquake cut off supplies of key components to its factories, and it kept its global sales targets unchanged for 2007.
Auto production at Japanese carmakers has virtually ground to a halt after the country's top supplier of piston rings, Riken, was hit by an earthquake on July 16.
But Watanabe stressed that shutting down factory production was not alarming under the circumstances, and defended Toyota's famed lean manufacturing method as one of its competitive strengths.
"We will gauge how to make up for the lost production in due time," Watanabe said.
"What's important is being able to figure out how swiftly we can fix the problem and return to normal.
Toyota exports 60 percent of its Japan-made vehicles.
Watanabe conceded that the domestic market remained tough Toyota's sales fell 10 percent in the first half of the year to 826,000 units but said he was counting on new car launches and the Tokyo Motor Show in the latter half to jump-start sales.
"We realize that our domestic sales target of 1.72 million units (for 2007) is very challenging, but we've seen some improvement in July and we're not changing our global targets," he said.
Democratic presidential candidates faced questions directly from voters on Monday in the first CNN/YouTube debate.
Voters raised the issues of gay marriage, how to end the war in Iraq, how to better education and whether race was an issue in the response to Hurricane Katrina in the form of videos they shot of themselves and posted on YouTube.
The videos came in all forms people facing the camera straight-on, people in makeup, people with flashcards.
The first question got right to the point.
A young man from Utah asked, "What makes you any different than other politicians?
Illinois Sen. Barack Obama replied, "As I travel around the country, people have an urgent need for change...Unless we change how business is done in Washington and part of that is bringing people together.
The debate was touted as an opportunity for voters to pose questions directly to the candidates.
Dennis Kucinich brought the debate back to Iraq, saying he voted against the war in Iraq which sets him apart from other candidates on the stage.
He said he would never send Americans to fight in a war based on "a lie.
Hillary Clinton was asked by another voter how she defines the word "liberal.
It originally meant you were for freedom," Clinton responded. "I prefer the word 'progressive'.
I consider myself a modern progressive [who is for] individual rights and freedoms. We are better as a society when we are working together.
Sen. Obama took a question from a voter asking whether there will ever be reparations to African-Americans for slavery.
He said reparations are best made through schools.
He talked about a school he visited in Florence, South Carolina, that had a portion of classrooms called the "Corridor of Shame" due to its untrained teachers and lack of books and other resources.
"We have corridors of shame across the nation," he said.
A gay female couple appeared on the screen next, asking if the candidates would allow them to be married. Kucinich said yes;
Dodd and Edwards said no but that they support civil unions for gay couples.
Pakistan's armed forces killed at least 35 militants in North Waziristan on Monday, two days after President Bush said he was "troubled" by reports al Qaeda was gaining strength in Pakistani tribal areas.
The deaths, in fighting that was still under way, brought the number of militants killed since Saturday night to 54.
Pakistan's Waziristan region has long been regarded as a safe haven for al Qaeda and Taliban militants sheltered by their local Pashtun allies.
Pakistani authorities struck a deal with the local militants last September in a bid to isolate foreign militants and curb cross-border incursions into Afghanistan.
But the militants scrapped the deal last week and launched attacks in Waziristan, adding to general concern that the security situation in Pakistan was deteriorating.
Bush, in his taped weekly radio address, said President Pervez Musharraf recognized the failings of the North Waziristan agremeent and was taking action.
U.S. officials have said the United States never ruled out any options when it came to attacking al Qaeda or the Taliban.
Pakistan rejected the statements as "irresponsible and dangerous" and said only its own troops could carry out counterterrorism actions on Pakistani soil.
A wave of car bombs targeting civilians and police in central Baghdad on Monday killed at least 16 people and wounded 40 others, the Iraqi Interior Ministry said.
Three of the bombs came in the capital's Karrada district.
Earlier, in Karrada, car bombs exploded at a supermarket and at a government facility where identity cards are issued, killing nine people, three of them police officers, the official said. The blasts also wounded 28 people.
According to Reuters, video footage showed shoppers dashing for cover past a line of burning cars on a narrow street leading to the government office.
Abu Nour, a 45-year-old supermarket owner, told Reuters that all he could see was "fire, destruction and death.
Another car bomb struck a police patrol in the Alwiya commercial area of Karrada, killing three people, two of them police. Five others were wounded in the Monday morning attack.
The blasts also came a day after a suicide bomber struck a meeting of Sunni leaders who are allies of the U.S. and Iraqi security forces, killing five, the Interior Ministry said.
In Sunday's attacks, the bomber drove a minivan packed with explosives into a house near Taji, north of Baghdad, a ministry official said.
Nearly 150,000 homes were without drinking water Monday after the worst floodwaters in 60 years swamped large areas of western England.
British military and rescue workers battled to save a major electricity substation on the outskirts of Gloucester, England, that serves about 500,000 homes.
About 1,000 Royal Navy personnel were building an emergency barrier to keep the Walham substation from flooding.
Their efforts have been successful so far, the Gloucestershire Constabulary Emergency Services said Monday evening.
Some 50,000 homes were already without electricity before the substation was threatened.
Two major rivers the Thames and the Severn are well above their normal levels and may burst their banks, according to authorities.
Britain's Environment Agency warned water levels could rise further to a "critical level" and issued nine severe flood warnings across the country.
More rain is forecast, and the risk of flooding is increasing as floodwaters work their way into the river system.
In the historic city of Gloucester, the River Severn is expected to burst its banks later Monday.
The river is already nearly 15 feet (5 meters) above its normal level for this time of year and close to breaching its banks.
Meanwhile, a German hostage reported to have been killed by the Taliban is still alive along with four Afghans, a Taliban spokesman said on Monday.
"The German national and four Afghans we had reported to have killed are still alive," Yousuf, told Reuters from an unknown location by telephone.
He said the Taliban leadership wanted the release of 10 Taliban prisoners held by the Afghan government and the withdrawal of German troops from Afghanistan as conditions for the freedom of the hostages.
Earlier, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Berlin would not give in to the demands of the kidnappers who seized two German engineers and killed at least one of them to withdraw troops from Afghanistan. "We will not give in to blackmail", she said.
German authorities have seen the body of the German hostage who died in captivity in Afghanistan and it had gunshot wounds, a German Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Sunday.
He said it was unclear what was the exact cause of death and added that Berlin wanted the remains returned to Germany as soon as possible for a closer examination.
"The government will not stop in our efforts to ensure the hostages' safety, which is our top priority," Yonhap news agency quoted him as saying. "We're trying to find out what are the most substantial and final requests from the hostage takers.
"Our government is maintaining contacts with the militants through various channels, jointly with the Afghan government and other allies ... There was no offer for direct negotiation from the hostage takers (with the South Korean government).
But another Taliban spokesman quoted by the Pakistan-based Afghanistan Islamic Press news agency said talks with the Afghan government were heading for failure.
The spokesman asked the South Korean government to contact the Taliban as soon as possible and threatened to kill the hostages if the matter was not resolved by evening.
KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) Afghanistan's Taliban movement has extended the deadline for the execution of 23 Korean hostages to allow the South Korean government to establish direct talks with the group, a Taliban spokesman said on Monday.
Earlier, the 23 South Koreans kidnapped by Taliban rebels were reported to be in good health, a Taliban spokesman said, adding that any use of force to rescue them would put their lives at risk.
After that they would start killing the Koreans, a spokesman said.
The 23 belong to the "Saemmul Church" in Bundang, a city outside South Korea's capital, Seoul.
While tribal elders tried to mediate between the militants and government negotiators, Afghan forces have surrounded the group of some 70 kidnappers in the Qarabagh area of Ghazni province, south of the capital Kabul.
The Afghan government was hopeful of a peaceful outcome.
"We have assigned a working group in Ghazni province to work on the issue and we are serious about what we are doing," he said, declining to give further details.
A delegation of South Korean diplomats were also aiding the negotiations, a Korean embassy official said.
"The diplomats from the embassy are still in negotiations with community elders of Ghazni province to solve the matter peacefully and secure the safe release of the hostages," he said.
German authorities have seen the body of a German hostage who died in captivity in Afghanistan and his body has gunshot wounds, Germany's Foreign Ministry said on Sunday.
"The remains of the dead German are as of this evening in Kabul," Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Jaeger said in a statement. "After an initial visual examination by German authorities, it was noticed that the body had gunshot wounds.
He said it was unclear what the exact cause of death and added that Berlin wanted the remains returned to Germany as soon as possible for a closer examination.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Sunday Germany would not give in to the demands of the Taliban to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan and would not allow itself to be blackmailed.
"We will not react to demands from the Taliban," Merkel said in an interview with Germany's ARD public television when asked if she would consider bringing German troops home. "We will not give in to blackmail, that would be dangerous.
A Taliban spokesman claimed two German engineers held hostage had been shot by the Taliban after Germany failed to contact it for negotiations. Afghan and German officials said the spokesman did not speak for the kidnappers.
Germany has over 3,000 German troops stationed in Afghanistan's relatively peaceful north as part of a NATO peacekeeping force.
Merkel reiterated that she wanted Germany to fully renew its Afghan peacekeeping mandate when it expired later this year.
Former Afghan king, Mohammad Zahir Shah, died on Monday, aged 92, presidential palace sources said.
Zahir Shah ruled Afghanistan from 1933 until he was deposed by his cousin in 1973.
Zahir Shah came from a long line of ethnic Pashtun rulers and is a distant relative of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
The former king's reign is remembered as one of the most peaceful periods of Afghanistan's turbulent history.
Born in Kabul on October 15, 1914, Zahir Shah received part of his education in France and returned to Kabul for military training.
He ascended the throne in 1933 after his father was assassinated by a deranged student.
He supported an end to purdah the wearing of the veil for women, used foreign cash to develop the country's medieval infrastructure and managed to keep a balance between rival Soviet and Western interests in his country.
Lindsay Lohan turned herself in to face charges of driving under the influence in connection with the Memorial Day weekend hit-and-run crash that sent her into rehab.
Accompanied by her attorney, the 21-year-old actress surrendered at the Beverly Hills Police Department Thursday afternoon to be fingerprinted and photographed, Officer Brian Ballieweg said.
Lohan was released on her recognizance. A court date was scheduled for August 24.
Last week, Lohan checked out of a rehabilitation center after more than six weeks. It was her second stint in rehab this year.
Britain's Barclays is in talks with the governments of China and Singapore to raise 10 billion pounds ($20.6 billion) to help fund its planned purchase of Dutch bank ABN AMRO, the BBC reported on Monday.
The Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, said Barclays was close to an agreement to sell what it described as a large stake to Temasek and another investor to help back its bid for ABN.
Spokesmen for Temasek and Barclays declined to comment.
The BBC said the two Asian governments would pay around 740 pence for each Barclays share, 3.7 percent above Friday's closing price of 713.5 pence.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2801966
World number two Rafael Nadal captured his sixth title of the year on Sunday, overcoming a stiff challenge from unseeded Stanislas Wawrinka to win 6-4 7-5 in the final of the Stuttgart Cup.
The French Open champion, competing in his 16th straight clay-court final, was made to work hard by the Swiss world number 50 and had to come back from 5-2 down in the second set to take victory in just over two hours.
"I played a really good tournament this week and that has given me a lift after losing at Wimbledon," Nadal said in a television interview.
It was his second win at the Stuttgart Cup after his 2005 triumph and he improved his 2007 win-loss record
The 21-year-old Majorcan had problems with his right knee earlier in the tournament which almost forced his withdrawal. He was again wearing strapping on Sunday but showed no obvious signs of discomfort during the match.
"It was the same problem I had at Wimbledon," Nadal said. "But once it was taped up the pain subsided a little and I am very happy I decided to carry on.
Wawrinka, who won his only ATP title last year, was out for three months earlier in 2007 with a knee injury but pushed Nadal harder than any of his opponents at the Weissenhof this week, breaking the top seed three times.
"I lost the match today but I played really well and it's been an unbelievable week for me," Wawrinka said.
His compatriot, the world number one and five-times Wimbledon champion Roger Federer, had been sending him SMS messages of support throughout the week, Wawrinka said.
"But unfortunately he didn't tell me how to beat Rafa," he added, before spraying his opponent with champagne.
of his 94 matches on clay since April 2005, his only defeat coming against Federer in the final of the Hamburg Masters in May.
The European Union executive said in a statement that EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner and President Nicolas Sarkozy's wife Cecilia went to the North African state on Sunday "as part of efforts for the release of the (five) Bulgarian nurses and the Palestinian doctor".
Libya's Higher Judicial Council last week commuted death sentences on the six, accused of deliberately infecting 460 children at Benghazi hospital, to life imprisonment.
Bulgaria and the EU say the nurses are innocent but have provided long-term medical assistance to victims and aid for the Benghazi hospital.
The Commission said the joint visit by Ferrero-Waldner, who has been negotiating on behalf of the 27-nation EU, and Cecilia Sarkozy, who visited the nurses and Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi this month, was agreed in a telephone call between Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and Sarkozy.
Some EU officials had voiced private exasperation at what they saw as the new French leader seeking credit for the release of the medics at the last minute after Brussels has spent three years patiently negotiating with Tripoli.
Sarkozy himself is due to visit Libya on Wednesday.
Bulgarian nurses, welcomed the visit.
"These are useful discussions and we hope a great deal will come from these discussions," Altit said. "All efforts are welcome and we welcome with interest anything that contributes to a solution.
It would be "completely counterproductive" for the United States to launch military strikes in the Pakistani tribal regions where al Qaeda and Taliban militants have created safe havens, Pakistan's foreign minister said Sunday.
Khurshid Kasuri further told CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer" that 85,000 Pakistani troops were already in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, a mountainous and notoriously dangerous region at the porous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
"The Pakistani military is already there in the tribal area," Kasuri said. "Pakistan's commitment cannot be doubted by anybody."
If the United States were to take unilateral military action in the area, Kasuri said, "you will lose the war the battle for hearts and minds.
"Our commitment is total, but this war or whatever you would like to call it can only be won if we have hearts and minds on our side," he said.
Kasuri also said using Pakistani rather than U.S. troops will result in "far, far less collateral damage.
The Bush administration has been fielding new questions about Pakistan since the National Intelligence Estimate claimed last week that al Qaeda is operating freely inside the tribal region.
The intelligence report stoked criticism of President Pervez Musharraf, who cut a deal with tribal chiefs and removed Pakistani troops from North Waziristan, an alleged hub of al Qaeda and Taliban.
"It took stock of the entire situation, and it came to a conclusion that it would be completely counterproductive [to carry out] attacks in the tribal areas of Pakistan by the United States," Kasuri said.
"So if you have superiority in technical intelligence, please share that with us."
The U.S. and Iranian ambassadors to Iraq will meet this week to discuss security issues in the war-torn country, a senior Bush administration official said Sunday.
This will be the second meeting between U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Kazemi Qomi.
Their May 28 meeting marked the first public and formal talks between U.S. and Iranian representatives since the United States cut off diplomatic relations 27 years ago.
U.S. officials have accused Iran of interfering in the U.S.-led war in Iraq by supplying Shiite Muslim militias with weaponry and training, fueling the sectarian warfare U.S. and Iraqi troops are trying to curtail.
Crocker met Sunday in Baghdad with Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari in preparation for the meeting, Zebari's office said.
"Ambassador Crocker expressed his satisfaction with the efforts made by the minister to hold this meeting," according to a statement from the foreign minister's office.
The Bush administration has come under increasing pressure to show signs of progress in Iraq ahead of a mid-September report by Crocker and Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq.
The war has become widely unpopular in the United States, and President Bush's fellow Republicans in Congress have had to rely on filibuster tactics to block Democratic-led efforts to start pulling U.S. combat troops out of Iraq.
The senior administration official said both Iran and the Sunni Muslim fighters of al Qaeda in Iraq are considered "accelerants" of the ongoing fighting, which has claimed more than 3,600 American lives since the 2003 invasion that toppled Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2801639
The late "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin, killed in a stingray attack last year, will be honored with a new wildlife reserve in Outback Australia, the government announced Sunday.
A 333,585 acre chunk of land near Weipa in the far north of Irwin's home state of Queensland will be named after the popular television host and managed by his family, Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull said.
The area includes habitats for the endangered northern quoll, a carnivorous marsupial, and the speartooth shark, as well as an important gallery of dry vine forests, Turnbull said.
Prime Minister John Howard said the new park was an important addition to Australia's national reserve system, "and is a fitting tribute to a passionate environmentalist and a great Australian."
David Beckham starred in the biggest premiere outside Hollywood when the English superstar made his debut with the Los Angeles Galaxy in front of a sold-out, star-studded crowd.
"The objective was just for him to be on the pitch and give the people the dessert they were looking for," Chelsea coach Jose Mourinho said. The fans ate it up.
Beckham got into the exhibition in the 78th minute, jogging onto the field amid huge cheers and a sea of camera flashes from the crowd of 27,000.
The 32-year-old midfielder spent most of the game on the bench because of a
"The atmosphere is incredible," he said after Chelsea's 1-0 victory. "It made me feel a little bit embarrassed at times.
There were cheers each time Beckham touched the ball, the highlight being a corner kick he took in stoppage time.
After taking about 10 minutes to get loose on the sideline, he entered as a substitute for Alan Gordon, who slapped hands with the English superstar before Beckham took the field for the first time. "I'm not fit. I haven't trained since I got here," he said. "But it's nice to be out there.
He's going to take it (soccer) to another level.
He's a world-class player and I'm sure a lot of players are going to be attracted to the MLS now.
Beckham's wife Victoria, wearing her trademark huge black sunglasses, along with actress Katie Holmes and her infant daughter Suri, watched from a private box above the field.
Eva Longoria, minus new hubby Tony Parker, comedian Drew Carey, NBA star Kevin Garnett, movie producer Brian Grazer, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and English actors John Hurt and Ray Winstone also made what were likely their first trips to Carson, a downright gritty suburb compared to the stars' usual haunt of Beverly Hills.
Twenty-six Polish pilgrims died when their coach crashed off a mountain road at a notorious accident black spot in the French Alps and burst into flames, police and officials say.
Another 24 people were injured, 14 critically, when the coach smashed through a roadside barrier on the steep Laffrey gradient, some 30 kilometers (19 miles) from the southeastern city of Grenoble.
The coach careered 40 meters down the slopes before coming to rest on the banks of the Romanche river.
Most of the victims died in the fire, said emergency officials, and DNA forensic experts from Paris would be needed to identify the bodies.
Television pictures showed several bodies laid out under white sheets on the river banks, the coach smoldering in the background as fire crews doused it with foam.
Several helicopters and a fleet of emergency vehicles ferried the injured to hospital in Grenoble in an operation that mobilized 60 police as well as fire-fighters.
Robert Caban, owner of the Polish transport firm that hired out the coach, told the Polish news agency PAP the drivers were experienced and the 7-year-old Scania coach had passed technical inspections recently in Germany.
alerted his men to the route's dangers. He said he had driven the coach himself recently and its brakes had then worked well.
Reports said the Poles, from the Szczecin area of northwest Poland, had been due to return home on Tuesday after two weeks on pilgrimage in Spain and France.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy sent a message of condolence to his Polish counterpart Lech Kaczynski and would meet the Polish president at Grenoble airport when he arrived later on Sunday, the French presidency said.
More than 100 people have died in floods and landslides in China, and tens of thousands have fled their homes in the east, where dykes are in danger of being breached by a swollen river.
Severe flooding has hit about half of China since the start of the summer, killing hundreds in what has become the deadliest rainy season in years.
Natural disasters, mostly floods, have killed more than 800 people so far this year.
Fifty-nine people have died after rainstorms in mountainous Yunnan province in the southwest, Xinhua news agency said on Sunday.
Rain has destroyed more than 4,000 houses and damaged thousands of hectares of crops.
At least 40 people have died in storms in Shandong province on the east coast.
Dozens have died in the central Chongqing region which President Hu Jintao visited at the weekend, urging the local government to ensure victims had clothing, food, shelter, power and drinking water.
Heavy rain was forecast to continue to hit large swathes of China through the weekend, including the Huai River basin.
"The dykes that have soaked in high water level for 19 days will be at an increased risk of breach in the coming 10 days," Xinhua quoted an official at the Anhui province flood control headquarters as saying.
"Currently 182,000 people in Anhui are working to control flooding in the Huai," Xinhua said.
Turkey's ruling AK Party won a resounding election victory Sunday, giving the pro-business, Islamist-rooted party a mandate for reform but risking fresh tensions with the secular elite.
He called early parliamentary polls after losing a battle with the establishment, including army generals, who did not want his ex-Islamist ally as head of state.
"This is the first time in 52 years that a party in power has increased its votes for a second term," Erdogan told thousands of jubilant supporters outside his party's plush new headquarters in the capital Ankara where fireworks lit the sky.
Only two other secularist parties crossed the 10 percent threshold into parliament the nationalist-minded Republican People's Party (CHP) with 21 percent and the far-right National Movement Party (MHP) with 14 percent.
A score of mainly Kurdish independents also got in, the first Kurds in the assembly since the early 1990s prompting wild celebrating in their troubled eastern heartland.
Developers of a 1,680-foot (512 meters) skyscraper still under construction in oil-rich Dubai has claimed that it has become the world's tallest building, surpassing Taiwan's Taipei 101 which has dominated the global skyline at 1,667 feet (508 meters) since 2004.
The Burj Dubai is expected to be finished by the end of 2008 and its planned final height has been kept secret.
When completed, the skyscraper will feature more than 160 floors, 56 elevators, luxury apartments, boutiques, swimming pools, spas, exclusive corporate suites, Italian fashion designer Giorgio Armani's first hotel, and a 124th floor observation platform.
After North American and Asian cities marked their 20th century economic booms with skyscrapers, the Gulf grew eager to show off its success with ever taller buildings.
"It's a symbol of Dubai as a city of the world," said Greg Sang, the project director for Emaar Properties.
Mohammed Ali Alabbar, chairman of Emaar, said it will be an architectural and engineering masterpiece of concrete, steel and glass. Dubai has "resisted the usual and has inspired to build a global icon," he said.
The $1 billion skyscraper is in the heart of downtown Dubai, a 500-acre development area worth $20 billion.
Construction, which began just 1,276 days ago, has been frenzied at times, one storey rises every three days.
The tip of the Burj's spire will be seen for 60 miles, developers say. But Sang knows it will not dominate the world's skyline forever. "It's a fact of life that, at some point, someone else will build a taller building," he said.
KABUL, Afghanistan (Reuters) The Taliban kidnappers of 23 Korean hostages on Sunday extended the deadline for the South Korean government to agree to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan by 24 hours.
"The Taliban have extended the deadline for another 24 hours" until to 1430 GMT (10:
Afghan army and police surrounded the Taliban kidnappers while tribal elders tried to mediate between the militants and government negotiators, a Kabul-based Western security analyst said.
The 23 hostages belong to the "Saemmul Church" in Bundang, a city outside South Korea's capital, Seoul. Most of them are in their 20s and 30s, and include nurses and English teachers.
Yousuf earlier had said insurgents would start killing the hostages if South Korea did not agree to withdraw its 200 military engineers and medics by 1430 GMT on Sunday and the Afghan government did not free Taliban prisoners.
The South Korean government has said it will withdraw its troops at the end of this year as planned.
Afghan government negotiators were in the Qarabagh district of Ghazni province where the Koreans were seized and tribal elders were mediating with the group of around 70 Taliban kidnappers, he said.
Taliban spokesmen Yousuf said fighters were holding the captives at different locations and any attempt to free them by force would put the Koreans' lives at risk.
"We are working very hard considering the deadline," said a South Korean embassy official, who declined to give details.
The Koreans are the biggest group of foreigners kidnapped so far in the Taliban campaign to oust the Western-backed government and force out foreign troops.
The area south of Kabul where the Germans and Koreans were seized this week has seen a marked escalation of violence in the last month as Taliban militants have moved in from the south.
Afghan Taliban rebels say they have killed two German hostages but the Afghan Foreign Ministry says one is still alive and the other has died of a heart attack.
The militants say they will start killing a busload of South Korean hostages, also captured Thursday, if their country does not withdraw its troops from Afghanistan.
The rebels are also demanding the Afghan government releases Taliban prisoners.
The Afghan Foreign Ministry spokesman told CNN on Saturday that one of the Taliban-held German hostages died of a heart attack but the other remains alive.
This differs from an earlier Taliban account that both men had been executed.
A Taliban spokesman told CNN the government is lying and that both men have been killed.
Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi earlier said the first German was killed at 12:05 p.m. Saturday and the second an hour later.
But Afghan Foreign Ministry spokesman Sultan Ahmad Baheen said "our security agencies reported to us that one of the German engineers is still alive and the second died of heart attack and heat. "
He added that "our security forces are trying to secure the safe return of the German national who is still alive in the custody.
Asked about the Foreign Ministry statement, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told CNN the government is lying.
"Their time in this world is done," he said of the Germans. "The terms weren't met.
He said Afghans who accompanied the Germans are still alive, but didn't provide detail about their fate.
A German Foreign Ministry spokesman said the government had no confirmation about the deaths but was investigating the report.
"We are taking these statements very seriously and following every lead. However, so far we have no independent confirmation that an abducted German could have been murdered," the spokesman said.
Meanwhile, in South Korea, President Roh Moo-hyun, in an address to his nation Saturday, called on the Taliban to free the South Koreans, who he said were in Afghanistan performing volunteer medical work.
Mostly women, they are members of a Christian church.
The number of the hostages is unclear.
The Taliban was saying it kidnapped 18 people. But the Korean government was saying 23 have been taken.
Roh said the 200 South Korean troops in Afghanistan are in the last phase of their non-combat mission to provide medical help and rebuild the country.
KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) Afghan Taliban rebels have killed two German hostages after the German government did not respond to demands to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan, a Taliban spokesman says.
The spokesman said the Taliban leadership council would decide later Saturday about the fate of 23 South Koreans also kidnapped Thursday.
The Taliban warned it would kill the Germans unless the German government promised to withdraw the more than 3,000 troops it has stationed in northern Afghanistan as part of NATO's International Security Assistance Force.
Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, speaking by phone to journalist Thomas Coghlan, said the first German was killed at five minutes past noon Saturday and that the second man was set to be killed an hour later unless they heard from the German or Afghan government.
"The second German was executed at 1:20 p.m.," Ahmadi said.
"We waited an extra 20 minutes, but there was no contact from either the German government or the Afghan government. Therefore we killed him as we said that we would.
A German Foreign Ministry spokesman said that while the government is taking the report seriously, they have no confirmation their citizens have been killed.
South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, in an address to his nation Saturday called on the Taliban to free the South Korean, who he said were in Afghanistan performing volunteer medical work in Afghanistan.
Roh said the 200 South Korean troops in Afghanistan are in the last phase of their non-combat mission to provide medical help and rebuild the country.
South Korea Foreign Minister Song Min-Soon said his country already planned to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan by the end of this year.
The White House declined to say whether the CIA currently has a detention and interrogation program, but said that if it did it must adhere to the guidelines outlined in the executive order.
The order targets captured al Qaeda terrorists who have information on attack plans or the whereabouts of the group's senior leaders.
The United States has been criticized by European allies and others around the world over interrogation techniques such as "waterboarding," in which prisoners are strapped to a plank over water and are made to fear that they may be drowned.
Critics also have complained that the CIA has run secret prisons on European soil and mistreated prisoners during clandestine flights in and out of Europe.
Bush has repeatedly said that the United States does not practice torture but has not spelled out specific banned procedures.
Leonard Rubenstein, director of Physicians for Human Rights, said the executive order was inadequate.
The White House did not detail what types of interrogation procedures would be allowed.
WASHINGTON (CNN) Vice President Dick Cheney will serve as acting president briefly Saturday while President Bush is anesthetized for a routine colonoscopy, White House spokesman Tony Snow said Friday.
Bush is scheduled to have the medical procedure, expected to take about 2 1/2 hours, at the presidential retreat at Camp David, Maryland, Snow said.
Bush's last colonoscopy was in June 2002, and no abnormalities were found, Snow said.
The president's doctor had recommended a repeat procedure in about five years.
The procedure will be supervised by Dr. Richard Tubb and conducted by a multidisciplinary team from the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, Snow said.
Snow himself is undergoing chemotherapy for cancer that began in his colon and spread to his liver.
Snow told reporters he had a chemo session scheduled later Friday.
The top U.S. diplomat in Iraq said Thursday that Baghdad was making some political progress but faces considerable difficulty in trying to heal a nation long gripped by violence.
"If there is one word, I would use to sum up the atmosphere in Iraq on the streets, in the countryside, in the neighborhoods and at the national level that word would be fear," Ryan Crocker told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Crocker testified by video link from Baghdad.
He also warned lawmakers against relying heavily on a list of benchmarks to measure gains made in Iraq.
Earlier this year, Congress asked the White House to report on progress made in 18 target areas for political, security and diplomatic reforms; last week, the administration reported mixed results.
Crocker's image was transmitted onto several large flat-panel screens, including one sitting on the witness table facing the senators. He faced a tough crowd.
A majority of the senators on the Foreign Relations Committee, including six of the 10 panel's Republicans, have expressed serious doubts about President Bush's decision to deploy additional troops.
Tiger Woods moved straight into the thick of the battle towards the top of the leaderboard when he launched his challenge for a third British Open title running on Thursday.
The world number one was satisfied with an opening two-under-par 69 in damp, bone-numbing conditions which left him four shots behind leader Sergio Garcia of Spain.
As ever, though, most eyes were on Woods.
He told reporters it was an "ideal" start to his bid to become the first man since Peter Thomson 51 years ago to collect three consecutive Open wins.
Woods, tied second at the U.S. Masters and U.S. Open this year, had opened his birdie account at the third with an eight-footer and he rounded off his outward half by converting another from a yard further away.
and 13th threatened to take away all his momentum as he fell back to one under.
The ending has come for Harry Potter.
Will it be a happy one in which he vanquishes the evil Lord Voldemort (aka You-Know-Who) and finishes his years at Hogwarts in the embrace of his best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger?
Or will it be tragic, a finale in which Harry the Boy Who Lived, to his fellow wizards dies in his prime (though not, presumably, without dispatching You-Know-Who)?
But regardless of Harry's fate, the famed seven-book series will conclude at 12:01 a.m. Saturday, when "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" is officially released.
The "Harry Potter" series which has sold 325 million copies worldwide has been nothing booksellers have ever seen before, and as with the previous "Potter" titles, retailers are pulling out all the stops.
There will be magic shows, costume contests, musical performances, readings and last but not least book sales. Gallery: Fans show off their Harry resemblances &raquo;
Not only is American publisher Scholastic Inc. doing a first printing in excess of 12 million copies another record for a series that has smashed so many publishing marks a number of other merchandisers have jumped into the Potter game, with T-shirts, calendars, candy, outfits and games.
"There is much more product available this time because of the timing of the movie and book releases," Diane Mangan, director of children's merchandise for Borders, told The Associated Press.
Indeed, the movie version of the fifth Potter book, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," came out July 11;
like the books, the movie series has been a series of blockbusters, with each entry easily topping $200 million in domestic box office.
"Order of the Phoenix" has earned more than $150 million in fewer than 10 days.
As for Rowling, who wrote the final chapter of "Deathly Hallows" years ago, she's relieved, if a little dejected, that the story has come to an end. Though she's left the door open (a tiny crack) for future adventures, she said it was time, according to the AP. "Finishing it was very, very emotional.
It was a combination of relief and sadness really," she told the AP.
No doubt "Potter" readers will feel the same way when they turn that final page.
A TAM jet pulled out of an attempted landing Thursday at Sao Paulo's Congonhas airport, and federal prosecutors sought a court order to shut down the entire airport Brazil's busiest until the investigation into this week's crash that killed at least 189 people was completed.
It was unclear when judges would rule on the request for the airport that lies in the heart of Sao Paulo, Brazil's largest city.
Doing so would likely create huge problems for civil aviation throughout Latin America's largest nation because Congonhas is a key hub, but prosecutors called the move essential to ensuring air safety.
"It is necessary to temporarily paralyze the activities at the Congonhas airport in Sao Paulo until a complete renovation of both of its runways can be completed and there is certainty that they are fully secure," prosecutors said in a statement.
The plane slammed into a TAM airlines building after narrowly clearing the airport's perimeter fence and rush-hour traffic on a surrounding highway. Three people on the ground also died and another 11 were hospitalized.
Armando Schneider Filho, director of engineering for the nation's airport authority Infraero, said the runway would remain closed for 20 days.
The crash came less than a year after 154 people were killed in the September collision of a Gol Airlines Boeing 737 with a small jet over the Amazon rainforest.
"It's been 10 months since the last worst air accident in Brazilian history and now we've had an accident worse than that," said David Fleischer, a political scientist at the University of Brasilia. "If you look at what's happened since September, the answer is nothing.
A judge questioned former French President Jacques Chirac for more than four hours Thursday in an investigation into a party financing scandal that dates back to his time as mayor of Paris, his lawyer said.
The party financing investigation is the most potent of a string of potential legal problems the 74-year-old Chirac faces now that he no longer has presidential immunity.
It remains unclear whether Chirac, who turned over power to Nicolas Sarkozy in May, will ever be tried in this or other legal cases implicating him.
The judge has been waiting for years to talk to Chirac himself about how much he knew about the financing scandal, which has already targeted several former colleagues of Chirac's.
Investigators say RPR operatives were illegally on the Paris city payroll in a scheme to help finance the party, and that the equivalent of millions of dollars in salaries and fees were doled out.
Philibeaux's investigation turned up a 1993 letter in which Chirac requested a raise for a secretary who was paid by City Hall but who actually worked at party headquarters.
Former Prime Minister Alain Juppe, a close Chirac ally, was convicted in the case in 2004 and given a 14-month suspended prison sentence and a yearlong ban from politics.
Minutes later, Spilotro's fellow mobsters beat and strangled him in a suburban Bensenville basement on a June afternoon 21 years ago.
Spilotro was the model for the Joe Pesci character in the movie.
Paul Schiro, 70; and Anthony Doyle, 62, are charged with taking part in a racketeering conspiracy that included gambling, loan sharking, extortion and 18 long-unsolved murders, including those of the Spilotro brothers.
During the last two days, Nicholas Calabrese has taken jurors through more than a dozen mob hits, mostly in gruesome eyewitness detail.
He began cooperating with the FBI to avoid a death sentence after a bloody glove left at a murder scene was traced to him through DNA evidence.
A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit by outed spy Valerie Plame and her husband against Vice President Dick Cheney and other top Bush administration officials.
Plame had accused members of the Bush administration of leaking her identity.
To knowingly disclose classified information to unauthorized recipients is a crime, and Plame's position was classified.
Plame's identity as a CIA operative was exposed in July 2003 after Wilson publicly challenged a key argument in the Bush administration's case for the invasion of Iraq.
Bates, a Bush appointee, agreed with defense arguments that federal law protects Cheney and the other top administration officials from being sued for actions taken as part of their official duties.
Melanie Sloan, the Wilsons' lawyer, said the couple plans to appeal Thursday's ruling.
"While we are obviously very disappointed by today's decision, we have always expected that this case would ultimately be decided by a higher court.
We disagree with the court's holding and intend to pursue this case vigorously to protect all Americans from vindictive government officials who abuse their power for their own political ends," she said in a statement.
Afghan rebel leader and Taliban and al Qaeda ally Gulbuddin Hekmatyar has declared a ceasefire against Afghanistan's government, he said in a statement.
"Members of Hezb-i-Islami have stopped and refrained from brother killing and from the destruction of the country and assumed political activity because it believes the Americans, like the British and Russians, will pull out (of Afghanistan)," said the statement obtained by Reuters on Thursday.
"Hence, now we have to unite for creating an Islamic system and start our political efforts so that we can provide a tranquil life and everlasting peace for our Muslim countrymen," it said.
An Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman said he was not aware of the statement and other government officials were not immediately available for comment.
After the end of the Soviet occupation and the fall of the Afghan communist government, Hekmatyar was briefly prime minister in a mujahideen administration that disintegrated into civil war in the early 1990s.
He has previously claimed it was his fighters that helped bin Laden escape a U.S. operation in the mountains of Tora Bora, then last year pledged allegiance to the al Qaeda leader.
Suspected Islamic insurgents fired mortar rounds at a Somali government meeting in Mogadishu on Thursday, barely missing the target but striking a nearby village, killing six civilians most of them children a government spokesman told CNN.
Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi the target of several assassination attempts had just left the national reconciliation conference when the attack happened, spokesman Abdi Gobdon said.
The African Union Mission in Somalia, or AMISOM, is charged with helping the war-torn country rebuild.
The force also is helping to protect the transitional government, backed by the United Nations, which is struggling to establish order after more than 15 years without a functioning central authority.
Somali forces are backed by Ethiopian troops.
Washington has accused the Islamic movement of harboring fugitives from the al Qaeda terrorist network, including a suspect in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
Tour de France leader Michael Rasmussen has been dropped from the Danish team in a row with his national federation over drugs testing.
Under International Cycling Union (UCI) regulations leading competitors are required to make themselves available for out of competition testing.
Rasmussen holds the Tour lead after 11 stages with a two minute 35 seconds advantage over Spain's Alejandro Valverde after brilliant displays on the Alpine stages.
But he faces being sidelined for this year's world championship road race and next year's Olympics.
"I tried to give an explanation of what happened, but they wouldn't accept it," he said. "But this is something that should not in the least affect my continued participation in the Tour.
A former government contract employee was indicted on charges of stealing restricted nuclear energy-related materials and putting the United States at risk, the Department of Justice announced Thursday.
Roy Lynn Oakley, 67, of Roane County, Tennessee, appeared in federal court in Knoxville on Thursday.
Oakley was briefly detained for questioning in the case in January, when authorities first learned of the alleged plot to divulge the materials, government sources told CNN.
He voluntarily surrendered Thursday at an FBI field office in Knoxville, the sources said.
Oakley is a former employee of Bechtel Jacobs, the Department of Energy's prime environmental management contractor at the East Tennessee Technology Park, prosecutors said.
The indictment states that Oakley, "having possession of, access to and having been entrusted with sections of 'barriers' and associated hardware used for uranium enrichment through the process of gaseous diffusion ... having reason to believe that such data would be utilized to injure the United States and secure an advantage to a foreign nation, did communicate, transmit and disclose such data to another person."
The transfer took place January 26, the indictment alleges.
Oakley is also charged with converting the material and "restricted data" to his own use.
The government alleges that in January, Oakley attempted to sell the "pieces of scrap" to someone he thought was a French agent but in reality was an undercover FBI agent, Moncier said.
Each count carries a possible sentence upon conviction of up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Wanted: volunteers willing to take their clothes off and have their picture taken on a freezing cold Alpine glacier.
Greenpeace said if global warming continues at its current pace, most Swiss glaciers will disappear by 2080.
The photo shoot, which follows Tunick's previous shoots in London, Mexico City and Amsterdam, will take place in August at an undisclosed location in Switzerland.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he believes relations with Britain will develop normally despite what he called a "mini-crisis" after tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions condemned by London as "completely unjustified.
Putin was speaking Thursday amid a mounting diplomatic row over Moscow's refusal to hand over a suspect in the poisoning death of an ex-KGB spy.
Thursday's expulsion by Russia of four British diplomats was prompted by the "provocative and unfriendly actions" of London in expelling four Russian diplomats on Monday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin said at a brief news conference.
Moscow will also refuse to issue new visas to British government officials, and suspend dialogue with London on counterterrorism measures, Kamynin said. The expelled British diplomats, who were not identified, must leave Russia within 10 days, the spokesman said.
British officials expelled the four Russian diplomats on Monday after Moscow's repeated refusals to hand over Andrei Lugovoi, a former Russian state security agent who is a suspect in
the death of Alexander Litvinenko.
Russia has said its constitution does not allow extraditing its citizens to foreign countries and Putin has called the request "stupid," Reuters reported.
forces should go into Pakistan to rout al Qaeda from the safe haven it has found in the mountains on the border with Afghanistan, a co-chairman of the Iraq Study Group said.
Lee Hamilton, who also served as the vice chairman of the 9/11 commission, says the Iraq war distracted the United States when it had al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden on the run in the tribal region between Afghanistan and Pakistan. He says it's now time to finish the job.
"This has to be carefully calibrated, worked out with the Pakistanis, but I am very concerned that you have a safe haven in Pakistan today where they (al Qaeda) can regroup, rethink, and get ready for more attacks," Hamilton said on CNN's "Newsroom" on Wednesday.
Some intelligence analysts believe bin Laden and his second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, are hiding in western Pakistan.
The United States has accused Pakistan of allowing al Qaeda and the Taliban to have free rein in the region after it pulled out some of its forces in a deal with pro-Taliban tribal chiefs last year.
After last week's deadly siege at the Red Mosque in Islamabad that pitted radical Islamists against Pakistan's military government forces, Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf vowed to "fight against extremism and terrorism no matter what province.
"We will finish it off in every corner of the country," he said. Hamilton criticized the Pakistani president for keeping U.S. forces out of the region.
"I know Musharraf is described as a great ally of the United States, he's been helpful in some ways, but the fact that he has kept us away from going after these sanctuaries I find unacceptable," the former congressman from Indiana said.
Lleyton Hewitt has hired Roger Federer's former coach Tony Roche to try to help him get back to the top of world tennis.
Hewitt has been without a full-time coach since Roger Rasheed quit shortly before the Australian Open in January, but announced on Wednesday that Roche had agreed to take on the job.
"I'm really looking forward to renewing our partnership," Australian Hewitt told a news conference in Sydney. "We both know what we need to do to get to the top of the game again.
His compatriot Roche had coached world number one Federer on a part-time basis from 2005, but the pair parted just two weeks before this year's French Open.
Hewitt won the U.S. Open in 2001 and Wimbledon the following season and was the youngest man in history to finish a year ranked number one in the world.
He held the top ranking for a total of 80 weeks from 2001 to 2003 but has not won a grand slam title since and has slipped to 21st in the world.
Hewitt, who has worked with Roche in the past in Australia's Davis Cup team, said he hoped the 62-year-old would be able to bring out the best in him.
"I wouldn't be doing this job if I didn't think Lleyton had a chance of winning a grand slam.
Cedric Vasseur clinched the host country's first win in this year's Tour de France with victory on the 229.5km 10th stage on Wednesday.
The 36-year-old Quick Step rider, who will retire at the end of the season, beat compatriot Sandy Casar to the line by the width of a wheel, with Swiss Michael Albasini of the Liquigas team coming home third.
Dane Michael Rasmussen of the Rabobank team retained the overall leader's yellow jersey after finishing in the bunch.
"Ten years ago, I wore the yellow jersey during five days. There are signs. I knew victory could not slip from my hands today.
The day started with the announcement by the German federation of Patrik Sinkewitz's positive test for elevated levels of testosterone.
As a result, Germany's state broadcasters ARD and ZDF said they were halting coverage of the race, which is watched by more than a million Germans, until the Sinkewitz case was resolved.
Internet users and company officials in China on Wednesday blamed a series of disruptions to cross-border email traffic on adjustments to the country's vast Internet surveillance system.
IT company executives offered varying explanations for the email disruptions, but agreed they were not a result of standard technical problems.
"We have had hundreds of complaints from our clients in the last couple of days," said Richard Ford, technical director of Candis Group, a Beijing-based IT company that processes hundreds of thousands of emails a day.
"It would have been nice if the authorities could have warned us about this.
Ford said clients complained of emails being returned with error messages that could only have been placed by a "third party" between local and foreign mail servers.
"At first we thought this was our problem ... but after investigations, we are certain it is related to China's great firewall," Ford said, referring to the elaborate system of filters China maintains to intercept and block sensitive content from entering its sprawling Internet.
"This often happens but usually only for a few hours, maybe a day at most," Gao Miao, IT manager at Beijing-based consultancy BDA China, told Reuters.
The widow of Daniel Pearl has sued more than a dozen reputed terrorists and Pakistan's largest bank, blaming them for the torture and murder of the Wall Street Journal reporter in 2002.
Backed by the bank, terrorists "carried out the kidnapping, ransom, torture, execution and dismemberment of Daniel Pearl and broadcast those images nationwide," the lawsuit said.
The suit seeks unspecified damages for acts it alleges were meant to "emotionally destroy the Pearl family and terrorize, appall and frighten American citizens.
The suit claims the trust, which banked with Habib, was a front for Mohammed and al Qaeda that "abetted and conspired" in the Pearl slaying.
Pakistan banned the charity earlier this year as part of an effort to dry up terrorist financing.
"I am looking for the truth of what happened to Daniel, for our family, our friends, and the public record," she said. "This process allows us to delve deeper into the investigation, and to bring accountability and punishment to those involved with his kidnapping, torture and murder.
Pearl, the South Asia bureau chief for the Journal, was abducted from Karachi while researching a story on Islamic militancy.
His remains were later found in a shallow grave in Karachi's eastern outskirts.
An FBI analyst and former vice presidential aide was sentenced Wednesday to 10 years in prison for espionage after he admitted supplying classified documents to Philippine nationals in an effort to overthrow that country's government, federal prosecutors said.
Leandro Aragoncillo, 48, a former U.S. Marine and Philippine native who worked as a military aide to Vice Presidents Al Gore and Dick Cheney before joining the FBI as a civilian employee, pleaded guilty to four charges of espionage in May 2006.
In a sentencing hearing Wednesday morning, U.S. District Judge William H. Walls sentenced Aragoncillo to 10 years in prison for his involvement in a plot to overthrow Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo
Aragoncillo could have been sentenced to up to 20 years for participation in a conspiracy to transmit national defense information, prosecutors said.
U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie, in a news release issued Wednesday, accused Aragoncillo of "betraying his Marine uniform, his adopted country and the trust bestowed on him as an FBI analyst.
Michael Ray Aquino, a co-conspirator, was sentenced by Walls on Tuesday to six years in prison.
Aquino, 41, is a former Philippine national police officer who pleaded guilty in July 2006 to taking classified documents, obtained from Aragoncillo, and passing them on to Philippine officials plotting to overthrow Arroyo.
Prosecutors say that Filipino recipients of the classified documents included former President Joseph Estrada, who was ousted six years ago;
Researchers predict that the recurring oxygen-depleted "dead zone" off the Louisiana coast will grow this summer to 8,543 square miles its largest in at least 22 years.
The forecast, released Monday by the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, is based on a federal estimate of nitrogen from the Mississippi River watershed to the Gulf of Mexico.
It discounts the effect storms might have.
The "dead zone" in the northern Gulf, at the end of the Mississippi River system, is one of the largest areas of oxygen-depleted coastal waters in the world. Low oxygen, or hypoxia, can be caused by pollution from farm fertilizer, soil erosion and discharge from sewage treatment plants, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
The pollution is carried downstream by the Mississippi and comes from throughout the United States.
Excess nutrients can spur the growth of algae, and when the algae die, their decay consumes oxygen faster than it can be brought down from the surface.
As a result, fish, shrimp and crabs can be forced to move or die, the consortium Web site says.
The dead zone usually begins forming in the spring and stays through summer and into the fall.
Steve Jobs, the father of the iPod, was crowned Tuesday as the undisputed king of the online music revolution by U.S. music magazine Blender, topping a list of the 25 most influential people in Web music.
"Today's power brokers no longer work in the steel-and-glass towers of the traditional record business; instead, they're tech geeks, bedroom bloggers and Silicon Valley visionaries.
He said Jobs, who co-founded Apple Inc. and is chief executive of the company, had proved to be a technology trendsetter.
"The iTunes Store and the iPod have done more to change the way people listen to music than anything since the CD, and maybe since the sound recording," Marks said.
The magazine put Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe, co-founders of the the popular social networking site MySpace as second in "The Powergeek 25.
In third place were the creators of YouTube, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, whose file-sharing site has become "the star-maker MTV used to be.
" At No. 4 was 68-year-old Universal Music Group chairman/CEO Doug Morris, whom the industry sees as a main influencer of digital music policy moves, including royalties and licensing.
Jerry Hadley, the world-class tenor known for his agile and lyric voice, died Wednesday, a week after he shot himself in an apparent suicide attempt.
The 55-year-old singer died two days after doctors at St. Francis Hospital in Poughkeepsie took him off life support, said family friend and spokeswoman Celia Novo.
Hadley, who had been battling personal problems, shot himself with an air rifle July 10 at his home in Clinton Corners, 80 miles north of New York City. State police said he was found unconscious on his bedroom floor.
The Illinois-born Hadley sang everything from Mozart to show tunes, including appearing on a recording of "Show Boat" that was a best-seller.
He built his reputation tackling demanding work, including the title role in composer John Harbison's 1999 "The Great Gatsby" at the Metropolitan Opera.
Leonard Bernstein chose Hadley to sing the title role in a 1989 production of his musical "Candide," and he sang the lead in Paul McCartney's "Liverpool Oratorio" in 1991.
Hadley was featured in the Leos Janacek's opera "Jenufa," which won a Grammy in 2004.
"I particularly admired the strength and sweetness of his voice in the lyric Mozart parts and the imagination and commitment he brought to contemporary works," James Levine, music director of the Metropolitan Opera, said in a statement. "He was also a warm, generous colleague with a great sense of humor, who always gave his very best.
He was noticed in the late 1970s by Beverly Sills, then general director of the New York City Opera, which hired him.
Hadley also performed at Milan's La Scala, the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, the Deutsche Oper in Berlin, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the San Francisco Opera, the San Diego Opera and the festivals in Glyndebourne, England, Aix-en-Provence, France, and Salzburg, Austria.
President Robert Mugabe said on Wednesday that Zimbabwe's military had rejected British encouragement to stage a coup and warned his government would press ahead with a price blitz that has left shop shelves empty.
Mugabe, in power since independence from Britain in 1980, also mocked one of his critics, Roman Catholic Archbishop Pius Ncube, saying he needed prayers after being sued for adultery on Monday.
"The British thought that because of the suffering here there would be a coup.
Mugabe, 83, who plans to stand for another five-year presidential term next year, accuses the West of working with the opposition and businesses to overthrow his government.
Critics say Mugabe has increasingly relied on the military and other security agencies to hang on to power despite a severe economic crisis that has seen inflation spiralling above 4,500 percent and unemployment and poverty levels rising.
In London, the British government said it would provide 50 million pounds ($100 million) over five years to help 2 million of Zimbabwe's poorest people.
"No funding goes directly to the government. The program is closely monitored to ensure that there is no political interference before the support reaches the intended beneficiaries," International Development Minister Shriti Vadera said.
The U.S. military on Wednesday announced the arrest of a senior leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, an insurgent who, the military said, is casting himself as a "conduit" between the top leaders of al Qaeda and al Qaeda in Iraq.
"He served as the al Qaeda media emir for Baghdad and then was appointed the media emir for all of Iraq," said Brig. Gen. Kevin J. Bergner, Multi-National Force-Iraq spokesman, who briefed reporters.
He is believed to be the most senior Iraqi in al Qaeda in Iraq.
interrogations, al-Mashadani shed light on the workings of al Qaeda in Iraq and its connection with al Qaeda outside of Iraq, Bergner said.
He said al-Mashadani is a close associate of al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Ayyub al-Masri and served as an "intermediary" between al-Masri, al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, the second-in-command of al Qaeda.
"In fact, communication between senior al Qaeda leadership and al-Masri frequently went through al-Mashadani," Bergner said.
Bergner said al-Mashadani co-founded an organization "in cyberspace" called the Islamic State of Iraq, which he referred to as a "marketing" effort to create a Taliban-like state in Iraq.
An initial probe of a Brazilian plane crash that killed nearly 200 people suggests the airliner's pilot tried to abort a landing, an official said Wednesday.
Investigators earlier said at least one of the boxes was sent for analysis to the United States' National Transportation Safety Board, which is aiding the investigation.
Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva declared three days of national mourning for the nation's worst air disaster.
Among the dead was Juilo Redecker, a member of the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies and the Brazilian House minority leader.
In Washington, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi led a moment of silence in Redecker's honor, saying she and other House members had planned to meet with Redecker at the U.S. Capitol.
"What appears to have happened is that he [the pilot] didn't manage to land and he tried to take off again," said Capt. Marcos, a fire department spokesman who would identify himself only by rank and first name in accordance with department guidelines.
CNN's Harris Whitbeck was at the scene of the crash Wednesday. The building that the plane hit "is a concrete structure that looks like it was literally blown out," Whitbeck reported.
TAM has released a list of passengers, crew and employees, including seven TAM workers who it said were killed on the ground.
The airline said Wednesday that 186 people were on board the plane. So far, 158 bodies have been recovered but only eight have been identified, federal police said.
Victoria Beckham's bid to woo Americans has backfired with damning reviews of a reality TV show that she hoped would overturn her image here as a sour-faced diva.
The New York Post called Monday night's show "an orgy of self-indulgence" and described Beckham as "vapid and condescending.
Beckham, 33, wife of British soccer legend David Beckham, arrived in Los Angeles last week in a media blitz promoting the couple as style icons and mega-celebrities both on and off the soccer field.
David Beckham has signed a $250 million contract over five years with the Los Angeles Galaxy soccer team.
"I think people will really get to see what I'm really like. I'm just a normal girl from London.
Alessandra Stanley in The New York Times said that such reality shows "rely on a fish-out-of-water conceit but in Beverly Hills she is a fish-in-Evian, one rich, blonde, spray tanned wife-of among many.
Viewing figures released Tuesday showed that the NBC program documenting Beckham's house-hunting, attempts to get a U.S. driving license and lessons on surviving an earthquake was the third-most watched show in its time slot Monday. Some 4.9 million people tuned in, but more watched repeats of ABC's "Wife Swap" and two CBS sitcoms.
Yahoo reported a dip in quarterly profit Tuesday as corporate advertisers spent less on its online ads, and the company gave a weaker-than-expected forecast for the rest of 2007.
Shares in the Internet media company fell 4.2 percent in extended trade.
Jerry Yang, the company's co-founder who took the CEO job in a June management shakeup, promised a new strategic plan as he sought to convince investors he is open to change and able to take on rapidly growing rival Google.
"I intend to spend the next 100 days or so focused on mapping out a strategic plan," Yang told Wall Street analysts on a quarterly conference call. "There are no sacred cows.
He said Yahoo has three priorities:
Net income for the second quarter fell to $161 million, or 11 cents per diluted share, from the year-earlier quarter's $164 million, or 11 cents per diluted share.
Yahoo has disappointed investors in five of the last six quarters and seen its share price drop roughly 30 percent since the start of 2006.
United Nations inspectors have confirmed that North Korea has closed all of its nuclear facilities at its Yongbyon nuclear complex, the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency told reporters Wednesday.
"We now verified that all five nuclear facilities has been shut down and that appropriate measures have been put in place including sealing some of these facilities," International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei told reporters in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
"We expect that in the next few weeks we will continue to apply necessary monitoring and verification measures, so all the five facility right now are shut down and we verified that.
The other nuclear facilities at the site include a spent fuel reprocessing facility, a fuel fabrication plant, a radio-chemical laboratory and a reactor under construction.
U.N. inspectors must still seal the nuclear facilities and install closed-circuit TV to monitor them.
Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick faces criminal charges and a possible prison sentence for allegedly participating in an enterprise that trained pit bulls for death matches in which spectators bet on the outcome, federal prosecutors announced Tuesday.
Vick, 27, and three associates were indicted by a federal grand jury in Richmond, Virginia, on a conspiracy count alleging they bought and sponsored dogs in an animal fighting venture and traveled across state lines to participate in illegal activity, including gambling.
According to the indictment, dogs that didn't show enough fighting spirit, or that lost matches, were put to death by a variety of methods, including shooting, drowning, hanging and electrocution.
A National Football League spokesman said the allegations against Vick would be reviewed under the NFL's personal conduct policy.
"We are disappointed that Michael Vick has put himself in a position where a federal grand jury has returned an indictment against him," said spokesman Brian McCarthy. "We will continue to closely monitor developments in this case and to cooperate with law enforcement authorities.
If convicted of both portions of the conspiracy charge, Vick could face six years in prison and a $350,000 fine, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia.
Vick, a standout at Virginia Tech who was the first player chosen in the 2001 NFL draft, is one of pro football's highest-profile and highest paid players.
In 2004, he signed a 10-year, $130 million contract with the Falcons.
The dogfighting investigation began in April, when authorities found 54 pit bulls on property Vick owns in Smithfield, Virginia, about 30 miles west of the Norfolk area where he grew up.
Insurgents wearing military uniforms killed 29 people in an attack early Tuesday on a village near Baquba, while a suicide car bomber struck an army patrol east of Baghdad, killing 11, the Iraqi Interior Ministry said.
Four people also were wounded in the attack on the village, Duwailiya, a Shiite community northeast of Baghdad in Diyala province.
A spokesman for the military command in Diyala province confirmed that the gunmen "were wearing military uniforms but they were in civilian vehicles.
The spokesman said that 10 of the victims were treated so brutally they can't be identified.
The Iraqi command spokesman said the gunmen intended to make villagers think they were soldiers but instead they were "deviated gangs" led by al Qaeda in Iraq.
The military said it has taken precautions to guard "the remaining families in the region.
He said armed people dressed as soldiers in civilian vehicles should be treated as terrorists. U.S. and Iraqi troops have been fighting insurgents in Operation Arrowhead Ripper in and around Baquba, the capital of Diyala the eastern province northeast of Baghdad.
Other operations are in Anbar province, to the west of Baghdad, and in hotspots south of the capital.
Also Tuesday, a car bomb exploded in a parking lot near the Iranian Embassy in central Baghdad, killing four people and wounding three others, an Interior Ministry official said.
Heavy black smoke poured into the air and bright orange flames lit the night sky in Sao Paulo after a passenger plane skidded across a road and crashed into a building Tuesday. At least 200 people were killed.
A TAM Airlines Airbus 320 carrying 176 people crashed while attempting to land in heavy rain at Sao Paulo's Congonhas Airport, the airline said.
The Sao Paulo fire department said at least 200 people, including some on the ground, were dead at the scene.
There was no immediate word on survivors.
Brazil President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva declared three days of national morning for the victims, according to reports from The Associated Press. Witnesses said the plane skidded across a major road at rush hour.
The plane apparently struck a building bearing the airline's logo at the small domestic airport in the heart of the city.
At least 50 rescue vehicles were at the scene, firefighters said.
The fire continued to burn into the night. Paulo Barros told the Brazilian newspaper O Globo that he was getting ready to board a flight to Brasilia on another runway when the plane crashed.
"We saw the plane go straight down the runway.
Flight JJ3054 was coming to Sao Paulo from Porto Alegre in southern Brazil, the airline said. Watch scene after plane crashes in Sao Paulo &raquo;
The airport is notorious for having short, slippery runways, CNN's Miles O'Brien reported.
A Brazilian court in February banned large jets at the busy airport because of safety concerns, The Associated Press reported.
But an appeals court overruled the ban, saying it would hurt business and that the safety problems did not warrant halting air traffic, according to AP.
According to AP, Brazil's deadliest crash before Tuesday occurred last September when a Gol Aerolinhas Inteligentes SA Boeing 737 collided with an executive jet over the Amazon rainforest, killing 154 people.
BOSTON, Massachusetts (AP) The nonprofit that aims to seed the developing world with inexpensive laptop computers for schoolchildren has made peace with Intel Corp., the project's most powerful rival.
The One Laptop Per Child program and Intel said Friday that the chip maker would join the board of the nonprofit and contribute funding.
The nonprofit effort has been trying to line up governments in several countries to buy the machines, which for now cost $175.
And Intel recently began selling its own child-focused Classmate PC, which is a more conventional machine than the radically rethought XO computers.
Intel has deals in Pakistan, Brazil, Mexico and Nigeria.
Although William Swope, Intel¡¯s director of corporate affairs said "philanthropy is the reason" for the partnership announced Friday with One Laptop Per Child.
Chimpanzees scampering on a treadmill have provided support for the notion that ancient human ancestors began walking on two legs because it used less energy than quadrupedal knuckle-walking, scientists said.
Writing on Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers said people walking on a treadmill used just a quarter of the energy relative to their size compared to chimpanzees knuckle-walking on four legs.
The scientists equipped five chimpanzees and four people with face masks to track oxygen usage and looked at other measures to assess energy expenditure and biomechanics on a treadmill.
Bipedalism is a defining characteristic of the human lineage and marked an important divergence from other apes.
Some scientists for decades have advanced the hypothesis that millions of years ago, human ancestors began walking upright because it used less energy than quadrupedal walking, gaining advantages in things like food foraging.
But there has been scant data on this notion, aside from a 1973 study looking at locomotion energy in juvenile chimps.
If they didn't want to walk on the treadmill, they'd just hit the stop button or they'd jump off," Raichlen said.
An Indian firm has launched a paan-flavored condom designed to evoke the pungent taste of the betel nut and tobacco concoction chewed and then spat out by millions of South Asians, newspapers have reported.
Hindustan Latex is targeting the new condom range at prostitutes, who are among the most vulnerable to sexually transmitted diseases such as AIDS, the Hindustan Times reported Tuesday.
"The community loved it as most of the sex workers chew paan," Sanjeev Gaikwad was quoted as saying at the launch in Mumbai.
Paan is a mildly intoxicating preparation wrapped in a leaf, usually containing tobacco, betel nut and flavorings, and is hugely popular across South Asia.
Alexander Vinokourov's hopes of winning the Tour de France ended in tears when he failed to keep up with the top contenders in the ninth stage, a 159.5-km ride from Val d'Isere to Briancon on Tuesday.
Pre-race favorite Vinokourov, a winner in Briancon in 2005, burst into tears when he told reporters:
"The team worked well, I have tried to limit the damage but it was a terrible day," added the Kazakh, who sustained knee injuries in a crash last Thursday.
Caisse d'Epargne rider Valverde emerged as one of the serious candidates for overall victory when he ended the stage 38 seconds behind Soler in second place and just ahead of Australian Cadel Evans.
It was a good day, however, for yellow jersey holder Michael Rasmussen, who was in the top group along with France's Christophe Moreau and Vinokourov's lieutenant, Andreas Kloeden of Germany.
objective is now to bring back the yellow jersey to Paris," said the Rabobank rider.
I never thought I would win a stage in the Tour de France," said Soler.
At least 12 people were killed when a suicide bomber attacked the site where the country's suspended chief justice was scheduled to address a rally, sources in Pakistan told CNN.
Along with the dozen killed, at least 35 others were wounded in the blast Tuesday, hospital sources said.
Militants and radical students holed up in the mosque two weeks ago after a battle with police.
The latest attack occurred at the site of a planned rally for the country's suspended chief justice, Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry. Watch explosion shock festive rally crowd &raquo;
A bomb exploded 50 meters (50 yards) away from the rally stage before the event started.
Chaudhry had not arrived at the scene when the explosives detonated.
Chaudhry was removed from office on March 9 by President Pervez Musharraf, who accused Chaudhry of misusing his powers.
Musharraf appointed Chaudhry to the court in 2005, but the judge fell from favor after he started exercising independence from the government in a number of cases involving the disappearance of terrorist suspects and human-rights activists.
A train carrying yellow phosphorus derailed in western Ukraine, releasing a cloud of toxic gas into the air over 14 villages.
Rescuers extinguished a fire that broke out in the highly toxic substance, which can catch fire spontaneously on contact with air at temperatures higher than 104 degrees. It can cause liver damage if consumed.
Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Kuzmuk, who was at the site, compared the accident to the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear reactor in 1986.
"It is an extraordinary event, the consequences of which cannot be predicted.
Of the 11,000 people living in the contaminated area, 815 were evacuated, said Ihor Krol, spokesman for the emergency situations ministry.
The poison cloud produced by the fire contaminated 35 square miles, Krol said.
Phosphorus compounds are chiefly used in fertilizers, although they are important components of pesticides, toothpaste, detergents as well as explosives and fireworks.
About 100 drums containing low-level nuclear waste at Tokyo Electric Power Co's (TEPCO) Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant were knocked over by Monday's earthquake and some lost their lids, Kyodo news agency said on Tuesday.
The plant, the world's biggest nuclear power plant, reported a fire and a radiation leak at the facility after Monday's quake.
As aftershocks continued, forecasts for wet weather raised fears of mudslides that could add to the devastation.
6.8 magnitude quake that hit Niigata prefecture at 10:13 a.m. (0113 GMT) on Monday, which also caused a small radiation leak and fire at the world's biggest nuclear plant.
With more than 300 homes totally destroyed in Kashiwazaki alone, it was unclear when people could go home and worries were mounting about the health of evacuees, many of whom are elderly.
Niigata was hit in October 2004 by a quake with a matching magnitude of 6.8 that killed 65 people and injured more than 3,000.
A TAM Airline passenger plane carrying as many as 170 people crashed Tuesday while attempting to land at Sao Paulo's Congonhas domestic airport, the airline said. The statement did not say how many people were on board. There was no immediate word on survivors.
The plane apparently struck a building. Video footage from the scene showed visible flames at the crash site and a TAM sign visible on the building.
Flight JJ3054, an Airbus A320, was coming to Sao Paulo from Porto Alegre, the airline said.
The airline said it could not immediately confirm the extent of the damage or the number of victims.
A statement from firefighters said about 50 rescue vehicles were at the scene. The fire continues to burn, firefighters said, but rescuing people on the plane is officials' priority.
Tom Hennigan, a reporter from The Times of London in Sao Paulo, told CNN that Tuesday's weather in Sao Paulo included low-lying clouds and heavy rain.
It is completely surrounded by the central part of Sao Paulo city. This is not an airport out on the edge of the city. This is right in the city.
According to the Associated Press, Brazil's deadliest crash occurred last September when a Gol Aerolinhas Inteligentes SA Boeing 737 collided with an executive jet over the Amazon rainforest. All 154 people on the passenger jet died.
The executive jet landed safely.
TRIPOLI, Libya Libya's highest judicial body said on Tuesday it had commuted the death sentences against six foreign medics to life imprisonment.
Earlier in the day, a financial settlement was announced that appeared to clear the way for the change in sentence.
Libya has distributed funds to more than half the Libyan families of children with HIV under a deal involving the medics who allegedly infected them, a spokesman for the families said on Tuesday.
"When all the families have received the money, a deal will be announced, likely within the next six hours, and a declaration by the families will be sent to the High Judiciary Council which will then be authorized to take the appropriate decision on the medics," the spokesman said.
But the families see the checks not the real money. For them, they will be sure of being paid only when they bring checks to the bank and cash them.
The medical workers five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor were sentenced to death in December after being convicted of intentionally starting an HIV epidemic at a children's hospital in the city of Benghazi.
Libya's Supreme Court last week upheld the death sentences, placing the medics' fate in the hands of the High Judicial Council, which is controlled by the government and has the power to commute sentences or issue pardons.
The council said it would rule on the fate of the medics only if the children's families accepted the deal.
In jail since 1999, the six medics say they are innocent and that they were tortured to confess.
Foreign HIV experts say the infections started before the workers arrived at the hospital and are more likely a result of poor hygiene.
Bulgaria and its allies in the EU and the United States say Libya is using the medics as scapegoats to deflect criticism from its dilapidated health care sector.
They have also suggested that not freeing the nurses would carry a diplomatic cost for Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi, who after scrapping a prohibited weapons program in 2003 is trying to emerge from more than three decades of diplomatic isolation.
Brazil produced a ruthlessly efficient performance to beat old rivals Argentina 3-0 on Sunday and win the Copa America for the second time in a row.
Brazil stung Argentina with a fourth-minute goal from Julio Baptista then Argentina captain Roberto Ayala, making his 115th appearance, put through his own goal before halftime.
Although Argentina had more possession, Daniel Alves added a third as Argentina coach Alfio Basile, who won the 1991 and 1993 tournaments in a previous stint, lost a Copa America match for the first time in a run spanning 19 games.
It was a bitter pill for Argentina, which lost on penalties to the same opponents in the 2004 final and were favorites to win this time against a Brazil team missing Kaka
Argentina had scored 16 goals in five games before the final while Brazil lost to Mexico in the group stage and needed a penalty shootout to beat Uruguay in the semifinals.
Alex Rodriguez concedes the New York Yankees have a lot of work ahead.
Still, winning three of four games against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays to climb above .500 for the first time in more than three weeks is a nice start for a team that spent the first half of the season digging itself into a deep hole.
Derek Jeter hit a two-run homer, Andy Phillips snapped an eighth-inning tie with an RBI single and New York (45-44) moved above .500 for the first time since June 22.
Phillips went 2-for-4 with two RBIs and made a diving catch at first base with a runner on second in the eighth, starting an inning-ending double play that preserved a one-run lead.
Mariano Rivera wriggled out of a two-on, none-out jam in the ninth for his 426th career save.
Jeter homered off starter Edwin Jackson to finish a four-run fifth inning that erased a 3-0 deficit.
Phillips had an RBI triple in the fifth and put the Yankees ahead for good with his eighth-inning single off Gary Glover.
It's not a situation you want, but we got back in there and you could feel the energy.''
Torre said he had lunch with owner George Steinbrenner on Friday.
Torre, in the final year of his contract, said his future was not discussed.
According to Torre, when they were talking about the second half of the season, Steinbrenner told him, ''We have to start winning.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2793901
International soccer star David Beckham said Friday that he was taking on the biggest challenge of his career, after being introduced as the newest member of the Los Angeles Galaxy.
About 5,000 fans, hordes of photographers and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa attended the news conference.
The stylish star was showered with confetti as he held his No. 23 jersey up to his gray suit.
His wife Victoria, better known as as Posh Spice of the Spice Girls, stayed on the sidelines during the event but still attracted a lot of attention in her pink dress and big black sunglasses.
Beckham called coming to America "one of the biggest challenges I've ever taken on in my career.
" That career includes 11 years on England's national team and stints on storied football clubs Manchester United and Real Madrid.
"Potentially, in the States, soccer could be as big as it is everywhere else around the world. And I'm proud to be a part of that," Beckham said. "And I'm going to be a part of that for the next five years and maybe for a few more years later." Watch as Beckham becomes an American soccer player &raquo;
Galaxy head coach Frank Yallop called Beckham "a winner on and off the field.
"The team cannot wait to get him out on the field with his boots on, his kit on, the Galaxy jersey on, start to win some games and enjoy our time here," Yallop said.
The media blitz started late Thursday, when the paparazzi turned out at Los Angeles International Airport for the Beckham family's arrival.
His wife kicks off her publicity tour for a one-off reality show that's to air on NBC early next week.
The pair are tabloid favorites in Britain, where football stars' wives and girlfriends rival Paris Hilton for attention.
For example, the fiancee of Chelsea star Frank Lampard was seen without her engagement ring for a fourth day, and that was big news Friday on London tabloid The Sun's Web site.
Talent marketing agency Davie Brown Entertainment found that more than 51 percent of Americans surveyed knew who Beckham is, compared with the 25 percent who had heard of NBA star Tim Duncan, Isidore said.
Duncan, a perennial All-Star, just led the San Antonio Spurs to the NBA championship, winning the fourth title of his career.
Beckham is scheduled to make his U.S. debut July 21.
Harry Potter remains a box-office charmer.
The Warner Bros. fantasy sequel "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" conjured up a $77.4 million debut to lead the weekend box office, according to studio estimates Sunday.
"Transformers," the DreamWorks-Paramount sci-fi tale that was the previous weekend's No. 1 movie, slipped to second place with $36 million, lifting its total to $223 million.
The fifth installment in the movie series based on J.K. Rowling's novels about the teen wizard, "Order of the
The previous four "Harry Potter" flicks all had bigger first weekends, ranging from $88.4 million to $102.7 million, but those all debuted Friday.
"Order of the Phoenix" was the first to get a jump on the weekend with a Wednesday opening. "We're in the middle of summer, and we just said 'why not?
"Order of the Phoenix" did more business in five days than each of the first three "Harry Potter" movies did in their first full week, and it nearly matched the $146 million first week total of the fourth film, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," Fellman said.
Warner Bros. counts on the "Harry Potter" frenzy to persist with the publication next Saturday of the final book in the series, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
Man-yi was moving east-northeast at 22 mph (35 kph) as it reached the Tokai region after ripping through the southernmost main island of Kyushu on Saturday, the Meteorological Agency said.
The storm was weakening with winds of up to 101 mph (162 kph), but forecasters still warned of flooding and landslides as it looked to brush by Tokyo later in the day.
Man-yi, which approached Japan's southern Okinawa islands late last week, has killed three people, including a 11-year-old boy swept away by a
fast-moving river Saturday while trying to pick up a ball.
One man was missing and 73 were injured, NHK television said.
Television footage showed high winds pounding rocky shorelines in the central prefecture of Shizuoka, while a landslide farther north in Chiba flattened one house.
Officials had advised thousands of households to evacuate, while around 4,200 people fled to evacuation centers on their own.
The storm also disrupted travel for many during a three-day holiday weekend, with train services halted, highways closed and 213 flights canceled, including those to and from Shanghai, China, and Seoul, South Korea, NHK said.
Power outages hit 744 households, and some regions also had water cut off by landslides.
Rain would weaken as Man-yi veers off into the Pacific Ocean by Monday, the Meteorological Agency said.
Sales of Nintendo's quirky Wii video game machine could top the legendary PlayStation 2, making it the biggest hit in the industry's history, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata said on Thursday.
Nintendo Co. Ltd. sped past Sony Corp. in market capitalization last month to become one of the 10 most valuable companies in Japan.
Iwata in an interview also played down the threat to Nintendo's business of a price cut in Sony's PlayStation 3 and the introduction of a thinner PlayStation Portable.
The Wii has outsold Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3 monthly since its November launch, helped by its relatively affordable $250 price tag and a motion-sensing controller that can be swung like a bat, for instance.
"Sony's PS2 sales of 100 million units is an extraordinary number that our home game console business has not achieved," Iwata said. "But if we can make our bid to expand the gaming population a continued success, we could exceed that," he told Reuters. Nintendo's strategy to entice new players into the video game market has so far proved a smashing success:
its DS portable and the Wii console are flying off store shelves.
Nintendo sold 5.8 million units of the Wii by March 2007, and aims to sell another 14 million during the current business year to March 2008.
Former media tycoon Conrad Black, who was found guilty on Friday of mail fraud and obstruction of justice for his role in defrauding shareholders of Hollinger International and skimming $60 million from the newspaper conglomerate, will appeal the jury's verdict, Black's attorney Edward Greenspan said upon leaving the courthouse.
Black could face up to 20 years in prison, if the judge accepts the prosecutor's recommendation.
We believe based on the conviction of the charges here that the sentences for this type of offense are far less than what the government suggested.
At a later press conference, Patrick Fitzgerald, the lead U.S. Attorney prosecuting the case, suggested that 15 1/2 to 20 years could represent a "conservative estimate of the guidelines range," but added that a judge "will decide what the sentence is based upon on all the appropriate factors."
Black could also pay up to $1 million in fines.
His associates Peter Atkinson, 60, of Oakville, Ontario, Jack Boultbee, 64, of Victoria, British Columbia, and Mark Kipnis, 59, of Northbrook, Ill., were also found guilty on mail fraud charges.
Each could serve up to 15 years in jail.
The court ruled that Boultbee and Atkinson will be allowed to return to Canada to serve their prison sentences.
After the verdict was announced, Fitzgerald described his reaction to the decision as "gratified.
"We think the verdict vindicates the serious public interest in making sure that when insiders in a corporation deal with money entrusted to them by the shareholders, that they not break the law to benefit themselves instead of the shareholders," he said.
A car bomb packed with explosives detonated Sunday in a central Baghdad square, killing 10 people and wounding 25, the deadliest attack on a violent day that claimed the lives of at least 18 others.
Still, a U.S. military spokesman said Sunday that the month-old American offensives in and around the capital were starting to have an effect, reducing violence and civilian deaths.
The Bush administration is under increased pressure from critics in Congress who say the U.S. strategy in Iraq is not working, raising calls for a troop withdrawal.
Proponents of a pull-out have pointed to the failure of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to enact political reforms considered vital to a long-term fall in violence.
The car bomb attack came in central Hussein Square, which has several kebab stalls and other take-out stands, said a police official.
The dead included two women, and three women and five children were among those injured, said the hospital officials. All the officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press.
"It was a big explosion, and a fire followed," said one witness, the owner of a nearby mobile phone shop who would identify himself only by his first name, Haidar. "I rushed with others at the site to see two burned corpses inside a car and wounded people.
In northern Iraq, gunmen ambushed a convoy of border guards, killing six of them along with a civilian, a border guard commander said.
When reinforcements pulled in, another guard died in the clash, which took place in the Kani Khal area, 160 miles northeast of Baghdad.
The commander said the Sunni extremist group Ansar al-Islam was believed to be behind the attack. The offensives are "making a difference on the ground.
Recent weeks appear to have brought a decrease in dramatic car bomb attacks, though the bombings still occur nearly daily.
In the first 14 days of July, 301 bodies were found in Baghdad, or an average of nearly 22 a day, compared to 19 a day in June, when 563 bodies were found, according to AP figures, gathered from daily reports by Iraqi police.
Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, commander of the U.S. offensive southeast of Baghdad, in the Salman Pak region, said the sweep had reduced attacks on civilians in that area by 20 percent and civilian deaths by 55 percent, compared to before it was launched in mid-June.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2793881
Russia on Saturday suspended its participation in a key European arms control treaty that governs deployment of troops on the continent, the Kremlin said, a move that threatened to further aggravate Moscow's already tense relations with the West.
Putin has in the past threatened to freeze his country's compliance with the treaty, accusing the United States and its NATO partners of undermining regional stability with U.S. plans for a missile defense system in former Soviet bloc countries in Eastern Europe
Under the moratorium, Russia would halt inspections and verifications of its military sites by NATO countries and would no longer limit the number of its conventional weapons, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
The treaty, between Russian and NATO members, was signed in 1990 and amended in 1999 to reflect changes since the breakup of the Soviet Union, adding the requirement that Moscow withdraw troops from the former Soviet republics of Moldova and Georgia.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia could no longer tolerate a situation where it was complying with the treaty but its partners were not, and he expressed hope that Russia's move would induce Western nations to commit to the updated treaty. Watch a report on Moscow's decision &raquo;
"Such a situation contradicts Russia's interests," Peskov told The Associated Press.
The treaty is seen as a key element in maintaining stability in Europe. It establishes limitations on countries' deployment of tanks, armored combat vehicles, artillery, attack helicopters and combat aircraft.
But Russian military analysts have said the possibility of suspending participation in the treaty was a symbolic rising of ante in the missile shield showdown more than a sign of impending military escalation.
Russia has no actual interest in the highly costly build up of forces because it faces no real military threat and has no plans to launch an attack of its won, he said.
But it will still be seen as another unfriendly move in Washington, Felgenhauer predicted.
"It will seriously spoil relations. The kind of soothing effect from the last summit with Putin and (President) Bush will evaporate swiftly," he said referring a summit between the leaders earlier this month at the Bush family home in Kennebunkport, Maine.
A 14-year-old would-be suicide bomber from Pakistan, caught while on a mission to blow up an Afghan provincial governor, was pardoned on Sunday by President Hamid Karzai.
Taliban insurgents and their al Qaeda allies have launched a wave of suicide attacks against Afghan, NATO and U.S.-led forces in the last two years, seeking to show the government and its Western allies are incapable of providing security.
Most of the victims are Afghan civilians.
Rafiqullah's father, a poor tradesman from South Waziristan in Pakistan, had sent his son to a religious school, or madrassa, to learn the Koran.
Later, when he asked where his son was, the teachers there brushed him off, he said.
Then last month, the 14-year-old was caught wearing a suicide vest on a motorbike in the eastern Afghan city of Khost.
The boy and father bowed their heads as Karzai spoke.
That is not his fault, nor his father's, the enemies of Islam wanted him to destroy his life and those of other Muslims.
Walking to the gates of the presidential palace with his father, Rafiqullah said:
"I have a message, it is a message of peace, forgiveness, a message pleading for better relationships, not cheating the children and encouraging them into terrorism and suicide.
(CNN) Osama bin Laden stresses the importance of martyrdom for Muslim causes in a videotape that purportedly contains a 50-second message from the al Qaeda leader.
There is no indication of where it was shot, and CNN cannot verify its authenticity.
"We're aware of the tape," a government official, who didn't want to be identified, told CNN.
The official agreed that the tape's content is not necessarily new.
Bin Laden, with a bodyguard standing directly behind him, is looking down slightly in the video, appearing to address an audience below, which is unseen. Watch the al Qaeda leader &raquo;
He says that the Prophet Mohammed wanted to be a martyr, and that is a worthy goal for every Muslim.
"So this whole broad life is summarized by him who was inspired by God, the Lord of the heavens and earth, praised and exalted is he.
Bin Laden was one of several men appearing and speaking on the tape.
They include Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq who was killed in a U.S. airstrike June 7, 2006.
The video was branded by As-Sahab Media, the company that traditionally handles al Qaeda communications to the public.
The environment shown is similar to that on releases made before the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, in which bin Laden is seen in the company of some of the hijackers, Nasr said.
The last time a recording of bin Laden was made public it was an audiotape, with an Arabic transcript, released on June 30, 2006.
good news soon from Sheikh Osama bin Laden."
New British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, seeking to quash speculation that London may distance itself from Washington over Iraq, insisted on Sunday the United States was still Britain's number one ally.
"It is the single most important bilateral relationship," he told BBC Television in his first broadcast interview since taking office.
Since Gordon Brown took over from Tony Blair as British prime minister last month, he has been at pains to underline there will be no cooling of Anglo-American relations but two of his ministers have offered mixed signals.
Then Foreign Office Minister Mark Malloch Brown followed up in a weekend interview by saying that Britain had to nurture a wider range of allies and predicting London and Washington would no longer be "joined at the hip".
Blair's decision to back President George W. Bush and go to war in Iraq sent his popularity plummeting in Britain and contributed to his departure after a decade in power.
He was lampooned as "Bush's poodle".
When pressed on troop plans, Miliband said in his television interview "I don't want to get into the prediction game.
Brown is flying to Berlin for talks on Monday and plans to visit Paris and Washington after that. He has said he will continue to work closely with the U.S. administration.
North Korea is ready to start dismantling its nuclear programs following the shutdown its sole operating reactor, a North Korean diplomat said Sunday, as long as the United States lifts all sanctions against the communist nation.
Kim Myong Gil, minister at the North's mission to the United Nations in New York, confirmed the reactor was shut down Saturday after receipt of a South Korean oil shipment, and said U.N. inspectors would verify the closure Sunday.
"Immediately after the arrival of the first heavy fuel oil, the facilities were shut down and the (International Atomic Energy Agency) personnel will verify that," Kim told The Associated Press by telephone.
practical measures the U.S. and Japan, in particular, will take to roll back their hostile policies toward" North Korea, according to the statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.
IAEA inspectors were expelled from the North in late 2002 at the start of the nuclear crisis.
A 10-member team arrived Saturday in North Korea to make sure the reactor at Yongbyon was switched off the first step by the North to scale back its weapons program since the standoff began.
Kim noted that the next steps included the North making a declaration of its nuclear program and disabling the facilities.
But he said that would happen only if Washington takes actions "in parallel," including removing wider economic sanctions and striking the country from a list of states that sponsor terrorism.
The main U.S. envoy on the North Korea nuclear issue, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, has said he believes the North's nuclear facilities could be completely disabled by the end of the year and that he expected a complete declaration of its atomic programs within months.
"They want some things, we want some things, and we have to sit down and figure out how everything's going to be sequenced. "
Suicide bombers struck twice in northwestern Pakistan on Sunday killing at least 31 people in two separate attacks as the death toll from a weekend of violence continued to mount.
At least 14 died as a joint police-army convoy was hit by two suicide bombers and a roadside bomb early on Sunday as it was traveling through the mountainous region near the Pakistani-Afghani border, an army spokesman told CNN.
In addition, 39 people were wounded 28 of them critically. The casualties occurred when two suicide bombers rammed their explosives-laden vans into the 40-vehicle convoy.
The blasts were so strong six houses and several shops were damaged.
The convoy, which included about 40 vehicles, was traveling in Swat an area in North West Frontier Province, Arshad said.
In a seperate incident, 17 police officers and new recruits died when a bomber detonated explosives at a police headquarters in the town of Dera Ismail Khan, an officer told The Associated Press.
In Dera Ismail Khan, the bomber struck as recruits were being tested to join the force, a police officer, Gul Afzal Afridi, told AP. "It was a suicide bombing and the attacker mingled among the scores of people gathered for the test and physical examination,
No one claimed responsibility for Saturday's suicide attack in the town of Miran Shah, but Islamic militants including supporters of the Taliban and al Qaeda are active in the lawless border region of North Waziristan.
At least 67 people have died in bombings and shootings since the Red Mosque siege began on July 3, AP said.
(CNN) Iran will allow United Nations weapons inspectors to visit its heavy water research reactor by the end of July, an International Atomic Energy Agency statement says.
The U.N. nuclear watchdog also said it would finalize plans on how to deal with safeguards at Iran's Natanz uranium enrichment plant by early August.
Friday's announcement marks a new development in the IAEA's ongoing struggle to resolve Iran's controversial nuclear issues.
Tehran insists its nuclear program is meant for peaceful energy production, but uranium enriched to a high degree can also be used for weapons grade material.
In recent months weapons inspectors have reported difficulty in clearing up mysteries about the scope and purpose of Iran's nuclear program and outstanding questions about Iran's past program.
The IAEA on Friday said these agreements, which were struck earlier this week following meetings in Iran, were aimed at clarifying issues "associated with the scope and content of Iran's enrichment program."
Those issues, the agency said, will be discussed in more detail during a meeting slated to be held later this month in Vienna.
Nevertheless, Iran not only ignored the call to halt its nuclear work but also increased its activities, according to an IAEA report issued in late May.
A 27-year-old Indian national, detained in Australia, has been charged in connection with terrorism incidents in Britain last month, Australian authorities told CNN.
The man has been identified by British media reports as Queensland hospital Dr. Mohammed Haneef.
He was detained July 2 at the Brisbane, Australia, airport while he was waiting to catch a flight out of the country, officials said.
He was recruited to work in Australia from Halton General Hospital near Liverpool, England, an official at that hospital told CNN.
He graduated from Rajiv Ghandi University of Health Sciences in Bangalore, India, in 2005.
Haneef has been charged with providing support to a terrorist organization.
The charge carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in jail. Haneef is to appear in court in Brisbane, Australia, on Saturday.
Haneef is one of six Indian doctors questioned in Australia over the suspected al Qaeda-linked plot in Britain.
In the winter, the residents of this Pacific Northwest city hunker down for the gray rain that drills the city sidewalks for days on end.
Locals drink loads of strong coffee, read books and take up knitting with zeal reserved in other parts of the nation for church going or clubbing.
But when the sun comes out to stay locals say it comes around the Fourth of July and stays till around Halloween Portland blossoms and easily assumes its sweet-scented moniker, the City of Roses.
Both sunny and rainy Portland are well worth checking out.
Probably the best asset this city has to offer travelers no matter how gloomy the forecast is its extensive and reliable transit system.
Busses, trains and streetcars effortlessly move people from the airport to city center and beyond, and travelers can plan trips ahead of time and get real-time transit arrival times at trimet.org.
If your plan is to stay downtown, try parking your bags at the super-hip Ace Hotel (1022 SW Stark Street).
Taking up an entire city block, each of it's 79 rooms is uniquely decorated by hand by a different artist.
Famous for its size the warehouse-like building stretches for an entire city block this location is just one of five Powell's stores in the city.
Powell's allows patrons to grab a book of interest and thumb through it over a cup of coffee in the store's spacious caf&eacute;.
Powell's is also renowned for drawing famous authors to its stacks for intimate readings.
The Doug Fir is the place to check out Portland's quirky local music scene and see local bands like The Dimes or Southerly.
No matter what the weather forecast sun-drenched or soaking Portland has plenty of fun to offer visitors willing to snoop out this city's more eclectic and inviting destinations.
Football star David Beckham and his wife, Victoria, arrived on Thursday night to begin their new lives in the United States.
Dozens of reporters and photographers pushed and shoved behind barriers set up at the terminal before the duo, surrounded by security guards, left in a black sport utility vehicle without commenting.
Their three children accompanied them on the flight, but didn't exit the terminal with them.
David Beckham was dressed in a black jacket and jeans.
Several people at the airport to pick up passengers became paparazzi themselves, snapping images with their cell phones.
"It was so awesome, he looks better in person than in the magazines," said devoted Beckham fan Priscilla Flores, 15. "I'm really excited to see him play his first game here. He'll make soccer more popular here.
The English midfielder, who helped Real Madrid win the Spanish title last month, will play for the Los Angeles Galaxy of Major League Soccer.
He's set to be introduced by the Galaxy on Friday, and to make his playing debut in a friendly match against Chelsea on July 21 in Carson, California.
The Beckhams will make their new home in a reported $22 million, 13,000-square foot villa in Beverly Hills, where neighbors include their friends Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes.
The couple also will appear in a one-hour U.S. network special, "Victoria Beckham:
Coming to America," airing July 16.
They are asking volunteers on the Internet to help classify the galaxies as either elliptical or spiral and note, where possible, in which direction they rotate.
"We're in the golden era of astronomy," said Bob Nichol, an astronomer at the University of Portsmouth in southern England. "We have more data than we can assimilate, and we need help.
Astronomers say computer programs have been unable to reliably classify the star systems.
Without volunteers, researchers would need years to wade through the photographs, which were taken automatically by a massive digital camera mounted onto a telescope at the Apache Point Observatory near Sunspot, New Mexico, Nichol said.
With 10,000 to 20,000 people working to classify the galaxies, the process could take as little as a month.
"At some level, what we learn about these galaxies could tell us something quite fundamental about cosmology and particle physics," Nichol said.
Listen to an iPod during a storm and you may get more than electrifying tunes.
A Canadian jogger suffered wishbone-shaped chest and neck burns, ruptured eardrums and a broken jaw when lightning traveled through his music player's wires.
Last summer, a Colorado teen ended up with similar injuries when lightning struck nearby as he was listening to his iPod while mowing the lawn.
Michael Utley, a former stockbroker from West Yarmouth, Massachusetts, who survived being struck by lightning while golfing, has tracked 13 cases since 2004 of people hit while talking on cell phones.
Contrary to some urban legends and media reports, electronic devices don't attract lightning the way a tall tree or a lightning rod does.
A spokeswoman for Apple Inc., the maker of iPods, declined to comment.
Packaging for iPods and some other music players do include warnings against using them in the rain.
Bunch, who was listening to Metallica while mowing the grass at his home in Castle Rock, Colorado, still has mild hearing damage in both ears, despite two reconstructive surgeries to repair ruptured eardrums.
Eardrum ruptures are considered the most common ear injury in lightning-strike victims, occurring in 5 percent to 50 percent of patients, according to various estimates whether or not an electronic device is involved.
Hoping modern technology can help them solve a 70-year-old mystery, a group of investigators will search a South Pacific island to try to determine if famed aviator Amelia Earhart crash-landed and died there.
The expedition of 15 members of the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, or TIGHAR, was set to depart Thursday.
Once at the 2¨ö-mile-long island, the group was to spend 17 days searching for human bones, aircraft parts and any other evidence.
They are trying to show that Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, reached the island on July 2, 1937, crashed on a reef at low tide and made it to shore, where they possibly lived for months as castaways, written off by the world as lost at sea.
That's why everybody on the street today, 70 years later, knows the name Amelia Earhart," said TIGHAR founder and executive director Ric Gillespie. "She is America's favorite missing person.
"Most skeptics are not really familiar with the evidence that we've found, and they usually have a vested interest in the other theories that they crashed at sea or were captured by the Japanese," he said.
The group mostly veterans of previous trips to the island includes engineers, environmentalists, a land developer, archaeologists, a sailboat designer, a team doctor and a videographer.
Motorola Wednesday warned of a second-quarter loss and said it no longer expected its mobile-phone business to be profitable this year, blaming weak sales in Asia and Europe.
The warning came at the end of a day when Motorola shares had risen as much as 3 percent on rumors that its chief executive, Ed Zander, could resign amid a campaign by an activist shareholder to oust him.
Earlier this year, Zander had withstood pressure from another activist shareholder, billionaire investor Carl Icahn, but Wednesday's profit warning could trigger more speculation that he may be forced out, some analysts said.
"With this type of performance and the bleak prospects facing the company for the rest of the year ... I don't think Zander's tenure is going to go much further.
Motorola, the second largest maker of mobile phones after Nokia, declined to comment on the speculation and did not mention him in the statement.
Spokeswoman Jennifer Erickson said Zander remains chairman and CEO and continues to work closely with top management to help restore the profitability of the mobile-device business.
Motorola backtracked on its previous target for the mobile unit to make a full-year profit, and said its second-quarter operating loss would be wider than in the first quarter.
Shortly after Motorola's news, No. 4 mobile-phone maker Sony Ericsson, a venture of Sony Corp. and Ericsson, reported a quarterly profit, a sales increase and a boost to its market share with 24.9 million phone sales.
Race favorite Alexander Vinokourov lost ground on the leaders in the Tour de France and suffered a deep cut on his right knee after crashing during Thursday's fifth stage.
In a bad day for the Astana team, his super-domestique Andreas Kloeden injured his coccyx in a separate incident.
"It is as serious for him as it is for Andreas," team spokeswoman Corrine Druey said of Vinokourov.
German Kloeden had crashed earlier in the 182.5-km ride. "The diagnosis is a fissure in his coccyx," Druey
"If we are not to win the Tour this year, we will come back next year," he said. "But you know Vino, he has never been stronger than when things become harder.
Vinokourov, who ripped his shorts and also suffered grazing to his right buttock in the crash, tried to rejoin the peloton with the help of six team-mates but the collective effort failed to bear fruit and the Kazakh went solo to limit the damage. He dropped to 81st in the overall standings, two minutes 10 seconds adrift of leader Fabian Cancellara.
How do you prove you're a virgin in the town that inspired "Sex and the City"?
The producers of an off-Broadway show are giving away free tickets to anyone who can demonstrate his or her chastity.
Producer Ken Davenport, 34, said a hypnotist would screen people standing in line for the free tickets to his 90-minute comedy, "My First Time," and determine their status.
The human lie detector, Sebastian Black, describes himself as a mind reader and a psychic hypnotist.
"He's a master of body language and tone of voice," Davenport said.
"However, there are not that many virgins in New York City."
The boy wizard still has a magic touch at the box office.
"Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" took in $44.8 million in its first day, the best single-day gross ever for a movie on a Wednesday.
The sequel from Time Warner Inc. unit Warner Bros. topped the previous Wednesday record of $40.4 million for 2004's "Spider-Man 2," according to box-office tracker Media By Numbers.
"It's a synergistic match made in heaven to have the book and movie come out within a couple weeks of each other.
"Order of the Phoenix," the fifth installment of the movie franchise based on J.K. Rowling's fantasy best-sellers, has teen wizard Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) teaching classmates magic spells to defend themselves against the coming battle with the forces of dark Lord Voldemort.
Al Qaeda is stepping up its efforts to sneak terror operatives into the United States and has acquired most of the capabilities it needs to strike here, according to a new U.S. intelligence assessment, The Associated Press has learned.
The draft National Intelligence Estimate is expected to paint an increasingly worrisome portrait of al Qaeda's ability to use its base along the Pakistan-Afghan border to launch and inspire attacks, even as Bush administration officials say the U.S. is safer nearly six years into the war on terror.
Al Qaeda is probably still pursuing chemical, biological or nuclear weapons and would use them if its operatives developed sufficient capability.
a safe haven in Pakistan's tribal areas, operational lieutenants and senior leaders. It could not immediately be learned what the missing fourth element is.
In public statements, U.S. officials have expressed concern about the ease with which people can enter the United States through Europe because of a program that allows most Europeans to enter without visas.
Government officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the report has not been finalized, described it as an expansive look at potential threats within the United States and said it required the cooperation of a number of national security agencies, including the CIA, FBI, Homeland Security Department and National Counterterrorism Center.
The Lebanese army pounded a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon with heavy artillery Thursday in what one high-ranking Lebanese security source described as a final bid to oust the Islamist militants entrenched inside.
Fighting around the coastal Nahr al-Bared camp has been simmering on and off for about eight weeks, but flared Thursday as fresh army reinforcements were brought into the area as part of a final assault, the source said.
The Lebanese army said they had killed a number of militants in the renewed clashes, but were unsure how many remained holed up inside.
Since the beginning of the assault against the Fatah al-Islam fighters which are said to have ties with al Qaeda scores of militants and at least 88 Lebanese service members have been killed.
The sometimes-fierce battles mark the worst internal violence since the end of Lebanon's civil war in 1990.
The violence began May 20, when Lebanese internal security forces were conducting raids in a Tripoli neighborhood, triggering clashes near the refugee camp. Army sources said militants from Fatah al-Islam fired on the forces, who then returned fire.
Meanwhile, most of the roughly 30,000 Palestinians who used to live in the once-overcrowded camp have now fled. Some left on foot carrying babies and only a few belongings, while others crammed into cars and vans.
Chopped cardboard, softened with an industrial chemical and flavored with fatty pork and powdered seasoning, is a main ingredient in batches of steamed buns sold in one Beijing neighborhood, state television said.
The report, aired late Wednesday on China Central Television, highlights the country's problems with food safety despite government efforts to improve the situation.
Countless small, often illegally run operations exist across China and make money cutting corners by using inexpensive ingredients or unsavory substitutes.
Baozi are a common snack in China, with an outer skin made from wheat or rice flour and a filling of sliced pork.
Cooked by steaming in immense bamboo baskets, they are similar to but usually much bigger than the dumplings found on dim sum menus familiar to many Americans.
The surroundings are filthy, with water puddles and piles of old furniture and cardboard on the ground.
The bun maker and his assistants then give a demonstration on how the product is made.
It fools the average person," the maker says. "I don't eat them myself.
The House of Representatives voted 223-201 Thursday to require most U.S. troops to leave Iraq by April 1, 2008.
President Bush vetoed a war-spending bill with a similar withdrawal date in May and has threatened to spike any new effort to set a timetable for a U.S. pullout.
But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, said Thursday's mixed report on the progress of the war shows it's time for American troops to come home.
"President Bush continues to urge patience, but what is needed and what the American people are demanding is a new direction," she said.
Earlier Thursday, Bush said a report on U.S.-set benchmarks for Iraq shows "satisfactory progress" in eight areas.
During his news conference, the president commented on the nation's psyche, declaring, "There's war fatigue in America. It's affecting our psychology. I understand that.
"This is an ugly war. It's a war in which an enemy will kill innocent men, women and children in order to achieve a political objective. It doesn't surprise me that there is deep concern amongst our people."
The president said it is not Congress' job to make decisions regarding the war.
Jay Inslee, a Washington Democrat, said the United States has given Iraqi leaders "a reasonable chance" to work out their differences, and it was time for American troops to come home.
"The moral obligation to Iraq has been completed," he said. "The moral obligation to our families now needs to be honored.
Four Republicans joined 219 Democrats to pass the bill, two more than backed a similar measure in March. But 10 Democrats broke ranks to oppose it.
BEIJING, China (CNN) The world's tallest man married a woman who's two-thirds his height and half his age, holding a traditional Mongolian ceremony Thursday with great fanfare at the tomb of Kublai Khan.
Bao Xishun, a 7-foot-9 herdsman from Inner Mongolia, met his bride earlier this year after searching high and low, sending advertisements around the world.
It turns out he didn't have to look far 5-foot-6 saleswoman Xia Shujian hails from his hometown of Chifeng.
A limo followed the cart.
He did not kowtow to his parents and in-laws because of his extraordinary height and arthritis in his knees, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.
Bao, 56, and Xia, 28, married in a civil ceremony in March.
Bao was confirmed last year by Guinness World Records as the world's tallest person.
Xinhua said his growth was normal until age 16, when a growth spurt shot him up to his current height within seven years.
He was in the news in December after he used his long arms to save two dolphins by pulling plastic out of their stomachs.
Just seven years ago Fortune was predicting that high-flying tech companies would soon displace the oil and auto giants that had been hogging the limelight at the top of the Global 500.
Well, look who's still riding high:
That lifted Morgan Stanley (No. 61), Merrill Lynch (No. 70), and Goldman Sachs (No. 72) into the top 75 for the first time.
But the big story was oil.
Exxon Mobil (Charts, Fortune 500) (No. 2), fueled by high crude prices, was again the most profitable company in the world ($39.5 billion).
The refining industry overall represented more than 14% of the Global 500's $21 trillion in total revenue.
That rising tide of petrodollars lifted a Chinese company, Sinopec (No. 17), into the top 20 for the first time.
But for tech companies like Apple (Charts, Fortune 500) (No. 367), up a phenomenal 125 places on the list, it's still a long way to the top.
Not all of the old-economy companies are doing well.
Ford Motor (Charts, Fortune 500) (No. 12) fell out of the top ten for the first time in the Global 500's 13-year history.
General Motors (Charts, Fortune 500) (No. 5) lost money too, and BP saw its profits decline 1.5% in a year when crude prices remained high.
But Asia's largest company, Toyota (No. 6), moved up two places and saw its profits rise 16% as customers flocked to its fuel-efficient and hybrid cars.
If current trends persist, it should surpass GM next year to become the world's largest automaker by revenue.
Samsung Electronics (No. 46) became Asia's biggest consumer electronics firm, edging out Hitachi.
Hewlett-Packard (No. 41), revitalized under the leadership of Mark Hurd, passed IBM (No. 42) for the first time to become the leader in the computers and office equipment category.
There were fresh signs Wednesday that some Republican senators are impatient with the White House plan for Iraq and are demanding that the president change his war strategy now.
After emerging from an hourlong private meeting in the Capitol in which they had a "vigorous" exchange with National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, several senators said they urged the president to begin planning now for a repositioning of U.S. involvement in Iraq after the American there, Gen. David Petraeus, releases a progress report in September.
Bush said Tuesday he would not alter his current war plan until after September, when his top U.S. general in Iraq is scheduled to reveal whether the current troop "surge" is
But the president is fighting a tide of dissent among lawmakers in his own party, while Bush and the war itself rank low in national opinion polls.
Sen. Norm Coleman of Minnesota, who is up for re-election in 2008 and is facing tough criticism for his continued support of the Iraq war, said after the meeting with Hadley that "I don't think any votes or minds were changed in there.
"I offered concern about the Iraqi government," Coleman said. "I think it's important to have a bipartisan approach.
But Sen. Robert Bennett of Utah said he thought the senators and Hadley had a "very useful exchange," which he described as "vigorous.
"He told us where the president is, and we told him where we are, and we reached towards each other," Bennett said.
Not all the Republicans in the meeting were critical of the Bush policy.
Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina said that "we told Petraeus that we'd send our troops there and gear up, and for us to even be debating a change before September 15 is irresponsible government.
The uneasiness comes as the administration nears release of a report on 18 benchmarks for the Iraqi government.
Richie's lawyer, Shawn Chapman Holley, said in court that Dr. Terence Sean McGee will testify about tests and conclusions by drug experts used by prosecutors.
Holley told Superior Court Commissioner Steven K. Lubell that McGee's testimony was critical to the defense, but he is unavailable to appear in court until next month.
Richie, 25, was not in court for the brief hearing.
Because she faces a misdemeanor charge, the co-star of TV's "The Simple Life" was not required to attend. Terms of any deal that might be on the table were not made available and the district attorney's office declined to comment.
Richie, 25, was arrested early on December 11 after witnesses reported seeing her SUV headed the wrong way on a freeway in Burbank.
She allegedly failed a field sobriety test and authorities said she told them she had smoked marijuana and taken a prescription painkiller.
No drugs were found on her or in the vehicle.
She pleaded not guilty in February to misdemeanor driving under the influence.
In addition to the single count, the case contains an allegation that Richie had a prior misdemeanor DUI conviction in June 2003.
Libya's Supreme Court has upheld the death sentences of five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor convicted of infecting more than 400 children with the AIDS virus.
But the verdict may not be the final word in the case.
"The court has accepted the appeal in principle but rejects its content, therefore the court decided to uphold the verdict against them," Judge Fathi Dahan told the courtroom.
In announcing the verdict, the judge didn't mention a settlement announced Tuesday by a foundation headed by the son of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.
Libya has been under intense international pressure to free the six, who deny infecting the children.
President Bush called on Libya last month to free the medics.
The six began working at the hospital in the city of Benghazi in 1998 and were arrested the next year after more thThe prosecution insists that the six infected the children intentionally in experiments to find a cure for AIDS.
Defense experts testified that the children were infected by unhygienic hospital conditions.
Families of victims of the Srebrenica massacre buried 465 more victims on Wednesday, at an annual ceremony that has become the main event of their lives since the 1995 atrocity by Bosnian Serb forces.
For the first time, the anniversary commemoration took place in an atmosphere of raised hopes that justice will be done and those responsible for the slaughter of some 8,000 Muslims 12 years ago this month will finally be prosecuted.
Serb police official and suspend 35 policemen believed to have taken part.
"Twelve years have passed and nobody has done anything for us.
Several senior Bosnian Serb army officers have been sentenced by the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague for the Srebrenica massacre, and others are being tried in Bosnia.
But top genocide suspects Mladic and his political boss Radovan Karadzic are still at large.
"I'm working to get Karadzic and Mladic.
I still hope that I'll get them by the end of my mandate in December," U.N. Chief Prosecutor Carla del Ponte told a group of Srebrenica mothers, who accused her of not doing enough to apprehend the two men.
She has consistently accused Serbia of harboring Mladic, and Belgrade admitted last year that he was indeed hiding in the capital until early 2006.
Jim Benson's ship is called the Dream Chaser, and here's the dream he's chasing: a 50 percent profit margin on revenue of $200 million by 2015 from putting tourists into suborbital space.
He also wants to beat the mighty Richard Branson into this market by several months.
The FAA sees suborbital flights becoming a $700 million business, with 15,000 passengers a year, by 2021; Benson's boast, then, may be on the conservative side.
(Branson's Virgin Galactic says it will start turning a profit in 2011.)
And while Benson, 62, isn't as wealthy or as well-known as Branson, he is a veteran entrepreneur who has already sent products into space.
Benson is the founder and majority shareholder of SpaceDev, which manufactures microsatellites and parts for NASA's Mars rovers.
It also helped design the revolutionary engine that powered Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne, the first commercial spacecraft, into the history books in 2004.
Rutan is building five copies of SpaceShipTwo for the Virgin Galactic venture, which claims that it will be conducting test flights in 2008 and flying passengers in 2009 at $200,000 a pop.
Benson founded Benson Space, based in Poway, Calif., with the express aim of getting there first.
Teacher Dave Barclay flew thousands of miles across the Atlantic to Wales to attend his friend's wedding, only to discover he was a year early.
Barclay, 34, was told about the wedding earlier in the year and assumed it was to take place in 2007.
It was only when he had flown into Cardiff from Toronto, Canada, and rang the bridegroom seeking details of the venue that he discovered the wedding was in 2008.
The groom, Dave Best, had emailed his friend at the start of the year.
"He just said July the 6th and I assumed it was this year because if you tell the guy July 6th, they're going to think it's this year," Barclay said.
"At least it's assured me a mention in the speech next year," he added.
and Hussain Osman, 28 were handed down life sentences at Woolwich Crown Court in London after being convicted Monday for conspiracy to murder.
Prosecutors told the court Wednesday they would seek a second trial against two other men Manfo Kwaku Asiedu, 34, and Adel Yahya, 24, after a jury failed to return verdicts in their cases. Both men deny conspiracy to murder.
The jury was discharged after reaching deadlock during the initial hearings, which ended on Tuesday.
The July 21 failed attacks happened 14 days after the July 7 London suicide attacks, which killed 52 commuters and four bombers. Watch the trial conclude for four men accused of plotting the July 21 attacks &raquo;
The defendants all from London denied charges of conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to cause explosions.
Four of the men claimed the devices, made from liquid hydrogen peroxide, chapati flour, acetone and acid, were a hoax.
During the trial the jury was told by prosecutor Nigel Sweeney that the conspiracy "had been in existence long before the events of July 7" and did not appear to be some "hastily arranged copycat."
Each bomb was placed in a large plastic container in a knapsack and screws, tacks, washers or nuts, were taped to the outside to "maximize the possibility of injury," Sweeney said.
Pakistani forces combing through the Red Mosque have found the bodies of at least 73 militants, an army spokesman said Wednesday.
Forces were almost finished searching the many rooms of the complex for unexploded grenades, booby traps and other weaponry.
Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad said the first phase, which focused on clearing the area of militants and ensuring innocent women and children were not inside, was finished and the second phase, the combing operation, was about to end.
Arshad declined to comment on the number of militant corpses found inside the mosque, stressing the need to clear the entire complex before discussing those exact figures.
Violence erupted at the mosque on July 3 when about 150 militant Islamic students attacked a police checkpoint close to the mosque.
Pakistani officials said Abdul Rashid Ghazi, the radical Islamic cleric who led the stand-off, was among the dead.
Civilians helped coalition and Iraqi forces conduct a massive raid on an al Qaeda hideout in the town of Sherween, leaving 20 suspected terrorists dead and 20 more in coalition custody, the U.S. military said Wednesday.
The militants were caught off guard when U.S. aircraft dropped eight 2,000-pound bombs and 14 quarter-ton bombs on river crossings and a bridge in the town northeast of Baghdad, said Staff Maj. Gen. Abdul Kareem.
Kareem, who commands the Iraqi Security Forces in Diyala province, said the bombings isolated the terrorists who had infiltrated Sherween.
The town's residents fought alongside the Iraqi forces during the raid, helping them kill and capture the terrorists, a U.S. military news release said.
"This operation was very important for the people of Sherween because we were able to find a very big hideout for the terrorists," Kareem said of Operation Saber Guardian, which began early Tuesday.
The raid will have a political impact on Diyala, which the U.S. military says has become a hotbed for al Qaeda terrorists who fled Baghdad after the U.S.-led security crackdown there, said Maj. John Woodward, executive officer of the U.S. troops involved in the operation.
The raid will help "facilitate Sunni resistance fighting in the Muqdadiya area as the people have grown tired of the destruction al Qaeda offers," he said.
A squid as long as a bus and weighing 550 pounds washed up on an Australian beach, officials said Wednesday.
"It is a whopper," said Genefor Walker-Smith, a zoologist who studies invertebrates at the Tasmanian Museum.
Giant squid live in waters off southern Australia and New Zealand where a half-ton colossus, believed to be the world's largest, was caught in February.
They attract the sperm whales that feed on them.
The dead squid, measuring 3 feet across at its widest point and 26 feet from the tip of its body to the end of its tentacles, was found early Wednesday by a beachcomber at Ocean Beach on the island state of Tasmania's west coast, the museum said.
The squid was expected to be taken to the museum, where DNA and other scientific tests would be carried out before it is preserved and possibly put on public display.
For anyone thinking of a calamari feast, Walker-Smith said giant squid contain high levels of ammonia in their bodies as a buoyancy aid.
New Zealand fishermen netted a 1,100-pound, 33-foot-long squid in the Southern Ocean in February.
It is widely believed to be the largest specimen of the rare and mysterious deep-water species Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni, or colossal squid, ever caught.
China's politically volatile trade surplus soared to a new monthly high in June, the government said Tuesday, showing that demand for Chinese goods remains strong despite concerns about their safety.
The June trade surplus widened 85.5 percent from a year ago to $26.9 billion, the country's Customs agency said on its Web site.
That pushed the total surplus for the first half of the year to $112.5 billion, breaking the $100 billion barrier for the first time for a six-month period, the agency said.
Exports in July soared 21.7 percent to $179.6 billion, while imports grew 14.2 percent to $76.4 billion, the customs agency said.
The United States and other governments have ordered recalls or imposed controls in recent weeks on Chinese imports of tires, toothpaste, seafood and other goods after finding safety flaws or toxic contamination.
At the same time, import growth has been slowed by government efforts to contain a boom in construction and investment that it worries could cause financial problems. China has reported its four highest monthly trade surpluses in the past nine months.
Critics of Beijing's trade record say its currency controls are partly to blame for the gap. They say China keeps its yuan undervalued, giving exporters an unfair price advantage.
Some U.S. lawmakers are calling for legislation that would impose punitive tariffs or other controls on Chinese imports if Beijing fails to let the yuan rise faster in value.
The Credit Agricole rider, who won the green jersey in 2005, launched the bunch sprint 350 meters from the finish line to edge Barloworld's South African rider Robert Hunter.
Hushovd's fifth victory on the Tour means the Norwegian leapfrogs German Andreas Kloeden for second place overall thanks to time bonuses, with Briton David Millar now out of the top three.
Swiss Fabian Cancellara, who finished safely in the main pack, retained the leader's yellow jersey.
"It was a pretty cool day because the team did the job even though there was some wind," Cancellara told a news conference.
Hushovd, who won last year's opening prologue and the closing sprint on the Champs-Elysees, paid tribute to Australian team-mate Julian Dean, who piloted him through the pack in the final kilometer.
Don't get your hopes up, gossip hounds. Daniel Radcliffe, who turns 18 later this month, isn't planning any trips to rehab or jail.
"What everybody would love to see is me having ditched school and then just going wild," says Radcliffe, star of the "Harry Potter" movies, in the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly magazine, on newsstands Friday. "That's what I'm determined not to give them.
Radcliffe was 11 when he was first cast as the bespectacled schoolboy wizard.
Warner Bros.' "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," the fifth movie in the series based on J.K. Rowling's novels, opened Wednesday. Warner Brothers is owned by Time Warner, CNN's parent company.
Radcliffe's racy role in the London stage production of "Equus," in which he played a troubled stableboy who mutilates horses, was a departure from his wholesome image.
Rowling's much anticipated seventh and final book "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" arrives July 21.
Radcliffe will celebrate his 18th birthday two days later.
AUSTIN, Texas (CNN) Lady Bird Johnson, who was first lady during the 1960s and in her later years became an advocate for beautifying public landscapes, died Wednesday, family spokesman Tom Johnson said.
She was the widow of Lyndon Baines Johnson, sworn in as the nation's 36th president on November 22, 1963, just hours after President John F. Kennedy's assassination.
Lady Bird Johnson was briefly hospitalized last month with a low-grade fever.
She was released and returned to her Austin home on June 28.
After suffering a stroke in 2002 that limited her ability to speak, she communicated chiefly by writing.
Upon news of her death, Texas Gov. Rick Perry ordered flags in the state to be flown at half-staff.
The former first lady was born Claudia Alta Taylor in 1912 in Karnack, Texas, a small town near the Louisiana line.
She got her unusual nickname while still a toddler from her nurse, who proclaimed the child was as "purty as a lady bird.
Lady Bird attended St. Mary's Episcopal School for Girls, a junior college near Dallas and then transferred to the University of Texas at Austin.
She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in history in 1933, then stayed an extra year to earn a journalism degree.
She hoped to become a newspaper reporter, but those plans changed after she met a 26-year-old congressional aide named Lyndon Baines Johnson.
They married in 1934 after a whirlwind courtship and soon moved to Washington.
In 1960, Johnson set his sights on the presidency but lost the Democratic nomination to Kennedy.
After one of the closest presidential elections in U.S. history, Johnson was sworn in as vice president on January 20, 1961.
With Kennedy's assassination, Johnson became the 36th president.
And, of course, they all just immediately turned from supporting the Kennedys to supporting the Johnsons.
In the landslide election of 1964, Lyndon Johnson won victories in the Northeast, West and Southwest.
Its mission is the research and preservation of native plants throughout the United States.
burial next to her husband at the LBJ Ranch 35 miles west of Austin, the paper reported.
Lyndon Johnson died in 1973.
Three people, including one U.S. service member, were killed Tuesday in a barrage of up to 35 mortars fired into the Green Zone in Baghdad, U.S. military and State Department officials said.
A U.S. Embassy statement reported a U.S. military member, an Iraqi citizen and a third person of unknown nationality were killed.
In addition, it said, 18 people were wounded in the attack, including five U.S. citizens two service members and three contract employees.
The heavily fortified Green Zone is the seat of U.S. power in Iraq.
The U.S. military on Tuesday reported nearly 30 arrests in a flurry of recent raids, including 12 linked to a "rogue" Mehdi Army militia group in Baghdad.
The Mehdi Army is the militia of the populist anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
The military says the technology for the explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, comes from Iran.
In a second raid, an alleged leader of a cell responsible for several attacks on Iraqi and coalition forces was detained.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2789480
Laurel Herter wishes she'd canceled the college tour trip as soon as she heard the dismal forecast.
Ultimately, Herter's daughter, Erica, decided against the Rhode Island School of Design her grandmother's alma mater and where her family had hoped she'd enroll.
Herter thinks the hotel experience and the foul weather played a big role in her daughter's decision.
But that's the way it is with college tours.
You can never tell what will appeal to your child (everyone is playing Frisbee on the quad!) or turn him off (The tour guide had too many piercings!)
"There's a lot to be said for that immediate gut reaction," observes Arlene Matthews, a college counselor and author of "Getting In Without Freaking Out" (Three Rivers Press). "It's all about whether they feel good there."
Sure it's better to visit campuses during the school year, but many of us squeeze in a visit or three when we're traveling during the summer.
After all, we're going to be in Boston for a wedding or Chicago for a meeting or heading to the beach in Southern California.
Why not stop at a campus or two, even if your daughter is only a sophomore.
We're likely to have plenty of company on the tours because kids are applying to and visiting more colleges, the National Association for College Admission Counseling reports.
A growing number of families, in fact, are opting to send their teens off with companies like College Visits, www.college-visits.com, which is run by a former Johns Hopkins University admissions official.
But before you start tearing your hair out about the competition or the tour process, remember that the majority of schools still accept most of those who apply.
That should be your mantra as you hear tour guides warn how much more "selective" this university or that college has become.
"You've got to realize there is not one perfect school for anyone," says Kim Johnston, the director of admissions at the University of Maine, and the incoming president of the NACAC.
Most important, you should try to inject a dose of fun into the whole process, Johnston and other admissions professionals urge.
Splurge on a nice hotel or a fancy dinner.
Take in some local sites.
Revel in the time together with your son or daughter, even though they'd probably rather be on the beach than touring a campus on a hot, sticky day.
Believe me I've been there.
I've endured long car rides to a campus only to face a child who refused to get out of the car once we arrived.
I've gotten lost on unfamiliar roads and eaten cold pizza for dinner after we discovered that all the restaurants in the small college town closed by 8 p.m.
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) It was one of the greatest humanitarian acts in history.
At the beginning of World War II, as the Nazis tightened their grip on Europe, the U.S. government allowed millions of Jews to resettle from their homes in Poland and Russia to southeastern Alaska, along the panhandle.
Two million Jews had died at the hands of the Nazi scourge, but millions more were saved as the Federal District of Sitka, Alaska, became the new Jewish homeland all the more important when the fledgling State of Israel went down to defeat in 1948.
However, 60 years later, Sitka is about to be returned to local jurisdiction, and the island's Jews including a noted detective, Meyer Landsman are wondering where to go next.
Landsman's got other problems, too.
There's his ex-wife, now his boss at least until the department is disbanded and his partner, a half-Jewish, half-Tlingit named Berko who's far more responsible than Landsman.
And there are a host of old enemies with long memories, particularly when Landsman decides to root around the dead chess player's case.
Landsman's world is fiction, of course, a product of Michael Chabon's imagination.
Chabon's new book, "The Yiddish Policeman's Union" (HarperCollins), combines Landsman's hard-boiled detective's terrain with the landscape of alternate history, one in which world events take a startling turn.
The story is rooted in fact, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Chabon ("The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay") observes.
In the article, he noted an actual plan by Franklin Roosevelt's Interior secretary, Harold Ickes, to create a refuge for European Jews in Alaska, still 20 years from statehood.
Chabon's Federal District of Sitka is a land of tall apartment blocks and grimy streets, as if "Hong Kong had moved to the other side of the Pacific Ocean," he says.
Doing a genre novel or several at once, as "The Yiddish Policeman's Union" is part detective story, part alt-history, part modern Jewish folktale
Reaction from the public has been positive and even put him on The New York Times' hardcover bestseller list.
SEATTLE, Washington (Reuters) German low-cost airline Air Berlin said Saturday it ordered 25 of Boeing Co.'s new 787 Dreamliner planes in a deal worth $4 billion at list prices.
The deal, announced at a Boeing event in Seattle the day before the first 787 is unveiled, is the biggest single order for the lightweight, fuel-efficient plane from a European carrier.
Boeing said it now has 677 firm orders for 787s.
The first of the planes is set to roll out of Boeing's Everett, Washington, plant Sunday and is set for its first test flight in August or September and first delivery in May next year.
Air Berlin, based in the German capital, is Europe's third largest low-fare carrier.
The airline is looking to add long-haul destinations to its route network with the addition of the mid-sized, long-range 787s, which can easily reach Asia and the United States from Germany.
Air Berlin did not announce an engine supplier for its 787s.
The first inside-the-park home run in All-Star Game history from Ichiro Suzuki helped the American League beat the National League 5-4 in the annual Major League showcase on Tuesday.
The AL withstood a two-run home run by Alfonso Soriano of the Chicago Cubs and then three straight walks with two out in the bottom of the ninth before Angels closer Francisco Rodriguez got Aaron Rowand of the Phillies to fly out to right to end the game.
The victory gives the American League representative in the 2007 World Series the extra home game in the best-of-seven series, and was the AL's 10th consecutive win since 1996 (the 2002 event was tied).
Suzuki won the Ted Williams Award as the game's Most Valuable Player.
Carl Crawford of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and Victor Martinez of the Cleveland Indians hit conventional homers for
the AL, while Griffey drove in two NL runs and also threw Alex Rodriguez out at the plate in the fourth inning.
Boston Red Sox ace Josh Beckett pitched two scoreless innings of relief to earn the victory, while Chris Young of the San Diego Padres was the losing pitcher and Rodriguez earned the save, despite walking two of the three batters he faced.
The Metropolitan Police, Britain's largest police force, hopes a campaign beginning Wednesday will highlight that the practice is a crime here. To make their point, police are offering a 20,000-pound (euro29,500;
In Britain, the problem mostly involves first-generation immigrants from Africa and the Middle East.
Police say they do not have comprehensive statistics about the number of victims.
But midwife Comfort Momoh, who specializes in treating them at London hospitals and clinics and who works with police, told the news conference she treats 400-500 victims every year.
Arranging or carrying out the procedure in Britain or abroad is a criminal offense punishable by up to 14 years in prison, but no one has been prosecuted since it was banned under British law in 2003, Jeffrey said.
Mutilated infants, girls and women face irreversible lifelong health risks both physically and mentally, according to UNICEF and other charity groups.
It is practiced by Muslims and Christians alike, deeply rooted in the Nile Valley region and parts of sub-Saharan African, and is also done in Yemen and Oman.
Through migration, the practice has spread to Western countries like Britain.
Attached to his lawn chair were 105 large helium balloons. Destination:
With instruments to measure his altitude and speed, a global positioning system device in his pocket, and about four plastic bags holding five gallons of water each to act as ballast he could turn a spigot, release water and rise Couch headed into the Oregon sky.
"When you're laying in the grass on a summer day, and you see the clouds, you wish you could jump on them," he said.
"This is as close as you can come to jumping on them. It's just like that.
" Couch is the latest American to emulate Larry Walters who in 1982 rose three miles above Los Angeles in a lawn chair lifted by balloons.
Walters had surprised an airline pilot, who radioed the control tower that he had just passed a guy in a lawn chair. Walters paid a $1,500 penalty for violating air traffic rules.
It was Couch's second flight.
In September, he got off the ground for six hours.
Like Walters, he used a BB gun to pop the balloons, but he went into a rapid descent and eventually parachuted to safety.
He popped enough balloons to set the craft down, although he suffered rope burns.
Whether Couch will take a third trip is up to his wife, and Susan Couch said she's thinking about saying no.
WASHINGTON (AP) Ice-covered Greenland really was green a half-million or so years ago, covered with forests in a climate much like that of Sweden and eastern Canada today.
New Danish research shows that large parts of Greenland were once covered by forest.
An international team of researchers recovered ancient DNA from the bottom of an ice core that indicates the presence of pine, yew and alder trees as well as insects.
The researchers, led by Eske Willerslev of the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, say the findings are the first direct proof that there was forest in southern Greenland.
Included were genetic traces of butterflies, moths, flies and beetles, they report in Friday's edition of the journal Science.
cores drilled through ice 1.2 miles thick at a site called Dye 3 in south central Greenland.
Ice cores from another site farther north, 1.8 miles deep, did not yield any DNA.
Greenland was discovered by Vikings sailing from Iceland about 1,000 years ago.
While it had an ice cap then, the climate was relatively mild and they were able to establish colonies in coastal areas.
Those colonies later vanished as the climate cooled.
But the new research shows it hasn't always been so cold there.
The DNA, dated to between 450,000 and 800,000 years ago, may be the oldest yet recovered, according to the team.
DNA found previously in the Siberian permafrost has been dated to 300,000 to 400,000 years ago.
However, because of uncertainties in interpreting the age estimates, they could not rule out the possibility that the newly found DNA dates to the last interglacial, 130,000 to 116,000 years ago.
A small plane crashed into two homes Tuesday in Sanford, Florida, near Orlando, killing five people the pilot, his passenger, and an adult and two children inside the houses.
The fatalities include people from both homes a mother and her 6-month-old son in one home and a 4-year-old girl in the other, said Cleo Cohen, Sanford police spokeswoman.
The 4-year-old's parents were taken to an Orlando hospital, and her brother, 10, was transferred to a Cincinnati, Ohio, burn center, Cohen said.
He had third-degree burns over 80 to 90 percent of his body, according to Sanford Fire Department investigator Matt Minnetto.
Crist said he joins Floridians in prayer and grief for the families of those killed.
"My heart goes out to my friend Dr. Bruce Kennedy and all involved with this terrible incident," he said.
"Bruce was a great friend and a great doctor from an outstanding family. He was gracious beyond words, and his death is a terrible loss for Florida.
The twin-engine Cessna 310, registered to Competitor Liaison Bureau, had taken off from Daytona Beach, Florida, heading to Lakeland, Florida.
It declared an emergency with smoke in the cockpit and was attempting to land at Orlando Sanford International Airport, said Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen.
Instead, the plane crashed about five miles from the airport in a neighborhood called The Preserve at Lake Monroe.
As soon as it hit, it exploded into flames," a witness told CNN affiliate WESH 2 News.
Football superstar, celebrity, fashion icon, multimillion-dollar heartthrob. Now, David Beckham is headed for the Hollywood Hills as he takes his game to U.S. Major League Soccer.
The world's famous footballer has begun a five-year contract with the Los Angeles Galaxy team, and on Friday Beckham will meet the press and reveal his new shirt number.
This week, we take an in depth look at the life and times of Beckham, as CNN's very own "Becks," Becky Anderson, sets out to examine what makes the man tick as footballer, fashion icon and global phenomenon.
It's a long way from the streets of east London to the Hollywood Hills and Becky charts Beckham's incredible rise to football stardom, a journey that has seen his skills grace the greatest stages in world soccer.
We'll look at the highs (scoring against Greece), the lows (being sent off during the World Cup), the Man.
Beckham is no stranger to exposure.
He has teamed with Reggie Bush in an Adidas commercial, is the face of Motorola, is the face on a PlayStation game and doesn't need fashion tips as he has his own international clothing line.
The road to major league football in the U.S.A. is a well-worn route for some of the world's greatest players.
The perception that in the U.S.A. soccer is a "game for girls" after the teenage years is changing.
A suspect in the failed terror attack on Scotland's busiest airport was unlikely to survive his severe burn injuries, a doctor who treated him said Tuesday.
Khalid Ahmed, 27, is in a Scottish hospital with burns suffered after allegedly crashing a Jeep Cherokee into the Glasgow airport a day after police found two unexploded car bombs in central London.
It is beyond repair and because he has lost so much skin he is now vulnerable to infection and won't be able to fight it.
Press the switch to open the curtains in your valley-view room at the Poetry Inn, and you're suspended with the primary-striped hot-air balloons of postcard fame.
Pedal up the Silverado Trail to the Miner Family villa, climb the steps, look west over your shoulder, and a world-class view is yours too.
I found excuses to explore newer, wilder wine country.
To get my bearings, I dropped back into Grgich Hills' still-rustic tasting room.
So I ventured farther, to Clos Pegase, a Greek temple as interpreted by architect Michael Graves; to the Persian palace known as Darioush;
and to Quixote Winery, the valley's newest spectacle, a Hundertwasser design that Gaud&iacute;
Here's to Napa Cab and to the young and old who come in search of it.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) Pakistani forces Tuesday raided a controversial mosque where anti-government militants are holed up, and killed its radical Islamic cleric and more than 50 other people, Pakistani officials said.
The mosque raid is ongoing and is expected to continue into the night, Arshad said.
Eight Pakistan commandos were killed in Tuesday's raid, which began in the predawn hours, he said.
Eighty-six people came out of the mosque's madrassa or Islamic school on Tuesday, including 27 women and three children who Arshad said were rescued "from the clutches of the militants."
Watch Pakistani security forces making their final assault &raquo;
The standoff came after a government investigation of the mosque's activities, whose students are demanding Taliban-style sharia, or Islamic law, be instituted in Islamabad.
Ghazi said "no" to every offer from the government, according to Hussain.
A weeklong standoff between Pakistani security forces and the students has left at least 86 people dead.
The violence began July 3 when about 150 militant Islamic students attacked a police checkpoint close to the mosque.
Two students trying to surrender Friday were shot dead by other students in the mosque, intelligence sources said, but gave no additional details of how the shootings occurred.
China executed a former drug and food safety chief on Tuesday for corruption in an unusually swift sentence which will serve as a warning amid a series of health scandals that have stained the "made in China" brand.
The Supreme People's Court approved the death sentence against Zheng Xiaoyu, 62, who was convicted of taking bribes worth some 6.5 million yuan ($850,000) from eight companies and dereliction of duty, Xinhua news agency said.
His execution marked the first time China has imposed a death sentence on an official of his rank since 2000.
"The social impact has been utterly malign," the court said, adding that Zheng's confession and handing over of bribes were not enough to justify mercy.
Yan Jiangying, spokeswoman for the State Food and Drug Administration, said the case had brought only shame to the watchdog. "This kind of serious case of law breaking by a small minority of corrupt elements, as far as the entire system is concerned, really made us feel ashamed," she said. "But these cases revealed several problems, and I think we need to seriously reflect on what lessons we can draw.
Zheng, head of administration from 1998 to 2005, was sentenced on May 29 and his appeal was heard last month.
SYDNEY, Australia (AP) Toni Collette had been leaning toward motherhood roles, and now she thinks she knows why:
The Oscar-nominated actress confirmed Monday that she's pregnant.
It will be the first child for the 34-year-old Australian actress and her musician husband, Dave Galafassi.
Collette was nominated for an Academy Award in the best supporting actress category for her role in 1999's supernatural thriller "The Sixth Sense," and her more recent roles include a mother in the dysfunctional family comedy "Little Miss Sunshine.
"It is strange the last three films I've done I have been pregnant," said Collette, who is currently in Sydney with her side project, a rock'n'roll band that includes Galafassi on drums.
"I'm just like, what is the universe trying to tell me?
Collette and her band, the Finish, were among the acts that appeared Saturday at the Sydney edition of Live Earth, the global concert series that aimed to raise awareness about global warming.
Gabe Ponce de Leon is one he came to Rio as a college exchange student in 2001 and lived the high life until he discovered the slums.
Teaching English for pocket money, the Brooklyn native got his first taste of a "favela" when a student took him home to Rocinha, a place whose very name makes many Brazilians fearful.
"But inside it's like a hamlet, with kids playing in the streets, and you know all your neighbors.
"There's a lot of fun there.
"But there's also old-fashioned human warmth, people help each other out. For a guy who grew up in Brooklyn, you see this way of life still exists.
Barbara Caroli of Italy caught her favela fever after glimpsing the thousand points of light gleaming each night from the jumbles of hillside houses.
"I felt it was an invitation," said Caroli, who quit her job at a real estate agency in Milan, moved to Rocinha, married and opened a pre-school.
People don't celebrate death they commemorate life.
While there is no exact count of how many foreigners live in favelas, Rio's Federation of Favela Associations says the number has risen sharply, from dozens a decade ago to hundreds today, especially from Europe and the United States.
Belgian Gert Steegmans won the second stage of the Tour de France after a pile-up 2km from the finish put about 170 riders out of the final sprint on Monday.
Steegmans clinched his first win in the Tour in the 168.5km stage from Dunkirk to Ghent in his home country, just beating compatriot and Quick-Step team-mate Tom Boonen to the line.
Italian Filippo Pozzato of the Liquigas team came home third.
Steegmans, a former team-mate of Australian first stage winner Robbie McEwen recruited by Quick Step to lead out Boonen in the sprints, pipped his team leader in the final meters.
Former world champion Boonen at first thought he had had the last word and raised his arms in triumph but soon realised his lieutenant had beaten him.
Although beaten into third place by McEwen in the first stage in England on Sunday, Boonen claimed the green jersey as the best sprinter.
"I am really happy with the jersey. Gert deserved his victory, it was not a gift from me," said Boonen.
NASA is set to launch a robotic spacecraft next month that will dig into the soil near the northern pole of Mars to check for conditions favorable to microbial life now or in the planet's past.
The Phoenix Mars Lander is due to launch some time between August 3 and August 24 from Florida for a landing on the frigid northern plains of Mars on May 25, 2008, NASA officials and mission scientists said on Monday.
The mission is due to last three months.
NASA is eyeing a landing site devoid of boulders at a latitude equivalent to northern Alaska on Earth.
It is the latest mission by the U.S. space agency to seek a deeper understanding of Earth's next-door neighbor in the solar system, including whether Mars has ever harbored life.
"I think it's going to be a really exciting mission to the north pole first time we've been up there and I'm really looking forward to this," Doug McCuistion, NASA's Mars exploration program director, told a news conference. Watch animation of the Phoenix Mars Lander &raquo;
Assuming it survives a risky descent and landing, the lander will wield a robotic arm 7.7 feet long to dig up to 3 feet deep to get at soil and frozen water thought to be lurking just under the surface, scientists said.
It will rely on a variety of equipment to assess whether this water may provide conditions that could support microbes.
"It's going to analyze the water," said Bobby Fogel, a NASA scientist. "It's going to get its chemical composition, its physical properties, and try to tell us something about the history of water on Mars and potential habitability for microbes on Mars.
The robot also will investigate how the water may change the chemistry and mineralogy of the soil, scientists said.
The Phoenix Mars Lander, with its solar panels unfurled, measures about 18 feet wide and 5 feet long.
Proenza is still employed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration a parent organization of the NHC but he is currently on leave, said NOAA spokesman Anson Franklin.
Deputy Director Ed Rappaport has been temporarily placed in charge.
Proenza, 62, became the director in January after the retirement of Max Mayfield.
Proenza caused an uproar last month with comments about a key hurricane satellite called QuikSCAT.
The satellite is five years beyond its life expectancy and operating on a backup transmitter.
He said Washington reprimanded him for the remarks:
But one of the center's longtime forecasters said Proenza's comments were misguided.
"QuikSCAT is another tool that we use to forecast," Lixion Avila said. "The forecast will not be degraded if we don't have the QuikSCAT.
Last week, the Commerce Department launched an unscheduled review of the hurricane center after word of the staff's dissatisfaction started to become public.
Watch how Proenza lost the confidence of his staff &raquo;
The petition said the center's "effective functioning" is at stake as the Atlantic hurricane season heads toward its peak.
A Pakistani army spokesman said the forces encountered resistance from the students.
Pakistani Information Minister Tariq Azim Khan told CNN that there were 300 hostages inside the Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, and the government hoped to get them out safely.
We have no choice but to use force, which we always maintained as a last option.
"We will try to keep casualties at a minimum.
Tensions had been simmering for months between police and the students at mosque, who are blamed for a string of recent kidnappings of civilians, Chinese nationals and Pakistani police.
The government has been investigating the activities of the mosque, whose students who are demanding that Taliban-style rule be imposed in the city.
"After 11 hours of negotiations, we are deeply disappointed that the talks did not succeed," Hussain said.
Later, Hussain Osman, 28, was also found guilty of conspiracy to murder for taking part in the plot.
The jury, still deliberating on two co-defendents, was sent home for the night after failing to reach verdicts on Manfo Kwaku Asiedu, 33, and Adel Yahya, 24.
The July 21 failed attacks happened 14 days after the July 7 London suicide attacks, which killed 52 commuters and four bombers.
The defendants all from London denied charges of conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to cause explosions.
Four of the men claimed the devices, made from liquid hydrogen peroxide, chapati flour, acetone and acid, were a hoax.
During the trial the jury was told by prosecutor Nigel Sweeney that the conspiracy "had been in existence long before the events of July 7" and did not appear to be some "hastily arranged copycat.
Each bomb was placed in a large plastic container in a knapsack and screws, tacks, washers or nuts, were taped to the outside to "maximize the possibility of injury," Sweeney said. The July 21 devices were triggered, on three subway trains and a double-decker bus, the same as those two weeks before.
But they failed to detonate fully, and no one was injured.
A judge directing the inquest into the deaths of Princess Diana and her boyfriend refused on Monday to include Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, Prince Philip, as potential witnesses.
The requests were made at a preliminary hearing by Michael Mansfield, a lawyer representing Mohamed al Fayed, whose son, Dodi, was killed alongside Diana in a car crash in Paris 10 years ago.
Al Fayed claims Diana was pregnant with Dodi's child and they were murdered in a plot masterminded by Philip.
"It doesn't seem to me that any further inquiries at this stage would be appropriate or necessary," Lord Justice Scott Baker ruled. "Obviously, I will keep the position under review as we proceed to the hearing.
Mansfield wanted the queen to be asked whether she had warned Diana's former butler, Paul Burrell, of "other forces or powers at work within the state," as Burrell claimed.
Diana, 36, and Fayed, 42, were killed along with chauffeur Henri Paul when their car crashed in the Pont d'Alma tunnel in Paris on Aug. 31, 1997.
The only survivor, bodyguard Trevor Rees formerly known as Rees-Jones was badly hurt.
He is expected to give evidence at the inquest. Under British law, inquests are held when someone dies unexpectedly, violently or of unknown causes.
Preliminary hearings began in January, and Baker is, for now, the only person hearing evidence.
A jury is to be selected in October when the inquest formally opens.
A three-year Metropolitan Police inquiry in Britain concluded that Diana was not pregnant or about to marry Fayed, and that the crash was caused by Paul, who was drunk and speeding.
Thousands of Harry Potter fans have signed a petition urging J.K. Rowling to keep writing novels about the boy wizard after she admitted she could "never say never" to more books.
The "Save Harry!" petition calls on Rowling to reverse her decision to end the bestselling series with the seventh and final installment, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
"Millions, perhaps billions of us, love reading his adventures and we never want them to end," says the online petition, launched on Monday at www.saveharrypotter.co.uk.
After spending 17 years writing the books, Rowling said she was both "euphoric" and "devastated" that it's finally over.
But in a television interview, she left fans with the tantalizing, if remote, possibility that she may one day return to the magical world of Hogwarts.
"I think that Harry's story comes to quite a clear end in book seven," she told the BBC at the weekend.
'What do I know, in 10 years' time I might want to return to it.' But I think it is unlikely.
Even if she does write another book, it is unclear whether some of the main characters, including Harry, would play a part.
Book retailer Waterstone's, which set up the petition, said Rowling could still write more Harry Potter books even if the title character is killed.
"Sir Arthur Conan Doyle famously killed off Sherlock Holmes, yet brought him back after years of demand from his fans and publishers," said Waterstone's Wayne Winstone. "Couldn't the same happen for Harry Potter?
More than 325 million copies of the first six books have been sold worldwide, helping to make Rowling the first dollar-billionaire author.
The final book is out on July 21.
The power of the Internet has saved more than 800 cats from being skinned and served up on Chinese dinner tables.
Huo's daughter-in-law had been looking for their missing pets and stumbled into the trucks, one of which sped away.
The daughter-in-law called Huo, whose animal-loving friends then sent out an Internet alert last Friday.
The felines were on their way to the booming southern province of Guangdong, where some residents pride themselves as gourmets who will eat anything that flies, crawls or swims.
"It was a cruel sight ... Pregnant cats and kittens were packed into the boxes," Huo told Reuters.
Huo also telephoned police, who took the driver and the truck to a police station.
After hours of haggling, the animal lovers paid more than 10,000 yuan ($1,300) for 840 cats.
She called for donations and for other animal lovers to adopt the cats, which were initially being cared for at her shelter.
President Bush's spokesman on Monday denied a published report that described intensifying debate among White House officials over whether to begin a gradual pullback of U.S. troops in Iraq.
White House spokesman Tony Snow said a story in The New York Times about a proposed "gradual withdrawal"of forces in "high-casualty neighborhoods in Baghdad and other cities" is "way ahead of the facts.
He said the so-called "surge," or increase of nearly 30,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, has been complete for only a matter of weeks.
"It's a surge ... to create space so that we can achieve as swiftly as possible some of those basic necessities for the Iraqi people to be able to step up and stand in the lead. And then at that point, the Americans step back into less visible, more support positions." Watch what Snow says about discussions in the White House &raquo;
Six months after the United States began deploying the additional American forces, the Pentagon is downplaying expectations about the soon-to-be released "interim report" on the success of the surge.
A Pentagon spokesman admits the report will show that not many if any of the benchmarks for progress have been met.
Whitman said that while some critics are already making judgments about the success of the troop increase, "none of those people are our military commanders on the ground, and that's the best place to tell if the surge is making a difference."
NEW YORK (CNN) Former Vice President Al Gore said he has "fallen out of love with politics" and has no intentions of running for office again.
"I'm involved in a different kind of campaign, not for myself not as a candidate, but to change people's minds about the most dangerous crisis we've ever faced, and the greatest set of opportunities we've ever confronted to solve this climate crisis," he told CNN's Larry King on Thursday.
When asked on NBC's "Today Show" why he wouldn't run for president again when presumably a president could shape an agenda to fight global warming Gore said those in power must have the support of the people to make it work.
Despite Gore's stance, many grassroots movements, with Web sites such as AlGore.org and draftgore2008.org, are trying persuade him to run.
And according to a recent CNN poll, /topics/al_gore/" class="cnnInlineTopic">Gore is the choice of 16 percent of likely Democratic voters, putting him in third place, behind Sen. Hillary Clinton (35 percent) and Sen. Barack Obama (23 percent).
Gore refused to endorse any candidate, saying that the election is 500 days away.
After 16 years in Congress, Gore was vice president under President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 2001.
He was the Democratic nominee for president in 2000, losing to President Bush after a lengthy legal fight over voting results in Florida. Gore toyed with the idea of a rematch against Bush in 2004, but decided against it.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2787379
SAN FRANCISCO, California (Reuters) Sony has cut the price of the PlayStation 3 by $100, or 17 percent, in the United States, a move that should boost the video game console's lackluster sales.
The PS3 still costs twice that of Nintendo's Wii console, whose $250 price and motion-sensing controller have made it a best-seller despite its lack of cutting-edge graphics and hard disk.
The price drop Monday was widely anticipated by industry analysts despite Sony President Ryoji Chubachi telling Reuters last week that the company had no immediate plans for
Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter said Sony's price reduction would not double sales but may boost them by 50 percent to about 120,000 units a month.
Sony's move comes two days before the start of the video game industry's annual E3 trade show in Santa Monica, California, where some expect Microsoft to respond with its first price cuts on the Xbox 360.
Nintendo, whose Wii is selling so well that it is still hard to find in stores eight months after its launch, is not expected to budge on pricing.
Sony is counting on the price cut to help it significantly grow sales of the PS3 ahead of the crucial holiday shopping season that accounts for most of the annual sales of highly profitable gaming software.
Sony is also introducing a new version of the PS3 featuring an 80-gigabyte hard drive and a copy of "Motorstorm," an off-road racing game that has already sold a million copies.
The new model will sell for $600 and is aimed at gamers who expect to download a lot of games and other content from Sony's burgeoning online network.
Sony also hopes the PS3 will win some converts following Microsoft's admission last week that the failure rate of its Xbox 360 console had been unacceptably high, forcing it to book $1 billion in repair costs.
Roger Federer matched the legendary Bjorn Borg by winning his fifth successive Wimbledon title after an epic five-set victory over Spain's Rafael Nadal in Sunday's final.
Borg, who claimed the last of his titles back in 1980, was watching from the Royal Box as the 25-year-old Federer tied his record.
Federer now has a tally of 11 grand slam titles, three short of the all-time record held by Pete Sampras, who won Wimbledon seven times.
"Each one is special to play a champion like Rafael in the final means even more to me, equaling Bjorn as well," Federer told the BBC after his triumph.
I had some tough matches, I hope to be better next year.
Alex Rodriguez plans to play in the All-Star game despite his strained left hamstring.
"I think, you know, 3.9 million votes, you feel like you have a responsibility to go out there and play," the New York Yankees star said Saturday. "It's been feeling pretty good, and we'll go from there.
A-Rod said he made his decision after New York's 2-1 loss to the Los Angeles Angels in 13 innings on Saturday.
The two-time MVP acknowledged his leg is still not 100 percent, but he'll start at third base for the American League on Tuesday night in San Francisco.
"The game is about the fans, and to get that many votes, you feel like you have a responsibility to go out there and play well," he said.
Rodriguez was hurt Monday night when he tripped over the ankle of Minnesota first baseman Justin Morneau while hustling to beat a potential double play.
He missed his first game of the season Thursday, but an MRI exam came back normal.
The slugger returned to the starting lineup on Friday night, and went 0-for-4 with a walk Saturday.
He began the day leading the majors with 29 home runs and 82 RBIs.
A fierce sea clash erupted between Sri Lanka's navy and Tamil Tiger rebels off the country's east coast overnight, the military said Sunday, as two days of ground battles killed 28 combatants in the north and east.
The sea battle broke out when a flotilla of 15 rebel boats tried to attack naval boats patrolling off Kallarawa, a fishing village in the eastern Trincomalee district on Saturday night, said navy spokesman Cmdr. D.K.P. Dassanayake.
He said the battle lasted nearly an hour and that the insurgents were believed to have suffered heavy casualties before fleeing.
Hours earlier, a ground battle between navy sailors and rebels in Kuchchaveli village near Trincomalee left three insurgents dead, Dassanayake said.
Later, troops recovered three rebel bodies along with rifles, bombs and detonators.
The rebels have fought since 1983 to create an independent homeland for Sri Lanka's ethnic minority Tamils, who have suffered decades of discrimination by majority Sinhalese-controlled governments. In other violence, insurgents attacked soldiers in the northern Vavuniya district Friday, but troops fought back and killed two guerrillas, the Defense Ministry said.
A Norway-brokered cease-fire signed in 2002 still holds officially, and neither side has withdrawn from it fearing international criticism.
Pennsylvanians will be unable to take a driver's license test, visit a state-run museum or place a casino bet starting Monday unless an 11th-hour breakthrough ends a budget stalemate that threatens a partial government shutdown.
If Sunday ends without a compromise between Gov. Ed Rendell and the Legislature, 24,000 state workers whose jobs are not deemed to be essential to health and safety will be furloughed without pay at 12:01 a.m. Monday.
Critical services such as health care, state police patrols and prisons would still be maintained.
At Gifford Pinchot State Park in Lewisberry, 70-year-old retiree Janice Sorgen and her family are among those who will have to vacate the park's 10 cabins and 100 camping spots first thing Monday morning if a deal is not reached.
"To do it in this manner is ridiculous," said Sorgen, who drove 500 miles from Fort Wayne, Indiana, for a family vacation. "They can just pay us for driving down here and driving back.
Refunds are available to people who request them, said park manager Bill Rosevear.
The state remained without a budget for an eighth day as a battle of wills dragged on between Rendell, a Democrat, and Republicans in control of the state Senate.
"Right now there's a 50-50 chance that enough progress will be made to avoid the Monday furloughs," spokesman Tom Andrews said.
One Republican senator said he believed an agreement on the $27 billion budget was near.
But disagreements remain over the governor's other priorities, including an energy plan that Rendell has insisted the Legislature approve before he signs the budget, said Sen. Gibson E. Armstrong.
minivan for him and a romantic Paris wedding for both.
Professional basketball star Tony Parker married "Desperate Housewives" star Eva Longoria at a civil ceremony in Paris on Friday a prelude to their expected star-studded weekend wedding bash at a lavish and storied chateau.
Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe officiated and gave a speech saying how happy he was that they were married in the City of Light, said the mayor of Paris' 4th District, Dominique Bertinotti.
Longoria, 32, showed up first in a white stretch limo, wearing a way-above-the-knee pink Chanel dress with striped black and white straps.
She turned, smiled and waved for the crowd of waiting photographers and reporters who were kept well back behind two rows of police barriers.
Longoria then changed into a short white dress for the ceremony, said Bertinotti whose office acted as the dressing room.
Parker, the 25-year-old San Antonio Spurs star who was born in Belgium and grew up playing basketball in France, arrived about 10 minutes later in a gray minivan, wearing a dark suit.
He went straight in without waving.
French soccer star Thierry Henry was in his group.
Bertinotti said there was a small reception afterward that also lasted about 45 minutes.
Parker translated Delanoe's speech into English for the guests, who numbered about 40.
They were thought to be planning a second wedding ceremony Saturday at a Paris church that used to serve French royals.
Then, they and their guests were to party at Vaux-le-Vicomte, a 17th century chateau 34 miles southeast of Paris.
He also said he considers himself "the luckiest guy in the world.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2786052
Microsoft said on Thursday it would take a more than $1 billion charge to fix "an unacceptable number of repairs" to its Xbox 360 video game consoles and had missed shipment targets for the end of June.
So far Microsoft has the lead on Sony in the battle for high-end video game machines, but it shipped only 11.6 million 360s by the end of June, compared with a target of about 12 million, Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell said during a conference call with analysts on
Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft's entertainment and devices division, said the timing of the announcement about the charge for the quarter ending in June and a new extended warranty were unrelated to any potential move by Sony.
"This is just one of those things that happens when it happens," Bach said in an interview. "We reached our conclusion early this week and because it's a financially meaningful issue we had to announce it immediately.
The hardware issue has marred a string of successes for the Xbox 360, which has built an early lead over the PlayStation 3 with Microsoft's strong lineup of games and popular online service.
Microsoft shares dropped slightly to $29.91 after closing at $29.99 on Nasdaq.
Sony issued a public apology Friday for a violent video game that features a bloody shootout inside an Anglican cathedral, but it did not address the Church of England's demands that the company withdraw the game.
The church had demanded Sony stop selling the game "Resistance:
Fall of Man," which includes a gunbattle between an American soldier and aliens inside a building that resembles Manchester Cathedral in northwest England.
The entertainment giant said in an apology, published Friday in The Manchester Evening News, that company officials had met church community leaders and Sony acknowledged the game had caused offense. The company said it now considered the matter closed.
"It was never our intention to offend anyone in the making of this game, and we would like to apologize unreservedly to them for causing that offense, and to all parts of the wider community who we might also have offended," Sony Computer Entertainment Europe President David A. Reeves said in the apology.
Reeve also promised Manchester Cathedral would never be used in future Sony video games.
Spain's largest fighting bulls lived up to their fearsome reputation, goring two and crushing at least seven people as thousands of daredevils sprinted down narrow streets Sunday in Pamplona's annual running of the bulls.
The second of eight bull runs in the weeklong San Fermin festival involved the black and reddish-colored Miura bulls, renowned as the largest fighting bulls in Spain.
As they charged down the 800-meter route, two of them fell and, appearing to lose their way, turned on the crowd of runners. Two people were gored.
Despite the animals' size, experts admire the Miura breed for their power and grace, which inspired legendary Italian car maker Ferruccio Lamborghini to name one of his most famous sports cars after the animals.
The lightest of the animals, a Miura named Majito, weighed 650 kilograms (1,433 pounds).
The heaviest, Huigerito, was 695 kilograms (1,532 pounds).
The cobblestone streets of the city's old quarter were jammed with hung over thrill-seekers from around the world, all after a taste of Spanish-style danger.
"People stumble and fall in front of you but you have to just keep running, jump, knock them out of the way. It brings back old football days," said John Mauger, 61, a retired homicide detective from Huntington Beach, California.
Among those injured Sunday was Francisco Itarte, a San Fermin bull herder and one of several men charged with trying to keep the runs as orderly as possible.
He was gored, as was a 24-year-old runner from Valencia.
Another of the injured, Modou Mbengue from Senegal, underwent an operation on his left forearm.
Since records began in 1924, 13 people have been killed.
The last fatality, a 22-year-old American, was gored to death in 1995.
The San Fermin festival dates back to the late 16th century but gained worldwide fame in Ernest Hemingway's 1926 novel "The Sun Also Rises.
Executives with the first airline that will fly Boeing Co.'s new 787 concede that the aircraft maker faces production challenges, but they're doing what they can to make sure they get their plane on time next May.
However, we will support Boeing, and we will work with them so that the deadline can be met," Osamu Shinobe, executive vice president of corporate planning for All Nippon Airways Co., said Sunday at a downtown hotel, hours before Boeing was to unveil the first of its 787 Dreamliners at the company's wide-body assembly plant in Everett.
Airlines, leasing companies and other plane buyers have ordered more than 600 Dreamliners over the past few years, eager to hold Boeing to its promise that the midsize, long-haul jet will burn less fuel, be cheaper to maintain and offer more passenger comforts than comparable planes flying today.
1995, will be the world's first large commercial airplane made mostly of carbon-fiber composites, which are lighter, more durable and less prone to corrosion than aluminum.
Final assembly of first 787 started in late May, after a gigantic, specially outfitted superfreighter started flying wings, fuselage sections and other major parts to Boeing's wide-body plant, where they essentially get snapped together piece by huge piece.
Despite a few snags the company says it anticipated including an industry-wide shortage of fasteners brought on by a surge in demand for new jets in recent years Boeing officials say nothing so far has threatened to bump the 787 behind schedule.
The first test flight is expected to take place between late August and late September. The plane is set to enter commercial service next May after Japan's All Nippon Airways receives the first of its 50 Dreamliners.
List prices for the 787 begin at $146 million, although customers typically negotiate discounts.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2785972
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) Argentina's economy minister said Saturday she committed no crime by hiding a bag stuffed with US$64,000 in cash in her office bathroom.
Police conducting a routine security check found the brown bag containing the cash in a bathroom cabinet inside Felisa Miceli's offices at the Economy Ministry, and a federal investigator is now probing the source.
It was a blunder, but I committed no crime," Miceli said, explaining that she borrowed most of the cash from her brother in order to buy a house in the capital.
She said she had taken the money to her office for safekeeping on June 4 and did not manage to put it in a safety deposit box before police discovered it late last month.
"This was a mistake, it could even have been negligence but I am certain I have committed no crime," declared Miceli, adding that she was clarifying the source of the funds at the request of President Nestor Kirchner.
The minister's opponents are calling for an exhaustive investigation ahead of the October 28 presidential election.
Miceli called it part of a "brutal campaign and an operation launched by people who would like to take control of the Economy Ministry.
Israel's cabinet on Sunday approved the release of 250 Palestinian prisoners to boost ties between the Jewish state and Fatah party leader and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, an Israeli official told CNN.
A committee will now work to draw up a list of prisoner names, which will then be posted on a government Web site to allow 48 hours for the releases to be challenged in petitions to the high court, the official said.
None of those prisoners have "blood on their hands," Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said at the start of his weekly cabinet meeting.
The prisoner release was promised by Olmert to Abbas in late June during a Mideast summit in Egypt.
told CNN the new Palestinian government is seeking "intensive and active cooperation" from Israel to ensure that the chaos that recently gripped Gaza does not re-emerge in the West Bank.
A Pakistani army commander was shot and killed by Islamic radicals Sunday during an operation where troops blasted holes in a besieged mosque's perimeter walls, escalating an already tense standoff between troops and the radical Islamists hiding inside.
They're opting instead to demolish parts of the mosque's perimeter to allow people barricaded inside to escape.
Many are women and children who authorities fear are being held as human shields.
The siege, now in its sixth day, is being staged by followers of a radical Islamic cleric, who said from inside the complex they prefer martyrdom to surrender.
That message flies in the face of a warning set forth Saturday by Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's president.
"Those who have remained [in the mosque], I request them to come out and surrender. If they don't surrender, they'll be killed ... they must surrender," Musharraf said.
More than 1,200 people, mainly students from the mosque's two Islamic schools, have already fled the compound, but officials don't know how many remain.
On Sunday, 164 male students who surrendered three days ago were released to their parents, an Interior Ministry official said.
The cleric leading the standoff inside Abdul Rashid Ghazi has said there are 1,900 still in the compound.
Meanwhile his brother, Maulana Abdul Aziz, said there are only about 850 inside.
The new seven wonders of the world were named Saturday following an online vote that generated server-crushing traffic in its final hours. The final tally produced this list of the world's top human-built wonders:
The new wonders were announced at a star-studded event Saturday in Lisbon, Portugal, that featured performances by Jennifer Lopez and Chaka Khan.
The event was hosted by Oscar winners Hilary Swank and Ben Kingsley as well as Bollywood star Bipasha Basu.
The new wonders project was the brainchild of Swiss businessman Bernard Weber. He said he wanted to invite the people of the world to take part in selecting the world's greatest wonders.
"So that everybody can decide what the new seven wonders should be and not some government, not some individuals, not some institutions," he said.
Nigerian gunmen have released a British toddler who was kidnapped in the country's oil-rich south, a regional official said Sunday.
Margaret Hill, 3, has been reunited with her parents, state government spokesman Emmanuel Okah said.
"She looks well and she is in very good spirits," he said as the child laughed in the background.
The toddler told The Associated Press by phone that she was "fine" and happy to see her mother.
In Britain, Foreign Secretary David Miliband said he was "delighted" and thanked those who worked to secure her release.
"I was delighted and relieved to hear of Margaret's release," he said. "I am grateful to the Nigerian authorities for all their help and I hope the perpetrators will be swiftly brought to justice.
Gunmen seized Margaret while the car taking her to school idled in traffic Thursday in Port Harcourt, an oil industry center.
Her Nigerian mother, Oluchi Hill, had previously said the abductors had contacted her and demanded an unspecified ransom for Margaret's release.
She had also said her daughter was being fed only bread and water, and that the gunmen threatened to kill the girl if the parents did not meet their demands including one that the father take his daughter's place.
Her father has lived in Nigeria for years and works in the energy industry.
He also runs a popular nightspot in Port Harcourt.
Attackers targeting Iraqi police and civilians in and around Baghdad on Sunday killed 27 people and wounded 45 others, Iraqi officials said.
Sunday's deadliest attack happened about 20 miles (30 kilometers) west of Baghdad when a bomb hit a truck carrying Iraqi army recruits, killing 15 and wounding 25 others most of them recruits, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said.
The recruits were heading from Falluja to Baghdad around 11:30 a.m. when they were hit by the explosion in the town of Haswa, the official said.
The rest of the casualties were the result of bombings in Baghdad.
In the busy Shorja market in central Baghdad a roadside bomb killed three people and wounded five others, according to a Baghdad police official.
The U.S. military said coalition forces picked up 10 suspected terrorists during raids targeting car bombing networks across the capital Sunday.
The truck resembled an Iraqi military truck, according to an official at the Joint Coordination Center in Tuz Khurmatu.
Amerli is a village predominately populated by Shiite Turkmens and Kurds.
It is about 100 miles north of Baghdad in Salaheddin province, near the city of Tuz Khurmatu.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2785958
CANTERBURY, England Australian Robbie McEwen shrugged off a mid-race crash to score a stunning victory on the opening stage of the Tour de France in Canterbury on Sunday.
McEwen needed the help of his Predictor-Lotto teammates to get back to a fast-moving bunch and popped up in typical style in the final kilometer to pip the other sprinting big guns.
It was the 12th stage win of the 35-year-old McEwen's Tour de France career and all the more remarkable because he was hampered by a right wrist injury.
"This is definitely one of the best ever.
Thor Hushovd of Norway and former world champion Tom Boonen of Belgium were relegated to the minor places after the 203 kilometers through the Kent countryside from London.
Fabian Cancellara of Switzerland from the CSC team retains the overall race leaders yellow jersey following his victory in the opening prologue in London on Saturday.
Britain's David Millar gave the home crowd some cheer by getting away in an early breakaway and claiming enough points on the scoring climbs to take the polka dot jersey of the King of the Mountains leader.
Millar's heroics in a 165-km breakaway compensated in part for the mechanical misfortune which dashed the hopes of another home rider, Mark Cavendish of the T-Mobile team.
the bunch sprint but after being forced to change bikes inside the final 20k could not rejoin the fast-moving peloton on the run-in to Canterbury.
The second stage of the Tour takes the riders from the French port of Dunkirk to Ghent in Belgium and again is expected to favor the sprinters.
National Park Service Ranger Spirit Trickey feels a special connection when directing tourists down the sidewalk to Little Rock Central High School.
Her mother made the same journey 50 years ago as one of nine black students integrating the previously all-white school. "I always want people to realize that this is their history too.
It's not just black history.
It's American history and world history," said Trickey, the daughter of Minniejean Brown-Trickey, one of the Little Rock Nine.
The Central High School National Historic Site offers tours related to the 1957 crisis, and visitors to Little Rock will find a variety of things to see and do this summer and early fall to mark the 50th anniversary of the events.
After a showdown between Gov. Orval Faubus and President Eisenhower, the Little Rock Nine entered Central High School on September 25, 1957 escorted by members of the 101st Airborne.
The U.S. Supreme Court had ruled against "separate but equal" schools in 1954 but Faubus ignored a local federal court order to integrate Central.
"(Central) was the first important test after the Brown vs. Board of Education case to break down segregation and education. So Brown happened on the court level, but this was on the ground level," Trickey said.
One of the most famous photos of the era shows a white girl yelling at Elizabeth Eckford, one of the nine, as she walked near the school.
"We try to paint a picture of what it looked like on the front lawn of Central and in the streets with the National Guardsmen shoulder-to-shoulder lining the block around the school and in the neighborhood," Trickey said. "When you tell people there were over 1,000 soldiers there for nine kids," it's hard to imagine, she said.
Five children walking to Friday prayers in Somalia's capital were killed when one of them picked up a land mine and threw it against a wall, witnesses said.
The children were between the ages of 7 and 12, said Khasaye Nor Abdulkadir, who was hit in the thigh with shrapnel.
"One of them picked up the land mine hidden under the ground and then they gathered," Abdulkadir told The Associated Press. "Another child took it and threw it against a wall and it went off.
A 16-year-old girl's leg was blown off in the blast, said Sheik Abukar, an imam of a mosque near the blast site.
The Somali capital has seen little peace since government troops backed by Ethiopian forces drove an Islamic movement out of the city in December.
Roadside bombs, attacks on government installations, assassination attempts and gunbattles have become common, and civilians are caught in the crossfire.
The Council of Islamic Courts ruled Mogadishu and much of southern Somalia for six months last year, during which they sought to impose an Islamic state.
Insurgents linked to the Islamic group have vowed to launch an Iraq-style guerrilla war.
Friday's blast was in Mogadishu's Hurwa district, a hotbed of support for the Islamic courts.
Somalia has been mired in chaos since 1991, when warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and then turned against one another, defending clan fiefdoms.
The government was formed in 2004 with the help of the United Nations, but has struggled to assert any real control.
Iraqi doctor Bilal Abdulla has been charged in connection with last week's failed car bombings in London and Glasgow, a Scotland Yard spokesman said.
Abdulla, who is scheduled to appear at the city of Westminster magistrate court on Saturday, was charged Friday with conspiracy to cause explosions, the spokesman said.
The charge, which specifies that the conspiracy began around the first of January 2007 and concluded at the start of this month, accused Abdulla of conspiring "with others to cause explosions of a nature likely to endanger life or cause serious injury to property in the United Kingdom.
Police identified Abdulla, 27, as one of the two men who left two car bombs in Central London last Friday and rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into a terminal at Glasgow's airport on Saturday.
No charges have yet been announced for seven other people, including other doctors, who have been arrested.
Investigators found a suicide note linked to the Glasgow, Scotland, attack, sources close to the investigation told CNN Wednesday.
The letter indicates the men intended to detonate an explosive device in the the sport-utility vehicle while still inside the vehicle, the sources said.
Investigators allege the men parked two cars packed with explosives outside a pub and a nightclub in Central London, then drove six hours north to Scotland to carry out the airport attack.
Rafael Nadal came back from two sets down to beat Mikhail Youzhny 4-6 3-6 6-1 6-2 6-2 and reach the Wimbledon quarterfinals on Thursday.
Nadal, the second seed and runner-up last year, will meet Czech Tomas Berdych, the number seven seed, in the last eight after taking just over three hours to overcome Youzhny.
Heavy rain disrupted the tournament for the ninth day, forcing an early close to action.
Play was halted just before 1600 local time and was called off for the day at 1915 with defending champion Roger Federer level with Spain's Juan Carlos Ferrero 5-5 in the first set of their quarter-final on Centre Court.
On Court One, third seed Andy Roddick was unable to start his quarterfinal against Richard Gasquet.
Russian 14th seed Youzhny played
near flawless tennis in the opening two sets, finding the corners with precision and hitting fine volleys at the net while Nadal struggled to settle after his marathon match with Robin Soderling in the previous round.
The roles were reversed from the third set, which Nadal raced through in 27 minutes, after which Youzhny needed courtside treatment on his back.
Youzhny was then overwhelmed as the fired-up Spaniard took the match with identical scores and times in the last two sets.
The irrepressible Nadal will be back in action on Friday against big-serving Berdych, who defeated veteran Swede Jonas Bjorkman 6-4 6-0 6-7 6-0.
Seventh seed Berdych, the man who famously beat Roger Federer in the 2004 Athens Olympics, will
be competing in his first grand slam quarterfinal after beating an irate Jonas Bjorkman 6-4 6-0 6-7 6-0.
A judge has emphatically rejected a bid by a man who claims to be the illegitimate child of the late Princess Margaret to see her will.
Judge Mark Potter said Thursday the claim by Robert Brown, 52, was an abuse of process and made "solely for the purpose of seeking to establish an imaginary and baseless claim.
Brown had sought to have the wills of Margaret and her mother, Queen Mother Elizabeth, unsealed.
Brown said he believed he may be the child of Margaret and Group Capt. Peter Townsend, whose romance ended in 1955 under pressure from the royal family and the Church of England.
In his written judgment, Potter said Brown "does not assert that any person or source, informed or otherwise, has ever told, or even suggested, to him that he is the illegitimate son of Princess Margaret.
Frank Hinks, a lawyer representing the estates of Margaret and her mother, told the court Brown had produced no evidence of value to prove "an insane delusion.
Margaret died on February 9, 2002, and the Queen Mother on March 30 the same year.
Scientists said that a lake in southern Chile that mysteriously disappeared last month developed a crack which allowed the water to drain away.
A buildup of water opened a crack in an ice wall along one side of the lake.
Water flowed through the crack into a nearby fjord and from there into the sea, leaving behind a dry lake-bed littered with icebergs, scientists told Chilean state television Tuesday.
"It looks like it's slowly filling up with water again," said Andres Rivera, a glacier expert who headed a team which recently flew over the lake in a bid to solve the mystery.
The lake is situated in the Magallanes region in Patagonia and is fed by melt-water from glaciers.
Earlier this year it
had a surface area of 10-12 acres about the size of 10 soccer fields.
Rivera said the incident was evidence of the effects of global warming.
The Bank of England raised interest rates by a quarter percentage point to a six-year high of 5.75 percent on Thursday the fifth increase since last August as risks to inflation are still on the upside.
Most economists had predicted the rise as four members of the central bank's nine-strong Monetary Policy Committee, including Governor Mervyn King, had wanted to raise borrowing costs last month.
Markets showed little reaction and are pricing in further rises in borrowing costs.
But some policymakers, such as Deputy Governor Rachel Lomax, have warned about the dangers of an overreaction as consumers' disposable incomes are already falling.
Before the Governing Council met on Thursday, futures markets showed a two in three chance of a September rise in ECB rates to 4.25 percent, with some betting the ECB will wait until October.
They priced a 50/50 chance for rates to reach 4.5 percent by the year end.
"No change in the present market expectations is (called for) in the message of the Governing Council ... Nothing at all," Trichet told a news conference.
A powerful dust storm on Mars has worsened and is affecting the twin rovers' operations on the Red Planet, mission scientists say.
Scientists maintain that the robots, which are used to operating at low power levels, are not in danger.
Solar array energy on Opportunity dropped from 765 watt-hours to 402 watt-hours as dust levels increased over the past week. The rover scaled back operations on June 30 to conserve energy.
The storm has already postponed Opportunity's descent into Victoria Crater to learn more about the planet's geologic past.
The regional storm is the worst to hit the rovers since they landed on opposite ends of Mars in 2004, and scientists expect the storm to last for at least another week. The highest dust activity is centered near Opportunity.
However, weather data show the storm might have peaked, meaning the worst could be behind the rovers.
Oh, sure, you may think fall is a long way off.
In the hands of an expert, it's even reversible.
But "Pushing Daisies" has more to say: how good things often come with a catch.
Last year (as if you'd forgotten), dramatic serials were all the rage.
Until they quickly weren't. So what's the looming trend this fall?
"Everyone seems to want what I have," declares John Amsterdam, a veteran New Yorker who was granted immortality in 1642. "It's not as simple as they think.
No, there's a catch. (Again with the catch!) The hero of Fox's "New Amsterdam," he's been feeling seriously alone for nearly 400 years. It even drove him to drink.
These days, Amsterdam makes his living as a New York homicide detective.
A German film fund said on Thursday it will grant subsidies worth 4.8 million euros ($6.5 million) for a controversial new film in which Tom Cruise plays a German hero executed for trying to kill Hitler.
Despite a row about the film's thwarted efforts to use a memorial site where the Nazis shot Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, the German Federal Film Fund (DFFF), administered by the Federal Film Board (FFA), has endorsed the subsidy.
"The application was submitted, the criteria for the grant were fulfilled and the project was approved.
One of the officials said the grant should allay fears that Germany is fundamentally opposed to Cruise playing Stauffenberg because of the actor's membership of Scientology. The government regards Scientology as a cult masquerading as a religion to make money, a view its leaders reject.
Stauffenberg and his co-conspirators were shot after failing to kill Hitler with a briefcase bomb on July 20, 1944.
One of the officials said the grant should allay fears that Germany is fundamentally opposed to Cruise playing Stauffenberg because of the actor's membership of Scientology.
Stauffenberg and his co-conspirators were shot after failing to kill Hitler with a briefcase bomb on July 20, 1944.
More than a million people marched through Colombia's major cities Thursday and drivers honked horns in unison in a mass protest to demand the immediate liberation of the country's kidnap victims.
In all, some 3,000 Colombians are being held by kidnappers, according to the anti-abduction citizens' group Pais Libre. Those being held include former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and three U.S. defense contractors in the hands of leftist rebels.
Called by the government and the church, marches and "human chains" were staged at noon in different cities from the Amazon jungle outpost of Leticia to the Caribbean city of Cartagena.
Wearing white T-shirts and waving flags, thousands marched on Bogota's main plaza.
Leading the march was President Alvaro Uribe, wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the words "Unconditional freedom now!
Police said their preliminary estimate was that more than a million people marched nationwide.
With the backing of entertainers including the singer Juanes, who appeared in Medellin, protests or moments of silence also were organized abroad by Colombian embassies and consulates in Poland, France, Brazil and New York.
A simple photo of interlocking steel chains along with the single headline "Free Them!"
spanned the front page of Colombia's largest daily, El Tiempo.
The protest was organized after leftist rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, announced last week that 11 state lawmakers it had held for more than five years were killed in "crossfire" June 18 when an "unidentified military group" attacked the camp where they were being held.
Uribe accused the FARC of murdering the hostages in cold blood, and participants in Thursday's rallies demanded the FARC turn over the bodies.
Rich or poor, there is hardly a family in Colombia that has not personally suffered a kidnapping or does not know one that has.
A Belgian court sentenced a former Rwandan army major to 20 years in prison on Thursday for the murder of 10 Belgian peacekeepers and an undetermined number of Rwandan civilians at the start of the 1994 genocide.
Bernard Ntuyahaga was earlier acquitted on two other charges of involvement in the murder of then-Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana and killing civilians in the Butare district.
The public prosecutor had asked for a life sentence for the accused's role in the genocide, in which some 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered in Rwanda.
"This sentence is not a cause for despair," she told Ntuyahaga, who remained silent.
The Belgian U.N. soldiers were killed a day after the Rwandan president's plane was shot down on April 6, 1994, triggering the genocide by Hutu-led government forces and ethnic militias.
Attorney Luc De Temmerman told Belga news agency his client would probably not appeal, in light of the sentence.
Gunmen kidnapped the three-year-old daughter of a British man in the Nigerian oil city of Port Harcourt while she was on her way to school, a police spokeswoman said on Thursday.
Ireju Barasua said the child, whom she named as Margaret Hill, was snatched from the car in which she was being driven as it was stuck in traffic.
Kidnappings for ransom are very common in Port Harcourt, located in the oil-producing Niger Delta in southern Nigeria, although abductions of children are rare.
Diplomatic sources in the capital Abuja said initial reports suggested the child has a British father and Nigerian mother, although this was not confirmed.
"We are in touch with the Nigerian authorities and with the child's family," said a spokeswoman for the Foreign Office in London.
In some past abductions, details given by Nigerian authorities early on have later turned out to be inaccurate.
About 200 adult expatriates have been kidnapped in the Niger Delta since the start of 2006 and 15 are still being held by various armed groups.
Most abductions are for ransom although a few have been politically motivated.
Several armed groups in the Niger Delta are campaigning for "resource control" or the right of impoverished local communities to gain greater control over oil revenues from their lands.
These groups have sometimes kidnapped oil workers in the name of the struggle for resource control.
Thursday's child abduction is the third this year, according to local media.
Soldiers and rescue workers on Thursday recovered 24 bodies from a bus buried in a landslide but held out little hope of finding survivors.
Frantically digging through tons of earth and rock, hundreds of soldiers and rescue workers braved threats of additional slides to pull victims from the bus, which officials said was carrying between 40 and 60 passengers.
The bus was traveling along a remote winding road Wednesday morning when a rain-soaked mountainside gave way near the town of Eloxochitlan in the central state of Puebla.
Other state officials have declined to speculate on the possibility of survivors.
Ismael Rios, a spokesman for the Puebla government, said the landslide brought down at least 100 tons of earth and rock piled 130 feet high.
"A large part of the mountain crumbled," he said.
Rios said 15 of the 24 victims have been identified and that their ages range from 6 to 44.
Among those yet to be identified were two children and a woman found clutching a child in her arms.
Local news media reported that most of the bus passengers were from Eloxochitlan, an extremely poor town in central Mexico.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2783781 "Oui, I do. "
They have kept details of their upcoming nuptials under wraps.
Longoria's spokeswoman, Liza Anderson, would only tell The Associated Press, in an e-mail, that the wedding will be "a big, happy ceremony with lots of family and friends.
Parker has said the cake will be made in France, but has refused to say much more, telling reporters that organizing a wedding is "a girls' thing.
A French official confirmed Thursday that the couple had chosen Vaux-le-Vicomte, a 17th-century chateau 34 miles southeast of Paris, as the venue for their wedding festivities.
Guests reportedly will include Longoria's "Desperate Housewives" co-stars, teammates from Parker's San Antonio Spurs, Victoria Beckham and other celebrities.
The privately owned chateau near the village of Maincy is shielded from prying eyes by 8 miles of high stone walls.
"It's definitely happening there on Saturday," Lionel Walker, regional head of tourism, told the AP. It is "the best free publicity we could ask for.
Some reports say Longoria has chosen a classic gown by Los Angeles-based designer Monique Lhuillier, while others say she will wear a Vera Wang design.
She divorced Tyler Christopher, an actor on the long-running ABC soap opera "General Hospital," in 2004, after two years of marriage.
Pakistan's government says talks are over in a tense standoff with radical Islamic students who are locked inside the Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque.
"There will be no more dialogue," said Deputy Information Minister Tariq Azim. "It has to be an absolutely total surrender, unconditional total surrender.
Pakistani forces and the students exchanged periodic gunfire early Friday that was punctuated by heavy explosions.
The Pakistani government refused to meet a demand by those inside the controversial mosque that they be allowed to surrender without facing arrest. Watch as the mosque standoff continues &raquo;
Intelligence sources say the nearly 1,000 people who remain holed up inside the mosque are facing a food and water shortage that is making living conditions inside miserable.
At least 50 of those people are well-armed hard-liners, according to Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao.
Maulana Abdul Aziz, the top cleric of the Red Mosque, joined the government's call for the students to surrender, a day after he was arrested trying to slip out of the mosque disguised in a burqa the head-to-toe covering worn by some Muslim women.
More than 1,200 of the students have already surrendered, although less than 10 have done so since early Thursday.
Aziz told state-run TV that about 850 students remained inside including children, around 600 women and some 14 men armed with Kalashnikov sub-machine guns.
NEW YORK (CNN) Oil surged almost $2 to nearly $75 a barrel on Thursday as fresh violence in Nigeria spurred supply concerns and strong demand.
London crude rebounded after sliding following U.S. government data that showed a crude supplies rising and refiners ramping up gasoline output to meet summer holiday driving demand.
London Brent crude gained $1.76 to $74.81 a barrel at 1732 GMT. U.S. crude rose 32 cents to $71.73 a barrel.
In Nigeria, a rebel group responsible for a large number of the attacks on the country's oil industry ended a month-long truce, while an attack on a Shell oil rig in the delta served as a reminder of the supply risks there.
Gunmen also kidnapped a 3-year-old British girl in the Nigerian oil city of Port Harcourt while she was on her way to school on Thursday morning.
Barry Bonds smashed his 751st career home run in Cincinnati, to move within five homers of breaking Hank Aaron's all-time US Major League Baseball record of 755.
Bonds belted his 17th homer of the season with two out in the first inning off Cincinnati starting pitcher Aaron Harang, sending a no-ball, two-strike pitch into the centerfield stands to give the San Francisco Giants a 2-0 lead.
Harang had allowed only two hits in 11 prior at-bats facing Bonds, although one of those was also a homer.
Bonds' blast, which came four days after he reached the 750-homer landmark, was not enough to bring the Giants a victory.
Cincinnati went on to a 7-3 triumph over San Francisco in a matchup of last-place foes.
The Reds are a National League-worst 32-51 while the Giants are 35-46.
A doping controversy has nagged Bonds.
Bonds has insisted he never knowingly used performance-enhancing drugs but crowds at ballparks outside of San Francisco have taunted and jeered Bonds over the doping accusations.
An explosion in a nightclub in northeast China killed 25 people and injured 33, state media reported on Thursday as investigators sought to pin down the cause.
After authorities finished rescue efforts on Thursday, the official Xinhua news agency reported the death toll, citing province officials, but it did not say how badly hurt the injured were or explain the cause of the explosion.
A county official at the scene told Reuters that investigators were trying to work out whether the blast was accidental or deliberate.
to announce any conclusions," said the official, who gave his surname as Chi.
The Communist Party chief of Liaoning province, Li Keqiang, ordered harsh punishment of anyone found to be responsible for the explosion, the news service said.
Xinhua reported that one person died.
Venus Williams stayed on course for a fourth Wimbledon crown when she breathtakingly demolished second seed Maria Sharapova 6-1 6-3 in a brutal fourth round victory.
Williams, the champion in 2000, 2001 and 2005, overpowered the Russian second seed, the 2004 winner, and now faces Sharapova's compatriot Svetlana Kuznetsova for a place in the semifinals.
Sharapova conceded that Venus was just too good for her on the day. "She was averaging her first serve 115 miles per hour, where my first serve, the fastest one was 115," Sharapova said.
That's what has won her so many grand slams.
However, it was not all joy for the Williams family as younger sister Serena is out of the tournament after an epic quarterfinal clash with top seed Justine Henin.
Henin won the latest battle in the most fierce rivalry in women's tennis with a 6-4 3-6 6-3 quarterfinal victory over the seventh seed.
The Belgian world number one is chasing the one grand slam title she needs to complete her collection and looked in ominous form with a barrage of stunning backhand winners.
Finally I could finish the match in that game because who knows what would happened if it was 5-4."
Just because you live in a high-tech world doesn't mean your manners can sink to new lows when using your personal technology, experts say.
"No doubt there've always been stinkers from the start of time," says Honore Ervin, co-author of "The Etiquette Grrls:
Things You Need to Be Told" and "More Things You Need to Be Told.
"But all of these mobile, technological gadgets that are so prevalent now somehow [people] just get sucked into their own little world of their cell phones, iPods, wireless computers. They're not existing in a society and realizing that their actions affect anyone else.
A poll last year by Pew Research, The Associated Press and AOL (which, like CNN, is owned by Time Warner) found that 81 percent of the people they surveyed were irritated at least occasionally by loud and annoying cell phones in public places.
About one in 10 admitted they were the object of criticism or stares because of their own cell phone use.
The poll also revealed about a quarter of respondents felt the need to answer their phone even if it interrupts a meal or a meeting.
And it's not just cell phones.
A 2006 ABC News poll found that nearly three-quarters of those surveyed had observed someone using a phone or e-mailing and text messaging in midconversation.
Another survey of 150 senior business executives revealed that about 86 percent check and reply to e-mails on PDAs such as BlackBerries during meetings, but 31 percent said that it was "never OK" to do so, according to Robert Half Management Resources, a specialized staffing business.
"I don't know if it's intentional or not, but I think [personal technology] is a way that makes it easier for people to be rude," Ervin says. "If you go to a Broadway show and paid $150 a ticket, you don't want someone talking on their cell phone right behind you.
This rudeness has deteriorated public spaces, according to Lew Friedland, a communications professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
He calls the lack of manners a kind of unconscious rudeness, as many people are not aware of what they're doing or the others around them. "I'm not anti-technology at all," he says.
"But public spaces are important and the quality of the time [you spend there].
North Korea is prepared to cooperate with the U.N. nuclear watchdog in its mission to shut down the country's nuclear facilities, according to a report made available to The Associated Press.
The confidential four-page report said North Korea has agreed to provide International Atomic Energy Agency experts with needed technical information, access and other help needed to shut down North Korea's plutonium-producing Yongbyon nuclear facility.
The report will be discussed by the agency's 35-nation board and is expected to be approved as early as Monday, paving the way for the beginning of the IAEA mission overseeing the shutdown and eventual dismantling of the Yongbyon facility.
That would effectively start the process of ending the North's nuclear program, which if carried through would eliminate it as a nuclear weapons threat.
"Recently there have been signs that the situation on the Korean peninsula is easing," Kim was paraphrased as saying to Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi in a ministry statement.
The initial steps include the shutdown of the North's main reactor in exchange for economic aid and political concessions. It is the first time the North's reclusive leader has spoken publicly about the February disarmament deal.
Yang met with Kim in Pyongyang on Tuesday and conveyed a "personal message" from Chinese President Hu Jintao, the North's state media reported.
Their meeting was held "in a cordial atmosphere," the official Korean Central News Agency reported.
Chrysler Group signed a deal Wednesday with China's biggest automaker, Chery, to manufacture small cars to export to the United States and other markets.
The deal marks the first attempt by a major U.S. automaker to use China as a manufacturing base to serve world markets.
The companies expect to export their first vehicle within a year to Latin American or Eastern Europe, and models should reach the United States and Western Europe within 2-1/2 years, said Tom LaSorda, Chrysler's chairman.
"As of today, we're committed to building vehicles here for export," LaSorda said at a signing ceremony conducted at a Chinese government guesthouse. "We will combine Chrysler's research and technology and global reach with Chery's lean manufacturing.
The deal is part of Chrysler's effort to cut costs and become more flexible through manufacturing arrangements with local partners around the world.
Chery, founded in 1997, is China's biggest and fastest-growing automaker, with output last year of 350,000 vehicles.
The first vehicle exported will be a based on Chery's A1 compact sedan and sold under the Dodge brand, LaSorda said. He and Yin said the companies would jointly develop future models, probably with Chrysler styling on a Chery platform.
Talk of monetary union and wine quotas has given way to controversy over orgasms and innuendo at the European Commission as it defends a risque Internet video clip highlighting its backing for European cinema.
The EU executive's usually dry daily news briefing sprung to life with questions over whether a 44-second clip of 18 couples achieving ecstasy in a variety of positions and venues was the best way to show how Brussels uses taxpayers' money.
Some reporters also took a swipe at the title of the sequence, asking whether "Let's Come Together" was acceptable innuendo and if it was, whether the pun worked in the 27-member Union's other official languages.
A Commission spokesman insisted it had not received a single complaint in the 14 weeks since the clip first appeared on Internet site YouTube, suggesting the Brussels press corps should relax and get with the times.
"Let us for once also have a good sense of humor and let us not start the old wars of the fifties about what is sex, what is pornography and what is simply normal to watch on television," spokesman Martin Selmayr appealed Wednesday.
Russia's Black Sea resort of Sochi was awarded the 2014 Olympics on Wednesday, rewarding President Vladimir Putin and taking the Winter Games to his country for the first time.
Sochi defeated the South Korean city of Pyeongchang 51-47 in the final round of voting by the International Olympic Committee.
Pyeongchang led the first round with 36 votes, followed by Sochi with 34 and Salzburg with 25.
Sochi picked up 17 votes in the second round to secure the victory.
The result was a triumph for Putin, who put his international prestige on the line by coming to Guatemala to lobby IOC members and lead Sochi's final formal presentation to the assembly.
Putin had left by the time the result was announced.
IOC president Jacques Rogge opened a sealed envelope and read the words the Russians longed to hear:
"The International Olympic Committee has the honor of announcing the 22nd Olympic Winter Games in 2014 are awarded to the city of Sochi.
In Sochi, cheers erupted from the crowd of more than 15,000 that had gathered for a pop concert and the announcement in a main square.
We won," the concert's announcer said from the stage as fireworks flashed and boomed in the sky.
Russia, an Olympic power which has won 293 Winter Games medals, has never hosted the Winter Games.
That was a strong point in Sochi's favor with the IOC, which likes to spread the Olympics to new host countries.
Moscow hosted the 1980 Summer Games, which were hit by the U.S.-led boycott following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
London might be in the middle of a security alert and Wimbledon might be a washout, but that didn't dampen the spirits of over 3,000 dedicated Harry Potter fans.
They came from all over Europe and even further afield as Pottermania gripped the British capital and its cast of home-grown stars.
"Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" sees the Hogwarts students in a more mature mood. Director David Yates told CNN that friendship was at the heart of the film.
He said, "It's quite an emotional film [about] friendship, community and what you need to do to stand together in the face of adversity.
Actress Emma Watson, who plays Harry's bookish friend Hermione, said that friendship was behind one of her favorite scenes in the movie where the three young wizards talk about Harry's first kiss.
Author JK Rowling was not giving away any plot secrets for the final Potter installment, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," released on July 21.
But even Daniel Radcliffe, aka Harry Potter himself, has not been able to charm plotlines out of Rowling.
The star continued, "I've got a couple of ideas about what might happen but I haven't had any of them confirmed or denied."
New York's pyrotechnics display, billed as the nation's biggest with 40,000 fireworks, had a novelty ready to draw oohs and aahs from this year's crowd: exploding shells aimed down, not up.
The so-called nautical shells are supposed to explode on the surface of the East River, remaining illuminated for a few seconds before fading out, said Robin Hall, executive producer of the Macy's Fourth of July display
In the nation's capital, security was heightened following recent attempted car bombings in Britain.
Hundreds of emergency responders from about 20 law enforcement agencies were on duty, authorities said.
As with past July 4 festivities since the September 11 terrorist attacks, the mall was fenced off and visitors were required to pass through 19 security checkpoints, which opened at 10 a.m.
Crowds have reached 500,000 people or more in the past.
Festivities got under way early in Atlanta with the Peachtree Road Race, which draws about 55,000 runners and is the largest 10K in the nation.
In Iraq, where the Fourth of July was business as usual for the nearly 160,000 U.S. troops, some said their service made them more appreciative of the holiday.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2782495
European shares ended strongly for the second straight session on Wednesday, with a key benchmark hitting its highest closing level in two weeks, but volume was stifled by a U.S. holiday.
Travel and leisure stocks were standout gainers, with hotel group Accor rallying 10 percent and Intercontinental Hotel up 4 percent as private equity firm Blackstone Group agreed to buy Hilton Hotels for about $20 billion plus debt, spurring talk of further industry consolidation.
About 1.8 billion shares were traded, about half the average daily volume traded so far this year.
Fund managers said strong corporate profit growth was supporting stocks.
Around Europe, Germany's 30 share DAX index added 0.3 percent while UK's FTSE 100 and France's CAC 40 both rose 0.5 percent.
Interest rates will be eyed on Thursday with the European Central Bank expected to hold rates at 4.0 percent, while the Bank of England is forecast to raise rates by 25 basis points to 5.75 percent.
month since August last year. British Airways rose 5.3 percent after the airline reported strong figures for its premium class seats in June.
I didn't sleep a wink last night, but I'm not tired. After a night of anxiety and drama, the BBC's Alan Johnston is finally free.
For 114 days, those of us who know Alan have been fretting over his kidnapping in Gaza and looking forward to some good news.
We finally got it something that brings relief to all us who've reported in the region.
Alan was provided with a radio and could listen to the BBC World Service. He was fully aware of all the dramatic developments going on in Gaza.
More importantly, Alan told me, was his ability to hear on the BBC that his friends and colleagues both inside Gaza and outside, hadn't forgotten about him, and were agitating and pressing for his release.
The temptation to return to a place where the story is raw, but real is intense. There is nothing Paris Hilton about Gaza.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2782469
Two men accused of terror attacks in Britain planned to kill themselves in a suicide bombing, sources told CNN Wednesday after police found an apparent suicide note.
Investigators found a suicide note linked to the Glasgow, Scotland, attack, sources close to the investigation told CNN Wednesday.
The letter indicates the men intended to detonate an explosive device in the the sport-utility vehicle while still inside the vehicle, the sources said.
Police also say they believe the men identified as doctors Khalid Ahmed and Bilal Abdulla were behind two car bombing attempts in London a day earlier, the sources said.
They allege the men parked two cars packed with explosives in Central London then drove six hours north to Scotland.
Britain lowered its threat level from its highest level "critical" to "severe" Wednesday, saying the threat of a terrorist attack was no longer imminent.
British authorities have detained eight people in connection with the terror probe and believe they have all of those responsible for the attacks in custody.
One of the suspects, identified by sources as Dr. Khalid Ahmed, was hospitalized for critical burns from the attempted suicide bombing at the airport.
Another suspect, identified as Bilal Abdulla, a 27-year-old Iraqi doctor, is in police custody along with six other suspects.
All eight have links to the medical profession, according to sources with knowledge of the investigation.
U.S. officials told CNN they believe some of the suspects were recruited by al Qaeda while they were living in the Middle East.
In addition to expanding the watch list of potential terrorists, Brown said background checks will be stepped up and British authorities will keep a closer eye on how it recruits doctors from other countries.
In a newly released videotaped message similar to a "fireside chat," al Qaeda's second-in-command issues advice and directives for the Muslim world, terrorism expert Laura Mansfield said Wednesday.
In the one-hour, 34-minute video, titled "The Advice of One Concerned," Ayman al-Zawahiri includes clips from other videos and news broadcasts, including one from al-Furqan, the video production arm of the Islamic State of Iraq, according to Mansfield, who obtained the video.
"And the stage preceding victory is normally, in the history of nations, the stage in which there is most seen an increase in conspiracies, plots and inciting of discord in an attempt by the enemy, who has begun to see his defeat approach, to push back and delay the defeat as much as he can.
Al-Zawahiri does not reference the recent terrorism incidents in the United Kingdom in the video.
Mansfield said it appears to be more of a "state of the ummah [community]" style of address "intended to try and provide advice to the Muslim world in a manner similar to the 'fireside chat.'
Al-Zawahiri advises people in Iraq and the Palestinian territory, Mansfield said, and renews his call for young men to join the jihad in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Al-Zawahiri also rebukes Fatah for battling Hamas in the Palestinian territory, telling party members to "return to your religion, your Islam, your honor and your Arabness.
Last month, al-Zawahiri, in an audiotaped message posted on several Islamist Web sites, voiced his support for Hamas leaders who maintain control of Gaza after a split with Fatah, a more moderate Palestinian faction.
"We say to you, now that you are in control of Gaza, you should remember two things: One is that being in power is not a goal in itself, but the goal is, rather, to implement the rule of Allah," al-Zawahiri said in that audiotape, according to a CNN translation.
Hamas fighters wrested control of Gaza from Fatah security forces two weeks ago, prompting Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, based in the West Bank, to replace the Hamas leadership with an emergency government.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (Reuters) Loud explosions were heard on Thursday from the vicinity of a radical Pakistani mosque being besieged by security forces but the cause was not immediately clear, witnesses said.
A Pakistani radical opens fire on paramilitary gunmen.
The explosions were followed by an announcement broadcast from security force loudspeakers outside the mosque, calling on the students to surrender, a witness said.
Sixteen people have been killed in violence that erupted at the mosque on Tuesday after a months-long stand-off between the authorities and a Taliban-style movement based there.
A senior police official said "activity" in the area had intensified and security forces were taking "necessary action".
Hundreds of police and soldiers, backed by armoured personnel carriers and with orders to shoot armed resisters on sight, sealed off the mosque and imposed an indefinite curfew in the neighbourhood after Tuesday's clashes.
An heir of Romania's former royal family put "Dracula's Castle" in Transylvania up for sale Monday, hoping to secure a buyer who will respect "the property and its history," a U.S.-based investment company said.
The Bran Castle, perched on a cliff near Brasov in mountainous central Romania, is a top tourist attraction because of its ties to Prince Vlad the Impaler, the warlord whose cruelty inspired Bram Stoker's 1897 novel, "Dracula.
Legend has it that Vlad, who earned his nickname because of the way he tortured his enemies, spent one night in the 1400s at the castle.
Bran Castle was built in the 14th century to serve as a fortress to protect against the invading Ottoman Turks.
The royal family moved into the castle in the 1920s, living there until the communist regime confiscated it from Princess Ileana in 1948.
After being restored in the late 1980s and following the end of communist rule in Romania, it gained popularity as a tourist attraction known as "Dracula's Castle.
In May 2006, the castle was returned to Princess Ileana's son, Archduke Dominic Habsburg.
Habsburg, a 69-year-old New York architect, pledged to keep it open as a museum until 2009 and offered to sell the castle last year to local authorities for $80 million, but the offer was rejected.
On Monday, he put the castle up for sale "to the right purchaser under the right circumstances," said Michael Gardner, chief executive of Baytree Capital, the company representing Habsburg.
No price was announced, though Gardner predicted the castle would sell for more than $135 million. He added that Habsburg will only sell it to a buyer "who will treat the property and its history with appropriate respect.
Some 450,000 people visit the castle every year, Gardner said.
Champion Amelie Mauresmo's Wimbledon reign ended in a bizarre fourth round encounter on Tuesday when she was upset 7-6 4-6 6-1 by Czech teenager Nicole Vaidisova.
In a match featuring three rain disruptions and a confused umpire who lost his bearings midway through the tussle, 14th seed Vaidisova downed an out-of-sorts Mauresmo with a barrage of hefty groundstrokes.
After an error-riddled performance including 14 double faults, the Frenchwoman suffered her earliest exit from the grasscourt grand slam since 2001.
She left court shaking her head in disbelief and desperate to escape an arena which had turned into her own personal torture chamber.
"Everything went wrong. I'm disappointed with the way I wasn't able to play today and that is especially frustrating.
"I'm struggling to get the confidence back.
For the third time this year, Mauresmo's grand slam dreams were ripped apart by a Czech opponent Lucie Safarova beating her at Melbourne Park in January and Roland Garros last month.
"I'm not a huge fan of grass," admitted Vaidisova who will next play Serbian sixth seed Ana Ivanovic.
"I just came out there hitting and fighting for every point. In the end it worked out for me.
(CNN) The United States has seen increased activity by al Qaeda and knows the group wants to launch a big attack against the United States, but has seen nothing about a specific plot, Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff said Monday. "I'm not going to talk about specific documents or intelligence, but I can say to you things I frankly have said publicly for some period of time.
We know al Qaeda is still very interested in carrying out attacks against the United States and western Europe," Chertoff told CNN's American Morning.
"Finally, I would say we've seen, over the past two summers and now this summer, an attack in England.
All of those things put together do cause us to be concerned going into the summer but we do not have any specific information about a particular attack at this point.
Cyclist Alessandro Petacchi spent two hours with Italian anti-doping officials on Monday in a bid to explain why he tested for excessive
Petacchi, desperate to take part in the Tour de France starting on Saturday, has a medical certificate to use a set amount of salbutamol in his asthma inhaler and was heard by Ettore Torri, the Italian Olympic Committee's prosecutor.
"I tried to explain my case scientifically and the good faith in which it happened," the sprinter told reporters as he left the hearing.
Torri said the case would be wrapped up "very quickly".
Tour.However, the 33-year-old Milram rider will have to wait a little longer to find out if he faces a possible two-year ban.
Giro winner Danilo Di Luca is scheduled to appear before Torri on Thursday as part of a separate inquiry connected to a 2004 police investigation into possible doping.
NASA has changed the launch date of its next space shuttle mission to the international space station to August 7, two days earlier than the previous target, agency officials said on Thursday.
The new date will give NASA a bit more time to get shuttle Endeavour off the launch pad during what is shaping up to be a busy time for rocket launches at the Eastern Test Range, which includes the Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
Endeavour will carry another piece of the space station's exterior beam and a large module filled with equipment and supplies.
The crew includes teacher Barbara Morgan, who trained as the backup for teacher-in-space Christa McAuliffe for the 1986 Challenger mission.
McAuliffe and her six crew mates were killed during liftoff due to a booster rocket failure.
Israel has transferred more than $100 million to the government of Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, a spokesman in the Israeli prime minister's office said Monday.
An initial payment of about $118 million (500 million shekels) in previously withheld taxes was shifted to the new Palestinian government on Sunday, with another $472 million (2 billion shekels) pending.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert previously announced Israel would unfreeze Palestinian tax funds.
All those funds were withheld after Hamas took over the Palestinian government following elections last year.
Hamas has carried out numerous terrorist attacks, and the United States and Israel list it as a terrorist organization.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas dissolved the Palestinian government that included Hamas following the group's takeover of Gaza last month.
But Fatah now exerts control only over Palestinian life in the West Bank.
Fatah accepts Israel's right to exist and renounces terror, so it has the support of the United States, the European Union, and U.N. leaders.
BBC correspondent Alan Johnston, kidnapped March 12 in Gaza by a group calling itself the Army of Islam, has been released, according to Hamas officials and members of the Popular Resistance Committee in the region.
Johnston, wearing blue jeans and a button-down shirt and looking gaunt, was led out of a building and hustled into the back of a sport-utility vehicle at dawn Gaza time Wednesday.
Men carrying rifles were posted on both sides of the vehicle as it drove away.
Johnston was expected to appear within hours at the office of former Palestinian Prime Minister and Hamas member Ismail Haniya, officials said.
Officials said he was currently in the custody of the Hamas Executive Force. Members of Hamas drove him out of the neighborhood where he had been held.
On June 26, Johnston appeared in a Web video apparently posted by the Army of Islam.
At that time, his abductors warned they would kill Johnston if their demands were not met or if a rescue was attempted.
The Army of Islam blamed Hamas militants for kidnapping two of its members the week of June 26 while they were leaving a Gaza mosque after morning prayers.
A Hamas spokesman confirmed at that time that its forces arrested two individuals with links to Army of Islam in Gaza.
Days after they seized control of Gaza, Hamas officials said Johnston's release was imminent, but that was later disputed by an Army of Islam spokesman.
Hamas spokesman Ghazi Hamad told CNN that Hamas was directly involved in negotiating Johnston's release.
"We have private channel with these people," Hamad said Monday.
Johnston, 45, joined the BBC in 1991. He said in a video released in early June he was being treated well and was in good health.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2781293 Despite their fearsome reputation, piranhas are wimps that gather in large shoals to protect themselves from predators, scientists said on Monday.
However, we have found that it is primarily a defensive behavior," she said.
Piranhas face constant attack from predators including river dolphins, caiman a relative of the crocodile and bigger fish, such as the giant piracucu.
"Their cautious behavior is crucial to avoid being eaten," Magurran said.
Her work with the Mamiraua Institute in Brazil shows how shoal sizes increase in relation to predation risk, especially when water levels in the Amazon basin are low, giving piranhas less room to escape attack.
The research is featured at the Royal Society's summer science exhibition in London.
A 10-year-old Nepalese girl was stripped of her title as a living goddess because she traveled overseas to promote a documentary about the centuries-old tradition, a news report said Tuesday.
Sajani Shakya had her status revoked because she broke with tradition by leaving the country, the state-run National News Agency reported, quoting Narendra Prasad Joshi, chief of the Bhaktapur Taleju Temple where Sajani is based.
However, last month she left Nepal for the United States and other countries to promote a British documentary about the living goddesses of the Katmandu
Temple officials will replace Sajani when she returns to Nepal later this week, the report cited Joshi as saying.
They are required to have perfect skin, hair, eyes and teeth, they shouldn't have scars or wounds, and shouldn't be afraid of the dark.
They always wear red, pin up their hair in topknots and a "third eye" is painted on their forehead.
During religious festivals the girls are wheeled around on a chariot pulled by devotees.
The government last year announced a monthly pension of $40 for serving and retired Kumaris.
Nepalese folklore holds that men who marry a former Kumari will die young, and so many girls remain unmarried and face a life of hardship.
Critics have said the tradition violates both international and Nepalese laws on child rights.
NASA's aging but durable Mars rover Opportunity will make what could be a trip of no return into a deep impact crater as it tries to peer further back than ever into the Red Planet's geologic history.
Scientists and engineers want to send it in while it still appears healthy.
Opportunity and its twin, Spirit, have been exploring opposite sides of Mars since landing in January 2004, discovering geologic evidence of rocks altered by water from a long-ago wetter period of the now-dusty planet.
"Because it's deeper it provides us access to just a much longer span of time," said Steve Squyres, the principal investigator of the Mars Exploration Rover mission from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.
The hooded killers of the Chadian president's son were filmed on video surveillance cameras in the underground car park in France where his body was found, a judicial source says.
Brahim Deby was discovered dead in his car early on Monday near his home outside Paris.
A post-mortem showed he was asphyxiated, probably by powder from a fire extinguisher. (Read about the discovery of the death)
The prosecutor's office in the Paris suburb of Nanterre, which is handling the case, refused to comment on the video images saying the investigation was ongoing.
Le Monde newspaper reported that the video showed "several hooded men" attack Deby as he drove into the garage shortly before 7 a.m. (0500 GMT) on Monday.
The paper added that Deby was accompanied by a woman, but that she has not yet been traced.
Chad President Idriss Deby was believed to have wanted his son to succeed him, but this choice was widely unpopular, even by some of his own family, who viewed Brahim as unfit to govern.
president sacked Brahim as his adviser in June 2006 after the then 27-year-old was arrested in a Paris discotheque for possessing an illegal firearm and drugs.
He was given a six-month suspended sentence by a French court.
Makaila Nguebla, a Dakar-based spokesman for the rebel Union of Forces for Democracy and Development (UFDD), said on Monday Brahim Deby had been a key source of resentment who drove members of the president's administration to turn against him.
An Iranian official slammed what he called "ridiculous and false claims" from U.S. officials about the "arrest of a foreign citizen in Iraq and his relation with Iran.
The U.S. military later publicly confirmed the report and provided details about the arrest.
Remarks from Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini were reported Tuesday by the Islamic Republic News Agency and the Iranian Student News Agency.
"Unfortunately, U.S. statesmen are in the habit of repeating false and ridiculous claims without presenting any documents," said Hosseini.
His comments were made after CNN and other media asked him for a reaction to the arrest of Ali Mussa Daqduq.
U.S. officials identified the Hezbollah operative as an explosives expert who played a key role in the January 20 attack that killed five American troops in Karbala, a southern Iraqi city that is one of the most revered to Shiites.
He pretended to be deaf and mute when captured, and his identity was not known for weeks, the officials said.
Once it was uncovered, however, he began to talk, they said, and they now believe he played a crucial role in the attack.
Intelligence officials say Daqduq is one of Hezbollah's top special operations commanders, an expert in the use of roadside bombs.
"The Iranian Quds force is using Lebanese Hezbollah essentially as a proxy, as a surrogate, in Iraq," Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner said on Monday. "The specific motivations behind those operations ... we're still learning about.
Supporters of the immediate creation of a federal state stretching from Cape Town to Cairo waged a fierce debate at an African summit on Monday with leaders who want much slower integration.
The African Union summit, on its second day, got down to heavyweight discussions on its only agenda item the creation of a United States of Africa.
While almost all the 53 member nations agree with the goal of African integration and eventual unity, most of the summit leaders, led by South Africa's Thabo Mbeki, believe this must be a gradual process.
But with impassioned leadership from Libya's Moammar Gadhafi, a smaller group wants a federal government to be established immediately as the only way to fight Africa's poverty and myriad of other challenges including globalization.
He did not attend the summit's opening session on Sunday and believes the decision over unity must be made by Africa's masses and not leaders closeted in a conference hall.
Kenya's President Mwai Kibaki, a member of the gradualist camp, expressed strong support for unity in his speech.
A 13-year-old girl hit her head while on a spinning ride at an amusement park, putting her in intensive care.
Natashia West was injured Thursday on the Magic Teacup ride at Boomers, just south of Fort Lauderdale.
The ride carries passengers inside round cups.
At the center of each cup is a wheel riders can turn to control how fast it spins.
It was not clear how Natashia hit her head or what part of the ride she hit it on.
State officials inspected the ride Friday and found no mechanical problems, agency spokesman Terence McElroy said.
The department has not concluded its investigation but expects to release a report this week.
A routine inspection by the department in April also found the ride to have no mechanical problems.
The men allegedly behind last week's failed terror plots in England and Scotland have connections to al Qaeda in Iraq, U.S. officials said Tuesday.
At least some of the suspects were recruited by al Qaeda while they were living in the Middle East, the sources said.
Al Qaeda has been trying to recruit people who can travel easily to the United States and Europe and assimilate into society without causing suspicion, according to law enforcement officials.
Counterterrorism officials told CNN they believe the plots in Britain may be a blueprint for attacks on the United States.
But, the officials say, the degree of what might be in the works and timing of any potential attack remain unknown.
But I continue to think they don't want to waste their shot here on something that isn't fairly spectacular," one counterterrorism official said.
The counterterrorism officials spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the story.
Seven of the eight people arrested are doctors or medical students and the other is a laboratory technician.
Two other doctors are being questioned about the case but are not in custody
British police identified Iraqi physician Bilal Abdulla, 27, as one of the two men suspected of leaving two car bombs in central London on Friday and ramming an explosives-laden sport utility vehicle into a terminal at Glasgow Airport on Saturday.
A two-person Apache helicopter crew staged a dramatic rescue Monday, ferrying two of their comrades out of a combat zone south of Baghdad, military officials said Tuesday.
The four of them flew away in a two-person Apache, with two in the cockpit and two others clinging to the outside of the chopper.
Enemy machine-gun fire brought down a OH-58D Kiowa attack helicopter piloted by two Task Force Marne soldiers in a location full of insurgents.
Two Army pilots in a AH-64 Apache helicopter braving insurgent fire came to assist them.
Because the rescue helicopter only had room for two, one of the Apache pilots gave up his seat in the chopper to one of the Kiowa pilots, and that Apache pilot and the other Kiowa pilot situated themselves outside the craft.
An Air Force Thunderbolt II destroyed the downed helicopter with two 500-pound laser-guided bombs after the pilots were evacuated from the area," the military said
The military did not specify exactly where the rescue took place or how far the crew had to fly to reach safety.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2781116
Jupiter is changing its stripes, perhaps because its seasons are changing, scientists reported Thursday.
White areas of the planet's cloud bands are turning brown and brownish areas are lightening up, the researchers said.
"It does this every once in a while," planetary scientist Amy Simon-Miller of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center said in a telephone interview.
"Jupiter doesn't stay the same color all the time. We are just lucky it is going through what we call a global upheaval, meaning the belts and bands are changing color at the same time.
The changes might be due to seasonal effects, Simon-Miller said.
"Jupiter's year is much longer than an Earth year it's 12 years," she said.
Changes in the heat from the sun may be affecting the gas giant's atmosphere, she said.
Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim is the world's richest man, worth an estimated $67.8 billion, after overtaking Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates, according to a respected tracker of Mexican financial wealth on Monday.
A 27 percent surge in the share price of America Movil, Latin America's largest cell phone operator controlled by Slim, from March to June made him close to $8.6 billion wealthier than Gates, said Eduardo Garcia in Sentido Comun, the online financial publication he founded.
Garcia estimated that Gates was worth $59.2 billion.
tiny elite holding most of the country's wealth and around half the population living on less than $5 a day.
Forbes bumped up Slim because gains from his holding company Carso and fixed-line telecom Telmex added to the Mexican's fortune while shares of Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. fell in the same period.
and his family own a fortune equivalent to 8 percent of Mexico's gross domestic product.
Slim is known for his Midas touch in turning around struggling businesses and turning them into profit-making machines.
LOS ANGELES, California (Hollywood Reporter) An online leak about the Primetime Emmy Award finalists in the comedy and drama series categories raised questions Monday about the security and future of the Emmy voting process.
When TheEnvelope.com (http://www.theenvelope.com) posted the list of the top 10 finalists in each category during the weekend, citing multiple judges who were screening the series as sources, it also shed light on this year's voting process.
The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, which oversees the Primetime Emmy Awards, declined comment on the accuracy of the lists.
The final five nominees in each category or six, if the vote is close enough will be unveiled on July 19.
It is unclear whether the academy plans to investigate the sources of the leak.
But in a statement, it said all Emmy judges are required to sign a confidentiality agreement.
At least one network source was pleased that the lists of finalists were leaked.
The source, who did not wish to be identified, said the academy should make it a policy to start announcing the top 10 finalists on its own every year.
The leak could be linked to a change in the Emmy voting procedures this year.
One rule change this year ensured that all panelists would know all series that made the cut as the top 10 in a certain category instead of only a few apiece, as they did last year.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2780631 In 1981, Dr Mohga Kamal-Yanni was preparing to leave Egypt for a clinical attachment in England when her father had a heart attack.
He fell in the street, and was taken to a public hospital, where Dr Kamal-Yanni kept vigil at his bedside until he regained his strength.
During his stay in the hospital, she was appalled at the low level of healthcare available to him.
As a doctor, Kamal-Yanni was able to watch over her father's progress.
Her professional opinion on his recovery was striking.
The following year, Kamal-Yanni came to England to do a clinical attachment.
"I couldn't understand why every time I saw a monitor next to a patient I was so upset.
It dawned on her that the gulf in care was troubling her.
"I kept thinking why on earth my dad didn't have that. The only reason was that he happened to be born in Egypt and these people had the luck to be born [in England].
Kamal-Yanni is now a senior health & HIV policy advisor at third-world charity Oxfam.
Her first-hand experience of the divide between the healthcare available in richer countries, and that on offer in poorer ones, has given her the impetus to try and narrow the gap.
Serena Williams clinched one of the most dramatic victories of her career on Monday, battling crippling cramp to beat Daniela Hantuchova 6-2 6-7 6-2 in the fourth round at Wimbledon.
It seemed her Wimbledon dream was going to end in pain and tears but two hours later, after rain had interrupted the match for the third time, she came out fighting like a wounded tiger to overwhelm a bemused Hantuchova.
"It was a muscle spasm in the left calf and the pain was so bad I was crying. But I would have felt weird if I hadn't tried, I would have felt bad about it.
Serena will now face top seed and world number one Justine Henin in a blockbuster quarterfinal, after the Belgian became the first woman into the quarterfinals with a 6-2 6-2 defeat of Switzerland's Patty Schynder.
British author Salman Rushdie and his wife Padma Lakshmi, host of TV show "Top Chef," are getting divorced, his spokeswoman has said, just two weeks after he was awarded a controversial knighthood.
He married Lakshmi, a former model born in 1970 in India, in 2004.
She was his fourth wife and the couple had no children.
"He asks that the media respect his privacy at this difficult time," the statement said.
When the Indian-born Rushdie started his romance with the model more than 20 years his junior, the British tabloids made much of their differences in age and intellectual stature.
But Rushdie always defended his
"Anyone who's met Padma knows she's as intelligent as they come," he told The Times of London in a 2005 interview. "But, you know, it's not supposed to be permitted to be gorgeous and really smart and also very nice.
"It feels very odd to see newspaper articles saying 'Beauty and the Beast' and 'Why Do Beautiful Women Love Ugly Men? '" he said in the interview. "But at this stage, I'm kind of resigned to it at as you say pushing 60.
Rushdie shot to fame in 1981 when his second novel, "Midnight's Children," a magic-realist exploration of Indian history, won the Booker Prize.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2780449 There are a billion Bluetooth-enabled devices in the world cell phones, headsets, cameras, keyboards, printers.
Another 13 million of them are being sold every week.
But that's chump change compared with the growth that analysts expect to see once a new version of the short-range wireless technology makes its way into products later this year.
Pairing up Bluetooth devices is a laborious process that requires as many as 15 steps.
That should happen this fall, when the first Bluetooth upgrade in three years, Bluetooth 2.1, starts shipping.
Vladimir Putin, fiercely opposed to U.S. plans for missile defense in Europe, tried out new Russian alternatives on President Bush on Monday.
Bush called the ideas "innovative" but said the U.S. still wants to anchor the defense in Poland and the Czech Republic.
The two leaders, meeting at the oceanfront compound of Bush's father, sought to restart U.S.-Russian relations after months of acrimony. "Do I trust him?
Yes, I trust him," Bush said about Putin, who stood alongside him on the lawn of the estate that overlooks the rocky Atlantic coast. "Do I like everything he says?
But as I told Vladimir, I think that the Czech Republic and Poland need to be an integral part of a system.
He suggested information-exchange centers in Moscow and possibly Brussels as a way to strengthen the Washington-Moscow national security relationship.
"The relationship of our two countries would be raised to an entirely new level," Putin said.
The investigation into the attempted terror attacks in London and Glasgow has become a global terror probe after an eighth suspect was arrested in Australia late Monday.
A 27-year-man identified by Scotland Yard only as "H" was a detained at the Brisbane, Australia, airport Monday evening while waiting to catch a flight out of the country, Beattie said.
Australian police were executing search warrants at locations in the Brisbane area, including at the Gold Coast Hospital in Southport, Queensland, where the man worked as a doctor, according to Australian Attorney General Philip Ruddock.
Although Ruddock would not disclose his nationality, he did say the man was not an Australian.
Beattie said the both doctors were recruited from Liverpool last year, through an ad in the British Medical Journal, to work in Australia.
Earlier, authorities identified Iraqi doctor Bilal Abdulla, 27, as one of two men who rammed an explosives-laden SUV into a terminal at the airport in Glasgow, Scotland, Saturday, a British source said.
British authorities said they believe those two men are the same ones who parked two car bombs in Central London on Friday.
The cars, packed with fuel and nails, could have killed hundreds if they had been set off.
In addition to Abdulla, police also arrested Dr. Mohammed Asha, a Jordanian-educated physician who moved to England two years ago, according to a source with knowledge of the investigation.
Asha, 26, was picked up late Saturday on a motorway in the Cheshire area of northern England, a source said.
Police say he was arrested with a 27-year-old woman, identified by Asha's family as his wife.
Police have sealed the home of the unnamed doctor and his wife, which is about two miles from Asha's home in Newcastle-under-Lyme.
Forensic teams are searching the house, where the doctor and his wife have lived for about a year, neighbors said.
Police would not confirm any details about their search.
Asha's family in Amman, Jordan, is distraught and has not heard anything from the British Embassy or from London, his older brother, Ahmed Asha, said.
Asha was not a religious person and was in the top of his medical class, focusing on neurosurgery, his brother said.
The family is especially worried about Asha's 2-year-old son, who was born in Britain shortly after the couple moved there.
Stock indexes rose on Tuesday as investors snapped up exporters such as Samsung Electronics following robust U.S. manufacturing data, while the mood across Asia was lifted by a fresh bout of U.S. takeover activity.
The U.S. report on Monday showed manufacturing growth accelerated in June to its fastest pace in over a year as the U.S. economy, Asia's top export market, picked up momentum.
rise today," said Norihiro Fujito, general manager of Mitsubishi UFJ Securities' investment research and information division.
South Korea's benchmark KOSPI climbed 1.1 percent to a one-week high thanks to gains of 4.6 percent for ship builder Hyundai Heavy Industries and 1.1 percent for Samsung Electronics
"The U.S. markets will provide a boost, but selling could continue from retail investors hit by tighter rules on trading on credit as well as foreigners," said Kim Joong-hyun, an analyst at Goodmorning Shinhan Securities.
percent, National Australia Bank and Commonwealth Bank both put on nearly 1 percent.
On Wall Street, blue-chip stocks ended nearly 1 percent higher while the tech-laden Nasdaq Composite Index added 1.1 percent
President Bush spared former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby from a 2 ¨ö-year prison term on Monday, issuing an order that commutes his sentence.
Bush left intact a $250,000 fine and two years probation for Libby, according to a senior White House official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the decision had not been announced.
Bush's move came hours after a federal appeals panel ruled Libby could not delay his prison term in the CIA leak case.
That decision put the pressure on the president, who had been sidestepping calls by Libby's allies to pardon the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney.
Libby was convicted in March of lying to authorities and obstructing the investigation into the 2003 leak of CIA operative's identity.
He was the highest-ranking White House official ordered to prison since the Iran-Contra affair.
The investigation into the attempted terror attacks in London and Glasgow has become a global terror probe after an eighth suspect was arrested in Australia late Monday.
A 27-year-old man identified by Scotland Yard only as "H" was detained in Australia at the Brisbane Airport on Monday evening while waiting to catch a flight out of the country, according to Premier of the state of Queensland Peter Beattie.
Australian police were executing search warrants at locations in the Brisbane area, Beattie said.
Earlier, authorities identified Iraqi doctor Bilal Abdulla, 27, as one of two men who rammed an explosives-laden SUV into a terminal at the airport in Glasgow, Scotland, Saturday, a British source said.
British authorities said they believe those two men are the same ones who parked two car bombs in Central London on Friday.
The cars, packed with fuel and nails, could have killed hundreds if they had been set off.
In addition to Abdulla, police also arrested Dr. Mohammed Asha, a Jordanian-educated physician who moved to England two years ago, according to a source with knowledge of the investigation.
Asha, 26, was picked up late Saturday on a motorway in the Cheshire area of northern England, a source said.
Asha's house in Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, has been searched since his arrest Saturday night.
Neighbors there said that another doctor is also part of the investigation.
An al Qaeda suicide bomber blew himself up Monday at the site of an ancient temple popular with tourists, killing seven Spaniards and two Yemenis less than two weeks after the U.S. Embassy issued a terror warning about the area.
Witnesses said the bomber drove a car through the gate of the temple compound, and the vehicle exploded near the structure, which was built about 3,000 years ago and dedicated to the Queen of Sheba.
Police said they received information last month about a possible al Qaeda attack.
Less than two weeks ago, the U.S. Embassy warned Americans to avoid the area.
On June 23 in the neighboring Shabwa province, a Yemeni guard opened fire on a group of foreign oil workers shortly after they landed at a company airstrip, killing one and wounding five including an American.
The provincial governor said at the time that the guard was mentally ill, but the U.S. Embassy in San'a canceled travel to the two provinces "for the near future" and recommended that Americans avoid the area.
Al Qaeda has an active presence in Yemen, the ancestral home of Osama bin Laden, despite government efforts to fight the terror network.
Al Qaeda was blamed for the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Aden that killed 17 American sailors and the attack on a French oil tanker that killed one person two years later.
This year marks the final season for a couple of well-known seaside attractions on the East Coast Coney Island's Astroland and Atlantic City's Steel Pier.
But on the West Coast, the summer of 2007 is merely another birthday for the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.
The enduring salty dog of amusement parks turns 100 this year.
The Santa Cruz boardwalk itself was born in 1907, and it has survived even as similar attractions like Toledo Beach on Lake Erie in LaSalle Township, Michigan, and the original Myrtle Beach Pavilion in South Carolina have gone under.
The Canfield family has run the Santa Cruz attractions since 1952, when Laurence Canfield bought a controlling interest in the Seaside Co., which operates the boardwalk.
" The rides are faster now, but admission to the boardwalk is still free. A $28.95 wristband buys you access to all the rides all day long, a bargain compared to bigger brand-name theme parks where one-day tickets easily exceed $50.
"The Giant Dipper." Constructed in 1924 in 47 days, this wooden beauty of a roller coaster is the signature ride of Santa Cruz.
All done up right before your eyes and not handed to you in a plastic wrapper by a disinterested 16-year-old.
They're available at a few of the ice cream vendor windows along the boardalk.
Santa Cruz's broad beach is just steps away.
McDonald's will be scouring its friers for leftover oil and recycling it into biodiesel to power its fleet of British delivery vehicles, the American fast-food chain said Monday.
The move will save about 1,700 tons of carbon annually the equivalent of removing about 2,400 cars from the road each year when the national rollout is completed next year, the Oak Brook, Illinois-based company said.
McDonald's said the fuel changeover would begin with 20 of its 155-vehicle fleet converting to a mixture of used cooking oil and pure rapeseed oil.
The personal doctor of pro wrestler Chris Benoit was charged Monday with improperly dispensing painkillers and other drugs.
The recipients were identified in the indictment by their initials.
Federal drug agents have taken over the probe into whether Astin improperly prescribed testosterone and other drugs to Benoit before the wrestler killed his wife and son and committed suicide in his suburban Atlanta home last month.
State prosecutors and sheriff's officials are overseeing the death investigation.
Attorney Manny Arora said Astin "is doing about as good as can be expected. He's disappointed and surprised.
Meanwhile, the state prosecutor in the Benoit investigation said Monday he currently has no plans to file criminal charges in the case. "From our standpoint, I have no reason to believe there will be any criminal charges at the current time," Fayette County District Attorney Scott Ballard told The Associated Press.
"What the federal government is going to do, it will be up to them.
Astin prescribed testosterone for Benoit, a longtime friend, in the past but has not said what, if any, medications he prescribed when Benoit visited his office June 22, the day authorities believe Benoit killed his wife.
Meanwhile, toxicology tests on Benoit's body have not yet been completed, Ballard said.
Some experts believe steroids can cause paranoia, depression and violent outbursts known as "roid rage.
An amusement park worker was thrown off a gyrating ride and killed, and park officials acknowledged Saturday that a safety precaution put in place after a fatal accident on the ride in 2004 wasn't followed.
The ride was immediately shut down for the rest of the summer.
It was the fourth fatality at the park in just over three years.
The woman told the operator she would fasten the last riders into the car, and the new operator, whose name wasn't immediately available, stepped into a booth and started the ride, Tartaglia said.
But Garin, who started working at the park when she was 14, already had been thrown from it, he said.
Playland is on Long Island Sound, about 25 miles north of midtown Manhattan. Featuring more than 50 rides, a pool and a beach, it draws more than 1 million visitors a year.
Remote sensing equipment has revealed what appears to be a 100-foot-high room above Emperor Qin Shihuang's tomb near the ancient capital of Xi'an in Shaanxi province, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Sunday.
The room has not been excavated.
Diagrams of the chamber are based on data gathered over five years, starting in 2002, using radar and other remote sensing technologies, the news agency said.
construction of the Great Wall and commissioning an army of terra cotta soldiers to guard his tomb.
Thousands of the terra cotta warriors were discovered more than 20 years ago by peasants from a local commune who were sinking wells.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2779739
The royal family will be a little larger by December Prince Edward's wife, Sophie, is expecting her second child, Buckingham Palace says.
"The earl and the countess are both thrilled and excited.
The countess will continue with engagements as normal and take doctors' advice," a spokeswoman said Monday on condition of anonymity, in line with palace policy.
A statement from Buckingham Palace said the queen and her husband, Prince Philip, "are delighted with the news."
The baby will be their eighth grandchild.
When Edward and Sophie married in 1999, it was announced that their children would not bear the title of Royal Highness.
NEOLA, Utah In California, evacuated residents were returning to their burned-out streets Saturday after a separate wildfire near Lake Tahoe destroyed more than 200 homes and charred 3,100 acres.
In Utah, wind gusts Saturday were expected to reach up to 25 mph, fanning the flames even more.
A U.S. Forest Service investigation found that the campfire south of Lake Tahoe was built in a campfire-restricted area, but it said there was no evidence it was deliberately set to spark the devastating wildfire that has displaced about 3,500 people.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2778424
Not only is Barry Bonds going to the All-Star game in his home ballpark, he'll be in the starting lineup.
The San Francisco Giants star overcame a 119,000-vote deficit in the final days of balloting and finished 123,000 ahead of the Chicago Cubs' Alfonso Soriano on Sunday to claim the third and final starting outfield spot for the National League.
Bonds, heading to his 14th All-Star game and 12th as a starter, was the lone Giants player chosen for the July 10 game in San Francisco his first trip since 2004.
Five home runs from tying Hank Aaron's record of 755, Bonds is beloved in San Francisco but booed in most other cities following years of suspicion that he used performance-enhancing drugs.
It's his hometown," said Cincinnati's Ken Griffey Jr., the top NL vote-getter.
"He gets to have all the fun stuff and the press conferences.
With the game in his home park, Bonds figures to be the focus all week.
"I think when our staff got together, we were not surprised at all that either the fans or the players were going to vote him in and that somehow we would put him on," La Russa said. "He's having a good year.
Soriano wasn't bothered that fans voted Bonds to start over him.
"Going to the All-Star game means a lot to me, especially my first time with the Cubs," he said.
On arriving at the stadium, the princes greeted singer Nelly Furtado and 1980s chart-toppers Duran Duran.
The concert, organized by Diana's sons, falls on what would have been her 46th birthday.
The princess died on August 31, 1997, along with her boyfriend Dodi Fayed and their driver when their Mercedes crashed inside the Pont d'Alma tunnel, while media photographers pursued them.
The memorial concert features music from some of Princess Diana's favorite acts, including Tom Jones, but will also host younger performers including Kanye West, P. Diddy, Joss Stone and Lily Allen.
In an interview with the BBC, Prince William, 25, admitted to nervousness. "We'll probably be gibbering wrecks by the end of it," he said.
Diana is remembered for her glamour, for her extensive charity work and for her tempestuous marriage to Prince Charles, heir to the British throne. The pair married in 1981 in a ceremony watched by millions around the world, but divorced in 1996 after admissions of adultery on both sides.
William said the concert was a chance for people to "remember all the good things about her because she's not here to defend herself when she gets criticized.
Brandon Saunders, 16, had been saving his allowance and birthday money for months to get one of Apple Inc.'s coveted iPhones.
He waited in line with his 70-year-old grandmother for about eight hours Friday in front of a San Antonio AT&T store and left sunburned but grinning, shopping bag in hand.
"It's like Christmas in June.
The teen was among the first to get his hands on the coveted gadget from Apple, joining throngs destined to become braggarts of and guinea pigs for the latest must-have, cutting-edge piece of techno-wizardry.
Apple is banking that its new, do-everything phone with a touch-sensitive screen will become its third core business next to its moneymaking iPod music players and Macintosh computers.
Watch the mad dash for the iPhone &raquo;
In San Francisco, customers sang "Auld Lang Syne" following a countdown, as if heralding a new era in telecommunications.
Patrons at the Apple store in Palo Alto, California, were treated to a very brief appearance by Apple CEO Steve Jobs. He momentarily posed for pictures before leaving.
"I'm glad it's over," said Carlos Sanchez, 19, at Apple's Fifth Avenue store in New York City, clutching shopping bags containing two iPhones the maximum allowed per person. "I don't have to sleep outside anymore.
Techies, exhibitionists and luminaries even the co-founder of Apple and the mayor of Philadelphia were among the inaugural group of iPhone customers.
Apple has set a target of selling 10 million units worldwide by 2008, gaining roughly a 1 percent share of the cell phone market.
It's expected to go on sale in Europe later this year and in Asia in 2008.
HONG KONG, CHINA (CNN) The clouds on Sunday threatened to rain cats and dogs, as it has been in recent days a perfect echo of the weather exactly 10 years ago when Hong Kong became China's after 156 years of British rule.
The organizers of Hong Kong's "People's March for Universal Suffrage" was revving up the crowd that was amassing in Victoria Park with rally chants and songs, including a Cantonese version of "Do You Hear the People Sing" from "Les Miserables.
"One person one vote," said William Kwok, who prefers to join this July 1 "party" instead of the one commemorating the territory's Handover.
"They might think this is a model for mainland China," David Chan said, explaining the need to protest instead of staying at home.
Hong Kong is the "one place on earth where Chinese can express themselves freely," he said, pointing to the 1989 government crackdown on the student-led pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.
Chan was carrying a flag for Radio Television Hong Kong, the public broadcaster whose existence is in question.
A government report has proposed the creation of a "new" public broadcaster, to be named the Hong Kong Public Broadcasting Corporation, to satisfy the "need for public service broadcasting."
The fear is that the new entity would be a government mouthpiece.
The report said it "should be independent in its editorial and programming decisions.
Nearby, marchers were hoisting a banner reading "We Miss Ching Cheong," in reference to the Hong Kong-based correspondent of Singapore's Straits Times newspaper who is now serving five years in prison on conviction for spying.
A Hong Kong Journalists Association petition with more than 10,500 names has appealed for his release, according to Reporters Without Borders.
Spanish police acting on a telephoned bomb threat evacuated Ibiza airport in the Balearic islands, and later used a controlled explosion to detonate a suspicious package, airport officials and press reports say.
While authorities did not immediately say who they believed was behind the incident Saturday, reports on the Web sites of dailies El Pais, El Mundo and La Vanguardia's said three warnings had been received by Basque newspaper Gara, which violent Basque separatist group ETA often uses as a conduit for bomb warnings.
A spokeswoman for the AENA airport authority, which controls Spain's airports, said the airport had been evacuated and closed to outgoing and incoming flights.
tens of thousands of summer holiday-makers many of them young from Britain, Germany and northern Europe.
The bomb threat was made just weeks after ETA called off a 15-month cease-fire, blaming the government for refusing to make concessions in the peace process and warning it was once again becoming active "on all fronts.
It contained more than 100 kilograms (220 pounds) of explosive material, detonators, timers and a bomb-making manual in the Basque language.
ETA has attacked airports before, most recently in a December 2006 car bombing that killed two people at Madrid's Barajas airport.
Ambassadors from European Union nations on Friday backed a deal with the United States on the sharing of trans-Atlantic air passenger data that Washington says is needed to help fight terrorism, diplomats said.
Envoys from the EU's 27 nations reached a "basic political understanding" on the new deal, which was struck Wednesday by EU and U.S. negotiators, the diplomats said.
The diplomats said that the amount of data handed over would be lower than under the current agreement but U.S. authorities would be able to hold the information for longer. "We'll try to finish this
Some countries have reserved the right to study the ins and outs of the deal," an EU ambassador said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Data can be kept for a maximum of 15 years, but after the first seven years data will become "dormant" and can only be accessed on a case-by-case basis under strict rules.
Particularly sensitive data defined as anything that could reveal a passenger's race or religion, political views or sexual preferences would automatically be filtered by the U.S. and deleted.
A peacock that roamed into the parking lot of a Burger King in New York City was beaten by a man who insisted it was a vampire.
Animal control officials in Staten Island say the bird was beaten so fiercely that most of its tail feathers fell out and it had to be euthanized.
The seven-year-old male peacock wandered into the restaurant parking lot and perched on a car hood last week.
Charmed employees had been feeding it bread when the man appeared.
A restaurant worker says the man grabbed the bird by the neck, hurled it to the ground and started stomping it.
She says when he was asked what he was doing, he responded, "'I'm killing a vampire!
Employees called police, but the man ran when he saw them.
Utah wildfire kills 3
A 63-year-old man and his 43-year-old son were working in the field Friday afternoon when they were caught by the fire and died at the scene, said Louis Haynes, a spokesman for the Uintah Basin Interagency Fire Center.
A 75-year-old man injured in the fire died overnight, Uintah County Sheriff Jeff Merrell said Saturday.
The fire started north of Neola, about 100 miles east of Salt Lake City, on Friday morning.
By Saturday afternoon, about 23 square miles, including part of Ashley National Forest in the northeastern corner of the state, had been consumed.
Both wildfires were fueled by dry conditions in the West. In Utah, wind gusts Saturday were expected to reach up to 25 mph, fanning the flames even more.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2778396
Two former comrades in East Timor's struggle for independence led the battle for control of the country's parliament as ballot counting began Sunday in elections many hoped would restore stability after a year of violence in Asia's newest country.
Bishop Alberto Ricardo da Silva, in his Sunday Mass in the capital, Dili, asked all parties to accept the election results.
"People are tired of violence and vandalism and are crying out for peace and stability," he told more than 1,000 churchgoers. Political leaders must have "big hearts" and respect democracy, he said.
East Timor, a Portuguese colony for 450 years, fought a 24-year independence struggle against Indonesia and became an independent state just five years ago.
On Saturday, voters chose between 14 parties competing for control of the 65-seat legislature.
The front-runners were two former comrades in East Timor's resistance to Indonesian rule, independence hero Xanana Gusmao and Mari Alkatiri, the leader of the incumbent Fretilin party.
In April and May last year, the nation of 1 million descended into chaos when fighting between police and army forces morphed into gang warfare, looting and arson, killing 37 people and driving 155,000 from their homes.
About 3,000 foreign peacekeepers helped to restore relative calm, but the nation is still plagued by endemic unemployment and poverty, with about 10 percent of the population living in refugee camps or with relatives, too afraid to return home.
political leaders' confrontations," da Silva said. "There is no progress. There are no job opportunities for the young people, and that was the cause of the crisis last year.
The U.N.'s special representative to East Timor, Atul Khare, commended the election, which was overseen by 500 foreign observers, as "a peaceful day for the people of East Timor.
"I am very proud of them, and I am very proud of the authorities," he told East Timor television.
England snuffed out smoking in bars, workplaces and public buildings on Sunday in what campaigners said was the biggest boost to public health since the creation of the National Health Service in 1948.
Some parts of Canada and a number of U.S. states have had strict controls on smoking for years.
"Workers have a right to a safe environment and the harm done by tobacco smoke is now known to be significantly dangerous.
"I won't bother going to the pub, I will drink at home. I enjoy a beer with a cigarette, it's part of the culture.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday announced it is blocking the import from China of five species of seafood until their importers can prove they are not contaminated.
"FDA is initiating an import alert against several species of imported Chinese farmed seafood because of numerous cases of contamination with drugs and unsafe food additives," said Dr. David Acheson, the agency's assistant commissioner for food protection, in a conference call with reporters.
The species cited are catfish, eel, shrimp, basa and dace, he said. Basa is similar to catfish; dace is similar to carp.
The medications cited include the antimicrobials nitrofuran, malachite green, gentian violet and fluoroquinolones.
Nitrofuran, malachite green, and gentian violet have been shown to cause cancer in laboratory animals.
Use of fluoroquinolones in food-producing animals can result in antibiotic resistance.
None of them is approved for use in farmed seafood in the United States and some of them have been shown to cause cancer when fed to laboratory animals for "prolonged periods of time," Acheson said.
Alerts have been issued in the past, but Thursday's announcement is the largest.
The food will not be allowed into the United States until the importer can prove it is free from harmful contaminants, Acheson said.
"FDA is taking this action to protect the public health of the American people," he said. Watch more on the FDA's import alert on five kinds of fish from China. &raquo;
The products "could cause serious health problems if consumed over a long period of time," he said.
Two U.S. soldiers have been charged with the premeditated murders of three Iraqis killed in three separate incidents between April and June of this year, according to a U.S. military statement.
Hensley was charged with three counts of premeditated murder, three counts of obstruction of justice and three counts of "wrongfully placing a weapon" next to a body.
Hensley was arrested Thursday and taken to Kuwait to be held before the trial.
He was arrested Tuesday at his home in Texas and was also taken to Kuwait, the military said.
Both are assigned to the U.S. Army's 1st Battalion, 501 Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division, based at Fort Richardson, Alaska.
An investigation into U.S.-led airstrikes that slammed into Afghan homes where Taliban fighters sought shelter has found that 62 insurgents and 45 civilians were killed, two Afghan officials say.
An investigating team was sent to Helmand province's Gereshk district, where fighting took place between insurgents and Western forces late Friday, said Dur Ali Shah, the mayor of Gereshk, and Mohammad Hussein Andewal, the provincial police chief.
NATO's International Security Assistance Force has acknowledged some civilians were killed in the southern battle but has said the death toll was nowhere near as high as Afghan officials have claimed.
Because of the battle site's remote location, it was impossible to independently verify the casualty claims.
Afghan officials said fighter jets and ground forces were still patrolling the region and that the fighting continued into Saturday.
A suicide attacker on foot blew himself up near a convoy of British forces in Gereshk district on Sunday, wounding several Afghans, an Associated Press reporter at the scene said.
The battle on Friday began when Taliban fighters tried to ambush a joint U.S.-Afghan military convoy, then fled to Hyderabad village for cover, said Helmand provincial Police Chief Mohammad Hussein.
Airstrikes then targeted the militants in the village.
Shah said late Saturday that 50 to 60 civilians and 35 Taliban fighters had been killed but changed his casualty figures on Sunday, citing the investigation.
" He said NATO would not fire on positions if it knew civilians were nearby.
"It's the enemy fighters who willingly fire when civilians are standing right next to them," he said.
One of the men set himself on fire after he jumped from the burning vehicle.
"There was no danger to any of the public, and there's no cause of concern in relation to that vehicle," Assistant Chief Constable John Malcolm said at a news conference in Glasgow.
Security has been tight at the hospital after police confiscated a suspicious item on the suspect's body when he was admitted on Saturday, and called for a partial evacuation of the hospital.
The attack at Scotland's busiest airport, which according to Reuters caused five slight injuries and damaged the airport entrance, came 36 hours after two car bombs loaded with fuel, gas canisters and nails were found in central London primed to detonate.
Authorities think the two incidents are related.
Investigators continue to sift through thousands of hours of closed-circuit television footage taken outside Glasgow's airport and near the locations where the car bombs were found in London.
On Sunday, a terminal at London's Heathrow airport was briefly closed "due to a suspect package," the British Airports Authority reported.
Metropolitan Police said the device was found to be harmless a short time later.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Sunday said Britons must realize the terrorism threat their country faces is "long-term and sustained" and they must remain "constantly vigilant" about security.
Xanana Gusmao, revered for his role in East Timor's struggle for freedom from Indonesia, is making a bid to strip power from the Fretilin party that has dominated politics since independence in 1999.
Twelve other parties are running, but the fiercest battle is between Gusmao's CNRT and the left-leaning Fretilin of rival Mari Alkatiri, once an ally in the movement to end Indonesian occupation.
The nation of less than a million people descended into chaos in April and May of 2006 when fighting between police and army forces killed 37 people and drove 155,000 from their
About 10 percent of the population remains in dirty camps.
"We have experience in governing the country. We have plans, programs and the competence to do this. They have no capacity.
Voter Cirilo Vaz de Carvalho, a 57-year-old farmer with three children, was the first resident to vote at a local elementary school in the capital, Dili. "I voted for CNRT because of the key figure, our national hero, Xanana Gusmao, who brought us independence.
I want him to once again liberate us from the problems that divided East Timor in last year's crisis.
"I woke up very early to take part in deciding my country's destiny," said Justino da Costa, a 53-year-old cab driver lined up before dawn.
East Timor, Asia's newest and poorest country, faces chronic poverty, unemployment of around 50 percent and food shortages.
Police fired tear gas and shots into the air Friday, but failed to disperse several thousand villagers who broke into and ransacked the mayor's office in the southwestern, floodwater-ringed southwestern city of Turbat.
Protesters said they had waded through chest-deep water from outlying areas to voice their anger about a dearth of relief aid.
They said they received only packets of biscuits and bottles of water.
Farqooq Ahmed Khan, head of the National Disaster Management Authority, said accurate figures were unavailable due to poor communications in stricken areas.
Khan told reporters in Islamabad that the military had rescued about 1,600 people.
Military helicopters dropped relief supplies, but many of the more than 800,000 flood-hit people in the southwest apparently got little or nothing.
British police say they have defused a bomb in central London.
This was made safe," they said, adding that counter-terrorism officers were investigating. A police spokesman confirmed the device was a bomb.
The device was found in the week that a new prime minister, Gordon Brown, took office in Britain.
The street was sealed off while police investigated and was likely to remain closed for the foreseeable future, they said.
The nearby Piccadilly Circus underground train station was open, but exit restrictions were in place, the police said.
Fifty-two commuters were killed by bombs on London's transport system on July 7, 2005.
The Portland Trail Blazers got Greg Oden and felt like they won a championship.
The Seattle SuperSonics settled for Kevin Durant, thrilling fans disappointed by the trade of All-Star Ray Allen to Boston.
The Trail Blazers ended months of debate Thursday night when they chose Oden over fellow college freshman Durant with the No. 1 pick in a highly anticipated NBA draft.
Portland opted for the 7-footer who can dominate a game with his defense over the sensational scoring of Durant, who would have been the No. 1 pick in many other years after one of the most outstanding freshman seasons in NCAA history.
But franchise centers are hard to find, and most believe the Blazers got one.
, and scored 15.7points 9.6 rebounds, and 3.3blocks per game as a freshman at Ohio State University.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2776143
Spanish police have arrested an Italian man and a Portuguese woman with possible links to Madeleine McCann, the 4-year-old British girl who vanished nearly two months ago during a vacation in Portugal, Spanish government and police officials tell CNN.
Spanish police had been investigating the couple after hearing allegations they had tried to contact Madeleine's parents to collect the reward for her safe return, according to a police statement released Thursday.
While conducting their investigation, police learned the man was wanted on a French international arrest warrant for an unrelated case, the statement said.
The man, identified only by his initials, D.C., was arrested Thursday for "criminal activity" in the unrelated case, according to the statement.
A police official told CNN the warrant was for the alleged torture of a child.
The suspect had previously served an 18-month sentence in France for mistreating his daughter, a minor, according to the police statement.
The Portuguese woman, his romantic partner, was arrested because she was with him at their luxury home in southern Spain, but was not named on the French warrant, the police official said.
The police statement identified her only by her initials, A.D.
The couple was arrested around 5 a.m. Thursday in the luxury residential development of Soto Grande, in Cadiz province near the town of Algeciras and the British colony of Gibraltar, the officials said.
They are still in that area, and have not been taken to Madrid, the police official said.
The officials insisted on anonymity and cautioned that no firm links have yet been established with the case of Madeleine.
May 3 from a hotel room in Portugal's Algarve region after her parents left her alone with her brother and sister, who are 2-year-old twins, while they went to a nearby restaurant inside the hotel complex in Praia da Luz, a tiny resort town.
Madeleine's parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, have campaigned internationally for the safe return of their daughter, including having a meeting with Pope Benedict XVI and securing support from soccer star David Beckham.
They also met recently in Madrid with Spain's interior minister, who is in charge of Spanish police.
Police have identified just one suspect in the case, but made no arrests before Thursday.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2776005
With nearly a million residents, Honolulu has still managed to keep the delicate balance between the city and its natural environment, offering visitors the best of both worlds.
The 8-mile loop, which includes several smaller trails, takes you to the top of Tantalus, an area with an elevation of 2,000 feet.
As you stroll through a bamboo grove and take in views of Manoa Valley, Nuuanu Valley and the Pali, the shade from ancient trees, birdsong and the smell of the forest make you forget that you are in a major city.
Yet about a mile away sits Ala Moana Center, once the largest shopping complex in the United States until the Mall of America emerged.
More than 260 shops and restaurants attract locals and tourists. Luxury shops such as Neiman Marcus and Chanel share mall space with local favorites like Hawaiian Island Creations and Shirokiya.
Night surfing is incredible to watch or take part in on the south shore.
and as they will tell you, the experience is altogether different from surfing in daylight hours.
Queen's Beach and Canoes in Waikiki are good spots because of the calmer surf and the city lights.
The Federal Reserve has held benchmark U.S. interest rates steady and, while nodding to a recent easing in core inflation, restated that inflation remained its top concern.
," the FOMC said. "However, a sustained moderation in inflation pressures has yet to be convincingly demonstrated.
The dollar held steady but stocks pared gains and prices for U.S. government bonds slipped on the announcement, as traders saw it signaling less likelihood the central bank would lower interest rates later in the year.
"Economic growth appears to have been moderate during the first half of this year, despite the ongoing adjustment in the housing sector," the Fed said. "The economy seems likely to continue to expand at a moderate pace over coming quarters.
However, officials have remained concerned that a tight labor market that could force employers to boost wages to find and retain workers.
In May, the unemployment rate held at a low 4.5 percent.
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke is expected to deliver the report with two days of testimony in mid-July.
The tally was 46 to 53, 14 votes shy of the 60 needed to end debate.
The president, who visited the Capitol this month to push hard for overhauling the nation's immigration laws, delivered a brief statement shortly after the vote saying he was "sorry" Congress could not reach agreement, calling its "failure to act" a "disappointment.
The bill aimed to create a path to citizenship for some of the 12 million illegal im migrants and to toughen border security.
Explaining his reasons for voting against the bill, GOP Sen. Jeff Sessions, a leading critic of the measure, said "it would not work.
"Our analysis was that it would result in 8.7 million more people in the next 20 years here illegally," said the Alabama senator.
Thursday's vote represented a "sad day for America," said Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer of New York.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2775971
The Spice Girls, who burst on to the music scene with "girl power" and attitude in the 1990s, have reunited for a world tour, their Web site said on Thursday. "Hey everybody!!
The five-member band is the latest in a long line of pop acts to bury past differences and reform, hoping for success where many others have failed.
The Spice Girls boasted album sales of 55 million during their brief career, and hits including "Wannabe" and "Say You'll Be There" topped charts across the globe.
But the success was shortlived, with Geri "Ginger" Halliwell leaving in
1998, four years after The Spice Girls was created, and the remaining band members going their separate ways after releasing the album "Forever" in 2000.
Meanwhile, Melanie "Scary" Brown largely disappeared from the public eye until a high-profile paternity case involving Hollywood star Eddie Murphy.
The Iranian government's last-minute decision to ration monthly fuel allotments, as well as increase the price of gas, triggered protests and riots a rarity in the Islamic republic according to Iranian media reports.
The oil ministry issued a statement at 9 p.m. Tuesday that the restrictions would go into effect at midnight.
That prompted hundreds of thousands of car owners to line up for miles at gas stations late Tuesday and early Wednesday.
Others took to the street in protest, burning at least 12 gas stations in Tehran and looting other businesses, according to Fars News Agency.
Under the order, most Iranians will be limited to about 26 U.S. gallons (100 liters) per month.
The ministry also announced the price would be raised by more than 20 percent to 11 cents per liter (about 42 cents a gallon).
The riots took place across Iran's major cities, including the holy city of Mashhad and Arak, where Iran's heavy water plant is located, according to Iran's official news agency, IRNA.
The riots were so intense that fire engines could not reach the burning gas stations, Fars reported, adding that the security forces and the Basij militia were trying to get the situation under control until 2 a.m. Wednesday.
Fuel consumption has increased in recent years in Iran, which imports $4 billion worth of gas each year.
Although it is the fourth largest crude oil producer in the world, Iran lacks the capacity to refine all of its petroleum into gasoline for consumption.
Researchers will visit Michigan's Upper Peninsula next month to search for evidence of the legendary creature known as "Bigfoot" or "Sasquatch.
The expedition will focus on eastern Marquette County, said Matthew Moneymaker of the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization.
The legend of Bigfoot dates back centuries.
But skeptics have challenged accounts of sightings, and practical jokers have staged hoaxes that have included grainy film footage of people dressed in costumes.
But Moneymaker said members of his organization have either glimpsed Bigfoot or gotten close enough to hear the creature in all but three of 30 expeditions in the United States and Canada.
The late Grover Krantz, a Washington State University professor who specialized in cryptozoology, the study of creatures that have not been proven to exist, believed Bigfoot was a "gigantopithecus," a branch of primitive man believed to have existed 3 million years ago.
The mummy of an obese woman, who likely suffered from diabetes and liver cancer, has been identified as that of Queen Hatshepsut, Egypt's most powerful female pharoah, Egyptian archaeologists said Wednesday.
Hatshepsut, who ruled Egypt in the 15th century B.C., was known for dressing like a man and wearing a false beard.
But when her rule ended, all traces of her mysteriously disappeared, including her mummy.
Discovered in 1903 in the Valley of the Kings, the mummy was left on site until two months ago, when it was brought to the Cairo Museum for testing, Egypt's antiquities chief Zahi Hawass said.
DNA bone samples taken from the mummy's pelvic bone and femur are being compared with the mummy of Queen Hatshepsut's grandmother, Amos Nefreteri, said molecular geneticist Yehia Zakaria Gad, who was part of Hawass' team.
The mummy identified as Hatshepsut shows an obese woman, who died in her 50s, probably had diabetes and is also believed to have had liver cancer, Hawass said.
Her left hand is positioned against her chest, in a traditional sign of royalty in ancient Egypt.
Hawass also said that a molar found in a jar with some of the queen's embalmed organs perfectly matched the mummy.
Hawass has led the search for Hatshepsut since a year ago, setting up a DNA lab in the basement of the Cairo Museum with an international team of scientists.
To have her identified is on the same magnitude as King Tut's discovery," Molecular biologist Paul Evans of the Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah told the AP by phone. Hatshepsut is believed to have stolen the throne from her young stepson, Thutmose III.
Her rule of about 21 years was the longest among ancient Egyptian queens, ending in 1453 B.C.
But after Hatshepsut's death, her name was obliterated from the records in what is believed to have been her stepson's revenge.
"I have a new outlook on life.
The 26-year-old hotel heiress was released from jail early Tuesday after being sentenced to 45 days in jail for driving on a license that was suspended after she pleaded no contest in January to alcohol-related reckless driving. Her jail term was cut almost in half for good behavior.
Being incarcerated, Hilton said, provided "time to get to know myself" and she has emerged from the jail cell with a determination to eliminate the bad elements, and bad friends, from her life. She also promised King, "I'm just going to follow all the laws.
Grilled about the friends she had to sacrifice, she replied, "I've gotten rid of a lot of people." Asked for names, she said, "I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, but they know who they are.
During her 23 days in jail, she said she meditated, read letters from fans, talked to other inmates through the vents, wrote in her journal and read the Bible, though she couldn't cite a favorite passage when asked.
It was also nice to have a little privacy, she said, and to "be away from all the flashes for a while.
Her imprisonment also reversed a mental disorder she said she had suffered from all her life.
Asked by King if her time in jail cured her claustrophobia, she said, "Now that I'm out of there, yes.
Being strip-searched was the most humiliating experience of her life and one Sunday visit from her parents was especially emotional for her, she said.
The discovery of anabolic steroids in pro-wrestler Chris Benoit's home has raised speculation that the performance-enhancing drugs may be linked to his death and the killings of his wife and young son.
Police have said no motive has been determined.
But authorities were still waiting on toxicology reports, which could take several weeks, to determine what, if any, medication was found in the bodies.
Chris Benoit was a pro-wrestler for 22 years and star of World Wrestling Entertainment, which strongly denounced any suggestion that steroid use could be connected to the tragedy.
CNN Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta said Wednesday that it may never be known whether the deaths were linked to steroids or so-called "roid-rage.
"The drugs said to be found in the home are a synthetic form of testosterone," Gupta said.
It could lead to psychosis and anti-social behavior and depression.
(CNN) Fashion designer Liz Claiborne died Tuesday, the company she founded said Wednesday.
The cause of her death was not immediately known.
Claiborne launched her fashion company in 1976 with her husband, Art Ortenberg, and two other partners.
Their goal was to create styles aimed at the growing number of women entering the career force, according to AP.
They started the company with less than $500,000 and watched it grow to what is now a $5 billion public company.
Claiborne and Ortenberg retired from active management of the company in 1989.
"In losing Liz Claiborne, we have not only lost the founder of our company, but an inspirational woman who revolutionized the fashion industry 30 years ago.
"Her commitment to style and design is ever present in our thinking and the way we work. We will remember Liz for her vision, her entrepreneurial spirit and her enduring compassion and generosity.
Disgraced ex-Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori has decided to run in the election for Japan's upper house of parliament in July, the country's NTV network reported Thursday on its Web site.
"I have accepted the request by the People's New Party to be a proportional representation candidate," Fujimori was quoted as saying in an interview with NTV.
"I want to make use of my 10-year experience as president to work for Japan and the world," NTV quoted him as saying.
Japan's Kyodo News agency had a similar report, saying Fujimori was "likely" to run in the election.
Kyodo did not specify where it got the information, but said Fujimori could make an announcement later Thursday.
No one answered the phones at the People's New Party offices at the upper house shortly after the reports appeared early Thursday.
Fujimori, 68, is under house arrest in Chile.
Peru wants to try Fujimori on charges including bribery, misuse of government funds and sanctioning death squad killings during his decade-long rule, which ended in 2000.
It was not immediately clear whether Fujimori would be eligible to register as a candidate.
Kyodo reported that no regulations under Japan's Public Offices Election Law prohibit a candidate under house arrest overseas from running in an election in Japan.
NTV said Fujimori listed his top policy objectives as Asian diplomacy, the effort to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program and the campaign to resolve the communist regime's abductions of Japanese citizens.
"That's my hope. I think I can do it," NTV quoted Fujimori as saying.
The People's New Party, a minor Japanese party with 10 lawmakers, asked Fujimori this year to run in July 29 elections for the upper house of Japan's parliament. He had been expected to give his answer later in the week.
Fourteen insurgents were killed Wednesday in northern Iraq while trying to rig a truck with explosives, police in Tikrit said. The explosives detonated in Shirqat, a Sunni town in Salaheddin province.
When police arrived, they found people collecting body parts of the insurgents. In other violence Wednesday, seven people were killed and 15 were wounded when a car bomb exploded in a Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said.
Insurgents also went on the attack in Baghdad and another Salaheddin town, Samarra.
In one attack, five Iraqi national police officers died when a roadside bomb struck their patrol in central Samarra's Ajbariya neighborhood around midday Wednesday, Samarra police Capt. Yousif Mohammed Ali said.
Samarra is a predominantly Sunni town about 66 miles (110 kilometers) north of Baghdad.
A roadside bomb wounded four people when it exploded near Kindi Hospital in northeastern Baghdad, the official said.
A U.S. military convoy was passing by when the bomb detonated, but the blast missed the Americans. 'International terrorists' killed, U.S. says
The military described Mehmet Yilmaz, also known as Khalid al-Turki, as "a known terrorist and senior leader in al Qaeda who operated a cell that facilitated the movement of foreign fighters into Iraq for al Qaeda operations.
He was described as "a close associate of Yilmaz who was assessed to be a courier for the same al Qaeda cell and a close associate of Yilmaz and senior leaders within al Qaeda.
A majority of Americans believe that gays and lesbians could not change their sexual orientation even if they wanted to, according to results of a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released Wednesday.
It's the first time in a CNN poll the majority has held that belief regarding homosexuality.
Fifty-six percent of about 515 poll respondents said they do not believe sexual orientation can be changed.
In addition, 42 percent of respondents to the current poll said they believe homosexuality results from upbringing and environment, while 39 percent said they believe it is something a person is born with a close division that reflects the national debate over the issue.
Ten percent in the latest poll said they believe both factors play a role in someone's homosexuality. Three percent said neither, and 6 percent had no opinion.
The sampling error for the results released Wednesday, in which the question was asked of a half-sample of 1,029 telephone poll respondents, is plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.
Seventy-nine percent of poll respondents said openly gay people should be allowed to serve in the military. Eighteen percent said they should not.
On the question of gay marriage, 43 percent of respondents in May said they would not support same-sex marriage or civil unions, which provide many, if not most, of the same legal protections as marriage.
Twenty-four percent said they supported same-sex marriage.
But a majority of poll respondents 57 percent said gay and lesbian couples should have the legal right to adopt children.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2774687
Israeli military strikes have killed 10 Palestinians, including seven in northern Gaza and three in southern Gaza, Palestinian security sources say.
Among the dead were members of Islamic Jihad, Hamas and Fatah.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) denied conducting an airstrike in Gaza, but said its forces did fire on a militant in eastern Gaza City, killing him.
An IDF representative acknowledged a ground incursion by Israeli forces into the northern Gaza community of Shaja'iya, east of Gaza City, where two Palestinians died in the fighting.
Israeli and Palestinian sources reported a second Israeli incursion in southern Gaza, near Khan Yunis. According to Palestinian security sources, three Palestinians were killed.
An Israeli military spokesman said two soldiers were lightly wounded in southern Gaza when militants fired an anti-tank missile at an Israeli tank. Israeli forces returned fire.
Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, Blair's partner in steering the Northern Ireland peace process for the past decade, told Irish state radio on Wednesday that Blair had told him he had already agreed to the role.
Blair will represent the Quartet of Middle East mediators the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2774651
LONDON, England (CNN) Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has been appointed special envoy to the Middle East, a statement for the the Quartet of Mideast peace mediators has confirmed.
In a joint written statement Wednesday, the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations announced the appointment of Blair, following days of growing speculation that he would be named as Mideast peace envoy.
The statement came hours after Blair stepped down from government after a decade in power. (Full story)
"Recent events in Gaza and the West Bank make it more urgent than ever that we advance the search for peace in the Middle East," the statement said.
"The Quartet reaffirms its objective to promote an end to the conflict in conformity with the road map and expresses its intention to redouble its efforts in that regard.
"The urgency of recent events has reinforced the need for the international community, bearing in mind the obligations of the parties, to help Palestinians as they build the institutions and economy of a viable state in Gaza and the West Bank, able to take its place as a peaceful and prosperous partner to Israel and its other neighbors.
create plans to help Palestinians develop economically;
and work with other countries "as appropriate in support of the agreed Quartet objectives.
In a written statement, U.S. President George W. Bush said he is happy about his ally's new area of responsibility.
"In his new role, Tony will help Palestinians develop the political and economic institutions they will need for a democratic, sovereign state able to provide for its people and live in peace and security with Israel," Bush said.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said, in a written statement, that "Israel will provide Blair with all assistance required for him to fulfill his role and to help the Palestinians."
Researchers studying Neanderthal DNA say it should be possible to construct a complete genome of the ancient hominid despite the degradation of the DNA over time.
There is also hope for reconstructing the genome of the mammoth and cave bear, according to a research team led by Svante Paabo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.
Their findings are published in this week's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Some researchers believe that Neanderthals were simply replaced by early modern humans, while others argue the two groups may have interbred.
In studies of Neanderthals, cave bear and mammoth, a majority of the DNA recovered was that of microorganisms that colonized the tissues after death, the researchers said.
But they were able to identify some DNA from the original animal, and Paabo and his colleagues were able to determine how it broke down over time.
"We are confident that it will be technically feasible to achieve a reliable Neanderthal genome sequence," Paabo and his researchers reported.
individuals, so the whole genome can be determined. "The contamination and degradation of DNA has been a serious issue for the last 10 years," observed Erik Trinkaus, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis.
"I'm not sure they have completely solved the problem, but they've made a big step in that direction," said Trinkaus, who was not involved in the research.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2774072
Gordon Brown will receive the keys to 10 Downing Street, as outgoing UK Prime Minister Tony Blair is appointed as a peace envoy to the Middle East.
Fulfilling his promise to work right to the end of his tenure, Blair will attend his last prime minister's questions session in the House of Commons.
Blair will then be driven the short distance to see Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace to formally hand in his resignation.
Minutes later Brown, who has served as finance minister for 10 years, will travel to the palace where the queen will invite him to form a government.
Then Brown, now prime minister, will be driven back to Downing Street and pose for pictures outside the famous front door. He will then start to form his Cabinet and the rest of his government.
Blair stands down after a decade that saw Labour win a record three general elections, peace come to Northern Ireland and the British economy enjoying a record sustained boom.
But the Iraq war damaged his reputation.
Mauresmo had an early scare when Jackson, the world number 158, had a break point in the opening game.
However, she saved that with an ace and the American put her next service return into the net.
Jackson grew in confidence in the second set, approaching the net more often and saving three break points at 4-2 down but in the end the 20-year-old was no match for the champion.
"I guess it was probably good that I made this game because then, you know, I was really into the match and was able right after to have my first break.
Mauresmo has had a mixed season, after two months out with appendicitis earlier in the year but she displayed her grasscourt skills, combining delicate volleys with thumping groundstrokes, in front of a chilly Centre Court only two thirds full.
Second seed Maria Sharapova was made to work harder than she had planned against Chan Yung-Jan of Taiwan but she eventually swept her aside 6-1 7-5 in the first round.
"I was a little bit passive (in the second set), especially on her second serves," Sharapova told a news conference.
Michelle Wie, struggling to regain form after five months out with a broken wrist, said on Tuesday her motivation was stronger than ever as she looked forward to her fifth U.S. Women's Open.
Wie said she was more committed than ever to reaching the very top.
"After sitting on the couch for five months my passion and motivation is even stronger than ever," she said.
Wie never missed the cut in her four previous U.S. Women's Opens.
Her highest finish was a tie for third at Newport Country Club in Rhode Island last year, one of her six top 10s in majors.
But this is only her second LPGA tournament this year and she has already decided to pull out of next month's John Deere Classic.
"I've heard they lengthened the course and, at this stage, my wrist just isn't strong enough to cope," she said.
She has already decided to follow in Tiger Woods's footsteps by going to Stanford University in California in the autumn but, unlike Woods, she intends to complete her degree.
"I've not made any decision as yet regarding membership of the LPGA.
A cyclone hit the coast of Pakistan on Tuesday, dumping torrential rain over a thinly populated region days after about 230 people were killed when a storm lashed the country's biggest city, Karachi.
Authorities in Pakistan and neighboring India have evacuated thousands of people from low-lying areas after weekend storms and flooding killed nearly 400 people across the South Asian region.
Tropical cyclone Yemyin, packing winds of up to 80 miles per hour (130 kph) roared over the Arabian Sea to the south of Karachi and hit the coast of the southwestern province of Baluchistan, said chief meteorologist Qamar-uz-Zaman Chaudhry.
Ormara is a coastal town 250 km (150 miles) west of Karachi.
Pasni is 400 km west of the port city of 12 million people where about 230 were killed on the weekend.
Officials in Baluchistan said they were having trouble communicating with the affected area.
A navy spokesman said two fishing boats had been sunk, but it was not known how many people were on board.
Two helicopters and a ship had been dispatched to help, the spokesman said.
Search and rescue teams combed the jungles of southern Cambodia on Monday night, looking for a passenger plane with 22 people on board that crashed earlier that day while flying between two popular tourist destinations, officials said.
The plane, a Russian-made AN-24, crashed in a mountainous jungle area, and rescuers were still searching for it nine hours after it disappeared, they said.
An official at Siem Reap airport said 13 of the passengers were from South Korea and three were Czech.
The official, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the press, said the plane carried a crew of five Cambodians and a Russian co-pilot.
An earlier incorrect report that the plane also carried five Cambodians as passengers was the result of a misunderstanding, said Sith Sakal, head of the aviation secretariat's security department.
Him Sarun said the crash site is thought to be between Kamchay and Bokor mountains in Kampot province, about 130 kilometers (80 miles) southwest of the capital, Phnom Penh.
Marijuana possession should remain a crime in Indonesia, but chefs who use the herb as a traditional way to season curries should not be arrested, the country's vice president told local reporters.
Cooks in Aceh province and other regions in the north of Sumatra island say they use tiny amounts of crushed marijuana leaves or seeds as a spice in certain dishes.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Vice President Yusuf Kalla said that there was "no way" Indonesia would legalize or decriminalize marijuana as some countries in western Europe have done.
Kalla did not address the problems such a stance might pose to police tasked with arresting marijuana users.
Officers have never previously cracked down on the use of marijuana in the kitchen or said the practice was a particular problem.
Public support for the war in Iraq has fallen to a new low.
Not only that, but Republican support is beginning to waver.
President Bush's troop buildup, or "surge," meant to quell the sectarian violence is now in place.
"The final surge was just completed in the last 10 days," Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott said Sunday.
But the public is already making an assessment, and it's not good.
Seventeen percent think the situation is improving.
Thirty percent of Americans polled say they favor the war, the lowest level of support on record.
Anti-war sentiment among Republican poll respondents has suddenly increased with 38 percent of Republicans now saying they oppose the war.
Moreover, 63 percent of Americans are ready to withdraw at least some troops from Iraq.
Forty-two percent of Republicans agree.
Fifty-four percent of Americans do not believe U.S. action in Iraq is morally justified. (Read the complete poll results document PDF)
The telephone poll of 1,029 adult Americans was conducted between June 22 and 24, 2007, and has a sampling error of plus-or-minus 3 percentage points.
President Bush has always relied on solid Republican support for his Iraq policy.
When Congress voted in April to impose a timetable for withdrawal, only two Republicans in the House and two in the Senate voted for the bill. Two-hundred-forty Republicans voted against timetables.
But there are some other cracks starting to show in the Republican wall of support most dramatically Monday when Republican Sen. Dick Lugar rose to speak in the Senate.
"I speak to my fellow senators when I say that the president is not the only American leader who will have to make adjustments to his or her thinking," Lugar said.
Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, echoed Lugar Tuesday, laying out his plan in a letter to the president. (Full story)
"We must begin to develop a comprehensive plan for our country's gradual military disengagement from Iraq and a corresponding increase in responsibility to the Iraqi government and its regional neighbors," he wrote. (Watch GOP senators defect on Iraq )
About two-thirds of independents have also held steady against the war.
What's changed is Republicans.
A growing number appear ready to follow Lugar's and Voinovich's lead.
Tony Blair will become an envoy for Mideast peace, U.S. officials said Tuesday, Blair's last full day as Britain's prime minister.
An official announcement is expected Wednesday, U.S. State Department officials and Quartet diplomats said.
Both Israeli and Palestinian officials have expressed interest in having Blair in the role, senior officials said.
Assistant Secretary David Welch, the State Department's top envoy for the Middle East, discussed the idea with Blair in London last week.
State Department spokesman Tom Casey declined to confirm the Blair appointment but said the Quartet discussed the issue at a meeting in Jerusalem Tuesday.
One source said Russia had some concerns about appointing Blair, but Russian President Vladimir Putin personally approved Blair's selection. Blair refused to acknowledge the appointment when asked about it at a
press conference in London on Tuesday. But, standing alongside visiting California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger at his final news conference, Blair said he was ready to help in whatever way he could.
"I think that anybody who cares about greater peace and stability in the world knows that a lasting and enduring resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian issue is essential," Blair said.
Hotel heiress Paris Hilton walked out of a Los Angeles-area jail early Tuesday with a big smile on her face after serving 23 days for violating her probation on a reckless driving conviction.
With paparazzi and reporters swarming behind a police barrier, Hilton waved and beamed but ignored shouted questions as she left the jail about 12:15 a.m. PT.
She walked past sheriff's deputies into a sport utility vehicle where her parents waited.
The media dogged Hilton as she made her getaway, jockeying for position and snapping photos of the socialite for miles along the Los Angeles freeway system.
When her SUV had to stop at a red light, photographers jumped out of their cars and surrounded it, The Associated Press reported.
Much ado about nothing) CNN affiliate KTLA-TV in Los Angeles reported that Hilton went to her grandparents' home in the Benedict Canyon area of Beverly Hills.
"What I think is funny is every single news person here apologized to me," said 50-year-old retired attorney Martha Karsh, out for a stroll with her college-age daughter, Katie, told the AP. "It's not real news.
Hilton, 26, was sentenced to 45 days for the 2006 probation violation but served about half the term, gaining credit for good behavior.
Stars who have done time) "She has fulfilled her debt to society and it's now concluded," said sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore.
French police are investigating the death of a 14-year-old Spanish girl who lost consciousness while riding a roller coaster at Disneyland Paris, park officials say.
The cause of the girl's death remained unclear.
A preliminary inspection of the Rock 'n' Roller Coaster ride found no malfunctions with the machinery, Disneyland spokesman Pieter Boterman said Tuesday.
The girl boarded the ride Monday at the theme park in Marne-la-Vallee east of the French capital, and when the ride stopped, her friends found her unconscious, Boterman said.
Medical teams at the theme park tried to revive her, but by the time the ambulance arrived, the girl had died, he said.
Disneyland authorities immediately shut down the ride, and it remained closed Tuesday.
Boterman said the park was waiting to hear the cause of the girl's death before determining whether to reopen it.
The ride is at Walt Disney Studios Park, one of two theme parks at Disneyland Resort Paris.
The complex, which opened in 1992, was formerly called Euro Disney.
A professional wrestling superstar, Chris Benoit, was found dead alongside the bodies of his wife and 7-year-old son and police are treating the case as a possible murder-suicide, authorities said on Tuesday.
"We're viewing it at the moment as a murder-suicide," Ballard told CNN.
Benoit's employer, World Wrestling Entertainment, said in a statement on its Web site that he canceled two events in Texas over the weekend, citing an undisclosed family emergency.
Benoit then sent "several curious text messages" to friends early Sunday morning and this prompted authorities to check on Benoit and his family at their home, the statement said.
Benoit began his career in his native Canada more than 20 years ago and wrestled in Japan before moving back to North America.
A man who lost his ball in a golf course pond nearly lost a limb when a nearly 11-foot alligator latched on to his arm and pulled him in the water, authorities said.
Bruce Burger, 50, was trying to retrieve his ball Monday from a pond on the sixth hole at the Lake Venice Golf Club.
The alligator latched on to Burger's right forearm and pulled him in the pond, said Gary Morse, a spokesman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Burger used his left arm to beat the reptile until it freed him.
"I saw him reach down to get his ball and he yelled" for help, said Janet Pallo, who was playing the fifth hole and ran over to drive the man to the clubhouse.
Burger, from Lenoir City, Tennessee, was taken to a hospital but was not seriously injured, Morse said Tuesday.
The pond at the sixth hole has a "Beware of Alligator" sign.
The militant group in Gaza claiming to hold BBC correspondent Alan Johnston renewed its threat Tuesday to kill the British journalist who has been held in Gaza since March 12.
The group, Army of Islam, blamed Hamas militants for kidnapping two of its members Tuesday morning while they were leaving a Gaza mosque after morning prayers.
A Hamas spokesman confirmed that its forces arrested two individuals with links to Army of Islam in Gaza.
In the statement, Army of Islam appears to link the detention of its members with the renewed threat to Johnston's life, calling the detention a declaration of war.
The Army of Islam on Sunday posted video and an audio statement from Johnston clad in what appeared to be an explosives vest.
"I do appeal to the Hamas movement and the British government not not to resort to the tactics of force in an effort to end this," Johnston said in the video clip, which was posted on Islamic militant Web sites.
In its latest communication, the Army of Islam restated its demand that Britain free radical Muslim cleric Abu Qatada, a Jordanian-born Palestinian who faces deportation to his home country.
Abu Qatada, who is known as Osama bin Laden's spiritual ambassador in Europe, is being held in Britain for suspected links with terrorist organizations.
The group also demanded Jordan free Sajida al-Rishawi, an Iraqi woman jailed for her involvement in the November 2005 wedding party suicide bombing, one of three nearly simultaneous hotel bombings in Amman that killed 60 people.
If North Korea makes good on its promise to disable a nuclear reactor, Korean peninsula peace talks could be under way by the end of the year, said U.S. envoy to North Korea Christopher Hill.
"I think the next couple weeks are going to be a very important period for the six-party process," Hill told reporters Monday. He expects the reactor to be shut down within a few weeks.
Once the reactor is closed, envoys to the six-party talks from the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia will meet in mid-July to discuss next steps, he said.
A ministerial meeting of the parties in East Asia would follow at the end of July, Hill said.
On Tuesday U.N. nuclear monitors were set to hold talks with officials in North Korea on how to verify the shutdown of its main nuclear reactor.
Under the deal, North Korea would begin to close down its nuclear program in exchange for $300 million in energy and financial aid.
North Korea has to disable its reactor so that it "cannot be brought back online without an enormous repair bill," he said. "What we're looking for in terms of shutting down this reactor or shutting down this complex in Yongbyon is just a first step of many steps.
Once the reactor is disabled, a peace process involving the United States, China and the two Koreas could begin, he said. But a full normalization of relations with North Korea would not take place until there is "full de-nuclearization" on the Korean peninsula, he said.
Hill is the most senior U.S. official to visit Pyongyang since 2002, when his predecessor, James Kelly, confronted the North Koreans with information the United States had about its covert uranium-enrichment program.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2772983
Roger Federer was up and running in his quest for a fifth consecutive Wimbledon singles title after a smooth 6-3 6-2 6-4 victory over Russian Teimuraz Gabashvili on Monday. The Swiss world number one lit up a gloomy day on a Centre Court shorn of its roof, first by walking out wearing an immaculate blazer and matching trousers, then with the dazzling strokeplay that has written him into Wimbledon folklore.
Drizzle had delayed the start of the match for nearly two hours and there was rain in the air for much of a one-sided contest against a player making his Wimbledon debut.
erasing any lingering doubts over his mind and body after a bruising French Open final defeat by Rafael Nadal.
"I'll have to win the tournament to prove it was the right decision," Federer said of changing his pre-Wimbledon routine by missing the Halle grasscourt event.
"My body was hurting after the French. I'm not superstitious like other players, that's why I can take decisions like that. "I'm recovered now.
Federer, who can match Swede Bjorn Borg's five successive titles this year, took a few games to find his range on an unfamiliar looking and chilly Centre Court.
Roddick, runner-up at the grasscourt grand slam in 2004 and 2005, broke his opponent twice in the first set to speed to a 5-0 lead before Gimelstob pulled a game back on his own serve.
Veterinarian Bob George sliced open the dead shark and saw the outline of a fish.
No surprise there, since sharks digest their food slowly.
Then George realized he wasn't looking at the stomach of the blacktip reef shark, but at her uterus.
George was dumbfounded.
Now there was a bigger mystery:
"We must have had hanky panky" in the shark tank, he thought.
But sharks only breed with sharks of the same species, and there were no male blacktip reef sharks at the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center in Virginia Beach.
Could Tidbit have defied nature, resulting in the first known shark hybrid?
The other possibility was that Tidbit had conceived without needing a male at all.
a pup born at a Nebraska zoo came from an egg that developed in a female shark without sperm from a male.
One of the scientists who worked on that study contacted the aquarium, which sent him tissue samples from Tidbit and her pup for testing.
If the pup's DNA turns out to contain no contribution from a male shark, this would be the second known case of shark parthenogenesis.
Tidbit had lived at the aquarium for most of her 10 years, swimming with other sharks in a 300,000-gallon tank.
Addiction experts also strongly opposed the idea at a debate at the American Medical Association's annual meeting.
They said more study is needed before excessive use of video and online games a problem that affects about 10 percent of players could be considered a mental illness.
"There is nothing here to suggest that this is a complex physiological disease state akin to alcoholism or other substance abuse disorders, and it doesn't get to have the word addiction attached to it," said Dr. Stuart Gitlow of the American Society of Addiction Medicine.
A committee of the influential physicians' group had proposed video game addiction be listed as a mental disorder in the American Diagnostic and Statistic Manual of Mental Disorders, a guide used by the American Psychiatric Association in diagnosing mental illness.
The same denial, the same rationalization, the same inability to give it up," Dr. Thomas Allen of the Osler Medical Center in Towson, Maryland.
There may be certain kids who have a compulsive component to what they are doing," he said in an interview.
But addictive or not, too much time spent playing video games takes away from other important activities.
PricewaterhouseCoopers' (PwC) Russian unit confirmed on Monday it had withdrawn its financial reports for bankrupt oil company Yukos for the years 1999-2004.
"PwC decided to withdraw its audit opinions for YUKOS when it became aware of new information which had it been known at the time may have affected Yukos's audit reports," said a statement posted on the PwC's Web site.
"PwC's decision to withdraw the reports was influenced by the fact that some former shareholders and management of Yukos are continuing to encourage others to rely on PwC's audit reports," the statement said.
Yukos, which had been Russia's largest oil producer, crumbled after $27 billion in back-tax claims.
The Russian government attack was widely viewed as politically motivated.
Most of Yukos's assets have been sold to state-controlled entities.
Separately, PwC is in the midst of a court battle in Russia against tax authorities who allege it knowingly aided Yukos in what has been called a massive tax-evasion scheme, according to the Journal report.
Brazil's president declared his nation's air traffic control system to be safe on Monday, hours after two planes clipped each other on a Sao Paulo runway.
Hundreds of flights have been delayed or cancelled, frustrating travelers across South America.
The planes operated by Gol Lineas Aereas Intelligentes SA and TAM Lineas Aereas SA clipped wings as they were maneuvering for takeoff at Congonhas airport late Sunday night, the airport authority said.
"The Brazilian system is one of the most modern in the world. We have few accidents compared to other countries in the world," Lula said.
The controllers have alleged that poor working conditions and inadequate training are putting the public at risk.
Dealing with jail time for driving offenses was difficult, but now Paris Hilton faces the aftermath.
The 26-year-old heiress is expected to be released from a Los Angeles County women's jail early this week, and will give her first post-jail TV interview to "Larry King Live," Wednesday at 9 p.m. ET (Thursday 0900 GMT, 1700 Hong Kong time).
Hilton has professed in letters and phone interviews to want to change her partying ways.
No doubt the trail of photographers who constantly pursue her will show the world if she's serious.
Saying it is one thing and doing it is another, said Dorian Traube, a professor of social work at University of Southern California.
"Her life will have to change drastically, which is going to be tricky because she's going to be in the public eye more than ever.
She can reduce that time by 12 months if she does community service or records a public-service announcement, the city attorney's office said.
Making a public service announcement against drinking and driving would be a good move for Hilton, said David Brokaw, a longtime Hollywood publicist.
BP expects to restart on Monday 10,000 barrels per day of Alaskan oil production at its giant Prudhoe Bay oil field, halted on June 18 for a pipe leak, a BP spokesman said.
BP shut part of the 400,000 bpd field after workers discovered a small leak in a 24-inch diameter flow line, said BP Alaska spokesman Daren Beaudo.
Flow lines carry a mixture of crude oil, water and natural gas from wells to one of six separation plants at Prudhoe Bay.
Output at the 400,000 bpd field is already below normal due to routine maintenance at some installations.
A federal grand jury was convened last year to consider pressing charges against BP for the spill. To date, no charges have been filed.
European teams will play fewer matches to qualify for the 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa than they did to reach the 2006 tournament, UEFA has decided.
All 53 UEFA members will compete for the 13 places open to European teams.
The executive committee of European soccer's governing body also discussed the future format of the Champions League and UEFA Cup from 2009 to 2012.
"In the Champions League there will be no changes to the core format of eight groups of four teams each," Platini said.
Platini is proposing reducing the number of clubs eligible for the Champions League from the big nations such as Italy, Spain and England to allow more places for teams from smaller countries.
Mexico temporarily removed all 284 of its top federal police officers from their jobs and is forcing them to prove they will not be corrupted in the fight against drug trafficking, the government announced Monday.
Mexican authorities often have purged police forces in attempts to eliminate corruption, only to see the fired officers go to work full time for organized crime.
This is one of the most extreme measures taken yet in hopes of guaranteeing the honesty of high-ranking officers. It comes as Mexico seeks more U.S. aid in its crackdown on drug gangs.
Washington has long complained about endemic corruption hindering anti-smuggling efforts in Mexico.
In recent years, scores of federal police have been caught working for the drug cartels, tainting what Mexicans once considered their last trustworthy group of officers.
"We are well aware that the Mexican people are demanding police be honest, clean and trustworthy," Garcia Luna said. "It's obvious that there are mafias that don't want the situation to change so they can continue to enrich themselves under the protection of corruption and crime.
Garcia Luna said the 284 high-ranking police would be forced to undergo what he called a "trust test" including anti-doping exams, polygraphs and psychological reviews;
investigations of their acquaintances, friends, and family; and checks on whether their assets are in line with their earnings.
Garcia said the 284 officers would keep their ranks while undergoing the evaluation, and the 34 with the best results will be promoted to regional federal police chiefs, the highest positions in the field. Those who flunk the drug and polygraph tests will be off the forces.
The actor-turned-governor was welcomed at the airport in the southern city of Graz by friends and current and former local politicians, including Alfred Gerstl, a former leader of the upper house of parliament often described as his mentor, the Austria Press Agency reported.
He will also visit Britain and France as part of his short European tour.
The spat between Schwarzenegger and the city began in 2005, when Graz authorities stripped the governor's name from the city's soccer stadium after he refused to block the execution of a convicted California gang founder.
Schwarzenegger returned Graz's highest award, its ring of honor, which was given to him by city officials in 1999.
In a letter to the city two years ago, Schwarzenegger said the ring had "lost its meaning and value to me.
Militants will continue to target Westerners on the streets of Indonesia as they fight to impose full Islamic law, an accused terror leader told CNN.
Bomb attacks and other strategies are possible, according to Abu Dujana, who police call the most dangerous terror suspect they have ever dealt with.
He is the military head of Jemaah Islamiyah, the Indonesian group linked to al Qaeda which has been blamed for the deaths of hundreds of Westerners and civilians.
Abu Dujana is accused of direct involvement in the Bali nightclub bombings of 2002 that killed more than 200 mostly Western tourists and subsequent attacks on the Australian Embassy and J.W. Marriott hotel, both in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta. (Behind the Scenes: Chilled by words of hatred)
Abu Dujana, who police say is 37, admits becoming Jemaah Islamiyah's military chief, but says that happened only after the attacks on Western targets.
Among the areas under threat are the Christian communities on the island of Sulawesi that he says attacked Muslims.
Indonesian police officers, he says, are also under threat, because the government does not implement full Sharia law.
He said he met al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan during the fight against Soviet occupation when bin Laden was a field commander and he was an ordinary soldier.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Monday he will release 250 Fatah members from Israeli prisons in a goodwill gesture aimed at strengthening Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas after Hamas' victory in Gaza.
Olmert announced the prisoner release at a summit with Abbas and the leaders of Egypt and Jordan in this Red Sea resort that the Arabs and Palestinians are hoping can push forward the peace process and strengthen Abbas' hand.
"As a gesture of good will towards the Palestinians, I will bring before the Israeli Cabinet a proposal to free 250 Fatah prisoners who do not have blood on their hands, after they sign a commitment not to return to violence," Olmert told the gathering.
And al-Qaeda's deputy leader tried to woo Hamas into an alliance and called on Muslims to attack American and Israeli interests in support of the group.
In his speech, Olmert also promised to "improve freedom of movement of the Palestinian population in the West Bank substantially" and reopen trade ties with the territory, saying he wanted to show the Palestinians that "the way of peace and dialogue will bring a better, more comfortable, more peaceful life.
The bloody conflict between Abbas' Fatah movement and Hamas has effectively split the Palestinians between a Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and a West Bank, run by Western-backed Abbas' emergency government.
Search and rescue teams combed the jungles of southern Cambodia on Monday night, looking for a passenger plane with 22 people on board that crashed earlier that day while flying between two popular tourist destinations, officials said.
The plane had been flying from Siem Reap where the famous Angkor Wat temple complex is located to Sihanoukville, a coastal city with access to beaches, said Him Sarun, Cabinet chief for the Secretariat of Civil Aviation.
An official at Siem Reap airport said 13 of the passengers were from South Korea and three were Czech.
The official, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the press, said the plane carried a crew of five Cambodians and a Russian co-pilot.
The plane belonged to a small Cambodian airline called PMT Air, which began flying from Siem Reap to Sihanoukville in January.
The airport official said contact with the plane was lost at 10:50 a.m., five minutes before it was due to land.
Him Sarun said the crash site is thought to be between Kamchay and Bokor mountains in Kampot province, about 130 kilometers (80 miles) southwest of the capital, Phnom Penh. But he added that it had not yet been located by rescue teams.
"I have received information from environmental workers based on Bokor mountain who said they had spotted a plane crash" from a distance, said In Chiva, the Kampot province police chief, noting that the area is in a thick forest.
Rescue teams, comprising mostly soldiers and police, were searching the area, but their efforts were hampered by the remoteness of the area, darkness as night fell, and slippery soil caused by recent rains, making trails impassable for vehicles, he said.
South Korea had the highest number of tourists to visit Cambodia last year some 221,000 South Koreans were among last year's total of 1.7 million foreign visitors, according to statistics from Cambodia's Tourism Ministry.
NEW DELHI, India Within sight of Delhi's gleaming new metro train, Nawal Kishore slips the body of a baby into the waters of the Yamuna, one of the world's filthiest rivers.
It's just another day at work for the 40-year-old man, who has been disposing of the bodies of three or four children, rich and poor, in the polluted waters of the Yamuna or in the equally dirty river bank every day for the past decade.
But last month, a court in
the Indian capital New Delhi ordered authorities to stop the practice and told crematoria not to turn away corpses apparently to little effect.
"I don't know how many babies I have put there, maybe thousands," said Kishore, pointing to the dirt-blackened, still waters of the Yamuna, which flows through east Delhi, soaking up the city's sewage and effluents, most of it untreated.
Hindu scholars say there is nothing in the scriptures to oppose the cremation of babies, yet most parents still cling to a tradition which has grown up over centuries. City of the future?
The Indian capital, a city of 14 million, most of them Hindu, is getting a makeover as it prepares to host the Commonwealth Games in 2010, with new flyovers being built, roads widened, and metro rail services extended to new areas.
But the lack of a dignified burial ground for children underlines the shortage of civic amenities, activists say.
The small patch of land by the river, covered with disheveled weeds and human and animal feces, is popularly known as "Bachchewala Ghat" or "child burial ground".
Before Kishore, his father and grandfather did the same job.
Kishore, who lives in a dusty shack by the river, takes the babies covered in a shroud to the middle of the river on his rickety boat, says a short prayer, and slips them into the water.
Their bodies are tied with bricks so they sink.
Parents who do not have the heart to go through the ritual have them buried on the bank.
Clad in what appeared to be an explosive vest, kidnapped BBC correspondent Alan Johnston warned Sunday that his captors would turn their hideout into a "death zone" if any rescue attempt is made.
"I do appeal to the Hamas movement and the British government not not to resort to the tactics of force in an effort to end this," Johnston said in a video clip released by his captors and posted on Islamic militant Web sites.
Johnston, the BBC correspondent in Gaza, was kidnapped March 12 by a group calling itself the Army of Islam.
The Palestinian Islamic party Hamas, which wrested control of Gaza from its Fatah rivals two weeks ago, has pledged to seek his release.
Sunday's video showed Johnston standing before a black background, wearing a long-sleeved red shirt beneath what appeared to be an explosive vest.
"My captors tell me that very promising negotiations were ruined when the Hamas movement and the British government decided to press for a military solution to this kidnapping, and the situation is now very serious," he said.
Johnston urged British and Palestinian officials to resume negotiations, adding, "They're willing to turn the hideout into what they described as a 'death zone' if there's an attempt to free me by force.
There was no immediate reaction to the scene from Hamas or the British Foreign Office, but the BBC condemned the video.
We are keeping his family fully informed and offering them our continued support.
Johnston's captors are demanding the release of a Jordanian-born Muslim cleric held in Britain on suspicion of links to terrorist organizations, along with other prisoners held by what they call infidel states.
Arsenal announced on Saturday they had reached an agreement with Barcelona for the transfer of France striker and captain Thierry Henry.
"Arsenal Football Club can confirm that it has reached an agreement with Barcelona for the transfer of Thierry Henry.
Barcelona vice-president Ferran Soriano told radio Marca:
"I still must pass a medical on Monday but yes, I have chosen Barcelona," the France striker told French sports daily L'Equipe. "I will sign there for the next four seasons.
The 29-year-old is expected to sign a four-year contract with the Catalan club for an estimated 24 million euros ($32.29 million).
I didn't want things to happen that way but I'm also ready for a new challenge.
Henry said the fact that Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger would not commit to extending his contract, which runs until 2008, had influenced his decision.
"It's now or never for me sadly it has to be now," Henry was quoted as saying.
CNN) Daniel Pearl flew in to Islamabad, Pakistan, on September 12, 2001.
As the South Asia bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, he would spend the next four months reporting on Afghanistan and Operation Enduring Freedom.
He and his pregnant wife, Mariane, a reporter for French public radio, celebrated the New Year in the sprawling city of Karachi, Pakistan, a nexus for gunrunners and drug-smugglers; dirt poor and decidedly dangerous.
The evening of January 23, the last day of his assignment, Danny Pearl went to interview Sheik Mubarak Ali Shah Gilani.
Produced by Brad Pitt and starring Angelina Jolie, "A Mighty Heart" is based on Mariane Pearl's memoir of the same name.
It's a breathless account of the events of that January day and the nightmarish five weeks that followed, as U.S. intelligence and Pakistan's counterterrorist agency hunted the kidnappers.
Set in the very eye of the War on Terror, this is necessarily a grim and painful movie, but the tense, raw alliance of reporters and public officials from three continents has us hoping against hope for a breakthrough.
We might discern one too, in their shared concern for Mariane and her baby.
Famously prolific and congenitally unsentimental, British director Michael Winterbottom is at his weakest supplying rote flashbacks to the Pearls' loving marriage.
The movie is much more convincing when it sticks with place and process and lets the emotions take care of themselves.
This is the third nonfiction drama Winterbottom has made in Pakistan since September 11, but it's the first that feels like the work of an outsider. (The others were "In This World" and "The Road to Guantanamo".)
Dealing with jail time for driving offenses was difficult, but now Paris Hilton faces the aftermath.
Hilton has professed in letters and phone interviews to want to change her partying ways.
"I would like to make a difference," she told Barbara Walters. "God has given me this new chance.
Saying it is one thing and doing it is another, said Dorian Traube, a professor of social work at University of Southern California.
"If this indeed has changed her, then the transition will be very difficult because she'll have to find a new purpose in life" beyond being queen of the party scene, Traube said. "Her life will have to change drastically, which is going to be tricky because she's going to be in the public eye more than ever.
So long as she keeps her driver's license current and doesn't break any laws, Hilton will complete her probation in March 2009.
She can reduce that time by 12 months if she does community service or records a public-service announcement, the city attorney's office said.
"These women just keep coming back (to jail) because they have no place to go," Hilton said. "It's a really bad cycle and if we stop it now, we can make our community a better place.
She said she is "much more grateful" after spending time in jail.
Humbertson, wherever you are, you are the winner of "Miss Belvedere," the rusty 1957 Plymouth hauled from its leaky vault last week after being buried for a half century.
When the car was buried in 1957, hundreds of people submitted guesses on what Tulsa's population, which was around 250,000 in 1957, would be in 2007.
There were more than 800 guesses, ranging from zero to 2 billion, written on a paper list and postcards inside a time capsule buried in the concrete vault, supposedly tough enough to withstand a nuclear attack.
"She doesn't belong to anybody, somebody's going to belong to her," said event organizer Sharon King Davis, whose grandfather helped bury the Plymouth.
Davis and others announced the winner at East Tulsa Dodge, where the car had been on display the past week.
Dozens of onlookers crammed into the showroom to get one last look at the rusted-out car, snapping photos with cell phone cameras and chitchatting about what they'd do if they won her.
If Humbertson or his or her heirs don't come forward, the gold and white Belvedere will be held in trust for five years, according to the state's Unclaimed Property Act.
After that, a judge or court will decide what to do with it.
The arrest comes on the same day officials confirmed the body they found Saturday is the body of pregnant Lake Township, Ohio, resident Jessie Marie Davis.
Davis had been due to give birth in early July when she disappeared. She was last heard from June 13.
Cutts was the father of Davis' 2-year-old son, Blake.
The identification of Davis' body ended a search by thousands of volunteers.
The search was launched after family members and police could not contact Davis.
But her cell phone and a comforter were missing, police said.
An FBI official told CNN Sunday that agents were continuing to search "multiple locations in the disappearance of Jessie Davis" and that they "continue to talk to people involved in the case that may have information that can help the investigation.
The London Stock Exchange is to buy its Italian counterpart for ¢æ1.6 billion ($2.15 billion), a statement from the two confirmed on Saturday, the latest step in a global consolidation of exchanges.
The pair said they planned to become "the world's capital market" and that together they accounted for 48 percent of the FTSE Eurofirst 100 index of companies by market value.
They would also be Europe's leading market for electronic trading of Exchange Traded Funds and securitized derivatives, and Europe's leading fixed income market thanks to Borsa's interest in the MTS platform.
faced repeated takeover attempts as the world's exchanges respond to competitive pressures and globalized trading opportunities.
A joint statement said the transaction would be "earnings neutral to positive in (financial year) 2008 and earnings accretive by at least 10 percent in (financial year) 2009.
They said the deal would lead to annual revenue synergies of ¢æ29 million in financial year 2011, along with cost synergies and savings of about ¢æ29 million a year.
Borsa Italiana's board backed the takeover at a board meeting on Friday, and the LSE said on Saturday it was confident enough of its shareholders would back the deal.
Lebanese troops raided a house suspected of containing al-Qaeda-inspired militants in the northern port city of Tripoli early Sunday, sparking a gunbattle that left 10 people dead, including a soldier and six gunmen, security officials said.
The violence marked a new escalation in the army's battle with Islamic militants, as the fighting shifted from the bomb-ravaged, besieged Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr el-Bared on Tripoli's outskirts back to this city where violence first erupted May 20.
An army soldier, a policeman and two family members were killed in Sunday's confrontation, which began with troops laying siege to a building where the gunmen had taken refugee after nighttime clashes in the area, the security officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
The dead gunmen included three Saudi nationals, one ethnic Chechen and two Lebanese who also held European citizenships.
At least 10 other people were wounded, including the policeman's wife and two relatives who were soldiers, the security officials said. Five other soldiers were also wounded, including an officer.
The battle involved two five-storey buildings known as the "Shahal compound" that shared a parking lot. The third floor of one of the buildings was blackened by fire, and bullet holes riddled the walls.
Pyongyang and Washington have agreed on a three-week timeframe for shutting down the North's plutonium-producing reactor, a top U.S. nuclear envoy said Saturday after returning from a rare visit to the reclusive state.
Christopher Hill the chief U.S. negotiator at international talks on North Korea's nuclear programs said they were looking at a three-week timeframe for shutting down the Yongbyon reactor, when asked by reporters on his arrival at Tokyo's Haneda Airport.
Hill, an assistant secretary of state, arrived in Tokyo Saturday to brief his Japanese counterpart on the outcome of his two-day surprise trip to the North Korean capital.
The trip the first by a high-ranking U.S. official since October 2002 came amid growing optimism that North Korea may finally be ready to take concrete steps toward fulfilling a promise to dismantle its nuclear programs.
Last week, the secretive state invited inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency to begin discussions on the procedures for shutting down its Yongbyon reactor.
The country expelled the U.N. nuclear inspectors in late 2002.
The IAEA announced Friday that a delegation led by Olli Heinonen, a deputy director general of the IAEA, would travel to Pyongyang on Tuesday to prepare for the first inspection.
Hill said he was happy the team was set to go, but cautioned that shutting the reactor was just a first step.
"Shutting down the reactor won't solve all our problems, but in order to solve our problems we need to make this beginning," he said. "We really think this is the time to pick up the pace.
Hill also said in Tokyo that the two sides discussed resuming six-party talks, adding that they could take place "in early July" depending on a "few factors." He did not elaborate.
A suspected car bomb struck a United Nations peacekeeping patrol Sunday in southern Lebanon, killing five Spanish peacekeepers and wounding three others, Spain's Defense Minister Jose Antonio Alonso said.
"The most probable cause, pending final analysis, is that the explosion came from a car bomb that was remotely detonated as the Spanish vehicle went by," Alonso told reporters in Madrid, Spain.
More than 1,000 Spanish troops are serving in the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, Spain's Defense Ministry said.
There are about 15,000 UNIFIL troops in southern Lebanon.
The force was set up in 1978 after Israeli forces withdrew from Lebanon, but more troops were added following last year's war between Israel and Hezbollah forces in Lebanon.
Gordon Brown vowed to change Britain to meet new priorities as he took over leadership of the Labour Party from Tony Blair on Sunday, days before he becomes prime minister.
The Treasury chief, who will succeed Blair as British leader on Wednesday, pledged sweeping reforms to tackle poverty and improve health care and said he recognized global extremism would not be defeated by military force alone.
"Our foreign policy in the years ahead will reflect the truth that to isolate and defeat terrorist extremism now involves more than military force," Brown told a conference of party members in Manchester, northern England, making his first speech as leader.
be waged and won for hearts and minds here at home and round the world," he said.
Brown said key to that work would "be what becomes daily more urgent a Middle East settlement upholding a two-state solution" for Israel and the Palestinians.
Justice minister Harriet Harman who has called for the government to apologize for mistakes over the Iraq war won a vote among of 3.5 million party and labor union members and was named Brown's deputy party leader, beating a challenge from five fellow legislators.
Iraq had "been a divisive issue for our party and our country," Brown said.
Blair, formally handing over the leadership, told the conference Brown would give his "best in the service of the country, ... I know his best is as good as it gets.
The Israeli Cabinet on Sunday approved the release of frozen tax funds to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, officials said, in a step to bolster the moderate Palestinian leader in his standoff against the Islamic militant group Hamas.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert asked the Cabinet to release the funds as part of a package of moves in support of Abbas.
The vote came a day ahead of Olmert's meeting in Egypt Monday with Abbas, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and King Abdullah II of Jordan.
The infighting has left the Palestinians with two governments Abbas' new government in the West Bank, and the Hamas rulers in Gaza.
But after Abbas expelled the Islamic group from the Palestinian government, Olmert had signaled he would unfreeze the money.
"The exact amount, the way will be decided in discussion with the Palestinian president in [Egypt] and afterward with the government," she said.
The money mostly customs duties that Israel collects on behalf of the Palestinians has been withheld in an unsuccessful bid to pressure Hamas to recognize Israel's right to exist and renounce violence.
Without the funds, the Palestinian government has been unable to pay the salaries of its workers.
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri called on Abbas' new prime minister, Salam Fayyad, to spend the money on Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
"This is the money of the Palestinian people and everyone has the right to this money.
An Iraq court on Sunday sentenced three former aides to Saddam Hussein, including the man known as "Chemical Ali," to death by hanging for their role in a 1980s genocide campaign that that killed up to 100,000 Kurds.
In the scorched earth attacks, poisonous gas and chemicals were used against the Kurds.
Also sentenced to death was Sultan Hashem Ahmed, Iraqi army commander during the war with Iran.
The third defendant to hang is Hussein Rashid Mohammed, former deputy general commander of the Iraqi armed force, assistant chief of staff for military operations, and former Republican Guard commander.
Life sentences were give to Farhan Jubouri former head of military intelligence in northern Iraq and Saber Abdel Aziz al-Douri director of military intelligence during the Anfal campaign and a one-time mayor of Baghdad.
All five plan to appeal their sentences, chief defense attorney Khalil al-Dulaimi told CNN.
"Iraq is under occupation and the judicial system is illegal, (unjust) and not independent," al-Dulaimi said.
A sixth defendant the former governor of the region where the gas attacks occurred was cleared on all charges.
Chief prosecutor Munqith al-Faroon had requested that Taher Tawfiq al-Ani be acquitted because of lack of evidence.
Pakistani officials Sunday continued to search for survivors a day after heavy rains collapsed buildings and brought down power lines in Karachi, killing more than 230 people, provincial health and police officials said.
The storm cut electricity to most of Karachi's 13 million residents, compounding the heat from temperatures that have soared above 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 C) in recent days.
Angry mobs Sunday staged demonstrations, blocked roads, and raided electricity offices, protesting the 24-hour power outage, which follows weeks of temporary outages.
More than 15 millimeters (0.7 inches) fell in Karachi on Saturday, flooding low-lying neighborhoods and stressing poorly-constructed buildings.
Video showed cars wading through several inches of water on the streets.
the victims died as a result of collapsed buildings, electrocution, and falling trees, according to Edhi, a non-governmental organization that operates hospital services across Pakistan.
The government Saturday declared an emergency situation in all hospitals, according to Maj. Zia ul Hassan, the police chief of Sindh Province. He said his police were helping get the injured to hospitals and recover bodies from collapsed homes.
The storms uprooted trees and toppled billboards on Karachi streets, causing massive traffic jams and some injuries, officials said.
It is the beginning of Pakistan's monsoon season and more rain is forecast for the next few days.
ROSWELL, New Mexico (CNN) Is "The Truth" located in this remote city in New Mexico?
Driving alone down a stretch of desolate highway en route to Roswell, I begin to understand why conspiracy buffs have long argued that aliens crash-landed in the desert here a half-century ago.
There are other things out there in the universe," said John Turner, 78, who was working the desk of the International UFO Museum and Research Center on Roswell's North Main Street when I visited.
The 60th anniversary of the so-called "Roswell Incident" will be marked July 5-8 at the city's annual UFO festival.
City officials say 50,000 people are expected for the event, which will include lectures, book-signings, tours, entertainment, and, according to the organizers, perhaps an alien abduction or two.
Long-term plans are underway as well for a UFO-themed amusement park, complete with an indoor roller coaster that would take passengers on a simulated alien abduction.
The original Roswell Incident occurred in July 1947, outside the city.
On July 8, 1947, a local military office issued a press release saying that pieces of a "crashed disk" were recovered.
A story featured on the front page of the Roswell Daily Record claimed a flying saucer was captured (the paper is now reproduced and sold to tourists). Other news agencies picked up on the event albeit in a cursory fashion.
ROME, Italy An Italian town's mayor hopes to shame men into not using prostitutes by photographing cars that pick them up and publishing the details in local newspapers.
Cesare De Martin, mayor of the northern town of San Fior near Venice, said on Friday he planned to give local police digital cameras and instruct them to photograph any cars seen stopping to liaise with prostitutes on the side of the street.
Advertisements in local newspapers with the number plates will then be published, he said.
The number of prostitutes on Italian streets has increased dramatically in recent years and the Vatican earlier this week called for new laws to punish clients of prostitution.
"I think it's more important to protect the rights of citizens who have to be at work early but are kept up at night by the sound of cars," he told Reuters.
He is awaiting approval from lawyers on whether the plan violates privacy laws.
Clients of prostitutes are not punished in many countries, including Italy.
Italian law effectively turns a blind eye to prostitution, punishing only "exploiters of prostitution", meaning pimps.
Many of the growing number of prostitutes in Italy come from the former Soviet Union or Nigeria and authorities say many are victims of human trafficking.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) U.S. and Iraqi troops killed at least 68 al Qaeda militants in Iraq's Diyala province in the past four days, the U.S. military reported on Friday.
U.S. attack helicopters armed with missiles killed 17 "al Qaeda gunmen" Friday in and around a village southwest of Khalis, a volatile town in the province, the U.S. military said.
The military said the attack was part of Operation Arrowhead Ripper, the anti-insurgent offensive going on in and around Baquba, Diyala's provincial capital.
On Friday, attack helicopters spotted a group of armed men trying to avoid police and sneak into the village, the statement said.
Earlier, the U.S. military reported that through Thursday, troops had killed 51 al Qaeda militants in Baquba.
Twenty militants were detained, and seven weapons caches were discovered, the military said.
The military said troops destroyed 21 homemade bombs and nine booby-trapped structures, including an empty school complex, during the first three days of the operation, which began Tuesday.
Diyala province, north and east of Baghdad, is a sprawling district bordering Iran with a mixed ethnic and religious population.
"We are shoulder-to-shoulder with Iraqi security forces in this fight," said Brig. Gen. Mick Bednarek, commander of Operation Arrowhead Ripper. Arrowhead Ripper is one operation in a drive to take on insurgents in the towns and villages ringing Baghdad.
Referring to Arrowhead Ripper, Bednarek said that the weeks ahead are crucial "in not only holding and retaining the ground that is cleared" but in winning the hearts of Diyala residents.
Manchester City said on Thursday that they were backing an 81.6 million pounds ($162.6 million) takeover bid led by ousted Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
The move came hours after Thaksin, who has been based in London since being ousted in a bloodless coup in September, was formally charged with "official misconduct" over a property deal involving his wife.
Commenting on the board's response to his offer, Thaksin said in a statement: "We share a determination to take the club back to its rightful place at the highest level of competition in both the FA Premier League and European football.
"The existing players are very good but we will have to bring more, good players... we need to add two more strikers, two more midfielders and then maybe some.
The move also appeared to have the all-clear from officials in Thailand, where Army-appointed Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont told reporters: "Thaksin has a lot of money. Whatever investment he has made, that's his business.
Thaksin's spokesman Noppadon Pattama told a news conference in Bangkok: "He will use his family's money to buy the club. The money is legitimate, there is no concern...It is in a place where it can be made available.
World number one Justine Henin brushed aside Czech teenager Nicole Vaidisova to reach the semifinals of the Eastbourne International grasscourt tournament on Thursday. Henin, the defending champion at the Wimbledon warm-up event, won 6-2 6-2 in 55 minutes.
Third seed Nadia Petrova joined Henin in the last four, overcoming a back problem and leg cramps in the heat to beat Austrian ninth seed Sybille Bammer 6-7 7-5 6-4 in a match that lasted just under three hours.
Fifth seed Vaidisova, the youngest player in the draw at 18 and a semifinalist at the Australian Open in January, has a big serve but when that started to let her down she had no other weapons to use against the Belgian
She found herself 5-0 down within 20 minutes, having held only one game point.
Vaidisova broke Henin as the Belgian served for the first set at 5-1 up but then surrendered her next serve to love.
French Open champion Henin, aiming to win Wimbledon to complete her collection of grand slam titles, will next play eighth seed Marion Bartoli of France who thrashed Russian fourth seed Elena Dementieva 6-1 6-0 in 71 minutes.
Petrova had three bouts of medical treatment during her marathon against Bammer, for a back strain and thigh cramps. World number 11 Petrova
missed last year's grasscourt season with a hip injury but was a Wimbledon quarterfinalist two years ago.
Plans for two supersonic business jets are circulating at the Paris Air Show this week, a measure of how far the market has recovered from a slump after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The two planes, which exist only on paper, promise to chop more than a third off current flying times, with transatlantic trips in as little as four hours, compared to six or seven now.
Supersonic travel has not been offered to paying passengers since the last flight of British Airways' Concorde in 2003.
In the first quarter of this year, they delivered 211 jets already.
Last month Boeing said it won an order for a private 787 Dreamliner from Hong Kong real estate tycoon Joseph Lau, worth about $150 million at list prices about three times as much as the costliest Gulfstream.
Airbus said this week it is negotiating a private order for one of its massive A380 superjumbos, which would seat 555 people if configured as a commercial airliner.
The biggest splash in Paris was made by Texas oil billionaire Robert Bass, a major investor in the Aerion Supersonic Business Jet, which is likely to cost $80 million if it ever makes it to market. The jet is designed to fly
up to Mach 1.6, much faster than the speed of sound and twice as fast as the quickest business jets today, according to executives of Aerion Corp., the U.S. company pushing the plane.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2769227
The years have been kind to "Citizen Kane," including the last decade.
The 1941 Orson Welles classic the story of a wealthy young idealist transformed by scandal and vice into a regretful old recluse was again rated the best movie ever Wednesday by the American Film Institute.
There were notable changes elsewhere, though, with Martin Scorsese's 1980 masterpiece "Raging Bull" bounding upward from No. 24 in 1998 to No. 4 on the new list and Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 thriller "Vertigo" hurtling from No. 61 to No. 9 this time.
"The ones that made the huge jumps are really,
really fascinating," said Jean Picker Firstenberg, chief executive at AFI, which has done top-10 lists every year since 1998 showcasing best comedies, thrillers, love stories and other highlights in American cinema.
Gotten them talking about these films and going back to watch them again, and if they've never seen them, to go watch them for the first time.
Francis Ford Coppola's 1972 epic "The Godfather" ranked No. 2, up one notch from 1998, switching places with Michael Curtiz's 1942 favorite "Casablanca," which dipped from second-place to third.
It took two fire trucks, five firefighters, several animal rescuers and about 250 gallons of water to rescue a 2-pound kitten.
Firefighters tried banging tools on one end of the pipe and flashing lights Monday night in hopes of driving the kitten out the other end but that didn't work either.
It wasn't until firefighters flushed about 250 gallons of water through the 10- to 12-inch pipe enough to wet the kitten's paws and the feline rushed into the hands of Firefighter Kevin Siers, who was standing inside a manhole.
"We had about an hour and a half of fun," Siers said Tuesday. "Everybody was pretty tickled" when the cat emerged.
After a very frightening day and night, the kitten seemed more relaxed and was warming up to humans, said Dan Hendrickson with the Humane Society of Parkersburg.
A visitor to the shelter signed adoption papers Tuesday.
Britain's Prince William turned 25 Thursday, giving him access to a reported &pound; 250,000 ($500,000) a year of his late mother Princess Diana's multimillion-pound fortune.
According to the terms of their mother's will, Prince William and younger brother Harry are entitled to their half share of her assets when they turn 30, The Associated Press reported.
However, at the age of 25, the princes are able to access interest and other income accrued on the &pound;
6.5 million ($13 million) he was left by his mother, who died in a Paris car crash in 1997.
Harry, 22, William's brother, will gain access to a similar amount when he turns 25.
William and Harry are both second lieutenants in the British army, earning salaries of about &pound; 22,000 ($44,000) a year.
They also receive money for accommodation and other expenses from their father, Prince Charles.
"The great danger there is the paparazzi. A single slip, photographs changing hands for hundreds of thousands of pounds.
"This really is the goldfish bowl, which so many would not envy because anything to do with William with his mother's looks; untouched by trauma;
Fitzwilliams said William was currently training to be a Reconnaissance Troop Commander, but he doubted whether the prince would ever be in the front lines of battle.
William will also do a stint with the Royal Air Force and the Navy, as well as carry on with his charitable work.
He will also learn about state management and the constitution, Fitzwilliams said.
The value of the Zimbabwean dollar suffered its worst crash in memory, dealers said Thursday, sparking a run on dollars and forcing stores to close early to put new prices on their meager stock.
The official exchange rate is 15,000-1.
Shortages of Zimbabwe bank notes created the premium on bank transfers, said the illegal dealer.
A hardware store in northern Harare closed its doors Monday through Tuesday to re-price all its goods.
Supermarkets and other shops are planning to shorten opening hours to make price changes, enabling them to buy replacement stock at higher prices.
A journalist for Zimbabwe's official Herald newspaper reported that she had returned home from a week in South Africa to discover that during her absence the price of beef had increased 2.5 times, a bottle of cooking oil had doubled and bus fares had gone up between three and fivefold.
Store managers say the range of goods on sale has diminished drastically imported products are expensive and local factories are too crippled by inflation to produce goods.
Meanwhile, the few workers who can afford the fuel to get to work are demanding higher wages.
A computer simulation of the September 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center, posted on the Web site YouTube by Purdue University researchers, shows how hijacked planes crashed through the twin towers, stripping fireproofing materials from the steel columns and eventually leading to their collapse.
If the crash impacts the water line, then a fire can burn for a long time.
The simulation was posted on YouTube on June 1, and received more than 2,000 hits in the first hour, Hoffman said. As of Wednesday, it had garnered more than 120,000 views.
Satellite images show that Pakistan is building a nuclear reactor that can produce weapons-grade plutonium, an American watchdog group said Thursday, warning that it could contribute to an atomic arms race with archrival India.
A picture taken June 3 shows work progressing rapidly on the reactor at the Khushab nuclear site, 100 miles southwest of the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, the Institute of Science for International Security said.
The development of the reactor and other nuclear-related activities "imply" that Pakistan has decided to "increase significantly its production of plutonium for nuclear weapons," the Washington-based institute said in a report analyzing the images.
A senior official at the Pakistan Atomic Energy Authority said the country was
"We are a declared nuclear state and we are pursuing our nuclear program for peaceful purposes," said the official, who asked that he not be identified because of the sensitivity of the subject. "We are doing it for our national interests.
The report, co-authored by former U.N. inspector David Albright, said Pakistan may have decided to produce more plutonium for lighter warheads for cruise missiles, or to upgrade weapons aimed at Indian cities.
Most Pakistani nuclear weapons use highly enriched uranium, it noted.
The Bush administration is nearing a decision to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and move the terror suspects there to military prisons elsewhere, The Associated Press has learned.
Both the Pentagon and the White House denied Thursday evening there were any plans to close the facility.
President Bush's national security and legal advisers are expected to discuss the move at the White House on Friday and, for the first time, it appears a consensus is developing, senior administration officials said Thursday.
The advisers will consider a new proposal to shut the center and transfer detainees to one or more Defense Department facilities, including the maximum security military prison at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, where they could face trial, said the officials.
Officials familiar with the agenda of the Friday meeting said Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff, National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell and Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Peter Pace were expected to attend.
Deputy White House Press Secretary Scott Stanzel said Thursday that there are no plans for such a meeting.
"I am telling you there is nothing to this," he said "There has been no change in our policy, and I am not ware of any plans to change at this point."
New Zealand authorities have blocked a couple's bid to officially name their new son "4real," saying numerals are not allowed.
Pat and Sheena Wheaton said they decided to name their new baby "4real" shortly after having an ultrasound and being struck by the reality of his impending arrival.
"For most of us, when we try to figure out what our names mean, we have to look it up in a babies book and ... there's no direct link between the meaning and the name," Pat Wheaton told TV One on Wednesday.
"With this name, everyone knows what it means.
But when the parents filed the name with New Zealand's Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, they were told names beginning with a number were against the rules.
The government office has opened negotiations with the parents about the name under a policy that says all unusual names must be given case-by-case consideration.
"The name has not at this stage been rejected," Registrar-General Brian Clarke said in a statement Thursday. "We are currently in discussions with the parents ... to clarify the situation.
Clarke said the rules are designed to prevent names that are "likely to cause offense to a reasonable person."
A Muslim cleric who has been acting as a mediator said later that Fatah Islam agreed to stop firing, and calm descended over the Nahr el-Bared camp outside the port of Tripoli
The battle, Lebanon's worst internal violence since the 1975-90 civil war, killed 76 soldiers, at least 60 militants and more than 20 civilians.
It came amid a fierce political power struggle between the Western-backed government and an opposition led by the militant Hezbollah.
"The Lebanese army has destroyed all Fatah Islam positions," Defense Minister Elias Murr said on the private Lebanese Broadcasting Television. "The army is combing the area. This terrorist organization has been uprooted.
Sheik Mohammed Haj of the Palestinian Scholars Association, a mediator who met with the militant group's leaders in recent days, said Fatah Islam "has declared a cease-fire and will comply with the Lebanese army's decision to end military operations.
TV stations and newspapers said the deal included handing over Fatah Islam's wounded and dismantling the group.
Military officials said army experts were clearing buildings, streets and houses of explosives placed by the militants.
A five-acre glacial lake in Chile's southern Andes has disappeared and scientists want to know why.
Park rangers at Bernardo O'Higgins National Park said they found a 100-feet-deep crater in late May where the lake had been in March.
A group of geologists and other experts will be sent to the area 1,250 miles southeast of Santiago in the next few days to investigate, Romero said.
But experts do not know why the cracks would have appeared because there have been no earthquakes reported in the area recently, Romero said.
A river that flowed out of the lake was reduced to a trickle.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) Twelve U.S. troops have been killed in attacks over the past two days in Iraq 10 soldiers and two Marines according to the U.S. military.
In the deadliest attack, a roadside bomb struck a military vehicle on Thursday in northeastern Baghdad, killing five U.S. soldiers, three Iraqi civilians and an Iraqi interpreter.
A U.S. soldier and two civilians were wounded.
Also Thursday, a rocket-propelled grenade struck a U.S. military vehicle in northern Baghdad, killing a soldier and wounding three others.
On Wednesday, a roadside bomb killed two U.S. Task Force Marne troops and wounded four others southwest of Baghdad.
With the deaths, 3,545 U.S. military personnel, including seven civilian employees of the Defense Department, have died in the Iraq war 68 of them in the month of June.
Suicide bomber kills 16 At least 16 people died on Thursday when a suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden truck into a government building in northern Iraq, police said.
About 75 people were wounded by the blast at the building, which houses the police headquarters and mayor's office for the city of Sulieman Pek, 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Kirkuk.
In Baquba, north of Baghdad, a U.S. airstrike that was intended to blow up a house where insurgents had placed a bomb hit the wrong building and wounded 11 Iraqi civilians, according to a U.S. military statement.
After civilians wounded by the errant bomb were treated, a Hellfire missile was launched into the targeted house. The military is investigating the incident.
Also Thursday, at least four mortar rounds landed inside Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, which houses the U.S. Embassy, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said.
On Wednesday, three Iraqi police officers were killed and 10 people wounded when a suicide car bomb exploded at an Iraqi police checkpoint in Ramadi about 65 miles west of Baghdad, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said.
Mosque bombings believed to be reprisals
(Full story) The mosques, all located in Babil province parts of which make up the violence-wracked Triangle of Death were attacked Tuesday night, hours after the bombing outside Khalani Mosque, police in Hilla said. Militia members attacked two mosques in Iskandariya and another near Mahawil, police said.
About an hour later, in Ajbala, near Mahawil, militia members bombed the Asfouk Mosque and the house next door, which belonged to a local imam, police said.
He said he shot Reagan to impress actress Jodie Foster.
Hinckley's doctors say his psychotic disorder and depression are in remission and they want to give him more freedom so he can begin relearning how to behave in society.
Hinckley has been allowed four-night visits to his family home in Virginia but wants to extend those visits to two weeks at a time and has asked that he be allowed to make one monthlong visit.
He wants to get a driver's license and begin volunteering or working in the community, all under the supervision of his doctors.
U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman denied that request late Tuesday but not because Hinckley wasn't ready.
"The reasons the court has reached this decision rest with the hospital, not with Mr. Hinckley," Friedman said, adding that Hinckley's prior visits have been uneventful and his family has done all that has been asked of them.
"Unfortunately, the hospital has not taken the steps it must take before any such transition can begin.
LONDON, England Four-times champion Roger Federer has been installed as top seed for the men's singles at Wimbledon next week with Justine Henin accorded the honor in the women's event.
Below the top three men, Wimbledon organizers have made a number of changes from the current order in the world rankings.
Fifth-ranked Novak Djokovic of Serbia has been moved up to fourth seed due to his recent fine performances.
The Cypriot player, who lost to Nadal in straight sets in last year's semifinals, was seeded 10th, six places above his ATP computer ranking. 2002 champion Lleyton Hewitt is promoted to 16th seed, three spots above his ranking.
French Open champion Henin heads the women's seedings ahead of Russian star Maria Sharapova.
Fast-rising Serb Jelena Jankovic is seeded third, one place ahead of defending champion Amelie Mauresmo of France.
Serena Williams is seeded seventh while her sister Venus could provide dangerous opposition for some of the current top players as early as the third round after being given the 24th-seed slot, which is seven places above her current ranking in recognition of her past victories at Wimbledon.
PetroChina plans to tap a red-hot market to raise up to $5.7 billion in a Shanghai listing, sending its Hong Kong shares up 8 percent to a record and valuing it higher than Royal Dutch/Shell.
The planned share sale, intended to bankroll overseas acquisitions, heralds a potential flood of similar listings this year that could restrain a mainland market that has quadrupled in the past year.
"Theoretically, the huge number of new shares will be negative for the market
"So the listings are actually positive news. They will help slow the market's rise, but will not stop a long-term bull run supported by China's strong economy.
PetroChina said it will use the money raised to buy petroleum and gas resources abroad, fund exploration and development, and build refineries and pipelines.
"The Lord of the Rings" musical, the most expensive production in West End history, opened to mixed reviews, with some critics praising it as brilliant and others calling it corny and "a thumping great flop.
The stage adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy saga officially opened Tuesday night at London's Theatre Royal, with actors dressed as hobbits, elves and dwarfs, and pyrotechnics, special effects and a revolving stage aimed at recreating Middle Earth.
But the London show won praise from some.
The Guardian said, "If Tolkien's trilogy is to be a stage spectacle, I don't see how it could be better done."
It also praised the acting of Malcolm Storry as Gandalf, Brian Protheroe as Saruman and Andrew Jarvis as Elrond, "whose kingly voice resonates like thunder.
But some critics didn't like the three-hour musical by producer Kevin Wallace.
A general strike in Africa's top oil producer began on Wednesday after unions rejected government concessions on fuel prices as too little too late.
The offices of Western oil companies operating in Nigeria were closed along with most other businesses, but oil production and exports were uninterrupted, company officials said.
Unions have ordered workers to go on "total strike," but the leader of one of two main oil unions said it would take time to shut down the country's economic lifeline.
"We told them the strike is total and they have to comply," said Peter Akpatason, head of the NUPENG oil union. Asked if oil exports would be affected, he
"If it prolongs, but not in the first hour of the strike.
Shipping agents said there were no reports of oil tankers being delayed at the export terminals.
The unions pressed on with the strike to protest against a rise in fuel prices despite some concessions from the government.
Many Nigerians support the strike because they see cheap fuel as one of the few benefits they receive from a government that has failed to deliver constant power, clean water, healthcare or decent schools.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2767955
Last week, his new documentary found its way online, spurring his distributor to bump up the film's release to this weekend, opening on one screen in Manhattan and scheduling sneak previews in 27 markets.
Moore was ready for the piracy questions.
By those parameters, a conspiracy to sabotage Sicko could involve anyone from the head of Pfizer to the folks behind Pixar's Ratatouille, which opens on June 29, when Sicko is scheduled to open nationwide.
I'm not a big believer in our copyright laws, I find them way too restrictive.
He said that he hoped people realized that he was no longer a radical bomb-thrower and that he was now firmly in the American mainstream.
NEW YORK John Travolta says his thinking is in line with fellow Scientologist Tom Cruise, who has publicly defended the religion's stance against psychiatry and the pharmaceutical industry.
Cruise, during a famously heated debate on NBC's "Today" show in 2005, criticized Brooke Shields for taking anti-depression drugs and berated host Matt Lauer for suggesting that psychiatric treatment might help some patients.
"I don't disagree with anything Tom says," Travolta says in the July issue of W magazine, on newsstands Friday. "How would I have presented it?
I still think that if you analyze most of the school shootings, it is not gun control. It is (psychotropic) drugs at the bottom of it.
I just have an opinion on things, and there is nothing wrong with stating your opinion if you are asked," he continues. "Everyone wants that right, and because you are famous doesn't mean you have less of a right.
Travolta, who also talks of his habit of going to bed at 6 or 7 in the morning and waking in the early afternoon, says being famous has little impact on how he lives his life.
Liking empty restaurants, liking empty movie theaters unless I am starring in it.
Travolta, 53, portrays Ms. Edna Turnblad in "Hairspray," the adaptation of the stage musical that was spun from the 1988 John Waters film of the same name.
The new film opens July 20.
A woman falsely claimed there was a bomb on board a Turkish airliner to try to delay the flight so her husband could catch it, Turkey's Onur Air says.
Both of them were arrested.
Airline staff found out the bomb warning was a hoax in time to stop the plane from making an emergency landing in Ankara and it was able to continue to Istanbul as planned from the southeastern city of Diyarbakir, the airline said Wednesday.
Ankara is about halfway between Diyarbakir and Istanbul.
"We learned that the warning came from the wife of a passenger who was late for the airplane. We believe that the warning was made in order to delay the flight," said Onur Air spokesman Rauf Gerz.
"The police detained the passenger and his wife. They told us the warning was fake and that the plane could continue its flight.
Bomb warnings and plane hijackings are far from unknown in Turkey, where a number of radical groups ranging from Kurdish separatists to far-left militants operate.
Last October, hijackers wanting to send a message to Pope Benedict seized control of a Turkish Airlines plane flying from the Albanian capital Tirana to Istanbul and forced it to land in Brindisi, southern Italy. Turkish authorities have been on alert following increased attacks by Kurdish separatist guerrillas in southeast Turkey.
Diyarbakir is the largest city in the mainly Kurdish southeast.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2767605
HOUSTON, Texas Space shuttle Atlantis headed for Earth on Wednesday as its crew awaited the results of a final heat shield inspection.
The shuttle's flight control system, used to steer Atlantis once it re-enters the atmosphere, checked out fine on Wednesday.
During the crew's nearly 10 days at the space station, the astronauts installed a new truss segment, unfurled a new pair of power-generating solar arrays, and activated a rotating joint that allows the new solar arrays to track the sun.
The mission was extended to give them time to repair a thermal blanket on the shuttle that peeled back during lift off.
Even if the shuttle's heat shield is cleared for landing, the weather might not cooperate on Thursday.
It just has to be good enough," shuttle commander Rick Sturckow told Mission Control.
A Japanese aquarium is celebrating a special new arrival this week a giant manta ray keepers say is the world's first ever born in captivity.
"My heart was heavy at first because I thought it had been still-born, but we were so relieved when she finally started swimming around," the aquarium's manta ray breeder, Minoru Toda, said in a telephone interview.
The birth on Saturday followed a pregnancy of more than a year after the 4.2 meter mother ray mated with a male manta also kept at the aquarium. Aquarium workers will have to rely on
intuition when feeding and caring for the new baby, because scientific knowledge about their development is limited, Toda said.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2767533
Japan's first openly lesbian politician hopes running for parliament will raise awareness of gay rights in a society so conservative that many prefer to stay in the closet.
Kanako Otsuji, 32, who is backed by the main opposition Democratic Party, would become the first openly gay national politician of either sex if she wins a seat in parliament's upper house in a poll expected in July.
Otsuji, who served as a local legislator in the western city of Osaka for four years until April, said her decision to become a politician was inspired by the pain and isolation of the five years it took her to accept that she was a lesbian.
"I decided to become a politician to change society, to deliver the message that we aren't ashamed to be what we are.
Elected to the Osaka legislature in 2003, Otsuji helped change laws to make it easier for same-sex couples to rent public housing.
Japanese media are taking sexual minority issues more seriously these days, but social acceptance remains limited and gays are still often shown as comic relief.
"The real issue is whether policy makers will acknowledge the growing diversity in Japanese society whether Japan will be a nation that affirms differences, or rejects them," Otsuji said.
WASHINGTON Vetoing a stem cell bill for the second time, President Bush on Wednesday sought to placate those who disagree with him by signing an executive order urging scientists toward what he termed "ethically responsible" research in the field.
Bush announced no new federal dollars for stem cell research, which supporters say holds the promise of disease cures, and his order would not allow researchers to do anything they couldn't do under existing restrictions.
I made it clear to Congress and to the American people that I will not allow our nation to cross this moral line.
He vetoed similar embryonic stem cell legislation last July. (Interactive: Past vetoes by Bush and other presidents)
Democrats, focusing on the potential for cures or treatments of Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and other diseases, made the embryonic stem cell legislation a priority when they took control of the House and Senate in January.
"President Bush won't listen to the more than 500 leading organizations who support the bill including AARP, the American Medical Association and the American Diabetes Association, just to name a few," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said.
"President Bush won't listen to the 80 Nobel laureates or his own director of the National Institutes of Health, who all support embryonic stem cell research. Most importantly, President Bush won't listen to the overwhelming majority of Americans who call out for stem cell research.
JERUSALEM (CNN) Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday denounced Hamas leaders as "traitors," blaming them for planning their "bloody coup" in Gaza while participating in a unity government.
He called on Hamas to apologize for the fighting in Gaza and to hand government offices to the new Palestinian leaders.
"We reject a monopoly of power by one group or faction," Abbas said.
Abbas, who heads the rival Fatah movement, addressed the Palestine Liberation Organization which he chairs in Ramallah, West Bank, at a time when he is seeking support for the government he installed under emergency orders following Hamas' takeover of Gaza last week.
He called on the international community to "commit to an international peace conference by which Israeli and Palestinian negotiation will take place.
"We are a nation that can rise above the wounds," he said.
"They do not deserve to be involved in any dialogue," Abbas said. "There will be no dialogue with Hamas no matter what.
The audience responded with applause.
It is the first Israeli airstrike since Hamas took control of Gaza last week. There were no reported casualties from either strike.
Also Wednesday, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni spoke with newly appointed Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, asking him to "advance the political process" which had been "stuck" under the previous Fatah-Hamas unity government.
Fayyad, a political independent, was appointed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, leader of the Fatah movement, and sworn into office last weekend.
The number of refugees worldwide has gone up for the first time in five years, largely because of the exodus of more than 1 million Iraqis from their war-torn homeland in 2006, according to a U.N. report out Monday.
The number of refugees counted by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees grew by 14 percent in 2006 to about 9.9 million, the Geneva-based agency reported.
That was the first increase since 2002.
The 1.2 million Iraqis who sought refuge in neighboring Jordan and Syria during the year were the biggest reason for the increase, UNHCR said.
Roughly half a million Iraqis fled to Jordan and more than 700,000 to Syria, putting both countries among the nations with the 10 highest refugee populations.
Aside from the Palestinians, Iraqis now make up the world's third-largest refugee population, behind the 2.1 million who have fled Afghanistan amid decades of insurgencies and civil war that date back to the Soviet invasion of 1979.
In addition, the number of Iraqis internally displaced forced from their homes, but remaining within the country rose by 660,000 in 2006, to a total of 1.8 million.
The number of internally displaced people receiving UNHCR assistance worldwide nearly doubled in 2006, to about 13 million.
"We are part of the collective response by the UN system and the broader humanitarian community to the plight of the internally displaced," Antonio Guterres, the high commissioner for refugees, said in a statement accompanying the report. "At the same time, faced with a situation like Darfur, the role of organizations such as ours is severely constrained.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2766785
They still look like the Bon Jovi of old their leather jackets and jeans.
And they still act like the boys from New Jersey, proud of their musical brotherhood that spawned numerous hit albums and No. 1 singles.
But still, there is something different, something unexpected from one of the biggest rock bands of the past few decades.
At first listen, it's their sound.
Fresh off their crossover success with a country remake of "Who Says You Can't Go Home" with Sugarland's Jennifer Nettles, which earned them the sole Grammy of their 25-year career, Bon Jovi is releasing the country-influenced album "Lost Highway" on Tuesday.
And nobody in the band seems sure what the reception will be from their fans to the country music industry.
But while the albums of Bon Jovi's career have tended in the past decade to be more socially or politically influenced ("Bounce" was inspired by 9/11, "Have A Nice Day" followed the presidential election), this album appears to be personal, filled with stories inspired by the band members lives, loves and losses.
"Richie (Sambora) and David (Bryan) suffered a lot in the last year, a lot of pain.
In what had been a very peaceful decade and a half, suddenly there was a lot of pain in the organization," Bon Jovi said.
Bryan, who broke up with his wife recently, said Bon Jovi is always looking for musical subject matter.
It's perhaps this relationship between band mates that is laid open in the song "A Whole Lot Of Leaving," a song that clearly invites the country music influence onto the album.
Bon Jovi said, "I don't think it's that different than a Bon Jovi record. It's not a Bon Jovi does country record."
YANGON, Myanmar Myanmar opposition leader and democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi spent another birthday under house arrest on Tuesday, as her supporters released doves and balloons to accompany prayers for her release.
The NLD reiterated its demand for the immediate and unconditional release of Suu Kyi, as well as the other 1,100 political prisoners believed to be behind bars in the former Burma.
As with countless other pleas on countless other "milestones" during Suu Kyi's 17 years of on-off detention, it is certain to fall on deaf ears
Plain-clothes security police, their long-lens cameras clicking away, kept close watch over the NLD ceremony from across the road.
In Manila, 20 people protested outside the Myanmar embassy, and there were similar scenes in New Delhi on Monday evening.
In the United States, first lady Laura Bush published an essay in the Wall Street Journal urging support for Suu Kyi and her followers.
She described plans to meet with the U.N. Special Envoy for Burma, Ibrahim Gambari, to discuss "how the international community can hold the generals to account.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told a news conference the United States would work on "many, many different fronts" to keep Myanmar on the international agenda. "It requires everybody's effort and it requires concerted pressure from all parties involved," he said.
The 27-year-old, who scored 14 top flight goals last season, has moved for 11.3 million euros ($15.2 million) after the two clubs finally struck a deal following weeks of speculation over the transfer.
"I have grown up year-on-year and after seven seasons in Udine the moment has arrived to make a jump of quality in order to test myself with a challenge that only a great club like Juventus can offer," the striker said.
"I believe that I am the right age to realize this dream. I like pressure and I cannot wait to start this new adventure.
The arrival of Iaquinta, part of Italy's World Cup-winning squad last year, may hasten the departure of unsettled France striker David Trezeguet as Juve rebuild for Serie A.
Trezeguet, who has fallen out with club bosses, has been linked in the media with a move to Valencia or Lyon.
Days of fierce fighting with NATO and Afghan forces left Taliban militants in control of one southern Afghan district and battling to take over another Tuesday, officials said.
Taliban fighters seized Miya Nishin district in Kandahar province late Monday, provincial police chief Esmatullah Alizai said.
Authorities were planning to retake the remote area.
In neighboring Uruzgan province's Chora district home to more than 100,000 people fighting continued between NATO and Afghan forces and militants who attacked police posts in the province's main town on Saturday.
"It has been a contested area for some number of months," NATO spokesman Maj. John Thomas said.
Precise casualty figures were not available but two Afghan officials said more than 100 people had been killed, including at least 16 police. A Dutch soldier also died, and three others were wounded.
A group representing 94 foreign and Afghan aid agencies said that international and Afghan forces have killed at least 230 civilians this year, including 60 women and children.
the biggest Taliban offensive of the year and marks a change in tactics. Until now, militants have relied largely on suicide and roadside bombings this year as NATO forces have escalated their operations to root them out.
Ken Kutaragi, 56, stepped down as Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.'s chairman and group chief executive, the gaming unit said Tuesday.
The unit is now headed by Kazuo Hirai, SCE's former president and chief operating officer.
Kutaragi had already been relieved of day-to-day responsibilities as president last year but stayed on as its chief executive and chairman.
The departure of Kutaragi, an icon among gamers, marks the end of an era at Sony Corp. that saw the company long dominate the video game industry with its flagship PlayStation consoles.
But it also highlights troubles at Sony amid a series of blunders over the rollout of its PlayStation 3 and intense competition from Nintendo Co.'s popular Wii console and Microsoft's Xbox 360.
Sony has also struggled to expand beyond the young, male demographic of "hardcore" gamers unlike the Wii, which has actively targeted women, young children and older gamers.
In the latest slip up, Sony was forced to apologize to the Church of England for a violent computer game that features a bloody shootout inside an Anglican cathedral.
CHARLESTON, South Carolina (CNN) An inferno raced through a Charleston, South Carolina, furniture warehouse, collapsing its roof and killing nine firefighters in a tragedy that the city's mayor described Tuesday as "difficult to fathom.
"They lost their lives fighting for the safety of our citizens," Charleston Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr. said.
Two employees were able to get out safely, but the fire, which began Monday night, quickly spread through the Sofa Super Store, causing part of the building to collapse.
Firefighters had to break an opening in the back of the store to allow one of the workers out of the burning building, Riley said.
"Nine brave, heroic, courageous firefighters of the city of Charleston have perished fighting a fire, and in a most courageous and fearless manner, carrying out their duties," Riley said.
"This is a tragic event for our community, the magnitude of which is difficult to fathom or quantify.
"It was like a 30-foot tornado of flames," Mark Hilton, who was struck in the eye, told The Associated Press.
Near Charleston's main firehouse, people left notes and flowers at the base of a monument to the firefighters Tuesday, according to AP.
In Washington, President Bush and first lady Laura Bush described the firefighters as "true heroes who demonstrated great skill and courage.
The collapse "came from nowhere," Shahid told CNN. "It was a standing structure, and five seconds later it was on the ground.
The victims, their ages and their years of service are:
Capt. William "Billy" Hutchinson, 48 (30 years)
Capt. Mike Benke, 49 (29 years)
Capt. Louis Mulkey, 34 (11¨ö years)
Engineer Mark Kelsey, 40 (12¨ö years)
Engineer Bradford "Brad" Baity, 37 (9 years)
Assistant engineer Michael French, 27 (1¨ö years)
Firefighter James "Earl" Drayton, 56 (32 years)
Firefighter Brandon Thompson, 27 (4 years)
Firefighter Melven Champaign, 46 (2 years)
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2766444
NEW YORK Keri Russell is a mom.
The 31-year-old actress welcomed her first child, a boy named River Russell Deary, on June 9 in New York, her publicist, Jill Fritzo, said Tuesday.
Russell married Shane Deary, a contractor, in Manhattan on Valentine's Day.
The couple became engaged last year.
She stars as a woman grappling with an unexpected pregnancy in the independent romantic comedy "Waitress," which has been warmly received by critics.
Russell portrayed college student Felicity Porter in the TV series "Felicity" for four years. The series ended in 2002.
She also starred in the films "Mission:
Impossible III" and "The Upside of Anger," and the TV miniseries "Into the West.
Calling it "our King Tut's tomb," thousands of people watched as a 1957 Plymouth Belvedere was pulled from the ground where it had been buried for 50 years as a time capsule of American Midwest culture.
The concrete vault encasing the car may have been built to withstand a nuclear attack, but it couldn't keep away water.
Shiny chrome was still visible around the doors and front fender, and workers were able to put air in the tires. "I'll tell you what, she's a mess.
Look at her," said legendary car builder Boyd Coddington, who was unable to start the car as planned.
From the trunk, organizers pulled out some of the objects buried to celebrate Oklahoma's 50 years of statehood a 5-gallon can of leaded gasoline, which went for 24 cents a gallon in those days, and rusted cans of Schlitz beer.
A separate time capsule buried with the car was opened, and organizers removed and unfolded an unfaded American flag. Other historical documents, aerial maps of the city and postcards were in good condition.
"It's just the whole idea somebody thought of it in 1957 and here we are living it.
LE BOURGET, France Boeing has won a deal to supply more than 60 planes worth $8.8 billion to leasing firm ILFC, in a fresh sign of buoyant demand for its hot-selling 787 Dreamliner aircraft.
The order is Boeing's first major deal announcement at a Paris Air Show so far dominated by rival Airbus and its bonanza of deals.
International Lease Finance Corp. (ILFC), the world's largest plane leasing company by fleet value, said Tuesday it had has ordered 50 787 Dreamliner widebodied aircraft and has an option for two more 787s, which the U.S. planemaker said it was exercising.
ILFC, which is owned by American International Group, also ordered 10 737 planes and one 777-300 ER plane.
With today's deal, ILFC is the largest customer of the 787 with 73 787-8 planes and one 787-9 plane on order.
for the Boeing 787 Dreamliner," ILFC Chief Executive Steven Udvar-Hazy told reporters.
ILFC has a portfolio valued at more than $48 billion, consisting of about 900 jet aircraft.
WASHINGTON President Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Tuesday sought to bolster Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in his battle with Hamas for primacy, calling him a moderate voice and the only true leader of the Palestinian people.
Bush and Olmert, before meeting in the Oval Office, both spoke positively to reporters of the prospect for new talks between Abbas and the Israelis.
"I am going to make every possible effort to cooperate with him," the prime minister said.
Bush called Abbas "the president of all the Palestinians" and "a reasonable voice amongst the extremists.
Bush and Olmert met in the aftermath of turmoil that left Abbas, a Western-backed moderate, in control of one Palestinian government in the inland West Bank and his Islamist rival Hamas in control of the separate Gaza Strip on the coast.
The United States and European Union have been moving quickly to shore up Abbas.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Monday announced an end to an economic and political embargo on the Palestinians.
Israel has seemed likely to free up millions in tax revenue it collects on behalf of the Palestinians, assuming it could ensure that the money flowed only to Abbas' operation in the West Bank.
"Our hope is that President Abbas and Prime Minister (Salam) Fayyad who's a good fellow will be strengthened to the point where they can lead the Palestinians in a different direction," Bush said.
Bush said Iran must see that there is "a price to be paid for this kind of intransigence.
The first skull of the earliest known ancestor of the giant panda has been discovered in China, researchers report.
Discovery of the skull, estimated to be at least 2 million years old, is reported by Russell L. Ciochon in Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Ciochon, an anthropologist at the University of Iowa, and a team of U.S. and Chinese researchers, made the find in a limestone cave in south China.
The animal, formally known as Ailuropoda microta, or "pygmy giant panda," would have been about three feet long, compared to the modern giant panda, which averages in excess of five feet (1.52 meters).
Previously this animal had been known only by a few teeth and bones, but a skull had never been found.
Judging by the wear patterns on its teeth it also lived on a diet of bamboo, the main food of the current giant panda, the researchers said.
Other than size, the animal was anatomically similar to today's giant panda, said Ciochon.
The work was funded by the Chinese National Natural Science Foundation and University of Iowa.
China will build a $20 million blacktop highway on Mount Everest as part of the route for the Olympic torch relay, state media reported Tuesday.
Xinhua News Agency said the construction would turn a rough, 67-mile road stretching from the foot of the mountain to a base camp at 17,060 feet, into a paved "highway fenced by undulating guardrails.
Mount Everest, the world's tallest mountain, is 29,035 feet tall.
It said construction would start next week and would take about four months, and the new highway would become a major route for tourists and mountaineers.
In April, organizers for the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics announced ambitious plans for the longest torch relay in Olympic history an 85,000-mile, 130-day route that would cross five continents and scale Mount Everest.
Taking the Olympic torch to the top of the mountain, seen by some as a way for Beijing to underscore its claims to Tibet, is expected to be one of the relay's highlights.
China says it has ruled Tibet for centuries, although many Tibetans say their homeland was essentially an independent state for most of that time.
Chinese communist troops occupied Tibet in 1951 and Beijing continues to rule the region with a heavy hand.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) A truck bomb ripped through a crowded square in the capital Tuesday, killing at least 78 people and wounding 224 others, an Interior Ministry official said.
The bomb erupted about 2 p.m. in Khalani Square, a busy commercial district near a Shiite mosque, the official said.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki condemned the attack and blamed the blast on Saddamists and other extremists intent on stoking sectarian violence.
The Khalani Mosque also was damaged in the blast, authorities said. Video from the scene showed part of the wall surrounding the mosque collapsed.
The attack comes six days after insurgents blew up the two remaining minarets at the al-Askariya Mosque, a revered Shiite shrine in Samarra that was badly damaged in a February 2006 attack.
The mosque damaged in Tuesday's attack houses the tomb of Mohammed al-Khalani, who was the second deputy and messenger of the Mehdi, the 12th imam from the early days of Islam who is revered by Shiites.
The Mehdi is said to have disappeared during the funeral of his father in the 9th century.
Sunnis believe Allah withdrew the Mehdi from the eyes of the people and they are waiting for him to reappear as their leader.
The 10th and 11th Shiite imams are entombed at the al-Askariya Mosque.
An explosion at a women's spa in central Tokyo on Tuesday killed three people and injured at least three others.
The afternoon explosion appeared to have been triggered by methane gas that seeped from the ground beneath the popular "Shiespa" hot spring and caught fire, according to police.
Authorities had earlier said a boiler at the spa had exploded.
Police and fire officials said three people had been confirmed hurt in the explosion.
Police said one of the three killed was a woman, but could not confirm the gender of the other fatalities.
News reports said three other people had been injured, including passers-by.
Debris had been blown in to the street and against the neighboring apartment houses, shattering windows. "I heard a huge boom.
Shiespa is a women's only spa with a natural hot spring, an open-air bath, a sauna and salon, according to its Web site.
Owners pay 98,000 yen ($800) a month to keep their dogs at the Soladi Care Home for pets, which opens Friday, according to a joint release by Soladi Co. and the Endo Veterinary clinic in Tochigi, eastern Japan.
The home, which can accept 20 dogs at one time, will also employ puppies to play with the aging dogs to help them keep fit and feel younger
LONDON, England Angel Cabrera's victory in the U.S. Open at Oakmont has seen the Argentine leap from 43rd to second in the European Order of Merit.
His success also lifted him 24 places in the world ranking to 17th.
The only Argentine to have broken into the world's top 10, he spent three weeks at that level in 2005.
Cabrera, whose one-stroke victory over Americans Tiger Woods and Jim Furyk landed him the top prize of $1.225 million, quadrupled his earnings for the year to 1,237,960 euros ($1.66 million).
Swede Henrik Stenson still leads the Order of Merit with 1.71 million euros.
Similarly, in the U.S. PGA Tour Money List Cabrera has soared from 151st to the heady heights of 24th.
His previous best major finish was fourth in the British Open at Muirfield in 2002.
Most people missed the announcement about how Google wants to burrow inside your brain and capture your most intimate thoughts.
That's because it never happened.
But Google, the world leader in Web search services, is the focus of mounting paranoia over the scope of its powers as it expands into new advertising formats from online video to radio and TV, while creating dozens of new Internet services.
True, the Silicon Valley company has millions of people telling it daily what's apparently on their minds via simple Web searches, generating mountains of information about consumer behavior.
The company uses this information to make money by selling advertisements, but people who are used to browsing anonymously around stores or channel-hopping on TV find it unnerving to realise that in a digital world, their every move is recorded.
Nicole Wong, the Google attorney who oversees a team of lawyers who consider privacy and other policy issues that go into the making of each product, says she isn't surprised people are anxious or concerned about these innovations.
Social norms have a hard time keeping pace. For several years now, friends, enemies and first-time daters have had to face up to the inconvenient truths that turn up with a little Web snooping dubbed Google-stalking.
Just by searching on Google for the names of ex-lovers, schoolmates, or people they have just met, they can find out more about them than they bargained for.
its e-mail service, Gmail, which puts advertisements up alongside mails people receive based on a scan of their contents;
Also last month, Google took a big step to unify its different categories of Internet search for images, news, books, Web sites, local information, video in one service.
LONDON, England Dubai said on Monday it had agreed to buy the Queen Elizabeth 2 for $100 million and turn the famous cruise ship into a floating hotel and museum to draw tourists to one of the Gulf emirate's man-made islands.
State-owned private equity firm Istithmar will become the new owner of the QE2, the longest-serving ship in the 168 year history of the Cunard line, which belongs to Carnival Corp., the world's largest cruise operator.
The liner will be anchored off the 560 hectare (1,384 acres) Palm Jumeirah, the smallest of three islands shaped as palm fronds that government-owned developer Nakheel is building off Dubai's coast.
in Dubai in 2009 as part of a drive to turn the island into a tourist destination, Nakheel spokesman Charlie Taylor said.
Around 6.5 million people visited Dubai last year, more than any Arab destination except Egypt.
The ship came into service in 1969 and has crossed the Atlantic more than 800 times, carrying more than 2.5 million passengers, according to the statement.
"Dubai is a maritime nation and we understand the rich heritage of QE2," the statement quoted Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, chairman of Istithmar's parent, Dubai World, as saying.
A team of international investigators infiltrated an Internet chat room used by pedophiles who streamed live videos of children being raped, rescuing 31 children and identifying more than 700 suspects worldwide.
Undercover officers in Britain, the U.S., Canada and Australia busted up the pedophile ring using surveillance techniques more commonly associated with fighting terrorism and organized crime.
"You could go and if you were in the club, arrange a time and a place when online you could view a child being raped and brutalized in real time," he said.
Police analyzed images and videos traded by the chat room's members for the smallest clues that could help them identify, locate and rescue the victims.
More than 15 children were found in Britain, Gamble said, declining to give further details.
A Canadian official said authorities there arrested 24 Canadians and rescued seven Canadian children as part of the probe since late 2005.
Describing it as "a massive leap forward," Gamble said the investigation involved agencies from 35 countries. Investigators made the case public after the sentencing of ringleader Timothy David Martyn Cox on Monday.
Cox, 27, was given an indeterminate jail sentence, meaning he will remain in prison until authorities decide he is no longer a threat to children.
NEW YORK A woman arrested for exposing her breasts has accepted a $29,000 settlement from the city, her lawyer said.
Coccaro, who now goes by the name Phoenix Feeley, remained in custody for 12 hours before she was told prosecutors were not going to pursue charges.
"We hope the police learn a lesson and respect the rights of women to go topless," Rothman said.
Feeley told the New York Post that she was not treated well after her August 4, 2005, arrest in Manhattan's Lower East Side section.
She claimed in an October lawsuit that a police officer yanked her out of a patrol car by her hair and police took her to a hospital for a psychiatric evaluation.
She told the newspaper she had gone bare-breasted after running the 2004 city marathon without police bothering her.
"I've always just felt that was something natural," Feeley said of going topless.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan Pakistan has condemned Britain's award of a knighthood to author Salman Rushdie as an affront to Muslim sentiments, and a Cabinet minister said the honor provided a justification for suicide attacks.
"This is an occasion for the (world's) 1.5 billion Muslims to look at the seriousness of this decision," Mohammed Ijaz ul-Haq, religious affairs minister, said in parliament.
In the eastern city of Multan, hard-line Muslim students burned effigies of Queen Elizabeth II and Rushdie.
About 100 students carrying banners condemning the author also chanted, "Kill him! Kill him!
Lawmakers in Pakistan's lower house of parliament on Monday passed a resolution proposed by Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Sher Afgan Khan Niazi who branded Rushdie who was born in India into a Muslim family a "blasphemer.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said Rushdie's knighthood would hamper interfaith understanding and that Islamabad would protest to London.
"We deplore the decision of the British government to knight him. This we feel is insensitive and we would convey our sentiments to the British government.
Iran on Sunday also condemned the knighthood for Rushdie.
NEW YORK A former fashion writer who sexually tortured a co-worker after dressing as a firefighter and bluffing his way into her apartment was sentenced Monday to 18 years to life in prison.
Peter Braunstein, 43, was convicted of kidnapping, robbing and molesting his victim on Halloween 2005.
Jurors heard lurid testimony, including Braunstein's musings about sending Vogue editor Anna Wintour to a hell guarded by rats.
It was like he killed somebody," Braunstein's father, Alberto Braunstein, said after the sentencing. But defense attorney Robert Gottlieb said:
" He noted that state Supreme Court Justice Thomas Farber could have imposed the maximum sentence of 25 years to life but didn't.
Last week, in a nine-page letter sent to the judge asking for leniency, Braunstein described planning the crime conceding a key prosecution point while arguing that he was mentally ill.
"In fact, I did plan the crime," Braunstein wrote Farber in the letter. "The madness resides in the fact that I had no motive or intent. Thus, once I attacked the victim, I had no idea why I was there, or what to do.
Gottlieb argued during the trial that Braunstein was so mentally ill that he was incapable of forming the intent to commit the crime and therefore should not be held criminally responsible.
Dressed as a firefighter, Braunstein set fires in the hallway outside his victim's Manhattan apartment as a ruse to gain access inside her home.
PARIS, France Former French presidential candidate Segolene Royal is separating from the father of her four children who is also the leader of her Socialist Party, the couple announced Sunday.
The announcement came as the Socialists did better than expected in parliamentary elections on Sunday, thwarting a landslide victory by President Nicolas Sarkozy's conservatives.
The couple met three decades ago as students at France's school for the political elite and had four children but never married.
News of their separation distracted from the Socialists' better than expected election performance.
Hollande also had said before Royal's election defeat that he would not, if she won, live with her in the presidential palace.
WASHINGTON (CNN) The United States joined the European Union on Monday in announcing its willingness to resume hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to the new Palestinian government led by President Mahmoud Abbas.
The commitment of financial and political support follows last week's gunbattles between rival Palestinian factions that led to Hamas routing Fatah forces in Gaza loyal to Abbas and the crumbling of a Fatah-Hamas unity government.
In response, Abbas declared a state of emergency and appointed a new Cabinet of political independents based in the West Bank.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she spoke by phone with newly appointed Prime Minister Salam Fayyad on Monday.
"I told him that the United States would resume full assistance to the Palestinian government and normal government-to-government contacts," Rice said.
Rice added that the United States will give up to $86 million to help build the government infrastructure, such as improving roads and providing drinking water.
"It is the position of the United States that there is one Palestinian people and there should be one Palestinian state.
To ease the suffering of those Palestinians in Gaza, the United States is giving $40 million to the U.N. Relief And Works Agency, she said.
President Bush called Abbas on Monday and pledged his support to the president and "those Palestinian moderates who are working to better the lives of Palestinians and work toward a Palestinian state living side by side in peace with Israel," National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said
Bush also told Abbas he was "open to the idea" of restarting Mideast peace talks to stabilize the situation and will do anything to "move the peace process forward," Johndroe said.
NEW YORK Julia Roberts has welcomed her third child, a boy named Henry Daniel Moder.
The couple were married in July 2002 at Roberts' home in Taos, New Mexico.
Roberts won the best actress Oscar in 2001 for "Erin Brockovich." Her screen credits also include "Steel Magnolias" and "Pretty Woman.
Roberts voiced the wise spider in the 2006 film adaptation of "Charlotte's Web." She'll next be seen in the drama "Charlie Wilson's War," directed by Mike Nichols, which is scheduled for release later this year.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) Coalition raids aimed at disrupting the flow of weapons and fighters between Iraq and Iran resulted in the deaths of at least 20 militants early Monday in eastern Iraq, according to a statement from the U.S. military.
Coalition aircraft were called in to strafe fighters who attacked coalition troops in Amara and Majjar al-Kabir, two Shiite cities in the Maysan province bordering Iran, the military said.
"During the close air support, at least 20 terrorists were killed and six suspected terrorists were assessed to be wounded by the strafing," the military said.
"A vehicle being used by the terrorists as a fighting position was also destroyed by the close air support.
Coalition forces captured militants who are "believed to be members of the secret cell terrorist network known for facilitating the transport of weapons and explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, from Iran to Iraq, as well as bringing militants from Iraq to Iran for terrorist training," the military said.
The military said it has intelligence reports indicating that Amara and Majjar al-Kabir are safe havens and smuggling routes for terrorists to import Iranian weapons into Iraq for the insurgency.
Iraqi and British troops in a multinational force.
British troops recently handed over security responsibility for the Maysan province to Iraqi security forces.
A British military spokesman said Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki personally authorized the raids.
Two car bombs exploded close to each other Monday near a fuel station in southwest Baghdad, killing nine people and wounding 25 others, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said.
The explosions, which happened on a road between the Saydiya and Dora districts, also damaged several cars, the official said.
MAGDEBURG, Germany (AP) A bus carrying a group of senior citizens came off a highway in eastern Germany on Monday and plunged down an embankment, killing 13 people, authorities said.
Police spokesman Ralf Moritz said about 30 other people were injured, some of them seriously, in the accident on the A14 highway between Halle and Magdeburg.
The bus, carrying 48 senior citizens from Hopsten, in northwestern Germany, came off the road at about 1:45 p.m. (1145GMT).
The bus landed on its roof at the bottom of a roadside embankment.
Five rescue helicopters were called out, and some of the injured were taken to hospitals in Halle and Magdeburg.
The head of the town council in Hopsten, Johannes Kramer, said the bus was carrying a group of local farmers on an annual tour, and that they were headed for the region around the eastern city of Dresden.
Its manager, Thomas Strier, said the driver, whom he described as "very reliable and experienced," survived the accident. The Scania bus was four years old, he said.
Strier said the driver had spoken with the company and that he said a truck drove into the bus.
There was no immediate word from police on the cause of the accident.
MELBOURNE, Australia A gunman opened fire on a downtown street during the morning rush hour Monday in Australia's second largest city, killing one man and critically wounding two other people, police said.
The suspect fled and police launched a manhunt in the southern city of Melbourne, closing several streets and advising people to stay indoors as tactical officers armed with shotguns fanned out and helicopters joined the search overhead.
Police said the shooting did not appear to be a random act, and that it was believed a woman who was one of the victims knew the gunman.
The other two victims including the one who died were male bystanders who came to the aid of the woman during an altercation with a man who pulled out a gun, witnesses said.
"A girl came out of a building over the road, she was screaming and a guy had her by the hair," Ross Murchie told Australian Broadcasting Corp.
"She tried to grab hold of a taxi that was going by and the couple of bystanders went over to ask what was happening," Murchie said. "He let go of her hair, pulled out a gun and shot them all.
Insp. Steve Martin said the woman and one of the men who went to assist were rushed to hospital in critical condition with gunshot wounds to their chests.
The shooting occurred on the corner of Flinders Lane and William Streets in central Melbourne around 8 a.m. Monday (2200 GMT Sunday), sending hundreds of frightened commuters fleeing.
Real were trailing 1-0 when Beckham had to go off and his replacement Reyes equalized within a minute.
Beckham watched nervously as Madrid rallied for the win before pointing up to his wife Victoria and friends Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, who were sitting in the stands.
LOS ANGELES, California After 35 years of giving away prizes, newly retired Bob Barker picked up one of his own at the Daytime Emmy Awards on Friday night.
The 83-year-old former emcee of "The Price Is Right" won his 19th trophy as game-show host, beating a field that included last year's winner, Alex Trebek of "Jeopardy!
Barker received his second of three standing ovations of the night, having gotten his first when he introduced the evening's first presenters while on the arms of "Barker's Beauties," models from his show.
"This proves that the judges had sympathy for an old man who doesn't have a job," quipped Barker, who retired last week after 35 years on "The Price Is Right" and 50 years in television.
"I want to thank the television viewers across the country for inviting me into their homes for 50 years," he said, before concluding with his signature signoff.
"And remember, help control the pet population. Have your pet spayed or neutered.
His early victory keyed a big night for CBS, which won nine trophies to go with its seven creative arts awards Thursday, giving the network a leading 16 wins.
"Guiding Light," which came in with a leading 17 nominations, tied another CBS soap opera, "The Young and the Restless," for drama series honors.
PBS was second with 15 awards, including 13 creative arts trophies.
Syndicated shows earned 11 trophies, including six by DeGeneres and "The Ellen DeGeneres Show."
MANILA, Philippines Suspected Islamic militants with ties to Jemaah Islamiah are believed to be behind attacks on commuter buses in the southern Philippines which killed 10 people, an army spokesman says
Bomb experts have helped gather evidence to determine the type and make of a crude bomb that ripped through a packed bus near Davao city on the southern island of Mindanao on Friday, killing 10 people and wounding 18.
Just half an hour before, a bomb went off in another bus at a terminal in Cotabato City, also on Mindanao.
There were no casualties because all the commuters had left the bus before the blast.
Major Randolph Cabangbang, spokesman for an army unit based in Davao City, said a rogue faction of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) was believed to be responsible, based on witness descriptions of two men who left a backpack on the bus and got off.
"The money they collect is used in their terrorist activities, buying materials to build bombs.
The main faction of the MILF is holding peace talks with the government but renegade members are believed to be linked to the Jemaah Islamiah network and continuing their fight for an Islamic nation in the southern Philippines.
Security forces have tightened measures to guard bus terminals in the south, fielding plainclothes police officers on board about 200 commuter buses on Mindanao and setting up more checkpoints to restrict movements of potential bombers.
HOUSTON, Texas Restoration of a failed computer system returned life to a regular rhythm on the international space station Sunday, as two astronauts took the fourth spacewalk since space shuttle Atlantis docked with the outpost a week ago.
"We're slowly moving back into a normal mode of operations," station commander Fyodor Yurchikhin radioed Mission Control in Moscow.
Astronauts on the third spacewalk had the unplanned job of repairing a thermal blanket which had peeled back near Atlantis' tail during the June 8 launch.
The top priority for the spacewalkers, Patrick Forrester and Steven Swanson, was activating a rotating joint on the outpost's newest segment, allowing a new pair of solar wings to track the sun and provide power to the station.
The astronauts also set up a new camera post outside the station's newest segment and planned to install a debris shield and a computer network cable between the United States and Russian sides of the space station during the planned 6 1/2-hour spacewalk.
At the end of the day, flight controllers on the ground planned to give the rotating joint a small test by moving it 5 degrees.
Flight controllers on Monday also planned to test the space station's thrusters, which have not been used since the crash last week of the Russian computers, which control orientation and oxygen
"We can report that things are still improving," said flight director Holly Ridings.
Mission managers will decide after the thruster test whether Atlantis needs to spend another day at the outpost.
Also Saturday, U.S. astronaut Sunita "Suni" Williams set a record for the longest single space flight by any woman.
TOKYO, Japan The Bank of Japan kept interest rates unchanged at 0.50 percent on Friday in a unanimous decision by its Policy Board, though expectations are growing that it will raise them in the coming months.
The lack of any proposal for a rate hike from the central bank's nine Policy Board members, though widely expected, soothed Japanese bond market players, as some feared such a call would stoke speculation of a tightening at their next meeting on July 11-12.
"If the vote had been split, markets would have factored in the chance of a rate hike in July," said Naoki Iizuka, a senior economist at Mizuho Securities.
"But the vote was in fact unanimous , so I think the market consensus would now be for the BOJ to act in August," he said.
Financial markets now await remarks by Governor Toshihiko Fukui at a news conference starting at 3:30 p.m. (0630 GMT).
"I think he will try to avoid sounding too hawkish at this stage. A hike by the summer is already priced in and bond yields have gone up quite a bit," said Hiroshi Shiraishi, an economist at Lehman Brothers.
Market players also think the BOJ will raise rates at a pace of roughly once every half year or so, making August seem likely after the last rate hike in February.
Since February's hike the BOJ has said it will continue to gradually raise rates, keeping pace with improvements in the economy and prices.
The unemployment rate hit a nine-year low of 3.8 percent in April, which may signal a tighter job market that could lead to rises in wages and push up prices.
in April from 0.3 percent in March.
JERUSALEM (CNN) At least two Katyusha rockets fired from Lebanon landed near the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona on Sunday, police and Israel Defense Forces said.
Lebanese security sources later reported that another rocket fired from Lebanon never made it across the Israeli border and landed near an observation post operated by the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon.
A representative from the U.N. force called the attack a "serious violation of Security Council Resolution 1701 and of the cessation of the hostility agreement" that followed last year's war between Israel and Hezbollah militants.
"An investigation is under way," the representative said, asking all parties to "exercise maximum restraint.
All three missiles were launched using timing devices, and a fourth rocket failed to fire and is being dismantled by the Lebanese army, the sources said.
Hezbollah quickly denied responsibility for the attack, Lebanese security sources said.
A Lebanese security source told the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, that suspected Palestinian gunmen carried out the attack.
The rockets were the first to land in northern Israel since Kiryat Shmona was pounded by hundreds of Katyusha rockets during the 34-day war.
RALEIGH, North Carolina (CNN) The prosecutor in the Duke University lacrosse team rape case was disbarred Saturday for unethical conduct, and the chairman of the disciplinary committee blamed "political ambition" for his downfall.
Earlier Saturday, the panel of the North Carolina State Bar concluded that Durham County, North Carolina, District Attorney Mike Nifong violated more than a dozen ethics rules in prosecuting the case against the now-exonerated players.
"We had a prosecutor who was faced with a very unusual situation in which the confluence of his self-interest collided with a very volatile mix of race, sex and class.
The panel determined Nifong withheld key DNA evidence from the players' defense attorneys that might have cleared them earlier, and lied to the presiding judge and state bar investigators.
The three students Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and Dave Evans were accused of sexually assaulting an escort-service dancer at a party in March 2006.
Two DNA tests found no match between any of the three men and evidence in the case, but Nifong who was up for re-election at the time pursued the prosecution anyway.
North Carolina's attorney general eventually took over the case and in April of this year determined the charges were unfounded and said Nifong would face a state bar disciplinary hearing.
After the hearing, attorneys for the exonerated lacrosse players said they would push for criminal charges against Nifong.
"I don't think that any of us are done with Mr. Nifong yet," said Jim Cooney, Seligmann's attorney.
Heng Tinghan is accused of holding workers in a kiln in Hongtong county in the northern province of Shanxi.
One worker died after being beaten by one of Heng's helpers, and police rescued 31, thin and scarred.
Police caught Heng late on Saturday after a nationwide manhunt, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
When caught in the central province of Hubei, Heng apologized for mistreating workers but denied blame for the death of the mentally impaired man, a Hubei newspaper reported. "I felt it was a fairly small thing, just hitting and swearing at the workers
and not giving them wages," Heng said, according to the Shiyan Evening News. "The dead man had nothing to do with me.
The scandal has tarnished the ruling Communist Party's promises to build a "harmonious" society with improved rights and income for the nation's hundreds of millions of poor farmers.
State television has reported that owners of the primitive brick-making operations ran them like prisons with fierce dogs and beatings to deter escapes.
But this is not the first time brutality in Shanxi's brick industry has stirred their concern.
In 2003, Wen called for tough punishment after a teenage boy was trapped into working in a kiln in Yongji, Shanxi, media reported at the time.
But a Henan reporter who had helped expose the business accused officials of hampering parents' efforts to find missing children.
(CNN) The Palestinian leadership was further split Sunday as President Mahmoud Abbas swore in a temporary cabinet for his emergency government, a move described by a Hamas official as "illegal" and outside Abbas' authority.
In addition, Abbas the leader of the Fatah movement issued a decree outlawing the Hamas militia and the Hamas executive force, although he did not outlaw the Hamas political movement.
Under the temporary government, Salam Fayyad, a well-regarded international economist, has replaced Ismail Haniya as Palestinian prime minister.
Abbas chose all political independents for the cabinet.
Hamas rejected the new government.
Haniya's top adviser Ahmed Youssef told CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer" that "there is nothing in the (Palestinian) constitution" that outlines an emergency government.
"There is a state of emergency but there is nothing called 'emergency government,'" Youssef said.
Abbas declared a state of emergency as Hamas fighters seized control of Gaza last week.
According to Abbas and his Fatah allies, the president has the power to dissolve the government and form a temporary cabinet after calling for a state of emergency.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the formation of a new Palestinian government creates an "opportunity" for renewed peace moves, The Associated Press reported Sunday.
"We have a new opportunity in the last few days that we haven't had in a long time," Olmert told reporters shortly before taking off for New York. "A government that is not Hamas is a partner.
(CNN) North Korea has invited inspectors from the U.N. nuclear watchdog back into the country to monitor the shut down of its main nuclear reactor, state media reports.
A letter inviting a "working level" delegation to visit and monitor the suspension of the operations of nuclear facilities was sent to the International Atomic Energy Agency, North's Korean Central News Agency reported Saturday.
Earlier Saturday, frozen North Korean funds that were thawed as part of a February agreement to get Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear program were transferred out of a bank in Macau, China, to a Russian bank, where North Korea has an account.
Ri Je Son, North Korea's director general of the General Department of Atomic Energy, sent a letter to the IAEA confirming that transfer of the funds was completed as required before the invitation would be extended, according to KCNA.
Francis Tam Pak-yuen, Macau's secretary of economy and finance, said more than $20 million went from Banco Delta Asia to a North Korean account in a small private Russian bank via the Macau Monetary Authority, the U.S. Federal Reserve and the Russian central bank.
The funding, $25 million, was frozen at the bank in late 2005 at the request of the United States, which claimed some of the funding came from illegal activities.
As part of a February deal agreed upon during six-party talks aimed at North Korea's denuclearization, however, the funds were freed.
North Korea had been expected to announce its steps in implementing the six-party agreement upon confirmation of the money transfer.
Under the agreement, North Korea will shut down its Yongbyon reactor and allow the IAEA back into the country to monitor the process.
Besides freeing up the funds, countries involved in the six-party talks are to provide emergency energy assistance equivalent to 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil.
The agreement was reached in September after six-party talks involving North Korea, the United States, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia. At a February 13 meeting, a set of initial actions were agreed upon, including freeing the Macau funding.
In exchange for North Korea's denuclearization, the nations have pledged to provide the reclusive Communist nation with political and economic incentives and security guarantees.
KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) A suicide bomber walked on to a bus carrying officers to a police academy and detonated himself in Kabul, killing at least 35 police officers, police say.
A police guard who witnessed the explosion said the bus was loaded and about to depart on a regularly scheduled trip to the police academy when the blast happened Sunday.
Ali Shah Paktiawal, a Kabul police official, said the death toll was at least 35.
The explosion happened near the office of Kabul's police chief.
The explosion was heard throughout central Kabul at about 8:10 a.m. local time (0340 GMT), The Associated Press reported.
The roof of the bus was blown off and officers were pulling a number of bodies from the wreckage, an AP reporter at the scene said.
Police and other Afghan security officials are commonly targeted by insurgents because they are seen as tools of the U.S.-backed government of President Hamid Karzai.
The report of the blast in Kabul came on the same day that a coalition soldier was killed in Afghanistan's south, the U.S. military said.
PARIS, France (AP) Senior minister Alain Juppe said he intended to resign from French President Nicolas Sarkozy's government after he was beaten Sunday in parliamentary elections.
Juppe's defeat is a severe blow to Sarkozy, who had ruled that ministers would have to leave his government if they lost.
Juppe is a former prime minister and had been in charge of the environment and energy, among other policy areas, in the month-old government Sarkozy put together after his May 6 presidential election victory.
His appointment to government had marked a comeback to national politics after a period in the wilderness that followed his conviction.
Sarkozy, aiming to push through his reform-driven renaissance of a morose France, had looked set to win a powerful majority as the French voted in Sunday's runoff elections for parliament.
Final polls Friday suggested the president's conservative party, the Union for a Popular Movement, or UMP, and its allies would take more than 400 seats in the 577-seat National Assembly, all but burying the opposition Socialist Party and other rivals.
The participation rate could help determine the size of the presidential majority, with a high turnout helping the Socialists, in crisis since the May presidential election. The first-round parliamentary vote a week ago saw a record low voter turnout of barely 60 percent.
The Socialists have played on fears that a huge conservative majority may silence the voice of democracy, turning the parliament into Sarkozy's rubber stamp, and see uncomfortable reforms hoisted on the populace.
What appears on television screens and through the media here and there is untrue," a man identified as a spokesman for the Army of Islam in Gaza told Al-Jazeera television.
"If they do not meet our demands there will be no release for that detainee and if things become more difficult ... then we would seek God's satisfaction by slaughtering this journalist," said the spokesman, identified as Abu Khatab.
The British Foreign Office said such statements only caused distress to Johnston's family and friends.
"We continue to urge Alan's safe and swift release and welcome the efforts of all those in the Palestinian territories to that end," a spokesman said.
In a June 1 video, the group holding Johnston repeated its demand for Britain to free Muslim prisoners, particularly the Islamist cleric Abu Qatada.
Johnston, the only Western correspondent based full-time in Gaza, was seized March 12.
None of several foreigners seized in Gaza in recent years has been harmed.
BRUSSELS, Belgium The European Union said Friday it would extend what it called "an open invitation" to members of the Cuban government to visit Brussels on condition that the human rights situation on the communist island is discussed.
The invitation is part of the EU's drive to improve its relations with Cuba, strained for years over the issues of human rights and political freedoms.
The EU imposed sanctions on Cuba in 2003 after authorities there detained 75 dissidents accused of working with the United States to undermine Fidel Castro's government. Cuban authorities then released 16 for medical reasons, and in 2005 the EU lifted its sanctions, which included a ban on high-level talks with Cuban officials.
The EU is trying to implement a "dual-track" approach to Cuba making an overture to the government while also keeping up its efforts to support dissidents.
It is sounding out options for contacts with Cuban officials after the temporary transfer of power from Fidel Castro to his brother Raul the first such change in 48 years.
The plan was to be discussed Monday at an EU foreign ministers' meeting in Luxembourg.
The EU is adamant that, if the Cubans accept the invitation, they also must agree to discussing human rights, political prisoners and democratization of the island.
Equally, the union wants all officials from its member states visiting Cuba to raise these issues with the government.
Many governments and rights organizations around the world accuse Cuba of violating liberties by jailing critics and limiting speech and media freedoms.
The island's government rejects those charges, saying it respects human rights more than most nations by offering a wide social safety net that includes free health care.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2761786
LONDON, England A giant silhouette of a naked pole dancer painted on a field beneath Gatwick Airport's flight path is disturbing the British countryside.
The 100,000 square foot (9,300 square meter) advertisement is nearly invisible from the ground, but can be seen by airline passengers, Tandridge District Council spokeswoman Giuseppina Valenza said Thursday.
She said the ad was painted on the field without proper permission and that the council would take legal action if it was not removed.
Sports Media Gaming Ltd, the company behind the ad, said the council had no grounds for removing it.
"I think they're unsure about their own regulations to be honest," director Stephen Pearson said.
"We're not going to remove it at all.
This is not the first time that the company's ads have appeared near the airport.
In 2005, an ad for Lynx deodorant featuring a man fondling two naked women was washed off a nearby field after Unilever PLC decided to pull it, Pearson said.
The Campaign to Protect Rural England expressed disgust with the ad.
"It sets such a nasty precedent, using our landscapes just for advertisement," said Paul Miner, a planning campaigner.
CLEVELAND, Ohio True roundball royalty, the San Antonio Spurs are once again wearing the crown.
LeBron James, Cleveland's preordained king, isn't quite ready for his.
MVP Tony Parker scored 24 points, Manu Ginobili had 27 13 in the fourth quarter and the Spurs moved in among the NBA's greatest franchises with an 83-82 victory Thursday night for a sweep of the Cavaliers court jesters through much of their first finals.
With their fourth championship since 1999 and third in five years the Spurs joined the Boston Celtics, Los Angeles Lakers and Chicago Bulls as the only teams in NBA history to win four titles.
Duncan, an MVP in his first three finals, had only 12 points but grabbed 15 rebounds.
San Antonio's four-game sweep was the eighth since the finals began in 1947.
Parker, who averaged 24.5 points on 57 percent shooting, became the first European-born player to be honored as MVP.
Until now, he was mostly viewed as a pretty decent player with a prettier fiance, TV actress Eva Longoria.
Matthew McConaughey frequently photographed shirtless and exercising on the beach is People magazine's "bachelor of the year.
"I love warm weather and summertime," the 37-year-old actor says in the magazine's "Hottest Bachelors" issue, on newsstands Friday.
"What better way to enjoy it than at the beach, where few people wear shirts?
McConaughey, whose screen credits include "We Are Marshall," "Failure to Launch" and "Sahara," has high standards when it comes to the ladies.
"What I look for in a woman is what I love to call the 'two Hs' hotness and humor," he says. "But to be honest, a woman with a good sense of humor is always hot.
The magazine also names "sexy and sizzling" bachelors such as Adrian Grenier, Zach Braff, Justin Timberlake, Ryan Reynolds, Ludacris and Apolo Ohno.
David Spade, who starred on the "Just Shoot Me!
" television series, also makes the cut.
"Luckily we live in a world where women can overlook the physical and focus on things more important, like having a good personality ... or being on a TV show," the 42-year-old actor-comedian says.
GENEVA, Switzerland The Great Wall, the Colosseum and Machu Picchu are among the leading contenders to be the new seven wonders of the world as a massive poll enters its final month with votes already cast by more than 50 million people, organizers say.
As the July 6 voting deadline approaches, the rankings can still change, the organizers say.
Also in the top 10 are Greece's Acropolis, Mexico's Chichen Itza pyramid, the Eiffel Tower, Easter Island, Brazil's Statue of Christ Redeemer, the Taj Mahal and Jordan's Petra.
The winners will be announced on July 7 in Lisbon, Portugal.
Latin Americans and Asians have been the most enthusiastic voters so far in the final round of 20 candidates for the world's top architectural marvels, but people from every country in the world have voted by Internet or phone, says the nonprofit organization conducting the balloting.
"It's the first ever global vote," said Tia B. Viering, spokeswoman for the "New 7 Wonders of the World" campaign.
Rome's Colosseum, China's Great Wall, Peru's Machu Picchu, India's Taj Mahal and Jordan's Petra have been among the leaders since January while the Acropolis and the Statue of Christ Redeemer made their way up from the middle of the field to the top level, according to latest tallies.
The United States' Statue of Liberty and Australia's Sydney Opera House have been sitting in the bottom 10 since the start.
An elementary school science teacher in this Chicago suburb doesn't have to turn on the news for an update on NASA's space mission.
She just turns on her video baby monitor.
Since Sunday, one of the two channels on Natalie Meilinger's baby monitor has been picking up black-and-white video from inside the space shuttle Atlantis.
The other still lets her keep an eye on her baby.
"Whoever has a baby monitor knows what you'll usually see," Meilinger said. "No one would ever expect this.
Live video of the mission is available on NASA's Web site, so it's possible the monitor is picking up a signal from somewhere.
"It's not coming straight from the shuttle," NASA spokeswoman Brandi Dean said. "People here think this is very interesting and you don't hear of it often if at all.
Meilinger silenced disbelieving co-workers by bringing in a video of the monitor to show her class on Tuesday, her students' last day of school.
At home, 3-month-old Jack and 2-year-old Rachel don't quite understand what their parents are watching.
"I've been addicted to it and keep waiting to see what's next," Meilinger said.
Summer Infant, the monitor's manufacturer, is investigating what could be causing the transmission, communications director Cindy Barlow said.
"Not even close," she said. "Gotta love technology.
DENVER, Colorado (AP) An Atlanta, Georgia, attorney will have surgery next month to remove lung tissue infected with extremely drug-resistant tuberculosis, hospital officials said Thursday.
Andrew Speaker will have surgery at the University of Colorado Hospital in suburban Aurora, but the date has not been set.
The infected area is about the size of a tennis ball, hospital officials said.
Recovery from the video-assisted surgery could take three to six days, but the time would be longer with the traditional operation.
The hospital said it could not predict how Speaker would progress or when he might be released.
The number of cases of Lyme disease has doubled in the United States since 1991 and these numbers are probably underestimated, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday.
More than 21,000 cases of the tick-borne disease are now reported every year, the CDC said, making it the most common illness transmitted by bugs or animals in the United States.
The northeastern states had the most cases, with 2,335 cases reported in Massachusetts in 2005, 3,363 in New Jersey, 5,565 in New York, and 4,287 in Pennsylvania.
"This increase likely is the result of several factors, including a true increase in disease incidence and enhanced case detection resulting from implementation of laboratory-based surveillance in several states," the CDC said in its weekly report on death and disease.
Lyme disease, marked by a characteristic rash and joint pain, can cause long-term effects if not treated with antibiotics.
They can include arthritis, heart disease and nervous system damage.
It is caused by bacteria called Borrelia burgdorferi and is easily treated with antibiotics.
The CDC said a Lyme disease vaccine was once available but was taken off the market in 2002, after the company that made it reported poor sales.
"Persons can lower their risk for the disease and other tick-borne illnesses by avoiding tick-infested areas when possible, using insect repellents containing DEET, and performing daily self-examination for ticks," the CDC advised.
Picking the ticks off within 24 hours also makes them less likely to transmit the bacteria.
landscaping practices such as removing brush and leaf litter or creating a buffer zone of wood chips or gravel between forest and lawn or recreational areas," the CDC said.
French drugmaker Sanofi-Aventis SA sells the medicine in 18 countries under the name Acomplia.
Advisers to the Food and Drug Administration said there were too many questions about potential side effects to support U.S. approval.
The FDA usually follows panel recommendations.
A final decision is expected by July 26.
In company studies, Zimulti plus a reduced-calorie diet helped patients lose about 5 percent more than diet alone over one year.
Patients who took the drug lost an average of 14.2 pounds, while others who got a placebo dropped about 3.5 pounds.
But FDA reviewers said data showed Zimulti patients were twice as likely to have suicidal thoughts or mental problems such as depression and anxiety.
Twenty-six percent of patients reported a psychiatric symptom, compared with 14 percent of placebo patients.
Ruth Graham, who surrendered dreams of missionary work in Tibet to marry a suitor who became the world's most renowned evangelist, died Thursday.
Graham died at 5:05 p.m. at her home at Little Piney Cove, surrounded by her husband and all five of their children, according to a statement released by Larry Ross, Billy Graham's spokesman.
At her request, and in consultation with her family, she had stopped receiving nutrients through a feeding tube for the last few days, Ross said.
A public memorial service is scheduled for 2 p.m. Saturday at the Montreat Conference Center.
A private interment service will be held the next day in Charlotte.
Ruth Graham was considered her husband's closest confidant during his spectacular global career one rivaled only by her father, L. Nelson Bell, until his death in 1973.
"She would help my father prepare his messages, listening with an attentive ear, and if she saw something that wasn't right or heard something that she felt wasn't as strong as it could be, she was a voice to strengthen this or eliminate that," said her son, Franklin, who is now the head of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.
Ruth grew up there and spent three high school years in what's now North Korea.
Despite her reluctance to be a public personality herself, Ruth Graham met many of the powerful and famous through her husband who was a spiritual adviser to presidents for decades.
President Bush and first lady Laura Bush called her a "remarkable woman of faith" who "inspired people around the world with her humor, intelligence, elegance, and kindness.
She met Billy Graham at Wheaton College in Illinois.
He recalled in 1997 memoirs, "If I had not been smitten with love at first sight of Ruth Bell I would certainly have been the exception. Many of the men at Wheaton thought she was stunning.
Billy Graham courted her, managing to coax her away from the foreign missions calling and into marriage after both graduated in 1943.
In 1945, after a brief stint pastoring a suburban Chicago congregation, he became a roving speaker for the fledgling Youth for Christ organization.
From that point onward she had to endure her husband's frequent absences, remarking, "I'd rather have a little of Bill than a lot of any other man.
Ruth Graham moved the couple into her parents' home in Montreat, where they had relocated after fleeing wartime China.
She stayed in western North Carolina mountain town the rest of her life.
The young couple later bought their own house across the street from the Bells.
Then in 1956, needing protection from gawkers, the Grahams moved into Little Piney Cove, a comfortably rustic mountainside home she designed using logs from abandoned cabins.
VIENNA, Austria Kurt Waldheim, whose legacy as U.N. secretary-general was overshadowed by revelations that he belonged to a German army unit that committed atrocities in the Balkans in World War II, died Thursday.
Waldheim, who was hospitalized in Vienna last month with an infection, died at home of heart failure, with his family at his bedside, state broadcaster ORF reported.
"We have lost a great Austrian," Vice Chancellor Wilhelm Molterer said.
Waldheim, who served as U.N. chief from 1972-81, was first confronted with purported evidence of his personal implication in wartime atrocities when he ran for the Austrian presidency in 1986.
But his initial denial of serving in the German army unit and then assertions that he and fellow Austrians were only doing their duty led to international censure and a decision by Washington to place him on a "watch list" of persons prohibited from visiting the United States.
That ban was never lifted.
Waldheim's ascendancy to the presidency led to a bruising controversy at home, and it damaged Austria's reputation abroad.
During Waldheim's tenure from 1986-92, Austria was largely shunned by foreign leaders, and he never honored his pledge to be a strong president.
Waldheim is survived by his wife, Elisabeth, whom he married in 1944, and their three children.
A Canadian man won't be available for a relationship over the next three years by court order.
An Ontario judge has ruled that Steven Cranley cannot have a girlfriend until 2010.
Cranley, who's 24, pleaded guilty earlier this week to charges stemming from an assault on a former girlfriend.
When police arrived he stabbed himself with a butcher knife, puncturing his aorta.
Doctors say Cranley has a dependent personality disorder, and finds it hard to deal with rejection.
Cranley has served nearly 150 days in custody.
MACAU, China More than $20 million in disputed North Korean funds was transferred from a blacklisted Macau bank Thursday, an official said, signaling a breakthrough in a dispute that has held up the North's pledge to shut down its nuclear reactor.
It was not immediately clear where the money was sent.
Washington has accused the bank of complicity in money-laundering by the Pyongyang regime, but gave its blessing for the funds to be freed to win progress on the nuclear issue.
But North Korea had not withdrawn the funds, apparently seeking to prove the money was now clean by receiving it through an electronic bank transfer. Other banks have apparently been reluctant to touch the disputed money.
But Tam would not say where the money was sent.
North Korea had $25 million in the bank, and Tam would not say how much of the money was transferred.
But he said, "Most of the money in this account has already transferred out. There will probably not be another transfer.
North Korea did not immediately comment on the transfer.
Attackers struck nine Sunni mosques in Baghdad and south of the Iraqi capital in the aftermath of Wednesday's bombing of Al-Askariya Mosque a major Shiite Muslim shrine in Samarra, police said Thursday.
Baghdad authorities also reported finding 25 bodies in the city of people believed killed in sectarian violence.
Four people died in sectarian fighting in the southern Iraqi city of Basra.
Elsewhere, thousands across Iraq staged angry but peaceful demonstrations protesting the second bombing at the shrine, which also was struck and badly damaged in a February 2006 attack a major event that spawned widespread sectarian violence and population displacement in the country.
Salaheddin Gov. Hamed Hamoud Shekti in a public announcement Thursday from the Askariya Mosque.
"Please stop the sabotage and destruction, and work on the aims and goals of the city.
"We must condemn the bad actions of terrorists, and the sons of all tribes must come together and forgive each other," Shekti said. "We need to work for reconciliation.
Shia and Sunni must work together for Iraq.
Much of the violence since Wednesday's strike came despite curfews and vehicle bans imposed in Baghdad and other regions. (Interactive:
Basra police said the bombing sparked fighting between Sunnis and Shiites in the predominantly Shiite city Wednesday night, leaving four people dead and wounding six others.
Violence was directed at Sunni mosques in Baghdad and two provinces south of the capital Basra and Babil.
Hilla police said five mosques have been bombed in Babil province, three on Thursday and two on Wednesday.
In Basra, gunmen on Wednesday night attacked Al-Othman Sunni mosque with rocket-propelled grenades and destroyed its minaret.
Three other Sunni mosques in Basra were attacked by small-arms fire, causing minor damage.
Iraq's Interior Ministry and local police reported protests by Shiite demonstrators in about a dozen cities.
Thousands of angry Shiites on Thursday protested the bombing in eastern Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood.
The protesters carried banners, Iraqi flags and pictures of anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his father. Al-Sadr has called for three days of mourning to mark the destruction of the two minarets at the Askariya shrine.
Shouting "No, no for the devil" and "Yes, yes for unity," the crowd marched to al-Sadr's office.
Hundreds of Sunni and Shiite protesters peacefully took to the streets in Basra.
They condemned the Samarra bombing and called for unity.
One U.S. military official said authorities have evidence Wednesday's bombing was an inside job.
The U.S. military said a commander and 12 police offers responsible for security at the time of the attack were arrested.
Authorities believe Sunni insurgents hit the mosque.
There were no official reports of casualties in the attack.
Wednesday's strike started with fighting between gunmen and Iraqi National Police guarding the site.
Somehow, insurgents got into the site and detonated explosives around the remaining two minarets of the mosque, police in Samarra said.
GAZA CITY (CNN) Fighters from the Islamic party Hamas claimed full control of Palestinian Authority security agencies in Gaza late Thursday as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas dissolved his unity government and declared a state of emergency.
Abbas adviser Tayeb Abdel Rahim said Hamas was attempting a military coup.
By late Thursday, Hamas had seized control of all Palestinian Authority security installations in the territory, Palestinian security sources said.
Abbas vowed to hold new elections "as soon as the situation on the ground permits," Abdel Rahim said.
But Palestinian legislator Saeb Erakat, an Abbas ally, earlier had told CNN that Gaza "is now officially out of our control as the Palestinian Authority.
A Hamas spokesman in Gaza, Fouzi Barhoum, said earlier that Hamas was imposing Islamic law on Gaza.
But speaking from Damascus, exiled Hamas political leader Khaled Meshaal denied the movement would place the territory under religious law.
SHANGHAI, China A leading teenage gymnast likely will be paralyzed for life following a horrific fall from the uneven bars at the national championships, a key warmup for next year's Beijing Olympic Games, a newspaper reported Thursday.
Chinese gymnast Wang Yan, whose age was given as 15 or 16, fell from the bars headfirst during Sunday's final in Shanghai, breaking her neck and losing consciousness.
Doctors said she was fortunate to have survived at all given the severity of her injury, the Shanghai Daily reported.
Wang was second in the Chinese national all-around competition in 2005, and her Zhejiang provincial team took silver in the team competition last year.
Wang's injury is reminiscent of fellow Chinese gymnast Sang Lan, who broke her neck while making a practice vault at the 1998 Goodwill Games in New York.
After surgery to stabilize her neck and 10 months of rehabilitation in New York, Sang returned home and maintained a steady regimen of study and physical therapy.
Sang, who uses a wheelchair, is an official torchbearer for the 2008 Olympics.
Lawrimore said the gator was about 5 feet away, swimming after a large carp.
He said he rushed back to his car to tell his father, who came down to the riverbank to see the gator.
Did I really see an alligator? ' I was almost 100 percent positive," he said.
His father confirmed that, yes, it's an alligator.
Adam Hammond, a biologist with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, told CNN that alligators are almost never seen in Atlanta.
He surmised the gator may have been a pet that got too big and was dumped into the Chattahoochee, which meanders across metro Atlanta and through a series of parks.
He also said someone may have brought it up from more southern, tropical areas and released it.
Hammond said alligators are normally shy and will stay away from humans, but people should not walk up to the reptile if they see it, and definitely not try to feed it.
A search for the gator was called off late Tuesday after storms swept through the area.
Georgia Department of Natural Resources spokesman Ben Johnson said the hunt for the gator would resume Thursday or Friday once the media buzz and local spectator interest has calmed.
GAZA CITY (CNN) The Palestinian President warned of possible collapse in Gaza as Hamas launched new attacks on Palestinian Authority security forces in the south Wednesday after declaring northern Gaza a "closed military area.
Two of the dead were Palestinian workers for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, which provides humanitarian relief to nearly a million Palestinians in Gaza.
The largest single death toll came when Hamas militants bombed a tunnel beneath the Fatah-controlled Preventive Security Service headquarters compound in Khan Younis Wednesday, killing 11 members of the Fatah unit, Palestinian security sources told CNN.
On Tuesday Hamas overran Fatah positions in northern Gaza and declared all villages and towns north of Gaza City including Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahiya and the Jabaliya refugee camp a closed military area.
Gunmen could be seen perched on buildings, forcing residents to cower in their homes, the sources said.
Meanwhile, gunmen in Gaza City opened fire on Palestinian demonstrators who were demanding an end to the bloodshed, killing one and sending dozens scrambling for cover, Gaza hospital officials said.
Both sides have ignored Abbas' call for a cease-fire, and he blamed both sides for the escalation Wednesday.
"This is madness, the madness that is going on in Gaza now," he said in the West Bank city of Ramallah, the seat of the Palestinian Authority.
"Everyone who carries weapons, who shoots and attacks is responsible. Everyone must stop it."
A 50-ton bowhead whale caught off the Alaskan coast last month had a weapon fragment embedded in its neck that showed it survived a similar hunt more than a century ago.
Embedded deep under its blubber was a 3¨ö-inch arrow-shaped projectile that has given researchers insight into the whale's age, estimated between 115 and 130 years old.
Calculating a whale's age can be difficult, and is usually gauged by amino acids in the eye lenses.
It's rare to find one that has lived more than a century, but experts say the oldest were close to 200 years old.
The bomb lance fragment, lodged in a bone between the whale's neck and shoulder blade, was likely manufactured in New Bedford, on the southeast coast of Massachusetts, a major whaling center at that time, Bockstoce said.
It was probably shot at the whale from a heavy shoulder gun around 1890.
The bomb lance was meant to kill the whale immediately and prevent it from escaping.
The device exploded and probably injured the whale, Bockstoce said.
"It probably hurt the whale, or annoyed him, but it hit him in a non-lethal place," he said.
"He couldn't have been that bothered if he lived for another 100 years.
The whale harkens back to far different era.
If 130 years old, it would have been born in 1877, the year Rutherford B. Hayes was sworn in as president, when federal Reconstruction troops withdrew from the South and when Thomas Edison unveiled his newest invention, the phonograph.
LONDON, England Defending champion Lleyton Hewitt fell at the first hurdle on his return to the Queen's grasscourt tournament when he was beaten 7-6 7-6 by French qualifier Jo-Wilfried Tsonga on Wednesday.
The Frenchman, who has won a string of matches on grass, including a challenger tournament in London at the same time as he was qualifying for Queen's, looked much more at ease on the surface than the 26-year-old former Wimbledon champion.
first set point when Hewitt dumped a backhand into the net.
Tsonga, who had struggled with two years of injuries before a comeback in January, said grass suited him. "The best thing is it's spectacular," he said.
I'm very happy because that's the best result in my career.
Hewitt is a very good player on grass so it's fantastic to beat him.
MILAN, Italy (Reuters) A Milan judge has ordered Citigroup, UBS, Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank to stand trial for alleged market-rigging in connection with dairy firm Parmalat's collapse, judicial sources say.
Judge Cesare Tacconi also ordered 13 people to face trial on the same charges, at the end of preliminary hearings into the case, the sources told Reuters Wednesday.
Parmalat, Italy's biggest listed food company, buckled under massive debts in 2003.
The trial is scheduled to start on January 22, 2008.
Citigroup said in a statement that the bank and executive Paolo Botta "are certain that the outcome of the debate will prove they had nothing to do with the allegations and that Citigroup is the injured party.
Morgan Stanley said in a statement it had "conducted a complete re-examination of its dealings with Parmalat ... and found that (everything) had been done correctly.
UBS said its dealings with Parmalat were correct and "did not imply any action that could be qualified as market-rigging.
Deutsche Bank has also denied any wrongdoing.
"It is the first time that there will be a trial of the banks accused of having manipulated the market. It will be a very difficult trial," he said.
An unusually aggressive squirrel attacked three people in a German town before its last victim finished it off with a crutch, police said Wednesday.
The rodent jumped through a living-room window in Passau, on the Austrian border, on Tuesday and bit its first victim.
With the squirrel hanging on by its teeth, the woman ran out into the street, where she managed to shake the animal off.
The squirrel then bit a builder before fleeing into a nearby garden, where it bit a 72-year-old man who eventually killed it with his crutch, police said.
The dead animal was to be tested for rabies.
Separately Wednesday, Berlin commuters found themselves sharing the road with escapees from a local zoo six horses, three camels, two goats and a llama.
The animals escaped from a small petting zoo in the east of the capital and appeared shortly before 7 a.m. (0500 GMT) at a busy roundabout a few hundred meters (yards) away, police said.
The animals' excursion, which led to minor disruption but no injuries, was ended swiftly.
The horses were caught in a nearby park and the llama at a cemetery, police said.
It was not immediately clear how the animals escaped.
Hours after a revered Shiite mosque was bombed Wednesday, Sunni houses of worship came under attack, Iraq's Interior Ministry said.
The bombing destroyed two towers at the Shiite Al-Askariya Mosque in Samarra.
That attack sparked Iraq's current wave of deadly Shiite-Sunni violence.
There was no immediate word on casualties in the city north of Baghdad.
Authorities said they believe Sunni insurgents hit the mosque.
At the Pentagon, Army Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey said that "it clearly seems to me to be a signature attack of al Qaeda.
After the blast in Samarra, gunmen stormed a Sunni mosque in southwestern Baghdad's Bayaa area, a Shiite neighborhood, an Interior Ministry official said.
Gunmen forced two guards to leave the Khudhair al-Janabi mosque before they burned it, the official said.
TEHRAN, Iran Iran's parliament on Wednesday voted in favor of a bill that could lead to the death penalty for persons convicted of working in the production of pornographic movies.
With a 148-5 vote in favor and four abstentions, lawmakers present at the Wednesday session of the 290-seat parliament approved that "producers of pornographic works and main elements in their production are considered corrupter of the world and could be sentenced to punishment as corrupter of the world.
The bill also envisages convictions ranging from one year imprisonment to a death sentence for the main distributors of the movies and also producers of Web sites in which the pornographic works appear.
Besides videos, the bill covers all electronic visual material, such as DVDs and CDs.
Other material, such as porn magazines and books, are already banned under Iranian law.
To become law, the bill requires an approval by the Guardian Council, a constitutional watchdog in Iran.
It is widely believed that the drafting of the bill came about as a reaction to a scandal last year, when a private videotape, apparently belonging to Iranian actress Zahra Amir Ebrahimi and allegedly showing her having intercourse with a man, became available across Iran.
A 6.8 magnitude earthquake struck Wednesday just off the Pacific coast of Guatemala, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Early reports indicated some homes were damaged and people may be missing, journalist Patzy Vazquez told CNN en Espa&ntilde;
Hugo Hernandez, the executive director of the National Coordination for Disaster, said there were no immediate reports of injuries, but all phone lines were down.
Officials were using radios to communicate, according to Benedicto Giron, a spokesman for the disaster coordination agency.
Authorities were evacuating high-rise buildings and homes that might be vulnerable to damage if there were aftershocks, but none had been reported to the USGS so far, the agency's Rafael Abreu told CNN.
29 p.m. ET), about 70 miles from the capital, Guatemala City.
The quake's intensity, according to the USGS, was such that it was also felt in El Salvador.
The quake's epicenter was about 40 miles below the Earth's surface, the USGS said.
Earthquakes centered closer to the surface generally can cause more damage.
"Had it been closer to the surface, then you would expect, certainly, more critical effects," he said.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said a Pacific-wide tsunami was not expected.
MADRID, Spain (CNN) Portuguese police are investigating an area nine miles from where a young British girl was abducted after a tip-off to a newspaper in the Netherlands.
An anonymous letter claiming 4-year-old Madeleine McCann's body is buried under rocks in deserted scrubland was sent to newspaper De Telegraaf and passed on to the Portuguese Policia Judiciaria.
A Dutch police spokesman said: "On Monday De Telegraaf received a letter from an anonymous sender which contained information about where Madeleine McCann may be.
"Today (Wednesday) the police sent the letter and the forensic report over to the Portuguese Police for immediate investigation.
According to De Telegraaf, the letter said Madeleine was buried "north of the road under branches and rocks, around six to seven meters off the road" in a barren and deserted landscape.
Since then, parents Kate and Gerry McCann have launched an international campaign with the aid of celebrities such as soccer star David Beckham and J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series, in the hope of finding the girl.
Hamas militants killed at least 11 members of the rival Fatah faction Wednesday after setting off explosives in a tunnel beneath a security compound in southern Gaza, Palestinian security sources said.
Fatah's Preventive Security headquarters in Khan Yunis is now under Hamas control, the sources said.
The blast came after Hamas' military wing, Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, announced it had taken over northern Gaza and turned the region into a "closed military area." (Watch militants fire automatic weapons in the streets of Gaza )
Izzedine al-Qassam, which made its announcement late Tuesday over mosque loudspeakers across the region, called on residents to hand over their weapons to the militant group by 7 p.m. (noon ET) Friday.
The "closed military area" over which Hamas has asserted control includes all villages and towns north of Gaza City, including Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahya and the Jabalya refugee camp.
Hamas overpowered Fatah forces, taking several of the rival group's strongholds in northern Gaza, security sources said.
Fighting over the past three days has killed at least 70 Palestinians and injured 180 more, 20 of them critically, medical sources said.
Also in recent days: Fatah and Hamas supporters have been tossed to their deaths from high-rise buildings.
Such instances prompted Human Rights Watch to issue a statement Wednesday accusing militants of "serious violations of international humanitarian law, in some cases amounting to war crimes."
BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNN) A member of the Lebanese parliament died in a Beirut bomb blast Wednesday the latest anti-Syrian politician to be killed in the country.
Lawmaker Walid Eido, his son, Khalid, and two of his bodyguards were killed, Lebanese media reports said.
Some are calling the attack an assassination and pointing the finger at Syria.
At least six other people died and 11 were wounded in the explosion, believed to be from a car bomb, in the seaside neighborhood of Manara, according to Lebanese security sources.
Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, an outspoken critic of Syria, blamed Eido's killing on Damascus, calling it an attempt to reduce the anti-Syrian majority in the Lebanese government.
"With this bunch of assassins in Damascus, they don't care about international justice," Jumblatt told CNN International.
Eido, a constitutional expert, was a member of a political bloc led by Saad Hariri, the son of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, whose assassination two years ago sparked widespread protests that led to the ouster of Syrian forces from Lebanon.
"The hands that assassinated Rafik Hariri and the other freedom martyrs are the same evil hands and the same evil apparatuses that committed this crime today and assassinated Walid Eido," Saad Hariri said.
ROME, Italy An Italian military court has allowed a former Nazi officer convicted for his role in a 1944 massacre to leave house arrest to work a ruling that sparked outrage among the families of those murdered, politicians and Jewish groups.
Since last month, 93-year-old Erich Priebke has been allowed to leave the Rome apartment where he is serving a life sentence to work at his lawyer's studio in the Italian capital, lawyer, Paolo Giachini, said Wednesday.
Priebke has been in prison or house arrest since he was extradited to Italy in 1994 from Argentina.
He was convicted of war crimes three years later for his role in the massacre of 335 civilians at the Ardeatine Caves on the outskirts of Rome.
Giachini said Priebke was working as a translator thanks to his knowledge of German, Italian, Spanish and English.
Giachini maintained the judges "could not refuse this request" because Italian law affords such benefits to all convicts after 10 years in jail if they have been on good behavior, but news of the ruling created a storm because of the heinous nature of the crime.
India, which advocacy groups say may have as many as 65 million forced laborers, was spared the worst ranking on the State Department's new list of nations where humans are bought and sold.
Countries not doing enough to combat human trafficking could face sanctions if they don't take steps to improve.
The annual Trafficking in Persons report, released Tuesday, says that as many as 800,000 people largely women and children are trafficked across borders each year. Many are forced into prostitution, sweatshops, domestic labor, farming and child armies.
U.S. officials told CNN the question of India's ranking caused a heated debate between Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte.
Rice agreed to undertake a special evaluation of India in six months, and then take action if India does not make improvements.
Mark Lagon, ambassador at large for the State Department's Trafficking in Persons office, said Tuesday that "many different variables" played into the decision.
"I would be perpetuating a fraud to say that we don't look at multiple factors in our relationship with countries any time we take a step on a particular issue like human trafficking," he said.
The United States added Kuwait, Malaysia, Qatar and Bahrain to Tier 3 as countries that are destinations for trafficking victims who are exposed to sexual exploitation and forced labor.
Saudi Arabia, a nation considered friendly toward the United States, also is a Tier 3 country.
The State Department also lists Burma, Cuba, Equatorial Guinea, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, Uzbekistan and Venezuela as Tier 3 countries, defined as those "whose governments do not fully comply with the minimum standards" set by American law and "are not making significant efforts to do so.
These countries have 90 days to take additional steps to combat trafficking or face penalties.
President Bush can waive sanctions if he deems it in the United States' interest.
The Bush administration has increased attention to the trafficking problem in recent years as a part of its focus on promoting democracy and human rights as the cornerstone of Bush's foreign policy agenda, specifically in the Middle East.
NEW YORK Standing atop the Empire State Building and looking out on the expanse of glinting skyscrapers and miniature yellow taxicabs, Lili Ma had no doubt that New York was the place to be on her vacation from China.
"Everybody needs to bite the Big Apple," the 36-year-old said with a smile.
But everyone knows about this place, she said.
Her friends all watch "Sex and the City," and even her mother has heard of California and New York.
They are establishing offices in China, and lobbying the government to ease restrictions on travel to the U.S.
While the number of Chinese visitors has been increasing, they certainly haven't been overrunning American tourist attractions.
Just 320,000 Chinese 1.5 percent of all overseas visitors traveled to the U.S in 2006.
Of the Chinese who left the mainland, fewer than 1 in 100 headed for the U.S., according to American and Chinese authorities.
Speaking by phone from China, where she now spends half her time, she predicted that by 2009, Chinese tourists will account for one-tenth of the roughly 1 million customers her company ferries around the U.S. each year.
"Twenty percent of them are the ones with the money, with the ability to travel, from what we understand. There's a lot of pent-up demand.
Neighbor Sontaya Perry, 22, said she could hear the children inside the house screaming as the fire raged from the windows before dawn.
She said she tried to get in, but the wooden steps leading to the door were in flames.
"They were screaming, and five minutes later they stopped screaming," Perry said.
The victims, ages 3 to 7, were all found on the second floor, authorities said.
One was dead on arrival at West Penn Hospital and two others died in the emergency room, said Stephanie Waite, a hospital spokeswoman.
Two other children were able to escape without injury.
Police said a teenage baby sitter was supposed to be watching the children, who were from two families but all related, while their parents were out for the night.
The baby sitter had not been located as of late morning and police only knew her nickname, which they didn't disclose, Police Chief Nate Harper said. "We have a lot of people out there working hard.
Hopefully we'll have answers in a short period of time," he said.
The top two stories of a building under renovation collapsed in central London on Tuesday, trapping a construction worker in the rubble, police said.
Dozens of firefighters and rescue crews converged on the multi story red-brick office building and police cordoned off a four-square block are around the rubble-littered street.
"All of a sudden there was a loud bang. I thought it was a bomb," said Surinder Purewal, who works in the Metropolitan Police Authority building opposite the structure. "I saw the whole building come down, there was a lot of dust.
The building was unoccupied except for construction workers one of whom remained trapped by debris, Police Commander Steve Allen said.
He said the man was conscious and was speaking to rescuers, but said he could give no indication as to the man's condition or any details as to his identity.
"Currently all efforts are concentrated on forming a plan to rescue him from the building," Allen said.
He said there was no evidence of an explosion.
London's ambulance service has confirmed only one casualty, who was being treated at a local hospital.
"The potential for loss of life and serious injury was immense here," he said.
JACKSON, Mississippi (AP) A former Ku Klux Klansman said he kept silent about the 1964 abduction, beating and drowning of two black teenagers because he feared retribution from fellow Klansmen.
Charles Marcus Edwards, granted immunity from prosecution, testified Monday in the federal kidnapping and conspiracy case against longtime friend James Ford Seale.
He said he thought he'd be "a dead man" if he told authorities about the Klan's dealings, including the attacks on Henry Hezekiah Dee and Charles Eddie Moore in southwest Mississippi.
The trial enters its seventh day of testimony Tuesday, and the jury could start deliberations this week.
Edwards, who began his testimony last Tuesday, was called back to the stand for follow-up questions.
"In 1964 I was," Edwards responded.
Edwards said he and Seale belonged to the same Klan chapter, or "klavern," led by Seale's father, Clyde, who has since died.
The teenagers were abducted near Meadville and beaten in the Homochitto National Forest.
Parts of their badly decomposed bodies were found more than two months later more than 70 miles away in a Mississippi River backwater.
With jurors out of the room on Monday, Moore's brother, Thomas Moore of Colorado Springs, Colorado, said he spoke last week to Edwards, who had apologized to the victims' families and asked their forgiveness.
"I told him when I saw him at the hotel that I accepted his apology," said Thomas Moore, who had pushed investigators to reopen the cold case
Brianna Morrison, 24, who used fertility drugs, gave birth just before midnight Sunday in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
About 10 hours later, Jenny Masche, 32, who used artificial insemination, gave birth Monday in Phoenix by Caesarean section, the first successful sextuplet delivery in Arizona.
Morrison's four boys and two girls were premature, delivered after just 22 weeks.
Doctors at Children's Hospital listed them in critical condition Monday afternoon, with weights ranging between 11 ounces and 1 pound, 3 ounces.
Thanks to all who are praying for our family. We are very happy to be parents.
The Masche sextuplets three boys and three girls were almost 10 weeks premature, and all but one weighed less than three pounds.
On Monday, five of the six were on ventilators to help them breathe.
Their tiny lungs are underdeveloped, said Dr. Jordan Leonard, who is overseeing the Masche babies at Phoenix Children's Hospital.
He said medications the mother was taking to prevent labor had a side effect of making them sleepy.
The babies should leave the hospital in six to eight weeks.
The chances of spontaneously conceiving sextuplets is one in 4.7 billion, said Dr. Helain Landy of Georgetown University Hospital's Obstetrics and Gynecology Department.
The Morrisons, of the Minneapolis suburb of St. Louis Park, spent more than a year trying to conceive before agreeing to fertility drugs, according to the couple's personal Web site.
Upon learning Brianna Morrison was carrying sextuplets, doctors advised the couple to opt for selective reduction, in which women carrying multiple fetuses reduce the number of viable fetuses to two.
"However, we knew right away that this is not an option for us," the couple wrote. "We understand that the risk is high, but we also understand that these little ones are much more than six fetuses.
In Arizona, Jenny Masche used artificial insemination and medication to stimulate her ovulation cycle, Leonard said.
Father Bryan Masche, 29, said in an interview last week that the couple were terrified when they learned in December they were going to have six babies.
"We're blessed and excited," he said. "I keep coming back to the Bible verse that says, 'God will never leave or forsake us.
Party director-general Eitan Cabel said former Prime Minister Ehud Barak had beaten Ami Ayalon, a former navy commander, after a majority of votes were counted.
Israel Radio analyst Hanan Crystal said the final count was 34,960 for Barak and 31,100 for Ayalon, a margin of 6 percent. An official announcement was expected later Wednesday.
At a victory gathering in Tel Aviv, Barak called for party unity and pledged to pursue a policy that "combines uncompromising security, protecting Israel's solidarity and democracy, determined pursuit of real peace, reinforcement of the rule of law and healing Israeli society.
Barak is expected to replace deposed party leader Amir Peretz as defense minister in Olmert's Cabinet.
Labor has only 19 seats in Israel's 120-seat legislature.
The party led Israeli governments for the first three decades of its existence, from 1948-1977.
Kelly Clarkson, who rails against a former flame in her new song "Never Again," says she's never been in love.
"I love my friends and family," the Grammy-winning singer and original "American Idol" tells Elle magazine in its July issue. "But I have never said the words 'I love you' to anyone in a romantic relationship. Ever.
Clarkson, 25, doesn't take romance lightly.
There are going to be bad days. You are going to have to work at loving someone when they are being an idiot.
She adds: "People think they're just going to meet the perfect guy. Don't be ridiculous.
Marriage and motherhood aren't in the cards for Clarkson not right now, anyway.
"My point of view is that I shouldn't be a mother at all, because I'd be horrible," she says. "I'm not willing to be that selfless.
Her comments speak to the singer's frankness, which makes Clarkson stand out from many of today's publicist-protected pop stars.
In recent weeks, Clarkson has made headlines for saying the media is exaggerating reports that she and music mogul Clive Davis clashed over her upcoming CD, "My December," to be released by RCA Records, a unit of Sony BMG Music Entertainment.
"I've sold more than 15 million records worldwide, and still nobody listens to what I have to say. Because I'm 25 and a woman," she says.
"I am a good singer, so I can't possibly be a good writer," she continues. "If your thing is to bring me down, cool. I'll just work harder.
JAKARTA, Indonesia (CNN) One of Southeast Asia's most wanted terrorists is in police custody, an anti-terror police official in Indonesia has told CNN.
Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) is a militant Islamist group active in several Southeast Asian countries.
In 2002, it was added to a United Nations list of terrorist organizations linked to al Qaeda or the Taliban.
Police believe Abu Dujana's arrest will deal a major blow to the organization.
JI is believed to be responsible for major terror attacks in Indonesia, including the October 2002 Bali bombing, which killed 202 people, most of whom were foreigners.
There has been intense speculation as to who is leading Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) since its former leaders were arrested in 2000 and 2003.
But many Indonesian authorities believe Abu Dujana took over the organization and revitalized its military wing.
Authorities say Abu Dujana was instrumental in the planning and execution of the 2003 Marriott Hotel bombing and the 2004 Australian Embassy attack, both in Jakarta.
The hotel bombing killed 12 people and 10 people died in the embassy attack.
Abu Dujana studied in Pakistan and fought in Afghanistan from 1988 to 1991.
He is one of the few remaining mujahideen fighters in JI and police say he has close personal ties with al Qaeda.
He is also believed to have spent several years in Jemaah Islamiyah training camps in the southern Philippines.
Gen Surya Dharma, a senior police official, told CNN in March that Abu Dujana is "a very dangerous and clever man. "
Ford says it is reviewing its position on Jaguar and Land Rover, while union officials are pressing for more information amid reports that the two brands are up for sale.
John Gardiner, a spokesman for Ford's Premier Automotive Group, said Tuesday Ford had been reviewing all of its operations for a year.
He added that there was no time frame for making a decision.
Prime Minister Tony Blair's office said it was in touch with Ford about the review.
British lawmaker Lorely Burt, who represents Solihull, home to Land Rover's assembly plant, said legislators were told Monday night that Ford was "looking at all the options which may or may not include a sale.
Land Rover and Jaguar are part of Ford's Premier Auto Group, which also includes Volvo.
Ford sold Aston Martin, another part of the group, for $848 million in March, with some analysts saying the luxury brand did not fit into Ford's long-term survival plan for cost savings from developing multiple models worldwide on the same underpinnings.
Ford, which is struggling to be profitable in the face of fierce competition from Asian automakers, posted a sharply narrower first-quarter net loss in April of $282 million.
Ford bought Jaguar in 1989 and Land Rover in 2000.
The two business have about 19,000 employees in Britain.
TIRANA, Albania One moment President Bush was glad-handing Albanians on Sunday, proudly sporting a watch with a dark strap on his left wrist.
Did it fall off?
Did one of his bodyguards remove it?
Or did one of the crowd artfully slip it off his wrist and pocket it?
The United States Embassy in Albania on Tuesday emphatically denied that Bush's watch was stolen during his visit to the country, where he was acclaimed as a hero.
The Albanian media and international Web sites is buzzing with video showing Bush's wrist watch apparently disappearing while he was shaking hands with people in Fushe Kruje, 25 kilometers (15 miles) north of Tirana.
People waiting on the sidewalks on Sunday gave Bush a rapturous welcome, shaking hands with him, grabbing him by the arms and wrists, reaching out to embrace him and even ruffling his hair.
Bush was clearly delighted by the attention and plunged back into the crowd for more hand shaking and to be kissed on the cheek.
An Albanian bodyguard who accompanied Bush in the town told The Associated Press
he had seen one of his U.S. colleagues close to Bush bend down and pick up the watch.
As Fatah radio called on fighters to confront Hamas militants and broadcasts from Hamas fighters urged their Fatah foes to abandon their posts or face death, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas appealed in vain for a cease-fire.
"If anybody thinks that we will be a winner out of this fire, I think they're wrong," said Palestinian official Saeb Erakat. "If this fire continues, it will burn all of us. Nobody stands to gain anything." (Watch emerging chaos in Gaza )
Abbas' Fatah group dominated Palestinian politics for decades until last year, when Hamas won legislative elections.
Erakat an Abbas ally called this week's clashes "the worst I have ever seen.
Hundreds of Hamas gunmen surrounded a Fatah base in northern Gaza near the Jabalya refugee camp and launched an attack, Palestinian security sources said.
Palestinian medical sources said Tuesday 10 members of the Fatah-affiliated National Guard and 11 Hamas gunmen were killed.
More than 80 people have died in factional fighting since the latest flare-up began last month
The home of Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya, a Hamas member, came under attack Tuesday for the second day, the Hamas media office reported.
Later in the morning, Hamas gunmen surrounded the home of Fatah spokesman Maher Mekdad.
His fate was not immediately known.
Erakat said there are "multiple authorities" in Gaza, making it extremely difficult to control the fighters.
Erakat said the two sides are not fighting over "who controls what" but about trying to restore the rule of law to Gaza.
(CNN) Jamaican police have confirmed that Pakistan cricket coach, Bob Woolmer, died of natural causes and was not murdered as originally announced during the Cricket World Cup in March.
At a news conference in Kingston Jamaica, the commissioner of police, Lucius Thomas, said a review of the pathology by experts from Britain and elsewhere concurred that Woolmer had not been strangled.
Toxicology tests had also been carried out and found no evidence that he had been poisoned.
Thomas said the investigation into Woolmer's death has been closed.
Woolmer was found dead in his hotel room in Kingston on March 18, the day after Pakistan were knocked out of the Cricket World Cup in a humiliating defeat to outsiders Ireland.
At first it was thought the 58-year-old had died from a heart attack.
After an autopsy proved inconclusive, his death was termed "suspicious.
Five days later a Jamaican pathologist decided that Woolmer had died of asphyxia caused by manual strangulation.
Speculation was rife that Woolmer might have been murdered by a disgruntled player or match-fixing syndicate, and the episode cast a shadow over the whole World Cup.
"We hope that this matter will now be closed and that our family will be left to grieve in peace," his widow Gill Woolmer said in a media statement in South Africa, where the highly respected coach was cremated in May.
At the new World of Coca-Cola, Joan Crawford and Clark Gable greet visitors from a 74-year-old advertisement.
A 3-D movie ride takes audiences on a journey to find the secret recipe of one of the world's most popular drinks.
The nearly $100 million museum, which opened May 24, is the latest attraction in the tourism and development boom of Georgia's capital city.
What's getting Atlanta tourism officials excited is that the new Coke museum is expected to draw about 1.2 million visitors in its first year.
The new museum is about twice the size of the beverage company's former museum, which was built in 1990 and located about a mile away, next to the Georgia Capitol building.
That museum closed April 17 and drew a total of about 13 million visitors in 17 years.
Yet Coke officials say the cost reflects more to see and do at the new museum, including more than 1,100 Coke artifacts never exhibited before.
The museum also has the "Secret Formula 4-D Theater," a movie ride in which the audience dons 3-D glasses and gets bumped, blown with air and sprayed with mist during the show.
Some of the old favorites that will again be on display are one of the company's original prototype contour bottles (only two exist), and a soft-drink dispenser used in 1985 on the space shuttle Challenger.
The sedative effects of the heroin and the nighttime sleep aids make for a deadly brew.
"A double whammy you're getting two downers at once," says Dallas police detective Monty Moncibais.
Trying to keep the drug from spreading to other cities, the DEA is working with Dallas officials to raise public awareness about the problem.
Why should a parent outside Dallas care about what's happening there?
Robertson says it's simple:
The ease of communication via the Internet and cell phones allows a drug trend to spread rapidly across the country.
LONDON, England John Lennon was shot and killed outside his New York City apartment after deciding he wanted to return home to see his son rather than go out for dinner, Yoko Ono said in an interview broadcast Sunday.
and John was saying, 'No, let's go home because I want to see Sean before he goes to sleep.' And it was like he wasn't sure if we would get home before he (Sean) went to sleep and he was concerned about that.
Ono, 74, the wife of the late Beatle, made the comment on "Desert Island Discs," the British Broadcasting Corp. radio program that interviews famous people and plays their favorite songs.
She said Lennon uttered no dying words when he was shot and killed by deranged fan Mark Chapman outside their Dakota apartment building in Manhattan on December 8, 1980.
Ono also said that when she became pregnant with Sean shortly after the couple reunited in 1975 following a two-year separation, she let Lennon decide whether she should have the baby or abort it.
"I thought that I should let John decide whether to keep it or not.
We'd just got back together and I became pregnant very soon, and I didn't know if it was the right moment to have a child.
North Korea is peeling back its self-imposed veil of isolation, allowing tourists a rare glimpse of the hardscrabble rural life en route to a new hiking trail that opened this month at the South Korean-run Diamond Mountain resort.
The new trail is also aimed at drumming up more business for the tourism venture run by a subsidiary of South Korea's Hyundai conglomerate, which saw a plunge in visitors last year after North Korea's missile and nuclear tests.
And drawing more tourists will mean more money for the communist nation's impoverished economy.
The Diamond Mountain tourism project began in 1998 and has drawn 1.5 million guests as the only part of North Korea that can be easily visited by foreign tourists.
The mountain is located just north of the border between the two Koreas near the east coast.
But the highlight of the trip is a two-hour drive each way around the mountain to get to the trailhead through villages nestled in valleys displaying a panorama of North Korean daily life under leader Kim Jong Il.
Crossing through a tunnel to start the journey, a military outpost greets travelers with a slogan proclaiming, "We will fight forever for Kim Jong Il.
Paved roads give way to dirt, rolling through a countryside where the tour buses are the only vehicles as far as the eye can see.
Bicycles are the only form of transportation that North Korean families can afford.
They wade through rice paddies to plant seedlings, while oxen pull plows through the mud for other crops, such as corn and beans.
LIVERPOOL, England A severe dog bite has forced Bjorn Borg to pull out of his first grass-court match in 26 years.
The five-time Wimbledon champion was bitten on his right leg by a German shepherd called when he tried to pull the dog away from his golden retriever at his home in Sweden over the weekend.
Borg, who received medical treatment at a Stockholm hospital, was told not to put any weight on the leg for at least six weeks.
He had been scheduled to play 1987 Wimbledon champion Pat Cash at the Liverpool International tournament this week.
It would have been his first grass-court match since losing to John McEnroe in the 1981 Wimbledon final.
"I've been really looking forward to this event and have been practicing hard for four months to get ready.
Borg, who is still expected to attend the event as a spectator, was replaced by former Wimbledon champion Richard Krajicek in the tournament, which is backed by Liverpool City Council and held in Calderstones Park.
An 81-year-old man has set off on a 2,000-mile bicycle ride around Arizona's perimeter.
Bill Anderson of Yuma plans to complete the trip in 14 to 16 days.
He is riding to raise money for Yuma's Crossroads Mission, which provides shelter, meals, showers and clothing to the homeless.
Last year, Anderson rode from the Mexican border to the Canadian line and back again to raise money.
In 2004, he made two trips for the mission:
one from Canada to Mexico and another from San Diego to Jacksonville Beach, Florida.
Anderson left Yuma on Tuesday in his most recent ride.
He planned to arrive in Page on Saturday before continuing the trip to Eagar, Safford and then along the Mexican border.
"I'm seeing a lot of new country and taking lots of scenic photographs.
HOUSTON, Texas Astronauts will try to fix a thermal blanket that peeled back during Atlantis' launch, extending the space shuttle's mission from 11 to 13 days, NASA managers said Monday.
The loosened blanket was discovered Saturday during an inspection of the shuttle.
The rest of the vehicle appeared to be in fine shape, NASA said.
With three additional shuttle flights to the space station planned this year, NASA can't afford any delays.
"I don't want to take the risk of damaging my flight hardware," said John Shannon, chairman of the mission management team.
While mission managers debated fixing the thermal blanket, two astronauts floated outside the international space station Monday to begin connecting the orbiting outpost's newest addition:
WASHINGTON (AP) The anti-poverty campaign founded by U2 rocker Bono and others is investing $30 million to pressure the presidential candidates to focus on the oft-forgotten issue, with its leaders arguing on Monday that helping the poor is a national security issue.
Dubbed ONE Vote '08, the bipartisan political push aims to get President Bush's successor to commit to taking concrete steps to combat hunger and disease while improving access to education and water across the globe.
"People do not go to war with people who have saved their children's lives," former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tennessee, told reporters at a church in the nation's capital.
18 or more presidential aspirants through the media and grass-roots work.
The other co-chair also is a former Senate Majority leader, Democrat Tom Daschle of South Dakota.
"Some of the most vivid memories of our experience (in Congress) didn't happen in Washington, they happened in Africa," Daschle said.
"It is incumbent on all of us to recognize that this must be a key part of national domestic security.
Created in 2004 by rocker Bono and the country's leading anti-poverty groups, the ONE organization counts 2.5 million members from across the political spectrum and all 50 states.
The organization has attracted high-profile support from a wide range of celebrities, including Brad Pitt and Matt Damon.
Until now, the focus has been on raising awareness of global poverty and encouraging activists to lobby Congress to devote more money to the cause.
Now, the mission will include mobilizing activists. Among the donors:
the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica said Monday that his country was "rightfully embittered" by Bush's remarks in support of Kosovan independence made during a brief stopover Sunday in Albania, adding that the United States "has no right to give away Serbia's territory to Albanians," according to a government news release.
"America must find another way to show its affection and love for the [Kosovan] Albanians, without offering them Serb territories," Kostunica told Serbian national television. "Serbia is rightfully outraged at the American policies on the issue of Kosovo.
Kostunica's comments came after Bush said:
"At some point in time sooner rather than later you've got to say 'Enough is enough. Kosovo is independent' and that's the position we've taken." (Full story)
"As we seek independence for Kosovo, we've also got to make it clear to Serbia that there's a way forward, maybe in NATO, maybe in the EU, and definitely in better relations with the United States.
Bush also called for immediate approval of a plan drafted by U.N. diplomat and former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari that would give Kosovo limited statehood under international supervision.
"The time is now to move the Ahtisaari plan," Bush said, noting that he had dicussed the matter with Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov. "America believes that Kosovo ought to be independent.
Zane never intended to surround herself in mystery and intrigue.
The author, whose steamy sex novels set among black professionals have propelled her onto The New York Times list of best sellers, says if she could do it over, she'd have chosen a less provocative pseudonym.
About a decade ago, she was in an America Online chat room and needed to call herself something.
She picked Zane because it was the first thing that popped into her head; she's always liked the name.
When she started writing erotic fiction in her spare time and e-mailing it to friends and online acquaintances, it made sense to keep calling herself Zane after all, she couldn't be sure who was reading her work.
Plenty of authors don't use their real names, but there's only one successful writer of black erotica with a gender-neutral, one-syllable nom de plume.
It makes people more curious about her the opposite of Zane's intent.
After all, as Sean Bentley, the buyer of black fiction for Borders and Waldenbooks, points out, Zane gets a couple of shelves to herself these days.
More than 2.7 million copies of her books are in print, she's a mainstay on the Essence magazine list of best sellers, and two titles, "Afterburn" and the anthology "Love Is Never Painless," were New York Times best sellers.
movies and television.
She has approved a script for "Addicted," an adaptation of her biggest-selling novel, about a woman who seeks counseling for sex addiction.
She's negotiating a deal to turn a collection of stories, "The Sex Chronicles," into a cable-TV miniseries.
She's also a publisher who runs Strebor Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster with more than 50 authors, many of whom get a sales boost from their association with Zane.
Zane, the daughter of a theologian and an elementary school teacher, graduated from Howard University in Washington, D.C., with a degree in chemical engineering.
Boredom hit in 1997, when Zane was living in North Carolina, working as a sales representative. She began writing erotic stories to pass the time after her children went to bed.
The stories developed a following on the Internet, and she self-published "The Sex Chronicles" before landing a deal with Simon & Schuster.
Zane tapped into a market that craves her honest, unvarnished perspective on sexuality.
Zane presents a mixture of accessibility and reserve.
She sometimes answers the phone at Strebor. She reads her e-mail and responds to as many messages as she can dishing out sex advice to eager fans.
But at the same time, she guards her privacy.
She did not allow herself to be photographed or interviewed until 2004, at the onset of her first book tour.
She said she "came out" then only because con artists were starting to host book signings claiming to be her.
BAGHDAD, Iraq Britain's next prime minister, Gordon Brown, assured Iraq's leaders of continued British support on Monday as he made a flying visit to Baghdad to "listen and learn" before he takes office later this month.
Brown, who is pondering Britain's future involvement in a four-year-old war that is hugely unpopular among Britons, noted Tony Blair's acknowledgement that mistakes had been made in the war and said he wanted to "learn the lessons".
In the latest attack, a suicide bomber destroyed a major bridge over the Diyala River north of Baghdad on Monday.
It was Brown's first visit since being confirmed as the successor to Blair, whose popularity at home was undermined by his steadfast support for the war.
Brown, who spent about six hours in Iraq, has ruled out an immediate pullout of British troops. He refused again on Monday to be drawn into media speculation that he may speed up the withdrawal to assuage public anger.
His visit comes as the size of the British force in Iraq is being reduced by about 1,500 soldiers to 5,500 troops.
Brown has said he will reduce troop numbers as and when possible, but aides say he is unlikely to make any big sudden shifts in policy as the British military is already planning further cutbacks.
Yahoo criticized China in a brief statement that didn't specifically mention the case of jailed journalist Shi Tao, whose mother visited Hong Kong on Sunday.
Shi was sentenced to 10 years in 2005 after sending an e-mail about Chinese media restrictions.
The company has acknowledged sharing information about Shi with Chinese authorities.
"Yahoo is dismayed that citizens in China have been imprisoned for expressing their political views on the Internet," the company said in the statement faxed to The Associated Press, which asked Yahoo to comment on Shi's lawsuit.
The Internet company, based in Sunnyvale, California, also said it has told China that it condemns "punishment of any activity internationally recognized as free expression.
However, Yahoo added that companies operating in China must comply with Chinese law or risk having their employees face civil or criminal penalties.
Shi was writing for the financial publication Contemporary Business News when he circulated an e-mail with his notes about a government circular about media restrictions.
He was convicted of leaking state secrets.
Shi's legal challenge is part of a lawsuit filed earlier by the World Organization for Human Rights USA.
The group is suing Yahoo and its subsidiary in Hong Kong.
Also named is Alibaba.com Inc., a Yahoo partner that runs Yahoo China.
On Sunday in Hong Kong, Shi's mother, Gao Qingsheng, insisted her son was innocent and that the family would press ahead with the legal action.
"I believe my son is innocent. We will fight until the end," she told reporters.
Mudslides caused by monsoon rains buried bamboo and straw shacks in shantytowns and collapsed brick houses in southeastern Bangladesh Monday, killing at least 67 people.
Another 11 died when they were struck by lightning, rescue officials and witnesses said.
The hilly port city of Chittagong was hardest-hit by the heavy rains, officials said.
Nearly 81/2 inches of rain fell in just three hours early Monday, submerging the downtown in about 4 feet of water, the local weather service and witnesses said.
At least 67 died in the city.
The lightning strikes killed 11 people in the neighboring districts of Cox's Bazar, Noakhali and Brahmmanbaria, the food and disaster management ministry said.
The worst-hit area was a congested shantytown in Chittagong, where large chunks of hill collapsed and buried dozens of bamboo and straw shacks.
The area is near a military zone and army rescuers pulled out at least 35 bodies from the debris, city official Shahidul Islam said.
Another 15 bodies were pulled from the remnants of a hilly slum on land belonging to Bangladesh Railways in another part of the city, said Nasir Ahmed, a fire brigade officer.
Six others died in another hillside slum near a power station, he said, and five members of a family perished when the walls of their brick home collapsed in heavy rain on the Chittagong University campus.
Four others, including a young mother and her toddler, were killed when their house collapsed.
A policeman was electrocuted when he stepped on a severed electrical wire.
Emergency workers rescued more than 50 injured people across Chittagong.
Government and charity agencies distributed food and water to about 1,000 people left homeless by the calamity, the area's government administrator Mukhlesur Rahman said.
Flash floods and inundated roads hampered the rescue efforts and traffic in the city of 4 million, about 130 miles southeast of the capital, Dhaka. Many schools and businesses were forced to close for the day.
LOS ANGELES, California Paris Hilton says she will no longer "act dumb.
The reality TV star and relentless publicity-seeker spoke with Barbara Walters by phone Sunday, a day after releasing a statement saying she hoped the media would focus on "more important things" than her 45-day jail sentence, according to ABC News' Web site.
After spending three days in jail in a reckless driving case, Hilton was briefly released to home confinement Thursday for an undisclosed medical condition. An outraged judge sent her back to jail Friday.
According to ABC News, the call came after Hilton's mother, Kathy, phoned Walters.
All jail inmates are required to call collect.
"Now, I would like to make a difference.
LONDON, England Real Madrid president Ramon Calderon wants U.S. bound David Beckham to stay with the Spanish giants as they contemplate a first Primera Liga success in four years.
"We need to sit down with him (Beckham), his representatives and with (Real Madrid sporting director Predrag) Mijatovic, look at this clause, and decide between us, but for me I would be delighted if he remained at the club.
"There was a bit of anger by the premature announcement of his exit, but we are now going to make an effort for him to stay.
However, later on Sunday a spokesman for denied that there was any chance of the player staying in Madrid.
"David is looking forward to going to LA - but he wants to end his career at Real Madrid on a high note first, by winning the league.
A Los Angeles Galaxy spokesman was unaware of the claims. "I don't know anything about it, and won't have anything for you today," he said.
The midfielder, who suffered an ankle injury on duty for England against Estonia, played despite being in pain in yesterday's 2-2 draw with Real Zaragoza.
"Beckham has shown that he is a great player, with great pride," he added. "He is playing at a great level and yesterday he fought even though he was half injured against Zaragoza.
"The Madrid supporters love him, and for me I would like him to remain in the team."
Beckham has recently been recalled by England and played a key role in a 1-1 draw in a friendly with Brazil then created two goals in the 3-0 win in the Euro 2008 qualifier against Estonia last week.
Backpacks, caps and other licensed products for the 2008 Beijing Olympics are being made in Chinese factories that use child labor and force employees to work long hours for less than minimum wage, a report released Sunday said.
The report, compiled by PlayFair 2008 an alliance of global trade unions and labor groups identified four factories that it says are abusing Chinese and international labor standards to produce Olympics-licensed products.
The findings are likely to prove embarrassing to organizers of the 2008 Olympics and the International Olympic Committee.
The communist government wants to use the Beijing Games to project a positive image of China, spending an estimated $40 billion on a complete makeover.
"Licensing of the Olympic brand is a major source of income for the IOC and national Olympic committees," said Guy Ryder, general secretary of the Brussels-based International Trade Union Confederation, a PlayFair campaign member and worldwide union association.
Officials with the Beijing Olympic organizing committee declined to comment, saying they had not seen the report.
The International Olympic Committee said it does not have direct control over all official products that carry the Olympic label but that it has created policies on fair labor standards that it expects Olympic host cities and licensed manufacturers to follow.
The Beijing Olympics are expected to be the most profitable in the games' history, attracting 500,000 foreign visitors.
Corporate sponsors are using the event to raise their profiles in China's rapidly growing consumer market.
PlayFair said it looked into four factories producing Olympic-licensed products in southern China.
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) Heiress and entrepreneur Paris Hilton said Saturday she has directed her attorneys not to appeal a judge's Friday decision sending her back to jail following her brief release on home detention.
"Today, I told my attorneys not to appeal the judge's decision," Hilton said in a statement posted on TMZ.com. "While I greatly appreciate the sheriff's concern for my health and welfare, after meeting with doctors I intend to serve my time as ordered by the judge.
TMZ.com reported Saturday afternoon that Hilton had not eaten or slept since returning to jail and was being given "psychotropic medication.
On Friday, Superior Court Judge Michael Sauer sent Hilton back to jail for violating terms of her probation from a 2006 alcohol-related reckless driving conviction.
Hilton initially reported to the jail just after midnight Sunday and was released early Thursday to home detention with electronic monitoring because of an unspecified medical condition.
Hilton was led out of the courtroom wailing after Sauer ordered her back to jail. (Watch the media mayhem surrounding Hilton )
"During the past several days, I have had a lot of time to reflect, and have already learned a bitter, but important lesson from this experience.
It was not immediately clear how many days Hilton will serve.
She initially was sentenced to 45 days in jail, which would automatically have been reduced to 23 days if she exhibited good behavior.
Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, who was responsible for deciding to release her to home confinement, told reporters Friday night, "The purpose of the release was the fact that her medical condition was deteriorating.
He did not elaborate except to say, "she was not taking a particular medication when she was in our custody, and thus her inexplicable deterioration [became] a great concern.
Sauer said Friday he never received information about a medical problem and had not changed his sentence.
President Vladimir Putin worked to reassure CEOs from leading global companies about the security of foreign investment in Russia at a closed door meeting on Saturday evening, participants said.
"Putin gave a very reassuring speech about Russia's economic development going forward and underlined that Russia was open for investment outside a few strategic sectors of the economy," one of the CEOs told Reuters.
The Russian president told the group of around 100 chief executives attending the St Petersburg International Economic Forum not to worry about political developments.
Those attending said the meeting included an exchange between Putin and Royal Dutch Shell chief executive Jeroen van der Veer.
The Kremlin forced Shell and its Japanese partners in April to cede control of Sakhalin-2, the world's biggest liquefied natural gas project, to Russia's state gas giant Gazprom at what analysts considered a knockdown price.
Van der Veer thanked Putin for helping Shell secure a good agreement over the $22 billion Sakhalin project and then asked what the rules of the game were in Russia, participants and a Shell spokesman said.
Putin replied by giving a short history of the deal and thanking Shell for helping Russia secure such a good agreement.
One participant also quoted Putin as saying that the rules of the game were very simple: honesty.
Iran's confirmation Sunday that it has detained a fourth Iranian-American this one a peace activist from California seems certain to further rile relations between the two countries, already tense over Iran's nuclear program.
The United States has sharply criticized the detentions, but Iran insists America has no right to interfere.
Mohammad Ali Hosseini, the spokesman for Iran's foreign ministry, confirmed at his weekly news briefing that Iranian-American Ali Shakeri had been detained.
It was the first official confirmation, although the student-run ISNA news agency on Friday reported that Shakeri, of Lake Forest, California, was being held and investigated by the security department of the Tehran prosecutor's office.
Shakeri, founding board member of the University of California, Irvine, Center for Citizen Peacebuilding, is the fourth dual citizen detained in Iran in recent months
Iranian officials previously confirmed the detentions of three other Iranian-Americans: scholar Haleh Esfandiari, who is the director of the Middle East program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars;
All three have been accused of endangering Iran's national security and of espionage, according to a judiciary spokesman.
They were in Iran visiting family members or engaged in professional work, according to the U.S. State Department and their relatives and employers.
U.S. President George W. Bush has demanded that Iran "immediately and unconditionally" release them, and has denied that they were spying for the United States.
Family, colleagues and employers have also denied the allegations.
BAGHDAD (CNN) A suicide bomber drove an explosives-laden truck into a police station near Tikrit on Sunday morning, killing at least 15 people and wounding about 45 others, some of them civilians, a Tikrit police official said.
At least seven of those killed were police officers, the police official said.
The blast destroyed part of the police station, which is in Albu Ajil, a town about 3 miles (5 kilometers) east of Tikrit, the police official said. (Watch a tour of al Qaeda country )
Also Sunday, a parked car bomb exploded outside a fuel station in southwestern Baghdad, killing at least one civilian and wounding five others Sunday, an Interior Ministry official said.
About fifteen minutes later, another car bomb detonated at a fuel station in southwestern Baghdad, killing at least two civilians and wounding seven others, the official said.
That attack targeted cars in line at the station, which is located in the Shiite neighborhood of Bayaa.
The raid was launched in al-Fudhailiya, a Shiite district in southeastern Baghdad, between 10 p.m. Saturday (2 p.m. ET Saturday) and 3 a.m. Sunday (7 p.m. ET Saturday), an Interior Ministry official said.
The office and at least three houses were set ablaze during the clashes, the official said.
Atlantis docked with the international space station Sunday, as engineers continued to review photographs of a section of peeled-back thermal blanket on the space shuttle.
Atlantis commander Rick Sturckow eased the shuttle into the space station's docking port.
Latches fastened the shuttle and orbiting space lab together at 3:36 p.m. EDT.
The shuttle's two-day chase of the space station ended about 210 miles above southeastern Australia.
It was the first visit this year by a shuttle to the space station.
Prior to Atlantis' arrival, astronaut Danny Olivas took additional photographs from inside the shuttle of the area where the thermal blanket had peeled back.
The images were sent to Mission Control for analysis.
NASA engineers are focusing their attention on a gap about 4 inches by 6 inches that was discovered after Friday's launch from Kennedy Space Center.
Engineers want to make sure there is no damage from launch like the kind that doomed Columbia in 2003.
On Saturday, astronauts took photographs of the thermal blanket and heat shield using a camera attached to the end of a robotic arm and boom.
Engineers can build models from the images and perform tests to determine whether the peeled-back blanket would be problematic when Atlantis returns to Earth.
BRUSSELS, Belgium Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt conceded defeat Sunday on behalf of his coalition of Liberals and Socialists in general elections that saw the Christian Democrats translating eight years in opposition into major gains.
"The voters of our country today elected a new government and the results of these elections are clear: the voter opted for a different majority," Verhofstadt said.
He is expected to offer King Albert II the resignation of his government on Monday.
Guy Leterme head of the Dutch-speaking Christian Democrats and possibly Belgium's next premier told a gathering of the party faithful as the votes were still being counted, "It is time for change. People want a different course.
In a nation where parties are split into Dutch and French-speaking camps, forming a new government promises to be a complicated, time-consuming undertaking.
In the past, it has taken up to 150 days to cobble together a coalition of parties from both sides of Belgium's linguistic and political divides.
Leterme's Christian Democrats won over 30 percent of the vote in Flanders, up from 25.8 percent in 2003.
He said a Christian Democrat-led government will want more regional autonomy for Flanders, Belgium's Dutch-speaking northern half and francophone Wallonia talk that scares Walloon politicians who fear Dutch-speaking Belgians are out to break up Belgium.
"It is absolutely necessary that in the years ahead we shift" more economic powers to Flanders and Wallonia, said Leterme.
The comment reflects irritation in Flanders home to 60 percent of the 10.5 million Belgians that hidebound economic conservatives in Wallonia resist labor and other reforms that are commonplace in Europe.
Thousands of Australians were evacuated from their homes on Sunday as floodwaters headed down the country's wine-rich Hunter Valley, leaving towns cut off and farms isolated like islands.
A major storm battering Australia's east coast for the past three days has whipped up huge seas, which beached a coal ship, and dumped flooding rains over the Hunter Valley, north of Sydney.
Eight people have drowned in the floods, the worst in 30 years in the area, which have been declared a natural disaster by the New South Wales state government.
"I speak for every Australian in saying ... we are heart broken by the loss of lives," said Prime Minister John Howard.
Around 5,000 residents from the town of Maitland in the Hunter Valley were evacuated on Sunday fearing the swollen Hunter River would break levees overnight, said emergency officials.
Army soldiers were constructing sand bag levees to try and hold back the flooded Hunter River, which had swollen into a wide, brown swirling torrent of water heading down the valley.
Damage assessments of properties in the Hunter Valley were still being compiled and it was unclear how the areas famed wineries have faired in the flooding.
New South Wales state premier Morris Lemma said the damage in Newcastle, one of Australia's major coal export ports, was worse than after a 1989 earthquake hit the city.
DELAVAN, Wisconsin (AP) A shooting inside a home killed six people, and a toddler was found in a nearby vehicle with a gunshot to the chest, the police chief said Sunday.
Police found the bodies while investigating a report of shots fired Saturday night in the small southern Wisconsin town, Chief Tim O'Neill said.
Police interviewed friends and relatives of the victims Sunday morning, but released no details on the investigation or whether they had identified a suspect.
The wounded child, a 2-year-old girl, was taken to a hospital in Rockford, Illinois, where she was reported in critical condition late Saturday, hospital officials said.
Rockford Memorial Hospital officials said she was flown to the University of Wisconsin Hospital in Madison, where officials did not immediately give her condition Sunday morning.
One of the victims was Vanessa Iverson, 19, who did not live at the house but had been visiting there, said her mother, Kay Macara, who went to the police station. (Watch reporting from location of shooting )
Police cordoned off a two-block area around the crime scene Sunday morning, wheeling out bodies as neighbors gathered on the sidewalks to watch the investigation on a tree-lined street just two blocks from the police station.
It's getting worse all the time," said James Brandenburg, 57, who spent several minutes praying outside the house. "If we want to, we can put a stop to this.
Tina McKinnon, 37, who lives down the street and around the corner, said she saw the family in the neighborhood but did not know them.
Israeli aircraft launched airstrikes in Gaza City early Sunday, one day after Palestinian gunmen crossed the Gaza border, believed to be the first such incident in a year.
Palestinian security sources and media reports said there were three Israeli airstrikes, but the Israel Defense Forces would only confirm two.
The IDF declined to say whether the strikes were launched in retaliation for the Palestinian border breach on Saturday.
The purpose of the Palestinian incursion apparently was to kidnap an Israeli soldier, an Israeli official said.
The targets were an Islamic Jihad building in Gaza City and a weapons warehouse belonging to Fatah in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, the IDF said.
A Palestinian source said two airstrikes occurred around midnight, the first targeting the home or office of Mohammed al-Hindi, an Islamic Jihad leader, in western Gaza City;
the second striking a dairy warehouse in northern Gaza City. A third targeted a workshop in Gaza City's Sheikh Radwan neighborhood a bit later, the Palestinian source said. (Watch as people survey the damage at one site )
Also late Saturday, Israeli tanks conducted a limited incursion into northern Gaza, east of Beit Hanoun, Palestinian security sources said.
The IDF confirmed to CNN that a small number of Israel forces have been in the area since Friday to prevent Qassam rockets in the area. An IDF spokesman said there have been no incidents in the region.
Tensions between Israel and the Palestinian territory have been rising in recent months.
Israel claims militants in Gaza have fired hundreds of rockets into Israel, prompting the IDF to launch retaliatory strikes.
TIRANA, Albania (CNN) Setting up possibly another showdown with Russia, U.S. President George W. Bush has said "the time is now" to grant independence to the Serbian province of Kosovo and called on Moscow not to slow down the process.
"I happen to believe it's important to push the process along," Bush said Sunday at a joint news conference with Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha.
"The question is whether or not there's going to be endless dialogue on a subject that we have made up our mind about. We believe Kosovo ought to be independent.
Bush is the first sitting president to visit the Balkan state that was once a closed, communist society but is now a close ally of the United States.
During his seven scheduled hours in Albania, Bush was spared the sort of protests that greeted his visits to Germany and Italy.
Bush enjoys widespread popularity in the country:
a street in front of Albania's parliament is named after him, several postal stamps bear his image and many Albanians donned red, white, and blue hats and waved American flags during Bush's visit.
Albania's government supports independence for Kosovo, a province dominated by ethnic Albanians.
His visit to Tirana follows last week's Group of Eight summit in Germany, where the leaders of eight major industrialized nations discussed Kosovo among many other topics.
Bush said the G8 supported Kosovo's independence, but "discussions were all aimed at determining if there is a way to make this acceptable to Russia. "
Taliban militants fired rockets near President Hamid Karzai in an apparent assassination attempt in central Afghanistan on Sunday, but the missiles fell far from their target and no one was hurt, officials and witnesses said.
The assassination bid was one among a spate of attacks that killed at least 66 people, mostly militants, over the weekend in restive Afghanistan.
Karzai was giving a speech to the elders and residents of Andar district in Ghazni province when rockets were fired nearby, said Ali Shah Ahmadzai, provincial police chief.
No one was hurt, he said.
Witnesses said they heard between three and six rockets, but the Taliban claimed it fired off 12.
The rockets missed their target, with two of them landing some 220 yards (200 meters) away from the crowd, said Arif Yaqoubi, a local reporter attending the event.
Karzai finished his speech and his security detail whisked him off by helicopter to Kabul, witnesses and officials said.
It was the third attempt on Karzai's life since he became president following the ouster of the Taliban regime in 2001.
Purported Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi told The Associated Press that Taliban militants were behind the attack.
"The Taliban knew that Karzai was coming to Andar district.
When Karzai was meeting with the people, the Taliban fired 12 rockets," Ahmadi said by satellite phone from an undisclosed location. "The rockets fell nearby. "
Khial Mohammad, a Ghazni lawmaker also at the event, said during the speech "we heard the sounds of rockets whizzing over our heads" before slamming down in the distance.
Police repelled the attack and sent reinforcements to the area, forcing the militants to withdraw, Naizyar said.
PARIS, France (AP) Voters resoundingly endorsed President Nicolas Sarkozy's plans to overhaul the French economy, giving his party a commanding lead Sunday in the first round of elections for parliament, according to preliminary official results.
With 82 percent of the vote counted, Sarkozy's UMP party had 40 percent of the vote, while the opposition Socialists had 25 percent, the Interior Ministry said.
Sarkozy's conservatives have a strong advantage heading into the decisive runoff next Sunday, on track to expand their absolute majority in the 577-seat parliament.
Control of the National Assembly is central to Sarkozy's agenda of tax cuts, labor reforms, and other plans to try to shake France out of its malaise.
The election sapped support from the fringes including Jean-Marie Le Pen's once-influential extreme right National Front and the Socialists' farther-left allies and leaves France facing a parliament tilted unusually well to the right.
Turnout was 61 percent low for France which pollsters blamed on a lack of suspense.
The UMP has been widely expected to win since Sarkozy's strong victory over Socialist Segolene Royal in the presidential election last month.
The main question was how badly the once-powerful leftists would lose.
Socialists tried to rally backing for the second round, tapping fears of an all-powerful "Sarko state" if the president's camp gets a lopsided majority.
"There are crushing majorities that crush, dominant parties that dominate, absolute powers that govern absolutely," Socialist leader Francois Hollande said.
"We want to set off a shockwave of confidence, a shockwave of growth," a buoyant Prime Minister Francois Fillon said Sunday night.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (CNN) Space shuttle Atlantis blasted off from Kennedy Space Center Friday evening on an 11-day mission to the international space station.
"And liftoff of space shuttle Atlantis to assemble the framework for the science laboratories of tomorrow," said NASA spokesman George Diller as the orbiter raced to space.
The mission was originally scheduled for mid-March but a hailstorm damaged the shuttle's fuel tank and the launch was pushed back to June to allow time for needed repairs.
Along with Sturckow are pilot Lee Archambault, mission specialists Patrick Forrester, James Reilly, Steven Swanson, John Olivas and flight engineer Clayton Anderson.
Anderson will replace Sunita Williams on the international space station and Williams will return to Earth aboard Atlantis.
Atlantis is carrying a metal cargo tag from historic Jamestown, Virginia.
The tag is almost 400 years old and reads "Yames Towne." Its space voyage is meant to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Jamestown settlement in 1607.
During their time at the orbiting outpost, the Atlantis crew will deliver a new segment to the station known as a truss and install solar panels or arrays that help generate power for the station.
The arrays are similar to those installed in September by the STS-115 Discovery crew.
Each solar array is about 115 feet long, with a total wingspan of more than 240 feet.
The arrays will provide power equivalent to the power used by 40 typical U.S. homes, according to NASA. Three spacewalks are planned, with room for an additional walk if spacewalkers run into difficulties.
NASA plans at least 13 more missions to the space station before retiring the shuttle fleet in 2010.
Casinos, theme parks, and Bollywood films or a mix of historic sites and local culture?
"Artificial tourist creations can work," said Tony Wheeler, co-founder of the Lonely Planet guides.
"Disneylands all over the world seem to pull in the crowds.
And the casinos, given the propensity for the Chinese to gamble, will probably be a success.
Perhaps Singapore's biggest handicap is its lack of famous sights:
it has no Angkor Wat or Taj Mahal. For many years, it prided itself on its innumerable shopping malls, and promoted its annual "Singapore Sale".
Abroad, it is often better known for its authoritarian ways it canes vandals, executes drug offenders, crushes political opposition, and bans the sale of chewing gum.
But with an eye on the newly affluent Chinese, Indians and other Asians who increasingly travel overseas, Singapore has begun work on several new attractions, including two big casinos, a Universal Studios theme park, and a ferris wheel, even though none of these is particularly Singaporean. Bollywood blockbusters
In a bid to generate more "buzz" abroad, it has opened clubs such as Ministry of Sound and is even pitching itself as a film location, eager to emulate New Zealand's success with hits such as Lord of the Rings.
By "starring" in Bollywood blockbusters such as Krrish, Singapore hopes to entice more Indian tourists.
Earlier this month, Singapore snagged the rights to host Formula One racing, which it hopes will raise its profile abroad.
"They want to send a message that Singapore has changed," said Christopher Wood, CLSA's regional strategist.
"They have to have more than shopping centers.
Formula One is a brilliant idea.
But nobody in Asia does culture well.
Japan is the only place in Asia that has it.
There's nothing cultural happening here now, zero.
The government wants to double the number of visitors to 17 million a year by 2015, while nearly trebling tourism receipts to S$30 billion.
Its new attractions could well succeed in pulling the crowds, economists say, particularly given Macau's experience.
After the former Portuguese enclave of Macau opened up to the big U.S. casino firms, it proved so popular that its annual gambling revenues hit US$7 billion last year.
Macau had a record 22 million visitors last year, up 17 percent from 2005, and could have as many as 35-40 million a year by 2010, Goldman Sachs said in a research report this month.
Inspired by Macau, Singapore scrapped its decades-long ban on casinos and is now building two gambling resorts, due to open in the next three or four years, at a cost of nearly $7 billion.
One of those casinos will include a Universal Studios theme park.
But some Singaporeans have their doubts.
"The Formula One is a lazy way to get cheap publicity," wrote Ng Weng Hoong in a letter to Business Times, as the government's money would be better spent promoting the use of solar energy.
"Singapore should not be hypocritical, pretending to care for energy savings and the environment and then coming up with a wasteful, has-been event like the F1.
Thousands of Singaporeans signed a petition objecting to the casinos, citing fears about the social impact and risk of crime.
Paul Theroux, the novelist and travel writer, once wrote that it was Singapore's image as "a hot, sleepy backwater, full of colonial relics, crumbling houses, and old habits" that lured him to the city-state in the late 1960s. "They're burying the old Singapore. It will be gone soon," he lamented in his book My Other Life.
"All they want to see is a modern city, " said Lowe, whose walking tours take in Singapore's historic quarters and craftsmen such as those who make wood carvings for the temples, or paper statues for traditional Chinese funerals.
Why not promote the culture we do have?"
BUHRUZ, Iraq (CNN) U.S. forces have begun arming nationalist guerrillas and former Saddam Hussein loyalists and coordinating tactics in a marriage of convenience against al Qaeda radicals in one of Iraq's most violent provinces, senior U.S. commanders tell CNN. This new alliance, a result of the deepening divisions among Iraqi insurgent factions, was on display earlier this week at a highway intersection in the town of Tahrir.
There, a group of some 15 insurgents publicly chanted: "Death to al Qaeda.
"The al Qaeda organization has dominated and humiliated Sunnis, Shiites and jihadis.
It has forced people from their homes.
They can't get enough blood.
They killed many honest scholars, preachers and loyal mujahedeen," one of the group's spokesmen read from a written manifesto.
It's a sharp turnaround from just two months ago when the same insurgent forces were focused on fighting U.S. troops and driving them out of Diyala province, about 40 miles north of Baghdad.
U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon, commander of Multi-National Division North, believes U.S. counterinsurgency efforts in Vietnam and Latin America offer precedents for the strategy he is now pushing in this region of Iraq.
"We've seen this in previous counterinsurgency operations, using local nationals, arming them and forming them into scouts," he told CNN.
"That's the primary role we want to use them in.
They know the territory. They know the enemy.
The changing strategy isn't just confined to Diyala, according to U.S. officials. Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, told CNN Thursday that tribal forces in Anbar, the restive Sunni province west of the Iraqi capital, have "decided to oppose al Qaeda and fight with the coalition forces against them.
"What's taken place in Anbar is almost breathtaking," he said.
"In the last several months, tribes that turned a blind eye to what al Qaeda was doing in that province are now opposing al Qaeda very vigorously.
And the level of violence in Anbar has plummeted, although there clearly is still work to be done.
LOS ANGELES, California The next "Indiana Jones" flick will not be another father-son affair.
Sean Connery says he will not return to play dad to Harrison Ford's globe-trotting adventurer Indy.
Connery played Indy's father in 1989's "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade," the third installment of the franchise directed by Steven Spielberg and produced by George Lucas.
"I get asked the question so often, I thought it best to make an announcement," Connery, 76, said in a statement posted Thursday on Lucasfilm's "Indiana Jones" Web site. "I thought long and hard about it, and if anything could have pulled me out of retirement it would have been an 'Indiana Jones' film.
"I love working with Steven and George, and it goes without saying that it is an honor to have Harrison as my son," he said.
"But in the end, retirement is just too damned much fun.
The fourth "Indiana Jones" film, not yet titled, is again directed by Spielberg and produced by Lucas.
Shooting begins this month, and the movie is due out May 22, 2008.
A contestant on Britain's "Big Brother" reality TV show, has been kicked off for using a racially offensive word against another housemate.
Emily Parr's dismissal follows a row on a celebrity version of the popular show earlier in the year involving Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty who was racially abused by fellow housemates.
Broadcaster Channel 4 was ordered by TV regulator Ofcom to issue an apology for its handling of the row, which sparked street protests in India, before the eighth series of the popular reality show began nine days ago.
Channel 4 said Parr was heard using a racial slur while dancing with her housemate Charley in the living room.
A statement from the UK's Commission for Racial Equality said it was relieved that Channel 4 had acted quickly to resolve the issue.
"We can see from this incident that there is no stereotype of a racist, they come from all walks of life, education and social background," the statement said.
"Two series of 'Big Brother,' two racist incidents this just shows how prevalent racism is in Britain today."
Parr's online "Big Brother" profile describes her as a "fashionable drama student" and an "indie chick with the heart of a middle-class politician who has no time for those who don't live up to her high standards.
Parr's housemate Charley admits to losing her temper easily and includes racism among her dislikes.
According to the "Big Brother" Web site, there had been growing tensions between the two.
Britain says it has signed a deal on judicial cooperation with Libya, but it would not immediately lead to convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdel-Basset al-Megrahi being sent home to Libya to finish his sentence.
Prime Minister Tony Blair's office denied that Megrahi, serving life in Scotland for murdering 270 people with the bomb that blew up Pan Am Flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie on December 21, 1988, would be going home.
Not true," Blair's spokesman told reporters at the G8 summit in Germany.
"Separately, we are discussing a memorandum of understanding with Libya but that would not affect this case," he added.
After a tortuous legal and diplomatic process, Megrahi was handed over, convicted and sentenced to life in January 2001 by a Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands.
He is serving his sentence in Glasgow's Barlinnie prison.
Scottish Premier Alex Salmond said a memorandum was signed on May 29, and he told the Scottish Executive on Thursday it covered judicial cooperation on matters of law, extradition and prisoner transfer.
PARIS, France Serbia's Ana Ivanovic reached the final of a grand slam tournament for the first time with a 6-2 6-1 demolition of world number two Maria Sharapova at the French Open on Thursday.
Ivanovic performed close to perfection to set up a showdown with world number one Justine Henin, who outplayed Serbia's Jelena Jankovic 6-2 6-2 in the other semifinal.
The 19-year-old Ivanovic, seeded seventh, beat former Wimbledon champion Sharapova in just 65 minutes, sealing victory with an ace on the first match point to become the first player representing Serbia to make the final of a grand slam event.
"I knew I had to be aggressive from the beginning and that's what I tried to do," said Ivanovic.
"I knew she was not a great mover on clay and I tried to play deep balls to put her under pressure.
Russia's Sharapova, 20, is more at ease on faster surfaces and had never gone beyond the quarter-finals on the Paris clay before this year.
The former world number one, who said here last week she felt like a "cow on ice" on clay, accumulated unforced errors and looked helpless at times.
"I felt I gave her the chances to open up the court", Sharapova said. "She was always the one getting the first hit on the ball.
Sharapova, who has been fighting a string of injuries and said here she was being hampered by a sore shoulder, has not won a title this year and has never reached he final of a claycourt tournament in her career.
JERUSALEM (CNN) Shimshon Cahaner was among the first Israeli soldiers to storm into the Old City of Jerusalem 40 years ago.
"I ran inside with my gun and I touched the wall the stones of the wall of Jerusalem and I felt something I can't believe," he says, his beard now gray with age.
Days before, Cahaner had been deployed near Israel's southern border preparing to be dropped into Egypt's Sinai Peninsula when plans suddenly changed.
Israeli armored columns cut through the Sinai so rapidly that the paratroopers were flown to Jerusalem, where artillery exchanges between the Jordanian and Israeli armies presaged the opening of a new front.
Abdallah Budairi, now 85, was nearby serving with the Jordanian army.
He too well recalls that day, June 7, 1967, when Israeli troops took Jerusalem, the sacred city to Jews, Muslims and Christians.
He spoke from his ancient house, built into the walls of the Temple Mount, known to Muslims as Al-Haram al-Sharif, or the "Holy Sanctuary.
The Temple Mount is where Israeli solders brought him after his capture.
While he waited to be interrogated, he says, an Israeli officer "came up and told us 'Jericho has fallen.'
He recalls his army was completely unprepared for war.
There were individual acts of bravery by lone soldiers, he says, but a complete breakdown among the officers.
This week marks 40 years since the Six Day War broke out. In the span of six days, Israeli forces seized Jerusalem and the West Bank (then under Jordanian rule), the Golan Heights (then under Syrian rule), Gaza (then under Egyptian control) and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.
But the conflict has never stopped.
A massive cleanup began Thursday in Oman's small seaside capital, after Cyclone Gonu ripped down trees and bridges and poured mud onto a city often called the Arab world's tidiest.
As Gonu made its way across the Gulf of Oman to the Iranian coast, the cyclone a rarity in the Middle East was downgraded to a tropical storm, according to the U.S. military's Joint Typhoon Warning Center.
In Muscat, people scoured the city searching for cars swept away when water barreled through the streets. (Watch how cyclone tossed cars around like toys )
Entire grassy fields disappeared under several feet of water, as angry waves battered the beachfront normally thronged with European tourists.
Several people were seen taking photographs of the unusual destruction in this normally hot and dry country.
Muscat's postcard-perfect mountain backdrop added to the havoc.
The torrential rains that poured onto the bone-dry peaks flowed into canyons and dry riverbeds that channeled the raging water directly into the city.
Muscat's lush palm and eucalyptus groves were blown over along with telephone and power lines.
Even the normally sparkling blue sea resembled a foamy chocolate milk.
"The capital Muscat became a lake," Oman Royal Police spokesman Abdullah al-Harthi told Iran TV.
Residents spoke of a night of horror as turgid floodwaters ripped into their homes, carried off refrigerators and cars, and left their streets gouged by sinkholes and caked in mud.
Nidhal al-Masharafi, 31, spent all night on his rooftop with his wife and six children.
LONDON, England (CNN) The former Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, may have received up to $2 billion in confidential payments from a British defense firm, BAE Systems, over a period of nearly 20 years, according to two British media reports.
Through a statement by his lawyer, given to the British Press Association, Prince Bandar "categorically denied" receiving any "backhanders" secret payments and called the the reports "serious allegations.
According to the Guardian newspaper and the BBC, the payments were channeled to at least one Saudi embassy account at a now-defunct Riggs Bank in Washington.
The reports said the payments were tied to the prince's role in negotiating an $85 billion deal to sell British warplanes to Saudi Arabia in 1985.
The agreement known as the al-Yamamah arms deal is the largest in British defense history.
Prince Bandar, a close friend of U.S. President George W. Bush, was described as the chief negotiator in the deal.
But in December of last year, British Prime Minister Tony Blair advised the UK's Attorney General Lord Goldsmith to halt proceedings and abandon the investigation. Thursday, at the G8 Summit in Heiligendamm, Germany, Blair, standing side-by-side with Bush, was asked by a reporter whether he was aware that his government was approving payments to "a friend of President Bush's," a clear reference to British media reports about the alleged payments to Prince Bandar.
Blair said he would not comment on "individual allegations," but said that if the investigation had gone ahead it "would have involved the most serious allegations and investigations being made of the Saudi royal family."
Blair also said that he didn't "believe the investigation would have led anywhere, except the complete wreckage of the vital strategic relationship for our country in terms of fighting terrorism, in terms of the Middle East, in terms of British interests there."
The British Ministry of Defense was part-owner of BAE Systems throughout much of the period when the alleged payments to Prince Bandar were made.
All 19 managers and consultants accused in the collapse of former national carrier Swissair were acquitted Thursday and will receive compensation totaling more than 2.4 million Swiss francs (US$2 million; euro1.5 million), the leading judge said.
The defendants in Switzerland's largest corporate trial had all denied charges that included damaging creditors, mismanagement, making false business statements and forging documents.
Some have blamed the big Swiss banks and the September 11 attacks for the airline's downfall.
Prosecutors had requested a six-month prison sentence for Mario Corti, the last chief executive of now-defunct Swissair, and a range of suspended sentences for 18 other airline executives, board members and consultants.
In addition to the acquittal, most of the defendants will receive compensation payments ranging from 20,000 Swiss francs to 488,000 francs (about euro12,000 to euro297,000;
Prosecutors can appeal the acquittal within the next ten days.
Thousands of employees and shareholders lost their life savings, and the country's four main political parties demanded that former executives be held responsible.
"The prosecution was an absolute fiasco," said Daniel Vischer, a lawyer and union leader.
"Criminal law is a very tight corset," he told Swiss TV SF, adding that the question if prosecution had been under political pressure needed to be resolved.
Urs Eicher, speaking on behalf of a flight attendants union, criticized the high compensation that taxpayers would ultimately have to pay.
"Those who suffered real damage, the small people who lost jobs or pension funds in the Swissair bankruptcy, will get nothing," he told Swiss TV.
In the trial at a Zurich district court most of the defendants had refused to answer the prosecution's question for fear it could jeopardize parallel civil proceedings brought by former employees and shareholders seeking hundreds of millions of Swiss francs (dollars) in
Paris Hilton was let out of jail Thursday morning, days after she began serving what was to have been a 45-day sentence for violating probation, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said.
Hilton must wear a monitoring bracelet and remain at her home for another 40 days, said sheriff's department spokesman Steve Whitmore.
Medical considerations "played a part" in the decision to offer Hilton home confinement for the remainder of her sentence, Whitmore said.
He said privacy rules prohibited him from giving details about the medical issues, but celebrity Web site TMZ.com earlier quoted sources saying Hilton was refusing to eat much of the jail food served her.
Whitmore said that after "extensive consultation with medical personnel" it was decided to offer Hilton "reassignment" to home confinement, which she and her attorneys accepted.
Part of the deal was that her original sentence of 45 days, which had been reduced to 23 days if she showed good behavior behind bars, would be restored to the full length.
Although she reported to the jail just before midnight Sunday and departed in the early hours of Thursday, she was given credit for five days, he said.
Whitmore said the decision to send Hilton home was made by a panel of officials in the sheriff's department, although the judge who sentenced her was advised of the move.
"I want to thank the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and staff of the Century Regional Detention Center for treating me fairly and professionally," said Hilton in a statement from her attorney, Richard A. Hutton.
"I am going to serve the remaining 40 days of my sentence. I have learned a great deal from this ordeal and hope that others have learned from my mistakes."
Hilton was arrested on charges of drunken driving in September.
She was sentenced to three years' probation and had her license suspended.
Hilton entered jail Sunday after attending the MTV Movie Awards, where she answered questions from the press and was the subject of host Sarah Silverman's jokes.
TOKYO, Japan Former Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui visited a Tokyo war shrine Thursday to pay respects to his late brother, drawing a quick rebuke from China and complicating already delicate relations between Beijing and Tokyo.
Lee's elder brother was one of tens of thousands of Taiwanese drafted into the Japanese military during colonial rule.
He was killed in 1945 while serving with the Japanese navy during World War II and is listed among the 2.5 million war dead honored at the Yasukuni Shrine.
Yasukuni has been a frequent flashpoint between Japan and China, and Lee's action threatened to inflame the issue again.
We again express our strong dissatisfaction with the Japanese side for allowing Lee Teng-hui to visit Japan," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said. Lee defended his visit, saying it was a "private, family event.
"He left (for the war) 62 years ago and my family has no memento of him, no remains, not even a hair. He exists only at Yasukuni.
Lee, who served as Taiwanese president from 1988 to 2000, arrived in Japan on Wednesday for an 11-day cultural visit.
President George Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed Thursday at the G8 summit in Germany to cooperate on missile-defense systems, apparently cooling tensions between the two leaders.
The difference is the ways and means in which we can overcome these threats," Putin told reporters after a one-on-one meeting with Bush.
While the United States wants to install missile-defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic a plan that has severely irritated the Russians Putin said he suggested using an existing radar station that Russia rents in neighboring Azerbaijan.
And the president of Azerbaijan stressed he would be glad to contribute to world security and stability," Putin said.
He said he met with the Azerbaijan president on Wednesday.
There would have to be new construction, and that could start right away, Putin added.
Azerbaijan, formerly part of the Soviet Union, is north of Iran, and is bordered on the east by the Caspian Sea.
According to Putin, use of the radar station would make it unnecessary for Russia to install "offensive complexes" at European borders and unnecessary for the United States to put such complexes in outer space.
Bush said the missile-defense plan was meant to block possible attacks from Iran and other nations, but Putin said the systems would be on Russia's doorstep and could be converted into offensive weapons.
"It's much better to work together than to create tensions," Bush said after the meeting.
Bush said the men agreed to share ideas, and involve officials from the U.S. State Department, Department of Defense and military.
"This is a serious issue and we want to make sure we understand each other's positions very clearly," Bush said.
He said he has invited Putin to the Bush family compound in Kennebunkport, Maine, in July, where they will continue discussions on a variety of issues.
Last weekend, Putin warned that his country could aim nuclear weapons at European targets unless Washington abandoned the missile-system proposal.
"They're [Russians] not a military threat," Bush told reporters Thursday.
Winger Joe Cole gave Steve McClaren's side a 37th-minute lead with a crisp half-volley before Beckham set up Peter Crouch for the second in the 54th minute and then lined up Michael Owen for the third in the 62nd.
It made for a memorable competitive return for Beckham, recalled to the squad last week after being discarded by McClaren after last year's World Cup.
It was also a night to cherish for Owen, who is
still looking for full match fitness after a long-term knee injury suffered at last year's World Cup and scored his first England goal since a friendly win over Jamaica in June 2006.
McClaren was also relieved at the night's work, having been a target for critics after a defeat by Croatia, draws with Macedonia and Israel, and a labored 3-0 win over Andorra.
The victory takes England to 14 points from seven games, one point behind Russia, who drew 0-0 in Croatia.
"We got that first goal and got our rewards in the second.
"I think we've gained a lot in the last two-and-half weeks we've been together and I think Friday (against Brazil) gave us the confidence and belief.
England, buoyed by the Brazil game and making the most of Crouch's height, soon had Estonia on the back foot but had to wait until the 37th minute to break down the dogged hosts.
Beckham then killed the game with two superb crosses after the re-start, sending the first into the area from deep and allowing Crouch to cleverly head past Poom on the bounce for his 12 goal in 19 internationals.
Dutch students have invented powdered alcohol which they say can be sold legally to minors.
Top it up with water and you have a bubbly, lime-colored and -flavored drink with just 3 percent alcohol content.
"We are aiming for the youth market. They are really more into it because you can compare it with Bacardi-mixed drinks," 20-year-old Harm van Elderen told Reuters.
"Because the alcohol is not in liquid form, we can sell it to people below 16," said project member Martyn van Nierop.
The legal age for drinking alcohol and smoking is 16 in the Netherlands.
The students said companies interested in making the product commercially could avoid taxes because the alcohol was in powder form. A number of companies are interested, they said.
Chinese police pleaded with the public Wednesday for information about five newborn babies discovered in the back of a stolen car.
The three boys and two girls, all about 10 days old, were found in the backseat of a black four-door sedan when police stopped the car at a toll booth in north China's Hebei province on Sunday, said Zhang Lianying, the director of Nangong city's Highway Patrol.
Police have confirmed the car was stolen two weeks ago in Shanghai, 700 miles south of Nangong, Zhang said.
But he said they have been unable to identify any of the babies.
The Beijing Youth Daily and several other papers published photos Wednesday of the five babies swaddled in blankets and lying close to each other on a bed with numbers above their heads.
"Does anyone know the Moms and Dads of these five babies?"
China has a thriving trade in babies that are stolen or bought from poor families and then sold to couples who want another child, a servant or a future bride for a son.
The car caught the attention of a highway patrolman when its driver suddenly switched lanes while waiting to pay the toll.
When police tried to question the driver, he and another male in the passenger seat refused to get out or roll down their windows.
A minute later, they suddenly jumped out brandishing knives and ran away, Zhang said.
Police chased the men but failed to catch them, he said.
Zhang said that once police found the five babies in the backseat, they were immediately taken to a local hospital, where doctors said they were in good health and all about the same age.
Animated footage promoting the logo for the 2012 London Olympic Games was removed from the organizers' Web site on Tuesday amid concern it could trigger epileptic fits.
The video clip shows a diver plunging into a pool as part of a campaign to promote the jagged Olympic logo, a graffiti-like blow-up of the number 2012 in a range of colors including hot pink and electric blue.
A London 2012 spokeswoman said the concerns surrounded a four-second piece of animation shown at the logo's launch on Monday and recorded by broadcasters.
"This concerns a short piece of animation which we used as part of the logo launch event and not the actual logo.
"It was a diver diving into a pool which had multi-color ripple effects," the spokeswoman said.
Critics of the emblem have described it as "hideous", while organizers' called it powerful and modern.
The clip's removal follows comments by Professor Graham Harding, an expert in clinical neuro-physiology who developed a test used to measure photo-sensitivity levels in animated TV material.
"The logo should not be shown on TV at all at the moment," Harding told the BBC. "It fails Harding FPA machine test which is the machine the television industry uses to test images.
He said the footage did not comply with regulatory guidelines.
ILULISSAT, Greenland Atop Greenland's Suicide Cliff, from where old Inuit women used to hurl themselves when they felt they had become a burden to their community, a crack and a thud like thunder pierce the air.
"It's the ice cracking inside the icebergs. If we're lucky we might see one break apart.
It's too early in the year to see icebergs crumple regularly but the sound is a reminder.
A new island in East Greenland is a clear sign of how the place is changing.
It was dubbed Warming Island by American explorer Dennis Schmitt when he discovered in 2005 that it had emerged from under the retreating ice.
If the ice cap melted entirely, oceans would rise by 23 feet, flooding New York and London, and drowning island nations like the Maldives.
A total meltdown would take centuries but global warming, which climate experts blame mainly on human use of fossil fuels, is heating the Arctic faster than anywhere else on Earth.
"When I was a child, I remember hunters dog-sledding 50 miles on ice across the bay to Disko Island in the winter," said Judithe Therkildsen, a retiree from Aasiaat, a town south of Ilulissat on Disko Bay.
That hasn't happened in a long time.
Over the last 30 years, its melt zone has expanded by 30 percent.
"Some people are scared to discover the process is running faster than the models," said Konrad Steffen, a glaciologist at University of Colorado at Boulder and a Greenland expert who serves on a U.S. government advisory committee on abrupt climate change.
In the past 15 years, winter temperatures have risen about 9 degrees Fahrenheit on the cap, while spring and autumn temperatures increased about 5 degrees Fahrenheit. Summer temperatures are unchanged.
Swiss-born Steffen is one of dozens of scientists who have peppered the Greenland ice cap with instruments to measure temperature, snowfall and the movement, thickness and melting of the ice.
The more the surface melts, the faster the ice sheet moves towards the ocean.
The glacier Swiss Camp rests on has doubled its speed to about 9 miles a year in the last 12 years, just as its tongue retreated 10 km into the fjord.
"This is only Greenland. But Antarctica and glaciers around the world are responding as well.
Two to three days' worth of icebergs from this glacier alone produce enough fresh water to supply New York City for a year.
The rush of new water leaves scientists with crucial questions about how much sea levels could rise and whether the system of ocean currents that ensures Western Europe's mild winters known as the "conveyor belt" could shut down.
If you're a fisherman in Greenland, however, global warming is doing wonders for your business.
Warmer waters entice seawolf and cod to swim farther north in the Atlantic into Greenlandic nets.
In this Disko Bay town, the world's iceberg capital, the harbor is now open year-round because winter is no longer cold enough to freeze it solid.
Warmer weather also boosts tourism, a source of big development hopes for the 56,000 mostly Inuit inhabitants of Greenland, which is a self-governing territory of Denmark.
Hoping to lure American visitors, Air Greenland launched a direct flight from Baltimore last month, and there is even talk of "global warming tourism" to see Warming Island.
One commentator, noting the carbon dioxide emissions such travel would create, has called that "eco-suicide tourism.
Australia's most wanted fugitive, a convicted drug mobster linked to the murder of a rival drug lord, has been arrested by police in Greece after more than a year on the run.
Tony Mokbel, known as "Fat Tony", is being held in an Athens jail and Australian police said on Wednesday they would seek his extradition to complete a nine-year minimum jail sentence for trafficking cocaine.
"The arrested man had forged Australian documents - passport, driver's licence - and was disguised wearing a wig," Greek police said in a statement.
It said Mokbel was "one of the most internationally wanted persons for serious narcotics and homicide cases".
An Athens prosecutor charged him with using a forged passport.
Mokbel was captured in a cafeteria in the Athens coastal suburb of Glyfada on information provided by Australian authorities.
Australian police had posted a A$1 million ($833,000) reward for information leading to his arrest.
Mokbel faces trial at home where authorities allege he ordered and paid for the murder of rival crime boss Lewis Moran in a Melbourne club in 2004.
He is reported to have fled Australia dressed as a priest.
Mokbel told Greek police he had been living in Greece for the last 9 months with his girlfriend and two young children.
He is being investigated by Greek authorities for other possible illegal activity in Greece, the statement said.
A police official said Mokbel had set up a shipping company in Glyfada with a business partner.
"This was most likely a cover for money-laundering from drug dealing," the official told Reuters. "He has denied involvement in any murders or money-laundering in Australia.
Australian police raided 22 properties in the state of Victoria, which led to the arrests of eight men suspected of being part of a drug-trafficking and financing network still controlled by Mokbel.
"We believe that Mokbel was directing and organizing production and distribution of drugs overseas, was in regular contact with associates in Melbourne and associates in Victoria (who were) distributing cash proceeds of drug sales to him using international banking accounts and cash transfers," Victorian state Police Commissioner Christine Nixon said in Melbourne.
A 15-year-old girl who had been missing for nearly a year was found Wednesday, locked in a small hidden room under a staircase in a West Hartford, Connecticut, home, police said.
The discovery was unexpected, but "of great relief to investigators, who feared the worst based on the evidence compiled to date," Capt. Jeffrey L. Blatter of the Bloomfield, Connecticut, Police Department said in a written statement.
At an afternoon news conference, Blatter refused to identify the girl, who he said had been missing since June 16, 2006.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children lists a Danielle Erica Cramer, 15, as missing from Bloomfield, Connecticut , since June 14, 2006.
Adam Gault, 41, Ann Murphy, 40, described as Gault's common-law wife, and Kimberly Cray, about whom Blatter had no details.
Gault and Murphy face charges including unlawful restraint, reckless endangerment, custodial interference and risk of injury to a minor.
Gault was being held on $500,000 bond, and Murphy on $100,000 bond.
Gault was a business associate of the girl's family, and she may have considered him a friend, Blatter said. "There's a question as to what her relationship was with this 40-year-old to start with.
He pointed out, however, that it would be easy for an older man to interfere with a teenager's thinking.
Gault, who police said runs his own animal-training business, had been interviewed several times in connection with the girl's disappearance, and had denied involvement, Blatter said, although he was still considered a suspect.
BOSTON, Massachusetts (Reuters) When Dr. Julio Bonis awoke one Sunday morning with a sore shoulder, he could not figure out what he had done.
Then he remembered his new Wii.
Bonis, 29, had spent hours playing Nintendo Co.'s new video game in which players simulate real movements. Bonis had been playing simulated tennis.
"The treatment consisted of ibuprofen for one week, as well as complete abstinence from playing Wii video games. The patient recovered fully.
Wiiitis pronounced "wee-eye-tis" is the latest ailment to develop from the video game era, beginning with Space Invaders' wrist in 1981, which was caused by the repeated button mashing required by the popular arcade game.
Nintendo's Wii game can captivate for hours and "unlike in the real sport, physical strength and endurance are not limiting factors," Bonis of the Research Group in Biomedical Informatics in Barcelona, Spain, wrote.
"What convinced me to send the case report was that a friend of mine, after playing 'Wii Sports' suffered from a similar complaint," Bonis told Reuters in an e-mail.
"I have not found other cases in my clinical practice, but it is probably an underdiagnosed condition.
It is not the first time Nintendo has received attention in the medical field.
With virtual golf, boxing, baseball and bowling already on the market, "future games could involve different and unexpected groups of muscles," Bonis said. "Physicians should be aware that there may be multiple, possibly puzzling presentations of Wiiitis.
Oman evacuated tens of thousands of people Wednesday, suspended oil exports, and closed a major port as a weakening Cyclone Gonu roared toward the Strait of Hormuz the world's major transport artery for Persian Gulf oil.
Oil markets were little changed in midday trading, but had the potential to increase as the storm a rarity in the region headed toward Iran.
As of 11 a.m. ET, the storm was located about 70 miles northeast of Muscat, moving in a northwesterly direction, the U.S. military's Joint Typhoon Warning Center said.
The storm was packing maximum sustained winds of about 80 mph well below the wind speeds that were recorded as it approached the Arabian Peninsula.
Gonu was expected to make landfall on the Iranian coast just east of the Strait of Hormuz late Thursday, according to a tracking map posted on the Joint Typhoon Warning Center's Web site.
Hundreds of Iranians living near the Sea of Oman were evacuated, but Iranian officials said the storm was unlikely to threaten the country's oil platforms and installations in the Persian Gulf because they are located far from its path.
In Oman, authorities closed all operations at the port of Sohar and evacuated the 11,000 workers, port spokesman Dirk Jan De Vink said. (Watch flooded streets, damaged buildings in Muscat )
Sohar's oil refinery and petrochemical plant remained running at very low levels, with authorities considering a total shutdown, he said.
Nasser bin Khamis al-Jashimi of the Ministry of Oil and Gas said rough seas prevented tankers from sailing from Omani ports, effectively halting the country's oil exports.
But production was continuing except in one small field, he said.
In the United Arab Emirates port of Fujairah, the world's third-largest shipping fuel center, all refueling and ship-to-ship supply operations had been stopped, delaying the movement of tankers, officials said.
A few ships were still sailing through the nearby Strait of Hormuz, the transport route for 40 percent of the world's oil, despite 4- to 6-foot swells and strong winds, according to Suresh Nair of the Gulf Agency Co. shipping firm.
"About 17 to 21 million barrels a day of oil are coming out of the Persian Gulf. Even if only some of the tankers are delayed, that could reduce the supply of oil and increase prices," said Manouchehr Takin, an analyst at the Center for Global Energy Studies in London.
But Tim Evans, an analyst at Citigroup Global Markets, said the storm shouldn't have a major impact on prices because while it may delay oil shipments, they will eventually get to their destinations.
Oil prices rose 25 cents to $65.86 a barrel in midday trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange after initially falling.
ROME, Italy (CNN) Vatican police have detained a man who tried to jump into the back of the open-air vehicle carrying Pope Benedict XVI to his weekly address in St. Peter's Square.
The man, aged between 20 and 30, was not armed and the pope's life was never in danger, Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi told CNN. It is not clear if he will be charged.
The man then jumped over the barricade and seemed to touch the back of the vehicle before at least six men in dark suits wrestled him to the ground.
After being questioned by Vatican police, the man will be handed over to Italian police for further questioning.
Every Wednesday, the pope gives an address, or general audience, to crowds who gather in St. Peter's Square.
Although it was quickly over, the incident recalled the attempt on the life of Benedict's predecessor John Paul II on May 13, 1981, also in St. Peter's Square. Turkish assailant Ali Agca shot and seriously wounded the Polish pope as he was leaving the square following a general audience.
CNN's Alessio Vinci says people entering the square are screened with metal detectors.
"There are thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands of people in the square, so security screening can be difficult.
Several thousand Turkish troops crossed into northern Iraq early Wednesday to chase Kurdish guerrillas who attack Turkey from bases there, two Turkish security officials said.
Turkey's foreign minister denied its troops had entered Iraq.
Two senior security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media, characterized the action as a limited "hot pursuit" raid.
They told The Associated Press it did not constitute the kind of large incursion that Turkish leaders have been discussing in recent weeks as Turkish troops built up their force along the border.
One official said the troops went less than two miles inside Iraq and were still there in late afternoon. "It is a hot pursuit, not an incursion," one official said.
Another official said by telephone it was "not a major offensive and the number of troops is not in the tens of thousands. " He also said the Turkish troops went into a remote, mountainous area.
The officials are based in southeast Turkey, where the military has been battling separatist Kurdish rebels since they took up arms in 1984.
The officials stood by their statement despite denials from Turkish and Iraqi officials.
Turkey's private NTV television quoted Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul as saying reports of a cross-border operation were false.
Several military officials at the Pentagon said they have seen nothing Wednesday that would confirm the reports of Turkish troops crossing the border into Iraq.
One military official said that small numbers of Turkish forces periodically move in and out of Iraq doing counterinsurgency operations, but not thousands at one time.
The officials requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.
LONDON, England - European shares closed lower for a third consecutive day on Wednesday after the European Central Bank raised interest rates, fueling concerns that further rate hikes might be on the way.
But we think this is exaggerated," said Sven Krause, fund manager at LBB Invest.
The ECB lifted interest rates to a six-year high of 4 percent and showed its readiness to hike again to curb inflationary pressures in a strongly expanding economy.
The Bank of England's rate decision will be in focus on Thursday.
Deutsche Bank dropped 2.5 percent amid market talk it had made a large loss in proprietary trading.
The bank declined to comment, but a source close to the bank said the rumor of the trading loss was baseless.
On the upside, Royal Bank of Scotland, which remain's J.P. Morgan's top pick, gained 0.7 percent and was among the top gainers on the DJ EuroStoxx 50 index.
The oil price rose above $71 per barrel, up 89 cents.
MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said Wednesday that U.S. plans to build a missile defense shield in Europe are arrogant and threaten to usher in a new Cold War.
Speaking to CNN from Moscow as the Group of Eight Summit got under way in Germany, Gorbachev said the U.S. proposal which includes installations in Poland and the Czech Republic means that Europe is becoming a target again.
"I do hope the Cold War is not going to be repeated," he said. "We must take advantage of opportunities to avoid that.
He said polls in the Czech Republic suggested that more than 70 percent of people opposed the missile defense program.
"There is the possibility that self-confidence, arrogance, will lead to a situation similar to that with the war in Iraq," Gorbachev warned in a wide-ranging discussion of American policy. "The U.S. is driving itself into a corner they've lost credibility in the world.
He said Washington's "intimidating" behavior is different from the spirit that existed after the end of the Cold War. "Europe is not a guinea pig," he said.
Gorbachev added that Russian President Vladimir Putin was right to say the anti-missile project is an attempt to set Europe against Russia. "We are being drawn into another arms race," he said.
On Iran, Gorbachev agreed that a nuclear-armed Tehran must be opposed.
But he said that starting a war would be a "catastrophic mistake.
"Some people think that missiles can solve everything," he said, without specifying. "We were told in this way the problem of Iraq would be resolved. "
Gorbachev said that Russian democracy is growing despite its problems.
He noted that the courts don't work and some media outlets have made deals with the authorities. But there is now, he said, a relatively free press.
Russia is moving from a totalitarian regime to democracy, he said, but it is only halfway there.
"Russia is not an enemy," Bush said when asked about Putin's threat to point missiles at European targets in protest of American plans for a Europe-based missile defense system. (Full story)
Porn used to be relegated to a video hidden in the bottom drawer, or a magazine under the mattress.
Today, it's part of everyday life.
Hugh Hefner's girlfriends have become TV's "girls next door."
Porn stars have MySpace pages and do voiceovers for video games.
And while "porn on demand" is standard for hotel TVs and upgraded cable packages, it's even easier to find it with a few clicks on the computer.
In April, more than a third of the U.S. Internet audience visited sites that fit into the online "adult" category, according to comScore Media Metrix.
So the message is clear:
In today's world, sex doesn't just sell.
The pervasiveness of porn has made sexiness from subtle to raunchy a much-sought-after attribute online, at school and even at work.
Many agree that the trend has had a particularly strong influence on young women in some cases, taking shape as an unapologetic embracing of sexuality and exhibitionism.
"I'm kind of an extrovert and a bit of a camera hog, a poser.
It's a prevalent sentiment in our look-at-me culture.
But many wonder if it really is empowering, especially for younger women and girls who try to emulate what's already on the Web.
Too often, educators and health professionals say, the results are cases of "Girls Gone Wild" gone wild.
One of the word's greatest collections of historical letters, including a note written by Napoleon to his lover Josephine, has been found in a filing cabinet tucked away in a Swiss laundry room.
The treasure trove of almost 1,000 documents, collected over 30 years by a wealthy Austrian banker, includes letters written by Winston Churchill, Peter the Great, Mahatma Gandhi, Alexander Pushkin, John Donne and Queen Elizabeth I.
One of the rarest and most touching of the collection is a passionate letter written by an apologetic Napoleon to his wife to be, Josephine, the morning after a furious argument.
"I send you three kisses one on your heart, one on your mouth and one on your eyes," wrote the chastened lover in a spidery scrawl full of corrections and crossings out.
The letters, which cover more than 500 years and range across art, science, literature and philosophy, are to be auctioned by Christie's in London on July 3 and are expected to raise up to 2.3 million pounds ($4.6 million).
"It really is an incredibly dense, very carefully researched collection," Thomas Venning, director in Christie's books department and a specialist in signed letters, told Reuters.
"To get a collection of letters like this nowadays is really a one-off, it's almost unheard of.
The owner, Albin Schram, began amassing the archive in the early 1970s, steadily building up one of the largest and most comprehensive collections outside a major museum.
Though an inveterate collector, Schram wasn't interested in conservation or display the letters were kept in an old metal cabinet in the laundry room of his villa in Lausanne, Switzerland, ordered by size rather than author or date.
When he died in 2005, his family barely knew they were there.
Schram's interests spanned Russian poets, Argentine authors, French philosophers, English politicians and Italian sculptors.
"although we could direct him to do them better.
Bulls don't borrow money. Bulls are edible after they have been killed.
"It was incredibly stupid of me," the man said in Monday's edition of Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet. "I want to apologize to Denmark, Sweden and the referee for my inhuman behavior," he added.
The fan was infuriated by Fandel's decision to award Sweden an 89th-minute penalty and send off Danish midfielder Christian Poulsen with the score tied at 3-3 after Denmark had rallied from 3-0 down.
"People in Denmark hate me, but I have no feeling yet what the reaction in Sweden is, other than they of course believe I am an idiot," he said in Danish tabloid Ekstra Bladet.
Danish police confirmed that numerous text messages have been sent with his name and address.
The Dane, who lives in Sweden, told a court hearing Sunday that he had consumed 15-20 beers before storming the field.
He said he couldn't remember the attack, only when Danish defender Michael Gravgaard pushed him away from Fandel.
Danish officials initially said Sweden had been awarded a 3-0 forfeit victory.
But UEFA officials said they need to see written reports from Fandel and his team of officials and will make a ruling before the next European qualifying matches on Wednesday.
Hours after strolling the red carpet in a strapless black dress, Paris Hilton traded her designer duds for a jail-issued jumpsuit.
The 26-year-old heiress checked into the Century Regional Detention Facility in Lynwood just after 11:30 p.m. Sunday.
She's expected to serve three weeks for violating her probation in an alcohol-related reckless driving case.
Hilton surrendered to sheriff's deputies after making a surprise visit to the MTV Movie Awards in the afternoon.
"I am trying to be strong right now," she told reporters on the red carpet. "I'm ready to face my sentence.
Even though this is a really hard time, I have my family, my friends and my fans to support me, and that's really helpful."
Sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore said Hilton was easy to work with.
Hilton turned herself in at the Men's Central Jail in downtown Los Angeles just after 10:30 p.m., then was escorted to the all women's facility in Lynwood, where she was booked, fingerprinted and issued a jail uniform, Whitmore said.
cereal, bread and juice.
So far, Hilton does not have a cellmate, Whitmore said.
The "Simple Life" star will be housed in the "special needs" unit of the 13-year-old jail, separate from most of its 2,200 inmates.
The unit contains 12 two-person cells reserved for police officers, public officials, celebrities and other high-profile inmates.
"I did have a choice to go to a pay jail," Hilton said Sunday, without giving details.
When she was sentenced May 4, Superior Court Judge Michael T. Sauer ruled that she would not be allowed any work release, furloughs or use of an alternative jail or electronic monitoring in lieu of jail.
On Saturday, about 15 photographers, reporters and television crews staked out the entrances to the jail waiting for the celebutante's arrival. She had until Tuesday to report.
On Sunday, about a dozen photographers and television crews were at the Lynwood facility when she arrived in an unmarked SUV.
Video captured by celebrity news site TMZ.com showed Hilton inside the vehicle with her mother, Kathy.
Hilton's publicist, Elliot Mintz, said he spoke with Kathy Hilton after she returned from the jail.
"She also said that she feels this will be a time when Paris will be able to think and reflect and to spend time alone to learn from the experience because in Paris' life she's never alone there's always a constant chatter around her.
Singapore's media regulator says it will fine a local radio broadcaster for holding an "exploitative and inappropriate" contest in which female talk show guests were asked to remove their bras on-air.
MediaCorp Radio will be fined 15,000 Singapore dollars (U.S.$9,800) for contravening a broadcast code in a March radio segment that challenged a group of women to take their bras off from under their clothes in the shortest possible time, the Media Development Authority said in a statement Monday.
The women, who were in the studio, were asked to remove their bras from under their clothes, hold their bras up and pose for a video camera recording the event to be posted on the broadcaster's Web site and video-sharing site YouTube, according to the statement.
"The broadcasting of such a contest, requiring the removal of bras by young women, has a negative influence on young impressionable listeners," the statement said.
The media regulator said the radio show's hosts made sexually suggestive remarks about "how fast the bras were removed, as well as the color, design and cup size of the bras, and the size of the girls' breasts.
Singapore has in recent years relaxed censorship regulations for some films and plays, in an effort to loosen up and market the modern and wealthy city as a media and arts center. But controls remain tight in the conservative island nation.
JAKARTA, Indonesia (Reuters) An eight-year-old Indonesian boy died after being attacked by a Komodo dragon in a national park in the east of the country, an official said.
He said the boy had been attacked on Saturday after entering a bush for a toilet stop in a fishing village in the national park on Komodo, an island 1,500 km (930 miles) east of the capital Jakarta.
His uncle, who had been mending fishing nets nearby, tried to free him by throwing stones at the dragon, he added.
"However, the boy bled to death half an hour after the attack," added Rudiharto.
But it is very rare that a Komodo dragon kills a human," said Rudiharto.
There are about 2,000 of the protected and endangered dragons living in the wild, mainly on Indonesia's Komodo and Rinca islands, he said.
Komodo dragons regularly kill prey such as pigs and small deer and have been known to take down an adult water buffalo.
Apple Inc.'s highly anticipated iPhone will be available June 29 in the U.S., according to TV commercials broadcast Sunday and posted on the company's Web site.
The combination cell phone, media player and wireless Web-surfing device will retail for $499 and $599, depending on configuration.
It will be offered exclusively in the U.S. by AT&T Inc.'s wireless division, formerly known as Cingular.
The iPhone, which sports no keypad but instead a touch-sensitive screen, was unveiled with great fanfare in early January by Apple CEO Steve Jobs.
He said it would appear in stores in June but gave no specific date.
Sunday night's ads showed off several of the gadget's features and ended with the pronouncement that the phone will be available "Only on the new AT&T" and "Coming June 29.
Tom Neumayr, an Apple spokesman, confirmed the June 29 sale date.
An AT&T spokesperson did not immediately return a phone call.
Moscow could aim nuclear weapons at targets in Europe as part of "retaliatory steps" if Washington proceeds with building a missile defense system on the continent, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Monday.
Speaking to foreign reporters days before he travels to Germany for the annual summit with President Bush and the other Group of Eight leaders, Putin assailed the White House plan to place a radar system in the Czech Republic and interceptor missiles in neighboring Poland.
In an interview released Monday, Putin suggested that Russia may respond to the threat by aiming its nuclear weapons at Europe.
"If a part of the strategic nuclear potential of the United States appears in Europe and, in the opinion of our military specialists, will threaten us, then we will have to take appropriate steps in response. What kind of steps? We will have to have new targets in Europe," Putin said, according to a transcript released by the Kremlin.
These could be targeted with "ballistic or cruise missiles or maybe a completely new system" he said.
Putin told reporters that he hoped U.S. officials would change their minds regarding the missile plan, warning that Moscow was preparing a tit-for-tat response.
Last week, Russia tested a new ballistic missile capable of carrying multiple nuclear warheads and a new cruise missile.
While Western analysts said the system has probably been under development for several years, Putin has described the test as part of Moscow's response to the U.S. anti-missile plan.
Putin also suggested that in the absence of a real threat from Iranian and North Korean missiles, the U.S. plan could be an attempt to spoil Russia's relations with Europe.
Relations between Moscow and Washington have soured in the past year.
Protesters clashed with police on Monday before this week's Group of Eight summit as anti-globalization activists challenged attempts by German security officials to keep them away from the summit town of Heiligendamm.
About 800 protesters demonstrated outside Rostock's immigration office demanding "global freedom of movement and equal rights for all," including refugees and asylum seekers.
After a peaceful start, the demonstration turned violent and "some protesters started to throw bottles at officers," police spokesman Lyder Behrens said.
The news Web site Spiegel Online reported that a photojournalist was injured and four people were detained when 400 radical demonstrators clashed with police. Police could not immediately confirm the report.
Another 20,000 demonstrators were expected to hold an anti-G8 rally in downtown Rostock later Monday.
Authorities said more than 400 officers were injured, 30 of whom were hospitalized with broken bones and lacerations.
Organizers said 520 demonstrators were hurt, 20 of them seriously.
More than 2,000 radical protesters were still in Rostock on Monday, police said.
Authorities also continued spot checks on roads leading to Heiligendamm.
An informant who helped break up an alleged plot to bomb a fuel pipeline feeding the city's busiest airport was so convincing to the suspects that they actually thanked God he was with them, federal authorities said.
The informant made several overseas trips to discuss the plot against John F. Kennedy International Airport, even visiting a radical Muslim group's compound in Trinidad, officials said.
The suspects were convinced he was guided by a higher purpose:
The ringleader believed the informant "had been sent by Allah to be the one" to pull off the bombing, according to a federal complaint. (Watch how the feds allegedly foiled the plot )
The four-person plot, revealed Saturday, demonstrated the growing importance of informants in the government's efforts to combat terrorism, particularly as smaller radical groups become more aggressive.
Accused mastermind Russell Defreitas, 63, is now in custody in New York, where he will have a bail hearing on Wednesday.
But two other suspects, Kareem Ibrahim and Abdul Kadir, a former member of Guyana's Parliament, were in Trinidad and will fight extradition to the United States, their lawyer, Rajid Persad, told a Trinidadian court on Monday.
Officials also have identified Kadir as a former mayor of a Guyanese town.
The two made their initial court appearance there on one count each of conspiracy to commit a terrorist act against the government of the United States.
The judge set a bail hearing for June 11 and an extradition hearing on August 2.
Authorities in Trinidad are still seeking a fourth suspect, Abdel Nur.
Tom Corrigan, a former member of the FBI-New York Police Department Joint Terrorism Task Force, said the Kennedy airport case and the recent plot to attack Fort Dix illustrated the need for inside information.
Six men were arrested in a plot to attack soldiers at the New Jersey military base after an FBI informant infiltrated that group. (Full story)
In the Kennedy airport case, the informant was a twice-convicted drug dealer who found himself in the midst of a terrorist plot conceived as more devastating than the September 11, 2001, attacks.
He unhesitatingly replied yes and soon was making surveillance trips around the airport the "chicken farm," as the planners dubbed their target.
Authorities said the JFK scheme was an example of homegrown terrorism.
Defreitas immigrated to the U.S. more than 30 years ago, but he told the federal informant that his feelings of disgust toward his adopted homeland had lingered for years. (Watch a rundown on the four suspects )
When Defreitas discussed his radical "brothers" with the informant, he made it clear they were not Arabs, but from Trinidad and Guyana.
The complaint made clear the informant had deeply infiltrated the group.
Defreitas, a retired JFK airport cargo worker, made four reconnaissance missions to the airport, authorities said.
They captured each one on audio and video equipment.
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (CNN) Former Liberian President Charles Taylor on Monday boycotted the start of his U.N.-backed court war crimes trial in The Hague, calling it a "charade" in a letter read by his court-appointed lawyer who later walked out.
In the same letter, Taylor also dismissed defense attorney Karim Ahmad Khan from the case and asked to represent himself.
Taylor, 59, is to stand trial on 11 war crimes charges and is accused of fueling a bloody civil war in Sierra Leone that led to widespread murder, rape and mutilation.
He has pleaded not guilty to the charges; if convicted he faces life imprisonment.
Taylor's letter threw into confusion Monday's start of the landmark first international tribunal of a former African leader.
It came as the prosecution was making a four-hour opening statement, after which the case was to adjourn for three weeks.
But it was unclear who would be on the defense team when proceedings resumed on June 25.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2750531 Clashes between Lebanese troops and Islamic militants have spread to Lebanon's largest Palestinian refugee camp in the south, underlining the complexities the country faces in trying to defeat al Qaeda-inspired fighters who are battling a continuing army onslaught in a northern camp.
Two Lebanese soldiers and a fighter were killed Monday in the clashes between the army and Jund al-Sham Islamic militants in the refugee camp of Ein el-Hilweh in Sidon, southern Lebanon.
Palestinian factions have formed a security force to ease the tension, but a senior Fatah Islam commander in the northern Nahr el-Bared refugee camp pledged to take the battle to Ein el-Hilweh, Lebanon's largest refugee camp.
The 16-days of fighting between the army and Fatah Islam have killed over 100 people, the worst internal violence since the end of the 1975-90 civil war.
Since the fighting started, there has been a spate of bombings in and around Beirut including one Monday evening on an empty passenger bus in a Christian suburb that wounded 10 passers-by.
In Nahr el-Bared near the northern port city of Tripoli, the army resumed its pounding of militant hideouts with artillery after sporadic exchanges earlier in the day, sending up plumes of black smoke.
The military also rolled additional armor into Nahr el-Bared in an apparent bid to push deeper into the camp.
The government has demanded that Fatah Islam surrender, but the militants have vowed to fight to death.
Ten Lebanese soldiers have been killed at Nahr el-Bared and 44 others wounded since Friday, including four hurt by a mortar shell Monday, raising the army's death toll to 45 at Nahr el-Bared and two at Ein el-Hilweh.
At least 20 civilians and about 60 militants have also been killed in the northern Lebanon fighting, but civilian casualties in the camp in the last four days were unknown.
The International Red Cross on Monday evacuated a wounded civilian and 17 women and children who wished to leave the camp.
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) A military judge on Monday dismissed terrorism-related charges against a prisoner charged with killing an American soldier in Afghanistan.
The move dealt a blow to the Bush administration's attempts to try Guantanamo detainees in military court.
But Omar Khadr, who was 15 when he was captured after a deadly firefight in Afghanistan and who is now 20, will remain at the remote U.S. military base along with some 380 other men suspected of links to al Qaeda and the Taliban.
The judge, Army Col. Peter Brownback, said he had no choice but to throw the Khadr case out because he had been classified as an "enemy combatant" by a military panel years earlier and not as an "alien unlawful enemy combatant.
The Military Commissions Act, signed by Bush last year, specifically says that only those classified as "unlawful" enemy combatants can face war trials here, Brownback noted during the arraignment in a hilltop courtroom on this U.S. military base.
Sullivan said the dismissal of Khadr case has "huge" impact because none of the detainees held at this isolated military base in southeast Cuba has been found to be an "unlawful" enemy combatant.
"It is not just a technicality it's the latest demonstration that this newest system just does not work," Sullivan told journalists. "It is a system of justice that does not comport with American values.
A Sunni insurgent group on Monday posted video of the military identification cards of two missing American soldiers in Iraq.
The video also carries an audio commentary in Arabic in which the speaker says, without providing any proof, "We decided to put an end to this matter and announce the death of the soldiers.
According to the commentary, the group made the move because the U.S. military did not heed its demand to end the search for the soldiers.
CNN cannot independently verify the video, which was intercepted by terrorism expert Laura Mansfield.
The video is from the Islamic State of Iraq, an insurgent group that includes al Qaeda in Iraq.
Above the photos, written in Arabic, was the message, "Bush is the reason for the loss of your prisoners.
The images appear to be authentic U.S. military identification cards, a military official in Washington said.
Military officials recently had received information that video or images related to the missing soldiers might appear on the Internet and contacted their families to inform them, U.S. military sources said.
Jimenez and Fouty went missing along with Pfc. Joseph J. Anzack Jr., 20, of Torrance, California, following a May 12 ambush on a military observation post south of Baghdad.
Four American soldiers and an Iraqi soldier were killed in the attack.
On May 23, Anzack's body was pulled from the Euphrates River in Babil province, south of Baghdad.
The 10-minute video also included footage of a masked man at a diagram board apparently the planning stage of the attack followed by nighttime video of an apparent attack, and video from Arabic-language TV network Al-Jazeera of soldiers searching fields.
Images of what appear to be the missing soldiers' personal effects including Visa and Mastercard credit cards, a cross, $50 U.S. bills and Iraqi currency are shown at the end of the video.
The video concludes with images apparently taken from the identification cards of the two soldiers.
Dibler described the news of the video as "a double-edged sword.
"I was frightened of course to await the news, but it gives me some hope," he said.
"We don't know if these people didn't just find these items lying around.
I'm hopeful of their return, and I'll keep asking the nation to pray.
Jimenez's mother, Maria Duran, said that the Pentagon hadn't contacted her family.
The Islamic State of Iraq claimed responsibility for last month's ambush and called on the U.S. military to halt its search for the missing soldiers.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2749771
A strong earthquake shook a hilly southwestern Chinese region near the border with Laos early Sunday, killing at least three people including a child who was crushed by debris injuring hundreds and forcing 120,000 people from their homes, state media reported.
The 6.4-magnitude quake struck the county seat of Ning'er shortly after 5:30 a.m., said China's official Xinhua News Agency, citing the government's seismological bureau.
The U.S. Geological Survey measured the quake's magnitude at 6.2.
At least three people died and more than 290 were injured, 15 seriously, Xinhua reported.
One of the dead was a 5-year-old boy who was crushed by debris, state television reported.
The boy's parents were also trapped but were rescued by local residents, China Central Television said.
"I didn't notice the initial quake and was woken up by my parents, and we ran out of our home," said a woman in her 20s who lives in Ning'er County and refused to give her name when reached by phone.
She said the initial quake lasted about a minute and that many residents fled their homes to find safety in open areas. Others moved into tents after their homes were damaged, said a retired schoolteacher who only gave her surname, Dong.
"Many old buildings, especially those built in the 1970s, either have cracks in the walls or have collapsed," Dong told The Associated Press by phone.
News footage aired on China Central Television showed partly collapsed brick homes and soldiers knocking down unstable structures.
Doctors and nurses treated the injured in a large tent.
Rescue teams with thousands of tents, quilts and other relief supplies were rushing to the area, Xinhua reported.
For centuries, the area sat astride an important trade route for tea and horses that ran along western China between central Asia and southeastern Asia.
By 2 p.m., the local seismological bureau recorded 233 aftershocks, the strongest with a magnitude of 5.1, said an official with the bureau who gave only his surname, Ma.
The quake could be felt as far as 185 miles away, Xinhua said.
Twenty temblors above magnitude 5.0 have hit the area since 1990, Xinhua said.
In 1988, a 7.1-magnitude quake in Yunnan near the border with Myanmar killed more than 930 people.
More than 15,000 people died after a magnitude-7.7 earthquake in the province in 1970, though authorities at the time covered up information on casualties and damage amid the chaos of the Cultural Revolution.
Damien Hirst, former BritArt bad boy whose works infuriate and inspire in equal measure, did it again on Friday with a diamond-encrusted platinum cast of a human skull priced at a cool $98 million.
The skull, cast from a 35-year-old 18th-century European male, is coated with 8,601 diamonds, including a large pink diamond worth more than $8 million in the center of its forehead.
But it also has a feeling of victory over death," Hirst said as the sparkling skull was unveiled to the public for the first time amid tight security at central London's White Cube gallery.
Hirst, who has a preoccupation with blood and death and whose works range from diced and pickled quadrupeds to bloody depictions of birth, said he was inspired by similarly bejeweled Aztec skulls.
While the skull is platinum and the diamonds flawless and ethically sourced, Hirst stressed the teeth are real.
Like the animals in formaldehyde you have got an actual animal in there. It is not a representation.
I wanted it to be real," he said.
The skull is missing one tooth, which Hirst initially replaced with a gold one and then decided to leave out.
"We felt we didn't need it, so we took it out. It feels sort of human and quirky," he said.
Hirst, whose works regularly fetch millions of pounds, said he hoped the skull would not be snapped up by a private buyer and taken away from public view.
"It would be sad it it ends up in a vault somewhere that nobody sees. Obviously I would like it to be on display.
Other works in the new exhibition include pickled creatures, a flying dove suspended in mid-air, a flayed human statue holding its own skin and a series of pictures of an operation being carried out.
COPENHAGEN, Denmark A Danish football fan appeared in court on Sunday after attacking referee Herbert Fandel in the dying moments of Denmark's Euro 2008 qualifying match against Scandinavian rivals Sweden.
Authorities filed preliminary charges of violent assault against the unnamed man for storming the field and throwing a punch at Fandel after he had awarded Sweden a late penalty with the scores tied at 3-3.
Fandel immediately abandoned the match before the penalty could be taken and European governing body UEFA is likely to award the three points to the Swedes when they meet to discuss the matter this week.
The irate fan was apparently infuriated by Fandel's decision to send off Danish defender Christian Poulsen for punching and award a penalty after the home side had battled back from three goals down.
"He's been in court this morning and has been released," Copenhagen police spokesman Flemming Steen Munch said Sunday, adding investigators would now prepare formal charges against the man.
Fandel, who refereed the Champions League final between AC Milan and Liverpool, said he was "surprised and shocked" by the attack.
"Then it became clear to me that I had to stop the match. We have to set an example and show that violence from players and spectators is not acceptable.
Fandel also criticized Poulsen, who was ejected after punching Swedish striker Markus Rosenberg in the stomach.
"I don't understand that a player can act that way," Fandel said. "We have to make it clear to brutal players like Poulsen that such behavior is not wanted on a football field.
The Sevilla defender apologized after the match, calling his actions "incredibly stupid.
The huge hog that became known as "Monster Pig" after being hunted and killed by an 11-year-old boy had another name: Fred.
The not-so-wild pig had been raised on an Alabama farm and was sold to the Lost Creek Plantation just four days before it was shot there in a 150-acre fenced area, the animal's former owner said.
Phil Blissitt told The Anniston Star in a story Friday that he bought the 6-week-old pig in December 2004 as a Christmas gift for his wife, Rhonda, and that they sold it after deciding to get rid of all the pigs at their farm.
"I just wanted the truth to be told.
That wasn't a wild pig," Rhonda Blissitt said.
They said it was more than 1,000 pounds and 9 feet long;
if anything, it looked even bigger in a now-famous photo of the hunter and the hunted.
Mike Stone said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press on Friday that he had been under the impression that the hog was wild, not farm-raised.
Stone said state wildlife officials told him that it is not unusual for hunting preserves to buy farm-raised hogs and that the hogs are considered feral once they are released.
Stone said he and his son met Blissitt on Friday morning to get more details about the hog.
Blissitt said that he had about 15 hogs and decided to sell them for slaughter, but that no one would buy that particular animal because it was too big for slaughter or breeding, Stone said.
Blissitt said that the pig had become a nuisance and that visitors were often frightened by it, Stone said.
The Blissitts said they didn't know the hog that was hunted was Fred until they were contacted by a game warden for the Alabama Department of Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries.
The agency determined that no laws were violated in the hunt.
Phil Blissitt said he became irritated when he learned that some thought the photo of Fred was doctored.
HAVANA, Cuba (CNN) For the first time in four months, Cuban leader Fidel Castro was shown standing and talking in video footage that aired on state-run Cuban TV.
Castro, 80, was seen early Sunday laughing, smiling and standing without assistance in an apparent meeting with Vietnamese Communist Party chief Nong Duc Manh.
Castro has not appeared in public since emergency surgery forced him to hand over power 10 months ago to his brother Raul Castro.
While Castro's recovery has been evident in an increasing number of editorials published in Cuban newspapers, he has not shown signs of resuming his power over the communist island. (Watch Castro stand, chat with visitor )
In the past 10 months, Castro has appeared in numerous videos and photos wearing track suits.
In keeping with his previous appearances, during Sunday's televised appearance he donned a red and black track suit with white piping a sign that he was not meeting with Manh in any formal, official capacity.
"If he were to resume power he would be wearing an olive green uniform," CNN's Shasta Darlington in Havana reported. "Since he handed power July 31 last year to Raul, we have only seen him in track suits.
Although Sunday was the first time in months he has been seen in a televised encounter, it is not the first time he has spoken to the public.
On May 24, Castro wrote a message published in Cuban newspapers discussing his recent health problems.
The message detailed that he has undergone several operations, some of which were unsuccessful, but that his condition has now stabilized.
Google Inc. bills the latest twist on its online maps as "Street View," but it looks a bit like "Candid Camera" as you cruise through the panorama of pictures that captured fleeting moments in neighborhoods scattered across the country.
In San Francisco, there's a man picking his nose on a street corner, another fellow taking out the trash and another guy scaling the outside of an apartment building, perhaps just for fun or maybe for some more sinister purpose.
Further down the highway at Stanford University, there's the titillation of a couple coeds sunbathing in their bikinis.
In San Jose, there's the rather sad sight of a bearded man apparently sleeping or did he just pass out?
in the shadow of a garbage can, with what appears to be an empty cup perched in front of him.
In Miami, there's a group of protesters carrying signs outside an abortion clinic.
In other cities, you can see men entering adult book stores or leaving strip joints.
Potentially embarrassing or compromising scenes like these are raising questions about whether the Internet's leading search engine has gone too far in its latest attempt to make the world a more accessible and transparent place.
"Everyone expects a certain level of anonymity as they move about their daily lives," said Kevin Bankston, a staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a group devoted to protecting people's rights on the Internet. "There is a certain 'ick' factor here.
Google is hoping to elicit "oohs and ahhs" with Street View, which was introduced on its maps for the San Francisco Bay area, New York, Las Vegas, Denver and Miami earlier this week.
The Mountain View-based company already is planning to expand the service to other U.S. cities and other countries.
NEW YORK (AP) The Bancroft family says it is ready to meet with News Corp. media mogul Rupert Murdoch to discuss his interest in buying Dow Jones, the publisher of The Wall Street Journal, after rebuffing an initial offer.
The Bancrofts, who control the shareholder vote of Dow Jones, said in a statement late Thursday that after reviewing Dow Jones and the rapidly changing arena of business news and information in which it operates, "the mission of Dow Jones may be better accomplished in combination or collaboration with another organization, which may include News Corporation.
The family said it remained committed to preserving the Journal's independence and integrity and were willing to meet with Murdoch to determine whether they could be assured those qualities would continue under his ownership. They also said they would consider other offers.
Despite the Journal's prestige and tremendous clout in the business world, Dow Jones remains a relatively small company compared with large media operators such as Murdoch's News Corp. Reuters Group and Bloomberg have made huge inroads in the business of providing real-time financial news and information to investors.
Murdoch started out as a newspaper owner in Australia, and today his News Corp. media conglomerate has operations across the globe including Twentieth Century Fox, Fox News Channel, the New York Post, satellite TV broadcasting and the social networking Web site MySpace.
The $5 billion offer that Murdoch made for Dow Jones could easily be paid out of News Corp.'s cash stockpile.
Murdoch has said he would invest in the Journal and ensure its editorial independence, something that the Bancroft family and employees of Dow Jones say is paramount to the company's mission.
Japan is likely to offer temporary protection to four people believed to have fled North Korea who are seeking asylum in the South after they arrived by boat at a Japanese port, Japanese officials said on Sunday.
They told Japanese officials they had left Chongjin on the east coast and headed south, but then changed course due to heavy security and ended up at Fukaura in Japan's Aomori prefecture, 800 kilometers (500 miles) to the east, the police official added.
"They are seeking protection and this is not a criminal case, but rather a humanitarian issue," said the official.
"We are discussing with immigration and Foreign Ministry officials towards granting them protection.
A government official in Tokyo also said Japanese authorities were holding talks over how to best serve the four's interest.
Asked about the latest case, South Korean Foreign Minister Song Min-soon said the wishes of the four should be upheld.
"I understand they will be treated according to humanitarian principles and according to their wishes," he told reporters in South Korea.
Japan can grant asylum-seekers a six-month stay permit under its immigration law, and a 2006 "North Korean human rights" law also states that the government must take measures to protect and support defectors from North Korea.
In the past North Korean defectors have fled to Japanese missions and other premises in China, and Tokyo allowed them to leave for third countries.
In 1987, Pyongyang asked Tokyo to return the crew of a North Korean boat who had sought asylum in South Korea after docking at a port in western Japan, but Tokyo allowed them to leave for the South via Taiwan.
TRIPOLI, Lebanon (CNN) Six Lebanese soldiers were killed during intense fighting as the army battled again Saturday to rout militants from a Palestinian refugee camp north of Tripoli, a military spokesman said.
For a second day, the Lebanese military launched heavy artillery bombardment of the Nahr el-Bared Palestinian refugee camp.
CNN's Aneesh Raman said a Lebanese helicopter was also seen flying near the edge of the camp, but reports that the aircraft opened fire could not be confirmed.
The latest wave of fighting flared on Thursday after more than a week of relative quiet between the Lebanese army and Fatah al-Islam, a militant group said to be affiliated with al Qaeda that is holed up inside the camp.
The violence began May 20, when Lebanese internal security forces were conducting raids in a Tripoli neighborhood, triggering clashes near the refugee camp.
Army sources said militants from Fatah al-Islam fired on the forces, who then returned fire.
The battles are the worst internal violence since the end of Lebanon's civil war in 1990.
Raman said that the fighting appeared to have died down late Saturday, with reports that the Lebanese military was gaining control of sections of the camp.
He said that despite a mass exodus, up to 10,000 civilians were still trapped inside the camp where they were living in "utter fear.
About 30 soldiers have been killed, along with about 50 militants and one civilian, Lebanese officials have said.
Palestinian sources reported that between 17 and 25 militants and 20 civilians have died.
Neighbors and rescue personnel threw children out of the path of a speeding car that plowed through a crowded street festival, preventing more serious injuries than the 40 people struck, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty said Sunday.
A 4-year-old boy with a broken leg was the only person still hospitalized a day after a woman's car sent people and strollers flying, leaving debris and injured bodies strewn in her wake.
Authorities believe the driver, Tonya Bell of Oxon Hill, Maryland, was going about 70 mph when she tore through Unifest, a church-sponsored street festival in southeast Washington.
Marcellus Jackson's father saved the boy's life by throwing him out of the way of the speeding car, Fenty said.
The father, Vincent Hayes, was then hit by the speeding car head-on but was OK. (Watch victims carried away on stretchers )
"The car just passed so fast, and all of a sudden I just heard people screaming," said the boy's mother, Denise Jackson.
"I turned around, and it was like bodies falling out of the sky.
The boy was expected to be discharged Monday, said Emily Dammeyer, a spokeswoman at Children's National Medical Center.
Some questioned why Bell was not stopped after she was seen driving erratically and striking an unmarked police cruiser 20 minutes before the rampage.
Police Cmdr. Patrick Burke said officers had followed Bell's 1991 Volvo, but were told to stop because the traffic violation did not pose a threat to officers.
Officials were still waiting for toxicology results, but Burke confirmed that some witnesses said Bell may have been smoking something and laughing as she drove through the crowd.
Bell had a 7-year-old girl in the car with her whose identity wasn't released. The child was not injured and was taken by Child Protective Services.
Burke said additional charges expected Monday would likely include assault on a police officer while armed.
Two police officers working at the festival were thrown off their motor scooters when they drove in front of the car in an attempt to stop it. They suffered minor injuries.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) Fourteen U.S. soldiers were killed by bombs and small-arms fire in Iraq over the weekend, the U.S. military said Sunday, as factional violence continued to ravage soldiers and civilians alike.
A car bomb killed 10 people and wounded 27 at an outdoor market in Balad Ruz Sunday, according to a Diyala province security official.
The explosion came shortly after noon (4 a.m. ET) as the market, just east of Baquba, was packed with shoppers, police told The Associated Press.
In another market attack in Baquba, gunmen fatally shot two civilians, the Diyala official told CNN.
Also near Baquba, gunmen set up a fake police checkpoint just west of the city Saturday evening and killed three Iraqi civilians and wounded five others, the official said.
The attacks came amid a weekend of violent clashes between coalition forces and insurgents in Diwaniya, Falluja and eastern Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood.
At least 20 people were wounded Sunday in Diwaniya when fighting broke out between Iraqi security forces and members of the Mehdi Army, a Shiite militia loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, an Interior Ministry official said.
The battles came in the same area where Mehdi Army members reportedly killed six people three of them civilians in fighting two weeks ago.
The militia is said to be at the center of the Sunni-Shiite sectarian violence that has plagued the war-ravaged nation.
Diwaniya is about 100 miles south of Baghdad.
In overnight operations in the capital, U.S. warplanes bombed homes in Sadr City's Habibiya district, witnesses and an Interior Ministry official said.
Five people were killed and three more were wounded during the five-hour Iraqi army operation conducted with U.S. support, the Interior Ministry official said.
MOGADISHU, Somalia (CNN) Somalian Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi survived a suicide vehicle bomb blast that heavily damaged his home Sunday, his spokesman said.
A Toyota Land Cruiser loaded with explosives crashed through the security gate of the prime minister's Mogadishu home and exploded, killing six guards and damaging the house that also serves as the prime minister's office, spokesman Abdullahi Odka said.
He said the prime minister was at home at the time, but he was unhurt.
An African Union spokesman said Gedi was taken from the residence to an undisclosed location.
Odka said he believed it was the biggest explosion in Mogadishu to date.
"I saw limbs nearly a kilometer from where the suicide bomber detonated," a police officer at
the scene, who asked not to be named, told Reuters by telephone.
Prime Minister Gedi has survived two previous assassination attempts using bombs in recent years.
His interim administration is struggling to impose its authority on the anarchic Horn of Africa nation.
MANCHESTER, New Hampshire (CNN) What will New Hampshire voters be listening for when 18 presidential hopefuls square off Sunday and Tuesday in presidential debates?
It depends on whom you ask, but on one issue, there is widespread agreement:
People want to hear about Iraq.
On Sunday, the eight Democratic contenders seeking their party's presidential nomination will appear together on stage before several hundred people the first time New Hampshire voters will be able to size up these candidates in a side-by-side comparison.
Two days later, the 10 Republicans seeking the GOP nomination will debate the same top issues of the day. (Read the CNN Political Ticker for up-to-the-minute reports from New Hampshire)
Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois and former U.S. Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, are considered the front runners in Sunday night's debate.
Both debates will be held on the campus of St. Anselm College and are sponsored by CNN, WMUR and the New Hampshire Union Leader.
Nigerian gunmen kidnapped six Russians and shot dead a local driver in a dawn attack on a residential compound of the world's top aluminum producer in the southeastern town of Ikot Abasi, authorities said on Sunday.
The abductions took to 30 the number of foreigners being held by different armed groups in the lawless southern delta, where the kidnapping of expatriates has become an almost daily occurrence.
Russia's ambassador to Nigeria, Igor Melikhov, said the six men, all Russians, were abducted by bandits who stormed the residential compound in two minivans.
A local official had said earlier that two of those kidnapped were South Africans.
), which is controlled by the United Company RUSAL, a Russian firm and the world's largest aluminum producer.
Kurochkina said the company was taking steps to resolve the situation and free the hostages.
Security sources working for foreign firms in the southern delta said the militants blew up the apartment with explosives before kidnapping the six workers.
"We are very worried by events happening in Nigeria," Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin was quoted by RIA news agency as saying.
"Our embassy will provide all necessary support for the representatives of RUSAL who plan to arrive in Nigeria in the near future and join the rescue effort," he said.
ROSTOCK, Germany (Reuters) Organizers of anti-G8 demonstrations and the media on Sunday condemned violent clashes between police and a hardcore group of militants in the German port city of Rostock in which 1,000 people were injured.
A peaceful demonstration involving tens of thousands of diverse protesters was marred on Saturday by the worst street violence seen in Germany for years when hundreds of black-clad activists bombarded police with stones and torched three cars.
Police used water cannon to disperse the militants who left a trail of destruction in the harbor city, just days before Chancellor Angela Merkel hosts the Group of Eight (G8) leaders in the nearby resort of Heiligendamm for their annual meeting.
groups concerned," said Mani Stenner, a spokesman for the organizers of a week-long program of demonstrations in the port city. "We hope that this situation was an exception.
Police blamed the violence on some 2,000 militants known as the "black block."
Some 430 police officers and 520 protesters were injured and police said 128 people were arrested in the clashes at the city's harbor.
The mass-circulation Bild am Sonntag newspaper declared the violence Germany's "G8 Shame!
"Yesterday images were formed in our country that will damage our reputation across the world," wrote commentator Claus Strunz in a column for the newspaper.
At the same time, Rostock is hosting a broad range of protests and demonstrations against globalization, capitalism, African poverty and human rights abuses.
Aid groups and charities condemned the violence and distanced themselves from the militants.
"There was no justification at all for these attacks," said Pedram Shahyar, a spokesman for the group Attac.
Around 16,000 police will be on duty during the summit, the biggest force assembled in recent times in Germany.
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) A wave of fighting in Afghanistan's south and west killed 16 police and dozens of suspected militants, Afghan officials said Thursday.
In the deadliest clash, Taliban ambushed a police convoy in Shahjoi district of southeastern Zabul province on Wednesday.
The ensuing gunbattle left 16 police and 10 suspected insurgents dead and six police wounded, said Interior Ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashary.
On Thursday, Afghan and NATO forces launched an operation in neighboring Helmand province's Sangin district, a Defense Ministry statement said.
After a winter lull in violence, both militant attacks and military operations have escalated this spring.
Helmand province is bearing the worst of the violence, as NATO and Afghan forces fight to root out militants from the country's opium heartland.
Police fired back, killing 10 militants and wounding 15 more, a ministry statement said.
In the south, militants were planting mines on the main highway between Panjwayi and Kandahar city on Wednesday night when one of the charges exploded, killing two and wounding another, said Panjwayi district chief Niaz Mohammad Serhadi. The wounded one was arrested, he added.
The United States and Spain share concerns on many fronts, but Spain is going its own way in its relations with Cuba, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says.
The two countries have recovered from the rift over Spain's withdrawal of its troops from Iraq, she said, but Spain's communications with the Cuban government remain a sore spot.
Rice said the United States had problems with the way Spain withdrew from Iraq, not the fact that it took its troops out.
"We can say that the relations are normalized after the ups and downs you all know about," said Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos, who appeared at a Madrid news conference with Rice.
Both the United States and Spain would like democracy in Cuba, which Moratinos visited in April.
His aides visited Havana earlier this week.
Referring to the fact that Moratinos did not meet with dissidents in Cuba, Rice said she was concerned "that they get the right message, which is that the free world stands with them and is not prepared to tolerate an anti-democratic transition in Cuba.
"This Socialist government has no problem in talking to the dissidents," responded Moratinos. "I would ask you, 'Who has seen more of the dissidents?'
Spain has diplomatic ties with Cuba; the United States doesn't.
"I expect that the issue on Cuba is going to continue to be an issue between us," Rice said on her first visit to Spain as secretary of state.
"I have real doubts about the value of engagement with a regime that is anti-democratic, and that appears to me to be trying to arrange a transition from one anti-democratic regime to another anti-democratic regime," she said.
One sheer drop-off to the right, another eight feet to the left.
A switchback ridge so steep that three steps brings you to the next turn.
Rope handholds to clutch when the mountain trail shrinks to less than a foot wide.
What am I, a goat?
A summer day hike, my husband said.
A glorious saunter up a flower-filled meadow to one of the world's most famous Alpine huts.
Don't forget your sunglasses, it's so bright.
Which is how, three hours later, I was shivering in a surprise July snowstorm en route to Hoernlihuette, the Matterhorn base camp, wearing capris and sneakers with no tread.
At 14,690 feet, the Matterhorn is not even the highest mountain in Switzerland but it surely is the most photogenic, rising up on four elegant faces to a craggy peak along the Swiss-Italian border.
Hoernlihuette, at 10,696 feet, has been on the flank of the mountain in some version since 1880.
About 4,000 people a year stay here during its brief summer season (July 1 to September 30), with 3,000 of them seeking glory on top of the Matterhorn.
After 45 minutes across a stony meadow, we reached Hirli, a lone building a few hundred feet up.
My, how time flies on a mountain.
You can see where you are going, yet it takes forever.
Then the wind turned brisk, the blue sky ashen gray.
Temperatures fell about 20 degrees.
We broke out the windbreakers, which held off the freezing rain for five to six minutes tops.
I longed for gloves and a hat. It took about 10 steps for the landscape to turn from alpine meadow to crumbling lunar rock face.
As the sleet turned into stinging hail, the trail disappeared altogether. The snowstorm struck when we were totally exposed on the switchback ridge.
Since the storm limited visibility to six feet, all of a sudden I could not see the plunging cliffs.
Death might be a step or two away, but I was oblivious.
Then six, then a dozen.
Believe me, he did not care.
After three more hours, my thigh muscles began to twitch uncontrollably.
Nearly frozen, we arrived back in the dark, utterly exhausted, about 9 p.m.
Zermatt and the Matterhorn are must-see destinations.
Mountain expeditions in capris and bald sneakers are bound to end in disaster.
The Swiss are nothing if not punctual do not miss the last tram.
Over 500 people have died climbing the Matterhorn since 1865, and Swiss tourism authorities say deaths now average about 12 annually.
As of early May, six people had died this year.
Many of the dead mountaineers are buried in Zermatt's downtown cemetery.
Two-times champion Rafael Nadal showed no mercy on Italian qualifier Flavio Cipolla, sweeping him aside 6-2 6-1 6-4 to reach the third round of the French Open on Thursday.
World number two Nadal, attempting to become the first man to win three successive titles at Roland Garros since Bjorn Borg in 1980, was in control straight away, opening up a 3-0 lead in the first set.
Leading 5-1, the Spaniard was then broken but he underlined his determination by capturing Cipolla's serve immediately to take the set in 34 minutes
The second set was even more one-sided, Nadal going 3-1 up, breaking Cipolla again in the sixth game before serving for the set, which he took courtesy of an astute dropshot.
20-year-old Nadal, whose 81-match streak on clay was ended by Roger Federer in the Hamburg final earlier this month, slowed down a bit after an early break but did enough to stay in control until he earned three match points.
"I was not able to play my best tennis but it was a good warmup", Nadal told reporters.
every day a bit more", Nadal said. "There's only one way you can eliminate pressure and that's by playing well.
Nadal is headed for a fourth round clash with Lleyton Hewitt who staged a typical fightback from two sets down to beat former champion Gaston Gaudio of Argentina to advance to the third round.
Nathan Sawaya's workspace is an explosion of color.
Clear plastic crates stuffed with LEGO bricks in every hue are stacked high against the walls.
A computer sits on the floor, but it's not functional.
The red, yellow and blue replica is made entirely of LEGO.
In fact, everything in the room is made of LEGO; a cash register, a monkey, a bowl of fruit, a vase of flowers.
Here in Sawaya's Manhattan studio, the 33-year-old artist snaps bricks together to create sculptures, big and small.
His medium may be a beloved kid's toy, but some of his signature pieces are incredibly grown-up.
Sawaya's national touring exhibit, "The Art of the Brick," is making the rounds.
The collection was viewed by tens of thousands at the Lancaster Museum of Art in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Sawaya, who abandoned a career as an attorney in 2004 to take on LEGO sculpting fulltime, spoke to CNN about his quirky craft.
How is a LEGO artist different from a LEGO hobbyist?
SAWAYA:
I get paid! In all seriousness, I've tried to take LEGO in a direction it's never been before.
I've tried to put it in a museum setting, and I've created very large-scale sculptures that are on tour for the next couple of years.
And that's something that I think is a little different from your average hobbyist who's really just building for fun
What does LEGO capture that other media do not?
SAWAYA:
LEGO is something that almost everyone has played with at some point in their lives.
I notice a lot of times when people go to my shows they want to touch the sculptures.
I receive many e-mails from people who have seen my work and are then inspired to get down on the floor with their kids and build.
In fact, the museum show also has a building area for kids who are inspired to build their own artwork after seeing my pieces.
Does LEGO (the company) give you a discount on the bricks?
SAWAYA:
They allow me to buy it in bulk, but I have to pay for my LEGO like everybody else.
How difficult was it to make the decision to switch from full-time attorney to fulltime LEGO artist?
SAWAYA:
It wasn't very tough.
I worked with great people at the law firm, but my passion was always for my art.
As more and more people were commissioning pieces and collecting my artwork, it became clear to me that I should focus on my art full time.
What's the weirdest thing you've ever been asked to build?
SAWAYA:
I've built monkeys for both the talk show host Craig Ferguson, and the magician David Copperfield.
I've also built a functioning industrial air conditioner.
Like tartan, bagpipes, and shortbread Scotland's Loch Ness Monster is as much an emblem as a tourist draw.
An amateur scientist has captured what Loch Ness Monster watchers say is among the finest footage ever taken of the elusive mythical creature reputed to swim beneath the waters of Scotland's most mysterious lake.
He said it moved at about 6 mph (10 kph) and kept a fairly straight course.
"My initial thought is it could be a very big eel, they have serpent-like features and they may explain all the sightings in Loch Ness over the years.
Loch Ness is surrounded by myth and mystery, as it is the largest and deepest inland expanse of water in Britain.
About 750 feet (230 meters) to the bottom, it's even deeper than the North Sea.
Nessie watcher and marine biologist Adrian Shine of the Loch Ness 2000 center in Drumnadrochit, on the shores of the lake, viewed the video and hopes to properly analyze it in the coming months.
"I see myself as a skeptical interpreter of what happens in the loch, but I do keep an open mind about these things and there is no doubt this is some of the best footage I have seen," Shine said.
A rare northern white rhinoceros died Wednesday at the San Diego Zoo, dwindling the critically endangered species' population to as few as 13 worldwide, zoo officials said.
Nadi was one of three northern white rhinos at the zoo's Wild Animal Park.
No cause of death was given, but the female rhino had shown signs of old age, the zoo said in a statement.
Nadi, believed to be more than 40 years old, was brought from Africa in 1972 and was part of a group maintained at the Dvur Kralove Zoo in the Czech Republic.
She and another female rhino named Nola came to the Wild Animal Park in San Diego in 1989 as part of an effort to breed the species.
Although both females were late in life, zoo officials had hoped the presence of a male rhino and the large park habitat would help breeding.
Northern white rhinos are considered critically endangered.
Andrei Lugovoi the man British authorities accuse of poisoning a former Russian spy in London last year told reporters Thursday he wasn't behind the ex-KGB agent's murder, but speculated the British government may have been.
"I don't know who killed him," Lugovoi, a former security service agent turned businessman, said at a Moscow press conference, according to a translation from Russia Today television.
He did, however, speculate on who was behind the poisoning of former spy Alexander Litvinenko, who died in November, several weeks after being exposed to toxic levels of polonium-210, naming British intelligence, the Russian mafia and political refugee and Russian businessmen Boris Berezovsky as prime suspects.
"You don't have to be a lawyer to understand that there must be a motive behind such a crime," he said. "Alexander was not my enemy.
Lugovoi said Berezovsky's motive was Litvinenko's possession of "great material" that could expose the underhanded way Berezovsky acquired political refugee status in Britain.
Detailing the scheme, Lugovoi explained "those wishing to get political asylum should publish in Russia certain articles of a political content, an anti-Russian content, criticizing the course of the Russian government.
In addition, Lugovoi also claimed he was approached by the British special forces and asked to gain compromising information on Russian President Vladimir Putin. "Attempts were made to openly recruit me as a British intelligence service agent," Lugovoi said.
"The Britons in fact suggested that I collect any information that could compromise President Putin and members of his family.
The first panda to be released into bamboo forests after being bred in captivity has died, and a Chinese nature preserve official says it may have fallen from trees while being chased by wild pandas.
The body of Xiang Xiang was found on February 19 on snow-covered ground in the forests of Sichuan province in China's southwest, the Xinhua News Agency said.
He survived less than a year in the wild after nearly three years of training in survival techniques and defense tactics.
"Xiang Xiang died of serious internal injuries in the left side of his chest and stomach by falling from a high place," Heng Yi, an official from the Wolong Giant Panda Research Center in Sichuan, said in a telephone interview.
"So Xiang Xiang may have fallen from trees when being chased by those pandas.
Heng said the long delay in announcing Xiang Xiang's death was attributed to the need for a full investigation.
"We are all sad about Xiang Xiang, but it doesn't mean the project has failed," Zhang Hemin, the center's head, was quoted as saying by Xinhua. "The lessons we have learnt from what happened to Xiang Xiang will help us adapt and improve the project.
The 176-pound (73 kilogram) male panda was released from Wolong in April 2006 and had been trained for almost three years on how to survive in the wild.
He also developed defensive skills such as howling and biting.
According to Li Desheng, deputy director of the Wolong center, Xiang Xiang's case shows that wild panda communities are reluctant to accept male outsiders.
He has been buried at the foot of a mountain, about eight miles from the Wolong center, Li said.
There are only about 1,600 wild pandas in the mountain forests of central China the only place in the world they are found and more than 180 live in captivity.
Pandas are threatened by loss of habitat, poaching and a low reproduction rate.
Females in the wild typically have a cub once every two to three years.
Two toddlers who wandered away from home while their teenage baby sitter slept accidentally drowned in a nearby pond in northwestern Pennsylvania, officials said.
The babysitter told state police she put the girls down for a nap Wednesday and then took a nap herself.
Rescuers were called at about 11:15 a.m. after the baby sitter found the bodies floating in a small, man-made fishing pond about 100 yards away from the home.
Chris Barber, chief of Stancliff Hose Co., said the 18-year-old sitter was frantically trying to help the children when emergency workers arrived.
Authorities did not identify the 18-year-old sitter, who is a relative of Jenna and lived in the house in this rural Pennsylvania town,15 miles south of Erie.
Investigators said Thursday afternoon that they believe they know how the toddlers got out of the house, got to the pond and other details.
District Attorney Brad Foulk said he would not discuss those details to protect the family's privacy and because authorities planned to conduct more interviews.
A woman who answered the phone at the Walker home said the family did not want to talk about the accident.
Coroner Lyell Cook determined that the girls drowned and ruled the deaths accidental.
The ruling would not preclude criminal charges if investigators determined the baby sitter was negligent or reckless, Cook said.
Radio Caracas Television, the station silenced by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, has found a way to continue its daily broadcasts on YouTube, the popular video Web site.
In addition, RCTV's Colombia-based affiliate, Caracol, has agreed to transmit the evening installment of "El Observador" over its international signal.
The program, which will run at midnight, could reach about 800,000 people in Venezuela.
Although this is drastically reduced from RCTV's previous audience, its continued presence is a sign of hope for the staff.
"We're just doing our job as journalists," said an employee of RCTV. "As long as somebody is seeing us, we consider what we are doing to be valid.
Thousands of people, most of them from area universities, took to the streets of Caracas in protest this week after Chavez refused to renew RCTV's broadcasting license, which expired last Sunday.
RCTV, which had been on air for 53 years, aired soap operas, programs and news broadcasts with a decidedly anti-governmental perspective.
It was one of only a handful of private broadcast stations in Venezuela that openly criticized the government.
"To close a means of communication is an inexcusable monstrosity.
Motorola plans to trim an additional 4,000 jobs this year, bringing the total cuts for 2007 to more than 11 percent of its work force, as the world's No. 2 mobile phone maker reduces costs to return to profitability.
The company, which has been losing market share to rivals such as market leader Nokia due to a lack of advanced phones and tough price competition, had said in April that it would announce additional cost-cutting plans by June.
planned cuts at the company, which had 66,000 employees at the end of 2006, will be made by the end of the year, according to Motorola, which did not provide specifics on the break-down of the lay-offs.
"It will certainly help them return to profitability but it's not enough to get them to the double digit profit margins they seek," he said, adding: "They need exciting new products.
Motorola's stock rose to $18.46 in after-hours trade following the news, up 1 percent from its close of $18.28 on the New York Stock Exchange.
The company also said there would be no adverse effect on customer service or product quality as a result of the cuts.
It turns out that Steve Jobs has a soft spot in his heart for PC guys.
"PC guy is great, he's got a big heart," the chief of Apple Inc. (Charts, Fortune 500) said Wednesday, referring to popular television ads in which a hip young man personifies a Macintosh computer and a Windows PC is played by an awkward middle-aged man.
"The art of those commercials is not to be mean, but it's actually for the guys to like each other," Jobs said.
interview in 14 years.
Gates rolled with the joke, saying of the PC guy: "His mother loves him!
It was one of several light moments in a highly anticipated meeting of the two computer industry titans at an annual technology conference run by The Wall Street Journal.
Anyone hoping for a bruising showdown between the computer industry's richest executive and one many regard as its coolest would have been disappointed.
Jobs, 52, and Gates, 51, reminisced about the industry and old partnerships.
At one point, Gates said employees working on Microsoft's Zune portable media player admired Apple for creating the market for such devices with its hugely successful iPod line.
"And we love them because they're all customers!" countered Jobs.
Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a scathing attack on the West on Thursday, accusing Washington of imperialism and of starting a new arms race.
"We are not the initiators of this new round of the arms race," Putin told a joint Kremlin news conference with visiting Greek President Karolos Papoulias.
"They are a mere response to harsh and groundless unilateral actions by our partners and are aimed at maintaining the balance of forces in the world.
Putin's comments, which will be popular among ordinary Russians in a year when there is a parliamentary election, are the latest in a line of harsh outbursts against the West.
Russia on Tuesday test-fired a new intercontinental ballistic missile with multiple warheads and a new cruise missiles, which Russian generals say are sufficient to ensure the country's security for the next 40 years.
"Our partners are stuffing eastern Europe with new weapons," Putin said. "What are we supposed to do? We cannot just observe all this.
Moscow has been alarmed by U.S. plans to deploy elements of its global missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic.
Turkey's top general said Thursday the military was ready to stage a cross-border offensive to fight Kurdish guerrillas in Iraq and that he already had sought government approval to mount military action.
Earlier, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has pledged his support for any military decision to stage an incursion into Iraq, said the army had not yet asked parliament for permission.
But Gen. Yasar Buyukanit said he had asked for approval during a news conference on April 12, when he said "an operation into Iraq is necessary.
"We have told both Turkey and the world on April 12 that as soldiers, we are ready," Buyukanit said Thursday.
Buyukanit's remarks appeared to put Erdogan's government under pressure to seek approval from parliament to send soldiers into Iraq to fight separatist Kurdish guerrillas.
The rebels have long used northern Iraq as a base in their campaign for self-rule in southeast Turkey.
The United States opposes any unilateral Turkish military action, fearing it could destabilize northern Iraq the calmest part of the country.
Massoud Barzani, the leader of the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq, also strongly opposes a Turkish incursion and has threatened to confront Turkish soldiers if they enter northern Iraq.
Military trucks hauled more tanks and guns to the border area Thursday, local reporters said.
For weeks, TV stations have broadcast images of military trucks rumbling along the remote border, and trains transferring tanks and guns to bolster an already formidable force in the area.
The U.S. State Department said Wednesday that it has seen nothing to substantiate reports of a significant movement of Turkish military forces to the border.
President Bush, seeking to blunt international criticism of the U.S. record on climate change, on Thursday urged 15 major nations to agree by the end of next year on a global target for reducing greenhouse gases.
Bush called for the first in a series of meetings to begin this fall, bringing together countries identified as major emitters of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.
The list would include the United States, China, India and major European countries.
After setting a goal, the nations would be free to develop their own strategies to meet the target.
The president outlined his proposal in a speech ahead of next week's summit in Germany of leading industrialized nations, where global warming is to be a major topic and Bush will be on the spot.
The United States has refused to ratify the landmark 1997 Kyoto Protocol requiring industrialized countries to reduce greenhouse gases to 1990 levels by 2012.
Developing countries, including China and India, were exempted from that first round of cuts.
Bush rejected the Kyoto approach, as well as the latest German proposal for what happens after 2012.
Environmental groups were quick to criticize Bush's plan.
The U.S. last year actually experienced a drop in emissions of carbon dioxide, the heat-trapping gas most blamed for global warming.
The 1.3 percent decline from 2005, the first drop in 11 years, was due to a mild winter followed by a cool summer, along with other factors ranging from greater industrial efficiency to increased capacity of nuclear power plants.
Carbon dioxide is produced from burning fossil fuels, including natural gas and coal, which are used widely to produce electricity to heat homes in winter and run air conditioners in summer.
Twenty-eight people, many of them drunk, have drowned in the Russian capital this month as Muscovites cool off from a record heatwave in ponds, fountains and canals, rescue services said on Wednesday.
"The main reason for the deaths is that people bathe in places were they are not supposed to ... but at the same time 75 percent of them are not sober," said Vladimir Plyasunov, the head of Moscow's lifeguards.
"Because of the unusually high temperatures all our lifeguards have been put on high alert," Plyasunov told the Vesti-24 news channel.
Moscow has been sweltering this week in temperatures above 30 degrees Celsius (86 Fahrenheit).
Meteorologists said Monday was the hottest May day in the city since records began.
The electricity system has shifted into emergency mode to cope with soaring demand, largely from people using air conditioning, and outages due to sub-stations overheating.
An employee in one Moscow company said building managers had been going round offices on Tuesday ordering staff to turn off lights to save energy.
A 37-year-old woman suffering from an inoperable brain tumor wants to donate a kidney before she dies and will choose the recipient from among three contestants on Dutch national television, a TV network said Tuesday, claiming it wants to highlight a crisis in organ donations.
Asked to intervene, the government said it was unable to stop the broadcast, regardless of how distasteful and even unethical it might be.
And it's unclear whether the contestants are a medical match with the terminally ill woman, and whether the winner would be capable of receiving her kidney.
The publicly financed television network, BNN, said it intends to go ahead with the program on Friday, drawing attention to the hundreds of people who die each year for lack of a kidney transplant.
The scheduled broadcast of "The Big Donor Show" reached the floor of parliament after a member of the governing Christian Democrats, Joop Atsma, questioned whether a public contest for a lifesaving organ would cross the boundary of merely objectionable to actually illegal.
"The information I have right now tells me that the program is unfitting
Government interference would amount to censorship, he said.
BNN defended the program.
"Some people will think it's tasteless, but we think the reality is even more shocking and tasteless: Waiting for an organ is just like playing the lottery," said network chairman Laurens Drillich.
The network identified the donor only as "Lisa."
During the show, she will hear interviews with the three candidates, their families and friends before choosing who will get her kidney.
Viewers will be able to vote for a candidate via SMS text message, but the final determination will be Lisa's, BNN said.
But defending champion Justine Henin made light work of Austria's Tamira Paszek, cruising into the third round with a 7-5 6-1 victory.
Top seed Henin, winner here for the past two years, was extended in the first set before taking control.
A 70-minute rain break held her up at 3-0 in the second set but she quickly moved in for the kill on the resumption and will face Italian 28th seed Mara Santangelo in the third round.
"I gave her the opportunity to come back into the match and it became difficult for me.
There was less intensity and the court became smaller at that moment.
For female cheetahs in the Serengeti, the call of the wild is just too hard to resist as new research shows nearly half of their litters are made up of cubs with different fathers.
And while the serial infidelities of the females does ensure a broader genetic mix to help the survival of the endangered species, it comes at a cost, the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) said on Wednesday.
"Mating with more than one male poses a serious threat to females, increasing the risk of exposure to parasites and diseases," said Dada Gottelli, ZSL's lead scientist for the research.
them more vulnerable to predation, so infidelity is a heavy burden.
Cheetahs are a threatened species and are declining in number in the areas they inhabit.
The effective breeding population is estimated to be below 10,000 individuals and the species faces threats from human attacks and habitat loss.
"This research shows that more of the male cheetah population are contributing to the next generation than we had expected," said Sarah Durant, leader of the Serengeti Cheetah Project since 1991.
"This is good news for conservation as the genetic diversity of future generations of cheetah will be preserved by their duplicitous behavior.
Britney Spears says she "hit rock bottom," in a message posted on her Web site about the end of her marriage and her time in rehab.
Spears calls rehab "a very humbling place" and denies that it was alcohol or depression that sent her there.
"I truly hit rock bottom," the 25-year-old pop star writes.
"I was like a bad kid running around with ADD.
Other photos splashed across the Internet appeared to reveal Spears out partying wearing nothing underneath her short skirts.
She was seen going out with Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan after filing for divorce from aspiring rapper Kevin Federline last November, just two months after giving birth to their second child, Jayden James.
The pair also have an older son, Sean Preston, now 20 months.
The couple reached a divorce settlement in March.
Spears also says she is "having to face a lot of things" as she raises her two young sons.
But Spears says she's no longer "angry at the tabloids," and now tries to "be numb to what I see.
"I am going to make mistakes everyday, and I am sure every mistake I make will probably be on CNN or 'Good Morning America,' " she writes.
A court has disbanded the political party of Thailand's ousted prime minister, finding it guilty of legal violations during elections canceled last year in a crisis that led to a military coup.
Thaksin had called that vote to reaffirm his mandate to rule after months of street protests demanding his resignation for alleged corruption and abuse of power.
The balloting was annulled by the courts, leaving Thailand with a caretaker government and a political crisis that led to Thaksin's ouster by the military in September.
"It goes to show that the ... defendant does not believe in the democratic system.
The decision, which cannot be appealed, was greeted with shock and tears at Thai Rak Thai headquarters, where hundreds watched the proceedings on television.
Party leaders, however, urged supporters not to protest.
As long as people have faith and belief in our party platforms, there will be a way out.
Before the ruling, Thaksin had also appealed for calm from exile in London. "We have to respect the rules of the game. That is, the rule of the law," he said.
A 44-year-old woman who needed an electric oxygen pump to breathe died after an energy company cut the power to her home because of a $122 unpaid bill, her family claimed Wednesday.
Police said they had launched an investigation into Folole Muliaga's death, which happened within two hours of state-owned company Mercury Energy cutting power to her house Tuesday.
Mercury Energy's general manager, James Moulder, said the company was devastated by the woman's death and was conducting its own investigation to determine what happened.
Muliaga, a schoolteacher with four children between the ages of 5 and 20, had been off work since February with an illness and had fallen behind in her payments to Mercury, said Brenden Sheehan, a relative who provided a copy of the bill.
Six days before a Mercury Energy representative arrived Tuesday at the house to disconnect the electricity, she was $122 in arrears.
Sheehan said both Muliaga and her son told the technician she was dependent on the oxygen machine to stay alive and invited him into the house to see it. "Then he cut the power off," Sheehan told The Associated Press.
Paramedics were unable to revive her, and she was pronounced dead within two hours of the power being cut.
Moulder expressed his "deep condolences" to the family, and said the company was checking reports that it had been warned Muliaga needed power for the oxygen machine.
"We were simply unaware that loss of electricity to the household was putting a vulnerable customer at risk," he said.
"More than one" disconnection notice had been sent to Muliaga's address over a six- to seven-week period, he added.
State Owned Enterprises Minister Trevor Mallard said there were reports the family had been warned about the overdue account.
"The correct authority to investigate this and sort
It is called "Surface".
Microsoft is unveiling a coffee-table shaped computer that responds to touch and bar codes attached to everyday objects.
The machines are slated for public debut today at a technology conference in Carlsbad, California.
Five cameras that can sense nearby objects are mounted beneath the screen.
But unlike most touchscreens, Surface can respond to more than one touch at a time.
A man infected with the extensively drug-resistant form of TB known as XDR TB knew he was not supposed to travel overseas but did so anyway, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Dr. Julie Gerberding told CNN's "American Morning" on Wednesday.
The man, who is quarantined at an Atlanta, Georgia, hospital, told the Atlanta Journal Constitution that Fulton County health officials had said they "preferred" he not travel, but knew about his plans for an overseas wedding and honeymoon.
He was then contacted while on his honeymoon in Italy last week by CDC officials and asked to turn himself over to Italian health authorities, he told the newspaper.
Gerberding said health officials "usually rely on a covenant of trust to assume that a person with tuberculosis just isn't going to go into a situation where they would transmit disease to someone else.
"The patient really was told that he shouldn't fly," she added.
It is the first time in 40 years the federal government has issued a quarantine order for an individual.
Gerberding acknowledged that "we kind of had to make up a plan as we went along."
President George W. Bush said Wednesday he will nominate Robert Zoellick to be the 11th president of the World Bank, replacing Paul Wolfowitz, who was forced to step down. "He's deeply devoted to the mission of the World Bank;
he wants to help struggling nations defeat poverty," Bush told reporters at the White House.
He was the senior U.S. official in negotiations for German unification and worked closely on policies related to the end of the Cold War.
He was appointed deputy chief of staff and assistant to the president in 1992.
From 1985 to 1988, Zoellick served at the Department of the Treasury in various positions.
"It'd probably be easier to list all the jobs that Bob hasn't had," Bush said Wednesday.
Wolfowitz has agreed to step down next month after the bank determined that he violated rules when he approved a raise for his companion, Shaha Riza.
Bush, who had supported Wolfowitz, said the departing president "has made the World Bank a more effective partner to world development," and added that "Bob Zoellick is the right man to succeed Paul in this vital work.
In a challenge to Syria, the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday voted to set up a court to prosecute the murder two years ago of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
After months of arguments between deeply divided Lebanese politicians and talks between the Beirut government and the United Nations, 10 council members supported the Western-sponsored resolution to set up the court and five abstained.
There were no votes against.
The five countries that abstained Russia, China, Qatar, Indonesia and South Africa argued that the council was exceeding its authority and interfering in Lebanese affairs.
"It is not appropriate for the Security Council to impose such a tribunal on Lebanon," South African Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo told the council.
Syria said the U.N. action violated Lebanese sovereignty and could plunge Lebanon into further instability.
A U.S. CH-47 Chinook helicopter went down Wednesday night in southern Afghanistan, killing all seven aboard, U.S. and NATO officials said.
Preliminary reports indicate the helicopter was shot down by a rocket-propelled grenade, officials said.
Five military crew and two military passengers were killed.
NATO said one civilian was wounded during that attack, Reuters reported.
Qari Yousef Ahmadi, calling himself a Taliban spokesman, told The Associated Press that militants had shot the helicopter down.
The claim could not be verified.
The incident occurred at 9 p.m. (noon ET) in the Kajaki region of southern Helmand province, where Afghan and NATO forces are trying to neutralize Taliban guerrillas and complete an important hydroelectric project, Reuters reported.
An Israeli airstrike killed two members of Hamas' military wing early Wednesday, Palestinian security sources said, as Israel kept up pressure on Palestinian militants in the West Bank and Gaza.
Meanwhile, in an effort to defuse the latest flare-up in tensions, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will meet next week, Olmert's office said in a statement released Tuesday.
The latest Israeli air raid occurred shortly after 1:30 a.m. Wednesday (6: 30 p.m. Tuesday ET), east of the Jabalya refugee camp in Gaza, the security sources said.
Two people were killed and one person was wounded, hospital sources said.
The strike came a day after an attack on what an Israel Defense Forces spokeswoman said was a Hamas training facility in southern Gaza.
An Israeli incursion into southern Gaza killed two Palestinian men and wounded a woman, Palestinian security sources said.
The IDF confirmed Israeli military activity near the Sufa Crossing, where a spokeswoman said two gunmen were killed.
Israeli aircraft have been pounding Gaza in an effort to stop Hamas militants from firing Qassam rockets into Israeli territory.
In recent weeks, at least two people have been killed and dozens wounded in and around the Israeli town of Sderot.
About 15 Israeli Army vehicles, including armored personnel carriers, entered Ramallah Tuesday afternoon and arrested several people including Jamal el-Tirawi, Palestinian security sources said.
El-Tirawi, a member of Palestinian Authority President Abbas' Fatah party, was arrested at the Balata refugee camp in Nablus, the sources said. The 41-year-old lawmaker
They had three handguns and were taken into custody, Israeli security sources said, because they had been involved in deadly bombing and shooting attacks against Israeli civilians.
Workers pulled glittery suits and platinum records out of cardboard boxes Sunday ahead of what's being called the largest auction of Jackson family memorabilia ever.
Auction staff unpacked and displayed more than 1,100 lots including rhinestone-studded costumes, faded documents and other mementoes at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino.
The items are expected to fetch millions of dollars from bidders from around the globe Wednesday and Thursday.
"This really is a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence," said Arlan Ettinger, president of auction house Guernsey's.
"I cannot imagine that somewhere down the road some other collection could come out of the woodwork and rival this.
There's a Bill Whitten-designed militaristic red coat with gold rope that belonged to Michael Jackson, and a 1987 contract detailing his $30 million purchase of the California ranch that became the infamous "Neverland.
There's also a frilly pink "Mae West" dress worn by Janet Jackson at age 8 during family performances at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas in 1974.
In a worn telegram from July 6, 1984, Marlon Brando encourages Michael Jackson before a show:
The items are to go on sale following a protracted court battle that ended two weeks ago when Michael Jackson's lawyers reached a confidential settlement and dropped an effort to block the auction.
Richard Altomare, chief executive of Universal Express Inc., the Boca Raton, Florida, luggage transportation company that owns the items, said Jackson's lawyers settled when they were convinced they had no legal claim to the goods.
As part of the settlement, Jackson was formally invited to attend, although it was unclear if he planned to do so.
after his 2005 acquittal in California on child molestation charges.
The collection's former owner, New Jersey businessman Henry Vaccaro, took possession of the memorabilia in 2002 after a failed business venture wound up in bankruptcy court.
Universal bought the items from Vaccaro for $5 million and spent more than $2 million transporting the goods from New Jersey to Las Vegas, Altomare said. The goods were insured by Lloyd's of London for more than $100 million, he said.
Third seed Andy Roddick was beaten in the first round of the French Open for the fourth time in his career on Tuesday, ousted 3-6 6-4 6-3 6-4 by Russian Igor Andreev, the world number 125.
On a day of upsets, fifth-seeded Chilean Fernando Gonzalez followed Roddick out of the tournament and the pair were later joined at the exit by another American, eighth seed James Blake.
Roddick, who has never been beyond round three in Paris, led by a set and 4-2 but Andreev hit back to clinch victory in two hours and 43 minutes.
"I've had some disappointing losses here, but I actually felt like I played ok today," Roddick said.
This is a little bit different than the other years. I felt like I hit the ball all right.
For a set and a half, Roddick looked headed for one of his best wins on his weakest surface but the Russian broke back in the seventh game of the second set and again in the ninth on his way to levelling the match.
I feel a little bit better coming out of this than I have in the past. But at the same time, same result.
Swashbuckling Gonzalez will not get a chance to repeat his Australian Open heroics after he slumped to a 6-2 6-2 6-4 defeat by Radek Stepanek in the first round.
American eighth seed James Blake was knocked out in the first round by Croatia's Ivo Karlovic 4-6 6-4 7-5 7-5.
Karlovic now faces Jonas Bjorkman of Sweden for a place in the third round.
Of the nine American men who started the tournament, Robby Ginepri is the last remaining.
He will resume his first-round match with Argentine Diego Hartfield, level at one set all.
China sentenced the former head of the State Food and Drug Administration to death for corruption, state media reported on Tuesday, in an unusually harsh sentence which could be reduced on appeal.
Corruption and food safety have preoccupied Chinese leaders as they grapple with the fallout overseas after a series of scandals involving toxins in food and other products.
Zheng Xiaoyu was convicted on charges of taking bribes and dereliction of duty, Xinhua news agency reported, citing the the Beijing Municipal No. 1 Intermediate People's Court.
Zheng, 62, headed the watchdog agency from 1998 to 2005 but was expelled from the ruling Communist Party earlier this year after investigators said he abused the administration's approval powers to obtain bribes and win illegal profits from drug companies.
The last time China sentenced an official of Zheng's rank to death was in 2000, when Hu Changqing, a vice governor of the eastern Jiangxi province, and Cheng Kejie, a vice head of the National People's Congress, were executed for taking bribes.
Local media reported separately that families of Chinese patients killed by a fake medical ingredient maker linked to widespread deaths in Panama have sued the southern Chinese hospital that gave toxic injections.
The 10 plaintiffs include family of patients of the Zhongshan University Number Three Hospital in southern Guangzhou city killed by tainted medicine, the China News Service reported, citing Guangzhou newspapers.
) total compensation after the hospital gave injections of fake Armillarisni A, made by the Qiqihar No. 2 Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., based in the country's northeast, a lawyer for the hospital told the Information Times, a Guangzhou paper.
"These incidents have exposed serious problems in the production and distribution of medicines," the Information Times cited one of the plaintiffs' lawyers as saying in the hearing that began on Monday.
Lindsay Lohan, who was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence Saturday in Beverly Hills, California, was photographed less than 48 hours later slumped in the passenger seat of a car.
Web site X17online.com posted the photos Monday, which it said were taken early that morning at a gas station after the 20-year-old actress left the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood, California, with a girlfriend.
The photos show Lohan, wearing a gray hooded sweat shirt, with her mouth open and her eyes shut, apparently asleep.
Another photo shows her kneeling on the ground, her back to the camera, apparently before getting into the vehicle.
Lohan was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence Saturday after her convertible struck a curb in Beverly Hills, and investigators found what they believe is cocaine at the scene, police said.
Lohan, who spent time at a rehabilitation center earlier this year, was driven in another car to a hospital for treatment of minor injuries, Lt. Mitch McCann said.
She told Allure magazine during an interview for its May issue that she decided to enter the secluded Wonderland Center at the suggestion of her therapist.
Her latest movie, "Georgia Rule," is in theaters.
Her other screen credits include "Mean Girls," "Bobby," "A Prairie Home Companion" and "Freaky Friday.
Russia on Tuesday test-launched a new intercontinental ballistic missile, apparently developed secretly, that a top government official said could penetrate any defense system, Russian news agencies reported.
The missile would modernize Russia's stockpile at a time of rising tensions with the West.
"As of today Russia has new (missiles) that are capable of overcoming any existing or future missile defense systems," ITAR-Tass quoted First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov as saying.
"So in terms of defense and security Russian can look calmly to the country's future.
President Vladimir Putin and Ivanov, a former defense minister seen as a potential candidate to succeed the Russian leader in elections next year, have repeatedly said their country would continue to improve its nuclear weapons systems and respond to U.S. plans to deploy a missile defense system in Europe.
The missile capable of carrying multiple independent warheads was fired from a mobile launcher at the Plesetsk launch in northwestern Russia, and its test warhead landed on target about 3,400 miles away on the Far Eastern Kamchatka Peninsula, according to a statement from Russian Strategic Missile Forces.
Ivanov said Russia also successfully tested a tactical cruise missile.
A young mother who may have been depressed apparently hanged three of her small daughters and herself in a closet using pieces of clothing and sashes, authorities said Tuesday.
A fourth child, an 8-month-old daughter, was also found dangling in the closet but was rescued from the family's mobile home.
That's all I can say," Parker County Sheriff Larry Fowler said. (Watch the sheriff describe the horrific scene inside the mobile home )
The woman was identified as Gilberta Estrada, 25.
The infant, Evelyn Frayre, was in good condition at a hospital, Fowler said.
Authorities did not immediately identify the other children, ages 5, 3 and 2.
After Estrada failed to show up for work, her sister, who lived nearby, forced her way into the locked residence in the Oak Hills mobile home park, about 25 miles west of Fort Worth in this rural community of 1,600 people.
The sheriff said the sister rescued the infant when she realized the baby girl was still alive.
The sheriff said the hangings appeared to be murder-suicide because the trailer's doors were locked from the inside and a relative said the woman had been depressed.
The young mother and her girls were last seen alive Monday evening, he said.
restraining order in August against Gregorio Frayre Rodriguez, who was believed to be the father of the infant and some of the other children, after an attack on Estrada.
President Bush has chosen Robert Zoellick, a former U.S. Trade Representative, as the new president for the World Bank to replace Paul Wolfowitz, a senior U.S. official said Tuesday.
Bush plans to announce his selection Wednesday and expects the bank's board to accept it, the administration official said.
Bush had said he wanted an American to succeed Wolfowitz, despite increasing calls from World Bank member countries and some U.S. lawmakers to throw the process open to a global pool of candidates.
The controversy over Wolfowitz's authorization of a hefty raise for his companion, Middle East expert Shaha Riza, deepened rifts among bank staff already discontented over his anti-corruption agenda and prompted sharp criticism from shareholder countries.
received "positive reactions" from other countries to the choice of Zoellick, the administration official said.
He later served as deputy secretary of state and became the administration's point person on China policy and Darfur.
Zoellick left the government last year to join investment bank Goldman Sachs.
Zoellick's experience in finance and diplomacy "make him uniquely prepared to take on this challenge," the administration official said.
Paulson had spearheaded the effort to find Wolfowitz's successor.
Asked whether the World Bank board would approve of Zoellick, the official said, "We have every confidence in that.
A consortium led by Royal Bank of Scotland has launched a 71.1 billion euro ($95.7 billion) bid for Dutch group ABN AMRO, trumping Britain's Barclays in a battle for the world's biggest bank takeover.
In a long-awaited move, the consortium of RBS, Fortis and Santander said on Tuesday it had raised the cash element of its offer from an original proposal but that the bid was conditional on being able to unpick ABN's sale of its U.S. bank arm.
The offer was pitched at 38.40 euros per ABN share
"This (RBS) deal offers better value for ABN shareholders, and we anticipate the consortium winning control," said Alex Potter, an analyst at Collins Stewart in London.
But ABN's shares fell 0.8 percent to 35.79 euros in early trading, given than the offer was similar to that indicated a month ago.
The consortium said it would prefer to agree on a deal with ABN's management but indicated it would go direct to shareholders if necessary.
"All of the bids should go before shareholders, and they should allow shareholders to decide in an environment of having as level a playing field as can be," Fred Goodwin, RBS's chief executive, told reporters on a conference call.
Barclays shares were up 0.8 percent at 726 pence by 1105 GMT, when RBS shares were down 1.7 percent at 632p.
Fortis was down 0.7 percent at 31.09 euros but Santander was up 0.4 percent at 13.80 euros.
Cindy Sheehan, the California mother who became an anti-war leader after her son was killed in Iraq, declared Monday she was walking away from the peace movement.
Sheehan achieved national attention when she camped outside President Bush's home in Crawford, Texas, throughout August 2005 to demand a meeting with the president over her son's death.
While Bush ignored her, the vigil made her one of the most prominent figures among opponents of the war.
But in a Web diary posted to the liberal online community Daily Kos on Monday, Sheehan said she was exhausted by the personal, financial and emotional toll of the past two years.
She wrote that she is disillusioned by the failure of Democratic politicians to bring the unpopular war to an end and tired of a peace movement she said "often puts personal egos above peace and human life.
Casey Sheehan, a 24-year-old Army specialist, was killed in an April 2004 battle in Baghdad. His death prompted his mother to found Gold Star Families for Peace.
"I have tried ever since he died to make his sacrifice meaningful," she wrote.
"It is so painful to me to know that I bought into this system for so many years, and Casey paid the price for that allegiance.
I failed my boy and that hurts the most.
Cindy Sheehan's sister, DeDe Miller, told CNN that the group would continue working for humanitarian causes, but drop its involvement in the anti-war movement.
As for her sister's letter, Miller said, "She cried for quite a bit after writing it.
The parents of a four-year-old British girl who disappeared while on a vacation with her family in Portugal will be presented to Pope Benedict XVI at the pontiff's weekly general audience Wednesday.
Vatican officials said on Monday that the McCann family would be among those brought up to greet the pope during his weekly audience with faithful in St. Peter's Square.
The presentation of VIPs and of others who have won permission from the Vatican to personally greet the pope traditionally takes place at the end of the audience, following the pope's homily to the faithful.
Madeleine McCann disappeared on May 3 when her parents left her and her two-year-old twin siblings alone in their hotel room while they went to a restaurant in their hotel complex in Praia da Luz, a resort town in Portugal's Algarve region.
The parents, Gerry and Kate McCann, have said they won't return to Britain without their daughter.
The family is concentrating on its Internet and media campaigns to publicize her disappearance across Europe.
Portuguese and British authorities have been investigating the girl's disappearance.
Last week, the McCanns prayed at the Catholic pilgrimage site in Fatima, Portugal, for her safe return.
A 20-year-old dancer from Japan was crowned Miss Universe 2007 on Monday night, marking only the second time her country has won the world beauty title.
Dressed in a black, red and purple Japanese-style gown, Riyo Mori nervously grabbed the hands of first runner-up, Natalia Guimaraes of Brazil, just before the winner was announced.
Then she threw her hands up and covered her mouth, overcome with emotion.
But she gathered herself together enough to catch the diamond-and-pearl-studded headpiece valued at $250,000 as it slipped off her head when Miss Universe 2006 Zuleyka Rivera of Puerto Rico crowned her.
The last time Japan won the pageant was in 1959 when Akiko Kojima became the first Miss Universe from Asia.
Miss USA Rachel Smith, who slipped and fell to the floor during the evening gown competition and was jeered by the Mexican audience during the interview phase, was the contest's fourth runner-up.
Mori, from the small town of Shizuoka at the base of Mount Fuji, won the cheers of the Mexico City audience when she opened her interview, saying 'Hola, Mexico!
"I learned how to always be happy, be patient and to be positive, and this is what I want to teach to the next generation," she said during the interview competition.
The daughter of a dance school operator, Mori said her grandmother told her as a child that she wanted her to be Miss Japan before she turned 20.
"From the very beginning, I entered the competition with high hopes and an unswerving determination to make this dream a reality," she said in a pre-competition interview.
"Right now I am only 20 years old, so I'm really excited about what I
Also finishing in the top five were second runner-up Ly Jonaitis of Venezuela and third runner-up Honey Lee of Korea.
The winner travels the world for a year on behalf of charities and pageant sponsors.
Ten U.S. troops died in Iraq on Monday, including eight killed in a deadly chain of events that began when a U.S. helicopter was shot down, according to a U.S. military official.
Both helicopter pilots were killed.
Two Bradley fighting vehicles rushing to the helicopter crash site were hit by exploding roadside bombs, killing six soldiers and injuring three, the official said.
In a separate attack on Memorial Day, two other U.S. soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb while conducting a "combat security patrol" in southern Baghdad, the U.S. military said.
The pilots were flying an observation mission over a major supply route when their wingman on a Kiowa flying nearby reported heavy machine-gun fire in the area.
After the helicopter went down, a quick-reaction force was called in to recover it, the official said, and the two Bradleys were blown up by roadside bombs.
Air assault forces came in by helicopter, recovered the bodies of the two pilots and destroyed the downed chopper.
The U.S. military statement said all of those killed were from Task Force Lightning, the force that patrols northern stretches of Iraq, including Diyala.
U.S. commanders have expressed concern about a rise in violence and the growing presence of al Qaeda in Iraq militants, who have fled to Diyala from other regions of the country.
The U.S. death toll for May has risen to 114, making it the deadliest month so far this year.
The Venezuelan government has opened an investigation into news broadcasters for allegedly inciting the Venezuelan public to violence over the government's decision not to renew the broadcast license of an opposition television station.
In a news conference and a posting Monday on the government's Web site, the communications minister, Willian Lara, described two incidents he said crossed the line:
Globovision's "Citizen" program on Sunday followed an interview with the outgoing director general of the opposition station, Radio Caracas Television, with video showing images of the attempted 1981 assassination of Pope John Paul II.
"The television company, in that specific fragment of its programming, committed the crime of inciting to assassinate in the person of the chief of state of Venezuela," Lara said, referring to leftist President Hugo Chavez.
RCTV had the nation's widest audience, counting 10 million of 26 million Venezuelans as viewers of its programming, which included soap operas as well as news.
Globovision's director, Alberto Ravell, said he was unimpressed.
"We are not going to change our editorial line that we are not afraid of the threats from this government," he told CNN.
Lara also criticized U.S.-based CNN for broadcasting video showing anti-government demonstrations, followed by images from Acapulco, Mexico, that showed protests against the death of a Mexican journalist and for juxtaposing Chavez with footage showing the body of an alleged al Qaeda leader and protests in China.
"CNN lies to Venezuela," he said, adding that he worries that journalism is being used "to present political propaganda under the guise of news, in a systematic manner.
In a joint written statement, CNN en Espanol and CNN International said they "categorically deny" the accusations.
President Bush imposed sanctions Tuesday against Sudan in reaction to the "genocide" in Darfur, and has ordered actions against 31 companies and three people preventing them from doing business in or with U.S. companies.
The three Sudanese people affected include two high-ranking government officials and a rebel leader, according to the U.S. Treasury Department.
"For too long the people of Darfur have suffered at the hands of a government that is complicit in the bombing, murder and rape of innocent civilians.
Bush said he had ordered Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to write up a draft resolution that will be presented to the U.N. Security Council.
Bush intended to announce the sanctions last month in a speech at the Holocaust Museum in Washington but held off to give the United Nations and Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir more time to try to resolve the situation.
Bush and other top U.S. officials have grown impatient with Bashir's reluctance to stop attacks by Arab militias widely believed to be supported by the government.
The largest of these groups is known as the Janjaweed.
Bashir has also stalled efforts to increase international peacekeeping troops in the region.
The San Antonio Spurs moved to within one victory of the NBA finals with a 91-79 road victory over the Utah Jazz on Monday, pulling away from the hosts with an aggressive fourth-quarter run.
Tim Duncan had 19 points, nine rebounds and five blocked shots as San Antonio ended a seven-game postseason homecourt win streak by Utah.
He was 5-of-8 from the line in the period as the Spurs turned a one-point lead into a double-digit victory by making 19-of-25 free throws.
Deron Williams led Utah with 27 points and 10 assists despite a weekend bout with a stomach virus.
"Things didn't go our way, but you got to give it up to them (the Spurs)," Williams said.
"They made plays down the stretch.
A man clad only in underwear and a T-shirt wrestled a wild leopard to the floor and pinned it for 20 minutes after the cat leapt through a window of his home and hopped into bed with his sleeping family.
"This kind of thing doesn't happen every day," said 49-year-old Arthur Du Mosch, a nature guide. "I don't know why I did it.
Raviv Shapira, who heads the southern district of the Israel Nature and Parks Protection Authority, said a half dozen leopards have been spotted recently near Du Mosch's small community of Kibbutz Sde Boker in the Negev desert in southern Israel, although they rarely threaten humans.
Shapira said it was probably food that lured the big cat.
Shapira said the leopard was very weak when park rangers arrived at Du Mosch's home after the surprise late-night visit.
Du Mosch said he probably would not have been able to control the big cat were it in better health.
As a nature guide, he said, he was familiar with animals and did his best to hold down the leopard without harming it. He said he took it all in stride, "but the kids were excited.
Two teens are charged with murdering another teen in a school shooting that prompted outraged provincial and local officials to call for tighter federal gun control laws.
The teens both 17 were charged Sunday with first-degree murder in the May 23 fatal shooting of 15-year-old Jordan Manners at C.W. Jefferys Collegiate Institute.
The shooting came on the heels of a series of recent bomb threats directed at several Canadian schools.
The incidents rattled a country that prides itself on its low crime rate, particularly in comparison to its southern neighbor, the United States.
One of the teens was arrested Sunday, police said, while the second surrendered to authorities Sunday night.
Manners was shot and killed in a hallway in the school, which is located near a high-crime Toronto neighborhood.
Witnesses have said there was a fight outside the school, and then the shooter followed the victim inside, where he was shot.
Toronto police Staff Sgt. Ray Bold said Manners and the two charged knew each other and "were probably friends.
Bold declined to say whether the teens charged were students at the school.
Toronto Mayor David Miller also called for a ban on hand guns.
LONDON, England (Reuters) Britain on Monday made an official request to Russia to extradite the man suspected of killing ex-KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko with radioactive polonium-210, deepening a rift between the former Cold War foes.
British prosecutors said last week they wanted to bring Russian businessman Andrei Lugovoi, also a former KGB agent, before a British court to try him for the murder of Litvinenko, who died on Nov. 23 after being poisoned with the rare radioactive isotope.
Ambassador Anthony Brenton submitted the request to the Foreign Ministry in Moscow, a spokesman said.
"I can confirm that today the ambassador submitted to the Russian Foreign Ministry papers requesting the extradition of Mr. Lugovoi," a British embassy spokesman said.
, who has always protested his innocence, met Litvinenko in a London hotel on Nov. 1, the day Litvinenko fell ill.
The murder of Litvinenko with a highly unstable radioactive isotope in London aroused memories of Cold War espionage and has threatened to derail relations between Britain and Russia, now tied by billions of dollars of trade.
Moscow has refused to hand over Lugovoi to Britain because Article 61 of the Russian constitution forbids the extradition of its citizens.
The Kremlin has said those accusations are nonsense and senior officials say the Litvinenko affair has been used by President Vladimir Putin's enemies to damage Russia's image.
Geoff Marcy has looked at 85 different stars this evening, but he has yet to actually see a single one of them.
The giant Keck telescope he is using, on the summit of Hawaii's Mauna Kea volcano, is sending images straight to a digital camera, to be analyzed by a computer.
In fact, we don't have an eyepiece for the Keck telescope," Marcy, an astronomy professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said in a telephone interview as he finished up a night of planet-hunting.
"Some of the romance of astronomy is gone.
Centuries ago, Galileo Galilei peered through a small, simple telescope to draw his pictures of four of Jupiters' moons.
Marcy does not peer, and his methods are far more efficient than those of his predecessors.
"We started at about 6 p.m. and it is 4:30 a.m. now.
We never stop and we never take any breaks.
The world's largest telescope is so precious that you don't want to waste a second.
Marcy is in fact not even sitting at the telescope.
The eight-story telescope is a 45-minute drive away, in the thin air above 13,000 feet (4,000 meters).
He is connected by audio and video link to a telescope operator who points and clicks at his command.
The $100 million telescope collects the light from stars and sends them straight to a spectrometer that, like a prism, separates light into its colored wavelengths.
"It goes to a digital camera, the spectrum is recorded, and I take it back to the University of California Berkeley to get all the data," said Marcy.
Using this method, Marcy's team has discovered 28 new planets orbiting other stars in the past year.
They are responsible for two-thirds of the 236 known exoplanets.
But it can be frustrating to work so indirectly.
A cloud can wreak havoc on a night of observing booked months in advance and amid the clamoring demands of other astronomers.
But astronomers hope to refine their methods so they can spot small, rocky planets covered with liquid water, like our own.
Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), the owner of the Dubai stock exchange, is mulling a rival bid to Nasdaq's agreed $3.7 billion takeover of Nordic markets owner OMX, the Sunday Times reported.
The paper said, without naming sources, Dubai government-owned DIFC had appointed HSBC to advise it on the potential counterbid.
DIFC Governor Omar bin Suleiman told Reuters on Thursday it was not considering making a bid for OMX.
OMX spokesman Niclas Lilja declined to comment on whether OMX had been in talks with DIFC or whether it had been approached by the Dubai group.
He noted the deal between OMX and Nasdaq, announced on Friday, had wide support.
"This was agreed by the boards of both companies and by large shareholders," he said.
The deal between Nasdaq and OMX brings together the largest electronic stock market in the United States and the owner of the share markets in Stockholm, Helsinki, Copenhagen, Iceland and the Baltic states.
Nasdaq is already the second largest share market in the world behind the NYSE, last year trading shares worth $11.8 trillion versus the NYSE's $21.8 trillion, according to World Federation of Exchanges data.
OMX ranks 11th with a market turnover of $1.3 trillion.
A car bomb detonated Monday afternoon in a busy commercial district in central Baghdad, killing 21 civilians and wounding 66, an Interior Ministry official said.
The bomb, in a parked car, exploded shortly after 2 p.m. (6 a.m. ET) and the force of the blast could be felt in a wide surrounding area, police said.
Video of the aftermath showed debris littering the streets near the blast site, where a plume of black smoke climbed into the sky.
Iraqi firemen in yellow helmets doused the flames with a hose, as Iraqi men and boys crowded the streets.
The blast went off near a Sunni mosque that was damaged by the attack, but police believe civilians on the street were the target. Video showed damage to the mosque's tower.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki released a statement condemning "the news of targeting another symbol of Iraqi religious symbols by the hands of the terrorists groups.
The damaged mosque is considered one of the holiest shrines for many Sunni Muslims and houses the tomb of Abdul Qader al-Jelani, a 12th century Sufi saint.
A documentary featuring images of the car crash in which Princess Diana died should not be shown because of the distress it will cause her family, Britain's opposition Conservatives said on Monday.
The Channel 4 program "Diana:
The Witnesses in the Tunnel" will show pictures of the aftermath of the 1997 accident in a Paris underpass in which Diana, 36, and her lover Dodi al Fayed were killed, along with their chauffeur Henri Paul.
Hugo Swire, the opposition Conservative Party's culture spokesman, said the program would be insensitive to Diana's sons, Princes William and Harry, and should be cancelled.
"We would expect more from a public service broadcaster than showing sensationalist material in this way," he said.
the princess's last moments, including a picture of her receiving oxygen from a French doctor, although with her face blanked out.
Such pictures have not been shown in Britain before but last year Italian magazine Chi published photographs of Diana dying, provoking a rare highly-critical statement from her sons.
Channel 4 told the BBC the show would feature images taken by French photographers who were at the scene but would not include pictures that identified Diana or any other victim.
"We acknowledge that there is great public sensitivity surrounding pictures of the victims and these have not been included," the broadcaster said.
has been appropriately obscured to avoid any unwarranted intrusion into their privacy or that of their families.
Japan's agriculture minister died Monday after hanging himself just hours before he was to face questioning in a political scandal, officials said, dealing a powerful blow to the increasingly beleaguered government ahead of July elections.
Toshikatsu Matsuoka, 62, was found in his apartment Monday unconscious and declared dead hours later.
An autopsy showed that he died after hanging himself, according to a Tokyo Metropolitan Police official who spoke on customary condition of anonymity.
The minister was found hanging from a door in his apartment earlier Monday, and he left a suicide note, according to local media reports.
Matsuoka's death comes just ahead of upper house elections, and as support for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Cabinet is plunging.
Abe, looking shaken after visiting the hospital where Matsuoka died, said although the minister had been "under intense questioning" in parliament, he had continued to be a useful member of the Cabinet.
"I am very disappointed," he said. "When I saw his face, he seemed to be at peace.
Matsuoka had faced heavy criticism over a scandal involving suspicious bookkeeping practices in his offices, and was scheduled to appear before a parliamentary committee Monday afternoon for further questioning.
Opposition lawmakers had demanded his resignation, but Matsuoka denied any wrongdoing.
Along with the utilities questions, he apologized publicly just three days after taking office for not declaring $8,500 in political donations.
Japan's political funds law requires politicians to declare such donations when they exceed $1,700, Kyodo News said.
ARLINGTON, Virginia (CNN) President Bush marked Memorial Day with a call for Americans to stand firm in their efforts against U.S. enemies around the world and with a tribute to fallen troops.
Bush spoke after a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington, Virginia, addressing a crowd that included relatives of the dead, veterans, military officials and members of Congress and the public. (Watch Bush pay tribute to "our finest citizens" )
"I hope you find comfort knowing that your loved ones rest in a place even more peaceful than the fields that surround us here.
Bush noted that Arlington National Cemetery holds the bodies of seven generations of Americans, including 360,000 from the Civil War, 500,000 from World Wars I and II, and 90,000 from the Korean and Vietnam Wars.
"Men and women who gave their lives in such places as Kabul and Kandahar, Baghdad and Ramadi.
National Guard troops fired tear gas and rubber bullets Monday into a crowd of protesters angry over a decision by President Hugo Chavez that forced a critical television station off the air.
University students blocked one lane of a major highway hours after Radio Caracas Television ceased broadcasting at midnight and was replaced with a new state-funded channel.
Chavez had refused to renew RCTV's broadcast license, accusing it of "subversive" activities and of backing a 2002 coup against him.
Two students were injured by rubber bullets and a third was hit with a tear gas canister, said Ana Teresa Yepez, an administrator at Caracas' Metropolitan University. She said about 20 protesters were treated for inhaling tear gas.
The new public channel, TVES, launched its transmissions with artists singing pro-Chavez music, then carried an exercise program and a talk show, interspersed with government ads proclaiming, "Now Venezuela belongs to everyone.
Crowds of students demonstrated across Caracas, saying they fear for the future of free speech.
Thousands of government supporters reveled in the streets as they watched the midnight changeover on large TV screens, seeing RCTV's signal go black and then be replaced by a TVES logo. Others launched fireworks and danced in the streets.
Inside the studios of RCTV the sole opposition-aligned TV station with nationwide reach disheartened actors and comedians wept and embraced in the final minutes on the air.
They bowed their heads in prayer, and presenter Nelson Bustamante declared: "Long live Venezuela!
We will return soon.
Founded in 1953, RCTV regularly topped viewer ratings with its talk shows, sports, soap operas and comedy programs.
But Chavez accused the network of helping to incite a failed coup in 2002, violating broadcast laws and "poisoning" Venezuelans with programming that promoted capitalism.
The government promises TVES will be more diverse, buying 70 percent of its content from independent Venezuelan producers.
TVES received $4 million in startup funds from the government, but officials said it also may seek commercial advertising.
Most Venezuelan news media are in private hands, including many newspapers and radio stations that remain critical of Chavez.
But the only major surviving opposition-sided TV channel is Globovision, which is not seen in all parts of the country.
JERUSALEM (AP) Israel's army received approval Monday to broaden its ground operations against Gaza militants who have been barraging Israeli border towns with deadly rocket fire, but no large-scale incursion is in the works, military officials said.
The Israeli campaign which has relied primarily on intensified airstrikes in the past two weeks has forced Hamas leaders to lie low in recent days.
On Monday, Prime Minister Ismail Haniya of Hamas stayed away from a weekly Cabinet meeting in Gaza City.
In the meantime, a lull in internal Palestinian strife appeared to be growing ever more brittle, with rival Hamas and Fatah gunmen clashing briefly, and putting up roadblocks around Gaza City that all but emptied the streets.
Under the new Israeli military orders, larger numbers of troops will be able to enter Gaza to carry out pinpoint raids, the military officials said.
But no widespread campaign is expected at this time, they added, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss policy.
Past large-scale offensives have failed to quell the rocket fire.
The authorization to pour more troops into Gaza came just a day after Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said he would let the army do whatever necessary to halt the rocket fire.
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) Taliban militants ambushed foreign and Afghan forces escorting supply trucks in southern Afghanistan, sparking a 10-hour battle the U.S.-led coalition said killed an estimated two dozen militants.
In the north, a suicide bomber targeted foreigners in a four-wheel drive vehicle Monday, killing two Afghan civilians and wounding two others, officials said.
The southern violence began Sunday when an Afghan police and coalition convoy hit two roadside bombs and was ambushed by Taliban fighters while escorting 24 supply trucks in Helmand province, a coalition statement said Monday.
The blast killed one Afghan truck driver and wounded three coalition soldiers, it said.
Militants then launched rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire, and the ensuing 10-hour clash and airstrikes killed "an estimated two dozen enemy fighters," it said.
The coalition said "one enemy fighting position" was destroyed, and "no Afghan civilian injuries were reported.
But Abdul Qudus, a villager from Helmand's Gereshk district, told The Associated Press by phone that airstrikes hit a civilian area.
"They came and bombarded the houses of innocent people.
There was no way to verify the claims of either the coalition or the villagers at the remote battle site.
Taliban fighters often seek cover in civilian homes, where they fire on U.S. and NATO forces, leading those homes to be targeted.
Civilian deaths have been an ongoing point of contention between the government of President Hamid Karzai and U.S. and NATO forces.
Though the foreign troops say they do everything they can to avoid civilian casualties, an estimated 135 civilians have been killed this year by U.S. or NATO military action, according to an Associated Press count based on numbers from U.S., Afghan and U.N. officials.
In northern Kunduz, a suicide bomber targeted foreigners in a four-wheel drive vehicle, but they were unhurt in the blast, said Kunduz provincial police chief Gen. Ayub Salangi.
Provincial health department director Azizullah Safer said two other civilians were wounded.
More than 1,800 people have been killed in insurgency-related violence this year, according to the AP count.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) The United States told Iran on Monday its support for militias fighting in Iraq needs to cease, said Ryan Crocker, U.S. ambassador to Iraq.
Crocker spoke at a news conference after a meeting with Iranian diplomats in Baghdad the first public and formal meeting between U.S. and Iranian representatives since the United States cut off diplomatic relations 27 years ago.
Crocker told reporters that in terms of policy for Iraq "there isn't much to argue about."
But he said Iran needs to bring its actions in line with its "declaratory policy. " (Watch what U.S., Iran had to say about each other )
Iran has repeatedly denied U.S. accusations that it is fomenting violence in Iraq.
Crocker said the Iranians did not respond directly on Monday to the U.S. allegations.
"The Iranians did not go into any great detail," he said.
"They made the assertion that the coalition presence was an occupation and that the effort to train and equip the Iraqi security forces had been inadequate to the challenges faced.
The Iranian ambassador told The Associated Press after the session that another meeting of the three nations will be held in Iraq within a month.
Crocker did not confirm that there would be a second meeting.
"The Iraqi government said it would extend an invitation in the period ahead for another meeting," he said.
Iran has offered before to train Iraqi forces and provide them with equipment.
No topics outside of Iraq were discussed, he said.
Justin Henin opened the defense of her French Open crown with a battling 6-4 6-3 win over 20-year-old Russian Elena Vesnina on Sunday.
After a wait of nearly six hours because of rain, the world number one, who won the title in 2003, 2005 and 2006, came from 3-1 down in the second set to clinch victory and set up a clash with Austrian Tamira Paszek.
Vesnina, the world number 65, showed her potential as she broke on her way to a 3-1 lead in the second set but Henin then
Serena Williams recovered from a sluggish start to beat Bulgaria's Tsvetana Pironkova 5-7 6-1 6-1.
Making clumsy errors, Williams, seeded eighth, dropped serve straight away and found herself 5-2 down after just 28 minutes.
The match was then stopped for nearly six hours because of rain. When it resumed, Pironkova won her service game to love to wrap up the set.
The 25-year-old Williams then turned on the power, taking the second set 6-1 in 30 minutes with a service winner on set point.
"I'm a fighter", Williams said. "I've never lost in the first round of a Grand Slam and I didn't want that to change.
HONG KONG, China Hundreds of people marched through the streets of Hong Kong on Sunday to commemorate the Tiananmen Square protests 18 years ago, angry over comments from a lawmaker who appeared to take China's side in the crackdown.
Walking through heavy rain, the demonstrators chanted slogans condemning the lawmaker, Ma Lik, who disputed witness accounts of the June 4, 1989, crackdown, saying Chinese troops did not fire indiscriminately at protesters.
Organizers said about 1,500 people took part in the march, which has been held every year since 1989 on the Sunday before June 4. Police put the figure at 1,000.
On the Chinese mainland, public commemorations are forbidden and police tighten their normally intense vigilance of Tiananmen Square.
Family members of those killed gather quietly in cemeteries or at each other's homes.
Twelve-year-old demonstrator Tse Tsz-wai said he suggested to his father that they join after hearing about Ma's remarks, made earlier this month.
"I learned about the crackdown from my parents and teachers.
What Ma said was not right," Tse said.
Ma has acknowledged his comments might have been "rash and frivolous," but insisted there was no massacre.
Journalists and other witnesses have said troops opened fire with machine guns and tanks ran over protesters, killing hundreds, perhaps thousands.
Numerous news photos showed bloody bodies crumpled in the streets.
The Chinese government maintains it quelled counter-revolutionary protests that threatened national security.
Peter Lee, a civil servant, said he also took to the street this year because of Ma's remarks.
"The crackdown is a very complicated issue.
How can he say something like that?"
the 40-year-old said. "I'm very sad and angry about his comments.
The 1989 demonstrations in Beijing marked a watershed for Hong Kong.
The territory was a British colony living on borrowed time, awaiting an already agreed upon return to China in 1997.
The pro-democracy movement provided a heartening moment for Hong Kong residents, who mounted huge demonstrations in support.
Many in Hong Kong donated money and supplies to the demonstrators.
When news of the killings reached the territory, over a million poured onto the streets in protest.
The crushing of the demonstrations in Beijing dashed hopes in Hong Kong about the prospects for democratic reform by China's rulers.
Ukraine's president and prime minister on Sunday agreed to hold an early parliamentary election on September 30, defusing a months-long political crisis that had threatened to escalate into violence.
"We found a decision, which is a compromise," President Viktor Yushchenko was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.
The two had reached a similar agreement in early May, but never ironed out the details and the crisis escalated.
Tensions between Yushchenko, who has sought to lead Ukraine into the European Union and NATO, and his rival, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, who seeks to preserve Ukraine's close ties with Russia, have been building since the president ordered parliament disbanded in April and
But the political struggle threatened to turn into a physical confrontation this week when Yushchenko ordered the dismissal of the nation's chief prosecutor, loyal to the prime minister, who refused to leave his office.
Riot police surrounded the prosecutor's offices, preventing his eviction.
Yushchenko summoned thousands of troops to the capital Saturday, but forces loyal to Yanukovych stopped them outside Kiev.
Ivan Plyushch, the head of the national security council, said the president had ordered the troops to Kiev to forestall violence, though some feared it would have the opposite effect.
Pro-junta thugs in Myanmar clashed Sunday with hundreds of supporters of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, hurling abuse and preventing them from marching to a prayer vigil for the detained Nobel laureate, witnesses said.
Holding photos of the 61-year-old, about 500 members of her National League for Democracy party shouted "Free Aung San Suu Kyi" as they staged a rally outside the party's headquarters in Myanmar's largest city, Yangon.
The supporters had intended to go on to a Buddhist pagoda in downtown Yangon to pray for Suu Kyi's release, but were blocked by about 100 supporters of the junta, leading to a tense standoff, witnesses said.
The junta supporters shouted abuse at the other side for about 15 minutes,
and one NLD-elected member was dragged away by them, witnesses said, asking not to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter.
"Release immediately and unconditionally all political prisoners of conscience including members of parliament who are imprisoned for their beliefs," the NLD said in a statement.
The rally comes two days after the junta extended Suu Kyi's house arrest for a fifth year.
The Nobel Peace Prize laureate has spent more than 11 of the past 17 years in detention.
The order keeping her under house arrest at her residence in Yangon was due to expire Sunday, but officials told her of its one-year extension Friday afternoon.
Authorities have since beefed up security near Suu Kyi's lakeside residence and extended barbed-wire barricades on her street.
Her street was closed to traffic and police with batons were deployed near roadblocks.
"Extending the detention by one more year amounts to ignoring calls by world leaders for her release," a statement by the NLD said.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) U.S. forces have freed 42 Iraqi citizens who were kidnapped, held by al Qaeda in Iraq for as long as four months and possibly tortured, a U.S. military spokesman said Sunday.
U.S. forces received a tip on where the hostages were held, said Lt. Col. Christopher Garver.
"They will take members of a community, and hold them, trying to get the community to act in ways they want with the threat of killing these hostages," Garver said.
actual monetary gain coming out of kidnappings, but we do see them trying to use kidnappings to hold whole communities hostage.
"Some had stated that they had been hung from the ceiling," he said.
The military spokesman said tips that come from Iraqi citizens, including the one that led to the Diyala raid, are a sign of the growing trust with the U.S. military.
CALUMET CITY, Illinois (AP) A man beat his girlfriend's 4-year-old son to death after she left the boy in his care while she was deployed to Iraq, police said.
Donnell Parker, 23, was charged Friday with first-degree murder in the death of Cameron Smith.
The boy was found dead in his bed Thursday in a suburb south of Chicago.
Parker told police he beat the boy, but would not say why, said Calumet City police Chief Patrick O'Meara.
It was not immediately known if Parker had an attorney.
Cameron was punched in the head, stomach and chest, and whipped with a belt from Tuesday to Wednesday evening, O'Meara said.
An autopsy found he died of blunt-force trauma to the abdomen and head, O'Meara said.
The boy's 7-year-old sister and 8-year-old brother had also been in Parker's care, O'Meara said. They were put in the custody of their maternal grandparents after Cameron was found dead.
Cameron's mother, Sgt. Lavanda Smith, 28, was headed back to Illinois Friday after spending only 10 hours at her new duty station in Iraq.
She was called to active duty in April with her Army National Guard unit and was sent to Fort Benning, Georgia, on May 12 in preparation for deployment, said Lt. Col. Alicia Tate-Nadeau, an Illinois National Guard spokeswoman.
Family members said Cameron's father, Gary Smith Jr., 27, had been deployed to Iraq last August and last saw his three children on a brief leave in January.
Family members said the Smiths had been married for eight years, and had both been in the military most of that time.
O'Meara said Lavanda Smith had apparently been living with Parker for about a year.
Parker was scheduled to appear Saturday in bond court in suburban Markham, Illinois.
Nasdaq Stock Market has agreed to buy Nordic bourse owner OMX for $3.7 billion, the two companies announced on Friday, as Nasdaq sets its sights on expanding beyond the U.S. market and adds to a wave of stock market consolidation.
Nasdaq has been under pressure to get a deal done after the London Stock Exchange's rejection of its final bid in February and as rival exchanges consolidate.
The new company will be called Nasdaq OMX Group, they said.
"This combination provides our organizations with the ability to grow and accelerate the global flow of equity capital," said Nasdaq's chief executive, Robert Greifeld, who will be chief executive of Nasdaq OMX Group.
, with 10.7 percent of the company, as well as bank Nordea, have accepted the offer, the statement said.
Together with OMX's chief executive, Magnus Bocker, this represents acceptances for 16.6 percent of OMX shares.
The companies said they expected total pretax annual synergies of $150 million, including $100 million of cost synergies and $50 million of revenue synergies.
Nasdaq shareholders will own around 72 percent of the new company, the statement said, and the new group will have a combined market capitalization of around $7.1 billion.
CARACAS, Venezuela (CNN) Venezuelan police on Sunday used water cannons and what appeared to be tear gas to break up thousands of demonstrators protesting the government's decision to close the country's most-watched television station.
The protest began in front of National Telecommunications Commission headquarters after members of the National Guard seized broadcast equipment, including antennas, the result of a Supreme Court order on Friday.
After police stopped using the water cannons, the crowd regrouped, and video of the scene showed a peaceful mood, with people waving flags and chanting as night fell.
"We are living an injustice," presenter Eyla Adrian said, according to AP.
"I wish that tonight would never come.
President Hugo Chavez announced in January that the government would not renew the broadcast license for the station, long an outlet for opposition parties.
Chavez has accused the station of supporting the failed 2002 coup against him and violating broadcast laws.
He called the station's soap operas "pure poison" that promote capitalism, according to AP.
RCTV, which has been broadcasting for 53 years, is slated to be off the air at midnight. It will be replaced by a state-run station.
"To refuse to grant a new license for the most popular and oldest television channel in the country because the government disagrees with the editorial or political views of this channel, which are obviously critical to Chavez, is a case of censorship," said Jose Miguel Vivanco, executive director of Human Rights Watch.
"We will reorganize and continue working.
One is beginning a fight not violent, but active, very active.
Granier accused Chavez of being "afraid of free thought, of opinion, of criticism.
Last week, the U.S. Senate passed a resolution condemning the decision to shut down the station.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair plans to push through a new anti-terrorism law before he steps down next month giving "wartime" powers to police to stop and question people, a newspaper reported on Sunday.
Blair, who is due to resign June 27 after a decade in office, wrote in an article in The Sunday Times that his government planned to publish new anti-terrorism proposals "within the next few weeks".
An interior ministry spokeswoman confirmed the government was looking at including a "stop and question" power in the new legislation. "We are considering a range of powers for the bill and 'stop and question' is one of them," she said.
The "stop and question" power would enable police to interrogate people about who they are, where they have been and where they were going, The Sunday Times said. Police would not need to suspect a crime had taken place.
If suspects failed to stop or refused to answer questions, they could be charged with a crime and fined, The Sunday Times said.
Police already have the power to stop and search people but have no right to ask them their identity and movements.
The Sunday Times said the powers already existed in Northern Ireland. Civil rights groups viewed the plan to extend them to the rest of Britain as an attack on civil liberties, it said.
Such powers had existed before in other parts of Britain only in wartime, it said.
Blair's government passed tough anti-terrorism measures after the September 11, 2001, attacks on U.S. cities and again after four British Muslim suicide bombers killed 52 people on London's transport network in July 2005.
The three Afghan aid workers kidnapped with two French colleagues nearly two months ago were released by their Taliban captors Sunday as the militant group announced new operations aimed at government and foreign forces.
The three aid workers from the France-based group Terre d'Enfance Mohammad Hashim and brothers Ghulam Rasul and Ghulam Azrat were abducted April 3 along with the two French nationals in the southwestern province of Nimroz.
The Taliban released the French woman, Celine Cordelier, on April 28, and the man, Eric Damfreville, on May 11.
"The three Afghans who were detained with the two French aid workers have been released today in Nimroz province at the request of tribal leaders," purported Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi said Sunday.
A brother of Rasul and Azrat, Abdul Wahab, said relatives and neighbors had gathered to greet the three hostages when they returned home.
They're very happy. My brother Ghulam Rasul is holding his two sons, crying and kissing them.
Ghulam Azrat is holding his two daughters, and crying happily, kissing them, as all the relatives watch," Wahab said by telephone from Nimroz.
"You know the Afghan tradition we are going to buy sheep to slaughter them and to give to the poor" to celebrate their homecoming, Wahab said.
News of the three men's release was also met with joy and thanks in France.
After the release of the two French aid workers "only the liberation of their Afghan companions could put an end to this painful episode," he said.
After taking the Terre d'Enfance group captive, the Taliban demanded the withdrawal of all remaining French troops from Afghanistan.
France pulled 200 French special forces out of Afghanistan late last year and still has about 1,000 troops stationed in the country.
The French aid workers were kidnapped two weeks after Afghan authorities released five Taliban prisoners in exchange for an Italian newspaper reporter who was abducted along with his two Afghan colleagues in southern Helmand province on March 5.
Ahmadi also said the Taliban launched a new operation targeting government and foreign forces in Afghanistan, as a roadside bomb killed three Afghan security guards working for the coalition in the east.
diplomats said Monday's scheduled talks with Iran will be limited to discussions about Iraq's security, and not about the unresolved issues of detained Americans in Iran or the country's nuclear program.
The meeting in Baghdad will be the first public and formal meeting between U.S. and Iranian representatives since the United States cut off diplomatic relations 27 years ago.
"The issue at hand in the meeting between [U.S. Ambassador to Iraq] Ryan Crocker and the Iranian representative ... is going to be focused on Iraq and stabilizing Iraq," U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said last week.
An Iraqi delegation will also be present at the talks, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told CNN.
The purpose of the meeting, Zebari said, is to "help ease tensions between the U.S. and Iran.
Tehran said on state-run media over the weekend that it has uncovered several U.S.-run spy rings inside Iran and would release more details in the coming days.
There was no immediate response from the White House.
Tehran recently arrested Haleh Esfandiari, one of four Iranian-Americans detained in Tehran, on the suspicion of conducting activities against the Iranian government, an accusation dismissed by Washington.
In addition, Robert Levinson, an American and retired FBI agent, has been missing since March 8, when he was last seen on Iran's Kish Island.
The U.S. military is holding seven "Iranian intelligence service personnel" in Iraq, spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell told CNN's "Late Edition" in an interview taped Friday.
The United States broke off diplomatic ties with Iran in April 1980 in the midst of the seizure of the U.S. Embassy.
Iranian students occupied the embassy from November 1979 until January 1981, when they released the remaining 52 hostages.
Hours after a Qassam rocket shot into Israel from Gaza killed an Israeli civilian, Israel's prime minister on Sunday warned "all those involved in firing Qassams will be hit. No one is immune.
Ehud Olmert's comments at the start of his weekly Cabinet meeting come after the latest round of fighting between the Jewish state and militants in neighboring Gaza.
Early Sunday a Qassam rocket hit Sderot, wounding two people one who later died from the injuries, Israeli medical services said. (Watch workers pull rocket remains from pavement )
A hospital spokeswoman said the 36-year-old man died after the rocket was fired over the Gaza border.
Earlier, Israel launched overnight airstrikes in Gaza City, Jabalya and Rafa, targeting positions used by Hamas militants, the IDF said.
Israeli parliament member Ze'ev Boim said he thinks "Hamas leaders understand now the ability of Israel to react, and our determination to stop the Qassam rockets launching on Sderot.
Palestinians have launched more than 230 rockets into Israel since May 15, an IDF statement sent Sunday said.
Lindsay Lohan was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence Saturday after her convertible struck a curb, and investigators found what they suspect is cocaine at the scene, police said.
It appeared Lohan was speeding, Lt. Mitch McCann said at an afternoon news conference.
Officers at the scene found a "usable amount" of a drug tentatively identified as cocaine, McCann said. He declined to say where the drug was found other than to say Lohan was not carrying it.
Lohan, who spent time at a rehabilitation center earlier this year, was driven in another car to a hospital for treatment of minor injuries, McCann said.
Officers received a 911 call about the accident and arrested Lohan at the hospital for investigation of misdemeanor driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, McCann said.
She was released from custody because she was admitted to the hospital, police said.
McCann declined to comment on Lohan's blood-alcohol level.
He said the case will be presented to the District Attorney's Office where the actress could face more charges, including felonies.
Her tentative arraignment date is August 24.
The crash was Lohan's third accident in about two years.
In October 2005, Lohan and a passenger suffered minor injuries when her convertible hit a van in West Hollywood.
Authorities said the van driver, who also received minor injuries, was at fault.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2739846
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2739729 The leader of Hezbollah in Lebanon, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, has warned the Lebanese army not to enter the Palestinian refugee camp north of Tripoli where it has been confronting Islamic militants.
Nasrallah in a televised address to mark the seventh anniversary of Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon said that to enter the camp would be crossing a red line, and the Palestinians should not be touched.
"Suppose that the government is having a war on terror, that doesn't mean they should kill half of the people on the street," he said in a reference to Palestinian civilians crammed into the Nahr el-Bared camp.
He also criticized the militants of Fatah al-Islam, who are holed up inside the camp, accusing them of an aggression against the army that was an aggression against all of Lebanon.
Hezbollah, a Shiite organization, views extremist Sunni groups such as al Qaeda and Fatah al-Islam as enemies.
We are not killers Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora told CNN's Brent Sadler he considers the battle part of the war on terrorism, not a conflict between Lebanon and the Palestinians. "To the contrary, I believe strongly that this war is targeting Lebanon on the one hand and the Palestinians on the other," he said.
"Either they will surrender, or the Lebanese government and the Lebanese army is going to really pursue the matter to the end," Siniora said. "If left, I can assure you, this is going to be very contagious. It's like cancer. It has to be really removed completely, otherwise it's going to expand.
"I believe that what we are doing, it is in the interest of the Palestinians, it is in the interest of the Lebanese," Siniora said. (Watch Lebanese PM Fouad Siniora say the army are not killers )
TOKYO, Japan (AP) In the race for ever-thinner displays for TVs, cell phones and other gadgets, Sony may have developed one to beat them all a razor-thin display that bends like paper while showing full-color video.
Sony Corp. released video of the new 2.5-inch display Friday.
In it, a hand squeezes a display that is 0.3 millimeters, or 0.01 inch, thick.
Sony said it has yet to decide on commercial products using the technology.
"In the future, it could get wrapped around a lamppost or a person's wrist, even worn as clothing," said Sony spokesman Chisato Kitsukawa. "Perhaps it can be put up like wallpaper.
Tatsuo Mori, an engineering and computer science professor at Nagoya University, said some hurdles remained, including making the display bigger, ensuring durability and cutting costs.
But he said the display's pliancy is extremely difficult to imitate with liquid crystal displays and plasma display panels the two main display technologies now on the market.
"To come up with a flexible screen at that image quality is groundbreaking," Mori said. "You can drop it, and it won't break because it's as thin as paper.
The new display combines two technologies:
Sony's organic thin film transistor, which is required to make flexible displays, and organic electroluminescent display.
Sony President Ryoji Chubachi has said a film-like display is a major technology his company is working on to boost its status as a technological powerhouse.
In a meeting with reporters more than a year ago, Chubachi boasted Sony was working on a technology for displays so thin it could be rolled up like paper.
He had predicted that the world would stand up and take notice.
Some analysts have said Sony, which makes Walkman portable players and PlayStation 3 video game machines, had fallen behind rivals in flat-panel technology, including Samsung Electronics Co. of South Korea and Sharp Corp. of Japan.
But Sony has been marking a turnaround under Chubachi and Chief Executive Howard Stringer, the first foreigner to head Sony, by reducing jobs, shuttering unprofitable businesses and strengthening its flat TV offerings.
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) An Iranian-American woman detained in Tehran is being held illegally and has been repeatedly denied access to an attorney, Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi told CNN on Friday.
Ebadi said that Haleh Esfandiari and other Iranian-Americans held in Iran are political prisoners.
"Iran doesn't observe laws," she said through an interpreter in an exclusive interview while visiting the United States.
Iranian officials have said Esfandiari, a scholar with dual citizenship, is being held in prison in Tehran while under investigation for "crimes against national security.
Ebadi, one of Esfandiari's attorneys, said her client is innocent.
The Nobel laureate said that two of her colleagues went to try to see Esfandiari but officials at a judge's office would not let them in.
When they asked to read Esfandiari's file, they were denied access, she said.
Her husband, Shaul Bakhash, said she had been questioned for weeks before her arrest.
When she applied for a new passport, authorities began questioning her about her work.
The Woodrow Wilson Center says the questioning was conducted by officials of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security.
Earlier this month, Esfandiari was locked up in Tehran's Evin Prison, which houses many Iranian dissidents and political prisoners.
In 2000, Ebadi was held in the same prison.
Ebadi said she will return to Iran early next month to take up Esfandiari's case and try to visit her in prison.
I will challenge the court, and I will make them understand that they are violating my client's human rights.
Ebadi, who won the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize, is the founder of the Center for Defense of Human Rights in Tehran.
She is the first Muslim woman to win the coveted award.
In a statement issued Friday, Human Rights Watch demanded the Iranian authorities "should immediately release the three Iranian-Americans and the dozens of activists, teachers and scholars arbitrarily detained. "
Three Singaporean Muslim women, all married to the same man, were sentenced to jail for persuading some of his under-age daughters to have sex with him, court documents showed on Thursday.
The man, who has 10 wives and 64 children, was sentenced to 32 years in prison and 24 strokes of the cane in April 2006 after he was found guilty of raping five of his under-age daughters.
The case has shocked many Singaporeans, both for the crimes committed and the unusual living arrangements depicted in the court papers.
One of the wives was sentenced to nine years in jail after she coaxed her own daughter and two other under-age girls in the family to have sex with the man, court documents showed.
The other two women, who each persuaded one of their own daughters to sleep with the man, both received three-year terms.
"They participated in the sordid conspiracy by actively persuading their daughters into submitting to the sexual violations," District Judge Shaiffudin Saruwan said in the documents.
The man, citing the Koran, had told his wives and daughters that he had complete ownership over his children, including the right to have sex with his daughters, the papers showed.
The wives then acted as his messengers, telling their daughters to meet their father in his bedroom whenever he wanted sex over a period of 18 months, according to the court papers,
adding that two of the daughters have had abortions.
The man, who ran a transportation business, has four legal wives and six contractual wives an arrangement whereby a Muslim couple enters into a union for a fixed period.
His 33 sons and 31 daughters range in age from about 2 years to 17.
AC Milan's season a classic Italian tale of trial, redemption and revenge worthy of the city's famous Scala opera house reached an ecstatic finale on Wednesday as they captured the European Cup for a seventh time with a 2-1 win over Liverpool in Athens.
For Milan's coach Carlo Ancelotti and his players, victory over the English side tasted all the sweeter for their famous capitulation in the same game against the same opponents two years ago, when they had been leading by three goals at halftime, only to end up losing on penalties.
And then I want to try to win the Champions League again next year. It'd be fantastic.
With a side built around the mercurial skills of the Brazilian playmaker Kaka, the good cop-bad cop midfield partnership of Andrea Pirlo and Gennaro Gattuso and a wily, experienced defence marshalled by Alessando Nesta and Maldini, Milan always had the quality on paper to compete with the best.
In a season in which Italian football has been dragged through the mud by match-fixing and football violence, Wednesday's result perhaps completed the process of rehabilitation that began with the country's World Cup success in Germany last July.
Flying into the tiny island of Principe off Africa's west coast brings a sense of traveling back in time.
Seen from over the Atlantic, the dense tropical jungle coats the volcanic terrain down to a turquoise sea and golden beaches reachable only by boat.
It looks like a prehistoric land that time forgot.
Principe is one of the poorest spots on Earth in dollar terms.
But in terms of virgin tropical landscapes it is one of the wealthiest, says Rombout Swanborn, a Dutch businessman and conservationist.
Ecotourism took off in eastern Africa in the early 1990s.
Underdeveloped countries such as Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya discovered they had what vacationers from developed countries sought raw wilderness rich in animal life.
Angola and Nigeria are also signing up.
Sao Tome and Principe, a twin-island nation in the Gulf of Guinea, aims to become the latest.
The Madrid, Spain-based World Tourism Organization in October described Africa as the industry's "star performer."
Growth in visitors is predicted to be around 10 percent this year, more than double the world average.
Saturn's rings may look smooth and even when viewed through a telescope but they are in fact made up of clumps of particles and may be much denser than realized, scientists said on Tuesday.
"The rings are different from the picture we had in our minds," said Larry Esposito of the University of Colorado at Boulder, who led the study done using ultraviolet imaging.
"We originally thought we would see a uniform cloud of particles. Instead we find that the particles are clumped together with empty spaces in between.
That means scientists have underestimated the mass of Saturn's rings.
They may be two to three times denser than previous estimates, the researchers said.
Physicist Josh Colwell of the University of Central Florida in Orlando said "By studying the brightness of stars as the rings pass in front of them, we are able to map the ring structure in 3-D and learn more about the shape, spacing and orientation of clusters of particles,"
Writing in the journal Icarus, the researchers said the gravitational attraction of ring particles to each other creates clumps, or "self-gravity wakes.
If the clumps were farther from Saturn, they might aggregate even more to make a moon but because they are so close to the massive planet, they get stretched apart.
It takes an age before Johnny Depp shows his face in "Pirates of the Caribbean:
At World's End," and when he does, it's the tip of his nose that looms into screen left, eventually succeeded by a flaring nostril.
Without those sequences, there would be nothing there but a movie cannot exist on rollick alone (not by the second sequel anyway).
The problem is not so much that the energy or the invention flags.
Screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio have been working overtime.
Still, it's all as splashy as $250 million can buy, and on occasion the CGI guys conjure something akin to poetry:
Or the Black Pearl surfing through the sand on the back of a million crustaceans.
It's really too bad this wonderful anarchy is swamped by the movie's noisy inconsequence.
Customs officers at Cairo's airport have detained a man bound for Saudi Arabia who was trying to smuggle 700 live snakes on a plane, airport authorities said.
The officers were stunned when a passenger, identified as Yahia Rahim Tulba, told them his carryon bag contained live snakes after he was asked to open it.
Tulba opened his bag to show the snakes to the police and asked the officers, who held a safe distance, not to come close.
Among the various snakes, hidden in small cloth sacks, were two poisonous cobras, authorities said.
The Egyptian said he had hoped to sell the snakes in Saudi Arabia.
Police confiscated the snakes and turned Tulba over to the prosecutor's office, accusing him of violating export laws and endangering the lives of other passengers.
According to the customs officials, Tulba claimed the snakes are wanted by Saudis who display them in glass jars in shops, keep them as pets.
The value of the snakes was not immediately known.
A woman who died of lung disease five months after the September 11, 2001 attacks has been added to the medical examiner's list of attack victims.
The groundbreaking move on Wednesday marked the first time the city of New York has officially declared that exposure to World Trade Center toxins following the 9/11 attacks contributed to a person's death.
Dunn-Jones will be listed on the September 11 memorial when it opens in 2009, a spokeswoman for the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation told The Associated Press.
Dunn-Jones' estate had previously received a $2.6 million death benefit from a federal fund to compensate victims' families, AP reported.
Sarcoidosis is a rare and debilitating disease which causes lesions, most often appearing on the liver, lungs, skin, and lymph nodes.
Before Wednesday's decision by New York, only a county in New Jersey had tied a death to exposure to World Trade Center dust.
A pathologist for Ocean County, New Jersey concluded in April 2006 that the death of retired NYPD detective, James Zadroga, 34, was directly linked to 9/11 recovery operations.
Zadroga, who was stricken with brain and respiratory aliments after spending close to 500 hours sifting through debris at the World Trade Center, died in January 2006.
Zadroga's father, Joseph Zadroga, said his son also suffered from sarcoidosis and that he and others should be added to the list of victims.
Photographs of Adolf Hitler taken by a British secret agent just before the start of World War II were published on Thursday.
Charles Turner, a music composer who was recruited as a spy, took the photos at the Wagner Festival in Bayreuth, Germany, in 1939, where he joined Hitler's entourage, his son David Turner said.
He was one of the last Englishman to speak to the dictator before Nazi forces invaded Poland on September 1, 1939.
In 1938 when war seemed imminent Turner was recruited as a spy, his son said. "The miraculous happened.
He was given carte blanche permission to photograph the fuehrer," David Turner said.
The composer met with Hitler and senior Nazi officials including propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels and Hitler's deputy, Rudolf Hess, Turner's son said.
Afterward he sent a detailed report back to London that remains classified.
Charles Turner died in 1977 and the photos were kept as family mementos after his death.
His son, a teacher, decided to make the photos public now after he started researching his family's roots.
Lebanese forces battling Islamic militants inside Lebanon will be resupplied by a shipment of U.S. military ammunition, which is expected to arrive within two days, senior U.S. officials told CNN's Barbara Starr on Thursday.
A statement attributed to Fatah al-Islam was sent Thursday to several media outlets in Lebanon, saying the militant group intends " to blow up several crusaders' universities and schools tomorrow in the event the Lebanese army does not surrender."
Responding to Lebanon's call for immediate military assistance, the U.S. military will send as many as six cargo flights carrying ammunition to Lebanon, the officials said.
One senior U.S. military official said it is rare to send military flights on such a mission, considering the sensitive nature of the United States' role in the Middle East.
But the Bush administration decided it could not wait to charter commercial cargo planes for the resupply mission, the official said.
The senior officials stressed that the flights are carrying only supplies for Lebanese forces, and the U.S. military has no intention of involving its troops in the fighting, which began Sunday.
The United States is a strong supporter of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's government, which it sees as a rare example of a young democracy in the Middle East.
However, Siniora and his anti-Syrian colleagues maintain a weak grip on power and face a serious challenge from politicians from the pro-Syrian Hezbollah movement, who were emboldened after last summer's war with Israel.
Speaking in a live television address on Thursday, Siniora Thursday vowed to "uproot" terrorism from his country, blaming Fatah al-Islam militants for using Palestinian refugees as a prop to attempt to destabilize the country.
Siniora stressed that the target of the Lebanese military is the militants who are holed up in a Palestinian refugee camp, and not the Palestinians.
Speaking on Wednesday, Lebanon's Defense Minister Elias Murr said the Fatah al-Islam militant group "has two choices: either surrender or face decisive military action.
On Thursday, the Lebanese military shot and sank two inflatable boats carrying militants from Nahr el-Bared refugee camp near Lebanon's second largest city, Tripoli, an army spokesman told CNN.
Casualty figures were not available, but the army said it believes each boat could have held five to six people.
Iran's nuclear work is almost at its "peak", President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Thursday while the head of the U.N.'s atomic watchdog said Iran was probably at least three years from making a nuclear bomb if it so chooses.
Ahmadinejad dismissed Western pressure on Iran to halt its nuclear drive.
Underlining what he said was the growing risk of a major confrontation between the West and Iran, International Atomic Energy Agency head Mohamed ElBaradei appealed for the two sides to restart negotiations on a compromise as soon as possible.
"Iran needs to suspend its enrichment activities as a confidence-building measure but the international community should do its utmost to engage Iran in comprehensive dialogue," ElBaradei told a conference on nuclear non-proliferation.
The IAEA said in a report on Wednesday that Iran was making substantial advances in uranium enrichment.
The lawmakers' negative reaction overshadowed U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's claim of "tangible results."
"It calls for direct consultation and dialogue between us, instead of easy resort to threat or sanctions," Wu said after two days of closed-door talks with Bush-administration officials.
Duncan Hunter, a California Republican, to let the Commerce Department levy duties on Chinese goods to offset the "subsidy" effect of China's exchange-rate policies.
The war drums are getting louder in Turkey, and they can be heard next door in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, and across the globe in Washington as well.
At least six people died and more than 100 were injured in the rush hour bombing at an Ankara shopping district.
The PKK denies involvement in the Ankara attack, and a U.S. State Department spokesman cautions that the investigation into the attack is "ongoing.
However, the outrage in Turkey toward the PKK has been boiling over.
Turkey's army chief, Gen. Yasar Buyukanit, said recently his troops are ready to attack what he calls Kurdish terrorist camps in northern Iraq.
And retired Turkish Gen. Edip Baser told CNN he believes an operation could be just weeks away.
The House passed Thursday night a $120 billion war-spending bill that had been the primary point of contention between Democrats and President Bush.
The Senate is scheduled to vote on the bill at 8:25 Thursday evening.
The money would fund military operations mostly in Iraq through September, or the end of the federal fiscal year. Afghanistan would receive a portion of the funding.
The president gave the bill his support Thursday during a news conference.
The measure passed the House in two votes:
the first approved a $2.10-per-hour minimum wage increase, bringing it up to $7.25, along with about $20 billion in domestic spending.
The second appropriated nearly $100 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The first vote was 348-73; the second was 280-142.
House Republican leader John Boehner said Congress needs to provide money for U.S. troops to continue fighting "terrorists" in Iraq, where al Qaeda-linked Islamic militants have taken root since the U.S. invasion in 2003.
Bush vetoed the first war funding bill earlier this month, because it contained timetables for removing U.S. troops from Iraq, a provision pushed by Democrats and some Republicans.
Faced with continued White House opposition after the veto, the Democratic leadership agreed to drop the withdrawal language so the spending bill could be moved by Memorial Day.
Bush must submit reports in July and September indicating progress in meeting those goals.
Efforts to protect endangered African elephants from the threat of extinction are being undermined by a burgeoning ivory smuggling network run by Asian crime gangs and by a "rampant trade" in illegal ivory on auction Web sites such as eBay, according to two new reports.
Ivory trading has been outlawed since 1989 by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), following a collapse in the African elephant population which saw numbers decline from 1.3 million in 1979 to just 300,000 by 1998.
But a new report by wildlife monitoring network TRAFFIC warns that large-scale ivory smuggling to Asian countries including China and Japan is threatening to undermine conservation efforts, with around 20,000 elephants still estimated to be poached every year.
Future restrictions on ivory trading are due to be discussed at next month's CITES convention at The Hague in the Netherlands with African nations in dispute over the best way forward.
The One Laptop Per Child non-profit headed up by MIT's Nicholas Negroponte is coming up against its self-imposed deadline of May 31 to secure three million orders for its little green computers.
Lots of developing countries have shown interest, but none have yet signed on the dotted line.
Even at $176 per laptop, government officials in places like Brazil or Cambodia are understandably wary of spending scarce funds on an unproven technology.
Maybe Negroponte should pound the drum harder not just on the affordability of his laptops, but on how they are also much more environmentally friendly than the alternatives.
These little laptops are so energy efficient that they are designed to run for 8 to 10 hours on a single charge.
So how green is this computer?
In comparison to a typical laptop, the One Laptop design is:
&#8212; Half the weight
&#8212; Half the size
Uses one third as many parts &#8212;
Consumes one-tenth as much power
&#8212; Promises four times more total battery life
Albert Einstein was more than an Einstein.
But there were other sides to the legendary physicist.
There was the celebrity, thrust into the limelight by his theories of special and general relativity, treated by the press as dignitary and spokesman.
He was, in short, quite a human being.
His Life and Universe" (Simon & Schuster), offers a comprehensive account of the 20th-century titan.
Einstein obviously fascinates, more than 50 years after his death.
Isaacson and the editors of Time picked the scientist as their well-received "Person of the Century" in 1999 , and today Isaacson's book is on top of The New York Times best-seller list.
AC Milan, whose participation in the Champions League was in serious doubt at the beginning of the season, could finish the campaign as European Cup winners for the seventh time on Wednesday.
Victory over Liverpool at the Olympic Stadium would not only avenge their defeat to the English club in the 2005 final but also bring their season to a glorious finale after such a tainted start.
Milan were embroiled in the Italian match-fixing scandal of last year and punished by the authorities with a points deduction that cost them their automatic Champions League place after finishing second in the Serie A table.
UEFA were reluctant to allow them entry into the Champions League qualifying round last July but eventually agreed to their participation after deciding they had no legal grounds on which
Liverpool, though, will have other ideas and are bidding to win the European Cup for the sixth time after their epic penalty shootout victory over Milan in Istanbul in 2005.
That final is regarded as one of the greatest matches ever played with Liverpool coming back from a 3-0 halftime deficit to draw 3-3 and win the match on penalties, but their coach Rafael Benitez warned fans not to expect another six-goal thriller.
Many of the players involved two years ago will be playing again on Wednesday with Paolo Maldini, Milan's captain, expected to become the oldest outfield player ever to appear in the final at the age of 38.
BP officials said it was too early to determine what caused a water-pipe leak that led to the second partial shutdown in 10 months of the nation's largest producing oil field.
"The best estimate is that it's going to be a few days where we are going through a repair plan," BP spokesman Daren Beaudo said Tuesday.
Some 400,000 barrels a day of oil are pumped at Prudhoe Bay, about half of the total North Slope production.
Beaudo said the company discovered a hole about the size of a pencil's diameter to a water line in a facility used to separate oil, water and natural gas.
BP discovered the leak around 1:45 a.m. Tuesday, Beaudo said.
By the time work crews diverted the leak to proper drainage and placed a patch over the leak, about 20 barrels of water had escaped from the pipe.
The British company said its production loss would be 25,000 barrels per day;
losses for the two majority owners would be about 36,000 barrels a day each.
The facility where the water leak occurred is the same one where the largest-ever oil leak on the North Slope occurred, last year.
At high-level economic talks that wrap up Wednesday, China is urging frustrated U.S. officials to be patient as the two powers work to manage a delicate trade relationship.
The United States, by contrast, is pushing for quick action.
The talks began Tuesday and could yield some results, including increased U.S. airline flights to China and a lowering of barriers to sales of American energy technology products in China.
Senior U.S. officials have tamped down expectations of major breakthroughs, however, as they described the meetings as strategic discussions, not negotiating sessions.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said the twice-a-year talks are "all about the long-term; developing a common understanding of the future.
Still, the U.S. side made a point of noting simmering frustration.
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Americans are by nature impatient people; Gutierrez described the "need to make progress in all areas as soon as possible.
Many blame America's soaring trade deficits and the loss of one in six manufacturing jobs since 2000 in part on claims of Chinese currency manipulation and copyright piracy.
In blunt words, Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi cautioned the United States against making accusations.
"We should not easily blame the other side for our own domestic problems," Wu said through an interpreter. "Confrontation does no good at all to problem-solving.
Wu, known as a tough negotiator, said that both countries should "firmly oppose trade protectionism." She warned that any effort to "politicize" the economic relationship between the two nations would be "absolutely unacceptable.
Wu and her delegation were scheduled to meet privately this week with major congressional leaders.
The U.S. delegation raised the issue of food safety highlighted by such incidents as the deaths of pets who had eaten pet food made with tainted wheat gluten imported from China.
U.S. Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, briefing reporters at the end of the first day of talks, said Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns had made a forceful presentation to the Chinese about the concerns Americans have about food safety.
The U.N. health agency Tuesday reached a preliminary agreement Tuesday seeking to ensure all countries share their H5N1 virus samples with the World Health Organization and that poor countries get a portion of future pandemic flu vaccines.
The draft resolution, which is expected to be formally adopted by the World Health Assembly on Wednesday, says that the agency will work out rules to guarantee "timely sharing of viruses" between affected countries and WHO, and ensure "fair and equitable distribution of pandemic influenza vaccines at affordable prices in the event of a pandemic.
The text, the result of strenuous negotiations between WHO member states, is written in very general terms without defining what a fair distribution of vaccines or timely sample sharing actually means.
The discussion on virus sample sharing was among the predominant subjects at WHO's annual meeting against the backdrop of an ongoing battle with Indonesia over H5N1 virus samples.
Indonesia has not shared any bird flu samples since last December, arguing that the pharmaceutical companies that could develop vaccines would make them too expensive for its population.
Though Indonesia's health minister last week announced that the country had shared three viruses with a WHO-accredited laboratory in Japan, it is uncertain whether further viruses will be shared.
China has also been reluctant to share samples.
China is preparing five virus samples to share with WHO, but it is unknown when they will actually be sent, according to WHO.
Although the text falls short of defining what constitutes a public health emergency, WHO officials said it would apply in the case of a flu pandemic.
At a recent kindergarten graduation ceremony, young girls smiled behind their brightly colored princess dresses and the boys showed off their best dress shirts.
They sipped on juice boxes, played on swings and jumped on and off seesaws.
It was a welcome relief from the war that surrounds them.
But when these 5-year-olds spoke, it became apparent just how much the ongoing violence has affected them.
"I'm going to bomb, bomb, bomb the school with everybody in it," said Omar Hussein, as he clutched a pink toy airplane.
At another point, a girl enthusiastically sang, "I give a knife to my father to slaughter the chicken.
He gives me a machine gun and a rifle.
Now, I am a soldier in the liberation army."
The same kindergarten taught up to 180 children just four years ago, before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq that toppled Saddam Hussein.
Today, the class has just 16 children, a result of families fleeing the war or parents keeping their children at home, fearful of bombs or kidnap gangs.
A report issued Tuesday by UNICEF, the United Nations' children organization, found such stories are not uncommon.
It says Iraq's children are "caught up in a rapidly worsening humanitarian tragedy.
"Violence is creating widows and orphans on a daily basis, many of whom are left to struggle for survival," the report says.
"Many women are afraid to walk in the street while parents are afraid to let their children play outside.
UNICEF says since the start of the war in March 2003, nearly 15 percent of Iraq's total population has fled their homes.
About 2.2 million Iraqis have fled to neighboring countries mostly Jordan and Syria. Another 1.9 million are displaced within Iraq, the report says.
Half of the nearly 4 million displaced Iraqis are children, according to UNICEF.
It adds, "Few safety nets are available to children who fall out of the education system altogether.
UNICEF says it urgently needs about $42 million for the next six months to help the displaced children funds that would be used for education, health care, sanitation and other humanitarian needs.
The Mars rover Spirit has uncovered the strongest evidence yet that the planet used to be wetter than previously thought, scientists reported Monday.
The robot analyzed a patch of soil in Gusev Crater and found it unusually rich in silica.
"This is a remarkable discovery," principal investigator Steve Squyres of Cornell University said in a statement. "It makes you wonder what else is still out there.
Spirit previously found clues of ancient water in the crater through the presence of sulfur-rich soil, water-altered minerals and explosive volcanism.
But the latest find is compelling because of the high silica content, researchers said, raising the possibility that conditions may have been favorable for the emergence of primitive life.
It's unclear how the silica deposit formed.
One possibility is that the soil mixed with acid vapors in the presence of water.
Others believe the deposit was created from water in a hot spring surrounding.
Angelina Jolie says she plans to take a year off from filmmaking to spend more time with her partner, Brad Pitt, and their children.
"We're getting work out of the way at the moment," said the 31-year-old actress, who has been shooting the thriller "Wanted" in Prague, Czech Republic.
After that, she said, "I take two months off, then I work for two months. Then I take a year off.
Jolie and Pitt, 43, have four children:
2-year-old Zahara, from Ethiopia; and daughter Shiloh, who was born to the couple last May 27.
She told a Vietnamese newspaper in March that she would stay at home to help Pax adjust to his new life.
"I have four children and caring for them is the most important thing for me at the moment," the Ho Chi Minh City Law newspaper quoted her as saying.
The celebrity supercouple are in Cannes to promote the Michael Winterbottom-directed "A Mighty Heart," in which Jolie plays Mariane Pearl, widow of slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.
Pearl was abducted by Islamic militants while researching a story in Pakistan in 2002 and later beheaded. (Watch a preview of "A Mighty Heart" )
Pitt is a producer on the movie, which had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on Monday.
Jolie has drawn praise for her portrayal of Mariane Pearl, a strong woman put under unbearable pressure.
Jolie, who has visited Pakistan three times as a United Nations goodwill ambassador, said she hopes to return to do more humanitarian work.
"I don't want to live inside a box," she said. "I will be smart, but I will lead a very bold life and I will learn about the world.
The fleet of yellow taxicabs in New York City will go entirely hybrid within five years, Mayor Michael Bloomberg says.
"There's an awful lot of taxicabs on the streets of New York City," Bloomberg said Tuesday. "These cars just sit there in traffic sometimes, belching fumes.
It's a lot better for all of us," he said of the hybrid plan.
Nearly 400 fuel-efficient hybrids have been tested in the city's taxi fleet over the past 18 months, with models including the Toyota Prius, the Toyota Highlander Hybrid, the Lexus RX 400h and the Ford Escape.
Under Bloomberg's plan, that number will increase to 1,000 by October 2008, then will grow by about 20 percent each year until 2012, when every yellow cab currently numbering 13,000 will be a hybrid.
Hybrid vehicles run on a combination of gasoline and electricity, emitting less exhaust and achieving higher gas mileage per gallon.
The standard yellow cab vehicle, the Ford Crown Victoria, gets 14 miles per gallon (6 kilometers per liter) . In contrast, the Ford Escape taxis get 36 miles per gallon (15 kilometers per liter).
In addition to making the yellow cab brigade entirely green within five years, the city will require all new vehicles entering the fleet after October 2008 to achieve a minimum of 25 miles per gallon (10 kilometers per liter).
Yahoo said it would donate 10 hybrid Ford Escapes for the city's effort.
ANKARA, Turkey (CNN) A powerful blast believed to be a bomb ripped through an Ankara shopping district Tuesday, killing at least five people and wounding dozens more.
Anti-terror squad police at the scene said they have found traces of A4 plastic explosives.
The rush-hour explosion went off in a busy shopping area of the city Ulus and during an international defense fair, where companies show their wares to militaries.
Investigators are trying to determine whether the bomb was planted or was detonated by a suicide attacker, according to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Police said A4 explosive is often used by militants in the radical separatist Kurdistan Workers Party known by its Turkish initials, PKK.
Its fighters have been staging attacks against Turkey in the country's southeast and from the Kurdish region of neighboring Iraq.
Police are also trying to track down a red vehicle that was at the scene.
Erdogan confirmed five deaths to news reporters. One of the dead was a Pakistani and the others were Turks.
Four of the more than 60 people injured were Pakistanis as well, Erdogan said.
Debris was scattered around the scene, and windows were knocked out of the building. Investigators were searching the rubble for clues.
Dozens were killed in 2003 when militants bombed two synagogues, the British consulate and a bank in Istanbul, the country's largest city.
There has been a lot of tension in the country between secularist and traditional Muslims, and the state has been battling Kurdish separatists for many years.
Some 2,000 Palestinians have fled a refugee camp near Tripoli after three days of fighting, according to the Red Crescent.
Their exit began as night fell Tuesday, amid a lull in the clashes between militants of the Fatah al-Islam group and the Lebanese army.
Many of those leaving carried makeshift white flags or waved them from car windows.
An elderly woman wept as she sat in a wheelchair waiting to be taken from the camp.
The Red Crescent said it had helped the refugees get to the nearby Bedawi camp, where they will spend the night at schools.
It said snipers had fired at some in the crowd as they left.
It's not clear how many civilians have been killed or injured during the fighting at the Nahr al-Bared camp.
A nurse at the Alkhair hospital in Tripoli said it received seven wounded civilians and two dead Tuesday from the same family.
A truce declared by Fatah al-Islam in the Palestinian refugee camp ended soon after it was announced Tuesday, when a U.N. relief convoy in the camp came under fire at 11:30 GMT (7:
A U.N. official in Beirut said several of the agency's workers were trapped inside the camp for several hours, but later got out shaken but unhurt.
(Watch an explanation of what's behind the fighting )
Afghanistan's lower parliamentary house voted Monday to suspend an outspoken female lawmaker, who has enraged former mujahedeen fighters now in President Hamid Karzai's U.S.-backed government.
The lawmaker, Malalai Joya, 29, said in a recent interview with private Afghan station Tolo TV that the country's parliament was like a "stable or zoo.
"This is a word that fits a cattle house is full of animals, like a cow giving milk, a donkey carrying something, a dog that's loyal," Joya said.
The video was shown in the legislature Monday, and angry lawmakers voted to suspend her, said parliamentary spokesman Haseb Noori.
No formal vote count was held, but a clear majority of lawmakers voted to suspend her for the rest of her five-year term by raising colored cards, Noori said.
Joya, elected in 2005, said the vote was a "political conspiracy" and that she had been told Article 70 was written specifically for her.
"Since I've started my struggle for human rights in Afghanistan, for women's rights, these criminals, these drug smugglers, they've stood against me from the first time I raised my voice at the Loya Jirga," she said, referring to the constitution-drafting constitution held several years ago.
Lower house speaker Yunus Qanooni told lawmakers that Joya's case would be introduced to "the court," without elaborating.
When lawmakers asked why, Qanooni said, "If there is any issue, the court will explain it.
It was not immediately clear if a court could overturn Joya's suspension.
Joya, a women's rights campaigner from Farah province, rose to prominence in 2003 when she branded powerful Afghan warlords as criminals during the Loya Jirga.
Sayed Alami Balkhi, a lawmaker from the northern province of Balkh, said the speaker of the upper house had sent the lower house a letter Sunday, saying Joya had humiliated and attacked both houses.
"If the lower house does not take a decision about her, we will take a decision," Balkhi quoted the letter as saying.
Joya's outspoken ways have earned her many enemies in Afghanistan.
In February, during a rally to support a proposed amnesty for Afghans suspected of war crimes, thousands of former fighters shouted "Death to Malalai Joya!
Joya said Monday that if she could not remain in the parliament, she would fight against "criminals" independently.
"The international community is with me and all the Afghan people are with me.
Actor Lane Garrison, who played an inmate on the TV drama "Prison Break," pleaded guilty Monday to vehicular manslaughter and drunken driving for a car crash in December that killed a 17-year-old student.
He had met the teens at a store and was on his way to a party with them when the accident occurred.
Prosecutors said Garrison had a blood alcohol level nearly twice California's legal limit and was also under the influence of cocaine.
He also pleaded guilty to providing alcohol to a minor.
Garrison faces a maximum sentence of 6 years, 8 months in prison when he returns to court for sentencing August 2.
His lawyer told reporters earlier this month that Garrison would accept responsibility for his conduct.
Garrison's "Prison Break" character David "Tweener" Apolskis was killed off the Fox TV drama earlier this season.
The Dallas native's other credits include the 2006 film "Crazy" and this year's "Shooter.
It seems completely counterintuitive: Raise the gasoline tax to help American commuters.
Motorists are already paying well over $3 a gallon, and there are signs that it's beginning to cut into demand and hurt consumer spending.
One argument says a tax would crimp demand, lowering wholesale prices.
"Anybody with any brains has advocated that, but not the politicians.
" said Fadel Gheit, an energy analyst at the financial services company Oppenheimer.
Lower wholesale prices, which would mean less profits for oil firms, combined with a higher tax could transfer money from Big Oil to the government, which could then use the cash for public programs.
It might be used as a tax credit to offset the sting for those with a lower income, countering one of the most common arguments against such a tax.
It could also go towards improvements in mass transit, expanded student loans or lower health insurance premiums.
Lower gasoline consumption would also reduce greenhouse gas emissions, a growing concern in the face of global warming.
While wholesale prices for gasoline are generally the same in Europe as they are in the U.S., Schipper noted the $5, $6 or $7 a gallon Europeans pay, thanks to the high tax.
Americans, by contrast, pay a federal tax of about 18 cents a gallon.
State taxes vary but are generally lower than 40 cents a gallon.
"As long as the marginal cost of driving is so low, the big changes aren't going to happen," said Schipper, who supports both a larger U.S. gas tax and more fuel-efficient vehicles.
Time may be running out for polar bears as global warming melts the ice beneath their paws.
Restrictions or bans on hunting in recent decades have helped protect many populations of the iconic Arctic carnivore, but many experts say the long-term outlook is bleak.
An estimated 20,000-25,000 bears live around the Arctic in Canada, Russia, Alaska, Greenland and Norway and countries are struggling to work out ways to protect them amid forecasts of an accelerating thaw.
"There will be big reductions in numbers if the ice melts," Jon Aars, a polar bear expert at the Norwegian Polar Institute, said by the fjord in Longyearbyen on the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, about 600 miles from the North Pole.
Unusually for this time of year, the fjord is ice free.
Many restaurants and shops in Longyearbyen, a settlement of 1,800 people, have a stuffed polar bear or pelt often shot before a hunting ban from the early 1970s.
Italy's Danilo Napolitano spoilt Alessandro Petacchi's hopes of winning stage nine of the Giro d'Italia in his home town on Monday.
Petacchi has dominated sprint finishes in recent years and wanted to win his third stage of this year's Giro in Lido di Camaiore but he was edged into third in a mass sprint finish behind Napolitano and Australia's Robbie McEwen.
Petacchi led the sprint for home but Napolitano had the strength and speed to beat him to the line by half a wheel and win his first ever stage at the Giro.
Napolitano has learnt to win sprints by racing on the track .
He was fifth in the scratch race at the 2006 world championships and finished 11th this year.
"The two disciplines are very different but racing on the track helps you in lots of ways," he told reporters.
"I'm not afraid of touching shoulders with other riders and fighting for a place on a wheel. I like the fear and thrills of sprinting.
Italy's Marco Pinotti finished in the same time as Napolitano and retained the overall lead.
Compatriot Andrea Noe is second at 28 seconds with Kazakhstan's Sergei Yakovlev third at 54 seconds.
Villagers rioted in southwestern China, attacking officials and burning cars, in protest against attempts to enforce strict family-planning policies, witnesses said on Monday, the latest in a series of protests nationwide.
"The government office was a big mess," a villager, who witnessed the scene, said by telephone.
"The big gate and two cars near it were all burnt and black , and broken glass, bricks and rubbish were everywhere.
One protester had been hit on the head by a brick thrown from the government building, and two injured officials had also been brought in for treatment, he said.
The protests were linked to local government moves to intensify family-planning policies, villagers said.
Some couples with more than one child must pay fines of up to tens of thousand yuan (thousands of dollars), the villagers said.
China launched its one-child policy in 1980 to curb a ballooning population, now at more than 1.3 billion.
A Web site set up to help find missing four-year-old Madeleine McCann has received more than 50 million hits, its operator says.
The little girl disappeared from her bedroom at a hotel resort in Portugal on May 3 as her parents dined nearby.
"It is booming," Calum MacRae, director of Infohost, the Scottish IT company behind the findmadeleine site, said Friday. "We didn't expect this number of people.
The Web site bringmadeleinehome.com was launched on May 9 and it changed to findmadeleine.com on Wednesday.
Messages of support from across Europe, the United States and Australia have been posted on the site.
Debbie Bates, from Australia, wrote: "As a mother of two, I cannot imagine for a moment what you are going through.
Parents Kate and Gerry McCann are taking "immense strength" from the messages, said family member Michael Wright.
On Thursday, police chief Olegario Sousa said officers did not have enough evidence to arrest the only formal suspect, Briton Robert Murat, 33, who lives in the resort.
Police have arrested a wife and her husband, who was born a woman and underwent sex reassignment surgery 16 years ago, and accused them of lying about the husband's gender to a court in eastern Pakistan.
The case pits the bride's father, who wants to annul his daughter's wedding on the grounds that it is against Islam for two women to marry, against the couple, who said they married to protect the bride from being sold into marriage to pay off her uncle's gambling debts.
The husband, Shumail Raj, 31, first brought the case to court, appealing for protection from harassment by their relatives.
But earlier this month the Lahore High Court ordered the arrest of Raj and his wife, Shahzina Tariq, 26, for lying to the court.
Raj told the court he is male, but a court-appointed panel ruled that Raj is a woman, whose breasts and uterus were removed in sex-change surgery.
Raj told the court-appointed doctors that he underwent gender reassignment surgery when he was 15 after he noticed changes in his voice and began to grow facial hair.
The court-appointed medical panel found Raj had no penis, and a vagina that was surgically closed.
After the couple's arrest on Sunday, Raj insisted the sex-change operation made him a man, and he married Tariq to save her from the arranged marriage.
She told me that one of her uncles wants to sell her to pay off a debt," Raj told The Associated Press by telephone from a police station in Faisalabad, the pair's hometown.
An Indonesian angler caught a fish once thought to have disappeared along with the dinosaurs and held it in a quarantined pool until it died 17 hours later, a biologist said Sunday.
The discovery of the so-called "living fossil" ignited worldwide interest.
Several other specimens have since been found, including one in 1998 in waters off the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, where Justinus Lahama also hooked his 1.3-meter (4-foot), 50-kilogram (110-pound) fish early Saturday.
The fisherman pulled it from waters near Bunaken National Marine Park, which has some of the highest levels of marine biodiversity in the world and is a popular diving spot for tourists, marine biologist Lucky Lumingas said.
Lumingas classified the fish as Coelacanth Latemeria, a powerful predator with highly mobile, limb-like fins.
It is usually about 5 feet (1.5 meters) long and weighs around 45 kilograms (100 pounds).
Lumingas, who works with the local Sam Ratulangi University, said it was "extraordinary" the fish survived for 17 hours in a quarantined pool.
Campaigning for the French parliamentary elections began on Monday with polls suggesting President Nicolas Sarkozy's party will secure a strong majority for reforms and the left will get a fresh electoral drubbing.
The new president appointed leftists to some key positions in the government he unveiled on Friday, a move designed to portray him as an open and inclusive leader and boost the right's support in the looming legislative battle.
Prime Minister Francois Fillon is spearheading the conservatives' campaign and met senior figures in the ruling UMP party on Monday to discuss strategy.
The president and the prime minister want a majority to support the government's actions and to allow reforms," UMP spokesman Luc Chatel said at a press briefing after the meeting.
The group plans to meet every Tuesday with Fillon, who will travel to Marseille on Wednesday for a major UMP rally ahead of the legislative vote.
According to a TNS-Sofres survey carried out for Le Figaro newspaper, most French people approved of Sarkozy's Cabinet line-up and this was likely to translate into gains for his party in parliament.
The poll said that 40 percent of French would vote for the ruling UMP candidate in their district in the first round of the election on June 10 compared to 28 percent for the candidate of the main opposition Socialist party.
A woman blames the devil, and not her husband, for severely burning their infant daughter in a microwave, a Texas television station reported.
Eva Marie Mauldin said Satan compelled her 19-year-old husband, Joshua Royce Mauldin, to microwave their daughter May 10 because the devil disapproved of Joshua's efforts to become a preacher.
"Satan saw my husband as a threat," Eva Mauldin told Houston television station KHOU-TV.
A grand jury indicted Joshua Mauldin last week on child injury charges after hearing evidence that he placed the two-month-old in a motel microwave for 10 to 20 seconds.
The infant, Ana Marie, remains hospitalized.
She suffered burns on the left side of her face and to her left hand, police said.
Police said Joshua Mauldin told them he put Ana Marie in the microwave because he was under stress.
Eva Maudlin denied it.
Suspected Taliban ambushed a U.S.-led coalition and Afghan patrol in the volatile south, sparking a battle and airstrikes that killed 25 insurgents, officials said Monday.
The coalition said the joint forces were attacked while on patrol in the Sangin district of Helmand province on Sunday.
An estimated 50 Taliban reinforcement fighters came by foot and boat along the Helmand river from surrounding areas to join the attack, the coalition said in a statement.
It said there were "several" confirmed militant deaths during the 14-hour battle and no reports of civilian injuries.
The Afghan Defense Ministry said the clash and airstrikes in Sangin killed 25 suspected Taliban, including a group leader identified as Mullah Younus.
Meanwhile, a British soldier died on Sunday of wounds from an accident at a British military base in Sangin, the British Ministry of Defense said.
The attack damaged around 30 shops, shattering windows and destroying the stores closest to the explosion.
In Lebanon, an explosion filled the Beirut sky with plumes of black smoke as fighting also continued in the north of the country between Lebanese soldiers and militants at a Palestinian refugee camp.
The explosion went off in the Verdun district near the Russian Cultural Center, Lebanese media reported.
Several Lebanese politicians, including House Speaker Nabih Berri, live in the mainly upper-class district.
Ambulances and other security vehicles rushed to the scene, and soldiers could be seen leading wounded people away from the area.
Five people were wounded in the blast, according to Lebanese security.
Meanwhile, in the north, Lebanese forces continued to fight members of an Islamic militant group in the second day of fierce gunbattles at the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon.
The government also said there was no cease-fire in place, contrary to some earlier media reports.
The Lebanese Cabinet said it will issue a statement about a specific response to the violence after meeting early in the week. In the meantime, the Cabinet declared its "full support" for military efforts to end the fighting, said Mohamed Chatah, a senior adviser to Prime Minister Fouad Siniora.
Lebanese security forces are targeting militants and are not randomly shooting into the refugee camp, Chatah said.
The fighting was sparked Sunday when Lebanese Internal Security Forces raided a building in a neighborhood north of Tripoli, army sources said.
Militants from Fatah al-Islam began shooting at the forces, who returned fire, triggering clashes in the vicinity of the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp.
Lebanese Internal Security Forces arrested four militants and found the bodies of 10 militants inside the building where they had barricaded themselves, an ISF spokesman said. Explosives were strapped to two bodies.
The battle near the camp continued into Monday, killing at least 30 Lebanese soldiers and wounding 39 others.
At least 15 militants have been killed in the clashes, security sources said.
The Cutty Sark, thought to be the world's only surviving 19th century tea clipper and a prime relic of the golden age of sail, was engulfed by flames Monday, causing extensive damage to one of London's most popular tourist attractions.
Police say the blaze, which began before dawn and took 40 firefighters several hours to extinguish, is being treated as "suspicious."
The fire is expected to drastically increase the cost of a $50 million three-year restoration that began in 2006.
The clipper a very fast multi-masted sailing ship used for transporting high value goods such as tea and wool was once regarded as the pinnacle of merchant sail vessel development.
He said half of the timbers and all historic artifacts on board had been removed for the conservation project.
He added: "This ship has been through many things in its life, it's sailed through the oceans and been through many natural disasters and survived.
Two whales that took a wrong turn and swam 90 miles (145 kilometers) of a river inland to Sacramento were heading back toward the Pacific Ocean on Sunday, according to the Coast Guard.
The humpback mother and her calf started moving southwest on the Sacramento River at around 3:30 p.m. and were about five miles (8 kilometers) outside the Port of Sacramento late Sunday afternoon, Coast Guard Petty Officer Brian Leshak said.
Several Coast Guard boats were following the whales to make sure they did not reverse course.
Thousands of spectators watched Saturday as the two whales swam looping half-mile laps around the Port of Sacramento after declining earlier efforts to lure them into the Pacific Ocean.
Crowds shrieked every time they caught a glimpse of the humpback mother and calf, dubbed Delta and Dawn by the state's lieutenant governor.
Scientists have been hoping the whales which appear to have been wounded by a ship's propeller would begin swimming westward toward the Pacific Ocean on their own.
Spotted five days ago, they have hit a dead-end after traveling 90 miles through San Francisco Bay and up the Sacramento River.
But Carrie Wilson, a biologist with the California Department of Fish and Game, said experts are content with the animals remaining in the isolated port area for the weekend since heavy recreational boat traffic in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta could complicate rescue efforts.
"Of course, if they start moving, we're ready to mobilize," Wilson said.
Britain's Royal Mail is issuing a series of seven stamps depicting the covers of the best-selling "Harry Potter" books just before the final volume goes on sale.
Millions of the stamps will be issued on July 17 as part of the post office's tradition of celebrating "social themes and important occasions central to our way of life," said Julietta Edgar, who is in charge of special stamps at Royal Mail.
"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" goes on sale July 21.
"There's no doubt that J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter novels, published in dozens of languages worldwide, have made a phenomenal impact on our reading habits," Edgar said.
Rowling's fantasy series has sold more than 325 million copies worldwide.
She has said two major characters will die in the final book, which is being released under tight security.
Actor Sylvester Stallone was formally convicted Monday of importing restricted muscle-building hormones into Australia and ordered to pay more than $9,870 in fines and court costs.
New South Wales state Deputy Chief Magistrate Paul Cloran said the "Rocky" and "Rambo" star had failed to show he had a valid prescription for vials of human growth hormone that were in his luggage when he arrived for a promotional tour in February.
Stallone also had failed to declare the male hormone testosterone on a customs entry form, although he had a valid prescription.
Cloran fined Stallone $2,500 and ordered him to pay $8,200 in prosecution costs.
Stallone, who was not present in court, had pleaded guilty last week.
A customs search of Stallone's luggage during a February 16 visit to Sydney revealed 48 vials of the human growth hormone product, Jintropin.
Three days later, Stallone threw four vials of testosterone from his Sydney hotel room when customs officials arrived to search it, prosecutors said.
Human growth hormone, a naturally occurring substance that can be replicated synthetically and is used to build muscle mass, is considered a performance enhancing drug in Australia and it cannot be imported without a permit from the national drug regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration.
the hormones for medical reasons that he did not specify.
But prosecutors said Stallone had demonstrated a "consciousness of guilt" by throwing the testosterone from the hotel.
"It was just a minor misunderstanding," Stallone told reporters "They were just doing their jobs. I just didn't understand some of the rules here.
Britain's support for the war in Iraq was a "major tragedy" for the world, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said Saturday, as he criticized Tony Blair's unwavering support for President Bush.
"And I think the almost undeviating support by Great Britain for the ill-advised policies of President Bush in Iraq have been a major tragedy for the world," Carter told British Broadcasting Corp. radio.
Blair was in Baghdad Saturday morning for what will be his last trip to Iraq as British prime minister.
Last week, Blair announced that he would step down June 27, making way for treasury chief Gordon Brown.
The war in Iraq has been the defining foreign policy issue of Blair's premiership, and the decision to join the U.S.-led invasion was an unpopular one at home.
So far, nearly 150 British service personnel have died in Iraq.
Carter told the BBC that Britain's support made it more difficult for critics of the war, and that things could have been different if Britain spoke out against the 2003 invasion.
"One of the defenses of the Bush administration, in the American public and on a worldwide basis and it's not been successful in my opinion has been that, OK, we must be more correct in our actions than the world thinks because Great Britain is backing us.
It's not the first time Carter has criticized Britain.
The boards of Unicredit and Capitalia approved their banks' planned merger, a deal that will create Europe's second-largest bank, the banks said in a joint statement.
Unicredit's board met Sunday in Milan while Capitalia's board gave its approval at a meeting in Rome.
The merger involves an exchange ratio of 1.12 new ordinary shares of Unicredit for each ordinary share of Capitalia, the banks said.
"This is a friendly deal," Geronzi said. Adding that he never had any doubts, the banker said:
Unicredit Chief Executive Alessandro Profumo contended that the merger will reinforce both groups in Italy and abroad, mentioning Austria, Germany and central Europe in particular.
"This makes strong business sense," said Profumo.
The two banks said the merger is expected, from 2010, to generate about euro1.2 billion (US$1.62 billion) in pretax savings and increased revenue, or an estimated euro800 million (US$1.08 billion) after taxes.
Around 68 percent of that will be related to cost savings and 32 percent to higher revenues, the banks said.
Thousands of Turks demonstrated in this Black Sea port city on Sunday against the Islamic-rooted government, which they fear is undermining Turkey's secular system.
Massive demonstrations against the government recently have been held in Ankara, Istanbul and Izmir.
On Sunday, crowds gathered in Samsun's central square and chanted "Turkey is secular and will remain secular!"
Protesters carried Turkish flags and posters of Ataturk.
Organizers said participation would likely be lower than at previous demonstrations.
More than 1 million people attended the demonstration last week in the Aegean city of Izmir.
Secular opposition parties then boycotted the presidential voting process in Parliament, creating a political deadlock and forcing Gul to abandon his bid.
The main opposition Republican People's Party, led by Deniz Baykal agreed on alliance terms with the Democratic Left Party this week, following pleas for them to unite at the previous demonstrations.
Turkey's secularism is enshrined in the constitution and fiercely guarded by
(CNN) Police in Moscow, Idaho, raided a church early Sunday where a gunman had holed up after shooting and killing two people.
The gunman killed a police officer and a civilian and wounded two others before apparently turning the gun on himself, authorities said.
Around 6 a.m., SWAT teams stormed the church and found the body of the shooter and another man in separate rooms on the main floor, Moscow Police Department Assistant Chief David Duke said.
The shooter died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, Duke said.
Police found a semi-automatic or automatic rifle next to one of the bodies along with casings and bullets in the church and four empty magazines outside the church, Duke said.
Police believe the gunman, who appeared to be in his 20s or 30s, initially began shooting at the sheriff's dispatch center from a parking lot near the Moscow courthouse, shortly before 11:30 p.m. Saturday (2: 30 a.m. ET).
Newbill, who joined the police department in 2001, died at the hospital hours later the first Moscow police officer to be killed in the line of duty, Duke said.
Jordan and the civilian were listed in serious condition, a statement from the hospital said.
Moscow, home to the University of Idaho, is a city of about 21,000 residents in the state's northwestern section.
Authorities in Spain are looking into whether a U.S. company can be charged with stealing Spanish heritage for excavating colonial-era treasure from a sunken British warship.
Odyssey Marine Exploration said Friday it had discovered the ship along with gold and silver coins worth an estimated US$500 million somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean.
The treasure-hunting company would not say exactly where the ship was, citing security concerns, but said the site was outside any country's territorial waters.
Spain's Culture Ministry said it thought the statement was "suspicious," after Odyssey had sought permission to explore Spanish waters for the wreck of a British ship, according to the national news agency Efe.
Spain granted the company permission in January to search for the HMS Sussex, which sank in a 1694 storm off Gibraltar while leading a British fleet into the Mediterranean Sea for war against France.
That permission was only for exploration, however, and did not extend to extraction, the ministry said, according to
Odyssey had previously been searching off the Spanish coast, but suspended operations there in 2005 after complaints from the Spanish government.
The Spanish Civil Guard, on request from the government, is investigating whether the company could be charged with theft of Spanish heritage if the haul came from a ship found in Spanish waters, Efe reported. Calls to the ministry on Sunday went unanswered.
Historians believe the 157-foot (48-meter) warship was carrying 9 tons of gold coins to buy the loyalty of the Duke of Savoy, a potential ally in southeastern France.
Odyssey had said it believed those coins also could fetch more than US$500 million.
Under the agreement with Britain, Odyssey would share any finds with the British government.
The company would keep 80 percent of the first US$45 million reaped, and about 50 percent of proceeds thereafter.
HAMBURG, Germany (Reuters) Roger Federer brought an end to Rafael Nadal's 81-match winning streak on clay on Sunday, beating the Spaniard 2-6 6-2 6-0 to win the Hamburg Masters final and give his French Open preparations the perfect boost.
Federer hit back for an early break in the second, though, and stormed through the final set to seal his first title in five tournaments, so ending his worst slump since he became number one in February 2004.
"If I had to lose to anyone, Roger is the man," Nadal said out on court.
"I congratulate him on a great tournament and wish him luck for the French.
The 20-year-old Spaniard, who had won four tournaments already this year, started well but just seemed to run out of steam after Federer had levelled the match.
Federer, who has never won the French Open, needs to take the Roland Garros title to become only the third man after American Don Budge and Australian Rod Laver to hold all four majors at the same time.
Federer did manage to save a couple of break points in the opening game but he was soon in trouble again as Nadal hit a series of forehand winners.
The Swiss let a cross-court backhand drift into the net on break point in game three and Nadal helped himself to another break in game five thanks to two backhand mistakes from his ragged-looking opponent.
He broke again in the last game of the set to underline just how much the balance had shifted and when Nadal let a tired forehand slip wide on break point in game two of the third the writing was on the wall.
"Winning 81 matches is an amazing streak," Federer said of his opponent.
Grizzly bear and gray wolf populations in parts of the Northern Rockies are considered stable enough by the government to survive without Endangered Species Act protection.
But the animals could get a trust fund to shield them from hard times.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spends about $6 million a year managing grizzly bears and wolves in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming.
With grizzlies in and around Yellowstone National Park recently taken off the threatened species list and gray wolves expected to come off the endangered list within the next year, that spending likely will drop as the agency turns its resources to other imperiled species.
To cover those costs, state and federal officials are considering creating a trust to dole out financial aid to state wildlife agencies assuming oversight of the animals.
The trust could eventually total tens of millions of dollars, possibly up to $100 million, according to officials drafting plans for the fund.
The 5 percent to 7 percent annual interest on the principle would cover costs to hire wildlife biologists, buy radio collars used to track bear and wolf movements and other expenses.
Congress would be asked to fund the bulk of the trust, which would be set up through a quasi-governmental group such as the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. Additional money could come from states, corporations or nonprofit groups, the officials said.
Mitch King, regional director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, said the proposal is a recognition that Montana, Idaho and Wyoming should not shoulder the costs of sustaining grizzlies and wolves alone.
"There is a national responsibility that the federal government needs to deal with," he said. "If you live in Georgia and want to see a grizzly bear, you come to Idaho or Montana or Wyoming.
Officials are already feeling a financial pinch from a second Montana grizzly bear population, an estimated 600 to 800 bears inhabiting mountains along the Continental Divide north of Missoula.
A trust, he said, would provide stability in such cases and shield the issue from the political whims of Congress.
GAZA CITY (AP) Israel's air force fired a missile at a house in Gaza City late Sunday, killing at least eight people, residents and hospital officials said.
The strike followed a decision to step up attacks against Islamic militants in response to rocket fire from Gaza.
Israeli air attacks on militant targets earlier in the day killed another three Palestinians.
The attack on the house was the deadliest airstrike since last Tuesday when Israel started reprisals for the rocket barrages.
Residents said the house belonged to a Hamas lawmaker Khalil Hayya, and six of the dead were members of his family.
Hayya was not at home and was not harmed, they said.
He was one of the Hamas representatives in cease-fire talks with Fatah and was attending an Egyptian-sponsored truce meeting just before the strike, residents said.
The missile hit a room used as a meeting place for the extended family, relatives said.
Hospital officials said eight people were killed and 13 injured.
ADELAIDE, Australia (AP) David Hicks, the first Guantanamo Bay inmate to face a U.S. military tribunal, was flown back to his hometown of Adelaide on Sunday to serve out the remainder of his sentence in a maximum security prison cell.
The former Outback cowboy and kangaroo skinner pleaded guilty in March to providing material support to al Qaeda, including attending terrorist training camps in Afghanistan.
Under a plea deal, he was sentenced to nine months in prison a fraction of the life term he faced for his crime and allowed to return to Australia to serve out his term.
Accompanied by police and prison officials, Hicks was flown from Cuba in a Gulfstream G550 jet chartered by the Australian government and landed early Sunday at the heavily fortified Edinburgh air force base on the outskirts of Adelaide. (Watch Hicks emerge from luxury jet )
Hicks, shackled and wearing an orange jumpsuit, was then taken to the Yatala Labor Prison, where he will serve the final seven months of his sentence in the high security G Division alongside the prison's most dangerous criminals.
Nevertheless, lawyer David McLeod said Hicks was thrilled to be home after more than five years at the U.S. military camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Prison officials have said Hicks will be kept in a 2-meter-wide (6-foot-wide) single-bed cell similar in size to the one he left in Cuba.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) The U.S. military added on Sunday more U.S. soldiers to the list of those who died in attacks on Saturday, bringing the number of American soldiers killed since Friday to 15.
Also on Sunday, as part of its search for three missing American soldiers, the U.S. military said troops drained a canal after receiving a tip from local Shiite Iraqis that bodies had been dumped in the area. No clues of any interest were found.
The three soldiers disappeared on May 12 after an attack in which four U.S. troops and one Iraqi soldier were killed.
(Watch the canal that was drained in the U.S. search for missing troops )
Of the 15 U.S. soldiers who died since Friday, eight were killed Saturday in roadside bomb attacks.
One was killed near Diwaniya shortly after midnight. Six U.S. soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter died in an attack in western Baghdad.
South of Baghdad, a bomb killed a U.S. soldier and wounded three others.
Two Iraqi soldiers were also wounded in that Saturday attack.
Four soldiers and an Iraqi soldier were killed in the ambush, which targeted a U.S. military observation post just outside Mahmoudiya, south of Baghdad, in an area known as the Triangle of Death.
As the canal was drained, soldiers fished out what they thought were possible leads, military officials told CNN.
But they found only a sand bag thought to be a body, old rusted shell castings and a shoe that looked like an upside-down military boot.
On Saturday, the military had dug up a grave after seeing footage from an unmanned aerial vehicle showing people burying a body.
Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, told the Army Times in an interview Friday that he believed at least two of the soldiers are still alive.
Petraeus also said he believes he knows who abducted the soldiers.
Suicide blast
A suicide truck bomber exploded his vehicle Sunday near an Iraqi police checkpoint outside Ramadi, killing two police officers and wounding 11 others, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said.
No civilians were among the casualties and there were no reports of chlorine being used in the attack, the spokesman said.
In the northeast Baghdad neighborhood of Ur, a parked car bomb detonated at about 1:45 p.m. Sunday, wounding at least five civilians, the official said.
In an ongoing sign of the bloody sectarian fighting in the capital, 24 unidentified bodies were dumped across Baghdad on Sunday, an Interior Ministry official said. This brings the number of dead bodies found dumped in Baghdad this month to 438.
Talibani heads to U.S. Months after he fell ill and was taken to Jordan for treatment, Iraq's President Jalal Talabani left Iraq on Sunday for the United States for a medical check-up and to lose weight, according to a statement from his office.
He was accompanied on his trip by the vice president of Iraq's Kurdish region, Kossrat Rassol Ali.
TRIPOLI, Lebanon (AP) Lebanese tanks pounded the headquarters of a group with suspected links to al Qaeda in a Palestinian refugee camp near Tripoli Sunday after the northern city's worst clashes in two decades killed 22 soldiers and 17 militants.
Hundreds of Lebanese applauded as army tanks shelled the camp a sign of the long-standing tensions between some Lebanese and the tens of thousands of Palestinians who took refuge from fighting in Israel over the past decades.
"We strongly back the Lebanese army troops and what they are doing," said Abed Attar, a resident of Tripoli who stood watching the tanks fire into the camp while others cheered.
Ten militants were killed in the building in Tripoli and seven in the refugee camp, security officials said.
They said 22 soldiers had also been killed.
In Beirut Sunday, a car bomb exploded in the Christian sector causing some injuries, witnesses and TV stations reported.
The explosion came after daylong battles in the northern port city of Tripoli between Lebanese troops and the militant Fatah Islam group in which 22 soldiers and 17 militants were killed.
The violence adds one more destabilizing factor to conflict-ridden Lebanon, already in the midst of its worst political crisis between the Western-backed government and pro-Syrian opposition since the end of the 1975-90 Lebanese civil war.
It was a rare clash between the Lebanese army and militants and the first major fighting between the security forces and Palestinians since the early 90s when troops fought Palestinian guerrillas in Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp in southern Lebanon.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2732514
In "Shrek the Third," Cameron Diaz's ogre bride shares tea time with the fairy-tale world's fairest princesses Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Rapunzel.
With Diaz's plump Fiona expecting a litter of tiny ogres with hubby Shrek, her old princess pals throw her a baby shower in the animated sequel that opens May 18.
True to the Shrek world, these are not the well-behaved princesses of classic children's stories.
Snow White (voiced by Amy Poehler) is a haughty queen bee, Cinderella (Amy Sedaris) is an obsessive clean freak and Sleeping Beauty (Cheri Oteri) is a narcoleptic who's constantly nodding off.
Diaz and her princess posse sat down with The Associated Press to share their thoughts on the "Shrek" films, their favorite animated tales and why these modern damsels don't sit around waiting for men to rescue them.
Well, we can say whatever we want, sir.
I liked his eyes, and whenever I have allergies I feel like him.
It's a Jim Henson Christmas movie with puppets, but they ice-skate and they're on water and in rowboats.
But I think there was such an appreciation with any of the Disney cartoons, because they only came on once a year.
You didn't have the video and DVD we have.
I always stayed up for those cartoons that came on once a year.
I used to go around the house and imitate Edward G. Robinson.
The animated film that would come on television that I could not wait to see, and it was a family event, was "The Hobbit.
What's that say about the old fairy-tale notion of, as the princesses say, "assume the position" and wait for some man to save them?
The princesses' "assume the position," that comes from the old-school fairy tales that at one point were a comment on society.
That's what these fairy tales are for, to recognize what the values are and how society is constructed at the period of time those stories are being told.
I love that it's commenting on where we're at right now as women.
... What's also nice is we go through this transformation, where we kind of literally rip off our feminine things to fight.
The case portrays the tragedy and brutality of honor killings in the Muslim world.
Honor killings take place when family members kill relatives, almost always female, because they feel the relatives' actions have shamed the family.
Authorities believe she was killed for being seen with a Sunni Muslim man.
The Yazidis, who observe an ancient Middle Eastern religion, look down on mixing with people of another faith.
Each year, dozens of honor killings are reported in Iraq and thousands are reported worldwide, said the United Nations.
The practice has been condemned around the world by governments and human rights groups.
Two of the four arrested are members of the victim's family, police in Nineveh province said Thursday. Four others, including a cousin thought to have instigated the killing, are being sought.
The killing is said to have spurred the killings of about two dozen Yazidi men by Sunni Muslims in the Mosul area two weeks later.
The violence ratcheted up tensions between Yazids and Muslims in Bashiqa, the victim's hometown, a largely Yazidi city in Nineveh province.
"The climate, the religious and social climate is such that people can do that in daylight and that authorities do not intervene," said the spokeswoman for the Organization of Womens' Freedom in Iraq, Houzan Mahmoud.
Also, the top police official in Bashiqa is being replaced.
But she was no beauty, plus flat-chested and overweight to boot.
Remembering the aspiring star, music executive Jody Gerson still feels terrible about thinking: "She's never going to get signed, even though she's fabulous.
Gerson might feel even worse after Wednesday night's exit of the matronly Melinda Doolittle from "American Idol."
In today's music industry, Plain Janes need not apply.
Doolittle and the heavyset, gap-toothed LaKisha Jones were widely considered this season's most talented "Idol" contestants.
A quick check of the Billboard Top 40 turns up a list of candidates for "America's Top Model":
Avril Lavigne, blonde stunner Carrie Underwood; tomboyish but sexy Ciara, fashionista Gwen Stefani and hip-swiveling Shakira (on a song featuring bootylicious Beyonce).
The only two in the Top 40 who might not be considered perfect 10s:
and multiplatinum Grammy-winner Kelly Clarkson, who got her break only through winning the democratically elected "American Idol.
When asked whether a female with so-so looks and sex appeal could get a record deal, Gretchen Wilson quickly replied: "They can't.
"I believe that very few will get through and they better be amazing," Wilson said in an interview.
"The music is not about just music anymore, it's about the look, the 'it' factor if you will ... it's marketing.
True, looks have always been a part of the music business:
But there also were stars like wild-haired, pudgy Janis Joplin and Barbra Streisand, who challenged beauty standards with her protruding nose.
Even curvy Aretha Franklin was known mainly for her one-of-a-kind voice.
Today, it's hard to find a singer larger than a size 6 and without a sexy look all of which are played up with sensuous videos, modeling spreads and provocative magazine covers.
Lavigne, who once scoffed at singers who stripped for the cameras, fronts the new issue of Blender topless save for a strategically placed banner that reads "Hell Yeah, I'm Hot!
Paris Hilton won't appeal the 45-day jail term she was sentenced to earlier this month for violating probation, according to court documents filed Thursday.
Hilton was ordered earlier this month to report to jail by June 5 for violating the terms of her probation in an alcohol-related reckless driving case.
She then switched attorneys and is now represented by drunken driving specialist Richard Hutton.
Hilton will be jailed for about 23 days of a 45-day sentence and will be separated from the general inmate population, authorities decided after reviewing her case.
The shorter sentence reflects an expectation that Hilton behaves behind bars.
Hilton will stay in a unit that contains 12 two-person cells reserved for police officers, public officials, celebrities and other high-profile inmates.
The recorded siren songs of humpback whales played from a Coast Guard cutter Thursday as biologists tried to lure an injured whale and her calf out of a shipping channel and back toward the Pacific Ocean, 90 miles away.
Still, hundreds of people lined the river banks to watch the progress Thursday morning.
The procedure worked 22 years ago with another humpback that wandered for nearly a month in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta before returning to the ocean, said Bernie Krause of Wild Sanctuary in Glen Ellen, California
If the sounds aren't enough, wildlife officials will try a different tactic lining the channel with more boats to herd the whales in the right direction, said Frances Gulland, director of veterinary science at the Sausalito-based Marine Mammal Center.
Biologists hope to get the whales back into the Pacific Ocean, where food is more plentiful and the salty water can heal their wounds.
The cuts were apparently caused by a boat propeller.
Scientists checked them Wednesday using photos of the animals swimming in the Port of Sacramento.
If the whales can be returned to their natural sea water habitat, which is cleaner than the fresh water in the port, they likely won't need treatment, the researchers said.
The two likely had been on their northward migration from Mexico up the California coast when they were sidetracked and spotted Sunday in the lower Sacramento River, biologists said.
Because they are at the end of their hibernation season, they have less blubber to rely on for fuel than they would later in the summer or fall.
The pair spent Wednesday exploring the muddy waters of the Sacramento River basin as hundreds of people flocked to the banks to see them.
The next ship was not expected to dock for another week, giving authorities time to try to escort the whales out of the channel and back to the Pacific, said Teresa Bledsoe, administrative clerk at the Port of Sacramento.
A flotilla of Coast Guard and law enforcement boats planned to follow the whales to make sure they didn't head back up the channel.
Rafael Nadal settled an old score against Igor Andreev on Thursday, while Roger Federer was back to his best to beat Juan Carlos Ferrero and join him in the quarterfinals of the Hamburg Masters.
Federer, the world number one, followed him out on court and needed just an hour to rack up a ruthless 6-2 6-3 win over Ferrero, a former French Open champion.
There were two more wins for Spaniards, giving them half the quarterfinal slots in the 2.1 million euros tournament.
Twelfth seed David Ferrer beat seventh-seeded Croatian Ivan Ljubicic 6-3 6-3 and Carlos Moya, another former French Open champion, recovered from a bad start to beat eighth seeded American James Blake 1-6 6-3 6-3 in an entertaining scrap.
Ferrer will play Federer, while Moya will take on the fourth seed Novak Djokovic of Serbia, who had to win twice on Thursday to take his place in the quarterfinals.
"I'm very happy with my game," Nadal said at a news conference. "I played a serious match and I feel confident.
The bones of martyred saints and somber shrines may not be at the top of every tourist's must-see holiday wish list.
"We are more than just a sand and sea and sex destination," said George Michaelides, chairman of the Cultural and Special Interest Tourism Association.
Industry officials say about 100,000 of the island's 2.5 million tourists already come for the cultural and religious monuments and the market has seen a boost since Dan Brown's bestseller "The Da Vinci Code" made religious quests popular. "Cyprus has always been associated with religion.
We are known as the island of saints," Michaelides said.
According to the World Tourism Organization, 300 to 330 million pilgrims visit the world's key religious sites every year.
Cyprus is eager to take a big bite out of this growing market and boost the island's main industry.
In cooperation with the powerful Church of Cyprus and tourism officials it is launching religious tours for the first time this summer.
"Cyprus packs a huge amount of monuments in such a small space," said Vakis Loizides, a tourist officer at the Cyprus Tourism Organization (CTO). "The island's special relationship with saints, like Lazarus and Helen, make it very attractive.
Scattered over the Troodos mountains, Cyprus's 10 medieval timber-roofed churches, listed as UNESCO world heritage monuments for their stunning wall paintings, are at the top of many religious tourists' lists, he added.
After an agonizing 13-year wait to lead Britain's Labour Party, Gordon Brown will now become prime minister without a fight and with clear signs he is benefiting from a post-Blair bounce in the polls.
Brown will take over when Tony Blair resigns on June 27 after his only potential party rival a left-winger whose challenge was always viewed as a token effort failed to win enough support from parliamentarians to get on the ballot paper.
On Thursday, Labour said Brown had won the support of 313 of the party's 353 lawmakers and declared nominations closed.
The leader of the ruling party automatically takes over as prime minister.
Brown knows he has his work cut out to ensure a fourth straight victory for Labour at a national election due by May 2010 at the latest, and has wasted no time in moving on.
Critics accused Blair of centralizing power, bypassing lawmakers and being obsessed with celebrities and appearance.
He has unveiled plans for more affordable housing, ecologically-friendly towns and said investment in education and health remained a top priority.
Affordable homes wasn't a bad start, sorting out the NHS (National Health Service) is a good start," said Labour lawmaker Ian Gibson, a frequent critic of Blair and the government.
Brown, often described as dour, now has six weeks of hustings events to put over his message without interruptions from party rivals.
Opinion polls show the start of Brown's leadership campaign has given Labour a bounce in support, but the Conservative opposition under youthful leader David Cameron still leads.
Most observers thought she was a lock to go on to the "American Idol" finale, but Melinda Doolittle was eliminated Wednesday night.
The result was a real surprise, considering Doolittle hands down the best singer there had the blessing of Simon Cowell.
My commiserations, Melinda, 'cause you are one heck of a singer," said a glum Cowell, who covered his face with his hands upon hearing the news.
The acerbic judge had always made clear his affection for the 29-year-old backup singer-turned-diva from Brentwood, Tennessee, who delivered knockout performances week after week.
Doolittle, who never hit a bad note during her "Idol" run, seemed resigned to her fate.
It's tough to predict who'll win next week's finale.
Sparks, 17, of Glendale, Arizona, rose from the bottom ranks to gain much momentum in later weeks, and few would deny her broad appeal to viewers of all ages.
The bubbly beauty has charisma for miles a true American idol, her fans argue.
But the 25-year-old Lewis, who hails from Bothell, Washington, has tricks up his sleeve.
He had a big "Idol" moment weeks ago when he mixed up Bon Jovi's "You Give Love a Bad Name" to add fresh beats a move that secured him a spot in the final four. Even Cowell loved it.
The Indian boy whose athletic ability attracted harsh criticism from children's rights activists last year is planning to walk 500 kilometers (311 miles) after the child was banned from long-distance running.
Budhia Singh will begin in Bhubaneswar in the eastern state of Orissa and finish in Calcutta, the capital of West Bengal state, Biranchi Das,the boy's coach, said Thursday.
The walk is to begin June 6 and should take about 10 days, he added
asked Kiral Modi, who heads Udayan Care, a group that works with poor children in New Delhi, the capital.
"What do they want to prove?
If the child has athletic ability, it should be nurtured in a proper way.
Last year, Singh attempted to run a 70-kilometer (43-mile) marathon, but doctors stopped him after 65 kilometers (40 miles) when he showed signs of extreme exhaustion.
Afterward, doctors found Singh to be undernourished, anemic and under cardiac stress, and the Orissa state government banned him from running until he is older.
Das insisted he is looking after the best interests of the boy, whose father died when he was seven months old.
"I have raised him as my son and I introduced him into running after observing his endurance," Das said, adding that Singh is an inspiration to other children.
At least nine bombings in and near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Wednesday were aimed at freeing hundreds of inmates from an Iraqi prison, Iraqi and U.S. military sources said.
A high-ranking U.S. military official said Thursday that Iraqi security forces showed they were trained and ready with their response to what he said was the largest insurgent attack in that part of Iraq in eight months.
Mosul police spokesman Gen. Saied al-Jabouri said intelligence reports suggested the attacks were coordinated by al Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq which he said were "two sides of the same coin" and were an effort to free at least 300 inmates from the al-Faisaliya prison in Mosul.
Al-Jabouri said seven of the 10 vehicle-borne bombs were suicide car bombings and that a key bridge, many buildings, shops and homes were destroyed during a six-hour period starting late Wednesday afternoon.
A U.S. military source said the bombs killed 10 Iraqi police officers, one Iraqi soldier and two civilians.
He credited the Iraqi security forces for these "minimal casualties," saying it "could have been much worse if they were not doing their job.
"The ISF dealt with it, showing the people they are trained and ready," the U.S. military official said.
Al-Jabouri said Iraqi troops, backed by the U.S. military, fought with insurgents for two hours across Mosul, killing 15 of them and one Saudi national.
Canada will start denying work permits to foreign strippers to prevent them from being abused and to clamp down on human trafficking, Immigration Minister Diane Finley said on Wednesday.
"This will prevent situations where temporary workers in Canada, including strippers, may be abused, exploited or possibly become victims of human trafficking," Finley said in a statement.
In December 2004, the then-Liberal government scrapped a program that handed out temporary work permits to foreign-born exotic dancers.
"Thanks to today's amendments, the good old days of Liberal 'strippergate' will be a thing of the past.
Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani reported a whopping $16.1 million in earned income over the past 16 months, most of it in speaking fees, according to financial documents filed Wednesday.
Democratic hopeful John Edwards reported earned income of $1.25 million, the biggest single source of which was a hedge fund that employed him part time.
He and his wife, Elizabeth, reported $29.5 million in assets, including millions invested in the hedge fund the Fortress Investment Group.
Giuliani's report provides the first detailed picture of his vast holdings and income since his term as mayor of New York ended more than five years ago.
Since then, Giuliani parlayed his image as an in-charge mayor during the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks into lucrative speaking fees and business enterprises.
He reported $13 million to $45 million in assets, including his share in Giuliani & Co., a partnership that provides an array of consulting services.
The reports were part of a flurry released Wednesday by the Federal Election Commission.
Sen. Barack Obama's report showed a surge of interest in his writings as he drew closer to a presidential bid, earning more than a half-million dollars in 2006 in royalties for one book and an advance for another.
The Illinois Democrat received $572,490 for the books his best-selling memoir, "Dreams of My Father" and "The Audacity of Hope," an account of his political journey.
Giuliani's biggest single source of income between January 2006 and February 2007 came from speaking engagements around the world.
He grossed $11.4 million in speeches, which includes fees retained by the Washington Speakers Bureau.
After speaking at an event in Louisiana for the PGA Tour, Giuliani donated $80,000 to New Orleans charities working on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Forget the tuxedo.
Jerry Seinfeld made his big appearance at the Cannes Film Festival wearing a fuzzy bumblebee suit and black tights.
Seinfeld's "Bee Movie" is the latest DreamWorks Animation film to dramatize the secret life of a pesky insect (following "Antz").
It doesn't open until November, but Seinfeld was in Cannes on Thursday showing 30 minutes of highlights.
He has spent the past four years developing the film, writing the script and giving voice to its leading role.
His character, Barry B. Benson, is an ambitious young bee who dreams of life beyond the hive.
Renee Zellweger as a human florist who inspires a cross-species crush in Benson; and Matthew Broderick as Benson's best friend.
Before the stunt, Seinfeld worked the microphone at a Cannes theater where he screened the rough footage. The press corps tried to engage him in a little standup comedy.
Seinfeld said the idea for "Bee Movie" popped randomly into his head one day as he was eating candy.
The next day, he was invited to eat dinner with Steven Spielberg.
"I just wanted to get through the dinner and say I had dinner with Steven Spielberg, and he gets excited," Seinfeld said.
"And that's how this happened.
Estonia's defense minister said Thursday there was a possibility the Russian government was involved in massive cyber attacks that have crippled the Baltic nation's Web sites this month.
The evidence is not enough to prove Russia played a role, "but it indicates a possibility," Defense Minister Jaak Aaviksoo told The Associated Press by telephone.
He said more than 1 million computers worldwide have been used in recent weeks to attack Estonian government and business Web sites since a dispute arose with Moscow over Estonia's moving of a Soviet-era war memorial from downtown Tallinn.
The attacks have also
gotten the attention of NATO, which has sent a cyber expert to Estonia to help amid concerns that the military alliance might also be targeted, a NATO official said Thursday.
The Russian government has denied Estonia's accusations.
Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the attackers must have used a fake Kremlin Internet address to tarnish Russian authorities.
"They started after we discovered instructions on Russian Web sites telling when, why and what to attack," he added.
Estonia, a nation of 1.3 million, is a European Union and NATO member as well as a key hub for Skype and other Web pioneers.
Embattled World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz agreed to resign Thursday after weeks of controversy over his handling of a pay package for his girlfriend, a bank employee, the institution's board of directors announced Thursday.
In a statement announcing the decision, the bank said "a number of mistakes were made by a number of individuals" in the matter.
Wolfowitz said the bank board accepted his contention that he acted "ethically and in good faith."
To do that, I have concluded that it is in the best interests of those whom this institution serves for that mission to be carried forward under new leadership."
Wolfowitz was appointed to the World Bank post in 2005 after serving as deputy U.S. defense secretary, where he was one of the leading architects of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
A World Bank committee concluded Wolfowitz violated staff rules when he arranged a raise and transfer for his girlfriend, Shaha Ali Riza, a longtime bank employee.
After Wolfowitz took over at the bank in 2005, Riza was transferred to a U.S. State Department job at a tax-free government salary of almost $194,000 a year.
Wolfowitz, the White House and bank officials held talks Wednesday afternoon to work out details of his resignation.
"He will not resign under this cloud and that remains his position," Bennett said Wednesday.
Earlier Thursday, President Bush sounded as if he was resigned to the fact that Wolfowitz's tenure was coming to an end.
President Bush said Thursday he's optimistic compromise will be reached with Congress on an Iraq spending bill. "I think we'll get a deal.
We'll work through something we can all live with," Bush said in a Rose Garden news conference with outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
For his part, Blair, the staunchest of U.S. allies on Iraq, predicted that Britain would continue to stand side by side with the United States after he leaves office.
He said he did not regret his decision to join Bush in supporting the war in Iraq and "I believe that we will remain a staunch and steadfast ally in the fight against terrorism.
Blair, once enormously popular in his country, saw his popularity tumble largely over his alliance with Bush on Iraq.
Asked by a British reporter if Blair was the right person for Bush to be dealing with now, given that he will leave office on June 27, Bush said absolutely.
"You're trying to do a tap dance on his political grave," the president said. Blair said he was proud to stand shoulder-to-shoulder beside the U.S. since the September 11, 2001, terror attacks:
Bush voiced optimism that he could reach a deal with Congress on a stalled $124.2 billion spending bill to help pay for U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Goalkeeper Andres Palop emerged as Sevilla's hero by saving three penalties in the shoot-out to give his side victory over Espanyol in a thrilling all-Spanish UEFA Cup final at Hampden Park on Wednesday.
The Andalucians became only the second side to retain the trophy after a pulsating game, played in driving rain, ended 2-2 after 120 minutes, condemning Espanyol to more European final heartbreak 19 years after they lost the 1988 final on penalties to Bayer Leverkusen.
Palop, whose headed goal against Shakhtar Donetsk in the last 16 had kept the holders in the competition, saved spot-kicks from Luis Garcia, Jonatas and Marc Torrejon to give Sevilla victory 3-1 on penalties.
They play Getafe in the King's Cup final and are still in contention for the Primera Liga title.
"Don't Read!! Personall," warns the diary's inside cover.
But its author, Anna Nicole Smith, has no hold in death on the remnants of her life.
The public now can discover that she was delighted by rough sex, ecstatic over the prospect of plastic surgery for her breasts and fearful of a jealous boyfriend. She was careless with spelling, punctuation, and, too often, with her own well-being.
"We discussed it and he said he wouldn't go out and get drunk no more unless it was with me," Smith wrote in the diaries, which span about a year from early 1991 to 1992.
On an evening out a few weeks later with the same man (identified only by first name), Smith wrote that she got drunk and "asked a guy for his #.
Her boyfriend "came unglued. threw me out of his house & broke up with me it was awlful he hit me and my mother," she said.
Smith's tone in the entries veers between simple joy and deep-seated unhappiness.
I love my mom but I cant handle it anymore.
One of the more poignant passages deals with her shock at finding she's pregnant.
A hazy ring of dark matter spawned by a colossal cosmic crash eons ago offers the best evidence to date that vast amounts of this mysterious stuff reside in the universe, scientists said Tuesday.
Images taken by NASA's orbiting Hubble Space Telescope allowed astronomers to detect this ring of dark matter created by the collision of two galaxy clusters 5 billion light-years from Earth.
"This is the strongest evidence yet for the existence of dark matter," astronomer Myungkook James Jee of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore told reporters.
Astronomers believe dark matter as opposed to ordinary matter making up the stars, planets and the like comprises about 85 percent of the universe's material, but evidence of it has been difficult to come by.
They do not know what it is made of, but think it could be a kind of particle.
Astronomer Richard Massey of the California Institute of Technology, not involved in the research, said the findings are facing skepticism within the astronomical community.
Previous Hubble observations showed another collision between two galaxy clusters in which dark matter appeared to behave differently.
Scientists came across the new evidence while studying the distribution of dark matter within a galaxy cluster designated as Cl 0024+17.
Wondering about the genesis of this ring, the researchers came across earlier work showing that the galaxy cluster had run into another cluster 1 billion to 2 billion years ago.
Nicolas Sarkozy got down to business on his first trip abroad as French president, vowing in Berlin to tackle the EU's institutional crisis and surprising his hosts by highlighting problems at Franco-German aerospace giant EADS.
Speaking alongside Chancellor Angela Merkel hours after taking over from Jacques Chirac, Sarkozy said his visit to the German capital was both symbolic and a signal that he was ready to get down to work.
"The first emergency is to get the European Union out of its current paralysis.
For that, it is necessary that Germany, which today holds the EU presidency, and France, which has always been its privileged partner in Europe, see eye to eye on this.
Vowing that French policy would not be characterized by a "wait-and-see" approach, he turned to EADS, a highly sensitive topic in the Franco-German relationship in past years.
Germany has resisted repeated French attempts in recent years to seize greater control of the company, which was founded in 2000 with a merger of the two countries' top aerospace firms.
Amazon.com said on Wednesday the company will launch a digital music store later in 2007 with millions of songs, free of copy protection technology that limits where consumers can play their music.
The Seattle-based company said music company EMI, home to artists ranging from Coldplay to Norah Jones to Joss Stone to Pink Floyd, has licensed its digital catalog to Amazon, the second such deal in a month.
"Our MP3-only strategy means all the music that customers buy on Amazon is always DRM-free and plays on any device," said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com founder and CEO.
Digital Rights Management, or DRM, has been demanded by the music industry to contain piracy by preventing users
but its critics say it restricts consumers and therefore hinders the growth of legal music uses.
Early last month, EMI said it would make its music available online without a key anti-piracy measure, becoming the first major music group to take the risk in a bid to grow digital sales.
With all music companies struggling from a drop in the sale of physical albums, EMI, announced its first deal with Apple and the iTunes online music store in April.
Amazon's copy-protection-free MP3s will allow customers to play their music on virtually any of their personal devices.
Starbucks shares hit their lowest level since late 2005 Tuesday as investor concerns about slower sales and profit growth continued to chip away at the once high-flying stock.
Some on Wall Street said the free fall including a 20 percent decline in 2007 represents the best buying opportunity for Starbucks shares in years as sales comparisons against year-ago results get easier later this year.
But others remain skittish about the future given increased competition in the United States, rising dairy and labor costs, and concerns about overall consumer spending.
Starbucks shares closed at $28.39 Tuesday on the New York Stock Exchange, 30 percent below a lifetime high of $40.01 hit on November 16 of last year.
According to analysts, much of the stock's recent weakness stems from concerns that labor and other rising costs are hampering profits while increases in sales at stores open at least 13 months, a key measure of retail health, are contracting.
At the same time, competition from McDonald's new coffee offerings and Dunkin' Donuts' U.S. expansion has heated up in recent months.
J.P. Morgan analyst John Ivankoe said in a research note earlier this month he expected Starbucks' multiple to stay at the high end of the 25 to 30 range, adding that "the potential reward outweighs recent risk.
"The shares are undervalued, but we wouldn't recommend buying," said Morningstar analyst John Owens.
A Japanese drop box for unwanted babies triggered a wave of nationwide soul searching Wednesday, a day after it was discovered a preschooler and not an infant had been dumped there by his father on its first day of operation.
The drop-off was opened last Thursday by the Catholic-run Jikei Hospital in the southern city of Kumamoto to discourage abortions and the abandonment of children in unsafe public places.
The boy, who was in good health, reportedly said he was dropped off by his father, who was seen holding the youngster's hand as they approached the hospital.
They apparently rode Japan's bullet train to Kumamoto, but it was unclear where they lived.
The find triggered a wave of outrage among political leaders on Tuesday, with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe saying "Anonymously throwing out a child is unacceptable.
The hospital has refused to comment on the case, citing privacy concerns, but said there were age limits on its drop-off service.
"We must rethink the meaning of the baby drop-off," the conservative Sankei newspaper said in an editorial.
Sony reported a 68 percent fall in annual operating profit on Wednesday due to losses in its game unit and costs to recall PC batteries, but it forecast steep growth this year that beats market expectations.
The Japanese electronics and entertainment conglomerate was hit hard last year by massive costs to launch the PlayStation 3 (PS3) game console and recall 9.6 million units of its laptop PC batteries, which in rare cases could catch fire from overheating.
But it is taking steps to cut production costs for the PS3 and is starting up an advanced liquid crystal display (LCD) panel plant with Samsung Electronics this year, shoring up its profitability.
the $30 billion video game industry, forecast an operating profit of 440 billion yen ($3.7 billion) for the year to March 2008, exceeding a consensus of 377.8 billion yen in a poll of 20 analysts by Reuters Estimates.
It expects sales to grow 5.8 percent to 8.78 trillion yen.
Sony, which offers Bravia LCD TVs, Cyber-shot digital cameras and Vaio PCs, has packed its cutting-edge technology such as a Blu-ray high-definition DVD player in the PS3, enabling lifelike graphics but driving up its manufacturing costs.
The basic version of the PS3 is priced twice as high as Nintendo's new console, the Wii, which has been outselling the Sony machine in Japan and the United States since the devices were launched late last year.
Operating profit at Sony came to 71.75 billion yen in the year ended March 31, down from 226.42 billion yen a year earlier.
Sales rose 10.5 percent to 8.30 trillion yen while net profit rose 2.2 percent to 126.33 billion yen, boosted by the strong performance of Sony Ericsson, the world's fourth-largest mobile phone maker owned jointly by Sony and Ericsson
Britain's Prince Harry will not serve in Iraq as a troop commander because of "a number of specific threats" against him, the UK's top general says.
A spokesperson for the 22-year-old prince says he is "very disappointed" by the decision.
Chief of the general staff Sir Richard Dannatt said Wednesday:
Wednesday's announcement reverses a statement made in February by the Ministry of Defence and the royal family, which said that Harry would be sent to Iraq with his regiment.
"Let me also make quite clear that as a professional soldier, Prince Harry will be extremely disappointed.
Prince Harry's thoughts are with his troop and the rest of the Battle Group in Iraq.
He is a 2006 graduate of Britain's prestigious Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and has been actively seeking the posting in Iraq.
Harry's older brother William while also a military officer is not eligible for combat service because he is the second in line to the British crown.
Yolanda King, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s eldest child who pursued her father's dream of racial harmony through drama and motivational speaking, collapsed and died.
King died late Tuesday in Santa Monica, California, said Steve Klein, a spokesman for the King Center.
The family did not know the cause of death, but relatives think it might have been a heart problem, he said.
"She was an actress, author, producer, advocate for peace and nonviolence, who was known and loved for her motivational and inspirational contributions to society," the King family said in a statement.
Former Mayor Andrew Young, a lieutenant of her father's who has remained close to the family, said King was going to her brother Dexter's home when she collapsed in the doorway.
Her death came less than a year and a half after her mother, Coretta Scott King, died in January 2006 after battling ovarian cancer and the effects of a stroke
Her struggle prompted her daughter to work with the American Heart Association to raise awareness about strokes, especially among blacks.
Yolanda King, who lived in California, was an actress, ran a production company and appeared in numerous films, including "Ghosts of Mississippi."
She played Rosa Parks in the 1978 miniseries "King.
Battles between Palestinian factions in Gaza claimed more than a dozen lives Wednesday, while Hamas militants launched rockets into Israel, provoking Israeli military airstrikes on Hamas.
"I hope it will work," Barghouti told CNN, adding that "the situation is miserable.
The latest Israeli airstrike targeted a rocket-launching site outside Jabaliya in northern Gaza, killing one Hamas militant and wounding three others, Palestinian security sources said.
Four Palestinians were killed in the Israeli airstrike, according to Palestinian medical sources.
The Israel Defense Forces confirmed the airstrike was carried out on a group of militants who had just launched a missile toward Israel.
More than 40 Palestinians have died since the latest round of Hamas-Fatah fighting broke out Sunday in Gaza.
Diane Seitz, a teacher in the tiny village of Koyukuk, reels off the prices at the village's only store, a weathered wood shanty with three meagerly stocked aisles and no regular business hours.
Eighteen eggs cost $5.35.
Local prices are so high and inventory so sparse that Seitz, like many Alaskans living far from the road system, buys nearly all her food and household staples from big-box chain stores in cities hundreds of miles away.
At least once a month, she sends her shopping list to Safeway in Fairbanks and pays a small airline to fly her groceries across 300 roadless miles to the Athabascan Indian village of 100 people on the banks of the Yukon River.
The business generated by such customers is impossible to quantify, but it's big enough that several stores, including Wal-Mart, Home Depot and Best Buy, devote
whole mail-order departments to more than 200,000 rural residents spread over an area twice the size of Texas.
Mail orders generally make up less than 10 percent of business, but the service helps win over repeat customers who consistently place large orders, store managers say.
"We have a daughter who lives in Anchorage and she does some of our shopping," said Natalie Baumgartner, 61, city administrator in McGrath, a town of 350 on the Iditarod Trail.
The big-box stores' back rooms provide a glimpse into the buying habits of rural shoppers from Barrow on the Arctic Ocean, to the Aleutian Island fishing port of Dutch Harbor, to dozens of villages in the vast Interior.
toilet paper, diapers, laundry soap, dog food and soda. Big orders also come in for toys during Christmas and children's birthdays, said store manager Marty Howard.
In the villages, prices are high because stores must keep up with freight costs, and the tiny communities simply can't support much competition, said state labor economist Neal Fried.
Dallas Mavericks forward Dirk Nowitzki was named the NBA's Most Valuable Player on Tuesday, the first European player to win the award.
A six-times All-Star during his nine-year NBA career, Nowitzki totalled 1,138 points, including 83 first-place votes, from a panel of 129 journalists.
Twice-MVP Steve Nash of the Phoenix Suns, Nowitzki's good friend and former team-mate, finished second in the voting with 1,013 points (44 first-place votes).
Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers was third with 521 points, followed by San Antonio's Tim Duncan (286 points) and Cleveland's LeBron James (183 points).
Nowitzki led Dallas to a 67-15 record, tying for the sixth-best winning percentage in NBA history.
He averaged 24.6 points, 8.9 rebounds and a career-best 3.4 assists.
The 28-year-old Nowitzki finished third in voting the last two seasons.
Microsoft has sold nearly 40 million Windows Vista licenses in the first 100 days that the latest version of the operating system has been available, Chairman Bill Gates said Tuesday.
Windows operating systems run on more than 95 percent of the world's computers and represent the Redmond, Washington-based company's biggest profit driver.
Vista, which Microsoft introduced on Jan. 30, also marks the first major operating system upgrade in more than five years from the world's biggest software maker.
During a speech in Los Angeles, Gates said the company named its next-generation Windows Server software formerly known as "Longhorn" Windows Server 2008.
Windows Server is the server operating system equivalent to the Vista PC operating system, with an emphasis on many of the same features, such as better security.
Microsoft (up $0.17 to $31.04, Charts, Fortune 500), which controlled an estimated two-thirds of the global server software maker in 2006, has said the product is on track for a debut in the second half of 2007.
That software is aimed at helping families with multiple PCs easily centralize, share and protect digital content, such as pictures, music, documents and videos.
In a letter, the attorneys general asked MySpace to provide information on how many registered sex offenders are using the site, and where they live.
MySpace did not say whether it would comply with the request, but did say it was removing known offenders from the site.
"We are in the initial stages of cross referencing our membership against (a) registered sex offender database and removing any confirmed matches," Hemanshu Nigam, MySpace's chief security officer, said in a statement.
MySpace, in cooperation with partner Sentinel Tech Holding Corp., would then provide the information to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children so the organization could work directly with law enforcement, he said.
last year, a former sheriff's deputy was sentenced to 15 years in prison after being convicted of molesting a 15-year-old boy he met on MySpace, and a Boiling Spring Lakes police officer was charged with the statutory rape of a 14-year-old girl he communicated with on the site, Cooper said.
Users can send messages to one another and, in many cases, browse other profiles.
forces searching for three soldiers abducted in a Saturday attack south of Baghdad believe the troops were kidnapped in a "planned snatch," involving at least 10 insurgents, a senior U.S. military official said.
Insurgents targeted a "stationary observation post" where troops looked for people planting bombs, the official said.
A nearby unit heard explosions early Saturday "and attempted to establish communications, but without success."
Later, an unmanned aerial vehicle spotted two burning vehicles and coalition forces arrived within the hour.
Thousands of U.S. and Iraqi soldiers backed by everything from air support to dog teams are searching for the missing troops.
Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, said 11 people have been detained, and four of them are considered high-value targets.
As of Monday, 460 people have been questioned since the search was launched, Garver said, and the military has received more than 50 tips from people.
The slain and missing U.S. soldiers all men were from Fort Drum in New York, and all have been identified as members of the 10th Mountain Division's Second Brigade.
The Islamic State of Iraq a Sunni insurgent coalition that includes al Qaeda in Iraq issued a statement Monday saying it is holding the troops and is warning the U.S. military to call off its search.
People who spend their days in front of a computer may want to check out some fitness-related Web sites, according to a study published Monday.
Researchers found that Internet-based exercise programs worked as well as printed advice in getting sedentary adults to take up regular physical activity. One year into the study, the Internet users were getting 80 to 90 minutes of exercise each week.
"In 2006, 147 million American adults were Internet users," lead study author Dr. Bess H. Marcus said in a statement.
"If sedentary individuals are at least as likely as active individuals to use the Internet, this means roughly 80 million under-active adults are online and might be reached via Web-based interventions," said Marcus, a professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown University Medical School in Providence, Rhode Island.
The study included 249 sedentary adults who were randomly assigned to one of three groups.
One group used a Web site developed by the researchers to support participants' exercise efforts.
A second group was provided with links to six Web sites run by professional medical and fitness organizations.
The third group received printed materials by mail.
Participants in all of the groups kept daily activity logs and completed questionnaires designed to keep them on track with their exercise regimens.
One year later, all three groups were doing similarly well, Marcus and her colleagues found.
Those who used the tailored Web site were getting an average of 90 minutes of exercise per week, as were men and women in the group that received help by mail.
Study participants who used a Web site program they picked out were getting 80 minutes of exercise per week, on average.
In general, experts recommend that adults get at least 30 minutes of moderate exercise, such as brisk walking, on most days of the week.
Lindsay Lohan rules.
According to Maxim magazine, at least this month, she's the hottest woman in the world.
The "Georgia Rule" actress-troublemaker tops the magazine's eighth annual "Hot 100" list, a ranking by editors weighing buzz and beauty for women in film, TV, music, sports and fashion.
"There is no other star in the world (who) causes more of a stir in the public eye than Lindsay," said Maxim Editor in Chief Jimmy Jellinek in a statement.
Not surprisingly, Jellinek described his young, male readership as being "obsessed" with the 20-year-old Lohan, a ubiquitous party girl who spent the weekend soaking up the sun (with a new boyfriend) in the Bahamas.
Jessica Alba had to settle with the No. 2 on the list, which is in the magazine hitting stands Saturday.
She's followed, in order, by Scarlett Johansson, Christina Aguilera, Jessica Biel, Ali Larter, Eva Mendes, Rihanna, Eva Longoria, Fergie, Sienna Miller, Angelina Jolie, Beyonce Knowles and Katherine Heigl.
Celebrity sisters Ashlee and Jessica Simpson are on the list at No. 16 and No. 41, respectively. Ashley Olsen, half of the mogul acting twins, placed 37th, while sister Mary-Kate didn't make the cut.
Paris Hilton is "emotionally distraught and traumatized" over her 45-day jail sentence and is not capable of testifying in a civil lawsuit against her, the socialite-reality TV star's psychiatrist said.
Dr. Charles Sophy has been seeing Hilton, 26, for the past eight months and has talked with her several times since her May 4 hearing for violating the terms of her probation in an alcohol-related reckless driving case, according to court papers.
Sophy said Hilton needs time to recover from the shock of receiving jail time before testifying in a civil case brought against her by actress and diamond heiress Zeta Graff.
Messages left with Hilton's spokesman and lawyer were not immediately returned early Tuesday.
In court papers filed Monday, Sophy said Hilton is "distraught and traumatized as a consequence of the findings at the May 4 hearing ... and her fear of incarceration.
"At this point in time," he continued, "Ms. Hilton cannot effectively respond to examination as a witness or provide any significant input into her defense.
Graff filed a $10 million lawsuit against Hilton in 2005, claiming the reality TV star spread "vicious lies" about her.
Superior Court Judge Linda K. Lefkowitz postponed the trial to August.
Copenhagen's famed Little Mermaid statue was found doused with red paint after hundreds of black-clad youths clashed with police in Copenhagen Tuesday.
This is the second time the bronze landmark has been defaced since March, also during protests.
But as they did then, police said Tuesday it was unclear if the damage was connected to the clashes.
Youths barricaded streets and set fire to cars, protesting the demolition of a building in the free-wheeling Christiania district.
Police fired tear gas to disperse the Christiania protesters and arrested 59 people, all Danes.
Three people were hurt, all police officers.
"At times it was pretty violent," police spokesman Flemming Steen Munch said.
The clashes started Monday when workers tore down a condemned building in Christiania, a partially self-governing section of Copenhagen that is home to an alternative lifestyle community.
The youths threw bottles, cobblestones and firecrackers at police and set fire to cars and street barricades.
Although the building was largely abandoned, many protesters saw the demolition as part of a government plan to assert control over the enclave.
Hundreds were arrested and 25 people hurt in the riots, the worst clashes in Copenhagen in more than a decade.
The Little Mermaid was created by Danish sculptor Edvard Eriksen in tribute to the Danish storyteller Hans Christian Andersen.
Sitting on a rock at the entrance of the Copenhagen harbor since 1913, she draws an estimated 1 million visitors a year.
A hotel blast in Pakistan's northwestern city of Peshawar on Tuesday left 25 people dead and 30 injured, police said.
The bomb went off in the ground-floor restaurant of the four-story Marhaba Hotel in an old quarter of Peshawar, a city near the Afghan border, leaving a carnage of corpses and body parts scattered among broken tables and shattered crockery.
Investigators found a message taped to one leg of the bomber, saying that spies for America would meet the fate of those killed in the blast
, provincial police chief Sharif Virk said.
The message also included the Persian word "Khurasan" often used in militant videos to describe Afghanistan. Two security officials told The Associated Press that a close relative of Dadullah had been arrested in the restaurant a few days before Tuesday's attack.
The officials, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, refused to be identified.
Earlier, Javed Iqbal Cheema, a top Pakistani counterterrorism official, told a news conference he did not think the bombing was linked to Dadullah, and denied that Pakistan had provided any intelligence that led to his killing.
"I would only say that Dadullah was killed in Afghanistan and Pakistan did not provide any intelligence on Dadullah," he said in Islamabad.
Russia and the United States agreed Tuesday to moderate their rhetoric in a bid to improve strained ties, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said after she met with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Yet deep differences remained over a U.S. missile defense plan for Europe.
Rice said flatly that no country, including Russia, would have a "veto" on issues the United States decides in its own national security interests.
Rice said that missile defense continues to be an area that the two countries needed "to work through.
She also said that recent comments by Putin and other Russians had not been "helpful" to relations and had obscured positive developments and cooperation on a wide range of issues, including the fight against terrorism and halting the spread of weapons of mass destruction.
"We did talk about the need to keep the temperature down," Rice said after seeing Putin in an effort to calm rising tensions between the former Cold War enemies.
Asked whether she thought her message was received by the Russians, Rice replied: "I sure hope so, because I don't think you ever hear President Bush use certain kinds of rhetoric about Russia because he respects the partnership.
Said Lavrov: "The president (Putin) supported the American side's understanding that it's necessary to tone down the rhetoric in public statements and concentrate on concrete business.
A man checking for fire damage at a home he bought in a foreclosure auction walked into the living room and found the former owner's mummified body sitting on the couch, Spanish police said Tuesday.
Coroners estimate the woman's remains had been there since 2001, when she stopped making payments on the house in the coastal town of Roses in the northeast Catalonia region.
The body mummified rather than rotted in part because of the salty seaside air in Roses, a Catalan regional police official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The woman, in her mid-50s, was estranged from her children in Madrid and no one had reported her missing.
with her mother, and because her ground-level apartment is in an area of vacation homes with a constant coming and going of travelers.
But they were surprised that bank officials who sold the flat after the foreclosure never bothered to go in and examine it, the police official said.
The Rev. Jerry Falwell, the television minister whose 1979 founding of the Moral Majority galvanized American religious conservatives into a political force, died Tuesday at age 73.
Falwell was found unconscious and without a pulse in his office at Liberty University, the college he founded in Lynchburg, Virginia, said Ron Godwin, the school's executive vice president.
Though paramedics tried to revive him at his office and en route to Lynchburg General Hospital, "Those very timely and very efficient and effective efforts were unsuccessful," Godwin said.
Godwin said he had breakfast with Falwell Tuesday morning and said they talked about the future.
Godwin said they finished breakfast about 9:50 a.m. ET and Falwell went into his office. He was found there about 11:30 a.m. ET.
The minister, who had a history of heart trouble, was pronounced dead of heart failure at 12:40 p.m. Tuesday, his doctor, Carl Moore, told reporters.
He had been hospitalized twice in early 2005 with acute onset pulmonary edema, or congestive heart failure, and at one point was placed on a ventilator.
Falwell is survived by his wife, three children and eight grandchildren.
The World Bank's executive board will meet on Tuesday to decide the future of the organization's president, Paul Wolfowitz, after an internal panel concluded he had violated staff rules by arranging a promotion and pay rise for his girlfriend and and suggested the bank was suffering "a crisis in leadership.
The special ad hoc committee looked into allegations Wolfowitz broke conflict of interest rules in dealing with his girlfriend, Shaha Riza, who left the World Bank when Wolfowitz took over the top spot in 2005.
While findings show Wolfowitz broke bank rules in arranging a handsome pay package for his girlfriend, the White House came to the defense of the embattled World Bank president Tuesday, saying his behavior did not amount to "a firing offense," an Associated Press report said.
According to the committee report, released Monday evening on its Web site, the executive board of the organization must consider whether Wolfowitz "will be able to provide the leadership needed" to effectively carry out the mission of the
Tony Snow, a White House spokesman, said he did not think Wolfowitz's actions warranted his resignation, according to an AP report.
After Wolfowitz took over at the World Bank, Riza was transferred to a State Department foundation and received a government salary of almost $194,000 a year, tax free.
Wolfowitz has rebutted statements from former World Bank officials who claimed he ignored Bank ethics committee directions on the Riza case and acted improperly.
The panel concluded that Wolfowitz's role in the matter "went beyond the informal advice" given by the bank's ethics committee, and that he "engaged in a de facto conflict of interest," according to the report.
"I am very disappointed that the ad hoc committee that insisted on confidentiality put its report on its Web site before the full board had a chance to consider the report," Wolfowitz's attorney, Robert Bennett, told CNN.
The meeting of the 24-member World Bank board on Tuesday will have the final say on Wolfowitz's future.
Police searching for a 4-year-old British girl who disappeared 11 days ago in southern Portugal sealed off a villa Monday near where she is believed to have been abducted, according to news reports.
Detectives were questioning three people in Portimao, the nearest large town to Praia da Luz, Portugal's national news agency Lusa reported, citing unnamed police sources.
British broadcaster Sky News said one of the men who was reportedly being questioned lived at the villa with his British mother.
The man's father was Portuguese, the report said.
The man had worked as a translator with police investigating the disappearance, according to Sky News.
The villa is about 109 yards (100 meters) from the Ocean Club holiday village where Madeleine McCann was apparently taken from her hotel room May 2.
Madeleine McCann vanished after her parents left her, and her brother and sister, both aged 2, alone while they went to a nearby restaurant within their hotel complex at Praia da Luz, a vacation resort in Portugal's Algarve region.
how best to use expressions of support, including financial help, in the search for their daughter.
British media have said that promised contributions total some 2.6 million pounds (euro 3.8 million, $5.1 million dollars), including reported donations from Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, tycoon Sir Richard Branson and American Idol judge Simon Cowell.
Also, celebrities including soccer star David Beckham have made public appeals for help in finding Madeleine.
Gerry McCann said he and his wife, Kate, had taken strength from the "spiritual outpouring" around the world.
Roger Federer will play the French Open and Wimbledon without a coach after splitting with Tony Roche, the world number one said on Monday.
"He's helped me a lot but in the end he was a part-time coach.
We were together only 15 weeks a year and I just thought the communication wasn't going very far any more.
Federer, who said he had been thinking about a change for some time, added that he had the experience to go into the next two grand slam tournaments without help.
"I'm not going to take a coach because I know what it takes to win," he said. "I don't want anyone interfering with my preparation.
Federer won six of his 10 grand slams while working with Roche, who had previously coached Ivan Lendl and Pat Rafter.
Federer, who has never won the French Open, needs to take the Roland Garros title to become only the third man after American Don Budge and Australian Rod Laver to hold all four majors at the same time.
Spain's Rafael Nadal, the second seed in Hamburg, has won the French Open for the last two years and is on a 77-match winning streak on clay, dating back to April 2005.
Federer and Nadal are among the top seeds with a first-round bye in the Hamburg Masters.
A teenage boy holding a severed head appeared at a police station in northern Japan on Tuesday, saying he killed his mother, an official said.
The 17-year-old boy turned up at the police station in Aizu Wakamatsu city in Fukushima prefecture (state) Tuesday morning with the severed head, local police official Hisayoshi Watanabe said.
The boy told police officials that he killed his mother but it was not immediately clear if the head was the mother's, according to Watanabe.
Kyodo News agency said that the boy, a high school senior, brought the head in a bag.
A body without a head has been found in the boy's apartment, Kyodo said.
The incident follows a string of high-profile dismemberments in Japan.
On Monday, a severed human leg was reportedly found in a small river in central Tokyo.
Kyodo said the leg was believed to be that of an adult but other details were unknown.
In January, a 32-year-old woman was arrested after she confessed to killing her husband, dismembering him with a saw and dumping body parts around Tokyo.
But that didn't stop a sea lion from joining schoolchildren on a walk-a-thon.
The marine mammal apparently noticed children doing laps Friday morning around a course they had set up at the Marin Country Day School next to the shores of the San Francisco Bay.
The 185-pound Steller sea lion waddled ashore, shocking students and teachers.
It was the latest brush with humans for the 1-year-old sea lion, called Astro by staffers at the Marin Headlands-based Marine Mammal Center.
Astro's mother abandoned him at Ano Nuevo Island off the San Mateo coast in June, prompting biologists to bottle-feed the pup.
They released the adolescent on April 25 with a radio tag.
But Astro keeps returning to civilization.
About a week ago, he swam under the Golden Gate Bridge to the shores of Corte Madera.
The Marine Mammal Center again picked him up and released him in the Farallons, 27 miles from San Francisco.
But returned again Friday, just in time for the walk-a-thon.
Astro's run-ins with humans could pose danger to both species, so the center will try to find him a permanent home, possibly the Mystic Aquarium in Connecticut, which keeps threatened Steller sea lions.
Here along the Amalfi Coast, dramatic panoramas of rocky cliffs hanging over the sea are everywhere.
But the views from the town of Ravello perched above the gulf of Salerno feel like a shortcut to paradise.
The town is also closed to traffic;
cars must be left in parking lots near the main square.
Over the years, the town has hosted many celebrities, including Richard Wagner, Arturo Toscanini, Miro and D.H.
The view from the balcony is so wide that the American writer Gore Vidal who owned a nearby villa once defined it as "the most beautiful in the world."
The place is incredibly quiet, even in the high season.
Its name derives from the rocky ridge on which it stands, which is known as "cimbronium."
Vidal , who has had a prolific career as a playwright, essayist, scriptwriter and novelist, did much of his writing here.
Celebrities who visited the villa over the years included Tennessee Williams, Rudolf Nureyev, Paul Newman, Hillary Clinton and Brad Pitt.
"We're a little under three months away, now, and the first distant rumblings of the weirdness that usually precedes a Harry Potter publication can be heard on the horizon," Rowling wrote on her Web site Monday.
"I want the readers who have, in many instances, grown up with Harry, to embark on the last adventure they will share with him without knowing where they are they going.
The author's comments came in response to an April 28 editorial by a leading Potter fan site, http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org, which noted that it had been receiving "spoiler" e-mails and expected many more alleging advance knowledge of the book's contents.
More than 300 million copies have sold of the previous six Potter books.
"Deathly Hallows" has more than 1 million pre-orders on Amazon.com alone.
The body count for "The Sopranos" had a major bump Sunday as this HBO mob drama races toward its own termination.
If you plan to watch the episode later and don't want to learn the newest casualty, stop reading now.)
(Have you stopped reading yet?
This is your final warning.)
With the series' conclusion just three episodes away (on June 10), this week's victim was Christopher Moltisanti, nephew of New Jersey mob boss Tony Soprano and, until lately, Tony's presumed successor.
Death resulted from a car crash with Christopher at the wheel, but Tony, by then fed up with his destructive behavior, made sure the accident was decisive.
It was early in the episode that Christopher (Michael Imperioli) and Tony (James Gandolfini) were returning from Manhattan, where they had a contentious meeting with New York boss Phil Leotardo.
Barreling along a deserted New Jersey highway, the two of them groused about the deal going sour.
Meanwhile, Christopher kept taking his eyes off the road to fine-tune his sound system (which notably was playing a version of Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb" from the soundtrack for the recent film "The Departed" a song that also figured in a previous episode).
Then his sport utility vehicle abruptly crossed the center line. Christopher veered off the road to miss an oncoming car and crashed down a hill.
Tony was banged up, but Christopher was in far more serious condition.
Having suffered internal injuries, he was spitting up blood and gasping for breath.
Feeling betrayed yet again by Christopher (who had routinely vowed that he was drug-free), Tony made a fateful decision:
It was time to solve this personnel problem.
This short interlude led an hour that predominantly addressed the effect of Christopher's death on his family, the crew and Tony in particular.
Having collected many dangerous enemies (including Leotardo), Christopher was widely expected by "Sopranos" fans to meet a violent demise by the series' end.
At the end of the hour, Tony, who by then had bolted for a private getaway to Las Vegas, was watching the sun come up across the desert while, in a peyote haze, he bellowed out, "I get it!
Viewers were left to ponder just what it was he got.
Lt. Daniel Zimmerman, an infantry platoon leader in Iraq, puts a blog on the Internet every now and then "to basically keep my friends and family up to date" back home.
It just got tougher to do that for Zimmerman and a lot of other U.S. soldiers.
No more using the military's computer system to socialize and trade videos on MySpace, YouTube and nine other Web sites, the Pentagon says.
Citing security concerns and technological limits, the Pentagon has cut off access to those sites for personnel using the Defense Department's computer network.
The change limits use of the popular outlets for service members on the front lines, who regularly post videos and journals.
Memos about the change went out in February, and it took effect last week.
It does not affect the Internet cafes that soldiers in Iraq use that are not connected to the Defense Department's network.
Also, the ban also does not affect other sites, such as Yahoo, and does not prevent soldiers from sending messages and photos to their families by e-mail.
German sex shop chain Beate Uhse must pay German soccer stars Michael Ballack and Oliver Kahn ¢æ50,000 ($67,380) each for using their names for vibrators without permission, the company said on Monday.
Although the surnames of the two German soccer stars were not used, it was clear they referred to Chelsea midfielder Michael Ballack and Bayern Munich goalkeeper Oliver Kahn.
DaimlerChrysler (Charts) announced it will sell an 80 percent stake in its U.S. brand to Cerberus Capital Management, a private equity investment firm that will pay $7.4 billion.
But the German automaker, which will be renamed simply Daimler, will not actually get most of the money that Cerberus is paying for the once proud automaker.
Instead Cerberus will contribute $5 billion to the Chrysler auto operations it will now control, with just a bit more than another $1 billion going to Chrysler's finance arm.
Shares of DaimlerChrysler were up 2.7 percent in late trading in Frankfurt and up nearly 2 percent in late-morning trading in New York, although that is off from earlier gains soon after the announcement.
Even coming off the highs of the day, shares of the company have risen nearly 30 percent in the three months since it announced it was looking to sell Chrysler.
Here's the naked truth about nude recreation:
The people who practice it aren't getting any younger.
To draw 20- and 30-somethings, nudist groups and camps are trying everything from deep discounts on membership fees to a young ambassador program that encourages college and graduate students to talk to their peers about having fun in the buff.
The median age is 55 at Solair, where a yearly membership is $500 for people older than 40,
The Kissimee, Florida-based American Association for Nude Recreation, which represents about 270 clubs and resorts in North America, estimates that more than 90 percent of its 50,000 members are older than 35.
"Other people, I don't know the right way to say this, but they think it's more sexual, kind of. They don't understand just the being free with your body and being comfortable.
Money is also an issue.
As nudist resorts become increasingly upscale, catering to baby boomers and retirees with plenty of disposable income, they're less affordable for college students and young families.
In a major show of strength over one million secular Turks demonstrated in the Aegean port city of Izmir against the Islamic-rooted government ahead of Turkey's early general elections.
On Saturday, a bomb placed at an Izmir market killed one person and injured 14 others, but there was no claim of responsibility for the attack, nor evidence that it was linked to the demonstration.
The demonstrators called on leaders of the fragmented secular parties to unite against Erdogan's party. "Unite!
"No to Islamic law, no to military coups:
a democratic Turkey" demonstrating disapproval of a military threat last month to intervene in the presidential elections in order to safeguard secularism.
Erdogan called early general elections for July 22 and passed constitutional amendments to enable the people and not parliament to elect the president.
Businesses across Pakistan shuttered their doors paralyzing major cities Monday fearful of more violence and answering a call for a nationwide strike by opposition parties protesting the dismissal of the country's chief justice, Iftikhar Chaudhry.
The strike followed a weekend of violence in Karachi that left 42 people dead.
The Pakistani government on Sunday banned demonstrations in the port city and gave its paramilitary forces the authority to shoot rioters on sight in an effort to quell the political clashes between pro-government supporters and demonstrators who had rallied in support of Chaudhry, who had been due to address a meeting in the city.
Meanwhile, police said they were investigating the murder of Hammad Raza, a senior Pakistan Supreme Court official, at his home in Islamabad early Monday.
Raza, a registrar of the Supreme Court, was shot at point-blank range by two or three gunmen just before dawn at his home in the capital
Pakistan's civil and higher courts remained closed as part of an ongoing boycott by the country's lawyers in protest against Chaudhry's suspension.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf removed Chaudhry from his post on March 9, accusing him of misusing his powers to secure a top police job for his son.
Violence between the factions left four dead on Sunday.
The dead were the bodyguards of a local Fatah leader.
According to the assistant, Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh accepted al-Qawasmi's resignation.
Al-Qawasmi's resignation is a significant blow to the Palestinian unity government, formed earlier this year in an effort to end the deadly factional fighting concentrated in Gaza.
The interior minister has control of Palestinian security forces.
Amid frustrations over the inability to enact a Gaza security plan, al-Qawasmi had tendered his resignation to Haniya a few weeks ago, but the prime minister did not accept it.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) The Islamic State of Iraq a Sunni insurgent coalition that includes al Qaeda in Iraq issued a statement Monday saying it is holding three American soldiers and warning the U.S. military to call off its search.
Four U.S. soldiers and an Iraqi soldier were killed in the attack outside Mahmoudiya.
(Watch soldiers search fields for missing U.S. soldiers.
In the posting, the coalition warned "the battle between you and us is a long one."
While the insurgent group offered no proof that it is holding the soldiers, U.S. military spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said Monday that the military believes al Qaeda in Iraq or an affiliated group is responsible for their abduction.
"This assessment is based on highly credible intelligence information," Caldwell said.
He said thousands of U.S. and Iraqi soldiers backed by everything from air support to dog teams are searching for the soldiers.
"I cannot promise you that these efforts will produce the results we all are praying for," Caldwell said Monday.
"But what I can promise you, the American people, and particularly the families of these missing men, is that we are doing everything we can to find these brave and courageous soldiers.
Dense smoke that closed parts of two major interstate highways was expected to keep choking Floridians and traffic until at least midmorning Sunday.
Interstate 75 remained closed from Valdosta, Georgia, south to Lake City, Florida, said Col. Chris Knight, director of the Florida Highway Patrol.
The Florida Highway Patrol intermittently reopened sections Saturday afternoon to relieve traffic snarls as some of the smoke cleared. However, the roads remained officially closed.
Traffic from the heavily traveled interstates was being diverted onto alternate routes where visibility was better.
Restaurants, gas stations and other businesses closed in the Lake City area because people couldn't get to them, Knight said.
The fires have scorched at least 212,000 acres, according to the joint information center, a coalition of state and federal agencies.
Of those acres, 101,000 were in Florida and about 111,000 were in Georgia.
Officials said Saturday afternoon that although the fires grew some during the day, fire lines were established.
"With time and rain ... we can get these fires suppressed," said Ira Jolley of the Florida Division of Forestry.
Actress Sandra Bullock on Friday won a three-year restraining order against a woman she said had tossed animal fur over her gate, left woven palm fronds in her yard and tried to run down her husband.
The "Miss Congeniality" star told a court in the Orange County city of Westminster that the woman, identified as Marcia Diana Valentine, had left the fronds, complete with "weird signs," and "pieces of animal fur" in her yard on five occasions.
Valentine, 45, from nearby Huntington Beach, was arrested last month on charges of trying to run down Bullock's motorcycle mogul husband, Jesse James, in front of the couple's house.
She has also been found on several occasions lying in front of the couple's garage door, yelling obscenities at James, Bullock's lawyer said.
Valentine told police after her April arrest that she had seen all of Bullock's movies.
The restraining order bars Valentine from coming within 500 yards (460 meters) of Bullock, James or his three children for three years.
Bullock, 42, star of "Two Weeks Notice" and "28 Days," married James in July 2005.
James, who builds custom motorcycles and is the producer of the television series "Monster Garage," has three children from a previous marriage.
The leaders of Russia, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan reached a landmark pipeline deal on Saturday that will strengthen Moscow's control over Central Asia's energy export routes.
The deal to build a pipeline along the Caspian Sea coast to ship Turkmen natural gas to Western markets via Kazakhstan and Russia is a blow to U.S. and European efforts to secure alternatives to Middle East oil and gas that would be independent from Russian influence.
Putin said the new pipeline's annual capacity may reach "at least" 20 billion cubic meters of gas by 2012, while Russian Industry and Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko told reporters that it could eventually carry 30 billion cubic meters a year.
The deal comes amid increased competition for Turkmenistan's vast gas reserves since the death last year of President Saparmurat Niyazov, who had signed deals to build export pipelines to power-hungry China.
Turkmenistan is the second-biggest gas producer in the former Soviet Union after Russia, and its gas resources are playing an increasingly important role in the geopolitics of the region.
Russia controls the only export routes for Turkmenistan's gas and the main pipeline for Kazakh oil exports.
The United States and the European Union have lobbied hard for a route under the Caspian Sea to Azerbaijan and Turkey, bypassing Russia.
Putin sought to assuage such fears, saying that "we very responsibly take our role in the global energy sector .
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) A terror group with links to al Qaeda in Iraq claimed responsibility Sunday for the weekend attack that sparked a manhunt for three missing U.S. soldiers, according to a statement on the Internet.
Islamic State of Iraq an umbrella insurgent group that includes al Qaeda in Iraq said in the statement that it fought Saturday with "Crusader" forces in a "blessed operation," killing some and taking others prisoner.
It was unclear from the statement if the captured soldiers were alive.
The posting thanked Allah for "the help and accurate targeting" and said further details about the attack would be released later.
Though the posting appeared on Web sites commonly used by the group and such statements in the past have rung true CNN is unable to verify the authenticity of the claim.
About 4,000 troops fanned out across the volatile region Sunday to search for the missing members of the U.S.-led military patrol.
Attackers struck the team of seven U.S. soldiers and an Iraqi soldier early Saturday, the military said.
Checkpoints have been established throughout the region and aircraft including helicopters, drones and jets have been deployed in the search.
Fifteen minutes later, a drone aircraft spotted two burning vehicles, according to a U.S. military statement.
The number of U.S. military personnel killed during the Iraq war stands at 3,384.
Fond of promoting the endurance of freedom, President Bush on Sunday hailed the nation's humble beginnings as a reminder that new democracies require huge sacrifice.
"From our own history, we know the path to democracy is long and it's hard," Bush said in a ceremony honoring the 400th anniversary of Jamestown, America's first permanent English colony.
"Yet we can have confidence in the outcome because we've seen freedom's power to transform societies.
On his first visit to Jamestown as president, Bush soaked in the scene like a tourist first watching a dig for artifacts, then climbing aboard a replica of a majestic ship.
He even grabbed a baton and playfully led the 400-piece orchestra before heading back home.
In his speech, Bush said the United States must stand with those struggling to gain their freedom.
He specifically cited Iraq and Afghanistan.
"The advance of freedom is the great story of our time, and new chapters are being written every day," he added.
"It is a chance to renew our commitment to help others around the world realize the great blessings of liberty," Bush told several thousand of people in the audience for the celebration.
The item was discovered the day Queen Elizabeth II visited Jamestown recently and excavated on Sunday, said Mike Litterst, a spokesman for the National Park Service.
Russia said Saturday that it could not accept elements of a draft U.N. resolution on Kosovo worked out by the United States and European Union nations, maintaining its strong opposition to a Western-backed plan for the Serbian province's independence.
"Of course, discussions with the document's authors are still ahead.
But it's obvious that the draft resolution contains some elements which can't be accepted by us," Russia's Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin said in a statement.
He said talks must continue to help reach a compromise between the Serbs who want Kosovo remain within Serbia's borders, and the ethnic Albanians who seek independence.
The United States and EU nations circulated a draft U.N. resolution Friday endorsing independence for Kosovo under international supervision despite strong objections from Russia, a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council with veto power.
Russia has warned strongly against putting a Kosovo independence plan to the vote, threatening to block it.
Russian diplomats have avoided a clear statement on the question of a veto alluding to the possibility, but making no firm statement.
"As we have said repeatedly, a real settlement of the Kosovo problem could only be achieved on the basis of accord between the parties, the Serbs and the Albanians in Kosovo, not on the basis of some enforced solutions," Kamynin said.
The United States and the EU nations supporting the draft said they want swift action on the resolution, which would end U.N. administration of the Serb province in 120 days and hand over the supervised transition to the EU. NATO-led troops would remain to help ensure security and an international civilian administrator would be appointed.
Although Kosovo is a province of Serbia, it has been under U.N. and NATO administration since a 78-day NATO-led air war that halted a Serb crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists in 1999.
Last month, U.N. envoy Martti Ahtisaari recommended that Kosovo be granted internationally supervised independence.
The anguished parents of Madeleine McCann, the British girl missing for more than a week after appparently being snatched from a Portuguese vacation resort, have made a fresh appeal for her return.
"Words cannot describe the anguish and despair that we are feeling," said Madeleine's father, Gerry McCann.
"Please, please, do not hurt her.
Please do not scare her, please tell us where to find her," the girl's mother, Kate McCann, said in a video plea for the girl's release.
Police say Madeleine, who turns four on Saturday, was abducted from her parent's resort apartment in Portugal's Algarve.
Amid fierce media criticism in the UK of Portuguese police efforts to find the toddler, Portugal's ambassador in London , Antonio Santana Carlos, released a statement Friday saying, "Trust the authorities.
But British media filming roadblocks on Portugal's border with Spain caught police sitting in their cars and waving vehicles by during a recent rainshower.
Andrew Forrester, from Wales, was helping search for Madeleine and found the effort of Portuguese police underwhelming.
Armando Ferreira, president of the National Police Union, also defended the search.
"Portuguese police are making a great effort.
Hundreds of thousands of secular Turks demonstrated on the seafront of Turkey's third-largest city on Sunday, fearful that the Islamic-rooted government is conspiring to impose religious values on society.
Police deployed thousands of officers, a day after a bomb at an Izmir market killed one person and injured 14 others.
There was no claim of responsibility for the attack, nor evidence that it was linked to the demonstration.
Izmir is a port city on the Aegean coast that is a bastion of secularism, and Islamic parties fare poorly there.
The rally a show of strength ahead of general elections on July 22 follows similar demonstrations in Ankara and Istanbul last month.
The huge turnouts were staged to pressure Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government, which nominated a presidential candidate deemed by the secular establishment to be Islamist.
The candidate, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, was forced to suspend his bid after the opposition boycotted the voting process in parliament.
But the political turmoil exposed a deepening rift in Turkey, whose population of 75 million people is mostly Muslim, but endowed with a secular legacy designed to separate state and religion.
Secularists fear that if Gul becomes president, the Islamic-rooted ruling party could challenge the country's secular system unchecked.
Sezer, a staunch secularist, had acted as a brake on the government by vetoing numerous bills and blocking the appointment of hundreds of officials.
Top Taliban leader Mullah Dadullah Lang has been killed in a military operation in southern Afghanistan, NATO's International Security Assistance Forces said Sunday, confirming earlier reports by the Afghan government.
A NATO statement said Dadullah had "left his sanctuary in southern Afghanistan where he was killed in a U.S.-led coalition operation supported by NATO.
The operation was made possible "by the Afghan National Security Forces and the Afghan people," the statement said.
The elusive commander was in charge of day-to-day military operations for the Taliban and, according to ISAF, his death has struck a "serious blow" to the resurgent Taliban in the region.
Ahmad said Dadullah, who he described as the "killer of killers," was located through intelligence reports and by following leads closely.
Ahmad said the announcement was made Sunday because that was when the government's intelligence service confirmed the
body was Dadullah.
The one-legged Dadullah figured prominently for the Taliban in media interviews.
Referring to bin Laden, Dadullah told the network, "Praise be to God he is still alive, and we have information about him and praise be to God he orchestrates plans in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
Journalist Tom Coghlan told CNN on Sunday from Kabul that he had witnessed a shift in NATO battle tactics.
And Dadullah's death is "perhaps the biggest military loss" the Taliban has had since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2726059
A 20-year-old Kazakhstan native turned himself over to police Friday, ending a three-hour standoff and safely releasing a man he had been holding at the Russian Embassy in Costa Rica, authorities said.
Officials originally reported an armed man had seized eight hostages, quickly releasing five.
But Russian Ambassador Valery Nikolayenko told Channel 7 Telenoticias in a phone interview during the standoff that he and three other officials had remained in the building to help negotiate a peaceful end to the situation.
A family friend, Artur Mitiniani, told Channel 7 that the family had lost $54,000 because of problems with a Russian citizen whom Bogdanyants met at the embassy.
In July 2004, a Costa Rican security guard took several hostages at the Chilean Embassy where he worked in San Jose, eventually killing himself and three embassy employees. The guard, Orlando Jimenez, 54, was upset about a pending transfer.
Nobel Prize winner Jose Ramos-Horta vowed to heal deep political and social rifts in East Timor after he won a sweeping victory in presidential elections in Asia's newest nation.
Neighboring Australia and New Zealand, which have peacekeeping troops in the troubled country, congratulated the 57-year-old on his victory in the poll, which observers have said was peaceful and fair.
I will work for the poor, with the entire country, to unite it, and heal its wounds," Ramos-Horta said Thursday.
Ramos-Horta's sole rival in the race, Francisco "Lu-Olo" Guterres, the head of the country's left-wing Fretilin party, has not commented, but his campaign team has said he will accept the result.
The apparent collapse in support for the Fretilin candidate does not bode well for the party's chances in more important parliamentary polls next month. Those will determine who becomes the country's third prime minister since it broke free from Indonesian rule in 1999.
Ramos-Horta's political ally, outgoing president Xanana Gusmao, is planning to run for prime minister in a bid to sideline Fretilin, which was in power when violence last year brought the country to the brink of civil war.
Observers said the vote was peaceful and free of intimidation, unlike a first round last month that was marred by irregularities and fighting between rival supporters.
It took global-positioning technology for police to track down a 10-year-old boy and get him to a hospital in time for a life-saving heart transplant.
John Paul May and his mother were at a university concert when officials got word that the heart was available.
Sue May had a cell phone, but the volume was off.
When hospital officials couldn't reach the family, they called Pennsylvania State Police for help.
At the concert, Green approached the director, giving him the cut sign.
"I called out Sue's name twice, and the second time she raised her hand," he said. "I announced we had to get her to Pittsburgh, to the children's hospital, that they had a heart for her little boy.
John, who had coronary artery disease, underwent surgery at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh on Saturday night.
He was in critical but stable condition Thursday morning, his mother told CBS's "The Early Show.
"He's doing as good as expected at this time, but that's just thanks to all the policemen," May said.
Academy Award-winning filmmaker Michael Moore is under investigation by the U.S. Treasury Department for taking ailing September 11 rescue workers to Cuba for a segment in his upcoming health-care documentary "Sicko," The Associated Press has learned.
The investigation provides another contentious lead-in for a provocative film by Moore, a fierce critic of President Bush.
"Sicko" promises to take the health-care industry to task the way Moore confronted America's passion for guns in "Bowling for Columbine" and skewered Bush over his handling of September 11 in "Fahrenheit 9/11."
In February, Moore took about 10 ailing workers from the Ground Zero rescue effort in Manhattan for treatment in Cuba, said a person working with the filmmaker on the release of "Sicko.
Airbus parent EADS said on Thursday first-quarter operating profit plunged after it took a 688 million-euro ($931.3 million) provision at the planemaker as part of its Power8 restructuring program.
The group, whose profits slumped last year on the back of a weak dollar and industrial problems at Airbus, said earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) dropped to 89 million euros from 791 million in the year-ago quarter.
The Airbus unit posted an operating loss of 69 million euros, down from a profit of 684 million euros in the first quarter last year.
Group net performance swung to a 10 million euro loss from a 522 million euro profit in the same quarter last year. Sales dipped
to 9.0 billion euros from 9.1 billion.
Analysts had on average forecast a group-wide EBIT loss of 284 million euros and a net loss of 237 million euros.
Airbus has been hit by delays to its A380 superjumbo and faltering attempts to counter the success of Boeing's mid-sized 787 Dreamliner with its own A350.
EADS said its Power8 restructuring plan, which includes 10,000 job cuts, was "progressing.
Lindsay Lohan made David Letterman's heart beat faster when she told him she plays a stripper in her next film, "I Know Who Killed Me.
The 20-year-old actress said the audience will be seeing "a lot" of her in the "really dark, scary film.
Lohan also said she took lessons for the role.
Lohan was at a loss for words when Letterman talked about her "Georgia Rule" co-star Jane Fonda.
Last year, Fonda praised a studio executive's scolding of Lohan for her absences on the set of the movie.
"You're 20, Jane Fonda is 70 for god's sakes and looks just tremendous, and more than looks great, has this palpable sense of vitality," Letterman said. "It radiates.
Lohan was silent for a moment, then replied: "She does, no, she's amazing.
"Georgia Rule," also starring Felicity Huffman, was to open in theaters Friday.
Tony Blair announced Thursday he would step down as Labour Party leader and British prime minister, defending his record during his decade in power, but adding "my apologies to you for the times I've fallen short.
Blair spoke at his parliamentary constituency in northeast England and said he would tender his resignation to Queen Elizabeth on June 27. He later returned to London.
"I've come back here to Sedgefield, to my constituency, where my political journey began and where it's fitting that it ends," Blair said.
"I've been prime minister of this country for just over 10 years ... I think that's long enough for me, but more especially, for the country.
After announcing his departure, Blair defended his record.
Earlier, in London, Labour's longest-serving PM told his Cabinet of his decision.
Pope Benedict XVI urged tens of thousands of young Catholics packing a soccer stadium Thursday to resist the temptations of wealth, power and other "snares of evil," and told them to promote life from "its beginning to natural end.
The references to church prohibitions against abortion and euthanasia came in Benedict's first major speech since arriving in Brazil, the world's largest Catholic country, on his first pilgrimage to Latin America.
While he made no mention of the church's battle against Brazil's free distribution on condoms to combat AIDS, he touched on sexual themes with a call for fidelity between spouses and chastity "both within and outside marriage" church language for responsible sex.
His warnings against drug use, violence, corruption and the temptations of wealth and power were sure to sound across the region.
the man shouted and the crowd repeated. "No to abortion!
With abortion becoming a major issue on the trip, the Vatican released a transcript Thursday that seemed to roll back the pope's comments a day earlier on the excommunication of lawmakers who vote in favor of legalizing abortion.
But Benedict's spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, later said Benedict did not intend to formally excommunicate anyone a rare process under church law and on Thursday the Vatican released a slightly edited transcript that dropped the word "yes" in the pope's response.
Abortion did not come up in Benedict's meeting Thursday with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Lombardi said.
AS Roma scored four goals in the first half hour to beat holders Inter Milan 6-2 in an extraordinary first leg of the Italian Cup final on Wednesday.
Captain Francesco Totti, whose team now take a healthy lead into next Thursday's second leg at the San Siro, gave the home side a dream start when he slammed in Rodrigo Taddei's pullback in the first minute.
Roma, who lost to Inter in the last two finals, were desperate to avoid a third straight defeat and quickly doubled their lead when Daniele de Rossi diverted a volley from Philippe Mexes into the net on five minutes.
The match had been brought forward to an early evening kickoff because of fears of crowd trouble and league champions Inter finally woke up when Hernan Crespo took advantage of a defensive error to round goalkeeper Doni to make it 3-1.
The unusually open Italian final refused to revert to type in the second half with both defenses leaving wide open spaces at the back.
"We made a terrible start to the match and they started very well," Inter coach Mancini told RAI television. "Roma probably had more incentive than us.
We have a match to play and we will see what we can do. We need a miracle.
Maybe they're outside in the garden.
They could be playing softball.
In TV's worst spring in recent memory, a startling number of Americans drifted away from television the past two months:
More than 2.5 million fewer people were watching ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox than at the same time last year, statistics show.
Everyone has a theory to explain the plummeting ratings:
early Daylight Savings Time, more reruns, bad shows, more shows being recorded or downloaded or streamed.
The industry isn't fully equipped to keep track of them, and as a result the networks are scrambling to hold on to the nearly $8.8 billion they collected during last spring's ad-buying season.
The viewer plunge couldn't have come at a worse time for the networks next week they will showcase their fall schedules to advertisers in the annual "up front" presentations.
There also are technical reasons that this apparent diminished interest in television may be overstated.
This year, for the first time, Nielsen is measuring viewership in the estimated 17 percent of homes with digital video recorders.
Prosecutors issued arrest warrants Tuesday for eight former prison employees accused of abusing inmates, including forcing some to clean toilets with their tongues.
The previous warden and an assistant warden resigned, and three others were reassigned after an inmate was beaten and choked by guards in March.
Fired guard James Brown was charged with grand theft.
"These were improper, illegal heinous and despicable acts and it was done apparently in an organized and conspiratorial fashion.
McDonough said the FBI and the U.S. attorney were also looking into civil rights violations.
Toyota Motor Corp. posted a stronger-than-expected 8.9 percent rise in quarterly net profit on buoyant sales in Western markets, and forecast modest growth this year as it adds production capacity all over the world.
Toyota is set this year to end General Motors Corp.
Given this level of spending, a possibly stronger yen and high input costs, Japan's top automaker forecast a modest rise in profits for this year, joining its local rivals in providing cautious guidance.
Toyota forecast annual operating profit of 2.25 trillion yen, up 0.5 percent from 2.239 trillion yen last year, for a seventh straight year of record earnings.
GM earned a net $62 million that quarter.
Excluding China, Toyota's sales in Asia declined last year along with the broader market, but the automaker is set to crank up volumes in 2007 with a new factory in Thailand.
Toyota will also open a new plant in China soon to meet surging demand.
An urban brush fire that has scorched more than 800 acres of Los Angeles' historic Griffith Park should be fully contained within 24 hours, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said Wednesday.
Cool temperatures and calmer winds allowed firefighters to contain the blaze at 50 percent, according to Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Douglas Barry.
By late morning, 200 firefighters were sent home, leaving 300 from the Los Angeles Fire Department working on the blaze.
The spreading flames prompted mandatory evacuations of up to 300 homes Tuesday in the Los Feliz neighborhood on the park's south side, according to the fire department.
The park is in the Hollywood Hills, about 10 miles north of downtown Los Angeles. It includes the city's zoo and botanical gardens and the copper-domed Griffith Park Observatory.
The fire forced the Los Angeles Zoo to put most of its 1,200 animals inside holding quarters, The Associated Press reported.
"So far the animals are faring fine," Jason Jacobs, director of marketing and public relations for the zoo, told the AP.
Sitting on Iraq's death row is a 25-year-old woman convicted in the slayings of three relatives.
She says her husband carried out the killings and fled.
She confessed to being an accomplice, she says, only after being tortured in police custody.
Despite lingering questions about the case, the fate of Samar Saed Abdullah remains the gallows.
"I am innocent," she told CNN from inside the al-Kadhimiya Women's Prison in Baghdad.
According to Amnesty International, such claims are not uncommon in Iraq, which has the fourth-highest execution rate in the world.
Amnesty issued a report last month that concluded sentences in Iraq increasingly follow flawed trials and coerced confessions.
"In many cases, death sentences have been issued following proceedings which failed to meet international fair trial standards," the report said. "This represents a profoundly retrograde step.
The U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority abolished capital punishment in Iraq after Saddam Hussein was toppled in 2003.
But shortly after the government was handed over to Iraqis, the death penalty was reinstated in August 2004.
Since that time, more than 270 people have been sentenced to death, and at least 100 people including Hussein have been executed, according to Amnesty.
Four women are currently on death row. Two of the women have their young children, ages 1 and 3, with them on death row, Amnesty says.
Sarkozy whisked his wife and son off for a tour around Malta a day after his election Sunday.
"I'm taking two and a half days. I don't think anyone can argue with that.
Outgoing President Jacques Chirac is to turn over power to Sarkozy on May 16 after 12 years in office.
Chirac held his final Cabinet meeting Wednesday.
Former Socialist Justice Minister Elisabeth Guigou called Sarkozy's escapade "scandalous" and "indecent.
"All this money when he pretends to be the ... president of all French (people)," she said on the TV station iTele.
Former Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin also defended Sarkozy's retreat, saying the president-elect needed to "recharge his batteries" after a grueling campaign.
"Nicolas Sarkozy has the right to three days of happiness with his family," Raffarin said on RTL radio. "It's from May 16 that the French will judge the new president.
Standing onstage, comedian Aron Kader describes how his cousin in the Middle East likes to curse the United States in English.
The audience, two-thirds of Mideast descent, explodes in laughter.
Kader is a member of the "Axis of Evil" comedy group, a collection of comics with Mideast roots who have formed a niche by taking on Mideast stereotypes and making subjects such as war, terrorism and suicide bombers funny.
The comics' videos on YouTube have been viewed more than 200,000 times, they recently had a one-hour special on Comedy Central and they currently are on a 15-city tour with packed crowds.
How do they make such serious topics funny?
The key, Kader says, is getting the audience on board.
Ethnic humor has a long history in the United States, but Kader says being Middle Eastern is different.
He says people too often think of militants, terrorists and suicide bombers. "You just say you're Palestinian, and it's like you made a political statement.
And so the group has worked to try to change those stereotypes, one laugh at a time.
Kader is a Palestinian-American, and Maz Jobrani is an Iranian-American with a degree in political science from the University of California, Berkeley. (Jobrani was one of the stars of the ABC series "The Knights of Prosperity.")
Their biting humor is something to which many in their audience can relate.
Roger Federer began his bid for a first Rome Masters crown with an efficient 6-3 6-4 win over Spain's Nicolas Almagro on Tuesday.
The world number one, who had been given a bye into the second round of the claycourt tournament, was the first player to reach the last 16 on a day when most of other players were still involved in first-round matches.
He was followed by Argentine baseliner Jose Acasuso, who took advantage of a string of unforced errors by eighth seed Ivan Ljubicic to grab a 6-4 6-3 victory.
Swiss Federer had been forced to battle to 7-5 in the deciding set when he played Almagro in last year's Rome quarterfinals.
"I wasn't too happy when I saw the draw, playing Almagro first up, because he's a great clay courter and a very dangerous player on any surface," said Federer, who finished runner-up in the Italian capital in 2003 and 2006.
"So to come through convincingly in two sets, not being broken and both times racing away with the lead after an early break, that was perfect.
In Tuesday's other matches, claycourt specialist Gaston Gaudio beat Mardy Fish 6-4 6-4 to set up an intriguing second-round clash with third seed Andy Roddick.
BHP Billiton fell 2.7 percent and Anglo American by 2.1 percent, while BP and Total also declined.
Among standout losers, Volvo fell 6.4 percent ahead of the truck maker's earnings due on May 11, which are expected to focus on a sharp fall in sales in its key North American market.
The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index ended 0.8 percent weaker at 1,581.6, paring a 1.6 percent gain in the past four straight sessions.
U.S. stocks also were trading lower after five straight sessions of gains.
"It just seems to be an opportunity to take profits after a few positive sessions, but we don't believe the bull market is over," said Thierry Lacraz, a strategist at Swiss private bank Pictet & Cie.
"The problem is that from a technical point of view, we have had a very good performance in the last few weeks without any consolidation.
Among the day's losers, the world's largest reinsurer, Swiss Re, shed 2.6 percent as markets focused on weaker-than-expected premium income and as one-time gains helped boost quarterly profit.
KPN lost 3.3 percent as first-quarter results at its fixed lines unit disappointed markets.
Paris Hilton has rehired the publicist she dumped over the weekend after being sentenced to 45 days in jail.
Elliot Mintz confirmed to The Associated Press on Tuesday that he is again representing the 26-year-old socialite, who was ordered to report to county jail by June 5 for violating the terms of her probation in an alcohol-related reckless driving case.
Mintz, 62, wouldn't elaborate on why he reunited with Hilton.
The publicist, whose clients have included John Lennon and Bob Dylan, issued a statement Sunday night that he and Hilton had parted ways over an apparent "misunderstanding she received from me regarding the terms of her probation."
In a court appearance Friday, Hilton told the judge Mintz informed her it was all right to drive on a suspended license for work obligations. Mintz also testified Hilton believed she was allowed to drive.
The judge called Mintz's testimony worthless.
Hilton star of reality TV show "The Simple Life" on the E! network has parlayed her party lifestyle into worldwide fame.
She has called the sentence unfair, and her fans have posted a petition on the Internet urging Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to pardon her.
The petition, which had more than 900 signatures by Tuesday morning, urges the California actor-turned-governor to pardon Hilton because she provides "beauty and excitement to (most of) our otherwise mundane lives."
Meanwhile, Hilton's lawyers have filed a notice with the court indicating their intent to appeal the decision.
Diego "Chico" Corrales, who won titles in two weight classes and was involved in one of the most memorable fights in recent times, has died in a motorcycle accident.
The former WBC and WBO lightweight champion was riding his motorcycle at high speed when he ran into the back of a car about 10 miles (16 kilometers) west of the Las Vegas Strip on Monday night.
"He fought recklessly and he lived recklessly," said his promoter Gary Shaw. "That was his style.
Las Vegas police spokesman Jose Montoya said the victim in the accident was wearing a helmet, and it was not known if drugs or alcohol was involved. "No tests have been done.
The fight took place May 7, 2005, exactly two years from the night he died.
It was named by the Boxing Writers Association of America and numerous boxing publications as the fight of the year.
Corrales, though, was knocked out by Castillo in the rematch and lost a big payday when he failed to make weight for his next fight.
He lost his last three fights, including his last fight on April 7 against Joshua Clottey in Springfield, Missouri.
Corrales, who was born in Sacramento, California, but lived in Las Vegas in recent years, won his first 33 fights and held a share of the 130-pound title before he was stopped by Floyd Mayweather in a unification fight in January 2001.
Corrales was sent to jail on a domestic abuse charge after that fight, and didn't fight again for two years.
"He was a true warrior. He was what boxing stood for, and what boxing is all about.
rock star Prince will play 21 concerts in London later this year and plans to take time off music to study the Bible, he announced on Tuesday.
The innovative funk artist, who created such groundbreaking works as 1984's "Purple Rain" and 1987's "Sign O' The Times" and sold an estimated 80 million albums, made a brief appearance in the city to announce the gigs, beginning August 1.
Outside Organisation, a PR company helping to publicize the tour, said in a statement that Prince would be performing his greatest hits "for the very last time", but the artist did not confirm the claim.
Prince said he would be looking for a place to live for the duration of his stay.
Barbra Streisand recently hit the headlines in Britain when tickets to her upcoming show at the 02 venue in London went on sale for up to 600 pounds each.
He said he had learned about 150 songs from which to choose, and hinted that he may perform up-and-coming British singer Amy Winehouse's "Love is a Losing Game".
Unsurprisingly for a performer who has had run-ins with the music establishment in the past, Prince referred to the industry as "the speculation business".
The 48-year-old, who said he was getting his inspiration these days from "prophets from the Bible", added that he did not expect to be back in London performing for some time after the 2007 visit.
Later, she concluded her visit by sharing a toast with President Bush celebrating the close alliance of Britain and the United States.
Accompanied by Bush's father, former President George H.W. Bush, a veteran of the war, and his wife, Barbara, the queen placed a wreath in honor of the 400,000 U.S. troops who died.
A ribbon across it read: "In memory of the glorious dead.
Dressed in a sharp blue suit and hat, the queen then joined Mary Bomar, the British-born director of the National Park Service, for a walk around a fountain at the center of the memorial.
They stopped to look at the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument before greeting veterans of World War II, some in wheelchairs.
One of the veterans, Marjorie Gallun, 85, who said she served in the Marine Corps, told the Queen: "We are happy to have you here.
The queen politely replied: "We are happy to be here.
It started in the morning with a trip to NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in suburban Maryland, where she heard three astronauts aboard the international space station describe their work.
After hearing from the astronauts, the British monarch toured Goddard, in Greenbelt, Maryland.
She helped plant a tree in the garden outside the flight center to commemorate her visit.
The flight center is home to the largest organization of scientists and engineers in the United States, according to NASA.
In the early afternoon, first lady Laura Bush joined the royal couple for a visit to Children's National Medical Center, where the queen spoke to sick children as they made cookies.
Dutch airline KLM will probably seek an independent investigation into whether it flew Nazi fugitives to Argentina after the Second World War, the national airline said on Tuesday.
Questions over KLM's past surfaced last week after a Dutch television documentary claimed to have discovered archive documents showing the airline played an active role in helping suspected war criminals flee Germany.
KLM, now part of Air France, said it had never found any proof in its own archives about flying Nazis to Argentina but had also never denied a possible involvement.
"The checks we have done in our archive so far have not delivered any specific information about this sort of transportation.
Adolf Eichmann, who planned the extermination of the Jews, and Josef Mengele, the doctor of the Auschwitz death camp nicknamed the "Angel of Death" were among the large number of fugitive Nazis who were harbored by Argentina after the war.
"We take these signals seriously and if we are a responsible company, we should also be responsible for what has been done in the past," Koster said, adding that KLM was in talks with other parties about initiating an independent inquiry.
Some Dutch historians and politicians have called for an independent inquiry and urged KLM to come clean about its past.
The KLM spokesman indicated that an inquiry should also look into the role of Dutch authorities as the airline had people like late Prince Bernhard on its board in the 1940s.
The Dutch national railway company apologized last year for its role in deporting thousands of Jews to Nazi concentration camps.
The leader of Canada's separatist Parti Quebecois resigned Tuesday after a heavy defeat in the Quebec provincial election in late March, which prompted unrest among party members.
The party wants independence for French-speaking Quebec, Canada's second most populous province with 7.5 million people.
Quebec held referendums on independence in 1980 and 1995, both of which failed.
Boisclair, 41, was elected leader in late 2005 with the party well ahead in the polls.
But a series of stumbles and gaffes gradually eroded his popularity and the Parti Quebecois finished in third place in the March 26 election.
He said he accepted his share of responsibility for the defeat.
"However, my leadership has been questioned so intensely that I cannot begin the essential process of reflection that the party needs," he said.
Parti Quebecois members are notoriously impatient and Boisclair is the fourth party leader to resign in less than 12 years.
He had promised to quickly hold another referendum on Quebec independence if he won the election.
Former President Bill Clinton announced agreements with drug companies Tuesday to lower the price of "second-line" AIDS drugs for people in the developing world and to make a once-a-day AIDS pill available for less than $1 a day.
The anti-retroviral drugs are needed by patients who develop resistance to first-line treatment and currently cost 10 times as much as first-line therapy, Clinton said.
"No company will live or die because of high price premiums for AIDS drugs in middle-income countries, but patients may," Clinton said Tuesday.
"I believe in intellectual property and ensuring that manufacturers earn the profit margins they need to keep the discovery and supply of AIDS drugs sustainable. But that shouldn't prevent us from getting essential life-saving medicines to those who need them in low and middle-income countries alike," he said.
Clinton's foundation negotiated agreements with generic drug makers Cipla Ltd. and Matrix Laboratories Ltd. that he said would mean an average savings of 25 percent in low-income countries and 50 percent in middle-income countries.
He said the companies collaborated with the foundation to lower production costs, in part by securing lower prices for raw materials.
The reduced-price, once-daily pill combines the drugs tenofovir, lamivudine and efavirenz.
Since starting its HIV/AIDS Initiative in 2002, the Clinton Foundation has worked with 25 countries in Africa, the Caribbean and Asia to set up AIDS treatment and prevention programs.
The foundation also provides access to lower-priced AIDS drugs in 65 countries.
Some 750,000 people are now receiving AIDS drugs purchased through the Clinton Foundation.
While the unrest has been small-scale, it sent a message to Nicolas Sarkozy:
Some 730 cars were burned nationwide Sunday night and 592 people arrested, police said.
Late Monday night, several hundred people massed again at the Place de la Bastille in Paris, breaking windows in nearby shops and starting street fires.
Riot officers dispersed them, and about 100 people were detained, police said Tuesday.
One police officer was lightly injured and eight cars and two scooters were torched, according to the Paris police headquarters.
Police officials said the perpetrators appeared to be anarchists and far leftists.
In Nantes in western France, hundreds gathered again Monday night, with a few dozen hurling beer bottles and other projectiles at police.
Public buildings were also damaged and minor incidents were also reported in Toulouse in southern France.
"To all those who can hear me, I ask them to immediately stop all this behavior," Socialist Party chief Francois Hollande said Tuesday on RTL radio.
The federal government charged five alleged Islamic radicals with plotting to kill U.S. soldiers at Fort Dix in New Jersey.
A sixth was charged with aiding and abetting the illegal possession of firearms by three of the others.
The men were arrested Monday night and heard the charges against them Tuesday in federal court.
They will be held without bond pending a hearing Friday, according to Michael Drewniak, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Jersey.
Christie described Tuesday how the group's plot which he said had been in the works since January 2006 was foiled.
The FBI and Joint Terrorism Task Force began an investigation immediately, Christie said.
Their goal was to figure out how to kill as many American soldiers as possible, Christie said.
According to the Arabic-language network, the video was created by al Qaeda in the Maghreb, a regional al Qaeda affiliate in North Africa that has claimed responsibility for the April 11 terrorist attacks, which targeted the prime minister's office in Algiers and a police station in the eastern part of the capital.
Al-Jazeera did not say how it obtained the material, the authenticity of which CNN has not independently verified.
The portion aired by Al-Jazeera showed preparations being made for the bombing, followed by the actual blast and a statement from the leader of the group, Abu Musab Abdel Wadud, promising more attacks and urging young Muslims to volunteer for "martyrdom.
"He who misses this war misses the opportunity of a lifetime and gets deprived of the reward," he said in the video.
Algerian Prime Minister Abdelaziz Belkhadem was not hurt in the bombings, but at least 24 people were killed and 222 were wounded.
Protestant Democratic Unionist Party leader Ian Paisley was sworn in as the Northern Ireland assembly's first minister and key player Martin McGuinness of Sinn Fein will take on the role of deputy first minister.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern attended the swearing-in ceremony at Stormont, home to the Northern Ireland assembly, near Belfast.
Paisley, 80, and McGuinness, 56, arrived within minutes of each other Tuesday morning and both set an optimistic tone.
"It is a special day because we're making a new beginning," Paisley said. "I believe we're starting on a road which will bring us back to peace and to prosperity.
Paisley's deputy, McGuinness, said he was "increasingly confident" that the new government would work, saying it was a "good day.
"To Ian Paisley, I want to wish you the best as we step forward into the greatest and most exciting challenge of our lives.
Blair said power sharing offered a chance for Northern Ireland to escape "those heavy chains of history" that had left it "pockmarked by conflict, hardship and hatred. "
Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi made his comments in an interview with CNN.
He said if key amendments to the Iraq Constitution are not made by May 15, he will step down and pull his 44 Sunni politicians out of the 275-member Iraqi parliament.
"If the constitution is not subject to major changes, definitely, I will tell my constituency frankly that I have made the mistake of my life when I put my endorsement to that national accord," he said.
Specifically, he wants guarantees in the constitution that the country won't be split into Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish federal states that he says will disadvantage Sunnis.
The withdrawal of the Sunni bloc would unravel months of efforts to foster political participation by Sunnis in Iraq's government. It also would further weaken al-Maliki just weeks after Shiite Cabinet ministers allied with Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr bolted from the government.
Sunnis had been reluctant to take part in the political process, and many were only convinced to do so with the promise of changes to the Iraqi Constitution.
Without a change to the constitution, he said, "The situation would be a disaster for Iraq.
Al-Hashimi was invited to Washington during a recent phone call with Bush.
The Iraqi leader said he was "very clear" to Bush that "our [Sunni] participation is quite unfortunately becoming meaningless."
Bush and al-Hashimi have met once before in Washington, in December.
Scientists have just released images of the brightest stellar explosion recorded.
The supernova, known as SN 2006gy, was believed to be about 150 times as massive as the sun.
The explosion could help astronomers better understand how the first generation of stars in the universe died.
"This supernova stands out as the brightest supernova that's ever been observed," said Nathan Smith, astrophysicist at the University of California at Berkeley.
A supernova is a rare and often dramatic phenomenon that involves the explosion of most of the material within a star.
Supernovas can be very bright for a short time and usually release huge amounts of energy.
A graduate student using a robotic telescope that was part of the Texas Supernova Search project first detected SN 2006gy on September 18, 2006.
Astronomers captured the star's demise using NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory, and ground- based telescopes at the Lick Observatory in California and the Keck Observatory in Hawaii. The explosion was estimated about 238 million light years away from Earth.
The last time Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs took on major recording companies, he refused to budge on his 99-cent price for a song on iTunes.
As a new round of talks ramp up this month, however, Jobs has opened the door to higher prices.
Jobs contends that would "tear down the walls" by allowing consumers to play music they buy at Apple's iTunes store on any digital music player, not just the company's iPods.
Although most of the major labels insist that safeguards are still needed to stave off online piracy and make other digital music business models work, one company has already struck a deal with Apple.
to artists such as Coldplay, Norah Jones and Joss Stone, agreed to let iTunes sell tracks without the copy-protection technology known as digital-rights management. The DRM-free tracks cost 30 cents more than copy-restricted versions of EMI songs and feature enhanced sound quality.
"At this point, no one can ignore Apple or what Apple wants, given its position in the marketplace," said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst with Jupiter Research. "The fact that they were able to do this deal with EMI puts more pressure on some of the other labels to follow suit.
Apple and the recording companies declined official comment on their negotiations.
Giro d'Italia champion Ivan Basso has admitted being involved in the Operation Puerto doping scandal, the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) said on Monday.
"The office of the anti-doping power of attorney has listened today to Ivan Basso ... and he has widely admitted his own responsibilities relative to Operation Puerto and has supplied the maximum collaboration in order to clear up the relative facts of his involvement," a statement on CONI's website said.
He had appeared before a CONI doping hearing last Wednesday which was adjourned with no new date fixed.
The Italian rider has been accused of violating article 2.2 of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Code concerning "use or attempted use of a prohibited substance or a prohibited method".
Basso was forced to miss last year's Tour de France as one of over 50 professional riders implicated in the Spanish investigation.
The Spanish investigation was launched after police raids in Madrid and Zaragoza found large quantities of anabolic steroids, blood transfusion equipment and more than 200 bags of blood.
The 29-year-old, who was released by the Discovery Channel team last week at his own request, has previously stated he was a victim in the investigation and maintained his innocence.
Media also said Basso was expected to hold a news conference on Tuesday.
Usher's mother has been his manager since he was a teen, but now the superstar says he wants her to be just "mom.
The Grammy winner confirmed Monday that Jonnetta Patton is no longer in charge of his career, but denied the break was due to any rift.
"This is great for me because it means I now get to have my mother strictly as my mother with no added pressure.
Usher said he believed that by ending his professional relationship with his mother, it would bring them closer.
And in order to do that, I feel it's best to separate my business life from my personal life," he said.
In March, he announced his engagement to his longtime girlfriend, stylist Tameka Foster.
Rumors have swirled that Foster would replace Patton as Usher's manager, but the singer said:
"She has no aspirations of becoming my manager or any other artist's manager.
Usher is slated to release the follow-up to 2004's "Confessions," which sold 9 million copies in the United States, later this year.
German President Horst Koehler on Monday rejected a pardon for Christian Klar, a former member of the Red Army Faction (RAF) who has spent over 24 years in prison for his part in killings that shook West Germany in the 1970s.
Also known as the "Baader-Meinhof Gang" after founders Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof, the militantly left wing RAF is believed to have killed 34 people, including senior industry leaders and public officials, between 1970 and 1991.
president has decided not to grant clemency to Christian Klar," Koehler's office said in a statement on Monday.
Klar will be eligible for parole in 2009.
A court convicted Klar of nine murders and 11 counts of attempted murder in 1985.
Koehler's office said the rejection was based on the opinions of legal experts, prison authorities and a criminal assessment of Klar, who is 54 years old.
A woman was convicted Monday of hiring a hit squad to murder her lover's baby, ending a trial that had dominated headlines for months with details of South Africa's first known contract killing of an infant.
Dina Rodrigues was found guilty of murder for orchestrating the June 2005 killing of 6-month-old Jordan-Leigh Norton her then-boyfriend's child from a previous relationship.
Cheers erupted as the verdict was read in the packed Cape Town court room, where Norton family supporters wore pink in sympathy with the child victim.
"We are glad for the decision," the baby's grandfather, Vernon Norton, told the South African Press Association, adding that the family hoped Rodrigues would be sentenced to life in prison at the next hearing in June.
The case has riveted people in South Africa where an estimated 1,100 children are killed each year in part because both the baby and Rodrigues were white and from privileged backgrounds, whereas most cases involving violence against children involve black and underprivileged defendants and victims.
High Court Judge Basheer Waglay also convicted four men of murder and robbery in the case.
The four men had been hired by Rodrigues for a total of $1,500 (10,000 rands) to commit the crime and posed as delivery men to gain access to the home of Baby Jordan's grandparents, prosecutors said.
They stabbed the infant in the neck, and tried to make the murder look like a botched robbery, prosecutors said.
The judge rejected the argument, noting
The Dow industrials ended at another all-time high Monday, closing with gains for the 24th out of 27 sessions - a streak that matched an 80-year-old record on Wall Street.
The Dow Jones industrial average (up 48.35 to 13,312.97, Charts) gained nearly 0.4 percent after briefly hitting an intraday record of 13,317.69.
It was the fifth straight record close for the average.
The broader S&P 500 (up 3.86 to 1,509.48, Charts) index rose about 0.3 percent, edging ever closer to its all-time high of 1,527.46.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite (down 1.20 to 2,570.95, Charts) fell a few points after ending last week at a six-year high.
The 30-share Dow has now risen 24 of the last 27 sessions, matching its longest bull run in history, hit during the summer of 1927, according to Dow Jones.
Should the Dow end higher on Tuesday, it would set a new record.
Blue chips managed gains from the get-go Monday as investors welcomed the day's merger news, including Alcoa's $27 billion hostile bid for Canadian rival Alcan.
Clegg Ivey, a partner in Redux Beverages LLC of Las Vegas, Nevada, said the company plans to sell the drink under a new name for now.
The Food and Drug Administration issued a warning letter last month that said Redux was illegally marketing the drink as a street drug alternative and a dietary supplement.
The FDA cited as evidence the drink's labeling and Web site, which included the statements "Speed in a Can," "Liquid Cocaine" and "Cocaine Instant Rush."
The company says Cocaine contains no drugs and is marketed as an energy drink.
It has been sold since last August in at least a dozen states.
They will announce a new name within a week and hope to have the product back on store shelves within a few weeks.
A Russian headmaster said on Monday a court has fined him half his monthly wage for using pirated copies of Microsoft software at his school in a case President Vladimir Putin has called "utter nonsense.
Prosecutors said Alexander Ponosov had violated Microsoft's property rights by allowing pupils to use 12 computers with unlicensed copies of Microsoft Windows and Office software.
Ponosov, a headmaster in a remote school in the Perm region of the Ural mountains, said he did not know the computers had fake licenses when they were delivered by a sub-contractor.
Russia has been urged to crack down on the widespread availability of cheap pirated software, films and music as it prepares to enter the World Trade Organization.
Illegal copies of Microsoft's Windows XP operating system are on sale for about $6 at Moscow markets.
Russian state television has portrayed Alexander Ponosov as a hero in a David-and-Goliath battle against the legal system and international corporations.
"Today the court brought in a guilty verdict - they ordered me to pay a fine of 5,000 roubles ($194.4)," Ponosov told Reuters by telephone from the Perm region.
"I consider myself not guilty and I will file an appeal," he said, adding that he had not paid the fine.
Putin has described the case as "utter nonsense" and former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev even asked Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates to intercede on the teacher's behalf.
The court found Ponosov had brought losses of 266,000 roubles on Microsoft, RIA news agency said, citing the judge.
Washington turned out adoring schoolchildren and ladies in hats for Queen Elizabeth II's visit.
The White House laid on special touches, too, at President Bush's first-ever white-tie state dinner to honor America's closest ally and make the queen feel welcome.
The centuries-old vermeil flatware and candelabras came from a London silversmith.
A made-of-sugar replica of the queen's 1953 coronation rose graced the cake.
English farmhouse cheeses accompanied the salad course.
And the traditional "special guest" invited only at the last minute was sure to be of interest to an avid horse enthusiast such as the queen:
Calvin Borel, the jockey who rode Street Sense to victory in the Kentucky Derby this weekend with the royals in attendance.
Later, Laura Bush made her own minor calendar mistake.
She flubbed the year that she and her husband attended the state dinner hosted by President Bush in honor of the queen, saying it was in 1993.
The president and the queen took markedly different approaches to their formal remarks.
Bush focused on the partnership between the United States and Britain in Iraq and against terrorism.
In just four minutes, he mentioned "freedom" and "liberty" seven times.
"Your majesty, I appreciate your leadership during these times of danger and decision," he said.
None of the 114 people aboard a Kenya Airways flight survived its crash into a thick mangrove swamp over the weekend, an official said Monday after returning from the water-filled crater left by the plane.
Asked whether anyone survived, Luc Ndjodo, a local government official in charge of the recovery effort, said:
Ndjodo added he had surveyed the entire site, about the size of a soccer field, and saw no survivors: "I was there. I saw none.
The plane was submerged in murky, orange-brown swamp, with scraps of metal and plastic floating on the surface.
Earlier, Thomas Sobakam, chief of meteorology for the Douala airport, said the plane nose-dived into the swamp and disintegrated on impact. "The plane fell head first.
Its nose was buried in the mangrove swamp," Sobakam said.
The plane took off from Douala, Cameroon's commercial capital, and its wreckage was found just 12 miles from the town's outskirts.
The cause of the crash remained unclear.
"It's not what you expect, a bunch of trees knocked down and charred," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters. "It's just a big muddy hole, like many others out there.
The United States and France are among the nations providing aircraft and other equipment to help the Cameroonians search.
A team from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board was expected in Cameroon on Tuesday.
A device left in a casino parking garage exploded early Monday, killing a man who tried to pick it up off the top of his car, authorities said.
The device exploded shortly after 4 a.m. (7 a.m. ET) on the second floor of a parking garage behind the Luxor hotel-casino, said Officer Bill Cassell, a police spokesman.
He declined to describe the device, but said initial reports that it was inside a backpack were wrong.
The blast was not a terrorist act but an apparent murder of a man who worked at a business inside the hotel, he said, adding that the case was being investigated as "a homicide with an unusual weapon.
No threat had been made against the Luxor, Cassell said.
"We believe the victim of this event was the intended target," Cassell said.
He said another person who was with the man narrowly escaped injury.
Gordon Absher, a spokesman for MGM Mirage Inc., which owns the Luxor, said the victim was not a company employee.
Aerial video showed no apparent damage to the parking structure, where entrances were blocked while police, firefighters and federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents investigated.
There was little damage around the vehicle and the hotel was not evacuated, police and a hotel official said.
Later, people were allowed to remove their vehicles after an inspection, Absher said.
The death toll in a mine blast in central China has climbed to 28, state media reported Monday.
"Rescue work is quite difficult since the shaft is still filled with smoke," Zhao Tiechui, director of the State Administration for Coal Mine Safety Supervision, was quoted as saying by Xinhua News Agency.
China's mines are the deadliest in the world, with an average of 13 miners dying every day in accidents.
With coal prices high to feed the booming economy's energy demand, mine operators often ignore safety regulations to boost production.
Xinhua said the Pudeng mine, outside of Linfen city, had been ordered to suspend production for unspecified reasons, but that the mine's operators resumed operations without a permit.
It said local police have placed the mine's owner and an unspecified number of its managers under surveillance.
About 125 miners, hired by five different contractors, were working underground at the time of the blast.
It was the second blast in a week in Shanxi, China's largest coal-producing province.
Last Monday, a blast in an illegal mine in Yuxian county killed 14 people.
Two owners of the mine fled after the accident, Xinhua said.
More than 18,000 people stripped down and bared it all in Mexico City's vast main square Sunday for U.S. photographer Spencer Tunick's biggest nude shoot yet.
"I think all eyes are looking south from the United Sates to Mexico City to see how a country can be free and treat the naked body as art.
Not as pornography or as a crime, but with happiness and caring.
The Brooklyn, New York, artist has become famous for photographing thousands of naked people in public settings worldwide, from London and Vienna to Buenos Aires and Buffalo.
The heart of this city since it was founded by the Aztecs in 1325, the Zocalo measures about 21,000 square yards the size of five football fields.
Men and women from a broad cross-section of ages and social classes began arriving before dawn, although most volunteers were young men.
"The important thing is not that it's your body or someone else's, but that you participate in something as a society," said Oscar Roman Munoz, a 25-year-old engineer.
"This reflects the need for change and integration in world trends.
U.S. President George W. Bush also telephoned to offer his congratulations and said he expected good relations with Sarkozy, who has made a priority of repairing the damage to French-U.S. relations caused by tension over the Iraq war.
"France is back in Europe." (Watch him refer in his victory speech to "one France" )
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said he was confident Sarkozy would help find a way out of the impasse that has gripped Europe since French and Dutch voters threw out the constitution in referendums two years ago.
"I know Nicolas Sarkozy well, and I know his determination to ensure France takes its full place on the European scene," the center-right head of the EU's executive body said.
"I have every confidence that Nicolas Sarkozy, whose convictions I know and whose strong beliefs are known to all, will play a driving role in resolving the institutional question and in consolidating a political Europe ," Barroso said.
Sarkozy has proposed a slimmed-down "mini treaty" containing basic institutional reforms that would allow the EU to function properly after its expansion to 27 members.
To avoid the need for a second referendum in France, he wants to pass the mini treaty through parliament.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she looked forward to meeting Sarkozy soon and that she was sure the traditionally strong Franco-German alliance would continue.
"She is sure that under the new president, the proven German-French friendship will continue to be the foundation for ensuring peace, democracy and well-being in Europe," Merkel's office said in a statement.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, both center-left politicians, also offered their best wishes.
"The complex situation in Europe and in the world call for us to show a shared and strong commitment," Prodi said.
LOS ANGELES, California (AP) A judge sentenced Paris Hilton to 45 days in county jail Friday for violating her probation, putting the brakes on the hotel heiress's famous high life.
Hilton, who parlayed her name and relentless partying into worldwide notoriety, must go to jail by June 5.
She will not be allowed any work release, furloughs, use of an alternative jail or electronic monitoring in lieu of jail, Superior Court Judge Michael T. Sauer ruled after a hearing.
The judge, saying "there's no doubt she knew her license had been suspended," ruled that she was in violation of the terms of her probation in an alcohol-related reckless driving case.
"I'm very sorry, and from now on I'm going to pay complete attention to everything.
I'm sorry, and I did not do it on purpose at all," she told the judge before he announced the sentence.
Hilton looked forward and didn't speak to news media as she left court with her mother.
"I'm shocked, I'm surprised and really disheartened in the system that I've worked in for close to 40 years," Weitzman said.
Palestinian militants on Sunday attacked a United Nations school festival in southern Gaza, killing the bodyguard of a Fatah lawmaker, according to Palestinian security and medical sources.
Six others were wounded in the incident at the al-Umariya School in Rafah, near the Gaza-Egypt border, the sources said.
The gun and homemade bomb attack on the school began with a protest by Muslim extremists in long robes, who said a festival the school was hosting was un-Islamic, according to The Associated Press.
One protester's sign said the U.N. "is turning schools into nightclubs," AP reported.
Protesters also accused the top U.N. official in Gaza, John Ging, who was in the school, of leading a movement to weaken people's Islamic faith, AP said.
An hour before the attack, about 50 Salafist militants had been prevented by security guards from entering the school and distributing fliers protesting the festival, security sources said.
Officials from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) both Palestinian and foreign attended the festival, which consisted of sports and cultural skits.
As everyone began to leave at about 1 p.m. (1000 GMT), the militants detonated explosive devices and began opening fire.
The bodyguard of Palestinian Legislative Council member Majed Abu Shamaleh was shot and killed in the attack, an aide to Abu Shamaleh told CNN.
Security guards protecting the festival returned fire.
The six wounded include students' relatives, as well as militants, according to Abu Shamaleh's aide.
The shooting appeared to be carried out by the same extremists behind a string of bombings of Internet cafes and pool halls in Gaza, said Abu Shamaleh.
Police said they were interrogating two of the gunmen.
LONDON, England Manchester United were crowned English Premier League champions on Sunday as nearest challengers Chelsea were held to a 1-1 draw by Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium.
It is United's first title since 2003 and their ninth since the inception of the Premiership.
The two sides also meet at Stamford Bridge on Wednesday in what had been billed as a title decider but is now academic with United seven points clear with just two games remaining.
"Congratulations to Sir Alex, his players and their fans but I have to say I'm prouder today of my team than when we became champions," he said.
"And the season's not over, we've got a (FA Cup against Manchester United) final to play. "
United can complete the double when they face Chelsea in the FA Cup final later this month at the new Wembley Stadium.
Arsenal went ahead just before halftime as Gilberto Silva converted from the spot after Khalid Boulahrouz had pulled back Julio Baptista to concede the penalty.
The home side wasted a series of chances to make the game safe with Emmanuel Adebayor and Williams Gallas the main offenders and were nearly made to pay for their profligacy as Shaun Wright-Phillips crossed for Michael Essien to head a 70th minute equalizer.
Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho was magnanimous in defeat, but also praised the way his side had gone done fighting.
"I'm very very proud of my players.
Afghanistan's Taliban has extended the Saturday deadline for a deal for the release of a kidnapped French aid worker until after presidential elections on Sunday in France, a spokesman said.
The Frenchman, known only as Eric, and his three Afghan colleagues would be freed if at least one of the Taliban's demands were met, spokesman Qari Mohammad Yousuf added.
The Taliban leadership council had extended the deadline as a sign of mercy, Yousuf told Reuters by phone from an undisclosed location, but had heard nothing from authorities seeking the release of the aid workers.
"Our reaction is clear, we may kill him," he said, when asked what the Taliban would do if none
The Taliban last month abducted two French aid workers and three Afghans working for Terre d'Enfance, an agency helping children in southwestern Afghanistan. A French woman named Celine was released late last month in what the Taliban said was a humanitarian gesture.
The militants have demanded the withdrawal of French forces from Afghanistan and the release of jailed Taliban by the Afghan government, with a deadline of Saturday set for a deal.
President Hamid Karzai said this week efforts were under way to secure the release of the French man, after calls from French President Jacques Chirac for him to intervene.
The five were kidnapped in the southeastern province of Nimroz, sandwiched between Iran and Afghanistan's opium center of Helmand.
Italian journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo , who was kidnapped last month, was freed after two weeks when Kabul released five senior Taliban prisoners.
But his Afghan driver was beheaded in front of him before his release and his translator was later beheaded when the Afghan government refused to free more Taliban.
The Mastrogiacomo deal drew criticism in Afghanistan and Italy for encouraging the Taliban to take more hostages.
Rescue crews Sunday resumed sifting through the rubble of a small Kansas town destroyed by tornadoes Friday night.
Officials in Kansas said 10 people were killed in the tornado-packing storms nine Friday night and one Saturday night.
On Sunday, the weather service posted tornado warnings during the afternoon for parts of Kansas and Oklahoma, and severe thunderstorm warnings were extended across parts of Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.
The victim in Stafford was a sheriff's deputy, the Kansas Highway Patrol said.
Sweetwater which was hit about 8:15 p.m. Saturday seemed to get the brunt of it.
The storms continued to grind north through northwestern Oklahoma toward Kansas for more than 45 minutes.
In northern Kansas, 11 people were injured in the town of Osborne when a tornado struck a Pizza Hut and a nearby hotel, according to Juanita Arnold, emergency management director for Osborne County.
President Bush declared Kiowa County, Kansas, a major disaster area, making federal aid available to people and communities affected by the storm.
"Our hearts are heavy for the loss of life in Greensburg, Kansas," Bush said Sunday in videotaped remarks outside the White House.
"I declared a major disaster for that community, and I hope that helps. It's going to take a long time for the community to recover.
SYDNEY, Australia (AP) Qantas Airways said Sunday it considers a 10.8 billion Australian dollar (US$8.9 billion) takeover bid for the airline to have failed, after regulators refused to step in and save it.
The bidders, a private equity-backed group named Airline Partners Australia, refused to accept defeat, saying it would seek to appeal the regulators' decision.
But it appeared to be the last straw for the troubled, five-month-old bid for the company known as the Flying Kangaroo, and could spell fresh trauma for the airline including pressure on senior management to quit for backing the deal.
"Accordingly, Qantas will proceed with strategies and plans for its future," the statement said.
Without the bundle, the group led by Australia's Macquarie Bank and Allco Finance Group and TPG Inc. from Forth Worth, Texas, falls short of the 50 percent minimum stake it needed to keep its bid alive for two more weeks.
The decision was another twist in a dramatic weekend for the deal, which would have been one of Australia's largest buyouts.
Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul has withdrawn from the race to be Turkey's president after supporters were unable to gather the necessary two-thirds quorum in the parliament for a vote on his candidacy.
The parliament's speaker twice counted heads in the chamber Sunday but each time announced it was just eight members short of the needed 367 for a quorum.
Turkey's Constitutional Court declared the first vote held on April 27 void because a two-thirds quorum was not present for the balloting.
Gul, a member of the ruling AK Party and the only candidate being considered, indicated he was no longer a candidate as he left the parliament building Sunday.
The parliament is expected to consider changing the constitutional process to allow Turkish voters, instead of parliament, to choose the president.
Although the post is largely ceremonial, the president can veto legislation and the office has been a stronghold for secularists.
Because of the stalemate in parliament, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for early general elections. Now, Turkish voters are set to vote in July for a new parliament.
The crisis reflects the rapidly growing fears among Turkish secularists that choosing Gul as president would harm the country's secular system, which has been designed since 1923 to keep Islam out of public life.
Despite its secular system, Turkey has a predominantly Muslim population and is ruled by the democratically elected AK Party, a movement with Islamist roots.
A new video from al Qaeda No. 2 man Ayman al-Zawahiri addresses the issue of setting a timetable for withdrawal of troops from Iraq.
The video introduces an interview with al-Zawahiri, and his words are translated into English, with subtitles superimposed throughout.
It runs 1 hour, 7 minutes and 35 seconds and was posted Saturday on the Internet.
Although CNN could not independently confirm its authenticity, it was produced by the As-Sahab production company that has taken credit for other al Qaeda tapes.
In one section of the video, an interviewer asks al-Zawahiri to comment on legislation that ties the funding of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan to a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq.
"This bill reflects American failure and frustration," says al-Zawahiri, second-in-command to Osama bin Laden. "However, this bill will deprive us of the opportunity to destroy the American forces which we have caught in a historic trap.
"We ask Allah that they only get out of it after losing 200 to 300 hundred thousand killed, in order that we give the spillers of blood in Washington and Europe an unforgettable lesson, which will motivate them to review their entire doctrinal and moral system which produced their historic criminal Crusader-Zionist entity," al-Zawahiri says.
Al-Zawahiri makes what appears to be a dig at the Baghdad security crackdown started in February Operation Enforcing the Law.
He apparently is alluding to the failure of coalition forces to stop the suicide bomber who breached security in the Green Zone last month and detonated a bomb in the parliament cafeteria.
Sharia is the system of Islamic law.
"Such as the slogan 'America, the Great Satan,' which became the slogan 'America, the Closest Partner,' and such as the movements which used to claim that they were carrying the message of Islam to liberate the Muslims in Iraq from Saddam the Baathist, but are now sending messages of surrender to keep the forces of Bush the Crusader in the Muslims' lands. "
"I ask the leadership of Hamas, first, not to turn away from the true rule of sharia and to only agree to participate in elections on the basis of an Islamic constitution," he said.
The wreckage of the Kenya Airways plane that disappeared early Saturday morning has been found in Cameroon, a senior aviation official told CNN.
The wreckage was seen from the air shortly before nightfall Sunday, some 15 miles (25 kilometers) southeast of Douala, the Cameroon city where Kenya Airways Flight 507 had taken off shortly after midnight on Saturday, according to Celestine Ngoue, the General Inspector of Cameroon's Civil Aviation Authority.
The wreckage was in an inaccessible area of swamps and forest, he said.
Ngoue said some 200 rescue workers were on standby in Douala.
He had no information on whether the wreckage was spread over a wide area but said authorities were certain it was the Kenyan plane.
The Boeing 737 was carrying at least 114 crew and passengers from 25 nations.
The people on board included one American, five Britons, one Swiss, one Swede, six Chinese, and 15 Indians.
The remainder were Africans, including at least 35 from Cameroon and at least nine from Kenya, according to airline figures.
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said Saturday it was sending a team to assist the government of Cameroon in its investigation.
Relatives waiting at Nairobi's airport were distraught as news reports about the missing plane came in.
Cameroon straddles central and western Africa, and Kenya is in eastern Africa.
The U.S. military reported 11 soldiers died in Iraq on Sunday all but one in combat bringing to 24 the number of American service members who have died in Iraq in the first week of May.
The deadliest attack happened Sunday in Diyala province when six U.S. soldiers and a journalist were killed in a roadside bombing, the U.S. military said.
Also Sunday, two U.S. soldiers with Multi-National Division Baghdad were killed in separate bombings and two others were wounded, the military said.
And in Samarra, just north of Baghdad, two died in a suicide car bombing.
A Task Force Lightning soldier died Sunday in a noncombat incident that is under investigation.
A British soldier also died Sunday from wounds suffered in southern Iraq when a roadside bomb exploded last week near the soldier's convoy, the British Defense Ministry said.
U.S. and Iraqi forces chasing a suspected terrorist with ties to Iran early Sunday discovered a bloodstained torture chamber and a massive amount of artillery stored in a building in Baghdad's Sadr City, the U.S. military said.
"Had that thing gone off when you start talking about 150 artillery shells the extensive damage that it could have done in killing innocent civilians in Sadr City would have been horrific," U.S. military spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said at a news conference Sunday.
PARIS, France (CNN) Socialist candidate Segolene Royal on Friday compared her conservative opponent in Sunday's presidential election to President Bush and described him as a "dangerous choice.
Nicolas Sarkozy has vowed to get tough on crime and immigration, cut unemployment and liberalize the French economy.
Royal, told French radio on Friday morning she would "fight to the finish," warning that Sarkozy's tough stance on law and order would plunge the country into violence a reference to his role in curbing protests as interior minister during the 2005 Paris riots.
"The choice of Nicolas Sarkozy is a dangerous choice, I do not want France to be oriented toward a system of brutality," Royal said on RTL radio.
Royal added that Sarkozy, who has topped every opinion poll since collecting the most votes in the first round of voting on April 22, could not even set foot in some deprived suburbs without provoking unrest.
"When a candidate has so much nerve to tell lies and counter-truths and cannot even go everywhere in the country, then yes, I think this candidature is a risk.
In a separate interview published by Le Parisien newspaper Royal accused Sarkozy of mimicking George Bush's "compassionate conservatism.
Sarkozy, who in a fiery televised debate on Wednesday watched by 20 million people questioned whether Royal posessed the temperament to be president, retorted that his opponent could "feel the ground giving way beneath her feet.
Queen Elizabeth II strolled Friday through a replica of a fortress built four centuries ago at what would become America's first permanent English settlement, then saw remains of the actual structure.
Cheney noted the queen's last visit to Jamestown, 50 years ago, for the 350th anniversary commemoration of its founding. "Half a century has done nothing to diminish the respect and affection this country holds for you.
The queen toured a replica of an armory, and she smiled as she touched a gloved hand to a 17th century breastplate.
Later, at Historic Jamestowne, she toured the archaeological museum and the excavation of the north bulwark of the 1607 James Fort.
She was shown excavation trays containing chess pieces, iron knives, copper baubles and the discarded claws of crabs that had been a meal for the settlers.
Later, the queen was scheduled to visit the College of William and Mary before heading to Louisville, Kentucky, to watch Saturday's Kentucky Derby.
She's also expected to visit Washington, D.C., and attend a state dinner with President Bush before leaving on Tuesday.
Then she was off to Virginia's restored 18th-century capital.
He was hungry, and his mother had left to go to work.
His father couldn't calm him down and finally gave up trying.
The teen stomped around, squawking.
Sound familiar?
Except we're not talking about humans here, but rather birds a juvenile Nazca booby a few feet away from me on an island in the Galapagos that is home to more than half a million birds.
The bay we're anchored in Darwin Bay at Tower Island (also known as Genovesa Island) is in fact a caldera formed by an ancient volcano, and we walk around looking at more birds than I've ever seen in one place:
red-footed boobies, blue-footed boobies, gulls and frigates, which ignore us just like teens often do.
We hike up steep steps to the rim of the caldera and watch the Nazca boobies' mating dance the male whistles to try to attract a female.
We joke about the parallels between the amazing creatures we encounter here and human family behavior.
We pose with giant tortoises that ignore our presence, and we try not to disturb the marine iguanas sunning themselves on the rocks.
Sea lions swim circles around us in the water.
I feel like we've stumbled into an episode of "Nova.
This wouldn't be everyone's first choice for an expensive vacation.
There are no beach chairs or tiki bars on these protected beaches, where tourists may only venture with a guide.
But this is an adventure we'll never forget, starting with those sea lions we spotted on San Cristobal Island, snoozing on rowboats as if they owned the place.
Trailing 1-0 from the first leg, Sevilla took advantage of a pressure-cooker atmosphere at the Sanchez Pizjuan to turn the heat on the visitors and were rewarded when Luis Fabiano scored eight minutes before the break.
The victory means Juande Ramos' side are on course to become the first team since Real Madrid in 1986 to make a successful defence of the UEFA Cup.
They are also still in with a chance of winning the league and the King's Cup.
Sevilla put Osasuna under intense pressure from the start, striker Luis Fabiano and winger Antonio Puerta firing over the bar.
Renato was on target in the 53rd minute when he guided the ball into the net on the volley after defender Daniel Alves had spotted his run into the area.
This is the first blockbuster of the season and in keeping with that perennial comic book motif the duality of good and evil "Spider-Man 3" represents the best and worst of the series, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of Hollywood's high-stakes franchise fixation. The blockbuster ethos always demands, "More!
MORE!" Raimi (who also cowrote the screenplay with his brother Ivan) is happy to oblige, stacking the movie with no less than three villains:
For one of life's good guys, Parker sure has a way of picking up enemies.
The "Spider-Man" series has maintained a high level of consistency throughout.
At a cost reportedly near the $300 million mark, this third installment goes for broke, particularly in the special effects.
Even if, sometimes, more-more-more feels suspiciously like more-of-the-same with flashier clothes, the difference between "1" and "3" is astonishing.
Enjoyable as "3" is, and sure as you can already hear box-office records breaking, this feels like the natural parting of the ways.
they've woven quite a worthy web.
Prime Minister Tony Blair led his beleaguered Labour Party into electoral combat for the final time Thursday in local and regional elections that, amid his unpopularity, could put Scotland on the road toward independence from the rest of Britain.
Voters were picking members of the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh National Assembly, while more than 10,000 seats on 312 local government councils across England are also up for grabs.
The balloting will be the political swan song for Blair, who is set to announce his departure as leader of the Labour Party next week, after 10 years in power.
With his popularity battered by his support for the Iraq war, Labour is expected to suffer significant losses in Thursday's vote.
The elections will also be a key test for David Cameron, the leader of the Conservative Party, which has seen a reversal of fortune since he took the helm in 2005.
The Conservatives have overtaken Labour in national polls and are looking to make strong gains, especially in England.
While the Edinburgh parliament only has limited powers over local affairs, the SNP whose most famous supporter is actor Sean Connery has pledged to stage a referendum in 2010 on creating an independent nation for 5 million Scots, ending 300 years of union with England.
However, Queen Elizabeth II would remain sovereign.
Blair, who has made several visits to Scotland ahead of Thursday's vote, has downplayed the possibility of a break-up, saying "I don't think people in Scotland want independence."
However, some analysts believe his own negative image may be driving nationalist support.
A missing pair of pants has led to one big suit.
A customer got so steamed when a dry cleaner lost his trousers that he sued for $65 million.
Two years later, he is still pressing his suit.
The case has demoralized the South Korean immigrant owners of the mom-and-pop business and brought demands that the customer an administrative law judge in Washington be disbarred and removed from office for pursuing a frivolous and abusive claim.
Jin Nam Chung, Ki Chung and their son, Soo Chung, are considering moving back to Seoul, seven years after they opened their dry-cleaning business in the nation's capital, said their lawyer, Chris Manning.
"They're out a lot of money, but more importantly, incredibly disenchanted with the system," Manning said. "This has destroyed their lives.
According to court documents, the problem began in May 2005 when Pearson became a judge and brought several suits for alterations to Custom Cleaners in Washington.
A pair of pants from one suit was missing when he requested it two days later.
Pearson asked the cleaners for the full price of the suit: more than $1,000.
But a week later, the Chungs said the pants had been found and refused to pay.
Pearson said those were not his pants, and decided to take the Chungs to the cleaners and sue.
Because Pearson no longer wanted to use his neighborhood dry cleaner, he asked in his lawsuit for $15,000 the cost of renting a car every weekend for 10 years to go to another business.
The case is set for trial June 11.
Digg.com, one of the most popular sites on the Web, is bracing for a possible legal battle over refusing to remove stories containing a single 32-digit code that lets people crack HD-DVD copyright protection.
on the Web site, Digg's CEO Jay Adelson said the decision had been made to protect the company.
"Our goal is always to maintain a purely democratic system for the submission and sharing of information - and we want Digg to continue to be a great resource for finding the best content," Adelson said.
"However, in order for that to happen, we all need to work together to protect Digg from exposure to lawsuits that could very quickly shut us down.
Digg.com was was ranked as one of the top 100 Web sites by the Internet information company Alexa that analyzes user traffic.
Wally Schirra, one of the original astronauts in the Mercury 7 project, died Thursday at age 84, NASA officials said.
Schirra died in California, the officials said.
He was the fifth American in space and the third to orbit Earth.
He was the only astronaut who flew in three of the nation's pioneering space programs: Mercury, Gemini and Apollo.
NASA selected Schirra as one of the first group of astronauts, along with Gordon Cooper, Scott Carpenter, John Glenn, Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom and Deke Slayton. (Space pioneer history)
He flew on the fifth Project Mercury flight, orbiting the Earth six times on October 3, 1962, and was commander of the Gemini 6 flight, which launched December 15, 1965.
Schirra was commander of Apollo 7, the first manned flight of the Apollo spacecraft and the Saturn 1B rocket.
He and crew mates Walter Cunningham and Donn Eisele successfully checked all the Apollo systems during the 11-day mission that launched October 11, 1968.
The Apollo 7 mission qualified the spacecraft for later moon missions.
Schirra retired from the Navy and NASA in 1969.
He co-authored "The Real Space Cowboys" with Ed Buckbee, a former NASA public affairs officer and the first executive director of the U.S. Space & Rocket Center.
The book highlights the Mercury astronauts and their contribution to the U.S. space program.
American soldiers discovered a girls school being built north of Baghdad had become an explosives-rigged "death trap," the U.S. military said Thursday.
The plot at the Huda Girls' school in Tarmiya was a "sophisticated and premeditated attempt to inflict massive casualties on our most innocent victims," military spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said.
The plot was uncovered Saturday, when troopers in the Salaheddin province found detonating wire across the street from the school.
They picked up the wire and followed its trail, which led to the school.
Once inside, they found an explosive-filled propane tank buried beneath the floor.
The wire was concealed with mortar and concrete, and the propane tanks had been covered with brick and hidden underneath the floor, according to a military statement.
Soldiers were able to clear the building.
Iraqi contractors were responsible for building the school, which was intended to bring in hundreds of girls.
Authorities intend to question the Iraqis involved in the school's construction.
SHARM EL-SHEIK, Egypt (AP) U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she raised the issue of foreign fighters entering Iraq from Syria in talks with Syria's foreign minister Thursday.
But, she said, "I didn't lecture him and he didn't lecture me" in the first high-level meeting in years between the two countries.
Rice described her half-hour with Syria's Waleed Moallem on the sidelines of a major regional conference on Iraq as "professional" and "businesslike.
Ahead of the meeting, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad said Syria had stemmed the flow of foreign fighters across its border, a chief demand of the United States.
"There has been some movement by the Syrians," said Maj. Gen. William Caldwell. "There has been a reduction in the flow of foreign fighters into Iraq" for more than a month.
The Bush administration has shunned Syria, accusing it of fueling tensions in Iraq and Lebanon, and it assailed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for her visit last month to Damascus.
But the White House has been under pressure to talk with Syria and Iran, the chief U.S. opponents in the Mideast.
"I didn't lecture him and he didn't lecture me," Rice said.
The Iraqi government is pressing for talks between Rice and Iran's foreign minister, saying Washington's conflict with the government in Tehran is fueling instability in Iraq.
Rice and the Iranian "said hello, that's about it," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack, although both American and Iranian officials had earlier spoken favorably of a possible meeting.
Rice replied, "Hello," then added to Mottaki, "Your English is better than my Arabic," the official told AP, speaking on condition of anonymity to give details of the closed lunch.
Rice's meeting with Moallem marked the first such high-level talks since the February 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Syria denies it had anything to do with the killing, but U.S. and European officials have since shunned the Damascus government. Rice said the talks were limited to Iraqi security.
Syria's official news agency SANA said Rice and Moallem discussed "the situation in Iraq and the need to achieve security and stability in that country" and the need to develop U.S.-Syrian ties "in a way that serves the achievement of peace, security and stability in the region.
They depict each other as a U.S. poodle and a diplomatic buffoon, but French presidential candidates Nicolas Sarkozy and Segolene Royal would have remarkably similar foreign policies in office.
Royal, a Socialist, wants the world's leading powers to be stricter with Iran over its nuclear program.
Both say they will get tough with countries violating human rights.
Despite the rhetoric, analysts say the winner of France's presidential run-off ballot on Sunday will probably not stray far from where outgoing President Jacques Chirac left off.
"I think room for maneuver is limited," said Thierry de Montbrial, head of the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI) think-tank.
Royal and Sarkozy have said they intend to continue much of Chirac's popular foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East, and will seek to give it their own twist.
Royal has repeatedly said Iran should be prevented from having access to civilian nuclear technology because of fears it is secretly developing nuclear weapons, a charge Tehran denies. Her position goes well
beyond the common stance negotiated between France, the United States, Germany, Britain, China and Russia.
They are trying to persuade Iran to give up its most sensitive technology, which could be used to generate electricity or make bombs, in exchange for incentives.
Sarkozy has come under attack for his overtures to Washington, in particular a trip to the United States where he briefly met President George W. Bush and criticized the way in which France opposed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
"I did not and I will never go and apologize to President Bush for France's position on refusing to send our troops to Iraq," Royal told France 2 television last week.
Analysts said talk of 'Sarkozy The American', an insult in a country where anti-Americanism runs deep, is an exaggeration.
"I suspect Americans who think they'll have a pro-American policy from Sarkozy will be disappointed," said Joseph Nye, a professor of international relations at Harvard University.
Sarkozy, like German Chancellor Angela Merkel, wants a quick agreement on a slimmed-down treaty replacing the stalled EU constitution rejected by French voters in 2005.
Royal wants to add social elements to the constitution text and put it to a referendum, a lengthy and potentially hazardous venture.
Sarkozy is also strongly opposed to Turkey joining the European Union.
The Cayman Islands government said Tuesday it has banned cruise ships from anchoring at a port where their huge chains have damaged coral reefs.
Environmental officials say some coral can be preserved despite extensive damage along the sea floor near the Spotts Dock facility, which is used as an alternative port when seas are too rough for cruise ships to call on the George Town harbor.
"Because cruise ships are the biggest vessels to use the area regularly, their chains tend to cause a lot of the damage," said John Bothwell, a research officer with the British Caribbean territory's environment department.
A cruise ship anchoring for one day can destroy nearly an 1 acre (0.4 hectares) of intact reef, he said.
Cruise ships capable of holding their position without anchoring will still be allowed to unload passengers in Spotts Bay, about 16 kilometers (10 miles) east of the capital.
AC Milan set up a repeat Champions League final showdown against Liverpool when they brushed aside Manchester United 3-0 on Wednesday to complete a 5-3 win on aggregate.
Manchester United are a very strong team but we played well in the first leg so it gave us strength to play well today.
"They were better prepared physically tonight, they've been resting players and that can make a difference at this level while we've been playing the same players for a few weeks now.
"They were sharper and quicker to the ball and pressed really well and they were good winners. We needed a goal to get back into it and in fairness we didn't look like we were going to score.
The upcoming release of "Spider-Man 3" raises as many questions as it answers for the web-slinging hero and the actor behind him.
Is the Spidey franchise finished? Will Maguire sign on for a fourth installment?
His top priority is spending time with his fiancee, Jennifer Meyer, and their 5-month-old daughter, Ruby Sweetheart. But work wise?
"I don't have any specific ideas," he says, looking sharp in a gray suit, white shirt and Hollywood stubble. "I want to work in all types of movies. I don't care the size of the movie.
He's not ruling out another adventure with Spider-Man and the film series' three-time director, Sam Raimi.
"If there's a script I love, if the character goes in directions that I think would be great, and if Sam's involved and the right cast is there, then I would consider it at that point," Maguire says, adding that it could take years to develop a script for "Spider-Man 4."
Reagan scoffed at the assertions of his one-time chief of staff Don Regan that the president and his wife, Nancy, had relied on astrological advice in connection with Reagan's stewardship of national affairs.
And he ranted in his end-of-day private writings about difficulties he was having with son Ron and daughter Patti.
"Tomorrow, I stop being president," Reagan wrote on Jan. 19, 1989, according to diaries in the custody of Nancy Reagan and edited by historian Douglas Brinkley for a book.
Excerpts of the diaries, which Reagan kept during his two terms in office from 1981-1989, were published in the June issue of Vanity Fair magazine, which went on newsstands in New York and Los Angeles Wednesday. (Read excerpts from Reagan's diaries)
Reagan's innermost thoughts were kept in 8-by-11 inch, maroon leather books.
The president made a habit of keeping them current, even taking a diary with him on his many overseas trips.
His writing style was clear and concise, sometimes using abbreviations.
He often referred to Democrats as "Dems," for example.
An American photographer famed for showing celebrities naked or bathing in asses' milk chose a more traditional pose for Britain's Queen Elizabeth, but Annie Leibovitz's new work sharply divided critics on Wednesday.
John Lennon appeared naked and Clint Eastwood was bound with ropes, but Leibovitz opted to have her subject in full evening dress for an official portrait marking the queen's visit to the United States.
Washington Post culture critic Henry Allen was not amused, complaining that the portrait of the monarch sitting in the White Drawing Room at Buckingham Palace had "all the personality of a marble bust of George Washington."
But British critic William Feaver was relieved that Leibovitz, who famously photographed Hollywood actresses Whoopi Goldberg in a bath of milk and Demi Moore naked and heavily pregnant, had opted for tradition.
Critics said there was also a striking resemblance in the portrait with the monarch's mother, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, who was famously captured by photographer Cecil Beaton in traditional poses.
Cecil Beaton's pictures they're very important to me," she was quoted as saying after her session with the queen, who leaves on Thursday for her first official visit to the United States for 16 years.
The Dow Jones industrial average hit another record high Wednesday, capping its longest winning stretch in almost 52 years as investors welcomed strong earnings, lower oil prices, media merger news and a strong reading on manufacturing.
The Dow (up 75.74 to 13,211.88, Charts) rose 0.6 percent to close at an all-time high for the fifth time in the last six sessions.
The Dow also hit an intraday record high of 13,256.33 during the session before retreating near the close.
The blue-chip indicator has now risen in 21 of the last 24 sessions for a gain of 7.4 percent.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite (up 26.31 to 2,557.84, Charts) gained over 1 percent and closed at a fresh 6-year high.
The broader S&P 500 (up 9.62 to 1,495.92, Charts) index rose nearly 0.7 percent and ended at a fresh 6-1/2 year high.
Wall Street also weighed a weaker-than-expected reading on private sector employment, as the ADP National Employment reported that the private sector added 64,000 jobs in April, short of forecasts.
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Wednesday that he should resign over his handling of last summer's war in Lebanon.
But she said whether Olmert goes or not is a "personal decision" for the prime minister.
"I am not trying to oust him. It is a decision he has to make," she added.
Olmert gave no sign he is ready to quit.
After the meeting between Olmert and Livni, an Israeli government official told CNN that Olmert told a meeting of the Kadima party he is in an uncomfortable position but he is not shirking from responsibility and will be the one to fix the mistakes.
There have been growing calls from both inside and outside the government since a commission issued an interim report Monday holding Olmert responsible for "severe failures" in the conduct of Israel's campaign against Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon.
Livni said she does not support new elections but believes that if Olmert resigns, the Israeli parliament the Knesset can form a new government.
Livni said she does intend to run for leadership of the Kadima party.
"Now is the time to restore the public's trust in the government.
Currently the Kadima coalition, which Olmert heads as prime minister, holds 78 seats in the 120-seat Knesset.
But after the report on the war by the Winograd Commission, polls show that Olmert's support among the Israeli public is virtually zero.
On Tuesday, the leader of Olmert's Kadima faction also called for him to quit.
A plucky Jack Russell terrier named George saved five children from two marauding pit bulls, but was so severely mauled in the fight that it had to be put down, its owner said Wednesday.
George was playing with the group of children as they returned home from buying sweets at a neighborhood shop in the small North Island town of Manaia last Sunday when the two pit bulls appeared and lunged toward them, Allan Gay said.
"George was brave he took them on and he's not even a foot high," Gay told The Associated Press.
"He jumped in on them, he tried to keep them off. "If it wasn't for George, those kids would have copped it.
One of the children, Richard Rosewarne, 11, was quoted in the Taranaki Daily News on Wednesday as saying George fought with the pit bulls to keep them off his 4-year-old brother, Darryl.
"George tried to protect us by barking and rushing at them, but they started to bite him one on the head and the other on the back," Rosewarne said. "We ran off crying and some people saw what was happening and rescued George.
But George was so badly mauled that a veterinarian had to put him down, Gay said.
A train carrying reusable solid rocket booster segments for the space shuttle derailed in western Alabama Wednesday, leaving at least two people injured, a NASA spokeswoman said.
The train was on its way to Kennedy Space Center in Florida from Utah, where the rocket booster segments are manufactured, when the accident happened around 10 a.m. ET near Pennington, Alabama, about 100 miles west of Montgomery, spokeswoman Katherine Trinidad said.
One of the injured was an employee of ATK, the company that makes the segments, and the other was a railroad employee, she said.
The two were airlifted to Mobile, Alabama, said George Torres, a spokesman for ATK.
The fuel inside the segments is ammonium perchlorate, which has the consistency of a rubber eraser.
Because it is a solid, nothing has spilled out of the railcars, Trinidad said.
The train, which had 16 cars, went off the tracks in a forested area after a bridge collapsed, she said.
Not all of the cars carrying the eight segments derailed.
No residents or nearby communities are at risk, and the fuel cannot explode unless it is deliberately detonated, Trinidad said by telephone from Washington.
However, once the fuel is ignited, it cannot be extinguished.
This is the second time this train has derailed on its journey from Utah, Trinidad said.
On Friday, a few wheels went off the track in Kansas, but no cars turned over, she said.
The segments will be sent back to Utah for inspection by the manufacturer.
Turkey's ruling AK Party on Wednesday proposed to bring forward a parliamentary election to June 24 to ease tensions after an increasingly bitter standoff between the Islamist-rooted government and the secular elite.
The European Commission welcomed the proposal, while the EU executive also called on all parties to respect a decision on Tuesday by the Constitutional Court to annul the first round.
"The respect of state institutions is essential to ensure political stability," a spokesman said, reading from a statement by Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn.
"If a country wants to become a member of the Union, it needs to respect these principles," it said.
"The Commission expects that the parliamentary and presidential elections will be carried out democratically without any undue interference, and in an atmosphere of responsible debate and political stability," it added.
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan called for an early election on Tuesday after losing a battle in Turkey's highest court over a presidential election.
The AK Party's presidential candidate, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, is a former Islamist.
"Bringing forward the general election will reduce uncertainty," Bulent Arinc, a senior AK Party member and parliamentary speaker, told a news conference. "(The decision) will meet our people's expectation for trust and stability.
His party has submitted a proposal to parliament for a general election to be brought forward to June 24 from November 4. The AK Party is expected to win a second term after five years of strong economic growth since it came to power in 2002.
The AK Party will also propose the president is in future elected by voters and not by lawmakers, a party deputy said.
Socialist presidential candidate Segolene Royal and her rightist rival Nicolas Sarkozy exchanged verbal jabs during an ill-tempered televised debate on Wednesday that could determine the winner of Sunday's run off election.
"What have you done during the past five years?
There is a problem of credibility here," Royal said, often interrupting Sarkozy during quickfire exchanges on a range of issues from the economy to security, from nuclear energy to pensions.
"At least [this has] served one purpose, which is to show that you get angry very quickly, you go off the rails very easily, Madame. A president is someone who has very serious responsibilities," Sarkozy said.
Sarkozy topped the first round election on April 22 with 31.2 percent of the ballot while Royal came second with 25.9 percent.
They have since battled to win the backing of centrist voters who will hold the key on the May 6 run off.
For Royal, the debate represented a last chance to overhaul the frontrunner Sarkozy, who has weathered constant opposition accusations that he is overly aggressive.
In life, FBI informant Earnest Gilbert so feared his fellow Ku Klux Klansmen that he never had the courage to testify about the 1964 killings of two black teenagers. In death, his voice is finally being heard in a courtroom.
Prosecutors in a revived civil rights-era case are trying to persuade a federal judge to allow a television interview that Gilbert, who died in 2004, gave in 2000 to be used as evidence in the trial of reputed Klansman James Ford Seale.
Defense attorneys on Tuesday played clips of the ABC "20/20" interview about the slayings of Charles Eddie Moore and Henry Hezekiah Dee, both 19.
On May 2, 1964 exactly 43 years ago today the teens were abducted in the southwest Mississippi town of Roxie and beaten in the Homochitto National Forest before being weighted down and thrown into the Mississippi River to drown.
Seale, 71, was arrested in January and has pleaded not guilty to two counts of kidnapping and one count of conspiracy.
Jury selection begins May 29, and U.S. District Judge Henry T. Wingate is deciding whether prosecutors can show the video clips during the trial.
Prosecutors say that Seale and Gilbert were high-ranking Klan members at the time of the slayings, and that Gilbert implicated Seale to FBI agents.
A black law enforcement officer from Louisiana testified Tuesday that he befriended Gilbert the founder of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi and acted as a "go between" when ABC producers began urging Gilbert to tell his story.
and brother, Jack Seale were feared even among other Klansmen because of their reputation for violence.
Seale, shackled and wearing an orange jail jumpsuit, shook his head during testimony about his family.
At the time Moore and Dee were abducted and killed, the FBI was consumed by the much more highly publicized search for three civil rights workers in Neshoba County and turned the Seale case over to local authorities. The charges were thrown out.
WASHINGTON (CNN) The House of Representatives on Wednesday failed to override President Bush's veto of a $124 billion war spending bill that included a deadline for U.S. troops to pull out of Iraq.
The 222-203 vote was far short of the two-thirds majority needed to override the veto.
Bush expressed optimism about a possible deal with Democrats on the war funding bill, but neither side seemed closer to compromise.
After the House vote, congressional leaders met with the president in what they called a "positive" exchange.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said he is setting a deadline of May 28 to reach an agreement.
He said he will meet Thursday with White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolton and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to "see if we can't work something out that is mutually agreeable.
Wednesday's give-and-take on the House floor showed how far apart the two sides are.
Republicans insist time is running out before lack of funding begins to affect the troops. (Full story)
Blunt accused Democrats of wasting time on a bill that would never become law.
Liverpool beat Chelsea 4-1 on penalties to reach the Champions League final for the second time in three seasons on Wednesday.
Their second leg ended 1-0 after extra time with the only goal coming from Danish defender Daniel Agger after 22 minutes. With the tie ending locked in a 1-1 stalemate after Chelsea's 1-0 win at Stamford Bridge last week, the stage was set for the first penalty shootout at the semifinal stage since the Champions League replaced the old European Cup in 1992.
"I was confident in the players (for the penalties). They like to practice penalties every day after training.
The players have a lot of reasons to be proud of themselves. We were the best team today, even against a team playing only in the Champions League.
Football is like this, we have to be strong to face it.
There were elbows flying and black plastic hangers swinging perilously around metal racks.
Shorter teenagers ducked around their shopping elders all hellbent on getting a piece of clothing designed by supermodel Kate Moss.
Indeed, little could have prepared me for the madness Monday night when fashion-crazed shoppers descended on London-based clothing retailer Topshop for a chance at the supermodel's new clothing line.
Topshop reportedly paid the catwalk queen some $6 million to design the sequined tops, skinny jeans and flower-print dresses for the masses.
Moss says many of the items in the collection were inspired by clothes in her own closet.
And so the masses were happy to wait hours in line outside Topshop's Oxford Street store for the chance to attend a special shopping session of Moss's inspirations.
It all had an orderly start.
Attendants, wearing Moss logo T-shirts, handed out color-coded armbands to hundreds of the faithful in a line that looped around the store's corner.
Before the shopping storm, Topshop big boss Philip Green maintained the calm, shooing reporters away so he could personally escort Moss to see her collection on the store racks for the first time.
Moss wore one of her own creations, a full-length red chiffon dress retailing for &pound;
A convincing twin of Darth Vader stalks the beige cubicles of a Silicon Valley office, complete with ominous black mask, cape and light saber.
But this is no chintzy Halloween costume.
It's a prototype, years in the making, of a toy that incorporates brain wave-reading technology.
Behind the mask is a sensor that touches the user's forehead and reads the brain's electrical signals, then sends them to a wireless receiver inside the saber, which lights up when the user is concentrating.
Engineers at NeuroSky Inc. have big plans for brain wave-reading toys and video games.
They say the simple Darth Vader game a relatively crude biofeedback device cloaked in gimmicky garb portends the coming of more sophisticated devices that could revolutionize the way people play.
Adding biofeedback to "Tiger Woods PGA Tour," for instance, could mean that only those players who muster Zen-like concentration could nail a put.
In the popular first-person shooter "Grand Theft Auto," players who become nervous or frightened would have worse aim than those who remain relaxed and focused.
When the artists of Florence, Italy, swung open the doors of the Baptistery of the Duomo (cathedral) now known as the "Gates of Paradise" in 1452, a new world was waiting on the other side.
Twenty feet tall and weighing three tons, this single work is considered the gateway to the Italian Renaissance, an upheaval so fundamental to how we see our world and think of ourselves that centuries later no Western culture is left untouched by it.
Legend has it that Michelangelo himself is the one who dubbed these doors the "Gates of Paradise.
And as the High Museum of Art opens its exhibition of three of the doors' 10 gilt panels on Saturday, the conservation effort that brought them here will have l
Once the High showing closes on July 15, the exhibition travels to the Chicago Institute of Art and the Metropolitan Museum in New York.
The panels depicting the biblical stories of "Adam and Eve", "Jacob and Esau", and "David and Goliath" then will be moved back to Florence to be reassembled in the original doorway for permanent, hermetically sealed display at the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo. They are expected never to travel again.
Exhibition curator Gary Radke of Syracuse University says that the special alloy of bronze developed in the 15th-century workshop of Lorenzo Ghiberti for the doors had resulted in a corrosion that had dulled the dull surfaces of the square relief-sculptures and other gilt ornaments on the doors.
The genius of the master metalworkers of Florence had caught up with their work at last and intervention was required to save them.
Ghiberti ("gee-BARE-tee," pronounced with a hard "G") is, in a way, the artist behind the masters.
Born in 1378, he won a competition to create the north doors of the Baptistery at a time when Radke says Florence was spending more money on its cultural expansion than its military endeavors.
By the time that commission had led to the "Gates of Paradise" job, Ghiberti's workshop had become the place in which Donatello, Masolino, Uccello and other key artists of the era would be trained.
Ghiberti died in 1455 20 years before the birth of Michelangelo.
A Scottish church which featured in the bestselling novel "The Da Vinci Code" has revealed another mystery hidden in secret code for almost 600 years.
A father and son who became fascinated by symbols carved into the chapel's arches say they have deciphered a musical score encrypted in them.
Thomas Mitchell, a 75-year-old musician and ex-Royal Air Force code breaker, and his composer and pianist son Stuart, described the piece as "frozen music".
"The music has been frozen in time by symbolism," Mitchell said on his Web site , which details the 27-year project to crack the chapel's code.
The 15th Century Rosslyn Chapel, about seven miles south of the Scottish capital Edinburgh, featured in the last part of Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" one of the most successful novels of all time which has been turned into a Hollywood film.
Stuart Mitchell said he and his father were intrigued by 13 intricately carved angel musicians on the arches of the chapel and by 213 carved cubes depicting geometric-type patterns.
"They are of such exquisite detail and so beautiful that we thought there must be a message here," he told Reuters.
Years of research led the Mitchells to an ancient musical system called cymatics, or Chladni patterns, which are formed by sound waves at specific pitches.
They have also scheduled a world premiere at a concert in the chapel on May 18, when four singers will be accompanied by eight musicians playing the piece on mediaeval instruments.
But some consumers are spending thousands of dollars on LCD or plasma TVs and hooking them up to $50 antennas that don't look much different from what grandpa had on top of his black-and-white picture tube.
They're not doing it for the nostalgia.
"Eighty-year-old technology is being redesigned and rejiggered to deliver the best picture quality," said Richard Schneider, president of Antennas Direct. "It's an interesting irony.
A few years ago, Schneider started an assembly line in his garage and sold antennas out of the trunk of his car.
Now his Eureka, Mo.-based company has seven employees and did $1.4 million in sales last year.
They were laughing at me when I told them I was starting an antenna company," Schneider said.
Before cable and satellite existed, people relied on antennas to receive analog signals from local TV stations' broadcasting towers.
Stations still send out analog signals, but most now transmit HD digital signals as well.
Consumers who can get a digital signal from an antenna will get an excellent picture, said Steve Wilson, principal analyst for consumer electronics at ABI Research.
How do you get rid of the body of a dead astronaut on a three-year mission to Mars and back?
When should the plug be pulled on a critically ill astronaut who is using up precious oxygen and endangering the rest of the crew?
Should NASA employ DNA testing to weed out astronauts who might get a disease on a long flight?
With NASA planning to land on Mars 30 years from now, and with the recent discovery of the most "Earth-like" planet ever seen outside the solar system, the space agency has begun to ponder some of the thorny practical and ethical questions posed by deep space exploration.
NASA doctors and scientists, with help from outside bioethicists and medical experts, hope to answer many of these questions over the next several years.
How do you cope with sexual desire among healthy young men and women during a mission years long?
Sex is not mentioned in the document and has long been almost a taboo topic at NASA.
Dr. Richard Williams, NASA's chief health and medical officer said the question of sex in space is not a matter of crew health but a behavioral issue that will have to be taken up by others at NASA.
The agency will have to address the matter sooner or later, said Paul Root Wolpe, a bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania who has advised NASA since 2001.
The document does spell out some health policies in detail, such as how much radiation astronauts can be exposed to from space travel.
But on other topics such as steps for disposing of the dead and cutting off an astronaut's medical care if he or she cannot survive the document merely says these are issues for which NASA needs a policy.
"The idea that we will always choose a person's well-being over mission success, it sounds good, but it doesn't really turn out to be necessarily the way decisions always will be made.
For now, astronauts and cosmonauts who become critically sick or injured at the international space station something that has never happened can leave the orbiting outpost 220 miles above Earth and return home within hours aboard a Russian Soyuz space vehicle.
Turkey's highest court halted a parliamentary vote Tuesday that looked certain to install an Islamist president.
The ruling is a victory for secularists who fear the country is moving toward Islamic rule that would undermine their Western way of life.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan responded by calling for a constitutional amendment to allow the president to be elected by popular vote, rather than by the parliament.
He also said new parliamentary elections could be held as early as June 24, instead of in November as scheduled.
The goal would be to elect a government with a fresh mandate and resolve a crisis that has seen the stock market plummet and the pro-secular military threaten to intervene.
Earlier, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, the ruling Islamist party's presidential candidate, said he would not withdraw his candidacy despite Tuesday's setback from the Constitutional Court, a strongly secular body, and urged parliamentary elections "as soon as possible.
"What we need to cast off and get rid of these shadows is early elections," Gul said.
"The earliest possible date for elections is June 24 or July 1."
Demonstrators descended on city centers across the country Tuesday to press Congress to give the estimated 12 million people in the United States illegally a path to citizenship.
In Chicago, a police spokeswoman estimated the crowd at 150,000 late in the afternoon.
Organizers predicted hundreds of thousands of demonstrators would participate in a 2-mile march to Union Park, where an estimated 400,000 to 700,000 people protested last year.
Organizers of this year's events are focusing on raids by immigration officials that have separated some of the nation's illegal immigrants from their children, who are U.S. citizens if born in the United States.
One of them could be Elvira Arellano a Mexican in the United States illegally with her 8-year-old son Saul, a U.S. citizen.
She then became one of an estimated 600,000 people who have failed to show up for deportation.
Instead, for the past eight months, she and her son have been living in an apartment above a Methodist Church on Chicago's West Side.
Saul has no interest in moving to Mexico, which he does not know.
"I have my friends here, my school," he told CNN.
The Rev. Walter Coleman says that for the past three weeks, he has refused to eat solid food in support of Arellano's bid to stay in the country.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff was unmoved.
"We do have to remember, it's the parents' choice to break the law," he told CNN's "American Morning."
Children who are born in the United States are not deported, he said, "although we recognize that, in almost all cases, the child will accompany the parent back. "
"We are going to need to find a way that is reasonable and fair and not an amnesty to deal with the undocumented workers who are here," Chertoff said.
Bush and most Democrats support creating a guest worker program and a path to citizenship for the estimated 12 million immigrants already in the country illegally.
But many in the GOP fiercely oppose those proposals, labeling any legalization plan as "amnesty. "
Organizers in Chicago and Los Angeles urged marchers to carry U.S. flags instead of or in addition to the flags of their home countries.
BP's chief executive, John Browne, resigned Tuesday only hours after a judge cleared the way for a newspaper to publish details about his private life.
Browne led the energy giant for more than a decade and announced earlier this year that he would resign at the end of July.
According to a statement on the BP Web site, Browne resigned following a court ruling allowing newspapers to publish details about his relationship with former partner Jeff Chevalier.
Browne's love life has become the subject of scrutiny after Chevalier sold his story to a British newspaper.
"For a chief executive who has made such an enormous contribution to this great company, it is a tragedy that he should be compelled by his sense of honor to resign in these painful circumstances."
Browne, who has spent his entire professional life working for BP, denied any allegations of misconduct, saying they were "misleading and erroneous claims.
During his 41 years with BP, Browne said he always kept his private life separate from his business life. "I have always regarded my sexuality as a personal matter, to be kept private," he said.
"It is a matter of deep disappointment that a newspaper group has now decided that allegations about my personal life should be made public.
"This is a voluntary step which I am making to avoid unnecessary embarrassment and distraction to the company at this important time," Browne said, adding he would not be making any more comments on his personal life.
Four years to the day after standing on the deck of an aircraft carrier and declaring "major combat operations" in Iraq were over, President Bush on Tuesday vetoed a war-spending bill that calls for the start of a withdrawal of American combat troops from the conflict.
... Setting a deadline for withdrawal is setting a date for failure, and that would be irresponsible," Bush said in a televised address after the veto.
"They've sent their message, and now it is time to put politics behind us and support our troops with the funds they need.
The president invited the congressional leadership to the White House on Wednesday to discuss a compromise.
"Now he has an obligation to explain his plan to responsibly end this war," Reid said.
"If the president thinks (that) by vetoing this bill he'll stop us from working to change the direction of the war in Iraq, he is mistaken," Reid added.
Standing beside Reid, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, said: "The president wants a blank check. The Congress is not going to give it to him.
Both Democratic leaders said they would discuss a compromise.
Before sending the bill to the president Tuesday afternoon, Democratic congressional leaders urged Bush to sign the bill and begin winding down the war.
"A veto means denying our troops the resources and the strategy they need," Reid said earlier in the day. "After more than four years of a failed policy, it's time for Iraq to take responsibility for its own future.
The spending bill, which Congress passed last week, funds military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, but it also calls for the withdrawal of U.S. troops beginning in October, with the goal of getting all U.S. combat forces out of Iraq by the end of March 2008.
But the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service has concluded that the Pentagon could wage war through July without additional funding.
Bush and his Republican allies in Congress call the withdrawal timetable contained in the bill an admission of defeat.
Bush declared an end to "major combat" in Iraq in a May 1, 2003, speech from the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln.
However, U.S. troops have been battling an ongoing insurgency since then, and more than 3,300 Americans have died in Iraq since that address.
Reports of fighting between al Qaeda in Iraq and Sunni militants surfaced Tuesday, the latest hints of rising tensions between the two allied groups.
Other reports have emerged this year of tensions between Sunni fighters and the Sunni-dominated al Qaeda in Iraq, particularly from Anbar province, long a favored turf for indigenous Sunni insurgents and foreign fighters infiltrating Iraq from Syria.
The unconfirmed reports from tribal leaders to Iraqi government officials indicate that Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, was killed Tuesday in fighting between al Qaeda militants and Sunni tribal fighters from Abu Ghraib and Falluja.
Militant groups in the region "have been trying to put a more Iraqi face" on their movement and have been trying to "exclude the foreign militants from a public role," Bergen said.
Al-Masri is Egyptian and many suicide attacks are carried out under al Qaeda's direction by other foreigners such as Saudis and North Africans.
Arabic-language news network, reported last month that Ibrahim al-Shammari, a spokesman for the Islamic Army in Iraq, said his group also in the Islamic State of Iraq does not plan to work with al Qaeda in Iraq.
Among the reasons, he said, are that al Qaeda has targeted Islamic Army of Iraq members and that their goals are divergent, with the Islamic Army in Iraq being more willing, in some circumstances, to deal with the United States instead of al Qaeda.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert faced strident calls for his resignation in the wake of harsh findings of an official inquiry into his leadership during last summer's costly but inconclusive war in Lebanon.
The commission's first report was to be released later Monday, but government officials confirmed an earlier TV report that the findings would be strongly critical of Olmert and his defense minister, Amir Peretz.
That was enough to trigger calls for Olmert's resignation from coalition partners as well as opponents.
Relying heavily on massive airstrikes recommended by the military chief, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, Olmert pledged to his people that Israel would crush Hezbollah and force return of the captured soldiers.
Neither goal was accomplished, and Halutz has already resigned.
Instead, Hezbollah pounded northern Israel with nearly 4,000 rockets, halting only when the U.N. Security Council imposed a cease-fire, its short-range rocket capacity intact.
Israel launched a late, costly ground offensive with the Security Council nearing completion of its cease-fire resolution.
In 34 days of fighting, between 1,035 and 1,191 Lebanese civilians and combatants were killed, as were 119 Israeli soldiers and 39 civilians.
International development group Oxfam urged World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz to step down in a letter on Sunday, saying his leadership had "become untenable" and the bank's poverty-fighting mission was already damaged by the crisis surrounding him.
In the letter released to Reuters, Oxfam International Executive Director Jeremy Hobbs said World Bank staff had clearly stated they were unable to carry out their jobs and the institution was in a state of paralysis.
The letter was to be published on Monday in The Guardian newspaper.
Wolfowitz is under fire over leaked documents that show he directed a promotion for his bank-employed girlfriend, Shaha Riza, soon after he joined the bank in 2005.
Wolfowitz and Riza and their lawyers will appear on Monday before a special bank panel, appointed by the World Bank's board of shareholder governments to discuss the issue.
The committee is looking into whether Wolfowitz breached ethical or other rules when he approved the promotion for Riza, who had been at the bank for eight years before Wolfowitz was nominated by U.S. President Bush to lead the institution.
Another presidential candidate, John Edwards, a former U.S. senator and vice presidential
nominee in 2004, has also called for Wolfowitz's resignation.
Hobbs said a strong World Bank was especially necessary now, when aid by rich countries was on the decline.
Since the founding of the World Bank and its sister organization the International Monetary Fund 62 years ago, the White House has chosen the head of the bank, while the helm of the IMF is occupied by a European.
administration from the start, because of his involvement in the planning of the Iraq war, with opposition mostly by European countries like France and Germany that opposed the U.S.-led invasion.
Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul has vowed to continue in his bid to become the country's next president despite opposition from lawmakers, business leaders and military chiefs and a massive public demonstration in Istanbul on Sunday.
Gul's nomination, supported by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has raised concerns among Turkey's secular establishment over growing Islamist influence within government.
In a parliamentary vote on Friday, Gul fell short of the two-thirds majority necessary to be elected after opposition lawmakers boycotted the process and called on Turkey's constitional court to render it void.
On Friday evening military chiefs said in a statement they could intervene if the election process threatened to undermine Turkish secularism.
Influential business leaders expressed their dissatisfaction with the government on Sunday in a statement which called for early elections to "protect secularism and democracy," The Associated Press reported.
"The indivisible integrity of secularism and democracy lays the foundations of the Turkish republic, a sacrifice of one for the other is unthinkable. Turkey can healthily emerge from this process by lowering tensions and renewing the will of the nation.
On Sunday at least 300,000 demonstrators gathered in Istanbul, Turkey's largest city, to protest against Erdogan's Islamist-influenced government in defense of the country's secular political traditions, The Associated Press reported.
The Tamil Tiger rebel group has claimed responsibility for the Saturday bombing of two fuel installations that prompted heavy security, a two-hour blackout in Sri Lanka's capital, Colombo, and disrupted activity at its airport.
"These oil installations at Muthurajawela and Kolonnawa are supplying fuel to the security forces, particularly the air force," spokesman Rasiah Ilanthiriyan told CNN via satellite telephone from the rebel-held town of Kilinochchi in northern Sri Lanka.
At least five people, including three soldiers, were injured and hospitalized in the incident, and the Sri Lanka air force launched retaliatory strikes against rebel targets in the northern Wanni region.
The attacks occurred as many people were awake, watching Sri Lanka's cricket team play Australia in the World Cup final on television, The Associated Press reported.
Officials said the bombing of a fuel storage complex in the northeast suburb of Muthurajawela breached a pipeline and triggered a fire that the fire brigade later extinguished.
But no damage was caused by the bombing near an oil storage tank in the Colombo suburb of Kolonnawa, they said.
Richard Gere tried to quell the storm over a public kiss he gave a Bollywood star at an AIDS awareness event, apologizing Friday for any offense.
issued by the Heroes Project, an organization the 57-year-old actor co-founded to combat AIDS in India.
The embrace, in front of about 4,000 truckers, was a failed parody of a move from Gere's film "Shall We Dance," and "a naive misread of Indian customs," he said.
"There is a very small, right-wing, very conservative political party in India, and they are the moral police in India and they do this kind of thing quite often," he told Comedy Central's "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" on Thursday.
Gere said he was confident the issue would be sorted out.
gone to jail, it has to go through a process.
It goes to a reputable court, and they throw it out," he said on the TV show.
Under Indian law, a person convicted of public obscenity faces up to three months in prison, a fine, or both.
The Chicago Bulls swept the defending NBA champion Miami Heat out of the playoffs with a 92-79 victory on Sunday.
With the 4-0 series whitewash, Chicago advanced past the first round for the first time in nine years.
They will play the Detroit Pistons in the second round.
Ben Gordon scored 24 points, while Luol Deng had 22 and 12 rebounds as the Bulls romped home in the Eastern Conference first-round series.
"It's a great feeling because we've come a long way since I've been here," guard Kirk Hinrich told reporters. "But we have bigger goals than this.
The Heat became first defending champion since the San Antonio Spurs in 2000 to be eliminated in the first round.
Miami led for much of the first half and had an eight-point advantage with five minutes remaining in the third quarter.
But Chicago took the lead for keeps on Andres Nocioni's three-pointer with 10 minutes to go and dominated the closing minutes, scoring the final eight points.
Shaquille O'Neal added 16 points and James Posey pulled down 18 rebounds.
The Heat outrebounded the Bulls 49-42 but made only four three-pointers compared to the Bulls's nine.
PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania (AP) A 4-year-old boy lay on an operating table in Pittsburgh a few weeks ago with a tumor that had eaten into his brain and the base of his skull.
But doctors at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center knew a way to avoid those devastating consequences.
They removed much of the tumor through the boy's nose.
Since then, doctors in New York and in France have announced they removed gall bladders through the vaginas of two women.
And doctors in India say they have performed appendectomies through the mouth.
But researchers are exploring new ways to do surgery using slender instruments through the body's natural openings, avoiding cutting through the skin and muscle.
Many questions remain about that approach.
For abdominal surgeries, going through the mouth, vagina or rectum would avoid the need to cut through sensitive tissues.
And deep inside the body, where tissue doesn't feel lasting pain, the procedures themselves might be less traumatic.
Some abdominal surgeries like bowel operations can require patients to spend a week or more recovering at home.
With the natural-opening surgery, the theoretical hope is that "they really can go back to work the next day," said Dr. David Rattner of Massachusetts General Hospital.
A heavily traveled section of freeway that funnels traffic off the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge collapsed early Sunday after a gasoline tanker truck overturned and erupted into flames, authorities said.
Flames shot 200 feet in the air and the heat was intense enough to melt part of the freeway and cause the collapse, but the truck's driver walked away from the scene with second-degree burns.
"I've never seen anything like it," Officer Trent Cross of the California Highway Patrol said of the crumpled interchange.
Authorities said the damage could take months to repair, and that it would cause the worst disruption for Bay Area commuters since the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake damaged a section of the Bay Bridge itself.
Nearly 75,000 vehicles use the portion of the road every day.
But because the accident occured where three highways converge, authorities said it could cause commuting problems for hundreds of thousands of people.
State officials said motorists who try to take alternate routes Monday instead of relying on public transportation would face nightmarish commutes.
Investigators tried Sunday to identify a suicide bomber who attacked a political rally, as the toll from the blast rose to 28 dead and 52 injured, including Pakistan's top security official.
There has been no claim of responsibility for the bombing, which took place just after Sherpao completed a speech to a rally of his political supporters.
But suspicion inevitably fell on Islamic militants who have repeatedly targeted top Pakistani officials, including President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, for supporting the U.S.-led war on terror.
"Yesterday's incident is open terrorism," Information Minister Mohammed Ali Durrani said.
"It is a challenge to stop terrorism, and we are fighting it with full commitment.
Hamid Karzai, the president of neighboring Afghanistan, sent a message of condolences and said long-suffering Afghans knew the hurt that Pakistanis were feeling.
Mudassir Khan, a police officer in Charsadda, said police and intelligence experts were combing the scene of the bombing for evidence.
A senior police investigator in Peshawar, the provincial capital, said that the bomber's severed head and legs indicated he was in his 30s. His fair complexion suggested he was from Pakistan's border areas or Afghanistan, the investigator said.
"The pattern of recent attacks" also suggested a link to the tribal region along the border, where al-Qaida and Taliban militants are believed to operate, he added.
Durrani said it was unclear whether the bombing could be retaliation for a mysterious missile strike that killed four suspected militants in a village near the Afghan border on Friday.
Police said most of victims were local people, but also included several of Sherpao's police bodyguards. They said they were struggling to identify several of the badly mutilated bodies.
The costs of cutting greenhouse gases and who will pay for doing it are likely to be the key issues at a major U.N.-backed climate change meeting of scientists and diplomats in the Thai capital this week, participants said Sunday.
Some of the world's biggest greenhouse gas emitters like the U.S. and Australia and top oil exporters such as Saudi Arabia will try to water down language in a draft report, obtained by The Associated Press earlier this month, that suggests reducing emissions could cost less than 3 percent of annual global economic activity, environmental activists said.
"Cost will be on everybody's mind," said environmental protection group WWF International's Martin Hiller.
The cost for doing nothing is staggering and could be up to 20 times more expensive.
Developing countries are likely to demand that richer countries help them adapt to warming global temperatures, which are expected to cause widespread flooding, droughts and rising sea levels.
The draft report, which will be amended following comments from dozens of governments, says emissions can be cut below current levels if the world shifts away from carbon-heavy fuels like coal, invests in energy efficiency and reforms the agriculture sector.
WASHINGTON (CNN) Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Sunday said the administration did not use former CIA Director George Tenet's "slam dunk" comment as the reason to invade Iraq, disputing his complaints.
"We all thought that the intelligence case was strong." Rice said, speaking to CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer," just hours before an interview with Tenet was set to air on CBS News' "60 Minutes."
The "slam dunk" issue arose last September, the fifth anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Vice President Dick Cheney told NBC's "Meet the Press" that before the U.S.-led invasion, President Bush asked Tenet how good the case was against Saddam Hussein involving weapons of mass destruction.
Former Deputy CIA Director John McLaughlin, now CNN's national security adviser, was at that 2002 meeting. "What he meant was that it's a slam dunk that we can put more information into the mix to make it clearer why analysts believe there are WMD in Iraq," McLaughlin said.
In his new book, "At the Center of the Storm," Tenet writes that the remark was taken out of context. "As if you needed me to say 'slam dunk' to convince you to go to war with Iraq," he writes.
Iran on Sunday confirmed it will attend this week's conference on Iraq in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheik, saying its delegation will be headed by its foreign minister.
The announcement will be widely welcomed as Iran, a Muslim Shiite-majority nation, has considerable influence among Iraqi Shiites, who now lead the Baghdad government.
"A high-ranking delegation headed by Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki will attend the Egyptian conference on Iraq," Foreign Ministy spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said in an interview with state television.
Hours earlier, the Iraqi prime minister's office had announced that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had called to say his country would send a delegation to the two-day conference, which begins on Thursday.
"The decision came after consultations between Iraqi officials and the Iranian president," Hosseini said in the telephone interview, which was played on state TV.
Until Sunday, Iran had been the only country not to have announced its participation in the conference.
All of Iraq's other neighbors as well as Egypt, Bahrain and representatives of the big five U.N. Security Council members have agreed to attend.
Hosseini's announcement came shortly after a top Iranian envoy, Ali Larijani, arrived in Baghdad for talks on issues to be raised at the conference.
Hosseini said earlier Sunday that Larijani was going to the Iraqi capital because Iran had "some questions and ambiguities about the agenda. "
(CNN) In a letter written Saturday to former CIA Director George Tenet, six former CIA officers described their former boss as "the Alberto Gonzales of the intelligence community," and called his book "an admission of failed leadership.
The writers said Tenet has "a moral obligation" to return the Medal of Freedom he received from President Bush.
They also called on him to give more than half the royalties he gets from book, "At the Center of the Storm," to U.S. soldiers wounded in Iraq and families of the dead. (Watch Sec. of State Condoleezza Rice talk about Tenet's book)
The letter, signed by Phil Giraldi, Ray McGovern, Larry Johnson, Jim Marcinkowski, Vince Cannistraro and David MacMichael, said Tenet should have resigned in protest rather than take part in the administration's buildup to the war. (Read the full letter)
Johnson is a former CIA intelligence official and registered Republican who voted for Bush in 2000. McGovern is a former CIA analyst.
Cannistraro is former head of the CIA's counterterrorism division and was head of intelligence for the National Security Council in the late 1980s.
The writers said they agree that Bush administration officials took the nation to war "for flimsy reasons," and that it has proved "ill-advised and wrong-headed.
But, they added, "your lament that you are a victim in a process you helped direct is self-serving, misleading and, as head of the intelligence community, an admission of failed leadership.
"You were not a victim. You were a willing participant in a poorly considered policy to start an unnecessary war and you share culpability with Dick Cheney and George Bush for the debacle in Iraq.
º» ±â»ç´Â µû
She's 78 years old, but for Lee Young-soo, life as she knew it ended at age 15 when the Japanese government forced her to become a sex slave for its military members during World War II.
"I was put on a Japanese naval ship. There were 300 military men there and five girls, including myself.
Lee is among a dwindling number of "comfort women" still alive.
The term "comfort woman" is used to describe the thousands of girls and women whom Japan forced into sex slavery before and during World War II.
Lee and other protesters, many of them elderly Korean-Americans, came to Washington this week to protest as President Bush hosts Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
They are demanding Japan issue an official apology once and for all for what happened to the estimated 200,000 "comfort women" many of whom ranged in age from 12 to 20 more than 60 years ago.
Bush, Abe have 'personal visit' on issue
Bush hosted Abe at Camp David, Maryland, on Friday as part of the prime minister's two-day trip to the States.
With Bush at his side, Abe, through a translator, told reporters he has "deep-hearted sympathies" for what the "comfort women" went through then.
Abe said he spoke with Bush and a U.S. congressional delegation about the issue. "I do have deep-hearted sympathies that the people who had to serve as 'comfort women' were placed in extreme hardships and had to suffer that sacrifice," Abe said through a translator.
Bush said he and Abe had a "personal visit on the issue" and that "he told me what was on his heart about the issue, and I appreciated his candor.
Abe infuriated the international community in March when he said there was no evidence the women were forced into sex slavery.
From the movie-like graphics in the action game "Gears of War" to the nearly photorealistic racer "MotorStorm," video games have come a long way since the bouncing blocks of "Pong. "
A new breed of visually striking games promises to light up computer screens with even sharper, more lifelike graphics than ever before.
Instead, the PC is returning to the pinnacle of video game graphics thanks to some under-the-hood tweaks in Microsoft's Vista operating system.
The technology behind these improved visuals, called DirectX 10, is the result of a collaboration among video game developers, graphics card makers and Microsoft.
For years, they have been working to streamline and standardize the software used by Windows-based PCs to display graphics.
The latest improvements, many believe, far surpass even the very best of what the consoles are capable of.
Beams of light glimmer through a jungle overgrown with swaying palm trees, and the thick underbrush gets more detailed with a closer look.
Gaze into the distance and you can see aquamarine waves crashing on a white sand beach.
DX10 requires a specialized graphics card and there are only a few games today that take advantage of its capabilities.
Though relatively few consumers have yet to upgrade to Vista, dozens of game makers who have been using DX10 believe the benefits of the technology will quickly lure hardcore gamers willing to spend money on the best systems, whatever the cost.
Game players who frequent the Warezabouts LAN Center in Forney, Texas, often ask owner JJ Tarno about Vista and DX10, but most seem to be waiting for more compatible games to come out before they make the switch from Windows XP.
Tarno , 31, said he's looking forward to games like "Crysis" and has been impressed with the video clips he's already seen.
"If you want to play next-gen games you have to have a next-gen operating system," he said. "A game like 'Crysis' comes out and you just say, `How much is that game?' About $1,500 with new video card, RAM and processor.
Saudi Arabia's Interior Ministry has confirmed the arrests of scores of suspects in an anti-terror sweep related to a terror plot involving attacks on senior officials and government oil, military and security installations, according to a statement posted on the state-run Saudi Press Agency Web site.
A Saudi intelligence official said Friday that the nine months-long terror sweep by Saudi security forces netted 172 militants members of cells that make up the al Qaeda network the Saudis have been tracking for years.
The operation was launched with intelligence gleaned from the interrogations of suspects arrested in the unsuccessful February 2006 strike on an oil processing facility in the desert kingdom, an official told CNN.
Some of those arrested had trained abroad as pilots so they could fly aircraft in attacks on Saudi Arabia's oil fields, the Interior Ministry said Friday, according to The Associated Press.
The intelligence official said some of those arrested in the latest roundup had flight manuals, but "they have no real flight training capabilities.
The Interior Ministry did not say the militants would fly aircraft into oil refineries, but it said in a statement that some detainees had been "sent to other countries to study flying in preparation for using them to carry out terrorist attacks inside the kingdom," according to AP.
Mansour al-Turki told AP in a phone call, "They had reached an advance stage of readiness and what remained only was to set the zero hour for their attacks.
The rising popularity of text messaging on mobile phones poses a threat to writing standards among Irish schoolchildren, an education commission says.
The frequency of errors in grammar and punctuation has become a serious concern, the State Examination Commission said in a report after reviewing last year's exam performance by 15-year-olds.
"The emergence of the mobile phone and the rise of text messaging as a popular means of communication would appear to have impacted on standards of writing as evidenced in the responses of candidates," the report said, according to Wednesday's Irish Times.
The report laments that, in many cases, candidates seemed "unduly reliant on short sentences, simple tenses and a limited vocabulary".
In 2003, Irish 15-year-olds were among the top 10 performers in an international league table of literacy standards compiled by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
A restaurant in Spain has been named by an international panel of judges as the World's Best Restaurant for the second year running.
El Bulli, near Barcelona, claimed the top spot in this year's list of the 50 best places to eat, announced in London on Monday evening.
A panel of 651 judges from around the world reviewed restaurants in 70 different countries to compile this year's S. Pellegrino World's 50 Best Restaurant list.
El Bulli's success relegated The Fat Duck in Berkshire, England, to the number two place for the second time.
El Bulli chef Ferran Adria is the brains behind the restaurant's menu.
He travels for six months every year in a quest for gastronomic inspiration, then returns to his Barcelona laboratory where he experiments with new tastes, temperatures and textures.
His ground-breaking techniques have inspired other chefs throughout the world to experiment.
The waiting list to eat at the restaurant is in excess of a year.
France has the highest number of top restaurants with 12 entries in the top-50 list up from 10 last year.
The United States has eight entries the second-highest number for any single country.
Spain and Italy tie in fourth place with six entries apiece.
There was no change in the top six restaurants in the list compared to last year.
Jodi Picoult is known as a serious novelist.
Her latest effort, "Nineteen Minutes," is currently sitting in the top five on the New York Times bestseller list and has earned rave reviews from such publications as The Washington Post and Publishers Weekly.
But "Nineteen Minutes" isn't the only new project bearing the 40-year-old writer's name.
There's also the latest issue of DC Comics' "Wonder Woman.
Picoult's five-issue run doing the title makes her only the second woman to write the character in its 66-year history.
Her children convinced her otherwise.
Looking back on the character's six decades in comics, Picoult found the story focused more on Wonder Woman's exploits as a superhero and less on the life of her alter ego, Diana Prince.
Beijing courted a political confrontation with Taiwan on Thursday by including the self-governed island as a "China leg" stopover for the torch relay schedule for the 2008 Olympic Games.
The 130-day, 137,000-km (85,000-mile) route is the longest ever and includes an attempt to take the flame to the top of Mount Everest as well as stops on all of the five continents represented by the Olympic rings.
The controversial stop in Taiwan will be followed by Hong Kong and Macau before a 113-stop journey through mainland China brings it to the National Stadium in time to light the cauldron at the opening ceremony on August 8 next year.
Taiwan's ruling party said last week it would not accept a place on the torch relay if the flame entered or exited the island via mainland China or Hong Kong and Macau, which are Special Administrative Regions ruled by Beijing.
"We solemnly state that we cannot accept this route," Tsai Chen-Wai, chairman of Taiwan's National Olympic Committee, told a news conference.
"We don't want any hypothetical situation stopping the torch relay, giving Taiwan a bad reputation of political interference in sports.
The relay will also go through the region of Tibet, which China has ruled since the 1950s, and is likely to be one of the main focuses of demonstrations when the Olympic flame passes through countries outside China.
The flame will be lit in Ancient Olympia, Greece, on March 25 next year, travel to Athens and then on to Beijing on March 31.
From Beijing it will go through Central Asia and into Europe, on to the Americas, through Africa then back to Asia.
Four years ago, Stone was a 16-year-old R&B wunderkind.
But now she's embarked on a new direction, one she says is truer to herself.
She's even managing herself now having gone through "four managers in the last five years," she says.
Stone talked with CNN about her career, her concerns and even Britney Spears. This is an edited version of the interview.
I was surprised to find out that, before you made this record, you were wondering whether you wanted to continue in the music business.
I don't know.
It really didn't rub me the right way.
It kind of irritated me.
So I was like, OK guys, either you let me do what I need to do by myself or I need to get find another job because it wasn't making me happy.
What was it you wanted?
I wanted people not to look at me as a little girl, but I was a little girl so how could I ask the world not to? ...
So I have to prove myself, I guess.
Yeah man, this is my direction.
And you've gone toward a more urban sound.
If you want to call it that.
... It's a growing thing.
I'm allowed to be me now, which is a first, and I think it's really cool.
Q: Some fans are really intrigued by the change and what is she going to do next, and then there are other fans who are appalled.
... I'm 19, I'm a girl, I'm very young, I like all sorts of different things, I like all sorts of different styles of music, I like all sorts of different styles of clothes, I like all sorts of different colors of hair.
I like many different things you know so I'm probably going to experiment, and if I didn't I'd be a little bit strange and boring and stiff and kind of dead, and I'm very not that.
You're a lot younger than other girls in the business who have been successful, but you look at Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera and how they all had growing pains.
Britney still can't figure out who she is and she's doing things to draw attention to herself in perhaps the wrong ways.
Maybe she's just living her life but people just won't stop looking at her.
Maybe people should leave her alone.
... You took a picture of me on a bad day and it would be the same thing.
Rescuers Thursday freed a girl and a man from the rubble of a multistory apartment building that collapsed in Istanbul, apparently as construction workers tried to tear down a building next door.
It is believed there may be another person still in the debris, journalist Andrew Finkel told CNN, and rescue crews were listening and digging. No deaths have been reported.
Authorities believe demolition work next door caused the apartment complex to collapse around 6 p.m. (11 a.m. ET), Topbas said.
Crowds of people descended upon the pile of rubble, frantically searching for anyone who might be trapped below.
The apartment building is located in the Sirinevler neighborhood of Istanbul, near the airport.
Residents said they evacuated the building after hearing a crack in the roof, but some went back inside before the building collapsed, Istanbul Governor Muammer Guler told CNN Turk.
As a precaution, at least 17 ambulances arrived on the scene.
A local official told The Associated Press that people were evacuated from two adjacent structures.
The building was at least six stories high, and each level fell on top of the one below.
An elderly woman sobbed as she tried to dig into the ruins with her bare hands, and a police officer held back a crying teenage boy who tried to approach the building, the AP reported.
Poor construction standards have been blamed for previous building collapses, especially during earthquakes, which are common in Turkey because it lies on a geological fault.
On February 21, two people died when an Istanbul apartment building collapsed.
The peak of the next sunspot cycle is expected in late 2011 or mid-2012 potentially affecting airline flights, communications satellites and electrical transmissions.
But forecasters can't agree on how intense it will be.
The government's Space Environment Center in Boulder, Colorado, tracks space weather and forecasts its changes, which can affect millions of dollars worth of activities such as oil drilling, car navigation systems and astronauts.
Half of the specialists predicted a moderately strong cycle of 140 sunspots expected to peak in October of 2011, while the rest called for a moderately weak cycle of 90 sunspots peaking in August of 2012. "We're hoping to achieve a consensus sometime in the next six
to 12 months," said Douglas Biesecker, a space environment center scientist who is chairman of the forecast panel.
During an active solar period, violent eruptions occur more often on the sun, the agency said.
Solar flares and vast explosions, known as coronal mass ejections, shoot highly charged matter toward Earth.
Airlines flying over the pole face loss of communications that could force them to use a different, longer route at an added cost of as much as $100,000 per flight.
The Global Positioning System is immensely important to commerce and can be disrupted by solar activity.
There is an increased radiation risk to humans in space.
Currents can be induced in long electrical transmission lines, causing blackouts.
An explosive device "which could have caused substantial harm" was found Wednesday in the parking lot of an Austin, Texas, women's clinic where abortions are performed, authorities said.
An employee reported the suspicious device at the Austin Women's Health Center, and Austin police responded at about 2:15 p.m.
The employee also notified the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, as per clinic protocol, police said.
Southbound lanes of nearby Interstate 35 were closed as bomb technicians detonated the device, and the clinic, an insurance agency and an apartment building behind the clinic were evacuated.
Field analysis showed the substance was an explosive powder, but not a biological hazard, authorities said.
Austin police spokesman Kevin Buchman said there are no reports thus far of anyone suspicious in the vicinity at the time the package was found, but said authorities were canvassing the area for potential witnesses.
Asked whether that might aid police in their investigation, Austin Police Assistant Chief David Carter said, "Time will tell."
Carter said the device was in a "carry-all type bag", but Austin police and the FBI would not provide more details on the device and its makeup.
Britain's military denied newspaper reports on Thursday that it was banning Prince Harry from serving in combat in Iraq, but acknowledged his deployment was under review.
Harry, third in line to the throne, is due to head to Iraq with his "A" Squadron of the Blues and Royals regiment in the coming weeks as part of the latest British troop rotation.
He would patrol the desert in a Scimitar light reconnaissance tank.
Cornet Wales, as he is officially known, has long said he enrolled at Britain's Sandhurst military officers academy with the intention of serving on the front line.
But April has already been the deadliest for British troops in Iraq since the first month of the war and there are fears Harry's presence could put troops alongside him in more danger.
Among the 11 British soldiers killed in Iraq this month were two in a Scimitar blown up by a roadside bomb in Maysan province, the first successful insurgent attack on the kind of tank that would carry Harry.
Insurgents in southern Iraq have been using deadlier bombs to attack British armored vehicles in recent weeks.
A close friend of Harry's brother Prince William was among those killed this month when a Warrior troop carrier was destroyed.
Astrophysicist Stephen Hawking floated free in zero gravity Thursday, becoming the first person with a disability to have the experience.
The zero-gravity flight in a modified jet creates the experience of microgravity during 25-second plunges called parabolas over the Atlantic Ocean.
"It was amazing," Hawking, paralyzed by a progressive neurological disorder, said afterward through an electronic device.
Hawking, a mathematics professor at the University of Cambridge who has done groundbreaking work on black holes and the origins of the universe, has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.
He cannot speak or move.
He is one of the best-known theoretical physicists of his generation and also wrote the book "A Brief History of Time.
A doctor and three nurses monitored Hawking throughout the Zero Gravity Corp. flight.
The scientist floated in the air, free of his wheelchair and electronic communication gear for the first time in 40 years. "Many people have asked me why I am taking this flight.
"First of all, I believe that life on Earth is at an ever increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster such as sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus, or other dangers.
I think the human race has no future if it doesn't go into space.
I therefore want to encourage public interest in space.
"Professor Hawking reached for the sky and touched the heavens today.
Apple Inc. said Wednesday quarterly profit soared 88 percent on lower component costs and sales of MacBook laptops and iPod digital media players, lifting its shares by 8 percent to above $100 for the first time.
The vote of confidence from directors included former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and Google CEO Eric Schmidt.
Jobs, 52, co-founded Apple in 1976 and has been the driving force behind its turnaround in recent years.
Net income for the fiscal second quarter jumped to $770 million, or 87 cents per share, from $410 million, or 47 cents per share.
The big news is the Macintosh," said Barry Jaruzelski, a partner at consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton.
Second-quarter revenue rose 21 percent to $5.26 billion, Apple said, beating the average analyst forecast of $5.17 billion, according to Reuters Estimates.
Analysts were also impressed with Apple's gross margin, which rose to 35.1 percent from 29.8 percent a year ago.
Apple said this month it had sold its 100 millionth iPod in just over five years, capturing more than 70 percent of the U.S. digital music-player market.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday she has already answered the questions she has been subpoenaed to answer before a U.S. congressional committee and suggested she is not inclined to comply with the order.
Rice said she would respond by mail to questions from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on the Bush administration's prewar claims about Saddam Hussein seeking weapons of mass destruction, but signaled she would not appear in person.
Henry Waxman, a Democrat from California.
Rice noted that she had been serving as President George W. Bush's national security adviser during the period covered by the panel's questions, and stressed the administration's position that presidential aides not confirmed by the Senate cannot be forced to testify before Congress under the doctrine of executive privilege.
Her spokesman, Sean McCormack, said later that no final decision had been made about Rice appearing before the committee.
Waxman's committee voted 21-10 on Wednesday to subpoena Rice despite the U.S. State Department's insistence that the questions have already been answered.
The congressman has complained for weeks that Rice and the State Department have failed to respond to questions about the claim that Saddam Hussein had tried to
President George W. Bush welcomes Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Thursday as both leaders deal with low popularity at home and some creeping tension in their countries' usually strong alliance.
During two days of meetings that mark Abe's first U.S. trip as prime minister, Bush and Abe will look to publicly convey the health of a crucial alliance that has gained importance as rival China accumulates economic and military power.
Abe's trip will not match the farewell U.S. visit of his predecessor as prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi.
Bush and Koizumi played up their friendship, and Koizumi was treated to a presidential tour of Elvis Presley's Graceland home.
Overall, the national relationship is strong.
Japan is the largest financial contributor after the United States for the rebuilding effort in Iraq.
And the countries are partners in international efforts to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons.
But friction exists.
Japanese conservatives have expressed alarm at what some see as a "soft" U.S. stance on the North Korean nuclear talks.
U.S. ranchers and lawmakers are demanding that Japan fully resume U.S. beef imports.
And many in the United States were angered by Abe's recent comments that appeared to minimize Japan's role in the sexual enslavement of thousands of Asian women during World War II.
WASHINGTON (CNN) President Bush is warming up his veto muscles after the Senate passed a war funding bill Thursday that sets a deadline for withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from Iraq by next April.
The House passed the same measure on a 218-208 vote Wednesday night.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, said the measure funds U.S. troops in the field while acknowledging that the four-year-old war needs a political, not military, solution.
"No one wants this nation to succeed in the Middle East more than I do," Reid said. "But I know that after four years of mismanagement and incompetence by this administration in the war in Iraq, there is no magic formula, no silver bullet that will lead us to the victory we all desire.
But Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said demanding a withdrawal while U.S. commanders are claiming progress in pacifying the Iraqi capital would hand a victory to the al Qaeda terrorist network, which has taken root in Iraq.
"We must give the plan for winning the military component of the war in Iraq a real chance to succeed," said McConnell, R-Kentucky.
Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Gordon Smith of Oregon joined Democrats in supporting the bill. Connecticut independent Joe Lieberman, who caucuses with the Democrats, voted with Republicans opposing it.
Two supporters of Bush's Iraq policy Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina did not vote.
Sen. Tim Johnson, D-South Dakota, who is recovering from a brain hemorrhage, also didn't vote.
The White House quickly denounced the outcome.
Joe Cole's first half goal gave Chelsea a 1-0 win over Liverpool in the first leg of their all-English Champions League semifinal at Stamford Bridge on Wednesday.
The England winger swept in from six meters from Didier Drogba's cross on 29 minutes after the Ivorian had proved too strong for Daniel Agger, beating the defender before firing low into Cole's path.
It was only Cole's second goal of his injury-plagued season and the first time Chelsea had scored against Liverpool in five Champions League meetings.
"I am happy with the players, I think the performance was top," Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho told Sky Sports.
The second half was different, Liverpool attacked more... we still had chances on the counter-attack.
Liverpool, who left top scorer Peter Crouch on the bench until early in the second half, threatened sporadically.
The first half we were not controlling... the second half a little bit better but when you play against Chelsea you know they like to counter-attack," said Benitez.
"We will see at Anfield... we need to score one goal and see what happens.
Manchester United or AC Milan meet the eventual winners in the final in Athens on May 23. United won the first leg 3-2 at Old Trafford on Tuesday.
British bookmakers have reduced the odds on finding extra-terrestrial intelligence after the discovery of a planet that may be able to sustain life.
William Hill lowered its odds on Wednesday from 1000/1 to 100/1 in the wake of the astronomical discovery, which was announced Tuesday.
The planet, which is 20.5 light years from Earth and orbits the star Gliese 581, is being described as "Earth-like" by NASA experts.
William Hill spokesman Graham Sharpe said the bookmakers could face a payout in the tens of millions of pounds if extra-terrestrial life was found.
"We felt we had to react to the news that an Earth-like planet, which could support intelligent life had been discovered," Sharpe said.
"After all, we don't know for sure that intelligent extra-terrestrial life has not already been discovered, but is being hushed up.
"The older the star is, maybe the greater the chance that it has produced something that's clever," SETI spokesman Dr Seth Shostak said.
Manchester United and AS Roma have been fined by European governing body UEFA following crowd disturbances in their Champions League quarterfinal earlier this month.
UEFA's control and disciplinary body fined Roma 75,000 Swiss francs ($62,340) and United 35,000 francs over the incidents in which fans of both sides were found to have lit fireworks and thrown missiles.
The UEFA statement, issued on Wednesday, also mentioned "general crowd disturbances" but did not specifically refer to clashes between Italian police and United fans.
United accused the police in Rome of handing out "indiscriminate beatings" to fans caught up in the trouble.
Police and government officials in Rome rejected the claims, insisting police had been forced to intervene after United fans trampled
"For someone like me whose muscles don't work very well, it will be bliss to be weightless," Hawking told The Associated Press in an interview Tuesday.
Hawking, 65, who has Lou Gehrig's disease, will be the first person with a disability to fly on one of the flights offered by Zero Gravity Corp., a space tourism company.
Flying from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, the jet creates the experience of microgravity in 25-second bursts
of steep plunges over the Atlantic Ocean.
Normally, the plane conducts 10 to 15 plunges for its passengers who pay $3,750 for the ride, although that fee has been waived for Hawking.
On Hawking's trip, the jet will make a single plunge.
Other plunges will be made only after doctors and nurses who are accompanying the astrophysicist on the ride have made sure that he is enjoying it.
"We consider ... having him weightless for 25 seconds is a successful mission," said Peter Diamandis, the chairman and CEO of Zero Gravity. "If we do more than one, fantastic.
Unable to use his hands, legs or voice, Hawking can only use his facial expressions using the muscles around his eyes, eye brows and mouth to communicate.
Otherwise, he relies on a computer to talk for him in a synthesized voice.
The computer is attached to his wheelchair and allows him to choose words on a computer screen via a sensor that detects motion in his cheek.
A dazzlingly detailed image released by NASA scientists on Tuesday shows the chaotic conditions in which stars are born and die in this case in a huge nebula in another neighborhood of our Milky Way galaxy.
The image, made from a series of 48 shots taken by the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope in spring and summer of 2005, depicts star birth in a new level of detail.
It provides a view spanning a distance of 50 light years across of the Carina Nebula.
A nebula is an immense cloud of hot interstellar gas and dust.
This messy and chaotic region includes at least a dozen brilliant stars estimated to be perhaps 50 to 100 times the mass of the sun, astronomers said.
One of them, called Eta Carinae, is in the final stages of its short life span, with two billowing lobes of gas and dust.
"There are several clues suggesting that our sun and planets were indeed born in a violent region something like this, along with some very hot and massive stars," astronomer Nathan Smith of the University of California at Berkeley added.
Our solar system was formed about 4.6 billion years ago.
People can see the nebula with the naked eye from Earth's southern hemisphere, Smith said.
Stocks jumped in the first moments of trade Wednesday as investors pushed the Dow over the 13,000 level after better-than-expected economic figures and good corporate earnings.
The Dow Nasdaq and S&P all rose in the early going.
A government report on durable goods orders showed stronger-than-expected demand for big-ticket items, as the 3.4 percent gain was well above the 2.5 percent rise forecast by economists.
At 10 a.m. the Census Bureau will release its reading on new home sales and prices in March.
Economists surveyed by Briefing.com forecast that new home sales rebounded slightly from the slowest pace in six years in February, rising to an annual rate of 890,000 from 848,000 in the February report.
Oil prices were up in early trading ahead of the 10:30 a.m. ET report on U.S. fuel inventories.
U.S. light crude gained 38 cents to $64.96 a barrel in electronic trading.
A House committee Wednesday subpoenaed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to find out what she knew about the 2003 claim that Iraq sought uranium from the African country of Niger.
The uranium claim, which President Bush made in his 2003 State of the Union address, was a key element in the administration's case for the invasion of Iraq.
Rice was President Bush's national security adviser at the time.
In July 2003 two months into the Iraq war the White House backed away from the uranium assertion after a former diplomat, Joseph Wilson, announced the CIA had sent him to Niger in 2002 to check out the report.
Wilson said he found it unlikely to be true, and alleged the Bush administration had "twisted" the evidence for war.
Deputy State Department spokesman Tom Casey said Wednesday that the department "will be consulting with the White House on this matter.
Casey also noted Rice has addressed "this four-year-old issue on many occasions, and the subject already has been exhaustively investigated.
And even though Rice can legitimately be called upon to testify about the State Department, her testimony may be restricted by White House regulations, a State Department official said Wednesday.
The official said the White House will not allow current or former staff to testify about internal White House matters, and has categorized Niger uranium claim as an internal issue.
In Dickens World, rat-catchers hunt vermin on London's cobbled streets, pickpockets roam the streets and visitors line up for a fun-tastic water ride.
A new theme park inspired by the work of 19th-century novelist Charles Dickens aims to transform a vast warehouse near London into a teeming and family-friendly corner of Victorian England.
Literary purists may balk, but the attraction's backers are confident.
In more than a dozen sprawling novels, from "The Pickwick Papers" to "The Mystery of Edwin Drood," Dickens created a rich tapestry of 19th-century England, peopled by struggling workers, aspiring clerks, jaded lawyers, ambitious orphans, rogues, runaways and thieves.
Still in print after more than a century, the books have inspired numerous film and television adaptations and a popular musical, "Oliver!
Dickens World's backers say they are trying to capture that vibrant landscape in their 62 million pound (US$125 million; euro92 million) theme park.
They insist it is "based on a credible and factual account of Charles Dickens' works and the world in which he lived.
At the moment, Dickens World is a work in progress. A planned opening this week was postponed at the last minute until May 25 due to a glitch with the "4D animatronic theater show" about Dickens' life and work.
They want Dickens to be thought of as fun.
In these frenzied, media-saturated times, the lure of a simpler past is more powerful than ever.
That may explain the success of "The Dangerous Book for Boys," a deliberately retro tome that has become the publishing sensation of the year in Britain.
Exuding the brisk breeziness of Boy Scout manuals and Boy's Own annuals, "The Dangerous Book" is a childhood how-to guide that covers everything from paper airplanes to go-carts, skipping stones to skinning a rabbit.
It spent months on British best-seller lists, has sold more than half a million copies and took the book of the year prize at last month's British Book Awards.
The book will be published
in the United States May 1, allowing American boys but not their sisters to learn how to play marbles, make invisible ink, send Morse code and build a tree fort.
A big, affable, dark-haired thirtysomething who writes best-selling historical novels about the exploits of Julius Caesar and Genghis Khan, Iggulden exudes boyish enthusiasm.
He and Hal, a theater director, researched the "Dangerous Book" over six months in a garden shed, rediscovering the lost childhood arts of secret codes and water bombs and building simple batteries and pinhole projectors.
Japan's abhorrent practice of enslaving women to provide sex for its troops in World War II has a little-known sequel:
After its surrender with tacit approval from the U.S. occupation authorities Japan set up a similar "comfort women" system for American GIs.
An Associated Press review of historical documents and records shows American authorities permitted the official brothel system to operate despite internal reports that women were being coerced into prostitution.
The Americans also had full knowledge by then of Japan's atrocious treatment of women in countries across Asia that it conquered during the war.
Tens of thousands of women were employed to provide cheap sex to U.S. troops until the spring of 1946, when Gen. Douglas MacArthur shut the brothels down.
The documents show the brothels were rushed into operation as American forces poured into Japan beginning in August 1945.
"Sadly, we police had to set up sexual comfort stations for the occupation troops," recounts the official history of the Ibaraki Prefectural Police Department, whose jurisdiction is just northeast of Tokyo. "The strategy was, through the special work of experienced women, to create a breakwater to protect regular women and girls.
"As expected, after it opened it was elbow to elbow," the history says. "The comfort women ... had some resistance to selling themselves to men who just yesterday were the enemy, and because of differences in language and race, there were a great deal of apprehensions at first.
But they were paid highly, and they gradually came to accept their work peacefully.
Conservative Nicolas Sarkozy and Socialist Segolene Royal are fighting over Bayrou's 7 million voters, who may determine who wins the May 6 runoff vote.
Bayrou has sought to put a new face on French politics by tapping voter frustration with the traditional left and right.
MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) Russia's first democratic president, Boris Yeltsin, was buried Wednesday following a funeral service in central Moscow.
Yeltsin's coffin was carried to its final resting place on the shoulders of Russia's elite honor guard.
While Kremlin leaders have traditionally been buried in Red Square, in another break from the past, the former Russian leader was laid to rest at the Novodevichye cemetery on the banks of the Moskva River.
Yeltsin, who had a profound impact on life in Russia, will be buried in the company of the nation's cultural icons, including playwrights, composers and filmmakers.
Yeltsin's funeral was a highly symbolic one, indicative of his legacy of change, since it was the first time in 100 years that a Russian leader was mourned in a church, he added.
Led by priests in white robes, surrounded by red and gold candles, Russians and world leaders paid their final respects to the man who presided over post-soviet Russia.
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton a close friend of Yeltsin was in attendance, along with about a dozen former and serving heads of state and senior foreign officials.
At the request of his family, the final moments of Yeltsin's funeral were not televised, allowing his wife, children and grandchildren to bid him a final farewell in relative privacy.
It was under Yeltsin and after the collapse of communism that the Christ the Savior Cathedral, which was blown up by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, was rebuilt.
His chosen successor, Russian President Vladimir Putin, issued a decree declaring Wednesday a day of national mourning. Putin also called Yeltsin's widow to express his condolences, Interfax reported.
Flags were flying at half staff, and television stations took entertainment programs off the air, in accordance with Putin's decree, Reuters reported.
Yeltsin had suffered health problems since resigning on December 31, 1999, and died from sudden heart failure, medical sources told Russia's Interfax news agency.
Manchester United came from behind to beat AC Milan 3-2 in the first leg of a dramatic Champions League semifinal at Old Trafford on Tuesday with Wayne Rooney scoring the winner in stoppage time.
A beaming Uniited manager Sir Alex Ferguson said: "I thought we played some fantastic football and dominated the game.
"The equaliser gave us the incentive to go on and win it and the late goal gives us a magnificent chance of winning the tie now.
United, missing six first team regulars, made a superb start when Milan goalkeeper Dida could only parry a Cristiano Ronaldo header into his own net after five minutes.
But Milan, the last team to beat United at home in European competition two years ago, equalised when Brazilian Kaka fired an angled left-foot shot past Edwin van der Sar after 22 minutes.
But United, who have only lost five times at home in 51 years in Europe, came storming back in the second half before Rooney sealed victory with his late winner.
Milan, with two away goals, are far from beaten and will also fancy their chances of reaching next month's final against either Liverpool or Chelsea when they face United at home in the San Siro in next Wednesday's second leg.
Las Vegas has the highest rate of auto theft per capita of any metropolitan area in the country, according to data from the National Insurance Crime Bureau.
Western states still lead the nation in auto theft rates, according to the NICB.
All of the top ten metro areas by per capita auto theft rates are in western states.
Half of the top ten metro areas are in California.
Modesto, Calif., which had topped the ranking for the past three years, saw the number of car thefts there plummet by almost 30 percent last year compared to 2005.
Modesto ranked fifth last year in auto thefts per 100,000 population, according to the NICB.
Auto thefts in Las Vegas, which had previously ranked second to Modesto, declined only slightly.
Based on preliminary FBI data, auto thefts in the early part of 2006 were trending downward nationally for the third year in a row, according to the NICB.
Puglia has some of the brightest seas, most diverse art and architecture, most mouthwatering peasant cuisine and kindest people in all of Italy.
These are just some of the reasons:
With more than 500 miles of coast on two seas, the Adriatic and the Ionian, Puglia has all sorts of gorgeous beaches.
For white limestone cliffs spotted with the deep green of gnarled pine trees, try the southernmost tip of Salento.
Of unknown origin and unique to Puglia, they date at least from the Middle Ages.
Most are still inhabited and more than 1,400 huddle in Alberobello.
Farther inland is the Murge, scorched highlands grooved by canyons where, in the Middle Ages, people built cave dwellings as homes and churches when they fled from pirates.
The most famous dwellings of all are the Sassi in Matera, which is just across the state line in the Basilicata region.
Below the modern town and built on the side of a steep ravine, two whole neighborhoods of single-room cave dwellings and rock-hewn, frescoed churches were inhabited first by hermits and then by families until the 1960s.
While some are now trendy hotels and restaurants, they still look so authentically ancient that Mel Gibson filmed scenes here for "The Passion of the Christ.
Now die-hard supporters are renewing their push for the audacious plan a $65 billion highway project that would link two of the world's most inhospitable regions by burrowing under a stretch of water connecting the Pacific with the Arctic Ocean.
Russians and Americans alike made their pitch for the project at a conference titled "Megaprojects of Russia's East," held Tuesday in Moscow.
A Russian Economics Ministry official tossed cold water on the idea, saying he wanted to know who planned to pay the mammoth bill for the project before seriously discussing it.
But Hickel was unfazed in his speech, saying the route would unlock hitherto untapped natural resources
The proposed 68-mile tunnel would be the longest in the world.
By comparison, the undersea tunnel that is now the world's longest the Chunnel, linking Britain and France is only 30 miles long.
Lobbyists claimed the project is guaranteed to turn a profit after 30 years.
As crews construct the road and rail link, they said, the workers would also build oil and gas pipelines and lay electricity and fiber-optic cables.
Trains would whisk cargos at up to 60 mph 260 feet beneath the seabed.
Both men's and women's singles champions will receive &pound;
"No tennis tournament has ever offered higher prize money than Wimbledon in 2007," Tim Phillips, chairman of the All England Club said.
"Apart from two or three irate letters the reaction to offering equal prize money has been very positive.
In another development on Tuesday, the All England Club said it would adopt HawkEye technology for the first time.
The high-speed multi-camera technology which tracks the trajectory of a moving ball was first used at a grand slam in 2005 at Flushing Meadow and has also been successfully launched at the Australian Open.
Roger Ebert plans to attend his annual festival for overlooked movies this week, returning to public view for the first time since having cancer surgery.
The 64-year-old film critic had surgery June 16 to remove a cancerous growth on his salivary gland.
He also had emergency surgery July 1 after a blood vessel burst near the site of the operation.
In a column in Tuesday's Chicago Sun-Times, Ebert wrote that what happened was cancer of the salivary gland had spread to his right lower jaw.
A segment of the mandible was removed, and two operations to replace that segment were both unsuccessful, "leading to unanticipated bleeding.
Ebert will watch the ninth annual Overlooked Film Festival, which begins Wednesday night at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, from the audience "I will be wearing a gauze bandage around my neck, and my mouth will be seen to droop.
Ebert has been a film critic at the Chicago Sun-Times since 1967.
The last soldier to see Army Ranger Pat Tillman alive, Spc. Bryan O'Neal, told lawmakers that he was warned by superiors not to divulge especially to the Tillman family that a fellow soldier killed Tillman.
O'Neal particularly wanted to tell fellow soldier Kevin Tillman, who was in the convoy traveling behind his brother at the time of the 2004 incident in Afghanistan.
"I wanted right off the bat to let the family know what had happened, especially Kevin, because I worked with him in a platoon and I knew that he and the family all needed to know what had happened," O'Neal testified.
"I was quite appalled that when I was actually able to speak with Kevin, I was ordered not to tell him.
Jessica Lynch told the House panel that the military lied about her capture.
"It was not true," she said before gently chiding the military. "The truth is always more heroic than the hype.
Boeing says Britain's Virgin Atlantic Airways will buy 15 of Boeing's new carbon-composite 787 Dreamliner jets in an order valued at about $2.8 billion at list prices.
The light-weight, fuel-efficient 787 commercial plane has racked up 544 orders worth more than $75 billion since its market launch in April 2004, Boeing said.
The plane is set for its first flight this summer and is due to enter into service in 2008.
Air Canada also said Tuesday it had exercised options and purchase rights for an additional 23 787s, bringing its total orders for the aircraft to 37 from 14.
The order for the 23 planes is worth about $3.5 billion at list prices.
Virgin Atlantic said the total aircraft deal could be worth up to $8 billion.
Boeing said it will cooperate with Virgin Atlantic on a demonstration of the use of biofuels in commercial jet engines.
Scott Carson, the chief executive of Boeing's commercial airplane unit, said the 787 remained on track to be rolled out of the factory near Seattle in July, have its first test flight at the end of August, and be ready for delivery in May 2008.
The new plane has handed Boeing dominance in the lucrative market for larger, wide-body jets, heavily outselling Airbus.
Russians are paying their final respects to Boris Yeltsin as the body of the country's first democratic president was placed in a Moscow cathedral to lie in state ahead of his funeral on Wednesday.
Yeltsin, remembered both as as the man who dismantled the Soviet Union following his election in 1991 and for his failings in office, died on Monday at the age of 76.
He had suffered health problems since resigning on December 31, 1999, and died from sudden heart failure, medical sources told Russia's Interfax news agency.
Former presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton will lead the U.S. delegation attending the funeral of former Russian President Boris Yeltsin, the White House said on Tuesday, Reuters reported.
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said the two would leave New York on Tuesday night and travel together to Moscow for the state funeral on Wednesday.
Of the two, Clinton had the closer connection to Yeltsin.
The two leaders, dubbed the "Boris and Bill Show" on the world stage, held sway in the 1990s with a series of high-profile meetings across the globe as the Clinton White House tried to help steer Moscow's transition to democracy.
Hundreds of mourners queued outside the Christ the Saviour Cathedral. A cortege carrying Yeltsin's body arrived at the cathedral accompanied by an honor guard of several hundred soldiers, Reuters reported.
His widow Naina, dressed in a black veil and her eyes puffy from crying, sat in a pew next to their daughter Tatyana Dyachenko.
Yeltsin's body will remain on public display until Wednesday afternoon, when it will be taken for burial in a state funeral at the Novodevichy Cemetery on the outskirts of Moscow a break from the tradition of burying Kremlin leaders in Red Square.
European astronomers have spotted what they say is the most Earth-like planet yet outside our solar system, with balmy temperatures that could support water and, potentially, life.
They have not directly seen the planet, orbiting a red dwarf star called Gliese 581.
But measurements of the star suggest that a planet not much larger than the Earth is pulling on it, the researchers say in a letter to the editor of the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.
"This one is the first one that is at the same time probably rocky, with water, and in a zone close to the star where the water could exist in liquid form," said Stephane Udry of the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland, who led the study.
"We have estimated that the mean temperature of this super-Earth lies between 0 and 40 degrees Celsius, and water would thus be liquid.
Most of the 200 or so planets that have been spotted outside this solar system have been gas giants like Jupiter.
But this one is small.
"Its radius should be only 1.5 times the Earth's radius, and models predict that the planet should be either rocky, like our Earth, or covered with oceans," Udry said in a telephone interview.
Many teams are looking for planets circling other stars. They are especially looking for those similar to our own, planets that could support life.
That means finding water.
But Elizabeth Butler-Sloss said her decision would not delay the hearings which are scheduled to begin in October any further.
Another judge will take over in June.
Now retired from the bench, Butler-Sloss was primarily a family court judge, and those cases are heard without juries.
Butler-Sloss had originally intended to hear evidence alone, but Mohamed al Fayed, Dodi Fayed's father, appealed that decision to a higher court and a three-judge panel ruled a jury should deliver the verdict.
Under British law, inquests are held when someone dies unexpectedly, violently or of unknown
"I must stress this does not require a fresh start for the inquests," Butler-Sloss said in a statement.
"I will continue to preside over pre-inquest hearings until Lord Justice Scott Baker takes up the appointment in June.
In a statement, al Fayed called Butler-Sloss' decision to step down a "shameful and unnecessary interruption.
"I cannot imagine why this lack of experience was not made public months ago and acted on then before time and effort was wasted," the statement said.
For the first time in five months, the armed wing of Hamas has fired mortars and rockets into Israel from Gaza, breaking an unofficial truce and a period of relative calm along the border.
Hamas' militant wing, Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement posted on its Web site.
The group's spokesman, Abu Obeida, promised "a cruel and painful response to any aggression in the Strip [Gaza].
Cpl. Gilad Shalit was kidnapped from an Israeli border post near Gaza June 25.
Two other Israeli soldiers were killed in the raid.
Israeli defense sources told CNN they believed Tuesday's attack may have been part of a larger operation to abduct another soldier.
But the Israel Defense Forces made no mention of an attempted kidnapping in its official statement, saying, "The Hamas terrorist organization attempted to execute yet another terrorist attack by means of a large-scale operation.
It added, "IDF forces operated in an immediate and determined manner, thus thwarting the planned terrorist attack.
It's unclear whether the Hamas attack marks the end of a partial cease-fire between militants operating in Gaza and the Israeli military that began in November.
"There was a temporary conditional truce, and the Zionist enemy violated it and therefore it has been essentially over for some time," the Hamas militant spokesman said.
In its statement, the IDF accused Hamas of "cynically using the cease-fire" to continue to plan terrorist attacks against Israel.
Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, a member of Hamas, said, "We made great efforts at keeping the truce and there was a positive Palestinian position, but unfortunately this position was met by expanding [Israeli] aggression and escalating it against the Palestinian people," according to The Associated Press.
On its Web site, Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades said it fired 30 Qassam rockets and 61 mortar shells early Tuesday in response to recent Israeli operations in Gaza and the West Bank.
In his statement on the group's Web site, Obeida called for Palestinian factions to be ready for a new confrontation with Israeli forces after Israeli military operations in the West Bank left nine Palestinians dead over the weekend.
"The Bachelor" reality franchise hit the jackpot this season with Andy Baldwin a real-life Dr. McDreamy.
Baldwin a 30-year-old doctor, Navy lieutenant, humanitarian and triathlete is the perfect guy with perfect teeth, and a houseful of wide-eyed, marriage-minded women competing to be his one and only.
But it's not Baldwin or his predecessors who capture the show's overwhelmingly female audience.
Rather, it's the catfights, blatant scheming, tears and rejection.
The bachelor, Brooks said, is "just there to give them something to root about.
This season's batch of "ladies" are displaying not-so-subtle signs of cattiness and ambition as they strut their stuff, size each other up and eyeball Baldwin like a piece of all-American man-meat. They say things like, "I'm here to play the game.
One desperado serenaded Baldwin with the national anthem. Another had a stress-induced breakdown, telling the cameras "it would be relieving not to get a rose.
All that drama makes Sarah Bunting, co-founder of the Web site Television Without Pity, say "ugh.
"They just want to watch these women embarrass themselves because, evidently, your only self-worth in the culture according to this show is if you're on television and you have a man. "
"Girls crying is still the backbone of the show," said Mike Fleiss, who produces the franchise.
"This season," he teased, "we've got some girls who just totally flip out. We've never had so many tears.
Skinny African girls may get to strut on Western catwalks but the fat ones have to stay at home.
This is the message being delivered to the 500 or so Ghanaians who have registered with the country's only international modeling agency, Exopa.
"A lot of them want to go.
But not everyone has the chance to go because of the size the Europeans want them to be," said Exopa's Ghanaian director Sima Ibrahim.
In Africa, rolls of flesh are usually seen as a sign of wealth and status, not of ill health.
Few aspire to a skinny look, as those who look starved and ill too often are that way through misfortune, not choice.
themselves choosing between Western music and clothes and those rooted in their own tradition, they are now faced with two opposing images of beauty the Western ideal of an ever thinner frame and the African one of a buxom and well-rounded figure.
Nowhere is this debate clearer than in the African fashion industry.
"Those that come here who are skinny, they know they want to go international.
The others, they know they are big, they want a job here in Ghana," said Exopa's Ibrahim.
Six foot 1 inch (1.85 meters), with a 25.5 inch (64.8 centimeters) waist, Mimi has already modeled in Europe and she knows that is where she wants to be.
Nigeria's ruling party candidate Umaru Yar'Adua was declared winner on Monday of a presidential poll rejected by the opposition and condemned by observers as a "charade.
The observers and opposition politicians said Saturday's vote for the first handover of power from one civilian leader to another in Africa's most populous nation and top oil producer was manipulated through violence and rigging.
Electoral commission head Maurice Iwu declared Yar'Adua of the People's Democratic Party the winner with 24.6 million votes, far ahead of his closest rival former army strongman Muhammadu Buhari, with 6.6 million.
Buhari rejected the result as "blatantly rigged" and called on parliament to impeach President Olusegun Obasanjo.
Thousands of opposition youths started street fires in the northern city of Kano but the protest was quelled by police and reaction elsewhere was muted.
in the world's eighth largest oil exporter, where militant attacks have already curbed output.
Indian police discovered a human "bones factory" in an eastern state on Monday and arrested six people for illegally trading in skeletons, a senior officer said.
The arrested men told police the bones were sold to medical students and used in traditional medicine, district police chief Peeyush Pandey said.
Investigators found dozens of skeletons treated with chemicals laid out to dry in the sun when they reached a river bank in Keshia, 200 kilometers (125 miles) north of Kolkata, capital of West Bengal state.
"We received complaints that several bodies were missing from graveyards and, while investigating the case, we stumbled on the secret bones factory," Pandey said.
The men were also suspected to have dug up Muslim graves to get bones which could fetch them thousands of rupees in the black market.
Trade in human bones and skeletons is banned in India and medical students are asked to study bone structure with skeletons made of fiber or plastic.
The decision Monday to order Pintongta and Phantongtae Shinawatra to pay the taxes was in connection with the January 2006 sale of Shin Corp. to Singapore's government investment arm, Temasek Holdings, for 73.3 billion baht ($2.3 billion.)
According to the Assets Examination Committee, the pair set up a company in the British Virgin Islands called Ample Rich as part of a scheme to avoid paying taxes on the sale.
It was only discovered after the sale that they were owners of Ample Rich.
"They registered the company abroad but conducted business in the country. They have to pay taxes like other corporations in Thailand.
Pintongta and Phantongtae have the right to appeal the ruling to a civil court.
The decision by the AEC, established after Thaksin was deposed in a bloodless coup last September, is the latest setback for the family of the former media tycoon.
A South China tiger, one of fewer than 100 in existence, has left Shanghai for a romantic mission to Africa that might help save the species.
The four-year-old male, known only by his breeding registry number "327," is to be paired with a young female of the same species in a South African reserve. He took off from a Shanghai airport Monday.
The idea is for the tigers to mix in a wild environment, breed and brush up on their hunting skills before being returned to their native habitat in China.
"South Africa offers land, expertise and prey animals, so it facilitates the tiger re-wilding in a much quicker and faster way," said Li Quan, founder of the charity Save China's Tigers.
With only about 10 to 30 left in the wild and another 60 in captivity, the Chinese sub-species of the tiger clan is on the brink of extinction.
Two pairs have already been sent to the 33,000-hectare (81,540-acre ) Laohu Valley Reserve in South Africa's Free State province since September 2003:
"He is a very fertile stud tiger, one of the finer tigers here," said David Chen, director of the Suzhou reserve, which is home to 14 of the striped cats.
The re-wilding program has had initial success as the tigers moved from
hunting birds to bigger prey such as the blesbok, a white-faced African antelope that is similar in size to the deer species the tigers hunt in China.
Tiger 327 will make the three-day jet and helicopter journey, via Hong Kong and Johannesburg, in a cargo box with only water, although Zhang Lin of Save China's Tigers said tigers can go for five days without food in the wild.
Conservationists are already planning for the re-wilded group's return to China.
Save China's Tigers said this was still in the
Citigroup, HSBC and two other international banks on Monday officially began offering local currency retail banking services to customers in mainland China, aiming to woo potential clients with better services than local lenders usually provide.
The banks earlier launched locally incorporated branches required to handle retail banking in Chinese yuan;
Monday's opening for business followed audits by the China Banking Regulatory Commission.
"The opportunity to serve Chinese residents with local currency products and services is a truly defining moment in the long history of our business in China," Lee Ah-Boon, vice chairman of Citibank (China) Co., said in a statement.
Lee pledged to provide customers with "only the very best level of service, advice and solutions.
The four foreign banks Citigroup Inc., Britain's HSBC Holdings PLC, Standard Chartered Bank PLC and Hong Kong's Bank of East Asia Ltd. are expected to focus mainly on China's growing ranks of newly wealthy customers eager to find better investment options and nicer treatment than they can get at a big state-owned bank.
"In the months to come we will continue to launch new local currency products and services," said Richard Stanley, Citibank (China)'s chief executive officer.
HSBC China's head of personal financial services, Catherine Fok, said the bank was pleased that the audits went quickly, allowing the bank to begin services quickly.
"This is an important milestone in the opening of China's financial markets," Fok said.
Tour de France winner Floyd Landis has blamed the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) after a report on Monday that further analyses of his urine samples from the 2006 Tour had shown traces of synthetic testosterone.
American Landis said in a statement posted on his website that USADA had stopped a rider's observer from attending the retesting of the samples at a French laboratory.
"How can I be expected to prove my innocence while USADA endeavors to break their own rules at every turn? I'm infuriated by the behavior of USADA and the (French anti-doping lab) LNNDD", he added.
"Together, they have turned this proceeding into a full-scale attack on my civil rights and a mockery of justice.
Seven samples taken during the 2006 Tour which had at first been tested negative were retested by the French lab, French sports daily L'Equipe said on its website
The lab used a technique aimed at detecting exogenous testosterone as opposed to the male sex hormone naturally contained in the body.
Landis faces a disciplinary hearing in the U.S. next month after testing positive for testosterone during the 2006 Tour.
becoming the first Tour winner to be stripped of his title.
A man who spent 25 years in prison for rape was exonerated Monday after a judge threw out his convictions because DNA evidence showed he couldn't have committed the attack.
Jerry Miller smiled and the courtroom erupted into cheers after Cook County Circuit Court Judge Diane G. Cannon read the ruling that cleared him of all charges.
Miller, 48, had been found guilty of rape, robbery, aggravated kidnapping and aggravated battery even though he testified he was at home watching television at the time of the 1981 attack.
He was paroled in March 2006 and now works two jobs and lives with a family member in a Chicago suburb.
"I want to get on with my life, start a life, have a life," Miller said after the hearing. "I'm just thankful for this day.
The Innocence Project, a New York-based group, had persuaded prosecutors last year to conduct DNA tests on a semen sample taken from the rape victim's clothes. Those results excluded Miller as the attacker.
The case is the 200th in the United States in which a person was convicted, then exonerated based on DNA evidence, the group says.
The first exonerations based on DNA testing were in 1989, and in all, the 200 defendants served about 2,475 years in prison for crimes they didn't commit, according to the group's Web site.
"We look at this as a learning moment," said Peter Neufeld, a co-founder of the Innocence Project and one of Miller's lawyers. "What went wrong? We have to get the answer for the future or there'll be too many Jerry Millers.
Miller was arrested in the attack on a 44-year-old woman at a Chicago parking garage in September 1981.
The attacker raped her and put her in the trunk of her car, but he ran away when two attendants approached him as he tried to leave the garage.
The attendants helped authorities make a sketch and later picked Miller out of a lineup.
Now that he is exonerated, Miller no longer has to register as a sex offender.
NASA released the first three-dimensional images of the sun Monday, saying the photos taken from twin spacecraft may lead to better predictions of solar eruptions that can affect communications and power lines on Earth.
"' scientist Simon Plunkett said as he explained the images to a room full of journalists and scientists wearing 3-D glasses.
The twin spacecraft, launched in October, are orbiting the sun, one slightly ahead of the Earth and one behind.
The separation, just like the distance between our two eyes, provides the depth perception that allows the 3-D images to be obtained.
That depth perception is also particularly helpful for studying a type of solar eruption called a coronal mass ejection.
Along with overloading power lines and disrupting satellite communications, the eruptions can endanger astronauts on spacewalks.
Scientists would like to improve predictions of the arrival time from the current day or so to a few hours, said Russell Howard, principal investigator for the Naval Research Laboratory project.
The twin spacecraft give researchers the vantage point to "provide the observations needed to validate the models.
The eruptions also called solar flares typically blow a billion tons of the sun's atmosphere into space at a speed of 1 million miles per hour.
Besides power and communications problems, the phenomenon is responsible for the northern lights, or aurora borealis, the luminous display of lights seen in the upper latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere.
"We'd like to do the same thing with solar storms," Kaiser said. "We aren't quite there yet.
A 40-year-old office clerk made a splash in Rome's Trevi fountain when she went for a swim, naked, in the Renaissance masterpiece in front of a crowd of tourists. "The water is everyone's.
The Trevi featured in the 1960 classic film "La Dolce Vita" in which screen diva Anita Ekberg went for a dip in the fountain wearing a skimpy black dress.
But swimming in the fountain is prohibited and Roberta, from Milan, now risks a hefty fine for public indecency.
In 1995, German supermodel Claudia Schiffer also waded into the fountain for an advertising campaign for designer Valentino.
Kryptonite, which robbed Superman of his powers, is no longer the stuff of comic books and films.
A mineral found by geologists in Serbia shares virtually the same chemical composition as the fictional kryptonite from outer space, used by the superhero's nemesis Lex Luther to weaken him in the film "Superman Returns".
Stanley, who revealed the identity of the mysterious new mineral, discovered the match after searching the Internet for its chemical formula - sodium lithium boron silicate hydroxide.
The substance has been confirmed as a new mineral after tests by scientists at the Natural History Museum in London and the National Research Council in Canada.
But instead of the large green crystals in Superman comics, the real thing is a white, powdery substance which contains no fluorine and is non-radioactive.
The mineral, to be named Jadarite, will go on show at the London's Natural History Museum at certain times of the day on Wednesday, April 25, and Sunday, May 13.
Former Russian President Boris Yeltsin, who presided over the demise of the Soviet Union and Russia's transition to a free market, died Monday in Moscow. (Full story)
Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev:
"I express the very deepest condolences to the family of the deceased on whose shoulders rest major events for the good of the country and serious mistakes. A tragic fate.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair:
"It is with sadness that I learned of the death of former president Yeltsin.
He was a remarkable man who saw the need for democratic and economic reform and in defending it played a vital role at a crucial time in Russia's history.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates:
"I extend my sympathies to his family and condolences to the Russian people.
President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso:
"Mr. Yeltsin was a key reference in the post-Communist transition in Russia.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel:
"Boris Yeltsin was a great personality in both Russian and international politics, a brave fighter for democracy and freedom and a true friend of Germany.
His contribution to the development of our relations between our two nations will never be forgotten.
We will honor him in our thoughts.
Exiled Russian multi-millionaire and critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Boris Berezovsky:
"For me personally he was a teacher he made me a free person.
If my mother taught me how to love then Yeltsin taught me not only how to understand what a free person is but also how to become free.
"Russia has a lost a brilliant reformer.
No-one has done as much for Russia as Yeltsin did.
He was a unique person and absolutely Russian in his soul, in his impulsiveness and in his intellect.
Vytautas Landsbergis, first president of Lithuania after it was declared independent from the Soviet Union:
"Yeltsin was a decent man and he could not stand political intrigues.
His rise to the post of Russia's president was a very good thing for the Baltic states.
It was Yeltsin's Russia, which recognized Lithuania's independence by signing a bilateral treaty in the summer of 1991.
He also stood to defend us when Gorbachev let the Soviet troops storm buildings in Vilnius.
South African President Thabo Mbeki:
"The government and people of South Africa join the international community in sharing its thoughts and prayers with the family of the late president Yeltsin, the government and people of the Russian Federation during this period of national mourning."
Former Russian President Boris Yeltsin has died at the age of 76, the Kremlin said on Monday.
The Kremlin said his funeral would take place amid a day of national mourning on Wednesday, The Associated Press reported.
Yeltsin became the first democratically elected president of Russia in 1991 and two months later put down a coup attempt against Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.
Former Soviet President Gorbachev said Monday: "I express my deep condolences to the family of the departed. He did a lot for this country, even though he committed serious errors. A tragic fate.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who Yeltsin nominated as his successor, has called Yeltsin's widow, Naina, to express his condolences, Interfax reported.
In December 1994, Yeltsin sent tanks to stop the fighting in Chechnya in what would become a 21-month conflict.
Later he said he couldn't tolerate the "disintegration of Russia," and acknowledged his actions might have been a mistake.
Other people remember the more positive aspects of Yeltsin's reign.
He played a large part in the demise of the Soviet Union and promoted democratic reform in Russia.
While he was an ideological man who took positive steps to reform his country, Chance said Yeltsin was an inconsistent reformer.
Yeltsin favored privatization but sweeping corruption put the vast majority of wealth in the hands of a few individuals who "wielded enormous political power.
Yeltsin's image on the international stage was very different, said CNN's Jill Dougherty, who served as the network's Moscow bureau chief during Yeltsin's presidency.
He was an intensely sophisticated politician.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair expressed sadness at Yeltsin's death.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel described Yeltsin as a "brave fighter.
Right-wing candidate Nicolas Sarkozy and Socialist Segolene Royal will face off in a televised debate on May 2, French TV reported, as high voter turnout on Sunday pushed the pair into a runoff election for the French presidency.
Sarkozy and Royal will participate in a debate four days prior to the May 6 runoff vote, French channel TF1 reported,
Sarkozy led with 31.11 percent of the votes, while Royal won 25.83 percent, according to partial returns from the French Interior Ministry.
the Interior Ministry reported 84.48 percent of France's 40 million voters cast ballots in Sunday's first-round vote.
News services placed the turnout rate at 84.6 percent.
An IPSOS opinion poll released late on Sunday suggested Sarkozy would win 54 percent of votes in the second round and Royal would secure 46 percent.
Sarkozy told cheering supporters he wanted to rally the French people behind a "new dream.
to gather the French people around a new French dream," he told supporters at his UMP party.
"I want to say to all the French who are afraid, that I want to protect them against violence, against delinquency, against unfair competition, against outsourcing," the former interior minister said.
Royal called for voters to rally round her, promising to bring France change without upheaval.
"I call on all those who ... believe it is possible to reform France without brutalizing it, who want a triumph of human values over the stock market, who want an end to the painful rise of insecurity and precariousness, to come together," she told a rally in central-western France.
"Many of us regardless of the first round do not want a France ruled by the law of the strongest or the most brutal, sewn-up by money interests, where all powers are concentrated in the same few hands.
If elected, Royal will become France's first woman president.
While she has run a non-traditional campaign based on family issues, Sarkozy, the son of immigrants, has appealed to right-wing voters by espousing tough policies on immigration.
Pundits expect Sarkozy to soften his image in pushing an agenda based on free-market ideas. Most believe Royal will try to convince middle-of-the-road voters she has the ability to salvage France's economic system while promising to safeguard the country's "social model.
The campaign has been fierce compared to previous presidential races, and the election buzz was inescapable on the streets of Paris, CNN's Jim Bittermann reported.
"Every taxi driver, every news stand vendor is talking about the election and usually the first question is, what do you think is going to happen?"
Rescuers found the bodies Sunday of three people who were swept out to sea by huge waves triggered by a powerful earthquake that sent avalanches crashing into a fjord in southern Chile. Seven others were missing.
Police Maj. Claudio Escobar said the search would continue until the seven missing people had been located.
"There were some boats in the area and waves destroyed them," Orlando Adriazola said.
and their 2-year-old grandson Genaro Linay. They were found in Aysen Fjord, near the epicenter of the quake.
The seven missing people weren't identified.
After touring the area, Bachelet said the government would reinforce the area's health services with more doctors and ambulances, as well as a helicopter and a power generator in case of a new emergency.
Public Works Minister Eduardo Bitran and a team of engineers will fly to the area on Monday to check a local bridge that was damaged by the quake, she said.
Juan Cayupi, a volcanologist investigating the earthquake for the government, said it "triggered several landslides from neighboring hills into the sea, causing the level of water to rise steeply, violently, in the form of huge waves.
Cayupi, who was at the fjord at the time of the quake, told The Associated Press by telephone that the waters were calm on Sunday.
Meanwhile on Sunday, a moderate earthquake shook Santiago in central Chile, with no immediate reports of damages or injuries.
The U.S. troop buildup in Iraq has yielded modest progress but a rise in suicide bombings helps make the ultimate success of the security crackdown uncertain, the top U.S. commander in the country said in remarks published Sunday.
Gen. David Petraeus and other senior U.S. officers in Iraq told The Washington Post in interviews that the increase in U.S. and Iraqi troops since February had improved security in Baghdad and the restive Anbar province but that attacks had risen sharply in other regions.
They said it was critical that Iraqi leaders make the political compromises needed to ensure long-term stability.
President George W. Bush has committed almost 30,000 additional troops mostly to Baghdad, the center of violence between minority Sunnis and majority Shiites, for a major U.S.-Iraqi offensive aimed at halting a descent into all-out civil war.
The military commanders told the Post that sectarian killings in Baghdad fell to fewer than 400 in March from 1,200 in January, with markets reopening and a few thousand families returning to areas they had fled.
"We have certainly pulled neighborhoods back from the brink," Petraeus was quoted as saying.
The Post cited military data showing that suicide bombings increased 30 percent over the six weeks that ended in early April.
A fast-moving fire tore through an orphanage in Bosnia's capital early Sunday, killing five babies and injuring 17 others and a nurse, police and hospital officials said.
The blaze broke out on the third floor of the Ljubica Ivezic orphanage in downtown Sarajevo around 6 a.m. and rapidly spread to three rooms where the babies were sleeping, according to the Sarajevo fire brigade.
Three boys and two girls were killed, and 17 other babies were injured, two of them critically.
A nurse trying to save the children was also injured, suffering burns to her hands and face, said Dubravko Champara of the Sarajevo prosecutor's office.
Charred cradles, baby beds and teddy bears were scattered around the three gutted rooms, and smoke continued to drift through corridors hours after the fire.
Shocked neighbors stood in front of the orphanage as water from fire hoses gushed down the smoldering building's walls and stairs.
The orphanage was evacuated and its officials declined to comment.
Some children were to return later to wings of the large building that were not affected by the fire, Champara said.
Authorities do not know what caused the fire, and an investigation has begun, said police spokesman Dragan Furtula.
The remote-controlled roadside bomb killed two intelligence service officers, a soldier and their driver, said Laghman provincial police chief Abdul Karim.
"The enemy is not brave enough to fight face-to-face with the Afghan army," Karim said. "They have to resort to suicide and roadside bombs.
In the eastern city of Khost, police acting on a tip tried to stop a suspicious man, provincial police chief Gen. Mohammad Ayub said.
When he tried to flee, police gave chase and opened fire, and the man detonated his explosives, Ayub said.
Khost public health director Gul Mohammad Mohammadi said six civilians were killed and 40 others were wounded, most with minor injuries.
Ayub said two policemen were also wounded.
In neighboring Paktia province, suspected Taliban militants ambushed a police patrol on Saturday in the Zormat district, and the ensuing clash left five militants and a police officer dead, said Paktia police chief Abdul Rahman Sarjan.
More than 1 billion people live in low-lying areas where a sudden surge in sea level could prove as disastrous as the 2004 Asian tsunami, according to new research presented on Thursday.
New mapping techniques show how much land would be lost and how many people affected by rapid sea level rises that are often triggered by storms and earthquakes, a U.S. Geological Survey-led team determined.
E. Lynn Usery, who led the team, said nearly one-quarter of the world's population lives below 100 feet above sea level
"What we are suggesting is what kind of areas are at risk (in) a catastrophic event," Usery told a meeting of the Association of American Geographers.
people living at that sea level means there are probably a lot of people potentially in harm's way. "
The team also found that a 100-foot rise in sea level would cover 3.7 million square miles of land worldwide.
A rise of just 16 feet would affect 669 million people and 2 million square miles of land would be lost.
Sea levels are currently rising about 0.04 to 0.08 inches each year, making it unlikely such a scenario would suddenly occur across the globe, Usery said.
But he said 10,000 years ago sea levels rose 20 meters in 500 years a relatively short span after the collapse of the continental ice sheets.
More importantly, he said, the new mapping technique provides detail that was previously unavailable and gives policymakers better tools to prepare for potential disasters.
With just a mouse click on the computer, researchers can gauge how much land would be lost at various sea levels, and where.
The team developed its own mapping projection software and then plugged in U.S. Geological Survey data on population, elevation and different types of land cover.
Even though people know low-lying areas like the Netherlands or many parts of Asia are at risk of flooding, many do not realize just how big a risk they are facing.
"A 30-meter surge in Florida would leave the whole state covered except for a little plateau area," Usery said.
Real Madrid coach Fabio Capello said on Sunday that neither he nor the club would consent to releasing David Beckham early so that he could join his new American club Los Angeles Galaxy.
"It's not an issue for either me or the club. He has a signed contract and he's not going to go before the end of the season," said Capello.
With Beckham having a contract at Real until the end of June, the former England captain is now expected to start playing in Major League Soccer in July, although the league has already started.
Beckham played his first game for six weeks on Saturday after recovering from a knee injury.
He made an immediate impact after coming on as a second half substitute, sending over a trademark free-kick for Sergio Ramos to head home Real's winner 17 minutes from time in their 2-1 win over Valencia.
"He's only recovered from his injury this week. I asked him before the game about whether he felt he was in shape to come on and he told me 'yes'," said Capello.
The victory means that Beckham can still hold onto his dream of going to the United States with something to show for his four years in the Spanish capital.
However, the victory over Valencia moves them up to second place, two points ahead of Sevilla and two points behind bitter foes and league leaders Barcelona, although both of Real's rivals in the title race have a game in hand.
A strong showing from Beckham, while hopefully staying injury-free, in Real's next five league games, might also prompt England coach Steve McClaren to recall the 31-year-old player.
England have a vital Euro 2008 qualifier in Estonia on June 6 and several players have openly called for Beckham's return in a bid to revive their dismal campaign.
BEAUFORT, South Carolina (CNN) The military Sunday identified the U.S. Navy Blue Angels aviator who died in Saturday's crash as Lt. Cmdr. Kevin Davis.
Davis was a native of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, said Lt. Cmdr. Garrett Kasper, spokesman for the Blue Angels.
Military officials said Davis was an 11-year Navy veteran and a member of the Blue Angels for nearly two years.
He also flew in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, which centers on Afghanistan.
Davis' family was among those watching as his F/A-18 Hornet plummeted, said Lt. Cmdr. Anthony Walley, a fellow Blue Angels pilot.
The crash Saturday, during a precision-flying team demonstration, injured eight people on the ground and damaged eight structures, said U.S. Marine Corps Capt. Sarah Kansteiner, a military spokesperson, Sunday. None of the injuries is life threatening, she said.
The air show continued Sunday without the Blue Angels, but with a tribute to the pilot who was killed, said Kansteiner.
The jet clipped the top of a pine tree during a sharp turn at the end of the team's aerial exhibition, a military source said. The crash sent a plume of smoke into the sky, which the five other jets in the formation then circled.
The weather was clear in Beaufort on Saturday, said CNN meteorologist Jacqui Jeras.
Beaufort is located along the Atlantic coast between Savannah, Georgia, and Charleston, South Carolina.
An American billionaire who paid $25 million for a 13-day trip to space returned to Earth on Saturday in a space capsule, making a soft landing on the Kazakh steppe.
The capsule arrived after a more than three-hour return trip from the orbital station, carrying space tourist Charles Simonyi, Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin, and American astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria, according to a spokesman at Mission Control outside Moscow.
Simonyi, a Hungarian-born software engineer, looked ecstatic after rescuers helped him out of the capsule and into a chair lined with fur for warmth.
He smiled and grinned, shook a hand and spoke with the bustling support crew.
He then bit enthusiastically into a green apple, which has become a traditional offering for space crews touching down in Kazakhstan, famous for its tasty apples.
Tyurin looked pale and tired, but soon managed a smile in a video link with Mission Control.
Lopez-Alegria, the last out of the capsule, sighed with relief, smiled and talked to the support crew as doctors measured the men's vital signs.
Both had spent seven months on the international space station.
Anatoly Grigoryev, head of a Russian biomedical institute responsible for cosmonauts' health, said it was "quite natural" if Tyurin and Lopez-Alegria felt less chipper than Simonyi.
"It is natural that those who spend a quite long period of time [in space] find it harder now," he said.
Russian space agency chief Anatoly Perminov said all the cosmonauts "feel wonderful.
(Tribune Media Services) Throughout Europe on medieval ramparts, in churches, produce markets, alpine farmsteads and Riviera villages the local culture thrives while tourists sleep.
I'll never forget waking up with the locals on the Italian Riviera in the off-season.
The morning sun kisses the tip of Vernazza's bell tower and greets a sleepy village.
There's a refreshingly damp cool in the air and a rare Italian silence.
The harbor square is quiet, littered with calloused little boats.
The lady whose husband was out all night fishing beckons me to her fish-filled wheelbarrow.
I like beach towns so small that they have no real grocery store, just a mobile market that rolls in every morning.
That happens with a particular flair on the Algarve, in the south of Portugal.
One bit of old Algarve magic still glitters quietly in the sun Salema.
It's at the end of a small road just off the main drag between the big city of Lagos and the rugged southwest tip of Europe, Cape Sagres.
Quietly discovered by British and German tourists, this simple fishing village has three streets, a handful of restaurants, a few hotels, time-share condos up the road, a couple of shipwreck bars and a split personality the whitewashed old town is for locals, and the other half was built for tourists.
Both locals and tourists pursue a policy of peaceful coexistence.
Tourists laze in the sun while locals grab the shade.
Tourists sleep in while locals rise with the sun.
Salema's flatbed truck market rolls in weekday mornings, one truck each for fish, fruit and vegetables, plus a five-and-dime truck for clothing and other odds and ends.
On my last visit, the tooting horn of the fish truck woke me at 8 a.m. with a honky chorus of the 1812 Overture.
While churches are "sightseeing attractions" inundated with tourists and their flashing cameras at midday, early in the morning they are more clearly places of worship.
From St. Peter's in Rome to St. Paul's in London, I find churches offer a more genuine welcome first thing in the morning.
This particular morning, there are so few participants, I find myself helping out by holding a huge, centuries-old Bible while the priest reads.
Later, walking out of the Mass, I'm thankful for many things, including the knowledge that, among travelers, the early bird gets the memories.
Earlier Sunday, two suicide car bombers attacked a police station Sunday in western Baghdad, killing at least 13 people and wounding 82, police said.
The first driver raced through a police checkpoint guarding the station and exploded his vehicle just outside the two-story building, police said. Moments later, a second suicide car bomber aimed for the checkpoint's concrete barriers and exploded just outside them, police said.
The blasts collapsed nearby buildings, smashing windows and burying at least four cars under piles of concrete.
Metal roofs were peeled back by the force of the explosions.
Iraqi police stations often are the target of attacks by insurgents who accuse the officers of betraying Iraq by working in cooperation with its U.S.-backed Shiite government and the American military.
The blasts occurred at about 10 a.m. in Baiyaa, a mixed Sunni-Shiite area of western Baghdad, a policeman said
He said 13 people died five policemen and eight civilians and that 82 were wounded:
46 police officers and 36 civilians.
The casualty toll could rise as rescue workers sifted through rubble for more victims.
Thick black smoke billowed up into the sky and ambulances raced to the location with sirens wailing.
A top U.S. general said Sunday that American forces had no technology capable of detecting all suicide bombers before they strike.
Gunmen in northern Iraq stopped a bus filled with Christians and members of a tiny Kurdish religious sect, separating out the groups and taking 23 of the passengers away to be shot.
The executions came on the same day that two suicide car bombers targeted a police station in western Baghdad, killing 13.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, on a tour abroad to ask the mostly Sunni-led governments of the Arab world to help his struggling government stop the violence in Iraq, said he told Egypt's president that Iraq's reality is "not a civil or sectarian war.
Armed men in several cars stopped the bus Sunday afternoon as it was carrying workers from the Mosul Textile Factory to their hometown of Bashika, which has a mixed population of Christians and Yazidis
The gunmen checked passengers' identification cards, then asked all Christians to get off the bus, said police Brig. Mohammed al-Wagga.
Yazidis are concentrated mostly around the northern city of Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad.
After the killings, hundreds of Yazidis took to the streets of Bashika.
Shops were shuttered and many Muslim residents closed themselves in their homes, fearing reprisal attacks.
Police set up additional checkpoints across the city.
The Islamic militant group Hamas urged Palestinians to ratchet up attacks against Israel on Sunday, after nine Palestinians were killed in a surge of fighting over the weekend.
Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said Sunday that Palestinians must brace for a new round of confrontation.
"The blood of our people is not cheap," Barhoum said in a statement faxed to The Associated Press, calling on Hamas fighters and other Palestinian militant groups to "be united in the trench of resistance and to use all possible means of resistance and to respond to the massacres
Nine Palestinians were killed in the latest violence in the West Bank and Gaza, including two militants and a 17-year-old killed Sunday in the West Bank.
The fighting also included a Palestinian rocket attack on the southern Israeli town of Sderot that damaged a home there.
Israeli officials defended the latest moves as part of operations that have been effective in drastically reducing the number of attacks against Israelis.
But Palestinian officials charged that the new deaths jeopardized their efforts to expand the truce in Gaza to the West Bank.
Government spokesman Mustafa Barghouti accused Israel of "war crimes" and said Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas should consider halting his regular meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
Israel would continue its operations against militants, she said, while "always doing our utmost to avoid any innocent casualties.
As pastor of Blacksburg Baptist Church, Tommy McDearis was called on to tell more than 20 families a loved one had fallen victim to Virginia Tech gunman Seung-Hui Cho.
On Sunday, he urged his congregation and the university to put the pain of the rampage behind them by returning to classes Monday.
"If we give up in the face of this situation, if we quit doing all of the things that really matter in life because this darkness has visited us, then we are going to surrender to the darkness," McDearis said.
McDearis delivered his sermon Sunday as students who had left school following the massacre returned to campus.
He told the story of a professor devastated by the deaths of several of his students at Norris Hall, where Cho killed 30 students and faculty members before turning the gun on himself.
The professor said he didn't know if he could come back.
But failing to doing so, he said, would be a betrayal of the memories, hopes and dreams of the victims.
In getting ready for the resumption of classes, the university's student government asked hundreds of reporters to leave campus by Monday morning.
"That includes being able to go back to class, to get back into our normal routine as much as a possible without being held back by anything external, reminding us that it will be a difficult road.
BLACKSBURG, Virginia (CNN) Investigators are examining the computer and cell phone of the woman believed to have been the first victim of the Virginia Tech massacre, as well as an eBay account the gunman may have used.
Police are trying to determine whether there was any link between Emily Hilscher, 19, and the shooter, Seung-Hui Cho, according to a search warrant.
Hilscher and Ryan Christopher Clark were both killed in West Ambler Johnston dormitory, apparently Cho's first stop before heading to Norris Hall, where he killed 30 people and himself.
In late 2005, two female students at Virginia Tech complained to police that Cho had been harassing them, although neither pursued charges against him.
Investigators are also seeking records related to an e-mail and eBay account that may have been used by Cho, a source close to the investigation said.
The account being checked was used last month to buy magazine clips that would fit one of the handguns used by Cho in his shooting rampage.
While eBay prohibits the sale of ammunition in its online auctions, certain gun accessories including the magazines that hold bullets are allowed.
A CNN check of eBay transaction records online showed that the account that investigators are examining Blazers5505 was used in numerous transactions over the past several months.
Those included the March 22 purchase of two empty, 10-round magazines for a Walther P22 handgun from a company in Rigby, Idaho, that sells hunting and shooting supplies.
Authorities have said one of the two handguns used by Cho was a Walther P22 pistol.
The owner of JND Pawn shop in Blacksburg, across the street from Virginia Tech, has said Cho picked up such a gun from his shop on February 9 after ordering it online a week earlier from an out-of-state dealer.
Investigators have said Cho's other pistol was a 9mm Glock pistol he bought along with 50 rounds of ammunition from Roanoke Firearms for $571 last month.
CNN has not been able to confirm that Blazers5505 was Cho's account, but eBay profile information also now taken offline showed the user being in Blacksburg, Virginia.
Investigators cited the Blazers5505 account and a Blazers5505 Hotmail e-mail account in their affidavit, the source said.
The eBay transaction information also showed that Blazers5505 made an eBay purchase from a hunting supplies store on March 23.
The user also sold several items in recent months, eBay listings showed.
Blazers5505 sold several books, CDs and a Texas Instruments calculator a T1-83 loaded with games.
Additionally, the user sold 2006 Peach Bowl tickets for $182.50. The football game in Atlanta, Georgia, was a matchup between Virginia Tech and the University of Georgia.
Police have also filed warrants looking for records from Cho's cell phone, The Associated Press reported.
"Seung-Hui Cho is known to have communicated by cellular telephone and may have communicated with others concerning his plans to carry out attacks," the affidavit said, according to the AP.
PARIS, France (CNN) Right-wing candidate Nicolas Sarkozy and Socialist rival Segolene Royal will face each other in a presidential run-off after they came through a first-round vote on Sunday, preliminary results showed.
According to numbers from the French Interior Ministry, Sarkozy earned 30.46 percent of the votes, while Royal won 24.41 percent.
Because of the close margin, they will face a run-off on May 6.
Centrist Francois Bayrou, one of four main contenders, won 18.28 percent of the votes while far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen took 11.46 percent, according to the ministry.
If she wins, Royal will become France's first woman president.
Official results from the election that drew a huge turnout were expected later on Sunday evening.
An IPSOS opinion poll released late on Sunday suggested Sarkozy would win 54 percent of votes in the second round and Royal would secure 46 percent.
Sarkozy told cheering supporters on he wanted to rally the French people behind a "new dream.
France must now choose between two visions of society in the second round, Sarkozy said.
"By placing me in the lead and Madame Royal in second position, (voters) clearly marked their wish to have a definitive debate on two ideas of the nation, two projects of society, two value systems," he said.
Sarkozy's dream was one of "a fraternal republic where no-one will be afraid.
"I want to say to all the French who are afraid, that I want to protect them against violence, against delinquancy, against unfair competition, against outsourcing," the former interior minister said.
"I call on all those who ... believe it is possible to reform France without brutalising it, who want a triumph of human values over the stockmarket, who want an end to the painful rise of insecurity and precariousness, to come together," she told a rally in central-western France.
"Many of us regardless of the first round do not want a France ruled by the law of the strongest or the most brutal, sewn-up by money interests, where all powers are concentrated in the same few hands.
Î ¿ø¹®À» Á¦°øÇÏÁö ¾Ê½À´Ï´Ù.
A mother who forced her two-year-old son and three year-old daughter to fight each other as she and three other women filmed them was spared jail on Friday.
The boy, crying and wearing just a nappy and T-shirt, was taunted with gay slurs and goaded into punching his sister after she hit him.
"It was extremely upsetting footage," prosecutor David Gittins told BBC News 24 outside Plymouth Crown Court.
"It showed that the conduct of these defendants, all four of them, was totally and utterly unacceptable.
"The children were so distressed and time and time again were ... pushed back into the ring to keep fighting each other when they clearly didn't want to.
Police said the footage had "sickened and saddened" everyone working on the case.
The children's father discovered the tape by chance. In a statement, their family said:
"The gravity of these events has placed an enormous strain on our family, who had no idea that these women were capable of acts of such wanton cruelty.
Police said the children are well and staying with relatives.
The four women, all members of the same Plymouth family, were given one-year suspended sentences for child cruelty offences.
The family of Virginia Tech killer Seung-Hui Cho feels "hopeless, helpless and lost" and is "deeply sorry" for his "unspeakable actions," according to a written statement released Friday by his sister.
"He has made the world weep. We are living a nightmare.
"We have always been a close, peaceful and loving family. My brother was quiet and reserved, yet struggled to fit in.
Sun-Kyung Cho said her family has been praying for the victims and their families, listing by name in her statement all 32 people who died.
The Cho family, who emigrated from South Korea in 1992, lived in Centreville, Virginia, in the Washington suburbs. They left their home and went into seclusion after police arrived to search for evidence Monday night.
Cho's parents worked in a dry cleaning business.
Sun-Kyung Cho, who, like her brother, grew up mostly in the United States, is a graduate of Princeton University.
Diego Maradona, who is in the hospital being treated for alcoholic hepatitis, will be moved next week to a psychiatric clinic for alcohol abuse treatment, his doctor said on Thursday.
The 46-year-old soccer great who led Argentina to the 1986 World Cup championship has been in the hospital for most of the last three weeks with ailments linked to excessive drinking.
Maradona was taken to a Buenos Aires clinic on April 13 complaining of abdominal pain, just 48 hours after being released from 10 days of treatment.
"He didn't have any idea how the alcohol had affected him, the pains ... that he blacked out, that he was in shock, the vomiting.
Maradona, chosen by soccer's governing body, FIFA, along with Pele as the best players of the 20th century, has struggled with obesity and cocaine addiction since he retired in 1997.
Doctors treating Maradona say his current problems were not brought on by drug use but his "addictive personality.
Maradona was hospitalized in 2000 and 2004, both times with severe heart problems stemming from his cocaine use.
He underwent drug rehabilitation at a Argentine psychiatric center three years ago before continuing his treatment in Cuba.
A leading Moscow university ordered its foreign students on Thursday to remain in their dormitories for the next three days because of fears of ethnic violence before Adolf Hitler's birthday, students said.
Hundreds of students at the prestigious Sechenov Moscow Medical Academy were told to stock up on food and warned they would not be let out of the dormitories through Saturday in an attempt to protect them amid a marked rise in hate crimes.
Ethnically motivated violence tends to increase in the days leading up to and after Hitler's birthday on April 20, when some members of ultra nationalist organizations appear in groups, shout slogans and stage attacks on dark-skinned foreign and other non-Slavic looking people.
care of us, but on the other hand it's absurd that our freedom is being limited because of some militant groups," said Liah Ganeline, a second-year medical student from Israel.
Only practicing physicians in training were allowed to leave the building, she said, along with students who had signed a statement saying they were responsible for their own safety and had received approval from university officials.
Ganeline said authorities have locked down her dormitory in southern Moscow which houses about 500 students from Asia, Central Asia and the Caucasus every April 20 for the past several years. She said officials call it a fire safety drill.
Ganeline said, however, that all students were aware of the real reason, and noted that someone had scrawled the word "skinheads" over an announcement of the lockdown posted on a dormitory wall.
Last year, she said, a group of skinheads threw firebombs at the dormitory building after shouting offensive slogans and giving the Nazi salute.
According to the human rights center Sova, which monitors xenophobia, 53 people were killed in 2006 and 460 others were injured in apparent hate crimes.
Activists say authorities do little or nothing to combat the problem and that obvious hate crimes are regularly classified as mere hooliganism.
The U.S. stock market had fallen in the morning, following losses seen in Asia and Europe, which fueled expectations that investors will unwind carry trades in which traders buy higher-yielding assets funded by loans in lower yielding currencies, such as the yen.
Data showing China's economy grew by 11.1 percent from a year earlier in the first quarter and inflation rose to 3.3 percent in March stoked fears that interest rates will have to rise to cool the booming economy.
Concern about a Chinese interest-rate hike also pressured spot gold, which fell $8.00, or 1.16 percent, to $682.30.
Strong earnings from U.S. companies such as drug maker Schering-Plough Corp. and online auctioneer eBay Inc. helped support the U.S. stock indexes.
"The Chinese situation is going to be talked about all day," said Scott Wren, senior equity strategist at A.G. Edwards & Sons Inc. "But in my mind, any pullback is a total opportunity to buy stocks. It wouldn't surprise me if we finished positive today.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 19.17 points, or 0.15 percent, to 12,823.01.
The Standard & Poor's 500 Index was up 1.36 points, or 0.09 percent, at 1,473.86.
The Nasdaq Composite Index gained 4.26 points, or 0.17 percent, to 2,514.76.
(CNN) Jac Holzman was in love with Love.
It was late 1965, and Holzman, the founder of Elektra Records, was in Los Angeles, checking out the Arthur Lee-led proto-psychedelic band at a Sunset Strip nightclub called Bido Lito's.
It was a different atmosphere for Holzman, who up to that point was known for his label's folk acts, such as Judy Collins and Phil Ochs.
"There was Arthur Lee on the stage, wearing these boots, not laced, the tongues of the boots hanging out, with prismatic eyeglasses.
And you had a racially mixed band, though I never noticed that [at the time]. There were playing up a storm, and they were great live.
Recording that kind of music was new for Holzman and Elektra, but the label adapted quickly.
Love gave Elektra its first chart single, an oddball cover of Burt Bacharach and Hal David's "My Little Red Book";
the group's second album produced a Top 40 hit, the aural assault of "7 and 7 Is." And Love's third LP, "Forever Changes," is considered one of rock's finest albums.
A few months after snagging Love, the label signed the Doors. And the rest, one could say, is history:
Bread, the Stooges, Carly Simon, Queen and many other artists graced by the distinctive "E" logo.
Elektra's "11 fatted years," as Holzman calls them, actually began at the tail end of the folk boom, around 1963.
Elektra mattered, Holzman says in a phone interview from his home in Santa Monica, California, because it had a vision.
I was interested in doing the music that I loved and hoped that there would be enough people out there to buy the records to keep me alive and do it with quality.
Holzman is quick to offer others credit, including producer Paul Rothchild, engineer/producer Bruce Botnick and A&R man Danny Fields.
But he started as a solo.
Elektra's history dates back to 1950, when a 19-year-old Holzman founded the record company in his dorm room at St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland.
By 1965, Elektra was a leading folk label, with crystal-voiced Judy Collins, the raw trio of Koerner, Ray & Glover, adventurous Fred Neil and singer-songwriter Tom Rush among its artists.
But the music business was undergoing drastic changes.
The Beatles had broken through and brought a new vitality to Top 40, and a number of folk artists such as Roger McGuinn and John Sebastian were picking up electric guitars.
WASHINGTON (CNN) Law enforcement agencies across the nation have received about a dozen copycat threats to schools during the past 48 hours in the wake of the Virginia Tech massacre, according to the FBI.
Schools in New York, New Jersey, Minnesota, California, Washington and Texas were among those receiving threats.
The bureau said authorities will do everything they can to figure out who is responsible.
One student was arrested at Todd Beamer High School in Federal Way, Washington, after a parent phoned in a tip, according to Debra Stenberg, spokeswoman for the Federal Way Public School System.
The parent had received a text message from her daughter that she believed a student was carrying a gun.
The school resource officer and the school principal confronted the student in a hallway and found the student was carrying three handguns and extra ammunition.
The school was locked down, and students were held in class for about an hour before they were dismissed.
A second student was searched but not taken into custody, Stenberg said.
While investigations are ongoing, so far, none of the threats have been deemed credible, FBI spokesman Richard Kolko told CNN late Thursday afternoon.
About half of the reports, which have included threats to carry out shootings and bombings, were aimed at colleges, and the other half at other types of schools, officials said.
One man, Cristobal Fernando Gonzalez, was arrested Wednesday in San Diego for making a false threat against students at San Diego State University, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.
A criminal complaint alleges Gonzalez, a Web designer, admitted to the FBI he posted an online threat to drum up business to his Web site.
"These threats are abhorrent, and those that make them will be subject to prosecution and significant prison time.
Each threat is fully investigated by the FBI with other federal, state and local partners.
An annoyed look from "American Idol" judge Simon Cowell as a contestant expressed sadness over the Virginia Tech shootings was drastically misintrepreted, Cowell and the show said Wednesday.
Cowell rolled his eyes and raised his eyebrows as contestant Chris Richardson of Chesapeake, Virginia, followed his performance on Tuesday's show with a comment about the 32 people killed on the campus by a student.
"My hearts and prayers go out to Virginia Tech.
I have a lot of friends over there.
Be strong," Richardson said on stage. The camera caught Cowell's expression and showed him tapping his hand once, in apparent impatience, on the table in front of him and fellow judges Randy Jackson and Paula Abdul.
In contrast, Abdul could be seen nodding in approval.
The show went into damage control Wednesday, with Cowell known for his acerbic comments and a series producer denying that he had heard what Richardson said.
"I was saying to Paula, 'What does he mean, he sang nasally on purpose?
Schoolmates and relatives painted a portrait of Virginia Tech victim Jeremy Herbstritt as a friendly, talkative and passionate man, in stark contrast to his killer Cho Seung-Hui, the deeply troubled and quiet loner.
Their very different lives collided Monday when Cho targeted a classroom building where Jeremy and so many others were following their dreams.
Cho shot and killed Herbstritt, police said, along with at least 29 others before taking his own life.
Images of the armed Cho, wearing black gloves and dressed in a khaki vest have been burned on the public consciousness, as has his screed of hateful words targeting the wealthy and privileged.
Jeremy's loved ones are fighting to replace those images with thoughts of their son and other victims of the massacre, by publicly celebrating his legacy.
Cho's hateful video message he sent to NBC on the day of the killing targeted people who had "everything" they wanted.
Jeremy's schoolmates offered a very different message of hope from their fallen colleague.
"That message is, 'be passionate, and be passionate about something,'" said Ken Stanton, a friend who lived in the same building as Jeremy. "We may have lost him, but I'll tell you what, his spirit is certainly with us.
His father said Jeremy was a hiker and a biker and ran in marathons. He worked as a teaching assistant while pursuing his interest in helping the environment.
He was the professor who loved debating an equation with his students for hours.
A civil and environmental engineer regarded as brilliant, his humility defined him.
He once told his wife, "There are people who are better than me," as he tucked his prestigious awards inside his closet.
While most students could find him in his office, working past midnight, unraveling the puzzles of how water travels around the globe, he understood that the mind needed rest.
The friends, students and family of G.V. Loganathan, 51, want the world to know he was more than just one among the 32 killed during a rampage at Virginia Tech. Right until the moment when Cho Seung-Hui burst through Loganathan's classroom door, the professor was spending extra time tutoring a struggling graduate student.
"He cared about his students as if they were his own children, fretting about their grades, making sure they understood the concepts," said Loganathan's wife, Usha, her voice breaking. "To the last minute, he loved teaching.
As the carnage at Virginia Tech played out on television on Monday, the couple's eldest daughter Uma, 21, watched the news. "I told her what was happening as I knew it myself," Usha said.
But of the couple's 13-year-old daughter Abhi, "I didn't know how to tell her.
How can you explain this?
Kaelie Altizer, a neighborhood friend, said Abhi "was really sad" when she found out about her father's death Monday.
(CNN) Twenty-four Taliban fighters were killed during a seven-hour battle with Afghan and coalition forces at nightfall Wednesday in southern Afghanistan, the U.S.-led coalition command said Thursday.
Two coalition soldiers received minor injuries during the fighting and were evacuated to a nearby medical facility for treatment.
According to the coalition, the battle began when four Taliban members fired rounds at troops patrolling the northeast corner of Helmand province's Sangin district.
"After maneuvering to gain contact with the enemy force, U.S. Special Forces requested coalition air support to engage the Taliban fighters as they were attempting to establish ambush positions," the coalition said.
a munitions compound in the northeastern section of the Sangin district after Taliban insurgents fired guns and rocket-propelled grenades at Afghan and coalition forces conducting a security patrol.
There were no reports of any Afghan civilian injuries, the coalition said.
The coalition command in Afghanistan said the patrol was fired upon by Taliban insurgents donning Afghan national police uniforms at a makeshift checkpoint in the Shindand district.
According to the coalition, no civilians were killed or wounded during the clashes.
In the past two days Afghan and coalition forces have confiscated more than 100 fake police uniforms and more than a dozen forged identification documents in Herat province, which is located near the Iranian border, according to the coalition command.
In the last two weeks "there have been multiple reports of Taliban fighters impersonating ANP (Afghanistan National Police) officers and establishing illegal check points to kidnap and terrorize local Afghan civilians," the statement said.
BLACKSBURG, Virginia (CNN) Virginia Tech students reacted with disgust, anger, shock and fear Thursday to the paranoid multimedia manifesto that student gunman Cho Seung-Hui mailed the morning of his Monday killing spree.
The package was mailed after two people were killed at a dormitory early Monday and before Cho entered the university's Norris Hall and exacted the worst mass shooting by a lone gunman in U.S. history.
Doctoral student Ken Stanton, 29, said he resented that Cho was getting airtime while many of the victims, such as his friend, Jeremy Herbstritt, remained anonymous.
Stanton vowed to try to appear on as many news shows as possible.
Karan Grewal, who once shared a dorm suite with Cho, said one video appears to have been filmed in a common area of the dormitory.
In response to the outcry after the shooting, Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine named an independent panel to review the tragedy.
Former Virginia State Police Superintendent Col. Gerald Massengill will lead the panel.
He stressed that the purpose of the panel was not "to second guess anyone or any decision" but to "make Virginia safer.
Fury at media At Virginia Tech, Cho's manifesto made the tragedy even more terrifying for some students.
The materials were released while the 26,000-pupil school was still in shock from Cho's shootings, which left 33 people dead, including Cho.
The reaction of others was anger, not only at Cho for meticulously premeditating his rampage, but also at the media for airing his last recorded words and images.
Meredith Vieira, co-host of NBC's "Today" show, said some victims' relatives had canceled interviews with the network because "they were very upset with NBC for airing the images."
Col. Steven Flaherty of the Virginia State Police said Thursday that he had hoped the package would contain new clues about Cho's motive and crime, but after reviewing the content, investigators found it "simply confirmed what we already knew.
Flaherty also said he appreciated NBC cooperating with authorities, but said he was disconcerted that the videos and images were aired.
Flaherty spoke at a news conference in which university Provost Mark G. McNamee announced that the slain students will be awarded honorary degrees.
NBC released a statement Thursday defending its decision, saying it took "careful consideration in determining how the information should be distributed.
A human-rights group sued Yahoo Wednesday on grounds the U.S. search company assisted China's communist government with torture by revealing information that led to the arrest of dissidents.
The group said businesses that operate abroad need to be more aware of their responsibilities.
"They should not be participating actively in promoting and encouraging major human-rights abuses," said Morton Sklar, executive director for the Washington, D.C.-based organization.
federal lawsuit the human-rights group filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, Yahoo spokesman Jim Cullinan said such a matter is "better suited for diplomacy than it is in the legal forum.
He said that although company officials are "distressed that citizens in China have been imprisoned for expressing their political view on the Internet," Yahoo plans to keep offering services in China out of a belief the Internet can promote change and transform lives in that country.
Yahoo rivals Microsoft and Google also have been accused of helping the Chinese government crush dissent in return for access to booming Internet markets, but only Yahoo has been accused of directly assisting in a dissident's arrest.
Twelve victims of Monday's shooting at Virginia Tech remained hospitalized Wednesday night.
One of the 12 was listed in good condition after undergoing surgery Wednesday, a hospital spokeswoman told CNN.
New River Valley is one of four hospitals treating students wounded in the shooting spree that left 33 students and faculty members dead. ( Audio Slide Show:
At Roanoke Memorial Hospital, one patient was in serious condition with gunshot wounds, spokesman Eric Earnhart said.
A second patient who had been treated there was transferred Wednesday to another hospital, he said.
He declined to identify the hospital, citing a request for confidentiality from the patient's family.
Eight patients four men and four women remained "stable" at Montgomery Regional Hospital in Blacksburg, according to a hospital statement.
"Everyone is doing very well this morning," hospital CEO Scott Hill told reporters Wednesday at a dual press conference with Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine.
In what some lawmakers call a make-or-break session, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is expected to face a grilling Thursday testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys last year.
The session was delayed from its original date, Tuesday, due to the shooting at Virginia Tech earlier this week.
In his prepared testimony, which was released Sunday in advance of his appearance, Gonzales said he has "nothing to hide" and "never sought to mislead or deceive the Congress or the American people about my role in this matter.
Gonzales, who has been undergoing intensive preparations for the appearance, is expected to come under tough questioning from members of both parties.
"The burden is on the Attorney General" to show, for example, why these specific prosecutors were singled out to be fired.
U.S. Attorneys are political appointees who serve at the pleasure of the President.
But Justice Department officials provoked an outcry from the ex-prosecutors when they initially described the firings as "performance-related," triggering allegations that some in the Bush administration attempted to influence specific justice department investigations.
Some of the questioning of Gonzales will focus on contradictions between his statements and those of former Justice Department officials.
his prepared testimony, Gonzales says, "While reasonable people may dispute whether or not the actual reasons for these decisions were sufficient to justify a particular resignation, again, there is no factual basis to support the allegation, as many have made, that these resignations were motivated by improper reasons.
A U.S. aid worker who went hiking Easter Sunday was found dead Wednesday in the northern Philippines, the Peace Corps announced.
A criminal investigation into the death of Julia Campbell was launched by police.
Her body was identified by authorities after being discovered in a shallow grave in the vicinity of Batad village.
"This is no longer an accident," Ifugao provincial police chief Senior Superintendent Pedro Ganir told The Associated Press by telephone.
Army spokesman Lt. Col. Ernesto Torres said officials at the site confirmed that the body was Campbell's, according to the AP.
Torres said she was wearing the same clothes as when she was last seen buying soda from a store in Batad town, not far from the grave site.
No cause of death was immediately available. Campbell's body was being flown Thursday to the national police headquarters in Manila where forensics experts were set to examine it.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack expressed condolences to Campbell's family and colleagues.
"I know there's an ongoing investigation," McCormack said at a regular briefing in Washington in a report from the AP. "We're working very well with the Philippine authorities ... and we are going to work with them until we are able to get to the bottom of this and get all of those answers for Julia's family.
The director of the U.S. Peace Corps had arrived in the Philippines earlier this week to observe the search for Campbell.
In a statement on the organization's Web site, he said the aid group was in mourning over Campbell's death.
There are currently 137 Peace Corps Volunteers serving in the Philippines, according to the U.S. Embassy in that country.
Campbell had been teaching English at the Divine Word College in Albay province's Legazpi city, southeast of Manila, since October 2006.
Campbell formerly was a journalist who had worked for a variety of media including The New York Times, CourtTV.com and People magazine.
"She just felt not fulfilled in New York, and shocked us when she said she was joining the Peace Corps," said her aunt, Ann Knight, of Pensacola, Florida, in a report from the AP. "She was doing what she wanted to do.
Knight described her niece as "a very adventuresome, very interesting, loving, giving person who loved a good story.
"It's horrible," said Michael Cooper, a New York Times political reporter who had worked with Campbell at the newspaper when they covered New York City police. "She was a very dogged, very hardworking reporter," Cooper said in a report by the AP. "She put in long hours. When doing street reporting, she was always sure to ring the 10th doorbell, not just leave after a few.
Rocker Pete Doherty said Wednesday that people close to him are insisting that he kick his addiction to drugs. "The people I'm closest to have had enough.
They've said it's drugs or them," the Babyshambles frontman said at a court appearance to review his progress in complying with a treatment order.
"A lot has changed in the past week," Doherty added.
He didn't say whether the change involved his relationship with supermodel Kate Moss, or had anything to do with his April 12 concert appearance with Carl Barat, his former partner in The Libertines.
At the same concert, Doherty referred to Moss as his fiance.
Iran has begun making nuclear fuel in its underground uranium enrichment plant, the international atomic watchdog said on Wednesday, in a move by Tehran that raises the stakes in its showdown with world powers.
A confidential note by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) also said Iran had started up more than 1,300 centrifuge machines in an accelerating campaign to lay a basis for "industrial scale" enrichment in the Natanz complex.
Iran has been steadily upping the ante in a standoff with the U.N. Security Council, which has demanded an enrichment halt over suspicions that Tehran's declared civilian nuclear fuel project is a cover for mastering the means to build atom bombs.
But its past concealment of sensitive enrichment research from the International Atomic Energy Agency and continued stonewalling of IAEA inquiries have sapped confidence in its intentions.
Iran announced on April 9 that it had begun enriching in the Natanz complex, ramping up from a limited research operation above ground.
Iran has installed hundreds of centrifuges within weeks and aims to have 3,000 operational by next month.
That could be enough to refine uranium for one bomb within a year, if Iran wanted to and if the machines ran for long periods without breakdown a proficiency Iran has yet to demonstrate.
Tehran vowed on Tuesday to pursue plans to heighten its uranium enrichment capacity and said U.N. sanctions would not hamper centrifuge installation in the Natanz plant, guarded by anti-aircraft guns against feared U.S. attack.
The U.N. Security Council has passed two sanctions resolutions against Iran since December, targeting its nuclear and military sectors and severely impeding its financial transactions with the outside world.
ANTWERP, Belgium (AP) We all know not to feed the animals when visiting the zoo.
Now the Antwerp Zoo has urged visitors to, please, stop staring at the chimpanzees.
He was raised by humans but is now bonding with the seven other apes at the park, a zoo official said Wednesday.
"We ask, we inform our daily visitors and other visitors that one of the monkeys (sic) is particularly open for human contact," zoo spokeswoman Ilse Segers told AP Television News. "He was raised by humans in a family and therefore we are trying to integrate him, to try to get more social integration with the group.
She said Cheetah's continued interaction with humans was "delaying the social integration of the animal in the group," and isolating the ape from the others.
A sign posted on the glass enclosure asks onlookers not to stare at the apes. "Look away when an animal seeks to make contact with you, or take a step back," it says.
Segers said the zoo was not barring visitors from looking at the chimps altogether.
"Of course eye contact is not forbidden.
We have more than 1 million visitors a year and of course they are very welcome still to have a look at the animals.
The 164-year-old Antwerp Zoo is one of Europe's oldest animal parks, attracting around 1.3 million visitors a year.
Fourteen victims of the Virginia Tech shooting remained hospitalized Wednesday but most were showing signs of improvement.
The student, whose name was not released, was shot three times Monday and underwent surgery at New River Valley Hospital near Radford, hospital spokeswoman Deb Sydnor said.
Two other students recovering from gunshot wounds at the hospital also were listed in good condition.
New River Valley is one of four hospitals treating students wounded in the shooting spree that left 33 of their college peers and faculty members dead.
One of two patients hospitalized with gunshot wounds at Roanoke Memorial Hospital had improved Wednesday to serious condition, from critical, hospital spokesman Eric Earnhart said.
It was not immediately known when the two might be discharged.
Meanwhile, eight patients four men and four women remained "stable" at Montgomery Regional Hospital in Blacksburg, according to a hospital statement.
"Everyone is doing very well this morning," hospital CEO Scott Hill told reporters Wednesday at a dual press conference with Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine.
Virginia Tech students gathered by the thousands in the heart of their campus Tuesday night for a candlelight vigil.
Students wanted to send a message of unity, determination and pride after the horror, sorrow and carnage of Monday's senseless shooting.
Students at campuses across the country are logging on to the Internet to get information and to share their thoughts.
At the Holocaust Memorial Museum Wednesday, President Bush paid tribute to Professor Liviu Librescu, a Holocaust survivor who taught at Virginia Tech for 20 years.
Librescu saved the lives of several students by using his body to block a classroom door while students fled to safety.
He died Monday, which coincided with Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Police first investigated Cho in November 2005 after a student complained about him calling her and contacting her in person, university police Chief Wendell Flinchum said.
Cho was sent to the university's Office of Judicial Affairs, which handled the complaint, the outcome of which is confidential, university officials said.
"The student declined to press charges and referred to Cho's contact with her as annoying," Flinchum said of the November investigation.
Police investigated him again the next month when a female student complained about instant messages Cho sent her, Flinchum said.
However, she made a complaint to the Virginia Tech Police Department and asked that Cho have no further contact with her," the chief said.
After police spoke to Cho, they received a call from a student concerned that he might be suicidal.
Officers spoke to Cho "at length" then asked him to see a counselor.
"I knew when it happened that that's probably who it was," Giovanni said, referring to her former pupil. "I would have been shocked if it wasn't.
Cho's poetry was so intimidating and his behavior so menacing that Giovanni had him removed from her class in the fall of 2005, she said.
Giovanni said the final straw came when two of her students quit attending her poetry sessions because of Cho.
"I was trying to find out, what am I doing wrong here?"
Giovanni recalled thinking, but the students later explained, "He's taking photographs of us.
Giovanni went to the department's then-chairwoman, Lucinda Roy, and told her, "I was willing to resign before I was going to continue with him."
Roy, who taught Cho one-on-one after removing him from Giovanni's class, recalled Cho exhibiting a palpable anger and secretly taking photographs of other students while holding the camera under his desk.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has ordered the arrest of a top army officer after a string of bombings that killed more than 180 people Wednesday, the prime minister's office announced.
A written statement said the decision was made because of "the weakness of security measures put in place to protect civilians in al-Sadriya," the central Baghdad area where most of the deaths occurred.
Insurgent bombers launched the series of attacks across Baghdad, reflecting the stiff challenges posed by what has been a resilient insurgency.
The Interior Ministry said the dead and injured included:
122 dead, 150 wounded in Sadriya market in central Baghdad;
28 dead, 44 wounded in an attack near an Iraqi Army checkpoint at one of the entrances to Sadr City, the official said;
11 civilians were killed and 13 others wounded when a parked car bomb detonated in central Baghdad's Karrada district.
The car was parked near a hospital and a market;
Four police officers were killed and 6 civilians wounded when a suicide car bomber exploded at an Iraqi police checkpoint in southern Baghdad;
Four people were killed and eight were wounded by a bomber targeting a police patrol near a checkpoint in Saidiya, in southwestern Baghdad.
Two civilians were killed and 9 others wounded when a roadside bomb detonated at a busy intersection in central Baghdad.
Meanwhile, the U.S. military was on the move against insurgents.
Coalition raids in and around the Iraqi cities of Falluja, Taji, and Mosul on Wednesday led to the killings of six insurgents and the detention of more than 40 others, the U.S. military said.
Although some women and children were present, none of them were injured, according to the military.
An "armed terrorist" was killed and five insurgents were detained west of Taji which is near Baghdad.
They are also allegedly involved in facilitating foreign terrorist movements," the military said in a news release.
In Mosul, in northern Iraq, troops detained "three suspected terrorists with ties to the al Qaeda in Iraq network.
Cho Seung-Hui said Monday's massacre on the Virginia Tech campus could have been avoided and said "you forced me into a corner," in a videotaped message he mailed to NBC News.
NBC News reported that Cho mailed the package at 9:01 a.m. Monday during the two hours between the shootings at the West Ambler Johnston Hall dormitory and the shootings at Norris Hall.
"You had a hundred billion chances and ways to have avoided today," Cho said in one of the videos that aired Wednesday night on NBC.
"But you decided to spill my blood.
You forced me into a corner and gave me only one option.
The decision was yours.
In another video broadcast on NBC, Cho told the camera "When the time came I did it, I had to.
Cho spoke about the shootings in the past tense, but it is unclear when the video messages were recorded.
MSNBC.com reported that Cho also discussed "martyrs like Eric and Dylan" apparently referring to Columbine High School gunmen Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who killed 13 people and themselves on April 20, 1999.
Cho railed against the wealthy and other unnamed enemies in the angry messages.
"You had everything you wanted.
Your Mercedes wasn't enough, you brats.
Your golden necklaces weren't enough, you snobs.
Your trust fund wasn't enough.
Your vodka and cognac weren't enough.
All your debaucheries weren't enough.
Those weren't enough to fulfill your hedonistic needs.
It also included several photographs of Cho posing and pointing handguns at the camera.
The package was sent by overnight mail, but did not arrive until Wednesday because the address and Zip code were wrong.
"This may be a very new critical component of this investigation," State Police Col. Steve Flaherty said.
CNN also learned Wednesday that in 2005 Cho was declared mentally ill by a Virginia special justice, who declared he was "an imminent danger" to himself, a court document states.
A temporary detention order from General District Court in the commonwealth of Virginia said
Mourners fled from gunfire at a cemetery and families ran for cover on the streets, as shootouts between rival drug gangs and police killed at least 20 in Rio de Janeiro, officials said.
At least 14 alleged drug gang members were killed Tuesday in an hours-long gunbattle in the Mineira shantytown near downtown Rio, said a police spokeswoman who declined to be identified, according to department policy.
It was not immediately clear how many of the victims were killed by gangs and how many by police, she said.
In a second, apparently unrelated battle, police killed six alleged gang members in a west-side slum.
"It was a relatively happy action for the police because we managed to avoid something more serious.
the condition of the other two was not immediately known.
Television news showed families fleeing as officers fired assault rifles into the hills, and a desperate mother and her young daughter seeking cover in a bus stop as shots flew overhead.
Shooting also erupted in a cemetery and led four burials to be canceled, local media reported.
Police arrested eight people and seized several weapons including a hand grenade, Dionisio said.
Rio de Janeiro is one of the most violent cities in the world, with an annual homicide rate of about 50 per 100,000 residents.
On Monday, federal officials met with Rio de Janeiro Gov. Sergio Cabral to discuss deploying the army to fight violence in the city, which is to host the Pan American Games in July.
France's right-wing presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy has lost his lead over his main rival, Socialist Segolene Royal, and the two will now go neck-and-neck into the second round runoff, an opinion poll showed on Monday.
If correct the poll's findings just before the first round on Sunday will be a boost for 53-year-old Royal, campaigning to become France's first woman president.
But French opinion polls have proved unreliable in past presidential elections, notably in 2002 when far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen stunned the country by reaching the second round run-off.
Monday's CSA poll for Le Parisien newspaper put Sarkozy slightly ahead of Royal for Sunday's first round but said they would both get 50 percent in the second round on May 6.
Sarkozy, who previously had a consistent lead in opinion polls, dropped by one point from the previous CSA poll while Royal rose by one point.
"There is no agreement about an alliance imaginable in a presidential election before the (first round) vote," Bayrou told France Inter radio.
Hundreds of tons of oil trapped in the tanks of a sunken cruise ship near the Greek island of Santorini must be pumped out immediately to avert an environmental disaster, Greenpeace said on Tuesday.
The Sea Diamond, owned by Louis Cruise Lines, sank on April 6 a day after running aground off the island, forcing more than 1,500 passengers and crew to evacuate it.
A French tourist and his daughter are missing and feared drowned.
Several special vessels have been battling a limited oil spill for 12 days but fears of a much bigger spill grow as about 400 tons of fuel oil remain inside the ship.
"The most serious concern is the fuel inside the cruise ship," said Nikos Charalambidis, director of the Greek branch of the environmental group Greenpeace.
"Too much time has been wasted and not a day more should be lost.
Over 400 tons of oil in the sea would mean 70 square kilometers of oil spill and pollution along 25 kilometers of coastline," he told Reuters.
Santorini welcomes hundreds of thousands of tourists each year and is one of the country's most spectacular and upscale tourist destinations.
Islanders said the current spill had already shifted direction, avoiding floating dams and reaching the coast below the picturesque village of Oia. It has yet not reached Santorini's best beaches, lined with volcanic black sand, on the eastern side of the island.
The official said the island was still awaiting the government's plans for pumping the remaining fuel from the ship.
The government has been criticized for being too quick to praise the operation to rescue hundreds of American, European and Australian tourists from the Sea Diamond, only to later declare two people missing and see the ship sink.
The cruise company has attributed the sinking to human error, without naming a culprit.
A Greek prosecutor charged the captain and five other crew members with negligence.
"The Security Council is the forum to discuss issues that threaten the peace and security of the international community. What makes wars start? Fights over water. Changing patterns of rainfall. Fights over food production, land use," Beckett said.
"This is a groundbreaking day in the history of the Security Council, the first time ever that we will debate climate change as a matter of international peace and security," she said.
The two major groups representing developing countries the Non-Aligned Movement and the Group of 77 wrote separate letters accusing the Security Council of "ever-increasing encroachment" on the role and responsibility of other U.N. organs.
Climate change and energy are issues for the General Assembly, where all 192 U.N. member states are represented, and the Economic and Social Council, not the Security Council, they said.
Pakistan's Deputy Ambassador Farukh Amil, whose country heads the Group of 77 which represents 132 mainly developing countries and China, told the council Tuesday that its debate not only "infringes" on the authority of other U.N. organs but "compromises the rights of the general membership of the United Nations.
Beckett, who spent five years as Britain's negotiator on climate change, said she understood the reservations.
Beckett said Britain was following the precedent of the first Security Council debate on another very important global issue HIV/AIDS in 2000. "We want to see the same thing happen with climate change, that it comes from the fringes into the mainstream," she said.
Over the past few years, she said, the threat from climate change has grown and its impact goes far beyond the environment "to the very heart of the security agenda.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the council that projected climate changes can not only have serious environmental, social and economic implications but implications for peace and security as well.
The former chairwoman of Virginia Tech's English department was so concerned about Cho Seung-Hui's anger in the fall of 2005 that she took him out of a creative writing class and taught him one-on-one.
Lucinda Roy said Tuesday that police had asked her not to discuss details of the Virginia Tech shooter's writings because of the ongoing investigation, but she said the anger he expressed was palpable.
Police say Cho was the student who killed at least 30 people and wounded 17 others before killing himself Tuesday in an engineering classroom building.
Virginia Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum said ballistics tests show that one of the two guns recovered at Norris Hall was used at the dorm.
Cho never wrote about guns, Roy said, or killing people but his writing was disturbing enough that she went to police and other university officials to seek help.
"They were not explicit, and that was the difficulty the police had.
"My argument was that he seemed so disturbed that we needed to do something about this.
Without a clear threat, nothing could be done, however, and Roy made the decision to take him on in a one-on-one setting.
Cho was an intelligent student, Roy said, but he left students and professors alike unnerved in his presence.
BLACKSBURG, Virginia (CNN) When the hunt for a jail escapee shut down the Virginia Tech campus last August, then-interim police Chief Wendell Flinchum won praise for his calm demeanor and decision-making.
There were rumors prisoner William Charles Morva, accused of killing two people while on the run, had entered the Blacksburg campus.
Flinchum "never got excited," former Blacksburg police Chief Bill Brown told The Roanoke Times.
"When he said something over the police radio, he was calm and what he said was well thought out.
Reporters may have misread that demeanor Monday, when one remarked that Flinchum seemed "dispassionate" about the campus shootings that left 32 people and the gunman dead in the worst mass shooting in U.S. history.
"The safety of the students, staff and visitors are of paramount importance to me," Flinchum responded at Monday's news conference.
"I'm deeply affected by it.
I may not show my emotions, but this is one of the worst things I have ever seen. ...
While Flinchum's pain may not have been evident to reporters Monday, his long ties to the area and the university make it seem likely.
Flinchum grew up in the Blacksburg area and began his law enforcement career at Virginia Tech, signing on with the university's police department while a student at the school in 1983.
He became acting chief in July and chief in December.
"I am loyal to the police department and the university," he told Mainstreetnewspapers.com.
"I came up through the ranks of the police department and have lived in this area all my life," the Web site quoted him as saying.
"This experience give me insight into the university and the police department.
While there were questions raised about how Flinchum's department handled Monday's shootings specifically telling the campus what was going on during the two-hour gap between the dormitory and classroom shootings Flinchum got the support Tuesday of John Marshall, Virginia's secretary of public safety. (Watch what SWAT instructor thinks officers should've done )
"I think it's important to note that yesterday morning [university President Charles] Steger and his staff, and Chief Flinchum in law enforcement, made the right decisions based on the best information they had available at the time," Marshall told a news conference.
Virginia Tech's former police chief, Debra Duncan, told The Roanoke Times, that Flinchum was the right person to replace her and a big asset when she commanded the department.
"Wendell was my go-to guy," she told the newspaper.
"If I needed something done, I could go to him and it would get done.
After assuming the chief's job, Flinchum posted a message on the university's Web site spelling out what the campus community could expect from his department.
"We maintain a high visibility on campus not to catch you doing something wrong, but to give you a sense of security and safety," he wrote.
But later he warns, "Tech is a relatively safe campus;
however, remember anything that can happen somewhere else can happen here.
The mayor of the Japanese city of Nagasaki was shot dead in a brazen attack Tuesday by an organized crime chief apparently enraged that the city refused to compensate him after his car was damaged at a public works construction site, news agencies reported.
The shooting was rare in a country where handguns are strictly banned and only four politicians are known to have been killed since World War II.
Mayor Iccho Ito, 61, was shot twice in the back at point-blank range outside a train station Tuesday evening, Nagasaki police official Rumi Tsujimoto said.
One of the bullets struck the mayor's heart and he went into cardiac arrest, according to Nagasaki University Hospital spokesman Kenzo Kusano.
Kyodo News agency and national broadcaster NHK said Ito died of his wounds early Wednesday.
Tetsuya Shiroo, a senior member of Yamaguchi-gumi, Japan's largest organized crime syndicate, was wrestled to the ground by officers after the attack and arrested for attempted murder, police said.
He later admitted to shooting Ito with a handgun with the intent to kill, Nagasaki chief investigator Kazuki Umebayashi said at a news conference.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called for a "rigorous investigation.
Tuesday's attack appeared to involve a more trivial matter.
Shiroo reportedly clashed with Nagasaki city officials in 2003 after his car was damaged when he drove into a hole at a public works site.
He tried unsuccessfully to get compensation from the city after his insurance company refused to pay up, according to Japanese broadcaster NHK.
Shiroo also sent a letter to broadcaster TV Asahi to protest recent money scandals linked to Ito, including hidden accounts and public works contracts, Kyodo reported.
Backed by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, Ito was campaigning for his fourth term in office before Sunday's elections.
The gunman in Monday's massacre at Virginia Tech was Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old senior English major from Centreville, Virginia, Virginia Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum said Tuesday.
A government official told CNN's Jeanne Meserve that a note has been found indicating Cho showed anger against "rich kids.
Cho left a note in his dorm in which he railed against "rich kids," "debauchery" and "deceitful charlatans" on the Virginia Tech campus, The Associated Press reported.
The Chicago Tribune, citing unidentified sources, reported that Cho may have been taking medication to combat depression and that his recent behavior was troubling, including setting a fire in a dorm and stalking women.
McFarlane said Cho was extremely quiet, and efforts by other students to draw him out were rebuffed.
Cho, a South Korean national, was a legal resident of the United States, emigrating from his native country when he was 8 , according to the Department of Homeland Security.
"It certainly is reasonable for us to assume that Cho was the shooter in both places, but we don't have the evidence to take us there at this particular point in time," Flaherty said.
Police searched the residence at the home address Cho listed in Centreville, a suburb of Washington, on Monday night, CNN's Bob Franken reported. (View the search warrant pdf)
"I only met them [parents] when they were home, and I had packages to deliver to them ... but every time I did see them, they were super nice," Rod Wells said.
No one was home at the white, two-story townhouse residence Tuesday.
Virginia Tech senior Shane Moore said Tuesday he recalled having lunch with Cho three years ago.
Moore said his former roommate knew Cho because the two went to the same high school.
Moore and his roommate approached Cho and asked if he would like to sit with them.
Finally, Moore's roommate cracked a joke and Cho laughed. Moore didn't take offense to Cho's silence.
Students in one of Cho's classes called him "the question mark kid," classmate Julie Poole told the AP, because Cho used just a question mark for his name on a class sign-in sheet.
Representing America's anguish, President Bush said Tuesday that he prays for comfort for those victimized by the "dark turn" of the day at Virginia Tech that turned into the nation's deadliest shooting spree.
"To all of you who are OK, I'm happy for that," Bush said, quoting the Internet posting.
"For those of you who are in pain or who have lost someone close to you, I'm sure you can call on any one of us and have help anytime you need it.
He urged those angered by the killings not to be overcome by evil.
"They're praying for your friends who have fallen and who are injured.
In times like this, we can find comfort in the grace and guidance of a loving God.
Before the service, Bush received a briefing on the shootings and their investigation from Virginia Tech President Charles Steger. Afterward, he was granting interviews to news anchors from NBC, CBS and ABC.
Bush rallied the nation after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
One of the most enduring images of his presidency is Bush standing atop a pile of rubble in New York with a bullhorn in his hand.
After Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, Bush made repeated trips to the region but wound up criticized for the government's sluggish response to the storm.
After the shooting on Monday, Bush expressed shock and sadness about the killings.
He lamented that schools should be places of "safety, sanctuary and learning.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) South Korea's Foreign Ministry said Tuesday the government hoped the Virginia Tech shootings, allegedly carried out by a 23-year-old South Korean native, would not "stir up racial prejudice or confrontation.
Late Tuesday evening in Seoul, the shooter was identified as Cho Seung-Hui, a senior in the English department, who the South Korean Foreign Ministry said had been living in the United States since 1992.
Cho was the only suspect named in connection with the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history that left 33 dead.
"We are in shock beyond description," said Cho Byung-je, a ministry official handling North American affairs.
"We convey deep condolences to victims, families and the American people.
The diplomat said there was no known motive for the shootings, and added that South Korea hoped that the tragedy would not "stir up racial prejudice or confrontation.
Kim Min-kyung, a South Korean student at Virginia Tech reached by telephone from Seoul, said there were some 500 Koreans at the school, including Korean-Americans. She said she had never met the shooter Cho. Fearing retaliation, she said South Korean students were gathering in groups "as it could be dangerous.
South Korean diplomats were traveling to the site of the shooting, Foreign Ministry spokesman Cho Hee-yong said.
Cho was in the U.S. as a resident alien with a home in Centreville, Va., who lived on campus, the university said.
"He was a loner, and we're having difficulty finding information about him," school spokesman Larry Hincker said.
Earlier Tuesday before it emerged that the shooter was from South Korea, President Roh Moo-hyun offered his "deep condolences to bereaved family members and wished quick recovery of injured people," the president's office said in a statement.
A South Korean student was also among those injured in the rampage, and Roh instructed diplomats to care for the student and confirm whether any other South Koreans were hurt.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, a former South Korean foreign minister, said he felt "very much sorry and troubled" by the killings.
Despite being technically a state of war for decades against North Korea, South Korea is a country where citizens are banned from privately owning guns and where no school shootings are known to have occurred.
eight fellow soldiers, throwing a grenade into a barracks where his comrades were sleeping and firing a hail of bullets.
The student who killed 32 people and himself Monday at Virginia Tech paid $571 for a 9 mm Glock 19 pistol just over a month ago, the owner of Roanoke Firearms told CNN Tuesday.
John Markell said Cho Seung-Hui was very low-key when he purchased the gun and 50 rounds of ammunition with a credit card in an "unremarkable" purchase.
Cho presented three forms of identification and state police conducted an instant background check that probably took about a minute, the store owner said.
Cho did not say why he wanted the gun, Markell said.
Ian McFarlane, who said he had class with Cho, called the plays "very graphic" and "extremely disturbing.
McFarlane is an employee of AOL, which has provided the writings to CNN. (Read McFarlane's blog and the two plays)
"It was like something out of a nightmare," McFarlane wrote in a blog.
"The plays had really twisted, macabre violence that used weapons I wouldn't have even thought of.
"Before Cho got to class that day, we students were talking to each other with serious worry about whether he could be a school shooter.
A university official also said that Cho scribed writings so "disturbing" they were sent to administrators, a university official said Tuesday.
The official did not provide details about the writings, which first came to the attention of faculty in the English department, but said they were passed on to the department chairwoman and university administrators.
It contained an explanation of his actions and states, "You caused me to do this," ABC News reported.
"It certainly is reasonable for us to assume that Cho was the shooter in both places, but we don't have the evidence to take us there at this particular point in time," Flaherty said.
"He was a loner, and we're having difficulty finding information about him," said Larry Hincker, associate vice president for university relations.
Cho came to the United States in 1992, through Detroit, Michigan, a department of Homeland Security official said. He had lawful permanent residence, via his parents, and renewed his green card in October 2003, the official said.
The university and police are still in the process of releasing the names of those killed in Monday's shootings.
"What went on during that incident certainly caused tremendous chaos and panic in Norris Hall," Flaherty said, describing how victims were found in four classrooms and in the stairwell of the school's engineering science and mechanics building.
Doctor recalls 'amazing' injuries A doctor at a Blacksburg hospital described the injuries he saw Monday as "amazing" and the shooter as "brutal.
"There wasn't a shooting victim that didn't have less than three bullet wounds in them," said Dr. Joseph Cacioppo of Montgomery Regional Hospital. (Full story)
As questions continued to arise about how police reacted to the first shooting at the dorm, university President Charles Steger on Tuesday defended the response, saying police believed it to be "a domestic fight, perhaps a murder-suicide" that was contained to one dorm room.
Police cordoned off the 895-student West Ambler Johnston dorm and all residents were told about the shooting as police looked for witnesses, Steger said.
Authorities were still investigating what they believed was an "isolated incident" when the slaughter occurred at Norris Hall.
Steger told reporters Monday that when police responded to Norris Hall they found the front doors chained shut. The gunfire had stopped by the time they reached the second floor, he said.
The gunman killed 31 people, including himself, and wounded 15 in Norris Hall classrooms.
Zach Petkewicz was in class when the shooting at Norris began and "everyone went into a frenzy, a panic."
Two students joined him in throwing tables against the door and wedging their weight behind them, just as the gunman cracked open the door.
When the students slammed the door in his face, "he backed up and shot twice into the middle of the door thinking we were up against it," Petkewicz said.
"I was up against the side holding this desk up against there and I just heard his clip drop to the ground and he reloaded, and I thought he was coming back for a second round, to try and get his way in there," he said. "He didn't say a word, and he just turned and kept firing down the hall and didn't try to get back in."
Classes have been canceled for the rest of the week, and Norris Hall will be closed for the remainder of the semester, Steger said. Emily Alderman, who works at a clothing store near campus, said students were sending out instant messages urging one another to wear their Virginia Tech Hokie gear in a sign of unity.
There have been two bomb threats at the university this month, the latest of which came Friday. Flinchum said Tuesday they were unrelated to the shootings.
Last August, the first day of class was cut short at Virginia Tech by a manhunt for an escaped prisoner accused of killing a Blacksburg hospital security guard and a sheriff's deputy.
Before Monday, the deadliest mass shooting in the United States occurred in 1991, when George Hennard drove a pickup truck into a Killeen, Texas, cafeteria and fatally shot 23 people, before shooting and killing himself.
The 23-year-old South Korean and resident alien lived at the university's Harper Hall, Flinchum said. He was an English major, the chief said.
The university and police are still in the process of releasing the names of the 32 people killed in Monday's shootings.
A law enforcement source close to the investigation said a .22-caliber handgun and a 9 mm handgun were recovered at the scene.
The dislike of Canada's biggest city, Toronto, in the rest of the country runs so deep that a filmmaker has made a documentary about it.
"People in Toronto are soulless, one-eyed corporate zombies," Joey Keithley, of the Vancouver punk band D.O.A., says in the film, "Let's All Hate Toronto.
The 73-minute film, which premieres at Toronto's Hot Docs documentary festival next week, follows a character called Mister Toronto, who embarks on a cross-Canada trip brandishing a sign that reads "Toronto Appreciation Day" and steels himself for the onslaught.
His tour leads from Newfoundland on the Atlantic Coast to the Pacific city of Vancouver, where feelings against Toronto usually acknowledged as the country's financial center and the cultural capital of English Canada run deepest of all.
"There is something different (about hating Toronto). People are more passionate about it," filmmaker and co-director Albert Nerenberg said in an interview.
"People have a grudging respect for New York outside of the city, and have a grudging respect for London. But people outside of Toronto don't have that for Toronto, they really don't.
Nerenberg, who is from Montreal, got the idea for the film from a 1956 publication with the same name as the movie.
FA Cup final opponents Didier Drogba of Chelsea and Manchester United's Cristiano Ronaldo are on the six-man shortlist for the Professional Footballers' Association Player of the Year award.
Two other United players, Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs, are included, along with Arsenal's Cesc Fabregas and Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard, who won last year.
The award will be presented next Sunday and the 22-year-old Ronaldo, who has scored 21 goals in helping United to the top of the Premiership and semifinals of the Champions League, as well as the FA Cup final at Wembley, is many people's idea of the winner.
"Cristiano is the most exciting player in the country at the moment the quickness of his feet and the skills he possesses make you think, at times, that he is from another planet," said PFA chief executive Taylor.
Ivory Coast striker Drogba, who could also line-up against United in the Champions League final, has strong claims too, having already topped 30 goals for the season in which his club has already lifted the League Cup and still retain high hopes of success in three other competitions.
"Didier has, arguably, been Chelsea's best and most consistent performer this season no mean achievement when he is playing alongside so many top-class players at Stamford Bridge," said Taylor.
Ronaldo and the 19-year-old Fabregas are also amongst the nominations for the Young Player of the Year award, alongside Rooney, the winner of that honor for the last two seasons.
Scholes and Giggs have both recaptured their best form in United's outstanding season and Gerrard has been a key figure as Liverpool have again showed themselves to be accomplished performers in Europe, reaching the last four in the Champions League, where they will tackle Chelsea.
Snobbery is thriving in Britain if you believe the upper-class scorn poured on Kate Middleton's mother after Prince William broke up with his middle-class commoner sweetheart.
"This country is riven by the class system. It is more alive than it has ever been," the Daily Mirror's royal correspondent James Whitaker said after the separation was announced at the weekend.
I don't think it was Kate. When she met the queen, Carole Middleton said 'Pleased to meet you' and asked where the toilet was," Whitaker told Reuters.
The genteel would normally say "How do you do? " and talk about going to the lavatory.
But Mrs Middleton was said to have committed the ultimate faux pas when invited last December to attend William's graduation ceremony at the elite Sandhurst military academy.
William and Kate's split showed the other side of the coin.
Britain's royalty-obsessed mass-circulation newspapers are awash with speculation about why they separated, and many have focused on Kate's mother a former airline stewardess.
Bookmakers quickly joined the great debate.
Ladbrokes promptly installed the upper-class socialite Isabella Anstruther-Gough-Calthorpe as 6-1 favorite to marry William.
"A number of socialites will be dusting off their ball gowns and polishing their Pradas now that William is back on the market," Ladbrokes spokesman Nick Weinberg said.
But Daily Mail columnist A.N. Wilson condemned "the unpleasant mockery of Kate Middleton by William's braying friends.
"An extraordinary snobbery still exists around the royals," he complained.
Royal biographer Penny Junor said she did not believe snobbery would have been a reason for William to give up Kate.
"I don't think the royal family themselves are that snobbish. But I think William's friends certainly are.
She traveled around the world almost three times and was harnessed to a treadmill so she wouldn't float away.
NASA astronaut Sunita "Suni" Williams completed her version of the Boston Marathon on Monday more than 210 miles above Earth. "I'm done!
" Williams told Mission Control after running 26.2 miles on a treadmill at the international space station.
Already traveling at 17,500 mph, Williams started the race on time at 10 a.m. ET with race No. 14,000 taped to the front of the treadmill as the space station passed over the Pacific Ocean.
She finished, unofficially, 4 hours, 23 minutes and 46 seconds later as the station traveled over Russia. The 41-year-old astronaut, who grew up in the Boston area, had kind words for the temperamental treadmill, which has had its share of breakdowns. "No problems.
No nothing," said Williams, who wore Boston Red Sox socks for her run. "It did everything I wanted it to do.
A laptop computer was on each side so she could watch past Boston Marathons on a DVD and keep track of where the space station was flying.
Periodically, she asked Mission Control for an update on the times of friends, including NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg, and her sister, Dina Pandya, who were running the marathon on the ground.
30 on a day when the Boston runners faced the remnants of a chilly, soaking nor'easter.
The space station was a balmy 78 degrees.
"Those guys are kicking butt even though it's cold," William said when told of the times of her friends and sister.
Williams woke up several hours earlier than her crew mates because of the marathon.
Williams qualified for the Boston race by finishing the Houston Marathon in January in 3:29:
Like many of her counterparts on the ground, she took a couple of short breaks of a minute or two to stretch her legs or adjust her harness.
Her crew mates tossed snacks of orange pieces at her in the weightlessness of space.
South America's political heavyweights clashed over ethanol, exposing a rift on Monday at an energy summit that host Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez hoped would cement anti-U.S. unity.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the leader of the continent's largest economy who has moved closer to U.S. President George W. Bush over ethanol output, swiped at Chavez, rejecting his fellow leftist's criticism of their plan.
Chavez, who wins political influence with the OPEC nation's subsidized energy exports to its neighbors, denounced Bush's project to promote ethanol production in developing countries as a sure-fire way to increase hunger by lifting food prices.
But Lula, who has cultivated ties with both right-winger Bush and his leftist antagonist Chavez, said there was sufficient arable land in South America
"We have a huge territory, not only in Brazil, but in all South American countries, and Africa, which can easily produce oil seeds for biodiesel, sugar cane for ethanol, and food at the same time," Lula said on his weekly radio show before arriving at the two-day, 12-nation summit.
In public, Chavez and Lula shared hugs, smiles and quips about soccer as they toured of a Brazilian-Venezuelan petrochemical project.
But they also said they wanted to discuss ethanol behind closed doors.
"We are above all South South Americans ... and we should put all efforts into creating the great homeland that is South America," he told presidents from the region in a speech decrying what he said was the U.S. colonialism of the "North".
David Dain Smith lives in Missouri, but his California winery is just a click away, waiting to spring to life in the dim glow of his computer screen.
Smith is making wine through Crushpad, a winery where the grapes are real but the experience is as virtual as members want it to be with e-mail updates, live chat and Web cams.
The meeting of technology and enology has democratized other areas as well, New York musician Lane Steinberg said.
Today, Steinberg is one of scores of keyboard connoisseurs who rate wines on his Red Wine Haiku Review Web site, which rates wine by poetry.
("Berry jangle jumps/Through a hoop of a sunrise/A swinger's breakfast" was his description of one pinot noir.)
Members sign up to make at least one barrel of wine per year (300 75- milliliter bottles) and decide what style of wine they want and what grapes they want to buy from numerous suppliers available.
Winery staff keep their virtual vintners up to date with e-mails and Web postings.
When the fruit comes in, Web cams show the crush, complete with live chat so viewers can question the workers, who respond to computers equipped with voice-recognition software.
Further along in the process, members can participate in blending and bottling decisions and design their own labels.
Staff, including Crushpad winemaker Mike Zitzlaff, are there to make sure enthusiasm doesn't triumph over experience.
Interaction isn't all by Internet.
Several members take vacation time to take part in key events, such as bottling, or to just hang out.
Still, having to be on camera at 4 a.m. to be in sync with tasters in the United Kingdom and North America led to a less than palatable pairing:
toothpaste and wine.
"He just stepped within five feet of the door and just started firing," said Erin Sheehan who was in one of the Norris Hall classrooms where the second shooting incident took place.
Sheehan described the gunman who later shot and killed himself according to police as a young man wearing a short-sleeved tan shirt and black ammunition vest.
"He was very silent," said Sheehan, one of only four students in her 25-student German class who were not shot.
The gunman left but returned in about 30 seconds. "I guess he heard us still talking," said Sheehan.
"We forced ourselves against the door so he couldn't come in again, because the door would not lock.
The man tried three more times to force his way in and then began firing through the door, she said.
Student Tiffany Otey was taking a test inside Norris Hall when the shooting began.
She and about 20 other people took refuge behind a locked door in a teacher's office.
"They were telling us to put our hands above our head and if we didn't cooperate and put our hands above our heads they would shoot," Otey said.
Some students leaped from windows to escape said Matt Waldron.
"These two kids I guess had panicked and jumped out of the top-story window and the one kid broke his ankle and the other girl was not in good shape just lying on the ground."
The shooter attacked more than one classroom at Norris Hall, according to police.
The death total there 31 including the gunman makes it the deadliest shooting in U.S. history.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2697782
Nude photographs of Kate Moss will be sold at an auction next month among a series of other pictures of the British model, Christie's auctioneers said Monday.
The photos will be auctioned in London on May 31.
An unpublished photograph, being sold by one of Moss' friends, is expected to sell for &pound;
The portrait, taken by photographer Corinne Day in 1990, was shot in London two years after Moss was discovered at a New York airport at age 14.
Yuka Yamaji, head of photography for the auction house, called Moss "a cultural icon and arguably the most influential model of our day.
Barry Nelson, an MGM contract player during the 1940s who later had a prolific theater career and was the first actor to play James Bond on screen, has died.
Nelson died on April 7 while traveling in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, his wife, Nansi Nelson, said Friday.
The cause of death was not immediately known, she said.
After graduating from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1941, Nelson was signed to MGM after being spotted by a talent scout.
He appeared in a number of films for the studio in 1942, including "Shadow of the Thin Man," "Johnny Eager" and "Dr. Kildare's Victory."
He also landed the leading role in "A Yank on the Burma Road," playing a cab driver who decides to lead a convoy of trucks for the Chinese government.
After the war, Nelson starred in a string of movies, including "Undercover Maisie," "Time to Kill" and "Tenth Avenue Angel.
He is the answer to the trivia question:
Who was the first actor to play James Bond?
Before Sean Connery was tapped to play the British agent on the big screen in 1962's "Dr.
"He was a very naturalistic, believable actor," said his agent, Francis Delduca. "He was good at both comedy and the serious stuff.
More recently, Nelson and his second wife (they married in 1992) spent a lot of time traveling.
He planned to write a couple of books about his time on stage and in Hollywood.
Nelson is survived by his wife. He did not have any children from either marriage.
A pair of roadside bombs exploded along a commercial street in central Baghdad's Karrada district Monday, killing eight people and wounding 23 others, police said.
The first bomb detonated around 7:30 a.m. (11:
30 p.m. ET Sunday). The second bomb exploded as authorities and people in the area responded to the first attack.
It was the second day in a row that the Karrada district was hit by bombs.
On Sunday, a minibus packed with explosives blew up on a commercial road there, killing 11 people and wounding 15 others, a Baghdad police official said.
Separately, police said 30 bullet-riddled bodies were found by Iraqi police across the capital on Sunday.
These deaths are typically attributed to sectarian violence in the capital between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.
On Sunday, a string of car bombs and suicide attacks across Iraq killed and wounded dozens to cap a bloody weekend for the war-ravaged nation.
Reports of the attacks came as the British Ministry of Defense announced that two British military helicopters apparently collided and crashed Sunday in a rural area on the northern outskirts of Baghdad, killing two British troops and injuring four others, one seriously.
Initial reports suggest the crash was an accident and enemy fire was not involved, British Defense Secretary Des Browne said.
The dead were from the Royal Air Force and British army, Browne said.
Japan's leading toilet maker Toto Ltd. is offering free repairs for 180,000 bidet toilets after wiring problems caused several to catch fire, the company said Monday.
The electric bidet accessory of Toto's Z series caught fire in three separate incidents between March 2006 and March 2007, according to company spokeswoman Emi Tanaka.
The bidet sent up smoke in 26 other incidents, the company said.
"Fortunately, nobody was using the toilets when the fire broke out and there were no injuries," Tanaka said. "The fire would have been just under your buttocks.
The company will repair 180,000 toilet units manufactured between May 1996 and December 2001 for free, she said. A manufacturing defect is thought to have led to the faulty wiring.
Toto has been a pioneer in high-tech toilets fitted with pressurized water sprayers a standard fixture in Japanese homes.
The model is not sold overseas.
Pakistan's tourism minister says she fears for her life after clerics at a radical mosque issued an edict accusing her of sinning by hugging her French parachute-jumping instructor, the state news agency reported.
Minister of Tourism Nilofar Bakhtiar told a parliamentary committee of her fear on Saturday following the Taliban-style edict against her by Islamic clerics at Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, in Islamabad, the Associated Press of Pakistan reported.
The clerics said the hug was "an illegitimate and forbidden act" and "without any doubt, she has committed a great sin.
Two clerics at the mosque issued the edict against Bakhtiar a week ago, demanding that she be sacked, her family punish her and she be made to ask for forgiveness after pictures in the Pakistani media showed Bakhtiar hugging her parachute-jumping instructor at a fundraising jump in France.
Hundreds of students from an Islamic seminary attached to the mosque have been running an anti-vice campaign in Islamabad, threatening music shops and brothels, in a bold challenge to President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, a U.S. ally who has pledged to promote moderate Islam.
Bakhtiar was not immediately available for comment on Sunday.
BLACKSBURG, Virginia (CNN) At least 33 people, including a gunman, were killed Monday during shootings in a dorm and a classroom building at Virginia Tech, university officials said.
Two people were killed at a dormitory about 7:15 a.m., while another 30 people were killed about two hours later at Norris Hall the engineering science and mechanics building university officials said.
University police Chief Wendell Flinchum said police were still investigating whether the two incidents are related.
The death toll at Norris Hall makes the incident the deadliest school attack in U.S. history, surpassing attacks at Columbine High School in 1999 and at the University of Texas in 1966.
The gunman at Norris Hall, who police say took his own life, was not carrying identification and has not been identified.
Asked why the campus, which has more than 26,000 students, was not shut down after the first shooting, Flinchum responded that police determined "it was an isolated event to that building and the decision was made not to cancel classes at that time.
Steger added, "We had some reason to believe the shooter had left campus.
Scott Hill, a spokesman for Montgomery Regional Hospital in Blacksburg, where 17 wounded students were taken, said he wasn't expecting any more victims.
(Map of Blacksburg)
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) Anti-U.S. Shiite cleric and militia leader Muqtada al-Sadr will announce Monday the departure of his movement's six ministers from Iraq's government to press demands for the U.S. to leave Iraq, the bloc's spokesman Saleh al-Ageili told CNN.
The move makes good on a threat issued last week after Iraq's prime minister rejected a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S.-led troops, said al-Ageili.
The withdrawal will not affect Sadr's 30 members of parliament, .
The powerful political movement boycotted Iraq's government for two months after Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki met with President Bush in November.
Al-Sadr, widely popular in Iraq's Shiite heartland, opposes the U.S. occupation of Iraq and, during the war, his Mehdi Army militia has fiercely fought coalition and Iraqi forces.
Many opponents of the occupation have demanded a timetable for U.S. troop withdrawal, an issue heavily debated in the United States.
Speaking on Tuesday in Japan, al-Maliki said "achievements and victories" on the ground not timetables should determine the "departure of international forces" from his war-torn country.
"We are progressing on the security issue day by day because we are having security responsibility handed over to us continuously," al-Maliki said. "We see no need for a withdrawal timetable because we are working as fast as we can.
Reacting to al-Maliki's comments, al-Sadr's political committee issued a statement Wednesday warning its cabinet ministers might quit as a result.
The protesters chanted slogans against President Vladimir Putin, whom they blame for rolling back democratic reforms in Russia and persecuting his political opponents.
Dozens were arrested at the unauthorized St. Petersburg rally, including Eduard Limonov, an opposition leader and member of "The Other Russia" a coalition of opposition groups that organized the rally.
Limonov was freed late Sunday, his office told CNN.
The main rally ended after the arrests, but a few protesters remained on the streets Sunday night.
During the Moscow demonstrations Saturday, police detained and then released former world chess champion Garry Kasparov, who has emerged as a political opposition leader.
Video of Sunday's rally showed rows of police in full riot gear, armed with batons, advancing behind metal shields.
At one point, the line of police took several steps backwards as the crowd of onlookers and protesters shouted.
The opposition has been trying to build support around the country ahead of parliamentary elections scheduled later this year and presidential elections set for next year by getting people into the streets to voice opposition.
However, despite the vocal activists, the great majority of Russians support Putin, who is credited with bringing stability and relative economic prosperity to Russia.
A news release from The Other Russia put the number of protesters at 3,000 and said "the brutality of the police response has surpassed that of the Moscow rally.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2696806
The relationship break up of Britain's Prince William and longtime girlfriend Kate Middleton sparked a media frenzy Sunday, as the country's newspapers speculated on the reasons behind the split.
In the absence of any official comment, reports blamed pressure from the queen, a relationship turned sour and the prince's army career for ending the five year romance which many had forecast would result in marriage.
The tabloid News of the World, sister paper to the Sun which broke the surprise revelation on Saturday claimed the decision was made at a "royal summit."
It said the prince, second in line to the throne, had been warned by his grandmother Queen Elizabeth, that he was in danger of "creating another Diana" if he rushed into marriage.
The claimed comments reflect similarities drawn by observers between Middleton and the prince's mother, who died in a 1997 car crash after separating from Prince Charles.
The Mail on Sunday newspaper chewed on the details of the break-up, claiming the 24-year-old prince had told his girlfriend the relationship had reached its natural conclusion.
"It's just not fun any more," he said, according to the paper.
The Mail, seen as the voice of Britain's right wing middle class, also speculated that the rift was partly blamed on the social status of non-royal Middleton.
"Prince Charles has suggested to him that it would not be fair to keep Kate hanging on if he was not prepared to marry her sooner rather than later," it quoted a royal insider saying.
The Observer newspaper gave a more
straightforward account of the break-up, blaming the prince's "increasing commitment to an army career.
WASHINGTON (CNN) The Senate Judiciary Committee's ranking Republican warned Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to avoid generalizations and "deal with the facts," two days before Gonzales is expected to answer questions about the dismissal of eight U.S. attorneys.
Sen. Arlen Specter's admonition came Sunday after The Washington Post published an editorial in which the embattled attorney general said he never asked that any prosecutor be fired "for an improper reason.
"Furthermore, I have no basis to believe that anyone involved in this process sought the removal of a U.S. attorney for an improper reason," Gonzales wrote.
Also Sunday, the Justice Department released a copy of remarks Gonzales will make during his Tuesday testimony before the Judiciary Committee.
Gonzales is scheduled to tell the committee that he has nothing to hide and that he "never sought to mislead or deceive the Congress or the American people about my role in this matter. "
Specter further said during the ABC interview that Gonzales has a "steep hill to climb" and will face "serious questions" about his role in the firings.
"I think the attorney general is going to have to explain how he said he was not involved in discussions when the e-mails [released by the Justice Department] show that he was at the meeting when all of these matters were discussed," Specter said.
A top Democrat and committee member joined Specter on Sunday in warning Gonzales to answer questions fully.
"Let me be clear: This is a very, very important hearing," said Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York. "It's make or break for the attorney general. Alberto Gonzales is the central figure in this investigation."
Schumer said he sent Gonzales a list of questions last week for him to answer Tuesday and the attorney general did not answer one of them in his prepared opening statement.
Accusing Gonzales of "contradictions" in statements he has given about the firings, Schumer complained that "we still don't have all of the documents we requested from the Justice Department.
"And the White House continues to stonewall us when it comes to providing key documents and offering White House officials for interviews," he said.
Iran said Sunday it is seeking bids for the building of two more nuclear power plants, despite international pressures to curb its controversial program.
Ahmad Fayyazbakhsh, the deputy head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization in charge of power plants, said the plants would be light-water reactors, each with the capacity to generate up to 1,600 megawatts of electricity.
Each plant would cost up to $1.7 billion and take up to 11 years to construct, he told reporters during a news conference at his office.
The country has been locked in a bitter funding dispute with Russia, which is building Iran's first nuclear power plant near the southern city of Bushehr.
Russia delayed the launch of the plant, which had been set for September, and refused to ship uranium fuel for the reactor last month as earlier planned, citing Iran's payment arrears.
Iranian officials denied any payment delays under the $1 billion contract, and accused Russia of caving in to Western pressure.
Iran is already building a 40-megawatt heavy water reactor in Arak, central Iran, based on domestic technology.
It is also preparing to build a 360-megawatt nuclear power plant in Darkhovin, in southwestern Iran.
Fayyazbakhsh said the two new plants would be built near Bushehr.
Two French aid workers and three Afghans kidnapped by Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan appeared in a video broadcast Saturday by the pan-Arab satellite channel Al-Arabiya.
Earlier in the day, Canada's public broadcaster, CBC, posted on its Web site still photographs taken from the video but did not broadcast the tape.
Tony Burman, the editor and chief of CBC, said the broadcaster's bureau in Kandahar obtained the video Friday through a contact.
It was not immediately clear how Al-Arabiya got its copy.
The gray, grainy footage shows a man talking to the camera and then a woman wearing a white head scarf also speaking, but Al-Arabiya did not broadcast their voices.
"The French hostages said on the tape that they were told that if there isn't a positive response on the part of French authorities to what the Taliban is asking, then they will be killed within a matter of days," Burman said. He said he did not know what those demands are.
The five had not been seen since disappearing April 3 in Afghanistan's southwestern Nimroz province.
Burman said CBC was told the video was shot Thursday.
In Paris, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy declined to comment on the video, saying the footage was being analyzed.
He stressed France was determined to get the workers released.
"More than ever, our objective is to bring them home safe and sound," he said.
French President Jacques Chirac asked the Afghan government for help Thursday.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai told Chirac during their phone conversation "that the relevant authorities will do their best to secure their release," said Karzai spokesman Karim Rahimi.
Karzai has ruled out exchanging jailed Taliban fighters for hostages, since coming under heavy criticism for Afghan
authorities freeing five Taliban in return for the release of an Italian journalist who had been kidnapped March 5 with two Afghan colleagues.
Back when Kirk Douglas and Spencer Tracy were on the job you could spot a newshound by his rolled-up sleeves, the way he wore his fedora and his two-fingered typing style (with a smoke and a flask nearby).
Fashions change.
Even when she's working undercover as a temp, her wardrobe remains firmly in the upper tax bracket.
In fact the only detail that truly says "journalist" here is Ro's pathetic dependence on tech support, in the fidgety form of devoted computer geek Miles (Giovanni Ribisi).
There's no such thing as safe sex in an erotic thriller.
"Perfect Stranger" resurrects most of the cynical old tropes adulterous yuppies, slippery plotting and kinky accessories then rewires them with the addition of chat rooms, text messages and spyware.
But for all its perfunctory stabs at the cutting edge, the movie's cyber-angst seems a decade out of date.
And filmmakers still haven't figured out how to make instant messaging visually interesting.
The truth is, though, this story might have worked better told from a different perspective.
A powerful nor'easter pounded the East with wind and pouring rain Sunday, grounding airlines and threatening to create some of the worst coastal flooding some areas had seen in more than a decade.
The storm flooded people out of their homes in the middle of the night in West Virginia and trapped others.
Other inland states faced a threat of heavy snow.
One person was killed as dozens of mobile homes were destroyed or damaged by wind in South Carolina.
The storm system already had been blamed for five deaths on Friday in Kansas and Texas.
The Coast Guard had warned mariners to head for port because wind up to 55 mph was expected to generate seas up to 20 feet high, Petty Officer Etta Smith said Sunday in Boston.
Airlines canceled more than 400 flights at the New York area's three major airports, said Steve Coleman, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
The storm forced the cancellation of five major league baseball games Sunday and gave runners in Monday's Boston Marathon something to worry about besides Heartbreak Hill.
"I don't like that," professional Kenyan runner Stanley Leleito said playfully, burying his head in his hands when told of the forecast.
Several highways were flooded around New Jersey.
Embattled World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz said Sunday he will continue to lead bank efforts to reduce global poverty, resisting calls to step down over his involvement in securing a huge pay increase for a close female friend.
"The bank has important work to do and I will continue to do it," he said at a news conference winding up a meeting of the steering committee for the bank and the International Monetary Fund.
"We have to ensure that the bank can effectively carry out its mandate and maintain its credibility and reputation as well as the motivation of its staff, " the committee said.
In answering questions from reporters about whether he should resign, Wolfowitz referred several times to the committee's communique and said he did not want any comments he made to get in the way of the board's work.
"I believe in the mission of this organization, I intend to carry it out, I have had many expressions of support," he said.
He attached excerpts that referred to his offer, when he became president of the bank two years ago, to refrain from dealings with his companion, Shaha Riza, who then worked in the bank's Middle East department.
But The Washington Post said he did not include his lawyer's subsequent clarification that the recusal offer did not include a ban on "professional contact.
The United States urged North Korea on Sunday to invite international inspectors back and begin shutting down a nuclear reactor, but the top U.S. negotiator repeated that Washington would give Pyongyang a few more days.
"We're flexible, we're reasonable, but it's time to get moving," Assistant Secretary of State Chris Hill told reporters in Beijing before heading to see China's Great Wall.
"We have agreed that we need to give this process another few days," Hill said, adding that Pyongyang should call back International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors. Under a February
13 multilateral deal, Pyongyang agreed to shut down its Soviet-era Yongbyon plant within 60 days but it seems it has not made good on that pledge because of millions of dollars frozen in North Korean accounts at a Macau bank.
North Korea has insisted the money be freed before it will comply with the agreement but the United States has said the funds have been unblocked and should no longer be an issue.
North Korea said on Friday it would soon check whether it could access about $25 million in the accounts at Macau's Banco Delta Asia, which were frozen after the United States said it suspected the bank of being involved in money laundering.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) A string of car bombs and suicide attacks across Iraq on Sunday killed and wounded dozens in what has been a bloody weekend for the war-ravaged nation.
Reports of the attacks came as the British Ministry of Defense announced that two British military helicopters apparently collided and crashed Sunday in a rural area on the northern outskirts of Baghdad, killing two British troops and injuring four others, one seriously.
Initial reports suggest the crash was an accident and enemy fire was not involved, British Defense Secretary Des Browne said.
The dead were from the Royal Air Force and British army, Browne said.
Also Sunday morning, two car bombs exploded within minutes of each other in a shopping and dining area of southwest Baghdad, killing at least 18 people and wounding another 52 people, according to Baghdad police.
The first bomb hit a popular restaurant at about 10 a.m., while a second one exploded 10 minutes later and 100 yards away in an outdoor market in al-Shurta al-Rabeia district, police said.
Later, in northwestern Baghdad, a suicide bomber detonated an explosive vest on a small bus, killing six people and wounding 11, Baghdad police said.
The bus was traveling between the predominantly Shiite neighborhoods of Autaifiya and Kadhimiya.
In central Baghdad's Karrada district, a minibus packed with explosives blew up on a commercial road, killing 11 people and wounding 15 others, a Baghdad police official said.
QUEBEC CITY, Quebec (AP) NATO wants about 3,400 more trainers for the Afghanistan army and police, and the United States may fill some of those jobs despite difficulties finding available troops, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday.
The United States probably would be responsible for fewer than 1,000 of the training spots, while U.S. officials hope European nations will provide the rest.
"We would like to try and fill some of them, but quite frankly we're having trouble identifying" troops, Gates said, speaking to reporters on the plane returning to Washington from meeting with allies on the Afghanistan war effort. "We can fill some of them, but we don't have the ability right now to fill all of them.
Gates said the American troops would come from new forces that would be deployed to Afghanistan. He said part of the problem is that many of the trainers are National Guard forces, "and we have a hard time identifying who would go.
Gates was returning from a meeting in Quebec with defense ministers from allies also serving in the southern sector of Afghanistan.
Gates said the request came from commanders about six weeks ago, and defense officials at the Quebec meeting agreed that it should be filled.
The NATO-led coalition there still needs aircraft, medical equipment and military trainers to bolster its planned spring assault against the Taliban, according to the U.S. military.
Gates said the group which included defense ministers from Canada, Britain, Australia, the Netherlands, Denmark and Romania talked mostly about how to better coordinate their military and civilian activities, including the reconstruction efforts.
He also said it appears that the NATO allies are prepared to make a long-term commitment to the struggling nation.
"I think all of us anticipate that this is a years-long process," he said, adding that the coalition members also understand that they have to establish a secure environment in Afghanistan in order for the other improvements to take hold.
NATO has repeatedly asked that member nations fill the shortfalls in troops and equipment, as well as loosen restrictions on some forces who are limited in what they can do or where they can go.
But a number of European countries, including France and Germany, have been reluctant to respond and have openly questioned whether it is wise to commit more troops to the fight there.
The United States has about 25,000 troops in Afghanistan, including some 14,000 serving in the NATO-led force, which totals roughly 32,000 troops.
º» ±â»ç´Â µû
A British soldier on a routine patrol was killed in a firefight with Taliban militants in southern Afghanistan Friday, the British Defense Ministry said.
The incident occurred in Now Zad, in northwest Helmand province, where British troops in NATO's International Security Assistance Force are based.
NATO earlier reported a death in southern Afghanistan but did not release the soldier's nationality.
Members of the unit "were returning from a routine security reassurance patrol when they spotted a five-man Taliban team attempting to set up an ambush," the Defense Ministry said. That occurred around 9:30 a.m.
"It was during this firefight that a member of the patrol received serious gunshot wounds and a Chinook helicopter from the Incident Response Team rushed to the scene, supported by an Apache attack helicopter," it said. "The Chinook landed at the scene under constant fire, while the Apache engaged the Taliban forces with its 30 mm cannon. "
The soldier, evacuated to a medical facility at a British base, was pronounced dead on arrival, the ministry said.
"The patrol were later engaged by another large Taliban force in a contact which lasted over two hours.
A U.S. Army commander on Friday said authorities still can't verify who bombed the Iraqi parliament complex on Thursday, but al Qaeda in Iraq probably was involved.
Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, the commander of the Multinational Corps-Iraq, told reporters at the Pentagon via teleconference from Iraq that his hunch, "based on past events," is that al Qaeda in Iraq is "probably somewhat involved.
He made the remark not long after news emerged of a Web site claim of responsibility by an insurgent umbrella group called the Islamic State of Iraq. Al Qaeda in Iraq is in that group.
"Obviously, we're still conducting the investigation along with the Iraqi minister of interior, supporting his efforts," Odierno said.
Earlier Friday, authorities said they had detained people for questioning in the suicide attack, which killed a Sunni lawmaker and wounded 22 other people in the parliament's cafeteria.
Initial reports of as many as eight deaths were incorrect.
There's plenty of defenses there, and they should not be able to penetrate it.
Iraqi authorities are questioning three cafeteria workers and several security officers, said Hassan al-Sineid, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's adviser.
The suicide attacker killed Mohammed Awadh, a Sunni lawmaker.
Iraq's parliament, the Council of Representatives, convened on Friday in a special session. However, the session was poorly attended.
"Hopefully after this tragedy, there will be a sense of national unity because these terrorists attack all Iraqis despite backgrounds.
It requires all of us to rise above differences and truly to be a unified force to defeat this scourge from our land," Saleh said.
Synonymous with Cuba, just like Castro and Che Guevara, cigars are revered by connoisseurs and part of the country's political landscape.
Since the U.S. trade embargo was imposed more than 40 years ago as part of President Kennedy's stand against the communist government, Americans have been banned from buying cigars from Cuba.
Despite this, cigars that come from fields like those in the western province of Pinar del Rio are among the most sought-after.
The soil in the western part of the country is considered the best in the world for growing tobacco.
It's the only region where all kinds of tobacco leaves are produced the wrapper, binder and smooth-smoking filler.
Habanos is the arm of the Cuban state tobacco monopoly, Cubatabaco, which controls the promotion, distribution, and exportation of Cuban cigars and other tobacco products worldwide.
"You cannot make a cigar like a Cuban cigar in another country. Why?
Because there is the combination of soil, climate, a legendary long tradition, the workers in the field, the tobacco leaf that's totally different from other ones," says Manuel Garcia, corporate vice president of Habanos.
Habanos markets 27 premium cigar brands, including Montecristo, Romeo y Julieta and Cohibas.
Cubatobaco works with Altadis of Spain and markets in 120 countries. Sales in 2006 rose almost 10 percent to $370 million.
"We have a corporation that belongs 50 percent to the Cuban government and 50 percent to a foreign company, but we do not have a conflict," Garcia says.
"We have the same target, we have the same way of thinking about the product and it helps a lot of because we have a product that is very important.
They have a lot of know-how and they have also a lot of money, the financial support that we have, and together we make things a success.
There's no doubt tobacco production is back-breaking work add to that high temperatures, humidity and long hours the method of growing the leaves in the sun is a long Cuban tradition.
Farmers are proud to turn their experienced hands to this delicate task.
At a casa de tabaco, or drying house, leaves that have grown to maturity are sewn together in pairs on a cuje, a four-foot-long straight pole, and fermented.
The next step is in sorting houses, which are hugely important, both economically and socially, for their place in the community.
It is mostly women who work here, selecting and classifying the leaves.
The volado is light in flavor, the seco stronger and the ligero has a distinct aroma and is slowest burning of all the leaves.
Strict quality controls begin in the field and end in the factories.
As for the Cuban economy, it's estimated the entire cigar industry brings in $200 million dollars.
A senior member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative party sparked outrage among German Jews and politicians by saying a former colleague and Third Reich military judge was not a Nazi, according to a Reuters report.
Guenther Oettinger, the regional governor of Baden-Wuerttemberg, defended Hans Filbinger, who became a symbol of post-war Germany's failure to face up to the legacy of Hitler's Third Reich, at a memorial service for the politician who died earlier this month.
The Greens accused Oettinger of rewriting history.
Filbinger denied any wrongdoing but drew wide condemnation for his part in the execution of a sailor and death sentences he issued in absentia for two others in occupied Norway at the end of World War Two.
Russian billionaire Boris Berezovsky said he is planning a revolution in Russia to topple President Vladimir Putin, in comments published on Friday.
"We need to use force to change this regime," Berezovsky, who has received asylum in Britain, told the Guardian newspaper.
"It isn't possible to change this regime through democratic means.
There can be no change without force, pressure.
Asked if he was fomenting a revolution, he said: "You are absolutely correct.
Berezovsky, a vocal critic of Putin, said he was in contact with members of Russia's political elite.
He said these people who he did not name because, he said, that would endanger their lives shared his opinion that Putin was eroding democratic reforms, centralizing power and infringing Russia's constitution, according to the Guardian.
"If one part of the political elite disagrees with another part of the political elite that is the only way in Russia to change the regime. I try to move that. "
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov condemned the comments as a criminal offence and hoped they would prompt questions about Berezovsky's refugee status in Britain, the Guardian said.
"In accordance with our legislation (his remarks are) being treated as a crime.
It will cause some questions from the British authorities to Mr Berezovsky," Peskov was quoted as saying.
Last month, Berezovsky met Russian investigators in London to answer questions over the killing of ex-KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko. He has also launched a $500,000 foundation in honor of Litvinenko who was poisoned and died in London last November.
Hours after he was fired by CBS, radio host Don Imus met Thursday night with the Rutgers women athletes whom he had ridiculed with racist and sexist comments.
The Rutgers women's basketball coach called the meeting with Imus "productive."
CBS' decision to dump Imus came a day after NBC Universal decided to cancel his simulcast on MSNBC and followed nearly a week of cries for the firing of the radio host.
The Rev. Al Sharpton applauded the Imus firings as a victory in the battle against abuse of the airwaves.
CBS, which carried Imus on 61 radio stations, had originally announced it would suspend his show for two weeks.
Amid the outcry over his on-air racial slur, Imus said Thursday that he had "apologized enough" and that he will not go on "some talk show tour.
"I'm not going to go talk to Larry King or Barbara Walters or anyone else," Imus said on his flagship station in New York, WFAN-AM, which is owned by CBS Corp. and distributed "Imus in the Morning" nationally.
White House aides, with U.S. President George W. Bush's blessing, are actively trying to hire a new point person to help pilot the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, an administration official told CNN.
"There's an urgency to get this done," the official said, in referring to the administration's new security plan for Iraq. "Implementation and execution are critical now."
The "war czar" would report directly to Bush with the power to tell Cabinet secretaries what to do and yet have the diplomatic skills not "to use that tone of voice," the official said.
The official title would be assistant to the president for Iraq and Afghanistan policy implementation, the official added.
The idea behind the post is to make sure "Washington is responsive to military and civilian needs" on a timely basis and reduce bureaucratic problems that have hampered war efforts, the official said.
Pressed on why the new position is being created now, after more than five years of war in Afghanistan and four years in Iraq, the official acknowledged that "implementation and execution is as important" as "policy development.
With Bush's plan to increase troop levels in Iraq under way and a new team of generals in place, the creation of one point of contact for all the agencies and departments involved is timely, the official said.
At least three four-star generals approached by the White House about the job have declined consideration, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.
Some Democrats have ridiculed the idea of a "war czar," saying that should be Bush's role as commander-in-chief.
World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz admitted Thursday he made a mistake and apologized for his handling of the promotion and pay increase of his girlfriend and staffer Shaha Riza.
"I proposed to the board that they establish some mechanism to judge whether the agreement reached was a reasonable outcome," Wolfowitz said in a statement he read at a news conference before upcoming meetings of finance ministers in Washington this weekend.
"I will accept any remedies they propose," he added. Wolfowitz defended his actions to send Riza on an external assignment to the U.S. State Department soon after he joined the bank in 2005, saying he was in "uncharted waters" in his new
The bank's board, which includes government representatives from the bank's 185 member countries, was meeting on the matter Thursday.
But the World Bank's employee representative group called for Wolfowitz to resign during a staff meeting at the bank.
"The president must acknowledge that his conduct has compromised the integrity and effectiveness of the World Bank Group and has destroyed the staff's trust in his leadership," according to written remarks presented at the meeting by staff association chair Alison Cave and obtained by Reuters.
Wolfowitz, who was nominated by President Bush, joined the bank after serving as deputy defense secretary at the Pentagon, where he was one of the chief architects of the U.S. war strategy in Iraq.
The White House, which nominated Wolfowitz for the job in 2005, reiterated its support for him.
Four-year-old Bernas isn't the computer wizard his mom is, but he's learning.
Just the other day he used his lips and feet to play a game on the touch-screen monitor as his mom, Madu, swung from vines and climbed trees.
The two Sumatran orangutans at Zoo Atlanta are playing computer games while researchers study the cognitive skills of the orange and brown primates.
The orangutans use a touch screen built into a tree-like structure that blend in with their zoo habitat.
Visitors watch from a video monitor in front of the exhibit.
"That's so cool," Jeri McCarthy told her three daughters as Bernas drew a red, blue and yellow picture on the screen.
Zoo officials hope the exhibit will raise awareness of the rapidly diminishing wild orangutan population, which is on track to completely disappear in the next decade, and potentially provide keys to their survival.
"The more we understand about orangutan's cognitive processes, the more we'll understand about what they need to survive in the wild," said Tara Stoinski, manager of conservation partnerships for the zoo. "It enables us to show the public how smart they are.
In one game, orangutans choose identical photographs or match orangutan sounds with photos of the animals correct answers are rewarded with food pellets.
Another game lets them draw pictures by moving their hands and other body parts around the screen.
Printouts of their masterpieces are on display in the zoo.
The computer games, which volunteers from IBM spent nearly 500 hours developing, test the animals' memory, reasoning and learning, spitting out sheets of data for researchers at the zoo and Atlanta's Center for Behavioral Neuroscience, a partner in the project.
The data will help researchers learn about socializing patterns, such as whether they mimic others or learn behavior from scratch through trial and error, said Elliott Albers with the Center for Behavioral Neuroscience.
Researchers hope the data can point to new conservation strategies to help the 37,000 orangutans living in the wild on the Indonesian islands of Borneo and Sumatra.
You can't blame this gene, named FTO, for all the extra inches.
But British scientists discovered that people who carry two copies of a variation of the FTO gene weighed, on average, 7 pounds more than people who lack it.
Unlike other genes thought to be involved with appetite or calorie burning, scientists have no idea yet what FTO is supposed to do.
But research published in Friday's edition of the journal Science shows strong evidence of a link.
Using blood samples provided by more than 38,000 people, scientists found that those who had one copy of the gene variation had a 30 percent increased risk of obesity, and carriers of two copies had almost a 70 percent increased risk.
The study included mostly white Europeans, and about one in six of them are thought to carry two copies of the gene variant, concluded the British team, from the University of Oxford and the Peninsula Medical Center in Exeter.
About a third of American adults are obese, and millions more are overweight.
The work was funded by the Wellcome Trust, a British medical charity.
She may drop a few pounds here and there, but "Ugly Betty" star America Ferrera says she'll never become a Hollywood waif.
"There are times when I go to the gym and really try, and there are times when I just don't," the actress, who turns 23 on Wednesday, tells W magazine in its May issue.
I lose a pound. But I think I've developed a really good sense of when I'm doing something for myself as opposed to when I'm doing something because of other people's expectations of me.
Ferrera is on the rise:
She won Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards this year for her role as awkward assistant Betty Suarez on "Ugly Betty," and has appeared on a host of magazine covers.
Salma Hayek, an executive producer of the ABC comedy, charmed Ferrara into accepting the part.
"Honestly I never saw myself doing TV, but Salma was so convincing," says Ferrera, who's starred in the movies "Real Women Have Curves" and "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.
"Salma is the kind of person who could sell you, like, a used stereo. She promised me that it would be done in the right way, and I just trusted her.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2694252 Tiny bits of protein extracted from a 68-million-year-old dinosaur bone have given scientists the first genetic proof that the mighty Tyrannosaurus rex is a distant cousin to the modern chicken.
"It's the first molecular evidence of this link between birds and dinosaurs," said John Asara, a Harvard Medical School researcher, whose results were published in Friday's edition of the journal Science.
Scientists have long suspected that birds evolved from dinosaurs based on a study of dinosaur bones, but until recently, no soft tissue had survived to confirm the link.
That all changed in 2005 when Mary Higby Schweitzer of North Carolina State University reported finding soft tissue, including blood vessels and cells, in a T. rex bone dug out of sandstone from the fossil-rich Hell Creek Formation in Montana.
Schweitzer, in another study appearing in this week's issue of Science, found that extracts of T. rex bone reacted with antibodies to chicken collagen, further suggesting the presence of birdlike protein in dinosaur bones.
"It was very tough to get anything," he said in a telephone interview.
"Based on all of the genomic information we have available today, it appears these sequences are closer to birds or chickens than anything else," Asara said.
President Bush's aides are lying about White House e-mails sent on a Republican account that might have been lost, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy suggested Thursday, vowing to subpoena those documents if the administration fails to cough them up.
They've gone through too many servers," said Leahy, D-Vermont "Those e-mails are there, they just don't want to produce them.
We'll subpoena them if necessary.
White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said there is no effort to purposely keep the e-mails under wraps, and that the counsel's office is doing everything it can to recover any that were lost.
"The purpose of our review is to make every reasonable effort to recover potentially lost e-mails, and that is why we've been in contact with forensic experts," he said.
Citigroup said Wednesday it is cutting 17,000 jobs in its first major overhaul in 10 years but some industry analysts said the cuts could be the exact opposite of what the nation's biggest bank needs.
In addition to the cuts, the New York-based bank said it will move 9,500 jobs to "lower-cost locations" - with about two-thirds of those jobs being moved as the positions become vacant.
The restructuring affects 8 percent of Citi's current work force of 327,000 full-time employees.
Layoffs begin this week.
"17,000 plus 9,500 is the amount of jobs we're really impacting," Citi's Chief Operating Officer Bob Druskin, who managed the review process, told analysts on a conference call.
facing intense pressure from shareholders to juice its bottom line, as the company's stock has risen just 15 percent since Prince took the reins as chief executive in October 2003.
The company plans to close some offices, centralize purchasing, and eliminate positions that duplicate functions, especially in management.
Citi said it expects savings of $2.1 billion this year, $3.7 billion next year and $4.6 billion in 2009 from the job cuts. It will take a pretax charge of about $1.4 billion to pay for one-time costs associated with the cuts.
But Prince said that despite the cuts to "business-as-usual" expenses, Citi's overall expenditures could still rise due to acquisitions and new projects.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) A suicide attack in Iraq's parliament building on Thursday killed eight people, including two Iraqi lawmakers, and wounded 20, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.
It's unclear how a bomber was able to pass through the multiple security checkpoints required to enter the parliament building, which is in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone.
The entrance's security scanner was not working, Abu Bakr told the AP, and pedestrians entering the zone were subject to hand searches and passed through metal detectors, he said.
A television crew from Al-Hurra network was conducting an interview with an Iraqi lawmaker at the time of the blast, which it captured on video.
The camera shook, but the photographer continued filming and traveled through the smoke-filled hallways.
People shouting in Arabic could be heard in the background.
The parliamentary speaker, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, has called for an emergency session Friday morning to show that the attack won't deter lawmakers, Jabbar said.
There were no American casualties in the blast, according to U.S. officials.
Security inside the Green Zone has been compromised in recent weeks, prompting the U.S. Defense Department to require all personnel to wear body armor and helmets when outside buildings, a source said.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao urged Japan's parliament on Thursday not to forget Tokyo's wartime aggression, even as the two Asian powers mend their strained ties and bolster thriving business relations.
Wen the first Chinese leader to address the parliament in 22 years was on a three-day "ice-melting" trip to Japan as the two countries worked to reverse a deterioration in ties caused in part by disagreements about the past.
The Chinese premier, who spent part of Thursday urging Japanese business leaders to invest in China, also struck a conciliatory note, acknowledging Japanese apologies and blaming a clique of militarists for Tokyo's invasions of China.
"To reflect on history is not to dwell on hard feelings but to remember and learn from the past in order to open a better future," he said, adding, however, that he hoped Japan's apologies would be "turned into actions.
The two countries have been at odds in recent years over Japan's invasions and occupation of China in the 1930s and '40s.
On Wednesday, Wen and Abe declared their firm intentions to move forward on rebuilding relations, signed agreements on energy and the environment, and issued a joint statement that laid out a series of issues for the countries to cooperate on. (Full story)
Wen also strove to put a human face on the Chinese government, coming out early Thursday for a jog at a Tokyo park wearing sportswear with a Beijing 2008 Olympics logo
He urged Japanese companies to invest in China, vowing to address vast imbalances in the Chinese economy, improve the natural environment, protect intellectual property rights, continue tax breaks for high-tech companies and proceed with currency reform.
"China must build a society that conserves its resources and protects its environment," Wen said.
Kurt Vonnegut, the satirical novelist who captured the absurdity of war and questioned the advances of science in darkly humorous works such as "Slaughterhouse-Five" and "Cat's Cradle," died Wednesday. He was 84.
Vonnegut, who often marveled that he had lived so long despite his lifelong smoking habit, had suffered brain injuries after a fall at his Manhattan home weeks ago, said his wife, photographer Jill Krementz.
The author of at least 19 novels, many of them best-sellers, as well as dozens of short stories, essays and plays, Vonnegut relished the role of a social critic.
He lectured regularly, exhorting audiences to think for themselves and delighting in barbed commentary against the institutions he felt were dehumanizing people.
He also filled his novels with satirical commentary and even drawings that were only loosely connected to the plot.
In "Slaughterhouse-Five," he drew a headstone with the epitaph: "Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt.
But much in his life was traumatic, and left him in pain.
Despite his commercial success, Vonnegut battled depression throughout his life, and in 1984, he attempted suicide with pills and alcohol.
In World War II, he was being held in Dresden when Allied bombs created a firestorm that killed an estimated 135,000 people in the city.
"The firebombing of Dresden explains absolutely nothing about why I write what I write and am what I am," Vonnegut wrote in "Fates Worse Than Death," his 1991 autobiography of sorts.
He retired from novel writing in his later years but continued to publish short articles.
He had a best-seller in 2005 with "A Man Without a Country,"
He called the book's success "a nice glass of champagne at the end of a life.
"When Hemingway killed himself he put a period at the end of his life; old age is more like a semicolon," Vonnegut told The Associated Press in 2005.
Bayern, the four-times European Cup winners, went into the return as slight favorites at a 66,000 sell-out Allianz Arena, after they had come from behind twice in Milan.
Milan, the six times European Cup winners, became the first team to beat Bayern in a European game at the Allianz Arena.
They now have the advantage of playing the second leg of their semifinal against Manchester United at home.
MSNBC has canceled its "Imus in the Morning" simulcast, the network announced Wednesday.
MSNBC announced on Monday a two-week suspension of its simulcast of Imus' show after Imus referred to the Rutgers players as "nappy-headed hos."
But as part of an "ongoing review process," which included input from its own employees, NBC Universal decided stronger action was necessary, the company said in a statement.
"What matters to us most is that the men and women of NBC Universal have confidence in the values we have set for this company," the statement said. "This is the only decision that makes that possible.
NBC Universal apologized to the Rutgers team and MSNBC viewers in its statement.
"I think that it's probably a victory for the people," said Stringer, who said she was "proud" of corporate executives who "understand that we can do better.
"As an African-American, I believe that Imus has crossed the line, a very bright line that divides our country," said Bruce Gordon, a CBS director and former president and CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
Time to catch up with your ogre friend Shrek, his greenish bride, Fiona, and their two men Friday, the yammering Donkey and the overreaching Puss in Boots.
The filmmakers behind "Shrek the Third" offered a sneak peek at their PDI-DreamWorks animation complex near San Francisco.
From the 20 minutes of footage they showed, the film looks likely to meet expectations as one of summer's hottest tickets.
Key voice stars Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz and Antonio Banderas return, with Justin Timberlake headlining the newcomers as geeky teenager Artie.
"You feel you've got a lot to live up to, man," Timberlake said about being the new kid on the block in the Shrek world.
"Every character is so good. When you come into 'Shrek,' you definitely feel you have a lot to prove.
Here's a rundown of the players and their exploits for the film that hits theaters May 18.
The whole gang returns, led by the key foursome of Shrek (Myers), Donkey (Murphy), Fiona (Diaz) and Puss in Boots (Banderas).
Shrek's still barking at everyone in his Scottish brogue, though married life brings out his softer side more and more.
It wouldn't be a "Shrek" movie without all those goofy bit players, including the three little pigs, Pinocchio and the Gingerbread Man.
A man accused of using a chain and pickup truck to yank a 1,500-pound ATM from a market failed to escape police when his prosthetic leg fell off during the getaway.
Gregory Daniels, 48, was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of burglary for the attempted heist from Pomona Ranch Market, police said.
Authorities say Daniels and another man drove up to the market about 3 a.m., smashed a window, wrapped a chain around the ATM and used the pickup to rip it from the floor.
After loading the cash machine into the truck, the pair drove off.
Officers chased the truck into a residential neighborhood, where the men drove into a dead-end street.
Daniels' alleged accomplice fled, but police said Daniels wasn't able to escape.
"Daniels was on the ground near the vehicle in an attempt to flee from officers," Sgt. E. Vazquez said. "However, he was unsuccessful, as his prosthetic leg fell off.
The ATM and its cash were recovered.
Masondo said 24 of the city's 35 cemeteries were already at full capacity and, although enough spaces remain for the foreseeable future, other options must now be considered.
"The city would like to make an appeal to residents to consider amongst other options, stack burials and cremations," the SAPA news agency quoted Masondo as saying at the opening of a new cemetery on the outskirts of the city.
South African officials have repeatedly warned in recent years of a looming shortage of burial plots, attributed in part to rapid urbanization and a cultural reluctance among African families to consider options such as cremation.
Masondo did not explicitly mention South Africa's HIV/AIDS crisis, which infects about one in nine of the country's adults, but analysts say the epidemic is directly to blame for rising mortality rates in the country.
Masondo urged Johannesburg residents to respect existing graveyards and not to take them over for ramshackle temporary housing.
John and Penny Adie, organizers of the Two Moors Festival in the southwest county of Devon, had spent two years raising money to buy the piano, only to watch in horror as it fell to the ground with "one hell of a crash.
A crowd had gathered to watch the arrival of the instrument which was to form the centerpiece of this year's festival, but was stunned to see it tumble from the removal van.
The Adies bought the piano at auction for &pound;
26,000 ($51,410), but this was considered a bargain.
The auctioneer said it would have cost &pound; 90,000 ($178,000) new, the Times reported.
New York City produces almost 1 percent of the nation's greenhouse gas emissions an amount that puts it on par with Ireland or Portugal according to a city study.
The study, released Tuesday, was ordered by Mayor Michael Bloomberg to assess the city's progress in reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent by 2030.
It was conducted by the mayor's Office of Long-term Planning and Sustainability.
The study found that the buildings, subways, buses, cars and decomposition of waste in America's most populous city produced a net emission of 58.3 million metric tons of greenhouse gases in 2005.
The U.S. total was 7.26 billion metric tons for that year.
Many scientists believe human activity that increases those gases is contributing to global warming.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations network of 2,000 scientists, warned last week of possible catastrophic risks such as floods, disease, food shortages, species extinction and human suffering throughout the world.
This is largely due to the popularity of the city's mass transit system, which cuts down on car emissions, officials said.
"Each one of these things really does make a difference, and they add up," Bloomberg said.
Leading French presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy and the office of President Jacques Chirac both denied a news report on Wednesday alleging that the two men had struck a deal to protect Chirac from prosecution once his judicial immunity runs out next month.
Sarkozy, on a campaign stop north of Paris, said the report in weekly Le Canard Enchaine was not "based on any form of reality.
The satirical weekly, which is also known for breaking investigative stories, alleged that Chirac's support for Sarkozy in the election was offered in exchange for Sarkozy pledging to sponsor a bill that would spare Chirac from prosecution.
Chirac has been protected by presidential immunity during his 12 years in power.
Once he leaves office, long-dormant investigations of scandals in his political past could be revived.
Opinion polls say Sarkozy is the front-runner for the two-round vote on April 22 and May 6, followed by Socialist Segolene Royal.
If Sarkozy wins, he will push a judicial reform bill through parliament as early as July, Le Canard Enchaine reported, quoting an unnamed source close to Chirac.
The law would include an article requiring judges to wrap up their investigations faster, with no inquiry lasting more than 10 years, the newspaper alleged.
Though both men come from the governing UMP party, they have had tense relations.
Sarkozy infuriated Chirac by backing his rival, Edouard Balladur, in the 1995 presidential elections that Chirac won.
Chirac did not endorse Sarkozy until last month.
Tours of duty for members of the U.S. Army will be extended from 12 months to 15 months effective immediately, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced Wednesday.
"What we're trying to do here is provide some long-term predictability to our soldiers and their families," Gates told reporters at the Pentagon.
In exchange for the extension, Gates said the service will be able to give all units a year at home between deployments.
He denied the order was a sign that the Army has passed its breaking point under the stresses of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, saying the service has met or passed its recruiting and retention goals.
The order covers the active-duty Army, which provides most of the estimated 146,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.
About 15,000 more troops are expected to be deployed to Iraq in coming months to support the efforts to pacify Baghdad and other provinces.
The Marines, whose members serve seven months deployed, are unaffected by Wednesday's order, said Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Also, the Army has struggled to entice soldiers and Marines not to leave the service.
(Read full story)
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2691632
Japan and China signed an agreement Wednesday lifting Beijing's four-year ban on Japanese rice, paving the way for Tokyo to resume rice exports to China within the next few months, agricultural officials said.
China banned imports of Japanese rice in 2003 after changing its quarantine standards, saying Japanese rice posed a danger of bringing foreign insects into China.
Wen's visit is the first by a Chinese premier since 2000.
Wen was to head straight to Abe's office for talks on issues ranging from rice to disputes over history and territory.
United, trailing 2-1 from the first meeting in Rome, had never previously overturned a first leg deficit in five attempts in the competition but did so in remarkable style to win the tie 8-3 on aggregate.
It was the biggest victory in a quarterfinal match in either the European Cup or Champions League since Real Madrid beat Sevilla 8-0 in 1957-58, clocking up a 10-2 aggregate victory.
Three goals in a scintillating eight-minute burst early in the first half swept Alex Ferguson's side towards the semifinals to face either Bayern Munich or AC Milan and sustained their hopes of repeating their 1999 European and domestic treble.
Michael Carrick, Alan Smith and Wayne Rooney had United 3-0 up after 20 minutes before Cristiano Ronaldo (44th and 49th) scored either side of the break.
Carrick then netted a spectacular second and after Daniele De Rossi pulled one back, Patrice Evra had the final word with their seventh goal nine minutes from time.
We showed great confidence after two defeats in the last week. All great teams get over these mishaps and we did that tonight," he said.
Ferguson sprung a tactical surprise by playing Rooney, Ronaldo and Ryan Giggs as a three-man attacking midfield unit to support Smith, recalled for only his fourth start of the season, as the lone striker.
Macau's Monetary Authority said Wednesday that holders of North Korean accounts frozen at a bank blacklisted by the United States can withdraw or transfer their money.
The funds at the small Macau lender Banco Delta Asia have become a key sticking point in six-party negotiations to close North Korea's nuclear programs. The money was to be released last month, but disputes over the accounts have stalled the process.
Wendy Au, a spokeswoman at Macau's Monetary Authority, told The Associated Press that the money was ready to be handed over to the owners of the accounts.
"The account holders, as long as they are authorized, can proceed to the bank to withdraw or transfer the money," she said, without commenting further.
In a deal struck in February, North Korea pledged to shut down its main nuclear reactor by Saturday in exchange for energy aid and political concessions.
North Korea had insisted that $25 million frozen at Banco Delta Asia, blacklisted by Washington for allegedly helping the North launder money, must be released before it closes its Yongbyon reactor
Top U.S. nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill expressed hope the move would allow North Korea to meet Saturday's deadline to halt work at its main nuclear reactor.
In Pyongyang, Victor Cha, U.S. President George W. Bush's top adviser on North Korea, told North Korea's top nuclear negotiator, Kim Kye Gwan, that Pyongyang had to act quickly.
Kim said in earlier meetings his government would allow U.N. nuclear inspectors into the country to check whether it is meeting its commitments as soon as the $25 million in North Korean funds were released.
Kim also said it would be difficult to shut down the nuclear reactor by the Saturday deadline.
Four Serb paramilitaries seen in a video gunning down Bosnian Muslims near Srebrenica in 1995 were convicted of war crimes against civilians on Tuesday by Serbia's War Crimes Court.
It was the first court ruling in Serbia related to the systematic killings of up to 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica in the final months of the 1992-95 war in Bosnia Europe's worst atrocity since World War II.
Trials of Serbs in Serbia have only become possible since the 2000 ouster of President Slobodan Milosevic.
The four Serbs found guilty Tuesday were seen in a video that surfaced in June 2005 when it was shown at the war crimes trial of Milosevic before the U.N. tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
The video shows members of a notorious Serbia paramilitary unit known as the Scorpions.
The footage, recorded by a Scorpions member who apparently believed it would never become public, showed the men taking Bosnian Muslim civilians from a truck with their hands tied and lining them up on a hillside before spraying them with machine gun fire.
The unit's commander, Slobodan Medic, and a fellow paramilitary were each sentenced to 20 years in prison, while the only defendant who admitted to shooting the victims , Pero Petrasevic, was sentenced to 13 years in prison.
Another Scorpions member, accused as an accomplice, was sentenced to five years in jail, while a fifth was cleared.
The victims were residents of Srebrenica, which was officially a U.N.-protected Muslim enclave during the Bosnian war. In Belgrade, presiding judge Gordana Bozilovic-Petrovic, who read the verdict, said the recording presented evidence that proved the guilt "beyond any doubt" and that Medic, "as the commander, had the authority to issue such an order.
The accused did not face the death penalty, which is not allowed under Serbian law.
Live Earth concerts will be held July 7 in cities around the world, including London, aimed at raising climate change awareness.
Madonna, the Beastie Boys and Black Eyed Peas will headline the concert at Wembley stadium in London.
They will be joined by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Keane, Foo Fighters and others.
Johannesburg, South Africa; Sydney, Australia;
The concerts mark the start of a new campaign called Save Our Selves, The Campaign for a Climate in Crisis.
"This monster lineup will ensure Live Earth meets our goal of bringing together people from around the world to combat the climate crisis," Live Earth Founder and Executive Producer Kevin Wall said in a statement Tuesday. "Musicians who have answered our call span multiple genres and generations.
The concerts will be broadcast in the U.S. by General Electric Co. 's NBC network and on more than 120 networks around the world, and streamed live online.
Promoters hope the concerts will reach an audience of 2 billion people.
Here comes the bride, all dressed in green.
White weddings might have been the dream of fashionable brides of old.
But the trendiest British weddings are now at least metaphorically green as couples seek to reduce the impact of their nuptials on the environment.
That means everything from recycled wedding dresses and guests arriving by bicycle, to home-grown flowers and locally produced food for the wedding buffet.
I was really struggling to get the message across that green weddings are about 'eco-chic,' not lentils and hessian," said green wedding planner Ruth Culver.
British celebrity Liz Hurley might have hoped to set new fashion standards with her lavish jetset wedding last month.
The wedding, which flew in dozens of guests to India from Britain for a series of parties, produced an estimated 200 tonnes of carbon emissions more than the average couple produces in a decade, according to researchers.
Bride-to-be Libby Smit will do her bit to make up for this on her wedding day in Northern Ireland this summer.
"On the morning of the wedding, the bridesmaids and I are going to be walking to the church.
If you Google the word Darfur, you will find about 13 million references to the atrocities in the western Darfur region of Sudan what the United States has said is this century's first genocide.
As of today, when the 200 million users of Google Earth log onto the site, they will be able to view the horrific details of what's happening in Darfur for themselves.
In an effort to bring more attention to the ongoing crisis in Darfur, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum has teamed up with Google's mapping service literally to map out the carnage in the Darfur region.
The new initiative, called "Crisis in Darfur," enables Google Earth users to visualize the details in the region, including the destruction of villages and the location of displaced persons in refugee camps. (Interactive: See how the new technology works)
Elliot Schrage, Google's vice president of global communications and public affairs, joined museum director Sara J. Bloomfield to make the official announcement about the new feature.
"At Google, we believe technology can be a catalyst for education and action," Schrage said. " 'Crisis in Darfur' will enable Google Earth users to visualize and learn about the destruction in Darfur as never before and join the museum's efforts in responding to this continuing international catastrophe.
The Google Earth mapping service combines 3-D satellite imagery, aerial and ground-level maps and the power of Google, one of the Internet's most widely used search engines, to make the world's geographic information user friendly.
Since its inception in June 2005, nearly 200 million people have downloaded the free program.
More than 1,600 damaged and destroyed villages will be visible, as will the remnants of more than 100,000 homes, schools, mosques and other structures destroyed by the Janjaweed militia and Sudanese forces.
The Holocaust museum also has compiled a collection of photos, data and eyewitness testimony from its archives and number of sources, including the U.S. State Department, nongovernmental organizations, the United Nations and individual photographers.
That material also will be available when Google Earth users visit the Darfur site.
The "Crisis in Darfur" initiative is the first of what is expected to be several collaborations between the museum and Google Earth to highlight the dangers of genocide around the world.
PPR's unit Sapardis said in a statement it would offer 330 euros ($440.40) in cash per share.
The 330 euro bid offers a 5 percent premium to Puma's last closing share price of 314.25 euros.
Puma said on Thursday that it would retire stock representing 1.27 million shares or approximately 7.4 percent of the previous share capital.
Under German law, a takeover offer is only mandatory once a shareholder crosses the 30 percent threshold.
Puma, which is set to hold its annual shareholder meeting on Wednesday, said its management board had been informed that Mayfair sold its stake in Puma on Tuesday for 330 euros per share as well.
Closing of the agreement between Mayfair and Sapardis is subject to antitrust clearance, Puma said.
PPR owns the luxury Gucci Group, which includes designers Stella McCartney and Alexander McQueen.
McQueen has designed limited-edition sneakers for Puma, while McCartney designs a line of clothing for rival Adidas.
Nearly $60 million in U.S. aid to the Palestinians has been cleared for transfer to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, the State Department said Tuesday.
The funding comprises $43 million for non-lethal training and equipment for Abbas' security forces and $16 million for upgrades at the Karni crossing into northern Gaza, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack announced.
The United States is sending the money directly to Abbas to bypass the portion of the government controlled by the militant group Hamas, which the U.S. considers a terrorist group.
McCormack said the State Department notified Congress on March 23 that it was ready to transfer the money, and then waited the mandatory 15 days.
reduced after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced she wanted to ensure the money did not go to elements of the Palestinian national security forces that do not report directly to Abbas or where the command and control structure is unclear.
Last year, Hamas won the Palestinian elections, ending decades of rule by the Fatah party. Hamas took control of the parliament and the prime minister post, although Fatah's Abbas maintained the title of president.
Because Hamas refused to accept Israel and call for an end to terrorist attacks, the United States and the European Union cut off funding to the Palestinian government.
The cutoff paralyzed the Palestinian government, which was already struggling financially because of widespread corruption
NASSAU, Bahamas (CNN) Larry Birkhead is the father of Anna Nicole Smith's baby daughter, Dannielynn, a Bahamian judge ruled Tuesday.
"Everybody, I hate to be the one to tell you this but I told you so," Birkhead said outside the court as he smiled and threw his hands into the air.
When asked what's next, he said, "I'm going to the toy store.
Crowds applauded in front of the courthouse as Birkhead, Smith's former boyfriend, made the announcement, and Birkhead teared up as he thanked his supporters.
A DNA test confirmed him as the father with 99.99 percent certainty, said Dr. Michael Baird, who performed the test and revealed the results to a closed session of a Bahamian court Tuesday.
The court had ordered DNA testing to determine the father of the child, who has been at the center of a paternity dispute since she was born in a Bahamian hospital in September.
Smith had publicly identified Howard K. Stern, her lawyer and live-in companion, as the baby's father and listed him as the father on the child's birth certificate.
Stern hugged Birkhead and said he is not going to fight him for custody.
"I'm going to do whatever I can to make sure that he gets sole custody," Stern said.
When asked when Birkhead would get custody of the 7-month-old girl, who has been living with Stern in Nassau, Stern said he wanted there to be a "gradual transition.
Iran plans to release a book and CD detailing the arrest and detention of 15 British sailors and marines whom Tehran blames for illegally crossing into Iranian waters, an Iranian military spokesman said.
The book and compact disc are "being prepared and will soon be distributed," Gen. Ali-Reza Afshar said in a written statement.
The British personnel were seized on March 23 while patrolling the northern Persian Gulf for smugglers.
They were granted amnesty last Thursday by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who said they were freed as an Easter gift and in respect for the recent anniversary of the Prophet Muhammed's birth.
While in custody, some of the captives confessed on video to straying into Iranian territorial waters.
They recanted those confessions once they returned to Britain on Thursday.
In an interview published Monday, the only woman among the detained crew told Britain's Sun tabloid that she feared she was being measured for a coffin while in detention, according to Reuters.
Three days after their release, Iran released more video of the Britons smiling and playing games during their detention.
Britain's navy has been criticized for initially lifting its restrictions to allow the sailors and marines to get paid for public appearances, book deals or interviews with news outlets.
The Royal Navy argued that it was done to make sure the service "had sight of what they were going to say.
North Korea is running out of time to start dismantling its nuclear weapons program before a weekend deadline, a top White House adviser told North Korean officials Tuesday during a rare visit to Pyongyang.
Meanwhile, U.S. officials asserted they had resolved a separate financial dispute that has stymied progress in the arms talks, but it was unclear how the North would respond.
The U.S. Treasury Department said authorities in the Chinese-administered region of Macau were prepared to unblock frozen funds that North Korea says are the reason it has refused to move forward on a Feb. 13 disarmament agreement.
The U.S. State Department said the Macanese Monetary Authority issued a statement saying the money in the frozen North Korean Banco Delta Asia accounts " has been unblocked," and can be withdrawn "by the authorized account holders.
Top U.S. nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill expressed hope the move would allow North Korea to meet Saturday's deadline to halt work at its main nuclear reactor.
"The United States supports any decision by Macau to release the funds to authorized account holders," Hill said, noting the freeze was placed on the money by authorities there. "And with that, we are stepping out of this process.
The lender had been blacklisted by Washington for allegedly helping the North launder money and its North Korean accounts were frozen.
The bank has denied any wrongdoing.
The Macau government said it was aware of the Treasury statement and it would work with all parties involved. "Simultaneously, it expects all parties concerned to come up with appropriate and responsible arrangements respectively," it said on its Web site.
MSNBC and CBS have decided to suspend Don Imus for two weeks following his reference last week to members of the Rutgers women's basketball team as "nappy-headed hos.
MSNBC first announced it would suspend telecasting Imus' radio program for two weeks, beginning April 16.
"Don Imus has expressed profound regret and embarrassment and has made a commitment to listen to all of those who have raised legitimate expressions of outrage," it said.
Our future relationship with Imus is contingent on his ability to live up to his word.
After a career of cranky insults, Imus was fighting for his job after one joke that by his own admission went "way too far.
Imus apologized Monday, both on his show and on a syndicated radio program hosted by the Rev. Al Sharpton, who is among several black leaders demanding his ouster.
Imus could be in real danger if the outcry causes advertisers to shy away from him, said Tom Taylor, editor of the trade publication Inside Radio.
Imus isn't the most popular radio talk show host the trade publication Talkers ranks him the 14th most influential but his audience is heavy on the political and media elite that advertisers pay a premium to reach.
Authors, journalists and politicians are frequent guests and targets for insults.
Antarctica is the coldest, driest and windiest place in the world but during the high summer, it can feel decidedly mild.
From the top of Devil Island, off the eastern edge of the Antarctic Peninsula, the watery sun reflects off the vast tabular icebergs drifting around the Weddell Sea.
At the base of the island, as many as 20,000 pairs of Ad&eacute;
Moored offshore is the MS Explorer, a 75 meter cruise ship which can take up to 105 passengers. Four inflatable Zodiacs dart back and forth from the vessel, bringing tourists to shore to see the penguins up close.
Mary Brogan, 55, from Dublin, has been planning this trip for over a year with her husband and five friends.
But now she's here, she says she worries about the impact of tourism.
Tourist numbers are rising to Antarctica even though this is a high-priced vacation.
Dr Shannon Fowler, 32, from California, is a marine mammal biologist and lectures to the passengers on board Explorer.
"I do face a personal dilemma about bringing tourists here but if people can't see something, will they really want to protect it?
More tourism will raise public awareness about Antarctica's unique ecosystem but there are also fears about higher traffic to the region.
Cruise ship accidents remain one of the biggest threats to the environment.
Last month, the MS Nordkapp cruise ship hit rocks near Deception Island, off the Antarctic Peninsula, spilling diesel oil into the bay.
Stephen Ansfee is Explorer's Expedition Leader. "We are getting close to capacity in Antarctica and as the ships get bigger, so do the environmental risks.
We will need stricter controls as tourism grows."
Most travel companies in the region subscribe to IAATO, the International Association of Antarctic Tour Operators, which sets guidelines to manage tourism here.
The problem is IAATO is a voluntary self-regulated organization and anyone can opt out of the system.
Because no one owns Antarctica, no one is responsible for the continent's safeguard.
Two Russian cosmonauts and a U.S. billionaire who helped develop Microsoft Word floated into the international space station early Tuesday to the earthbound applause of Martha Stewart and others at Mission Control.
Stewart is a friend of Charles Simonyi, the American who shelled out $20-25 million to be the world's fifth paying private space traveler.
The Soyuz capsule docked automatically with the ISS and Simonyi and two Russian cosmonauts entered the space station about 90 minutes later.
Simonyi returns to Earth on April 20, along with Russian Mikhail Tyurin and the American astronaut Miguel Lopez-Alegria, who have been on the station since September.
The other U.S. astronaut, Sunita Williams, will remain on board with cosmonauts Fyodor Yurchikhin and Oleg Kotov.
While at the space station, Simonyi will be conducting a number of experiments, including measuring radiation levels and studying biological organisms inside the lab.
Lin Wood said he had been retained by Howard K. Stern, who is one of three men claiming to be the father of the starlet's infant daughter.
Wood, who has handled a number of high profile cases including representing the family of slain child beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey made the announcement in a statement released Monday.
The statement said Wood was retained after meetings over the weekend in the Bahamas, where Smith and Stern lived as a couple before her death in February.
"Mr. Stern is an innocent individual who has never been charged with any crime but finds himself on trial in the media. The nightly television, tabloid and Internet trial of Mr. Stern in the court of public opinion based on sensational lies, speculation, rumor and gossip is over.
Stern, who was Smith's companion at the time of her death, is listed on Dannielynn's birth certificate as her father.
But two other men Smith's former boyfriend Larry Birkhead and Frederic Von Anhalt also claim to have fathered the infant.
In the release, Wood also said he would represent Stern, named the executor of Smith's will, in pursuing "those individuals and entities responsible for the theft of personal property of Ms. Smith and/or its unlawful use, sale or other misappropriation in the media.
Dating used to be largely a matter of spending time with a love interest, discovering the good, the bad and the ugly in person.
If you were lucky, friends helped fill in some of the blanks.
These days, the Internet has forever changed the rules.
For better or worse, "googling" your date has become standard practice.
"I often tell my friends that are still in the dating sphere to use the power of Google to their advantage," says Katie Laird, a 24-year-old.
The results can be enlightening, surprising and sometimes, a little disturbing.
Hers is the voice of experience.
"Not my scene at all," Laird says, "and nothing I would've ever guessed over an initial meeting and beer.
"It seems like in contemporary dating, it's this elaborate dance between two people who already know a lot of what their date is talking about, but they can't admit it," says David Silver, an assistant professor of media studies at the University of San Francisco who studies online culture.
Even he is amazed at the level of information that can be dug up these days.
With a little creativity and Internet savvy, a person can find anything from blog postings to news stories that might include personal details and whether people are telling the truth about their age and where they've lived.
MaryBeth Moore discovered that after she got a call from a guy her mother's hairdresser suggested as a good match.
At first, Moore was game.
But then she checked out his MySpace page and found photos showing him naked in a bath tub.
It's a big reason people should take the information they find online "with a grain of salt," says Dr. Paul Dobransky, a Chicago-based psychiatrist and author of "The Secret Psychology of How We Fall in Love.
A U.S. delegation pressed North Korea on Monday to shut down its main nuclear reactor and allow in U.N. inspectors even as the top American negotiator said it would be difficult for a weekend deadline on the closure to be met.
Kim, who is also vice foreign minister, met with New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democratic presidential candidate, and Anthony Principi, President Bush's former veteran affairs secretary, who were visiting the North Korean capital.
The International Atomic Energy Agency is slated to monitor and verify the shutdown in what would be its first visit since late 2002, when North Korea expelled IAEA inspectors after U.S. officials accused the communist nation of running a secret uranium-enrichment program in violation of a 1994 disarmament deal.
"They can make a beginning, but whether they can completely shut down a nuclear reactor in such a short time would be very difficult," Principi said.
Lisa Perry wants a fresh start.
So she's decided to sell nearly all of her belongings in one massive auction on eBay.
Perry, 45, said the top bidder in the auction, ending Thursday, will get more than 300 items including snowshoes, a futon, a bed, a Village People album, seashells and more.
Perry is keeping just a few things: her dog, her cat, photo albums and some clothing.
Perry has worked as a lawyer in Montana, a communications professor in Mankato, Minnesota, and a bookseller in North Carolina.
She now delivers subpoenas and legal documents.
In June, she plans to move west, possibly to take up creative writing or holistic healing.
"I've been schlepping this stuff across the country for more than 20 years," she said. "I'm tired of thinking: 'Oh my God, what if it breaks in the next move?'
As of Sunday night, the top bid was $100.
East Timor's presidential elections appeared headed toward a runoff, raising fears of prolonged instability in a young nation that nearly descended into civil war a year ago.
Prime Minister Jose Ramos-Horta, who won the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize for championing East Timor's struggle to end decades of brutal Indonesian rule, initially had been seen as the favorite for the five-year presidency.
But public disillusionment with the government has grown, and no clear winner between eight candidates emerged in early ballot counting after Monday's vote.
An outright majority was needed to avoid a runoff, which would be held next month.
At least 37 people were killed and some 155,000 fled their homes before the government collapsed.
Peace largely returned with the arrival of nearly 3,000 international peacekeepers, but there has been sporadic unrest.
Tens of thousands of refugees have yet to return home, and the country remains desperately poor, with 50 percent unemployment.
"If I win, I will bear a wooden cross almost as heavy as Christ's," said Ramos-Horta, 57, who claimed he would prefer to retire, write books and travel. "If I lose, I will win my freedom.
National Election Committee spokesman Martinho Gusmao said three candidates emerged ahead:
Ramos-Horta, running as an independent, Francisco Guterres, a former guerrilla fighter and a member of Alkatiri's Fretilin party, and Fernando de Araujo of the Democratic Party, another resistance leader.
Preliminary results were expected Wednesday and the final tally April 19.
Thousands of anti-U.S. protesters marched in the Shiite holy city of Najaf on Monday to mark the fourth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad.
Powerful Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called for the demonstration, which Najaf police said included tens of thousands of protesters.
The U.S. Army estimated the crowd size at closer to 5,000 to 7,000 participants based on aerial photographs, said military spokesman Col. Steve Boylan.
"[The] peaceful gathering is part of the right to peaceful assembly and the Iraqi people to voice their views," Boylan said
Marchers joined the protest from Kufa to neighboring Najaf, as Iraqi police watched,
Iraqi flags and leaflets dotted the march route, according to the AP. Some of the leaflets read, "Yes, Yes to Iraq" and "Yes, Yes to Muqtada. Occupiers should leave Iraq," the AP reported.
One marcher, Iraqi lawmaker Nassar al-Rubaie, told the AP, "The enemy that is occupying our country is now targeting the dignity of the Iraqi people."
Al-Rubaie, who leads al-Sadr's bloc in the Iraqi parliament, told the AP, "After four years of occupation, we have hundreds of thousands of people dead and wounded.
TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) Iran's president announced Monday that his country has begun production of nuclear fuel on an "industrial level.
The announcement came on the first anniversary of the start of uranium enrichment at the plant.
"We are very concerned," said White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe. "We call on the Iranian regime to comply with its obligations to the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) and U.N. Security Council.
Monday, Ahmadinejad said, "With great pride, I announce that as of today, our dear country, Iran, is among the countries of the world that produces the industrial level of nuclear fuel. "
Iran's leader vowed it will be used for energy "and for the expansion of peace and stability," adding that the goal of "progress" for Iran is "irreversible.
Ahmadinejad's speech came on what Iran called its National Nuclear Feast, designed to send a message to the world that the nation will not halt its nuclear activities despite calls for it to do so from many Western governments, particularly the United States, and sanctions imposed by the U.N. Security Council.
The IAEA the U.N. nuclear watchdog has said it cannot confirm that Iran's nuclear activities are for peaceful purposes. IAEA officials say Iran has failed to cooperate with inspectors.
U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack called Monday's events "another signal Iran is in defiance of the international community."
No one disputes Iran's right to a peaceful nuclear energy program, he said, and added, "There is a negotiation alternative.
But Ahmadinejad said Monday there has been "no evidence of violation in our activities. "
Iran gave no indication it intends to capitulate to international demands.
At the United Nations in New York, Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon held out hope for a resolution to the dispute.
"I sincerely hope that even at this time when (the) Iranian government is undergoing Security Council sanctions, that it could engage in dialogue with the international community," he said.
Brendan Burke's cell phone was beeping within minutes of the start of his wife's marathon in San Diego.
A text message arrived with her latest time as she crossed the six timing mats around the course.
"At each point I could see what her time was and I would figure out her pace to see how she was feeling," Burke, 33, said of his wife's debut marathon in 2005. "It really gave me a sense that I was there running with her.
The systems aren't flawless, but they do help fans monitor runners via a Web site, a cell phone text message or e-mail.
No longer must family and friends take their best guesses and wait.
And wait. During the April 16 Boston Marathon, for instance, the curious can use their computers to check on the progress of up to five runners at a time.
Runners are provided with radio-frequency identification chips that attach to shoelaces.
As they cross large rubber mats along the course, a radio transmitter inside the chip sends a unique ID number to an antenna, which routes the information to a central database.
As Nadine Valco ran through the streets of New York last fall, her fan base followed her progress closely at home in Columbus, Ohio.
"My friends and family and co-workers were really encouraging with my training, but obviously with the expense and time of getting to New York, they couldn't be there," said Valco.
Today's larger races can feature 30,000 or more athletes, all having fans who want results quickly if not instantaneously.
Movie audiences were more interested in light comedy over Easter weekend than in Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's "Grindhouse," a double-feature ode to bloody exploitation flicks.
Paramount and DreamWorks' figure-skating romp "Blades of Glory" remained the No. 1 movie with $23 million, followed for the second weekend by Disney's animated comedy "Meet the Robinsons" with $17 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.
"Grindhouse," a three-hour reinvention of the down-and-dirty B-movie double features Tarantino and Rodriguez grew up watching, debuted at No. 4 with $11.6 million.
It finished behind Sony's family comedy "Are We Done Yet?
Released by the Weinstein Co., "Grindhouse" fell well short of expectations.
Box-office forecasters had figured the movie would premiere in the ballpark of Tarantino's two "Kill Bill" movies and Rodriguez's "Sin City," whose opening weekends ranged from $22 million to $29 million.
The weak debut for "Grindhouse" was a blow to the Weinstein Co., formed two years ago by brothers Harvey and Bob Weinstein after they departed their old outfit, Disney-owned Miramax.
Harvey Weinstein said disappointing returns for "Grindhouse" resulted from the "novelty in America of releasing a double bill and asking an audience to make a three-hour commitment.
"Grindhouse" played to big crowds on the East and West coasts but failed to click with audiences in the Midwest and South, Weinstein said.
The White House is planning a major announcement this week involving two complaints to the World Trade Organization accusing China of unfair trade practices, two senior administration officials said Sunday.
The United States is taking formal legal action after months of urging China to crack down on pirated copies of U.S. films, music and software brought little consequence, the officials said.
This is a fairly big deal," one senior administration official told CNN.
But senior administration officials acknowledged their goal is not solely to get China's attention but also to show Congress they are getting tough on the trade front, where U.S. jobs are shaping up as a major issue.
The move is an effort to drum up support among Democrats for several trade deals stalled on Capitol Hill, amid allegations the White House has not done enough to prod China.
"There are two audiences here China and Congress," one official said.
Averaging about 80 kilometers (50 miles) a day since he started stroking in the Amazon's Peruvian headwaters on February 1, Strel fulfilled his goal near the city of Belem, 2,440 kilometers (1,515 miles) north of Rio de Janeiro.
If confirmed by Guinness World Records, it will be the fourth time the 52-year-old has broken a world swimming distance record.
"He's hit point zero," Martin's son and project coordinator, Borut Strel, said by telephone from the Amazon Saturday, the world's second-longest river after the Nile. "There will be a ceremony Sunday in Belem, but he finished today.
In 2000, Strel swam the length of Europe's 3,004-kilometer (1,866-mile) Danube River, and then broke that record two years later when he swam 3,797 kilometers (2,360 miles) down the United States' Mississippi.
And in 2004, he set a new world record after swimming 4,003 kilometers (2,487 miles) along China's Yangtze.
Strel's health worsened Thursday evening, as he struggled with dizziness, vertigo, high blood pressure, diarrhea, nausea and delirium, his Web site said.
But despite having difficulty standing and being ordered not to swim by his doctor, Strel insisted on night swimming to finish the course.
Guinness spokeswoman Kate White said the organization would analyze data expected from Strel and his support team to determine whether he established a new record. She said it usually takes six to eight weeks to review such applications.
Speaking by satellite phone during a break aboard his support vessel on Thursday, Strel said the journey became tougher as he approached Belem.
The ocean tides have a lot of influence on the river's currents and sometimes they are so strong that I am pushed backward.
As flies buzzed around a basket of bloody gauze, Moana Saito nursed her newborn daughter, delivered in an open-air maternity ward near the center of the Solomon Islands' earthquake and tsunami disaster.
"It's lucky it's not raining," said the attending nurse, Vaelin Gagahe, who delivered Saito's baby on Saturday.
Unhygienic conditions and a lack of clean water have contributed to isolated cases of diarrhea and dysentery in some refugee camps.
International aid workers were scrambling to dig latrines and set up water purifiers.
Earlier this week, the United Nations warned that up to 30,000 children could be affected by the disaster, including 15,000 under the age of five.
"These children are highly vulnerable to hunger, disease and the disruption of their normal lives and protective social systems, and require urgent lifesaving assistance to survive," the U.N. said in a statement.
According to the U.N., an average of 20 children die per 1,000 live births in the Solomons a rate that exceeds many South Pacific nations, but is well below that of neighboring Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu.
Voters in East Timor choose a new president on Monday, hoping the election can help end deep divisions after a year of instability in one of the world's youngest and poorest nations.
Just over half a million voters will pick the new president in Monday's election, which outgoing President Xanana Gusmao says is a chance to demonstrate his nation is not a failed state.
Supporters of rival candidates clashed during campaigning last week, injuring more than 30 people and prompting international troops to fire tear gas and warning shots.
Voters were streaming into a polling station in an elementary school in the capital Dili early on Monday.
I hope the new president will lift us out of the crisis," said Rogerio dos Santos, a 30-year-old farmer waiting to cast his ballot.
The capital appeared calm on Monday, although residents said that overnight two soldiers described as drunk fired shots while stopping traffic.
Maria Angelina Sarmento, a member of the National Election Commission, sounded on Sunday a warning on more violence.
"We and also voters are worried about security, particularly in Dili, which is a very high-risk area," she told Reuters.
Eight candidates are running, including Prime Minister Jose Ramos-Horta, a Nobel-peace-prize winner who spearheaded an overseas campaign for independence from Indonesia.
If no one wins more than half the vote, a run-off will be held, a scenario some analysts see as likely.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) A powerful and radical Shiite cleric implored his followers Sunday to stop killing Iraqis and focus their violent efforts on ousting American forces from the war-torn nation.
Muqtada al-Sadr also called on Iraqi forces to join the insurgents in the battle against "the occupiers.
The firebrand cleric's mandate came as a Baghdad security spokesman announced that a ban on civilian vehicular traffic will go into effect Monday, the fourth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad.
The 24-hour vehicle ban is slated to begin at 5 a.m. (10 p.m. Sunday ET), Baghdad security operations spokesman Gen. Qassim Atta said on Iraqi state television.
South of the capital, in Diwaniya, U.S. and Iraqi forces were in their third day of battling al-Sadr's Mehdi Army.
Meanwhile, caravans of the cleric's followers were converging on Najaf, south of Diwaniya, for an anti-American demonstration scheduled there Monday at al-Sadr's behest.
They walked through the streets Sunday chanting in Arabic, "No, no to the occupiers; yes, yes to Islam" and "Iraq will always be independent and free of occupiers," police said.
Najaf is an al-Sadr stronghold and a Shiite hub.
Authorities are stepping up security and checkpoints to prepare for the influx of al-Sadr supporters, Najaf police said.
In a statement attributed to al-Sadr and released in Najaf on Sunday the cleric purportedly said insurgents should not be killing Iraqis and that Iraqi police and troops should be on the side of the militias.
The U.S. military said it has captured 39 militia fighters and killed several in the Diwaniya fighting, which began Friday and has been dubbed Operation Black Eagle.
º» ±â»ç´Â ¿ø¹®À» µû
Î Á¦°øÇÏÁö ¾Ê½À´Ï´Ù
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) A commercial fishing boat hauled in what may have been one of the oldest creatures in Alaska a giant rockfish estimated to be about a century old.
The 44-inch, 60-pound female shortraker rockfish was caught last month by the catcher-processor Kodiak Enterprise as it trawled for pollock 2,100 feet below the surface, south of the Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea.
The Seattle-based vessel, owned by Trident Seafoods, pulled up an estimated 75 tons of pollock and 10 bright-orange rockfish.
Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center in Seattle measured, photographed and documented the fish.
They removed an ear bone, the otolith, which contains growth rings similar to rings in the trunks of trees.
They estimate the rockfish was 90 to 115 years old.
That's toward the upper end of the known age limit for shortraker rockfish, said Paul Spencer of the science center.
Other estimates put the fish's maximum age at 157 years, Spencer said.
BRUSSELS, Belgium (Reuters) Top climate experts warned on Friday that global warming will cause faster and wider damage than previously forecast, ranging from hunger in Africa and Asia to extinctions and rising ocean levels.
More than 100 nations in the U.N. climate panel agreed a final text after all-night disputes with some scientists accusing government delegates of watering down their findings in a draft 21-page summary for policymakers.
The report says the poor will be hardest hit by changes including desertification, drought, and rising sea levels.
The IPCC groups 2,500 scientists and is the top world authority on climate change.
Its findings are approved unanimously by governments and will guide policy in coming years on issues such as extending the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol, the main U.N. plan for capping greenhouse gas emissions, beyond 2012.
"Conflict is a hard word, tension is a better word," Gary Yohe, one of the report's lead authors, told Reuters of the mood at the marathon talks.
He said China, Russia and Saudi Arabia had raised most objections during the night to a 21-page summary which makes clear that the poor will suffer most.
Other participants also said the United States had toned down some passages.
Africa must adapt Still, delegates sharpened other sections, including adding a warning that some African nations might have to spend 5 to 10 percent of gross domestic product on adapting to climate change.
That report also forecast that temperatures could rise by 1.8 to 4.0 Celsius (3.2 to 7.2 F) this century.
hunger for millions with a sharp fall in crop yields in Africa.
It could rapidly thaw of Himalayan glaciers that feed rivers from India to China and bring heatwaves for Europe and North America.
The IPCC report says climate change is no longer a vague, distant threat.
Despite claims by some critics that the Bush administration invaded Iraq to take control of its oil, the first contracts with major oil firms from Iraq's new government are likely to go not to U.S. companies, but rather to companies from China, India, Vietnam, and Indonesia.
While Iraqi lawmakers struggle to pass an agreement on exactly who will award the contracts and how the revenue will be shared, experts say a draft version that passed the cabinet earlier this year will likely uphold agreements previously signed by those countries under Saddam Hussein's government.
"The Chinese could announce something within the next few months" if all goes well with the oil law, said James Placke, a senior associate at Cambridge Energy Research Associates who specializes in the Middle East.
The Asian firms are at an advantage for several reasons.
First, less constrained by Western sanctions during the Hussein regime, they've been operating in Iraq and know the country's oilfields, said Falah Aljibury, an energy analyst who has advised several Iraqi oil ministers as well as other OPEC nations.
Aljibury said the first contracts likely awarded will be to the Chinese in the south central part of Iraq, the Vietnamese in the south, the Indians along the Kuwaiti border, and the Indonesians in the western desert.
The contracts under consideration are small.
Aljibury said the Chinese agreement is to produce about 70,000 barrels of oil a day, while the Vietnamese one is for about 60,000.
But the barrel amount is tiny even by Iraq's depressed post-war production of around 2 million barrels a day.
But the Asian firms are also well positioned to grab further contracts.
Having avoided military entanglements in the region, they may curry more favor with the Iraqi people.
"They have no involvement with the secular or ethnic people," said Aljibury.
Given its rapidly growing thirst for oil, combined with its feeling of isolation from world oil markets, China is sometimes viewed as more cavalier than Western oil firms when it comes to putting capital and people at risk.
That could lead them to sign contracts in violent Iraq sooner than Western firms.
First, their technical prowess is world renowned.
Second, Iraq's oil contract game has just begun.
And Iraqi Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani has said the country plans to tender for major oil projects in the second half of 2007.
Steve Kretzmann, executive director of Oil Change International, an industry watchdog group, criticized the draft oil law for allowing long-term oil contracts to be awarded to foreign oil firms, a practice he said was unique in the Middle East.
"Giving out a few crumbs to the Chinese and Indians is one thing," said Kretzmann, who noted the draft law was seen by both the Bush administration and the International Monetary Fund before it was given to Iraq's parliament. "But the real prize are the contracts that award long-term rights. I think the [Western oil companies] are biding their time.
A group of kids on spring break thought setting up a lemonade stand near George Clooney's movie set might be a good business move.
The star paid $20 for his lemonade, which 10-year-old Carter, 6-year-old Chandler and 5-year-old Chase Fontaine were selling for 25 cents.
Clooney made his way over to the lemonade stand Wednesday afternoon after shooting scenes for "Leatherheads," a movie about the early days of professional football that he is directing and acting in.
The boys' mother, Courtney Fontaine, offered Clooney the lemonade for free.
He had posed for pictures with her and some other women.
But Clooney insisted on paying, sending someone over with a $20 bill.
Chandler enjoyed telling people afterward that Clooney's representative didn't want any change.
Before long, Carter had made another sign that read, "George Clooney was here!" and planted it at the road.
The movie, which is being filmed mostly in North and South Carolina, also stars John Krasinski and Renee Zellweger.
It has a December release date.
LONDON, England (CNN) British Airways has apologized to passengers after a report revealed the airline lost more luggage than all other major European airlines last year.
BA misplaced 23 bags per 1,000 passengers carried in 2006 the worst figure in a list of 24 airlines who are members of the Association of European Airlines (AEA).
The UK's Air Transport Users Council (AUC), which released the figures Wednesday, said BA had told the council its performance on bags last year was unacceptable and it apologized to customers.
The AUC also detailed past cases of lost luggage and various airlines' failure to meet the desired service standards.
In one case a passenger's mobility scooter was damaged in transit and she paid &pound;
263 ($519) to have it repaired.
The AUC and AEA baggage figures for 2006 showed that more than 5.6 million bags went missing among the 24 airlines an average of 15.7 bags per 1,000 passengers.
Among those airlines that had worse-than-average figures were BA, Lufthansa of Germany, Air France, Italy's Alitalia and KLM of the Netherlands (now merged with Air France).
The AEA stated 85 percent of misplaced bags were returned to passengers within 48 hours, indicating about one million items took longer than two days to reach their owners and some "never got returned at all.
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that she raised the issue of Saudi Arabia's lack of female politicians with Saudi government officials on the last stop of her Mideast tour.
Pelosi, the first woman House speaker, said she had not discussed King Abdullah's recent criticism of the U.S. occupation of Iraq, focusing instead on praise for the king's Mideast peace initiative, and efforts to quell conflicts in Somalia and Darfur.
She met with the king Wednesday and with several members of the Shura Council, an unelected advisory assembly named by the king, on Thursday.
Asked if she had discussed the lack of women on the council, she told reporters, "The issue has been brought up in our discussions with the Saudis on this trip.
Pelosi arrived in Saudi Arabia from Syria, where she defied the White House's Middle East policy by meeting with President Bashar al-Assad and saying "the road to Damascus is a road to peace."
The Bush administration has rejected direct talks with Damascus and criticized Pelosi for her visit.
In an interview with ABC News, Vice President Dick Cheney said al-Assad has "been isolated and cut off because of his bad behavior, and the unfortunate thing about the speaker's visit is it sort of breaks down that barrier.
Pelosi was met at the Riyadh airport by officials including Abdul-Rahman al-Zamel, the head of the Saudi-American friendship committee at the Shura Council.
He described the speaker's visit as a "breakthrough" and praised the inclusion of the first Muslim member of Congress, U.S. Rep.
Keith Ellison, D-Minnesota, in her delegation.
Pelosi wore a lavender pantsuit instead of the long black robe, called an abaya, that women, Saudi and non-Saudi, have to wear in the kingdom.
Visiting women dignitaries are not expected to wear the robe, and other female U.S. government officials who have visited Saudi Arabia in the past few years, such as U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, did not wear abayas when they met with Saudi officials.
Ihsan Abu-Holeiqa, a member of the council, said the meeting with Pelosi Thursday included discussion of the new difficulties Saudis have in getting U.S. visas, with some waiting four to five months.
The lengthy process followed the September 11 attacks carried out by 19 hijackers, 15 of them Saudis.
Al-Zamel also praised Pelosi's visit to Syria, saying Syria "is part of this Arab world, part of the issues to be resolved, and to ignore people gets you nowhere.
Pelosi was the highest-ranking American politician to visit Syria since relations began to deteriorate in 2003.
Then-U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell went to Damascus in May 2003.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2686189
LONDON, England (CNN) Fifteen British service members detained last month in Iran have been reunited with their families after flying home from Tehran.
"The past two weeks have been very difficult, but by staying together as a team, we kept our spirits up, drawing great comfort from the knowledge that our loved ones would be waiting for us on our return to the UK," they said in a joint statement released Thursday.
"It is only now that we have learned of the enormous public support we have all enjoyed in the UK and we wish to thank everyone for their thoughts, kind words and prayers. It means so much to us all," the statement said.
Video showed the group, still in uniform, laughing and hugging family members.
Some posed for pictures while others talked on cell phones.
Speaking in Downing Street as the British Airways flight carrying the 15 landed in London, British Prime Minister Tony Blair welcomed their release, announced by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a "gift" on Wednesday, but reiterated that no diplomatic deals had been done to secure their release.
Blair said the group's sudden release vindicated the UK's "dual-track strategy" of pursuing bilateral dialogue while mobilizing international pressure, adding that their return had been secured "without any
deal, without any negotiation, without any side agreement of any nature whatsoever."
He said the crisis had opened up new channels of communication with Tehran that it would be "sensible" to pursue, and he said it was the "right moment" to reflect on relations with Iran.
"We have to hold absolutely firm in relation to support from any aspect of the Iranian regime for terrorism.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2685467
NEW YORK (CNN) Health officials suspect 38 pet deaths in Oregon are related to the nationwide pet food recall, the Oregon Veterinary Medical Association said Wednesday.
Another 66 cases that did not result in death could also be linked to contaminated pet food, according to Dr. Emilio DeBess, Oregon's public health veterinarian.
His office emphasized the link is only suspected at this point, and a confirmed case would require more extensive testing.
Pets that consumed food recalled by Menu Foods Inc. and experienced various stages of kidney dysfunction qualify as suspected cases, the veterinary association said.
The Ontario-based company recalled 60 million cans of wet pet food on March 16 after the chemical melamine, which can be toxic in high doses, showed up in federal testing of some of the cat and dog food. (Details on recall)
Menu Foods reported a total of 14 pet deaths to the Food and Drug Administration, the government agency said Wednesday.
However, Menu Foods spokeswoman Sarah Tuite told CNN that a total of 16 pet deaths one dog and 15 cats were connected to the recalled food.
Plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit against Menu Foods related to the recall added fraud to the charges Wednesday, alleging the company may have known as early as December that the product was contaminated, attorneys said.
"We believe Menu Foods made a decision to put short-term corporate interests ahead of the interests of its consumers, and because of that we have thousands of families mourning the loss of their pets, and that shouldn't have happened," said attorney Jay Edelson, who represents the plaintiffs.
Menu Foods extended its original recall after hearing reports that vendors had not taken all of the recalled products off store shelves.
Menu Foods has asked its customers to return any recalled pet food to vendors for a refund and has said it intends to destroy the tainted product to ensure it does not reach consumers.
Çѱ۴º½ºÀÇ ¿ø¹ ®Àºµû
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2685387
Asia's richest woman, Nina Wang, died on Tuesday taking unanswered questions over her controversial $4.2 billion fortune to the grave.
Nicknamed "little sweetie" by the local media and known for her flamboyant dresses and braided pigtails, Wang, 69, was thrust into the Hong Kong limelight in the 1990s after the abduction of her husband Teddy, who was then Hong Kong's 13th wealthiest man commanding a fortune worth some HK$7.5 billion.
She gained notoriety when she waged a legal war for her husband's estate even though he had yet to be confirmed dead.
Teddy was abducted twice, the last time in 1990, and he was never seen again.
He was declared legally dead nine years later.
Wang would go on to win the legal battle in 2005, securing her wealth after an eight-year probate saga that captivated the city of 7 million with tales of illicit affairs.
Their tale began innocently enough as childhood sweethearts in Shanghai, where their well-to-do families were bound by business ties.
She followed Teddy to Hong Kong in 1955 and married him when she was 18.
During the acrimonious court battle over his estate, Nina's lawyer described their years together as almost a fairy tale and said they remained madly in love into middle age.
Teddy's father told a different story.
He accused Nina of having an affair and said his son was so incensed that he cut her out of his 1968 will, leaving his inheritance to his father.
She left no children behind but has at least one brother and reportedly some other siblings.
Hong Kong media was rife with speculation on Wednesday about the existence, or not, of a will, and whether her siblings who keep an ultra-low profile would emerge to claim a share of Wang's wealth.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will travel the United States April 26-27 and hold meetings with U.S. President George W. Bush at Camp David before traveling to the Middle East, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki announced Wednesday.
The visit comes at a sensitive time, with U.S. lawmakers considering a nonbinding resolution urging Japan to apologize formally for forcing thousands of women into the brothels.
Abe has come under fire at home and abroad for suggesting in early March that there is no proof that the Imperial government or military coerced women into the
brothels during the war, apparently backtracking a 1993 apology.
"Since my remarks on the so-called comfort women issue have not been accurately reported, I expressed my true intention to President Bush just to clarify," Abe said.
Bush told Abe that he appreciated his candor and noted that Japan today is not the Japan of World War II, National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said in Washington on Tuesday.
The upcoming meeting will not be Abe's first with Bush.
The two leaders met on the sidelines of a Pacific Rim summit in Vietnam last year, after Abe took office in September.
Iraq, North Korea on agenda
The U.S. summit will touch on the ongoing war in Iraq, for which Japan has provided noncombat military support, as well as the six-nation talks on reining in North Korea's nuclear program, Shiozaki said.
"We hope to confirm that the Japan-U.S. alliance is a stabilizing factor for the region, and we plan to discuss ways to strengthen the alliance for the world and for Asia," Shiozaki said.
Japanese prime ministers usually visit the U.S., Japan's biggest ally, soon after taking office, but Abe has stressed his all-around foreign policy by visiting
Europe and Asian neighbors first.
Abe told reporters Wednesday that the alliance with the U.S. is "the basis for our diplomacy and security" and added that he hopes to strengthen ties with Washington. About 50,000 U.S. troops are stationed in Japan under a mutual security pact as a legacy of World War II.
After the U.S. visit, Abe will head to the Middle East for meetings with leaders of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar and Egypt, he said.
TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has met with some of the 15 British military personnel held in Iranian custody for almost two weeks, shortly after pardoning the group and vowing to set them free.
Iranian state television showed footage of Ahmadinejad shaking hands, smiling and chatting with the detainees, who were dressed in suits.
One of them was heard to comment in English:
According to the president's office, the Britons will leave Tehran at 8 a.m. Thursday (0430 GMT).
Parents expressed huge relief.
"Well, we were absolutely, totally shocked," said Alison Carman, mother of Lt. Felix Carman, as she stood beside her husband. "It was just unbelievable.
It was a bolt out of the blue. We'd been praying for their release, and when it actually happened, I think I fell to the floor, and Paul burst into tears.
The Carmans said they've been well-supported by family and friends and the navy during the ordeal.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair said the announcement comes "as a profound relief, not just to them but to their families that have endured such distress and anxiety over these past 12 days.
We bear you no ill will. On the contrary, we respect Iran as an ancient civilization and as a nation with a proud and dignified history.
"And the disagreements that we have with your government we wish to resolve peacefully through dialogue.
Ahmadinejad's announcement came at the end of a lengthy news conference Wednesday, in which he said the detainees had violated Iran's territorial waters and called their release "a gift to the British people.
The action was a goodwill gesture for the Iranian new year, he said, adding that Iran had received a letter from Britain promising not to intrude into Iranian waters.
Ahmadinejad had earlier praised the border guards who captured the 15 on March 23, presenting their commander with a medal for bravery.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2684315
Former Spice Girl Melanie Brown has given birth to a daughter in California, her publicist said Tuesday.
"Baby is completely healthy with a good head of hair. Mother and baby are now resting," the statement said. "No name has been decided on as yet, and (she) is purely known as Baby Brown!
Brown has said ex-boyfriend Eddie Murphy is the father. The 46-year-old "Dreamgirls" star has said he's not sure. Brown has said there's "absolutely no question that Eddie is the father.
The 31-year-old Brown, known as Scary Spice when she was in the megahit group of the '90s, has an 8-year-old daughter, Phoenix Chi, from her marriage to Jimmy Gulzar.
Gulzar married Brown in 1998 after he had performed on a Spice Girls tour. Their 15-month marriage ended in divorce in 2000.
This material may not be published.
PARIS, France (AP) France broke the world speed record on rails Tuesday with a souped-up fast train, a feat to showcase the technology it is trying to sell to overseas markets including China.
The new record is expected to gild France's image in the expanding market for high-speed technology as countries like China turn to bullet trains.
The black-and-chrome train with three double-decker cars sped along a new line linking Paris to eastern France, starting in the town of Preny.
The specially designed train was outfitted to reach up to 540 kph (335.5 mph) about the speed of a short-distance freight propeller plane.
The TGV, short for "train a grande vitesse," as France's bullet trains are called, is made up of three double-decker cars between two engines.
It has been equipped with larger wheels than the usual TGV to cover more ground with each rotation and a stronger, 25,000-horsepower engine, said Alain Cuccaroni, in charge of the technical aspects of testing.
Adjustments have also been made to the new track, which opens June 10, notably the banking on turns.
Rails were also treated for perfect contact, Cuccaroni said.
The electrical tension in the overhead cable was beefed up, from 25,000 volts to 31,000.
Tuesday was the first time that double-decker cars were being used at such a high speed, according to officials of Alstom, which makes TGVs and which crawled back a year ago from the edge of bankruptcy.
Japan holds the absolute speed record for a train, with its magnetically levitated Maglev train that skims over a guideway on powerful magnetic fields without ever touching the track.
The Maglev set a record of 581 kph (361 mph) in 2003.
The goal of the operation, called V150, is more than "simply breaking a record," Cuccaroni said.
Test data should help improve the security and comfort of passengers in the future, he said.
France competes with neighboring Germany and with Japan for contracts.
Transport Minister Dominique Perben received a California delegation hours before Tuesday's record attempt.
California is studying prospects for a high-speed line running from Sacramento in the north to San Diego, in the south, via San Francisco and Los Angeles.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2684178
KIEV, Ukraine (AP) Thousands of the prime minister's supporters streamed into the Ukrainian capital Tuesday to protest the president's order to dissolve parliament and call early elections, ending a shaky political truce with his chief rival.
The decision created the most serious political crisis here since the 2004 Orange Revolution.
The majority coalition in the 450-seat legislature, the Verkhovna Rada, would continue meeting in the parliament hall until the Constitutional Court rules on the validity of Yushchenko's order, Yanukovych said Tuesday.
Lawmakers also fired the Central Elections Commission and vowed to withhold the money needed to conduct new elections, ordered by the president for May 27.
The president and the prime minister were to hold discussions on the crisis on Tuesday afternoon, but the prospect of either one climbing down appeared small.
" said independent political analyst Ivan Lozowy. "The nature of both is that a compromise is almost excluded.
Yushchenko, who advocates stronger ties to the West, and the more pro-Russian Yanukovych, are bitter rivals dating back to the 2004 street demonstrations.
Large crowds gathered daily for weeks in central Kiev to protest Yanukovych's purported victory in a presidential election marked by voting fraud.
Yushchenko won a court-ordered rerun of that election, but Yanukovych staged a remarkable political comeback last year, when his party won the largest share in parliamentary voting.
Yanukovych put together a coalition that forced the president to name him prime minister in August.
Yushchenko accuses the prime minister of violating an agreement they signed last year setting out policy on domestic and foreign policies.
Yanukovych supporters headed for the parliament building Tuesday, and their rivals tried to organize counter-rallies.
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) An Atlanta man fatally shot his ex-girlfriend Tuesday at the CNN Center complex in downtown Atlanta, Georgia, before being shot by a security officer, police said.
The ex-girlfriend, Clara Riddles, 22, of College Park, Georgia, just outside Atlanta, died at Grady Memorial Hospital of her injuries.
The suspect, Arthur Mann, who police said is in his late 30s, was in stable condition Tuesday night at Grady.
A law enforcement source told CNN that Mann was shot in the face.
Mann was in critical condition earlier in the day and underwent surgery, the hospital said.
The shooting, which prompted many visitors to flee the CNN Center atrium, occurred about 1:30 p.m. near the Omni Hotel which is part of the complex.
The incident resulted in the brief evacuation of the nearby CNN.com newsroom.
Witness Charles Williams was riding up the escalator toward the Omni Hotel lobby when he saw Mann pulling Riddles by her hair with his left hand.
Riddles, an Omni employee, was screaming and crying and holding on to her hair close to her head with both hands, Williams said. (Read more witness accounts)
"I was walking directly toward them and he and I were eye-to-eye, and so I started looking at his right hand to see if he had something," said Williams, who works in technology services for Turner Broadcasting.
The suspect warned Williams, "Get out my way, pimpin'."
"I knew you don't say that to someone unless you got something," said Williams, who said he tried determine if the man had a weapon in his right hand, but could not get a clear view.
Williams moved out of the man's way and quickly motioned for the nearest security officer to come to him.
Then Williams lost sight of the couple as they turned into a hallway outside the CNN.com newsroom. (Slide show: CNN.com newsroom evacuated)
John Helton, a CNN.com producer, had a direct view of the gunman through glass doors.
"I saw him coming down the escalator pulling her along, around the corner. He ran into the plant and that's when they started struggling," he said.
The gunman was then shot by Capt. Odell Adams, who joined Turner Security in 1996, according to a spokesperson for Turner, the parent company for CNN.
CNN Medical Producer Matt Sloane shot video of a security officer pointing a gun at the alleged shooter outside the CNN.com newsroom.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2683801
Ma, of the main opposition Nationalists, remains the favorite to take over from President Chen Shui-bian of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party in the March 2008 presidential poll despite the charges against him.
Before entering his plea, the handsome, 56-year-old Harvard-educated lawyer told the court he had done nothing wrong in diverting 11 million New Taiwan dollars ($333,000) of public money into his private account while serving as mayor of Taipei between 1998 and 2006.
He said the practice of using discretionary municipal funds without providing detailed accounting had been approved by government auditors for more than 20 years.
Ma has professed his innocence since February, when his indictment was first announced.
His backers say diverting money from municipal funds is an accepted practice throughout Taiwan.
They say common uses for diverted funds include providing holiday bonuses for municipal workers and underwriting special municipal events.
On Sunday Ma said his campaign would still go forward even if he is convicted in Taipei District Court.
"If they seek to use the case to cause me trouble or even knock me down, they won't reach their goal," he told reporters.
Ma's trial opened in the shadow of an announcement by Nationalist kingpin Wang Jin-pyng that Wang would not contest the party's presidential primary because of alleged bias in the process.
"The primary would never be a fair competition as the rules of the game were specially made for a particular candidate from the outset," Wang said Monday, echoing the spirit of earlier comments in which he had cast doubts on the fitness of an indicted figure to lead the party's presidential ticket.
Both the Nationalists and the DPP are expected to announce their presidential candidates in May.
The DPP incumbent Chen is in the third year of his second four-year term, and is constitutionally barred from succeeding himself.
HONIARA, Solomon Islands (AP) Survivors got their first boatloads of aid in the Solomon Islands tsunami zone Tuesday as more bodies were found amid the rubble triggered by a massive undersea earthquake.
Flights over remote coastal villages in the stricken Western Province of the islands on Tuesday reported widespread destruction, a local official said, as the death toll edged toward 30 and was expected to climb further.
There was still no official number for those missing more than a day after the combination punch of a powerful earthquake and killer waves struck on Monday morning.
Thousands faced a second night sleeping outside on the higher ground where they fled to escape a 17-foot (5-meter) all of water.
Solomons Deputy Police Commissioner Peter Marshall said boats arrived Tuesday morning in the towns of Gizo and in nearby Munda from Honiara, the capital, carrying food and other urgent supplies.
Julian Makaa, spokesman for the National Disaster Management Office, said officials could only guess at the numbers of dead in the remotest villages, where two-way radio is the usual mode of contact with the outside world.
Most of the more than one dozen bodies found Tuesday were reported by people who discovered relatives in the remains of their shattered houses, said Arnold Moveni
The confirmed death toll stood at 28 in the Solomons, Moveni said, and was expected to rise as more rubble was searched and outlying villages reached.
Five unconfirmed deaths were reported in neighboring Papua New Guinea. Among the dead were a bishop and three worshippers at a church on Simbo island, the Uniting Chursh said.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press All rights reserved
TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) A top Iranian security official says his country sees "no need" to put 15 seized British sailors and marines on trial and that the ongoing dispute between Iran and Britain over their captivity can be resolved diplomatically.
The British government by saying that both it and Iran had a "shared desire to make early progress" in resolving the dispute.
However, Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said that in order to resolve the impasse, Britain would have to admit its military personnel had intruded into Iranian territorial waters and "guarantee this violation would not be committed again.
"We would be interested in diplomatic discussions, and, in my view, it is quite resolvable," said Larijani, who also said he believed "there should be a delegation to clarify" whether the British personnel intruded into Iranian waters.
The British government has insisted that the sailors and marines were in Iraqi waters when they were seized on March 23, and has demanded that the Iranian government let them go.
In an effort to isolate Iran diplomatically, Britain has appealed for support from both the European Union and U.N. Security Council.
In his interview with Channel 4, Larijani faulted Britain for creating a "harsh diplomatic atmosphere" that has prolonged the dispute and said the British government's "wrong attitude should be corrected.
"We are not pleased to have British citizens in our country as captives," he said. "Maybe if the UK government would have acted otherwise, we would not have had the case drag on so long.
Responding to Larijani's interview, a spokeswoman at the British foreign office said officials were still "studying" Larijani's remarks.
"There remain some differences between us, but we can confirm we share his preference for early bilateral discussion to find a diplomatic solution to this problem. We will be following up with the Iranian authorities tomorrow, given our shared desire to make early progress," the spokeswoman said.
Video footage has shown four of the British crew saying they were captured in Iranian waters.
WASHINGTON (CNN) The United States is investigating a report of a former FBI agent missing in Iran, officials said Monday.
The U.S. citizen went missing more than a week ago and hasn't been in touch with his family or employer, the State Department said.
The missing man retired from the FBI about 10 years ago.
As a former FBI agent, he followed organized crime in the United States, but was not involved in intelligence matters, said Paul Bresson, an FBI spokesman.
The American is believed to have been in Iran working for an independent author/producer, trying to set up an interview, according to several senior U.S. officials.
"We don't see any linkage whatsoever between this case and any other ongoing cases that may have been in the news recently," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack, apparently referring to the 15 British sailors and marines who were seized by Iran more than a week ago.
Officials said the man went missing on Kish Island off the southern coast of Iran.
The island is part of a free-trade zone under Iranian authority. Under most circumstances, non-Iranian nationals do not need a visa to visit Kish.
The State Department is in touch with the man's family and is in the process of sending a message to the Iranians through the Swiss government, the officials said.
At this point, McCormack said, U.S. officials have no indication the man is being held by any Iranian entity.
Teen starlet Hilary Duff claims she's never had a problem with her weight, but feels pressure to be thin.
The 19-year-old actress and singer told People Magazine that she's either perceived as too fat or too thin in the media, which she says can be "judgmental and mean.
"And if you don't like the way you look or feel insecure, when people say things about you in magazines or just in everyday life they can be hurtful.
But you'll never make them happy," she told the magazine.
Duff, who has sold more than 13 million albums worldwide, has a new album out April 3 called "Dignity."
Several of the songs are about her relationship with her now ex-boyfriend, Good Charlotte singer Joel Madden, but she denies that she slammed his new newest flame, Nicole Richie, in her tune "Gypsy Woman.
"It's not my job to talk about my relationship," she said.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2682882
It's no fun when a wild tusker is lumbering toward you, and you are trapped in a Jeep with no choice but to drive in reverse on a muddy, twisting, hilly road flanked by a jungle on the left and a gurgling river to the right.
The heart-stopping encounter with an irritated elephant occurred barely 30 minutes after we had driven into the Corbett National Park India's finest tiger reserve in the foothills of the Himalayas in search of the big cats.
At the wheel was a friend, a city lad whose skills in reverse driving were limited to parking between parallel lines.
Still, he did an admirable job of driving us a shaken party of four backward to safety behind a curve in the forested hill.
We were lucky.
Later at a forest lodge the staging point for tiger safaris we saw another vehicle that had been gored the same day by a tusker, possibly the one we met.
The vehicle displayed two holes in the metal grille in the front.
But Rajiv Bhartari, the director of Corbett Tiger Reserve, which encompasses the national park, later told us that it is common for wild elephants to confront humans although fatal encounters are unheard of.
And nothing can be truer.
Corbett National Park is no Serengeti or Kruger.
Unlike those African parks, you won't see hordes of animals under shady trees or watering holes.
But tracking and spotting a tiger in the Indian jungle with an experienced guide turned out to be every bit as thrilling as homing in on a pair of cheetahs in the African grasslands. But more of that later.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press All rights reserved
EMI Group has agreed to make its music catalogue available through Apple Inc.'s iTunes store without copy protection.
Apple is the first online retailer to get the rights to sell the British music giant's downloads.
"The new higher quality DRM-free music will complement EMI's existing range of standard DRM-protected downloads already available," EMI said in a statement on Monday.
"From today, EMI's retailers will be offered downloads of tracks and albums in the DRM-free audio format of their choice in a variety of bit rates up to CD quality."
But a long-awaited announcement that The Beatles would be part of Monday's deal was not to be.
EMI and Apple said they were still hoping to make the Fab Four's music available soon.
Beatles recordings have been distributed by EMI since the early 1960s.
But the group's own music company, Apple Corps, is a long-time holdout in making their songs available to Internet services.
The two Apples have also had a long legal battle over copyright to the name and logo.
The dispute was recently settled, leading to speculation that Beatles music would soon be available on iTunes.
Apple Corps was founded by the Fab Four in 1968 and is still owned by Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, the widow of John Lennon and the estate of George Harrison.
EMI's other artists include The Rolling Stones, Coldplay, Pink Floyd and Joss Stone.
Apple Inc. chief executive Steve Jobs said earlier this year urged the world's four major record companies, including EMI, to start selling songs online without copy-protection software, known as DRM, for digital rights management.
DRM software is designed to thwart piracy but also makes using music cumbersome for many consumers.
Speaking at a joint news conference Monday, Jobs said Apple would now approach the other labels to seek similar agreements.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2682366
Bodies floated out to sea and thousands of residents camped out overnight Tuesday on a hillside above a devastated town in the western Solomon Islands after a tsunami that struck without warning washed away coastal villages, killing at least 13 people.
The death toll was expected to rise.
The Solomon Islands government declared a national state of emergency, as the prime minister held meetings with his impoverished country's aid donors about getting help.
"My heart goes out to all of you at this very trying time," Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare said in an address to the nation.
A wall of water reportedly 30 feet high struck the island of Choiseul and swept a third of a mile inland, while smaller but still destructive waves surged ashore elsewhere in the western part of the impoverished archipelago, causing widespread damage and leaving thousands homeless.
The tsunami was triggered by a magnitude 8.0 quake that struck shortly after 7:39 a.m. Monday six miles beneath the sea floor, about 25 miles from the western island of Gizo and 215 miles northwest of the Solomons' capital, Honiara, the U.S. Geological Survey said.
The quake the strongest in the Solomons in more than three decades set off tsunami alarms from Tokyo to Hawaii and closed beaches along the east coast of Australia more than 1,250 miles away.
Lifeguards with bullhorns yelled at surfers to get out of the water at Sydney's famous Bondi Beach.
The danger passed quickly, but officials rejected suggestions they overreacted, adding that the emergency tested procedures put in place after the 2004 Indian Ocean disaster that left 230,000 dead or missing in a dozen countries.
Up to 4,000 people were camped on a hill behind Gizo, a town of about 7,000, said Alex Lokopio, premier of hard-hit Western Province.
Floodwaters subsided, but the Red Cross reported about 500 houses were damaged or destroyed, leaving 2,000 homeless.
Many people were too scared to return to the coast amid more than two dozen aftershocks, including at least four of magnitude-6 or stronger.
Roads were inaccessible and there was heavy damage to infrastructure, including phones and electricity, said Martin Blackgrove, the International Red Cross' regional disaster management coordinator for the Pacific, based in Fiji.
Because of Gizo's proximity to the quake's epicenter, the tsunami struck before an alarm could be sounded.
"There wasn't any warning the warning was the earth tremors," Lokopio told New Zealand's National Radio. "It shook us very, very strongly and we were frightened, and all of a sudden the sea was rising up.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2682231
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) A suicide truck bombing in the northern city of Tal Afar last week is the deadliest single attack since the Iraq war began in 2003, a high-ranking Iraqi Interior Ministry official said Monday as a new death toll for the blast surfaced.
'Chemical' Ali case coming to close
In closing arguments Monday, Iraq's chief prosecutor, Monkith Alfaroon, requested the death penalty for Ali Hassan al-Majid, who is accused of gassing thousands of Kurds in the 1980s.
Alfaroon also sought the death penalty for four of al-Majid's five co-defendants.
It was not clear if Alfaroon wanted the death penalty for the fifth defendant.
Alfaroon asked for the most severe penalty for al-Majid, Sultan Hashem Ahmed, Saber Abdel Aziz, Hussein Rashid and Farhan Jubouri "because they committed awful crimes and they never had mercy for a woman or a child.
"Even the environment suffered from their tyranny and injustice," Alfaroon said, according to court proceedings on Iraqi state TV.
Al-Majid, aka "Chemical" Ali, is the cousin of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and a former senior member of the regime.
He faces genocide charges for his role in a military campaign called Operation Anfal.
He was governor of the region at the time and is accused of ordering the killings of as many as 100,000 Kurds in 1987 and 1988, as the Iran-Iraq war was nearing its end.
The Anfal trial began August 21 and included genocide charges against Saddam Hussein.
The Iraqi leader, however, was executed December 30 after being found guilty in the 1982 killing of 148 people in the Shiite town of Dujail.
The Anfal trial resumed a week after Hussein's hanging.
The remaining six co-defendants, including al-Majid, face charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
WASHINGTON (AP) A key element of the second major report on climate change being released Friday in Belgium is a chart that maps out the effects of global warming, most of them bad, with every degree of temperature rise.
A minimal heat rise means more food production in northern regions of the world.
However, the number of species going extinct rises with the heat, as does the number of people who may starve, or face water shortages, or floods, according to the projections in the draft report obtained by The Associated Press
Some scientists are calling this degree-by-degree projection a "highway to extinction.
Andrew Weaver, a climate scientist with the University of Victoria in British Columbia, said the chart of results from various temperature levels is "a highway to extinction, but on this highway there are many turnoffs. This is showing you where the road is heading. The road is heading toward extinction.
Weaver is one of the lead authors of the first report, issued in February.
While humanity will survive, hundreds of millions, maybe billions of people may not, according to the chart if the worst scenarios happen.
The report says global warming has already degraded conditions for many species, coastal areas and poor people.
With a more than 90 percent level of confidence, the scientists in the draft report say man-made global warming "over the last three decades has had a discernible influence on many physical and biological systems.
But as the world's average temperature warms from 1990 levels, the projections get more dire.
Add 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit 1 degree Celsius is the calculation scientists use and between 400 million and 1.7 billion extra people can't get enough water, some infectious diseases and allergenic pollens rise, and some amphibians go extinct.
But the world's food supply, especially in northern areas, could increase. That's the likely outcome around 2020, according to the draft.
Add another 1.8 degrees and as many as 2 billion people could be without water and about 20 percent to 30 percent of the world's species near extinction.
Also, more people start dying because of malnutrition, disease, heat waves, floods and droughts all caused by global warming.
That would happen around 2050, depending on the level of greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels.
At the extreme end of the projections, a 7- to 9-degree average temperature increase, the chart predicts:
"Up to one-fifth of the world population affected by increased flood events" ... "1.1 to 3.2 billion people with increased water scarcity" ..."major extinctions around the globe.
Despite that dire outlook, several scientists involved in the process say they are optimistic that such a drastic temperature rise won't happen because people will reduce carbon dioxide emissions that cause global warming.
"The worst stuff is not going to happen because we can't be that stupid," said Harvard University oceanographer James McCarthy, who was a top author of the 2001 version of this report.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AP) Sometime in 2010, the world's leading space-exploring nation will say goodbye to manned space flight for more than four years.
The flight gap will occur because NASA is winding down its space shuttle program near the end of 2010 to move into the next phase of space exploration the moon and Mars.
The next-generation spacecraft, the Orion capsule, won't be ready for manned flight until March 2015.
During those gap years, the United States must rely on the good will of other nations if it wants to send astronauts and cargo to the international space station.
asks U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, the Florida Democrat who chairs the Space, Aeronautics and Related Sciences subcommittee.
"Is Russia still going to be allied with us?
There was a six-year gap between the last Apollo flight in 1975 and the first shuttle flight in 1981.
"It is not a very desirable situation," said John Logsdon, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University.
"We will have an orbiting destination that we have spent multiple billions of dollars of U.S. taxpayer money to develop.
To not be able to get there except for the good will of others is a little ironic.
NASA fears the United States will risk losing its title as the leading spacefaring nation as Russia, Europe, Japan, China and India improve their ability to send humans and cargo into space during the gap years.
Currently, the only three nations with vehicles able to fly people to space are China, Russia and the United States.
NASA Administrator Michael Griffin recently told lawmakers that China's ambitious space program could feasibly beat the United States in the race back to the moon, although he and outside experts say there's no indication yet that China is on that path.
The gap also could contribute to a loss of interest in space exploration by the U.S. public and Congress, and that could diminish the resources allotted to the space agency, said W. Henry Lambright, a political science professor at Syracuse University.
Griffin recently called the gap "unseemly," but he has few options with the budgets NASA has been given by the White House and Congress since President Bush first announced plans to return to the moon three years ago. NASA has put the cost of returning to the moon at $104 billion, although the General Accounting Office puts it at $122 billion through 2018.
NASA had hoped to have the first manned Orion flight as early as 2012.
That would be a low-orbit test flight. But that goal was pushed back to 2014 when NASA had to raid the Orion development fund to fill in a $3 billion shortfall for finishing space station construction and ending the shuttle program.
Repairs to NASA buildings damaged by Hurricane Katrina also siphoned off money.
Space agency officials said the 2007 budget would remove more than $500 million from what NASA had budgeted for developing the new spacecraft, pushing the first manned flight of Orion into March 2015.
Barbara Mikulski, D-Maryland, and Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, this month proposed increasing NASA's funding by $1 billion. Mikulski also called for a space summit between Congress and the White House to raise the profile of NASA's budget needs.
Nelson said the gap could be narrowed to three years if NASA were to get an extra $400 million above the 2008 budget request and an extra $800 million each in 2009 and 2010.
NASA's budget request for 2008 is $17.3 billion.
During the last gap in space flight, which ended in 1981, the agency had a brain drain in which experienced engineers and technicians left for other opportunities and "essentially, the manned space program went off the radar screen," Lambright said.
It's not a good thing."
MELBOURNE, Australia Michael Phelps of the United States broke his own world record in the men's 400 meters individual medley final to collect his seventh gold medal at the world championships on Sunday.
Phelps, 21, won in four minutes 06.22 seconds to wipe 2.04 off the previous mark of 4:08.26 which he set at the 2004 Athens Olympics.
It was his fourth individual world record of the week.
Phelps's team mate Ryan Lochte finished second in 4:09.74 after leading at the 200 and Italian Luca Marin was third in 4:09.88.
Phelps, who also won the 200 medley, 200 freestyle, 200 butterfly, 100 butterfly and two relays, became the first person to win seven gold medals at a single world championships, bettering the previous record of six set by Australia's Ian Thorpe at Fukuoka, Japan in 2001.
"I didn't expect to be two seconds under my world record tonight," said the 21-year-old from Michigan.
"I didn't feel good this morning, didn't feel good in warm-up so I tried to block it out and think about what I did in training and use it in the race.
Phelps had been bidding to win eight events and go one better than American Mark Spitz's golden haul of seven at the 1972 Munich Olympics, but his chances were dashed when the U.S. team were disqualified from the medley relay during Sunday's morning heats.
The U.S. set the fastest time in the heats but were disqualified when Ian Crocker left the starting blocks too early at the second changeover.
Pope Benedict XVI, in his Palm Sunday Mass, opened the Roman Catholic Church's most solemn week by urging young people to live pure, innocent lives.
This year, Holy Week also includes the second anniversary of the April 2, 2005, death of Pope John Paul II.
On Monday, the Catholic Church will close one phase of its investigation into John Paul's saintliness as it keeps up the momentum to have the beloved pope beatified.
Holding an intricately woven palm frond, Benedict opened the Palm Sunday celebration by processing through the sun-filled St. Peter's Square and up the steps of the basilica.
He was preceded by dozens of priests, bishops and cardinals who clutched palms and olive branches as their red vestments fluttered in the breeze.
Palm Sunday commemorates Jesus Christ's triumphant entry into Jerusalem, and is the start of the church's Holy Week, which includes the Good Friday re-enactment of Christ's crucifixion and death and his resurrection on Easter Sunday.
Benedict continued the tradition started by John Paul and dedicated Palm Sunday to the young, who were out in force in St. Peter's.
He told them that to follow God they should have "innocent hands and pure hearts.
"Innocent hands are hands that are not used for acts of violence," he told them. "They are hands that are not sullied by corruption and bribes.
Hearts are pure when they are not "stained by lies and hypocrisy," he said. "A heart is pure when it is estranged from the intoxication of pleasure; a heart for whom love is true and not just the passion of a moment," he said.
Benedict has an unusually busy schedule this week:
In addition to the traditional Holy Week ceremonies, he will preside over a Mass on Monday afternoon in honor of John Paul to mark the second anniversary of the pontiff's death.
TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) New video on Iranian government-run TV networks Sunday showed two of the 15 British detainees being held in Iran.
The first man, who does not appear to identify himself, points to where the crew was "when we were seized.
He said it was "apparently at this point, here, from their maps, which is inside Iranian territorial waters."
They have looked after us and made sure that we're getting enough food, and we've been treated very well by them, so we thank them for that.
The second man, who identifies himself by a name sounding like "Lt. Felix Carmen," also explains where on the map the 15 Britons were taken.
Both men are dressed in military fatigues.
Video clips taken on the water were shown as the two men talked.
A short time later, a version with sound and in English appeared on a different government-run channel that broadcasts in Farsi.
The British Foreign Office called the footage unacceptable.
Although Iran has said captives admitted to "trespassing" into Iranian territorial waters, Britain and Iraq say the crew were legally in Iraqi waters.
Iran detained the 15 marines and sailors on March 23 as they were making anti-smuggling patrols near the mouth of the Shatt al-Arab, at the northern end of the Persian Gulf.
The waterway has long been the site of tensions between Iraq and Iran, which both claim it as their territory.
The Britons are being held in an undisclosed location without access to British diplomats. Sincere apologies or coerced statements?
Iran has not responded to speculations that the confessions were coerced.
Release of the videos has caused outrage in London, where British officials accuse Iran of using the service members for propaganda reasons.
President Bush called Iran's detention of the sailors "inexcusable behavior" and called for their release, referring to them as "hostages.
No one was injured and there was no damage in the protest, which continued into the late afternoon, the spokesman said.
Japan trucked its first ballistic missile interceptors to an air force base north of Tokyo on Friday in an effort to beef up its defenses against its unpredictable neighbor North Korea.
The deployment of Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) launchers, capable of shooting down incoming missiles in the final stage of flight as they near their target, was sparked by Pyongyang's firing of a ballistic missile in 1998 that flew over Japan.
But Tokyo rushed the equipment into service a year ahead of schedule after North Korea unnerved the region last year by firing more missiles and testing a nuclear device.
"We consider it very meaningful to deploy the air defense missiles close to metropolitan Tokyo, which is the center of business and political activities ," Kazumasa Echizen, the Iruma air base public-information chief, said in a statement. "We will continue our efforts to be ready for any possible emergencies.
About 50 demonstrators shouted and waved banners as a line of green trucks carried the equipment through the gates of the base, about 40 km (25 miles) from central Tokyo, before dawn on Friday.
"Bringing PAC-3s to places like Iruma makes them the focus of interception strategy and therefore at risk of becoming the target of attack by other countries," an activist group said in a statement condemning the deployment as a "military performance".
Darrell Roberson came home from a card game late one night to find his wife rolling around with another man in a pickup truck in the driveway.
Caught in the act with her lover, Tracy Denise Roberson thinking quickly, if not clearly cried rape, authorities say.
Her husband pulled a gun and killed the other man with a shot to the head.
On Thursday, a grand jury handed up a manslaughter indictment against the wife, not the husband.
The grand jury declined to charge the husband with murder, the charge on which he was arrested by police.
"If I found somebody with my wife or with my kids in my house, there's no telling what I might do," said Juan Muniz, 33, who was having lunch Friday with one of his two small children at a restaurant in the middle-class suburban Dallas neighborhood where the Robersons lived. "I probably would have done the same thing.
Tracy Roberson, 35, could get two to 20 years in prison in the slaying of Devin LaSalle, a 32-year-old UPS employee.
Assistant District Attorney Sean Colston declined to comment on specifics of the case or the grand jury proceedings but said Texas law allows a defendant to claim justification if he has "a reasonable belief that his actions are necessary, even though what they believe at the time turns out not to be true.
Mark Osler, a Baylor University law school professor and a former federal prosecutor, said the grand jurors evidently put themselves in the husband's place:
The December night before the shooting, Tracy Roberson sent LaSalle a text message that read in part, "Hi friend, come see me please!
I need to feel your warm embrace!" according to court papers.
Darrell Roberson, a 38-year-old employee of a real estate firm, discovered the two, his wife clad in a robe and underwear.
When Tracy Roberson cried that she was being raped, LaSalle tried to drive away and her husband drew the gun he happened to be carrying and fired several shots at the truck, authorities said.
His wife also was charged with making a false report to a police officer for allegedly saying she was raped
Ayurveda, an ancient Hindu healing method, has seen a resurgence as India vies for a share of the lucrative Asian medical-tourism market by offering traditional massages and beauty treatments to wealthy tourists.
Past the glass doors of the spa at Indian Hotels' Taj Wellington Mews, is a softly lit ayurveda room with a brass-edged, wooden treatment platform dotted with flowers.
Therapists in cotton sarees pray to Dhanavantari before each ayurveda session, from a basic head massage to an intense detox scrub and wrap, that can last from 45 minutes to five-and-a-half hours and are priced at 950 rupees ($21) to 10,000 rupees.
"We get a mix of people: those that are familiar with ayurveda, as well as those who are just curious and want to give it a try," said Silvia Mot, manager at the Taj spa in Mumbai.
Traditional practitioners have always abounded, and now a growing interest in natural therapies is boosting ancient methods like ayurveda, homeopathy and siddha, which uses minerals.
Their products ranging from face packs to throat lozenges and medications to treat hair loss, diabetes and skin disease generate a big chunk of the estimated $200 to $300 million alternative therapy market in India's burgeoning beauty industry.
Ayurveda declined with the growth of modern medicine during the British rule but it is thriving again, particularly in Kerala and Tamil Nadu in the south where home medicine chests contain ayurvedic pain balms and digestives alongside modern medications.
India has even contested a move by some Western companies to patent the use and healing properties of herbs like neem, turmeric and "ashwagandha" or Indian ginseng, which are used from everything from treating acne and wounds to aiding digestion.
There have been warnings in North America and Britain about the high content of heavy metals such as lead, mercury and arsenic in ayurvedic products, which are not as strictly controlled as Western medicines.
Still, foreign firms are keen to get a foothold in the market as interest grows in Eastern philosophies and treatments.
L'Oreal recently said it was looking to buy a small Indian ayurveda brand to launch a worldwide foray in ayurveda.
But Milind Sarwate, chief financial
officer of consumer goods maker Marico, which owns the premium Sundari ayurvedic line in the United States, said it may be hard to apply Western standards and quality control to these traditional therapies and their natural ingredients. "You can't put a barcode on every amla (gooseberry) or ensure standards of every root from a Jharkhand (eastern India) forest. "
ÏÀ» Á¦°øÇÏÁö ¾Ê½À´Ï´Ù.
At a House Agricultural Subcommittee hearing in Washington, D.C., today, members of various organizations came together to share their concerns about what they have been calling the "Colony Collapse Disorder," or CCD.
Beginning in October 2006, beekeepers from 24 states reported that hundreds of thousands of their bees were dying and their colonies were being devastated.
In December 2006, beekeepers' associations, scientists and officials formed the CCD working group, in hopes of identifying the cause and solving the problem of CCD.
beekeepers who have recently reported heavy losses associated with CCD are large commercial migratory beekeepers, some of whom are losing 50 percent to 90 percent of their colonies. The great corn gold rush
Testifying in front of the committee this morning, Caird E. Rexroad, from the Agricultural Research Service, said that although his agency has a variety of theories as to what might be causing CCD, it believes stress on the bees might be the major motive.
"We believe that some form of stress may be suppressing immune systems of bees, ultimately contributing to CCD."
The main four types of stresses that Rexroad identified were migratory stresses, mites, pathogens and pesticides.
According to the National Agricultural Statistic Service, honey production declined by 11 percent in 2006, and honey prices per pound increased 14 percent, from 91.8 cents in 2005 to 104.2 cents in 2006.
Daren Jantzy, with the National Agricultural Statistics Service, told CNN that these statistics are based on numbers collected mostly before the true impact of CCD was noted.
Its effect will be more noticeable when the 2007 statistics are collected.
Getting into Harvard University got tougher in 2007 as more students than ever applied to the Ivy League school's undergraduate program, many drawn by an attractive financial aid offer.
Harvard, the world's richest university, said Thursday a record 22,955 students applied for a spot in the Class of 2011.
Of those, just 2,058 were accepted an admission rate of 9 percent, the lowest in school history.
Harvard and other prestigious U.S. universities are benefiting from a surge in enrollment as children of the baby-boomer generation graduate from high school.
Harvard said just over half of those admitted to the Class of 2011 were women, while the number of ethnic minorities hit a record high.
Nearly 20 percent of those accepted are Asian, 10.7 percent are black and 10.1 percent are Latino.
The class would also be its most economically diverse, Harvard said, with 26 percent eligible for a new financial aid program.
The Harvard Financial Aid Initiative, announced in 2004 by Summers, slashed the amount low-income students must pay to attend the oldest U.S. institute of higher learning.
Under the program, students from families earning less than $60,000 a year do not have to contribute to the cost of tuition.
Those from families earning between $60,000 and $80,000 pay far less than they would have in previous years.
More than two-thirds of Harvard's entering class receives financial aid, including scholarships and loans.
Many badly need the help.
Annual undergraduate tuition will rise 3.9 percent next year to $31,456, increasing at a pace nearly double the U.S. rate of inflation, a Harvard statement showed this month.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press All rights reserved
Kate Middleton, girlfriend of Britain's Prince William, has complained to Britain's press watchdog about a photograph in a tabloid newspaper. The picture in the Daily Mirror showed Middleton glancing over her shoulder as she walked in the street holding a coffee.
Middleton said the photograph was taken as a result of harassment, a Press Complaints Commission spokesman said Thursday.
The photograph was accompanied by a caption suggesting "stony-faced Kate" was about to scold William after he was pictured with other women in night clubs.
William, elder son of heir to the throne Prince Charles, and Middleton, both 24, met when they were students at St. Andrews University in Scotland. Lawyers for Middleton have written to newspaper editors urging restraint after a spate of rumors the couple would announce their engagement soon.
Argentine football great Diego Maradona tried to check himself out of a Buenos Aires hospital just hours after he fell ill from excessive eating, drinking and smoking, his doctor said on Thursday.
The 46-year-old has battled cocaine addiction in the past and he had a stomach-stapling operation in 2005.
That helped him shed about 66 pounds (30 kg), but he has appeared overweight in recent pictures.
They sedated him again and he fell asleep," Cahe told a local radio station.
Journalists and television cameras gathered outside the Guemes hospital after Maradona was admitted late on Wednesday.
A hospital statement said his condition was not due to drug addiction, but his return to a hospital was a reminder of the repeated health problems many of them drug-related
Cahe had said just days ago that Maradona had put on weight and smoked too many cigars, and was planning a trip to Switzerland to get himself back into shape.
In 2000, Maradona was hospitalized with a severe heart problem while vacationing in Uruguay and tested positive for cocaine before undergoing drug rehabilitation in Cuba.
Four years later, he spent 10 days in intensive care with heart and breathing problems and reentered rehabilitation.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press All rights reserved
TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) Iran released Thursday what it says is a second letter from captured British sailor Faye Turney in which she criticizes British policy in Iraq. "Isn't it time for us to start withdrawing our forces from Iraq and let them determine their own future?"
said the letter, addressed to the British Parliament and released to media organizations by the Iranian embassy in London, England.
The first asked her parents to look after her husband and young daughter.
Also Thursday, the U.N. Security Council appealed for the early release of the detainees, and Iranian state television broadcast five seconds of footage that it said was of the operation that seized the 15 British sailors and marines in Iranian territorial waters last week.
Gunshots could be heard on the tape and a helicopter was shown above inflatable boats in choppy seas.
Then the video showed some of the British troops including Turney seated in a boat with an Iranian flag, presumably after their capture.
The demonstration looked similar to a Wednesday briefing on the incident by British Vice Admiral Charles Style, who released a map of the Shatt al-Arab purporting to show the coordinates of the British boat when it was captured, along with pictures of handheld GPS devices showing the location.
Britain's Ministry of Defense said its position remained unchanged by the Iranian footage, The Associated Press reported.
Astronaut Sunita Williams is stuck in space at least temporarily.
She flew up to the international space station last December planning to come home in early July after a seven-month stay.
When she comes back now will be a bit later than she planned.
The problem is that a hail storm that damaged the fuel tank of the space shuttle Atlantis has knocked NASA's flight schedule for the year out of whack.
Her ticket home, space shuttle Endeavour, may get off the ground several weeks later than its originally scheduled June 28 launch.
So Williams who got a bit of attention for her accident with wasabi which wound up on the walls of the space station may have to wait a little longer to go to her favorite sushi restaurant in Houston.
"We're doing things we can as best we can to make her happy, and perhaps launch some special items that will make her more comfortable for that extended period of time," said Kirk Shireman, NASA's deputy manager of the space station program.
"Aside from that, there's not a whole lot that one can do.
Flight surgeon Dave Alexander said Williams' physical fitness, mental well-being and radiation exposure would be monitored carefully, but "right now, the predictions are Suni can stay up for an extended period of time.
During her longer stay in space, Williams is expected to break the U.S. record for continuous time in space.
Her current crew mate, Michael Lopez-Alegria, will set that record when he returns to Earth on April 20 in a Russian Soyuz vehicle with 214 days in space.
The longest stay in space was 437 days by Russian Valeri Polyakov.
About 30 sheep being kept at a suburban home were euthanized Tuesday after some were found to have serious health problems, authorities said.
David Watts, who faces animal cruelty charges, kept about 80 of the animals in his crumbling house in Apex, a Raleigh suburb, police said. "He lives upstairs and the sheep were living downstairs," police Sgt. Robert Towell said.
"He considered them pets.
Watts even walked some of the sheep around the neighborhood on a leash.
Workers found sheep eating plastic bags and artificial flowers from a nearby cemetery.
Sheep skulls and carcasses were found in compost piles, she said.
"We're always saddened when we see animals kept in this kind of state," Ferris said. "It could have been prevented.
About 30 sheep were euthanized because of poor health, said Michael Williams, director of the Wake County Animal Care, Control and Adoption Center.
Some had severe hoof rot, paralyzed limbs and prolapsed uteruses, in which a ewe's reproductive organs hang outside the body after it has given birth, Williams said.
Watts has cooperated with investigators, said Police Chief Jack Lewis.
Neighbors have long complained about the sheep.
"All I want is to be able to sit on my front porch and not smell sheep poop," said Angie Fowler, who lives across the street.
As many as 30 healthy sheep could be available for adoption, officials said.
Oil held near its highest close in over six months on Thursday as traders weighed rising risk to Gulf supplies from mounting tension between Iran and the West.
Small draws in weekly U.S. product and crude stocks were overshadowed by fears surrounding the world's fourth-largest oil exporter, which has been holding 15 British sailors and marines since Friday and was hit with new U.N. sanctions at the weekend.
Oil markets remained jittery after prices briefly spiked up 8 percent to above $68 late on Tuesday on rumors of a clash between U.S. or British forces and Iran.
London and Washington quickly denied any confrontation, but traders said it was a stark reminder of the risks posed by growing geopolitical angst.
Iranian television on Wednesday displayed some of the British sailors and marines held at sea last week, with the only woman crew member saying they had "trespassed" into Iranian waters.
But Britain said it feared the sailors might have been coerced into appearing and insists they were seized in Iraqi waters.
Despite prices returning into the danger zone for consumer nations, OPEC's Secretary-General said there was no need for the cartel to pump additional crude as the gains were due to political tensions, not a shortage of supply.
MANILA, Philippines (CNN) A daycare operator armed with grenades and a gun released more than 30 preschool children and their teachers Wednesday after holding them hostage on a bus for more than eight hours.
Jun Ducat, 56, was taken into custody after the hostages were freed at about 7:10 p.m. local time (1110 GMT).
Manila Police Chief Danilo Abarzosa said Ducat would be charged with illegal detention and abduction, illegal possession of explosives and illegal possession of firearms, The Associated Press reported.
Ducat said during the standoff that he had seized the hostages in an effort to call attention to education and housing issues, as well as corruption, in the Philippines. (What what the hostage-taker had demanded )
Wednesday's hostage drama unfolded on a warm day just a short distance from City Hall, where Ducat had driven the students after dismissing the bus driver, authorities said.
"Our hostages are 32 kids and 2 teachers," a sign in the bus window said. "We have 2 grenades, an Uzi and a .45-caliber pistol.
The sign also said: "We want housing and schooling for 145 kids in a daycare center. " (Watch the bus and the telephone that's been placed for the hostage-takers to use )
Bowing to one of Ducat's demands, authorities allowed him to address the media via a wireless speaker that was placed on the sidewalk outside the bus.
"I love these kids; that's why I am here," Ducat told DZMM radio, AP reported. "I invited the children for a field trip.
"You can be assured that I cannot hurt the children. In case I need to shed blood, I will not be the first to fire. I am telling the policemen, have pity on these children.
He used the opportunity to criticize the nation's political system, accusing it of graft and corruption and telling Filipinos not to depend on their politicians.
Early in the afternoon, a local politician, Sen. Ramon Revilla, entered the bus to conduct direct negotiations.
"He actually knows all of these children and all of the teachers of the bus," said Social Welfare Secretary Esperanza Cabral, who talked with Ducat on the phone. "He has been a donor to the daycare center and to the school."
One of Revilla's children is Ducat's godson, said Col. Rommel Miranda of the Manila police department, in citing both Ducat and the senator.
Ducat has been "described as very kind and helpful to other people," Miranda said, adding, "He's one of those people who helped children go through pre-school" in the local area.
A child was later taken off the bus, after complaining of not feeling well.
He was placed in an ambulance and taken to the hospital, as temperatures soared into the mid-30s C (90s F).
The engine of the purple-and-gray bus continued to run, providing air conditioning, AP reported.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2676731
Doctors have removed a small, malignant growth from presidential spokesman Tony Snow's abdomen, but they determined the cancer had spread to his liver, the White House said Tuesday.
Snow, 51, told reporters during a Friday briefing that he was having the growth removed but shrugged it off as a precautionary measure.
Snow underwent surgery to have the growth about the size of his pinky fingertip removed from his pelvic area, and doctors found that his cancer had metastasized, or spread, to his liver, said Snow's deputy, Dana Perino.
Later Tuesday, President Bush said he had spoken to Snow and told him he was in the first family's prayers.
Bush also said he looked forward to Snow returning as White House press secretary.
"He is not going to let this whip him, and he's upbeat," Bush told reporters in the Rose Garden. "My attitude is we need to pray for him.
Bush added, "My message to Tony is, 'Stay strong. A lot of people love you and care for you and will pray for you
News that Snow would undergo surgery came a day after Elizabeth Edwards, wife of 2008 Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards, announced her breast cancer had returned in an incurable form Snow commended her for her bravery Friday, saying, "When you see an Elizabeth Edwards saying, 'I'm going to embrace life and I'm going to move forward,' that is a wonderful thing."
Çѱ۴º½ºÀÇ ¿ø¹ ®Àºµû
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2676631
A man was charged with theft and burglary after police said they found 93 pounds of women's panties, brassieres and other underwear at his home.
Investigators believe Garth M. Flaherty, 24, took as many as 1,500 undergarments from apartment complex laundry rooms before he was caught, police Cmdr. Chris Tennant said.
A man was seen taking underwear from two laundry rooms Saturday, a witness recorded his license number, and Flaherty was identified from photographs, Tennant said.
Police found enough underwear in his bedroom to fill five garbage bags, Tennant said.
Police had previously received 12 reports of underwear thefts in the northeast part of town, where Washington State University is located.
"We were kind of concerned about how to match up bras and panties with victims," Tennant said. "Based on the unique descriptions from a couple of women, we can tie him to those thefts.
The underwear will be held as evidence until the case is resolved, after which their disposition is uncertain, Tennant said.
rappers Snoop Dogg and Sean "Diddy" Combs have cancelled the British dates of their European tour after Snoop was denied a visa to enter Britain, his record company said on Tuesday.
The pair were "incredibly disappointed and devastated" after concerts in London, Cardiff, Manchester, Nottingham and Glasgow were called off, Polydor said in a statement.
"With late notice of Snoop being denied a visa, time has run out and it is too late to reconfigure the show," it said.
"They really did not want to let fans down this way as the UK was a planned highlight of the tour.
Snoop Dogg, a former Los Angeles gang member who was arrested during a fight at London's Heathrow airport last year.
The Home Office would not comment on individual cases, but said the government had the power to refuse entrance to anyone whose presence would "not be conducive to the public good.
Snoop Dogg, real name Calvin Broadus, has been performing across Europe with Combs, once his bitter rival in a notorious feud between the east and west coast U.S. hip-hop scenes.
The tour continues in Dublin on Saturday.
This material may not be published.
Berlin Zoo denied media allegations on Tuesday that Knut the celebrity polar bear cub was responsible for the sudden demise of one of its older attractions, a 22-year-old panda who was found dead in her cage.
Just four days after the euphoria over the debut of three-and-a-half-month-old "Cuddly Knut," the mysterious death of Chinese-born Yan Yan stole the headlines in Tuesday's German newspapers.
Top-selling Bild reported the influx of visitors to the zoo about 30,000 a day could have stressed the black and white bear, who spent much of her time lying on her back chomping at bamboo shoots.
"Lots of people gave up on seeing Knut because of the long queues, so they went to see Yan Yan instead. She seemed intimidated and anxious," wrote the paper, suggesting Yan Yan could have had a heart attack.
Berlin Zoo denied any link.
"I can say with absolute certainty that there was no connection between Yan Yan's death and Knut," said a spokesman.
"Our keepers were stunned. The sad thing is that because of the excitement around Knut, she died alone and no one immediately noticed that she had passed away.
The zoo kept the lifeless panda in cold storage overnight and will conduct an autopsy to establish the cause of death.
Yan Yan, Chinese for "The Beautiful One," was brought to Berlin in 1995 from Beijing and was a star years before Knut the polar bear was born.
She leaves behind 28-year-old Bao Bao, the world's oldest known panda, according to the zoo spokesman.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2676320
The Democratic-controlled Senate narrowly signaled support Tuesday for the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq by next March.
The vote triggered an instant veto threat from the White House in a deepening dispute between Congress and commander in chief.
Republican attempts to scuttle the nonbinding timeline failed on a vote of 50-48, largely along party lines.
Sens. Gordon Smith of Oregon and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska called "two brave Republicans" by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid after the vote joined Democrats in opposing the amendment.
It came days after the House approved a binding withdrawal deadline of August 31, 2008.
"This is a strong message which amplifies the action of the House and reflects the overwhelming sentiment of the American people," said Sen. Jack Reed, D-Rhode Island.
Three months after Democrats took power in Congress, Reid said the moment was at hand to "send a message to President Bush that the time has come to find a new way forward in this intractable war.
But Republicans and Sen. Joseph Lieberman, an independent Democrat argued otherwise.
John McCain, R-Arizona, a presidential hopeful, said that "we are starting to turn things around" in the Iraq war and that a timeline for withdrawal would embolden the terrorists in Iraq and elsewhere. (Watch McCain assess Iraq's future )
Bush had previously said he would veto any bill that he deemed an attempt to micromanage the war, and the White House freshened the threat a few hours before the vote and again afterward.
"The president is disappointed that the Senate continues down a path with a bill that he will veto and has no chance of becoming law," it said.
The administration contends that setting a timetable on the war assumes failure in Iraq.
"This and other provisions would place freedom and democracy in Iraq at grave risk, embolden our enemies and undercut the administration's plan to develop the Iraqi economy," the White House said in a statement before the vote.
The $122 billion bill would fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but order Bush to begin bringing some troops home right away, with the goal of ending combat missions by March 31, 2008.
one the House passed last week, but with a tougher deadline.
While the Senate identifies March 2008 as a goal giving the president leeway to ignore the deadline the House voted 218-212 to require all combat troops out as of August 31, 2008.
Çѱ۴º½ºÀÇ ¿ø¹ ®Àºµû
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2675471
A Justice Department official will refuse to answer questions during a Senate committee hearing on the firing of eight U.S. attorneys, citing her Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate herself, her lawyer said Monday.
In a letter sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Monica Goodling's lawyer said she would not testify because senators have already decided that wrongdoing occurred.
"The public record is clear that certain members of the Senate Judiciary Committee have already reached conclusions about the matter under investigation and the veracity of the testimony provided by the Justice Department to date," John Dowd, Goodling's lawyer, said in a letter to the committee's chairman, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont.
counsel and White House liaison to Gonzales.
She is taking a leave of absence from the department.
The committee has subpoenaed Goodling to testify Thursday.
Democratic and Republican senators have raised questions about the firings, which e-mail released by the Justice Department suggests may have been done for political reasons.
Democrats said they continue to want Goodling to testify.
Goodling's decision to plead the Fifth Amendment "raises even more questions concerning the potential misconduct and legal violations by the administration in this ongoing scandal," said Rep.
John Conyers, the Michigan Democrat who leads the House Judiciary Committee. That committee also wanted to hear Goodling's testimony on the firing.
The White House said Goodling's decision shows how political the investigation has become.
"It is unfortunate that a public servant no longer feels comfortable that they will be treated fairly in testimony in front of Congress," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.
"However, we must respect the constitutional rights of the people involved and the decision of those individuals and their counsel to protect those rights."
Çѱ۴º½ºÀÇ ¿ø¹ ®Àºµû
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2675391
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, under fire for denying that Japan forced women to work as sex slaves during World War II, offered a fresh apology Monday but stopped short of clearly acknowledging Japan's responsibility for the front-line brothels.
"I express my sympathy toward the comfort women and apologize for the situation they found themselves in," Abe told a parliamentary debate, using a euphemism used by Japanese politicians to refer to former sex slaves.
"I apologize here and now as prime minister," he said.
Abe's apology was his clearest yet since the conservative leader triggered international furor earlier this month by saying there was no evidence that women were coerced into sexual service during the war.
The issue has also stirred debate in the United States, where a committee in the House of Representatives is considering a nonbinding resolution calling on Tokyo to fully acknowledge wrongdoing and make an unambiguous apology.
Abe on Monday rebuffed criticism in the U.S. media for his efforts to champion the cause of Japanese citizens kidnapped by North Korean agents decades ago, while refusing to own up to Japan's own past kidnappings.
"The issue of the abductees is an ongoing violation of human rights, while it is not as if the comfort women issue is continuing.
Abe had said previously he would not offer a fresh apology, saying Tokyo expressed its remorse in a 1993 statement on the matter by then Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono.
Japan has rejected most compensation claims from victims.
Instead, a private fund created in 1995 by the Japanese government has provided a way for Tokyo to support former sex slaves without offering official government compensation.
Many women rejected the payments, demanding government compensation and a parliament-approved apology.
As I picked my way over hot rocks and bubbling mud in the pouring rain, I realized Dominica was not for the faint-hearted.
I was hiking to the Boiling Lake, a bizarre cauldron of steaming-hot water, 200 feet across, and one of the strangest sights on this rugged and beautiful Caribbean island.
The hike is a six-hour round trip that runs through dense rainforest and over mountain ridges before emerging in the Valley of Desolation an eerie, treeless swath of volcanic devastation striped black and orange with mineral deposits and swirling with mist and steam.
Like so much in Dominica, the journey takes effort but it's worth it.
This jagged, densely rainforested island, about 29 miles long and 16 miles wide, is located between Guadeloupe and Martinique in the Eastern Caribbean, 375 miles southeast of San Juan, Puerto Rico.
A poor country of 71,000 dependent on agriculture and tourism, Dominica brands itself the Caribbean's "Nature Island," and the name is justified.
Visitors will find exceptionally friendly people, all but deserted black-sand beaches and a mountainous interior of dense rainforest, clean rushing rivers and jungle waterfalls.
Even for a halfhearted hiker, it is inspiring almost any walk can end with the chance to swim in a river pool beneath a sparkling cascade.
"We've got everything heavy rain, heavy sun, volcanoes, earthquakes.
My friends and I based ourselves at 3 Rivers, the rough-and-ready resort Winston has carved out of a former banana plantation.
The lodge takes its environmentalism seriously, and has a clutch of international awards to prove it.
Electricity and hot water are solar-generated, and Winston is installing a hydroelectric generator to boost the site's power supply.
His pickup truck runs on cooking oil. The cabins have showers, but guests can also take the locally made biodegradable soap provided down to an idyllic swimming hole in one of the site's eponymous three rivers.
The onsite restaurant provides hearty meals, with fruit and vegetables drawn from 3 Rivers' own organic gardens.
"What I loved about here compared to other countries was that the people cared about the nature," Winston said. "They want development, but they don't want to destroy the land to do it.
After a night at the lodge, we decided to tackle the hiking opportunities offered by Dominica's wild, mountainous interior.
Much of it falls within the 17,000-acre Morne Trois Pitons National Park.
A UNESCO World Heritage site, the park is home to freshwater lakes, rivers, mountain pools and numerous signs of the volcanic activity lurking beneath the island's surface especially the Boiling Lake, a volcanic fumerole flooded with roiling, boiling water heated by the molten lava beneath.
Dominica authorities have worked to ease the journey the trail, though often steep and wet, is well maintained, with wooden steps in parts.
A new picnic shelter has been built, from wood hauled up to the site by foot, just before the trail's final section.
The next day, we were ready for another hike but a shorter one.
Fortunately, the area around 3 Rivers offers many opportunities for walking, river swimming and exploring.
Winston recommended a truly off-the-beaten-track destination, a secret beach just a 10-minute drive from 3 Rivers.
Getting there involves a walk through the woods, followed by descent of a 100-foot cliff face, aided only by a fixed rope and some sturdy tree roots.
At the bottom is a deserted beach pummeled by a spectacular waterfall that arcs from the cliff-top straight into the sea.
It's a stirring sight with the chance for a refreshing shower before tackling the climb back up the cliff.
Locals have received funding to replace the rope with a rope ladder that will make it slightly easier to reach this beautiful spot.
An accidental overdose of prescription drugs killed former reality TV star and Playboy playmate Anna Nicole Smith, Seminole tribal police Chief Charlie Tiger said Monday.
"We are convinced, based on extensive review of the evidence, that this case is an accidental overdose with no other criminal element present," Tiger said at a news conference announcing Smith's autopsy results.
Lilly Ann Sanchez, Howard K. Stern's attorney, read a statement from her client Monday afternoon and called the death a tragic accident.
An unresponsive Smith was found February 8 in a room at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino near Hollywood, Florida. She was taken to a hospital but was pronounced dead a short time later.
Perper said the drugs in Smith's system acted on the respiration and circulation systems and basically shut them down.
The medical examiner said he did not believe that Smith tried to kill herself, as some had suggested, because of the large amount of chloral hydrate remaining in the bottle, and the normal levels of the other medications in her system.
The perforation allowed bacteria to get into Smith's blood, which caused a high fever in the days before her death.
Smith was buried in the Bahamas March 2 next to the grave of her son, Daniel, who died in September, shortly after the birth of her daughter, Dannielynn.
The Royal Bahamas Police Force has said its findings reflected those of the private autopsy, but an inquest is to start March 27 in the Bahamas to determine the official cause of Daniel's death.
In 1994, Smith married 89-year-old Texas oil magnate Howard Marshall II.
Rachel Smith, a journalism graduate from Tennessee, was crowned Miss USA, edging out 50 other aspiring beauty queens in a contest to replace a titleholder whose reign was nearly marred by a scandal.
Smith, 21, graduated from Belmont University and interned last year for the production company behind "The Oprah Winfrey Show.
Contestants from all 50 states and the District of Columbia were competing to succeed Miss USA Tara Conner, who entered rehab after accounts surfaced suggesting she was drinking at New York clubs.
The episode could have cost the Kentucky native her crown, but Donald Trump, who co-owns the pageant with NBC, gave her a second chance.
The telecast did not shy away from the controversy, opening with a string of news and interview clips about Conner's woes.
Then the 21-year-old blonde emerged wearing a strapless, ruffled gown, and appeared on stage.
"It has been the most unforgettable year of my life and I'm back, and better than ever," Conner said to wild applause from the audience.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2674092
For parents, the Internet can be like navigating a minefield.
While the Web allows kids the freedom to make friends, play games and research homework with the click of a button, it can pose a potential danger as online predators, cyberbullies and scam artists ply their trade.
"Your child could be physically harmed by someone he or she encounters online and later meets in person," said online security expert Benjamin Halpert on Thursday as he addressed a group of security experts at the 2007 Cyber Crime Summit in Kennesaw. (Watch and learn more about cybercrimes against kids )
"A lot of parents think, 'It will never happen to my kid,' and that's not true," he said, adding that boys and girls are victimized in equal numbers.
Parents need to take precautions, Halpert said.
In "SafeOnline 101" Halpert gives parents the tools they need to protect their children from cyberthreats.
Children are going online at a younger and younger age these days. The younger you can start the better, talking to your children about it, so that it becomes ingrained as they go forward," he said.
And do not let a child have a computer in his or her bedroom. Halpert equates that to giving a child to a complete stranger and walking away.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2673905
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday that it is important for Israel and the Palestinians to establish a "common agenda" to move forward on creating a Palestinian state.
All parties need to have a "destination in mind" to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Rice said in a joint news conference with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
But she conceded the sides were far apart and offered no specific proposal to get long-stalled peace talks moving again.
Abbas aides said the two also explored ways to get moderate Arab states involved in Israeli-Palestinian peace-making.
Rice and Abbas held their first meeting since the Islamic militant Hamas and Abbas' more moderate Fatah Party formed a coalition government last week.
While Rice was speaking of finding a resolution to the decades-old conflict, Israel has said it will not conduct peace talks with Abbas now that he has joined forces with Hamas.
Rice said she would meet twice with both Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert during her fourth trip to the region in as many months.
"It's extremely important to establish a common agenda to move forward toward the establishment" of a Palestinian state, she said.
"I think it can help all of us to have a destination in mind," Rice said, but acknowledged that direct negotiations between the sides are unlikely in the current climate.
But I sincerely hope in the future the parties themselves can talk about the political horizon themselves," she said.
Abbas said he talked with Rice about holding more meetings with Olmert.
"All these meetings are part of the bilateral relations with Israel and the future vision that we are all seeking and working toward," Abbas said.
A powerful quake tore into a rural area of coastal central Japan on Sunday, killing at least one person as it toppled aging farmhouses and temples, set off landslides and caused a small tsunami.
Some 160 people were injured.
The magnitude 6.9 quake struck at 9:42 a.m. (0042 GMT) off the Noto Peninsula on the Sea of Japan coast.
The Meteorological Agency issued a tsunami warning urging an evacuation, but the alert was lifted after a 10-centimeter (6-inch) wave hit the shore, causing no damage.
The temblor was a shock to the region, which had not seen a major quake since 1933.
"The shaking was so violent, I freaked out. All I could do was to duck underneath the desk," said Yukiko Taka, 58, the owner of a traditional lacquerware shop in Wajima, the hardest hit town in Ishikawa prefecture (state). "It was so frightening.
Weaker quakes rattled the region through the day, including a magnitude 5.3 aftershock.
No additional damage was reported.
The initial quake knocked down buildings, caused landslides, and cut power, water and transportation lines.
The Noto airport was closed, and roads were snarled with residents leaving or concerned Japanese rushing to the area to see relatives.
A 52-year-old woman was crushed to death by a falling stone lantern, officials said, and at least 162 other people were injured, most of them hurt when they fell during the shaking or were hit by falling objects and broken glass.
Local authorities said they were thankful the death toll was so low.
"Perhaps our traditional homes were sturdy enough to survive the quake," said Masayuki Murozuka, an Ishikawa official. "I think it was also fortunate that the quake hit in midmorning so most people were fully awake, perhaps even finished breakfast by then.
Television footage of the quake showed buildings shaking violently for about 30 seconds.
After the quake, buildings lay in heaps of rubble, and the windows of shops were shattered. Roof tiles cluttered streets with cracked pavement.
Fear of aftershocks and more landslides caused by the loosening of soil waterlogged by overnight rains continued to plague the quake zone and keep residents jittery.
"A fairly big aftershock hit just minutes ago and I jumped out the door," said Tomio Maeda, manager of convenience store Family Mart in Anamizu town. "It's scary, I guess it's not over yet.
In Tokyo, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki said officials were doing their best to rescue victims and assess the extent of the damage.
About 30 soldiers had arrived to help with disaster relief, and military aircraft were examining the damage.
Some 375 firefighters from seven other prefectures were also dispatched to help, the Fire and Disaster Management Agency said.
The quake also knocked down at least 45 homes in Ishikawa, and partially destroyed another 227, the FDMA said.
UNITED NATIONS (CNN) Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has canceled a planned visit to the United Nations, and Tehran's U.N. ambassador, Javad Zarif, on Friday blamed a delay in U.S. visas being issued to the crew of his airplane.
Ahmadinejad wanted to speak to the U.N. Security Council before a vote, scheduled for 3 p.m. ET Saturday, on sanctions against Iran.
Western nations, including the United States, contend Iran is using the program to develop nuclear weapons.
The five permanent members of the Security Council and Germany agreed on a resolution to expand sanctions on Iran and presented it to the council last week, but several nations said they wanted to amend it.
Alejandro Wolfe, the acting U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said Thursday that some amendments were agreed to, but he offered no details about those.
"We embraced amendments that were consistent with the philosophy of this resolution ... and those that would enhance its clarity and enhance its value," he said.
the rotating presidency of the Security Council this month, said he felt steamrollered into a Saturday vote on the resolution. "I feel like I was misled," he said, adding that he had been led to believe that he would have more time to consider the resolution.
This material may not be published.
MONTEGO BAY, Jamaica (CNN) Jamaican police on Friday took DNA samples from the entire Pakistani contingent to the Cricket World Cup in their investigation into the strangulation of Pakistani coach Bob Woolmer earlier this week, a team spokesman said.
Pervez Mir said the DNA testing was supposed to have taken place Thursday, before the team left Kingston for Montego Bay, but police agreed to allow the tests to take place Friday so the team would not miss its flight.
A Jamaican government helicopter flew the test samples back to Kingston when they were processed, Mir said.
Before departing Kingston for Montego Bay on Thursday, all members of the Pakistani contingent players, managers and trainers gave statements to police and were fingerprinted.
Jamaican police announced Friday that they were treating the death of Woolmer, 58, as a homicide.
He was found unconscious in his hotel room on Sunday and declared dead at a hospital soon afterward.
"It's a very busy hotel," he said. "I'm absolutely certain that someone saw something that could help us in this investigation.
Asked about suspects, Shields said only that "we have a few definite lines of inquiry.
Woolmer's death came only hours after Pakistan's shocking elimination from the Cricket World Cup competition by the relatively unknown Irish team on St. Patrick's Day.
Cricket officials have also begun an investigation into possible match fixing.
Woolmer's family said on Friday they were perplexed by his murder, dismissing reports the coach was involved with match fixing or that a book he wrote was behind his death.
"To the best the family's knowledge there is absolutely nothing to suggest Bob was involved in match fixing," his wife and sons said in a statement.
walls and floor of the bathroom of Woolmer's room were spattered with blood, vomit and feces.
Pakistan's loss on Saturday prompted outrage among the team's hard-core fans.
In the streets of Karachi before the news of Woolmer's death protesters burned effigies of Woolmer and the team captain.
Woolmer, who was English, played Test cricket for England in the mid-1970s.
He coached the South African national team before taking over as Pakistan's coach in 2004.
CHAPEL HILL, North Carolina (CNN) Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards said Thursday his wife's cancer has returned but his bid for the White House will continue.
"The campaign goes on," the former senator from North Carolina said at a news conference, contradicting earlier media reports.
John Edwards said tests this week had shown his wife, Elizabeth, had cancer in a rib on her right side.
He said the cancer is treatable but not curable.
"We are very optimistic about this," he said, noting that the tumor is small in size and has a "relatively minimal presence."
Elizabeth Edwards, 57, said she was "incredibly optimistic" and said her expectations about the future were unchanged.
"I expect to do next week all the things I did last week. And the week after that, and next year at the same time," she said.
And she wanted her husband to continue his run for the presidency.
"From our perspective, there was no reason to stop," the candidate said. "I don't think we seriously thought about it."
Elizabeth Edwards said she was fortunate that she felt pain from a cracked rib and got X-rays that revealed the cancer.
Elizabeth Edwards first underwent treatment for breast cancer after the 2004 campaign in which her husband was the Democratic vice presidential nominee.
Most national polls show him running third behind Sens.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2672111
Jason Pellegrino (an 8.2 on the attractiveness scale) says the problem with Internet dating services is not enough really hot-looking people.
So he and a business partner have created HotEnough.org.
HotEnough.org is for "fit, good-looking" people.
Prospective members must submit pictures and must be rated an 8 or higher by people already in the club.
Once they are in, they are permitted to e-mail other "hotties" for $9.95 a month.
"It's definitely hard to get through that rope, but once you're in, you're in and you're part of the party," Pellegrino said.
"But you know there's going to be a lot of people outside waiting.
The 33-year-old said he and his partner, Sean Cohen, created the site after concluding that Internet dating sites attract a lot of brave and desperate people but not particularly attractive ones.
A few months after its launch, membership is just under 1,000, Pellegrino said.
In the beginning, only 8 percent of those who applied made the grade, but now about 25 percent of applicants do, he said.
Candidates must send in three pictures, including one full-body shot.
Active members rate the pictures online without knowing anything else about the people in them.
One of the "hotties" accepted into the club is Jimmy Ziomek, a 29-year-old from New York City who rated an 8.2.
Ziomek, who said his job in real estate keeps him from going out much, has blue eyes and light brown hair and goes to the gym four to five times a week.
Using HotEnough.org "saves time and it does the searching for you, narrows it down to the people that you are interested in meeting," he said.
Among those who did not make the cut was Jeanette Ponder, a 28-year-old Internet blogger from East Orange, New Jersey who considered herself an 8 or 9.
"When you put yourself out there in any situation, even if it's one which you're not taking seriously, it's going to sting.
But she also reasoned: "You cannot make a relationship by being arm candy.
Like it or not, HotEnough.com operates according to a principle that watchers of the singles scene have long recognized:
"People tend to end up with partners who match them in physical attractiveness," said Margaret Clark, a professor of psychology at Yale University.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press All rights reserved This material may not be published. rewritten or redistributed.
"Oh, the party mom, the party mom, the party mom!" Lohan says.
"Whoever said that, my ex-husband or whatever, I'm not the party mom!
The 20-year-old actress/tabloid target checked into the Wonderland Center in Los Angeles in January.
Her publicist, Leslie Sloane, declined comment to The Associated Press on Thursday when asked for details. Sloane had confirmed in December that Lohan was attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.
Lohan says her daughter isn't an alcoholic. "Noooo!
Lohan also talks about another member of the young Hollywood set, 25-year-old pop star Britney Spears, who embarked on a bout of bizarre behavior after filing for divorce from Kevin Federline in November.
Spears recently completed a stint in rehab.
This material may not be published.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon ducked in surprise when an explosion rattled Baghdad's Green Zone on Thursday where he was delivering a televised news conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
Two mortar rounds were fired at the Green Zone, an Interior Ministry official said.
The Associated Press reported that small chips of debris fell from the ceiling.
The explosion startled Ban, who swiftly regained his composure as the briefing continued. (Watch the explosion interrupt Moon's comments about security )
"A mortar landed and went off 100 meters away in an open field outside the compound where the press conference was being held," said U.N. spokeswoman Marie Okabe.
"The press conference continued. They don't know where it came from.
Okabe said Ban was "fine" and would continue as scheduled on the rest of his Middle East visit.
Ban arrived in the Iraqi capital Thursday morning on an unannounced visit, his first to the war-torn country since taking office in January.
He called his meeting with al-Maliki "very good" and praised the prime minister's "strong leadership" and said he was considering increasing the U.N.'s presence in Iraq as the situation in the country improved.
"The United Nations has been actively participating and helping Iraqi people through various means humanitarian, economic, and political facilitation," said Ban.
Ban's visit came as U.S. officials said they had detained two brothers, one with ties to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, in connection with the killings of five American soldiers in Karbala in January. (Full story)
"Over the past several days, coalition forces in Basra and Hilla captured Qais Khazali, his brother Laith Khazali and several other members of the Khazali network," the U.S. military said in a statement.
Qais Khazali had been known to reporters as a spokesman for al-Sadr's political movement, and Reuters news agency reported that Khazali was a senior aide to the anti-American cleric.
Al-Sadr's Mehdi Army, a Shiite militia, is suspected of being involved in Iraq's sectarian violence.
The U.S. military said the Khazali network is "directly connected" to the January killings in Karbala, the Shiite holy city south of Baghdad.
Çѱ۴º½ºÀÇ ¿ø¹ ®Àºµû
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2671156
An Internet ad slamming Sen. Hillary Clinton and promoting Sen. Barack Obama has been viewed more than a million times on YouTube, but no one knows just who is behind the elaborately produced spot.
The "Vote Different" clip is a remake of an Apple computer ad from 1984, which in turn was a take on George Orwell's "1984.
In the latest version, Clinton is cast as Big Brother, and excerpts of her speeches mesmerize a uniform, catatonic audience.
As the audience files into a theater, a young woman carrying a sledgehammer runs up the aisle and throws it at the video screen, shattering it.
(Watch how the video may mark a historic shift in political ads )
The ad ends with a message reading, "On January 14th, the Democratic primary will begin. And you'll see why 2008 won't be like '1984.'
The screen then dissolves to a colorful "O" that resembles an Apple logo, with the Internet address "BarackObama.com" beneath.
"One of the things about the Internet is that people generate all kinds of stuff.
"This is an historic shift from a world in which a few important media outlets kind of control the dialogue to a game where anyone can play," said Howard Kurtz, the media critic for The Washington Post and host of CNN's "Reliable Sources.
And unlike ads in newspapers or on television and radio, the sources of Internet attack ads like the Clinton YouTube spot can remain anonymous.
"It would be better if the person who made this was open about who they are so we can judge fully whether it is genuinely a piece of voter-generated content or a dirty trick. "
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2670989
Opera diva Dame Kiri Te Kanawa prevailed Wednesday in a lawsuit that sought damages from her because she had canceled appearances with an Australian pop singer after learning women threw their underwear at him on stage.
The New South Wales state Supreme Court dismissed the lawsuit, which sought up to $1.5 million in damages.
Te Kanawa was sued by concert promotion company Leading Edge after the planned concerts in 2005 with singer John Farnham fell through.
Judge Patricia Bergin found there was no binding contract between Te Kanawa and Leading Edge at the time she pulled out of plans for the concerts in Australia and her native New Zealand.
The trial made headlines when the 63-year-old soprano testified she watched a Farnham concert on DVD and was disturbed by what she saw.
"I was concerned about the knickers or underpants ... being thrown at him and him collecting it and ... holding it in his hands as some sort of trophy," said the singer, whose international performances included the 1981 wedding of Britain's Prince Charles and Diana Spencer.
While Te Kanawa had reservations about the underwear, the judge found that they were not the main reason she pulled out.
Al Gore, who has reversed his political fortunes to become a potential contender in the 2008 presidential race, made an emotional return to Congress Wednesday in an appeal for an even more dramatic rescue saving the planet.
Gore who is one of voters' top choices for the Democratic presidential nomination even though he says he's not running implored lawmakers to adopt a list of policy prescriptions to stop global warming.
Fresh off a triumphant Academy Awards appearance in which his climate change documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" won two Oscars, Gore drew overflow crowds as he testified before House and Senate panels about a "true planetary emergency" if Congress fails to act. (Read more about Gore's Oscar-night speech)
The former vice president said addressing the problem is a moral issue and should not be partisan or political.
Gore advised lawmakers to cut carbon dioxide and other warming gases 90 percent by 2050 to avoid a crisis.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2669850
Alan Greenspan is still commanding attention - and $100,000 per speech - a year after leaving his position as chairman of the Federal Reserve, according to a published report.
Greenspan is commanding $100,000 for an hour-long speech, USA Today reported, citing three unidentified people whose groups have hired the former Fed chairman.
The paper said that he's averaging about one speech a week, meaning that he likely earned more than $4 million in speaking fees last year after leaving office.
Greenspan earned only $180,100 as Fed chairman in 2005, his last year in office. But he was hardly pressed for cash when he left the job in January 2006.
His 2005 disclosure filing showed him with assets of at least $4.2 million.
And on Sept. 17 he will have his memoir The Age of Turbulence:
Adventures in a New World published by Penguin Press.
The unit of Pearson (Charts) reportedly paid him an $8.5 million advance for the book, which is believed to be the No. 2 advance for a nonfiction book, second only to the $10 million advance given to former President Bill Clinton for his memoir.
his comments, when reported, are generally seen as still able to move markets.
The printing for the final Harry Potter book will not only be the biggest, but also the greenest.
J.K. Rowling's seventh Potter book will be a hulking 784 pages, Scholastic said, a comparable length to the last couple of Potter releases.
Among the details of Tuesday's agreement:
The paper used will contain "a minimum of 30 percent post-consumer waste (pcw) fiber."
Nearly two-thirds of the 16,700 tons of paper will be approved by the Forest Stewardship Council, an international organization with a mission to "promote environmentally responsible, socially beneficial and economically viable management of the world's forests."
A "deluxe" edition of the new book, which has a first printing of 100,000, will be printed on paper that contains "100 percent post-consumer waste fiber.
"We applaud Scholastic's progressive and bold commitment to support responsible forestry practices by buying FSC certified and recycled papers," Liza Murphy, senior marketing manager in the Rainforest Alliance's sustainable forestry program, said in a statement issued by Scholastic.
In 2005, when "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" came out, Greenpeace and other environmental groups complained that Scholastic wasn't using enough recycled paper and urged consumers to buy copies from the Canadian publisher, Raincoast Books.
Scholastic would not say at the time how much recycled paper it used, but said it did not use paper from ancient or endangered forests.
Sales, apparently, were not affected:
"Half-Blood Prince" sold 6.9 million copies in the first 24 hours.
LONDON, England (AP) First came "The Queen," now the Iron Lady is getting the British film treatment.
London-based producer and distributor Pathe Productions said Tuesday it had commissioned a film about former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, set during the 1982 Falkland Islands war with Argentina.
Pathe said the film would cover the 17 days leading up to the conflict and would focus on Thatcher's controversial decision to go to war over Britain's sparsely populated possessions in the South Atlantic.
Argentina, which claims the islands, invaded them in April 1982, and its troops were evicted two months later by a British task force.
More than 200 British soldiers and 655 Argentinians died in the war, but Britain's victory boosted Thatcher's flagging popularity.
Her Conservative Party went on to win the 1983 election by a landslide, and she remained in power until 1990, transforming British society with her free-market policies.
The success of Stephen Frears' film "The Queen" especially Helen Mirren's Oscar-winning depiction of Queen Elizabeth II in the week following the 1997 death of Princess Diana has reawakened interest in British dramas about recent history.
Most recently, Kika Markham played the British leader in "The Line of Beauty," a BBC television adaptation of Alan Hollinghurst's novel about sex and politics in the 1980s.
Thirteen-year-old Katharine Tuck's sneakers smell as bad as they look.
On Tuesday, she out-ranked six other children to win $2,500 in the 32nd annual National Odor-Eaters Rotten Sneaker Contest, stinking up the joint with a pair of well-worn 1¨ö-year-old Nikes so noxious they had the judges wincing.
"I'm so proud of the little stinker," said her mother, Paula Tuck.
Katharine has used the sneakers to play soccer and basketball, hiked in them, even waded into the Great Salt Lake, where they were infiltrated by brine shrimp.
The contest, founded in 1975 as a sporting goods store promotion and now sponsored by the manufacturer of anti-foot odor products, pits children from around the United States who have won state-level competitions for the generally cruddy condition of their footwear.
Contestants had to jump in place once and make one full turn in place before taking off their shoes and handing them to the judges.
It was 24 degrees outside, but only one of the kids wore socks foot sweat is a boon, not a bane, in this game.
Katharine and her father missed a connecting flight and had to drive part of the way to Vermont.
Their luggage still had not arrived Tuesday.
Her mother had the foresight to warn her not to ship her prized shoes in her checked baggage.
Mercifully for airport security screeners, she did not wear them, either, opting to carry them in her purse.
MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) Rescue teams continued on Tuesday to search for six miners, a day after an explosion ripped through a coal mine in southwestern Siberia, killing at least 100 people, officials said.
The Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations said 203 workers were in the Ulyanovskaya mine in Kemerovo region when the methane blast occurred early Monday at a depth of about 270 meters (885 feet).
The death toll from the blast had risen to 104 while 93 people were rescued, the ministry said.
President Vladimir Putin sent regional governor Aman Tuleyev a telegram conveying his sympathy for relatives of victims and support for survivors, according to The Associated Press.
Putin demanded an investigation of the accident, according to the Kremlin.
The Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations said it sent a special investigative team to the disaster site.
The tragedy at the mine came hours before 62 people died in a fire at a care home in southern Russia. (Full story)
The cause of the blast is believed to be either a buildup of methane gas or a discharge of coal dust, according to ministry spokesman Valery Korchagin
The mine is in the city of Novokuznetsk, about 3,000 kilometers (1,850 miles) east of Moscow. It is in a major Russian industrial region, with some of the world's largest deposits of coal.
Russian coal mines are notoriously run down and outdated, but Ulyanovskaya was relatively modern.
It opened in 2003 and officials said it was being fitted with a British-made hazard monitoring system when the blast took place.
At least 20 of the coal mine's local managers as well as a British citizen who was inspecting the monitoring system are believed to be among the dead.
Çѱ۴º½ºÀÇ ¿ø¹ ®Àºµû
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2668780
TALLAHASSEE, Florida (AP) Darrin McMahon still cannot define happiness after spending six years researching and writing a book about it.
While that's been a frustration, the Florida State University history professor said it's also what gives happiness its power and allure.
His book, "Happiness:
A History," was recently named by The New York Times as one of the 100 notable books of 2006.
It traces what the great thinkers of Western philosophy have thought about happiness.
They include Aristotle, Socrates, Locke, Rousseau, Darwin, Marx, Freud and Thomas Jefferson, who famously counted "the pursuit of Happiness" as an "unalienable right" in the Declaration of Independence.
"Happiness, as I try to argue in the book, tends to slip away from you when you think about it too much.
He got the idea for the book while teaching at Columbia University in New York during the 1990s.
The Berlin Wall had fallen and the world appeared headed for democracy. The stock market was booming and most people seemed to be prospering.
"Clinique, the cosmetics company, came out with a perfume called Happy; you could still remember the Bobby McFerrin song 'Don't Worry, Be Happy.'
"The concept of luck is embedded in the very word happiness luck or fortune," McMahon said.
Happiness is linked to such words as happen and happenstance.
Greek tragedies were filled with the idea that happiness was a matter of fate.
Lonelygirl15, OK Go and other YouTube sensations will get an opportunity to walk down a virtual red carpet.
The video-sharing Web site announced Monday that it will hold the first YouTube Video Awards to recognize the best-user created videos of 2006.
most creative, most inspirational, best series, best comedy, musician of the year, best commentary and "most adorable video ever.
The nominees, picked by YouTube, are compiled in a gallery at www.youtube.com/YTAwards.
YouTube community members can vote on their favorites beginning Monday and concluding on Friday.
The winners, as chosen by the community, will be announced March 25.
Each will be prominently featured on YouTube and receive a trophy, the design of which will be revealed later.
"We wanted to call out some of the most popular videos and let the users choose which ones deserve some additional recognition," said Jamie Byrne, head of product marketing at YouTube.
"We want to see how the community responds to it, but we can see this being something that grows as we continue to grow and becomes a bigger and more exciting event in the future," Byrne said.
According to comScore Media Metrix, YouTube attracted 133.5 million visitors worldwide in January.
This material may not be published.
The cricketing world is reeling from the sudden death of Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer during the opening stages of the sport's World Cup in the Caribbean.
"Everyone sort of just stood back in shock for quite a while," Australian captain Ricky Ponting said when he learned of Woolmer's death during his team's win Sunday over the Netherlands.
Woolmer's death blunted angry protests taking place in Pakistan, where the fall of the 1992 World Cup champions is keenly felt, and prompted condolence messages
His death dominated Monday's front pages of Pakistani newspapers that linked his death from a suspected heart attack to the defeat to Ireland.
Meanwhile, tributes flowed in from all over the world for Woolmer.
Woolmer coached South Africa for five years until 1999 and that team's bowler Allan Donald had a close relationship with him.
"Bob was an extremely professional man, was an extremely soft person ... gave his life to cricket and probably paid for it," he told AP.
Pakistan's Foreign Office said the coach had endeared himself to Pakistanis who were sorry to lose Woolmer when the team most needed him. "It is very sad that he
The International Cricket Council and the Pakistan Cricket Board are jointly working on a tribute to Woolmer.
Police on the island nation said a post-mortem examination would be conducted as soon as possible.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2668116
The clouded leopard of Borneo discovered to be an entirely new species is the latest in a growing list of animals and plants unique to the Southeast Asian country's rainforest and underscores the need to preserve the area, conservationists said Thursday.
Genetic tests by researchers at the U.S. National Cancer Institute revealed that the clouded leopard of Borneo and Sumatra islands is a unique cat species and not the same one found in mainland Southeast Asia as long believed, said a statement by WWF, the global conservation organization.
The news about the clouded leopard comes just a few weeks after a WWF report showed that scientists had identified at least 52 new species of animals and plants over the past year on Borneo, the world's third largest island that is shared by Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei.
of Borneo, a mountainous region about five times the size of Switzerland covered with equatorial rainforest in the center of the island, is the last great forest home of the Bornean clouded leopard.
The Borneo clouded leopard is darker than the mainland species and has many distinct spots within its small cloud markings.
It also has a grayer fur, and a double dorsal stripe.
Clouded leopards from the mainland have fewer and fainter markings within large clouds on their skin.
They are also lighter in color.
A total of 5,000 to 11,000 Bornean clouded leopards are estimated to live in the jungles of Borneo.
For plane builder Airbus and German airline Lufthansa AG, the A380's first flight to North America on Monday is a chance to show off the superjumbo to potential U.S. buyers and to the airports they hope will be flight bases for the double-decker jet.
We're going with a fully loaded plane into Washington and New York and hope to optimize all the opportunities.
For Airbus, which has been beset by management and financial crises including a two-year delay to the A380 that wiped more than 5 billion euros ($6.61 billion) off profit forecasts the flight is a chance to prove that the plane will be ready when the first deliveries are made in October to Singapore airlines.
The A380, which burns about four liters (one gallon) of gas per passenger every 130 kilometers (80 miles) and can fly some 8,000 nautical miles, can seat as many as 550 passengers.
Lufthansa, which has orders for 15 A380s and an option for five more, expects to use the planes on its international routes, mainly to Asia and North America.
It expects the first one to be delivered in mid-2009, pushed back from 2008 by the manufacturing delays.
The problems at Airbus led Louis Gallois, co-chief executive of parent company European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co., to call 2006 "the worst year for Airbus in its life."
Airbus is seeking to recoup its losses by cutting 10,000 jobs and spinning off or closing six of its European manufacturing plants.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2666388 (PopSci.com)
When Mercedes-Benz began to contemplate its next generation of high-efficiency small cars, it sought aquatic inspiration.
But instead of considering obvious undersea hot rods like sharks, the Mercedes
team turned to a fish that resembled a car: the tropical boxfish.
A native of the Indo-Pacific region, the Ostracion cubicus is surprisingly slick.
Like the droplet, the boxfish's face is small in proportion to its overall length, and its streamlined surfaces encourage air to move over it without creating the turbulence that robs aerodynamic efficiency.
With a Cd of just 0.19, the four-seat Bionic is significantly more slippery than today's most aerodynamic production vehicle, Honda's two-seat Insight (Cd 0.25).
Although the Bionic isn't coming to your local dealership, Mercedes does expect it to significantly influence the design language of its next generation of small cars.
BEIJING, China (CNN) The United States and North Korea have resolved a dispute over $25 million frozen in a Macao bank, a U.S. official announced Monday.
Under the deal, the funds will be transferred into an account held by North Korea's Foreign Trade Bank at the Bank of China in Beijing, according to U.S. Deputy Assistant Treasury Secretary Daniel Glaser.
The funds, which have been frozen at Banco Delta Asia, "will be used solely for the betterment of the North Korean people, including for humanitarian and educational purposes," Glaser said in a written statement from Beijing.
The announcement was made before six-party nuclear disarmament talks resumed in Beijing, and the bank dispute had threatened to impede those talks.
In addition to North Korea and the United States, the talks involve South Korea, Japan, Russia and China.
On Saturday North Korea's lead nuclear envoy said his government would not close its main Yongbyon nuclear facility until all $25 million of its frozen money frozen at Banco Delta Asia was released, The Associated Press reported.
The United States suspects some of the funds are linked to counterfeiting or money-laundering by North Korea, according to AP.
U.S. envoy Christopher Hill said the six-party talks could now "move on to the next problem, of which there are many," AP reported.
Next on the agenda are fuel oil for North Korea, the declaration and disabling of its nuclear programs, and the disbursement of more aid, Hill said, according to AP.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2666284
Over the past several decades, the promise of the "car of tomorrow" has remained unfulfilled, while the problems it was supposed to solve have only intensified.
The average price of a gallon of gas is higher than at any time since the early 1980s. The Middle East seems more volatile than ever.
And even climate skeptics are starting to admit that the carbon we're pumping into the atmosphere might have disastrous consequences.
Yet hope is coming faster than that hydrogen economy you've been hearing about.
Several small companies are developing new engine technologies and advanced automotive designs that promise to deliver 100 miles from a single gallon of gas.
The proposals run from the simple reduce weight, improve aerodynamics to the incredible (one company wants to borrow a few tricks from jet engines).
The race should heat up further when the X Prize Foundation the group that kick-started the space-tourism industry with its $10 million competition to produce a reusable private spacecraft announces in the next few months a competition for the first car to break 100 mpg and sell a yet-to-be-decided number of units.
The prize money hadn't been finalized at press time, but X Prize officials are discussing figures in the $25 million range as an appropriate incentive.
They hope the prize will urge people to completely reconsider what a car should look like and how it should function.
"We need a paradigm shift," says Mark Goodstein, the executive director for the automotive X Prize. "We need to change the way people think about automobiles.
Here are three technologies that auto-industry insiders we consulted think could raise the bar for automotive fuel economy and quite possibly secure the X Prize's huge purse.
* Smaller, better, cheaper
Cate Blanchett is in negotiations to star opposite Harrison Ford in the long-awaited fourth installment of the "Indiana Jones" series, her publicist confirmed Saturday.
"She is in negotiations, yes," publicist Lisa Kasteler told The Associated Press. She did not elaborate.
Filming is scheduled to begin later this year, with Steven Spielberg on board to direct.
The movie is being produced by "Star Wars" creator George Lucas' Lucasfilm Ltd.
Ford played Indiana Jones in 1981's "Raiders of the Lost Ark," 1984's "Temple of Doom" and 1989's "The Last Crusade.
Blanchett, who won a best supporting actress Oscar in 2004 for "The Aviator," starred in last year's "Notes on a Scandal" and "Babel."
Israel rejected the newly anointed Palestinian unity government Sunday after the Palestinian prime minister said the deal didn't rule out "popular resistance against occupation.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told his Cabinet that the Palestinian government's platform "includes problematic elements that cannot be acceptable to Israel and the international community, like the right to resist, the use of terror and the non-recognition of Israel.
The Cabinet voted 19-2 to back Olmert's boycott, dashing hopes that the Palestinians and Israelis will sit down for the peace talks that the formation of a unity government was supposed to help facilitate.
Other aims of uniting the Hamas and Fatah factions are quelling a bloody feud between the two groups and ending a Western boycott of the Palestinian territories that has crippled the Hamas-led government since it toppled the moderate Fatah party in January 2005.
The United States and Israel consider Hamas a terror organization.
But while Israel was quick to denounce the new Palestinian government, the U.S. responded more cautiously, saying the deal was still under review.
This material may not be published.
North Korea will not stop its nuclear activity unless $25 million of its funds held in a Macau bank are fully released, the regime's top nuclear envoy said Saturday.
Banco Delta Asia had been blacklisted by Washington since September 2005 for its complicity in North Korean money laundering.
Earlier this week, the U.S. Treasury Department ended its investigation into the small Macau lender and said that ties would be cut with the bank and the U.S. financial system.
The move might lead regulators to unfreeze a portion of the money.
Issuing the communist state's first official response to the U.S. decision, Kim Kye Gwan said Saturday in Beijing that his country has not heard anything officially about the lifting of financial sanctions.
"We will not stop the Yongbyon nuclear facility until the United States fully releases our funds frozen in the BDA.
Christopher Hill, the chief American nuclear negotiator, said earlier Saturday that he planned to brief Kim on the issue in working groups.
"I don't think BDA will be an obstacle," he said before meeting Kim. "I think we'll work that out.
Washington had promised to resolve the issue as part of the implementation of a landmark Feb. 13 agreement under which North Korea agreed to shut down Yongbyon, its main nuclear reactor and processing facility, and allow U.N. inspectors for verification by April 14.
In return, North Korea would receive energy and economic assistance and a start toward normalizing relations with the U.S. and Japan.
Hill also said the U.S. plans to raise the issue of North Korea's alleged uranium enrichment program when six-nation talks on ridding Pyongyang of its nuclear weapons resume Monday.
U.S. allegations that North Korea has a uranium enrichment program brought on the nuclear crisis in 2002 that led the country to kick out U.N. inspectors and ultimately contributed to North Korea testing its first nuclear bomb last year.
MILFORD, Pennsylvania (AP) Mark Ternent squeezes his bulky frame into the narrow opening of a bear den and shines a flashlight into the eyes of a 200-pound female.
Two black bear cubs are suckling, and their mother looks back at Ternent, alert but relaxed.
It is early March, and these bears won't come out of hibernation for another six weeks.
The wildlife biologist shoots a tranquilizer dart into the mother's rump, but the dart goes into fat, not muscle, slowing absorption into her blood.
Ternent waits 20 minutes, but she is still awake, so he shoots a second dart. This one does the trick she's completely out of it.
Ternent then goes to work, dragging the bears from their den.
By the end of March, he will have visited some 30 bear dens around the state, tagging, weighing and taking the vital signs of hibernating mothers and their offspring as part of an effort to gauge the health and size of Pennsylvania's bruin population.
As caretaker of the state's 15,000 black bears, Ternent must figure out the optimal ratio of bears to people.
That number will determine how many bears need to be killed by hunters to keep the population under control.
Bears are not a problem in more remote areas of the state.
But here in the increasingly populous Pocono Mountains, complaints about nuisance bears are rising especially among recent arrivals from New York, New Jersey and Philadelphia, who tend to have little experience with the animals.
Pennsylvania has had perhaps 20 bear attacks over the past 30 years, none of them fatal or even serious.
But black bears have killed people in other states, and can inflict significant damage on crops and livestock.
Black bear encounters are rising in Pennsylvania and in many other Eastern states because the species is increasing in number at a time when more of their habitat is being lost to development.
It is such a topic of concern that bear biologists from around the eastern United States and Canada are meeting in West Virginia next month to discuss ways to manage conflict between bears and people.
In New Jersey, rising complaints about bears prompted officials in 2003 to allow black-bear hunting for the first time in more than three decades.
In Pennsylvania, hunting has long been used to control the bear population, which quadrupled in the 1980s and '90s.
As a result of an extended rifle season and the introduction of an archery season, the number of bears killed through hunting has risen from 1,796 in 1996 to 3,122 in 2006.
Now Ternent, the bear biologist, is aiming to come up with a bear population objective for various parts of the state, taking into account factors such as human population density, forest cover and the availability of food.
Consumers are bombarded with warnings about identity theft.
Publicized threats range from mailbox thieves and lost laptops to the higher-tech methods of e-mail scams and corporate data invasions.
Now, experts are warning that photocopiers could be a culprit as well.
That's because most digital copiers manufactured in the past five years have disk drives the same kind of data-storage mechanism found in computers to reproduce documents.
As a result, the seemingly innocuous machines that are commonly used to spit out copies of tax returns for millions of Americans can retain the data being scanned.
If the data on the copier's disk aren't protected with encryption or an overwrite mechanism, and if someone with malicious motives gets access to the machine, industry experts say sensitive information from original documents could get into the wrong hands.
Some copier makers are now adding security features, but many of the digital machines already found in public venues or business offices are likely still open targets, said Ed McLaughlin, president of Sharp Document Solutions Company of America.
Sharp issued a warning about photocopier vulnerabilities Wednesday just ahead of tax time.
The company, one of the leading makers of photocopiers, commissioned a consumer survey that indicated more than half of Americans did not know copiers carried this data security risk.
Sharp recommends that consumers take precautions, such as asking their tax preparers or the copy shops they are using about whether their copier machines have data security installed.
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) Bangkok's old international airport would be ready to reopen later this month to ease congestion at the new international facility, which has been plagued by problems including taxiway cracks, an official said Thursday.
"The taxiways, runways and all facilities at Don Muang airport are ready to resume operations by March 25," said Deputy Transport Minister Sansern Wongcha-um.
The government had earlier approved a plan to reopen the old airport, Don Muang, to operate along with the new international airport, Suvarnabhumi, which opened in September but has been hampered by repair work on cracks in the taxiways and runways.
The $3.8 billion Suvarnabhumi project was intended to be Southeast Asia's leading air hub.
Instead it has become a national embarrassment, with widely publicized problems that also include a shortage of toilets, dozens of design flaws and a long list of corruption allegations.
Critics have objected to reopening Don Muang, saying it could confuse tourists and cause problems as visitors are shuttled between the two airports through Bangkok's legendary traffic jams.
ÏÀ» Á¦°øÇÏÁö ¾Ê½À´Ï´Ù.
has started production on an animated musical fairy tale called "The Frog Princess," which will be set in New Orleans and feature the Walt Disney Studio's first black princess.
The company unveiled the plans at its annual shareholders' meeting in New Orleans.
John Lasseter, chief creative officer for Disney and the Disney-owned unit Pixar Animation Studios, said the movie would return to the classic hand-drawn animation process, instead of using computer animation that has become the industry standard. He called the film "an American fairy tale.
"The film's New Orleans setting and strong princess character give the film lots of excitement and texture," Walt Disney Studios Chairman Dick Cook said.
The movie will be scored by Randy Newman, who also wrote the music for Disney's "Toy Story," "A Bug's Life," "Toy Story 2," "Monsters, Inc." and "Cars.
Newman performed a song from the score for the shareholders.
John Musker and Ron Clements, who co-directed "The Little Mermaid," "Aladdin," and "Hercules" will co-direct the movie.
Disney said its new animated princess Maddy will be added to its collection of animated princesses used at the company's theme parks and on consumer products. The film is set for release in 2009.
This material may not be published.
WASHINGTON (AP) The United States moved a step closer Wednesday to resolving a thorny financial case that had sidelined disarmament talks with North Korea for more than a year.
The Treasury Department wrapped up an investigation of a Macau bank that the United States accused of helping North Korea launder money from counterfeiting and other illegal activities.
The U.S. action could open the door for overseas regulators to release some of the $25 million in frozen North Korean assets held by Banco Delta Asia.
The United States had promised to resolve the case this month as part of international efforts to roll back the communist regime's nuclear-weapons program.
The department said it is severing ties between Banco Delta Asia and the U.S. financial system because of its alleged money laundering for North Korea.
Banco Delta Asia holds roughly $25 million in frozen North Korean assets, the department said.
The frozen accounts have been a sore spot for the North Korean government and so angered Pyongyang that it had refused to participate in six-nation nuclear-arms talks for over a year.
The North did return to disarmament talks in December.
A deal was struck February 13, in part because of an agreement to resolve the dispute over the frozen funds within 30 days.
The U.S., which spent 18 months investigating the bank, said it will share its findings this week with the Macau government, a move that would pave the way for overseas authorities to release any North Korean money that had been frozen.
The Associated Press has reported that $8 million to $12 million could be unfrozen by authorities in Macau, a semi-autonomous territory of China, following the department's action. It could take weeks to release any money.
That decision, they said, is up to Macau's government.
Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, described the talks on how North Korea will close its main atomic reactor at Yongbyon as "quite useful.
Belgian police have offered a ¢æ2 million ($2.6 million) reward for tips that help them track down a man who stole ¢æ21.3 million ($28 million) worth of diamonds from an Antwerp bank last week.
Prosecutors said they are searching for a man who broke into open safety deposit boxes in an ABM Amro bank in the city's diamond quarter.
Police are unsure how he did it but believe he may have carefully planned the robbery, becoming one of several trusted diamond traders given an electronic card to access the vault.
The suspect had been a regular customer at the bank for the past year, giving the name Carlos Hector Flomenbaum from Argentina.
They now believe that the suspect was using a false identity because a passport in that name was stolen in Israel a few years ago.
They released a composite photo of a gray-haired man, 1.90 meters (6 foot 3) tall and aged between 55 and 60.
They said he speaks English with an American accent and often wears a baseball cap, and they are appealing to anyone who got to know him during his time in the city to come forward.
The stolen diamonds weigh 120,000 carats and include some very unusual stones, police said.
The diamonds will be difficult to sell on world markets, said Philip Claes, spokesman for the Antwerp Diamond Council. He told Belgium's RTL-TVI television network the haul included both cut gems and rough diamonds which cannot be sold without certificates of origin to show they have not come illegally from war zones.
In 2003, in the world's largest safe-deposit box theft, thieves in Antwerp prized open 123 boxes, finding so much loot they could only carry away $100 million worth of diamonds, gold and jewelry.
More than half the world's diamonds are traded in Antwerp's gem district, a maze of tiny streets hugging the main train station.
ÏÀ» Á¦°øÇÏÁö ¾Ê½À´Ï´Ù.
All prescription sleeping pills may sometimes cause sleep-driving, federal health officials warned Wednesday, almost a year after the bizarre side effect first made headlines when Rep.
Patrick Kennedy crashed his car after taking Ambien.
The Food and Drug Administration wouldn't say exactly how many cases of sleep-driving it had linked to insomnia drugs, but neurology chief Dr. Russell Katz said the agency uncovered more than a dozen reports and is worried that more are going uncounted.
Given the millions of prescriptions for insomnia drugs, Katz called the problem rare, and said he was unaware of any deaths.
But because sleep-driving is so dangerous and there are precautions that patients can take the FDA ordered a series of strict new steps Wednesday.
First, the makers of 13 sleep drugs must put warnings on their labels about two rare but serious side effects:
&#8226; sleep-driving, along with other less dangerous "complex sleep-related behaviors" like making phone calls, fixing and eating food, and having sex while still asleep.
Next, doctors this week will begin getting letters notifying them of the new warnings.
Later this year, all prescription sleeping pills will begin coming with special brochures called "Medication Guides" that spell out the risks for patients in easy-to-understand language.
Sleep-driving made headlines last May when Kennedy crashed his car into a security barrier outside the U.S. Capitol after taking Ambien and a second drug, Phenergan, which also acts as a sedative.
He has said he had no memory of the event.
To lower the risk of a sleep-driving episode, he advised patients to never take any prescription insomnia drug along with alcohol or another sedating drug, or take higher-than-recommended doses of the pills.
Chiquita Brands International entered a plea agreement with federal authorities on charges that it engaged in transactions with a terrorist organization.
The company agreed to pay a $25 million fine regarding the investigation of protection payments made by the company's former banana-producing subsidiary in Colombia.
Shares of Chiquita (up $0.25 to $12.75, Charts) fell nearly 1 percent in after-hours trading on the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday.
The announcement came moments after U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeffrey Taylor accused the Cincinnati-based banana producer with paying - through its Colombia subsidiary Banadex - a right-wing paramilitary group in Urab? and Santa Marta, two areas of Colombia where Chiquita grew bananas.
"From in or about 1997 though on or about Feb. 4, 2004, defendant Chiquita made over 100 payments to the AUC [United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia] totaling over $1.7 million," the 17-page information said.
It said Chiquita had also paid money to two left-wing organizations from about 1989 until about 1997, when those groups controlled areas where the company grew bananas.
Under the terms of the agreement, the company will pay the fine in five annual installments.
The agreement is subject to approval and acceptance by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.
Concerns over a weak housing market in the United States, coupled with worries about growth in the world's biggest economy, have rekindled another global sell-off of stocks.
Nervous investors jumped out of the market for the second time in two weeks, sending major indexes tumbling by between 2 and 3 percent.
European shares closed at their lowest level in 3-1/2 months on Wednesday, with the FTSEurofirst 300 index of top shares 2.6 percent lower at 1,427.4 points its lowest closing level since Dec. 1, 2006, bringing to 4 percent its overall decline since the start of the year.
"This seems to be the second leg of the global fall in equities and there is very little impetus to jump in and buy," one trader told Reuters. "It's time to fasten seat belts.
On Wall Street, where the share decline began, stocks were trimming losses in Wednesday afternoon trading following a volatile morning. (CNNMoney.com)
But a day earlier, the Dow Jones industrial average and the broader S&P 500 index both lost about 2 percent.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite sank more than 2 percent and the Russell 2000 small-capitalization index plunged 2.5 percent.
Tuesday's weak U.S. retail sales report the latest in a string of sluggish economic data revived fears about the economy slowing abruptly, and possibly falling into recession, Barry Hyman, equity strategist at EKN Financial services, told CNNMoney.
The wave of selling continued in Asia, with Japanese stocks down more than 3 percent on Wednesday. (Watch how bad loans in U.S. affected global markets )
Russia's Vera Zvonareva staged a remarkable comeback to send defending champion Maria Sharapova crashing out of the Pacific Life Open on Tuesday, completing an afternoon of major upsets in the women's draw.
The 15th seed battled back from a set and a break down to overcome the world number one 4-6 7-5 6-1 in the all-Russian fourth round match, setting up a quarter-final against China's Li Na, who upset Serb seventh seed Jelena Jankovic 6-3 7-6.
By failing to defend all her points after taking the title here last year, the 19-year-old Sharapova will lose her number one spot to Belgium's Justine Henin when the new rankings are issued next week.
A prominent scholar looking into the factual basis of a popular but widely criticized documentary film that claims to have located the tomb of Jesus said Tuesday that a crucial piece of evidence filmmakers used to support their claim is a mistake.
Stephen Pfann, a textual scholar and paleographer at the University of the Holy Land in Jerusalem, said he has released a paper claiming the makers of "The Lost Tomb of Jesus" were mistaken when they identified an ancient ossuary from the cave as belonging to the New Testament's Mary Magdalene.
Produced by Oscar-winning director James Cameron and directed by Simcha Jacobovici, the documentary has drawn intense media coverage for its claims challenging accepted Christian dogma.
widespread ridicule from scholars, it drew more than 4 million viewers when it aired on the Discovery Channel on March 4.
A companion book, "The Jesus Family Tomb," has rocketed to sixth place on the New York Times nonfiction best-seller list.
The film and book suggest that a first-century ossuary found in a south Jerusalem cave in 1980 contained the remains of Jesus, contradicting the Christian belief that he was resurrected and ascended to heaven.
Ossuaries are stone boxes used at the time to store the bones of the dead.
The filmmakers also suggest that Mary Magdalene was buried in the tomb, that she and Jesus were married, and that an ossuary labeled "Judah son of Jesus" belonged to their son.
The scholars who analyzed the Greek inscription on one of the ossuaries after its discovery read it as "Mariamene e Mara," meaning "Mary the teacher" or "Mary the master.
Before the movie was screened, Jacobovici said that particular inscription provided crucial support for his claim.
But having analyzed the inscription, Pfann, who made a brief appearance in the film as an ossuary expert, published a detailed article on his university's Web site asserting that it doesn't read "Mariamene" at all.
The inscription, Pfann said, is made up of two names inscribed by two different hands:
the first, "Mariame," was inscribed in a formal Greek script, and later, when the bones of another woman were added to the box, another scribe using a different cursive script added the words "kai Mara," meaning "and Mara."
Mara is a different form of the name Martha.
According to Pfann's reading, the ossuary did not house the bones of "Mary the teacher," but rather of two women, "Mary and Martha.
"In view of the above, there is no longer any reason to be tempted to link this ossuary...to Mary Magdalene or any other person in Biblical, non-Biblical or church tradition," Pfann wrote.
In the interest of telling a good story, Pfann said, the documentary engaged in some "fudging" of the facts.
But Jacobovici said scholars who researched the ossuary in the past agreed with the film's reading.
"Anyone who looks at it can see that the script was written by the same hand," Jacobovici said.
Jacobovici has faced criticism much tougher than Pfann's academic critique.
The film has been termed "archeo-porn," and Jacobovici has been accused of "pimping the Bible.
LOS ANGELES, California (AP) A lawyer for one of three men claiming to be the father of Anna Nicole Smith's baby asked a judge Tuesday to order the late Playboy model's partner, Howard K. Stern, to come to California and provide a DNA sample.
Attorney Debra Opri, who represents Smith's former boyfriend Larry Birkhead, said after a closed hearing that she wants the DNA to determine if Stern is the baby's father.
His name is on the little girl's birth certificate.
Superior Court Judge Robert Schnider refused to make Stern a part of the paternity court action but said he would review the matter in two weeks after he considers the law more closely, Opri said.
Stern was living with Smith at the time of her death.
He and the baby, Dannielynn, reside in the Bahamas.
Ron Rale, a lawyer who had represented Smith, argued against the DNA request, saying Stern's name is already on the birth certificate as the father.
"Howard Stern doesn't have to go to Larry Birkhead for anything," Rale said.
Smith, 39, died of unknown causes February 8 after collapsing at a Florida hotel.
A court in the Bahamas is dealing with custody issues involving the child, who could potentially inherit millions of dollars from her mother's estate.
A judge has barred Stern from taking the girl out of that country until a custody ruling is made.
Birkhead said he has made no agreement with Stern about the child.
Frederic von Anhalt, the husband of actress Zsa Zsa Gabor, also says he may be the father.
The chief U.N. nuclear inspector headed to North Korea on Tuesday for talks on how to implement a landmark nuclear disarmament agreement after playing down expectations that his trip heralded the communist country's rapid disarmament.
He cautioned Monday that efforts would be "a very incremental process. There's a lot of confidence that needs to be built.
Under the Feb. 13 agreement, the North is to ultimately give up its nuclear arsenal in exchange for economic aid and political concessions.
The U.S. has agreed to resolve a dispute over its financial restrictions on a Macau bank that was accused of complicity in counterfeiting $100 bills and money laundering by North Korea.
The U.S. move led Macau authorities to freeze about $24 million in North Korean assets.
A working group session on economic and energy cooperation will be held at the South Korean Embassy in Beijing on Thursday, the South's Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, the main American nuclear envoy, was scheduled to arrive Wednesday in Beijing for the working groups and will stay at least a week, said Susan Stevenson, a U.S. Embassy spokeswoman in Beijing.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press All rights reserved
All Nippon Airways grounded its entire fleet of Bombardier planes and the government ordered emergency inspections on Tuesday after the front landing gear on one failed to descend, forcing the aircraft to make an emergency landing with 60 people on board.
The mishap was the latest in a string of problems with ANA's fleet of Canadian-made Bombardier aircraft.
ANA said Tuesday it was grounding its fleet of 13 Bombardiers for inspection and wouldn't resume service until their safety had been confirmed.
The Transport Ministry ordered emergency inspections for all 36 Bombardier DHC-8s in use in Japan, citing possible defects with the model's landing gear, according to ministry official Yasuo Ishii.
The plane, carrying 56 passengers and four crew members, circled for nearly two hours over Kochi airport in western Japan as it tried to extend its front wheels and negotiate an emergency landing.
Rescue trucks sprayed the plane with fire retardant chemicals after it landed, and relieved passengers debarked.
The cause of the failure is not yet known, ANA spokesman Daisuke Kato said.
The Transportation Ministry planned to launch an investigation, ministry spokesman Tetsu Shimizu said.
In February 2006, another Bombardier plane operated by ANA experienced landing gear problems.
In 2004, the right wheel of a Bombardier broke off while landing at Kochi airport, also with no injuries.
ANA's president apologized for the problems with Bombardier aircraft at the airline's annual shareholder meeting in June 2006.
At the time, it had 11 Bombardiers in its fleet and had placed orders for 14 more.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2661442
Viacom sued Google and its online video subsidiary YouTube for $1 billion Tuesday, the first big lawsuit against the online video site and its parent for copyright infringement.
Experts predict more lawsuits to come. In the lawsuit filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Viacom, owner of MTV and Comedy Central, said that "almost 160,000 unauthorized clips of Viacom's programming have been available on YouTube and that these clips had been viewed more than 1.5 billion times."
In addition to damages, Viacom said it wants an injunction prohibiting Google and YouTube from further copyright infringement.
Google said that it and YouTube had yet to see the lawsuit but added they feel "confident that YouTube has respected the legal rights of copyright holders and believe the courts will agree."
Viacom first demanded that YouTube take down videos from shows on Viacom-owned networks that were posted on the site without Viacom's consent.
Google bought YouTube for nearly $1.7 billion last year.
Viacom is the first major media firm to sue Google and YouTube for copyright infringement.
Other media companies, including GE-owned NBC Universal, CBS, and Universal Music Group, have decided to partner with YouTube, the world's most popular online video site.
But Viacom said that it decided to sue Google and YouTube "after a great deal of unproductive negotiation.
ÏÀ» Á¦°øÇÏÁö ¾Ê½À´Ï´Ù.
When my first daughter, Sadie, was a few days old, we hadn't mastered breastfeeding, and I was sure I was starving her.
Most new parents have some frantic but largely unfounded fears about their baby's health.
"You realize that you hold the life of this tiny being in your hands, and you have no idea how to care for it, despite having read six child-rearing books," says pediatrician Ari Brown, M.D., author of "Baby 411.
Will my baby stop breathing?
"Babies breathe unevenly because their respiratory systems can't regulate themselves yet," says Charles Shubin, M.D., director of the Children's Health Center at Mercy FamilyCare in Baltimore, Maryland.
The amount of crying babies can tolerate varies by age.
Newborns cry to communicate their needs, so it's best to respond to their signals promptly.
Despite all your swaddling, singing, and swaying, however, they may still sob for about three hours over the course of a day, and that's OK.
The time for concern is when a single crying jag lasts more than an hour.
In that case, call the doctor because there could be a physical cause, such as an intestinal obstruction or a scratched cornea.
By 6 months, most babies can soothe themselves, so it's fine to let them wail for a few minutes while you finish your shower or cooking dinner.
The same holds true for babies over 5 months who are being sleep trained and may cry for up to two hours in one go.
It's harmless, says Dr. Brown, and won't cause your baby any psychological damage
Babies have an immature esophagus, meaning that what goes down is very likely to come back up, especially liquids.
Breast milk and formula aren't acidic, so it's typically not uncomfortable.
But if your baby often cries, arches her back, or just looks distressed, it may mean irritating stomach juices are coming up, and a prescription for an antacid medication such as Zantac can help.
Spitup may also be just a "wet burp" when milk comes up with a belch.
Or it could be vomit, caused by kids taking in more than they can hold, in which case you should consult your doctor.
What if my baby chokes?
Normal, healthy babies have a strong gag reflex that protects their airway when they choke, so the offending particle is coughed up or swallowed and not inhaled into the lungs.
Of course, things can get lodged in a baby's throat occasionally.
Be sure to keep anything smaller than the diameter of a toilet paper roll out of your baby's reach.
In the very unlikely event that your child chokes and you'll know it's happening when his face turns red or purple and/or he's not making any sounds here's what to do:
&#8226;
Use "back blows." Put your baby face-down on your forearm and give him four swift blows between his shoulder blades with the palm of your hand.
If you can see the object, you can go in after it.
In Rome, breaking the chains of love requires a hacksaw literally.
Sweethearts in the Italian capital have adopted a new ritual as a symbol of undying love: hanging a padlock on a lamppost on the city's most ancient bridge and throwing the key into the Tiber.
The craze has drawn hundreds of couples in the few months since it started causing city officials to wonder whether the ancient Roman bridge is suited for such an overwhelming display of passions.
Some couples write their names or a message on the lock.
They throw the key into the river over their shoulders to avoid seeing where it falls.
It's quite a change of scenery for a bridge that has seen more war than love since it was built in the second century B.C. Ponte Milvio served as the battlefield between rival emperors Constantine and Maxentius in 312;
it was the backdrop of the Italians' struggle for independence in the 1800s.
The idea of the love locks is not new in Italy. But Ponte Milvio owes its new reputation mainly due to two novels depicting the love of Roman teenagers.
The books have sold a combined 2.5 million copies and were both made into movies.
The padlock ritual has spilled into a music video and inspired a prize "The Golden Padlock" awarded to the best love message on Valentine's Day.
In the process, it has started drawing tourists to an area that is usually off the beaten track.
A check ordered by city officials showed the locks posed no threat to the stability of the lamppost.
But officials are looking for an alternative site amid fears the bridge may be damaged.
One possibility is to put up a "lovers' lamppost" in a square near the bridge.
It's becoming like tossing a coin in the Trevi fountain," said Perina.
WASHINGTON (AP) The harmful effects of global warming on daily life are already showing up, and within a couple of decades hundreds of millions of people won't have enough water, top scientists will say next month at a meeting in Belgium.
At the same time, tens of millions of others will be flooded out of their homes each year as the Earth reels from rising temperatures and sea levels, according to portions of a draft of an international scientific report obtained by The Associated Press.
Pests like fire ants will thrive.
But by 2080, hundreds of millions of people could face starvation, according to the report, which is still being revised.
The draft document by the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change focuses on global warming's effects and is the second in a series of four being issued this year.
Written and reviewed by more than 1,000 scientists from dozens of countries, it still must be edited by government officials.
But some scientists said the overall message is not likely to change when it's issued in early April in Brussels, Belgium, the same city where European Union leaders agreed this past week to drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2020.
Their plan will be presented to President Bush and other world leaders at a summit in June.
The report offers some hope if nations slow and then reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, but it notes that what's happening now isn't encouraging.
"Things are happening and happening faster than we expected," said Patricia Romero Lankao of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, one of the many co-authors of the new report.
The draft document says scientists are highly confident that many current problems change in species' habits and habitats, more acidified oceans, loss of wetlands, bleaching of coral reefs, and increases in allergy-inducing pollen can be blamed on global warming.
For example, the report says North America "has already experienced substantial ecosystem, social and cultural disruption from recent climate extremes," such as hurricanes and wildfires.
But the present is nothing compared to the future.
Global warming soon will "affect everyone's life ... it's the poor sectors that will be most affected," Romero Lankao said.
President Bush's message of goodwill in Latin America ran into a wall in Guatemala on Monday, as his defense of U.S. immigration law met with disapproval from his hosts.
Bush's meetings in Guatemala City with President Oscar Berger, a conservative leader who has become a strong U.S. ally, were dominated by trade and the difficult issue of immigration policy.
Bush pleased Guatemalans by promising to push hard, and quickly, for changes that would include a temporary-worker program for illegal workers in the United States.
He said he thinks it is possible to wrest legislation out of the U.S. Congress, still deeply divided over the issue, by August.
But he gave no ground in the face of questions over deportations of illegal workers, such as a raid in Massachusetts last week.
Federal authorities detained over 300 employees of a leather goods maker most from Guatemala and El Salvador for possible deportation as illegal aliens. The raid left dozens of young children stranded at schools and with baby sitters.
"The United States will enforce our law," Bush said. "It's against the law to hire somebody who's in our country illegally.
Responded Berger: "The Guatemalan people would have preferred a more clear and positive response no more deportations.
Berger did say he "was very pleased" that Bush sees it as a problem not just for migrants and their home countries, but Americans as well.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press All rights reserved
The ancient battle of Thermopylae was the stuff of 2007's first certified blockbuster as the bloody action tale "300" debuted with $70 million over opening weekend, according to studio estimates Sunday.
That's about $233,000 for every one of the legendary 300 Spartan soldiers who fought off a much larger Persian force in the epic battle.
"Summer came a little early, because this is a summer-style opening.
The number of movie-goers for the Warner Bros. epic "300" outnumbered crowds for the rest of the top-10 movies combined.
If the estimate holds when final numbers are released Monday, "300" would break the record for best March debut ever, topping the $68 million haul for "Ice Age:
"300" played in 3,103 theaters, about 850 fewer than the "Ice Age" sequel, making its box-office performance even more notable.
The movie averaged $22,567 a theater, a whopping number for a wide release.
Buoyed by "300" and some solid holdovers, Hollywood business soared, with the top-12 movies taking in $139.4 million, up 49 percent from the same weekend last year.
Adapted from Frank Miller's graphic novel, "300" stars Gerard Butler as Leonidas, king of
the Greek city state of Sparta, who leads his vastly outnumbered men against the Persian invaders.
"It's a new-fashioned version of an epic movie. Great, old-fashioned storytelling with all the brilliant use of the technology available to us now," "300" producer Mark Canton said Sunday.
Heavy on violence, the movie had an R rating, normally a damper on a film's blockbuster potential.
But "300" wound up with the third-best debut ever for an R-rated movie, behind "The Matrix Reloaded" at $91.8 million and "The Passion of the Christ" at $83.8 million.
"The violence doesn't bother anybody because it's done in a way that's not offensive," said Dan Fellman, Warner Bros. head of distribution. "People love the movie, they love the originality.
Normally the switch to daylight-saving time isn't a big deal, but Sunday, Jeff Ronner has to put people on the case.
Ronner is a San Francisco, California-area field services manager for technology outsourcer Perot Systems Corp., and he handles computer systems for a big Perot client, Catholic Healthcare West.
This week he was putting final touches on his plan to make certain that Catholic HealthCare's voicemail systems and other networks recognize daylight time.
Those computers, like those of all but the most recent vintage, probably were programmed to believe that daylight-saving time begins the first Sunday in April and ends the final Sunday in October.
Those rules, in place for two decades, were overturned by a 2005 U.S. law that extended daylight-saving time by three weeks in the spring and one week in the autumn.
This is nice for after-dinner strolls and might even save some energy (which was Congress' motive), but the computing industry has had to scramble.
Many people only recently realized the change would even impact computers.
Computing vendors developed and sent out patches that alter how software deals with daylight-saving time which should cover most home PC users.
That has forced systems engineers to study how various computing applications deal with time, and make manual fixes if necessary.
The process reminded some people of the planning for the widely feared Year 2000 bug, even if the effects of this glitch computer time is an hour off appear way less threatening.
Some of Ronner's telecom engineers will be able to dial in remotely Sunday to make sure the time change went seamlessly at Catholic HealthCare's offices and hospitals.
But in some cases they might have to drive to a hospital to make a manual update.
Otherwise, Ronner said, things like voicemails about patient care might get an erroneous time stamp.
Mulford said one potential issue for Regulus' customers was that improperly updated computers in financial services companies could register deposits or other transactions on the wrong day, if being one hour off made them miss some daily cut-off point.
He said customers' systems were patched and secured by January though just to be safe, he plans to have extra support staff around this weekend in case clients have time-related problems.
Some computer glitches may not show up until Monday, the first business day under the new daylight-saving schedule.
But computing experts don't expect major problems to erupt.
Even Ronner, with his meticulous plan for dealing with the switch, doesn't seem too worried.
There was a distinctly green theme at this year's Geneva motor show, as manufacturers battled to prove their environmental credentials in a world that is increasingly concerned with the environment and man's effect on it.
Although petrol-electric hybrid vehicles are seen as the interim technology to reduce fossil fuel use and emissions of carbon dioxide, the hydrogen fuel cell is still likely to represent the future of motoring.
Plenty of the former were on display at Geneva as the industry realizes that so-called "green" cars can sell.
Honda and Toyota are the mass-market pioneers of petrol-electric hybrids, and although their offerings might be constructed at a loss it is worth it in terms of marketing and a perception of being at the vanguard of planet-saving technologies.
Yet it is Honda that stole the march with the presentation at Geneva of a driveable fuel cell-powered vehicle until now, such things had been confined to test beds and highly experimental prototypes.
Although still officially a concept, this vehicle is fully functional and a development of it could be production as soon as the end of this year, with Honda committed to selling this model in Japan and the U.S. next year.
It features a newly-developed compact, high-efficient Honda fuel-cell (FC) stack in a spacious saloon body.
One of the biggest surprises was the announcement by Morgan, purveyor of quintessentially British sports cars, that it intends to develop a hydrogen fuel cell-powered machine.
The company is famous for its traditional production methods, but managing director Charles Morgan announced a hydrogen-fueled, zero-emissions car using Morgan's traditional ash-framed body would be launched at Geneva next year.
The goal is a lightweight car with a range of 200 miles.
The application of fuel-cell technology in smaller cars was investigated by Peugeot, with its Epure version of the 207CC.
The investment in petrol-electric hybrids is massive.
Kia Motors of Korea demonstrated its intent to become a major player with the unveiling of its Rio Hybrid saloon at Geneva.
The Kia Rio Hybrid saloon used in these tests has a 1.4-liter petrol engine, mated to a 12kW, 95 Nm AC synchronized electric motor and a continuously variable transmission (CVT) gearbox.
The high-torque permanent magnet electric motor is mounted between the flywheel and the gearbox and "assists" the petrol engine during starting, accelerating and hill-climbing, switching off during steady cruising when the petrol engine is at its most efficient.
During deceleration it employs regenerative braking to recharge the battery.
The computer-controlled system also allows stop/start motoring which switches both engine and motor off whenever the car comes to a standstill for more than a few seconds. Restarting is automatic.
Compared to the standard petrol Rio, air pollutants are reduced by 37 per cent and fuel efficiency is improved by 44 per cent.
The hybrid's CO2 figure is 126 g/km.
Dozens of Shiite pilgrims were killed Sunday in Baghdad when a car bomb exploded near a minibus that was part of a stream of traffic bringing pilgrims home from a religious ceremony in the holy city of Karbala, police said.
The blast killed at least 31 people and injured 25, a Baghdad police official said.
One of the pilgrims, Nasir Sultan, told The Associated Press the explosion threw him out of the vehicle. "I could see lots of burned bodies," he told AP.
Another, Mustafa Moussawi, said the Shiite pilgrims felt safer after making it through Sunni-dominated areas and into central Baghdad, AP reported.
"I blame the government. They didn't provide a safe route for us even though they knew we were targets for attack."
On Saturday, attacks against Shiite pilgrims killed three and wounded at least seven others.
The pilgrims were returning to Baghdad after celebrating the holy day of Arbayeen, which fell on Saturday.
The holy day marked the end of a 40-day mourning period for the death of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. Hussein died near Karbala in a 7th century battle.
The attack came just a day after a conference in Baghdad brought together officials from Iraq's neighbors, the U.S., and the U.N. Security Council, to search for ways to control the sectarian violence that has wracked the country.
There were other incidents of violence on Sunday.
A suicide bomber wearing an explosives vest killed 10 people and wounded eight others near Baghdad's Shiite-dominated Sadr city neighborhood, a local police official said.
In Mosul, about 160 miles (420 kilometers) north of Baghdad, three guards were killed and two were critically wounded when a bomb ripped through the reception lobby of a Sunni political party's headquarters, Mosul police said.
Bombs in other parts of Iraq killed at least 14 people Sunday.
Chief U.N. nuclear inspector Mohamed ElBaradei expressed hope Sunday that his trip to North Korea would help nudge Pyongyang toward nuclear disarmament, but described it as only "the first step in a long journey. "
China was instrumental in clinching the Feb. 13 six-nation agreement under which North Korea agreed to ultimately give up its nuclear arsenal in exchange for economic and political concessions.
"Important is not whom we meet but that we progress," ElBaradei told reporters less than an hour before setting out for Beijing en route to Pyongyang for a two-day visit starting Tuesday.
"I should caution that this is a first step in a long process," ElBaradei said. "This would have to be an incremental process.
Under the Feb. 13 agreement, the first phase of North Korea's disarmament process calls on the country to shut down its main nuclear reactor and allow U.N. inspectors back into the country within 60 days.
In return, it would receive aid equal to 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil from the other countries participating in the six-party nuclear talks the United States, South Korea, Russia, China and Japan.
In the next phase, North Korea will be required to make a complete declaration to the International Atomic Energy Agency and the six parties about its nuclear program, which will then be dismantled.
ElBaradei, whose inspectors were expelled more than four years ago as the North Korean nuclear crisis escalated, said he hoped to "focus on how to bring ... (North Korea) closer to the agency" as well as working on implementing all of last month's agreement.
"As a result of the six party talks ... we are now in a ... much more positive environment," ElBaradei said. "I'd like to see that positive environment translated into positive action.
Experts estimate the reactor at Yongbyon has produced about 50 kilograms (more than 100 pounds) of plutonium, which Washington believes has been used to make weapons.
U.S. allegations that North Korea has a uranium enrichment program brought on the nuclear crisis in 2002 that led the Pyongyang to kick out ElBaradei's inspectors and ultimately contributed to North Korea testing its first nuclear bomb last year.
North Korea has never publicly acknowledged that it has such a program.
SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) Taunted by leftist President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, President Bush on Friday insisted the United States is not neglecting Latin America and celebrated an alternative-fuels pact with Brazil as proof.
"I don't think America gets enough credit for trying to help improve people's lives," Bush said at a joint news conference with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. "My trip is to explain as clearly as I can that our nation is generous and compassionate.
Bush shrugged off fresh attacks from Chavez, his primary South American adversary.
On Friday, in Buenos Aires, Argentina about 1,000 miles southwest of Sao Paulo Chavez called Bush's travels an attempt to divide and confuse Latin American nations.
"The future belongs to us," Chavez told reporters, adding, "Oh, ho ho!
The two were even closer Friday evening, when Chavez was to addressed an "anti-imperialist" rally in a soccer stadium in Buenos Aires while Bush was in Montevideo, Uruguay, across the River Plate.
Chavez is using his country's vast oil wealth to reach out to ordinary Latin Americans and to court other leftist leaders.
Asked directly about Chavez's latest taunts, Bush refused to mention Chavez by name, a common practice.
"I bring the good will of the United States to South America and Central America," he said. "That's why I'm here.
Bush noted total U.S. aid has doubled since he took office to $1.6 billion last year. Some Latin American critics say Bush's claim is misleading because it is based on using 2001 as the starting point, and U.S. aid had dipped sharply that year, setting an artificially low benchmark.
Ethanol development agreement reached
The centerpiece of Bush's Brazilian stop the first before he headed on to Uruguay, Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico was a new ethanol development agreement.
A large fuel depot for tanker trucks was the backdrop for declarations by Bush and Lula that increasing alternative-fuel use will lead to more jobs, a cleaner environment and greater independence from the whims of the oil market.
In Brazil, nearly eight in 10 new cars already run on fuel made from sugar cane
The agreement, signed Friday morning by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her Brazilian counterpart, has the U.S. and Brazil joining forces to promote more ethanol use in nations lying between Brazil and the United States.
It also creates new quality standards for the alternative fuel.
But there were clear remaining tensions on a related issue:
the 54-cent-a-gallon U.S. tariff on imports of Brazilian ethanol made from sugar, a measure designed to help U.S. corn growers.
Ethanol can be made from either crop.
Before Bush's visit, Lula said the tariff was unfair and that he would press Bush to try to get the U.S. Congress to repeal it.
Bush and Lula also agreed to try to relaunch stalled global trade talks the so-called Doha round and Bush said, "We will work together.
We will lock our trade ministers in a room, all aimed at advancing this important round.
U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab was staying behind to meet with Brazilian officials on Saturday morning. Brazil is the largest economy in Latin America.
line Catholic and Protestant parties have won the bulk of seats decided so far in the election for a new legislative assembly in Northern Ireland.
Results for 72 of 108 assembly seats showed the Democratic Unionist Party, led by Protestant hard-liner Ian Paisley, had captured 25 seats, compared to 24 for Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army, according to results from Britain's Press Association news agency.
A moderate Catholic party, the Social Democratic and Labor Party, had won 10 seats, and the Ulster Unionists, a Protestant party that helped broker the 1998 Good Friday peace accords, had nine, with two smaller parties taking the remaining four seats.
Winners in the remaining 36 seats contested in Wednesday's election were expected to be determined Friday under Northern Ireland's complex system of preferential voting.
The Northern Ireland Assembly was formed
in 1998 as part of the Good Friday peace agreement aimed at ending 30 years of sectarian violence, but was suspended in 2002 when an IRA spying scandal stoked Protestant anger toward Sinn Fein.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press All rights reserved
The front wheels snapped off an Indonesian jetliner as it crash-landed and skidded into a rice field where it burst into flames, investigators said as they probed Indonesia's second deadly plane crash this year.
Teams of forensic doctors struggled Thursday to identify the more than 20 people killed, most burned beyond recognition by the fire that tore through the Garuda Airlines Boeing 737-400.
(Watch the fates and heroics of Australian passengers, seat by seat )
The crash nine weeks after another Boeing 737 plunged into the sea, killing all 102 people on board put the spotlight back on Indonesia's patchy aviation safety record.
"The regulations are good, but the problem is in implementing them," said aviation analyst Dudi Sudibyo, adding that pilots are overworked and there are not enough flight inspectors or planes for Indonesia's booming aviation sector.
Nearly 120 people survived Wednesday's crash at Yogyakarta's international airport, jumping through emergency exits flames and smoke filled the cabin.
Survivors said the plane seemed to be going too fast as it approached the runway after a 50-minute journey from the capital, Jakarta.
"On the descent of the aircraft, it just seemed like it was coming in too quick," Royal Australian Air Force Leading Aircraftsman Kyle Quinlan told Australian Broadcasting Corp. "There was no warning, nothing came over the speakers.
Investigators recovered the plane's in-flight recorders and sent them for analysis to Australia, which lost at least four citizens in the accident, said crash investigator Ruth Simutupang.
Top investigator Mardjono Siswo Suwarno said that the plane's front wheels snapped off as it landed, and that fire spread from punctured fuel tanks in the right wing.
"We are trying to find out why the wheel broke," he told The Associated Press.
Authorities said there was no indication of sabotage or a mid-air explosion a lingering fear in a country that has seen a series of terror attacks in recent years.
Democratic leaders in the Senate discussed a plan of their own, which would bring troops home by March 2008 and execute "a comprehensive diplomatic, political and economic strategy" to settle the 4-year-old conflict. A spokesman for President Bush said any such plan would be "an artificial, precipitous withdrawal from Iraq based on, unfortunately, politics in Washington, not on conditions on the ground in Baghdad, Iraq.
"Obviously, the administration would vehemently oppose and ultimately veto any legislation that looked like what was described today," said Dan Bartlett, White House counsel.
Bartlett said the plan appeared aimed more at papering over Democratic divisions on Iraq than resolving the war itself.
"It would unnecessarily handcuff our generals on the ground, and it's safe to say it's a non-starter for the president," he said.
Japan says forming ties is impossible without resolution of the issue of Japanese abducted by the reclusive communist state in the 1970s and 1980s.
Meanwhile, North Korea is pressing for settlement of issues stemming from Japan's harsh 1910-45 colonial rule over the Korean peninsula.
North Korea's chief negotiator Song Il-ho told reporters after Thursday's session at the North Korean embassy in Hanoi that the abduction issue "has been completely resolved by our sincere efforts".
He urged Japan to settle the past, lift sanctions and stop "suppressing" North Koreans living in Japan. In a briefing, Song described Japan's position as "an unreasonable insistence."
But Japan's delegation head, Koichi Haraguchi said, "It is deplorable that North Korea did not respond sincerely to the abduction issue.
The original schedule had called for two full days of talks in communist-run Vietnam, which has good relations with both Japan and North Korea.
Delegates met on Wednesday morning at the Japanese embassy, but then cancelled an afternoon session at the North Korean embassy.
Thursday's meeting lasted less than an hour.
In Tokyo, Kyodo news agency reported on Thursday that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe might order a new study of the government's role in forcing women, many of them Koreans, to act as sex slaves for Japanese soldiers during World War Two.
Abe has angered the Koreans and other Asians with remarks that appeared to question the state's role, although he has also said a 1993 apology acknowledging coercion remained in effect.
Police clashed Thursday with students, environmentalists and left-leaning Brazilians protesting a visit by President Bush and his push for an ethanol energy alliance with Latin America's largest nation.
Riot police fired tear gas at protesters in Sao Paulo after more than 6,000 people held a largely peaceful march, sending hundreds of demonstrators fleeing and ducking into businesses to avoid the gas.
There were no immediate reports of injuries, but some protesters said they had been beaten by officers after marching two miles through the financial heart of South America's largest city just hours before Bush was scheduled to arrive.
Clashes between police and anti-Bush protesters were also reported in Colombia, where Bush is scheduled to visit on Sunday as part of his five-nation
Bush has spoken approvingly of Brazil's ethanol program, which powers eight out of every 10 new Brazilian cars.
The proposed accord is meant to help turn ethanol into an internationally traded commodity and to promote sugarcane-based ethanol production in Central America and the Caribbean.
In Sao Paulo, some carried stalks of sugarcane used to make ethanol and a banner reading: "For every liter of ethanol produced, 4 liters of fresh water are consumed, monoculture is destroying the nation's greatest asset.
And in the southern city of Porto Alegre, more than 500 people yelled "Get out, imperialist!"
as they marched to a Citigroup Inc. bank branch and burned an effigy of Bush.
Fearing that Brazil may clear pristine jungle to increase sugarcane cultivation for ethanol, Greenpeace activists hung a huge banner warning against increased reliance on ethanol as an alternative fuel.
Greenpeace said increased Brazilian ethanol production could cause social unrest because most Brazilian sugarcane-ethanol operations are run by wealthy families or corporations that reap most of the benefits while the poor are left to cut the cane with machetes. Graffiti reading "Get Out, Bush!
appeared on walls near the locations Bush will drive past as he begins a Latin American tour that also includes stops in Uruguay, Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico.
¡°At National University in Bogota, Colombia, 200 masked students clashed with 300 anti-riot police and shouted "Out Bush!"
Police fired tear gas, and the students hurled back rocks and small homemade explosives called "potato bombs" aluminum foil wrapped around gunpowder.
There were no immediate reports of injuries or arrests.
And in Mexico City, which Bush is scheduled to visit Tuesday, about two dozen demonstrators gathered in front of the U.S. Embassy chanting slogans against the U.S. project to construct border fences and Bush's visit.
Truck driver Ed Nabors was a little behind on his way to work Tuesday morning, so he didn't stop for coffee at his usual place.
At lunchtime he bought a cup at nearby Favorite Market convenience store and chose to spend $10 on lottery tickets.
Nabors, 52, of Rocky Face, Georgia, discovered Wednesday morning that he had won half the record-setting $390 million Mega Millions jackpot in Tuesday night's drawing.
"I'm still numb," he said at a news conference in Atlanta. (Watch lottery official's advice on what winners should do first )
He will net about $80 million after taxes, Georgia Lottery Corp. spokeswoman Tandi Reddick said.
He will receive the actual payment in about 10 days.
Asked how much longer he will be a truck driver, Nabors quipped, "About 10 more days. "
"My daughter has wanted a house and to get out of a mobile home for a long time," he said, "and I think she just got it."
The winning numbers were 16-22-29-39-42, plus the Mega Ball, 20.
Nabors let the store's Mega Millions terminal choose his numbers for him; the winning combination was the sixth set out of 10, he said.
Mega Millions is a multistate lottery played in California, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Texas, Virginia and Washington.
This material may not be published.
Citing the risks of further delay, Jordan's King Abdullah II said Wednesday the United States must take the lead in creating conditions for a permanent peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
"We look to you to play a historic role," he said, adding that results are needed "not in one year or five years but this year.
"No more bloodshed, no more lives pointlessly taken," Abdullah declared.
He was interrupted a number of times by applause.
Abdullah made no direct reference to Hamas, to the current divisions in the Palestinian leadership or to recent efforts by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to revive peace efforts.
Instead, he spoke of the suffering of both Israelis and Palestinians.
"The goal must be a peace in which all sides gain," he said. "There must be a peace in which Israelis will be part of the neighborhood.
His comments on the Middle East issue before his departure for Washington were far more critical of Israel than the ones he delivered on Wednesday.
Last Friday, he said, "The main responsibility [for achieving peace] lies with Israel, which must choose either to remain a prisoner of the mentality of 'Israel the fortress' or to live in peace and stability with its neighbors.
James Zogby, president of the Arab-American Institute, met with Abdullah after the speech and later issued a statement calling the presentation "smart and courageous.
Navy Capt. Lisa Nowak's detail as a NASA astronaut will be terminated, effective Thursday, NASA and the U.S. Navy said Wednesday in a written statement issued jointly.
NASA spokesman James Hartsfield said that while it wasn't unusual for astronauts to leave the astronaut corps and return to the military, it was the first time the space agency had requested that the military terminate an assignment.
Hartsfield said Nowak was informed about the request for termination on February 24 by chief astronaut Steve Reynolds but that processing the request took until this week.
Nowak, 43, is charged with attempted kidnapping for allegedly confronting her former boyfriend's new love-interest in a parking lot at Florida's Orlando International Airport on February
In addition to attempted kidnapping, Nowak was charged with battery and burglary of a vehicle with a weapon.
Nowak's attorney said the charges overstate her conduct.
Navy Cmdr. Bill Oefelein told investigators he and Nowak had been involved in a sexual relationship that he ended in January 2007, two months after meeting Air Force Capt. Colleen Shipman.
He said Nowak "appeared to take the news well.
Prosecutors contend Nowak, a mother of three who is seeking a divorce from her husband, drove 900 miles from Houston to Orlando wearing adult diapers to reduce the number of stops she needed to make in order to accost Shipman.
At the Orlando airport, Nowak allegedly disguised herself in a trenchcoat and wig and sprayed pepper spray into Shipman's car when she refused to open the door.
Police found a BB gun, a steel mallet, a 4-inch knife and rubber tubing in a bag Nowak was carrying and in her car, authorities have said.
"We are not surprised nor concerned with Lisa Nowak being fired as an astronaut or whether or not she wore a diaper," said Shipman's lawyer, Kepler Funk, in a written statement. "We continue to focus our concern on Colleen Shipman as a crime victim.
Nowak, an active duty naval officer, began her detail with NASA after her selection as a member of the astronaut class of 1996. She flew one mission, STS-121, in 2006.
NASA said it requested Nowak's detail be ended "because the agency lacks the administrative means to deal appropriately with the criminal charges pending against Nowak.
Because Nowak is a naval officer on assignment to NASA, rather than a NASA civil servant, she is not subject to administrative action by NASA.
Nowak is to get her next assignment from the U.S. Navy.
A Navy public affairs officer in Washington said Nowak has been assigned to the staff of the chief of naval air training in Corpus Christi, Texas. She is on leave, scheduled to report March 21.
An Indonesian passenger jet crash landed and burst into flames on Wednesday killing 23 people trapped inside.
A further 117 people escaped, clambering through burning wreckage to safety, witnesses and officials said.
In a CNN interview, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said nine passengers were Australians a mixture of officials and media and four of the nine have not yet been accounted for.
Survivor Ruth Bamggadan told CNN that the plane hit the ground and stopped suddenly. She said she saw flames outside her window.
The emergency door was opened, she said, and "quite a lot of people were able to get out of the plane.
"When we hit the ground for the last time, things started to fall down (from the overhead bins) ... the smoke started to get in the plane. People were really panicked," she said.
Bamggadan said the people sitting in the front of the plane were the last able to get out, "because I think the emergency door was in the middle.
"We will always remain hopeful and remain optimistic but with four missing we're concerned about them," he said.
Australia's Downer, who attended the scene of the crash, dismissed concerns that the cause of the crash was sabotage.
He said it appeared to be "just a straight accident where the aircraft ran off the runway.
Indonesian air investigators arrived in Yogyakarta late Wednesday and will investigate the plane's condition, review the weather pattern and speak with crew members in an effort to find out what caused the plane to erupt in flames, CNN's Kathy Quiano in Jakarta reported.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard said he had spoken to Downer about the crash and has authorized emergency aid for the injured.
He said he planned to investigate the jet and visit those hospitalized later in the day.
Staff from the Australian Embassy in Jakarta and members of the Australian federal police and the Royal Air Force were traveling in the business class section in the front of the plane, according to Australian government sources.
Employees of the Sydney Morning Herald and a television crew from 7 Network were sitting in the back of the plane, and reported seeing a number of fatalities, the sources said.
Sources in the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs in Canberra told CNN that Downer and Attorney General Philip Ruddock were traveling on a Royal Australian Air Force plane and were not on the Garuda Airlines flight.
The plane involved in Wednesday's crash was about 8-9 years old, according to a Garuda Airlines spokesman.
Nine Australians were on board the jet that crashed and burst into flames in Indonesia on Wednesday, officials and journalists following a visit of Foreign Minister Alexander Downer to meet the Sultan of Yogyakarta city.
Downer said five of the Australians were injured and four were missing after Garuda flight GA 200 overshot the airport runway in the cultural capital of Java.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard said an Australian military medical evacuation team and a C-130 Hercules military transport aircraft had been placed on standby, along with Darwin Hospital, to help treat casualties.
"Given the severity of the crash and the following fire, we really should be prepared for bad news," Howard said.
Australian doctors and counselors would also travel to Indonesia, while Indonesia's government had also been offered Australian police disaster-identification experts, Howard said.
The missing Australians were an air force liaison staffer, a federal police officer, an embassy staff member and a journalist, all of whom were traveling from Jakarta for Downer's visit.
An Australian television cameraman reportedly broke both legs in the accident while a journalist with the Sydney Morning Herald suffered burns to both legs and was recovering in a Yogyakarta hospital.
Downer and Australian Attorney-General Philip Ruddock were not in the city, having been delayed in Jakarta following a security summit.
Aviation disaster expert Robert Heath said aircraft speed might have been a factor in the crash.
"From what I can see so far the aircraft appeared to land intact and that may point to excess speed being a factor," said Professor Heath, from the University of South Australia.
"The fire may have been caused by the nose wheel hitting things as it ran off the runway or engine destruction.
It was probable that a fuel tank was punctured on impact and to me it looks very similar to the Manchester Airport crash in 1985 that showed a burn pattern across the top cabin. "
Japan must confront its past of coercing women into prostitution with Japanese troops in World War Two, China's foreign minister said on Tuesday, nonetheless stressing hopes of improved ties between the two Asian powers.
"The forced use of so-called 'comfort women' was one of the most serious crimes committed by the Japanese imperialists in World War Two," Li Zhaoxing told a news conference on the sidelines of China's annual meeting of parliament.
"Comfort women" is a euphemism for wartime sex slaves.
"I think the Japanese government should recognize historical facts, and should accept the responsibility to earnestly and appropriately deal with this problem," Li said.
with comments that there was no evidence to validate claims that Asian women were coerced into serving as sex slaves for the Japanese army.
Many historians estimate that as many as 200,000 "comfort women" were forced into the Imperial Japanese Army's brothels.
Most women were from Korea but women from China, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia were also involved.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao is due to visit Japan in April as the two Asian powers seek to ease long-running hostility centered on their wartime past and China's rising regional ambitions.
"This year marks the 35th anniversary of normalization of ties between China and Japan, and we should take in hand this important opportunity to develop China-Japan relations," Li said.
"We're willing to strengthen cooperation with Japan in every sphere," he said, adding that China wants to amicably settle a dispute over the two countries' boundary in the East China Sea.
Wen's visit would be the first by a top Chinese leader since then-premier Zhu Rongji in October 2000.
Li recently visited Japan to lay the groundwork for Wen's visit.
Christopher Hill, the chief U.S. negotiator with North Korea, said on Tuesday there is a "sense of optimism on both sides" after the first of several planned working groups talks in the wake of last month's agreement by the six countries involved in negotiating North Korea's nuclear program.
He described the day's meeting as "very good and comprehensive discussions. Eight-plus hours of talks.
Hill met with his North Korean counterpart, Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan.
The agreement reached by North Korea, the United States, South Korea, Japan, China and Russia outlines steps for the reclusive communist nation to begin to shut down its nuclear program in exchange for $300 million in energy and financial aid.
Hill and Kim met on Tuesday at a New York hotel, after brief talks over dinner on Monday night.
Shortly before Tuesday's morning session, Hill told reporters he believes the North Koreans "are committed" to following through on the February 13 agreement.
"But, as you know, what is important about these actions is not only to get them done, but then to use them as momentum," Hill said.
He stressed that the talks were "an initial working group meeting. "
Japan will be the next member of the six-party negotiators to hold working group talks with North Korea, doing so on Wednesday, Hill said.
This material may not be published.
A commercial airliner arriving from Jakarta burst into flames Wednesday upon landing at Yogyakarta airport in central Java, an official there told CNN.
The Garuda Airlines Boeing 737-400 appeared to overshoot the runway before flames shot out, and witnesses reported hearing an explosion, according to media reports.
Some 115 passengers were onboard, Andy Mallarangeng, a spokesman for the Indonesian government, told CNN. (Watch what details first emerged )
Among them were Australian government officials and members of the Australian media, The Australian Foreign Ministry in Canberra told CNN.
The Australian government released no further information about their fate.
The Australian contingent had been traveling with Australia's foreign minister in Indonesia, The Associated Press quoted Australian Treasurer Peter Costello saying.
The foreign minister was reportedly not on the plane, the AP reported.
The number of casualties was unclear, but "some" people onboard have been saved, Mallarangeng said, and had been taken to hospitals.
"We are still waiting for the latest information" about any passengers who may have been trapped, he said. It was too early to speculate on what caused the plane to erupt in flames, he added.
"Officials are on the site and doing whatever they can for the situation," he said.
Video footage from the scene showed rescue workers and onlookers surrounding the plane's smoking fuselage. The top of the plane appeared to have burned away.
Indonesia has suffered from a string of transportation accidents in recent months, including an Adam Air plane that disappeared in January with more than 100 passengers and crew on board, and a ferry sinking in late December in which hundreds died.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2654949
I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, will appeal his conviction on federal perjury and obstruction of justice charges if he doesn't get a new trial, Libby's lead attorney said Tuesday.
Libby was convicted Tuesday of lying and obstructing an investigation into the Bush administration's actions leading into the Iraq war.
A member of the jury said jurors who deliberated for 10 days believed that the Bush administration sacrificed Libby to take heat off other officials.
Libby was found guilty of two counts of perjury, one of obstruction of justice and one of lying to FBI agents.
He was cleared of a second charge of making false statements.
(Watch a juror explain how there was sympathy for 'fall guy' Libby )
"The jury worked very long and hard and deliberated at length," said Patrick Fitzgerald, the lead prosecutor in the case. "The jury was obviously convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant had lied and obstructed justice in a serious manner.
Cheney issued a statement saying he was "very disappointed with the verdict.
"I am saddened for Scooter and his family," Cheney said. "As I have said before, Scooter has served our nation tirelessly and with great distinction through many years of public service.
Libby, 56, faces a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison and a fine of $1 million.
A hearing on a presentencing report is scheduled for June 5.
CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin said, "He is virtually certain to go to prison if this conviction is upheld."
A 2003 federal investigation looked into the leaking of Plame's CIA identity to journalists.
Libby was not accused of exposing Plame.
Prosecutors contended Libby disclosed Plame's covert profession to reporters as part of a plan to discredit her husband, Joseph Wilson, a former ambassador who alleged in a July 2003 New York Times editorial that the Bush administration twisted some intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war.
A strong earthquake followed by an almost equally strong aftershock rocked Sumatra in western Indonesia Tuesday morning, killing at least 30 people, a local disaster coordination official said.
Hundreds of buildings have been flattened, The Associated Press cited officials and media reports as saying.
Indonesian television showed widespread damage to buildings on the island, including a hospital that had to be evacuated.
The quakes sent frightened people running from their homes, Deputy Governor Syamsudin said in the city of Solok.
The U.S. Geological Survey reported a magnitude 6.3 earthquake about 30 miles north-northeast of Padang at 10:50 a.m. (10: 50 p.m. ET Monday). A 6.1 temblor followed two hours later within miles of the first quake's epicenter.
The quake was felt as far as away as Malaysia and Singapore, where several office buildings were evacuated.
Indonesia is the world's largest archipelago and is prone to seismic upheaval due to its location on the so-called Pacific "Ring of Fire," an arc of volcanoes and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.
In December 2004, a massive earthquake struck off Indonesia's Sumatra island and triggered a tsunami that killed more than 230,000 people, including 131,000 people in Indonesia's Aceh province alone.
More than 50 years after the end of the Korean War, the United States and North Korea opened historic talks on steps to establish diplomatic relations following Pyongyang's agreement to dismantle its nuclear program.
North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan and U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill met for four hours on Monday evening for talks and dinner at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York. They left without any comment to waiting reporters.
Kim and Hill are to meet again on Tuesday amid rising expectations of improved U.S. relations with a country President George W. Bush called part of an "axis of evil" five years ago, along with Iran and prewar Iraq.
This is the first U.S. visit by Kim, North Korea's top nuclear negotiator, since the international standoff over the North's nuclear ambitions flared in late 2002.
Under an agreement reached at six-nation talks in Beijing last month on the North's nuclear program, the United States and North Korea are supposed to open bilateral talks on establishing diplomatic ties.
The North, which tested a nuclear weapon last October, agreed at the talks to shut down its main nuclear reactor by mid-April as a step toward abandoning its nuclear program in exchange for aid.
U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack cautioned that this week's initial meetings would focus on setting the agenda for the U.S.-North Korea working group led by Kim and Hill, the top American nuclear negotiator.
"I think that he [Hill] will talk to them about how the process might proceed regarding normalization," McCormack said, including taking North Korea off the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism and opening the way for a normal trading relationship with the U.S. for the first time.
Kim's first stop on Monday was the Korea Society, a nonprofit organization that promotes greater understanding and cooperation between Americans and Koreans.
He spent 4-1/2 hours with an array of academics and VIPs including former U.S. secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and Madeleine Albright.
Kim arrived in New York late on Friday and met over the weekend with South Korea's chief nuclear negotiator Chun Yung-woo.
The first phase of North Korea's disarmament process under the February 13 six-party deal calls on North Korea to shut down its main nuclear reactor and allow U.N. inspectors back into the country within 60 days.
In return, it would receive aid equal to 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil from the other countries participating in the nuclear talks the United States, South Korea, Russia, China and Japan.
McCormack stressed that the process of normalization must proceed "step by step.
"We, of course, intend to abide by our commitments under the agreement. We'll see how the North Korean side lives up to its responsibilities.
The United States has had no diplomatic relations with North Korea since the country was created after World War II, when Korea was split into a communist-dominated North and a U.S.-backed capitalist South.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on Monday pledged greater support for education and health care over the next year and said the government would tackle sources of social unrest such as environmental problems, land seizures and privatization of state industries.
In a speech at the opening of the national legislature's annual session, Wen also pledged technology upgrading for the country's big but largely outdated armed forces.
The comments came a day after the government announced a 17.8 percent increase in its defense budget the biggest jump in more than a decade.
He also said China would work with other nations to address global security threats but gave no details.
Wen's budget priorities reflect Beijing's recent focus on shifting spending to education, health care and other social programs that have been neglected while the communist government concentrated on boosting investment and trade.
Wen and other Chinese leaders have promised repeatedly to close a growing gap between China's rich and poor, which they worry threatens political stability and the ruling party's hold on power.
Tuition and other fees for all rural students will be eliminated, easing the financial burden on 150 million rural households, the premier said.
He said the government will step up spending on rural primary and middle schools by 21 percent to $29 billion.
The government will also create national scholarships and tuition assistance for colleges and vocational schools, he added.
"Education is the bedrock of China's development, and fairness in education is an important form of social fairness," Wen said in the speech at the cavernous Great Hall of the People in central Beijing.
He also pledged more support for health care, especially in rural areas where 90 percent of the population has no health insurance and little access to doctors.
Wen said a trial cooperative medical care system would cover 80 percent of China, with the government more than doubling subsidies to it to $1.31 billion.
The plan is aimed at ensuring that rural residents have access to "safe, effective, convenient and reasonably priced medical and health care services," Wen said.
He also promised almost $30.5 billion in increased spending on old-age pensions, workers' compensation and other forms of social security.
Addressing protests by farmers and workers over corruption, land seizures and environmental problems, Wen said the government would pay more attention to such concerns and act quickly to address such complaints.
Wen called on banks to not only increase credit to rural areas, but to strictly limit loans to industries that consume large amounts of energy or are highly polluting.
He said that highly polluting, small thermal power plants and "backward iron foundries and steel mills" would be shut, and market forces and taxes would be used to save energy and cut pollution in other industries such as cement and aluminum.
Wen also promised to improve China's dismal industrial-safety record.
Tens of thousands of people are killed in mine and industrial accidents each year in China.
On the military, Wen said the government would speed up the transformation of China's 2.3 million armed forces into a high-tech fighting force.
China's military is the world's largest and has been criticized abroad for not being open about its spending.
Unlike the U.S., where Congress is required to approve the military budget, China's military is extremely secretive and rarely releases information on its spending.
Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, who was visiting Beijing on Sunday, urged more dialogue between the Pentagon and the Chinese military "so that we have a bit better understanding of exactly what it is that the government of China has in mind with respect to its military modernization.
China's military spending is largely oriented toward Taiwan, which split with the mainland in 1949 amid civil war and has refused Beijing's offers for peaceful reunification with the mainland.
In his speech Monday, Wen repeated Beijing's opposition to efforts by Taiwan activists to make the island's de facto independence permanent.
Taiwan's president, Chen Shui-bian, made unusually strong pro-independence remarks Sunday in a message apparently aimed at provoking rival China and shoring up his base.
"Taiwan should be independent," Chen said at a banquet marking the 25th anniversary of the Formosan Association for Public Affairs, a pro-independence group. "Taiwan is a country whose sovereignty lies outside the People's Republic of China. "
Japan will not apologize again for its World War II military brothels, even if the U.S. Congress passes a resolution demanding it, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told parliament Monday.
Abe, elaborating on his denial last week that women were forced to serve as frontline prostitutes, said none of the testimony in hearings last month by the U.S. House of Representatives offered any solid proof of abuse.
"I must say we will not apologize even if there's a resolution," Abe told lawmakers in a lengthy debate, during which he also said he stood by Japan's landmark 1993 apology on the brothels.
Historians say that up to 200,000 women mostly from Korea and China served in Japanese military brothels throughout Asia in the 1930s and '40s.
Accounts of abuse by the military including kidnapping of women and girls for use in the brothels have been backed up by witnesses, victims and even former Japanese soldiers.
But prominent Japanese scholars and politicians routinely deny direct military involvement or the use of force in rounding up the women, blaming private contractors for any abuses.
Abe last week sided with the critics, saying that there was no proof that the women were coerced into prostitution, igniting a storm of criticism and protests in South Korea and other countries where the women came from.
Abe did not explain further.
The U.S. House is considering a nonbinding resolution that would demand a formal acknowledgment and apology from the Japanese government for the brothels.
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/03/04/iraq.execution/index.html The U.S. military is calling on all Iraqi leaders, Sunni and Shiite, to condemn the recent kidnapping and killing of 15 Iraqi police officers in retaliation for the alleged rape of a Sunni woman.
"With many influential leaders making the same statement, the population will realize that these terrorists are not the future of Iraq," said Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon, commander of U.S.-led troops in Diyala province, where the police officers were killed on Friday.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's office confirmed Saturday that a video posted on an al Qaeda-connected Web site showed the execution of the police officers who were kidnapped on Thursday.
group called the Islamic State of Iraq, shows a group of Iraqi men blindfolded in a room.
In the final 21 seconds, the video cuts to a scene showing the men lined up, kneeling in a field, before they are shot in the back of the head.
Shiite government leaders, including al-Maliki, say the rape allegation was fabricated and is serving to undermine the government's effort to target all insurgents, regardless of their ethnic or religious affiliation.
Sunni leaders believe the alleged victim is telling the truth and are outraged by the officials' response.
Al-Maliki also questioned whether retaliation was the actual motive of those behind the police officers' killings.
Al-Janabi made her claim on Arabic language TV network, al-Jazeera.
Al-Maliki vowed to track down the killers and make sure they "get the punishment that they deserve.
"We consider the parties which propagate the lie of the rape responsible for this massacre," the statement added.
In a statement February 21, al-Maliki said medical examinations proved the woman had not been sexually assaulted.
The woman accused Iraqi security officers in the Adil Sunni district in western Baghdad of raping her February 20.
Sixteen Afghan civilians were killed and 25 others wounded in the aftermath of a suicide attack and ambush on a coalition military convoy in eastern Afghanistan Sunday, a joint forces military statement said.
According to the coalition, the attack was a "complex ambush" with the convoy coming under small-arms fire from several directions after the initial bombing in Nangarhar province, near Jalalabad.
"We regret the death of innocent Afghan citizens as a result of the Taliban extremists' cowardly act," said Lt. Col. David Accetta.
"Once again the terrorists demonstrated their blatant disregard for human life by attacking coalition forces in a populated area, knowing full well that innocent Afghans would be killed and wounded in the attack.
Maj. William Mitchell, a U.S. military spokesman, told AP that militants fired guns at the soldiers from three different points, meaning Afghan civilians could have been killed or wounded by militants. "We certainly believe it's possible that the incoming fire from the ambush was wholly or partly responsible for the civilian casualties," he said.
In the Afghan government's account of the incident, Interior Ministry spokesman Zmarai Bashiri said the attack was staged on an American convoy at 8:45 a.m.
Hundreds of Afghans gathered to protest the violence, blocking the road and throwing rocks at police, with some demonstrators shouting "Death to America!
Death to Karzai," a reference to President Hamid Karzai, according to The Associated Press.
The incident is under investigation by Afghan and coalition forces.
Separately, the British Ministry of Defence announced that two British soldiers died Saturday in a rocket attack in the southern Helmand province.
South Korea rapped Japan's prime minister Saturday for disavowing his country's responsibility for using Asian women as sex slaves for Japanese troops in World War II.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had said Thursday that there was no proof that so-called "comfort women" were forced into sexual slavery during the war.
The remark triggered outrage throughout Asia.
Abe's statement is "aimed at glossing over the historical truth and our government expresses strong regret," said a statement from South Korea's Foreign Ministry.
The statement said the comment "made (us) doubt the sincerity" of Japan's repeated apologies for its wartime past.
"We once again urge responsible leaders of Japan to have a correct understanding of history," the ministry said.
Historians say that about 200,000 women, mostly from Korea and China, served in Japanese military brothels throughout Asia in the 1930s and 1940s.
Many victims say they were kidnapped and forced into sexual slavery by Japanese troops.
Abe's statement contradicted evidence in Japanese documents, unearthed in 1992, that historians said showed that military authorities had a direct role in working with contractors to forcibly procure women for the brothels.
The remark also cast doubt on a 1993 Japanese government apology to the sex slaves.
South Korea was a colony of Japan in 1910-45. Many South Koreans still harbor resentment toward Japan's occupation.
The two countries are now important trade partners, but their political relations have often been affected by rows stemming from the colonial rule.
Storms spawning tornadoes killed 20 people in three states.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency announced it was sending 14 teams to the hardest-hit areas.
In Americus, a tornado slammed into the Sumter Regional Hospital, shutting it down as health workers were treating victims coming in from the storm, according to spokesman Buzz Weiss of the state Emergency Management Agency.
The patients, none of whom was killed, were transferred to other hospitals, Weiss said. (Full story)
Sumter County Sheriff Pete Smith said two people were killed and at least seven people were critically injured away from the hospital.
The twister also destroyed the local headquarters of the Red Cross, its generators and three of its disaster trailers, an official said.
As many as 400 homes may have been destroyed, the local Red Cross estimated, and a shelter has been opened at the First Baptist Church.
The city will be under a curfew and school was canceled Friday, Smith said.
Nine of the 20 deaths happened in southern Georgia six in Baker County, two in Americus and one in Taylor County Weiss said.
The storms hit Georgia after tearing through the heartland on Thursday, killing 10 people in Alabama and a 7-year-old girl in Missouri.
She died when a tornado hit her family's mobile home, The Associated Press reported.
Destruction at school) Students at Enterprise High School huddled in the auditorium, near the center of campus, after tornado sirens sounded Thursday, according to an Enterprise Police Department official.
About a half hour later, a tornado damaged the school's roof, causing it to partially collapse on the students, the official said.
"The whole building just collapsed on everybody," said Chase Baldwin, a student at the school.
Yasamie Richardson, a spokeswoman for the state Emergency Operations Center, said there were two other deaths from Thursday's storms, one in Enterprise and one in Wilcox County.
Alabama Gov. Bob Riley declared a state of emergency for the area and on Thursday ordered the National Guard to send a contingent of 140 troops, including medics and roving security patrols, from Mobile to Enterprise.
Meanwhile, Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue has declared a state of emergency in six counties.
President Bush said he will visit the storm-ravaged areas Saturday "with a heavy heart," according to AP.
Bush said he will make the trip "knowing full well that I'll be seeing people whose lives were turned upside down by the tornadoes. I'll do my very best to comfort them.
FEMA Director David Paulison said Friday that his agency is sending 14 teams to areas hit by the storms.
WASHINGTON (CNN) Secretary of the Army Francis Harvey resigned Friday in the wake of recent reports of substandard conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, a key facility treating troops wounded in Iraq.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced Harvey's resignation at the Pentagon, just a day after Harvey removed the hospital's commander, Maj. Gen. George Weightman, from his post.
Gates said Undersecretary of the Army Peter Geren will temporarily take Harvey's place.
Harvey will leave on March 9.
"I thanked Dr. Harvey for his distinguished service to the department and to the nation," Gates said. "This flagship institution must have its new leadership in place as quickly as possible.
The Army later said Maj. Gen. Eric B. Schoomaker will take command of Walter Reed and the North Atlantic Regional Medical Command.
Schoomaker now commands the U.S. Army Medical Research and Material Command at Fort Detrick, Maryland.
Gates accepted no questions after his announcement, and didn't explain why Harvey resigned. However, he repeated something the Army said Thursday when Weightman was fired:
The problems at the hospital reflect a lack of leadership. "I am disappointed that some in the Army have not adequately appreciated the seriousness of the situation pertinent to outpatient care at Walter Reed.
Some have shown too much defensiveness, and have not shown enough focus on digging into and addressing the problems.
Gates praised the doctors and other medical personnel at Walter Reed, and said they deserve support.
Troops recuperating from wounds they suffered in Iraq and Afghanistan were discovered to be living in substandard conditions in Building 18, an adjunct structure at Walter Reed that was once a hotel.
The memo obtained by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee says Walter Reed "operations and patient care services are at risk of mission failure.
Harvey had been the Army's top civilian official since November 2004.
Bush said he is asking Congress for more than $86 billion for veterans' services for fiscal year 2008.
Six more tornado-related deaths were reported in Georgia early Friday, bringing to 17 the number of fatalities blamed on a storm system that blasted the central and southeastern United States.
The storms killed nine people in Georgia, seven in Alabama and one in Missouri.
Details of the six newly reported fatalities in Georgia early Friday were not immediately available.
In southeastern Alabama, a tornado Thursday afternoon killed seven people, five of them at Enterprise High School, said spokeswoman Tasamie Richardson.
At least two people were killed when a tornado slammed into a hospital in the south Georgia town of Americus on Thursday evening, according to a Georgia Emergency Management Agency spokesman.
A third person was killed and four were hurt when a tornado touched down in rural Taylor County near the southwest Georgia city of Albany, the spokesman said.
The city of Americus lost its fleet of ambulances when the tornado hit at the Sumter Regional Medical Center just before 10 p.m. ET, said Buzz Weiss of the Georgia Emergency Management Agency.
Ambulances from Albany, about 35 miles away, were sent to Americus to help, Weiss said.
It was not immediately known if those killed in Americus were patients at the hospital, he said.
Sumter County Sheriff Pete Smith said at least seven people were critically injured. In all, 50 patients were evacuated from the hospital to other medical facilities in nearby towns, he said.
One of the buildings destroyed in Americus was the local headquarters of the American Red Cross.
A Red Cross official said the relief group also lost three disaster trailers, lights and generators that would have been used to respond to the disaster.
It was presumed that the other six Georgia fatalities occurred in the Americus-Albany area.
'The whole building just collapsed'
In Alabama, a dusk-to-dawn curfew was imposed on Enterprise to help keep roads clear for emergency workers, who were working overnight to search the damaged buildings, Enterprise Mayor Kenneth Boswell said.
"The whole building just collapsed on everybody," said Chase Baldwin, a student at the school. "A bunch of people were trapped under cinder blocks, and people had their heads cut open.
There was one other death in Enterprise and one fatality in Wilcox County, where a number of homes were destroyed, Richardson said.
CNN Senior Pentagon Correspondent Jamie McIntyre, in the area to cover a military story, said Enterprise was reeling from "utter devastation" as anguished parents rushed to the town's severely damaged high school.
This huge brick and steel building [was] torn apart by the power of the storm," McIntrye said.
"You can see the grief on the faces of the people who come here," he added.
The National Weather Service reported a swath of damage about 200 yards wide in Enterprise.
President Bush was briefed on the storm while in New Orleans Thursday afternoon and again when he boarded Air Force One for the return flight to Washington.
He telephoned Riley and Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt en route.
"The president is deeply saddened to hear of the loss of life," said White House spokesman Scott Stanzel.
"He is thinking about the families of the victims and the citizens of the states, and the administration stands ready to help.
Earlier Thursday, a suspected tornado touched down at least twice in southern Missouri, leaving one person dead and four injured, according to Susie Stonner of the Missouri State Emergency Management Agency. (Watch storm's path of destruction )
Dennis Crider, a journalist for the West Plains Quill, told CNN the fatality was a 7-year-old girl in the small community of Caulfield.
Three of the injured were her father, mother and a brother, Crider quoted the Howell County sheriff as saying.
A gas station in Caulfield, about 15 miles west of West Plains, was destroyed by the storm, according to the assistant manager of a neighboring station.
"We had a spotter who watched [the tornado] form and dissipate in 10 minutes," said West Plains Emergency Management Coordinator Kent Edge.
The storm system hit northern Arkansas Thursday morning.
Hail covered the ground, but there was no damage and officials do not believe a tornado touched down.
On the north side of the storm, blizzard-like conditions and heavy snow were hitting the states in the path of the system.
North Korea's No. 2 leader pledged his country's commitment Thursday to giving up its nuclear program in talks with a visiting high-level South Korean delegation, amid intensifying diplomacy aimed at implementing Pyongyang's pledge to disarm.
"The denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula is the dying wish" of the country's late founding president Kim Il Sung, Kim Yong Nam said in Pyongyang.
The North "will make efforts to realize it," he said.
At the meeting, South Korean Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung pressed the North to implement a February 13 pledge made with the U.S. and four other countries to take initial steps to disarm.
"It is important to make efforts to ensure that South and North Korea cooperate and six countries each assume their responsibilities," Lee said.
Kim Yong Nam also called on the Koreas to cooperate to achieve the reunification of the peninsula, which was divided in the wake of World War II and still remains technically at war since the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a cease-fire. Kim also repeated the North's calls for inter-Korean collaboration, an idea South Korea has dismissed as a ploy to drive a wedge in Seoul's alliance with Washington.
This week's Cabinet-level talks between the North and South the highest-level regular contact between the Koreas are the first in seven months.
Earlier Thursday, North Korean negotiators appealed for aid from the South, but Seoul appeared resistant to promising any major assistance until Pyongyang keeps its pledge to start dismantling its nuclear program.
"The North side has brought up the issue of humanitarian aid," a South Korean official told reporters in Pyongyang, where talks between the two Koreas stretched into a third day.
But the official, indicating the South's reluctance to provide the North with badly needed supplies, said that a draft agreement between the two sides "does not specifically mention rice and fertilizer aid.
" The official did not give his name due to the sensitivity of the ongoing talks.
North Korea has also proposed that the two countries resume economic cooperation talks in March, but Seoul was apparently opposed to holding the talks so soon, according to pool reports.
The two Koreas have made historic strides toward reconciliation after their leaders met for the first time in 2000, and this week's talks are the 20th such Cabinet-level meeting since then.
South Korea had regularly sent aid to the impoverished North until last July, when Pyongyang test-fired a series of missiles, prompting a halt in shipments.
Relations between the two countries further soured after the North tested a nuclear weapon in October.
The Taliban's top military commander said his forces have assembled a hundreds-strong army of suicide attackers poised for a spring offensive against NATO troops in Afghanistan.
In a rare interview with Britain's Channel Four, Mullah Dadullah the man in charge of day-to-day military operations for the hardline Islamic militia also claimed he had a regular line of communication with Osama bin Laden.
The Taliban military commander said he has readied his military to take on the 35,000-strong NATO force in Afghanistan.
"Hundreds have registered their names already and are ready to go and we have hundreds more on the waiting list. Each is anxious to be the first to be sent.
Evidence of a resurgent Taliban is everywhere, along with the influence of al Qaeda-style attacks, according to CNN terrorism analyst Peter Bergen.
There were 139 suicide attacks in Afghanistan last year, up four-fold from 2005, the U.S. military said.
Roadside bombings doubled in 2006 to more than 1,600.
During the past year, NATO forces have fought a number of bloody battles against Taliban forces in the southern city of Kandahar, once the stronghold of the extremist movement, and the surrounding region.
In the interview, Dadullah restated earlier claims that he communicates with bin Laden on a regular basis and works directly with al Qaeda in the field.
"We exchange messages with each other to share plans," the Taliban commander said of bin Laden "We actually meet very rarely just for important consultations.
It's hard for anyone to meet bin Laden himself now, but we know he's still alive.
"His comrades stand shoulder to shoulder with us," Dadullah said, referring to al Qaeda fighters. "We also go to the battlefield together.
Dadullah said the Taliban did not regret standing by al Qaeda.
"For the Taliban, Islam is more important than anything else," he said. "It's our religious duty to shelter any Muslim brother who's on the run from the infidels, even at the cost of our government. "
ÏÀ» Á¦°øÇÏÁö ¾Ê½À´Ï´Ù. Copyright 2006 The Associated Press All rights reserved This material may not be published. rewritten or redistributed.
The decision was made even though officials of Australia had asked the United States not to bring such charges.
Australia has been a steadfast ally to the Bush administration in the war on terrorism.
Hicks, whose case has drawn international attention, is a former kangaroo skinner captured in Afghanistan in December 2001.
He has been held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for more than five years without trial.
According to a Defense Department announcement, Hicks is being charged with "providing material support for terrorism.
" He faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
Despite a recommendation by military prosecutors that he also be charged with attempted murder for battling coalition forces in Afghanistan, officials decided to drop that charge.
Opponents have vowed to challenge the constitutionality of the military tribunal proceedings.
An earlier formulation of such military tribunals was declared unconstitutional last year by the Supreme Court.
"This is an important milestone for military commissions," said Cmdr. J.D. Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman.
Hicks was among 10 detainees who had been charged with crimes under the earlier law that the court struck down. Then, he had been charged with conspiracy, attempted murder and aiding the enemy.
Last month, military prosecutors recommended that Hicks be charged with attempted murder and providing support for terrorism.
On Thursday, Susan Crawford, the head of the military commissions, formally charged Hicks only with providing material support for terrorism.
The military offered no immediate explanation of why the attempted murder charge was dropped.
The military eventually hopes to charge 60 to 80 of the Guantanamo detainees none of whom have ever gone to trial.
Hicks' legal status has been a sore spot for Australia.
Last month, nearly half the members of Australia's Parliament signed a letter to the U.S. Congress appealing for help repatriating him.
The topic was also discussed last month in a meeting between Vice President Dick Cheney and Australian Prime Minister John Howard when Cheney visited Australia.
Under growing public pressure, and with elections due later this year, Howard has begun pushing U.S. officials to deal with Hicks' case more quickly.
"Our sole concern is about the passage of time and the bedrock principle of our legal system ... that people should not be held indefinitely without trial," Howard said.
In the fall, Congress passed a law that outlined the rules for trying terrorism suspects;
the system is intended to protect classified information and provides detainees with fewer rights than civilian or military courts.
Once formal charges are filed, a timetable requires preliminary hearings within 30 days and the start of a jury trial within 120 days at Guantanamo Bay, where nearly 400 men are held on suspicion of links to al Qaeda or the Taliban.
This material may not be published.
Apple Inc. has delayed until March the launch of its gadget for streaming video and other content from computers to TVs, but the company would not explain why.
The company had said in January the $299 Apple TV set-top box would be available this month.
"Wrapping up Apple TV is taking a few weeks longer than we projected, and we now expect to begin shipments mid-March," Apple spokeswoman Lynn Fox said Monday.
Apple TV is designed to move digital content from a user's computer to a TV set and is anticipated to be a highly competitive product in the growing crop of offerings that deliver Internet-based videos to the television.
The director of U.S. intelligence warned Tuesday of instability in Nigeria amid concern that outgoing President Olusegun Obasanjo is manipulating the political process ahead of April's elections.
Mike McConnell, who laid out global threats facing the United States for a Senate committee, said that unrest in Africa's most populous country could spill into neighboring countries.
The April 27 presidential elections would lead to Nigeria's first civilian-to-civilian transfer of power since independence from Britain in 1960.
But a feud between Obasanjo and Vice President Atiku Abubakar has heightened tensions.
The two politicians were elected together in 1999 after a period of brutal military rule.
They fell out publicly last year after Obasanjo's supporters tried to amend the civilian constitution's term limits and allow the president to run again this year.
Abubakar, who has long held presidential ambitions, refused to support the amendment, and the two leaders traded accusations of corruption before Abubakar bolted from the party to join the opposition.
McConnell repeated concerns raised by his predecessor, John Negroponte, last month about democratic transition in a country of 140 million that is infamous for graft and corruption, electoral and otherwise.
"The government's institutional foundations are hollow from decades of neglect and corruption and will continue to make the country susceptible to recurring crises in coming years," McConnell said.
over the poor distribution of revenues from the country's vast natural resources to its impoverished citizens.
They said that the central government has been unable to stop rising crime, armed militancy and attacks on foreign workers in the Niger Delta oil-producing region.
The United States and its adversaries in Iran and Syria may for the first time since the Iraq war began meet face to face at a conference next month to discuss the situation in Iraq.
On Tuesday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the U.S. supports the forum, which will take place in the first half of March in Iraq.
It could set the stage for a ministerial-level meeting in April that will include the Group of Eight the U.S., Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Canada and Russia and Iraq's neighbors Syria, Iran, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Turkey.
Multilateral organizations and China the only permanent member of the U.N. Security Council which is not in the G-8 will also be invited, Rice said.
Speaking about Iran and Syria, Rice told the Senate Appropriations Committee, "We hope these governments seize this opportunity to improve their relations with Iraq and to work for peace and stability in the region.
Relations between Washington and Tehran are already tense over Iran's nuclear program.
The United States is pushing the Security Council to impose trade restrictions on Iran.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, interviewed by CNN, said the March meeting will serve as an ice-breaker to help reduce tensions.
"We hope to be in the same room and to have an open and frank discussion about our mutual concerns and interests," said Zebari, who believes that such a meeting would be a proper platform for important issues.
The U.S. and Iran do not have diplomatic relations.
Asked whether the U.S. ambassador to Iraq has been invited, a U.S. Embassy in Baghdad spokesman said, "Yes, we have been invited. Yes, he will attend.
It isn't clear whether it will be outgoing Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad or the man named to be his successor, Ryan Crocker.
A senior U.S. State Department official said this is an "opportunity for all attending to talk about Iraq.
The official said Iraqis will set the agenda, with topics likely to be national reconciliation and building Iraq's economy
As to whether there will be direct talks with Iran and Syria, the U.S. official said that at this point "we can't predict the direction of the discussion or interaction. "
Rice called the efforts part of an Iraqi-led "diplomatic offensive" to build greater support for peace in Iraq.
"The violence occurring within the country has a decided impact on Iraq's neighbors," she said.
"And Iraq's neighbors, as well as the international community, have a clear role to play in supporting the Iraqi government's efforts to promote peace and national reconciliation within the country. "
Today's college students are more narcissistic and self-centered than their predecessors, according to a comprehensive new study by five psychologists who worry that the trend could be harmful to personal relationships and American society.
"We need to stop endlessly repeating 'You're special' and having children repeat that back," said the study's lead author, Professor Jean Twenge of San Diego State University.
"Kids are self-centered enough already.
Twenge and her colleagues, in findings to be presented at a workshop Tuesday in San Diego on the generation gap, examined the responses of 16,475 college students nationwide who completed an evaluation called the Narcissistic Personality Inventory between 1982 and 2006.
The standardized inventory, known as the NPI, asks for responses to such statements as "If I ruled the world, it would be a better place," "I think I am a special person" and "I can live my life any way I want to.
The researchers describe their study as the largest ever of its type and say students' NPI scores have risen steadily since the current test was introduced in 1982.
By 2006, they said, two-thirds of the students had above-average scores, 30 percent more than in 1982.
Narcissism can have benefits, said study co-author W. Keith Campbell of the University of Georgia, suggesting it could be useful in meeting new people "or auditioning on 'American Idol.
"Unfortunately, narcissism can also have very negative consequences for society, including the breakdown of close relationships with others," he said.
The study asserts that narcissists "are more likely to have romantic relationships that are short-lived, at risk for infidelity, lack emotional warmth, and to exhibit game-playing, dishonesty, and over-controlling and violent behaviors. "
Twenge, the author of "Generation Me:
Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled and More Miserable Than Ever Before," said narcissists tend to lack empathy, react aggressively to criticism and favor self-promotion over helping others.
The researchers traced the phenomenon back to what they called the "self-esteem movement" that emerged in the 1980s, asserting that the effort to build self-confidence had gone too far.
As an example, Twenge cited a song commonly sung to the tune of "Frere Jacques" in preschool:
"I am special, I am special.
Look at me.
"Current technology fuels the increase in narcissism," Twenge said. "By its very name, MySpace encourages attention-seeking, as does YouTube.
Some analysts have commended today's young people for increased commitment to volunteer work.
But Twenge viewed even this phenomenon skeptically, noting that many high schools require community service and many youths feel pressure to list such endeavors on college applications.
Campbell said the narcissism upsurge seemed so pronounced that he was unsure if there were obvious remedies.
"Permissiveness seems to be a component," he said. "A potential antidote would be more authoritative parenting. Less indulgence might be called for.
The new report follows a study released by UCLA last month which found that nearly three-quarters of the freshmen it surveyed thought it was important to be "very well-off financially.
" That compared with 62.5 percent who said the same in 1980 and 42 percent in 1966.
Yet students, while acknowledging some legitimacy to such findings, don't necessarily accept negative generalizations about their generation.
Hanady Kader, a University of Washington senior, said she worked unpaid last summer helping resettle refugees and considers many of her peers to be civic-minded.
But she is dismayed by the competitiveness of some students who seem prematurely focused on career status.
"We're encouraged a lot to be individuals and go out there and do what you want, and nobody should stand in your way," Kader said. "I can see goals and ambitions getting in the way of other things like relationships.
Kari Dalane, a University of Vermont sophomore, says most of her contemporaries are politically active and not overly self-centered.
"People want to look their best, have a good time, but it doesn't mean they're not concerned about the rest of the world.
Besides, some of the responses on the narcissism test might not be worrisome, Dalane said.
North Korea's chief nuclear envoy embarked on a rare trip to the United States on Tuesday while South Korea sent a top official to Pyongyang to persuade the North to quickly start scrapping its nuclear arms program.
North Korean nuclear negotiator Kim Kye-gwan arrived in Beijing on Tuesday en route for talks with U.S. officials, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said.
Reclusive North Korea agreed earlier this month at six-way talks to shut down its main nuclear reactor, the source of its weapons-grade plutonium, in return for energy aid.
It separately said it would halt its seven-month boycott of talks with Seoul.
North Korea has few air links with the outside world and its officials often travel via China.
South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun said on Tuesday that North Korea needed repeated reassurance it would not be threatened by force before it would give up its nuclear arms.
"This is a matter of mutual relationships," Roh told a news conference, saying U.S. policy on the North "had not been consistent like South Korea's" and suggesting Pyongyang had reason to be wary of U.S. overtures.
Roh added that until ties between Washington and Pyongyang had improved considerably, it would be futile for the two Koreas' leaders to meet in a summit.
The rival states began a four-day meeting in Pyongyang on Tuesday, their first high-level contact in seven months.
Seoul officials said family reunions and food aid for the impoverished North would be on the agenda. (Full story)
"The most important thing to discuss would be how to cooperate between the South and North to swiftly implement the February 13 nuclear agreement," South Korean Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung said before leaving for Pyongyang.
North Korea's July 2006 missile launches and October 9 nuclear test chilled what had been improving ties between the two Koreas, which remain technically at war more than half a century after their 1950-53 conflict.
Seoul has said it could resume the food aid it suspended after the missile tests if it saw progress in the six-way talks on ending Pyongyang's pursuit of atomic weapons.
South Korea was likely to send the first batch of energy aid to Pyongyang if it began shutting down its reactor.
Analysts said the North's recent diplomatic actions, coming after the U.N. Security Council imposed sanctions in response to its nuclear test, were encouraging but it was best to be cautious until Pyongyang actually delivered on its pledges.
The U.S. State Department said on Monday that nuclear envoy Kim might visit San Francisco to meet non-governmental groups and then go to New York for talks with his U.S. counterpart.
Such talks are envisaged under the Feb. 13 nuclear agreement.
The agreement, reached four months after Pyongyang stunned the world with its first nuclear test, requires the secretive communist state to allow international nuclear inspections.
The deal also called for a working group on normalisation of U.S.-North Korean relations to meet within 30 days.
The United States proposed that it meet in New York, where U.S. and North Korean officials sometimes have contact.
The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said last week he would meet the North Korean government in March to discuss the shutdown of its nuclear arms programme and bringing it back under U.N. supervision.
ÏÀ» Á¦°øÇÏÁö ¾Ê½À´Ï´Ù.
Helen Mirren, who won the best actress Oscar for playing Queen Elizabeth II in "The Queen," may be invited to tea, Buckingham Palace said Monday.
The film's director, Stephen Frears, has already suggested that he, Mirren and screenwriter Peter Morgan would visit the queen at the palace next month.
"It is speculation, but we are looking at a number of options," a palace spokeswoman said Monday.
Mirren won the Oscar on Sunday night in Los Angeles, California, for playing the monarch in "The Queen," which retells the aftermath of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, in a car crash 10 years ago.
The Oscar ceremony began at 12:30 a.m. Monday morning in England and was broadcast only on a pay-TV movie channel making it difficult for most Britons to see it live.
But news of Mirren's win was inescapable Monday, dominating newspaper front pages and television newscasts.
"I'm sure that the queen will be pleased," the palace spokeswoman said.
Mirren, 61, saluted the queen in her acceptance speech for maintaining "her dignity, her sense of duty and her hairstyle" for more than 50 years.
North and South Korea resumed high-level meetings Tuesday for the first time since the North tested a nuclear bomb in October, paving the way for a resumption of aid to impoverished Pyongyang after it pledged to start dismantling its atomic weapons program.
As South Korean officials arrived Tuesday afternoon in the North Korean capital, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun said in Seoul that it was important to show North Korea that it would get more for abandoning its nuclear weapons than keeping them.
"We have to keep sending signals (to the North) that their security will be guaranteed and they could get profits through reform and openness," Roh told a news conference.
Roh also said he believed North Korea would not use its nuclear weapons unless attacked first, saying it would be something "only mental patients can do.
The Cabinet-level meetings the highest channel of dialogue between the Koreas are the first concrete sign of eased tensions on the divided peninsula since Pyongyang's February 13 agreement at international arms talks to shut down its main nuclear reactor within 60 days.
The high-level talks were last held in July, when the South refused to continue aid to the North after it test-fired a series of missiles.
The countries' relations further soured after the North's nuclear test.
The North and South Korean delegations were having an official dinner Tuesday evening before the formal start of talks Wednesday, the South's Unification Ministry said.
During the talks, the two sides will discuss how to cooperate in implementing the February 13 agreement, South Korean Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung said Tuesday before his departure for the talks that run through Friday.
That agreement calls for a separate forum on bringing peace to the Korean peninsula, which has remained technically in a state of war since the 1953 cease-fire that ended the Korean War.
"We will try to restore the framework of South-North dialogue and discuss various issues needed for establishing peace on the Korean peninsula through dialogue," Lee said.
This week's talks are also expected to discuss restoring South Korea's humanitarian aid of rice and fertilizer to the North, and resuming reunions of families split by the border.
"The humanitarian issues are vital to South-North relations," Lee said.
Local media have reported that the two sides may talk about holding an inter-Korean summit, but Roh on Tuesday dismissed the idea as premature.
"It's not the right time," Roh said, stressing that resolving the North Korean nuclear issue should precede a summit.
The first and only summit between the two Koreas was held in 2000 between then-South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang.
The North's Kim promised to pay a return visit to the South for a second summit, but has not honored that pledge.
Another key issue in this week's meetings will be whether the North allows a test run of trains on rebuilt tracks through the heavily armed frontier dividing the peninsula.
ÏÀ» Á¦°øÇÏÁö ¾Ê½À´Ï´Ù.
Britain's defense secretary has authorized the deployment of an additional 1,400 troops to Afghanistan, bolstering NATO's mission to oust the resurgent Taliban only days after Prime Minister Tony Blair disclosed plans to trim British forces in Iraq.
The deployment will bring British troop levels in Afghanistan to around 7,700 until 2009, meaning Britain will have more forces based there than in Iraq for the first time since the 2003 Iraq invasion.
Blair said on Wednesday that Britain would soon reduce troop levels in Iraq to 5,500.
Defense Secretary Des Browne had already authorized deployment of an extra 800 troops to the region on February 1.
But some NATO countries refused to contribute new combat troops for Afghanistan during a summit in Seville, Spain, earlier this month.
"It is increasingly clear, that at present, when it comes to the most demanding tasks in the most challenging parts of Afghanistan, only a small number of key allies are prepared to step forward," Browne told the House of Commons on Monday.
Lawmakers in Britain, the United States, Canada and other nations with troops in southern Afghanistan have been angered by the reluctance of some European allies to commit extra troops to the 35,500-strong NATO force, and in particular to allow their soldiers to be deployed to the Taliban's heartland in the south and east.
Both France and Germany raised doubts about the need for more troops during the NATO conference.
Britain currently has around 5,500 troops in Afghanistan, mainly based in the volatile southern province of Helmand, a Taliban stronghold and center of the country's opium trade.
Browne said the extra 1,400 troops would form a battalion charged with roving across a swathe of southern Afghanistan, mounting attacks on Taliban targets and responding to insurgent offensives.
The soldiers will work across the provinces of Helmand, Kandahar, Uruzgan, Zabul and in the sparsely populated desert region of Nimroz which borders eastern Iran and in the mountain region of Daikondi, he said.
Deploying in Nimroz will mean Britain has a presence close to both Iran's western and eastern borders.
Blair said on Wednesday that the remaining troops in southern Iraq would be responsible for securing stretches of Iraq's frontier with western Iran.
Browne acknowledged Britain, the United States and others were "shouldering a greater burden than we like" in leading the alliance's mission to combat Taliban loyalists and extend the reach of President Hamid Karzai's Kabul government.
But he told lawmakers that failing to deploy additional combat troops posed "too great a risk to progress achieved" so far by the mission.
Opposition Conservative lawmaker Liam Fox said the failure of several NATO countries to match the commitment shown by Britain, the United States, Canada and the Netherlands, called the future of the alliance into question.
is to exist and flourish in the future, this is not a tenable position," Fox told lawmakers during the session.
However, NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said on Monday he believed alliance members were aiding the mission.
"I do not share the analysis that other nations are not stepping up to the plate because we have seen many allies ... announcing or making effective an increase in their contribution," he said.
The U.S. ambassador to Sri Lanka and his Italian counterpart were "slightly injured" on Tuesday when mortars fell near a helipad their helicopter landed on in the country's east, officials said.
"Both the ambassadors are fine and they have suffered slight injuries," said Sri Lankan government Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe, who accompanied them.
They had gone to Batticaloa to take part in a development meeting
ÏÀ» Á¦°øÇÏÁö ¾Ê½À´Ï´Ù.
The author of a best-selling comic book series intended to teach children about other countries said Monday he would change a chapter on Jews that has been called anti-Semitic and similar to Nazi propaganda.
Rhie Won-bok maintained, however, that his depiction of Jewish control of American media and politics was based on fact and "commonly believed.
"The Jews are the invisible force that controls the U.S.," Rhie, a professor of visual arts at Duksung Women's University in Seoul, told The Associated Press. "I wrote the chapter to let people know that you can't understand the U.S. without knowing the Jewish community.
More than 10 million copies from the 12-book series titled "Meon Nara, Yiwoot Nara," or "Far Countries, Near Countries," have been sold since it was first published in 1987, according to its publisher, Gimm-Young Publishers.
The company boasts that at least one volume is in every South Korean home in this country of 48 million people.
The comics with playfully drawn figures have sought to explain European countries, the U.S., Japan and even Korea itself.
The first volume of three focusing on the United States was published in 2004.
In a chapter titled "You have to know the Jews to see the U.S.," Rhie takes a wide-ranging look at Jewish history, mentioning the Holocaust and Jews being spread throughout the world without a homeland.
Although noting that Jews have faced prejudice for many centuries, the book takes a more sinister view of their role in the United States.
Rhie said the September 11 attacks occurred because of Arab terrorists' hatred for the U.S. he blamed on Jews who "move the U.S. in the way they want using money and the media as their weapon.
The book also says Korean-Americans are diligent and successful in the U.S. "but in the end, always run into the wall called the Jews."
The accompanying picture shows an exasperated man walking up a hill only to be blocked by a brick wall with a Star of David and the word "STOP" in English.
Images from the book "echo classic Nazi canards," Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center said in a statement earlier this month.
In a letter sent to the publishers, Cooper urged them to review "the slanders in this book that historically have led to anti-Semitism, violence, hatred and even genocide.
Rhie asserted he is "not at all anti-Semitic" and that he would remove the parts that have drawn offense or write them differently.
"The last thing I want is a conflict between the Koreans and the Jews because of my book," he said.
ÏÀ» Á¦°øÇÏÁö ¾Ê½À´Ï´Ù.
Filmmakers and researchers on Monday unveiled two ancient stone boxes they said may have once contained the remains of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, but several scholars derided the claims made in a new documentary as unfounded and contradictory to basic Christian beliefs.
"The Lost Tomb of Jesus," produced by Oscar-winning director James Cameron and scheduled to air March 4 on the Discovery Channel, argues that 10 small caskets discovered in 1980 in a Jerusalem suburb may have held the bones of Jesus and his family.
One of the caskets even bears the title, "Judah, son of Jesus," hinting that Jesus may have had a son, according to the film. (Watch why it could be any Mary, Jesus and Joseph in those boxes)
"There's a definite sense that you have to pinch yourself," Cameron said Monday at a news conference.
Simcha Jacobovici, the Toronto filmmaker who directed the film, said that a name on one of the ossuaries "Mariamene" offers evidence that the tomb is that of Jesus and his family.
In early Christian texts, "Mariamene" is the name of Mary Magdalene, he said.
The very fact that Jesus had an ossuary would contradict the Christian belief that he was resurrected and ascended to heaven.
Most Christians believe Jesus' body spent three days at the site of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem's Old City.
The burial site identified in Cameron's documentary is in a southern Jerusalem neighborhood nowhere near the church.
In 1996, when the British Broadcasting Corp. aired a short documentary on the same subject, archaeologists challenged the claims.
Amos Kloner, the first archaeologist to examine the site, said the idea fails to hold up by archaeological standards but makes for profitable television.
"They just want to get money for it," Kloner said.
Shimon Gibson, one of three archaeologists who first discovered the tomb in 1980, said Monday of the film's claims: "I'm skeptical, but that's the way I am. I'm willing to accept the possibility.
The film's claims, however, have raised the ire of Christian leaders in the Holy Land.
Stephen Pfann, a biblical scholar at the University of the Holy Land in Jerusalem who was interviewed in the documentary, said the film's hypothesis holds little weight.
"But skeptics, in general, would like to see something that pokes holes into the story that so many people hold dear.
"How possible is it?"
Pfann said.
Pfann is even unsure that the name "Jesus" on the caskets was read correctly.
He thinks it's more likely the name "Hanun."
Ancient Semitic script is notoriously difficult to decipher.
Kloner also said the filmmakers' assertions are false.
"The names on the caskets are the most common names found among Jews at the time," he said.
William Dever, an expert on near eastern archaeology and anthropology, who has worked with Israeli archeologists for five decades, said specialists have known about the ossuaries for years.
"The fact that it's been ignored tells you something," said Dever, professor emeritus at the University of Arizona. "It would be amusing if it didn't mislead so many people.
Osnat Goaz, a spokeswoman for the Israeli government agency responsible for archaeology, said the Antiquities Authority agreed to send two ossuaries to New York, but they did not contain human remains.
"We agreed to send the ossuaries, but it doesn't mean that we agree with" the filmmakers, she said. javascript:
This material may not be published.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced a new $172 million reconstruction aid package for Afghanistan on Monday heeding calls to focus on aid as well as security.
Harper's announcement comes as Canada marked its one-year anniversary of its mission in Kandahar, the former Taliban stronghold.
Opposition parties in Parliament have criticized Harper's Conservative government for focusing too much on security at the expense of reconstruction aid.
Harper said they initially focused on security because it was the first time forces attempted to stabilize all of the southern region.
"We're now in a position because of the success of the security to make additional commitments on reconstruction and development," Harper said. "These are hard-won gains by the military.
policing ($17 million); de-mining ($17 million); and road construction ($8.6 million).
The funding is in addition to the $860 million Canada already has pledged for reconstruction.
Harper's announcement comes as the Afghan winter draws to a close and Canadian soldiers prepare to combat another spring offensive by Taliban fighters.
Britain's defense secretary on Monday announced the deployment of 1,400 extra troops to Afghanistan to tackle the threatened Taliban spring offensive.
There are some 2,500 Canadian soldiers fighting alongside Afghan, American and other NATO forces trying to weed out Taliban fighters in southern Afghanistan.
Canada has suffered 44 fatalities 36 last year.
Most occurred after NATO troops moved into the south early last summer.
NATO's former commander in Afghanistan, British Gen. David Richards, has warned that Afghans could rebel against foreign troops unless they see a tangible difference in their lives soon.
Harper's government will table a progress report on the mission in Afghanistan in Parliament later Monday.
Opposition Liberal Leader Stephane Dion has said the military needs to work more closely with Canada's development workers and diplomats to make tangible progress in the Kandahar region.
Dion says Canadian military spending in the south has outpaced its aid contribution by nine times, and that four-fifths of those aid dollars are being spent outside the Kandahar region.
The former ruling Liberal party made the original decision to send troops into Afghanistan after declining to send troops to Iraq.
Canadians have been concerned about the human toll in Afghanistan.
Canadians are accustomed to having their soldiers serve as peacekeepers, but this mission has proven especially dangerous.
Sure, the White House slipped from former Vice President Al Gore's grasp, but how many politicians end up on stage at Oscar night?
"An Inconvenient Truth," which turned Gore's lectures on the threat of global warming into a highly touted theatrical release, won the Academy Award for best documentary feature Sunday night.
Singer Melissa Etheridge also received the Oscar for best original song, "I Need to Wake Up," which was written for the movie.
Gore used the award as another opportunity to plug the environmental cause, telling the Hollywood audience and an estimated 1 billion television viewers that resolving the threat posed by a warming climate is "not a political issue, it's a moral issue. " (Watch Gore talk about his cause and his movie )
Gore shared the stage with the film's director and executive producer, Davis Guggenheim, who said the producers "were inspired by [Gore's] fight for 30 years to tell this truth to all of us.
After eight years as vice president, Gore's bid for the presidency ended in 2000 in court battles over recounting votes in Florida.
Though Gore led George W. Bush in the popular vote, Florida's electoral votes ultimately decided the race for Bush.
Since leaving office, Gore has advised a Los Angeles,California-based investment firm on biotechnology and computer issues and lectured at Middle Tennessee State University, his father's alma mater.
His continuing efforts to raise public concern about the environment led to the presentations that formed the core of "An Inconvenient Truth.
A U.N. report released in January predicted global temperatures increases of 3.2 to 7.1 degrees Fahrenheit (1.8 to 4 degrees Celsius) by 2100.
Human activity specifically, carbon emissions from fossil fuels are "very likely" the culprit, the report found.
Gore's environmental advocacy and his early opposition to the 2003 invasion of Iraq have raised questions about whether he'll run for president again.
He has said he has no plans to mount a new campaign but spoofed the speculation during an earlier appearance at the Oscars.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2646841 Dr. Simon Tsuo first saw the light in renewable energy 25 years ago.
The then-research scientist was working on infrared detectors for military use when he decided to switch his focus to something "more civilian.
I saw after working in military technology I wanted to do something more civilian, more useful so I decided to switch to solar energy because it is similar to infrared detectors," Tsuo recalls.
A move from the Stanford Research Institute in California to the Solar Energy Research Institute in Colorado was the start of an exciting journey from researcher to the chief executive of Taiwan's largest manufacturer of solar cells.
Tsuo hopes that the global interest on alternative and renewable energy will change that.
Since founding Motech Solar eight years ago Tsuo estimates the solar electricity industry has grown by an average 40 percent to 50 percent a year .
Still, he says the real growth has yet to start.
"It can be faster in the future because the solar electricity energy is a very, very small part of electricity generation," he says.
At least part of the success of making solar mainstream will be the ability of Motech and others to bring the costs down.
Motech currently produces about 6 million semiconductor wafers a month to produce 18 million watts.
Tsuo expects the cost of a module to halve from the current US$3.50 per watt in the next five years.
"I think as the cost gradually goes down then the application will widen because there are so many possibilities for renewable energy.
Tsuo points to Germany as the biggest potential market, followed by Japan and California in the United States.
Tsuo says he had trouble in the early days persuading people to invest in his start-up business.
But finding money to invest in renewable energy ventures is no longer an issue, he says.
The second was too actually set up the factory from ground zero with no experience. And then as the factory grows bigger and bigger how to manage growth is also a challenge for me.
It is only in the past three to four years that the solar industry has become profitable.
When Motech first started making solar sells in 1999 its oil company competitors like Shell Solar and Mobil Solar were not doing it for the money but the publicity.
For Tsuo the biggest difference between being a research scientist and a company CEO is the responsibility to his 800 employees and for the company to well.
As well as investing in making the feedstock polysilicon, Motech has started making inverters to support its customers who make modules.
"We see ourselves as partners with our module manufacturing customers around the world. We think it is more economical to ship solar cells rather than ship modules.
Vice President Dick Cheney warned Monday that al Qaeda is "regrouping" in Pakistan's remote border and sought President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's help in a stiffened push against Taliban and al Qaeda militants, Musharraf's office said.
Cheney's unannounced stopover en route to Afghanistan came as British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett also held talks with Musharraf and expressed concern about suspected militant safe havens near the Afghan frontier.
"Cheney expressed U.S. apprehensions of regrouping of al Qaeda in the tribal areas and called for concerted efforts in countering the threat," according to a faxed statement from the presidential office.
"He expressed serious U.S. concerns on the intelligence being picked up of an impending Taliban and al Qaeda 'spring offensive' against allied forces in Afghanistan, " the statement said.
Cheney made no public comment after the talks in Musharraf's office in Islamabad.
The New York Times, citing unnamed sources, reported Monday that President Bush has decided to send a tough message to Musharraf, warning him that the Democrat-controlled Congress may cut off money to Pakistan unless it gets more aggressive in hunting down al Qaeda and Taliban operatives in its country.
The Times report did not mention Cheney's visit to Pakistan and it was not known if the vice president conveyed such a message to Musharraf.
But unnamed senior administration officials told the newspaper that Bush decided to take a tougher line with Pakistan after concluding that Musharraf is failing to follow through on commitments to maintain the hunt for militants that he made during a September visit to Washington.
They also paid tribute to hundreds of Pakistani soldiers killed in operations against suspected al Qaeda and Taliban hideouts in the remote tribal region near the border.
Musharraf has survived two assassination attempts.
But they are pressing Pakistan to do more to disrupt Pakistan-based Taliban, who are expected to step up raids into Afghanistan in the coming months and to trap Taliban and al Qaeda leaders suspected of hiding in the border region.
Musharraf complains that Pakistan is being scapegoated for failures inside Afghanistan and contends that it has received no evidence that militant leaders like Osama bin Laden or the Taliban's Mullah Omar are on Pakistani soil.
During more than two hours of talks Monday, Musharraf told Cheney that Pakistan "has done the maximum in the fight against terrorism" and that "joint efforts were needed for achieving the desired objectives," his office said.
Musharraf also defended a September peace agreement
with militants in the North Waziristan tribal region.
Critics say the deal effectively ceded the area to militants, and some U.S. military officials say it was followed by a rise in attacks in Afghanistan.
The agreement, under which tribal leaders are supposed to curb militant activities, "is the way forward," Musharraf said, arguing that tribesmen are best turned against the militants with economic aid and political measures.
After leaving Pakistan, Cheney went to Afghanistan, but his planned talks with President Hamid Karzai were canceled when bad weather prevented his trip from Bagram Air Base to Kabul.
Cheney left Australia on Sunday after a three-day visit to thank the government for contributing troops to Iraq and Afghanistan.
He had earlier visited Japan and Guam.
After losing out five times, director Martin Scorsese was awarded his first Oscar on Sunday for his mob informer movie "The Departed.
Scorsese, 64, was up against Clint Eastwood, who beat him two years ago and went up against him again this year having directed two critical favorites (though he was nominated for only one, "Letters From Iwo Jima"). (Gallery:
"Could you double-check the envelope?"
Scorsese's first directing nomination was in 1981 for "Raging Bull."
His other nominations included "The Last Temptation of Christ," "Goodfellas" and "Gangs of New York. "
Earlier, former "American Idol" contestant Jennifer Hudson took the award for best supporting actress for her role as "Effie" in "Dreamgirls" at the 79th Academy Awards. It was her first film acting role.
The 25-year-old Hudson tearfully thanked her grandmother, whom she described as her "biggest inspiration." (Blog updates from the Oscars)
Alan Arkin won the best supporting actor Oscar for his role as Grandpa in "Little Miss Sunshine.
It was the first Oscar win for the 72-year-old veteran actor.
He beat out Eddie Murphy, whom many had considered the frontrunner for his role as James "Thunder" Early in "Dreamgirls.
And in one of the least surprising wins of the evening, Helen Mirren took the best actress Oscar for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in the days after the death of Princess Diana in "The Queen.
"For 50 years and more, Elizabeth Windsor has maintained her dignity, her sense of duty and her hairstyle," Mirren said.
The other favorite of the evening, Forest Whitaker, took home the best actor Oscar for his portrayal of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in "The Last King of Scotland.
Former vice president Al Gore, the star of the global-warming documentary "An Inconvenient Truth," saw the film pick up an Oscar.
Although Gore wasn't a nominee, he spoke along with the film's director, Davis Guggenheim.
It's not a political issue. It's a moral issue," Gore said while holding the Oscar during his speech.
In the press room, Gore was asked how it feels to be a rock star.
"(American Idol reject) William Hung was a rock star. I just had a slide show," he said.
The documentary also won best song for Melissa Etheridge's "I Need to Wake Up.
International flavor
Host Ellen DeGeneres had promised a kinder, gentler show than those of the previous two years, when Jon Stewart and Chris Rock hosted the event.
Japan is representing. I think I see a few Americans as well, of course I'm talking about the seat fillers," DeGeneres said. "No one can fill a seat like an American.
Among the non-American actors nominated for awards were Adriana Barraza from Mexico and Rinko Kikuchi from Japan in "Babel."
Cate Blanchett, who's up for her performance in "Notes on a Scandal," is from Australia.
For all the talk about "Babel' and "Little Miss Sunshine," it was "The Departed" with best picture and the most awards four.
"Little Miss Sunshine," because of its broad-based popularity, may be one of the few nominees to draw attention to this year's awards show.
That's important to Oscar broadcaster ABC.
The network was hoping for big ratings for show that ran for three hours and 50 minutes.
The locks and the Arkin upset
Another concern ABC and the Academy had was the seeming lack of drama in most of the major categories.
Whitaker, Mirren, Hudson and Murphy had won most of the major awards leading up to the Oscars, giving their races a preordained feeling.
Mirren was seen as the closest thing to a lock this year.
"This is the biggest and best gold star I have ever had in my life," Mirren said while holding her Oscar, purse and an earring that fell off while she was walking to the stage.
Earlier she told CNN's Brooke Anderson that she would feel "wonderful" whether or not she wins.
It's everything you can wish for, and it's over in a flash," Mirren said from the red carpet.
Other winners
"The Lives of Others," a look at the totalitarian powers wielded by East German secret police, won best foreign language film.
The dancing penguins of "Happy Feet" beat out "Cars" for feature-length animation.
The sound-editing Oscar went to the "Letters From Iwo Jima" team of Alan Robert Murray and Bub Asman.
Murray's father was an Iwo Jima survivor.
(Full list of nominees and winners)
cnnVideo('play','/video/showbiz/2007/02/25/hammer.oscar.nominees.origins.nbc','2007/03/15');
cnnVideo('play','/video/showbiz/2007/02/23/vargas.oscar.jennifer.hudson.dwks','2007/03/15');
A U.S. Treasury Department delegation worked Monday to resolve sanctions against a Macau bank accused of helping North Korea launder money a key condition in the North's agreement to give up its nuclear weapons program.
The meeting with Macau officials came about two weeks after North Korea agreed in six-nation talks to take initial steps to abandon its nuclear weapons program in return for aid.
Washington agreed on the meeting's sidelines to settle the financial sanctions by mid-March.
On Monday, Dale Kreisher, spokesman at the U.S. Consulate General in Hong Kong, declined to say whether Washington was ready to lift the sanctions on Banco Delta Asia, accused of helping North Korea's money laundering and counterfeiting.
But Kreisher, whose office is responsible for Macau, told The Associated Press, "Discussions (with North Korea) along with the U.S. investigation have brought Treasury to the point where they think they can begin taking steps to resolve the BDA matter.
Washington slapped restrictions on Banco Delta Asia in 2005 and put it on a money-laundering blacklist.
This prompted Macau to freeze about US$24 million at the bank.
Consequently, banks worldwide shunned North Korean business for fears of losing access to American markets.
Many believe the sanctions dealt a severe blow to cash-strapped North Korea, which denied the allegations and boycotted the six-nation nuclear talks over the issue for a year.
Banco Delta Asia has said that money might have been laundered at the bank, but added there is no evidence the institution was aware of it.
The bank said it is small, family-owned, and didn't have the technology to check big batches of U.S. currency for fake bills.
The bank also said it used a dated computer system and that it didn't pay enough attention to maintaining its own books.
It has also said the bank didn't have adequate written anti-money-laundering policies for its staff.
Macau was a Portuguese enclave before it returned to Chinese rule in 1999.
The territory the only place in China where casinos are legal recently displaced the Las Vegas Strip as the world's most lucrative gaming center.
Iraq's national security adviser said Sunday Iran has stopped interfering in Iraq.
The comments by Mowaffak al-Rubaie contradict one of the top messages the Bush administration has been sending to the world in recent days.
"In the last few weeks, they have changed their position, and they stopped a lot of their tactics and a lot of intervention or interference in the Iraqi internal affairs," al-Rubaie told CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer.
Asked whether he believes Iranians have stopped interfering and providing military resources or training to groups within the country, al-Rubaie responded, "That is absolutely right.
Al-Rubaie is a member of the Shiite parliamentary bloc, which has close ties to Iran.
President Bush has complained that Iran's Quds Force a paramilitary arm of Iran's Revolutionary Guards has helped orchestrate attacks on Iraqi and U.S. forces inside Iraq.
Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, commander of the U.S.-led forces in Iraq, said Thursday, "The bottom line is that we believe that the Quds Force has been involved in training and possibly providing funding and potentially weapons to some groups within Iraq. So we watch that extremely carefully.
Vice President Dick Cheney, on a trip to Australia last week, was asked about Iran's interference in Iraq. "It's been a problem," he responded.
Cheney added, "We've made it clear we believe they have engaged in providing improvised explosive devices, for example, to insurgents inside Iraq that have been used against coalition forces. And of course, we've taken action recently to crack down on identifiable ... Iranian agents operating inside Iraq and made it clear that we think that their conduct there has been inappropriate.
Al-Rubaie said there is evidence that the Quds Force was supporting "some militia group, a Shia group in Iraq.
But he said, "They recently in the last few weeks, they have changed their position." They have "advised some of their allies in the Iraqi political arena to change their position and [start] supporting the government to give the Baghdad security plan a good chance of success.
And I believe, I honestly believe, that they do not mind if the United States and the American Army and the Iraqi security forces succeed and prevail in Baghdad and defeat terrorism in Iraq.
Tehran has denied interfering in Iraq.
Al-Rubaie also urged patience with the Iraqi-led plan to secure Baghdad and said it could take months before there are "tangible" successes over the sectarian warfare in the Iraqi capital.
"Probably we will see a tangible success or measurable success by Easter time [early April].
He said there had been a reduction in execution-style killings and roadside bombs that has boosted the confidence of Iraqi security forces. "It is sky-high," he said.
Also, Baghdad residents are more willing to show Iraqi forces "the hideouts and the whereabouts of the terrorists," al-Rubaie said.
Japan launched its fourth spy satellite Saturday, stepping up its ability to gather intelligence from orbit and to keep a close eye on neighboring North Korea's nuclear program.
The satellite, along with a smaller test prototype, was launched from the country's space center on a remote southern Japan island atop an H-2A rocket, the workhorse of Japan's space program.
Japanese space agency spokesman Satoki Kurokawa described the liftoff which had been postponed three times due to poor weather as a success.
Television footage showed the rocket racing up through cloudy skies.
The launch of the radar satellite enhances a multibillion dollar (euro), decade-old plan for Japan to have round-the-clock surveillance of the secretive North and other areas Japan wants to peer in on.
But weaknesses in the satellites' capabilities have led to criticism that the program is a waste of money and, with better data available on the commercial market, that Japan will continue to be dependent on Washington for its core intelligence.
The launch also comes just a month after China demonstrated its ability to shoot satellites out of orbit with ground-based missiles.
Japan and other countries, including the United States, have strongly protested Beijing's anti-satellite test.
China has defended the test as peaceful, and said it presents no country with a threat.
Japanese space officials say the satellites provide an important means for the country to independently collect intelligence, and say improvements in the satellites' capabilities are in the works.
The prototype launched Saturday, for example, features higher-resolution optics that can be used in the future to improve the quality of the satellites' photographs from orbit.
Japan launched its first pair of spy satellites into orbit in March 2003.
The program grew out of concern following North Korea's launch of a ballistic missile over Japan's main island in 1998.
The government's original plan was to put a total of eight intelligence-gathering satellites into orbit through 2006.
However, it suffered a major setback in November 2003, when a rocket carrying the second set of spy satellites malfunctioned and was destroyed in mid-flight.
"Our crisis management has improved substantially," said Yasuhiro Itakura of the Cabinet office in charge of the program.
Though Japan's intelligence-gathering satellites are not under military control, Japan's ruling party proposed late last year that the military be allowed to use the country's space program. The proposal still needs to be approved by Parliament.
Since 1969, Japan's space program has been limited by a parliamentary resolution committed to peaceful uses.
The new proposal would restrict military use of the program to self-defense, officials say.
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani fell ill and was flown to neighboring Jordan on Sunday for treatment for what his son called "fatigue and exhaustion."
His office assured Iraqis there was "no need to worry" about his health.
Talabani's son, Qubad Talabani, called reports his father may have suffered a heart attack or a stroke "completely false.
He said the longtime Kurdish leader's departure from Iraq for Jordan's capital Amman should not be interpreted as an indication that his health is grave.
"It's quite regular and quite normal for senior Iraqi politicians to receive checkups or medical treatment outside of Iraq; I don't think that this is too big of an issue.
The Iraqi president, who had been persuaded to seek medical care, walked on and off the plane that took him to Amman, his son said.
"He was saying he was fine," the son told CNN. "He's absolutely up and about, being able to communicate and eat food.
In a written statement, Talabani's office said he became sick "as a result of the hard and continuing work of the past few days."
Talabani "is in stable condition, and we hope he will come back to this country in a safe and healthy way," the statement said.
However, a senior U.S. military official said he understood Talabani had a heart attack.
There was no confirmation from any Iraqi or U.S. officials on the record, and doctors at Jordan's King Hussein hospital in Amman released no information.
The White House said it provided an airplane equipped with medical equipment to fly Talabani to Amman.
Talabani is head of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of the two main parties that controls Iraqi Kurdistan.
He was in the northeastern city of Sulaimaniya when he fell ill and was advised by his doctors to go to the Jordanian capital for further medical tests, Deputy Iraqi Prime Minister Barham Salih told CNN.
Talabani's family accompanied him on the trip.
Prime Minister Jose Ramos-Horta of East Timor told a cheering crowd in his hometown Sunday he will stand in April's presidential elections, vowing to help return peace and stability to the troubled nation.
Ramos-Horta, who shared a Nobel Peace Prize for nonviolent resistance to Indonesian rule, said in his candidacy speech he went through "weeks of reflection and hesitation" before deciding to seek the top post during the worst crisis since the tiny nation broke from Jakarta in 1999.
"We laid down the arms after the fight against the occupation, but now our fight is for our future," he said, speaking in the local Tetum language. "In this new fight, each Timorese citizen has the responsibility to serve their country.
"I am ready to serve you all if you decide to vote for me on April 9."
Ramos-Horta has led the government since July after factional fighting between police and army forces erupted in the capital, Dili.
The unrest spilled onto the streets, where shootings, looting, arson and gang warfare left at least 37 dead and sent 155,000 people fleeing their homes.
Relative calm was restored with the arrival of more than 2,500 foreign peacekeepers, but dozens of people have been killed in recent months in ongoing clashes between rival gangs.
On Friday, three Timorese men were shot by an Australian soldier, two of them fatally, during a confrontation near the capital's airport.
It was the first confirmed fatal shooting by Australian troops.
The Australian government said the soldier fired his weapon in self-defense after being attacked by a group of men with steel arrows.
One of the victims was 32-year-old Atoy Dasy, who bled to death after failed chest surgery, Americo dos Santos, head of the Emergency Unit of Dili National Hospital, said Saturday.
Another man died shortly after being shot in the head, while the third was shot in the leg.
Dasy was the brother-in-law of a member of parliament, Antonio Ximenes, who called for an independent inquiry into "a crime against the rights of the East Timorese people. "
Anti-war protesters converged on London Saturday to call on Prime Minister Tony Blair to withdraw all of Britain's troops from Iraq and voice fears over a potential conflict with Iran.
A few thousand people joined the march through the rainy capital, according to initial police counts.
That was far fewer than the numbers predicted by organizers, who hoped to top the several hundred thousand people who turned out for a 2004 London rally to contest Britain's role in the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
Blair said Wednesday that Britain would withdraw around 1,600 troops from Iraq over the coming months and aims to cut its 7,100 troop level to below 5,000 by late summer if Iraqi forces can secure the southern part of the country.
"Whether 2,000 troops come home this year or not, it is too little too late and we must intensify our call for all troops to be withdrawn now and for Britain to break the link with George Bush's foreign policy," said Lindsey German, head of the Stop The War Coalition, which organized the demonstration.
"We think that the announcement that some troops will be withdrawn has made people more determined to join the demonstration.
She said marchers were also protesting Blair's plans for a new multibillion dollar nuclear missile defense system.
Lawmakers are due to vote later this year on Blair's recommendation to replace Britain's four nuclear-powered submarines, which are each capable of carrying up to 16 nuclear-armed Trident missiles and expected to end their operational life by 2024.
Speakers at the rally, and at a second demonstration in Glasgow, Scotland, also voiced fears the United States and Britain could take military action against Iran over its contentious nuclear program.
The U.S. and some allies claim Tehran is using a civilian energy program as a cover to develop nuclear weapons, an allegation Iran denies.
Blair on Wednesday rejected suggestions a military conflict was likely.
"No one wants to resolve the issue with Iran in anything other than a diplomatic way," Blair told lawmakers. "No one is looking for confrontation with Iran. "
Pakistan successfully test-fired a new version of its long-range nuclear-capable missile on Friday, the military said.
The Shaheen II ballistic missile, launched from an undisclosed location, has a range of 1,245 miles.
"The missile test was part of a continuous process of validation and technical improvement which Pakistan follows to consolidate and verify its various land-based strategic missile systems," the military said.
The Shaheen II is Pakistan's longest-range ballistic missile system, and has the capability to hit major cities in neighboring India.
The missile "can carry nuclear and conventional warheads with high accuracy," the military said in a statement.
An earlier version of the missile was tested in April 2006, and officials said they could not release details of how it had been upgraded.
Nuclear-armed rivals Pakistan and India have a history of bitter relations, and have fought three wars since gaining independence from Britain in 1947.
The two sides often test-fire missiles.
Pakistan's test came days after bomb blasts sparked a fire on a train in India that was headed for Pakistan, killing 68 people, mostly Pakistanis.
Although Pakistan and India have been careful to avoid saying whom they suspect, Indian officials have hinted that they suspect Pakistan-based Islamic militants, a claim dismissed as "absurd" by Pakistan.
On Wednesday, Pakistani and Indian officials signed an agreement in New Delhi to reduce the risk of an accidental nuclear war between them.
Pakistan became a declared nuclear power in 1998 in response to nuclear tests by India.
Pakistan also tested its first missile in 1998, while New Delhi tested its first atomic bomb in 1974.
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, Gen. Ehsan Ul Haq, congratulated the scientists and engineers for "achieving an important milestone in Pakistan's quest for sustaining strategic balance in South Asia," the military statement said.
It also quoted Haq as saying that "Pakistan's strategy of credible minimum deterrence was fully in place and was a guarantee of peace in the region.
In separate messages, Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz also congratulated the scientists and engineers for upgrading the missile.
Iran has ignored a U.N. Security Council ultimatum to freeze uranium enrichment a possible pathway to nuclear arms and has instead expanded its program by setting up hundreds of centrifuges, the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency said.
The finding paves the way for new U.N. sanctions.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said in a report to the Security Council and its 35-nation board that Tehran also has continued to build a heavy water reactor and related facilities which, along with enrichment could help it develop nuclear arms.
In addition, the report said Iran ignored a Security Council call to cooperate with the IAEA in its efforts to shed light on suspicious nuclear activities.
The conclusions, while widely expected, were important because they could serve as the trigger for the council to start deliberating on new sanctions meant to punish Tehran for its nuclear intransigence.
In Washington, U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said he will travel to London on Monday to meet with the United States' negotiating partners to try to draft a new resolution on Iran.
"It is effectively thumbing its nose at the international community," he said of Iran.
Burns said he hopes the United States and other permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, plus Germany, can quickly draft a resolution to "see Iran repudiated again."
He said it was too soon to say what provisions the resolution might contain.
In Tehran, the deputy head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, Mohammed Saeedi, ruled out suspending enrichment, saying such demands were against Iran's "rights, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and international regulations.
Ali Ashgar Soltanieh, Tehran's chief delegate to the IAEA, told The Associated Press that sanctions against the Islamic republic only create "more solidarity of the Iranian nation to protect their inalienable rights.
The council issued three demands to Iran last December 23 freeze uranium enrichment, stop building heavy water facilities and fully cooperate with the IAEA.
It introduced limited sanctions and gave Iran 60 days to comply a deadline that expired Wednesday.
The IAEA report prepared by director Mohamed ElBaradei showed Tehran has instead expanded its enrichment efforts setting up nearly 1,000 uranium-spinning centrifuges in and above an underground bunker, enriching minute amounts of uranium and bringing nearly 9 tons of the gaseous feedstock into its underground nuclear facility at Natanz in preparation for enrichment.
Iranian officials also informed the agency that they would expand their centrifuge installations to close to 3,000 by May, the report said.
Iran's stated goal is running 54,000 centrifuges at Natanz to churn out enriched uranium enough for dozens of nuclear weapons a year.
Iran maintains it only wants to develop enrichment to generate power and says its heavy water facilities at the central city of Arak which will produce plutonium, another potential pathway to nuclear arms are meant solely to generate isotopes for medical research and other peaceful purposes.
Even before the IAEA report was issued, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the U.S. and its allies would use the Security Council and other "available channels" to bring Tehran back to negotiations over its nuclear program. (Watch Rice explain how the U.S. is open to talks )
British Foreign Minister Margaret Beckett said her country would consult with other Security Council members on the next steps, adding: "We remain determined to prevent Iran acquiring the means to develop nuclear weapons.
The sanctions approved in December banned all countries from supplying Iran with materials and technology that could contribute to its nuclear and missile programs and froze the Iranian assets of 10 key companies and 12 individuals related to those programs.
Russia and China, veto-holding council members with close ties to Iran, are likely to oppose strict economic sanctions or weapons bans.
A travel ban was dropped from the initial resolution because of Moscow's opposition, so tough negotiations are expected.
The Iron Lady has become bronze.
Despite protests that previous prime ministers had to be dead to rate a statue in Britain's Houses of Parliament, Margaret Thatcher unveiled her silicon bronze likeness at a ceremony Wednesday.
The statue, standing 7 feet 4 inches, faces another of former Prime Minister Winston Churchill in the member's lobby of the Palace of Westminster, the ornate parliamentary building on the bank of the River Thames.
The hall also features statues of Liberal Prime Minister Lloyd George and Labour leader Clement Atlee.
The 81-year-old baroness was referring to a marble statue of her that was decapitated in 2002 by a vandal while on loan to Guildhall, the town hall for the City of London, the capital's financial district.
Thatcher appeared to be cheerful and relaxed, wearing a gold-and-champagne-colored suit that she had worn in 2001 for her 50th wedding anniversary to the late Sir Denis Thatcher.
The statue, by sculptor Antony Dufort, shows her in a typical lively and swashbuckling posture, right arm outstretched, as though she is addressing the House of Commons.
Police clashed Thursday with demonstrators protesting the visit of Vice President Dick Cheney hours before he arrived in Australia to thank one of Washington's staunchest supporters in the increasingly unpopular war in Iraq.
Ten people were arrested after about 200 demonstrators at Sydney's town hall tried to break through a police cordon and march on the U.S. consulate about four hours before Cheney's plane landed.
Superintendent Ron Mason said the group had a permit to rally at the hall, but not to do anything that would block traffic. (Watch police grapple with protesters )
Organizers vowed to stage more noisy demonstrations during Cheney's three-day visit.
"Police have attempted to drive the anti-war protest off the street," Jean Parker, a leader of the Stop the War Coalition, told the crowd. "We will not be silenced.
Cheney arrived late Thursday night and his motorcade went immediately to his downtown hotel.
Iraq and other security issues are expected to dominate Cheney's visit and talks with Prime Minister John Howard, who is under increasing political pressure to set an exit strategy for Australia's 1,400 troops in and around Iraq.
The focus intensified Wednesday when the British government and other allies announced plans to start withdrawing forces from Iraq, leaving Howard to explain why he is not doing the same.
Opinion polls show the Iraq conflict is deeply unpopular among Australians.
En route from Japan, Cheney welcomed the British decision to hand security to domestic Iraqi forces and withdraw around 1,600 troops from southern Iraq over the coming months as "an affirmation of the fact that there are parts of Iraq where things are going pretty well.
On Monday, Howard said Australia would send another 70 military trainers to Iraq, adding fuel to an already fiery political debate about Australia's deployment.
Howard has refused to set a timetable for the withdrawal of Australian troops, saying it would give terrorists a timetable to claim victory.
He said Thursday that Australia also was considering increasing its contingent of 500 troops in Afghanistan.
The Australian newspaper reported the Cabinet had given initial approval for up to 450 more troops.
Cheney is visiting Australia in part to explain Washington's plan to send 21,500 more U.S. troops to Iraq, said Michael McKinley, an expert in U.S.-Australia relations at the Australian National University.
But he also will want to talk to Howard about North Korea, and probably Iran, McKinley said.
Australia, one of few close U.S. allies with any ties with North Korea, said this week it will send diplomats to Pyongyang soon to start thawing relations that were frozen in 2002.
The move was in response to a recent landmark deal on ending North Korea's nuclear programs.
Australia is also home to U.S. stations crucial to Washington's satellite intelligence network for Asia and the Middle East.
ÏÀ» Á¦°øÇÏÁö ¾Ê½À´Ï´Ù.
A fishing crew has caught a colossal squid that could weigh a half-ton and prove to be the biggest specimen ever landed, a fisheries official said Thursday.
If calamari rings were made from the squid they would be the size of tractor tires, one expert said.
The squid, weighing an estimated 990 pounds and about 39 feet long, took two hours to land in Antarctic waters, New Zealand Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton said.
The fishermen were catching Patagonian toothfish, sold under the name Chilean sea bass, south of New Zealand "and the squid was eating a hooked toothfish when it was hauled from the deep," Anderton said.
The fishing crew and a fisheries official on board their ship estimated the
length and weight of the squid:
Detailed, official measurements have not been made.
The date when the colossus was caught also was not disclosed.
Colossal squid, known by the scientific name Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni, are estimated to grow up to 46 feet long and have long been one of the most mysterious creatures of the deep ocean.
If original estimates are correct, the squid would be 330 pounds heavier than the next biggest specimen ever found.
"I can assure you that this is going to draw phenomenal interest. It is truly amazing," said Dr. Steve O'Shea, a squid expert at the Auckland University of Technology.
Colossal squid can descend to 6,500 feet and are extremely active, aggressive hunters, he said.
The frozen squid will be transported to New Zealand's national museum, Te Papa, in the capital, Wellington, to be preserved for scientific study.
Marine scientists "will be very interested in this amazing creature as it adds immeasurably to our understanding of the marine environment," Anderton said.
Colossal squid are found in Antarctic waters and are not related to giant squid found round the coast of New Zealand.
Giant squid grow up to 39 feet long, but are not as heavy as colossal squid.
Denmark has announced it will withdraw some or all of its troops from Iraq by August, but said it may boost its presence in Afghanistan.
Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen's announcement came as Britain, which commands the 470 Danish troops in Iraq, said it would reduce its military presence by the end of the year.
"The Danish battalion will be brought home by August," Rasmussen said, according to The Associated Press.
Denmark would replace its troops with surveillance helicopters and civilian advisers to help Iraqi reconstruction efforts, he added.
The Danish leader later said the country was considering enlarging its military contingent in Afghanistan by 200 troops.
He said no firm decision had been taken on the troops serving under NATO command, "but we cannot exclude that we will go from the present 400 to 600," AP reported.
The two front-runners in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination traded jabs Wednesday over remarks made by a Hollywood mogul and a powerful South Carolina lawmaker.
Sen. Hillary Clinton's spokesman called on Illinois Sen. Barack Obama to renounce comments made by Hollywood executive David Geffen that were sharply critical of the New York Democrat and her husband, former President Bill Clinton.
Geffen is quoted extensively by New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd in Wednesday's edition disparaging the former president and questioning whether Sen. Clinton can win the presidency in 2008.
Geffen is quoted in the column as saying the former president is a " 'reckless guy' who 'gave his enemies a lot of ammunition to hurt him and to distract the country.'
" That apparently refers to the former president's sexual relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
As for Sen. Clinton, Geffen is quoted by Dowd as saying, "Not since the Vietnam War has there been this level of disappointment in the behavior of America throughout the world, and I don't think that another incredibly polarizing figure, no matter how smart she is and no matter how ambitious she is and God knows, is there anybody more ambitious than Hillary Clinton? can bring the country together.
Geffen's comments drew a strong rebuke from Sen. Clinton's spokesman, Howard Wolfson, who immediately called on Obama to repudiate them. (Watch the spat play out )
"If Sen. Obama is indeed sincere about his repeated claims to change the tone of our politics, he should immediately denounce these remarks, remove Mr. Geffen from his campaign and return his money.
"While Democrats should engage in a vigorous debate on the issues, there is no place in our party or our politics for the kind of personal insults made by Sen. Obama's principal fundraiser," Wolfson added.
"It's not clear to me why I'd be apologizing for someone else's remark," Obama said, according to his press secretary, Dan Pfeiffer.
Obama told reporters, "I have said repeatedly I have the utmost respect for Sen. Clinton and have considered her an ally in the Senate and will continue to consider it that way throughout this campaign.
Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs flatly refused Wolfson's request to denounce Geffen's comments and referred to a remark made earlier this week by South Carolina Democratic state Sen. Robert Ford.
Ford predicted Obama would not win the presidency if nominated because he is black.
Obama and Ford are both black and Ford has endorsed Clinton.
"We aren't going to get in the middle of a disagreement between the Clintons and someone who was once one of their biggest supporters," Gibbs said in a written statement. "It is ironic that the Clintons had no problem with David Geffen when [he] was raising them $18 million and sleeping at their invitation in the Lincoln bedroom.
"It is also ironic that Sen. Clinton lavished praise on Monday and is fully willing to accept today the support of South Carolina state Sen. Robert Ford, who said if Barack Obama were to win the nomination, he would drag down the rest of the Democratic Party because 'he's black,' " Gibbs added.
Reports by a U.N. human-rights expert and a fact-finding commission appointed by the Philippine president linking soldiers to the killings of left-wing activists were one-sided and unfair, government and military officials said.
Philip Alston, U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, said soldiers were responsible for a "significant" number of extrajudicial killings.
However, he said he could not determine the exact number of victims because of conflicting figures provided by the government and left-wing groups.
"But I am certain the number is high enough to be distressing," he told reporters Wednesday after a 10-day fact-finding mission, calling on the military to thoroughly investigate and denounce the killings.
almost total denial of its need to respond effectively and authentically to the significant number of killings which have been convincingly attributed to them," Alston said.
Local human-rights group Karapatan has accused security forces of carrying out most of the 882 extrajudicial killings since 2001, when President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo took power, including the deaths of 356 left-wing activists.
The government says the numbers are inflated, and that many victims were either communist rebels or their allies killed in the communist movement's internal purge.
The New People's Army rebels have been fighting the government for 38 years and are included on U.S. and European Union lists of terrorist organizations.
Alston acknowledged a higher number of killings in recent years was due to the government's drive to wipe out the rebels, but dismissed the inner purge theory as "unconvincing," saying it relied on old and fabricated data.
Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez blasted the report, saying it was "based only on the stories coming from the left" and ignored government evidence of alleged atrocities by communist rebels.
He also defended Arroyo, saying she has repeatedly stated her government does not condone extrajudicial killings.
Alston said he did not believe there was a policy "at the top" of the government to direct the killings, but that the administration needs to reevaluate its counterinsurgency program.
He said "the executive branch, openly and enthusiastically aided by the military," has impeded the right of leftist parties to operate freely.
In some cases, he said, the idea to eliminate organizations that support communist goals has "spilled over into decisions to extrajudicially execute those who cannot be reached by legal process.
A report by a fact-finding commission headed by former Supreme Court Justice Jose Melo also found the military complicit in the deaths.
It said "a small military group" was behind the rash of killings of left-wing activists and that "the 'purge' theory cannot be accorded credence.
The report was submitted to Arroyo last month but the government has not made it public, saying it was incomplete.
Officials, however, said they would distribute copies to journalists on Thursday following widespread criticism from foreign diplomats and Alston.
Parts of the report were cited by military chief of staff Gen. Hermogenes Esperon in a strongly worded letter to the commission, seen by The Associated Press, that blasted its findings as unfair and baseless.
Esperon said the Melo Commission's conclusion "is strained, unfair and a blank accusation against any member or any group from the Armed Forces of the Philippines" because it did not cite any strong evidence or identify the suspects.
Indian and Pakistani officials signed an agreement Wednesday to reduce the risk of accidentally triggering a nuclear war between the South Asian rivals.
Details of the nuclear pact have been kept secret, but officials say it includes confidence-building measures related to both countries' nuclear arsenals as part of continuing peace efforts after more than half a century of hostility.
The signing in New Delhi in the presence of foreign ministers of both countries comes just days after two blasts sparked a fire that killed 68 people on a train from India to Pakistan.
The blast has been denounced by officials from both countries as a way to divert them from the peace process.
Need for cooperation "There are no words strong enough to condemn this act of heinous crime," Pakistan Foreign Minister Khursheed Kasuri told reporters. "It has underlined the need for cooperation.
Whoever set off the bombs "will be brought to justice," Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee said.
Mukherjee, however, ruled out the possibility of a joint investigation.
"As per the law of land, the investigation has to be carried on by India," Mukherjee said.
Meanwhile, investigators searched Wednesday for two men who were allowed to jump off the shortly before it erupted into flames, police said.
Police released sketches of the two suspects on Tuesday.
"Acting on clues, we have sent police teams to different towns to nab the suspects," Bharti Arora, a senior Haryana state railway police official, said Wednesday.
The suspects, whose identities were not known, boarded the train
when it left New Delhi on Sunday but quickly began arguing with the conductor, insisting they were on the wrong train.
The fire destroyed two coaches on the Samjhauta Express, one of the most visible symbols of the India-Pakistan peace process, about an hour after the train left New Delhi.
Most of the victims were Pakistani.
The train goes to the border town of Atari without stopping, and the revelation that two were allowed off highlighted what most passengers already know:
Security on the train and at stations is cursory, at best.
Full security 'close to impossible'
The Indian rail system one of the largest in the world, with 11,000 trains a day serving 80 million people is simply too big to protect fully, many experts believe.
"There are so many thousand railway stations and hundreds of trains, it would be impracticable to ensure security at each and every one.
In another sign of lax security, Kumar said 13 passengers made it to the Pakistani side of Atari without passports.
The train continued its run to the border after the two damaged coaches were pushed off to a siding.
Tickets for the train are not supposed to be issued without passengers showing passports.
Kumar said the two officials who issued the tickets have been suspended.
Officials said the Sunday-night train attack appeared intended to disrupt India-Pakistan relations, but instead leaders of both nations said they would press ahead with peace talks.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who also met victims at the hospital Tuesday, said the best way to honor them was "to remain steadfast in our commitment to normalized relations between our two countries. "
Kumar, the police official, said Sunday's attack was "the handiwork of a militant outfit, but we don't know which group is involved.
Authorities say two suitcases packed with crude unexploded bombs and bottles of gasoline were found in undamaged train cars.
As on most Indian trains, the windows of many cars are barred for security reasons, sealing in many victims.
Witnesses said some victims remained trapped in the flaming carriages for up to 30 minutes, struggling futilely to escape.
On Wednesday, nine Pakistanis arrived at a hospital in the northern town of Panipat, a town near where the fire took place about 90 kilometers (55 miles) north of New Delhi, but failed to identify any of charred bodies being kept in the morgue, said Mohinder Singh, the superintendent of police.
They later left for New Delhi where 12 of the injured have been hospitalized.
So far, only 17 of the 68 bodies have been identified 13 Pakistanis and four Indians, Arora said.
The India-Pakistan train link was suspended after a 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament that India blamed on Pakistan and which nearly led to a war between the two countries.
Their enmity focuses on Kashmir, a largely Muslim Himalayan region divided between them but claimed by both.
javascript:
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press All rights reserved This material may not be published. rewritten or redistributed.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2642194 Days of clashes between the army and Rwandan and Congolese militias in eastern Congo have killed at least 23 combatants and forced thousands to flee, the army and U.N. officials said Tuesday.
Fighting broke out four days ago in North Kivu province, which borders the frontiers with Rwanda and Uganda, and continued Tuesday, said Col. Delphin Kahindi, a top army commander responsible for the volatile province.
Rwandan and Congolese fighters were trying to stop Congo's fledgling national army from being deployed in the area, Kahindi said.
"We are determined to totally secure the province," Kahindi said.
Rwandan Hutu militia operate in eastern Congo Rwandan Hutu militia have operated in eastern Congo since fleeing Rwanda in 1994 after that country's genocide, in which hardline Hutus organized the slaughter of an estimated 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus.
He said 20 militiamen and three soldiers were killed.
A U.N. spokesman, Lt. Col. Didier Rancher, confirmed the clashes but had no word on casualties.
Speaking from the provincial capital, Goma, another U.N. official, Andrew Zadel, said 8,620 displaced people had fled to the nearby village of Nyanzale and 14,000 others were receiving aid from the Red Cross at Kikuku.
But it was unclear how many in Nyanzale had fled the latest clashes and how many were simply in need of aid.
Backed by 18,000 U.N. peacekeepers, Congo's government, based in the faraway capital, Kinshasa, has struggled for years to improve security in the east.
The region was once divided into various rebel fiefdoms, but united with the rest of the country after a 2002 power-sharing deal ended the country's 1998-2002 war.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2642160 Poll:
France's presidential race remains wide open two months before the election, with Socialist Segolene Royal apparently rebounding and a dark-horse centrist candidate slowly but surely becoming a serious contender, a new poll published Wednesday suggested.
Nicolas Sarkozy, the main candidate on the right proposing tax cuts and labor reforms as remedies for France's sluggish economy still emerged as the narrow winner in the sounding of 884 people by pollsters CSA. The survey gave no margin of error.
But Royal's steady if not dazzling performance on a prime-time question-and-answer TV talk show on Monday appears to have injected new life into her campaign.
Royal insisted on the show that France is ready for its first woman president and that she is up to the task rebutting critics who say that she a former environment, schools and family minister lacks experience in the most senior government posts and so is unsuitable.
Royal showed particular compassion to a wheelchair-bound questioner, and newspaper Le Monde the next day dubbed her the "candidate-mother" of French politics.
The new poll, conducted after the broadcast attracted an estimated 8.9 million viewers, had Royal closing the gap on Sarkozy and even besting him in the first round of the two-round election.
According to Le Parisien daily, which commissioned the poll with news channel I-Tele, 29 percent of respondents said they were most likely to vote for Royal on April 22, up two points from last week, compared with 28 percent for Sarkozy, down five points.
If the duel on May 6 pits Sarkozy against
Royal, 51 percent of respondents said they would likely vote for him, down four points from last week, against 49 percent for her, up four points.
Francois Bayrou, a centrist candidate mining the middle ground, is steadily gaining.
Far-right veteran Jean-Marie Le Pen does not look likely to repeat his shock success of 2002, when he made the second-round run-off against President Jacques Chirac, but is still not being counted out.
The CSA poll had Le Pen at 14 percent.
Bayrou was given 17 percent, still not enough to make the run-off but, nevertheless, suggesting that he could be a threat to Royal and Sarkozy should they stumble.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
If Forest Whitaker fails to win an Oscar on Sunday for his portrayal of Idi Amin, it would be only slightly less shocking than if the late dictator was seen walking the Ugandan streets again.
" The Amin family has shunned the media for more than two decades, but now that the film has returned Idi Amin to the spotlight, Jaffar Amin wants to offer a son's perspective.
"Dad is the only person that has ever been accused and sentenced, incarcerated by opinion, without it ever reaching any courthouse," Amin said in an exclusive interview with the Associated Press, calling for a truth and reconciliation committee to investigate that dark period in Uganda's history.
Amin is a 40-year-old father of five with broad shoulders, a rich baritone and a confident, animated demeanor.
He bears a striking resemblance to his father and punctuates his conversation with impersonations of the late dictator.
Though he doesn't deny the atrocities committed during his father's reign, Amin says the film will compound many of the negative images.
"Dad's image cannot be changed," Amin sighed.
"If I bring an understanding, it will be very little because he's in a compartment and getting him out of there will take a thousand years.
But I believe my father would take it on the chin whatever they say about him.
Amin has broken the family's vow of silence and says he's writing a book to counter his father's reputation as a brutal buffoon and cruel eccentric.
Rights groups estimate that up to 500,000 people disappeared under Idi Amin's eight-year regime.
His secret police force was notorious for torturing and killing Ugandans they believed to be political opponents.
I want to show a parent, I want to show my father," Amin said.
He is the 10th of Idi Amin's 40 official children by seven official wives.
At 6 feet 1 inch he is also the shortest of Amin's sons.
"The Last King of Scotland" premiered in Uganda last week and goes into general release in the country Friday.
Forest Whitaker, James McAvoy and director Kevin MacDonald attended the premiere, along with President Yoweri Museveni.
None of the Amin family attended, but Jaffar Amin has since watched a DVD of the film, which is a fictionalized version of Idi Amin's reign.
My father strides and his hands would go like a paddle because of his wide shoulders. Whitaker is knock-kneed my father was bowlegged.
Amin's main complaint, however, was the portrayal of Kay Amin, the dictator's fourth wife.
Jaffar Amin lived with her at an official state residence, and he describes her as a second mother to him.
In the film, Kay is killed for having an affair with Dr. Garrigan, Amin's physician.
Her body is mutilated in the morgue her arms stitched to where her legs should be and vice versa.
"The most painful part for me is degrading the character of one of our blessed mothers," Jaffar Amin said, visibly distressed. "She had a tragic death and they turned her into what she wasn't, she was a decent lady. She wouldn't have an extramarital affair the way it's claimed.
But he is vague about the circumstances of her death, describing it as a "sensitive issue. "
The Amin family fled Uganda when Idi Amin was ousted by Tanzanian-backed Ugandan rebels in 1979.
They lived in exile in Saudi Arabia, where many of the family remain.
The family was given a huge monthly allowance that funded an opulent lifestyle;
in return Idi Amin was asked to remain silent and out of politics. It was a bargain he kept up to his death in 2003 at age 78.
Jaffar Amin returned to Uganda in 1990 and worked for a courier company. He now does voice-overs for advertisements.
Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi on Wednesday offered his resignation to President Giorgio Napolitano.
The Italian presidential palace said Prodi took the action after losing, by two votes, a major foreign policy vote in the upper house of Parliament.
Prodi's coalition allies rebelled over keeping Italian troops in Afghanistan and allowing the expansion of a U.S. military base in Vicenza, Italy. (Watch what led to Prodi's resignation )
Napolitano reserved the right to decide whether to accept the resignation.
Napolitano is set to begin consultations Thursday with Italian political leaders, after which he will decide whether to call for new elections or give the mandate to a new prime minister or to Prodi himself.
He won with a comfortable margin in the lower house, but only a narrow one in the upper house.
A key issue separating the men was the Iraq war.
Berlusconi supported the U.S. invasion, despite overwhelming opposition at home.
Prodi vowed to withdraw Italy's nearly 3,000 troops from Iraq by the end of 2006.
But leftists, who last year voted for Prodi, turned out by the thousands Saturday to decry his approval for U.S. plans to expand the military base in the city of Vicenza, home to the 173rd Airborne Brigade.
Another political complication for Prodi is the first criminal trial in the CIA's extraordinary rendition program.
Prosecutors allege that five Italian intelligence officials worked with the Americans almost all CIA agents to abduct terror suspect Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr from a Milan street on February 17, 2003.
Nasr was allegedly transferred by vehicle to the Aviano Air Force base near Venice and then by air to the Ramstein Air Base in Germany and on to Egypt, where critics say he was tortured.
Prosecutors say the alleged kidnapping operation was a breach of Italian sovereignty that compromised Italy's own anti-terrorism efforts.
They are pressing the Italian government to seek the extradition of the U.S. agents.
Berlusconi's government refused, and Prodi's government has yet to make its decision.
Polls show that, if a vote were held today, Berlusconi would eke out a narrow victory.
But any new election would not be held for at least three months and, even if he were to win, there is no guarantee he could put together a government coalition.
Afghanistan's upper house of parliament has passed a resolution calling for an amnesty for Afghans accused of war crimes during a quarter-century of fighting, an official said.
President Hamid Karzai must now decide whether it should be made into a law, Kadamali Nekpai, chief of the upper house's press department, said Tuesday.
The lower house passed the resolution, which the U.N. and rights activists have condemned, on January 31.
It covers the mujahedeen leaders who fronted the anti-Soviet resistance in the 1980s and plunged the country into civil war in the early 1990s.
Senators approved the same resolution on Tuesday by a 50-16 majority, Nekpai said.
Although lawmakers describe it as a resolution rather than a bill, they also say it would be made law if Karzai approves it.
Sen. Abdullah Haqahaqi said if Karzai rejected the resolution, it would be voted on again by the lower house and if two-thirds of lawmakers were in favor, it would become law.
None of Karzai's spokesmen could be immediately reached for comment.
The president's chief spokesman has said Karzai will not sign anything that goes against Afghanistan's Constitution and he has asked his lawyers to assess the resolution's legality.
The United Nations and international rights groups have been strongly critical of it.
Tens of thousands of Afghans died during the years of civil conflict that followed the Soviet occupation.
amnesty for gross violations of human rights and for war crimes shouldn't exist," Tom Koenigs, the U.N.'s special representative to Afghanistan, told reporters Monday.
A U.S.-backed invasion in late 2001 toppled the hardline Taliban regime and ushered in an era of democracy but also saw a number of powerful warlords elevated to high office or seats in parliament.
"Unfortunately, the majority of the lower and upper houses of parliament are warlords and people with blood on their hands," said Nafas Gul, a woman senator for Farah province who voted against the resolution. "It's a betrayal of the rights of Afghans.
But another senator who voted in favor said it would promote national unity.
If they bring leaders of the mujahedeen to court it will tarnish the name of jihad (holy war)," said Bakhtar Aminzai, who represents Paktia province.
The New York-based rights group Human Rights Watch has called for officials including Vice President Karim Khalili and army Chief of Staff Abdul Rashid Dostum to face trial before a special court for alleged war crimes.
In a report, it listed Energy Minister Ismail Khan, Karzai senior security adviser Mohammed Qasim Fahim and parliamentarians Abdul Rasul Sayyaf and former President Burhanuddin Rabbani as among the "worst perpetrators.
A five-story apartment building collapsed in Istanbul early Wednesday, killing at least two people and injuring 26 others, authorities said.
A city worker who chanced to walk by shortly after midnight saw the building swaying and alerted people inside by shouting and throwing stones at the windows, said Istanbul Mayor Kadir Topbas.
Some people managed to safely flee, but the dead and injured had become trapped on a stairway as the building toppled, said Ali Karahan, chief of Istanbul firefighter department.
It was not clear how many people were inside when it came down.
Istanbul Gov. Muammer Guler said at least 27 people were living there and several people were in a coffee house in the basement.
Rescue teams with sniffer dogs worked under floodlights to find out whether there were any others trapped under the rubble.
"We think maybe just a few more people remain buried if anyone left," Guler said.
There was no immediate official word on what caused the collapse in residential Zeytinburnu district.
Topbas said that the building was listed as among those that needed to be demolished because their ability to withstand a strong earthquake was questionable.
Such collapses in Turkey are sometimes associated with earthquakes, a constant worry for residents of this sprawling city of more than 12 million.
A miner in Chiapas discovered a tiny tree frog that has been preserved in amber for 25 million years, a researcher said.
If authenticated, the preserved frog would be the first of its kind found in Mexico, according to David Grimaldi, a biologist and curator at the American Museum of Natural History who was not involved in the find.
The chunk of amber containing the almost 0.4-inch frog was uncovered by a miner in Mexico's southern Chiapas state in 2005 and was bought by a private collector, who lent it to scientists for study.
Only a few other preserved frogs have been found in chunks of amber a stone formed by ancient tree sap mostly in the Dominican Republic.
Like those, the frog found in Chiapas appears to be of the genus Craugastor, whose descendants still inhabit the region, said biologist Gerardo Carbot of the Chiapas Natural History and Ecology Institute, who announced the discovery this week.
Carbot figures the frog lived 25 million years ago, based on the geological strata where the amber was found.
Carbot would like to extract a sample from the frog's remains in hopes of finding DNA , but doubts the stone's owner would allow a small hole to be drilled into the chunk of amber.
"I don't think he will allow it, because it's a very rare, unique piece," said Carbot.
Grimaldi called the idea of extracting DNA "highly, highly unlikely," given that as other scientists have noted it tends to break down over time.
But George O. Poinar, an entomologist at Oregon State University who founded the Amber Institute, said extracting DNA is theoretically possible.
A powerful earthquake in northeastern Indonesia on Tuesday caused panicked residents to flee shaking buildings on islands in the Maluku Sea and briefly triggered a tsunami warning, officials said.
The 6.5-magnitude quake struck 200 kilometers (130 miles) from Ternate, the capital of Maluku island, and 233 miles from Manado, the northernmost city on Sulawesi island, the U.S. Geological Survey said.
"We called local authorities in Ternate and coastal areas to warn them of a potential tsunami," said Fauzi, a seismologist who goes by only one name, adding that it turned out to be a false alarm.
One hour after the quake struck, there were no signs of seismically triggered waves.
was not immediately clear if the quake, which was centered at a depth of around 20 miles, caused any injuries and damage appeared to be largely limited to cracks in buildings.
Frightened residents fled their homes and at least one hotel in Ternate was evacuated.
Indonesia, the world's largest archipelago, is prone to seismic upheaval due to its location on the so-called Pacific "Ring of Fire," an arc of volcanos and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.
In December 2004, a massive earthquake struck off Indonesia's Sumatra island and triggered a tsunami that killed more than 230,000 people, including 131,000 people in Indonesia's Aceh province alone.
Italian soccer has not been a pious spectacle of late, with riots and scandals marring a game that is practically a religion here.
Sports officials now hope clergymen from 50 nations can bring back faith to soccer as they take to the pitch for the first time in a tournament for priests and seminarians kicking off Saturday.
Catholic institutes have entered 16 teams in the Clericus Cup, fielding 311 athletes from countries including the United States, Brazil, Papua New Guinea and Rwanda.
"It's an intelligent initiative which helps give a positive image to sport and especially to soccer," Italian Olympic Committee President Gianni Petrucci said at a presentation of the event Tuesday.
Even as Italy's national team was making its successful run for the World Cup this summer, club soccer at home was ravaged by a match-fixing scandal that led to sanctions against several top teams.
Earlier this month, rioting at a game in Sicily caused the death of a policeman and forced authorities to take measures, including barring fans from many stadiums.
The Clericus Cup will run through June and most games will be played at a Vatican soccer pitch in Rome.
The matches will last one hour and rules will differ from professional club soccer.
Teams will be allowed one time-out and the referee will brandish a blue card, which will send off errant players for a 5-minute suspension.
A college ring lost more than 20 years ago by a former undercover officer for the CIA has been found in an underwater cave off the coast of Africa.
Steve Ruic, a writer on staff at Notre Dame College, received an e-mail about two weeks ago from a professional diver from Germany.
Wilfried Thiesen wrote that he had found a class ring bearing the college's name while diving off Mauritius.
The ring was engraved with the year '76.
The ring was missing the thin portion on the underside that ordinarily carries its owner's name.
Ruic publicized the discovery in both an e-mail to college staff and a newsletter to alumni, but no one came forward to claim it.
Then, while interviewing a member of the class of 1976 for an unrelated alumni magazine story, Ruic asked Dr. Maryellen Amato Stratmann if she'd ever been to Mauritius.
"She said, 'No, but Clare Cavoli Lopez has.
Lopez, a 1976 Notre Dame College graduate and former CIA undercover officer, was stationed at Port Louis, Mauritius, from 1983 to 1985.
During a dive, the ring slipped from her finger.
Ruic sent Thiesen's address to Lopez.
She has exchanged e-mails with Thiesen, she said Monday, and they're arranging for him to mail it.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2640840
Spears, 25, voluntarily checked herself into an undisclosed treatment facility, CNN has confirmed.
"We ask that the media respect her privacy as well as those of her family and friends at this time," Spears' manager, Larry Rudolph, said in a statement. (Watch signs that Spears was in need of help)
Since she announced her separation from Kevin Federline in November, Spears, the mother of two young sons, has been seen partying with Paris Hilton, and her appearance has been increasingly sloppy.
On Friday night, Spears grabbed an electrical shaver at a San Fernando Valley salon and shaved her head completely bald.
Entertainment TV shows and Web sites reported Friday that she had gone in and out of rehab that week.
Some reports identified the facility as Eric Clapton's Crossroads center in Antigua, in the Caribbean.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2640798
British Prime Minister Tony Blair will order nearly half the British troops in Iraq home by the end of 2007, British news outlets reported early Wednesday.
Blair told the House of Commons in January that an "arbitrary timetable" for withdrawal "would send the most disastrous signal to the people we are fighting in Iraq.
But the Sun newspaper said that Blair will tell the Commons Wednesday that 1,500 soldiers will be back in Britain within weeks and that 3,000 of Britain's contingent of 7,000 will be back by the end of the year.
"Control of the south of the country, unaffected by the civil war raging around Baghdad, will be handed back to the Iraqis," the tabloid reported.
The move comes as the United States is sending more troops into Iraq in an effort to put down a wave of sectarian violence in Baghdad and pacify the western province of Anbar, the heart of the Sunni Arab insurgency.
In Washington, National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said President Bush has been grateful for British support "in the past and
"While the United Kingdom is maintaining a robust force in southern Iraq, we're pleased that conditions in Basra have improved sufficiently that they are able to transition more control to the Iraqis," Johndroe said in a statement issued Tuesday evening. "The United States shares the same goal of turning responsibility over to the Iraqi Security Forces and reducing the number of American troops in Iraq.
British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said in January that the United Kingdom was unlikely to send any more troops to Iraq.
In November, Defense Secretary Des Browne said Britain planned to bring several thousand troops home from Iraq by the end of 2007, but he gave no specific numbers.
The remaining troops would be used to train Iraqi military and police forces, provide backup for Iraqi troops and protect supply lines for British, U.S. and allied troops who remained.
Britain contributed about 46,000 troops, sailors and air force personnel to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
More than half of those troops were withdrawn within two months of the invasion, and the remaining contingent, now numbering about 7,000, was based mostly in the southern city of Basra.
The war has claimed more than 130 British lives and has never been popular with the British public.
In January, as the United States announced plans to increase its contingent in Iraq by more than 20,000, Beckett said London would not be following suit.
Opposition to the war has hurt Blair politically, with his ruling Labor Party losing seats in Parliament and in local elections in the past two years.
The prime minister announced in September that he would leave office within a year.
Report of the withdrawal comes three days after reports that Prince Harry would deploy with his unit to Iraq in April or May. (Full story)
His father, Prince Charles, was a pilot with the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy.
Harry's grandfather, Prince Philip, had a distinguished career in the Royal Navy.
Harry's uncle, Prince Andrew, was a Royal Navy pilot and served in the Falklands War against Argentina 25 years ago.
Australian customs ficials searched Sylvester Stallone's hotel room and private jet on Monday, three days after seizing banned substances from the muscle-bound actor's entourage as he arrived for a promotional tour, a news report said.
Stallone was not stopped from leaving Australia, where he spent the weekend promoting his latest movie, "Rocky Balboa," after officials searched his plane on the tarmac at Sydney airport on Monday, Sydney's The Daily Telegraph reported, without citing sources.
Officials are still examining substances collected from Stallone's entourage to determine whether further action would be taken, the newspaper reported.
Stallone and several people traveling with him were detained for several hours at Sydney airport on Friday as they arrived .
Australian Customs Service national investigations manager Richard Janeczko said some contraband items were taken, but didn't identify them.
Stallone initially said the detention on Friday was the result of a misunderstanding on his part, then later refused to answer questions about the incident.
In addition to illicit drugs, Australia prohibits the unlicensed importation of a wide range of steroids and performance-enhancing substances for sporting use.
ÏÀ» Á¦°øÇÏÁö ¾Ê½À´Ï´Ù.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice held "productive" talks Monday with Israeli and Palestinian leaders and said she expects more negotiations in a bid to restart the Mideast peace process.
Rice's meeting Monday with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas came amid concerns about whether a new Palestinian unity government will renounce terrorism and recognize Israel. (Watch why Rice's visit comes at a difficult time )
Rice issued a statement afterward calling the talks "useful and productive.
"All three of us affirmed our commitment to a two-state solution, agreed that a Palestinian state cannot be born of violence and terror, and reiterated our acceptance of previous agreements and obligations, including the road map," Rice said, referring to the 2003 internationally backed plan for peace.
Miri Eisen, Olmert's spokeswoman, said there had been a "lowering of expectations for the outcome" of the talks. "The importance of this meeting is in their sitting down and having dialogue," she said.
You have to meet somebody and talk to him and see if you have confidence and trust each other and see if there is a sense that you can go forward.
The meeting of Israeli and Palestinian leaders came despite no sign that a new Palestinian government will do what world leaders have called for: renounce terrorism and recognize Israel.
Fatah and Hamas are working to build a unity government, but tension and fighting between the two factions have left the future of the Palestinian government unclear.
The so-called Mideast Quartet the United States, European Union, Russia and United Nations has called on the new government to renounce terror and recognize Israel, making those steps the keys for the resumption of governmental aid.
Abbas and other leaders of the Fatah party support those steps, but Hamas, which has controlled the government for the past year, is staunchly against them.
Hamas' victory, and its refusal to change its stance, led the United States and European Union to cut off millions of dollars in foreign aid.
"I haven't seen anything to date that suggests this is a government that is going to meet those quartet principles, but we will see when that government is formed," Rice said Sunday.
"Let's see how President Abbas deals with the new circumstances.
Rice met separately Sunday with Abbas and Olmert.
U.S. government officials do not meet with leaders of Hamas, which has carried out terrorist attacks and is listed by the United States and Israel as a terrorist organization.
"I think that eventually, one way or another, there is going to have to be a Palestinian government that accepts the quartet principles, because that is the only basis on which you can get a state," Rice told reporters.
"It simply can't be the case that the political horizon can be built on the basis that one of the parties doesn't accept the other's right to exist.
Rice's meeting with Abbas in the West Bank town of Ramallah lasted more than two hours, most of it without the presence of aides. (Watch Rice struggle to breathe life into "complicated" peace deal )
Addressing reporters, Rice thanked Abbas for his "personal commitment to peace and understanding, which has led the Palestinian people to international agreements that recognize the importance of the two-state solution and all that comes along with that.
A key goal is to get aid dollars flowing again from the United States and the European Union.
Both have continued to channel money through nongovernmental organizations to assist Palestinians, but the Palestinian government has been crippled financially.
The government already faced severe financial difficulties under Fatah.
Hamas won last year's elections largely on a promise to clean up Fatah's corruption.
Rice indicated that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which exacerbates tensions throughout the region, is a key priority during the remains years of the Bush administration. "I am committed to this," she said.
ÏÀ» Á¦°øÇÏÁö ¾Ê½À´Ï´Ù.
Thailand's military-backed government has pledged tighter security in the south after an onslaught of bombings and shootings by suspected Muslim insurgents killed eight people and wounded 69.
The attacks began Sunday night as thousands celebrated the Chinese New Year holiday.
An army spokesman said the insurgents were trying to scare ethnic Chinese who are mainly Buddhists and Taoists in southern Thailand into fleeing the predominantly Muslim region.
Twenty-nine bombings and 20 other attacks rocked the country's four southernmost provinces Sunday night, leaving seven people dead and 51 injured.
The violence continued Monday as four more bombs exploded in the region, killing one person and injuring 18 more.
Sunday's attacks were the first to take place simultaneously in all four southern provinces Yala, Narathiwat, Pattani and Songkhla where the militants operate, said army spokesman Col. Akara Thiprote.
More than 2,000 people have died in the four provinces since an insurgency erupted in 2004, fueled by accusations of decades of misrule by the central government.
The insurgents have not announced their goals, but are believed to be fighting for a separate state imbued with radical Islamic ideology.
"The insurgents wanted to scare away Chinese businessmen from the region.
That's why they attacked on Sunday, the day that Chinese people celebrate after they pay homage to their ancestors.
The insurgents do not want people of other religions to live with them," Akara said.
Eight bombs shook the capital, Bangkok, at New Year, killing three and leaving almost 40 wounded.
Authorities said the southern insurgents were not involved in that attack.
Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont urged top security officials on Monday to be fully prepared for upcoming public holidays, including a Buddhist holiday in March and the Thai New Year known as Songkran, celebrated in mid-April.
Army commander Gen. Sonthi Boonyaratglin said more military reinforcements will be sent to the south, but that there was no need to impose a curfew in the area, according to the state Thai News Agency.
ÏÀ» Á¦°øÇÏÁö ¾Ê½À´Ï´Ù.
MIAMI, Florida (CNN) The minister has the number 666 tattooed on his arm.
But Jose Luis de Jesus Miranda is not your typical minister.
De Jesus, or "Daddy" as his thousands of followers call him, does not merely pray to God:
He says he is God.
"The spirit that is in me is the same spirit that was in Jesus of Nazareth," de Jesus says.
De Jesus' claims of divinity have angered Christian leaders, who say he is a fake.
Religious experts say he may be something much more dangerous, a cult leader who really believes he is God.
"He's in their heads, he's inside the heads of those people," says Prof. Daniel Alvarez, a religion expert at Florida International University who has debated some of de Jesus' followers.
"De Jesus speaks with a kind of conviction that makes me consider him more like David Koresh or Jim Jones.
Is de Jesus really a cult leader like David Koresh, who died with more than 70 of his Branch Davidian followers in a fiery end to a standoff with federal authorities, or Jim Jones, the founder of the Peoples Temple who committed mass suicide with 900 followers in 1978?
Prophets 'spoke to me'
De Jesus and his believers say their church "Creciendo en Gracia," Spanish for "Growing in grace" is misunderstood.
Followers of the movement say they have proof that their minister is divine and that their church will one day soon be a major faith in the world.
But even de Jesus concedes that he is an unlikely leader of a church that claims thousands of members in more than 30 countries.
De Jesus, 61, grew up poor in Puerto Rico.
He says he served stints in prison there for petty theft and says he was a heroin addict.
De Jesus says he learned he was Jesus reincarnate when he was visited in a dream by angels.
"The prophets, they spoke about me.
It took me time to learn that, but I am what they were expecting, what they have been expecting for 2,000 years," de Jesus says.
The church that he began building 20 years ago in Miami resembles no other:
Followers have protested Christian churches in Miami and Latin America, disrupting services and smashing crosses and statues of Jesus.
De Jesus preaches there is no devil and no sin.
The church calls itself the "Government of God on Earth" and uses a seal similar to the United States.
Doing God's work with a Lexus and Rolex
If Creciendo en Gracia is an atypical religious group, de Jesus also does not fit the mold of the average church leader.
De Jesus flouts traditional vows of poverty.
He says he has a church-paid salary of $136,000 but lives more lavishly than that.
During an interview, he showed off a diamond-encrusted Rolex to a CNN crew and said he has three just like them.
He travels in armored Lexuses and BMWs, he says, for his safety.
All are gifts from his devoted followers.
And what about the tattoo of 666 on his arm?
Although it's a number usually associated with Satan, not the son of God, de Jesus says that 666 and the Antichrist are, like him, misunderstood.
The Antichrist is not the devil, de Jesus tells his congregation;
he's the being who replaces Jesus on Earth.
"Antichrist is the best person in the world," he says.
"Antichrist means don't put your eyes on Jesus because Jesus of Nazareth wasn't a Christian.
Antichrist means do not put your eyes on Jesus Christ of Nazareth.
Put it on Jesus after the cross.
And de Jesus says that means him.
So far, de Jesus says that his flock hasn't been scared off by his claims of being the Antichrist.
In a show of the sway he holds over the group, 30 members of his congregation Tuesday went to a tattoo parlor to have 666 also permanently etched onto their skin.
He may wield influence over them, but his followers say don't expect them to go the way of people who believed in David Koresh and Jim Jones.
Just by finding de Jesus, they say, they have achieved their purpose.
We are already in heavenly places," follower Martita Roca told CNN after having 666 tattooed onto her ankle. Çѱ۴º½ºÀÇ ¿ø¹ ®Àºµû · Î ¸ñ ·
This material may not be published.
rewritten or redistributed.
Qantas has fired a flight attendant who gave a detailed account to a newspaper of a midair tryst with actor Ralph Fiennes in an airliner toilet cubicle.
The airline had earlier suspended Lisa Robertson pending an investigation into reports she had sex with Fiennes during a flight from the northern city of Darwin to Mumbai, India, on January 24.
Qantas said in a statement Monday that Robertson's employment contract had been terminated. It didn't give a reason.
The statement came a day after Robertson's account of a fling with Fiennes on board the flight and later at a hotel in India was published in a British newspaper.
Fiennes has not commented on the incident, but spokeswoman Sara Keene was quoted as saying in News Ltd. newspapers that the actor was seduced by the airline stewardess.
"She initiated the encounter," Keene was quoted as saying.
"She was the sexual aggressor.
ÏÀ» Á¦°øÇÏÁö ¾Ê½À´Ï´Ù.
Pakistan has denied published reports that indicated al Qaeda is active and getting stronger in its tribal North Waziristan region along the country's border with Afghanistan.
Pakistani Information Minister Mohammad Ali Durani told CNN the reports initially from the New York Times are "ridiculous.
"We have deployed more than 80,000 troops in that area, and we are controlling that belt," Durani said.
"And whenever we get any Taliban or al Qaeda activity report, we always go in with full force and destroy those camps.
We ourselves are victims of these terrorist activities and cannot allow them to get stronger.
Durani also said that it is "ridiculous to point fingers without any reason.
"If someone has any information, they should have passed that on to us," he said.
Quoting unnamed American officials, the Times article published Monday morning said, "There was mounting evidence that Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, had been steadily building an operations hub in the mountainous Pakistani tribal area of North Waziristan.
It added, "The United States has also identified several new al Qaeda compounds in North Waziristan, including one that officials said might be training operatives for strikes against targets beyond Afghanistan.
Pakistan's ambassador to the United States, Mahmud Durrani, said on CNN's "The Situation Room" that the reports were "not true.
"There may be some elements of al Qaeda," he said, "but not in the force that has been presented.
Durrani also said it is "totally and utterly incorrect" that elements of the Pakistani military are sympathetic to al Qaeda.
He also denied that bin Laden and others are hiding in Pakistan.
Terrorism analyst Peter Bergen told CNN that it is the U.S. military position that al Qaeda forces are, in fact, operating out of Pakistan, where they have built new training camps.
"They're not large," he said.
"We're talking about 10 or 20 people" in each camp.
U.S. officials believe al Qaeda and Taliban fighters train in these camps for targeted attacks in Afghanistan, Bergen said.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2639734 The White House on Sunday disagreed with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's claim that the Iraq war was "the worst foreign policy mistake" in U.S. history.
White House press secretary Tony Snow said it was important to remove Saddam Hussein from power and noted that a majority of senators voted in 2002 to authorize the use of force in Iraq.
He said President Bush should not see votes in Congress in opposition of his new Iraqi strategy as a rebuke.
"The strategy has barely had a chance to begin working," Snow said.
The House passed a nonbinding resolution Friday that rejected the president's 21,500-troop buildup in Iraq.
The vote put Bush on the defensive going into a far more consequential confrontation over paying for the plan.
On Saturday, Senate Republicans foiled a Democratic bid to repudiate Bush's deployment of additional combat troops.
The 56-34 vote fell four short of the 60 needed, but Democrats quickly claimed victory, noting that a majority of senators voted against the escalation.
"This war is a serious situation," Reid said Saturday.
"It involves the worst foreign policy mistake in the history of this country.
We need to find a way to dig out of it.
"The war is tough, but the solution is not to get out.
It is to provide the kinds of resources and reinforcements our forces need to get the job done, and at the same time say to the Iraqis `You guys got to step up,"' Snow responded.
He said the president understands the importance of debate about the war on Capitol Hill and understands lawmakers' anxiety about the war.
"What I would say to members of Congress is:
Calm down and take a look at what's going on, and ask yourself a simple question:
If you support the troops, would you deny them the reinforcements they think are necessary to complete the mission?
Snow cited surveys that showed a majority of Americans do not want Congress to cut the purse strings for the war.
Çѱ۴º½ºÀÇ ¿ø¹ ®Àºµû
Republican presidential candidate John McCain said Monday the war in Iraq has been mismanaged for years and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld will be remembered as one of the worst in history.
"We are paying a very heavy price for the mismanagement that's the kindest word I can give you of Donald Rumsfeld, of this war," the Arizona senator said.
" McCain told an overflow crowd of more than 800 at a retirement community near Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.
McCain, the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, complained that Rumsfeld never put enough troops on the ground to succeed in Iraq.
"I think that Donald Rumsfeld will go down in history as one of the worst secretaries of defense in history," McCain said to applause.
The comments were in sharp contrast to McCain's statement when Rumsfeld resigned in November, and failed to address the reality that President Bush is the commander in chief.
"While Secretary Rumsfeld and I have had our differences, he deserves Americans' respect and gratitude for his many years of public service," McCain said last year when Rumsfeld stepped down.
On a two-day campaign swing in South Carolina, McCain fielded questions from the crowd for more than an hour and said the United States can succeed in Iraq with additional troops and a new strategy.
McCain has been a strong proponent of using more troops and favors Bush's increase of some 21,500 U.S. forces in the nearly four-year-old war.
"I have been saying for 31/2 years that we would be in this sad situation and this critical situation we are in today," he said.
McCain's bid for president was sidetracked in South Carolina in 2000 after a victory in New Hampshire.
George W. Bush won the primary here and went on to win the nomination and White House.
"In life, one of the worst things you can do is hold a grudge," he said.
"I felt the important thing for me to do with my life was to move forward after we lost our race.
You have seen other people who have lost who mire themselves in bitterness and self pity.
That's not what my life is all about.
Some in the crowd were Bush supporters who have not yet decided on a 2008 candidate.
"It's too early to say," said Paul Baker, a retiree from Niagara Falls, New York, who has lived in South Carolina about four years.
Anna Nicole Smith wanted to be buried in the Bahamas, next to her son, and bought a burial plot there, according to attorneys for her longtime companion, Howard K. Stern.
Smith's estranged mother, Vergie Arthur, wants to take the body home to Texas to be buried with family members.
The two sides faced off in Broward County Circuit Court on Thursday at a probate hearing that bounced from custody of the body to DNA sampling to whether a baby can be considered next of kin under Florida law.
With several attorneys arguing loudly around a conference table, Judge Larry Seidlin tried to sort through a tangle of legal arguments and competing interests.
Sitting around the table or on the phone were lawyers representing Smith, Stern, and Smith's former lover Larry Birkhead.
Also at the table were Smith's mother and her attorneys.
The lawyers sniped at the opposing parties, and at each other.
"The woman sitting across from me was estranged from her daughter.
I have people who loved her," sniffed Krista Barth, attorney for Stern.
"She stands here today to take her to Texas and put her in the ground all alone.
It's sad and it's sick.
Retorted Arthur's lawyer, Stephen Tunstall:
"Counsel is trying to trash my client in some kind of emotional appeal.
My client is her mother.
She wants to take her back to Texas to be buried with the rest of the family.
She has the right.
And so it went, all day long and, from the looks of things, for many more days to come.
The judge worked hard to keep things on track.
"We're trying to balance the rights and respect of the body with the legal issues," Seidlin said.
Some progress was made:
The judge appointed a guardian, Miami attorney Richard Milstein, to protect the interests of Smith's infant daughter, Dannielynn.
He also appointed an administrator, Shane Kelley, a Fort Lauderdale lawyer, to sort through the competing interests and recommend who will bury Smith, and where.
Smith's body is being kept under refrigeration at the medical examiner's office in Dania Beach.
She is likely to be embalmed there as early as Friday.
But any decision about releasing her body for burial isn't likely until next week at the earliest.
Who's the father?
Birkhead and Stern each claim to be the father of Smith's nearly 6-month-old daughter, Dannielynn.
Stern's name is on the birth certificate.
"Larry, I would like to reveal it on your show.
I think everybody will see that Howard Stern is not a beneficiary of that will.
Smith's former bodyguard, Alexander Denk, said on the same show that he, too, could be Dannielynn's father, saying he and Smith had an off-and-on relationship for years.
Denk is the fourth person to claim he could be the child's father.
Zsa Zsa Gabor's husband, Frederic von Anhalt, has said he and Smith had a decade-long affair and that he could have fathered the child.
Seidlin repeated several times that the most important issue to his court was the welfare of the baby.
He also stressed the importance of maintaining dignity.
"We want to preserve the beauty and model figure of Ms. Smith," he said.
"Beauty was important to her, as you all have indicated to me, and we want her to look beautiful when she is placed in her final resting place.
Smith, 39, died February 8 after she was found unconscious in her room at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino near Hollywood, Florida.
Among the issues the attorneys wrangled over was whether Stern had legal standing to determine a burial place, or even to take part in the proceedings;
and who was Smith's next-of-kin under Florida law.
Tunstall, the attorney for Smith's mother, argued that Dannielynn did not qualify because a child must be over 18 to be legally considered next-of-kin. (Watch CNN's Jeff Toobin try to untangle the legal mess)
Dannielynn was in the Bahamas on Thursday with Stern, attorney Barth said.
A restraining order keeps the child from leaving the Bahamas, and Stern is with her, she said.
The Associated Press reported that police on Thursday entered the oceanfront home that Smith and Stern shared.
Judge OKs additional DNA sample
One of the most contentious issues before the judge was the collection of DNA from Smith's body to help establish paternity, and to reinforce that Smith is the mother.
Birkhead's attorneys were seeking an additional DNA sample for use in a California paternity suit that began before Smith's death.
Perper went into detail, after an attorney for Birkhead pressed him about the integrity of the chain of evidence.
Karen Haas wanted to know what had been done to prevent tampering.
She wanted more blood taken right away with at least one attorney present.
After nearly three hours of discussion, Seidlin authorized Perper to take a DNA swab from inside Smith's cheek, but allowed no attorneys to be present.
Perper assured Haas that the samples are locked in a refrigerator, and only one doctor has a key.
When asked, he said he had no problem allowing a DNA expert to review the samples.
The medical examiner said his office also collected from Smith several vials of blood, a piece of bone with bone marrow inside, and hair samples.
"We did an extremely vast array of tests.
"We have taken all the sampling necessary.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press All rights reserved
A man armed with two pistols hijacked an Air Mauritania flight Thursday but was subdued by two passengers, a Spanish official said.
The plane landed safely in the Canary Islands and no one was hurt, the official said.
The senior Spanish government source said a man had been trying to commandeer the Boeing 737 to Paris.
He was arrested by the civil guard after the jet landed at Gando Airport, the source told CNN.
Jose Segura, the central government's chief representative in the Canaries, told Ser, a Spanish radio station, that the plane was carrying 71 passengers and eight crew members.
Reports differed on the hijacker's nationality, with one senior Spanish government source saying he is Moroccan and Segura describing him as Mauritanian.
Abass Bass, a representative of the Mauritanian Embassy in Washington, described the incident as a "tentative hijacking.
"The information we had from Mauritania is that the passengers fought back and they took the hijacker and now everything is OK," Bass told CNN.
ÏÀ» Á¦°øÇÏÁö ¾Ê½À´Ï´Ù.
A NATO airstrike destroyed a compound housing a Taliban leader responsible for a wave of violence across southern Afghanistan, killing the commander and at least 10 other suspected militants, the Western alliance said.
NATO meanwhile said militants continued to cross into Afghanistan from neighboring Pakistan "in fairly substantial numbers.
NATO spokesman, Col. Tom Collins, said on Wednesday that insurgents from North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia have been captured in Afghanistan.
However, he said their presence wasn't "overly significant" and that most Taliban fighters are ethnic Pashtuns from southern Afghanistan.
Provincial police chief Ghulam Nabi identified the Taliban leader targeted in the airstrike early on Wednesday as Mullah Manan.
NATO said he was linked to an uprising in the town of Musa Qala, which the Taliban overran on February 1, and to an attack on Tuesday against a dam in nearby Kajaki.
NATO said it observed people removing the bodies of 11 "fighting-age males" from the compound.
Other estimates of the death toll from the remote region varied widely.
Malakhail said nine people were killed, while Wali Mohammad, a Musa Qala resident, said by phone that 20 had died.
Malakhail reported no civilian casualties, but Abdul Ali, a tribal elder from Musa Qala, said some family members who lived at the compound were also killed.
NATO said it had observed no women or children being brought out of the targeted compound.
"ISAF takes allegations of civilian casualties very seriously and we do everything in our power to prevent them," Collins said.
"In this morning's attack, we remain confident that only enemy forces were killed.
NATO and U.S. forces in Afghanistan have taken heavy criticism in the past for the deaths of civilians killed in airstrikes.
Collins claimed that Taliban fighters had adopted a new tactic that put civilians at risk using children as human shields during recent fighting near Kajaki.
A purported Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, denied that its fighters use children as cover or fight from civilian homes.
Afghanistan last year suffered its worst bout of violence since the ouster of the Taliban regime in 2001.
Some 4,000 people died in insurgency-related violence, according to an Associated Press count based on numbers from U.S., NATO and Afghan officials.
Eating seafood during pregnancy could help your child's development, according to a new study in the British journal Lancet.
The finding conflicts with a U.S. government advisory that pregnant women limit the amount of seafood they eat to 12 ounces a week (two or three meals), because of mercury levels.
Researchers at the National Institutes of Health, the University of Bristol in Britain, and the University of Illinois-Chicago say that advice to limit seafood consumption could actually be detrimental to a child's health.
After analyzing data from almost 9,000 British mothers and their children over an eight-year period, they found pregnant women who ate less than 12 ounces of seafood a week did not protect their children from adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes.
Rather, they increased their child's risk of poor verbal IQ development compared to mothers who ate more than 12 ounces a week.
The researchers said these children also had a greater risk of poor social development and poor motor control.
In 2004, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency issued a joint advisory recommending that pregnant women and nursing mothers eat no more than 12 ounces of fish and shellfish a week to prevent developmental problems in their babies or young children caused by toxins in the seafood.
The advisory recommended not eating shark, swordfish, king mackerel or tilefish, and advised not eating the same type of fish and shellfish more than once a week.
Some of the planning by Gen. Tommy Franks and other top military officials before the 2003 invasion of Iraq envisioned that as few as 5,000 U.S. troops would remain in Iraq by December 2006, according to documents obtained by a private research organization.
Slides obtained by the National Security Archive under the Freedom of Information Act contain a PowerPoint presentation of what planners projected to be a stable, pro-American and democratic Iraq after the ouster of Saddam Hussein.
"Completely unrealistic assumptions about a post-Saddam Iraq permeate these war plans," said National Security Archive Executive Director Thomas Blanton in a statement posted on the organization's Web site along with copies of some charts used in the PowerPoint presentation. (Read the documents on the National Security Archive Web site)
"First, they assumed that a provisional government would be in place by 'D-Day', then that the Iraqis would stay in their garrisons and be reliable partners, and finally that the post-hostilities phase would be a matter of mere 'months'.
All of these were delusions.
The organization said it initially requested documents related to the 2001-2003 planning sessions in 2004 and received them last month.
It said the posting Wednesday "reproduces the documents as they were released by CentCom, together with additional items prepared by the National Security Archive" as well as a chronology of Iraq war planning based on secondary sources and commentary by archives staffers.
Posting of the documents was reported by The New York Times in a story for Thursday's editions which noted that "the general optimism and some details of General Franks' planning session have been disclosed in the copious postwar literature.
The archives posting of additional detail includes commentary from some of the books and other material previously published about the war and its aftermath.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press All rights reserved
Close your eyes for a minute and envision all the romantic parts of the human body.
Her beautiful eyes.
His strong shoulders.
We'll stop there, but you go right ahead and think about all the body parts you want.
These areas of the brain, while little known to most people, are helping scientists explain the physiological reasons behind why we feel what we feel when we fall in love.
By studying MRI brain scans of people newly in love, scientists are learning a lot about the science of love:
Why love is so powerful, and why being rejected is so horribly painful.
In a group of experiments, Dr. Lucy Brown, a professor in the department of neurology and neuroscience at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, and her colleagues did MRI brain scans on college students who were in the throes of new love.
While being scanned, the students looked at a photo of their beloved.
The scientists found that the caudate area of the brain which is involved in cravings became very active.
Another area that lit up:
the ventral tegmental, which produces dopamine, a powerful neurotransmitter that affects pleasure and motivation.
Dr. Brown said scientists believe that when you fall in love, the ventral tegmental floods the caudate with dopamine.
The caudate then sends signals for more dopamine.
"The more dopamine you get, the more of a high you feel," Dr. Brown says.
Or as her colleague, Dr. Helen Fisher put it: When you fall in love, "exactly the same system becomes active as when you take cocaine.
You can feel intense elation when you're in love.
You can feel intense elation when you're high on cocaine.
Scientists then wondered:
Does a brain in love look much like a sexually stimulated brain?
After all, we associate love and sex and sometimes confuse them.
The answer is:
Brains in love and brains in lust don't look too much alike.
In studies when researchers showed erotic photos to people as they underwent brain scans, they found activity in the hypothalamus and amygdala areas of the brain.
The hypothalamus controls drives like hunger and thirst and the amygdala handles arousal, among other things.
In the studies of people in love, "we didn't find activity in either," according to Dr. Fisher, an anthropologist and author of "Why We Love the Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love.
"We now have physiological data that suggests there are different brain systems for sex and love," says Dr. Fisher.
At some point, the two do become linked.
People in love have elevated levels of dopamine.
Lots of dopamine, in turn, triggers the production of testosterone, which is responsible for the sex drive in both men and women.
This helps explain why falling in love can make someone all of a sudden seem sexy.
"Three weeks ago he was just another nice guy in the office and now everything about him is sexual," says Dr. Fisher.
All this research into sex and love got the researchers thinking:
Most other mammals don't have this drive for romantic love and attachment.
Why do humans have it?
After all, we could easily propagate the species just with our sexual urges.
Dr. Fisher thinks it has a lot to do with how difficult it once was to raise children.
"Go back millions of years to the grasslands of Africa.
A woman was carrying the equivalent of a 20-pound bowling ball in one arm, and sticks and rocks in another arm to protect herself in this dangerous environment.
She needed a partner to help her.
And even today, when we have strollers and the environment isn't quite as dangerous, having a mate still helps.
"There are women who raise a baby by themselves, but it's a lot harder," she says.
Male brain - female brain
In their work with the lovestruck, the scientists found brain differences between men and women.
"The men had quite a bit more activity in the brain region that integrates visual stimuli.
This isn't surprising considering that men support the porn industry and women spend their lives trying to look good for men," says Dr. Fisher.
But she adds there's probably a more anthropological reason at work.
Simply put: A man's evolutionary mission is to spread his seed.
That won't work if he mates with an 80-year-old grandmother.
"Men have to be able to size up a woman visually to see if she can bear babies," says Dr. Fisher.
The women's brain activities were a bit more puzzling.
The scientists found that women in love had more activity than men in the areas of the brain that govern memories.
Dr. Fisher theorizes that this is a "female mechanism for mate choice."
There are no visual clues for whether a man is fertile, but if a woman really studies a man and remembers things about his behavior, she can try to determine whether he'd make a reliable mate and father.
Thus, if it sometimes seems like a woman remembers everything good and bad about a man, "it's not just her being picky.
It's an old Darwinian evolutionary strategy.
In the end, Drs.
Fisher and Brown say what they learned from lovers' brains is that romantic love isn't really an emotion it's a drive that's based deep within our brains, right alongside our urges to find food and water.
"This helps explain why we do crazy things for love," says Dr. Brown.
"Why did Edward VIII give up the throne for Wallis Simpson?
The systems that are built into us to find food and water are the things that were also active when he renounced the throne of England.
Now their research is centered on the flip side of love.
They've recruited college students who'd just been rejected by their sweethearts.
Again, the scientists performed MRI's while these students looked at photos of the objects of their affection.
This time, the results were different, Dr. Brown says.
The insular cortex, the part of the brain that experiences physical pain, became very active.
"People came out of the machine crying," she said.
"We won't be doing that experiment again for a long time.
The two Koreas agreed to resume stalled high-level talks later this month, officials said on Thursday, in the first concrete sign of easing tensions on the divided peninsula after the North signed a breakthrough disarmament agreement.
The Cabinet-level talks the highest dialogue channel between the two Koreas will be held in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, from February 27 through to March 2, according to a joint statement adopted at a lower-level meeting in the North Korean border city of Kaesong.
South and North Korea have held 19 high-level meetings since 2000, but they have been suspended for seven months amid chilled relations following North Korea's missile launches in July and nuclear test in October.
The two sides "affirmed each other's will to continue developing South-North relations," the statement said.
Cabinet-level talks which usually serve as a forum for discussion on Seoul's aid to the impoverished North could lead to a resumption of the regular delivery of rice and fertilizer to the communist nation.
South Korea suspended its aid after the July missile tests.
The agreement to restart the inter-Korean talks comes after the nuclear pact, reached on Tuesday among the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States.
The disarmament pact requires North Korea to seal its main nuclear reactor, allow international inspectors and begin accounting for other nuclear programs within 60 days.
Within that time, more talks are planned on ending the hostilities between North Korea and the U.S. and Japan.
In return, North Korea will receive 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil, a modest down payment on a promised 1 million tons in oil or aid of a similar value if it ultimately disarms.
One million tons of oil is more than two-thirds of North Korea's entire oil consumption in 2004, according to the CIA Factbook.
The aid package is worth about US$250 million (euro190 million) at current prices.
South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun and his U.S. counterpart George W. Bush agreed during a telephone conversation that "they were now at a starting point to kick-start the process of resolving the North Korea nuclear issue," Roh's office said in a statement on Thursday.
The two leaders also "stressed that each country should sincerely implement" the nuclear deal, according to the statement.
South Korea's Foreign Minister Song Min-soon had similar telephone discussions with his U.S. and Chinese counterparts, and planned to talk with the Japanese and Russian foreign ministers, the Foreign Ministry said.
Both Roh and Song are on a European tour.
In Washington, Bush said on Wednesday that the disarmament pact was "a good first step.
"There's a lot of work to be done to make sure that the commitments made in this agreement become reality," he told a news conference. "But I believe it's an important step in the right direction.
No timetable was set for North Korea which has a history of backpedalling on agreements to declare all of its nuclear programs and ultimately dismantle them.
The two Koreas remain technically at war since the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a cease-fire, but their relations have warmed significantly since the one-and-only summit between their leaders in 2000.
ÏÀ» Á¦°øÇÏÁö ¾Ê½À´Ï´Ù.
President Bush said Wednesday that "a part of the Iranian government" is involved in sending deadly explosives into Iraq but acknowledged he didn't know whether top Iranian leaders were responsible.
"What we do know is that the Quds Force was instrumental in providing these deadly IEDs to networks inside of Iraq," Bush said at a White House news conference, referring to a branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
"We also know that the Quds Force is a part of the Iranian government."
Bush insisted there was no contradiction between statements from his administration and the U.S. military.
"I don't think we know who picked up the phone and said, 'The Quds Force, go do this,' but we know it's a vital part of the Iranian government.
What matters is, is that we're responding.
The possible involvement of the Iranian government in sending weapons to Iraq has been a hot topic since unnamed military officials told journalists Sunday in Baghdad that Iran's Quds Force was providing munitions to Shiite groups in Iraq.
The briefers said the Quds Forces answer directly to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and that orders for their operations come "from the highest levels of the government.
The officials displayed evidence of the armor-piercing explosives found in Iraq and said they have caused 170 coalition deaths. (Read Time.com's analysis on how much Iran is to blame for Iraq)
The weekend briefing generated much controversy, with bloggers, journalists and others questioning whether the military was trying to drum up public sentiment for a confrontation with Iran.
There was also criticism that the briefers wouldn't allow reporters to use their names.
But the president Wednesday rejected as "preposterous" suggestions that the United States was creating a basis for conflict with Iran.
"My job is to protect our troops, and when we find devices that are in that country that are hurting our troops, we're going to do something about it, pure and simple.," he said "...
Does this mean you're trying to have a pretext for war?
It means I'm trying to protect our troops. That's what that means.
On Tuesday, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, did not go as far as assertions made during Sunday's briefing in Baghdad.
During a trip to Australia, Pace told Voice of America, "It is clear that Iranians are involved and it is clear that materials from Iran are involved, but I would not say, based on what I know, that the Iranian government clearly knows or is complicit. " (Full story)
Also Wednesday, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad would not confirm recent military statements that Iran's leadership is directing the production of an armor-piercing explosive said to be supplied to extremists in Iraq.
"I think people want to make an inference," Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said at a briefing.
"I think people want to hype this up.
What we're saying is that in Iran ... munitions are being manufactured that are ending up in Iraq.
We are asking the Iranian government for that to stop.
Caldwell said there was a "tremendous amount of agreement" between Pace's remarks and what other military officials are saying.
He cited physical evidence of Iran munitions, the manufacturing of the explosively formed penetrators, known as EFPs, and the detention of Quds Force personnel. (Watch Pentagon top brass discuss the possible Iran connection )
The Bush administration hopes to resettle about 7,000 Iraqi refugees to the United States this year, the State Department said Wednesday.
The decision comes amid pressure from the U.S. Congress and the international community to do more about the growing refugee crisis.
U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres estimates as many as 2 million Iraqis have left their country since the war began, and another 1.7 million have moved within Iraq as a result of increased sectarian violence.
The United States, however, has taken in only 466 Iraqi refugees since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with Guterres to outline a new U.S. program for Iraqi refugees, which includes $18 million for additional funding for UNHCR
to assist with resettlement of refugees in other countries and humanitarian aid.
The plan is the work of a new task force announced last week to study the Iraqi refugee issue.
U.S. Undersecretary Paula Dobriansky, who led the task force, said the United States would attempt to resettle about 7,000 Iraqi refugees from countries where they have fled from Iraq.
"The United States and the international community can best help displaced Iraqis by quelling the violence in Iraq," she said.
"At the same time, we have a responsibility to respond to the immediate needs of Iraqis who have fled violence and persecution.
Dobriansky said the United States is also working to develop special provisions for resettlement of thousands of Iraqis who work for the United States in Iraq and are still there, but face increased threat because of their cooperation with the coalition.
The 7,000 Iraqis would be included as part of 70,000 refugees worldwide permitted under U.S. law to resettle in the United States each year.
U.S. Assistant Secretary for Population, Refugees, and Migration Ellen Sauerbrey said that Iraqis referred to the United States from UNHCR and other countries for possible resettlement in the United States would go through rigorous security checks and health screening before being allowed to migrate.
The United States has been criticized for accepting only a small number of refugees since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
Sauerbrey said that it wasn't until the February 2006 bombing of the Shiite mosque in Samarra that the sectarian violence began to reach a level that prompted large numbers of refugees to flee Iraq, and until then the need for resettlement was rather small.
The majority of Iraqi refugees have fled into Syria and Jordan.
Guterres, who attended the briefing for reporters, said that while resettling refugees is very important, providing aid to neighboring countries so that refugees living there temporarily can live dignified lives is also critical.
He said Arab countries are hosting refugees because of their traditional culture of hospitality, but those countries need additional capacity to help refugees over the long term.
While he said resettlement could mean "life or death" for some Iraqis, it will never fully address the problem.
He stressed a political solution is needed so that refugees will be able to go home.
Last week, Rice authorized the U.S. Embassy in Syria to talk to to the Syrian government about the flow of Iraqi refugees, but made clear it was not the start of a broader conversation on Iraq.
Dobriansky said the United States has been in contact with several countries in the region, including Syria, about the refugee situation in those nations.
When asked if the U.S. commitment is enough, Guterres said, "The dimension of the problem is so huge that nothing is anytime enough, but I think it's a very good start.
He said the United Nations will hold a donors conference in coming months to raise money to help Iraqi refugees and those internally displaced.
He said Iran, which is currently hosting about 50,000 Iraqi refugees, will take part. Çѱ۴º½ºÀÇ ¿ø¹ ®Àºµû · Î ¸ñ ·
India will test-fire a new missile within the next few months capable of carrying nuclear warheads across much of Asia and the Middle East, a news report quoting a top defense scientist said.
A first test of the Agni III missile failed in July last year, but scientists have fixed a fault in its heat shield and it will be relaunched again "very soon," the head of India's state-run Defense Research and Development Organization, M. Natrajan, said, according to a Press Trust of India report on Wednesday.
"We have now come up with a flexible heat shield.
All other parameters of the missile would remain the same," the report cited Natrajan as saying.
Natrajan did not give an exact timeframe for the test. "It may be in May or June or even earlier," he said.
India's current crop of missiles have been largely intended to confront neighboring archrival Pakistan.
The Agni III, in contrast, is India's longest-range missile, designed to reach 3,000 kilometers (1,900 miles) putting China's major cities well into range, as well as targets deep in the Middle East.
It is also said to be capable of carrying up to a 300 kiloton nuclear warhead.
India and China have engaged in decades of mutual suspicion and fought a 1962 border war.
But relations have warmed considerably in recent years as the two Asian giants have boosted trade and economic ties.
India's External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee met his Chinese counterpart Li Zhaoxing and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Wednesday to discuss business, trade and energy security among the three Asian powers.
India's homegrown missile arsenal already includes the short-range Prithvi ballistic missile, the medium-range Akash, the anti-tank Nag and the supersonic Brahmos missile, developed jointly with Russia.
Natrajan, who is also a scientific adviser to India's defense department, also said that the DRDO may carry out a second test of its interceptor missile before testing Agni III.
using a second missile to shoot down an incoming rocket.
An Australian journalist has refused to apologize to the Japanese government over his book on the life of Crown Princess Masako, which Tokyo says insults the royal family and contains factual errors.
In an interview with Kyodo news agency published on Wednesday, Ben Hills said Tokyo's reaction to his book, "Princess Masako - Prisoner of the Chrysanthemum Throne" was outrageous.
"I regard this as an attempt by the Japanese government to suppress and censor my book and I think it is absolutely outrageous," Kyodo quoted Hills as saying.
"There is nothing to apologize for.
In fact, there is only one person in this saga that deserves an apology and that's Princess Masako," he added.
"I think the Kunaicho (Imperial Household Agency) should apologize to her for bullying her into a state of nervous breakdown.
Hills has described his book as "the story of a romance gone wrong, an Oriental Charles and Diana story".
The 43-year-old Masako is a Harvard-educated former diplomat, whom many had hoped would help modernize Japan's staid imperial family when she married Crown Prince Naruhito in 1993.
But she has been suffering from a stress-related mental illness caused by the pressures of adapting to rigid royal life, and has been unable to perform her official duties fully for the past three years.
Japan's Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday it was seeking an apology and "appropriate steps" from Hills and publisher, Random House, Australia, saying the book contains groundless statements about the royal family.
Hills told Kyodo that he intended to go ahead with plans to publish a Japanese-language edition of the book in early March.
Japanese diplomats told Hills that one of the defamatory aspects of his book was his claim that Masako's daughter, Princess Aiko, was conceived by in vitro fertilization, Kyodo said.
The claim was widely reported in the international press but ignored by the Japanese media, Hills was quoted as saying.
Hills spent a year researching the book and conducted 60 interviews including with sources close to the imperial family, although the palace turned down his requests for an interview, the Australian Associated Press said in a separate report.
While pressure to bear an heir to Japan's males-only throne was widely seen as one of the causes of Masako's illness, the stress may have eased when her royal sister-in-law gave
birth last September to Prince Hisahito, the first male heir born to the imperial family in more than 40 years.
The 5-year-old Aiko, Masako and Naruhito's only child, cannot ascend the throne under current law, and plans to revise the law were shelved after Hisahito's birth.
European governments and secret services accepted and concealed secret U.S. flights taking terrorism suspects across Europe, the European Parliament said on Wednesday.
EU lawmakers backed a final report concluding a year of investigations into allegations that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency secretly held terror suspects in Europe and flew some to states that practise torture.
The article adopted by deputies said the European Parliament "condemns extraordinary rendition as an illegal instrument used by the United States in the fight against terrorism.
"(It) condemns, further, the acceptance and concealing of the practice, on several occasions, by the secret services and governmental authorities of certain European countries.
Lawmakers criticised Italy, backing the conclusions of an Italian prosecutor who wants to try 26 Americans, most believed to be CIA agents, and six Italians for their role in the 2003 kidnapping of a Muslim cleric in Milan.
Lawmakers rejected an amendment by the conservative European People's Party that said there was limited hard evidence the government of then-Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was aware of the abduction of Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, known as Abu Omar.
The EU assembly has no legal powers over the matter and can only make recommendations.
"You cannot fight terrorism in a dirty war in our name," said Ignasi Guardans Cambo, speaking for the Liberal group.
"It is the rigorous analysis of five years of excesses and abuses often tolerated in the name of the fight against terrorism," Socialist Claudio Fava, the report's author, told parliament.
"Many governments have looked the other way.
But Jas Gawronski, the lead conservative EPP lawmaker on the investigating committee, disagreed.
"It presumes there is one chief guilty party and that is the U.S.," he said.
"That's why we don't like this report.
Washington acknowledges the secret transfer of suspects to third countries but denies torturing them or handing them to countries that did.
EU president Germany, one of the countries criticized, told lawmakers they should be more cautious in some of the accusations.
EU Justice and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini added: "It is not for the European institutions to pass judgments and to hand out verdicts but ... to ask that the truth be sought.
He was referring to judicial and parliamentary probes in several states including Germany, Spain and Portugal.
Rights groups had urged EU lawmakers not to dilute the report in Wednesday's vote on amendments aimed at toning down either the whole accusation of collusion with alleged CIA abuses, or criticism on individual states.
BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) Tens of thousands packed into a city square Wednesday to mark the second anniversary of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri's assassination as hundreds of troops were deployed a day after bus bombings killed three people.
Troops in full combat gear and armored cars deployed in and around Martyrs' Square, where the country's two main rival groups were present:
government supporters commemorating Hariri's death and opposition supporters continuing their daily sit-in to demand the government's resignation.
The soldiers set up a razor wire barrier to separate the two groups, and police conducted body searches of people arriving in the square.
At exactly 12:55 p.m. the time of the explosion that killed Hariri and 22 others the crowd fell silent except for a muezzin making the Islamic call to prayer and the tolling of a church bell.
Standing at the speaker's podium, Hariri's son, Saad, and sister, Bahiya, prayed.
The speakers addressed the crowd from behind bulletproof glass, calling for approval of a U.N.-created tribunal to try suspects in the Hariri assassination.
The tribunal's ratification has been held up by political dispute.
A respected Shiite cleric from southern Lebanon, Ali Amin, criticized the Shiite-backed opposition parties, Hezbollah and Amal, for failing to strike a deal with the government.
The two parties withdrew from the Cabinet last year.
"Our fate is through agreement and the mechanism is to return to the logic of the state and institutions," said Amin, without naming Hezbollah and Amal.
Referring to the failure to ratify the tribunal, he said "it was strange" to oppose justice.
Explosions stoke fears
Tuesday's explosions on commuter buses on a busy mountain highway northeast of Beirut stoked fears of turmoil as the country prepared to mark the 2005 assassination of Hariri, the nation's most prominent politician and the leader credited with rebuilding the country from the destruction of the 1975-90 civil war.
Lebanon has suffered a series of bombings during the past two years, mostly targeting anti-Syrian figures, but Tuesday's attacks were the first that seemed intended to cause maximum casualties among civilians of no political affiliation.
"We will hunt down the criminals and confront them," Prime Minister Fuad Saniora vowed in a televised speech Tuesday evening.
The U.N. Security Council condemned the bombing, urging all Lebanese parties to exercise restraint and stressing its support for the government.
The pro-government majority in parliament said it held "the Syrian regime fully responsible for this despicable crime."
Government supporters said the blasts were intended to scare people away from Wednesday's commemoration.
They urged their supporters to show up in large numbers.
The government, which has faced down months of demonstrations calling for its resignation, declared Wednesday a national holiday, closing schools, universities, banks and public institutions in a move that would allow for a big turnout.
In a bid to allow the anniversary to pass peacefully, the major opposition figure, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, praised the late Hariri in a letter published on the front page of As-Safir newspaper Wednesday.
Nasrallah said Hariri's killing in a massive truck bomb on Feb. 14, 2005, was a loss for the whole country.
'National demand'
Finding the perpetrators has become "a collective national demand," Nasrallah wrote.
Hariri and 22 others were killed in a huge explosion that occurred as his motorcade was passing through central Beirut.
He was buried a few blocks away from the site.
Outrage over the assassination forced Syria to withdraw its troops from Lebanon two months later, ending a 29-year presence.
A U.N. investigation into the assassination is continuing, but Lebanon has been hit by a string of bombings in the past two years that many government supporters blame on Syria.
Syria has denied any role in the attacks, including the Hariri assassination.
None of the perpetrators has been caught from the series of bombings, which killed four anti-Syrian figures, wounded two others, and occasionally have struck public areas, killing three people.
Tuesday's bus bombings, however, were the first time that an attack appeared aimed to exact maximum casualties on civilians with no political affiliation.
The blasts fueled tension in the power struggle where the opposition, led by the Syrian- and Iranian-backed Hezbollah, has vowed to bring down Saniora's government.
The opposition has demanded an enlargement of its representation in the coalition Cabinet to give it a veto on decision making.
Saniora, who is backed by a slim parliamentary majority and many foreign states such as France and the United States, has rejected the opposition's demands.
The Hariri parliamentary faction and other pro-government groups have accused Hezbollah of doing Syria's bidding.
##http://article.joins.com/article/cnn_e/article.asp?cat_code=22&Total_ID=2636729
Expecting the resurgent Taliban to stage a spring offensive, the U.S. military is moving a brigade of troops into Afghanistan, instead of Iraq, Pentagon officials said Wednesday.
About 3,200 soldiers from the 173rd Airborne Brigade base in Vicenza, Italy, will go this spring to the porous eastern Afghan border with Pakistan.
The soldiers will replace the already extended 3rd Brigade of the 10th Mountain Division.
The 173rd already was training to deploy to Iraq, Pentagon officials said.
Moving the 173rd into Afghanistan will have no effect on the forces scheduled to deploy to Baghdad because commanders will identify other troops to replace the brigade, the officials said.
The new troops will keep the level of U.S. forces in Afghanistan at about 27,000, the highest number of U.S. troops there since the October 2001 invasion.
The decision to move the troops came last month when Defense Secretary Robert Gates visited the then-commander in Afghanistan, Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry.
The general told Gates he needed the additional soldiers to deal with rising violence in the country and to combat an expected Taliban assault in the spring.
Eikenberry extended the 3rd Brigade's tour by 120 days, until another unit could be identified to replace them.
There is no official date set for moving the brigade into Afghanistan, and there has been no word on what units will replace the 173rd in Iraq.
About 50,000 U.S. and NATO troops are currently inside Afghanistan.
A hard-won disarmament pact that the U.S. and four other nations struck with North Korea requires the communist nation to halt its nuclear programs in exchange for oil.
But the deal leaves the ultimate abandonment of those weapons projects to a potentially trouble-filled future.
In a sign of potential problems to come, North Korea's state news agency said the country was receiving 1 million tons of oil for a "temporary suspension" of its nuclear facilities and failed to mention the full disarmament for which the agreement calls.
"We have a lot of work to do," U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill told reporters Tuesday. "It's certainly not the end of the process, it's really just the end of the beginning of the process. " (Details of the deal)
"These talks represent the best opportunity to use diplomacy to address North Korea's nuclear programs," U.S. President George W. Bush said in a statement. "They reflect the common commitment of the participants to a Korean peninsula that is free of nuclear weapons."
(Watch the range of reaction to the agreements )
He said, "I think a number of people are going to ask the question, `Couldn't this deal have been concluded three or four years ago before North Korea conducted its nuclear test and acquired enough additional plutonium to build anywhere from six to 10 nuclear weapons?
No timetable set In the negotiations, envoys debated who would pay for North Korea's disarmament.
China, the U.S., South Korea and Russia agreed to foot the bill though Moscow may contribute in the form of debt relief.
Japan has refused to provide aid until Pyongyang fully accounts for the abductions of Japanese citizens by North Korea.
"We understand it marks the first concrete step by North Korea toward its nuclear dismantlement," Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said.
"But our position that Japan cannot provide support without a resolution of the abduction issue is unchanged.
Disarmament, however, is likely to remain the thorniest problem.
"What if North Korea doesn't show them to inspectors, if they say we've stopped this and shut down that, what if they say you have to trust us?" said Liu Gongliang, a physicist at China's Institute of Applied Physics and Computational Mathematics who has followed North Korea's nuclear program for the Chinese government.
Under the deal, the North is required to seal its main nuclear reactor and related facilities at Yongbyon, north of the capital, within 60 days and allow inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Senior IAEA figures have met regularly with North Korean diplomats in past months preparing for such a mission, and a diplomat familiar with the status of preparations told The Associated Press that IAEA inspectors could be on site "within days" once given the go-ahead.
But no timetable was set for a final declaration by North Korea of all its nuclear programs and their ultimate dismantling.
North Korea has sidestepped previous agreements.
It allegedly operated its uranium-based weapons program even as it froze a plutonium-based one, sparking the latest nuclear crisis in late 2002.
The country is believed to have countless mountainside tunnels in which to hide projects.
The uranium program was not explicitly addressed in the agreement.
But, Hill said, "I certainly have made very clear repeatedly that we need to ensure that we know precisely the status of that."
The nuclear issue has frequently been ensnarled by lingering frictions between the North and its neighbors, as well as a dispute over U.S. sanctions against the regime for alleged money laundering and counterfeiting activities.
Hill said the sanctions issue would be resolved within 30 days, but didn't provide specifics.
The United States will also begin the process of removing North Korea from its designation as a terror-sponsoring state and also on ending U.S. trade sanctions, but no deadlines have been was set, according to the agreement.
Washington's blacklisting of a Macau bank in September 2005 had led the North to a more-than-yearlong boycott of the six-nation talks during which it tested its first nuclear bomb.
Prosecutors indicted Taiwan presidential hopeful Ma Ying-jeou on corruption charges Tuesday, dealing a blow to the Harvard-educated lawyer widely considered to be a front-runner because of his reputation for being a clean politician.
Ma denied the charges in a televised speech and announced that he would run for president next year.
Many have high hopes the charismatic politician will be able to improve Taiwan's rocky relations with rival China, which has repeatedly threatened to attack.
"I want to face the people and prove my innocence," he said, adding, "Ma Ying-jeou won't be knocked down.
However, Ma did announce that he would step down as chairman of the Nationalist Party in line with a promise he has made repeatedly over the past several weeks.
Investigators have spent three months probing allegations that Ma mishandled a public fund when he was the popular mayor of Taipei.
The probe wrapped up Tuesday, and Chang Wen-cheng, spokesman for the Taipei High Prosecutors Office, announced on television that Ma was being charged.
"Ma Ying-jeou is being indicted because the investigation has shown 11 million New Taiwan dollars (US$333,000) of public money was diverted to his private account," between 2002 and 2006, Chang said.
Chang added that Ma gave contradictory explanations to officials investigating how the money was handled.
The indictment could well put a damper on chances for a thaw in Taiwan's perennially troubled relations with China.
Beijing is believed to have high hopes that a Ma victory in the 2008 presidential elections would help lead the way to eventual reunification of the rivals, which split amid civil war in 1949.
The Nationalists favor unity though without putting a time limit on it while many in the ruling Democratic Progressive Party support a formalization of Taiwan's de facto independence.
Ma had been under investigation since November for allegedly remitting half the money from a special Taipei city expense fund into his personal bank account.
The alleged inconsistencies in the handling of the fund were originally pointed out by the DPP.
Ma has portrayed himself as the "Mr. Clean" of Taiwanese politics, leading the opposition's criticisms of President Chen Shui-bian over a series of alleged corruption scandals involving the president's family and inner circle.
Chen's wife and three presidential aides were indicted last November for allegedly skimming from a special presidential fund used to promote Taiwanese diplomatic activities abroad.
At the time, prosecutors said Chen could be indicted on the same charges when his immunity lapses after he leaves office.
Ma's Nationalist Party has said diverting money from municipal funds is common for Taiwanese local leaders, and is approved by government auditors.
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is apologizing for saying the lives of the more than 3,000 U.S. troops killed in the Iraq war were "wasted.
During his first campaign trip this weekend, the Illinois senator told a crowd in Iowa: "We now have spent $400 billion and have seen over 3,000 lives of the bravest young Americans wasted." (Watch Obama announce his candidacy)
He immediately apologized on Sunday, saying the remark was "a slip of the tongue.
During an appearance Monday in Nashua, New Hampshire, he apologized again, telling reporters he meant to criticize the civilian leadership of the war, not those serving in the military.
"Even as I said it, I realized I had misspoken," Obama said.
"It is not at all what I intended to say, and I would absolutely apologize if any (military families) felt that in some ways it had diminished the enormous courage and sacrifice that they'd shown.
Obama made his second visit to New Hampshire on Monday, following his speech Saturday announcing his candidacy in Illinois on Saturday and a visit to first-caucus state Iowa.
Film star Leonardo DiCaprio is slated to produce and star in a new film on the collapse of the giant energy company Enron, Warner Bros. movie studio said Tuesday.
Warner Bros. made the deal last week for the film, which would most likely be based on "Conspiracy of Fools", a book chronicling the scandal written by New York Times reporter Kurt Eichenwald, the studio said, confirming a report first published by Variety, the entertainment industry publication.
DiCaprio, nominated for an Academy Award for his role in the film "Blood Diamond" last year, will play a newcomer who exposes the accounting fraud at the Houston-based company, the studio said.
He will produce the film through his production company, Appian Way.
DiCaprio's film would be the latest to recount the downfall of Enron.
In 2005 the documentary "Enron:
The Smartest Guys in the Room" was released, based on a book of the same title by Fortune reporters Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind. (Click here for an excerpt)
Enron filed for bankruptcy in December 2001 after investigators found it had used partnerships to conceal more than $1 billion in debt and inflate profits.
Enron's downfall cost 4,000 employees their jobs and many of them their life savings, and led to billions of dollars of losses for investors.
Former Enron Chief Executive Jeffrey Skilling, who gained infamy as the man who orchestrated the fraud, was sentenced to more than 24 years in jail.
Skilling's co-conspirator, company founder Ken Lay was convicted of 10 counts of fraud and conspiracy, but passed away in July of a heart problem.
His conviction was legally vacated as a result of his death.
Delegates at a whaling conference in Japan are expected to begin discussing how to reform the International Whaling Commission on Wednesday, even though more than half the organization's members were boycotting the meeting.
Japan opened the conference Tuesday by issuing a stinging rebuke of the dozens of anti-whaling nations that stayed away, saying their absence would prevent much-needed improvements to the commission.
Critics contend Japan plans to use the conference to push for a resumption of commercial whaling, and the boycotters only 34 of 72 IWC member nations are represented at the meeting included anti-whaling countries Britain, Australia and the United States.
Minoru Morimoto, Japan's IWC representative, said at the opening of the conference that the boycott made it "almost impossible" to have a worthwhile discussion on reforming the IWC, which Japan argues should manage commercial whaling rather than ban it outright.
"The possibility of achieving normalization of the IWC is also being lost," Morimoto said.
A global moratorium on commercial whaling has existed since 1986, but Japan kills hundreds of whales each year under a scientific whaling program conducted within the commission's rules.
The meat from the program is sold as food.
Tokyo maintains that whaling is a national tradition and a vital part of its food culture, and argues that whale stocks have sufficiently recovered since 1986 to allow a resumption of limited hunts of certain species.
Many environmental groups claim Japan's research program is merely an excuse to keep hunting whales.
Japan argues the program is needed to gauge whale populations and to study their breeding and feeding habits.
Opponents also accused Japan of buying support from other nations in the IWC with aid.
Attendees will start working on a report on IWC reform during Wednesday's session, Fisheries Agency official Joji Morishita told reporters Tuesday evening.
The report will eventually be submitted to the IWC for its consideration, he said.
"For many years the IWC has been at an impasse," said Turid Rodrigues Eusebio, the representative from Norway, a leading pro-whaling country.
Anti-hunt protesters have clashed, sometimes violently, in recent days with Japanese whaling ships in the South Pacific.
On Friday conservationists threw stink bombs onto the deck of a whale processing ship after a confrontation at high seas, prompting the Japanese government to brand them "terrorists."
Another protest ship collided with a Japanese whale-spotting ship on Monday.
Both claimed they were rammed by the other.
The Japanese ships are authorized to slaughter up to 945 whales in Antarctic waters under the scientific whaling program.
Hosting a technical conference like 3GSM in a beautiful city like Barcelona may seem odd.
After all, few people will see much the city has to offer in the daylight.
Instead, the thousands of participants spend the four days of 3GSM indoors, striking deals or talking about the latest in mobile technology.
Then again, Barcelona may the best backdrop. Especially this year.
3GSM 2007 is all about pretty pictures, in the form of content downloaded to your device.
Welcome to the world of the fourth screen.
Mobile manufacturers, network operators, software developers and content providers are scrambling to find the content you want pushed to your third generation or 3G device.
First there was the cinema screen, then there was television screen, then the Internet through a computer screen.
The fourth screen is a lot smaller, but people here at Barcelona are convinced you want to access all the content from the other three screens on your mobile phone.
On the first day, the organizers of 3GSM brought Hollywood in to whet your appetite for the sort of content that could soon be available for phones and other handheld devices.
Six short films were unveiled in collaboration with the Sundance Institute.
They were all shot exclusively for the fourth screen.
Robert Redford's Sundance asked several directors to create short films they thought people would want to watch on their mobile. And, just as importantly, want to share with the friends.
"We are fascinated by them," Sundance's John Cooper told CNN.
"The quality of them and the entertainment value of them are much better than we actually thought [they would be].
One of the films for this so-called "Global Short Film Project" is called "A Slip in Time" and was directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris.
Their current full-length feature film "Little Miss Sunshine" is up for an Academy Award.
They aren't sure how their short feature for the mobile screen will be received but they're looking forward to finding out how people will interact with it when all five films are released on the Sundance Web site.
"I like the idea that people will gather and say 'look at this, you've got to see this.
' And they all come together to watch or they share with a friend," said Faris.
It's this idea of their work potentially spreading via billions of screens that excites the directors who have made the films.
More are now expected.
Cooper said more Hollywood types are now interested.
"I think they love the idea of the viral spreading of the story, which is fascinating. And the numbers [of potential viewers] are incredible.
So wireless access to the same content you can get from the cinema, the TV and the Internet is coming thick and fast this year.
And the top people here at Barcelona this week promise it will be a lot easier, cheaper and more exciting than what they have delivered via the phone so far.
Çѱ۴º½ºÀÇ ¿ø¹ ®Àºµû
officials on Tuesday defended the Bush administration's policy shift on North Korea, which coincided with an agreement by Pyongyang to begin to close down its nuclear program.
North Korea now has 60 days to shut down its Yongbyon nuclear complex and readmit nuclear inspectors.
In return, it will get 50,000 tons of fuel oil or financial aid of an equal amount.
Once Pyongyang takes additional steps to disable its nuclear program, including taking inventory of its plutonium stockpile, it will qualify for another 950,000 tons of fuel oil or equivalent aid, according to the terms of the deal.
The aid package is worth $300 million. (Watch how the deal was made )
North Korean state media reported that the agreement called only for a "temporary suspension" of Pyongyang's nuclear program, according to wire reports.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice drew a distinction between the first 60-day period, when she said nuclear activities will be suspended, and the later "disablement phase.
"The disabling of these facilities is a sign that the North Koreans may, in fact, be ready to make a strategic choice," she said at a briefing in Washington.
"I will not take it as a complete sign until we've seen that disablement, but obviously disablement is an important step forward.
"I am pleased with the agreements reached today at the Six Party Talks in Beijing," President Bush said in a statement.
"These talks represent the best opportunity to use diplomacy to address North Korea's nuclear programs.
They reflect the common commitment of the participants to a Korean Peninsula that is free of nuclear weapons."
The United States, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia have been holding talks with North Korean officials since 2002 in an effort to convince Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons program.
Not addressed in the agreement is what will happen to any nuclear weapons North Korea may have stockpiled.
Reports have suggested that Pyongyang already may have as many as a dozen nuclear bombs.
The omission marks a change from the previous statements including by Christopher Hill, the U.S. envoy to the six-party talks, in September 2005 that all elements, past and present, of North Korea's nuclear program "will be comprehensively declared and completely, verifiably and irreversibly eliminated" for benefits to accrue.
The Bush administration halted fuel shipments agreed by the Clinton White House after North Korea said it was developing a nuclear weapons program in 2002.
Earlier that year President Bush labeled Pyongyang part of the "axis of evil.
John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, blasted the new deal Monday in an interview with CNN, saying it would only encourage other countries trying to secure nuclear weapons.
If you hold out long enough and wear down the State Department negotiators, eventually you get rewarded," said Bolton, who was also involved with North Korea earlier as the State Department's undersecretary for arms control.
"It makes the [Bush] administration look very weak at a time in Iraq and dealing with Iran it needs to look strong," he said.
Hill on Tuesday defended the deal, saying it is different from the policy developed under the Clinton administration because it is a multilateral agreement.
"This is not a bilateral deal between the U.S. and North Korea," Hill said.
"This involves six parties, with China in the share.
I think the deal here is that North Korea has made certain commitments not only to us, but to all of its neighbors."
Bolton said the six-party deal "contradicts fundamental premises of the president's policy he's been following for the past six years" and could have effects on U.S. relations in other hot spots.
"I'm hoping that the president has not been fully briefed on it and still has time to reject it," he said.
As U.N. ambassador, Bolton helped push through a U.N. resolution last year that led to economic sanctions against North Korea.
Responding to the criticism, Hill pointed out that Bolton is a private citizen and has the right to speak his mind.
Hill said he expects further criticism and emphasized that the deal is based on "initial actions" that will "begin a process aimed at complete denuclearization.
In October 2002, North Korea admitted it was developing a nuclear weapons program in violation of the 1994 Agreed Framework reached between the United States and North Korea.
In September 2005, North Korea committed to abandoning its nuclear program in exchange for aid and security guarantees.
Pyongyang walked away from the talks weeks later to protest a U.S. crackdown on banks suspected of helping North Korea with illegal financial activities.
In a message released Monday, al Qaeda's No. 2 leader called on Muslims to unite under Taliban leader Mullah Omar, stop trying to form secular governments and instead follow strict Islamic Sharia law.
The message from Ayman al-Zawahiri, the top aide to al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, appeared on an Islamist Web site.
The video contained a still picture of al-Zawahiri, the audio remarks and English subtitles.
A text translation also accompanied the tape and was provided to CNN by lauramansfield.com, a Web site that analyzes terrorism.
CNN could not immediately confirm the authenticity of the videotape.
Al-Zawahiri pledged allegiance to Mullah Omar and called on all his followers to reject animosity and differences and come together under Mullah Omar's banner.
Mullah Omar is the elusive, shadowy Taliban leader who slipped away in the early days of the war in Afghanistan.
Calling the governments of Iraq and Afghanistan, allied with the United States, "traitors," al-Zawahiri warned that the United States "is about to depart and abandon them, just as it abandoned their like in Vietnam.
But al-Zawahiri did not reserve his venom only for the "Crusaders" and "Zionists."
He also targeted the "charlatans" of Islam, saying their "long beards, huge turbans, majestic titles, purported lineages and popular myths are no substitute for the truth.
He called on Palestinians to drop their secular government and instead govern themselves by Sharia (Islamic) law.
"A sovereign government will only be achieved if you liberate Palestine from the Jews and their agents, and only if you set up a government which rules by Sharia," he said.
"Otherwise, the soap opera of embargoes and pursuits and killings and denunciations will just go on and on.
Al-Zawahiri's latest message - like his last released January 22 had harsh words for President Bush and the United States.
Al-Zawahiri said Bush was "addicted to drinking, lying and gambling" and that "the American people are the ones who chose him twice, out of greed for the Muslims' treasures and in animosity to them.
"That's why the intelligent person does not absolve them, the British people and all peoples of the Crusader Alliance from responsibility, for they are the ones who elected Bush, Blair and their allies and supported them in their aggression against Afghanistan and Iraq," he said.
Al-Zawahiri also took aim at Democrats, directing a part of his message to them.
"The people chose you due to your opposition to Bush's policy in Iraq, but it appears that you are marching with him to the same abyss, and it appears that you will take part with him in the defeat and certain failure, with God's permission," he said.
"And the American people shall discover that you are all one side of the same coin of tyranny, criminality and failure. "
Christopher Hill, nuclear negotiator, media superstar.
Little known in his home country, the boyish-looking U.S. assistant secretary of state has become a celebrity in China's capital and not just for his role as Washington's chief envoy in talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons program.
"He's so charming and attractive," said Li Kenna, a desk clerk at the five-star hotel Hill stays at in Beijing.
"He sometimes asks me how I am in the mornings," she said.
"He's one of our nicest guests.
Hill who has faced down Slobodan Milosevic and barricaded himself against mobs in Macedonia as a negotiator in the Bosnia and Kosovo crises has been making periodic visits to Beijing for years, with troops of reporters flying in from South Korea and Japan to cover his wrangling with Pyongyang over a deal that would rid the communist country of its nuclear weapons program.
His easygoing manner has also won over the media in comparison to the stonewall public relations efforts put forward by some of the other countries in the talks.
And with the negotiations taking place for hours on end behind closed doors, the idle time fuels speculation and jokes about Hill.
At the last round of talks in December, a Chinese TV producer gave Hill, who is married with three children, a Christmas card.
The interest in Hill may also stem from the fact that he speaks every morning and evening to the media, while his North Korean counterpart, Kim Kye Gwan, gives only the occasional chaotic news conference.
Hill, a Boston Red Sox fan, also won over the Japanese media by turning up for meetings in Tokyo wearing a Seibu Lions baseball cap.
The Red Sox had just signed pitching star Daisuke Matsuzaka from the Lions.
Concerns about Hill's health he has been sick several times in the cold Beijing winter and looked ill several days ago have elicited almost motherly concern from some female reporters.
You don't look too well," a South Korean reporter, Koo Hee-jin, asked at one news conference during the latest round of talks that started on Thursday.
A career foreign service officer who has served five presidents, Hill speaks Polish, Serbo-Croation, Macedonian and Albanian.
Hill has also been mobbed at the Beijing airport, with Chinese travelers rushing over to have their picture taken with him, said one of Hill's security officials, who asked not to be named.
Warlords are forcing children in conflicts around the world to become killing machines nothing more than what one child advocate calls "cannon fodder.
Some children are kidnapped from their schools or their beds, some are recruited after seeing their parents slaughtered, some may even choose to join the militias as their best hope for survival in war-torn countries from Colombia, and across Africa and the Middle East, to south Asia.
Once recruited, many are brainwashed, trained, given drugs and then sent into battle with orders to kill.
There is no escape for what the United Nations and human rights groups estimate are 250,000 child soldiers today.
These children, some as young as 8, become fighters, sex slaves, spies and even human shields.
Sometimes their guns are taller than they are.
But the child soldiers can be frighteningly cold and effective, according to CNN Africa correspondent Jeff Koinange. (Audio Slide Show: Koinange describes coming face to face with gun-wielding children)
"The saddest part is we, as adults, had to address them as such," he added.
"Otherwise you just never knew what would happen."
The children's very vulnerability makes them attractive to the men leading militias, according to Jo Becker, who has interviewed former child soldiers in Sri Lanka, Nepal, Uganda and Myanmar for Human Rights Watch.
They are easy to manipulate and will do the unspeakable without question or protest, partly because their morals and value systems are not yet fully formed, she said.
In some cultures, child soldiers 40 percent of whom can be girls are considered expendable "cannon fodder," she said.
Ordered not to cry
The journey from boy or girl to killing machine follows a horrifying route of indoctrination, including being forced to execute friends and family, international organizations report.
One girl, Angela, 12, told Human Rights Watch she was told to shoot a friend when she joined Colombia's FARC guerrillas. (Watch children drilled for war in the mud)
"I closed my eyes and fired the gun, but I didn't hit her.
So I shot again," she said.
"I had to bury her and put dirt on top of her.
The commander said, 'You'll have to do this many more times, and you'll have to learn not to cry.'
An indictment against Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga Dyilo asserts that one of his commanders threatened to shoot a 13-year-old girl unless she tied the testicles of a prisoner with wire.
She complied and the captive died.
In Myanmar formerly known as Burma a boy who was 11 when he was recruited to the national army, had to watch as older soldiers gunned down mothers and then killed their babies.
"They swung them by their legs and smashed them against a rock.
I saw it," Kim Muang Than told Human Rights Watch.
Changing times
Officials with the United Nations, UNICEF and human rights groups said they are seeing promising signs, 20 years after the United Nations first addressed the issue.
Child soldiers were on the agenda for a U.N. Security Council working committee Friday.
The committee discussed how rebel groups in Nepal and Sri Lanka use children to fight.
Action against militias in the Ivory Coast and the Democratic Republic of Congo was also considered.
Last week, 58 countries and nongovernmental agencies signed a treaty to do more to free current and potential child soldiers from peril.
And, on January 29, the International Criminal Court forged ahead with its first war crimes prosecution, targeting Lubanga on charges of recruiting child soldiers The act was declared a war crime when the ICC was established in 2002.
"In the past there haven't been consequences against the commanders," said Becker, of Human Rights Watch.
"This sends a signal to the groups that the world is paying attention now, you can be jailed for life and your assets can be frozen.
"I think we've come a long way," said Radhika Coomaraswamy, the United Nations' envoy for children and armed conflict.
"Ten years ago this was an invisible issue.
Since last summer, groups in Burundi, Ivory Coast, Myanmar, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan and Somalia have been referred to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions.
But there are many, many more.
Child soldiers have been used in the past decade in more than 30 countries, according to the United Nations, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, which said young fighters were active in at least 19 countries last year.
Coomaraswamy sees the Middle East, Sudan's Darfur and eastern Chad as the new trouble spots.
There are also concerns in Asia, with Human Rights Watch posting reports in January alleging violations by Maoist forces in Nepal and an offshoot of the Tamil Tigers rebel group in Sri Lanka.
"We're no longer just pointing fingers at rebel groups or government armies," said Human Rights Watch's Becker.
"Now we're holding individual commanders accountable for their crimes.
U.N. envoy Coomaraswamy is taking an optimistic long view.
"I think this is a little bit like the campaign against slavery in the late 19th century," she said.
"There's such an abhorrence of it on an international level.
But much remains to be done, she cautioned.
Funds must be found and steps taken to restore some sense of normal life for children numbed and hardened by their war experiences.
In many cases, she said, their families don't want them and they are shunned by villagers.
Abandoned, they find little to eat, have nothing to do and scant hope for the future, Coomaraswamy said.
Without intervention, they could grow up to become a lost generation of migrant professional killers. µ¿¿µ»ó ´º½º/javascript: cnnVideo('play','/video/world/2006/06/20/koinange.night.commuters.cnn','2006/07/04');
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter urged better health training and sanitation Monday to help eradicate preventable diseases in Africa.
Carter, who is on an 11-nation tour in Africa, said problems such as malaria and river blindness which is caused by a worm that breeds in fast-flowing rivers are ravaging the continent.
"More than seven percent of Ethiopia's 77 million people are susceptible to river blindness," he told ministers and diplomats from several African nations.
"Children are particularly vulnerable to the disease and this is unnecessary.
Carter was scheduled to travel Tuesday to the western Ethiopian region of Jimma, where his organization is working to supply medication and materials to combat river blindness.
According to the Carter Center, the former president's international-affairs think tank, 18 million people in 37 countries, most in Africa, live with the disease.
Carter and his wife founded the center to promote human rights and improve the quality of life in the Third World.
Ethiopia is one of the world's poorest countries, and more than half of the population live on less than $1 a day.
Carter also said simple tools to combat malaria, such as bed netting, could save 60,000 to 100,000 lives a year in Ethiopia.
The Carter Center recently purchased 3 million mosquito nets for distribution in western Ethiopia.
Australia's conservative Prime Minister John Howard said Sunday that victory for Democratic Sen. Barack Obama and his party in next year's presidential election would be a boon for terrorists.
"If I were running al Qaeda in Iraq, I would put a circle around March 2008, and pray, as many times as possible, for a victory not only for Obama, but also for the Democrats," Howard said, speaking on "Sunday," a TV show on Australia's Nine Network.
March 2008 is when Obama has said he would bring U.S. troops home from Iraq, according to legislation he introduced in the Senate.
Obama, who represents Illinois in the U.S. Senate, declared his candidacy for the Democratic presidential
Howard who faces reelection this year is a staunch supporter of President Bush and committed Australian troops to help the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Like Bush, Howard has come under increased criticism at home for supporting the unpopular war.
Australia has more than 1,000 troops in and around Iraq, many in non-combat roles.
Obama, campaigning in Iowa, told reporters Sunday he's flattered that one of Bush's allies "started attacking me the day after I announced (his presidential run) I take that as a compliment.
The Democratic presidential hopeful said if the Australian prime minister was "ginned up to fight the good fight in Iraq," he needs to send another 20,000 Australians to the war.
The Illinois Democrat dismissed the suggestion that his election would help terrorist groups, noting that even the Bush administration's "own intelligence agencies have indicated that the threat of terrorism has increased as a consequence of our actions over there.
When asked about Howard's comment, a senior White House official voiced support for the Australian leader.
"Prime Minister Howard knows that setting a timeline for a withdrawal sends the wrong signal to our enemies and sends the wrong signal to the Iraqi people," the official told CNN.
Portugal's Socialist government started drafting legislation Monday that would allow women to choose an abortion up to the 10th week of pregnancy, saying voters supported its plans to reduce restrictions despite a low turnout in a referendum on the issue.
Abortion now is allowed in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy if a woman's health is at risk.
In cases of rape it is permitted through the 16th week, and there is no time restriction if an abortion is the only way of saving a pregnant woman's life.
The government cast aside pleas from the Roman Catholic Church, which wants to keep restrictions in place.
More than 90 percent of Portuguese say they are Catholic.
The Socialist Party's parliamentary leader Alberto Martins said he was starting work on new legislation immediately with Prime Minister Jose Socrates, the party leader.
More than 50 percent of registered voters must cast their ballots for a referendum to be binding.
However, Prime Minister Jose Socrates said the 60-40 victory for his proposal among those who did vote granted him legitimacy to enact the changes through a bill in Parliament, where his party has an overall majority.
bill allowing women to ask for abortions up to the 10th week of pregnancy, as the government proposes.
Two previous referendums one on the same abortion issue and another on devolving power to administrative regions, both in 1998 also failed because of a low turnout.
Politicians and analysts struggled to make sense of the lack of public enthusiasm.
Daily paper Diario de Noticias laid out eight possible explanations in an editorial, adding: "There are many possible interpretations of the lack of interest.
The head of the Portuguese Episcopal Conference, Bishop Jorge Ortiga, said in a communique the Catholic Church would maintain its opposition to abortion rights, saying "life can not be put to the vote.
Portugal's current legislation places it in a minority in the European Union with Poland, Ireland and Malta, where faith has also trumped political activism.
In the 23 other EU nations, abortion is permitted within much broader limits.
Women can ask for abortions up to the 24th week of pregnancy in Britain and up to the 12th week in Germany, France and Italy.
Socrates, the prime minister, said he wants Portugal to adopt attitudes prevalent in more developed EU countries.
He said the new law would follow the example of legislation elsewhere in the EU, including mandatory counselling for women who want to terminate their pregnancy.
The Duchess of Cornwall, the second wife of Prince Charles formerly known as Camilla Parker Bowles, is to undergo a hysterectomy operation at the beginning of March.
A spokeswoman for Clarence House, the Prince of Wales' official London residence, said the Duchess, who turns 60 this year, was not suffering from cancer.
The spokeswoman said the Duchess would carry out public engagements in the run-up to the routine operation, including an overseas tour with Prince Charles to a number of Middle Eastern Gulf states.
She is expected to recuperate for six weeks after the operation.
"It's a routine scheduled operation but we wouldn't disclose any further details of a private medical condition," the spokeswoman said.
"It's something that's being done on advice of her doctor, but is something that's very common for women of that age.
North Korea has tentatively agreed to close down its nuclear weapons program in exchange for energy aid, U.S. and Chinese officials said Tuesday.
But the proposed deal was being reviewed by officials in the negotiators' capitals before becoming final.
Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, the lead American official at the talks, said the United States will give an unspecified amount of energy assistance to North Korea in exchange for North Korea freezing its production of plutonium. (Watch what North Korea is demanding )
Hill said negotiators are running the agreement by their capitals and would reconvene later Tuesday.
"I don't think we are the problem.
But John Bolton, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and onetime chief of the State Department's arms-control division, called the reported draft "a very bad deal."
It makes the Bush administration "look very weak, at a time in Iraq and dealing with Iran that it needs to look strong," Bolton told CNN's Wolf Blitzer Monday.
The United States, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia have been holding talks with North Korean officials since 2002 in an effort to convince Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons program. (Read full story)
But the talks have been stalled for two years, and North Korea tested a low-yield nuclear weapon October 9.
North Korea became subject to a raft of UN sanctions, including an embargo on the sale of nuclear technology and large-scale weapons.
The U.S. government published a list of luxury goods it is also banning from sale to the reclusive east Asian nation, including cigars, plasma televisions, beer, iPods, Rolex watches and diamonds - presumed a blow to North Korean leader Kim Jong Il who reportedly loves living luxuriously. (Read full story)
More negotiation ahead
The latest round of talks stretched into the early morning hours Tuesday, and Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said negotiators would resume discussions later in the day.
"All parties had made their utmost efforts, and some positive progress has been made," Qin said.
"But we still have to make further consultation discussions so as to confirm all the progress we have been made.
Hill said the talks would resume at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday (9: 30 p.m. Monday ET).
In September 2005, North Korea committed to abandoning its nuclear program in exchange for aid and security guarantees.
Pyongyang walked away from the talks weeks later to protest a U.S. crackdown on banks suspected of helping North Korea with illegal financial activities.
But in December, Hill announced that the North appeared ready to discuss specific steps toward ending its nuclear program.
Tuesday, he told reporters that the United States and its allies "have put everything on the table," and it was time for North Korea to make a decision.
ÏÀ» Á¦°øÇÏÁö ¾Ê½À´Ï´Ù.
Members of a marine mammal conservation group who attacked Japanese whalers off Antarctica, injuring two of them, are "terrorists," Japan's Fisheries Agency said.
Two activists from the Sea Shepherd protest ship went missing during the confrontation with Japanese whaling craft Nisshin Maru early Friday, but were rescued safely with members of the Japanese whaling expedition assisting in the rescue efforts in the icy waters of the Ross Sea.
The protesters then resumed their pursuit of the Japanese vessel, and dumped foul-smelling butyric acid onto the whaling ship's deck, injuring two Japanese crew members, according to Takahide Naruko, the chief of the Far Seas Fisheries Division of the Fisheries Agency.
The two crew members suffered facial injuries when the bottle of acid smashed on deck, sending shards of glass in all directions, he said.
One was hit by an empty container of acid and the other had acid squirted in his eye, he said.
"They're terrorists," Hideki Moronuki, the assistant director of the agency's whaling department, said of the anti-whaling activists.
"They must stop these dangerous acts immediately.
Bill Hogarth, U.S. Commissioner to the International Whaling Commission, also criticized the activists.
"I'm disappointed Sea Shepherd took an action that risked lives," Hogarth said in a press release.
"The United States is extremely concerned that encounters like this could escalate into more violent interactions between the vessels.
The United States still opposes Japan's research whale hunts, he said, but the way to resolve the dispute is through the IWC process, he added.
The Nisshin Maru left Japan in November for a six-month whaling expedition in the Antarctic as part of a scientific whaling program conducted within the rules of the IWC.
Tokyo maintains that whaling is a national tradition and a vital part of its food culture, and is pushing for a limited resumption of hunts, arguing that whale stocks have sufficiently recovered since 1986 when a global moratorium on commercial whaling was introduced.
NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said Saturday he thinks the back of the insurgency in Afghanistan will be "broken" and that the country will be on the road to a long-term peace by 2009.
There have been warnings by commanders of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan that Taliban guerrillas may mount a spring offensive from their winter-safe havens in neighboring Pakistan.
But De Hoop Scheffer said the tide of the fight will turn.
"In 2009 I think we should see Afghanistan on the road to long-term peace and stability with the back of the resistance broken," he told a gathering the world's top security officials.
Afghanistan's neighbor Pakistan is of key importance to the fight, he said.
"Pakistan is vital to our success in Afghanistan," De Hoop Scheffer said.
"A military dialogue with Pakistan should now be teamed up with a political dialogue.
Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, noted that fighting in 2006 was bloodier than ever.
"If NATO does not prevail in Afghanistan, it is difficult to imagine the alliance undertaking another 'hard security' operation ... Its credibility would suffer a grievous blow," McCain said at the conference.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged NATO and the European Union to work together in Afghanistan, saying this was "crucial for success" of efforts to defeat Taliban guerrillas and bring stability to the nation.
"In Afghanistan our alliance is being particularly tested," Merkel said.
"It is indisputable that the Taliban are testing our determination.
The NATO-led force has about 35,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, and commanders have expressed confidence they are able to defeat any Taliban military effort in the coming months.
But they have complained that, in the past, battlefield successes were not followed up by reconstruction aid to help rebuild regions devastated by the fighting.
Earlier this month, the EU Commission proposed a new $780 million package for Afghanistan to focus on health, justice and rural development over the next four years.
Merkel said that military stabilizing measures have to be coordinated with civilian measures.
But she acknowledged the mission "is more difficult than we originally thought" when NATO forces were first deployed to Afghanistan three years ago.
ÏÀ» Á¦°øÇÏÁö ¾Ê½À´Ï´Ù.
British tycoon Richard Branson on Friday announced a $25 million prize for the first scientist to come up with a way to extract greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.
The Virgin Group chairman was joined by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and other leading environmentalists as he announced the challenge to find ways to significantly reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
Branson compared his challenge to the competition launched in 1675 to devise a method of estimating longitude accurately.
It was 60 years before English clock maker John Harrison discovered an accurate method and received his prize from King George III.
We need everybody capable of discovering an answer to put their minds to it today," Branson said.
"We have only our own ingenuity and we have no hope of a meaningful solution unless we find a way to work together," Branson said.
"Necessity is the mother of invention.
Gore said the planet had a "fever" that had to be taken seriously.
"Up until now, what has not been asked seriously on a systematic basis is, is there some way that some of that extra carbon dioxide may be scavenged effectively out of the atmosphere?
And no one knows the answer to that," Gore said.
As part of that pledge, he launched a new Virgin Fuels business, which is to invest up to $400 million in green energy projects in the next three years.
and Iraqi forces waged a fierce fight Sunday against insurgents who claim control of this small town north of Baghdad where al Qaeda forces have flown their flag at a police station since December.
The battle began Saturday and was making slow progress Sunday when it took U.S. forces eight hours to clear a path less than half a mile long.
Their progress was stymied by a combination of real and fake roadside bombs. (Watch what it's like in the middle of a battle )
One U.S. soldier and one Iraqi soldier were killed and another U.S. soldier and Iraqi soldier were wounded Saturday, officials said.
In addition, seven suspected insurgents were killed and another 20 detained, officials said.
U.S. and Iraqi forces also discovered some bomb-making material according to officials.
U.S. and Iraqi forces have taken control of Buhritz, about 50 miles north of Baghdad, several times over the past four years, only to see Sunni insurgents take it back once they left.
The aim of the Iraqi and U.S. forces this time is to establish a permanent Iraqi military presence in the town so it can withstand any insurgent attacks.
In 2005, U.S. forces regained control of the town only after they bombed a palm grove dates are a main product here.
This time, insurgents had plenty of time to booby-trap the town with improvised explosive devices and to post snipers throughout the city.
On Sunday morning, they fired rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and small arms at U.S. and Iraqi forces.
U.S. forces on Saturday responded with Hellfire missiles and rockets, and used Apache attack helicopters on Sunday.
Most residents appeared to have fled the area, though officials said other parts of the village remained populated.
Over the past four months, Buhritz, located just south of Baquba, has seen an increase in the number of "al Qaeda in Iraq" fighters.
The jihadists have been squeezed out of the restive Anbar Province to the west.
International talks to persuade North Korea to dismantle its nuclear program verged on foundering Sunday over the country's demands for energy aid, and would end after one more day of negotiations, envoys said.
A day of meetings and an unscheduled nighttime session by the negotiators from the United States, China, North Korea and three other countries failed to achieve much progress, envoys from Japan and South Korea said.
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Chris Hill said the talks had snagged on the amount of energy assistance Pyongyang is to be awarded as an inducement for disarming.
But he said that a deal could still be reached Monday, which would be the final day of talks.
"The situation remains severe," Japanese envoy Kenichiro Sasae told reporters late Sunday.
He added that North Korea offered no new proposals.
South Korean envoy Chun Yung-woo said the sticking points touch on vital interests of many of the parties.
"It's not a situation where a breakthrough is in sight," Chun said.
Negotiators had hoped that the talks would concrete steps by North Korea to dismantle its nuclear programs in more than three years of negotiations and especially since Pyongyang's successful nuclear test in October.
Pressure for a breakthrough was high, in part because the United States has said it would be pointless to continue the often inconclusive negotiations without progress.
"Because this round could be the crossroads, today's talks took place in an atmosphere of heightened tension," Sasae said.
Envoys have shown rising frustration at North Korea's intransigence, repeatedly saying negotiations were getting bogged down over a single issue.
Sasae and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov have said that energy assistance was the sole sticking point, with the Japanese envoy calling North Korean demands "excessive.
"This is the problem, and unless they change their thinking, an agreement will be difficult," Sasae said earlier Sunday.
In a further sign of the difficulties, Losyukov lowered expectations of a breakthrough, saying consensus on how much energy to provide North Korea may be unattainable.
"I don't think that we can resolve the issue of specific numbers or specific amounts during these talks," Losyukov said after a meeting with South Korea's Chun.
It was unclear how much energy the North was demanding, with reports varying from 2 million kilowatts of electricity an amount equal to all of North Korea's current generating capacity to 2 million tons of heavy fuel oil.
Schism created
Chun stressed the burden of supplying energy aid should be shared.
"Even if we want to do it alone, other countries won't allow us to do that," he said.
Chun also denied the North demanded 2 million kilowatts of electricity.
A rough outline of a deal was reached 18 months ago:
In return for giving up its nuclear programs, North Korea would receive energy assistance for its listless economy and guarantees that its security would not be undermined.
Hill said his North Korean counterpart Kim Kye Gwan had told him at their Sunday meeting that he was "taking some ideas and thinking about them" to work around the problem.
This round of talks started amid optimism after the North Korean and U.S. envoys held an unusual meeting in Germany last month and reportedly reached an understanding.
A newspaper linked to the Pyongyang government said Sunday that the U.S. had agreed at those talks to lift restrictions on a Macau bank where the North's government had accounts within 30 days the issue that deadlocked the last round of nuclear talks.
In return, the North would take first steps to disarm in 60 days, the Japan-based Choson Sinbo said, citing an unnamed source.
rewritten or redistributed.
Iran's controversial president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Sunday his country will make an announcement in April about new nuclear achievements.
Reports surfaced last fall that Tehran was trying to produce 3,000 centrifuges and expected to meet the goal by March of this year.
The report was published by the Iranian Student News Agency and quoted a member of parliament.
Last month, an official with Iran's nuclear agency denied Iran was building 3,000 centrifuges.
However, a senior U.S. official said some officials had expected Ahmadinejad to announce in his speech Sunday that Iran had put those centrifuges in place.
The production of 3,000 centrifuges would allow Iran to begin industrial scale production of nuclear fuel a move that has raised international concern that the country might ultimately produce nuclear weapons.
Ahmadinejad said Iran will not come to the negotiating table with Western nations if suspension of Tehran's nuclear program is a precondition for talks.
"How come your factories and reactors are working day and night while you're asking our factories and centers to stop its facilities?
Our nation will never accept such conditions.
The president warned the Western nations that Tehran will not permit any of its "rights" to be taken away, by word or by action.
"The world must know that if they try to deny that right to us they will be the most hated nation," he said.
Iran has repeatedly said uranium enrichment is its right and will not be abandoned, despite United Nations demands.
The U.N. Security Council imposed sanctions on Iran in December for its failure to halt uranium enrichment activities.
The sanctions require the prevention of any supply, sale or transfer to Iran of any equipment, technology or information that could contribute to enrichment activities or to nuclear weapons systems.
Ahmadinejad brushed away the threat of further sanctions in his speech Sunday, calling them "ineffective.
"It is a tactic from 30 years ago.
It does not have any effect on us," he said.
Asked about U.S. reaction to Ahmadinejad's speech, U.S. National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe reiterated Washington's willingness to talk to Iran once it complies with the U.N. Security Council resolution.
"The international community is united in this, but unfortunately, we didn't hear anything today that leads us to believe Iran is going to take the steps expected of them," Johndroe said.
Ahmadinejad said Tehran has brought on "the most transparent solution" in an attempt to build confidence with the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog agency, the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency.
that it make its nuclear program more transparent.
Surveillance cameras have now been installed at the Natanz nuclear facilities, making it "possible for the International Atomic Energy Agency to monitor Natanz nuclear site thoroughly," Iran's state-run news agency IRNA reported.
On Friday, the IAEA decided to suspend nearly half its aid projects in the heavily scrutinized country.
Meanwhile, Iran's top nuclear negotiator told global security officials meeting in Munich, Germany, that his country did not pose a nuclear threat to any nation, The Associated Press reported. (Full story)
Defense Secretary Robert Gates, in his first speech as Pentagon chief, made an urgent call Sunday for NATO allies to live up to their promises to supply military and economic aid for Afghanistan, saying that failing to do so would be shameful.
And in a carefully worded rebuke, he used both humor and some pointed jabs to blunt Russia's sharp attack against U.S. foreign policy a day earlier.
In remarks before a prestigious security forum, Gates dismissed as dated Cold War rhetoric Russian President Vladimir Putin's charge Saturday that the United States is seeding a new arms race.
A day after Putin blamed U.S. policy for inciting other countries to seek nuclear weapons to defend themselves, Gates responded:
"As an old Cold Warrior, one of yesterday's speeches almost filled me with nostalgia for a less complex time. Almost. "
Then, as the audience chuckled, he added, however, that he has accepted Putin's invitation to visit Russia.
"We all face many common problems and challenges that must be addressed in partnership with other countries, including Russia," said Gates.
"One Cold War was quite enough.
The bulk of his speech was devoted to the future of the NATO alliance, and the need to work together to defend the trans-Atlantic community against any security threats.
He struck a familiar theme one he pressed during a NATO defense ministers meeting this week, when he urged the allies to follow through on their promises to help secure and rebuild Afghanistan.
"It is vitally important that the success Afghanistan has achieved not be allowed to slip away through neglect or lack of political will or resolve," Gates said.
Failure to muster a strong military effort combined with economic development and a counternarcotics plan "would be a mark of shame," he said.
Gates also sketched out the challenges ahead, from Iran's nuclear ambitions and the situation in the Middle East to China's recent anti-satellite tests and Russia's arms sales.
Just eight weeks on the job, Gates used the conference and a NATO gathering earlier in the week to introduce himself to the international community and meet privately with a number of defense ministers.
Delivered amid growing tensions between the U.S. and Russia and to an audience including many Iraq and Afghanistan war skeptics, the speech was the first public test of Gates' diplomatic skills.
It came at a venue that at times had been dominated by his more bombastic predecessor, Donald H. Rumsfeld.
So as he neared the end of his remarks, Gates made a deliberate move to separate himself from Rumsfeld and any lingering discord.
In the run-up to the Iraq war, Rumsfeld sharply criticized nations opposed to the conflict specifically France and Germany referring to them as "Old Europe.
Without mentioning Rumsfeld's name, Gates said some people have tried to divide the allies into categories such as east and west, north versus south.
"I'm even told that some have even spoken in terms of 'old' Europe versus 'new,'" Gates said.
"All of these characterizations belong in the past. "
Australia's conservative prime minister slammed Barack Obama on Sunday over his opposition to the Iraq war, a day after Obama announced his intention to run for the White House in 2008.
Obama said the country's first priority should be to end the war in Iraq.
He has also introduced a bill to prevent President Bush from increasing American troop levels in Iraq, and to remove U.S. combat forces from the country by March 31, 2008.
(Watch as Obama outlines his plans for Iraq )
Australian Prime Minister John Howard, who will face his own re-election bid later this year, said Obama's proposed deadline would spell disaster for the Middle East.
"I think that will just encourage those who want to completely destabilize and destroy Iraq, and create chaos and a victory for the terrorists to hang on and hope for an Obama victory," Howard said on Nine Network television.
"If I were running al Qaeda in Iraq, I would put a circle around March 2008 and be praying as many times as possible for a victory, not only for Obama but also for the Democrats. " (Watch Obama call for a new generation of leadership )
Howard, a staunch supporter and personal friend of Bush, has defied widespread domestic opposition to the war, keeping about 1,400 Australian troops in and around Iraq, mostly in non-combat roles.
He is seeking a fifth term later this year, and recent polls suggest voters are increasingly unhappy about his refusal to set a deadline for withdrawing Australian troops.
"You either rat on the ally or you stay with the ally," he said.
"If it's all right for us to go, it's all right for the Americans and the British to go, and if everybody goes, Iraq will descend into total civil war and there'll be a lot of bloodshed.
Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs, traveling with the senator in Iowa, said Howard's words were misguided.
"The United States has sacrificed more than 3,000 brave young men and women and $400 billion, only to find ourselves mired in the middle of a sectarian civil war," he said.
"Even Republicans ... know that more of the same is only going to attract more terrorists to Iraq and make our country less safe.
Gibbs went on to say that Howard was not in a position to be overly critical.
"If Prime Minister Howard truly believes what he says, perhaps his country should find its way to contribute more than just 1,400 troops so some American troops can come home," he said.
ÏÀ» Á¦°øÇÏÁö ¾Ê½À´Ï´Ù.
A 66-year-old man saved his grandson from the grip of a 16-foot-long (5 meter) anaconda by beating the snake with rocks and a knife for half an hour, authorities said Thursday.
"When I saw the snake wrapped around my grandson's neck I thought it was going to kill him," Joaquim Pereira told Brazil's Agencia Estado news service.
"It was agonizing, I pulled it from one side, but it would come back on the other.
Pereira's 8-year-old grandson, Mateus, was attacked by the anaconda while wandering near a creek on his grandfather's ranch in the city of Cosmorama, about 250 miles (400 kilometers) northwest of Sao Paulo.
While the boy was playing with friends, the snake attacked and wrapped itself around him, police officer Hudson Augusto said.
Anacondas are not poisonous, but kill their prey by coiling around them and squeezing until victims suffocate.
"It brought me to the ground and bit me," the boy told Globo TV.
"Then it started crawling up my neck and began suffocating me.
Mateus' friends ran to get his grandfather, who reached the scene and battled with the snake until he had hurt it so badly that it let go of his grandson.
Mateus had to be rushed to a hospital and needed 21 stitches on his chest where he was bitten.
He was later released.
Globo TV showed footage of the dead snake, which weighed about 77 pounds (35 kilograms).
Police said anacondas are not uncommon in the region where the attack occurred, but attacks on people are rare.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday she authorized the U.S. embassy in Syria to talk to Damascus about Iraqi refugees but downplayed expectations about a wider dialogue.
The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that about 3.7 million Iraqis have either fled the country or left their homes for a safer place inside Iraq amid intense sectarian violence.
The Bush administration has faced criticism from Congress because the United States has only taken in 466 Iraqi refugees since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
This week the State Department announced a new task force to study the Iraqi refugee issue.
The task force will examine the possibility of increasing humanitarian aid to refugees in neighboring countries, and whether the State Department should help Iraqis who work for the United States in Iraq and are under threat for their involvement with the United States, to emigrate.
Rice told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that she instructed the top U.S. diplomat in the country to talk to the Syrian government about the flow of Iraqi refugees, but made clear it was not the start of a broader conversation on Iraq.
The Bush administration has accused Syria of not doing enough to stop the flow of insurgents across its borders into Iraq
and has resisted calls from Congress and the Iraq Study Group to engage with Syria to try to stabilize Iraq, saying such efforts have never borne fruit in the past.
Rice said Thursday that she was not interested in talking with Syria on broader issues, voicing concern Damascus would use such an overture to demand concessions from the government in Lebanon.
Syrian troops withdrew from the country in 2005 under international pressure, but the regime still holds influence over Shiite factions, including Hezbollah.
"I am concerned that given the circumstances of Syrian behavior in Lebanon ... talking with Syria now about Iraq would have downsides for us in terms of Lebanon, in terms of what Syria would be looking for, in terms of how it would be perceived," Rice said.
The United States withdrew its ambassador from Damascus in 2005 after the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri.
Washington has accused Syrian officials of being involved in killing, an accusation Damascus denies.
Five men have been charged under anti-terrorism laws after a series of police raids in the central English city of Birmingham last week, according to news reports.
Two of the men are aged 30, one is 31, another is 36 years old and a fifth is 43 years old, according to the Press Association.
The men are expected to appear before a magistrates' court later Friday.
The men were among nine arrested in the Birmingham area last week who allegedly planned to kidnap, torture and behead a British Muslim soldier who had served in Afghanistan.
Police said the plot was foiled by a series of raids by West Midlands police throughout central England on January 31 in what the Home Office called a "major counterterrorism operation.
Police said a large amount of evidence seized during the January 31 raids in Birmingham that must be analyzed and additional questions asked of those still in custody.
Security services believe a terrorist attack is highly likely in Britain.
An attack on London's public transport in 2005 killed 52 people, and the country is on its second highest alert level.
Last year the head of MI5, Britain's domestic spy service, said that about 30 terrorism plots were being worked on and agents were monitoring around 1,600 suspects.
A California judge has ordered O.J. Simpson to stop spending money he received for his unpublished book, "If I Did It," about the slayings of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ron Goldman.
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Gerald Rosenberg's ruling on Wednesday extended a restraining order issued last month barring Simpson from spending any earnings from past deals, including books, films and sports memorabilia.
The order, which was sought by Goldman's father, initially did not apply to the advance Simpson received from the book-and-TV deal for "If I Did It" because Fred Goldman had filed a federal lawsuit over the funds.
However, the federal lawsuit was dismissed January 24 by a judge in Los Angeles who said he had no jurisdiction over Simpson, who lives in Florida.
The new order will remain in effect until a February 20 hearing, in which Simpson's attorneys must provide the former football star's financial records if they want to ask the court to make an exemption on his spending.
"We dare him to provide a financial statement under oath," said Goldman's attorney, David J. Cook.
An after-hours message left for Simpson's attorney, Yale Galanter, was not immediately returned.
Simpson told The Associated Press in November that the advance had already been spent, some of it on tax obligations.
The ruling is the latest in a decade-long battle following a 1997 civil judgment against Simpson that held him liable for the deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman.
Fred Goldman alleges Simpson is trying to avoid paying the $33.5 million judgment, which has ballooned to about $40 million with interest.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Wednesday toured a Jewish cultural center bombed in 1994 and said the United States supports Argentina's efforts to seek justice for its worst terrorist attack.
Eight Iranians are wanted in Argentina in connection with the bombing, including the president, foreign minister and intelligence chief at the time.
"Civilized nations cannot easily forget the pain that we share when terrorist attacks occur," Gonzales said after laying flowers and meeting with Jewish leaders and relatives of victims of the attack.
"Whether 1994 in Argentina, 2001 in the United States or 2004 in Spain, these moments bind us together in our grief.
Eight-five people were killed and 200 wounded when a van packed with explosives blew up outside the seven-story center on July 18, 1994.
The center, known as the AMIA, has since been rebuilt.
Gonzales did not take questions from journalists on Wednesday.
He also did not say where the United States stands on Argentina's request for help from Interpol, which must decide in the coming weeks whether to issue global alerts for the arrests.
Iran has denied any involvement and has said it does not recognize the validity of the warrants.
It said it would oppose any attempt to detain former President Hashemi Rafsanjani or other Iranian citizens.
Gonzales called the attack a "vicious act of hate.
"We will never give up the fight for justice ... just as we are bound together in our memories of the terrorist attacks, so too, we must be bound together in our resolve," he said.
"Argentina has steadfastly pursued the perpetrators of the AMIA attacks ... the memory of what happened here, like our September 11th, is a touchstone for us.
Riordan Roett, director of the Latin American Studies Program at Johns Hopkins University, said Gonzales' visit was intended as a political jab against Tehran.
"The Gonzales trip is clearly related to an effort to pressure Iran," Roett said.
Although, he said, "There's not much the U.S. can really do, given the fact that the Iranians are in Iran and will not be extradited by the authorities. "
Lebanese army troops fired Wednesday on Israeli troops hunting for explosives along the Israel-Lebanon border, Lebanese army and Israeli military sources said.
A U.N. official confirmed the exchange Thursday.
"In a serious incident last night, the Lebanese army and IDF (Israel Defense Forces) exchanged fire across the Blue Line in the area of Maroun a-Rus," said U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) spokesman Milos Strugar.
"The exchange was initiated by the Lebanese army after an IDF bulldozer crossed the technical fence in an apparent attempt to clear the area between the technical fence and the Blue Line of mines.
In their account of the incident, Israeli military sources said their troops were at the border near Avivim when the Lebanese troops fired into the air.
The Israelis warned them to stop, but the Lebanese forces fired at the Israelis, the military sources said.
The Israelis responded with "accurate fire" and warned them again to stop.
The Israelis had no information about casualties.
Lebanese army sources said their troops fired at an Israeli bulldozer that had crossed the Blue Line into Lebanese territory in Maroun a-Rus about 10:30 p.m.
There was an exchange of fire, they said, but there were no casualties on the Lebanese side.
The situation on the border is "very tense," the Lebanese sources said.
Rival Palestinian leaders signed an agreement in principle on a power-sharing government Thursday in Saudi-brokered talks in Mecca.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, of the mainstream Fatah movement, and Khaled Meshaal, leader of the militant Hamas group, signed the accord at a ceremony hosted by Saudi King Abdullah in a palace overlooking the Kaaba, Islam's holiest shrine.
The deal sets out the principles of the coalition government, including a promise that it will "respect" previous peace deals with Israel, delegates said.
It also divvies up Cabinet posts in the new government.
Announcing the agreement at the ceremony, Abbas aide Nabil Amr read a letter in which Abbas designated Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, of Hamas, to draw up the new government according to the formula agreed on in the talks within five weeks.
Abbas said the deal would "satisfy our people ... and bring us to the shores of peace ... This initiative has been crowned with success.
Meshaal said the accord "will unify our ranks. There is a commitment and unity.
We will preserve this partnership.
Before the ceremony, a Hamas delegate said the deal set the outlines of the new government's political platform, including a provision by which the factions including Hamas would "respect" previous peace deals between the Palestinians and Israel.
The delegate spoke on condition of anonymity because he was giving the information before the formal announcement.
They will also be based on a document drawn up last summer by Hamas and Fatah activists jailed in Israeli prisons.
That document calls for a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, the areas Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast War.
In drawing up the new government, Hamas is to propose an independent candidate to hold the crucial post of interior minister, who would control the Palestinian security forces.
Abbas would then approve the candidate.
The Interior Ministry post was one of the main obstacles to the deal, with each side loathe to see it in the hands of the other.
A three-way meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will take place in Jerusalem on February 19, Olmert said during a speech Tuesday.
During her recent Mideast tour, Rice said she would organize such a meeting, but she did not give a date.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Rice will probably make a stop in Ramallah.
"We are trying to bring the parties together to start a dialogue," he said.
The announcement came on the eve of a meeting between Abbas and heads of Hamas in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, with the aim of forming a unity government for the Palestinians.
of Major American Jewish Organizations in Jerusalem, Olmert called on Abbas to "resist all the temptations and pressure of Hamas and to establish a government that will recognize Israel.
Since the Islamic militant Hamas faction took power last March, Western donors have cut off vital foreign aid, leaving the Palestinian government bankrupt. Abbas has been trying to forge a unity government to restore the aid.
Olmert said any Palestinian government must accept the three conditions laid down by the "Quartet" of Mideast mediators renouncing violence, recognizing Israel and accepting former peace accords.
"We will not accept any compromises of a government that does not accept the basic principles of the Quartet," he said, adding, "we will cooperate with any government that accepts these principles.
Olmert also said that tough economic sanctions, instead of military action, can deter Iran from building nuclear weapons.
"If the international community will enforce real measures on the economy of Iran ... it is possible the Iranians will reconsider their position," he said.
The U.S., Israel and others believe Iran is trying to build atomic bombs, despite Iran's insistence that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.
Israel considers Iran a strategic threat.
This material may not be published.
Austrian police have uncovered a massive child pornography ring on the Internet, tracking downloads of sexually violent material to more than 2,300 people in 77 countries, a government official said.
"This is the biggest case of child porn distribution ever discovered in Austria," Interior Minister Guenther Platter told reporters on Wednesday.
"This is a very important crackdown, and it is dealing with the most disgusting criminal acts against the most helpless members of society.
"It is amazing that within 24 hours, more than 8,000 hits were recorded from 2,361 suspects from 77 countries," he said.
None of the people believed to have downloaded the porn have been arrested, said Gerald Hesztera, a spokesman for Austria's federal police service.
But 14 of 23 people questioned in Austria have admitted to taking the material off a Russian-based file-sharing site, he added.
A site administrator in Austria tipped police off to eight digital video clips that included scenes of children between the ages of 5 and 14 being sexually molested or raped, Hesztera said.
Police monitored the site for several months beginning in July, he said.
Hundreds of the addresses tracked back to users in Germany, France and the United States.
The FBI said it was investigating suspects in the United States and working with authorities in Austria and other nations as part of the probe.
About 600 of the suspects were being investigated in the United States alone, said Platter, according to a report from The Associated Press.
German authorities were following leads on another 400 people, and France was looking into more than 100 others, AP reported.
Archaeologists have unearthed two skeletons from the Neolithic period locked in a tender embrace and buried outside Mantua, just 25 miles south of Verona, the romantic city where Shakespeare set the star-crossed tale of "Romeo and Juliet. "
Buried between 5,000 and 6,000 years ago, the prehistoric pair are believed to have been a man and a woman and are thought to have died young, as their teeth were found intact, said Elena Menotti, the archaeologist who led the dig.
"As far as we know, it's unique," Menotti told The Associated Press by telephone from Milan.
"Double burials from the Neolithic are unheard of, and these are even hugging.
The burial site was located Monday during construction work for a factory building in the outskirts of Mantua.
Alongside the couple, archaeologists found flint tools, including arrowheads and a knife, Menotti said.
Experts will now study the artifacts and the skeletons to determine the burial site's age and how old the two were when they died, she said.
Although the Mantua pair strike a rare and touching pose, archaeologists have found prehistoric burials in which the dead hold hands or have other contact, said Luca Bondioli, an anthropologist at Rome's National Prehistoric and Ethnographic Museum.
The find has "more of an emotional than a scientific value.
" But it does highlight how the relationship people have with each other and with death has not changed much from the period in which humanity first settled in villages, learning to farm the land and tame animals, he said.
"The Neolithic is a very formative period for our society," he said.
"It was when the roots of our religious sentiment were formed.
The two bodies, which cuddle closely while facing each other on their sides, were probably buried at the same time, an indication of a possible sudden and tragic death, Bondioli said.
"It's rare for two young people to die at the same time, and that makes us want to know why and who they were, but it will be very difficult to find out.
He said DNA testing could determine whether the two were related, "but that still leaves other hypotheses;
the Romeo and Juliet possibility is just one of many. "
The U.S. expects "hard bargaining" at upcoming talks aimed at getting North Korea to abandon its nuclear program, Washington's chief negotiator in the talks said Wednesday.
Christopher Hill, speaking to reporters in Tokyo on his way to Beijing where the six-nation talks resume Thursday, said North Korea's willingness to take steps forward was key.
"The big question is whether the North Koreans are really ready to make some progress," Hill said.
"We did have some good signs in Berlin, but I think we also know that there is going to be some rather hard bargaining, so we'll see how we do.
North Korea returned to the six-party talks which also include Japan, China, Russia and South Korea in December after conducting its first nuclear test in October, but the talks stalled over the North's objections to U.S. financial sanctions.
The North agreed in January to resume the nuclear negotiations after the United States offered unspecified concessions during rare bilateral talks in Berlin, Germany.
North Korea is proposing to freeze its main nuclear reactor and allow U.N. monitoring in return for massive energy shipments and normal relations with the United States, according to an American nuclear expert who visited Pyongyang last week.
David Albright, a former U.N. nuclear inspector, said in an interview Tuesday that North Korean officials told him they also wanted the lifting of U.S. financial restrictions imposed for alleged North Korean counterfeiting of U.S. currency and money laundering that
have led to about $24 million in North Korean funds being frozen at a Macau bank.
Chief North Korean disarmament negotiator Kim Kye-gwan and other officials told Albright and Joel Wit, a former State Department official, that nothing would happen until the U.S. agreed to the construction of light-water reactors that Washington promised North Korea under a 1994 deal to freeze Pyongyang's nuclear program.
That deal, which also included an annual supply of half a million tons of heavy fuel oil until the reactors were built, was scrapped in 2002 when North Korea admitted it had restarted its atomic program.
Albright said the North emphasized that it now wanted either electricity shipments or more heavy fuel oil than was promised in the 1994 deal.
Hill said Tuesday in Tokyo that negotiators from Pyongyang had not raised the issue of heavy fuel oil in return for shutting down its reactor.
However, he said there was room to discuss the matter under a September 2005 pledge in which North Korea agreed to give up its nuclear program in exchange for aid and security guarantees.
Indonesia, the country hardest hit by bird flu, signed a preliminary deal Wednesday with U.S. drug manufacturer Baxter Healthcare to develop a human bird-flu vaccine.
Under the memorandum of understanding, Indonesia will provide strains of the H5N1 virus circulating in the nation and Baxter will offer technical expertise to produce the vaccine, said Indonesian Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari.
The agreement had been linked with an earlier decision by Indonesia not to share samples of the H5N1 virus with foreign laboratories, citing intellectual property rights.
Kim C. Bush, president of Baxter's vaccine unit, said the company was not involved in Indonesia's decision, which has raised fears that global research into the virus could be hampered.
"Baxter is not involved in this process, and we don't intend to be involved in (it)," he told reporters.
"That, we believe, is the responsibility of the Indonesian government.
Supari denied the country was preventing research into bird flu, saying that foreign laboratories must first sign an agreement stating they would only use H5N1 samples for research and diagnostic purposes, not commercial ones.
Indonesia and other poor countries have often expressed concerns that some independent experts say are justified that samples from viruses in their country are used to make vaccines by drug companies that they then cannot afford to buy.
"This is not fair.
Small countries are always badly treated.
I don't want our country to be treated like that," she said.
The deal said the drug would be made and distributed mostly in Indonesia but did not give a date when commercial production would start.
Several countries are producing vaccines to protect against H5N1, the strain of bird flu responsible for 163 human deaths around the world, around one-third of them in Indonesia.
The virus remains essentially an animal disease, but experts fear the virus may mutate into a form easily spreadable between humans and trigger a global pandemic, possibly killing millions.
Car makers must take on the "bulk of effort" to cut carbon dioxide emissions from new cars as part of Europe's fight against climate change, the EU executive says.
It will decide Wednesday just how it can decrease average emissions from new and imported cars by 2012 as the car industry calls on other factors, like taxation and cleaner fuel, to play a part.
Rising CO2 emissions from transportation both road and aviation jeopardize the EU's efforts to cut the amount of greenhouse gases that the region releases.
At the same time, car makers are set to miss a target they set with the European Commission nine years ago to bring down average emissions from new and imported cars to 140 grams of CO2 per kilometer by 2008.
Now the EU executive is threatening a binding lower limit for 2012 but the car industry will not have to bear that alone as the EU promises to boost the use of biofuels and cleaner fossil fuels.
The car industry instead faces a softer target of 130 grams, said an EU diplomat speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
"The bulk of the effort will have to come from vehicle motor technology through an average fleet target for new cars," insisted EU spokesman Johannes Laitenberger, stressing the overall target is still 120 grams.
But the target for the car industry will only be confirmed after EU officials carefully examine the impact of the new rules, EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas told a conference organized by the Forum of
the Automobile and Society in Brussels.
Reacting to claims by German carmakers that mandatory limits would cripple them and force them to shed European jobs and lose business to foreign rivals, he said this "doom scenario" was a myth.
"We have thoroughly considered the concerns of the European industry that they have about job losses," he said.
"Nothing of this will happen.
"If there are clear rules, there are no free riders.
Whoever wants to access the European market will have to offer products that are in conformity with those rules," he said.
The EU says that the industry can only gain if it embraces cutting-edge cleaner technology.
Just weeks ago, the European Union embraced a "low-carbon economy," saying it would lead the way in the fight against climate change by shifting away from imported oil and natural gas.
Europe's cars do not have as many alternatives open to other oil-addicted industries such as power generation.
Biofuels made from energy crops such as wood or sugar are not necessarily low-carbon or energy-efficient to produce, especially if Europe's growing demand for ethanol causes Amazon jungle to be cleared for new crop plantations.
Cars can, however, use less fuel and have already become far more fuel-efficient over the last decade, with car makers cutting average emissions by nearly 13 percent.
But the cars that people buy have been getting heavier as safety regulations add air bags and people with longer commutes demand more comfort.
More weight means more fuel.
"What has been done is spectacular," said EU official Jos Delbeke, the head of the Commission's climate change unit.
"Engine technology has improved a lot but we are using heavier and speedier cars.
Jos Dings of the environmental lobby European Federation for Transport and Environment said the car industry has played an active role in seducing consumers toward more powerful cars.
The European car manufacturers' association, ACEA, said it is merely responding to consumer demand.
ACEA secretary general Ivan Hodac said the one lever that could change customers' mind would be an EU-wide tax on carbon fuels, calling on EU governments to make a grand gesture and overcome their reluctance to setting a common European tax.
Taxes that favor more fuel-efficient diesel have helped these cars grab nearly a half of the European car market.
But Delbeke was skeptical.
"Fiscal incentives alone are not going to do the trick if the advertising campaigns of the car industry are only for powerful cars, the bigger the better.
The overall level of carbon dioxide emissions from road transport has risen 22 percent since 1990 as the number of cars on the road rises and drivers travel greater distances.
Passenger cars and vans made up 14 percent of Europe's carbon dioxide emissions in 2004, the European Environment Agency said.
ÏÀ» Á¦°øÇÏÁö ¾Ê½À´Ï´Ù.
Some 120 inmates escaped from a political concentration camp in northeastern North Korea several months ago in an unprecedented prison break, news reports said Tuesday.
The prisoners escaped from Hwasong camp in North Hamgyong, a province close to the Chinese and Russian borders, in December, the Dong-a Ilbo newspaper reported Wednesday.
Daily NK, a Seoul-based Internet news site focusing on North Korea, also carried a similar report on Tuesday.
Both reports cited multiple unnamed sources in North Korea.
An official at South Korea's Unification Ministry, which deals with North Korean affairs, said he was unable to confirm the reports but questioned their reliability.
The official spoke on customary condition of anonymity.
News leaked from the reclusive North, which shuns outside access, is usually hard to confirm.
The Daily NK report said the area was put in a "state of emergency" after the prison break, calling it unprecedented.
North Korean authorities have since tightened inspections at Hwasong and adjacent cities to catch the fugitives, of whom 21 have so far been caught, the report said.
So far, 21 prisoners have been caught, most of whom were found in China and sent back to the communist North after failed attempts to defect to South Korea, the report said.
The Hwasong prison camp located deep inside a mountain and encircled by high wire fences holds about 10,000 prisoners, Daily NK said.
The escape seemed to have been carefully planned with outside help since the escapees drove off in a vehicle waiting outside the prison, according to the report.
Between 150,000 and 200,000 people are believed to be held in prison camps in the communist North for political reasons, according to U.S. government data.
Separately, Daily NK reported Sunday that 20 North Korean guards along the border with China had fled the country to avoid arrest for allegedly helping North Korean defectors cross the border.
The guards had fled to China, where the North sent intelligence officials to capture them, the report said, citing a North Korean resident.
Hundreds of North Koreans leave the country every year to escape poverty and political repression, usually through China.
Defectors in South Korea say they usually bribe border guards to cross the border.
ÏÀ» Á¦°øÇÏÁö ¾Ê½À´Ï´Ù.
Those treating the employee faced no risk, said Dr. John Watson, the chief of respiratory illnesses for Britain's Health Protection Agency.
And safety precautions taken by workers ensured a low risk of being exposed to the H5N1 virus found on a turkey farm northeast of London, he added.
"Avian flu is just one of the tests our laboratory will be carrying out to try and establish the cause of this respiratory infection," Watson said in a written statement.
"It should be remembered that chest infections and fevers are common in Europe at this time of year when ordinary seasonal flu circulates.
The tests were being conducted "purely as a precautionary measure," said Aled Williams, spokesman for the British Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
The patient works for Britain's State Veterinary Service, an agency within that department.
All workers who work in infected areas are outfitted with respiratory equipment and eyewear, said Williams.
British officials announced Saturday that the H5N1 virus was behind the deaths of 2,500 turkeys on a farm near the town of Lowestoft, about 120 miles northeast of London.
The remainder of the 160,000 birds were being culled to prevent the further spread of the disease, and veterinary officials were enforcing a "protection zone" around the farm.
Officials from the U.N.'s World Health Organization have confirmed 271 human cases of bird flu worldwide, 165 of them fatal.
Most of the deaths have been in southeast Asia, though the latest fatality was a 22-year-old woman in the Nigerian city of Lagos.
Hackers briefly overwhelmed at least three of the 13 computers that help manage global computer traffic Tuesday in one of the most significant attacks against the Internet since 2002.
Experts said the unusually powerful attacks lasted for hours but passed largely unnoticed by most computer users, a testament to the resiliency of the Internet.
Behind the scenes, computer scientists worldwide raced to cope with enormous volumes of data that threatened to saturate some of the Internet's most vital pipelines.
Experts said the hackers appeared to disguise their origin, but vast amounts of rogue data in the attacks were traced to South Korea.
The attacks appeared to target UltraDNS, the company that operates servers managing traffic for Web sites ending in "org" and some other suffixes, experts said.
Company officials did not immediately return telephone calls from The Associated Press.
Among the targeted "root" servers that manage global Internet traffic were ones operated by the Defense Department and the Internet's primary oversight body.
"There was what appears to be some form of attack during the night hours here in California and into the morning," said John Crain, chief technical officer for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.
He said the attack was continuing and so was the hunt for its origin.
"I don't think anybody has the full picture," Crain said. "We're looking at the data.
Crain said Tuesday's attack was less serious than attacks against the same 13 "root" servers in October 2002 because technology innovations in recent years have increasingly distributed their workloads to other computers around the globe.
Astronaut Lisa Nowak Tuesday was ordered released on an additional $10,000 bond for an attempted murder charge involving a romantic rival.
Nowak, 43, had earlier posted a $15,500 bond on charges of attempted kidnapping, battery and attempted burglary of a car with battery.
But, her release was halted as Orlando Police brought the attempted murder charge.
As a condition of her release, Nowak was ordered to wear a global positioning satellite device, known as a GPS.
Nowak, a Navy Captain, is accused of accosting Air Force Capt. Colleen Shipman, 30, in the parking lot of Orlando International Airport early Monday and spraying her with pepper spray.
She told police she only wanted to talk with Shipman. (Watch what it takes to become an astronaut)
Nowak, a Navy captain, and Shipman were both "in a relationship" with Navy Cmdr. Bill Oefelein (OAF-line), another astronaut, according to a police report of the incident.
Nowak told police, however, her relationship with Oefelein was "more than a working relationship and less than a romantic relationship."
Shipman has filed for a restraining order on Nowak in Brevard County, where Shipman lives and works, according to a copy of the order on Brevard County's Web site.
In the paperwork for the order, Shipman said that Nowak had been stalking her for the past two months.
The hearing for the order is scheduled for February 20.
Nowak, a married mother of three, made both her court appearances shackled and wearing a dark-colored jumpsuit.
In the afternoon session, for the attempted murder charge, she kept her eyes straight ahead.
Her attorney, Donald Lykkebak, argued the judge should not find probable cause for the attempted murder charge because it was based on the same incident as the original charges.
And he accused Orlando police of wanting a "second bite of the apple.
Nowak's supervisor at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, retired Air Force Col. Steve Lindsey, testified at her morning court appearance.
Lindsey who was the commander of Nowak's shuttle flight last year assured the judge that Nowak, who is on active duty, would not have contact with Shipman or have any need to travel to Patrick Air Force Base, where Shipman works, or nearby Kennedy Space Center on Florida's Atlantic Coast.
According to the arresting affidavits, Nowak drove from Houston to Orlando after discovering Shipman's flight plans on Oefelein's computer.
She printed out detailed maps for the trip, which were found in her car during a police search, along with handwritten directions to Shipman's home.
En route, she paid cash for hotel stays and registered under an assumed name.
Once in Orlando, according to the arresting affidavits, Nowak followed Shipman from the airport to her car in a satellite parking lot, where the confrontation took place about 3:45 a.m. Wearing a wig and glasses, Nowak approached Shipman as she got into her car and told her Nowak's boyfriend had not shown up to pick her up and she needed a ride.
Shipman refused, saying she would send help instead.
When Nowak complained she couldn't hear Shipman and started to cry, Shipman opened her car window "about two inches" and Nowak sprayed pepper spray into the car, police said.
Shipman drove away and found police, who located Nowak at a bus stop.
They also found a wig and a plastic bag containing a carbon dioxide-powered BB pistol in a nearby trash can, the report said.
Inside a bag Nowak was carrying, the officer found a tan trench coat, a new steel mallet, a new folding knife with a 4-inch blade, 3 to 4 feet of rubber tubing, several large plastic garbage bags and about $600 in cash, the report said.
Nowak admitted the details of Shipman's story, according to the police report, and permitted a search of her car.
Inside the car, police found an a half dozen latex gloves, MapQuest directions from Houston to Orlando International Airport, e-mails from Shipman to Oefelein, diapers
Nowak said she wore to reduce stops along the highway and a letter indicating how much she loved Oefelein.
It is standard procedure for astronauts to wear diapers when they suit up for launch and re-entry.
Nowak, who has been an astronaut since 1996, flew her first shuttle mission last July, serving as a mission specialist aboard the Discovery.
Oefelein, 41, was the pilot of the last shuttle mission, also aboard Discovery, which flew in December 2006.
After Tuesday's court appearance, Lindsey said his appearance was in support of Nowak "like we would any employee at NASA if they were to get into this situation.
"We're a close family and we try to take care of our own," he added.
ÏÀ» Á¦°øÇÏÁö ¾Ê½À´Ï´Ù.
Chinese President Hu Jintao heads Tuesday for South Africa, Beijing's biggest trade partner on the continent, where President Thabo Mbeki warned last year that Africa needed to guard against allowing ties with China to develop into a "colonial relationship.
Hu, on an eight-nation tour of Africa, traveled Monday to Namibia, where he announced new development aid for the sparsely populated, mineral-rich desert country, which hopes to benefit from an influx of Chinese investment and tourists.
Hu announced a package of measures, including an interest-free loan and grants to build schools as he paid tribute to the "brotherly friendship" shown by a "young country full of vitality and talent.
Namibian President Hifikepunye Pohamba, who took office in March 2005, has actively promoted cooperation with China.
Trade between the two nations in the first 11 months of 2006 amounted to $240 million, an increase of 103 percent from the previous year.
Namibia, which has a population of 2 million, is rich in diamonds and minerals such as uranium, zinc and cobalt.
It is also becoming an increasingly popular destination for Chinese tourists.
But Hu's 24-hour stopover comes amid growing criticism over rising Chinese domination in Africa, its interest-free, "no strings attached" loans and its support of regimes with poor human rights records, such as Sudan and Zimbabwe.
South African trade unions, meanwhile, have complained that Chinese textile imports are devastating domestic industry, forcing the two governments to sign a memorandum of understanding last year aimed at restricting imports.
Hu, who will hold bilateral talks with Mbeki on Tuesday as well as address university students, is expected to sign a number of agreements, including on the export of South African fruit to China as well as in the energy and mining sectors.
Trade between both countries in the first 11 months of 2006 amounted to $240 million, an increase of 34.5 percent from the previous year.
South Africa, the continent's economic powerhouse and a major gold-producing country, has much to offer China with its mineral wealth and fertile lands.
China is involved in a number of operations mining platinum, nickel and chrome ore in South Africa.
Chinese companies are also heavily invested in light manufacturing, shipping, automobiles, telecommunications, construction and consumer electronics.
South African companies also view China as a lucrative market for their goods as well as a source of cheap labor.
South African investments in China amount to $400 million, including investments by Anglo American and SAB Miller.
Of Hu's tour of eight countries, half are in southern Africa, and the trip is expected to counter some of the criticism by boosting already growing trade ties and to ensure that aid pledges made by the Chinese premier last year at the China-Africa summit, such as reducing debt, increasing aid and cutting import tariffs, are carried out.
Hu arrived in Namibia from Zambia, where he inaugurated an economic cooperation zone designed to draw $800 million in mining investment and create 60,000 jobs in the Copperbelt province.
ÏÀ» Á¦°øÇÏÁö ¾Ê½À´Ï´Ù.
China, already the world's largest producer and consumer of coal, is expected to surpass the United States as the world's largest greenhouse-gas emitter in the next decade.
The China Daily newspaper said Beijing's temperature hit 12.8 degrees Celsius on Saturday a 30-year high for the date prompting an early spring, with frozen lakes melting and trees blooming.
Beijing is trying to promote conservation, but the government is reluctant to adopt binding emissions limits, arguing that its people are too poor and its companies lack technology to set stringent goals.
China was expected to release a progress report later Tuesday on its efforts to deal with climate change.
A separate report released last month said climate change will harm China's ecology and economy in the coming decades, possibly causing large drops in agricultural output.
The report said Chinese experts have projected that in the latter half of this century production of wheat, corn and rice in China will drop by as much as 37 percent, and that the country's average temperatures would rise by 2 or 3 degrees Celsius in the next 50 to 80 years.
It also said evaporation rates for some inland rivers would increase by 15 percent.
China already faces a severe water shortage, especially in the northern part of the country.
A man sentenced to death in Kuwait for the 1983 bombings of the U.S. and French embassies now sits in Iraq's parliament as a member of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's ruling coalition, according to U.S. military intelligence.
Repeated efforts to reach Jamal Jafaar Mohammed for comment through the parliament, through the ruling Shiite Muslim coalition and the Badr Organization the Iranian-backed paramilitary organization he once led have been unsuccessful.
He had fled the country by then, but Western intelligence agencies also accuse him of involvement in the hijacking of a Kuwaiti airliner in 1984 and the attempted assassination of a Kuwaiti prince.
Jamal Jafaar Mohammed won a seat in Iraq's Council of Representatives in the U.S.-backed elections of December 2005.
He represents Babil province, south of Baghdad, in the parliament.
But U.S. military intelligence in Iraq has approached al-Maliki's government with the allegations against Jamal Jafaar Mohammed, whom it says assists Iranian special forces in Iraq as "a conduit for weapons and political influence.
A U.S. Embassy spokesman said officials are actively pursuing Jamal Jafaar Mohammed's case with their Iraqi counterparts.
Al-Maliki has urged American intelligence officials to share their information with Iraqi lawmakers, who could strip Jamal Jafaar Mohammed of his parliamentary immunity.
"We don't want parliament to be a shelter for outlaws and wanted people," al-Maliki told CNN.
"This is the government's view, but the parliament is responsible.
I don't think parliament will accept having people like (him) or others currently in the parliament.
Al-Maliki's political party, Dawa, claimed responsibility for the Kuwait bombings at the time but now disavows them.
The Iranian-backed Shiite Muslim party was forced into exile under former dictator Saddam Hussein, who was executed in December.
The prime minister says the situation is embarrassing not only to his government but to a U.S. administration that holds up Iraq's government as a democratic model for the region.
Top U.S. officials, including President Bush, have accused Iran of meddling in Iraq by fomenting sectarian violence and providing arms to illegal militias.
Al-Maliki told CNN last week that the United States and Iran should stop using his country as a proxy battleground, accusing Iran of targeting U.S. troops in Iraq but saying he doesn't want U.S. forces to use Iraq as a base to attack Iraq's neighbors.
A letter bomb exploded Monday in the mailroom of a London company that controls the capital's traffic congestion charge, slightly injuring a female worker, police said.
The padded envelope exploded at an office belonging to Capita PLC, which administers the 8 pound (US$16) daily fee meant to cut down on traffic in central London and collects television licensing fees.
It also developed the database for the Criminal Records Bureau, combining data from 43 British police departments, and has significant contracts with government departments.
"We can confirm that there has been a small explosion at our Victoria Street office this morning," said a Capita spokeswoman, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with department policy.
Scotland Yard said the injured woman was a Capita employee.
Capita was formed in 1984 and has more than 26,000 staff in the U.K., the Channel Islands, Ireland and India.
"We didn't hear a bomb, but there were a lot of ambulances maybe three or four and the fire brigade," said a woman who works at a nearby hair salon who asked not to be named.
She said the injured woman was crying, had a bandage on her arm and another on her midriff.
The office is near Scotland Yard police headquarters and several other government offices.
The Irish Republican Army used letter bombs in the early 1970s as part of its campaign to end British rule in Northern Ireland, targeting numerous British government offices.
The Royal Mail sought to prevent larger explosive devices from entering the post by erecting barriers on letter boxes that reduced the size of the slits, so that only thin envelopes could be inserted.
In larger packages, the major Royal Mail sorting offices since the 1980s have deployed X-ray scanners to detect suspicious battery-powered objects before they could reach their intended target.
The major sorting center in Belfast, for example, has intercepted scores of such homemade devices using the technology.
Apple Inc. and The Beatles' company Apple Corps.
have reached a new trademark agreement, the companies said Monday.
The agreement brings an end to the ongoing trademark lawsuit between Apple Inc. (Charts), creator of the iPod digital music player and Macintosh line of computers, and Apple Corps.
over the use of the name "Apple" and the apple logo.
Cupertino-Calif.-based Apple will own all trademarks related to "Apple" under the deal and will license some of those trademarks to Apple Corps.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
"It feels great to resolve this in a positive manner, and in a way that should remove the potential of further disagreements in the future," Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs said in a statement
A boat of about 200 migrants most believed to be from Pakistan was waiting off the Mauritanian coast Monday after the West African country refused to receive the craft intercepted by Spanish authorities.
Mauritania "is not involved with this boat or its occupants, and has refused to give permission for the boat to land," government spokesman Babah Sidi Abdallah said.
Mauritania has agreed to help in the repatriation of migrants that use the country as a launching point, but Abdallah said this boat appeared to have left from Guinea-Bissau, a country much further south along the coast.
The boat was waiting in international waters near the northern Mauritanian fishing port of Nouadhibou, Abdallah said.
coast of West Africa, according to the Spanish Foreign Ministry.
The Foreign Ministry said the Spanish vessel originally planned to tow the migrant boat to the nearest safe port in Senegal, but the Senegalese government said it was not equipped to help the migrants.
More than 24,000 people were caught trying to reach Spain's Canary Islands last year in boats from West Africa.
Most of those taking the crowded wooden boats are African, but undocumented Bangladeshis, Pakistanis and other Asians also have been intercepted.
For them, Africa can be the final way station on a much longer voyage to Europe that involves complicated smuggling routes over a number of continents.
The European Union has been patrolling waters along the African coast to try to stem illegal immigration.
Spain and France also have promised money to countries along the coast to help provide other options to those who say the dangerous trip to Europe is their only chance at a better life. http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/africa/02/05/mauritania.migrants.ap/index.html
It's the first university appointment the winner of the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize has accepted, the university said.
The Tibetan leader said in a university statement that he looks forward to offering his services to students and the community.
"I firmly believe that education is an indispensable tool for the flourishing of human well-being and the creation of a just and peaceful society, and I am delighted to make a small contribution in this regard through this appointment," he said.
university, and to participate in a conference on science and spirituality and an interfaith session on religion.
The appointment is open-ended but provides no compensation, said Emory spokeswoman Nancy Seideman.
The Dalai Lama's role includes providing private teaching sessions with students and faculty during Emory's study-abroad program in Dharamsala, India, and opportunities for university community members to attend his annual teachings.
He also will make periodic visits to Emory, the statement said.
Emory also is creating a fellowship in the Dalai Lama's name to fund annual scholarships for Tibetan students who attend its undergraduate and graduate schools http://edition.cnn.com/2007/EDUCATION/02/05/emory.dalai.lama.ap/index.html
More children and teens are being exposed to online pornography, mostly by accidentally viewing sexually explicit Web sites while surfing the Internet, researchers say.
Forty-two percent of Internet users aged 10 to 17 surveyed said they had seen online pornography in a recent 12-month span.
Of those, 66 percent said they did not want to view the images and had not sought them out, University of New Hampshire researchers found.
You've really taken away the age of innocence," said Dr. Michael Wasserman, a pediatrician with the Ochsner Clinic in Metairie, Louisiana, who was not involved in the study.
Online pornography was defined in the study as images of naked people or people having sex.
The Marlboro, New Jersey, high school senior said X-rated images pop up all the time when she's online.
Duhovny said the first time she saw one, it was shocking, but now, "more than anything, it's just annoying.
"It doesn't have to be a negative thing, but that shouldn't be how you learn about sex education," said Duhovny, an editor for Sexetc.org, a teen-written Web site on sexual health issues affiliated with Rutgers University.
In the survey, conducted between March and June 2005, most kids who reported unwanted exposure were aged 13 to 17.
Still, sizable numbers of 10- and 11-year-olds also had unwanted exposure 17 percent of boys and 16 percent of girls that age.
More than one-third of 16- and 17-year-old boys surveyed said they had intentionally visited X-rated sites in the past year.
Among girls the same age, 8 percent had done so.
The results come from a telephone survey of 1,500 Internet users aged 10 to 17, conducted with their parents' consent.
The 2005 number was up from 25 percent in a similar survey conducted in 1999 and 2000.
The latest survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.
Online use that put kids at the highest risk for unwanted exposure to pornography was using file-sharing programs to download images.
However, they also stumbled onto X-rated images through other "normal" Internet use, the researchers said, including talking online with friends, visiting chat rooms and playing games.
Filtering and blocking software helped prevent exposure, but was not 100 percent effective, the researchers said.
Better methods are needed "to restrict the use of aggressive and deceptive tactics to market pornography online" without also hampering access to legitimate sites, the researchers said.
University of Chicago psychiatrist Sharon Hirsch said exposure to online pornography could lead kids to become sexually active too soon, or could put them at risk for being victimized by sexual predators if they visit sites that prey on children.
that they're really not emotionally prepared to see yet, which can cause trauma to them," Hirsch said.
Exposure also could skew their perceptions about what constitutes a healthy sexual relationship, said Janis Wolak, the study's lead author and a researcher at the University of New Hampshire's Crimes Against Children Research Center.
ÏÀ» Á¦°øÇÏÁö ¾Ê½À´Ï´Ù.
Chinese President Hu Jintao launched a copper mining partnership with Zambia on Sunday and won praise from Zambia's finance minister for his focus on economic investment rather than politics.
Hu planned to travel on Monday to Namibia his fifth stop on an eight-nation African tour intended to increase Chinese investment in the continent, which is rich in natural resources although it suffers from widespread poverty.
Zambian Finance Minister Ng'andu Magande told the Associated Press Hu's visit was "one of the most successful visits by a foreign head of state.
"People come here and talk about U.N. reform and conflict zones," he said.
"China has decided they will take a different route, they will take an economic route.
China has gained a reputation for striking deals with African nations without demanding political reforms such as respect for human rights sought by Western donors.
But Chinese investments have led to accusations of exploitation in Zambia, a nation of 11.5 million in southern Africa.
Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa was all smiles on Sunday as he and Hu launched an economic partnership zone centered around the Chambishi copper mine in Zambia's Copperbelt Province.
The partnership is designed to draw $800 million in mining investment from scores of Chinese companies and create 60,000 jobs.
China has already poured hundreds of millions of dollars into Zambia's copper sector, which accounts for 60 percent of the country's exports.
Addressing a crowd that included Chinese managers and Zambian miners in orange suits and red helmets, Hu and Mwanawasa said the new economic zone would be the first of several around the continent.
The walls and stage at a local conference center where the event was held were festooned in red, featuring a huge sign reading "Hail to Sino-Africa New-Type Strategic Partnership," red banners in Chinese lettering, and a huge map of the proposed economic zone.
Zambian and Chinese dance troupes performed outside.
A member of the Chinese delegation cued the audience when to applaud.
Mwanawasa said the zone would "change the face of the Copperbelt and, indeed, the Zambian economy in that our raw materials will now have a chance to enjoy a value addition of unimagined proportions. "
Mwanawasa sounded one cautious note, however, asking Chinese investors to partner with local Zambian firms and to give priority to local suppliers for goods and services.
Since the late 1990s, Chinese investments in the southern African nation have soared and now total $500 million the third largest after those of South Africa and Britain.
An outbreak of the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus strain detected on a British turkey farm is likely a precursor to other outbreaks in Europe, a U.N. bird flu expert said Sunday.
"I think we will have more in Europe in the next month or two," said David Nabarro, Senior U.N. Coordinator for Avian and Human Influenza.
Over recent years such outbreaks have been seen between November and May as infected migrating wild birds come into contact with domesticated stocks, said Nabarro, who is attending a bird flu conference in Indonesia.
The outbreak on a farm near Lowestoft in Suffolk "is the highly pathogenic Asian strain" and is similar to the virus found in Hungary last month , a British government agency said Saturday.
The outbreak was discovered Friday night after 2,500 turkeys died on the farm which was holding nearly 160,000 birds, officials said.
The remaining birds are being killed a process expected to take 36 hours, the agency said.
The farm is 120 miles northeast of central London.
Veterinary officials are enforcing a protection zone around the farm and taking other measures to deal with the issue.
But the British Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said "there is no reason for public health concern.
"Avian influenza is a disease of birds and whilst it can pass very rarely and with difficulty to humans, this requires extremely close contact with infected birds, particularly feces.
Nabarro, the U.N. official in charge of tracking bird flu outbreaks, said that in addition to the outbreaks in Britain and Hungary, officials have recently confirmed infections among domestic birds in Japan, and South Korea.
Speaking from Jakarta, Nabarro said British health officials are handling the outbreak "in the proper way, the way that's been required by the European Commission and I believe that under these circumstances, we would be unlucky if other farms in the vicinity get affected.
World Health Organization officials have confirmed 271 human cases and 165 deaths worldwide from the same strain of bird flu found in Britain.
The latest case confirmed by laboratory tests was that of a 22-year-old deceased female from Lagos, Nigeria, WHO officials said Saturday.
"The initial positive test findings from a laboratory in Nigeria were confirmed by the WHO Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza in London," the WHO said in a statement.
Tests of those who were in contact with the woman were negative for bird flu, the WHO said.
Bird flu cannot be contracted from eating "properly prepared" poultry, the WHO statement said.
"The H5N1 avian influenza virus is not transmitted to humans through properly prepared and cooked food (even if contaminated with the virus prior to cooking), according the WHO Web site.
"However, in a few instances, cases have been linked to consumption of dishes made of raw contaminated poultry blood.
At least 20 people have been killed and almost 340,000 forced from their homes, officials said.
Hundreds of people scrambled to the second floors of their houses to escape the rising waters.
Some found themselves trapped, while others refused to leave despite warnings that the muddy flood waters running over 13 feet deep in places may rise further in the coming days.
"Jakarta is now on the highest alert level," said Sihar Simanjuntak, an official who monitors the many rivers that crisscross this city of 12 million people. "The floods are getting worse.
Indonesia's meteorological agency is forecasting two weeks of rain.
The government dispatched medical teams on rubber rafts into the worst-hit districts to prevent outbreaks of disease among residents without clean drinking water.
Edi Darma, an official at Jakarta's Flood Crisis Center, said 20 people had died in Jakarta and surrounding towns as of late Sunday, mostly either by drowning or electrocution.
Survivors told of being stranded by the surging waters.
"We were starving for two days," said Sri Hatyati, who was rescued from her house by soldiers on a dinghy Sunday on the city's western outskirts.
"All we had were dried noodles.
We were unable to go anywhere.
Incessant rain that starting falling Thursday on Jakarta and the hills south of the city triggered the floods, the worst in recent memory.
Tens of thousands of homes, school and hospitals in poor and wealthy districts alike were inundated.
Authorities have cut off electricity and the water supply in many districts.
Dr. Rustam Pakaya, from the health ministry's crisis center, said nearly 340,000 people had been forced from their homes.
He said many of the homeless were staying with friends or family or at mosques and government buildings.
"We fear that diarrhea and dysentery may break out, as well as illnesses spread by rats," Pakaya said.
"People must be careful not to drink dirty water.
An Associated Press photographer saw Red Cross officials ferrying water and food to people downtown who were cut off by the floods in downtown districts.
TV footage showed people standing on roofs, and cars overturned.
Jakarta Governor Sutiyoso, who was criticized when the city was flooded five years ago, blamed deforestation in Puncak, saying it had destroyed water catchment areas.
Environment Minister Racmat Witoelar blamed poor urban planning.
Authorities issue building permits "even though they clearly violate environmental impact studies," Witoelar said, according to The Jakarta Post.
Seasonal downpours cause dozens of landslides and flash floods each year in Indonesia, a sprawling archipelago of 17,000 islands, where millions of people live in mountainous areas or near fertile plains.
Jakarta is regularly struck with floods, though not on the scale as in recent days.
Dozens of slum areas near rivers are washed out each year.
Some residents refuse to move, others say they cannot afford to live elsewhere.
NATO-led forces killed a senior Taliban leader with a precision airstrike near a southern Afghan town overrun by militants, a spokesman for the alliance said Sunday.
Tom Collins said the airstrike near Musa Qala on Sunday morning killed a senior Taliban leader riding in a car.
Musa Qala on Thursday was overrun by an estimated 200 Taliban fighters who disarmed local police, ransacked the district center and hoisted their trademark white flag.
The town had been subject to a peace deal brokered last October between village elders and the Helmand provincial government that prevented NATO, Afghan and Taliban fighters from coming within 5 kilometers (3 miles) of the town center.
Collins said the Taliban leader was killed within that 5 kilometers (3 miles) zone with the approval of the Afghan government.
He said no NATO or Afghan forces were on the ground in Musa Qala.
Collins didn't immediately name the person killed in the strike, but Mohammad Wali, a Musa Qala resident, said the airstrike killed a Taliban leader named Mullah Abdul Gafoor and some of his associates while they were riding in a truck through a small village just outside Musa Qala.
Another resident, Lal Mohammad, told The Associated Press on Saturday that the fighters in Musa Qala were being led by Gafoor, the hardline militia's corps commander in western Afghanistan during the Taliban regime.
Musa Qala saw intense battles between Taliban fighters and British troops last summer and fall.
The fighting caused widespread damage to the town of around 10,000 inhabitants, most of whom were forced to leave.
British forces withdrew from Musa Qala in October after the truce, which turned over security to local leaders and prevented NATO forces from entering the town.
Gen. David Richards, who was replaced Sunday as NATO's commander, told AP on Saturday that "very surgical and deliberate" force would be used to evict the fighters from Musa Qala, where he said the alliance's strategy of avoiding military action has driven a wedge between residents and Taliban insurgents.
Hyundai Motor Co. Chairman Chung Mong-koo's wait is almost over.
Chung, arrested and briefly jailed last year, is set to receive the verdict in his corruption trial Monday, and analysts say the fortunes of the world's sixth-largest automaker could be affected by the outcome.
Prosecutors indicted Chung in May, accusing him of illegally raising a slush fund of 103.4 billion won ($110 million; euro85 million) via affiliates which authorities say was used to pay lobbyists and for other purposes.
Chung, whose trial began in June, has also been charged with inflicting financial damage on affiliates.
Prosecutors have been taking a hard line against corruption in South Korea.
Last month, they sought a six-year jail term for Chung, calling his alleged crimes "grave.
Chung's attorneys argued before the three judge panel that he should receive a suspended sentence meaning no prison time citing health problems and the potential impact on South Korea's economy if he were to again be sidelined from management.
Chung was absent for more than two months after being jailed following his April arrest and entering a hospital for a health exam.
He was granted bail in June and returned to work in July.
Key decisions about overseas plant construction involving both Hyundai Motor and its affiliate Kia Motors Corp. were delayed while he was away.
Labor problems involving Hyundai's strike-prone labor union were also left to fester.
Many analysts have said that Chung will probably avoid a prison term given his central role in running arguably one of the country's two most important corporations, the other being Samsung Electronics Co.
"Especially now, it's a very important time for Hyundai," Yun Tae-sik, an auto analyst at NH Investment & Securities, said Friday, citing Hyundai's constant labor troubles, sluggish sales and pricing competition from Japanese automakers.
"The Japanese makers are able to sell cars for a better value than Hyundai" in the key U.S. market, Yun said, as they benefit from weakness in the Japanese yen versus the U.S. dollar.
The South Korean won rose about 9 percent against the greenback last year.
Hyundai cited the South Korean currency as a key reason along with its worst year of production losses from strikes behind a 35 percent drop in 2006 net profit.
Chung's prolonged incarceration could "have a grave impact on the industry as well as the national economy (so a) suspended sentence is likely," said Yong Dae-in, an analyst at Goodmorning Shinhan Securities.
Hyundai and Kia account for more than 70 percent of South Korea's automobile exports.
Autos make up about 10 percent of total exports in South Korea, the world's 10th-largest economy.
South Korea has a history of leniency toward corporate titans.
In a recent case, the Seoul District Court the same one deciding Chung's case ordered a three-year suspended jail term and a fine for Park Yong-sung, former chairman of the Doosan Group, for embezzling from the conglomerate.
The sentence was suspended for five years meaning Park will not be jailed if he stays out of trouble for that long.
Chung himself has made a bid for leniency, apologizing in court for "causing trouble over this case" and pledging to make Hyundai the world's No. 5 automaker if given the chance.
As of the end of 2005, Hyundai together with its affiliate Kia formed the world's No. 6 automaker in both production and sales, according to Automotive News, a publication that tracks the global vehicle industry.
"If he actually does have to go to jail it will cause some problems for Hyundai," said Yun.
"Last year when he was in jail it all came to a stop.
Whatever the outcome, Chung's case has highlighted the issue of how South Korean companies are managed.
Kang Sung-goo, secretary general of the South Korean office of Transparency International, a non-governmental organization devoted to raising awareness of and combating corruption, says that while there have been positive developments, more needs to be done.
"Improving corporate governance is one of the most important tasks (South) Korean companies are facing," Kang said.
ÏÀ» Á¦°øÇÏÁö ¾Ê½À´Ï´Ù.
Martin Scorsese won the top honor Saturday from the Directors Guild of America for his mob saga "The Departed," moving him a step closer to finally receiving Hollywood's biggest filmmaking prize at the Academy Awards.
Scorsese was chosen as filmmaker of the year by his peers, his first win at the guild awards after six previous nominations.
The guild winner usually goes on to win the best-director Oscar.
The self-deprecating Scorsese said he was pleased at the apparent success of the film but that he only became convinced it was doing well when the studio called with box-office revenues from the first couple of weekends.
"If you look at the graph at the spikes at where the picture is doing really great figures, it's like looking at a veritable map of the American underworld," such as Boca Raton, Florida, Scorsese said.
"Vegas forget about it, it was amazing.
Adapted from the Hong Kong crime thriller "Infernal Affairs," "The Departed" stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a cop who's undercover in a Boston crime outfit, Matt Damon as a mob mole who has infiltrated the police, and Jack Nicholson as the merciless gang leader pulling everyone's strings.
It has become Scorsese's biggest commercial hit, and critics praised it as a welcome return to the vivid, bloody crime genre whose modern conventions the director helped pioneer in such films as "Taxi Driver" and "Goodfellas.
"I started watching his work when I was 15 years old," said DiCaprio, who has starred in Scorsese's last three films and introduced the director to the guild audience earlier in the evening.
"It was like entering a seamless cinematic reality.
Walter Hill won the guild's directing honor for TV movies for the Western "Broken Trail.
Other TV winners included Richard Shepard for comedy directing on the pilot episode of "Ugly Betty," Jon Cassar for drama directing for an episode of "24," and "Chicago" filmmaker Rob Marshall for musical variety directing for "Tony Bennett:
An American Classic.
Arunas Matelis won for feature-film documentary for "Before Flying Back to the Earth," a portrait of children hospitalized with leukemia.
The film won over two Oscar nominees, "Deliver Us From Evil" and "Iraq in Fragments. "
A sixth loss at the Oscars would put Scorsese in the record books as the filmmaker with the most nominations without winning.
But many awards watchers feel this is Scorsese's year, labeling him the front-runner for the February 25 Oscars.
The guild prize is a solid forecast for who might win the directing honor at the Academy Awards.
Only six times in the 58-year history of the guild awards has the winner failed to go on to receive the directing Oscar.
The other guild nominees were Bill Condon for the musical "Dreamgirls," Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris for the road-trip tale "Little Miss Sunshine," Stephen Frears for the palace saga "The Queen" and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu for the ensemble drama "Babel.
The other Oscar nominations went to Clint Eastwood for the World War II epic "Letters From Iwo Jima" and Paul Greengrass for the September 11 docudrama "United 93.
With Condon out of the race, Scorsese's path to Oscar victory could prove a bit easier.
"I don't know," Scorsese said. "It's good to have a nomination, especially for this picture.
All rights reserved.
A diplomatic gaffe marred Saturday's inauguration of a China-financed stadium on this Caribbean island when a band performed Taiwan's national anthem.
Chinese Ambassador Qian Hongshan and scores of blue-uniformed Chinese laborers who built the new $40 million Queen's Park stadium as a gift from Beijing were visibly uncomfortable as Taiwan's anthem echoed inside the 20,000-seat venue.
Describing it as a blunder, Grenada Prime Minister Keith Mitchell pledged an investigation into how the Royal Grenada Police Band could have prepared the anthem of Taiwan instead of China, which has waged an aggressive campaign in the Caribbean to woo nations away from relationships with its rival.
Since China and Taiwan split in 1949 amid a civil war, Beijing has claimed that Taiwan is a renegade province and should not have diplomatic ties with other countries.
"I am very saddened," Mitchell told the workers and Chinese Embassy staff from Grenada and neighboring Trinidad and Tobago.
"This unfortunate error breaks my heart.
Police officials declined to comment except to say they would issue a statement later in the day.
Among the many small island nations in the Caribbean, the Asian rivals have long used economic investment to win votes at the United Nations.
China paid for the reconstruction of Grenada's stadium, which was destroyed by Hurricane Ivan in 2004, and some 500 Chinese workers helped rebuild the venue in time to host cricket World Cup matches in April.
·
ÏÀ» Á¦°øÇÏÁö ¾Ê½À´Ï´Ù.
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) Almost half the members of Australia's Parliament signed a letter to the Democrat-dominated U.S. Congress appealing for help repatriating the lone Australian terror suspect held at Guantanamo Bay, officials said Friday.
The letter faxed to U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi asking for Congress to intervene to ensure that former kangaroo skinner David Hicks is not tried by a military commission at the U.S. naval base in Cuba was signed by 96 senators and members of the Australian House of Representatives, opposition parties said.
There are a total of 226 members in the federal Parliament.
The only member of Prime Minister John Howard's center-right government to sign the letter was Barnaby Joyce, a maverick senator from the junior coalition partner, the Nationals party, his office confirmed Friday.
"As members of the Australian Parliament, we believe that the denial of justice in David Hicks' case erodes the values and principles shared by Australia and the United States," Lyn Allison, leader of the Australian Democrats minor opposition party, said in a statement.
She said she was disappointed that all but one member of the government refused to sign.
"It would have been a more powerful letter had they signed, of course, but it's nonetheless a very significant demonstration of the depth of feeling in the Australian Parliament on this issue," Allison later told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.
The Democrats co-wrote the letter with the major opposition Labor Party.
The letter was also supported by the Greens party and independents.
Congress had confirmed Pelosi's receipt of the letter, a Labor official said Friday.
The letter suggests Congress pass a resolution insisting that the 31-year-old alleged Taliban fighter be immediately repatriated to stand trial in Australia.
Failing repatriation, the lawmakers request Hicks "be immediately put to trial before a properly constituted U.S. criminal court.
Hicks has been held at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo since January 2002, a month after he was detained in Afghanistan.
His lawyers say he is suffering from depression and ill health because of the conditions of his incarceration.
He was originally charged with attempted murder, conspiracy to commit war crimes and aiding the enemy, and was selected to face a U.S. military tribunal.
But his case was thrown into limbo when the U.S. Supreme Court declared the commissions illegal in June.
Howard, a staunch U.S. ally in the war on terror, says his government is unhappy about the delay in bringing Hicks to trial but has resisted pressure to request his repatriation.
Justice Minister Chris Ellison said Canberra preferred to communicate directly with the U.S. government in its efforts to have Hicks brought to justice quickly rather than write to Congress.
"I think it's appropriate for us to convey Australia's concern to our counterparts and that's what we've done," Ellison told the ABC.
NATO-led forces killed a senior Taliban leader with a precision airstrike near a southern Afghan town overrun by militants, a spokesman for the alliance said Sunday.
Tom Collins said the airstrike near Musa Qala on Sunday morning killed a senior Taliban leader riding in a car.
Musa Qala on Thursday was overrun by an estimated 200 Taliban fighters who disarmed local police, ransacked the district center and hoisted their trademark white flag.
The town had been subject to a peace deal brokered last October between village elders and the Helmand provincial government that prevented NATO, Afghan and Taliban fighters from coming within 5 kilometers (3 miles) of the town center.
Collins said the Taliban leader was killed within that 5 kilometers (3 miles) zone with the approval of the Afghan government.
He said no NATO or Afghan forces were on the ground in Musa Qala.
Collins didn't immediately name the person killed in the strike, but Mohammad Wali, a Musa Qala resident, said the airstrike killed a Taliban leader named Mullah Abdul Gafoor and some of his associates while they were riding in a truck through a small village just outside Musa Qala.
Another resident, Lal Mohammad, told The Associated Press on Saturday that the fighters in Musa Qala were being led by Gafoor, the hardline militia's corps commander in western Afghanistan during the Taliban regime.
Musa Qala saw intense battles between Taliban fighters and British troops last summer and fall.
The fighting caused widespread damage to the town of around 10,000 inhabitants, most of whom were forced to leave.
British forces withdrew from Musa Qala in October after the truce, which turned over security to local leaders and prevented NATO forces from entering the town.
Gen. David Richards, who was replaced Sunday as NATO's commander, told AP on Saturday that "very surgical and deliberate" force would be used to evict the fighters from Musa Qala, where he said the alliance's strategy of avoiding military action has driven a wedge between residents and Taliban insurgents.
Hyundai Motor Co. Chairman Chung Mong-koo's wait is almost over.
Chung, arrested and briefly jailed last year, is set to receive the verdict in his corruption trial Monday, and analysts say the fortunes of the world's sixth-largest automaker could be affected by the outcome.
Prosecutors indicted Chung in May, accusing him of illegally raising a slush fund of 103.4 billion won ($110 million; euro85 million) via affiliates which authorities say was used to pay lobbyists and for other purposes.
Chung, whose trial began in June, has also been charged with inflicting financial damage on affiliates.
Prosecutors have been taking a hard line against corruption in South Korea.
Last month, they sought a six-year jail term for Chung, calling his alleged crimes "grave.
Chung's attorneys argued before the three judge panel that he should receive a suspended sentence meaning no prison time citing health problems and the potential impact on South Korea's economy if he were to again be sidelined from management.
Chung was absent for more than two months after being jailed following his April arrest and entering a hospital for a health exam.
He was granted bail in June and returned to work in July.
Key decisions about overseas plant construction involving both Hyundai Motor and its affiliate Kia Motors Corp. were delayed while he was away.
Labor problems involving Hyundai's strike-prone labor union were also left to fester.
Many analysts have said that Chung will probably avoid a prison term given his central role in running arguably one of the country's two most important corporations, the other being Samsung Electronics Co.
"Especially now, it's a very important time for Hyundai," Yun Tae-sik, an auto analyst at NH Investment & Securities, said Friday, citing Hyundai's constant labor troubles, sluggish sales and pricing competition from Japanese automakers.
"The Japanese makers are able to sell cars for a better value than Hyundai" in the key U.S. market, Yun said, as they benefit from weakness in the Japanese yen versus the U.S. dollar.
The South Korean won rose about 9 percent against the greenback last year.
Hyundai cited the South Korean currency as a key reason along with its worst year of production losses from strikes behind a 35 percent drop in 2006 net profit.
Chung's prolonged incarceration could "have a grave impact on the industry as well as the national economy (so a) suspended sentence is likely," said Yong Dae-in, an analyst at Goodmorning Shinhan Securities.
Hyundai and Kia account for more than 70 percent of South Korea's automobile exports.
Autos make up about 10 percent of total exports in South Korea, the world's 10th-largest economy.
South Korea has a history of leniency toward corporate titans.
In a recent case, the Seoul District Court the same one deciding Chung's case ordered a three-year suspended jail term and a fine for Park Yong-sung, former chairman of the Doosan Group, for embezzling from the conglomerate.
The sentence was suspended for five years meaning Park will not be jailed if he stays out of trouble for that long.
Chung himself has made a bid for leniency, apologizing in court for "causing trouble over this case" and pledging to make Hyundai the world's No. 5 automaker if given the chance.
As of the end of 2005, Hyundai together with its affiliate Kia formed the world's No. 6 automaker in both production and sales, according to Automotive News, a publication that tracks the global vehicle industry.
"If he actually does have to go to jail it will cause some problems for Hyundai," said Yun.
"Last year when he was in jail it all came to a stop.
Whatever the outcome, Chung's case has highlighted the issue of how South Korean companies are managed.
Kang Sung-goo, secretary general of the South Korean office of Transparency International, a non-governmental organization devoted to raising awareness of and combating corruption, says that while there have been positive developments, more needs to be done.
"Improving corporate governance is one of the most important tasks (South) Korean companies are facing," Kang said.
ÏÀ» Á¦°øÇÏÁö ¾Ê½À´Ï´Ù.
Martin Scorsese won the top honor Saturday from the Directors Guild of America for his mob saga "The Departed," moving him a step closer to finally receiving Hollywood's biggest filmmaking prize at the Academy Awards.
Scorsese was chosen as filmmaker of the year by his peers, his first win at the guild awards after six previous nominations.
The guild winner usually goes on to win the best-director Oscar.
The self-deprecating Scorsese said he was pleased at the apparent success of the film but that he only became convinced it was doing well when the studio called with box-office revenues from the first couple of weekends.
"If you look at the graph at the spikes at where the picture is doing really great figures, it's like looking at a veritable map of the American underworld," such as Boca Raton, Florida, Scorsese said.
"Vegas forget about it, it was amazing.
Adapted from the Hong Kong crime thriller "Infernal Affairs," "The Departed" stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a cop who's undercover in a Boston crime outfit, Matt Damon as a mob mole who has infiltrated the police, and Jack Nicholson as the merciless gang leader pulling everyone's strings.
It has become Scorsese's biggest commercial hit, and critics praised it as a welcome return to the vivid, bloody crime genre whose modern conventions the director helped pioneer in such films as "Taxi Driver" and "Goodfellas.
"I started watching his work when I was 15 years old," said DiCaprio, who has starred in Scorsese's last three films and introduced the director to the guild audience earlier in the evening.
"It was like entering a seamless cinematic reality.
Walter Hill won the guild's directing honor for TV movies for the Western "Broken Trail.
Other TV winners included Richard Shepard for comedy directing on the pilot episode of "Ugly Betty," Jon Cassar for drama directing for an episode of "24," and "Chicago" filmmaker Rob Marshall for musical variety directing for "Tony Bennett:
An American Classic.
Arunas Matelis won for feature-film documentary for "Before Flying Back to the Earth," a portrait of children hospitalized with leukemia.
The film won over two Oscar nominees, "Deliver Us From Evil" and "Iraq in Fragments. "
A sixth loss at the Oscars would put Scorsese in the record books as the filmmaker with the most nominations without winning.
But many awards watchers feel this is Scorsese's year, labeling him the front-runner for the February 25 Oscars.
The guild prize is a solid forecast for who might win the directing honor at the Academy Awards.
Only six times in the 58-year history of the guild awards has the winner failed to go on to receive the directing Oscar.
The other guild nominees were Bill Condon for the musical "Dreamgirls," Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris for the road-trip tale "Little Miss Sunshine," Stephen Frears for the palace saga "The Queen" and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu for the ensemble drama "Babel.
The other Oscar nominations went to Clint Eastwood for the World War II epic "Letters From Iwo Jima" and Paul Greengrass for the September 11 docudrama "United 93.
With Condon out of the race, Scorsese's path to Oscar victory could prove a bit easier.
"I don't know," Scorsese said. "It's good to have a nomination, especially for this picture.
All rights reserved.
A diplomatic gaffe marred Saturday's inauguration of a China-financed stadium on this Caribbean island when a band performed Taiwan's national anthem.
Chinese Ambassador Qian Hongshan and scores of blue-uniformed Chinese laborers who built the new $40 million Queen's Park stadium as a gift from Beijing were visibly uncomfortable as Taiwan's anthem echoed inside the 20,000-seat venue.
Describing it as a blunder, Grenada Prime Minister Keith Mitchell pledged an investigation into how the Royal Grenada Police Band could have prepared the anthem of Taiwan instead of China, which has waged an aggressive campaign in the Caribbean to woo nations away from relationships with its rival.
Since China and Taiwan split in 1949 amid a civil war, Beijing has claimed that Taiwan is a renegade province and should not have diplomatic ties with other countries.
"I am very saddened," Mitchell told the workers and Chinese Embassy staff from Grenada and neighboring Trinidad and Tobago.
"This unfortunate error breaks my heart.
Police officials declined to comment except to say they would issue a statement later in the day.
Among the many small island nations in the Caribbean, the Asian rivals have long used economic investment to win votes at the United Nations.
China paid for the reconstruction of Grenada's stadium, which was destroyed by Hurricane Ivan in 2004, and some 500 Chinese workers helped rebuild the venue in time to host cricket World Cup matches in April.
·
ÏÀ» Á¦°øÇÏÁö ¾Ê½À´Ï´Ù.
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) Almost half the members of Australia's Parliament signed a letter to the Democrat-dominated U.S. Congress appealing for help repatriating the lone Australian terror suspect held at Guantanamo Bay, officials said Friday.
The letter faxed to U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi asking for Congress to intervene to ensure that former kangaroo skinner David Hicks is not tried by a military commission at the U.S. naval base in Cuba was signed by 96 senators and members of the Australian House of Representatives, opposition parties said.
There are a total of 226 members in the federal Parliament.
The only member of Prime Minister John Howard's center-right government to sign the letter was Barnaby Joyce, a maverick senator from the junior coalition partner, the Nationals party, his office confirmed Friday.
"As members of the Australian Parliament, we believe that the denial of justice in David Hicks' case erodes the values and principles shared by Australia and the United States," Lyn Allison, leader of the Australian Democrats minor opposition party, said in a statement.
She said she was disappointed that all but one member of the government refused to sign.
"It would have been a more powerful letter had they signed, of course, but it's nonetheless a very significant demonstration of the depth of feeling in the Australian Parliament on this issue," Allison later told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.
The Democrats co-wrote the letter with the major opposition Labor Party.
The letter was also supported by the Greens party and independents.
Congress had confirmed Pelosi's receipt of the letter, a Labor official said Friday.
The letter suggests Congress pass a resolution insisting that the 31-year-old alleged Taliban fighter be immediately repatriated to stand trial in Australia.
Failing repatriation, the lawmakers request Hicks "be immediately put to trial before a properly constituted U.S. criminal court.
Hicks has been held at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo since January 2002, a month after he was detained in Afghanistan.
His lawyers say he is suffering from depression and ill health because of the conditions of his incarceration.
He was originally charged with attempted murder, conspiracy to commit war crimes and aiding the enemy, and was selected to face a U.S. military tribunal.
But his case was thrown into limbo when the U.S. Supreme Court declared the commissions illegal in June.
Howard, a staunch U.S. ally in the war on terror, says his government is unhappy about the delay in bringing Hicks to trial but has resisted pressure to request his repatriation.
Justice Minister Chris Ellison said Canberra preferred to communicate directly with the U.S. government in its efforts to have Hicks brought to justice quickly rather than write to Congress.
"I think it's appropriate for us to convey Australia's concern to our counterparts and that's what we've done," Ellison told the ABC.
NEW YORK (CNN) A New York City Council member Thursday proposed pushing sponsors to ban abnormally thin models from walking New York Fashion Week's runways.
Council member Gail Brewer wants fashion houses to ban any model with a body mass index of less than 18.5 the cutoff for the World Health Organization's definition of "normal.
Brewer said she wants models to be educated on nutrition and designers to encourage healthful lifestyles. (Watch stick-thin models strut the runway )
"We want the designers to offer some clothes that are a little bit more robust," she also told CNN, "and we certainly don't want people under the age of 16 to be modeling.
Madrid Fashion Week set a BMI limit of 18 in September, and Italian designers in December agreed to health and age guidelines for runway models, The Associated Press reported.
On Wednesday, Assemblyman Jose Rivera of the Bronx introduced a resolution in the state legislature to generate standards to protect the health of teenage models and entertainers, AP reported.
The Council of Fashion Designers of America issued recommendations in January to help bulimia, anorexia and other health problems among models.
Brazilian model Ana Carolina Reston died in November at age 21.
She was 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighed just 88 pounds, for a BMI of 13.4.
WHO defines normal BMI as 18.5 to 24.9.
This material may not be published.
WASHINGTON (CNN) A report from the Congressional Budget Office says President Bush's plan for a troop increase in Iraq could cost up to $27 billion for a 12-month deployment.
The plan could mean sending thousands of support troops in addition to the 20,000-plus combat troops the Defense Department has set for deployment.
The numbers come in a letter to Rep. John Spratt, chairman of the House Budget Committee, in response to a request from Spratt's office.
"CBO's report concludes that the cost of the president's plan to 'surge' troops will be higher than previously indicated, both in dollar terms and in the burdens it places on our military," Spratt, D-South Carolina, said in a written statement.
The report notes that the Defense Department has identified only combat troops for deployment in the increase but says, "U.S. military operations also require substantial support forces, including personnel to staff headquarters, serve as military police and provide communications, contracting, engineering, intelligence, medical and other services.
The report notes the Defense Department expects to use fewer support troops than in the past.
It estimates that under past proportions, 28,000 support troops would be added to the 20,000 combat troops. But it revises that figure to 15,000 support troops for a new deployment.
That would bring the total number of forces being added in Iraq to between 35,000 and 48,000 troops, the report said.
The report estimates that a four-month deployment of the additional troops both combat and support could cost $9 billion to $13 billion and a 12-month deployment could cost $20 billion to $27 billion.
The White House estimated that the troop increase would cost $5.6 billion.
Ike Skelton, D-Missouri, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.
"The cost of the troop increase could be significantly higher than what the administration has been saying in the press.
"The CBO report only confirms what we already know: The president has continually tried to hide the true costs of this war, both in terms of money spent and lives affected," Meehan said.
"This Democratic Congress and the House Armed Services Committee will not let the president get away with saying whatever he wants without checking his facts anymore. "
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) Speakers decried crime in South Africa at the funeral Thursday of a renowned historian who was shot dead earlier this week.
The death of David Rattray, a friend of Britain's Prince Charles and an expert on the 1879 Anglo-Zulu war, has put South Africa's high rate of violent crime in the spotlight again.
Rattray was shot dead January 26 by a six-man gang at his Fugitives' Drift guest lodge in the eastern province of KwaZulu-Natal.
The police announced on Thursday that two men had been arrested and would appear in court on Friday on charges of murder.
Government ministers and provincial premiers were among about 1,500 people at the funeral at the Michaelhouse School chapel in KwaZulu-Natal.
Do 'whatever it takes' to end crime
South Africa's people were crying out to the nation's leaders to do "whatever it takes" to end crime, Inkatha Freedom Party leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi said at the funeral.
SAPA also reported that the Right Reverend Rubin Philip reiterated the call for government action on crime.
Rattray was a compelling storyteller and popular on the lecture circuit in Britain.
the 1879 battles of Isandlwana and Rourkes Drift.
Thousands of tourists, many from Britain, visit the battlefields every year.
South Africa has become notorious for its high rate of violent crime.
According to government statistics, there were 18,528 murders in 2004 more than 50 per day.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press All rights reserved
NEW YORK (AP) The decision to become pregnant and raise a child with her female partner was not political, Mary Cheney, a daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney, told a Barnard College audience.
"This is a baby," Cheney said Wednesday at a forum sponsored by Glamour magazine.
"This is a blessing from God.
It is not a political statement.
It is not a prop to be used in a debate by people on either side of an issue.
It is my child.
Cheney, 37, announced in December that she and her partner of 15 years, Heather Poe, were starting a family.
She did not say how the child was conceived.
The baby is due in the spring and will be the vice president's sixth grandchild. (Watch Mary Cheney address critics of the pregnancy )
Dick Cheney became testy last week when CNN's Wolf Blitzer asked him what he thought of conservatives who are critical of his daughter's pregnancy.
Cheney told Blitzer he was "over the line."
In a brief interview with The New York Times after Wednesday's panel, Mary Cheney said she agreed that Blitzer had crossed a line.
"He was trying to get a rise out of my father," she said.
Glamour editor Cindi Leive asked Cheney during the panel discussion if she had anything to say to conservatives such as James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, who have criticized her pregnancy, asserting that children should be raised by heterosexual married couples.
She responded, "Every piece of remotely responsible research that has been done in the last 20 years on this issue has shown there is no difference between children who are raised by same-sex parents and children who are raised by opposite-sex parents.
What matters is that children are being raised in a stable, loving environment.
Cheney was an aide to her father during the 2004 campaign and now is vice president for consumer advocacy at AOL.
This material may not be published.
PARIS, France (AP) French President Jacques Chirac said in an interview with three newspapers that Iran's possession of a nuclear bomb would not be "very dangerous" and that if it used the weapon on Israel, Tehran would be immediately "razed," according to a newspaper report.
Chirac who made the comments during a Monday interview with The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune and Le Nouvel Observateur, a weekly magazine called reporters back the next day to try to have his quotes retracted.
In an article posted on its Web site Wednesday night, the New York Times said the Monday interview was tape recorded and on the record.
Chirac's initial remarks would mark a big departure from France's official policy of deterrence and work in preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.
"I should rather have paid attention to what I was saying and understood that perhaps I was on the record," Chirac said in the second interview on Tuesday, according to the New York Times.
On Monday, Chirac said of Iran and its nuclear program: "I would say that what is dangerous about this situation is not the fact of having a nuclear bomb.
Instead, Chirac said, the danger lies in the chances of proliferation or an arms race in the Middle East should Iran build a nuclear bomb.
Possessing the weapon would be useless for Iran whose leader has called for Israel to be "wiped off the map" as using it would mean an instant counterattack.
Chirac asked.
"It would not have gone 200 meters into the atmosphere before Tehran would be razed.
In the second interview with the same newspapers, Chirac retracted his comment about Tehran being razed.
"I retract it, of course, when I said, 'One is going to raze Tehran,"' he said.
Chirac also said other countries would stop any bomb launched by Iran from reaching its target.
"It is obvious that this bomb, at the moment it was launched, obviously would be destroyed immediately," he said.
"We have the means several countries have the means to destroy a bomb.
LAS VEGAS, Nevada (AP) After nearly 30 years, California's classic rock group the Eagles may soon release their first album of all-new music.
Founding member Don Henley said during a private weekend concert that the band was nearing completion on an album of all-new material, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported on Tuesday.
"It's coming out in 60 to 90 days, if we don't kill each other first," Henley, 59, told the crowd Saturday at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.
Eagles and Henley spokesman Larry Solters said Wednesday there was no comment.
"The Long Run" in 1979 was the Eagles last album featuring all-new studio material.
That album included the Grammy-winning single "Heartache Tonight.
The group officially disbanded in 1982, then they reunited in 1994 for a comeback tour featuring Henley, Glenn Frey, Joe Walsh, Timothy Schmit and Don Felder.
The band appeared together again in 1998, with past members Bernie Leadon and Randy Meisner, when they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
NEW YORK (AP) "Harry Potter" star Daniel Radcliffe, who strips for his new role in London's West End revival of the play "Equus," has ignited a bit of a media firestorm by posing for racy promotional photos for the production.
The Tony-Award-winning drama tells the story of a stable-hand who has an erotic fixation with horses.
In one photo, Radcliffe, 17, dares to bare it all alongside a white horse; in another, he is pictured with a naked Joanna Christie, the actress who portrays his girlfriend.
"Equus," directed by Thea Sharrock, opens at London's Gielgud Theater on February 27.
Tony Award-winning actor Richard Griffiths plays a pyschiatrist who treats Radcliffe's character.
"Part of me wants to shake up people's perception of me, just shove me in a blender," Radcliffe said in a recent interview with Newsweek magazine.
"It's a really challenging play, and if I can pull it off we don't know if I can yet I hope people will stop and think, 'Maybe he can do something other than Harry,' " he said.
Radcliffe, who was discovered seven years ago in the audience of a London theater, reprises his role as the bespectacled boy wizard in "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," slated for release July 13.
This material may not be published.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) North Korea repeated its demand during talks with the United States this week that Washington lift financial restrictions targeting the communist regime, a pro-Pyongyang newspaper reported on Thursday, after the meetings ended without a clear breakthrough.
Experts from Washington and Pyongyang met in Beijing on Tuesday and Wednesday to discuss the financial restrictions the United States imposed over the North's alleged counterfeiting of U.S. currency and money laundering.
North Korea, denying any wrongdoing, has claimed the restrictions are evidence of Washington's hostile attitude toward it and prove it needs nuclear weapons to protect itself.
The financial row has been a key impediment to six-nation talks aimed at getting North Korea to give up its nuclear program, as Pyongyang refused to address disarmament unless the financial row is resolved.
North Korea repeated the demand in this week's talks, according to the Choson Sinbo, a Korean-language newspaper based in Japan which has links to the Pyongyang government.
The North is "demanding that the United States show an attitude of lifting the financial sanctions and not expanding them so as to create an atmosphere for entering into discussions on denuclearization commitments" in a 2005 accord, said the report posted on the paper's Web site seen in Seoul.
That agreement the only ever made at the nuclear talks calls for North Korea to trade away its nuclear programs in exchange for security guarantees and aid.
But it was never implemented because of the financial row.
This week's talks on the financial issue preceded a new round of nuclear negotiations set to resume next week.
The top U.S. delegate to the financial talks, Deputy Assistant Treasury Secretary Daniel Glaser, said the two days of meetings had validated U.S. suspicions of illegal financial activity by North Korea.
He also suggested that the dispute could see an end.
"I think we are now in a position after a very lengthy investigation ... to start moving forward and trying to bring some resolution to this matter," Glaser said, without saying how the dispute would be settled.
There have been media reports that Washington was considering declaring some of the North's assets at a Macau bank as legitimate, allowing the bank to end its freeze on some of North Korea's US$24 million (euro18.5 million) held there.
Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki said on Thursday that Washington considers the financial talks "very constructive" and Tokyo hopes it will have a positive impact on the six-party nuclear talks.
North Korea agreed to resume the nuclear negotiations, involving China, Japan, the two Koreas, Russia and the U.S., after the United States offered unspecified concessions during rare bilateral talks in Berlin in January.
ÏÀ» Á¦°øÇÏÁö ¾Ê½À´Ï´Ù.
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) Police in Brazil have arrested the widow of a multimillionaire lottery winner, while prosecutors decide whether to charge her in his killing.
Brazilian newspapers on Wednesday ran front-page photos of Adriana Almeida wearing a T-shirt and wraparound designer sunglasses being escorted to jail from a hotel in a luxury seaside community near Rio de Janeiro.
"I'm innocent.
What they're doing to me is cowardice," she told Rio's O Globo newspaper after her arrest.
The former hairdresser who married 54-year-old Renne Senna after he hit the jackpot was greeted by jeers as she arrived Tuesday at the lockup.
Police spokesman Marcele Mendes said she will be held for at least 30 days.
During that time, prosecutors will evaluate the police investigation and determine whether to ask a judge to charge Almeida.
Globo TV reported Wednesday that police also are looking for four men suspected of involvement in the killing.
Almeida, 29, was the girlfriend of Senna, a former subsistence farmer and butcher, before he became rich.
Senna, who had part of both legs amputated because of diabetes, got around town on a special, motorized four-wheel cart.
In July 2005, Senna was the sole winner of a national lottery worth 52 million reals ($24.4 million).
He bought a sprawling ranch in Rio Bonito, a rural town 50 miles (75 kilometers) northeast of Rio, and married Almeida.
Senna's family accused Almeida of pressuring Senna to change his will, removing 11 brothers and sisters as potential beneficiaries.
Senna wrote a new will leaving the money only to Almeida and a daughter, Renata.
Some local news media reported that Almeida had said her husband doubted whether he was Renata's real father and planned DNA testing to confirm his paternity.
On January 7, two hooded men on a motorcycle pulled up to a bar in Rio Bonito where Senna usually went for a beer.
Senna was shot four times in the head, and the hooded men sped away.
Five days later, Almeida was summoned to a police interrogation and swore she was innocent.
A furious crowd surrounded the police station in Rio Bonito and reportedly tried to lynch her.
Police dispersed the crowd by firing into the air.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is telling the United States and Iran to keep their fight out of Iraq.
Al-Maliki said he believes Iran is targeting U.S. forces in Iraq.
A U.S. official said Tuesday that the Pentagon is investigating whether Iran was behind a January 20 attack in Karbala that left five U.S. troops dead.
"We believe it's possible the executors of the attack were Iranian or Iranian-trained," the U.S. official said.
The sophistication of the attack, in which English-speaking guerrillas in American-style uniforms drove sport utility vehicles past checkpoints to attack a government compound, was beyond what insurgents in Iraq have shown they are capable of, U.S. officials said.
Whether Iran proves to be responsible for that attack or not, al-Maliki said his country cannot be a proxy battleground for Washington and Tehran.
"Iraq has nothing to do with the American-Iranian struggle, and we will not let Iran play a role against the American Army and we will not allow America to play a role against the Iranian army, and everyone should respect the sovereignty of Iraq," al-Maliki said.
"We will not accept Iran to use Iraq to attack the American forces.
Iran was a major topic Wednesday during CNN correspondent Michael Ware's wide-ranging, exclusive interview with al-Maliki.
The prime minister said Americans are basing their hunches about Iranian activities in Iraq on intelligence they've amassed. (Watch al-Maliki talk about the situation in Iraq )
The United States accuses Iran of fomenting terror attacks worldwide and pursuing a nuclear program that could lead to the development of weaponry.
Iran has denied those assertions.
"We have told the Iranian and the Americans, 'We know that you have a problem with each other, but we are asking you please solve your problems outside Iraq.
' We don't want the American forces to take Iraq as a field to attack Iran or Syria," the prime minister said.
Al-Maliki said Iraq doesn't want its sovereignty to be violated by any of its neighbors, which include Iran, Kuwait, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Turkey.
All could find a reason to interfere in Iraq, he said, including opposition to the U.S. troop presence, and sectarian and political differences.
"Iran is Shiite, and we are Shiite and we have many Shiites in Iraq, but this does not justify Iran interfering in Iraq.
We respect this relation, but we will not allow such interfering to exist.
Also, Iraq is an Arab country, the majority are Arabs, but this also will not justify for the Arab countries to interfere in Iraq.
Al-Maliki also addressed his government's position toward militias and troop levels in his country.
He said he supports President Bush's plan to bolster troop numbers in Iraq by more than 20,000 soldiers and Marines.
"We believe that the existing number, with a slight addition, will do the job, but if there seems to be more need we will ask for more troops.
Al-Maliki reiterated his intention to go after any or all entities that foment violence, including the militia of a supporter, Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
And he indicated that troop-level adjustments must be based on prevailing conditions.
Some observers question whether al-Maliki has the political will to take on al-Sadr's Mehdi Army, thought to be behind much of Iraq's violence between Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias.
Al-Sadr helped al-Maliki become prime minister last year.
The prime minister said al-Sadr's movement is committed to banning armed groups and not interfering with the new security plan.
He said the group's commitment is "a good incentive for others who have militias to announce their support to the Baghdad security plan.
Nevertheless, he put all groups and people on notice: Everyone must respect the law.
"I will apply the law to everyone ... on militias, political parties, on participants in the political process," he said.
"The law rules and who is on my side in respecting the law and the government's will be an ally and a partner and who rebels against the law and the government's will, will be a foe.
Al-Maliki emphasized his political detachment and fairness.
While he has been a member of the Shiite Dawa Party a part of the ruling United Iraqi Alliance he said he is the leader of all the people, not just Shiites.
Iraq which has about a 60 percent Shiite population is also made up of Sunni Arabs, Kurds, Turkmens, Christians and others.
"I'm talking now as a prime minister and not as a member of the party. ...
The membership of a party stops at the boundaries of the state," he said.
Al-Maliki said the effort to foster and bring about peace is not just a military one.
He said it's political as well and requires national will, an implication that Iraqis need to put aside their ethnic, tribal and religious allegiances to help the state survive.
"We do not want to kill the people and drown the country in blood, and we welcome every step that brings a setback for militias or terrorists and a desire to join the political process so we can minimize the losses and blood," he said.
"But this all has to happen under the umbrella of national will, the government and the law. "
NATO-led forces killed a senior Taliban leader with a precision airstrike near a southern Afghan town overrun by militants, a spokesman for the alliance said Sunday.
Tom Collins said the airstrike near Musa Qala on Sunday morning killed a senior Taliban leader riding in a car.
Musa Qala on Thursday was overrun by an estimated 200 Taliban fighters who disarmed local police, ransacked the district center and hoisted their trademark white flag.
The town had been subject to a peace deal brokered last October between village elders and the Helmand provincial government that prevented NATO, Afghan and Taliban fighters from coming within 5 kilometers (3 miles) of the town center.
Collins said the Taliban leader was killed within that 5 kilometers (3 miles) zone with the approval of the Afghan government.
He said no NATO or Afghan forces were on the ground in Musa Qala.
Collins didn't immediately name the person killed in the strike, but Mohammad Wali, a Musa Qala resident, said the airstrike killed a Taliban leader named Mullah Abdul Gafoor and some of his associates while they were riding in a truck through a small village just outside Musa Qala.
Another resident, Lal Mohammad, told The Associated Press on Saturday that the fighters in Musa Qala were being led by Gafoor, the hardline militia's corps commander in western Afghanistan during the Taliban regime.
Musa Qala saw intense battles between Taliban fighters and British troops last summer and fall.
The fighting caused widespread damage to the town of around 10,000 inhabitants, most of whom were forced to leave.
British forces withdrew from Musa Qala in October after the truce, which turned over security to local leaders and prevented NATO forces from entering the town.
Gen. David Richards, who was replaced Sunday as NATO's commander, told AP on Saturday that "very surgical and deliberate" force would be used to evict the fighters from Musa Qala, where he said the alliance's strategy of avoiding military action has driven a wedge between residents and Taliban insurgents.
Hyundai Motor Co. Chairman Chung Mong-koo's wait is almost over.
Chung, arrested and briefly jailed last year, is set to receive the verdict in his corruption trial Monday, and analysts say the fortunes of the world's sixth-largest automaker could be affected by the outcome.
Prosecutors indicted Chung in May, accusing him of illegally raising a slush fund of 103.4 billion won ($110 million; euro85 million) via affiliates which authorities say was used to pay lobbyists and for other purposes.
Chung, whose trial began in June, has also been charged with inflicting financial damage on affiliates.
Prosecutors have been taking a hard line against corruption in South Korea.
Last month, they sought a six-year jail term for Chung, calling his alleged crimes "grave.
Chung's attorneys argued before the three judge panel that he should receive a suspended sentence meaning no prison time citing health problems and the potential impact on South Korea's economy if he were to again be sidelined from management.
Chung was absent for more than two months after being jailed following his April arrest and entering a hospital for a health exam.
He was granted bail in June and returned to work in July.
Key decisions about overseas plant construction involving both Hyundai Motor and its affiliate Kia Motors Corp. were delayed while he was away.
Labor problems involving Hyundai's strike-prone labor union were also left to fester.
Many analysts have said that Chung will probably avoid a prison term given his central role in running arguably one of the country's two most important corporations, the other being Samsung Electronics Co.
"Especially now, it's a very important time for Hyundai," Yun Tae-sik, an auto analyst at NH Investment & Securities, said Friday, citing Hyundai's constant labor troubles, sluggish sales and pricing competition from Japanese automakers.
"The Japanese makers are able to sell cars for a better value than Hyundai" in the key U.S. market, Yun said, as they benefit from weakness in the Japanese yen versus the U.S. dollar.
The South Korean won rose about 9 percent against the greenback last year.
Hyundai cited the South Korean currency as a key reason along with its worst year of production losses from strikes behind a 35 percent drop in 2006 net profit.
Chung's prolonged incarceration could "have a grave impact on the industry as well as the national economy (so a) suspended sentence is likely," said Yong Dae-in, an analyst at Goodmorning Shinhan Securities.
Hyundai and Kia account for more than 70 percent of South Korea's automobile exports.
Autos make up about 10 percent of total exports in South Korea, the world's 10th-largest economy.
South Korea has a history of leniency toward corporate titans.
In a recent case, the Seoul District Court the same one deciding Chung's case ordered a three-year suspended jail term and a fine for Park Yong-sung, former chairman of the Doosan Group, for embezzling from the conglomerate.
The sentence was suspended for five years meaning Park will not be jailed if he stays out of trouble for that long.
Chung himself has made a bid for leniency, apologizing in court for "causing trouble over this case" and pledging to make Hyundai the world's No. 5 automaker if given the chance.
As of the end of 2005, Hyundai together with its affiliate Kia formed the world's No. 6 automaker in both production and sales, according to Automotive News, a publication that tracks the global vehicle industry.
"If he actually does have to go to jail it will cause some problems for Hyundai," said Yun.
"Last year when he was in jail it all came to a stop.
Whatever the outcome, Chung's case has highlighted the issue of how South Korean companies are managed.
Kang Sung-goo, secretary general of the South Korean office of Transparency International, a non-governmental organization devoted to raising awareness of and combating corruption, says that while there have been positive developments, more needs to be done.
"Improving corporate governance is one of the most important tasks (South) Korean companies are facing," Kang said.
ÏÀ» Á¦°øÇÏÁö ¾Ê½À´Ï´Ù.
Martin Scorsese won the top honor Saturday from the Directors Guild of America for his mob saga "The Departed," moving him a step closer to finally receiving Hollywood's biggest filmmaking prize at the Academy Awards.
Scorsese was chosen as filmmaker of the year by his peers, his first win at the guild awards after six previous nominations.
The guild winner usually goes on to win the best-director Oscar.
The self-deprecating Scorsese said he was pleased at the apparent success of the film but that he only became convinced it was doing well when the studio called with box-office revenues from the first couple of weekends.
"If you look at the graph at the spikes at where the picture is doing really great figures, it's like looking at a veritable map of the American underworld," such as Boca Raton, Florida, Scorsese said.
"Vegas forget about it, it was amazing.
Adapted from the Hong Kong crime thriller "Infernal Affairs," "The Departed" stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a cop who's undercover in a Boston crime outfit, Matt Damon as a mob mole who has infiltrated the police, and Jack Nicholson as the merciless gang leader pulling everyone's strings.
It has become Scorsese's biggest commercial hit, and critics praised it as a welcome return to the vivid, bloody crime genre whose modern conventions the director helped pioneer in such films as "Taxi Driver" and "Goodfellas.
"I started watching his work when I was 15 years old," said DiCaprio, who has starred in Scorsese's last three films and introduced the director to the guild audience earlier in the evening.
"It was like entering a seamless cinematic reality.
Walter Hill won the guild's directing honor for TV movies for the Western "Broken Trail.
Other TV winners included Richard Shepard for comedy directing on the pilot episode of "Ugly Betty," Jon Cassar for drama directing for an episode of "24," and "Chicago" filmmaker Rob Marshall for musical variety directing for "Tony Bennett:
An American Classic.
Arunas Matelis won for feature-film documentary for "Before Flying Back to the Earth," a portrait of children hospitalized with leukemia.
The film won over two Oscar nominees, "Deliver Us From Evil" and "Iraq in Fragments. "
A sixth loss at the Oscars would put Scorsese in the record books as the filmmaker with the most nominations without winning.
But many awards watchers feel this is Scorsese's year, labeling him the front-runner for the February 25 Oscars.
The guild prize is a solid forecast for who might win the directing honor at the Academy Awards.
Only six times in the 58-year history of the guild awards has the winner failed to go on to receive the directing Oscar.
The other guild nominees were Bill Condon for the musical "Dreamgirls," Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris for the road-trip tale "Little Miss Sunshine," Stephen Frears for the palace saga "The Queen" and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu for the ensemble drama "Babel.
The other Oscar nominations went to Clint Eastwood for the World War II epic "Letters From Iwo Jima" and Paul Greengrass for the September 11 docudrama "United 93.
With Condon out of the race, Scorsese's path to Oscar victory could prove a bit easier.
"I don't know," Scorsese said. "It's good to have a nomination, especially for this picture.
All rights reserved.
A diplomatic gaffe marred Saturday's inauguration of a China-financed stadium on this Caribbean island when a band performed Taiwan's national anthem.
Chinese Ambassador Qian Hongshan and scores of blue-uniformed Chinese laborers who built the new $40 million Queen's Park stadium as a gift from Beijing were visibly uncomfortable as Taiwan's anthem echoed inside the 20,000-seat venue.
Describing it as a blunder, Grenada Prime Minister Keith Mitchell pledged an investigation into how the Royal Grenada Police Band could have prepared the anthem of Taiwan instead of China, which has waged an aggressive campaign in the Caribbean to woo nations away from relationships with its rival.
Since China and Taiwan split in 1949 amid a civil war, Beijing has claimed that Taiwan is a renegade province and should not have diplomatic ties with other countries.
"I am very saddened," Mitchell told the workers and Chinese Embassy staff from Grenada and neighboring Trinidad and Tobago.
"This unfortunate error breaks my heart.
Police officials declined to comment except to say they would issue a statement later in the day.
Among the many small island nations in the Caribbean, the Asian rivals have long used economic investment to win votes at the United Nations.
China paid for the reconstruction of Grenada's stadium, which was destroyed by Hurricane Ivan in 2004, and some 500 Chinese workers helped rebuild the venue in time to host cricket World Cup matches in April.
·
ÏÀ» Á¦°øÇÏÁö ¾Ê½À´Ï´Ù.
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) Almost half the members of Australia's Parliament signed a letter to the Democrat-dominated U.S. Congress appealing for help repatriating the lone Australian terror suspect held at Guantanamo Bay, officials said Friday.
The letter faxed to U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi asking for Congress to intervene to ensure that former kangaroo skinner David Hicks is not tried by a military commission at the U.S. naval base in Cuba was signed by 96 senators and members of the Australian House of Representatives, opposition parties said.
There are a total of 226 members in the federal Parliament.
The only member of Prime Minister John Howard's center-right government to sign the letter was Barnaby Joyce, a maverick senator from the junior coalition partner, the Nationals party, his office confirmed Friday.
"As members of the Australian Parliament, we believe that the denial of justice in David Hicks' case erodes the values and principles shared by Australia and the United States," Lyn Allison, leader of the Australian Democrats minor opposition party, said in a statement.
She said she was disappointed that all but one member of the government refused to sign.
"It would have been a more powerful letter had they signed, of course, but it's nonetheless a very significant demonstration of the depth of feeling in the Australian Parliament on this issue," Allison later told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.
The Democrats co-wrote the letter with the major opposition Labor Party.
The letter was also supported by the Greens party and independents.
Congress had confirmed Pelosi's receipt of the letter, a Labor official said Friday.
The letter suggests Congress pass a resolution insisting that the 31-year-old alleged Taliban fighter be immediately repatriated to stand trial in Australia.
Failing repatriation, the lawmakers request Hicks "be immediately put to trial before a properly constituted U.S. criminal court.
Hicks has been held at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo since January 2002, a month after he was detained in Afghanistan.
His lawyers say he is suffering from depression and ill health because of the conditions of his incarceration.
He was originally charged with attempted murder, conspiracy to commit war crimes and aiding the enemy, and was selected to face a U.S. military tribunal.
But his case was thrown into limbo when the U.S. Supreme Court declared the commissions illegal in June.
Howard, a staunch U.S. ally in the war on terror, says his government is unhappy about the delay in bringing Hicks to trial but has resisted pressure to request his repatriation.
Justice Minister Chris Ellison said Canberra preferred to communicate directly with the U.S. government in its efforts to have Hicks brought to justice quickly rather than write to Congress.
"I think it's appropriate for us to convey Australia's concern to our counterparts and that's what we've done," Ellison told the ABC.
NEW YORK (CNN) A New York City Council member Thursday proposed pushing sponsors to ban abnormally thin models from walking New York Fashion Week's runways.
Council member Gail Brewer wants fashion houses to ban any model with a body mass index of less than 18.5 the cutoff for the World Health Organization's definition of "normal.
Brewer said she wants models to be educated on nutrition and designers to encourage healthful lifestyles. (Watch stick-thin models strut the runway )
"We want the designers to offer some clothes that are a little bit more robust," she also told CNN, "and we certainly don't want people under the age of 16 to be modeling.
Madrid Fashion Week set a BMI limit of 18 in September, and Italian designers in December agreed to health and age guidelines for runway models, The Associated Press reported.
On Wednesday, Assemblyman Jose Rivera of the Bronx introduced a resolution in the state legislature to generate standards to protect the health of teenage models and entertainers, AP reported.
The Council of Fashion Designers of America issued recommendations in January to help bulimia, anorexia and other health problems among models.
Brazilian model Ana Carolina Reston died in November at age 21.
She was 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighed just 88 pounds, for a BMI of 13.4.
WHO defines normal BMI as 18.5 to 24.9.
This material may not be published.
WASHINGTON (CNN) A report from the Congressional Budget Office says President Bush's plan for a troop increase in Iraq could cost up to $27 billion for a 12-month deployment.
The plan could mean sending thousands of support troops in addition to the 20,000-plus combat troops the Defense Department has set for deployment.
The numbers come in a letter to Rep. John Spratt, chairman of the House Budget Committee, in response to a request from Spratt's office.
"CBO's report concludes that the cost of the president's plan to 'surge' troops will be higher than previously indicated, both in dollar terms and in the burdens it places on our military," Spratt, D-South Carolina, said in a written statement.
The report notes that the Defense Department has identified only combat troops for deployment in the increase but says, "U.S. military operations also require substantial support forces, including personnel to staff headquarters, serve as military police and provide communications, contracting, engineering, intelligence, medical and other services.
The report notes the Defense Department expects to use fewer support troops than in the past.
It estimates that under past proportions, 28,000 support troops would be added to the 20,000 combat troops. But it revises that figure to 15,000 support troops for a new deployment.
That would bring the total number of forces being added in Iraq to between 35,000 and 48,000 troops, the report said.
The report estimates that a four-month deployment of the additional troops both combat and support could cost $9 billion to $13 billion and a 12-month deployment could cost $20 billion to $27 billion.
The White House estimated that the troop increase would cost $5.6 billion.
Ike Skelton, D-Missouri, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.
"The cost of the troop increase could be significantly higher than what the administration has been saying in the press.
"The CBO report only confirms what we already know: The president has continually tried to hide the true costs of this war, both in terms of money spent and lives affected," Meehan said.
"This Democratic Congress and the House Armed Services Committee will not let the president get away with saying whatever he wants without checking his facts anymore. "
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) Speakers decried crime in South Africa at the funeral Thursday of a renowned historian who was shot dead earlier this week.
The death of David Rattray, a friend of Britain's Prince Charles and an expert on the 1879 Anglo-Zulu war, has put South Africa's high rate of violent crime in the spotlight again.
Rattray was shot dead January 26 by a six-man gang at his Fugitives' Drift guest lodge in the eastern province of KwaZulu-Natal.
The police announced on Thursday that two men had been arrested and would appear in court on Friday on charges of murder.
Government ministers and provincial premiers were among about 1,500 people at the funeral at the Michaelhouse School chapel in KwaZulu-Natal.
Do 'whatever it takes' to end crime
South Africa's people were crying out to the nation's leaders to do "whatever it takes" to end crime, Inkatha Freedom Party leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi said at the funeral.
SAPA also reported that the Right Reverend Rubin Philip reiterated the call for government action on crime.
Rattray was a compelling storyteller and popular on the lecture circuit in Britain.
the 1879 battles of Isandlwana and Rourkes Drift.
Thousands of tourists, many from Britain, visit the battlefields every year.
South Africa has become notorious for its high rate of violent crime.
According to government statistics, there were 18,528 murders in 2004 more than 50 per day.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press All rights reserved
NEW YORK (AP) The decision to become pregnant and raise a child with her female partner was not political, Mary Cheney, a daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney, told a Barnard College audience.
"This is a baby," Cheney said Wednesday at a forum sponsored by Glamour magazine.
"This is a blessing from God.
It is not a political statement.
It is not a prop to be used in a debate by people on either side of an issue.
It is my child.
Cheney, 37, announced in December that she and her partner of 15 years, Heather Poe, were starting a family.
She did not say how the child was conceived.
The baby is due in the spring and will be the vice president's sixth grandchild. (Watch Mary Cheney address critics of the pregnancy )
Dick Cheney became testy last week when CNN's Wolf Blitzer asked him what he thought of conservatives who are critical of his daughter's pregnancy.
Cheney told Blitzer he was "over the line."
In a brief interview with The New York Times after Wednesday's panel, Mary Cheney said she agreed that Blitzer had crossed a line.
"He was trying to get a rise out of my father," she said.
Glamour editor Cindi Leive asked Cheney during the panel discussion if she had anything to say to conservatives such as James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, who have criticized her pregnancy, asserting that children should be raised by heterosexual married couples.
She responded, "Every piece of remotely responsible research that has been done in the last 20 years on this issue has shown there is no difference between children who are raised by same-sex parents and children who are raised by opposite-sex parents.
What matters is that children are being raised in a stable, loving environment.
Cheney was an aide to her father during the 2004 campaign and now is vice president for consumer advocacy at AOL.
This material may not be published.
PARIS, France (AP) French President Jacques Chirac said in an interview with three newspapers that Iran's possession of a nuclear bomb would not be "very dangerous" and that if it used the weapon on Israel, Tehran would be immediately "razed," according to a newspaper report.
Chirac who made the comments during a Monday interview with The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune and Le Nouvel Observateur, a weekly magazine called reporters back the next day to try to have his quotes retracted.
In an article posted on its Web site Wednesday night, the New York Times said the Monday interview was tape recorded and on the record.
Chirac's initial remarks would mark a big departure from France's official policy of deterrence and work in preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.
"I should rather have paid attention to what I was saying and understood that perhaps I was on the record," Chirac said in the second interview on Tuesday, according to the New York Times.
On Monday, Chirac said of Iran and its nuclear program: "I would say that what is dangerous about this situation is not the fact of having a nuclear bomb.
Instead, Chirac said, the danger lies in the chances of proliferation or an arms race in the Middle East should Iran build a nuclear bomb.
Possessing the weapon would be useless for Iran whose leader has called for Israel to be "wiped off the map" as using it would mean an instant counterattack.
Chirac asked.
"It would not have gone 200 meters into the atmosphere before Tehran would be razed.
In the second interview with the same newspapers, Chirac retracted his comment about Tehran being razed.
"I retract it, of course, when I said, 'One is going to raze Tehran,"' he said.
Chirac also said other countries would stop any bomb launched by Iran from reaching its target.
"It is obvious that this bomb, at the moment it was launched, obviously would be destroyed immediately," he said.
"We have the means several countries have the means to destroy a bomb.
LAS VEGAS, Nevada (AP) After nearly 30 years, California's classic rock group the Eagles may soon release their first album of all-new music.
Founding member Don Henley said during a private weekend concert that the band was nearing completion on an album of all-new material, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported on Tuesday.
"It's coming out in 60 to 90 days, if we don't kill each other first," Henley, 59, told the crowd Saturday at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.
Eagles and Henley spokesman Larry Solters said Wednesday there was no comment.
"The Long Run" in 1979 was the Eagles last album featuring all-new studio material.
That album included the Grammy-winning single "Heartache Tonight.
The group officially disbanded in 1982, then they reunited in 1994 for a comeback tour featuring Henley, Glenn Frey, Joe Walsh, Timothy Schmit and Don Felder.
The band appeared together again in 1998, with past members Bernie Leadon and Randy Meisner, when they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
NEW YORK (AP) "Harry Potter" star Daniel Radcliffe, who strips for his new role in London's West End revival of the play "Equus," has ignited a bit of a media firestorm by posing for racy promotional photos for the production.
The Tony-Award-winning drama tells the story of a stable-hand who has an erotic fixation with horses.
In one photo, Radcliffe, 17, dares to bare it all alongside a white horse; in another, he is pictured with a naked Joanna Christie, the actress who portrays his girlfriend.
"Equus," directed by Thea Sharrock, opens at London's Gielgud Theater on February 27.
Tony Award-winning actor Richard Griffiths plays a pyschiatrist who treats Radcliffe's character.
"Part of me wants to shake up people's perception of me, just shove me in a blender," Radcliffe said in a recent interview with Newsweek magazine.
"It's a really challenging play, and if I can pull it off we don't know if I can yet I hope people will stop and think, 'Maybe he can do something other than Harry,' " he said.
Radcliffe, who was discovered seven years ago in the audience of a London theater, reprises his role as the bespectacled boy wizard in "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," slated for release July 13.
This material may not be published.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) North Korea repeated its demand during talks with the United States this week that Washington lift financial restrictions targeting the communist regime, a pro-Pyongyang newspaper reported on Thursday, after the meetings ended without a clear breakthrough.
Experts from Washington and Pyongyang met in Beijing on Tuesday and Wednesday to discuss the financial restrictions the United States imposed over the North's alleged counterfeiting of U.S. currency and money laundering.
North Korea, denying any wrongdoing, has claimed the restrictions are evidence of Washington's hostile attitude toward it and prove it needs nuclear weapons to protect itself.
The financial row has been a key impediment to six-nation talks aimed at getting North Korea to give up its nuclear program, as Pyongyang refused to address disarmament unless the financial row is resolved.
North Korea repeated the demand in this week's talks, according to the Choson Sinbo, a Korean-language newspaper based in Japan which has links to the Pyongyang government.
The North is "demanding that the United States show an attitude of lifting the financial sanctions and not expanding them so as to create an atmosphere for entering into discussions on denuclearization commitments" in a 2005 accord, said the report posted on the paper's Web site seen in Seoul.
That agreement the only ever made at the nuclear talks calls for North Korea to trade away its nuclear programs in exchange for security guarantees and aid.
But it was never implemented because of the financial row.
This week's talks on the financial issue preceded a new round of nuclear negotiations set to resume next week.
The top U.S. delegate to the financial talks, Deputy Assistant Treasury Secretary Daniel Glaser, said the two days of meetings had validated U.S. suspicions of illegal financial activity by North Korea.
He also suggested that the dispute could see an end.
"I think we are now in a position after a very lengthy investigation ... to start moving forward and trying to bring some resolution to this matter," Glaser said, without saying how the dispute would be settled.
There have been media reports that Washington was considering declaring some of the North's assets at a Macau bank as legitimate, allowing the bank to end its freeze on some of North Korea's US$24 million (euro18.5 million) held there.
Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki said on Thursday that Washington considers the financial talks "very constructive" and Tokyo hopes it will have a positive impact on the six-party nuclear talks.
North Korea agreed to resume the nuclear negotiations, involving China, Japan, the two Koreas, Russia and the U.S., after the United States offered unspecified concessions during rare bilateral talks in Berlin in January.
ÏÀ» Á¦°øÇÏÁö ¾Ê½À´Ï´Ù.
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) Police in Brazil have arrested the widow of a multimillionaire lottery winner, while prosecutors decide whether to charge her in his killing.
Brazilian newspapers on Wednesday ran front-page photos of Adriana Almeida wearing a T-shirt and wraparound designer sunglasses being escorted to jail from a hotel in a luxury seaside community near Rio de Janeiro.
"I'm innocent.
What they're doing to me is cowardice," she told Rio's O Globo newspaper after her arrest.
The former hairdresser who married 54-year-old Renne Senna after he hit the jackpot was greeted by jeers as she arrived Tuesday at the lockup.
Police spokesman Marcele Mendes said she will be held for at least 30 days.
During that time, prosecutors will evaluate the police investigation and determine whether to ask a judge to charge Almeida.
Globo TV reported Wednesday that police also are looking for four men suspected of involvement in the killing.
Almeida, 29, was the girlfriend of Senna, a former subsistence farmer and butcher, before he became rich.
Senna, who had part of both legs amputated because of diabetes, got around town on a special, motorized four-wheel cart.
In July 2005, Senna was the sole winner of a national lottery worth 52 million reals ($24.4 million).
He bought a sprawling ranch in Rio Bonito, a rural town 50 miles (75 kilometers) northeast of Rio, and married Almeida.
Senna's family accused Almeida of pressuring Senna to change his will, removing 11 brothers and sisters as potential beneficiaries.
Senna wrote a new will leaving the money only to Almeida and a daughter, Renata.
Some local news media reported that Almeida had said her husband doubted whether he was Renata's real father and planned DNA testing to confirm his paternity.
On January 7, two hooded men on a motorcycle pulled up to a bar in Rio Bonito where Senna usually went for a beer.
Senna was shot four times in the head, and the hooded men sped away.
Five days later, Almeida was summoned to a police interrogation and swore she was innocent.
A furious crowd surrounded the police station in Rio Bonito and reportedly tried to lynch her.
Police dispersed the crowd by firing into the air.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is telling the United States and Iran to keep their fight out of Iraq.
Al-Maliki said he believes Iran is targeting U.S. forces in Iraq.
A U.S. official said Tuesday that the Pentagon is investigating whether Iran was behind a January 20 attack in Karbala that left five U.S. troops dead.
"We believe it's possible the executors of the attack were Iranian or Iranian-trained," the U.S. official said.
The sophistication of the attack, in which English-speaking guerrillas in American-style uniforms drove sport utility vehicles past checkpoints to attack a government compound, was beyond what insurgents in Iraq have shown they are capable of, U.S. officials said.
Whether Iran proves to be responsible for that attack or not, al-Maliki said his country cannot be a proxy battleground for Washington and Tehran.
"Iraq has nothing to do with the American-Iranian struggle, and we will not let Iran play a role against the American Army and we will not allow America to play a role against the Iranian army, and everyone should respect the sovereignty of Iraq," al-Maliki said.
"We will not accept Iran to use Iraq to attack the American forces.
Iran was a major topic Wednesday during CNN correspondent Michael Ware's wide-ranging, exclusive interview with al-Maliki.
The prime minister said Americans are basing their hunches about Iranian activities in Iraq on intelligence they've amassed. (Watch al-Maliki talk about the situation in Iraq )
The United States accuses Iran of fomenting terror attacks worldwide and pursuing a nuclear program that could lead to the development of weaponry.
Iran has denied those assertions.
"We have told the Iranian and the Americans, 'We know that you have a problem with each other, but we are asking you please solve your problems outside Iraq.
' We don't want the American forces to take Iraq as a field to attack Iran or Syria," the prime minister said.
Al-Maliki said Iraq doesn't want its sovereignty to be violated by any of its neighbors, which include Iran, Kuwait, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Turkey.
All could find a reason to interfere in Iraq, he said, including opposition to the U.S. troop presence, and sectarian and political differences.
"Iran is Shiite, and we are Shiite and we have many Shiites in Iraq, but this does not justify Iran interfering in Iraq.
We respect this relation, but we will not allow such interfering to exist.
Also, Iraq is an Arab country, the majority are Arabs, but this also will not justify for the Arab countries to interfere in Iraq.
Al-Maliki also addressed his government's position toward militias and troop levels in his country.
He said he supports President Bush's plan to bolster troop numbers in Iraq by more than 20,000 soldiers and Marines.
"We believe that the existing number, with a slight addition, will do the job, but if there seems to be more need we will ask for more troops.
Al-Maliki reiterated his intention to go after any or all entities that foment violence, including the militia of a supporter, Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
And he indicated that troop-level adjustments must be based on prevailing conditions.
Some observers question whether al-Maliki has the political will to take on al-Sadr's Mehdi Army, thought to be behind much of Iraq's violence between Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias.
Al-Sadr helped al-Maliki become prime minister last year.
The prime minister said al-Sadr's movement is committed to banning armed groups and not interfering with the new security plan.
He said the group's commitment is "a good incentive for others who have militias to announce their support to the Baghdad security plan.
Nevertheless, he put all groups and people on notice: Everyone must respect the law.
"I will apply the law to everyone ... on militias, political parties, on participants in the political process," he said.
"The law rules and who is on my side in respecting the law and the government's will be an ally and a partner and who rebels against the law and the government's will, will be a foe.
Al-Maliki emphasized his political detachment and fairness.
While he has been a member of the Shiite Dawa Party a part of the ruling United Iraqi Alliance he said he is the leader of all the people, not just Shiites.
Iraq which has about a 60 percent Shiite population is also made up of Sunni Arabs, Kurds, Turkmens, Christians and others.
"I'm talking now as a prime minister and not as a member of the party. ...
The membership of a party stops at the boundaries of the state," he said.
Al-Maliki said the effort to foster and bring about peace is not just a military one.
He said it's political as well and requires national will, an implication that Iraqis need to put aside their ethnic, tribal and religious allegiances to help the state survive.
"We do not want to kill the people and drown the country in blood, and we welcome every step that brings a setback for militias or terrorists and a desire to join the political process so we can minimize the losses and blood," he said.
"But this all has to happen under the umbrella of national will, the government and the law. "
NATO-led forces killed a senior Taliban leader with a precision airstrike near a southern Afghan town overrun by militants, a spokesman for the alliance said Sunday.
Tom Collins said the airstrike near Musa Qala on Sunday morning killed a senior Taliban leader riding in a car.
Musa Qala on Thursday was overrun by an estimated 200 Taliban fighters who disarmed local police, ransacked the district center and hoisted their trademark white flag.
The town had been subject to a peace deal brokered last October between village elders and the Helmand provincial government that prevented NATO, Afghan and Taliban fighters from coming within 5 kilometers (3 miles) of the town center.
Collins said the Taliban leader was killed within that 5 kilometers (3 miles) zone with the approval of the Afghan government.
He said no NATO or Afghan forces were on the ground in Musa Qala.
Collins didn't immediately name the person killed in the strike, but Mohammad Wali, a Musa Qala resident, said the airstrike killed a Taliban leader named Mullah Abdul Gafoor and some of his associates while they were riding in a truck through a small village just outside Musa Qala.
Another resident, Lal Mohammad, told The Associated Press on Saturday that the fighters in Musa Qala were being led by Gafoor, the hardline militia's corps commander in western Afghanistan during the Taliban regime.
Musa Qala saw intense battles between Taliban fighters and British troops last summer and fall.
The fighting caused widespread damage to the town of around 10,000 inhabitants, most of whom were forced to leave.
British forces withdrew from Musa Qala in October after the truce, which turned over security to local leaders and prevented NATO forces from entering the town.
Gen. David Richards, who was replaced Sunday as NATO's commander, told AP on Saturday that "very surgical and deliberate" force would be used to evict the fighters from Musa Qala, where he said the alliance's strategy of avoiding military action has driven a wedge between residents and Taliban insurgents.
Hyundai Motor Co. Chairman Chung Mong-koo's wait is almost over.
Chung, arrested and briefly jailed last year, is set to receive the verdict in his corruption trial Monday, and analysts say the fortunes of the world's sixth-largest automaker could be affected by the outcome.
Prosecutors indicted Chung in May, accusing him of illegally raising a slush fund of 103.4 billion won ($110 million; euro85 million) via affiliates which authorities say was used to pay lobbyists and for other purposes.
Chung, whose trial began in June, has also been charged with inflicting financial damage on affiliates.
Prosecutors have been taking a hard line against corruption in South Korea.
Last month, they sought a six-year jail term for Chung, calling his alleged crimes "grave.
Chung's attorneys argued before the three judge panel that he should receive a suspended sentence meaning no prison time citing health problems and the potential impact on South Korea's economy if he were to again be sidelined from management.
Chung was absent for more than two months after being jailed following his April arrest and entering a hospital for a health exam.
He was granted bail in June and returned to work in July.
Key decisions about overseas plant construction involving both Hyundai Motor and its affiliate Kia Motors Corp. were delayed while he was away.
Labor problems involving Hyundai's strike-prone labor union were also left to fester.
Many analysts have said that Chung will probably avoid a prison term given his central role in running arguably one of the country's two most important corporations, the other being Samsung Electronics Co.
"Especially now, it's a very important time for Hyundai," Yun Tae-sik, an auto analyst at NH Investment & Securities, said Friday, citing Hyundai's constant labor troubles, sluggish sales and pricing competition from Japanese automakers.
"The Japanese makers are able to sell cars for a better value than Hyundai" in the key U.S. market, Yun said, as they benefit from weakness in the Japanese yen versus the U.S. dollar.
The South Korean won rose about 9 percent against the greenback last year.
Hyundai cited the South Korean currency as a key reason along with its worst year of production losses from strikes behind a 35 percent drop in 2006 net profit.
Chung's prolonged incarceration could "have a grave impact on the industry as well as the national economy (so a) suspended sentence is likely," said Yong Dae-in, an analyst at Goodmorning Shinhan Securities.
Hyundai and Kia account for more than 70 percent of South Korea's automobile exports.
Autos make up about 10 percent of total exports in South Korea, the world's 10th-largest economy.
South Korea has a history of leniency toward corporate titans.
In a recent case, the Seoul District Court the same one deciding Chung's case ordered a three-year suspended jail term and a fine for Park Yong-sung, former chairman of the Doosan Group, for embezzling from the conglomerate.
The sentence was suspended for five years meaning Park will not be jailed if he stays out of trouble for that long.
Chung himself has made a bid for leniency, apologizing in court for "causing trouble over this case" and pledging to make Hyundai the world's No. 5 automaker if given the chance.
As of the end of 2005, Hyundai together with its affiliate Kia formed the world's No. 6 automaker in both production and sales, according to Automotive News, a publication that tracks the global vehicle industry.
"If he actually does have to go to jail it will cause some problems for Hyundai," said Yun.
"Last year when he was in jail it all came to a stop.
Whatever the outcome, Chung's case has highlighted the issue of how South Korean companies are managed.
Kang Sung-goo, secretary general of the South Korean office of Transparency International, a non-governmental organization devoted to raising awareness of and combating corruption, says that while there have been positive developments, more needs to be done.
"Improving corporate governance is one of the most important tasks (South) Korean companies are facing," Kang said.
ÏÀ» Á¦°øÇÏÁö ¾Ê½À´Ï´Ù.
Martin Scorsese won the top honor Saturday from the Directors Guild of America for his mob saga "The Departed," moving him a step closer to finally receiving Hollywood's biggest filmmaking prize at the Academy Awards.
Scorsese was chosen as filmmaker of the year by his peers, his first win at the guild awards after six previous nominations.
The guild winner usually goes on to win the best-director Oscar.
The self-deprecating Scorsese said he was pleased at the apparent success of the film but that he only became convinced it was doing well when the studio called with box-office revenues from the first couple of weekends.
"If you look at the graph at the spikes at where the picture is doing really great figures, it's like looking at a veritable map of the American underworld," such as Boca Raton, Florida, Scorsese said.
"Vegas forget about it, it was amazing.
Adapted from the Hong Kong crime thriller "Infernal Affairs," "The Departed" stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a cop who's undercover in a Boston crime outfit, Matt Damon as a mob mole who has infiltrated the police, and Jack Nicholson as the merciless gang leader pulling everyone's strings.
It has become Scorsese's biggest commercial hit, and critics praised it as a welcome return to the vivid, bloody crime genre whose modern conventions the director helped pioneer in such films as "Taxi Driver" and "Goodfellas.
"I started watching his work when I was 15 years old," said DiCaprio, who has starred in Scorsese's last three films and introduced the director to the guild audience earlier in the evening.
"It was like entering a seamless cinematic reality.
Walter Hill won the guild's directing honor for TV movies for the Western "Broken Trail.
Other TV winners included Richard Shepard for comedy directing on the pilot episode of "Ugly Betty," Jon Cassar for drama directing for an episode of "24," and "Chicago" filmmaker Rob Marshall for musical variety directing for "Tony Bennett:
An American Classic.
Arunas Matelis won for feature-film documentary for "Before Flying Back to the Earth," a portrait of children hospitalized with leukemia.
The film won over two Oscar nominees, "Deliver Us From Evil" and "Iraq in Fragments. "
A sixth loss at the Oscars would put Scorsese in the record books as the filmmaker with the most nominations without winning.
But many awards watchers feel this is Scorsese's year, labeling him the front-runner for the February 25 Oscars.
The guild prize is a solid forecast for who might win the directing honor at the Academy Awards.
Only six times in the 58-year history of the guild awards has the winner failed to go on to receive the directing Oscar.
The other guild nominees were Bill Condon for the musical "Dreamgirls," Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris for the road-trip tale "Little Miss Sunshine," Stephen Frears for the palace saga "The Queen" and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu for the ensemble drama "Babel.
The other Oscar nominations went to Clint Eastwood for the World War II epic "Letters From Iwo Jima" and Paul Greengrass for the September 11 docudrama "United 93.
With Condon out of the race, Scorsese's path to Oscar victory could prove a bit easier.
"I don't know," Scorsese said. "It's good to have a nomination, especially for this picture.
All rights reserved.
A diplomatic gaffe marred Saturday's inauguration of a China-financed stadium on this Caribbean island when a band performed Taiwan's national anthem.
Chinese Ambassador Qian Hongshan and scores of blue-uniformed Chinese laborers who built the new $40 million Queen's Park stadium as a gift from Beijing were visibly uncomfortable as Taiwan's anthem echoed inside the 20,000-seat venue.
Describing it as a blunder, Grenada Prime Minister Keith Mitchell pledged an investigation into how the Royal Grenada Police Band could have prepared the anthem of Taiwan instead of China, which has waged an aggressive campaign in the Caribbean to woo nations away from relationships with its rival.
Since China and Taiwan split in 1949 amid a civil war, Beijing has claimed that Taiwan is a renegade province and should not have diplomatic ties with other countries.
"I am very saddened," Mitchell told the workers and Chinese Embassy staff from Grenada and neighboring Trinidad and Tobago.
"This unfortunate error breaks my heart.
Police officials declined to comment except to say they would issue a statement later in the day.
Among the many small island nations in the Caribbean, the Asian rivals have long used economic investment to win votes at the United Nations.
China paid for the reconstruction of Grenada's stadium, which was destroyed by Hurricane Ivan in 2004, and some 500 Chinese workers helped rebuild the venue in time to host cricket World Cup matches in April.
·
ÏÀ» Á¦°øÇÏÁö ¾Ê½À´Ï´Ù.
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) Almost half the members of Australia's Parliament signed a letter to the Democrat-dominated U.S. Congress appealing for help repatriating the lone Australian terror suspect held at Guantanamo Bay, officials said Friday.
The letter faxed to U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi asking for Congress to intervene to ensure that former kangaroo skinner David Hicks is not tried by a military commission at the U.S. naval base in Cuba was signed by 96 senators and members of the Australian House of Representatives, opposition parties said.
There are a total of 226 members in the federal Parliament.
The only member of Prime Minister John Howard's center-right government to sign the letter was Barnaby Joyce, a maverick senator from the junior coalition partner, the Nationals party, his office confirmed Friday.
"As members of the Australian Parliament, we believe that the denial of justice in David Hicks' case erodes the values and principles shared by Australia and the United States," Lyn Allison, leader of the Australian Democrats minor opposition party, said in a statement.
She said she was disappointed that all but one member of the government refused to sign.
"It would have been a more powerful letter had they signed, of course, but it's nonetheless a very significant demonstration of the depth of feeling in the Australian Parliament on this issue," Allison later told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.
The Democrats co-wrote the letter with the major opposition Labor Party.
The letter was also supported by the Greens party and independents.
Congress had confirmed Pelosi's receipt of the letter, a Labor official said Friday.
The letter suggests Congress pass a resolution insisting that the 31-year-old alleged Taliban fighter be immediately repatriated to stand trial in Australia.
Failing repatriation, the lawmakers request Hicks "be immediately put to trial before a properly constituted U.S. criminal court.
Hicks has been held at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo since January 2002, a month after he was detained in Afghanistan.
His lawyers say he is suffering from depression and ill health because of the conditions of his incarceration.
He was originally charged with attempted murder, conspiracy to commit war crimes and aiding the enemy, and was selected to face a U.S. military tribunal.
But his case was thrown into limbo when the U.S. Supreme Court declared the commissions illegal in June.
Howard, a staunch U.S. ally in the war on terror, says his government is unhappy about the delay in bringing Hicks to trial but has resisted pressure to request his repatriation.
Justice Minister Chris Ellison said Canberra preferred to communicate directly with the U.S. government in its efforts to have Hicks brought to justice quickly rather than write to Congress.
"I think it's appropriate for us to convey Australia's concern to our counterparts and that's what we've done," Ellison told the ABC.
NEW YORK (CNN) A New York City Council member Thursday proposed pushing sponsors to ban abnormally thin models from walking New York Fashion Week's runways.
Council member Gail Brewer wants fashion houses to ban any model with a body mass index of less than 18.5 the cutoff for the World Health Organization's definition of "normal.
Brewer said she wants models to be educated on nutrition and designers to encourage healthful lifestyles. (Watch stick-thin models strut the runway )
"We want the designers to offer some clothes that are a little bit more robust," she also told CNN, "and we certainly don't want people under the age of 16 to be modeling.
Madrid Fashion Week set a BMI limit of 18 in September, and Italian designers in December agreed to health and age guidelines for runway models, The Associated Press reported.
On Wednesday, Assemblyman Jose Rivera of the Bronx introduced a resolution in the state legislature to generate standards to protect the health of teenage models and entertainers, AP reported.
The Council of Fashion Designers of America issued recommendations in January to help bulimia, anorexia and other health problems among models.
Brazilian model Ana Carolina Reston died in November at age 21.
She was 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighed just 88 pounds, for a BMI of 13.4.
WHO defines normal BMI as 18.5 to 24.9.
This material may not be published.
WASHINGTON (CNN) A report from the Congressional Budget Office says President Bush's plan for a troop increase in Iraq could cost up to $27 billion for a 12-month deployment.
The plan could mean sending thousands of support troops in addition to the 20,000-plus combat troops the Defense Department has set for deployment.
The numbers come in a letter to Rep. John Spratt, chairman of the House Budget Committee, in response to a request from Spratt's office.
"CBO's report concludes that the cost of the president's plan to 'surge' troops will be higher than previously indicated, both in dollar terms and in the burdens it places on our military," Spratt, D-South Carolina, said in a written statement.
The report notes that the Defense Department has identified only combat troops for deployment in the increase but says, "U.S. military operations also require substantial support forces, including personnel to staff headquarters, serve as military police and provide communications, contracting, engineering, intelligence, medical and other services.
The report notes the Defense Department expects to use fewer support troops than in the past.
It estimates that under past proportions, 28,000 support troops would be added to the 20,000 combat troops. But it revises that figure to 15,000 support troops for a new deployment.
That would bring the total number of forces being added in Iraq to between 35,000 and 48,000 troops, the report said.
The report estimates that a four-month deployment of the additional troops both combat and support could cost $9 billion to $13 billion and a 12-month deployment could cost $20 billion to $27 billion.
The White House estimated that the troop increase would cost $5.6 billion.
Ike Skelton, D-Missouri, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.
"The cost of the troop increase could be significantly higher than what the administration has been saying in the press.
"The CBO report only confirms what we already know: The president has continually tried to hide the true costs of this war, both in terms of money spent and lives affected," Meehan said.
"This Democratic Congress and the House Armed Services Committee will not let the president get away with saying whatever he wants without checking his facts anymore. "
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) Speakers decried crime in South Africa at the funeral Thursday of a renowned historian who was shot dead earlier this week.
The death of David Rattray, a friend of Britain's Prince Charles and an expert on the 1879 Anglo-Zulu war, has put South Africa's high rate of violent crime in the spotlight again.
Rattray was shot dead January 26 by a six-man gang at his Fugitives' Drift guest lodge in the eastern province of KwaZulu-Natal.
The police announced on Thursday that two men had been arrested and would appear in court on Friday on charges of murder.
Government ministers and provincial premiers were among about 1,500 people at the funeral at the Michaelhouse School chapel in KwaZulu-Natal.
Do 'whatever it takes' to end crime
South Africa's people were crying out to the nation's leaders to do "whatever it takes" to end crime, Inkatha Freedom Party leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi said at the funeral.
SAPA also reported that the Right Reverend Rubin Philip reiterated the call for government action on crime.
Rattray was a compelling storyteller and popular on the lecture circuit in Britain.
the 1879 battles of Isandlwana and Rourkes Drift.
Thousands of tourists, many from Britain, visit the battlefields every year.
South Africa has become notorious for its high rate of violent crime.
According to government statistics, there were 18,528 murders in 2004 more than 50 per day.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press All rights reserved
NEW YORK (AP) The decision to become pregnant and raise a child with her female partner was not political, Mary Cheney, a daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney, told a Barnard College audience.
"This is a baby," Cheney said Wednesday at a forum sponsored by Glamour magazine.
"This is a blessing from God.
It is not a political statement.
It is not a prop to be used in a debate by people on either side of an issue.
It is my child.
Cheney, 37, announced in December that she and her partner of 15 years, Heather Poe, were starting a family.
She did not say how the child was conceived.
The baby is due in the spring and will be the vice president's sixth grandchild. (Watch Mary Cheney address critics of the pregnancy )
Dick Cheney became testy last week when CNN's Wolf Blitzer asked him what he thought of conservatives who are critical of his daughter's pregnancy.
Cheney told Blitzer he was "over the line."
In a brief interview with The New York Times after Wednesday's panel, Mary Cheney said she agreed that Blitzer had crossed a line.
"He was trying to get a rise out of my father," she said.
Glamour editor Cindi Leive asked Cheney during the panel discussion if she had anything to say to conservatives such as James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, who have criticized her pregnancy, asserting that children should be raised by heterosexual married couples.
She responded, "Every piece of remotely responsible research that has been done in the last 20 years on this issue has shown there is no difference between children who are raised by same-sex parents and children who are raised by opposite-sex parents.
What matters is that children are being raised in a stable, loving environment.
Cheney was an aide to her father during the 2004 campaign and now is vice president for consumer advocacy at AOL.
This material may not be published.
PARIS, France (AP) French President Jacques Chirac said in an interview with three newspapers that Iran's possession of a nuclear bomb would not be "very dangerous" and that if it used the weapon on Israel, Tehran would be immediately "razed," according to a newspaper report.
Chirac who made the comments during a Monday interview with The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune and Le Nouvel Observateur, a weekly magazine called reporters back the next day to try to have his quotes retracted.
In an article posted on its Web site Wednesday night, the New York Times said the Monday interview was tape recorded and on the record.
Chirac's initial remarks would mark a big departure from France's official policy of deterrence and work in preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.
"I should rather have paid attention to what I was saying and understood that perhaps I was on the record," Chirac said in the second interview on Tuesday, according to the New York Times.
On Monday, Chirac said of Iran and its nuclear program: "I would say that what is dangerous about this situation is not the fact of having a nuclear bomb.
Instead, Chirac said, the danger lies in the chances of proliferation or an arms race in the Middle East should Iran build a nuclear bomb.
Possessing the weapon would be useless for Iran whose leader has called for Israel to be "wiped off the map" as using it would mean an instant counterattack.
Chirac asked.
"It would not have gone 200 meters into the atmosphere before Tehran would be razed.
In the second interview with the same newspapers, Chirac retracted his comment about Tehran being razed.
"I retract it, of course, when I said, 'One is going to raze Tehran,"' he said.
Chirac also said other countries would stop any bomb launched by Iran from reaching its target.
"It is obvious that this bomb, at the moment it was launched, obviously would be destroyed immediately," he said.
"We have the means several countries have the means to destroy a bomb.
LAS VEGAS, Nevada (AP) After nearly 30 years, California's classic rock group the Eagles may soon release their first album of all-new music.
Founding member Don Henley said during a private weekend concert that the band was nearing completion on an album of all-new material, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported on Tuesday.
"It's coming out in 60 to 90 days, if we don't kill each other first," Henley, 59, told the crowd Saturday at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.
Eagles and Henley spokesman Larry Solters said Wednesday there was no comment.
"The Long Run" in 1979 was the Eagles last album featuring all-new studio material.
That album included the Grammy-winning single "Heartache Tonight.
The group officially disbanded in 1982, then they reunited in 1994 for a comeback tour featuring Henley, Glenn Frey, Joe Walsh, Timothy Schmit and Don Felder.
The band appeared together again in 1998, with past members Bernie Leadon and Randy Meisner, when they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
NEW YORK (AP) "Harry Potter" star Daniel Radcliffe, who strips for his new role in London's West End revival of the play "Equus," has ignited a bit of a media firestorm by posing for racy promotional photos for the production.
The Tony-Award-winning drama tells the story of a stable-hand who has an erotic fixation with horses.
In one photo, Radcliffe, 17, dares to bare it all alongside a white horse; in another, he is pictured with a naked Joanna Christie, the actress who portrays his girlfriend.
"Equus," directed by Thea Sharrock, opens at London's Gielgud Theater on February 27.
Tony Award-winning actor Richard Griffiths plays a pyschiatrist who treats Radcliffe's character.
"Part of me wants to shake up people's perception of me, just shove me in a blender," Radcliffe said in a recent interview with Newsweek magazine.
"It's a really challenging play, and if I can pull it off we don't know if I can yet I hope people will stop and think, 'Maybe he can do something other than Harry,' " he said.
Radcliffe, who was discovered seven years ago in the audience of a London theater, reprises his role as the bespectacled boy wizard in "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," slated for release July 13.
This material may not be published.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) North Korea repeated its demand during talks with the United States this week that Washington lift financial restrictions targeting the communist regime, a pro-Pyongyang newspaper reported on Thursday, after the meetings ended without a clear breakthrough.
Experts from Washington and Pyongyang met in Beijing on Tuesday and Wednesday to discuss the financial restrictions the United States imposed over the North's alleged counterfeiting of U.S. currency and money laundering.
North Korea, denying any wrongdoing, has claimed the restrictions are evidence of Washington's hostile attitude toward it and prove it needs nuclear weapons to protect itself.
The financial row has been a key impediment to six-nation talks aimed at getting North Korea to give up its nuclear program, as Pyongyang refused to address disarmament unless the financial row is resolved.
North Korea repeated the demand in this week's talks, according to the Choson Sinbo, a Korean-language newspaper based in Japan which has links to the Pyongyang government.
The North is "demanding that the United States show an attitude of lifting the financial sanctions and not expanding them so as to create an atmosphere for entering into discussions on denuclearization commitments" in a 2005 accord, said the report posted on the paper's Web site seen in Seoul.
That agreement the only ever made at the nuclear talks calls for North Korea to trade away its nuclear programs in exchange for security guarantees and aid.
But it was never implemented because of the financial row.
This week's talks on the financial issue preceded a new round of nuclear negotiations set to resume next week.
The top U.S. delegate to the financial talks, Deputy Assistant Treasury Secretary Daniel Glaser, said the two days of meetings had validated U.S. suspicions of illegal financial activity by North Korea.
He also suggested that the dispute could see an end.
"I think we are now in a position after a very lengthy investigation ... to start moving forward and trying to bring some resolution to this matter," Glaser said, without saying how the dispute would be settled.
There have been media reports that Washington was considering declaring some of the North's assets at a Macau bank as legitimate, allowing the bank to end its freeze on some of North Korea's US$24 million (euro18.5 million) held there.
Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki said on Thursday that Washington considers the financial talks "very constructive" and Tokyo hopes it will have a positive impact on the six-party nuclear talks.
North Korea agreed to resume the nuclear negotiations, involving China, Japan, the two Koreas, Russia and the U.S., after the United States offered unspecified concessions during rare bilateral talks in Berlin in January.
ÏÀ» Á¦°øÇÏÁö ¾Ê½À´Ï´Ù.
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) Police in Brazil have arrested the widow of a multimillionaire lottery winner, while prosecutors decide whether to charge her in his killing.
Brazilian newspapers on Wednesday ran front-page photos of Adriana Almeida wearing a T-shirt and wraparound designer sunglasses being escorted to jail from a hotel in a luxury seaside community near Rio de Janeiro.
"I'm innocent.
What they're doing to me is cowardice," she told Rio's O Globo newspaper after her arrest.
The former hairdresser who married 54-year-old Renne Senna after he hit the jackpot was greeted by jeers as she arrived Tuesday at the lockup.
Police spokesman Marcele Mendes said she will be held for at least 30 days.
During that time, prosecutors will evaluate the police investigation and determine whether to ask a judge to charge Almeida.
Globo TV reported Wednesday that police also are looking for four men suspected of involvement in the killing.
Almeida, 29, was the girlfriend of Senna, a former subsistence farmer and butcher, before he became rich.
Senna, who had part of both legs amputated because of diabetes, got around town on a special, motorized four-wheel cart.
In July 2005, Senna was the sole winner of a national lottery worth 52 million reals ($24.4 million).
He bought a sprawling ranch in Rio Bonito, a rural town 50 miles (75 kilometers) northeast of Rio, and married Almeida.
Senna's family accused Almeida of pressuring Senna to change his will, removing 11 brothers and sisters as potential beneficiaries.
Senna wrote a new will leaving the money only to Almeida and a daughter, Renata.
Some local news media reported that Almeida had said her husband doubted whether he was Renata's real father and planned DNA testing to confirm his paternity.
On January 7, two hooded men on a motorcycle pulled up to a bar in Rio Bonito where Senna usually went for a beer.
Senna was shot four times in the head, and the hooded men sped away.
Five days later, Almeida was summoned to a police interrogation and swore she was innocent.
A furious crowd surrounded the police station in Rio Bonito and reportedly tried to lynch her.
Police dispersed the crowd by firing into the air.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is telling the United States and Iran to keep their fight out of Iraq.
Al-Maliki said he believes Iran is targeting U.S. forces in Iraq.
A U.S. official said Tuesday that the Pentagon is investigating whether Iran was behind a January 20 attack in Karbala that left five U.S. troops dead.
"We believe it's possible the executors of the attack were Iranian or Iranian-trained," the U.S. official said.
The sophistication of the attack, in which English-speaking guerrillas in American-style uniforms drove sport utility vehicles past checkpoints to attack a government compound, was beyond what insurgents in Iraq have shown they are capable of, U.S. officials said.
Whether Iran proves to be responsible for that attack or not, al-Maliki said his country cannot be a proxy battleground for Washington and Tehran.
"Iraq has nothing to do with the American-Iranian struggle, and we will not let Iran play a role against the American Army and we will not allow America to play a role against the Iranian army, and everyone should respect the sovereignty of Iraq," al-Maliki said.
"We will not accept Iran to use Iraq to attack the American forces.
Iran was a major topic Wednesday during CNN correspondent Michael Ware's wide-ranging, exclusive interview with al-Maliki.
The prime minister said Americans are basing their hunches about Iranian activities in Iraq on intelligence they've amassed. (Watch al-Maliki talk about the situation in Iraq )
The United States accuses Iran of fomenting terror attacks worldwide and pursuing a nuclear program that could lead to the development of weaponry.
Iran has denied those assertions.
"We have told the Iranian and the Americans, 'We know that you have a problem with each other, but we are asking you please solve your problems outside Iraq.
' We don't want the American forces to take Iraq as a field to attack Iran or Syria," the prime minister said.
Al-Maliki said Iraq doesn't want its sovereignty to be violated by any of its neighbors, which include Iran, Kuwait, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Turkey.
All could find a reason to interfere in Iraq, he said, including opposition to the U.S. troop presence, and sectarian and political differences.
"Iran is Shiite, and we are Shiite and we have many Shiites in Iraq, but this does not justify Iran interfering in Iraq.
We respect this relation, but we will not allow such interfering to exist.
Also, Iraq is an Arab country, the majority are Arabs, but this also will not justify for the Arab countries to interfere in Iraq.
Al-Maliki also addressed his government's position toward militias and troop levels in his country.
He said he supports President Bush's plan to bolster troop numbers in Iraq by more than 20,000 soldiers and Marines.
"We believe that the existing number, with a slight addition, will do the job, but if there seems to be more need we will ask for more troops.
Al-Maliki reiterated his intention to go after any or all entities that foment violence, including the militia of a supporter, Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
And he indicated that troop-level adjustments must be based on prevailing conditions.
Some observers question whether al-Maliki has the political will to take on al-Sadr's Mehdi Army, thought to be behind much of Iraq's violence between Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias.
Al-Sadr helped al-Maliki become prime minister last year.
The prime minister said al-Sadr's movement is committed to banning armed groups and not interfering with the new security plan.
He said the group's commitment is "a good incentive for others who have militias to announce their support to the Baghdad security plan.
Nevertheless, he put all groups and people on notice: Everyone must respect the law.
"I will apply the law to everyone ... on militias, political parties, on participants in the political process," he said.
"The law rules and who is on my side in respecting the law and the government's will be an ally and a partner and who rebels against the law and the government's will, will be a foe.
Al-Maliki emphasized his political detachment and fairness.
While he has been a member of the Shiite Dawa Party a part of the ruling United Iraqi Alliance he said he is the leader of all the people, not just Shiites.
Iraq which has about a 60 percent Shiite population is also made up of Sunni Arabs, Kurds, Turkmens, Christians and others.
"I'm talking now as a prime minister and not as a member of the party. ...
The membership of a party stops at the boundaries of the state," he said.
Al-Maliki said the effort to foster and bring about peace is not just a military one.
He said it's political as well and requires national will, an implication that Iraqis need to put aside their ethnic, tribal and religious allegiances to help the state survive.
"We do not want to kill the people and drown the country in blood, and we welcome every step that brings a setback for militias or terrorists and a desire to join the political process so we can minimize the losses and blood," he said.
"But this all has to happen under the umbrella of national will, the government and the law. "
NATO-led forces killed a senior Taliban leader with a precision airstrike near a southern Afghan town overrun by militants, a spokesman for the alliance said Sunday.
Tom Collins said the airstrike near Musa Qala on Sunday morning killed a senior Taliban leader riding in a car.
Musa Qala on Thursday was overrun by an estimated 200 Taliban fighters who disarmed local police, ransacked the district center and hoisted their trademark white flag.
The town had been subject to a peace deal brokered last October between village elders and the Helmand provincial government that prevented NATO, Afghan and Taliban fighters from coming within 5 kilometers (3 miles) of the town center.
Collins said the Taliban leader was killed within that 5 kilometers (3 miles) zone with the approval of the Afghan government.
He said no NATO or Afghan forces were on the ground in Musa Qala.
Collins didn't immediately name the person killed in the strike, but Mohammad Wali, a Musa Qala resident, said the airstrike killed a Taliban leader named Mullah Abdul Gafoor and some of his associates while they were riding in a truck through a small village just outside Musa Qala.
Another resident, Lal Mohammad, told The Associated Press on Saturday that the fighters in Musa Qala were being led by Gafoor, the hardline militia's corps commander in western Afghanistan during the Taliban regime.
Musa Qala saw intense battles between Taliban fighters and British troops last summer and fall.
The fighting caused widespread damage to the town of around 10,000 inhabitants, most of whom were forced to leave.
British forces withdrew from Musa Qala in October after the truce, which turned over security to local leaders and prevented NATO forces from entering the town.
Gen. David Richards, who was replaced Sunday as NATO's commander, told AP on Saturday that "very surgical and deliberate" force would be used to evict the fighters from Musa Qala, where he said the alliance's strategy of avoiding military action has driven a wedge between residents and Taliban insurgents.
Hyundai Motor Co. Chairman Chung Mong-koo's wait is almost over.
Chung, arrested and briefly jailed last year, is set to receive the verdict in his corruption trial Monday, and analysts say the fortunes of the world's sixth-largest automaker could be affected by the outcome.
Prosecutors indicted Chung in May, accusing him of illegally raising a slush fund of 103.4 billion won ($110 million; euro85 million) via affiliates which authorities say was used to pay lobbyists and for other purposes.
Chung, whose trial began in June, has also been charged with inflicting financial damage on affiliates.
Prosecutors have been taking a hard line against corruption in South Korea.
Last month, they sought a six-year jail term for Chung, calling his alleged crimes "grave.
Chung's attorneys argued before the three judge panel that he should receive a suspended sentence meaning no prison time citing health problems and the potential impact on South Korea's economy if he were to again be sidelined from management.
Chung was absent for more than two months after being jailed following his April arrest and entering a hospital for a health exam.
He was granted bail in June and returned to work in July.
Key decisions about overseas plant construction involving both Hyundai Motor and its affiliate Kia Motors Corp. were delayed while he was away.
Labor problems involving Hyundai's strike-prone labor union were also left to fester.
Many analysts have said that Chung will probably avoid a prison term given his central role in running arguably one of the country's two most important corporations, the other being Samsung Electronics Co.
"Especially now, it's a very important time for Hyundai," Yun Tae-sik, an auto analyst at NH Investment & Securities, said Friday, citing Hyundai's constant labor troubles, sluggish sales and pricing competition from Japanese automakers.
"The Japanese makers are able to sell cars for a better value than Hyundai" in the key U.S. market, Yun said, as they benefit from weakness in the Japanese yen versus the U.S. dollar.
The South Korean won rose about 9 percent against the greenback last year.
Hyundai cited the South Korean currency as a key reason along with its worst year of production losses from strikes behind a 35 percent drop in 2006 net profit.
Chung's prolonged incarceration could "have a grave impact on the industry as well as the national economy (so a) suspended sentence is likely," said Yong Dae-in, an analyst at Goodmorning Shinhan Securities.
Hyundai and Kia account for more than 70 percent of South Korea's automobile exports.
Autos make up about 10 percent of total exports in South Korea, the world's 10th-largest economy.
South Korea has a history of leniency toward corporate titans.
In a recent case, the Seoul District Court the same one deciding Chung's case ordered a three-year suspended jail term and a fine for Park Yong-sung, former chairman of the Doosan Group, for embezzling from the conglomerate.
The sentence was suspended for five years meaning Park will not be jailed if he stays out of trouble for that long.
Chung himself has made a bid for leniency, apologizing in court for "causing trouble over this case" and pledging to make Hyundai the world's No. 5 automaker if given the chance.
As of the end of 2005, Hyundai together with its affiliate Kia formed the world's No. 6 automaker in both production and sales, according to Automotive News, a publication that tracks the global vehicle industry.
"If he actually does have to go to jail it will cause some problems for Hyundai," said Yun.
"Last year when he was in jail it all came to a stop.
Whatever the outcome, Chung's case has highlighted the issue of how South Korean companies are managed.
Kang Sung-goo, secretary general of the South Korean office of Transparency International, a non-governmental organization devoted to raising awareness of and combating corruption, says that while there have been positive developments, more needs to be done.
"Improving corporate governance is one of the most important tasks (South) Korean companies are facing," Kang said.
ÏÀ» Á¦°øÇÏÁö ¾Ê½À´Ï´Ù.
Martin Scorsese won the top honor Saturday from the Directors Guild of America for his mob saga "The Departed," moving him a step closer to finally receiving Hollywood's biggest filmmaking prize at the Academy Awards.
Scorsese was chosen as filmmaker of the year by his peers, his first win at the guild awards after six previous nominations.
The guild winner usually goes on to win the best-director Oscar.
The self-deprecating Scorsese said he was pleased at the apparent success of the film but that he only became convinced it was doing well when the studio called with box-office revenues from the first couple of weekends.
"If you look at the graph at the spikes at where the picture is doing really great figures, it's like looking at a veritable map of the American underworld," such as Boca Raton, Florida, Scorsese said.
"Vegas forget about it, it was amazing.
Adapted from the Hong Kong crime thriller "Infernal Affairs," "The Departed" stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a cop who's undercover in a Boston crime outfit, Matt Damon as a mob mole who has infiltrated the police, and Jack Nicholson as the merciless gang leader pulling everyone's strings.
It has become Scorsese's biggest commercial hit, and critics praised it as a welcome return to the vivid, bloody crime genre whose modern conventions the director helped pioneer in such films as "Taxi Driver" and "Goodfellas.
"I started watching his work when I was 15 years old," said DiCaprio, who has starred in Scorsese's last three films and introduced the director to the guild audience earlier in the evening.
"It was like entering a seamless cinematic reality.
Walter Hill won the guild's directing honor for TV movies for the Western "Broken Trail.
Other TV winners included Richard Shepard for comedy directing on the pilot episode of "Ugly Betty," Jon Cassar for drama directing for an episode of "24," and "Chicago" filmmaker Rob Marshall for musical variety directing for "Tony Bennett:
An American Classic.
Arunas Matelis won for feature-film documentary for "Before Flying Back to the Earth," a portrait of children hospitalized with leukemia.
The film won over two Oscar nominees, "Deliver Us From Evil" and "Iraq in Fragments. "
A sixth loss at the Oscars would put Scorsese in the record books as the filmmaker with the most nominations without winning.
But many awards watchers feel this is Scorsese's year, labeling him the front-runner for the February 25 Oscars.
The guild prize is a solid forecast for who might win the directing honor at the Academy Awards.
Only six times in the 58-year history of the guild awards has the winner failed to go on to receive the directing Oscar.
The other guild nominees were Bill Condon for the musical "Dreamgirls," Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris for the road-trip tale "Little Miss Sunshine," Stephen Frears for the palace saga "The Queen" and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu for the ensemble drama "Babel.
The other Oscar nominations went to Clint Eastwood for the World War II epic "Letters From Iwo Jima" and Paul Greengrass for the September 11 docudrama "United 93.
With Condon out of the race, Scorsese's path to Oscar victory could prove a bit easier.
"I don't know," Scorsese said. "It's good to have a nomination, especially for this picture.
All rights reserved.
A diplomatic gaffe marred Saturday's inauguration of a China-financed stadium on this Caribbean island when a band performed Taiwan's national anthem.
Chinese Ambassador Qian Hongshan and scores of blue-uniformed Chinese laborers who built the new $40 million Queen's Park stadium as a gift from Beijing were visibly uncomfortable as Taiwan's anthem echoed inside the 20,000-seat venue.
Describing it as a blunder, Grenada Prime Minister Keith Mitchell pledged an investigation into how the Royal Grenada Police Band could have prepared the anthem of Taiwan instead of China, which has waged an aggressive campaign in the Caribbean to woo nations away from relationships with its rival.
Since China and Taiwan split in 1949 amid a civil war, Beijing has claimed that Taiwan is a renegade province and should not have diplomatic ties with other countries.
"I am very saddened," Mitchell told the workers and Chinese Embassy staff from Grenada and neighboring Trinidad and Tobago.
"This unfortunate error breaks my heart.
Police officials declined to comment except to say they would issue a statement later in the day.
Among the many small island nations in the Caribbean, the Asian rivals have long used economic investment to win votes at the United Nations.
China paid for the reconstruction of Grenada's stadium, which was destroyed by Hurricane Ivan in 2004, and some 500 Chinese workers helped rebuild the venue in time to host cricket World Cup matches in April.
·
ÏÀ» Á¦°øÇÏÁö ¾Ê½À´Ï´Ù.
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) Almost half the members of Australia's Parliament signed a letter to the Democrat-dominated U.S. Congress appealing for help repatriating the lone Australian terror suspect held at Guantanamo Bay, officials said Friday.
The letter faxed to U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi asking for Congress to intervene to ensure that former kangaroo skinner David Hicks is not tried by a military commission at the U.S. naval base in Cuba was signed by 96 senators and members of the Australian House of Representatives, opposition parties said.
There are a total of 226 members in the federal Parliament.
The only member of Prime Minister John Howard's center-right government to sign the letter was Barnaby Joyce, a maverick senator from the junior coalition partner, the Nationals party, his office confirmed Friday.
"As members of the Australian Parliament, we believe that the denial of justice in David Hicks' case erodes the values and principles shared by Australia and the United States," Lyn Allison, leader of the Australian Democrats minor opposition party, said in a statement.
She said she was disappointed that all but one member of the government refused to sign.
"It would have been a more powerful letter had they signed, of course, but it's nonetheless a very significant demonstration of the depth of feeling in the Australian Parliament on this issue," Allison later told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.
The Democrats co-wrote the letter with the major opposition Labor Party.
The letter was also supported by the Greens party and independents.
Congress had confirmed Pelosi's receipt of the letter, a Labor official said Friday.
The letter suggests Congress pass a resolution insisting that the 31-year-old alleged Taliban fighter be immediately repatriated to stand trial in Australia.
Failing repatriation, the lawmakers request Hicks "be immediately put to trial before a properly constituted U.S. criminal court.
Hicks has been held at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo since January 2002, a month after he was detained in Afghanistan.
His lawyers say he is suffering from depression and ill health because of the conditions of his incarceration.
He was originally charged with attempted murder, conspiracy to commit war crimes and aiding the enemy, and was selected to face a U.S. military tribunal.
But his case was thrown into limbo when the U.S. Supreme Court declared the commissions illegal in June.
Howard, a staunch U.S. ally in the war on terror, says his government is unhappy about the delay in bringing Hicks to trial but has resisted pressure to request his repatriation.
Justice Minister Chris Ellison said Canberra preferred to communicate directly with the U.S. government in its efforts to have Hicks brought to justice quickly rather than write to Congress.
"I think it's appropriate for us to convey Australia's concern to our counterparts and that's what we've done," Ellison told the ABC.
NEW YORK (CNN) A New York City Council member Thursday proposed pushing sponsors to ban abnormally thin models from walking New York Fashion Week's runways.
Council member Gail Brewer wants fashion houses to ban any model with a body mass index of less than 18.5 the cutoff for the World Health Organization's definition of "normal.
Brewer said she wants models to be educated on nutrition and designers to encourage healthful lifestyles. (Watch stick-thin models strut the runway )
"We want the designers to offer some clothes that are a little bit more robust," she also told CNN, "and we certainly don't want people under the age of 16 to be modeling.
Madrid Fashion Week set a BMI limit of 18 in September, and Italian designers in December agreed to health and age guidelines for runway models, The Associated Press reported.
On Wednesday, Assemblyman Jose Rivera of the Bronx introduced a resolution in the state legislature to generate standards to protect the health of teenage models and entertainers, AP reported.
The Council of Fashion Designers of America issued recommendations in January to help bulimia, anorexia and other health problems among models.
Brazilian model Ana Carolina Reston died in November at age 21.
She was 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighed just 88 pounds, for a BMI of 13.4.
WHO defines normal BMI as 18.5 to 24.9.
This material may not be published.
WASHINGTON (CNN) A report from the Congressional Budget Office says President Bush's plan for a troop increase in Iraq could cost up to $27 billion for a 12-month deployment.
The plan could mean sending thousands of support troops in addition to the 20,000-plus combat troops the Defense Department has set for deployment.
The numbers come in a letter to Rep. John Spratt, chairman of the House Budget Committee, in response to a request from Spratt's office.
"CBO's report concludes that the cost of the president's plan to 'surge' troops will be higher than previously indicated, both in dollar terms and in the burdens it places on our military," Spratt, D-South Carolina, said in a written statement.
The report notes that the Defense Department has identified only combat troops for deployment in the increase but says, "U.S. military operations also require substantial support forces, including personnel to staff headquarters, serve as military police and provide communications, contracting, engineering, intelligence, medical and other services.
The report notes the Defense Department expects to use fewer support troops than in the past.
It estimates that under past proportions, 28,000 support troops would be added to the 20,000 combat troops. But it revises that figure to 15,000 support troops for a new deployment.
That would bring the total number of forces being added in Iraq to between 35,000 and 48,000 troops, the report said.
The report estimates that a four-month deployment of the additional troops both combat and support could cost $9 billion to $13 billion and a 12-month deployment could cost $20 billion to $27 billion.
The White House estimated that the troop increase would cost $5.6 billion.
Ike Skelton, D-Missouri, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.
"The cost of the troop increase could be significantly higher than what the administration has been saying in the press.
"The CBO report only confirms what we already know: The president has continually tried to hide the true costs of this war, both in terms of money spent and lives affected," Meehan said.
"This Democratic Congress and the House Armed Services Committee will not let the president get away with saying whatever he wants without checking his facts anymore. "
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) Speakers decried crime in South Africa at the funeral Thursday of a renowned historian who was shot dead earlier this week.
The death of David Rattray, a friend of Britain's Prince Charles and an expert on the 1879 Anglo-Zulu war, has put South Africa's high rate of violent crime in the spotlight again.
Rattray was shot dead January 26 by a six-man gang at his Fugitives' Drift guest lodge in the eastern province of KwaZulu-Natal.
The police announced on Thursday that two men had been arrested and would appear in court on Friday on charges of murder.
Government ministers and provincial premiers were among about 1,500 people at the funeral at the Michaelhouse School chapel in KwaZulu-Natal.
Do 'whatever it takes' to end crime
South Africa's people were crying out to the nation's leaders to do "whatever it takes" to end crime, Inkatha Freedom Party leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi said at the funeral.
SAPA also reported that the Right Reverend Rubin Philip reiterated the call for government action on crime.
Rattray was a compelling storyteller and popular on the lecture circuit in Britain.
the 1879 battles of Isandlwana and Rourkes Drift.
Thousands of tourists, many from Britain, visit the battlefields every year.
South Africa has become notorious for its high rate of violent crime.
According to government statistics, there were 18,528 murders in 2004 more than 50 per day.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press All rights reserved
NEW YORK (AP) The decision to become pregnant and raise a child with her female partner was not political, Mary Cheney, a daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney, told a Barnard College audience.
"This is a baby," Cheney said Wednesday at a forum sponsored by Glamour magazine.
"This is a blessing from God.
It is not a political statement.
It is not a prop to be used in a debate by people on either side of an issue.
It is my child.
Cheney, 37, announced in December that she and her partner of 15 years, Heather Poe, were starting a family.
She did not say how the child was conceived.
The baby is due in the spring and will be the vice president's sixth grandchild. (Watch Mary Cheney address critics of the pregnancy )
Dick Cheney became testy last week when CNN's Wolf Blitzer asked him what he thought of conservatives who are critical of his daughter's pregnancy.
Cheney told Blitzer he was "over the line."
In a brief interview with The New York Times after Wednesday's panel, Mary Cheney said she agreed that Blitzer had crossed a line.
"He was trying to get a rise out of my father," she said.
Glamour editor Cindi Leive asked Cheney during the panel discussion if she had anything to say to conservatives such as James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, who have criticized her pregnancy, asserting that children should be raised by heterosexual married couples.
She responded, "Every piece of remotely responsible research that has been done in the last 20 years on this issue has shown there is no difference between children who are raised by same-sex parents and children who are raised by opposite-sex parents.
What matters is that children are being raised in a stable, loving environment.
Cheney was an aide to her father during the 2004 campaign and now is vice president for consumer advocacy at AOL.
This material may not be published.
PARIS, France (AP) French President Jacques Chirac said in an interview with three newspapers that Iran's possession of a nuclear bomb would not be "very dangerous" and that if it used the weapon on Israel, Tehran would be immediately "razed," according to a newspaper report.
Chirac who made the comments during a Monday interview with The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune and Le Nouvel Observateur, a weekly magazine called reporters back the next day to try to have his quotes retracted.
In an article posted on its Web site Wednesday night, the New York Times said the Monday interview was tape recorded and on the record.
Chirac's initial remarks would mark a big departure from France's official policy of deterrence and work in preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.
"I should rather have paid attention to what I was saying and understood that perhaps I was on the record," Chirac said in the second interview on Tuesday, according to the New York Times.
On Monday, Chirac said of Iran and its nuclear program: "I would say that what is dangerous about this situation is not the fact of having a nuclear bomb.
Instead, Chirac said, the danger lies in the chances of proliferation or an arms race in the Middle East should Iran build a nuclear bomb.
Possessing the weapon would be useless for Iran whose leader has called for Israel to be "wiped off the map" as using it would mean an instant counterattack.
Chirac asked.
"It would not have gone 200 meters into the atmosphere before Tehran would be razed.
In the second interview with the same newspapers, Chirac retracted his comment about Tehran being razed.
"I retract it, of course, when I said, 'One is going to raze Tehran,"' he said.
Chirac also said other countries would stop any bomb launched by Iran from reaching its target.
"It is obvious that this bomb, at the moment it was launched, obviously would be destroyed immediately," he said.
"We have the means several countries have the means to destroy a bomb.
LAS VEGAS, Nevada (AP) After nearly 30 years, California's classic rock group the Eagles may soon release their first album of all-new music.
Founding member Don Henley said during a private weekend concert that the band was nearing completion on an album of all-new material, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported on Tuesday.
"It's coming out in 60 to 90 days, if we don't kill each other first," Henley, 59, told the crowd Saturday at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.
Eagles and Henley spokesman Larry Solters said Wednesday there was no comment.
"The Long Run" in 1979 was the Eagles last album featuring all-new studio material.
That album included the Grammy-winning single "Heartache Tonight.
The group officially disbanded in 1982, then they reunited in 1994 for a comeback tour featuring Henley, Glenn Frey, Joe Walsh, Timothy Schmit and Don Felder.
The band appeared together again in 1998, with past members Bernie Leadon and Randy Meisner, when they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
NEW YORK (AP) "Harry Potter" star Daniel Radcliffe, who strips for his new role in London's West End revival of the play "Equus," has ignited a bit of a media firestorm by posing for racy promotional photos for the production.
The Tony-Award-winning drama tells the story of a stable-hand who has an erotic fixation with horses.
In one photo, Radcliffe, 17, dares to bare it all alongside a white horse; in another, he is pictured with a naked Joanna Christie, the actress who portrays his girlfriend.
"Equus," directed by Thea Sharrock, opens at London's Gielgud Theater on February 27.
Tony Award-winning actor Richard Griffiths plays a pyschiatrist who treats Radcliffe's character.
"Part of me wants to shake up people's perception of me, just shove me in a blender," Radcliffe said in a recent interview with Newsweek magazine.
"It's a really challenging play, and if I can pull it off we don't know if I can yet I hope people will stop and think, 'Maybe he can do something other than Harry,' " he said.
Radcliffe, who was discovered seven years ago in the audience of a London theater, reprises his role as the bespectacled boy wizard in "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," slated for release July 13.
This material may not be published.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) North Korea repeated its demand during talks with the United States this week that Washington lift financial restrictions targeting the communist regime, a pro-Pyongyang newspaper reported on Thursday, after the meetings ended without a clear breakthrough.
Experts from Washington and Pyongyang met in Beijing on Tuesday and Wednesday to discuss the financial restrictions the United States imposed over the North's alleged counterfeiting of U.S. currency and money laundering.
North Korea, denying any wrongdoing, has claimed the restrictions are evidence of Washington's hostile attitude toward it and prove it needs nuclear weapons to protect itself.
The financial row has been a key impediment to six-nation talks aimed at getting North Korea to give up its nuclear program, as Pyongyang refused to address disarmament unless the financial row is resolved.
North Korea repeated the demand in this week's talks, according to the Choson Sinbo, a Korean-language newspaper based in Japan which has links to the Pyongyang government.
The North is "demanding that the United States show an attitude of lifting the financial sanctions and not expanding them so as to create an atmosphere for entering into discussions on denuclearization commitments" in a 2005 accord, said the report posted on the paper's Web site seen in Seoul.
That agreement the only ever made at the nuclear talks calls for North Korea to trade away its nuclear programs in exchange for security guarantees and aid.
But it was never implemented because of the financial row.
This week's talks on the financial issue preceded a new round of nuclear negotiations set to resume next week.
The top U.S. delegate to the financial talks, Deputy Assistant Treasury Secretary Daniel Glaser, said the two days of meetings had validated U.S. suspicions of illegal financial activity by North Korea.
He also suggested that the dispute could see an end.
"I think we are now in a position after a very lengthy investigation ... to start moving forward and trying to bring some resolution to this matter," Glaser said, without saying how the dispute would be settled.
There have been media reports that Washington was considering declaring some of the North's assets at a Macau bank as legitimate, allowing the bank to end its freeze on some of North Korea's US$24 million (euro18.5 million) held there.
Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki said on Thursday that Washington considers the financial talks "very constructive" and Tokyo hopes it will have a positive impact on the six-party nuclear talks.
North Korea agreed to resume the nuclear negotiations, involving China, Japan, the two Koreas, Russia and the U.S., after the United States offered unspecified concessions during rare bilateral talks in Berlin in January.
ÏÀ» Á¦°øÇÏÁö ¾Ê½À´Ï´Ù.
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) Police in Brazil have arrested the widow of a multimillionaire lottery winner, while prosecutors decide whether to charge her in his killing.
Brazilian newspapers on Wednesday ran front-page photos of Adriana Almeida wearing a T-shirt and wraparound designer sunglasses being escorted to jail from a hotel in a luxury seaside community near Rio de Janeiro.
"I'm innocent.
What they're doing to me is cowardice," she told Rio's O Globo newspaper after her arrest.
The former hairdresser who married 54-year-old Renne Senna after he hit the jackpot was greeted by jeers as she arrived Tuesday at the lockup.
Police spokesman Marcele Mendes said she will be held for at least 30 days.
During that time, prosecutors will evaluate the police investigation and determine whether to ask a judge to charge Almeida.
Globo TV reported Wednesday that police also are looking for four men suspected of involvement in the killing.
Almeida, 29, was the girlfriend of Senna, a former subsistence farmer and butcher, before he became rich.
Senna, who had part of both legs amputated because of diabetes, got around town on a special, motorized four-wheel cart.
In July 2005, Senna was the sole winner of a national lottery worth 52 million reals ($24.4 million).
He bought a sprawling ranch in Rio Bonito, a rural town 50 miles (75 kilometers) northeast of Rio, and married Almeida.
Senna's family accused Almeida of pressuring Senna to change his will, removing 11 brothers and sisters as potential beneficiaries.
Senna wrote a new will leaving the money only to Almeida and a daughter, Renata.
Some local news media reported that Almeida had said her husband doubted whether he was Renata's real father and planned DNA testing to confirm his paternity.
On January 7, two hooded men on a motorcycle pulled up to a bar in Rio Bonito where Senna usually went for a beer.
Senna was shot four times in the head, and the hooded men sped away.
Five days later, Almeida was summoned to a police interrogation and swore she was innocent.
A furious crowd surrounded the police station in Rio Bonito and reportedly tried to lynch her.
Police dispersed the crowd by firing into the air.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is telling the United States and Iran to keep their fight out of Iraq.
Al-Maliki said he believes Iran is targeting U.S. forces in Iraq.
A U.S. official said Tuesday that the Pentagon is investigating whether Iran was behind a January 20 attack in Karbala that left five U.S. troops dead.
"We believe it's possible the executors of the attack were Iranian or Iranian-trained," the U.S. official said.
The sophistication of the attack, in which English-speaking guerrillas in American-style uniforms drove sport utility vehicles past checkpoints to attack a government compound, was beyond what insurgents in Iraq have shown they are capable of, U.S. officials said.
Whether Iran proves to be responsible for that attack or not, al-Maliki said his country cannot be a proxy battleground for Washington and Tehran.
"Iraq has nothing to do with the American-Iranian struggle, and we will not let Iran play a role against the American Army and we will not allow America to play a role against the Iranian army, and everyone should respect the sovereignty of Iraq," al-Maliki said.
"We will not accept Iran to use Iraq to attack the American forces.
Iran was a major topic Wednesday during CNN correspondent Michael Ware's wide-ranging, exclusive interview with al-Maliki.
The prime minister said Americans are basing their hunches about Iranian activities in Iraq on intelligence they've amassed. (Watch al-Maliki talk about the situation in Iraq )
The United States accuses Iran of fomenting terror attacks worldwide and pursuing a nuclear program that could lead to the development of weaponry.
Iran has denied those assertions.
"We have told the Iranian and the Americans, 'We know that you have a problem with each other, but we are asking you please solve your problems outside Iraq.
' We don't want the American forces to take Iraq as a field to attack Iran or Syria," the prime minister said.
Al-Maliki said Iraq doesn't want its sovereignty to be violated by any of its neighbors, which include Iran, Kuwait, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Turkey.
All could find a reason to interfere in Iraq, he said, including opposition to the U.S. troop presence, and sectarian and political differences.
"Iran is Shiite, and we are Shiite and we have many Shiites in Iraq, but this does not justify Iran interfering in Iraq.
We respect this relation, but we will not allow such interfering to exist.
Also, Iraq is an Arab country, the majority are Arabs, but this also will not justify for the Arab countries to interfere in Iraq.
Al-Maliki also addressed his government's position toward militias and troop levels in his country.
He said he supports President Bush's plan to bolster troop numbers in Iraq by more than 20,000 soldiers and Marines.
"We believe that the existing number, with a slight addition, will do the job, but if there seems to be more need we will ask for more troops.
Al-Maliki reiterated his intention to go after any or all entities that foment violence, including the militia of a supporter, Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
And he indicated that troop-level adjustments must be based on prevailing conditions.
Some observers question whether al-Maliki has the political will to take on al-Sadr's Mehdi Army, thought to be behind much of Iraq's violence between Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias.
Al-Sadr helped al-Maliki become prime minister last year.
The prime minister said al-Sadr's movement is committed to banning armed groups and not interfering with the new security plan.
He said the group's commitment is "a good incentive for others who have militias to announce their support to the Baghdad security plan.
Nevertheless, he put all groups and people on notice: Everyone must respect the law.
"I will apply the law to everyone ... on militias, political parties, on participants in the political process," he said.
"The law rules and who is on my side in respecting the law and the government's will be an ally and a partner and who rebels against the law and the government's will, will be a foe.
Al-Maliki emphasized his political detachment and fairness.
While he has been a member of the Shiite Dawa Party a part of the ruling United Iraqi Alliance he said he is the leader of all the people, not just Shiites.
Iraq which has about a 60 percent Shiite population is also made up of Sunni Arabs, Kurds, Turkmens, Christians and others.
"I'm talking now as a prime minister and not as a member of the party. ...
The membership of a party stops at the boundaries of the state," he said.
Al-Maliki said the effort to foster and bring about peace is not just a military one.
He said it's political as well and requires national will, an implication that Iraqis need to put aside their ethnic, tribal and religious allegiances to help the state survive.
"We do not want to kill the people and drown the country in blood, and we welcome every step that brings a setback for militias or terrorists and a desire to join the political process so we can minimize the losses and blood," he said.
"But this all has to happen under the umbrella of national will, the government and the law. "
NATO-led forces killed a senior Taliban leader with a precision airstrike near a southern Afghan town overrun by militants, a spokesman for the alliance said Sunday.
Tom Collins said the airstrike near Musa Qala on Sunday morning killed a senior Taliban leader riding in a car.
Musa Qala on Thursday was overrun by an estimated 200 Taliban fighters who disarmed local police, ransacked the district center and hoisted their trademark white flag.
The town had been subject to a peace deal brokered last October between village elders and the Helmand provincial government that prevented NATO, Afghan and Taliban fighters from coming within 5 kilometers (3 miles) of the town center.
Collins said the Taliban leader was killed within that 5 kilometers (3 miles) zone with the approval of the Afghan government.
He said no NATO or Afghan forces were on the ground in Musa Qala.
Collins didn't immediately name the person killed in the strike, but Mohammad Wali, a Musa Qala resident, said the airstrike killed a Taliban leader named Mullah Abdul Gafoor and some of his associates while they were riding in a truck through a small village just outside Musa Qala.
Another resident, Lal Mohammad, told The Associated Press on Saturday that the fighters in Musa Qala were being led by Gafoor, the hardline militia's corps commander in western Afghanistan during the Taliban regime.
Musa Qala saw intense battles between Taliban fighters and British troops last summer and fall.
The fighting caused widespread damage to the town of around 10,000 inhabitants, most of whom were forced to leave.
British forces withdrew from Musa Qala in October after the truce, which turned over security to local leaders and prevented NATO forces from entering the town.
Gen. David Richards, who was replaced Sunday as NATO's commander, told AP on Saturday that "very surgical and deliberate" force would be used to evict the fighters from Musa Qala, where he said the alliance's strategy of avoiding military action has driven a wedge between residents and Taliban insurgents.
Hyundai Motor Co. Chairman Chung Mong-koo's wait is almost over.
Chung, arrested and briefly jailed last year, is set to receive the verdict in his corruption trial Monday, and analysts say the fortunes of the world's sixth-largest automaker could be affected by the outcome.
Prosecutors indicted Chung in May, accusing him of illegally raising a slush fund of 103.4 billion won ($110 million; euro85 million) via affiliates which authorities say was used to pay lobbyists and for other purposes.
Chung, whose trial began in June, has also been charged with inflicting financial damage on affiliates.
Prosecutors have been taking a hard line against corruption in South Korea.
Last month, they sought a six-year jail term for Chung, calling his alleged crimes "grave.
Chung's attorneys argued before the three judge panel that he should receive a suspended sentence meaning no prison time citing health problems and the potential impact on South Korea's economy if he were to again be sidelined from management.
Chung was absent for more than two months after being jailed following his April arrest and entering a hospital for a health exam.
He was granted bail in June and returned to work in July.
Key decisions about overseas plant construction involving both Hyundai Motor and its affiliate Kia Motors Corp. were delayed while he was away.
Labor problems involving Hyundai's strike-prone labor union were also left to fester.
Many analysts have said that Chung will probably avoid a prison term given his central role in running arguably one of the country's two most important corporations, the other being Samsung Electronics Co.
"Especially now, it's a very important time for Hyundai," Yun Tae-sik, an auto analyst at NH Investment & Securities, said Friday, citing Hyundai's constant labor troubles, sluggish sales and pricing competition from Japanese automakers.
"The Japanese makers are able to sell cars for a better value than Hyundai" in the key U.S. market, Yun said, as they benefit from weakness in the Japanese yen versus the U.S. dollar.
The South Korean won rose about 9 percent against the greenback last year.
Hyundai cited the South Korean currency as a key reason along with its worst year of production losses from strikes behind a 35 percent drop in 2006 net profit.
Chung's prolonged incarceration could "have a grave impact on the industry as well as the national economy (so a) suspended sentence is likely," said Yong Dae-in, an analyst at Goodmorning Shinhan Securities.
Hyundai and Kia account for more than 70 percent of South Korea's automobile exports.
Autos make up about 10 percent of total exports in South Korea, the world's 10th-largest economy.
South Korea has a history of leniency toward corporate titans.
In a recent case, the Seoul District Court the same one deciding Chung's case ordered a three-year suspended jail term and a fine for Park Yong-sung, former chairman of the Doosan Group, for embezzling from the conglomerate.
The sentence was suspended for five years meaning Park will not be jailed if he stays out of trouble for that long.
Chung himself has made a bid for leniency, apologizing in court for "causing trouble over this case" and pledging to make Hyundai the world's No. 5 automaker if given the chance.
As of the end of 2005, Hyundai together with its affiliate Kia formed the world's No. 6 automaker in both production and sales, according to Automotive News, a publication that tracks the global vehicle industry.
"If he actually does have to go to jail it will cause some problems for Hyundai," said Yun.
"Last year when he was in jail it all came to a stop.
Whatever the outcome, Chung's case has highlighted the issue of how South Korean companies are managed.
Kang Sung-goo, secretary general of the South Korean office of Transparency International, a non-governmental organization devoted to raising awareness of and combating corruption, says that while there have been positive developments, more needs to be done.
"Improving corporate governance is one of the most important tasks (South) Korean companies are facing," Kang said.
ÏÀ» Á¦°øÇÏÁö ¾Ê½À´Ï´Ù.
Martin Scorsese won the top honor Saturday from the Directors Guild of America for his mob saga "The Departed," moving him a step closer to finally receiving Hollywood's biggest filmmaking prize at the Academy Awards.
Scorsese was chosen as filmmaker of the year by his peers, his first win at the guild awards after six previous nominations.
The guild winner usually goes on to win the best-director Oscar.
The self-deprecating Scorsese said he was pleased at the apparent success of the film but that he only became convinced it was doing well when the studio called with box-office revenues from the first couple of weekends.
"If you look at the graph at the spikes at where the picture is doing really great figures, it's like looking at a veritable map of the American underworld," such as Boca Raton, Florida, Scorsese said.
"Vegas forget about it, it was amazing.
Adapted from the Hong Kong crime thriller "Infernal Affairs," "The Departed" stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a cop who's undercover in a Boston crime outfit, Matt Damon as a mob mole who has infiltrated the police, and Jack Nicholson as the merciless gang leader pulling everyone's strings.
It has become Scorsese's biggest commercial hit, and critics praised it as a welcome return to the vivid, bloody crime genre whose modern conventions the director helped pioneer in such films as "Taxi Driver" and "Goodfellas.
"I started watching his work when I was 15 years old," said DiCaprio, who has starred in Scorsese's last three films and introduced the director to the guild audience earlier in the evening.
"It was like entering a seamless cinematic reality.
Walter Hill won the guild's directing honor for TV movies for the Western "Broken Trail.
Other TV winners included Richard Shepard for comedy directing on the pilot episode of "Ugly Betty," Jon Cassar for drama directing for an episode of "24," and "Chicago" filmmaker Rob Marshall for musical variety directing for "Tony Bennett:
An American Classic.
Arunas Matelis won for feature-film documentary for "Before Flying Back to the Earth," a portrait of children hospitalized with leukemia.
The film won over two Oscar nominees, "Deliver Us From Evil" and "Iraq in Fragments. "
A sixth loss at the Oscars would put Scorsese in the record books as the filmmaker with the most nominations without winning.
But many awards watchers feel this is Scorsese's year, labeling him the front-runner for the February 25 Oscars.
The guild prize is a solid forecast for who might win the directing honor at the Academy Awards.
Only six times in the 58-year history of the guild awards has the winner failed to go on to receive the directing Oscar.
The other guild nominees were Bill Condon for the musical "Dreamgirls," Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris for the road-trip tale "Little Miss Sunshine," Stephen Frears for the palace saga "The Queen" and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu for the ensemble drama "Babel.
The other Oscar nominations went to Clint Eastwood for the World War II epic "Letters From Iwo Jima" and Paul Greengrass for the September 11 docudrama "United 93.
With Condon out of the race, Scorsese's path to Oscar victory could prove a bit easier.
"I don't know," Scorsese said. "It's good to have a nomination, especially for this picture.
All rights reserved.
A diplomatic gaffe marred Saturday's inauguration of a China-financed stadium on this Caribbean island when a band performed Taiwan's national anthem.
Chinese Ambassador Qian Hongshan and scores of blue-uniformed Chinese laborers who built the new $40 million Queen's Park stadium as a gift from Beijing were visibly uncomfortable as Taiwan's anthem echoed inside the 20,000-seat venue.
Describing it as a blunder, Grenada Prime Minister Keith Mitchell pledged an investigation into how the Royal Grenada Police Band could have prepared the anthem of Taiwan instead of China, which has waged an aggressive campaign in the Caribbean to woo nations away from relationships with its rival.
Since China and Taiwan split in 1949 amid a civil war, Beijing has claimed that Taiwan is a renegade province and should not have diplomatic ties with other countries.
"I am very saddened," Mitchell told the workers and Chinese Embassy staff from Grenada and neighboring Trinidad and Tobago.
"This unfortunate error breaks my heart.
Police officials declined to comment except to say they would issue a statement later in the day.
Among the many small island nations in the Caribbean, the Asian rivals have long used economic investment to win votes at the United Nations.
China paid for the reconstruction of Grenada's stadium, which was destroyed by Hurricane Ivan in 2004, and some 500 Chinese workers helped rebuild the venue in time to host cricket World Cup matches in April.
·
ÏÀ» Á¦°øÇÏÁö ¾Ê½À´Ï´Ù.
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) Almost half the members of Australia's Parliament signed a letter to the Democrat-dominated U.S. Congress appealing for help repatriating the lone Australian terror suspect held at Guantanamo Bay, officials said Friday.
The letter faxed to U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi asking for Congress to intervene to ensure that former kangaroo skinner David Hicks is not tried by a military commission at the U.S. naval base in Cuba was signed by 96 senators and members of the Australian House of Representatives, opposition parties said.
There are a total of 226 members in the federal Parliament.
The only member of Prime Minister John Howard's center-right government to sign the letter was Barnaby Joyce, a maverick senator from the junior coalition partner, the Nationals party, his office confirmed Friday.
"As members of the Australian Parliament, we believe that the denial of justice in David Hicks' case erodes the values and principles shared by Australia and the United States," Lyn Allison, leader of the Australian Democrats minor opposition party, said in a statement.
She said she was disappointed that all but one member of the government refused to sign.
"It would have been a more powerful letter had they signed, of course, but it's nonetheless a very significant demonstration of the depth of feeling in the Australian Parliament on this issue," Allison later told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.
The Democrats co-wrote the letter with the major opposition Labor Party.
The letter was also supported by the Greens party and independents.
Congress had confirmed Pelosi's receipt of the letter, a Labor official said Friday.
The letter suggests Congress pass a resolution insisting that the 31-year-old alleged Taliban fighter be immediately repatriated to stand trial in Australia.
Failing repatriation, the lawmakers request Hicks "be immediately put to trial before a properly constituted U.S. criminal court.
Hicks has been held at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo since January 2002, a month after he was detained in Afghanistan.
His lawyers say he is suffering from depression and ill health because of the conditions of his incarceration.
He was originally charged with attempted murder, conspiracy to commit war crimes and aiding the enemy, and was selected to face a U.S. military tribunal.
But his case was thrown into limbo when the U.S. Supreme Court declared the commissions illegal in June.
Howard, a staunch U.S. ally in the war on terror, says his government is unhappy about the delay in bringing Hicks to trial but has resisted pressure to request his repatriation.
Justice Minister Chris Ellison said Canberra preferred to communicate directly with the U.S. government in its efforts to have Hicks brought to justice quickly rather than write to Congress.
"I think it's appropriate for us to convey Australia's concern to our counterparts and that's what we've done," Ellison told the ABC.
NEW YORK (CNN) A New York City Council member Thursday proposed pushing sponsors to ban abnormally thin models from walking New York Fashion Week's runways.
Council member Gail Brewer wants fashion houses to ban any model with a body mass index of less than 18.5 the cutoff for the World Health Organization's definition of "normal.
Brewer said she wants models to be educated on nutrition and designers to encourage healthful lifestyles. (Watch stick-thin models strut the runway )
"We want the designers to offer some clothes that are a little bit more robust," she also told CNN, "and we certainly don't want people under the age of 16 to be modeling.
Madrid Fashion Week set a BMI limit of 18 in September, and Italian designers in December agreed to health and age guidelines for runway models, The Associated Press reported.
On Wednesday, Assemblyman Jose Rivera of the Bronx introduced a resolution in the state legislature to generate standards to protect the health of teenage models and entertainers, AP reported.
The Council of Fashion Designers of America issued recommendations in January to help bulimia, anorexia and other health problems among models.
Brazilian model Ana Carolina Reston died in November at age 21.
She was 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighed just 88 pounds, for a BMI of 13.4.
WHO defines normal BMI as 18.5 to 24.9.
This material may not be published.
WASHINGTON (CNN) A report from the Congressional Budget Office says President Bush's plan for a troop increase in Iraq could cost up to $27 billion for a 12-month deployment.
The plan could mean sending thousands of support troops in addition to the 20,000-plus combat troops the Defense Department has set for deployment.
The numbers come in a letter to Rep. John Spratt, chairman of the House Budget Committee, in response to a request from Spratt's office.
"CBO's report concludes that the cost of the president's plan to 'surge' troops will be higher than previously indicated, both in dollar terms and in the burdens it places on our military," Spratt, D-South Carolina, said in a written statement.
The report notes that the Defense Department has identified only combat troops for deployment in the increase but says, "U.S. military operations also require substantial support forces, including personnel to staff headquarters, serve as military police and provide communications, contracting, engineering, intelligence, medical and other services.
The report notes the Defense Department expects to use fewer support troops than in the past.
It estimates that under past proportions, 28,000 support troops would be added to the 20,000 combat troops. But it revises that figure to 15,000 support troops for a new deployment.
That would bring the total number of forces being added in Iraq to between 35,000 and 48,000 troops, the report said.
The report estimates that a four-month deployment of the additional troops both combat and support could cost $9 billion to $13 billion and a 12-month deployment could cost $20 billion to $27 billion.
The White House estimated that the troop increase would cost $5.6 billion.
Ike Skelton, D-Missouri, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.
"The cost of the troop increase could be significantly higher than what the administration has been saying in the press.
"The CBO report only confirms what we already know: The president has continually tried to hide the true costs of this war, both in terms of money spent and lives affected," Meehan said.
"This Democratic Congress and the House Armed Services Committee will not let the president get away with saying whatever he wants without checking his facts anymore. "
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) Speakers decried crime in South Africa at the funeral Thursday of a renowned historian who was shot dead earlier this week.
The death of David Rattray, a friend of Britain's Prince Charles and an expert on the 1879 Anglo-Zulu war, has put South Africa's high rate of violent crime in the spotlight again.
Rattray was shot dead January 26 by a six-man gang at his Fugitives' Drift guest lodge in the eastern province of KwaZulu-Natal.
The police announced on Thursday that two men had been arrested and would appear in court on Friday on charges of murder.
Government ministers and provincial premiers were among about 1,500 people at the funeral at the Michaelhouse School chapel in KwaZulu-Natal.
Do 'whatever it takes' to end crime
South Africa's people were crying out to the nation's leaders to do "whatever it takes" to end crime, Inkatha Freedom Party leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi said at the funeral.
SAPA also reported that the Right Reverend Rubin Philip reiterated the call for government action on crime.
Rattray was a compelling storyteller and popular on the lecture circuit in Britain.
the 1879 battles of Isandlwana and Rourkes Drift.
Thousands of tourists, many from Britain, visit the battlefields every year.
South Africa has become notorious for its high rate of violent crime.
According to government statistics, there were 18,528 murders in 2004 more than 50 per day.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press All rights reserved
NEW YORK (AP) The decision to become pregnant and raise a child with her female partner was not political, Mary Cheney, a daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney, told a Barnard College audience.
"This is a baby," Cheney said Wednesday at a forum sponsored by Glamour magazine.
"This is a blessing from God.
It is not a political statement.
It is not a prop to be used in a debate by people on either side of an issue.
It is my child.
Cheney, 37, announced in December that she and her partner of 15 years, Heather Poe, were starting a family.
She did not say how the child was conceived.
The baby is due in the spring and will be the vice president's sixth grandchild. (Watch Mary Cheney address critics of the pregnancy )
Dick Cheney became testy last week when CNN's Wolf Blitzer asked him what he thought of conservatives who are critical of his daughter's pregnancy.
Cheney told Blitzer he was "over the line."
In a brief interview with The New York Times after Wednesday's panel, Mary Cheney said she agreed that Blitzer had crossed a line.
"He was trying to get a rise out of my father," she said.
Glamour editor Cindi Leive asked Cheney during the panel discussion if she had anything to say to conservatives such as James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, who have criticized her pregnancy, asserting that children should be raised by heterosexual married couples.
She responded, "Every piece of remotely responsible research that has been done in the last 20 years on this issue has shown there is no difference between children who are raised by same-sex parents and children who are raised by opposite-sex parents.
What matters is that children are being raised in a stable, loving environment.
Cheney was an aide to her father during the 2004 campaign and now is vice president for consumer advocacy at AOL.
This material may not be published.
PARIS, France (AP) French President Jacques Chirac said in an interview with three newspapers that Iran's possession of a nuclear bomb would not be "very dangerous" and that if it used the weapon on Israel, Tehran would be immediately "razed," according to a newspaper report.
Chirac who made the comments during a Monday interview with The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune and Le Nouvel Observateur, a weekly magazine called reporters back the next day to try to have his quotes retracted.
In an article posted on its Web site Wednesday night, the New York Times said the Monday interview was tape recorded and on the record.
Chirac's initial remarks would mark a big departure from France's official policy of deterrence and work in preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.
"I should rather have paid attention to what I was saying and understood that perhaps I was on the record," Chirac said in the second interview on Tuesday, according to the New York Times.
On Monday, Chirac said of Iran and its nuclear program: "I would say that what is dangerous about this situation is not the fact of having a nuclear bomb.
Instead, Chirac said, the danger lies in the chances of proliferation or an arms race in the Middle East should Iran build a nuclear bomb.
Possessing the weapon would be useless for Iran whose leader has called for Israel to be "wiped off the map" as using it would mean an instant counterattack.
Chirac asked.
"It would not have gone 200 meters into the atmosphere before Tehran would be razed.
In the second interview with the same newspapers, Chirac retracted his comment about Tehran being razed.
"I retract it, of course, when I said, 'One is going to raze Tehran,"' he said.
Chirac also said other countries would stop any bomb launched by Iran from reaching its target.
"It is obvious that this bomb, at the moment it was launched, obviously would be destroyed immediately," he said.
"We have the means several countries have the means to destroy a bomb.
LAS VEGAS, Nevada (AP) After nearly 30 years, California's classic rock group the Eagles may soon release their first album of all-new music.
Founding member Don Henley said during a private weekend concert that the band was nearing completion on an album of all-new material, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported on Tuesday.
"It's coming out in 60 to 90 days, if we don't kill each other first," Henley, 59, told the crowd Saturday at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.
Eagles and Henley spokesman Larry Solters said Wednesday there was no comment.
"The Long Run" in 1979 was the Eagles last album featuring all-new studio material.
That album included the Grammy-winning single "Heartache Tonight.
The group officially disbanded in 1982, then they reunited in 1994 for a comeback tour featuring Henley, Glenn Frey, Joe Walsh, Timothy Schmit and Don Felder.
The band appeared together again in 1998, with past members Bernie Leadon and Randy Meisner, when they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
NEW YORK (AP) "Harry Potter" star Daniel Radcliffe, who strips for his new role in London's West End revival of the play "Equus," has ignited a bit of a media firestorm by posing for racy promotional photos for the production.
The Tony-Award-winning drama tells the story of a stable-hand who has an erotic fixation with horses.
In one photo, Radcliffe, 17, dares to bare it all alongside a white horse; in another, he is pictured with a naked Joanna Christie, the actress who portrays his girlfriend.
"Equus," directed by Thea Sharrock, opens at London's Gielgud Theater on February 27.
Tony Award-winning actor Richard Griffiths plays a pyschiatrist who treats Radcliffe's character.
"Part of me wants to shake up people's perception of me, just shove me in a blender," Radcliffe said in a recent interview with Newsweek magazine.
"It's a really challenging play, and if I can pull it off we don't know if I can yet I hope people will stop and think, 'Maybe he can do something other than Harry,' " he said.
Radcliffe, who was discovered seven years ago in the audience of a London theater, reprises his role as the bespectacled boy wizard in "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," slated for release July 13.
This material may not be published.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) North Korea repeated its demand during talks with the United States this week that Washington lift financial restrictions targeting the communist regime, a pro-Pyongyang newspaper reported on Thursday, after the meetings ended without a clear breakthrough.
Experts from Washington and Pyongyang met in Beijing on Tuesday and Wednesday to discuss the financial restrictions the United States imposed over the North's alleged counterfeiting of U.S. currency and money laundering.
North Korea, denying any wrongdoing, has claimed the restrictions are evidence of Washington's hostile attitude toward it and prove it needs nuclear weapons to protect itself.
The financial row has been a key impediment to six-nation talks aimed at getting North Korea to give up its nuclear program, as Pyongyang refused to address disarmament unless the financial row is resolved.
North Korea repeated the demand in this week's talks, according to the Choson Sinbo, a Korean-language newspaper based in Japan which has links to the Pyongyang government.
The North is "demanding that the United States show an attitude of lifting the financial sanctions and not expanding them so as to create an atmosphere for entering into discussions on denuclearization commitments" in a 2005 accord, said the report posted on the paper's Web site seen in Seoul.
That agreement the only ever made at the nuclear talks calls for North Korea to trade away its nuclear programs in exchange for security guarantees and aid.
But it was never implemented because of the financial row.
This week's talks on the financial issue preceded a new round of nuclear negotiations set to resume next week.
The top U.S. delegate to the financial talks, Deputy Assistant Treasury Secretary Daniel Glaser, said the two days of meetings had validated U.S. suspicions of illegal financial activity by North Korea.
He also suggested that the dispute could see an end.
"I think we are now in a position after a very lengthy investigation ... to start moving forward and trying to bring some resolution to this matter," Glaser said, without saying how the dispute would be settled.
There have been media reports that Washington was considering declaring some of the North's assets at a Macau bank as legitimate, allowing the bank to end its freeze on some of North Korea's US$24 million (euro18.5 million) held there.
Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki said on Thursday that Washington considers the financial talks "very constructive" and Tokyo hopes it will have a positive impact on the six-party nuclear talks.
North Korea agreed to resume the nuclear negotiations, involving China, Japan, the two Koreas, Russia and the U.S., after the United States offered unspecified concessions during rare bilateral talks in Berlin in January.
ÏÀ» Á¦°øÇÏÁö ¾Ê½À´Ï´Ù.
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) Police in Brazil have arrested the widow of a multimillionaire lottery winner, while prosecutors decide whether to charge her in his killing.
Brazilian newspapers on Wednesday ran front-page photos of Adriana Almeida wearing a T-shirt and wraparound designer sunglasses being escorted to jail from a hotel in a luxury seaside community near Rio de Janeiro.
"I'm innocent.
What they're doing to me is cowardice," she told Rio's O Globo newspaper after her arrest.
The former hairdresser who married 54-year-old Renne Senna after he hit the jackpot was greeted by jeers as she arrived Tuesday at the lockup.
Police spokesman Marcele Mendes said she will be held for at least 30 days.
During that time, prosecutors will evaluate the police investigation and determine whether to ask a judge to charge Almeida.
Globo TV reported Wednesday that police also are looking for four men suspected of involvement in the killing.
Almeida, 29, was the girlfriend of Senna, a former subsistence farmer and butcher, before he became rich.
Senna, who had part of both legs amputated because of diabetes, got around town on a special, motorized four-wheel cart.
In July 2005, Senna was the sole winner of a national lottery worth 52 million reals ($24.4 million).
He bought a sprawling ranch in Rio Bonito, a rural town 50 miles (75 kilometers) northeast of Rio, and married Almeida.
Senna's family accused Almeida of pressuring Senna to change his will, removing 11 brothers and sisters as potential beneficiaries.
Senna wrote a new will leaving the money only to Almeida and a daughter, Renata.
Some local news media reported that Almeida had said her husband doubted whether he was Renata's real father and planned DNA testing to confirm his paternity.
On January 7, two hooded men on a motorcycle pulled up to a bar in Rio Bonito where Senna usually went for a beer.
Senna was shot four times in the head, and the hooded men sped away.
Five days later, Almeida was summoned to a police interrogation and swore she was innocent.
A furious crowd surrounded the police station in Rio Bonito and reportedly tried to lynch her.
Police dispersed the crowd by firing into the air.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is telling the United States and Iran to keep their fight out of Iraq.
Al-Maliki said he believes Iran is targeting U.S. forces in Iraq.
A U.S. official said Tuesday that the Pentagon is investigating whether Iran was behind a January 20 attack in Karbala that left five U.S. troops dead.
"We believe it's possible the executors of the attack were Iranian or Iranian-trained," the U.S. official said.
The sophistication of the attack, in which English-speaking guerrillas in American-style uniforms drove sport utility vehicles past checkpoints to attack a government compound, was beyond what insurgents in Iraq have shown they are capable of, U.S. officials said.
Whether Iran proves to be responsible for that attack or not, al-Maliki said his country cannot be a proxy battleground for Washington and Tehran.
"Iraq has nothing to do with the American-Iranian struggle, and we will not let Iran play a role against the American Army and we will not allow America to play a role against the Iranian army, and everyone should respect the sovereignty of Iraq," al-Maliki said.
"We will not accept Iran to use Iraq to attack the American forces.
Iran was a major topic Wednesday during CNN correspondent Michael Ware's wide-ranging, exclusive interview with al-Maliki.
The prime minister said Americans are basing their hunches about Iranian activities in Iraq on intelligence they've amassed. (Watch al-Maliki talk about the situation in Iraq )
The United States accuses Iran of fomenting terror attacks worldwide and pursuing a nuclear program that could lead to the development of weaponry.
Iran has denied those assertions.
"We have told the Iranian and the Americans, 'We know that you have a problem with each other, but we are asking you please solve your problems outside Iraq.
' We don't want the American forces to take Iraq as a field to attack Iran or Syria," the prime minister said.
Al-Maliki said Iraq doesn't want its sovereignty to be violated by any of its neighbors, which include Iran, Kuwait, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Turkey.
All could find a reason to interfere in Iraq, he said, including opposition to the U.S. troop presence, and sectarian and political differences.
"Iran is Shiite, and we are Shiite and we have many Shiites in Iraq, but this does not justify Iran interfering in Iraq.
We respect this relation, but we will not allow such interfering to exist.
Also, Iraq is an Arab country, the majority are Arabs, but this also will not justify for the Arab countries to interfere in Iraq.
Al-Maliki also addressed his government's position toward militias and troop levels in his country.
He said he supports President Bush's plan to bolster troop numbers in Iraq by more than 20,000 soldiers and Marines.
"We believe that the existing number, with a slight addition, will do the job, but if there seems to be more need we will ask for more troops.
Al-Maliki reiterated his intention to go after any or all entities that foment violence, including the militia of a supporter, Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
And he indicated that troop-level adjustments must be based on prevailing conditions.
Some observers question whether al-Maliki has the political will to take on al-Sadr's Mehdi Army, thought to be behind much of Iraq's violence between Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias.
Al-Sadr helped al-Maliki become prime minister last year.
The prime minister said al-Sadr's movement is committed to banning armed groups and not interfering with the new security plan.
He said the group's commitment is "a good incentive for others who have militias to announce their support to the Baghdad security plan.
Nevertheless, he put all groups and people on notice: Everyone must respect the law.
"I will apply the law to everyone ... on militias, political parties, on participants in the political process," he said.
"The law rules and who is on my side in respecting the law and the government's will be an ally and a partner and who rebels against the law and the government's will, will be a foe.
Al-Maliki emphasized his political detachment and fairness.
While he has been a member of the Shiite Dawa Party a part of the ruling United Iraqi Alliance he said he is the leader of all the people, not just Shiites.
Iraq which has about a 60 percent Shiite population is also made up of Sunni Arabs, Kurds, Turkmens, Christians and others.
"I'm talking now as a prime minister and not as a member of the party. ...
The membership of a party stops at the boundaries of the state," he said.
Al-Maliki said the effort to foster and bring about peace is not just a military one.
He said it's political as well and requires national will, an implication that Iraqis need to put aside their ethnic, tribal and religious allegiances to help the state survive.
"We do not want to kill the people and drown the country in blood, and we welcome every step that brings a setback for militias or terrorists and a desire to join the political process so we can minimize the losses and blood," he said.
"But this all has to happen under the umbrella of national will, the government and the law. "
NATO-led forces killed a senior Taliban leader with a precision airstrike near a southern Afghan town overrun by militants, a spokesman for the alliance said Sunday.
Tom Collins said the airstrike near Musa Qala on Sunday morning killed a senior Taliban leader riding in a car.
Musa Qala on Thursday was overrun by an estimated 200 Taliban fighters who disarmed local police, ransacked the district center and hoisted their trademark white flag.
The town had been subject to a peace deal brokered last October between village elders and the Helmand provincial government that prevented NATO, Afghan and Taliban fighters from coming within 5 kilometers (3 miles) of the town center.
Collins said the Taliban leader was killed within that 5 kilometers (3 miles) zone with the approval of the Afghan government.
He said no NATO or Afghan forces were on the ground in Musa Qala.
Collins didn't immediately name the person killed in the strike, but Mohammad Wali, a Musa Qala resident, said the airstrike killed a Taliban leader named Mullah Abdul Gafoor and some of his associates while they were riding in a truck through a small village just outside Musa Qala.
Another resident, Lal Mohammad, told The Associated Press on Saturday that the fighters in Musa Qala were being led by Gafoor, the hardline militia's corps commander in western Afghanistan during the Taliban regime.
Musa Qala saw intense battles between Taliban fighters and British troops last summer and fall.
The fighting caused widespread damage to the town of around 10,000 inhabitants, most of whom were forced to leave.
British forces withdrew from Musa Qala in October after the truce, which turned over security to local leaders and prevented NATO forces from entering the town.
Gen. David Richards, who was replaced Sunday as NATO's commander, told AP on Saturday that "very surgical and deliberate" force would be used to evict the fighters from Musa Qala, where he said the alliance's strategy of avoiding military action has driven a wedge between residents and Taliban insurgents.
Hyundai Motor Co. Chairman Chung Mong-koo's wait is almost over.
Chung, arrested and briefly jailed last year, is set to receive the verdict in his corruption trial Monday, and analysts say the fortunes of the world's sixth-largest automaker could be affected by the outcome.
Prosecutors indicted Chung in May, accusing him of illegally raising a slush fund of 103.4 billion won ($110 million; euro85 million) via affiliates which authorities say was used to pay lobbyists and for other purposes.
Chung, whose trial began in June, has also been charged with inflicting financial damage on affiliates.
Prosecutors have been taking a hard line against corruption in South Korea.
Last month, they sought a six-year jail term for Chung, calling his alleged crimes "grave.
Chung's attorneys argued before the three judge panel that he should receive a suspended sentence meaning no prison time citing health problems and the potential impact on South Korea's economy if he were to again be sidelined from management.
Chung was absent for more than two months after being jailed following his April arrest and entering a hospital for a health exam.
He was granted bail in June and returned to work in July.
Key decisions about overseas plant construction involving both Hyundai Motor and its affiliate Kia Motors Corp. were delayed while he was away.
Labor problems involving Hyundai's strike-prone labor union were also left to fester.
Many analysts have said that Chung will probably avoid a prison term given his central role in running arguably one of the country's two most important corporations, the other being Samsung Electronics Co.
"Especially now, it's a very important time for Hyundai," Yun Tae-sik, an auto analyst at NH Investment & Securities, said Friday, citing Hyundai's constant labor troubles, sluggish sales and pricing competition from Japanese automakers.
"The Japanese makers are able to sell cars for a better value than Hyundai" in the key U.S. market, Yun said, as they benefit from weakness in the Japanese yen versus the U.S. dollar.
The South Korean won rose about 9 percent against the greenback last year.
Hyundai cited the South Korean currency as a key reason along with its worst year of production losses from strikes behind a 35 percent drop in 2006 net profit.
Chung's prolonged incarceration could "have a grave impact on the industry as well as the national economy (so a) suspended sentence is likely," said Yong Dae-in, an analyst at Goodmorning Shinhan Securities.
Hyundai and Kia account for more than 70 percent of South Korea's automobile exports.
Autos make up about 10 percent of total exports in South Korea, the world's 10th-largest economy.
South Korea has a history of leniency toward corporate titans.
In a recent case, the Seoul District Court the same one deciding Chung's case ordered a three-year suspended jail term and a fine for Park Yong-sung, former chairman of the Doosan Group, for embezzling from the conglomerate.
The sentence was suspended for five years meaning Park will not be jailed if he stays out of trouble for that long.
Chung himself has made a bid for leniency, apologizing in court for "causing trouble over this case" and pledging to make Hyundai the world's No. 5 automaker if given the chance.
As of the end of 2005, Hyundai together with its affiliate Kia formed the world's No. 6 automaker in both production and sales, according to Automotive News, a publication that tracks the global vehicle industry.
"If he actually does have to go to jail it will cause some problems for Hyundai," said Yun.
"Last year when he was in jail it all came to a stop.
Whatever the outcome, Chung's case has highlighted the issue of how South Korean companies are managed.
Kang Sung-goo, secretary general of the South Korean office of Transparency International, a non-governmental organization devoted to raising awareness of and combating corruption, says that while there have been positive developments, more needs to be done.
"Improving corporate governance is one of the most important tasks (South) Korean companies are facing," Kang said.
ÏÀ» Á¦°øÇÏÁö ¾Ê½À´Ï´Ù.
Martin Scorsese won the top honor Saturday from the Directors Guild of America for his mob saga "The Departed," moving him a step closer to finally receiving Hollywood's biggest filmmaking prize at the Academy Awards.
Scorsese was chosen as filmmaker of the year by his peers, his first win at the guild awards after six previous nominations.
The guild winner usually goes on to win the best-director Oscar.
The self-deprecating Scorsese said he was pleased at the apparent success of the film but that he only became convinced it was doing well when the studio called with box-office revenues from the first couple of weekends.
"If you look at the graph at the spikes at where the picture is doing really great figures, it's like looking at a veritable map of the American underworld," such as Boca Raton, Florida, Scorsese said.
"Vegas forget about it, it was amazing.
Adapted from the Hong Kong crime thriller "Infernal Affairs," "The Departed" stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a cop who's undercover in a Boston crime outfit, Matt Damon as a mob mole who has infiltrated the police, and Jack Nicholson as the merciless gang leader pulling everyone's strings.
It has become Scorsese's biggest commercial hit, and critics praised it as a welcome return to the vivid, bloody crime genre whose modern conventions the director helped pioneer in such films as "Taxi Driver" and "Goodfellas.
"I started watching his work when I was 15 years old," said DiCaprio, who has starred in Scorsese's last three films and introduced the director to the guild audience earlier in the evening.
"It was like entering a seamless cinematic reality.
Walter Hill won the guild's directing honor for TV movies for the Western "Broken Trail.
Other TV winners included Richard Shepard for comedy directing on the pilot episode of "Ugly Betty," Jon Cassar for drama directing for an episode of "24," and "Chicago" filmmaker Rob Marshall for musical variety directing for "Tony Bennett:
An American Classic.
Arunas Matelis won for feature-film documentary for "Before Flying Back to the Earth," a portrait of children hospitalized with leukemia.
The film won over two Oscar nominees, "Deliver Us From Evil" and "Iraq in Fragments. "
A sixth loss at the Oscars would put Scorsese in the record books as the filmmaker with the most nominations without winning.
But many awards watchers feel this is Scorsese's year, labeling him the front-runner for the February 25 Oscars.
The guild prize is a solid forecast for who might win the directing honor at the Academy Awards.
Only six times in the 58-year history of the guild awards has the winner failed to go on to receive the directing Oscar.
The other guild nominees were Bill Condon for the musical "Dreamgirls," Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris for the road-trip tale "Little Miss Sunshine," Stephen Frears for the palace saga "The Queen" and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu for the ensemble drama "Babel.
The other Oscar nominations went to Clint Eastwood for the World War II epic "Letters From Iwo Jima" and Paul Greengrass for the September 11 docudrama "United 93.
With Condon out of the race, Scorsese's path to Oscar victory could prove a bit easier.
"I don't know," Scorsese said. "It's good to have a nomination, especially for this picture.
All rights reserved.
A diplomatic gaffe marred Saturday's inauguration of a China-financed stadium on this Caribbean island when a band performed Taiwan's national anthem.
Chinese Ambassador Qian Hongshan and scores of blue-uniformed Chinese laborers who built the new $40 million Queen's Park stadium as a gift from Beijing were visibly uncomfortable as Taiwan's anthem echoed inside the 20,000-seat venue.
Describing it as a blunder, Grenada Prime Minister Keith Mitchell pledged an investigation into how the Royal Grenada Police Band could have prepared the anthem of Taiwan instead of China, which has waged an aggressive campaign in the Caribbean to woo nations away from relationships with its rival.
Since China and Taiwan split in 1949 amid a civil war, Beijing has claimed that Taiwan is a renegade province and should not have diplomatic ties with other countries.
"I am very saddened," Mitchell told the workers and Chinese Embassy staff from Grenada and neighboring Trinidad and Tobago.
"This unfortunate error breaks my heart.
Police officials declined to comment except to say they would issue a statement later in the day.
Among the many small island nations in the Caribbean, the Asian rivals have long used economic investment to win votes at the United Nations.
China paid for the reconstruction of Grenada's stadium, which was destroyed by Hurricane Ivan in 2004, and some 500 Chinese workers helped rebuild the venue in time to host cricket World Cup matches in April.
·
ÏÀ» Á¦°øÇÏÁö ¾Ê½À´Ï´Ù.
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) Almost half the members of Australia's Parliament signed a letter to the Democrat-dominated U.S. Congress appealing for help repatriating the lone Australian terror suspect held at Guantanamo Bay, officials said Friday.
The letter faxed to U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi asking for Congress to intervene to ensure that former kangaroo skinner David Hicks is not tried by a military commission at the U.S. naval base in Cuba was signed by 96 senators and members of the Australian House of Representatives, opposition parties said.
There are a total of 226 members in the federal Parliament.
The only member of Prime Minister John Howard's center-right government to sign the letter was Barnaby Joyce, a maverick senator from the junior coalition partner, the Nationals party, his office confirmed Friday.
"As members of the Australian Parliament, we believe that the denial of justice in David Hicks' case erodes the values and principles shared by Australia and the United States," Lyn Allison, leader of the Australian Democrats minor opposition party, said in a statement.
She said she was disappointed that all but one member of the government refused to sign.
"It would have been a more powerful letter had they signed, of course, but it's nonetheless a very significant demonstration of the depth of feeling in the Australian Parliament on this issue," Allison later told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.
The Democrats co-wrote the letter with the major opposition Labor Party.
The letter was also supported by the Greens party and independents.
Congress had confirmed Pelosi's receipt of the letter, a Labor official said Friday.
The letter suggests Congress pass a resolution insisting that the 31-year-old alleged Taliban fighter be immediately repatriated to stand trial in Australia.
Failing repatriation, the lawmakers request Hicks "be immediately put to trial before a properly constituted U.S. criminal court.
Hicks has been held at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo since January 2002, a month after he was detained in Afghanistan.
His lawyers say he is suffering from depression and ill health because of the conditions of his incarceration.
He was originally charged with attempted murder, conspiracy to commit war crimes and aiding the enemy, and was selected to face a U.S. military tribunal.
But his case was thrown into limbo when the U.S. Supreme Court declared the commissions illegal in June.
Howard, a staunch U.S. ally in the war on terror, says his government is unhappy about the delay in bringing Hicks to trial but has resisted pressure to request his repatriation.
Justice Minister Chris Ellison said Canberra preferred to communicate directly with the U.S. government in its efforts to have Hicks brought to justice quickly rather than write to Congress.
"I think it's appropriate for us to convey Australia's concern to our counterparts and that's what we've done," Ellison told the ABC.
NEW YORK (CNN) A New York City Council member Thursday proposed pushing sponsors to ban abnormally thin models from walking New York Fashion Week's runways.
Council member Gail Brewer wants fashion houses to ban any model with a body mass index of less than 18.5 the cutoff for the World Health Organization's definition of "normal.
Brewer said she wants models to be educated on nutrition and designers to encourage healthful lifestyles. (Watch stick-thin models strut the runway )
"We want the designers to offer some clothes that are a little bit more robust," she also told CNN, "and we certainly don't want people under the age of 16 to be modeling.
Madrid Fashion Week set a BMI limit of 18 in September, and Italian designers in December agreed to health and age guidelines for runway models, The Associated Press reported.
On Wednesday, Assemblyman Jose Rivera of the Bronx introduced a resolution in the state legislature to generate standards to protect the health of teenage models and entertainers, AP reported.
The Council of Fashion Designers of America issued recommendations in January to help bulimia, anorexia and other health problems among models.
Brazilian model Ana Carolina Reston died in November at age 21.
She was 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighed just 88 pounds, for a BMI of 13.4.
WHO defines normal BMI as 18.5 to 24.9.
This material may not be published.
WASHINGTON (CNN) A report from the Congressional Budget Office says President Bush's plan for a troop increase in Iraq could cost up to $27 billion for a 12-month deployment.
The plan could mean sending thousands of support troops in addition to the 20,000-plus combat troops the Defense Department has set for deployment.
The numbers come in a letter to Rep. John Spratt, chairman of the House Budget Committee, in response to a request from Spratt's office.
"CBO's report concludes that the cost of the president's plan to 'surge' troops will be higher than previously indicated, both in dollar terms and in the burdens it places on our military," Spratt, D-South Carolina, said in a written statement.
The report notes that the Defense Department has identified only combat troops for deployment in the increase but says, "U.S. military operations also require substantial support forces, including personnel to staff headquarters, serve as military police and provide communications, contracting, engineering, intelligence, medical and other services.
The report notes the Defense Department expects to use fewer support troops than in the past.
It estimates that under past proportions, 28,000 support troops would be added to the 20,000 combat troops. But it revises that figure to 15,000 support troops for a new deployment.
That would bring the total number of forces being added in Iraq to between 35,000 and 48,000 troops, the report said.
The report estimates that a four-month deployment of the additional troops both combat and support could cost $9 billion to $13 billion and a 12-month deployment could cost $20 billion to $27 billion.
The White House estimated that the troop increase would cost $5.6 billion.
Ike Skelton, D-Missouri, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.
"The cost of the troop increase could be significantly higher than what the administration has been saying in the press.
"The CBO report only confirms what we already know: The president has continually tried to hide the true costs of this war, both in terms of money spent and lives affected," Meehan said.
"This Democratic Congress and the House Armed Services Committee will not let the president get away with saying whatever he wants without checking his facts anymore. "
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) Speakers decried crime in South Africa at the funeral Thursday of a renowned historian who was shot dead earlier this week.
The death of David Rattray, a friend of Britain's Prince Charles and an expert on the 1879 Anglo-Zulu war, has put South Africa's high rate of violent crime in the spotlight again.
Rattray was shot dead January 26 by a six-man gang at his Fugitives' Drift guest lodge in the eastern province of KwaZulu-Natal.
The police announced on Thursday that two men had been arrested and would appear in court on Friday on charges of murder.
Government ministers and provincial premiers were among about 1,500 people at the funeral at the Michaelhouse School chapel in KwaZulu-Natal.
Do 'whatever it takes' to end crime
South Africa's people were crying out to the nation's leaders to do "whatever it takes" to end crime, Inkatha Freedom Party leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi said at the funeral.
SAPA also reported that the Right Reverend Rubin Philip reiterated the call for government action on crime.
Rattray was a compelling storyteller and popular on the lecture circuit in Britain.
the 1879 battles of Isandlwana and Rourkes Drift.
Thousands of tourists, many from Britain, visit the battlefields every year.
South Africa has become notorious for its high rate of violent crime.
According to government statistics, there were 18,528 murders in 2004 more than 50 per day.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press All rights reserved
NEW YORK (AP) The decision to become pregnant and raise a child with her female partner was not political, Mary Cheney, a daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney, told a Barnard College audience.
"This is a baby," Cheney said Wednesday at a forum sponsored by Glamour magazine.
"This is a blessing from God.
It is not a political statement.
It is not a prop to be used in a debate by people on either side of an issue.
It is my child.
Cheney, 37, announced in December that she and her partner of 15 years, Heather Poe, were starting a family.
She did not say how the child was conceived.
The baby is due in the spring and will be the vice president's sixth grandchild. (Watch Mary Cheney address critics of the pregnancy )
Dick Cheney became testy last week when CNN's Wolf Blitzer asked him what he thought of conservatives who are critical of his daughter's pregnancy.
Cheney told Blitzer he was "over the line."
In a brief interview with The New York Times after Wednesday's panel, Mary Cheney said she agreed that Blitzer had crossed a line.
"He was trying to get a rise out of my father," she said.
Glamour editor Cindi Leive asked Cheney during the panel discussion if she had anything to say to conservatives such as James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, who have criticized her pregnancy, asserting that children should be raised by heterosexual married couples.
She responded, "Every piece of remotely responsible research that has been done in the last 20 years on this issue has shown there is no difference between children who are raised by same-sex parents and children who are raised by opposite-sex parents.
What matters is that children are being raised in a stable, loving environment.
Cheney was an aide to her father during the 2004 campaign and now is vice president for consumer advocacy at AOL.
This material may not be published.
PARIS, France (AP) French President Jacques Chirac said in an interview with three newspapers that Iran's possession of a nuclear bomb would not be "very dangerous" and that if it used the weapon on Israel, Tehran would be immediately "razed," according to a newspaper report.
Chirac who made the comments during a Monday interview with The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune and Le Nouvel Observateur, a weekly magazine called reporters back the next day to try to have his quotes retracted.
In an article posted on its Web site Wednesday night, the New York Times said the Monday interview was tape recorded and on the record.
Chirac's initial remarks would mark a big departure from France's official policy of deterrence and work in preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.
"I should rather have paid attention to what I was saying and understood that perhaps I was on the record," Chirac said in the second interview on Tuesday, according to the New York Times.
On Monday, Chirac said of Iran and its nuclear program: "I would say that what is dangerous about this situation is not the fact of having a nuclear bomb.
Instead, Chirac said, the danger lies in the chances of proliferation or an arms race in the Middle East should Iran build a nuclear bomb.
Possessing the weapon would be useless for Iran whose leader has called for Israel to be "wiped off the map" as using it would mean an instant counterattack.
Chirac asked.
"It would not have gone 200 meters into the atmosphere before Tehran would be razed.
In the second interview with the same newspapers, Chirac retracted his comment about Tehran being razed.
"I retract it, of course, when I said, 'One is going to raze Tehran,"' he said.
Chirac also said other countries would stop any bomb launched by Iran from reaching its target.
"It is obvious that this bomb, at the moment it was launched, obviously would be destroyed immediately," he said.
"We have the means several countries have the means to destroy a bomb.
LAS VEGAS, Nevada (AP) After nearly 30 years, California's classic rock group the Eagles may soon release their first album of all-new music.
Founding member Don Henley said during a private weekend concert that the band was nearing completion on an album of all-new material, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported on Tuesday.
"It's coming out in 60 to 90 days, if we don't kill each other first," Henley, 59, told the crowd Saturday at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.
Eagles and Henley spokesman Larry Solters said Wednesday there was no comment.
"The Long Run" in 1979 was the Eagles last album featuring all-new studio material.
That album included the Grammy-winning single "Heartache Tonight.
The group officially disbanded in 1982, then they reunited in 1994 for a comeback tour featuring Henley, Glenn Frey, Joe Walsh, Timothy Schmit and Don Felder.
The band appeared together again in 1998, with past members Bernie Leadon and Randy Meisner, when they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
NEW YORK (AP) "Harry Potter" star Daniel Radcliffe, who strips for his new role in London's West End revival of the play "Equus," has ignited a bit of a media firestorm by posing for racy promotional photos for the production.
The Tony-Award-winning drama tells the story of a stable-hand who has an erotic fixation with horses.
In one photo, Radcliffe, 17, dares to bare it all alongside a white horse; in another, he is pictured with a naked Joanna Christie, the actress who portrays his girlfriend.
"Equus," directed by Thea Sharrock, opens at London's Gielgud Theater on February 27.
Tony Award-winning actor Richard Griffiths plays a pyschiatrist who treats Radcliffe's character.
"Part of me wants to shake up people's perception of me, just shove me in a blender," Radcliffe said in a recent interview with Newsweek magazine.
"It's a really challenging play, and if I can pull it off we don't know if I can yet I hope people will stop and think, 'Maybe he can do something other than Harry,' " he said.
Radcliffe, who was discovered seven years ago in the audience of a London theater, reprises his role as the bespectacled boy wizard in "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," slated for release July 13.
This material may not be published.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) North Korea repeated its demand during talks with the United States this week that Washington lift financial restrictions targeting the communist regime, a pro-Pyongyang newspaper reported on Thursday, after the meetings ended without a clear breakthrough.
Experts from Washington and Pyongyang met in Beijing on Tuesday and Wednesday to discuss the financial restrictions the United States imposed over the North's alleged counterfeiting of U.S. currency and money laundering.
North Korea, denying any wrongdoing, has claimed the restrictions are evidence of Washington's hostile attitude toward it and prove it needs nuclear weapons to protect itself.
The financial row has been a key impediment to six-nation talks aimed at getting North Korea to give up its nuclear program, as Pyongyang refused to address disarmament unless the financial row is resolved.
North Korea repeated the demand in this week's talks, according to the Choson Sinbo, a Korean-language newspaper based in Japan which has links to the Pyongyang government.
The North is "demanding that the United States show an attitude of lifting the financial sanctions and not expanding them so as to create an atmosphere for entering into discussions on denuclearization commitments" in a 2005 accord, said the report posted on the paper's Web site seen in Seoul.
That agreement the only ever made at the nuclear talks calls for North Korea to trade away its nuclear programs in exchange for security guarantees and aid.
But it was never implemented because of the financial row.
This week's talks on the financial issue preceded a new round of nuclear negotiations set to resume next week.
The top U.S. delegate to the financial talks, Deputy Assistant Treasury Secretary Daniel Glaser, said the two days of meetings had validated U.S. suspicions of illegal financial activity by North Korea.
He also suggested that the dispute could see an end.
"I think we are now in a position after a very lengthy investigation ... to start moving forward and trying to bring some resolution to this matter," Glaser said, without saying how the dispute would be settled.
There have been media reports that Washington was considering declaring some of the North's assets at a Macau bank as legitimate, allowing the bank to end its freeze on some of North Korea's US$24 million (euro18.5 million) held there.
Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki said on Thursday that Washington considers the financial talks "very constructive" and Tokyo hopes it will have a positive impact on the six-party nuclear talks.
North Korea agreed to resume the nuclear negotiations, involving China, Japan, the two Koreas, Russia and the U.S., after the United States offered unspecified concessions during rare bilateral talks in Berlin in January.
ÏÀ» Á¦°øÇÏÁö ¾Ê½À´Ï´Ù.
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) Police in Brazil have arrested the widow of a multimillionaire lottery winner, while prosecutors decide whether to charge her in his killing.
Brazilian newspapers on Wednesday ran front-page photos of Adriana Almeida wearing a T-shirt and wraparound designer sunglasses being escorted to jail from a hotel in a luxury seaside community near Rio de Janeiro.
"I'm innocent.
What they're doing to me is cowardice," she told Rio's O Globo newspaper after her arrest.
The former hairdresser who married 54-year-old Renne Senna after he hit the jackpot was greeted by jeers as she arrived Tuesday at the lockup.
Police spokesman Marcele Mendes said she will be held for at least 30 days.
During that time, prosecutors will evaluate the police investigation and determine whether to ask a judge to charge Almeida.
Globo TV reported Wednesday that police also are looking for four men suspected of involvement in the killing.
Almeida, 29, was the girlfriend of Senna, a former subsistence farmer and butcher, before he became rich.
Senna, who had part of both legs amputated because of diabetes, got around town on a special, motorized four-wheel cart.
In July 2005, Senna was the sole winner of a national lottery worth 52 million reals ($24.4 million).
He bought a sprawling ranch in Rio Bonito, a rural town 50 miles (75 kilometers) northeast of Rio, and married Almeida.
Senna's family accused Almeida of pressuring Senna to change his will, removing 11 brothers and sisters as potential beneficiaries.
Senna wrote a new will leaving the money only to Almeida and a daughter, Renata.
Some local news media reported that Almeida had said her husband doubted whether he was Renata's real father and planned DNA testing to confirm his paternity.
On January 7, two hooded men on a motorcycle pulled up to a bar in Rio Bonito where Senna usually went for a beer.
Senna was shot four times in the head, and the hooded men sped away.
Five days later, Almeida was summoned to a police interrogation and swore she was innocent.
A furious crowd surrounded the police station in Rio Bonito and reportedly tried to lynch her.
Police dispersed the crowd by firing into the air.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is telling the United States and Iran to keep their fight out of Iraq.
Al-Maliki said he believes Iran is targeting U.S. forces in Iraq.
A U.S. official said Tuesday that the Pentagon is investigating whether Iran was behind a January 20 attack in Karbala that left five U.S. troops dead.
"We believe it's possible the executors of the attack were Iranian or Iranian-trained," the U.S. official said.
The sophistication of the attack, in which English-speaking guerrillas in American-style uniforms drove sport utility vehicles past checkpoints to attack a government compound, was beyond what insurgents in Iraq have shown they are capable of, U.S. officials said.
Whether Iran proves to be responsible for that attack or not, al-Maliki said his country cannot be a proxy battleground for Washington and Tehran.
"Iraq has nothing to do with the American-Iranian struggle, and we will not let Iran play a role against the American Army and we will not allow America to play a role against the Iranian army, and everyone should respect the sovereignty of Iraq," al-Maliki said.
"We will not accept Iran to use Iraq to attack the American forces.
Iran was a major topic Wednesday during CNN correspondent Michael Ware's wide-ranging, exclusive interview with al-Maliki.
The prime minister said Americans are basing their hunches about Iranian activities in Iraq on intelligence they've amassed. (Watch al-Maliki talk about the situation in Iraq )
The United States accuses Iran of fomenting terror attacks worldwide and pursuing a nuclear program that could lead to the development of weaponry.
Iran has denied those assertions.
"We have told the Iranian and the Americans, 'We know that you have a problem with each other, but we are asking you please solve your problems outside Iraq.
' We don't want the American forces to take Iraq as a field to attack Iran or Syria," the prime minister said.
Al-Maliki said Iraq doesn't want its sovereignty to be violated by any of its neighbors, which include Iran, Kuwait, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Turkey.
All could find a reason to interfere in Iraq, he said, including opposition to the U.S. troop presence, and sectarian and political differences.
"Iran is Shiite, and we are Shiite and we have many Shiites in Iraq, but this does not justify Iran interfering in Iraq.
We respect this relation, but we will not allow such interfering to exist.
Also, Iraq is an Arab country, the majority are Arabs, but this also will not justify for the Arab countries to interfere in Iraq.
Al-Maliki also addressed his government's position toward militias and troop levels in his country.
He said he supports President Bush's plan to bolster troop numbers in Iraq by more than 20,000 soldiers and Marines.
"We believe that the existing number, with a slight addition, will do the job, but if there seems to be more need we will ask for more troops.
Al-Maliki reiterated his intention to go after any or all entities that foment violence, including the militia of a supporter, Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
And he indicated that troop-level adjustments must be based on prevailing conditions.
Some observers question whether al-Maliki has the political will to take on al-Sadr's Mehdi Army, thought to be behind much of Iraq's violence between Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias.
Al-Sadr helped al-Maliki become prime minister last year.
The prime minister said al-Sadr's movement is committed to banning armed groups and not interfering with the new security plan.
He said the group's commitment is "a good incentive for others who have militias to announce their support to the Baghdad security plan.
Nevertheless, he put all groups and people on notice: Everyone must respect the law.
"I will apply the law to everyone ... on militias, political parties, on participants in the political process," he said.
"The law rules and who is on my side in respecting the law and the government's will be an ally and a partner and who rebels against the law and the government's will, will be a foe.
Al-Maliki emphasized his political detachment and fairness.
While he has been a member of the Shiite Dawa Party a part of the ruling United Iraqi Alliance he said he is the leader of all the people, not just Shiites.
Iraq which has about a 60 percent Shiite population is also made up of Sunni Arabs, Kurds, Turkmens, Christians and others.
"I'm talking now as a prime minister and not as a member of the party. ...
The membership of a party stops at the boundaries of the state," he said.
Al-Maliki said the effort to foster and bring about peace is not just a military one.
He said it's political as well and requires national will, an implication that Iraqis need to put aside their ethnic, tribal and religious allegiances to help the state survive.
"We do not want to kill the people and drown the country in blood, and we welcome every step that brings a setback for militias or terrorists and a desire to join the political process so we can minimize the losses and blood," he said.
"But this all has to happen under the umbrella of national will, the government and the law. "
NATO-led forces killed a senior Taliban leader with a precision airstrike near a southern Afghan town overrun by militants, a spokesman for the alliance said Sunday.
Tom Collins said the airstrike near Musa Qala on Sunday morning killed a senior Taliban leader riding in a car.
Musa Qala on Thursday was overrun by an estimated 200 Taliban fighters who disarmed local police, ransacked the district center and hoisted their trademark white flag.
The town had been subject to a peace deal brokered last October between village elders and the Helmand provincial government that prevented NATO, Afghan and Taliban fighters from coming within 5 kilometers (3 miles) of the town center.
Collins said the Taliban leader was killed within that 5 kilometers (3 miles) zone with the approval of the Afghan government.
He said no NATO or Afghan forces were on the ground in Musa Qala.
Collins didn't immediately name the person killed in the strike, but Mohammad Wali, a Musa Qala resident, said the airstrike killed a Taliban leader named Mullah Abdul Gafoor and some of his associates while they were riding in a truck through a small village just outside Musa Qala.
Another resident, Lal Mohammad, told The Associated Press on Saturday that the fighters in Musa Qala were being led by Gafoor, the hardline militia's corps commander in western Afghanistan during the Taliban regime.
Musa Qala saw intense battles between Taliban fighters and British troops last summer and fall.
The fighting caused widespread damage to the town of around 10,000 inhabitants, most of whom were forced to leave.
British forces withdrew from Musa Qala in October after the truce, which turned over security to local leaders and prevented NATO forces from entering the town.
Gen. David Richards, who was replaced Sunday as NATO's commander, told AP on Saturday that "very surgical and deliberate" force would be used to evict the fighters from Musa Qala, where he said the alliance's strategy of avoiding military action has driven a wedge between residents and Taliban insurgents.
Hyundai Motor Co. Chairman Chung Mong-koo's wait is almost over.
Chung, arrested and briefly jailed last year, is set to receive the verdict in his corruption trial Monday, and analysts say the fortunes of the world's sixth-largest automaker could be affected by the outcome.
Prosecutors indicted Chung in May, accusing him of illegally raising a slush fund of 103.4 billion won ($110 million; euro85 million) via affiliates which authorities say was used to pay lobbyists and for other purposes.
Chung, whose trial began in June, has also been charged with inflicting financial damage on affiliates.
Prosecutors have been taking a hard line against corruption in South Korea.
Last month, they sought a six-year jail term for Chung, calling his alleged crimes "grave.
Chung's attorneys argued before the three judge panel that he should receive a suspended sentence meaning no prison time citing health problems and the potential impact on South Korea's economy if he were to again be sidelined from management.
Chung was absent for more than two months after being jailed following his April arrest and entering a hospital for a health exam.
He was granted bail in June and returned to work in July.
Key decisions about overseas plant construction involving both Hyundai Motor and its affiliate Kia Motors Corp. were delayed while he was away.
Labor problems involving Hyundai's strike-prone labor union were also left to fester.
Many analysts have said that Chung will probably avoid a prison term given his central role in running arguably one of the country's two most important corporations, the other being Samsung Electronics Co.
"Especially now, it's a very important time for Hyundai," Yun Tae-sik, an auto analyst at NH Investment & Securities, said Friday, citing Hyundai's constant labor troubles, sluggish sales and pricing competition from Japanese automakers.
"The Japanese makers are able to sell cars for a better value than Hyundai" in the key U.S. market, Yun said, as they benefit from weakness in the Japanese yen versus the U.S. dollar.
The South Korean won rose about 9 percent against the greenback last year.
Hyundai cited the South Korean currency as a key reason along with its worst year of production losses from strikes behind a 35 percent drop in 2006 net profit.
Chung's prolonged incarceration could "have a grave impact on the industry as well as the national economy (so a) suspended sentence is likely," said Yong Dae-in, an analyst at Goodmorning Shinhan Securities.
Hyundai and Kia account for more than 70 percent of South Korea's automobile exports.
Autos make up about 10 percent of total exports in South Korea, the world's 10th-largest economy.
South Korea has a history of leniency toward corporate titans.
In a recent case, the Seoul District Court the same one deciding Chung's case ordered a three-year suspended jail term and a fine for Park Yong-sung, former chairman of the Doosan Group, for embezzling from the conglomerate.
The sentence was suspended for five years meaning Park will not be jailed if he stays out of trouble for that long.
Chung himself has made a bid for leniency, apologizing in court for "causing trouble over this case" and pledging to make Hyundai the world's No. 5 automaker if given the chance.
As of the end of 2005, Hyundai together with its affiliate Kia formed the world's No. 6 automaker in both production and sales, according to Automotive News, a publication that tracks the global vehicle industry.
"If he actually does have to go to jail it will cause some problems for Hyundai," said Yun.
"Last year when he was in jail it all came to a stop.
Whatever the outcome, Chung's case has highlighted the issue of how South Korean companies are managed.
Kang Sung-goo, secretary general of the South Korean office of Transparency International, a non-governmental organization devoted to raising awareness of and combating corruption, says that while there have been positive developments, more needs to be done.
"Improving corporate governance is one of the most important tasks (South) Korean companies are facing," Kang said.
ÏÀ» Á¦°øÇÏÁö ¾Ê½À´Ï´Ù.
Martin Scorsese won the top honor Saturday from the Directors Guild of America for his mob saga "The Departed," moving him a step closer to finally receiving Hollywood's biggest filmmaking prize at the Academy Awards.
Scorsese was chosen as filmmaker of the year by his peers, his first win at the guild awards after six previous nominations.
The guild winner usually goes on to win the best-director Oscar.
The self-deprecating Scorsese said he was pleased at the apparent success of the film but that he only became convinced it was doing well when the studio called with box-office revenues from the first couple of weekends.
"If you look at the graph at the spikes at where the picture is doing really great figures, it's like looking at a veritable map of the American underworld," such as Boca Raton, Florida, Scorsese said.
"Vegas forget about it, it was amazing.
Adapted from the Hong Kong crime thriller "Infernal Affairs," "The Departed" stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a cop who's undercover in a Boston crime outfit, Matt Damon as a mob mole who has infiltrated the police, and Jack Nicholson as the merciless gang leader pulling everyone's strings.
It has become Scorsese's biggest commercial hit, and critics praised it as a welcome return to the vivid, bloody crime genre whose modern conventions the director helped pioneer in such films as "Taxi Driver" and "Goodfellas.
"I started watching his work when I was 15 years old," said DiCaprio, who has starred in Scorsese's last three films and introduced the director to the guild audience earlier in the evening.
"It was like entering a seamless cinematic reality.
Walter Hill won the guild's directing honor for TV movies for the Western "Broken Trail.
Other TV winners included Richard Shepard for comedy directing on the pilot episode of "Ugly Betty," Jon Cassar for drama directing for an episode of "24," and "Chicago" filmmaker Rob Marshall for musical variety directing for "Tony Bennett:
An American Classic.
Arunas Matelis won for feature-film documentary for "Before Flying Back to the Earth," a portrait of children hospitalized with leukemia.
The film won over two Oscar nominees, "Deliver Us From Evil" and "Iraq in Fragments. "
A sixth loss at the Oscars would put Scorsese in the record books as the filmmaker with the most nominations without winning.
But many awards watchers feel this is Scorsese's year, labeling him the front-runner for the February 25 Oscars.
The guild prize is a solid forecast for who might win the directing honor at the Academy Awards.
Only six times in the 58-year history of the guild awards has the winner failed to go on to receive the directing Oscar.
The other guild nominees were Bill Condon for the musical "Dreamgirls," Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris for the road-trip tale "Little Miss Sunshine," Stephen Frears for the palace saga "The Queen" and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu for the ensemble drama "Babel.
The other Oscar nominations went to Clint Eastwood for the World War II epic "Letters From Iwo Jima" and Paul Greengrass for the September 11 docudrama "United 93.
With Condon out of the race, Scorsese's path to Oscar victory could prove a bit easier.
"I don't know," Scorsese said. "It's good to have a nomination, especially for this picture.
All rights reserved.
A diplomatic gaffe marred Saturday's inauguration of a China-financed stadium on this Caribbean island when a band performed Taiwan's national anthem.
Chinese Ambassador Qian Hongshan and scores of blue-uniformed Chinese laborers who built the new $40 million Queen's Park stadium as a gift from Beijing were visibly uncomfortable as Taiwan's anthem echoed inside the 20,000-seat venue.
Describing it as a blunder, Grenada Prime Minister Keith Mitchell pledged an investigation into how the Royal Grenada Police Band could have prepared the anthem of Taiwan instead of China, which has waged an aggressive campaign in the Caribbean to woo nations away from relationships with its rival.
Since China and Taiwan split in 1949 amid a civil war, Beijing has claimed that Taiwan is a renegade province and should not have diplomatic ties with other countries.
"I am very saddened," Mitchell told the workers and Chinese Embassy staff from Grenada and neighboring Trinidad and Tobago.
"This unfortunate error breaks my heart.
Police officials declined to comment except to say they would issue a statement later in the day.
Among the many small island nations in the Caribbean, the Asian rivals have long used economic investment to win votes at the United Nations.
China paid for the reconstruction of Grenada's stadium, which was destroyed by Hurricane Ivan in 2004, and some 500 Chinese workers helped rebuild the venue in time to host cricket World Cup matches in April.
·
ÏÀ» Á¦°øÇÏÁö ¾Ê½À´Ï´Ù.
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) Almost half the members of Australia's Parliament signed a letter to the Democrat-dominated U.S. Congress appealing for help repatriating the lone Australian terror suspect held at Guantanamo Bay, officials said Friday.
The letter faxed to U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi asking for Congress to intervene to ensure that former kangaroo skinner David Hicks is not tried by a military commission at the U.S. naval base in Cuba was signed by 96 senators and members of the Australian House of Representatives, opposition parties said.
There are a total of 226 members in the federal Parliament.
The only member of Prime Minister John Howard's center-right government to sign the letter was Barnaby Joyce, a maverick senator from the junior coalition partner, the Nationals party, his office confirmed Friday.
"As members of the Australian Parliament, we believe that the denial of justice in David Hicks' case erodes the values and principles shared by Australia and the United States," Lyn Allison, leader of the Australian Democrats minor opposition party, said in a statement.
She said she was disappointed that all but one member of the government refused to sign.
"It would have been a more powerful letter had they signed, of course, but it's nonetheless a very significant demonstration of the depth of feeling in the Australian Parliament on this issue," Allison later told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.
The Democrats co-wrote the letter with the major opposition Labor Party.
The letter was also supported by the Greens party and independents.
Congress had confirmed Pelosi's receipt of the letter, a Labor official said Friday.
The letter suggests Congress pass a resolution insisting that the 31-year-old alleged Taliban fighter be immediately repatriated to stand trial in Australia.
Failing repatriation, the lawmakers request Hicks "be immediately put to trial before a properly constituted U.S. criminal court.
Hicks has been held at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo since January 2002, a month after he was detained in Afghanistan.
His lawyers say he is suffering from depression and ill health because of the conditions of his incarceration.
He was originally charged with attempted murder, conspiracy to commit war crimes and aiding the enemy, and was selected to face a U.S. military tribunal.
But his case was thrown into limbo when the U.S. Supreme Court declared the commissions illegal in June.
Howard, a staunch U.S. ally in the war on terror, says his government is unhappy about the delay in bringing Hicks to trial but has resisted pressure to request his repatriation.
Justice Minister Chris Ellison said Canberra preferred to communicate directly with the U.S. government in its efforts to have Hicks brought to justice quickly rather than write to Congress.
"I think it's appropriate for us to convey Australia's concern to our counterparts and that's what we've done," Ellison told the ABC.
NEW YORK (CNN) A New York City Council member Thursday proposed pushing sponsors to ban abnormally thin models from walking New York Fashion Week's runways.
Council member Gail Brewer wants fashion houses to ban any model with a body mass index of less than 18.5 the cutoff for the World Health Organization's definition of "normal.
Brewer said she wants models to be educated on nutrition and designers to encourage healthful lifestyles. (Watch stick-thin models strut the runway )
"We want the designers to offer some clothes that are a little bit more robust," she also told CNN, "and we certainly don't want people under the age of 16 to be modeling.
Madrid Fashion Week set a BMI limit of 18 in September, and Italian designers in December agreed to health and age guidelines for runway models, The Associated Press reported.
On Wednesday, Assemblyman Jose Rivera of the Bronx introduced a resolution in the state legislature to generate standards to protect the health of teenage models and entertainers, AP reported.
The Council of Fashion Designers of America issued recommendations in January to help bulimia, anorexia and other health problems among models.
Brazilian model Ana Carolina Reston died in November at age 21.
She was 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighed just 88 pounds, for a BMI of 13.4.
WHO defines normal BMI as 18.5 to 24.9.
This material may not be published.
WASHINGTON (CNN) A report from the Congressional Budget Office says President Bush's plan for a troop increase in Iraq could cost up to $27 billion for a 12-month deployment.
The plan could mean sending thousands of support troops in addition to the 20,000-plus combat troops the Defense Department has set for deployment.
The numbers come in a letter to Rep. John Spratt, chairman of the House Budget Committee, in response to a request from Spratt's office.
"CBO's report concludes that the cost of the president's plan to 'surge' troops will be higher than previously indicated, both in dollar terms and in the burdens it places on our military," Spratt, D-South Carolina, said in a written statement.
The report notes that the Defense Department has identified only combat troops for deployment in the increase but says, "U.S. military operations also require substantial support forces, including personnel to staff headquarters, serve as military police and provide communications, contracting, engineering, intelligence, medical and other services.
The report notes the Defense Department expects to use fewer support troops than in the past.
It estimates that under past proportions, 28,000 support troops would be added to the 20,000 combat troops. But it revises that figure to 15,000 support troops for a new deployment.
That would bring the total number of forces being added in Iraq to between 35,000 and 48,000 troops, the report said.
The report estimates that a four-month deployment of the additional troops both combat and support could cost $9 billion to $13 billion and a 12-month deployment could cost $20 billion to $27 billion.
The White House estimated that the troop increase would cost $5.6 billion.
Ike Skelton, D-Missouri, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.
"The cost of the troop increase could be significantly higher than what the administration has been saying in the press.
"The CBO report only confirms what we already know: The president has continually tried to hide the true costs of this war, both in terms of money spent and lives affected," Meehan said.
"This Democratic Congress and the House Armed Services Committee will not let the president get away with saying whatever he wants without checking his facts anymore. "
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) Speakers decried crime in South Africa at the funeral Thursday of a renowned historian who was shot dead earlier this week.
The death of David Rattray, a friend of Britain's Prince Charles and an expert on the 1879 Anglo-Zulu war, has put South Africa's high rate of violent crime in the spotlight again.
Rattray was shot dead January 26 by a six-man gang at his Fugitives' Drift guest lodge in the eastern province of KwaZulu-Natal.
The police announced on Thursday that two men had been arrested and would appear in court on Friday on charges of murder.
Government ministers and provincial premiers were among about 1,500 people at the funeral at the Michaelhouse School chapel in KwaZulu-Natal.
Do 'whatever it takes' to end crime
South Africa's people were crying out to the nation's leaders to do "whatever it takes" to end crime, Inkatha Freedom Party leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi said at the funeral.
SAPA also reported that the Right Reverend Rubin Philip reiterated the call for government action on crime.
Rattray was a compelling storyteller and popular on the lecture circuit in Britain.
the 1879 battles of Isandlwana and Rourkes Drift.
Thousands of tourists, many from Britain, visit the battlefields every year.
South Africa has become notorious for its high rate of violent crime.
According to government statistics, there were 18,528 murders in 2004 more than 50 per day.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press All rights reserved
NEW YORK (AP) The decision to become pregnant and raise a child with her female partner was not political, Mary Cheney, a daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney, told a Barnard College audience.
"This is a baby," Cheney said Wednesday at a forum sponsored by Glamour magazine.
"This is a blessing from God.
It is not a political statement.
It is not a prop to be used in a debate by people on either side of an issue.
It is my child.
Cheney, 37, announced in December that she and her partner of 15 years, Heather Poe, were starting a family.
She did not say how the child was conceived.
The baby is due in the spring and will be the vice president's sixth grandchild. (Watch Mary Cheney address critics of the pregnancy )
Dick Cheney became testy last week when CNN's Wolf Blitzer asked him what he thought of conservatives who are critical of his daughter's pregnancy.
Cheney told Blitzer he was "over the line."
In a brief interview with The New York Times after Wednesday's panel, Mary Cheney said she agreed that Blitzer had crossed a line.
"He was trying to get a rise out of my father," she said.
Glamour editor Cindi Leive asked Cheney during the panel discussion if she had anything to say to conservatives such as James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, who have criticized her pregnancy, asserting that children should be raised by heterosexual married couples.
She responded, "Every piece of remotely responsible research that has been done in the last 20 years on this issue has shown there is no difference between children who are raised by same-sex parents and children who are raised by opposite-sex parents.
What matters is that children are being raised in a stable, loving environment.
Cheney was an aide to her father during the 2004 campaign and now is vice president for consumer advocacy at AOL.
This material may not be published.
PARIS, France (AP) French President Jacques Chirac said in an interview with three newspapers that Iran's possession of a nuclear bomb would not be "very dangerous" and that if it used the weapon on Israel, Tehran would be immediately "razed," according to a newspaper report.
Chirac who made the comments during a Monday interview with The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune and Le Nouvel Observateur, a weekly magazine called reporters back the next day to try to have his quotes retracted.
In an article posted on its Web site Wednesday night, the New York Times said the Monday interview was tape recorded and on the record.
Chirac's initial remarks would mark a big departure from France's official policy of deterrence and work in preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.
"I should rather have paid attention to what I was saying and understood that perhaps I was on the record," Chirac said in the second interview on Tuesday, according to the New York Times.
On Monday, Chirac said of Iran and its nuclear program: "I would say that what is dangerous about this situation is not the fact of having a nuclear bomb.
Instead, Chirac said, the danger lies in the chances of proliferation or an arms race in the Middle East should Iran build a nuclear bomb.
Possessing the weapon would be useless for Iran whose leader has called for Israel to be "wiped off the map" as using it would mean an instant counterattack.
Chirac asked.
"It would not have gone 200 meters into the atmosphere before Tehran would be razed.
In the second interview with the same newspapers, Chirac retracted his comment about Tehran being razed.
"I retract it, of course, when I said, 'One is going to raze Tehran,"' he said.
Chirac also said other countries would stop any bomb launched by Iran from reaching its target.
"It is obvious that this bomb, at the moment it was launched, obviously would be destroyed immediately," he said.
"We have the means several countries have the means to destroy a bomb.
LAS VEGAS, Nevada (AP) After nearly 30 years, California's classic rock group the Eagles may soon release their first album of all-new music.
Founding member Don Henley said during a private weekend concert that the band was nearing completion on an album of all-new material, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported on Tuesday.
"It's coming out in 60 to 90 days, if we don't kill each other first," Henley, 59, told the crowd Saturday at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.
Eagles and Henley spokesman Larry Solters said Wednesday there was no comment.
"The Long Run" in 1979 was the Eagles last album featuring all-new studio material.
That album included the Grammy-winning single "Heartache Tonight.
The group officially disbanded in 1982, then they reunited in 1994 for a comeback tour featuring Henley, Glenn Frey, Joe Walsh, Timothy Schmit and Don Felder.
The band appeared together again in 1998, with past members Bernie Leadon and Randy Meisner, when they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
NEW YORK (AP) "Harry Potter" star Daniel Radcliffe, who strips for his new role in London's West End revival of the play "Equus," has ignited a bit of a media firestorm by posing for racy promotional photos for the production.
The Tony-Award-winning drama tells the story of a stable-hand who has an erotic fixation with horses.
In one photo, Radcliffe, 17, dares to bare it all alongside a white horse; in another, he is pictured with a naked Joanna Christie, the actress who portrays his girlfriend.
"Equus," directed by Thea Sharrock, opens at London's Gielgud Theater on February 27.
Tony Award-winning actor Richard Griffiths plays a pyschiatrist who treats Radcliffe's character.
"Part of me wants to shake up people's perception of me, just shove me in a blender," Radcliffe said in a recent interview with Newsweek magazine.
"It's a really challenging play, and if I can pull it off we don't know if I can yet I hope people will stop and think, 'Maybe he can do something other than Harry,' " he said.
Radcliffe, who was discovered seven years ago in the audience of a London theater, reprises his role as the bespectacled boy wizard in "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," slated for release July 13.
This material may not be published.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) North Korea repeated its demand during talks with the United States this week that Washington lift financial restrictions targeting the communist regime, a pro-Pyongyang newspaper reported on Thursday, after the meetings ended without a clear breakthrough.
Experts from Washington and Pyongyang met in Beijing on Tuesday and Wednesday to discuss the financial restrictions the United States imposed over the North's alleged counterfeiting of U.S. currency and money laundering.
North Korea, denying any wrongdoing, has claimed the restrictions are evidence of Washington's hostile attitude toward it and prove it needs nuclear weapons to protect itself.
The financial row has been a key impediment to six-nation talks aimed at getting North Korea to give up its nuclear program, as Pyongyang refused to address disarmament unless the financial row is resolved.
North Korea repeated the demand in this week's talks, according to the Choson Sinbo, a Korean-language newspaper based in Japan which has links to the Pyongyang government.
The North is "demanding that the United States show an attitude of lifting the financial sanctions and not expanding them so as to create an atmosphere for entering into discussions on denuclearization commitments" in a 2005 accord, said the report posted on the paper's Web site seen in Seoul.
That agreement the only ever made at the nuclear talks calls for North Korea to trade away its nuclear programs in exchange for security guarantees and aid.
But it was never implemented because of the financial row.
This week's talks on the financial issue preceded a new round of nuclear negotiations set to resume next week.
The top U.S. delegate to the financial talks, Deputy Assistant Treasury Secretary Daniel Glaser, said the two days of meetings had validated U.S. suspicions of illegal financial activity by North Korea.
He also suggested that the dispute could see an end.
"I think we are now in a position after a very lengthy investigation ... to start moving forward and trying to bring some resolution to this matter," Glaser said, without saying how the dispute would be settled.
There have been media reports that Washington was considering declaring some of the North's assets at a Macau bank as legitimate, allowing the bank to end its freeze on some of North Korea's US$24 million (euro18.5 million) held there.
Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki said on Thursday that Washington considers the financial talks "very constructive" and Tokyo hopes it will have a positive impact on the six-party nuclear talks.
North Korea agreed to resume the nuclear negotiations, involving China, Japan, the two Koreas, Russia and the U.S., after the United States offered unspecified concessions during rare bilateral talks in Berlin in January.
ÏÀ» Á¦°øÇÏÁö ¾Ê½À´Ï´Ù.
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) Police in Brazil have arrested the widow of a multimillionaire lottery winner, while prosecutors decide whether to charge her in his killing.
Brazilian newspapers on Wednesday ran front-page photos of Adriana Almeida wearing a T-shirt and wraparound designer sunglasses being escorted to jail from a hotel in a luxury seaside community near Rio de Janeiro.
"I'm innocent.
What they're doing to me is cowardice," she told Rio's O Globo newspaper after her arrest.
The former hairdresser who married 54-year-old Renne Senna after he hit the jackpot was greeted by jeers as she arrived Tuesday at the lockup.
Police spokesman Marcele Mendes said she will be held for at least 30 days.
During that time, prosecutors will evaluate the police investigation and determine whether to ask a judge to charge Almeida.
Globo TV reported Wednesday that police also are looking for four men suspected of involvement in the killing.
Almeida, 29, was the girlfriend of Senna, a former subsistence farmer and butcher, before he became rich.
Senna, who had part of both legs amputated because of diabetes, got around town on a special, motorized four-wheel cart.
In July 2005, Senna was the sole winner of a national lottery worth 52 million reals ($24.4 million).
He bought a sprawling ranch in Rio Bonito, a rural town 50 miles (75 kilometers) northeast of Rio, and married Almeida.
Senna's family accused Almeida of pressuring Senna to change his will, removing 11 brothers and sisters as potential beneficiaries.
Senna wrote a new will leaving the money only to Almeida and a daughter, Renata.
Some local news media reported that Almeida had said her husband doubted whether he was Renata's real father and planned DNA testing to confirm his paternity.
On January 7, two hooded men on a motorcycle pulled up to a bar in Rio Bonito where Senna usually went for a beer.
Senna was shot four times in the head, and the hooded men sped away.
Five days later, Almeida was summoned to a police interrogation and swore she was innocent.
A furious crowd surrounded the police station in Rio Bonito and reportedly tried to lynch her.
Police dispersed the crowd by firing into the air.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is telling the United States and Iran to keep their fight out of Iraq.
Al-Maliki said he believes Iran is targeting U.S. forces in Iraq.
A U.S. official said Tuesday that the Pentagon is investigating whether Iran was behind a January 20 attack in Karbala that left five U.S. troops dead.
"We believe it's possible the executors of the attack were Iranian or Iranian-trained," the U.S. official said.
The sophistication of the attack, in which English-speaking guerrillas in American-style uniforms drove sport utility vehicles past checkpoints to attack a government compound, was beyond what insurgents in Iraq have shown they are capable of, U.S. officials said.
Whether Iran proves to be responsible for that attack or not, al-Maliki said his country cannot be a proxy battleground for Washington and Tehran.
"Iraq has nothing to do with the American-Iranian struggle, and we will not let Iran play a role against the American Army and we will not allow America to play a role against the Iranian army, and everyone should respect the sovereignty of Iraq," al-Maliki said.
"We will not accept Iran to use Iraq to attack the American forces.
Iran was a major topic Wednesday during CNN correspondent Michael Ware's wide-ranging, exclusive interview with al-Maliki.
The prime minister said Americans are basing their hunches about Iranian activities in Iraq on intelligence they've amassed. (Watch al-Maliki talk about the situation in Iraq )
The United States accuses Iran of fomenting terror attacks worldwide and pursuing a nuclear program that could lead to the development of weaponry.
Iran has denied those assertions.
"We have told the Iranian and the Americans, 'We know that you have a problem with each other, but we are asking you please solve your problems outside Iraq.
' We don't want the American forces to take Iraq as a field to attack Iran or Syria," the prime minister said.
Al-Maliki said Iraq doesn't want its sovereignty to be violated by any of its neighbors, which include Iran, Kuwait, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Turkey.
All could find a reason to interfere in Iraq, he said, including opposition to the U.S. troop presence, and sectarian and political differences.
"Iran is Shiite, and we are Shiite and we have many Shiites in Iraq, but this does not justify Iran interfering in Iraq.
We respect this relation, but we will not allow such interfering to exist.
Also, Iraq is an Arab country, the majority are Arabs, but this also will not justify for the Arab countries to interfere in Iraq.
Al-Maliki also addressed his government's position toward militias and troop levels in his country.
He said he supports President Bush's plan to bolster troop numbers in Iraq by more than 20,000 soldiers and Marines.
"We believe that the existing number, with a slight addition, will do the job, but if there seems to be more need we will ask for more troops.
Al-Maliki reiterated his intention to go after any or all entities that foment violence, including the militia of a supporter, Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
And he indicated that troop-level adjustments must be based on prevailing conditions.
Some observers question whether al-Maliki has the political will to take on al-Sadr's Mehdi Army, thought to be behind much of Iraq's violence between Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias.
Al-Sadr helped al-Maliki become prime minister last year.
The prime minister said al-Sadr's movement is committed to banning armed groups and not interfering with the new security plan.
He said the group's commitment is "a good incentive for others who have militias to announce their support to the Baghdad security plan.
Nevertheless, he put all groups and people on notice: Everyone must respect the law.
"I will apply the law to everyone ... on militias, political parties, on participants in the political process," he said.
"The law rules and who is on my side in respecting the law and the government's will be an ally and a partner and who rebels against the law and the government's will, will be a foe.
Al-Maliki emphasized his political detachment and fairness.
While he has been a member of the Shiite Dawa Party a part of the ruling United Iraqi Alliance he said he is the leader of all the people, not just Shiites.
Iraq which has about a 60 percent Shiite population is also made up of Sunni Arabs, Kurds, Turkmens, Christians and others.
"I'm talking now as a prime minister and not as a member of the party. ...
The membership of a party stops at the boundaries of the state," he said.
Al-Maliki said the effort to foster and bring about peace is not just a military one.
He said it's political as well and requires national will, an implication that Iraqis need to put aside their ethnic, tribal and religious allegiances to help the state survive.
"We do not want to kill the people and drown the country in blood, and we welcome every step that brings a setback for militias or terrorists and a desire to join the political process so we can minimize the losses and blood," he said.
"But this all has to happen under the umbrella of national will, the government and the law. "
NATO-led forces killed a senior Taliban leader with a precision airstrike near a southern Afghan town overrun by militants, a spokesman for the alliance said Sunday.
Tom Collins said the airstrike near Musa Qala on Sunday morning killed a senior Taliban leader riding in a car.
Musa Qala on Thursday was overrun by an estimated 200 Taliban fighters who disarmed local police, ransacked the district center and hoisted their trademark white flag.
The town had been subject to a peace deal brokered last October between village elders and the Helmand provincial government that prevented NATO, Afghan and Taliban fighters from coming within 5 kilometers (3 miles) of the town center.
Collins said the Taliban leader was killed within that 5 kilometers (3 miles) zone with the approval of the Afghan government.
He said no NATO or Afghan forces were on the ground in Musa Qala.
Collins didn't immediately name the person killed in the strike, but Mohammad Wali, a Musa Qala resident, said the airstrike killed a Taliban leader named Mullah Abdul Gafoor and some of his associates while they were riding in a truck through a small village just outside Musa Qala.
Another resident, Lal Mohammad, told The Associated Press on Saturday that the fighters in Musa Qala were being led by Gafoor, the hardline militia's corps commander in western Afghanistan during the Taliban regime.
Musa Qala saw intense battles between Taliban fighters and British troops last summer and fall.
The fighting caused widespread damage to the town of around 10,000 inhabitants, most of whom were forced to leave.
British forces withdrew from Musa Qala in October after the truce, which turned over security to local leaders and prevented NATO forces from entering the town.
Gen. David Richards, who was replaced Sunday as NATO's commander, told AP on Saturday that "very surgical and deliberate" force would be used to evict the fighters from Musa Qala, where he said the alliance's strategy of avoiding military action has driven a wedge between residents and Taliban insurgents.
Hyundai Motor Co. Chairman Chung Mong-koo's wait is almost over.
Chung, arrested and briefly jailed last year, is set to receive the verdict in his corruption trial Monday, and analysts say the fortunes of the world's sixth-largest automaker could be affected by the outcome.
Prosecutors indicted Chung in May, accusing him of illegally raising a slush fund of 103.4 billion won ($110 million; euro85 million) via affiliates which authorities say was used to pay lobbyists and for other purposes.
Chung, whose trial began in June, has also been charged with inflicting financial damage on affiliates.
Prosecutors have been taking a hard line against corruption in South Korea.
Last month, they sought a six-year jail term for Chung, calling his alleged crimes "grave.
Chung's attorneys argued before the three judge panel that he should receive a suspended sentence meaning no prison time citing health problems and the potential impact on South Korea's economy if he were to again be sidelined from management.
Chung was absent for more than two months after being jailed following his April arrest and entering a hospital for a health exam.
He was granted bail in June and returned to work in July.
Key decisions about overseas plant construction involving both Hyundai Motor and its affiliate Kia Motors Corp. were delayed while he was away.
Labor problems involving Hyundai's strike-prone labor union were also left to fester.
Many analysts have said that Chung will probably avoid a prison term given his central role in running arguably one of the country's two most important corporations, the other being Samsung Electronics Co.
"Especially now, it's a very important time for Hyundai," Yun Tae-sik, an auto analyst at NH Investment & Securities, said Friday, citing Hyundai's constant labor troubles, sluggish sales and pricing competition from Japanese automakers.
"The Japanese makers are able to sell cars for a better value than Hyundai" in the key U.S. market, Yun said, as they benefit from weakness in the Japanese yen versus the U.S. dollar.
The South Korean won rose about 9 percent against the greenback last year.
Hyundai cited the South Korean currency as a key reason along with its worst year of production losses from strikes behind a 35 percent drop in 2006 net profit.
Chung's prolonged incarceration could "have a grave impact on the industry as well as the national economy (so a) suspended sentence is likely," said Yong Dae-in, an analyst at Goodmorning Shinhan Securities.
Hyundai and Kia account for more than 70 percent of South Korea's automobile exports.
Autos make up about 10 percent of total exports in South Korea, the world's 10th-largest economy.
South Korea has a history of leniency toward corporate titans.
In a recent case, the Seoul District Court the same one deciding Chung's case ordered a three-year suspended jail term and a fine for Park Yong-sung, former chairman of the Doosan Group, for embezzling from the conglomerate.
The sentence was suspended for five years meaning Park will not be jailed if he stays out of trouble for that long.
Chung himself has made a bid for leniency, apologizing in court for "causing trouble over this case" and pledging to make Hyundai the world's No. 5 automaker if given the chance.
As of the end of 2005, Hyundai together with its affiliate Kia formed the world's No. 6 automaker in both production and sales, according to Automotive News, a publication that tracks the global vehicle industry.
"If he actually does have to go to jail it will cause some problems for Hyundai," said Yun.
"Last year when he was in jail it all came to a stop.
Whatever the outcome, Chung's case has highlighted the issue of how South Korean companies are managed.
Kang Sung-goo, secretary general of the South Korean office of Transparency International, a non-governmental organization devoted to raising awareness of and combating corruption, says that while there have been positive developments, more needs to be done.
"Improving corporate governance is one of the most important tasks (South) Korean companies are facing," Kang said.
ÏÀ» Á¦°øÇÏÁö ¾Ê½À´Ï´Ù.
Martin Scorsese won the top honor Saturday from the Directors Guild of America for his mob saga "The Departed," moving him a step closer to finally receiving Hollywood's biggest filmmaking prize at the Academy Awards.
Scorsese was chosen as filmmaker of the year by his peers, his first win at the guild awards after six previous nominations.
The guild winner usually goes on to win the best-director Oscar.
The self-deprecating Scorsese said he was pleased at the apparent success of the film but that he only became convinced it was doing well when the studio called with box-office revenues from the first couple of weekends.
"If you look at the graph at the spikes at where the picture is doing really great figures, it's like looking at a veritable map of the American underworld," such as Boca Raton, Florida, Scorsese said.
"Vegas forget about it, it was amazing.
Adapted from the Hong Kong crime thriller "Infernal Affairs," "The Departed" stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a cop who's undercover in a Boston crime outfit, Matt Damon as a mob mole who has infiltrated the police, and Jack Nicholson as the merciless gang leader pulling everyone's strings.
It has become Scorsese's biggest commercial hit, and critics praised it as a welcome return to the vivid, bloody crime genre whose modern conventions the director helped pioneer in such films as "Taxi Driver" and "Goodfellas.
"I started watching his work when I was 15 years old," said DiCaprio, who has starred in Scorsese's last three films and introduced the director to the guild audience earlier in the evening.
"It was like entering a seamless cinematic reality.
Walter Hill won the guild's directing honor for TV movies for the Western "Broken Trail.
Other TV winners included Richard Shepard for comedy directing on the pilot episode of "Ugly Betty," Jon Cassar for drama directing for an episode of "24," and "Chicago" filmmaker Rob Marshall for musical variety directing for "Tony Bennett:
An American Classic.
Arunas Matelis won for feature-film documentary for "Before Flying Back to the Earth," a portrait of children hospitalized with leukemia.
The film won over two Oscar nominees, "Deliver Us From Evil" and "Iraq in Fragments. "
A sixth loss at the Oscars would put Scorsese in the record books as the filmmaker with the most nominations without winning.
But many awards watchers feel this is Scorsese's year, labeling him the front-runner for the February 25 Oscars.
The guild prize is a solid forecast for who might win the directing honor at the Academy Awards.
Only six times in the 58-year history of the guild awards has the winner failed to go on to receive the directing Oscar.
The other guild nominees were Bill Condon for the musical "Dreamgirls," Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris for the road-trip tale "Little Miss Sunshine," Stephen Frears for the palace saga "The Queen" and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu for the ensemble drama "Babel.
The other Oscar nominations went to Clint Eastwood for the World War II epic "Letters From Iwo Jima" and Paul Greengrass for the September 11 docudrama "United 93.
With Condon out of the race, Scorsese's path to Oscar victory could prove a bit easier.
"I don't know," Scorsese said. "It's good to have a nomination, especially for this picture.
All rights reserved.
A diplomatic gaffe marred Saturday's inauguration of a China-financed stadium on this Caribbean island when a band performed Taiwan's national anthem.
Chinese Ambassador Qian Hongshan and scores of blue-uniformed Chinese laborers who built the new $40 million Queen's Park stadium as a gift from Beijing were visibly uncomfortable as Taiwan's anthem echoed inside the 20,000-seat venue.
Describing it as a blunder, Grenada Prime Minister Keith Mitchell pledged an investigation into how the Royal Grenada Police Band could have prepared the anthem of Taiwan instead of China, which has waged an aggressive campaign in the Caribbean to woo nations away from relationships with its rival.
Since China and Taiwan split in 1949 amid a civil war, Beijing has claimed that Taiwan is a renegade province and should not have diplomatic ties with other countries.
"I am very saddened," Mitchell told the workers and Chinese Embassy staff from Grenada and neighboring Trinidad and Tobago.
"This unfortunate error breaks my heart.
Police officials declined to comment except to say they would issue a statement later in the day.
Among the many small island nations in the Caribbean, the Asian rivals have long used economic investment to win votes at the United Nations.
China paid for the reconstruction of Grenada's stadium, which was destroyed by Hurricane Ivan in 2004, and some 500 Chinese workers helped rebuild the venue in time to host cricket World Cup matches in April.
·
ÏÀ» Á¦°øÇÏÁö ¾Ê½À´Ï´Ù.
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) Almost half the members of Australia's Parliament signed a letter to the Democrat-dominated U.S. Congress appealing for help repatriating the lone Australian terror suspect held at Guantanamo Bay, officials said Friday.
The letter faxed to U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi asking for Congress to intervene to ensure that former kangaroo skinner David Hicks is not tried by a military commission at the U.S. naval base in Cuba was signed by 96 senators and members of the Australian House of Representatives, opposition parties said.
There are a total of 226 members in the federal Parliament.
The only member of Prime Minister John Howard's center-right government to sign the letter was Barnaby Joyce, a maverick senator from the junior coalition partner, the Nationals party, his office confirmed Friday.
"As members of the Australian Parliament, we believe that the denial of justice in David Hicks' case erodes the values and principles shared by Australia and the United States," Lyn Allison, leader of the Australian Democrats minor opposition party, said in a statement.
She said she was disappointed that all but one member of the government refused to sign.
"It would have been a more powerful letter had they signed, of course, but it's nonetheless a very significant demonstration of the depth of feeling in the Australian Parliament on this issue," Allison later told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.
The Democrats co-wrote the letter with the major opposition Labor Party.
The letter was also supported by the Greens party and independents.
Congress had confirmed Pelosi's receipt of the letter, a Labor official said Friday.
The letter suggests Congress pass a resolution insisting that the 31-year-old alleged Taliban fighter be immediately repatriated to stand trial in Australia.
Failing repatriation, the lawmakers request Hicks "be immediately put to trial before a properly constituted U.S. criminal court.
Hicks has been held at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo since January 2002, a month after he was detained in Afghanistan.
His lawyers say he is suffering from depression and ill health because of the conditions of his incarceration.
He was originally charged with attempted murder, conspiracy to commit war crimes and aiding the enemy, and was selected to face a U.S. military tribunal.
But his case was thrown into limbo when the U.S. Supreme Court declared the commissions illegal in June.
Howard, a staunch U.S. ally in the war on terror, says his government is unhappy about the delay in bringing Hicks to trial but has resisted pressure to request his repatriation.
Justice Minister Chris Ellison said Canberra preferred to communicate directly with the U.S. government in its efforts to have Hicks brought to justice quickly rather than write to Congress.
"I think it's appropriate for us to convey Australia's concern to our counterparts and that's what we've done," Ellison told the ABC.
NEW YORK (CNN) A New York City Council member Thursday proposed pushing sponsors to ban abnormally thin models from walking New York Fashion Week's runways.
Council member Gail Brewer wants fashion houses to ban any model with a body mass index of less than 18.5 the cutoff for the World Health Organization's definition of "normal.
Brewer said she wants models to be educated on nutrition and designers to encourage healthful lifestyles. (Watch stick-thin models strut the runway )
"We want the designers to offer some clothes that are a little bit more robust," she also told CNN, "and we certainly don't want people under the age of 16 to be modeling.
Madrid Fashion Week set a BMI limit of 18 in September, and Italian designers in December agreed to health and age guidelines for runway models, The Associated Press reported.
On Wednesday, Assemblyman Jose Rivera of the Bronx introduced a resolution in the state legislature to generate standards to protect the health of teenage models and entertainers, AP reported.
The Council of Fashion Designers of America issued recommendations in January to help bulimia, anorexia and other health problems among models.
Brazilian model Ana Carolina Reston died in November at age 21.
She was 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighed just 88 pounds, for a BMI of 13.4.
WHO defines normal BMI as 18.5 to 24.9.
This material may not be published.
WASHINGTON (CNN) A report from the Congressional Budget Office says President Bush's plan for a troop increase in Iraq could cost up to $27 billion for a 12-month deployment.
The plan could mean sending thousands of support troops in addition to the 20,000-plus combat troops the Defense Department has set for deployment.
The numbers come in a letter to Rep. John Spratt, chairman of the House Budget Committee, in response to a request from Spratt's office.
"CBO's report concludes that the cost of the president's plan to 'surge' troops will be higher than previously indicated, both in dollar terms and in the burdens it places on our military," Spratt, D-South Carolina, said in a written statement.
The report notes that the Defense Department has identified only combat troops for deployment in the increase but says, "U.S. military operations also require substantial support forces, including personnel to staff headquarters, serve as military police and provide communications, contracting, engineering, intelligence, medical and other services.
The report notes the Defense Department expects to use fewer support troops than in the past.
It estimates that under past proportions, 28,000 support troops would be added to the 20,000 combat troops. But it revises that figure to 15,000 support troops for a new deployment.
That would bring the total number of forces being added in Iraq to between 35,000 and 48,000 troops, the report said.
The report estimates that a four-month deployment of the additional troops both combat and support could cost $9 billion to $13 billion and a 12-month deployment could cost $20 billion to $27 billion.
The White House estimated that the troop increase would cost $5.6 billion.
Ike Skelton, D-Missouri, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.
"The cost of the troop increase could be significantly higher than what the administration has been saying in the press.
"The CBO report only confirms what we already know: The president has continually tried to hide the true costs of this war, both in terms of money spent and lives affected," Meehan said.
"This Democratic Congress and the House Armed Services Committee will not let the president get away with saying whatever he wants without checking his facts anymore. "
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) Speakers decried crime in South Africa at the funeral Thursday of a renowned historian who was shot dead earlier this week.
The death of David Rattray, a friend of Britain's Prince Charles and an expert on the 1879 Anglo-Zulu war, has put South Africa's high rate of violent crime in the spotlight again.
Rattray was shot dead January 26 by a six-man gang at his Fugitives' Drift guest lodge in the eastern province of KwaZulu-Natal.
The police announced on Thursday that two men had been arrested and would appear in court on Friday on charges of murder.
Government ministers and provincial premiers were among about 1,500 people at the funeral at the Michaelhouse School chapel in KwaZulu-Natal.
Do 'whatever it takes' to end crime
South Africa's people were crying out to the nation's leaders to do "whatever it takes" to end crime, Inkatha Freedom Party leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi said at the funeral.
SAPA also reported that the Right Reverend Rubin Philip reiterated the call for government action on crime.
Rattray was a compelling storyteller and popular on the lecture circuit in Britain.
the 1879 battles of Isandlwana and Rourkes Drift.
Thousands of tourists, many from Britain, visit the battlefields every year.
South Africa has become notorious for its high rate of violent crime.
According to government statistics, there were 18,528 murders in 2004 more than 50 per day.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press All rights reserved
NEW YORK (AP) The decision to become pregnant and raise a child with her female partner was not political, Mary Cheney, a daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney, told a Barnard College audience.
"This is a baby," Cheney said Wednesday at a forum sponsored by Glamour magazine.
"This is a blessing from God.
It is not a political statement.
It is not a prop to be used in a debate by people on either side of an issue.
It is my child.
Cheney, 37, announced in December that she and her partner of 15 years, Heather Poe, were starting a family.
She did not say how the child was conceived.
The baby is due in the spring and will be the vice president's sixth grandchild. (Watch Mary Cheney address critics of the pregnancy )
Dick Cheney became testy last week when CNN's Wolf Blitzer asked him what he thought of conservatives who are critical of his daughter's pregnancy.
Cheney told Blitzer he was "over the line."
In a brief interview with The New York Times after Wednesday's panel, Mary Cheney said she agreed that Blitzer had crossed a line.
"He was trying to get a rise out of my father," she said.
Glamour editor Cindi Leive asked Cheney during the panel discussion if she had anything to say to conservatives such as James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, who have criticized her pregnancy, asserting that children should be raised by heterosexual married couples.
She responded, "Every piece of remotely responsible research that has been done in the last 20 years on this issue has shown there is no difference between children who are raised by same-sex parents and children who are raised by opposite-sex parents.
What matters is that children are being raised in a stable, loving environment.
Cheney was an aide to her father during the 2004 campaign and now is vice president for consumer advocacy at AOL.
This material may not be published.
PARIS, France (AP) French President Jacques Chirac said in an interview with three newspapers that Iran's possession of a nuclear bomb would not be "very dangerous" and that if it used the weapon on Israel, Tehran would be immediately "razed," according to a newspaper report.
Chirac who made the comments during a Monday interview with The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune and Le Nouvel Observateur, a weekly magazine called reporters back the next day to try to have his quotes retracted.
In an article posted on its Web site Wednesday night, the New York Times said the Monday interview was tape recorded and on the record.
Chirac's initial remarks would mark a big departure from France's official policy of deterrence and work in preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.
"I should rather have paid attention to what I was saying and understood that perhaps I was on the record," Chirac said in the second interview on Tuesday, according to the New York Times.
On Monday, Chirac said of Iran and its nuclear program: "I would say that what is dangerous about this situation is not the fact of having a nuclear bomb.
Instead, Chirac said, the danger lies in the chances of proliferation or an arms race in the Middle East should Iran build a nuclear bomb.
Possessing the weapon would be useless for Iran whose leader has called for Israel to be "wiped off the map" as using it would mean an instant counterattack.
Chirac asked.
"It would not have gone 200 meters into the atmosphere before Tehran would be razed.
In the second interview with the same newspapers, Chirac retracted his comment about Tehran being razed.
"I retract it, of course, when I said, 'One is going to raze Tehran,"' he said.
Chirac also said other countries would stop any bomb launched by Iran from reaching its target.
"It is obvious that this bomb, at the moment it was launched, obviously would be destroyed immediately," he said.
"We have the means several countries have the means to destroy a bomb.
LAS VEGAS, Nevada (AP) After nearly 30 years, California's classic rock group the Eagles may soon release their first album of all-new music.
Founding member Don Henley said during a private weekend concert that the band was nearing completion on an album of all-new material, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported on Tuesday.
"It's coming out in 60 to 90 days, if we don't kill each other first," Henley, 59, told the crowd Saturday at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.
Eagles and Henley spokesman Larry Solters said Wednesday there was no comment.
"The Long Run" in 1979 was the Eagles last album featuring all-new studio material.
That album included the Grammy-winning single "Heartache Tonight.
The group officially disbanded in 1982, then they reunited in 1994 for a comeback tour featuring Henley, Glenn Frey, Joe Walsh, Timothy Schmit and Don Felder.
The band appeared together again in 1998, with past members Bernie Leadon and Randy Meisner, when they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
NEW YORK (AP) "Harry Potter" star Daniel Radcliffe, who strips for his new role in London's West End revival of the play "Equus," has ignited a bit of a media firestorm by posing for racy promotional photos for the production.
The Tony-Award-winning drama tells the story of a stable-hand who has an erotic fixation with horses.
In one photo, Radcliffe, 17, dares to bare it all alongside a white horse; in another, he is pictured with a naked Joanna Christie, the actress who portrays his girlfriend.
"Equus," directed by Thea Sharrock, opens at London's Gielgud Theater on February 27.
Tony Award-winning actor Richard Griffiths plays a pyschiatrist who treats Radcliffe's character.
"Part of me wants to shake up people's perception of me, just shove me in a blender," Radcliffe said in a recent interview with Newsweek magazine.
"It's a really challenging play, and if I can pull it off we don't know if I can yet I hope people will stop and think, 'Maybe he can do something other than Harry,' " he said.
Radcliffe, who was discovered seven years ago in the audience of a London theater, reprises his role as the bespectacled boy wizard in "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," slated for release July 13.
This material may not be published.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) North Korea repeated its demand during talks with the United States this week that Washington lift financial restrictions targeting the communist regime, a pro-Pyongyang newspaper reported on Thursday, after the meetings ended without a clear breakthrough.
Experts from Washington and Pyongyang met in Beijing on Tuesday and Wednesday to discuss the financial restrictions the United States imposed over the North's alleged counterfeiting of U.S. currency and money laundering.
North Korea, denying any wrongdoing, has claimed the restrictions are evidence of Washington's hostile attitude toward it and prove it needs nuclear weapons to protect itself.
The financial row has been a key impediment to six-nation talks aimed at getting North Korea to give up its nuclear program, as Pyongyang refused to address disarmament unless the financial row is resolved.
North Korea repeated the demand in this week's talks, according to the Choson Sinbo, a Korean-language newspaper based in Japan which has links to the Pyongyang government.
The North is "demanding that the United States show an attitude of lifting the financial sanctions and not expanding them so as to create an atmosphere for entering into discussions on denuclearization commitments" in a 2005 accord, said the report posted on the paper's Web site seen in Seoul.
That agreement the only ever made at the nuclear talks calls for North Korea to trade away its nuclear programs in exchange for security guarantees and aid.
But it was never implemented because of the financial row.
This week's talks on the financial issue preceded a new round of nuclear negotiations set to resume next week.
The top U.S. delegate to the financial talks, Deputy Assistant Treasury Secretary Daniel Glaser, said the two days of meetings had validated U.S. suspicions of illegal financial activity by North Korea.
He also suggested that the dispute could see an end.
"I think we are now in a position after a very lengthy investigation ... to start moving forward and trying to bring some resolution to this matter," Glaser said, without saying how the dispute would be settled.
There have been media reports that Washington was considering declaring some of the North's assets at a Macau bank as legitimate, allowing the bank to end its freeze on some of North Korea's US$24 million (euro18.5 million) held there.
Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki said on Thursday that Washington considers the financial talks "very constructive" and Tokyo hopes it will have a positive impact on the six-party nuclear talks.
North Korea agreed to resume the nuclear negotiations, involving China, Japan, the two Koreas, Russia and the U.S., after the United States offered unspecified concessions during rare bilateral talks in Berlin in January.
ÏÀ» Á¦°øÇÏÁö ¾Ê½À´Ï´Ù.
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) Police in Brazil have arrested the widow of a multimillionaire lottery winner, while prosecutors decide whether to charge her in his killing.
Brazilian newspapers on Wednesday ran front-page photos of Adriana Almeida wearing a T-shirt and wraparound designer sunglasses being escorted to jail from a hotel in a luxury seaside community near Rio de Janeiro.
"I'm innocent.
What they're doing to me is cowardice," she told Rio's O Globo newspaper after her arrest.
The former hairdresser who married 54-year-old Renne Senna after he hit the jackpot was greeted by jeers as she arrived Tuesday at the lockup.
Police spokesman Marcele Mendes said she will be held for at least 30 days.
During that time, prosecutors will evaluate the police investigation and determine whether to ask a judge to charge Almeida.
Globo TV reported Wednesday that police also are looking for four men suspected of involvement in the killing.
Almeida, 29, was the girlfriend of Senna, a former subsistence farmer and butcher, before he became rich.
Senna, who had part of both legs amputated because of diabetes, got around town on a special, motorized four-wheel cart.
In July 2005, Senna was the sole winner of a national lottery worth 52 million reals ($24.4 million).
He bought a sprawling ranch in Rio Bonito, a rural town 50 miles (75 kilometers) northeast of Rio, and married Almeida.
Senna's family accused Almeida of pressuring Senna to change his will, removing 11 brothers and sisters as potential beneficiaries.
Senna wrote a new will leaving the money only to Almeida and a daughter, Renata.
Some local news media reported that Almeida had said her husband doubted whether he was Renata's real father and planned DNA testing to confirm his paternity.
On January 7, two hooded men on a motorcycle pulled up to a bar in Rio Bonito where Senna usually went for a beer.
Senna was shot four times in the head, and the hooded men sped away.
Five days later, Almeida was summoned to a police interrogation and swore she was innocent.
A furious crowd surrounded the police station in Rio Bonito and reportedly tried to lynch her.
Police dispersed the crowd by firing into the air.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is telling the United States and Iran to keep their fight out of Iraq.
Al-Maliki said he believes Iran is targeting U.S. forces in Iraq.
A U.S. official said Tuesday that the Pentagon is investigating whether Iran was behind a January 20 attack in Karbala that left five U.S. troops dead.
"We believe it's possible the executors of the attack were Iranian or Iranian-trained," the U.S. official said.
The sophistication of the attack, in which English-speaking guerrillas in American-style uniforms drove sport utility vehicles past checkpoints to attack a government compound, was beyond what insurgents in Iraq have shown they are capable of, U.S. officials said.
Whether Iran proves to be responsible for that attack or not, al-Maliki said his country cannot be a proxy battleground for Washington and Tehran.
"Iraq has nothing to do with the American-Iranian struggle, and we will not let Iran play a role against the American Army and we will not allow America to play a role against the Iranian army, and everyone should respect the sovereignty of Iraq," al-Maliki said.
"We will not accept Iran to use Iraq to attack the American forces.
Iran was a major topic Wednesday during CNN correspondent Michael Ware's wide-ranging, exclusive interview with al-Maliki.
The prime minister said Americans are basing their hunches about Iranian activities in Iraq on intelligence they've amassed. (Watch al-Maliki talk about the situation in Iraq )
The United States accuses Iran of fomenting terror attacks worldwide and pursuing a nuclear program that could lead to the development of weaponry.
Iran has denied those assertions.
"We have told the Iranian and the Americans, 'We know that you have a problem with each other, but we are asking you please solve your problems outside Iraq.
' We don't want the American forces to take Iraq as a field to attack Iran or Syria," the prime minister said.
Al-Maliki said Iraq doesn't want its sovereignty to be violated by any of its neighbors, which include Iran, Kuwait, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Turkey.
All could find a reason to interfere in Iraq, he said, including opposition to the U.S. troop presence, and sectarian and political differences.
"Iran is Shiite, and we are Shiite and we have many Shiites in Iraq, but this does not justify Iran interfering in Iraq.
We respect this relation, but we will not allow such interfering to exist.
Also, Iraq is an Arab country, the majority are Arabs, but this also will not justify for the Arab countries to interfere in Iraq.
Al-Maliki also addressed his government's position toward militias and troop levels in his country.
He said he supports President Bush's plan to bolster troop numbers in Iraq by more than 20,000 soldiers and Marines.
"We believe that the existing number, with a slight addition, will do the job, but if there seems to be more need we will ask for more troops.
Al-Maliki reiterated his intention to go after any or all entities that foment violence, including the militia of a supporter, Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
And he indicated that troop-level adjustments must be based on prevailing conditions.
Some observers question whether al-Maliki has the political will to take on al-Sadr's Mehdi Army, thought to be behind much of Iraq's violence between Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias.
Al-Sadr helped al-Maliki become prime minister last year.
The prime minister said al-Sadr's movement is committed to banning armed groups and not interfering with the new security plan.
He said the group's commitment is "a good incentive for others who have militias to announce their support to the Baghdad security plan.
Nevertheless, he put all groups and people on notice: Everyone must respect the law.
"I will apply the law to everyone ... on militias, political parties, on participants in the political process," he said.
"The law rules and who is on my side in respecting the law and the government's will be an ally and a partner and who rebels against the law and the government's will, will be a foe.
Al-Maliki emphasized his political detachment and fairness.
While he has been a member of the Shiite Dawa Party a part of the ruling United Iraqi Alliance he said he is the leader of all the people, not just Shiites.
Iraq which has about a 60 percent Shiite population is also made up of Sunni Arabs, Kurds, Turkmens, Christians and others.
"I'm talking now as a prime minister and not as a member of the party. ...
The membership of a party stops at the boundaries of the state," he said.
Al-Maliki said the effort to foster and bring about peace is not just a military one.
He said it's political as well and requires national will, an implication that Iraqis need to put aside their ethnic, tribal and religious allegiances to help the state survive.
"We do not want to kill the people and drown the country in blood, and we welcome every step that brings a setback for militias or terrorists and a desire to join the political process so we can minimize the losses and blood," he said.
"But this all has to happen under the umbrella of national will, the government and the law. "
Cigarette packs to show graphic warnings
Graphic pictures showing the devastating health effects of smoking began appearing on cigarette packs in Britain on Wednesday as part of a government initiative to deter people from picking up the habit.
The new warnings include a picture of a red, bulging tumor on a man's neck, brown and yellow diseased lungs, and a flaccid cigarette to highlight smoking-related impotence.
British government regulations introduced last year require manufacturers to start printing the warnings on cigarette packs starting Wednesday.
It will still be some time before they start appearing in stores, however, because merchants must sell all of the existing stock first, a spokesman for Britain's National Health Service (NHS) said.
The picture warnings will replace the existing written warnings which warn smokers in brief, bold phrases about the dangers of smoking.
Britain's Department of Health said the written warnings which include the simple phrase, "Smoking kills"
have been a huge success, prompting more than 90,000 smokers to call a smoking helpline in the past five years.
"These new stark picture warnings emphasize the harsh health realities of continuing to smoke," said Chief Medical Officer Liam Donaldson. "I hope they will make many more think hard about giving up, and get the help they need to stop smoking for good."
The Department of Health said visual warnings may be more effective than written ones.
It cited research that suggests smokers are more likely to remember the damage they are doing to their health if they have seen a picture of it.
The campaign follows other anti-smoking measures around the country.
As of July 2007, smoking became illegal in all enclosed public spaces in the United Kingdom, and the NHS says 350,000 quit the habit last year thanks to local stop-smoking initiatives.
Cigarette packs to show graphic warnings
Graphic pictures showing the devastating health effects of smoking began appearing on cigarette packs in Britain on Wednesday as part of a government initiative to deter people from picking up the habit.
The new warnings include a picture of a red, bulging tumor on a man's neck, brown and yellow diseased lungs, and a flaccid cigarette to highlight smoking-related impotence.
British government regulations introduced last year require manufacturers to start printing the warnings on cigarette packs starting Wednesday.
It will still be some time before they start appearing in stores, however, because merchants must sell all of the existing stock first, a spokesman for Britain's National Health Service (NHS) said.
The picture warnings will replace the existing written warnings which warn smokers in brief, bold phrases about the dangers of smoking.
Britain's Department of Health said the written warnings which include the simple phrase, "Smoking kills"
have been a huge success, prompting more than 90,000 smokers to call a smoking helpline in the past five years.
"These new stark picture warnings emphasize the harsh health realities of continuing to smoke," said Chief Medical Officer Liam Donaldson. "I hope they will make many more think hard about giving up, and get the help they need to stop smoking for good."
The Department of Health said visual warnings may be more effective than written ones.
It cited research that suggests smokers are more likely to remember the damage they are doing to their health if they have seen a picture of it.
The campaign follows other anti-smoking measures around the country.
As of July 2007, smoking became illegal in all enclosed public spaces in the United Kingdom, and the NHS says 350,000 quit the habit last year thanks to local stop-smoking initiatives.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Could playing computer games enhance mental agility enough to turn people over 50 into better drivers?
Allstate Corp. wants to find out, and if the answer is yes, it might offer insurance discounts to people who play the games.
Under a new pilot program called InSight, Allstate will offer specialized computer games to 100,000 customers in Pennsylvania aged 50 to 75.
The games' developer, San Francisco-based Posit Science, will track the total number of hours these drivers play.
Then the group's accident rates will be compared to a control group of people who do not play the games.
The games are not all specific to driving.
They're designed to reverse age-related cognitive decline and improve visual alertness.
For example, a game called "Jewel Diver" has players keep track of underwater jewels that pop up on the screen for a moment before they are hidden under fish swimming around.
When the fish stop moving, players click on the fish hiding the jewel.
It's like Three Card Monte but without the cheating.
Over time, the game gets more complicated as more fish appear on the screen.
Allstate recommends that drivers complete at least 10 hours of training.
It's being given as a free option to the 100,000 Pennsylvania drivers, and Allstate plans to decide next year whether to roll it out in other states.
Tom Warden, an assistant vice president at Allstate, said the company chose Posit's technology because it is based on nine years of research into how older drivers' brain fitness might be improved.
While people their 50s and 60s have the lowest accident rates of all drivers, at some point in the mid-60s this rate starts to climb again, Warden said.
He hopes the brain fitness software can show "significant benefits here
beyond dollars and cents."
Drivers may get insurance breaks for playing computer games
Could playing computer games enhance mental agility enough to turn people over 50 into better drivers?
Allstate Corp. wants to find out, and if the answer is yes, it might offer insurance discounts to people who play the games.
Under a new pilot program called InSight, Allstate will offer specialized computer games to 100,000 customers in Pennsylvania aged 50 to 75.
The games' developer, San Francisco-based Posit Science, will track the total number of hours these drivers play.
Then the group's accident rates will be compared to a control group of people who do not play the games.
The games are not all specific to driving.
They're designed to reverse age-related cognitive decline and improve visual alertness.
For example, a game called "Jewel Diver" has players keep track of underwater jewels that pop up on the screen for a moment before they are hidden under fish swimming around.
When the fish stop moving, players click on the fish hiding the jewel.
It's like Three Card Monte but without the cheating.
Over time, the game gets more complicated as more fish appear on the screen.
Allstate recommends that drivers complete at least 10 hours of training.
It's being given as a free option to the 100,000 Pennsylvania drivers, and Allstate plans to decide next year whether to roll it out in other states.
Tom Warden, an assistant vice president at Allstate, said the company chose Posit's technology because it is based on nine years of research into how older drivers' brain fitness might be improved.
While people their 50s and 60s have the lowest accident rates of all drivers, at some point in the mid-60s this rate starts to climb again, Warden said.
beyond dollars and cents."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
China's Olympic gold medal gymnasts have been officially cleared of lying about their ages.
An investigation was launched after the Beijing Games over claims that several members of their women's squad were ineligible because they were not 16 in the year of competition.
But on Wednesday, the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) closed a near six-week probe saying that documentation provided confirms they were old enough to compete.
The inquiry had been called for by the International Olympic Committee who were concerned that the controversy undermined the results of the competition in Beijing.
China provided passports, ID cards and family registers for He Kexin, Yang Yilin, Jiang Yuyuan, Deng Linlin and Li Shanshan, all showing the girls were 16 or would turn 16 this year.
"We have received all we could possibly ask for," FIG secretary general Andre Gueisbuhler told Associated Press. "All of them confirm the age that they should be, so what can we do ?"
The Chinese women's gymnastics team won a gold medal in a team competition in Beijing and five members won individual medals. One of the challenges came from a blogger known as "Stryde Hax."
In Internet searches, "Stryde Hax" allegedly uncovered Web pages showing lists complied by China's General Administration of Sport that show a 1994 date of birth for He. That would make her 14
The New York Times conducted its own investigation, producing similar results that seem to implicate He and two other members of the team.
The Times uncovered a 2006 biography on He that lists her birthday as January 1, 1994.
But Chinese gymnastics coaches have stridently defended their team.
"Asians have different figures than people from the West, so that's what caused their suspicion," said Huang Yubin, head coach of the men's and women's teams, referring to media inquiries.
"They shouldn't be suspicious." Underage gymnasts have been a problem since the 1980s, when the minimum age was raised from 14 to 15 to protect young athletes from serious injuries.
The minimum age was raised to its current 16 in 1997.
China's Olympic gold medal gymnasts have been officially cleared of lying about their ages.
An investigation was launched after the Beijing Games over claims that several members of their women's squad were ineligible because they were not 16 in the year of competition.
But on Wednesday, the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) closed a near six-week probe saying that documentation provided confirms they were old enough to compete.
The inquiry had been called for by the International Olympic Committee who were concerned that the controversy undermined the results of the competition in Beijing.
China provided passports, ID cards and family registers for He Kexin, Yang Yilin, Jiang Yuyuan, Deng Linlin and Li Shanshan, all showing the girls were 16 or would turn 16 this year.
"We have received all we could possibly ask for," FIG secretary general Andre Gueisbuhler told Associated Press. "All of them confirm the age that they should be, so what can we do ?"
The Chinese women's gymnastics team won a gold medal in a team competition in Beijing and five members won individual medals. One of the challenges came from a blogger known as "Stryde Hax."
In Internet searches, "Stryde Hax" allegedly uncovered Web pages showing lists complied by China's General Administration of Sport that show a 1994 date of birth for He. That would make her 14
The New York Times conducted its own investigation, producing similar results that seem to implicate He and two other members of the team.
The Times uncovered a 2006 biography on He that lists her birthday as January 1, 1994.
But Chinese gymnastics coaches have stridently defended their team.
"Asians have different figures than people from the West, so that's what caused their suspicion," said Huang Yubin, head coach of the men's and women's teams, referring to media inquiries.
"They shouldn't be suspicious." Underage gymnasts have been a problem since the 1980s, when the minimum age was raised from 14 to 15 to protect young athletes from serious injuries.
The minimum age was raised to its current 16 in 1997.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
From Auschwitz to Chicago, detailed Holocaust letters survive
The faded papers hint at stark details in the lives of Nazi concentration camp inmates.
Letters secretly carried by children through the sewers of Warsaw, Poland, during the 1944 uprising.
A 1943 letter from a young man, who spent time in Auschwitz, to his parents.
The more than 250 World War II postal documents
cards, letters and stamps have been acquired by an Illinois foundation from a private collector and will soon be on permanent display in a museum in suburban Chicago.
"These artifacts underscore the very personal dimension to this catastrophe," said Richard Hirschhaut, the executive director of the Skokie-based Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center, where the exhibit will be housed next year when the museum opens.
"It now will reach an exponentially larger audience and serve as a genuine tool for education and learning," Hirschhaut said.
The Holocaust memorial exhibit belonged to longtime postal memorabilia collector and activist Ken Lawrence of Pennsylvania.
It was called "The Nazi Scourge:
Postal Evidence of the Holocaust and the Devastation of Europe."
From Auschwitz to Chicago, detailed Holocaust letters survive
The faded papers hint at stark details in the lives of Nazi concentration camp inmates.
Letters secretly carried by children through the sewers of Warsaw, Poland, during the 1944 uprising.
A 1943 letter from a young man, who spent time in Auschwitz, to his parents.
The more than 250 World War II postal documents
cards, letters and stamps have been acquired by an Illinois foundation from a private collector and will soon be on permanent display in a museum in suburban Chicago.
"These artifacts underscore the very personal dimension to this catastrophe," said Richard Hirschhaut, the executive director of the Skokie-based Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center, where the exhibit will be housed next year when the museum opens.
"It now will reach an exponentially larger audience and serve as a genuine tool for education and learning," Hirschhaut said.
The Holocaust memorial exhibit belonged to longtime postal memorabilia collector and activist Ken Lawrence of Pennsylvania.
It was called "The Nazi Scourge:
Postal Evidence of the Holocaust and the Devastation of Europe."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Amazon forest destruction speeding up, officials say
The Amazon is being deforested more than three times as fast as last year, Brazilian officials said Monday, acknowledging a sharp reversal after three years of declines in the deforestation rate.
Brazil's Environment Minister Carlos Minc said upcoming nationwide elections are partly to blame, with mayors in the Amazon region turning a blind eye to illegal logging in hopes of gaining votes locally.
Non-government environmentalists blame the global spike in food prices for encouraging soy farmers and cattle ranchers to clear land for crops and grazing.
Elections no doubt play a part, but "the tendency of deforestation rising is deeply related to the fact that food prices are going up," said Paulo Adario, who coordinates Greenpeace's Amazon campaign.
"When you have elections, the appetite of authorities to enforce laws is reduced," Adario said. "But the federal government has to step in and do its job."
Amazon destruction jumped 228 percent in August when compared to the same month a year ago, according to a report from Brazil's National Institute for Space Research.
Some 756 square kilometers (292 square miles) of Amazon was destroyed last month, compared to 230 square kilometers (89 square miles) in August 2007.
Amazon forest destruction speeding up, officials say
The Amazon is being deforested more than three times as fast as last year, Brazilian officials said Monday, acknowledging a sharp reversal after three years of declines in the deforestation rate.
Brazil's Environment Minister Carlos Minc said upcoming nationwide elections are partly to blame, with mayors in the Amazon region turning a blind eye to illegal logging in hopes of gaining votes locally.
Non-government environmentalists blame the global spike in food prices for encouraging soy farmers and cattle ranchers to clear land for crops and grazing.
Elections no doubt play a part, but "the tendency of deforestation rising is deeply related to the fact that food prices are going up," said Paulo Adario, who coordinates Greenpeace's Amazon campaign.
"When you have elections, the appetite of authorities to enforce laws is reduced," Adario said. "But the federal government has to step in and do its job."
Amazon destruction jumped 228 percent in August when compared to the same month a year ago, according to a report from Brazil's National Institute for Space Research.
Some 756 square kilometers (292 square miles) of Amazon was destroyed last month, compared to 230 square kilometers (89 square miles) in August 2007.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Tokyo was known as Edo until 1868, but it's hard to imagine that this high-rise, high-tech metropolis could possibly have existed in a time before electricity and concrete.
it's the place that has shaped our vision of what the future will look like.
There's a sci-fi familiarity to areas like Shibuya, Shinjuku and Akihabara;
the skyscrapers glowing with illuminated signs, subway stops inside shopping malls and taxis with automated doors could be straight out of "Blade Runner" or "The Fifth Element."
But the space-age topography of Tokyo has been shaped by a history of catastrophe.
In the 20th century alone Tokyo suffered earthquakes, fires and devastating bombing.
The result is a city that has repeatedly been forced to rebuild, shedding its past with each successive redevelopment.
In Tokyo, the future is a long-standing tradition.
After centuries of expansion, Tokyo has grown vertically to accommodate its 12 million residents.
Perhaps the inevitability of another catastrophic earthquake accounts for the lack of emotional attachment to the city's architecture;
buildings are continuously being pulled down and replaced, creating the sensation that Tokyo's skyline is a permanent work in progress.
While it can seem that the city is intent on stream rolling over its past, you can still see traces of old Edo.
The Meiji Jingu Shrine tells of the city's Shinto heritage and there's something timeless about the charming chaos of Tsukiji Fish Market.
Even the enduring formalities of Tokyo's social etiquette and the joy with which Tokyoites greet the coming of the cherry blossom are signs that the city maintains a lingering affection for its traditions.
At first glance, Tokyoites may seem sober and industrious, efficiently going about the business of making their city a world capital of techno commerce, but shops filled with manga comics and anime DVDs hint at a desire to escape the obligations of real life.
That appetite for escapism is most colorfully expressed in the phenomenon of "cosplay", which sees teenagers dress as characters from cartoons and comic strips, or in the outlandish uniforms of various distinctive subcultures.
In the 80s, Japan's bubble economy created unsustainable growth in Tokyo and property prices in the capital went through the roof.
When the bubble burst in the early 90s, Tokyo was hit particularly hard but, after years of recession, Tokyo has the buzz of a city regaining its confidence.
For this endlessly fascinating city, it's back to business
and back to the future.
Tokyo was known as Edo until 1868, but it's hard to imagine that this high-rise, high-tech metropolis could possibly have existed in a time before electricity and concrete.
it's the place that has shaped our vision of what the future will look like.
There's a sci-fi familiarity to areas like Shibuya, Shinjuku and Akihabara;
the skyscrapers glowing with illuminated signs, subway stops inside shopping malls and taxis with automated doors could be straight out of "Blade Runner" or "The Fifth Element."
But the space-age topography of Tokyo has been shaped by a history of catastrophe.
In the 20th century alone Tokyo suffered earthquakes, fires and devastating bombing.
The result is a city that has repeatedly been forced to rebuild, shedding its past with each successive redevelopment.
In Tokyo, the future is a long-standing tradition.
After centuries of expansion, Tokyo has grown vertically to accommodate its 12 million residents.
Perhaps the inevitability of another catastrophic earthquake accounts for the lack of emotional attachment to the city's architecture;
buildings are continuously being pulled down and replaced, creating the sensation that Tokyo's skyline is a permanent work in progress.
While it can seem that the city is intent on stream rolling over its past, you can still see traces of old Edo.
The Meiji Jingu Shrine tells of the city's Shinto heritage and there's something timeless about the charming chaos of Tsukiji Fish Market.
Even the enduring formalities of Tokyo's social etiquette and the joy with which Tokyoites greet the coming of the cherry blossom are signs that the city maintains a lingering affection for its traditions.
At first glance, Tokyoites may seem sober and industrious, efficiently going about the business of making their city a world capital of techno commerce, but shops filled with manga comics and anime DVDs hint at a desire to escape the obligations of real life.
That appetite for escapism is most colorfully expressed in the phenomenon of "cosplay", which sees teenagers dress as characters from cartoons and comic strips, or in the outlandish uniforms of various distinctive subcultures.
In the 80s, Japan's bubble economy created unsustainable growth in Tokyo and property prices in the capital went through the roof.
When the bubble burst in the early 90s, Tokyo was hit particularly hard but, after years of recession, Tokyo has the buzz of a city regaining its confidence.
For this endlessly fascinating city, it's back to business
and back to the future.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
The U.S. House of Representatives has passed the revised version of $700 billion bank bailout plan intended to bolster the ailing U.S. financial system.
The House rejected the original bill on Monday, sending stocks tumbling around the world.
But lawmakers approved the rescue package, backed by U.S. President George W. Bush and Treasury chiefs, Friday after the U.S. Senate passed it by a large majority on Wednesday.
Congress voted 263 to 171 in favor of the bailout bill.
President Bush signed the bill into law Friday afternoon.
Stocks on Wall Street slumped Friday, as the brutal week ended.
The Dow Jones industrial average lost 1.5 percent, according to early tallies.
For the week, the Dow ended down 818 points, the biggest weekly point loss in seven years and the third-biggest weekly loss on a point basis ever.
The Standard & Poor's 500 index lost 1.4 percent Friday and the Nasdaq composite lost 1.5 percent.
Bush thanked all those involved and said the bill was essential to stopping the crisis on Wall Street becoming a crisis in the wider economy.
Bush said it sent a message to the rest of the world that the U.S. was ready to take action to ease the credit crunch.
He said it would take sometime for the bill to have an impact on the American economy.
The U.S. House of Representatives has passed the revised version of $700 billion bank bailout plan intended to bolster the ailing U.S. financial system.
The House rejected the original bill on Monday, sending stocks tumbling around the world.
But lawmakers approved the rescue package, backed by U.S. President George W. Bush and Treasury chiefs, Friday after the U.S. Senate passed it by a large majority on Wednesday.
Congress voted 263 to 171 in favor of the bailout bill.
President Bush signed the bill into law Friday afternoon.
Stocks on Wall Street slumped Friday, as the brutal week ended.
The Dow Jones industrial average lost 1.5 percent, according to early tallies.
For the week, the Dow ended down 818 points, the biggest weekly point loss in seven years and the third-biggest weekly loss on a point basis ever.
The Standard & Poor's 500 index lost 1.4 percent Friday and the Nasdaq composite lost 1.5 percent.
Bush thanked all those involved and said the bill was essential to stopping the crisis on Wall Street becoming a crisis in the wider economy.
Bush said it sent a message to the rest of the world that the U.S. was ready to take action to ease the credit crunch.
He said it would take sometime for the bill to have an impact on the American economy.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
A 7-year-old boy broke into a popular Outback zoo, fed a string of animals to the resident crocodile and bashed several lizards to death with a rock, the zoo's director said Friday.
The 30-minute rampage, caught on the zoo's security camera, happened early Wednesday after the boy jumped a security fence at the Alice Springs Reptile Center in central Australia, said zoo director Rex Neindorf.
The child then went on a killing spree, bashing three lizards to death with a rock, including the zoo's beloved, 20-year-old goanna, which he then fed to "Terry," an 11-foot, 440-pound saltwater crocodile, said Neindorf.
The boy also fed several live animals to Terry by throwing them over the two fences surrounding the crocodile's enclosure, at one point climbing over the outer fence to get closer to the giant reptile.
In the footage, the boy's face remains largely blank, Neindorf said, adding:
"It was like he was playing a game."
By the time he was done, 13 animals worth around $5,500 had been killed, including a turtle, bearded dragons and thorny devil lizards, Neindorf said. Although none were considered rare, some are difficult to replace, he said.
"We're horrified that anyone can do this and saddened by the age of the child," Neindorf said.
Alice Springs police said they are unable to press charges against the boy because of his age.
Children under age 10 can't be charged with criminal offenses in the Northern Territory.
His name was not released because of his age.
Neindorf said he plans to sue the boy's parents.
The boy's small size is probably the reason he didn't trip the zoo's security system, which relies on sensors to detect intruders, Neindorf said.
"If we can't put the blame onto the child, then someone has to accept the responsibility."
A 7-year-old boy broke into a popular Outback zoo, fed a string of animals to the resident crocodile and bashed several lizards to death with a rock, the zoo's director said Friday.
The 30-minute rampage, caught on the zoo's security camera, happened early Wednesday after the boy jumped a security fence at the Alice Springs Reptile Center in central Australia, said zoo director Rex Neindorf.
The child then went on a killing spree, bashing three lizards to death with a rock, including the zoo's beloved, 20-year-old goanna, which he then fed to "Terry," an 11-foot, 440-pound saltwater crocodile, said Neindorf.
The boy also fed several live animals to Terry by throwing them over the two fences surrounding the crocodile's enclosure, at one point climbing over the outer fence to get closer to the giant reptile.
In the footage, the boy's face remains largely blank, Neindorf said, adding:
"It was like he was playing a game."
By the time he was done, 13 animals worth around $5,500 had been killed, including a turtle, bearded dragons and thorny devil lizards, Neindorf said. Although none were considered rare, some are difficult to replace, he said.
"We're horrified that anyone can do this and saddened by the age of the child," Neindorf said.
Alice Springs police said they are unable to press charges against the boy because of his age.
Children under age 10 can't be charged with criminal offenses in the Northern Territory.
His name was not released because of his age.
Neindorf said he plans to sue the boy's parents.
The boy's small size is probably the reason he didn't trip the zoo's security system, which relies on sensors to detect intruders, Neindorf said.
"If we can't put the blame onto the child, then someone has to accept the responsibility."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Last year, the Michelin guide's first foray into Tokyo left the city with some 190 Michelin stars, compared with 95 in Paris and 50 in London and New York.
Of course, that's partly down to the sheer number of eateries in Tokyo estimated at more than 180,000 establishments
but it's also testimony to the reverence Tokyoites have for fresh ingredients prepared with the utmost care.
Tokyo's restaurants will usually serve a single type of food, be it sushi, "yakitori" (grilled chicken or vegetable skewers) or noodles, and you'll find a bewildering range of options for each variety.
To make matters more complicated, many of the best restaurants are hidden inside anonymous office blocks or a marked only by a tiny sign, usually in Japanese characters.
You'll naturally want to sample the local sushi, and you'll find none better than at the unassuming Sukiyabashi Jiro, a tiny basement eatery worthy of each of its three Michelin stars.
For unbeatable sushi, and an unforgettable experience, set your alarm clock for an early-morning trip to Tsukiji fish market.
Every day from 5 a.m. fishermen auction their fresh catch to a rowdy horde of restaurateurs, eager to secure the choicest specimens for their menus.
Treat yourself to a breakfast of just-caught fish at one of the many sushi stalls and restaurants at the market.
Daiwa Sushi and Iwasa Sushi are exceptional.
Sushi-Zanmai lets you pick your dishes from a conveyor belt and is great value for money.
For the crispiest tempura in town, try one of the many branches of Ten-ichi.
You'll find the Ginza branch at the intersection of Harumi Dori and Sotobori Dori.
Set serenely in a small garden behind a wooden wall, Kanda Yabu Soba is an atmospheric spot to slurp up some delicious soba noodles.
soba noodles in "tsuyu" soup, with deep-fried shrimp on the side, or sample the classic tempura soba
soba noodles served in broth with deep-fried shrimp on top.
You shouldn't leave Tokyo without indulging in "kaiseki"
an elaborate multi-course cuisine in which presentation is raised to an art form.
Kanda, and Kitcho, in the Hotel Seiyo Ginza, have mastered that art and offer "kaiseki" masterpieces at suitably elevated prices.
Tokyo can be a tricky place for vegetarians but the traditional Zen Buddhist cuisine called "shojin-ryori" is completely vegetarian.
Daigo has caught the attention of top western chefs with its elegant "kaiseki"-inspired "shojin-ryori".
Its dining rooms overlook a serene garden of bonsai trees and the food is immaculate.
Gesshinkyo serves a modern version of the style.
To eat and drink like a local, visit an "izakaya" essentially, a bar that serves food, usually at a good price.
"Izakaya" offer sake and beer and usually have an open counter where chefs rustle up a selection of dishes that will include sashimi, noodles and "yakitori."
Last year, the Michelin guide's first foray into Tokyo left the city with some 190 Michelin stars, compared with 95 in Paris and 50 in London and New York.
Of course, that's partly down to the sheer number of eateries in Tokyo estimated at more than 180,000 establishments
but it's also testimony to the reverence Tokyoites have for fresh ingredients prepared with the utmost care.
Tokyo's restaurants will usually serve a single type of food, be it sushi, "yakitori" (grilled chicken or vegetable skewers) or noodles, and you'll find a bewildering range of options for each variety.
To make matters more complicated, many of the best restaurants are hidden inside anonymous office blocks or a marked only by a tiny sign, usually in Japanese characters.
You'll naturally want to sample the local sushi, and you'll find none better than at the unassuming Sukiyabashi Jiro, a tiny basement eatery worthy of each of its three Michelin stars.
For unbeatable sushi, and an unforgettable experience, set your alarm clock for an early-morning trip to Tsukiji fish market.
Every day from 5 a.m. fishermen auction their fresh catch to a rowdy horde of restaurateurs, eager to secure the choicest specimens for their menus.
Treat yourself to a breakfast of just-caught fish at one of the many sushi stalls and restaurants at the market.
Daiwa Sushi and Iwasa Sushi are exceptional.
Sushi-Zanmai lets you pick your dishes from a conveyor belt and is great value for money.
For the crispiest tempura in town, try one of the many branches of Ten-ichi.
You'll find the Ginza branch at the intersection of Harumi Dori and Sotobori Dori.
Set serenely in a small garden behind a wooden wall, Kanda Yabu Soba is an atmospheric spot to slurp up some delicious soba noodles.
soba noodles in "tsuyu" soup, with deep-fried shrimp on the side, or sample the classic tempura soba
soba noodles served in broth with deep-fried shrimp on top.
You shouldn't leave Tokyo without indulging in "kaiseki"
an elaborate multi-course cuisine in which presentation is raised to an art form.
Kanda, and Kitcho, in the Hotel Seiyo Ginza, have mastered that art and offer "kaiseki" masterpieces at suitably elevated prices.
Tokyo can be a tricky place for vegetarians but the traditional Zen Buddhist cuisine called "shojin-ryori" is completely vegetarian.
Daigo has caught the attention of top western chefs with its elegant "kaiseki"-inspired "shojin-ryori".
Its dining rooms overlook a serene garden of bonsai trees and the food is immaculate.
Gesshinkyo serves a modern version of the style.
To eat and drink like a local, visit an "izakaya" essentially, a bar that serves food, usually at a good price.
"Izakaya" offer sake and beer and usually have an open counter where chefs rustle up a selection of dishes that will include sashimi, noodles and "yakitori."
a trendy take on the classic "izakaya," which serves up treats like potato dumplings stuffed with scallops.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Astronaut teachers to inspire next generation
It may be one small step for civilian space travel, but it's a leap for education.
In a bid to inspire the younger generation, the private Space Frontier Foundation is looking for two teachers
who will become the first educators to fly to space and then return to the classroom.
The foundation, in partnership with the United States Rocket Academy, has revived the Teachers in Space program originally run by U.S. space agency NASA.
The idea of sending teachers to space was conceived in the 1980s by U.S. President Reagan.
The goal was to pick the first "citizen passenger" and promote the space program.
In 1985, NASA picked New Hampshire teacher Christa McAuliffe from 11,000 applicants to be the first teacher to fly into space.
But the Challenger tragedy, in which the shuttle exploded 73 seconds after liftoff, killing McAuliffe and six other crew members, brought the program to a premature halt.
In its place, the space agency instituted the Educator Astronaut program, in which former teachers became full-time NASA employees.
They did not return to the classroom to share their experiences.
The new project has a different goal:
"Unlike the Educator Astronaut program, which takes teachers out of schools to join the NASA astronaut corps, we want to put astronaut teachers into American classrooms," explained the program project manager, Edward Wright.
Since space exploration began 50 years ago, children have been encouraged to study math and the sciences so they can go into orbit.
Do you think an astronaut teacher would have inspired you to study science or math?
"But at the rate NASA recruits astronauts, these kids would have a greater chance becoming NBA players than going to space. We want to turn that around. We want them to go to space," said Wright, who is also chairman of the United States Rocket Academy.
With the project, Wright said from Seattle, Washington, the Space Frontier Foundation wants to show students that they have a real chance of going to space.
And the best way to do that is to send astronaut teachers into American schools to share their space flight experience.
The project, which has a budget of $20 million, will enable the Space Frontier Foundation to send 200 teachers a year four from every U.S. state
"We want to put a thousand astronaut teachers into American schools within the next decade," Wright added.
Astronaut teachers to inspire next generation
In a bid to inspire the younger generation, the private Space Frontier Foundation is looking for two teachers
who will become the first educators to fly to space and then return to the classroom.
The foundation, in partnership with the United States Rocket Academy, has revived the Teachers in Space program originally run by U.S. space agency NASA.
The idea of sending teachers to space was conceived in the 1980s by U.S. President Reagan.
The goal was to pick the first "citizen passenger" and promote the space program.
In 1985, NASA picked New Hampshire teacher Christa McAuliffe from 11,000 applicants to be the first teacher to fly into space.
But the Challenger tragedy, in which the shuttle exploded 73 seconds after liftoff, killing McAuliffe and six other crew members, brought the program to a premature halt.
In its place, the space agency instituted the Educator Astronaut program, in which former teachers became full-time NASA employees.
They did not return to the classroom to share their experiences.
The new project has a different goal:
"Unlike the Educator Astronaut program, which takes teachers out of schools to join the NASA astronaut corps, we want to put astronaut teachers into American classrooms," explained the program project manager, Edward Wright.
Since space exploration began 50 years ago, children have been encouraged to study math and the sciences so they can go into orbit.
Do you think an astronaut teacher would have inspired you to study science or math?
"But at the rate NASA recruits astronauts, these kids would have a greater chance becoming NBA players than going to space.
We want to turn that around. We want them to go to space," said Wright, who is also chairman of the United States Rocket Academy.
With the project, Wright said from Seattle, Washington, the Space Frontier Foundation wants to show students that they have a real chance of going to space.
And the best way to do that is to send astronaut teachers into American schools to share their space flight experience.
The project, which has a budget of $20 million, will enable the Space Frontier Foundation to send 200 teachers a year
four from every U.S. state
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
The owner of Luscious Garage is wondering whether the electric wall outlet will be the "gas tank" of the future.
Drivers of gas-sipping hybrid vehicles are increasingly interested in converting their vehicles from gasoline powered to electric, according to garage owner and lead technician Carolyn Coquillette.
While drivers of conventional gasoline-powered vehicles complain about higher fuel prices, clients of the San Francisco garage are investing big bucks to make their green cars even greener.
That's being done through plug-in conversions and adding more powerful batteries to currently available gasoline/electric hybrid cars, such as the Toyota Prius.
it doesn't get energy from anywhere but the gas tank," said Coquillette.
"What this [conversion] allows me to do is get energy through an [electric wall] outlet, so [the wall outlet] is like my electric gas tank," she said.
Coquillette, who has degrees in physics and English, said she gets three or four calls or e-mails a day, asking about the conversion.
And, she says, with gas prices at more than $4 per gallon, she expects even more interest.
A lot of the cars that pull in to Luscious Garage are Toyota Prius hybrids, which Coquillette calls, "the Volkswagen Beetle of our times."
Coquillette showed off the garage's psychedelically painted Prius, which has undergone the conversion.
Drivers of gas-sipping hybrid vehicles are increasingly interested in converting their vehicles from gasoline powered to electric, according to garage owner and lead technician Carolyn Coquillette.
While drivers of conventional gasoline-powered vehicles complain about higher fuel prices, clients of the San Francisco garage are investing big bucks to make their green cars even greener.
That's being done through plug-in conversions and adding more powerful batteries to currently available gasoline/electric hybrid cars, such as the Toyota Prius.
it doesn't get energy from anywhere but the gas tank," said Coquillette.
"What this [conversion] allows me to do is get energy through an [electric wall] outlet, so [the wall outlet] is like my electric gas tank," she said.
Coquillette, who has degrees in physics and English, said she gets three or four calls or e-mails a day, asking about the conversion.
And, she says, with gas prices at more than $4 per gallon, she expects even more interest.
A lot of the cars that pull in to Luscious Garage are Toyota Prius hybrids, which Coquillette calls, "the Volkswagen Beetle of our times."
Coquillette showed off the garage's psychedelically painted Prius, which has undergone the conversion.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Germany on Sunday guaranteed all private bank accounts and negotiated a 50 billion euros ($69 billion) bailout deal for Hypo Real Estate AG as Europe's second largest economy sought to ward off financial crisis.
The Finance Ministry and private banks reached a deal late Sunday to infuse an additional line of credit worth up to 15 billion euros ($21 billion) into the embattled real estate giant, expanding on an earlier 35 billion euro ($48 billion) bailout plan that would have found the government and private banks splitting the bill.
The earlier deal fell apart Saturday when Hypo announced that a consortium of unnamed financial institutions had backed out.
That prompted banking executives and lawmakers to convene in the capital for feverish talks toward the new deal they unveiled late Sunday.
The new package includes the original 35 billion euros ($48.4 billion) plan with the government paying up to 27 billion euros ($37 billion) of that sum and banks funding the remainder as a line of credit.
New is an additional 15 billion euro ($21 billion) line of insured credit from the banks.
The ministry said in a statement that the new deal would "strengthen the financial community of Germany in difficult times."
Chancellor Angela Merkel vowed that she would not let the failure of any company disrupt the German economy.
"We will not allow the distress of one financial institution to distress the entire system," she told reporters.
Merkel said the plan would ensure that anyone who made reckless market decisions would be made to answer for their actions.
Hypo was the first German blue chip to seek a government rescue.
Germany on Sunday guaranteed all private bank accounts and negotiated a 50 billion euros ($69 billion) bailout deal for Hypo Real Estate AG as Europe's second largest economy sought to ward off financial crisis.
The Finance Ministry and private banks reached a deal late Sunday to infuse an additional line of credit worth up to 15 billion euros ($21 billion) into the embattled real estate giant, expanding on an earlier 35 billion euro ($48 billion) bailout plan that would have found the government and private banks splitting the bill.
The earlier deal fell apart Saturday when Hypo announced that a consortium of unnamed financial institutions had backed out.
That prompted banking executives and lawmakers to convene in the capital for feverish talks toward the new deal they unveiled late Sunday.
The new package includes the original 35 billion euros ($48.4 billion) plan with the government paying up to 27 billion euros ($37 billion) of that sum and banks funding the remainder as a line of credit.
New is an additional 15 billion euro ($21 billion) line of insured credit from the banks.
The ministry said in a statement that the new deal would "strengthen the financial community of Germany in difficult times."
Chancellor Angela Merkel vowed that she would not let the failure of any company disrupt the German economy.
"We will not allow the distress of one financial institution to distress the entire system," she told reporters.
Merkel said the plan would ensure that anyone who made reckless market decisions would be made to answer for their actions.
Hypo was the first German blue chip to seek a government rescue.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Baby found alive in mud days after Algeria floods
A baby was found alive by rescuers after spending four days in a pool of mud following flash floods that killed at least 41 people in central Algeria last week, a local official said Sunday.
"It's a miracle, really a miracle to find it alive after all this time," the town governor of Ghardaia, Yahia Fahim, told national radio.
The state-run APS news agency said the 4-month-old baby appeared in good health after being discovered late Saturday and had been handed to a family while authorities looked for its parents.
Journalists in Ghardaia, where most of the victims drowned, said none of them had seen the baby since it was saved.
But the governor said its photo would be posted in all local media for the family to recognize it.
It was not clear from his comments whether the baby was a boy or a girl.
Authorities did not say how they knew the baby had been in the mud since the flooding.
The reported rescue came as authorities confirmed at least 41 deaths in the floods caused by torrential rains last week in this usually arid region.
In addition to 33 casualties already reported in and around Ghardaia, two more people drowned in the adjacent district of Ourghla and four died farther to the north in the town of Tebessa, APS said.
Authorities say massive rescue efforts are ongoing in the zone and that emergency measures have been taken to prevent epidemics from spreading through polluted waters.
Hundreds of troops and security services have deployed to prevent looting and help with recovery operations.
Thousands of blankets, tents and food units were being handed out in Ghardaia, home to about 100,000 people.
Some 1,400 houses were severely damaged in this medieval town located in a long and narrow valley known as the M'zab, some 600 kilometers (370 miles) from Algiers, APS said.
The M'zab is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage site and lies on the edge of the Sahara, the world's largest desert.
Baby found alive in mud days after Algeria floods
A baby was found alive by rescuers after spending four days in a pool of mud following flash floods that killed at least 41 people in central Algeria last week, a local official said Sunday.
"It's a miracle, really a miracle to find it alive after all this time," the town governor of Ghardaia, Yahia Fahim, told national radio.
The state-run APS news agency said the 4-month-old baby appeared in good health after being discovered late Saturday and had been handed to a family while authorities looked for its parents.
Journalists in Ghardaia, where most of the victims drowned, said none of them had seen the baby since it was saved.
But the governor said its photo would be posted in all local media for the family to recognize it.
It was not clear from his comments whether the baby was a boy or a girl.
Authorities did not say how they knew the baby had been in the mud since the flooding.
The reported rescue came as authorities confirmed at least 41 deaths in the floods caused by torrential rains last week in this usually arid region.
In addition to 33 casualties already reported in and around Ghardaia, two more people drowned in the adjacent district of Ourghla and four died farther to the north in the town of Tebessa, APS said.
Authorities say massive rescue efforts are ongoing in the zone and that emergency measures have been taken to prevent epidemics from spreading through polluted waters.
Hundreds of troops and security services have deployed to prevent looting and help with recovery operations.
Thousands of blankets, tents and food units were being handed out in Ghardaia, home to about 100,000 people.
Some 1,400 houses were severely damaged in this medieval town located in a long and narrow valley known as the M'zab, some 600 kilometers (370 miles) from Algiers, APS said.
The M'zab is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage site and lies on the edge of the Sahara, the world's largest desert.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
`Beverly Hills Chihuahua` barks up right tree, dominates box office
"Beverly Hills Chihuahua" was barking up the right tree with movie-goers, who put the Disney comedy at No. 1 for the weekend with a $29 million debut, according to studio estimates Sunday.
Featuring a talking Chihuahua with Drew Barrymore's voice, the family flick about a pampered pooch lost in Mexico led a surge of new movies that boosted Hollywood business, which generally has slumped the last two months.
The top-12 movies hauled in $95.4 million, up 42 percent from the same weekend a year ago, when "The Game Plan" was No. 1 with $16.6 million.
"We had a huge weekend," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Media By Numbers. "That's really due to the little Chihuahua.
`Beverly Hills Chihuahua` barks up right tree, dominates box office
"Beverly Hills Chihuahua" was barking up the right tree with movie-goers, who put the Disney comedy at No. 1 for the weekend with a $29 million debut, according to studio estimates Sunday.
Featuring a talking Chihuahua with Drew Barrymore's voice, the family flick about a pampered pooch lost in Mexico led a surge of new movies that boosted Hollywood business, which generally has slumped the last two months.
The top-12 movies hauled in $95.4 million, up 42 percent from the same weekend a year ago, when "The Game Plan" was No. 1 with $16.6 million.
"We had a huge weekend," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Media By Numbers.
"That's really due to the little Chihuahua.
The previous weekend's No. 1 movie, the DreamWorks-Paramount thriller "Eagle Eye," slipped to second-place with $17.7 million, raising its total to $54.6 million.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
A new space race is officially under way, and this one should have the sci-fi geeks salivating.
The project is a "space elevator," and some experts now believe that the concept is well within the bounds of possibility maybe even within our lifetimes.
A conference discussing developments in space elevator concepts is being held in Japan in November, and hundreds of engineers and scientists from Asia, Europe and the Americas are working to design the only lift that will take you directly to the one hundred-thousandth floor.
Despite these developments, you could be excused for thinking it all sounds a little far-fetched.
Indeed, if successfully built, the space elevator would be an unprecedented feat of human engineering.
A cable anchored to the Earth's surface, reaching tens of thousands of kilometers into space, balanced with a counterweight attached at the other end is the basic design for the elevator.
It is thought that inertia the physics theory stating that matter retains its velocity along a straight line so long as it is not acted upon by an external force will cause the cable to stay stretched taut, allowing the elevator to sit in geostationary orbit.
The cable would extend into the sky, eventually reaching a satellite docking station orbiting in space.
Engineers hope the elevator will transport people and objects into space, and there have even been suggestions that it could be used to dispose of nuclear waste.
Another proposed idea is to use the elevator to place solar panels in space to provide power for homes on Earth.
Japanese scientists at the Japan Space Elevator Association are working seriously on the space-elevator project.
Association spokesman Akira Tsuchida said his organization was working with U.S.-based Spaceward Foundation and a European organization based in Luxembourg to develop an elevator design.
Tsuchida said the technology driving the race to build the first space elevator is the quickly developing material carbon nanotube.
It is lightweight and has a tensile strength 180 times stronger than that of a steel cable.
Currently, it is the only material with the potential to be strong enough to use to manufacture elevator cable, according to Tsuchida.
"At present we have a tether which is made of carbon nanotube, and has one-third or one-quarter of the strength required to make a space elevator. We expect that we will have strong enough cable in the 2020s or 2030s," Tsuchida said.
He said the most likely method of powering the elevator would be through the carbon nanotube cable.
`Space elevator` would take humans into orbit
A new space race is officially under way, and this one should have the sci-fi geeks salivating.
The project is a "space elevator," and some experts now believe that the concept is well within the bounds of possibility maybe even within our lifetimes.
A conference discussing developments in space elevator concepts is being held in Japan in November, and hundreds of engineers and scientists from Asia, Europe and the Americas are working to design the only lift that will take you directly to the one hundred-thousandth floor.
Despite these developments, you could be excused for thinking it all sounds a little far-fetched.
Indeed, if successfully built, the space elevator would be an unprecedented feat of human engineering.
A cable anchored to the Earth's surface, reaching tens of thousands of kilometers into space, balanced with a counterweight attached at the other end is the basic design for the elevator.
It is thought that inertia the physics theory stating that matter retains its velocity along a straight line so long as it is not acted upon by an external force will cause the cable to stay stretched taut, allowing the elevator to sit in geostationary orbit.
The cable would extend into the sky, eventually reaching a satellite docking station orbiting in space.
Engineers hope the elevator will transport people and objects into space, and there have even been suggestions that it could be used to dispose of nuclear waste.
Another proposed idea is to use the elevator to place solar panels in space to provide power for homes on Earth.
Japanese scientists at the Japan Space Elevator Association are working seriously on the space-elevator project.
Association spokesman Akira Tsuchida said his organization was working with U.S.-based Spaceward Foundation and a European organization based in Luxembourg to develop an elevator design.
Tsuchida said the technology driving the race to build the first space elevator is the quickly developing material carbon nanotube.
It is lightweight and has a tensile strength 180 times stronger than that of a steel cable.
Currently, it is the only material with the potential to be strong enough to use to manufacture elevator cable, according to Tsuchida.
"At present we have a tether which is made of carbon nanotube, and has one-third or one-quarter of the strength required to make a space elevator.
We expect that we will have strong enough cable in the 2020s or 2030s," Tsuchida said.
He said the most likely method of powering the elevator would be through the carbon nanotube cable.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Jankovic marks elevation with Stuttgart win
New world number one Jelena Jankovic won her second title in two weeks, defeating Nadia Petrova of Russia 6-4 6-3 on Sunday in the final of the Porsche Grand Prix.
The 23-year-old Serb also won the China Open last week and the Italian Open earlier this year.
"I am really proud of myself," she said. "I am playing with a lot of confidence and I played some good tennis this week."
Jankovic was assured of taking the top ranking Monday from Serena Williams regardless of the outcome of the final.
She already held the No. 1 spot for one week in August.
"I feel that every day I am getting better and better. I am really working on my game, I want to reach my full potential," Jankovic said.
Williams became the No. 1 after defeating Jankovic at the U.S. Open final, but the American will drop in the rankings after losing her opening match in Stuttgart.
Jankovic won her eighth career title after overcoming a brief lapse in the second set against the 18th-ranked Russian, who won the Stuttgart tournament in 2006.
After the win, Jankovic took a spin in the red Porsche 911 convertible given to the winner and appeared to have more trouble controlling the powerful car than the match.
Jankovic marks elevation with Stuttgart win
New world number one Jelena Jankovic won her second title in two weeks, defeating Nadia Petrova of Russia 6-4 6-3 on Sunday in the final of the Porsche Grand Prix.
The 23-year-old Serb also won the China Open last week and the Italian Open earlier this year.
"I am really proud of myself," she said. "I am playing with a lot of confidence and I played some good tennis this week."
Jankovic was assured of taking the top ranking Monday from Serena Williams regardless of the outcome of the final.
She already held the No. 1 spot for one week in August.
"I feel that every day I am getting better and better. I am really working on my game, I want to reach my full potential," Jankovic said.
Williams became the No. 1 after defeating Jankovic at the U.S. Open final, but the American will drop in the rankings after losing her opening match in Stuttgart.
Jankovic won her eighth career title after overcoming a brief lapse in the second set against the 18th-ranked Russian, who won the Stuttgart tournament in 2006.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
The Dow Jones on Monday closed below 10,000 points for the first time since 2004, according to an early tally, as U.S. stocks followed Europe and Asia.
Government bank bailouts on both sides of the Atlantic failed to stem slowdown fears and the effects rippled across continents.
The Dow slumped more than 800 points during afternoon trading but a late rally saw it close at 9,955.50.
The slides Monday come on the back of days of unrelenting financial turmoil and despite U.S. lawmakers agreeing a $700 billion bailout plan late Friday.
Germany's DAX 30 and France's CAC 40 also saw significant drops of between 7 percent and 9 percent.
The declines were led by the banking industry, with the mining and oil sectors also suffering.
"What we thought was going to be a contained domestic (U.S.) problem is definitely global," William Larkin, portfolio manager at Cabot Money Management, told CNNMoney. "It is now rooted in Europe and it looks like it is probably spreading to Asia."
In Russia, trading in shares was suspended after the RTS stock index fell more than 15 percent.
Iceland's exchange was also closed while the government rushed to draft a plan to deal with the financial turmoil's impact on its over-leveraged banking sector.
The news across the globe was uniformly grim.
Argentina's Merval Index of the Bolsa de Comercio de Buenos Aires tumbled more than 11 percent, driven principally by stocks linked to petroleum industry companies Tenaris and Petrobras.
Across the Asia-Pacific region markets closed roundly lower on Monday.
Back in New York, the Nasdaq and S&P were following the Dow down with slides of about four percent.
Oil prices were lower, with U.S. light crude oil for November delivery falling $6.07 to settle at $87.81 a barrel.
The contract briefly fell below $90 for the first time since February.
The Dow Jones on Monday closed below 10,000 points for the first time since 2004, according to an early tally, as U.S. stocks followed Europe and Asia.
Government bank bailouts on both sides of the Atlantic failed to stem slowdown fears and the effects rippled across continents.
The Dow slumped more than 800 points during afternoon trading but a late rally saw it close at 9,955.50.
The slides Monday come on the back of days of unrelenting financial turmoil and despite U.S. lawmakers agreeing a $700 billion bailout plan late Friday.
Germany's DAX 30 and France's CAC 40 also saw significant drops of between 7 percent and 9 percent.
The declines were led by the banking industry, with the mining and oil sectors also suffering.
"What we thought was going to be a contained domestic (U.S.) problem is definitely global," William Larkin, portfolio manager at Cabot Money Management, told CNNMoney. "It is now rooted in Europe and it looks like it is probably spreading to Asia."
In Russia, trading in shares was suspended after the RTS stock index fell more than 15 percent.
Iceland's exchange was also closed while the government rushed to draft a plan to deal with the financial turmoil's impact on its over-leveraged banking sector.
The news across the globe was uniformly grim.
Argentina's Merval Index of the Bolsa de Comercio de Buenos Aires tumbled more than 11 percent, driven principally by stocks linked to petroleum industry companies Tenaris and Petrobras.
Across the Asia-Pacific region markets closed roundly lower on Monday.
Back in New York, the Nasdaq and S&P were following the Dow down with slides of about four percent.
Oil prices were lower, with U.S. light crude oil for November delivery falling $6.07 to settle at $87.81 a barrel.
The contract briefly fell below $90 for the first time since February.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
A new national poll suggests Barack Obama is widening his lead over John McCain in the race for the White House.
The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll out Monday afternoon suggests that the country's financial crisis, record low approval ratings for President Bush and a drop in the public's perception of McCain's running mate could be contributing to Obama's gains.
Fifty-three percent of likely voters questioned in the poll say they are backing Obama for president, with 45 percent supporting McCain.
That 8-point lead is double the 4-point lead Obama held in the last CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll, taken in mid-September. Monday evening's CNN national Poll of Polls
incorporating our new CNN survey, as well as new tracking numbers from Gallup and Hotline taken October 3-5 shows Obama leading McCain by 6 points
President Bush may be part of the reason why Obama's making gains.
Only 24 percent of those polled approve of Bush's job as president, an all-time low for a CNN survey.
"Bush has now tied Richard Nixon's worst rating ever, taken in a poll just before he resigned in 1975, and is only 2 points higher than the worst presidential approval rating in history, Harry Truman's 22 percent mark in February 1952," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.
And that's bad news for McCain, because the poll suggests a growing number of Americans believe the Republican presidential nominee would have the same policies as the current Republican president.
Fifty-six percent say McCain's policies would be the same as Bush, up from 50 percent a month ago.
The financial crisis also appears to be contributing to Obama's increased lead in the poll.
A new national poll suggests Barack Obama is widening his lead over John McCain in the race for the White House.
The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll out Monday afternoon suggests that the country's financial crisis, record low approval ratings for President Bush and a drop in the public's perception of McCain's running mate could be contributing to Obama's gains.
Fifty-three percent of likely voters questioned in the poll say they are backing Obama for president, with 45 percent supporting McCain.
That 8-point lead is double the 4-point lead Obama held in the last CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll, taken in mid-September. Monday evening's CNN national Poll of Polls
incorporating our new CNN survey, as well as new tracking numbers from Gallup and Hotline taken October 3-5 shows Obama leading McCain by 6 points
President Bush may be part of the reason why Obama's making gains.
Only 24 percent of those polled approve of Bush's job as president, an all-time low for a CNN survey.
"Bush has now tied Richard Nixon's worst rating ever, taken in a poll just before he resigned in 1975, and is only 2 points higher than the worst presidential approval rating in history, Harry Truman's 22 percent mark in February 1952," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.
And that's bad news for McCain, because the poll suggests a growing number of Americans believe the Republican presidential nominee would have the same policies as the current Republican president.
Fifty-six percent say McCain's policies would be the same as Bush, up from 50 percent a month ago.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Two Frenchmen and a German won the 2008 Nobel Prize in medicine for their discoveries of viruses that cause HIV and cervical cancer, the organization's Web site said Monday.
Francoise Barre-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier of France were honored "for their discovery of human immunodeficiency virus."
The pair are recognized as the discoverers in 1983 of the virus that can expose people to AIDS.
Both have been involved in breakthroughs in screening for HIV and efforts to develop a vaccine against the virus.
Harald zur Hausen of Germany was cited "for his discovery of human papilloma viruses causing cervical cancer" in women.
The Nobel Laureates in medicine will receive their awards in Stockholm, Sweden on December 10.
They will split the $1.4 million prize.
The awards' Swedish founder, dynamite inventor Alfred Nobel, created the prizes in the categories of medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and peace.
Another award is made for economics.
The prizes include the money and an invitation to the prize ceremonies in Stockholm and Oslo on December 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death in 1896.
The winner of the most prestigious of the awards, the Peace prize, is expected to be announced on Friday.
Two Frenchmen and a German won the 2008 Nobel Prize in medicine for their discoveries of viruses that cause HIV and cervical cancer, the organization's Web site said Monday.
Francoise Barre-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier of France were honored "for their discovery of human immunodeficiency virus."
The pair are recognized as the discoverers in 1983 of the virus that can expose people to AIDS.
Both have been involved in breakthroughs in screening for HIV and efforts to develop a vaccine against the virus.
Harald zur Hausen of Germany was cited "for his discovery of human papilloma viruses causing cervical cancer" in women.
The Nobel Laureates in medicine will receive their awards in Stockholm, Sweden on December 10.
They will split the $1.4 million prize.
The awards' Swedish founder, dynamite inventor Alfred Nobel, created the prizes in the categories of medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and peace.
Another award is made for economics.
The prizes include the money and an invitation to the prize ceremonies in Stockholm and Oslo on December 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death in 1896.
The winner of the most prestigious of the awards, the Peace prize, is expected to be announced on Friday.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
1 in 4 mammals at risk of extinction
Nearly a fourth of the world's mammals are threatened with extinction, a leading international conservation group said Monday as it unveiled its latest global study of the problem.
At least 1,141 of the 5,487 mammals on Earth, or 21 percent, are endangered species, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) said at the start of its World Conservation Congress in Barcelona.
The problem appears to be getting worse since the IUCN's last comprehensive survey of mammals 12 years ago, the IUCN's Jan Schipper told CNN.
But he added that more study will be needed in the coming months.
The IUCN, in updating its trademark Red List of Threatened Species, emphasized that conservation efforts could help turn the tide.
"Hundreds of species could be lost as a result of our own actions, a frightening sign of what is happening to the ecosystems where they live," Julia Marton-Lefevre, IUCN's Director General, said in prepared statement.
"We must now set clear targets to reverse this trend." The IUCN study also showed that 5 percent of the mammals currently listed as facing possible extinction are showing signs of recovery in the wild.
And just 76 mammals have become extinct in the last 500 years, the IUCN said.
But the study said 188 mammals are critically endangered, including the Iberian Lynx, which has at most 143 adults remaining.
They are on a steady decline mainly because there's a shortage of their primary prey, the European Rabbit.
Another 29 species were listed as critically endangered and possibly extinct, such as Cuba's Little Earth Hutia, which has not been seen in 40 years, the IUCN said.
The Swiss-based IUCN, founded 60 years ago, has a membership of more than 80 nations and 800 non-governmental agencies like environmental groups, and also counts on 11,000 volunteer scientists around the globe.
The latest study citing the danger to mammals involved 1800 scientists in 130 nations.
1 in 4 mammals at risk of extinction
Nearly a fourth of the world's mammals are threatened with extinction, a leading international conservation group said Monday as it unveiled its latest global study of the problem.
At least 1,141 of the 5,487 mammals on Earth, or 21 percent, are endangered species, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) said at the start of its World Conservation Congress in Barcelona.
The problem appears to be getting worse since the IUCN's last comprehensive survey of mammals 12 years ago, the IUCN's Jan Schipper told CNN.
But he added that more study will be needed in the coming months.
The IUCN, in updating its trademark Red List of Threatened Species, emphasized that conservation efforts could help turn the tide.
"Hundreds of species could be lost as a result of our own actions, a frightening sign of what is happening to the ecosystems where they live," Julia Marton-Lefevre, IUCN's Director General, said in prepared statement.
"We must now set clear targets to reverse this trend." The IUCN study also showed that 5 percent of the mammals currently listed as facing possible extinction are showing signs of recovery in the wild.
And just 76 mammals have become extinct in the last 500 years, the IUCN said.
But the study said 188 mammals are critically endangered, including the Iberian Lynx, which has at most 143 adults remaining.
They are on a steady decline mainly because there's a shortage of their primary prey, the European Rabbit.
Another 29 species were listed as critically endangered and possibly extinct, such as Cuba's Little Earth Hutia, which has not been seen in 40 years, the IUCN said.
The Swiss-based IUCN, founded 60 years ago, has a membership of more than 80 nations and 800 non-governmental agencies like environmental groups, and also counts on 11,000 volunteer scientists around the globe.
The latest study citing the danger to mammals involved 1800 scientists in 130 nations.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
`Sex and the City` creator moves to `One Fifth Avenue`
Any woman who's ever watched "Sex and the City" has at some point tried to guess which of the characters she's most like.
The overly confident Samantha?
The slightly prudish Charlotte?
The overanalytical Carrie?
But an honest viewer probably would have to admit that she's similar to all of the characters in some way.
As a writer, that is Candace Bushnell's gift.
In her books, including "Sex and the City," "4 Blondes" and "Lipstick Jungle," Bushnell has given the pop culture world feminine role models with which it can identify.
And the best-selling author's newest book, "One Fifth Avenue," provides a few more including attorney Annalisa Rice, gossip columnist Enid Merle and gold digger Lola Fabrikant.
Although all of her characters are fictional, Bushnell said each one is based on a common type of person.
"I've always been interested in people. It's part of being a novelist, really, part of the job," she said.
"As a writer you can never know a real person as well as you know your characters."
Bushnell said a minor character or two often will appear in several of her books.
Other characters she develops in her head for years before releasing them on the literary scene.
For instance, she kept one fictional character, Schiffer Diamond, under wraps for 20 years, never seeing a place where she fit in
The story of a vicious scramble for a penthouse apartment once owned by a high-society queen shows the life of New York City women through the lens of where they live.
an actual building near Washington Square Park
Bushnell contrasts old and new money
and old and new media
`Sex and the City` creator moves to `One Fifth Avenue`
Any woman who's ever watched "Sex and the City" has at some point tried to guess which of the characters she's most like.
The overly confident Samantha?
The slightly prudish Charlotte?
The overanalytical Carrie?
But an honest viewer probably would have to admit that she's similar to all of the characters in some way.
As a writer, that is Candace Bushnell's gift.
In her books, including "Sex and the City," "4 Blondes" and "Lipstick Jungle," Bushnell has given the pop culture world feminine role models with which it can identify.
And the best-selling author's newest book, "One Fifth Avenue," provides a few more including attorney Annalisa Rice, gossip columnist Enid Merle and gold digger Lola Fabrikant.
Although all of her characters are fictional, Bushnell said each one is based on a common type of person.
"I've always been interested in people. It's part of being a novelist, really, part of the job," she said.
"As a writer you can never know a real person as well as you know your characters."
Bushnell said a minor character or two often will appear in several of her books.
Other characters she develops in her head for years before releasing them on the literary scene.
For instance, she kept one fictional character, Schiffer Diamond, under wraps for 20 years, never seeing a place where she fit in
The story of a vicious scramble for a penthouse apartment once owned by a high-society queen shows the life of New York City women through the lens of where they live.
an actual building near Washington Square Park
is an address that each character thinks will be her ticket to fortune.
Bushnell contrasts old and new money
and old and new media
in the course of her tale.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Norway have dropped plans to bid for the 2018 Winter Olympics after new estimates doubled the projected cost of hosting the games in the Arctic city of Tromsoe.
"It was a difficult decision," said Tove Paule, president of the Norwegian Olympic and Paralympic Committee and Confederation of Sports.
Last week, a government-commissioned study estimated that the cost of hosting the 2018 Games would be about 29 billion kroner ($4.9 billion), or nearly double the figure used by the Tromsoe organizing committee.
In March 2007, the Olympic committee picked Tromsoe, about 400 kilometers (250 miles) north of the Arctic Circle, as Norway's 2018 candidate city over the central Norwegian city of Trondheim and the capital Oslo, which hosted the 1952 Winter Games.
However, before Norway could formally bid for the games it would have needed economic guarantees from the Norwegian government and parliament.
The Olympic committee said it voted 9-3 Monday to withdraw its request for guarantees because the games would cost too much.
It also said there would be no Norwegian application from other cities to host the 2018 Games.
Among other cities around that world that have announced bids or interest in 2018 are Almaty, Kazakhstan;
France is considering a bid from either Grenoble, Nice or Annecy.
The International Olympic Committee will choose the 2018 host city in 2011.
Norway puts Winter Olympic bid in deep freeze
Norway have dropped plans to bid for the 2018 Winter Olympics after new estimates doubled the projected cost of hosting the games in the Arctic city of Tromsoe.
"It was a difficult decision," said Tove Paule, president of the Norwegian Olympic and Paralympic Committee and Confederation of Sports.
Last week, a government-commissioned study estimated that the cost of hosting the 2018 Games would be about 29 billion kroner ($4.9 billion), or nearly double the figure used by the Tromsoe organizing committee.
In March 2007, the Olympic committee picked Tromsoe, about 400 kilometers (250 miles) north of the Arctic Circle, as Norway's 2018 candidate city over the central Norwegian city of Trondheim and the capital Oslo, which hosted the 1952 Winter Games.
However, before Norway could formally bid for the games it would have needed economic guarantees from the Norwegian government and parliament.
The Olympic committee said it voted 9-3 Monday to withdraw its request for guarantees because the games would cost too much.
It also said there would be no Norwegian application from other cities to host the 2018 Games.
Among other cities around that world that have announced bids or interest in 2018 are Almaty, Kazakhstan;
France is considering a bid from either Grenoble, Nice or Annecy.
The International Olympic Committee will choose the 2018 host city in 2011.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
A meteor, or shooting star, is usually the size of a pebble, or even a grain of sand, burning up in the atmosphere.
On Monday night, an asteroid that may be the size of a car will likely burn up in the atmosphere over northeastern Africa, according to the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
But the planet is not in peril.
The asteroid, spotted by an Arizona observatory only Monday afternoon, will burn up in the upper atmosphere at about 10:46 p.m. ET (2:
It will not pose a threat to aircraft or people on the ground, but it may put on a show.
Called an asteroid while in space, astronomers refer to it as a meteor once it interacts with the atmosphere and begins to heat and glow.
While the meteor will burn up over Egypt and the Sudan, traveling from the southwest to the northeast, it could be visible from much of southern Europe, northeastern Africa, and the Middle East, according to Christine Pulliam of the Harvard center.
She said the meteor could appear, cloud-cover permitting, as bright as a full moon, and may produce a loud boom or popping noise.
Italy's University of Pisa calculated the odds are between 99.8 percent and 100 percent that the object, traveling at 28,800 mph, will encounter the Earth's atmosphere.
"We want to stress that this object is not a threat," said Dr. Timothy Spahr, director of the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center.
"We're excited since this is the first time we have issued a prediction that an object will enter Earth's atmosphere."
"We're eager for observations from astronomers near the asteroid's approach path," said Gareth Williams of the Minor Planet Center.
"We really hope that someone will manage to photograph it."
Asteroid to be harmless fireball over Earth
A meteor, or shooting star, is usually the size of a pebble, or even a grain of sand, burning up in the atmosphere.
On Monday night, an asteroid that may be the size of a car will likely burn up in the atmosphere over northeastern Africa, according to the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
But the planet is not in peril.
The asteroid, spotted by an Arizona observatory only Monday afternoon, will burn up in the upper atmosphere at about 10:46 p.m. ET (2:
It will not pose a threat to aircraft or people on the ground, but it may put on a show.
Called an asteroid while in space, astronomers refer to it as a meteor once it interacts with the atmosphere and begins to heat and glow.
While the meteor will burn up over Egypt and the Sudan, traveling from the southwest to the northeast, it could be visible from much of southern Europe, northeastern Africa, and the Middle East, according to Christine Pulliam of the Harvard center.
She said the meteor could appear, cloud-cover permitting, as bright as a full moon, and may produce a loud boom or popping noise.
Italy's University of Pisa calculated the odds are between 99.8 percent and 100 percent that the object, traveling at 28,800 mph, will encounter the Earth's atmosphere.
"We want to stress that this object is not a threat," said Dr. Timothy Spahr, director of the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center.
"We're excited since this is the first time we have issued a prediction that an object will enter Earth's atmosphere."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Fed chief sees crisis heading into 2009
The global financial crisis is likely to restrain the U.S. economy well into 2009, the Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Tuesday.
But he also said the unprecedented steps taken by the U.S. Treasury Department and the Fed were done in time to prevent more expensive and permanent damage to leading financial institutions.
In the UK, its finance secretary, Chancellor Alistair Darling is to make an announcement widely expected to be rescue measures for the country's battered banks before markets open in Europe Wednesday.
"We've been working closely with the governor of the Bank of England, with the Financial Services Authority and the financial institutions to put the banks on a longer-term, sound footing," said Darling.
British banks were battered Tuesday with the Royal Bank of Scotland sinking to a 15-year low.
European Union finance ministers agreed Tuesday to raise the minimum guarantee for bank deposits across member states.
As Bernanke spoke to a meeting of U.S. business leaders, the Federal Reserve announced a new program to help short-term business loans taking its closest step yet to lending directly to businesses.
But in New York, the statement did little to ease pressure on the markets with the Dow Jones closing down around 500 points.
The Nasdaq and S&P were suffering similar falls of about 5.75 percent.
The Federal Reserve's latest intervention came as the Treasury Department scrambled to put in place a $700 billion bailout of the financial system enacted on Friday.
Under the program announced Tuesday morning, the Fed will purchase three-month unsecured and asset-backed commercial paper directly from eligible issuers.
The program is slated to expire in April 2009.
Fed chief sees crisis heading into 2009
The global financial crisis is likely to restrain the U.S. economy well into 2009, the Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Tuesday.
But he also said the unprecedented steps taken by the U.S. Treasury Department and the Fed were done in time to prevent more expensive and permanent damage to leading financial institutions.
In the UK, its finance secretary, Chancellor Alistair Darling is to make an announcement widely expected to be rescue measures for the country's battered banks before markets open in Europe Wednesday.
"We've been working closely with the governor of the Bank of England, with the Financial Services Authority and the financial institutions to put the banks on a longer-term, sound footing," said Darling.
British banks were battered Tuesday with the Royal Bank of Scotland sinking to a 15-year low.
European Union finance ministers agreed Tuesday to raise the minimum guarantee for bank deposits across member states.
As Bernanke spoke to a meeting of U.S. business leaders, the Federal Reserve announced a new program to help short-term business loans taking its closest step yet to lending directly to businesses.
But in New York, the statement did little to ease pressure on the markets with the Dow Jones closing down around 500 points.
The Nasdaq and S&P were suffering similar falls of about 5.75 percent.
The Federal Reserve's latest intervention came as the Treasury Department scrambled to put in place a $700 billion bailout of the financial system enacted on Friday.
Under the program announced Tuesday morning, the Fed will purchase three-month unsecured and asset-backed commercial paper directly from eligible issuers.
The program is slated to expire in April 2009.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Deaths as Thai police, protesters clash
Two people died Tuesday when Thai police clashed with thousands of anti-government protesters who barricaded Parliament and prevented lawmakers from leaving.
One person died after a car bomb exploded near the protest area, officials said, and Ramathibhodi Hospital officials confirmed that a woman died from severe chest injuries suffered in the clash with police.
More than 420 people have been hurt, hospital officials said.
A deputy prime minister who was charged with negotiating with the demonstrators resigned over the crackdown.
The protesters first prevented lawmakers from entering Parliament to hear newly sworn-in Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat give his first speech to the legislative body.
After the sparsely attended session some lawmakers were unable to get through the barricades and some opposition party members boycotted
the legislators were temporarily prevented from leaving by demonstrators who locked the exits.
Authorities flew in three helicopters to pluck Somchai to safety.
Paramedics say they expect the injury toll to rise as demonstrators continued to clash with police.
The anti-government protesters are trying to lay siege to other government buildings near the Parliament in the capital city, Bangkok.
Many set up make-shift fortresses of tires and barbed wires on city streets and tried to ward off an advancing army of policemen in riot gear.
Deaths as Thai police, protesters clash
Two people died Tuesday when Thai police clashed with thousands of anti-government protesters who barricaded Parliament and prevented lawmakers from leaving.
One person died after a car bomb exploded near the protest area, officials said, and Ramathibhodi Hospital officials confirmed that a woman died from severe chest injuries suffered in the clash with police.
More than 420 people have been hurt, hospital officials said.
A deputy prime minister who was charged with negotiating with the demonstrators resigned over the crackdown.
The protesters first prevented lawmakers from entering Parliament to hear newly sworn-in Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat give his first speech to the legislative body.
After the sparsely attended session some lawmakers were unable to get through the barricades and some opposition party members boycotted
the legislators were temporarily prevented from leaving by demonstrators who locked the exits.
Authorities flew in three helicopters to pluck Somchai to safety.
Paramedics say they expect the injury toll to rise as demonstrators continued to clash with police.
The anti-government protesters are trying to lay siege to other government buildings near the Parliament in the capital city, Bangkok.
Many set up make-shift fortresses of tires and barbed wires on city streets and tried to ward off an advancing army of policemen in riot gear.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Mercury, up close and personal:
A U.S. spacecraft beamed hundreds of photos of Mercury back to Earth on Tuesday after a close encounter with the planet closest to the sun.
The images show scientists never-before-seen landscapes on the planet's surface.
Four of the high-resolution images were made public at 10 a.m. ET Tuesday, posted by NASA on its MESSENGER Web site.
Taken during a three-hour span before and after the spacecraft's closest approach to Mercury, the photos offer detailed new glimpses of the barren planet.
One shows the bright Kuiper crater just south of the center of the planet.
Most of the terrain east of Kuiper had never before been photographed.
A close-up of Mercury's surface, the highest-resolution color image ever taken of the planet, shows a round basin about 83 miles in diameter and named Polygnotus, after a Greek painter.
Another close-up captures a region between the sunlit day side and dark night side of the planet, where shadows are long and prominent.
appear to crosscut each other on the planet's surface.
The easternmost scarp also cuts through a crater, meaning it formed after the impact that created the crater.
The MESSENGER spacecraft, launched in 2004, buzzed 124 miles (200 km) above Mercury's surface Monday at almost 15,000 mph.
It's the second Mercury flyby for MESSENGER formally known as the Mercury Surface, Space, Environment, Geochemistry and Ranging craft.
MESSENGER's major goal is to become the first spacecraft to enter Mercury's orbit.
A U.S. spacecraft beamed hundreds of photos of Mercury back to Earth on Tuesday after a close encounter with the planet closest to the sun.
The images show scientists never-before-seen landscapes on the planet's surface.
Four of the high-resolution images were made public at 10 a.m. ET Tuesday, posted by NASA on its MESSENGER Web site.
Taken during a three-hour span before and after the spacecraft's closest approach to Mercury, the photos offer detailed new glimpses of the barren planet.
One shows the bright Kuiper crater just south of the center of the planet.
Most of the terrain east of Kuiper had never before been photographed.
A close-up of Mercury's surface, the highest-resolution color image ever taken of the planet, shows a round basin about 83 miles in diameter and named Polygnotus, after a Greek painter.
Another close-up captures a region between the sunlit day side and dark night side of the planet, where shadows are long and prominent.
appear to crosscut each other on the planet's surface.
The easternmost scarp also cuts through a crater, meaning it formed after the impact that created the crater.
The MESSENGER spacecraft, launched in 2004, buzzed 124 miles (200 km) above Mercury's surface Monday at almost 15,000 mph.
It's the second Mercury flyby for MESSENGER formally known as the Mercury Surface, Space, Environment, Geochemistry and Ranging craft.
MESSENGER's major goal is to become the first spacecraft to enter Mercury's orbit.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Skinny dipper invades moat around Japan`s Imperial Palace
Police have apprehended a Western man who went skinny dipping in a moat ringing the Imperial Palace in a busy Tokyo business district, attracting a huge crowd, officials said Tuesday.
The naked middle-aged man jumped into the moat, then threw rocks and splashed water at two policemen who chased him in a rowing boat, a Tokyo Metropolitan Police official said on condition of anonymity, citing protocol.
The police official did not know the man's name or nationality.
Public broadcaster NHK and Kyodo News agency said the man is believed to be a 40-year-old Briton living in Spain who visited the moat with several Spanish friends.
Local TV footage showed the man swimming around the moat as the police chased him with a long stick, attracting a crowd of onlookers.
He was in the water for about an hour.
He eventually got out of the water and climbed a stone wall only to fall into the hands of police waiting for him.
The police official said the man was detained for questioning, but could not confirm if he was arrested or charged.
Broadcasters were careful to meet Japan's obscenity laws once he had climbed out of the water, masking images of his private parts with a blurry dot.
The police official said he had never heard of a skinny dipper causing a stir in the palace moat before.
"If you know what is within the moat, you won't go skinny dipping there," he said, referring to Emperor Akihito, who lives in the palace.
The moat is separated from the emperor's residence by high stone walls and woods.
A palace official said the emperor was in the palace, but it was unlikely he saw the nude swimmer.
Skinny dipper invades moat around Japan`s Imperial Palace
Police have apprehended a Western man who went skinny dipping in a moat ringing the Imperial Palace in a busy Tokyo business district, attracting a huge crowd, officials said Tuesday.
The naked middle-aged man jumped into the moat, then threw rocks and splashed water at two policemen who chased him in a rowing boat, a Tokyo Metropolitan Police official said on condition of anonymity, citing protocol.
The police official did not know the man's name or nationality.
Public broadcaster NHK and Kyodo News agency said the man is believed to be a 40-year-old Briton living in Spain who visited the moat with several Spanish friends.
Local TV footage showed the man swimming around the moat as the police chased him with a long stick, attracting a crowd of onlookers.
He was in the water for about an hour.
He eventually got out of the water and climbed a stone wall only to fall into the hands of police waiting for him.
The police official said the man was detained for questioning, but could not confirm if he was arrested or charged.
Broadcasters were careful to meet Japan's obscenity laws once he had climbed out of the water, masking images of his private parts with a blurry dot.
The police official said he had never heard of a skinny dipper causing a stir in the palace moat before.
"If you know what is within the moat, you won't go skinny dipping there," he said, referring to Emperor Akihito, who lives in the palace.
The moat is separated from the emperor's residence by high stone walls and woods.
He also spoke on condition of anonymity in accordance with palace policy.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Bush`s life `bigger than fiction`
George W. Bush's ascent to the presidency was "bigger than fiction," director Oliver Stone told "Larry King Live" Monday night, describing his soon-to-be released biopic, "W."
Stone, whose film opens October 17 less than three weeks before the November 4 presidential election said he was fascinated by Bush, "a bum at the age of 40 years old."
"He turned his whole life around and through evangelism and through his faith and his family and he became president," Stone said.
"It's a great fantasy and it happened. It's bigger than fiction," said Stone.
Stone said while he supports Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee in the presidential race, his personal politics didn't influence the film.
"I couldn't make a movie with hate or malice. There is none in this movie.
I see the guy as more like John Wayne, which is to say I don't like his politics but he's endearing in a strange, goofy, awkward way, and he did capture the imagination of the country," he said.
He's received Best Director Oscars for "Platoon," which also won an Oscar for Best Picture (1986), and "Born on the Fourth of July" (1989).
He also won an Academy Award for his screenplay adaptation of "Midnight Express" (1978).
From "JFK" to "Natural Born Killers," Stone's films have made him a lightning rod for controversy
and "W" is unlikely to change that.
In the film, he draws a contrast between President Bush and his father, former President George H.W. Bush, whom Stone says was a "far more diplomatic" commander in chief. "We went to war in Iraq and he did not go all the way," referring to the elder Bush.
"So that becomes a big issue in the movie. He didn't get rid of Saddam then and the son has to be feels that he has to act stronger than the father because of emotional reasons and there's a lot of father-son subcurrent in the movie.
He is challenged by his father and he wants to outdo him, he wants to be stronger than him."
Stone and Bush started their freshman years at Yale University together, but Stone said he didn't graduate with Bush because he went to Vietnam.
"I met him years later," Stone said.
During the interview, Stone drew parallels between Bush and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, now Sen. John McCain's Republican running mate.
she's along the lines of 'Dubya' [George W. Bush] a bit. That same kind of folksy, common man approach," he said.
it got Dubya elected. He did very well with that."
And, even though he and McCain are both Vietnam veterans, he opposes McCain's views on war and disagrees with the candidate's positions on Iraq and Afghanistan.
Still, Stone said, "Whoever wins this, Obama or McCain, it's going to be living in the shadow of Dubya.
Stone noted that Bush has earned a historically low approval rating
"He's a young man, Mr. Bush.
He may have low polls, but he's going to be around."
Bush`s life `bigger than fiction`
George W. Bush's ascent to the presidency was "bigger than fiction," director Oliver Stone told "Larry King Live" Monday night, describing his soon-to-be released biopic, "W."
Stone, whose film opens October 17 less than three weeks before the November 4 presidential election said he was fascinated by Bush, "a bum at the age of 40 years old."
"He turned his whole life around and through evangelism and through his faith and his family and he became president," Stone said.
"It's a great fantasy and it happened. It's bigger than fiction," said Stone.
Stone said while he supports Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee in the presidential race, his personal politics didn't influence the film.
"I couldn't make a movie with hate or malice. There is none in this movie.
I see the guy as more like John Wayne, which is to say I don't like his politics but he's endearing in a strange, goofy, awkward way, and he did capture the imagination of the country," he said.
He's received Best Director Oscars for "Platoon," which also won an Oscar for Best Picture (1986), and "Born on the Fourth of July" (1989).
He also won an Academy Award for his screenplay adaptation of "Midnight Express" (1978).
From "JFK" to "Natural Born Killers," Stone's films have made him a lightning rod for controversy
and "W" is unlikely to change that.
In the film, he draws a contrast between President Bush and his father, former President George H.W. Bush, whom Stone says was a "far more diplomatic" commander in chief. "We went to war in Iraq and he did not go all the way," referring to the elder Bush.
"So that becomes a big issue in the movie. He didn't get rid of Saddam then and the son has to be feels that he has to act stronger than the father because of emotional reasons and there's a lot of father-son subcurrent in the movie.
He is challenged by his father and he wants to outdo him, he wants to be stronger than him."
Stone and Bush started their freshman years at Yale University together, but Stone said he didn't graduate with Bush because he went to Vietnam.
"I met him years later," Stone said.
During the interview, Stone drew parallels between Bush and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, now Sen. John McCain's Republican running mate.
she's along the lines of 'Dubya' [George W. Bush] a bit.
That same kind of folksy, common man approach," he said.
it got Dubya elected.
He did very well with that."
I think he changed the world.
I think we're going to be with him for a generation."
He may have low polls, but he's going to be around."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Dalai Lama to resume overseas travel
Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama has been cleared to resume international travel after a medical checkup showed he has recovered from a recent abdominal ailment, his spokesman said.
He'll be starting his international travels at the end of this month," spokesman Tenzin Taklha told CNN in New Delhi.
The Dalai Lama underwent the medical examination in the Indian capital of New Delhi as a follow-up to his hospitalization in August in Mumbai for abdominal discomfort.
Doctors have advised him to rest before resuming his travel schedule, his spokesman said.
Dalai Lama to resume overseas travel
Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama has been cleared to resume international travel after a medical checkup showed he has recovered from a recent abdominal ailment, his spokesman said.
He'll be starting his international travels at the end of this month," spokesman Tenzin Taklha told CNN in New Delhi.
The Dalai Lama underwent the medical examination in the Indian capital of New Delhi as a follow-up to his hospitalization in August in Mumbai for abdominal discomfort.
Doctors have advised him to rest before resuming his travel schedule, his spokesman said.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
English clubs warned over $5.2B debt mountain
The head of England's Football Association believes that the global credit crisis could force one of the country's top teams into bankruptcy.
FA chairman David Triesman said on Tuesday it is impossible to know the true health of the clubs because their finances are not public.
Triesman urged an end to the culture of secrecy surrounding the finances of English football clubs, who he said now have debts totaling about 3 billion pounds ($5.2 billion;
Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal are believed to account for about a third of that debt.
Triesman's comments came 24 hours after FIFA president Sepp Blatter warned that foreign ownership of Premier League clubs is running "out of control" and called for tighter restrictions over who is permitted to invest in football.
Speaking to the Leaders in Football Conference at Chelsea's Stamford Bridge, Triesman drew a parallel with the recent collapse of Wall Street investment bank Lehman Brothers.
"If somebody had said to me, 'Did I have a genuine fear that Lehman Brothers would go bust? ' I'd say, 'No I didn't,"' Triesman said.
"What I know is we are in a very much more volatile position in which debt is not only a problem in terms of its volume, it's a problem because those who own the debt are themselves now often in serious problems. Your fate isn't in your own hands."
Given the turmoil currently sweeping through financial markets, Triesman said that he is braced for one of England's top clubs going out of business, and demanded greater financial transparency from the owners.
"The debt mountain as we now know is owned around the world and therefore part of the value of the club is owned around the world, often by financial institutions, some of which are in terrible health," Triesman said.
West Ham United is a wonderful club and a well run company," Fridgeirsson said.
Debt to a degree is healthy.
Seven Premier League clubs are in the hands of foreign owners:
The head of England's Football Association believes that the global credit crisis could force one of the country's top teams into bankruptcy.
FA chairman David Triesman said on Tuesday it is impossible to know the true health of the clubs because their finances are not public.
Triesman urged an end to the culture of secrecy surrounding the finances of English football clubs, who he said now have debts totaling about 3 billion pounds ($5.2 billion;
Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal are believed to account for about a third of that debt.
Triesman's comments came 24 hours after FIFA president Sepp Blatter warned that foreign ownership of Premier League clubs is running "out of control" and called for tighter restrictions over who is permitted to invest in football.
Speaking to the Leaders in Football Conference at Chelsea's Stamford Bridge, Triesman drew a parallel with the recent collapse of Wall Street investment bank Lehman Brothers.
"If somebody had said to me, 'Did I have a genuine fear that Lehman Brothers would go bust? ' I'd say, 'No I didn't,"' Triesman said.
"What I know is we are in a very much more volatile position in which debt is not only a problem in terms of its volume, it's a problem because those who own the debt are themselves now often in serious problems. Your fate isn't in your own hands."
Given the turmoil currently sweeping through financial markets, Triesman said that he is braced for one of England's top clubs going out of business, and demanded greater financial transparency from the owners.
The club has already lost its shirt sponsor after XL Leisure Group, in which Gudmundsson also had a stake, collapsed.
"I don't think there's any reason to be too pessimistic.
West Ham United is a wonderful club and a well run company," Fridgeirsson said.
Debt to a degree is healthy.
Triesman also called for a review of the "fit and proper persons" test that determines who may own English clubs.
"You get people turning up with banker's guarantees who are not interested in football and then they lose interest in the clubs and leave.
What happens to the clubs then?
" Blatter was quoted in The Times on Tuesday.
You have to prove your link with the area," he later told BBC Sport.
Seven Premier League clubs are in the hands of foreign owners:
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
An American physicist and two physicists from Japan will share this year's Nobel Prize in Physics, the Nobel Foundation announced Tuesday.
Yoichiro Nambu of the University of Chicago will take half the prize for "the discovery of the mechanism of spontaneous broken symmetry in subatomic physics."
Makoto Kobayashi of the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization and Toshihide Maskawa of Kyoto University will each receive a quarter of the prize.
They were cited for "the discovery of the origin of the broken symmetry which predicts the existence of at least three families of quarks in nature."
The 514-member Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences selects the Nobel laureates in Physics from a list of candidates prepared by a special committee.
An American physicist and two physicists from Japan will share this year's Nobel Prize in Physics, the Nobel Foundation announced Tuesday.
Yoichiro Nambu of the University of Chicago will take half the prize for "the discovery of the mechanism of spontaneous broken symmetry in subatomic physics."
Makoto Kobayashi of the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization and Toshihide Maskawa of Kyoto University will each receive a quarter of the prize.
They were cited for "the discovery of the origin of the broken symmetry which predicts the existence of at least three families of quarks in nature."
The 514-member Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences selects the Nobel laureates in Physics from a list of candidates prepared by a special committee.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Europe's financial markets suffered more heavy losses Wednesday despite the world's leading economies slashing interest rates to tackle the global financial crisis.
Markets in Britain, France and Germany closed well down despite the coordinated rate cuts led by the United States.
Wall Street, where good news was needed after a 500-point drop Tuesday, spent most of the afternoon about level but closed around 200 points down.
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Wednesday that more economic pain looms but he urged "patience" and said the federal government will use all tools necessary to support banks.
The U.S. Federal Reserve cut its main rate by a half percentage point, with the central banks of China, Britain, Sweden, Switzerland and the European Central Bank all following suit with their own cuts.
The Fed reduced its key rate from 2 percent to 1.5 percent.
In Europe, the Bank of England cut its rate by half a point to 4.5 percent, while the European Central Bank dropped its rate to 3.75 percent.
Soon after the cuts the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned the world was "entering a major downturn" and that "many advanced economies are close to or moving into recession."
The IMF's World Economic Outlook, released Wednesday, called recent blows to the global economy "the most dangerous financial shock in mature financial markets since the 1930s."
Global growth was projected to slow substantially in 2008, and a modest recovery would only begin later in 2009, it said.
Europe's financial markets suffered more heavy losses Wednesday despite the world's leading economies slashing interest rates to tackle the global financial crisis.
Markets in Britain, France and Germany closed well down despite the coordinated rate cuts led by the United States.
Wall Street, where good news was needed after a 500-point drop Tuesday, spent most of the afternoon about level but closed around 200 points down.
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Wednesday that more economic pain looms but he urged "patience" and said the federal government will use all tools necessary to support banks.
The U.S. Federal Reserve cut its main rate by a half percentage point, with the central banks of China, Britain, Sweden, Switzerland and the European Central Bank all following suit with their own cuts.
The Fed reduced its key rate from 2 percent to 1.5 percent.
In Europe, the Bank of England cut its rate by half a point to 4.5 percent, while the European Central Bank dropped its rate to 3.75 percent.
Soon after the cuts the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned the world was "entering a major downturn" and that "many advanced economies are close to or moving into recession."
The IMF's World Economic Outlook, released Wednesday, called recent blows to the global economy "the most dangerous financial shock in mature financial markets since the 1930s."
Global growth was projected to slow substantially in 2008, and a modest recovery would only begin later in 2009, it said.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Obama picks up second debate win, poll says
A national poll of debate watchers suggests that Sen. Barack Obama won the second presidential debate.
Fifty-four percent of those questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey conducted after the debate ended said that Obama did the best job in the debate, with 30 percent saying Sen. John McCain performed better.
According to the poll, 64 percent had a favorable opinion of Obama after the debate, up 4 points from before the event.
Fifty-one percent of those polled had a favorable opinion of McCain after the debate, unchanged from before its start.
A majority said Obama seemed to be the stronger leader during the debate, 54 percent to 43 percent, and by a more than 2-to-1 ratio viewers thought Obama was more likable during the debate.
CNN polling director Keating Holland said Obama made some gains on the leadership issue even before the debate.
"McCain's advantage on leadership shrunk from 19 points in September to just 5 points this weekend," Holland said. "If Obama can use this debate to convince Americans that he is a stronger leader than McCain, he may be difficult to defeat."
A majority of debate watchers polled thought Obama was more intelligent, by a 57 percent to 25 percent margin over McCain.
Debate watchers also thought Obama more clearly expressed his views by a 2-to-1 ratio, 60 percent to 30 percent.
Obama picks up second debate win, poll says
A national poll of debate watchers suggests that Sen. Barack Obama won the second presidential debate.
Fifty-four percent of those questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey conducted after the debate ended said that Obama did the best job in the debate, with 30 percent saying Sen. John McCain performed better.
According to the poll, 64 percent had a favorable opinion of Obama after the debate, up 4 points from before the event.
Fifty-one percent of those polled had a favorable opinion of McCain after the debate, unchanged from before its start.
A majority said Obama seemed to be the stronger leader during the debate, 54 percent to 43 percent, and by a more than 2-to-1 ratio viewers thought Obama was more likable during the debate.
CNN polling director Keating Holland said Obama made some gains on the leadership issue even before the debate.
"McCain's advantage on leadership shrunk from 19 points in September to just 5 points this weekend," Holland said. "If Obama can use this debate to convince Americans that he is a stronger leader than McCain, he may be difficult to defeat."
A majority of debate watchers polled thought Obama was more intelligent, by a 57 percent to 25 percent margin over McCain.
Debate watchers also thought Obama more clearly expressed his views by a 2-to-1 ratio, 60 percent to 30 percent.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
How to lower your cholesterol with better eating
About one in two American adults has borderline or high cholesterol levels, which increase one's risk of heart attack and cardiovascular disease.
Statins, medications that lower levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, are now among the most prescribed drugs in the country (and the world).
But medication is only part of the solution:
To keep cholesterol under control, maintaining a healthy weight and diet is just as important as taking a daily pill.
The guidelines for treating high cholesterol from the National Cholesterol Education Program recommend that patients try to lower their cholesterol through Therapeutic Lifestyle Changes (TLC), which include exercise and a healthy diet, before starting a statin.
Lowering your cholesterol through eating habits and exercise means you can avoid the risk of side effects from medication entirely.
Indeed, the only side effects of TLC you'll encounter are more energy, weight loss, and better overall health.
To help decrease your cholesterol without a statin or to supplement the statin you're already taking follow these guidelines from the TLC diet.
Reduce saturated fat to no more than 7 percent of total calories, and cholesterol to no more than 200 milligrams per day
If you're overweight, reduce calories and work toward your ideal body weight
Women should strive to keep their waist circumference below 35 inches and men below 40.
If you are overweight, losing just 10 percent of your body weight can provide a significant health improvement.
Add 5 to 10 grams of soluble fiber a day
Soluble fiber is found in oats, beans, fruits, and vegetables.
Soluble fiber helps trap cholesterol in the digestive tract so that it passes through your body rather than getting into your bloodstream.
Eating oatmeal breakfasts and having whole fruits as snacks can get you closer to this goal.
Add 2 grams of plant stanols and sterols to your daily diet
Plant stanols and sterols are natural compounds found in vegetable oils, nuts, and seeds that compete with cholesterol for absorption into the bloodstream from the gastrointestinal tract and thus decrease the amount of cholesterol that makes it into your system.
For best results, eat foods containing plant stanols and sterols with meals twice a day.
Practice therapeutic lifestyle changes
How to lower your cholesterol with better eating
About one in two American adults has borderline or high cholesterol levels, which increase one's risk of heart attack and cardiovascular disease.
Statins, medications that lower levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, are now among the most prescribed drugs in the country (and the world).
But medication is only part of the solution:
To keep cholesterol under control, maintaining a healthy weight and diet is just as important as taking a daily pill.
The guidelines for treating high cholesterol from the National Cholesterol Education Program recommend that patients try to lower their cholesterol through Therapeutic Lifestyle Changes (TLC), which include exercise and a healthy diet, before starting a statin.
Lowering your cholesterol through eating habits and exercise means you can avoid the risk of side effects from medication entirely.
Indeed, the only side effects of TLC you'll encounter are more energy, weight loss, and better overall health.
To help decrease your cholesterol without a statin or to supplement the statin you're already taking follow these guidelines from the TLC diet.
Reduce saturated fat to no more than 7 percent of total calories, and cholesterol to no more than 200 milligrams per day
If you're overweight, reduce calories and work toward your ideal body weight
Women should strive to keep their waist circumference below 35 inches and men below 40.
If you are overweight, losing just 10 percent of your body weight can provide a significant health improvement.
Add 5 to 10 grams of soluble fiber a day
Soluble fiber is found in oats, beans, fruits, and vegetables.
Soluble fiber helps trap cholesterol in the digestive tract so that it passes through your body rather than getting into your bloodstream.
Eating oatmeal breakfasts and having whole fruits as snacks can get you closer to this goal.
Add 2 grams of plant stanols and sterols to your daily diet
Practice therapeutic lifestyle changes
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
18 killed in Nepal tourist plane crash
A small plane carrying tourists from Germany and Australia hit a fence and caught fire in Nepal's Everest region Wednesday morning, killing 18 of 19 people on board, officials said.
The plane carried 16 passengers including 12 German tourists, two Australians and two Nepalis, as well as three crew members.
"Only one crew member survived," said Binaya Shakya of Yeti Airlines, the company that operated the plane.
The plane was headed from the capital city, Kathmandu, to Lukla airport, about 155 miles (250 km) to the east.
It caught fire after hitting an airport fence as it was trying to land at the airport, the country's Civil Aviation Authority said.
The airline said the airport, at an altitude of about 9,186 feet (2,800 meters) was suddenly enveloped by fog when the plane was landing.
"Suddenly there was a big bang, and flames came out of the plane," Mohan Adhikari, general manager of the Katmandu airport, told The Associated Press.
"All the passengers waiting for planes ran to help douse the flames, but the passengers were already dead."
a walk of several days.
18 killed in Nepal tourist plane crash
A small plane carrying tourists from Germany and Australia hit a fence and caught fire in Nepal's Everest region Wednesday morning, killing 18 of 19 people on board, officials said.
The plane carried 16 passengers including 12 German tourists, two Australians and two Nepalis, as well as three crew members.
"Only one crew member survived," said Binaya Shakya of Yeti Airlines, the company that operated the plane.
The plane was headed from the capital city, Kathmandu, to Lukla airport, about 155 miles (250 km) to the east.
It caught fire after hitting an airport fence as it was trying to land at the airport, the country's Civil Aviation Authority said.
The airline said the airport, at an altitude of about 9,186 feet (2,800 meters) was suddenly enveloped by fog when the plane was landing.
"Suddenly there was a big bang, and flames came out of the plane," Mohan Adhikari, general manager of the Katmandu airport, told The Associated Press.
"All the passengers waiting for planes ran to help douse the flames, but the passengers were already dead."
Tourists fly to Lukla and trek to the Everest Base Camp at about 15,700 feet (4,800 meters)
a walk of several days.
October is the peak tourist season in the country.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Britain on Wednesday announced an $87.4 billion rescue package for its troubled banking sector.
The package will partly nationalize banks in an effort to restore stability.
The plan will inject money into the banking system to provide immediate relief and free up lending, a Treasury statement said.
The government will give the largest banks £25 billion ($43.7 billion) with another £25 billion available if desired.
The government will also guarantee the lending that banks make to each other, the Treasury said.
"This is not a time for conventional thinking or outdated dogma, but for the fresh and innovative intervention that gets to the heart of the problem," British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said.
Brown and finance minister Alistair Darling said the plan would ensure the flow of money between banks and their customers. They said it would "unjam" any potential freeze by lenders jittery about global markets and liquidity.
Darling made his announcement shortly before markets opened in Britain. London's FTSE 100 opened down 2.5 percent.
The chancellor said it was important for the British government to "send a clear message" that it can step in and help the financial industry amid the global economic crisis.
Britain on Wednesday announced an $87.4 billion rescue package for its troubled banking sector.
The package will partly nationalize banks in an effort to restore stability.
The plan will inject money into the banking system to provide immediate relief and free up lending, a Treasury statement said.
The government will give the largest banks £25 billion ($43.7 billion) with another £25 billion available if desired.
The government will also guarantee the lending that banks make to each other, the Treasury said.
"This is not a time for conventional thinking or outdated dogma, but for the fresh and innovative intervention that gets to the heart of the problem," British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said.
Brown and finance minister Alistair Darling said the plan would ensure the flow of money between banks and their customers.
They said it would "unjam" any potential freeze by lenders jittery about global markets and liquidity.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Flight of the penguins:
Rescuers return wayward birds home
Flying penguins are unusual.
Especially when they fly on a C-130 Hercules military plane.
In Brazil, 373 young Magellanic penguins were rescued, rehabilitated and released last weekend after their search for food left them stranded, hundreds of miles from their usual feeding grounds.
Animal-welfare activists loaded the birds onto a Brazilian air force cargo plane and flew them 1,550 miles to the country's southern coast, where a crowd of onlookers celebrated as the penguins marched back into the sea.
"We are overjoyed to see these penguins waddle back to the ocean and have a second chance at life," said veterinarian Dr. Valeria Ruoppolo of the International Fund for Animal Welfare, the group that oversaw the rescue.
Magellanic penguins are warm-weather birds that breed in large colonies in southern Argentina and Chile.
The young animals then migrate north between March and September, following their favorite fish, the anchovy.
The birds are named after Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, who first saw them in 1519.
But changes in currents and water temperature apparently confused the juvenile birds, who strayed too far north to the warm beaches of Salvador, Brazil, 870 miles north of Sao Paulo, Brazil. "There was not much of a food supply. The birds were stranded and emaciated.
"Fewer than 20 penguins usually wash ashore, but with such a large number, we had to really understand their biology and learn how to treat them."
Ruoppolo, who is also the emergency relief officer for IFAW, has a lot of experience saving penguins and other animals injured in oil spills.
Last week she worked with conservation groups and volunteers to save as many of the birds as possible.
"We showed them how to stabilize the animals, to feed them and give them proper care," she said.
Healthy Magellanic penguins grow to about 27 inches tall and weigh about 9 pounds.
and the Brazilian military were supportive throughout the unusual relocation mission. On Friday, the penguins were loaded into special crates and put onto the plane for the journey to Pelotas, in southern Brazil.
After their first-ever flight, the birds went on a truck ride to the Center for Recovery of Marine Animals, where they rested for 24 hours.
The birds released at Cassino Beach the next day had to meet very specific health criteria, said Ruoppolo.
The youngsters had some adult supervision for their return to the wild.
"For all species you have animals that die within the first year," she said.
While the Magellanic penguin population is not in jeopardy because of this one event, Ruoppolo said there are other threats, primarily from overfishing. Flight of the penguins:
Rescuers return wayward birds home
Flying penguins are unusual.
Especially when they fly on a C-130 Hercules military plane.
In Brazil, 373 young Magellanic penguins were rescued, rehabilitated and released last weekend after their search for food left them stranded, hundreds of miles from their usual feeding grounds.
Animal-welfare activists loaded the birds onto a Brazilian air force cargo plane and flew them 1,550 miles to the country's southern coast, where a crowd of onlookers celebrated as the penguins marched back into the sea.
"We are overjoyed to see these penguins waddle back to the ocean and have a second chance at life," said veterinarian Dr. Valeria Ruoppolo of the International Fund for Animal Welfare, the group that oversaw the rescue.
Magellanic penguins are warm-weather birds that breed in large colonies in southern Argentina and Chile.
The young animals then migrate north between March and September, following their favorite fish, the anchovy.
The birds are named after Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, who first saw them in 1519.
But changes in currents and water temperature apparently confused the juvenile birds, who strayed too far north to the warm beaches of Salvador, Brazil, 870 miles north of Sao Paulo, Brazil. "There was not much of a food supply. The birds were stranded and emaciated.
"Fewer than 20 penguins usually wash ashore, but with such a large number, we had to really understand their biology and learn how to treat them."
Ruoppolo, who is also the emergency relief officer for IFAW, has a lot of experience saving penguins and other animals injured in oil spills.
Last week she worked with conservation groups and volunteers to save as many of the birds as possible.
"We showed them how to stabilize the animals, to feed them and give them proper care," she said.
Healthy Magellanic penguins grow to about 27 inches tall and weigh about 9 pounds.
and the Brazilian military were supportive throughout the unusual relocation mission. On Friday, the penguins were loaded into special crates and put onto the plane for the journey to Pelotas, in southern Brazil.
After their first-ever flight, the birds went on a truck ride to the Center for Recovery of Marine Animals, where they rested for 24 hours.
The youngsters had some adult supervision for their return to the wild.
They were released with a small group of adult penguins that had been nursed back to health after surviving an oil spill.
Some penguins are still being cared for, both in the north and south of Brazil.
That is a fairly good outcome, given the fragile status of young birds on their first migration, said Ruoppolo.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Glowing jellyfish earns Nobel Prize
Research into the mysterious green glow of a jellyfish earned three scientists this year's Nobel Prize for Chemistry, the Nobel Foundation announced Wednesday.
Osamu Shimomura of the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts; Martin Chalfie of Columbia University; and Roger Tsien of the University of California at San Diego won for the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein GFP.
Each will take a third of the prize.
GFP was first observed in 1962, in the crystal jellyfish which drifts with the currents off the west coast of North America.
Since then, the protein has become one of the most important tools in contemporary bioscience, the foundation said.
Using GFP, researchers have developed ways to watch processes that were previously invisible, like the development of nerve cells or how cancer cells spread.
Osamu Shimomura, a Japanese citizen, was the first to isolate GFP from the crystal jellyfish, discovering that the protein glowed bright green under ultraviolet light.
One of Chalfie's first experiments, the foundation said, involved using GFP to color individual cells in a transparent roundworm.
Roger Tsien, also an American, extended the color palette beyond green.
Researchers can now give various proteins and cells different colors, enabling them to follow different biological processes at the same time, the foundation said.
The Nobel Foundation said GFP can help with researching nerve cell damage during Alzheimer's disease or insulin-producing beta cells created in the pancreas of a growing embryo.
Shimomura was born in Kyoto, Japan, and received a Ph.D. in organic chemistry in 1960 from Nagoya University.
He is now professor emeritus at the Marine Biological Laboratory and Boston University Medical School.
Chalfie grew up in Chicago, Illinois, and received his Ph.D. in neurobiology from Harvard University in 1977.
He is now a professor of biological sciences at Columbia University in New York.
Tsien was born in New York and received a Ph.D. in physiology from Cambridge University in 1977.
He is a professor at UC-San Diego.
Glowing jellyfish earns Nobel Prize
Research into the mysterious green glow of a jellyfish earned three scientists this year's Nobel Prize for Chemistry, the Nobel Foundation announced Wednesday.
Osamu Shimomura of the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts; Martin Chalfie of Columbia University; and Roger Tsien of the University of California at San Diego won for the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein GFP.
Each will take a third of the prize.
GFP was first observed in 1962, in the crystal jellyfish which drifts with the currents off the west coast of North America.
Since then, the protein has become one of the most important tools in contemporary bioscience, the foundation said.
Using GFP, researchers have developed ways to watch processes that were previously invisible, like the development of nerve cells or how cancer cells spread.
Osamu Shimomura, a Japanese citizen, was the first to isolate GFP from the crystal jellyfish, discovering that the protein glowed bright green under ultraviolet light.
One of Chalfie's first experiments, the foundation said, involved using GFP to color individual cells in a transparent roundworm.
Roger Tsien, also an American, extended the color palette beyond green.
Researchers can now give various proteins and cells different colors, enabling them to follow different biological processes at the same time, the foundation said.
The Nobel Foundation said GFP can help with researching nerve cell damage during Alzheimer's disease or insulin-producing beta cells created in the pancreas of a growing embryo.
Shimomura was born in Kyoto, Japan, and received a Ph.D. in organic chemistry in 1960 from Nagoya University.
He is now professor emeritus at the Marine Biological Laboratory and Boston University Medical School.
Chalfie grew up in Chicago, Illinois, and received his Ph.D. in neurobiology from Harvard University in 1977.
He is now a professor of biological sciences at Columbia University in New York.
Tsien was born in New York and received a Ph.D. in physiology from Cambridge University in 1977.
He is a professor at UC-San Diego.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Berkeley Breathed is retiring, leaving a hole in the Sunday funnies and the hearts of "Opus" fans.
The last strip featuring the beloved, large-beaked penguin will run in about 200 newspapers nationwide November 2. Breathed announced Monday he's calling it quits after a comics career that has spanned nearly 30 years.
Amy Lago, comics editor of The Washington Post Writers Group, said Breathed will pursue other interests, such as writing books and screenplays.
The writers group unveiled his "Bloom County" strip in 1980;
he went on to win the Pulitzer for editorial cartooning in 1987.
He ended that strip in 1989 and the same year began the Sunday-only strip "Outland," which he quit in 1995.
In 2003, he launched "Opus."
Breathed began his career as a college student with a strip in the University of Texas newspaper.
News of his retirement won't be too shocking for true fans recent strips have alluded to "Opus" ending.
Even so, Lago said, fans are disappointed.
This Sunday's strip will include a contest in which Breathed asks readers to guess the penguin's fate.
Details on how to participate are not being released ahead of time.
The answer will appear online after the last "Opus" runs next month, Lago said.
`Opus` coming to an end
Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Berkeley Breathed is retiring, leaving a hole in the Sunday funnies and the hearts of "Opus" fans.
The last strip featuring the beloved, large-beaked penguin will run in about 200 newspapers nationwide November 2. Breathed announced Monday he's calling it quits after a comics career that has spanned nearly 30 years.
Amy Lago, comics editor of The Washington Post Writers Group, said Breathed will pursue other interests, such as writing books and screenplays.
The writers group unveiled his "Bloom County" strip in 1980;
he went on to win the Pulitzer for editorial cartooning in 1987.
He ended that strip in 1989 and the same year began the Sunday-only strip "Outland," which he quit in 1995.
In 2003, he launched "Opus."
Breathed began his career as a college student with a strip in the University of Texas newspaper.
News of his retirement won't be too shocking for true fans recent strips have alluded to "Opus" ending.
Even so, Lago said, fans are disappointed.
This Sunday's strip will include a contest in which Breathed asks readers to guess the penguin's fate.
Details on how to participate are not being released ahead of time.
The answer will appear online after the last "Opus" runs next month, Lago said.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Seven-times Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong has been cleared to race in the 2009 Tour Down Under in Australia, the International Cycling Union (UCI) have announced.
The American targeted the event in Australia as the first step on his comeback after a three-year absence from the sport.
His participation has been in doubt after the 37-year-old was told he had to respect the UCI's 'biological passport' rule demanding that athletes must be registered with an anti-doping program six months prior to competing.
But the world govering body said it was satisfied that Armstrong could take part.
"The International Cycling Union (UCI) has approved Lance Armstrong's participation in the forthcoming Tour Down Under in Australia, to be held on 20-25 January, the first event of the 2009 UCI ProTour," said a UCI statement.
"According to Article 77 of the Anti-Doping Regulations introduced in 2004, a retired rider may only return to competition by informing the UCI six months in advance in order to allow him/her to be available for out-of-competition testing.
Consequently, Lance Armstrong would only be able to return to the sport at international level from 1 February 2009, a week after the end of the Australian event.
The UCI can confirm that Lance Armstrong has and will be the subject of very strict monitoring throughout the period running up to his return to the peloton."
Seven-times Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong has been cleared to race in the 2009 Tour Down Under in Australia, the International Cycling Union (UCI) have announced.
The American targeted the event in Australia as the first step on his comeback after a three-year absence from the sport.
His participation has been in doubt after the 37-year-old was told he had to respect the UCI's 'biological passport' rule demanding that athletes must be registered with an anti-doping program six months prior to competing.
But the world govering body said it was satisfied that Armstrong could take part.
"The International Cycling Union (UCI) has approved Lance Armstrong's participation in the forthcoming Tour Down Under in Australia, to be held on 20-25 January, the first event of the 2009 UCI ProTour," said a UCI statement.
"According to Article 77 of the Anti-Doping Regulations introduced in 2004, a retired rider may only return to competition by informing the UCI six months in advance in order to allow him/her to be available for out-of-competition testing.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
U.S. stocks slumped Thursday as the Treasury considered buying stakes in struggling banks.
The benchmark Dow Jones plummeted through the 9,000-mark with early tallies indicating the close nudging 8,600 points.
At the start of the week it was trading above 10,000.
The White House confirmed earlier Thursday that the U.S. Treasury Department is looking at buying equity stakes in some U.S. banks.
Spokesperson Dana Perino confirmed reports that the U.S. could soon join the United Kingdom, Iceland and Italy in announcing a plan to inject capital directly into their troubled banking systems.
"These capital injections are something that Secretary (Henry) Paulson is actively considering," said Perino.
She said she could not comment on the timing or extent of such investments.
The move would be made under the $700 billion Wall Street bailout passed by Congress on Friday.
But the possibility of Treasury intervention failed to reassure investors amid the ongoing credit crisis.
On the one-year anniversary of the Dow's all-time high of above 14,000, the index closed about 7 percent down at about 8,500.
Other major New York markets the Nasdaq and the S&P fell about 5.4 percent and 7.6 percent respectively.
They're acting on fear."
U.S. stocks slumped Thursday as the Treasury considered buying stakes in struggling banks.
The benchmark Dow Jones plummeted through the 9,000-mark with early tallies indicating the close nudging 8,600 points.
At the start of the week it was trading above 10,000.
The White House confirmed earlier Thursday that the U.S. Treasury Department is looking at buying equity stakes in some U.S. banks.
Spokesperson Dana Perino confirmed reports that the U.S. could soon join the United Kingdom, Iceland and Italy in announcing a plan to inject capital directly into their troubled banking systems.
"These capital injections are something that Secretary (Henry) Paulson is actively considering," said Perino.
She said she could not comment on the timing or extent of such investments.
The move would be made under the $700 billion Wall Street bailout passed by Congress on Friday.
But the possibility of Treasury intervention failed to reassure investors amid the ongoing credit crisis.
On the one-year anniversary of the Dow's all-time high of above 14,000, the index closed about 7 percent down at about 8,500.
Other major New York markets the Nasdaq and the S&P fell about 5.4 percent and 7.6 percent respectively.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
McCain faces questions on age, health
Meghan McCain was on the talk-show couch, being grilled by the hosts of "The View." Does it bother her to hear jokes about her father's age?
Megan, 23, started chuckling, and allowed, "He IS old!"
Tension was replaced by laughter. But that was summer.
These days, for Republican Sen. John McCain, age is no laughing matter.
Age as political issue has become a reality the McCain campaign does indeed have to face.
McCain turned 72 in August, which would make him the oldest man to begin a first term as president
three years older than Ronald Reagan.
Clips of McCain making supposed age-related gaffes circulate on the Internet.
Last month, Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat and a supporter of Democratic candidate Sen. Barack Obama, said McCain's age and skin cancer history were fair game as a campaign issue. "We're talking about a reality here that we have to face."
A few days ago, a liberal activist group, Brave New Films, ran a full-page ad in the New York Times, accompanied by a petition signed by more than 2,700 physicians calling on McCain to release his full medical records.
All this skates over the fact that McCain already allowed reporters a peek at eight years worth of health records, dating back to 2000, while Obama has released a one-page summary from his doctor.
McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said it's a double standard. "The arbiters of this election are not demanding the same level of disclosure about Sen. Obama.
He's essentially running on a doctor's note.
I had a harder time getting out of high school math class."
McCain faces questions on age, health
Meghan McCain was on the talk-show couch, being grilled by the hosts of "The View." Does it bother her to hear jokes about her father's age?
Megan, 23, started chuckling, and allowed, "He IS old!"
Tension was replaced by laughter. But that was summer.
These days, for Republican Sen. John McCain, age is no laughing matter.
Age as political issue has become a reality the McCain campaign does indeed have to face.
McCain turned 72 in August, which would make him the oldest man to begin a first term as president
three years older than Ronald Reagan.
Clips of McCain making supposed age-related gaffes circulate on the Internet.
Last month, Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat and a supporter of Democratic candidate Sen. Barack Obama, said McCain's age and skin cancer history were fair game as a campaign issue. "We're talking about a reality here that we have to face."
A few days ago, a liberal activist group, Brave New Films, ran a full-page ad in the New York Times, accompanied by a petition signed by more than 2,700 physicians calling on McCain to release his full medical records.
All this skates over the fact that McCain already allowed reporters a peek at eight years worth of health records, dating back to 2000, while Obama has released a one-page summary from his doctor.
"The arbiters of this election are not demanding the same level of disclosure about Sen. Obama.
He's essentially running on a doctor's note.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Estranged couple`s home cut in half
A Cambodian couple who separated after 40 years of marriage may have taken things too literally when it came to splitting their assets:
The husband cut the house in two.
"It is the strangest thing I've ever seen," said May Titthara, who wrote about the case for The Phnom Penh Post, an English-language newspaper in the Cambodian capital.
"People there never saw this happen in a divorce. It is very interesting for them."
The husband and wife had been living together in the house in a village in the Prey Veng province of southern Cambodia, roughly 50 miles (80 km) from the capital.
The couple would not talk to the newspaper, but the village chief told May Titthara that the husband was angry because his wife wouldn't tend to him when he was ill.
Last week, the husband and his friends moved his belongings to one side of the house and sawed and chiseled it off, said the reporter, who interviewed the village chief and neighbors.
The couple also divided their property into four sections: for themselves and their two children.
Because the couple side-stepped the provincial courts when they parted ways, their unusual resolution could pose a problem later, said Prak Phin, a lawyer for Legal Support for Child and Women in the province.
"This was a not a legal divorce.
It never went to the court," he said.
"If they have disagreements in the future, they will not have a legal (recourse)."
Estranged couple`s home cut in half
A Cambodian couple who separated after 40 years of marriage may have taken things too literally when it came to splitting their assets:
The husband cut the house in two.
"It is the strangest thing I've ever seen," said May Titthara, who wrote about the case for The Phnom Penh Post, an English-language newspaper in the Cambodian capital.
"People there never saw this happen in a divorce. It is very interesting for them."
The husband and wife had been living together in the house in a village in the Prey Veng province of southern Cambodia, roughly 50 miles (80 km) from the capital.
The couple would not talk to the newspaper, but the village chief told May Titthara that the husband was angry because his wife wouldn't tend to him when he was ill.
Last week, the husband and his friends moved his belongings to one side of the house and sawed and chiseled it off, said the reporter, who interviewed the village chief and neighbors.
The couple also divided their property into four sections: for themselves and their two children.
Because the couple side-stepped the provincial courts when they parted ways, their unusual resolution could pose a problem later, said Prak Phin, a lawyer for Legal Support for Child and Women in the province.
"This was a not a legal divorce.
It never went to the court," he said.
The man moved his part of the house to his parents' property, May Titthara said.
He lives with his parents, while the wife continues to reside in her precariously perched, upright half.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
French author Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio has won this year's Nobel Prize for Literature, the Nobel Foundation announced Thursday.
The committee said Le Clezio was an "author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization."
Le Clezio has written some 30 books including novels, essays, and short stories.
Critics have found him hard to define, with his writing and subject matter having changed considerably over time, according to an article in Label France, a magazine published by the French government.
His work reflects ecological concerns, rebellion against the intolerance of Western nationalist thought, and his fascination with Native Americans, according to the magazine.
Le Clezio told the interviewer his books were less a matter of expressing ideas, and more an expression of his beliefs.
"When I write I am primarily trying to translate my relationship to the everyday, to events," he said. "We live in a troubled era in which we are bombarded by a chaos of ideas and images. The role of literature today is perhaps to echo this chaos."
Le Clezio's first novel, "Le Proces-Verbal" (Minutes of a Meeting) was published in 1963 and won Le Clezio the prestigious Theophraste Renaudot prize when he was just 23.
His fascination with Native Americans started when he did his military service in Mexico, Le Clezio told the magazine.
He traveled to Panama and spent four years with the Emberas Indian forest population.
Le Clezio described it as a "deeply moving experience" that was completely different to the life he knew in Europe, the magazine said.
The author now divides his time between Albuquerque, New Mexico;
his family's native Mauritius; and the French city of Nice, where he grew up, the magazine said.
Le Clezio said he has always felt like an exile in his own country because of his family's roots in Mauritius, a mixed culture with Indian, African, and European influences.
"I grew up telling myself that there was a somewhere else which embodied my true homeland," he told the magazine.
French author Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio has won this year's Nobel Prize for Literature, the Nobel Foundation announced Thursday.
The committee said Le Clezio was an "author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization."
Le Clezio has written some 30 books including novels, essays, and short stories.
Critics have found him hard to define, with his writing and subject matter having changed considerably over time, according to an article in Label France, a magazine published by the French government.
His work reflects ecological concerns, rebellion against the intolerance of Western nationalist thought, and his fascination with Native Americans, according to the magazine.
Le Clezio told the interviewer his books were less a matter of expressing ideas, and more an expression of his beliefs.
"When I write I am primarily trying to translate my relationship to the everyday, to events," he said. "We live in a troubled era in which we are bombarded by a chaos of ideas and images. The role of literature today is perhaps to echo this chaos."
Le Clezio's first novel, "Le Proces-Verbal" (Minutes of a Meeting) was published in 1963 and won Le Clezio the prestigious Theophraste Renaudot prize when he was just 23.
His fascination with Native Americans started when he did his military service in Mexico, Le Clezio told the magazine.
He traveled to Panama and spent four years with the Emberas Indian forest population.
Le Clezio described it as a "deeply moving experience" that was completely different to the life he knew in Europe, the magazine said.
The author now divides his time between Albuquerque, New Mexico;
his family's native Mauritius; and the French city of Nice, where he grew up, the magazine said.
Le Clezio said he has always felt like an exile in his own country because of his family's roots in Mauritius, a mixed culture with Indian, African, and European influences.
"I grew up telling myself that there was a somewhere else which embodied my true homeland," he told the magazine.
' On the other hand, I love the French language, which is perhaps my true country!
But thinking of France as a nation, I must say I have rarely identified with its priorities."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Paris Hilton swallowed up by a tight-fitting futuristic designer space suit
one hand waving at the on-flight camera, the other clasping a Dior "space traveler" handbag.
Oh yes, with the age of space tourism upon us, space fashion looks set to become the next step into this infinite world of adventure.
One factor certain to drive the fashion-crazy towards space concepts is the super-wealthy space tourists (reportedly paying a minimum price of $200,000 per seat) who are set to make trips into orbit an everyday occurrence for those with deep pockets.
And space-inspired fashion is already making cosmic waves in the design world.
Last year Louis Vuitton held an exhibition at the Espace Louis Vuitton in Paris titled "The Temptation of Space" which included an installation by legendary French designer Philippe Starck.
This show followed two international space fashion shows in Japan and the U.S.
David Jankowski, president and founder of DestinySpace, one of the organizations behind the American and Japanese shows, said space fashion is more than just a fad.
"Space fashion is important and will be in the next generation of space suits. I don't know how much we will see at the beginning because simpler versions of space attire are going to be what people are interested in," he said.
"But there will be some sense of fashion involved. I would like something futuristic if I was going up into space."
Forecasting that space travelers would soon become fashion-conscious, Jankowski likened the situation to the beginnings of commercial air travel.
"Women had certain dresses and jackets to wear just for flying in the airplane. Back then it was this brand new experience and you had to dress for it."
And there is no doubt space fashion is being taken seriously.
DestinySpace and a similar company called Rocketplane are looking at forming a space fashion organization with other partners, while the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is looking at a new slim-fit space suit.
Paris Hilton swallowed up by a tight-fitting futuristic designer space suit
one hand waving at the on-flight camera, the other clasping a Dior "space traveler" handbag.
Oh yes, with the age of space tourism upon us, space fashion looks set to become the next step into this infinite world of adventure.
One factor certain to drive the fashion-crazy towards space concepts is the super-wealthy space tourists (reportedly paying a minimum price of $200,000 per seat) who are set to make trips into orbit an everyday occurrence for those with deep pockets.
And space-inspired fashion is already making cosmic waves in the design world.
Last year Louis Vuitton held an exhibition at the Espace Louis Vuitton in Paris titled "The Temptation of Space" which included an installation by legendary French designer Philippe Starck.
This show followed two international space fashion shows in Japan and the U.S.
David Jankowski, president and founder of DestinySpace, one of the organizations behind the American and Japanese shows, said space fashion is more than just a fad.
"Space fashion is important and will be in the next generation of space suits.
I don't know how much we will see at the beginning because simpler versions of space attire are going to be what people are interested in," he said.
"But there will be some sense of fashion involved.
I would like something futuristic if I was going up into space."
"Women had certain dresses and jackets to wear just for flying in the airplane.
Back then it was this brand new experience and you had to dress for it."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Germany goalkeeper Robert Enke is out of Saturday's World Cup qualifier against Russia and next Wednesday's match against Wales after breaking his hand in training.
The 31-year-old, who succeeded Jens Lehmann as his country's first-choice goalkeeper after Euro 2008, broke the scaphoid bone in his hand on Wednesday afternoon and the injury was confirmed on Thursday.
The Hanover shot-stopper will be out for several weeks and will miss Saturday's Group Four game in Dortmund against Russia as well as the match with Wales in Moenchegladbach next week.
It means either Werder Bremen's Tim Wiese or Bayer Leverkusen's Rene Adler will make their international debut on Saturday.
Adler, 23, looks most likely to replace Enke after Germany manager Oliver Bierhoff hinted at the Leverkusen player's inclusion.
"I am really sorry for Robert," said Adler. "We get on well as friends and injuries are a hard thing for any footballer to accept, but injuries and suspensions are part and parcel of football, you have to take your chances when they come.
Germany goalkeeper Robert Enke is out of Saturday's World Cup qualifier against Russia and next Wednesday's match against Wales after breaking his hand in training.
The 31-year-old, who succeeded Jens Lehmann as his country's first-choice goalkeeper after Euro 2008, broke the scaphoid bone in his hand on Wednesday afternoon and the injury was confirmed on Thursday.
The Hanover shot-stopper will be out for several weeks and will miss Saturday's Group Four game in Dortmund against Russia as well as the match with Wales in Moenchegladbach next week.
It means either Werder Bremen's Tim Wiese or Bayer Leverkusen's Rene Adler will make their international debut on Saturday.
Adler, 23, looks most likely to replace Enke after Germany manager Oliver Bierhoff hinted at the Leverkusen player's inclusion.
"I am really sorry for Robert," said Adler. "We get on well as friends and injuries are a hard thing for any footballer to accept, but injuries and suspensions are part and parcel of football, you have to take your chances when they come.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Economic shock gives rise to coupon cutting
The rising price of consumer goods is driving shoppers from all walks of life to use coupons for food, beauty aids and pharmacy products at an increasing rate, according to some of the country's largest purveyors of manufacturers' coupons.
The once-popular act of coupon cutting introduced by the inventor of Coca-Cola syrup more than 100 years ago is again becoming a household chore.
While people may be looking to spend less, they aren't necessarily cutting back on necessities or luxuries.
Instead, consumers are hunting for deals on where to dry-clean their clothes, get their oil changed or take the family out to dinner, said MaryAnn Rivers, CEO of Entertainment Publications, which publishes community-based coupon books and Web sites.
Rivers said the company's site has seen a 198 percent increase in the use of coupons for day-to-day necessities and a 63 percent increase in the use of coupons for casual or "quick-serve" meals since last year.
"It doesn't appear activity has slowed down, they're just looking to save more often," said Rivers, whose publication is often sold in schools and community organizations as a fundraising tool.
"We're getting back to basics with people. They are trading down from activities and moving into more affordable opportunities."
Other companies are also seeing gains.
Florida-based Valpak has seen use of its coupons increase 8 percent since last year for products such as groceries, take-out food, home improvement products and specialty retail.
Valpak spokeswoman Marsha Strickhouser said specific figures related to usage is proprietary information and unavailable for release, but said the number represents a significant surge in consumer response in the company's 40-year history.
"People might say coupons are just for tightwads, but people from all kinds of economic backgrounds are more likely to use them," Strickhouser said.
"It's good sense to use them."
Economic shock gives rise to coupon cutting
The rising price of consumer goods is driving shoppers from all walks of life to use coupons for food, beauty aids and pharmacy products at an increasing rate, according to some of the country's largest purveyors of manufacturers' coupons.
The once-popular act of coupon cutting introduced by the inventor of Coca-Cola syrup more than 100 years ago is again becoming a household chore.
While people may be looking to spend less, they aren't necessarily cutting back on necessities or luxuries.
Instead, consumers are hunting for deals on where to dry-clean their clothes, get their oil changed or take the family out to dinner, said MaryAnn Rivers, CEO of Entertainment Publications, which publishes community-based coupon books and Web sites.
Rivers said the company's site has seen a 198 percent increase in the use of coupons for day-to-day necessities and a 63 percent increase in the use of coupons for casual or "quick-serve" meals since last year.
"It doesn't appear activity has slowed down, they're just looking to save more often," said Rivers, whose publication is often sold in schools and community organizations as a fundraising tool.
"We're getting back to basics with people. They are trading down from activities and moving into more affordable opportunities."
Other companies are also seeing gains.
Florida-based Valpak has seen use of its coupons increase 8 percent since last year for products such as groceries, take-out food, home improvement products and specialty retail.
Valpak spokeswoman Marsha Strickhouser said specific figures related to usage is proprietary information and unavailable for release, but said the number represents a significant surge in consumer response in the company's 40-year history.
"People might say coupons are just for tightwads, but people from all kinds of economic backgrounds are more likely to use them," Strickhouser said.
"It's good sense to use them."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari has won the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize, the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced Friday.
"Ahtisaari is an outstanding international mediator," a committee spokesman said in announcing his win.
"Through his untiring efforts and good results, he has shown what role mediation of various kinds can play in the resolution of international conflicts."
The committee cited Ahtisaari's "significant" part in establishing Namibia's independence and his "central" role in solving the question of the Indonesian province of Aceh in 2005.
Ahtisaari twice worked to find a solution in Kosovo first in 1999 and again between 2005 and 2007.
He also worked with others this year to find a peaceful solution to the problems in Iraq, the committee said.
Ahtisaari and his group, Crisis Management Initiative, also contributed to resolving other conflicts in Northern Ireland, Central Asia, and the Horn of Africa, the committee said.
Former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari has won the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize, the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced Friday.
"Ahtisaari is an outstanding international mediator," a committee spokesman said in announcing his win.
"Through his untiring efforts and good results, he has shown what role mediation of various kinds can play in the resolution of international conflicts."
The committee cited Ahtisaari's "significant" part in establishing Namibia's independence and his "central" role in solving the question of the Indonesian province of Aceh in 2005.
Ahtisaari twice worked to find a solution in Kosovo first in 1999 and again between 2005 and 2007.
He also worked with others this year to find a peaceful solution to the problems in Iraq, the committee said.
Ahtisaari and his group, Crisis Management Initiative, also contributed to resolving other conflicts in Northern Ireland, Central Asia, and the Horn of Africa, the committee said.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Playing games without frontiers
Just as consumers are becoming increasingly tech-savvy, so are the brands that target them.
Puma calls sports fans with their favorite team ring-tone to connect them with 10 other fans every time their team scores.
The Discovery Channel lets online adventurers encounter live sharks via GPS.
A&E Television invites Facebookers to earn money by parking, legally or not, on their friends' streets.
Domino's Pizza challenges YouTubers to hunt down the Saab convertible they can buy on eBay for $9.99.
But look behind the brands, and you'll find the creative and technical engineers of these compelling ad campaigns, whose toolbox of ideas is overflowing.
"The technology is just a vehicle to adapt to how people spend their time, and to be a part of that experience," says David Rosenberg, director of emerging media for veteran advertising giant JWT.
One of JWT's more spectacular campaigns took place on Manhattan's 5th Avenue, home to the busiest New York branch of HSBC, "the world's local bank."
HSBC offered up its own real estate to transform the building's storefront into a living theater, where actors would repeatedly perform the same scene
Passers-by were invited to express their points of view on the scenes by texting via interactive SMS their personal reaction to what was going on in front of them, and these words were then flashed above the windows for all to read.
Other people would then react to these words, perhaps at the same time posing for the provocative paparazzi.
Playing games without frontiers
Just as consumers are becoming increasingly tech-savvy, so are the brands that target them.
Puma calls sports fans with their favorite team ring-tone to connect them with 10 other fans every time their team scores.
The Discovery Channel lets online adventurers encounter live sharks via GPS.
A&E Television invites Facebookers to earn money by parking, legally or not, on their friends' streets.
Domino's Pizza challenges YouTubers to hunt down the Saab convertible they can buy on eBay for $9.99.
But look behind the brands, and you'll find the creative and technical engineers of these compelling ad campaigns, whose toolbox of ideas is overflowing.
"The technology is just a vehicle to adapt to how people spend their time, and to be a part of that experience," says David Rosenberg, director of emerging media for veteran advertising giant JWT.
One of JWT's more spectacular campaigns took place on Manhattan's 5th Avenue, home to the busiest New York branch of HSBC, "the world's local bank."
HSBC offered up its own real estate to transform the building's storefront into a living theater, where actors would repeatedly perform the same scene
Passers-by were invited to express their points of view on the scenes by texting via interactive SMS their personal reaction to what was going on in front of them, and these words were then flashed above the windows for all to read.
Other people would then react to these words, perhaps at the same time posing for the provocative paparazzi.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Tokyo is a fantastic city at any time of year, but there are some annual events you won't want to miss.
Here are some of the city's seasonal highlights.
Sumo (January, May and September)
To the untrained eye Sumo is just two fat men in loin cloths getting physical;
in fact, Sumo is an immensely skilful sport that has been around for some 2,000 years and is steeped in Shinto mythology.
Tokyo hosts 15-day tournaments ("honbasho") in January, May and September at Ryogoku Kokugikan stadium.
There's no chance of getting hold of a ringside tickets, but you can pick up a standing ticket for about ¥500 ($4.70).
Same-day tickets can usually be bought for the first 10 days of the "honbasho" and you can also get advance tickets at the venue.
Although you may be tempted to join the crowds in a spot of cushion throwing after a particularly exciting bout, bear in mind stadium authorities frown upon this kind of exuberance.
Hanami (late March to early May)
If you're lucky enough to be in Tokyo in the springtime, you may get to take part in the much-cherished Japanese tradition of "hanami"
An annual blossom forecast tracks the appearance of the cherry blossom, which only lasts for a couple of weeks.
When the "sakura" blooms, Tokyoites gather in Ueno Park for feasting, singing and general merriment.
Nighttime "hanami" is known as "yozakura" and paper lanterns are hung in Ueno Park for the occasion.
Sanja Matsuri (third weekend of May)
The biggest and best of Tokyo's Shinto festivals is held at the Asakusa Shrine.
Every year some two million people gather to watch as around 100 "mikoshi" are paraded through the streets.
The three Senso-ji temple "mikoshi" weigh about a ton and are decorated in gold leaf and adorned with gold sculptures.
They are paraded on the final day of the three-day festival, much to the delight of the assembled crowds, who jostle and shake them as they pass.
Asakusa is the place to be in late August if you want to see the ancient Japanese art of ...samba.
Floats, bands and dancers parade down Kaminarimon-dori and and Umamichi-dori in one of the most fun, and occasionally surreal, samba carnivals you're ever likely to come across.
The New Year period offers visitors a magical glimpse of traditional Tokyo.
On December 23, the Emperor's birthday, and on January 2, the public is allowed into the grounds of the Imperial Palace, with the royal family greeting visitors from a distance.
On New Year's Eve, Tokyoites head to their neighborhood temples to hear the temple bells chime at midnight.
Tokyo is a fantastic city at any time of year, but there are some annual events you won't want to miss.
Here are some of the city's seasonal highlights.
Sumo (January, May and September)
To the untrained eye Sumo is just two fat men in loin cloths getting physical;
in fact, Sumo is an immensely skilful sport that has been around for some 2,000 years and is steeped in Shinto mythology.
Tokyo hosts 15-day tournaments ("honbasho") in January, May and September at Ryogoku Kokugikan stadium.
There's no chance of getting hold of a ringside tickets, but you can pick up a standing ticket for about ¥500 ($4.70).
Same-day tickets can usually be bought for the first 10 days of the "honbasho" and you can also get advance tickets at the venue.
Although you may be tempted to join the crowds in a spot of cushion throwing after a particularly exciting bout, bear in mind stadium authorities frown upon this kind of exuberance.
Hanami (late March to early May)
If you're lucky enough to be in Tokyo in the springtime, you may get to take part in the much-cherished Japanese tradition of "hanami"
An annual blossom forecast tracks the appearance of the cherry blossom, which only lasts for a couple of weeks.
When the "sakura" blooms, Tokyoites gather in Ueno Park for feasting, singing and general merriment.
Nighttime "hanami" is known as "yozakura" and paper lanterns are hung in Ueno Park for the occasion.
Sanja Matsuri (third weekend of May)
The biggest and best of Tokyo's Shinto festivals is held at the Asakusa Shrine.
Every year some two million people gather to watch as around 100 "mikoshi" are paraded through the streets.
The three Senso-ji temple "mikoshi" weigh about a ton and are decorated in gold leaf and adorned with gold sculptures.
They are paraded on the final day of the three-day festival, much to the delight of the assembled crowds, who jostle and shake them as they pass.
Asakusa is the place to be in late August if you want to see the ancient Japanese art of ...samba.
Floats, bands and dancers parade down Kaminarimon-dori and and Umamichi-dori in one of the most fun, and occasionally surreal, samba carnivals you're ever likely to come across.
The New Year period offers visitors a magical glimpse of traditional Tokyo.
On December 23, the Emperor's birthday, and on January 2, the public is allowed into the grounds of the Imperial Palace, with the royal family greeting visitors from a distance.
On New Year's Eve, Tokyoites head to their neighborhood temples to hear the temple bells chime at midnight.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
From its humble beginnings as a laboratory tool in the early 1970s, e-mail has become a vital tool of business.
It's the first thing most executives check in the morning, and the last thing they do at night.
But can you trust it?
but a relevant one following some innovative (and perhaps alarming) new research by professors at three business schools.
Psychologists have long known that people find it easier to mislead and dissemble in written communication, without the telltale visual clues which help others know when someone is lying.
But the two new studies, by business professors at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, Rutgers University in New Jersey and Chicago's DePaul University, suggest that people are notably more likely to lie in an e-mail even than in traditional pen-and-paper communication.
More surprising still is that many people actually feel justified when lying in e-mail, the studies show.
The findings are reported in a paper called "Being Honest Online:
The Finer Points of Lying in Online Ultimatum Bargaining." "Keep in mind that both of these media
e-mail and pen and paper Neither has greater 'communication bandwidth' than the other," said Charles Naquin of DePaul University, one of the co-authors. "Yet we still see a dramatic difference."
"These findings are consistent with our other work that shows that e-mail communication decreases the amount of trust and cooperation we see in professional group-work, and increases the negativity in performance evaluations, all as opposed to pen and paper systems," said Terri Kurtzberg of Rutgers. "People seem to feel more justified in acting in self-serving ways when typing as opposed to writing."
There were important lessons for the business world in the findings, said Liuba Belkin of Lehigh.
From its humble beginnings as a laboratory tool in the early 1970s, e-mail has become a vital tool of business.
It's the first thing most executives check in the morning, and the last thing they do at night.
But can you trust it?
but a relevant one following some innovative (and perhaps alarming) new research by professors at three business schools.
Psychologists have long known that people find it easier to mislead and dissemble in written communication, without the telltale visual clues which help others know when someone is lying.
But the two new studies, by business professors at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, Rutgers University in New Jersey and Chicago's DePaul University, suggest that people are notably more likely to lie in an e-mail even than in traditional pen-and-paper communication.
More surprising still is that many people actually feel justified when lying in e-mail, the studies show.
The findings are reported in a paper called "Being Honest Online:
The Finer Points of Lying in Online Ultimatum Bargaining."
e-mail and pen and paper
There were important lessons for the business world in the findings, said Liuba Belkin of Lehigh.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Do cartoon aliens show the way to riches from augmented reality?
In a new video game for cell phones set to launch in Japan, the point is simple:
Roaming players must point their handsets in the right direction to score.
Called Navimon, the game requires a cell phone that sports both GPS and an internal compass.
Comfy shoes help, too.
Players get a random alert indicating that (quick!) space monsters are now hovering around the Tokyo Tower or any 7-Eleven outlet, for instance.
The cute, cartoonish aliens are lost, and they need help getting home.
The objective is to find them then assist them back to their planet.
To find an alien, players point their phones at, say, a 7-Eleven outlet.
If their aim is true, the alien appears on the game page (whining that it's thirsty, perhaps) and players click a button to send it home.
Players get points each time they help aliens, some of which are worth more than others because they're hard to find or have special abilities.
A "high scores" page in Navimon lists the best players around, and another page inventories every alien helped.
Navimon probably won't be coming to a sidewalk near you anytime soon.
Though it will expand, this month the game is scheduled to launch in just three cities (Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya), is offered only in Japanese, and is available through just one carrier, KDDI.
Players outside mobile-savvy Japan will have to wait.
Of course using GPS data to link virtual worlds to the real world (or vice versa) is not new in mobile gaming witness virtual treasure hunts on city streets and the like.
GPS plus pointing, though, suggests an entirely new direction.
Even in Japan, GPS compass phones are still relatively rare.
That's partly because a compass adds a bit to manufacturing costs while its benefits have not always been made clear.
Quality varies, too, with some compass phones prone to falling out of calibration not good for a game like Navimon.
But as compass phones improve and spread, new possibilities will open up.
In upcoming Navimon versions, the aliens will appear not on a game page, but through the viewfinder, superimposed over the real world.
So if you look at a 7-Eleven outlet, you might see a tiny yellow alien hovering by the door, visible only through the viewfinder and invisible to others.
Next-gen "6D" compass phones with accelerometers detect six dimensions: flat, up, down, roll, pitch and altitude.
So the aliens could fly around instead of just hover.
Do cartoon aliens show the way to riches from augmented reality?
In a new video game for cell phones set to launch in Japan, the point is simple:
Roaming players must point their handsets in the right direction to score.
Called Navimon, the game requires a cell phone that sports both GPS and an internal compass.
Comfy shoes help, too.
Players get a random alert indicating that (quick!) space monsters are now hovering around the Tokyo Tower or any 7-Eleven outlet, for instance.
The cute, cartoonish aliens are lost, and they need help getting home.
The objective is to find them then assist them back to their planet.
To find an alien, players point their phones at, say, a 7-Eleven outlet.
If their aim is true, the alien appears on the game page (whining that it's thirsty, perhaps) and players click a button to send it home.
Players get points each time they help aliens, some of which are worth more than others because they're hard to find or have special abilities.
A "high scores" page in Navimon lists the best players around, and another page inventories every alien helped.
Navimon probably won't be coming to a sidewalk near you anytime soon.
Though it will expand, this month the game is scheduled to launch in just three cities (Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya), is offered only in Japanese, and is available through just one carrier, KDDI.
Players outside mobile-savvy Japan will have to wait.
Of course using GPS data to link virtual worlds to the real world (or vice versa) is not new in mobile gaming witness virtual treasure hunts on city streets and the like.
GPS plus pointing, though, suggests an entirely new direction.
Even in Japan, GPS compass phones are still relatively rare.
That's partly because a compass adds a bit to manufacturing costs while its benefits have not always been made clear.
Quality varies, too, with some compass phones prone to falling out of calibration not good for a game like Navimon.
But as compass phones improve and spread, new possibilities will open up.
In upcoming Navimon versions, the aliens will appear not on a game page, but through the viewfinder, superimposed over the real world.
So if you look at a 7-Eleven outlet, you might see a tiny yellow alien hovering by the door, visible only through the viewfinder and invisible to others.
Next-gen "6D" compass phones with accelerometers detect six dimensions: flat, up, down, roll, pitch and altitude.
So the aliens could fly around instead of just hover.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
World rushes to a fix
The world's leading nations stepped up their efforts Sunday to stem the fallout from the worst global financial crisis in decades.
After days of singular responses, officials the world over were scrambling to get out ahead of growing expectations for more aggressive and coordinated action to prop up banks.
Stock markets have plummeted in recent days as anxiety over the credit crisis - which began in the implosion of U.S. housing prices - has spread worldwide.
In the most dramatic move, the leaders of 15 European nations - gathering in Paris at an emergency meeting - agreed to a wide-ranging plan to shore up troubled banks by adding capital through investment and by guaranteeing inter-bank lending, said French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
"We want to give ... banks the means to lend, to support the economy to enable households to borrow for mortgages or consumption and give companies the means necessary to invest for growth," said Sarkozy, who also holds the rotating European Union presidency.
The 15 nations also said they would protect individual depositors' accounts and move to ease accounting regulations that determine how assets are valued, removing a requirement that they be based on market prices - so-called "mark-to-market" accounting.
Sarkozy announced the agreement after a meeting of leaders of the Eurozone countries, which use the euro.
He said France, Germany and Italy will hold Cabinet meetings on Monday and will announce their plans.
"These measures will be implemented in France without delay," said Sarkozy.
The British Treasury and some of the nation's biggest banks are expected to unveil details of a capital plan early Monday.
Other countries also took fresh action Sunday to support their economies.
Australia, New Zealand, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia have all reportedly moved to guarantee bank deposits.
Global markets have taken a beating as the financial crisis deepened around the world.
World rushes to a fix
The world's leading nations stepped up their efforts Sunday to stem the fallout from the worst global financial crisis in decades.
After days of singular responses, officials the world over were scrambling to get out ahead of growing expectations for more aggressive and coordinated action to prop up banks.
Stock markets have plummeted in recent days as anxiety over the credit crisis - which began in the implosion of U.S. housing prices - has spread worldwide.
In the most dramatic move, the leaders of 15 European nations - gathering in Paris at an emergency meeting - agreed to a wide-ranging plan to shore up troubled banks by adding capital through investment and by guaranteeing inter-bank lending, said French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
"We want to give ... banks the means to lend, to support the economy to enable households to borrow for mortgages or consumption and give companies the means necessary to invest for growth," said Sarkozy, who also holds the rotating European Union presidency.
The 15 nations also said they would protect individual depositors' accounts and move to ease accounting regulations that determine how assets are valued, removing a requirement that they be based on market prices - so-called "mark-to-market" accounting.
Sarkozy announced the agreement after a meeting of leaders of the Eurozone countries, which use the euro.
He said France, Germany and Italy will hold Cabinet meetings on Monday and will announce their plans.
"These measures will be implemented in France without delay," said Sarkozy.
The British Treasury and some of the nation's biggest banks are expected to unveil details of a capital plan early Monday.
Other countries also took fresh action Sunday to support their economies.
Australia, New Zealand, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia have all reportedly moved to guarantee bank deposits.
Global markets have taken a beating as the financial crisis deepened around the world.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
North Korea said Sunday it will immediately resume work to disable its nuclear plants after the United States removed it from a list of states that sponsor terrorism.
North Korea's foreign ministry said it welcomed the U.S. move and would give international inspectors access to its main Yongbyon nuclear facility to oversee the crisis.
"We welcomed Washington's moves to follow through on their responsibilities according to the agreement reached," a spokesman for the country's foreign ministry said in a statement carried by the (North) Korea Central News Agency.
In a version of the statement carried by South Korea's Yonhap news agency, North Korea also said it will now resume disabling its nuclear plants.
"With the move by the United States we will also fulfill our 'action for action' principle and resume the disabling of the (Yongbyon) nuclear facilities and allow inspectors from the United States and the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) to resume their responsibilities," the statement said.
North Korea halted the dismantling of the plutonium-producing plants in August after a stalemate over verification measures.
Washington had said it would not delist North Korea until Pyongyang agreed to set up an internationally recognizable mechanism to verify it was revealing all its nuclear secrets.
North Korea rejected that provision.
On Saturday, the United States removed North Korea from the list of terrorism sponsors after it said the two countries reached agreement on a number of verification measures.
South Korea's chief envoy to the international disarmament talks with North Korea
said the move by the United States "completely reverses" the communist nation's decision to halt its dismantling process.
North Korea said Sunday it will immediately resume work to disable its nuclear plants after the United States removed it from a list of states that sponsor terrorism.
North Korea's foreign ministry said it welcomed the U.S. move and would give international inspectors access to its main Yongbyon nuclear facility to oversee the crisis.
"We welcomed Washington's moves to follow through on their responsibilities according to the agreement reached," a spokesman for the country's foreign ministry said in a statement carried by the (North) Korea Central News Agency.
In a version of the statement carried by South Korea's Yonhap news agency, North Korea also said it will now resume disabling its nuclear plants.
"With the move by the United States we will also fulfill our 'action for action' principle and resume the disabling of the (Yongbyon) nuclear facilities and allow inspectors from the United States and the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) to resume their responsibilities," the statement said.
North Korea halted the dismantling of the plutonium-producing plants in August after a stalemate over verification measures.
Washington had said it would not delist North Korea until Pyongyang agreed to set up an internationally recognizable mechanism to verify it was revealing all its nuclear secrets.
North Korea rejected that provision.
On Saturday, the United States removed North Korea from the list of terrorism sponsors after it said the two countries reached agreement on a number of verification measures.
South Korea's chief envoy to the international disarmament talks with North Korea
said the move by the United States "completely reverses" the communist nation's decision to halt its dismantling process.
Cuba, Syria, Sudan and Iran remain on the list.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
India`s Christians celebrate first woman saint
Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday gave the Roman Catholic church four new saints, including an Indian woman whose canonization is seen as a morale boost to Christians in India who have suffered Hindu violence.
Thousands of faithful from the homelands of the new saints, including a delegation from India, where Catholics are a tiny minority, turned out for the ceremony in St. Peter's Square.
The honor for Sister Alphonsa of the Immaculate Conception, the first Indian woman to become a saint, comes as Christians increasingly have been the object of attacks from Hindu mobs in eastern and southern India.
Benedict's predecessor, John Paul II, had beatified Alphonsa during a pilgrimage to India in 1986.
Beatification is the last formal step before sainthood, the Church's highest honor for its faithful.
Alphonsa, a nun from southern India, was 35 when she died in 1946. The other new saints are:
Gaetano Errico, a Neapolitan priest who founded a missionary order in the 19th century; Sister Maria Bernarda, born Verena Buetler in Switzerland in 1848, who worked as a nun in Ecuador and Colombia;
and Narcisa de Jesus Martillo Moran, a 19th century laywoman from Ecuador who helped the sick and the poor.
India`s Christians celebrate first woman saint
Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday gave the Roman Catholic church four new saints, including an Indian woman whose canonization is seen as a morale boost to Christians in India who have suffered Hindu violence.
Thousands of faithful from the homelands of the new saints, including a delegation from India, where Catholics are a tiny minority, turned out for the ceremony in St. Peter's Square.
The honor for Sister Alphonsa of the Immaculate Conception, the first Indian woman to become a saint, comes as Christians increasingly have been the object of attacks from Hindu mobs in eastern and southern India.
Benedict's predecessor, John Paul II, had beatified Alphonsa during a pilgrimage to India in 1986.
Beatification is the last formal step before sainthood, the Church's highest honor for its faithful.
Alphonsa, a nun from southern India, was 35 when she died in 1946.
The other new saints are:
Gaetano Errico, a Neapolitan priest who founded a missionary order in the 19th century;
and Narcisa de Jesus Martillo Moran, a 19th century laywoman from Ecuador who helped the sick and the poor.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Residents of a western Pennsylvania neighborhood can return home Sunday after a chemical leak forced them to evacuate the night before.
Authorities surveyed the neighborhood in Petrolia and determined that no traces of the toxic chemical remained, said Freda Tarbell, spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.
Three people were taken to hospitals, but officials could not immediately say why.
It was not immediately clear how many people were injured, though plant manager Dave Dorko said all employees and inspectors at the plant were safe and accounted for.
Tarbell described the chemical as fuming sulfuric acid, which is also known as oleum.
The plant uses the chemical during its production process, she said.
The plant produces a chemical called Resorcinol essentially a strong glue used in the tire industry.
The leak affected between 2,000 and 2,500 residents, Tarbell said.
Some stayed the night with friends and relatives and some sought refuge in shelters.
Others opted to stay indoors and "shut their windows and doors to make sure the acid cloud was not entering their home," she said.
Ed Schrecengost, a former Indspec employee, said firefighters showed up at his son's wedding reception, urging the guests to leave. "It's about as dangerous as you can get," Schrecengost told CNN affiliate WPXI.
"It's a very fuming acid. A quart bottle of this material could fill a household in two seconds."
Dorko said the leak was caused by an overflow from a tank.
The material, he said, evaporates easily, creating a toxic cloud.
Residents of a western Pennsylvania neighborhood can return home Sunday after a chemical leak forced them to evacuate the night before.
Authorities surveyed the neighborhood in Petrolia and determined that no traces of the toxic chemical remained, said Freda Tarbell, spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.
Three people were taken to hospitals, but officials could not immediately say why.
It was not immediately clear how many people were injured, though plant manager Dave Dorko said all employees and inspectors at the plant were safe and accounted for.
Tarbell described the chemical as fuming sulfuric acid, which is also known as oleum.
The plant uses the chemical during its production process, she said.
The plant produces a chemical called Resorcinol essentially a strong glue used in the tire industry.
The leak affected between 2,000 and 2,500 residents, Tarbell said.
Some stayed the night with friends and relatives and some sought refuge in shelters.
Others opted to stay indoors and "shut their windows and doors to make sure the acid cloud was not entering their home," she said.
Ed Schrecengost, a former Indspec employee, said firefighters showed up at his son's wedding reception, urging the guests to leave.
"It's about as dangerous as you can get," Schrecengost told CNN affiliate WPXI.
A quart bottle of this material could fill a household in two seconds."
Dorko said the leak was caused by an overflow from a tank.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Keeping track of climate change
Another day, another new prediction.
Scientists at NASA, along with a dedicated team of their designers, programmers and researchers, have put together one of the most stimulating, most thorough climate tracking sites you'll find anywhere on the web.
Global Climate Change, NASA's Eyes on the Earth provides up-to-date
up to the minute in some cases
information about how the planet is changing in a detailed and engaging format with graphs, tables, reports and interactive features which are easy to find, follow and understand.
Randal Jackson, the Web site's producer told CNN: "What we really wanted to do was to give people a visual presentation that wasn't so heavily reliant on text and also give some indicators that are highly visual, giving an immersive experience about what's going on with the planet."
Coordinated by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology, the Web site is designed to be interactive so people can explore a multitude of climate science issues.
One of the most impressive functions linked to the site is the Climate Change Machine which allows users to peer into the recent past of changes that have happened to the climate including annual CO2 emissions and average global temperatures rises.
Users can also spool forward to see how rising sea levels might affect coastal regions in different regions of the world
it's alarming to see what just a one meter rise could mean. "While the sea level rise doesn't sound like a huge amount
Keeping track of climate change
It can often seem like hard work keeping track of the changes happening to our planet.
Another day, another new prediction. Another week, another warning.
It's enough to make even the most conscientious climate change student issue a weary discombobulated sigh.
Scientists at NASA, along with a dedicated team of their designers, programmers and researchers, have put together one of the most stimulating, most thorough climate tracking sites you'll find anywhere on the web.
Global Climate Change, NASA's Eyes on the Earth provides up-to-date up to the minute in some cases information about how the planet is changing in a detailed and engaging format with graphs, tables, reports and interactive features which are easy to find, follow and understand.
Randal Jackson, the Web site's producer told CNN: "What we really wanted to do was to give people a visual presentation that wasn't so heavily reliant on text and also give some indicators that are highly visual, giving an immersive experience about what's going on with the planet."
Coordinated by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology, the Web site is designed to be interactive so people can explore a multitude of climate science issues.
One of the most impressive functions linked to the site is the Climate Change Machine which allows users to peer into the recent past of changes that have happened to the climate including annual CO2 emissions and average global temperatures rises.
Users can also spool forward to see how rising sea levels might affect coastal regions in different regions of the world
it's alarming to see what just a one meter rise could mean. "While the sea level rise doesn't sound like a huge amount
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Three years after his Crusades epic "Kingdom of Heaven," director Ridley Scott returns to the shifting sands of the Middle East with "Body of Lies."
It's a high-tech but earnest spy thriller, which comes in roughly midway between the geopolitical pretensions of "Syriana" and the action-speaks-louder-than-words thrust of the "Bourne" movies.
Yes, there are a couple of chase scenes, but Scott rarely shifts into high gear.
You couldn't ask for a more alarming declaration of noble intent than the authentically scraggly black beard Leonardo DiCaprio sports as Roger Ferris, CIA point man in Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Dubai and other spots in the Levant.
Ferris does shoot terrorists when pressed, but he'd sooner talk to them.
You get the feeling this guy wouldn't pass certain folks' patriot tests (he speaks fluent Arabic, too), though he suffers mightily over the course of two hours.
On the other hand Russell Crowe is relaxed and kicking up his heels as Ed Hoffman, Roger's Langley supervisor and often enough "the eye in the sky," keeping his thumb on Ferris through more of those scarily efficient satellite tracking systems we keep seeing in movies this year.
If Roger is a not-so-closet liberal, Hoffman's definitely in the Cheney wing of the foreign policy spectrum.
"You need to decide which side of the cross you're on," he warns Ferris.
Before it gets to the climax, however, "Body of Lies" offers a long, elaborate setup involving ingenious computer hackery and a not very believable sting operation that creates a rival for Al-Saleem.
Unfortunately, there isn't enough in the way of a payoff.
Crowe (in his fourth picture with Scott) and DiCaprio (his first) play well off each other, but it's a pity they're on opposite sides of the globe for most of the action.
There's much too much satellite relay and not enough face time.
You can see the difference when Ferris confronts Hoffman in a rare trip home.
DiCaprio's on Crowe like a boxer.
"Lose some weight, you do this professionally," he scolds as he tips him over in his chair.
It's a surprising, spontaneous moment, and who knows if DiCaprio wasn't having some fun at his rather full-bodied co-star's expense?
At any rate, it feels like the truest exchange in the film.
Three years after his Crusades epic "Kingdom of Heaven," director Ridley Scott returns to the shifting sands of the Middle East with "Body of Lies."
It's a high-tech but earnest spy thriller, which comes in roughly midway between the geopolitical pretensions of "Syriana" and the action-speaks-louder-than-words thrust of the "Bourne" movies.
Yes, there are a couple of chase scenes, but Scott rarely shifts into high gear.
You couldn't ask for a more alarming declaration of noble intent than the authentically scraggly black beard Leonardo DiCaprio sports as Roger Ferris, CIA point man in Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Dubai and other spots in the Levant.
Ferris does shoot terrorists when pressed, but he'd sooner talk to them.
You get the feeling this guy wouldn't pass certain folks' patriot tests (he speaks fluent Arabic, too), though he suffers mightily over the course of two hours.
On the other hand Russell Crowe is relaxed and kicking up his heels as Ed Hoffman, Roger's Langley supervisor and often enough "the eye in the sky," keeping his thumb on Ferris through more of those scarily efficient satellite tracking systems we keep seeing in movies this year.
If Roger is a not-so-closet liberal, Hoffman's definitely in the Cheney wing of the foreign policy spectrum.
"You need to decide which side of the cross you're on," he warns Ferris.
Before it gets to the climax, however, "Body of Lies" offers a long, elaborate setup involving ingenious computer hackery and a not very believable sting operation that creates a rival for Al-Saleem.
Unfortunately, there isn't enough in the way of a payoff.
Crowe (in his fourth picture with Scott) and DiCaprio (his first) play well off each other, but it's a pity they're on opposite sides of the globe for most of the action.
There's much too much satellite relay and not enough face time.
You can see the difference when Ferris confronts Hoffman in a rare trip home.
DiCaprio's on Crowe like a boxer.
"Lose some weight, you do this professionally," he scolds as he tips him over in his chair.
It's a surprising, spontaneous moment, and who knows if DiCaprio wasn't having some fun at his rather full-bodied co-star's expense?
At any rate, it feels like the truest exchange in the film.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Golf legend Ballesteros has brain tumor
Golf legend Seve Ballesteros has confirmed that he has a brain tumor.
The 51-year-old Spaniard has been in Madrid's Le Paz hospital since collapsing last Monday and broke news of the diagnosis in a statement.
"I inform you that after an exhaustive check, that was realized at Hospital La Paz, a brain tumor has been detected," he said.
"During my career I was one of the best at getting around obstacles on golf courses. Now I want to be the best at confronting the most difficult match of my life with all my strength," he added.
Five-time major winner Ballesteros will undergo a biopsy on Tuesday before the doctors decide how to proceed.
It was unknown whether the tumor was benign or malignant.
Since being admitted he has been undergoing tests and on Friday, a statement by the hospital revealed Ballesteros had suffered "a partial epileptic fit" but said he had left intensive care and was in "a stable condition."
The former Ryder Cup captain, who won a record 50 times on the European tour, won the British Open three times and the U.S. Masters twice before retiring last year after battling back problems.
Golf legend Ballesteros has brain tumor
Golf legend Seve Ballesteros has confirmed that he has a brain tumor.
The 51-year-old Spaniard has been in Madrid's Le Paz hospital since collapsing last Monday and broke news of the diagnosis in a statement.
"I inform you that after an exhaustive check, that was realized at Hospital La Paz, a brain tumor has been detected," he said.
"During my career I was one of the best at getting around obstacles on golf courses. Now I want to be the best at confronting the most difficult match of my life with all my strength," he added.
Five-time major winner Ballesteros will undergo a biopsy on Tuesday before the doctors decide how to proceed.
It was unknown whether the tumor was benign or malignant.
Since being admitted he has been undergoing tests and on Friday, a statement by the hospital revealed Ballesteros had suffered "a partial epileptic fit" but said he had left intensive care and was in "a stable condition."
The former Ryder Cup captain, who won a record 50 times on the European tour, won the British Open three times and the U.S. Masters twice before retiring last year after battling back problems.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
A Californian company is developing a new technique for recycling carbon dioxide, or CO2, and turning it back into fuel.
Carbon Sciences believe they have made a breakthrough with their technology, which they say can transform CO2 back into basic fuel building blocks efficiently.
Their biocatalytic process converts CO2 into basic hydrocarbons - C1 (methane) C2 (ethane) and C3 (propane)
which can then be utilized to make higher-grade fuels like gasoline and jet fuel.
"We are very excited by what we've seen in the lab. We've had some promising results," Derek McLeish, President and CEO of the Santa Barbara-based company, told CNN.
using natural catalysts to perform chemical reactions Carbon Sciences hope to bypass the problem of inefficient energy ratios which can render many CO2 recycling projects pointless.
"We don't use high temperatures or high pressures, which is a huge advantage in terms of scaling the project up," McLeish said.
In the future, McLeish envisages Carbon Sciences setting up shop next door to large CO2 emitters coal, gas-fired plants and oil refineries recycling concentrated streams of CO2 discharged from fossil fuel plants.
Trying to take CO2 out of natural air just wouldn't be worth it.
"The beauty of this system is the whole infrastructure to distribute, to market and to use it is already in place," he said.
You might have thought that recycling is limited to paper, plastics and glass.
A Californian company is developing a new technique for recycling carbon dioxide, or CO2, and turning it back into fuel.
Carbon Sciences believe they have made a breakthrough with their technology, which they say can transform CO2 back into basic fuel building blocks efficiently.
Their biocatalytic process converts CO2 into basic hydrocarbons - C1 (methane) C2 (ethane) and C3 (propane)
which can then be utilized to make higher-grade fuels like gasoline and jet fuel.
"We are very excited by what we've seen in the lab.
We've had some promising results," Derek McLeish, President and CEO of the Santa Barbara-based company, told CNN.
"We don't use high temperatures or high pressures, which is a huge advantage in terms of scaling the project up," McLeish said.
coal, gas-fired plants and oil refineries
recycling concentrated streams of CO2 discharged from fossil fuel plants.
Trying to take CO2 out of natural air just wouldn't be worth it.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Markets across the world made impressive gains Monday after European banks followed Britain's lead and announced huge bailouts for their banking sectors.
European, Asian and U.S. markets closed higher with the New York Dow Jones scoring a record point gain for a single day of 936.
Other New York markets, the Nasdaq and the S&P also gained more than 10 percent on the day.
In Europe, the French CAC 40 and the German DAX also had gains of more than 10 percent.
London's FTSE 100 finished 8.26 percent higher, while Asian markets saw similar large gains of between 7-10 percent.
"Seeing that there's going to be more of a global commitment to resolving the financial crisis has given confidence to investors and gotten them to put some money to work," Christopher Colarik, portfolio manager at Glenmede Investment Management, told CNNMoney.
The world's major economic powers were forced into action after weeks of turmoil on financial markets saw trillions wiped off the value of stocks.
Most troubling was the collapse in confidence and supply of liquidity in major banks, burdened by unknown amounts of bad debs related to sub-prime mortgages.
The markets responded after European leaders, led by UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown outlined plans which will see more than a trillion dollars pumped into the banking sector.
Markets bounce on trillion-dollar bailout
Markets across the world made impressive gains Monday after European banks followed Britain's lead and announced huge bailouts for their banking sectors.
European, Asian and U.S. markets closed higher with the New York Dow Jones scoring a record point gain for a single day of 936.
Other New York markets, the Nasdaq and the S&P also gained more than 10 percent on the day.
In Europe, the French CAC 40 and the German DAX also had gains of more than 10 percent.
London's FTSE 100 finished 8.26 percent higher, while Asian markets saw similar large gains of between 7-10 percent.
"Seeing that there's going to be more of a global commitment to resolving the financial crisis has given confidence to investors and gotten them to put some money to work," Christopher Colarik, portfolio manager at Glenmede Investment Management, told CNNMoney.
The world's major economic powers were forced into action after weeks of turmoil on financial markets saw trillions wiped off the value of stocks.
Most troubling was the collapse in confidence and supply of liquidity in major banks, burdened by unknown amounts of bad debs related to sub-prime mortgages.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Saudi prince to build tallest building
Saudi Prince and billionaire Al-Waleed bin Talal says he will build the world's tallest building, planned to be over a kilometer (3,281 feet) high.
The tower will be built in the Saudi town of Jeddah and will be part of a larger project that will cost $26.7 billion, (100 billion Saudi riyals) said the Prince's firm, Kingdom Holding Company.
The project, entitled Kingdom City, will span 23 million square meters (248 million square feet) and will include luxury homes, hotels and offices.
The booming city of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates has also joined the skyscraper race.
While the ever-growing Burj Dubai is already the tallest man-made structure in the world, the Nakheel Tower is set to go even higher.
Developers suggest the finished building will be at least 1 km tall.
While in Europe, Paris is leading the skyscraper revolution
plans for a 50-story building have been given the green light, which will make it the first skyscraper to be built in the city for 30 years.
These buildings are part of a new generation of innovative, exciting skyscrapers set to appear all over the world over the next 10 years.
Some truly mind-blowing structures are being planned for the Middle East.
Saudi prince to build tallest building
Saudi Prince and billionaire Al-Waleed bin Talal says he will build the world's tallest building, planned to be over a kilometer (3,281 feet) high.
The tower will be built in the Saudi town of Jeddah and will be part of a larger project that will cost $26.7 billion, (100 billion Saudi riyals) said the Prince's firm, Kingdom Holding Company.
The project, entitled Kingdom City, will span 23 million square meters (248 million square feet) and will include luxury homes, hotels and offices.
The booming city of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates has also joined the skyscraper race.
While the ever-growing Burj Dubai is already the tallest man-made structure in the world, the Nakheel Tower is set to go even higher.
Developers suggest the finished building will be at least 1 km tall.
While in Europe, Paris is leading the skyscraper revolution
plans for a 50-story building have been given the green light, which will make it the first skyscraper to be built in the city for 30 years.
These buildings are part of a new generation of innovative, exciting skyscrapers set to appear all over the world over the next 10 years.
Some truly mind-blowing structures are being planned for the Middle East.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
One person has been killed in a fire that has burned more than 3,500 acres in the Angeles National Forest and encroached some northern areas of Los Angeles, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said Monday afternoon.
The adult male's body was found in a makeshift wood-and-cardboard shelter in northern Los Angeles near the forest, officials said at an afternoon news conference.
He appeared to be homeless, officials said; no name or age were released.
Authorities also said they are battling a second nearby blaze, which has already burned 750 acres.
The first fire has destroyed several structures, including about 30 mobile homes in the Lopez Canyon area, said Los Angeles County fire inspector Sam Padilla.
The mobile homes had been evacuated Sunday.
Both fires are being driven by strong Santa Ana winds, officials said.
"The winds that were expected have arrived. The worst has happened," said Mark Savage of the Los Angeles County Fire Department.
The high winds were making the first fire, which is less than 5 percent contained, dangerous and unpredictable, officials said at an earlier news conference Monday.
Officials shut down two freeways north of Los Angeles and authorities dispatched water-dropping helicopters and more than 200 fire engines as the blaze "started to push toward the city," said John Tripp of the Los Angeles County Fire Department.
About 1,200 residents have left their homes and more evacuations are expected, Padilla said.
Winds are heading southwest and fire officials are warning residents to keep an eye on their surroundings.
1 killed in Los Angeles-area wildfire
One person has been killed in a fire that has burned more than 3,500 acres in the Angeles National Forest and encroached some northern areas of Los Angeles, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said Monday afternoon.
The adult male's body was found in a makeshift wood-and-cardboard shelter in northern Los Angeles near the forest, officials said at an afternoon news conference.
He appeared to be homeless, officials said; no name or age were released.
Authorities also said they are battling a second nearby blaze, which has already burned 750 acres.
The first fire has destroyed several structures, including about 30 mobile homes in the Lopez Canyon area, said Los Angeles County fire inspector Sam Padilla.
The mobile homes had been evacuated Sunday.
Both fires are being driven by strong Santa Ana winds, officials said.
"The winds that were expected have arrived. The worst has happened," said Mark Savage of the Los Angeles County Fire Department.
The high winds were making the first fire, which is less than 5 percent contained, dangerous and unpredictable, officials said at an earlier news conference Monday.
Officials shut down two freeways north of Los Angeles and authorities dispatched water-dropping helicopters and more than 200 fire engines as the blaze "started to push toward the city," said John Tripp of the Los Angeles County Fire Department.
About 1,200 residents have left their homes and more evacuations are expected, Padilla said.
Winds are heading southwest and fire officials are warning residents to keep an eye on their surroundings.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Public school officials in Chicago, Illinois, are recommending approval of a "gay-friendly" high school because harassment and violence are causing gay students to skip class and drop out at alarming rates.
The School for Social Justice Pride Campus, which officials say will not be exclusive to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students, is aimed at being safe and welcoming for any student looking for another school option, said Josh Edelman, executive officer in the Chicago Public Schools' Office of New Schools.
"It is not going to be a 'gay high school,' but yes, in a way, it is meant to target kids who feel they have been victims of bullying for their sexual orientation or perceived orientation," Edelman said.
Chicago Public Schools CEO Arne Duncan announced his recommendation Wednesday.
Officials said Pride Campus would be separate physically but be attached administratively to the School for Social Justice.
School officials said the standards and curriculum for the school would be in line with other schools in the district.
The school would also offer counseling for students, though because of federal laws, officials cannot ask students about their sexual orientation.
The curriculum would not rely on, but would incorporate lessons about, sexual identity in history and literature classes, officials said. "It's about creating another option for kids," Edelman said.
"When it comes down to it, though, it is all about having a choice and providing high-quality options for students, whether they are gay or not."
The Pride Campus is expected to serve 600 students, school officials said.
Public school officials in Chicago, Illinois, are recommending approval of a "gay-friendly" high school because harassment and violence are causing gay students to skip class and drop out at alarming rates.
The School for Social Justice Pride Campus, which officials say will not be exclusive to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students, is aimed at being safe and welcoming for any student looking for another school option, said Josh Edelman, executive officer in the Chicago Public Schools' Office of New Schools.
"It is not going to be a 'gay high school,' but yes, in a way, it is meant to target kids who feel they have been victims of bullying for their sexual orientation or perceived orientation," Edelman said.
Chicago Public Schools CEO Arne Duncan announced his recommendation Wednesday.
Officials said Pride Campus would be separate physically but be attached administratively to the School for Social Justice.
School officials said the standards and curriculum for the school would be in line with other schools in the district.
The school would also offer counseling for students, though because of federal laws, officials cannot ask students about their sexual orientation.
The curriculum would not rely on, but would incorporate lessons about, sexual identity in history and literature classes, officials said. "It's about creating another option for kids," Edelman said.
"When it comes down to it, though, it is all about having a choice and providing high-quality options for students, whether they are gay or not."
The Pride Campus is expected to serve 600 students, school officials said.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Rob Sandler comforted his infant son as he lifted him out of the crib, cooing in his ear while he walked to the living room.
If his baby had needed to be soothed three months ago, Sandler, 36, of Houston, Texas, might have handed the baby off to his wife and then found an excuse to leave the house.
"Honestly, it felt like when I was at home, the walls became very, very close in. I wouldn't say claustrophobic, but very cabin feverish," Sandler said.
It turned out that Sandler, a medical device salesman, had more than cabin fever.
He recently got an official diagnosis:
"This comes as quite a shock to men who are expecting this wonderful time of baby bliss with the new baby and a time of bonding," said Will Courtenay, a San Francisco, California-based psychotherapist and founder of Saddaddy.com, who is a leading expert in the United States on paternal postnatal depression.
"Each day in the U.S., 1,000 new dads become depressed, and according to some studies that number is as high as 3,000.
"They can't stand to be around their baby...they can't stand the smell or the sound of their child screaming."
Courtenay said a number of factors may cause the depressed feelings.
"It's likely that sleep deprivation plays a major role," he said.
According to Courtenay, "It's a double whammy. Not only do our testosterone levels go down, but our estrogen levels go up and these female hormones coursing through our body can really wreak havoc on a man's functioning."
Although experts aren't exactly sure, they theorize that these fluctuations may be similar to "sympathy pains" that individuals feel when someone they're close to is hurting.
Male postpartum depression is different from the "daddy blues," he said.
The signs of full-blown depression are usually more severe and last longer.
Some of the symptoms of postpartum depression are the same as those for generalized depression, such as sadness, a sense of worthlessness and a loss of interest in sex or hobbies.
A rocky relationship with a spouse, a sick or colicky baby, anxiety about becoming a father and a history of depression can also contribute to the condition.
Courtenay mentioned one of the best predictors of whether a man will become depressed is if his spouse is depressed.
"Half of all men whose partner has postpartum depression are depressed themselves," Courtenay said.
Men are also more likely to hide their depression from loved ones, he added. He suggested there are several ways for new fathers to try to prevent postpartum depression.
Courtenay recommended that men with a history of depression see a mental health professional before the birth of a child to work through any issues that are causing stress and anxiety.
Similarly, he told couples to seek marital counseling ahead of time if they're having trouble communicating.
Courtenay said couples should evaluate monetary resources before a new baby arrives.
Rob Sandler comforted his infant son as he lifted him out of the crib, cooing in his ear while he walked to the living room.
If his baby had needed to be soothed three months ago, Sandler, 36, of Houston, Texas, might have handed the baby off to his wife and then found an excuse to leave the house.
"Honestly, it felt like when I was at home, the walls became very, very close in. I wouldn't say claustrophobic, but very cabin feverish," Sandler said.
It turned out that Sandler, a medical device salesman, had more than cabin fever.
He recently got an official diagnosis:
"This comes as quite a shock to men who are expecting this wonderful time of baby bliss with the new baby and a time of bonding," said Will Courtenay, a San Francisco, California-based psychotherapist and founder of Saddaddy.com, who is a leading expert in the United States on paternal postnatal depression.
"Each day in the U.S., 1,000 new dads become depressed, and according to some studies that number is as high as 3,000.
"They can't stand to be around their baby...they can't stand the smell or the sound of their child screaming."
Courtenay said a number of factors may cause the depressed feelings.
"It's likely that sleep deprivation plays a major role," he said.
According to Courtenay, "It's a double whammy. Not only do our testosterone levels go down, but our estrogen levels go up and these female hormones coursing through our body can really wreak havoc on a man's functioning."
Although experts aren't exactly sure, they theorize that these fluctuations may be similar to "sympathy pains" that individuals feel when someone they're close to is hurting.
Male postpartum depression is different from the "daddy blues," he said.
The signs of full-blown depression are usually more severe and last longer.
Some of the symptoms of postpartum depression are the same as those for generalized depression, such as sadness, a sense of worthlessness and a loss of interest in sex or hobbies.
A rocky relationship with a spouse, a sick or colicky baby, anxiety about becoming a father and a history of depression can also contribute to the condition.
Courtenay mentioned one of the best predictors of whether a man will become depressed is if his spouse is depressed.
"Half of all men whose partner has postpartum depression are depressed themselves," Courtenay said.
Men are also more likely to hide their depression from loved ones, he added. He suggested there are several ways for new fathers to try to prevent postpartum depression.
Courtenay recommended that men with a history of depression see a mental health professional before the birth of a child to work through any issues that are causing stress and anxiety.
Similarly, he told couples to seek marital counseling ahead of time if they're having trouble communicating.
Courtenay said couples should evaluate monetary resources before a new baby arrives.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Paul Krugman, the Princeton University scholar and New York Times columnist, won the Nobel economic prize Monday for his analysis of how economies of scale can affect trade patterns and the location of economic activity.
Krugman has been a harsh critic of the Bush administration and the Republican Party in The New York Times, where he writes a regular column and has a blog called "Conscience of a Liberal."
The 55-year-old American economist was the lone of winner of the 10 million kronor ($1.4 million) award and the latest in a string of American researchers to be honored.
It was only the second time since 2000 that a single laureate won the prize, which is typically shared by two or three researchers.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences praised Krugman for formulating a new theory to answer questions about free trade.
"What are the effects of free trade and globalization? What are the driving forces behind worldwide urbanization? Paul Krugman has formulated a new theory to answer these questions," the academy said in its citation.
"He has thereby integrated the previously disparate research fields of international trade and economic geography," it said.
The award, known as the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, is the last of the six Nobel prizes announced this year and is not one of the original Nobels.
It was created in 1968 by the Swedish central bank in Alfred Nobel's memory.
The Nobel Prizes in medicine, chemistry, physics, literature and economics will be handed out in Stockholm by Sweden's King Carl XVI on December 10, the anniversary of prize founder Alfred Nobel's death in 1896.
The Nobel Peace Prize is handed out in Oslo, Norway, on the same date.
Paul Krugman, the Princeton University scholar and New York Times columnist, won the Nobel economic prize Monday for his analysis of how economies of scale can affect trade patterns and the location of economic activity.
Krugman has been a harsh critic of the Bush administration and the Republican Party in The New York Times, where he writes a regular column and has a blog called "Conscience of a Liberal."
The 55-year-old American economist was the lone of winner of the 10 million kronor ($1.4 million) award and the latest in a string of American researchers to be honored.
It was only the second time since 2000 that a single laureate won the prize, which is typically shared by two or three researchers.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences praised Krugman for formulating a new theory to answer questions about free trade.
"What are the effects of free trade and globalization? What are the driving forces behind worldwide urbanization? Paul Krugman has formulated a new theory to answer these questions," the academy said in its citation.
"He has thereby integrated the previously disparate research fields of international trade and economic geography," it said.
The award, known as the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, is the last of the six Nobel prizes announced this year and is not one of the original Nobels.
It was created in 1968 by the Swedish central bank in Alfred Nobel's memory.
The Nobel Prizes in medicine, chemistry, physics, literature and economics will be handed out in Stockholm by Sweden's King Carl XVI on December 10, the anniversary of prize founder Alfred Nobel's death in 1896.
The Nobel Peace Prize is handed out in Oslo, Norway, on the same date.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Brad Pitt plays rewarding role in Katrina recovery
The first homes in Brad Pitt's Make It Right rebuilding project are complete, and some three years after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, Lousiana, 68-year-old grandmother Gloria Guy was on hand to give the actor a big hug.
Pitt, his partner Angelina Jolie and their family of six children privately toured the hard-hit Lower Ninth Ward district earlier this week.
The celebrity couple bought a home in New Orleans about a year after Katrina struck and became involved in launching the project to help rebuild the city's hardest-hit neighborhood.
"I thank God for Brad Pitt," Guy said Thursday when reporters viewed the first six homes Pitt and family visited Monday and Tuesday.
"I told him how much I appreciate all that he's done for me and my family."
Guy is moving into one of the first of some 150 Make It Right homes planned for a district where levees crumbled after Katrina, unleashing floodwaters that knocked previous homes off their foundations.
The replacement homes cost an average $150,000 each and are for residents who still own their property and can pay insurance and taxes.
Their monthly house payments will be based on applicants' income and subsidized by funds raised by Pitt's foundation.
Nearby, 72-year-old resident Gertrude LeBlanc relaxed on a porch swing as dozens of journalists swarmed about.
She was one of the first back after Katrina and said her neighborhood had been a lonely place for too long.
"I've waited a long time for my neighbors to start coming home," she said, noting fewer than a third of the neighbors have moved back.
Brad Pitt plays rewarding role in Katrina recovery
The first homes in Brad Pitt's Make It Right rebuilding project are complete, and some three years after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, Lousiana, 68-year-old grandmother Gloria Guy was on hand to give the actor a big hug.
Pitt, his partner Angelina Jolie and their family of six children privately toured the hard-hit Lower Ninth Ward district earlier this week.
The celebrity couple bought a home in New Orleans about a year after Katrina struck and became involved in launching the project to help rebuild the city's hardest-hit neighborhood.
"I thank God for Brad Pitt," Guy said Thursday when reporters viewed the first six homes Pitt and family visited Monday and Tuesday.
"I told him how much I appreciate all that he's done for me and my family."
Guy is moving into one of the first of some 150 Make It Right homes planned for a district where levees crumbled after Katrina, unleashing floodwaters that knocked previous homes off their foundations.
The replacement homes cost an average $150,000 each and are for residents who still own their property and can pay insurance and taxes.
Their monthly house payments will be based on applicants' income and subsidized by funds raised by Pitt's foundation.
Nearby, 72-year-old resident Gertrude LeBlanc relaxed on a porch swing as dozens of journalists swarmed about.
She was one of the first back after Katrina and said her neighborhood had been a lonely place for too long.
"I've waited a long time for my neighbors to start coming home," she said, noting fewer than a third of the neighbors have moved back.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
The Italian football federation will no longer request tickets for away games involving the World Cup champions until fan violence is brought under control.
Italy's 0-0 draw in Bulgaria on Saturday was marred when visiting fans shouted fascist slogans on their way to the stadium and started rioting once they got inside, swinging belts and throwing objects toward Bulgaria supporters, reports said.
Police brought the situation under control but then Bulgaria fans whistled during the playing of the Italian anthem and Italian fans burned Bulgarian flags, the ANSA news agency reported.
"From now on, for Italy's away games, we will no longer request tickets for our fans until we have made the necessary checks and we are certain (it won't happen again)," federation president Giancarlo Abete said Monday.
Abete also said security would be increased for Wednesday's Group 8 game with Montenegro in Lecce, Italy.
The Italian football federation will no longer request tickets for away games involving the World Cup champions until fan violence is brought under control.
Italy's 0-0 draw in Bulgaria on Saturday was marred when visiting fans shouted fascist slogans on their way to the stadium and started rioting once they got inside, swinging belts and throwing objects toward Bulgaria supporters, reports said.
Police brought the situation under control but then Bulgaria fans whistled during the playing of the Italian anthem and Italian fans burned Bulgarian flags, the ANSA news agency reported.
"From now on, for Italy's away games, we will no longer request tickets for our fans until we have made the necessary checks and we are certain (it won't happen again)," federation president Giancarlo Abete said Monday.
Abete also said security would be increased for Wednesday's Group 8 game with Montenegro in Lecce, Italy.
"The behavior was unacceptable and it caused damage to the entire country's image."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
North Korea will resume the process of dismantling its nuclear reactor on Tuesday, the International Atomic Energy Agency announced.
The U.N. nuclear watchdog said a day earlier that Pyongyang had granted the IAEA access to its nuclear facility in Yongbyon again.
"Agency inspectors will also now be permitted to re-apply the containment and surveillance measures at the reprocessing facility," said Melissa Fleming, an IAEA spokeswoman.
The quick turnaround comes only days after the United States removed North Korea from its list of states that sponsor terrorism.
On October 9, Pyongyang said nuclear inspectors were no longer welcome at its facilities.
North Korea halted the disabling of the plutonium-producing plants in August after a stalemate over verification measures.
Washington had said it would not delist North Korea until Pyongyang agreed to set up an internationally recognizable mechanism to verify it was revealing all its nuclear secrets.
North Korea rejected that provision.
North Korea will resume the process of dismantling its nuclear reactor on Tuesday, the International Atomic Energy Agency announced.
The U.N. nuclear watchdog said a day earlier that Pyongyang had granted the IAEA access to its nuclear facility in Yongbyon again.
"Agency inspectors will also now be permitted to re-apply the containment and surveillance measures at the reprocessing facility," said Melissa Fleming, an IAEA spokeswoman.
The quick turnaround comes only days after the United States removed North Korea from its list of states that sponsor terrorism.
On October 9, Pyongyang said nuclear inspectors were no longer welcome at its facilities.
North Korea halted the disabling of the plutonium-producing plants in August after a stalemate over verification measures.
Washington had said it would not delist North Korea until Pyongyang agreed to set up an internationally recognizable mechanism to verify it was revealing all its nuclear secrets.
North Korea rejected that provision.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
California fires force thousands to evacuate
Wildfires fanned by strong Santa Ana winds raged through Southern California on Tuesday morning, forcing thousands of families from their homes.
Firefighters were spread thin as new fires popped up and existing ones raced through the countryside:
the Marek and Sesnon blazes have burned more than 15,000 acres in the hills and mountains north of Los Angeles.
At Camp Pendleton, near Oceanside, a fire has burned more than 3,000 acres and forced the evacuation of Marines from their barracks and other personnel from the base.
A fast-moving fire east of San Diego that started early Tuesday led to the evacuation of 300 homes in the Campo area, near the Mexican border.
The fires are being pushed by Santa Ana winds gusting up to 70 mph (113 kph), but firefighters may have caught a break Tuesday morning when the winds calmed.
"We're facing the perfect storm," California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Tuesday morning. "We have very strong winds, low humidity and the heat."
Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency in Los Angeles and Ventura counties, and local officials have urged President Bush to issue a federal disaster declaration.
Statewide, Schwarzenegger said, the fires have burned 26,800 acres and destroyed 64 structures.
About 3,100 personnel, including National Guard members, are using 321 fire engines and 22 helicopters to fight the blazes.
Noting California's budget crisis, the governor said public safety is a top priority.
"We will not spare one single dollar in fighting the fires," he said. "We will take it from somewhere else if we have to."
Nearly 1,350 firefighters are battling the Marek blaze, and more than 1,400 are working the Sesnon fire.
The crews aim to prevent the blazes from pushing closer to pricey neighborhoods on the Pacific Coast
California fires force thousands to evacuate
Wildfires fanned by strong Santa Ana winds raged through Southern California on Tuesday morning, forcing thousands of families from their homes.
Firefighters were spread thin as new fires popped up and existing ones raced through the countryside:
the Marek and Sesnon blazes have burned more than 15,000 acres in the hills and mountains north of Los Angeles.
At Camp Pendleton, near Oceanside, a fire has burned more than 3,000 acres and forced the evacuation of Marines from their barracks and other personnel from the base.
A fast-moving fire east of San Diego that started early Tuesday led to the evacuation of 300 homes in the Campo area, near the Mexican border.
The fires are being pushed by Santa Ana winds gusting up to 70 mph (113 kph), but firefighters may have caught a break Tuesday morning when the winds calmed.
"We're facing the perfect storm," California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Tuesday morning. "We have very strong winds, low humidity and the heat."
Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency in Los Angeles and Ventura counties, and local officials have urged President Bush to issue a federal disaster declaration.
Statewide, Schwarzenegger said, the fires have burned 26,800 acres and destroyed 64 structures.
About 3,100 personnel, including National Guard members, are using 321 fire engines and 22 helicopters to fight the blazes.
Noting California's budget crisis, the governor said public safety is a top priority.
"We will not spare one single dollar in fighting the fires," he said.
"We will take it from somewhere else if we have to."
The crews aim to prevent the blazes from pushing closer to pricey neighborhoods on the Pacific Coast
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Is the more you Yahoo, the better?
A new study suggests that searching online could be beneficial for the brain.
A study at the University of California, Los Angeles, measured brain activity of older adults as they searched the Web.
"There's so much interest in exercising our minds as we age," said the researcher, Dr. Gary Small, a professor at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA. "One result of this study is that these technologies are not all bad.
They may be good in keeping our brains active." To study what brains look like when people are searching the Internet, Small recruited two groups of people:
one that had minimal computer experience and another that was Web savvy.
Members of the technologically advanced group had more than twice the neural activation than their less experienced counterparts while searching online.
Activity occurred in the region of the brain that controls decision-making and complex reasoning, according to Small's study, which appears in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.
Small said he can't pinpoint why there was more brain activity in the experienced users.
"The way I theorized is that when we are confronted with new mental challenges, we don't know how to deal with it," he said. Once we figure out a strategy, we engage those circuits.
In the study, 24 people were divided into the two groups, who were similar in age ranging from 55 to 78 years old, sex and educational achievement.
Their only difference was their technological experience.
The number of people in the study was small, "but adequate to see a difference between the groups. It was so significantly different," Small said.
The subjects went into the magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, scanner, which is like a large tunnel.
The MRI monitored their brain activity while the subjects strapped on goggles, through which they saw a book page or an Internet search page.
They were given search tasks such as finding out how to choose a car or looking up the benefits of eating chocolate or drinking coffee.
They had buttons and keyboards to conduct a simulated online search.
Their other task was to read pages laid out like a book.
But it was only for the people who had previous experience with the Internet."
Is the more you Yahoo, the better?
A new study suggests that searching online could be beneficial for the brain.
A study at the University of California, Los Angeles, measured brain activity of older adults as they searched the Web.
"There's so much interest in exercising our minds as we age," said the researcher, Dr. Gary Small, a professor at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA. "One result of this study is that these technologies are not all bad.
They may be good in keeping our brains active." To study what brains look like when people are searching the Internet, Small recruited two groups of people:
one that had minimal computer experience and another that was Web savvy.
Members of the technologically advanced group had more than twice the neural activation than their less experienced counterparts while searching online.
Activity occurred in the region of the brain that controls decision-making and complex reasoning, according to Small's study, which appears in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.
Small said he can't pinpoint why there was more brain activity in the experienced users.
"The way I theorized is that when we are confronted with new mental challenges, we don't know how to deal with it," he said. Once we figure out a strategy, we engage those circuits.
In the study, 24 people were divided into the two groups, who were similar in age ranging from 55 to 78 years old, sex and educational achievement.
Their only difference was their technological experience.
The number of people in the study was small, "but adequate to see a difference between the groups. It was so significantly different," Small said.
The subjects went into the magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, scanner, which is like a large tunnel.
The MRI monitored their brain activity while the subjects strapped on goggles, through which they saw a book page or an Internet search page.
They were given search tasks such as finding out how to choose a car or looking up the benefits of eating chocolate or drinking coffee.
They had buttons and keyboards to conduct a simulated online search.
Their other task was to read pages laid out like a book.
"The bottom line is, when older people read a simulated book page, we see areas of the brain activated that you'd expect, the visual cortex, and areas that control language and reading," he said.
But it was only for the people who had previous experience with the Internet."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Bush announces $250B bailout
U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson says golden parachute payments will be banned and the salary deals of bankers "clawed back" as part of the government's $250 billion bailout of the financial sector.
President George W. Bush Tuesday followed Europe's lead, announcing the $250 billion plan to help stabilize the financial system.
Using authority granted in the country's $700 billion bailout bill, Bush said the Treasury would buy into banks in return for shares.
However, Paulson stressed taxpayers would get a return on their money and banking excesses would be brought to an end.
"Institutions that sell shares to the government will accept restrictions on executive compensation, including a clawback provision and a ban on golden parachutes during the period that Treasury holds equity issued through this program," he said.
The world's sharemarkets climbed again after European governments Monday announced bank bailouts worth more than $1 trillion and in anticipation of the U.S. bailout.
The Dow Jones industrial average surged 363 points in early trading after Bush and Paulson spoke before dropping back and eventually closing down by 76 points, or 0.82 percent.
Bush said the measures taken in Europe were right, and had brought stability to the system.
Bush announces $250B bailout
U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson says golden parachute payments will be banned and the salary deals of bankers "clawed back" as part of the government's $250 billion bailout of the financial sector.
President George W. Bush Tuesday followed Europe's lead, announcing the $250 billion plan to help stabilize the financial system.
Using authority granted in the country's $700 billion bailout bill, Bush said the Treasury would buy into banks in return for shares.
However, Paulson stressed taxpayers would get a return on their money and banking excesses would be brought to an end.
"Institutions that sell shares to the government will accept restrictions on executive compensation, including a clawback provision and a ban on golden parachutes during the period that Treasury holds equity issued through this program," he said.
The world's sharemarkets climbed again after European governments Monday announced bank bailouts worth more than $1 trillion and in anticipation of the U.S. bailout.
The Dow Jones industrial average surged 363 points in early trading after Bush and Paulson spoke before dropping back and eventually closing down by 76 points, or 0.82 percent.
Bush said the measures taken in Europe were right, and had brought stability to the system.
"This is a short-term measure to insure the viability of America's banking system."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
I`ve got to get fans out of my life
Former Beatle Ringo Starr has given his fans a ticket to ride.
In a video posted on his Web site, Starr says he will no longer sign fan mail or memorabilia.
"I want to tell you please... do not send fan mail to any address that you have.
Nothing will be signed after the 20th of October. If that is the date on the envelope, it's gonna be tossed.
"I'm warning you with peace and love I have too much to do. So no more fan mail, thank you, thank you, and no objects to be signed.
Nothing," the 68-year-old said.
The drummer, wearing dark glasses, said it was "a serious message to everybody watching."
Starr once starred in an episode of 'The Simpsons' which showed him answering every piece of fan mail.
"They took the time to write to me, and I don't care if it takes 20 years, I'm going to answer every one of them," Starr said on the show.
Starr, who earlier this year released a new album called Liverpool 8, divides his time between homes in Los Angeles, the South of France and Surrey.
He angered Liverpool residents during an interview on British television in January when he said he missed nothing about the city.
I`ve got to get fans out of my life
Former Beatle Ringo Starr has given his fans a ticket to ride.
In a video posted on his Web site, Starr says he will no longer sign fan mail or memorabilia.
"I want to tell you please... do not send fan mail to any address that you have.
Nothing will be signed after the 20th of October. If that is the date on the envelope, it's gonna be tossed.
"I'm warning you with peace and love I have too much to do. So no more fan mail, thank you, thank you, and no objects to be signed.
Nothing," the 68-year-old said.
The drummer, wearing dark glasses, said it was "a serious message to everybody watching."
Starr once starred in an episode of 'The Simpsons' which showed him answering every piece of fan mail.
"They took the time to write to me, and I don't care if it takes 20 years, I'm going to answer every one of them," Starr said on the show.
Starr, who earlier this year released a new album called Liverpool 8, divides his time between homes in Los Angeles, the South of France and Surrey.
He angered Liverpool residents during an interview on British television in January when he said he missed nothing about the city.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
WHO slams global health care, calls for universal coverage
In a Nairobi slum, more than one in four children under 5 will die, but in a wealthier part of the Kenyan capital, the mortality rate is one in almost 67, according to a World Health Organization report released Tuesday.
The World Health Report 2008 aims to spotlight disparities in health care across the globe, and as the Nairobi example illustrates, the differences exist not only between the First and Third Worlds they can occur just across town.
WHO roundly criticizes the organization, finance and delivery of health care and calls advances in the field "deeply and unacceptably unequal, with many disadvantaged populations increasingly lagging behind or even losing ground."
The report says that a citizen of a wealthy nation can live up to 40 years longer than someone in a poor country, and of the 136 million women who will give birth this year, about 58 million (43 percent) will receive no medical assistance during childbirth or the postpartum period.
UNICEF Executive Director Ann Veneman said the sharp inequities in the cost and access to health care often speak to larger societal ills.
"High maternal, infant and under-five mortality often indicates lack of access to basic services such as clean water and sanitation, immunizations and proper nutrition," she said in a statement.
WHO Director-General Margaret Chan insists the dilemma is not just a matter of haves versus have-nots.
"A world that is greatly out of balance in matters of health is neither stable nor secure," she said in a statement from Almaty, Kazakhstan, where the report was released.
The difference in annual government expenditures on health care is more canyon than gap, according to the report.
While the wealthiest nations dole out as much as $6,000 per person each year, some countries are unable or unwilling to spend more than $20 per person.
However, while calling for wide-ranging reforms in the delivery of primary health care, the report notes that it isn't always a matter of government expenditures.
Tajikistan and Sierra Leone both spend less than $100 per person on health care.
But while the health-adjusted life expectancy in Sierra Leone is under 30 years of age, Tajikistan's is almost 70
a figure comparable to the United States, which spends more than $2,500 a person on health care.
"When countries at the same level of economic development are compared, those where health care is organized around the tenets of primary health care produce a higher level of health for the same investment," the report says.
WHO defines primary health care as being "universally accessible to individuals and families in the community by means acceptable to them, through their full participation and at a cost that the community and country can afford."
The organization's report titled "Primary Health Care
calls for a move toward universal coverage to reverse a trend over the last 30 years in which disparities in the levels of health care have actually widened.
WHO slams global health care, calls for universal coverage
In a Nairobi slum, more than one in four children under 5 will die, but in a wealthier part of the Kenyan capital, the mortality rate is one in almost 67, according to a World Health Organization report released Tuesday.
The World Health Report 2008 aims to spotlight disparities in health care across the globe, and as the Nairobi example illustrates, the differences exist not only between the First and Third Worlds they can occur just across town.
WHO roundly criticizes the organization, finance and delivery of health care and calls advances in the field "deeply and unacceptably unequal, with many disadvantaged populations increasingly lagging behind or even losing ground."
The report says that a citizen of a wealthy nation can live up to 40 years longer than someone in a poor country, and of the 136 million women who will give birth this year, about 58 million (43 percent) will receive no medical assistance during childbirth or the postpartum period.
UNICEF Executive Director Ann Veneman said the sharp inequities in the cost and access to health care often speak to larger societal ills.
"High maternal, infant and under-five mortality often indicates lack of access to basic services such as clean water and sanitation, immunizations and proper nutrition," she said in a statement.
WHO Director-General Margaret Chan insists the dilemma is not just a matter of haves versus have-nots.
"A world that is greatly out of balance in matters of health is neither stable nor secure," she said in a statement from Almaty, Kazakhstan, where the report was released.
The difference in annual government expenditures on health care is more canyon than gap, according to the report.
While the wealthiest nations dole out as much as $6,000 per person each year, some countries are unable or unwilling to spend more than $20 per person.
However, while calling for wide-ranging reforms in the delivery of primary health care, the report notes that it isn't always a matter of government expenditures.
Tajikistan and Sierra Leone both spend less than $100 per person on health care.
But while the health-adjusted life expectancy in Sierra Leone is under 30 years of age, Tajikistan's is almost 70
a figure comparable to the United States, which spends more than $2,500 a person on health care.
"When countries at the same level of economic development are compared, those where health care is organized around the tenets of primary health care produce a higher level of health for the same investment," the report says.
WHO defines primary health care as being "universally accessible to individuals and families in the community by means acceptable to them, through their full participation and at a cost that the community and country can afford."
The organization's report titled "Primary Health Care
calls for a move toward universal coverage to reverse a trend over the last 30 years in which disparities in the levels of health care have actually widened.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Space tourist Richard Garriott has arrived at the International Space Station for a 10-day stay for which he paid the Russian government an estimated $30 million.
A Russian Soyuz spacecraft, which docked with the space station at 4:38 a.m. ET Tuesday, carried Garriott, along with NASA astronaut Michael Fincke and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Lonchakov.
Garriott, a Texan who made a fortune in the video game industry, is the son of former NASA astronaut Owen Garriott.
The elder Garriott, who watched Tuesday's docking at Russia's mission control, flew in 1973 on Skylab, a U.S. forerunner of the International Space Station.
While Richard Garriott said the flight was a fulfillment of his dream to follow in his father's footsteps, he said he will also try to make it a commercial success.
Garriott said he would use the space trip to conduct protein crystal growth experiments for a biotech company co-founded by his father.
He is also being paid to wear a watch as a test of its performance in microgravity.
Space tourist Richard Garriott has arrived at the International Space Station for a 10-day stay for which he paid the Russian government an estimated $30 million.
A Russian Soyuz spacecraft, which docked with the space station at 4:38 a.m. ET Tuesday, carried Garriott, along with NASA astronaut Michael Fincke and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Lonchakov.
Garriott, a Texan who made a fortune in the video game industry, is the son of former NASA astronaut Owen Garriott.
The elder Garriott, who watched Tuesday's docking at Russia's mission control, flew in 1973 on Skylab, a U.S. forerunner of the International Space Station.
While Richard Garriott said the flight was a fulfillment of his dream to follow in his father's footsteps, he said he will also try to make it a commercial success.
Garriott said he would use the space trip to conduct protein crystal growth experiments for a biotech company co-founded by his father.
He is also being paid to wear a watch as a test of its performance in microgravity.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Liverpool fuming over Champions venue switch
Liverpool have hit out after Atletico Madrid were ordered by UEFA to switch next Wednesday's Champions League tie to a venue at least 186 miles (300 kilometers) from the Spanish capital.
UEFA's edict also applies to Atletico's November 26 home game against PSV Eindhoven and follows violent and racist behavior by fans during a recent match against Marseille.
However, Liverpool believe the move will present their supporters with significant problems and chief executive Rick Parry has put his worries in writing to UEFA.
"To say the decision is a bit late in the day, is to put it mildly," said Parry.
"We have 3,000 fans going to the game and we are extremely concerned for our supporters, the vast majority of whom have already made travel arrangements."
"If the match is played at least 300 kilometers from Madrid, it will cause major disruption, inconvenience and large additional expense for our fans. UEFA have to take their needs into account when making a final decision on the game."
UEFA spokesman William Gaillard acknowledged Liverpool's concerns but said they had no choice.
"We know they face hardship and disruption and we sympathize with that, but we needed to punish Atletico Madrid," Gaillard said.
He said UEFA was in contact with Liverpool and offering to help with the logistics of changing the fans' travel plans.
Regarding the Marseille match, Gaillard explained: "There were monkey chants against the nonwhite players throughout the game and there was also a problem with handicapped supporters who bought tickets and were not provided with adequate viewing.
Gaillard added that black journalists were also insulted by fans who broke into the press area.
Liverpool fuming over Champions venue switch
Liverpool have hit out after Atletico Madrid were ordered by UEFA to switch next Wednesday's Champions League tie to a venue at least 186 miles (300 kilometers) from the Spanish capital.
UEFA's edict also applies to Atletico's November 26 home game against PSV Eindhoven and follows violent and racist behavior by fans during a recent match against Marseille.
However, Liverpool believe the move will present their supporters with significant problems and chief executive Rick Parry has put his worries in writing to UEFA.
"To say the decision is a bit late in the day, is to put it mildly," said Parry.
"We have 3,000 fans going to the game and we are extremely concerned for our supporters, the vast majority of whom have already made travel arrangements."
"If the match is played at least 300 kilometers from Madrid, it will cause major disruption, inconvenience and large additional expense for our fans.
UEFA have to take their needs into account when making a final decision on the game."
UEFA spokesman William Gaillard acknowledged Liverpool's concerns but said they had no choice.
"We know they face hardship and disruption and we sympathize with that, but we needed to punish Atletico Madrid," Gaillard said.
Regarding the Marseille match, Gaillard explained:
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Voters will soon have their last chance to compare Sens.
John McCain and Barack Obama side-by-side as the candidates face off Wednesday night in their final presidential debate.
The debate, taking place at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, comes as Obama continues to make gains in the polls.
Obama currently leads McCain by 8 percentage points, according to CNN's average of national surveys.
Eight percent of voters are still undecided, according to CNN's poll of polls.
Obama on Wednesday also made some gains in key battleground states.
With Obama holding the advantage in most recent surveys, the goal for his campaign is to stay the course.
"Let me just say this, we weren't discouraged by polls when they were not favorable for us, we're not seduced by polls now," said David Axelrod, Obama's senior strategist. "We think this is going to be a battle every day right till the end and we're prepared for that.
Voters will soon have their last chance to compare Sens.
John McCain and Barack Obama side-by-side as the candidates face off Wednesday night in their final presidential debate.
The debate, taking place at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, comes as Obama continues to make gains in the polls.
Obama currently leads McCain by 8 percentage points, according to CNN's average of national surveys.
Eight percent of voters are still undecided, according to CNN's poll of polls.
Obama on Wednesday also made some gains in key battleground states.
With Obama holding the advantage in most recent surveys, the goal for his campaign is to stay the course.
"Let me just say this, we weren't discouraged by polls when they were not favorable for us, we're not seduced by polls now," said David Axelrod, Obama's senior strategist.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Shares slid Wednesday on fears of recession but there were also signs that the international bailout of the financial sector was working.
After two days of soaring stocks, markets in Europe, Asia and the U.S. fell with New York's Dow Jones suffering its second worst daily points decline.
But that was the result of regular economic data rather than the extraordinary financial crisis.
The gains of Monday and Tuesday were sparked by Britain, Germany, France, and the U.S. announcing banking bailout plans totaling more than $3 trillion.
Amid Wednesday's market falls, there were signs that the bailout investments were working.
The overnight bank-to-bank lending rate slid, according to data obtained from Bloomberg.com.
That signals an increased willingness by banks to lend to each other, which eventually translates into lower borrowing costs for consumers.
A stream of bad news buffeted stocks though, including the worst U.S. retail sales figures in three years, a surge in UK unemployment and predictions that recessions were unavoidable in the U.S. and Europe.
The FTSE 100 closed the day 7.16 percent down, while the CAC 40 in Paris lost 6.82 percent of its value and the German DAX 30 fell by 6.49 percent.
The Dow Jones ended down 733 points, or 7.9 percent, according to prelininary tallies.
The Nasdaq lost 8.5 percent and the S&P nine percent.
Australia's All Ordinaries index finished down a percent and Hong Kong's Hang Seng slumped 4.96 percent.
The Taiwan Weighted fell less than one percent.
The story was similar in Seoul, where the KOSPI index fell two percent.
Singapore's Straits Times index was off four percent and the BSE SENSEX in Mumbai slipped five percent.
In Japan, the Nikkei closed the day up one percent.
World sharemarkets slump on recession fears
Shares slid Wednesday on fears of recession but there were also signs that the international bailout of the financial sector was working.
After two days of soaring stocks, markets in Europe, Asia and the U.S. fell with New York's Dow Jones suffering its second worst daily points decline.
But that was the result of regular economic data rather than the extraordinary financial crisis.
The gains of Monday and Tuesday were sparked by Britain, Germany, France, and the U.S. announcing banking bailout plans totaling more than $3 trillion.
Amid Wednesday's market falls, there were signs that the bailout investments were working.
The overnight bank-to-bank lending rate slid, according to data obtained from Bloomberg.com.
That signals an increased willingness by banks to lend to each other, which eventually translates into lower borrowing costs for consumers.
A stream of bad news buffeted stocks though, including the worst U.S. retail sales figures in three years, a surge in UK unemployment and predictions that recessions were unavoidable in the U.S. and Europe.
The FTSE 100 closed the day 7.16 percent down, while the CAC 40 in Paris lost 6.82 percent of its value and the German DAX 30 fell by 6.49 percent.
The Dow Jones ended down 733 points, or 7.9 percent, according to prelininary tallies.
The Nasdaq lost 8.5 percent and the S&P nine percent.
Australia's All Ordinaries index finished down a percent and Hong Kong's Hang Seng slumped 4.96 percent.
The Taiwan Weighted fell less than one percent.
The story was similar in Seoul, where the KOSPI index fell two percent.
Singapore's Straits Times index was off four percent and the BSE SENSEX in Mumbai slipped five percent.
In Japan, the Nikkei closed the day up one percent.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
A drunk passenger tried to hijack a Turkish Airlines flight to Russia on Wednesday before he was brought under control, the head of Turkey's civil aviation authority said.
The plane landed safely and on time Wednesday afternoon in St. Petersburg.
Russian authorities promptly arrested a "slightly intoxicated" passenger from Uzbekistan, Russia's Interfax News Agency reported, citing a national police spokesman.
The suspect, in his early 50s, was arrested on suspicion of trying to hijack the plane, Interfax reported.
Turkish media initially reported that the plane had been hijacked.
When asked about those reports, a Turkish Airlines spokesman said the flight experienced an "urgent situation" as it headed to St. Petersburg, without offering further details.
Interfax said the flight was carrying 164 Russian nationals.
There have been several attempts to hijack Turkish airlines in recent years.
In August 2007, two men hijacked an Istanbul-bound Atlasjet Airlines flight with 136 passengers and crew on board from Cyprus, claiming to have a bomb on board the flight.
They forced the crew to make an emergency landing in Antalya.
Both hijackers eventually surrendered to Turkish authorities.
In April 2007, Turkish authorities detained a man they believed tried to hijack a Turkish airliner, possibly to Iran.
The suspect, Mehmed Goksin Gol, was not armed and all 178 passengers and crew aboard the Pegasus Airlines flight were unharmed.
The flight was heading from southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakir to Istanbul, but landed at Ankara's airport, where the suspect was detained.
In October 2006, a Turkish man hijacked a Turkish jetliner with 113 people aboard en route from the Albanian capital Tirana for Istanbul.
A drunk passenger tried to hijack a Turkish Airlines flight to Russia on Wednesday before he was brought under control, the head of Turkey's civil aviation authority said.
The plane landed safely and on time Wednesday afternoon in St. Petersburg.
Russian authorities promptly arrested a "slightly intoxicated" passenger from Uzbekistan, Russia's Interfax News Agency reported, citing a national police spokesman.
The suspect, in his early 50s, was arrested on suspicion of trying to hijack the plane, Interfax reported.
Turkish media initially reported that the plane had been hijacked.
When asked about those reports, a Turkish Airlines spokesman said the flight experienced an "urgent situation" as it headed to St. Petersburg, without offering further details.
Interfax said the flight was carrying 164 Russian nationals.
There have been several attempts to hijack Turkish airlines in recent years.
In August 2007, two men hijacked an Istanbul-bound Atlasjet Airlines flight with 136 passengers and crew on board from Cyprus, claiming to have a bomb on board the flight.
They forced the crew to make an emergency landing in Antalya.
Both hijackers eventually surrendered to Turkish authorities.
In April 2007, Turkish authorities detained a man they believed tried to hijack a Turkish airliner, possibly to Iran.
The suspect, Mehmed Goksin Gol, was not armed and all 178 passengers and crew aboard the Pegasus Airlines flight were unharmed.
The flight was heading from southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakir to Istanbul, but landed at Ankara's airport, where the suspect was detained.
In October 2006, a Turkish man hijacked a Turkish jetliner with 113 people aboard en route from the Albanian capital Tirana for Istanbul.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Pop star Madonna and her film director husband Guy Ritchie are to divorce, Madonna's UK spokeswoman, Moira Bellas, confirmed to CNN.
A statement e-mailed to The Associated Press from Madonna spokeswoman Liz Rosenberg says the couple has agreed to divorce, and asks the media to respect their privacy.
The statement, co-signed by Ritchie's representative, says the couple had not agreed to a settlement.
first reported Wednesday that the couple would announce the split imminently.
Ritchie, 40, and Madonna married seven years ago at a lavish ceremony in Scotland, but rumors have been circulating in the press recently that their relationship was increasingly under strain.
Earlier this year, the singer denied being involved romantically with New York Yankees baseball player Alex Rodriguez.
Rodriguez was eventually divorced from his wife.
The last time the couple was seen together in public was in September, when Madonna took a break from touring to celebrate her husband's birthday at a London pub.
A recent escalation in rows led to Madonna and Ritchie communicating via their personal assistants, The Sun reported.
"Despite huge attempts to patch things up they both know deep down that divorce was on the cards.
It wasn't a matter of 'if' but 'when," The Sun, quoting a source, reported. The couple have two children together
Rocco, 8, and David, 3, adopted from Malawi in 2006.
Madonna, who turned 50 earlier this year, was previously married to U.S. actor Sean Penn from 1985 to 1989.
The British Press Association said that Ritchie has broken off from filming in France to fly back to the UK to inform his parents of the split.
Ritchie made his name with 1998's "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels," a London gangster movie hailed by critics, who called him the British version of U.S. director Quentin Tarantino.
He continued the successful directing style with "Snatch" and "Revolver," but he bombed with "Swept Away" in 2002, which featured his wife.
According to The Sun, Madonna had wanted to wait until the end of her Sticky and Sweet global tour before announcing the news.
Pop star Madonna and her film director husband Guy Ritchie are to divorce, Madonna's UK spokeswoman, Moira Bellas, confirmed to CNN.
A statement e-mailed to The Associated Press from Madonna spokeswoman Liz Rosenberg says the couple has agreed to divorce, and asks the media to respect their privacy.
The statement, co-signed by Ritchie's representative, says the couple had not agreed to a settlement.
first reported Wednesday that the couple would announce the split imminently.
Ritchie, 40, and Madonna married seven years ago at a lavish ceremony in Scotland, but rumors have been circulating in the press recently that their relationship was increasingly under strain.
Earlier this year, the singer denied being involved romantically with New York Yankees baseball player Alex Rodriguez.
Rodriguez was eventually divorced from his wife.
The last time the couple was seen together in public was in September, when Madonna took a break from touring to celebrate her husband's birthday at a London pub.
A recent escalation in rows led to Madonna and Ritchie communicating via their personal assistants, The Sun reported.
"Despite huge attempts to patch things up they both know deep down that divorce was on the cards.
It wasn't a matter of 'if' but 'when," The Sun, quoting a source, reported. The couple have two children together
Rocco, 8, and David, 3, adopted from Malawi in 2006.
Madonna, who turned 50 earlier this year, was previously married to U.S. actor Sean Penn from 1985 to 1989.
The British Press Association said that Ritchie has broken off from filming in France to fly back to the UK to inform his parents of the split.
He continued the successful directing style with "Snatch" and "Revolver," but he bombed with "Swept Away" in 2002, which featured his wife.
The deserted-island story grossed just $600,000 and was pulled from theaters after three weeks.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (CNN)
South African authorities are closing Robben Island for two weeks in November to try to get rid of thousands of rabbits that have overrun the windswept island where Nelson Mandela spent so many years in prison.
South Africa's former president was imprisoned on Robben Island for 18 years and it's one of the country's most famous tourist sites.
Robben Island Museum interim chief executive Seeland Naidoo says there is no alternative but to implement a "humane culling program" in conjunction with local animal welfare groups.
He says there are so many rabbits they threaten to permanently damage the island's sensitive vegetation and its historical buildings.
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (CNN)
South African authorities are closing Robben Island for two weeks in November to try to get rid of thousands of rabbits that have overrun the windswept island where Nelson Mandela spent so many years in prison.
South Africa's former president was imprisoned on Robben Island for 18 years and it's one of the country's most famous tourist sites.
Robben Island Museum interim chief executive Seeland Naidoo says there is no alternative but to implement a "humane culling program" in conjunction with local animal welfare groups.
He says there are so many rabbits they threaten to permanently damage the island's sensitive vegetation and its historical buildings.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Does drinking alcohol shrink your brain?
What's good for the heart may hurt the brain, according to a new study of the effects of alcohol.
People who drink alcohol
even the moderate amounts that help prevent heart disease
have a smaller brain volume than those who do not, according to a study in the Archives of Neurology.
While a certain amount of brain shrinkage is normal with age, greater amounts in some parts of the brain have been linked to dementia.
estimated at 2 percent per decade is a natural part of aging," says Carol Ann Paul, who conducted the study when she was at the Boston University School of Public Health.
She had hoped to find that alcohol might protect against such brain shrinkage.
"However, we did not find the protective effect," says Paul, who is now an instructor in the neuroscience program at Wellesley College.
"In fact, any level of alcohol consumption resulted in a decline in brain volume."
In the study, Paul and colleagues looked at 1,839 healthy people with an average age of about 61.
The patients underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain and reported how much they tippled.
Overall, the more alcohol consumed, the smaller the brain volume, with abstainers having a higher brain volume than former drinkers, light drinkers (one to seven drinks per week), moderate drinkers (eight to 14 drinks per week), and heavy drinkers (14 or more drinks per week).
Men were more likely to be heavy drinkers than women. But the link between brain volume and alcohol wasn't as strong in men.
For men, only those who were heavy drinkers had a smaller brain volume than those who consumed little or no alcohol.
In women, even moderate drinkers had a smaller brain volume than abstainers or former drinkers.
It's not clear why even modest amounts of alcohol may shrink the brain, although alcohol is "known to dehydrate tissues, and constant dehydration can have negative effects on any sensitive tissue," says Paul.
"We always knew that alcohol at higher dosages results in shrinking of the brain and cognitive deficit," says Dr. Petros Levounis, M.D., director of the Addiction Institute of New York at St. Luke's
Roosevelt Hospital Center, who was not involved in the study.
"What is new with this article is that it shows brain shrinking at lower doses of alcohol." However, the study did not demonstrate that the smaller brain volume actually impaired memory or mental function, notes James Garbutt, M.D., professor of psychiatry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
And the differences between brain volumes in drinkers and nondrinkers were quite small
less than 1.5 percent between abstainers and heavy drinkers.
"We're talking very small differences here," says Dr. Garbutt, who was not involved in the study.
"But we have a long way to go to figure out the implications of it."
What's good for the heart may hurt the brain, according to a new study of the effects of alcohol.
People who drink alcohol
even the moderate amounts that help prevent heart disease
have a smaller brain volume than those who do not, according to a study in the Archives of Neurology.
While a certain amount of brain shrinkage is normal with age, greater amounts in some parts of the brain have been linked to dementia.
estimated at 2 percent per decade is a natural part of aging," says Carol Ann Paul, who conducted the study when she was at the Boston University School of Public Health.
She had hoped to find that alcohol might protect against such brain shrinkage.
"However, we did not find the protective effect," says Paul, who is now an instructor in the neuroscience program at Wellesley College.
"In fact, any level of alcohol consumption resulted in a decline in brain volume."
In the study, Paul and colleagues looked at 1,839 healthy people with an average age of about 61.
The patients underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain and reported how much they tippled.
Overall, the more alcohol consumed, the smaller the brain volume, with abstainers having a higher brain volume than former drinkers, light drinkers (one to seven drinks per week), moderate drinkers (eight to 14 drinks per week), and heavy drinkers (14 or more drinks per week).
Men were more likely to be heavy drinkers than women. But the link between brain volume and alcohol wasn't as strong in men.
For men, only those who were heavy drinkers had a smaller brain volume than those who consumed little or no alcohol.
In women, even moderate drinkers had a smaller brain volume than abstainers or former drinkers.
It's not clear why even modest amounts of alcohol may shrink the brain, although alcohol is "known to dehydrate tissues, and constant dehydration can have negative effects on any sensitive tissue," says Paul.
"We always knew that alcohol at higher dosages results in shrinking of the brain and cognitive deficit," says Dr. Petros Levounis, M.D., director of the Addiction Institute of New York at St. Luke's
Roosevelt Hospital Center, who was not involved in the study.
"What is new with this article is that it shows brain shrinking at lower doses of alcohol." However, the study did not demonstrate that the smaller brain volume actually impaired memory or mental function, notes James Garbutt, M.D., professor of psychiatry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
And the differences between brain volumes in drinkers and nondrinkers were quite small
less than 1.5 percent between abstainers and heavy drinkers.
"We're talking very small differences here," says Dr. Garbutt, who was not involved in the study.
"We're not seeing 10 to 20 percent shrinkage."
However, he says, reduction in brain mass is an interesting finding.
"But we have a long way to go to figure out the implications of it."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Nancy Reagan, wife of the late President Ronald Reagan, is hospitalized in California after suffering a broken pelvis, according to spokeswoman Joanne Drake.
Reagan, 87, is in the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, Drake said in a written statement Wednesday.
The former first lady fell last week at her home, Drake said, but admitted herself to the hospital only after experiencing "persistent pain."
Tests revealed a fractured pelvis and sacrum the triangular bone within the pelvis.
Reagan will remain hospitalized for a few days until "doctors are satisfied with her progress," Drake said.
Reagan's anticipated recovery time is six to eight weeks, including physical therapy and a modified schedule.
"Mrs. Reagan is in good spirits, especially comforted to be receiving care from talented doctors in a world-class hospital named in honor of her late husband," the statement said.
She previously was hospitalized for two days in February following a fall at her home in suburban Los Angeles.
President Reagan died in June 2004 after a long battle with Alzheimer's disease.
Since his death, Nancy Reagan has remained involved with the national Alzheimer's Association and its affiliate, the Ronald and Nancy Reagan Research Institute in Chicago, Illinois.
However, she has appeared in public only rarely in recent years.
Nancy Reagan, wife of the late President Ronald Reagan, is hospitalized in California after suffering a broken pelvis, according to spokeswoman Joanne Drake.
Reagan, 87, is in the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, Drake said in a written statement Wednesday.
The former first lady fell last week at her home, Drake said, but admitted herself to the hospital only after experiencing "persistent pain."
Tests revealed a fractured pelvis and sacrum the triangular bone within the pelvis.
Reagan will remain hospitalized for a few days until "doctors are satisfied with her progress," Drake said.
Reagan's anticipated recovery time is six to eight weeks, including physical therapy and a modified schedule.
"Mrs. Reagan is in good spirits, especially comforted to be receiving care from talented doctors in a world-class hospital named in honor of her late husband," the statement said.
She previously was hospitalized for two days in February following a fall at her home in suburban Los Angeles.
President Reagan died in June 2004 after a long battle with Alzheimer's disease.
Since his death, Nancy Reagan has remained involved with the national Alzheimer's Association and its affiliate, the Ronald and Nancy Reagan Research Institute in Chicago, Illinois.
However, she has appeared in public only rarely in recent years.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Rooney double as England see off Belarus
Wayne Rooney scored two second half goals as England maintained their perfect start to World Cup qualifying with a 3-1 win over Belarus in Minsk on Wednesday night.
The Manchester United striker continued his rich scoring vein by putting England 2-1 ahead in the 50th minute and wrapped up the victory in the 74th minute with his fifth goal in his last three international games.
"We had to work very hard," Rooney told Associated Press.
Twelve points from the first four games is a great boost for us."
Rooney had set up Steven Gerrard to put England ahead early in the Group Six match at the Dinamo Stadium, the Liverpool star curling his shot home from 25 meters.
"When he's in this type of form he's up there with the best players in the world," Gerrard said.
"He's a fantastic talent."
Rooney double as England see off Belarus
Wayne Rooney scored two second half goals as England maintained their perfect start to World Cup qualifying with a 3-1 win over Belarus in Minsk on Wednesday night.
The Manchester United striker continued his rich scoring vein by putting England 2-1 ahead in the 50th minute and wrapped up the victory in the 74th minute with his fifth goal in his last three international games.
"We had to work very hard," Rooney told Associated Press.
Twelve points from the first four games is a great boost for us."
Rooney had set up Steven Gerrard to put England ahead early in the Group Six match at the Dinamo Stadium, the Liverpool star curling his shot home from 25 meters.
"When he's in this type of form he's up there with the best players in the world," Gerrard said.
"He's a fantastic talent."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
By next fall, NASA plans to launch its biggest Red Planet rover yet, the $1.8-billion, SUV-size Mars Research Laboratory.
Even though the MRL will be able to haul five times as much equipment as the Spirit and Opportunity rovers that are already on Mars, a group of Swedish researchers say that they could accomplish far more if accompanied by a squad of helper 'bots.
Each foot-wide, 11-pound ball can roll up to 62 miles, snap photos at any angle, and take soil samples, drawing its power from the solar panels on its shell.
Unlike wheeled rovers, the rounded scouts have fewer motors to repair, never flip over, and are easier to seal from dust.
Plus, they rarely get stuck.
"The beauty of the system is it needs very little energy to go around rocks, so unless you're landing on a surface that looks like a bed of nails, it should be fine," Bruhn says.
In 2004, Bruhn helped found Swedish company Rotundus, whose Earth-based GroundBot is now test-patrolling a harbor in Stockholm.
By next fall, NASA plans to launch its biggest Red Planet rover yet, the $1.8-billion, SUV-size Mars Research Laboratory.
Even though the MRL will be able to haul five times as much equipment as the Spirit and Opportunity rovers that are already on Mars, a group of Swedish researchers say that they could accomplish far more if accompanied by a squad of helper 'bots.
Each foot-wide, 11-pound ball can roll up to 62 miles, snap photos at any angle, and take soil samples, drawing its power from the solar panels on its shell.
Unlike wheeled rovers, the rounded scouts have fewer motors to repair, never flip over, and are easier to seal from dust.
Plus, they rarely get stuck.
"The beauty of the system is it needs very little energy to go around rocks, so unless you're landing on a surface that looks like a bed of nails, it should be fine," Bruhn says.
In 2004, Bruhn helped found Swedish company Rotundus, whose Earth-based GroundBot is now test-patrolling a harbor in Stockholm.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Debate watchers say Obama wins
A majority of debate watchers think Sen. Barack Obama won the third and final presidential debate, according to a national poll conducted right afterward.
Fifty-eight percent of debate watchers questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll said Democratic candidate Obama did the best job in the debate, with 31 percent saying Republican Sen. John McCain performed best.
The poll also suggests that debate watchers' favorable opinion of Obama rose slightly during the debate, from 63 percent at the start to 66 percent at the end.
The poll indicates that McCain's favorables dropped slightly, from 51 percent to 49 percent.
The economy was the dominant issue of the debate, and 59 percent of debate watchers polled said Obama would do a better job handling the economy, 24 points ahead of McCain.
During the debate, McCain attacked Obama's stance on taxes, accusing Obama of seeking tax increases that would "spread the wealth around."
But by 15 points, 56 percent to 41 percent, debate watchers polled said Obama would do a better job on taxes.
By a 2-1 margin, 62 percent to 31 percent, debate watchers said Obama would do a better job on health care.
Sixty-six percent of debate watchers said Obama more clearly expressed his views, with 25 percent saying McCain was more clear about his views.
By 23 points, those polled said Obama was the stronger leader during the debate.
By 48 points, they said Obama was more likeable.
Debate watchers say Obama wins
A majority of debate watchers think Sen. Barack Obama won the third and final presidential debate, according to a national poll conducted right afterward.
Fifty-eight percent of debate watchers questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll said Democratic candidate Obama did the best job in the debate, with 31 percent saying Republican Sen. John McCain performed best.
The poll also suggests that debate watchers' favorable opinion of Obama rose slightly during the debate, from 63 percent at the start to 66 percent at the end.
The poll indicates that McCain's favorables dropped slightly, from 51 percent to 49 percent.
The economy was the dominant issue of the debate, and 59 percent of debate watchers polled said Obama would do a better job handling the economy, 24 points ahead of McCain.
During the debate, McCain attacked Obama's stance on taxes, accusing Obama of seeking tax increases that would "spread the wealth around."
But by 15 points, 56 percent to 41 percent, debate watchers polled said Obama would do a better job on taxes.
By a 2-1 margin, 62 percent to 31 percent, debate watchers said Obama would do a better job on health care.
Sixty-six percent of debate watchers said Obama more clearly expressed his views, with 25 percent saying McCain was more clear about his views.
By 23 points, those polled said Obama was the stronger leader during the debate.
By 48 points, they said Obama was more likeable.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
U.S. markets shrug off recession fears
Sharemarkets lost billions more in value Thursday as shares continued to slump on fears a global recession is unavoidable.
Stocks in Europe and Asia suffered more heavy declines but the major U.S. markets closed higher.
It was the second consecutive day of bad economic data.
Figures published Thursday showed industrial production in the U.S. suffered its sharpest fall in 34 years last month and Germany cut its growth forecast for 2009 by a percent to only 0.2 percent.
A World Bank official warned China's spectacular growth would also be hit and Japan's Prime Minister Taro Aso suggested the U.S.'s $700 billion banking bailout was not enough.
Markets in Asia, unnerved by the Dow Jones's eight percent ($1 trillion) fall Wednesday, continued the downward slide.
Japan's Nikkei fell more than 11 percent, its worst loss in two decades, and South Korea's KOSPI index closed down 9.4 percent.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng index finished the day down 5.11 percent, at 15,180.02 , while Australia's All Ordinaries index and Singapore's Straits Times index both fell 6.7 percent.
U.S. markets shrug off recession fears
Sharemarkets lost billions more in value Thursday as shares continued to slump on fears a global recession is unavoidable.
Stocks in Europe and Asia suffered more heavy declines but the major U.S. markets closed higher.
It was the second consecutive day of bad economic data.
Figures published Thursday showed industrial production in the U.S. suffered its sharpest fall in 34 years last month and Germany cut its growth forecast for 2009 by a percent to only 0.2 percent.
A World Bank official warned China's spectacular growth would also be hit and Japan's Prime Minister Taro Aso suggested the U.S.'s $700 billion banking bailout was not enough.
Markets in Asia, unnerved by the Dow Jones's eight percent ($1 trillion) fall Wednesday, continued the downward slide.
Japan's Nikkei fell more than 11 percent, its worst loss in two decades, and South Korea's KOSPI index closed down 9.4 percent.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng index finished the day down 5.11 percent, at 15,180.02 , while Australia's All Ordinaries index and Singapore's Straits Times index both fell 6.7 percent.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
A court in Dubai has sentenced two Britons to three months in prison for having sex on a public beach in the Muslim country.
After they complete their sentence, the pair will be deported.
They also have to pay a 1,000 dirhams ($367) fine for public indecency.
Police charged Michelle Palmer, 36, and Vincent Acors, 34, with illicit relations, public indecency and public intoxication after their arrest at a beach shortly after midnight on July 5.
Both denied that they had intercourse.
"The public (prosecutor) failed to produce corroborative evidence against my clients concerning having consensual sex and committing indecent gestures in public," said the pair's lawyer, Hasan Mattar.
He said the pair will appeal the verdict.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) where Dubai is located is home to thousands of expatriates and is among the most moderate Gulf states.
Still, the oil-rich Gulf kingdom adheres to certain Islamic rules.
More than a million British visitors traveled to the UAE in 2006, and more than 100,000 British nationals live there, according to the British Foreign Office.
The country is in the midst of a building boom to position itself as one of the world's premier tourist destinations.
It is already home to the world's largest mall, the world's largest tower, and
despite being in the Middle East
boasts the largest indoor snow park in the world.
Dubai beach sex couple given three months in jail
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (CNN)
A court in Dubai has sentenced two Britons to three months in prison for having sex on a public beach in the Muslim country.
After they complete their sentence, the pair will be deported.
They also have to pay a 1,000 dirhams ($367) fine for public indecency.
Police charged Michelle Palmer, 36, and Vincent Acors, 34, with illicit relations, public indecency and public intoxication after their arrest at a beach shortly after midnight on July 5.
Both denied that they had intercourse.
"The public (prosecutor) failed to produce corroborative evidence against my clients concerning having consensual sex and committing indecent gestures in public," said the pair's lawyer, Hasan Mattar.
He said the pair will appeal the verdict.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) where Dubai is located is home to thousands of expatriates and is among the most moderate Gulf states.
Still, the oil-rich Gulf kingdom adheres to certain Islamic rules.
More than a million British visitors traveled to the UAE in 2006, and more than 100,000 British nationals live there, according to the British Foreign Office.
The country is in the midst of a building boom to position itself as one of the world's premier tourist destinations.
It is already home to the world's largest mall, the world's largest tower, and
despite being in the Middle East
boasts the largest indoor snow park in the world.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
His artwork has been described as having the "fire of Pollock" and the "fixed gaze of Resnick."
Now, a Reno artist will be making his international debut, having been invited to exhibit his work in a juried art competition in Italy.
He won't be going abroad, however, to bask in the aura of great Italian masters.
Instead, this artist will remain at home, contemplating his next masterpiece while gnawing on his paintbrushes between mouthfuls of hay.
Cholla is a mustang-quarter horse mix whose paintings have been featured in art exhibits from San Francisco to New York and now overseas.
His creation, "The Big Red Buck," was selected for exhibit in the 3rd International Art Prize Arte Laguna, October 18-November 2, Mogliano Veneto, Italy.
More than 3,000 paintings, sculptures and photographs were entered in this year's competition.
In painting, there were 1,770 from artists around the world.
The international contest is organized by the Italian cultural association MoCA in collaboration with Arte Laguna and is aimed at promoting contemporary art.
A spokeswoman for the competition acknowledges there was some consternation among the judges when they realized Cholla was of the equine species.
"We have to admit that we did not expect the application of a horse," Arte Laguna spokeswoman Cristina Del Favero said in response to an e-mail inquiry by The Associated Press.
"At first we were very perplexed, but we subsequently looked for more information about Cholla on the Web and the jury decided to accept his application by considering his prestige in the USA."
While Cholla was not eligible to win any cash prizes, "he obtained a special mention," Del Favero said.
Cholla's acceptance in the juried show prompted interest from another gallery in Venice, Italy, where a solo exhibit of Cholla artwork is being planned for next spring.
Horse takes up painting, has works exhibited
His artwork has been described as having the "fire of Pollock" and the "fixed gaze of Resnick."
Now, a Reno artist will be making his international debut, having been invited to exhibit his work in a juried art competition in Italy.
He won't be going abroad, however, to bask in the aura of great Italian masters.
Instead, this artist will remain at home, contemplating his next masterpiece while gnawing on his paintbrushes between mouthfuls of hay.
Cholla is a mustang-quarter horse mix whose paintings have been featured in art exhibits from San Francisco to New York and now overseas.
His creation, "The Big Red Buck," was selected for exhibit in the 3rd International Art Prize Arte Laguna, October 18-November 2, Mogliano Veneto, Italy.
More than 3,000 paintings, sculptures and photographs were entered in this year's competition.
In painting, there were 1,770 from artists around the world.
The international contest is organized by the Italian cultural association MoCA in collaboration with Arte Laguna and is aimed at promoting contemporary art.
A spokeswoman for the competition acknowledges there was some consternation among the judges when they realized Cholla was of the equine species.
"We have to admit that we did not expect the application of a horse," Arte Laguna spokeswoman Cristina Del Favero said in response to an e-mail inquiry by The Associated Press.
"At first we were very perplexed, but we subsequently looked for more information about Cholla on the Web and the jury decided to accept his application by considering his prestige in the USA."
While Cholla was not eligible to win any cash prizes, "he obtained a special mention," Del Favero said.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Work is a pleasure in tomorrow`s office
Work stations with a built-in treadmill and portable meeting rooms are just some of the developments that may become commonplace in the offices of the future.
Workplace technology has changed dramatically in recent years and the offices we work in are finally set to catch up.
The advent of laptops, wi-fi and BlackBerries means that high-tech workers are no longer tethered to their desks, and the office of the future will be designed to let workers roam.
Dutch designer Michiel van der Kley has come up with Globus, a stylish spherical "podule" that looks like a piece of art, but is actually a mobile work station.
Open it up, take a seat, switch on your laptop and you're good to go.
If you need to see a colleague you can take your laptop with you and talk shop sat at a ScooterDesk, an ultra-mobile mini work station by Belgian design firm Utilia.
Another Belgian company, Living Tomorrow, predicts that as we become increasingly able to work from home, workplaces will spend more time unoccupied.
It says flexibility will be the key to filling unused space, which means that as well as mobile work stations, we'll be seeing mobile meeting rooms.
The Center for Building Performance and Diagnostics (CBPD) at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh has built the Robert L. Preger Intelligent Workplace
a functioning workplace that is also a 'living laboratory' for researching office design.
In an effort to increase energy efficiency, much of the heat in the Intelligent Workplace comes from solar thermal energy and recaptured heat from generators.
Daylight sensors and occupancy sensors mean lighting isn't used when it's not needed, but workers are also given a huge amount of control over their own environment, regulating air temperature and flow, and lighting levels and direction, from their own work station.
The point of all this, says the CBPD, is to show you can improve quality of life in the workplace while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
As businesses are coming to realize that the best ideas are often generated in casual conversation, designers such as Perkins and Will are incorporating informal team areas into office environments, to encourage chance encounters and impromptu meetings.
Obesity has become a hot topic as we lead increasingly sedentary lives.
One solution, envisaged by Dr James Levine of the Mayo Clinic in Minneapolis, is for us to burn more calories at work.
With that in mind, his team has developed a treadmill desk that lets you walk while you work, and it has already been tested in real workplaces.
So you'll soon be able to work off that lunch-time blowout while you work on your big presentation.
Work is a pleasure in tomorrow`s office
Work stations with a built-in treadmill and portable meeting rooms are just some of the developments that may become commonplace in the offices of the future.
Workplace technology has changed dramatically in recent years and the offices we work in are finally set to catch up.
The advent of laptops, wi-fi and BlackBerries means that high-tech workers are no longer tethered to their desks, and the office of the future will be designed to let workers roam.
Dutch designer Michiel van der Kley has come up with Globus, a stylish spherical "podule" that looks like a piece of art, but is actually a mobile work station.
Open it up, take a seat, switch on your laptop and you're good to go.
If you need to see a colleague you can take your laptop with you and talk shop sat at a ScooterDesk, an ultra-mobile mini work station by Belgian design firm Utilia.
Another Belgian company, Living Tomorrow, predicts that as we become increasingly able to work from home, workplaces will spend more time unoccupied.
It says flexibility will be the key to filling unused space, which means that as well as mobile work stations, we'll be seeing mobile meeting rooms.
The Center for Building Performance and Diagnostics (CBPD) at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh has built the Robert L. Preger Intelligent Workplace
a functioning workplace that is also a 'living laboratory' for researching office design.
In an effort to increase energy efficiency, much of the heat in the Intelligent Workplace comes from solar thermal energy and recaptured heat from generators.
Daylight sensors and occupancy sensors mean lighting isn't used when it's not needed, but workers are also given a huge amount of control over their own environment, regulating air temperature and flow, and lighting levels and direction, from their own work station.
The point of all this, says the CBPD, is to show you can improve quality of life in the workplace while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
As businesses are coming to realize that the best ideas are often generated in casual conversation, designers such as Perkins and Will are incorporating informal team areas into office environments, to encourage chance encounters and impromptu meetings.
Obesity has become a hot topic as we lead increasingly sedentary lives.
One solution, envisaged by Dr James Levine of the Mayo Clinic in Minneapolis, is for us to burn more calories at work.
With that in mind, his team has developed a treadmill desk that lets you walk while you work, and it has already been tested in real workplaces.
So you'll soon be able to work off that lunch-time blowout while you work on your big presentation.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Golf legend Seve Ballesteros has had part of his skull removed to relieve pressure on his brain after complications following brain tumor surgery, Madrid's La Paz hospital said on Thursday.
The Associated Press reported that doctors had removed a piece of Ballesteros' skull to relieve pressure that was building up on his brain following Tuesday's surgery.
It is understood he was operated on again after losing consciousness.
The hospital said in a statement that the 51-year-old was stable but still in intensive care.
Medical experts told AP the procedure was not unusual following such surgery.
On Tuesday, doctors removed a sizable part of Ballesteros' tumor.
It has not been said whether it is malignant or benign.
Ballesteros was only diagnosed after collapsing at Madrid's Barajas Airport last week.
Earlier, European Tour chief executive George O'Grady had raised hopes about Ballesteros' health.
O'Grady told the British Press Association that he had spoken to Ballesteros' brother, who had said the first operation went well.
"It has got to be checked through later but his brother has phoned to tell us it was very successful."
Ballesteros, who won a record 50 times on the European Tour, won the British Open three times and the Masters twice before retiring last year after battling back problems.
Golf legend Seve Ballesteros has had part of his skull removed to relieve pressure on his brain after complications following brain tumor surgery, Madrid's La Paz hospital said on Thursday.
The Associated Press reported that doctors had removed a piece of Ballesteros' skull to relieve pressure that was building up on his brain following Tuesday's surgery.
It is understood he was operated on again after losing consciousness.
The hospital said in a statement that the 51-year-old was stable but still in intensive care.
Medical experts told AP the procedure was not unusual following such surgery.
On Tuesday, doctors removed a sizable part of Ballesteros' tumor.
It has not been said whether it is malignant or benign.
Ballesteros was only diagnosed after collapsing at Madrid's Barajas Airport last week.
Earlier, European Tour chief executive George O'Grady had raised hopes about Ballesteros' health.
O'Grady told the British Press Association that he had spoken to Ballesteros' brother, who had said the first operation went well.
"It has got to be checked through later but his brother has phoned to tell us it was very successful."
Ballesteros, who won a record 50 times on the European Tour, won the British Open three times and the Masters twice before retiring last year after battling back problems.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
The orchestra playing for peace
The call doesn't come very often, but when it does the answer is invariably yes.
This week, 91 of the world's finest musicians will clear their diaries and fly to Jerusalem for a rare performance of the World Orchestra for Peace.
Each will have received a call from Charles Kaye, former executive administrator to the orchestra's founding conductor, the late Sir Georg Solti, and now its driving force.
"The orchestra doesn't exist unless I put it together," Charles Kaye tells CNN from his home in London. "I lift the phone to every one of the 91 musicians because only that way can I be sure that I have the very best in the world."
A week before the concert, the results of his marathon round of phone calls are piled high on his cluttered desk; flight details for all performers, bills and the battered cover of a well-thumbed checkbook.
Sir Georg Solti pulled together the first Orchestra for Peace in 1995 at the behest of the United Nations Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali to celebrate the organization's 50-year anniversary.
"It was great fun in those two years before the first concert," Kaye recalls. "Literally after the first couple of rehearsals for every orchestra he conducted, Solti would call in who he regarded as the star of the orchestra and say, 'My dear, we are doing an extraordinary concert in Geneva, would you come?
We can't pay you anything but we'll probably call it the World Orchestra for Peace.
The concert was a huge success but it was the last one Solti would conduct.
He died six months before the second concert to inaugurate the new Festspielhaus in Baden-Baden.
"They called me two weeks after Solti died and said, 'Help, Mr. Kaye you're the only one who knows how many of the players have been booked.
We want to keep the opening concert the following April exactly as Solti had planned it.
We'll do the same program, we'll dedicate it to his memory and that will be our opening concert. And please, by the way, can you get us another conductor?
Valery Gergiev was the "obvious" choice.
The young, talented and headstrong conductor had the same strength of passion for his homeland Russia as the Hungarian Solti had for Europe.
Solti admired his ambition to take the Mariinsky Orchestra outside Russia and share its music with the world.
"In three days Gergiev worked this orchestra together and afterwards he bounced off the stage and said, 'When can we do this again?
It was Gergiev's idea to take the World Orchestra for Peace to Jerusalem this October.
"He very much wanted to do a concert," says Kaye. "He said, 'Look things are so bad there, I think we've got a message.
Unity is the key message of the Orchestra for Peace.
Musicians from 40 nations and 70 orchestras come together for just a few days for a one-off performance to show that it's possible for people of different race, religion, color and creed to work together to achieve a greater goal, be it beautiful music, or peace.
There's little doubt the Orchestra for Peace will continue, so long as Charles Kaye keeps picking up the phone.
The orchestra playing for peace
The call doesn't come very often, but when it does the answer is invariably yes.
This week, 91 of the world's finest musicians will clear their diaries and fly to Jerusalem for a rare performance of the World Orchestra for Peace.
Each will have received a call from Charles Kaye, former executive administrator to the orchestra's founding conductor, the late Sir Georg Solti, and now its driving force.
"The orchestra doesn't exist unless I put it together," Charles Kaye tells CNN from his home in London. "I lift the phone to every one of the 91 musicians because only that way can I be sure that I have the very best in the world."
A week before the concert, the results of his marathon round of phone calls are piled high on his cluttered desk; flight details for all performers, bills and the battered cover of a well-thumbed checkbook.
Sir Georg Solti pulled together the first Orchestra for Peace in 1995 at the behest of the United Nations Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali to celebrate the organization's 50-year anniversary.
"It was great fun in those two years before the first concert," Kaye recalls. "Literally after the first couple of rehearsals for every orchestra he conducted, Solti would call in who he regarded as the star of the orchestra and say, 'My dear, we are doing an extraordinary concert in Geneva, would you come?
We can't pay you anything but we'll probably call it the World Orchestra for Peace.
The concert was a huge success but it was the last one Solti would conduct.
He died six months before the second concert to inaugurate the new Festspielhaus in Baden-Baden.
"They called me two weeks after Solti died and said, 'Help, Mr. Kaye you're the only one who knows how many of the players have been booked.
We want to keep the opening concert the following April exactly as Solti had planned it.
We'll do the same program, we'll dedicate it to his memory and that will be our opening concert. And please, by the way, can you get us another conductor?
Valery Gergiev was the "obvious" choice.
The young, talented and headstrong conductor had the same strength of passion for his homeland Russia as the Hungarian Solti had for Europe.
Solti admired his ambition to take the Mariinsky Orchestra outside Russia and share its music with the world.
"In three days Gergiev worked this orchestra together and afterwards he bounced off the stage and said, 'When can we do this again?
It was Gergiev's idea to take the World Orchestra for Peace to Jerusalem this October.
"He very much wanted to do a concert," says Kaye. "He said, 'Look things are so bad there, I think we've got a message.
Unity is the key message of the Orchestra for Peace.
Musicians from 40 nations and 70 orchestras come together for just a few days for a one-off performance to show that it's possible for people of different race, religion, color and creed to work together to achieve a greater goal, be it beautiful music, or peace.
There's little doubt the Orchestra for Peace will continue, so long as Charles Kaye keeps picking up the phone.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell announced Sunday that he will be voting for Sen. Barack Obama, citing the Democrat's "ability to inspire" and the "inclusive nature of his campaign."
"I think he is a transformational figure, he is a new generation coming onto the world stage, onto the American stage, and for that reason I'll be voting for Sen. Barack Obama," Powell said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
Powell said he was concerned about what he characterized as a recent negative turn of Republican candidate Sen. John McCain's campaign, such as the campaign's attempts to tie Obama to former 1960s radical Bill Ayers.
But I think this goes too far, and I think it has made the McCain campaign look a little narrow. It's not what the American people are looking for," he said.
Powell, a retired U.S. general and a Republican, was once seen as a possible presidential candidate himself.
Powell said he has some concerns about the direction of the Republican Party, adding that it has "moved more to the right than I would like to see it."
In regard to the financial crisis, which Powell called the candidates' "final exam," Powell said McCain appeared unsteady in dealing with it, while Obama had excelled in handling the situation.
"Obama displayed a steadiness, an intellectual curiosity, a depth of knowledge," Powell said.
"He has met the standard of being a successful president, being an exceptional president," he said.
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell announced Sunday that he will be voting for Sen. Barack Obama, citing the Democrat's "ability to inspire" and the "inclusive nature of his campaign."
"I think he is a transformational figure, he is a new generation coming onto the world stage, onto the American stage, and for that reason I'll be voting for Sen. Barack Obama," Powell said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
Powell said he was concerned about what he characterized as a recent negative turn of Republican candidate Sen. John McCain's campaign, such as the campaign's attempts to tie Obama to former 1960s radical Bill Ayers.
But I think this goes too far, and I think it has made the McCain campaign look a little narrow. It's not what the American people are looking for," he said.
Powell, a retired U.S. general and a Republican, was once seen as a possible presidential candidate himself.
Powell said he has some concerns about the direction of the Republican Party, adding that it has "moved more to the right than I would like to see it."
In regard to the financial crisis, which Powell called the candidates' "final exam," Powell said McCain appeared unsteady in dealing with it, while Obama had excelled in handling the situation.
"Obama displayed a steadiness, an intellectual curiosity, a depth of knowledge," Powell said.
"He has met the standard of being a successful president, being an exceptional president," he said.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Bush to host world summit on financial crisis
President Bush announced Saturday that he will host the first of what could be several summits of world leaders to discuss the global response to the financial crisis.
"It is essential that we work together because we're in this crisis together," Bush said at Camp David, Maryland, with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and European Union President Jose Manuel Barroso.
"Together we will work to modernize our financial systems," Bush said. "We must resist the temptation of financial isolationism."
Bush said the summit would include developed and developing nations from around the world.
No date was set, though a White House statement said the gathering would be held in the United States "soon after" the November 4 general election.
Sarkozy emphasized the need to bring Asian states into the discussions.
"We must make haste, because we must stabilize the marketplace," he said. "This is a worldwide crisis, so therefore we must find a worldwide solution."
The summit will seek to establish reform measures to "assure global prosperity in the future" and would be the first in a possible series of such meetings designed to implement the measures.
Bush to host world summit on financial crisis
President Bush announced Saturday that he will host the first of what could be several summits of world leaders to discuss the global response to the financial crisis.
"It is essential that we work together because we're in this crisis together," Bush said at Camp David, Maryland, with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and European Union President Jose Manuel Barroso.
"Together we will work to modernize our financial systems," Bush said. "We must resist the temptation of financial isolationism."
Bush said the summit would include developed and developing nations from around the world.
No date was set, though a White House statement said the gathering would be held in the United States "soon after" the November 4 general election.
Sarkozy emphasized the need to bring Asian states into the discussions.
"We must make haste, because we must stabilize the marketplace," he said. "This is a worldwide crisis, so therefore we must find a worldwide solution."
The summit will seek to establish reform measures to "assure global prosperity in the future" and would be the first in a possible series of such meetings designed to implement the measures.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Police have launched an investigation after a young disabled sportsman traveled to Switzerland to commit suicide, UK media report.
Daniel James, 23, from Sinton Green in western England was paralyzed from the chest down in March 2007 when a rugby scrum collapsed on top of him during match practice, dislocating his spine, the UK's Press Association has reported.
Worcestershire Coroner's Service, which is conducing an inquest into the circumstances of his death, states on its Web site that James died on September 12 after he "traveled to Switzerland with a view to ending his own life. He was admitted to a clinic where he died."
The inquest was adjourned on September 19 for reports.
West Mercia police say that a man and a woman are helping the force with their enquiries.
Assisting someone to commit suicide is illegal in the UK, as it is in most other European countries.
James, who played rugby for England under-16s, was a university student at the time of his injury last year.
He is believed to be the youngest person from the UK to have traveled to Switzerland to commit suicide.
In a statement Friday, reported by PA, James' parents said that he had attempted to kill himself several times already.
"His death was an extremely sad loss for his family, friends and all those that care for him but no doubt a welcome relief from the 'prison' he felt his body had become and the day-to-day fear and loathing of his living existence, as a result of which he took his own life.
"This is the last way that the family wanted Dan's life to end but he was, as those who know him are aware, an intelligent, strong-willed and some say determined young man," PA reported James' parents as saying.
"The family suffered considerably over the last few months and do wish to be left in peace to allow them to grieve appropriately."
James' parents added that their son, "an intelligent young man of sound mind," had never come to terms with his condition and was "not prepared to live what he felt was a second-class existence".
More than 100 people from the UK who have committed suicide in Switzerland have traveled to the Dignitas Clinic in Forch.
It is not known if James attended the clinic.
Police have launched an investigation after a young disabled sportsman traveled to Switzerland to commit suicide, UK media report.
Daniel James, 23, from Sinton Green in western England was paralyzed from the chest down in March 2007 when a rugby scrum collapsed on top of him during match practice, dislocating his spine, the UK's Press Association has reported.
Worcestershire Coroner's Service, which is conducing an inquest into the circumstances of his death, states on its Web site that James died on September 12 after he "traveled to Switzerland with a view to ending his own life. He was admitted to a clinic where he died."
The inquest was adjourned on September 19 for reports.
West Mercia police say that a man and a woman are helping the force with their enquiries.
Assisting someone to commit suicide is illegal in the UK, as it is in most other European countries.
James, who played rugby for England under-16s, was a university student at the time of his injury last year.
He is believed to be the youngest person from the UK to have traveled to Switzerland to commit suicide.
In a statement Friday, reported by PA, James' parents said that he had attempted to kill himself several times already.
"His death was an extremely sad loss for his family, friends and all those that care for him but no doubt a welcome relief from the 'prison' he felt his body had become and the day-to-day fear and loathing of his living existence, as a result of which he took his own life.
"This is the last way that the family wanted Dan's life to end but he was, as those who know him are aware, an intelligent, strong-willed and some say determined young man," PA reported James' parents as saying.
"The family suffered considerably over the last few months and do wish to be left in peace to allow them to grieve appropriately."
James' parents added that their son, "an intelligent young man of sound mind," had never come to terms with his condition and was "not prepared to live what he felt was a second-class existence".
More than 100 people from the UK who have committed suicide in Switzerland have traveled to the Dignitas Clinic in Forch.
It is not known if James attended the clinic.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Engineers at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland have hit two new snags in their effort to repair the Hubble Space Telescope after a major equipment failure in space last month.
Hubble team members are combing through data to try to understand the anomalies and come up with a troubleshooting plan, according to Hubble program manager Art Whipple.
Whipple remains optimistic that Hubble will resume science operations in the coming weeks.
"We changed a number of things in the configuration of the spacecraft," he said during a teleconference with reporters. "So, this is not entirely unexpected. We expect that we will work through it, and be back up and doing science."
This problem began September 27 with the failure of Hubble's Science Instrument Control and Data Handling (SIC&DH) system.
The on-board computer coordinates commands to the satellite's various instruments and then downlinks the scientific data to the ground.
While that computer is down, most science observations are at a standstill.
The system was built with a fully redundant backup channel called "Side B," designed to come online in the event "Side A" ever failed.
Hubble team members at Goddard began a complicated process on Wednesday to send computer commands to the telescope to switch over to Side B, and hoped to have everything completed by midday Friday.
But issues cropped up in that process Thursday, Whipple said.
Early in the afternoon, there were problems powering up one of Hubble's instruments, the Advanced Camera for Surveys, though other instruments turned on normally.
Later in the evening, a communications failure between multiple onboard computers put all the science instruments, including the main science computer, into safe mode.
It is unclear how these problems are related to each other or the activation of the SIC&DH Side B channel.
Ground controllers were able to download data, which is currently being analyzed for clues as to what happened.
"The team is doing well," said Whipple. "I can't say that they'll be getting the entire weekend off, but we are cognizant of the fact that this is a marathon, it is not a sprint, and it is most important that we do things right, rather than fast."
Even if the switch over to the Side B backup ultimately fails, Hubble managers say the design team had the foresight 20 years ago to build a spare SIC&DH system, which has been warehoused at Goddard all this time while the original instrument perked along just fine.
Astronauts who are scheduled to conduct a fifth and final Hubble servicing mission now targeted to launch no earlier than February
have begun training to remove the malfunctioning computer and install the spare.
The Hubble mission was supposed to fly this month, but was postponed when the computer failure occurred to give the ground teams time to check out the spare and the astronauts time to train.
While Hubble has been a scientific workhorse since its launch in 1990, it has been "down" due to technical problems before.
Engineers at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland have hit two new snags in their effort to repair the Hubble Space Telescope after a major equipment failure in space last month.
Hubble team members are combing through data to try to understand the anomalies and come up with a troubleshooting plan, according to Hubble program manager Art Whipple.
Whipple remains optimistic that Hubble will resume science operations in the coming weeks.
"We changed a number of things in the configuration of the spacecraft," he said during a teleconference with reporters. "So, this is not entirely unexpected. We expect that we will work through it, and be back up and doing science."
This problem began September 27 with the failure of Hubble's Science Instrument Control and Data Handling (SIC&DH) system.
The on-board computer coordinates commands to the satellite's various instruments and then downlinks the scientific data to the ground.
While that computer is down, most science observations are at a standstill.
The system was built with a fully redundant backup channel called "Side B," designed to come online in the event "Side A" ever failed.
Hubble team members at Goddard began a complicated process on Wednesday to send computer commands to the telescope to switch over to Side B, and hoped to have everything completed by midday Friday.
But issues cropped up in that process Thursday, Whipple said.
Early in the afternoon, there were problems powering up one of Hubble's instruments, the Advanced Camera for Surveys, though other instruments turned on normally.
Later in the evening, a communications failure between multiple onboard computers put all the science instruments, including the main science computer, into safe mode.
It is unclear how these problems are related to each other or the activation of the SIC&DH Side B channel.
Ground controllers were able to download data, which is currently being analyzed for clues as to what happened.
"The team is doing well," said Whipple. "I can't say that they'll be getting the entire weekend off, but we are cognizant of the fact that this is a marathon, it is not a sprint, and it is most important that we do things right, rather than fast."
Even if the switch over to the Side B backup ultimately fails, Hubble managers say the design team had the foresight 20 years ago to build a spare SIC&DH system, which has been warehoused at Goddard all this time while the original instrument perked along just fine.
Astronauts who are scheduled to conduct a fifth and final Hubble servicing mission now targeted to launch no earlier than February
have begun training to remove the malfunctioning computer and install the spare.
The Hubble mission was supposed to fly this month, but was postponed when the computer failure occurred to give the ground teams time to check out the spare and the astronauts time to train.
While Hubble has been a scientific workhorse since its launch in 1990, it has been "down" due to technical problems before.
Those were replaced by astronauts during the third servicing mission.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Will Ferrell as George W. Bush.
"Saturday Night Live" has been parodying politicians for years, sometimes with such precision that their catchphrases (Carvey's "wouldn't be prudent," Ferrell's "misunderestimated") have become more closely associated with the politicians than the politicians' own words. But with the ever-increasing crossover of politics and entertainment
and the breakout attention received by Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin it seems like the show's influence is greater than it's been in years.
The ratings have reflected that interest.
The audience for the October 4 show, which followed the vice presidential debate, was up 42 percent from the comparable episode a year ago.
"SNL" has even added a Thursday night "Weekend Update Special" to capitalize on the increased audience.
And Tina Fey, who left "SNL" two years ago to write and star in the Emmy-winning sitcom "30 Rock," has returned weekly to play Palin, increasing her own star power.
(She says she's only going to do it until the election, regardless of the outcome.)
Chevy Chase as Gerald Ford.
Will Ferrell as George W. Bush.
"Saturday Night Live" has been parodying politicians for years, sometimes with such precision that their catchphrases (Carvey's "wouldn't be prudent," Ferrell's "misunderestimated") have become more closely associated with the politicians than the politicians' own words. But with the ever-increasing crossover of politics and entertainment
and the breakout attention received by Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin it seems like the show's influence is greater than it's been in years.
The ratings have reflected that interest.
The audience for the October 4 show, which followed the vice presidential debate, was up 42 percent from the comparable episode a year ago.
"SNL" has even added a Thursday night "Weekend Update Special" to capitalize on the increased audience.
And Tina Fey, who left "SNL" two years ago to write and star in the Emmy-winning sitcom "30 Rock," has returned weekly to play Palin, increasing her own star power.
(She says she's only going to do it until the election, regardless of the outcome.)
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Murray makes history with triumph in Madrid
British rising star Andy Murray claimed his second successive Masters Series title on Sunday, beating surprise package Gilles Simon in straight sets in Madrid to follow up his shock semifinal win over former world No. 1 Roger Federer.
The world No. 4 won 6-4 7-6 (8-6) against the unseeded Frenchman, who was playing his first final in a top-tier tournament.
Scotland's Murray added to his victory at the previous Masters Series event in Cincinnati, which helped spur him to reach the final of the U.S. Open last month before being beaten by Federer.
The 21-year-old became the first British player to win four titles in a season after earlier triumphs in Marseille and Doha, and dropped only one set all week in the Spanish capital.
He improved his career record against Simon to 2-1, with both previous encounters on clay in Hamburg earlier this year and Rome in 2007.
Simon will jump to No. 9 in Monday's ATP world rankings, having upset top-ranked Rafael Nadal in an epic semifinal on Saturday to reach his fourth final of 2008.
Murray made the crucial break in the fifth game of the first set, but needed all three break-points before clinching a 3-2 lead.
The next four games went with serve before Murray held his in the 10th, winning with an ace.
The second set went with serve to force a tie-break, which Murray calmly negotiated despite facing two set-points after conceding an early 2-0 deficit.
Simon's brave resistance finally ended when his attempted drop-shot drifted out.
"Gilles was hitting much better from behind the baseline, but I got a lot of free points from my serve.
That was probably the key to my win today," said Murray, who will be the first Briton in the Open era since Fred Perry in 1936 to finish the year at No. 4
Federer's defeat means Nadal will be the first Spanish player in Open history to end the year at the top of the rankings, no matter what happens at the season-ending Masters Cup in China next month.
Murray makes history with triumph in Madrid
The world No. 4 won 6-4 7-6 (8-6) against the unseeded Frenchman, who was playing his first final in a top-tier tournament.
Scotland's Murray added to his victory at the previous Masters Series event in Cincinnati, which helped spur him to reach the final of the U.S. Open last month before being beaten by Federer.
The 21-year-old became the first British player to win four titles in a season after earlier triumphs in Marseille and Doha, and dropped only one set all week in the Spanish capital.
Murray made the crucial break in the fifth game of the first set, but needed all three break-points before clinching a 3-2 lead.
The next four games went with serve before Murray held his in the 10th, winning with an ace.
"Gilles was hitting much better from behind the baseline, but I got a lot of free points from my serve.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
One reason behind the tightening of the race appears to be a drop in the number of people who think McCain, if elected, will mostly carry out President Bush's policies.
Forty-nine percent of those questioned in the new survey say McCain would mostly carry out Bush's policies, down from 56 percent in the previous poll.
"It's clear from the final presidential debate that one of McCain's top priorities was to distance himself from Bush," said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.
"It looks like McCain has convinced growing numbers of Americans that his policies would be different than Bush.
"The next task is to convince voters that his policies would be better than Bush's, and, on the economic front at least, that may be a more difficult task."
CNN is also updating its Poll of Polls of the national general election, thanks to the new CNN/ORC survey, plus the release of other new surveys Monday morning.
Obama retains his six-point advantage in the new Poll of Polls, with 50 percent of voters saying the Democratic presidential nominee is their choice for president, and 44 percent backing McCain, the Republican presidential nominee.
Six percent of voters are undecided.
The new CNN/ORC poll also indicates that Americans think Obama would do a better job dealing with the tough economic times.
Fifty-three percent of those questioned say Obama would better handle the current financial crisis, with 38 percent saying McCain would do a better job.
And 63 percent feel Obama would better handle helping the middle class, almost double the 32 percent who feel McCain would be of better service to the middle class.
Obama appears to have won that argument."
Poll shows presidential race may be tightening
With two weeks and one day until Election Day, a new national poll of likely voters suggests the race for the White House may be tightening up.
In a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Monday, 51 percent of likely voters questioned Friday through Sunday back Barack Obama for president, with 46 percent supporting John McCain.
That five-point advantage for Sen. Obama, D-Illinois, is down from an eight-point edge he held over Sen. McCain, R-Arizona, in the last CNN/ORC national poll, conducted October 3-5.
One reason behind the tightening of the race appears to be a drop in the number of people who think McCain, if elected, will mostly carry out President Bush's policies.
Forty-nine percent of those questioned in the new survey say McCain would mostly carry out Bush's policies, down from 56 percent in the previous poll.
"It's clear from the final presidential debate that one of McCain's top priorities was to distance himself from Bush," said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.
"It looks like McCain has convinced growing numbers of Americans that his policies would be different than Bush.
"The next task is to convince voters that his policies would be better than Bush's, and, on the economic front at least, that may be a more difficult task."
CNN is also updating its Poll of Polls of the national general election, thanks to the new CNN/ORC survey, plus the release of other new surveys Monday morning.
Obama retains his six-point advantage in the new Poll of Polls, with 50 percent of voters saying the Democratic presidential nominee is their choice for president, and 44 percent backing McCain, the Republican presidential nominee.
Six percent of voters are undecided.
The new CNN/ORC poll also indicates that Americans think Obama would do a better job dealing with the tough economic times.
"Both candidates tried to pitch their plans as the best thing for the middle class.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
China`s boom falters amid global crisis
The worst financial crisis in decades is slowing China's industrial boom, officials said Monday, as gloomy news from other nations deepened worries about a global recession.
China's gross domestic product for the first nine months of 2008 increased by 9.9 percent, 2.3 percent lower than last year, China's State Council Information Office said.
"There are no signs of a definite recovery from the financial crisis," bureau spokesman Li Xiaochao said in a nationally televised news conference.
"The growth rate has moderated," Li said.
The rate of expansion was the slowest since the second quarter of 2003, when the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS, cooled growth to 6.7 percent.
The figures, while still healthy, will fuel fears that worsening economic conditions around the world are hitting Asian growth.
"There was always this hope that China would pick up the slack for the U.S., but if China is seeing a slowdown, that could bash those hopes," Singapore-based investment analyst Nicole Sze of Bank Julius Baer & Co., which manages about $300 billion in assets, told The Associated Press.
A fall in the growth of exports due to the global economic slowdown was one of the reasons for the cooling of the Chinese economy.
China's economy is based largely on exports, and with people around the world buying less, they are buying fewer Chinese-made goods
China`s boom falters amid global crisis
The worst financial crisis in decades is slowing China's industrial boom, officials said Monday, as gloomy news from other nations deepened worries about a global recession.
China's gross domestic product for the first nine months of 2008 increased by 9.9 percent, 2.3 percent lower than last year, China's State Council Information Office said.
"There are no signs of a definite recovery from the financial crisis," bureau spokesman Li Xiaochao said in a nationally televised news conference.
"The growth rate has moderated," Li said.
The rate of expansion was the slowest since the second quarter of 2003, when the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS, cooled growth to 6.7 percent.
The figures, while still healthy, will fuel fears that worsening economic conditions around the world are hitting Asian growth.
"There was always this hope that China would pick up the slack for the U.S., but if China is seeing a slowdown, that could bash those hopes," Singapore-based investment analyst Nicole Sze of Bank Julius Baer & Co., which manages about $300 billion in assets, told The Associated Press.
A fall in the growth of exports due to the global economic slowdown was one of the reasons for the cooling of the Chinese economy.
China's economy is based largely on exports, and with people around the world buying less, they are buying fewer Chinese-made goods
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Sandor Ferenci, 28, was approached by police after a motorist saw him speeding on his powerful motorcycle and noted his registration number.
When they called at his house in Oxfordshire, England, he unwittingly asked if they had seen his YouTube video
prompting officers to search the Internet, where they found uploaded video of his hazardous riding.
Ferenci was Monday sentenced to 12 weeks' jail after admitted two counts of dangerous driving at Oxford Crown Court.
Judge Terence Maher told Ferenci that he had carried out "lunatic and grossly irresponsible maneuvers at considerable speed," according to CNN affiliate ITN.
Ferenci's video footage, filmed by a friend from various angles including a footbridge, was shown to the court.
In it the biker is seen performing wheelies, tire-smoking wheelspins and skids on his Yamaha R6 road bike as well as high speed undertaking maneuvers.
Sandor Ferenci, 28, was approached by police after a motorist saw him speeding on his powerful motorcycle and noted his registration number.
When they called at his house in Oxfordshire, England, he unwittingly asked if they had seen his YouTube video
prompting officers to search the Internet, where they found uploaded video of his hazardous riding.
Ferenci was Monday sentenced to 12 weeks' jail after admitted two counts of dangerous driving at Oxford Crown Court.
Judge Terence Maher told Ferenci that he had carried out "lunatic and grossly irresponsible maneuvers at considerable speed," according to CNN affiliate ITN.
Ferenci's video footage, filmed by a friend from various angles including a footbridge, was shown to the court.
In it the biker is seen performing wheelies, tire-smoking wheelspins and skids on his Yamaha R6 road bike as well as high speed undertaking maneuvers.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Jet captain reported UFO sighting
have been released by the British Ministry of Defence.
The 4,500 pages cover sightings that were reported from 1986 through 1992.
The British military released them to a curious public as part of a four-year project to transfer all such documents to the National Archives.
One highlight from the batch released Monday involves the captain of an Italian airliner. He shouted "Look out!"
to his co-pilot in April 1991 after claiming to see a beige "missile-shaped object" shoot past the cockpit.
In that instance, the defence ministry ruled out a missile and "all the usual explanations," wrote David Clarke, a UFO expert and journalism instructor at Sheffield Hallam University, who worked with the National Archives to prepare the new materials for release.
"The end result was this was a genuine UFO and the file was simply closed," he wrote.
"There was nothing more they could do."
The newly released documents also carry an account by a U.S. Air Force pilot who says he was told to shoot down an unidentified flying craft over eastern England.
But before he could fire, the object disappeared.
The next day, a man arrived to debrief the pilot and "he was told in no uncertain terms that what he had seen on his radar was top secret and he wasn't to speak about it to anyone," Clarke wrote.
The first set of files was made available to members of the public in May.
It covered reported UFO sightings from 1978 to 1987, and included hundreds of police reports taken from witnesses who described seeing lights or strange objects in the sky.
People who reported having seen UFOs typically describe various shapes and colors of lights, moving in formation or hovering in the sky.
Witnesses reported orange, red, white and green lights that were diamond-shaped, square, or cigar-shaped.
They reported them to police, who have a standard 16-question form specifically for UFO sightings.
"The vast majority of them are just ordinary people who've seen something unusual and thought that they ought to tell someone about it," Clarke has said.
Jet captain reported UFO sighting
have been released by the British Ministry of Defence.
The 4,500 pages cover sightings that were reported from 1986 through 1992.
The British military released them to a curious public as part of a four-year project to transfer all such documents to the National Archives.
One highlight from the batch released Monday involves the captain of an Italian airliner. He shouted "Look out!"
to his co-pilot in April 1991 after claiming to see a beige "missile-shaped object" shoot past the cockpit.
In that instance, the defence ministry ruled out a missile and "all the usual explanations," wrote David Clarke, a UFO expert and journalism instructor at Sheffield Hallam University, who worked with the National Archives to prepare the new materials for release.
"The end result was this was a genuine UFO and the file was simply closed," he wrote.
"There was nothing more they could do."
The newly released documents also carry an account by a U.S. Air Force pilot who says he was told to shoot down an unidentified flying craft over eastern England.
But before he could fire, the object disappeared.
The next day, a man arrived to debrief the pilot and "he was told in no uncertain terms that what he had seen on his radar was top secret and he wasn't to speak about it to anyone," Clarke wrote.
The first set of files was made available to members of the public in May.
It covered reported UFO sightings from 1978 to 1987, and included hundreds of police reports taken from witnesses who described seeing lights or strange objects in the sky.
People who reported having seen UFOs typically describe various shapes and colors of lights, moving in formation or hovering in the sky.
Witnesses reported orange, red, white and green lights that were diamond-shaped, square, or cigar-shaped.
They reported them to police, who have a standard 16-question form specifically for UFO sightings.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Sean Connery wasn't supposed to be James Bond.
Keanu Reeves wasn't supposed to be "The One."
So, who were the original choices?
Here are 5 actors and the legendary roles they turned down:
Despite being Bond producer Albert Broccoli's best man, Grant said, "I don't" to the offer, and Sean Connery got the role instead.
Of course, many studio executives objected to the decision, and even Bond creator Ian Fleming said Connery "wasn't exactly what I had in mind."
By the 1960s, Cary Grant already had a spectacular film career.
Will Smith turned it down to star in the forgettable action flick "Wild Wild West," and the part went to Reeves.
' At that point I wasn't smart enough as an actor to let the movie be
John Travolta got the role instead and, almost overnight, transformed from a Hollywood has-been into one of the most bankable stars in the business.
Madsen called "Wyatt Earp" a "big waste of time."
Gandalf in the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy
Sean Connery, who'd never read the J.R.R. Tolkien series and claimed he "didn't understand the script."
In return for playing the role, New Line Cinema offered the Scottish actor up to 15 percent of worldwide box office receipts, which would have earned Connery more than any actor had ever been paid for a single role
McQueen turned down the role of Sundance simply because costar Paul Newman refused to give him top billing.
Later, McQueen declined the lead in "The French Connection" because he felt the part was too similar to the tough cop he'd played in 1968's "Bullitt."
Gene Hackman took the part and won an Oscar for it.
And finally, in 1978, McQueen told "Apocalypse Now" director Francis Ford Coppola to shove off when he was offered the lead.
McQueen's non-negotiable asking price was $3 million; plus, he didn't feel like spending four months shooting in the Philippine jungle.
Sean Connery wasn't supposed to be James Bond.
Keanu Reeves wasn't supposed to be "The One."
So, who were the original choices?
Here are 5 actors and the legendary roles they turned down:
Despite being Bond producer Albert Broccoli's best man, Grant said, "I don't" to the offer, and Sean Connery got the role instead.
Of course, many studio executives objected to the decision, and even Bond creator Ian Fleming said Connery "wasn't exactly what I had in mind."
By the 1960s, Cary Grant already had a spectacular film career.
Will Smith turned it down to star in the forgettable action flick "Wild Wild West," and the part went to Reeves.
' At that point I wasn't smart enough as an actor to let the movie be
John Travolta got the role instead and, almost overnight, transformed from a Hollywood has-been into one of the most bankable stars in the business.
Madsen called "Wyatt Earp" a "big waste of time."
Gandalf in the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy
Sean Connery, who'd never read the J.R.R. Tolkien series and claimed he "didn't understand the script."
In return for playing the role, New Line Cinema offered the Scottish actor up to 15 percent of worldwide box office receipts, which would have earned Connery more than any actor had ever been paid for a single role
McQueen turned down the role of Sundance simply because costar Paul Newman refused to give him top billing.
Later, McQueen declined the lead in "The French Connection" because he felt the part was too similar to the tough cop he'd played in 1968's "Bullitt."
Gene Hackman took the part and won an Oscar for it.
And finally, in 1978, McQueen told "Apocalypse Now" director Francis Ford Coppola to shove off when he was offered the lead.
McQueen's non-negotiable asking price was $3 million; plus, he didn't feel like spending four months shooting in the Philippine jungle.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Tampa Bay Rays reach baseball`s World Series
The Tampa Bay Rays held off the defending champions Boston Red Sox 3-1 Sunday night behind Matt Garza's masterful pitching in Game 7 of the AL championship series, earning a date with the Philadelphia Phillies.
The Rays nearly let it slip away when they blew a seven-run lead late in Game 5 and lost meekly Saturday night.
But when rookie David Price struck out J.D. Drew with the bases loaded to end the eighth inning, Tampa Bay showed it had plenty of resolve, too.
Baseball's doormat since starting play in 1998, the Rays were a 200-1 shot to win the World Series before the season started.
Now, they'll host Philadelphia in Game 1 Wednesday night.
When it was over, players and coaches streamed out of the dugout and mobbed Price, eventually falling to the ground in a cluster that continued to grow when others began leaping on the pile.
Music blared and the crowd of 40,473 stood and cheered.
The party moved inside briefly before players returned to the field raced up and down the right field stands spraying fans with champagne before settling down for the presentation of the AL championship trophy.
"It's not what we expected to happen," Boston slugger David Ortiz said.
"You have to give them credit.
They've got good hitters."
Tampa Bay Rays reach baseball`s World Series
The Tampa Bay Rays held off the defending champions Boston Red Sox 3-1 Sunday night behind Matt Garza's masterful pitching in Game 7 of the AL championship series, earning a date with the Philadelphia Phillies.
The Rays nearly let it slip away when they blew a seven-run lead late in Game 5 and lost meekly Saturday night.
But when rookie David Price struck out J.D. Drew with the bases loaded to end the eighth inning, Tampa Bay showed it had plenty of resolve, too.
Baseball's doormat since starting play in 1998, the Rays were a 200-1 shot to win the World Series before the season started.
Now, they'll host Philadelphia in Game 1 Wednesday night.
When it was over, players and coaches streamed out of the dugout and mobbed Price, eventually falling to the ground in a cluster that continued to grow when others began leaping on the pile.
Music blared and the crowd of 40,473 stood and cheered.
The party moved inside briefly before players returned to the field raced up and down the right field stands spraying fans with champagne before settling down for the presentation of the AL championship trophy.
"It's not what we expected to happen," Boston slugger David Ortiz said.
"You have to give them credit.
They've got good hitters."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Republican vice presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin vowed on Tuesday to use her executive experience to tackle government reform and energy independence if she and Sen. John McCain win this year's presidential election.
"It's going to be government reform because that, that is what I've been able to do as a mayor and as a governor, you, you take on the special interests and the self-dealings. Yep, you ruffle feathers and you have the scars to prove it," Palin said Tuesday in an interview with CNN's Drew Griffin.
"You have to take that on to give the American people that faith back in their own government. This is their government and we've got to put it back on their side," she said.
Palin said she and McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, discussed the possibility of her working on the issue of energy independence if she becomes vice president.
"That's been my forte as the governor of an energy producing state and as a former chair of the, of the energy regulator entity up there in Alaska," she said.
"[I] look forward to that and that's a matter of national security and, and our economic prosperity opportunities."
Palin also said helping families with special needs children and cleaning up Wall Street were among the other "missions" she and McCain had discussed.
Palin emphasized her executive credentials as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, and governor of Alaska, contrasting them with what she said was Sen. Barack Obama's lack of leadership experience.
You know, he had served for his 300 days before he became a presidential candidate and that wasn't in, in executive office."
Palin also apologized Tuesday for any misunderstanding caused when she referred last week to the patriotic values of "the real America" and "pro-America areas of this great nation."
Democrats and others criticized Palin for seeming to imply that some parts of the country are more patriotic than others.
Palin denied that was her intention in an interview with CNN on Tuesday.
"I don't want that misunderstood," Palin said. "If that's the way it came across, I apologize."
Republican vice presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin vowed on Tuesday to use her executive experience to tackle government reform and energy independence if she and Sen. John McCain win this year's presidential election.
"It's going to be government reform because that, that is what I've been able to do as a mayor and as a governor, you, you take on the special interests and the self-dealings. Yep, you ruffle feathers and you have the scars to prove it," Palin said Tuesday in an interview with CNN's Drew Griffin.
"You have to take that on to give the American people that faith back in their own government. This is their government and we've got to put it back on their side," she said.
Palin said she and McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, discussed the possibility of her working on the issue of energy independence if she becomes vice president.
"That's been my forte as the governor of an energy producing state and as a former chair of the, of the energy regulator entity up there in Alaska," she said.
"[I] look forward to that and that's a matter of national security and, and our economic prosperity opportunities."
Palin also said helping families with special needs children and cleaning up Wall Street were among the other "missions" she and McCain had discussed.
Palin emphasized her executive credentials as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, and governor of Alaska, contrasting them with what she said was Sen. Barack Obama's lack of leadership experience.
You know, he had served for his 300 days before he became a presidential candidate and that wasn't in, in executive office."
Palin also apologized Tuesday for any misunderstanding caused when she referred last week to the patriotic values of "the real America" and "pro-America areas of this great nation."
Democrats and others criticized Palin for seeming to imply that some parts of the country are more patriotic than others.
Palin denied that was her intention in an interview with CNN on Tuesday.
"I don't want that misunderstood," Palin said.
"If that's the way it came across, I apologize."
The Alaska governor made the remarks at a fundraising event in North Carolina last week.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Yahoo slashes 10% of workforce
Yahoo announced Tuesday that it plans to cut at least 10% of its workforce, or more than 1,500 employees, in the fourth quarter in an effort reduce costs.
The struggling Internet company also announced sales for the third quarter that were roughly in line with Wall Street's forecasts and earnings that matched expectations.
Yahoo had 15,200 employees at the end of the third quarter.
The much-anticipated round of layoffs comes on the heels of another 1,000 job cuts in late January.
"We have been disciplined about balancing investments with cost management all year, and have now set in motion initiatives to reduce costs and enhance productivity," said Yahoo co-founder and CEO Jerry Yang in a written statement.
"The steps we are taking this quarter should deliver both near-term benefits to operating cash flow, and substantially enhance the nimbleness and flexibility with which we compete over the long term," he added.
In a conference call after the results were announced, Yang said the company was working to reduce costs in other ways than just slashing jobs, including relocating offices and consolidating real estate.
"We are identifying ways we can operate more efficiently," he said.
Yahoo (YHOO, Fortune 500) reported revenue of $1.79 billion in the quarter ended Sept. 30, an increase of 1% from the $1.77 billion in the same quarter one year ago.
Excluding commissions paid to advertising partners, Yahoo posted sales of $1.33 billion, slightly lower than the $1.37 billion in sales that analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected on this basis.
Yahoo reported net income of $54 million, or 4 cents per share, a decline of 51% from a year ago.
Yahoo's stock ended the regular trading day down 79 cents at $12.07 but rose 7% in after hours trading.
Yahoo's stock has been battered in recent months due to concerns that companies would cut their online advertising spending as a result of the economic slowdown.
Executives admitted that Yahoo's performance has been taking a hit from the sluggish economy.
Yahoo slashes 10% of workforce
Yahoo announced Tuesday that it plans to cut at least 10% of its workforce, or more than 1,500 employees, in the fourth quarter in an effort reduce costs.
The struggling Internet company also announced sales for the third quarter that were roughly in line with Wall Street's forecasts and earnings that matched expectations.
Yahoo had 15,200 employees at the end of the third quarter.
The much-anticipated round of layoffs comes on the heels of another 1,000 job cuts in late January.
"We have been disciplined about balancing investments with cost management all year, and have now set in motion initiatives to reduce costs and enhance productivity," said Yahoo co-founder and CEO Jerry Yang in a written statement.
"The steps we are taking this quarter should deliver both near-term benefits to operating cash flow, and substantially enhance the nimbleness and flexibility with which we compete over the long term," he added.
In a conference call after the results were announced, Yang said the company was working to reduce costs in other ways than just slashing jobs, including relocating offices and consolidating real estate.
"We are identifying ways we can operate more efficiently," he said.
Yahoo (YHOO, Fortune 500) reported revenue of $1.79 billion in the quarter ended Sept. 30, an increase of 1% from the $1.77 billion in the same quarter one year ago.
Excluding commissions paid to advertising partners, Yahoo posted sales of $1.33 billion, slightly lower than the $1.37 billion in sales that analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected on this basis.
Yahoo reported net income of $54 million, or 4 cents per share, a decline of 51% from a year ago.
Yahoo's stock ended the regular trading day down 79 cents at $12.07 but rose 7% in after hours trading.
Yahoo's stock has been battered in recent months due to concerns that companies would cut their online advertising spending as a result of the economic slowdown.
Executives admitted that Yahoo's performance has been taking a hit from the sluggish economy.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Police spokeswoman Edda Noethel said the break-in at Bennigsen manor near the city of Hannover occurred on Friday evening.
She said on Tuesday that silver candlesticks, an oil painting, medals belonging to the owner's family and two violins including the Stradivarius
The manor houses an annual classical music festival.
He made more than 1,100 violins, of which some 600 survive.
The bowed string instruments are coveted because of their beauty and superior sound qualities.
Police spokeswoman Edda Noethel said the break-in at Bennigsen manor near the city of Hannover occurred on Friday evening.
She said on Tuesday that silver candlesticks, an oil painting, medals belonging to the owner's family and two violins including the Stradivarius
The manor houses an annual classical music festival.
He made more than 1,100 violins, of which some 600 survive.
The bowed string instruments are coveted because of their beauty and superior sound qualities.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
`Sex on beach` couple free on bail in Dubai
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (CNN)
Two Britons serving three-month prison terms for having sex on a public beach in Dubai have been released on bail pending their appeal, their lawyer said Tuesday.
Michelle Palmer, 36, and Vincent Acors, 34, were sentenced last week after a court found them guilty.
Both denied they had intercourse and their lawyer, Hassan Mattar, said they planned to appeal.
Mattar said Tuesday the court accepted the appeal and will hold the first hearing November 18 in Dubai.
Palmer and Acors were arrested on a public beach shortly after midnight on July 5. Police charged them with illicit relations, public indecency and public intoxication.
The Dubai Court of Misdemeanors last Thursday found them guilty and ordered them jailed for three months, after which they would be deported.
The court also fined the pair 1,000 dirhams ($367) for the charge of public indecency.
`Sex on beach` couple free on bail in Dubai
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (CNN)
Two Britons serving three-month prison terms for having sex on a public beach in Dubai have been released on bail pending their appeal, their lawyer said Tuesday.
Michelle Palmer, 36, and Vincent Acors, 34, were sentenced last week after a court found them guilty.
Both denied they had intercourse and their lawyer, Hassan Mattar, said they planned to appeal.
Mattar said Tuesday the court accepted the appeal and will hold the first hearing November 18 in Dubai.
Palmer and Acors were arrested on a public beach shortly after midnight on July 5. Police charged them with illicit relations, public indecency and public intoxication.
The Dubai Court of Misdemeanors last Thursday found them guilty and ordered them jailed for three months, after which they would be deported.
The court also fined the pair 1,000 dirhams ($367) for the charge of public indecency.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Angry letters, powder sent to bank branches
The FBI and the Postal Inspection Service are investigating more than 30 angry letters containing a white powdery substance recently sent to banks, officials said Tuesday.
The FBI said the letters have not posed a health threat.
"At this point, field tests on the powder have been negative. Additional tests will be completed," FBI spokesman Richard Kolko said in a written statement.
The letters contained a message of anger concerning the "banking situation," the law enforcement official said.
Investigators refused to speak on the record discussing the notes in more detail because the investigation is ongoing.
Bank branches in Colorado, Oklahoma, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Georgia, Texas and the District of Columbia received letters Monday, the official said.
The official said most of the letters have been sent to branches of JPMorgan Chase.
Angry letters, powder sent to bank branches
The FBI and the Postal Inspection Service are investigating more than 30 angry letters containing a white powdery substance recently sent to banks, officials said Tuesday.
The FBI said the letters have not posed a health threat.
"At this point, field tests on the powder have been negative. Additional tests will be completed," FBI spokesman Richard Kolko said in a written statement.
The letters contained a message of anger concerning the "banking situation," the law enforcement official said.
Investigators refused to speak on the record discussing the notes in more detail because the investigation is ongoing.
Bank branches in Colorado, Oklahoma, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Georgia, Texas and the District of Columbia received letters Monday, the official said.
The official said most of the letters have been sent to branches of JPMorgan Chase.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Climate change is happening faster than previously predicted according to a new World Wildlife Fund report.
Bringing together some of the most recent scientific reports and data, "Climate change:
faster, stronger, sooner" reveals that global warming is accelerating more rapidly than the predictions made in the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report published in 2007.
One of the most concerning aspects of recent data is evidence that, in some places, the Arctic Ocean is losing sea ice 30 years ahead of current IPCC predictions.
Summer sea ice is now forecasted to completely disappear in the summer months sometime between 2013 and 2040
something which hasn't happened for over a million years.
"Arctic sea ice is melting much faster than everybody had been expecting. Well, maybe it's because the positive feedback mechanisms have kicked in much quicker than we have been able to quantify."
Positive feedback mechanisms amplify changes occurring in the climate.
In the case of the Arctic region there is a sort of vicious circle of warming occurring.
White ice sheets perform an important function in moderating global temperature by reflecting heat from the sun back into space.
But they have begun to melt as the earth has warmed. The result is more dark sea water which absorbs heat, which in turn warms the earth more and encourages further melting.
Globally, sea levels are now expected to rise more than double the IPCC's most recent forecast of 0.59 meters before the end of the century.
This will put millions of people in coastal regions at risk.
World food production is also feeling the heat as yields of wheat, maize and barley had dwindled in recent months.
In Europe, ecosystems in the North and Baltic Sea are believed to be experiencing their warmest temperatures since records began.
And the Mediterranean is likely to experience an increased frequency of droughts.
The WWF report also highlights a 2007 study conducted by the British Antarctic Survey.
"Widespread acceleration of tidewater glaciers on the Antarctic Peninsula" concluded that floating tide-water glaciers on the peninsula are losing ice faster and making a greater contribution to global sea level rise than was previously thought.
Earlier this month, the WWF highlighted the impact that global warming is likely to have on Antarctic penguin colonies.
Climate change is happening faster than previously predicted according to a new World Wildlife Fund report.
Bringing together some of the most recent scientific reports and data, "Climate change:
faster, stronger, sooner" reveals that global warming is accelerating more rapidly than the predictions made in the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report published in 2007.
One of the most concerning aspects of recent data is evidence that, in some places, the Arctic Ocean is losing sea ice 30 years ahead of current IPCC predictions.
Summer sea ice is now forecasted to completely disappear in the summer months sometime between 2013 and 2040
something which hasn't happened for over a million years.
"Arctic sea ice is melting much faster than everybody had been expecting. Well, maybe it's because the positive feedback mechanisms have kicked in much quicker than we have been able to quantify."
Positive feedback mechanisms amplify changes occurring in the climate.
In the case of the Arctic region there is a sort of vicious circle of warming occurring.
White ice sheets perform an important function in moderating global temperature by reflecting heat from the sun back into space.
But they have begun to melt as the earth has warmed. The result is more dark sea water which absorbs heat, which in turn warms the earth more and encourages further melting.
Globally, sea levels are now expected to rise more than double the IPCC's most recent forecast of 0.59 meters before the end of the century.
This will put millions of people in coastal regions at risk.
World food production is also feeling the heat as yields of wheat, maize and barley had dwindled in recent months.
In Europe, ecosystems in the North and Baltic Sea are believed to be experiencing their warmest temperatures since records began.
And the Mediterranean is likely to experience an increased frequency of droughts.
The WWF report also highlights a 2007 study conducted by the British Antarctic Survey.
"Widespread acceleration of tidewater glaciers on the Antarctic Peninsula" concluded that floating tide-water glaciers on the peninsula are losing ice faster and making a greater contribution to global sea level rise than was previously thought.
Earlier this month, the WWF highlighted the impact that global warming is likely to have on Antarctic penguin colonies.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
I'm supporting her in all the ways that I can.
I'm just there for her.
I speak to her a lot," Paltrow said as she attended the premiere of her film "Two Lovers" at London's Film Festival.
who's married to Coldplay singer Chris Martin
Madonna and Ritchie, who were married at a Scottish castle in December 2000, have two children:
Rocco, 8, and David Banda, 3, who was adopted in Malawi in 2006.
Madonna's publicist said Sunday that details of a divorce settlement are yet to be finalized, dismissing reports that the couple had agreed to a custody arrangement for the couple's children.
The couple own homes in London, Los Angeles, California, and New York, and a 1,200-acre retreat in Wiltshire, England.
I'm supporting her in all the ways that I can.
I'm just there for her.
I speak to her a lot," Paltrow said as she attended the premiere of her film "Two Lovers" at London's Film Festival.
who's married to Coldplay singer Chris Martin
Madonna and Ritchie, who were married at a Scottish castle in December 2000, have two children:
Rocco, 8, and David Banda, 3, who was adopted in Malawi in 2006.
Madonna's publicist said Sunday that details of a divorce settlement are yet to be finalized, dismissing reports that the couple had agreed to a custody arrangement for the couple's children.
The couple own homes in London, Los Angeles, California, and New York, and a 1,200-acre retreat in Wiltshire, England.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
UCI chief McQuaid against sample retesting
The head of cycling's world governing body opposes retesting further samples to check for the blood-boosting drug found among four Tour de France riders.
The Chatenay-Malabry laboratory outside Paris rechecked samples from this year's Tour after a new test became available to detect CERA, an advanced version of EPO.
The French anti-doping agency is now willing to retest samples from the 2007 Tour and this year's Giro d'Italia and Spanish Vuelta, but International Cycling Union president Pat McQuaid is against the idea.
"From the UCI's point of view, we prefer to look forward rather than look backward," McQuaid told the Associated Press.
"To randomly say 'OK, let's take all the samples from 2007 from the Tour de France and put them all through testing processes' ... it's futile, it's expensive and it's not going to serve the purpose in the anti-doping fight of today."
The UCI carried out all the testing at the 2007 Tour, but a rift with Tour organizer ASO meant the French anti-doping agency took sole charge of testing at this year's Tour
with a marked increase in blood testing. McQuaid thinks retesting samples from other races, including the Giro and the Vuelta, would lead to chaos.
The International Olympic Committee said earlier this month that it will retest samples from the Beijing Games for CERA.
Pierre Bordry, head of the French anti-doping agency AFLD, said he passed all the information regarding how to do CERA tests to the UCI at the end of August so that the world body could use the testing method at the Vuelta.
"The testing program was available," Bordry said, adding that he was unsure whether it was implemented at the Vuelta, which ended on September 21.
"That wouldn't be a decision of the UCI to do that.
It's outside of our scope," McQuaid said
UCI chief McQuaid against sample retesting
The head of cycling's world governing body opposes retesting further samples to check for the blood-boosting drug found among four Tour de France riders.
The Chatenay-Malabry laboratory outside Paris rechecked samples from this year's Tour after a new test became available to detect CERA, an advanced version of EPO.
The French anti-doping agency is now willing to retest samples from the 2007 Tour and this year's Giro d'Italia and Spanish Vuelta, but International Cycling Union president Pat McQuaid is against the idea.
"From the UCI's point of view, we prefer to look forward rather than look backward," McQuaid told the Associated Press.
"To randomly say 'OK, let's take all the samples from 2007 from the Tour de France and put them all through testing processes' ... it's futile, it's expensive and it's not going to serve the purpose in the anti-doping fight of today."
The UCI carried out all the testing at the 2007 Tour, but a rift with Tour organizer ASO meant the French anti-doping agency took sole charge of testing at this year's Tour
with a marked increase in blood testing. McQuaid thinks retesting samples from other races, including the Giro and the Vuelta, would lead to chaos.
The International Olympic Committee said earlier this month that it will retest samples from the Beijing Games for CERA.
Pierre Bordry, head of the French anti-doping agency AFLD, said he passed all the information regarding how to do CERA tests to the UCI at the end of August so that the world body could use the testing method at the Vuelta.
"That wouldn't be a decision of the UCI to do that.
It's outside of our scope," McQuaid said
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Enemies won`t test me, McCain says
Sen. Barack Obama's foreign policy positions could encourage America's enemies to test it during the early days of an Obama administration, Sen. John McCain said Wednesday.
"And the thing that probably may encourage them a little is that Sen. Obama has been wrong," McCain said in an interview to be aired on CNN's "The Situation Room" at 6 p.m. ET Wednesday.
"He was wrong about the surge in Iraq.
He still fails to acknowledge that he was wrong.
I mean, remarkable," the Republican presidential nominee continued.
"He was wrong when he said Georgia should show restraint.
He was wrong about those.
Enemies would not similarly challenge McCain, he said, because he's already been tried.
"They know I've been tested," he said.
"They know I've been tested.
Enemies won`t test me, McCain says
Sen. Barack Obama's foreign policy positions could encourage America's enemies to test it during the early days of an Obama administration, Sen. John McCain said Wednesday.
"He was wrong about the surge in Iraq.
He still fails to acknowledge that he was wrong.
I mean, remarkable," the Republican presidential nominee continued.
He was wrong when he said he would sit down across the table from Ahmadinejad, Chavez and the Castro brothers.
So I can understand why the American people might be concerned."
I've been tested many times."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Global markets slide on grim corporate outlook
Wall Street closed down again Wednesday as shares continue to fall sharply across Europe and Asia and the White House released more details of a global crisis summit intended to solve the crisis.
The Dow Jones industrial average lost 514 points, or 5.7 percent, closing at 8,519, after having fallen as much as 698 points during the session.
Wednesday's point loss was the Dow's 7th worst ever.
"The credit crunch seems to be behind us, and we are shifting focus to corporate earnings and economic conditions, and clearly both are deteriorating," Alex Tang, head of research at Core Pacific-Yamaichi in Hong Kong, told The Associated Press.
In Europe Britain's FTSE 100 and Germany's DAX closed down 4.5 percent, while the CAC-40 in France finished down 5.1 percent
which is due to merge with Wells Fargo reported a heavier-than-expected third quarter loss of $23.9 billion.
Internet company Yahoo said it will cut its workforce by 10 percent following net income decline of 51 percent, while pharmaceuticals company Merck said it will lose 12 percent of its staff.
Global markets slide on grim corporate outlook
Wall Street closed down again Wednesday as shares continue to fall sharply across Europe and Asia and the White House released more details of a global crisis summit intended to solve the crisis.
The Dow Jones industrial average lost 514 points, or 5.7 percent, closing at 8,519, after having fallen as much as 698 points during the session.
Wednesday's point loss was the Dow's 7th worst ever.
"The credit crunch seems to be behind us, and we are shifting focus to corporate earnings and economic conditions, and clearly both are deteriorating," Alex Tang, head of research at Core Pacific-Yamaichi in Hong Kong, told The Associated Press.
In Europe Britain's FTSE 100 and Germany's DAX closed down 4.5 percent, while the CAC-40 in France finished down 5.1 percent
which is due to merge with Wells Fargo reported a heavier-than-expected third quarter loss of $23.9 billion.
Internet company Yahoo said it will cut its workforce by 10 percent following net income decline of 51 percent, while pharmaceuticals company Merck said it will lose 12 percent of its staff.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Harrods department store owner and Egyptian multimillionaire Mohamed Al Fayed was questioned by police Wednesday, a store spokeswoman said, after London Metropolitan Police said a man had been questioned "in connection with an allegation of sexual assault on a girl under 16."
Police did not name the man
British police do not name suspects unless they face charges
and the store did not say why Al Fayed was questioned, other than he "attended an interview with police to categorically refute an allegation widely reported in the media."
But the statement issued by Harrod's said that "despite assurances that today's interview would be kept confidential, he is concerned that it was reported within one hour of its conclusion."
Police, in their statement, said the alleged assault took place at a business in central London, and the allegation, which remains under investigation, was received in May.
The man they declined to name left the police station without being arrested, but "if the police need further assistance, he will be asked to return," the police statement said.
Harrods said in its statement that Al Fayed "did not attend under compulsion and the meeting lasted for less than half an hour."
It added, "From the outset, details of this allegation have appeared in the media, which they attributed to a police source," and Wednesday's report of the interview was another example of such a leak.
"Mr. Al Fayed vehemently denies this allegation and is confident that his name will be cleared," it said.
Al Fayed's son, Dodi Fayed, died in 1997 along with Princess Diana when the car they were riding in crashed in a Paris tunnel.
Since their deaths, Al Fayed has accused the British royal family of conspiring to cause the crash, alleging that Diana was pregnant with Fayed's child at the time of the crash.
Harrods department store owner and Egyptian multimillionaire Mohamed Al Fayed was questioned by police Wednesday, a store spokeswoman said, after London Metropolitan Police said a man had been questioned "in connection with an allegation of sexual assault on a girl under 16."
Police did not name the man
British police do not name suspects unless they face charges
and the store did not say why Al Fayed was questioned, other than he "attended an interview with police to categorically refute an allegation widely reported in the media."
But the statement issued by Harrod's said that "despite assurances that today's interview would be kept confidential, he is concerned that it was reported within one hour of its conclusion."
Police, in their statement, said the alleged assault took place at a business in central London, and the allegation, which remains under investigation, was received in May.
The man they declined to name left the police station without being arrested, but "if the police need further assistance, he will be asked to return," the police statement said.
Harrods said in its statement that Al Fayed "did not attend under compulsion and the meeting lasted for less than half an hour."
It added, "From the outset, details of this allegation have appeared in the media, which they attributed to a police source," and Wednesday's report of the interview was another example of such a leak.
"Mr. Al Fayed vehemently denies this allegation and is confident that his name will be cleared," it said.
Al Fayed's son, Dodi Fayed, died in 1997 along with Princess Diana when the car they were riding in crashed in a Paris tunnel.
Since their deaths, Al Fayed has accused the British royal family of conspiring to cause the crash, alleging that Diana was pregnant with Fayed's child at the time of the crash.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Google swamped with `great idea` submissions
A $10 million call by Google Inc. for beneficial, world-changing ideas has generated more than 150,000 online submissions.
The deadline for people to submit ideas for the initiative, called Project 10^100, was Monday.
Google employees will now sift through the ideas, submitted in 25 languages, and choose 100 semifinalists by January 27.
Funding for up to five winning ideas will be awarded in May.
"We're thrilled by the large array of enthusiastic responses to Project 10^100. That number has exceeded our expectations," said Bethany Poole, a product marketing manager at Google.
"We're also very impressed by the variety and ingenuity of the submissions across all categories, ranging from health to energy, education and the environment," she said.
Google launched the ambitious project September 24 to help celebrate its 10th birthday.
In announcing Project 10^100 (pronounced "10 to the 100th"), the Internet giant said to hoped to solicit and bankroll fresh ideas it believes will have broad and beneficial effects on people's lives.
The project's Web site (http://www.project10tothe100.com/) suggested that successful ideas address such critical issues as providing food and shelter, building communities, improving health, granting more access to education, sustaining the global ecosystem and promoting clean energy.
As an example, Google cited the invention of the Hippo Water Roller, a barrel-shaped container that holds 24 gallons and can be rolled with little effort like a wheelbarrow, making it easier for African villagers on foot to transport critically needed fresh water to their homes.
Over the past month, the Google project's Web site received more than 2.5 million unique visitors, and its video was watched more than a million times.
Entrants had to briefly describe their idea and answer six questions, including, "If your idea were to become a reality, who would benefit the most and how?"
Now comes the hard part.
More than 3,000 Google employees from more than 50 offices worldwide, with the help of an advisory board, will whittle down the massive list to 100 finalists.
"We will be going through the database and judging the ideas based on their reach, depth, attainability, efficiency and longevity," Poole said.
On January 27, Google will make the top 100 ideas available online for public voting for one week.
A panel of as-yet-unnamed judges will then review the top 20 ideas and announce up to five winners in mid-February.
Funding, from a pool of $10 million, will be awarded in May.
If the judges decide to reward five winning ideas, each will receive $2 million.
If only two ideas are chosen, each will receive $5 million, and so on.
Google swamped with `great idea` submissions
A $10 million call by Google Inc. for beneficial, world-changing ideas has generated more than 150,000 online submissions.
The deadline for people to submit ideas for the initiative, called Project 10^100, was Monday.
Google employees will now sift through the ideas, submitted in 25 languages, and choose 100 semifinalists by January 27.
Funding for up to five winning ideas will be awarded in May.
"We're thrilled by the large array of enthusiastic responses to Project 10^100. That number has exceeded our expectations," said Bethany Poole, a product marketing manager at Google.
"We're also very impressed by the variety and ingenuity of the submissions across all categories, ranging from health to energy, education and the environment," she said.
Google launched the ambitious project September 24 to help celebrate its 10th birthday.
In announcing Project 10^100 (pronounced "10 to the 100th"), the Internet giant said to hoped to solicit and bankroll fresh ideas it believes will have broad and beneficial effects on people's lives.
The project's Web site (http://www.project10tothe100.com/) suggested that successful ideas address such critical issues as providing food and shelter, building communities, improving health, granting more access to education, sustaining the global ecosystem and promoting clean energy.
As an example, Google cited the invention of the Hippo Water Roller, a barrel-shaped container that holds 24 gallons and can be rolled with little effort like a wheelbarrow, making it easier for African villagers on foot to transport critically needed fresh water to their homes.
Over the past month, the Google project's Web site received more than 2.5 million unique visitors, and its video was watched more than a million times.
Entrants had to briefly describe their idea and answer six questions, including, "If your idea were to become a reality, who would benefit the most and how?"
Now comes the hard part.
More than 3,000 Google employees from more than 50 offices worldwide, with the help of an advisory board, will whittle down the massive list to 100 finalists.
"We will be going through the database and judging the ideas based on their reach, depth, attainability, efficiency and longevity," Poole said.
On January 27, Google will make the top 100 ideas available online for public voting for one week.
A panel of as-yet-unnamed judges will then review the top 20 ideas and announce up to five winners in mid-February.
Funding, from a pool of $10 million, will be awarded in May.
If the judges decide to reward five winning ideas, each will receive $2 million.
If only two ideas are chosen, each will receive $5 million, and so on.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
David Beckham will join Italy's AC Milan for two months next year to get in shape for forthcoming matches with the English national team, the Serie A club and Beckham's agent said on Wednesday.
Beckham, 33, will return to the Los Angeles Galaxy after his stint with AC Milan, his agent, Simon Olivera told CNN.
Beckham still has three years on his contract with the Galaxy, where he is a midfielder.
"He will stay at Milan on loan for a couple of months," Adriano Galliani, president of AC Milan was quoted on the club's Web site.
"He will play for a couple of months and then leave."
The move marks a return to European football for Beckham, who previously played for Manchester United in England and Real Madrid in Spain.
He signed with the Galaxy in January 2007 in a money-spinning five-year deal which stunned the football world.
"I will be pleased to have him," said AC Milan Manager Carlo Ancelotti.
"David Beckham is a serious athlete (and) a great professional."
Beckham continues to play for England where he hopes to break the record for most international appearances.
The midfielder currently has 107 caps to his name, one less than the current record for an outfield player, Bobby Moore.
Goalkeeper Peter Shilton won 125 caps.
David Beckham will join Italy's AC Milan for two months next year to get in shape for forthcoming matches with the English national team, the Serie A club and Beckham's agent said on Wednesday.
Beckham, 33, will return to the Los Angeles Galaxy after his stint with AC Milan, his agent, Simon Olivera told CNN.
Beckham still has three years on his contract with the Galaxy, where he is a midfielder.
"He will stay at Milan on loan for a couple of months," Adriano Galliani, president of AC Milan was quoted on the club's Web site.
"He will play for a couple of months and then leave."
The move marks a return to European football for Beckham, who previously played for Manchester United in England and Real Madrid in Spain.
He signed with the Galaxy in January 2007 in a money-spinning five-year deal which stunned the football world.
"I will be pleased to have him," said AC Milan Manager Carlo Ancelotti.
"David Beckham is a serious athlete (and) a great professional."
Beckham continues to play for England where he hopes to break the record for most international appearances.
The midfielder currently has 107 caps to his name, one less than the current record for an outfield player, Bobby Moore.
Goalkeeper Peter Shilton won 125 caps.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
As Hollywood stars such as Gwyneth Paltrow and Penelope Cruz grace the red carpet at the 52nd London Film Festival, the UK's capital city shows it has become a thriving, creative hub for filmmaking.
There are no fewer than 12 film festivals in London, ranging from the London Korean Film Festival to a films showcase from lesbian and gay directors.
Since his film appeared at this little known London festival, director Charles Duke has gained prominence and his film was accepted at the Cannes Film Festival.
Duke shot his comedic short "Caution, Wet Paint" in just two days.
He had never been to film school and had never been taught to use a camera.
"It wasn't meant to be for a festival," Duke told CNN.
But his sister convinced him to submit his short to CWFF.
The film's quirky silent scenes portraying, amongst others, two Londoners fighting over a pint of milk, amused festival goers and critics, and later the judges at the prestigious Cannes festival.
"When Cannes accepted my film, I suddenly got full access to the film festival, including the benefit of services such as free lawyers," says Duke.
From there he obtained sponsorship for his next project
a follow-up to "Caution, Wet Paint," in which the same two Londoners get kidnapped by alien bottles of milk.
"London is a hub for film, especially in the short film category." "And I could not have done it without the CWFF who were willing to accept something completely different."
Canary Wharf Film Festival director Olivia Bellas says she was motivated to start the festival as she wanted to show the creative side of Canary Wharf, an area that is famed for being London's banking hub.
The annual festival, which takes place in the summer, has just celebrated its second anniversary and attracted films from as far afield as Australia and United States.
The ultimate indie cinematographic happening, Raindance Film Festival started in 1993 and just hosted its 16th edition this October.
Together with the British Independent Film Awards, the festival is brought to life each year by Raindance, an organization that offers support to independent filmmakers.
Raindance Film Festival describes itself as "too contemporary for most established stars," and cultivates a reputation for discovering new talent.
Leonardo DiCaprio had his first screening at the festival, at the age of 14, with the iconic movie "What's Eating Gilbert Grape."
Raindance say part of the magic of their festival is:
"You can end up buying a stranger in the bar a drink only to realize they are the filmmaker of the film playing at the moment."
Rushes Soho, a festival that takes place every summer for a week, is in its tenth consecutive festival year.
A non-profit organization, Soho Rushes focuses on short films.
The festival was created in 1999 when a group of friends, inspired by Tropfest in Australia, conceived the idea "in a pub in Soho over a few pints of beer."
Famous names such as Dita von Teese and Michael Sheen, have acted in movies shown at Rushes
Awards at the festival include best documentary, animation, music video, broadcast design and newcomer.
Lesbian and Gay Film Festival
The Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, organized every year in March by the British Film Institute, has been in existence since 1977.
It is the third largest film festival in the UK, touring in almost 40 different UK locations after London, showing to an audience of approximately 250,000 people each year.
The festival was created to cater to the homosexual and transgender community, with most films addressing some of the issues faced by them.
The Portobello Film Festival was created in 1996 as a "reaction to the moribund state of the British film industry, to provide a forum for new filmmakers and give exposure to movies on different formats."
Dubbed "London's biggest filmic free-for-all," by the capital's listings bible, Time Out magazine, the event takes each August.
Because the festival does not own its own cinema, it screens films in diverse venues like parks, theaters, clubs and bars.
The festival's master classes give young filmmakers a chance to speak to movie insiders.
In 2000, the festival expanded abroad, screening films at Cannes, Macau and Venice.
Portobello festival is popular with celebrities such as Kelly Osborne and Courtney Love, who have attended the festival's screenings and premieres.
The Korean Film Festival will start its third edition on November 6 at London's arts hub, the Barbican.
In addition to the new Korean films, the festival will also feature some Korean classics, such as "The Aimless Bullet" (1960). As Hollywood stars such as Gwyneth Paltrow and Penelope Cruz grace the red carpet at the 52nd London Film Festival, the UK's capital city shows it has become a thriving, creative hub for filmmaking.
There are no fewer than 12 film festivals in London, ranging from the London Korean Film Festival to a films showcase from lesbian and gay directors.
Since his film appeared at this little known London festival, director Charles Duke has gained prominence and his film was accepted at the Cannes Film Festival.
Duke shot his comedic short "Caution, Wet Paint" in just two days.
He had never been to film school and had never been taught to use a camera.
"It wasn't meant to be for a festival," Duke told CNN.
But his sister convinced him to submit his short to CWFF.
The film's quirky silent scenes portraying, amongst others, two Londoners fighting over a pint of milk, amused festival goers and critics, and later the judges at the prestigious Cannes festival.
"When Cannes accepted my film, I suddenly got full access to the film festival, including the benefit of services such as free lawyers," says Duke.
From there he obtained sponsorship for his next project
a follow-up to "Caution, Wet Paint," in which the same two Londoners get kidnapped by alien bottles of milk.
"London is a hub for film, especially in the short film category." "And I could not have done it without the CWFF who were willing to accept something completely different."
Canary Wharf Film Festival director Olivia Bellas says she was motivated to start the festival as she wanted to show the creative side of Canary Wharf, an area that is famed for being London's banking hub.
The annual festival, which takes place in the summer, has just celebrated its second anniversary and attracted films from as far afield as Australia and United States.
The ultimate indie cinematographic happening, Raindance Film Festival started in 1993 and just hosted its 16th edition this October.
Together with the British Independent Film Awards, the festival is brought to life each year by Raindance, an organization that offers support to independent filmmakers.
Raindance Film Festival describes itself as "too contemporary for most established stars," and cultivates a reputation for discovering new talent.
Leonardo DiCaprio had his first screening at the festival, at the age of 14, with the iconic movie "What's Eating Gilbert Grape."
Raindance say part of the magic of their festival is:
"You can end up buying a stranger in the bar a drink only to realize they are the filmmaker of the film playing at the moment."
Rushes Soho, a festival that takes place every summer for a week, is in its tenth consecutive festival year.
A non-profit organization, Soho Rushes focuses on short films.
The festival was created in 1999 when a group of friends, inspired by Tropfest in Australia, conceived the idea "in a pub in Soho over a few pints of beer."
Famous names such as Dita von Teese and Michael Sheen, have acted in movies shown at Rushes
Awards at the festival include best documentary, animation, music video, broadcast design and newcomer.
Lesbian and Gay Film Festival
The Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, organized every year in March by the British Film Institute, has been in existence since 1977.
It is the third largest film festival in the UK, touring in almost 40 different UK locations after London, showing to an audience of approximately 250,000 people each year.
The festival was created to cater to the homosexual and transgender community, with most films addressing some of the issues faced by them.
The Portobello Film Festival was created in 1996 as a "reaction to the moribund state of the British film industry, to provide a forum for new filmmakers and give exposure to movies on different formats."
Dubbed "London's biggest filmic free-for-all," by the capital's listings bible, Time Out magazine, the event takes each August.
Because the festival does not own its own cinema, it screens films in diverse venues like parks, theaters, clubs and bars.
The festival's master classes give young filmmakers a chance to speak to movie insiders.
In 2000, the festival expanded abroad, screening films at Cannes, Macau and Venice.
Portobello festival is popular with celebrities such as Kelly Osborne and Courtney Love, who have attended the festival's screenings and premieres.
The Korean Film Festival will start its third edition on November 6 at London's arts hub, the Barbican.
The opening night movie will be Kimchi Western, "The Good, the Bad and the Weird," by director Kim Jee Woon, who will introduce the film.
The festival runs over nine days and will then move on the Liverpool for three extra days of screenings.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
U.S. `in the midst of a credit tsunami,` says Greenspan
The former head of the U.S. Federal Reserve has said that the U.S. is "in the midst of a credit tsunami," but that it will emerge from the credit crisis with a "far sounder financial system."
Fears of recession continued to cause turbulent swings in stock markets worldwide Thursday.
The U.S. Dow Jones industrial average gained around 172 points to finish at 8,691, erasing a loss of as much as 275 points.
Alan Greenspan, who chaired the reserve from 1987 through 2006, also added Thursday that whatever regulatory changes are made to respond to the crisis, "they will pale in comparison to the change already evident in today's markets."
Greenspan, who some analysts say did not do enough to control financial institutions during his two-decade tenure, made his comments in prepared testimony to the House of Representatives Oversight and Reform Committee.
He admitted he made a mistake during his time as chair by presuming that lenders were more capable than regulators of protecting their finances, adding he was "shocked" when the system "broke down."
"I still do not understand exactly how it happened," he said.
And he backed the $700 billion Wall Street bailout approved by Congress, which allows the U.S. government to buy bad mortgage investments from finance firms or buy a stake in troubled companies.
U.S. `in the midst of a credit tsunami,` says Greenspan
The former head of the U.S. Federal Reserve has said that the U.S. is "in the midst of a credit tsunami," but that it will emerge from the credit crisis with a "far sounder financial system."
Fears of recession continued to cause turbulent swings in stock markets worldwide Thursday.
The U.S. Dow Jones industrial average gained around 172 points to finish at 8,691, erasing a loss of as much as 275 points.
Alan Greenspan, who chaired the reserve from 1987 through 2006, also added Thursday that whatever regulatory changes are made to respond to the crisis, "they will pale in comparison to the change already evident in today's markets."
Greenspan, who some analysts say did not do enough to control financial institutions during his two-decade tenure, made his comments in prepared testimony to the House of Representatives Oversight and Reform Committee.
He admitted he made a mistake during his time as chair by presuming that lenders were more capable than regulators of protecting their finances, adding he was "shocked" when the system "broke down."
"I still do not understand exactly how it happened," he said.
And he backed the $700 billion Wall Street bailout approved by Congress, which allows the U.S. government to buy bad mortgage investments from finance firms or buy a stake in troubled companies.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
(CNN) – As Election Day inches closer, Barack Obama continues to hold a significant lead over John McCain, according to CNN's average of several recent polls.
The Illinois senator now holds an 8-point lead over McCain in the latest CNN poll of polls, 50 percent to 42 percent.
That lead is 1 point lager than it was in Wednesday's poll of polls.
The national general election poll of polls consists of four recent surveys:
The Poll of Polls does not have a sampling error.
(CNN) – As Election Day inches closer, Barack Obama continues to hold a significant lead over John McCain, according to CNN's average of several recent polls.
The Illinois senator now holds an 8-point lead over McCain in the latest CNN poll of polls, 50 percent to 42 percent.
That lead is 1 point lager than it was in Wednesday's poll of polls.
The national general election poll of polls consists of four recent surveys:
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Woman arrested for killing virtual reality husband
A 43-year-old Japanese woman whose sudden divorce in a virtual game world made her so angry that she killed her online husband's digital persona has been arrested on suspicion of hacking, police said Thursday.
The woman, who is jailed on suspicion of illegally accessing a computer and manipulating electronic data, used his identification and password to log onto popular interactive game "Maple Story" to carry out the virtual murder in mid-May, a police official in northern Sapporo said on condition of anonymity, citing department policy.
"I was suddenly divorced, without a word of warning. That made me so angry," the official quoted her as telling investigators and admitting the allegations.
The woman had not plotted any revenge in the real world, the official said.
She has not yet been formally charged, but if convicted could face a prison term of up to five years or a fine up to $5,000.
Players in "Maple Story" raise and manipulate digital images called "avatars" that represent themselves, while engaging in relationships, social activities and fighting against monsters and other obstacles.
The woman used login information she got from the 33-year-old office worker when their characters were happily married, and killed the character.
The man complained to police when he discovered that his beloved online avatar was dead.
The woman was arrested Wednesday and was taken across the country, traveling 620 miles from her home in southern Miyazaki to be detained in Sapporo, where the man lives, the official said.
The police official said he did not know if she was married in the real world.
In recent years, virtual lives have had consequences in the real world.
In August, a woman was charged in Delaware with plotting the real-life abduction of a boyfriend she met through "Second Life," another virtual interactive world.
In Tokyo, police arrested a 16-year-old boy on charges of swindling virtual currency worth $360,000 in an interactive role playing game by manipulating another player's portfolio using a stolen ID and password.
Virtual games are popular in Japan, and "Second Life" has drawn a fair number of Japanese participants.
They rank third by nationality among users, after Americans and Brazilians.
Woman arrested for killing virtual reality husband
A 43-year-old Japanese woman whose sudden divorce in a virtual game world made her so angry that she killed her online husband's digital persona has been arrested on suspicion of hacking, police said Thursday.
The woman, who is jailed on suspicion of illegally accessing a computer and manipulating electronic data, used his identification and password to log onto popular interactive game "Maple Story" to carry out the virtual murder in mid-May, a police official in northern Sapporo said on condition of anonymity, citing department policy.
"I was suddenly divorced, without a word of warning. That made me so angry," the official quoted her as telling investigators and admitting the allegations.
The woman had not plotted any revenge in the real world, the official said.
She has not yet been formally charged, but if convicted could face a prison term of up to five years or a fine up to $5,000.
Players in "Maple Story" raise and manipulate digital images called "avatars" that represent themselves, while engaging in relationships, social activities and fighting against monsters and other obstacles.
The woman used login information she got from the 33-year-old office worker when their characters were happily married, and killed the character.
The man complained to police when he discovered that his beloved online avatar was dead.
The woman was arrested Wednesday and was taken across the country, traveling 620 miles from her home in southern Miyazaki to be detained in Sapporo, where the man lives, the official said.
The police official said he did not know if she was married in the real world.
In recent years, virtual lives have had consequences in the real world.
In August, a woman was charged in Delaware with plotting the real-life abduction of a boyfriend she met through "Second Life," another virtual interactive world.
In Tokyo, police arrested a 16-year-old boy on charges of swindling virtual currency worth $360,000 in an interactive role playing game by manipulating another player's portfolio using a stolen ID and password.
Virtual games are popular in Japan, and "Second Life" has drawn a fair number of Japanese participants.
They rank third by nationality among users, after Americans and Brazilians.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Oprah sued over man`s arrest on extortion charge
A Louisiana man has filed a lawsuit against Oprah Winfrey, claiming she and an attorney made false statements that led the FBI to arrest him on charges that he tried to extort the talk-show host.
Keifer Bonvillain, who had the charges dismissed, seeks damages of $180 million from Winfrey, her attorney and the FBI in the federal lawsuit filed Tuesday.
Bonvillain, of Houma, Louisiana, was arrested in December 2006 after he allegedly recorded telephone conversations with an employee of Winfrey's production company and told a company associate he wanted to publish a book based on the recordings.
The FBI said he claimed to have offers from publishers and tabloids ranging from $500,000 to $3 million.
The FBI arrested Bonvillain when another company associate agreed to pay him $1.5 million, wired him $3,000 and arranged to meet him.
Bonvillain claims in the lawsuit that he did everything he could to avoid doing anything illegal.
"There was substantial damage done to my name and reputation on a world level," he wrote. "The extent of my damages is vast."
Federal officials agreed to dismiss the charges last year on the condition that Bonvillain perform 50 hours of community service, undergo drug testing and pay $3,000 in restitution.
Chip Babcock, a lawyer for Winfrey's Harpo Productions, denied the allegations in Bonvillain's suit.
"And we know that this whole episode started when the plaintiff wiretapped a Harpo employee in California," he said.
Oprah sued over man`s arrest on extortion charge
A Louisiana man has filed a lawsuit against Oprah Winfrey, claiming she and an attorney made false statements that led the FBI to arrest him on charges that he tried to extort the talk-show host.
Keifer Bonvillain, who had the charges dismissed, seeks damages of $180 million from Winfrey, her attorney and the FBI in the federal lawsuit filed Tuesday.
Bonvillain, of Houma, Louisiana, was arrested in December 2006 after he allegedly recorded telephone conversations with an employee of Winfrey's production company and told a company associate he wanted to publish a book based on the recordings.
The FBI said he claimed to have offers from publishers and tabloids ranging from $500,000 to $3 million.
The FBI arrested Bonvillain when another company associate agreed to pay him $1.5 million, wired him $3,000 and arranged to meet him.
Bonvillain claims in the lawsuit that he did everything he could to avoid doing anything illegal.
"There was substantial damage done to my name and reputation on a world level," he wrote.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Teachers take weightless ride to inspire students
Many in the U.S. tech industry worry that not enough students are pursuing careers in engineering, math, and science.
So the Northrop Grumman Foundation is sending teachers on the ride of their lives
a weightless experience aboard a plane chartered from the Zero Gravity Corporation.
Northrop, an aerospace and defense company, says the idea is for teachers to take their exhilarating experience back to their classrooms and inspire in their students a love of science.
Northrop Grumman spokesman Tom Henson said the Weightless Flights of Discovery program is aimed at middle school teachers.
"Information has shown us that if kids are going to lose an interest in math and science, it's going to be during these years," he said. "So we've targeted these teachers to try to illustrate for their students how math and science can be cool and relevant and applied to their daily lives, and just fun."
The program is three years old.
This year, Northrop conducted weightless flights in California, Florida, Illinois and Georgia.
Teachers take weightless ride to inspire students
Many in the U.S. tech industry worry that not enough students are pursuing careers in engineering, math, and science.
So the Northrop Grumman Foundation is sending teachers on the ride of their lives
a weightless experience aboard a plane chartered from the Zero Gravity Corporation.
Northrop, an aerospace and defense company, says the idea is for teachers to take their exhilarating experience back to their classrooms and inspire in their students a love of science.
Northrop Grumman spokesman Tom Henson said the Weightless Flights of Discovery program is aimed at middle school teachers.
"Information has shown us that if kids are going to lose an interest in math and science, it's going to be during these years," he said. "So we've targeted these teachers to try to illustrate for their students how math and science can be cool and relevant and applied to their daily lives, and just fun."
The program is three years old.
This year, Northrop conducted weightless flights in California, Florida, Illinois and Georgia.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Phillies beat Rays in World Series opener
Cole Hamels, Chase Utley and the rest of the Philadelphia Phillies shook off a week's worth of waiting and turned it into a World Series win.
Hamels escaped trouble to win his fourth postseason start, Utley hit a two-run homer in the first inning and the Phillies beat the Tampa Bay Rays 3-2 in the opener Wednesday night.
The Rays flopped in their first game in baseball's ultimate event, managing just five hits.
The Phillies showed little evidence of rust.
They'll try to make it two in a row at Tropicana Field when Brett Myers pitches against James Shields in Game 2 Thursday night.
The team that won the opener has captured the Series 63 of 103 times, including 10 of the last 11.
But the team with home-field advantage has taken 18 of the last 22 titles.
Hamels, MVP of the NL championship series, improved to 4-0 with a 1.55 ERA this postseason.
He had only a pair of 1-2-3 innings, but the composed 24-year-old left-hander allowed two runs and five hits in seven innings.
Ryan Madson pitched a perfect eighth.
Lidge worked the ninth for his 47th save in 47 chances this year, silencing the Rays and their cowbell-clanging fans.
Carl Crawford homered for Tampa Bay, but playoff stars B.J. Upton and Evan Longoria went a combined 0-for-8.
The Rays didn't get a hit over the final four innings.
Phillies beat Rays in World Series opener
Cole Hamels, Chase Utley and the rest of the Philadelphia Phillies shook off a week's worth of waiting and turned it into a World Series win.
Hamels escaped trouble to win his fourth postseason start, Utley hit a two-run homer in the first inning and the Phillies beat the Tampa Bay Rays 3-2 in the opener Wednesday night.
The Rays flopped in their first game in baseball's ultimate event, managing just five hits.
The Phillies showed little evidence of rust.
They'll try to make it two in a row at Tropicana Field when Brett Myers pitches against James Shields in Game 2 Thursday night.
The team that won the opener has captured the Series 63 of 103 times, including 10 of the last 11.
But the team with home-field advantage has taken 18 of the last 22 titles.
Hamels, MVP of the NL championship series, improved to 4-0 with a 1.55 ERA this postseason.
He had only a pair of 1-2-3 innings, but the composed 24-year-old left-hander allowed two runs and five hits in seven innings.
Ryan Madson pitched a perfect eighth.
Lidge worked the ninth for his 47th save in 47 chances this year, silencing the Rays and their cowbell-clanging fans.
Carl Crawford homered for Tampa Bay, but playoff stars B.J. Upton and Evan Longoria went a combined 0-for-8.
The Rays didn't get a hit over the final four innings.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
The world`s greatest super-yachts
At 160 meters long, there is nothing quite as luxurious as the world's largest and most expensive super-yacht
Except, of course, for the next nineteen boats that make up the top 20 super-yachts on the planet.
Packed with more features than a Bond villain's base, including jet-ski docks, indoor swimming pools, helicopter pads (in some cases two helipads), Jacuzzis and submarines, no expense is spared on these ocean-going giants.
The internationally-renowned Fort Lauderdale Boat Show is set to get underway at the end of October, where many of the world's top super-yachts will be on display.
Now, you can take a look at some of the biggest and best yachts in existence.
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's Octopus is inside the top ten, as is Oracle's Larry Ellison, with his vessel Rising Sun.
Wealthy Middle Eastern businessmen and leaders also have a strong presence at the top.
Dubai's Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum owns Dubai, the number one vessel, while the boat currently ranked second largest is owned by Sultan Qaboos of Oman.
Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich is also a major player on this list.
Abramovich owns Pelorus, a 115-meter vessel which has its own heli-pad, while he reportedly gave away (!) Le Grand Bleu (currently the world's 16th biggest super-yacht) to present owner Eugene Shvidler.
As well as owning several other large yachts, Abramovich is believed to have a new super-yacht under construction.
Rumored to be called Eclipse, the vessel is expected to overtake Dubai as the largest super-yacht in the world.
You won't want to think about how much Eclipse is going to cost, however, because Dubai, the world's current biggest yacht is reportedly worth well over $300 million.
Other super-yachts featured in the gallery are Australian businessman James Packer's Arctic P, and a French-owned yacht which French President Nicolas Sarkozy has spent time enjoying on vacation.
The world`s greatest super-yachts
At 160 meters long, there is nothing quite as luxurious as the world's largest and most expensive super-yacht
Except, of course, for the next nineteen boats that make up the top 20 super-yachts on the planet.
Packed with more features than a Bond villain's base, including jet-ski docks, indoor swimming pools, helicopter pads (in some cases two helipads), Jacuzzis and submarines, no expense is spared on these ocean-going giants.
The internationally-renowned Fort Lauderdale Boat Show is set to get underway at the end of October, where many of the world's top super-yachts will be on display.
Now, you can take a look at some of the biggest and best yachts in existence.
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's Octopus is inside the top ten, as is Oracle's Larry Ellison, with his vessel Rising Sun.
Wealthy Middle Eastern businessmen and leaders also have a strong presence at the top.
Dubai's Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum owns Dubai, the number one vessel, while the boat currently ranked second largest is owned by Sultan Qaboos of Oman.
Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich is also a major player on this list.
Abramovich owns Pelorus, a 115-meter vessel which has its own heli-pad, while he reportedly gave away (!) Le Grand Bleu (currently the world's 16th biggest super-yacht) to present owner Eugene Shvidler.
As well as owning several other large yachts, Abramovich is believed to have a new super-yacht under construction.
Rumored to be called Eclipse, the vessel is expected to overtake Dubai as the largest super-yacht in the world.
You won't want to think about how much Eclipse is going to cost, however, because Dubai, the world's current biggest yacht is reportedly worth well over $300 million.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Cathedral offers garden to sex abuse victims
OAKLAND, California (CNN)
Terrie Light stands outside Oakland's stunning new modern cathedral in a first-of-its-kind garden that honors victims of clergy sexual abuse.
She was abused by a priest at age 7.
"It's a really small, important physical representation of a horrific thing that happened in many places," she told CNN.
She says the garden's centerpiece, a symbolic low stone sculpture that's broken, is fitting for those whose lives were shattered by priests.
"The energy that the artist put was this circular stone trying to pull itself to become unbroken.
That is our journey.
That is what we try to do every day
is to try to be unbroken."
Cathedral offers garden to sex abuse victims
OAKLAND, California (CNN)
Terrie Light stands outside Oakland's stunning new modern cathedral in a first-of-its-kind garden that honors victims of clergy sexual abuse.
She was abused by a priest at age 7.
"It's a really small, important physical representation of a horrific thing that happened in many places," she told CNN.
She says the garden's centerpiece, a symbolic low stone sculpture that's broken, is fitting for those whose lives were shattered by priests.
"The energy that the artist put was this circular stone trying to pull itself to become unbroken.
That is our journey.
That is what we try to do every day
is to try to be unbroken."
The garden is placed near a wall of the Cathedral of Christ the Light, which was consecrated September 25.
The benches are surrounded by hedges.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Spacecraft blasts off to probe edge of solar system
A NASA spacecraft circled the Earth on Monday at the start of a project to study the edges of the solar system.
The Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) mission rocketed into space Sunday afternoon high above an island in the Pacific Ocean, the space agency said in a statement.
If all goes according to plan, IBEX will become the first spacecraft to map an outer boundary of the solar system
a place where solar wind smashes into the gases from outside the solar system.
It's an important region to study, researchers say, because it shields most dangerous cosmic rays that would otherwise rush into the space around Earth.
"No one has seen an image of the interaction at the edge of our solar system where the solar wind collides with interstellar space," said David McComas of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas, the mission's principal investigator.
"We know we're going to be surprised," he said in a statement.
Controllers launched the IBEX craft on Sunday afternoon from the Kwajalein Atoll, part of the Marshall Islands in the South Pacific.
After a 45-day "checkout period," the craft will start its mission.
The craft will map a distant region by measuring the impact on the spacecraft of high-speed particles
that radiate outward from that region, the space agency said.
"IBEX will let us visualize our home in the galaxy for the first time and explore how it may have evolved over the history of the solar system," McComas said on the space agency's Web site.
Spacecraft blasts off to probe edge of solar system
A NASA spacecraft circled the Earth on Monday at the start of a project to study the edges of the solar system.
The Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) mission rocketed into space Sunday afternoon high above an island in the Pacific Ocean, the space agency said in a statement.
If all goes according to plan, IBEX will become the first spacecraft to map an outer boundary of the solar system
a place where solar wind smashes into the gases from outside the solar system.
It's an important region to study, researchers say, because it shields most dangerous cosmic rays that would otherwise rush into the space around Earth.
"No one has seen an image of the interaction at the edge of our solar system where the solar wind collides with interstellar space," said David McComas of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas, the mission's principal investigator.
"We know we're going to be surprised," he said in a statement.
Controllers launched the IBEX craft on Sunday afternoon from the Kwajalein Atoll, part of the Marshall Islands in the South Pacific.
After a 45-day "checkout period," the craft will start its mission.
The craft will map a distant region by measuring the impact on the spacecraft of high-speed particles
that radiate outward from that region, the space agency said.
"IBEX will let us visualize our home in the galaxy for the first time and explore how it may have evolved over the history of the solar system," McComas said on the space agency's Web site.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
The release of one of the most hotly awaited computer games in the past year has been delayed over concerns some of the background music may offend Muslims.
"LittleBigPlanet," described by review Web site IGN.com as an "instant classic," has been pulled from warehouses after it was noticed that one of its music tracks contained words from the Islamic holy text, the Quran.
The move is a blow to the Sony PlayStation game, seen as the console's first launch of an icon to match Nintendo's ubiquitous Mario, in which rag doll character Sackboy negotiates a lavishly designed world of platforms and challenges.
"We're sure that most of you have heard by now that one of the background music tracks that was licensed from a record label for use in the game contains two expressions that can be found in the Quran," a statement on the game's Web site said.
"We have taken immediate action to rectify this and we sincerely apologize for any offense this may have caused."
It said the game, initially due for release earlier in the month, will now begin shipping in North America in the week of October 27.
A statement on the Web site of Media Molecule, the game's UK-based developer, said the company was "shellshocked and gutted" by the delay.
"At MM, we were as shocked and dismayed by this as anyone," it said.
The release of one of the most hotly awaited computer games in the past year has been delayed over concerns some of the background music may offend Muslims.
"LittleBigPlanet," described by review Web site IGN.com as an "instant classic," has been pulled from warehouses after it was noticed that one of its music tracks contained words from the Islamic holy text, the Quran.
The move is a blow to the Sony PlayStation game, seen as the console's first launch of an icon to match Nintendo's ubiquitous Mario, in which rag doll character Sackboy negotiates a lavishly designed world of platforms and challenges.
"We're sure that most of you have heard by now that one of the background music tracks that was licensed from a record label for use in the game contains two expressions that can be found in the Quran," a statement on the game's Web site said.
"We have taken immediate action to rectify this and we sincerely apologize for any offense this may have caused."
It said the game, initially due for release earlier in the month, will now begin shipping in North America in the week of October 27.
A statement on the Web site of Media Molecule, the game's UK-based developer, said the company was "shellshocked and gutted" by the delay.
"At MM, we were as shocked and dismayed by this as anyone," it said.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Space travel, security threats and increasing passenger numbers are forcing major changes in the way airports are designed.
In fact, when discussing the future of the airport it is now appropriate to consider both conventional air travel hubs we are familiar with, as well as the imminent 'spaceports'.
The rush of interest in setting up 'space tourism' companies has seen proposed spaceport projects in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, and California, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Florida, Virginia, Alaska and Wisconsin in the United States.
Russia, Australia, Sweden and Portugal have also been rumored as potential spaceport locations.
Meanwhile, the air travel industry is continuing to expand operations despite the challenges facing some airlines.
And there are some radical new ideas being developed for future air and spaceports.
The adventurous views of Dave Evans, chief technologist at business solutions company Cisco Systems, highlight the types of changes we could soon see in airports and indeed the new features we may witness in spaceports.
Speaking at a FAA/NASA/Industry Airport Planning Workshop in 2006, Evans suggested that pilots of the future could fly without hands and from the comfort of their own home (using brain-machine interfaces, in which the human brain actually exchanges electronic signals with a computer).
He also said future airports would have virtual intelligence personnel to perform the jobs of many airport workers;
and that people would be able to check-in remotely using a cell phone embedded with a RFID (radio frequency identification) chip.
Space travel, security threats and increasing passenger numbers are forcing major changes in the way airports are designed.
In fact, when discussing the future of the airport it is now appropriate to consider both conventional air travel hubs we are familiar with, as well as the imminent 'spaceports'.
The rush of interest in setting up 'space tourism' companies has seen proposed spaceport projects in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, and California, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Florida, Virginia, Alaska and Wisconsin in the United States.
Russia, Australia, Sweden and Portugal have also been rumored as potential spaceport locations.
Meanwhile, the air travel industry is continuing to expand operations despite the challenges facing some airlines.
And there are some radical new ideas being developed for future air and spaceports.
The adventurous views of Dave Evans, chief technologist at business solutions company Cisco Systems, highlight the types of changes we could soon see in airports and indeed the new features we may witness in spaceports.
Speaking at a FAA/NASA/Industry Airport Planning Workshop in 2006, Evans suggested that pilots of the future could fly without hands and from the comfort of their own home (using brain-machine interfaces, in which the human brain actually exchanges electronic signals with a computer).
He also said future airports would have virtual intelligence personnel to perform the jobs of many airport workers;
and that people would be able to check-in remotely using a cell phone embedded with a RFID (radio frequency identification) chip.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Palin`s `going rogue,` McCain aide says
With 10 days until Election Day, long-brewing tensions between GOP vice presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin and key aides to Sen. John McCain have become so intense, they are spilling out in public, sources say.
Several McCain advisers have suggested to CNN that they have become increasingly frustrated with what one aide described as Palin "going rogue."
A Palin associate, however, said the candidate is simply trying to "bust free" of what she believes was a damaging and mismanaged roll-out.
McCain sources say Palin has gone off-message several times, and they privately wonder whether the incidents were deliberate.
They cited an instance in which she labeled robocalls recorded messages often used to attack a candidate's opponent "irritating" even as the campaign defended their use.
Also, they pointed to her telling reporters she disagreed with the campaign's decision to pull out of Michigan.
Palin`s `going rogue,` McCain aide says
With 10 days until Election Day, long-brewing tensions between GOP vice presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin and key aides to Sen. John McCain have become so intense, they are spilling out in public, sources say.
Several McCain advisers have suggested to CNN that they have become increasingly frustrated with what one aide described as Palin "going rogue."
A Palin associate, however, said the candidate is simply trying to "bust free" of what she believes was a damaging and mismanaged roll-out.
McCain sources say Palin has gone off-message several times, and they privately wonder whether the incidents were deliberate.
They cited an instance in which she labeled robocalls
"irritating" even as the campaign defended their use.
Also, they pointed to her telling reporters she disagreed with the campaign's decision to pull out of Michigan.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Barack Obama sometimes gets ribbed for his outsized ideas, like the massive stage built in Denver, Colorado, to accept the Democratic presidential nomination.
But an artist in Barcelona, Spain, may be about to outdo the candidate himself.
The artist plans to create a gigantic face of Obama sculpted from gravel and sand, which will cover nearly 2.5 acres (1 hectare) of Barcelona beachfront before the U.S. elections.
"The size of the piece is intrinsic to its value," the artist, Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada, said Saturday.
He hopes it will be big enough to be seen on Google Earth.
his youth, personal history and message of a new politics has fused with the historical moment to create someone larger than life," says the artist's dossier about the work, titled "Expectation."
The huge size also alludes "to the global impact of this election," the dossier adds.
Rodriguez-Gerada, 42, is a Cuban-born American who grew up in North Plainfield, New Jersey, near New York, and now lives in Barcelona.
The artist, who has long focused on large-format sketches and other designs, said he had been planning to put an anonymous face on Barcelona's Mediterranean beachfront but shelved the idea.
Then, six weeks ago, he decided it should be Obama's face.
Rodriguez-Gerada said he'll need to raise about $18,700 (15,000 euros) for other costs, such as rakes and gloves for volunteers, documentation, even portable toilets for the crew.
He said it's his "biggest work ever, in scale and complexity."
Obama's giant face would be environmentally friendly, with all natural colors, so the materials could be recycled, the artist said.
Rodriguez-Gerada's not sure how long the face would remain in place in Barcelona, because the site is slated to be used for a new municipal building.
But even if the face isn't permanent, it might be the start of outsized artistic images of Obama.
Barack Obama sometimes gets ribbed for his outsized ideas, like the massive stage built in Denver, Colorado, to accept the Democratic presidential nomination.
But an artist in Barcelona, Spain, may be about to outdo the candidate himself.
The artist plans to create a gigantic face of Obama sculpted from gravel and sand, which will cover nearly 2.5 acres (1 hectare) of Barcelona beachfront before the U.S. elections.
"The size of the piece is intrinsic to its value," the artist, Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada, said Saturday.
He hopes it will be big enough to be seen on Google Earth.
his youth, personal history and message of a new politics has fused with the historical moment to create someone larger than life," says the artist's dossier about the work, titled "Expectation."
The huge size also alludes "to the global impact of this election," the dossier adds.
Rodriguez-Gerada, 42, is a Cuban-born American who grew up in North Plainfield, New Jersey, near New York, and now lives in Barcelona.
The artist, who has long focused on large-format sketches and other designs, said he had been planning to put an anonymous face on Barcelona's Mediterranean beachfront but shelved the idea.
Then, six weeks ago, he decided it should be Obama's face.
Rodriguez-Gerada said he'll need to raise about $18,700 (15,000 euros) for other costs, such as rakes and gloves for volunteers, documentation, even portable toilets for the crew.
He said it's his "biggest work ever, in scale and complexity."
Obama's giant face would be environmentally friendly, with all natural colors, so the materials could be recycled, the artist said.
Rodriguez-Gerada's not sure how long the face would remain in place in Barcelona, because the site is slated to be used for a new municipal building.
But even if the face isn't permanent, it might be the start of outsized artistic images of Obama.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Global teamwork needed to fight crunch
Asian and European leaders vowed Saturday to act together to address the global financial crisis, calling for decisive action following a two-day summit in the Chinese capital.
The ASEM meeting brought together the leaders of 43 Asian and European nations, along with the heads of the European Commission and ASEAN, a group of southeastern Asian nations.
"Europe and Asia have come together in Beijing at a time of global crisis, and indeed, we are in a moment where we need global teamwork," said EC President Jose Manuel Barroso. "We either stick together or we sink together."
While the summit is usually a forum for political, economic and cultural issues, it has taken on added significance this year because of the unfolding crisis.
On Friday leaders at the summit called for new rules in dealing with international finance.
Global teamwork needed to fight crunch
Asian and European leaders vowed Saturday to act together to address the global financial crisis, calling for decisive action following a two-day summit in the Chinese capital.
The ASEM meeting brought together the leaders of 43 Asian and European nations, along with the heads of the European Commission and ASEAN, a group of southeastern Asian nations.
"Europe and Asia have come together in Beijing at a time of global crisis, and indeed, we are in a moment where we need global teamwork," said EC President Jose Manuel Barroso. "We either stick together or we sink together."
While the summit is usually a forum for political, economic and cultural issues, it has taken on added significance this year because of the unfolding crisis.
On Friday leaders at the summit called for new rules in dealing with international finance.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Hudson asks public for help in slayings, nephew`s disappearance
Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Hudson is asking the public to help locate her 7-year-old nephew, who has been missing since her mother and brother were found dead in their home Friday.
"Please keep praying for our family and that we get Julian King back home safely," Hudson said in a posting on her MySpace page Sunday.
"If anyone has any information about his whereabouts please contact the authorities immediately."
Hudson also posted two pictures of her nephew, Julian King, wearing the brown-and-orange striped polo shirt he was last seen in.
Hudson and her family are offering a $100,000 reward her nephew's safe return, according to a statement from her publicist.
Earlier, Hudson identified the bodies of her Darnell Donerson, and brother, Jason Hudson, the Cook County medical examiner's office told CNN on Sunday.
The two were found shot dead Friday afternoon in their South Side Chicago home.
Meanwhile, Chicago police are handing out fliers as part of a massive search for Hudson's nephew.
Police issued an Amber Alert for Julian and asked people to look out for a 1994 white Chevrolet Suburban with Illinois license plate X584859.
Police confirm they have taken a person into custody but are not saying who.
News reports, however, say that person is Hudson's brother-in-law, William Balfour.
Balfour's mother has also acknowledged her son has been questioned about the shootings.
Chicago news station WLS reported Saturday that Julian was not with Balfour when he was detained.
Police say they have transferred the person in custody to the Illinois Department of Corrections for a parole violation.
According to the Department of Corrections, Balfour, 27, is on parole.
He spent nearly seven years in prison for attempted murder, vehicular hijacking and possessing a stolen vehicle.
William Balfour's MySpace page states that he is married to Hudson's sister Julia and has a stepson.
It also says he lives on Chicago's South Side.
Hudson's sister, Julia Balfour, made an emotional appeal Saturday for the safe return of her son.
Hudson won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her portrayal of Effie in the film version of the Broadway musical "Dreamgirls."
She competed on the third season of "American Idol" in 2004, making it to the top seven contestants before being eliminated from the contest.
Hudson asks public for help in slayings, nephew`s disappearance
Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Hudson is asking the public to help locate her 7-year-old nephew, who has been missing since her mother and brother were found dead in their home Friday.
"Please keep praying for our family and that we get Julian King back home safely," Hudson said in a posting on her MySpace page Sunday.
"If anyone has any information about his whereabouts please contact the authorities immediately."
Hudson also posted two pictures of her nephew, Julian King, wearing the brown-and-orange striped polo shirt he was last seen in.
Hudson and her family are offering a $100,000 reward her nephew's safe return, according to a statement from her publicist.
Earlier, Hudson identified the bodies of her Darnell Donerson, and brother, Jason Hudson, the Cook County medical examiner's office told CNN on Sunday.
The two were found shot dead Friday afternoon in their South Side Chicago home.
Meanwhile, Chicago police are handing out fliers as part of a massive search for Hudson's nephew.
Police issued an Amber Alert for Julian and asked people to look out for a 1994 white Chevrolet Suburban with Illinois license plate X584859.
Police confirm they have taken a person into custody but are not saying who.
News reports, however, say that person is Hudson's brother-in-law, William Balfour.
Balfour's mother has also acknowledged her son has been questioned about the shootings.
Chicago news station WLS reported Saturday that Julian was not with Balfour when he was detained.
Police say they have transferred the person in custody to the Illinois Department of Corrections for a parole violation.
According to the Department of Corrections, Balfour, 27, is on parole.
He spent nearly seven years in prison for attempted murder, vehicular hijacking and possessing a stolen vehicle.
William Balfour's MySpace page states that he is married to Hudson's sister Julia and has a stepson.
It also says he lives on Chicago's South Side.
Hudson's sister, Julia Balfour, made an emotional appeal Saturday for the safe return of her son.
Hudson won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her portrayal of Effie in the film version of the Broadway musical "Dreamgirls."
She competed on the third season of "American Idol" in 2004, making it to the top seven contestants before being eliminated from the contest.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
It could be, if you're wearing an M-Dress
a silk garment that doubles as a mobile phone.
Produced by UK firm CuteCircuit, the M-Dress works with a standard SIM card.
When the dress rings, you raise your hand to your head to answer the call.
This futuristic fusion of fashion and technology is becoming more common as clothes designers are increasingly incorporating electronics into their garments.
Jane McCann, Director of Smart Clothes and Wearable Technology at the University of Wales, says the clothing and electronics industries are collaborating in an unprecedented way what she describes as "a new industrial revolution."
McCann predicts that in the next 10 years clothes will have all kinds of in-built functionality.
"A garment might have devices on it to help you find your way somewhere, or to tell you how fit you are. It could tell you where someone is to help you meet them, or tell you what's on at a museum or club," she told CNN.
She says that while the sports and fitness industries have led the way in wearable technology, producing shoes with built-in pedometers and active wear with integral iPod controls, the fashion industry is currently lagging behind. View image gallery of futuristic fashions
"Wearable technology is coming through into useful everyday clothing more than it is on the catwalk. The catwalk still treats wearable tech as flashing earrings or sensational things," McCann says.
While high fashion may be slow to adopt practical technology, designers have been quick to embrace technology in order to create dazzling new styles.
Hussein Chalayan, twice British Designer of the Year, has used his shows to experiment with dresses that glow with built-in LEDs or emit spectacular red lasers.
Others, like Angel Chan, have produced beautiful designs using thermochromic inks that change color when you touch or breathe them, while Montreal's XS Labs has used a shape-memory alloy called Nitinol to produce extraordinary dresses that change shape while you wear them.
As well as functionality, McCann predicts that mass customization will emerge as a major trend in clothing.
"You can already go into a sizing booth and get measurements of your size and shape.
Perhaps you could store that information on a card and that could be used to customize clothing.
Is that your dress ringing?
It could be, if you're wearing an M-Dress
a silk garment that doubles as a mobile phone.
Produced by UK firm CuteCircuit, the M-Dress works with a standard SIM card.
When the dress rings, you raise your hand to your head to answer the call.
This futuristic fusion of fashion and technology is becoming more common as clothes designers are increasingly incorporating electronics into their garments.
Jane McCann, Director of Smart Clothes and Wearable Technology at the University of Wales, says the clothing and electronics industries are collaborating in an unprecedented way what she describes as "a new industrial revolution."
McCann predicts that in the next 10 years clothes will have all kinds of in-built functionality.
"A garment might have devices on it to help you find your way somewhere, or to tell you how fit you are. It could tell you where someone is to help you meet them, or tell you what's on at a museum or club," she told CNN.
She says that while the sports and fitness industries have led the way in wearable technology, producing shoes with built-in pedometers and active wear with integral iPod controls, the fashion industry is currently lagging behind. View image gallery of futuristic fashions
"Wearable technology is coming through into useful everyday clothing more than it is on the catwalk. The catwalk still treats wearable tech as flashing earrings or sensational things," McCann says.
While high fashion may be slow to adopt practical technology, designers have been quick to embrace technology in order to create dazzling new styles.
Hussein Chalayan, twice British Designer of the Year, has used his shows to experiment with dresses that glow with built-in LEDs or emit spectacular red lasers.
Others, like Angel Chan, have produced beautiful designs using thermochromic inks that change color when you touch or breathe them, while Montreal's XS Labs has used a shape-memory alloy called Nitinol to produce extraordinary dresses that change shape while you wear them.
As well as functionality, McCann predicts that mass customization will emerge as a major trend in clothing.
"You can already go into a sizing booth and get measurements of your size and shape.
Perhaps you could store that information on a card and that could be used to customize clothing.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Liverpool ended Chelsea's 86-match unbeaten run in league matches at Stamford Bridge as Xabi Alonso's goal gave them a 1-0 win on Sunday.
Liverpool's victory lifts them three points clear of Chelsea and surprise third placers Hull City and is further indication of the strength of their challenge for a first English title in 19 years.
Spanish midfielder Alonso scored in the 10th minute with a shot that was deflected into the net by Chelsea defender Jose Bosingwa.
Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez hailed the growing confidence of his team and the character they showed as Chelsea battled hard to equalize.
"I think the understanding between the players is better and the belief is really good," he told Sky Sports News.
"We have players with quality and players that can change the game," he added.
Claudio Ranieri's Chelsea side lost in February 2004 to Arsenal, but the London club hadn't been beaten at home in the Premier League since then
a record that remained intact under Jose Mourinho and Avram Grant.
Ironically, before the match of the table toppers in England, Chelsea manager Luiz Felipe Scolari had reportedly suggested that his side could finish the season unbeaten.
Liverpool ended Chelsea's 86-match unbeaten run in league matches at Stamford Bridge as Xabi Alonso's goal gave them a 1-0 win on Sunday.
Liverpool's victory lifts them three points clear of Chelsea and surprise third placers Hull City and is further indication of the strength of their challenge for a first English title in 19 years.
Spanish midfielder Alonso scored in the 10th minute with a shot that was deflected into the net by Chelsea defender Jose Bosingwa.
Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez hailed the growing confidence of his team and the character they showed as Chelsea battled hard to equalize.
"I think the understanding between the players is better and the belief is really good," he told Sky Sports News.
"We have players with quality and players that can change the game," he added.
Claudio Ranieri's Chelsea side lost in February 2004 to Arsenal, but the London club hadn't been beaten at home in the Premier League since then
a record that remained intact under Jose Mourinho and Avram Grant.
Ironically, before the match of the table toppers in England, Chelsea manager Luiz Felipe Scolari had reportedly suggested that his side could finish the season unbeaten.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Men charged with plotting to kill Obama
Federal prosecutors charged two men with plotting a "killing spree" against African-Americans that would have been capped with an attempt to kill Sen. Barack Obama while they wore white tuxedos, federal officials said Monday.
The U.S. attorney's office in Jackson, Tennessee, said Daniel Cowart, 20, and Paul Schlesselman, 18, were self-described white supremacists who met online through a mutual friend.
Both men have been charged with illegal possession of a sawed-off shotgun, conspiracy to rob a federally licensed gun dealer and making threats against a presidential candidate.
The men planned to kill more than 100 African-Americans, including 14 who would be beheaded, according to the affidavit.
But federal law enforcement sources said there was no evidence Cowart, of Bells, Tennessee, and Schlesselman, of West Helena, Arkansas, had any details of Obama's schedule.
According to an affidavit from the federal agent who questioned them, Cowart and Schlesselman planned to charge at Obama with a car, firing from the windows as they went.
They would be dressed in white tuxedos and top hats during the attempt, the affidavit states.
Cowart and Schlesselman were arrested outside Jackson, about 75 miles east of Memphis, Tennessee, after an aborted robbery attempt last week, according to court records.
Cowart and Schlesselman made their initial appearances before a federal judge Monday and are scheduled for a bond hearing Thursday in Memphis.
Men charged with plotting to kill Obama
Federal prosecutors charged two men with plotting a "killing spree" against African-Americans that would have been capped with an attempt to kill Sen. Barack Obama while they wore white tuxedos, federal officials said Monday.
The U.S. attorney's office in Jackson, Tennessee, said Daniel Cowart, 20, and Paul Schlesselman, 18, were self-described white supremacists who met online through a mutual friend.
Both men have been charged with illegal possession of a sawed-off shotgun, conspiracy to rob a federally licensed gun dealer and making threats against a presidential candidate.
The men planned to kill more than 100 African-Americans, including 14 who would be beheaded, according to the affidavit.
But federal law enforcement sources said there was no evidence Cowart, of Bells, Tennessee, and Schlesselman, of West Helena, Arkansas, had any details of Obama's schedule.
According to an affidavit from the federal agent who questioned them, Cowart and Schlesselman planned to charge at Obama with a car, firing from the windows as they went.
They would be dressed in white tuxedos and top hats during the attempt, the affidavit states.
Cowart and Schlesselman were arrested outside Jackson, about 75 miles east of Memphis, Tennessee, after an aborted robbery attempt last week, according to court records.
Cowart and Schlesselman made their initial appearances before a federal judge Monday and are scheduled for a bond hearing Thursday in Memphis.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Wall St. sinks after record lows in Asia
Bloodletting that led to record breaking lows on shellshocked Asian markets eased Monday as Europe reined in earlier losses to contain the damage.
The main European markets enjoyed a mixed day with Paris' CAC 40 down 3.9 percent, Frankfurt's DAX 30 up 0.9 percent and London's FTSE 100 up 0.8 percent.
For most of the trading day in New York, its main indices were flat but by the close the Dow, Nasdaq and S&P were all down by 2.4 percent, 2.9 percent and 3.1 percent respectively.
It was a contrast to Asia where a region-wide selling frenzy saw violent losses.
Hong Kong's major index closed down 12.7 percent, while Tokyo's bellwether Nikkei lost more than 6 percent, closing at its lowest level in 26 years.
a condition that makes Japanese exports more expensive.
Wall St. sinks after record lows in Asia
Bloodletting that led to record breaking lows on shellshocked Asian markets eased Monday as Europe reined in earlier losses to contain the damage.
The main European markets enjoyed a mixed day with Paris' CAC 40 down 3.9 percent, Frankfurt's DAX 30 up 0.9 percent and London's FTSE 100 up 0.8 percent.
For most of the trading day in New York, its main indices were flat but by the close the Dow, Nasdaq and S&P were all down by 2.4 percent, 2.9 percent and 3.1 percent respectively.
It was a contrast to Asia where a region-wide selling frenzy saw violent losses.
Hong Kong's major index closed down 12.7 percent, while Tokyo's bellwether Nikkei lost more than 6 percent, closing at its lowest level in 26 years.
The index stumbled as the yen fluctuated near a record high against the dollar
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Prince Harry wants to be helicopter pilot
Prince Harry is aiming to follow in his brother's footsteps by becoming a helicopter pilot, royal officials say.
Officials said Harry had begun the selection process and would find out next month whether he had been accepted for training.
Harry's elder brother, William, was awarded his Royal Air Force wings in April after training since January.
William's training attracted controversy when he landed Chinook helicopter in a field on the property owned by his girlfriend Kate Middleton's family.
Defense officials said the flight had been authorized.
In September, it was announced William is to train to become a full-time search and rescue pilot with the RAF.
Prince Harry's father, Prince Charles, and uncle, the Duke of York, have also learned to pilot military helicopters.
Prince Harry spent three months in Afghanistan earlier this year.
However, he had to be withdrawn in March after his secret deployment was revealed in a media report.
Major news outlets had agreed to keep the information secret for security reasons, but a Web site broke the news blackout.
That prompted the British military to withdraw the prince for security reasons four weeks before the end of his 14-week deployment.
Prince Harry wants to be helicopter pilot
Prince Harry is aiming to follow in his brother's footsteps by becoming a helicopter pilot, royal officials say.
Officials said Harry had begun the selection process and would find out next month whether he had been accepted for training.
Harry's elder brother, William, was awarded his Royal Air Force wings in April after training since January.
William's training attracted controversy when he landed Chinook helicopter in a field on the property owned by his girlfriend Kate Middleton's family.
Defense officials said the flight had been authorized.
In September, it was announced William is to train to become a full-time search and rescue pilot with the RAF.
Prince Harry's father, Prince Charles, and uncle, the Duke of York, have also learned to pilot military helicopters.
Prince Harry spent three months in Afghanistan earlier this year.
However, he had to be withdrawn in March after his secret deployment was revealed in a media report.
Major news outlets had agreed to keep the information secret for security reasons, but a Web site broke the news blackout.
That prompted the British military to withdraw the prince for security reasons four weeks before the end of his 14-week deployment.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Australian swim star Hackett quits the pool
Australia swimmer Grant Hackett has retired after almost a decade of dominance at 1,500 meters that saw him narrowly miss out on a hat-trick of Olympic titles.
"I have been doing this for a long time and just make the most of every opportunity," Hackett said at the Swimming Australia awards dinner Monday.
"Now it is all just a memory for me." Hackett, 28, retires with the 1,500-meter record of 14 minutes, 34.56 seconds he set at the 2001 world championships in Japan.
He also holds the world record in the 800m and and just missed out on a third straight Olympic 1,500m gold in Beijing.
He won four world titles from 1998 and two Olympic golds in the 1,500 before being beaten by Oussama Mellouli of Tunisia in August in China.
Hackett won Olympic gold in the 1,500 at Sydney and Athens 2004 and also helped host nation Australia land the 4x200m freestyle relay title in front of home fans in 2000.
He also won 10 gold medals at the world championships.
He said competing in the Sydney Games and being part of the successful Australian team had been his career highlights.
"Going to the Olympic Games and having the opportunities to compete in front of a home crowd in Sydney and being part of such a wonderful team and continuing to be a part of a wonderful team in Beijing this year have been the highlights," he said.
Stephanie Rice, who won three gold medals at the Beijing Olympics in world record time, was named Australia's swimmer of the year.
Rice won the 200- and 400-meter individual medleys in Beijing and also teamed with Kylie Palmer, Bronte Barratt and Linda MacKenzie to break a world mark in the 4x200 freestyle relay.
Michael Bohl, who trains Rice, was named coach of the year at the national swimming awards ceremony.
Australian swim star Hackett quits the pool
Australia swimmer Grant Hackett has retired after almost a decade of dominance at 1,500 meters that saw him narrowly miss out on a hat-trick of Olympic titles.
"I have been doing this for a long time and just make the most of every opportunity," Hackett said at the Swimming Australia awards dinner Monday.
"Now it is all just a memory for me." Hackett, 28, retires with the 1,500-meter record of 14 minutes, 34.56 seconds he set at the 2001 world championships in Japan.
He also holds the world record in the 800m and and just missed out on a third straight Olympic 1,500m gold in Beijing.
He won four world titles from 1998 and two Olympic golds in the 1,500 before being beaten by Oussama Mellouli of Tunisia in August in China.
Hackett won Olympic gold in the 1,500 at Sydney and Athens 2004 and also helped host nation Australia land the 4x200m freestyle relay title in front of home fans in 2000.
He also won 10 gold medals at the world championships.
He said competing in the Sydney Games and being part of the successful Australian team had been his career highlights.
"Going to the Olympic Games and having the opportunities to compete in front of a home crowd in Sydney and being part of such a wonderful team and continuing to be a part of a wonderful team in Beijing this year have been the highlights," he said.
Stephanie Rice, who won three gold medals at the Beijing Olympics in world record time, was named Australia's swimmer of the year.
Rice won the 200- and 400-meter individual medleys in Beijing and also teamed with Kylie Palmer, Bronte Barratt and Linda MacKenzie to break a world mark in the 4x200 freestyle relay.
Michael Bohl, who trains Rice, was named coach of the year at the national swimming awards ceremony.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
¡°Why can't I do this at home?"
Employees in the office used to ponder this question about corporate technology not easily available to consumers.
Today the question, usually asked from home or a cafe, is:
Innovative, user-friendly offerings Skype, Facebook, Twitter, mash-ups, YouTube, wikis, and the like
take root and thrive as consumer offerings. Corporate IT departments meanwhile often seem oblivious to their potential usefulness, even as workers wonder at their absence.
But increasingly such technologies are being used for business.
Twitter, the popular micro-blogging service, has seen the emergence of small copycat services focused on businesses.
Yammer, for instance, claims to have better security than the free Twitter, and it charges a small per-head fee.
Wikis, online pages that any user can edit, surged in popularity among consumers thanks partly to the online encyclopedia Wikipedia.
Not long after businesses hopped aboard with tools geared for them.
One of those, PBwiki, has seen the number of individual business wikis created with it jump to well over 40,000, up from less than 20,000 a year ago and only about 5,000 two years ago.
On the social networking side, Facebook and MySpace became household names seemingly overnight.
And increasingly vendors offer companies suites of Web 2.0 technologies that have emerged on the consumer side.
For instance HiveLive lets employees create and control blogs, wikis, mash-ups and so on within business social networks.
Skype, the online phone service bought by eBay, noticed that many of its customers were small businesses.
To entice more of them, it created a business version of its software with improved security and a "control panel" application for central management of Skype credit and numbers.
The idea is that employees can share videos amongst themselves in a secure setting.
¡°Why can't I do this at home?"
Employees in the office used to ponder this question about corporate technology not easily available to consumers.
Today the question, usually asked from home or a cafe, is:
Innovative, user-friendly offerings Skype, Facebook, Twitter, mash-ups, YouTube, wikis, and the like
take root and thrive as consumer offerings. Corporate IT departments meanwhile often seem oblivious to their potential usefulness, even as workers wonder at their absence.
But increasingly such technologies are being used for business.
Twitter, the popular micro-blogging service, has seen the emergence of small copycat services focused on businesses.
Yammer, for instance, claims to have better security than the free Twitter, and it charges a small per-head fee.
Wikis, online pages that any user can edit, surged in popularity among consumers thanks partly to the online encyclopedia Wikipedia.
Not long after businesses hopped aboard with tools geared for them.
One of those, PBwiki, has seen the number of individual business wikis created with it jump to well over 40,000, up from less than 20,000 a year ago and only about 5,000 two years ago.
On the social networking side, Facebook and MySpace became household names seemingly overnight.
And increasingly vendors offer companies suites of Web 2.0 technologies that have emerged on the consumer side.
For instance HiveLive lets employees create and control blogs, wikis, mash-ups and so on within business social networks.
Skype, the online phone service bought by eBay, noticed that many of its customers were small businesses.
To entice more of them, it created a business version of its software with improved security and a "control panel" application for central management of Skype credit and numbers.
The idea is that employees can share videos amongst themselves in a secure setting.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
One of Frank Caliendo's best impressions may be that of President Bush, but he says that his sendup has nothing to do with politics.
"We're not hugely political," Caliendo says of his show, "Frank TV," which recently returned for its second season on TBS (11 p.m. ET/PT).
"We hit the politics because it's in culture ... an extreme amount right now.
After the election's over, we basically go back to our normal type of making fun of TV and movies and stuff."
He also does Republican John McCain and Democrat Al Gore, along with a host of sports figures (John Madden, Charles Barkley) and entertainers (Jack Nicholson, James Gandolfini, Sean Connery, Al Pacino and Robert De Niro).
"The most fun that I have right now is Charles Barkley because I can walk around calling people knuckleheads and ... everybody just laughs.
[It's] like, 'That guy's a knucklehead ... a terrible, horrible really bad knucklehead.'
And what's the key to doing a good Bush?
Being linguistically creative, he says.
One of Frank Caliendo's best impressions may be that of President Bush, but he says that his sendup has nothing to do with politics.
"We're not hugely political," Caliendo says of his show, "Frank TV," which recently returned for its second season on TBS (11 p.m. ET/PT).
"We hit the politics because it's in culture ... an extreme amount right now.
After the election's over, we basically go back to our normal type of making fun of TV and movies and stuff."
He also does Republican John McCain and Democrat Al Gore, along with a host of sports figures (John Madden, Charles Barkley) and entertainers (Jack Nicholson, James Gandolfini, Sean Connery, Al Pacino and Robert De Niro).
"The most fun that I have right now is Charles Barkley because I can walk around calling people knuckleheads and ... everybody just laughs.
[It's] like, 'That guy's a knucklehead ... a terrible, horrible really bad knucklehead.'
And what's the key to doing a good Bush?
Being linguistically creative, he says.
"If you put 'ify' or 'icate' on anything, that's a Bushism," he says.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Obama`s ahead, polls say, but will the lead last?
With a week to go before Election Day, most recent national polls show Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama with an advantage.
But how much are they to be believed?
The most recent national CNN poll of polls showed Obama with an 8-point lead over Republican presidential nominee John McCain, 51 percent to 43 percent.
The polls were conducted October 21 through October 26.
Most other national polls show Obama with a lead ranging between 5 points and double digits.
A look at CNN polling during the same period before Election Day in 2000 and 2004 suggests that political observers and campaign supporters ought to be cautious in declaring the race over because of current polling numbers.
When a presidential race has a non-incumbent in the lead, like this year, the poll numbers tend to tighten as Election Day gets closer, CNN senior researcher Alan Silverleib said.
Obama`s ahead, polls say, but will the lead last?
With a week to go before Election Day, most recent national polls show Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama with an advantage.
But how much are they to be believed?
The most recent national CNN poll of polls showed Obama with an 8-point lead over Republican presidential nominee John McCain, 51 percent to 43 percent.
The polls were conducted October 21 through October 26.
Most other national polls show Obama with a lead ranging between 5 points and double digits.
A look at CNN polling during the same period before Election Day in 2000 and 2004 suggests that political observers and campaign supporters ought to be cautious in declaring the race over because of current polling numbers.
When a presidential race has a non-incumbent in the lead, like this year, the poll numbers tend to tighten as Election Day gets closer, CNN senior researcher Alan Silverleib said.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
A Warren Township, Ohio, man faces charges of felonious assault after authorities say he fired his rifle at two teens who were attempting to deface his McCain presidential campaign yard sign.
Kenneth Rowles, 50, pleaded not guilty to the charge Monday, according to CNN affiliate WBNS.
Rowles told police he was sitting on his porch Saturday when a tan SUV pulled up and a black youth jumped out and ran toward his house, screaming, "This is for Obama."
He said another male was hanging out of the passenger window screaming the same thing.
Rowles said he went inside, got his rifle and fired three shots to scare the youths away, according to a Warren Township police report.
He told officers he believes that the men "were the same two that have been destroying his McCain sign."
Just hours before the shooting, Rowles called police and said that a car had stopped in front of his house and that a black male "ran up and said something about Obama," according to the report, and "damaged his sign again."
One of the youths, 17-year-old Kyree Flowers, was shot in the arm, according to a police report.
He and the second youth, Patrick Wise Jr., 16, told police they were in the car attempting to leave when Rowles fired at them.
"Kyree stated that he witnessed the homeowner trying to shoot Patrick but he was having trouble chambering a round," the police report said.
The teens admitted that they had defaced the McCain sign several times, Warren Township police Lt. Don Bishop told CNN.
Rowles' is the only McCain sign on a street full of Obama signs, he said.
and are unlikely to damage campaign signs again, as the incident scared them.
A Warren Township, Ohio, man faces charges of felonious assault after authorities say he fired his rifle at two teens who were attempting to deface his McCain presidential campaign yard sign.
Kenneth Rowles, 50, pleaded not guilty to the charge Monday, according to CNN affiliate WBNS.
Rowles told police he was sitting on his porch Saturday when a tan SUV pulled up and a black youth jumped out and ran toward his house, screaming, "This is for Obama."
He said another male was hanging out of the passenger window screaming the same thing.
Rowles said he went inside, got his rifle and fired three shots to scare the youths away, according to a Warren Township police report.
He told officers he believes that the men "were the same two that have been destroying his McCain sign."
Just hours before the shooting, Rowles called police and said that a car had stopped in front of his house and that a black male "ran up and said something about Obama," according to the report, and "damaged his sign again."
One of the youths, 17-year-old Kyree Flowers, was shot in the arm, according to a police report.
He and the second youth, Patrick Wise Jr., 16, told police they were in the car attempting to leave when Rowles fired at them.
"Kyree stated that he witnessed the homeowner trying to shoot Patrick but he was having trouble chambering a round," the police report said.
The teens admitted that they had defaced the McCain sign several times, Warren Township police Lt. Don Bishop told CNN.
Rowles' is the only McCain sign on a street full of Obama signs, he said.
and are unlikely to damage campaign signs again, as the incident scared them.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Researchers may have found King Solomon`s mines
Archaeologists believe a desert site in Jordan may contain the ruins of the elusive King Solomon's Mines.
Researchers using carbon dating techniques at Khirbat en-Nahas in southern Jordan discovered that copper production took place there around the time King Solomon is said to have ruled the Israelites.
The research findings were reported in this week's issue of the journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which came out Monday.
King Solomon is known in the Old Testament for his wisdom and wealth and for building the First Temple in Jerusalem.
The fabled mines entered popular culture in 1885 with the publication in Great Britain of the bestselling "King Solomon's Mines" by Sir H. Rider Haggard.
In the book, adventurers in search of the mines find gold, diamonds and ivory.
Since then, the mines have been the the subject of several films.
and whether they exist at all remains cloaked in mystery.
Thomas Levy of the University of California San Diego, who led the research, said carbon dating placed copper production at Khirbat en-Nahas (Arabic for 'Ruins of copper") in the 10th century in line with the biblical narrative of Solomon's rule.
"We can't believe everything ancient writings tell us," Levy said in a university statement. "But this research represents a confluence between the archaeological and scientific data and the Bible."
Khirbat en-Nahas is an arid region south of the Dead Sea, in Jordan's Faynan district.
The Old Testament identifies the area with the Kingdom of Edom.
As early as the 1930s, archaeologists linked the site to the Edomite kingdom, but some of those claims were dismissed in subsequent years.
Researchers may have found King Solomon`s mines
Archaeologists believe a desert site in Jordan may contain the ruins of the elusive King Solomon's Mines.
Researchers using carbon dating techniques at Khirbat en-Nahas in southern Jordan discovered that copper production took place there around the time King Solomon is said to have ruled the Israelites.
The research findings were reported in this week's issue of the journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which came out Monday.
King Solomon is known in the Old Testament for his wisdom and wealth and for building the First Temple in Jerusalem.
The fabled mines entered popular culture in 1885 with the publication in Great Britain of the bestselling "King Solomon's Mines" by Sir H. Rider Haggard.
In the book, adventurers in search of the mines find gold, diamonds and ivory.
Since then, the mines have been the the subject of several films.
and whether they exist at all remains cloaked in mystery.
Thomas Levy of the University of California San Diego, who led the research, said carbon dating placed copper production at Khirbat en-Nahas (Arabic for 'Ruins of copper") in the 10th century in line with the biblical narrative of Solomon's rule.
"We can't believe everything ancient writings tell us," Levy said in a university statement. "But this research represents a confluence between the archaeological and scientific data and the Bible."
Khirbat en-Nahas is an arid region south of the Dead Sea, in Jordan's Faynan district.
The Old Testament identifies the area with the Kingdom of Edom.
As early as the 1930s, archaeologists linked the site to the Edomite kingdom, but some of those claims were dismissed in subsequent years.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
The first officially sanctioned ivory auction in nearly a decade happened Tuesday in Namibia, with opinion split on whether the sale will help or hurt efforts to stop elephant poaching.
The Namibian government sold almost eight tons of ivory for $1.2 million, said Willem Wijnstekers, the secretary-general of CITES, the international agreement covering the trade of endangered species.
Supporters say the auction will provide cash for elephant conservation. Opponents say it will stimulate the demand for ivory.
Buyers came from China and Japan, with the Chinese buying nearly 4.2 tons and the Japanese buying 3.7 tons, said Wijnstekers, who spoke to CNN from the auction in the Namibian capital of Windhoek.
The auctioned ivory consisted of whole elephant tusks and pieces of tusks in various sizes, he said.
Nearly 10 tons had been available for sale in Namibia, and the pieces that were not sold were the worst-quality pieces that will now be kept by the government or destroyed, he said.
The sale was the first of four approved by the secretariat of CITES, which stands for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.
First adopted in 1963, the agreement now has 173 signatories.
The last such ivory auction happened in 1999.
The first officially sanctioned ivory auction in nearly a decade happened Tuesday in Namibia, with opinion split on whether the sale will help or hurt efforts to stop elephant poaching.
The Namibian government sold almost eight tons of ivory for $1.2 million, said Willem Wijnstekers, the secretary-general of CITES, the international agreement covering the trade of endangered species.
Supporters say the auction will provide cash for elephant conservation. Opponents say it will stimulate the demand for ivory.
Buyers came from China and Japan, with the Chinese buying nearly 4.2 tons and the Japanese buying 3.7 tons, said Wijnstekers, who spoke to CNN from the auction in the Namibian capital of Windhoek.
The auctioned ivory consisted of whole elephant tusks and pieces of tusks in various sizes, he said.
Nearly 10 tons had been available for sale in Namibia, and the pieces that were not sold were the worst-quality pieces that will now be kept by the government or destroyed, he said.
The sale was the first of four approved by the secretariat of CITES, which stands for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.
First adopted in 1963, the agreement now has 173 signatories.
The last such ivory auction happened in 1999.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Maradona offered job of Argentine coach
Diego Maradona has been offered the job of becoming Argentina's new national coach following a meeting with Football Association chiefs in Buenos Aires on Tuesday.
Maradona, 48 later this week, will be assisted by Carlos Bilardo who will fill the post of director of football as Argentina bid to clinch qualification for the 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa.
Julio Grondona, head of the Argentine FA, had led the search for a successor to Alfio Basile who quit after a qualifying defeat to Chile that left the nation in third place after 10 matches, seven points adrift of leaders Paraguay.
Maradona and Bilardo would not confirm they accepted the positions after leaving the meeting with Grandona.
"We have to keep talking," Maradona told reporters. ¡°There are some things to resolve.
AFA and Grondona were yet to make official statements following the meeting.
Born in 1960 in Villa Fiorito, Maradona went on to almost single-handedly take his country to World Cup Final glory in 1986 and then back to the final four years later where they were beaten by West Germany.
As well as leading unfashionable Napoli to two Italian League titles and breaking the world record transfer fee when he joined Barcelona in 1982, Maradona went on to become regarded as perhaps the greatest footballer who ever played the game.
Maradona is best known for his two goals in the 2-1 victory over England in the quarterfinal of the 1986 tournament.
The first was the "Hand of God" goal when he punched the ball beyond goalkeeper Peter Shilton and the second was a "Goal of the Century" contender in the shape of a spectacular 60-metre weave through six England players.
Maradona offered job of Argentine coach
Diego Maradona has been offered the job of becoming Argentina's new national coach following a meeting with Football Association chiefs in Buenos Aires on Tuesday.
Maradona, 48 later this week, will be assisted by Carlos Bilardo who will fill the post of director of football as Argentina bid to clinch qualification for the 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa.
Julio Grondona, head of the Argentine FA, had led the search for a successor to Alfio Basile who quit after a qualifying defeat to Chile that left the nation in third place after 10 matches, seven points adrift of leaders Paraguay.
Maradona and Bilardo would not confirm they accepted the positions after leaving the meeting with Grandona.
"We have to keep talking," Maradona told reporters. ¡°There are some things to resolve.
AFA and Grondona were yet to make official statements following the meeting.
Born in 1960 in Villa Fiorito, Maradona went on to almost single-handedly take his country to World Cup Final glory in 1986 and then back to the final four years later where they were beaten by West Germany.
As well as leading unfashionable Napoli to two Italian League titles and breaking the world record transfer fee when he joined Barcelona in 1982, Maradona went on to become regarded as perhaps the greatest footballer who ever played the game.
Maradona is best known for his two goals in the 2-1 victory over England in the quarterfinal of the 1986 tournament.
The first was the "Hand of God" goal when he punched the ball beyond goalkeeper Peter Shilton and the second was a "Goal of the Century" contender in the shape of a spectacular 60-metre weave through six England players.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Samuel L. Jackson reflects on Bernie Mac
The two actors, who play estranged singers in the new movie "Soul Men," were anything but estranged in real life, Jackson told CNN.
We've known each other for a long time and we had a great relationship and ... we've been trying to find something to do together for a while," he said.
"Getting this project and making it happen and understanding who these [characters] were on the inside of it was pretty easy for us, because we're both guys of a certain age who understand the creaks and aches."
In "Soul Men," Mac and Jackson play two background singers who haven't spoken in 20 years.
When the leader of their group, played by John Legend, dies suddenly, the two make their way to Harlem's Apollo Theater for a tribute.
Jackson says Mac, who died in early August at the age of 50, brought a special kind of humor to his performance.
Jackson said Mac's death was a shock.
"You know the moment it happened I was kind of in that space of, 'Wow, this is a, you don't know, you just really don't know what's given and what's not given,' " he said.
"I'm always finishing films and looking forward to seeing them, and I know Bernie didn't see this movie.
It's kind of like 'wow.'
Samuel L. Jackson reflects on Bernie Mac
The two actors, who play estranged singers in the new movie "Soul Men," were anything but estranged in real life, Jackson told CNN.
We've known each other for a long time and we had a great relationship and ... we've been trying to find something to do together for a while," he said.
"Getting this project and making it happen and understanding who these [characters] were on the inside of it was pretty easy for us, because we're both guys of a certain age who understand the creaks and aches."
In "Soul Men," Mac and Jackson play two background singers who haven't spoken in 20 years.
When the leader of their group, played by John Legend, dies suddenly, the two make their way to Harlem's Apollo Theater for a tribute.
Jackson says Mac, who died in early August at the age of 50, brought a special kind of humor to his performance.
Jackson said Mac's death was a shock.
"You know the moment it happened I was kind of in that space of, 'Wow, this is a, you don't know, you just really don't know what's given and what's not given,' " he said.
"I'm always finishing films and looking forward to seeing them, and I know Bernie didn't see this movie.
It's kind of like 'wow.'
But, he added, "Soul Men" is a worthy last film for the comedian.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Money worries rob workers of sleep, study shows
Nine of 10 American workers are losing sleep over financial worries, according to a survey released Monday by a company that helps workers deal with wellness issues.
Keeping up with the rising cost of living and credit card debt were top concerns preventing people from falling asleep, according to the results from ComPsych Corporation, which surveyed employees of companies it serves.
Thirty percent of respondents reported worrying about the cost of living while 29 percent cited credit-card debt.
Making mortgage payments and building retirement accounts also kept people awake, with 14 percent and 13 percent, respectively, listing those as their main concerns, the survey said.
How to afford childrens' school tuition and health care costs robbed just three percent of sleep, the survey said.
Only eight percent of respondents said they are not worried and have no trouble sleeping.
The study was compiled and released by ComPsych Corporation, which contracts with companies to provide employee assistance programs.
Money worries rob workers of sleep, study shows
Nine of 10 American workers are losing sleep over financial worries, according to a survey released Monday by a company that helps workers deal with wellness issues.
Keeping up with the rising cost of living and credit card debt were top concerns preventing people from falling asleep, according to the results from ComPsych Corporation, which surveyed employees of companies it serves.
Thirty percent of respondents reported worrying about the cost of living while 29 percent cited credit-card debt.
Making mortgage payments and building retirement accounts also kept people awake, with 14 percent and 13 percent, respectively, listing those as their main concerns, the survey said.
How to afford childrens' school tuition and health care costs robbed just three percent of sleep, the survey said.
Only eight percent of respondents said they are not worried and have no trouble sleeping.
The study was compiled and released by ComPsych Corporation, which contracts with companies to provide employee assistance programs.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
U.S. Fed cuts key interest rate
The U.S. Federal Reserve cut a key interest rate by half-a-percentage point to 1 percent Wednesday in an effort to spur economic activity.
The cut put the central bank's federal funds rate at 1 percent
matching its lowest ever level.
The last time it was at 1 percent was from June 2003 to June 2004.
The rate is used to set rates for a wide variety of consumer loans, including credit cards, and many business loans.
and the second this month after an emergency cut on October 8
as it grapples with problems in the U.S. economy.
U.S. Fed cuts key interest rate
matching its lowest ever level.
The last time it was at 1 percent was from June 2003 to June 2004.
The rate is used to set rates for a wide variety of consumer loans, including credit cards, and many business loans.
as it grapples with problems in the U.S. economy.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Tama is a 9-year-old calico cat, who used to live a simple life hanging out at the train station next to her home at the grocery store.
But with the addition of a hat, usually worn at a jaunty angle, she's become a local, national and even international star.
Tama's home of Kishikawa in Japan is an isolated town of just a few thousand people, the last stop on what had been a failing train line.
That all changed when the Wakayama Electric Railway decided to use Tama as a mascot.
They called her a "Super Stationmaster," made a promotional poster for train carriages and gave her that stationmaster's hat.
Now tourists flock here to see the cat and to snap a picture.
"It's a chance to take a break from the problems facing Japan," said Haruto Maeda, who took the day off work to see Tama.
As well as their cameras, visitors are bringing their cash.
A study at Osaka University found that Tama fever was responsible for pumping $10 million into the local economy.
Tama merchandise abounds, empty train carriages are now full and the line is no longer facing bankruptcy.
The town of Kishikawa is enjoying an economic turnaround amid the national and global slowdown.
Tama now lives full-time at the station, with her mom and a friend.
She's the prize of the town's locals who say that in these tough economic times they'll take a gift horse
wherever they can get it.
Tama is a 9-year-old calico cat, who used to live a simple life hanging out at the train station next to her home at the grocery store.
But with the addition of a hat, usually worn at a jaunty angle, she's become a local, national and even international star.
Tama's home of Kishikawa in Japan is an isolated town of just a few thousand people, the last stop on what had been a failing train line.
That all changed when the Wakayama Electric Railway decided to use Tama as a mascot.
They called her a "Super Stationmaster," made a promotional poster for train carriages and gave her that stationmaster's hat.
Now tourists flock here to see the cat and to snap a picture.
"It's a chance to take a break from the problems facing Japan," said Haruto Maeda, who took the day off work to see Tama.
As well as their cameras, visitors are bringing their cash.
A study at Osaka University found that Tama fever was responsible for pumping $10 million into the local economy.
Tama merchandise abounds, empty train carriages are now full and the line is no longer facing bankruptcy.
The town of Kishikawa is enjoying an economic turnaround amid the national and global slowdown.
Tama now lives full-time at the station, with her mom and a friend.
She's the prize of the town's locals who say that in these tough economic times they'll take a gift horse
wherever they can get it.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Brand resigns as BBC takes action over abusive broadcast
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) suspended one of its best-known stars while another resigned Wednesday for broadcasting a series of "gross" and abusive telephone calls.
Comedian Russell Brand, 33, and talk show host Jonathan Ross, 47, have been at the center of a row after they attempted to contact comedy actor Andrew Sachs for an interview on Brand's weekend radio show earlier this month.
When it dawned on the pair that Sachs who played a Spanish waiter in John Cleese's 1970s TV comedy "Fawlty Towers"
was not around, they left a series of messages on the veteran actor's phone, joking about Brand's sexual relationship with Sachs' granddaughter Georgina Baillie, 23.
In a statement Brand said he took "complete responsibility" for the incident.
"As I only do the radio show to make people laugh I've decided that, given the subsequent coverage, I will stop doing the show," he said.
"I got a bit caught up in the moment and forgot that, at the core of the rude comments and silly songs, were the real feelings of a beloved and brilliant comic actor and a very sweet and big-hearted young woman."
During the series of phone calls, made on October 18, the pair also joked that Sachs might kill himself on hearing the news then attempted to apologize with further calls.
The following week Brand offered a lighthearted on-air apology, in which he said the calls were "funny."
But by then the calls had been reported by other UK media, resulting in more than 15,000 messages of complaint to the BBC by Wednesday.
On Monday UK Prime Minster Gordon Brown called the stars' actions "inappropriate and unacceptable," the UK's Press Association reported, while Conservative opposition leader David Cameron questioned how the show, which was pre-recorded, had been broadcast in the first place.
And in a statement Wednesday, Mark Thompson, director general of the BBC, announced the stars' suspension and offered an unreserved apology to Sachs, his family and the British public for what he termed a "gross lapse of taste" and a "severe offence."
The incident is now being investigated by the BBC as well as UK media watchdog Ofcom.
Both stars made more apologies to Sachs today and yesterday.
Brand resigns as BBC takes action over abusive broadcast
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) suspended one of its best-known stars while another resigned Wednesday for broadcasting a series of "gross" and abusive telephone calls.
Comedian Russell Brand, 33, and talk show host Jonathan Ross, 47, have been at the center of a row after they attempted to contact comedy actor Andrew Sachs for an interview on Brand's weekend radio show earlier this month.
When it dawned on the pair that Sachs who played a Spanish waiter in John Cleese's 1970s TV comedy "Fawlty Towers"
was not around, they left a series of messages on the veteran actor's phone, joking about Brand's sexual relationship with Sachs' granddaughter Georgina Baillie, 23.
In a statement Brand said he took "complete responsibility" for the incident.
"As I only do the radio show to make people laugh I've decided that, given the subsequent coverage, I will stop doing the show," he said.
"I got a bit caught up in the moment and forgot that, at the core of the rude comments and silly songs, were the real feelings of a beloved and brilliant comic actor and a very sweet and big-hearted young woman."
During the series of phone calls, made on October 18, the pair also joked that Sachs might kill himself on hearing the news then attempted to apologize with further calls.
The following week Brand offered a lighthearted on-air apology, in which he said the calls were "funny."
But by then the calls had been reported by other UK media, resulting in more than 15,000 messages of complaint to the BBC by Wednesday.
On Monday UK Prime Minster Gordon Brown called the stars' actions "inappropriate and unacceptable," the UK's Press Association reported, while Conservative opposition leader David Cameron questioned how the show, which was pre-recorded, had been broadcast in the first place.
And in a statement Wednesday, Mark Thompson, director general of the BBC, announced the stars' suspension and offered an unreserved apology to Sachs, his family and the British public for what he termed a "gross lapse of taste" and a "severe offence."
The incident is now being investigated by the BBC as well as UK media watchdog Ofcom.
Both stars made more apologies to Sachs today and yesterday.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
French scientists have unveiled a working prototype of a fully artificial heart which is based on the technology of satellites and airplanes.
The device could save millions of lives and beats almost exactly like the real thing using electronic sensors to regulate heart rate and blood flow.
Developers Carmat, funded by the European space and defense group EADS, presented the device at a press conference in Paris on Monday.
Carmat's chief operating officer Patrick Coulombier told The Associated Press: "it's the same principle in the airplane as in the body."
Coulombier explained that the same tiny sensors that measure air pressure and altitude in an airplane or satellite are also in the artificial heart.
This should allow the device to respond immediately if the patient needs more or less blood.
The French design has so far only been tested in animals, and now needs approval from its authorities before pushing ahead with clinical trials.
Previous artificial hearts have been unable to automatically vary their pumping speed and must be tweaked externally.
The French heart is also the most lifelike, with two pumps to send the blood into the lungs and the rest of the body, just like a real heart.
Past artificial hearts have only had one pump.
The French model is made from natural materials including polymer and pig tissue, which have already been used in heart valves implanted into people.
The artificial heart would initially be for patients who had suffered a massive heart attack or who had heart failure, but might eventually be used in patients were are not that sick.
Heart disease is the world's top killer, claiming some 17 million lives a year.
According to the American Heart Association, about 2,200 heart transplants were performed in the U.S. in 2006.
Thousands more patients would benefit if more donor hearts were available.
The artificial heart is expected to cost about 150,000 euros or $192,140.
French scientists have unveiled a working prototype of a fully artificial heart which is based on the technology of satellites and airplanes.
The device could save millions of lives and beats almost exactly like the real thing using electronic sensors to regulate heart rate and blood flow.
Developers Carmat, funded by the European space and defense group EADS, presented the device at a press conference in Paris on Monday.
Carmat's chief operating officer Patrick Coulombier told The Associated Press: "it's the same principle in the airplane as in the body."
Coulombier explained that the same tiny sensors that measure air pressure and altitude in an airplane or satellite are also in the artificial heart.
This should allow the device to respond immediately if the patient needs more or less blood.
The French design has so far only been tested in animals, and now needs approval from its authorities before pushing ahead with clinical trials.
Previous artificial hearts have been unable to automatically vary their pumping speed and must be tweaked externally.
The French heart is also the most lifelike, with two pumps to send the blood into the lungs and the rest of the body, just like a real heart.
Past artificial hearts have only had one pump.
The French model is made from natural materials including polymer and pig tissue, which have already been used in heart valves implanted into people.
The artificial heart would initially be for patients who had suffered a massive heart attack or who had heart failure, but might eventually be used in patients were are not that sick.
Heart disease is the world's top killer, claiming some 17 million lives a year.
According to the American Heart Association, about 2,200 heart transplants were performed in the U.S. in 2006.
Thousands more patients would benefit if more donor hearts were available.
The artificial heart is expected to cost about 150,000 euros or $192,140.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Call it the Rocky Mountain road to the White House.
A new state poll suggests that Sen. Barack Obama has doubled his lead over John McCain in Colorado.
In a CNN/Time/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Wednesday, 53 percent of likely voters questioned say Obama is their choice for president, with 45 percent backing Sen. John McCain.
That 8 point lead for Obama is double the 4-point advantage he held in a similar poll two weeks ago.
"Older voters in Colorado have started to break Obama's way," CNN Polling Director Keating Holland said. "Two weeks ago he was losing the over-50 crowd by a couple of points. Now he has a 5-point edge among them."
The new numbers in Colorado, along with similar findings from other new polls in the state, are factors in CNN's move of Colorado from a toss-up state to an Obama on CNN's new electoral college map.
CNN is also changing Indiana from leaning McCain to toss-up.
A new CNN Poll of Polls in Indiana suggests McCain holds a 2-point lead over Obama in a state that hasn't voted Democrat in a presidential election since 1964.
The poll of polls is an average of the latest state surveys.
Call it the Rocky Mountain road to the White House.
A new state poll suggests that Sen. Barack Obama has doubled his lead over John McCain in Colorado.
In a CNN/Time/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Wednesday, 53 percent of likely voters questioned say Obama is their choice for president, with 45 percent backing Sen. John McCain.
That 8 point lead for Obama is double the 4-point advantage he held in a similar poll two weeks ago.
"Older voters in Colorado have started to break Obama's way," CNN Polling Director Keating Holland said. "Two weeks ago he was losing the over-50 crowd by a couple of points. Now he has a 5-point edge among them."
The new numbers in Colorado, along with similar findings from other new polls in the state, are factors in CNN's move of Colorado from a toss-up state to an Obama on CNN's new electoral college map.
CNN is also changing Indiana from leaning McCain to toss-up.
A new CNN Poll of Polls in Indiana suggests McCain holds a 2-point lead over Obama in a state that hasn't voted Democrat in a presidential election since 1964.
The poll of polls is an average of the latest state surveys.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Philadelphia downs Tampa to win World Series
From losingest team to longest game, the Philadelphia Phillies are World Series champions.
Strange as that sounds.
Brad Lidge and the Phillies finished off the Tampa Bay Rays 4-3 in a three-inning sprint Wednesday night to win a suspended Game 5 nearly 50 hours after it started.
Left in limbo by a two-day rainstorm, the Phillies seesawed to their first championship since 1980.
Pedro Feliz singled home the go-ahead run in the seventh and Lidge closed out his perfect season to deliver to the city its first major sports championship in 25 years.
No more references needed to those sad-sack Phillies teams in the past and their 10,000-plus losses.
It was among the wackiest endings in baseball history, a best-of-seven series turned into a best-of-3 1/2 showdown when play resumed in the bottom of the sixth inning tied at 2.
Series MVP Cole Hamels was a star in Game 5 and he never stepped on the mound Wednesday night.
For Philly, it was more than a World Series win.
It was a bit of redemption for all the losses, the jokes, the slights.
Philadelphia downs Tampa to win World Series
From losingest team to longest game, the Philadelphia Phillies are World Series champions.
Strange as that sounds.
Brad Lidge and the Phillies finished off the Tampa Bay Rays 4-3 in a three-inning sprint Wednesday night to win a suspended Game 5 nearly 50 hours after it started.
Left in limbo by a two-day rainstorm, the Phillies seesawed to their first championship since 1980.
Pedro Feliz singled home the go-ahead run in the seventh and Lidge closed out his perfect season to deliver to the city its first major sports championship in 25 years.
No more references needed to those sad-sack Phillies teams in the past and their 10,000-plus losses.
It was among the wackiest endings in baseball history, a best-of-seven series turned into a best-of-3 1/2 showdown when play resumed in the bottom of the sixth inning tied at 2.
Series MVP Cole Hamels was a star in Game 5
and he never stepped on the mound Wednesday night.
For Philly, it was more than a World Series win.
It was a bit of redemption for all the losses, the jokes, the slights.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Americans overseas galvanize for U.S. elections
Steve Wible, a missionary who has lived in Hong Kong for 20 years, said he has not voted in the past four or five U.S. presidential elections.
But this year is different.
"I am far more energized for this election," Wible, a Pennsylvania voter, said after completing his ballot at the U.S. consulate in the southern Chinese city.
"I looked at my wife as we were watching TV and seeing the debates and saying, 'we need to have our voice heard this time.
An unknown number of the estimated 4 million to 5 million American civilians living outside the United States, as well as hundreds of thousands of military personnel, have cast absentee votes sent to them by their home state, while others have had to submit a federal emergency write-in ballot.
It is difficult to know the exact number of Americans voting from overseas, since they can complete the process with their state and without having to deal with their local U.S. consulate or embassy.
But the U.S. State Department reported more hits to its federal voting assistance Web site than in 2004, and noted that many Americans were turning up at voting events
"We're seeing a lot more turnout and a lot more interest and that's driven a lot of our efforts to meet the needs of the American voters overseas," said a State Department spokeswoman.
"What we're seeing is a lot of interest among young voters coming out to register for the first time who really just need help with the process," she said, adding they were also "seeing a lot of voters come out who haven't voted in as many as 40, 50 years who need to re-register."
In Hong Kong, 650 Americans, from states such as Utah, Florida and California, recently flooded the consulate to complete federal write-in absentee ballots.
"It's been a very exciting summer of politics in Hong Kong. It's very much a part of our news.
It's in the South China Morning Post every day ... and I think people in Hong Kong, American citizens, if not Hong Kongers themselves, I think everyone is very energized with this election," said Sandra Collins-de Lange of the local League of Women Voters.
Americans overseas galvanize for U.S. elections
Steve Wible, a missionary who has lived in Hong Kong for 20 years, said he has not voted in the past four or five U.S. presidential elections.
But this year is different.
"I am far more energized for this election," Wible, a Pennsylvania voter, said after completing his ballot at the U.S. consulate in the southern Chinese city.
"I looked at my wife as we were watching TV and seeing the debates and saying, 'we need to have our voice heard this time.
An unknown number of the estimated 4 million to 5 million American civilians living outside the United States, as well as hundreds of thousands of military personnel, have cast absentee votes sent to them by their home state, while others have had to submit a federal emergency write-in ballot.
It is difficult to know the exact number of Americans voting from overseas, since they can complete the process with their state and without having to deal with their local U.S. consulate or embassy.
But the U.S. State Department reported more hits to its federal voting assistance Web site than in 2004, and noted that many Americans were turning up at voting events
"We're seeing a lot more turnout and a lot more interest and that's driven a lot of our efforts to meet the needs of the American voters overseas," said a State Department spokeswoman.
"What we're seeing is a lot of interest among young voters coming out to register for the first time who really just need help with the process," she said, adding they were also "seeing a lot of voters come out who haven't voted in as many as 40, 50 years who need to re-register."
In Hong Kong, 650 Americans, from states such as Utah, Florida and California, recently flooded the consulate to complete federal write-in absentee ballots.
"It's been a very exciting summer of politics in Hong Kong. It's very much a part of our news.
It's in the South China Morning Post every day ... and I think people in Hong Kong, American citizens, if not Hong Kongers themselves, I think everyone is very energized with this election," said Sandra Collins-de Lange of the local League of Women Voters.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
The first mobile phone powered by Google has gone on sale in the UK
its first foray into the European market.
has been released exclusively by T-Mobile and will go head to head with products such as Apple's iPhone, the Blackberry and other smartphones from makers including Nokia.
The handset uses Google's Android software and is being touted as a phone with the capability of a hand-held computer.
The arrival of Android signals the opening round of the battle between Google and its rivals such as Apple to create software for the next generation of mobile phones that allows users to connect seamlessly to the internet.
It provides access to Android Market, which lets third party companies offer applications to users.
The G1 makes use of applications such as Google Maps, instant messaging through Google Talk, as well as high-speed internet browsing and a 3-megapixel camera.
including LG and Samsung are expected to produce their own Google phones over the next 12 months.
Analysts have said the gadget could potentially transform the mobile telephone market by providing service supported by advertising instead of subscription fees.
But some believe the phone may struggle to compete with the iPhone in particular.
Ernest Doku, from mobile phone comparison Web site Omio.com, told the British Press Association: "Despite the popularity of the Google brand, the G1's design lacks the inherent 'cool' factor that made the iPhone 3G such a mass market success for Apple.
The first mobile phone powered by Google has gone on sale in the UK
its first foray into the European market.
has been released exclusively by T-Mobile and will go head to head with products such as Apple's iPhone, the Blackberry and other smartphones from makers including Nokia.
The handset uses Google's Android software and is being touted as a phone with the capability of a hand-held computer.
The arrival of Android signals the opening round of the battle between Google and its rivals such as Apple to create software for the next generation of mobile phones that allows users to connect seamlessly to the internet.
It provides access to Android Market, which lets third party companies offer applications to users.
The G1 makes use of applications such as Google Maps, instant messaging through Google Talk, as well as high-speed internet browsing and a 3-megapixel camera.
including LG and Samsung are expected to produce their own Google phones over the next 12 months.
Analysts have said the gadget could potentially transform the mobile telephone market by providing service supported by advertising instead of subscription fees.
But some believe the phone may struggle to compete with the iPhone in particular.
Ernest Doku, from mobile phone comparison Web site Omio.com, told the British Press Association: "Despite the popularity of the Google brand, the G1's design lacks the inherent 'cool' factor that made the iPhone 3G such a mass market success for Apple.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Archeologist finds 3,000-year old Hebrew text
An Israeli archaeologist has discovered what he says is the earliest-known Hebrew text, found on a shard of pottery that dates to the time of King David from the Old Testament, about 3,000 years ago.
Professor Yosef Garfinkel of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem says the inscribed pottery shard was found during excavations of a fortress from the 10th century BC.
Carbon dating of the ostracon, along with pottery analysis, dates the inscription to time of King David, about a millennium earlier than the famous Dead Sea Scrolls, the university said.
The shard contains five lines of text divided by black lines and measures 15 by 15 centimeters, or about 6 inches square.
Archaeologists have yet to decipher the text, but initial interpretation indicates it formed part of a letter and contains the roots of the words "judge," "slave," and "king," according to the university.
That may indicate it was a legal text, which archaeologists say would provide insights into Hebrew law, society, and beliefs.
The researchers say the text was clearly written by a trained scribe.
The shard was discovered at the Elah Fortress in Khirbet Qeiyafa, about 20 miles southwest of Jerusalem.
The fortress, measuring 2.3 hectares (about 5.7 acres), is the earliest-known fortified city of the biblical period in Israel.
Excavations began there in June.
So far, just four percent of the site has been excavated, the university said.
Because the ostracon is similar to that found in other Israelite settlements, and because no pig bones were found at the site, archaeologists say the site was likely part of the Kingdom of Judea.
Jewish dietary laws forbid the eating of pork.
Among the artifacts found at the site are more than 100 jar handles bearing distinct impressions which may indicate a link to royal vessels, the university said.
Such a large quantity found in such a small area is "unprecedented," the university said.
the Elah Valley, which shares its name with the fortress.
Archeologist finds 3,000-year old Hebrew text
An Israeli archaeologist has discovered what he says is the earliest-known Hebrew text, found on a shard of pottery that dates to the time of King David from the Old Testament, about 3,000 years ago.
Professor Yosef Garfinkel of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem says the inscribed pottery shard was found during excavations of a fortress from the 10th century BC.
Carbon dating of the ostracon, along with pottery analysis, dates the inscription to time of King David, about a millennium earlier than the famous Dead Sea Scrolls, the university said.
The shard contains five lines of text divided by black lines and measures 15 by 15 centimeters, or about 6 inches square.
Archaeologists have yet to decipher the text, but initial interpretation indicates it formed part of a letter and contains the roots of the words "judge," "slave," and "king," according to the university.
That may indicate it was a legal text, which archaeologists say would provide insights into Hebrew law, society, and beliefs.
The researchers say the text was clearly written by a trained scribe.
The shard was discovered at the Elah Fortress in Khirbet Qeiyafa, about 20 miles southwest of Jerusalem.
The fortress, measuring 2.3 hectares (about 5.7 acres), is the earliest-known fortified city of the biblical period in Israel.
Excavations began there in June.
So far, just four percent of the site has been excavated, the university said.
Because the ostracon is similar to that found in other Israelite settlements, and because no pig bones were found at the site, archaeologists say the site was likely part of the Kingdom of Judea.
Jewish dietary laws forbid the eating of pork.
Among the artifacts found at the site are more than 100 jar handles bearing distinct impressions which may indicate a link to royal vessels, the university said.
Such a large quantity found in such a small area is "unprecedented," the university said.
the Elah Valley, which shares its name with the fortress.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Winter blackout results in Dutch baby boom
A small cluster of villages in eastern Netherlands has found itself in the midst of a mini-baby boom
nine months after a power outage plunged its residents in darkness for two chilly days.
"It was cold in the houses," said Anneleas van Eijkeren, spokeswoman for the municipality of Maasdriel.
"They went to bed early to keep warm.
Forty-four percent more, to be exact.
Residents gave birth to 26 babies in September, compared with 18 in September 2007.
Maasdriel is a collection of 11 villages with a population of 24,000.
Ten of the 11 villages lost power for 50 hours in December after the blades of a helicopter accidentally sheared the cables providing electricity to the area.
"Some people went to other cities, but a lot of people stayed in their house with low temperature," Van Eijkeren said. The community is battling a declining birth rate, like the rest of the Netherlands
which ranks among the lowest in the world.
And while the power cut method worked well, Maasdriel doesn't plan on a deliberate repeat.
but not in this way."
Winter blackout results in Dutch baby boom
A small cluster of villages in eastern Netherlands has found itself in the midst of a mini-baby boom
And nine months later, we have this
a little bit more babies."
Maasdriel is a collection of 11 villages with a population of 24,000.
The community is battling a declining birth rate, like the rest of the Netherlands
which ranks among the lowest in the world.
but not in this way."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Ross suspended, while BBC executive quits over abuse calls
The BBC's highest paid star has been suspended for 12 weeks without pay and a senior executive has resigned over a series of abusive telephone calls made by two of its stars, the broadcaster said Thursday.
Comedian Russell Brand, 33, and talkshow host Jonathan Ross, 47, have been at the center of a row after they attempted to contact comedy actor Andrew Sachs for an interview on Brand's weekend Radio 2 show earlier this month.
The prank calls row has already claimed the scalp of Brand, who resigned Wednesday.
Now Ross, who the UK's Press Association reports has a $6 million ($9 million) contract with the broadcaster, has been suspended from all broadcasting for 12 weeks after the BBC Trust, the sovereign body of the organization, met to discuss the calls.
"He (Ross) will not be paid by the BBC during this period.
The fees that would have been paid will be deducted from his BBC contract," Mark Thompson, director general of the BBC, said in a statement.
He added, "Jonathan Ross's contribution to this edition of the Russell Brand show was utterly unacceptable and cannot be allowed to go uncensored or without sanction."
Earlier Thursday, Lesley Douglas, Controller of BBC Radio 2, 6 Music and Popular Music, stood down from her role and offered a "personal apology to Sachs and his family and to the audience for what has happened," the BBC said.
who played a Spanish waiter in John Cleese's 1970s TV comedy "Fawlty Towers"
Ross suspended, while BBC executive quits over abuse calls
The BBC's highest paid star has been suspended for 12 weeks without pay and a senior executive has resigned over a series of abusive telephone calls made by two of its stars, the broadcaster said Thursday.
Comedian Russell Brand, 33, and talkshow host Jonathan Ross, 47, have been at the center of a row after they attempted to contact comedy actor Andrew Sachs for an interview on Brand's weekend Radio 2 show earlier this month.
The prank calls row has already claimed the scalp of Brand, who resigned Wednesday.
Now Ross, who the UK's Press Association reports has a $6 million ($9 million) contract with the broadcaster, has been suspended from all broadcasting for 12 weeks after the BBC Trust, the sovereign body of the organization, met to discuss the calls.
"He (Ross) will not be paid by the BBC during this period.
The fees that would have been paid will be deducted from his BBC contract," Mark Thompson, director general of the BBC, said in a statement.
He added, "Jonathan Ross's contribution to this edition of the Russell Brand show was utterly unacceptable and cannot be allowed to go uncensored or without sanction."
Earlier Thursday, Lesley Douglas, Controller of BBC Radio 2, 6 Music and Popular Music, stood down from her role and offered a "personal apology to Sachs and his family and to the audience for what has happened," the BBC said.
who played a Spanish waiter in John Cleese's 1970s TV comedy "Fawlty Towers"
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
IOC president Rogge to stand for second term
International Olympics Committee president Jacques Rogge has confirmed his intention to stand as a candidate for a second term in the position.
The 66-year-old Belgian told a Brussels press conference: "For two or three years journalists have been asking me the same question concerning my future. "I always replied by saying that I'd deal with it after the Beijing Games.
On Friday, as the regulations stipulated, I informed IOC members of my decision and I will be a candidate for a second mandate," added Rogge.
Rogge identified two key issues facing the IOC
the ongoing fight against drugs and the drive to get more young people to take up sport.
"The number one priority remains the battle against doping which we have to maintain," he stressed.
"Secondly I want to see us getting even more young people involved in sport to combat against a sedentary lifestyle and obesity.
"This must be the other major objective for the IOC in the next few years." Rogge defended his performance as IOC chief saying:
"I think that I've been useful over these past years and I think that I can be useful to the IOC again in the future."
Since taking over from Juan Antonio Samaranch in 2001 Rogge has stood firm on drugs, corruption and betting.
He also initiated the youth Games with the inaugural edition set for Singapore in 2010.
The former surgeon's comments came after confirmation last Friday from the IOC that his name would be in the ring for a second term when the election is held at the IOC's congress in Copenhagen between October 3-5 in 2009.
IOC president Rogge to stand for second term
International Olympics Committee president Jacques Rogge has confirmed his intention to stand as a candidate for a second term in the position.
The 66-year-old Belgian told a Brussels press conference: "For two or three years journalists have been asking me the same question concerning my future. "I always replied by saying that I'd deal with it after the Beijing Games.
On Friday, as the regulations stipulated, I informed IOC members of my decision and I will be a candidate for a second mandate," added Rogge.
Rogge identified two key issues facing the IOC
the ongoing fight against drugs and the drive to get more young people to take up sport.
"The number one priority remains the battle against doping which we have to maintain," he stressed.
"Secondly I want to see us getting even more young people involved in sport to combat against a sedentary lifestyle and obesity.
"This must be the other major objective for the IOC in the next few years." Rogge defended his performance as IOC chief saying:
"I think that I've been useful over these past years and I think that I can be useful to the IOC again in the future."
Since taking over from Juan Antonio Samaranch in 2001 Rogge has stood firm on drugs, corruption and betting.
He also initiated the youth Games with the inaugural edition set for Singapore in 2010.
The former surgeon's comments came after confirmation last Friday from the IOC that his name would be in the ring for a second term when the election is held at the IOC's congress in Copenhagen between October 3-5 in 2009.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Venezuela's first satellite roared into space Thursday from a launching pad in southwest China.
The telecommunications satellite will let rural communities in Venezuela access educational and medical information that has been difficult for them to come by as a result of their relative isolation, said Rodolfo Navaro, technical manager for the Bolivarian Space Activity Agency.
"It is not focused on commercial ends, but on providing a service to the communities which have never enjoyed a modern communication system," he said, according to the Bolivarian News Agency.
"Aboriginal communities, for instance, would receive long-distance education, or maybe they would request medicines, air or river ambulance service, medical checkups, among other options."
A Chinese rocket carrying the satellite lifted off early Thursday from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwestern China's Sichuan province, according to an account in China's state-run news agency, Xinhua.
The satellite is designed to last 15 years, the agency said.
President Hugo Chavez announced after taking office that Venezuela would send crafts into space, and the country spent $241 million in five years to develop the Simon Bolivar Satellite, named for the general whose military victories led to independence from Spain for several South American nations in the early 1800s.
Chavez referred to the satellite's launch as a key step toward greater scientific and technological independence for Venezuela, the Bolivarian News Agency reported.
The satellite will have the ability to cover the Caribbean, Central America and parts of South America, the agency said.
Venezuela's first satellite roared into space Thursday from a launching pad in southwest China.
The telecommunications satellite will let rural communities in Venezuela access educational and medical information that has been difficult for them to come by as a result of their relative isolation, said Rodolfo Navaro, technical manager for the Bolivarian Space Activity Agency.
"It is not focused on commercial ends, but on providing a service to the communities which have never enjoyed a modern communication system," he said, according to the Bolivarian News Agency.
"Aboriginal communities, for instance, would receive long-distance education, or maybe they would request medicines, air or river ambulance service, medical checkups, among other options."
A Chinese rocket carrying the satellite lifted off early Thursday from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwestern China's Sichuan province, according to an account in China's state-run news agency, Xinhua.
The satellite is designed to last 15 years, the agency said.
President Hugo Chavez announced after taking office that Venezuela would send crafts into space, and the country spent $241 million in five years to develop the Simon Bolivar Satellite, named for the general whose military victories led to independence from Spain for several South American nations in the early 1800s.
Chavez referred to the satellite's launch as a key step toward greater scientific and technological independence for Venezuela, the Bolivarian News Agency reported.
The satellite will have the ability to cover the Caribbean, Central America and parts of South America, the agency said.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
The world`s ugliest buildings
call them what you like, ugly buildings are sadly all around us.
And you cannot simply define one category of hideous architecture.
There is ugly, and then there is Ugly.
The latter often open in controversial circumstances:
There may be protests from local residents, and there can even be calls to knock them down.
Yes, these are the world's ugliest buildings.
From the divisive Millennium Dome (02 Arena) in London, to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, and the incomplete Ryugyong Hotel in North Korea we have compiled a gallery of ten of the world's ugliest buildings for your viewing displeasure.
Although the buildings shown are scattered across the globe, they share several things in common.
All of them had big budgets, most were attempts at creating contemporary or futuristic styling, and they have all divided opinion among local residents, architects, and the general public.
And these largely unpleasant buildings should not be treated as a joke.
Sometimes the architecture can have a grave impact on the perception of a city or region.
Birmingham, in the Midlands of the United Kingdom, for example, was recently voted the ugliest city in the country through a national poll.
This came after the city's Bullring Shopping Centre and the Birmingham Central Library were named as the number one and two ugliest buildings in the country.
The world`s ugliest buildings
call them what you like, ugly buildings are sadly all around us.
And you cannot simply define one category of hideous architecture.
There is ugly, and then there is Ugly.
The latter often open in controversial circumstances:
There may be protests from local residents, and there can even be calls to knock them down.
Yes, these are the world's ugliest buildings.
From the divisive Millennium Dome (02 Arena) in London, to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, and the incomplete Ryugyong Hotel in North Korea we have compiled a gallery of ten of the world's ugliest buildings for your viewing displeasure.
Although the buildings shown are scattered across the globe, they share several things in common.
All of them had big budgets, most were attempts at creating contemporary or futuristic styling, and they have all divided opinion among local residents, architects, and the general public.
And these largely unpleasant buildings should not be treated as a joke.
Sometimes the architecture can have a grave impact on the perception of a city or region.
Birmingham, in the Midlands of the United Kingdom, for example, was recently voted the ugliest city in the country through a national poll.
This came after the city's Bullring Shopping Centre and the Birmingham Central Library were named as the number one and two ugliest buildings in the country.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Wearing red may boost your sex appeal
Does wearing the color red give you a sexual edge?
Maybe, according to a new study, which found that men find women sexier if they're sporting a crimson hue rather than, say, blue or green.
However, red won't make you look smarter or more competent, says study author Andrew Elliot, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at the University of Rochester in New York.
"We only found the effect for attraction, so males don't rate females in red as more intelligent, more likable, or as having a better personality; they only rate her as sexier and more attractive," he says.
Men also were more likely to say they wanted to have sex with a woman and that they would be willing to spend more on a date if she were in red, according to the report in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
In a series of five studies, about 150 heterosexual men (homosexual men and those with red-green color blindness were excluded) rated photographs of women framed in red, white, gray, green, or blue, or with the woman in a red or blue shirt.
On a 7-point scale, with 1 being the least sexy and 7 a white-hot sex goddess, the color red added about 1.25 points to the rating, says Elliot.
The researchers have a couple of theories.
From red roses to Valentine's Day, red is the universally recognized sign of romance;
it makes sense that men may subconsciously associate the color red with sex.
And it's not just men.
Wearing red may boost your sex appeal
Does wearing the color red give you a sexual edge?
Maybe, according to a new study, which found that men find women sexier if they're sporting a crimson hue rather than, say, blue or green.
However, red won't make you look smarter or more competent, says study author Andrew Elliot, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at the University of Rochester in New York.
"We only found the effect for attraction, so males don't rate females in red as more intelligent, more likable, or as having a better personality; they only rate her as sexier and more attractive," he says.
Men also were more likely to say they wanted to have sex with a woman and that they would be willing to spend more on a date if she were in red, according to the report in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
In a series of five studies, about 150 heterosexual men (homosexual men and those with red-green color blindness were excluded) rated photographs of women framed in red, white, gray, green, or blue, or with the woman in a red or blue shirt.
On a 7-point scale, with 1 being the least sexy and 7 a white-hot sex goddess, the color red added about 1.25 points to the rating, says Elliot.
The researchers have a couple of theories.
From red roses to Valentine's Day, red is the universally recognized sign of romance;
it makes sense that men may subconsciously associate the color red with sex.
And it's not just men.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
A holy grail for art and history lovers
It is a strange feeling to think you could be standing before an object that may be the Holy Grail, but visitors to the new Byzantium 330-1453 exhibition at London's Royal Academy will be able to experience just that frisson between now and March 2009.
The Antioch chalice has been a subject of speculation since it was discovered in Syria in 1911.
It comprises an ornate silver cup decorated with scenes of Christ and the apostles that contains within it a far simpler silver vessel
could the finely worked exterior be just the housing for a much more precious object?
It's a remarkable prospect, but sadly one that is highly unlikely, says exhibition co-curator Robin Cormack.
"The argument was that in the middle of the first century this important piece of Christian history was framed within the outer cup. For around 50 years a lot of people thought this was the Holy Grail, and maybe some people still do. boring though this is
has re-dated the object to 6th century, it which case it can't be the Holy Grail... except that doesn't date the inner cup, so there's still that debate. Even more depressing, they say it's a lamp not a chalice.
I think this issue is still on, though I think we can still talk about it."
That the chalice is in London at all, however, is quite a feat.
"This is the first time it has been lent by the Metropolitan Museum in New York," says Cormack. "This is the first chance people have had to see it face-to-face in this country."
The exhibition takes the visitor on a chronological progression through a Christian empire that was at the forefront of artistic innovation for more than 1,000 years.
It also focuses on how the society actually worked, with rooms dedicated to the lives both of the ruling elite and the ordinary citizens and how spirituality was expressed in art.
For an empire that survived for over a thousand years, comparatively little survives of Byzantium's artistic glory
A holy grail for art and history lovers
It is a strange feeling to think you could be standing before an object that may be the Holy Grail, but visitors to the new Byzantium 330-1453 exhibition at London's Royal Academy will be able to experience just that frisson between now and March 2009.
The Antioch chalice has been a subject of speculation since it was discovered in Syria in 1911.
It comprises an ornate silver cup decorated with scenes of Christ and the apostles that contains within it a far simpler silver vessel
could the finely worked exterior be just the housing for a much more precious object?
It's a remarkable prospect, but sadly one that is highly unlikely, says exhibition co-curator Robin Cormack.
"The argument was that in the middle of the first century this important piece of Christian history was framed within the outer cup. For around 50 years a lot of people thought this was the Holy Grail, and maybe some people still do. boring though this is
has re-dated the object to 6th century, it which case it can't be the Holy Grail... except that doesn't date the inner cup, so there's still that debate. Even more depressing, they say it's a lamp not a chalice.
I think this issue is still on, though I think we can still talk about it."
That the chalice is in London at all, however, is quite a feat.
"This is the first time it has been lent by the Metropolitan Museum in New York," says Cormack. "This is the first chance people have had to see it face-to-face in this country."
The exhibition takes the visitor on a chronological progression through a Christian empire that was at the forefront of artistic innovation for more than 1,000 years.
It also focuses on how the society actually worked, with rooms dedicated to the lives both of the ruling elite and the ordinary citizens and how spirituality was expressed in art.
For an empire that survived for over a thousand years, comparatively little survives of Byzantium's artistic glory
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Warm hands do make warm hearts
Time to update that old saying "cold hands, warm heart."
New research shows touching something warm can make you feel and act more warmly toward others.
Whether someone is deemed to have a "warm" or "cold" personality makes a powerful first impression.
That led Yale University scientists to wonder if physical warmth could promote psychological warmth, by subconsciously priming people to think better of others.
It took a sneaky study to find out:
Scientists recruited 41 college students for what they thought was personality research.
A lab worker escorted each participant up the elevator of Yale's psychology building and casually asked for help holding her cup of coffee
while she recorded the student's name on a clipboard.
Inside the lab, the students were given a description of a fictitious person described as industrious, cautious and determined, and then rated that person's presumed personality traits.
Students who had held the hot cup saw the person as more generous, sociable and good-natured than those who had held the cold cup all traits that psychologists consider part of a "warm" personality, the researchers report in Friday's edition of the journal Science.
Yet there were no differences between the two groups on ratings of honesty, attractiveness or strength, traits not associated with either warm or cold personalities.
So is the moral of the story to hand out hot drinks when you want to make a good first impression?
The bigger message is that very subtle cues from our environment can significantly influence behavior and feelings, said lead researcher Dr. Lawrence Williams, who conducted the study while completing his psychology graduate degree at Yale.
Physical and psychological concepts "are much more closely aligned in the mind than we have previously appreciated," said Williams, now at the University of Colorado.
The whole concept of social warmth is learned in infancy, Williams said.
He pointed to a classic psychology study that found attachment and affection were more dependent on hugs and cuddles that happen to be physically warm than on merely ensuring a baby is fed.
Warm hands do make warm hearts
Time to update that old saying "cold hands, warm heart."
New research shows touching something warm can make you feel and act more warmly toward others.
Whether someone is deemed to have a "warm" or "cold" personality makes a powerful first impression.
That led Yale University scientists to wonder if physical warmth could promote psychological warmth, by subconsciously priming people to think better of others.
It took a sneaky study to find out:
Scientists recruited 41 college students for what they thought was personality research.
A lab worker escorted each participant up the elevator of Yale's psychology building and casually asked for help holding her cup of coffee
while she recorded the student's name on a clipboard.
Inside the lab, the students were given a description of a fictitious person described as industrious, cautious and determined, and then rated that person's presumed personality traits.
Students who had held the hot cup saw the person as more generous, sociable and good-natured than those who had held the cold cup all traits that psychologists consider part of a "warm" personality, the researchers report in Friday's edition of the journal Science.
Yet there were no differences between the two groups on ratings of honesty, attractiveness or strength, traits not associated with either warm or cold personalities.
So is the moral of the story to hand out hot drinks when you want to make a good first impression?
The bigger message is that very subtle cues from our environment can significantly influence behavior and feelings, said lead researcher Dr. Lawrence Williams, who conducted the study while completing his psychology graduate degree at Yale.
Physical and psychological concepts "are much more closely aligned in the mind than we have previously appreciated," said Williams, now at the University of Colorado.
The whole concept of social warmth is learned in infancy, Williams said.
He pointed to a classic psychology study that found attachment and affection were more dependent on hugs and cuddles that happen to be physically warm than on merely ensuring a baby is fed.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Townsfolk in England have delivered their explosive verdict on Sarah Palin, stuffing a giant effigy of the U.S. Republican vice presidential nominee with fireworks and blowing her up to raucous cheers.
The unusual display was the climax of an annual bonfire celebration Saturday in the southern town of Battle, where political figures are a favorite target of a local tradition that sees a different icon destroyed each year.
This year's creation was a rather unflattering depiction of the self-declared "hockey mom," a machine gun brandished in her muscular arms, bright red lipstick surrounding a grimacing smile and a moose at her side.
Daubed beneath her was the slogan:
The caricature of the Alaskan governor was flanked by a smaller effigy of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, wearing a military-style helmet.
Organizers of the event, which saw a procession of flaming torches march through the historic town before igniting a bonfire and detonating the effigy, say the politically-themed pyrotechnics were not meant to cause offense.
"It's tongue-in-cheek and she's getting more attention that the other two, so she seemed like an ideal candidate." Matt Southam told the Rye and Battle Observer.
The event, believed to date back to 1646, has seen British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his predecessor Tony Blair go up in smoke in recent years.
Despite heavy rain, Palin's likeness went up in seconds
Townsfolk destroy Palin effigy with explosives
Townsfolk in England have delivered their explosive verdict on Sarah Palin, stuffing a giant effigy of the U.S. Republican vice presidential nominee with fireworks and blowing her up to raucous cheers.
The unusual display was the climax of an annual bonfire celebration Saturday in the southern town of Battle, where political figures are a favorite target of a local tradition that sees a different icon destroyed each year.
This year's creation was a rather unflattering depiction of the self-declared "hockey mom," a machine gun brandished in her muscular arms, bright red lipstick surrounding a grimacing smile and a moose at her side.
Daubed beneath her was the slogan:
The caricature of the Alaskan governor was flanked by a smaller effigy of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, wearing a military-style helmet.
Organizers of the event, which saw a procession of flaming torches march through the historic town before igniting a bonfire and detonating the effigy, say the politically-themed pyrotechnics were not meant to cause offense.
"It's tongue-in-cheek and she's getting more attention that the other two, so she seemed like an ideal candidate."
Matt Southam told the Rye and Battle Observer.
Despite heavy rain, Palin's likeness went up in seconds
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
North Korea releases photo of Kim Jong Il
North Korea has released a photograph of a smiling Kim Jong Il, the latest in an apparent attempt to dispel rumors that the reclusive leader is gravely ill.
The picture, broadcast on state television Sunday, show Kim sitting inside what appears to be a VIP box, watching a soccer game.
The broadcast did not say when the photo was taken, nor did it carry any video
The anchorwoman said the photo was taken at a game between two army teams.
The anchorwoman also said the players felt "a fire in their heart" at meeting the North Korean leader.
His absence from numerous events that he would normally attend has raised questions about his health.
Some unconfirmed reports said the North Korean leader underwent brain surgery after suffering a stroke over the summer.
North Korean television broadcast a series of photos in October showing Kim during a visit to a military facility.
That broadcast came a week after North Korea's KCNA news agency reported that Kim made a rare public appearance at a Pyongyang soccer match.
No photos were ever shown of that event.
However, the narrator of that broadcast said the female soldiers' "hearts were pounding" because of Kim.
North Korea releases photo of Kim Jong Il
North Korea has released a photograph of a smiling Kim Jong Il, the latest in an apparent attempt to dispel rumors that the reclusive leader is gravely ill.
The picture, broadcast on state television Sunday, show Kim sitting inside what appears to be a VIP box, watching a soccer game.
The broadcast did not say when the photo was taken, nor did it carry any video
The anchorwoman said the photo was taken at a game between two army teams.
The anchorwoman also said the players felt "a fire in their heart" at meeting the North Korean leader.
His absence from numerous events that he would normally attend has raised questions about his health.
Some unconfirmed reports said the North Korean leader underwent brain surgery after suffering a stroke over the summer.
North Korean television broadcast a series of photos in October showing Kim during a visit to a military facility.
That broadcast came a week after North Korea's KCNA news agency reported that Kim made a rare public appearance at a Pyongyang soccer match.
No photos were ever shown of that event.
However, the narrator of that broadcast said the female soldiers' "hearts were pounding" because of Kim.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Extra sleep helps the heart, researchers say
Turning your clock back on Sunday may be good for your heart.
Swedish researchers looked at 20 years of records and discovered that the number of heart attacks dipped on the Monday after clocks were set back an hour, possibly because people got an extra hour of sleep.
But moving clocks forward in the spring appeared to have the opposite effect.
There were more heart attacks during the week after the start of daylight saving time, particularly on the first three days of the week.
affects our cardiovascular health," said Dr. Lori Mosca, director of preventive cardiology at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, who was not involved in the research.
The findings show that "sleep not only impacts how we feel, but it may also affect whether we develop heart disease or not."
The study was described in a letter published in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine by Dr. Imre Janszky of the Karolinska Institute and Dr. Rickard Ljung of Sweden's National Board of Health and Welfare.
Janszky said he came up with the idea for the study after last spring's time change, when he was having problems adjusting.
"I was on the bus, quite sleepy, and I thought of this," said Janszky, who has done other research on sleep and health.
They took advantage of Sweden's comprehensive registry of heart attacks to see if the disruptions to sleep and the body's internal clock caused by a time change had any effect on heart attacks from 1987 to 2006.
They compared the number of heart attacks on each of the seven days after the time shift with the corresponding day two weeks earlier and two weeks later.
Overall, in the week after "spring forward," there was a 5 percent increase in heart attacks, with a 6 percent bump on Monday and Wednesday and a 10 percent increase on Tuesday.
In the week after "fall back," the number of heart attacks was about the same, except on Monday, which had a 5 percent decrease.
"The finding that the possibility of additional sleep seems to be protective on the first workday after the autumn shift is intriguing," the authors wrote.
Doctors have long known that Monday in general is the worst day for heart attacks, and they usually blame the stress of a new work week and increased activity.
The Swedish researchers said their findings suggest that the minor loss of sleep that occurs at the end of ordinary weekends
with people going to bed later on Sunday and getting up early on Monday
might also be a contributing factor.
Extra sleep helps the heart, researchers say
Turning your clock back on Sunday may be good for your heart.
Swedish researchers looked at 20 years of records and discovered that the number of heart attacks dipped on the Monday after clocks were set back an hour, possibly because people got an extra hour of sleep.
But moving clocks forward in the spring appeared to have the opposite effect.
There were more heart attacks during the week after the start of daylight saving time, particularly on the first three days of the week.
affects our cardiovascular health," said Dr. Lori Mosca, director of preventive cardiology at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, who was not involved in the research.
The findings show that "sleep not only impacts how we feel, but it may also affect whether we develop heart disease or not."
The study was described in a letter published in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine by Dr. Imre Janszky of the Karolinska Institute and Dr. Rickard Ljung of Sweden's National Board of Health and Welfare.
Janszky said he came up with the idea for the study after last spring's time change, when he was having problems adjusting.
"I was on the bus, quite sleepy, and I thought of this," said Janszky, who has done other research on sleep and health.
They took advantage of Sweden's comprehensive registry of heart attacks to see if the disruptions to sleep and the body's internal clock caused by a time change had any effect on heart attacks from 1987 to 2006.
They compared the number of heart attacks on each of the seven days after the time shift with the corresponding day two weeks earlier and two weeks later.
Overall, in the week after "spring forward," there was a 5 percent increase in heart attacks, with a 6 percent bump on Monday and Wednesday and a 10 percent increase on Tuesday.
In the week after "fall back," the number of heart attacks was about the same, except on Monday, which had a 5 percent decrease.
"The finding that the possibility of additional sleep seems to be protective on the first workday after the autumn shift is intriguing," the authors wrote.
Doctors have long known that Monday in general is the worst day for heart attacks, and they usually blame the stress of a new work week and increased activity.
might also be a contributing factor.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Japanese girl born to Indian surrogate arrives home
A 3-month-old girl born to an Indian surrogate mother has flown to Japan to join her biological father after spending the first months of her life in legal limbo.
Baby Manjhi and her grandmother flew to Osaka, Japan, from the Indian capital, New Delhi, Saturday night, said family friend, Kamal Vijay Vargiya.
While some countries have banned surrogacy as a money-making venture, it has been legal in India since 2002.
Under the practice, infertile couples are matched with local women to carry babies for $12,000 to $30,000.
Baby Manjhi was conceived when a Japanese couple paid a clinic in India to have the husband's sperm and an anonymous donor's egg implanted in the womb of an Indian surrogate.
But a few months before Manjhi was born, the couple divorced.
The intended Japanese mother decided she did not want the baby.
Manjhi was born on July 25.
Her father, Ikufumi Yamada, and grandmother traveled from Japan to pick her up and take her to her new home.
But Indian law stipulates that a mother must be present in order for a baby to receive a passport.
In this case, neither the birth mother nor the mother who had originally sought the child wanted to be involved.
Manjhi's father looked into a legal adoption, but Indian law does not allow single men to adopt.
The case garnered international headlines.
Eventually, Manjhi was issued a birth certificate with just her father's name on it.
And on Saturday, she left for Osaka to be reunited with him.
"This is for the first time in 28 years in Jaipur that somebody (in such a situation) has been issued travel documents by Indian authorities.
Japanese girl born to Indian surrogate arrives home
A 3-month-old girl born to an Indian surrogate mother has flown to Japan to join her biological father after spending the first months of her life in legal limbo.
Baby Manjhi and her grandmother flew to Osaka, Japan, from the Indian capital, New Delhi, Saturday night, said family friend, Kamal Vijay Vargiya.
While some countries have banned surrogacy as a money-making venture, it has been legal in India since 2002.
Under the practice, infertile couples are matched with local women to carry babies for $12,000 to $30,000.
Baby Manjhi was conceived when a Japanese couple paid a clinic in India to have the husband's sperm and an anonymous donor's egg implanted in the womb of an Indian surrogate.
But a few months before Manjhi was born, the couple divorced.
The intended Japanese mother decided she did not want the baby.
Manjhi was born on July 25.
Her father, Ikufumi Yamada, and grandmother traveled from Japan to pick her up and take her to her new home.
But Indian law stipulates that a mother must be present in order for a baby to receive a passport.
In this case, neither the birth mother nor the mother who had originally sought the child wanted to be involved.
Manjhi's father looked into a legal adoption, but Indian law does not allow single men to adopt.
The case garnered international headlines.
Eventually, Manjhi was issued a birth certificate with just her father's name on it.
And on Saturday, she left for Osaka to be reunited with him.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Briton Paula Radcliffe defended her New York Marathon title in style on Sunday to become only the second woman to win the race three times.
Radcliffe's tight victories in 2004 and 2007, the world record holder pulled away from Ludmila Petrova in the 36th kilometer to win comfortably in two hours, 23 minutes, 55 seconds.
The 40-year-old Russian finished second
making her the oldest woman to finish in the top two since Briton Priscilla Welch won in 1987 at the age of 42.
Kara Goucher, on her marathon debut, took third, becoming the first American to make the podium since Anne Marie Letko finished third in 1994.
Meanwhile, Marilson Gomes dos Santos of Brazil won the men's race for the second time in three years, overtaking Morocco's Abderrahim Goumri in the final 3km to win in 2:08:
43 with Goumri second for the second year in a row.
In cool and windy conditions for the 39th New York Marathon, Radcliffe led from start to finish to join nine-time winner Grete Waitz as the only woman to capture the race more than twice.
"It was tougher this year because of the wind," Radcliffe said. "It was even tougher because everybody stayed behind me.
I felt comfortable halfway and then picked it up. "For me to be one-third of the way to Grete Waitz is amazing."
Briton Paula Radcliffe defended her New York Marathon title in style on Sunday to become only the second woman to win the race three times.
Radcliffe's tight victories in 2004 and 2007, the world record holder pulled away from Ludmila Petrova in the 36th kilometer to win comfortably in two hours, 23 minutes, 55 seconds.
The 40-year-old Russian finished second
making her the oldest woman to finish in the top two since Briton Priscilla Welch won in 1987 at the age of 42.
Kara Goucher, on her marathon debut, took third, becoming the first American to make the podium since Anne Marie Letko finished third in 1994.
Meanwhile, Marilson Gomes dos Santos of Brazil won the men's race for the second time in three years, overtaking Morocco's Abderrahim Goumri in the final 3km to win in 2:08:
43 with Goumri second for the second year in a row.
In cool and windy conditions for the 39th New York Marathon, Radcliffe led from start to finish to join nine-time winner Grete Waitz as the only woman to capture the race more than twice.
"It was tougher this year because of the wind," Radcliffe said. "It was even tougher because everybody stayed behind me.
I felt comfortable halfway and then picked it up. "For me to be one-third of the way to Grete Waitz is amazing."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Companies recall 100,000 laptop battery packs
SEATTLE, Washington (CNN)
Computer makers are recalling 100,000 laptop battery packs made by Sony Corp. after 40 reports of overheating, according to a U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission notice Thursday.
The voluntary recall applies to certain Sony 2.15Ah lithium-ion cell batteries made in Japan and sold around the world in laptops made by Hewlett-Packard Co., Dell Inc. and Toshiba Corp.
Some incidents involved smoke or flames, according to Sony.
Twenty-one of the reports claimed minor property damage, and small burns were reported in four cases.
Sony blamed two factors for the defects: adjustments on its manufacturing line from October 2004 to June 2005, which may have affected the quality of cells in certain production lots;
and a possible flaw in the metal foil for electrodes.
The company said no reports have been filed for batteries made after 2006, and noted that the recalled units are a small fraction of the more than 260 million it has shipped over six years.
This also pales in comparison to the recall of nearly 10 million of a different model of Sony batteries in 2006 and 2007, which affected almost every major PC manufacturer, including Dell Inc. and Apple Inc.
In this batch of problematic laptops, the bulk of the 35,000 affected computers in the U.S. were sold by HP between December 2004 and June 2006, according to the safety commission, including HP Pavilion, HP Compaq and Compaq Presario models.
Some Dell Latitude and Inspiron models shipped between November 2004 and November 2005 are also covered by the recall, as well as some Toshiba Satellite and Tecra laptops sold from April 2005 to October 2005.
An additional 65,000 of the flawed batteries were sold outside the U.S.
The PCs and separate batteries were sold directly by the computer manufacturers, electronics stores and online retailers worldwide, not by Sony.
Sony said its own Vaio laptops don't use the battery in question.
Last month, however, the company recalled 440,000 Vaio notebooks worldwide because of a wiring flaw that can cause overheating.
The safety commission said PC users should remove laptop batteries immediately and contact the manufacturer to request a replacement.
Details, including laptop model numbers and contact information for Dell, HP and Toshiba, have been posted on the commission's Web site.
Companies recall 100,000 laptop battery packs
SEATTLE, Washington (CNN)
Computer makers are recalling 100,000 laptop battery packs made by Sony Corp. after 40 reports of overheating, according to a U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission notice Thursday.
The voluntary recall applies to certain Sony 2.15Ah lithium-ion cell batteries made in Japan and sold around the world in laptops made by Hewlett-Packard Co., Dell Inc. and Toshiba Corp.
Some incidents involved smoke or flames, according to Sony.
Twenty-one of the reports claimed minor property damage, and small burns were reported in four cases.
Sony blamed two factors for the defects: adjustments on its manufacturing line from October 2004 to June 2005, which may have affected the quality of cells in certain production lots;
and a possible flaw in the metal foil for electrodes.
The company said no reports have been filed for batteries made after 2006, and noted that the recalled units are a small fraction of the more than 260 million it has shipped over six years.
This also pales in comparison to the recall of nearly 10 million of a different model of Sony batteries in 2006 and 2007, which affected almost every major PC manufacturer, including Dell Inc. and Apple Inc.
In this batch of problematic laptops, the bulk of the 35,000 affected computers in the U.S. were sold by HP between December 2004 and June 2006, according to the safety commission, including HP Pavilion, HP Compaq and Compaq Presario models.
Some Dell Latitude and Inspiron models shipped between November 2004 and November 2005 are also covered by the recall, as well as some Toshiba Satellite and Tecra laptops sold from April 2005 to October 2005.
An additional 65,000 of the flawed batteries were sold outside the U.S.
The PCs and separate batteries were sold directly by the computer manufacturers, electronics stores and online retailers worldwide, not by Sony.
Sony said its own Vaio laptops don't use the battery in question.
Last month, however, the company recalled 440,000 Vaio notebooks worldwide because of a wiring flaw that can cause overheating.
The safety commission said PC users should remove laptop batteries immediately and contact the manufacturer to request a replacement.
Details, including laptop model numbers and contact information for Dell, HP and Toshiba, have been posted on the commission's Web site.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Obama`s grandmother dies after battle with cancer
Sen. Barack Obama's grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, has died following a bout with cancer, Obama and his sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, said Monday.
At a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, Monday night, the Illinois senator said "she has gone home and she died peacefully in her sleep with my sister at her side."
"I'm not going to talk about it long because it's hard to talk about," he added.
Obama remembered her as "one of those quiet heroes we have across America, who aren't famous ... but each and every day they work hard. They look after their families. They look after their children and their grandchildren."
In a statement released Monday afternoon, Obama and his sister said that Dunham was "the cornerstone of our family, and a woman of extraordinary accomplishment, strength, and humility."
"She was the person who encouraged and allowed us to take chances. She was proud of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren and left this world with the knowledge that her impact on all of us was meaningful and enduring.
Our debt to her is beyond measure." Obama and Soetoro-Ng asked that donations be made for the search for a cure for cancer in lieu of flowers. A small private ceremony will be held "at a later date."
Dunham passed away peacefully at her home shortly before midnight Sunday night (5 a.m. ET), campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki told CNN.
She said Obama learned of her death around 8 a.m.
Obama's republican rival, Sen. John McCain, issued a statement Monday afternoon:
"We offer our deepest condolences to Barack Obama and his family as they grieve the loss of their beloved grandmother.
Our thoughts and prayers go out to them as they remember and celebrate the life of someone who had such a profound impact in their lives."
The Democratic presidential candidate left the campaign trail on October 23 and flew to Honolulu, Hawaii, to spend the day with Dunham, whose health deteriorated after she suffered a broken hip.
His wife, Michelle Obama, filled in for him at events in Columbus and Akron, Ohio, on October 24.
The candidate resumed his campaign on October 25.
Obama`s grandmother dies after battle with cancer
Sen. Barack Obama's grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, has died following a bout with cancer, Obama and his sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, said Monday.
At a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, Monday night, the Illinois senator said "she has gone home and she died peacefully in her sleep with my sister at her side."
"I'm not going to talk about it long because it's hard to talk about," he added.
Obama remembered her as "one of those quiet heroes we have across America, who aren't famous ... but each and every day they work hard. They look after their families. They look after their children and their grandchildren."
In a statement released Monday afternoon, Obama and his sister said that Dunham was "the cornerstone of our family, and a woman of extraordinary accomplishment, strength, and humility."
"She was the person who encouraged and allowed us to take chances. She was proud of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren and left this world with the knowledge that her impact on all of us was meaningful and enduring.
Our debt to her is beyond measure." Obama and Soetoro-Ng asked that donations be made for the search for a cure for cancer in lieu of flowers. A small private ceremony will be held "at a later date."
Dunham passed away peacefully at her home shortly before midnight Sunday night (5 a.m. ET), campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki told CNN.
She said Obama learned of her death around 8 a.m.
Obama's republican rival, Sen. John McCain, issued a statement Monday afternoon:
"We offer our deepest condolences to Barack Obama and his family as they grieve the loss of their beloved grandmother.
Our thoughts and prayers go out to them as they remember and celebrate the life of someone who had such a profound impact in their lives."
The Democratic presidential candidate left the campaign trail on October 23 and flew to Honolulu, Hawaii, to spend the day with Dunham, whose health deteriorated after she suffered a broken hip.
His wife, Michelle Obama, filled in for him at events in Columbus and Akron, Ohio, on October 24.
The candidate resumed his campaign on October 25.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
McCain, Obama on blitz through battleground states on final day
Down in the polls, Sen. John McCain on Monday called on Pennsylvania to help him score an upset over Sen. Barack Obama.
We need to win in Pennsylvania and tomorrow, with your help, we will win," McCain said, pounding his fist on the podium at an event in Moon Township.
Obama leads McCain by 8 percentage points in Pennsylvania, 51 percent to 43 percent, according to CNN's latest average of state polls.
McCain's campaign has said it is buoyed by its internal numbers not showing up in public polling.
In the past two presidential elections, pre-election polling in Pennsylvania showed strong support for Democrats Al Gore and John Kerry, but both candidates ended up carrying the state by narrow margins.
McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, have visited Pennsylvania 10 times in 15 days.
The state has 21 electoral votes.
In his last visit to the state before voters go to the polls, McCain said, "The pundits have written me off just like they've done four or five times in the past. ...
They may not know it, but the Mac is back." National polls show Obama leading McCain by about 7 percentage points.
According to CNN's average of national polls, 5 percent of voters are still undecided.
McCain, Obama on blitz through battleground states on final day
Down in the polls, Sen. John McCain on Monday called on Pennsylvania to help him score an upset over Sen. Barack Obama.
We need to win in Pennsylvania and tomorrow, with your help, we will win," McCain said, pounding his fist on the podium at an event in Moon Township.
Obama leads McCain by 8 percentage points in Pennsylvania, 51 percent to 43 percent, according to CNN's latest average of state polls.
McCain's campaign has said it is buoyed by its internal numbers not showing up in public polling.
In the past two presidential elections, pre-election polling in Pennsylvania showed strong support for Democrats Al Gore and John Kerry, but both candidates ended up carrying the state by narrow margins.
McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, have visited Pennsylvania 10 times in 15 days.
The state has 21 electoral votes.
In his last visit to the state before voters go to the polls, McCain said, "The pundits have written me off just like they've done four or five times in the past.
They may not know it, but the Mac is back."
National polls show Obama leading McCain by about 7 percentage points.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Study links sexual content on TV to teen pregnancy
Sexual content on television is strongly associated with teen pregnancy, a new study from the RAND Corporation shows.
Researchers at the nonprofit organization found that adolescents with a high level of exposure to television shows with sexual content are twice as likely to get pregnant or impregnate someone as those who saw fewer programs of this kind over a period of three years.
It is the first study to demonstrate this association, RAND said.
A central message from the study is that there needs to be more dialogue about sex in the media, particularly among parents and their children, said Anita Chandra, the study's lead author and a behavioral scientist at RAND.
"We know that parents are busy, but sitting down and watching shows together with their teen, talking about the character portrayals, talking about what they just witnessed, and really using it as a teachable moment is really, I think, a good recommendation from this research," Chandra said.
To measure exposure, the researchers used a method developed by another research group evaluating 23 shows for sexual content.
Then, they asked teenagers how frequently they watched each of those shows, and developed a score based on exposure to the shows.
"We know that if a child is watching more than an hour of TV a day, we know there's a sexual scene in [the] content every 10 minutes, then they're getting a fair amount of sexual content," Chandra said.
The RAND study, published in the November edition of the journal Pediatrics, looked at the results of three surveys of about 2,000 adolescents ages 12 to 17 from 2001 to 2004.
It focused on the results from more than 700 participants nationwide who had engaged in sexual intercourse by the third survey.
Researchers asked adolescents about a mix of sitcoms, dramas, animated shows and reality shows known to have sexual content.
Chandra declined to name any specific programs, but said sexual content is "pretty pervasive."
The study also found that adolescents living in a two-parent household had a lower probability of pregnancy.
Study links sexual content on TV to teen pregnancy
Sexual content on television is strongly associated with teen pregnancy, a new study from the RAND Corporation shows.
Researchers at the nonprofit organization found that adolescents with a high level of exposure to television shows with sexual content are twice as likely to get pregnant or impregnate someone as those who saw fewer programs of this kind over a period of three years.
It is the first study to demonstrate this association, RAND said.
A central message from the study is that there needs to be more dialogue about sex in the media, particularly among parents and their children, said Anita Chandra, the study's lead author and a behavioral scientist at RAND.
"We know that parents are busy, but sitting down and watching shows together with their teen, talking about the character portrayals, talking about what they just witnessed, and really using it as a teachable moment is really, I think, a good recommendation from this research," Chandra said.
To measure exposure, the researchers used a method developed by another research group evaluating 23 shows for sexual content.
Then, they asked teenagers how frequently they watched each of those shows, and developed a score based on exposure to the shows.
"We know that if a child is watching more than an hour of TV a day, we know there's a sexual scene in [the] content every 10 minutes, then they're getting a fair amount of sexual content," Chandra said.
The RAND study, published in the November edition of the journal Pediatrics, looked at the results of three surveys of about 2,000 adolescents ages 12 to 17 from 2001 to 2004.
It focused on the results from more than 700 participants nationwide who had engaged in sexual intercourse by the third survey.
Researchers asked adolescents about a mix of sitcoms, dramas, animated shows and reality shows known to have sexual content.
Chandra declined to name any specific programs, but said sexual content is "pretty pervasive."
The study also found that adolescents living in a two-parent household had a lower probability of pregnancy.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Health experts were on Monday examining the home and workshop of a London drum-maker who died after inhaling anthrax spores while handling imported animal skins.
Fernando Gomez, 35, from east London, had been in intensive care for several days but died on Sunday, hospital officials said.
Gomez's flat was sealed off by the Health Protection Agency (HPA) for examination and checks were taking place at his workshop, which is also in the borough of Hackney.
Seven people who came into contact with the skins received antibiotics as a precautionary measure, the UK's Press Association reported, but the HPA said no one had developed symptoms.
Professor Nigel Lightfoot, the HPA's chief adviser, said local residents were not at risk.
"It is important to stress that it is the making of animal skin drums that is the risk for coming into contact with anthrax rather than playing or handling drums," he told PA.
"We are, however, keen to reiterate to all individuals who make drums from imported animal skins that there is a risk of coming into contact with anthrax and that they should ensure they are aware of this and take precautions to protect themselves when making these drums."
Jules Pipe, the mayor of Hackney, added: "It is through making these drums that exposure to and inhalation of anthrax spores on an imported animal hide occurred. "This is an extremely rare case and this type of anthrax cannot be passed from person to person."
Anthrax is a contagious infection that usually only afflicts livestock, but humans who handle or eat infected animals can contract it.
Anthrax inhalation is very rare, and is not contagious.
Health experts were on Monday examining the home and workshop of a London drum-maker who died after inhaling anthrax spores while handling imported animal skins.
Fernando Gomez, 35, from east London, had been in intensive care for several days but died on Sunday, hospital officials said.
Gomez's flat was sealed off by the Health Protection Agency (HPA) for examination and checks were taking place at his workshop, which is also in the borough of Hackney.
Seven people who came into contact with the skins received antibiotics as a precautionary measure, the UK's Press Association reported, but the HPA said no one had developed symptoms.
Professor Nigel Lightfoot, the HPA's chief adviser, said local residents were not at risk.
"It is important to stress that it is the making of animal skin drums that is the risk for coming into contact with anthrax rather than playing or handling drums," he told PA.
"We are, however, keen to reiterate to all individuals who make drums from imported animal skins that there is a risk of coming into contact with anthrax and that they should ensure they are aware of this and take precautions to protect themselves when making these drums."
Jules Pipe, the mayor of Hackney, added: "It is through making these drums that exposure to and inhalation of anthrax spores on an imported animal hide occurred. "This is an extremely rare case and this type of anthrax cannot be passed from person to person."
Anthrax is a contagious infection that usually only afflicts livestock, but humans who handle or eat infected animals can contract it.
Anthrax inhalation is very rare, and is not contagious.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Protests mark China envoy`s Taiwan trip
Envoys from Taiwan and China approved a plan to hold periodic high-level talks Tuesday during a meeting on a trade agreement that could help ease the threat of war between the rivals.
the highest-ranking Chinese official to visit Taiwan in six decades
was greeted on arrival by anti-China protesters waving signs, calling him a communist bandit and rallying outside the legislature.
During Tuesday's two-hour meeting, Chen and chief Taiwanese negotiator Chiang Pin-kung agreed to hold high-level talks every six months alternatively in Taipei and Beijing, Taiwanese official Kao Koong-lian told reporters.
Kao said the next round will focus on financial cooperation.
The two sides will aim to sign a memorandum of understanding allowing banks to set up branches on each side, he said.
The two envoys are expected to sign the trade pact later in the day, a deal would allow direct shipping links across the Taiwan Strait and would further expand the number of weekly passenger flights from 36 to 108.
Cargo flights would be allowed for the first time, with 60 crossing the strait each month.
In a statement as the meeting opened, Chen said the session meant that "both sides have grasped a rare historic opportunity" and that future talks should deal with finance. "We face a global economic slowdown and uncertainties have increased in the environment.
The financial turmoil is more severe than the 1997 Asian financial crisis," he said.
"The conditions pose severe challenges to both sides and highlight the importance of financial and economic cooperation."
The meeting drew applause from three chambers of commerce representing America, Japan and Europe.
In a joint statement, the business groups said restrictions on flights and shipping have kept Taiwan from fully participating in the global and Asian economies.
Chen was mostly insulated Monday from the noisy crowds of Taiwan independence supporters, who were blocked or dragged away by security forces.
About 5,000 police were guarding the capital, Taipei, during Chen's five-day trip.
Making sure that Chen's visit went smoothly was extremely important to Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou.
He was elected last March, promising voters he would ease tensions with China and forge closer trade ties with the huge neighbor, just 100 miles across the Taiwan Strait.
It has taken such a high-ranking Chinese official six decades to visit this island because deeply rooted hostilities and suspicions have prevented such exchanges.
Protests mark China envoy`s Taiwan trip
Envoys from Taiwan and China approved a plan to hold periodic high-level talks Tuesday during a meeting on a trade agreement that could help ease the threat of war between the rivals.
the highest-ranking Chinese official to visit Taiwan in six decades
was greeted on arrival by anti-China protesters waving signs, calling him a communist bandit and rallying outside the legislature.
During Tuesday's two-hour meeting, Chen and chief Taiwanese negotiator Chiang Pin-kung agreed to hold high-level talks every six months alternatively in Taipei and Beijing, Taiwanese official Kao Koong-lian told reporters.
Kao said the next round will focus on financial cooperation.
The two sides will aim to sign a memorandum of understanding allowing banks to set up branches on each side, he said.
The two envoys are expected to sign the trade pact later in the day, a deal would allow direct shipping links across the Taiwan Strait and would further expand the number of weekly passenger flights from 36 to 108.
Cargo flights would be allowed for the first time, with 60 crossing the strait each month.
In a statement as the meeting opened, Chen said the session meant that "both sides have grasped a rare historic opportunity" and that future talks should deal with finance. "We face a global economic slowdown and uncertainties have increased in the environment.
The financial turmoil is more severe than the 1997 Asian financial crisis," he said.
"The conditions pose severe challenges to both sides and highlight the importance of financial and economic cooperation."
The meeting drew applause from three chambers of commerce representing America, Japan and Europe.
In a joint statement, the business groups said restrictions on flights and shipping have kept Taiwan from fully participating in the global and Asian economies.
Chen was mostly insulated Monday from the noisy crowds of Taiwan independence supporters, who were blocked or dragged away by security forces.
About 5,000 police were guarding the capital, Taipei, during Chen's five-day trip.
Making sure that Chen's visit went smoothly was extremely important to Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou.
He was elected last March, promising voters he would ease tensions with China and forge closer trade ties with the huge neighbor, just 100 miles across the Taiwan Strait.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Keanu Reeves doesn`t owe photog anything
It's a most excellent outcome for Keanu Reeves:
The "Matrix" actor doesn't owe a dime to the paparazzo who sued him.
After deliberating for less than three hours, jurors unanimously rejected the civil lawsuit Monday, ruling that Reeves is not responsible for the photographer's alleged injuries.
Alison Silva had asked the jury to award him $711,974, which includes medical bills, lost wages and punitive damages.
"I respect the jury's decision," Silva told reporters outside the Los Angeles County Superior Court after the verdict was read.
Silva said he would continue to work as a paparazzo despite the jury's decision.
Silva claimed that the star of "The Matrix," "Speed" and "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" struck him with his Porsche in March 2007, causing him to fall and injure his left wrist.
The actor waited for the verdict outside the courthouse's cafeteria on the roof but declined to comment after the decision.
Reeves, who stars in the upcoming remake of "The Day the Earth Stood Still," testified early on.
He remained in the courtroom throughout the five-day trial, occasionally conferring with his lawyers and signing autographs in the hallway.
Keanu Reeves doesn`t owe photog anything
It's a most excellent outcome for Keanu Reeves:
The "Matrix" actor doesn't owe a dime to the paparazzo who sued him.
After deliberating for less than three hours, jurors unanimously rejected the civil lawsuit Monday, ruling that Reeves is not responsible for the photographer's alleged injuries.
Alison Silva had asked the jury to award him $711,974, which includes medical bills, lost wages and punitive damages.
"I respect the jury's decision," Silva told reporters outside the Los Angeles County Superior Court after the verdict was read.
Silva said he would continue to work as a paparazzo despite the jury's decision.
Silva claimed that the star of "The Matrix," "Speed" and "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" struck him with his Porsche in March 2007, causing him to fall and injure his left wrist.
The actor waited for the verdict outside the courthouse's cafeteria on the roof but declined to comment after the decision.
Reeves, who stars in the upcoming remake of "The Day the Earth Stood Still," testified early on.
He remained in the courtroom throughout the five-day trial, occasionally conferring with his lawyers and signing autographs in the hallway.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
World No. 1 Nadal pulls out of Masters Cup
Rafael Nadal pulled out of the season-ending Masters Cup in Shanghai on Monday, citing fatigue after a long season and the need to prepare for the Davis Cup final.
The world's top-ranked player made the announcement on his Web site, describing his withdrawal as "one of the most difficult decisions in my career."
Nadal, who won two Grand Slam titles and the Olympic gold medal this year as he supplanted Roger Federer at No. 1, said he was physically rundown.
"It has been a long and difficult year where I managed to obtain great results, both on a professional and on a personal level," he said.
The Spaniard, winner of a fourth straight French Open title and first Wimbledon championship this year, withdrew from the Paris Masters last Friday with a knee problem after losing the first set of his quarterfinal match against Nikolai Davydenko.
"On a personal level I had as one of my goals to become No. 1 during this year and competing at so many events might have harmed, especially at the end of the season, my physical condition, taking away the freshness needed to play at the top level of the game in these last events," Nadal said.
Nadal also said he hoped that his absence would buy him time for the Davis Cup final against hosts Argentina from November 21-23.
"I want to recover and be ready for the important Davis Cup final with my country that will be played in Mar del Plata, Argentina. That is also another reason for not coming to Shanghai," Nadal added.
The Spaniard's absence should boost the chances of Federer of winning his fifth Masters Cup, following his triumphs in 2003, 2004, 2006 and 2007.
World No. 1 Nadal pulls out of Masters Cup
Rafael Nadal pulled out of the season-ending Masters Cup in Shanghai on Monday, citing fatigue after a long season and the need to prepare for the Davis Cup final.
The world's top-ranked player made the announcement on his Web site, describing his withdrawal as "one of the most difficult decisions in my career."
Nadal, who won two Grand Slam titles and the Olympic gold medal this year as he supplanted Roger Federer at No. 1, said he was physically rundown.
"It has been a long and difficult year where I managed to obtain great results, both on a professional and on a personal level," he said.
The Spaniard, winner of a fourth straight French Open title and first Wimbledon championship this year, withdrew from the Paris Masters last Friday with a knee problem after losing the first set of his quarterfinal match against Nikolai Davydenko.
"On a personal level I had as one of my goals to become No. 1 during this year and competing at so many events might have harmed, especially at the end of the season, my physical condition, taking away the freshness needed to play at the top level of the game in these last events," Nadal said.
Nadal also said he hoped that his absence would buy him time for the Davis Cup final against hosts Argentina from November 21-23.
"I want to recover and be ready for the important Davis Cup final with my country that will be played in Mar del Plata, Argentina.
That is also another reason for not coming to Shanghai," Nadal added.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Voters tag economy as Issue No. 1
In the face of what's arguably the darkest economic outlook since the Great Depression, voters say the economy is overwhelmingly the most important issue this election.
About 62% of voters polled listed the economy as the No. 1 issue, according to exit polls conducted by CNN.
Iraq ranked a distant second, with 10% naming the war as their top concern.
Terrorism and healthcare rounded out the top four, garnering 9% each.
In 2006 voters ranked Iraq as their top concern, and in 2004 it was terrorism.
Only 7% of those polled said the economy was in good shape, while 93% said it was not good.
On the bright side, 47% said the economy should get better in the next year.
About 23% said it would get worse, and 26% said it will stay the same.
No matter who wins the White House, it seems most voters are prepared to pay more in taxes.
Some 70% said Democrat Barack Obama would raise taxes if elected, while 61% said Republican John McCain would also.
The economy has dominated the last leg of the campaign trail as the two candidates have tried to convince voters that they are the best candidate to handle the financial crisis.
Over the last two months the economy has dominated headlines as mortgage defaults originating in the United States have felled once-mighty banks worldwide and led to a freeze in credit that prompted massive government intervention.
Many analysts say this financial crisis is the worst since the Great Depression.
For a worldwide economy already on the rocks, the credit freeze-up could mean a global recession as banks hoard money and business can't expand.
In the United States, a recession is almost all but guaranteed, with many observers saying it could be particularly nasty and last over a year.
Americans have been particularly hard hit already.
Home prices have fallen almost 20% over the last year and the economy has shed over 760,000 jobs.
High food and, until recently, energy prices have also pinched extra spending money.
For the exit poll, voters were selected at random to fill out questionnaires after voting.
In the face of what's arguably the darkest economic outlook since the Great Depression, voters say the economy is overwhelmingly the most important issue this election.
About 62% of voters polled listed the economy as the No. 1 issue, according to exit polls conducted by CNN.
Iraq ranked a distant second, with 10% naming the war as their top concern.
Terrorism and healthcare rounded out the top four, garnering 9% each.
In 2006 voters ranked Iraq as their top concern, and in 2004 it was terrorism.
Only 7% of those polled said the economy was in good shape, while 93% said it was not good.
On the bright side, 47% said the economy should get better in the next year.
About 23% said it would get worse, and 26% said it will stay the same.
No matter who wins the White House, it seems most voters are prepared to pay more in taxes.
Some 70% said Democrat Barack Obama would raise taxes if elected, while 61% said Republican John McCain would also.
The economy has dominated the last leg of the campaign trail as the two candidates have tried to convince voters that they are the best candidate to handle the financial crisis.
Over the last two months the economy has dominated headlines as mortgage defaults originating in the United States have felled once-mighty banks worldwide and led to a freeze in credit that prompted massive government intervention.
Many analysts say this financial crisis is the worst since the Great Depression.
For a worldwide economy already on the rocks, the credit freeze-up could mean a global recession as banks hoard money and business can't expand.
In the United States, a recession is almost all but guaranteed, with many observers saying it could be particularly nasty and last over a year.
Americans have been particularly hard hit already.
Home prices have fallen almost 20% over the last year and the economy has shed over 760,000 jobs.
High food and, until recently, energy prices have also pinched extra spending money.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Virtual voters follow election in cyberspace
A group of people have gathered beside a gazebo in an outdoor park to discuss the presidential election.
But the park isn't real, it's in the online virtual world of Second Life, where pixelated avatars fly around and interact with each other.
The folks in the park are hanging out at the Straight Talk Cafe, an online enclave that supports John McCain.
"I think we need to know a little bit more about Obama," a character named Sophia Yates tells the group.
She's interrupted by another character, Auryn Karu, demanding to hear the group's thoughts about Sarah Palin.
"Auryn, just go to Obama's world," says another avatar, MarsS Juran.
Volunteers for the presidential candidates unofficially created campaign headquarters, held grass roots rallies, handed out virtual buttons and T-shirts, and signed up actual voters in Second Life, the vast virtual world developed by San Francisco-based Linden Lab.
Many people decided to spend Election Day as their avatars and they weren't alone.
Across the Internet, election watchers were discussing, celebrating and bemoaning the political process inside such virtual worlds and on social networking sites and blogs.
They were also using techno-savvy Web sites such as Twitter, Google Maps and Flickr to share individual voting experiences, as well as monitor polling places across the country on Tuesday.
At the nonpartisan TwitterVoteReport.com, specially tagged Twitter.com micro-blogs about voting were being aggregated and pinpointed on an ever-changing online map.
The 140-characters-or-less posts, called tweets, may even be broadcast during election coverage on the cable network Current.
The site also used tweets to estimate voting wait times.
Some were simply informal.
"Looking for a good place to watch the returns come in on the Upper West Side in NYC," tweeted Colleen Newvine on Monday.
Not all the online pursuits were serious.
In Electronic Arts' species simulator "Spore," the game's developer created downloadable spaceships in the candidates' likeness.
Virtual voters follow election in cyberspace
A group of people have gathered beside a gazebo in an outdoor park to discuss the presidential election.
But the park isn't real, it's in the online virtual world of Second Life, where pixelated avatars fly around and interact with each other.
The folks in the park are hanging out at the Straight Talk Cafe, an online enclave that supports John McCain.
"I think we need to know a little bit more about Obama," a character named Sophia Yates tells the group.
She's interrupted by another character, Auryn Karu, demanding to hear the group's thoughts about Sarah Palin.
"Auryn, just go to Obama's world," says another avatar, MarsS Juran.
Volunteers for the presidential candidates unofficially created campaign headquarters, held grass roots rallies, handed out virtual buttons and T-shirts, and signed up actual voters in Second Life, the vast virtual world developed by San Francisco-based Linden Lab.
Many people decided to spend Election Day as their avatars and they weren't alone.
Across the Internet, election watchers were discussing, celebrating and bemoaning the political process inside such virtual worlds and on social networking sites and blogs.
They were also using techno-savvy Web sites such as Twitter, Google Maps and Flickr to share individual voting experiences, as well as monitor polling places across the country on Tuesday.
At the nonpartisan TwitterVoteReport.com, specially tagged Twitter.com micro-blogs about voting were being aggregated and pinpointed on an ever-changing online map.
The 140-characters-or-less posts, called tweets, may even be broadcast during election coverage on the cable network Current.
The site also used tweets to estimate voting wait times.
Some were simply informal.
"Looking for a good place to watch the returns come in on the Upper West Side in NYC," tweeted Colleen Newvine on Monday.
Not all the online pursuits were serious.
In Electronic Arts' species simulator "Spore," the game's developer created downloadable spaceships in the candidates' likeness.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
BMW heiress `blackmailed for millions`
Germany's richest woman has said a former lover has threatened to release pictures of them together if she does not pay him millions of euros (dollars), according to her spokesman.
Susanne Klatten's spokesman Joerg Appelhans told CNN Tuesday that the BMW heiress alerted police in January this year that she was the victim of fraud and blackmail by a man he identified as Mr. S.
Appelhans said the man had been threatening since autumn 2007 to release pictures of their "meetings" together.
Klatten "came to the conclusion that the relationship with Mr. S. was of a solely criminal nature," Appelhans said.
Some German media reports say Klatten is one of four rich German women who have been preyed on by the same gang.
The ensuing criminal investigation led to the arrest of the perpetrator," Appelhans added. "The blackmailing with pictures of the meetings they had began in the fall of 2007.
Anton Winkler, from the Munich state prosecutor's office, confirmed that an investigation has been opened and that a man called Helg Scarbi was arrested in January and is in custody in Munich.
Klatten, the daughter of the late BMW chief Herbert Quandt, holds a 12.5-percent stake in the German carmaker and a 51.1-percent share of chemical company Altana.
In 2007 Forbes magazine listed her as the world's 68th richest person, with a personal fortune of $9.6 billion.
BMW heiress `blackmailed for millions`
Germany's richest woman has said a former lover has threatened to release pictures of them together if she does not pay him millions of euros (dollars), according to her spokesman.
Susanne Klatten's spokesman Joerg Appelhans told CNN Tuesday that the BMW heiress alerted police in January this year that she was the victim of fraud and blackmail by a man he identified as Mr. S.
Appelhans said the man had been threatening since autumn 2007 to release pictures of their "meetings" together.
Klatten "came to the conclusion that the relationship with Mr. S. was of a solely criminal nature," Appelhans said.
Some German media reports say Klatten is one of four rich German women who have been preyed on by the same gang.
"His goal was from the beginning to con her and to blackmail her into giving him money.
She rigorously notified authorities even in light of the uncomfortable public repercussions this would have for her.
"The blackmailing with pictures of the meetings they had began in the fall of 2007.
First, the blackmailer demanded a loan of several million euros.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Jane Fonda back on Broadway for `33 Variations`
Jane Fonda, activist, author and exercise guru, will be back on Broadway in 2009 after an absence of more than four decades.
The Academy Award-winning actress will star in "33 Variations," a play by Moises Kaufman about a present-day musicologist (played by Fonda) and her study of Beethoven's fascination with a particular piece of music.
Kaufman will also direct.
The production will open this winter at a theater and date to be determined, producer David Binder announced Monday.
"I am very excited about being in Moises' new play," Fonda said in a statement.
"I can't wait to get back on stage with him in this role that I understand so well.
Fonda won her Oscars for "Klute" and "Coming Home."
She has also appeared in such films as "On Golden Pond," "Nine to Five," "Julia," "Fun With Dick and Jane," "Barbarella," "Barefoot in the Park," "Cat Ballou" and "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?"
Fonda, who lives in Atlanta, Georgia, is active in many social causes, particularly through the Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention, an organization she founded in 1995.
She produced nearly two dozen exercise videos and her autobiography, "My Life So Far," was a best seller.
Fonda made her Broadway debut in 1960 in a short-lived play called "There Was a Little Girl."
Later that year, she appeared in Arthur Laurents' comedy "Invitation to a March," which had incidental music by Stephen Sondheim.
Jane Fonda back on Broadway for `33 Variations`
Jane Fonda, activist, author and exercise guru, will be back on Broadway in 2009 after an absence of more than four decades.
The Academy Award-winning actress will star in "33 Variations," a play by Moises Kaufman about a present-day musicologist (played by Fonda) and her study of Beethoven's fascination with a particular piece of music.
Kaufman will also direct.
The production will open this winter at a theater and date to be determined, producer David Binder announced Monday.
"I am very excited about being in Moises' new play," Fonda said in a statement.
"I can't wait to get back on stage with him in this role that I understand so well.
Fonda won her Oscars for "Klute" and "Coming Home."
She has also appeared in such films as "On Golden Pond," "Nine to Five," "Julia," "Fun With Dick and Jane," "Barbarella," "Barefoot in the Park," "Cat Ballou" and "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?"
Fonda, who lives in Atlanta, Georgia, is active in many social causes, particularly through the Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention, an organization she founded in 1995.
She produced nearly two dozen exercise videos and her autobiography, "My Life So Far," was a best seller.
Fonda made her Broadway debut in 1960 in a short-lived play called "There Was a Little Girl."
Later that year, she appeared in Arthur Laurents' comedy "Invitation to a March," which had incidental music by Stephen Sondheim.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Premier League leaders Chelsea suffered a humiliating 3-1 defeat to AS Roma who revived their Champions League qualifying hopes with the emphatic victory in the Stadio Olimpico on Tuesday night.
Roma went into the Group A game off the back of a 2-0 defeat at Juventus which left them one place above the Serie A relegation zone and with coach Luciano Spalletti under heavy pressure.
But their indifferent form counted for little as a first half strike from Christian Panucci and a superb double after the break from Mirko Vucinic sunk Luiz Felipe Scolari's men.
"First, we did not play very well," Scolari told Associated Press.
(We gave) Roma their two best chances and Roma took it and killed the game.
"Roma maybe did not play one or two or three games very well here in Italy, but they have very good players and when you give them chances like tonight they're tough to stop."
Chelsea had made the better start as they looked for the win which would have all but sealed qualification for the knockout stages.
Roma goalkeeper Alexander Doni pulled off good saves from Deco and Frank Lampard before Panucci put the home side ahead in the 33rd minute.
The second half was only three minutes old when Vucinic rifled home a shot from outside the penalty area which left Petr Cech clutching at fresh air.
Chelsea pushed forward, but were caught out again in the 58th minute as Jon Obi Mikel was robbed by Vucinic who stole forward to beat Cech with a low shot.
It was his eighth goal in 18 Champions League appearances.
Chelsea pulled one back on 75 minutes as Deco's shot was only parried out to captain John Terry, who tapped in from close range with Roma appealing for handball.
But they never looked capable of getting back on even terms as Roma held on for a famous victory, made easier by the sending off on 80 minutes of Deco, who was sent off for a second yellow card.
Chelsea still lead on seven points from four games, closely trailed by Roma.
Premier League leaders Chelsea suffered a humiliating 3-1 defeat to AS Roma who revived their Champions League qualifying hopes with the emphatic victory in the Stadio Olimpico on Tuesday night.
Roma went into the Group A game off the back of a 2-0 defeat at Juventus which left them one place above the Serie A relegation zone and with coach Luciano Spalletti under heavy pressure.
But their indifferent form counted for little as a first half strike from Christian Panucci and a superb double after the break from Mirko Vucinic sunk Luiz Felipe Scolari's men.
"First, we did not play very well," Scolari told Associated Press.
(We gave) Roma their two best chances and Roma took it and killed the game.
"Roma maybe did not play one or two or three games very well here in Italy, but they have very good players and when you give them chances like tonight they're tough to stop."
Chelsea had made the better start as they looked for the win which would have all but sealed qualification for the knockout stages.
Roma goalkeeper Alexander Doni pulled off good saves from Deco and Frank Lampard before Panucci put the home side ahead in the 33rd minute.
The second half was only three minutes old when Vucinic rifled home a shot from outside the penalty area which left Petr Cech clutching at fresh air.
Chelsea pushed forward, but were caught out again in the 58th minute as Jon Obi Mikel was robbed by Vucinic who stole forward to beat Cech with a low shot.
It was his eighth goal in 18 Champions League appearances.
Chelsea pulled one back on 75 minutes as Deco's shot was only parried out to captain John Terry, who tapped in from close range with Roma appealing for handball.
But they never looked capable of getting back on even terms as Roma held on for a famous victory, made easier by the sending off on 80 minutes of Deco, who was sent off for a second yellow card.
Chelsea still lead on seven points from four games, closely trailed by Roma.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
McCain pledges to help Obama lead
Sen. John McCain on Tuesday urged all Americans to join him in congratulating Sen. Barack Obama on his projected victory in the presidential election.
"I pledge to him tonight to do all in my power to help him lead us through the many challenges we face," McCain said before his supporters in Phoenix, Arizona.
"Today, I was a candidate for the highest office in the country I love so much, and tonight, I remain her servant," he said.
McCain's running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin, was standing with him, but she did not speak.
McCain called Obama to congratulate him, Obama's campaign said.
Obama thanked McCain for his graciousness and said he had waged a tough race.
President Bush also called Obama to congratulate him.
With his projected win, Obama will become the nation's 44th president and its first African-American leader.
Obama will address the country from a rally in Chicago, Illinois, at midnight.
Supporters in Chicago cheering, "Yes, we can" were met with cries of "Yes, we did."
Obama's former rival for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Hillary Clinton said in a statement that "we are celebrating an historic victory for the American people."
"This was a long and hard fought campaign but the result was well worth the wait. Together, under the leadership of President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and a Democratic Congress, we will chart a better course to build a new economy and rebuild our leadership in the world."
The Illinois senator is projected to pick up a big win in Virginia, a state that hasn't voted for a Democratic president since 1964.
McCain pledges to help Obama lead
Sen. John McCain on Tuesday urged all Americans to join him in congratulating Sen. Barack Obama on his projected victory in the presidential election.
"I pledge to him tonight to do all in my power to help him lead us through the many challenges we face," McCain said before his supporters in Phoenix, Arizona.
"Today, I was a candidate for the highest office in the country I love so much, and tonight, I remain her servant," he said.
McCain's running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin, was standing with him, but she did not speak.
McCain called Obama to congratulate him, Obama's campaign said.
Obama thanked McCain for his graciousness and said he had waged a tough race.
President Bush also called Obama to congratulate him.
With his projected win, Obama will become the nation's 44th president and its first African-American leader.
Obama will address the country from a rally in Chicago, Illinois, at midnight.
Supporters in Chicago cheering, "Yes, we can" were met with cries of "Yes, we did."
Obama's former rival for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Hillary Clinton said in a statement that "we are celebrating an historic victory for the American people."
"This was a long and hard fought campaign but the result was well worth the wait. Together, under the leadership of President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and a Democratic Congress, we will chart a better course to build a new economy and rebuild our leadership in the world."
The Illinois senator is projected to pick up a big win in Virginia, a state that hasn't voted for a Democratic president since 1964.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Move over Barney, new dog moving into White House
Barack Obama's two daughters had another reason to high-five their dad's election to the presidency Tuesday night: they're getting a puppy.
"Sasha and Malia," Obama said in his victory speech at Chicago's Grant Park, "I love you both so much, and you have earned the new puppy that's coming with us to the White House."
The new White House pet will follow in the paw-steps of a menagerie of animals that have had the run of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue over the years.
The Bush family shared their eight years at the White House with a cat, a feisty English springer spaniel and two Scottish terriers
all of whom have their own pages on the president's Web site.
The Clintons' Washington stay included a cat, Socks, who did not get along with their chocolate Labrador retriever, Buddy.
And Millie the springer spaniel's canine view of life in the White House as "told to" then-first lady Barbara Bush
became a best-seller that outsold the memoirs of President George H.W. Bush.
Thomas Jefferson kept two grizzly bears in a cage on the White House lawn, while John Quincy Adams is said to have let his alligator use a bathtub inside.
Calvin Coolidge walked his raccoons on a leash.
Theodore Roosevelt's sons escorted their pet pony onto the White House elevator to cheer up a sick sibling.
And perhaps the strangest of all: Martin Van Buren briefly owned two tiger cubs, a gift from the Sultan of Oman.
Pets have sometimes been a boon to a president's image. But some have also taken a bite out of their popularity.
Animal lovers howled in protest when Lyndon B. Johnson picked up his beagles, Him and Her, by the ears to provide photographers a better view. On the other hand, Richard Nixon
running for vice president and accused of accepting illegal campaign contributions successfully defended himself in his famous "Checkers Speech."
The only gift he ever accepted was "a little cocker spaniel dog" that his daughter named Checkers, Nixon said.
"And I just want to say this, right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we are going to keep it," he added.
Come January, the Obamas will make history by becoming the first African-American family to move into the White House.
Move over Barney, new dog moving into White House
Barack Obama's two daughters had another reason to high-five their dad's election to the presidency Tuesday night: they're getting a puppy.
"Sasha and Malia," Obama said in his victory speech at Chicago's Grant Park, "I love you both so much, and you have earned the new puppy that's coming with us to the White House."
The new White House pet will follow in the paw-steps of a menagerie of animals that have had the run of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue over the years.
The Bush family shared their eight years at the White House with a cat, a feisty English springer spaniel and two Scottish terriers
all of whom have their own pages on the president's Web site.
The Clintons' Washington stay included a cat, Socks, who did not get along with their chocolate Labrador retriever, Buddy.
And Millie the springer spaniel's canine view of life in the White House as "told to" then-first lady Barbara Bush
became a best-seller that outsold the memoirs of President George H.W. Bush.
Thomas Jefferson kept two grizzly bears in a cage on the White House lawn, while John Quincy Adams is said to have let his alligator use a bathtub inside.
Calvin Coolidge walked his raccoons on a leash.
Theodore Roosevelt's sons escorted their pet pony onto the White House elevator to cheer up a sick sibling.
And perhaps the strangest of all: Martin Van Buren briefly owned two tiger cubs, a gift from the Sultan of Oman.
Pets have sometimes been a boon to a president's image. But some have also taken a bite out of their popularity.
Animal lovers howled in protest when Lyndon B. Johnson picked up his beagles, Him and Her, by the ears to provide photographers a better view. On the other hand, Richard Nixon
running for vice president and accused of accepting illegal campaign contributions successfully defended himself in his famous "Checkers Speech."
The only gift he ever accepted was "a little cocker spaniel dog" that his daughter named Checkers, Nixon said.
"And I just want to say this, right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we are going to keep it," he added.
Come January, the Obamas will make history by becoming the first African-American family to move into the White House.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
All Americans can be proud
World leaders rushed to congratulate President-elect Barack Obama as incumbent George W. Bush called his win "a testament to hard work, optimism and faith in the enduring promise of our nation."
Speaking from the White House, Bush said the people had chosen a president "whose journey represents a triumph of the American story."
"It will be a stirring sight to watch President Obama, his wife, Michelle and their beautiful girls step through the doors of the White House.
"I know millions of Americans will be overcome with pride at this inspiring moment that so many have waited for for so long."
Across the globe, people in city squares and villages, living rooms and shacks cheered his success, boosting hopes that America's first black commander-in-chief might herald a more conciliatory approach to the rest of the world.
Leading the congratulations by world leaders, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he was excited about the prospect of working with the new U.S. president.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel also offered her congratulations and said she would work with Obama to deal with the challenges facing the world.
Chinese President Hu Jintao offered similar congratulations, urging Obama to join China in shouldering "important common responsibilities."
In Kenya, Obama's extended family danced in his ancestral village of Kogelo, chanting, "Barack Obama, Barack Obama is going to the White House."
Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki called Obama's election "a momentous day not only in the history of the United States of America, but also for us in Kenya. The victory of Senator Obama is our own victory because of his roots here in Kenya.
As a country, we are full of pride for his success." Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said: "On a personal note, as an African-American, I am especially proud because this is a country that's been through long journey in overcoming wounds, and making race not the factor in our lives."
Her predecessor, another African-American, Colin Powell said he wept as he watched Obama deliver his victory speech in Chicago's Grant Park.
He has a definitive way of doing business that will do us well," Powell said Wednesday.
In Jakarta, Indonesia, where Obama lived with his mother and stepfather in the late 1960s, hundreds of students at his old elementary school poured into the playground and danced in the rain, some chanting "Obama!
In a Japanese town bearing Obama's name, jubilation took a few minutes to translate from the group of American teachers to the local crowd, which also cheered "O-ba-ma!"
CNN's Kyung Lah reported.
In an open letter to Obama, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Obama's election raised in France, in Europe and around the world "an immense hope" and that the American people "had expressed with force their faith in progress and the future."
Afghan president Hamid Karzai said the American people have taken "themselves ... and the rest of the world into a new era, the era where race, color and ethnicity ... will also disappear as a factor in politics in the rest of the world."
"We look forward to relations between our two countries that witness, during your rule, further consolidation and development in all different fields, based on a firm contractual ground, common interests and similar values."
"We have no doubt that that the special relations between the two nations will continue and strengthen during the Obama administration."
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev congratulated Obama on his victory and said he was hoping for constructive dialogue with the incoming U.S. president but also highlighted differences between the two countries, including the missile defense plan.
All Americans can be proud
World leaders rushed to congratulate President-elect Barack Obama as incumbent George W. Bush called his win "a testament to hard work, optimism and faith in the enduring promise of our nation."
Speaking from the White House, Bush said the people had chosen a president "whose journey represents a triumph of the American story."
"It will be a stirring sight to watch President Obama, his wife, Michelle and their beautiful girls step through the doors of the White House.
"I know millions of Americans will be overcome with pride at this inspiring moment that so many have waited for for so long."
Across the globe, people in city squares and villages, living rooms and shacks cheered his success, boosting hopes that America's first black commander-in-chief might herald a more conciliatory approach to the rest of the world.
Leading the congratulations by world leaders, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he was excited about the prospect of working with the new U.S. president.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel also offered her congratulations and said she would work with Obama to deal with the challenges facing the world.
Chinese President Hu Jintao offered similar congratulations, urging Obama to join China in shouldering "important common responsibilities."
In Kenya, Obama's extended family danced in his ancestral village of Kogelo, chanting, "Barack Obama, Barack Obama is going to the White House."
Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki called Obama's election "a momentous day not only in the history of the United States of America, but also for us in Kenya. The victory of Senator Obama is our own victory because of his roots here in Kenya.
As a country, we are full of pride for his success." Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said: "On a personal note, as an African-American, I am especially proud because this is a country that's been through long journey in overcoming wounds, and making race not the factor in our lives."
Her predecessor, another African-American, Colin Powell said he wept as he watched Obama deliver his victory speech in Chicago's Grant Park.
He has a definitive way of doing business that will do us well," Powell said Wednesday.
In Jakarta, Indonesia, where Obama lived with his mother and stepfather in the late 1960s, hundreds of students at his old elementary school poured into the playground and danced in the rain, some chanting "Obama!
In a Japanese town bearing Obama's name, jubilation took a few minutes to translate from the group of American teachers to the local crowd, which also cheered "O-ba-ma!"
CNN's Kyung Lah reported.
In an open letter to Obama, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Obama's election raised in France, in Europe and around the world "an immense hope" and that the American people "had expressed with force their faith in progress and the future."
Afghan president Hamid Karzai said the American people have taken "themselves ... and the rest of the world into a new era, the era where race, color and ethnicity ... will also disappear as a factor in politics in the rest of the world."
"We look forward to relations between our two countries that witness, during your rule, further consolidation and development in all different fields, based on a firm contractual ground, common interests and similar values."
"We have no doubt that that the special relations between the two nations will continue and strengthen during the Obama administration."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Just hours after U.S. President-elect Barack Obama delivered his victory speech, Russia's leader delivered a scathing rebuke of U.S. policy and reminded Obama of some of the major foreign policy challenges he will face in office.
In his first state-of-the-nation speech since taking office earlier this year, President Dmitry Medvedev warned that Russian missiles will be deployed against the planned U.S. missile shield in eastern Europe.
"The Iskander missile system will be deployed in Kaliningrad region to neutralize, when necessary, the missile shield," Medvedev said. "We are also planning to use the resources of the Russian naval fleet for these purposes."
Moscow has long been infuriated by a U.S. plan for the defensive missile installation, which includes basing missile interceptors in Poland.
Russian officials previously warned that such a move would open Poland up to an attack in the event of conflict.
Under the U.S. plan, the interceptor rockets in Poland would be linked to an air-defense radar system in the Czech Republic.
Russia fears the missile shield would blunt its nuclear deterrent.
At the Pentagon, spokesman Bryan Whitman reiterated Wednesday that the missiles are not aimed at Russia and are designed as a defensive shield for U.S. allies in Europe.
He said the shield is designed with the possibility of Iranian ballistic missiles in mind.
Medvedev had more harsh words for America, criticizing its support for Georgia's "barbaric aggression" in the recent conflict in South Ossetia.
He also blamed the United States for the global financial crisis.
"This crisis, this has also acquired a global nature. Certain features of local problems becoming common problems, this is typical of the modern world today."
Though Medvedev's speech showed Russia is not softening its foreign policy, he followed the remarks with a congratulatory telegram to Obama in which he called for continued cooperation on a number of issues.
Medvedev also said he hopes for a constructive dialogue with the next U.S. president.
Medvedev said in his speech that Russia has no problems with the American people.
Just hours after U.S. President-elect Barack Obama delivered his victory speech, Russia's leader delivered a scathing rebuke of U.S. policy and reminded Obama of some of the major foreign policy challenges he will face in office.
In his first state-of-the-nation speech since taking office earlier this year, President Dmitry Medvedev warned that Russian missiles will be deployed against the planned U.S. missile shield in eastern Europe.
"The Iskander missile system will be deployed in Kaliningrad region to neutralize, when necessary, the missile shield," Medvedev said. "We are also planning to use the resources of the Russian naval fleet for these purposes."
Moscow has long been infuriated by a U.S. plan for the defensive missile installation, which includes basing missile interceptors in Poland.
Russian officials previously warned that such a move would open Poland up to an attack in the event of conflict.
Under the U.S. plan, the interceptor rockets in Poland would be linked to an air-defense radar system in the Czech Republic.
Russia fears the missile shield would blunt its nuclear deterrent.
At the Pentagon, spokesman Bryan Whitman reiterated Wednesday that the missiles are not aimed at Russia and are designed as a defensive shield for U.S. allies in Europe.
He said the shield is designed with the possibility of Iranian ballistic missiles in mind.
Medvedev had more harsh words for America, criticizing its support for Georgia's "barbaric aggression" in the recent conflict in South Ossetia.
He also blamed the United States for the global financial crisis.
"This crisis, this has also acquired a global nature. Certain features of local problems becoming common problems, this is typical of the modern world today."
Though Medvedev's speech showed Russia is not softening its foreign policy, he followed the remarks with a congratulatory telegram to Obama in which he called for continued cooperation on a number of issues.
Medvedev also said he hopes for a constructive dialogue with the next U.S. president.
Medvedev said in his speech that Russia has no problems with the American people.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
World markets down following Obama victory
World markets traded lower Wednesday as Barack Obama's historic U.S. election victory gave way to renewed worries about the struggling economy.
Asia market did well but as the day moved in, European and U.S. markets could not follow suit.
Markets worldwide had rallied in the run-up to the election.
On Election Day, Wall Street surged with the blue-chip Dow Jones industrial average jumping more than 300 points.
Many investors were hopeful that the new president would focus renewed energy on tackling deteriorating economic conditions in America
that have dragged on growth around the world. As the markets grappled with the election result, there was bad news on the U.S. jobs front.
Job cuts announced by U.S. employers rose to 112,884 in October from 95,094 in September according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
That marked the highest number of layoffs in almost four years.
Major markets in Europe closed down by between 2 and 2.5 percent.
In the U.S., the Dow Jones industrial average, Nasdaq and S&P all closed about 4.5 percent down.
It was a different story across Asia, as most markets rose.
Australia's index rose 2.9 percent, and Singapore's key stock measure added 4.4 percent.
The upswing followed Wall Street, where many investors looked past more signs of a slumping U.S. economy and piled into stocks, AP said.
The Dow Jones index staged its biggest Election Day rally ever, rising 305.45 points, or 3.3 percent, to close at 9,625.28.
The broader indices also rose, with the Standard & Poor's 500 index up 39.45, or 4.1 percent, to 1,005.75, its first close over the 1,000 mark since Oct. 13.
In Japan, a weaker yen boosted shares of major exporters including automakers and consumer electronics firms.
Toyota Motor Corp. rose 8.1 percent, Canon Inc. jumped 11.7 percent and Sony Corp. advanced 6.3 percent.
The dollar was trading at 99.70 yen, up from the 98-yen zone the previous day in Asia.
Meanwhile, oil prices retreated after surging above $70 a barrel overnight.
World markets down following Obama victory
World markets traded lower Wednesday as Barack Obama's historic U.S. election victory gave way to renewed worries about the struggling economy.
Asia market did well but as the day moved in, European and U.S. markets could not follow suit.
Markets worldwide had rallied in the run-up to the election.
On Election Day, Wall Street surged with the blue-chip Dow Jones industrial average jumping more than 300 points.
Many investors were hopeful that the new president would focus renewed energy on tackling deteriorating economic conditions in America
that have dragged on growth around the world. As the markets grappled with the election result, there was bad news on the U.S. jobs front.
Job cuts announced by U.S. employers rose to 112,884 in October from 95,094 in September according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
That marked the highest number of layoffs in almost four years.
Major markets in Europe closed down by between 2 and 2.5 percent.
In the U.S., the Dow Jones industrial average, Nasdaq and S&P all closed about 4.5 percent down.
It was a different story across Asia, as most markets rose.
Australia's index rose 2.9 percent, and Singapore's key stock measure added 4.4 percent.
The upswing followed Wall Street, where many investors looked past more signs of a slumping U.S. economy and piled into stocks, AP said.
The Dow Jones index staged its biggest Election Day rally ever, rising 305.45 points, or 3.3 percent, to close at 9,625.28.
The broader indices also rose, with the Standard & Poor's 500 index up 39.45, or 4.1 percent, to 1,005.75, its first close over the 1,000 mark since Oct. 13.
In Japan, a weaker yen boosted shares of major exporters including automakers and consumer electronics firms.
Toyota Motor Corp. rose 8.1 percent, Canon Inc. jumped 11.7 percent and Sony Corp. advanced 6.3 percent.
The dollar was trading at 99.70 yen, up from the 98-yen zone the previous day in Asia.
Meanwhile, oil prices retreated after surging above $70 a barrel overnight.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Michael Crichton, who helped create the TV show "ER" and wrote the best-sellers "Jurassic Park," "The Andromeda Strain," "Sphere" and "Rising Sun," has died in Los Angeles, his public relations firm said in a news release.
Crichton died unexpectedly Tuesday "after a courageous and private battle against cancer," the release said.
Crichton, a medical doctor, was attracted to cautionary science tales.
perhaps his best-known work concerned capturing the DNA of dinosaurs and bringing them to life on a modern island, where they soon run amok;
"The Andromeda Strain," his first major fiction success, involves an alien microorganism that's studied in a special military compound after causing death in a nearby community.
Crichton also invited controversy with some of his scientific views.
He was an avowed skeptic of global climate change, giving lectures warning against "consensus science."
He later took on global warming and the theories surrounding it in his 2004 novel, "State of Fear," which attracted attacks in its own right from scientists, including NASA climatologist James Hansen.
Crichton was a distinctive figure in the entertainment business, a trained physician whose interests included writing, filmmaking and television.
He published "The Andromeda Strain" while he was still a medical student at Harvard Medical School.
He wrote a story about a 19th-century train robbery, called "The Great Train Robbery," and then directed the 1979 film version.
In 1993, while working on the film version of "Jurassic Park" with Steven Spielberg, he teamed with the director to create "ER."
The NBC series set in a Chicago emergency room debuted in 1994 and became a huge hit, making a star of George Clooney.
Crichton originally wrote the script for the pilot in 1974.
Michael Crichton was born in Chicago in 1942 and grew up in New York's suburbs.
His father was a journalist and Michael loved the writing profession.
He went to medical school partly out of a concern he wouldn't be able to make writing a career, but the success of "The Andromeda Strain" in 1969 the book was chosen by the Book-of-the-Month Club and optioned by Hollywood made him change his mind, though he still had an M.D.
Though most of Crichton's books were major best-sellers involving science, he could ruffle feathers when he took on social issues.
"Rising Sun" (1992) came out during a time when Americans feared Japanese ascendance, particularly when it came to technology.
"Disclosure" (1994) was about a sexual harassment case.
Crichton won an Emmy, a Peabody, a Writers Guild of America Award for "ER," and won other awards as well.
Crichton was married five times and had one child.
Michael Crichton, who helped create the TV show "ER" and wrote the best-sellers "Jurassic Park," "The Andromeda Strain," "Sphere" and "Rising Sun," has died in Los Angeles, his public relations firm said in a news release.
Crichton died unexpectedly Tuesday "after a courageous and private battle against cancer," the release said.
Crichton, a medical doctor, was attracted to cautionary science tales.
perhaps his best-known work concerned capturing the DNA of dinosaurs and bringing them to life on a modern island, where they soon run amok;
"The Andromeda Strain," his first major fiction success, involves an alien microorganism that's studied in a special military compound after causing death in a nearby community.
Crichton also invited controversy with some of his scientific views.
He was an avowed skeptic of global climate change, giving lectures warning against "consensus science."
He later took on global warming and the theories surrounding it in his 2004 novel, "State of Fear," which attracted attacks in its own right from scientists, including NASA climatologist James Hansen.
Crichton was a distinctive figure in the entertainment business, a trained physician whose interests included writing, filmmaking and television.
He published "The Andromeda Strain" while he was still a medical student at Harvard Medical School.
He wrote a story about a 19th-century train robbery, called "The Great Train Robbery," and then directed the 1979 film version.
In 1993, while working on the film version of "Jurassic Park" with Steven Spielberg, he teamed with the director to create "ER."
The NBC series set in a Chicago emergency room debuted in 1994 and became a huge hit, making a star of George Clooney.
Crichton originally wrote the script for the pilot in 1974.
Michael Crichton was born in Chicago in 1942 and grew up in New York's suburbs.
His father was a journalist and Michael loved the writing profession.
He went to medical school partly out of a concern he wouldn't be able to make writing a career, but the success of "The Andromeda Strain" in 1969 the book was chosen by the Book-of-the-Month Club and optioned by Hollywood made him change his mind, though he still had an M.D.
Though most of Crichton's books were major best-sellers involving science, he could ruffle feathers when he took on social issues.
"Rising Sun" (1992) came out during a time when Americans feared Japanese ascendance, particularly when it came to technology.
"Disclosure" (1994) was about a sexual harassment case.
Crichton won an Emmy, a Peabody, a Writers Guild of America Award for "ER," and won other awards as well.
Crichton was married five times and had one child.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Japanese scientists have produced clones of mice that have been dead and frozen for 16 years
a feat that could lead researchers to one day resurrect long-extinct species, such as the mammoth.
Until now, scientists have only been able to produce clones using cells from live animals.
This is how researchers created Dolly the Sheep, the first mammal to be cloned from an adult animal.
Researchers had thought that frozen cells were unusable because ice crystals would have damaged the DNA.
That belief would rule out the possibility of resurrecting extinct animals from their frozen remains.
But the latest research published in the journal, Proceedings for the National Academy of Sciences shows that scientists may have overcome the obstacle.
Researchers at the Riken Center for Developmental Biology in Kobe, Japan, used cells from mice that had been frozen for 16 years at -20 Celsius (-4 degrees Fahrenheit).
They extracted the nucleus and injected it into eggs whose DNA had been removed.
Several steps later, the scientists were able to clone the mice.
"This is the first time a mammal has been cloned from a sample stored at conditions reasonably close to what might be expected in permafrost," Teruhiko Wakayama, who led the study, said in a statement.
"(It) gives some hope for those who might seek to clone extinct species from frozen carcasses."
Japanese scientists have produced clones of mice that have been dead and frozen for 16 years
a feat that could lead researchers to one day resurrect long-extinct species, such as the mammoth.
Until now, scientists have only been able to produce clones using cells from live animals.
This is how researchers created Dolly the Sheep, the first mammal to be cloned from an adult animal.
Researchers had thought that frozen cells were unusable because ice crystals would have damaged the DNA.
That belief would rule out the possibility of resurrecting extinct animals from their frozen remains.
But the latest research published in the journal, Proceedings for the National Academy of Sciences shows that scientists may have overcome the obstacle.
Researchers at the Riken Center for Developmental Biology in Kobe, Japan, used cells from mice that had been frozen for 16 years at -20 Celsius (-4 degrees Fahrenheit).
They extracted the nucleus and injected it into eggs whose DNA had been removed.
Several steps later, the scientists were able to clone the mice.
"This is the first time a mammal has been cloned from a sample stored at conditions reasonably close to what might be expected in permafrost," Teruhiko Wakayama, who led the study, said in a statement.
"(It) gives some hope for those who might seek to clone extinct species from frozen carcasses."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Rahm Emanuel has accepted Barack Obama's offer to be White House chief of staff, Obama said Thursday.
The Office of the Chief of Staff oversees and coordinates activities and communication among various departments of the administration.
"I announce this appointment first because the chief of staff is central to the ability of a president and administration to accomplish an agenda.
And no one I know is better at getting things done than Rahm Emanuel," Obama said in a written statement.
Emanuel helped lead Democrats to majority control of the House in 2006.
He was elected to the House in 2002 and is the fourth-highest-ranking member of the chamber's Democratic leadership.
He also worked on President Clinton's first presidential campaign and served as a White House adviser to Clinton.
Emanuel choked up as he said how glad he is his parents are alive to see him have the choice of becoming chief of staff for a "historic figure."
He said he wants to do "everything I can to help deliver the change America needs."
"I want to say a special word about my Republican colleagues, who serve with dignity, decency and a deep sense of patriotism.
We often disagree, but I respect their motives. Now is a time for unity, and Mr. President-elect, I will do everything in my power to help you stitch together the frayed fabric of our politics, and help summon Americans of both parties to unite in common purpose," he said.
Emanuel had earlier said that he was honored to be considered for the position, but had a lot to think about on a personal level. "I have a lot to weigh:
the basis of public service, which I've given my life to, a career choice. But, most importantly, what I want to do as a parent," he told Chicago's WLS-TV in an interview that aired Wednesday.
Rahm Emanuel has accepted Barack Obama's offer to be White House chief of staff, Obama said Thursday.
The Office of the Chief of Staff oversees and coordinates activities and communication among various departments of the administration.
"I announce this appointment first because the chief of staff is central to the ability of a president and administration to accomplish an agenda.
And no one I know is better at getting things done than Rahm Emanuel," Obama said in a written statement.
Emanuel helped lead Democrats to majority control of the House in 2006.
He was elected to the House in 2002 and is the fourth-highest-ranking member of the chamber's Democratic leadership.
He also worked on President Clinton's first presidential campaign and served as a White House adviser to Clinton.
Emanuel choked up as he said how glad he is his parents are alive to see him have the choice of becoming chief of staff for a "historic figure."
He said he wants to do "everything I can to help deliver the change America needs."
"I want to say a special word about my Republican colleagues, who serve with dignity, decency and a deep sense of patriotism.
We often disagree, but I respect their motives. Now is a time for unity, and Mr. President-elect, I will do everything in my power to help you stitch together the frayed fabric of our politics, and help summon Americans of both parties to unite in common purpose," he said.
Emanuel had earlier said that he was honored to be considered for the position, but had a lot to think about on a personal level.
"I have a lot to weigh:
the basis of public service, which I've given my life to, a career choice.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Franklin Graham was stumped.
He had no idea what to give his father, the evangelist Billy Graham, for his 90th birthday on Friday.
Suddenly, it dawned on him.
"I have people who sometimes come up to me and say 'Franklin, I know I'll never meet your father, but would you mind telling him that I got saved in his meeting in London in 1950,' " said the younger Graham during a recent conversation at the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte, North Carolina.
"I thought, wow, wouldn't it be something if everybody just wrote that little story down and gave it to him?"
So Franklin Graham turned to the Internet to help.
For the past few months, people from around the world have been leaving personal messages for the elder Graham at billygraham90.com.
So far, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association says it has received tens of thousands of birthday greetings.
I was loved that night."
Other well-wishers write about how Graham's ministry healed their marriages, reconciled families and led them to lives of service.
At 90, Billy Graham remains "America's pastor."
In over 70 years of ministry, Graham has preached to more than 215 million people in person and in 185 countries.
Millions more have read his books and seen him on television.
Graham has also prayed with and counseled every American president from Harry Truman to George W. Bush.
Franklin Graham was stumped.
He had no idea what to give his father, the evangelist Billy Graham, for his 90th birthday on Friday.
Suddenly, it dawned on him.
"I have people who sometimes come up to me and say 'Franklin, I know I'll never meet your father, but would you mind telling him that I got saved in his meeting in London in 1950,' " said the younger Graham during a recent conversation at the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte, North Carolina.
"I thought, wow, wouldn't it be something if everybody just wrote that little story down and gave it to him?"
So Franklin Graham turned to the Internet to help.
For the past few months, people from around the world have been leaving personal messages for the elder Graham at billygraham90.com.
So far, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association says it has received tens of thousands of birthday greetings.
I was loved that night."
Other well-wishers write about how Graham's ministry healed their marriages, reconciled families and led them to lives of service.
At 90, Billy Graham remains "America's pastor."
In over 70 years of ministry, Graham has preached to more than 215 million people in person and in 185 countries.
Millions more have read his books and seen him on television.
Graham has also prayed with and counseled every American president from Harry Truman to George W. Bush.
"I urge everyone to join me in pledging our support and prayers as he begins the difficult task ahead."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
106 year old honored by Obama `ain`t got time to die`
Ann Nixon Cooper sits back in her dining room chair, her eyes closed tight and her lips clenched, when asked if she will attend Barack Obama's inauguration in January.
"I could go and maybe would go, but I'm not looking forward to it," says the 106-year-old former socialite.
What if Obama came to her house and asked her in person to attend? Cooper perks up and a big smile spreads across her face.
"Oh, yes, of course I'm ready to go!" It's been a whirlwind ever since Obama mentioned the African-American centenarian in his victory speech Tuesday night.
from the BBC to a Japanese station to national news outlets
have descended on her Atlanta house.
She stayed up later than usual, until about 3 a.m., after Obama's speech and the phone began ringing off the hook.
She had been tipped off by the Obama campaign that he'd say something.
"Somebody told him what to say and what to do and he followed through," she says.
who was born during a time when women and black people couldn't vote fully understands the significance of Obama's victory.
"Things are changing, changing, changing, and I look for more change now that it's the first black president in victory of faith over fear," she says. "Don't you know, that's quite something to be proud of."
"I would be proud to meet him as anyone else." She and her late husband, prominent dentist Dr. Albert Cooper, raised four children in her house.
The home was a center of Atlanta's black society and the scene of many parties.
She knew Martin Luther King Jr. when he was just a boy and was close with his mother.
She sometimes refers to Obama as "that young man."
In his victory speech, Obama praised Cooper's fight.
The president-elect had learned of her story two weeks earlier after CNN profiled her when she went to the polls to vote early.
Obama called her soon afterward.
"This election had many firsts and many stories that will be told for generations," Obama told the tens of thousands of supporters who had gathered in Chicago on Tuesday night.
"But one that's on my mind tonight is about a woman who cast her ballot in Atlanta.
She's a lot like the millions of others who stood in line to make their voice heard in this election except for one thing
a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky;
when someone like her couldn't vote for two reasons
because she was a woman and because of the color of her skin."
"Yeah, I knew he was talking about me
I had been told that he would be saying these things."
She added that her late husband "would be elated" a black man will be president.
106 year old honored by Obama `ain`t got time to die`
Ann Nixon Cooper sits back in her dining room chair, her eyes closed tight and her lips clenched, when asked if she will attend Barack Obama's inauguration in January.
"I could go and maybe would go, but I'm not looking forward to it," says the 106-year-old former socialite.
What if Obama came to her house and asked her in person to attend? Cooper perks up and a big smile spreads across her face.
"Oh, yes, of course I'm ready to go!" It's been a whirlwind ever since Obama mentioned the African-American centenarian in his victory speech Tuesday night.
from the BBC to a Japanese station to national news outlets
have descended on her Atlanta house.
She stayed up later than usual, until about 3 a.m., after Obama's speech and the phone began ringing off the hook.
She had been tipped off by the Obama campaign that he'd say something.
"Somebody told him what to say and what to do and he followed through," she says.
who was born during a time when women and black people couldn't vote fully understands the significance of Obama's victory.
"Things are changing, changing, changing, and I look for more change now that it's the first black president in victory of faith over fear," she says. "Don't you know, that's quite something to be proud of."
"I would be proud to meet him as anyone else." She and her late husband, prominent dentist Dr. Albert Cooper, raised four children in her house.
The home was a center of Atlanta's black society and the scene of many parties.
She knew Martin Luther King Jr. when he was just a boy and was close with his mother.
She sometimes refers to Obama as "that young man."
In his victory speech, Obama praised Cooper's fight.
The president-elect had learned of her story two weeks earlier after CNN profiled her when she went to the polls to vote early.
Obama called her soon afterward.
"This election had many firsts and many stories that will be told for generations," Obama told the tens of thousands of supporters who had gathered in Chicago on Tuesday night.
"But one that's on my mind tonight is about a woman who cast her ballot in Atlanta.
She's a lot like the millions of others who stood in line to make their voice heard in this election except for one thing
"She was born just a generation past slavery;
a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky;
because she was a woman and because of the color of her skin."
Cooper watched Obama's speech from her home.
"Yeah, I knew he was talking about me
I had been told that he would be saying these things."
"We looked forward to changes.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Jewel thieves caught with $4M ruby
A raid on a suspected gang of international jewel thieves has recovered an uncut ruby known as the "Prince of Burma" worth 3.2 million euros ($4.1 million), Austrian authorities said Thursday.
Two men and a woman were arrested in the raid Tuesday afternoon in the southern town of Villach, Austria's federal criminal investigations bureau said.
The three are suspected of stealing the ruby along with diamonds and and other gems recovered in the raid from a German jewelry dealer in Milan, Italy in August.
The dealer, identified only as a man from the German city of Idar-Oberstein, was tricked into going to Milan by the female suspect and was seriously injured by a car during the theft, investigator Gerhard Joszt said.
Police said the stolen jewels are worth an estimated 3.5 million euros ($4.5 million) in total.
The arrests were made in a joint operation with German authorities.
A raid on a suspected gang of international jewel thieves has recovered an uncut ruby known as the "Prince of Burma" worth 3.2 million euros ($4.1 million), Austrian authorities said Thursday.
Two men and a woman were arrested in the raid Tuesday afternoon in the southern town of Villach, Austria's federal criminal investigations bureau said.
The three are suspected of stealing the ruby along with diamonds and and other gems recovered in the raid from a German jewelry dealer in Milan, Italy in August.
The dealer, identified only as a man from the German city of Idar-Oberstein, was tricked into going to Milan by the female suspect and was seriously injured by a car during the theft, investigator Gerhard Joszt said.
Police said the stolen jewels are worth an estimated 3.5 million euros ($4.5 million) in total.
The arrests were made in a joint operation with German authorities.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
World stock markets suffered more heavy losses Thursday as economic data indicated a severe slowdown was unavoidable.
London, Paris and Frankfurt were off more between 5.7 and 7 percent at the close despite the Bank of England and European Central Bank cut interest rates by 1.5 and 0.5 percent respectively.
In the U.S. the Dow Jones industrial average, the Standard & Poor's 500 index and the Nasdaq composite all declined between 4 and 5 according to early tallies at the close of trading after poor retail and job figures.
Thomson Reuters estimated the U.S.'s October sales could be the worst monthly statistics in 8 years.
Meanwhile, the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment last week topped forecasts predicting 476,000.
It's just an endless flow of bad news and no one wants to buy," said Dave Rovelli, managing director of U.S. equity trading at Canaccord Adams.
October retail sales from U.S. chain stores were mostly abysmal, although some discounters like Wal-Mart Stores escaped the fray.
The housing market collapse, credit crunch and strained labor market have all taken their toll on consumers spending.
Earlier, most Asian and Pacific markets were also sharply lower on Thursday.
The Nikkei in Tokyo closed down 6.5 percent, while Australia's All Ordinaries slipped more than 4 percent.
In Seoul, the KOP finished the day 7.6 percent lower.
The Taiwan Weighted index fell 5.7 percent.
World stock markets suffered more heavy losses Thursday as economic data indicated a severe slowdown was unavoidable.
London, Paris and Frankfurt were off more between 5.7 and 7 percent at the close despite the Bank of England and European Central Bank cut interest rates by 1.5 and 0.5 percent respectively.
In the U.S. the Dow Jones industrial average, the Standard & Poor's 500 index and the Nasdaq composite all declined between 4 and 5 according to early tallies at the close of trading after poor retail and job figures.
Thomson Reuters estimated the U.S.'s October sales could be the worst monthly statistics in 8 years.
Meanwhile, the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment last week topped forecasts predicting 476,000.
It's just an endless flow of bad news and no one wants to buy," said Dave Rovelli, managing director of U.S. equity trading at Canaccord Adams.
October retail sales from U.S. chain stores were mostly abysmal, although some discounters like Wal-Mart Stores escaped the fray.
The housing market collapse, credit crunch and strained labor market have all taken their toll on consumers spending.
Earlier, most Asian and Pacific markets were also sharply lower on Thursday.
The Nikkei in Tokyo closed down 6.5 percent, while Australia's All Ordinaries slipped more than 4 percent.
In Seoul, the KOP finished the day 7.6 percent lower.
The Taiwan Weighted index fell 5.7 percent.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Obama, McCain campaigns` computers hacked for policy data
Computers at the headquarters of the Barack Obama and John McCain campaigns were hacked during the campaign by a foreign entity looking for future policy information, a source with knowledge of the incidents confirms to CNN.
The source said the computers were hacked mid-summer by either a foreign government or organization.
Another source, a law enforcement official familiar with the investigation, says federal investigators approached both campaigns with information the U.S. government had about the hacking, and the campaigns then hired private companies to mitigate the problem.
authorities, according to one of the sources, believe they know who the foreign entity responsible for the hacking is, but refused to identify it in any way, including what country.
The source, confirming the attacks that were first reported by Newsweek, said the sophisticated intrusions appeared aimed at gaining information about the evolution of policy positions in order to gain leverage in future dealings with whomever was elected.
The FBI is investigating, one of the sources confirmed to CNN.
The FBI and Secret Service refused comment on the incidents.
The sources refused to speak on the record due to the ongoing investigation and also because it is a sensitive matter involving presidential politics.
As described by a Newsweek reporter with special access while working on a post-campaign special, workers in Obama's headquarters first detected what they thought was a computer virus that was trying to obtain users' personal information.
The next day, agents from the FBI and Secret Service came to the office and said, "You have a problem way bigger than what you understand ... you have been compromised, and a serious amount of files have been loaded off your system."
Obama, McCain campaigns` computers hacked for policy data
Computers at the headquarters of the Barack Obama and John McCain campaigns were hacked during the campaign by a foreign entity looking for future policy information, a source with knowledge of the incidents confirms to CNN.
The source said the computers were hacked mid-summer by either a foreign government or organization.
Another source, a law enforcement official familiar with the investigation, says federal investigators approached both campaigns with information the U.S. government had about the hacking, and the campaigns then hired private companies to mitigate the problem.
authorities, according to one of the sources, believe they know who the foreign entity responsible for the hacking is, but refused to identify it in any way, including what country.
The source, confirming the attacks that were first reported by Newsweek, said the sophisticated intrusions appeared aimed at gaining information about the evolution of policy positions in order to gain leverage in future dealings with whomever was elected.
The FBI is investigating, one of the sources confirmed to CNN.
The FBI and Secret Service refused comment on the incidents.
The sources refused to speak on the record due to the ongoing investigation and also because it is a sensitive matter involving presidential politics.
As described by a Newsweek reporter with special access while working on a post-campaign special, workers in Obama's headquarters first detected what they thought was a computer virus that was trying to obtain users' personal information.
The next day, agents from the FBI and Secret Service came to the office and said, "You have a problem way bigger than what you understand ... you have been compromised, and a serious amount of files have been loaded off your system."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Legendary singer Joan Baez says she`s finally happy
Joan Baez is in a celebratory mood.
She's survived 50 years in show business.
The legendary singer, who rose to fame during the folk movement of the 1950s and 1960s, is marking the occasion with a new album called "Day After Tomorrow."
Produced by Steve Earle (whom Baez likes to call "Mister Gruff"), it's a collection of bluegrass-tinged songs reminiscent of her early repertoire.
"We were looking for songs that feel like now but sound like back then," she said.
Earle penned one of the album's standout tracks, "God Is God," which he describes as "recovery speak."
Baez also covers "Scarlet Tide," a song written by Elvis Costello and T Bone Burnett for the 2003 film "Cold Mountain."
At 67, Baez finds her voice may not have the sheer power it did in her 20s, but her political spirit is intact.
She passionately expressed her support for Barack Obama during the presidential campaign, the first time the self-described pacifist has taken sides in party politics.
"I haven't heard an orator like that since King," she said.
Baez knew the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and famously sang the protest song "We Shall Overcome" to a massive crowd at the Lincoln Memorial during King's 1963 March on Washington.
Baez spoke to CNN about sustaining her voice and finding happiness in her 60s.
Legendary singer Joan Baez says she`s finally happy
Joan Baez is in a celebratory mood.
She's survived 50 years in show business.
The legendary singer, who rose to fame during the folk movement of the 1950s and 1960s, is marking the occasion with a new album called "Day After Tomorrow."
Produced by Steve Earle (whom Baez likes to call "Mister Gruff"), it's a collection of bluegrass-tinged songs reminiscent of her early repertoire.
"We were looking for songs that feel like now but sound like back then," she said.
Earle penned one of the album's standout tracks, "God Is God," which he describes as "recovery speak."
Baez also covers "Scarlet Tide," a song written by Elvis Costello and T Bone Burnett for the 2003 film "Cold Mountain."
At 67, Baez finds her voice may not have the sheer power it did in her 20s, but her political spirit is intact.
She passionately expressed her support for Barack Obama during the presidential campaign, the first time the self-described pacifist has taken sides in party politics.
"I haven't heard an orator like that since King," she said.
Baez knew the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and famously sang the protest song "We Shall Overcome" to a massive crowd at the Lincoln Memorial during King's 1963 March on Washington.
Baez spoke to CNN about sustaining her voice and finding happiness in her 60s.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Wrestler banned following Olympic protest
The Swedish wrestler who dropped his medal in protest at the Beijing Olympics has been banned for two years along with his coach for "scandalous behavior," the sport's governing body said on Thursday.
The wrestling federation, known as FILA, suspended Ara Abrahamian and coach Leo Myllari and banned Sweden's wrestling federation from hosting international events for two years.
FILA also fined Abrahamian $2,600, Myllari $8,600 and the Swedish federation $43,000.
In a statement, FILA president Raphael Martinetti said the Swedes showed a "serious lack of Olympic spirit."
Abrahamian disputed a penalty call which decided his semifinal bout against Andrea Minguzzi in the Greco-Roman 84km class.
The Italian went on to win the gold medal.
Abrahamian won his bronze medal bout after his coach reportedly argued with judges and accused them of corruption.
During the medal ceremony, the Armenian-born wrestler took the bronze medal from his neck and dropped it on the mat as he walked away.
The International Olympic Committee stripped Abrahamian of the medal and expelled him from the games after ruling he violated the Olympic charter and was disrespectful to other medalists.
The Swiss-based wrestling body opened its own investigation and published their verdicts on Thursday.
Martinetti said the decision by the judges in Beijing in the disputed bout was made according to the rules.
"The coach has been judged equally guilty since he did not intervene to calm his wrestler," FILA secretary general Michel Dusson told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "And the federation was responsible for the behavior of its members, the wrestler and the coach, which was reprehensible."
The punishments took effect November 3 and the parties have 21 days to appeal the verdicts to FILA.
The cases could then go to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland, where Abrahamian is also contesting the IOC rulings.
He won a first CAS hearing in August to establish that he was not given fair rights to protest the result of his disputed bout.
He is now waiting for CAS to hear an appeal to downgrade his IOC expulsion to a warning.
The Swedish wrestler who dropped his medal in protest at the Beijing Olympics has been banned for two years along with his coach for "scandalous behavior," the sport's governing body said on Thursday.
The wrestling federation, known as FILA, suspended Ara Abrahamian and coach Leo Myllari and banned Sweden's wrestling federation from hosting international events for two years.
FILA also fined Abrahamian $2,600, Myllari $8,600 and the Swedish federation $43,000.
In a statement, FILA president Raphael Martinetti said the Swedes showed a "serious lack of Olympic spirit."
Abrahamian disputed a penalty call which decided his semifinal bout against Andrea Minguzzi in the Greco-Roman 84km class.
The Italian went on to win the gold medal.
Abrahamian won his bronze medal bout after his coach reportedly argued with judges and accused them of corruption.
During the medal ceremony, the Armenian-born wrestler took the bronze medal from his neck and dropped it on the mat as he walked away.
The International Olympic Committee stripped Abrahamian of the medal and expelled him from the games after ruling he violated the Olympic charter and was disrespectful to other medalists.
The Swiss-based wrestling body opened its own investigation and published their verdicts on Thursday.
Martinetti said the decision by the judges in Beijing in the disputed bout was made according to the rules.
"The coach has been judged equally guilty since he did not intervene to calm his wrestler," FILA secretary general Michel Dusson told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "And the federation was responsible for the behavior of its members, the wrestler and the coach, which was reprehensible."
The punishments took effect November 3 and the parties have 21 days to appeal the verdicts to FILA.
The cases could then go to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland, where Abrahamian is also contesting the IOC rulings.
He won a first CAS hearing in August to establish that he was not given fair rights to protest the result of his disputed bout.
He is now waiting for CAS to hear an appeal to downgrade his IOC expulsion to a warning.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
4 new rules travelers should know for 2009
It's not too soon to start thinking about traveling next year.
In 2009, a series of new rules and regulations kick in that could affect your vacation.
Ignore them, and you might find yourself delayed or denied access to your destination.
Passports will be mandatory for all border crossings
On June 1, the U.S. government will implement the full requirements of the land and sea phase of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI).
That means U.S. citizens entering the United States at sea or land ports of entry must either have a passport, passport card or WHTI-compliant document.
and long-anticipated change from the current rules, under which you can cross the border with either a passport, passport card or a government-issued photo ID, such as a driver's license, along with proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate.
Airlines must quote a total price for European tickets
The European Parliament this year approved a new "transparency" rule mandating that airfares have to include all taxes, fees and charges added to the basic ticket price and known at the time of publication.
It is expected to take effect either in late 2008 or early 2009, according to the EU.
At least theoretically, that should mean no more unpleasant surprises when you buy a ticket for travel within Europe or to Europe.
Under the rule, airfare or air rate, taxes, airport charges and other charges, surcharges or fees, such as those related to security or fuel, have to be included in the price of the ticket.
And any optional price supplements must be communicated in "a clear, transparent and unambiguous way at the start of any booking process" and allow passengers to opt-in for them, according to the EU.
The Department of Homeland Security's new Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) will become mandatory on January 12, 2009.
It's a fully-automated, electronic system for screening passengers before they begin travel to the United States under the Visa Waiver Program.
The Visa Waiver Program allows nationals of 27 countries to travel to the United States for tourism or business for stays of 90 days or less without a visa.
It's still unclear how this will affect Americans traveling to one of the countries who participate in the Visa Waiver Program.
Last summer, EU ministers expressed misgivings about parts of the program, and it is possible that traveling to one of those countries may involve answering more questions and a different (and possibly confusing) application process.
Passengers get a bill of rights
Last year, in response to increasing consumer frustration over flight delays, the State of New York enacted the New York State Passenger Bill of Rights.
It provided fresh air, waste removal and adequate food and water for passengers on flights delayed by more than three hours.
Although the law was struck down by a federal appeals court this spring, that decision has been appealed, and it may become law in 2009 or later.
which typically means that few significant laws are passed next year is shaping up to be an eventful one for travelers.
4 new rules travelers should know for 2009
It's not too soon to start thinking about traveling next year.
In 2009, a series of new rules and regulations kick in that could affect your vacation.
Ignore them, and you might find yourself delayed or denied access to your destination.
Passports will be mandatory for all border crossings
On June 1, the U.S. government will implement the full requirements of the land and sea phase of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI).
That means U.S. citizens entering the United States at sea or land ports of entry must either have a passport, passport card or WHTI-compliant document.
and long-anticipated change from the current rules, under which you can cross the border with either a passport, passport card or a government-issued photo ID, such as a driver's license, along with proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate.
Airlines must quote a total price for European tickets
The European Parliament this year approved a new "transparency" rule mandating that airfares have to include all taxes, fees and charges added to the basic ticket price and known at the time of publication.
It is expected to take effect either in late 2008 or early 2009, according to the EU.
At least theoretically, that should mean no more unpleasant surprises when you buy a ticket for travel within Europe or to Europe.
Under the rule, airfare or air rate, taxes, airport charges and other charges, surcharges or fees, such as those related to security or fuel, have to be included in the price of the ticket.
And any optional price supplements must be communicated in "a clear, transparent and unambiguous way at the start of any booking process" and allow passengers to opt-in for them, according to the EU.
The Department of Homeland Security's new Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) will become mandatory on January 12, 2009.
It's a fully-automated, electronic system for screening passengers before they begin travel to the United States under the Visa Waiver Program.
The Visa Waiver Program allows nationals of 27 countries to travel to the United States for tourism or business for stays of 90 days or less without a visa.
It's still unclear how this will affect Americans traveling to one of the countries who participate in the Visa Waiver Program.
Last summer, EU ministers expressed misgivings about parts of the program, and it is possible that traveling to one of those countries may involve answering more questions and a different (and possibly confusing) application process.
Passengers get a bill of rights
Last year, in response to increasing consumer frustration over flight delays, the State of New York enacted the New York State Passenger Bill of Rights.
It provided fresh air, waste removal and adequate food and water for passengers on flights delayed by more than three hours.
Although the law was struck down by a federal appeals court this spring, that decision has been appealed, and it may become law in 2009 or later.
Considering that 2008 is an election year
which typically means that few significant laws are passed
next year is shaping up to be an eventful one for travelers.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Indonesians appease mountain gods with sacrifices
Indonesian legend has it that six centuries ago, a princess hurled her youngest child into a fiery volcano to appease mountain gods who had granted her fertility.
Today thousands of pilgrims flock to Mount Bromo on East Java each year to offer the spirits food, live animals and money and ask for prosperity and health.
Bromo, a 7,641-foot (2,329-meter) volcano, is one of Java's most popular tourist attractions.
The poor arrive days ahead of the ceremony, carrying fishing nets to catch money and anything edible.
They camp under tarps in the crater atop the mountain's chilly slopes.
Yadnya Kasada, as the ritual is known, started in the 15th century in the final days of the Majapahit Hindu empire.
As the story goes, Princess Roro Anteng and her husband, Joko Seger, settled in the foothills of the volcano.
Unable to have children, the ruling couple went in despair to pray to the mountain gods who, according to the tale, agreed to help in exchange for the ultimate sacrifice of their last child.
The couple consented and had 25 children.
But when the time came to give up their son, they refused and the gods became furious.
They threatened disaster and the destruction of the village unless the couple made good on the deal.
Kesuma, as the boy was named, was flung into the depths of Mount Bromo.
The dying child is believed to have called out to villagers to visit the mountain each year and bring gifts to express their gratitude.
Indonesia straddles the "Pacific Ring of Fire," a system of fault lines stretching across the tropical archipelago, that give it more active volcanoes than any other country.
Bromo usually roars to life once a year, often blasting pumice, smoke and ash into the sky.
The last major eruption in 2004 killed two hikers.
Indonesians appease mountain gods with sacrifices
Indonesian legend has it that six centuries ago, a princess hurled her youngest child into a fiery volcano to appease mountain gods who had granted her fertility.
Today thousands of pilgrims flock to Mount Bromo on East Java each year to offer the spirits food, live animals and money and ask for prosperity and health.
Bromo, a 7,641-foot (2,329-meter) volcano, is one of Java's most popular tourist attractions.
The poor arrive days ahead of the ceremony, carrying fishing nets to catch money and anything edible.
They camp under tarps in the crater atop the mountain's chilly slopes.
Yadnya Kasada, as the ritual is known, started in the 15th century in the final days of the Majapahit Hindu empire.
As the story goes, Princess Roro Anteng and her husband, Joko Seger, settled in the foothills of the volcano.
Unable to have children, the ruling couple went in despair to pray to the mountain gods who, according to the tale, agreed to help in exchange for the ultimate sacrifice of their last child.
The couple consented and had 25 children.
But when the time came to give up their son, they refused and the gods became furious.
They threatened disaster and the destruction of the village unless the couple made good on the deal.
Kesuma, as the boy was named, was flung into the depths of Mount Bromo.
The dying child is believed to have called out to villagers to visit the mountain each year and bring gifts to express their gratitude.
Indonesia straddles the "Pacific Ring of Fire," a system of fault lines stretching across the tropical archipelago, that give it more active volcanoes than any other country.
Bromo usually roars to life once a year, often blasting pumice, smoke and ash into the sky.
The last major eruption in 2004 killed two hikers.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
There's a whole world of people out there, and boy, are they pissed off.
On political blogs, the invective flies.
Posters respond to the latest celebrity gossip with mockery or worse.
Sports fans set up Web sites with names that begin with "fire," hoping coaches, athletic directors and sportscasters lose their jobs.
And though there are any number of bloggers and commenters who attempt to keep their postings and responses on a civil level, all too often interactive Web sites descend into ad hominem attacks, insults and plain old name-calling.
Indeed, there are even whole sites devoted to venting, such as justrage.com (one screed there was titled, "I don't give a flying f***, so f*** you") and mybiggestcomplaint.com. This is not a world Emily Post would want to be caught in after dark.
"The Internet can be a great tool," said Sara Black, a professor of health studies at St. Joseph's University who takes a particular interest in online bullying. "Like any tool, it can also be misused."
One reason for the vitriol that emerges on the Web, experts say, is the anonymity the Internet provides.
Commenters seldom use their real names, and even if they do, the chance for retaliation is slim. "In the [pre-Internet era], you had to take ownership [of your remarks].
Now there's a perception of anonymity," said Lesley Withers, a professor of communication at Central Michigan University. "People think what they say won't have repercussions, and they don't think they have to soften their comments."
Contrast that with a face-to-face conversation, or even a phone conversation, where you can judge people's moods from facial movements or vocal inflections, observes University of Texas psychology professor Art Markman.
"It's hard to be aggressive when you're face to face," he said.
Moreover, he points out, aggression often carries a subtext of power.
"A lot of times, real anger is an attempt to get control over a situation where the person doesn't usually have it," he said.
In that respect, comments to blog posts are attempts to strike back.
Those power games are innately grasped by children and teens, with schools serving as a perennial social laboratory.
Cheryl Dellasega, a Penn State women's studies professor, ticks off hypothetical examples that could have come straight from the scripts to "Mean Girls" or "Heathers."
"Girls who are getting teased come home and let their [aggressors] have it by putting something on their blog and starting a rumor campaign," she said.
And instead of rumors simply making the rounds among peer groups "they go out to a much bigger group, a worldwide group.
The impact is devastating, and it's as easy as clicking a button."
There's a whole world of people out there, and boy, are they pissed off.
On political blogs, the invective flies.
Posters respond to the latest celebrity gossip with mockery or worse.
Sports fans set up Web sites with names that begin with "fire," hoping coaches, athletic directors and sportscasters lose their jobs.
And though there are any number of bloggers and commenters who attempt to keep their postings and responses on a civil level, all too often interactive Web sites descend into ad hominem attacks, insults and plain old name-calling.
Indeed, there are even whole sites devoted to venting, such as justrage.com (one screed there was titled, "I don't give a flying f***, so f*** you") and mybiggestcomplaint.com. This is not a world Emily Post would want to be caught in after dark.
"The Internet can be a great tool," said Sara Black, a professor of health studies at St. Joseph's University who takes a particular interest in online bullying. "Like any tool, it can also be misused."
One reason for the vitriol that emerges on the Web, experts say, is the anonymity the Internet provides.
Commenters seldom use their real names, and even if they do, the chance for retaliation is slim. "In the [pre-Internet era], you had to take ownership [of your remarks].
Now there's a perception of anonymity," said Lesley Withers, a professor of communication at Central Michigan University. "People think what they say won't have repercussions, and they don't think they have to soften their comments."
Contrast that with a face-to-face conversation, or even a phone conversation, where you can judge people's moods from facial movements or vocal inflections, observes University of Texas psychology professor Art Markman.
"It's hard to be aggressive when you're face to face," he said.
Moreover, he points out, aggression often carries a subtext of power.
"A lot of times, real anger is an attempt to get control over a situation where the person doesn't usually have it," he said.
In that respect, comments to blog posts are attempts to strike back.
Those power games are innately grasped by children and teens, with schools serving as a perennial social laboratory.
Cheryl Dellasega, a Penn State women's studies professor, ticks off hypothetical examples that could have come straight from the scripts to "Mean Girls" or "Heathers."
"Girls who are getting teased come home and let their [aggressors] have it by putting something on their blog and starting a rumor campaign," she said.
And instead of rumors simply making the rounds among peer groups "they go out to a much bigger group, a worldwide group.
The impact is devastating, and it's as easy as clicking a button."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Internetting every thing, everywhere, all the time
It's called "The Internet of Things"
It refers to an imminent world where physical objects and beings, as well as virtual data and environments, all live and interact with each other in the same space and time.
In short, everything is interconnected.
"If we can imagine it, there's a good chance it can be programmed," wrote Vint Cerf, the original Internet evangelist, on the official Google blog.
"The Internet of the future will be suffused with software, information, data archives, and populated with devices, appliances, and people who are interacting with and through this rich fabric."
At the nodes of this all-encompassing web of objects is RFID (Radio Frequency Identity) technology, which allows things to be "read" by an NFC (Near Field Communication) scanner, bar-code-style, as well as to store information about themselves and their relationship with their environment, over time.
The reason why RFID is often called next-generation bar code is that the technology is more accurate, scanners can read more objects with less directional contact, and smaller chips can contain a larger quantity of information.
Bruce Sterling, one of the pioneers of cyberpunk literature in the 1980s and an active sci-fi guru, neologized the term "spime" in 2004 to refer to any object that can define itself in terms of both space and time, i.e. using GPS to locate itself and RFID to trace its own history.
"Whatever a Web page can do, so can a pair of shoes," says rafi Haladjian, the visionary co-founder of Violet.
So, in this case, can a rabbit.
In 2005, Violet launched the best-selling Nabaztag, a screenless, WiFi-enabled bunny, born again with voice-recognition and RFID-awareness in 2007.
Interfacing the node between virtual data and the sensory world, Nabaztag fetches information from the Internet, flashes lights on its nose and tummy, rotates its ears, sniffs RFID chips, speaks 36 languages and understands five.
Internetting every thing, everywhere, all the time
It's called "The Internet of Things"
It refers to an imminent world where physical objects and beings, as well as virtual data and environments, all live and interact with each other in the same space and time.
In short, everything is interconnected.
"If we can imagine it, there's a good chance it can be programmed," wrote Vint Cerf, the original Internet evangelist, on the official Google blog.
"The Internet of the future will be suffused with software, information, data archives, and populated with devices, appliances, and people who are interacting with and through this rich fabric."
At the nodes of this all-encompassing web of objects is RFID (Radio Frequency Identity) technology, which allows things to be "read" by an NFC (Near Field Communication) scanner, bar-code-style, as well as to store information about themselves and their relationship with their environment, over time.
The reason why RFID is often called next-generation bar code is that the technology is more accurate, scanners can read more objects with less directional contact, and smaller chips can contain a larger quantity of information.
Bruce Sterling, one of the pioneers of cyberpunk literature in the 1980s and an active sci-fi guru, neologized the term "spime" in 2004 to refer to any object that can define itself in terms of both space and time, i.e. using GPS to locate itself and RFID to trace its own history.
"Whatever a Web page can do, so can a pair of shoes," says rafi Haladjian, the visionary co-founder of Violet.
So, in this case, can a rabbit.
In 2005, Violet launched the best-selling Nabaztag, a screenless, WiFi-enabled bunny, born again with voice-recognition and RFID-awareness in 2007.
Interfacing the node between virtual data and the sensory world, Nabaztag fetches information from the Internet, flashes lights on its nose and tummy, rotates its ears, sniffs RFID chips, speaks 36 languages and understands five.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
The automobile is synonymous with the personal freedom and high standard of living of the consumer lifestyle.
Greening the motor industry is about proving that that lifestyle is compatible with the fight against climate change.
But is that really possible?
Certainly the industry is falling over itself to try and prove its green credentials.
At the British International Motor Show earlier this year a host of new low-emission vehicles were on show.
There was even a green "village" populated with electric cars and hybrid vehicles, some with dashboards made from cork (the only wood you can harvest without killing the tree).
One Lotus was even partially made from hemp, relied on solar power for its electrics and was fitted with sisal carpets.
All of which was a far cry from the usual displays of fast cars promoted by beaming models in an unabashed display of masculine values where "green" was more likely to be used as an insult.
Of course beyond all the conspicuous eco-options, the muscle cars were still there.
For every green vehicle there were many others
often produced by the same manufacturers
Electric dreams for `green` driving
The automobile is synonymous with the personal freedom and high standard of living of the consumer lifestyle.
Greening the motor industry is about proving that that lifestyle is compatible with the fight against climate change.
But is that really possible?
Certainly the industry is falling over itself to try and prove its green credentials.
At the British International Motor Show earlier this year a host of new low-emission vehicles were on show.
There was even a green "village" populated with electric cars and hybrid vehicles, some with dashboards made from cork (the only wood you can harvest without killing the tree).
One Lotus was even partially made from hemp, relied on solar power for its electrics and was fitted with sisal carpets.
All of which was a far cry from the usual displays of fast cars promoted by beaming models in an unabashed display of masculine values where "green" was more likely to be used as an insult.
Of course beyond all the conspicuous eco-options, the muscle cars were still there.
For every green vehicle there were many others
often produced by the same manufacturers
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Obama team reviewing `virtually every agency,` aide says
The head of President-elect Barack Obama's transition team said Sunday that the incoming administration is conducting an extensive review of President Bush's executive orders.
Asked about reports that the transition team already has identified a number of areas where Obama could issue executive orders as soon as he takes office, John Podesta said he would not "preview decisions that [Obama] has yet to make."
"I would say that as a candidate, Sen. Obama said that he wanted all the Bush executive orders reviewed and decide which ones should be kept and which ones should be repealed and which ones should be amended, and that process is going on. It's been undertaken," Podesta said Sunday on "Fox News."
Podesta pointed out that there is a lot the president can do without waiting for Congress, and voters can expect to see Obama do so to try and restore "a sense that the country is working on behalf of the common good."
"I think that we're looking at to see where we can move forward, whether that's on energy transformation, on improving health care, on stem cell research," he said.
Podesta, chief of staff under President Clinton, is president and CEO of the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank that he founded.
Podesta said Sunday that preparations for Obama's transition have been in the works since early August.
Asked what members of the team have learned from past administrations, Podesta said they knew they had to act quickly.
Obama team reviewing `virtually every agency,` aide says
The head of President-elect Barack Obama's transition team said Sunday that the incoming administration is conducting an extensive review of President Bush's executive orders.
Asked about reports that the transition team already has identified a number of areas where Obama could issue executive orders as soon as he takes office, John Podesta said he would not "preview decisions that [Obama] has yet to make."
"I would say that as a candidate, Sen. Obama said that he wanted all the Bush executive orders reviewed and decide which ones should be kept and which ones should be repealed and which ones should be amended, and that process is going on. It's been undertaken," Podesta said Sunday on "Fox News."
Podesta pointed out that there is a lot the president can do without waiting for Congress, and voters can expect to see Obama do so to try and restore "a sense that the country is working on behalf of the common good."
"I think that we're looking at to see where we can move forward, whether that's on energy transformation, on improving health care, on stem cell research," he said.
Podesta, chief of staff under President Clinton, is president and CEO of the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank that he founded.
Podesta said Sunday that preparations for Obama's transition have been in the works since early August.
Asked what members of the team have learned from past administrations, Podesta said they knew they had to act quickly.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
dozens of monks punching and kicking each other in a massive brawl.
Monks from the Greek Orthodox and Armenian denominations were preparing for a ceremony at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the Old City when a disagreement led to a full-fledged fistfight.
The fight began when Armenian clergy were holding a procession to commemorate the finding of the cross believed to have been used in the crucifixion of Jesus, according to The Associated Press.
The Greek members of the clergy wanted one of their monks present, the AP reported, for fear that the procession would undermine their claim to an ancient structure built on what is believed to be the tomb of Jesus.
The two sides could not agree, and when the Armenians tried to begin the procession, the Greek monks stepped in and the fighting began, the AP reported.
"We were keeping resistance so that the procession could not pass through ... and establish a right that they don't have," a young Greek Orthodox monk with a cut next to his left eye told the AP.
Many among the dozens of monks came away with cuts and bruises, said police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld.
Officers were called to the scene to break up the brawl.
They detained two monks, one from each denomination, Rosenfeld said.
The Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem is thought to be built on the site of Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection.
Rivalries between the different sects that share control of the church often lead to tensions.
dozens of monks punching and kicking each other in a massive brawl.
Monks from the Greek Orthodox and Armenian denominations were preparing for a ceremony at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the Old City when a disagreement led to a full-fledged fistfight.
The fight began when Armenian clergy were holding a procession to commemorate the finding of the cross believed to have been used in the crucifixion of Jesus, according to The Associated Press.
The Greek members of the clergy wanted one of their monks present, the AP reported, for fear that the procession would undermine their claim to an ancient structure built on what is believed to be the tomb of Jesus.
The two sides could not agree, and when the Armenians tried to begin the procession, the Greek monks stepped in and the fighting began, the AP reported.
"We were keeping resistance so that the procession could not pass through ... and establish a right that they don't have," a young Greek Orthodox monk with a cut next to his left eye told the AP.
Many among the dozens of monks came away with cuts and bruises, said police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld.
Officers were called to the scene to break up the brawl.
They detained two monks, one from each denomination, Rosenfeld said.
The Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem is thought to be built on the site of Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection.
Rivalries between the different sects that share control of the church often lead to tensions.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Cholesterol drugs could help those with healthy levels
Healthy men and women with good cholesterol levels could significantly reduce their risk of heart disease by taking cholesterol-lowering drugs, better known as statins, according to a study released Sunday.
Nearly 18,000 people in 26 countries, including 7,000 women and nearly 5,000 minorities, participated in the clinical trial, the results of which were published in The New England Journal of Medicine.
All had very good cholesterol levels, with average LDL levels of 108 and average HDL
However, each participant had elevated levels of "high-sensitivity C-reactive protein" or hs-CRP
a marker that indicates inflammation in the body and can contribute to coronary heart disease, the No. 1 killer of men and women in the United States.
Under the current guidelines set for lowering cholesterol levels, none of the participants would have qualified for taking statins.
In the study, the participants took 20 milligrams of the drug Rosuvastatin
The maker of Crestor, AstraZeneca, funded the study.
According to the lead author, Dr. Paul Ridker of the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, the pharmaceutical company had no input in the study's design and didn't see the final data analysis until the study was submitted for publication.
Designed to last up to five years, the trial was stopped after less than two because endpoints set by an independent oversight committee were met, the study says.
Researchers found that participants taking Crestor cut their risk of heart attack, stroke and death by nearly half compared with participants taking the placebo.
Bad cholesterol levels were reduced by 50 percent and hs-CRP levels dropped 37 percent.
Cholesterol drugs could help those with healthy levels
Healthy men and women with good cholesterol levels could significantly reduce their risk of heart disease by taking cholesterol-lowering drugs, better known as statins, according to a study released Sunday.
Nearly 18,000 people in 26 countries, including 7,000 women and nearly 5,000 minorities, participated in the clinical trial, the results of which were published in The New England Journal of Medicine.
All had very good cholesterol levels, with average LDL levels of 108 and average HDL
However, each participant had elevated levels of "high-sensitivity C-reactive protein" or hs-CRP
a marker that indicates inflammation in the body and can contribute to coronary heart disease, the No. 1 killer of men and women in the United States.
Under the current guidelines set for lowering cholesterol levels, none of the participants would have qualified for taking statins.
In the study, the participants took 20 milligrams of the drug Rosuvastatin
The maker of Crestor, AstraZeneca, funded the study.
According to the lead author, Dr. Paul Ridker of the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, the pharmaceutical company had no input in the study's design and didn't see the final data analysis until the study was submitted for publication.
Designed to last up to five years, the trial was stopped after less than two because endpoints set by an independent oversight committee were met, the study says.
Researchers found that participants taking Crestor cut their risk of heart attack, stroke and death by nearly half
Overall death in the Crestor group was 20 percent less than the placebo group.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
China announced a $586 billion stimulus package Sunday in its biggest move to stop the global financial crisis from hitting the world's fourth-largest economy.
A statement on the government's Web site said China's Cabinet had approved a plan to invest 4 trillion yuan ($586 billion) in infrastructure and social welfare by the end of 2010.
Some of the money will come from the private sector.
The statement did not say how much of the spending is on new projects and how much is for ventures already in the pipeline that will be speeded up.
China's export-driven economy is starting to feel the impact of the economic slowdown in the United States and Europe, and the government has already cut key interest rates three times in less than two months in a bid to spur economic expansion.
Economic growth slowed to 9 percent in the third quarter, the lowest level in five years and a sharp decline from last year's 11.9 percent.
That is considered dangerously slow for a government that needs to create jobs for millions of new workers who enter the economy every year and to satisfy a public that has come to expect steadily rising incomes.
Exports have been growing at an annual rate of more than 20 percent but analysts expect that may fall as low as zero in coming months as global demand weakens.
The statement said the Cabinet, at a meeting chaired by Premier Wen Jiabao, had "decided to adopt active fiscal policy and moderately easy monetary policies."
It did not give details. The statement said the spending would focus on 10 areas.
Money will also be poured into new railways, roads and airports.
Spending on health and education will be increased, as well as on environmental protection and high technology.
Spending on rebuilding disaster areas, such as Sichuan province where 70,000 people were killed and millions left homeless by a massive earthquake in May, will also be sped up.
That includes 20 billion yuan ($2.93 billion) planned for next year that will be moved up to the fourth quarter of this year.
The statement, without giving details, said rural and urban incomes would be increased.
Credit limits for commercial banks will also be removed to channel more lending to priority projects and rural development, it said.
As well, reform of the value-added tax system will cut taxes by 120 billion yuan ($17.5 billion) for enterprises, the statement said.
The plan was announced before President Hu Jintao goes to Washington to push Western leaders to give poorer countries a bigger role in global financial institutions at a Nov. 15 summit of the Group of 20 major economies on the financial crisis.
China announced a $586 billion stimulus package Sunday in its biggest move to stop the global financial crisis from hitting the world's fourth-largest economy.
A statement on the government's Web site said China's Cabinet had approved a plan to invest 4 trillion yuan ($586 billion) in infrastructure and social welfare by the end of 2010.
Some of the money will come from the private sector.
The statement did not say how much of the spending is on new projects and how much is for ventures already in the pipeline that will be speeded up.
China's export-driven economy is starting to feel the impact of the economic slowdown in the United States and Europe, and the government has already cut key interest rates three times in less than two months in a bid to spur economic expansion.
Economic growth slowed to 9 percent in the third quarter, the lowest level in five years and a sharp decline from last year's 11.9 percent.
That is considered dangerously slow for a government that needs to create jobs for millions of new workers who enter the economy every year and to satisfy a public that has come to expect steadily rising incomes.
Exports have been growing at an annual rate of more than 20 percent but analysts expect that may fall as low as zero in coming months as global demand weakens.
The statement said the Cabinet, at a meeting chaired by Premier Wen Jiabao, had "decided to adopt active fiscal policy and moderately easy monetary policies."
It did not give details. The statement said the spending would focus on 10 areas.
Money will also be poured into new railways, roads and airports.
Spending on health and education will be increased, as well as on environmental protection and high technology.
Spending on rebuilding disaster areas, such as Sichuan province where 70,000 people were killed and millions left homeless by a massive earthquake in May, will also be sped up.
That includes 20 billion yuan ($2.93 billion) planned for next year that will be moved up to the fourth quarter of this year.
The statement, without giving details, said rural and urban incomes would be increased.
Credit limits for commercial banks will also be removed to channel more lending to priority projects and rural development, it said.
As well, reform of the value-added tax system will cut taxes by 120 billion yuan ($17.5 billion) for enterprises, the statement said.
The plan was announced before President Hu Jintao goes to Washington to push Western leaders to give poorer countries a bigger role in global financial institutions at a Nov. 15 summit of the Group of 20 major economies on the financial crisis.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Something feels strangely familiar about Alex the lion in "Madagascar:
Escape 2 Africa," and it's not just because we moviegoing humans met that animated animal, voiced by Ben Stiller, just three years ago in the original "-land in Africa instead), is how much Alex has in common with Stiller's Tugg Speedman in "Tropic Thunder."
raised in a zoo and "performing" as a lion surrounded by the real thing at an African water hole
is the four-legged equivalent of Tugg the showboating actor, "performing" as a soldier in the Asian jungle.
In both instances, Stiller excels at exploring the sillier aspects of self-involvement, and it's pleasant indeed to see Alex reunited with motormouthed Marty the zebra (Chris Rock), pessimistic Melman the giraffe (David Schwimmer), and big-and-beautiful Gloria the hippo (Jada Pinkett Smith).
In the brightly drawn sequel, as technically smooth as we've come to expect from the DreamWorks cartoon factory, all four use their time in Africa
the land of their ancestors!
as an opportunity for personal growth, only to wind up more or less the way they always were.
Wrong part of the animated kingdom, my friends.
Escape 2 Africa" is pretty tame, but it knows how to keep its own turf tidy.
Something feels strangely familiar about Alex the lion in "Madagascar:
Escape 2 Africa," and it's not just because we moviegoing humans met that animated animal, voiced by Ben Stiller, just three years ago in the original "-land in Africa instead), is how much Alex has in common with Stiller's Tugg Speedman in "Tropic Thunder."
In his own charmingly egocentric way, Alex raised in a zoo and "performing" as a lion surrounded by the real thing at an African water hole
is the four-legged equivalent of Tugg the showboating actor, "performing" as a soldier in the Asian jungle.
In both instances, Stiller excels at exploring the sillier aspects of self-involvement, and it's pleasant indeed to see Alex reunited with motormouthed Marty the zebra (Chris Rock), pessimistic Melman the giraffe (David Schwimmer), and big-and-beautiful Gloria the hippo (Jada Pinkett Smith).
In the brightly drawn sequel, as technically smooth as we've come to expect from the DreamWorks cartoon factory, all four use their time in Africa the land of their ancestors! as an opportunity for personal growth, only to wind up more or less the way they always were.
What, you were expecting a cutting-edge twist, maybe something about a lonely postapocalyptic robot?
Wrong part of the animated kingdom, my friends.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Venus rises with WTA Championships title
Venus Williams won the WTA's Sony Ericsson Championships by defeating Vera Zvonareva 6-7 (5-7) 6-0 6-2 on Sunday in the final of the season-ending women's event.
The Wimbledon champion took command in the last two sets with powerful serving, smashes and aggressive groundstrokes against her Russian opponent.
Zvonareva became increasingly frustrated and collapsed to the ground when the American broke in the final set to go 3-1 up.
"I'm so excited," Williams said.
"That was a hard-fought match, every point, right down to the end."
Williams won $1.34 million at the event, which for the first time offered the same prize money as the men at the ATP's season-ending Masters Cup in Shanghai.
Former No. 1 Williams' ranking will improve from eighth to sixth, while Zvonareva moves from ninth to seventh.
The two were the lowest-ranked players at the event.
"I know I can go higher," said the 28-year-old Williams, a former No. 1 who defeated top-ranked Jelena Jankovic in the semifinals.
Zvonareva became increasingly frustrated and collapsed to the ground in tears when Williams broke her in the final set to go up 3-1.
Williams, who lost in their first meeting at the 2003 French Open, now holds a 6-1 record against her.
"She stayed aggressive," said Zvonareva, who last qualified for the championships in 2004. "In the second and third, she was dictating."
The Doha tournament featured eight players divided into two groups, with the top two in each group advancing to the elimination stage.
Williams, whose career earnings rose to $21.9 million, qualified for the championships for the eighth time since 1998.
She had reached the semifinals twice and withdrew five times because of injuries and illness.
Venus Williams won the WTA's Sony Ericsson Championships by defeating Vera Zvonareva 6-7 (5-7) 6-0 6-2 on Sunday in the final of the season-ending women's event.
The Wimbledon champion took command in the last two sets with powerful serving, smashes and aggressive groundstrokes against her Russian opponent.
Zvonareva became increasingly frustrated and collapsed to the ground when the American broke in the final set to go 3-1 up.
"I'm so excited," Williams said.
"That was a hard-fought match, every point, right down to the end."
Williams won $1.34 million at the event, which for the first time offered the same prize money as the men at the ATP's season-ending Masters Cup in Shanghai.
Former No. 1 Williams' ranking will improve from eighth to sixth, while Zvonareva moves from ninth to seventh.
The two were the lowest-ranked players at the event.
"I know I can go higher," said the 28-year-old Williams, a former No. 1 who defeated top-ranked Jelena Jankovic in the semifinals.
Zvonareva became increasingly frustrated and collapsed to the ground in tears when Williams broke her in the final set to go up 3-1.
Williams, who lost in their first meeting at the 2003 French Open, now holds a 6-1 record against her.
"She stayed aggressive," said Zvonareva, who last qualified for the championships in 2004. "In the second and third, she was dictating."
The Doha tournament featured eight players divided into two groups, with the top two in each group advancing to the elimination stage.
Williams, whose career earnings rose to $21.9 million, qualified for the championships for the eighth time since 1998.
She had reached the semifinals twice and withdrew five times because of injuries and illness.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Bush calls meeting with Obama `friendly`
President Bush had a "relaxed" and "friendly" meeting with President-elect Barack Obama after he and first lady Laura Bush welcomed their successors to their future home Monday, a White House spokesman said.
"The president and the president-elect had a long meeting, described by the president as good, constructive, relaxed and friendly," White House press secretary Dana Perino said in a statement.
"The president enjoyed his visit with the president-elect, and he again pledged a smooth transition to the next administration."
Perino said the two discussed both national and international issues but did not provide specifics of the conversation.
Bush also gave Obama a tour of the White House's living quarters, including the Lincoln bedroom.
Bush and Obama held a private meeting in the Oval Office, while the first lady gave incoming first lady Michelle Obama a tour of the residence.
The president and president-elect walked together along the Colonnade by the Rose Garden before entering the Oval Office together.
They briefly waved to reporters along the way.
Obama and Bush were not expected to speak on camera after their meeting.
An aide to Obama said they were "going to let the pictures speak for themselves."
The two met in the Oval Office for just over an hour.
When President George H.W. Bush hosted President-elect Bill Clinton after the 1992 election, the two talked for nearly two hours.
Monday's meeting was a historic formality, but it was also a time for serious talks.
It marked the first time that Obama has visited the Oval Office.
Bush calls meeting with Obama `friendly`
President Bush had a "relaxed" and "friendly" meeting with President-elect Barack Obama after he and first lady Laura Bush welcomed their successors to their future home Monday, a White House spokesman said.
"The president and the president-elect had a long meeting, described by the president as good, constructive, relaxed and friendly," White House press secretary Dana Perino said in a statement.
"The president enjoyed his visit with the president-elect, and he again pledged a smooth transition to the next administration."
Perino said the two discussed both national and international issues but did not provide specifics of the conversation.
Bush also gave Obama a tour of the White House's living quarters, including the Lincoln bedroom.
Bush and Obama held a private meeting in the Oval Office, while the first lady gave incoming first lady Michelle Obama a tour of the residence.
The president and president-elect walked together along the Colonnade by the Rose Garden before entering the Oval Office together.
They briefly waved to reporters along the way.
Obama and Bush were not expected to speak on camera after their meeting.
An aide to Obama said they were "going to let the pictures speak for themselves."
The two met in the Oval Office for just over an hour.
When President George H.W. Bush hosted President-elect Bill Clinton after the 1992 election, the two talked for nearly two hours.
Monday's meeting was a historic formality, but it was also a time for serious talks.
It marked the first time that Obama has visited the Oval Office.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Boy, 8, to face murder charges as father is mourned
An 8-year-old boy is scheduled to appear in court Monday in St. Johns, Arizona, on charges he murdered his father and another man.
More than 600 mourners attended services for the father, Vincent Romero, 29, Monday morning, CNN affiliate KPHO-TV reported.
Tim Romans, 39, also was found dead Wednesday afternoon in Romero's home, where he rented a room, KPHO said.
Police said Thursday that the boy had confessed to shooting the two men with a .22-caliber weapon.
No motive was given.
"We solved the crime," St. Johns Police Chief Roy Melnick told KPHO. "Now we have to solve the mystery of why."
Ron Wood, one of the boy's public defenders, said before a gag order was issued that the defense is treating the boy's case "like any other first-degree murder case."
"Our position is that our responsibility is to take care of [him], whatever the allegations," Wood said. "He is an 8-year-old boy;
he is a third-grader.... The boy's other attorney, Ben Brewer, told KPHO he questions whether police acted properly in their interviews with the boy.
"Their evidence is very minimal," Brewer said. "There was overreaching with police with regard to their contact with him ... I think there's a very good likelihood that there could have been improper interview techniques done."
On the "Today" show, Melnick said there were no indications the boy had been in trouble before.
"There's no record of any problems in school, no reported abuse," he said.
Wood indicated to KPHO that he, too, had not heard any assertions the boy had been abused, despite media assertions that abuse could be related to a motive in the case.
"At this point in time, we haven't seen anything indicating abuse," Wood said.
"We haven't heard of anything;
we're not aware of anything."
Boy, 8, to face murder charges as father is mourned
An 8-year-old boy is scheduled to appear in court Monday in St. Johns, Arizona, on charges he murdered his father and another man.
More than 600 mourners attended services for the father, Vincent Romero, 29, Monday morning, CNN affiliate KPHO-TV reported.
Tim Romans, 39, also was found dead Wednesday afternoon in Romero's home, where he rented a room, KPHO said.
Police said Thursday that the boy had confessed to shooting the two men with a .22-caliber weapon.
No motive was given.
"We solved the crime," St. Johns Police Chief Roy Melnick told KPHO. "Now we have to solve the mystery of why."
Ron Wood, one of the boy's public defenders, said before a gag order was issued that the defense is treating the boy's case "like any other first-degree murder case."
"Our position is that our responsibility is to take care of [him], whatever the allegations," Wood said. "He is an 8-year-old boy;
he is a third-grader.... The boy's other attorney, Ben Brewer, told KPHO he questions whether police acted properly in their interviews with the boy.
"Their evidence is very minimal," Brewer said. "There was overreaching with police with regard to their contact with him ... I think there's a very good likelihood that there could have been improper interview techniques done."
On the "Today" show, Melnick said there were no indications the boy had been in trouble before.
"There's no record of any problems in school, no reported abuse," he said.
Wood indicated to KPHO that he, too, had not heard any assertions the boy had been abused, despite media assertions that abuse could be related to a motive in the case.
"We haven't heard of anything;
we're not aware of anything."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
A Ryanair flight from Frankfurt made an emergency landing at a Rome airport Monday after birds hit the aircraft, aviation and airline officials company said.
Three passengers and two crew members were taken to hospital with minor injuries, Ryanair spokesman Stephen McNamara said.
The aircraft "suffered multiple bird strikes" as it was approaching Ciampino airport, McNamara said.
Ryanair spokeswoman Pauline McAlester said the birds were sucked into the engine as the aircraft was coming in to land.
Italy's civil aviation agency ENAC said the Boeing 737 landed safely just before 8 a.m. (0700 GMT) Monday.
It said the jet carried 166 passengers.
Airport fire official Marco Ghimenti told Sky TG-24 TV that passengers left the plane through a door and an emergency chute.
He said that the landing gear appeared to give way when the plane came down at the far end of a runway.
McNamara said the jet's left-hand main landing gear suffered substantial damage that was delaying the removal of the jet from the runway.
The airport, on the Italian capital's southeast outskirts, was temporarily closed.
A Ryanair flight from Frankfurt made an emergency landing at a Rome airport Monday after birds hit the aircraft, aviation and airline officials company said.
Three passengers and two crew members were taken to hospital with minor injuries, Ryanair spokesman Stephen McNamara said.
The aircraft "suffered multiple bird strikes" as it was approaching Ciampino airport, McNamara said.
Ryanair spokeswoman Pauline McAlester said the birds were sucked into the engine as the aircraft was coming in to land.
Italy's civil aviation agency ENAC said the Boeing 737 landed safely just before 8 a.m. (0700 GMT) Monday.
It said the jet carried 166 passengers.
Airport fire official Marco Ghimenti told Sky TG-24 TV that passengers left the plane through a door and an emergency chute.
He said that the landing gear appeared to give way when the plane came down at the far end of a runway.
McNamara said the jet's left-hand main landing gear suffered substantial damage that was delaying the removal of the jet from the runway.
The airport, on the Italian capital's southeast outskirts, was temporarily closed.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Barack Obama had a formidable online presence during his quest for the White House, and he is once again turning to the Internet to communicate with the American public as president-elect.
Within 24 hours of last week's historic vote, his transition team rolled out change.gov, a Web site that promises to be "your source for the latest news, events and announcements so that you can follow the setting up of the Obama administration."
The site is still a little thin on content, but there's a blog, a newsroom and a countdown to the January 20 inauguration.
Visitors can fill out a form to share their stories about what the election meant to them, or they can give their vision of an Obama presidency.
They can even apply for a job.
The Web site is an extension of Obama's online strategy during the campaign.
As a candidate, he had four times as many friends as his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain, on MySpace.com.
Obama had almost 3 million supporters on Facebook and put together a massive database of e-mail addresses
Obama even announced Sen. Joe Biden as his choice for vice president in a text message to supporters.
People who follow Obama online have become a community that the president-elect can tap into, said Andrew Raseij, founder of TechPresident.com, a Web site that tracked the online operations of the 2008 presidential campaigns.
"He now has his own special interest. He has a group of people he can go to and ask them to participate in helping him pass his legislative agenda," Raseij said.
He also predicted that Obama will use online video and interactivity to revolutionize the way the commander in chief communicates.
"I think the days of just a Saturday morning radio address and an occasional press conference as the way the president speaks to the American public are over," Raseij said.
"I wouldn't be surprised if Barack Obama starts doing a weekly YouTube video and also fireside chats for the 21st century by allowing people to filter up questions to him that he might answer."
The president-elect already has said he'll have a five-day online comment period before signing any nonemergency legislation, so Americans can be part of the process.
He's also planning to appoint a chief technology officer and has pledged to get true broadband to every community in the country.
Obama's embrace of the Internet during his presidential campaign came as Americans increasingly turned to online sources to get election news.
A recent poll by the Pew Research Center found 33 percent got most of their 2008 campaign news from the Internet, compared with 10 percent in 2004.
The same survey found almost half of Americans ages 18 to 29 turned to the Internet as their major source of election news in 2008.
Seventeen percent of people in this age group turned to newspapers.
Barack Obama had a formidable online presence during his quest for the White House, and he is once again turning to the Internet to communicate with the American public as president-elect.
Within 24 hours of last week's historic vote, his transition team rolled out change.gov, a Web site that promises to be "your source for the latest news, events and announcements so that you can follow the setting up of the Obama administration."
The site is still a little thin on content, but there's a blog, a newsroom and a countdown to the January 20 inauguration.
Visitors can fill out a form to share their stories about what the election meant to them, or they can give their vision of an Obama presidency.
They can even apply for a job.
The Web site is an extension of Obama's online strategy during the campaign.
As a candidate, he had four times as many friends as his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain, on MySpace.com.
Obama had almost 3 million supporters on Facebook and put together a massive database of e-mail addresses
Obama even announced Sen. Joe Biden as his choice for vice president in a text message to supporters.
People who follow Obama online have become a community that the president-elect can tap into, said Andrew Raseij, founder of TechPresident.com, a Web site that tracked the online operations of the 2008 presidential campaigns.
"He now has his own special interest. He has a group of people he can go to and ask them to participate in helping him pass his legislative agenda," Raseij said.
He also predicted that Obama will use online video and interactivity to revolutionize the way the commander in chief communicates.
"I think the days of just a Saturday morning radio address and an occasional press conference as the way the president speaks to the American public are over," Raseij said.
"I wouldn't be surprised if Barack Obama starts doing a weekly YouTube video and also fireside chats for the 21st century by allowing people to filter up questions to him that he might answer."
The president-elect already has said he'll have a five-day online comment period before signing any nonemergency legislation, so Americans can be part of the process.
He's also planning to appoint a chief technology officer and has pledged to get true broadband to every community in the country.
Obama's embrace of the Internet during his presidential campaign came as Americans increasingly turned to online sources to get election news.
A recent poll by the Pew Research Center found 33 percent got most of their 2008 campaign news from the Internet, compared with 10 percent in 2004.
The same survey found almost half of Americans ages 18 to 29 turned to the Internet as their major source of election news in 2008.
Seventeen percent of people in this age group turned to newspapers.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Stocks slumped Monday, as ongoing recession fears overshadowed any relief about China's $586 billion stimulus plan and the government's revamping of its deal with AIG.
The Standard & Poor's 500 index lost 1.3% and the Nasdaq composite shed 1.9%.
All three major gauges had risen in the early going, before abandoning gains and turning lower.
Monday brought plenty of corporate news, including AIG's loan restructuring, Circuit City's bankruptcy and more weakness for the automakers.
"When the top companies are giving the kind of guidance they're giving and announcing layoffs, that tells you we are looking at at least a few more quarters of this recession," said John Wilson, chief technical strategist at Morgan Keegan.
In global news, China announced a $586 billion stimulus package, aimed at tempering the impact of the global financial crisis.
"I think right now the market is grappling with the length and the duration of the recession," said Wilson. Stocks fell last week but managed to gain Friday despite a brutal October jobs report and GM's massive quarterly loss.
Shares declined about 3% in extended-hours trading. The federal government said Monday it was restructuring AIG's bailout plan, buying $40 billion in preferred stock, reducing its original $85 billion bridge loan to $60 billion, and cutting the interest rate by 5.5 percentage points.
The total reworked deal is worth about $152.5 billion.
The reworking acknowledges that the initial plan was insufficient to reverse AIG's slide.
Additionally, AIG reported a steep quarterly loss of $24.5 billion in the third quarter.
Stocks slumped Monday, as ongoing recession fears overshadowed any relief about China's $586 billion stimulus plan and the government's revamping of its deal with AIG.
The Standard & Poor's 500 index lost 1.3% and the Nasdaq composite shed 1.9%.
All three major gauges had risen in the early going, before abandoning gains and turning lower.
Monday brought plenty of corporate news, including AIG's loan restructuring, Circuit City's bankruptcy and more weakness for the automakers.
"When the top companies are giving the kind of guidance they're giving and announcing layoffs, that tells you we are looking at at least a few more quarters of this recession," said John Wilson, chief technical strategist at Morgan Keegan.
In global news, China announced a $586 billion stimulus package, aimed at tempering the impact of the global financial crisis.
"I think right now the market is grappling with the length and the duration of the recession," said Wilson.
Stocks fell last week but managed to gain Friday despite a brutal October jobs report and GM's massive quarterly loss.
After the close, Starbucks reported weaker earnings and higher revenue, both of which missed estimates.
Shares declined about 3% in extended-hours trading.
The total reworked deal is worth about $152.5 billion.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Fans can shop with Oprah online
Short of a coveted ticket for a taping of "The Oprah Winfrey Show," an easier way to surround yourself with the presence of the queen of talk is to go to her official store across from Harpo studios in what was once a Chicago warehouse district.
With its dim lighting, hardwood floors and urban-loft feel, The Oprah Store is a hybrid souvenir shop and trendy boutique.
and has hosted an average 250 post-Oprah show shoppers and curious Winfrey fans a day.
Now Harpo is taking that demand and putting it online, launching theoprahstore.com Friday.
It's an expansion of a small shopping Web site that carried keychains and T-shirts.
The new online store will sell 800-plus items, about 90 percent of what's available at the Chicago shop.
Fans say going to the Chicago store is one way they can feel closer to someone they admire.
Catherine Hinkle, 52, a pharmacist from Overland Park, Kansas, recently spent more than $200 after a taping.
"I don't mind spending money here," Hinkle said, lifting her two large lime green shopping bags with "The Oprah Store" written on the side.
"I feel like I'm supporting who she is." At the 5,500-square-foot brick-and-mortar boutique, fans can buy "O" apparel, umbrellas, coffee mugs, baby bibs and pet collars.
Tote bags and note cards are printed with Winfrey quotes like "Live your own dreams."
Store manager Darcy Rogers said everything was selected with Winfrey's style and taste in mind.
Customers are "really specific," Rogers said.
"They want something with Oprah's signature or just the O."
At Winfrey's store, the real draw for some die-hard Winfrey fans is "Oprah's Closet," a dark wooden armoire filled with clothes and shoes that Winfrey herself once wore or kept in her own closet.
Proceeds from that section go to Winfrey's Angel Network, which contributes to a number of projects.
Fans can shop with Oprah online
Short of a coveted ticket for a taping of "The Oprah Winfrey Show," an easier way to surround yourself with the presence of the queen of talk is to go to her official store across from Harpo studios in what was once a Chicago warehouse district.
With its dim lighting, hardwood floors and urban-loft feel, The Oprah Store is a hybrid souvenir shop and trendy boutique.
and has hosted an average 250 post-Oprah show shoppers and curious Winfrey fans a day.
Now Harpo is taking that demand and putting it online, launching theoprahstore.com Friday.
It's an expansion of a small shopping Web site that carried keychains and T-shirts.
The new online store will sell 800-plus items, about 90 percent of what's available at the Chicago shop.
Fans say going to the Chicago store is one way they can feel closer to someone they admire.
Catherine Hinkle, 52, a pharmacist from Overland Park, Kansas, recently spent more than $200 after a taping.
"I don't mind spending money here," Hinkle said, lifting her two large lime green shopping bags with "The Oprah Store" written on the side.
"I feel like I'm supporting who she is." At the 5,500-square-foot brick-and-mortar boutique, fans can buy "O" apparel, umbrellas, coffee mugs, baby bibs and pet collars.
Tote bags and note cards are printed with Winfrey quotes like "Live your own dreams."
Store manager Darcy Rogers said everything was selected with Winfrey's style and taste in mind.
Customers are "really specific," Rogers said.
"They want something with Oprah's signature or just the O."
At Winfrey's store, the real draw for some die-hard Winfrey fans is "Oprah's Closet," a dark wooden armoire filled with clothes and shoes that Winfrey herself once wore or kept in her own closet.
Proceeds from that section go to Winfrey's Angel Network, which contributes to a number of projects.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Rafael Nadal will miss Spain's Davis Cup final against Argentina later this month because of the knee problem that saw him withdraw from the Masters Cup in Shanghai.
World number one Nadal said Monday he is still struggling with tendinitis in his right knee after a week of treatment.
"The knee said no," the 22-year-old said.
Spain team doctor Angel Ruiz-Cotorro said Nadal would need three to six weeks to recover from the injury.
"These are very difficult moments, but I have done all that I could to be ready for the final," Nadal said. "It was a huge objective, and I'm used to playing with pain, but this is a distinct, new pain that I couldn't control."
Nadal's absence deals a big blow to Spain's bid for a third Davis Cup title since 2000.
Spain captain Emilio Sanchez Vicario has until Tuesday to announce his team.
Sanchez Vicario most likely will replace Nadal with Tommy Robredo, clay-court specialist Nicolas Almagro or Marcel Granollers.
David Ferrer, Feliciano Lopez and Fernando Verdasco are expected to be back on the team.
Nadal pulled out of the season-ending Shanghai event last week citing fatigue after a long season in which he's played in 111 matches.
But 24 hours later tests showed that he has tendinitis in his right knee .
Rafael Nadal will miss Spain's Davis Cup final against Argentina later this month because of the knee problem that saw him withdraw from the Masters Cup in Shanghai.
World number one Nadal said Monday he is still struggling with tendinitis in his right knee after a week of treatment.
"The knee said no," the 22-year-old said.
Spain team doctor Angel Ruiz-Cotorro said Nadal would need three to six weeks to recover from the injury.
"These are very difficult moments, but I have done all that I could to be ready for the final," Nadal said. "It was a huge objective, and I'm used to playing with pain, but this is a distinct, new pain that I couldn't control."
Nadal's absence deals a big blow to Spain's bid for a third Davis Cup title since 2000.
Spain captain Emilio Sanchez Vicario has until Tuesday to announce his team.
Sanchez Vicario most likely will replace Nadal with Tommy Robredo, clay-court specialist Nicolas Almagro or Marcel Granollers.
David Ferrer, Feliciano Lopez and Fernando Verdasco are expected to be back on the team.
Nadal pulled out of the season-ending Shanghai event last week citing fatigue after a long season in which he's played in 111 matches.
But 24 hours later tests showed that he has tendinitis in his right knee .
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Obama may reverse Bush policies on stem cells, drilling, abortion
President-elect Barack Obama could reverse some of President Bush's most controversial executive orders, including restrictions on embryonic stem cell research, shortly after taking office in January.
Two other executive orders from Bush
one dealing with a so-called "gag" order on international aid organizations regarding abortion, the other with oil and gas drilling on federal lands
also are receiving increased scrutiny. Obama's transition team is reviewing hundreds of Bush's executive orders, according to John Podesta, Obama's transition co-chair.
New presidents often use executive orders to put their stamp on Washington quickly.
Unlike laws, which require months to complete and the consent of Congress, presidents can use their executive authority to order federal agencies to implement current policies. "Much of what a president does, he really has to do with the Congress
for example, budgeting, legislation on policy but executive actions are ones where the president can act alone," said Martha Kumar of the White House Transition Project, a nonpartisan group established to help new presidential administrations.
Obama is expected to use his executive authority to reverse Bush's order limiting the types of embryonic stem cell research that can receive federal tax dollars.
Advocates for those suffering from a host of diseases including diabetes, Parkinson's disease and spinal cord injuries
Obama may reverse Bush policies on stem cells, drilling, abortion
President-elect Barack Obama could reverse some of President Bush's most controversial executive orders, including restrictions on embryonic stem cell research, shortly after taking office in January.
Two other executive orders from Bush
one dealing with a so-called "gag" order on international aid organizations regarding abortion, the other with oil and gas drilling on federal lands
also are receiving increased scrutiny. Obama's transition team is reviewing hundreds of Bush's executive orders, according to John Podesta, Obama's transition co-chair.
New presidents often use executive orders to put their stamp on Washington quickly.
Unlike laws, which require months to complete and the consent of Congress, presidents can use their executive authority to order federal agencies to implement current policies. "Much of what a president does, he really has to do with the Congress
for example, budgeting, legislation on policy but executive actions are ones where the president can act alone," said Martha Kumar of the White House Transition Project, a nonpartisan group established to help new presidential administrations.
Obama is expected to use his executive authority to reverse Bush's order limiting the types of embryonic stem cell research that can receive federal tax dollars.
Advocates for those suffering from a host of diseases
including diabetes, Parkinson's disease and spinal cord injuries
are eagerly awaiting the Bush-era restrictions to be lifted.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
4,300-year-old pyramid discovered
Archaeologists have discovered a new pyramid under the sands of Saqqara, an ancient burial site that remains largely unexplored and has yielded a string of unearthed pyramids in recent years, Egypt's antiquities chief announced Tuesday.
The 4,300-year-old monument most likely belonged to the queen mother of the founder of Egypt's 6th Dynasty, several hundred years after the building of the famed Great Pyramids of Giza, the country's antiquities chief Zahi Hawass said as he took the media on a tour of the find.
The discovery is part of the sprawling necropolis and burial site of the rulers of ancient Memphis, the capital of Egypt's Old Kingdom, about 19 kilometers (12 miles) south of Giza.
All that remains of the pyramid is a square-shaped 16-foot (5-meter) tall structure that had been buried under 65 feet (25 meters) of sand.
"There was so much sand dumped here that no one had any idea there was something buried underneath," said Hawass.
Hawass' team has been excavating at the location for two years, but he said it was only two months ago when they determined the structure, with sides about 72 feet (22 meters) long, was the base of a pyramid.
They also found parts of the pyramid's white limestone casing
believed to have once covered the entire structure
which enabled them to calculate that the complete pyramid was once 45 feet (14 meters) high.
The pyramid is the 118th discovered so far in Egypt.
"To find a new pyramid is always exciting," said Hawass. "And this one is magical.
It belonged to a queen." Hawass said he believes the pyramid belongs to Queen Sesheshet, who is thought to have played a significant role in establishing the 6th Dynasty and uniting two branches of the feuding royal family.
Her son, Teti, is believed to have ruled for around 20 years until he was possibly assassinated, a sign of the time's turbulence.
The Egyptian team is still digging and is two weeks from entering the burial chamber inside the pyramid, where Hawass hopes they will find proof of its owner
a sarcophagus or at least an inscription of the queen, he said.
Finding anything more would be next to impossible, as robbers in antiquity looted the pyramid, Hawass added.
The find is important because it adds to the understanding of the 6th Dynasty, which lasted from 2,322 B.C. to 2,151 B.C.
It was the last dynasty of the Old Kingdom, which spanned the 3rd millennium B.C. and was the first peak of pharaonic civilization.
4,300-year-old pyramid discovered
Archaeologists have discovered a new pyramid under the sands of Saqqara, an ancient burial site that remains largely unexplored and has yielded a string of unearthed pyramids in recent years, Egypt's antiquities chief announced Tuesday.
The 4,300-year-old monument most likely belonged to the queen mother of the founder of Egypt's 6th Dynasty, several hundred years after the building of the famed Great Pyramids of Giza, the country's antiquities chief Zahi Hawass said as he took the media on a tour of the find.
The discovery is part of the sprawling necropolis and burial site of the rulers of ancient Memphis, the capital of Egypt's Old Kingdom, about 19 kilometers (12 miles) south of Giza.
All that remains of the pyramid is a square-shaped 16-foot (5-meter) tall structure that had been buried under 65 feet (25 meters) of sand.
"There was so much sand dumped here that no one had any idea there was something buried underneath," said Hawass.
Hawass' team has been excavating at the location for two years, but he said it was only two months ago when they determined the structure, with sides about 72 feet (22 meters) long, was the base of a pyramid.
They also found parts of the pyramid's white limestone casing
believed to have once covered the entire structure
which enabled them to calculate that the complete pyramid was once 45 feet (14 meters) high.
The pyramid is the 118th discovered so far in Egypt.
"To find a new pyramid is always exciting," said Hawass. "And this one is magical.
It belonged to a queen." Hawass said he believes the pyramid belongs to Queen Sesheshet, who is thought to have played a significant role in establishing the 6th Dynasty and uniting two branches of the feuding royal family.
Her son, Teti, is believed to have ruled for around 20 years until he was possibly assassinated, a sign of the time's turbulence.
The Egyptian team is still digging and is two weeks from entering the burial chamber inside the pyramid, where Hawass hopes they will find proof of its owner
a sarcophagus or at least an inscription of the queen, he said.
Finding anything more would be next to impossible, as robbers in antiquity looted the pyramid, Hawass added.
The find is important because it adds to the understanding of the 6th Dynasty, which lasted from 2,322 B.C. to 2,151 B.C.
It was the last dynasty of the Old Kingdom, which spanned the 3rd millennium B.C. and was the first peak of pharaonic civilization.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
World marks end of `war to end all wars`
The handful of surviving World War I veterans were celebrated Tuesday as part of 90th anniversary commemorations of the conflict that was meant to "end all wars."
France's President Nicolas Sarkozy, Britain's Prince Charles, German Parliament Speaker Peter Muller and Australia's Governor General Quentin Bryce held a joint remembrance ceremony at Fort Douaumont, where more than 300,000 men were slaughtered over 300 days during the Battle of Verdun.
The quartet laid wreaths at the foot of a massive French flag that soared over the ground between two large fields of crosses marking graves.
Hundreds of veterans from other wars watched on as the solemn ceremony progressed.
Smaller memorials were planned in towns across Britain and France to remember the fallen.
The armistice ending the "Great War" came into effect at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, and the day has since been used to remember all war dead.
Erich Kastner, the last German veteran, died January 1 this year, aged 107.
Four British veterans are still alive after joining other Commonwealth, French, Russian and Italian troops in the fight against Germany and her allies.
Naval air service mechanic Henry Allingham is the oldest, having turned 112 in June.
He served in the 1916 Battle of Jutland in the North Sea before joining the new Royal Air Force at the Somme.
He lied about his age and signed up as a 16-year-old ambulance driver.
World marks end of `war to end all wars`
The handful of surviving World War I veterans were celebrated Tuesday as part of 90th anniversary commemorations of the conflict that was meant to "end all wars."
France's President Nicolas Sarkozy, Britain's Prince Charles, German Parliament Speaker Peter Muller and Australia's Governor General Quentin Bryce held a joint remembrance ceremony at Fort Douaumont, where more than 300,000 men were slaughtered over 300 days during the Battle of Verdun.
The quartet laid wreaths at the foot of a massive French flag that soared over the ground between two large fields of crosses marking graves.
Hundreds of veterans from other wars watched on as the solemn ceremony progressed.
Smaller memorials were planned in towns across Britain and France to remember the fallen.
The armistice ending the "Great War" came into effect at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, and the day has since been used to remember all war dead.
Erich Kastner, the last German veteran, died January 1 this year, aged 107.
Four British veterans are still alive after joining other Commonwealth, French, Russian and Italian troops in the fight against Germany and her allies.
Naval air service mechanic Henry Allingham is the oldest, having turned 112 in June.
Fellow seaman, Bill Stone, 108, served as a stoker aboard the battlecruiser HMS Tiger.
He was hit by shrapnel in the lower abdomen but survived.
"It was not worth it.
It was not worth one, let alone all the millions."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Sinking island nation seeks new home
The new president of the Maldives wants to relocate
Mohamed "Anni" Nasheed, a former political prisoner, was sworn in Tuesday after he unseated Asia's longest-serving leader in the country's first multi-party elections two weeks ago.
He inherits an island nation with several problems.
Foremost among them: The very likely possibility that the Maldives will sink under water if the current pace of climate change keeps raising sea levels.
The Maldives is an archipelago of almost 1,200 coral islands located south-southwest of India.
Most of the islands lie just 4.9 feet (1.5 meters) above sea level.
The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has forecast a rise in sea levels of at least 7.1 inches (18 cm) by the end of the century.
The island was badly hit by the December 2004 tsunami, which killed an estimated 273,800 people and left thousands missing across Asia and Africa.
In the Maldives itself, at least 82 people were killed and 26 unaccounted for from a population just over 270,000, according to the Maldives Disaster Management Center.
Sixty-nine islands were completely flooded and a further 30 islands half flooded.
The capital of Male was also flooded, although sea walls protected it from further devastation.
The government has calculated that creating a similar barrier around the rest of the country would cost too much.
And so the tourist nation, which has white sandy beaches that lure well-heed Westerners, wants to set aside some of the billion dollars a year it receives from tourism and spend that money on buying a new homeland.
"We will invest in land," Nasheed said. "We do not want to end up in refugee tents if the worst happens."
Nasheed's government has said that it has broached the idea with several countries and found them to be "receptive."
Land owned by Sri Lanka and India are possibilities because the countries have similar cultures, cuisine and climate as the Maldives.
Australia is also being considered because of the vast unoccupied land it owns.
Sinking island nation seeks new home
The new president of the Maldives wants to relocate
Mohamed "Anni" Nasheed, a former political prisoner, was sworn in Tuesday after he unseated Asia's longest-serving leader in the country's first multi-party elections two weeks ago.
He inherits an island nation with several problems.
Foremost among them: The very likely possibility that the Maldives will sink under water if the current pace of climate change keeps raising sea levels.
The Maldives is an archipelago of almost 1,200 coral islands located south-southwest of India.
Most of the islands lie just 4.9 feet (1.5 meters) above sea level.
The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has forecast a rise in sea levels of at least 7.1 inches (18 cm) by the end of the century.
The island was badly hit by the December 2004 tsunami, which killed an estimated 273,800 people and left thousands missing across Asia and Africa.
In the Maldives itself, at least 82 people were killed and 26 unaccounted for from a population just over 270,000, according to the Maldives Disaster Management Center.
Sixty-nine islands were completely flooded and a further 30 islands half flooded.
The capital of Male was also flooded, although sea walls protected it from further devastation.
The government has calculated that creating a similar barrier around the rest of the country would cost too much.
And so the tourist nation, which has white sandy beaches that lure well-heed Westerners, wants to set aside some of the billion dollars a year it receives from tourism and spend that money on buying a new homeland.
"We will invest in land," Nasheed said. "We do not want to end up in refugee tents if the worst happens."
Nasheed's government has said that it has broached the idea with several countries and found them to be "receptive."
Land owned by Sri Lanka and India are possibilities because the countries have similar cultures, cuisine and climate as the Maldives.
Australia is also being considered because of the vast unoccupied land it owns.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
The Bush administration on Tuesday unveiled a new program to modify mortgages and stabilize the battered real estate market, but the plan stops short of providing direct government financial help to at-risk homeowners.
The plan centers on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which between them own or back about 31 million mortgages worth a combined $5 trillion.
The federal government took over the firms in September due to mounting losses on their portfolios of mortgages.
Eligibility is determined by several factors:
Homeowners must be 90 days or more late in their mortgage payments, owe at least 90% of their home's current value, live in the home on which the mortgage was taken and have not filed for bankruptcy.
Their mortgage payments would be adjusted through lower interest rates or longer repayment schedules with the goal of bringing payments below 38% of monthly household income.
Interest rates could be lowered for five years and then raised to a predetermined level. Loan terms could be lengthened to 40 years.
Officials said the standards for loan modifications should fast-track changes in payments.
The Bush administration on Tuesday unveiled a new program to modify mortgages and stabilize the battered real estate market, but the plan stops short of providing direct government financial help to at-risk homeowners.
The plan centers on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which between them own or back about 31 million mortgages worth a combined $5 trillion.
The federal government took over the firms in September due to mounting losses on their portfolios of mortgages.
Eligibility is determined by several factors:
Homeowners must be 90 days or more late in their mortgage payments, owe at least 90% of their home's current value, live in the home on which the mortgage was taken and have not filed for bankruptcy.
Their mortgage payments would be adjusted through lower interest rates or longer repayment schedules with the goal of bringing payments below 38% of monthly household income.
Interest rates could be lowered for five years and then raised to a predetermined level. Loan terms could be lengthened to 40 years.
Officials said the standards for loan modifications should fast-track changes in payments.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Two men on a motorcycle used water pistols to spray acid on girls walking to school Wednesday in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, blinding at least two of them, military spokesmen said.
Col. Greg Julian said Afghanistan's National Military Command Center told him that four girls were hurt in the incident.
Two were blinded and remain hospitalized, and two were treated and released, he said.
The men escaped after the attack, and no one claimed responsibility for it, but Arab-language network Al-Jazeera said Taliban militants were suspected to be responsible.
The incident occurred about 8 a.m. near Mirwais Nika Girls High School in the Meir Weis Mena district.
Kandahar government spokesman Parwaz Ayoubi gave different figures on the number of girls injured, saying six were burned, one of them severely.
He called the attackers "enemies of education."
Girls were forbidden to attend school under the Taliban, which ruled the country from 1996 to 2001, when U.S.-led forces removed them from power.
According to Al-Jazeera, the girls were attacked with battery acid.
Two teenage sisters, one of whom suffered serious burns, were among the victims.
"We were on the way to school when two men on motorbikes stopped next to us.
One of them threw acid on my sister's face.
I tried to help her, and then they threw acid on me, too," Latefa, 16, told the Qatar-based satellite network.
"We were shouting, and people came to see what was going on.
Then the two men escaped," she said.
Two men on a motorcycle used water pistols to spray acid on girls walking to school Wednesday in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, blinding at least two of them, military spokesmen said.
Col. Greg Julian said Afghanistan's National Military Command Center told him that four girls were hurt in the incident.
Two were blinded and remain hospitalized, and two were treated and released, he said.
The men escaped after the attack, and no one claimed responsibility for it, but Arab-language network Al-Jazeera said Taliban militants were suspected to be responsible.
The incident occurred about 8 a.m. near Mirwais Nika Girls High School in the Meir Weis Mena district.
Kandahar government spokesman Parwaz Ayoubi gave different figures on the number of girls injured, saying six were burned, one of them severely.
He called the attackers "enemies of education."
Girls were forbidden to attend school under the Taliban, which ruled the country from 1996 to 2001, when U.S.-led forces removed them from power.
According to Al-Jazeera, the girls were attacked with battery acid.
Two teenage sisters, one of whom suffered serious burns, were among the victims.
"We were on the way to school when two men on motorbikes stopped next to us.
One of them threw acid on my sister's face.
Then the two men escaped," she said.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Kids` dancing causes Haiti school collapse, Red Cross says
Children dancing and jumping in a musical at a school in Haiti's capital caused the building to partially collapse on its foundation Wednesday, a top Red Cross official said.
Nine children were injured Wednesday at Grace Divine Primary and Secondary School in Port-au-Prince but there were no fatalities, said Brigitte Gaillis, head of operations in Haiti for the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent.
The incident marked the second school building collapse in the country in less than a week.
The school, on the side of a hill, consisted of several small buildings constructed on top of each other, Gaillis said.
"This is a minor collapse," journalist Clarens Renois told CNN by telephone from Port-au-Prince.
Renois said the apparent cause of the latest collapse was faulty construction.
"This is the same kind of problem of construction as in the school last week," said Renois, of the Haiti Press Network.
"It's weak construction. Children panicked at a second school about a mile away when they thought their building was shaking, Gaillis said.
Two children were injured in the panic, but there was no damage to that school, she said.
CNN's David Mattingly said the scope of the damage did not appear to match last week's collapse of a three-story concrete school that killed more than 90 people
many of them children
and injured 150 in nearby Petionville.
Kids` dancing causes Haiti school collapse, Red Cross says
Children dancing and jumping in a musical at a school in Haiti's capital caused the building to partially collapse on its foundation Wednesday, a top Red Cross official said.
Nine children were injured Wednesday at Grace Divine Primary and Secondary School in Port-au-Prince but there were no fatalities, said Brigitte Gaillis, head of operations in Haiti for the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent.
The incident marked the second school building collapse in the country in less than a week.
The school, on the side of a hill, consisted of several small buildings constructed on top of each other, Gaillis said.
"This is a minor collapse," journalist Clarens Renois told CNN by telephone from Port-au-Prince.
Renois said the apparent cause of the latest collapse was faulty construction.
"This is the same kind of problem of construction as in the school last week," said Renois, of the Haiti Press Network.
"It's weak construction. Children panicked at a second school about a mile away when they thought their building was shaking, Gaillis said.
Two children were injured in the panic, but there was no damage to that school, she said.
CNN's David Mattingly said the scope of the damage did not appear to match last week's collapse of a three-story concrete school that killed more than 90 people
many of them children
and injured 150 in nearby Petionville.
He called for a review of construction guidelines.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Palin says she`d be honored to help Obama
Gov. Sarah Palin said Wednesday that she would be honored to help President-elect Barack Obama in his new administration, even if he did hang around with an "unrepentant domestic terrorist."
The Alaska governor said in an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer that she would be willing to help if Obama asked her for assistance on some of the issues she highlighted during this year's campaign, such as energy or services for special-needs children.
"It would be my honor to assist and support our new president and the new administration," said Palin, whom Sen. John McCain chose as his running mate in August.
"I speak for other Republicans and Republican governors, also," she said.
"They would be willing also to seize this opportunity that we have to progress this nation together, in a united front."
But asked moments later about some of the tough rhetoric she hurled from the stump, she said she was "still concerned" about Obama's ties to former Weather Underground member-turned-Chicago college professor William Ayers.
"If anybody still wants to talk about it, I will," she said.
"Because this is an unrepentant domestic terrorist who had campaigned to blow up, to destroy our Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol.
"That's an association that still bothers me, and I think it's fair to still talk about it," she continued.
"However, the campaign is over.
That chapter is closed.
Palin says she`d be honored to help Obama
Gov. Sarah Palin said Wednesday that she would be honored to help President-elect Barack Obama in his new administration, even if he did hang around with an "unrepentant domestic terrorist."
The Alaska governor said in an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer that she would be willing to help if Obama asked her for assistance on some of the issues she highlighted during this year's campaign, such as energy or services for special-needs children.
"It would be my honor to assist and support our new president and the new administration," said Palin, whom Sen. John McCain chose as his running mate in August.
"I speak for other Republicans and Republican governors, also," she said.
"They would be willing also to seize this opportunity that we have to progress this nation together, in a united front."
But asked moments later about some of the tough rhetoric she hurled from the stump, she said she was "still concerned" about Obama's ties to former Weather Underground member-turned-Chicago college professor William Ayers.
"If anybody still wants to talk about it, I will," she said.
"Because this is an unrepentant domestic terrorist who had campaigned to blow up, to destroy our Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol.
"However, the campaign is over.
That chapter is closed.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Italian airline Alitalia canceled more flights Wednesday amid a protest action by pilots and flight attendants.
Eighteen flights had been canceled by 0830 GMT Wednesday stranding hundreds of passengers.
The airline canceled 124 flights Tuesday.
A group of investors has crafted new employee contracts as part of its plan to bail out the ailing airline.
The investors are pumping $1.25 billion (1 billion euros) into Alitalia.
Pilots and flight attendants in four major trade unions are protesting the contracts through a "work to rule" action
essentially doing the bare minimum required by their contracts in an attempt to slow the work process and pressure management to pay attention to their grievances.
Government officials and representatives of the revamped airline have declined to re-open contract negotiations with trade unions.
They have threatened to hire pilots and flight attendants from other airlines if necessary.
European Union Transport Commissioner Antonio Tajani said Wednesday he approved of the Alitalia takeover plan but warned the airline it must pay back a 300 million euro ($380 million) loan from the Italian government, The Associated Press reported.
Italian airline Alitalia canceled more flights Wednesday amid a protest action by pilots and flight attendants.
Eighteen flights had been canceled by 0830 GMT Wednesday stranding hundreds of passengers.
The airline canceled 124 flights Tuesday.
A group of investors has crafted new employee contracts as part of its plan to bail out the ailing airline.
The investors are pumping $1.25 billion (1 billion euros) into Alitalia.
Pilots and flight attendants in four major trade unions are protesting the contracts through a "work to rule" action
essentially doing the bare minimum required by their contracts in an attempt to slow the work process and pressure management to pay attention to their grievances.
Government officials and representatives of the revamped airline have declined to re-open contract negotiations with trade unions.
They have threatened to hire pilots and flight attendants from other airlines if necessary.
European Union Transport Commissioner Antonio Tajani said Wednesday he approved of the Alitalia takeover plan but warned the airline it must pay back a 300 million euro ($380 million) loan from the Italian government, The Associated Press reported.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Google tool uses search terms to detect flu outbreaks
If you have a fever, headache and runny nose, you might go to Google and type the words "flu symptoms" to see whether you've come down with influenza.
Google knows that you might do something like that, and it also knows which U.S. state you're in.
Now, it's putting that information together in a tool that Google says could detect flu outbreaks faster than traditional systems currently in use.
Google's new public health initiative, Google Flu Trends, looks at the relative popularity of a slew of flu-related search terms to determine where in the U.S. flu outbreaks may be occurring. "What's exciting about Flu Trends is that it lets anybody
epidemiologists, health officials, moms with sick children learn about the current flu activity level in their own state based on data that's coming in this week," said Jeremy Ginsberg, the lead engineer who developed the site.
The tool, which launched Tuesday, operates on the idea that there's likely to be a flu outbreak in states where flu-related search terms are currently popular.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention collaborated with Google on the project, helping validate and refine the model, and has provided flu tracking data over a five-year period, said Dr. Joseph Bresee, chief of the epidemiology and prevention branch in the CDC's influenza division.
Although it doesn't replace the need for real viral surveillance data, Flu Trends is a good model, and the CDC looks forward to testing it this flu season, Bresee said.
"We really are excited about the future of using different technologies, including technology like this, in trying to figure out if there's better ways to do surveillance for outbreaks of influenza or any other diseases in the United States," he said.
"In theory at least, this idea can be used for any disease and any health problem." Researchers found a tight correlation between the relative popularity of flu-related search terms and CDC's surveillance data, Ginsberg said.
Google tool uses search terms to detect flu outbreaks
If you have a fever, headache and runny nose, you might go to Google and type the words "flu symptoms" to see whether you've come down with influenza.
Google knows that you might do something like that, and it also knows which U.S. state you're in.
Now, it's putting that information together in a tool that Google says could detect flu outbreaks faster than traditional systems currently in use.
Google's new public health initiative, Google Flu Trends, looks at the relative popularity of a slew of flu-related search terms to determine where in the U.S. flu outbreaks may be occurring. "What's exciting about Flu Trends is that it lets anybody
epidemiologists, health officials, moms with sick children learn about the current flu activity level in their own state based on data that's coming in this week," said Jeremy Ginsberg, the lead engineer who developed the site.
The tool, which launched Tuesday, operates on the idea that there's likely to be a flu outbreak in states where flu-related search terms are currently popular.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention collaborated with Google on the project, helping validate and refine the model, and has provided flu tracking data over a five-year period, said Dr. Joseph Bresee, chief of the epidemiology and prevention branch in the CDC's influenza division.
Although it doesn't replace the need for real viral surveillance data, Flu Trends is a good model, and the CDC looks forward to testing it this flu season, Bresee said.
"We really are excited about the future of using different technologies, including technology like this, in trying to figure out if there's better ways to do surveillance for outbreaks of influenza or any other diseases in the United States," he said.
"In theory at least, this idea can be used for any disease and any health problem." Researchers found a tight correlation between the relative popularity of flu-related search terms and CDC's surveillance data, Ginsberg said.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Every day is a holiday for Yo-Yo Ma
When Yo-Yo Ma enters a room, everything changes.
His energy and warmth and curiosity envelop you like a blanket.
He's also surprisingly funny.
The world's most celebrated cellist introduces himself not as Yo-Yo, or Mr. Ma, or even Yo Mama.
Instead, with a hint of mischief and a nod to the everyman celebrity of campaign '08, he offers, "I'm Joe the cellist."
He adds, "I get the 'plumb' jobs."
Consider Ma's latest album, "Songs of Joy and Peace", the first holiday-themed release of his career.
Ma describes it as a musical party, a collection of good-time collaborations with musical buddies, James Taylor and Diana Krall among them.
"I asked everybody to bring their favorite piece of music that signified joy to them," Ma said. "And out came all of these fantastic pieces.
Many of them I didn't know." Krall applies her mellow voice and piano playing to the lighthearted "You Couldn't be Cuter."
Ma joined Taylor in Taylor's Washington, Massachusetts, barn to record George Harrison's "Here Comes the Sun." Other guests include vocalists Alison Krauss and Renee Fleming, trumpeter Chris Botti and saxophonist Joshua Redman.
Ma also enlists help from friends who are less mainstream such as the green-haired Galician bagpiper Cristina Pato and mandolin player Chris Thiele.
Jake Shimabukuro's ukulele provides a delightfully plucky counterpoint to Ma's soaring cello on the John Lennon/Yoko Ono hit "Happy Xmas (War is Over)."
Born in Paris to Chinese parents and raised in New York, Ma, 53, is no stranger to thinking outside the music box.
In 1998 he founded the Silk Road Project, a multi-cultural exchange designed to help artists and musicians share ideas across borders.
His international efforts have earned him the title of United Nations Messenger of Peace.
Every day is a holiday for Yo-Yo Ma
When Yo-Yo Ma enters a room, everything changes.
His energy and warmth and curiosity envelop you like a blanket.
He's also surprisingly funny.
The world's most celebrated cellist introduces himself not as Yo-Yo, or Mr. Ma, or even Yo Mama.
Instead, with a hint of mischief and a nod to the everyman celebrity of campaign '08, he offers, "I'm Joe the cellist."
He adds, "I get the 'plumb' jobs."
Consider Ma's latest album, "Songs of Joy and Peace", the first holiday-themed release of his career.
Ma describes it as a musical party, a collection of good-time collaborations with musical buddies, James Taylor and Diana Krall among them.
"I asked everybody to bring their favorite piece of music that signified joy to them," Ma said. "And out came all of these fantastic pieces.
Many of them I didn't know." Krall applies her mellow voice and piano playing to the lighthearted "You Couldn't be Cuter."
Ma joined Taylor in Taylor's Washington, Massachusetts, barn to record George Harrison's "Here Comes the Sun." Other guests include vocalists Alison Krauss and Renee Fleming, trumpeter Chris Botti and saxophonist Joshua Redman.
Ma also enlists help from friends who are less mainstream such as the green-haired Galician bagpiper Cristina Pato and mandolin player Chris Thiele.
Jake Shimabukuro's ukulele provides a delightfully plucky counterpoint to Ma's soaring cello on the John Lennon/Yoko Ono hit "Happy Xmas (War is Over)."
Born in Paris to Chinese parents and raised in New York, Ma, 53, is no stranger to thinking outside the music box.
In 1998 he founded the Silk Road Project, a multi-cultural exchange designed to help artists and musicians share ideas across borders.
His international efforts have earned him the title of United Nations Messenger of Peace.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Ben Ainslie named World Sailor of the Year
Britain's Olympic sailing hero Ben Ainslie has clinched the International Sailing Federation (ISAF) Rolex World Sailor of the Year crown for a record third time.
Ainslie, who defended his Olympic Finn-class gold medal in Beijing this year, received the award in a ceremony held in Madrid, Spain, Tuesday night.
The accolade caps a hugely successful year for the 31-year-old, that saw him win the European, World and Olympic events.
It also marks the first time the award has been won three times by one sailor.
Ainslie said he was delighted with the recognition.
"It's a huge honor, it's really exciting, it's a great list of nominees and you've got to congratulate all of those people.
"The world sailor of the year award is a massive honor for a sailor, it's huge.
"For me to win this year is fantastic, it's really made my year absolutely.
I'm just really very happy,'' Ainslie said.
Ainslie's victory at Beijing
Ben Ainslie named World Sailor of the Year
Britain's Olympic sailing hero Ben Ainslie has clinched the International Sailing Federation (ISAF) Rolex World Sailor of the Year crown for a record third time.
Ainslie, who defended his Olympic Finn-class gold medal in Beijing this year, received the award in a ceremony held in Madrid, Spain, Tuesday night.
The accolade caps a hugely successful year for the 31-year-old, that saw him win the European, World and Olympic events.
It also marks the first time the award has been won three times by one sailor.
Ainslie said he was delighted with the recognition.
"It's a huge honor, it's really exciting, it's a great list of nominees and you've got to congratulate all of those people.
"The world sailor of the year award is a massive honor for a sailor, it's huge.
"For me to win this year is fantastic, it's really made my year absolutely.
I'm just really very happy,'' Ainslie said.
Ainslie's victory at Beijing
and third gold medal in succession
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
I`m proud of Obama and pray for him
Former Republican U.S. vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin has said she is optimistic about Barack Obama's incoming administration and that she prays for the president elect and his family.
Palin drew huge crowds at her campaign stops, garnered intense media interest and brought big ratings to "Saturday Night Live" as comedian Tina Fey impersonated her in several political skits.
The Alaska governor appeared on CNN's "Larry King Live" on Wednesday to discuss the historic campaign, how she thought she affected the Republican ticket, the concession speech she never got to make, her family's coverage in the media and her plans now that the election is over.
Palin emphasized her admiration for the president-elect in the interview.
"I'm proud of Barack Obama," she told King. "I pray for him, his family, the new administration. I look forward to the good things that are in store for this nation."
I`m proud of Obama and pray for him
Former Republican U.S. vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin has said she is optimistic about Barack Obama's incoming administration and that she prays for the president elect and his family.
Palin drew huge crowds at her campaign stops, garnered intense media interest and brought big ratings to "Saturday Night Live" as comedian Tina Fey impersonated her in several political skits.
The Alaska governor appeared on CNN's "Larry King Live" on Wednesday to discuss the historic campaign, how she thought she affected the Republican ticket, the concession speech she never got to make, her family's coverage in the media and her plans now that the election is over.
Palin emphasized her admiration for the president-elect in the interview.
"I'm proud of Barack Obama," she told King.
"I pray for him, his family, the new administration.
I look forward to the good things that are in store for this nation."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Prince Charles turns 60 waiting for throne
By the time he turns 60 Friday, Britain's Prince Charles will have spent 56 years waiting to become king.
That's put him in quite a bind.
The longest-waiting heir in British history only ascends to the throne when his mother dies or decides to step down.
Queen Elizabeth II was hosting a birthday party for her son Thursday at Buckingham Palace.
The Philharmonic Orchestra, of which the prince is patron, was to play for invited members of the extended royal family and assorted society figures.
Charles' wife Camilla planned to throw a more private bash on Saturday at the prince's rural estate, complete with a performance by sexagenarian rocker Rod Stewart.
But the Queen won't be giving Charles the present many believe he craves most
The Queen has indicated informally that she plans to keep the job for life
If the Queen remains in good health, Charles may be nearing 80 when he fulfills the unique destiny that was his at birth.
But shed no tears for Charles and his predicament.
He has made being Prince of Wales a pretty good thing.
Experts, associates and friends say he realized decades ago that he would make his mark as Prince of Wales rather than as an octogenarian king, and so decided to expand that undefined role and use it to pursue causes dear to his heart.
The princely role offers a few advantages over being monarch.
Some say the money is better, because the Prince of Wales controls the lucrative Duchy of Cornwall, the 55,000-hectare (136,000-acre) estate established in 1337 by King Edward II to provide income for his heir.
Official accounts show the prince's property and investments brought in £16 million ($24 million) last year.
And a prince is much more able to speak his mind than a king or queen because of constitutional restraints placed on the person heading the House of Windsor.
There is no doubt that Charles is less popular than the Queen, who commands wide respect throughout Britain for her unswerving devotion to duty for more than half a century.
She became Queen on the death of her father George VI in 1952.
Charles, the eldest of her four children, was not yet 4-years old.
Prince Charles turns 60 waiting for throne
By the time he turns 60 Friday, Britain's Prince Charles will have spent 56 years waiting to become king.
That's put him in quite a bind.
The longest-waiting heir in British history only ascends to the throne when his mother dies or decides to step down.
Queen Elizabeth II was hosting a birthday party for her son Thursday at Buckingham Palace.
The Philharmonic Orchestra, of which the prince is patron, was to play for invited members of the extended royal family and assorted society figures.
Charles' wife Camilla planned to throw a more private bash on Saturday at the prince's rural estate, complete with a performance by sexagenarian rocker Rod Stewart.
But the Queen won't be giving Charles the present many believe he craves most
The Queen has indicated informally that she plans to keep the job for life
If the Queen remains in good health, Charles may be nearing 80 when he fulfills the unique destiny that was his at birth.
But shed no tears for Charles and his predicament.
He has made being Prince of Wales a pretty good thing.
Experts, associates and friends say he realized decades ago that he would make his mark as Prince of Wales rather than as an octogenarian king, and so decided to expand that undefined role and use it to pursue causes dear to his heart.
The princely role offers a few advantages over being monarch.
Some say the money is better, because the Prince of Wales controls the lucrative Duchy of Cornwall, the 55,000-hectare (136,000-acre) estate established in 1337 by King Edward II to provide income for his heir.
Official accounts show the prince's property and investments brought in £16 million ($24 million) last year.
And a prince is much more able to speak his mind than a king or queen because of constitutional restraints placed on the person heading the House of Windsor.
There is no doubt that Charles is less popular than the Queen, who commands wide respect throughout Britain for her unswerving devotion to duty for more than half a century.
She became Queen on the death of her father George VI in 1952.
Charles, the eldest of her four children, was not yet 4-years old.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Higher taxes on alcohol can make a night out more expensive but could save lives, according to a study released Thursday.
Each time the state of Alaska raised its alcoholic beverage tax, fewer deaths were caused by or related to alcohol, according to the study that examined 28 years of data.
When Alaska raised its alcohol tax in 1983, deaths caused by or related to alcohol dropped 29 percent.
A 2002 tax increase was followed by an 11 percent reduction, according to the study published in the American Journal of Public Health. "Increasing alcohol taxes saves lives;
that's the bottom line," said the study's lead author, Dr. Alexander Wagenaar, a professor at the University of Florida's Department of Epidemiology and Health Policy Research. "The tax increase caused some reduction in consumption of alcohol.
The reduction saved lives." The study, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, tracked the number of deaths for every quarter in Alaska from 1976 to 2004.
Using information from death certificates, Wagenaar and the co-authors compiled the number of deaths caused by alcohol, such as alcohol poisoning and alcoholic liver disease, and deaths linked to alcohol, such as cirrhosis and chronic pancreatitis.
Deaths caused by alcohol-related car accidents or violence were not included.
Deaths from Alaska were compared with data from other states to control for nationwide factors, such as population growth and advanced medical care.
The authors found 23 fewer deaths per year after a 1983 tax hike and 21 fewer deaths per year after a 2002 increase.
Researchers chose to study Alaska after a political debate over the most recent alcohol tax increase in the Last Frontier state.
"No other state in recent years has increased alcohol taxes in the way that Alaska did in 2002," Wagenaar said.
"Basically, they conducted the experiment, and we studied it."
"The study looks at the responsiveness of drinking."
Paying more for alcohol saves lives
Higher taxes on alcohol can make a night out more expensive but could save lives, according to a study released Thursday.
Each time the state of Alaska raised its alcoholic beverage tax, fewer deaths were caused by or related to alcohol, according to the study that examined 28 years of data.
When Alaska raised its alcohol tax in 1983, deaths caused by or related to alcohol dropped 29 percent.
A 2002 tax increase was followed by an 11 percent reduction, according to the study published in the American Journal of Public Health. "Increasing alcohol taxes saves lives;
that's the bottom line," said the study's lead author, Dr. Alexander Wagenaar, a professor at the University of Florida's Department of Epidemiology and Health Policy Research. "The tax increase caused some reduction in consumption of alcohol.
The reduction saved lives." The study, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, tracked the number of deaths for every quarter in Alaska from 1976 to 2004.
Using information from death certificates, Wagenaar and the co-authors compiled the number of deaths caused by alcohol, such as alcohol poisoning and alcoholic liver disease, and deaths linked to alcohol, such as cirrhosis and chronic pancreatitis.
Deaths caused by alcohol-related car accidents or violence were not included.
Deaths from Alaska were compared with data from other states to control for nationwide factors, such as population growth and advanced medical care.
The authors found 23 fewer deaths per year after a 1983 tax hike and 21 fewer deaths per year after a 2002 increase.
Researchers chose to study Alaska after a political debate over the most recent alcohol tax increase in the Last Frontier state.
"No other state in recent years has increased alcohol taxes in the way that Alaska did in 2002," Wagenaar said.
"Basically, they conducted the experiment, and we studied it."
"The study looks at the responsiveness of drinking."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
`Pregnant man` expecting a second child
The "pregnant man" who gave birth to a daughter earlier this year says he is expecting a second child.
Thomas Beatie, a married man who used to be a woman, has told America's ABC News that after giving birth to Susan on June 29 he did not go back on the male hormone testosterone so he could have another baby.
"I feel good," he told ABC News' Barbara Walters. "I had my checkups ... And everything is right on track."
Beatie, who lives with his wife Nancy in Bend, Oregon, said the baby is due on June 12.
Beatie was born a woman but underwent hormone therapy before he was legally declared a man.
He had a mastectomy but kept his female reproductive organs when he underwent a sex change in the late 1990s.
He and Nancy decided they wanted to start a family and he underwent artificial insemination late last year.
Walters said on her television talkshow, "The View," that Beatie had revealed his second pregnancy to her during an interview for a documentary to air on U.S. television Friday night.
Beatie spoke to Walters about Susan's birth, which was not via Caesarean section.
Prior to her birth, he released a photo showing his bearded face and pregnant belly.
`Pregnant man` expecting a second child
The "pregnant man" who gave birth to a daughter earlier this year says he is expecting a second child.
Thomas Beatie, a married man who used to be a woman, has told America's ABC News that after giving birth to Susan on June 29 he did not go back on the male hormone testosterone so he could have another baby.
"I feel good," he told ABC News' Barbara Walters. "I had my checkups ... And everything is right on track."
Beatie, who lives with his wife Nancy in Bend, Oregon, said the baby is due on June 12.
Beatie was born a woman but underwent hormone therapy before he was legally declared a man.
He had a mastectomy but kept his female reproductive organs when he underwent a sex change in the late 1990s.
He and Nancy decided they wanted to start a family and he underwent artificial insemination late last year.
Walters said on her television talkshow, "The View," that Beatie had revealed his second pregnancy to her during an interview for a documentary to air on U.S. television Friday night.
Beatie spoke to Walters about Susan's birth, which was not via Caesarean section.
Prior to her birth, he released a photo showing his bearded face and pregnant belly.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Wall Street's rollercoaster ride continued Thursday, as the major stock gauges bounced back from levels not seen since 2003.
Between the close and the low, the Dow's swing was 870 points;
There was a 911-point difference between the day's high and the day's low.
The Standard & Poor's 500 index gained 6.9 percent and the Nasdaq composite rose 6.5 percent, both after touching a lows not seen since 2003.
The U.S. markets rebound followed a mixed day in Europe and earlier sell-offs across Asia, while new figures showed that the German economy had slipped into recession.
In Europe, London's FTSE 100 lost 0.31 percent, but Germany's DAX was up 0.62 percent and the CAC-40 in France had gained 1.1 percent.
Earlier Thursday, Germany's Federal Statistical Office said that economic output contracted by 0.5 percent in the July-September period compared with the previous quarter.
That followed a 0.4 percent decline in gross domestic product in the second quarter
The picture was equally gloomy in the UK as telecoms giant BT announced it was cutting around 10,000 jobs, mainly among agency workers and sub-contractors, The British Press Association said.
Wall Street's rollercoaster ride continued Thursday, as the major stock gauges bounced back from levels not seen since 2003.
Between the close and the low, the Dow's swing was 870 points;
There was a 911-point difference between the day's high and the day's low.
The Standard & Poor's 500 index gained 6.9 percent and the Nasdaq composite rose 6.5 percent, both after touching a lows not seen since 2003.
The U.S. markets rebound followed a mixed day in Europe and earlier sell-offs across Asia, while new figures showed that the German economy had slipped into recession.
In Europe, London's FTSE 100 lost 0.31 percent, but Germany's DAX was up 0.62 percent and the CAC-40 in France had gained 1.1 percent.
Earlier Thursday, Germany's Federal Statistical Office said that economic output contracted by 0.5 percent in the July-September period compared with the previous quarter.
That followed a 0.4 percent decline in gross domestic product in the second quarter
The picture was equally gloomy in the UK as telecoms giant BT announced it was cutting around 10,000 jobs, mainly among agency workers and sub-contractors, The British Press Association said.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Daniel Craig and the pain of being James Bond
Daniel Craig has the scars to prove it.
It cost him eight stitches, a severed fingertip and several bruised ribs, but Craig has once again stepped into the shoes of James Bond for "Quantum of Solace," set to debut in U.S. theatres Friday.
who did his interview with an arm in a sling the pain is just part of making a Bond film.
"I've always liked the physicality of the Bond movies," Craig said, "and as a film fan, I've always liked it when you're not being snapped out of the story line because you suddenly see it's a stunt man."
The 22nd Bond flick picks up where "Casino Royale" left off.
After being betrayed by the woman he loved, British spy 007 pursues the truth behind the organization that blackmailed her
all the while fighting the urge to make the mission personal.
Director Marc Forster ("Monster's Ball," "Finding Neverland") said that he wanted this Bond to have a raw emotional side to go with the action-movie propulsion.
"I think that I wanted the film to feel sort of like a bullet. It ... keeps us on the edge of the seat until the last frame. But at the same time, that there is sort of an emotional texture to Bond's character, which was very important to me," he told CNN.
Daniel Craig and the pain of being James Bond
Daniel Craig has the scars to prove it.
It cost him eight stitches, a severed fingertip and several bruised ribs, but Craig has once again stepped into the shoes of James Bond for "Quantum of Solace," set to debut in U.S. theatres Friday.
who did his interview with an arm in a sling the pain is just part of making a Bond film.
"I've always liked the physicality of the Bond movies," Craig said, "and as a film fan, I've always liked it when you're not being snapped out of the story line because you suddenly see it's a stunt man."
The 22nd Bond flick picks up where "Casino Royale" left off.
After being betrayed by the woman he loved, British spy 007 pursues the truth behind the organization that blackmailed her
all the while fighting the urge to make the mission personal.
"I think that I wanted the film to feel sort of like a bullet.
It ... keeps us on the edge of the seat until the last frame.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Real Madrid striker Ruud van Nistelrooy has been ruled out for the rest of the Spanish league season after undergoing knee surgery this week.
The 32-year-old Dutch international had arthroscopic surgery on his right knee on Wednesday and the Spanish champions have confirmed he will need six to nine months to recover after further damage was discovered during the operation.
He returned after three games in last week's Champions League defeat to the same side, but was substituted with nine minutes to play.
The former Manchester United striker had surgery on the same potentially career-threatening injury in 2000 when he was still with PSV Eindhoven.
Dr. Richard Steadman, who also operated on the Dutchman eight years ago, discovered a partial break to Van Nistelrooy's knee cap and damage to a cruciate ligament and cartilage around the knee.
The club confirmed that the American surgeon, who has also operated on England striker Michael Owen, had already acted to repair the knee.
"Of course I hope for a little luck and that this injury only keeps me out of action for a few months, like eight weeks or so," Van Nistelrooy said from Dr. Steadman's clinic in Colorado on Wednesday.
Van Nistelrooy's injury comes with the club under pressure following several poor performances that has put coach Bernd Schuster's future at the club in doubt.
Van Nistelrooy topped the Spanish league with 25 goals after his move from Old Trafford in 2006.
Madrid won the league that year and the following with the Dutchman scoring 16 goals after missing large parts of the season due to an ankle problem.
He has scored seven goals in nine matches this campaign.
Real Madrid striker Ruud van Nistelrooy has been ruled out for the rest of the Spanish league season after undergoing knee surgery this week.
The 32-year-old Dutch international had arthroscopic surgery on his right knee on Wednesday and the Spanish champions have confirmed he will need six to nine months to recover after further damage was discovered during the operation.
He returned after three games in last week's Champions League defeat to the same side, but was substituted with nine minutes to play.
The former Manchester United striker had surgery on the same potentially career-threatening injury in 2000 when he was still with PSV Eindhoven.
Dr. Richard Steadman, who also operated on the Dutchman eight years ago, discovered a partial break to Van Nistelrooy's knee cap and damage to a cruciate ligament and cartilage around the knee.
The club confirmed that the American surgeon, who has also operated on England striker Michael Owen, had already acted to repair the knee.
"Of course I hope for a little luck and that this injury only keeps me out of action for a few months, like eight weeks or so," Van Nistelrooy said from Dr. Steadman's clinic in Colorado on Wednesday.
Van Nistelrooy's injury comes with the club under pressure following several poor performances that has put coach Bernd Schuster's future at the club in doubt.
Van Nistelrooy topped the Spanish league with 25 goals after his move from Old Trafford in 2006.
Madrid won the league that year and the following with the Dutchman scoring 16 goals after missing large parts of the season due to an ankle problem.
He has scored seven goals in nine matches this campaign.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Midnights in Moscow, post-Soviet style
As I raised my hands toward the ceiling and then pointed them toward my head, I had to wonder:
How would the 19th-century Russian writer Nikolai Gogol feel if he knew that a bunch of foreigners were dancing the YMCA at a nightclub named after him?
Gogol the man is considered the father of modern Russian realism, with works such as "Dead Souls."
Gogol the cafe-club is considered a favorite hangout for Russians and expatriates alike, perfect for meals, coffee, fruity cocktails and music.
Since the Soviet Union fell in 1991, Russia's capital city has progressed in many ways, breaking free of old social structures while struggling to maintain its cultural heritage.
The city has preserved a lot of its old beauty, boasting monuments such as St. Basil's Cathedral and gorgeous landscapes such as Tsaritsino Park.
At the same time, there are Internet cafes and 24-hour bookstores, and you'd be hard-pressed to meet someone who doesn't carry a cell phone.
But, as an American studying abroad at Moscow State University, I sometimes felt perplexed in this immense modern metropolis that still makes certain familiar conveniences inconvenient.
In Moscow, kiosks for adding money to your cell phone seem far more common than ATMs.
Even nice restaurants with $40-minimum meals
Midnights in Moscow, post-Soviet style
As I raised my hands toward the ceiling and then pointed them toward my head, I had to wonder:
How would the 19th-century Russian writer Nikolai Gogol feel if he knew that a bunch of foreigners were dancing the YMCA at a nightclub named after him?
Gogol the man is considered the father of modern Russian realism, with works such as "Dead Souls."
Gogol the cafe-club is considered a favorite hangout for Russians and expatriates alike, perfect for meals, coffee, fruity cocktails and music.
Since the Soviet Union fell in 1991, Russia's capital city has progressed in many ways, breaking free of old social structures while struggling to maintain its cultural heritage.
The city has preserved a lot of its old beauty, boasting monuments such as St. Basil's Cathedral and gorgeous landscapes such as Tsaritsino Park.
At the same time, there are Internet cafes and 24-hour bookstores, and you'd be hard-pressed to meet someone who doesn't carry a cell phone.
But, as an American studying abroad at Moscow State University, I sometimes felt perplexed in this immense modern metropolis that still makes certain familiar conveniences inconvenient.
In Moscow, kiosks for adding money to your cell phone seem far more common than ATMs.
Even nice restaurants with $40-minimum meals
for example, the best beef stroganoff and fried cheese balls of your life
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Imagine a bicycle seat connected by mechanical frames to a pair of shoes for an idea of how the new wearable assisted-walking gadget from Honda works.
The experimental device, unveiled Friday, is designed to support bodyweight, reduce stress on the knees and help people get up steps and stay in crouching positions.
Honda envisions the device being used by workers at auto or other factories.
It showed a video of Honda employees wearing the device and bending to peer underneath vehicles on an assembly line.
Engineer Jun Ashihara also said the machine is useful for people standing in long lines and for people who run around to make deliveries.
"This should be as easy to use as a bicycle," Ashihara said at Honda's Tokyo headquarters. "It reduces stress, and you should feel less tired."
To wear it, you put the seat between your legs, put on the shoes and push the on button.
Then just start walking around.
In a test-run for media, this reporter found it does take some getting used to.
But I could sense how it supported my moves, pushing up on my bottom when I squatted and pushing at my soles to help lift my legs when I walked.
The system has a computer, motor, gears, battery and sensors embedded in it so it responds to a person's movements, according to Honda Motor Co.
Pricing and commercial product plans are still undecided.
Japan's No. 2 automaker will begin testing a prototype with its assembly line workers later this month for feedback.
The need for such mechanical help is expected to grow in Japan, which has one of the most rapidly aging societies in the world.
Other companies are also eyeing the potentially lucrative market of helping the weak and old get around.
Japan is among the world's leading nations in robotics technology, not only for industrial use but also for entertainment and companionship.
Imagine a bicycle seat connected by mechanical frames to a pair of shoes for an idea of how the new wearable assisted-walking gadget from Honda works.
The experimental device, unveiled Friday, is designed to support bodyweight, reduce stress on the knees and help people get up steps and stay in crouching positions.
Honda envisions the device being used by workers at auto or other factories.
It showed a video of Honda employees wearing the device and bending to peer underneath vehicles on an assembly line.
Engineer Jun Ashihara also said the machine is useful for people standing in long lines and for people who run around to make deliveries.
"This should be as easy to use as a bicycle," Ashihara said at Honda's Tokyo headquarters. "It reduces stress, and you should feel less tired."
To wear it, you put the seat between your legs, put on the shoes and push the on button.
Then just start walking around.
In a test-run for media, this reporter found it does take some getting used to.
But I could sense how it supported my moves, pushing up on my bottom when I squatted and pushing at my soles to help lift my legs when I walked.
The system has a computer, motor, gears, battery and sensors embedded in it so it responds to a person's movements, according to Honda Motor Co.
Pricing and commercial product plans are still undecided.
Japan's No. 2 automaker will begin testing a prototype with its assembly line workers later this month for feedback.
The need for such mechanical help is expected to grow in Japan, which has one of the most rapidly aging societies in the world.
Other companies are also eyeing the potentially lucrative market of helping the weak and old get around.
Japan is among the world's leading nations in robotics technology, not only for industrial use but also for entertainment and companionship.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Bernie Conatser has never seen business this good.
The owner of a gun shop in the Washington suburb of Manassas, Virginia, Conatser said sales have doubled or tripled since this time last year.
On Saturday, he said, he did as much business as he would normally do in a week.
"I have been in business for 12 years, and I was here for Y2K, September 11, Katrina," Conatser said, as a steady stream of customers browsed what remained of his stock. "And all of those were big events, and we did notice a spike in business, but nothing on the order of what we are seeing right now."
Weapons dealers in much of the United States are reporting sharply higher sales since Barack Obama won the presidency a week ago.
Buyers and sellers attribute the surge to worries that Obama and a Democratic-controlled Congress will move to restrict firearm ownership, despite the insistence of campaign aides that the president-elect supports gun rights and considers the issue a low priority.
According to FBI figures for the week of November 3 to 9, the bureau received more than 374,000 requests for background checks on gun purchasers a nearly 49 percent increase over the same period in 2007.
Conatser said his store, Virginia Arms Company, has run out of some models such as the AR-15 rifle, the civilian version of the military's M-16 and is running low on others.
Bernie Conatser has never seen business this good.
The owner of a gun shop in the Washington suburb of Manassas, Virginia, Conatser said sales have doubled or tripled since this time last year.
On Saturday, he said, he did as much business as he would normally do in a week.
"I have been in business for 12 years, and I was here for Y2K, September 11, Katrina," Conatser said, as a steady stream of customers browsed what remained of his stock. "And all of those were big events, and we did notice a spike in business, but nothing on the order of what we are seeing right now."
Weapons dealers in much of the United States are reporting sharply higher sales since Barack Obama won the presidency a week ago.
Buyers and sellers attribute the surge to worries that Obama and a Democratic-controlled Congress will move to restrict firearm ownership, despite the insistence of campaign aides that the president-elect supports gun rights and considers the issue a low priority.
According to FBI figures for the week of November 3 to 9, the bureau received more than 374,000 requests for background checks on gun purchasers
a nearly 49 percent increase over the same period in 2007.
Conatser said his store, Virginia Arms Company, has run out of some models
such as the AR-15 rifle, the civilian version of the military's M-16
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Global tourism feels the squeeze
Turnout for the international tourism industry's most important event is at a record high this year as the sector struggles to cope with the financial crisis sweeping the world.
Industry professionals, government ministers and tourism chiefs from around the globe are currently gathering in London for World Travel Market, an international travel trade show.
This year's event, which runs through Thursday, is the biggest ever, with nearly 50,000 participants from 200 countries attending.
"When you're going through difficult times, it is still very important to market and showcase your business," Fiona Jeffery, chairman of the World Travel Market, told CNN.
"There are many companies here seeing a downturn or slowdown in business and to know you're not the only person experiencing that can be quite reassuring."
Faced with flight cutbacks, reductions in business travel budgets and a sharp decline in consumer confidence, the global tourism industry is feeling the squeeze of the economic downturn.
Global tourism slowed sharply in the summer as travelers, frightened by the financial crisis, cut back on their spending.
International tourism arrivals grew less than two percent in June, July and August, down from the average growth of 5.7 percent recorded in the first four months of the year, according to the latest data from the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO).
The UNWTO predicts the situation will get worse before it gets better.
The group expects growth to stall or rise by just two percent globally for all of 2009.
Furthermore, with the threat of a deep global economic recession looming, the UNWTO doesn't expect the travel and tourism industry to recover until later next year.
Practically every part of the world is showing weakness in terms of international arrivals.
Asia has seen the most rapid deterioration, with the Northeast region in particular suffering a significant slowdown.
Growth has also practically stalled in Europe, particularly when compared to North and South America and Africa, where the slowdown has been more subdued.
The Middle East is emerging as a lone bright spot.
Growth through August appears to have outstripped the pace from the same period a year ago, according to the UNWTO.
Despite the bleak outlook, industry professionals at World Travel Market were upbeat and focusing on the positive fallout from the economic crisis.
For one, more people are expected to take trips closer to home, which could give a boost to domestic and regional travel markets.
Global tourism feels the squeeze
Turnout for the international tourism industry's most important event is at a record high this year as the sector struggles to cope with the financial crisis sweeping the world.
Industry professionals, government ministers and tourism chiefs from around the globe are currently gathering in London for World Travel Market, an international travel trade show.
This year's event, which runs through Thursday, is the biggest ever, with nearly 50,000 participants from 200 countries attending.
"When you're going through difficult times, it is still very important to market and showcase your business," Fiona Jeffery, chairman of the World Travel Market, told CNN.
"There are many companies here seeing a downturn or slowdown in business and to know you're not the only person experiencing that can be quite reassuring."
Faced with flight cutbacks, reductions in business travel budgets and a sharp decline in consumer confidence, the global tourism industry is feeling the squeeze of the economic downturn.
Global tourism slowed sharply in the summer as travelers, frightened by the financial crisis, cut back on their spending.
International tourism arrivals grew less than two percent in June, July and August, down from the average growth of 5.7 percent recorded in the first four months of the year, according to the latest data from the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO).
The UNWTO predicts the situation will get worse before it gets better.
The group expects growth to stall or rise by just two percent globally for all of 2009.
Furthermore, with the threat of a deep global economic recession looming, the UNWTO doesn't expect the travel and tourism industry to recover until later next year.
Practically every part of the world is showing weakness in terms of international arrivals.
Asia has seen the most rapid deterioration, with the Northeast region in particular suffering a significant slowdown.
Growth has also practically stalled in Europe, particularly when compared to North and South America and Africa, where the slowdown has been more subdued.
The Middle East is emerging as a lone bright spot.
Growth through August appears to have outstripped the pace from the same period a year ago, according to the UNWTO.
Despite the bleak outlook, industry professionals at World Travel Market were upbeat and focusing on the positive fallout from the economic crisis.
For one, more people are expected to take trips closer to home, which could give a boost to domestic and regional travel markets.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Headphones could interfere with pacemakers
Most people with pacemakers or implanted defibrillators enjoy their iPods or other MP3 players just as much as anyone else, but a new study suggests they should be cautious about where they store the headphones.
The headphones contain magnets that could potentially cause interference if placed directly on the chest above the heart device, according to a report presented this week at the American Heart Association meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana.
"For defibrillator patients, it is a much bigger concern because the magnet can temporarily deactivate it," says the study's senior author, Dr. William H. Maisel, director of the Medical Device Safety Institute at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts.
Pacemakers are designed to boost slow heart rhythms, and when exposed to magnets, they may deliver signals that tell the heart to beat faster, whether it needs to or not.
About 250,000 people in the United States each year are given pacemakers.
An additional 125,000 receive implantable cardioverter defibrillators, or ICDs, which can shock the heart back into a normal rhythm.
In the new study, the researchers attached eight types of headphones to iPods and tested them on 60 patients with ICDs.
The headphones were placed on the chests of patients, directly over the ICDs.
Electromagnetic interference occurred in 14 patients, or 23 percent.
There weren't any problems if the headphones were 3 centimeters, or about 1.2 inches, or more above the skin's surface.
Maisel said patients with pacemakers and ICDs are told that magnets can interfere with the function of their implants, but they may not be aware that headphones contain the magnetic substance neodymium, which helps with sound reproduction.
The magnetic strength of the headphones varies by brand and model, but the study found that 3 centimeters was a safe distance for all.
When in use, headphones are a safe distance from the implanted device.
Headphones could interfere with pacemakers
Most people with pacemakers or implanted defibrillators enjoy their iPods or other MP3 players just as much as anyone else, but a new study suggests they should be cautious about where they store the headphones.
The headphones contain magnets that could potentially cause interference if placed directly on the chest above the heart device, according to a report presented this week at the American Heart Association meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana.
"For defibrillator patients, it is a much bigger concern because the magnet can temporarily deactivate it," says the study's senior author, Dr. William H. Maisel, director of the Medical Device Safety Institute at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts.
Pacemakers are designed to boost slow heart rhythms, and when exposed to magnets, they may deliver signals that tell the heart to beat faster, whether it needs to or not.
About 250,000 people in the United States each year are given pacemakers.
An additional 125,000 receive implantable cardioverter defibrillators, or ICDs, which can shock the heart back into a normal rhythm.
In the new study, the researchers attached eight types of headphones to iPods and tested them on 60 patients with ICDs.
The headphones were placed on the chests of patients, directly over the ICDs.
Electromagnetic interference occurred in 14 patients, or 23 percent.
There weren't any problems if the headphones were 3 centimeters, or about 1.2 inches, or more above the skin's surface.
Maisel said patients with pacemakers and ICDs are told that magnets can interfere with the function of their implants, but they may not be aware that headphones contain the magnetic substance neodymium, which helps with sound reproduction.
The magnetic strength of the headphones varies by brand and model, but the study found that 3 centimeters was a safe distance for all.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Obama announced on Thursday that his resignation from the U.S. Senate is official as of Sunday.
"After serving the people of Illinois in the United States Senate
one of the highest honors and privileges of my life
I am stepping down as senator to prepare for the responsibilities I will assume as our nation's next president."
Obama wrote about moving to Illinois two decades ago "as a young man eager to do my part in building a better America."
Obama followed his years as a community organizer and lawyer with a successful bid for the Illinois state Senate.
His letter recalled people he met in his travels around the state during his run for the U.S. Senate four years ago.
Obama said his memories of the people of Illinois "will stay with me when I go to the White House in January."
Obama then quoted Abraham Lincoln "another son of Illinois" who left for Washington.
"To this place, and the kindness of these people, I owe everything," he quoted Lincoln as writing about Illinois.
"With your help, along with the service and sacrifice of Americans across the nation who are hungry for change and ready to bring it about, I have faith that all will in fact be well. And it is with that faith, and the high hopes I have for the enduring power of the American idea, that I offer the people of my beloved home a very affectionate thanks."
Obama's Senate office will close sometime within two months.
His Senate staff will spend that time coordinating with his replacement, advising constituents with open requests, and archiving documents for Obama's presidential library.
Several Illinois Democrats, including Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. and Iraq war veteran Tammy Duckworth, a former congressional candidate who now serves in Gov. Rod Blagojevich's administration, have been mentioned as possible Senate replacements for Obama.
Blagojevich, a Democrat who will appoint Obama's successor, announced last week that he was assembling a panel to look over likely candidates.
Obama's replacement would be up for re-election in 2010.
Obama says thanks on last day as Illinois senator
Obama announced on Thursday that his resignation from the U.S. Senate is official as of Sunday.
"After serving the people of Illinois in the United States Senate
one of the highest honors and privileges of my life
I am stepping down as senator to prepare for the responsibilities I will assume as our nation's next president."
Obama wrote about moving to Illinois two decades ago "as a young man eager to do my part in building a better America."
Obama followed his years as a community organizer and lawyer with a successful bid for the Illinois state Senate.
His letter recalled people he met in his travels around the state during his run for the U.S. Senate four years ago.
Obama said his memories of the people of Illinois "will stay with me when I go to the White House in January."
Obama then quoted Abraham Lincoln "another son of Illinois" who left for Washington.
"To this place, and the kindness of these people, I owe everything," he quoted Lincoln as writing about Illinois.
"With your help, along with the service and sacrifice of Americans across the nation who are hungry for change and ready to bring it about, I have faith that all will in fact be well. And it is with that faith, and the high hopes I have for the enduring power of the American idea, that I offer the people of my beloved home a very affectionate thanks."
Obama's Senate office will close sometime within two months.
His Senate staff will spend that time coordinating with his replacement, advising constituents with open requests, and archiving documents for Obama's presidential library.
Several Illinois Democrats, including Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. and Iraq war veteran Tammy Duckworth, a former congressional candidate who now serves in Gov. Rod Blagojevich's administration, have been mentioned as possible Senate replacements for Obama.
Blagojevich, a Democrat who will appoint Obama's successor, announced last week that he was assembling a panel to look over likely candidates.
Obama's replacement would be up for re-election in 2010.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
A British couple who married in a lavish Second Life wedding ceremony are to divorce after one of them had an alleged "affair" in the online world.
Amy Taylor, 28, said she had caught husband David Pollard, 40, having sex with an animated woman.
The couple, who met in an Internet chatroom in 2003, are now separated.
I just couldn't believe what he'd done," Taylor told the Western Morning News.
"It may have started online, but it existed entirely in the real world and it hurts just as much now it is over."
Second Life allows users to create alter egos known as "avatars" and interact with other players, forming relationships, holding down jobs and trading products and services for a virtual currency convertible into real life dollars.
Taylor said she had caught Pollard's avatar having sex with a virtual prostitute:
"I looked at the computer screen and could see his character having sex with a female character. It's cheating as far as I'm concerned."
The couple's real-life wedding in 2005 was eclipsed by a fairy tale ceremony held within Second Life.
But Taylor told the Western Morning News she had subsequently hired an online private detective to track his activities:
"He never did anything in real life, but I had my suspicions about what he was doing in Second Life."
Pollard admitted having an online relationship with a "girl in America" but denied wrongdoing.
"We weren't even having cyber sex or anything like that, we were just chatting and hanging out together," he told the Western Morning News.
Taylor is now in a new relationship with a man she met in the online roleplaying game World of Warcraft.
A British couple who married in a lavish Second Life wedding ceremony are to divorce after one of them had an alleged "affair" in the online world.
Amy Taylor, 28, said she had caught husband David Pollard, 40, having sex with an animated woman.
The couple, who met in an Internet chatroom in 2003, are now separated.
I just couldn't believe what he'd done," Taylor told the Western Morning News.
"It may have started online, but it existed entirely in the real world and it hurts just as much now it is over."
Second Life allows users to create alter egos known as "avatars" and interact with other players, forming relationships, holding down jobs and trading products and services for a virtual currency convertible into real life dollars.
Taylor said she had caught Pollard's avatar having sex with a virtual prostitute:
"I looked at the computer screen and could see his character having sex with a female character. It's cheating as far as I'm concerned."
The couple's real-life wedding in 2005 was eclipsed by a fairy tale ceremony held within Second Life.
But Taylor told the Western Morning News she had subsequently hired an online private detective to track his activities:
"He never did anything in real life, but I had my suspicions about what he was doing in Second Life."
Pollard admitted having an online relationship with a "girl in America" but denied wrongdoing.
"We weren't even having cyber sex or anything like that, we were just chatting and hanging out together," he told the Western Morning News.
Taylor is now in a new relationship with a man she met in the online roleplaying game World of Warcraft.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Same-sex marriage rallies stretch across nation
More than a week after voters in California, Arizona and Florida passed ballot initiatives outlawing same-sex marriage, thousands of people across the country protested the bans in simultaneous rallies Saturday.
chanted some on Washington's National Mall, some carrying rainbow-colored signs.
"Equal rights," others answered.
"When do we want it?"
In New York, protesters in lower Manhattan stood behind barricades, holding signs.
"Love and Unity not hate," one read.
"All we need is love," another said.
"Yes, we will," they chanted at one point.
In Los Angeles, thousands of demonstrators were met by counter-demonstrators.
"There is nothing civil about a man marrying another man," one protester yelled.
It is an issue with morality."
Same-sex marriage rallies stretch across nation
More than a week after voters in California, Arizona and Florida passed ballot initiatives outlawing same-sex marriage, thousands of people across the country protested the bans in simultaneous rallies Saturday.
chanted some on Washington's National Mall, some carrying rainbow-colored signs.
"Equal rights," others answered.
"When do we want it?"
In New York, protesters in lower Manhattan stood behind barricades, holding signs.
"Love and Unity not hate," one read.
"All we need is love," another said.
"Yes, we will," they chanted at one point.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Leaders vow to tackle economic crisis
WASHINGTON (CNNMoney.com)
World leaders unveiled a set of sweeping plans on Saturday aimed at tackling the ever-expanding economic crisis, but as expected they sketched out an agenda for more work in coming months and another meeting early next year.
Following a two-day meeting in Washington, D.C., presidents and prime ministers from Group of 20 countries managed to find some common ground on both the causes of the crisis and areas that need to be fixed.
G-20 leaders said they would meet again by the end of April to review the progress on the initiatives announced Saturday.
President Bush, who is set to depart the White House in a little more than two months from now, characterized the summit as "very productive" but was quick to point out that much work lay ahead.
"All this is an important first step," Bush said at the conclusion of the conference. "In other words, this is a beginning of a series of meetings."
In the meantime, leaders said they would continue to work toward stimulating economic demand.
The final 3,600-word announcement endorsed several stimulative measures, including interest rate cuts by central banks around the globe or potential economic stimulus packages.
They added that they would boost developing countries struggling under the weight of the crisis.
That could entail funneling additional funds to the International Monetary Fund.
The group also called for regulators to improve oversight of credit rating agencies and to take swift action to minimize the risk of the giant and largely unregulated market of credit default swaps - complex financial instruments whose proliferation some say poses a great danger to financial stability.
Leaders agreed not to raise new trade barriers over the next 12 months and vowed to reach a resolution on the Doha trade talks, which were launched in 2001 to help liberalize trade international trade policies.
Leaders vow to tackle economic crisis
WASHINGTON (CNNMoney.com)
World leaders unveiled a set of sweeping plans on Saturday aimed at tackling the ever-expanding economic crisis, but as expected they sketched out an agenda for more work in coming months and another meeting early next year.
Following a two-day meeting in Washington, D.C., presidents and prime ministers from Group of 20 countries managed to find some common ground on both the causes of the crisis and areas that need to be fixed.
G-20 leaders said they would meet again by the end of April to review the progress on the initiatives announced Saturday.
President Bush, who is set to depart the White House in a little more than two months from now, characterized the summit as "very productive" but was quick to point out that much work lay ahead.
"All this is an important first step," Bush said at the conclusion of the conference. "In other words, this is a beginning of a series of meetings."
In the meantime, leaders said they would continue to work toward stimulating economic demand.
The final 3,600-word announcement endorsed several stimulative measures, including interest rate cuts by central banks around the globe or potential economic stimulus packages.
They added that they would boost developing countries struggling under the weight of the crisis.
That could entail funneling additional funds to the International Monetary Fund.
The group also called for regulators to improve oversight of credit rating agencies and to take swift action to minimize the risk of the giant and largely unregulated market of credit default swaps - complex financial instruments whose proliferation some say poses a great danger to financial stability.
Leaders agreed not to raise new trade barriers over the next 12 months and vowed to reach a resolution on the Doha trade talks, which were launched in 2001 to help liberalize trade international trade policies.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
`Lost` Beatles track could finally be heard
A "lost" Beatles track recorded in 1967 and performed just once in public could finally be released, according to Paul McCartney.
a 14-minute experimental track recorded at the height of the Beatles' musical experimentations with psychedelia and inspired by avant-garde composers such as Karlheinz Stockhausen
In an interview for BBC radio, McCartney said his bandmates and their producer George Martin had vetoed its inclusion on the exhaustive 1990s "Anthology" collection, according to UK's The Observer newspaper.
McCartney confirmed he still owned the master tapes, adding that he suspected "the time has come for it to get its moment," The Observer reported. "I like it because it's the Beatles free, going off piste," McCartney said.
Almost everything recorded by the Beatles from their early days in Liverpool and Hamburg to their break-up in 1970 has been released to meet insatiable public appetite for anything to do with the legendary Liverpool quartet.
In the 40 years since its recording, "Carnival of Light" has acquired near mythical status among Beatles fans who argue that the existence of the track provides evidence of the group's experimental ambitions beyond their commercially successfully pop career.
The improvised work features distorted electric guitars, discordant sound effects, a church organ and gargling interspersed with McCartney and John Lennon shouting random phrases like "Barcelona" and "Are you all right?"
McCartney would need the consent of Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, and George Harrison's widow, Olivia Harrison, to release the track.
`Lost` Beatles track could finally be heard
A "lost" Beatles track recorded in 1967 and performed just once in public could finally be released, according to Paul McCartney.
a 14-minute experimental track recorded at the height of the Beatles' musical experimentations with psychedelia and inspired by avant-garde composers such as Karlheinz Stockhausen
In an interview for BBC radio, McCartney said his bandmates and their producer George Martin had vetoed its inclusion on the exhaustive 1990s "Anthology" collection, according to UK's The Observer newspaper.
McCartney confirmed he still owned the master tapes, adding that he suspected "the time has come for it to get its moment," The Observer reported. "I like it because it's the Beatles free, going off piste," McCartney said.
Almost everything recorded by the Beatles from their early days in Liverpool and Hamburg to their break-up in 1970 has been released to meet insatiable public appetite for anything to do with the legendary Liverpool quartet.
In the 40 years since its recording, "Carnival of Light" has acquired near mythical status among Beatles fans who argue that the existence of the track provides evidence of the group's experimental ambitions beyond their commercially successfully pop career.
The improvised work features distorted electric guitars, discordant sound effects, a church organ and gargling interspersed with McCartney and John Lennon shouting random phrases like "Barcelona" and "Are you all right?"
McCartney would need the consent of Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, and George Harrison's widow, Olivia Harrison, to release the track.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Scots welcome coaching new boy Maradona
Diego Maradona arrived in Scotland on Sunday ahead of his first game in charge of Argentina's national team and, to the delight of the Scottish fans, autographed a photo of his famous "Hand of God" 1986 World Cup goal against England.
The football legend is guaranteed a big welcome when Argentina face the Scots at Hampden Park on Wednesday simply because of the home team's rivalry with neighbor England.
Maradona's two goals in that World Cup quarterfinal
one of them blatant cheating when he punched the ball into the net and the other an amazing dribble through the England defense five minutes later
earned Argentina a 2-1 victory in Mexico's Aztec Stadium on the way to the title.
Reporters and photographers waiting to see Maradona were kept away from him by police and, when asked how he felt on his arrival, he replied in Spanish:
His only response in English was "I don't speak English."
After initially climbing onto a bus, Maradona returned to the entrance of Glasgow airport and signed autographs, including on a poster of his famous handball goal against England.
Maradona's appointment has not met with universal approval in Argentina because of his volatile temperament, history of drug bans and alcohol abuse which left him hugely overweight and close to death.
But his health has revived and Argentina fans hope that he can transfer the ability he had as a player onto the bench as an inspirational coach alongside veteran manager Carlos Bilardo.
Scots welcome coaching new boy Maradona
Diego Maradona arrived in Scotland on Sunday ahead of his first game in charge of Argentina's national team and, to the delight of the Scottish fans, autographed a photo of his famous "Hand of God" 1986 World Cup goal against England.
The football legend is guaranteed a big welcome when Argentina face the Scots at Hampden Park on Wednesday simply because of the home team's rivalry with neighbor England.
Maradona's two goals in that World Cup quarterfinal
one of them blatant cheating when he punched the ball into the net and the other an amazing dribble through the England defense five minutes later
earned Argentina a 2-1 victory in Mexico's Aztec Stadium on the way to the title.
Reporters and photographers waiting to see Maradona were kept away from him by police and, when asked how he felt on his arrival, he replied in Spanish:
His only response in English was "I don't speak English."
After initially climbing onto a bus, Maradona returned to the entrance of Glasgow airport and signed autographs, including on a poster of his famous handball goal against England.
Maradona's appointment has not met with universal approval in Argentina because of his volatile temperament, history of drug bans and alcohol abuse which left him hugely overweight and close to death.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Obama, McCain discuss need for `new era of reform`
President-elect Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain said Monday that Americans are looking for leaders who will come together and "change the bad habits of Washington."
In a joint statement issued after their first meeting since the presidential election, the former rivals said they hoped to work together on challenges like the financial crisis, creating a new energy economy and protecting the country's security.
"At this defining moment in history, we believe that Americans of all parties want and need their leaders to come together and change the bad habits of Washington so that we can solve the common and urgent challenges of our time," the statement said.
"It is in this spirit that we had a productive conversation today about the need to launch a new era of reform where we take on government waste and bitter partisanship in Washington in order to restore trust in government, and bring back prosperity and opportunity for every hardworking American family," they said.
Obama, McCain discuss need for `new era of reform`
President-elect Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain said Monday that Americans are looking for leaders who will come together and "change the bad habits of Washington."
In a joint statement issued after their first meeting since the presidential election, the former rivals said they hoped to work together on challenges like the financial crisis, creating a new energy economy and protecting the country's security.
"At this defining moment in history, we believe that Americans of all parties want and need their leaders to come together and change the bad habits of Washington so that we can solve the common and urgent challenges of our time," the statement said.
"It is in this spirit that we had a productive conversation today about the need to launch a new era of reform where we take on government waste and bitter partisanship in Washington in order to restore trust in government, and bring back prosperity and opportunity for every hardworking American family," they said.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
The Colombian government declared a state of emergency Monday, allowing officials to take over businesses that used pyramid schemes to steal millions of dollars from 3 million investors.
The government immediately took over 60 branches of a company called DMG and shuttered its doors.
Officials hope to liquidate some of its assets to repay investors who were defrauded.
Colombians deposited their life savings in the schemes after being promised short-term returns of as much as 150 percent.
The government says the businesses defrauded the public by purporting to offer a sure investment.
The emergency decree also stiffened penalties for anyone found guilty of fraud.
Speaking about the emergency measures, Interior Minister Fabio Valencia decried "the Mafia-like mentality" of those "who want to obtain easy money." "I want to reiterate to all Colombians that these measures
that this emergency has dictated are only and exclusively to benefit and protect the well-being of Colombians, who incurred this in a practice that we should abolish that is the belief that fast riches should be an element of our society," Valencia said in a televised statement.
Public outcry and unrest over the fraud led to three deaths last week, including one investor's suicide.
Officials say the pyramids schemes raked in at least $200,000 from 3 million people.
In the past five years, authorities believe, the businesses took in $1 billion.
The Colombian government declared a state of emergency Monday, allowing officials to take over businesses that used pyramid schemes to steal millions of dollars from 3 million investors.
The government immediately took over 60 branches of a company called DMG and shuttered its doors.
Officials hope to liquidate some of its assets to repay investors who were defrauded.
Colombians deposited their life savings in the schemes after being promised short-term returns of as much as 150 percent.
The government says the businesses defrauded the public by purporting to offer a sure investment.
The emergency decree also stiffened penalties for anyone found guilty of fraud.
Speaking about the emergency measures, Interior Minister Fabio Valencia decried "the Mafia-like mentality" of those "who want to obtain easy money." "I want to reiterate to all Colombians that these measures
that this emergency has dictated are only and exclusively to benefit and protect the well-being of Colombians, who incurred this in a practice that we should abolish that is the belief that fast riches should be an element of our society," Valencia said in a televised statement.
Public outcry and unrest over the fraud led to three deaths last week, including one investor's suicide.
Officials say the pyramids schemes raked in at least $200,000 from 3 million people.
In the past five years, authorities believe, the businesses took in $1 billion.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
The son of an Arab monarch is taking the King of Pop to court over an album and an autobiography Michael Jackson was allegedly paid for but never produced.
Sheikh Abdulla bin Hamad Al Khalifa is seeking $7 million from the embattled singer at London's Royal Courts of Justice.
Lawyers for Al Khalifa say the money was intended as an advance on a joint recording project.
Jackson, however, claims the cash was a gift.
David Sherborne, representing Al Khalifa, says the case would mainly hinge on the nature of Jackson's friendship with the sheikh.
Jackson was not in court as the trial opened Monday.
Jackson's finances fell apart following his arrest in 2003 on charges that he molested a 13-year old boy at Neverland.
He moved to Bahrain after being acquitted.
The son of an Arab monarch is taking the King of Pop to court over an album and an autobiography Michael Jackson was allegedly paid for but never produced.
Sheikh Abdulla bin Hamad Al Khalifa is seeking $7 million from the embattled singer at London's Royal Courts of Justice.
Lawyers for Al Khalifa say the money was intended as an advance on a joint recording project.
Jackson, however, claims the cash was a gift.
David Sherborne, representing Al Khalifa, says the case would mainly hinge on the nature of Jackson's friendship with the sheikh.
Jackson was not in court as the trial opened Monday.
Jackson's finances fell apart following his arrest in 2003 on charges that he molested a 13-year old boy at Neverland.
He moved to Bahrain after being acquitted.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Famed for keeping people slim, healthy and living longer, the Mediterranean diet has followers all over the world.
However, the diet is being increasingly shunned by people who live in the Med as the convenience of fast food gains popularity.
The renowned low-fat, high-fiber diet has "decayed into a moribund state" in its traditional regions, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
So sharp is the decline that governments from the region are scrambling to protect their traditional fare from becoming an "endangered" species.
Populations surrounding the Mediterranean Sea, such as Greece, Spain and Italy, tend to eat these foods, and governments there have joined forces to apply for their diet to be placed on the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization's (UNESCO) Heritage list.
Those lobbying for UNESCO protection have argued that its inclusion would ''fend off the watered-down clones assailing its integrity worldwide in this age of killer fast food.''
The UNESCO list is famous for including historic and cultural sites but in recent years the UN body has opened its register to include ''intangible heritage," such as endangered languages or vanishing traditions.
"The Mediterranean diet is a heritage that should be protected and shared," Paolo de Castro, a former Italian Agriculture minister, said earlier this year.
"Science has long recognized the unusual health properties of the diet, which has strengthened and accompanied the common cultural identity of Mediterranean countries," he said, according to Italian news agency ANSA.
"The diet is an integral part of the historical and cultural identity of the Mediterranean, and an opportunity for growth for the countries in the area."
Originally considered the diet of the poor, who didn't have much money to buy meat, the "Mediterranean diet" is rich in fruits, vegetables, nuts, cereals, whole grains, fish and olive oil.
Famed for keeping people slim, healthy and living longer, the Mediterranean diet has followers all over the world.
However, the diet is being increasingly shunned by people who live in the Med as the convenience of fast food gains popularity.
The renowned low-fat, high-fiber diet has "decayed into a moribund state" in its traditional regions, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
So sharp is the decline that governments from the region are scrambling to protect their traditional fare from becoming an "endangered" species.
Populations surrounding the Mediterranean Sea, such as Greece, Spain and Italy, tend to eat these foods, and governments there have joined forces to apply for their diet to be placed on the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization's (UNESCO) Heritage list.
Those lobbying for UNESCO protection have argued that its inclusion would ''fend off the watered-down clones assailing its integrity worldwide in this age of killer fast food.''
The UNESCO list is famous for including historic and cultural sites but in recent years the UN body has opened its register to include ''intangible heritage," such as endangered languages or vanishing traditions.
"The Mediterranean diet is a heritage that should be protected and shared," Paolo de Castro, a former Italian Agriculture minister, said earlier this year.
"Science has long recognized the unusual health properties of the diet, which has strengthened and accompanied the common cultural identity of Mediterranean countries," he said, according to Italian news agency ANSA.
"The diet is an integral part of the historical and cultural identity of the Mediterranean, and an opportunity for growth for the countries in the area."
Originally considered the diet of the poor, who didn't have much money to buy meat, the "Mediterranean diet" is rich in fruits, vegetables, nuts, cereals, whole grains, fish and olive oil.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Yahoo co-founder to resign as CEO
announced Monday that the search is on for the Internet giant's next CEO.
The new CEO will replace Yahoo!
co-founder, Jerry Yang, who assumed the position in June 2007 and has since come under fire for failing to turn around the company.
Yang will step down when a replacement is selected.
Just two weeks ago at the Web 2.0 Summit, Yang was asked if he was the right guy to lead the battered portal.
Yang dodged the question by defending his passion for the company he co-founded 13 years ago.
"I didn't make the decision of being the CEO lightly," he said. "I wanted to make a change at Yahoo that I believe I can make ... That's a dream that I felt I could achieve by being CEO and that's still the dream today."
Now, Yang plans to return to his former role as "Chief Yahoo" and will still have a seat on the board, Yahoo said. During his short tenure, Yahoo!
has had two major rounds of layoffs and has seen its search market share shrink significantly while a series of reorganizations led to the departure of senior executives.
Wall Street and shareholders criticized Yang for falling short of reaching an agreement to sell the company to Microsoft.
Yang also was taken to task when Google pulled out of a controversial ad agreement earlier this month that would have boosted Yahoo's revenues by hundreds of millions of dollars.
said the search for a new CEO will encompass both internal and external candidates.
"Over the past year and a half, despite extraordinary challenges and distractions, Jerry Yang has led the repositioning of Yahoo! on an open platform model as well as the improved alignment of costs and revenues," said Chairman Roy Bostock.
Yahoo co-founder to resign as CEO
announced Monday that the search is on for the Internet giant's next CEO.
The new CEO will replace Yahoo!
co-founder, Jerry Yang, who assumed the position in June 2007 and has since come under fire for failing to turn around the company.
Yang will step down when a replacement is selected.
Just two weeks ago at the Web 2.0 Summit, Yang was asked if he was the right guy to lead the battered portal.
Yang dodged the question by defending his passion for the company he co-founded 13 years ago.
"I didn't make the decision of being the CEO lightly," he said. "I wanted to make a change at Yahoo that I believe I can make ... That's a dream that I felt I could achieve by being CEO and that's still the dream today."
Now, Yang plans to return to his former role as "Chief Yahoo" and will still have a seat on the board, Yahoo said. During his short tenure, Yahoo!
has had two major rounds of layoffs and has seen its search market share shrink significantly while a series of reorganizations led to the departure of senior executives.
Wall Street and shareholders criticized Yang for falling short of reaching an agreement to sell the company to Microsoft.
Yang also was taken to task when Google pulled out of a controversial ad agreement earlier this month that would have boosted Yahoo's revenues by hundreds of millions of dollars.
said the search for a new CEO will encompass both internal and external candidates.
"Over the past year and a half, despite extraordinary challenges and distractions, Jerry Yang has led the repositioning of Yahoo! on an open platform model as well as the improved alignment of costs and revenues," said Chairman Roy Bostock.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
`It`s amazing, it`s just gone`
Christopher Lloyd picked through the charred remnants of his Montecito, California, home Monday morning, resigning himself to the fact it cannot be rebuilt.
The "Back to the Future" and "Taxi" star showed ABC's "Good Morning America" what remained of his $11 million home in the exclusive celebrity neighborhood northwest of Los Angeles.
"Boy, look at that," Lloyd said as he approached the rubble. "All this happens in a couple of minutes."
Lloyd's home was among dozens of homes lost in wildfires in Southern California.
The "Tea Fire" which started at the privately owned Tea Garden Estate, about a mile north of Santa Barbara's Westmont College, ripped through an area that Oprah Winfrey, Michael Douglas, Rob Lowe and other celebrities call home.
Lloyd told "Good Morning America" that it was "just sort of sinking in" that his home was gone for good.
The home's windows were blown out, entire sections demolished, and piles of concrete, ashy trees and shrubbery were scattered across the property.
"You watch TV, you see these kinds of incidents happening here and there, but you look with a kind of detachment because it's happening ... elsewhere," he told "Good Morning America."
"But suddenly to be in the midst of it
it's a very different awareness."
"Kind of don't have to worry about that now," he said.
Actor on destroyed home:
`It`s amazing, it`s just gone`
Christopher Lloyd picked through the charred remnants of his Montecito, California, home Monday morning, resigning himself to the fact it cannot be rebuilt.
The "Back to the Future" and "Taxi" star showed ABC's "Good Morning America" what remained of his $11 million home in the exclusive celebrity neighborhood northwest of Los Angeles.
"Boy, look at that," Lloyd said as he approached the rubble. "All this happens in a couple of minutes."
Lloyd's home was among dozens of homes lost in wildfires in Southern California.
The "Tea Fire" which started at the privately owned Tea Garden Estate, about a mile north of Santa Barbara's Westmont College, ripped through an area that Oprah Winfrey, Michael Douglas, Rob Lowe and other celebrities call home.
Lloyd told "Good Morning America" that it was "just sort of sinking in" that his home was gone for good.
"It's amazing, its just gone," Lloyd told "Good Morning America."
"Rebuilding would be
"But suddenly to be in the midst of it
it's a very different awareness."
"Kind of don't have to worry about that now," he said.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Eight yachts competing in the Volvo Ocean Race round-the-world event will be kept closely briefed on piracy threats and monitored by warships as they approach the troubled waters of the Arabian Sea.
Currently on the second leg of the race, between Cape Town, South Africa, and Cochin, India, the Volvo Ocean Race fleet is attempting to avoid the worst of the pirate danger zone, heading south east of the Arabian Sea area where pirates seized a Saudi-owned crude tanker and 25 crew members on Monday.
The U.S. Navy confirmed that the vessel, Sirius Star, had been stormed by pirates and the crew held hostage.
Piracy in the Gulf of Aden region, particularly in the waters off Somalia, has soared this year with the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) reporting more than 60 incidents in the first nine months of the year.
A Volvo Ocean Race spokesman told CNN that the course had been changed to help dodge the piracy threat.
"If it went straight to Cochin they would get a lot closer to the danger area," he said.
Race organizers added a scoring way point below Mauritius, and an exclusion zone above the country to keep the fleet east and away from Somalia, he said.
They would be briefed on any potential dangers when they drew closer to the northern Indian Ocean, he added.
Before the leg began, teams were also briefed on the pirate threat by Graeme Gibbon Brooks of maritime intelligence service Dryad Maritime.
The position of the all the competing boats is also being monitored closely, the spokesman said.
Round the world racers to go on pirate alert
Eight yachts competing in the Volvo Ocean Race round-the-world event will be kept closely briefed on piracy threats and monitored by warships as they approach the troubled waters of the Arabian Sea.
Currently on the second leg of the race, between Cape Town, South Africa, and Cochin, India, the Volvo Ocean Race fleet is attempting to avoid the worst of the pirate danger zone, heading south east of the Arabian Sea area where pirates seized a Saudi-owned crude tanker and 25 crew members on Monday.
The U.S. Navy confirmed that the vessel, Sirius Star, had been stormed by pirates and the crew held hostage.
Piracy in the Gulf of Aden region, particularly in the waters off Somalia, has soared this year with the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) reporting more than 60 incidents in the first nine months of the year.
A Volvo Ocean Race spokesman told CNN that the course had been changed to help dodge the piracy threat.
"If it went straight to Cochin they would get a lot closer to the danger area," he said.
Race organizers added a scoring way point below Mauritius, and an exclusion zone above the country to keep the fleet east and away from Somalia, he said.
They would be briefed on any potential dangers when they drew closer to the northern Indian Ocean, he added.
Before the leg began, teams were also briefed on the pirate threat by Graeme Gibbon Brooks of maritime intelligence service Dryad Maritime.
The position of the all the competing boats is also being monitored closely, the spokesman said.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Former Clinton Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder is President-elect Barack Obama's choice for the position of attorney general, according to two prominent Democrats involved in transition matters.
Holder, who is still being vetted, has indicated he will accept the job if it is offered, the sources said.
If confirmed, Holder will be the first African-American to lead the Justice Department.
Holder, 57, co-chaired Obama's vice presidential selection process.
Former Clinton Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder is President-elect Barack Obama's choice for the position of attorney general, according to two prominent Democrats involved in transition matters.
Holder, who is still being vetted, has indicated he will accept the job if it is offered, the sources said.
If confirmed, Holder will be the first African-American to lead the Justice Department.
Holder, 57, co-chaired Obama's vice presidential selection process.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Armstrong fears for safety in Tour de France
Lance Armstrong fears he could be attacked by spectators if he returns to the Tour de France next year.
The seven-time Tour champion, who is making a comeback after three years in retirement, said in an interview in The Guardian on Tuesday that he is concerned about his safety.
"I don't want to enter an unsafe situation but you see this stuff coming out of France," said the American rider, who has many critics in France.
If you believe what you read, my personal safety could be in jeopardy.
"Cycling is a sport of the open road and spectators are lining the road.
I try to believe that people, even if they don't like me, will let the race unfold."
Asked specifically if he fears being physically attacked during next year's Tour, he said, "Yeah. There're directors of French teams that have encouraged people to take to the streets ... elbow to elbow.
It's very emotional and tense." It's unclear why Armstrong is worried about his safety now, given that attacks on riders are extremely rare.
Organizers have in recent years taken additional steps to protect riders from the crowds, including increasing the use of crowd barriers.
The Tour has its own police force to guard the route and ensure safety and French police paid particular attention to Armstrong's safety when he was riding.
Armstrong announced his comeback in September and joined the Astana team.
He is reunited with Astana team leader Johan Bruyneel, who teamed with Armstrong for all seven Tour de France wins from 1999-2005.
Armstrong plans to meet with Tour officials before deciding whether compete in the 2009 Tour.
He is scheduled to race the Giro d'Italia for the first time. The 100th anniversary edition of the Giro takes place from May 9-31.
The Tour de France starts on July 4.
Armstrong fears for safety in Tour de France
Lance Armstrong fears he could be attacked by spectators if he returns to the Tour de France next year.
The seven-time Tour champion, who is making a comeback after three years in retirement, said in an interview in The Guardian on Tuesday that he is concerned about his safety.
"I don't want to enter an unsafe situation but you see this stuff coming out of France," said the American rider, who has many critics in France.
If you believe what you read, my personal safety could be in jeopardy.
"Cycling is a sport of the open road and spectators are lining the road.
I try to believe that people, even if they don't like me, will let the race unfold."
Asked specifically if he fears being physically attacked during next year's Tour, he said, "Yeah. There're directors of French teams that have encouraged people to take to the streets ... elbow to elbow.
It's very emotional and tense." It's unclear why Armstrong is worried about his safety now, given that attacks on riders are extremely rare.
Organizers have in recent years taken additional steps to protect riders from the crowds, including increasing the use of crowd barriers.
The Tour has its own police force to guard the route and ensure safety and French police paid particular attention to Armstrong's safety when he was riding.
Armstrong announced his comeback in September and joined the Astana team.
He is reunited with Astana team leader Johan Bruyneel, who teamed with Armstrong for all seven Tour de France wins from 1999-2005.
Armstrong plans to meet with Tour officials before deciding whether compete in the 2009 Tour.
He is scheduled to race the Giro d'Italia for the first time. The 100th anniversary edition of the Giro takes place from May 9-31.
The Tour de France starts on July 4.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
The holiday movie season is a chance to see old friends and make new ones.
James Bond, with Daniel Craig assaying the British secret agent again in "Quantum of Solace";
Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, the "Titanic" duo reuniting for "Revolutionary Road"; Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, once the stars of "Babel" and now pairing off in "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button";
and the king of "Independence Day," Will Smith, who's also carved out a holiday following with such films as "Ali," "The Pursuit of Happyness," "I Am Legend" and
New visitors include the vampires and humans of "Twilight," based on Stephenie Meyer's popular books;
and the young beggar and game show winner of "Slumdog Millionaire," directed by Danny Boyle ("Millions," "Trainspotting").
By some measures, the season started November 7 with the release of "Madagascar:
Escape 2 Africa," an animated film that has made more than $118 million in its first 10 days.
"Quantum of Solace" reinforced the holiday fever over the weekend, taking in $70.4 million
the biggest opening of a Bond film ever. "Slumdog," which opened Friday in limited release and goes wide November 27, may become a sleeper hit.
The holiday movie season is a chance to see old friends and make new ones.
James Bond, with Daniel Craig assaying the British secret agent again in "Quantum of Solace";
Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, the "Titanic" duo reuniting for "Revolutionary Road";
Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, once the stars of "Babel" and now pairing off in "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button";
and the king of "Independence Day," Will Smith, who's also carved out a holiday following with such films as "Ali," "The Pursuit of Happyness," "I Am Legend" and
New visitors include the vampires and humans of "Twilight," based on Stephenie Meyer's popular books;
"Bolt," an animated tale about a dog who plays a superhero on TV;
The Dark Knight Returns");
By some measures, the season started November 7 with the release of "Madagascar:
Escape 2 Africa," an animated film that has made more than $118 million in its first 10 days.
the biggest opening of a Bond film ever.
"Slumdog," which opened Friday in limited release and goes wide November 27, may become a sleeper hit.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Democratic leaders in Congress are in favor of some kind of help, as is President-elect Obama.
But the Bush administration has balked on proposals to let the automakers tap the $700 billion Wall Street bailout approved in October.
Many leading Congressional Republicans have suggested that a better option is bankruptcy, enabling the Big Three to restructure and ultimately emerge as leaner and viable businesses.
How this debate plays out could determine whether this important industry survives
Here are some quick answers to seven key questions about the crisis.
What do the automakers want?
The automakers are asking for about $25 billion in loans to help them survive until 2010.
Advocates for a bailout argue that if the Big Three can hang on until then, they'll be in position to be competitive long-term.
How many jobs are at stake?
GM has about 120,000 U.S. employees. Ford has about 80,000 and Chrysler LLC has about 66,000.
In addition, the three automakers have about 14,000 U.S. dealerships that between them employ another 740,000 workers.
The suppliers used by the Big Three also employ an estimated 610,000 people.
Add that up and you have more than 1.6 million jobs tied to the auto industry.
What happens if there's no bailout?
GM risks running out of money later this year or early in 2009 without a bailout.
Ford and Chrysler have more cash relative to their needs, mostly from money they borrowed prior to the current credit crunch.
But each of those automakers could also run out of cash during 2009 without federal assistance.
What happens if an automaker goes bankrupt?
There are two types of corporate bankruptcy under U.S. law.
Chapter 11 allows a company to continue to operate as it sheds debts and contracts it can not afford.
In Chapter 7 bankruptcy, the company goes out of business fairly rapidly as its assets are sold off to try to satisfy its creditors.
What are advantages of an automaker going into bankruptcy?
Some argue that bankruptcy judges will be able to force the automakers to shed brands and dealerships as well as get the Big Three out of labor contracts they can not afford.
What are the arguments against a Chapter 11 bankruptcy?
Given the current credit crunch, many experts question whether automakers would be able to get necessary financing from lenders to help them during the reorganization process.
There are also doubts whether consumers would buy new vehicles from a bankrupt automaker due to concerns over their resale value and warranty.
In effect, an automaker that files for Chapter 11 could eventually wind up going out of business anyway.
What are some of the other broader economic impacts if an automaker goes out of business?
Nearly 2 million Americans get their health insurance directly from one of the Big Three automakers.
Most of them would lose that coverage if their company goes out of business.
A failure of one of the Big Three could also cause a string of bankruptcies among suppliers.
General Motors, Ford Motor and Chrysler LLC
Democratic leaders in Congress are in favor of some kind of help, as is President-elect Obama.
But the Bush administration has balked on proposals to let the automakers tap the $700 billion Wall Street bailout approved in October.
Many leading Congressional Republicans have suggested that a better option is bankruptcy, enabling the Big Three to restructure and ultimately emerge as leaner and viable businesses.
How this debate plays out could determine whether this important industry survives
Here are some quick answers to seven key questions about the crisis.
What do the automakers want?
The automakers are asking for about $25 billion in loans to help them survive until 2010.
Advocates for a bailout argue that if the Big Three can hang on until then, they'll be in position to be competitive long-term.
How many jobs are at stake?
GM has about 120,000 U.S. employees. Ford has about 80,000 and Chrysler LLC has about 66,000.
In addition, the three automakers have about 14,000 U.S. dealerships that between them employ another 740,000 workers.
The suppliers used by the Big Three also employ an estimated 610,000 people.
Add that up and you have more than 1.6 million jobs tied to the auto industry.
What happens if there's no bailout?
GM risks running out of money later this year or early in 2009 without a bailout.
Ford and Chrysler have more cash relative to their needs, mostly from money they borrowed prior to the current credit crunch.
But each of those automakers could also run out of cash during 2009 without federal assistance.
What happens if an automaker goes bankrupt?
There are two types of corporate bankruptcy under U.S. law.
Chapter 11 allows a company to continue to operate as it sheds debts and contracts it can not afford.
In Chapter 7 bankruptcy, the company goes out of business fairly rapidly as its assets are sold off to try to satisfy its creditors.
What are advantages of an automaker going into bankruptcy?
Some argue that bankruptcy judges will be able to force the automakers to shed brands and dealerships as well as get the Big Three out of labor contracts they can not afford.
What are the arguments against a Chapter 11 bankruptcy?
Given the current credit crunch, many experts question whether automakers would be able to get necessary financing from lenders to help them during the reorganization process.
There are also doubts whether consumers would buy new vehicles from a bankrupt automaker due to concerns over their resale value and warranty.
In effect, an automaker that files for Chapter 11 could eventually wind up going out of business anyway.
What are some of the other broader economic impacts if an automaker goes out of business?
Nearly 2 million Americans get their health insurance directly from one of the Big Three automakers.
Most of them would lose that coverage if their company goes out of business.
A failure of one of the Big Three could also cause a string of bankruptcies among suppliers.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Developer strikes it rich with iPhone game
With its glassy touch screen, powerful graphics, crisp sound and tilt feature, the iPhone is more than a smart phone for some users
It's also become a potential gold mine for entrepreneurs who create games for the device.
Just ask Steve Demeter, developer of the popular puzzle game "Trism."
A former ATM software designer for a large bank, Demeter created "Trism" in his spare time and pitched it to Apple last spring.
The company made the game available for download with the July launch of its App Store, an online provider of applications for its iPods and iPhones.
Priced at $5, "Trism" earned Demeter $250,000 in profits the first two months.
"It's done phenomenal business," said Demeter, 29, who lives in the California's San Francisco Bay area. "I'm very honored that so many people would enjoy my game. I get e-mails from 50-year-old ladies who say, "I don't play games, but I love Trism.
' That's the coolest thing."
It can take dozens of professional developers and millions of dollars to create a video game for a traditional console such as a PlayStation or an Xbox.
But the iPhone and the App Store have helped democratize game development by opening the field to any software coder with talent and a clever idea, industry observers say.
Demeter quit his bank job two months ago and has launched a company, Demiforce, to develop more electronic games.
Now he has a salaried staff, five games in development and two coming out by Christmas, including a spinoff to "Trism" called "Trismology."
"Apple has made it so easy to put [game publishing] in the palms of developers," he said. "You just make it and then you submit it to Apple.
If you have a relevant, fun game or application, I don't see any reason why it shouldn't be approved."
Developers earn 70 percent of App Store proceeds from the sale of their games, with Apple taking 30 percent.
The field is getting crowded, though.
Developer strikes it rich with iPhone game
With its glassy touch screen, powerful graphics, crisp sound and tilt feature, the iPhone is more than a smart phone for some users
It's also become a potential gold mine for entrepreneurs who create games for the device.
Just ask Steve Demeter, developer of the popular puzzle game "Trism."
A former ATM software designer for a large bank, Demeter created "Trism" in his spare time and pitched it to Apple last spring.
The company made the game available for download with the July launch of its App Store, an online provider of applications for its iPods and iPhones.
Priced at $5, "Trism" earned Demeter $250,000 in profits the first two months.
"It's done phenomenal business," said Demeter, 29, who lives in the California's San Francisco Bay area. "I'm very honored that so many people would enjoy my game. I get e-mails from 50-year-old ladies who say, "I don't play games, but I love Trism.
' That's the coolest thing."
It can take dozens of professional developers and millions of dollars to create a video game for a traditional console such as a PlayStation or an Xbox.
But the iPhone and the App Store have helped democratize game development by opening the field to any software coder with talent and a clever idea, industry observers say.
Demeter quit his bank job two months ago and has launched a company, Demiforce, to develop more electronic games.
Now he has a salaried staff, five games in development and two coming out by Christmas, including a spinoff to "Trism" called "Trismology."
"Apple has made it so easy to put [game publishing] in the palms of developers," he said. "You just make it and then you submit it to Apple.
If you have a relevant, fun game or application, I don't see any reason why it shouldn't be approved."
Developers earn 70 percent of App Store proceeds from the sale of their games, with Apple taking 30 percent.
The field is getting crowded, though.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Brush your teeth, save your life?
Oral surgeon Dr. Gary Bouloux is about to pull a diseased wisdom tooth from his patient's mouth, using forceps that look like a pair of silver pliers.
"We're in good shape," Bouloux assures his patient.
In a smooth, quick motion, Bouloux snatches the white molar from the woman's gum with a loud snap.
"Strong bones," Bouloux quips to his numb patient.
"You'll never break your hip." And it might help cut her heart disease risk, too.
In theory, by removing his patient's teeth ravaged by gum disease, "we reduced the number of inflamed and infected sites in her mouth, which may reduce her overall inflammatory burden and thus reduce her risk for cardiovascular disease," said Bouloux, an assistant professor at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.
Doctors have known for years that gum disease and heart disease are linked, but they have yet to reach agreement on the exact reasons behind the connection.
Heart disease patients often have several risk factors such as high cholesterol or poor diet, making it impossible to single out bad dental health as a contributing factor.
Heart disease is the nation's top killer, claiming a staggering 450,000 lives in 2004, according to the American Heart Association.
Although it's unknown how many of those deaths are linked to gum disease, oral pathologist Dr. Dwight Weathers of Emory University suspects that the number would be high, "given that 85 percent of people over age 65 and probably half of people younger than that have some form of periodontal disease.
Poor dental health is so prevalent that the number of lives saved by eliminating gum disease worldwide would "definitely be in the hundreds of thousands," said Dr. Steven Offenbacher, a University of North Carolina research professor.
A substance produced in the body called high-sensitivity C-reactive-protein (hs-CRP) is suspected to play a role in the link between gum disease and heart disease.
Acute gum disease increases the amount of hs-CRP in the bloodstream, which is a natural response to inflammation caused by injury or infection.
The American Heart Association says hs-CRP may signal an increased risk for heart attacks.
Oral surgeon Dr. Gary Bouloux is about to pull a diseased wisdom tooth from his patient's mouth, using forceps that look like a pair of silver pliers.
"We're in good shape," Bouloux assures his patient.
In a smooth, quick motion, Bouloux snatches the white molar from the woman's gum with a loud snap.
"Strong bones," Bouloux quips to his numb patient.
"You'll never break your hip." And it might help cut her heart disease risk, too.
In theory, by removing his patient's teeth ravaged by gum disease, "we reduced the number of inflamed and infected sites in her mouth, which may reduce her overall inflammatory burden and thus reduce her risk for cardiovascular disease," said Bouloux, an assistant professor at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.
Doctors have known for years that gum disease and heart disease are linked, but they have yet to reach agreement on the exact reasons behind the connection.
Heart disease patients often have several risk factors such as high cholesterol or poor diet, making it impossible to single out bad dental health as a contributing factor.
Heart disease is the nation's top killer, claiming a staggering 450,000 lives in 2004, according to the American Heart Association.
Although it's unknown how many of those deaths are linked to gum disease, oral pathologist Dr. Dwight Weathers of Emory University suspects that the number would be high, "given that 85 percent of people over age 65 and probably half of people younger than that have some form of periodontal disease.
Poor dental health is so prevalent that the number of lives saved by eliminating gum disease worldwide would "definitely be in the hundreds of thousands," said Dr. Steven Offenbacher, a University of North Carolina research professor.
A substance produced in the body called high-sensitivity C-reactive-protein (hs-CRP) is suspected to play a role in the link between gum disease and heart disease.
Acute gum disease increases the amount of hs-CRP in the bloodstream, which is a natural response to inflammation caused by injury or infection.
The American Heart Association says hs-CRP may signal an increased risk for heart attacks.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
President-elect Barack Obama has chosen former Sen. Tom Daschle to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, and the former Senate majority leader has indicated he wants the job, three sources close to the transition told CNN Wednesday.
The sources said that Daschle negotiated that he will also serve as the White House health "czar," or point person, so that he will report directly to the incoming president.
By wearing two hats, Daschle not White House staffers will be writing the health care plan that Obama submits to Congress next year.
The sources said the precise timing of the announcement has not been worked out, but Daschle is likely to officially join the Obama transition team as the lead adviser on health issues in the next few weeks.
An Obama transition official would not comment.
Daschle is currently billed as a "special public policy adviser" in the Washington office of the lobbying firm Alston Bird, though he is technically not a federally registered lobbyist.
But his wife, Linda Daschle, is a registered lobbyist at the powerful firm Baker Donelson, which does have some clients in health-related fields.
President-elect Barack Obama has chosen former Sen. Tom Daschle to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, and the former Senate majority leader has indicated he wants the job, three sources close to the transition told CNN Wednesday.
The sources said that Daschle negotiated that he will also serve as the White House health "czar," or point person, so that he will report directly to the incoming president.
By wearing two hats, Daschle not White House staffers will be writing the health care plan that Obama submits to Congress next year.
The sources said the precise timing of the announcement has not been worked out, but Daschle is likely to officially join the Obama transition team as the lead adviser on health issues in the next few weeks.
An Obama transition official would not comment.
Daschle is currently billed as a "special public policy adviser" in the Washington office of the lobbying firm Alston Bird, though he is technically not a federally registered lobbyist.
But his wife, Linda Daschle, is a registered lobbyist at the powerful firm Baker Donelson, which does have some clients in health-related fields.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
although there are laws against paying for sex in a public place and persistently soliciting prostitutes.
Now UK Home Secretary (interior minister) Jacqui Smith says she is proposing the new measures to protect vulnerable women and tackle the demand for prostitution.
Britain's interior ministry, known as the Home Office, introduced the new measures Wednesday after a six-month review that looked at what else the government could do to protect women being exploited for sexual gain.
"I want to do everything we can to protect the thousands of vulnerable women coerced, exploited or trafficked into prostitution in our country, and to bring those who take advantage of them to justice," Smith said in a statement.
Smith said the new measures will shift the focus onto sex buyers because they create demand for prostitution and demand for the trafficking of women for sex.
"There will be no more excuses for those who pay for sex," she added.
As part of the review, the government looked at the experience of other countries including Sweden
The government estimates around 80,000 people are involved in prostitution in Britain, with about 4,000 women having been trafficked for sexual exploitation.
It says the prostitution market nationwide is worth up to £1 billion ($1.52 billion).
Trafficking is the movement of women from one place to another for the purposes of sex.
British Authorities have said trafficking usually involves the trafficker promising to bring a woman to Britain for a better life and then forcing her into prostitution.
would mean that those committing the new offense would be given a criminal record and fined £1,000 ($1,520)
even if it was a person's first offense and the offender did not know the prostitute was being controlled by a pimp or had been trafficked.
Police would also be given powers to close and seal premises suspected of being used for sexual exploitation, such as brothels, which the government said will prevent further exploitation and abuse from taking place.
Paying for sex with trafficked or exploited women would become a crime under new laws proposed by the UK government Wednesday.
The act of purchasing sex is not currently a criminal offense in England and Wales
although there are laws against paying for sex in a public place and persistently soliciting prostitutes.
Now UK Home Secretary (interior minister) Jacqui Smith says she is proposing the new measures to protect vulnerable women and tackle the demand for prostitution.
Britain's interior ministry, known as the Home Office, introduced the new measures Wednesday after a six-month review that looked at what else the government could do to protect women being exploited for sexual gain.
"I want to do everything we can to protect the thousands of vulnerable women coerced, exploited or trafficked into prostitution in our country, and to bring those who take advantage of them to justice," Smith said in a statement.
Smith said the new measures will shift the focus onto sex buyers because they create demand for prostitution and demand for the trafficking of women for sex.
"There will be no more excuses for those who pay for sex," she added.
As part of the review, the government looked at the experience of other countries including Sweden
The government estimates around 80,000 people are involved in prostitution in Britain, with about 4,000 women having been trafficked for sexual exploitation.
It says the prostitution market nationwide is worth up to £1 billion ($1.52 billion).
Trafficking is the movement of women from one place to another for the purposes of sex.
British Authorities have said trafficking usually involves the trafficker promising to bring a woman to Britain for a better life and then forcing her into prostitution.
would mean that those committing the new offense would be given a criminal record and fined £1,000 ($1,520)
even if it was a person's first offense and the offender did not know the prostitute was being controlled by a pimp or had been trafficked.
Police would also be given powers to close and seal premises suspected of being used for sexual exploitation, such as brothels, which the government said will prevent further exploitation and abuse from taking place.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Scientists map DNA of prehistoric animal
A team of scientists at Penn State University could be one step closer to bringing extinct species back to life.
Using next-generation instruments and groundbreaking DNA-reading techniques, scientists have uncovered much of the genetic code of the woolly mammoth, a prehistoric species of elephant.
The achievement could help scientists study why some species go extinct but others do not, and may even be useful in protecting other animals from extinction.
It also raises the possibility that scientists could use genome-wide sequencing to re-create an extinct creature.
"This really is the first time that we have been able to study an extinct animal in the same detail as the ones living in our own time," said Stephan Schuster, a Penn State University biochemistry professor and co-author of the research.
Project scientists have detailed more than 3 billion DNA building blocks of the mammoth, according to a study published in Thursday's journal Nature.
This is still enough data to give scientists new understanding into the timing of evolution and the contributing factors that trigger extinction of a species.
"The team is searching the mammoth's genome for clues about its extinction," said study co-author and biologist Webb Miller.
The million-dollar project is about 80 percent finished.
The project relied on hairs found on two frozen mammoth mummies that were buried in the Siberian permafrost for 20,000 and 60,000 years.
With mammoth hairs, scientists were able to avoid the bacterial and viral contamination they had encountered using bone tissue.
The hair shaft encases the DNA like a biological plastic, making the genetic information less prone to environmental damage.
Finding and isolating the DNA was one thing, but sequencing the genome had its own challenges, scientists said.
"It's like a mirror that you smash on the floor. Then, like a jigsaw puzzle, you try to piece the DNA back together," Schuster said.
After scientists pieced together the broken pieces of the ancient genome, their analysis began.
The genetic map of the modern African elephant was used as a blueprint to compare and contrast the genetic markers of the woolly mammoth.
The genetic data indicated that there were two distinct groups of woolly mammoths which separated about 2 million years ago.
One of these sub-populations went extinct approximately 45,000 years ago, but the other lived until after the last ice age, about 10,000 years ago.
These two groups of mammoths were living in the same environment but were not interbreeding, causing low genetic diversity in their population.
Miller and Schuster noticed that most of the mammoths they examined had far less genetic diversity than other species that are still alive, which may give clues into the biology of extinction.
Then there's the intriguing possibility of resurrecting a mammoth.
"By deciphering this genome, we could, in theory, generate data that one day may help other researchers to bring the woolly mammoth back to life by inserting the uniquely mammoth DNA sequences into the genome of the modern-day elephant," Schuster said.
Scientists map DNA of prehistoric animal
A team of scientists at Penn State University could be one step closer to bringing extinct species back to life.
Using next-generation instruments and groundbreaking DNA-reading techniques, scientists have uncovered much of the genetic code of the woolly mammoth, a prehistoric species of elephant.
The achievement could help scientists study why some species go extinct but others do not, and may even be useful in protecting other animals from extinction.
It also raises the possibility that scientists could use genome-wide sequencing to re-create an extinct creature.
"This really is the first time that we have been able to study an extinct animal in the same detail as the ones living in our own time," said Stephan Schuster, a Penn State University biochemistry professor and co-author of the research.
Project scientists have detailed more than 3 billion DNA building blocks of the mammoth, according to a study published in Thursday's journal Nature.
This is still enough data to give scientists new understanding into the timing of evolution and the contributing factors that trigger extinction of a species.
"The team is searching the mammoth's genome for clues about its extinction," said study co-author and biologist Webb Miller.
The million-dollar project is about 80 percent finished.
The project relied on hairs found on two frozen mammoth mummies that were buried in the Siberian permafrost for 20,000 and 60,000 years.
With mammoth hairs, scientists were able to avoid the bacterial and viral contamination they had encountered using bone tissue.
The hair shaft encases the DNA like a biological plastic, making the genetic information less prone to environmental damage.
Finding and isolating the DNA was one thing, but sequencing the genome had its own challenges, scientists said.
"It's like a mirror that you smash on the floor. Then, like a jigsaw puzzle, you try to piece the DNA back together," Schuster said.
After scientists pieced together the broken pieces of the ancient genome, their analysis began.
The genetic map of the modern African elephant was used as a blueprint to compare and contrast the genetic markers of the woolly mammoth.
The genetic data indicated that there were two distinct groups of woolly mammoths which separated about 2 million years ago.
One of these sub-populations went extinct approximately 45,000 years ago, but the other lived until after the last ice age, about 10,000 years ago.
These two groups of mammoths were living in the same environment but were not interbreeding, causing low genetic diversity in their population.
Miller and Schuster noticed that most of the mammoths they examined had far less genetic diversity than other species that are still alive, which may give clues into the biology of extinction.
Then there's the intriguing possibility of resurrecting a mammoth.
"By deciphering this genome, we could, in theory, generate data that one day may help other researchers to bring the woolly mammoth back to life by inserting the uniquely mammoth DNA sequences into the genome of the modern-day elephant," Schuster said.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Suri Cruise is the most popular kid on the playground.
The 2-year-old daughter of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes tops Forbes.com's second annual list of "Hollywood's 10 Hottest Tots."
Forbes.com, which ranked celebrity children 5 years old and younger based on media attention and their parents' popularity, said Suri
known for her stylish outfits and haircut
popped up in more news articles and blogs than her peers.
Shiloh Jolie-Pitt, 2, is in second place after coming in first last year;
"Though not quite the tabloid stars his sisters Zahara and Shiloh are, his recognizable mug and A-list parents give him space in the top five," said Forbes.com of Pax.
Rounding out the top 10:
Sam Alexis Woods, daughter of Tiger Woods and his wife, Elin; Cruz Beckham, son of David and Victoria Beckham;
Matilda Rose Ledger, daughter of Michelle Williams and the late Heath Ledger;
Forbes.com looked at a year's worth of press clippings and Web presence for more than 50 Hollywood kids.
The Web site then narrowed the list, recruiting the polling firm E-Poll Market Research to get awareness scores for the children and consumer appeal rankings for their celebrity parents.
Suri Cruise is the most popular kid on the playground.
The 2-year-old daughter of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes tops Forbes.com's second annual list of "Hollywood's 10 Hottest Tots."
known for her stylish outfits and haircut
popped up in more news articles and blogs than her peers.
Three of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's six children made the list:
Zahara Jolie-Pitt, 3, is in third place;
and Pax Jolie-Pitt, 4, is fourth on the list.
Rounding out the top 10:
Cruz Beckham, son of David and Victoria Beckham;
Sean Preston Federline, son of Britney Spears and Kevin Federline;
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
not including the Solheim Cup.
Tournaments off the schedule include the ADT Championship, which starts on Thursday and closes this year's schedule.
Purses will total around $55 million, about $5.25 million down from 2008. The Tour announced $53.4 million in purses on Wednesday;
the Ginn Open in Reunion, Florida, which had a $2.6 million prize pool this year, has not yet determined what it will pay out in 2009.
"It's no secret that the road ahead, particularly 2009, is going to test our mettle," said LPGA commissioner Carolyn Bivens.
"The LPGA is confronting challenges that are facing not only other sports and entertainment organizations, but every business enterprise of any kind in all corners around the world."
Besides the ADT, other events not continuing over sponsorship issues include the Fields Open in Hawaii and Ginn Tribute in South Carolina.
The Ginn Tribute shut down in August, and officials at Broken Arrow in Tulsa, Oklahoma, announced on Tuesday their event, sponsored by SemGroup, would not continue.
The Safeway International, which was held in Arizona this year, is also gone over a sponsorship issue and essentially becomes the LPGA International in Phoenix.
Next year's LPGA schedule begins in Hawaii, then heads to Thailand, Singapore and Mexico, not returning to the U.S. until the Phoenix event from March 26-29, details of which have yet to be released.
Some events shifted slots from the 2008 schedule, others changed sponsors and details are still being finalized about the Samsung World Championship, which was in Cleveland this year.
The LPGA Tour will offer three fewer official events in 2009, the latest result of the global economic downturn and its affect on sport all over the world.
The 2009 schedule released on Wednesday has 31 events
20 in the United States and 11 internationally
not including the Solheim Cup.
Tournaments off the schedule include the ADT Championship, which starts on Thursday and closes this year's schedule.
Purses will total around $55 million, about $5.25 million down from 2008. The Tour announced $53.4 million in purses on Wednesday;
the Ginn Open in Reunion, Florida, which had a $2.6 million prize pool this year, has not yet determined what it will pay out in 2009.
"It's no secret that the road ahead, particularly 2009, is going to test our mettle," said LPGA commissioner Carolyn Bivens.
"The LPGA is confronting challenges that are facing not only other sports and entertainment organizations, but every business enterprise of any kind in all corners around the world."
Besides the ADT, other events not continuing over sponsorship issues include the Fields Open in Hawaii and Ginn Tribute in South Carolina.
The Ginn Tribute shut down in August, and officials at Broken Arrow in Tulsa, Oklahoma, announced on Tuesday their event, sponsored by SemGroup, would not continue.
The Safeway International, which was held in Arizona this year, is also gone over a sponsorship issue and essentially becomes the LPGA International in Phoenix.
Next year's LPGA schedule begins in Hawaii, then heads to Thailand, Singapore and Mexico, not returning to the U.S. until the Phoenix event from March 26-29, details of which have yet to be released.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Asian and Pacific stocks tumbled sharply on Thursday after Wall Street finished at its lowest point since Spring 2003.
Tokyo's Nikkei index fell 4.3 percent and Seoul's KOSPI index dropped 4.5 percent, while Australia's All Ordinaries index slipped 3.3 percent and Hong Kong's Hang Seng index fell 5.1 percent.
stocks nosedived Wednesday amid ongoing investor worries about the economy and the future of the auto industry, with the Dow Jones industrial average closing below 8,000 for the first time since March 2003.
The Dow shed 427 points to close down about 5.1 percent.
All 30 Dow components ended lower.
The Standard & Poor's 500 index slid 6 percent to its lowest level since March 2003, and the Nasdaq composite lost 6.5 percent to settle at its lowest point since April 2003.
Stocks languished for most of the day, with the selloff accelerating near the close of trade.
Wednesday's dramatic retreat erased gains made in the previous session.
"The market is fearful of the fallout from the credit crisis and the global economic slowdown," said Todd Salamone, market strategist at Schaeffer's Investment Research.
Investors are grappling with a possible bankruptcy in the automotive industry, something analysts say could have dire implications for the broader economy, as a second day of congressional hearings ended without resolution.
Asian and Pacific stocks tumbled sharply on Thursday after Wall Street finished at its lowest point since Spring 2003.
Tokyo's Nikkei index fell 4.3 percent and Seoul's KOSPI index dropped 4.5 percent, while Australia's All Ordinaries index slipped 3.3 percent and Hong Kong's Hang Seng index fell 5.1 percent.
stocks nosedived Wednesday amid ongoing investor worries about the economy and the future of the auto industry, with the Dow Jones industrial average closing below 8,000 for the first time since March 2003.
The Dow shed 427 points to close down about 5.1 percent.
All 30 Dow components ended lower.
The Standard & Poor's 500 index slid 6 percent to its lowest level since March 2003, and the Nasdaq composite lost 6.5 percent to settle at its lowest point since April 2003.
Stocks languished for most of the day, with the selloff accelerating near the close of trade.
Wednesday's dramatic retreat erased gains made in the previous session.
"The market is fearful of the fallout from the credit crisis and the global economic slowdown," said Todd Salamone, market strategist at Schaeffer's Investment Research.
Investors are grappling with a possible bankruptcy in the automotive industry, something analysts say could have dire implications for the broader economy, as a second day of congressional hearings ended without resolution.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Scientists have found a wide-eyed primate
a clawed fur ball that fits snugly in one hand
in the first live sighting in more than 80 years of a creature that some thought was extinct.
Over a two-month period, scientists working in Lore Lindu National Park on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi caught and released three pygmy tarsiers.
They bear a striking resemblance to the Furby, an electronic toy that spoke its own fantasy language and dominated children's wish lists in the late 1990s.
They caught two males and one female, said Sharon Gursky-Doyen, a Texas A&M University anthropology professor who led the expedition.
The species had not been observed alive in more than eight decades, since they were collected for a museum in 1921.
Many scientists had believed them to be extinct until eight years ago, when two scientists trapping rats in Sulawesi accidentally trapped and killed one.
"I needed to go myself ... to confirm in my own mind," whether they were there, Gursky-Doyen told CNN on Wednesday, after recently returning from Indonesia.
And, on the second night of trapping in August on moss-covered, chilly Mt. Rore Katimbo, her group caught the first small nocturnal creature in a mist net.
"It was truly amazing," she said. "My whole body was shaking ... I couldn't conceive that we had actually caught one."
The second trapping didn't come until three weeks later, but that first sighting "kept us going," Gursky-Doyen said, amid the cold, drenched conditions.
The pygmy tarsier, or Tarsius pumilus, weighs about 50 grams (1.7 ounces), and has dense fur, large, protruding eyes.
In addition to seeming as a living, breathing version of the Furby, it also appears as though it ought to have had appeared in the 1984 movie "Gremlins."
Unlike other primates, the pygmy tarsier endemic to a specific area of Indonesia has claws instead of nails on its fingers.
It is half as big as the Philippines tarsier, which has similar features.
Scientists have found a wide-eyed primate
a clawed fur ball that fits snugly in one hand
in the first live sighting in more than 80 years of a creature that some thought was extinct.
Over a two-month period, scientists working in Lore Lindu National Park on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi caught and released three pygmy tarsiers.
They bear a striking resemblance to the Furby, an electronic toy that spoke its own fantasy language and dominated children's wish lists in the late 1990s.
They caught two males and one female, said Sharon Gursky-Doyen, a Texas A&M University anthropology professor who led the expedition.
The species had not been observed alive in more than eight decades, since they were collected for a museum in 1921.
Many scientists had believed them to be extinct until eight years ago, when two scientists trapping rats in Sulawesi accidentally trapped and killed one.
"I needed to go myself ... to confirm in my own mind," whether they were there, Gursky-Doyen told CNN on Wednesday, after recently returning from Indonesia.
And, on the second night of trapping in August on moss-covered, chilly Mt. Rore Katimbo, her group caught the first small nocturnal creature in a mist net.
"It was truly amazing," she said. "My whole body was shaking ... I couldn't conceive that we had actually caught one."
The second trapping didn't come until three weeks later, but that first sighting "kept us going," Gursky-Doyen said, amid the cold, drenched conditions.
The pygmy tarsier, or Tarsius pumilus, weighs about 50 grams (1.7 ounces), and has dense fur, large, protruding eyes.
In addition to seeming as a living, breathing version of the Furby, it also appears as though it ought to have had appeared in the 1984 movie "Gremlins."
Unlike other primates, the pygmy tarsier endemic to a specific area of Indonesia
has claws instead of nails on its fingers.
It is half as big as the Philippines tarsier, which has similar features.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
A new sign Gates is staying on in Defense?
Republican Brent Scowcroft, who was national security adviser in the first Bush administration.
Two sources familiar with the conversations confirm to CNN that Obama reached out to Scowcroft for phone chats even before he ran for president, and the back-and-forth has continued in recent days as the president-elect assembles his Cabinet.
Scowcroft is very close to current Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who is rumored to be in the running to stay in the Cabinet for at least an interim period at the start of the new Obama administration.
During a recent appearance on CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS," Scowcroft said it would be a wise move for Obama to keep Gates in the Cabinet.
"I actually think it would send the kind of signal that I think the president-elect intends, or spoke about in his campaign, and that is that we need to work together. We need to work as Americans," Scowcroft said.
But a senior Obama aide told CNN not to see the conversations as a signal that Gates may keep his job. "Don't read anything into this
he was an admirer [of Scowcroft] long before running or even needing to select" a secretary of defense, the Obama aide said.
The Obama aide said the president-elect "respects and admires Gen. Scowcroft's bipartisan, pragmatic approach to foreign policy," adding that Obama "looks forward to continuing the dialogue with Gen. Scowcroft as well as other key Republicans, Democrats and independents
to get the very best advice." Scowcroft, who opposed the war in Iraq, is a fierce critic of the current Bush administration's approach.
"I think we developed in the Republican Party a
well, you know, the buzzword for it is "neoconism,' " Scowcroft said on CNN earlier this month.
it's really an idealistic approach to things.
But it's a combination of idealism and, if you will, brute force."
Republican Brent Scowcroft, who was national security adviser in the first Bush administration.
Two sources familiar with the conversations confirm to CNN that Obama reached out to Scowcroft for phone chats even before he ran for president, and the back-and-forth has continued in recent days as the president-elect assembles his Cabinet.
Scowcroft is very close to current Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who is rumored to be in the running to stay in the Cabinet for at least an interim period at the start of the new Obama administration.
During a recent appearance on CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS," Scowcroft said it would be a wise move for Obama to keep Gates in the Cabinet.
"I actually think it would send the kind of signal that I think the president-elect intends, or spoke about in his campaign, and that is that we need to work together. We need to work as Americans," Scowcroft said.
But a senior Obama aide told CNN not to see the conversations as a signal that Gates may keep his job. "Don't read anything into this
he was an admirer [of Scowcroft] long before running or even needing to select" a secretary of defense, the Obama aide said.
The Obama aide said the president-elect "respects and admires Gen. Scowcroft's bipartisan, pragmatic approach to foreign policy," adding that Obama "looks forward to continuing the dialogue with Gen. Scowcroft
to get the very best advice."
"I think we developed in the Republican Party a
well, you know, the buzzword for it is "neoconism,' " Scowcroft said on CNN earlier this month.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
China's job outlook is "grim," and the global financial crisis could cause more layoffs and more labor unrest until the country's economic stimulus package kicks in next year, the nation's minister of human resources and social security said Thursday.
The stimulus package, unveiled earlier this month, will pump $585 billion into rebuilding communities destroyed by the May earthquake, constructing railways, housing, airports and highways, and funding other projects.
China is most concerned about the growing labor unrest, the human resources minister, Yin Weimin, said at a news conference.
The increase in unrest has paralleled the increase of business and factory closings and job losses.
Yin noted that in the past two months, some businesses, mainly smaller ones, have been forced to close or suspend production.
Several hundred taxi drivers went on strike Wednesday in Chongqing, in southwestern China, after the government said it planned to put more cabs on the district's roads, thereby increasing competition, the Gansu Daily newspaper said
And about 2,000 people rioted Monday in the impoverished northwestern province of Gansu over plans to move Longnan's city government offices, which were damaged in the May 12 Sichuan earthquake, to a nearby county.
Residents, fearing the change would reduce their property values and threaten their livelihoods, clashed with police and looted government offices, the Gansu Daily reported.
China's manufacturing sector, which produced 14 percent of the clothing, toys and footwear imported into the United States last year, has decelerated rapidly over the past few months, pulled down by a pair of factors.
First, the global economic slowdown and the subsequent drop in consumer spending stymied demand for discretionary goods made in China.
Second, Chinese manufacturers are battling rising labor and material costs at the same time that the yuan's rising value versus the dollar is making Chinese exports to the United States and elsewhere more expensive.
The urban unemployment rate through October this year was 4 percent, lower than the government's projection of 4.5 percent.
But Yin said Thursday the jobless numbers do not include migrant rural workers probably the most-affected group because they move so frequently.
There are about 150 million migrant laborers in China, mostly in cities.
Xinhua said Yin has predicted unemployment will rise in the first quarter of 2009.
After that, he said, the stimulus package and other steps China has taken to boost the financial sector should boost employment, according to Xinhua.
China hopes the growth of jobs will then cool down the protests.
Until then, China is bracing for more demonstrations.
Meng Jianzhu, minister of public security, was quoted by the BBC as warning police this week to be "fully aware of the challenges brought by the global financial crisis."
He said officers should be careful about how they handle "mass incidents."
China's job outlook is "grim," and the global financial crisis could cause more layoffs and more labor unrest until the country's economic stimulus package kicks in next year, the nation's minister of human resources and social security said Thursday.
The stimulus package, unveiled earlier this month, will pump $585 billion into rebuilding communities destroyed by the May earthquake, constructing railways, housing, airports and highways, and funding other projects.
China is most concerned about the growing labor unrest, the human resources minister, Yin Weimin, said at a news conference.
The increase in unrest has paralleled the increase of business and factory closings and job losses.
Yin noted that in the past two months, some businesses, mainly smaller ones, have been forced to close or suspend production.
Several hundred taxi drivers went on strike Wednesday in Chongqing, in southwestern China, after the government said it planned to put more cabs on the district's roads, thereby increasing competition, the Gansu Daily newspaper said
And about 2,000 people rioted Monday in the impoverished northwestern province of Gansu over plans to move Longnan's city government offices, which were damaged in the May 12 Sichuan earthquake, to a nearby county.
Residents, fearing the change would reduce their property values and threaten their livelihoods, clashed with police and looted government offices, the Gansu Daily reported.
China's manufacturing sector, which produced 14 percent of the clothing, toys and footwear imported into the United States last year, has decelerated rapidly over the past few months, pulled down by a pair of factors.
First, the global economic slowdown and the subsequent drop in consumer spending stymied demand for discretionary goods made in China.
Second, Chinese manufacturers are battling rising labor and material costs at the same time that the yuan's rising value versus the dollar is making Chinese exports to the United States and elsewhere more expensive.
The urban unemployment rate through October this year was 4 percent, lower than the government's projection of 4.5 percent.
But Yin said Thursday the jobless numbers do not include migrant rural workers probably the most-affected group because they move so frequently.
There are about 150 million migrant laborers in China, mostly in cities.
Xinhua said Yin has predicted unemployment will rise in the first quarter of 2009.
After that, he said, the stimulus package and other steps China has taken to boost the financial sector should boost employment, according to Xinhua.
China hopes the growth of jobs will then cool down the protests.
Until then, China is bracing for more demonstrations.
Meng Jianzhu, minister of public security, was quoted by the BBC as warning police this week to be "fully aware of the challenges brought by the global financial crisis."
He said officers should be careful about how they handle "mass incidents."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Five ways to keep Alzheimer`s away
Blanche Danick may be 86 years old, but she's pretty hip.
She keeps up with all the latest health news, and a while back, she called her daughter wanting to know whether she should start taking the herb ginkgo biloba.
She'd heard it might stave off Alzheimer's disease.
"I told her not to bother, that it wouldn't make much of a difference," says her daughter, Edythe London, a professor of psychiatry and pharmacology at the University of California, Los Angeles. "On the basis of what I've read, I don't think it staves off dementia."
London's advice makes a lot of sense, according to a study out this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Ginkgo is a top-selling herb and has been hailed by some as a memory-booster, but the new University of Pittsburgh study found it didn't help prevent Alzheimer's or other forms of dementia in more than 3,000 elderly study subjects.
London's still skeptical.
"But I do tell my mother there are other things she can do," says London, who's studied the brain and aging. "I tell her to go out and do things and see people every day and be active."
Studies have shown that physical exercise, the kind that keeps the heart healthy, also keeps the brain healthy, according to the National Institutes of Health's Cognitive and Emotional Health Project.
People are like rats, London says.
"If you put a rat in a cage by itself, it won't do well on cognitive tests. But if you give it toys and put other rats in its cage, they're going to be smarter rats."
In addition to playing with toys and hanging out with your fellow rats, here are five other tips for keeping your memory sharp.
London says they help work on memory centers of the brain, including the cerebral cortex and the hippocampus, identified in the diagram above.
London makes sure her mother takes vitamins A, C, and E.
They're antioxidants, which prevent cell damage and are believed by some to slow down diseases of aging.
Dr. Gary Small, director of the UCLA Center on Aging, says aging brains show signs of inflammation, and fish oil has anti-inflammatory properties.
Phosphatidylserine is a lipid found naturally in the body.
Small says he's not 100 percent convinced these supplements will help stave off dementia, but they're worth a try.
Small, who's 57, says that as he gets older, he might also try eating more foods with curry in them.
"Some studies in Singapore show that those who ate curry once a week had better memory scores," he said.
"Our brains can be made stronger through exercise," says Andrew Carle, assistant professor of in the department of health administration and policy at George Mason University.
"In the same way physical exercise can delay many of the effects of aging on the body, there's some evidence cognitive exercise can at least delay the onset of Alzheimer's."
Blanche Danick may be 86 years old, but she's pretty hip.
She keeps up with all the latest health news, and a while back, she called her daughter wanting to know whether she should start taking the herb ginkgo biloba.
She'd heard it might stave off Alzheimer's disease.
"I told her not to bother, that it wouldn't make much of a difference," says her daughter, Edythe London, a professor of psychiatry and pharmacology at the University of California, Los Angeles. "On the basis of what I've read, I don't think it staves off dementia."
London's advice makes a lot of sense, according to a study out this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Ginkgo is a top-selling herb and has been hailed by some as a memory-booster, but the new University of Pittsburgh study found it didn't help prevent Alzheimer's or other forms of dementia in more than 3,000 elderly study subjects.
London's still skeptical.
"But I do tell my mother there are other things she can do," says London, who's studied the brain and aging. "I tell her to go out and do things and see people every day and be active."
Studies have shown that physical exercise, the kind that keeps the heart healthy, also keeps the brain healthy, according to the National Institutes of Health's Cognitive and Emotional Health Project.
People are like rats, London says.
"If you put a rat in a cage by itself, it won't do well on cognitive tests. But if you give it toys and put other rats in its cage, they're going to be smarter rats."
In addition to playing with toys and hanging out with your fellow rats, here are five other tips for keeping your memory sharp.
London says they help work on memory centers of the brain, including the cerebral cortex and the hippocampus, identified in the diagram above.
London makes sure her mother takes vitamins A, C, and E.
They're antioxidants, which prevent cell damage and are believed by some to slow down diseases of aging.
Dr. Gary Small, director of the UCLA Center on Aging, says aging brains show signs of inflammation, and fish oil has anti-inflammatory properties.
Phosphatidylserine is a lipid found naturally in the body.
Small says he's not 100 percent convinced these supplements will help stave off dementia, but they're worth a try.
Small, who's 57, says that as he gets older, he might also try eating more foods with curry in them.
"Some studies in Singapore show that those who ate curry once a week had better memory scores," he said.
"Our brains can be made stronger through exercise," says Andrew Carle, assistant professor of in the department of health administration and policy at George Mason University.
But Carle says it's not enough to do just one kind of brain exercise.
your arms will get strong, but not the rest of your body."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Is North Korea becoming a new football force?
Welcome to this week's CNN Football Fanzone Free For All!
We had fantastic discussion on the best national leagues last week, and now we are talking about the national teams on the rise.
Kim Jong-il's North Korea may lack freedom and success in economic and political fields; but on the football field North Koreans are leading a small revolution in perceptions of the nation.
The North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) under-17 women's team has just won the FIFA World Cup, beating England in the semi-final and shocking the U.S. in the final to be champions.
The under-20 side also won their respective World Cup in Russia two years ago.
The senior women's side won the 2008 Asian Cup after last year making the quarter-finals of the FIFA World Cup.
Having not qualified for the World Cup since 1966 when they made the quarter-finals, they are beginning to climb their way back in the world game, from a 1998 low of 181 in the world rankings.
In qualifying for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, the North Koreans have made it through to the final qualifying stage and recently drew with their neighbor South Korea
a side which was a World Cup semi-finalist in 2002, and unlucky not to make the second round at the 2006 finals in Germany.
There are several other nations on the rise that have the potential to become consistent global powers in the game.
Despite problems of ongoing war and the temporary disbanding of the nation's football association, Iraq has had an international resurgence in recent years.
Although now out of the race for South Africa, they did win the Asian Cup and will appear at the Confederations Cup in 2009.
Australia's Socceroos are also a growing force in international football.
They are currently leading their Asian qualifying group for the 2010 World Cup and appeared at the last World Cup in 2006.
And who could forget how they were cruelly robbed by a 94th minute penalty against eventual tournament champion Italy in the round of 16?
Australia has experienced some success in under-age tournaments and another factor likely to build the strength of the lads from Down Under is their World Cup bid for 2018.
The United States is yet another side with the potential to become a long-term power in the global game.
Some would argue the U.S. side is already a major power, after being ranked fourth in the world prior to the 2006 World Cup, however, the team has since slipped to 24th in the rankings.
At present they're on course to qualify for 2010, and progressing past the first round in that event could see the giant nation establish a firmer presence close to football's best.
Another outsider looking to become a serious force is China. Since a rankings high of 37 in the world in 1998, China has plummeted to sit at 98th.
Is North Korea becoming a new football force?
Welcome to this week's CNN Football Fanzone Free For All!
We had fantastic discussion on the best national leagues last week, and now we are talking about the national teams on the rise.
Kim Jong-il's North Korea may lack freedom and success in economic and political fields; but on the football field North Koreans are leading a small revolution in perceptions of the nation.
The North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) under-17 women's team has just won the FIFA World Cup, beating England in the semi-final and shocking the U.S. in the final to be champions.
The under-20 side also won their respective World Cup in Russia two years ago.
The senior women's side won the 2008 Asian Cup after last year making the quarter-finals of the FIFA World Cup.
Having not qualified for the World Cup since 1966 when they made the quarter-finals, they are beginning to climb their way back in the world game, from a 1998 low of 181 in the world rankings.
In qualifying for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, the North Koreans have made it through to the final qualifying stage and recently drew with their neighbor South Korea
a side which was a World Cup semi-finalist in 2002, and unlucky not to make the second round at the 2006 finals in Germany.
There are several other nations on the rise that have the potential to become consistent global powers in the game.
Despite problems of ongoing war and the temporary disbanding of the nation's football association, Iraq has had an international resurgence in recent years.
Although now out of the race for South Africa, they did win the Asian Cup and will appear at the Confederations Cup in 2009.
Australia's Socceroos are also a growing force in international football.
They are currently leading their Asian qualifying group for the 2010 World Cup and appeared at the last World Cup in 2006.
And who could forget how they were cruelly robbed by a 94th minute penalty against eventual tournament champion Italy in the round of 16?
Australia has experienced some success in under-age tournaments and another factor likely to build the strength of the lads from Down Under is their World Cup bid for 2018.
The United States is yet another side with the potential to become a long-term power in the global game.
Some would argue the U.S. side is already a major power, after being ranked fourth in the world prior to the 2006 World Cup, however, the team has since slipped to 24th in the rankings.
At present they're on course to qualify for 2010, and progressing past the first round in that event could see the giant nation establish a firmer presence close to football's best.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Michael Jackson's lawyer says the pop star has agreed to come to London to respond to an Arab sheikh's $7 million lawsuit.
Jackson had asked to testify by a video link from the United States because of an unspecified illness.
But his lawyer Robert Englehart informed the court on Thursday that Jackson's doctors had cleared him to travel in two days' time.
Jackson is scheduled to testify on Monday.
Sheik Abdulla bin Hamad Al Khalifa , the second son of the king of Bahrain, claims that Jackson reneged on a contract for an album, a candid autobiography and a stage play, after accepting millions in advances.
Jackson says the money was a gift.
The case is being tried in London by mutual agreement, Al Khalifa's representatives have said. It is due to wrap up by the end of the month.
The singer's finances fell apart following his arrest in 2003 on charges that he molested a 13-year old boy at his Neverland ranch in the U.S.
He moved to Bahrain after being acquitted.
Jackson had asked to testify by a video link from the United States because of an unspecified illness.
But his lawyer Robert Englehart informed the court on Thursday that Jackson's doctors had cleared him to travel in two days' time.
Jackson is scheduled to testify on Monday.
Sheik Abdulla bin Hamad Al Khalifa , the second son of the king of Bahrain, claims that Jackson reneged on a contract for an album, a candid autobiography and a stage play, after accepting millions in advances.
Jackson says the money was a gift.
The case is being tried in London by mutual agreement, Al Khalifa's representatives have said. It is due to wrap up by the end of the month.
The singer's finances fell apart following his arrest in 2003 on charges that he molested a 13-year old boy at his Neverland ranch in the U.S.
He moved to Bahrain after being acquitted.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Dubai palm opens with star-studded party
A huge man-made island shaped like a date palm tree opened Thursday off the coast of Dubai with a celebrity-studded gala and a three-day party.
The Palm Jumeirah increased Dubai's shoreline by 100 percent after work started on it in 2001.
It features resort hotels, homes, luxury shopping and entertainment.
Though the entire island officially opened Thursday, parts of it already opened weeks ago
including the Atlantis, The Palm, a sister to the Atlantis resort in the Bahamas.
The Atlantis played host to the opening celebration Thursday night.
Pop star Kylie Minogue performed at the party.
Bollywood star Priyanka Chopra started what was billed as the world's largest-ever fireworks display, with more than 100,000 pyrotechnic devices.
When work on the island began, a team of Dutch engineers were employed to create the Palm by using a technique called rainbowing
a vessel dredging sand from the seabed and spraying and piling it onto the desired area and into the requested shape. Dubai palm opens with star-studded party
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (CNN)
A huge man-made island shaped like a date palm tree opened Thursday off the coast of Dubai with a celebrity-studded gala and a three-day party.
The Palm Jumeirah increased Dubai's shoreline by 100 percent after work started on it in 2001.
It features resort hotels, homes, luxury shopping and entertainment.
Though the entire island officially opened Thursday, parts of it already opened weeks ago
including the Atlantis, The Palm, a sister to the Atlantis resort in the Bahamas.
The Atlantis played host to the opening celebration Thursday night.
Pop star Kylie Minogue performed at the party.
Bollywood star Priyanka Chopra started what was billed as the world's largest-ever fireworks display, with more than 100,000 pyrotechnic devices.
When work on the island began, a team of Dutch engineers were employed to create the Palm by using a technique called rainbowing
a vessel dredging sand from the seabed and spraying and piling it onto the desired area and into the requested shape.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Afghan girl begs for bread, prays for help
Little Banafsha wakes up in her small mud home, has a cup of tea and braces herself for the day ahead.
She is just 11 years old, but she is the breadwinner for her family.
Without the bread that she begs from strangers, she, her sisters, her baby brothers and her mom would all go hungry.
Her father is a drug addict, focused only on his next high; her mom cares for the little ones, and heavy responsibility falls on Banafsha's young shoulders.
Every day, she heads far from her home, trekking up and down steep hills to the wealthier parts of the Afghan capital, where she can but hope richer people will take pity on her.
They beg for bread and sell gum.
When she gets to the Wazir Akbar Khan district, a hangout of diplomats and aid workers, she unwraps her folded rice sack.
"Sir, do you have some bread?"
Banafsha clutches the bag tight as she walks from building to building, eyeing who will help and who will not.
"Sir, do you have some bread?"
This is her recitation for the next six hours, as she darts around in her worn blue plastic sandals, knowing that danger could be there at any turn, even in this more affluent neighborhood.
"A few days ago, some girls were kidnapped around here, and many people have gone missing. The girls' mother still comes around here looking for them, but they still haven't been found," Banafsha says.
This time of the year, the sun begins to set at 4:30 p.m. in Kabul. But Banafsha continues to roam the dark streets.
The 6 o'clock rush hour is her peak business time.
Her eyes well with tears, but she doesn't allow them to fall, quickly wiping them away and biting her thumb like the vulnerable child she is.
"I say, 'God, take me out of this poverty and have my father go work so I can go to school.'
She dreams of being a teacher, and for three hours a day, she gets to be a little girl with big dreams.
On her way to beg, Banafsha stops off at a center run by an Afghan nongovernmental organization called Aschiana the name means "nest" in Dari for a little education, a little recreation and a glimmer of hope.
The first center opened in 1995 for 100 children.
By June 2008, Aschiana had eight centers catering to 7,600 children in the capital city of Kabul alone.
The group thought it had secured a major source of funding in March this year, but the money never arrived.
Four centers had to be closed in June, sending 4,000 children back to the streets without their three-hour reprieve.
Inside, Banafsha and the other children get to laugh.
In every room there is a sense of serenity, whether the children are practicing brush strokes for calligraphy, tumbling around in judo or gliding their little fingers over the harmounia, a type of piano used in music class.
For now, the center is surviving on small private donations, but it is not enough.
Aschiana stopped providing food for the children at three of the remaining centers because they couldn't afford it.
Without that relief, even more children head back to the streets to beg for the smallest morsels to fill their empty stomachs.
On a good day, Banafsha will trek back across the steep hills to the home she helped her mother build, with some bread in her bag and maybe 50 cents.
At home, the work continues.
As the eldest sister, she tends to her siblings.
Her mother relies on her help;
her father is focused only on his next high. Finally, she will sleep.
Afghan girl begs for bread, prays for help
Little Banafsha wakes up in her small mud home, has a cup of tea and braces herself for the day ahead.
She is just 11 years old, but she is the breadwinner for her family.
Without the bread that she begs from strangers, she, her sisters, her baby brothers and her mom would all go hungry.
Her father is a drug addict, focused only on his next high; her mom cares for the little ones, and heavy responsibility falls on Banafsha's young shoulders.
Every day, she heads far from her home, trekking up and down steep hills to the wealthier parts of the Afghan capital, where she can but hope richer people will take pity on her.
They beg for bread and sell gum.
When she gets to the Wazir Akbar Khan district, a hangout of diplomats and aid workers, she unwraps her folded rice sack.
"Sir, do you have some bread?"
Banafsha clutches the bag tight as she walks from building to building, eyeing who will help and who will not.
"Sir, do you have some bread?"
This is her recitation for the next six hours, as she darts around in her worn blue plastic sandals, knowing that danger could be there at any turn, even in this more affluent neighborhood.
"A few days ago, some girls were kidnapped around here, and many people have gone missing. The girls' mother still comes around here looking for them, but they still haven't been found," Banafsha says.
This time of the year, the sun begins to set at 4:30 p.m. in Kabul. But Banafsha continues to roam the dark streets.
The 6 o'clock rush hour is her peak business time.
Her eyes well with tears, but she doesn't allow them to fall, quickly wiping them away and biting her thumb like the vulnerable child she is.
"I say, 'God, take me out of this poverty and have my father go work so I can go to school.'
She dreams of being a teacher, and for three hours a day, she gets to be a little girl with big dreams.
On her way to beg, Banafsha stops off at a center run by an Afghan nongovernmental organization called Aschiana the name means "nest" in Dari for a little education, a little recreation and a glimmer of hope.
The first center opened in 1995 for 100 children.
By June 2008, Aschiana had eight centers catering to 7,600 children in the capital city of Kabul alone.
The group thought it had secured a major source of funding in March this year, but the money never arrived.
Four centers had to be closed in June, sending 4,000 children back to the streets without their three-hour reprieve.
Inside, Banafsha and the other children get to laugh.
In every room there is a sense of serenity, whether the children are practicing brush strokes for calligraphy, tumbling around in judo or gliding their little fingers over the harmounia, a type of piano used in music class.
For now, the center is surviving on small private donations, but it is not enough.
Aschiana stopped providing food for the children at three of the remaining centers because they couldn't afford it.
Without that relief, even more children head back to the streets to beg for the smallest morsels to fill their empty stomachs.
On a good day, Banafsha will trek back across the steep hills to the home she helped her mother build, with some bread in her bag and maybe 50 cents.
At home, the work continues.
As the eldest sister, she tends to her siblings.
Her mother relies on her help;
her father is focused only on his next high. Finally, she will sleep.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
HIV-positive travelers challenge countries with `no entry` policy
When HIV-positive Winnie Sseruma was invited to speak on the subject at the United Nations in New York last June, she never expected that her condition would prevent her from obtaining a visa.
Winnie Sseruma has been living with the disease for over 20 years.
Preparing for her trip, UK-based Winnie discovered that the United States was one of 70 countries worldwide that either banned or restricted inbound travel for people with HIV.
"I was told I needed to come to the U.S. embassy for an interview and bring a doctor's letter stating I was fit to travel," Sseruma, HIV coordinator for charity Christian Aid, told CNN.
"At first, the embassy told me that the first available appointment for my interview would be at a date past the U.N. High-level Meeting I was meant to attend."
Only when the U.N. intervened on Sseruma's behalf was she granted an earlier interview date.
Sseruma was relieved when she finally received her visa on time. But the hurdles were far from over.
At the airport in New York, Sseruma was detained twice for further questioning.
"It was so humiliating," Sseruma said. "The immigration officers were asking me very personal questions about my health."
A month after Sseruma's ordeal, the U.S. Senate passed the re-authorization of President Bush's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), including an amendment to the ban on travel and immigration for HIV-positive non-citizens.
But the United States travel ban still remains in effect, and will continue to be the law until the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) modifies its regulations.
Fifty-eight Members of Congress have sent a letter to the HHS, urging them to take action.
Russia also places restrictions on travelers with HIV.
Affected visitors are not permitted to stay in the country for more than three months.
Anyone applying for a visa for long-term stay must present a certificate stating that they are HIV negative.
The Russian embassy's spokesperson in London told CNN no changes to the ban were currently being considered and declined to comment further.
Crusading against these bans is "Ctrl.Alt.Shift," a UK-based organization that attempts to engage youth to combat global and social injustices.
The organization argues that there is no public health rationale for "restricting liberty of movement or choice of residence on the grounds of HIV status."
HIV-positive travelers challenge countries with `no entry` policy
When HIV-positive Winnie Sseruma was invited to speak on the subject at the United Nations in New York last June, she never expected that her condition would prevent her from obtaining a visa.
Winnie Sseruma has been living with the disease for over 20 years.
Preparing for her trip, UK-based Winnie discovered that the United States was one of 70 countries worldwide that either banned or restricted inbound travel for people with HIV.
"I was told I needed to come to the U.S. embassy for an interview and bring a doctor's letter stating I was fit to travel," Sseruma, HIV coordinator for charity Christian Aid, told CNN.
"At first, the embassy told me that the first available appointment for my interview would be at a date past the U.N. High-level Meeting I was meant to attend."
Only when the U.N. intervened on Sseruma's behalf was she granted an earlier interview date.
Sseruma was relieved when she finally received her visa on time. But the hurdles were far from over.
At the airport in New York, Sseruma was detained twice for further questioning.
"It was so humiliating," Sseruma said. "The immigration officers were asking me very personal questions about my health."
A month after Sseruma's ordeal, the U.S. Senate passed the re-authorization of President Bush's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), including an amendment to the ban on travel and immigration for HIV-positive non-citizens.
But the United States travel ban still remains in effect, and will continue to be the law until the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) modifies its regulations.
Fifty-eight Members of Congress have sent a letter to the HHS, urging them to take action.
Russia also places restrictions on travelers with HIV.
Affected visitors are not permitted to stay in the country for more than three months.
Anyone applying for a visa for long-term stay must present a certificate stating that they are HIV negative.
The Russian embassy's spokesperson in London told CNN no changes to the ban were currently being considered and declined to comment further.
Crusading against these bans is "Ctrl.Alt.Shift," a UK-based organization that attempts to engage youth to combat global and social injustices.
The organization argues that there is no public health rationale for "restricting liberty of movement or choice of residence on the grounds of HIV status."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
King Tut and 2,000 years in ancient Egypt
"Now, come, travel back in time.
See where and how these rulers lived," Harrison Ford's deep voice beckons just before double doors swing open into a labyrinth of galleries displaying more than 130 ancient Egyptian artifacts.
The recorded introduction a la "Indiana Jones" welcomes visitors to a new exhibit featuring treasures from boy king Tutankhamun's tomb and artifacts tied to rulers spanning 2,000 years of Egyptian history.
The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs," presented by Emory University's Michael C. Carlos Museum, premieres in the United States on November 15 at the Atlanta Civic Center.
An array of objects associated with rulers dating from Egypt's Fourth Dynasty into the Late Period (about 2600 B.C. to 660 B.C.) makes this the largest and most encyclopedic exhibit featuring Egyptian pharaohs presented in the U.S., according to exhibition curator David Silverman, who has worked on other exhibits focusing on Tutankhamun.
"A lot of people, when they hear 'Tut,' they think of gold, they think of the mummy, and they think of the discovery all of which is important.
But when you think of more than 300 pharaohs, 31 dynasties, [Tutankhamun's] is only one of them," Silverman said.
Carefully focused pools of light illuminate stone pharaohs, gold and carnelian jewels and objects intended for the afterlife in darkened galleries looking at themes including the family life, religion, court and gold of the rulers.
A golden mask found on the mummy of Psusennes I presides over the gold gallery.
Considered by ancient Egyptians to be the skin of the gods, gold was highly prized and used extensively in royal burial to assure pharaohs' divinity in the afterlife.
King Tut and 2,000 years in ancient Egypt
"Now, come, travel back in time.
See where and how these rulers lived," Harrison Ford's deep voice beckons just before double doors swing open into a labyrinth of galleries displaying more than 130 ancient Egyptian artifacts.
The recorded introduction a la "Indiana Jones" welcomes visitors to a new exhibit featuring treasures from boy king Tutankhamun's tomb and artifacts tied to rulers spanning 2,000 years of Egyptian history.
The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs," presented by Emory University's Michael C. Carlos Museum, premieres in the United States on November 15 at the Atlanta Civic Center.
An array of objects associated with rulers dating from Egypt's Fourth Dynasty into the Late Period (about 2600 B.C. to 660 B.C.) makes this the largest and most encyclopedic exhibit featuring Egyptian pharaohs presented in the U.S., according to exhibition curator David Silverman, who has worked on other exhibits focusing on Tutankhamun.
"A lot of people, when they hear 'Tut,' they think of gold, they think of the mummy, and they think of the discovery all of which is important.
But when you think of more than 300 pharaohs, 31 dynasties, [Tutankhamun's] is only one of them," Silverman said.
Carefully focused pools of light illuminate stone pharaohs, gold and carnelian jewels and objects intended for the afterlife in darkened galleries looking at themes including the family life, religion, court and gold of the rulers.
A golden mask found on the mummy of Psusennes I presides over the gold gallery.
Considered by ancient Egyptians to be the skin of the gods, gold was highly prized and used extensively in royal burial to assure pharaohs' divinity in the afterlife.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
He's kerpowed the Joker and put the Penguin on ice, but Batman faces a new adversary
the mayor of an oil-producing Turkish town.
Huseyin Kalkan, leader of the city of Batman in southeastern Turkey, plans to sue Christopher Nolan, director of the latest Batman movie "The Dark Knight," for taking its name without consultation," according to media reports.
"The royalty of the name 'Batman' belongs to us...
There is only one Batman in the world, " Hurriyet Daily News.com reported Kalkan as telling the Dogan news agency. "The American producers used the name of our city without informing us."
Kalkan, who represents the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party, added that he decided to take action after someone suggested that the cash-strapped community needed more funds.
"We found this criticism right and started to look for legal possibilities of a case like that," Hurriyet Daily News.com reported.
Batman, which has a population of just under 250,000, is the provincial capital of the oil-rich Batman Province and lies close to the Batman River.
In recent years it has been hit by a series of female suicides and features in the novel "Snow" by Nobel prize-winner Orhan Pamuk.
Lawyer Vehbi Kahveci, head of the Intellectual and Industrial Property Rights Commission of the Istanbul Bar, told Hurriyet Daily News.com that the "Batman" name was registered worldwide.
He added that the town had missed the timeframe during which it could complain about any infringement of its name.
He's kerpowed the Joker and put the Penguin on ice, but Batman faces a new adversary
the mayor of an oil-producing Turkish town.
Huseyin Kalkan, leader of the city of Batman in southeastern Turkey, plans to sue Christopher Nolan, director of the latest Batman movie "The Dark Knight," for taking its name without consultation," according to media reports.
"The royalty of the name 'Batman' belongs to us...
There is only one Batman in the world, " Hurriyet Daily News.com reported Kalkan as telling the Dogan news agency. "The American producers used the name of our city without informing us."
Kalkan, who represents the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party, added that he decided to take action after someone suggested that the cash-strapped community needed more funds.
"We found this criticism right and started to look for legal possibilities of a case like that," Hurriyet Daily News.com reported.
Batman, which has a population of just under 250,000, is the provincial capital of the oil-rich Batman Province and lies close to the Batman River.
In recent years it has been hit by a series of female suicides and features in the novel "Snow" by Nobel prize-winner Orhan Pamuk.
Lawyer Vehbi Kahveci, head of the Intellectual and Industrial Property Rights Commission of the Istanbul Bar, told Hurriyet Daily News.com that the "Batman" name was registered worldwide.
He added that the town had missed the timeframe during which it could complain about any infringement of its name.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
"It is a reminder of our country's proud heritage.
And today we're witnessing the beginning of an exciting new era in its history."
The 44-year-old building's overhaul features, among other things, a new five-story atrium and a 45-foot-long floor-to-ceiling glass wall displaying a restored 200-year-old Star-Spangled Banner in an environmentally controlled chamber.
The center of the building has been largely rebuilt to include a new grand staircase and a skylight.
The overhauled museum also features an extensive welcome center and auditorium, along with new dining facilities.
"For people of all ages, a visit to the National Museum of American History can be a defining event, providing a deep and fundamental understanding of what it has meant to be an American," Brent D. Glass, director of the museum, said in a written statement.
Among the artifacts on display at the museum are George Washington's uniform, an early light bulb from Thomas Edison, Mr. Rogers' red cardigan sweater and the desk at which Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence.
A handwritten copy of the Gettysburg Address, penned by Abraham Lincoln himself and usually kept in the Lincoln Bedroom at the White House, will be be on display at the museum through January 4.
"It is a reminder of our country's proud heritage.
And today we're witnessing the beginning of an exciting new era in its history."
The 44-year-old building's overhaul features, among other things, a new five-story atrium and a 45-foot-long floor-to-ceiling glass wall displaying a restored 200-year-old Star-Spangled Banner in an environmentally controlled chamber.
The center of the building has been largely rebuilt to include a new grand staircase and a skylight.
The overhauled museum also features an extensive welcome center and auditorium, along with new dining facilities.
"For people of all ages, a visit to the National Museum of American History can be a defining event, providing a deep and fundamental understanding of what it has meant to be an American," Brent D. Glass, director of the museum, said in a written statement.
Among the artifacts on display at the museum are George Washington's uniform, an early light bulb from Thomas Edison, Mr. Rogers' red cardigan sweater and the desk at which Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Obama will `do what`s necessary` to fix economy, aide says
President-elect Barack Obama's top adviser insisted Sunday that Obama's economic plan would be big enough to handle the country's financial challenges, but he declined to speculate about how large the plan would need to be.
During the presidential campaign, Obama proposed a $175 billion stimulus package over a two-year period, but some of his economic advisers have said recently that the package would need to be much larger.
Asked if Obama would scale up the package, given the economic conditions, Obama's incoming senior adviser, David Axelrod, said he thinks Obama is "going to do what's necessary."
"I'm not going to throw a figure out here. What he said is, he wants a plan big enough to deal with the large challenges we face.
And I think there's a growing consensus across the spectrum among economists that we're going to have to do something big," Axelrod said Sunday on ABC's "This Week."
Obama on Saturday offered an outline of his economic recovery plan to create 2.5 million jobs by 2011, saying American workers will rebuild the nation's roads and bridges, modernize its schools and create more sources of alternative energy.
Details of the plan are still being worked out by his economic team, Obama said, but he hopes to sign the two-year, nationwide plan shortly after taking office January 20.
Obama noted he will need support from both Democrats and Republicans to pass such a plan, and said he welcomes suggestions from both sides of the aisle.
Axelrod said it will take "the best people we can find, the best minds in our country" to carry out Obama's economic plan.
In an interview on "Fox News Sunday," he said New York Federal Reserve President Tim Geithner and former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers are among the those people.
Summers, who lost out to Geithner for the Treasury post, is expected to be the top economic adviser in the Obama White House, two sources close to the transition said Saturday.
Summers, who was Treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, will be named chief of the National Economic Council by Obama at an event in Chicago, Illinois, on Monday, the sources said.
Geithner's nomination to be Treasury secretary, the top economic post in the Cabinet, will also be officially announced at Monday's event, the sources said.
Obama will `do what`s necessary` to fix economy, aide says
President-elect Barack Obama's top adviser insisted Sunday that Obama's economic plan would be big enough to handle the country's financial challenges, but he declined to speculate about how large the plan would need to be.
During the presidential campaign, Obama proposed a $175 billion stimulus package over a two-year period, but some of his economic advisers have said recently that the package would need to be much larger.
Asked if Obama would scale up the package, given the economic conditions, Obama's incoming senior adviser, David Axelrod, said he thinks Obama is "going to do what's necessary."
"I'm not going to throw a figure out here.
What he said is, he wants a plan big enough to deal with the large challenges we face.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Whales trucked to another beach in rescue
Australian wildlife officials say rescuers have returned 11 pilot whales to sea.
They are part of a pod of 64 mothers and calves found stranded the day before on a beach in southeastern Australia.
A team of 15 government officers and 60 volunteers worked Sunday to transport the whales from Anthony's Beach, where they were found Saturday, to another beach 7.5 miles (12 kilometers) away on the island state of Tasmania.
Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Services manager Chris Arthur said the whales
calves and their mothers up to 9.8 feet (three meters) long
Whales trucked to another beach in rescue
Australian wildlife officials say rescuers have returned 11 pilot whales to sea.
They are part of a pod of 64 mothers and calves found stranded the day before on a beach in southeastern Australia.
A team of 15 government officers and 60 volunteers worked Sunday to transport the whales from Anthony's Beach, where they were found Saturday, to another beach 7.5 miles (12 kilometers) away on the island state of Tasmania.
Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Services manager Chris Arthur said the whales
calves and their mothers up to 9.8 feet (three meters) long
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Terry Fujimoto sees the future of agriculture in the exposed roots of the leafy greens he and his students grow in thin streams of water at a campus greenhouse.
The program run by the California State Polytechnic University agriculture professor is part of a growing effort to use hydroponics
a method of cultivating plants in water instead of soil to bring farming into cities, where consumers are concentrated.
Because hydroponic farming requires less water and less land than traditional field farming, Fujimoto and researchers-turned-growers in other U.S. cities see it as ideal to bring agriculture to apartment buildings, rooftops and vacant lots.
"The goal here is to look at growing food crops in small spaces," he said.
Long a niche technology existing in the shadow of conventional growing methods, hydroponics is getting a second look from university researchers and public health advocates.
Supporters point to the environmental cost of trucking produce from farms to cities, the loss of wilderness for farmland to feed a growing world population, and the risk of bacteria along extensive, insecure food chains as reasons for establishing urban hydroponic farms.
However, the expense of setting up the high-tech farms on pricey city land and providing enough year-round heat and light could present some insurmountable obstacles.
"These are university theories," said Jim Prevor, editor of Produce Business magazine. "They're not mapped to things that actually exist."
The roots of hydroponically produced fruits and vegetables can dangle in direct contact with water or be set in growing media such as sponges or shredded coconut shells.
Most commercial operations pump water through sophisticated sensors that automatically adjust nutrient and acidity levels in the water.
Hydroponics are generally used for fast-growing, high-value crops such as lettuces and tomatoes that can be produced year-round in heated, well-lit greenhouses.
Fujimoto aims to prepare his students to operate the urban hydroponic businesses that he thinks will gain importance in the future.
They sell their lettuces, peppers, tomatoes and other produce to an on-campus grocery store and at a farmers market.
Terry Fujimoto sees the future of agriculture in the exposed roots of the leafy greens he and his students grow in thin streams of water at a campus greenhouse.
The program run by the California State Polytechnic University agriculture professor is part of a growing effort to use hydroponics
a method of cultivating plants in water instead of soil to bring farming into cities, where consumers are concentrated.
Because hydroponic farming requires less water and less land than traditional field farming, Fujimoto and researchers-turned-growers in other U.S. cities see it as ideal to bring agriculture to apartment buildings, rooftops and vacant lots.
"The goal here is to look at growing food crops in small spaces," he said.
Long a niche technology existing in the shadow of conventional growing methods, hydroponics is getting a second look from university researchers and public health advocates.
Supporters point to the environmental cost of trucking produce from farms to cities, the loss of wilderness for farmland to feed a growing world population, and the risk of bacteria along extensive, insecure food chains as reasons for establishing urban hydroponic farms.
However, the expense of setting up the high-tech farms on pricey city land and providing enough year-round heat and light could present some insurmountable obstacles.
"These are university theories," said Jim Prevor, editor of Produce Business magazine. "They're not mapped to things that actually exist."
The roots of hydroponically produced fruits and vegetables can dangle in direct contact with water or be set in growing media such as sponges or shredded coconut shells.
Most commercial operations pump water through sophisticated sensors that automatically adjust nutrient and acidity levels in the water.
Hydroponics are generally used for fast-growing, high-value crops such as lettuces and tomatoes that can be produced year-round in heated, well-lit greenhouses.
Fujimoto aims to prepare his students to operate the urban hydroponic businesses that he thinks will gain importance in the future.
They sell their lettuces, peppers, tomatoes and other produce to an on-campus grocery store and at a farmers market.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Vatican newspaper sings praises of the Beatles
Vatican media are singing the praises of the musical legacy of the Beatles and sounding philosophical about John Lennon's boast that the British band was more popular than Jesus.
Saturday's edition of Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano recalls that Lennon's boast outraged many in 1966.
But it says the remark now can be written off as the bragging of a young man wrestling with unexpected success.
The newspaper was noting the 40th anniversary of the Beatles' "White Album."
Listening to the album, the newspaper says, makes clear how creative the Beatles were, compared to what it calls the "standardized, stereotypical" songs being produced today.
Vatican newspaper sings praises of the Beatles
Vatican media are singing the praises of the musical legacy of the Beatles and sounding philosophical about John Lennon's boast that the British band was more popular than Jesus.
Saturday's edition of Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano recalls that Lennon's boast outraged many in 1966.
But it says the remark now can be written off as the bragging of a young man wrestling with unexpected success.
The newspaper was noting the 40th anniversary of the Beatles' "White Album."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Ji-Yai Shin of South Korea held off Karrie Webb and an ailing Paula Creamer to win the ADT Championship on Sunday by one stroke after a final-round two-under 70.
Shin, who began the year thinking she'd end up playing in the LPGA Tour's qualifying school but won the British Open, captured the $1 million winner's prize, by far the biggest on tour, after a four-birdie, two-bogey day at Trump International.
"A really special year for me," said Shin, who isn't even a full-fledged member of the LPGA Tour yet
but won three times in those fields this year, has 21 wins worldwide since 2007 and will likely be an instant LPGA front-runner in 2009.
Webb took second and Creamer, who spent Saturday night in the hospital because of an inflamed abdominal wall, finished tied for third with Seon Hwa Lee after both shot 74s.
Creamer needed to win Sunday to finish atop the yearlong money list, something no American player has done since Betsy King in 1993.
who didn't qualify for the weekend at ADT
finished with the money title at $2,762,660.
For many, the ADT week was filled with drama, starting with Annika Sorenstam's final tournament on the LPGA Tour
a farewell that ended Friday when she didn't make the weekend field
and continuing with Creamer's illness. Amidst the drama, Shin stayed steady, never too far up, never too far down.
And her approach worked best.
Of the eight players who remained in Sunday's shootout for $1 million, Shin was the only one to never have her total score rise above par.
She started with two birdies in her first three holes, and vaulted to the front when Webb strung together three straight bogeys on holes 11-13.
Eun-Hee Ji was alone in fifth with a 75, Angela Stanford was sixth after a 78, while Suzann Pettersen
and Jeong Jang both finished with 79s in the eight player shootout.
Ji-Yai Shin of South Korea held off Karrie Webb and an ailing Paula Creamer to win the ADT Championship on Sunday by one stroke after a final-round two-under 70.
Shin, who began the year thinking she'd end up playing in the LPGA Tour's qualifying school but won the British Open, captured the $1 million winner's prize, by far the biggest on tour, after a four-birdie, two-bogey day at Trump International.
"A really special year for me," said Shin, who isn't even a full-fledged member of the LPGA Tour yet
but won three times in those fields this year, has 21 wins worldwide since 2007 and will likely be an instant LPGA front-runner in 2009.
Webb took second and Creamer, who spent Saturday night in the hospital because of an inflamed abdominal wall, finished tied for third with Seon Hwa Lee after both shot 74s.
Creamer needed to win Sunday to finish atop the yearlong money list, something no American player has done since Betsy King in 1993.
who didn't qualify for the weekend at ADT
finished with the money title at $2,762,660.
For many, the ADT week was filled with drama, starting with Annika Sorenstam's final tournament on the LPGA Tour
a farewell that ended Friday when she didn't make the weekend field
and continuing with Creamer's illness. Amidst the drama, Shin stayed steady, never too far up, never too far down.
And her approach worked best.
Of the eight players who remained in Sunday's shootout for $1 million, Shin was the only one to never have her total score rise above par.
She started with two birdies in her first three holes, and vaulted to the front when Webb strung together three straight bogeys on holes 11-13.
Eun-Hee Ji was alone in fifth with a 75, Angela Stanford was sixth after a 78, while Suzann Pettersen
and Jeong Jang both finished with 79s in the eight player shootout.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Can Iceland`s geo-thermal power re-heat its economy?
As you drive along the main road from Reykjavik to Iceland's most famous tourist attractions, the geysers, you pass a rather non-descript farm in Laugarvatn.
You wouldn't notice it but for a constant stream of steam billowing up to the sky from a rusty derrick.
It's on the farm of Gunnar Ingvarsson, the 74-year-old who decided 20 years ago to tap the boiling hot water spewing out of the ground.
The unassuming Ingvarsson, who speaks no English, did this just to provide the free hot water to a few farms in the area.
Now, he is paid by the owners of hundreds of holiday homes across the valley for this cheap gift from the Earth.
Ingvarsson says it costs pennies to maintain his business and that he has no idea how much money he has made from it all.
Iceland as a whole has of course tapped this geo-thermal on a much grander scale.
There are hot baths to draw the tourists to this remote island.
There are massive power plants to use the power to create, well, power.
Iceland has even lured a big aluminum companies to build a massive smelting plants.
The power in Iceland to do this is so cheap that it is economical for companies like Alcoa and Alcan to ship the raw materials all the way to Iceland and then ship the final product out it to its customers.
Of course Iceland has been in the news recently because of the meltdown of its banking system and its currency.
Beyond the near collapse of the Icelandic economy, Alcoa has reacted to the global economic slowdown by cutting back on aluminum production around the world.
But Iceland says its use of cheap energy will help bring its economy around.
In the past ten years it has not only developed technology to harness its own geo-thermal but it has started to export that technology to other countries.
In fact the country's president told CNN earlier this year that some 100 countries around the world are lucky enough to have the same kind of geographic advantage as Iceland.
Can Iceland`s geo-thermal power re-heat its economy?
As you drive along the main road from Reykjavik to Iceland's most famous tourist attractions, the geysers, you pass a rather non-descript farm in Laugarvatn.
You wouldn't notice it but for a constant stream of steam billowing up to the sky from a rusty derrick.
It's on the farm of Gunnar Ingvarsson, the 74-year-old who decided 20 years ago to tap the boiling hot water spewing out of the ground.
The unassuming Ingvarsson, who speaks no English, did this just to provide the free hot water to a few farms in the area.
Now, he is paid by the owners of hundreds of holiday homes across the valley for this cheap gift from the Earth.
Ingvarsson says it costs pennies to maintain his business and that he has no idea how much money he has made from it all.
Iceland as a whole has of course tapped this geo-thermal on a much grander scale.
There are hot baths to draw the tourists to this remote island.
There are massive power plants to use the power to create, well, power.
Iceland has even lured a big aluminum companies to build a massive smelting plants.
The power in Iceland to do this is so cheap that it is economical for companies like Alcoa and Alcan to ship the raw materials all the way to Iceland and then ship the final product out it to its customers.
Of course Iceland has been in the news recently because of the meltdown of its banking system and its currency.
Beyond the near collapse of the Icelandic economy, Alcoa has reacted to the global economic slowdown by cutting back on aluminum production around the world.
But Iceland says its use of cheap energy will help bring its economy around.
In the past ten years it has not only developed technology to harness its own geo-thermal but it has started to export that technology to other countries.
In fact the country's president told CNN earlier this year that some 100 countries around the world are lucky enough to have the same kind of geographic advantage as Iceland.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
A roundabout effort to bring some holiday cheer to the police?
Authorities in Harwich, Massachusetts, are probing the mysterious appearance of a piano, in good working condition, in the middle of the woods.
Discovered by a woman who was walking a trail, the Baldwin Acrosonic piano, model number 987, is intact and, apparently, in tune.
Sgt. Adam Hutton of the Harwich Police Department said information has been broadcast to all the other police departments in the Cape Cod area in hopes of drumming up a clue, however minor it may be.
But so far, the investigation is flat.
Near the mystery piano
was a bench, positioned as though someone was about to play.
The piano was at the end of a dirt road, near a walking path to a footbridge in the middle of conservation land near the Cape.
It took a handful of police to move the piano into a vehicle to transport it to storage, so it would appear that putting it into the woods took more than one person.
Asked whether Harwich police will be holding a holiday party in the storage bay
tickling the ivories, pouring eggnog
while they await word of the piano's origin and fate, Hutton laughed.
Harwich police have had some fun, though.
Among the photos they sent to the news media is one of Officer Derek Dutra examining the piano in the woods.
The police entitled the photo "Liberace."
A roundabout effort to bring some holiday cheer to the police?
Authorities in Harwich, Massachusetts, are probing the mysterious appearance of a piano, in good working condition, in the middle of the woods.
Discovered by a woman who was walking a trail, the Baldwin Acrosonic piano, model number 987, is intact and, apparently, in tune.
Sgt. Adam Hutton of the Harwich Police Department said information has been broadcast to all the other police departments in the Cape Cod area in hopes of drumming up a clue, however minor it may be.
But so far, the investigation is flat.
Near the mystery piano
was a bench, positioned as though someone was about to play.
The piano was at the end of a dirt road, near a walking path to a footbridge in the middle of conservation land near the Cape.
It took a handful of police to move the piano into a vehicle to transport it to storage, so it would appear that putting it into the woods took more than one person.
Asked whether Harwich police will be holding a holiday party in the storage bay
tickling the ivories, pouring eggnog
while they await word of the piano's origin and fate, Hutton laughed.
Harwich police have had some fun, though.
Among the photos they sent to the news media is one of Officer Derek Dutra examining the piano in the woods.
The police entitled the photo "Liberace."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Obama says he and Bush are `united` to fix economy
President-elect Barack Obama on Monday called the financial crisis one of "historic proportions" and said that he and the Bush administration are "united" in their efforts to get the economy back on track.
As Obama unveiled his economic team, he said there isn't "a minute to waste" when it comes to rebuilding the economy.
"My commitment is to do what is required. President Bush has indicated that he has the same approach, the same attitude," Obama said at a news conference in Chicago, Illinois.
Obama's remarks came just hours after the federal government announced a massive rescue package for Citigroup
which President Bush said he'd spoken about with Obama before it was announced.
Obama said Monday that he has asked his newly formed economic team to develop recommendations for his economic plan, which he outlined Saturday, and to consult with Congress, the current administration and the Federal Reserve on immediate economic developments over the next two months.
Obama says he and Bush are `united` to fix economy
President-elect Barack Obama on Monday called the financial crisis one of "historic proportions" and said that he and the Bush administration are "united" in their efforts to get the economy back on track.
As Obama unveiled his economic team, he said there isn't "a minute to waste" when it comes to rebuilding the economy.
"My commitment is to do what is required. President Bush has indicated that he has the same approach, the same attitude," Obama said at a news conference in Chicago, Illinois.
Obama's remarks came just hours after the federal government announced a massive rescue package for Citigroup
which President Bush said he'd spoken about with Obama before it was announced.
Obama said Monday that he has asked his newly formed economic team to develop recommendations for his economic plan, which he outlined Saturday, and to consult with Congress, the current administration and the Federal Reserve on immediate economic developments over the next two months.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
is under investigation on charges of stock market manipulation, the company said.
The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong indefinitely halted trading in Gome Electrical Appliances Holding Ltd. amid reports of a police investigation of Wong Kwong Yu, the company's chairman, executive director and controlling shareholder, the company said in a statement.
The company said it was looking into whether the allegations were true.
The 39-year-old Wong is the richest person in mainland China, worth an estimated $6.3 billion, according to the 2008 China Rich List, which is compiled by the Hurun Institute.
The Beijing News reported that Wong is under police investigation for stock market manipulation, according to the state-run China Daily newspaper.
Police declined to comment on the report, China Daily said.
Gome Electrical Appliances said it "is not in a position to confirm the accuracy of the information set out in the newspaper articles."
It also said it "has not received any notice or legal documents in connection with the allegations from any regulatory, governmental or judicial authority in the People's Republic of China."
The company said trading was suspended Monday "to avoid any disorderly market and volatility in the securities of the company that may result from further release of unverified allegations in the media."
It said it is "making necessary inquiries for the purpose of verifying the allegations."
Established in 1987, Gome said it had 587 stores last year in 160 Chinese cities
572 traditional stores, 13 digital stores and two flagship stores.
The company was incorporated in Bermuda, according to Gome's Web site.
is under investigation on charges of stock market manipulation, the company said.
The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong indefinitely halted trading in Gome Electrical Appliances Holding Ltd. amid reports of a police investigation of Wong Kwong Yu, the company's chairman, executive director and controlling shareholder, the company said in a statement.
The company said it was looking into whether the allegations were true.
The 39-year-old Wong is the richest person in mainland China, worth an estimated $6.3 billion, according to the 2008 China Rich List, which is compiled by the Hurun Institute.
The Beijing News reported that Wong is under police investigation for stock market manipulation, according to the state-run China Daily newspaper.
Police declined to comment on the report, China Daily said.
Gome Electrical Appliances said it "is not in a position to confirm the accuracy of the information set out in the newspaper articles."
It also said it "has not received any notice or legal documents in connection with the allegations from any regulatory, governmental or judicial authority in the People's Republic of China."
The company said trading was suspended Monday "to avoid any disorderly market and volatility in the securities of the company that may result from further release of unverified allegations in the media."
It said it is "making necessary inquiries for the purpose of verifying the allegations."
Established in 1987, Gome said it had 587 stores last year in 160 Chinese cities
572 traditional stores, 13 digital stores and two flagship stores.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
How to launch a tech company in one weekend
Don Brown wasn't looking for a new job, but after working through a recent November weekend, he became co-founder of a new Web site.
The 32-year-old programming consultant helped create Twitpay, a service designed to let people settle casual debts, like splitting a bar tab among friends, using the micro-blogging site Twitter.
Twitpay was one of several projects in development at Startup Weekend, held November 7-9 in Atlanta, Georgia.
The event brought together more than 100 programmers, marketers and designers who tried to create new companies from scratch in less than three days.
"The actual building of the product was about 80 to 90 percent done at Startup Weekend," Brown said.
The process began Friday evening when more than 100 entrepreneurs gathered to pitch their ideas.
Organizer Lance Weatherby said about 60 ideas were presented.
After a series of votes, eight or nine projects were selected, and the attendees split into groups to work on the ones they were most excited about.
The Atlanta event was the 25th Startup Weekend since the concept was created in Boulder, Colorado, in July 2007.
Startup Weekends have been held across the U.S. and in a few cities in Canada and Europe.
Past weekends have produced such companies as Market Monitor, a search engine optimization tool, and iDream, an online collection of dreams and dream interpretations.
Clayton Stobbs, the interim CEO of Startup Weekend, says interest in the event has grown with the recent economic crisis.
"Startup Weekend is more of a time commitment than a big expense," he said.
Participants pay $40 for the weekend and are provided meals, a place to work and a T-shirt.
Stobbs said some participants just want to try it out during the weekend, and those with full-time jobs don't necessarily want extra work for the long term.
How to launch a tech company in one weekend
Don Brown wasn't looking for a new job, but after working through a recent November weekend, he became co-founder of a new Web site.
The 32-year-old programming consultant helped create Twitpay, a service designed to let people settle casual debts, like splitting a bar tab among friends, using the micro-blogging site Twitter.
Twitpay was one of several projects in development at Startup Weekend, held November 7-9 in Atlanta, Georgia.
The event brought together more than 100 programmers, marketers and designers who tried to create new companies from scratch in less than three days.
"The actual building of the product was about 80 to 90 percent done at Startup Weekend," Brown said.
The process began Friday evening when more than 100 entrepreneurs gathered to pitch their ideas.
Organizer Lance Weatherby said about 60 ideas were presented.
After a series of votes, eight or nine projects were selected, and the attendees split into groups to work on the ones they were most excited about.
The Atlanta event was the 25th Startup Weekend since the concept was created in Boulder, Colorado, in July 2007.
Startup Weekends have been held across the U.S. and in a few cities in Canada and Europe.
Past weekends have produced such companies as Market Monitor, a search engine optimization tool, and iDream, an online collection of dreams and dream interpretations.
Clayton Stobbs, the interim CEO of Startup Weekend, says interest in the event has grown with the recent economic crisis.
"Startup Weekend is more of a time commitment than a big expense," he said.
Participants pay $40 for the weekend and are provided meals, a place to work and a T-shirt.
Stobbs said some participants just want to try it out during the weekend, and those with full-time jobs don't necessarily want extra work for the long term.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
`Venomous` Guns N` Roses album slammed in China
A newspaper published by China's ruling Communist Party has blasted the latest Guns N' Roses album as an attack on the nation.
Delayed since recording began in 1994, "Chinese Democracy" hit stores in the U.S. on Sunday, although it is unlikely to be sold legally in China, where censors maintain tight control over films, music and publications.
In an article Monday headlined "American band releases album venomously attacking China," the Global Times said unidentified Chinese Internet users had described the album as part of a plot by some in the West to "grasp and control the world using democracy as a pawn."
The record "turns its spear point on China," the article said.
China's Foreign Ministry did not respond to faxed questions about the article, although a spokesman speaking on routine condition of anonymity said:
"We don't need to comment on that." Spokesmen for the Culture Ministry and State Administration of Radio, Film and Television could not be reached for comment.
The song could be heard online Monday and it was not immediately possible to tell whether China's Internet monitors were seeking to block access to it.
Monitors use content filters that highlight and sometimes block messages containing words such as democracy.
That prompted some Internet users to combine English and Chinese characters in their postings about the album to skirt such monitoring.
`Venomous` Guns N` Roses album slammed in China
A newspaper published by China's ruling Communist Party has blasted the latest Guns N' Roses album as an attack on the nation.
Delayed since recording began in 1994, "Chinese Democracy" hit stores in the U.S. on Sunday, although it is unlikely to be sold legally in China, where censors maintain tight control over films, music and publications.
In an article Monday headlined "American band releases album venomously attacking China," the Global Times said unidentified Chinese Internet users had described the album as part of a plot by some in the West to "grasp and control the world using democracy as a pawn."
The record "turns its spear point on China," the article said.
China's Foreign Ministry did not respond to faxed questions about the article, although a spokesman speaking on routine condition of anonymity said:
"We don't need to comment on that." Spokesmen for the Culture Ministry and State Administration of Radio, Film and Television could not be reached for comment.
The song could be heard online Monday and it was not immediately possible to tell whether China's Internet monitors were seeking to block access to it.
Monitors use content filters that highlight and sometimes block messages containing words such as democracy.
That prompted some Internet users to combine English and Chinese characters in their postings about the album to skirt such monitoring.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
The breakout star of `Bolt` (and it`s not the dog)
"Bolt" is Disney's first animated feature since Pixar guru John Lasseter took over the company's animation division, so it's no surprise the voice cast is loaded with top talent.
John Travolta makes his voice actor debut in the title role, "Hannah Montana" star Miley Cyrus plays Bolt's owner and friend, and then there's 13-year Disney veteran Mark Walton.
Walton provides the voice of Rhino, an irrepressibly gonzo hamster who's Bolt's biggest fan.
But he's an animator, not an actor.
A story visual development guy, not the star of the show.
Portly and balding, Walton is hardly a glamorous Hollywood figure, and yet he's doing press with stars Travolta and Cyrus, walking the red carpet with them and drawing the film's biggest laughs.
Walton's journey from schlub to star surprised him as much as anybody, he told CNN.
Before the big-name voice actors go into the recording studio, he explained, animators do a kind of rough draft of the film, with temporary voice tracks provided by volunteers within the animation division.
"Some people who had known me here ... [and] knew my personality and my voice decided that I might be a funny match for this crazy, enthusiastic hamster," he said, seemingly at ease with a half-dozen camera techs and studio publicists surrounding him at the movie's press junket.
"But, of course, the assumption was always that some professional, big-name actor would be brought in to do the real voice."
One by one, name actors were brought in and matched to their characters:
Travolta for the earnest, lovable dog star; teen icon and devoted pet owner Cyrus as a dog-loving young actress;
and Malcolm McDowell as TV show villain Dr. Calico.
But as the film continued to progress from the drawing boards to finished product, Walton stayed in the picture.
"We got to the point where it's like, we can't find an actor to come even close to how good this is," recalled Lasseter.
"So of course we're going to give it to him, because ... it's not important how big of a name an actor is, it's about how great the character that's being created, how it jumps off the screen and becomes memorable.
That's what it's about." And Walton's take on Rhino, the creation of his pal and character designer Joe Moshier, was certainly memorable.
The breakout star of `Bolt` (and it`s not the dog)
"Bolt" is Disney's first animated feature since Pixar guru John Lasseter took over the company's animation division, so it's no surprise the voice cast is loaded with top talent.
John Travolta makes his voice actor debut in the title role, "Hannah Montana" star Miley Cyrus plays Bolt's owner and friend, and then there's 13-year Disney veteran Mark Walton.
Walton provides the voice of Rhino, an irrepressibly gonzo hamster who's Bolt's biggest fan.
But he's an animator, not an actor.
A story visual development guy, not the star of the show.
Portly and balding, Walton is hardly a glamorous Hollywood figure, and yet he's doing press with stars Travolta and Cyrus, walking the red carpet with them and drawing the film's biggest laughs.
Walton's journey from schlub to star surprised him as much as anybody, he told CNN.
Before the big-name voice actors go into the recording studio, he explained, animators do a kind of rough draft of the film, with temporary voice tracks provided by volunteers within the animation division.
"Some people who had known me here ... [and] knew my personality and my voice decided that I might be a funny match for this crazy, enthusiastic hamster," he said, seemingly at ease with a half-dozen camera techs and studio publicists surrounding him at the movie's press junket.
"But, of course, the assumption was always that some professional, big-name actor would be brought in to do the real voice."
One by one, name actors were brought in and matched to their characters:
Travolta for the earnest, lovable dog star; teen icon and devoted pet owner Cyrus as a dog-loving young actress;
and Malcolm McDowell as TV show villain Dr. Calico.
But as the film continued to progress from the drawing boards to finished product, Walton stayed in the picture.
"We got to the point where it's like, we can't find an actor to come even close to how good this is," recalled Lasseter.
"So of course we're going to give it to him, because ... it's not important how big of a name an actor is, it's about how great the character that's being created, how it jumps off the screen and becomes memorable.
That's what it's about." And Walton's take on Rhino, the creation of his pal and character designer Joe Moshier, was certainly memorable.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Tiger Woods and General Motors have announced that they will conclude their nine-year endorsement deal at the end of December.
The parties agreed to a "mutual and amicable separation" that included a desire for more personal time for 14-time major winner Woods whose wife Elin is expecting their second child.
And GM say the company is searching for "budget efficiencies" during a difficult economy.
World No. 1 Woods has endorsed GM products around the world for the past nine years and has been heavily associated with the Buick brand in the U.S., Canada and China markets.
The endorsement deal, believed to be worth at least $7 million a year, was to end in 2009.
Woods' agent at IMG, Mark Steinberg, said the decision to end the relationship one year early was "absolutely mutual."
"It was a combination of things," Steinberg said.
"Tiger was looking to gain some more time, and certainly it was an opportunity for GM to reduce its spending with everything going on."
GM's vice president for North American sales, Mark LaNeve, says the separation is the result of discussions earlier in the year and is not related to the company's campaign for $25 billion in loans from the federal government.
Tiger Woods and General Motors have announced that they will conclude their nine-year endorsement deal at the end of December.
The parties agreed to a "mutual and amicable separation" that included a desire for more personal time for 14-time major winner Woods whose wife Elin is expecting their second child.
And GM say the company is searching for "budget efficiencies" during a difficult economy.
World No. 1 Woods has endorsed GM products around the world for the past nine years and has been heavily associated with the Buick brand in the U.S., Canada and China markets.
The endorsement deal, believed to be worth at least $7 million a year, was to end in 2009.
Woods' agent at IMG, Mark Steinberg, said the decision to end the relationship one year early was "absolutely mutual."
"It was a combination of things," Steinberg said.
"Tiger was looking to gain some more time, and certainly it was an opportunity for GM to reduce its spending with everything going on."
GM's vice president for North American sales, Mark LaNeve, says the separation is the result of discussions earlier in the year and is not related to the company's campaign for $25 billion in loans from the federal government.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
More than a decade since it was first pioneered, a technique that greatly reduces the trauma of lung surgery still isn't widely used.
But that finally may be starting to change, doctors say.
The less invasive form of surgery for lung cancer can significantly decrease recovery time when compared to open chest surgery.
That not only allows patients to go home sooner but also can play an important role in reducing pain and preventing complications.
"The earliest I've seen someone going back to work after the procedure is one week," Dr Daniel DeArmond, an assistant professor in cardiothoracic surgery at the University of Texas Health Science Center, said in regard to a patient of his who underwent the minimally invasive surgery.
Recovery times vary depending on the patient, but because the procedure is less traumatic than traditional surgery, patients do not face strict limitations on their activity following surgery, he says.
In conventional surgery for lung cancer, the surgeon makes a six to 10-inch incision on the chest and spreads the patient's ribs open to gain access to the lung.
The intentional fracturing of the ribs is extremely painful for the patient and can take about six weeks to heal.
By contrast, visually-assisted thoracic surgery, also known as VATS, uses two to four small incisions less than two inches long.
Instead of spreading the patient's ribs, the surgeon uses a miniature camera mounted on a thin tube to view the organs.
More than a decade since it was first pioneered, a technique that greatly reduces the trauma of lung surgery still isn't widely used.
But that finally may be starting to change, doctors say.
The less invasive form of surgery for lung cancer can significantly decrease recovery time when compared to open chest surgery.
That not only allows patients to go home sooner but also can play an important role in reducing pain and preventing complications.
"The earliest I've seen someone going back to work after the procedure is one week," Dr Daniel DeArmond, an assistant professor in cardiothoracic surgery at the University of Texas Health Science Center, said in regard to a patient of his who underwent the minimally invasive surgery.
Recovery times vary depending on the patient, but because the procedure is less traumatic than traditional surgery, patients do not face strict limitations on their activity following surgery, he says.
In conventional surgery for lung cancer, the surgeon makes a six to 10-inch incision on the chest and spreads the patient's ribs open to gain access to the lung.
The intentional fracturing of the ribs is extremely painful for the patient and can take about six weeks to heal.
By contrast, visually-assisted thoracic surgery, also known as VATS, uses two to four small incisions less than two inches long.
Instead of spreading the patient's ribs, the surgeon uses a miniature camera mounted on a thin tube to view the organs.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Gates expected to stay on as Obama`s defense secretary
Several officials close to President-elect Barack Obama's transition tell CNN that Defense Secretary Robert Gates is expected to stay on the job for at least the first year of the new administration.
One source called it "all but a done deal" that the announcement could come as early as next week.
"It's now pointing in that direction," one of the sources close to the transition said of Gates being part of Obama's national security team, which may include Sen. Hillary Clinton as secretary of state.
"It's likely to happen," a second source close to the transition said of Gates staying on.
This source noted that Gates could stay for longer than a year if he and Obama end up working well together.
Sources close to the transition have said Obama is interested in some continuity at the Pentagon because he is entering office while dealing with two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the international financial crisis.
The president-elect has also made no secret of his interest in having divergent views within his Cabinet, and Gates has served in various national security roles under Republican presidents, including CIA director during former President George H.W. Bush's administration.
Gates would be joining a high-profile national security team that is also expected to include a retired four-star general.
Gates expected to stay on as Obama`s defense secretary
Several officials close to President-elect Barack Obama's transition tell CNN that Defense Secretary Robert Gates is expected to stay on the job for at least the first year of the new administration.
One source called it "all but a done deal" that the announcement could come as early as next week.
"It's now pointing in that direction," one of the sources close to the transition said of Gates being part of Obama's national security team, which may include Sen. Hillary Clinton as secretary of state.
"It's likely to happen," a second source close to the transition said of Gates staying on.
This source noted that Gates could stay for longer than a year if he and Obama end up working well together.
Sources close to the transition have said Obama is interested in some continuity at the Pentagon because he is entering office while dealing with two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the international financial crisis.
The president-elect has also made no secret of his interest in having divergent views within his Cabinet, and Gates has served in various national security roles under Republican presidents, including CIA director during former President George H.W. Bush's administration.
Gates would be joining a high-profile national security team that is also expected to include a retired four-star general.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Rangers regain contact with war-threatened gorillas
Rangers and scientists have made contact for the first time in more than a year with critically endangered gorillas threatened by a war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a national park announced Tuesday.
The Congolese government and rebels agreed to allow the survey team into the gorilla section of Virunga National Park, which rebel fighters loyal to Laurent Nkunda have controlled since September 2007.
Only about 200 mountain gorillas were estimated to be living in the park at last count, out of an estimated 700 in the world.
The team of rangers beginning a planned monthlong survey spotted a group of gorillas Tuesday known as the Humba family group.
The Humba group had nine members at last count, said Pierre Peron of Virunga National Park, and experts are eager to see how many it now includes.
Hundreds of rangers had fled the fighting between Nkunda's ethnic Tutsi rebels and the Congolese army and allied militias, leaving scientists with no reliable information about the endangered gorillas.
But more than 100 rangers have returned, park spokeswoman Samantha Newport told CNN last week.
At least nine mountain gorillas are known to have been killed last year, including an infant female.
Before the rebels took control of the park, 72 of the gorillas were accustomed to human contact.
The gorilla sector of the park lies in a strategically crucial area near the border of Uganda and Rwanda.
The U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization has designated Virunga National Park as a "world heritage site."
Africa's oldest national park, it was formerly known as Albert National Park.
Rangers regain contact with war-threatened gorillas
Rangers and scientists have made contact for the first time in more than a year with critically endangered gorillas threatened by a war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a national park announced Tuesday.
The Congolese government and rebels agreed to allow the survey team into the gorilla section of Virunga National Park, which rebel fighters loyal to Laurent Nkunda have controlled since September 2007.
Only about 200 mountain gorillas were estimated to be living in the park at last count, out of an estimated 700 in the world.
The team of rangers beginning a planned monthlong survey spotted a group of gorillas Tuesday known as the Humba family group.
The Humba group had nine members at last count, said Pierre Peron of Virunga National Park, and experts are eager to see how many it now includes.
Hundreds of rangers had fled the fighting between Nkunda's ethnic Tutsi rebels and the Congolese army and allied militias, leaving scientists with no reliable information about the endangered gorillas.
But more than 100 rangers have returned, park spokeswoman Samantha Newport told CNN last week.
At least nine mountain gorillas are known to have been killed last year, including an infant female.
Before the rebels took control of the park, 72 of the gorillas were accustomed to human contact.
The gorilla sector of the park lies in a strategically crucial area near the border of Uganda and Rwanda.
The U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization has designated Virunga National Park as a "world heritage site."
Africa's oldest national park, it was formerly known as Albert National Park.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Almost 25,000 people will die this year of HIV/AIDS in Myanmar unless lifesaving treatment is significantly increased, according to a new report.
The study produced by leading international humanitarian organization, Doctors Without Borders said the failure by the government to provide HIV/AIDS treatment to its people is putting the population at risk.
An estimated 240,000 people are thought to have HIV/AIDS in Myanmar with 76,000 of those people facing death unless they receive antiretroviral (ART) drug, the report published Tuesday said. Fewer than 20 percent of the people are are able to access ART, according to the organization.
Currently, Doctors Without Borders says it is almost the sole provider of these lifesaving drugs
providing them to more than 11,000 people.
"It is unacceptable that a single NGO is treating the vast majority of HIV patients in a crisis of this magnitude," the charity's Operations Manager Joe Belliveau, said in a press release.
The pressure on its resources means the charity has been forced to turn away patients.
"Sometimes I wake up at midnight and dream of my patients. Women who come in are HIV positive they have three children at home and the husband has passed away and we cannot provide any treatment for them," a doctor quoted in the research said.
The government and international communities have provided very little to the crisis, Belliveau added.
The government of Myanmar allocated just $200,000 for HIV/AIDS in 2008, which is one of the lowest amount spent worldwide, according to Doctors Without Borders.
Drugs that are not provided by aid organizations or the government cost a patient $29 per month.
With most people in Myanmar living on an average of $1.20 per day, the cost of drugs is unaffordable for most.
The charity also appealed for intervention by the international community to avert the crisis.
Myanmar currently receives around $3 per person in aid one of the lowest rates worldwide.
Doctors Without Borders has been providing essential healthcare services in Myanmar since 1993 and began an integrated program in 2003 to support people living with HIV/AIDS.
Almost 25,000 people will die this year of HIV/AIDS in Myanmar unless lifesaving treatment is significantly increased, according to a new report.
The study produced by leading international humanitarian organization, Doctors Without Borders said the failure by the government to provide HIV/AIDS treatment to its people is putting the population at risk.
An estimated 240,000 people are thought to have HIV/AIDS in Myanmar with 76,000 of those people facing death unless they receive antiretroviral (ART) drug, the report published Tuesday said. Fewer than 20 percent of the people are are able to access ART, according to the organization.
Currently, Doctors Without Borders says it is almost the sole provider of these lifesaving drugs
providing them to more than 11,000 people.
"It is unacceptable that a single NGO is treating the vast majority of HIV patients in a crisis of this magnitude," the charity's Operations Manager Joe Belliveau, said in a press release.
The pressure on its resources means the charity has been forced to turn away patients.
"Sometimes I wake up at midnight and dream of my patients. Women who come in are HIV positive they have three children at home and the husband has passed away and we cannot provide any treatment for them," a doctor quoted in the research said.
The government and international communities have provided very little to the crisis, Belliveau added.
The government of Myanmar allocated just $200,000 for HIV/AIDS in 2008, which is one of the lowest amount spent worldwide, according to Doctors Without Borders.
Drugs that are not provided by aid organizations or the government cost a patient $29 per month.
With most people in Myanmar living on an average of $1.20 per day, the cost of drugs is unaffordable for most.
The charity also appealed for intervention by the international community to avert the crisis.
Myanmar currently receives around $3 per person in aid one of the lowest rates worldwide.
Doctors Without Borders has been providing essential healthcare services in Myanmar since 1993 and began an integrated program in 2003 to support people living with HIV/AIDS.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Our dog Tilly loves the holiday season.
Turkey for Thanksgiving.
With so much food moving around the house and visitors who generously
feed her under the table, Tilly has always been a happy dog during the season of giving.
After we spent much of one holiday season at the animal emergency center trying to keep Tilly alive, our holiday celebration turned into a hunt for household toxics.
Tilly was diagnosed with severe anemia, which could have been caused by any one of numerous toxic items found in the refrigerators, cupboards and medicine cabinets of most homes.
Now, Tilly's kibble and treats practically need their own passport to reach her mouth;
human food is out of reach;
visitors are asked to put away any medications and shown where the "approved" treats are kept.
It may sound extreme, but veterinary medical experts say this type of preventative behavior can keep pets safe.
This is especially true during the holidays, when family chaos increases and your pet's environment may change from day to day with the arrival of family and friends bearing gifts, holiday food items and exotic plants.
"Dogs and cats do not know what is bad for them," said Dr. Cynthia Gaskill, associate professor and veterinary clinical toxicologist at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. "If there is medicine on the bathroom counter or food left on the table, that is irresistible to them."
And unless your houseguests are conscientious pet owners themselves, chances are they aren't aware that they may be creating a toxic environment for your pet.
Gaskill says it is important to let guests know not to leave their medications in an open suitcase or otherwise exposed.
Over-the-counter and prescription medications can kill small animals.
Because metabolic systems vary between species, a drug that may alleviate pain in humans can easily induce a toxic reaction in a dog or cat.
For example, ibuprofen ingested by a dog can cause gastrointestinal damage and kidney dysfunction.
Cats are especially susceptible to even small amounts of acetaminophen (the active ingredient in Tylenol); ingestion of just one tablet can result in anemia and potential liver damage.
Take care in the kitchen, too.
Typical holiday staples such as grapes and raisins have been shown to cause renal failure when ingested by dogs.
Although small amounts of onions and garlic are often used in pet foods and treats to add flavor, ingestion of large amounts can cause severe red blood cell damage;
cats are especially sensitive.
Macadamia nuts can cause a short-term hind-limb paralysis, and bread dough, if eaten before baking, can expand rapidly once ingested and cause ethanol poisoning.
Sweets, gum and hard candies are often problematic depending on ingredients.
Chocolate contains a theobromine, a chemical that can affect the heart, kidneys and central nervous system.
Dark chocolate and baker's chocolate contain higher concentrations of theobromine and are more toxic than similar amounts of milk chocolate.
Sugar-free gums and candies that contain the sugar-substitute xylitol can lead to quick onset of toxic clinical signs that may include a rapid decrease in blood sugar and possible seizures.
Our dog Tilly loves the holiday season.
Turkey for Thanksgiving.
Ham for Christmas and pot roast for New Year's.
With so much food moving around the house and visitors who generously
feed her under the table, Tilly has always been a happy dog during the season of giving.
After we spent much of one holiday season at the animal emergency center trying to keep Tilly alive, our holiday celebration turned into a hunt for household toxics.
Tilly was diagnosed with severe anemia, which could have been caused by any one of numerous toxic items found in the refrigerators, cupboards and medicine cabinets of most homes.
Now, Tilly's kibble and treats practically need their own passport to reach her mouth;
human food is out of reach;
visitors are asked to put away any medications and shown where the "approved" treats are kept.
It may sound extreme, but veterinary medical experts say this type of preventative behavior can keep pets safe.
This is especially true during the holidays, when family chaos increases and your pet's environment may change from day to day with the arrival of family and friends bearing gifts, holiday food items and exotic plants.
"Dogs and cats do not know what is bad for them," said Dr. Cynthia Gaskill, associate professor and veterinary clinical toxicologist at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. "If there is medicine on the bathroom counter or food left on the table, that is irresistible to them."
And unless your houseguests are conscientious pet owners themselves, chances are they aren't aware that they may be creating a toxic environment for your pet.
Gaskill says it is important to let guests know not to leave their medications in an open suitcase or otherwise exposed.
Over-the-counter and prescription medications can kill small animals.
Because metabolic systems vary between species, a drug that may alleviate pain in humans can easily induce a toxic reaction in a dog or cat.
For example, ibuprofen ingested by a dog can cause gastrointestinal damage and kidney dysfunction.
Cats are especially susceptible to even small amounts of acetaminophen (the active ingredient in Tylenol); ingestion of just one tablet can result in anemia and potential liver damage.
Take care in the kitchen, too.
Typical holiday staples such as grapes and raisins have been shown to cause renal failure when ingested by dogs.
Although small amounts of onions and garlic are often used in pet foods and treats to add flavor, ingestion of large amounts can cause severe red blood cell damage;
cats are especially sensitive.
Macadamia nuts can cause a short-term hind-limb paralysis, and bread dough, if eaten before baking, can expand rapidly once ingested and cause ethanol poisoning.
Sweets, gum and hard candies are often problematic depending on ingredients.
Chocolate contains a theobromine, a chemical that can affect the heart, kidneys and central nervous system.
Dark chocolate and baker's chocolate contain higher concentrations of theobromine and are more toxic than similar amounts of milk chocolate.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Sharapova expects to defend Aussie title
Maria Sharapova expects to be back on the tennis tour at the start of 2009 and defend her Australian Open title after being sidelined since July with an injured right shoulder.
Sharapova's agent, Max Eisenbud, said on Tuesday that she is "on track" to return to action at the January 7-10 exhibition in Hong Kong that she usually enters.
The three-time Grand Slam title winner then plans to head to the Australian Open, which begins January 19 in Melbourne.
"She's doing good," Eisenbud said in a telephone interview. "Everything's on track."
Sharapova has not played competitively since pulling out of a tournament in Montreal in late July after winning a nearly three-hour match in which she double-faulted 17 times.
The right-hander was examined by a trainer midway through the three-set victory, and she withdrew from the event before her next match.
Medical tests later found a torn rotator cuff tendon in the 21-year-old Russian's shoulder.
Sharapova missed the rest of the season, including the Beijing Olympics and the U.S. Open, ending her streak of 23 consecutive major tournaments.
She had not missed a major since her Grand Slam debut at the 2003 Australian Open.
Sharapova won the singles championships at Wimbledon in 2004, the U.S. Open in 2006 and the Australian Open in 2008.
While she briefly held the No. 1 spot this year, the time away led her to slide in the rankings and she finished the season at No. 9.
Sharapova went 32-4 with three titles in 2008, earning nearly $2 million in tour prize money.
Sharapova expects to defend Aussie title
Maria Sharapova expects to be back on the tennis tour at the start of 2009 and defend her Australian Open title after being sidelined since July with an injured right shoulder.
Sharapova's agent, Max Eisenbud, said on Tuesday that she is "on track" to return to action at the January 7-10 exhibition in Hong Kong that she usually enters.
The three-time Grand Slam title winner then plans to head to the Australian Open, which begins January 19 in Melbourne.
"She's doing good," Eisenbud said in a telephone interview. "Everything's on track."
Sharapova has not played competitively since pulling out of a tournament in Montreal in late July after winning a nearly three-hour match in which she double-faulted 17 times.
The right-hander was examined by a trainer midway through the three-set victory, and she withdrew from the event before her next match.
Medical tests later found a torn rotator cuff tendon in the 21-year-old Russian's shoulder.
Sharapova missed the rest of the season, including the Beijing Olympics and the U.S. Open, ending her streak of 23 consecutive major tournaments.
She had not missed a major since her Grand Slam debut at the 2003 Australian Open.
Sharapova won the singles championships at Wimbledon in 2004, the U.S. Open in 2006 and the Australian Open in 2008.
While she briefly held the No. 1 spot this year, the time away led her to slide in the rankings and she finished the season at No. 9.
Sharapova went 32-4 with three titles in 2008, earning nearly $2 million in tour prize money.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Amy Winehouse hospitalized for drug reaction
Troubled singer Amy Winehouse has been admitted to a London hospital after suffering a bad reaction to medication, her representative said Tuesday.
Winehouse, 25, went to the private London Clinic on Sunday, said her spokesman, Chris Goodman.
He said Winehouse's medication made her ill and her doctors asked her to come in so they could investigate.
Goodman did not disclose what type of medication was involved, saying only it is part of her "ongoing treatment."
It was not clear Tuesday whether she had been discharged.
Yesterday Winehouse's husband Blake Fielder-Civil lost his appeal against his 27-month jail term for assault and perverting the course of justice.
Earlier this month he was moved from prison to a drug rehabilitation unit.
The Grammy-winning Winehouse has suffered a string of health problems in recent years, many related to her battles with drug addiction.
She spent two weeks in a drug rehabilitation clinic in January.
Amy Winehouse hospitalized for drug reaction
Troubled singer Amy Winehouse has been admitted to a London hospital after suffering a bad reaction to medication, her representative said Tuesday.
Winehouse, 25, went to the private London Clinic on Sunday, said her spokesman, Chris Goodman.
He said Winehouse's medication made her ill and her doctors asked her to come in so they could investigate.
Goodman did not disclose what type of medication was involved, saying only it is part of her "ongoing treatment."
It was not clear Tuesday whether she had been discharged.
Yesterday Winehouse's husband Blake Fielder-Civil lost his appeal against his 27-month jail term for assault and perverting the course of justice.
Earlier this month he was moved from prison to a drug rehabilitation unit.
The Grammy-winning Winehouse has suffered a string of health problems in recent years, many related to her battles with drug addiction.
She spent two weeks in a drug rehabilitation clinic in January.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Gunmen rampaged through a series of targets in the Indian city of Mumbai killing indiscriminately and taking hostages at two luxury hotels.
Mumbai police spokesman Satish Katsa said gunmen have taken over the Taj Mahal Hotel and Hotel Oberoi, and were holding hostages on multiple floors.
Flames and smoke poured from the Taj early Thursday, and several explosions were heard at the building.
At the Oberoi the military reportedly entered the building and a large explosion was heard shortly afterwards.
Another hostage situation was unfolding at Cama Hospital, CNN's sister network in India, CNN-IBN reported.
Earlier, A.N. Roy, the police chief of Maharashtra state, said there were ongoing battles at the two five-star hotels.
One witness told local reporters that gunmen tried to find people with U.S. or British passports and took about 15 of them hostage.
Andrew Stevens, a CNN anchor who was staying at the Taj with a CNN crew, estimated about half the hotel's guests were Westerners.
British businessman Alan Jones told CNN.com how he was about to get out of an elevator in the Oberoi when another guest was shot.
"A bullet hit one of the Japanese men in the back of the leg. Flesh and blood splattered everywhere."
IBN, quoting police sources, reported hostages were taken at the both hotels.
Gunmen armed with automatic weapons and grenades hit nine sites including the hotels, a cafe, a hospital and a train station in coordinated attacks, police say.
Maharashtra state government spokesman Bhushan Gagrani said 78 people were killed and about 200 wounded, while police confirmed 26 deaths.
Among the dead is the head of the Maharashtra state's anti-terror squad, who apparently died in the violent aftermath of the attacks rather than being a target for the killers.
Two suspected militants were gunned down and nine suspects had been arrested, Gagrani said.
Three people were detained for questioning from one of the hotels, he added.
Gunmen rampaged through a series of targets in the Indian city of Mumbai killing indiscriminately and taking hostages at two luxury hotels.
Mumbai police spokesman Satish Katsa said gunmen have taken over the Taj Mahal Hotel and Hotel Oberoi, and were holding hostages on multiple floors.
Flames and smoke poured from the Taj early Thursday, and several explosions were heard at the building.
At the Oberoi the military reportedly entered the building and a large explosion was heard shortly afterwards.
Another hostage situation was unfolding at Cama Hospital, CNN's sister network in India, CNN-IBN reported.
Earlier, A.N. Roy, the police chief of Maharashtra state, said there were ongoing battles at the two five-star hotels.
One witness told local reporters that gunmen tried to find people with U.S. or British passports and took about 15 of them hostage.
Andrew Stevens, a CNN anchor who was staying at the Taj with a CNN crew, estimated about half the hotel's guests were Westerners.
British businessman Alan Jones told CNN.com how he was about to get out of an elevator in the Oberoi when another guest was shot.
"A bullet hit one of the Japanese men in the back of the leg. Flesh and blood splattered everywhere."
IBN, quoting police sources, reported hostages were taken at the both hotels.
Gunmen armed with automatic weapons and grenades hit nine sites including the hotels, a cafe, a hospital and a train station in coordinated attacks, police say.
Maharashtra state government spokesman Bhushan Gagrani said 78 people were killed and about 200 wounded, while police confirmed 26 deaths.
Among the dead is the head of the Maharashtra state's anti-terror squad, who apparently died in the violent aftermath of the attacks rather than being a target for the killers.
Two suspected militants were gunned down and nine suspects had been arrested, Gagrani said.
Three people were detained for questioning from one of the hotels, he added.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Thailand`s tourism industry set to suffer
Thousands of tourists have been left stranded after two blasts at Bangkok's giant Suvarnabhumi Airport wounded four people and triggered its closure, dealing another blow to the country's travel industry.
The blasts come a day after thousands of anti-government protesters stormed the airport in an ongoing battle to oust Thai Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat, who was returning from an economic summit in Peru.
The travel industry has already seen a drop off in tourist numbers after protesters shutdown Phuket airport for two days in August and with continued anti-government protests in central Bangkok resulting in violence.
The British Foreign Office has warned tourists to take care in the city after two people were killed and more than 400 were injured during recent clashes between protesters and police.
Recent bomb and grenade attacks have resulted in an additional two deaths and 20 injuries.
The Foreign Office says "there remains a possibility of further violence," with the political situation in Thailand "very uncertain."
The U.S. State Department has also warned people traveling to Thailand to exercise caution, especially in locations where Westerners congregate.
"They should remain vigilant with regard to their personal security and avoid crowds and demonstrations."
Kongkrit Hiranyakit, head of the Tourism Council of Thailand, told The Associated Press that the bombings, at the height of the high season which runs from late October to February, could cut income from tourism to half the expected 240 billion baht ($6.8 billion).
The tourism industry is worth 6 percent of the economy and employs about a million people, with Suvarnabhumi handling 45 million passengers and three million tonnes of cargo per year.
Hiranyakit said when protesters closed Phuket airport tourist arrivals at it and nearby resorts plummeted by 17 percent.
Fallout from the closure of Bangkok's main airport would likely be worse and could last six months or more.
"We don't know when it will recover," said Kongrit. "The government should be taking steps to solve this problem.
Thailand`s tourism industry set to suffer
Thousands of tourists have been left stranded after two blasts at Bangkok's giant Suvarnabhumi Airport wounded four people and triggered its closure, dealing another blow to the country's travel industry.
The blasts come a day after thousands of anti-government protesters stormed the airport in an ongoing battle to oust Thai Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat, who was returning from an economic summit in Peru.
The travel industry has already seen a drop off in tourist numbers after protesters shutdown Phuket airport for two days in August and with continued anti-government protests in central Bangkok resulting in violence.
The British Foreign Office has warned tourists to take care in the city after two people were killed and more than 400 were injured during recent clashes between protesters and police.
Recent bomb and grenade attacks have resulted in an additional two deaths and 20 injuries.
The Foreign Office says "there remains a possibility of further violence," with the political situation in Thailand "very uncertain."
The U.S. State Department has also warned people traveling to Thailand to exercise caution, especially in locations where Westerners congregate.
"They should remain vigilant with regard to their personal security and avoid crowds and demonstrations."
Kongkrit Hiranyakit, head of the Tourism Council of Thailand, told The Associated Press that the bombings, at the height of the high season which runs from late October to February, could cut income from tourism to half the expected 240 billion baht ($6.8 billion).
The tourism industry is worth 6 percent of the economy and employs about a million people, with Suvarnabhumi handling 45 million passengers and three million tonnes of cargo per year.
Hiranyakit said when protesters closed Phuket airport tourist arrivals at it and nearby resorts plummeted by 17 percent.
Fallout from the closure of Bangkok's main airport would likely be worse and could last six months or more.
"The government should be taking steps to solve this problem.
Otherwise we cannot survive with this situation," he told AP.
Tipton said travel there would only be badly affected if countries directly warned against visiting Thailand.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Volcker to head board of economic experts
President-elect Barack Obama announced Wednesday that he is creating a new economic recovery board to provide a "fresh perspective" for his administration.
The board will be headed by Paul Volcker, who served as the chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1979 through 1987, serving under Presidents Carter and Reagan.
After his tenure there, Volcker worked in the private sector as an investment banker until 1996.
Volcker also headed the investigation into the United Nations' oil-for-food program for Iraq.
"The reality is that sometimes policymaking in Washington can become a little bit too ingrown," Obama said at a news conference in Chicago, Illinois.
"The walls of the echo chamber can sometimes keep out fresh voices and new ways of thinking. ...
Obama senior adviser Austan Goolsbee will be the chief economist on the board.
Volcker to head board of economic experts
President-elect Barack Obama announced Wednesday that he is creating a new economic recovery board to provide a "fresh perspective" for his administration.
The board will be headed by Paul Volcker, who served as the chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1979 through 1987, serving under Presidents Carter and Reagan.
After his tenure there, Volcker worked in the private sector as an investment banker until 1996.
Volcker also headed the investigation into the United Nations' oil-for-food program for Iraq.
"The reality is that sometimes policymaking in Washington can become a little bit too ingrown," Obama said at a news conference in Chicago, Illinois.
"The walls of the echo chamber can sometimes keep out fresh voices and new ways of thinking.
Obama senior adviser Austan Goolsbee will be the chief economist on the board.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
From a remote valley in Northern California, Jill Tarter is listening to the universe.
Her ears are 42 large and sophisticated radio telescopes, spread across several acres, that scan the cosmos for signals of extraterrestrial origin.
If intelligent life forms do exist on other planets, and they try to contact us, Tarter will be among the first to know.
Are we citizens of Earth alone in the universe? It's a question that has long fascinated astronomers, sci-fi authors, kids with backyard telescopes and Hollywood executives who churn out spectacles about alien encounters.
Polls have found that most Americans believe that some form of life exists beyond our planet.
"It's a fundamental question," said Tarter, the real-life inspiration for Jodie Foster's character in the 1997 movie "Contact."
"And it's a question that the person on the street can understand.
It's not like a ... super-collider or some search for neutrinos buried in the ice.
How might we find out?
"These are all valid questions to ask of the universe.
Is anybody out there?
From a remote valley in Northern California, Jill Tarter is listening to the universe.
Her ears are 42 large and sophisticated radio telescopes, spread across several acres, that scan the cosmos for signals of extraterrestrial origin.
If intelligent life forms do exist on other planets, and they try to contact us, Tarter will be among the first to know.
Are we citizens of Earth alone in the universe? It's a question that has long fascinated astronomers, sci-fi authors, kids with backyard telescopes and Hollywood executives who churn out spectacles about alien encounters.
Polls have found that most Americans believe that some form of life exists beyond our planet.
"It's a fundamental question," said Tarter, the real-life inspiration for Jodie Foster's character in the 1997 movie "Contact."
It's not like a ... super-collider or some search for neutrinos buried in the ice.
How might we find out?
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Zoo solves mystery of celibate polar bears
Puzzled zookeepers in northern Japan have discovered the reason why their attempts to mate two polar bears kept failing:
The municipal zoo in the city of Kushiro in Hokkaido brought in a polar bear cub three years ago.
They named it Tsuyoshi, after the popular baseball outfielder Tsuyoshi Shinjo, and waited until it reached reproductive age.
In June, the zoo introduced Tsuyoshi to its resident bear, an 11-year-old female named Kurumi, and waited for sparks to fly.
But much to the disappointment of zookeepers, Tsuyoshi never made any amorous advances toward Kurumi.
Earlier this month, zookeepers put Tsuyoshi under anesthesia to get to the bottom of the matter.
That's when they made their discovery: Still, the Kushiro zoo plans to keep Tsuyoshi because he has become immensely popular with visitors.
"I have rather mixed feelings, given the need for breeding, but Tsuyoshi is an idol for Kushiro," Yoshio Yamaguchi, head of the Kushiro zoo, told Japan's Kyodo news agency.
Tsuyoshi will even keep her name.
"We will not be changing it to 'Tsuyoko' since it is loved by citizens (by the current name)," Yamaguchi said.
"Ko" is a common suffix for a Japanese female name.
Meanwhile, Tsuyoshi's "brother," who was adopted by another zoo, has also turned out to be female, Kyodo reported.
Zoo solves mystery of celibate polar bears
Puzzled zookeepers in northern Japan have discovered the reason why their attempts to mate two polar bears kept failing:
The municipal zoo in the city of Kushiro in Hokkaido brought in a polar bear cub three years ago.
They named it Tsuyoshi, after the popular baseball outfielder Tsuyoshi Shinjo, and waited until it reached reproductive age.
In June, the zoo introduced Tsuyoshi to its resident bear, an 11-year-old female named Kurumi, and waited for sparks to fly.
But much to the disappointment of zookeepers, Tsuyoshi never made any amorous advances toward Kurumi.
Earlier this month, zookeepers put Tsuyoshi under anesthesia to get to the bottom of the matter.
That's when they made their discovery: Still, the Kushiro zoo plans to keep Tsuyoshi because he has become immensely popular with visitors.
"I have rather mixed feelings, given the need for breeding, but Tsuyoshi is an idol for Kushiro," Yoshio Yamaguchi, head of the Kushiro zoo, told Japan's Kyodo news agency.
Tsuyoshi will even keep her name.
"We will not be changing it to 'Tsuyoko' since it is loved by citizens (by the current name)," Yamaguchi said.
"Ko" is a common suffix for a Japanese female name.
Meanwhile, Tsuyoshi's "brother," who was adopted by another zoo, has also turned out to be female, Kyodo reported.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
a biopic dedicated to the memory of San Francisco activist and City Supervisor Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California, who was murdered by a fellow supervisor in 1978.
a few weeks late to save Californians' same-sex marriage rights, admittedly, but the need to keep on fighting through adversity may be Milk's most important legacy.
And "Milk" is a powerful movie that will stir more than a few hearts and minds.
An audiotape Milk records "just in case" is screenwriter Dustin Lance Black's convenient structuring device, foregrounding the story's tragic outcome and allowing Milk to narrate his own life story.
In this telling, it's a life that begins at 40 when he picks up Scott (James Franco), falls in love, comes out and drops out.
The year is 1970, and San Francisco beckons.
Their Castro Street camera store soon becomes a focal point for the booming gay community, and it's not long before Milk makes the first of several unsuccessful runs for district supervisor.
Civic elections might seem like small beer, but the persecution that compelled Milk to run for office is no trivial matter.
The gay rights movement's most critical accomplishment, the film suggests, is how it liberated gays to be themselves.
As Milk tries to explain to his heterosexual colleague Dan White (Josh Brolin), this isn't about principles, it's about people's lives
The political can't get more personal than that.
Ironically, the devoutly "normal" White is the one who is truly messed up.
Here's another irony:
To earn the recognition and validation of the voters, Milk has to shed his reborn hippie uniform and ponytail, put on a suit and get a haircut.
a biopic dedicated to the memory of San Francisco activist and City Supervisor Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California, who was murdered by a fellow supervisor in 1978.
a few weeks late to save Californians' same-sex marriage rights, admittedly, but the need to keep on fighting through adversity may be Milk's most important legacy.
And "Milk" is a powerful movie that will stir more than a few hearts and minds.
An audiotape Milk records "just in case" is screenwriter Dustin Lance Black's convenient structuring device, foregrounding the story's tragic outcome and allowing Milk to narrate his own life story.
In this telling, it's a life that begins at 40 when he picks up Scott (James Franco), falls in love, comes out and drops out.
The year is 1970, and San Francisco beckons.
Their Castro Street camera store soon becomes a focal point for the booming gay community, and it's not long before Milk makes the first of several unsuccessful runs for district supervisor.
Civic elections might seem like small beer, but the persecution that compelled Milk to run for office is no trivial matter.
The gay rights movement's most critical accomplishment, the film suggests, is how it liberated gays to be themselves.
As Milk tries to explain to his heterosexual colleague Dan White (Josh Brolin), this isn't about principles, it's about people's lives
three of his lovers had threatened suicide.
One of them, Jack Lira (Diego Luna), goes through with it.
The political can't get more personal than that.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Barcelona continued their impressive unbeaten run to win 5-2 at Sporting Lisbon to clinch top spot in Group C from the Portuguese side.
Shakhtar Donetsk beat Basel 5-0 in the other match in the section to clinch a UEFA Cup spot at the expense of their Swiss opponents.
Spanish league leaders Barcelona are unbeaten in 18 matches in all competitions and were always on top in Lisbon after Thierry Henry opened the scoring in the 14th minute, brilliantly set up by Lionel Messi.
It was the former Arsenal star's 46th goal in his 100th game in the Champions League.
Gerard Pique put Barca 2-0 three minutes later before Messi made it 3-0 as he curled home a shot just after the break following a quickly worked free kick.
Sporting, who are also heading to the knockout stages, hit back with goals by Miguel Veloso and Liedson in quick succession just after the hour mark.
Barcelona refused to panic and grabbed a fourth almost immediately as Marco Caneira turned the ball into his own net under pressure.
Sporting were reduced to 10 men when Rui Patricio was sent off for pulling down Krkic Bojan, the youngster getting up to slot home the resulting penalty in the 73rd minute to round off the scoring.
In Donetsk, Jadson scored a hat-trick in a one-sided match, opening his account in the 32nd minute, with Willian making it 2-0 five minutes after the interval.
Jadson then scored two goals in eight minutes and second half substitute Yevgen Seleznyov completed the rout in the 75th.
Barcelona have 13 points after five rounds from Sporting with nine and Shakhtar on six.
Winless Basel have a single point.
Barcelona continued their impressive unbeaten run to win 5-2 at Sporting Lisbon to clinch top spot in Group C from the Portuguese side.
Shakhtar Donetsk beat Basel 5-0 in the other match in the section to clinch a UEFA Cup spot at the expense of their Swiss opponents.
Spanish league leaders Barcelona are unbeaten in 18 matches in all competitions and were always on top in Lisbon after Thierry Henry opened the scoring in the 14th minute, brilliantly set up by Lionel Messi.
It was the former Arsenal star's 46th goal in his 100th game in the Champions League.
Gerard Pique put Barca 2-0 three minutes later before Messi made it 3-0 as he curled home a shot just after the break following a quickly worked free kick.
Sporting, who are also heading to the knockout stages, hit back with goals by Miguel Veloso and Liedson in quick succession just after the hour mark.
Barcelona refused to panic and grabbed a fourth almost immediately as Marco Caneira turned the ball into his own net under pressure.
Sporting were reduced to 10 men when Rui Patricio was sent off for pulling down Krkic Bojan, the youngster getting up to slot home the resulting penalty in the 73rd minute to round off the scoring.
In Donetsk, Jadson scored a hat-trick in a one-sided match, opening his account in the 32nd minute, with Willian making it 2-0 five minutes after the interval.
Jadson then scored two goals in eight minutes and second half substitute Yevgen Seleznyov completed the rout in the 75th.
Barcelona have 13 points after five rounds from Sporting with nine and Shakhtar on six.
Winless Basel have a single point.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Indian security forces appear to be gaining control of two Mumbai five-star hotels attacked by gunmen in a wave of violence that has lasted more than 24 hours and killed at least 125 people so far.
But a standoff continues at a Jewish center in the city, said a spokesman for the Israeli foreign ministry.
The group spent months planning the attacks, even setting up "control rooms" in the two hotels targeted, the Press Trust of India reported, citing Union Cabinet Minister Kapil Sibal.
"Enormous planning went into the incident. The terrorists were dropped by a mother ship and traveled in rubber boats which they docked (at Mumbai)."
Commandos were going room-to-room at the Oberoi Hotel trying to flush out the attackers and rescue people trapped inside.
Security forces used in-house telephones to ask guests holed up in their rooms to switch on lights and open curtains, so that they could provide cover, CNN correspondent Andrew Stevens reported.
Indian security forces appear to be gaining control of two Mumbai five-star hotels attacked by gunmen in a wave of violence that has lasted more than 24 hours and killed at least 125 people so far.
But a standoff continues at a Jewish center in the city, said a spokesman for the Israeli foreign ministry.
The group spent months planning the attacks, even setting up "control rooms" in the two hotels targeted, the Press Trust of India reported, citing Union Cabinet Minister Kapil Sibal.
"Enormous planning went into the incident. The terrorists were dropped by a mother ship and traveled in rubber boats which they docked (at Mumbai)."
Commandos were going room-to-room at the Oberoi Hotel trying to flush out the attackers and rescue people trapped inside.
Security forces used in-house telephones to ask guests holed up in their rooms to switch on lights and open curtains, so that they could provide cover, CNN correspondent Andrew Stevens reported.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Thai prime minister Somchai Wongsawat declared a state of emergency Thursday at Bangkok's two main airports, which are still being besieged by anti-government protesters, a government spokesman said.
Wongsawat made the declaration after his cabinet, meeting in the northern city of Chiang Mai, agreed to the measure, said government spokesman Nattawut Saikua
The news was greeted with defiant cheers from thousands of protesters at the main airport.
It was not immediately clear what powers the emergency declaration gives the government.
Somchai had to fly into Chiang Mai upon his return from last week's Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Peru because of the disturbances at the Suvarnabhumi and Don Muang airports.
The Bangkok airports have been closed for two days, leaving the city without any access to air traffic, stranding thousands of passengers and dealing a severe blow to the economy at the height of the tourist season.
Protesters surrounded the parliament building on Monday, forcing lawmakers to postpone their session.
Wongsawat rejected calls Wednesday to dissolve parliament, despite the country's army chief Anupong Paochinda suggesting that he do so.
The anti-government People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), which has been leading protests since May, said it will not end its occupation of the airports until Somchai resigns.
They accuse his government of being a front for former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who they want to stand trial on corruption charges.
Thai prime minister Somchai Wongsawat declared a state of emergency Thursday at Bangkok's two main airports, which are still being besieged by anti-government protesters, a government spokesman said.
Wongsawat made the declaration after his cabinet, meeting in the northern city of Chiang Mai, agreed to the measure, said government spokesman Nattawut Saikua
The news was greeted with defiant cheers from thousands of protesters at the main airport.
It was not immediately clear what powers the emergency declaration gives the government.
Somchai had to fly into Chiang Mai upon his return from last week's Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Peru because of the disturbances at the Suvarnabhumi and Don Muang airports.
The Bangkok airports have been closed for two days, leaving the city without any access to air traffic, stranding thousands of passengers and dealing a severe blow to the economy at the height of the tourist season.
Protesters surrounded the parliament building on Monday, forcing lawmakers to postpone their session.
Wongsawat rejected calls Wednesday to dissolve parliament, despite the country's army chief Anupong Paochinda suggesting that he do so.
The anti-government People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), which has been leading protests since May, said it will not end its occupation of the airports until Somchai resigns.
They accuse his government of being a front for former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who they want to stand trial on corruption charges.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
A plane with seven people aboard crashed into the Mediterranean Sea on Thursday, a French regional government official told CNN.
The Airbus A320 jet was on a training flight when the crash occurred about 5 p.m. (4 p.m. GMT), said the official at the Maritime Prefecture in Toulon, France.
There were no immediate reports of survivors, but rescue efforts involving French navy vessels and a helicopter were launched.
Floating debris had been located, the official said.
Airbus confirmed the crash in a written statement, saying the jet was owned by Air New Zealand and operated by XL Airways Germany.
"The aircraft was operating a local technical flight from Perpignan, France," the company said.
The Airbus statement did not say how many people were thought to be on board.
The twin-engine plane involved in the accident had accumulated about 7,000 flying hours, Airbus said.
"At this time, no further factual information is available," Airbus said. "In line with international convention, Airbus will provide full technical assistance to the authorities of France, who will be responsible for the investigation into the accident.
A team of five specialists from Airbus is being dispatched to the site." People in a civilian vessel saw the crash take place off the coast near Perpignan, the French government official said.
"The investigation remains the entire responsibility of the relevant authorities, and it would be inappropriate for Airbus to enter into any form of speculation into the cause of the accident," the Airbus statement said.
A plane with seven people aboard crashed into the Mediterranean Sea on Thursday, a French regional government official told CNN.
The Airbus A320 jet was on a training flight when the crash occurred about 5 p.m. (4 p.m. GMT), said the official at the Maritime Prefecture in Toulon, France.
There were no immediate reports of survivors, but rescue efforts involving French navy vessels and a helicopter were launched.
Floating debris had been located, the official said.
Airbus confirmed the crash in a written statement, saying the jet was owned by Air New Zealand and operated by XL Airways Germany.
"The aircraft was operating a local technical flight from Perpignan, France," the company said.
The Airbus statement did not say how many people were thought to be on board.
The twin-engine plane involved in the accident had accumulated about 7,000 flying hours, Airbus said.
"At this time, no further factual information is available," Airbus said. "In line with international convention, Airbus will provide full technical assistance to the authorities of France, who will be responsible for the investigation into the accident.
A team of five specialists from Airbus is being dispatched to the site." People in a civilian vessel saw the crash take place off the coast near Perpignan, the French government official said.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Sculptor creates treehouse-like tent
It is probably the most unusual tent you'll ever see.
Dangling from a tree trunk like a surreal oversized pear, the Treetent is a cross between a treehouse and a tent.
But Dutch sculptor Dre Wapenaar sees his creation as much more than just a novel bit of camping kit.
It is, he says, a piece of art.
Wapenaar is an artist with over 20 years professional experience, but the inspiration for creating tents stretches right back to his childhood.
"I started building them when I was a kid. We had a competition in the neighborhood to build the coolest tent," Wapenaar told CNN.
He graduated from the Academy of Visual Arts in Tilburg, Holland in 1986 and set up his own studio in Rotterdam the following year.
He describes his sculptures as an artistic exploration of how groups of people and individuals relate to one another.
"People from all over the world are coming to live in Holland, so you have to make new forms of living together," he said. "The tent is a nice metaphor for studying this."
The tear-shaped frame of the Treetent is constructed from steel, covered in canvas and anchored to a tree trunk.
It measures four meters high and is over two meters in diameter.
The interior incorporates a horizontal wooden platform which Wapenaar says can sleep up to four people.
But it's not something you can pack up and put in your rucksack. "It's not a portable framework," he said.
"It's closer to architecture."
He designed his first Treetent not for a campsite, but for a group of environmental activists in the UK who were hoping to frustrate a road building program through protected woodland.
That was ten years ago, but the interest in his sculptures particularly the Treetent has kept on growing.
Wapenaar still receives hundreds of emails every year from people interested in buying his Treetent.
But as he points out, it is not a commercially available product, and the price tag of 30,000 euros usually dampens the enthusiasm of the average camper.
He gets frustrated by media reports that celebrities keep buying up his work.
"The gossip was that Victoria Beckham bought one," he said. "But it's a lot of crap.
When he's not fending off rumors about well-heeled customers buying his art, Wapenaar continues to expand his portfolio, exploring different types of tent sculptures including the Birthingtent and the Showertent.
His collection has grown into a diverse and elegant range of sculptures including bivouacs, kiosks, villages and pavilions.
His most recent creation, the Recital Pavilion, was unveiled at this year's Poetry International Festival in Rotterdam.
A tent-like space for intimate piano concerts, it reinforces Wapenaar's commitment to exploring human communication through his art.
Sculptor creates treehouse-like tent
It is probably the most unusual tent you'll ever see.
Dangling from a tree trunk like a surreal oversized pear, the Treetent is a cross between a treehouse and a tent.
But Dutch sculptor Dre Wapenaar sees his creation as much more than just a novel bit of camping kit.
It is, he says, a piece of art.
Wapenaar is an artist with over 20 years professional experience, but the inspiration for creating tents stretches right back to his childhood.
"I started building them when I was a kid. We had a competition in the neighborhood to build the coolest tent," Wapenaar told CNN.
He graduated from the Academy of Visual Arts in Tilburg, Holland in 1986 and set up his own studio in Rotterdam the following year.
He describes his sculptures as an artistic exploration of how groups of people and individuals relate to one another.
"People from all over the world are coming to live in Holland, so you have to make new forms of living together," he said. "The tent is a nice metaphor for studying this."
The tear-shaped frame of the Treetent is constructed from steel, covered in canvas and anchored to a tree trunk.
It measures four meters high and is over two meters in diameter.
The interior incorporates a horizontal wooden platform which Wapenaar says can sleep up to four people.
But it's not something you can pack up and put in your rucksack. "It's not a portable framework," he said.
"It's closer to architecture."
He designed his first Treetent not for a campsite, but for a group of environmental activists in the UK who were hoping to frustrate a road building program through protected woodland.
That was ten years ago, but the interest in his sculptures particularly the Treetent has kept on growing.
Wapenaar still receives hundreds of emails every year from people interested in buying his Treetent.
But as he points out, it is not a commercially available product, and the price tag of 30,000 euros usually dampens the enthusiasm of the average camper.
He gets frustrated by media reports that celebrities keep buying up his work.
"The gossip was that Victoria Beckham bought one," he said. "But it's a lot of crap.
When he's not fending off rumors about well-heeled customers buying his art, Wapenaar continues to expand his portfolio, exploring different types of tent sculptures including the Birthingtent and the Showertent.
His collection has grown into a diverse and elegant range of sculptures including bivouacs, kiosks, villages and pavilions.
His most recent creation, the Recital Pavilion, was unveiled at this year's Poetry International Festival in Rotterdam.
A tent-like space for intimate piano concerts, it reinforces Wapenaar's commitment to exploring human communication through his art.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Yet another scale Il Divo has mastered:
scaling the heights of success.
The operatic quartet's new album, "The Promise," debuted atop the UK charts, their third collection to hit the No. 1 spot.
The album (which was released in the U.S. last Tuesday) features Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah," Frankie Goes to Hollywood's "The Power of Love," and the traditional "Amazing Grace."
Il Divo also takes a chance on the ABBA hit "The Winner Takes it All."
The group is the brainchild of "American Idol" judge Simon Cowell, who saw a potential market for an international, "popera"-style act after the soaring success of the Andrea Bocelli-Sarah Brightman duet "Time to Say Goodbye (Con te Partiro)."
Formed in 2004 after a global search, Il Divo (Italian for "divine male performer") consists of Spanish baritone Carlos Marin, American tenor David Miller, French pop singer Sebastien Izambard, and Swiss tenor Urs Buhler.
According to Syco Music, Il Divo's UK-based label, the quartet has sold more than 22 million albums worldwide.
Yet another scale Il Divo has mastered:
The operatic quartet's new album, "The Promise," debuted atop the UK charts, their third collection to hit the No. 1 spot.
The album (which was released in the U.S. last Tuesday) features Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah," Frankie Goes to Hollywood's "The Power of Love," and the traditional "Amazing Grace."
Il Divo also takes a chance on the ABBA hit "The Winner Takes it All."
The group is the brainchild of "American Idol" judge Simon Cowell, who saw a potential market for an international, "popera"-style act after the soaring success of the Andrea Bocelli-Sarah Brightman duet "Time to Say Goodbye (Con te Partiro)."
Formed in 2004 after a global search, Il Divo (Italian for "divine male performer") consists of Spanish baritone Carlos Marin, American tenor David Miller, French pop singer Sebastien Izambard, and Swiss tenor Urs Buhler.
According to Syco Music, Il Divo's UK-based label, the quartet has sold more than 22 million albums worldwide.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Filippo Inzaghi scored a last-gasp equalizer after Ronaldinho fired in a superb 30-meter free-kick as Italian giants AC Milan hit back from two goals down for a 2-2 UEFA Cup draw at Portsmouth.
Second half strikes from Younes Kaboul and Kanu appeared to have put FA Cup winners Portsmouth on the way to a famous victory over the star-studded Serie A side in a thrilling Group E match played in pouring rain.
But Ronaldinho, who came on with his team losing 2-0 with 16 minutes to go, drove a trademark free-kick into the top corner of the net.
And Inzaghi, who had earlier hit both the post and the crossbar, collected a lobbed pass from Gianluca Zambrotta, controlled it first time and prodded the ball home for the equalizer in the second minute of injury time.
Milan could have been two goals up by half-time after Inzaghi shot weakly against the post in the 10th minute and later in the half floated a lob that beat goalkeeper David James but flicked the top of the bar.
But Portsmouth, despite missing several key players through injury, shook the Milan defense with crosses aimed at the giant Peter Crouch, who went close three times with a header and two acrobatic shots.
The home side opened the scoring in the 62nd minute.
Former Inter Milan striker Kanu laid the ball back to Glen Johnson whose first time cross from the right was headed powerfully home by Younes Kaboul.
The fervent home fans were celebrating again 11 minutes later when Johnson burst clear of two defenders down the right and Kanu was waiting at the far post to slide his low cross into the net.
Ronaldinho was sent on to try and turn the game around and, after he appeared lucky to get a free-kick 30 meters out, bent a shot into the top corner with seven minutes remaining.
Then Inzaghi came up with the injury time equalizer to stun the home fans.
Filippo Inzaghi scored a last-gasp equalizer after Ronaldinho fired in a superb 30-meter free-kick as Italian giants AC Milan hit back from two goals down for a 2-2 UEFA Cup draw at Portsmouth.
Second half strikes from Younes Kaboul and Kanu appeared to have put FA Cup winners Portsmouth on the way to a famous victory over the star-studded Serie A side in a thrilling Group E match played in pouring rain.
But Ronaldinho, who came on with his team losing 2-0 with 16 minutes to go, drove a trademark free-kick into the top corner of the net.
And Inzaghi, who had earlier hit both the post and the crossbar, collected a lobbed pass from Gianluca Zambrotta, controlled it first time and prodded the ball home for the equalizer in the second minute of injury time.
Milan could have been two goals up by half-time after Inzaghi shot weakly against the post in the 10th minute and later in the half floated a lob that beat goalkeeper David James but flicked the top of the bar.
But Portsmouth, despite missing several key players through injury, shook the Milan defense with crosses aimed at the giant Peter Crouch, who went close three times with a header and two acrobatic shots.
The home side opened the scoring in the 62nd minute.
Former Inter Milan striker Kanu laid the ball back to Glen Johnson whose first time cross from the right was headed powerfully home by Younes Kaboul.
The fervent home fans were celebrating again 11 minutes later when Johnson burst clear of two defenders down the right and Kanu was waiting at the far post to slide his low cross into the net.
Ronaldinho was sent on to try and turn the game around and, after he appeared lucky to get a free-kick 30 meters out, bent a shot into the top corner with seven minutes remaining.
Then Inzaghi came up with the injury time equalizer to stun the home fans.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Korean idol Lee Byung-hun makes waves overseas
Lee Byung-hun's arrival in the packed auditorium at a London screening of his latest film, "The Good, The Bad, The Weird," causes a well-behaved sizzle of excitement to run through the largely female and Asian audience.
His name is whispered breathlessly between friends, but in a classic display of Asian politeness, the only indication there is a genuine heartthrob in the room are a couple of poorly contained shrieks.
Tall, exquisitely chiseled and with the kind of smooth line-free skin that belies his 38 years, it's not hard to see why Lee is also known as the "James Dean of Asia."
In his native South Korea he is best known for brooding, soulful performances in romantic films and TV dramas.
And, now, he is starting to make a name for himself outside Korea and Japan.
Lee is set to grace UK screens in January when Kim Jee-woon's so-called Kimchi western, "The Good, the Bad, the Weird," is released.
Next year will see him in co-star with Josh Hartnett in crime thriller "I Come with the Rain," directed by Vietnamese Tran Anh Hung who made his name on the global movie scene in 1993 with "The Scent of Green Papaya."
Lee has also wrapped up filming on the highly anticipated Hollywood action flick, "G.I. Joe:
Lee is in London to promote "The Good, the Bad, the Weird," and is polite and unassuming in person, taking time to reflect as he delivers his responses in English.
You look so bad,'" Lee says of playing the film's titular "Bad," a sadistic killer who heads up a gang of bandits.
"I was so happy about that." From his black leather-clad hands to his wild, psychotic eyes, an air of cool, remorseless detachment envelops him.
In a review, Variety described Lee's eyes as "commanding" and having a "Korean psycho-gangster mentality."
It is an unsettling performance, and one of the film's many highlights.
After playing primarily romantic leads, Lee says playing a villain was a refreshing experience for him and something he'd been thinking about for his entire acting career.
"Actors always want to play the villain role at least once in their life. I had a good time because I could finally realize a full range of expressions and emotions," he told CNN.
Set in the 1930s, the film follows three Korean outlaws on a chase across the desert plains of Japan-occupied Manchuria on a hunt for a legendary treasure map.
Working in Hollywood was difficult, especially acting in English which, says Lee, made it harder for him to focus on his emotions and expressions.
Lee plays Storm Shadow in the action movie "G.I. Joe," which is due for release next summer.
The movie, based on the popular comic and cartoon series, boasts a star-studded cast, including Sienna Miller and Dennis Quaid.
It was really hard," he said about filming "G.I. Joe." "But it was a very good experience for me."
He's now back in Korea working but isn't ruling out the possibility of returning to Hollywood.
He says he could envision going back and forth between South Korea and the U.S.
"Of course, if they have good projects for me then I would participate."
Korean idol Lee Byung-hun makes waves overseas
Lee Byung-hun's arrival in the packed auditorium at a London screening of his latest film, "The Good, The Bad, The Weird," causes a well-behaved sizzle of excitement to run through the largely female and Asian audience.
His name is whispered breathlessly between friends, but in a classic display of Asian politeness, the only indication there is a genuine heartthrob in the room are a couple of poorly contained shrieks.
Tall, exquisitely chiseled and with the kind of smooth line-free skin that belies his 38 years, it's not hard to see why Lee is also known as the "James Dean of Asia."
In his native South Korea he is best known for brooding, soulful performances in romantic films and TV dramas.
And, now, he is starting to make a name for himself outside Korea and Japan.
Lee is set to grace UK screens in January when Kim Jee-woon's so-called Kimchi western, "The Good, the Bad, the Weird," is released.
Next year will see him in co-star with Josh Hartnett in crime thriller "I Come with the Rain," directed by Vietnamese Tran Anh Hung who made his name on the global movie scene in 1993 with "The Scent of Green Papaya."
Lee has also wrapped up filming on the highly anticipated Hollywood action flick, "G.I. Joe:
Lee is in London to promote "The Good, the Bad, the Weird," and is polite and unassuming in person, taking time to reflect as he delivers his responses in English.
You look so bad,'" Lee says of playing the film's titular "Bad," a sadistic killer who heads up a gang of bandits.
"I was so happy about that." From his black leather-clad hands to his wild, psychotic eyes, an air of cool, remorseless detachment envelops him.
In a review, Variety described Lee's eyes as "commanding" and having a "Korean psycho-gangster mentality."
It is an unsettling performance, and one of the film's many highlights.
After playing primarily romantic leads, Lee says playing a villain was a refreshing experience for him and something he'd been thinking about for his entire acting career.
"Actors always want to play the villain role at least once in their life. I had a good time because I could finally realize a full range of expressions and emotions," he told CNN.
Set in the 1930s, the film follows three Korean outlaws on a chase across the desert plains of Japan-occupied Manchuria on a hunt for a legendary treasure map.
Working in Hollywood was difficult, especially acting in English which, says Lee, made it harder for him to focus on his emotions and expressions.
Lee plays Storm Shadow in the action movie "G.I. Joe," which is due for release next summer.
The movie, based on the popular comic and cartoon series, boasts a star-studded cast, including Sienna Miller and Dennis Quaid.
It was really hard," he said about filming "G.I. Joe." "But it was a very good experience for me."
He's now back in Korea working but isn't ruling out the possibility of returning to Hollywood.
He says he could envision going back and forth between South Korea and the U.S.
"Of course, if they have good projects for me then I would participate."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
how the children have grown, how relatives have aged.
Some will encounter elderly relatives who have Alzheimer's disease, a condition that affects 4.5 million Americans.
For many, it's an awkward trip where they don't know what to do or say.
Facing the changes that accompany the disease can be devastating.
As the disease progresses, the essence of a person
Unusual behaviors arise, moods inexplicably vacillate from anger to paranoia, and lapses in people's memories become more apparent.
This can cause a person to forget his or her children.
It's a prospect Karen McKeever, whose mother has Alzheimer's disease, dreads.
"I don't even want to think about that," she said. "I know it's coming....
There are things I don't want to recognize or face." Experts say it's normal to feel sad, abandoned or even angry when a person with Alzheimer's forgets memories and loved ones.
Talk about your feelings and keep in mind it's not personal, but the effects of the disease, said Beth Kallmyer, licensed clinical social worker.
Thanksgiving is also an opportunity to look for symptoms among older relatives.
While there is no cure for Alzheimer's, early detection can improve the quality of life for people affected.
Clues include odd or unusual behavior or details of a family tradition that's suddenly absent. About two years ago, McKeever and her four siblings realized their mother, Anne Goins, was repeating the same story to each of them, almost every 20 minutes.
On the advice of a friend, McKeever took her mother to a gerontologist.
The diagnosis was the early stages of Alzheimer's disease.
Small clues, like mismatched buttons or a house being more of a mess than usual, may be an indication of memory problems, said Eric Hall, the president and CEO of Alzheimer's Foundation of America.
"There might be hesitancy and awkwardness or trying to cover up a lack of knowledge or things they've forgotten," he said.
it could be issues related to stress or vitamin deficiency, he said.
how the children have grown, how relatives have aged.
Some will encounter elderly relatives who have Alzheimer's disease, a condition that affects 4.5 million Americans.
For many, it's an awkward trip where they don't know what to do or say.
Facing the changes that accompany the disease can be devastating.
As the disease progresses, the essence of a person
Unusual behaviors arise, moods inexplicably vacillate from anger to paranoia, and lapses in people's memories become more apparent.
This can cause a person to forget his or her children.
It's a prospect Karen McKeever, whose mother has Alzheimer's disease, dreads.
"I don't even want to think about that," she said. "I know it's coming....
There are things I don't want to recognize or face." Experts say it's normal to feel sad, abandoned or even angry when a person with Alzheimer's forgets memories and loved ones.
Talk about your feelings and keep in mind it's not personal, but the effects of the disease, said Beth Kallmyer, licensed clinical social worker.
Thanksgiving is also an opportunity to look for symptoms among older relatives.
While there is no cure for Alzheimer's, early detection can improve the quality of life for people affected.
Clues include odd or unusual behavior or details of a family tradition that's suddenly absent. About two years ago, McKeever and her four siblings realized their mother, Anne Goins, was repeating the same story to each of them, almost every 20 minutes.
On the advice of a friend, McKeever took her mother to a gerontologist.
The diagnosis was the early stages of Alzheimer's disease.
Small clues, like mismatched buttons or a house being more of a mess than usual, may be an indication of memory problems, said Eric Hall, the president and CEO of Alzheimer's Foundation of America.
"There might be hesitancy and awkwardness or trying to cover up a lack of knowledge or things they've forgotten," he said.
"People will spend an enormous amount of energy trying to cover up.
You can pick that up in their uneasiness and their language."
Keep in mind that memory loss is not always Alzheimer's disease
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Life imitates art as `Truman syndrome` diagnosed
One man showed up at a federal building, asking for release from the reality show he was sure was being made of his life.
Another was convinced his every move was secretly being filmed for a TV contest. A third believed everything
the news, his psychiatrists, the drugs they prescribed was part of a phony, stage-set world with him as the involuntary star, like the 1998 movie "The Truman Show."
Researchers have begun documenting what they dub the "Truman syndrome," a delusion afflicting people who are convinced that their lives are being played out on a reality TV show.
Scientists say the disorder underscores the influence pop culture can have on mental conditions.
"The question is really:
Is this just a new twist on an old paranoid or grandiose delusion ... or is there sort of a perfect storm of the culture we're in, in which fame holds such high value?" said Dr. Joel Gold, a psychiatrist affiliated with New York's Bellevue Hospital.
Within a two-year period, Gold said he encountered five patients with delusions related to reality TV.
Several of them specifically mentioned "The Truman Show."
Gold and his brother, a psychologist, started presenting their observations at medical schools in 2006.
After word spread beyond medical circles this summer, they learned of about 50 more people with similar symptoms.
The brothers are now working on a scholarly paper.
Meanwhile, researchers in London described a "Truman syndrome" patient in the British Journal of Psychiatry in August.
Life imitates art as `Truman syndrome` diagnosed
One man showed up at a federal building, asking for release from the reality show he was sure was being made of his life.
Another was convinced his every move was secretly being filmed for a TV contest. A third believed everything
the news, his psychiatrists, the drugs they prescribed was part of a phony, stage-set world with him as the involuntary star, like the 1998 movie "The Truman Show."
Researchers have begun documenting what they dub the "Truman syndrome," a delusion afflicting people who are convinced that their lives are being played out on a reality TV show.
Scientists say the disorder underscores the influence pop culture can have on mental conditions.
"The question is really:
Is this just a new twist on an old paranoid or grandiose delusion ... or is there sort of a perfect storm of the culture we're in, in which fame holds such high value?" said Dr. Joel Gold, a psychiatrist affiliated with New York's Bellevue Hospital.
Within a two-year period, Gold said he encountered five patients with delusions related to reality TV.
Several of them specifically mentioned "The Truman Show."
Gold and his brother, a psychologist, started presenting their observations at medical schools in 2006.
After word spread beyond medical circles this summer, they learned of about 50 more people with similar symptoms.
The brothers are now working on a scholarly paper.
Meanwhile, researchers in London described a "Truman syndrome" patient in the British Journal of Psychiatry in August.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Obama to roll out national security team Monday
The Obama transition team announced Sunday that Obama will unveil the full team at a press conference in Chicago, Illinois, around 10:40 a.m. ET.
CNN and CNN.com will carry the event live.
The officials said Obama is also expected to finally confirm that he is keeping Defense Secretary Robert Gates in his current post.
Obama plans to name retired Marine Gen. Jim Jones as his national security adviser at the White House, the officials said.
Obama to roll out national security team Monday
The Obama transition team announced Sunday that Obama will unveil the full team at a press conference in Chicago, Illinois, around 10:40 a.m. ET.
CNN and CNN.com will carry the event live.
The officials said Obama is also expected to finally confirm that he is keeping Defense Secretary Robert Gates in his current post.
Obama plans to name retired Marine Gen. Jim Jones as his national security adviser at the White House, the officials said.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
The Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai, India, had been warned about the possibility of a terrorist attack before a 60-hour rampage began Wednesday, leaving at least 183 people dead, the chairman of the company that owns the hotel said Saturday.
The hotel heightened security as a result, the chairman of the Tata Group and Taj Hotels, Ratan Tata, said in an interview with CNN's Fareed Zakaria.
There were indications, though, that the hotel relaxed the security before the attack.
"It's ironic that we did have such a warning and we did have some measures," Tata said.
"People couldn't park their cars in the portico where you had to go through a metal detector," he said, explaining one of the measures. "But if I look at what we had which all of us complained about
it could not have stopped what took place. They didn't come through that entrance," he said, referring to the entrance that had a metal detector.
He did not identify which entrance had the security device.
"They came from somewhere in the back. They planned everything," he said of the attackers.
They went through the kitchen, they knew what they were doing."
He did not elaborate on the hotel's warning or when the security measures were enacted.
The Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai, India, had been warned about the possibility of a terrorist attack before a 60-hour rampage began Wednesday, leaving at least 183 people dead, the chairman of the company that owns the hotel said Saturday.
The hotel heightened security as a result, the chairman of the Tata Group and Taj Hotels, Ratan Tata, said in an interview with CNN's Fareed Zakaria.
There were indications, though, that the hotel relaxed the security before the attack.
"It's ironic that we did have such a warning and we did have some measures," Tata said.
"People couldn't park their cars in the portico where you had to go through a metal detector," he said, explaining one of the measures.
"But if I look at what we had
it could not have stopped what took place.
They didn't come through that entrance," he said, referring to the entrance that had a metal detector.
He did not identify which entrance had the security device.
"They came from somewhere in the back.
They planned everything," he said of the attackers.
"I believe the first thing they did, they shot a sniffer dog and his handler.
They went through the kitchen, they knew what they were doing."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
A group of 150 whales that became stranded on a remote coastline in southern Australia were battered to death on rocks before rescuers could save them.
Officials from Tasmania state's Parks and Wildlife Service rushed Sunday in four-wheel-drive vehicles to the remote site at Sandy Cape after the long-finned pilot whales were spotted by air a day earlier.
A helicopter crew that arrived late Saturday found about a dozen of the whales injured but alive, said Warwick Brennan, a spokesman for the service.
Other officials and volunteers arrived by four-wheel-drive vehicle on Sunday and worked frantically to save those remaining, but they died, Brennan said.
The coastline is strewn with reefs and jagged rocks, making it much more dangerous for the stranded whales than if they had landed at a sandy beach, said Rosemary Gales, another wildlife service official.
"Because of the physical beating they take from stranding on rocks and surf, compared to sandy beach strandings, animals die more quickly," said Gales.
Officials in small boats steered about 30 whales that were part of the same pod as those stranded away from the bay where they went ashore.
They were apparently responding to cries of distress from an injured whale and were in danger of becoming stuck too, Brennan said.
The operation comes one week after rescuers saved 11 pilot whales among more than 60 stranded on a beach in northwestern Tasmania, which is an island.
Strandings are not uncommon in Tasmania, where the whales pass by on their migration to and from Antarctic waters.
It is not known why whales get stranded.
A group of 150 whales that became stranded on a remote coastline in southern Australia were battered to death on rocks before rescuers could save them.
Officials from Tasmania state's Parks and Wildlife Service rushed Sunday in four-wheel-drive vehicles to the remote site at Sandy Cape after the long-finned pilot whales were spotted by air a day earlier.
A helicopter crew that arrived late Saturday found about a dozen of the whales injured but alive, said Warwick Brennan, a spokesman for the service.
Other officials and volunteers arrived by four-wheel-drive vehicle on Sunday and worked frantically to save those remaining, but they died, Brennan said.
The coastline is strewn with reefs and jagged rocks, making it much more dangerous for the stranded whales than if they had landed at a sandy beach, said Rosemary Gales, another wildlife service official.
"Because of the physical beating they take from stranding on rocks and surf, compared to sandy beach strandings, animals die more quickly," said Gales.
Officials in small boats steered about 30 whales that were part of the same pod as those stranded away from the bay where they went ashore.
They were apparently responding to cries of distress from an injured whale and were in danger of becoming stuck too, Brennan said.
The operation comes one week after rescuers saved 11 pilot whales among more than 60 stranded on a beach in northwestern Tasmania, which is an island.
Strandings are not uncommon in Tasmania, where the whales pass by on their migration to and from Antarctic waters.
It is not known why whales get stranded.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
A star-studded concert meant to highlight the global environmental crisis has been canceled following the coordinated series of deadly attacks in Mumbai.
Bon Jovi, Roger Waters and Black Eyed Peas' will.i.am were among the acts expected to take part in Live Earth India, scheduled for December 7 at a stadium in Mumbai.
But the show's organizers said the show is being canceled "due to circumstances far beyond our control."
"Everyone involved with Live Earth India ... is stunned and saddened by the tragic events of the past few days in our host city Mumbai," the organizers said in a statement.
"We always felt very welcomed and safe as we spent more time on the ground in Mumbai to finalize plans."
The organizers will begin issuing refunds next week.
Former U.S. vice president and Nobel laureate Al Gore co-founded Live Earth, whose goal is to promote change to help the environment through entertainment.
In July 2007, the group organized simultaneous concerts on all seven continents with more than 150 musical acts taking part, including a reunited Pink Floyd.
A star-studded concert meant to highlight the global environmental crisis has been canceled following the coordinated series of deadly attacks in Mumbai.
Bon Jovi, Roger Waters and Black Eyed Peas' will.i.am were among the acts expected to take part in Live Earth India, scheduled for December 7 at a stadium in Mumbai.
But the show's organizers said the show is being canceled "due to circumstances far beyond our control."
"Everyone involved with Live Earth India ... is stunned and saddened by the tragic events of the past few days in our host city Mumbai," the organizers said in a statement.
"We always felt very welcomed and safe as we spent more time on the ground in Mumbai to finalize plans."
The organizers will begin issuing refunds next week.
Former U.S. vice president and Nobel laureate Al Gore co-founded Live Earth, whose goal is to promote change to help the environment through entertainment.
In July 2007, the group organized simultaneous concerts on all seven continents with more than 150 musical acts taking part, including a reunited Pink Floyd.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Space shuttle Endeavour landed safely Sunday afternoon at California's Edwards Air Force Base after NASA waved off two opportunities for a Florida landing because of poor weather.
The shuttle, steered by commander Christopher Ferguson, landed at 1:25 p.m., ending a mission that lasted more than two weeks.
Wind, rain and reports of thunderstorms within 30 miles of the shuttle landing facility at Florida's Kennedy Space Center prompted NASA to cancel the landing attempts there.
After determining Monday's weather forecast at Kennedy Space Center was equally unpromising, flight controllers decided they would try to land the shuttle and its seven astronauts at Edwards AFB, about 100 miles from Los Angeles, California, where Sunday's forecast was sunny.
Flight controllers prefer landings at Kennedy Space Center because of cost and schedule.
Space shuttle Endeavour landed safely Sunday afternoon at California's Edwards Air Force Base after NASA waved off two opportunities for a Florida landing because of poor weather.
The shuttle, steered by commander Christopher Ferguson, landed at 1:25 p.m., ending a mission that lasted more than two weeks.
Wind, rain and reports of thunderstorms within 30 miles of the shuttle landing facility at Florida's Kennedy Space Center prompted NASA to cancel the landing attempts there.
After determining Monday's weather forecast at Kennedy Space Center was equally unpromising, flight controllers decided they would try to land the shuttle and its seven astronauts at Edwards AFB, about 100 miles from Los Angeles, California, where Sunday's forecast was sunny.
Flight controllers prefer landings at Kennedy Space Center because of cost and schedule.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Maier turns back the clock to win super-G
Skiing great Hermann Maier won his first World Cup race in almost three years as he claimed the super-G at Lake Louise in Canada on Sunday.
Austrian Maier turned back the years to clock a time of one minute 29.84 seconds, winning by a comfortable margin from John Kucera of Canada.
Reigning World Cup downhill champion Didier Cuche of Switzerland finished third, bouncing back after a disappointing 32nd place in Saturday's downhill.
But the headlines will be reserved for the veteran Maier, who has battled injuries in recent seasons and appeared past his superb best.
It was his 54th career World Cup win, the previous coming in January 2006.
Maier, who started from the 10th position, had been nursing a back injury during training in the Canadian Rockies, having suffered a lower disc injury in early September.
Home hope Kucera, 24, was searching for his second super-G win in Lake Louise in three years, but finished over half a second behind Maier.
Defending overall champion Bode Miller, who finished 16th in Saturday's downhill, lost a ski before the halfway mark and did not finish.
"This is special," Maier, who is 36 next Sunday, told Associated Press.
"In the spring I thought I would retire.
Now I am happy I didn't stop.
Maier turns back the clock to win super-G
Skiing great Hermann Maier won his first World Cup race in almost three years as he claimed the super-G at Lake Louise in Canada on Sunday.
Austrian Maier turned back the years to clock a time of one minute 29.84 seconds, winning by a comfortable margin from John Kucera of Canada.
Reigning World Cup downhill champion Didier Cuche of Switzerland finished third, bouncing back after a disappointing 32nd place in Saturday's downhill.
But the headlines will be reserved for the veteran Maier, who has battled injuries in recent seasons and appeared past his superb best.
It was his 54th career World Cup win, the previous coming in January 2006.
Maier, who started from the 10th position, had been nursing a back injury during training in the Canadian Rockies, having suffered a lower disc injury in early September.
Home hope Kucera, 24, was searching for his second super-G win in Lake Louise in three years, but finished over half a second behind Maier.
Defending overall champion Bode Miller, who finished 16th in Saturday's downhill, lost a ski before the halfway mark and did not finish.
"This is special," Maier, who is 36 next Sunday, told Associated Press.
"In the spring I thought I would retire.
Now I am happy I didn't stop.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
The major Asian markets were mixed in afternoon trading Monday, with Tokyo moving lower while Hong Kong was on the upswing.
Japan's Nikkei 225 was down about 1 percent, as was Australia's All Ordinaries index. But the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong had gained about 2 percent.
In South Korea, Seoul's Kospi index was about 1.6 percent higher, while the Straits Times index in Singapore was down about 0.8 percent.
And in Mumbai, the BSE was up more than 1.7 percent Monday, two days after the end of a terrorist siege in India's financial capital that left more than 180 dead.
The major Asian markets were mixed in afternoon trading Monday, with Tokyo moving lower while Hong Kong was on the upswing.
Japan's Nikkei 225 was down about 1 percent, as was Australia's All Ordinaries index.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Obama rolls out national security team
President-elect Barack Obama on Monday announced Sen. Hillary Clinton as his pick for secretary of state, calling her an "American of tremendous stature who will have my complete confidence."
"Hillary's appointment is a sign to friend and foe of the seriousness of my commitment to renew American diplomacy and restore our alliances," Obama said at a news conference in Chicago, Illinois.
"I have no doubt that Hillary Clinton is the right person to lead our State Department and to work with me in tackling this ambitious foreign policy agenda."
Obama also confirmed that he is keeping Defense Secretary Robert Gates in his current post.
Rounding out his Monday announcements, Obama named retired Marine Gen. Jim Jones as his national security adviser, Eric Holder as attorney general, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano as homeland security secretary and Susan Rice as ambassador to the United Nations.
"I am confident that this team is what we need to make a new beginning for American national security," Obama said.
Clinton said leaving the Senate would be difficult for her, but said she believes that the best way for her to continue to serve the country is by joining Obama's administration.
Obama rolls out national security team
President-elect Barack Obama on Monday announced Sen. Hillary Clinton as his pick for secretary of state, calling her an "American of tremendous stature who will have my complete confidence."
"Hillary's appointment is a sign to friend and foe of the seriousness of my commitment to renew American diplomacy and restore our alliances," Obama said at a news conference in Chicago, Illinois.
"I have no doubt that Hillary Clinton is the right person to lead our State Department and to work with me in tackling this ambitious foreign policy agenda."
Obama also confirmed that he is keeping Defense Secretary Robert Gates in his current post.
Rounding out his Monday announcements, Obama named retired Marine Gen. Jim Jones as his national security adviser, Eric Holder as attorney general, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano as homeland security secretary and Susan Rice as ambassador to the United Nations.
"I am confident that this team is what we need to make a new beginning for American national security," Obama said.
Clinton said leaving the Senate would be difficult for her, but said she believes that the best way for her to continue to serve the country is by joining Obama's administration.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Parts of Venice neck deep in flood water
Venice has suffered its worst flooding in 22 years, leaving some parts of the historic Italian city neck-deep in water, reports said Monday.
Water burst the banks of the coastal city's famed canals, leaving the landmark Piazza San Marco under almost a meter of water at one point, news agency ANSA reported.
Strong winds pushed waters to a high of 1.56 meters (5 feet 2 inches) at 10:45 a.m. local time, prompting the city government to issue warnings to the public, the agency said.
The flood level began to drop soon afterwards, prompted by a change in the direction of the wind.
Previous highs include 1.58 meters in 1986 and 1.66 meters in 1979, the news agency said.
Photographs showed people wading through inundated piazzas and waves lapping over waterside cafe tables.
Venice, built around a network of canals and small islands, has for years been trying to tackle the problem of floods that have regularly blighted the city.
In 2007, the United Nations cultural organization UNESCO warned Venice a designated World Heritage Site
Parts of Venice neck deep in flood water
Venice has suffered its worst flooding in 22 years, leaving some parts of the historic Italian city neck-deep in water, reports said Monday.
Water burst the banks of the coastal city's famed canals, leaving the landmark Piazza San Marco under almost a meter of water at one point, news agency ANSA reported.
Strong winds pushed waters to a high of 1.56 meters (5 feet 2 inches) at 10:45 a.m. local time, prompting the city government to issue warnings to the public, the agency said.
The flood level began to drop soon afterwards, prompted by a change in the direction of the wind.
Previous highs include 1.58 meters in 1986 and 1.66 meters in 1979, the news agency said.
Photographs showed people wading through inundated piazzas and waves lapping over waterside cafe tables.
Venice, built around a network of canals and small islands, has for years been trying to tackle the problem of floods that have regularly blighted the city.
In 2007, the United Nations cultural organization UNESCO warned Venice a designated World Heritage Site
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
De Niro lampoons Hollywood in new comedy
If you were looking for someone to write a pithy satire dishing the dirt on the highs and lows of Hollywood, then A-list producer Art Linson would be a pretty good bet.
He's got 25 years working with Tinseltown's finest under his belt, and his film credits include "Into The Wild" and "Fight Club."
Now he's turned his hand to writing.
First, a memoir detailing his experiences as a Hollywood producer, "Bitter Hollywood Tales From the Front Line."
And lately, adapting the book into a screenplay for the film, "What Just Happened," starring another Hollywood veteran, Robert De Niro.
The film, which is directed by Barry Levinson, tells the story of two weeks in the life of a nail-biting middle-aged Hollywood producer who is desperately trying to balance a set of outrageous crises in his day job with an equally complicated private life.
The film also features celebrity guest stars like Sean Penn and Bruce Willis mercilessly sending themselves up
De Niro lampoons Hollywood in new comedy
If you were looking for someone to write a pithy satire dishing the dirt on the highs and lows of Hollywood, then A-list producer Art Linson would be a pretty good bet.
He's got 25 years working with Tinseltown's finest under his belt, and his film credits include "Into The Wild" and "Fight Club."
Now he's turned his hand to writing.
First, a memoir detailing his experiences as a Hollywood producer, "Bitter Hollywood Tales From the Front Line."
And lately, adapting the book into a screenplay for the film, "What Just Happened," starring another Hollywood veteran, Robert De Niro.
The film, which is directed by Barry Levinson, tells the story of two weeks in the life of a nail-biting middle-aged Hollywood producer who is desperately trying to balance a set of outrageous crises in his day job with an equally complicated private life.
The film also features celebrity guest stars like Sean Penn and Bruce Willis mercilessly sending themselves up
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Texts used to tackle South Africa HIV crisis
One million free text messages will be sent every day for 12 months from Monday in South Africa in a bid to raise HIV awareness and encourage testing for the disease.
The ambitious Project Masiluleke is being rolled out across the country after a pilot period that saw calls to a AIDS national helpline shoot up by 200 percent, organizers say.
The United Nations estimates that there are currently six million people living with HIV in South Africa and just one in 10 of them get the treatment they need.
"South Africa is the epicenter of the global HIV epidemic," said HIV activist Zinny Thabethe at a conference to launch the project in October.
Project Masiluleke was set up to try to encourage people to seek testing and treatment in a country where cell phones are abundant.
Africa is cited as the fastest growing mobile-phone network in the world.
In South Africa, more than 80 percent of the population has one
the country has a population of 49 million, and it is estimated that 43 million have cell phones.
Almost 95 percent of the phones are prepaid.
The initiative plans to broadcast millions of health messages every month to phones across South Africa.
"This is the largest ever use of cell phones for health information," said Gustav Praekelt, one of the project's originators.
"There is near universal coverage," said Praekelt during the launch of the project. "And in the absence of other services, the mobile phone has become the central component for people to get access to information."
The system sends the messages using a so-called "Please Call Me" (PCM) service.
This free form of text messaging, common across Africa, allows someone without any phone credit to send a text to a friend asking them to call.
Each sent PCM message has the words "Please Call Me," the phone number of the caller, and space for an additional 120 characters.
The extra space is normally filled with advertising, which helps offset the cost of running the service.
Encouraging people to get tested is a huge challenge in a country where people with the AIDS virus still face stigma and shame.
Organizers say 'Project Masiluleke' will offer South Africans the privacy to get tested and pursue treatment options and counseling by staff who are HIV positive themselves.
"Frequently sick, tired, losing weight and scared that you might be HIV positive? Please call AIDS Helpline 0800012322."
Many of the messages are broadcast in English and in local languages such as Zulu.
Texts used to tackle South Africa HIV crisis
One million free text messages will be sent every day for 12 months from Monday in South Africa in a bid to raise HIV awareness and encourage testing for the disease.
The ambitious Project Masiluleke is being rolled out across the country after a pilot period that saw calls to a AIDS national helpline shoot up by 200 percent, organizers say.
The United Nations estimates that there are currently six million people living with HIV in South Africa and just one in 10 of them get the treatment they need.
"South Africa is the epicenter of the global HIV epidemic," said HIV activist Zinny Thabethe at a conference to launch the project in October.
Project Masiluleke was set up to try to encourage people to seek testing and treatment in a country where cell phones are abundant.
Africa is cited as the fastest growing mobile-phone network in the world.
In South Africa, more than 80 percent of the population has one
the country has a population of 49 million, and it is estimated that 43 million have cell phones.
Almost 95 percent of the phones are prepaid.
The initiative plans to broadcast millions of health messages every month to phones across South Africa.
"This is the largest ever use of cell phones for health information," said Gustav Praekelt, one of the project's originators.
"There is near universal coverage," said Praekelt during the launch of the project. "And in the absence of other services, the mobile phone has become the central component for people to get access to information."
The system sends the messages using a so-called "Please Call Me" (PCM) service.
This free form of text messaging, common across Africa, allows someone without any phone credit to send a text to a friend asking them to call.
Each sent PCM message has the words "Please Call Me," the phone number of the caller, and space for an additional 120 characters.
The extra space is normally filled with advertising, which helps offset the cost of running the service.
Encouraging people to get tested is a huge challenge in a country where people with the AIDS virus still face stigma and shame.
Organizers say 'Project Masiluleke' will offer South Africans the privacy to get tested and pursue treatment options and counseling by staff who are HIV positive themselves.
"Frequently sick, tired, losing weight and scared that you might be HIV positive? Please call AIDS Helpline 0800012322."
Many of the messages are broadcast in English and in local languages such as Zulu.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Somewhere in South America right now a head-banger is getting very excited.
Veteran hell-raisers Iron Maiden have announced five new tour dates in Brazil, within months of playing to capacity crowds in some of country's biggest music venues.
Last March, they packed the 40,000 capacity Palmeiras Stadium in Sao Paulo.
Next March, they'll be following in the formidable footsteps of Formula One World Champion Lewis Hamilton, rock band Kiss and the Pope, no less, to wow the crowds at the Autodromo de Interlagos.
The race track is one venue they don't expect to sell out.
I don't think we'll get 400,000," Iron Maiden's manager Rod Smallwood told CNN, "We're set for about 60,000 and we hope to go past that."
The band has every reason to be confident of strong ticket sales in South America where fan loyalty verges on fanaticism.
Somewhere in South America right now a head-banger is getting very excited.
Veteran hell-raisers Iron Maiden have announced five new tour dates in Brazil, within months of playing to capacity crowds in some of country's biggest music venues.
Last March, they packed the 40,000 capacity Palmeiras Stadium in Sao Paulo.
Next March, they'll be following in the formidable footsteps of Formula One World Champion Lewis Hamilton, rock band Kiss and the Pope, no less, to wow the crowds at the Autodromo de Interlagos.
The race track is one venue they don't expect to sell out.
I don't think we'll get 400,000," Iron Maiden's manager Rod Smallwood told CNN, "We're set for about 60,000 and we hope to go past that."
The band has every reason to be confident of strong ticket sales in South America where fan loyalty verges on fanaticism.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday declared a fiscal emergency, calling for fast legislative action to alleviate the state's $11.2 billion shortfall in revenue.
"Without immediate action our state is headed for a fiscal disaster and that is why with more than two dozen new legislators sworn in today - I am wasting no time in calling a fiscal emergency special session," Schwarzenegger said in a news release.
Under the state's Proposition 58, lawmakers will have 45 days to pass measures on resolving the fiscal crisis, and if at the end of that time they have not, the legislature will not be allowed to adjourn or act on other bills until they do, according to the governor's office.
Schwarzenegger's announcement comes on the heels of another special session he called in August to deal with the budget shortfall.
That session ended Tuesday without a resolution.
Fiscal measures require a two-thirds vote for approval.
California's Democrats, a majority in the statehouse, are at an impasse with Schwarzenegger's fellow Republicans on spending cuts and tax hikes - leaving room for partisan fingerpointing.
"California saw Democrats take courageous votes to cut services we care about. The Republicans had a chance to also show some courage and support moderate new revenues and they simply turned their backs," said state Assembly Speaker Karen Bass on Tuesday, when both sides failed to reach a resolution in that special session.
State Senate Republican Leader Dave Cogdill blamed the Democrats for the stymie, saying Tuesday, "Governments across the nation are grappling with deficits but only Democrats in the California State Legislature are pushing to raise taxes instead of helping the economy get back on its feet."
The fiscal 2009 shortfall is projected to be $11.2 billion, the governor's office said.
The Legislative Analyst's Office shows the deficit reaching a staggering $28 billion by mid-2010.
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday declared a fiscal emergency, calling for fast legislative action to alleviate the state's $11.2 billion shortfall in revenue.
"Without immediate action our state is headed for a fiscal disaster and that is why with more than two dozen new legislators sworn in today - I am wasting no time in calling a fiscal emergency special session," Schwarzenegger said in a news release.
Under the state's Proposition 58, lawmakers will have 45 days to pass measures on resolving the fiscal crisis, and if at the end of that time they have not, the legislature will not be allowed to adjourn or act on other bills until they do, according to the governor's office.
Schwarzenegger's announcement comes on the heels of another special session he called in August to deal with the budget shortfall.
That session ended Tuesday without a resolution.
Fiscal measures require a two-thirds vote for approval.
California's Democrats, a majority in the statehouse, are at an impasse with Schwarzenegger's fellow Republicans on spending cuts and tax hikes - leaving room for partisan fingerpointing.
"California saw Democrats take courageous votes to cut services we care about. The Republicans had a chance to also show some courage and support moderate new revenues and they simply turned their backs," said state Assembly Speaker Karen Bass on Tuesday, when both sides failed to reach a resolution in that special session.
State Senate Republican Leader Dave Cogdill blamed the Democrats for the stymie, saying Tuesday, "Governments across the nation are grappling with deficits but only Democrats in the California State Legislature are pushing to raise taxes instead of helping the economy get back on its feet."
The fiscal 2009 shortfall is projected to be $11.2 billion, the governor's office said.
The Legislative Analyst's Office shows the deficit reaching a staggering $28 billion by mid-2010.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Device could help disabled at home
It took Norma Margeson a few minutes to learn to control the skinny metal robot.
It has a personality all its own.
It can be a friend, a very good friend."
Margeson, an artist from Marietta, Georgia, is learning how a health care robot dubbed El-E (pronounced "Ellie") can help her accomplish some simple household tasks.
El-E is being tested by Margeson and other patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. "We named it El-E because she reminds us of an elephant.
She has this one arm that is sort of gray that can lift objects and move up and down," said Professor Charles Kemp, director of the Center for Healthcare Robotics at Georgia Tech in Atlanta.
Right now Kemp and his colleagues are focusing on programming El-E to locate and fetch common household items such as a hairbrush, a bottle of pills, a cell phone or a TV remote.
Device could help disabled at home
It has a personality all its own.
It can be a friend, a very good friend."
Margeson, an artist from Marietta, Georgia, is learning how a health care robot dubbed El-E (pronounced "Ellie") can help her accomplish some simple household tasks.
El-E is being tested by Margeson and other patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. "We named it El-E because she reminds us of an elephant.
She has this one arm that is sort of gray that can lift objects and move up and down," said Professor Charles Kemp, director of the Center for Healthcare Robotics at Georgia Tech in Atlanta.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Real reportedly set to sign $25M Huntelaar
Spanish media reported Monday that Real Madrid have reached an agreement to sign striker Klaas-Jan Huntelaar from Ajax during the January transfer window.
Sports daily Marca said Madrid were set to sign their sixth Dutch international despite Huntelaar still recovering from a torn left ankle ligament that looks to have ended his season.
The 25-year-old Huntelaar is Ajax's captain and under contract until 2010 with the Amsterdam club.
Dutch reports put the transfer fee at euro20 million ($25 million).
Van Nistelrooy, the club's leading striker, is out for the remainder of the season after undergoing knee surgery last month.
Huntelaar, who has 10 goals in 18 internationals and 75 in 90 league games, has long been linked with the two-time defending champions.
Real reportedly set to sign $25M Huntelaar
Spanish media reported Monday that Real Madrid have reached an agreement to sign striker Klaas-Jan Huntelaar from Ajax during the January transfer window.
Sports daily Marca said Madrid were set to sign their sixth Dutch international despite Huntelaar still recovering from a torn left ankle ligament that looks to have ended his season.
The 25-year-old Huntelaar is Ajax's captain and under contract until 2010 with the Amsterdam club.
Dutch reports put the transfer fee at euro20 million ($25 million).
Van Nistelrooy, the club's leading striker, is out for the remainder of the season after undergoing knee surgery last month.
Huntelaar, who has 10 goals in 18 internationals and 75 in 90 league games, has long been linked with the two-time defending champions.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Thai protesters to end siege as PM ousted
Demonstrators said they would end their siege at Bangkok's major airport after Thailand's top court banned the prime minister from public office for five years and dissolved his ruling party after finding it committed electoral fraud.
The decision, which effectively dissolves Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat's government, follows months of opposition protests in Bangkok that have driven government officials from their offices and shut down the city's major airport for a week.
The Consitutional Court also banned at least one of the People Power Party's ruling coalition partners, effectively dismantling the government over allegations of vote-rigging.
Protesters said the siege of the airport would end on Wednesday morning.
Passenger flights remained grounded, but cargo, military and emergency flights had resumed by Tuesday afternoon at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi international airport, spokeswoman Monrudee Kettuphan said.
Members of the anti-government People's Alliance for Democracy, occupying Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi international airport, cheered and hugged on hearing the news.
My friends are very happy," Pailin Jampapong, a 41-year-old Bangkok housekeeper, told The Associated Press as she jumped up and down.
Meanwhile, hundreds of Somchai's supporters staged an angry counter-protest outside the court following the decision.
Jakrapob Penkair, a Somchai ally and former government official, told CNN a deputy prime minister from one of the remaining coalition parties would take over from Somchai until the parliament could approve a new government.
"The PPP is a responsible party," he said. "Our government and the people have been concerned with the country before ourselves."
Demonstrators have occupied Thailand's Government House since August, forcing lawmakers to meet elsewhere.
Thai protesters to end siege as PM ousted
Demonstrators said they would end their siege at Bangkok's major airport after Thailand's top court banned the prime minister from public office for five years and dissolved his ruling party after finding it committed electoral fraud.
The decision, which effectively dissolves Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat's government, follows months of opposition protests in Bangkok that have driven government officials from their offices and shut down the city's major airport for a week.
The Consitutional Court also banned at least one of the People Power Party's ruling coalition partners, effectively dismantling the government over allegations of vote-rigging.
Protesters said the siege of the airport would end on Wednesday morning.
Passenger flights remained grounded, but cargo, military and emergency flights had resumed by Tuesday afternoon at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi international airport, spokeswoman Monrudee Kettuphan said.
Members of the anti-government People's Alliance for Democracy, occupying Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi international airport, cheered and hugged on hearing the news.
My friends are very happy," Pailin Jampapong, a 41-year-old Bangkok housekeeper, told The Associated Press as she jumped up and down.
Meanwhile, hundreds of Somchai's supporters staged an angry counter-protest outside the court following the decision.
Jakrapob Penkair, a Somchai ally and former government official, told CNN a deputy prime minister from one of the remaining coalition parties would take over from Somchai until the parliament could approve a new government.
"The PPP is a responsible party," he said. "Our government and the people have been concerned with the country before ourselves."
Demonstrators have occupied Thailand's Government House since August, forcing lawmakers to meet elsewhere.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Slaves helped build White House, U.S. Capitol
In January, President-elect Barack Obama and his family will make history, becoming the first African-American first family to move into the White House
a house with a history of slavery. In fact, the legacy of American presidents owning slaves goes all the way back to George Washington.
Twelve American presidents owned slaves and eight of them, starting with Washington, owned slaves while they lived in the White House.
Almost from the very start, slaves were a common sight in the executive mansion.
A list of construction workers building the White House in 1795 includes five slaves - named Tom, Peter, Ben, Harry and Daniel
all put to work as carpenters.
Other slaves worked as masons in the government quarries, cutting the stone for early government buildings, including the White House and U.S. Capitol.
According to records kept by the White House Historical Association, slaves often worked seven days a week even in the hot and humid Washington summers.
In 1800, John Adams was the first president to live in the White House, moving in before it was finished.
Adams was a staunch opponent of slavery, and kept no slaves.
Future presidents, however, didn't follow his lead.
Thomas Jefferson, who succeeded Adams, wrote that slavery was an "assemblage of horrors" and yet he brought his slaves with him.
Early presidents were expected to pay their household expenses themselves, and many who came from the so-called "slave states" simply brought their slaves with them.
Martin Van Buren, William Henry Harrison, Andrew Johnson and Ulysses S. Grant all owned slaves but not during their time in office.
James Madison, Jefferson's successor, held slaves all of his life including while he was in office.
During the war of 1812 Madison's slaves helped remove material from the White House shortly before the British burned the building.
In 1865 one of Madison's former slaves, Paul Jennings, wrote the first White House memoir:
"A Colored Man's Reminiscences of Life in the White House."
In the book, Jennings called Madison "one of the best men that ever lived" and said Madison "never would strike a slave, although he had over one hundred; neither would he allow an overseer to do it."
There were other presidents who treated their slaves less kindly.
James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, John Tyler, James K. Polk and Zachary Taylor all owned slaves while they were in office.
The last of these, President Taylor, said owning slaves was a Constitutional right and he said slave-owners like himself would "appeal to the sword if necessary" to keep them.
The Civil War, of course, put that opinion to the test.
Now, the Obamas are moving into the White House.
"The apple cart has been turned over here when you have the Obamas the first African-American couple now actually management and you are having in some cases white Americans serving them," says presidential historian Doug Brinkley.
Michelle Obama learned this year that one of her great-great grandfathers was a slave who worked on a rice plantation in South Carolina.
She says finding that part of her past uncovered both shame and pride and what she calls the tangled history of this country.
For many, the historic election on November 4 marked a new beginning.
Though Michelle Obama's ancestors had to come through the ordeal of slavery, "Her children are sleeping in the room of presidents," said Brinkley.
"It's a very great and hopeful sign."
Slaves helped build White House, U.S. Capitol
In January, President-elect Barack Obama and his family will make history, becoming the first African-American first family to move into the White House
a house with a history of slavery. In fact, the legacy of American presidents owning slaves goes all the way back to George Washington.
Twelve American presidents owned slaves and eight of them, starting with Washington, owned slaves while they lived in the White House.
Almost from the very start, slaves were a common sight in the executive mansion.
A list of construction workers building the White House in 1795 includes five slaves - named Tom, Peter, Ben, Harry and Daniel
all put to work as carpenters.
Other slaves worked as masons in the government quarries, cutting the stone for early government buildings, including the White House and U.S. Capitol.
According to records kept by the White House Historical Association, slaves often worked seven days a week even in the hot and humid Washington summers.
In 1800, John Adams was the first president to live in the White House, moving in before it was finished.
Adams was a staunch opponent of slavery, and kept no slaves.
Future presidents, however, didn't follow his lead.
Thomas Jefferson, who succeeded Adams, wrote that slavery was an "assemblage of horrors" and yet he brought his slaves with him.
Early presidents were expected to pay their household expenses themselves, and many who came from the so-called "slave states" simply brought their slaves with them.
Martin Van Buren, William Henry Harrison, Andrew Johnson and Ulysses S. Grant all owned slaves but not during their time in office.
James Madison, Jefferson's successor, held slaves all of his life including while he was in office.
During the war of 1812 Madison's slaves helped remove material from the White House shortly before the British burned the building.
In 1865 one of Madison's former slaves, Paul Jennings, wrote the first White House memoir:
"A Colored Man's Reminiscences of Life in the White House."
In the book, Jennings called Madison "one of the best men that ever lived" and said Madison "never would strike a slave, although he had over one hundred; neither would he allow an overseer to do it."
There were other presidents who treated their slaves less kindly.
James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, John Tyler, James K. Polk and Zachary Taylor all owned slaves while they were in office.
The last of these, President Taylor, said owning slaves was a Constitutional right and he said slave-owners like himself would "appeal to the sword if necessary" to keep them.
The Civil War, of course, put that opinion to the test.
Now, the Obamas are moving into the White House.
"The apple cart has been turned over here when you have the Obamas the first African-American couple now actually management and you are having in some cases white Americans serving them," says presidential historian Doug Brinkley.
Michelle Obama learned this year that one of her great-great grandfathers was a slave who worked on a rice plantation in South Carolina.
She says finding that part of her past uncovered both shame and pride and what she calls the tangled history of this country.
For many, the historic election on November 4 marked a new beginning.
"It's a very great and hopeful sign."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Guns N' Roses became Guns N' Roses N' Lawyers this week.
The band, which released its first album in 17 years last week, has found itself in a legal tussle with soft drink giant Dr Pepper over a promotion turned awry.
Dr Pepper rolled out a marketing campaign in March promising a "free soda" to "everyone in America" on one condition Axl Rose, lead singer and frontman for Guns N' Roses, had to "finally release his 17-year-in-the-making belabored masterpiece, 'Chinese Democracy,' in 2008."
Guns N' Roses, often called GN'R by its fans, released the album last week.
And Dr Pepper followed through, posting a coupon on its Web site for a can of soda.
There was one catch: fans had 24 hours to go the Web site and print out the coupon.
That's when the Pepper hit the fan. and, no doubt, fans of free stuff in general -
tried to get the coupon that they choked the site and it crashed.
Disgruntled and downright ticked off, some blamed the band.
"When you go on the blogs and you read the responses from the fans, they associated Axl with this promotion ... and blame him for the fact that they didn't get their free soda," said GN'R lawyer Laurie Soriano.
That's when GN'R became GN'RN'L.
Her letter asked the soft drink company to make good on its offer.
She has yet to hear back, Soriano said this week.
"We've gone public with the fact that we are not involved but are trying to clean up the mess," Soriano told CNN. Dr Pepper told CNN it had "taken great steps" to keep up its end of the bargain.
It said it extended the window for the giveaway from 24 to 42 hours, added a toll-free line to handle consumer requests for the coupons and set up an interactive voice recorder to accept coupon requests.
None of those measures are still in effect.
"Additionally," the company said in a written statement, "for those who contacted us in the week after the giveaway about difficulties requesting the coupon, we continued to offer free coupons to address any problems they may have encountered."
That may be so, but the band still wants an apology.
"The door to a lawsuit being filed is always open until the fans are taken care of and Dr Pepper has done the right thing," Soriano told CNN.
Guns N' Roses became Guns N' Roses N' Lawyers this week.
The band, which released its first album in 17 years last week, has found itself in a legal tussle with soft drink giant Dr Pepper over a promotion turned awry.
Dr Pepper rolled out a marketing campaign in March promising a "free soda" to "everyone in America" on one condition Axl Rose, lead singer and frontman for Guns N' Roses, had to "finally release his 17-year-in-the-making belabored masterpiece, 'Chinese Democracy,' in 2008."
Guns N' Roses, often called GN'R by its fans, released the album last week.
And Dr Pepper followed through, posting a coupon on its Web site for a can of soda.
There was one catch: fans had 24 hours to go the Web site and print out the coupon.
That's when the Pepper hit the fan. and, no doubt, fans of free stuff in general -
tried to get the coupon that they choked the site and it crashed.
Disgruntled and downright ticked off, some blamed the band.
"When you go on the blogs and you read the responses from the fans, they associated Axl with this promotion ... and blame him for the fact that they didn't get their free soda," said GN'R lawyer Laurie Soriano.
That's when GN'R became GN'RN'L.
Her letter asked the soft drink company to make good on its offer.
She has yet to hear back, Soriano said this week.
"We've gone public with the fact that we are not involved but are trying to clean up the mess," Soriano told CNN. Dr Pepper told CNN it had "taken great steps" to keep up its end of the bargain.
It said it extended the window for the giveaway from 24 to 42 hours, added a toll-free line to handle consumer requests for the coupons and set up an interactive voice recorder to accept coupon requests.
None of those measures are still in effect.
"Additionally," the company said in a written statement, "for those who contacted us in the week after the giveaway about difficulties requesting the coupon, we continued to offer free coupons to address any problems they may have encountered."
That may be so, but the band still wants an apology.
"The door to a lawsuit being filed is always open until the fans are taken care of and Dr Pepper has done the right thing," Soriano told CNN.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Ronaldo named European Footballer of the Year
Portuguese star Cristiano Ronaldo was named European Footballer of the Year on Tuesday, reward for his brilliant performances for Manchester United as they completed the Premier League and Champions League double.
Ronaldo is the fourth Manchester United player to win the Ballon d'Or (Golden Ball) and the first since fellow winger George Best in 1968.
He beat Barcelona forward Lionel Messi into second place, with Liverpool striker Fernando Torres third in the poll, which is organized by France Football magazine.
"It's one of the greatest days of my life. Winning this trophy ... I dreamed about it as a kid," France Football quoted Ronaldo as saying.
"Those who know me, who live with me, know that this is finally a dream come true for me."
Ronaldo comfortably topped the poll of 96 leading sports journalists with 446 points.
Messi had 281 points and Torres was on 179.
"I'm only 23 and it's magnificent. It's even better considering all the big names in contention this year," Ronaldo added.
Ronaldo heaped praise on the teammates who helped him score 42 goals in all competitions last season, a remarkable total for a wide player.
"They are the ones who passed the ball for me to score goals," he said. "What is for sure is that I want to win it again, it feels so good.
So, (next morning), at eight O'clock, I will wake up and tell myself I want to be even better."
Ronaldo named European Footballer of the Year
Portuguese star Cristiano Ronaldo was named European Footballer of the Year on Tuesday, reward for his brilliant performances for Manchester United as they completed the Premier League and Champions League double.
Ronaldo is the fourth Manchester United player to win the Ballon d'Or (Golden Ball) and the first since fellow winger George Best in 1968.
He beat Barcelona forward Lionel Messi into second place, with Liverpool striker Fernando Torres third in the poll, which is organized by France Football magazine.
"It's one of the greatest days of my life. Winning this trophy ... I dreamed about it as a kid," France Football quoted Ronaldo as saying.
"Those who know me, who live with me, know that this is finally a dream come true for me."
Ronaldo comfortably topped the poll of 96 leading sports journalists with 446 points.
Messi had 281 points and Torres was on 179.
"I'm only 23 and it's magnificent. It's even better considering all the big names in contention this year," Ronaldo added.
Ronaldo heaped praise on the teammates who helped him score 42 goals in all competitions last season, a remarkable total for a wide player.
"They are the ones who passed the ball for me to score goals," he said. "What is for sure is that I want to win it again, it feels so good.
"The thing about Ronaldo is that he wants to play with skill and he wants to use the skill all the time, which is great credit to him.
Of course the goals really put the icing on the cake for him."
The only disappointment for Ronaldo in an outstanding year was Portugal's below-par showing at the Euro 2008, after which he underwent an operation on a nagging right ankle injury.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
British Airways in merger talks with Qantas
British Airways said Tuesday it was in talks with Australian rival Qantas that could see a merger of two of the world's most prestigious airlines.
London-based BA said the exploratory talks would look at creating a dual-listed company but offered no other details.
"There is no guarantee that any transaction will be forthcoming and a further announcement will be made in due course if appropriate," BA said in a statement.
BA said the talks would not affect its negotiations in Spanish airline Iberia, with which it is already discussing a revenue deal with American Airlines.
Shares in BA leapt more than 10 percent on the news, soaring 154 pence ($2.32) within an hour.
and BA are partners in the Oneworld Global Alliance, an umbrella which links 10 of the world's carriers, including American Airlines and Cathay Pacific.
Tuesday's announcement comes after the Australian government revealed that it plans to increase the level of foreign ownership permitted in Qantas, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
The merger moves come during troubled times for BA, which saw its pretax profits fall by 92 percent in the first half of this year, a loss it blamed on high oil prices and troubled financial markets.
Qantas has also faced its own troubles this year after one of its jetliners was damaged by a midair explosion over the South China Sea in July, forcing it to make an emergency landing.
British Airways in merger talks with Qantas
British Airways said Tuesday it was in talks with Australian rival Qantas that could see a merger of two of the world's most prestigious airlines.
London-based BA said the exploratory talks would look at creating a dual-listed company but offered no other details.
"There is no guarantee that any transaction will be forthcoming and a further announcement will be made in due course if appropriate," BA said in a statement.
BA said the talks would not affect its negotiations in Spanish airline Iberia, with which it is already discussing a revenue deal with American Airlines.
Shares in BA leapt more than 10 percent on the news, soaring 154 pence ($2.32) within an hour.
and BA are partners in the Oneworld Global Alliance, an umbrella which links 10 of the world's carriers, including American Airlines and Cathay Pacific.
Tuesday's announcement comes after the Australian government revealed that it plans to increase the level of foreign ownership permitted in Qantas, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
The merger moves come during troubled times for BA, which saw its pretax profits fall by 92 percent in the first half of this year, a loss it blamed on high oil prices and troubled financial markets.
Qantas has also faced its own troubles this year after one of its jetliners was damaged by a midair explosion over the South China Sea in July, forcing it to make an emergency landing.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
The man's remains lie on a table.
Next to him are the bones of his 22-year-old son and the remains of another son.
But no one yet knows which of the man's two missing boys the third set of remains could be.
Cheryl Katzmarzyk wants to be able to put a name to the remains, and to those of hundreds of other bodies stacked around her in a building in Lukavac, near Tuzla in the northeast of Bosnia.
The bones are from more than 8,000 men and boys slaughtered in 1995 during the Bosnian war at Srebrenica in the worst massacre in Europe since World War II.
Serbs seeking to drive out Bosnian Muslims in a policy of "ethnic cleansing" executed the region's fighting-age males, then used bulldozers to dump them into mass graves.
Mass graves were dug up and the bodies moved sometimes again and again, to hide evidence as the Serbs retreated amid the NATO bombing that followed Srebrenica and led to the end of the war.
Those killed in a warehouse execution at Srebrenica are spread throughout 20 secondary grave sites, for instance.
Katzmarzyk said remains of one of the victims was found in eight different parts of one mass grave.
Another man's shoulder was found where he and others were lined up and shot, one of his legs was found near a grave, a hip was found inside the grave, his upper jaw several miles away and his left arm in a secondary grave.
"What we do here is we sort them out," said Katzmarzyk, the head of anthropological examinations for the International Commission on Missing Persons.
Katzmarzyk's team from the ICMP
a nongovernmental organization set up at the end of the Bosnian war to locate and identify victims of war and human rights abuses
has pioneered quicker, simpler DNA tests to work out which bones go together.
The man's remains lie on a table.
Next to him are the bones of his 22-year-old son and the remains of another son.
But no one yet knows which of the man's two missing boys the third set of remains could be.
Cheryl Katzmarzyk wants to be able to put a name to the remains, and to those of hundreds of other bodies stacked around her in a building in Lukavac, near Tuzla in the northeast of Bosnia.
The bones are from more than 8,000 men and boys slaughtered in 1995 during the Bosnian war at Srebrenica in the worst massacre in Europe since World War II.
Serbs seeking to drive out Bosnian Muslims in a policy of "ethnic cleansing" executed the region's fighting-age males, then used bulldozers to dump them into mass graves.
Mass graves were dug up and the bodies moved sometimes again and again, to hide evidence as the Serbs retreated amid the NATO bombing that followed Srebrenica and led to the end of the war.
Those killed in a warehouse execution at Srebrenica are spread throughout 20 secondary grave sites, for instance.
Katzmarzyk said remains of one of the victims was found in eight different parts of one mass grave.
Another man's shoulder was found where he and others were lined up and shot, one of his legs was found near a grave, a hip was found inside the grave, his upper jaw several miles away and his left arm in a secondary grave.
"What we do here is we sort them out," said Katzmarzyk, the head of anthropological examinations for the International Commission on Missing Persons.
Katzmarzyk's team from the ICMP
a nongovernmental organization set up at the end of the Bosnian war to locate and identify victims of war and human rights abuses
has pioneered quicker, simpler DNA tests to work out which bones go together.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Obama nominates Richardson for Cabinet
President-elect Barack Obama announced New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson as his pick for secretary of commerce on Wednesday, calling him a "leading economic diplomat for America."
"I know that Bill will be an unyielding advocate for American business and American jobs, at home and around the world.
And I look forward to working with him in the years ahead," Obama said at a news conference in Chicago, Illinois.
Richardson, one of the best-known Hispanics in the Democratic Party, served as the energy secretary in the Clinton administration as well as being the ambassador to the United Nations.
With the announcement, Richardson becomes the third former presidential rival to join Obama's team.
Vice President-elect Joe Biden and Sen. Hillary Clinton, Obama's pick for secretary of state, also competed for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Richardson on Wednesday called it a "great honor" to be chosen for the post.
Obama nominates Richardson for Cabinet
President-elect Barack Obama announced New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson as his pick for secretary of commerce on Wednesday, calling him a "leading economic diplomat for America."
"I know that Bill will be an unyielding advocate for American business and American jobs, at home and around the world.
And I look forward to working with him in the years ahead," Obama said at a news conference in Chicago, Illinois.
Richardson, one of the best-known Hispanics in the Democratic Party, served as the energy secretary in the Clinton administration as well as being the ambassador to the United Nations.
With the announcement, Richardson becomes the third former presidential rival to join Obama's team.
Vice President-elect Joe Biden and Sen. Hillary Clinton, Obama's pick for secretary of state, also competed for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Richardson on Wednesday called it a "great honor" to be chosen for the post.
"There are some who speak of a team of rivals, but I've never seen it that way.
But rivals implies something harder-edged and less forgiving.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
U.S. authorities arrested six people Wednesday on suspicion of smuggling African elephant ivory worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, law enforcement officials said.
The defendants arranged to have ivory from Cameroon, Ivory Coast and Uganda shipped into the United States disguised as wooden snakes, guitars and statues, authorities said.
"The defendants plundered precious natural resources for personal profit," U.S. Attorney Benton J. Campbell and other officials said in a statement.
"Their illegal trade threatens the continued existence of an endangered species and will not be tolerated." Federal agents tracked at least eight shipments, including one worth an estimated $165,000.
Federal agents used surveillance and shipping, phone and bank records to track the suspect shipments.
Arrests were made in New York, New Jersey, Virginia and Texas.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement division of the Department of Homeland Security were involved in the law enforcement operation.
One suspect told an undercover federal agent during a purchase that it was difficult to bring ivory into the United States, but easy to sell it at high prices, the government statement said.
Two other suspects also are accused of paying a courier $15,000 to bring a shipment of ivory from Cameroon into the United States.
The U.S. banned ivory imports in 1976, and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora effectively outlawed trade in elephant tissue in 1989.
Illegal trade in African elephant ivory is considered to be a major cause of the continuing decline of elephant populations in Africa.
The defendants are expected to appear in court in New York on Wednesday.
They face jail terms of up to 20 years if convicted.
U.S. authorities arrested six people Wednesday on suspicion of smuggling African elephant ivory worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, law enforcement officials said.
The defendants arranged to have ivory from Cameroon, Ivory Coast and Uganda shipped into the United States disguised as wooden snakes, guitars and statues, authorities said.
"The defendants plundered precious natural resources for personal profit," U.S. Attorney Benton J. Campbell and other officials said in a statement.
"Their illegal trade threatens the continued existence of an endangered species and will not be tolerated." Federal agents tracked at least eight shipments, including one worth an estimated $165,000.
Federal agents used surveillance and shipping, phone and bank records to track the suspect shipments.
Arrests were made in New York, New Jersey, Virginia and Texas.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement division of the Department of Homeland Security were involved in the law enforcement operation.
One suspect told an undercover federal agent during a purchase that it was difficult to bring ivory into the United States, but easy to sell it at high prices, the government statement said.
Two other suspects also are accused of paying a courier $15,000 to bring a shipment of ivory from Cameroon into the United States.
The U.S. banned ivory imports in 1976, and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora effectively outlawed trade in elephant tissue in 1989.
Illegal trade in African elephant ivory is considered to be a major cause of the continuing decline of elephant populations in Africa.
The defendants are expected to appear in court in New York on Wednesday.
They face jail terms of up to 20 years if convicted.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Archaeologists in Russia have discovered an "extraordinary" group of Stone Age artworks which appear to have been carefully buried in pits and covered with mammoth bones, the researchers announced this week in a newly published paper.
At least some of the 21,000-22,000-year-old objects appear to have been regarded as magical, the scientists surmise.
The collection includes the only example of engravings of images found to date at the site
what appear to be three overlapping mammoths only a few centimeters long and carved onto the rib of a mammoth.
"The main lines of the image are clear, not ragged; they were made by confident, unbroken movements," Hizri Amirkhanov and Sergey Lev write.
The carving may have been part of a hunting ritual, Lev told CNN.
The objects they describe in their new paper "show an extraordinary repertoire of incised carving on mammoth ivory plaques and carving in the round, including representations of women and large mammals, and geometric decoration on bone utensils," they write.
They also uncovered two female figures, including one 16.6 centimeters tall with a head they call particularly accurate in shape.
The figures, which Lev called Venus statuettes, had been carefully placed in pits and surrounded with colored sand, Lev said.
The archaeologists uncovered the objects in 2005 at a site called Zaraysk, which was discovered in 1980.
The site is about 100 miles southeast of Moscow.
Researchers have been excavating the site since 1995, and have found a necklace made of teeth of the arctic fox and a carving of a bison made from mammoth ivory.
Zaraysk is the northernmost known location for a style of Stone Age artwork called Kostenski-Avdeevo after two other Russian locations where art of that type has been found.
Lev said the Zaraysk site was on a par with Kostenski and Avdeevo "in terms of the splendor and variety of its art."
The site dates from the Upper Paleolithic period, which began about 40,000 years ago and lasted until roughly 10,000 years ago.
Amirkhanov and Lev's article, "New Finds of Art Objects from the Upper Palaeolithic Site of Zaraysk, Russia," is to be published in the December issue of the magazine Antiquities, a York, England-based journal that describes itself as a quarterly review of world archaeology.
A version of their article appeared on the journal's website on Monday; the print version is due out soon, reviews editor Madeleine Hummler said.
Archaeologists in Russia have discovered an "extraordinary" group of Stone Age artworks which appear to have been carefully buried in pits and covered with mammoth bones, the researchers announced this week in a newly published paper.
At least some of the 21,000-22,000-year-old objects appear to have been regarded as magical, the scientists surmise.
The collection includes the only example of engravings of images found to date at the site
what appear to be three overlapping mammoths only a few centimeters long and carved onto the rib of a mammoth.
"The main lines of the image are clear, not ragged; they were made by confident, unbroken movements," Hizri Amirkhanov and Sergey Lev write.
The carving may have been part of a hunting ritual, Lev told CNN.
The objects they describe in their new paper "show an extraordinary repertoire of incised carving on mammoth ivory plaques and carving in the round, including representations of women and large mammals, and geometric decoration on bone utensils," they write.
They also uncovered two female figures, including one 16.6 centimeters tall with a head they call particularly accurate in shape.
The figures, which Lev called Venus statuettes, had been carefully placed in pits and surrounded with colored sand, Lev said.
The archaeologists uncovered the objects in 2005 at a site called Zaraysk, which was discovered in 1980.
The site is about 100 miles southeast of Moscow.
Researchers have been excavating the site since 1995, and have found a necklace made of teeth of the arctic fox and a carving of a bison made from mammoth ivory.
Zaraysk is the northernmost known location for a style of Stone Age artwork called Kostenski-Avdeevo after two other Russian locations where art of that type has been found.
Lev said the Zaraysk site was on a par with Kostenski and Avdeevo "in terms of the splendor and variety of its art."
The site dates from the Upper Paleolithic period, which began about 40,000 years ago and lasted until roughly 10,000 years ago.
Amirkhanov and Lev's article, "New Finds of Art Objects from the Upper Palaeolithic Site of Zaraysk, Russia," is to be published in the December issue of the magazine Antiquities, a York, England-based journal that describes itself as a quarterly review of world archaeology.
A version of their article appeared on the journal's website on Monday; the print version is due out soon, reviews editor Madeleine Hummler said.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Mexico quickly becoming favorite place for car thieves
Auto insurers report that about 60,000 vehicles were stolen in just over a year in Mexico, the highest figure in the past decade.
That's no surprise to Guillermo Cruz, who has bought two new cars this year:
the first after his original car was stolen, and the second three months later after two armed men pointed guns at him, got in and drove off with Cruz inside.
"They dropped me off in the street and I thought they had already left, and I went back" to where they had taken it, he said.
"And still they hadn't left; they were inside the car. And one man said to the other, 'Let's shoot him because he's becoming annoying.'
According to the Mexican Association of Insurance Institutions, the capital of Mexico City is a favorite site for car thieves to work.
"If we talk about data from the federal district, we can say that we have 16,000 automobiles stolen, an increase of 10 percent from October 2007 to September 2008," said Recaredo Arias, a spokesman for the association.
He said drug traffickers have contributed to the increase by pushing other bands of criminals into new lines of business.
"Perhaps they are taking up so much space from the point of view of the sources of income as from the point of view of supply and distribution of drugs to these bands and, as a result, the bands are looking for other types of crimes," he speculated.
Authorities say they are making efforts to fight the crime, though some observers predict that the incidence of car theft will rise further as the world economic crisis worsens.
Mexico quickly becoming favorite place for car thieves
Auto insurers report that about 60,000 vehicles were stolen in just over a year in Mexico, the highest figure in the past decade.
That's no surprise to Guillermo Cruz, who has bought two new cars this year:
the first after his original car was stolen, and the second three months later after two armed men pointed guns at him, got in and drove off with Cruz inside.
"They dropped me off in the street and I thought they had already left, and I went back" to where they had taken it, he said.
"And still they hadn't left; they were inside the car. And one man said to the other, 'Let's shoot him because he's becoming annoying.'
According to the Mexican Association of Insurance Institutions, the capital of Mexico City is a favorite site for car thieves to work.
"If we talk about data from the federal district, we can say that we have 16,000 automobiles stolen, an increase of 10 percent from October 2007 to September 2008," said Recaredo Arias, a spokesman for the association.
He said drug traffickers have contributed to the increase by pushing other bands of criminals into new lines of business.
"Perhaps they are taking up so much space from the point of view of the sources of income as from the point of view of supply and distribution of drugs to these bands and, as a result, the bands are looking for other types of crimes," he speculated.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
UAW agrees to help automakers
The United Auto Workers agreed to work with the embattled U.S. automakers about changes in their labor contract, an important step for the industry's chance to win up to $34 billion in federal loans.
The announcement was made Wednesday by UAW President Ron Gettelfinger at a news conference after meeting with union officials from plants operated by General Motors (GM, Fortune 500), Ford Motor (F, Fortune 500) and Chrysler LLC.
GM has warned it will run out of the money it needs to operate later this month unless it gets assistance from the government.
GM said it needs $4 billion before the end of the year.
Chrysler said it will run out of cash in the first quarter of next year without help.
The companies all presented plans to Congress Tuesday for how they would use federal loans to return to profitability.
The Big Three CEOs and Gettelfinger are due to appear at Senate and House hearings Thursday and Friday seeking support for the loan package.
Gettelfinger said the union will suspend the "jobs bank" at GM.
That is a jobs guarantee program that pays laid off auto workers up to 95% of their regular pay.
He said the union is also open to suspending the jobs bank at Ford and Chrysler. But he said this and other help from the union is not enough to save the automakers from their current crisis.
"To be honest with you, right now if the UAW members went in these facilities and worked for nothing...it would not help the companies that much," he said.
He said the union also is willing to have the companies delay billions in payments to the trust funds that will assume responsibility for retiree health care coverage in 2010, although he said that such a move would require court approval.
UAW agrees to help automakers
The United Auto Workers agreed to work with the embattled U.S. automakers about changes in their labor contract, an important step for the industry's chance to win up to $34 billion in federal loans.
The announcement was made Wednesday by UAW President Ron Gettelfinger at a news conference after meeting with union officials from plants operated by General Motors (GM, Fortune 500), Ford Motor (F, Fortune 500) and Chrysler LLC.
GM has warned it will run out of the money it needs to operate later this month unless it gets assistance from the government.
GM said it needs $4 billion before the end of the year.
Chrysler said it will run out of cash in the first quarter of next year without help.
The companies all presented plans to Congress Tuesday for how they would use federal loans to return to profitability.
The Big Three CEOs and Gettelfinger are due to appear at Senate and House hearings Thursday and Friday seeking support for the loan package.
Gettelfinger said the union will suspend the "jobs bank" at GM.
That is a jobs guarantee program that pays laid off auto workers up to 95% of their regular pay.
He said the union is also open to suspending the jobs bank at Ford and Chrysler. But he said this and other help from the union is not enough to save the automakers from their current crisis.
"To be honest with you, right now if the UAW members went in these facilities and worked for nothing...it would not help the companies that much," he said.
He said the union also is willing to have the companies delay billions in payments to the trust funds that will assume responsibility for retiree health care coverage in 2010, although he said that such a move would require court approval.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Diarra adds to Real`s growing injury crisis
Real Madrid's injury crisis deepened on Wednesday with reports that star midfielder Mahamadou Diarra could miss the rest of the season because of a right knee problem.
Leading sports daily Marca said X-rays had shown that the 27-year-old Mali international had aggravated an injury he picked up while playing for his national team in October.
The paper said he would likely undergo an arthroscopic examination to determine the extent of the injury next week.
Marca said Diarra could be out for up to six months, meaning he would miss the rest of the Spanish season.
A club spokeswoman told Associated Press that she could not comment on the report, adding there would be no details regarding the injuries of any of the team's players until doctors submit their weekly update on Saturday.
Diarra has already missed several games with a muscle problem, but his absence would further weaken a Real squad who have 11 players injured, including several leading internationals.
Diarra adds to Real`s growing injury crisis
Real Madrid's injury crisis deepened on Wednesday with reports that star midfielder Mahamadou Diarra could miss the rest of the season because of a right knee problem.
Leading sports daily Marca said X-rays had shown that the 27-year-old Mali international had aggravated an injury he picked up while playing for his national team in October.
The paper said he would likely undergo an arthroscopic examination to determine the extent of the injury next week.
Marca said Diarra could be out for up to six months, meaning he would miss the rest of the Spanish season.
A club spokeswoman told Associated Press that she could not comment on the report, adding there would be no details regarding the injuries of any of the team's players until doctors submit their weekly update on Saturday.
Diarra has already missed several games with a muscle problem, but his absence would further weaken a Real squad who have 11 players injured, including several leading internationals.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Polanski attorneys move to get case dismissed
Attorneys for Oscar-winning film director Roman Polanski are asking a California court to dismiss a 30-year-old sex offense case against him, claiming prosecutorial and judicial misconduct.
Polanski's defense team offers what it calls "extraordinary new evidence" of "repeated, unlawful, and unethical misconduct" by the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office and the judge in Polanski's case based on details that surfaced this year in an HBO documentary.
The attorneys filed the 239-page motion for dismissal in Los Angeles Superior Court Tuesday.
"We are looking forward to seeing Mr. Polanski in court as the matter is litigated," said Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for the district attorney's office.
She said the office had only heard of the motion through media reports and declined to comment further.
Polanski, 75, has chosen to live in exile since fleeing the United States in 1978 after pleading guilty to having sex with a 13-year-old girl.
An arrest warrant against him remains in effect.
According to the document filed Tuesday, the HBO film, "Roman Polanski:
Wanted and Desired," reveals that a deputy district attorney at the time, David Wells, engaged in "unethical and unlawful" conversations with the late Judge Lawrence Rittenband.
Rittenband was "illegally influenced" by Wells, and ignored the terms of Polanski's plea agreement, which required considering counsel argument before deciding on a sentence, the document says.
Instead, Rittenband sentenced Polanski to prison, even though the chief prosecutor, a probation officer and the girl's family had recommended the contrary.
Polanski failed to show up for sentencing and never returned to the United States.
The director, a native of Poland who lives in France, has continued to direct films.
In 2003, his Holocaust drama "The Pianist" won the Academy Award.
Attorneys for Oscar-winning film director Roman Polanski are asking a California court to dismiss a 30-year-old sex offense case against him, claiming prosecutorial and judicial misconduct.
Polanski's defense team offers what it calls "extraordinary new evidence" of "repeated, unlawful, and unethical misconduct" by the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office and the judge in Polanski's case based on details that surfaced this year in an HBO documentary.
The attorneys filed the 239-page motion for dismissal in Los Angeles Superior Court Tuesday.
"We are looking forward to seeing Mr. Polanski in court as the matter is litigated," said Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for the district attorney's office.
She said the office had only heard of the motion through media reports and declined to comment further.
Polanski, 75, has chosen to live in exile since fleeing the United States in 1978 after pleading guilty to having sex with a 13-year-old girl.
An arrest warrant against him remains in effect.
According to the document filed Tuesday, the HBO film, "Roman Polanski:
Wanted and Desired," reveals that a deputy district attorney at the time, David Wells, engaged in "unethical and unlawful" conversations with the late Judge Lawrence Rittenband.
Rittenband was "illegally influenced" by Wells, and ignored the terms of Polanski's plea agreement, which required considering counsel argument before deciding on a sentence, the document says.
Instead, Rittenband sentenced Polanski to prison, even though the chief prosecutor, a probation officer and the girl's family had recommended the contrary.
Polanski failed to show up for sentencing and never returned to the United States.
The director, a native of Poland who lives in France, has continued to direct films.
In 2003, his Holocaust drama "The Pianist" won the Academy Award.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Polls show that Americans overwhelmingly approve of Sen. Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, but will the founding fathers veto this popular addition to Barack Obama's "team of rivals"?
Yes, according to one conservative interpretation of the Constitution.
Article 1, Section 6 of the Constitution says the following:
"No Senator or Representative shall, during the time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil office under the authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time."
A lawmaker cannot fill a position if the salary for that position has been raised during that lawmaker's term in office.
In January, President Bush signed an executive order increasing the salary for the secretary of state and other Cabinet positions by $4,700.
Hillary Clinton has been in the Senate since January 2001.
Case closed, says the conservative advocacy group Judicial Watch.
"There's no getting around the Constitution's ineligibility clause, so Hillary Clinton is prohibited from serving in the Cabinet until at least 2013, when her current term expires," Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement.
"No public official who has taken the oath to support and defend the Constitution should support this appointment."
"One is for Congress to vote a lower salary. Another way is for Hillary Clinton simply to accept a lower salary.
Another way is simply to ignore the problem on the idea that no one has the right, has the standing, to sue to stop her from being secretary of state.
"This is not going to be an impediment to her being secretary of state," Toobin argued. One Clinton aide said that both Clinton and Obama were aware of the issue when he announced her as his choice for secretary of state.
And Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's office said congressional Democrats are moving forward with a measure similar to what has been done before.
Judicial Watch takes issue with the precedent.
Fitton pointed to what President Reagan did when facing a similar situation.
Democrats overwhelmingly approve of the choice, with two-thirds of independents agreeing and Republicans split evenly on the pick.
Polls show that Americans overwhelmingly approve of Sen. Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, but will the founding fathers veto this popular addition to Barack Obama's "team of rivals"?
Yes, according to one conservative interpretation of the Constitution. Article 1, Section 6 of the Constitution says the following:
"No Senator or Representative shall, during the time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil office under the authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time."
A lawmaker cannot fill a position if the salary for that position has been raised during that lawmaker's term in office.
In January, President Bush signed an executive order increasing the salary for the secretary of state and other Cabinet positions by $4,700.
Hillary Clinton has been in the Senate since January 2001.
Case closed, says the conservative advocacy group Judicial Watch.
"There's no getting around the Constitution's ineligibility clause, so Hillary Clinton is prohibited from serving in the Cabinet until at least 2013, when her current term expires," Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement.
"No public official who has taken the oath to support and defend the Constitution should support this appointment."
In the past, lawmakers have found a way around the clause, with Congress changing the salary of the office in question back to what it originally was.
It happened when Ohio Sen. William Saxbe was named President Nixon's attorney general in 1974 and again when Texas Sen. Lloyd Bentsen became President Clinton's Treasury secretary in 1993.
"There are many ways around this problem," CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin noted.
One Clinton aide said that both Clinton and Obama were aware of the issue when he announced her as his choice for secretary of state.
Judicial Watch takes issue with the precedent.
"We think it's inadequate," Fitton said.
...
The Constitution doesn't have any caveats.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
With the U.S. auto industry's immediate fate now resting on the amount of money that Congress place in their begging bowl, it's worth noting that cash alone is not going to save them in the long run.
But people like Gordon Murray and his vision for a revolutionary new car just might do.
Murray's name will be familiar to motor racing enthusiasts.
He was responsible for the design of some of the most successful cars in Formula 1 history and created the iconic McLaren F1 supercar.
But with his new company, Gordon Murray Design Limited, he's now turning his considerable talents to a car that is much smaller and considerably cheaper to own and run.
The T25 is Murray's attempt at creating an entirely new class of vehicle.
Designed primarily for city and suburban use, the new car will be smaller than a Smart car (three of them can fit into a single parking space), light (around 500 kilos), twice as efficient as an average car and will have the lowest emissions of any car in the same class.
But that is only half the story.
Murray's motivation for creating the T25 runs far deeper.
He wants to design a car that doesn't cost the earth to make
"At the moment, there is an inflexibility that's inherent in our automotive manufacturing process." Murray told CNN from his offices in Surrey, UK.
So where possible, he's using recycled materials and reducing the number of parts.
He wants to make the entire assembly process more modular with easy to replace body panels.
The whole chassis will be designed so that it can "flat pack" for easy and efficient transportation.
It is this painstaking attention to detail that Murray has built a career on, but he concedes that the material and process selection has been the most challenging task of the whole project.
Once Murray and his team of engineers have completed the design he will look to sell the license to build the T25 to motor manufacturers.
He hopes to unveil a prototype in 2009 and a basic model will cost around $8,000.
Until then we will have to settle for tantalizing glimpses of it wrapped in foil.
With the U.S. auto industry's immediate fate now resting on the amount of money that Congress place in their begging bowl, it's worth noting that cash alone is not going to save them in the long run.
But people like Gordon Murray and his vision for a revolutionary new car just might do.
Murray's name will be familiar to motor racing enthusiasts.
He was responsible for the design of some of the most successful cars in Formula 1 history and created the iconic McLaren F1 supercar.
But with his new company, Gordon Murray Design Limited, he's now turning his considerable talents to a car that is much smaller and considerably cheaper to own and run.
The T25 is Murray's attempt at creating an entirely new class of vehicle.
Designed primarily for city and suburban use, the new car will be smaller than a Smart car (three of them can fit into a single parking space), light (around 500 kilos), twice as efficient as an average car and will have the lowest emissions of any car in the same class.
But that is only half the story.
Murray's motivation for creating the T25 runs far deeper.
He wants to design a car that doesn't cost the earth to make
"At the moment, there is an inflexibility that's inherent in our automotive manufacturing process." Murray told CNN from his offices in Surrey, UK.
So where possible, he's using recycled materials and reducing the number of parts.
He wants to make the entire assembly process more modular with easy to replace body panels.
The whole chassis will be designed so that it can "flat pack" for easy and efficient transportation.
It is this painstaking attention to detail that Murray has built a career on, but he concedes that the material and process selection has been the most challenging task of the whole project.
Once Murray and his team of engineers have completed the design he will look to sell the license to build the T25 to motor manufacturers.
He hopes to unveil a prototype in 2009 and a basic model will cost around $8,000.
Until then we will have to settle for tantalizing glimpses of it wrapped in foil.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Rare monkeys spotted in Vietnam
Researchers have discovered a previously unknown group of rare monkeys in the forests of Vietnam.
Several biologists caught fleeting glimpses of about 15 or 20 Tonkin snub-nosed monkeys in a remote area near the Chinese frontier, the wildlife conservation group Fauna & Flora International said Thursday. The "bizarre-looking" monkeys
on the brink of extinction were so skittish around people that researchers were able to snap a photo of just one of them:
an adult male scampering through the trees.
The monkeys were "very sensitive to the presence of people, giving warning signs to one another and fleeing" whenever biologists approached, the group said in a statement.
"It was apparent that the monkeys associated humans with danger perhaps due to ongoing threats from hunters," the group said.
So few Tonkin snub-nosed monkeys have survived in the wild that scientists thought until recently that they were extinct.
Now they estimate that roughly 200 remain, mainly in parts of northern Vietnam near the Chinese border.
Hunters with a taste for bush meat and the loss of habitat have pushed the Tonkin snub-nosed monkey toward extinction, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.
Rare monkeys spotted in Vietnam
Researchers have discovered a previously unknown group of rare monkeys in the forests of Vietnam.
Several biologists caught fleeting glimpses of about 15 or 20 Tonkin snub-nosed monkeys in a remote area near the Chinese frontier, the wildlife conservation group Fauna & Flora International said Thursday. The "bizarre-looking" monkeys
on the brink of extinction were so skittish around people that researchers were able to snap a photo of just one of them:
an adult male scampering through the trees.
The monkeys were "very sensitive to the presence of people, giving warning signs to one another and fleeing" whenever biologists approached, the group said in a statement.
"It was apparent that the monkeys associated humans with danger perhaps due to ongoing threats from hunters," the group said.
So few Tonkin snub-nosed monkeys have survived in the wild that scientists thought until recently that they were extinct.
Now they estimate that roughly 200 remain, mainly in parts of northern Vietnam near the Chinese border.
Hunters with a taste for bush meat and the loss of habitat have pushed the Tonkin snub-nosed monkey toward extinction, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
The Bank of England and European Central Bank (ECB) have slashed interest rates to 2 and 2.5 percent respectively in an ongoing bid to soften the impact of recession.
Meanwhile French President Nicolas Sarkozy added more good news Thursday, saying he was going to pump $33 billion into its economy.
Sarkozy said the plan, which would provide support for French automakers, multi-billion dollar construction projects and tax rebates, should boost growth by 0.6 percentage points in 2009.
The UK Bank said it had to cut its interest rate from 3 to 2 percent because business surveys had weakened further, suggesting the downturn was gathering pace.
Consumer spending and business investment had also stalled, while residential investment continued to fall.
The Bank said economic activity across the world was down.
The Bank's announcement, which followed last month's 1.5 percentage point cut, came as new figures showed UK house prices dropped at their fastest monthly rate for 16 years in November and new car sales were down 37 percent.
London's FTSE 100 was just in positive territory at the close.
The ECB cut its main interest rate by 75 basis points to 2.5 percent
the biggest move in its near 10-year history.
It helped push Paris's CAC-40 and Frankfurt's DAX slightly into the black.
Asian and Pacific markets were mixed following a late rally on Wall Street that brought the Dow Jones industrial average up over 2 percent.
Tokyo's Nikkei index was down 1.02 percent and Seoul's KOSPI index dipped 1.08 percent.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng index defied the trend and was up 0.67 percent.
In Australia, the All Ordinaries index closed with a 0.09 percent slide.
The Bank of England and European Central Bank (ECB) have slashed interest rates to 2 and 2.5 percent respectively in an ongoing bid to soften the impact of recession.
Meanwhile French President Nicolas Sarkozy added more good news Thursday, saying he was going to pump $33 billion into its economy.
Sarkozy said the plan, which would provide support for French automakers, multi-billion dollar construction projects and tax rebates, should boost growth by 0.6 percentage points in 2009.
The UK Bank said it had to cut its interest rate from 3 to 2 percent because business surveys had weakened further, suggesting the downturn was gathering pace.
Consumer spending and business investment had also stalled, while residential investment continued to fall.
The Bank said economic activity across the world was down.
The Bank's announcement, which followed last month's 1.5 percentage point cut, came as new figures showed UK house prices dropped at their fastest monthly rate for 16 years in November and new car sales were down 37 percent.
London's FTSE 100 was just in positive territory at the close.
The ECB cut its main interest rate by 75 basis points to 2.5 percent
the biggest move in its near 10-year history.
It helped push Paris's CAC-40 and Frankfurt's DAX slightly into the black.
Asian and Pacific markets were mixed following a late rally on Wall Street that brought the Dow Jones industrial average up over 2 percent.
Tokyo's Nikkei index was down 1.02 percent and Seoul's KOSPI index dipped 1.08 percent.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng index defied the trend and was up 0.67 percent.
In Australia, the All Ordinaries index closed with a 0.09 percent slide.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
How death gave life to performance
Taraji Henson lost her father one year before she began filming "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button."
"You kind of always want to ask, why, why, why now?
Why in the height of my career?
best known for her role as a singing prostitute in "Hustle and Flow"
plays Queenie, the adoptive mother of Brad Pitt's character, Benjamin Button.
Button is born with a disease that causes him to begin life in his 80s and age backward.
The film centers around death
especially through Queenie, who runs a senior citizen home and is surrounded by it every day.
The film is based on a short story written by F. Scott Fitzgerald in the 1920s.
It's said that Fitzgerald based his story on a quote from Mark Twain.
How death gave life to performance
"You kind of always want to ask, why, why, why now?
Why in the height of my career?
Everything that he always said would happen to me, he's not here in the flesh to see it," Henson said.
The film centers around death
The film is based on a short story written by F. Scott Fitzgerald in the 1920s.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Roy Keane has resigned after two years in charge of Sunderland, the Premier League club announced on Thursday.
Chairman Niall Quinn told a news conference that he had tried to persuade his former Ireland team-mate to stay, at least for the next three games, but Keane insisted it was time for him to depart.
"Roy Keane isn't resigning because we have a bad team," Quinn said.
"Roy Keane is resigning because he feels we have a good team he can't take forward."
Sunderland have dropped into the relegation zone with 15 points from 15 games and were thumped 4-1 by Bolton on Saturday.
The 37-year-old, who would have been out of contract in the summer, admitted after the defeat that he was not sure he was the best man to arrest their slide.
Recent events are a far cry from the euphoria which greeted Keane on his arrival at the Black Cats in August 2006 with the club in the relegation zone in the second flight of English football.
A remarkable reversal of fortunes saw Sunderland promoted as champions in Keane's first season in charge and they retained their Premier League status for the current season by finishing 15th.
But despite sending an estimated £70 million ($103.80 million) on revamping the squad, success has eluded Sunderland this season, losing six of their last seven games.
Big-money arrivals have included striker Kenwyne Jones, midfielder Kieran Richardson, defender Anton Ferdinand and a club-record £9 million ($13.35m) on goalkeeper Craig Gordon.
Reports also suggested his relationship with Quinn had become strained, but in a statement on the club's Web site Keane gave no hint of a rift.
"I would like to thank my staff, players, Niall Quinn and in particular the fans for their support during my time at Sunderland and I would like to wish the club every success in the future," he said.
Keane has a history of walkouts, leaving the Ireland camp at the 2002 World Cup finals following a furious row with the coaching staff.
Roy Keane has resigned after two years in charge of Sunderland, the Premier League club announced on Thursday.
Chairman Niall Quinn told a news conference that he had tried to persuade his former Ireland team-mate to stay, at least for the next three games, but Keane insisted it was time for him to depart.
"Roy Keane isn't resigning because we have a bad team," Quinn said.
"Roy Keane is resigning because he feels we have a good team he can't take forward."
Sunderland have dropped into the relegation zone with 15 points from 15 games and were thumped 4-1 by Bolton on Saturday.
The 37-year-old, who would have been out of contract in the summer, admitted after the defeat that he was not sure he was the best man to arrest their slide.
Recent events are a far cry from the euphoria which greeted Keane on his arrival at the Black Cats in August 2006 with the club in the relegation zone in the second flight of English football.
A remarkable reversal of fortunes saw Sunderland promoted as champions in Keane's first season in charge and they retained their Premier League status for the current season by finishing 15th.
But despite sending an estimated £70 million ($103.80 million) on revamping the squad, success has eluded Sunderland this season, losing six of their last seven games.
Big-money arrivals have included striker Kenwyne Jones, midfielder Kieran Richardson, defender Anton Ferdinand and a club-record £9 million ($13.35m) on goalkeeper Craig Gordon.
Reports also suggested his relationship with Quinn had become strained, but in a statement on the club's Web site Keane gave no hint of a rift.
"I would like to thank my staff, players, Niall Quinn and in particular the fans for their support during my time at Sunderland and I would like to wish the club every success in the future," he said.
Keane has a history of walkouts, leaving the Ireland camp at the 2002 World Cup finals following a furious row with the coaching staff.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Five ways to avoid germs while traveling
This week while you're traveling, if you happen to spot a man applying hand sanitizer as he gets off an escalator, there's a good chance it's Dr. Mark Gendreau, a senior staff physician at the Lahey Clinic in Burlington, Massachusetts.
Gendreau studies germiness while traveling, and he knows just how infectious travel can be.
"The risk of contracting a contagious illness is heightened when we travel within any enclosed space, especially during the winter months, when most of the respiratory viruses thrive," Gendreau said.
Studies show that germs can travel easily on an airplane, where people are packed together like sardines.
But the airplane isn't the only place along your travel route where germs thrive.
Here are five ways to avoid germs while traveling.
Sit toward the front of the airplane
"Pick a seat near the front, since ventilation systems on most commercial aircraft provide better air flow in the front of the aircraft," Gendreau advised.
If you can afford it, sit in first class, where people aren't so squished together.
Don't drink coffee or tea on an airplane
Monitoring by the Environmental Protection Agency shows that water in airplanes' water tanks isn't always clean and coffee and tea are usually made from that water, not from bottled water, according to Victoria Day, a spokeswoman for the Air Transport Association.
The EPA advises anyone with a suppressed immune system or anyone who's "concerned" about bacteria to refrain from drinking coffee or tea on an airplane.
You should wash your hands after using the restroom, but because the water itself might have harmful bacteria (see No. 2 above) and because the door handle on your way out has been touched by all those who went before you, Gendreau also advises sanitizing your hands when you return to your seat.
Wash or sanitize your hands after getting off an escalator
Gendreau says tests show that escalators in airports are full of germs.
To confirm these tests, here's a fun activity while you wait for your flight this Thanksgiving: Look at your watch, and count how many people get an escalator in a five-minute time period.
Multiply that by 12, and you have how many people are on that escalator every hour.
High-volume handrails are why Gendreau sanitizes his hands as soon as he can after he exits an escalator.
Gendreau says ATMs, especially in busy places like airports, are full of germs.
As with escalators, he sanitizes ASAP after using one.
Five ways to avoid germs while traveling
This week while you're traveling, if you happen to spot a man applying hand sanitizer as he gets off an escalator, there's a good chance it's Dr. Mark Gendreau, a senior staff physician at the Lahey Clinic in Burlington, Massachusetts.
Gendreau studies germiness while traveling, and he knows just how infectious travel can be.
"The risk of contracting a contagious illness is heightened when we travel within any enclosed space, especially during the winter months, when most of the respiratory viruses thrive," Gendreau said.
Studies show that germs can travel easily on an airplane, where people are packed together like sardines.
But the airplane isn't the only place along your travel route where germs thrive.
Here are five ways to avoid germs while traveling.
Sit toward the front of the airplane
"Pick a seat near the front, since ventilation systems on most commercial aircraft provide better air flow in the front of the aircraft," Gendreau advised.
If you can afford it, sit in first class, where people aren't so squished together.
Don't drink coffee or tea on an airplane
Monitoring by the Environmental Protection Agency shows that water in airplanes' water tanks isn't always clean and coffee and tea are usually made from that water, not from bottled water, according to Victoria Day, a spokeswoman for the Air Transport Association.
The EPA advises anyone with a suppressed immune system or anyone who's "concerned" about bacteria to refrain from drinking coffee or tea on an airplane.
You should wash your hands after using the restroom, but because the water itself might have harmful bacteria (see No. 2 above) and because the door handle on your way out has been touched by all those who went before you, Gendreau also advises sanitizing your hands when you return to your seat.
Wash or sanitize your hands after getting off an escalator
Gendreau says tests show that escalators in airports are full of germs.
To confirm these tests, here's a fun activity while you wait for your flight this Thanksgiving: Look at your watch, and count how many people get an escalator in a five-minute time period.
Multiply that by 12, and you have how many people are on that escalator every hour.
High-volume handrails are why Gendreau sanitizes his hands as soon as he can after he exits an escalator.
Gendreau says ATMs, especially in busy places like airports, are full of germs.
As with escalators, he sanitizes ASAP after using one.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Post-Olympics Beijing is a vastly changed landscape from the one that existed in 2001 when the city won the bid.
Spurred by the Olympics, the city's subway lines quadrupled from two lines to eight, with another six now under construction.
The city's perimeter expanded with the addition of the 4th, 5th and 6th ring roads, linking districts and satellite towns while accommodating an estimated 3.5 million cars.
But as Huang Yan, the director of the Beijing Municipal Commission of Urban Planning, sees it, the change is not exclusively related to the Olympics.
If there were no Olympics, the city would still be building and expanding into rural land because of urbanization, she said.
For Beijing and other Chinese cities, the issue is a special one because rural areas are more heavily populated than elsewhere in the country, she said in a telephone interview in August.
The dichotomy between urban and rural areas is further exacerbated by the divide between rich and poor.
The country's urban-rural income gap is among the highest in the world, according to a comprehensive United Nations Development Programme report in 2005.
The Chinese government views development and urbanization as the key to alleviating this gap.
In China, land-use rights are distinct from land ownership;
households manage land owned by villages and townships.
The Communist Party's decision in October to allow rural residents to lease or transfer their land use rights could give farmers more impetus to cede their land for new lives in booming cities.
Or, they could stay where they are and work for large-scale farms.
The plan is viewed as a way to raise farmers' incomes, promote "big farming" and speed up urbanization.
Post-Olympics Beijing is a vastly changed landscape from the one that existed in 2001 when the city won the bid.
Spurred by the Olympics, the city's subway lines quadrupled from two lines to eight, with another six now under construction.
The city's perimeter expanded with the addition of the 4th, 5th and 6th ring roads, linking districts and satellite towns while accommodating an estimated 3.5 million cars.
But as Huang Yan, the director of the Beijing Municipal Commission of Urban Planning, sees it, the change is not exclusively related to the Olympics.
If there were no Olympics, the city would still be building and expanding into rural land because of urbanization, she said.
For Beijing and other Chinese cities, the issue is a special one because rural areas are more heavily populated than elsewhere in the country, she said in a telephone interview in August.
The dichotomy between urban and rural areas is further exacerbated by the divide between rich and poor.
The country's urban-rural income gap is among the highest in the world, according to a comprehensive United Nations Development Programme report in 2005.
The Chinese government views development and urbanization as the key to alleviating this gap.
In China, land-use rights are distinct from land ownership;
households manage land owned by villages and townships.
The Communist Party's decision in October to allow rural residents to lease or transfer their land use rights could give farmers more impetus to cede their land for new lives in booming cities.
Or, they could stay where they are and work for large-scale farms.
The plan is viewed as a way to raise farmers' incomes, promote "big farming" and speed up urbanization.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Cambodia`s first rock opera hopes its stage will be a bridge
A man strums an electric guitar while another musician blows on a buffalo horn converted into an instrument.
A boy performs the traditional Cambodian monkey dance spliced in with breakdancing beats while a singer raps to the moves.
The artists are rehearsing for Cambodia's first known contemporary rock opera, "Where Elephants Weep," which makes its world debut Friday in Phnom Penh.
The production, loosely based on a classical Cambodian love story and performed in both English and Cambodian, is part of a bid to revive the arts in the Southeast Asian country, where most artists died under the Khmer Rouge, an ultra-Maoist movement bent on building an agrarian utopia.
"I think when any culture is interrupted by the tragedy of war, it's particularly important to go back and visit those (ancient) traditions, but we are in the 21st century and it's also important to bring those traditions forward," said John Burt, the show's executive producer and founding chair emeritus of Cambodian Living Arts, which commissioned the production.
"Where Elephants Weep" is the tale of two Cambodian-American men who return home after surviving the 1970s genocidal Khmer Rouge regime to reconnect with their roots but are confronted by the tragic past as well as an unfamiliar modern Cambodian society.
One of them ends up in a pagoda and ultimately dead, while another falls into a doomed love affair with a leading local pop singer.
Cambodia`s first rock opera hopes its stage will be a bridge
A man strums an electric guitar while another musician blows on a buffalo horn converted into an instrument.
A boy performs the traditional Cambodian monkey dance spliced in with breakdancing beats while a singer raps to the moves.
The artists are rehearsing for Cambodia's first known contemporary rock opera, "Where Elephants Weep," which makes its world debut Friday in Phnom Penh.
The production, loosely based on a classical Cambodian love story and performed in both English and Cambodian, is part of a bid to revive the arts in the Southeast Asian country, where most artists died under the Khmer Rouge, an ultra-Maoist movement bent on building an agrarian utopia.
"I think when any culture is interrupted by the tragedy of war, it's particularly important to go back and visit those (ancient) traditions, but we are in the 21st century and it's also important to bring those traditions forward," said John Burt, the show's executive producer and founding chair emeritus of Cambodian Living Arts, which commissioned the production.
"Where Elephants Weep" is the tale of two Cambodian-American men who return home after surviving the 1970s genocidal Khmer Rouge regime to reconnect with their roots but are confronted by the tragic past as well as an unfamiliar modern Cambodian society.
One of them ends up in a pagoda and ultimately dead, while another falls into a doomed love affair with a leading local pop singer.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
This holiday season, it seems high-brow concepts are better off making their commercial debut in low-tech gadgets.
"With the current economic situation, I think toys and gadgets which are too complicated, either as a concept, or to operate, will not fly," says Lawrence Cheung, principal consultant of the Hong Kong Productivity Council.
Looking forward to the new year, Hong Kong tech industry analyst and blogger Victor Cheung has his eyes set on an "All-in-One computer that features a multi-touch screen, like that of the HP Pavilion IQ series." According to Cheung, "2009 will see the Tablet PC finally taking off, with more name-brand manufacturers joining the ranks of HP, Fujitsu, Dell, Lenovo, Toshiba and Kohjinsha.
"Expect to see them coming in all sizes and probably with a multi-touch feature by the end of the year.
Don't be surprised to see a MacTablet as well."
In the merry Internet of Things, mastering a smart object is literally child's play.
Start with your friendly wired rabbit.
tag is not only WiFi-enabled, and thus a stand-alone companion, it recognizes voice commands in five languages and can read you weather forecasts, RSS feeds, SMS and much more, straight from the Internet, in 36 different tongues.
If you prefer non-verbal communication, it can also flash its lights or wiggle its ears to grab your attention, or just play music from an online podcast or radio.
Alternatively, let it sniff an RFID-tagged object and see what it does.
All the rabbits are interconnected, and as we know, they multiply fast.
Leave it to a toymaker to launch a compact camera that targets the kawaii market in Japan, based on the concept of the retro instant-gratification Polaroid.
Takara Tomy's 5-megapixel xiao is the first digital camera to integrate the inkless Zink printer, which produces dry, full-color, smudge-proof, tear-proof and water-resistant prints in less than a minute.
"Xiao" can mean either small or laugh in Chinese, but inkless printing is a big deal in both the professional and consumer markets, where eco-friendly printers can now be integrated into almost any gadget.
Just don't forget to buy Zink paper, which doesn't come cheap at almost 45 cents a sheet.
The Xiao is scheduled to launch in North America by April or May 2009.
Eye-Fi 4GB Anniversary Edition SD Card
For those who beg to differ with tangibility, Eye-Fi has recently released the 4GB Anniversary Edition of its much-hyped SD memory card, with double the capacity of previous models.
The good news is Eye-Fi cards allow your camera to automatically send pictures directly to the Internet or your computer via Wi-Fi.
The bad news is it only works within the United States.
It's also only compatible with SDHC-labeled hosts, not standard SD.
Still, the little card boasts the laudable concept of turning your digital camera into another smart object that can connect to the World Wide Web
One nifty device that does support SDHC, as well as three other memory card formats, is the ultra-portable PocketCinema V10 projector with stereo speakers.
About the size of a cell phone, it can beam photos and videos straight from the card, or whatever else you might want to blow up or share directly from your media player, mobile phone, camcorder or game console
on an image 15cm to 127cm in diagonal, from 21cm to 180cm away, in 640x480 pixel resolution.
Picture small, project big.
The Flip has been a hit ever since it hit the market as the one-handed pocket camcorder for dummies, simpletons, or anyone otherwise gadget-challenged.
And now it shoots in HD.
Dress it up, point and shoot, flip the USB, plug and play. Edit up to 60 minutes of video with built-in software for simple cuts or fun mixes.
All the high-tech exposure automation, light correction and color balancing are out of sight, out of mind.
Buy one for your five-year-old, then get another one for your grandmother to prove that it's the person, not the hardware, who makes the movie magic.
Just press the big red button.
This holiday season, it seems high-brow concepts are better off making their commercial debut in low-tech gadgets.
"With the current economic situation, I think toys and gadgets which are too complicated, either as a concept, or to operate, will not fly," says Lawrence Cheung, principal consultant of the Hong Kong Productivity Council.
Looking forward to the new year, Hong Kong tech industry analyst and blogger Victor Cheung has his eyes set on an "All-in-One computer that features a multi-touch screen, like that of the HP Pavilion IQ series." According to Cheung, "2009 will see the Tablet PC finally taking off, with more name-brand manufacturers joining the ranks of HP, Fujitsu, Dell, Lenovo, Toshiba and Kohjinsha.
"Expect to see them coming in all sizes and probably with a multi-touch feature by the end of the year.
Don't be surprised to see a MacTablet as well."
In the merry Internet of Things, mastering a smart object is literally child's play.
Start with your friendly wired rabbit.
tag is not only WiFi-enabled, and thus a stand-alone companion, it recognizes voice commands in five languages and can read you weather forecasts, RSS feeds, SMS and much more, straight from the Internet, in 36 different tongues.
If you prefer non-verbal communication, it can also flash its lights or wiggle its ears to grab your attention, or just play music from an online podcast or radio.
Alternatively, let it sniff an RFID-tagged object and see what it does.
All the rabbits are interconnected, and as we know, they multiply fast.
Leave it to a toymaker to launch a compact camera that targets the kawaii market in Japan, based on the concept of the retro instant-gratification Polaroid.
Takara Tomy's 5-megapixel xiao is the first digital camera to integrate the inkless Zink printer, which produces dry, full-color, smudge-proof, tear-proof and water-resistant prints in less than a minute.
"Xiao" can mean either small or laugh in Chinese, but inkless printing is a big deal in both the professional and consumer markets, where eco-friendly printers can now be integrated into almost any gadget.
Just don't forget to buy Zink paper, which doesn't come cheap at almost 45 cents a sheet.
The Xiao is scheduled to launch in North America by April or May 2009.
Eye-Fi 4GB Anniversary Edition SD Card
For those who beg to differ with tangibility, Eye-Fi has recently released the 4GB Anniversary Edition of its much-hyped SD memory card, with double the capacity of previous models.
The good news is Eye-Fi cards allow your camera to automatically send pictures directly to the Internet or your computer via Wi-Fi.
The bad news is it only works within the United States.
It's also only compatible with SDHC-labeled hosts, not standard SD.
Still, the little card boasts the laudable concept of turning your digital camera into another smart object that can connect to the World Wide Web
One nifty device that does support SDHC, as well as three other memory card formats, is the ultra-portable PocketCinema V10 projector with stereo speakers.
About the size of a cell phone, it can beam photos and videos straight from the card, or whatever else you might want to blow up or share directly from your media player, mobile phone, camcorder or game console
on an image 15cm to 127cm in diagonal, from 21cm to 180cm away, in 640x480 pixel resolution.
Picture small, project big.
The Flip has been a hit ever since it hit the market as the one-handed pocket camcorder for dummies, simpletons, or anyone otherwise gadget-challenged.
And now it shoots in HD.
Dress it up, point and shoot, flip the USB, plug and play. Edit up to 60 minutes of video with built-in software for simple cuts or fun mixes.
All the high-tech exposure automation, light correction and color balancing are out of sight, out of mind.
Buy one for your five-year-old, then get another one for your grandmother to prove that it's the person, not the hardware, who makes the movie magic.
Just press the big red button.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
The sleepless nights, the woozy days and the foggy minds of jet lag are the bane of any business traveler's life.
But help may be on the way in the form of a new drug that has proved successful in resetting the body's natural sleep rhythms.
In two clinical trials, the drug tasimelteon helped volunteers whose sleep pattern had been delayed by five hours to fall asleep quicker and to sleep for longer.
The drug mimics the effects of melatonin.
Melatonin is a naturally-occurring hormone in humans that regulates the circadian rhythm, or the natural human clock, that is partly controlled by daylight.
When the circadian rhythm is disrupted by traveling across time zones or disrupting sleep during shift work the most common symptoms are insomnia when trying to sleep and excessive sleepiness while trying to remain awake.
This is due to the inability of the body to cope with conflicting time signals.
Melatonin improves the quality of sleep and dulls the awakening signal in the body clock.
The studies on tasimelteon were undertaken by researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, USA and Monash University, Australia.
They conducted two trials with 450 volunteers whose sleep patterns had been disturbed by keeping them awake for five hours longer
usually the time difference between New York and London.
They compared the sleep patterns of people who had been given different dosages of the drug 30 minutes before sleep and those who had been given a placebo.
In both studies, tasimelteon reduced the amount of time it took for them to fall asleep, and increased the amount of time they spent asleep.
Commenting on the results of the trial, published in medical journal The Lancet this week, Daniel Cardinali, from the University of Buenos Aires and Diego Golombek from the National University of Quilmes, Buenos Aires, said the results would be welcomed by "shift workers, airline crew, tourists and football teams."
They added that the drug could be an alternative to addictive sleep therapies such as benzodiazepines.
Melatonin-like drugs only exert a "modest sleep-promoting effect." Instead, they wrote, "they amplify day-night differences in alertness and sleep quality."
In the meantime, experts say there are natural ways business travelers can combat the effects of jet lag. Here are some to keep in mind before you travel.
*Avoid late meals and alcohol
*Take cat-naps when you need to
*Adjust to your destination as soon as you get one the plane
*Get a good night's sleep before you travel
*Go for walks in daytime and get plenty of sunlight
*Try to sleep at take-off when gravitational forces and a shortage of fresh oxygen make ideal conditions for dozing off
*A break in a long flight can help
*Noise-cancellation headphones can block out noise and help you sleep on planes
The sleepless nights, the woozy days and the foggy minds of jet lag are the bane of any business traveler's life.
But help may be on the way in the form of a new drug that has proved successful in resetting the body's natural sleep rhythms.
In two clinical trials, the drug tasimelteon helped volunteers whose sleep pattern had been delayed by five hours to fall asleep quicker and to sleep for longer.
The drug mimics the effects of melatonin.
Melatonin is a naturally-occurring hormone in humans that regulates the circadian rhythm, or the natural human clock, that is partly controlled by daylight.
When the circadian rhythm is disrupted by traveling across time zones or disrupting sleep during shift work the most common symptoms are insomnia when trying to sleep and excessive sleepiness while trying to remain awake.
This is due to the inability of the body to cope with conflicting time signals.
Melatonin improves the quality of sleep and dulls the awakening signal in the body clock.
The studies on tasimelteon were undertaken by researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, USA and Monash University, Australia.
They conducted two trials with 450 volunteers whose sleep patterns had been disturbed by keeping them awake for five hours longer
usually the time difference between New York and London.
They compared the sleep patterns of people who had been given different dosages of the drug 30 minutes before sleep and those who had been given a placebo.
In both studies, tasimelteon reduced the amount of time it took for them to fall asleep, and increased the amount of time they spent asleep.
Commenting on the results of the trial, published in medical journal The Lancet this week, Daniel Cardinali, from the University of Buenos Aires and Diego Golombek from the National University of Quilmes, Buenos Aires, said the results would be welcomed by "shift workers, airline crew, tourists and football teams."
They added that the drug could be an alternative to addictive sleep therapies such as benzodiazepines.
Melatonin-like drugs only exert a "modest sleep-promoting effect." Instead, they wrote, "they amplify day-night differences in alertness and sleep quality."
In the meantime, experts say there are natural ways business travelers can combat the effects of jet lag. Here are some to keep in mind before you travel.
*Avoid late meals and alcohol
*Take cat-naps when you need to
*Adjust to your destination as soon as you get one the plane
*Get a good night's sleep before you travel
*Go for walks in daytime and get plenty of sunlight
*Try to sleep at take-off when gravitational forces and a shortage of fresh oxygen make ideal conditions for dozing off
*A break in a long flight can help
*Noise-cancellation headphones can block out noise and help you sleep on planes
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Riots continue across Greece after teen killed by police
Bursts of tear gas exploded in downtown Athens as police continued to battle hundreds of young self-styled anarchists rioting Sunday in major cities across Greece.
In a fury over the death of a teenager killed by police on Saturday, angry demonstrations had not abated by late Sunday night.
"It at first seemed like it was calming down today, but then at 5 p.m. Athens time it kicked off again," according to Joel Brown, a CNN senior press officer visiting Athens. "There are lots of burning bins and debris in the street and a huge amount of tear gas in the air, which we got choked with on the way back to our hotel," he said.
Tourists holed up in downtown Athens hotels were told by hotel staff not to leave their rooms as police fanned out across the city, Brown said.
The U.S. and British embassies issued warnings to employees and tourists on Sunday, instructing them to avoid downtown Athens and other major cities until rioting subsides.
The police officer who fired the fatal shot has been charged with "manslaughter with intent" and suspended from duty, police said, adding that a second police officer was arrested Saturday on criminal accessory charges.
Demonstrators barricaded city streets Sunday in Athens and Thessaloniki and hurled petrol bombs as they battled with police, who fought back with tear gas in the second day of rioting.
Riots continue across Greece after teen killed by police
Bursts of tear gas exploded in downtown Athens as police continued to battle hundreds of young self-styled anarchists rioting Sunday in major cities across Greece.
In a fury over the death of a teenager killed by police on Saturday, angry demonstrations had not abated by late Sunday night.
"It at first seemed like it was calming down today, but then at 5 p.m. Athens time it kicked off again," according to Joel Brown, a CNN senior press officer visiting Athens. "There are lots of burning bins and debris in the street and a huge amount of tear gas in the air, which we got choked with on the way back to our hotel," he said.
Tourists holed up in downtown Athens hotels were told by hotel staff not to leave their rooms as police fanned out across the city, Brown said.
The U.S. and British embassies issued warnings to employees and tourists on Sunday, instructing them to avoid downtown Athens and other major cities until rioting subsides.
The police officer who fired the fatal shot has been charged with "manslaughter with intent" and suspended from duty, police said, adding that a second police officer was arrested Saturday on criminal accessory charges.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Adventurer and TV show host Bear Grylls injured his shoulder in Antarctica during an expedition to raise money for an international charity, the Discovery Channel said Sunday.
Grylls was injured Friday night after falling during the expedition, which was not for the Discovery Channel, according to the network's statement.
The statement said that Grylls is returning to the UK to receive medical attention.
"Once he sees a doctor, we will have a better sense of the level of seriousness of his shoulder injury and the recovery time needed to get him back to his full physical activity," according to the statement.
Grylls, 34, is the host of Discovery's "Man vs. Wild" in which he demonstrates extreme measures
including eating snakes and insects
used to survive in harsh environmental conditions.
In his blog, Grylls said the aim of his expedition in Antarctica is "to promote alternative energies and their potential."
"We will be using lots of different forms of alternative power, including wind-powered kite-skiing, part bio-ethanol powered jetskis and inflatable boats, electric-powered paragliders, solar- and wind-powered base camps and good old foot work," Grylls wrote in a November 14 entry.
Grylls is a former member of the British Special Forces and has broken his back in several places during his service.
In his blog, he said he and his wife Shara are expecting their third child in January.
Adventurer and TV show host Bear Grylls injured his shoulder in Antarctica during an expedition to raise money for an international charity, the Discovery Channel said Sunday.
Grylls was injured Friday night after falling during the expedition, which was not for the Discovery Channel, according to the network's statement.
The statement said that Grylls is returning to the UK to receive medical attention.
"Once he sees a doctor, we will have a better sense of the level of seriousness of his shoulder injury and the recovery time needed to get him back to his full physical activity," according to the statement.
Grylls, 34, is the host of Discovery's "Man vs. Wild" in which he demonstrates extreme measures
including eating snakes and insects
used to survive in harsh environmental conditions.
In his blog, Grylls said the aim of his expedition in Antarctica
is "to promote alternative energies and their potential."
and good old foot work," Grylls wrote in a November 14 entry.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
In an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press," Obama said:
"What we need to do is examine:
What are the projects where we're going to get the most bang for the buck? How are we going to make sure taxpayers are protected?
"You know, the days of just pork coming out of Congress as a strategy, those days are over."
Later, at a news conference in Chicago, Illinois, Obama said in his recent meetings with the National Conference of Governors, there was a "strong bipartisan" consensus that "we've got to get people working on some key projects that have been sitting there for a long time."
Infrastructure, energy programs and school construction projects will get people working and ultimately help build a stronger economy, he said.
"We are not going to simply write a bunch of checks and let them be spent without some very clear criteria as to how this money is going to benefit the overall economy and put people back to work. We're not going to be making decisions on projects simply based on politics and
The president-elect faced questions about a possible bailout of the auto industry, which he supports with caveats.
"It makes no sense for us to shovel more money into the problem if you have not seen an auto industry that is committed to restructuring restructuring that, frankly, should have been done 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago," he told reporters.
"Congress is doing the exact right thing by asking for a conditions-based assistance package that holds the auto industry's feet to the fire, gives them some short-term assistance, but also insists that that assistance leads to some very difficult choices involving all the stakeholders ... including management, labor, shareholders, creditors, and so on."
Asked whether he supports Sen. Christopher Dodd's call Sunday for General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner to step down, Obama did not respond directly. But he said generally that "if this management team that's currently in place doesn't understand the urgency of the situation and is not willing to make the tough choices and adapt to these new circumstances, then they should go."
In an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press," Obama said:
"What we need to do is examine:
What are the projects where we're going to get the most bang for the buck? How are we going to make sure taxpayers are protected?
"You know, the days of just pork coming out of Congress as a strategy, those days are over."
Later, at a news conference in Chicago, Illinois, Obama said in his recent meetings with the National Conference of Governors, there was a "strong bipartisan" consensus that "we've got to get people working on some key projects that have been sitting there for a long time."
Infrastructure, energy programs and school construction projects will get people working and ultimately help build a stronger economy, he said.
"We are not going to simply write a bunch of checks and let them be spent without some very clear criteria as to how this money is going to benefit the overall economy and put people back to work. We're not going to be making decisions on projects simply based on politics and
The president-elect faced questions about a possible bailout of the auto industry, which he supports with caveats.
"It makes no sense for us to shovel more money into the problem if you have not seen an auto industry that is committed to restructuring restructuring that, frankly, should have been done 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago," he told reporters.
"Congress is doing the exact right thing by asking for a conditions-based assistance package that holds the auto industry's feet to the fire, gives them some short-term assistance, but also insists that that assistance leads to some very difficult choices involving all the stakeholders ... including management, labor, shareholders, creditors, and so on."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Michelle Wie earned a spot on the LPGA Tour on Sunday, overcoming a miserable start to shoot a 2-over 74 and easily finish among the top 20 players at the Q-school to become a card-carrying member of the tour.
Wie has been playing LPGA Tour events since she was in the seventh grade, drawing the biggest galleries because of her youth and power, but earning little respect from players because of her preferential treatment.
In the 62 tournaments she has played over the last seven years, Wie received 53 exemptions or invitations.
The next time Wie tees it up, she finally can feel like she belongs.
Wie said she will return to Stanford for the winter quarter, but plans a full LPGA schedule next year.
Without being a member, she was limited to six LPGA events, plus the U.S. Women's Open and Women's British Open.
I really like this game, and I want to play a lot. I'm going to take advantage of this card."
But she hasn't ruled out playing against the men.
Wie has not made the cut in eight tries on the PGA Tour, where she twice shot 68 in the Sony Open to set the record for lowest score by a female competing against the men.
She has played six other men's events, making only one cut in South Korea.
"I still want to pursue that," she said.
I've always wanted to do it since I started golf."
Wie has been playing LPGA Tour events since she was in the seventh grade, drawing the biggest galleries because of her youth and power, but earning little respect from players because of her preferential treatment.
In the 62 tournaments she has played over the last seven years, Wie received 53 exemptions or invitations.
The next time Wie tees it up, she finally can feel like she belongs.
Wie said she will return to Stanford for the winter quarter, but plans a full LPGA schedule next year.
Without being a member, she was limited to six LPGA events, plus the U.S. Women's Open and Women's British Open.
"I play whenever I want now, not when I have to play, or only six tournaments," she said.
"I can pick and choose.
I might play two in a row, three in a row, and have some momentum.
I really like this game, and I want to play a lot.
I'm going to take advantage of this card."
But she hasn't ruled out playing against the men.
She has played six other men's events, making only one cut in South Korea.
I've always wanted to do it since I started golf."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
If you're feeling great today, you may end up inadvertently spreading the joy to someone you don't even know.
New research shows that in a social network, happiness spreads among people up to three degrees removed from one another.
That means when you feel happy, a friend of a friend of a friend has a slightly higher likelihood of feeling happy too.
The lesson is that taking control of your own happiness can positively affect others, says James Fowler, co-author of the study and professor of political science at the University of California in San Diego.
"We get this chain reaction in happiness that I think increases the stakes in terms of us trying to shape our own moods to make sure we have a positive impact on people we know and love," he said.
Sadness also spreads in a network, but not as quickly, the researchers found.
Each happy friend increases your own chance of being happy by 9 percent, whereas each unhappy friend decreases it by 7 percent.
This reflects the total effect of all social contacts.
When framing the question differently, the study found that you are 15 percent more likely to be happy if a direct connection is happy, 10 percent if the friend of a friend is happy, and 6 percent if it's a friend of a friend of a friend.
The study, published in the British Medical Journal, used data from the Framingham Heart Study to recreate a network of 4,739.
Fowler and co-author Dr. Nicholas Christakis of Harvard Medical School charted friends, spouses and siblings in the network, and used their self-reported happiness ratings from 1983 to 2003.
If you are the hub of a large network of people that is, if you have a lot of connected friends or a wide social circle
you are more likely to become happy, the study found. But the reverse is not true.
If you're feeling great today, you may end up inadvertently spreading the joy to someone you don't even know.
New research shows that in a social network, happiness spreads among people up to three degrees removed from one another.
That means when you feel happy, a friend of a friend of a friend has a slightly higher likelihood of feeling happy too.
The lesson is that taking control of your own happiness can positively affect others, says James Fowler, co-author of the study and professor of political science at the University of California in San Diego.
"We get this chain reaction in happiness that I think increases the stakes in terms of us trying to shape our own moods to make sure we have a positive impact on people we know and love," he said.
Sadness also spreads in a network, but not as quickly, the researchers found.
Each happy friend increases your own chance of being happy by 9 percent, whereas each unhappy friend decreases it by 7 percent.
This reflects the total effect of all social contacts.
When framing the question differently, the study found that you are 15 percent more likely to be happy if a direct connection is happy, 10 percent if the friend of a friend is happy, and 6 percent if it's a friend of a friend of a friend.
The study, published in the British Medical Journal, used data from the Framingham Heart Study to recreate a network of 4,739.
Fowler and co-author Dr. Nicholas Christakis of Harvard Medical School charted friends, spouses and siblings in the network, and used their self-reported happiness ratings from 1983 to 2003.
If you are the hub of a large network of people that is, if you have a lot of connected friends or a wide social circle
But the reverse is not true.
You're probably going to stick with what worked in the first place," Fowler said.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
"There's no doubt" that the deadly attack on India's financial capital last month was planned inside Pakistan, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told CNN on Sunday.
Her comments to CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer" were the most definitive made by a top-ranking U.S. official regarding Pakistan's connection to the November 26-29 attack on Mumbai, in which more than 170 were killed and hundreds of others were wounded.
"Well, I think there's no doubt that Pakistani territory was used by probably non-state actors," Rice said. "I don't think that there is compelling evidence of involvement of Pakistani officials. But I do think that Pakistan has a responsibility to act, and it doesn't matter that they're non-state actors."
Last week, Rice traveled to the region to try to ease tension between India and Pakistan, both nuclear powers and key allies of the United States.
While in New Delhi, India, she called on Pakistan to take responsibility for terrorists operating within its borders.
Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has said "stateless actors" carried out the attack while Indian authorities say they believe all the attackers were Pakistanis, specifically blaming Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT), an Islamic militant group based in Pakistan.
counterterrorism officials say signs point to LeT, and they haven't seen anything to rule it out. However, they have not definitively said the group is responsible.
U.S. Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell said during an appearance Tuesday at Harvard University that the Mumbai attacks were carried out by the same group responsible for the parliament attack and a series of bomb explosions aboard trains and at railway stations in Mumbai in 2006 though he didn't specifically name LeT.
LeT has denied any responsibility for the attacks, but a suspect in custody whom India has said was one of 10 gunmen in the attacks
told interrogators he was trained by LeT, Indian authorities said.
India said its forces killed nine gunmen.
"There's no doubt" that the deadly attack on India's financial capital last month was planned inside Pakistan, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told CNN on Sunday.
Her comments to CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer" were the most definitive made by a top-ranking U.S. official regarding Pakistan's connection to the November 26-29 attack on Mumbai, in which more than 170 were killed and hundreds of others were wounded.
"Well, I think there's no doubt that Pakistani territory was used by probably non-state actors," Rice said. "I don't think that there is compelling evidence of involvement of Pakistani officials. But I do think that Pakistan has a responsibility to act, and it doesn't matter that they're non-state actors."
Last week, Rice traveled to the region to try to ease tension between India and Pakistan, both nuclear powers and key allies of the United States.
While in New Delhi, India, she called on Pakistan to take responsibility for terrorists operating within its borders.
Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has said "stateless actors" carried out the attack while Indian authorities say they believe all the attackers were Pakistanis, specifically blaming Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT), an Islamic militant group based in Pakistan.
counterterrorism officials say signs point to LeT, and they haven't seen anything to rule it out. However, they have not definitively said the group is responsible.
U.S. Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell said during an appearance Tuesday at Harvard University that the Mumbai attacks were carried out by the same group responsible for the parliament attack and a series of bomb explosions aboard trains and at railway stations in Mumbai in 2006 though he didn't specifically name LeT.
LeT has denied any responsibility for the attacks, but a suspect in custody whom India has said was one of 10 gunmen in the attacks
told interrogators he was trained by LeT, Indian authorities said.
India said its forces killed nine gunmen.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
New talks between North Korea, its neighbors and the United States over Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program opened Monday in the Chinese capital, five months after the last round of negotiations, China announced.
The last round of talks, held in July, ended with an agreement on a timetable for North Korea to resume disabling its nuclear facilities.
But the reclusive communist state balked at the deal, demanding the United States first take it off its list of state sponsors of terrorism.
Washington lifted that designation in October, but plans to push for an agreement allowing the other parties to check whether Pyongyang has revealed all of its nuclear secrets, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said last month.
North Korea tested a nuclear weapon in 2006.
In June, it acknowledged producing roughly 40 kilograms of enriched plutonium enough for about seven nuclear bombs.
New talks between North Korea, its neighbors and the United States over Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program opened Monday in the Chinese capital, five months after the last round of negotiations, China announced.
The last round of talks, held in July, ended with an agreement on a timetable for North Korea to resume disabling its nuclear facilities.
But the reclusive communist state balked at the deal, demanding the United States first take it off its list of state sponsors of terrorism.
Washington lifted that designation in October, but plans to push for an agreement allowing the other parties to check whether Pyongyang has revealed all of its nuclear secrets, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said last month.
North Korea tested a nuclear weapon in 2006.
In June, it acknowledged producing roughly 40 kilograms of enriched plutonium enough for about seven nuclear bombs.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Dogs appear to experience a range of complex, unpleasant emotions such as jealousy and pride, scientists have discovered.
Until now, this type of behavior had only been shown in humans or chimpanzees, but researchers suspected that other species that live together could be sensitive to fair play
"We are learning that dogs, horses, and perhaps many other species are far more emotionally complex than we ever realized," Paul Morris, a psychologist at the University of Portsmouth who studies animal emotions, told The Sunday Times.
"They can suffer simple forms of many emotions we once thought only primates could experience."
Scientists noted that dogs hate to see their owners being affectionate to other dogs and can suffer if a new baby or partner arrives on the scene.
To test the theory, Friederike Range and colleagues at the University of Vienna in Austria asked 33 trained dogs to extend a paw to a human.
The animals performed the trick virtually all of the time whether they were given a reward or not when alone or with another dog.
But the dogs' enthusiasm waned when they saw other dogs being rewarded but received nothing themselves.
Dogs that were ignored extended their paws much less often, doing so in only 13 out of 30 trials.
They also showed more stress, such as licking or scratching themselves.
"They are clearly unhappy with the unfair situation", Range told New Scientist magazine.
She also suspects that this sensitivity might stretch beyond food to more abstract things like praise and attention.
"It might explain why some dogs react with 'new baby envy' when their owners have a child," she said.
Dogs appear to experience a range of complex, unpleasant emotions such as jealousy and pride, scientists have discovered.
Until now, this type of behavior had only been shown in humans or chimpanzees, but researchers suspected that other species that live together could be sensitive to fair play
"We are learning that dogs, horses, and perhaps many other species are far more emotionally complex than we ever realized," Paul Morris, a psychologist at the University of Portsmouth who studies animal emotions, told The Sunday Times.
"They can suffer simple forms of many emotions we once thought only primates could experience."
Scientists noted that dogs hate to see their owners being affectionate to other dogs and can suffer if a new baby or partner arrives on the scene.
To test the theory, Friederike Range and colleagues at the University of Vienna in Austria asked 33 trained dogs to extend a paw to a human.
The animals performed the trick virtually all of the time whether they were given a reward or not when alone or with another dog.
But the dogs' enthusiasm waned when they saw other dogs being rewarded but received nothing themselves.
Dogs that were ignored extended their paws much less often, doing so in only 13 out of 30 trials.
They also showed more stress, such as licking or scratching themselves.
"They are clearly unhappy with the unfair situation", Range told New Scientist magazine.
She also suspects that this sensitivity might stretch beyond food to more abstract things like praise and attention.
"It might explain why some dogs react with 'new baby envy' when their owners have a child," she said.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Illinois governor backs workers, will halt business with lender
Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich ordered the state government to suspend doing business with Bank of America on Monday as a weekend sit-in by laid-off workers at a Chicago window factory spilled into the workweek.
About 200 workers from the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America have conducted what they call a "peaceful occupation" of the Republic Windows and Doors plant since Friday, when the abruptly announced layoffs were supposed to take effect.
The workers said Republic gave them three days notice that they were losing their jobs, telling them Bank of America had cut off credit to the company.
Federal law requires either 60 days notice or 60 days pay for the laid-off workers.
"We are going to do everything possible here in Illinois to side with these workers," Blagojevich said after meeting with them.
"And it isn't just lending them moral support, but it's putting pressure on financial institutions like the Bank of America as well as making sure that we have our court system enforce the federal laws so these workers are getting what they're entitled to under the law and under what is the right thing to do."
The Bank of America "received $25 billion in taxpayer money as part of the financial bailout," the governor said.
Illinois governor backs workers, will halt business with lender
Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich ordered the state government to suspend doing business with Bank of America on Monday as a weekend sit-in by laid-off workers at a Chicago window factory spilled into the workweek.
About 200 workers from the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America have conducted what they call a "peaceful occupation" of the Republic Windows and Doors plant since Friday, when the abruptly announced layoffs were supposed to take effect.
The workers said Republic gave them three days notice that they were losing their jobs, telling them Bank of America had cut off credit to the company.
Federal law requires either 60 days notice or 60 days pay for the laid-off workers.
"We are going to do everything possible here in Illinois to side with these workers," Blagojevich said after meeting with them.
"And it isn't just lending them moral support, but it's putting pressure on financial institutions like the Bank of America as well as making sure that we have our court system enforce the federal laws so these workers are getting what they're entitled to under the law and under what is the right thing to do."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
She had lost her job at Denny's, where she worked the graveyard shift.
And the couple fell behind on the mortgage last month.
So Henriksen, of Phoenix, Arizona, cut her hair and sold it on the Internet to a hair trader in the Netherlands.
"Everyone was telling me how beautiful my hair was," the 27-year-old said.
Her friends suggested that she sell it.
"We're trying to keep our place here," she said. "We don't want to become like people right now who are losing their homes."
With the economy squeezing the budgets of more Americans, some people are looking for creative ways to pay their monthly bills.
Selling hair on the Internet is just one of those unusual methods.
"We've seen about a 20 percent increase in the last four months," said Jacalyn Elise, co-founder of TheHairTrader.com, referring to the number of ads offering hair for sale posted on her site.
"These days, some people are just in need of money." Henriksen was paid $1,200 for 27 inches of her tresses.
But most hair is sold for about $300 to $900, says Marlys Fladeland of Hairwork.com.
The hair is used to make wigs or hair extensions or is used in artwork.
The longer the hair, the more it is worth.
Untreated hair is also likely to fetch a higher price, Elise says.
For Henriksen, cutting her hair was always in the cards. But she had planned to give it to a nonprofit organization that provides hairpieces for children who lost their hair after cancer treatments.
"Initially, I had grown my hair out to donate to Locks of Love in memory of my mother, who passed away from cancer last year.
I was going to try to give back to people who didn't have any hair.
But it didn't work out that way.
Instead, I got my kids Christmas [gifts]," she said.
She was so pleased with how easy her hairy business deal was, she says she's planning on growing her hair out again and selling it on TheHairTrader.com to help pay for her wedding.
She had lost her job at Denny's, where she worked the graveyard shift.
And the couple fell behind on the mortgage last month.
So Henriksen, of Phoenix, Arizona, cut her hair and sold it on the Internet to a hair trader in the Netherlands.
"Everyone was telling me how beautiful my hair was," the 27-year-old said.
Her friends suggested that she sell it.
"We're trying to keep our place here," she said. "We don't want to become like people right now who are losing their homes."
With the economy squeezing the budgets of more Americans, some people are looking for creative ways to pay their monthly bills.
Selling hair on the Internet is just one of those unusual methods.
"We've seen about a 20 percent increase in the last four months," said Jacalyn Elise, co-founder of TheHairTrader.com, referring to the number of ads offering hair for sale posted on her site.
"These days, some people are just in need of money." Henriksen was paid $1,200 for 27 inches of her tresses.
But most hair is sold for about $300 to $900, says Marlys Fladeland of Hairwork.com.
The hair is used to make wigs or hair extensions or is used in artwork.
The longer the hair, the more it is worth.
Untreated hair is also likely to fetch a higher price, Elise says.
For Henriksen, cutting her hair was always in the cards. But she had planned to give it to a nonprofit organization that provides hairpieces for children who lost their hair after cancer treatments.
"Initially, I had grown my hair out to donate to Locks of Love in memory of my mother, who passed away from cancer last year.
I was going to try to give back to people who didn't have any hair.
But it didn't work out that way.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Instead, Oxford wants to know:
"What would you do if you were a magpie?"
The idea, say administrators at the two ultra-prestigious schools in England, is to see how well prospective students can think, not just how much they know.
"What we're trying to do is move students out of their comfort zone," said Mike Nicholson, Oxford University admissions director.
"Many students will have a body of knowledge, and they may be expected to be trusted on that in the interview.
What we want to do is take them beyond that point and get them to start thinking for themselves."
In the United Kingdom, 90 percent of students are educated at state schools.
But 53 percent of Oxford University's students come from state schools.
That seems to indicate that wealthier students who can afford private schools have an advantage.
Tutoring company Oxbridge Applications founded by Oxford graduates in 1999
says 68 percent of the 35,000 clients it has helped are state-funded students. It costs $300 for a day of mock interviews or $1,500 for a full weekend course.
Oxbridge says 47 percent of its clients get into one of the elite colleges.
The overall success rate for all applicants to the two schools
commonly referred to as Oxbridge
is 24 percent, the tutoring company says.
You might expect Oxford and Cambridge universities to ask prospective students to compare the works of Chaucer to Boccaccio or to explain the theory of relativity.
Instead, Oxford wants to know:
"Would you rather be a novel or a poem?" "What would you do if you were a magpie?"
The idea, say administrators at the two ultra-prestigious schools in England, is to see how well prospective students can think, not just how much they know.
"What we're trying to do is move students out of their comfort zone," said Mike Nicholson, Oxford University admissions director.
"Many students will have a body of knowledge, and they may be expected to be trusted on that in the interview.
What we want to do is take them beyond that point and get them to start thinking for themselves."
In the United Kingdom, 90 percent of students are educated at state schools.
But 53 percent of Oxford University's students come from state schools.
That seems to indicate that wealthier students who can afford private schools have an advantage.
Tutoring company Oxbridge Applications
says 68 percent of the 35,000 clients it has helped are state-funded students.
It costs $300 for a day of mock interviews or $1,500 for a full weekend course.
The overall success rate for all applicants to the two schools
is 24 percent, the tutoring company says.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
When fans cross the line
UEFA is currently investigating an incident where a cigarette lighter hit Steven Gerrard during the Liverpool-Marseille Champions League clash at Anfield.
The Liverpool skipper did not react when the lighter was hurled at him by Marseille fans as he went to take a corner at the away end of the ground.
UEFA could choose to stringently penalize Marseille as European football's governing body looks to clamp down on fans' misbehavior.
It's anything but the first time supporters have caused trouble for teams by throwing things from the stands.
Luis Figo famously had a pig's head thrown at him on his first return to the Nou Camp following his move from Barcelona to Real Madrid in 2000.
Referee Anders Frisk had to abandon a Champions League match when he was hit by a cigarette lighter at Rome's Stadio Olimpico and he left the field with blood streaming down his face.
Dida was struck by a lit flare while playing in a Champions League quarter-final for AC Milan versus city rivals Internazionale, suffering first-degree burns to his shoulder.
the largest fine ever imposed by UEFA and had to play their first four 2005-06 Champions League home matches behind closed doors.
It seems that fans like making it easy for UEFA to punish them.
If they like watching their teams play, it's counter-productive to chuck something on to the pitch.
But, the fans would argue, it's worth it to get a rise out of a player.
Last month Didier Drogba found himself in hot water for throwing a coin back into Burnley fans who had lobbed it at him during Chelsea's Carling Cup defeat to Burnley at Stamford Bridge.
He might easily have been sent off for the incident but a three-game ban followed regardless.
Objects on the pitch also helped Sheffield United beat Manchester City in last season's FA Cup, when the ball bounced kindly off a stray balloon and into the path of Luton Shelton to score.
Missile-throwing is far from being an exclusively European problem, either.
Homemade "bombs" have been thrown onto pitches in Argentina, making plenty of noise and letting off smoke.
They've brought an early end to more than one game.
But it is also in Argentina where fans have produced one of the greatest spectacles in football history.
One of the features of the 1978 World Cup was the ticker tape which cascaded from the sky whenever the hosts played.
And unraveled toilet rolls strewn across the pitch are not an uncommon sight and which harm no one.
So perhaps it's not always bad for fans to litter the pitch.
When fans cross the line
UEFA is currently investigating an incident where a cigarette lighter hit Steven Gerrard during the Liverpool-Marseille Champions League clash at Anfield.
The Liverpool skipper did not react when the lighter was hurled at him by Marseille fans as he went to take a corner at the away end of the ground.
UEFA could choose to stringently penalize Marseille as European football's governing body looks to clamp down on fans' misbehavior.
It's anything but the first time supporters have caused trouble for teams by throwing things from the stands.
Luis Figo famously had a pig's head thrown at him on his first return to the Nou Camp following his move from Barcelona to Real Madrid in 2000.
Referee Anders Frisk had to abandon a Champions League match when he was hit by a cigarette lighter at Rome's Stadio Olimpico and he left the field with blood streaming down his face.
Dida was struck by a lit flare while playing in a Champions League quarter-final for AC Milan versus city rivals Internazionale, suffering first-degree burns to his shoulder.
the largest fine ever imposed by UEFA and had to play their first four 2005-06 Champions League home matches behind closed doors.
It seems that fans like making it easy for UEFA to punish them.
If they like watching their teams play, it's counter-productive to chuck something on to the pitch.
But, the fans would argue, it's worth it to get a rise out of a player.
Last month Didier Drogba found himself in hot water for throwing a coin back into Burnley fans who had lobbed it at him during Chelsea's Carling Cup defeat to Burnley at Stamford Bridge.
He might easily have been sent off for the incident but a three-game ban followed regardless.
Objects on the pitch also helped Sheffield United beat Manchester City in last season's FA Cup, when the ball bounced kindly off a stray balloon and into the path of Luton Shelton to score.
Missile-throwing is far from being an exclusively European problem, either.
Homemade "bombs" have been thrown onto pitches in Argentina, making plenty of noise and letting off smoke.
They've brought an early end to more than one game.
But it is also in Argentina where fans have produced one of the greatest spectacles in football history.
One of the features of the 1978 World Cup was the ticker tape which cascaded from the sky whenever the hosts played.
And unraveled toilet rolls strewn across the pitch are not an uncommon sight and which harm no one.
So perhaps it's not always bad for fans to litter the pitch.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Violence flares at Greek teen`s funeral
Protesters clashed with riot police and 10,000 people marched on parliament in Greece as a 15-year-old boy killed by police was buried Tuesday.
Thousands paid their respects to Alexandros Grigoropoulos at his funeral, but a small number of the protesters there grew violent at the end of the ceremony.
Riot police lined up as night fell and a reasonably peaceful candlelight vigil was held in central Athens.
Some 10,000 people marched on the country's parliament Tuesday to express their anger at the teenager's death, and also other issues like the economy, jobs, and allegations that the government is corrupt.
Groups clashed with riot police at the parliament and across central Athens.
Street riots started over the weekend after Athens police killed 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos on Saturday.
Police said six young protesters pelted a police patrol car with stones, and the teen was shot as he tried to throw a fuel-filled bomb at the officers.
The shooting occurred in a neighborhood where there have been regular clashes with police, but it immediately sparked clashes and riots in Athens and Thessaloniki, the country's second-largest city.
The violence then spread to other municipalities.
The events have exacerbated the unpopularity of the ruling party and left Greek Prime Minister Konstandinos Karamanlis scrambling to shore up support.
Violence flares at Greek teen`s funeral
Protesters clashed with riot police and 10,000 people marched on parliament in Greece as a 15-year-old boy killed by police was buried Tuesday.
Thousands paid their respects to Alexandros Grigoropoulos at his funeral, but a small number of the protesters there grew violent at the end of the ceremony.
Riot police lined up as night fell and a reasonably peaceful candlelight vigil was held in central Athens.
Some 10,000 people marched on the country's parliament Tuesday to express their anger at the teenager's death, and also other issues like the economy, jobs, and allegations that the government is corrupt.
Groups clashed with riot police at the parliament and across central Athens.
Street riots started over the weekend after Athens police killed 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos on Saturday.
Police said six young protesters pelted a police patrol car with stones, and the teen was shot as he tried to throw a fuel-filled bomb at the officers.
The shooting occurred in a neighborhood where there have been regular clashes with police, but it immediately sparked clashes and riots in Athens and Thessaloniki, the country's second-largest city.
The violence then spread to other municipalities.
The events have exacerbated the unpopularity of the ruling party and left Greek Prime Minister Konstandinos Karamanlis scrambling to shore up support.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich appeared in court Tuesday afternoon to hear federal corruption charges against him.
He was released on $4,500 bail.
The governor, who appeared in court in a blue jogging suit, also had to forfeit his passport.
FBI agents arrested Blagojevich and his chief of staff, John Harris, early Tuesday on federal corruption charges related in part to the selection of President-elect Barack Obama's successor to the Senate, the U.S. attorney's office said.
Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald declared Tuesday a "sad day for government."
"Gov. Blagojevich has taken us to a new low," he said. "This conduct would make [Abraham] Lincoln roll over in his grave."
Lincoln was a congressman from Illinois before becoming president.
Fitzgerald said the government had bugged the governor's campaign office and placed a tap on his home phone.
Each was charged with a count of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and a count of solicitation of bribery, authorities said.
In a 76-page affidavit, federal authorities said wiretaps caught Blagojevich conspiring to sell or trade the vacant Senate seat in exchange for financial benefits for himself and his wife, Patti.
The governor also often weighed the option of appointing himself to the Senate seat, saying he was "stuck" at governor and might have access to more resources as a senator than as a governor, the affidavit says.
A Senate seat could also help him remake his image ahead of a possible presidential run in 2016.
"If ... they're not going to offer anything of any value, then I might just take it," he said in one conversation.
Obama reacted at a news conference on Tuesday.
"Obviously, like the rest of the people of Illinois, I am saddened and sobered by the news that came out of the U.S. attorney's office today," he said. "But as this is an ongoing investigation involving the governor, I don't think it would be appropriate for me to comment on the issue at this time."
When asked whether he had any contact with Blagojevich about the Senate seat, Obama said he had no contact with the governor or his office.
"I was not aware of what was happening," he added.
Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich appeared in court Tuesday afternoon to hear federal corruption charges against him.
He was released on $4,500 bail.
The governor, who appeared in court in a blue jogging suit, also had to forfeit his passport.
FBI agents arrested Blagojevich and his chief of staff, John Harris, early Tuesday on federal corruption charges related in part to the selection of President-elect Barack Obama's successor to the Senate, the U.S. attorney's office said.
Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald declared Tuesday a "sad day for government."
"Gov. Blagojevich has taken us to a new low," he said. "This conduct would make [Abraham] Lincoln roll over in his grave."
Lincoln was a congressman from Illinois before becoming president.
Fitzgerald said the government had bugged the governor's campaign office and placed a tap on his home phone.
Each was charged with a count of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and a count of solicitation of bribery, authorities said.
In a 76-page affidavit, federal authorities said wiretaps caught Blagojevich conspiring to sell or trade the vacant Senate seat in exchange for financial benefits for himself and his wife, Patti.
The governor also often weighed the option of appointing himself to the Senate seat, saying he was "stuck" at governor and might have access to more resources as a senator than as a governor, the affidavit says.
A Senate seat could also help him remake his image ahead of a possible presidential run in 2016.
"If ... they're not going to offer anything of any value, then I might just take it," he said in one conversation.
Obama reacted at a news conference on Tuesday.
"Obviously, like the rest of the people of Illinois, I am saddened and sobered by the news that came out of the U.S. attorney's office today," he said. "But as this is an ongoing investigation involving the governor, I don't think it would be appropriate for me to comment on the issue at this time."
When asked whether he had any contact with Blagojevich about the Senate seat, Obama said he had no contact with the governor or his office.
"I was not aware of what was happening," he added.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
The body of a fourth person
Three bodies found hours after the crash were those of two adults and an infant.
Authorities said Tuesday that they did not expect to find any other victims.
The F/A-18D plane, which authorities described as disabled, was trying to land at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar.
The jet had just performed landing training on a Navy aircraft carrier before the pilot reported having trouble, according to the Marine Corps.
"It was, oh, gosh, maybe a couple of hundred feet off the ground.
I think the engine was off," said San Diego resident Ian Lerner, who was heading to lunch at a shopping center about a half-mile from the neighborhood of about 20 homes when he saw the jet flying low.
"Then all of a sudden, we saw the canopy of the jet explode and go up, and then we saw the pilot blast out of the plane and the parachute open," Lerner said.
Another witness said the jet was flying at a low altitude and "just spiraled, right out of [the movie] 'Top Gun.'
The house was destroyed.
A photograph taken at the scene showed the pilot, who ejected safely, sitting on the front lawn, making a call on his cell phone.
He was taken to the hospital, the Marine Corps said in a written statement Monday.
4th body found in house hit by jet in San Diego
The body of a fourth person
Three bodies found hours after the crash were those of two adults and an infant.
Authorities said Tuesday that they did not expect to find any other victims.
The F/A-18D plane, which authorities described as disabled, was trying to land at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar.
The jet had just performed landing training on a Navy aircraft carrier before the pilot reported having trouble, according to the Marine Corps.
"It was, oh, gosh, maybe a couple of hundred feet off the ground.
I think the engine was off," said San Diego resident Ian Lerner, who was heading to lunch at a shopping center about a half-mile from the neighborhood of about 20 homes when he saw the jet flying low.
"Then all of a sudden, we saw the canopy of the jet explode and go up, and then we saw the pilot blast out of the plane and the parachute open," Lerner said.
Another witness said the jet was flying at a low altitude and "just spiraled, right out of [the movie] 'Top Gun.'
The house was destroyed.
A photograph taken at the scene showed the pilot, who ejected safely, sitting on the front lawn, making a call on his cell phone.
He was taken to the hospital, the Marine Corps said in a written statement Monday.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
`Che` film gets thumbs up in Cuba
"Che" the movie met Che the myth in Cuba this weekend, and the lengthy biopic of the Argentinean revolutionary won acclaim from among those who know his story best.
The movie was screened Saturday in the Yara movie theater in central Havana as part of the 30th International Festival of the New Latin American Cinema.
"Che" also played Sunday at Havana's Karl Marx Theater.
"Che" stars Oscar winner Benicio Del Toro in the title role, for which he won a best actor award at this year's Cannes Film Festival.
But it's one thing to make a movie about Ernesto "Che" Guevara and the Cuban revolution and show it in France, quite another to screen it in Cuba.
Speaking to CNN outside the Karl Marx Theater, the bilingual Puerto Rican actor admitted some anxiety.
"This is Cuban history, so there's an audience in there that probably, that could be the biggest critics and the most knowledgeable critics of the historical accuracy of the film," Del Toro said.
`Che` film gets thumbs up in Cuba
"Che" the movie met Che the myth in Cuba this weekend, and the lengthy biopic of the Argentinean revolutionary won acclaim from among those who know his story best.
The movie was screened Saturday in the Yara movie theater in central Havana as part of the 30th International Festival of the New Latin American Cinema.
"Che" also played Sunday at Havana's Karl Marx Theater.
"Che" stars Oscar winner Benicio Del Toro in the title role, for which he won a best actor award at this year's Cannes Film Festival.
But it's one thing to make a movie about Ernesto "Che" Guevara and the Cuban revolution and show it in France, quite another to screen it in Cuba.
Speaking to CNN outside the Karl Marx Theater, the bilingual Puerto Rican actor admitted some anxiety.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Beijing Olympians face further drug tests
The International Olympic Committee will use newly developed drug testing procedures to retest samples taken from athletes at last summer's Beijing Olympic Games, the IOC said Tuesday.
The new drug testing procedures will allow the IOC to test for two banned substances known to have been used in the past by athletes in endurance events like cycling, rowing, swimming and athletics, the IOC said.
The first substance is EPO CERA, a new version of the endurance-enhancing hormone EPO.
Use of the substance was discovered during this year's Tour de France, and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) then developed a blood test to test for it, the IOC said.
The second substance is insulin, a hormone that can enhance performance by influencing the glycogen metabolism.
While the substance is not new, it wasn't until recently that a WADA lab developed an effective urine test for it, IOC spokeswoman Emmanuelle Moreau told CNN.
"Labs were looking for an efficient test, but the fully validated test was not available until very recently," she said.
The IOC will begin testing the Beijing samples at its labs in January, with results expected at the end of the first quarter of 2009, the IOC said.
There is no evidence that Beijing athletes were using either substance, Moreau said.
The IOC simply tests for substances when new procedures to look for them are developed.
"When we have a test available which is fully validated, we use it and we don't hesitate to test retroactively," Moreau said.
Anticipating advances in technology, the IOC routinely keeps samples collected during each Olympic Games for eight years.
It allows the Olympic Committee to analyze samples retroactively should new tests to detect new substances and doping methods become available.
Authorities carried out some 4,770 doping tests in Beijing as part of the largest-ever testing program for an Olympic Games, the IOC said.
As a general rule, the top-five finishers in an event, plus a further two selected randomly from the finish list, were tested.
Beijing Olympians face further drug tests
The International Olympic Committee will use newly developed drug testing procedures to retest samples taken from athletes at last summer's Beijing Olympic Games, the IOC said Tuesday.
The new drug testing procedures will allow the IOC to test for two banned substances known to have been used in the past by athletes in endurance events like cycling, rowing, swimming and athletics, the IOC said.
The first substance is EPO CERA, a new version of the endurance-enhancing hormone EPO.
Use of the substance was discovered during this year's Tour de France, and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) then developed a blood test to test for it, the IOC said.
The second substance is insulin, a hormone that can enhance performance by influencing the glycogen metabolism.
While the substance is not new, it wasn't until recently that a WADA lab developed an effective urine test for it, IOC spokeswoman Emmanuelle Moreau told CNN.
"Labs were looking for an efficient test, but the fully validated test was not available until very recently," she said.
The IOC will begin testing the Beijing samples at its labs in January, with results expected at the end of the first quarter of 2009, the IOC said.
There is no evidence that Beijing athletes were using either substance, Moreau said.
The IOC simply tests for substances when new procedures to look for them are developed.
"When we have a test available which is fully validated, we use it and we don't hesitate to test retroactively," Moreau said.
Anticipating advances in technology, the IOC routinely keeps samples collected during each Olympic Games for eight years.
It allows the Olympic Committee to analyze samples retroactively should new tests to detect new substances and doping methods become available.
Authorities carried out some 4,770 doping tests in Beijing as part of the largest-ever testing program for an Olympic Games, the IOC said.
As a general rule, the top-five finishers in an event, plus a further two selected randomly from the finish list, were tested.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Twenty-seven million new cancer cases are expected by 2030, according to a report released Tuesday by the World Health Organization's cancer research agency.
That compares to 12 million new cases in 2007, the report found.
The group forecast a 1 percent increase globally each year, with emerging economies such as China, Russia and India being hit the hardest.
"About 1.3 billion people smoke globally, making tobacco the major avoidable cause of death and disease worldwide," the report found.
Experts say less developed countries are especially vulnerable, predicting a 38 percent increase in those regions by 2030.
Tobacco killed 100 million people in the world last century and will kill a billion in the 21st century, unless changes are made, said John R. Seffrin, chief executive officer at the American Cancer Society, Tuesday.
Besides smoking, other causes for the rise in the disease include high-fat diets including fast food and decreased physical activity, reflective of increasingly western lifestyles, the report found.
In addition, the rate of breast cancer has doubled or tripled in countries like Japan, Singapore and Korea, according to the report.
In Africa, 518,000 people have died from cancer since the start of 2008
cervical cancer being the leading cancer killer among women, the report found.
But there is good news for some Western nations.
Cancer mortality rates are falling in Great Britain and the United States, said Seffrin.
Effective cancer treatment in developing countries, experts say, depends on prevention and more data.
"Awareness of the global cancer burden pandemic and its causes will help establish and enforce policies, resources and programs to control cancer and tobacco, and to de-stigmatize cancer," according to the WHO report.
Cancer to surpass heart disease as world`s leading killer
Twenty-seven million new cancer cases are expected by 2030, according to a report released Tuesday by the World Health Organization's cancer research agency.
That compares to 12 million new cases in 2007, the report found.
The group forecast a 1 percent increase globally each year, with emerging economies such as China, Russia and India being hit the hardest.
"About 1.3 billion people smoke globally, making tobacco the major avoidable cause of death and disease worldwide," the report found.
Experts say less developed countries are especially vulnerable, predicting a 38 percent increase in those regions by 2030.
Tobacco killed 100 million people in the world last century and will kill a billion in the 21st century, unless changes are made, said John R. Seffrin, chief executive officer at the American Cancer Society, Tuesday.
Besides smoking, other causes for the rise in the disease include high-fat diets including fast food and decreased physical activity, reflective of increasingly western lifestyles, the report found.
In addition, the rate of breast cancer has doubled or tripled in countries like Japan, Singapore and Korea, according to the report.
In Africa, 518,000 people have died from cancer since the start of 2008
cervical cancer being the leading cancer killer among women, the report found.
But there is good news for some Western nations.
Cancer mortality rates are falling in Great Britain and the United States, said Seffrin.
Effective cancer treatment in developing countries, experts say, depends on prevention and more data.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Woman `pregnant` with monkey convicted of smuggling
A Washington woman who hid a sedated monkey under her blouse on a flight from Thailand was convicted of violating wildlife laws for smuggling the monkey into the United States, prosecutors said Tuesday.
Gypsy Lawson, 28, and her mother, Fran Ogren, 56, were convicted of smuggling and conspiracy to smuggle the monkey in violation of the Endangered Species Act and other federal laws.
Lawson hid the young rhesus macaque monkey under a loose-fitting blouse on a flight from Bangkok, Thailand, to Los Angeles, California, International Airport, pretending she was pregnant, the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Eastern District of Washington said.
Permits are required to possess rhesus monkeys and many other species of animals.
Such permits are granted for research, enhancement and conservation purposes.
Additionally, transporting such species into the United States requires a customs declaration.
Lawson and Ogren had neither.
"These defendants purposely undertook a course of action which could well have endangered many citizens, as well as the life of the animal in question," said U.S. Attorney James McDevitt.
Rhesus monkeys are known to carry viruses and parasites that can be transmitted to humans, said Paul Chang, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agent.
"This particular animal tested negative," he said.
Chang said the monkey has been placed with a rescue center for abandoned primates, "but it could have been living out its life with its family in its native habitat."
Authorities found journals and handwritten notes describing the mother and daughter's attempts to find a monkey small enough to smuggle back to the United States.
The journal also described the pair's "acquisition of a small monkey and their experimenting with different medicines to sedate the monkey for their journey home," McDevitt's office said.
Authorities also found photographs of Lawson at two airports and on an airplane in which she is wearing loose-fitting clothing and appears to be pregnant.
"The journal confirms that she and her mother smuggled the monkey into the United States by hiding it under her shirt, pretending she was pregnant in order to get past authorities," the statement from McDevitt's office said.
Co-defendant James Edward Pratt, 34, already has pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of possession and transportation of prohibited wildlife. He will be sentenced in January.
The smuggling conviction carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and up to three years of court supervision after release.
The conspiracy charge carries a maximum of five years in prison, a $250,000 fine and up to three years of court supervision after release.
Flight itineraries show the pair flew from Spokane, Washington, to Bangkok on November 4-5, 2007, with stops in Seattle, Washington, and Inchon, South Korea.
Woman `pregnant` with monkey convicted of smuggling
A Washington woman who hid a sedated monkey under her blouse on a flight from Thailand was convicted of violating wildlife laws for smuggling the monkey into the United States, prosecutors said Tuesday.
Gypsy Lawson, 28, and her mother, Fran Ogren, 56, were convicted of smuggling and conspiracy to smuggle the monkey in violation of the Endangered Species Act and other federal laws.
Lawson hid the young rhesus macaque monkey under a loose-fitting blouse on a flight from Bangkok, Thailand, to Los Angeles, California, International Airport, pretending she was pregnant, the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Eastern District of Washington said.
Permits are required to possess rhesus monkeys and many other species of animals.
Such permits are granted for research, enhancement and conservation purposes.
Additionally, transporting such species into the United States requires a customs declaration.
Lawson and Ogren had neither.
"These defendants purposely undertook a course of action which could well have endangered many citizens, as well as the life of the animal in question," said U.S. Attorney James McDevitt.
Rhesus monkeys are known to carry viruses and parasites that can be transmitted to humans, said Paul Chang, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agent.
"This particular animal tested negative," he said.
Chang said the monkey has been placed with a rescue center for abandoned primates, "but it could have been living out its life with its family in its native habitat."
Authorities found journals and handwritten notes describing the mother and daughter's attempts to find a monkey small enough to smuggle back to the United States.
The journal also described the pair's "acquisition of a small monkey and their experimenting with different medicines to sedate the monkey for their journey home," McDevitt's office said.
Authorities also found photographs of Lawson at two airports and on an airplane in which she is wearing loose-fitting clothing and appears to be pregnant.
"The journal confirms that she and her mother smuggled the monkey into the United States by hiding it under her shirt, pretending she was pregnant in order to get past authorities," the statement from McDevitt's office said.
Co-defendant James Edward Pratt, 34, already has pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of possession and transportation of prohibited wildlife. He will be sentenced in January.
The smuggling conviction carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and up to three years of court supervision after release.
The conspiracy charge carries a maximum of five years in prison, a $250,000 fine and up to three years of court supervision after release.
Flight itineraries show the pair flew from Spokane, Washington, to Bangkok on November 4-5, 2007, with stops in Seattle, Washington, and Inchon, South Korea.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Obama calls on Illinois governor to resign
President-elect Barack Obama on Wednesday called for Democratic Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich to resign, a day after Blagojevich's arrest on corruption charges.
"The president-elect agrees with [Illinois] Lt. Gov. [Pat] Quinn and many others that under the current circumstances it is difficult for the governor to effectively do his job and serve the people of Illinois," Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said.
FBI agents on Tuesday arrested Blagojevich and his chief of staff, John Harris, on federal corruption charges related in part to the selection of Obama's successor to the Senate.
Obama's former partner in the Senate, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, has also called on Blagojevich to step down immediately.
"Beyond guilt or innocence, the charges against you raise serious questions about your ability to carry out your duties as chief executive of our state," Durbin wrote in a letter sent to Blagojevich.
Durbin also asked Blagojevich not to name a successor to Obama.
"Because of the nature of the charges against you, no matter whom you were to select, that individual would be under a cloud of suspicion. That would not serve our state, our nation, or the United States Senate," Durbin wrote.
Even if Blagojevich named a replacement for Obama, it is unclear whether the Senate would seat the governor's choice.
The Constitution gives the Senate the sole authority to decide who is qualified to serve as a senator.
Gibbs said Obama also supported legislation that Illinois lawmakers will consider next week to authorize a special election to choose his successor.
Obama believes the lawmakers should "put in place a process to select a new senator that will have the trust and confidence of the people of Illinois," Gibbs said.
Obama calls on Illinois governor to resign
President-elect Barack Obama on Wednesday called for Democratic Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich to resign, a day after Blagojevich's arrest on corruption charges.
"The president-elect agrees with [Illinois] Lt. Gov. [Pat] Quinn and many others that under the current circumstances it is difficult for the governor to effectively do his job and serve the people of Illinois," Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said.
FBI agents on Tuesday arrested Blagojevich and his chief of staff, John Harris, on federal corruption charges related in part to the selection of Obama's successor to the Senate.
Obama's former partner in the Senate, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, has also called on Blagojevich to step down immediately.
"Beyond guilt or innocence, the charges against you raise serious questions about your ability to carry out your duties as chief executive of our state," Durbin wrote in a letter sent to Blagojevich.
Durbin also asked Blagojevich not to name a successor to Obama.
"Because of the nature of the charges against you, no matter whom you were to select, that individual would be under a cloud of suspicion. That would not serve our state, our nation, or the United States Senate," Durbin wrote.
Even if Blagojevich named a replacement for Obama, it is unclear whether the Senate would seat the governor's choice.
The Constitution gives the Senate the sole authority to decide who is qualified to serve as a senator.
Gibbs said Obama also supported legislation that Illinois lawmakers will consider next week to authorize a special election to choose his successor.
Obama believes the lawmakers should "put in place a process to select a new senator that will have the trust and confidence of the people of Illinois," Gibbs said.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
China's sharp economic slowdown is set to cause more labor unrest amid factory closures and mass layoffs triggered by the global financial crisis, a government minister and economists have warned.
Trade figures for November reported Wednesday by the China Daily newspaper showed the first monthly decline in Chinese exports in seven years.
Exports experienced a one month decline of 10.4 percent, with imports down 19.5 percent, the paper said, citing the General Administration of Customs.
Overall, exports are down 2.2 percent for the year, the first time that number has declined since 2001, when U.S. demand slumped slightly after the tech bubble burst.
Yin Weimin, minister of human resources and social security, last month described China's job outlook as "grim" and said the situation was likely to worsen until an economic stimulus package kicked in next year.
Fears over job losses have triggered several outbursts of unrest in recent weeks.
About 2,000 people rioted in the impoverished northwestern province of Gansu last month over plans to move Longnan's city government offices, which were damaged in the May 12 Sichuan earthquake, to a nearby county.
Residents, fearing the change would reduce their property values and threaten their livelihoods, clashed with police and looted government offices, according to the Gansu Daily.
Zhuang Jian, senior economist with the Asian Development Bank's China Resident Mission, told the newspaper that he expected the grim situation to persist.
"It means the financial crisis is not only weakening the economies of the United States and the European Union, but also weighing on China's economy."
Yin said labor unrest caused by the slowdown was the government's main concern.
He noted that some businesses, mainly smaller ones, have been forced to close or suspend production in recent months.
Because of these challenges, more than 65,000 Chinese factories have gone bankrupt this year, said Lan Hailin, professor of business strategy with the South China University of Technology in Guangzhou, China.
China's sharp economic slowdown is set to cause more labor unrest amid factory closures and mass layoffs triggered by the global financial crisis, a government minister and economists have warned.
Trade figures for November reported Wednesday by the China Daily newspaper showed the first monthly decline in Chinese exports in seven years.
Exports experienced a one month decline of 10.4 percent, with imports down 19.5 percent, the paper said, citing the General Administration of Customs.
Overall, exports are down 2.2 percent for the year, the first time that number has declined since 2001, when U.S. demand slumped slightly after the tech bubble burst.
Yin Weimin, minister of human resources and social security, last month described China's job outlook as "grim" and said the situation was likely to worsen until an economic stimulus package kicked in next year.
Fears over job losses have triggered several outbursts of unrest in recent weeks.
About 2,000 people rioted in the impoverished northwestern province of Gansu last month over plans to move Longnan's city government offices, which were damaged in the May 12 Sichuan earthquake, to a nearby county.
Residents, fearing the change would reduce their property values and threaten their livelihoods, clashed with police and looted government offices, according to the Gansu Daily.
Zhuang Jian, senior economist with the Asian Development Bank's China Resident Mission, told the newspaper that he expected the grim situation to persist.
"It means the financial crisis is not only weakening the economies of the United States and the European Union, but also weighing on China's economy."
Yin said labor unrest caused by the slowdown was the government's main concern.
He noted that some businesses, mainly smaller ones, have been forced to close or suspend production in recent months.
Because of these challenges, more than 65,000 Chinese factories have gone bankrupt this year, said Lan Hailin, professor of business strategy with the South China University of Technology in Guangzhou, China.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Woman wants to get resume off her chest
Kelly Kinney spends her days standing on Los Angeles street corners or in coffee bars hoping to get noticed.
Look at her from the front and you can read the 29-year-old marketing professional's resume.
Check her out from behind and you can read the cover letter.
"Publicity is something I have always been good at and basically, the name of the game is how you can get noticed, how you can distinguish yourself from everybody else," she said.
Kinney moved to Valencia, California, about a year ago as her company in Dayton, Ohio, downsized.
She worked remotely for her old employer until October, and has been looking for a full-time position for more than a year now, but says she can't even get in the door for an interview.
Since mid-September, she's been applying to an average of 40 jobs a day, but, she said, "it just sort of feels like my resume is going into a giant stack with everybody else's."
The unemployment rate in the Los Angeles area was at 8.2 percent for October, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
A check of employment Web sites found about 10,000 listings for marketing jobs in Southern California.
Potential employers have often told her she is one of 500 other applicants.
"It's extremely frustrating," Kinney said.
About a week ago, after seeing a guy wearing a T-shirt that read "Unemployed," she decided to take the idea a step further and put her resume on the front of her shirt and a cover letter on the back.
The credentials on the white T-shirt are listed below a boldface heading:
Kinney said she chooses coffee bars and intersections because they are places where she can find a captive audience
prospective employers stuck waiting for lattes or red lights. Some people have called her "gimmick" really clever;
others ask if she feels ashamed, she said.
While the T-shirt idea is her latest promotion, she also posted her resume on her car window and sent postcards to potential employers
all in the hope one will believe in her.
"If I can sell myself this well, I can sell your company this well as well," she said. She said she has had offers.
She rejected a marketing assistant position paying about California's $8-an-hour minimum wage, because the pay was too low.
And it has eaten into their reserves.
it's to the point where we have nothing left."
Kinney said she dreads the conversation that's coming.
"It will be something no one else has done before."
Woman wants to get resume off her chest
Kelly Kinney spends her days standing on Los Angeles street corners or in coffee bars hoping to get noticed.
Look at her from the front and you can read the 29-year-old marketing professional's resume.
Check her out from behind and you can read the cover letter.
"Publicity is something I have always been good at and basically, the name of the game is how you can get noticed, how you can distinguish yourself from everybody else," she said.
Kinney moved to Valencia, California, about a year ago as her company in Dayton, Ohio, downsized.
She worked remotely for her old employer until October, and has been looking for a full-time position for more than a year now, but says she can't even get in the door for an interview.
Since mid-September, she's been applying to an average of 40 jobs a day, but, she said, "it just sort of feels like my resume is going into a giant stack with everybody else's."
The unemployment rate in the Los Angeles area was at 8.2 percent for October, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
A check of employment Web sites found about 10,000 listings for marketing jobs in Southern California.
Potential employers have often told her she is one of 500 other applicants.
"It's extremely frustrating," Kinney said.
About a week ago, after seeing a guy wearing a T-shirt that read "Unemployed," she decided to take the idea a step further and put her resume on the front of her shirt and a cover letter on the back.
The credentials on the white T-shirt are listed below a boldface heading:
Kinney said she chooses coffee bars and intersections because they are places where she can find a captive audience
prospective employers stuck waiting for lattes or red lights. Some people have called her "gimmick" really clever;
others ask if she feels ashamed, she said.
While the T-shirt idea is her latest promotion, she also posted her resume on her car window and sent postcards to potential employers
all in the hope one will believe in her.
"If I can sell myself this well, I can sell your company this well as well," she said.
She said she has had offers.
I can't take a $10-an-hour job and still stay afloat."
And it has eaten into their reserves.
it's to the point where we have nothing left."
Kinney said she dreads the conversation that's coming.
"I have a couple of things in mind," she said.
"It will be something no one else has done before."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
TV channel to broadcast assisted suicide
A British TV channel was scheduled to air a controversial documentary Wednesday night showing a terminally ill man committing assisted suicide.
The film follows retired university professor Craig Ewert during the last four days of his life in 2006, when he visited a Swiss clinic with his wife, Mary, in order to die.
The 59-year-old suffered from motor neurone disease (MND), which deprived him of the use of his arms and legs and caused him to be on a ventilator, Mary Ewert told The Independent.
MND destroys the body's motor nerves, eventually resulting in paralysis.
Most sufferers die within five years of diagnosis although scientist Stephen Hawking has survived with the disease for more than 40 years.
The Suicide Tourist" shows Ewert lying in a rented Zurich apartment, where an employee of the clinic prepares a lethal dose of drugs for Ewert to drink.
As the camera rolls, and with his wife by his side, Craig Ewert then closes his eyes and dies.
Mary Ewert said her husband wanted his death to be filmed in order to show that a terminal illness does not have to result in a painful death.
"For Craig, my husband, allowing the cameras to film his last moments in Zurich was about facing the end of life honestly," she told The Independent.
TV channel to broadcast assisted suicide
A British TV channel was scheduled to air a controversial documentary Wednesday night showing a terminally ill man committing assisted suicide.
The film follows retired university professor Craig Ewert during the last four days of his life in 2006, when he visited a Swiss clinic with his wife, Mary, in order to die.
The 59-year-old suffered from motor neurone disease (MND), which deprived him of the use of his arms and legs and caused him to be on a ventilator, Mary Ewert told The Independent.
MND destroys the body's motor nerves, eventually resulting in paralysis.
Most sufferers die within five years of diagnosis although scientist Stephen Hawking has survived with the disease for more than 40 years.
The Suicide Tourist" shows Ewert lying in a rented Zurich apartment, where an employee of the clinic prepares a lethal dose of drugs for Ewert to drink.
As the camera rolls, and with his wife by his side, Craig Ewert then closes his eyes and dies.
Mary Ewert said her husband wanted his death to be filmed in order to show that a terminal illness does not have to result in a painful death.
"For Craig, my husband, allowing the cameras to film his last moments in Zurich was about facing the end of life honestly," she told The Independent.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Black hole found at center of galaxy
German astronomers say they have discovered conclusive proof of a supermassive black hole at the heart of the galaxy.
The 16-year study involved tracking the movement of 28 stars at the center of the Milky Way using telescopes at the European Southern Observatory in Chile.
Using the data collected, astronomers were able to calculate important properties about the black hole called Sagittarius A*
such as its size and mass. Professor Reinhard Genzel, who led the study at the Bavaria-based Max-Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, said the data collected proved the existence of the black hole "beyond any reasonable doubt."
"Undoubtedly the most spectacular aspect of our long term study is that it has delivered what is now considered to be the best empirical evidence that super-massive black holes do really exist," said Genzel.
The black hole had a central mass concentration of four million solar masses, he added.
The study also enabled astronomers to calculate the distance of the earth from the center of the galaxy, now measured to be 27,000 light-years, and enhanced by six times the accuracy to which they were able to measure the positions of stars the equivalent of seeing a one euro coin from a distance of 10,000 kilometers (6,214 miles).
One star, called S2, orbited the center of the Milky Way so quickly that it completed one full revolution within the duration of the study.
Genzel said the center of the galaxy was a "unique laboratory" for the study of the strong gravity, stellar dynamics and star formation with a level of detail "never possible beyond our galaxy."
Stefan Gillessen, the chief author of the study, published in the Astrophysical Journal, said:
Hence, it is the best place to study black holes in detail."
Black hole found at center of galaxy
German astronomers say they have discovered conclusive proof of a supermassive black hole at the heart of the galaxy.
The 16-year study involved tracking the movement of 28 stars at the center of the Milky Way using telescopes at the European Southern Observatory in Chile.
Using the data collected, astronomers were able to calculate important properties about the black hole called Sagittarius A*
such as its size and mass. Professor Reinhard Genzel, who led the study at the Bavaria-based Max-Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, said the data collected proved the existence of the black hole "beyond any reasonable doubt."
"Undoubtedly the most spectacular aspect of our long term study is that it has delivered what is now considered to be the best empirical evidence that super-massive black holes do really exist," said Genzel.
The black hole had a central mass concentration of four million solar masses, he added.
The study also enabled astronomers to calculate the distance of the earth from the center of the galaxy, now measured to be 27,000 light-years, and enhanced by six times the accuracy to which they were able to measure the positions of stars the equivalent of seeing a one euro coin from a distance of 10,000 kilometers (6,214 miles).
One star, called S2, orbited the center of the Milky Way so quickly that it completed one full revolution within the duration of the study.
Genzel said the center of the galaxy was a "unique laboratory" for the study of the strong gravity, stellar dynamics and star formation with a level of detail "never possible beyond our galaxy."
"The Galactic Center harbors the closest supermassive black hole known.
Hence, it is the best place to study black holes in detail."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
2012 Euro Champs joint hosts please Platini
Poland and Ukraine's preparations to jointly host the finals of the 2012 European Championship appear to be back on track.
Government and sports officials from the two countries gave updated reports to UEFA on Wednesday after a troubled year in which their hosting rights were threatened because building work at stadiums, airports, hotels and roads fell behind schedule.
"We have full confidence in Euro 2012 in Poland and Ukraine," UEFA president Michel Platini said.
The parties reported progressing from talks about ideas and problems to making detailed plans.
They will meet again at UEFA headquarters January 29.
They agreed that Poland should stage the draw, likely in January 2010, for qualifying to decide which 14 countries join the co-hosts at the tournament.
Platini has invested his reputation in the two Eastern European nations since they were awarded the event
the third most-watched sports event after the World Cup and Summer Olympics
But after visiting the two countries in July, he warned they could be stripped of Euro 2012 because essential infrastructure work was lagging.
2012 Euro Champs joint hosts please Platini
Poland and Ukraine's preparations to jointly host the finals of the 2012 European Championship appear to be back on track.
Government and sports officials from the two countries gave updated reports to UEFA on Wednesday after a troubled year in which their hosting rights were threatened because building work at stadiums, airports, hotels and roads fell behind schedule.
"We have full confidence in Euro 2012 in Poland and Ukraine," UEFA president Michel Platini said.
The parties reported progressing from talks about ideas and problems to making detailed plans.
They will meet again at UEFA headquarters January 29.
They agreed that Poland should stage the draw, likely in January 2010, for qualifying to decide which 14 countries join the co-hosts at the tournament.
Platini has invested his reputation in the two Eastern European nations since they were awarded the event
the third most-watched sports event after the World Cup and Summer Olympics
But after visiting the two countries in July, he warned they could be stripped of Euro 2012 because essential infrastructure work was lagging.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Accord on North Korean nuclear program may elude Bush
The Bush administration signaled Thursday that it may not be able to reach an agreement with North Korea on its nuclear program before President Bush leaves office next month but said it will continue to try.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the North Koreans had refused to sign an agreement on how to verify their nuclear activities.
This reported refusal follows what the United States said was verbal agreement on verification as well as earlier steps by North Korea to disable the reactor that produced plutonium for nuclear weapons.
"This process is not going to move forward beyond this point without a verification protocol being agreed upon," McCormack told reporters.
Christopher Hill, who leads the U.S. negotiating team, was in Beijing, China, this week for the so-called six-party talks involving the United States, Russia, China, Japan, North Korea and South Korea.
But the meeting failed to reach an accord.
"This meeting has been adjourned," McCormack said. "It did not achieve the goal of an agreed-among-the-six verification protocol."
Asked if the negotiations were over for the Bush administration, McCormack said, "No, no. In terms of further action in the six-party mechanism, we will see what the North Koreans' response is going to be."
Accord on North Korean nuclear program may elude Bush
The Bush administration signaled Thursday that it may not be able to reach an agreement with North Korea on its nuclear program before President Bush leaves office next month but said it will continue to try.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the North Koreans had refused to sign an agreement on how to verify their nuclear activities.
This reported refusal follows what the United States said was verbal agreement on verification as well as earlier steps by North Korea to disable the reactor that produced plutonium for nuclear weapons.
"This process is not going to move forward beyond this point without a verification protocol being agreed upon," McCormack told reporters.
Christopher Hill, who leads the U.S. negotiating team, was in Beijing, China, this week for the so-called six-party talks involving the United States, Russia, China, Japan, North Korea and South Korea.
But the meeting failed to reach an accord.
"This meeting has been adjourned," McCormack said. "It did not achieve the goal of an agreed-among-the-six verification protocol."
Asked if the negotiations were over for the Bush administration, McCormack said, "No, no. In terms of further action in the six-party mechanism, we will see what the North Koreans' response is going to be."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Diamond sells for recession-busting $24.3 M
Christie's, the famed auction house, this week sold a nearly 36-carat diamond for $24.3 million, which it said was the highest price for a diamond sold at auction.
The previous record was a mere $16.5 million for a 100-carat diamond in 1995, Christie's said.
"In the midst of these challenging times, we were thrilled to achieve an historic price for an historic diamond," said Francois Curiel, chairman of Christie's Europe and auctioneer for Wednesday's sale.
The 35.56-carat Wittelsbach blue diamond, dating to the 17th century, was purchased by international jeweler Laurence Graff, the auction house said in a release. Graff was bidding against Aleks Paul of Essex Global Trading, a professional of Russian origin based in New York, Christie's said.
"Known as 'Der Blaue Wittelsbacher' since 1722, it is one of very few diamonds which can claim 17th century heritage, incredible rarity and exceptional beauty."
The diamond, mined in India nearly 400 years ago, has been privately owned since 1964.
Until 1723, Christie's said, all diamonds worn by European royalty came from India.
The diamond has a royal lineage. Christie's traces it thus:
King Philip IV of Spain (1605-1665) selected the diamond in 1664 as part of a dowry for his daughter, the Infanta Margarita Teresa (1651-1673).
She had become engaged to Leopold I of Austria (1640-1705), who later became Holy Roman Emperor.
When she died in 1673, her husband retained the diamond, which was passed on to his heirs.
The world's largest deep blue diamond is the "Hope Diamond," a 45.52-carat stone housed at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.
Christie's reported jewelry sales of $226 million for the first half of 2008, calling it "the best jewelry season ever seen at auction."
Sales for the first six months of this year marked a 32 percent increase over the same period in 2007, Christie's said.
Diamond sells for recession-busting $24.3 M
Christie's, the famed auction house, this week sold a nearly 36-carat diamond for $24.3 million, which it said was the highest price for a diamond sold at auction.
The previous record was a mere $16.5 million for a 100-carat diamond in 1995, Christie's said.
"In the midst of these challenging times, we were thrilled to achieve an historic price for an historic diamond," said Francois Curiel, chairman of Christie's Europe and auctioneer for Wednesday's sale.
The 35.56-carat Wittelsbach blue diamond, dating to the 17th century, was purchased by international jeweler Laurence Graff, the auction house said in a release. Graff was bidding against Aleks Paul of Essex Global Trading, a professional of Russian origin based in New York, Christie's said.
"Known as 'Der Blaue Wittelsbacher' since 1722, it is one of very few diamonds which can claim 17th century heritage, incredible rarity and exceptional beauty."
The diamond, mined in India nearly 400 years ago, has been privately owned since 1964.
Until 1723, Christie's said, all diamonds worn by European royalty came from India.
The diamond has a royal lineage. Christie's traces it thus:
King Philip IV of Spain (1605-1665) selected the diamond in 1664 as part of a dowry for his daughter, the Infanta Margarita Teresa (1651-1673).
She had become engaged to Leopold I of Austria (1640-1705), who later became Holy Roman Emperor.
When she died in 1673, her husband retained the diamond, which was passed on to his heirs.
The world's largest deep blue diamond is the "Hope Diamond," a 45.52-carat stone housed at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.
Christie's reported jewelry sales of $226 million for the first half of 2008, calling it "the best jewelry season ever seen at auction."
Sales for the first six months of this year marked a 32 percent increase over the same period in 2007, Christie's said.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
All apologies, but here we are now, 17 years after Nirvana's breakthrough album irreversibly changed music, and the naked baby pictured on its cover is still chasing dollars.
Spencer Elden, the underwater infant pursuing a dollar bill on the cover of 1991's "Nevermind," is doing swimmingly these days, having graduated a year early from a Los Angeles-area high school.
Now 17, Elden says he was paid $1,000 to re-enact the famous pool pose for photographers.
"People just call me up and they're like, 'Hey you're the Nirvana baby, right? Well just come and swim in my pool and we'll give you some money
' Not everyone can say their naked baby picture has become part of America's pop-culture psyche.
He wants to be an artist or graphic designer.
Elden has snagged an internship with street artist Shepard Fairey, creator of the ubiquitous Warhol-esque red, white and blue Barack Obama posters.
Fairey heard Elden interviewed on the radio and one thing led to another, said the teen.
Random fame has "been a really good foot in the door," he said.
A Hollywood film role might be in the works, but Elden and his father, who is also a designer and artist, aren't revealing any details.
"Some director's been calling me and wondering maybe about doing a movie with me as one of the characters in it," said Elden.
It's all very exciting, he said, for a self-described normal teen who spends a lot of time drawing.
Really, all he wants is a guest spot on the "Howard Stern Show."
All the hoopla swirling around Elden proves that Nirvana's musical contribution stands the test of 17 years as a major milestone in music history.
Naked `Nirvana baby` still chasing dollars
All apologies, but here we are now, 17 years after Nirvana's breakthrough album irreversibly changed music, and the naked baby pictured on its cover is still chasing dollars.
Spencer Elden, the underwater infant pursuing a dollar bill on the cover of 1991's "Nevermind," is doing swimmingly these days, having graduated a year early from a Los Angeles-area high school.
Now 17, Elden says he was paid $1,000 to re-enact the famous pool pose for photographers.
"People just call me up and they're like, 'Hey you're the Nirvana baby, right? Well just come and swim in my pool and we'll give you some money
' Not everyone can say their naked baby picture has become part of America's pop-culture psyche.
He wants to be an artist or graphic designer.
Elden has snagged an internship with street artist Shepard Fairey, creator of the ubiquitous Warhol-esque red, white and blue Barack Obama posters.
Fairey heard Elden interviewed on the radio and one thing led to another, said the teen.
Random fame has "been a really good foot in the door," he said.
A Hollywood film role might be in the works, but Elden and his father, who is also a designer and artist, aren't revealing any details.
"Some director's been calling me and wondering maybe about doing a movie with me as one of the characters in it," said Elden.
It's all very exciting, he said, for a self-described normal teen who spends a lot of time drawing.
Really, all he wants is a guest spot on the "Howard Stern Show."
All the hoopla swirling around Elden proves that Nirvana's musical contribution stands the test of 17 years as a major milestone in music history.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
An inventor who claims he has never had time to find a human girlfriend has created his own perfect woman
Le Trung, 33, from Toronto in Canada, says Aiko can do the cleaning, mix his favorite drink and read him newspaper headlines.
Aiko actually means "love child" in Japanese but the software engineer denies he has created the robot for sex.
"Aiko is what happens when science meets beauty," he said.
However, he did add that the fembot's software could be tweaked to "simulate her having an orgasm."
Creating Aiko has cost Le Trung around $21,000, with much of the money coming from credit cards and the sale of his car.
With the support of a sponsor, Trung hopes to spend the next few years perfecting Aiko's software and increasing her range of skills
including the ability to walk
but not just for his own amusement.
An inventor who claims he has never had time to find a human girlfriend has created his own perfect woman
Le Trung, 33, from Toronto in Canada, says Aiko can do the cleaning, mix his favorite drink and read him newspaper headlines.
Aiko actually means "love child" in Japanese but the software engineer denies he has created the robot for sex.
"Aiko is what happens when science meets beauty," he said.
However, he did add that the fembot's software could be tweaked to "simulate her having an orgasm."
Creating Aiko has cost Le Trung around $21,000, with much of the money coming from credit cards and the sale of his car.
With the support of a sponsor, Trung hopes to spend the next few years perfecting Aiko's software and increasing her range of skills
including the ability to walk
but not just for his own amusement.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Golden Globe nominations full of snubs, surprises
Perhaps what was most striking about Thursday's nominations for the 66th annual Golden Globes wasn't what received a nomination, but what didn't.
led the nominees with five nods each, but each film had at least one snub.
"Frost/Nixon" earned a nomination for Nixon (Frank Langella) but not Frost (Michael Sheen).
And "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" received a nod for just one cast member Cate Blanchett, who plays Pitt's love interest, was shut out.
In other cases, performers were nominated, but their films didn't make the Globes' short list. "Milk's" Sean Penn received a best actor nomination, but the film
which the New York Film Critics Circle named the year's best was shut out of the best director and best drama categories.
Both Tom Cruise and Robert Downey Jr. earned supporting actor nominations for "Tropic Thunder," but the film itself couldn't find its way onto the best comedy or musical list.
"Gran Torino," the just-out Clint Eastwood flick that's again earning the director critical plaudits, received its sole nomination for best song, which he co-wrote.
Neither it nor the director's "Changeling" found a slot on the best drama or director lists.
Golden Globe nominations full of snubs, surprises
Perhaps what was most striking about Thursday's nominations for the 66th annual Golden Globes wasn't what received a nomination, but what didn't.
"Doubt," "Frost/Nixon" and "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
led the nominees with five nods each, but each film had at least one snub.
but none for either best director or best drama.
"Frost/Nixon" earned a nomination for Nixon (Frank Langella) but not Frost (Michael Sheen).
And "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" received a nod for just one cast member
which the New York Film Critics Circle named the year's best
was shut out of the best director and best drama categories.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
An actor escaped death in front of an Austrian theater audience after slashing his throat in a bizarre on-stage mix-up.
Daniel Hoevels, 30, collapsed on stage at Vienna's Burgtheater last weekend with blood pouring from his neck after cutting his throat with what was supposed to be a blunt knife, media reports said Thursday.
As he fell injured the audience started to applaud, oblivious to the fact that Hoevels was really hurt, Britain's Telegraph newspaper reported.
The actor was rushed to hospital with a knife wound that had narrowly missed his main artery.
Fortunately Hoevels recovered after treatment and appeared on stage the following night with a bandage around his neck, Austrian media reports said.
Ironically, Hoevels' character was supposed to commit suicide in the stage production of Friedrich Schiller's Mary Stuart, about Mary Queen of Scots.
An actor escaped death in front of an Austrian theater audience after slashing his throat in a bizarre on-stage mix-up.
Daniel Hoevels, 30, collapsed on stage at Vienna's Burgtheater last weekend with blood pouring from his neck after cutting his throat with what was supposed to be a blunt knife, media reports said Thursday.
As he fell injured the audience started to applaud, oblivious to the fact that Hoevels was really hurt, Britain's Telegraph newspaper reported.
The actor was rushed to hospital with a knife wound that had narrowly missed his main artery.
Fortunately Hoevels recovered after treatment and appeared on stage the following night with a bandage around his neck, Austrian media reports said.
Ironically, Hoevels' character was supposed to commit suicide in the stage production of Friedrich Schiller's Mary Stuart, about Mary Queen of Scots.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Prince Harry to train as military pilot
Britain's Prince Harry has passed the first stage of training to become a military helicopter pilot, following in the footsteps of his brother William, royal officials said Thursday.
Harry, third in line to the British throne, will now begin a two-and-a-half year course with the Army Air Corps in January 2009, that could result in him seeing active service as a pilot, according to a press statement.
The 24-year-old prince, who has spent time in Afghanistan as a member of the British Army's Household Cavalry, qualified for the course by flying a light aircraft under instruction, the statement said.
"If Prince Harry qualifies as an Army Air Corps pilot, he will, like any officer, be available for operational service wherever the AAC flies," it said.
Harry's elder brother William was awarded his Royal Air Force wings in April after training since January.
William's training attracted controversy when he landed Chinook helicopter in a field on the property owned by his girlfriend Kate Middleton's family.
Defense officials said the flight had been authorized.
In September, it was announced William is to train to become a full-time search and rescue pilot with the RAF.
William and Harry's father, Prince Charles, and uncle, the Duke of York, have also learned to pilot military helicopters.
Prince Harry, who holds the rank of lieutenant, spent three months in Afghanistan earlier this year.
He had to be withdrawn in March after his secret deployment was revealed in a media report.
Prince Harry to train as military pilot
Britain's Prince Harry has passed the first stage of training to become a military helicopter pilot, following in the footsteps of his brother William, royal officials said Thursday.
Harry, third in line to the British throne, will now begin a two-and-a-half year course with the Army Air Corps in January 2009, that could result in him seeing active service as a pilot, according to a press statement.
The 24-year-old prince, who has spent time in Afghanistan as a member of the British Army's Household Cavalry, qualified for the course by flying a light aircraft under instruction, the statement said.
"If Prince Harry qualifies as an Army Air Corps pilot, he will, like any officer, be available for operational service wherever the AAC flies," it said.
Harry's elder brother William was awarded his Royal Air Force wings in April after training since January.
William's training attracted controversy when he landed Chinook helicopter in a field on the property owned by his girlfriend Kate Middleton's family.
Defense officials said the flight had been authorized.
In September, it was announced William is to train to become a full-time search and rescue pilot with the RAF.
William and Harry's father, Prince Charles, and uncle, the Duke of York, have also learned to pilot military helicopters.
Prince Harry, who holds the rank of lieutenant, spent three months in Afghanistan earlier this year.
He had to be withdrawn in March after his secret deployment was revealed in a media report.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Indian pitchers are first for America`s national pastime
They found Mickey Mantle outrunning the wind in northeast Oklahoma.
They even found a former drug addict and felon turned outfielder, Ron LeFlore, in a Michigan state prison.
The latest discoveries are from the countryside. The Indian countryside.
Two pitchers, both as rural as hay, are now working for the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel are the first baseball players from India to sign a professional baseball contract.
They're entering pro baseball, a religious cult of its own with tobacco-spitting high priests, superstitions and unwritten rules of the clubhouse and the field
"Sir, we are very excited," Singh said with stunning reverence compared with most American 19-year-olds.
Baseball is a game that rewards fresh young arms that can throw with velocity.
Patel is 19 years old, a muscular 5 feet, 11 inches tall and right-handed.
Singh is 20 years old and a 6-foot-tall 180-pound lefthander.
Baseball scouts found Hank Aaron hitting cross-handed in Mobile, Alabama.
They found Mickey Mantle outrunning the wind in northeast Oklahoma.
They even found a former drug addict and felon turned outfielder, Ron LeFlore, in a Michigan state prison.
This is a big opportunity," Rinku Singh says of his new job.
1 of 2 The latest discoveries are from the countryside.
The Indian countryside.
Two pitchers, both as rural as hay, are now working for the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel are the first baseball players from India to sign a professional baseball contract.
They're entering pro baseball, a religious cult of its own with tobacco-spitting high priests, superstitions and unwritten rules of the clubhouse and the field
"Sir, we are very excited," Singh said with stunning reverence compared with most American 19-year-olds.
Baseball is a game that rewards fresh young arms that can throw with velocity.
Patel is 19 years old, a muscular 5 feet, 11 inches tall and right-handed.
Singh is 20 years old and a 6-foot-tall 180-pound lefthander. Watch Singh and Patel discuss their new sport »
Both have thrown the ball past the vaunted 90 mile per hour mark on a radar gun.
Their passage from India began with a reality show, "The Million Dollar Arm" competition, staged from Mumbai to Delhi.
Los Angeles, California-based sports agent J.B. Bernstein got the idea that somewhere in a country of 1.1 billion people, they could find humans who could throw the ball 85 mph or better.
The winner of the contest would get to come to America to learn how to pitch.
For the Indian men, many meal-skipping poor, baseball represented a chance to throw their way out of poverty.
More than 37,000 competitors crossed rivers, walked, rode, drove and bicycled over paved and unpaved roads and dirt paths.
They pitched in all sorts of unconventional manners, often a hurl of the baseball in a modified cricket style.
The latest discoveries are from the countryside.
The Indian countryside.
Two pitchers, both as rural as hay, are now working for the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel are the first baseball players from India to sign a professional baseball contract.
Patel is 19 years old, a muscular 5 feet, 11 inches tall and right-handed.
Singh is 20 years old and a 6-foot-tall 180-pound lefthander.
This is a big opportunity," Rinku Singh says of his new job.
1 of 2 The latest discoveries are from the countryside.
Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel are the first baseball players from India to sign a professional baseball contract.
Both have thrown the ball past the vaunted 90 mile per hour mark on a radar gun.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Tiny killer threatens huge albatross
Predatory mice are critically threatening the albatross population on a remote South Atlantic island and have caused the birds' worst nesting season on record, a British bird charity said Thursday.
The research from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds indicates bad news for the Tristan albatross, whose only home is Gough Island in the middle of the South Atlantic.
House mice not native to the island are threatening the Tristan albatross with extinction, the RSPB said.
The mice are also threatening the native population of bunting, one of the world's largest finches, the RSPB said.
"Without removal of the mice, both the albatross and the bunting that live there are doomed to extinction," Grahame Madge, a conservation spokesman for the RSPB, told CNN.
The mice on the island eat the chicks of the albatross and bunting before they make it to the fledgling stage, the RSPB said.
This makes it especially difficult for the albatross population to survive because the birds lay eggs only once every two years a very low reproductive rate compared to other birds, Madge said.
"What (the mice) are affecting is ability of the albatross to produce enough young to sustain the population," he said.
Adult Tristan albatross are threatened by longline fishing at sea, a practice in which boats put up numerous 100-meter-long fishing lines baited with squid or fish.
The albatrosses are attracted to the bait and while some manage to steal it successfully, many more get snagged and drown, Madge said.
Because of the impact from house mice, introduced to the island by sealers in the 18th and 19th centuries, conservation alliance BirdLife International earlier this year listed both the Tristan albatross and the Gough bunting as critically endangered the highest threat level before extinction.
Gough Island, a British territory almost midway between Argentina and South Africa, is a place of stunning natural beauty.
Its green mountain slopes, topped with snow at its highest points, stretch into the deep blue sea.
The island is not inhabited by humans.
Gough Island and nearby Inaccessible Island are both listed as UNESCO World Heritage sites.
A survey of the albatross on Gough Island in January showed 1,764 adults incubating eggs, the RSPB said.
"We've known for a long time that the mice were killing albatross chicks in huge numbers," said RSPB scientist Richard Cuthbert, who recently visited the island to assess the problem.
The RSPB has been studying whether it is possible to remove the mice.
Tristan albatrosses are one of 22 species of albatross in the world.
The birds can fly thousands of miles without a pause, and their only need to touch land is to nest and raise their young, the RSPB says.
Tiny killer threatens huge albatross
Predatory mice are critically threatening the albatross population on a remote South Atlantic island and have caused the birds' worst nesting season on record, a British bird charity said Thursday.
The research from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds indicates bad news for the Tristan albatross, whose only home is Gough Island in the middle of the South Atlantic.
House mice not native to the island are threatening the Tristan albatross with extinction, the RSPB said.
The mice are also threatening the native population of bunting, one of the world's largest finches, the RSPB said.
"Without removal of the mice, both the albatross and the bunting that live there are doomed to extinction," Grahame Madge, a conservation spokesman for the RSPB, told CNN.
The mice on the island eat the chicks of the albatross and bunting before they make it to the fledgling stage, the RSPB said.
This makes it especially difficult for the albatross population to survive because the birds lay eggs only once every two years a very low reproductive rate compared to other birds, Madge said.
"What (the mice) are affecting is ability of the albatross to produce enough young to sustain the population," he said.
Adult Tristan albatross are threatened by longline fishing at sea, a practice in which boats put up numerous 100-meter-long fishing lines baited with squid or fish.
The albatrosses are attracted to the bait and while some manage to steal it successfully, many more get snagged and drown, Madge said.
Because of the impact from house mice, introduced to the island by sealers in the 18th and 19th centuries, conservation alliance BirdLife International earlier this year listed both the Tristan albatross and the Gough bunting as critically endangered the highest threat level before extinction.
Gough Island, a British territory almost midway between Argentina and South Africa, is a place of stunning natural beauty.
Its green mountain slopes, topped with snow at its highest points, stretch into the deep blue sea.
The island is not inhabited by humans.
Gough Island and nearby Inaccessible Island are both listed as UNESCO World Heritage sites.
A survey of the albatross on Gough Island in January showed 1,764 adults incubating eggs, the RSPB said.
A later survey revealed only 246 chicks had survived to fledgling.
The bunting suffer because the mice eat their eggs and chicks, and may also compete with them for food in the winter, Cuthbert said.
Tristan albatrosses are one of 22 species of albatross in the world.
Albatrosses principally live in the southern Atlantic but some also live in the northern Pacific, the RSPB says.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
`Cadillac` rides smoothly
"Cadillac Records," the story of a rowdy musical revolution and the record label that helped to launch it, begins in 1941, when Muddy Waters (Jeffrey Wright) is a sharecropper playing slide guitar under the blazing hot Mississippi sun.
Heading up to Chicago, he electrifies that guitar and hooks up with Leonard Chess (Adrien Brody), a nice Jewish boy who's been looking to do something not so nice.
Chess opens a nightclub, where the performances sometimes end in gunfire, and when the club burns down, he starts to record the new sounds he's been featuring there.
His label, Chess Records, is a Midwestern precursor to Sun Records, located behind a storefront (with rotating vinyl logo) on Chicago's South Side.
When the records sell, he gives each of his musicians a new Cadillac, neglecting to mention that it came out of their royalties.
It's tempting to say "Cadillac Records" is about the moment that the blues turned into rock 'n' roll.
The film's boisterous fun kicks off from its recognition that the blues already was rock 'n' roll; no "transformation" was necessary.
The writer-director Darnell Martin, who made the tough and nimble "I Like It Like That" (1994), is out to capture those days in all their proud, violent glory.
She blasts rhythm & blues out of its museum-piece quaintness.
Leonard is more like a hub (he isn't sketched in)
`Cadillac` rides smoothly
"Cadillac Records," the story of a rowdy musical revolution and the record label that helped to launch it, begins in 1941, when Muddy Waters (Jeffrey Wright) is a sharecropper playing slide guitar under the blazing hot Mississippi sun.
Heading up to Chicago, he electrifies that guitar and hooks up with Leonard Chess (Adrien Brody), a nice Jewish boy who's been looking to do something not so nice.
Chess opens a nightclub, where the performances sometimes end in gunfire, and when the club burns down, he starts to record the new sounds he's been featuring there.
His label, Chess Records, is a Midwestern precursor to Sun Records, located behind a storefront (with rotating vinyl logo) on Chicago's South Side.
When the records sell, he gives each of his musicians a new Cadillac, neglecting to mention that it came out of their royalties.
It's tempting to say "Cadillac Records" is about the moment that the blues turned into rock 'n' roll.
The film's boisterous fun kicks off from its recognition that the blues already was rock 'n' roll;
no "transformation" was necessary.
Leonard is more like a hub (he isn't sketched in)
yet it's an enjoyable ramble, with a feel for what made the early days of rock as wild as any that followed.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
She allowed herself one shot each day, with only one piece of instant film.
But halfway through that year, Willis abruptly took the money she'd saved for a down payment on a car and bought every piece of Polaroid film she could find.
Because the Polaroid Corp. announced it would stop making instant film.
And without it her project, "Day by Day Polaroid," would never be complete.
Sixty years after Polaroid introduced its first instant camera, the company's iconic film is disappearing from stores.
Although Polaroid says the film should be available into 2009, this is the final month of its last production year.
Eclipsed by digital photography, Polaroid's white-bordered prints and the anticipation they created as their ghostly images gradually came into view
will soon be things of the past. From David Hockney's famous Polaroid art compositions, to the line, "Shake it like a Polaroid picture" from OutKast's hit "Hey Ya!
The public's reaction to Polaroid's announcement reflects that.
Blogs lament the loss.
Polaroid-fan groups have formed on Facebook.
On Amazon.com, a four-pack of 10 exposures is selling for $64
The announcement hit Willis, an artist in Los Angeles, California, especially hard.
She began her "Day by Day Polaroid" project in June 2007 and still had four months to finish.
"I really freaked out when they came out with the memo," she said. a book manuscript waiting for a publisher
contains 365 photos accompanied by related songs, movies and quotations.
So why did she choose Polaroid and not some other type of photo? Willis is simply in love with that little white rectangle.
"It always turns out completely different than it looks in the viewpoint," she said.
Willis isn't alone in her devotion.
The Web site's mission:
to persuade another company to produce the instant film.
"It's life, and chances are, we'll find it in a box years later and be thankful that we have it
573 of whom uploaded stories on why they think Polaroid instant film is worth keeping.
Sales of all film types have plummeted this decade as digital photography became the norm. Every day for a year, Tacey Willis looked for an eye-catching photo subject a ballerina, a rocker dude in a bookstore or three older ladies from the Red Hat Society.
She allowed herself one shot each day, with only one piece of instant film.
But halfway through that year, Willis abruptly took the money she'd saved for a down payment on a car and bought every piece of Polaroid film she could find. Because the Polaroid Corp. announced it would stop making instant film.
And without it her project, "Day by Day Polaroid," would never be complete.
Sixty years after Polaroid introduced its first instant camera, the company's iconic film is disappearing from stores.
Although Polaroid says the film should be available into 2009, this is the final month of its last production year.
Eclipsed by digital photography, Polaroid's white-bordered prints and the anticipation they created as their ghostly images gradually came into view
will soon be things of the past. From David Hockney's famous Polaroid art compositions, to the line, "Shake it like a Polaroid picture" from OutKast's hit "Hey Ya!
The public's reaction to Polaroid's announcement reflects that.
Blogs lament the loss.
Polaroid-fan groups have formed on Facebook.
On Amazon.com, a four-pack of 10 exposures is selling for $64
The announcement hit Willis, an artist in Los Angeles, California, especially hard.
She began her "Day by Day Polaroid" project in June 2007 and still had four months to finish.
"I really freaked out when they came out with the memo," she said. a book manuscript waiting for a publisher
contains 365 photos accompanied by related songs, movies and quotations.
So why did she choose Polaroid and not some other type of photo? Willis is simply in love with that little white rectangle.
"It always turns out completely different than it looks in the viewpoint," she said.
You had to let it go.
I like sitting down with each picture.
You put so much art and soul into it."
Willis isn't alone in her devotion.
The Web site's mission:
to persuade another company to produce the instant film.
SavePolaroid.com has about 4,000 members
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Bringing up baby with safe and green toys
After last year's massive toy recall, Stacy Duran isn't taking any chances when shopping for toys this holiday season.
"I'm looking for toys that meet all the safety standards," said Duran, 41, of Atlanta, Georgia.
The mother of a 3-year-old girl, Duran has done her homework.
She's spent many hours online looking for products that are not only safe but environmentally friendly.
"I find that some of the safer toys are more expensive, but it's worth it to me," Duran said. "I will pay more to ensure that my daughter is not playing with something that contains harmful plastics or harmful lead in the paint."
Duran isn't the only parent who has become more vigilant about what type of products she's buying for her children.
Dr. Alan Greene, a professor of pediatrics at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, has some advice about choosing safe and organic toys.
In his book "Raising Baby Green, The Earth-Friendly Guide to Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Baby Care," he tells parents to take the time to examine the materials used in the toys.
"Choose natural toys, and those might be toys made out of solid wood, especially if it's not finished or has a non-toxic finish," Greene recommended.
"Toys that are made out of fiber, such as cotton, especially organic cotton, wool or hemp, or toys made out of bamboo can be really nice choices."
He warned parents to beware of wooden toys made from pressed wood or particle board.
"Some of those will have toxic substances in the glue," he noted.
Bringing up baby with safe and green toys
After last year's massive toy recall, Stacy Duran isn't taking any chances when shopping for toys this holiday season.
"I'm looking for toys that meet all the safety standards," said Duran, 41, of Atlanta, Georgia.
The mother of a 3-year-old girl, Duran has done her homework.
She's spent many hours online looking for products that are not only safe but environmentally friendly.
"I find that some of the safer toys are more expensive, but it's worth it to me," Duran said. "I will pay more to ensure that my daughter is not playing with something that contains harmful plastics or harmful lead in the paint."
Duran isn't the only parent who has become more vigilant about what type of products she's buying for her children.
Dr. Alan Greene, a professor of pediatrics at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, has some advice about choosing safe and organic toys.
In his book "Raising Baby Green, The Earth-Friendly Guide to Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Baby Care," he tells parents to take the time to examine the materials used in the toys.
"Choose natural toys, and those might be toys made out of solid wood, especially if it's not finished or has a non-toxic finish," Greene recommended.
"Toys that are made out of fiber, such as cotton, especially organic cotton, wool or hemp, or toys made out of bamboo can be really nice choices."
He warned parents to beware of wooden toys made from pressed wood or particle board.
"Some of those will have toxic substances in the glue," he noted.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
`Dancing lights` draw thousands to frozen north
Winter travelers trek thousands of miles to the frozen north each year seeking the sky's "dancing lights," which provoke awe, excitement and, some say, sex.
Scientists call the natural phenomenon aurora borealis: cascading beams of greens, yellows, blues, purples or reds
which paint a breathtaking backdrop across the wilderness and attract thousands of tourists annually.
"Usually it starts slowly as kind of a hazy greenish color building up in frequency dancing across the sky ... and to me that's religion," said photographer Dave Brosha of Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, who's seen more than 100 Canadian auroras. "It's just one of the most incredible feelings a person can have
sitting there watching that." To the west in Canada's Yukon province, tour operator Torsten Eder likes to tell a story about a marriage that was forged under the glowing curtains of light.
"I had one guy from Mexico, and he wanted to surprise his girlfriend by proposing marriage with a ring under the northern lights," said Eder from his office in Whitehorse.
"We got lucky and the lights were visible ... so our guest went down on his knee and proposed to his girlfriend and she was totally blown away. she wouldn't wear gloves for the first three days
so she could show the ring off." The otherworldly lights also have provided inspiration for almost sacred pilgrimages, Eder said.
Guests who said they were going blind or battling cancer told him they wanted to view the auroras at least once in their lives.
"You can't guarantee that the lights will be visible because it's a natural phenomenon."
The display is generally visible at least every three days, he said.
Scientists say the northern lights are created by the sun's super hot atmosphere, which blasts particles into the protective magnetic field surrounding the Earth.
The magnetic field forces the particles toward the north and south poles.
About 60 to 200 miles overhead, the particles bump into the Earth's atmosphere and become electrically "excited" throwing off light of various colors, said Prof. Dirk Lummerzhein of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.
"The forecast for this winter is a continued quiet sun, in general," he said.
The sun is on the upswing of an 11-year cycle.
"Maybe we will have a few periods once a month where the aurora can get a little bit more active."
Although the phenomenon occurs around the clock, the lights are only visible at night.
`Dancing lights` draw thousands to frozen north
Winter travelers trek thousands of miles to the frozen north each year seeking the sky's "dancing lights," which provoke awe, excitement and, some say, sex.
Scientists call the natural phenomenon aurora borealis: cascading beams of greens, yellows, blues, purples or reds
which paint a breathtaking backdrop across the wilderness and attract thousands of tourists annually.
"Usually it starts slowly as kind of a hazy greenish color building up in frequency dancing across the sky ... and to me that's religion," said photographer Dave Brosha of Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, who's seen more than 100 Canadian auroras. "It's just one of the most incredible feelings a person can have
sitting there watching that." To the west in Canada's Yukon province, tour operator Torsten Eder likes to tell a story about a marriage that was forged under the glowing curtains of light.
"I had one guy from Mexico, and he wanted to surprise his girlfriend by proposing marriage with a ring under the northern lights," said Eder from his office in Whitehorse.
"We got lucky and the lights were visible ... so our guest went down on his knee and proposed to his girlfriend and she was totally blown away. she wouldn't wear gloves for the first three days
so she could show the ring off." The otherworldly lights also have provided inspiration for almost sacred pilgrimages, Eder said.
Guests who said they were going blind or battling cancer told him they wanted to view the auroras at least once in their lives.
"You can't guarantee that the lights will be visible because it's a natural phenomenon."
The display is generally visible at least every three days, he said.
Scientists say the northern lights are created by the sun's super hot atmosphere, which blasts particles into the protective magnetic field surrounding the Earth.
The magnetic field forces the particles toward the north and south poles.
About 60 to 200 miles overhead, the particles bump into the Earth's atmosphere and become electrically "excited" throwing off light of various colors, said Prof. Dirk Lummerzhein of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.
"The forecast for this winter is a continued quiet sun, in general," he said.
The sun is on the upswing of an 11-year cycle.
"Maybe we will have a few periods once a month where the aurora can get a little bit more active."
Although the phenomenon occurs around the clock, the lights are only visible at night.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
What the blue pill couldn`t cure
Before middle-aged men started singing "Viva Viagra" in TV ads, before former Sen. Bob Dole appeared in its commercials in the '90s, before the blue pill with a funny name entered the public lexicon, impotence was hush-hush.
Now there's no getting away from it.
In-boxes are clogged daily with spam mail promising cheap and instant manliness delivered fast and in bulk.
Couples exchange amorous, come-hither looks followed by a lengthy recitation of side effects on TV ads.
The pill helped more than 25 million men get their groove back and blasted the topic of erectile dysfunction into the open.
"It's like the nuclear explosion," said Dr. Irwin Goldstein, director of Sexual Medicine at Alvarado Hospital in San Diego, California. "It created sexual medicine. It allowed the taboo to be broken."
Since the diamond-shaped blue pill debuted 10 years ago, it has become embedded in the public psyche, late-night television jokes and urologists' offices.
"It is one of the revolutionary steps in sexual health," said Dr. Ira Sharlip, spokesman for the American Urological Association. "It ranks with the changes in cultural attitudes about sexuality that were started by [Sigmund] Freud, continued by [William] Masters and [Virginia] Johnson, the two researchers in the '60s, and the work that [Alfred] Kinsey did in the '40s.
"These were the huge steps in the development of our understanding of human sexuality and cultural attitudes of sex."
Men seldom talked about their bedroom troubles before the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Viagra as the first oral medication for erectile dysfunction in 1998.
"We lamented the fact that the men had so much shame about erectile dysfunction, how rarely anyone came for medical attention," said Dr. Abraham Morgentaler, an associate clinical professor of urology at Harvard Medical School.
Penis injections and vacuum pumps were available, but these treatments weren't appealing.
Men with medical conditions such as diabetes, prostate cancer, hyper cholesterol, endocrinological and cardiovascular problems weren't able to enjoy sex, Goldstein said.
"People who couldn't enjoy intimacy before have been given a second life.... "We have had a better life because of it."
Viagra increases blood flow to the penis, enabling a man to have an erection.
The drug does not induce desire and works when the man is sexually aroused, according to Pfizer, the makers of Viagra.
Urologists heard from patients who had tried the pill that Viagra made them feel as if they were 20-year-olds again.
"Along with the birth control pill in the '60s, this pill really changed people, society and medicine," Goldstein said.
You can walk in and ask about sexual functions.
What the blue pill couldn`t cure
Before middle-aged men started singing "Viva Viagra" in TV ads, before former Sen. Bob Dole appeared in its commercials in the '90s, before the blue pill with a funny name entered the public lexicon, impotence was hush-hush.
Now there's no getting away from it.
In-boxes are clogged daily with spam mail promising cheap and instant manliness delivered fast and in bulk.
Couples exchange amorous, come-hither looks followed by a lengthy recitation of side effects on TV ads.
The pill helped more than 25 million men get their groove back and blasted the topic of erectile dysfunction into the open.
"It's like the nuclear explosion," said Dr. Irwin Goldstein, director of Sexual Medicine at Alvarado Hospital in San Diego, California. "It created sexual medicine. It allowed the taboo to be broken."
Since the diamond-shaped blue pill debuted 10 years ago, it has become embedded in the public psyche, late-night television jokes and urologists' offices.
"It is one of the revolutionary steps in sexual health," said Dr. Ira Sharlip, spokesman for the American Urological Association. "It ranks with the changes in cultural attitudes about sexuality that were started by [Sigmund] Freud, continued by [William] Masters and [Virginia] Johnson, the two researchers in the '60s, and the work that [Alfred] Kinsey did in the '40s.
"These were the huge steps in the development of our understanding of human sexuality and cultural attitudes of sex."
Men seldom talked about their bedroom troubles before the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Viagra as the first oral medication for erectile dysfunction in 1998.
"We lamented the fact that the men had so much shame about erectile dysfunction, how rarely anyone came for medical attention," said Dr. Abraham Morgentaler, an associate clinical professor of urology at Harvard Medical School.
Penis injections and vacuum pumps were available, but these treatments weren't appealing.
Men with medical conditions such as diabetes, prostate cancer, hyper cholesterol, endocrinological and cardiovascular problems weren't able to enjoy sex, Goldstein said.
"People who couldn't enjoy intimacy before have been given a second life.... "We have had a better life because of it."
Viagra increases blood flow to the penis, enabling a man to have an erection.
The drug does not induce desire and works when the man is sexually aroused, according to Pfizer, the makers of Viagra.
Urologists heard from patients who had tried the pill that Viagra made them feel as if they were 20-year-olds again.
"Along with the birth control pill in the '60s, this pill really changed people, society and medicine," Goldstein said.
"It changed the patient-physician relationship.
You can walk in and ask about sexual functions.
It was a major taboo at some point."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
A journalist with an Iraqi television network threw shoes at
President Bush during a news conference in Baghdad, Iraq, where the president was making a farewell visit Sunday.
Bush ducked, and the shoes, flung one at a time, sailed past his head during the news conference with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in his palace in the heavily fortified Green Zone.
identified as Muntadhar al-Zaidi, a journalist with al-Baghdadia television network could be heard yelling in Arabic:
"This is a farewell ... you dog!"
Al-Zaidi was dragged away.
While al-Zaidi was still screaming in another room, Bush said: "That was a size 10 shoe he threw at me, you may want to know."
Al-Baghdadia issued a statement Sunday demanding al-Zaidi's release.
Hurling shoes at someone, or sitting so that the bottom of a shoe faces another person, is considered an insult among Muslims.
Bush had been lauding the conclusion of a security pact with Iraq as journalists looked on.
"So what if the guy threw his shoe at me?"
Bush told a reporter in response to a question about the incident.
Iraqi network journalist throws shoes at Bush in Baghdad
A journalist with an Iraqi television network threw shoes at
President Bush during a news conference in Baghdad, Iraq, where the president was making a farewell visit Sunday.
Bush ducked, and the shoes, flung one at a time, sailed past his head during the news conference with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in his palace in the heavily fortified Green Zone.
identified as Muntadhar al-Zaidi, a journalist with al-Baghdadia television network could be heard yelling in Arabic:
"This is a farewell ... you dog!"
Al-Zaidi was dragged away.
While al-Zaidi was still screaming in another room, Bush said: "That was a size 10 shoe he threw at me, you may want to know."
Al-Baghdadia issued a statement Sunday demanding al-Zaidi's release.
Hurling shoes at someone, or sitting so that the bottom of a shoe faces another person, is considered an insult among Muslims.
Bush had been lauding the conclusion of a security pact with Iraq as journalists looked on.
"So what if the guy threw his shoe at me?"
Bush told a reporter in response to a question about the incident.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
At least 800,000 customers in New England are still without electricity on Sunday after an ice storm ravaged the region, officials say.
President Bush has authorized federal aid by declaring a state of emergency in New Hampshire and Massachusetts.
Joseph Shoplack stayed at a Red Cross shelter Saturday night in Southwick.
He lasted only one day in his home without power or heat.
"They came [Saturday] and asked me how am I and I said, 'It's awful, it's very, very cold and I'm not well,'" he told WWLP Channel 22.
State officials have asked FEMA for cots for 70 shelters, where 1,800 people slept in shelters Saturday night, said Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency spokesman Peter Judge.
It may take two days to restore power to all the affected homes.
"The problem is there is so much debris on the roads from the storm [that] our crews cannot get to some places," Judge said.
It may also take two days to return power to homes in Maine, officials said.
At least 800,000 customers in New England are still without electricity on Sunday after an ice storm ravaged the region, officials say.
President Bush has authorized federal aid by declaring a state of emergency in New Hampshire and Massachusetts.
Joseph Shoplack stayed at a Red Cross shelter Saturday night in Southwick.
He lasted only one day in his home without power or heat.
"They came [Saturday] and asked me how am I and I said, 'It's awful, it's very, very cold and I'm not well,'" he told WWLP Channel 22.
State officials have asked FEMA for cots for 70 shelters, where 1,800 people slept in shelters Saturday night, said Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency spokesman Peter Judge.
It may take two days to restore power to all the affected homes.
"The problem is there is so much debris on the roads from the storm [that] our crews cannot get to some places," Judge said.
It may also take two days to return power to homes in Maine, officials said.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Virtual world, real emotions:
She was about to meet someone she had been chatting with online since February.
"I was terrified on the train.
I remember sending him a text saying 'Last chance to back out,' when I was at the station ready to get on the train."
Though meeting Sean Barbary in person for the first time, Allam was already married to him in the online virtual world of Second Life.
To many of it's inhabitants, Second Life is much more than just a 3-D online game.
It has its own economy and millions of residents who own and create property, make friends and even get married, according to Secondlife.com.
Allam and Barbary's avatars, Brie Janick and Seany1235 Blinker, married online in June.
The wedding itself was preceded by a surprise bridal shower for Janick.
In the real world, both live in England
Allam in London and Barbary five hours away in Cornwall.
Just recently, the two finally met in person and hit it off.
Before their first meeting, they spoke together on the phone and over webcam.
They even created a virtual tropical island home for themselves in Second Life.
Both say they have real feelings for each other.
Second Life weddings happen often enough "in-world," as it's called in Second Life.
There were about 40 vendors and over 800 attendees, according to its organizer.
It even included a fashion show and panel discussion of "wedding do's and don't's."
Virtual world, real emotions:
Relationships in Second Life
She was about to meet someone she had been chatting with online since February.
"I was terrified on the train.
I remember sending him a text saying 'Last chance to back out,' when I was at the station ready to get on the train."
Though meeting Sean Barbary in person for the first time, Allam was already married to him in the online virtual world of Second Life.
To many of it's inhabitants, Second Life is much more than just a 3-D online game.
It has its own economy and millions of residents who own and create property, make friends and even get married, according to Secondlife.com.
Allam and Barbary's avatars, Brie Janick and Seany1235 Blinker, married online in June.
The wedding itself was preceded by a surprise bridal shower for Janick.
In the real world, both live in England
Allam in London and Barbary five hours away in Cornwall.
Just recently, the two finally met in person and hit it off.
Before their first meeting, they spoke together on the phone and over webcam.
They even created a virtual tropical island home for themselves in Second Life.
Both say they have real feelings for each other.
Second Life weddings happen often enough "in-world," as it's called in Second Life.
There were about 40 vendors and over 800 attendees, according to its organizer.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Track cyclist Hoy wins top British award
Track cyclist Chris Hoy has won British sport's top award after being named BBC Sports Personality of the Year in Liverpool on Sunday.
The triple Olympic gold medallist fought off competition Formula 1 world champion Lewis Hamilton, who finished second, and third-placed swimmer Rebecca Adlington to scoop the prize.
The 32-year-old becomes the first cyclist to win the honor since Tommy Simpson in 1965.
Hoy, from Edinburgh, became the first British athlete to win three golds at a single Olympics in Beijing the summer.
"To win this award this year is so special as British sport has enjoyed such a hugely successful year. It's been incredible," said Hoy
who triumphed in the team sprint, along with Jamie Staff and Jason Kenny, and won the keirin and the individual sprint at the Laoshan Velodrome in Beijing.
"I really didn't expect this," added Hoy, who received a standing ovation after he came to the stage to collect his award from Sir Steven Redgrave and American athletics legend Michael Johnson.
"After the year I've had and the whole team has had, to be crowned Sports Personality of the Year, it just means so much. This is the big one and this is just unbelievable."
It was a successful night for the British cycling team as they won the team award while David Brailsford won the Coach of the Year crown.
Track cyclist Hoy wins top British award
Track cyclist Chris Hoy has won British sport's top award after being named BBC Sports Personality of the Year in Liverpool on Sunday.
The triple Olympic gold medallist fought off competition Formula 1 world champion Lewis Hamilton, who finished second, and third-placed swimmer Rebecca Adlington to scoop the prize.
The 32-year-old becomes the first cyclist to win the honor since Tommy Simpson in 1965.
Hoy, from Edinburgh, became the first British athlete to win three golds at a single Olympics in Beijing the summer.
"To win this award this year is so special as British sport has enjoyed such a hugely successful year. It's been incredible," said Hoy
who triumphed in the team sprint, along with Jamie Staff and Jason Kenny, and won the keirin and the individual sprint at the Laoshan Velodrome in Beijing.
"I really didn't expect this," added Hoy, who received a standing ovation after he came to the stage to collect his award from Sir Steven Redgrave and American athletics legend Michael Johnson.
"After the year I've had and the whole team has had, to be crowned Sports Personality of the Year, it just means so much.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Jon Hamm has a confession to make:
That may come as a surprise to fans of the actor, whose slick-backed hair is part of his signature look on "Mad Men"
the show that just earned him another Golden Globe nomination for best actor in a TV drama.
In the new movie "The Day the Earth Stood Still," Hamm sports a slightly different 'do, with his bangs combed rakishly over one eye.
It was in the context of promoting the sci-fi remake that Hamm revealed his tonsorial frustration.
Hamm says he's always worn his hair long, but had to cut it for AMC's TV series, in which he plays a 1960s Madison Avenue ad executive.
He says stylists on the show, armed with hair spray and blow dryers, mold his coiffure into a hard shell.
Helmet hair has come in handy at work.
"I've had a piece of the set fall on my head and my hair didn't move," he said. "I had seven stitches in my head and my hair didn't move.
Whether it's his hair, good looks, acting chops or a combination thereof, Hamm's star is on the rise in Hollywood.
Apart from his co-starring role in "The Day the Earth Stood Still," Hamm recently completed work on the murder mystery "The Boy in the Box."
He hosted "Saturday Night Live" this fall, he's due to play Tina Fey's love interest on "30 Rock" and he continues to receive accolades for his work on "Mad Men" (nominations for an Emmy and a Golden Globe so far).
How does that make Hamm feel?
"Exciting is the right way to say it.
It's been a good year.
It's very exciting," he said.
"I get to read a lot more scripts.
Jon Hamm has a confession to make:
That may come as a surprise to fans of the actor, whose slick-backed hair is part of his signature look on "Mad Men"
the show that just earned him another Golden Globe nomination for best actor in a TV drama.
In the new movie "The Day the Earth Stood Still," Hamm sports a slightly different 'do, with his bangs combed rakishly over one eye.
It was in the context of promoting the sci-fi remake that Hamm revealed his tonsorial frustration.
Hamm says he's always worn his hair long, but had to cut it for AMC's TV series, in which he plays a 1960s Madison Avenue ad executive.
He says stylists on the show, armed with hair spray and blow dryers, mold his coiffure into a hard shell.
Helmet hair has come in handy at work.
"I've had a piece of the set fall on my head and my hair didn't move," he said. "I had seven stitches in my head and my hair didn't move.
Whether it's his hair, good looks, acting chops or a combination thereof, Hamm's star is on the rise in Hollywood.
Apart from his co-starring role in "The Day the Earth Stood Still," Hamm recently completed work on the murder mystery "The Boy in the Box."
He hosted "Saturday Night Live" this fall, he's due to play Tina Fey's love interest on "30 Rock" and he continues to receive accolades for his work on "Mad Men" (nominations for an Emmy and a Golden Globe so far).
How does that make Hamm feel?
"Exciting is the right way to say it.
It's been a good year.
It's very exciting," he said.
"I get to read a lot more scripts.
I get to meet interesting people.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Regularly scheduled commercial flights, shipping, and mail between Taiwan and China resumed Monday for the first time since the 1949 revolution that brought the Communist Party to power on the Chinese mainland.
A flight from Shenzhen, China, to Taipei, Taiwan, landed about 9:00 a.m. Monday (8 p.m. Sunday ET), while the first flight from Taipei to Shanghai, China, departed at 8:00 a.m., Taiwan's Civil Aeronautics Administration reported.
Current plans call for 16 daily flights to or from Taiwan, the agency reported.
Frequent charter flights began in July, but Monday marked the first formal service in nearly 60 years.
In addition, ceremonies were being held at seaports on both coasts as the first commercial vessels prepared to set out across the Taiwan Strait.
Taiwan separated from China after the communist victory in the Chinese civil war in 1949, with the defeated Nationalists setting up a government there.
Beijing has always considered the island a renegade province and has threatened to go to war should Taiwan declare formal independence.
But Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou has been cultivating ties with the mainland since winning office in March.
Ma, a Nationalist, opposes reunification with China but ran on a platform touting the economic benefits of better relations with China.
Regularly scheduled commercial flights, shipping, and mail between Taiwan and China resumed Monday for the first time since the 1949 revolution that brought the Communist Party to power on the Chinese mainland.
A flight from Shenzhen, China, to Taipei, Taiwan, landed about 9:00 a.m. Monday (8 p.m. Sunday ET), while the first flight from Taipei to Shanghai, China, departed at 8:00 a.m., Taiwan's Civil Aeronautics Administration reported.
Current plans call for 16 daily flights to or from Taiwan, the agency reported.
Frequent charter flights began in July, but Monday marked the first formal service in nearly 60 years.
In addition, ceremonies were being held at seaports on both coasts as the first commercial vessels prepared to set out across the Taiwan Strait.
Taiwan separated from China after the communist victory in the Chinese civil war in 1949, with the defeated Nationalists setting up a government there.
Beijing has always considered the island a renegade province and has threatened to go to war should Taiwan declare formal independence.
But Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou has been cultivating ties with the mainland since winning office in March.
Ma, a Nationalist, opposes reunification with China but ran on a platform touting the economic benefits of better relations with China.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Shoe-thrower`s brother:
The brother of the journalist now famous for hurling his shoes at President Bush said his sibling's actions were "spontaneous" and represented millions of Iraqis who want to "humiliate the tyrant."
Dhirgham al-Zaidi, who sometimes worked as his brother's cameraman, described the reporter's hatred for the "material American occupation" and the "moral Iranian occupation."
Muntadhar al-Zaidi's feelings were influenced by watching the agony suffered by everyday Iraqis.
Most of the reporter's stories focused on Iraqi widows, orphans, and children, said the brother.
Sometimes the 29-year-old journalist would cry.
Moved by the tales he reported of poor families, he sometimes asked his colleagues to give money to them.
On most nights, he returned to his home in central Baghdad
one of the country's most violent slums and the epicenter of several of the war's pitched battles.
Muntadhar al-Zaidi's reporting for Egypt-based independent television Al-Baghdadia was "against the occupation," his brother said.
The journalist would occasionally sign off his stories "from occupied Baghdad."
Yet Dhirgham al-Zaidi said he was "shocked" when he saw his brother hurling his shoes at President Bush at a Sunday news conference after a surprise visit by Bush to Baghdad.
Bush swiftly ducked the flying footwear and later told reporters aboard Air Force One that the "bizarre" incident was not a sign of popular opinion in Iraq.
The reporter called his shoe-throwing a "farewell kiss" to a "dog" who launched the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
He wanted to humiliate `tyrant`
The brother of the journalist now famous for hurling his shoes at President Bush said his sibling's actions were "spontaneous" and represented millions of Iraqis who want to "humiliate the tyrant."
Dhirgham al-Zaidi, who sometimes worked as his brother's cameraman, described the reporter's hatred for the "material American occupation" and the "moral Iranian occupation."
Muntadhar al-Zaidi's feelings were influenced by watching the agony suffered by everyday Iraqis.
Most of the reporter's stories focused on Iraqi widows, orphans, and children, said the brother.
Sometimes the 29-year-old journalist would cry.
Moved by the tales he reported of poor families, he sometimes asked his colleagues to give money to them.
On most nights, he returned to his home in central Baghdad
one of the country's most violent slums and the epicenter of several of the war's pitched battles.
Muntadhar al-Zaidi's reporting for Egypt-based independent television Al-Baghdadia was "against the occupation," his brother said.
The journalist would occasionally sign off his stories "from occupied Baghdad."
Yet Dhirgham al-Zaidi said he was "shocked" when he saw his brother hurling his shoes at President Bush at a Sunday news conference after a surprise visit by Bush to Baghdad.
Bush swiftly ducked the flying footwear and later told reporters aboard Air Force One that the "bizarre" incident was not a sign of popular opinion in Iraq.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Some of the biggest names in global finance say they have lost hundreds of millions of dollars in an alleged $50 billion "pyramid scheme" that led to the arrest of a New York financier last week.
HSBC, one of the world's largest banking groups, could lose $1 billion, it announced Monday, adding to a litany of expected losses across some of Europe's leading financial houses.
The Royal Bank of Scotland told CNN its hedge funds had exposure of up to £400 million ($600 million) to funds managed by securities broker Bernard Madoff.
Japan's Nomura on Monday said it had ¥27.6 billion ($303 million) of exposure, but that the impact on its capital would be limited.
BGC Partners analyst David Buik told CNN the fallout from Madoff's arrest was sending shockwaves through the markets.
"It is extraordinary the broad section of people who have admitted some involvement," he said.
"There is a real trail getting back to the basics of these deals
but all speculative at the moment."
Madoff, a former chairman of the Nasdaq exchange market, was arrested Thursday on a single securities fraud charge for operating a $50 billion Ponzi scheme from his investment advisory business.
A federal court in Manhattan Friday issued a temporary order freezing Madoff's assets and appointing a receiver over him and his firm, his global securities broker company, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities (BMIS).
similar to a pyramid scheme is an investment fraud in which high profits are promised to investors from fictitious sources.
Early investors are paid off with funds raised from later ones.
District Court Judge Louis Stanton said the order appeared necessary to prevent Madoff or an agent from moving funds out of the court's jurisdiction and to "preserve the status quo" for whatever may come from future proceedings.
Madoff, 70, made an initial court appearance Thursday and was released on a $10 million bond.
Some of the biggest names in global finance say they have lost hundreds of millions of dollars in an alleged $50 billion "pyramid scheme" that led to the arrest of a New York financier last week.
HSBC, one of the world's largest banking groups, could lose $1 billion, it announced Monday, adding to a litany of expected losses across some of Europe's leading financial houses.
The Royal Bank of Scotland told CNN its hedge funds had exposure of up to £400 million ($600 million) to funds managed by securities broker Bernard Madoff.
Japan's Nomura on Monday said it had ¥27.6 billion ($303 million) of exposure, but that the impact on its capital would be limited.
BGC Partners analyst David Buik told CNN the fallout from Madoff's arrest was sending shockwaves through the markets.
"It is extraordinary the broad section of people who have admitted some involvement," he said.
"There is a real trail getting back to the basics of these deals
but all speculative at the moment."
Madoff, a former chairman of the Nasdaq exchange market, was arrested Thursday on a single securities fraud charge for operating a $50 billion Ponzi scheme from his investment advisory business.
A federal court in Manhattan Friday issued a temporary order freezing Madoff's assets and appointing a receiver over him and his firm, his global securities broker company, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities (BMIS).
similar to a pyramid scheme is an investment fraud in which high profits are promised to investors from fictitious sources.
Early investors are paid off with funds raised from later ones.
District Court Judge Louis Stanton said the order appeared necessary to prevent Madoff or an agent from moving funds out of the court's jurisdiction and to "preserve the status quo" for whatever may come from future proceedings.
Madoff, 70, made an initial court appearance Thursday and was released on a $10 million bond.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
"SNL," famous for mocking politicians and newsmakers, portrayed the governor in a four-minute "Weekend Update" segment as confused and disoriented
often looking in the wrong direction and mistakenly walking in front of the camera when it was not his turn to speak.
The "SNL" skit featured cast member Fred Armisen as the governor.
It referred to cocaine use, with Armisen saying he became governor because of a "sex scandal I was miraculously not at the center of."
"Come on, I'm a blind man who loves cocaine who was suddenly appointed governor of New York. My life is an actual plot from a Richard Pryor movie," Armisen said in the skit.
Paterson became governor last spring after then-Gov. Eliot Spitzer was forced to resign amid a sex scandal.
"Now that [Alaska Gov. Sarah] Palin's not around, they seem to have run out of material," Paterson told reporters Monday.
"The idea of a person rolling around the stage in a chair, being disoriented, can't find anything, bumbling, in a sense looking like a clown is a way disabled people are portrayed all the time.
"The perception that disability equals inability to be responsible is totally wrong," he added
On Sunday, a spokeswoman for Paterson suggested the skit was offensive to all people with physical disabilities.
"SNL," famous for mocking politicians and newsmakers, portrayed the governor in a four-minute "Weekend Update" segment as confused and disoriented
often looking in the wrong direction and mistakenly walking in front of the camera when it was not his turn to speak.
The "SNL" skit featured cast member Fred Armisen as the governor.
It referred to cocaine use, with Armisen saying he became governor because of a "sex scandal I was miraculously not at the center of."
"Come on, I'm a blind man who loves cocaine who was suddenly appointed governor of New York. My life is an actual plot from a Richard Pryor movie," Armisen said in the skit.
Paterson became governor last spring after then-Gov. Eliot Spitzer was forced to resign amid a sex scandal.
"Now that [Alaska Gov. Sarah] Palin's not around, they seem to have run out of material," Paterson told reporters Monday.
"The idea of a person rolling around the stage in a chair, being disoriented, can't find anything, bumbling, in a sense looking like a clown is a way disabled people are portrayed all the time.
"The perception that disability equals inability to be responsible is totally wrong," he added
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
The singer Madonna has settled with Guy Ritchie for $75 million, or about £50 million, as part of their divorce agreement, her representative, Liz Rosenberg, confirmed on Monday to CNN.
Film director Ritchie's spokesman made no immediate comment.
The couple was granted a preliminary decree of divorce on November 21 Britain's High Court in London.
The couple have six weeks and a day from that hearing before the divorce becomes final.
The window of time allows anyone who objects to the divorce
or has changed their minds to notify the court.
The couple married at Scotland's Skibo Castle eight years ago.
They have three children
Rocco, born to the couple in 2000;
David, adopted from Malawi;
and Lourdes, Madonna's daughter from her previous relationship with dancer Carlos Leon.
The window of time allows anyone who objects to the divorce
or has changed their minds
The couple married at Scotland's Skibo Castle eight years ago.
They have three children
Rocco, born to the couple in 2000;
David, adopted from Malawi;
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Parents flick the light switch, flap the sheets and prod their groggy teenagers to get to school on time.
Then, when the teenagers get to school, they slump over their desks to snooze.
Sleepy teenagers may not be able to help it, researchers say.
Blame it on the early school start time and their circadian rhythms: the mental and physical changes that occur in a day.
Teenagers need eight to 10 hours of sleep, compared with the six to eight hours recommended for adults.
Teenagers also tend to go to bed and wake later than adults.
These biological tendencies clash with early morning high school schedules, leaving them sleepy in class.
Research conducted at the University of Kentucky in Lexington found that when Fayette County high schools delayed their start time by an hour, the percentage of students getting at least eight hours of sleep per night jumped from 35.7 to 50 percent.
The study, published Monday in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, surveyed 10,000 students in the Kentucky county before and after their schools changed the start time from 7:30 to 8:30 a.m.
Students have the most difficulty staying awake and functioning during early morning classes.
"It's as if they are jet lagged, like they've just flown into Atlanta from San Diego," said Dr. Barbara Phillips, a co-author in the study. "For people who live in Atlanta, it might be 8 a.m. For a teenager, it feels like it's 5 o'clock in the morning.
They're sleepy and don't do well." Sleep deprivation can compromise immune systems, ruin moods and decrease focus, said the lead author, Dr. Fred Danner.
"A mistake we make is [thinking] that sleep is optional," he said.
People assume they can just toughen up or take caffeine.
Danner and Phillips said there are even more dangerous consequences of sleep deprivation for students:
They found that two years after the change in Fayette County's school start time, the crash rate for teen drivers dropped 16.5 percent.
Meanwhile, crash rates increased 7.8 percent in the rest of the state, where the school schedules had not been adjusted.
"Sleep deprivation increases chances of a crash because it decreases vigilance," Phillips said.
They can't concentrate that early when driving that early in the dark.
They stay sleepy all the day."
Cells in the hypothalamus respond to light and dark signals.
"We know their core circadian rhythm changes when they hit puberty," Phillips said.
"When you make the change, it's vitally important to involve the community.
It's not just shifting time up.
Falling asleep in class? Parents flick the light switch, flap the sheets and prod their groggy teenagers to get to school on time.
Then, when the teenagers get to school, they slump over their desks to snooze.
Sleepy teenagers may not be able to help it, researchers say.
Blame it on the early school start time and their circadian rhythms: the mental and physical changes that occur in a day.
Teenagers need eight to 10 hours of sleep, compared with the six to eight hours recommended for adults.
Teenagers also tend to go to bed and wake later than adults.
These biological tendencies clash with early morning high school schedules, leaving them sleepy in class.
Research conducted at the University of Kentucky in Lexington found that when Fayette County high schools delayed their start time by an hour, the percentage of students getting at least eight hours of sleep per night jumped from 35.7 to 50 percent.
The study, published Monday in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, surveyed 10,000 students in the Kentucky county before and after their schools changed the start time from 7:30 to 8:30 a.m.
Students have the most difficulty staying awake and functioning during early morning classes.
"It's as if they are jet lagged, like they've just flown into Atlanta from San Diego," said Dr. Barbara Phillips, a co-author in the study. "For people who live in Atlanta, it might be 8 a.m. For a teenager, it feels like it's 5 o'clock in the morning.
They're sleepy and don't do well." Sleep deprivation can compromise immune systems, ruin moods and decrease focus, said the lead author, Dr. Fred Danner.
"A mistake we make is [thinking] that sleep is optional," he said.
People assume they can just toughen up or take caffeine.
Danner and Phillips said there are even more dangerous consequences of sleep deprivation for students:
They found that two years after the change in Fayette County's school start time, the crash rate for teen drivers dropped 16.5 percent.
Meanwhile, crash rates increased 7.8 percent in the rest of the state, where the school schedules had not been adjusted.
"Sleep deprivation increases chances of a crash because it decreases vigilance," Phillips said.
"It's not problems with concentration," she said.
"It can change lives to change school start times.
They can't concentrate that early when driving that early in the dark.
They stay sleepy all the day."
I do know it's biological, mediated by melatonin."
they have recommended a localized approach.
and parents may have some concerns."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Playboy cover resembling Mary `desperate,` `blasphemous`
Playboy magazine issued an apology Monday for the cover of its Mexican edition, which features an Argentine model in what many observers say is meant to be a depiction of the Virgin Mary.
Playboy Mexico has said the cover was not meant to portray the Virgin Mary, despite being printed just days before the Feast of the Immaculate Conception and the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe
both Catholic holidays centering on the Virgin Mary.
What is going on in Mexico and how big a deal is this?
... there has not been a lot of publicity. It's very interesting, but certainly it has been very, very offensive, not only for the Catholics in Mexico, but all Catholics worldwide.
As we can see, this Mexican version of Playboy magazine shows the cover of a model as you were explaining
posing like the Virgin Mary.
Playboy cover resembling Mary `desperate,` `blasphemous`
Playboy magazine issued an apology Monday for the cover of its Mexican edition, which features an Argentine model in what many observers say is meant to be a depiction of the Virgin Mary.
Playboy Mexico has said the cover was not meant to portray the Virgin Mary, despite being printed just days before the Feast of the Immaculate Conception and the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe
both Catholic holidays centering on the Virgin Mary.
What is going on in Mexico and how big a deal is this?
... there has not been a lot of publicity.
posing like the Virgin Mary.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Japanese carmaker Suzuki Motor Corporation has pulled out of next year's FIA World Rally Championship citing a drop in sales due to the global financial crisis.
The Suzuki decision was released in a statement on Monday, 10 days after Honda, another major Japanese car manufacturer, pulled its team out of Formula One.
"In responding to the contraction of the automotive sales caused by recent global economic turmoil, Suzuki has been promptly taking possible countermeasures," the statement said.
"To secure its own business environment for tomorrow, the organization reviews every aspect of the operations and decided to focus on the core business functions such as the manufacturing system, environment technologies, and development of new-generation powertrains. As a result, Suzuki concluded to suspend the WRC activities from 2009."
Suzuki, who started their involvement with international rally competition with the 2002 Junior World Rally Championship, entered two SX4 WRCs in the 2008 World Rally Championship.
The team finished fifth of six teams in the constructors championship and the Suzuki Sport team drivers were 12th and 13th in the individual standings.
"The entry to JWRC and WRC brought a great deal of positive effects on the product development and marketing activities, nurturing the high sporty automotive brand image, especially in Europe," the company's statement said.
"Suzuki will continue to support the customers who are participating in the JWRC with Swift Super 1600 machines, and local motor sport such as Swift Cup in Europe and the rest of the world."
Honda made the shock decision to pull out of F1 on December 5, a day after announcing it was cutting jobs in Britain and Japan and reducing its annual production of consumer cars because of continued plunging vehicle demand.
Suzuki quits World Rally scene as sales dip
Japanese carmaker Suzuki Motor Corporation has pulled out of next year's FIA World Rally Championship citing a drop in sales due to the global financial crisis.
The Suzuki decision was released in a statement on Monday, 10 days after Honda, another major Japanese car manufacturer, pulled its team out of Formula One.
"In responding to the contraction of the automotive sales caused by recent global economic turmoil, Suzuki has been promptly taking possible countermeasures," the statement said.
"To secure its own business environment for tomorrow, the organization reviews every aspect of the operations and decided to focus on the core business functions such as the manufacturing system, environment technologies, and development of new-generation powertrains. As a result, Suzuki concluded to suspend the WRC activities from 2009."
Suzuki, who started their involvement with international rally competition with the 2002 Junior World Rally Championship, entered two SX4 WRCs in the 2008 World Rally Championship.
The team finished fifth of six teams in the constructors championship and the Suzuki Sport team drivers were 12th and 13th in the individual standings.
"The entry to JWRC and WRC brought a great deal of positive effects on the product development and marketing activities, nurturing the high sporty automotive brand image, especially in Europe," the company's statement said.
"Suzuki will continue to support the customers who are participating in the JWRC with Swift Super 1600 machines, and local motor sport such as Swift Cup in Europe and the rest of the world."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Bush on auto bailout, war in Iraq, shoe-throwing reporter
President Bush said Tuesday he is "considering all options" in aiding the U.S. auto industry because doing nothing could lead to further economic decline.
"A disorganized bankruptcy could create enormous economic difficulties, further economic difficulties," he said. "I feel a sense of obligation to my successor to make sure there is a not a huge economic crisis.
Look, we're in a crisis now. We're in a huge recession, but I don't want to make it even worse."
However, the president noted, it's important to make sure he is not wasting taxpayers' money.
"I'm mindful of not putting good money after bad, so we're working through some options," he said.
Bush said there was no one person or event to blame for the recent U.S. economic woes.
Of the housing and financial markets, he said, "The whole system became inebriated."
The president said he was unhappy with "excesses in the financial markets" but that he was "very confident that with time, the economy will come out and grow."
The president said he hopes President-elect Barack Obama is pleased with the Bush administration's effort regarding the transition process.
We want him to be successful, and we want the transition to work," he said.
Bush also said he is thrilled to "have a front-row seat in an unbelievable moment in American history. And I was deeply touched by a lot of people I saw on election night with tears streaming down their face and saying, 'I never, ever thought I would see this day coming.'
Bush said he was sure an African-American would someday hold the office he has occupied for eight years, and he is certain more changes will come.
"I believe there will be a woman president," he said. "I am amazed to have watched Barack Obama come from basic, relative obscurity to now be the president of the United States.
And he gives a lot of people hope. And that's good for the country."
Bush also addressed a Sunday incident in which Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi threw a shoe at him during a news conference with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
"I didn't have much time to reflect on anything, I was ducking and dodging," Bush said.
The journalist was "looking for notoriety," Bush said, adding that authorities shouldn't "overact" in their treatment of him.
Bush on auto bailout, war in Iraq, shoe-throwing reporter
President Bush said Tuesday he is "considering all options" in aiding the U.S. auto industry because doing nothing could lead to further economic decline.
"A disorganized bankruptcy could create enormous economic difficulties, further economic difficulties," he said. "I feel a sense of obligation to my successor to make sure there is a not a huge economic crisis.
Look, we're in a crisis now. We're in a huge recession, but I don't want to make it even worse."
However, the president noted, it's important to make sure he is not wasting taxpayers' money.
"I'm mindful of not putting good money after bad, so we're working through some options," he said.
Bush said there was no one person or event to blame for the recent U.S. economic woes.
Of the housing and financial markets, he said, "The whole system became inebriated."
The president said he was unhappy with "excesses in the financial markets" but that he was "very confident that with time, the economy will come out and grow."
The president said he hopes President-elect Barack Obama is pleased with the Bush administration's effort regarding the transition process.
We want him to be successful, and we want the transition to work," he said.
Bush also said he is thrilled to "have a front-row seat in an unbelievable moment in American history.
And I was deeply touched by a lot of people I saw on election night with tears streaming down their face and saying, 'I never, ever thought I would see this day coming.'
Bush said he was sure an African-American would someday hold the office he has occupied for eight years, and he is certain more changes will come.
"I believe there will be a woman president," he said.
And he gives a lot of people hope.
And that's good for the country."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Mekong a `treasure trove` of 1,000 newly discovered species
A rat believed to be extinct for 11 million years, a spider with a foot-long legspan, and a hot pink cyanide-producing "dragon millipede" are among the thousand newly discovered species in the largely unexplored Mekong Delta region.
The region, including parts of Vietnam and five other countries, is home to 1,068 species found between 1997 and 2007, according to a World Wildlife Fund report released this week.
Some of the creatures were not lurking in fertile floodplains or tropical foliage.
A scientist visiting an outdoor restaurant was startled to see a Laotian rock rat among the nearby wildlife.
The hairy, nocturnal, thick-tailed rat, which resembles a squirrel, had been thought for centuries to be extinct.
"There is a certain amount of shock because our scientists will sometimes see something that doesn't fit anything they know," said Dekila Chungyalpa, Director of the Fund's Mekong Program. "They run through a catalogue of wildlife in their brain, asking themselves, 'Have I seen this?
Perhaps a more startling discovery than the rat was a bright green pit viper scientists spotted slithering through the rafters of a restaurant in Khao Yai National Park in Thailand.
The Fund dubbed the Mekong a "biological treasure trove."
The organization's report "First Contact in the Greater Mekong" says 519 plants, 279 fish, 88 frogs, 88 spiders, 46 lizards, 22 snakes, 15 mammals, four birds, four turtles, two salamanders and a toad were found.
Scientists are still trying to determine if they have uncovered thousands of new invertebrate species.
WWF was discovering new species at a rate of two per week, said Chungyalpa, who said the reason for publishing the report now was twofold.
"We realized that we should highlight these discoveries in part because of the legacy of war and conflict in the region," she said.
Mekong a `treasure trove` of 1,000 newly discovered species
A rat believed to be extinct for 11 million years, a spider with a foot-long legspan, and a hot pink cyanide-producing "dragon millipede" are among the thousand newly discovered species in the largely unexplored Mekong Delta region.
The region, including parts of Vietnam and five other countries, is home to 1,068 species found between 1997 and 2007, according to a World Wildlife Fund report released this week.
Some of the creatures were not lurking in fertile floodplains or tropical foliage.
A scientist visiting an outdoor restaurant was startled to see a Laotian rock rat among the nearby wildlife.
The hairy, nocturnal, thick-tailed rat, which resembles a squirrel, had been thought for centuries to be extinct.
"There is a certain amount of shock because our scientists will sometimes see something that doesn't fit anything they know," said Dekila Chungyalpa, Director of the Fund's Mekong Program. "They run through a catalogue of wildlife in their brain, asking themselves, 'Have I seen this?
Perhaps a more startling discovery than the rat was a bright green pit viper scientists spotted slithering through the rafters of a restaurant in Khao Yai National Park in Thailand.
The Fund dubbed the Mekong a "biological treasure trove."
The organization's report "First Contact in the Greater Mekong" says 519 plants, 279 fish, 88 frogs, 88 spiders, 46 lizards, 22 snakes, 15 mammals, four birds, four turtles, two salamanders and a toad were found.
Scientists are still trying to determine if they have uncovered thousands of new invertebrate species.
WWF was discovering new species at a rate of two per week, said Chungyalpa, who said the reason for publishing the report now was twofold.
"There's an urgency with the threat of development in the Mekong countries."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Jim Carrey on films, depression and love
Jim Carrey has been making audiences laugh for years, but the star says he's really a "a weird, serious person."
He says he's battled depression and loves to do drama as much as the funny stuff.
Fans of his lighter side, though, may be glad to see his latest film is a comedy, "Yes Man," which opens in theaters Friday.
Carrey spoke with CNN's Larry King about his life on and off the screen.
How did you get this project?
I think projects find me.
You know, it's really interesting.
...
[But] you know, "Meet the Parents" was something that I was developing.
The premise of "Yes Man" is what?
It's a gentleman by the name of Carl Allen, who has kind of stopped living.
He got hurt in a relationship and he just kind of went into his shell, and he decided to say no to life.
And he makes a covenant with this man that he will say yes to everything no matter how ridiculous it is.
Isn't "no" the hardest word to say?
Especially when you've got money.
Jim Carrey on films, depression and love
Carrey spoke with CNN's Larry King about his life on and off the screen.
How did you get this project?
I think projects find me.
You know, it's really interesting.
[But] you know, "Meet the Parents" was something that I was developing.
The premise of "Yes Man" is what?
He got hurt in a relationship and he just kind of went into his shell, and he decided to say no to life.
a new-age master played by Terrence Stamp.
Especially when you've got money.
It's like, you know, there's so many people, man.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
which was conducted two weeks ago by a team of eight surgeons at the Cleveland, Ohio, hospital
80 percent of the trauma patient's face was transplanted, the spokeswoman said.
The forehead and chin were left intact.
The surgery was the first such operation done in the United States.
In 2005, French doctors performed the world's first partial face transplant on a 38-year-old woman who was disfigured when she was attacked by a dog.
"I hope the successful operation will help other people like me to live again," said Isabelle Dinoire, the French woman who received a nose, lips and chin.
First U.S. face transplant to be made public
which was conducted two weeks ago by a team of eight surgeons at the Cleveland, Ohio, hospital
80 percent of the trauma patient's face was transplanted, the spokeswoman said.
The forehead and chin were left intact.
The surgery was the first such operation done in the United States.
In 2005, French doctors performed the world's first partial face transplant on a 38-year-old woman who was disfigured when she was attacked by a dog.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Santas can freak out screaming toddlers
He's a huge, strangely dressed man who sneaks into people's homes at night, then yells, "Ho!
Who wouldn't be afraid of Santa Claus?
Authors Denise Joyce and Nancy Watkins know at least 250 toddlers who are.
The two recently published a book called "Scared of Santa:
Scenes of Terror in Toyland" that shows photos of children on St. Nick's lap
most of whom are desperate to leave.
The project started at the Chicago Tribune, where both Joyce and Watkins work.
They asked readers to send in their photos and got an overwhelming response that's still going strong.
Last week, the Tribune's "Scared of Santa" Web site had 2 million hits.
An agent saw the journalists' success and proposed the stocking-stuffer book.
Now anyone can enjoy the chapters labeled "Titans of Tears," Misery Squared" and Watkins' favorite:
"We still laugh at [the book]," Watkins said.
"I'll open it up and be like, 'Oh you remember that one!
Santas can freak out screaming toddlers
He's a huge, strangely dressed man who sneaks into people's homes at night, then yells, "Ho!
Who wouldn't be afraid of Santa Claus?
Authors Denise Joyce and Nancy Watkins know at least 250 toddlers who are.
The two recently published a book called "Scared of Santa:
Scenes of Terror in Toyland" that shows photos of children on St. Nick's lap
most of whom are desperate to leave.
The project started at the Chicago Tribune, where both Joyce and Watkins work.
They asked readers to send in their photos and got an overwhelming response that's still going strong.
Last week, the Tribune's "Scared of Santa" Web site had 2 million hits.
An agent saw the journalists' success and proposed the stocking-stuffer book.
Now anyone can enjoy the chapters labeled "Titans of Tears," Misery Squared" and Watkins' favorite:
"We still laugh at [the book]," Watkins said.
"I'll open it up and be like, 'Oh you remember that one!
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
They are the 11 men tasked with taking on English and European champions Manchester United in the FIFA Club World Cup on Thursday
but what is the story behind Gamba Osaka?
The Japanese club team has raced into the international spotlight after qualifying to play against the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney in Thursday's FIFA Club World Cup semifinal at Yokohama's International Stadium.
Although the match result would appear to be a foregone conclusion, the rallying cries of Gamba and Japan midfielder Yasuhito Endo, who stated "All of us can be stars if we win", shows the passion and determination that will ooze from the Japanese side come kick-off.
And Manchester United won't be taking them lightly either.
United midfielder Park Ji-Sung, who spent three years playing in Japan, has told his team-mates not to underestimate the Gamba team claiming that Asian football is on the rise.
But does Gamba have the right pedigree to really have a chance in this match?
Based in Osaka, a city in the Kansai region of Japan's main island of Honshu, Gamba Osaka plays in the national "J-League" and was recently crowned Asian champions after beating Australia's Adelaide United in the AFC Champions League final.
There have been other significant recent successes too.
Earlier in 2008 they destroyed U.S. Major League Soccer team Houston Dynamo 6-1 to win the Pan-Pacific Championship final.
They've also been regular contenders for the J-League title, and managed to win it in 2005.
The club was initially formed in 1980 as Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. Soccer Club, but changed its name to Gamba Osaka in 1992, first appearing in the 1993 J-League season.
The team's name comes from the Italian word "gamba" which means "leg", and the Japanese word "gambaru" which is interpreted as meaning "to stand firm" or "to do your best".
Expectations for the club had always been high since the first J-League season, but they have only recently managed to put together consistent performances and win major trophies.
Despite some poor performances in the 1990s they have managed to remain one of only six teams never to be relegated from the J-League's top division.
However, success in Japan is one thing, and taking on Manchester United is a completely different challenge.
One thing Gamba Osaka does have on its side is international experience.
The team boasts seven players who are former or current Japan international representatives
including several who appeared at the 2006 World Cup in Germany.
Gamba will also call on their Brazilian strikers Roni (who represented Brazil at a Confederations Cup) and Lucas (who played in his nation's Olympic team) to add some experience and try to create pressure on goal.
Though, it can't be forgotten that even these talents may find it difficult in the face of one of football's most expensive teams.
It would be one of the greatest stories of winning against the odds, but, with the firm weight of a Japanese crowd cheering them on, Gamba Osaka have a real chance of making football history.
They are the 11 men tasked with taking on English and European champions Manchester United in the FIFA Club World Cup on Thursday
but what is the story behind Gamba Osaka?
The Japanese club team has raced into the international spotlight after qualifying to play against the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney in Thursday's FIFA Club World Cup semifinal at Yokohama's International Stadium.
Although the match result would appear to be a foregone conclusion, the rallying cries of Gamba and Japan midfielder Yasuhito Endo, who stated "All of us can be stars if we win", shows the passion and determination that will ooze from the Japanese side come kick-off.
And Manchester United won't be taking them lightly either.
United midfielder Park Ji-Sung, who spent three years playing in Japan, has told his team-mates not to underestimate the Gamba team claiming that Asian football is on the rise.
But does Gamba have the right pedigree to really have a chance in this match?
Based in Osaka, a city in the Kansai region of Japan's main island of Honshu, Gamba Osaka plays in the national "J-League" and was recently crowned Asian champions after beating Australia's Adelaide United in the AFC Champions League final.
There have been other significant recent successes too.
Earlier in 2008 they destroyed U.S. Major League Soccer team Houston Dynamo 6-1 to win the Pan-Pacific Championship final.
They've also been regular contenders for the J-League title, and managed to win it in 2005.
The club was initially formed in 1980 as Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. Soccer Club, but changed its name to Gamba Osaka in 1992, first appearing in the 1993 J-League season.
The team's name comes from the Italian word "gamba" which means "leg", and the Japanese word "gambaru" which is interpreted as meaning "to stand firm" or "to do your best".
Expectations for the club had always been high since the first J-League season, but they have only recently managed to put together consistent performances and win major trophies.
Despite some poor performances in the 1990s they have managed to remain one of only six teams never to be relegated from the J-League's top division.
However, success in Japan is one thing, and taking on Manchester United is a completely different challenge.
One thing Gamba Osaka does have on its side is international experience.
The team boasts seven players who are former or current Japan international representatives
including several who appeared at the 2006 World Cup in Germany.
Gamba will also call on their Brazilian strikers Roni (who represented Brazil at a Confederations Cup) and Lucas (who played in his nation's Olympic team) to add some experience and try to create pressure on goal.
Though, it can't be forgotten that even these talents may find it difficult in the face of one of football's most expensive teams.
It would be one of the greatest stories of winning against the odds, but, with the firm weight of a Japanese crowd cheering them on, Gamba Osaka have a real chance of making football history.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Detroit newspapers to end daily home delivery
The Detroit Free Press and Detroit News will become the first major metropolitan newspapers in the U.S. to end daily home delivery, the papers announced Tuesday.
"We're fighting for our survival," said David Hunke, publisher of the Free Press and CEO of the Detroit Media Partnership, a joint operating agreement between the two papers. "We think its time to take a geometric leap forward in what we've known as newspapers."
Beginning sometime in the first three months of 2009, the two newspapers will provide home delivery on Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays only, Hunke said during a news conference in Detroit, Michigan.
Papers will be on newsstands every day, and the papers' online offerings will be expanded, he said.
"The dynamics of delivering information to audiences has changed forever due to technology," Hunke said in a statement on the plan.
Costs for paper, ink and fuel to deliver papers were forcing the papers into cuts in newsroom talent that would damage their abilities to report the news, Hunke said.
Paying for delivery vehicles to cover 300,000 miles nightly, he said, did not make economic sense at a time when 63 percent of readers have broadband Internet access.
As for those without computers and broadband access at home, "this isn't necessarily gonna be the best news for them," Hunke said.
The Detroit News, the country's 49th largest newspaper, is owned by MediaNews Group and had a daily circulation of 178,280 in September.
The Free Press' circulation is down 19 percent and the News is down 22 percent since 2002, the Free Press reported Tuesday.
Hunke said the newspapers would face about a 9 percent reduction in their workforces under the plan.
The Detroit Media Partnership employs more than 2,100 people, CNN affiliate WDIV-TV reported.
Personnel cuts would be negotiated with the papers' unions, Hunke said.
Detroit newspapers to end daily home delivery
The Detroit Free Press and Detroit News will become the first major metropolitan newspapers in the U.S. to end daily home delivery, the papers announced Tuesday.
"We're fighting for our survival," said David Hunke, publisher of the Free Press and CEO of the Detroit Media Partnership, a joint operating agreement between the two papers. "We think its time to take a geometric leap forward in what we've known as newspapers."
Beginning sometime in the first three months of 2009, the two newspapers will provide home delivery on Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays only, Hunke said during a news conference in Detroit, Michigan.
Papers will be on newsstands every day, and the papers' online offerings will be expanded, he said.
"The dynamics of delivering information to audiences has changed forever due to technology," Hunke said in a statement on the plan.
Costs for paper, ink and fuel to deliver papers were forcing the papers into cuts in newsroom talent that would damage their abilities to report the news, Hunke said.
Paying for delivery vehicles to cover 300,000 miles nightly, he said, did not make economic sense at a time when 63 percent of readers have broadband Internet access.
As for those without computers and broadband access at home, "this isn't necessarily gonna be the best news for them," Hunke said.
The Detroit News, the country's 49th largest newspaper, is owned by MediaNews Group and had a daily circulation of 178,280 in September.
The Free Press' circulation is down 19 percent and the News is down 22 percent since 2002, the Free Press reported Tuesday.
Hunke said the newspapers would face about a 9 percent reduction in their workforces under the plan.
The Detroit Media Partnership employs more than 2,100 people, CNN affiliate WDIV-TV reported.
Personnel cuts would be negotiated with the papers' unions, Hunke said.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
and buried beneath its weight.
Professionally, Baldwin has hit a new level of success with his Emmy award-winning turn as corporate honcho Jack Donaghy on "30 Rock."
(His performance also earned him a Golden Globe nomination Thursday.)
The actor also earned critical praise for supporting turns in the movies "The Aviator," "The Departed" and "The Cooler."
Personally, however, Baldwin's life became fodder for the tabloids, particularly during his protracted divorce battle with ex-wife Kim Basinger.
In 2007, an angry voice mail Baldwin had left for his daughter was made public by the gossip Web site TMZ.com.
At the time, Baldwin and Basinger were in an angry custody fight related to their 2001 divorce.
The outspoken Baldwin has now written a book, "A Promise to Ourselves:
A Journey Through Fatherhood and Divorce" (St. Martin's Press), about the psychological toll of divorce, as well as the much-debated concept of "parental alienation."
He talked to Joy Behar on "Larry King Live" about the book, his divorce, politics and Sarah Palin, and how he feels about the public eye.
The show is scheduled to air at 9 p.m. ET Wednesday.
In recent years, Alec Baldwin has been on top of the world
and buried beneath its weight.
Professionally, Baldwin has hit a new level of success with his Emmy award-winning turn as corporate honcho Jack Donaghy on "30 Rock."
(His performance also earned him a Golden Globe nomination Thursday.)
The actor also earned critical praise for supporting turns in the movies "The Aviator," "The Departed" and "The Cooler."
Personally, however, Baldwin's life became fodder for the tabloids, particularly during his protracted divorce battle with ex-wife Kim Basinger.
In 2007, an angry voice mail Baldwin had left for his daughter was made public by the gossip Web site TMZ.com.
At the time, Baldwin and Basinger were in an angry custody fight related to their 2001 divorce.
The outspoken Baldwin has now written a book, "A Promise to Ourselves:
A Journey Through Fatherhood and Divorce" (St. Martin's Press), about the psychological toll of divorce, as well as the much-debated concept of "parental alienation."
He talked to Joy Behar on "Larry King Live" about the book, his divorce, politics and Sarah Palin, and how he feels about the public eye.
The show is scheduled to air at 9 p.m. ET Wednesday.
Following are excerpts from the interview, which have been edited for clarity:
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Thai PM vows to restore stability
Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej gave his blessing to a new government led by Democrat Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva on Wednesday, with the new prime minister pledging to end months of upheaval.
The Oxford-educated, 44-year-old Abhisit won office Monday, winning the support of parliament with the help of members of the former ruling coalition.
In an interview with CNN, Abhisit pledged to revive Thailand's sagging economy and reconcile with the opposition after a tumultuous period in the country's politics.
"I would say it is my intention to lead Thailand out of the current crisis, to bring unity back to the country, to make our economy recover, welcome back foreign investors and tourists," he said.
Thai PM vows to restore stability
Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej gave his blessing to a new government led by Democrat Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva on Wednesday, with the new prime minister pledging to end months of upheaval.
The Oxford-educated, 44-year-old Abhisit won office Monday, winning the support of parliament with the help of members of the former ruling coalition.
In an interview with CNN, Abhisit pledged to revive Thailand's sagging economy and reconcile with the opposition after a tumultuous period in the country's politics.
"I would say it is my intention to lead Thailand out of the current crisis, to bring unity back to the country, to make our economy recover, welcome back foreign investors and tourists," he said.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Skiers saved from dangling gondolas after tower snaps
A group of skiers had a fortunate escape Tuesday after they were rescued from a stricken gondola that was left dangling over a freezing creek at a ski resort in Canada.
The incident at the Whistler Blackcomb resort, 177 kilometers (110 miles) north of Vancouver, occurred when a support tower for the gondola system snapped in half.
Tyler Noble, a reporter for CNNRadio affiliate CKNW in Vancouver, said at least two gondola cars broke away and hit the ground after the accident, both from relatively low heights near the tower that split and caused the system's heavy cable line to slacken.
"One hit a bus stop and the other hit a house," Noble said.
However Royal Canadian Mounted Police Sgt. Steve Wright stressed that no gondolas had fallen.
"At no time was anyone in serous risk and at no time were the cars separated from the line," Wright said.
Doug Forseth, senior vice president of the resort, said a total of 53 passengers had been rescued.
He said no more people are trapped. The section of the lift affected by the accident had 15 cars going up the mountain and 15 coming down at the time, but they were sparsely populated, Forseth said.
A group of skiers had a fortunate escape Tuesday after they were rescued from a stricken gondola that was left dangling over a freezing creek at a ski resort in Canada.
The incident at the Whistler Blackcomb resort, 177 kilometers (110 miles) north of Vancouver, occurred when a support tower for the gondola system snapped in half.
Tyler Noble, a reporter for CNNRadio affiliate CKNW in Vancouver, said at least two gondola cars broke away and hit the ground after the accident, both from relatively low heights near the tower that split and caused the system's heavy cable line to slacken.
"One hit a bus stop and the other hit a house," Noble said.
However Royal Canadian Mounted Police Sgt. Steve Wright stressed that no gondolas had fallen.
"At no time was anyone in serous risk and at no time were the cars separated from the line," Wright said.
Doug Forseth, senior vice president of the resort, said a total of 53 passengers had been rescued.
He said no more people are trapped.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Chrysler shuts down all production
Chrysler LLC announced late Wednesday that it is stopping all vehicle production in the United States for at least a month.
All 30 of the carmaker's plants will close after the last shift on Friday, and employees will not be asked to return to work before Jan. 19.
Chrysler blamed the "continued lack of consumer credit for the American car buyer" for the slow-down in sales that forced the move.
The company ordinarily shuts down operations between Dec. 24 and Jan. 5.
This closure would add roughly two weeks to that shutdown.
Chrysler is the third of the Big Three automakers to suspend operations for January.
Last week, General Motors announced it was idling 30% of its North American manufacturing capacity during the first quarter of 2009 in response to deteriorating market conditions.
That move will take 250,000 vehicles out of production.
On Wednesday, a Ford spokeswoman confirmed for CNN that the automaker is adding a week to its normal two-week seasonal shutdown at a number of its plants.
Chrysler would not say how many fewer vehicles would be produced because of this shutdown.
A total of 46,000 employees will be affected.
They will be paid during the time off through a combination of state unemployment benefits and Chrysler contributions, but they will not receive the full amount of their working pay, a Chrysler spokesman said.
"Chrysler dealers confirmed to the company at a recent meeting at its headquarters, that they have many willing buyers for Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge vehicles but are unable to close the deals, due to lack of financing," the carmaker said in an announcement. "The dealers have stated that they have lost an estimated 20% to 25% of their volume because of this credit situation."
Auto sales have been hit hard by tight credit and the struggling economy.
Overall auto sales in the United States were down 37% last month compared with November 2007.
Chrysler's situation was especially bad.
Chrysler shuts down all production
Chrysler LLC announced late Wednesday that it is stopping all vehicle production in the United States for at least a month.
All 30 of the carmaker's plants will close after the last shift on Friday, and employees will not be asked to return to work before Jan. 19.
Chrysler blamed the "continued lack of consumer credit for the American car buyer" for the slow-down in sales that forced the move.
The company ordinarily shuts down operations between Dec. 24 and Jan. 5.
This closure would add roughly two weeks to that shutdown.
Chrysler is the third of the Big Three automakers to suspend operations for January.
Last week, General Motors announced it was idling 30% of its North American manufacturing capacity during the first quarter of 2009 in response to deteriorating market conditions.
That move will take 250,000 vehicles out of production.
On Wednesday, a Ford spokeswoman confirmed for CNN that the automaker is adding a week to its normal two-week seasonal shutdown at a number of its plants.
Chrysler would not say how many fewer vehicles would be produced because of this shutdown.
A total of 46,000 employees will be affected.
They will be paid during the time off through a combination of state unemployment benefits and Chrysler contributions, but they will not receive the full amount of their working pay, a Chrysler spokesman said.
"Chrysler dealers confirmed to the company at a recent meeting at its headquarters, that they have many willing buyers for Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge vehicles but are unable to close the deals, due to lack of financing," the carmaker said in an announcement. "The dealers have stated that they have lost an estimated 20% to 25% of their volume because of this credit situation."
Auto sales have been hit hard by tight credit and the struggling economy.
Overall auto sales in the United States were down 37% last month compared with November 2007.
Chrysler's situation was especially bad.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Use your brain or lose it.
That's the concern that's fueling a worldwide boom in brain fitness that shows few signs of slowing.
A slew of products, from games like Nintendo's Brain Age to more sophisticated computer-assisted software, are marketed at consumers worried about losing their mental sharpness.
The brain fitness software market has been growing at a dizzying pace.
Worldwide revenue surged to $850 million last year, up from $250 million in 2005, according to SharpBrains, a company that tracks the mental fitness industry.
Recent evidence that mental exercises can be beneficial to the brain has helped the industry flourish.
Although, researchers caution, the verdict is still out when it comes to the long-term effect of these programs on cognition.
"There is still a lot of work that needs to be done. There is no definitive consensus over whether these programs are as beneficial as people would like to think they are," says Dr. Mark Mapstone, associate professor of neurology at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York.
One of the most popular products is Nintendo's Brain Age (also known as Brain Training) a collection of simple exercises like math problems, memory tests and word puzzles.
The launch of the program in 2005 kicked off the mental fitness craze in Japan.
Use your brain or lose it.
That's the concern that's fueling a worldwide boom in brain fitness that shows few signs of slowing.
A slew of products, from games like Nintendo's Brain Age to more sophisticated computer-assisted software, are marketed at consumers worried about losing their mental sharpness.
The brain fitness software market has been growing at a dizzying pace.
Worldwide revenue surged to $850 million last year, up from $250 million in 2005, according to SharpBrains, a company that tracks the mental fitness industry.
Recent evidence that mental exercises can be beneficial to the brain has helped the industry flourish.
Although, researchers caution, the verdict is still out when it comes to the long-term effect of these programs on cognition.
"There is still a lot of work that needs to be done. There is no definitive consensus over whether these programs are as beneficial as people would like to think they are," says Dr. Mark Mapstone, associate professor of neurology at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York.
One of the most popular products is Nintendo's Brain Age (also known as Brain Training)
a collection of simple exercises like math problems, memory tests and word puzzles.
The launch of the program in 2005 kicked off the mental fitness craze in Japan.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Condoleezza Rice talks successes, failures of past 8 years
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the liberation of Afghanistan and Iraq's first elections are among her proudest accomplishments during her tenure.
Rice, who sat down with CNN's Zain Verjee in a wide-ranging exit interview, also said her historic trip to Libya in September to meet with leader Moammar Gadhafi was one of the high points of her service.
'"The thing I never expected was to actually be in Libya face-to-face with Colonel Gadhafi," Rice said. "That probably stands out as one of the extraordinary moments."
Rice, 54, said one of her most difficult moments occurred during the summer of 2006 as the Lebanon war was raging.
At an international conference in Italy, Rice was forced to reject Prime Minster Fouad Siniora's pleas for a cease-fire so that Israel could damage the militant group Hezbollah's capability.
Condoleezza Rice talks successes, failures of past 8 years
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the liberation of Afghanistan and Iraq's first elections are among her proudest accomplishments during her tenure.
Rice, who sat down with CNN's Zain Verjee in a wide-ranging exit interview, also said her historic trip to Libya in September to meet with leader Moammar Gadhafi was one of the high points of her service.
'"The thing I never expected was to actually be in Libya face-to-face with Colonel Gadhafi," Rice said. "That probably stands out as one of the extraordinary moments."
Rice, 54, said one of her most difficult moments occurred during the summer of 2006 as the Lebanon war was raging.
At an international conference in Italy, Rice was forced to reject Prime Minster Fouad Siniora's pleas for a cease-fire so that Israel could damage the militant group Hezbollah's capability.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
President-elect Barack Obama, citing the need for tighter oversight of the nation's financial markets, on Thursday named veteran regulator Mary Schapiro as his choice to head the Securities and Exchange Commission.
And Obama has selected California Rep. Hilda Solis to serve as secretary of labor, a Washington-based labor official for a major union told CNN.
Solis is currently serving her fourth term in the House, representing a district that includes part of East Los Angeles.
She serves on the Energy and Commerce, Natural Resources, and Energy Independence and Global Warming committees.
Obama, speaking at a news conference, also announced the nomination of Gary Gensler to serve on the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission and Dan Tarullo to fill one of the vacancies on the Federal Reserve Board.
"Financial regulatory reform will be one of the top legislative priorities of my administration," Obama said.
"And if the financial crisis has taught us anything, it's that this failure of oversight and accountability doesn't just harm the individuals involved, it has the potential to devastate our entire economy.
President-elect Barack Obama, citing the need for tighter oversight of the nation's financial markets, on Thursday named veteran regulator Mary Schapiro as his choice to head the Securities and Exchange Commission.
And Obama has selected California Rep. Hilda Solis to serve as secretary of labor, a Washington-based labor official for a major union told CNN.
Solis is currently serving her fourth term in the House, representing a district that includes part of East Los Angeles.
She serves on the Energy and Commerce, Natural Resources, and Energy Independence and Global Warming committees.
Obama, speaking at a news conference, also announced the nomination of Gary Gensler to serve on the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission and Dan Tarullo to fill one of the vacancies on the Federal Reserve Board.
"Financial regulatory reform will be one of the top legislative priorities of my administration," Obama said.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Snow becomes the show in Las Vegas
There are some pretty unusual sites on the Las Vegas Strip.
But snow on palm trees stole the show Thursday.
The heaviest Arctic blast in nearly three decades has coated the normally sunny city.
Tourists and locals handed off cameras, taking turns snapping pictures for posterity.
On the Strip, a couple holding two tall fruity drinks clutched each other to stay steady in the ice.
The iconic "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas" sign was dusted in white.
Business people who normally hop day flights between Las Vegas and California were seen in hotel lobbies scrambling to find an available room.
The New York New York Hotel & Casino actually looked like the real New York in December.
"No work was getting done yesterday," said Jason Dinant, who works for a nightclub.
"Everybody was like, 'It's snowing, it's snowing!
He and his co-workers rushed out and stuck out their tongues to catch the flakes.
His trip home was less fun
a typically 15-minute drive took an hour.
"But this is so cool, it doesn't bother me," he said.
Snow becomes the show in Las Vegas
There are some pretty unusual sites on the Las Vegas Strip.
But snow on palm trees stole the show Thursday.
The heaviest Arctic blast in nearly three decades has coated the normally sunny city.
Tourists and locals handed off cameras, taking turns snapping pictures for posterity.
On the Strip, a couple holding two tall fruity drinks clutched each other to stay steady in the ice.
The iconic "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas" sign was dusted in white.
Business people who normally hop day flights between Las Vegas and California were seen in hotel lobbies scrambling to find an available room.
The New York New York Hotel & Casino actually looked like the real New York in December.
"No work was getting done yesterday," said Jason Dinant, who works for a nightclub.
"Everybody was like, 'It's snowing, it's snowing!
He and his co-workers rushed out and stuck out their tongues to catch the flakes.
a typically 15-minute drive took an hour.
"But this is so cool, it doesn't bother me," he said.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Drawings on the back of a Leonardo da Vinci painting may have been sketched by the Italian Renaissance artist, but only more tests by museum experts will tell.
The Department of Paintings at the Louvre Museum in Paris and restoration and research experts from the Museums of France discovered the images this year on the back of the painting "The Virgin and Child with St. Anne," the Louvre said in a news release Thursday.
The style of the sketches resembles that of da Vinci, but the experts said closer examinations must be done to confirm they are his.
After the art experts began studying the circa 1500 painting, an oil on wood, a conservator from the Paintings Department discovered two barely visible drawings on the back of it a horse's head and a partial skull.
Closer scrutiny also revealed another sketch showing the infant Jesus with a lamb.
The drawings, almost impossible to see with the human eye, were photographed with an infrared reflectographic camera, to reveal the underdrawings.
The technique intensifies the degree of absorption of certain pigments, such as those that are carbon-based, which was the preferred material used for preparatory drawings during da Vinci's era.
Drawings on the back of a Leonardo da Vinci painting may have been sketched by the Italian Renaissance artist, but only more tests by museum experts will tell.
The Department of Paintings at the Louvre Museum in Paris and restoration and research experts from the Museums of France discovered the images this year on the back of the painting "The Virgin and Child with St. Anne," the Louvre said in a news release Thursday.
The style of the sketches resembles that of da Vinci, but the experts said closer examinations must be done to confirm they are his.
After the art experts began studying the circa 1500 painting, an oil on wood, a conservator from the Paintings Department discovered two barely visible drawings on the back of it a horse's head and a partial skull.
Closer scrutiny also revealed another sketch showing the infant Jesus with a lamb.
The drawings, almost impossible to see with the human eye, were photographed with an infrared reflectographic camera, to reveal the underdrawings.
The technique intensifies the degree of absorption of certain pigments, such as those that are carbon-based, which was the preferred material used for preparatory drawings during da Vinci's era.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Poisoned medicine kills dozens of children in Nigeria
Nneka and Chimezie Ononaku unwittingly poisoned their own four-month-old son Chinonso.
Giving him what they thought was a baby teething medicine, they were in fact dosing him with anti-freeze.
The bottle had been contaminated with a toxic chemical called diethylene glycol.
More than 30 Nigerian children are thought to have died recently after taking the medicine.
"It's not easy carrying a pregnancy for nine months, [and] after that getting a drug from a pharmacy to kill your own child," she says.
When Nigeria's Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) tested the medicine, "My Pikin," the results were terrifying.
It found the medicine contained almost 90ml of diethylene glycol per 100ml.
"It's a bottle of poison," the NAFDAC laboratory said.
The "My Pikin" factory's managing director and eight others have been charged with negligence. The company could not be reached for comment.
Nigeria is on the frontline in the global fight against counterfeit drugs.
Undercover NAFDAC officers have taken to the streets in order to combat unregistered and often harmful drugs.
Hawkers are charged with selling counterfeit drugs and forced to pay a fine.
NAFDAC claims most of the counterfeit drugs come from India and China.
America's Centre for Medicines in the Public Interest predicts counterfeit drug sales will reach $75 billion in 2010.
NAFDAC's director-general Dora Akunyili warns counterfeiting is not just a Nigerian problem. "These criminals are cooperating, so we too need to cooperate if we can face them.
Poisoned medicine kills dozens of children in Nigeria
Nneka and Chimezie Ononaku unwittingly poisoned their own four-month-old son Chinonso.
Giving him what they thought was a baby teething medicine, they were in fact dosing him with anti-freeze.
The bottle had been contaminated with a toxic chemical called diethylene glycol.
More than 30 Nigerian children are thought to have died recently after taking the medicine.
"It's not easy carrying a pregnancy for nine months, [and] after that getting a drug from a pharmacy to kill your own child," she says.
When Nigeria's Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) tested the medicine, "My Pikin," the results were terrifying.
It found the medicine contained almost 90ml of diethylene glycol per 100ml.
"It's a bottle of poison," the NAFDAC laboratory said.
The "My Pikin" factory's managing director and eight others have been charged with negligence. The company could not be reached for comment.
Nigeria is on the frontline in the global fight against counterfeit drugs.
Undercover NAFDAC officers have taken to the streets in order to combat unregistered and often harmful drugs.
Hawkers are charged with selling counterfeit drugs and forced to pay a fine.
NAFDAC claims most of the counterfeit drugs come from India and China.
America's Centre for Medicines in the Public Interest predicts counterfeit drug sales will reach $75 billion in 2010.
NAFDAC's director-general Dora Akunyili warns counterfeiting is not just a Nigerian problem. "These criminals are cooperating, so we too need to cooperate if we can face them.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Wayne Rooney scored twice following his introduction as a late substitute as Manchester United booked a Club World Cup final meeting with Liga de Quito on Sunday by beating Gamba Osaka 5-3 in a thrilling semifinal in Yokohama.
United had already established superiority over their opponents thanks to first-half headers from Nemanja Vidic and Cristiano Ronaldo.
But Rooney's arrival led to a frenzied spell of six goals in 18 minutes, the England striker netting either side of a Darren Fletcher effort as the European champions kept spirited Gamba resistance at bay.
Asian champions Gamba started brightly, but were undone when Vidic was left unmarked at the far post to head home a Ryan Giggs corner.
More poor marking allowed United to double their lead on the stroke of half-time.
Again Giggs was the provider with another accurate set-piece, with Ronaldo on hand to power home his 10th goal of the campaign
but his first in five weeks.
Rooney was introduced 18 minutes from time but before he had even touched the ball, Gamba pulled one back through Masato Yamazaki.
But it just proved to be the prelude to a blistering spell of United attacking, in which Darren Fletcher nodded home a third United headed goal either side of a Rooney double.
First the England international shrugged off Sota Nakazawa to finish, then he collected Giggs' pass to slot home.
However, there was still time for Endo to stroke home a calmly-taken penalty after Gary Neville was penalized for handball.
Then, just before the final whistle, Hideo Hashimoto pulled another goal back for the plucky Japanese side.
After the game, United manager Sir Alex Ferguson heaped praised on Osaka.
"The people got their money's worth, that's for sure.
Wayne Rooney scored twice following his introduction as a late substitute as Manchester United booked a Club World Cup final meeting with Liga de Quito on Sunday by beating Gamba Osaka 5-3 in a thrilling semifinal in Yokohama.
United had already established superiority over their opponents thanks to first-half headers from Nemanja Vidic and Cristiano Ronaldo.
But Rooney's arrival led to a frenzied spell of six goals in 18 minutes, the England striker netting either side of a Darren Fletcher effort as the European champions kept spirited Gamba resistance at bay.
Asian champions Gamba started brightly, but were undone when Vidic was left unmarked at the far post to head home a Ryan Giggs corner.
More poor marking allowed United to double their lead on the stroke of half-time.
Again Giggs was the provider with another accurate set-piece, with Ronaldo on hand to power home his 10th goal of the campaign
but his first in five weeks.
Rooney was introduced 18 minutes from time but before he had even touched the ball, Gamba pulled one back through Masato Yamazaki.
But it just proved to be the prelude to a blistering spell of United attacking, in which Darren Fletcher nodded home a third United headed goal either side of a Rooney double.
First the England international shrugged off Sota Nakazawa to finish, then he collected Giggs' pass to slot home.
However, there was still time for Endo to stroke home a calmly-taken penalty after Gary Neville was penalized for handball.
Then, just before the final whistle, Hideo Hashimoto pulled another goal back for the plucky Japanese side.
After the game, United manager Sir Alex Ferguson heaped praised on Osaka.
"The people got their money's worth, that's for sure.
Their movement on the ball was very good and it shows you much Japanese football has improved."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
There's no doubt about "Doubt."
The movie version of John Patrick Shanley's Tony Award-winning drama about sexual and religious power struggles at a Bronx Catholic school in 1964, led the nominations for the 15th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards with five, including nods for each major member of its cast and an overall pick for outstanding performance by a cast.
Meryl Streep, who plays a suspicious school principal, Sister Aloysius, in the film, was nominated in the lead actress category.
Her co-stars, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams and Viola Davis, earned nominations in supporting categories.
Also doing well at the SAG nominations were "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" and "Milk," both of which earned three nominations.
The films are up for outstanding cast, lead actor (Brad Pitt and Sean Penn, respectively) and a supporting performance.
Kate Winslet was nominated for her performances in two films.
The actress earned a lead actress nomination for "Revolutionary Road" and a supporting nod for "The Reader."
The late Heath Ledger, who earned critical and mass praise for his performance as the Joker in "The Dark Knight," was nominated for supporting actor.
The movie version of John Patrick Shanley's Tony Award-winning drama about sexual and religious power struggles at a Bronx Catholic school in 1964, led the nominations for the 15th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards with five, including nods for each major member of its cast and an overall pick for outstanding performance by a cast.
Meryl Streep, who plays a suspicious school principal, Sister Aloysius, in the film, was nominated in the lead actress category.
Her co-stars, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams and Viola Davis, earned nominations in supporting categories.
Also doing well at the SAG nominations were "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" and "Milk," both of which earned three nominations.
The films are up for outstanding cast, lead actor (Brad Pitt and Sean Penn, respectively) and a supporting performance.
Kate Winslet was nominated for her performances in two films.
The actress earned a lead actress nomination for "Revolutionary Road" and a supporting nod for "The Reader."
The late Heath Ledger, who earned critical and mass praise for his performance as the Joker in "The Dark Knight," was nominated for supporting actor.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
There is no animal on earth more vilified than the shark.
Pop culture references and annual, over-hyped reports of attacks on swimmers or surfers have put sharks on the top of the list of the world's most feared living things.
There is however, a creature far more predacious than the shark:
Sharks existed before there were dinosaurs and they pre-date humans by millions of years.
Yet, in a relatively short period of time, humans and their technological arsenal have driven most shark populations to the verge of extinction.
This is bad news for the world's oceans.
Sharks are the top predator in the ocean and are vital to its ecosystem.
The rapid reduction of sharks is disrupting the ocean's equilibrium, according to Peter Knights, director of WildAid International.
"These are ecosystems that have evolved over millions and millions of years," said Knights. "As soon as you start to take out an important part of it, it's like a brick wall, you take out bricks [and] eventually it's going to collapse."
When sharks attack humans, it inevitably makes news - it is a sexy story.
What is rarely reported is that worldwide, sharks kill an average of 10 people every year.
It's usually when people venture into a shark's habitat and not the other way around.
There is no animal on earth more vilified than the shark.
Pop culture references and annual, over-hyped reports of attacks on swimmers or surfers have put sharks on the top of the list of the world's most feared living things.
There is however, a creature far more predacious than the shark:
Sharks existed before there were dinosaurs and they pre-date humans by millions of years.
Yet, in a relatively short period of time, humans and their technological arsenal have driven most shark populations to the verge of extinction.
This is bad news for the world's oceans.
Sharks are the top predator in the ocean and are vital to its ecosystem.
The rapid reduction of sharks is disrupting the ocean's equilibrium, according to Peter Knights, director of WildAid International.
"These are ecosystems that have evolved over millions and millions of years," said Knights. "As soon as you start to take out an important part of it, it's like a brick wall, you take out bricks [and] eventually it's going to collapse."
When sharks attack humans, it inevitably makes news - it is a sexy story.
What is rarely reported is that worldwide, sharks kill an average of 10 people every year.
It's usually when people venture into a shark's habitat and not the other way around.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
For one person, the idea of spending a cold winter's night alone seems great
a perfect time to catch up on novels, watch cheesy movies, and drink hot chocolate with marshmallows.
For another, the prospect is less comforting feelings of depression, anger, isolation set in as the hours go by.
Research suggests that the degree of loneliness that any two people feel in a particular situation may vary widely, partly because of genetics.
In fact, loneliness is half inherited, half environmental, says John Cacioppo, director of the University of Chicago's Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience.
In his recent book "Loneliness," with co-author William Patrick, Cacioppo defines loneliness in terms of the need for social connection and notes that a person can feel lonely even in a large crowd.
At any given time, about 60 million people in the U.S. feel so isolated that it's a major source of unhappiness, the book says.
"Loneliness we see to be much more like hunger, thirst and pain than a personality factor per se," Cacioppo told CNN. "It's something everybody has, everybody has the capacity to feel that way, and it serves to call attention to a real biological need."
Using data from more than 8,000 people in twin studies and sibling studies, in collaboration with the Netherlands Twin Register, Cacioppo and colleagues found strong evidence that genetics accounts for about half of the differences in loneliness among people in the study.
Still, there's no way to tell how much of a particular person's loneliness is due to genetics, said Mark Leary, professor at Duke University who runs the psychology department's Self, Emotion and Behavior Lab.
Part of the explanation for loneliness is evolutionary, experts say.
Humans would not survive in the wild alone
imagine trying to fend off a wild beast with a stick by yourself
so they feel a negative signal when they are disconnected from others, Cacioppo said.
Variation in loneliness among people also has an explanation in evolutionary biology.
If everyone had a high sensitivity to loneliness, no one would go out and explore.
But if everyone had a low sensitivity to social disconnection, no one would stay back, take care of others, and help those in need, even at personal expense.
"The gene pool is really protected best by variability along that dimension," Cacioppo said.
Not everyone is certain about this hypothesis.
Ken Rubin, professor of human development at the University of Maryland in College Park, says loneliness has developmental, but not necessarily genetic, origins.
Some individuals are at greater risk than others for feelings of loneliness because of development issues
for example, shy children who are excluded or rejected by other children, he said.
Other factors involved in loneliness include individuals' levels of social skill, fear of rejection, and self-confidence, Leary said.
Also, extroverts are more likely to form social connections than introverts, he said.
For one person, the idea of spending a cold winter's night alone seems great
a perfect time to catch up on novels, watch cheesy movies, and drink hot chocolate with marshmallows.
For another, the prospect is less comforting feelings of depression, anger, isolation set in as the hours go by.
Research suggests that the degree of loneliness that any two people feel in a particular situation may vary widely, partly because of genetics.
In fact, loneliness is half inherited, half environmental, says John Cacioppo, director of the University of Chicago's Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience.
In his recent book "Loneliness," with co-author William Patrick, Cacioppo defines loneliness in terms of the need for social connection and notes that a person can feel lonely even in a large crowd.
At any given time, about 60 million people in the U.S. feel so isolated that it's a major source of unhappiness, the book says.
"Loneliness we see to be much more like hunger, thirst and pain than a personality factor per se," Cacioppo told CNN. "It's something everybody has, everybody has the capacity to feel that way, and it serves to call attention to a real biological need."
Using data from more than 8,000 people in twin studies and sibling studies, in collaboration with the Netherlands Twin Register, Cacioppo and colleagues found strong evidence that genetics accounts for about half of the differences in loneliness among people in the study.
Still, there's no way to tell how much of a particular person's loneliness is due to genetics, said Mark Leary, professor at Duke University who runs the psychology department's Self, Emotion and Behavior Lab.
Part of the explanation for loneliness is evolutionary, experts say.
Humans would not survive in the wild alone
imagine trying to fend off a wild beast with a stick by yourself
so they feel a negative signal when they are disconnected from others, Cacioppo said.
Variation in loneliness among people also has an explanation in evolutionary biology.
If everyone had a high sensitivity to loneliness, no one would go out and explore.
But if everyone had a low sensitivity to social disconnection, no one would stay back, take care of others, and help those in need, even at personal expense.
"The gene pool is really protected best by variability along that dimension," Cacioppo said.
Not everyone is certain about this hypothesis.
Ken Rubin, professor of human development at the University of Maryland in College Park, says loneliness has developmental, but not necessarily genetic, origins.
Some individuals are at greater risk than others for feelings of loneliness because of development issues
for example, shy children who are excluded or rejected by other children, he said.
Other factors involved in loneliness include individuals' levels of social skill, fear of rejection, and self-confidence, Leary said.
Also, extroverts are more likely to form social connections than introverts, he said.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Will biometrics measure up to the future?
Indeed, biometric identification systems are a bit harder to fool than simply getting the password right.
And as this technology advances, so do people's concerns over its true effectiveness.
"Public acceptance of biometrics has been slow to grow, and will continue to be an issue until issues of privacy and security of data have been brought up to a level acceptable by the majority of people," says Isabelle Moeller, general manager of the Biometrics Institute.
The concept of biometric identification systems actually dates back to 1879, when French police clerk Alphonse Berthillon suggested that individuals could be identified through precise measurements of the body.
Argentina was one of the first countries to widely implement fingerprint records.
By 1976, Argentine police were using a system that combined scanned fingerprints with digital processing and radio technology to send biometrical information from the police cars to a central database, in order to track down suspected individuals in Buenos Aires.
Today, fingerprints are used not only for forensic investigation, but also commonly for passports, ID cards, border surveillance, access control, and even shopping.
The German company IT-Werke, specializing in biometric applications, has successfully implemented its digiPROOF system of payment by fingerprint in 120 Edeka stores in Germany.
Will biometrics measure up to the future?
Indeed, biometric identification systems are a bit harder to fool than simply getting the password right.
And as this technology advances, so do people's concerns over its true effectiveness.
"Public acceptance of biometrics has been slow to grow, and will continue to be an issue until issues of privacy and security of data have been brought up to a level acceptable by the majority of people," says Isabelle Moeller, general manager of the Biometrics Institute.
The concept of biometric identification systems actually dates back to 1879, when French police clerk Alphonse Berthillon suggested that individuals could be identified through precise measurements of the body.
Argentina was one of the first countries to widely implement fingerprint records.
By 1976, Argentine police were using a system that combined scanned fingerprints with digital processing and radio technology to send biometrical information from the police cars to a central database, in order to track down suspected individuals in Buenos Aires.
Today, fingerprints are used not only for forensic investigation, but also commonly for passports, ID cards, border surveillance, access control, and even shopping.
The German company IT-Werke, specializing in biometric applications, has successfully implemented its digiPROOF system of payment by fingerprint in 120 Edeka stores in Germany.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
The animals are gone.
Deep in a remote region of Cameroon, we are following two hunters looking for bush meat forest animals they can kill to feed their families.
They've spent hours in the forest already, but all the traps they've set are empty.
They will have to push deeper into the forest and they may be hunting for days.
Last year, rising food prices touched off riots around the world, killing dozens of people.
Unable to afford basic supplies, communities in Central Africa are increasingly turning to the forests for food.
In doing so, hunters expose themselves to hidden dangers - microscopic pathogens living in the blood of forest animals.
Most of the viruses are harmless, but some are potentially deadly when passed to humans.
Scientists point out there's nothing new about these viruses.
What is new is the frequency of people's contact with them and how easily they can now be spread around the world.
World-renowned epidemiologist Dr. Nathan Wolfe is following the hunters.
"What's changed, though, is in the past you had smaller human populations; viruses would infect them and go extinct.
Viruses actually need population density as fuel."
Wolfe works mostly in the forests of Cameroon tracking these viruses that can jump from animals to humans - what are called zoonotic viruses.
The most prolific and deadly zoonotic is HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
In 1999, scientists at the University of Alabama at Birmingham traced the origins of HIV back to a subspecies of chimpanzee.
Scientists think that the virus might have jumped to humans when the blood of an infected chimpanzee came in contact with the blood of a bush meat hunter during the killing or butchering of the animal.
It took decades, but that simple, seemingly insignificant transmission set off a global epidemic, or pandemic, that so far has killed or infected tens of millions of people.
Scientists think HIV probably crossed into humans as far back as the early 1900s, but it wasn't until air travel became common that the virus spread, and AIDS became a global epidemic in the 1980s.
"We're now so profoundly interconnected that it will be the case things will enter into the human population and will spread globally," said Wolfe.
The centerpiece of Wolfe's work is trying to stop the next pandemic before it starts.
He's using a recent $11 million grant from Google and the Skoll Foundation to continue something called the Global Viral Forecasting Initiative or GVFI.
It's a kind of early-warning system to track the transmission of viruses in virus hot spots around the world.
In addition to Cameroon, Wolfe has teams in the Democratic Republic of Congo, China, Malaysia, Madagascar and Laos.
Tracking deadly viruses` spread from animals to humans
The animals are gone.
Deep in a remote region of Cameroon, we are following two hunters looking for bush meat forest animals they can kill to feed their families.
They've spent hours in the forest already, but all the traps they've set are empty.
They will have to push deeper into the forest and they may be hunting for days.
Last year, rising food prices touched off riots around the world, killing dozens of people.
Unable to afford basic supplies, communities in Central Africa are increasingly turning to the forests for food.
In doing so, hunters expose themselves to hidden dangers - microscopic pathogens living in the blood of forest animals.
Most of the viruses are harmless, but some are potentially deadly when passed to humans.
Scientists point out there's nothing new about these viruses.
What is new is the frequency of people's contact with them and how easily they can now be spread around the world.
World-renowned epidemiologist Dr. Nathan Wolfe is following the hunters.
"What's changed, though, is in the past you had smaller human populations; viruses would infect them and go extinct.
Viruses actually need population density as fuel."
Wolfe works mostly in the forests of Cameroon tracking these viruses that can jump from animals to humans - what are called zoonotic viruses.
The most prolific and deadly zoonotic is HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
In 1999, scientists at the University of Alabama at Birmingham traced the origins of HIV back to a subspecies of chimpanzee.
Scientists think that the virus might have jumped to humans when the blood of an infected chimpanzee came in contact with the blood of a bush meat hunter during the killing or butchering of the animal.
It took decades, but that simple, seemingly insignificant transmission set off a global epidemic, or pandemic, that so far has killed or infected tens of millions of people.
Scientists think HIV probably crossed into humans as far back as the early 1900s, but it wasn't until air travel became common that the virus spread, and AIDS became a global epidemic in the 1980s.
"We're now so profoundly interconnected that it will be the case things will enter into the human population and will spread globally," said Wolfe.
The centerpiece of Wolfe's work is trying to stop the next pandemic before it starts.
He's using a recent $11 million grant from Google and the Skoll Foundation to continue something called the Global Viral Forecasting Initiative or GVFI.
It's a kind of early-warning system to track the transmission of viruses in virus hot spots around the world.
In addition to Cameroon, Wolfe has teams in the Democratic Republic of Congo, China, Malaysia, Madagascar and Laos.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
10 ideas that changed the world
Imagine a world without zero:
The magic number that has given us everything from simple algebra to quantum physics, which forms the basis of modern computing in binary code and which, less profoundly, but perhaps more importantly, lets us know when we've drained our bank account with one too many shopping trips.
Zero is one of a number of concepts that have shaped the course of the world so fundamentally that we would not recognize modern life without them.
We have compiled a list of 10 ideas mankind should be thankful for.
Ask people what the most important historical revolution is and their answers might include: the Industrial Revolution, the Information Revolution, or maybe even the French Revolution.
But without the Neolithic Revolution, none of the above would have taken place.
It is this period of time, more than 14,000 years ago, which modern-day farming can be traced back to.
With food no longer the sole motivation for existence, the way was paved for the development of government, trading and individual specialization.
When Freud, the father of psychoanalysis suggested that our behavior is not always ruled by our conscious thoughts, nor is it always in our best interests, he formed the basis of the idea that individuals can be curious about themselves and make a study of their own minds.
He thought people talking in certain situations could let out ideas from the unconscious in dreams or through slips of the tongue hence the term "Freudian slip."
His ideas have permeated pop culture to such an extent that much of what we understand about the sexes, relationships, films and books can be seen as reflected through a Freudian mirror.
Albert Einstein's E=mc2 is probably the world's most famous equation.
Deduced from his theory of relativity, it suggests that tiny amounts of mass can be converted into huge amounts of energy.
The theory has had an enormous impact on society:
it paved the way for the development of nuclear power, which, although controversial, has alleviated a portion of society's reliance on non-renewable energy like coal and oil.
Atom bombs aside, it has also had huge applications for the military like the synchronization of the global positioning system (GPS) which is a network of satellites transmitting radio signals at the speed of light to receivers around the globe.
So, next time your handy in-car navigation gadget guides you home flawlessly, remember, you have Einstein to thank for not getting lost. Today vaccines are widely available for common illnesses which were once life-threatening, as well as for more severe conditions like cervical cancer.
The origin of vaccines
which involve introducing an antigene which encourages the body to produce antibodies boosting the body's immunity to a particular disease
is thought to be 17th century India, when powdered smallpox scabs were used to inoculate people against the disease.
Modern humans owe better healthcare and longer life-spans to this innovation.
Although the concept of human rights has been batted around by philosophers for centuries, one of the first modern milestones was the UN's "Universal Declaration of Human Rights," which reasserted the concept after the horrors of World War II.
The movement's next landmark moment was in 1961 when British lawyer Peter Benenson wrote a newspaper appeal, "The Forgotten Prisoners," calling for an international campaign to fight the imprisonment of people for their political and religious beliefs.
There were thousands of responses and Amnesty International was born.
Since then, other organizations like Human Rights Watch have spun off from Amnesty, performing vital work standing up for people who are unable to stand up for themselves.
Once described as "the single best idea anyone has ever had," English naturalist Charles Darwin's "Theory of Evolution" proposes that all life, including humans, is related and is descended from a common ancestor.
Prior to Darwin's theory, published in "On the Origin of Species" in 1859, it was accepted that man came from an archetype created by God, and was set apart from animals.
Darwin's theories showed creation had taken longer than the Biblical seven days and that man was, in fact, likely to be be descended from apes.
As well as launching a revolution in biology, his idea irrevocably shook the human race's conception of where they come from.
In a matter of decades since it was invented in 1989 by English scientist Tim Berners-Lee, the World Wide Web has grown from a few pages to somewhere in the hundreds of billions, according to best guesstimates.
In among all those pages exist a myriad of sites giving people access to information and opportunities that didn't exist previously.
Although not all the freedoms available on the Internet are positive, the fact that in the present anyone can be, for example, a journalist, a dj or a filmmaker is changing how we live daily.
Only time will tell, however, the full impact of this revolution on human society.
Difficult to imagine, or for that matter, smell, a society without soap.
It dates back to Biblical times but, the great soap-related hygiene revolution didn't happen until the mid-19th Century when Ignaz Semmelweis, a sharp Hungarian doctor working in Vienna, noticed babies died more often after they were delivered by medical students rather than midwives.
He realized medical students had often performed autopsies just prior, which contaminated their hands with microbes.
He instigated a regime of hand-washing and infant deaths dropped substantially making clear the benefits of hand-washing.
Although zero has been around since the time of the Babylonians, it didn't infiltrate Western thinking until the 12th Century when Italian mathematician, Leonardo Fibonacci included it in his book "Liber Abaci."
Once it was finally adopted, it paved the way for the concept of decimals, allowing mankind to advance its knowledge of mathematics and logic.
It has also given us everything from simple algebra to quantum physics and rocket science to binary code, the basic language of all modern computers.
The well-known story of the apple that fell on Sir Isaac Newton's head inspiring him to come up with the "Universal Law of Gravitation" is probably apocryphal.
However it happened, here is no doubt that Newton's insight was brilliant:
He supposed that if gravity could reach to the top of a tree to make an apple fall to the ground, perhaps it would reach into orbit and beyond to affect the orbit of the Moon.
10 ideas that changed the world
Imagine a world without zero:
The magic number that has given us everything from simple algebra to quantum physics, which forms the basis of modern computing in binary code and which, less profoundly, but perhaps more importantly, lets us know when we've drained our bank account with one too many shopping trips.
Zero is one of a number of concepts that have shaped the course of the world so fundamentally that we would not recognize modern life without them.
We have compiled a list of 10 ideas mankind should be thankful for.
Ask people what the most important historical revolution is and their answers might include: the Industrial Revolution, the Information Revolution, or maybe even the French Revolution.
But without the Neolithic Revolution, none of the above would have taken place.
It is this period of time, more than 14,000 years ago, which modern-day farming can be traced back to.
With food no longer the sole motivation for existence, the way was paved for the development of government, trading and individual specialization.
When Freud, the father of psychoanalysis suggested that our behavior is not always ruled by our conscious thoughts, nor is it always in our best interests, he formed the basis of the idea that individuals can be curious about themselves and make a study of their own minds.
He thought people talking in certain situations could let out ideas from the unconscious in dreams or through slips of the tongue hence the term "Freudian slip."
His ideas have permeated pop culture to such an extent that much of what we understand about the sexes, relationships, films and books can be seen as reflected through a Freudian mirror.
Albert Einstein's E=mc2 is probably the world's most famous equation.
Deduced from his theory of relativity, it suggests that tiny amounts of mass can be converted into huge amounts of energy.
The theory has had an enormous impact on society:
it paved the way for the development of nuclear power, which, although controversial, has alleviated a portion of society's reliance on non-renewable energy like coal and oil.
Atom bombs aside, it has also had huge applications for the military like the synchronization of the global positioning system (GPS) which is a network of satellites transmitting radio signals at the speed of light to receivers around the globe.
So, next time your handy in-car navigation gadget guides you home flawlessly, remember, you have Einstein to thank for not getting lost. Today vaccines are widely available for common illnesses which were once life-threatening, as well as for more severe conditions like cervical cancer.
The origin of vaccines
which involve introducing an antigene which encourages the body to produce antibodies boosting the body's immunity to a particular disease
is thought to be 17th century India, when powdered smallpox scabs were used to inoculate people against the disease.
Modern humans owe better healthcare and longer life-spans to this innovation.
Although the concept of human rights has been batted around by philosophers for centuries, one of the first modern milestones was the UN's "Universal Declaration of Human Rights," which reasserted the concept after the horrors of World War II.
The movement's next landmark moment was in 1961 when British lawyer Peter Benenson wrote a newspaper appeal, "The Forgotten Prisoners," calling for an international campaign to fight the imprisonment of people for their political and religious beliefs.
There were thousands of responses and Amnesty International was born.
Since then, other organizations like Human Rights Watch have spun off from Amnesty, performing vital work standing up for people who are unable to stand up for themselves.
Once described as "the single best idea anyone has ever had," English naturalist Charles Darwin's "Theory of Evolution" proposes that all life, including humans, is related and is descended from a common ancestor.
Prior to Darwin's theory, published in "On the Origin of Species" in 1859, it was accepted that man came from an archetype created by God, and was set apart from animals.
Darwin's theories showed creation had taken longer than the Biblical seven days and that man was, in fact, likely to be be descended from apes.
As well as launching a revolution in biology, his idea irrevocably shook the human race's conception of where they come from.
In a matter of decades since it was invented in 1989 by English scientist Tim Berners-Lee, the World Wide Web has grown from a few pages to somewhere in the hundreds of billions, according to best guesstimates.
In among all those pages exist a myriad of sites giving people access to information and opportunities that didn't exist previously.
Although not all the freedoms available on the Internet are positive, the fact that in the present anyone can be, for example, a journalist, a dj or a filmmaker is changing how we live daily.
Only time will tell, however, the full impact of this revolution on human society.
Difficult to imagine, or for that matter, smell, a society without soap.
It dates back to Biblical times but, the great soap-related hygiene revolution didn't happen until the mid-19th Century when Ignaz Semmelweis, a sharp Hungarian doctor working in Vienna, noticed babies died more often after they were delivered by medical students rather than midwives.
He realized medical students had often performed autopsies just prior, which contaminated their hands with microbes.
He instigated a regime of hand-washing and infant deaths dropped substantially making clear the benefits of hand-washing.
Although zero has been around since the time of the Babylonians, it didn't infiltrate Western thinking until the 12th Century when Italian mathematician, Leonardo Fibonacci included it in his book "Liber Abaci."
Once it was finally adopted, it paved the way for the concept of decimals, allowing mankind to advance its knowledge of mathematics and logic.
It has also given us everything from simple algebra to quantum physics and rocket science to binary code, the basic language of all modern computers.
The well-known story of the apple that fell on Sir Isaac Newton's head inspiring him to come up with the "Universal Law of Gravitation" is probably apocryphal.
However it happened, here is no doubt that Newton's insight was brilliant:
He supposed that if gravity could reach to the top of a tree to make an apple fall to the ground, perhaps it would reach into orbit and beyond to affect the orbit of the Moon.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Obama ups jobs goal to 3 million on bad economic news
President-elect Barack Obama has decided to increase his goal for creating new jobs after receiving economic forecasts that suggest the economy is in worse shape than had been predicted, two Democratic officials told CNN.
The officials said Obama is increasing his goal from 2.5 million to 3 million jobs over the next two years after receiving projections early this week that suggest the recession will be deeper than expected.
The projections showed that unless significant action is taken, the nation is likely to lose up to 4 million jobs over the next year and that the unemployment rate will probably rise above 9 percent, a transition aide told CNN.
After hearing the projections, Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden "argued that we were being too timid and that we needed to develop a plan that would save or create at least 3 million jobs," the aide said.
One of the officials said Obama challenged his economic team to "think bolder" as some economists warn there is danger in the government doing too little to curb the recession.
They said the stimulus plan in the works in the Obama camp would have "oversight and transparency measures" to ensure spending on the plan would be focused on stimulating the economy and not devolve into just handing out congressional pork projects.
They said it also would include measures that will "lay a foundation for a stronger economy in the future"
Obama ups jobs goal to 3 million on bad economic news
President-elect Barack Obama has decided to increase his goal for creating new jobs after receiving economic forecasts that suggest the economy is in worse shape than had been predicted, two Democratic officials told CNN.
The officials said Obama is increasing his goal from 2.5 million to 3 million jobs over the next two years after receiving projections early this week that suggest the recession will be deeper than expected.
The projections showed that unless significant action is taken, the nation is likely to lose up to 4 million jobs over the next year and that the unemployment rate will probably rise above 9 percent, a transition aide told CNN.
After hearing the projections, Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden "argued that we were being too timid and that we needed to develop a plan that would save or create at least 3 million jobs," the aide said.
One of the officials said Obama challenged his economic team to "think bolder" as some economists warn there is danger in the government doing too little to curb the recession.
They said the stimulus plan in the works in the Obama camp would have "oversight and transparency measures" to ensure spending on the plan would be focused on stimulating the economy and not devolve into just handing out congressional pork projects.
They said it also would include measures that will "lay a foundation for a stronger economy in the future"
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Investigators will interview crew members and review data and voice recorders to help determine what caused a passenger plane to veer off a Denver International Airport runway and catch fire, an official said Sunday.
All 115 people aboard the Continental Airlines jet escaped Saturday evening, and of the dozens who were taken to hospitals, five were still hospitalized Sunday afternoon, said Robert Sumwalt, a National Transportation Safety Board member leading the investigation team.
No deaths were reported.
Sumwalt said the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder were recovered and appeared to be in good condition, though they were covered in soot from the fire.
Both recorders were sent to Washington to be reviewed as early as Sunday night.
"We are here for one reason and one reason only, to find out what happened so we can keep it from happening again," Sumwalt said.
The flight was bound for Houston, Texas, and was taking off about 6:18 p.m. Saturday when it skidded into a ravine and caught fire.
Thirty-eight people were taken to hospitals after the accident, airport officials said Sunday.
Officials said one of the five people still hospitalized was in serious condition;
no one was reported to be in critical condition.
Bone fractures and bruises were the most common complaint, and there appeared to be no burn victims, fire officials said.
Investigators will interview crew members, review crew training and evaluate several factors, including the weather at the time of the crash and structure of the plane, Sumwalt said.
While officials were on the scene Sunday, evidence collection, documentation and measurements will start Monday.
Investigators will interview crew members and review data and voice recorders to help determine what caused a passenger plane to veer off a Denver International Airport runway and catch fire, an official said Sunday.
All 115 people aboard the Continental Airlines jet escaped Saturday evening, and of the dozens who were taken to hospitals, five were still hospitalized Sunday afternoon, said Robert Sumwalt, a National Transportation Safety Board member leading the investigation team.
No deaths were reported.
Sumwalt said the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder were recovered and appeared to be in good condition, though they were covered in soot from the fire.
Both recorders were sent to Washington to be reviewed as early as Sunday night.
"We are here for one reason and one reason only, to find out what happened so we can keep it from happening again," Sumwalt said.
The flight was bound for Houston, Texas, and was taking off about 6:18 p.m. Saturday when it skidded into a ravine and caught fire.
Thirty-eight people were taken to hospitals after the accident, airport officials said Sunday.
Officials said one of the five people still hospitalized was in serious condition;
no one was reported to be in critical condition.
Bone fractures and bruises were the most common complaint, and there appeared to be no burn victims, fire officials said.
Investigators will interview crew members, review crew training and evaluate several factors, including the weather at the time of the crash and structure of the plane, Sumwalt said.
While officials were on the scene Sunday, evidence collection, documentation and measurements will start Monday.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Pet dogs abandoned as recession bites
The Border Collie is just 13 weeks old and was dumped by its owners.
In the adjoining kennel eight boxer cross puppies have been similarly abandoned.
Bruno is also waiting for a new home as the owner of the bullmastiff cross moved into a flat which does not allow pets.
These are just a few of the animals currently being cared for at a re-homing center in London run by the Dogs Trust, the largest dog charity in the UK.
We have more dogs coming into the center than going out. At this time last year, we had half as many dogs," says manager Richard Moore.
Other dog shelters and re-homing centers across the country are also at bursting point as a result of an increase in requests for re-homing and a decrease in people wanting to take on the responsibility of looking after a dog.
With insurance, food, grooming and toys, a dog's life can come with a price tag of £15,000 ($22,500), according to the Dogs Trust.
And with millions of households tightening their belts as the credit crunch bites, some are opting give up their pets.
The increase in requests for re-homing is attributed to the financial crisis.
Owners either have to move to dog unfriendly accommodation or can no longer afford to care for the animal after losing their job.
"Moving as a result of the credit crunch is the number one factor for giving up a dog," explains Moore. "People also ring up to say they can't afford to look after their dog anymore, because they've been made redundant."
On top of overcrowding, animal rescue charities face another problem; they rely on charity donations and are likely to suffer in those terms.
"The expected increase in unemployment and decrease of disposable income is going to affect the donations," says Moore.
Another concern for dog charities is that animals are given as Christmas presents.
Unfortunately some of these dogs turn up at the re-homing center in the New Year as unwanted gifts.
But dark times may be a good time to start looking after a dog, says Moore:
"With the love and the care, the relationship that a dog can bring to you at a depressing time like this, is incredible.
Pet dogs abandoned as recession bites
The Border Collie is just 13 weeks old and was dumped by its owners.
In the adjoining kennel eight boxer cross puppies have been similarly abandoned.
Bruno is also waiting for a new home as the owner of the bullmastiff cross moved into a flat which does not allow pets.
These are just a few of the animals currently being cared for at a re-homing center in London run by the Dogs Trust, the largest dog charity in the UK.
We have more dogs coming into the center than going out. At this time last year, we had half as many dogs," says manager Richard Moore.
Other dog shelters and re-homing centers across the country are also at bursting point as a result of an increase in requests for re-homing and a decrease in people wanting to take on the responsibility of looking after a dog.
With insurance, food, grooming and toys, a dog's life can come with a price tag of £15,000 ($22,500), according to the Dogs Trust.
And with millions of households tightening their belts as the credit crunch bites, some are opting give up their pets.
The increase in requests for re-homing is attributed to the financial crisis.
Owners either have to move to dog unfriendly accommodation or can no longer afford to care for the animal after losing their job.
"Moving as a result of the credit crunch is the number one factor for giving up a dog," explains Moore. "People also ring up to say they can't afford to look after their dog anymore, because they've been made redundant."
On top of overcrowding, animal rescue charities face another problem; they rely on charity donations and are likely to suffer in those terms.
"The expected increase in unemployment and decrease of disposable income is going to affect the donations," says Moore.
Another concern for dog charities is that animals are given as Christmas presents.
Unfortunately some of these dogs turn up at the re-homing center in the New Year as unwanted gifts.
But dark times may be a good time to start looking after a dog, says Moore:
"With the love and the care, the relationship that a dog can bring to you at a depressing time like this, is incredible.
I have six dogs and certainly when coming home at night they put a smile on my face."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
From military device to life-saving surgery tool
A new tool that allows doctors to use laser surgery in complex operations has been hailed as a breakthrough in minimally invasive laser technology.
Originally designed as a military tool for the United States Department of Defense (DOD), the fiber-optic invention is revolutionizing the ways surgeons carry out brain surgeries.
The "Omni directional dielectric mirror" was created by Professor Yoel Fink, a then-29-year-old student in Material Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1995.
"I was asked to participate in a project funded by the DOD to create the perfect mirror," Fink told CNN.
"The perfect mirror reflects light from all angles and does not absorb any of it. It could have been used, for example, to reflect back enemy laser beams," he continued
DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a subsection of the DOD, specialize in technologies they believe are about 25 years away from being realized and try to make them happen in five years' time.
But they didn't have a long wait before they found their perfect mirror.
"To my own surprise, I found the answer during the very first meeting. I thought everyone would laugh at my suggestion, so I waited until the last two minutes to talk and after I did, the room just fell silent," Fink, a former commander in the Israeli army, told CNN.
He found that by taking two materials with different optical properties (one being a semi-conducting glass and one being a polymer) and stacking these two up in very tight and ultra thin layers, around 1 micron each (1/1000 of a millimeter), they create an omni-reflector.
The most important part of his discovery, however, was that by changing only the thickness and distance of the layers, the "perfect mirror" could reflect any type of electromagnetic energy in any wavelength.
This meant Fink's invention was useful not only in the military and telecommunications field, but could also be used in minimally invasive laser surgery
the use of lasers rather than scalpels to operate on everything from tumors, deafness and spine injuries.
This type of surgery is known to reduce recovery time, the likelihood of complications and incision size.
In many cases, patients also spend less time "under the knife."
Fink then set about creating a pen-shaped fiber-optic tool that could allow surgeons to easily manipulate the laser and bend it to reach almost any tissue in the body.
The results, according to some surgeons who have used it, are astonishing.
Using a scalpel to cut off the tumor would also have been dangerous as the patient's tumor was attached to an important vein.
"Instead we used CO2 laser to melt the tumor and then shave it off."
They were very cumbersome," says Dr. Shapshay.
"I hope it can help patients around the world," he said.
From military device to life-saving surgery tool
A new tool that allows doctors to use laser surgery in complex operations has been hailed as a breakthrough in minimally invasive laser technology.
Originally designed as a military tool for the United States Department of Defense (DOD), the fiber-optic invention is revolutionizing the ways surgeons carry out brain surgeries.
The "Omni directional dielectric mirror" was created by Professor Yoel Fink, a then-29-year-old student in Material Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1995.
"I was asked to participate in a project funded by the DOD to create the perfect mirror," Fink told CNN.
"The perfect mirror reflects light from all angles and does not absorb any of it. It could have been used, for example, to reflect back enemy laser beams," he continued
DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a subsection of the DOD, specialize in technologies they believe are about 25 years away from being realized and try to make them happen in five years' time.
But they didn't have a long wait before they found their perfect mirror.
"To my own surprise, I found the answer during the very first meeting. I thought everyone would laugh at my suggestion, so I waited until the last two minutes to talk and after I did, the room just fell silent," Fink, a former commander in the Israeli army, told CNN.
He found that by taking two materials with different optical properties (one being a semi-conducting glass and one being a polymer) and stacking these two up in very tight and ultra thin layers, around 1 micron each (1/1000 of a millimeter), they create an omni-reflector.
The most important part of his discovery, however, was that by changing only the thickness and distance of the layers, the "perfect mirror" could reflect any type of electromagnetic energy in any wavelength.
This meant Fink's invention was useful not only in the military and telecommunications field, but could also be used in minimally invasive laser surgery
the use of lasers rather than scalpels to operate on everything from tumors, deafness and spine injuries.
This type of surgery is known to reduce recovery time, the likelihood of complications and incision size.
In many cases, patients also spend less time "under the knife."
Fink then set about creating a pen-shaped fiber-optic tool that could allow surgeons to easily manipulate the laser and bend it to reach almost any tissue in the body.
The results, according to some surgeons who have used it, are astonishing.
Dr. Stanley Shapshay, a renowned American Ear Nose and Throat surgeon and former president of the Triological Society told CNN:
Dr. Shapshay has now performed over 100 operations with the "perfect mirror laser" and says he finds it almost easier to use than a scalpel.
"Instead we used CO2 laser to melt the tumor and then shave it off."
"At the time, CO2 lasers were like the perfect weapon for soldiers, but one that also happened to weigh five tons.
They were very cumbersome," says Dr. Shapshay.
"I hope it can help patients around the world," he said.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Rooney wins Club World Cup for Man Utd
Wayne Rooney scored the goal that saw 10-man Manchester United crowned Club World Cup winners in Yokohama with a 1-0 victory over South American champions Liga de Quito of Ecuador.
England striker Rooney steered his shot inside the far post to end United's frustrations after Nemanja Vidic was been sent off four minutes into the second half for an elbow on Claudio Bieler.
Rooney ensured the Red Devils got the reward they deserved with his third goal of the tournament after 73 minutes following Cristiano Ronaldo's pass.
And to score the winning goal is a great feeling." United captain Rio Ferdinand said:
"Now we can say we are the best team in the world. We knew they could create problems but I think today we kept them down to a minimum of chances."
It is the first time an English club has won the tournament in its expanded form while United did triumph in the old Intercontinental Cup in 1999 with victory over Palmeiras.
Any doubt over the tactics Quito would use against the Champions League winners were dispelled inside the opening five minutes when Claudio Bieler waded into Ronaldo with a dangerous tackle that brought a yellow card.
Quito attempted to soak up the pressure.
Their defense was by no means watertight but United failed to make their superiority tell.
Rooney powered two thunderous efforts towards goal that Jose Cevallos managed to deal with while Park Ji-sung fired an angled shot straight at the keeper and then lifting a close-range chance over the bar.
Carlos Tevez was also denied, Cevallos pushing away a header the South American guided towards the corner from Ronaldo's cross.
It looked as though United might pay a heavy price for squandered chance when four minutes after the restart Vidic was red-carded
an offense that will probably keep him out of at least one Champions League match.
"We have been informed if there is a suspension it will be European Cup," said manager Alex Ferguson.
But it depends how FIFA interpret it and how UEFA act in terms of the information they get.
He was correct to produce the red card.
Vida is disappointed but he gave the referee no option."
Rooney wins Club World Cup for Man Utd
Wayne Rooney scored the goal that saw 10-man Manchester United crowned Club World Cup winners in Yokohama with a 1-0 victory over South American champions Liga de Quito of Ecuador.
England striker Rooney steered his shot inside the far post to end United's frustrations after Nemanja Vidic was been sent off four minutes into the second half for an elbow on Claudio Bieler.
Rooney ensured the Red Devils got the reward they deserved with his third goal of the tournament after 73 minutes following Cristiano Ronaldo's pass.
And to score the winning goal is a great feeling." United captain Rio Ferdinand said:
"Now we can say we are the best team in the world. We knew they could create problems but I think today we kept them down to a minimum of chances."
It is the first time an English club has won the tournament in its expanded form while United did triumph in the old Intercontinental Cup in 1999 with victory over Palmeiras.
Any doubt over the tactics Quito would use against the Champions League winners were dispelled inside the opening five minutes when Claudio Bieler waded into Ronaldo with a dangerous tackle that brought a yellow card.
Quito attempted to soak up the pressure.
Their defense was by no means watertight but United failed to make their superiority tell.
Rooney powered two thunderous efforts towards goal that Jose Cevallos managed to deal with while Park Ji-sung fired an angled shot straight at the keeper and then lifting a close-range chance over the bar.
Carlos Tevez was also denied, Cevallos pushing away a header the South American guided towards the corner from Ronaldo's cross.
It looked as though United might pay a heavy price for squandered chance when four minutes after the restart Vidic was red-carded
an offense that will probably keep him out of at least one Champions League match.
"It was a soft sending off.
"He didn't swing an elbow but he gave the referee no chance.
He was correct to produce the red card.
Vida is disappointed but he gave the referee no option."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Drunk Lennon recording grabs $30K at auction
Maybe it wasn't John Lennon's best musical effort, but a tape of an apparently inebriated Lennon warbling a cover of Lloyd Price's "Just Because" brought a sobering $30,000 at auction Sunday in Los Angeles.
Bonhams and Butterfields auction house spokeswoman Margaret Barrett said Lennon had apparently had one too many when he got behind the mic in the 1973 recording session.
"It was six minutes, 16 seconds, and John singing very drunk and with John ad-libbing his own lyrics into the song so it's actually a fun song to listen to," Barrett said.
Described in the auction catalogue as "One standard orange-colored cassette tape with audio of Lennon in fall of 1973 singing the Lloyd Price song 'Just Because,' " the never-before-heard-in-public cassette was given to the former owner personally by Lennon, the auction house said.
That former owner was not identified, nor was Sunday's buyer
for whom another Fab Four classic
now might have new meaning.
Maybe it wasn't John Lennon's best musical effort, but a tape of an apparently inebriated Lennon warbling a cover of Lloyd Price's "Just Because" brought a sobering $30,000 at auction Sunday in Los Angeles.
Bonhams and Butterfields auction house spokeswoman Margaret Barrett said Lennon had apparently had one too many when he got behind the mic in the 1973 recording session.
"It was six minutes, 16 seconds, and John singing very drunk and with John ad-libbing his own lyrics into the song so it's actually a fun song to listen to," Barrett said.
Described in the auction catalogue as "One standard orange-colored cassette tape with audio of Lennon in fall of 1973 singing the Lloyd Price song 'Just Because,' " the never-before-heard-in-public cassette was given to the former owner personally by Lennon, the auction house said.
That former owner was not identified, nor was Sunday's buyer
for whom another Fab Four classic
now might have new meaning.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Why some women`s groups are miffed at Obama
What's made up of five women, four African-Americans, three Latinos, two Republicans and two Asians, including a Nobel Prize winner?
Obama is taking the big-tent approach to governing and wanted a Cabinet that stretches the tent wide.
"I think people will feel that we followed through on our commitment to make sure that this is not only an administration that is diverse ethnically, but it's also diverse politically and it's diverse in terms of people's life experience," Obama said December 16.
It might be diverse, but not everyone is happy.
Some women's groups are disappointed.
Among Obama's strongest backers during the election, they now say they don't have enough seats at the table.
That's because of Obama's 20 announced Cabinet-level posts, five went to women: Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano as homeland security secretary, Sen. Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, Rep. Hilda Solis as labor secretary, Susan Rice as United Nations ambassador and Lisa Jackson as Environmental Protection Agency chief.
"When you are looking at a Cabinet and you have such a small number of women in the room when the big decisions are being made, there need to be a lot more women's voices in this administration," said Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women.
Why some women`s groups are miffed at Obama
What's made up of five women, four African-Americans, three Latinos, two Republicans and two Asians, including a Nobel Prize winner?
Obama is taking the big-tent approach to governing and wanted a Cabinet that stretches the tent wide.
"I think people will feel that we followed through on our commitment to make sure that this is not only an administration that is diverse ethnically, but it's also diverse politically and it's diverse in terms of people's life experience," Obama said December 16.
It might be diverse, but not everyone is happy.
Some women's groups are disappointed.
Among Obama's strongest backers during the election, they now say they don't have enough seats at the table.
That's because of Obama's 20 announced Cabinet-level posts, five went to women: Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano as homeland security secretary, Sen. Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, Rep. Hilda Solis as labor secretary, Susan Rice as United Nations ambassador and Lisa Jackson as Environmental Protection Agency chief.
"When you are looking at a Cabinet and you have such a small number of women in the room when the big decisions are being made, there need to be a lot more women's voices in this administration," said Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Michelle Obama turned the campaign trail into a runway this year, sporting eye-catching colors and feminine cuts that sent fashion bloggers buzzing.
As she coupled chic designer splurges with off-the-rack goodies from J. Crew, H&M, White House/Black Market and Target, fashion spectators say her ability to make a strong statement on a budget sends an important message during tough economic times.
"Michelle Obama can't be too over the top; she has to be recession chic all the way," style expert Mary Alice Stephenson said.
In a soured economy, the choices she made throughout the campaign show that "she gets it," Stephenson said.
And it's inspiring American women to emulate her style.
"What she has worn in the last year has really caused a seismic reaction in the fashion community, and also retailers are depending on her," Stephenson said. "The choices she has made have set fire to slumps in retail that we've seen because of the recession."
There is such a demand for information on Obama's style and outfits that there is a Web site dedicated to that theme:
It promises a regular look at who and what she's wearing.
Obama's urban chic wardrobe is a style turn from the sometimes matronly choices made by other first ladies.
It's also elevated the status of designers whose clothes she wears, especially Chicago's own Maria Pinto, the woman behind some of Obama's most notable looks.
Michelle Obama turned the campaign trail into a runway this year, sporting eye-catching colors and feminine cuts that sent fashion bloggers buzzing.
As she coupled chic designer splurges with off-the-rack goodies from J. Crew, H&M, White House/Black Market and Target, fashion spectators say her ability to make a strong statement on a budget sends an important message during tough economic times.
"Michelle Obama can't be too over the top; she has to be recession chic all the way," style expert Mary Alice Stephenson said.
In a soured economy, the choices she made throughout the campaign show that "she gets it," Stephenson said.
And it's inspiring American women to emulate her style.
"What she has worn in the last year has really caused a seismic reaction in the fashion community, and also retailers are depending on her," Stephenson said. "The choices she has made have set fire to slumps in retail that we've seen because of the recession."
There is such a demand for information on Obama's style and outfits that there is a Web site dedicated to that theme:
It promises a regular look at who and what she's wearing.
Obama's urban chic wardrobe is a style turn from the sometimes matronly choices made by other first ladies.
It's also elevated the status of designers whose clothes she wears, especially Chicago's own Maria Pinto, the woman behind some of Obama's most notable looks.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
The Israel Antiquities Authority reported a thrilling find Sunday
the discovery of 264 ancient gold coins in Jerusalem National Park.
The coins were minted during the early 7th century.
"This is one of the largest and most impressive coin hoards ever discovered in Jerusalem certainly the largest and most important of its period," said Doron Ben-Ami and Yana Tchekhanovets, who are directing the excavation on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority.
Researchers discovered the coins at the beginning of the eight-day Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, which started at sunset on Sunday.
One of the customs of the holiday is to give "gelt," or coins, to children, and the archaeologists are referring to the find as "Hanukkah money."
The 1,400-year-old coins were found in the Giv'ati car park in the City of David in the walls around Jerusalem National Park, a site that has yielded other finds, including a well-preserved gold earring with pearls and precious stones.
They were in a collapsed building that dates back to the 7th century, the end of the Byzantine period.
The coins bear a likeness of Heraclius, who was the Byzantine emperor from 610 to 641.
In that style, the emperor is clad with military garb and is holding a cross in his right hand.
One the other side, there is the sign of the cross.
Authorities said the excavation of the building where the hoard was discovered is in its early stages.
They are attempting to learn about the building and its owner and the circumstances of its destruction.
"Since no pottery vessel was discovered adjacent to the hoard, we can assume that it was concealed inside a hidden niche in one of the walls of the building.
The Israel Antiquities Authority reported a thrilling find Sunday
the discovery of 264 ancient gold coins in Jerusalem National Park.
The coins were minted during the early 7th century.
"This is one of the largest and most impressive coin hoards ever discovered in Jerusalem certainly the largest and most important of its period," said Doron Ben-Ami and Yana Tchekhanovets, who are directing the excavation on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority.
Researchers discovered the coins at the beginning of the eight-day Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, which started at sunset on Sunday.
One of the customs of the holiday is to give "gelt," or coins, to children, and the archaeologists are referring to the find as "Hanukkah money."
The 1,400-year-old coins were found in the Giv'ati car park in the City of David in the walls around Jerusalem National Park, a site that has yielded other finds, including a well-preserved gold earring with pearls and precious stones.
They were in a collapsed building that dates back to the 7th century, the end of the Byzantine period.
The coins bear a likeness of Heraclius, who was the Byzantine emperor from 610 to 641.
In that style, the emperor is clad with military garb and is holding a cross in his right hand.
One the other side, there is the sign of the cross.
Authorities said the excavation of the building where the hoard was discovered is in its early stages.
They are attempting to learn about the building and its owner and the circumstances of its destruction.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Highways closed, flights canceled as winter roars in
Severe winter weather was creating Christmas week travel headaches across the country Monday, canceling flights and closing major highways.
Long lines formed before dawn Monday at airline counters at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, where two major carriers, Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air, suspended service Sunday.
The Federal Aviation Administration was reporting no delays at the airport Monday morning, but Alaska and Horizon said they would only resume limited operations.
Some travelers may have to wait until midweek or later to get flights out of the airport, CNN affiliate KOMO-TV reported.
Supplies were running low at airport concessions for those enduring the wait, the Seattle station said.
To the south, travelers also spent the night in the Portland, Oregon, airport after airlines canceled many flights on Sunday.
Airlines canceled 120 flights at Portland International Airport on Monday, CNN affiliate KATU-TV reported.
More than 11 inches of snow was on the ground Monday morning in Portland, CNN affiliate KGW-TV reported, an amount not seen since 1968.
Vehicles on all Portland roads were required to have snow chains, KGW said, but drivers were advised to stay off roads completely.
Highways closed, flights canceled as winter roars in
Severe winter weather was creating Christmas week travel headaches across the country Monday, canceling flights and closing major highways.
Long lines formed before dawn Monday at airline counters at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, where two major carriers, Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air, suspended service Sunday.
The Federal Aviation Administration was reporting no delays at the airport Monday morning, but Alaska and Horizon said they would only resume limited operations.
Some travelers may have to wait until midweek or later to get flights out of the airport, CNN affiliate KOMO-TV reported.
Supplies were running low at airport concessions for those enduring the wait, the Seattle station said.
To the south, travelers also spent the night in the Portland, Oregon, airport after airlines canceled many flights on Sunday.
Airlines canceled 120 flights at Portland International Airport on Monday, CNN affiliate KATU-TV reported.
More than 11 inches of snow was on the ground Monday morning in Portland, CNN affiliate KGW-TV reported, an amount not seen since 1968.
Vehicles on all Portland roads were required to have snow chains, KGW said, but drivers were advised to stay off roads completely.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Bush assailant kick-starts sales for shoemaker
The shoes thrown last week at U.S. President George W. Bush have provided an unexpected windfall for the shoemaker who made them.
Sales of the shoes made famous by Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi have soared, with requests pouring in to the Turkish shoemaker from across the world, media reports said Monday.
As a result, Istanbul-based Ramazan Baydan has had to recruit extra staff to meet orders for pairs of the "Model 271 brogues," Britain's Daily Mail said.
According to the company, Model 271 shoes are exported to markets including Iraq, Iran, Syria and Egypt.
Al-Zaidi, who faces a prison term if convicted, carried out the act in front of hundreds of reporters, photographers and cameramen at a Baghdad press conference given by Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
Shouting as he was dragged to the floor, the reporter called his shoe-throwing a "farewell kiss" to a "dog" who launched the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Neither shoe hit the out-going president.
While the incident angered Iraq's government, Al-Zaidi has been hailed as a hero by many Iraqis protesting his detention.
In neighboring Iran, one cleric dubbed the act "the shoe intifada (rebellion)."
"The shoe intifada in Iraq should not be overlooked easily," Iran's Islamic Republic News Agency reported Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati as saying Friday.
Bush assailant kick-starts sales for shoemaker
The shoes thrown last week at U.S. President George W. Bush have provided an unexpected windfall for the shoemaker who made them.
Sales of the shoes made famous by Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi have soared, with requests pouring in to the Turkish shoemaker from across the world, media reports said Monday.
As a result, Istanbul-based Ramazan Baydan has had to recruit extra staff to meet orders for pairs of the "Model 271 brogues," Britain's Daily Mail said.
According to the company, Model 271 shoes are exported to markets including Iraq, Iran, Syria and Egypt.
Al-Zaidi, who faces a prison term if convicted, carried out the act in front of hundreds of reporters, photographers and cameramen at a Baghdad press conference given by Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
Shouting as he was dragged to the floor, the reporter called his shoe-throwing a "farewell kiss" to a "dog" who launched the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Neither shoe hit the out-going president.
While the incident angered Iraq's government, Al-Zaidi has been hailed as a hero by many Iraqis protesting his detention.
In neighboring Iran, one cleric dubbed the act "the shoe intifada (rebellion)."
"The shoe intifada in Iraq should not be overlooked easily," Iran's Islamic Republic News Agency reported Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati as saying Friday.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Slumping sales, surging yen hits Toyota
Japanese automaker Toyota warned Monday it will post its first operating loss in almost 60 years.
A slump in sales and a surge in the value of the yen have wreaked havoc on its balance sheet, with the world's second biggest car maker revealing that its net revenues have dropped by 6.3 percent compared to a year ago.
In a statement, Toyota said it cut its group operating forecast to a loss of up to ¥150 billion ($1.7 billion) for the year to end-March, after shocking financial markets last month by slashing its group operating profit forecast by ¥1 trillion to ¥600 billion.
The car maker recorded an operating profit of ¥2.27 trillion last year.
This would be Toyota's first operating loss since 1950, Toyota spokesman Steve Curtis said.
Despite the likely operating loss, Toyota expects to post a $557 million net profit for the fiscal year.
Slumping sales, surging yen hits Toyota
Japanese automaker Toyota warned Monday it will post its first operating loss in almost 60 years.
A slump in sales and a surge in the value of the yen have wreaked havoc on its balance sheet, with the world's second biggest car maker revealing that its net revenues have dropped by 6.3 percent compared to a year ago.
In a statement, Toyota said it cut its group operating forecast to a loss of up to ¥150 billion ($1.7 billion) for the year to end-March, after shocking financial markets last month by slashing its group operating profit forecast by ¥1 trillion to ¥600 billion.
The car maker recorded an operating profit of ¥2.27 trillion last year.
This would be Toyota's first operating loss since 1950, Toyota spokesman Steve Curtis said.
Despite the likely operating loss, Toyota expects to post a $557 million net profit for the fiscal year.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Terry sent off as Chelsea draw at Everton
England captain John Terry was sent off for a late tackle in the first-half, as 10-man Chelsea drew 0-0 at Everton, losing their 100 per cent Premier League away record in the process.
A win would have put Chelsea top of the table, but Liverpool retain that position, one point ahead of the London side.
The result means none of the so-called Premier League 'big four' have won for the second week in a row
and for the third time this season.
Terry sent off as Chelsea draw at Everton
England captain John Terry was sent off for a late tackle in the first-half, as 10-man Chelsea drew 0-0 at Everton, losing their 100 per cent Premier League away record in the process.
A win would have put Chelsea top of the table, but Liverpool retain that position, one point ahead of the London side.
The result means none of the so-called Premier League 'big four' have won for the second week in a row
and for the third time this season.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
`Sopranos` actor acquitted in cop killing
Lillo Brancato Jr., an actor who appeared in "The Sopranos," was acquitted of the 2005 killing an off-duty New York City police officer but found guilty of attempted burglary.
Brancato, 32, was also acquitted of two counts of burglary, but could face three to 15 years in prison on the attempted burglary charge.
He has already served three years, according to his attorney, Joseph Tacopina.
Police officer Daniel Enchautegui, 28, was killed trying to break up a burglary attempt at his neighbor's house in the Bronx in December 2005.
During the trial, Brancato said there was not a break-in.
Brancato said he knew the owner of the home, and that he and friend Steven Armento, 51, were drinking at a strip club when they decided to go hunt for valium.
Brancato told the jury that the owner, a Vietnam veteran, gave him permission to come to his house and take painkillers or other pills whenever he wanted.
Brancato admitted to breaking a window at the home, but said it was strictly because he was going through intense heroin withdrawal that night and he said he was trying to wake up his friend to get the drugs.
When Brancato and Armento entered the home, the next door neighbor
came outside to investigate.
That's when prosecutors said Armento shot the officer through the heart with his .357 Magnum.
Armento was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in November.
The jury in that trial took less than six hours to convict Armento.
Enchautegui was shot in the chest by Armento when he interrupted the alleged robbery, but managed to shoot both suspects multiple times before dying.
"This jury spoke loud and clear, that Lillo had nothing to do with the murder of this police officer," Tacopina said.
Brancato appeared on six episodes of the hit HBO series "The Sopranos" as a wannabe mobster in 2000.
`Sopranos` actor acquitted in cop killing
Lillo Brancato Jr., an actor who appeared in "The Sopranos," was acquitted of the 2005 killing an off-duty New York City police officer but found guilty of attempted burglary.
Brancato, 32, was also acquitted of two counts of burglary, but could face three to 15 years in prison on the attempted burglary charge.
He has already served three years, according to his attorney, Joseph Tacopina.
Police officer Daniel Enchautegui, 28, was killed trying to break up a burglary attempt at his neighbor's house in the Bronx in December 2005.
During the trial, Brancato said there was not a break-in.
Brancato said he knew the owner of the home, and that he and friend Steven Armento, 51, were drinking at a strip club when they decided to go hunt for valium.
Brancato told the jury that the owner, a Vietnam veteran, gave him permission to come to his house and take painkillers or other pills whenever he wanted.
Brancato admitted to breaking a window at the home, but said it was strictly because he was going through intense heroin withdrawal that night and he said he was trying to wake up his friend to get the drugs.
When Brancato and Armento entered the home, the next door neighbor
came outside to investigate.
That's when prosecutors said Armento shot the officer through the heart with his .357 Magnum.
Armento was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in November.
The jury in that trial took less than six hours to convict Armento.
Enchautegui was shot in the chest by Armento when he interrupted the alleged robbery, but managed to shoot both suspects multiple times before dying.
"This jury spoke loud and clear, that Lillo had nothing to do with the murder of this police officer," Tacopina said.
Brancato appeared on six episodes of the hit HBO series "The Sopranos" as a wannabe mobster in 2000.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
President Bush granted pardons Tuesday to 19 citizens charged with a variety of crimes, but none was prominent.
Presidential pardon lists are being closely monitored in the final weeks of the Bush administration, to see whether former vice presidential aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby will be granted the presidential favor.
One of the men pardoned is Charles Winters, who died nearly 25 years ago.
His son had worked on winning a presidential pardon for his dad, who had helped smuggle weapons to Jews fighting in what was then Palestine in the late 1940s.
A Protestant from Boston, Winters spent 18 months behind bars
the only U.S. citizen to serve time for helping fly weapons to Jews struggling to create Israel.
A 20th person received a commutation of a life sentence for possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute.
That individual, Reed Raymond Prior, was ordered released from prison in February 2009.
He will have served more than 12 years.
Bush has granted 191 pardons and nine commutations, far fewer than Presidents Clinton and Reagan in their two-term administrations.
There is a long tradition of presidents issuing pardons and commutations during the holiday season.
More will be expected just before Bush leaves office in January.
President Bush granted pardons Tuesday to 19 citizens charged with a variety of crimes, but none was prominent.
Presidential pardon lists are being closely monitored in the final weeks of the Bush administration, to see whether former vice presidential aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby will be granted the presidential favor.
One of the men pardoned is Charles Winters, who died nearly 25 years ago.
His son had worked on winning a presidential pardon for his dad, who had helped smuggle weapons to Jews fighting in what was then Palestine in the late 1940s.
A Protestant from Boston, Winters spent 18 months behind bars
the only U.S. citizen to serve time for helping fly weapons to Jews struggling to create Israel.
A 20th person received a commutation of a life sentence for possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute.
That individual, Reed Raymond Prior, was ordered released from prison in February 2009.
He will have served more than 12 years.
Bush has granted 191 pardons and nine commutations, far fewer than Presidents Clinton and Reagan in their two-term administrations.
There is a long tradition of presidents issuing pardons and commutations during the holiday season.
More will be expected just before Bush leaves office in January.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
NASA captures stunning pictures of Earth
From columns of cloud streaking over the Caspian Sea in January to vast tracts of cleared forest in Bolivia in December. In 2008, the NASA Earth Observatory has captured more stunning images of the Earth.
The accompanying photo gallery is a just small taste of the hundreds of images available.
The Earth Observatory online library stretches back to 1999, providing a graphic snapshot of how nature and man create changes on the surface of the planet.
In February, dust storms can be seen curling off the coast of Morocco, carrying plumes of sand out across the Atlantic Ocean.
NASA suggest that these storms could be the result of stresses on the land surface such as overgrazing and damage to vegetation
A satellite image taken in March shows a section of the Wilkins Ice Shelf in Antarctica, measuring 41 kilometers by 2.5 kilometers, crumble away into the sea.
And the image of Tokyo at night looks like a giant electrical circuit board
which, of course, it is. Meanwhile, south of Sudan's capital, Khartoum, the geometric shape of irrigated fields reveal a man-made collage of rivers and crops while the swollen waters of the Mississippi break the levees in Gulfport, Illinois in June 2008, leaving homes submerged and lives in ruin.
Hurricane Bertha, the first of the 2008 Atlantic season, gathers strength in July and was a record breaker.
"Since reliable records began in the 1940s, no hurricane has ever formed so far east before August 1," NASA reports.
Two hundreds miles above Central Asia, the skies are visibly calmer as polar mesospheric clouds are captured on film.
While the earth is still shrouded in darkness, the clouds are illuminated by the first streaks of sunlight.
NASA says that polar mesospheric clouds are not uncommon over Northern Asia.
Some researchers link increased observations of them to climate change.
A picture taken by an astronaut shows the Amazon burnished in gold as the light of a setting sun transforms the appearance of the river and its tributaries in Brazil.
While the iridescent waters off the coast of Texas and Louisiana reveal the environmental jolt of a storm surge created by Hurricane Ike.
A contrasting aftermath of nature's force can be seen in the image of the charred peaks of the Chino Hills in southern California which show the extent of damage caused by the recent fires.
All the images are available in hi-resolution and are free to access.
NASA captures stunning pictures of Earth
From columns of cloud streaking over the Caspian Sea in January to vast tracts of cleared forest in Bolivia in December. In 2008, the NASA Earth Observatory has captured more stunning images of the Earth.
The accompanying photo gallery is a just small taste of the hundreds of images available.
The Earth Observatory online library stretches back to 1999, providing a graphic snapshot of how nature and man create changes on the surface of the planet.
In February, dust storms can be seen curling off the coast of Morocco, carrying plumes of sand out across the Atlantic Ocean.
NASA suggest that these storms could be the result of stresses on the land surface such as overgrazing and damage to vegetation
A satellite image taken in March shows a section of the Wilkins Ice Shelf in Antarctica, measuring 41 kilometers by 2.5 kilometers, crumble away into the sea.
And the image of Tokyo at night looks like a giant electrical circuit board
which, of course, it is. Meanwhile, south of Sudan's capital, Khartoum, the geometric shape of irrigated fields reveal a man-made collage of rivers and crops while the swollen waters of the Mississippi break the levees in Gulfport, Illinois in June 2008, leaving homes submerged and lives in ruin.
Hurricane Bertha, the first of the 2008 Atlantic season, gathers strength in July and was a record breaker.
"Since reliable records began in the 1940s, no hurricane has ever formed so far east before August 1," NASA reports.
Two hundreds miles above Central Asia, the skies are visibly calmer as polar mesospheric clouds are captured on film.
While the earth is still shrouded in darkness, the clouds are illuminated by the first streaks of sunlight.
NASA says that polar mesospheric clouds are not uncommon over Northern Asia.
Some researchers link increased observations of them to climate change.
A picture taken by an astronaut shows the Amazon burnished in gold as the light of a setting sun transforms the appearance of the river and its tributaries in Brazil.
While the iridescent waters off the coast of Texas and Louisiana reveal the environmental jolt of a storm surge created by Hurricane Ike.
A contrasting aftermath of nature's force can be seen in the image of the charred peaks of the Chino Hills in southern California which show the extent of damage caused by the recent fires.
All the images are available in hi-resolution and are free to access.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Pope Benedict XVI reiterated the Roman Catholic Church's opposition to homosexual behavior and warned that humanity could destroy itself.
The pope's year-end message to Church leaders sparked anger among gay and lesbian religious groups.
The Church "demands that the order of creation be respected," the pope said Monday, defining "the nature of the human being as man and woman," according to excerpts released by the Vatican.
Part of the Church's mission is to "protect the human beings against self-destruction," the Pope said in his annual address to the cardinals, archbishops and others who make up the Roman Curia.
The Church has as much responsibility to preserve what it sees as man and woman's God-given roles as it does to protect endangered species, he implied.
"The rain forest deserves, yes, our protection," Benedict said, "But mankind does not deserve it less as a creature."
He did not specifically mention homosexuality in his speech, but his meaning was clear, and gay rights activists criticized the remarks.
"I think the pope is trying to limit God's world view and stands in grave error by doing so," said Marianne Duddy-Burke, executive director of DignityUSA, which campaigns for openly gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Catholics to be accepted fully by the church.
"Gay, lesbian, bixsexual and transgendered people represent part of God's creativity, which is beyond any human understanding, including the pope's," she said. "I would challenge the pope to show a little more humility."
She said it was particularly unfortunate that he made the remarks just days before Christmas, but described them as "so in line with other statements from this pope, it's not really atypical."
A papal spokesman issued a clarification after gay rights campaigners responded angrily to the remarks.
"The pope had no intention to offend or attack transgendered" people, Father Federico Lombari said Tuesday. "What the pope meant to say was that in God's eyes, a person is born either man or woman. And to deny this fundamental concept, central to Catholic teaching, is to create confusion.
"If you forget that ... people are born either men or women and together are meant to create children, then you can create negative consequences."
The Catholic Church considers homosexual intercourse to be a sin as it does all sex outside of marriage but does not consider homosexuality itself to be one.
"Homogenital behavior is objectively immoral, while making the important distinction between this behavior and a homosexual orientation, which is not immoral in itself," the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has said.
The Pope spoke of an "appropriate ecology of man," the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales said.
It is a central message for all Christians.
It is central to what it means to be human."
Pope`s message angers gay rights activists
Pope Benedict XVI reiterated the Roman Catholic Church's opposition to homosexual behavior and warned that humanity could destroy itself.
The pope's year-end message to Church leaders sparked anger among gay and lesbian religious groups.
The Church "demands that the order of creation be respected," the pope said Monday, defining "the nature of the human being as man and woman," according to excerpts released by the Vatican.
Part of the Church's mission is to "protect the human beings against self-destruction," the Pope said in his annual address to the cardinals, archbishops and others who make up the Roman Curia.
The Church has as much responsibility to preserve what it sees as man and woman's God-given roles as it does to protect endangered species, he implied.
"The rain forest deserves, yes, our protection," Benedict said, "But mankind does not deserve it less as a creature."
He did not specifically mention homosexuality in his speech, but his meaning was clear, and gay rights activists criticized the remarks.
"I think the pope is trying to limit God's world view and stands in grave error by doing so," said Marianne Duddy-Burke, executive director of DignityUSA, which campaigns for openly gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Catholics to be accepted fully by the church.
"Gay, lesbian, bixsexual and transgendered people represent part of God's creativity, which is beyond any human understanding, including the pope's," she said. "I would challenge the pope to show a little more humility."
She said it was particularly unfortunate that he made the remarks just days before Christmas, but described them as "so in line with other statements from this pope, it's not really atypical."
A papal spokesman issued a clarification after gay rights campaigners responded angrily to the remarks.
"The pope had no intention to offend or attack transgendered" people, Father Federico Lombari said Tuesday.
"What the pope meant to say was that in God's eyes, a person is born either man or woman.
And to deny this fundamental concept, central to Catholic teaching, is to create confusion.
The Catholic Church considers homosexual intercourse to be a sin
as it does all sex outside of marriage
but does not consider homosexuality itself to be one.
"This is rooted in central Catholic teaching of the dignity of the person.
It is a central message for all Christians.
It is central to what it means to be human."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
King of Pop `in fine health,` Jackson spokesman says
Michael Jackson's publicist wants you to know that, despite a tabloid report to the contrary, the 50-year-old singer "is in fine health."
The United Kingdom's Sun newspaper started a stir Monday morning when it quoted the author of an upcoming book about Jackson saying he was battling a potentially fatal disease that required a life-saving lung transplant.
Other papers echoed the Sun's thinly-sourced story and the rumor spread quickly through Internet message boards.
By Monday afternoon, Jackson's spokesman issued a response that said "The writer's wild allegations concerning Mr. Jackson's health are a total fabrication."
"Mr. Jackson is in fine health, and finalizing negotiations with a major entertainment company & television network for both a world tour and a series of specials and appearances," said Dr. Tohme Tohme, identified as Jackson's "official and sole spokesperson."
The original report quoted writer Ian Halperin saying Jackson's illness had robbed him of 95-percent of the vision in one eye and that he needed a lung transplant "but may be too weak to go through with it."
Jackson's reclusive lifestyle and a photo earlier this year of him being pushed in a wheelchair created a fertile ground for the planting of the rumor.
Tohme suggested Halperin's motive was to get attention for his book about Jackson.
Halperin has made a career writing about Hollywood scandals and the trouble lives of various celebrities, often claiming to have gone undercover to penetrate their inner-circles.
King of Pop `in fine health,` Jackson spokesman says
Michael Jackson's publicist wants you to know that, despite a tabloid report to the contrary, the 50-year-old singer "is in fine health."
The United Kingdom's Sun newspaper started a stir Monday morning when it quoted the author of an upcoming book about Jackson saying he was battling a potentially fatal disease that required a life-saving lung transplant.
Other papers echoed the Sun's thinly-sourced story and the rumor spread quickly through Internet message boards.
By Monday afternoon, Jackson's spokesman issued a response that said "The writer's wild allegations concerning Mr. Jackson's health are a total fabrication."
"Mr. Jackson is in fine health, and finalizing negotiations with a major entertainment company & television network for both a world tour and a series of specials and appearances," said Dr. Tohme Tohme, identified as Jackson's "official and sole spokesperson."
The original report quoted writer Ian Halperin saying Jackson's illness had robbed him of 95-percent of the vision in one eye and that he needed a lung transplant "but may be too weak to go through with it."
Jackson's reclusive lifestyle and a photo earlier this year of him being pushed in a wheelchair created a fertile ground for the planting of the rumor.
Tohme suggested Halperin's motive was to get attention for his book about Jackson.
Halperin has made a career writing about Hollywood scandals and the trouble lives of various celebrities, often claiming to have gone undercover to penetrate their inner-circles.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
The era of cheap natural gas is coming to an end, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Tuesday at a meeting in Moscow of the world's major gas-exporting countries.
That dire-sounding prediction is exactly what his audience wanted to hear.
Iran, Libya and Venezuela are among the countries attending the Gas Exporting Countries Forum, which observers say is fast emerging as an OPEC-style gas-producers' cartel.
The gas group, commonly called GECF, would control the vast bulk of global supplies and could fix prices for the rest of the world.
And because of rising global production costs, Putin said, prices will only get higher.
"Costs, which are necessary to develop the [energy] sphere, are rising sharply," Putin said. "It means that despite the global financial crisis and price drop for energy resources, the era of cheap energy, including cheap gas, is coming to an end."
Russia, the world's biggest producer of natural gas, supplies Europe with more than 40 percent of its imports mainly via pipelines that cross the former Soviet republic of Ukraine.
The Moscow meeting comes amid growing concern that a contract dispute between Ukraine and Russia's state-controlled energy giant, Gazprom, could again disrupt gas supplies to Europe in the new year.
Putin called on GECF members to establish their headquarters in St. Petersburg and promised to grant the group diplomatic status.
This was GECF's seventh ministerial meeting.
Russia is currently locked in a dispute with Ukraine over non-payment of debts.
The era of cheap natural gas is coming to an end, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Tuesday at a meeting in Moscow of the world's major gas-exporting countries.
That dire-sounding prediction is exactly what his audience wanted to hear.
Iran, Libya and Venezuela are among the countries attending the Gas Exporting Countries Forum, which observers say is fast emerging as an OPEC-style gas-producers' cartel.
The gas group, commonly called GECF, would control the vast bulk of global supplies and could fix prices for the rest of the world.
And because of rising global production costs, Putin said, prices will only get higher.
"Costs, which are necessary to develop the [energy] sphere, are rising sharply," Putin said. "It means that despite the global financial crisis and price drop for energy resources, the era of cheap energy, including cheap gas, is coming to an end."
Russia, the world's biggest producer of natural gas, supplies Europe with more than 40 percent of its imports mainly via pipelines that cross the former Soviet republic of Ukraine.
The Moscow meeting comes amid growing concern that a contract dispute between Ukraine and Russia's state-controlled energy giant, Gazprom, could again disrupt gas supplies to Europe in the new year.
Putin called on GECF members to establish their headquarters in St. Petersburg and promised to grant the group diplomatic status.
This was GECF's seventh ministerial meeting.
Russia is currently locked in a dispute with Ukraine over non-payment of debts.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
China sends goodwill pandas to Taiwan
Two giant pandas arrived in Taiwan Tuesday after leaving China's Sichuan province for their new home, in a sign of improving ties between the cross-strait neighbors.
Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan, both four years old, had been living in Ya'an since the May 12 earthquake that damaged their former home in Wolong in Sichuan, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency.
The pandas ate a meal of steamed corn buns and carrots before they were placed in a truck and taken to the Sichuan capital of Chengdu.
From there, they were flown to Taiwan. "They had a good breakfast to sustain them on the long journey," said a Taiwan keeper traveling with the animals to the island, according to Xinhua.
The panda goodwill was the latest sign of warming relations between Beijing and Taipei.
Regularly scheduled commercial flights, shipping and mail between Taiwan and China resumed last week for the first time since the 1949 revolution that brought the Communist Party to power on the Chinese mainland.
On Monday, the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council said China would provide 130 billion yuan ($19 billion) in financing over the next two to three years to Taiwan-based companies doing business in the mainland.
Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou has been cultivating ties with Beijing since winning office in March.
Ma, a Nationalist, opposes reunification with China but ran on a platform touting the economic benefits of better relations with the mainland.
China said in May 2005 it would give the island two giant pandas, but their departure was delayed for more than three years.
Improved ties between the two sides made the delivery of the pandas possible, Xinhua reported.
The pair, whose names Tuan and Yuan together mean "reunion," will live in a four-story building at the Taipei city zoo, and their lodgings will include an outdoor playground, the agency said.
After a one-month quarantine, the pandas are expected to make their debut in Taiwan during the Chinese lunar new year.
China sends goodwill pandas to Taiwan
Two giant pandas arrived in Taiwan Tuesday after leaving China's Sichuan province for their new home, in a sign of improving ties between the cross-strait neighbors.
Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan, both four years old, had been living in Ya'an since the May 12 earthquake that damaged their former home in Wolong in Sichuan, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency.
The pandas ate a meal of steamed corn buns and carrots before they were placed in a truck and taken to the Sichuan capital of Chengdu.
From there, they were flown to Taiwan. "They had a good breakfast to sustain them on the long journey," said a Taiwan keeper traveling with the animals to the island, according to Xinhua.
The panda goodwill was the latest sign of warming relations between Beijing and Taipei.
Regularly scheduled commercial flights, shipping and mail between Taiwan and China resumed last week for the first time since the 1949 revolution that brought the Communist Party to power on the Chinese mainland.
On Monday, the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council said China would provide 130 billion yuan ($19 billion) in financing over the next two to three years to Taiwan-based companies doing business in the mainland.
Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou has been cultivating ties with Beijing since winning office in March.
Ma, a Nationalist, opposes reunification with China but ran on a platform touting the economic benefits of better relations with the mainland.
China said in May 2005 it would give the island two giant pandas, but their departure was delayed for more than three years.
Improved ties between the two sides made the delivery of the pandas possible, Xinhua reported.
The pair, whose names Tuan and Yuan together mean "reunion," will live in a four-story building at the Taipei city zoo, and their lodgings will include an outdoor playground, the agency said.
After a one-month quarantine, the pandas are expected to make their debut in Taiwan during the Chinese lunar new year.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Cyclist, cancer survivor Armstrong to have 4th child
(CNN) — Cycling legend Lance Armstrong — a survivor of testicular cancer — and girlfriend Anna Hansen are expecting a baby, CNN learned Tuesday through his charitable organization.
The baby is due in June.
Armstrong was diagnosed in 1996 with testicular cancer that had spread to his brain, lungs and abdomen.
He underwent treatment for the disease and was able to return to cycling, eventually winning seven consecutive Tour de France races.
The harsh chemotherapy left him unable to have children, although he and then-wife Kristin Richards had three children using sperm the cyclist had donated before the treatment.
Armstrong and Hansen, however, are expecting without the use of any artificial fertilization process.
Cyclist, cancer survivor Armstrong to have 4th child
(CNN) — Cycling legend Lance Armstrong — a survivor of testicular cancer — and girlfriend Anna Hansen are expecting a baby, CNN learned Tuesday through his charitable organization.
The baby is due in June.
Armstrong was diagnosed in 1996 with testicular cancer that had spread to his brain, lungs and abdomen.
He underwent treatment for the disease and was able to return to cycling, eventually winning seven consecutive Tour de France races.
The harsh chemotherapy left him unable to have children, although he and then-wife Kristin Richards had three children using sperm the cyclist had donated before the treatment.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Baghdad celebrates first public Christmas amid hope, memories
From a distance, it looks like an apparition:
a huge multi-colored hot-air balloon floating in the Baghdad sky, bearing a large poster of Jesus Christ.
Welcome to the first-ever public Christmas celebration in Baghdad, held Saturday and sponsored by the Iraqi Interior Ministry.
Once thought to be infiltrated by death squads, the Ministry now is trying to root out sectarian violence as well as improve its P.R. image.
The event takes place in a public park in eastern Baghdad, ringed with security checkpoints.
Interior Ministry forces deployed on surrounding rooftops peer down at the scene:
a Christmas tree decorated with ornaments and tinsel;
a red-costumed Santa Claus waving to the crowd, an Iraqi flag draped over his shoulders;
a red-and-black-uniformed military band playing stirring martial music, not Christmas carols.
On a large stage, children dressed in costumes representing Iraq's many ethnic and religious groups Kurds, Turkmen, Yazidis, Christians, Arab Muslims not defined as Sunni or Shiite
hold their hands aloft and sing "We are building Iraq!"
Two young boys, a mini-policeman and a mini-soldier sporting painted-on mustaches, march stiffly and salute.
Baghdad celebrates first public Christmas amid hope, memories
From a distance, it looks like an apparition:
a huge multi-colored hot-air balloon floating in the Baghdad sky, bearing a large poster of Jesus Christ.
Welcome to the first-ever public Christmas celebration in Baghdad, held Saturday and sponsored by the Iraqi Interior Ministry.
Once thought to be infiltrated by death squads, the Ministry now is trying to root out sectarian violence as well as improve its P.R. image.
The event takes place in a public park in eastern Baghdad, ringed with security checkpoints.
Interior Ministry forces deployed on surrounding rooftops peer down at the scene:
a Christmas tree decorated with ornaments and tinsel;
a red-costumed Santa Claus waving to the crowd, an Iraqi flag draped over his shoulders;
a red-and-black-uniformed military band playing stirring martial music, not Christmas carols.
On a large stage, children dressed in costumes representing Iraq's many ethnic and religious groups Kurds, Turkmen, Yazidis, Christians, Arab Muslims not defined as Sunni or Shiite
hold their hands aloft and sing "We are building Iraq!"
Two young boys, a mini-policeman and a mini-soldier sporting painted-on mustaches, march stiffly and salute.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
YouTube sensation Straight No Chaser becomes hit
What started as a college a cappella pastime became a ticket to the big time for 10 Indiana University graduates.
Last year a member of the disbanded group posted a video of a quirky 1998 performance of "The 12 Days of Christmas" on YouTube.
It got more than 8 million hits.
And one of the people watching was Craig Kallman, chairman and CEO of Atlantic Records.
Kallman summoned a couple of the troupe members to Los Angeles, where he offered them a record deal.
The boys (now men, of course) got back together and within 10 months
and almost 10 years after graduation
had a debut album neatly tied with a bow.
And you thought your college reunion was exciting.
"Holiday Spirits" mostly features festive covers such as "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" and "Silent Night," all sung in the a cappella tradition but with creative and entertaining tweaks.
(They do a stirring Christmas-infused rendition of Toto's "Africa.")
YouTube sensation Straight No Chaser becomes hit
Last year a member of the disbanded group
posted a video of a quirky 1998 performance of "The 12 Days of Christmas" on YouTube.
The boys (now men, of course) got back together and within 10 months
and almost 10 years after graduation
had a debut album neatly tied with a bow.
And you thought your college reunion was exciting.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Police said they recovered six bodies from a Los Angeles house where a man dressed as Santa Claus fired gunshots and started a fire Christmas Eve.
Police said the suspect, Bruce Jeffery Pardo, committed suicide after the attack.
Police said three others Pardo's mother-in-law, father-in-law and wife
are still unaccounted for. At a news conference Thursday, police in Covina, California, said Pardo knocked on the door of his in-law's home, where they were having a Christmas party attended by more than 25 people.
After someone opened the door, an 8-year-old child ran towards the costumed Pardo, and he shot her directly in the face, police said.
The 8-year-old, who survived the attack, is in fair condition at a Los Angeles hospital.
Police said the girl does have serious wounds, including an entry wound on the right side of her face, and an exit wound on the left side, indicating the bullet likely pierced straight through her face.
Pardo entered the home holding a gun in one hand and a wrapped Christmas package containing a home-made device to spread fire, police said.
Pardo fired indiscriminately as partygoers fled, hid under furniture, threw items to break windows, and in at least one case, jumped out a second-story window, police said.
A 16-year-old girl was hospitalized with a gun shot wound and another victim, who jumped out the window, was taken to a local hospital, police said.
After the shooting, police believe Pardo set fire to the home.
Covina Police Department Lt. Pat Buchanan said the device was "something we have never seen before."
Covina Police Chief Kim Raney described it as a pressurized tank attached to another tank filled with accelerant.
Police said they recovered six bodies from a Los Angeles house where a man dressed as Santa Claus fired gunshots and started a fire Christmas Eve.
Police said the suspect, Bruce Jeffery Pardo, committed suicide after the attack.
Police said three others Pardo's mother-in-law, father-in-law and wife
are still unaccounted for. At a news conference Thursday, police in Covina, California, said Pardo knocked on the door of his in-law's home, where they were having a Christmas party attended by more than 25 people.
After someone opened the door, an 8-year-old child ran towards the costumed Pardo, and he shot her directly in the face, police said.
The 8-year-old, who survived the attack, is in fair condition at a Los Angeles hospital.
Police said the girl does have serious wounds, including an entry wound on the right side of her face, and an exit wound on the left side, indicating the bullet likely pierced straight through her face.
Pardo entered the home holding a gun in one hand and a wrapped Christmas package containing a home-made device to spread fire, police said.
Pardo fired indiscriminately as partygoers fled, hid under furniture, threw items to break windows, and in at least one case, jumped out a second-story window, police said.
A 16-year-old girl was hospitalized with a gun shot wound and another victim, who jumped out the window, was taken to a local hospital, police said.
After the shooting, police believe Pardo set fire to the home.
Covina Police Department Lt. Pat Buchanan said the device was "something we have never seen before."
Covina Police Chief Kim Raney described it as a pressurized tank attached to another tank filled with accelerant.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Pope`s Christmas Eve homily calls for Mideast peace
VATICAN CITY, Vatican (CNN)
Pope Benedict XVI called for peace in the Middle East and an end to the exploitation of children in the homily he delivered early Thursday during the annual Christmas Eve Midnight Mass in St. Peter's Basilica.
He later delivered the traditional Christmas address in St. Peter's Square, sending Christmas greetings in languages including English, Spanish, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, Slovak and many others.
The address is known as "Urbi et Orbi" Latin for "To the City and the World."
Benedict, 81, called for the faithful to pray for peace to come to "the land in which Jesus lived, and which he loved so deeply."
"Let us pray for mutual understanding, that hearts will be opened, so that borders can be opened," he said.
The pontiff also called for special consideration for suffering children who are homeless, forced to serve as soldiers or exploited in pornography "and every other appalling form of abuse."
"The Child of Bethlehem summons us once again to do everything in our power to put an end to the suffering of these children; to do everything possible to make the light of Bethlehem touch the heart of every man and woman," he said.
"Only through the conversion of hearts, only through a change in the depths of our hearts can the cause of all this evil be overcome."
Thousands heard the pope, in white and gold robes, speak inside the basilica at St. Peter's
although Vatican cameras captured some sleeping children who had been unable to stay awake for the late ceremony.
Those who could not get inside watched on giant television screens outside in the square. Pope`s Christmas Eve homily calls for Mideast peace
VATICAN CITY, Vatican (CNN)
Pope Benedict XVI called for peace in the Middle East and an end to the exploitation of children in the homily he delivered early Thursday during the annual Christmas Eve Midnight Mass in St. Peter's Basilica.
He later delivered the traditional Christmas address in St. Peter's Square, sending Christmas greetings in languages including English, Spanish, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, Slovak and many others.
The address is known as "Urbi et Orbi" Latin for "To the City and the World."
Benedict, 81, called for the faithful to pray for peace to come to "the land in which Jesus lived, and which he loved so deeply."
"Let us pray for mutual understanding, that hearts will be opened, so that borders can be opened," he said.
The pontiff also called for special consideration for suffering children who are homeless, forced to serve as soldiers or exploited in pornography "and every other appalling form of abuse."
"The Child of Bethlehem summons us once again to do everything in our power to put an end to the suffering of these children; to do everything possible to make the light of Bethlehem touch the heart of every man and woman," he said.
"Only through the conversion of hearts, only through a change in the depths of our hearts can the cause of all this evil be overcome."
Thousands heard the pope, in white and gold robes, speak inside the basilica at St. Peter's
although Vatican cameras captured some sleeping children who had been unable to stay awake for the late ceremony.
Those who could not get inside watched on giant television screens outside in the square.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
by placing his hand on the same Bible that Abraham Lincoln used during the inauguration of 1861.
The Constitution does not require presidents to be sworn in on a Bible, though almost every chief executive since George Washington has chosen to do so.
Presidents have differed greatly, however, on the question of which passage the Bible should be opened to during the swearing-in ceremony.
It brings up the question of what
If what is past is prologue, as Shakespeare famously wrote (a quote now engraved in front of the National Archives), he might opt for the popular presidential theme of repentance.
According to Gleaves Whitney, a presidential historian at Michigan's Grand Valley State University, II Chronicles 7:14 was used for three swearing-in ceremonies: "If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land."
In this season of economic distress, however, the president-elect may prefer to follow the lead of Franklin Roosevelt.
When FDR first took the oath of office in 1933, the country was reeling under the crushing weight of the Great Depression.
"Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment," Roosevelt said in his inaugural address.
Urging his fellow Americans to lend a helping hand, Roosevelt had the Bible opened to I Corinthians 13: "And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three;
but the greatest of these is charity." Obama campaigned as someone who would strive to bridge the nation's bitter partisan divide.
"We have never been a collection of red states and blue states," Obama said in his Election Night victory speech. "We are, and always will be, the United States of America."
If Obama wants to stress that theme again on January 20, he may prefer to follow Bill Clinton's lead from the 1997 inaugural and open the Bible to Isaiah 58:12:
Obama picks Bible for inauguration, but what verse?
by placing his hand on the same Bible that Abraham Lincoln used during the inauguration of 1861.
The Constitution does not require presidents to be sworn in on a Bible, though almost every chief executive since George Washington has chosen to do so.
Presidents have differed greatly, however, on the question of which passage the Bible should be opened to during the swearing-in ceremony.
It brings up the question of what
If what is past is prologue, as Shakespeare famously wrote (a quote now engraved in front of the National Archives), he might opt for the popular presidential theme of repentance.
According to Gleaves Whitney, a presidential historian at Michigan's Grand Valley State University, II Chronicles 7:14 was used for three swearing-in ceremonies: "If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land."
In this season of economic distress, however, the president-elect may prefer to follow the lead of Franklin Roosevelt.
When FDR first took the oath of office in 1933, the country was reeling under the crushing weight of the Great Depression.
"Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment," Roosevelt said in his inaugural address.
Urging his fellow Americans to lend a helping hand, Roosevelt had the Bible opened to I Corinthians 13:
but the greatest of these is charity."
Obama campaigned as someone who would strive to bridge the nation's bitter partisan divide.
"We are, and always will be, the United States of America."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Singer and actress Eartha Kitt has died, her publicist, Patty Freedman, told CNN on Thursday.
Kitt, 81, died in New York, where she was being treated for colon cancer, Freedman said.
She was performing almost until the end, taping a PBS special six weeks ago in Chicago, Illinois.
The show is set to air in February.
Her recording of the saucy Christmas song "Santa Baby" was certified gold last week.
Kitt was well known for her distinctive voice and made a name for herself in her portrayal of Catwoman in the television series "Batman."
That role produced Kitt's recognizable sultry cat growl.
She worked in film, theater, cabaret, music and on television during her lengthy career.
According to Kitt's official Web site, she was nominated for a Tony three times, a Grammy and Emmy twice.
According to the biography on that site, Kitt lived in Connecticut near her daughter and four grandchildren.
Kitt was ostracized at an early age because of her mixed-race heritage, the biography says.
At age 8, she was sent from the cotton fields of South Carolina by her mother to live with her aunt in New York City's Harlem neighborhood, the site said.
As a teen, she auditioned for the famed Katherine Dunham Dance Troupe, was hired as a featured dancer and vocalist, and toured worldwide with the company.
This launched Kitt into a life of roles in the entertainment field.
According to the book "Contemporary Black Biography," she was adored in Europe in the 1950s as a cabaret singer.
Broadway stardom landed Kitt a recording deal that led to a string of best-selling records, including "Love for Sale," "I Want to Be Evil," "Santa Baby" and "Folk Tales of the Tribes of Africa."
Singer and actress Eartha Kitt has died, her publicist, Patty Freedman, told CNN on Thursday.
Kitt, 81, died in New York, where she was being treated for colon cancer, Freedman said.
She was performing almost until the end, taping a PBS special six weeks ago in Chicago, Illinois.
The show is set to air in February.
Her recording of the saucy Christmas song "Santa Baby" was certified gold last week.
Kitt was well known for her distinctive voice and made a name for herself in her portrayal of Catwoman in the television series "Batman."
That role produced Kitt's recognizable sultry cat growl.
She worked in film, theater, cabaret, music and on television during her lengthy career.
According to Kitt's official Web site, she was nominated for a Tony three times, a Grammy and Emmy twice.
According to the biography on that site, Kitt lived in Connecticut near her daughter and four grandchildren.
Kitt was ostracized at an early age because of her mixed-race heritage, the biography says.
At age 8, she was sent from the cotton fields of South Carolina by her mother to live with her aunt in New York City's Harlem neighborhood, the site said.
As a teen, she auditioned for the famed Katherine Dunham Dance Troupe, was hired as a featured dancer and vocalist, and toured worldwide with the company.
This launched Kitt into a life of roles in the entertainment field.
According to the book "Contemporary Black Biography," she was adored in Europe in the 1950s as a cabaret singer.
Broadway stardom landed Kitt a recording deal that led to a string of best-selling records, including "Love for Sale," "I Want to Be Evil," "Santa Baby" and "Folk Tales of the Tribes of Africa."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Chinese hopeful Liu will return for Berlin
Former Olympic 110 meters hurdles champion Liu Xiang could return from injury in time to meet arch-rival Dayron Robles at the 2009 world championships in Berlin.
The 25-year-old was expected to be one of the faces of this year's Beijing Games but limped away from the Bird's Nest Stadium starting line due to an Achilles injury which was operated on earlier this month, ruling him out for six months.
But a leading Chinese athletics official believes Liu could be fit to defend his title in a battle with Olympic champion Robles of Cuba in the German capital in August, although he stressed Liu will not be pushed to make a return before he is ready.
Feng Shuyong, vice-director of the Chinese Athletics Administrative Centre, told the China Daily:
"If he can resume normal training in June, it's highly possible for him to participate in the world championships in August.
"But participating in the worlds is not a compulsory task for Liu.
Chinese hopeful Liu will return for Berlin
Former Olympic 110 meters hurdles champion Liu Xiang could return from injury in time to meet arch-rival Dayron Robles at the 2009 world championships in Berlin.
The 25-year-old was expected to be one of the faces of this year's Beijing Games but limped away from the Bird's Nest Stadium starting line due to an Achilles injury which was operated on earlier this month, ruling him out for six months.
But a leading Chinese athletics official believes Liu could be fit to defend his title in a battle with Olympic champion Robles of Cuba in the German capital in August, although he stressed Liu will not be pushed to make a return before he is ready.
Feng Shuyong, vice-director of the Chinese Athletics Administrative Centre, told the China Daily:
"If he can resume normal training in June, it's highly possible for him to participate in the world championships in August.
"But participating in the worlds is not a compulsory task for Liu.
If he feels good with his foot at that time, taking part will help him rebuild his confidence.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Reports show Japan`s economy suffering
Japan's government Friday released some key reports indicating the island nation's economy is suffering along with the rest of the world.
Japan's industrial output took the largest drop in history in November over October, tumbling 8.1 percent
nearly double the previous high of 4.3 percent in January 2001, according to a report from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.
The huge disparity highlights how Japan's export-driven economy is faring against the decline of worldwide consumer demand.
Japan's unemployment rate was up 3.9 percent in November, .2 points higher than October, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. More than 2.5 million Japanese are out of work, the ministry said, and for every three people looking for a job, only 1.5 jobs are available.
That ratio is the lowest it's been in 4 years and 9 months.
Reports show Japan`s economy suffering
Japan's government Friday released some key reports indicating the island nation's economy is suffering along with the rest of the world.
Japan's industrial output took the largest drop in history in November over October, tumbling 8.1 percent
nearly double the previous high of 4.3 percent in January 2001, according to a report from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.
The huge disparity highlights how Japan's export-driven economy is faring against the decline of worldwide consumer demand.
Japan's unemployment rate was up 3.9 percent in November, .2 points higher than October, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. More than 2.5 million Japanese are out of work, the ministry said, and for every three people looking for a job, only 1.5 jobs are available.
That ratio is the lowest it's been in 4 years and 9 months.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Charting the psychology of evil, decades after `shock` experiment
If someone told you to press a button to deliver a 450-volt electrical shock to an innocent person in the next room, would you do it?
Common sense may say no, but decades of research suggests otherwise.
In the early 1960s, a young psychologist at Yale began what became one of the most widely recognized experiments in his field.
In the first series, he found that about two-thirds of subjects were willing to inflict what they believed were increasingly painful shocks on an innocent person when the experimenter told them to do so, even when the victim screamed and pleaded.
The legacy of Stanley Milgram, who died 24 years ago on December 20, reaches far beyond that initial round of experiments.
Researchers have been working on the questions he posed for decades, and have not settled on a brighter vision of human obedience.
A new study to be published in the January issue of American Psychologist confirmed these results in an experiment that mimics many of Milgram's original conditions.
This and other studies have corroborated the startling conclusion that the majority of people, when placed in certain kinds of situations, will follow orders, even if those orders entail harming another person.
Charting the psychology of evil, decades after `shock` experiment
If someone told you to press a button to deliver a 450-volt electrical shock to an innocent person in the next room, would you do it?
Common sense may say no, but decades of research suggests otherwise.
In the early 1960s, a young psychologist at Yale began what became one of the most widely recognized experiments in his field.
In the first series, he found that about two-thirds of subjects were willing to inflict what they believed were increasingly painful shocks on an innocent person when the experimenter told them to do so, even when the victim screamed and pleaded.
The legacy of Stanley Milgram, who died 24 years ago on December 20, reaches far beyond that initial round of experiments.
Researchers have been working on the questions he posed for decades, and have not settled on a brighter vision of human obedience.
A new study to be published in the January issue of American Psychologist confirmed these results in an experiment that mimics many of Milgram's original conditions.
This and other studies have corroborated the startling conclusion that the majority of people, when placed in certain kinds of situations, will follow orders, even if those orders entail harming another person.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
The Great Depression is in full swing.
Gangster Al Capone is sentenced to 11 years behind bars for tax evasion.
Dick Tracy debuts in the comics.
The George Washington Bridge opens.
And New Yorkers are stepping onto the brand new R-1 model subway car, built by the American Car & Foundry factory in Berwick, Pennsylvania.
"I really thought I was getting on the wrong train until the conductor told me it's going to 23rd [Street], exactly where I'm going,'' said Joseph Salmond, who had never seen a subway car quite this old.
"It was like, what's that movie, 'Back to the Future'?"
A legendary workhorse of the transit system until the model was put out to pasture in 1977, the R-1 is temporarily back in action as part of New York City Transit's holiday "Nostalgia Train'' on Sundays in December.
The R-1 and other rehabilitated subway cars from the 1930s to the 1970s are making the rounds from Manhattan's Lower East Side to the borough of Queens along the "V" line.
Passengers love to ride on this special occasion, even though the ride is bumpier and noisier than they have grown accustomed to on today's gleaming stainless steel subways.
Catch a ride on the `Nostalgia Train`
The Great Depression is in full swing.
Gangster Al Capone is sentenced to 11 years behind bars for tax evasion.
Dick Tracy debuts in the comics.
The George Washington Bridge opens.
And New Yorkers are stepping onto the brand new R-1 model subway car, built by the American Car & Foundry factory in Berwick, Pennsylvania.
"I really thought I was getting on the wrong train until the conductor told me it's going to 23rd [Street], exactly where I'm going,'' said Joseph Salmond, who had never seen a subway car quite this old.
"It was like, what's that movie, 'Back to the Future'?"
A legendary workhorse of the transit system until the model was put out to pasture in 1977, the R-1 is temporarily back in action as part of New York City Transit's holiday "Nostalgia Train'' on Sundays in December.
The R-1 and other rehabilitated subway cars from the 1930s to the 1970s are making the rounds from Manhattan's Lower East Side to the borough of Queens along the "V" line.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Archaeologists believe they have unearthed only a small fraction of Egypt's ancient ruins, but they're making new discoveries with help from high-tech allies
satellites that peer into the past from the distance of space.
"Everyone's becoming more aware of this technology and what it can do," said Sarah Parcak, an archaeologist who heads the Laboratory for Global Health at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. "There is so much to learn."
Images from space have been around for decades.
Yet only in the past decade or so has the resolution of images from commercial satellites sharpened enough to be of much use to archaeologists.
Today, scientists can use them to locate ruins some no bigger than a small living room in some of the most remote and forbidding places on the planet.
In this field, Parcak is a pioneer.
Her work in Egypt has yielded hundreds of finds in regions of the Middle Egypt and the eastern Nile River Delta.
Parcak conducted surveys and expeditions in the eastern Nile Delta and Middle Egypt in 2003 and 2004 that confirmed 132 sites that were initially suggested by satellite images.
Eighty-three of those sites had never been visited or recorded.
In the past two years, she has found hundreds more, she said, leading her to amend an earlier conclusion that Egyptologists have found only the tip of the iceberg.
"My estimate of 1/100th of 1 percent of all sites found is on the high side," Parcak said.
These discoveries are of no small significance to the Egyptian government, which has devoted itself anew to protecting archaeological sites from plunder and encroachment.
The Supreme Council of Antiquities has restricted excavation in the most sensitive areas along the Nile
from the Great Pyramids at Giza on the outskirts of Cairo to the carvings of Ramses II in the remote south.
Antiquities officials hope the move will encourage more surveys in the eastern Nile Delta in northern Egypt, Parcak said, where encroaching development in the burgeoning nation of 82 million poses the greatest threat to the sites.
Satellites unearthing ancient Egyptian ruins
Archaeologists believe they have unearthed only a small fraction of Egypt's ancient ruins, but they're making new discoveries with help from high-tech allies
satellites that peer into the past from the distance of space.
"Everyone's becoming more aware of this technology and what it can do," said Sarah Parcak, an archaeologist who heads the Laboratory for Global Health at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. "There is so much to learn."
Images from space have been around for decades.
Yet only in the past decade or so has the resolution of images from commercial satellites sharpened enough to be of much use to archaeologists.
Today, scientists can use them to locate ruins some no bigger than a small living room in some of the most remote and forbidding places on the planet.
In this field, Parcak is a pioneer.
Her work in Egypt has yielded hundreds of finds in regions of the Middle Egypt and the eastern Nile River Delta.
Parcak conducted surveys and expeditions in the eastern Nile Delta and Middle Egypt in 2003 and 2004 that confirmed 132 sites that were initially suggested by satellite images.
Eighty-three of those sites had never been visited or recorded.
In the past two years, she has found hundreds more, she said, leading her to amend an earlier conclusion that Egyptologists have found only the tip of the iceberg.
"My estimate of 1/100th of 1 percent of all sites found is on the high side," Parcak said.
These discoveries are of no small significance to the Egyptian government, which has devoted itself anew to protecting archaeological sites from plunder and encroachment.
The Supreme Council of Antiquities has restricted excavation in the most sensitive areas along the Nile
from the Great Pyramids at Giza on the outskirts of Cairo to the carvings of Ramses II in the remote south.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Gaza operation may `continue for some time`
Israeli jets pounded Hamas targets in Gaza and Hamas militants launched more rockets into Israel, as Palestinian security sources said Sunday that at least 277 people had been killed and hundreds wounded.
Israel will call up 7,000 reserve soldiers, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said during the weekly Cabinet meeting.
He told ministers he planned to present the measure to two Knesset committees, which must approve the action.
Meanwhile, Israeli ground troops and tanks were deployed around Gaza.
There is no indication of a ground operation inside Gaza, but a senior military official said the air raids would continue and that troops around Gaza will "be activated if needed."
The U.N. called for a halt to hostilities, but Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said at the Cabinet meeting that the operation "is liable to continue for some time, perhaps more than can be foreseen at the present time."
Hamas, too, showed no signs of backing down.
Gaza operation may `continue for some time`
Israeli jets pounded Hamas targets in Gaza and Hamas militants launched more rockets into Israel, as Palestinian security sources said Sunday that at least 277 people had been killed and hundreds wounded.
Israel will call up 7,000 reserve soldiers, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said during the weekly Cabinet meeting.
He told ministers he planned to present the measure to two Knesset committees, which must approve the action.
Meanwhile, Israeli ground troops and tanks were deployed around Gaza.
There is no indication of a ground operation inside Gaza, but a senior military official said the air raids would continue and that troops around Gaza will "be activated if needed."
The U.N. called for a halt to hostilities, but Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said at the Cabinet meeting that the operation "is liable to continue for some time, perhaps more than can be foreseen at the present time."
Hamas, too, showed no signs of backing down.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
After being told by prosecutors that their testimony could jeopardize the ongoing criminal investigation, the Illinois House panel considering impeachment charges against Gov. Rod Blagojevich will not subpoena advisers to President-elect Barack Obama, the panel's chairwoman said Sunday.
The impeachment panel was urged to issue the subpoenas last week in a letter from Blagojevich's attorney, Ed Genson.
Genson urged that more than a dozen witnesses, including incoming White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, be subpoenaed.
But U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald advised the state impeachment panel that testimony from Obama aides could jeopardize the criminal probe, Illinois Rep. Barbara Flynn Currie told CNN Radio.
Fitzgerald has previously expressed concern about the impeachment panel interfering with his investigation.
Currie said she received the letter from Fitzgerald on Friday, and although her panel will meet on Monday and might hear from Blagojevich's attorney, there will be no subpoenas of Obama advisers, including Emanuel, Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett, Democratic U.S. Rep.
After being told by prosecutors that their testimony could jeopardize the ongoing criminal investigation, the Illinois House panel considering impeachment charges against Gov. Rod Blagojevich will not subpoena advisers to President-elect Barack Obama, the panel's chairwoman said Sunday.
The impeachment panel was urged to issue the subpoenas last week in a letter from Blagojevich's attorney, Ed Genson.
Genson urged that more than a dozen witnesses, including incoming White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, be subpoenaed.
But U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald advised the state impeachment panel that testimony from Obama aides could jeopardize the criminal probe, Illinois Rep. Barbara Flynn Currie told CNN Radio.
Fitzgerald has previously expressed concern about the impeachment panel interfering with his investigation.
Currie said she received the letter from Fitzgerald on Friday, and although her panel will meet on Monday and might hear from Blagojevich's attorney, there will be no subpoenas of Obama advisers, including Emanuel, Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett, Democratic U.S. Rep.
Calls to Fitzgerald's office Sunday were not immediately returned.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Man shoots talker at movies, police say
A man angry that a family was talking during a movie threw popcorn at the son and then shot the father in the arm, according to police in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
James Joseph Cialella, 29, was charged with attempted murder, aggravated assault and weapons violations, a police report said.
Cialella told the family sitting in front of him in the theater on Christmas Day to be quiet, police said.
An argument ensued while others at the Riverview Movie Theatre watched "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
Cialella then approached the family from the left side of the aisle and shot the father, who was not identified, as he was standing between Cialella and his family, according to the police report.
The victim was taken to Jefferson Hospital with a gunshot wound to his left arm, police said.
Cialella was carrying a Kel-Tec .380-caliber handgun clipped inside his sweatpants, police said.
He was arrested and taken into custody.
Man shoots talker at movies, police say
A man angry that a family was talking during a movie threw popcorn at the son and then shot the father in the arm, according to police in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
James Joseph Cialella, 29, was charged with attempted murder, aggravated assault and weapons violations, a police report said.
Cialella told the family sitting in front of him in the theater on Christmas Day to be quiet, police said.
An argument ensued while others at the Riverview Movie Theatre watched "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
Cialella then approached the family from the left side of the aisle and shot the father, who was not identified, as he was standing between Cialella and his family, according to the police report.
The victim was taken to Jefferson Hospital with a gunshot wound to his left arm, police said.
Cialella was carrying a Kel-Tec .380-caliber handgun clipped inside his sweatpants, police said.
He was arrested and taken into custody.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Single men turning to surrogates
"It was always something I knew, from the time I was a child."
Just like his 3-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, who says she wants to be a mommy someday, Jeff says, "I knew I wanted to be a daddy."
Walker, a Manhattan music executive, says he and his partner had talked about adopting a baby years ago.
But after three emotionally draining, failed attempts at adoption, they decided to turn to surrogacy.
They contacted Circle Surrogacy, a Boston agency that specializes in gay clients.
Their child was conceived with a donor egg, and then the embryo implanted in the surrogate, or carrier.
After Elizabeth was born, Walker and his partner separated.
He then made a critical decision to become a dad again, single, and by choice.
"I realized my family, my two-dad family was going to look different than I thought it was going to look," he said.
Without a partner, he would face even steeper challenges raising Elizabeth and a sibling alone.
Walker says he gave the decision a lot of thought.
"That was the only part that was really controversial, because I do think there are a lot of challenges that single parents face, but at the same time I felt I was capable of handling those challenges," he said.
His second daughter, Alexandra, was born two years ago to the same surrogate, implanted with an egg from a different donor.
Walker, 45, is one of a growing number of single men both gay and straight
who are opting to become fathers alone, with the help of gestational surrogacy.
Surrogacy experts say because the practice is not regulated, many surrogacy arrangements are handled privately by individuals.
Precise figures are hard to come by, but experts say there's no doubt the United States is experiencing a surrogacy baby boom.
Celebrities like Ricky Martin and Clay Aiken announced this year they had had babies with the help of surrogates and the the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology, representing scores of reproductive clinics, reports that the number of gestational surrogate births in the country quadrupled between 1996 and 2006.
"It was always something I knew, from the time I was a child."
Just like his 3-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, who says she wants to be a mommy someday, Jeff says, "I knew I wanted to be a daddy."
Walker, a Manhattan music executive, says he and his partner had talked about adopting a baby years ago.
But after three emotionally draining, failed attempts at adoption, they decided to turn to surrogacy.
They contacted Circle Surrogacy, a Boston agency that specializes in gay clients.
Their child was conceived with a donor egg, and then the embryo implanted in the surrogate, or carrier.
After Elizabeth was born, Walker and his partner separated.
He then made a critical decision to become a dad again, single, and by choice.
"I realized my family, my two-dad family was going to look different than I thought it was going to look," he said.
Without a partner, he would face even steeper challenges raising Elizabeth and a sibling alone.
Walker says he gave the decision a lot of thought.
"That was the only part that was really controversial, because I do think there are a lot of challenges that single parents face, but at the same time I felt I was capable of handling those challenges," he said.
His second daughter, Alexandra, was born two years ago to the same surrogate, implanted with an egg from a different donor.
Walker, 45, is one of a growing number of single men both gay and straight
who are opting to become fathers alone, with the help of gestational surrogacy.
Surrogacy experts say because the practice is not regulated, many surrogacy arrangements are handled privately by individuals.
Precise figures are hard to come by, but experts say there's no doubt the United States is experiencing a surrogacy baby boom.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
850-pound emerald at center of dispute
An 850-pound emerald said to be worth as much as $370 million is in the hands of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department while a court decides who really owns it, a spokesman for the sheriff said.
one of the largest ever found was reported stolen in September from a secured vault in South El Monte in Los Angeles County.
The report was made by someone who claimed to own the giant gemstone, Los Angeles Sheriff's Lt. Thomas Grubb said.
Federal court papers showed the emerald has been at the center of a dispute between a California man who claimed ownership, a company he contracted with to sell it, and a potential buyer.
Detective work traced the Brazilian stone to a Las Vegas, Nevada, warehouse, where the person in possession claimed to be the rightful owner, Grubb said.
A federal judge ordered the sheriff to hold the 180,000-carat emerald until he can sort the case out, Grubb said.
Investigators suspect someone used falsified papers to remove the stone from the secured vault in California, although no criminal charges have been filed, Grubb said.
While Grubb said it was his understanding the stone had been appraised at $370 million, the value is unclear.
The company hired by the owner to sell it said in court papers it had received a $19 million offer, which the company wanted to accept.
It alleged the gemstone's owner then tried to go around the broker to sell the emerald to the same buyer for $75 million.
At one point, the emerald was listed for sale on eBay for a "buy it now" price of $75 million.
850-pound emerald at center of dispute
An 850-pound emerald said to be worth as much as $370 million is in the hands of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department while a court decides who really owns it, a spokesman for the sheriff said.
one of the largest ever found was reported stolen in September from a secured vault in South El Monte in Los Angeles County.
The report was made by someone who claimed to own the giant gemstone, Los Angeles Sheriff's Lt. Thomas Grubb said.
Federal court papers showed the emerald has been at the center of a dispute between a California man who claimed ownership, a company he contracted with to sell it, and a potential buyer.
Detective work traced the Brazilian stone to a Las Vegas, Nevada, warehouse, where the person in possession claimed to be the rightful owner, Grubb said.
A federal judge ordered the sheriff to hold the 180,000-carat emerald until he can sort the case out, Grubb said.
Investigators suspect someone used falsified papers to remove the stone from the secured vault in California, although no criminal charges have been filed, Grubb said.
While Grubb said it was his understanding the stone had been appraised at $370 million, the value is unclear.
The company hired by the owner to sell it said in court papers it had received a $19 million offer, which the company wanted to accept.
It alleged the gemstone's owner then tried to go around the broker to sell the emerald to the same buyer for $75 million.
At one point, the emerald was listed for sale on eBay for a "buy it now" price of $75 million.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Ashley abandons attempt to sell Newcastle
Newcastle owner Mike Ashley has abandoned his attempt to sell the Premier League club after failing to find a buyer.
The billionaire sports tycoon has decided instead to press ahead with his own plans for the north-east giants under current manager Joe Kinnear.
"I am happy to end the uncertainty the fans may have had about the future direction of Newcastle United," Ashley said in a statement on the club's official Web site.
"I know just how important that is to you.
"I have withdrawn Newcastle United from the market, and for me 2009 will be the year in which we drive the club forward together."
Ashley put the club up for sale in September in the wake of ferocious protests from fans after the departure of Kevin Keegan as manager.
Keegan, who was hailed as the savior of the club when he returned earlier in the year for a second spell in charge, fell out with Ashley over transfer policy.
Kinnear was installed as a caretaker manager while Ashley sought prospective buyers, with a price tag of around $600 million.
But despite several consortiums being linked with taking control at St James' Park nothing concrete has emerged, leading to Sunday's announcement.
Results have improved under former Wimbledon boss Kinnear, who has been given a contract until the end of the season and will be looking for funds to strengthen the squad in the January transfer window.
Former player John Anderson told Press Association that success was the key to Ashley winning back the fans' trust.
"If he makes money available to Joe Kinnear, and he spends it wisely, that's all the supporters will care about," said the ex-defender.
Ashley abandons attempt to sell Newcastle
Newcastle owner Mike Ashley has abandoned his attempt to sell the Premier League club after failing to find a buyer.
The billionaire sports tycoon has decided instead to press ahead with his own plans for the north-east giants under current manager Joe Kinnear.
"I am happy to end the uncertainty the fans may have had about the future direction of Newcastle United," Ashley said in a statement on the club's official Web site.
"I know just how important that is to you.
"I have withdrawn Newcastle United from the market, and for me 2009 will be the year in which we drive the club forward together."
Ashley put the club up for sale in September in the wake of ferocious protests from fans after the departure of Kevin Keegan as manager.
Keegan, who was hailed as the savior of the club when he returned earlier in the year for a second spell in charge, fell out with Ashley over transfer policy.
Kinnear was installed as a caretaker manager while Ashley sought prospective buyers, with a price tag of around $600 million.
But despite several consortiums being linked with taking control at St James' Park nothing concrete has emerged, leading to Sunday's announcement.
Results have improved under former Wimbledon boss Kinnear, who has been given a contract until the end of the season and will be looking for funds to strengthen the squad in the January transfer window.
Former player John Anderson told Press Association that success was the key to Ashley winning back the fans' trust.
"If he makes money available to Joe Kinnear, and he spends it wisely, that's all the supporters will care about," said the ex-defender.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Reality television featuring law enforcement officers on the beat is nothing new.
A show featuring a lawman who makes jailed inmates wear pink underwear and uses actors to trick suspects, however, is a new twist.
whose showy brand of justice has raised charges of discrimination and civil-rights abuses while making him a hero among fans of his tough-on-crime attitudes
The show, which premiers this weekend on Fox Reality Channel, features Arpaio and other officers using elaborate ploys crafted by comedy writers and carried out by professional actors to arrest suspects with outstanding warrants.
In one, a suspect is invited to a fake fashion shoot and told he's going to become a supermodel, according to Fox Reality's Web site.
In another, a suspect is tricked into what he thinks is a job as a movie extra and, after a staged argument between the film's "director" and another actor, gets promoted to the starring role.
`Toughest Sheriff` takes act to small screen
Reality television featuring law enforcement officers on the beat is nothing new.
A show featuring a lawman who makes jailed inmates wear pink underwear and uses actors to trick suspects, however, is a new twist.
whose showy brand of justice has raised charges of discrimination and civil-rights abuses while making him a hero among fans of his tough-on-crime attitudes
The show, which premiers this weekend on Fox Reality Channel, features Arpaio and other officers using elaborate ploys crafted by comedy writers and carried out by professional actors to arrest suspects with outstanding warrants.
In one, a suspect is invited to a fake fashion shoot and told he's going to become a supermodel, according to Fox Reality's Web site.
In another, a suspect is tricked into what he thinks is a job as a movie extra and, after a staged argument between the film's "director" and another actor, gets promoted to the starring role.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Israel in `all-out war` with Hamas
Israel is in "all-out war" with Hamas, the nation's defense minister said Monday, as Israeli jets continued to hammer targets in Gaza and the Palestinian death toll reportedly topped 300.
"We have stretched our hand in peace many times to the Palestinian people. We have nothing against the people of Gaza," Defense Minister Ehud Barak said.
"But this is an all-out war against Hamas and its branches." Barak's remarks to parliament came as Israeli warplanes carried out a third day of strikes against the Palestinian militant group that rules Gaza.
The Palestinian death toll from the campaign has topped 300, most of them Hamas militants, Palestinian medical sources said Monday.
The attacks also have wounded about 650 people, the sources said.
Columns of smoke rose over Gaza City, while Israeli tanks cruised along the edges of Gaza.
Iyad Nasr, a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross, said the streets of Gaza were largely empty while airstrikes continued Monday morning.
A U.N. spokeswoman in Gaza City described the scene as chaotic and said Palestinians were "running in all directions" and were fighting among themselves.
Israel says the goal of the bombardment is to stop an ongoing stream of rockets being fired from Gaza into southern Israel.
More than 40 rockets and mortar shells were fired into Israel on Monday despite the raids, according to Israeli police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld.
More than 150 rockets have been launched into Israeli territory since the campaign began, Israel Defense Forces said.
Israel in `all-out war` with Hamas
Israel is in "all-out war" with Hamas, the nation's defense minister said Monday, as Israeli jets continued to hammer targets in Gaza and the Palestinian death toll reportedly topped 300.
"We have stretched our hand in peace many times to the Palestinian people. We have nothing against the people of Gaza," Defense Minister Ehud Barak said.
"But this is an all-out war against Hamas and its branches." Barak's remarks to parliament came as Israeli warplanes carried out a third day of strikes against the Palestinian militant group that rules Gaza.
The Palestinian death toll from the campaign has topped 300, most of them Hamas militants, Palestinian medical sources said Monday.
The attacks also have wounded about 650 people, the sources said.
Columns of smoke rose over Gaza City, while Israeli tanks cruised along the edges of Gaza.
Iyad Nasr, a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross, said the streets of Gaza were largely empty while airstrikes continued Monday morning.
A U.N. spokeswoman in Gaza City described the scene as chaotic and said Palestinians were "running in all directions" and were fighting among themselves.
Israel says the goal of the bombardment is to stop an ongoing stream of rockets being fired from Gaza into southern Israel.
More than 40 rockets and mortar shells were fired into Israel on Monday despite the raids, according to Israeli police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld.
More than 150 rockets have been launched into Israeli territory since the campaign began, Israel Defense Forces said.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Caroline Kennedy says she`s best for the job
After weeks of criticism that she was being too elusive, Senate hopeful Caroline Kennedy is now talking about why she believes she is the best person for the job.
In a media blitz this weekend, Kennedy sought to explain what sets her apart from the handful of other people being considered for Hillary Clinton's Senate seat.
"I would be an unconventional choice I haven't followed a traditional path, but I think I bring a lifetime of experience to this," she told NY1.
She also told The New York Times that "there's a lot of different ways that people are coming to public life now, and it's not only the traditional path."
Asked if she thinks she's the best fit, Kennedy told the Times, "Well, I wouldn't be here if I didn't think I would be the best."
New York Gov. David Paterson has the sole responsibility of picking Clinton's replacement.
His pick would serve for two years before running for election in 2010. If the candidate won that contest, he or she would have to run again in 2012, when Clinton's term ends.
If Paterson selects Kennedy, it would mean the continuation of a Kennedy legacy in the Senate that began 56 years ago with the election of her father, John F. Kennedy, as the junior senator from Massachusetts.
But some are questioning whether she's ready to follow the path taken by her father and her two uncles.
Caroline Kennedy says she`s best for the job
After weeks of criticism that she was being too elusive, Senate hopeful Caroline Kennedy is now talking about why she believes she is the best person for the job.
In a media blitz this weekend, Kennedy sought to explain what sets her apart from the handful of other people being considered for Hillary Clinton's Senate seat.
"I would be an unconventional choice I haven't followed a traditional path, but I think I bring a lifetime of experience to this," she told NY1.
She also told The New York Times that "there's a lot of different ways that people are coming to public life now, and it's not only the traditional path."
Asked if she thinks she's the best fit, Kennedy told the Times, "Well, I wouldn't be here if I didn't think I would be the best."
New York Gov. David Paterson has the sole responsibility of picking Clinton's replacement.
His pick would serve for two years before running for election in 2010. If the candidate won that contest, he or she would have to run again in 2012, when Clinton's term ends.
If Paterson selects Kennedy, it would mean the continuation of a Kennedy legacy in the Senate that began 56 years ago with the election of her father, John F. Kennedy, as the junior senator from Massachusetts.
But some are questioning whether she's ready to follow the path taken by her father and her two uncles.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Classic Radio Flyer wagon updated for 2.0 world
Maybe you had one as a kid, or knew someone who did.
It's the iconic little red wagon with the Radio Flyer logo.
If so, you might not recognize the newest product dreamed up by the brain trust at Radio Flyer's Chicago, Illinois, headquarters.
This wagon, called the Cloud 9, is equipped with enough high-tech bells and whistles to make the family minivan jealous.
"We approached this product much like an automotive company might with a concept car," said Mark Johnson, Radio Flyer's product development manager.
Outfitted with 5-point safety harnesses, padded seats, cup holders, foot brakes and fold-out storage containers, the sleek, curved Cloud 9 has every family covered for a ride through the park.
But that's just for starters.
There's a digital handle that tracks temperature, time, distance and speed just in case energetic parents want to track their split times around the playground.
And there's a slot for an MP3 player, complete with speakers, for some cruising tunes.
The little red wagon has gone 2.0.
"Music is such an important part of kids' and families' lives, we thought it would be great to have a speaker system built in the wagon," said Tom Schlegel, vice president of product development.
The Cloud 9 is still a prototype, but it wasn't developed on a whim.
The company did extensive market research beforehand, then tested it out on the real experts at home.
"We sit down [and] observe how moms and kids are using our products," said Schlegel. "That's where our new ideas come from."
To develop those ideas, Radio Flyer's designers are using state-of-the art technology.
They use Wacom Cintiq graphic tablets, allowing them to draw directly onto digital renderings of new products.
And Radio Flyer also has its own in-house computer numerical control, or CNC, machines that create prototypes right on site.
Radio Flyer's blend of cutting-edge design and old-fashioned products appears to be a successful recipe.
Classic Radio Flyer wagon updated for 2.0 world
Maybe you had one as a kid, or knew someone who did.
It's the iconic little red wagon with the Radio Flyer logo.
If so, you might not recognize the newest product dreamed up by the brain trust at Radio Flyer's Chicago, Illinois, headquarters.
This wagon, called the Cloud 9, is equipped with enough high-tech bells and whistles to make the family minivan jealous.
"We approached this product much like an automotive company might with a concept car," said Mark Johnson, Radio Flyer's product development manager.
Outfitted with 5-point safety harnesses, padded seats, cup holders, foot brakes and fold-out storage containers, the sleek, curved Cloud 9 has every family covered for a ride through the park.
But that's just for starters.
There's a digital handle that tracks temperature, time, distance and speed just in case energetic parents want to track their split times around the playground.
And there's a slot for an MP3 player, complete with speakers, for some cruising tunes.
The little red wagon has gone 2.0.
"Music is such an important part of kids' and families' lives, we thought it would be great to have a speaker system built in the wagon," said Tom Schlegel, vice president of product development.
The Cloud 9 is still a prototype, but it wasn't developed on a whim.
The company did extensive market research beforehand, then tested it out on the real experts at home.
"We sit down [and] observe how moms and kids are using our products," said Schlegel. "That's where our new ideas come from."
To develop those ideas, Radio Flyer's designers are using state-of-the art technology.
They use Wacom Cintiq graphic tablets, allowing them to draw directly onto digital renderings of new products.
And Radio Flyer also has its own in-house computer numerical control, or CNC, machines that create prototypes right on site.
Radio Flyer's blend of cutting-edge design and old-fashioned products appears to be a successful recipe.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Clint Eastwood doesn't know if he's a legend.
he asks, before making a reference to a line from director John Ford's "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance," "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."
But for more than 50 years, he's appeared on the screen and behind the camera.
His film credits include "Dirty Harry," "Every Which Way But Loose" and the three "Man With No Name" Westerns.
His most recent contribution to the film world is "Gran Torino."
In the film, which Eastwood also directed, he stars as Walt Kowalski, a Korean War veteran who is forced by immigrant neighbors to challenge his prejudices.
Kowalski is a recognizable type, the gruff, sometimes bigoted old man who may be hiding more heart than he lets on.
Even though he's not too caring at the start, "he ends up expressing love to a family he's never known before," Eastwood said.
Clint Eastwood doesn't know if he's a legend.
he asks, before making a reference to a line from director John Ford's "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance," "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."
But for more than 50 years, he's appeared on the screen and behind the camera.
His film credits include "Dirty Harry," "Every Which Way But Loose" and the three "Man With No Name" Westerns.
His most recent contribution to the film world is "Gran Torino."
In the film, which Eastwood also directed, he stars as Walt Kowalski, a Korean War veteran who is forced by immigrant neighbors to challenge his prejudices.
Kowalski is a recognizable type, the gruff, sometimes bigoted old man who may be hiding more heart than he lets on.
Even though he's not too caring at the start, "he ends up expressing love to a family he's never known before," Eastwood said.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Gerrard arrested following alleged assault
Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard was among six men arrested in the early hours of Monday morning following an alleged assault in the north west England town of Southport.
According to the Liverpool Echo Web site 28-year-old club captain and England international Gerrard spent the night in police custody and was still being quizzed about the claims on Monday.
PA Sport quoted a police spokesman saying: "Merseyside Police is investigating an assault that took place in the early hours of December 29.
"At around 2.30am, officers attended a disturbance at a licensed premises on Bold Street, Southport.
"Six men were arrested on suspicion of section 20 assault.
The men, four aged 33, 31, 29 and 19, who all come from the Huyton area, a 28-year-old man from Formby and an 18-year-old man from Litherland remain in police custody.
"A 34-year-old man from Southport was taken to hospital with facial injuries which are not believed to be life threatening."
Police sources later revealed the incident took place at the Lounge Inn in Southport and that the victim was the DJ at the premises. Gerrard was at the restaurant and bar
which turns into a nightclub with friends to celebrate Liverpool's 5-1 victory against Newcastle.
The premises remained shut on Monday but evidence of a fight inside could be seen through the windows.
Spots of blood were clearly visible on the floor, and shards of broken glass.
A Liverpool FC spokesman said the club would not be commenting on the alleged incident.
Gerrard arrested following alleged assault
Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard was among six men arrested in the early hours of Monday morning following an alleged assault in the north west England town of Southport.
According to the Liverpool Echo Web site 28-year-old club captain and England international Gerrard spent the night in police custody and was still being quizzed about the claims on Monday.
PA Sport quoted a police spokesman saying: "Merseyside Police is investigating an assault that took place in the early hours of December 29.
"At around 2.30am, officers attended a disturbance at a licensed premises on Bold Street, Southport.
"Six men were arrested on suspicion of section 20 assault.
The men, four aged 33, 31, 29 and 19, who all come from the Huyton area, a 28-year-old man from Formby and an 18-year-old man from Litherland remain in police custody.
"A 34-year-old man from Southport was taken to hospital with facial injuries which are not believed to be life threatening."
Police sources later revealed the incident took place at the Lounge Inn in Southport and that the victim was the DJ at the premises. Gerrard was at the restaurant and bar
which turns into a nightclub with friends to celebrate Liverpool's 5-1 victory against Newcastle.
The premises remained shut on Monday but evidence of a fight inside could be seen through the windows.
Spots of blood were clearly visible on the floor, and shards of broken glass.
A Liverpool FC spokesman said the club would not be commenting on the alleged incident.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Dollar mixed in light trading
The dollar was mixed against major currencies Monday, as a light trading day left markets largely inactive, and Middle East conflict raised concerns about oil and commodities.
At 5 p.m. ET, the 15-nation euro was trading at $1.3927, down from $1.4025 late Friday. The British pound rose to $1.4413 amid expectations for U.K. interest rates to stand well below those in the euro zone.
Parity for the euro and pound is within sight, as the euro rose to an all-time high of 0.9722 pound.
Meanwhile, against the Japanese yen, the greenback slid to ¥90.65 from ¥90.78.
"There's still a holiday feel in the air," said Nick Bennenbroek, head of currency strategy at Wells Fargo.
"The trading activity is very light, so the dollar is staying weak."
Dollar mixed in light trading
The dollar was mixed against major currencies Monday, as a light trading day left markets largely inactive, and Middle East conflict raised concerns about oil and commodities.
At 5 p.m. ET, the 15-nation euro was trading at $1.3927, down from $1.4025 late Friday. The British pound rose to $1.4413 amid expectations for U.K. interest rates to stand well below those in the euro zone.
Parity for the euro and pound is within sight, as the euro rose to an all-time high of 0.9722 pound.
Meanwhile, against the Japanese yen, the greenback slid to ¥90.65 from ¥90.78.
"There's still a holiday feel in the air," said Nick Bennenbroek, head of currency strategy at Wells Fargo.
"The trading activity is very light, so the dollar is staying weak."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Obama chides Illinois governor`s decision to fill Senate seat
President-elect Barack Obama said Tuesday that it is disappointing that Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich ignored warnings from Senate Democrats about appointing a successor to his Senate seat.
On Tuesday, Blagojevich, a Democrat, named former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris to serve the last two years on Obama's Senate term.
Senate Democratic leaders have said they will block the appointment and are urging the governor to step down after his arrest on corruption charges.
It's a point that Obama agrees with.
"Roland Burris is a good man and a fine public servant, but the Senate Democrats made it clear weeks ago that they cannot accept an appointment made by a governor who is accused of selling this very Senate seat," Obama said in a statement. "I agree with their decision, and it is extremely disappointing that Gov. Blagojevich has chosen to ignore it."
FBI agents arrested Blagojevich on December 9 after federal prosecutors alleged, among other things, that he had tried to "sell" Obama's former Senate seat.
Blagojevich denies any wrongdoing and has ignored calls to resign.
Obama added that the best resolution would be for Blagojevich to resign office and "allow a lawful and appropriate process of succession to take place.
While Gov. Blagojevich is entitled to his day in court, the people of Illinois are entitled to a functioning government and major decisions free of taint and controversy."
Burris, 71, also a Democrat, served Illinois from 1979 to 1992
Obama chides Illinois governor`s decision to fill Senate seat
President-elect Barack Obama said Tuesday that it is disappointing that Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich ignored warnings from Senate Democrats about appointing a successor to his Senate seat.
On Tuesday, Blagojevich, a Democrat, named former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris to serve the last two years on Obama's Senate term.
Senate Democratic leaders have said they will block the appointment and are urging the governor to step down after his arrest on corruption charges.
It's a point that Obama agrees with.
"Roland Burris is a good man and a fine public servant, but the Senate Democrats made it clear weeks ago that they cannot accept an appointment made by a governor who is accused of selling this very Senate seat," Obama said in a statement. "I agree with their decision, and it is extremely disappointing that Gov. Blagojevich has chosen to ignore it."
FBI agents arrested Blagojevich on December 9 after federal prosecutors alleged, among other things, that he had tried to "sell" Obama's former Senate seat.
Blagojevich denies any wrongdoing and has ignored calls to resign.
Obama added that the best resolution would be for Blagojevich to resign office and "allow a lawful and appropriate process of succession to take place.
While Gov. Blagojevich is entitled to his day in court, the people of Illinois are entitled to a functioning government and major decisions free of taint and controversy."
Burris, 71, also a Democrat, served Illinois from 1979 to 1992
Earlier this month, he said that despite the scandal associated with the seat, he wanted the job.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Holocaust `greatest` love story a hoax
Oprah Winfrey once dubbed it the "greatest love story" she had ever heard:
a boy held at a Nazi concentration camp during World War II and a girl on the outside who tossed him apples to keep him alive.
They eventually married and grew old together. It turns out the story of Herman and Roma Rosenblat isn't true.
The two had told their love story for years and years, inspiring a book deal, an upcoming movie, and stories across the globe on television, in papers and on the Internet.
A children's book, "Angel Girl," was also based on their love story.
When the couple appeared on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" more than a decade ago, the famed host called it "the single greatest love story in 22 years of doing this show."
But over the weekend, Herman Rosenblat issued a statement through his literary agent, Andrea Hurst, acknowledging the story of how he met his wife was made up.
"Why did I do that and write the story with the girl and the apple, because I wanted to bring happiness to people, to remind them not to hate, but to love and tolerate all people. I brought good feelings to a lot of people, and I brought hope to many. My motivation was to make good in this world," he said in the statement.
"In my dreams, Roma will always throw me an apple, but I now know it is only a dream."
Herman Rosenblat really was in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II
and he really has been married to Roma for decades. Beyond that, the truth is murky.
Berkley Books immediately canceled publication of Rosenblat's memoir, "Angel at the Fence," which was set to be released in February.
"Berkley will demand that the author and the agent return all money that they have received for this work," Berkley spokesman Craig Burke said in a statement.
A movie version of the Rosenblats' story
even though now proven a hoax
remains in the works.
Oprah Winfrey once dubbed it the "greatest love story" she had ever heard:
a boy held at a Nazi concentration camp during World War II and a girl on the outside who tossed him apples to keep him alive.
They eventually married and grew old together. It turns out the story of Herman and Roma Rosenblat isn't true.
The two had told their love story for years and years, inspiring a book deal, an upcoming movie, and stories across the globe on television, in papers and on the Internet.
A children's book, "Angel Girl," was also based on their love story.
When the couple appeared on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" more than a decade ago, the famed host called it "the single greatest love story in 22 years of doing this show."
But over the weekend, Herman Rosenblat issued a statement through his literary agent, Andrea Hurst, acknowledging the story of how he met his wife was made up.
"Why did I do that and write the story with the girl and the apple, because I wanted to bring happiness to people, to remind them not to hate, but to love and tolerate all people. I brought good feelings to a lot of people, and I brought hope to many. My motivation was to make good in this world," he said in the statement.
"In my dreams, Roma will always throw me an apple, but I now know it is only a dream."
Herman Rosenblat really was in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II
and he really has been married to Roma for decades. Beyond that, the truth is murky.
Berkley Books immediately canceled publication of Rosenblat's memoir, "Angel at the Fence," which was set to be released in February.
"Berkley will demand that the author and the agent return all money that they have received for this work," Berkley spokesman Craig Burke said in a statement.
A movie version of the Rosenblats' story
even though now proven a hoax
remains in the works.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
A NASA report on the last minutes of Space Shuttle Columbia cited problems with the crew's helmets, spacesuits and restraints, which resulted in "lethal trauma" to the seven astronauts aboard.
But the report also acknowledged that "the breakup of the crew module ... was not survivable by any currently existing capability."
The spacecraft broke up while re-entering Earth's atmosphere near the end of its mission on February 1, 2003.
The NASA report found the astronauts knew for about 40 seconds that they did not have control of the shuttle before they likely were knocked unconscious as Columbia broke apart around them.
The report also found that while crew members were wearing their pressurized suits, one astronaut did not have on a helmet, three were not wearing gloves and none lowered the visors before the module lost cabin pressure.
One astronaut also was not seated.
"In this accident, none of those actions would have ultimately made any difference," said former shuttle program manager Wayne Hale, now a deputy NASA administrator.
The graphic, 400-page investigative report relied on video, recovered debris and medical findings, supplemented with computer modeling and analyses.
It also includes many recommendations to make space travel safer for future astronauts.
A shuttle-program source told CNN the families of the astronauts who died were brought in specifically to look at the report and even in some cases to help with its preparation.
The report took more than five years to complete.
A NASA report on the last minutes of Space Shuttle Columbia cited problems with the crew's helmets, spacesuits and restraints, which resulted in "lethal trauma" to the seven astronauts aboard.
But the report also acknowledged that "the breakup of the crew module ... was not survivable by any currently existing capability."
The spacecraft broke up while re-entering Earth's atmosphere near the end of its mission on February 1, 2003.
The NASA report found the astronauts knew for about 40 seconds that they did not have control of the shuttle before they likely were knocked unconscious as Columbia broke apart around them.
The report also found that while crew members were wearing their pressurized suits, one astronaut did not have on a helmet, three were not wearing gloves and none lowered the visors before the module lost cabin pressure.
One astronaut also was not seated.
"In this accident, none of those actions would have ultimately made any difference," said former shuttle program manager Wayne Hale, now a deputy NASA administrator.
The graphic, 400-page investigative report relied on video, recovered debris and medical findings, supplemented with computer modeling and analyses.
It also includes many recommendations to make space travel safer for future astronauts.
A shuttle-program source told CNN the families of the astronauts who died were brought in specifically to look at the report and even in some cases to help with its preparation.
The report took more than five years to complete.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Trump denies golf course hit by the crunch
The controversy surrounding Donald Trump's plans to build a golf resort in Scotland continues to grow, as reports emerged this week suggesting the building of 500 homes on the site could be postponed.
However swift denials were issued, with claims construction plans had benefited from the current financial crisis.
Initially George Sorial, Trump's lawyer and managing director of international development for the Trump Organization, was reported in the British press saying they may find it hard to sell the houses due to "the slow-down in the market."
The houses form part of a proposed complex to be based outside of Aberdeen on the northeast coast of Scotland, which will also consist of two golf courses, a hotel and 950 holiday homes.
We have to sell them, so we're not going to build anything until it feels right."
Confusion reigned, however, when, a mere few hours later, Sorial was quoted in Scotland's The Scotsman newspaper as saying there was no change to the plans, and the lengthy timetable of construction "has nothing to do with the credit crunch."
"The residential component will not occur for several years. That is nothing new.
That is how it was originally contemplated by ourselves and Aberdeenshire Council."
He also stated the economic downturn had improved the prospects of the resort
Trump denies golf course hit by the crunch
The controversy surrounding Donald Trump's plans to build a golf resort in Scotland continues to grow, as reports emerged this week suggesting the building of 500 homes on the site could be postponed.
However swift denials were issued, with claims construction plans had benefited from the current financial crisis.
Initially George Sorial, Trump's lawyer and managing director of international development for the Trump Organization, was reported in the British press saying they may find it hard to sell the houses due to "the slow-down in the market."
The houses form part of a proposed complex to be based outside of Aberdeen on the northeast coast of Scotland, which will also consist of two golf courses, a hotel and 950 holiday homes.
The UK's Times newspaper quoted Sorial as saying:
We have to sell them, so we're not going to build anything until it feels right."
"The residential component will not occur for several years.
That is nothing new.
He also stated the economic downturn had improved the prospects of the resort
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Putting a price on procrastinati
David Laibson knows that when he procrastinates, mere deadlines are not always enough to get him going.
So, when this Harvard economics professor collaborates on a major project, he'll sometimes promise to deliver a finished product by a certain date or else pay his co-authors $500.
"There are a lot of behavioral economists who really do say that, and really do pay," says Laibson, who studies the psychological factors that play into economic decisions.
It's not just academics who set up monetary contracts to fight procrastination.
StickK.com, founded by Yale University economics professor Dean Karlan and two colleagues, helps people fulfill their goals by allowing them to risk their own money
if they don't complete their self-described objectives, they lose the money.
"It's a contract to make slothfulness more expensive," said Karlan, who has personally put up to $50,000 at stake to help himself lose or maintain his weight.
The site will soon have its first New Year's week, when people are making their resolutions for 2009.
StickK.com, which launched at the end of January 2008, has about 30,000 registered users, Karlan said.
David Laibson knows that when he procrastinates, mere deadlines are not always enough to get him going.
So, when this Harvard economics professor collaborates on a major project, he'll sometimes promise to deliver a finished product by a certain date or else pay his co-authors $500.
"There are a lot of behavioral economists who really do say that, and really do pay," says Laibson, who studies the psychological factors that play into economic decisions.
It's not just academics who set up monetary contracts to fight procrastination.
StickK.com, founded by Yale University economics professor Dean Karlan and two colleagues, helps people fulfill their goals by allowing them to risk their own money
if they don't complete their self-described objectives, they lose the money.
"It's a contract to make slothfulness more expensive," said Karlan, who has personally put up to $50,000 at stake to help himself lose or maintain his weight.
The site will soon have its first New Year's week, when people are making their resolutions for 2009.
StickK.com, which launched at the end of January 2008, has about 30,000 registered users, Karlan said.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Consumer confidence index at all-time low
A key measure of consumer confidence fell to an all-time low in December amid a dismal job market and uncertain outlook for the new year.
The Conference Board, a New York-based business research group, said Tuesday that its Consumer Confidence Index fell to 38 in December from the downwardly revised 44.7 in November.
Economists were expecting the index to increase to 45.5, according to a Briefing.com consensus survey of economists.
"The further erosion of the Consumer Confidence Index reflects the rapid and steep deterioration of economic conditions that occurred in the fourth quarter of 2008," said Lynn Franco, director of the Conference Board Consumer Research Center, in a statement.
Wachovia senior economist Mark Vitner said that assessment is "right on the money."
"It looks like the uptick in November was a knee-jerk response to the presidential election being over," he said. The "false reading in November" bumped their expectations too high, leading to disappointment this month, Vitner added.
The gloomy news came at the end of a full year of recession.
The credit crunch has strained the financial system as central banks struggle to raise capital.
At the same time, housing prices have plunged and S&P 500 has plummeted more than 40%.
The dollar has been weak against major currencies.
This year's holiday retail season is predicted to have been the worst in decades.
Consumer confidence index at all-time low
A key measure of consumer confidence fell to an all-time low in December amid a dismal job market and uncertain outlook for the new year.
The Conference Board, a New York-based business research group, said Tuesday that its Consumer Confidence Index fell to 38 in December from the downwardly revised 44.7 in November.
Economists were expecting the index to increase to 45.5, according to a Briefing.com consensus survey of economists.
"The further erosion of the Consumer Confidence Index reflects the rapid and steep deterioration of economic conditions that occurred in the fourth quarter of 2008," said Lynn Franco, director of the Conference Board Consumer Research Center, in a statement.
Wachovia senior economist Mark Vitner said that assessment is "right on the money."
"It looks like the uptick in November was a knee-jerk response to the presidential election being over," he said. The "false reading in November" bumped their expectations too high, leading to disappointment this month, Vitner added.
The gloomy news came at the end of a full year of recession.
The credit crunch has strained the financial system as central banks struggle to raise capital.
At the same time, housing prices have plunged and S&P 500 has plummeted more than 40%.
The dollar has been weak against major currencies.
This year's holiday retail season is predicted to have been the worst in decades.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
It appears that Kevin Bacon was one degree too close to Bernie Madoff.
Bacon, the prolific actor, and his wife, fellow screen star Kyra Sedgwick, had investments with Madoff, the financial guru accused of swindling his clients out of $50 billion in a massive Ponzi scheme, Bacon's publicist told CNN Tuesday.
Publicist Allen Eichhorn did not say how much the couple lost, declining to address reports that the figure was in the millions.
"Let's not speculate," he said.
Dreamworks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg and a charity run by director Steven Speilberg mark some of the other Hollywood heavyweights allegedly bilked by Madoff, who remains in his Manhattan home on house arrest after posting $10 million bail.
Bacon, whose credits include "Mystic River," "Footloose" and the recent political biopic "Frost/Nixon," has appeared in 64 movies or television programs since 1978, according to the Internet Movie Database.
It's a career that spawned the parlor game "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon," in which players attempt to link any other actor to Bacon based on the massive number of co-stars with whom he has worked.
Sedgwick stars in TNT's "The Closer," and has screen credits that include "Singles" and "Born on the Fourth of July."
TNT is a unit of Time Warner, CNN's parent company.
Big names hit by Madoff`s alleged financial fraud
It appears that Kevin Bacon was one degree too close to Bernie Madoff.
Bacon, the prolific actor, and his wife, fellow screen star Kyra Sedgwick, had investments with Madoff, the financial guru accused of swindling his clients out of $50 billion in a massive Ponzi scheme, Bacon's publicist told CNN Tuesday.
Publicist Allen Eichhorn did not say how much the couple lost, declining to address reports that the figure was in the millions.
"Let's not speculate," he said.
Dreamworks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg and a charity run by director Steven Speilberg mark some of the other Hollywood heavyweights allegedly bilked by Madoff, who remains in his Manhattan home on house arrest after posting $10 million bail.
Bacon, whose credits include "Mystic River," "Footloose" and the recent political biopic "Frost/Nixon," has appeared in 64 movies or television programs since 1978, according to the Internet Movie Database.
It's a career that spawned the parlor game "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon," in which players attempt to link any other actor to Bacon based on the massive number of co-stars with whom he has worked.
Sedgwick stars in TNT's "The Closer," and has screen credits that include "Singles" and "Born on the Fourth of July."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Israelis strike homes of 2 top Hamas figures;
The Israeli air force bombed the homes Thursday of two top Hamas military figures, killing at least one of them.
The Israel Defense Forces also struck a mosque that it said was a hub for Hamas fighters and used to store missiles, rockets and other weapons, it said Thursday.
The attacks came on the sixth day of Israeli air strikes against Gaza, which is tucked between Israel and Egypt and has been used as a staging ground for sporadic rocket attacks by Hamas into Israel.
Palestinian medical sources said at least 400 people have been killed in Gaza since the Israeli raids began Saturday, and 2,000 have been wounded.
Officials in Israel said four people, three of them civilians, have died from Palestinian rocket fire.
Another 56 have been wounded, emergency medical services reported.
The Hamas television station Al-Aqsa showed the body of Nizar Rayan, one of the main founders of Hamas and a commander in northern Gaza, being pulled from the rubble of his house in Jabaliya, north of Gaza City.
The Islamist University lecturer "ranked among Hamas' top five decision-makers as the liaison between the group's military and political wing," the paper said.
The newspaper also described him as an "outspoken advocate of renewing suicide bombings against Israel."
Israelis strike homes of 2 top Hamas figures;
The Israeli air force bombed the homes Thursday of two top Hamas military figures, killing at least one of them.
The Israel Defense Forces also struck a mosque that it said was a hub for Hamas fighters and used to store missiles, rockets and other weapons, it said Thursday.
The attacks came on the sixth day of Israeli air strikes against Gaza, which is tucked between Israel and Egypt and has been used as a staging ground for sporadic rocket attacks by Hamas into Israel.
Palestinian medical sources said at least 400 people have been killed in Gaza since the Israeli raids began Saturday, and 2,000 have been wounded.
Officials in Israel said four people, three of them civilians, have died from Palestinian rocket fire.
Another 56 have been wounded, emergency medical services reported.
The Hamas television station Al-Aqsa showed the body of Nizar Rayan, one of the main founders of Hamas and a commander in northern Gaza, being pulled from the rubble of his house in Jabaliya, north of Gaza City.
The Islamist University lecturer "ranked among Hamas' top five decision-makers as the liaison between the group's military and political wing," the paper said.
The newspaper also described him as an "outspoken advocate of renewing suicide bombings against Israel."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
At least 59 people were killed and more than 200 others injured early Thursday after a fire broke out at an upscale Bangkok nightclub where about 1,000 revelers were ringing in the new year, Thai police said.
Most of the victims died from smoke inhalation or were trampled in a rush to get out of the club.
Thirty bodies have been identified: 29 Thai nationals and one Singaporean, according to police.
The fire began at the nightclub Santika about 12:35 a.m., Thai police said.
Rescue officials said 226 others were injured, including several foreigners.
Two Americans were injured in the fire, a U.S. State Department official said.
The official did not release the victims' names or the extent of their injuries but said the department is in contact with them.
Steven Hall, a British national who was hurt in the blaze, told CNN that flames began to spread along the ceiling above the stage where a band and DJ were performing. But some people appeared to believe that it was part of the performance.
"At the same time there were people rushing to get out, there were other people who seemed to be lacking a sense of urgency and didn't seem to realize what was going on," Hall said.
The blaze started near a stage where fireworks were being used as part of a performance on the club's closing night, police Maj. Gen. Chokchai Deeprasertwit said.
At least 59 people were killed and more than 200 others injured early Thursday after a fire broke out at an upscale Bangkok nightclub where about 1,000 revelers were ringing in the new year, Thai police said.
Most of the victims died from smoke inhalation or were trampled in a rush to get out of the club.
Thirty bodies have been identified: 29 Thai nationals and one Singaporean, according to police.
The fire began at the nightclub Santika about 12:35 a.m., Thai police said.
Rescue officials said 226 others were injured, including several foreigners.
Two Americans were injured in the fire, a U.S. State Department official said.
The official did not release the victims' names or the extent of their injuries but said the department is in contact with them.
Steven Hall, a British national who was hurt in the blaze, told CNN that flames began to spread along the ceiling above the stage where a band and DJ were performing.
But some people appeared to believe that it was part of the performance.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
5 small changes to help you lose weight
Tim Kassouf lost 45 pounds, and it all started when he got really mad at his girlfriend.
Kassouf, a 24-year-old marketing manager in Baltimore, Maryland, was moaning to his beloved that he'd gained weight recently.
The men in his family are prone to heart attacks, and his grandfather died of one at age 29.
But instead of giving Kassouf the sympathy he expected, his girlfriend told him off.
"She said, 'You keep complaining about it but do nothing about it.
' I was angry she said that, but she was totally right," Kassouf said.
"That would last about a day," he said.
So he moved on to Plan B:
Four years after he got mad at his girlfriend, Kassouf weighs 200 pounds, down from 245, mostly by focusing on a few parts of his diet without changing everything.
For Kassouf, small changes started with soda.
"I was probably drinking 10 Cokes a day," he said.
By switching out those Cokes for water, Kassouf saved 1,400 calories a day.
Then he worked on his snacking.
He used to eat a 12-ounce bag of Doritos while watching television.
"The show would be over, and the bag would be empty," he said.
Now, he takes a handful out of the bag and puts it on a plate, and that's all he eats, saving 1,350 calories a day.
Kassouf said he lost about 5 pounds just by making the Coke and Doritos changes and then lost 15 more by cutting down on sweets and switching from white flour to wheat flour.
Exercising helped him shed 25 more pounds.
Most people gain a pound or two a year, he said, which can really add up.
A svelte 130-pound 18-year-old could turn into an overweight 170-pound 38-year-old.
latte made with whole milk
latte made with skim milk
5 small changes to help you lose weight
Tim Kassouf lost 45 pounds, and it all started when he got really mad at his girlfriend.
Kassouf, a 24-year-old marketing manager in Baltimore, Maryland, was moaning to his beloved that he'd gained weight recently.
The men in his family are prone to heart attacks, and his grandfather died of one at age 29.
But instead of giving Kassouf the sympathy he expected, his girlfriend told him off.
"She said, 'You keep complaining about it but do nothing about it.
' I was angry she said that, but she was totally right," Kassouf said.
"That would last about a day," he said.
So he moved on to Plan B:
Four years after he got mad at his girlfriend, Kassouf weighs 200 pounds, down from 245, mostly by focusing on a few parts of his diet without changing everything.
For Kassouf, small changes started with soda.
"I was probably drinking 10 Cokes a day," he said.
By switching out those Cokes for water, Kassouf saved 1,400 calories a day.
Then he worked on his snacking.
He used to eat a 12-ounce bag of Doritos while watching television.
"The show would be over, and the bag would be empty," he said.
Now, he takes a handful out of the bag and puts it on a plate, and that's all he eats, saving 1,350 calories a day.
Kassouf said he lost about 5 pounds just by making the Coke and Doritos changes and then lost 15 more by cutting down on sweets and switching from white flour to wheat flour.
Exercising helped him shed 25 more pounds.
Most people gain a pound or two a year, he said, which can really add up.
A svelte 130-pound 18-year-old could turn into an overweight 170-pound 38-year-old.
latte made with whole milk
latte made with skim milk
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Gazprom cuts off Ukraine`s gas supply
Russian energy monopoly Gazprom said Thursday it has cut off supplies of natural gas to Ukraine after a payment deadline expired.
Gazprom had been threatening the move, saying months of negotiations with Ukraine had failed to resolve the issue of outstanding payments.
The company says Ukraine owes about $2 billion for past natural gas deliveries.
Ukraine also disputes the new price set by Gazprom for 2009 deliveries, which was initially more than double the price from 2008.
Gazprom has reassured the rest of Europe that its natural gas supply, which runs through Ukraine, will not be affected by the dispute with Kiev.
Thursday, a Gazprom spokesman said on Russian state television the company had actually increased the deliveries to the rest of the continent.
"Gazprom will continue supplying gas for its consumers in Europe at full volume," the company's chief executive, Alexey Miller, said.
"We have an effective transit contract." Without natural gas, some Ukrainians could be in for chilly days and nights.
Gazprom cuts off Ukraine`s gas supply
Russian energy monopoly Gazprom said Thursday it has cut off supplies of natural gas to Ukraine after a payment deadline expired.
Gazprom had been threatening the move, saying months of negotiations with Ukraine had failed to resolve the issue of outstanding payments.
The company says Ukraine owes about $2 billion for past natural gas deliveries.
Ukraine also disputes the new price set by Gazprom for 2009 deliveries, which was initially more than double the price from 2008.
Gazprom has reassured the rest of Europe that its natural gas supply, which runs through Ukraine, will not be affected by the dispute with Kiev.
Thursday, a Gazprom spokesman said on Russian state television the company had actually increased the deliveries to the rest of the continent.
"Gazprom will continue supplying gas for its consumers in Europe at full volume," the company's chief executive, Alexey Miller, said.
"We have an effective transit contract." Without natural gas, some Ukrainians could be in for chilly days and nights.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Ronaldo dismisses new link with Real Madrid
Cristiano Ronaldo gave Manchester United a New Year boost by again ruling out a move to Spanish giants Real Madrid.
The European Footballer of the Year has been constantly linked with a transfer to the Bernabeu, speculation which increased following recent claims that Real had reached an agreement with United over his eventual sale.
"There's always speculation, not just about me, but about the future of players all around the world," Ronaldo told the club's official television station MUTV.
"People were speaking about me this summer but that was normal because of what I did during the season.
Ronaldo was widely quoted during a turbulent summer that he was keen to play for Real and it appeared only a matter of time before the move became a reality, but now the 23-year-old is pledging loyalty to the Old Trafford faithful.
"I love the fans because they have been brilliant with me, not just this season but every season. Like I said before, I feel at home in Manchester," he added.
Ronaldo dismisses new link with Real Madrid
Cristiano Ronaldo gave Manchester United a New Year boost by again ruling out a move to Spanish giants Real Madrid.
The European Footballer of the Year has been constantly linked with a transfer to the Bernabeu, speculation which increased following recent claims that Real had reached an agreement with United over his eventual sale.
"There's always speculation, not just about me, but about the future of players all around the world," Ronaldo told the club's official television station MUTV.
"People were speaking about me this summer but that was normal because of what I did during the season.
Ronaldo was widely quoted during a turbulent summer that he was keen to play for Real and it appeared only a matter of time before the move became a reality, but now the 23-year-old is pledging loyalty to the Old Trafford faithful.
"I love the fans because they have been brilliant with me, not just this season but every season. Like I said before, I feel at home in Manchester," he added.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
A statue worth more than $10,000 that was stolen from the Palm Beach, Florida, estate of Wall Street investment adviser Bernard Madoff has been recovered, police said Thursday.
Palm Beach police Sgt. Chris Proscia said the 4-foot-high statue was found Wednesday morning with a message attached to it reading:
"Bernie the Swindler, Lesson: Return stolen property to rightful owners."
The statue was stolen December 19, eight days after Madoff was arrested in New York on suspicion of operating a $50 billion Ponzi scheme.
He was charged with securities fraud and is under house arrest in New York while awaiting court proceedings.
Police said the statue, which depicts two lifeguards sitting on a bench, was discovered undamaged in some bushes a few blocks from Madoff's million-dollar Palm Beach estate.
The note on it was signed, "The Educators."
The theft, which was discovered by a property manager for Madoff, is under investigation, authorities said.
The investor was charged in December with one count of securities fraud.
Statue stolen from Madoff found with message
A statue worth more than $10,000 that was stolen from the Palm Beach, Florida, estate of Wall Street investment adviser Bernard Madoff has been recovered, police said Thursday.
Palm Beach police Sgt. Chris Proscia said the 4-foot-high statue was found Wednesday morning with a message attached to it reading:
"Bernie the Swindler, Lesson: Return stolen property to rightful owners."
The statue was stolen December 19, eight days after Madoff was arrested in New York on suspicion of operating a $50 billion Ponzi scheme.
He was charged with securities fraud and is under house arrest in New York while awaiting court proceedings.
Police said the statue, which depicts two lifeguards sitting on a bench, was discovered undamaged in some bushes a few blocks from Madoff's million-dollar Palm Beach estate.
The note on it was signed, "The Educators."
The theft, which was discovered by a property manager for Madoff, is under investigation, authorities said.
The investor was charged in December with one count of securities fraud.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Time Warner Cable and Viacom worked Thursday to finalize details on an agreement that will allow TWC customers to continue to watch programming on Viacom's MTV Networks, said TWC president and CEO Glenn Britt.
The developing agreement is expected to benefit both companies and their audiences, Viacom chief Philippe Dauman said.
Wednesday, TWC customers faced the prospect that channels such as Nickelodeon, Comedy Central and MTV could go dark as of 12:01 a.m. Thursday.
Those channels carry such popular shows as "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," "The Hills" and "iCarly."
Time Warner Cable reportedly has about 13 million subscribers and is a major presence in the New York City market.
The dispute arose after Viacom announced new fees for carrying its networks adding up to $39 million a year on top of the hundreds of millions of dollars TWC is already paying to Viacom, according to TWC spokesman Alex Dudley.
Dudley described the 15 percent overall increase in fees as "unreasonable," since programming rates are declining and the United States is facing terrible economic conditions.
a unit of Time Warner, the parent company of CNN says it's working to protect its customers' interests, but Viacom argued the renewal fees were reasonable and modest when considering the profits TWC enjoys from Viacom networks.
Media giants talking, channels still on cable
Time Warner Cable and Viacom worked Thursday to finalize details on an agreement that will allow TWC customers to continue to watch programming on Viacom's MTV Networks, said TWC president and CEO Glenn Britt.
The developing agreement is expected to benefit both companies and their audiences, Viacom chief Philippe Dauman said.
Wednesday, TWC customers faced the prospect that channels such as Nickelodeon, Comedy Central and MTV could go dark as of 12:01 a.m. Thursday.
Those channels carry such popular shows as "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," "The Hills" and "iCarly."
Time Warner Cable reportedly has about 13 million subscribers and is a major presence in the New York City market.
The dispute arose after Viacom announced new fees for carrying its networks adding up to $39 million a year on top of the hundreds of millions of dollars TWC is already paying to Viacom, according to TWC spokesman Alex Dudley.
Dudley described the 15 percent overall increase in fees as "unreasonable," since programming rates are declining and the United States is facing terrible economic conditions.
a unit of Time Warner, the parent company of CNN says it's working to protect its customers' interests, but Viacom argued the renewal fees were reasonable and modest when considering the profits TWC enjoys from Viacom networks.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Stoves help keep Darfur`s women out of harm`s way
In Sudan's Darfur region, where violence and genocide are rampant, women risk their lives every day performing tasks as seemingly mundane as seeking out firewood.
But, from his suburban home, one Maryland teen has dedicated himself to making life a little safer for those women.
The United Nations estimates that 300,000 people have been slaughtered in the ongoing violence in the north African country.
Countless others have been forced out of their homes and are living in refugee camps.
People living in the camps are relatively safe, but there is danger for the women and young girls who leave the compounds in search of firewood to cook meals.
Firewood in the desert is scarce, and the women often have to walk up to seven hours to gather enough wood to bring back to their camps.
Some women have been targeted, sexually assaulted and killed.
Spencer Brodsky, 17, learned about the violence and decided to raise money to purchase fuel-efficient stoves to send to Darfur.
The stoves burn 75 percent less firewood.
Brodsky reasons that if he can do something to keep Sudanese women in the camps, this would decrease the likelihood of violence.
Stoves help keep Darfur`s women out of harm`s way
In Sudan's Darfur region, where violence and genocide are rampant, women risk their lives every day performing tasks as seemingly mundane as seeking out firewood.
But, from his suburban home, one Maryland teen has dedicated himself to making life a little safer for those women.
The United Nations estimates that 300,000 people have been slaughtered in the ongoing violence in the north African country.
Countless others have been forced out of their homes and are living in refugee camps.
People living in the camps are relatively safe, but there is danger for the women and young girls who leave the compounds in search of firewood to cook meals.
Firewood in the desert is scarce, and the women often have to walk up to seven hours to gather enough wood to bring back to their camps.
Some women have been targeted, sexually assaulted and killed.
Spencer Brodsky, 17, learned about the violence and decided to raise money to purchase fuel-efficient stoves to send to Darfur.
The stoves burn 75 percent less firewood.
Brodsky reasons that if he can do something to keep Sudanese women in the camps, this would decrease the likelihood of violence.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Enya celebrates `Winter`
How many recording artists have enjoyed 20 years of success while never having toured? "The fans are very, very loyal," says the Irish chanteuse.
"They're always saying, 'When is the next album? ' They know when I finish in the studio it's got to be a few years before the next album."
Perhaps it's the vast gaps between releases that help make Enya, 47, the Emerald Isle's second-biggest-selling artist of all time (after U2).
Thanks to a stipulation in her recording contract, the Grammy winner has the luxury of setting her own pace with each project, another rarity in the music business.
She'll devote two to three years to each album, flitting between her Dublin castle and the studio, where she works tirelessly to perfect every celestial chord and layer harmony upon harmony.
"The music has always been the successful aspect on my career and that means that, to me, I can always still stay very focused on music."
the seventh of her career celebrates both the drama and quiet contemplation that come with the winter season.
Called "And Winter Came," the release has reached the top 10 on album charts across Europe and in the U.S. since its November release.
And while Enya won't commit to the idea of taking her tunes on the road, she does hint at the possibility.
There'd be a lot of rehearsals, but it'd be very exciting," she says.
Enya celebrates `Winter`
How many recording artists have enjoyed 20 years of success while never having toured? "The fans are very, very loyal," says the Irish chanteuse.
"They're always saying, 'When is the next album? ' They know when I finish in the studio it's got to be a few years before the next album."
Perhaps it's the vast gaps between releases that help make Enya, 47, the Emerald Isle's second-biggest-selling artist of all time (after U2).
Thanks to a stipulation in her recording contract, the Grammy winner has the luxury of setting her own pace with each project, another rarity in the music business.
She'll devote two to three years to each album, flitting between her Dublin castle and the studio, where she works tirelessly to perfect every celestial chord and layer harmony upon harmony.
"The music has always been the successful aspect on my career and that means that, to me, I can always still stay very focused on music."
the seventh of her career celebrates both the drama and quiet contemplation that come with the winter season.
Called "And Winter Came," the release has reached the top 10 on album charts across Europe and in the U.S. since its November release.
And while Enya won't commit to the idea of taking her tunes on the road, she does hint at the possibility.
"To actually tour with the songs would be wonderful.
It would be very much on a large scale:
the orchestra, the choir.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Smoke-free laws may cut heart attack hospitalizations
Implementing smoke-free policies can lead to fewer hospitalizations resulting from heart attacks, according to a new study published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Researchers studied the impact of smoke-free ordinances implemented in Pueblo, Colorado, in July 2003.
They compared the number of hospitalizations for heart attacks 18 months before the policy went into effect and three years after implementation.
The Pueblo Heart Study found that although 399 people were hospitalized for heart attacks before any smoke-free laws went into effect, that number dropped to 237 three years after the law's introduction, a 41 percent decline.
The study was published in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report on Wednesday.
The accompanying editorial suggests that there may be several reasons the ordinance may have led to a reduction in the number of heart attack-related hospitalizations:
The ordinance led to an immediate decrease in secondhand smoke exposure.
People who were forced to comply with smoke-free rules in public may have adopted a smoke-free environment at home and thus reduced the exposure to secondhand smoke even more.
Restrictions to where you can smoke may have led more people to quit smoking altogether.
While the Colorado researcher didn't know if the study participants were smokers or non-smokers, the CDC's editorial points out that the new study adds to research from eight other studies, which also saw a drop in heart attack related hospitalizations after smoke-free laws are enforced.
A 2006 Surgeon General report concluded that "exposure of adults to secondhand smoke has immediate adverse effects on the cardiovascular system and causes coronary heart disease and lung cancer."
According to the National Cancer Institute and American Cancer Society, secondhand smoke is the combination of two types of smoke that is produced when burning tobacco:
the smoke that comes from the burning end of a cigarette, cigar or pipe and the smoke that is exhaled by the smoker.
The Environmental Protection Agency has classified secondhand smoke as a known human cancer-causing agent.
According to the cancer institute, there is no safe level of secondhand smoke, and it can have an immediate effect "on a person's heart and blood vessels."
Smoke-free laws may cut heart attack hospitalizations
Implementing smoke-free policies can lead to fewer hospitalizations resulting from heart attacks, according to a new study published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Researchers studied the impact of smoke-free ordinances implemented in Pueblo, Colorado, in July 2003.
They compared the number of hospitalizations for heart attacks 18 months before the policy went into effect and three years after implementation.
The Pueblo Heart Study found that although 399 people were hospitalized for heart attacks before any smoke-free laws went into effect, that number dropped to 237 three years after the law's introduction, a 41 percent decline.
The study was published in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report on Wednesday.
The accompanying editorial suggests that there may be several reasons the ordinance may have led to a reduction in the number of heart attack-related hospitalizations:
The ordinance led to an immediate decrease in secondhand smoke exposure.
People who were forced to comply with smoke-free rules in public may have adopted a smoke-free environment at home and thus reduced the exposure to secondhand smoke even more.
Restrictions to where you can smoke may have led more people to quit smoking altogether.
While the Colorado researcher didn't know if the study participants were smokers or non-smokers, the CDC's editorial points out that the new study adds to research from eight other studies, which also saw a drop in heart attack related hospitalizations after smoke-free laws are enforced.
A 2006 Surgeon General report concluded that "exposure of adults to secondhand smoke has immediate adverse effects on the cardiovascular system and causes coronary heart disease and lung cancer."
According to the National Cancer Institute and American Cancer Society, secondhand smoke is the combination of two types of smoke that is produced when burning tobacco:
the smoke that comes from the burning end of a cigarette, cigar or pipe and the smoke that is exhaled by the smoker.
The Environmental Protection Agency has classified secondhand smoke as a known human cancer-causing agent.
According to the cancer institute, there is no safe level of secondhand smoke, and it can have an immediate effect "on a person's heart and blood vessels."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
As many as one in eight teens in the United States may take a virginity pledge at some point, vowing to wait until they're married before having sex.
But do such pledges work? Are pledge takers more likely than other teens to delay sexual activity?
A new study suggests that the answer is no.
While teens who take virginity pledges do delay sexual activity until an average age of 21 (compared to about age 17 for the average American teen), the reason for the delay is more likely due to pledge takers' religious background and conservative views
not the pledge itself. According to a study published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, pledge takers are as likely to have sex before marriage as other teens who are also religious, but don't take the pledge.
However, pledge takers are less likely than other religious or conservative teens to use condoms or birth control when they do start having sex.
In the new study, Janet Rosenbaum, Ph.D., of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland, analyzed the large chunk of data used in all the studies that have looked at virginity pledges: the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health.
In this survey, middle and high school students were asked about their sexual behaviors and opinions starting in 1995-96.
In the analysis, Rosenbaum compared 289 young adults who took virginity pledges in their teens with 645 young people who did not take such a pledge.
The researcher was careful to only compare teens who had similar views on religion, birth control and sex in general, regardless of whether or not they took a pledge.
Five years after the initial survey the study subjects were aged 20 to 23.
Eighty-two percent of pledge takers denied (or forgot) they had ever taken such a vow.
Virginity pledges don`t mean much, study says
As many as one in eight teens in the United States may take a virginity pledge at some point, vowing to wait until they're married before having sex.
But do such pledges work? Are pledge takers more likely than other teens to delay sexual activity?
A new study suggests that the answer is no.
While teens who take virginity pledges do delay sexual activity until an average age of 21 (compared to about age 17 for the average American teen), the reason for the delay is more likely due to pledge takers' religious background and conservative views
not the pledge itself. According to a study published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, pledge takers are as likely to have sex before marriage as other teens who are also religious, but don't take the pledge.
However, pledge takers are less likely than other religious or conservative teens to use condoms or birth control when they do start having sex.
In the new study, Janet Rosenbaum, Ph.D., of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland, analyzed the large chunk of data used in all the studies that have looked at virginity pledges: the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health.
In this survey, middle and high school students were asked about their sexual behaviors and opinions starting in 1995-96.
In the analysis, Rosenbaum compared 289 young adults who took virginity pledges in their teens with 645 young people who did not take such a pledge.
The researcher was careful to only compare teens who had similar views on religion, birth control and sex in general, regardless of whether or not they took a pledge.
Five years after the initial survey the study subjects were aged 20 to 23.
Eighty-two percent of pledge takers denied (or forgot) they had ever taken such a vow.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Patients `lying everywhere`
Gaza's main hospital, already full of Palestinians wounded in the week-long Israeli air assault, reached critical mass on Sunday, according to a Norwegian doctor volunteering at Shifa Hospital.
"We've had a steady stream [of patients] every day, but the last 24 hours has [brought] about triple the number of cases," Dr. Erik Fosse told CNN. "So this day has been extremely busy."
Fosse said he estimated that about 30 percent of the casualties at Shifa Hospital on Sunday were children, both among the dead and the wounded.
The increase in casualties at Shifa followed Israel's's ground incursion into Gaza, which it launched on Saturday night.
Fosse said 50 patients were "severely wounded" when an Israeli airstrike hit a food market in Gaza City.
"We were operating in the corridors, patients were lying everywhere, and people were dying before they got treatment," he said.
Palestinian medical officials said Israeli forces have killed 37 Palestinians both civilians and militants since moving into the territory Saturday night.
With those deaths, at least 485 Palestinians, including about 100 women and children, have been killed since the military operation began more than a week ago, officials said.
In addition, 2,600 Palestinians have been injured, most of them civilians, officials said.
Most of the casualties are a result of the airstrikes that preceded Saturday night's ground incursion.
Shifa is the main hospital in Gaza City.
Other hospitals were unable to treat the wounded because of a shortage of supplies and staff.
Patients `lying everywhere`
Gaza's main hospital, already full of Palestinians wounded in the week-long Israeli air assault, reached critical mass on Sunday, according to a Norwegian doctor volunteering at Shifa Hospital.
"We've had a steady stream [of patients] every day, but the last 24 hours has [brought] about triple the number of cases," Dr. Erik Fosse told CNN. "So this day has been extremely busy."
Fosse said he estimated that about 30 percent of the casualties at Shifa Hospital on Sunday were children, both among the dead and the wounded.
The increase in casualties at Shifa followed Israel's's ground incursion into Gaza, which it launched on Saturday night.
Fosse said 50 patients were "severely wounded" when an Israeli airstrike hit a food market in Gaza City.
"We were operating in the corridors, patients were lying everywhere, and people were dying before they got treatment," he said.
Palestinian medical officials said Israeli forces have killed 37 Palestinians both civilians and militants since moving into the territory Saturday night.
With those deaths, at least 485 Palestinians, including about 100 women and children, have been killed since the military operation began more than a week ago, officials said.
In addition, 2,600 Palestinians have been injured, most of them civilians, officials said.
Most of the casualties are a result of the airstrikes that preceded Saturday night's ground incursion.
Shifa is the main hospital in Gaza City.
Other hospitals were unable to treat the wounded because of a shortage of supplies and staff.
Israeli leaders say they are trying to minimize civilian casualties in Gaza.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Lost that loving feeling?
Love is not all around?
Take heart, scientists have discovered that people can have a love that lasts a lifetime.
Using brain scans, researchers at Stony Brook University in New York have discovered a small number of couples respond with as much passion after 20 years together as most people only do during the early throes of romance, Britain's Sunday Times newspaper reported.
The researchers scanned the brains of couples together for 20 years and compared them with results from new lovers, the Sunday Times said.
About 10 percent of the mature couples had the same chemical reactions when shown photographs of their loved ones as those just starting out.
Previous research has suggested that the first stages of romantic love fade within 15 months and after 10 years it has gone completely, the newspaper said.
"The findings go against the traditional view of romance
that it drops off sharply in the first decade
Love's first blush fading?
Lost that loving feeling?
Love is not all around?
Take heart, scientists have discovered that people can have a love that lasts a lifetime.
Using brain scans, researchers at Stony Brook University in New York have discovered a small number of couples respond with as much passion after 20 years together as most people only do during the early throes of romance, Britain's Sunday Times newspaper reported.
The researchers scanned the brains of couples together for 20 years and compared them with results from new lovers, the Sunday Times said.
About 10 percent of the mature couples had the same chemical reactions when shown photographs of their loved ones as those just starting out.
Previous research has suggested that the first stages of romantic love fade within 15 months and after 10 years it has gone completely, the newspaper said.
"The findings go against the traditional view of romance
that it drops off sharply in the first decade
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Bill Richardson bows out of commerce secretary job
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson is withdrawing his nomination to be commerce secretary, citing the distraction of a federal investigation into ties to a company that has done business with his state.
Two Democratic officials told CNN the investigation involves a California company that won municipal bond business in New Mexico after contributing money to various Richardson causes.
In a statement Sunday, Richardson said he asked Obama "not to move forward" with his nomination now.
But a pending investigation of a company that has done business with New Mexico state government promises to extend for several weeks or, perhaps, even months," the statement reads. "Let me say unequivocally that I and my Administration have acted properly in all matters and that this investigation will bear out that fact. But I have concluded that the ongoing investigation also would have forced an untenable delay in the confirmation process.
"Given the gravity of the economic situation the nation is facing, I could not in good conscience ask the President-elect and his Administration to delay for one day the important work that needs to be done."
Richardson, one of the best-known Hispanics in the Democratic Party, served as energy secretary in the Clinton administration as well as ambassador to the United Nations.
The 61-year-old said he will remain governor.
Bill Richardson bows out of commerce secretary job
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson is withdrawing his nomination to be commerce secretary, citing the distraction of a federal investigation into ties to a company that has done business with his state.
Two Democratic officials told CNN the investigation involves a California company that won municipal bond business in New Mexico after contributing money to various Richardson causes.
In a statement Sunday, Richardson said he asked Obama "not to move forward" with his nomination now.
But a pending investigation of a company that has done business with New Mexico state government promises to extend for several weeks or, perhaps, even months," the statement reads. "Let me say unequivocally that I and my Administration have acted properly in all matters and that this investigation will bear out that fact. But I have concluded that the ongoing investigation also would have forced an untenable delay in the confirmation process.
"Given the gravity of the economic situation the nation is facing, I could not in good conscience ask the President-elect and his Administration to delay for one day the important work that needs to be done."
Richardson, one of the best-known Hispanics in the Democratic Party, served as energy secretary in the Clinton administration as well as ambassador to the United Nations.
The 61-year-old said he will remain governor.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Gertrude Baines, a 114-year-old California resident, will likely be crowned the world's oldest woman, according to the organization that keeps track of such honors.
The previous oldest woman was Maria de Jesus, who died this week in Portugal at age 115, Guinness World Records said.
born to former slaves in a small town south of Atlanta, Georgia, in 1894
Baines appeared cheerful and talkative when the Los Angeles Times interviewed her in November as she cast her vote for Barack Obama for president, whom she said she supported because "he's for the colored people."
"I'm glad we're getting a colored man in there," she said.
Baines apparently prefers using the older term for her race.
She was well into her 70s when "African-American" became the common reference in the United States.
She told the Times she spends most of her time "doing nothing but eating and sleeping."
When CNN interviewed Baines two years ago, she was asked to explain why she thought she has lived so long.
I took good care of myself, the way he wanted me to," Baines said.
Her only child, a daughter, died of typhoid fever at age 18.
Much of her long life was lived in Ohio, where she worked as a "house mom" at a state university.
She eventually divorced and traveled to Los Angeles, where she retired.
Baines will not officially be given the title until after Guinness World Records completes an investigation, the organization said.
114-year-old U.S. woman to be world`s oldest
Gertrude Baines, a 114-year-old California resident, will likely be crowned the world's oldest woman, according to the organization that keeps track of such honors.
The previous oldest woman was Maria de Jesus, who died this week in Portugal at age 115, Guinness World Records said.
born to former slaves in a small town south of Atlanta, Georgia, in 1894
Baines appeared cheerful and talkative when the Los Angeles Times interviewed her in November as she cast her vote for Barack Obama for president, whom she said she supported because "he's for the colored people."
"I'm glad we're getting a colored man in there," she said.
Baines apparently prefers using the older term for her race.
She was well into her 70s when "African-American" became the common reference in the United States.
She told the Times she spends most of her time "doing nothing but eating and sleeping."
When CNN interviewed Baines two years ago, she was asked to explain why she thought she has lived so long.
I took good care of myself, the way he wanted me to," Baines said.
Her only child, a daughter, died of typhoid fever at age 18.
Much of her long life was lived in Ohio, where she worked as a "house mom" at a state university.
She eventually divorced and traveled to Los Angeles, where she retired.
Baines will not officially be given the title until after Guinness World Records completes an investigation, the organization said.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
How to recharge your New Year`s resolution
Mike Moriarty has big expectations for the new year.
"My goal is to fit into these pants better," he said, patting his stomach.
Moriarty, 47, an attorney from Holyoke, Massachusetts, doesn't want to call his weight-loss plan a resolution.
"They are very hard to stick with," Moriarty lamented. "I make them all the time and break them in about three hours."
Moriarty isn't the only one who has a tough time sticking with a resolution.
Clinical psychologist Mark Crawford from Atlanta, Georgia, said almost everyone has something he or she would like to change or improve, but succeeding is another story.
Some of the most popular new year's resolutions, according to Crawford, include improving health and fitness by exercising more and eating less, getting financial affairs in order by paying down debt or saving money, getting organized, spending more time with family members and quitting a bad habit such as smoking.
Some people sabotage themselves by picking unrealistic goals, Crawford said.
"The set themselves up by setting resolutions they really don't think they're going to keep," he said.
"I would encourage people to not make resolutions if you don't think you're going to keep them, because what that does is it sets you up for failure in the future."
"You will make a mistake," he said. "You will have slips, it is part of it."
He suggested using a slip-up to adjust your course and find out what you need to do differently.
"Never use it as an excuse to give up your goal or abandon your resolution," he said.
He offered four tips for succeeding.
Be specific about your goal.
Establish a set of steps to help you reach your goal.
"Very few people can stay with a goal for an entire year," he said.
Stop to see how you're doing. Pat yourself on the back if you're doing well," he said. "And if you're not, figure out why so that you can revise your plan."
He said you'll know if you're succeeding if you can stick it out for four to six weeks.
How to recharge your New Year`s resolution
Mike Moriarty has big expectations for the new year.
"My goal is to fit into these pants better," he said, patting his stomach.
Moriarty, 47, an attorney from Holyoke, Massachusetts, doesn't want to call his weight-loss plan a resolution.
"They are very hard to stick with," Moriarty lamented. "I make them all the time and break them in about three hours."
Moriarty isn't the only one who has a tough time sticking with a resolution.
Clinical psychologist Mark Crawford from Atlanta, Georgia, said almost everyone has something he or she would like to change or improve, but succeeding is another story.
Some of the most popular new year's resolutions, according to Crawford, include improving health and fitness by exercising more and eating less, getting financial affairs in order by paying down debt or saving money, getting organized, spending more time with family members and quitting a bad habit such as smoking.
Some people sabotage themselves by picking unrealistic goals, Crawford said.
"The set themselves up by setting resolutions they really don't think they're going to keep," he said.
"I would encourage people to not make resolutions if you don't think you're going to keep them, because what that does is it sets you up for failure in the future."
"You will make a mistake," he said. "You will have slips, it is part of it."
He suggested using a slip-up to adjust your course and find out what you need to do differently.
"Never use it as an excuse to give up your goal or abandon your resolution," he said.
He offered four tips for succeeding.
Be specific about your goal.
Establish a set of steps to help you reach your goal.
"Very few people can stay with a goal for an entire year," he said.
"I would say set a goal for about two weeks.
Stop to see how you're doing.
Pat yourself on the back if you're doing well," he said.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
German skier Maria Riesch completed a World Cup slalom hat-trick in Croatia on Sunday and leapfrogged unlucky American Lindsey Vonn at the top of the overall standings.
The 24-year-old returned a combined time of one minute 58.96 seconds in Zagreb after first leg leader Vonn crashed just five gates before the finish in the second while ahead on intermediate times.
Italy's Nicole Gius was runner-up in 1:59.40 after a second leg of 59.25 with slalom world championj Sarka Zahrobska of the Czech Republic third in 1:59.59 following two sub-60 second runs.
Snow queen Riesch won the slalom event on the Panorama course at Semmering, Austria, last Monday and also triumphed at La Molina in Spain.
Her latest success leaves her first in the overall rankings with 607 points after 13 of 35 races.
Finland's Tanja Poutiainen, seventh on Sunday, is second on 534 followed by Vonn with 530.
Riesch (400) has a lead of 110 points over Vonn in the slalom after five of nine events with Zahrobska tghird on 284.
Austria's Nicole Hosp, the World Cup champion in 2007 and currently sixth overall, hurt her knee when she fell ahead of Sunday's action on the Crveni Spust course.
The 25-year-old was taken to hospital before being transferred to Austria for a scan.
Snow queen Riesch claims slalom hat-trick
German skier Maria Riesch completed a World Cup slalom hat-trick in Croatia on Sunday and leapfrogged unlucky American Lindsey Vonn at the top of the overall standings.
The 24-year-old returned a combined time of one minute 58.96 seconds in Zagreb after first leg leader Vonn crashed just five gates before the finish in the second while ahead on intermediate times.
Italy's Nicole Gius was runner-up in 1:59.40 after a second leg of 59.25 with slalom world championj Sarka Zahrobska of the Czech Republic third in 1:59.59 following two sub-60 second runs.
Snow queen Riesch won the slalom event on the Panorama course at Semmering, Austria, last Monday and also triumphed at La Molina in Spain.
Her latest success leaves her first in the overall rankings with 607 points after 13 of 35 races.
Finland's Tanja Poutiainen, seventh on Sunday, is second on 534 followed by Vonn with 530.
Riesch (400) has a lead of 110 points over Vonn in the slalom after five of nine events with Zahrobska tghird on 284.
Austria's Nicole Hosp, the World Cup champion in 2007 and currently sixth overall, hurt her knee when she fell ahead of Sunday's action on the Crveni Spust course.
The 25-year-old was taken to hospital before being transferred to Austria for a scan.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Actors` son Jett Travolta dies at 16
The 16-year-old son of actors John Travolta and Kelly Preston died Friday morning after suffering a seizure while vacationing with his family in the Bahamas, Travolta's attorney told CNN.
"At this point, we know that John Travolta and Kelly Preston's only son, Jett, had a seizure at around 10 a.m. this morning," attorney Michael Ossi said.
"All attempts to revive him were unsuccessful." The boy hit his head after the seizure, but the exact cause of death is not known, Ossi said.
An autopsy will be conducted Monday.
His body will be transferred to Ocala, Florida, for burial, he said.
Jett's death "was completely out of the blue," he said. "John and Kelly are happy when their children are happy. This is the worst day of John's life."
The Travoltas also have a daughter, Ella, 8.
Bahamian police said a caretaker at the West End resort where the Travoltas were vacationing found the teenager unconscious in the bathroom.
Jett Travolta was taken by ambulance to Rand Memorial Hospital in Freeport and was pronounced dead on arrival, police said. Can you relate to the loss of a child?
Jett's death was mourned by the staff and residents of West End, where the Travoltas were beloved members of the community, Obie Wilchcomb, former minister of tourism for the Bahamas, told CNN's Larry King.
"We in West End had admired Mr. Travolta and his wife, Kelly," Wilchcomb said.
"The people of the community of West End, particularly those who work at Old Bahama Bay, certainly today were in such shock, and they felt the tragedy because they had become a part of the community."
Wilchcomb said the Travoltas' love and affection for their son was apparent to those in the community.
Actors` son Jett Travolta dies at 16
The 16-year-old son of actors John Travolta and Kelly Preston died Friday morning after suffering a seizure while vacationing with his family in the Bahamas, Travolta's attorney told CNN.
"At this point, we know that John Travolta and Kelly Preston's only son, Jett, had a seizure at around 10 a.m. this morning," attorney Michael Ossi said.
"All attempts to revive him were unsuccessful." The boy hit his head after the seizure, but the exact cause of death is not known, Ossi said.
An autopsy will be conducted Monday.
His body will be transferred to Ocala, Florida, for burial, he said.
Jett's death "was completely out of the blue," he said. "John and Kelly are happy when their children are happy. This is the worst day of John's life."
The Travoltas also have a daughter, Ella, 8.
Bahamian police said a caretaker at the West End resort where the Travoltas were vacationing found the teenager unconscious in the bathroom.
Jett Travolta was taken by ambulance to Rand Memorial Hospital in Freeport and was pronounced dead on arrival, police said.
Can you relate to the loss of a child?
Jett's death was mourned by the staff and residents of West End, where the Travoltas were beloved members of the community, Obie Wilchcomb, former minister of tourism for the Bahamas, told CNN's Larry King.
"We in West End had admired Mr. Travolta and his wife, Kelly," Wilchcomb said.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Israeli military says they have surrounded Gaza City
The Israeli military surrounded densely populated Gaza City late Monday as the death toll mounts in the war-torn territory.
Israeli security sources said they surrounded the city of about 1.5 million in their operation against Hamas.
Neither Hamas nor Israel has shown any interest in international calls for a truce.
"I can understand the eagerness of the international community to see the return to calm," Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told European foreign ministers in Jerusalem. "This is our dream as well. This is what we are looking for. Unfortunately, there are those who cannot accept the idea of living in peace in this region."
On Monday Hamas militants fired dozens of rockets into southern Israel despite a 10-day Israeli military campaign that reportedly has left more than 500 Palestinians dead.
Abu Obeida, a spokesman for Hamas' military wing, warned Israel that Izzedine al Qassam Brigades will continue rocket strikes "for many months" and vowed to strike deeper into Israeli territory.
Senior Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahar also gave a televised address Monday, saying the leadership in Gaza salutes "the resistance men" and that their actions were justified because of what Israel has done. "They [Israeli forces] shelled everyone in Gaza.
... They shelled children and hospitals and mosques," he said. "And in doing so, they gave us legitimacy to strike them in the same way."
Israel on Monday continued its military assault on Gaza from the air and the ground.
Heavy fighting erupted Monday night around Gaza City, the Israel Defense Forces said.
Earlier in the day, Israeli forces took "tens of Hamas militants" into custody, the military said.
Israeli military says they have surrounded Gaza City
The Israeli military surrounded densely populated Gaza City late Monday as the death toll mounts in the war-torn territory.
Israeli security sources said they surrounded the city of about 1.5 million in their operation against Hamas.
Neither Hamas nor Israel has shown any interest in international calls for a truce.
"I can understand the eagerness of the international community to see the return to calm," Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told European foreign ministers in Jerusalem. "This is our dream as well. This is what we are looking for. Unfortunately, there are those who cannot accept the idea of living in peace in this region."
On Monday Hamas militants fired dozens of rockets into southern Israel despite a 10-day Israeli military campaign that reportedly has left more than 500 Palestinians dead.
Abu Obeida, a spokesman for Hamas' military wing, warned Israel that Izzedine al Qassam Brigades will continue rocket strikes "for many months" and vowed to strike deeper into Israeli territory.
Senior Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahar also gave a televised address Monday, saying the leadership in Gaza salutes "the resistance men" and that their actions were justified because of what Israel has done. "They [Israeli forces] shelled everyone in Gaza.
... They shelled children and hospitals and mosques," he said. "And in doing so, they gave us legitimacy to strike them in the same way."
Israel on Monday continued its military assault on Gaza from the air and the ground.
Heavy fighting erupted Monday night around Gaza City, the Israel Defense Forces said.
Earlier in the day, Israeli forces took "tens of Hamas militants" into custody, the military said.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Apple fans relieved about Jobs health news
After months of speculation about his health, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced Monday that his doctors believe a hormonal imbalance is to blame for his alarming weight loss.
"The remedy for this nutritional problem is relatively simple and straightforward, and I've already begun treatment," Jobs wrote in a letter addressed to "the Apple community."
"But, just like I didn't lose this much weight and body mass in a week or a month, my doctors expect it will take me until late this spring to regain it. I will continue as Apple's CEO during my recovery."
Attendees at the Macworld Conference & Expo, which kicked off Monday in San Francisco, were encouraged to hear the announcement.
"That's good news," said Marty Crouch, founder and owner of Webvalence, a Portland, Oregon, Internet services company. "I've been personally worried.
So it's very heartening for me to have some confirmation that his situation isn't grave. It was probably smart for them [Apple] to announce it at this time, because there's been an inordinate amount of speculation."
Concerns about the health of Jobs, 53, began after he was treated for pancreatic cancer in 2004.
A medical expert contacted by CNN said Jobs' latest announcement about a hormonal imbalance lacked specifics.
Apple fueled rumors about Jobs' condition when the company announced last month that Jobs would not attend Macworld to deliver his usual keynote address.
Attendees here remained curious about what news Apple will announce at Tuesday morning's keynote, scheduled to be delivered by Apple Vice President Philip Schiller.
Apple fans relieved about Jobs health news
After months of speculation about his health, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced Monday that his doctors believe a hormonal imbalance is to blame for his alarming weight loss.
"The remedy for this nutritional problem is relatively simple and straightforward, and I've already begun treatment," Jobs wrote in a letter addressed to "the Apple community."
"But, just like I didn't lose this much weight and body mass in a week or a month, my doctors expect it will take me until late this spring to regain it. I will continue as Apple's CEO during my recovery."
Attendees at the Macworld Conference & Expo, which kicked off Monday in San Francisco, were encouraged to hear the announcement.
"That's good news," said Marty Crouch, founder and owner of Webvalence, a Portland, Oregon, Internet services company. "I've been personally worried.
So it's very heartening for me to have some confirmation that his situation isn't grave. It was probably smart for them [Apple] to announce it at this time, because there's been an inordinate amount of speculation."
Concerns about the health of Jobs, 53, began after he was treated for pancreatic cancer in 2004.
A medical expert contacted by CNN said Jobs' latest announcement about a hormonal imbalance lacked specifics.
Apple fueled rumors about Jobs' condition when the company announced last month that Jobs would not attend Macworld to deliver his usual keynote address.
Attendees here remained curious about what news Apple will announce at Tuesday morning's keynote, scheduled to be delivered by Apple Vice President Philip Schiller.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Archaeologists have found more than 600 relics from a huge battle between a Roman army and Barbarians in the third century, long after historians believed Rome had given up control of northern Germany.
"We have to write our history books new, because what we thought was that the activities of the Romans ended at nine or 10 (years) after Christ," said Lutz Stratmann, science minister for the German state of Lower Saxony. "Now we know that it must be 200 or 250 after that."
For weeks, archeologist Petra Loenne and her team have been searching this area with metal detectors, pulling hundreds of ancient Roman weapons out of the ground.
They paint a picture of a highly organized, technologically superior Roman army beset by Germanic tribes in a forest about 80 km (50 miles) south of the modern city of Hanover.
The hillside battlefield was discovered by relic-hunters illegally searching for souvenirs of more recent wars near the town of Kalefeld-Oldenrode.
One of them brought some of the items he found to Loenne, who works for the local government.
The artifacts are so well preserved that the scientists can already retrace some of the battle lines.
"We believe the Germans ambushed the Romans here, but the legions quickly fired back with catapults and archers
and then it came to a massive man-on-man onslaught," Loenne said. The items unearthed so far include an axe, still sharp after nearly 1,800 years; and dozens of arrowheads, a cross between a catapult and a crossbow
the ancient equivalent of artillery. Researchers say the evidence suggests the tribesmen lured the Romans into the forest to keep them from making full use of those long-range weapons and draw them into hand-to-hand combat, outside of the formations the imperial troops had mastered.
However, they believe the Romans ultimately prevailed.
Other relics include coins depicting the late second-century Roman emperor Commodus, depicted in the Oscar-winning Hollywood epic "Gladiator".
And Loenne said her team may have only begun to scratch the surface of the forest.
Archaeologists have found more than 600 relics from a huge battle between a Roman army and Barbarians in the third century, long after historians believed Rome had given up control of northern Germany.
"We have to write our history books new, because what we thought was that the activities of the Romans ended at nine or 10 (years) after Christ," said Lutz Stratmann, science minister for the German state of Lower Saxony. "Now we know that it must be 200 or 250 after that."
For weeks, archeologist Petra Loenne and her team have been searching this area with metal detectors, pulling hundreds of ancient Roman weapons out of the ground.
They paint a picture of a highly organized, technologically superior Roman army beset by Germanic tribes in a forest about 80 km (50 miles) south of the modern city of Hanover.
The hillside battlefield was discovered by relic-hunters illegally searching for souvenirs of more recent wars near the town of Kalefeld-Oldenrode.
One of them brought some of the items he found to Loenne, who works for the local government.
The artifacts are so well preserved that the scientists can already retrace some of the battle lines.
"We believe the Germans ambushed the Romans here, but the legions quickly fired back with catapults and archers
and then it came to a massive man-on-man onslaught," Loenne said. The items unearthed so far include an axe, still sharp after nearly 1,800 years; and dozens of arrowheads, a cross between a catapult and a crossbow
the ancient equivalent of artillery. Researchers say the evidence suggests the tribesmen lured the Romans into the forest to keep them from making full use of those long-range weapons and draw them into hand-to-hand combat, outside of the formations the imperial troops had mastered.
However, they believe the Romans ultimately prevailed.
Other relics include coins depicting the late second-century Roman emperor Commodus, depicted in the Oscar-winning Hollywood epic "Gladiator".
And Loenne said her team may have only begun to scratch the surface of the forest.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
European and Russian leaders are holding crisis meetings Monday to try to defuse a dispute between the Russian energy giant Gazprom and Ukraine's state-run gas company Naftogaz Ukrainy.
Gazprom accuses the Ukrainian company of stealing gas and missing payments.
The dispute has affected natural gas supplies to Europe.
European Union leaders are meeting Ukrainian officials in Kiev Monday, while Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is sitting down with Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller in Moscow.
Gazprom said Sunday the Ukrainian company had racked up a debt of $614 million in 2008, and accused it of siphoning off nearly 10 percent of the natural gas Gazprom had shipped in a 24-hour period ending Sunday.
"Ukraine is refusing to acknowledge the current transit contract, which is valid until 2010, is flagrantly violating its obligations as a transit country and has not responded positively to any of the compromises proposed by Gazprom to resolve the situation," Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov said in a statement.
Naftogaz rejected the allegations in a written statement of its own, demanding that Gazprom immediately resume regular gas supplies.
The Ukrainian company accused Gazprom of deliberately failing to meet its obligations to the European Union.
It said Gazprom's measures "threaten both Ukrainian and European energy security and can result in unforeseeable consequences for the whole gas transport system of Europe."
The Russian company said Saturday it has filed a lawsuit in international court to stop what it claims is illegal siphoning.
European and Russian leaders are holding crisis meetings Monday to try to defuse a dispute between the Russian energy giant Gazprom and Ukraine's state-run gas company Naftogaz Ukrainy.
Gazprom accuses the Ukrainian company of stealing gas and missing payments.
The dispute has affected natural gas supplies to Europe.
European Union leaders are meeting Ukrainian officials in Kiev Monday, while Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is sitting down with Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller in Moscow.
Gazprom said Sunday the Ukrainian company had racked up a debt of $614 million in 2008, and accused it of siphoning off nearly 10 percent of the natural gas Gazprom had shipped in a 24-hour period ending Sunday.
"Ukraine is refusing to acknowledge the current transit contract, which is valid until 2010, is flagrantly violating its obligations as a transit country and has not responded positively to any of the compromises proposed by Gazprom to resolve the situation," Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov said in a statement.
Naftogaz rejected the allegations in a written statement of its own, demanding that Gazprom immediately resume regular gas supplies.
The Ukrainian company accused Gazprom of deliberately failing to meet its obligations to the European Union.
It said Gazprom's measures "threaten both Ukrainian and European energy security and can result in unforeseeable consequences for the whole gas transport system of Europe."
The Russian company said Saturday it has filed a lawsuit in international court to stop what it claims is illegal siphoning.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Real David Frost remembers `fascinating` Nixon
Though Sir David Frost doesn't see his 1977 interviews with former President Richard Nixon as "an intellectual 'Rocky' "
in the words of "Frost/Nixon" playwright and screenwriter Peter Morgan he does agree that the sessions had their "adversarial" moments.
Particularly, he told CNN, when the topic turned to the Watergate scandal.
"By halfway through the second day [of the interviews], we had got to the point that we had hoped to get to," he said. "And then it was a point of going further and trying to get more than we had really expected."
Nixon famously let down his guard, a moment depicted in in "Frost/Nixon," the new Ron Howard-directed film starring Frank Langella as Nixon and Michael Sheen as Frost.
"I'm saying when the president does it, that means it's not illegal," Nixon said during the interview, cementing his ignominy.
In some ways, the interviews were an odd topic for an award-winning play (and, now, well-reviewed and Golden Globe-nominated movie).
Frost and Nixon mostly sat together talking.
There were no punches thrown, no fiery explosions, just conversation
The sessions in raw form ran more than 28 hours, which was edited down to four 90-minute broadcasts.
But in another sense, what happened had as much suspense as a heavyweight title bout, and "Frost/Nixon" sets up the interviews by showing two men on undesired paths.
Frost, the interviewer, was hoping to rejuvenate a career in decline;
Real David Frost remembers `fascinating` Nixon
Though Sir David Frost doesn't see his 1977 interviews with former President Richard Nixon as "an intellectual 'Rocky' "
in the words of "Frost/Nixon" playwright and screenwriter Peter Morgan he does agree that the sessions had their "adversarial" moments.
Particularly, he told CNN, when the topic turned to the Watergate scandal.
"By halfway through the second day [of the interviews], we had got to the point that we had hoped to get to," he said. "And then it was a point of going further and trying to get more than we had really expected."
Nixon famously let down his guard, a moment depicted in in "Frost/Nixon," the new Ron Howard-directed film starring Frank Langella as Nixon and Michael Sheen as Frost.
"I'm saying when the president does it, that means it's not illegal," Nixon said during the interview, cementing his ignominy.
In some ways, the interviews were an odd topic for an award-winning play (and, now, well-reviewed and Golden Globe-nominated movie).
Frost and Nixon mostly sat together talking.
There were no punches thrown, no fiery explosions, just conversation
The sessions in raw form ran more than 28 hours, which was edited down to four 90-minute broadcasts.
But in another sense, what happened had as much suspense as a heavyweight title bout, and "Frost/Nixon" sets up the interviews by showing two men on undesired paths.
Nixon, the ex-president, was hoping to repair his shattered image in the aftermath of Watergate.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
For stress reduction, just say ommm
Managing the service department of an Atlanta, Georgia, car dealership is a stressful job, according to Debbie Peek.
Handling customer demands and keeping up with paperwork would leave anyone frazzled, but Peek, 56, has found a way to cope with the stress.
For the past seven months, she's been meditating daily.
"What I have found for me is it helps me find the quiet time in the hustle-bustle of the day," Peek said. "I am able to focus."
Researchers like Dr. Charles Raison, a psychiatrist at the Emory School of Medicine in Atlanta, are convinced that meditation serves an important purpose.
"All the studies aren't perfect, but there is more and more data suggesting that meditation is useful for reducing stress responses," said Raison, who is also CNNhealth's mental health
Too much stress puts wear and tear on your body and damages your health, he said.
Even simple meditation techniques such as saying a mantra in your head or watching your breath can make a big difference.
"Relaxing your body will actually turn down your heart rate. "We've shown that certain types of meditation will actually lower this inflammatory response to stress, which is undoubtedly a big player in heart disease."
For stress reduction, just say ommm
Managing the service department of an Atlanta, Georgia, car dealership is a stressful job, according to Debbie Peek.
Handling customer demands and keeping up with paperwork would leave anyone frazzled, but Peek, 56, has found a way to cope with the stress.
For the past seven months, she's been meditating daily.
"What I have found for me is it helps me find the quiet time in the hustle-bustle of the day," Peek said. "I am able to focus."
Researchers like Dr. Charles Raison, a psychiatrist at the Emory School of Medicine in Atlanta, are convinced that meditation serves an important purpose.
"All the studies aren't perfect, but there is more and more data suggesting that meditation is useful for reducing stress responses," said Raison, who is also CNNhealth's mental health
Too much stress puts wear and tear on your body and damages your health, he said.
Even simple meditation techniques such as saying a mantra in your head or watching your breath can make a big difference.
"Relaxing your body will actually turn down your heart rate.
Raison isn't the only fan of alternative healing as a means of stress reduction.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Israel has agreed to establish a "humanitarian corridor" to supply residents of Gaza with aid as international concerns about conditions among civilians mount, according to a government statement.
The statement, posted on Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's Web site, said Olmert decided to accept a proposal from security advisers to open the corridor.
It said a path into Gaza, where Israel launched a ground offensive against Hamas militants on Saturday, "will be opened for a specific period of time, during which the population can receive the aid."
The statement also said Olmert spoke Tuesday with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to "update her on political and military developments," including the humanitarian situation.
Hospital workers reported Tuesday that far more civilians than Hamas fighters were arriving at hospitals for treatment.
Food, water, medicine and electricity shortages have been reported throughout Gaza during the campaign, in which nearly 600 Palestinians have been killed and another 2,750 wounded, according to medical sources.
Jerusalem has been under intense international pressure to let goods pass, because of shortage of food, medicines and fuel. "There are food shortages. ...
The health system is overwhelmed. The people here don't have electricity," Mohammed El-Halaby, program manager for humanitarian group World Vision, said earlier this week.
Israel has agreed to establish a "humanitarian corridor" to supply residents of Gaza with aid as international concerns about conditions among civilians mount, according to a government statement.
The statement, posted on Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's Web site, said Olmert decided to accept a proposal from security advisers to open the corridor.
It said a path into Gaza, where Israel launched a ground offensive against Hamas militants on Saturday, "will be opened for a specific period of time, during which the population can receive the aid."
The statement also said Olmert spoke Tuesday with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to "update her on political and military developments," including the humanitarian situation.
Hospital workers reported Tuesday that far more civilians than Hamas fighters were arriving at hospitals for treatment.
Food, water, medicine and electricity shortages have been reported throughout Gaza during the campaign, in which nearly 600 Palestinians have been killed and another 2,750 wounded, according to medical sources.
Jerusalem has been under intense international pressure to let goods pass, because of shortage of food, medicines and fuel.
"There are food shortages.
...
The health system is overwhelmed.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
German billionaire Adolf Merckle, one of the richest men in the world, committed suicide Monday after his business empire got into trouble in the wake of the international financial crisis, Merckle's family said Tuesday in a statement.
Merckle, 74, was hit by a train in the southwestern town of Ulm, police said.
His family said the economic crisis had "broken" Merckle.
He was number 94 on the Forbes list of the world's richest people.
He had fallen from number 44 on the Forbes 2007 rich list as his fortune declined from $12.8 billion to $9.2 billion in 2008.
Merckle's business empire included interests as diverse as cement-maker HeidelbergCement and generic drug-maker Ratiopharm.
But he lost hundreds of millions of dollars, including company capital, betting against Volkswagen stock last year.
The state government of Baden-Wuerttemberg rejected his petition for financial assistance, and he entered bailout talks with several German banks.
"The financial troubles of his companies, induced by the international financial crisis and the uncertainty and powerlessness to act independently which the financial problems brought about, broke the passionate family business man, and he took his own life," his family wrote in the news release.
An employee of Germany's railroad company found the body on the tracks at about 7 p.m. Monday and notified authorities.
Merckle's family had already reported him missing earlier in the day after he walked out of the house and did not return.
Authorities are currently conducting DNA tests to confirm his identity.
German billionaire Adolf Merckle, one of the richest men in the world, committed suicide Monday after his business empire got into trouble in the wake of the international financial crisis, Merckle's family said Tuesday in a statement.
Merckle, 74, was hit by a train in the southwestern town of Ulm, police said.
His family said the economic crisis had "broken" Merckle.
He was number 94 on the Forbes list of the world's richest people.
He had fallen from number 44 on the Forbes 2007 rich list as his fortune declined from $12.8 billion to $9.2 billion in 2008.
Merckle's business empire included interests as diverse as cement-maker HeidelbergCement and generic drug-maker Ratiopharm.
But he lost hundreds of millions of dollars, including company capital, betting against Volkswagen stock last year.
The state government of Baden-Wuerttemberg rejected his petition for financial assistance, and he entered bailout talks with several German banks.
"The financial troubles of his companies, induced by the international financial crisis and the uncertainty and powerlessness to act independently which the financial problems brought about, broke the passionate family business man, and he took his own life," his family wrote in the news release.
An employee of Germany's railroad company found the body on the tracks at about 7 p.m. Monday and notified authorities.
Merckle's family had already reported him missing earlier in the day after he walked out of the house and did not return.
Authorities are currently conducting DNA tests to confirm his identity.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Travolta, Preston return to Florida with son`s ashes
John Travolta and Kelly Preston have returned to Ocala, Florida, with the remains of their teenage son, a family friend told CNN on Tuesday.
They left the Bahamas late Monday night, said Obie Wilchcombe, a member of the Bahamian parliament.
An autopsy was conducted Monday in the Bahamas on the body of the couple's son, Jett Travolta.
The 16-year-old was found unconscious Friday while on vacation with his family in the Bahamas' West End.
He was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival, local police said.
Travolta, Preston return to Florida with son`s ashes
John Travolta and Kelly Preston have returned to Ocala, Florida, with the remains of their teenage son, a family friend told CNN on Tuesday.
They left the Bahamas late Monday night, said Obie Wilchcombe, a member of the Bahamian parliament.
An autopsy was conducted Monday in the Bahamas on the body of the couple's son, Jett Travolta.
The 16-year-old was found unconscious Friday while on vacation with his family in the Bahamas' West End.
He was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival, local police said.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Subdued reactions to Apple`s final Macworld keynote
Instead of Apple CEO Steve Jobs, celebrity-seekers at Tuesday's Macworld keynote address had to settle for crooner Tony Bennett.
And instead of blockbuster news from Apple Vice President Philip Schiller, attendees got changes in iTunes pricing, a series of software upgrades and a $2,800 17-inch notebook.
Among Mac users and industry observers, reaction to the 90-minute keynote, which Apple says will be its last at Macworld, was predictably mixed.
"Tony Bennett got a standing ovation. Apple, not so much," said Philip Elmer-DeWitt, who writes an Apple column for Fortune magazine.
"It wasn't up to Steve Jobs' standards. Phil is not the showman that Steve is, but he didn't have much material to work with."
"I think Phil did a great job," countered Chuck Freedman, an IT specialist from suburban Detroit, Michigan.
"Yes, we miss Steve, but Phil handled everything well. I'm here to see what Apple's doing next, not how much weight Steve has lost."
So what is Apple doing next?
Pre-Macworld rumors about an iPhone Nano and a preview of the Snow Leopard operating system proved unfounded.
Instead, Schiller introduced upgrades to Apple's iLife and iWork software suites, unveiled a 17-inch unibody MacBook Pro with a more powerful battery, and announced tweaks to iTunes' 99 cents-per-song pricing model.
The result earned Schiller consistent applause but not the wild cheering that greeted Jobs' 2007 announcement of the iPhone, for example.
Subdued reactions to Apple`s final Macworld keynote
Instead of Apple CEO Steve Jobs, celebrity-seekers at Tuesday's Macworld keynote address had to settle for crooner Tony Bennett.
And instead of blockbuster news from Apple Vice President Philip Schiller, attendees got changes in iTunes pricing, a series of software upgrades and a $2,800 17-inch notebook.
Among Mac users and industry observers, reaction to the 90-minute keynote, which Apple says will be its last at Macworld, was predictably mixed.
"Tony Bennett got a standing ovation. Apple, not so much," said Philip Elmer-DeWitt, who writes an Apple column for Fortune magazine.
"It wasn't up to Steve Jobs' standards. Phil is not the showman that Steve is, but he didn't have much material to work with."
"I think Phil did a great job," countered Chuck Freedman, an IT specialist from suburban Detroit, Michigan.
"Yes, we miss Steve, but Phil handled everything well. I'm here to see what Apple's doing next, not how much weight Steve has lost."
So what is Apple doing next?
Pre-Macworld rumors about an iPhone Nano and a preview of the Snow Leopard operating system proved unfounded.
Instead, Schiller introduced upgrades to Apple's iLife and iWork software suites, unveiled a 17-inch unibody MacBook Pro with a more powerful battery, and announced tweaks to iTunes' 99 cents-per-song pricing model.
The result earned Schiller consistent applause but not the wild cheering that greeted Jobs' 2007 announcement of the iPhone, for example.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Gas row flares as supplies to Europe cut
Several European countries said Tuesday their supply of natural gas from Russia had been cut or reduced amid a dispute over payments between Russia and Ukraine.
Ukraine's state-run gas company said Gazprom, the Russian energy giant, had shut three of four export pipelines that take natural gas through Ukraine to the rest of Europe, significantly reducing supply.
Gazprom said Ukraine was to blame for shutting the pipelines to Europe.
"Ukraine is in obvious breach of obligations as a transit country," Gazprom's deputy chief executive, Alexander Medvedev, said.
Amid the finger-pointing, at least five European countries and Turkey told CNN they were suffering a reduction or cut in natural gas coming from Russia via Ukraine.
Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, Austria, the Czech Republic, Greece and Germany did not blame either side in the dispute for the cuts only the dispute itself.
It is the latest twist in an ongoing dispute between Gazprom and Ukraine's Naftogaz Ukrainy, which normally receives natural gas from Russia.
Gas row flares as supplies to Europe cut
Several European countries said Tuesday their supply of natural gas from Russia had been cut or reduced amid a dispute over payments between Russia and Ukraine.
Ukraine's state-run gas company said Gazprom, the Russian energy giant, had shut three of four export pipelines that take natural gas through Ukraine to the rest of Europe, significantly reducing supply.
Gazprom said Ukraine was to blame for shutting the pipelines to Europe.
"Ukraine is in obvious breach of obligations as a transit country," Gazprom's deputy chief executive, Alexander Medvedev, said.
Amid the finger-pointing, at least five European countries and Turkey told CNN they were suffering a reduction or cut in natural gas coming from Russia via Ukraine.
Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, Austria, the Czech Republic, Greece and Germany did not blame either side in the dispute for the cuts only the dispute itself.
It is the latest twist in an ongoing dispute between Gazprom and Ukraine's Naftogaz Ukrainy, which normally receives natural gas from Russia.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Milan wins on pens after Beckham starts
David Beckham made his much-anticipated AC Milan debut in Dubai on Tuesday when the Serie A giants beat Hamburg 4-3 in a penalty shoot-out following a 1-1 draw.
The former England captain started in a Milan midfield that also featured Andrea Pirlo, Massimo Ambrosini and Ronaldinho before being substituted at half-time.
Ronaldinho put the Rossoneri ahead with a 63rd-minute penalty, but Collin Benjamin equalised four minutes later.
Beckham has joined Milan for three months from Los Angeles Galaxy and hopes that his Italian job will help him reclaim a place in Fabio Capello's England squad.
Milan coach Carlo Ancelotti had said Beckham could come into contention for a starting berth when his side resume Serie A action at Roma on Sunday following the winter break.
However, Ancelotti said after the Dubai date that Beckham is still not at his best after more than two months without a game.
Beckham currently has 107 caps and needs one more to equal the 'outfield' record held by Bobby Moore who held aloft the Jules Rimet trophy in 1966.
With England firmly on course for a place in the 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa, former Manchester United and Real Madrid star Beckham has every incentive to prolong his career.
Milan, meanwhile, must decide whether or not to include Beckham in their European plans having been paired with Werder Bremen in the last 32 of the UEFA Cup.
The two-leg tie will be played in February and Milan must decide on their squad selection by the end of January when the transfer window closes.
Beckham is scheduled to return to the U.S. at the end of March to prepare for the start of Major League Soccer and would be unavailable from the quarterfinal stages on in Europe.
Milan wins on pens after Beckham starts
David Beckham made his much-anticipated AC Milan debut in Dubai on Tuesday when the Serie A giants beat Hamburg 4-3 in a penalty shoot-out following a 1-1 draw.
The former England captain started in a Milan midfield that also featured Andrea Pirlo, Massimo Ambrosini and Ronaldinho before being substituted at half-time.
Ronaldinho put the Rossoneri ahead with a 63rd-minute penalty, but Collin Benjamin equalised four minutes later.
Beckham has joined Milan for three months from Los Angeles Galaxy and hopes that his Italian job will help him reclaim a place in Fabio Capello's England squad.
Milan coach Carlo Ancelotti had said Beckham could come into contention for a starting berth when his side resume Serie A action at Roma on Sunday following the winter break.
However, Ancelotti said after the Dubai date that Beckham is still not at his best after more than two months without a game.
Beckham currently has 107 caps and needs one more to equal the 'outfield' record held by Bobby Moore who held aloft the Jules Rimet trophy in 1966.
With England firmly on course for a place in the 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa, former Manchester United and Real Madrid star Beckham has every incentive to prolong his career.
Milan, meanwhile, must decide whether or not to include Beckham in their European plans having been paired with Werder Bremen in the last 32 of the UEFA Cup.
The two-leg tie will be played in February and Milan must decide on their squad selection by the end of January when the transfer window closes.
Beckham is scheduled to return to the U.S. at the end of March to prepare for the start of Major League Soccer and would be unavailable from the quarterfinal stages on in Europe.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
As a candidate, Barack Obama promoted hybrid cars.
As president, he'll be handed the keys to one.
Shortly after taking the oath of office, Obama will climb into the Mother of All Hybrids part car, part truck and, from the looks of it, part tank.
In keeping with recent tradition, the Secret Service will place a brand-new presidential limousine into service January 20 to drive the new president on the 2-mile jaunt down Pennsylvania Avenue during the inaugural parade.
And already, the reviews:
"Sheesh," says another, "why don't they just transport the president around in an Abrams tank."
One news agency, noting its 8-inch-thick doors, says the limo can withstand a "direct hit from an asteroid."
But GM spokeswoman Joanne K. Krell laughed off the comments.
"And it will fix you a latte if you ask," she jokes.
In truth, the new presidential limo is a Cadillac, Krell said, although it is "not a direct extension of any single model."
"The presidential vehicle is built to precise and special specifications, undergoes extreme testing and development, and also incorporates many of the top aspects of Cadillac's 'regular' cars
As a candidate, Barack Obama promoted hybrid cars.
As president, he'll be handed the keys to one.
Shortly after taking the oath of office, Obama will climb into the Mother of All Hybrids part car, part truck and, from the looks of it, part tank.
In keeping with recent tradition, the Secret Service will place a brand-new presidential limousine into service January 20 to drive the new president on the 2-mile jaunt down Pennsylvania Avenue during the inaugural parade.
And already, the reviews:
"Sheesh," says another, "why don't they just transport the president around in an Abrams tank."
One news agency, noting its 8-inch-thick doors, says the limo can withstand a "direct hit from an asteroid."
But GM spokeswoman Joanne K. Krell laughed off the comments.
"And it will fix you a latte if you ask," she jokes.
In truth, the new presidential limo is a Cadillac, Krell said, although it is "not a direct extension of any single model."
"The presidential vehicle is built to precise and special specifications, undergoes extreme testing and development, and also incorporates many of the top aspects of Cadillac's 'regular' cars
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Travolta, Preston return to Florida with son`s ashes
John Travolta and Kelly Preston have returned to Ocala, Florida, with the remains of their teenage son, a family friend told CNN on Tuesday.
They left the Bahamas late Monday night, said Obie Wilchcombe, a member of the Bahamian parliament.
An autopsy was conducted Monday in the Bahamas on the body of the couple's son, Jett Travolta.
The 16-year-old was found unconscious Friday while on vacation with his family in the Bahamas' West End.
He was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival, local police said.
Travolta, Preston return to Florida with son`s ashes
John Travolta and Kelly Preston have returned to Ocala, Florida, with the remains of their teenage son, a family friend told CNN on Tuesday.
They left the Bahamas late Monday night, said Obie Wilchcombe, a member of the Bahamian parliament.
An autopsy was conducted Monday in the Bahamas on the body of the couple's son, Jett Travolta.
The 16-year-old was found unconscious Friday while on vacation with his family in the Bahamas' West End.
He was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival, local police said.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Subdued reactions to Apple`s final Macworld keynote
Instead of Apple CEO Steve Jobs, celebrity-seekers at Tuesday's Macworld keynote address had to settle for crooner Tony Bennett.
And instead of blockbuster news from Apple Vice President Philip Schiller, attendees got changes in iTunes pricing, a series of software upgrades and a $2,800 17-inch notebook.
Among Mac users and industry observers, reaction to the 90-minute keynote, which Apple says will be its last at Macworld, was predictably mixed.
"Tony Bennett got a standing ovation. Apple, not so much," said Philip Elmer-DeWitt, who writes an Apple column for Fortune magazine.
"It wasn't up to Steve Jobs' standards. Phil is not the showman that Steve is, but he didn't have much material to work with."
"I think Phil did a great job," countered Chuck Freedman, an IT specialist from suburban Detroit, Michigan.
"Yes, we miss Steve, but Phil handled everything well. I'm here to see what Apple's doing next, not how much weight Steve has lost."
So what is Apple doing next?
Pre-Macworld rumors about an iPhone Nano and a preview of the Snow Leopard operating system proved unfounded.
Instead, Schiller introduced upgrades to Apple's iLife and iWork software suites, unveiled a 17-inch unibody MacBook Pro with a more powerful battery, and announced tweaks to iTunes' 99 cents-per-song pricing model.
The result earned Schiller consistent applause but not the wild cheering that greeted Jobs' 2007 announcement of the iPhone, for example.
Subdued reactions to Apple`s final Macworld keynote
Instead of Apple CEO Steve Jobs, celebrity-seekers at Tuesday's Macworld keynote address had to settle for crooner Tony Bennett.
And instead of blockbuster news from Apple Vice President Philip Schiller, attendees got changes in iTunes pricing, a series of software upgrades and a $2,800 17-inch notebook.
Among Mac users and industry observers, reaction to the 90-minute keynote, which Apple says will be its last at Macworld, was predictably mixed.
"Tony Bennett got a standing ovation. Apple, not so much," said Philip Elmer-DeWitt, who writes an Apple column for Fortune magazine.
"It wasn't up to Steve Jobs' standards. Phil is not the showman that Steve is, but he didn't have much material to work with."
"I think Phil did a great job," countered Chuck Freedman, an IT specialist from suburban Detroit, Michigan.
"Yes, we miss Steve, but Phil handled everything well. I'm here to see what Apple's doing next, not how much weight Steve has lost."
So what is Apple doing next?
Pre-Macworld rumors about an iPhone Nano and a preview of the Snow Leopard operating system proved unfounded.
Instead, Schiller introduced upgrades to Apple's iLife and iWork software suites, unveiled a 17-inch unibody MacBook Pro with a more powerful battery, and announced tweaks to iTunes' 99 cents-per-song pricing model.
The result earned Schiller consistent applause but not the wild cheering that greeted Jobs' 2007 announcement of the iPhone, for example.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Exchange of fire mars 3-hour truce in Gaza
A truce in Gaza that was supposed to last three hours on Wednesday failed after just 15 minutes.
The suspension of the campaign from 1 p.m. until 4 p.m. was intended to allow residents of the Hamas-ruled Palestinian territory to receive food and medical supplies.
Israeli forces fired at militants in Gaza after Hamas militants targeted Israeli forces "almost immediately at 1 p.m.," according to Israeli Defense Ministry spokesman Peter Lerner.
Lerner had previously said Israeli forces would respond to any aggression directed at them during the scheduled pause in activities in Gaza.
The three-hour truce is scheduled to take place every other day, Lerner said, but humanitarian agencies say the timeframe is not long enough to alleviate the "deepening humanitarian crisis" in Gaza.
"We are feeding 750,000 [people] on a permanent basis," U.N. Relief and Works Agency spokesman Chris Gunness said.
"We need to build on this three-hour window;
we need to expand that window and let it lead to a permanent cease-fire."
Exchange of fire mars 3-hour truce in Gaza
A truce in Gaza that was supposed to last three hours on Wednesday failed after just 15 minutes.
The suspension of the campaign from 1 p.m. until 4 p.m. was intended to allow residents of the Hamas-ruled Palestinian territory to receive food and medical supplies.
Israeli forces fired at militants in Gaza after Hamas militants targeted Israeli forces "almost immediately at 1 p.m.," according to Israeli Defense Ministry spokesman Peter Lerner.
Lerner had previously said Israeli forces would respond to any aggression directed at them during the scheduled pause in activities in Gaza.
The three-hour truce is scheduled to take place every other day, Lerner said, but humanitarian agencies say the timeframe is not long enough to alleviate the "deepening humanitarian crisis" in Gaza.
"We are feeding 750,000 [people] on a permanent basis," U.N. Relief and Works Agency spokesman Chris Gunness said.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Advice to Obama on battling presidential aging
When a new president strolls into the White House, there's a kick in his step and a twinkle in his eyes.
But as the years go by, the high-stakes decisions, constant criticisms and the fluctuating public opinion chip away at the president.
His shoulders slump a little and his energy may seem sapped.
The president ages twice as fast while in office, according to a theory advanced by Dr. Michael Roizen, a chief wellness officer at the Cleveland Clinic.
"The typical person who lives one year ages one year," he said. "The typical president ages two years for every year they are in office."
Using public information, Roizen looked through medical records of previous presidents back to Theodore Roosevelt.
Assessing factors such as diet, blood pressure, physical activity and lifestyle habits, he calculated that the leader of the free world ages more quickly.
Roizen, who is the author of "RealAge:
Are You as Young as You Can Be?"
has not assessed the "real age" of President-elect Barack Obama, who is 47, because of lack of medical data.
"Barack Obama is a fairly young guy and doesn't have great of a risk," Roizen said.
"If he's president for eight years, he ends up having the risk of disability or dying, like someone who is 16 years older."
Former president Bill Clinton entered the office with a robust head of salt-and-pepper hair and a healthy habit of running.
After bitter partisan battles, the Monica Lewinsky scandal, and impeachment by the House, Clinton left office with wrinkles and powder-white hair.
"Chronic stress can produce lots of wear and tear on the body," said James A. McCubbin, a Clemson University professor of psychology and senior associate dean of the College of Business and Behavioral Science. "This is what we see in the changes in the appearance in the beginning and end of the presidency."
Roizen points to the experience of Ronald Reagan.
When he left office, he was hunched over.
The age signs on face was there.
Advice to Obama on battling presidential aging
When a new president strolls into the White House, there's a kick in his step and a twinkle in his eyes.
But as the years go by, the high-stakes decisions, constant criticisms and the fluctuating public opinion chip away at the president.
His shoulders slump a little and his energy may seem sapped.
The president ages twice as fast while in office, according to a theory advanced by Dr. Michael Roizen, a chief wellness officer at the Cleveland Clinic.
"The typical person who lives one year ages one year," he said. "The typical president ages two years for every year they are in office."
Using public information, Roizen looked through medical records of previous presidents back to Theodore Roosevelt.
Assessing factors such as diet, blood pressure, physical activity and lifestyle habits, he calculated that the leader of the free world ages more quickly.
Roizen, who is the author of "RealAge:
Are You as Young as You Can Be?"
has not assessed the "real age" of President-elect Barack Obama, who is 47, because of lack of medical data.
"Barack Obama is a fairly young guy and doesn't have great of a risk," Roizen said.
"If he's president for eight years, he ends up having the risk of disability or dying, like someone who is 16 years older."
Former president Bill Clinton entered the office with a robust head of salt-and-pepper hair and a healthy habit of running.
After bitter partisan battles, the Monica Lewinsky scandal, and impeachment by the House, Clinton left office with wrinkles and powder-white hair.
"Chronic stress can produce lots of wear and tear on the body," said James A. McCubbin, a Clemson University professor of psychology and senior associate dean of the College of Business and Behavioral Science. "This is what we see in the changes in the appearance in the beginning and end of the presidency."
Roizen points to the experience of Ronald Reagan.
When he left office, he was hunched over.
The age signs on face was there.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Real estate power broker dead of apparent suicide
One of Chicago's most well-known real estate moguls appears to have shot himself to death, police said.
The body of Steven L. Good was found in his Jaguar on Monday.
The car was spotted in a parking lot of a wildlife preserve in Kane County, Illinois, just outside Chicago, authorities said.
No note was found, and police say they do not know how long the 52-year-old had been in the vehicle.
Good was the chairman and chief executive officer of Sheldon Good & Co., a major U.S. real estate auction company.
The death comes amid great turmoil in the country's real estate industry.
In his role as chairman of the Realtors Commercial Alliance Committee, Good commented on tough conditions last month at a business conference.
On a memorial blog set up by the Chicago Association of Realtors, for which Good once served as president, friends and colleagues described him as a gregarious man with a big personality.
He was a savvy businessman who built his company into a major national real estate company that did deals with Donald Trump, they said.
"It is testimony to Steve's leadership that Sheldon Good & Co. remains well-positioned for the future," said Sheldon Good President Alan R. Kravets.
"The guy was a true blue Realtor," said Barbara Matthopoulis, the association's spokeswoman.
"Anybody who knew him would speak to his leadership, his generosity, his attitude.
The guy was just very positive, always smiling, always telling you a story.
Everyone is really very shocked," she said.
Real estate power broker dead of apparent suicide
One of Chicago's most well-known real estate moguls appears to have shot himself to death, police said.
The body of Steven L. Good was found in his Jaguar on Monday.
The car was spotted in a parking lot of a wildlife preserve in Kane County, Illinois, just outside Chicago, authorities said.
No note was found, and police say they do not know how long the 52-year-old had been in the vehicle.
Good was the chairman and chief executive officer of Sheldon Good & Co., a major U.S. real estate auction company.
The death comes amid great turmoil in the country's real estate industry.
In his role as chairman of the Realtors Commercial Alliance Committee, Good commented on tough conditions last month at a business conference.
On a memorial blog set up by the Chicago Association of Realtors, for which Good once served as president, friends and colleagues described him as a gregarious man with a big personality.
He was a savvy businessman who built his company into a major national real estate company that did deals with Donald Trump, they said.
"It is testimony to Steve's leadership that Sheldon Good & Co. remains well-positioned for the future," said Sheldon Good President Alan R. Kravets.
"The guy was a true blue Realtor," said Barbara Matthopoulis, the association's spokeswoman.
"Anybody who knew him would speak to his leadership, his generosity, his attitude.
The guy was just very positive, always smiling, always telling you a story.
Everyone is really very shocked," she said.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
People`s Choice Awards hits 35
It's awards season in Hollywood, which means that the entertainment industry is offering a flurry of self-congratulatory honors over the next two months.
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association presents the Golden Globes (coming Sunday), the Screen Actors Guild has the SAG Awards (January 25), the Recording Academy gives out the Grammys (February 8), and then there's the granddaddy of them all, the Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars (February 22).
Wednesday night, however, it's "our" turn
or at least those of us who voted for the People's Choice Awards, which celebrates its 35th ceremony this year.
Among the nominees are "The Dark Knight" and "Iron Man" (up for favorite movie), Hugh Laurie and Patrick Dempsey (favorite male TV star), Brad Paisley and Kenny Chesney (favorite male singer) and Anne Hathaway and Kate Hudson (favorite leading lady).
The People's Choice Awards were created in 1975 by producer Bob Stivers, who sold the show to Procter & Gamble in the early 1980s.
The awards have reflected the growing divergence between popular and critical preferences;
in its early years favorite movie honors went to "The Sting" and "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"
both best picture winners at the Oscars as well as critical favorites
while more recently, categories have included slots no industry group would even hazard, such as favorite superhero, favorite on-screen matchup and Nice n' Easy Fans Favorite Hair (a nod to a Procter & Gamble product).
For most of their run, the People's Choice Awards were based on Gallup polls.
In the last few years, online voting has decided the winners, and this year's categories include tech-friendly slots for favorite user-generated video and favorite online sensation.
The show begins at 9 p.m. ET Wednesday on E!
People`s Choice Awards hits 35
It's awards season in Hollywood, which means that the entertainment industry is offering a flurry of self-congratulatory honors over the next two months.
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association presents the Golden Globes (coming Sunday), the Screen Actors Guild has the SAG Awards (January 25), the Recording Academy gives out the Grammys (February 8), and then there's the granddaddy of them all, the Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars (February 22).
Wednesday night, however, it's "our" turn
or at least those of us who voted for the People's Choice Awards, which celebrates its 35th ceremony this year.
Among the nominees are "The Dark Knight" and "Iron Man" (up for favorite movie), Hugh Laurie and Patrick Dempsey (favorite male TV star), Brad Paisley and Kenny Chesney (favorite male singer) and Anne Hathaway and Kate Hudson (favorite leading lady).
The People's Choice Awards were created in 1975 by producer Bob Stivers, who sold the show to Procter & Gamble in the early 1980s.
The awards have reflected the growing divergence between popular and critical preferences;
in its early years favorite movie honors went to "The Sting" and "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"
both best picture winners at the Oscars as well as critical favorites
while more recently, categories have included slots no industry group would even hazard, such as favorite superhero, favorite on-screen matchup and Nice n' Easy Fans Favorite Hair (a nod to a Procter & Gamble product).
For most of their run, the People's Choice Awards were based on Gallup polls.
In the last few years, online voting has decided the winners, and this year's categories include tech-friendly slots for favorite user-generated video and favorite online sensation.
The show begins at 9 p.m. ET Wednesday on E!
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Gas row sends shiver through freezing Europe
Ukraine and Russia said the supply of natural gas to Europe was completely shut off Wednesday, but each side blamed the other for the cut-off which comes as Europe faces a wave of freezing temperatures.
A spokesman for the Ukrainian state-run gas company, Naftogaz Ukrainy, told CNN that Russian gas giant Gazprom had turned off all gas flowing through Ukraine into the rest of Europe.
That forced Naftogaz to halt gas supplies meant for Europe, spokesman Ilya Savin said, because Naftogaz does not have the technical capability to pump the gas remaining in the pipelines on toward Europe.
Gazprom responded by saying they were not to blame.
"It's absolutely vice-versa," Gazprom's deputy chief executive Alexander Medvedev told CNN by phone from Berlin, Germany. "We didn't shut off gas supply to Europe. We have lost physical possibility to deliver gas to Europe through Ukraine because (the) Ukrainians shut down all export pipelines."
Both companies plan to meet Thursday for talks on the ongoing gas dispute.
At least 13 countries have reported their natural gas supply from Russia has been cut or reduced as a result of the row.
Amid sub-zero temperatures in some places, European gas customers aren't freezing in their homes just yet.
Some countries reporting a drop in supply, like Romania and Italy, import most of their natural gas from countries besides Russia.
Those countries have said that until the Russian gas supply resumes, they will increase their gas imports from other suppliers or rely on other energy sources.
The countries facing the most serious problems are those that import a majority of their gas from Russia.
Lithuania depends on Russia for 85 percent of its gas; Slovakia for 100 percent, and Bulgaria for 90 percent, according to figures compiled in 2006 by the European Council on Foreign Relations.
"We have enough reserves for the time being, but under the conditions of limited consumption," Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev told CNN.
Bulgaria is relying on alternative sources for its heating plants in the meantime, Stanishev said.
Temperatures across Europe have been lower than average in recent days, with cold Arctic air pushing over the continent from the north.
Forecasters predict the temperatures are likely to stay chilly through the weekend.
Gas row sends shiver through freezing Europe
Ukraine and Russia said the supply of natural gas to Europe was completely shut off Wednesday, but each side blamed the other for the cut-off which comes as Europe faces a wave of freezing temperatures.
A spokesman for the Ukrainian state-run gas company, Naftogaz Ukrainy, told CNN that Russian gas giant Gazprom had turned off all gas flowing through Ukraine into the rest of Europe.
That forced Naftogaz to halt gas supplies meant for Europe, spokesman Ilya Savin said, because Naftogaz does not have the technical capability to pump the gas remaining in the pipelines on toward Europe.
Gazprom responded by saying they were not to blame.
"It's absolutely vice-versa," Gazprom's deputy chief executive Alexander Medvedev told CNN by phone from Berlin, Germany. "We didn't shut off gas supply to Europe. We have lost physical possibility to deliver gas to Europe through Ukraine because (the) Ukrainians shut down all export pipelines."
Both companies plan to meet Thursday for talks on the ongoing gas dispute.
At least 13 countries have reported their natural gas supply from Russia has been cut or reduced as a result of the row.
Amid sub-zero temperatures in some places, European gas customers aren't freezing in their homes just yet.
Some countries reporting a drop in supply, like Romania and Italy, import most of their natural gas from countries besides Russia.
Those countries have said that until the Russian gas supply resumes, they will increase their gas imports from other suppliers or rely on other energy sources.
The countries facing the most serious problems are those that import a majority of their gas from Russia.
Lithuania depends on Russia for 85 percent of its gas; Slovakia for 100 percent, and Bulgaria for 90 percent, according to figures compiled in 2006 by the European Council on Foreign Relations.
"We have enough reserves for the time being, but under the conditions of limited consumption," Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev told CNN.
Bulgaria is relying on alternative sources for its heating plants in the meantime, Stanishev said.
Temperatures across Europe have been lower than average in recent days, with cold Arctic air pushing over the continent from the north.
Forecasters predict the temperatures are likely to stay chilly through the weekend.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich has lost his position at the top of football's rich list but David Beckham remains the wealthiest player.
Russian billionaire Abramovich has slipped to third place behind Manchester City's new owner Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
Sheikh Mansour, a member of the Abu Dhabi royal family, has a fortune of £15 billion ($22.04B), according to the Football Rich List, researched and published by FourFourTwo magazine.
Abramovich has also been overtaken by Indian industrialist Lakshmi Mittal, who is the joint owner of second-flight English side Queens Park Rangers with Formula One's Bernie Ecclestone and Flavio Briatore.
Abramovich has seen his fortune cut by over £3 billion to £7 billion ($10.29B) in the global economic downturn, the magazine estimated.
Have wealthy owners benefited English football ?
His billions gave Chelsea massive spending power to win two successive Premier League titles under Jose Mourinho and accelerated the trend of foreign ownership in English football.
Beckham, currently on loan to AC Milan from Los Angeles Galaxy, has personal assets valued at £125 million ($183.66 million), well ahead of Michael Owen (£40 million $58.77m) and Wayne Rooney.
England head coach Fabio Capello is 73rd on the list, boosted by his own private art collection, with Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson at number 78.
Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich has lost his position at the top of football's rich list but David Beckham remains the wealthiest player.
Russian billionaire Abramovich has slipped to third place behind Manchester City's new owner Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
Sheikh Mansour, a member of the Abu Dhabi royal family, has a fortune of £15 billion ($22.04B), according to the Football Rich List, researched and published by FourFourTwo magazine.
Abramovich has also been overtaken by Indian industrialist Lakshmi Mittal, who is the joint owner of second-flight English side Queens Park Rangers with Formula One's Bernie Ecclestone and Flavio Briatore.
Abramovich has seen his fortune cut by over £3 billion to £7 billion ($10.29B) in the global economic downturn, the magazine estimated.
Have wealthy owners benefited English football ?
His billions gave Chelsea massive spending power to win two successive Premier League titles under Jose Mourinho and accelerated the trend of foreign ownership in English football.
Beckham, currently on loan to AC Milan from Los Angeles Galaxy, has personal assets valued at £125 million ($183.66 million), well ahead of Michael Owen (£40 million $58.77m) and Wayne Rooney.
England head coach Fabio Capello is 73rd on the list, boosted by his own private art collection, with Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson at number 78.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
An agreement on a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for an Israeli-Gaza cease-fire has been reached, Arab and Western diplomats said Thursday afternoon.
A preliminary draft of the resolution obtained by CNN on Thursday expresses "grave concern" at the growing humanitarian crisis and heavy civilian casualties in Gaza as well as civilian deaths in Israel from Hamas rocket fire.
Roughly 765 Palestinians have been killed since Israel began its military assault on Gaza on December 27, according to Palestinian medical sources.
Thirteen Israelis, including 10 soldiers, also have been killed since the military operation began.
It was not clear immediately when a vote on the resolution could take place.
The resolution draft "stresses the urgency of, and calls for, an immediate, durable, and fully respected cease-fire which will lead to the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza."
The draft also welcomes efforts by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to broker a cease-fire between Israelis and Palestinians in current talks in Cairo, Egypt.
The draft calls for the opening of corridors to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, where food, water, electricity and medicine shortages have worsened already poor conditions since Israel's offensive in Gaza began.
The council's wrangling over the resolution centered on wording.
An agreement on a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for an Israeli-Gaza cease-fire has been reached, Arab and Western diplomats said Thursday afternoon.
A preliminary draft of the resolution obtained by CNN on Thursday expresses "grave concern" at the growing humanitarian crisis and heavy civilian casualties in Gaza as well as civilian deaths in Israel from Hamas rocket fire.
Roughly 765 Palestinians have been killed since Israel began its military assault on Gaza on December 27, according to Palestinian medical sources.
Thirteen Israelis, including 10 soldiers, also have been killed since the military operation began.
It was not clear immediately when a vote on the resolution could take place.
The resolution draft "stresses the urgency of, and calls for, an immediate, durable, and fully respected cease-fire which will lead to the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza."
The draft also welcomes efforts by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to broker a cease-fire between Israelis and Palestinians in current talks in Cairo, Egypt.
The draft calls for the opening of corridors to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, where food, water, electricity and medicine shortages have worsened already poor conditions since Israel's offensive in Gaza began.
The council's wrangling over the resolution centered on wording.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
`UFO strike` has UK in a lather over E.T.
Strange lights in the sky, mysterious flashes, dozens of witnesses, a missing wind turbine blade and a tabloid splash featuring the pun:
Let's hope there isn't intelligent life out there watching us.
Britain's tabloid Sun newspaper Thursday proclaimed from its front page that a wind turbine was ruined after a UFO hit one of its 20 meter-long blades in Conisholme, Lincolnshire.
Dorothy Willows, who lives near the damaged turbine, told The Sun she was in her car when she saw strange lights in the sky.
"The lights were moving across the sky towards the wind farm. Then I saw a low flying object.
It was skimming across the sky towards the turbines."
Apparently, hours later, she and her husband were woken by a big bang;
one of the turbine's three blades had gone.
It, was, however, on the ground below.
Other locals told the newspaper that the lights looked like "balls of flames."
However, The Guardian newspaper's Web site content director Emily Bell had a simple explanation for all those "balls of light" in the sky.
She told The Guardian the lights were fireworks her brother Tim had bought at the local garden center for the 80th birthday party of dad Peter Bell.
"It was a medium-sized fireworks display with absolutely no ballistics, and the fireworks were mostly dropping over my parents' house. But we were laughing that we could have broken the wind turbine," Emily said.
"There we are in the middle of a scoop and we're beaten to it by a red-top tabloid," Emily's mother Bridget, 74, told The Guardian.
Later Thursday, the British Press Association reported the blade may have come off after a mechanical failure.
Fraser McLachlan, chief executive of GCube, which insures more than 25,000 wind turbines worldwide, told PA that although it was unusual, this kind of incident happened up to six times a year.
"It does happen that a blade will sometimes just come off a machine for one reason or another," he said. "The main reason is the blade may shear.
"We don't normally see things like aircraft It's usually a mechanical failure that causes the blade to separate from the main hub."
He said the cold weather was another possible cause.
Aliens out of control or simple mechanical failure?
A case for Mulder and Scully?
`UFO strike` has UK in a lather over E.T.
Strange lights in the sky, mysterious flashes, dozens of witnesses, a missing wind turbine blade and a tabloid splash featuring the pun:
Let's hope there isn't intelligent life out there watching us.
Britain's tabloid Sun newspaper Thursday proclaimed from its front page that a wind turbine was ruined after a UFO hit one of its 20 meter-long blades in Conisholme, Lincolnshire.
Dorothy Willows, who lives near the damaged turbine, told The Sun she was in her car when she saw strange lights in the sky.
"The lights were moving across the sky towards the wind farm. Then I saw a low flying object.
It was skimming across the sky towards the turbines."
Apparently, hours later, she and her husband were woken by a big bang;
one of the turbine's three blades had gone.
It, was, however, on the ground below.
Other locals told the newspaper that the lights looked like "balls of flames."
However, The Guardian newspaper's Web site content director Emily Bell had a simple explanation for all those "balls of light" in the sky.
She told The Guardian the lights were fireworks her brother Tim had bought at the local garden center for the 80th birthday party of dad Peter Bell.
"It was a medium-sized fireworks display with absolutely no ballistics, and the fireworks were mostly dropping over my parents' house. But we were laughing that we could have broken the wind turbine," Emily said.
"There we are in the middle of a scoop and we're beaten to it by a red-top tabloid," Emily's mother Bridget, 74, told The Guardian.
Later Thursday, the British Press Association reported the blade may have come off after a mechanical failure.
Fraser McLachlan, chief executive of GCube, which insures more than 25,000 wind turbines worldwide, told PA that although it was unusual, this kind of incident happened up to six times a year.
"It does happen that a blade will sometimes just come off a machine for one reason or another," he said. "The main reason is the blade may shear.
"We don't normally see things like aircraft It's usually a mechanical failure that causes the blade to separate from the main hub."
He said the cold weather was another possible cause.
Aliens out of control or simple mechanical failure?
A case for Mulder and Scully?
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer kicked off the 2009 International Consumer Electronics Show on Wednesday with an impassioned endorsement of PCs and a sneak peek at the company's future Windows 7 operating system.
As expected, Ballmer announced that Microsoft is releasing a beta version of Windows 7, which will be available for download beginning Friday.
The news suggests the world's largest software maker may be giving up efforts to rehabilitate its often-maligned Vista operating system, which was released worldwide in January 2007.
"We are on track to deliver the best version of Windows ever," Ballmer told an audience of several thousand tech professionals and journalists inside a cavernous ballroom at the Venetian hotel. "We're working hard to get it right and get it ready."
Without mentioning the security and compatibility issues that have dogged Vista, Ballmer promised that Windows 7 will make PCs faster and easier to use.
He didn't offer a timetable for its official release, although Windows Vista went on sale more than two years after it was issued in beta form.
Early reviews of Windows 7, which was leaked to the Internet in beta form in late December, have been positive.
The forthcoming operating system will have touch-screen capability, side-by-side windows for comparison shopping and a "Peek" feature that makes open windows transparent, allowing users to see the icons on their desktop.
"Windows 7 makes it easier to move between the things on your desktop," said Microsoft group project manager Charlotte Jones, who gave a brief demonstration of the system on the hall's giant display screens.
Jones said the new system also makes it easier to send files back and forth between home computers.
Microsoft`s Ballmer touts `best version of Windows ever`
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer kicked off the 2009 International Consumer Electronics Show on Wednesday with an impassioned endorsement of PCs and a sneak peek at the company's future Windows 7 operating system.
As expected, Ballmer announced that Microsoft is releasing a beta version of Windows 7, which will be available for download beginning Friday.
The news suggests the world's largest software maker may be giving up efforts to rehabilitate its often-maligned Vista operating system, which was released worldwide in January 2007.
"We are on track to deliver the best version of Windows ever," Ballmer told an audience of several thousand tech professionals and journalists inside a cavernous ballroom at the Venetian hotel. "We're working hard to get it right and get it ready."
Without mentioning the security and compatibility issues that have dogged Vista, Ballmer promised that Windows 7 will make PCs faster and easier to use.
He didn't offer a timetable for its official release, although Windows Vista went on sale more than two years after it was issued in beta form.
Early reviews of Windows 7, which was leaked to the Internet in beta form in late December, have been positive.
The forthcoming operating system will have touch-screen capability, side-by-side windows for comparison shopping and a "Peek" feature that makes open windows transparent, allowing users to see the icons on their desktop.
"Windows 7 makes it easier to move between the things on your desktop," said Microsoft group project manager Charlotte Jones, who gave a brief demonstration of the system on the hall's giant display screens.
Jones said the new system also makes it easier to send files back and forth between home computers.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
A woman in rural Papua New Guinea was bound and gagged, tied to a log and set ablaze on a pile of tires this week, possibly because villagers suspected her of being a witch, police said Thursday.
Her death adds to a growing list of men and women who have been accused of sorcery and then tortured or killed in the South Pacific island nation, where traditional beliefs hold sway in many regions.
The victims are often scapegoats for someone else's unexplained death, and bands of tribesmen collude to mete out justice to them for their supposed magical powers, police said.
"We have had difficulties in a number of previous incidents convincing people to come forward with information," said Simon Kauba, assistant commissioner of police and commander of the Highlands region, where the killing occurred.
"We are trying to persuade them to help. Somebody lost their mother or daughter or sister Tuesday morning."
Early Tuesday, a group of people dragged the woman, believed to be in her late teens to early 20s, to a dumping ground outside the city of Mount Hagen.
They stripped her naked, bound her hands and legs, stuffed a cloth in her mouth, tied her to a log and set her on fire, Kauba said.
"When the people living nearby went to the dump site to investigate what caused the fire, they found a human being burning in the flames," he said.
The country's Post-Courier newspaper reported Thursday that more than 50 people were killed in two Highlands provinces last year for allegedly practicing sorcery.
The killing of witches, or sangumas, is not a new phenomenon in rural areas of the country.
Emory University anthropology professor Bruce Knauft, who lived in a village in the western province of Papua New Guinea in the early 1980s, traced family histories for 42 years and found that one in three adult deaths were homicides
"the bulk of these being collective killings of suspected sorcerers," he wrote in his book, "From Primitive to Postcolonial in Melanesia and Anthropology."
In recent years, as AIDS has taken a toll in the nation of 6.7 million people, villagers have blamed suspected witches
Woman suspected of witchcraft burned alive
A woman in rural Papua New Guinea was bound and gagged, tied to a log and set ablaze on a pile of tires this week, possibly because villagers suspected her of being a witch, police said Thursday.
Her death adds to a growing list of men and women who have been accused of sorcery and then tortured or killed in the South Pacific island nation, where traditional beliefs hold sway in many regions.
The victims are often scapegoats for someone else's unexplained death, and bands of tribesmen collude to mete out justice to them for their supposed magical powers, police said.
"We have had difficulties in a number of previous incidents convincing people to come forward with information," said Simon Kauba, assistant commissioner of police and commander of the Highlands region, where the killing occurred.
"We are trying to persuade them to help. Somebody lost their mother or daughter or sister Tuesday morning."
Early Tuesday, a group of people dragged the woman, believed to be in her late teens to early 20s, to a dumping ground outside the city of Mount Hagen.
They stripped her naked, bound her hands and legs, stuffed a cloth in her mouth, tied her to a log and set her on fire, Kauba said.
"When the people living nearby went to the dump site to investigate what caused the fire, they found a human being burning in the flames," he said.
The country's Post-Courier newspaper reported Thursday that more than 50 people were killed in two Highlands provinces last year for allegedly practicing sorcery.
The killing of witches, or sangumas, is not a new phenomenon in rural areas of the country.
Emory University anthropology professor Bruce Knauft, who lived in a village in the western province of Papua New Guinea in the early 1980s, traced family histories for 42 years and found that one in three adult deaths were homicides
"the bulk of these being collective killings of suspected sorcerers," he wrote in his book, "From Primitive to Postcolonial in Melanesia and Anthropology."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Ronaldo wrecks Ferrari on way to training
Manchester United midfielder Cristiano Ronaldo escaped injury after wrecking his Ferrari on the way to training on Thursday, the Premier League and European champions have confirmed. "Cristiano was involved in an incident this morning.
No other cars were involved," a United club spokesman told PA Sport. "He's fine and is training as normal with the team this morning."
According to reports, the 23-year-old's Portuguese international's vehicle was written off in the crash.
Greater Manchester Police said in a statement. "At about 10.20am police were called to the A538 Wilmslow Road near to Manchester Airport following reports of a road traffic collision.
The accident happened in a tunnel near Manchester Airport with Sky News showing pictures of the badly damaged sportscar.
Reports said one of the wheels had come off in the incident and was about 200 meters behind where the vehicle.
Ronaldo was able to climb out of the vehicle and was spoken to by police at the scene according to PA.
Ronaldo wrecks Ferrari on way to training
Manchester United midfielder Cristiano Ronaldo escaped injury after wrecking his Ferrari on the way to training on Thursday, the Premier League and European champions have confirmed. "Cristiano was involved in an incident this morning.
No other cars were involved," a United club spokesman told PA Sport. "He's fine and is training as normal with the team this morning."
According to reports, the 23-year-old's Portuguese international's vehicle was written off in the crash.
Greater Manchester Police said in a statement. "At about 10.20am police were called to the A538 Wilmslow Road near to Manchester Airport following reports of a road traffic collision.
The accident happened in a tunnel near Manchester Airport with Sky News showing pictures of the badly damaged sportscar.
Reports said one of the wheels had come off in the incident and was about 200 meters behind where the vehicle.
Ronaldo was able to climb out of the vehicle and was spoken to by police at the scene according to PA.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Obama calls for `dramatic action`
President-elect Barack Obama on Thursday said Congress must take "dramatic action" on his economic aid package as soon as possible, warning that a failure to do so would have devastating long-term consequences for the nation.
The unemployment rate could reach double digits," he said.
More dreams will be deferred and denied.
And our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that, at some point, we may not be able to reverse," he said.
Obama laid the groundwork for urgent action on his "American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan," a plan he says will save or create more than 3 million jobs and invest in health care, energy and education, among other priorities.
Obama said his plan will immediately help jumpstart the economy by doubling the production of alternative energy within three years, improving the efficiency of federal buildings and homes, computerizing medical records, equipping schools with 21st century classrooms, expanding broadband across the country, and investing in science and new technologies.
The unemployment rate could reach double digits," he said.
More dreams will be deferred and denied.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
People with Parkinson's disease who have a pacemaker-like device implanted in the brain spend an extra four-plus hours a day free of tremors and involuntary movements than they do on medication, according to the largest study of the treatment, which is known as deep brain stimulation.
However, deep brain stimulation also has a correspondingly greater risk of problems, such as infection, because of the complicated surgery, according to the study published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
"It definitely is brain surgery and that should give anyone pause," says David Charles, M.D., of Vanderbilt University, in Nashville, Tennessee, who was not involved in the new study.
Nevertheless, he adds, most of the problems seen in the study were related to the surgery itself.
The findings are "encouraging," he says, given that previous research has suggested that patients might develop much more serious problems, such as major depression and suicidal thoughts, than were seen in the current study.
In deep brain stimulation, electrodes are used to deliver electrical impulses to the substantia nigra, a crescent-shaped region in the center of the brain that controls and coordinates movement.
In patients with Parkinson's disease, dopamine-producing nerve cells in this region degenerate, causing tremors, stiffness, slowed movement, and loss of coordination.
Drugs such as levodopa can help reduce tremors and involuntary movements. But for many people, this medication loses its effectiveness over time, while the side effects
such as sudden jerky movements, chewing motions, and hand tremors
People with Parkinson's disease who have a pacemaker-like device implanted in the brain spend an extra four-plus hours a day free of tremors and involuntary movements than they do on medication, according to the largest study of the treatment, which is known as deep brain stimulation.
However, deep brain stimulation also has a correspondingly greater risk of problems, such as infection, because of the complicated surgery, according to the study published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
"It definitely is brain surgery and that should give anyone pause," says David Charles, M.D., of Vanderbilt University, in Nashville, Tennessee, who was not involved in the new study.
Nevertheless, he adds, most of the problems seen in the study were related to the surgery itself.
The findings are "encouraging," he says, given that previous research has suggested that patients might develop much more serious problems, such as major depression and suicidal thoughts, than were seen in the current study.
In deep brain stimulation, electrodes are used to deliver electrical impulses to the substantia nigra, a crescent-shaped region in the center of the brain that controls and coordinates movement.
In patients with Parkinson's disease, dopamine-producing nerve cells in this region degenerate, causing tremors, stiffness, slowed movement, and loss of coordination.
Drugs such as levodopa can help reduce tremors and involuntary movements.
But for many people, this medication loses its effectiveness over time, while the side effects
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Diamonds link comet to mammal extinction
Tiny diamonds found in the soil are "strong evidence" a comet exploded on or above North America nearly 13,000 years ago, leading to the extinction of dozens of mammal species, according to a study.
The scientific report also suggests the cataclysm also reduced the population of the earliest people to inhabit the region and triggered a 1,300-year-long cold spell that stretched around the world.
The heat generated by the extraterrestrial impact likely melted much of a glacier that once covered the Great Lakes region, sending a massive flood down the Mississippi River, the study said.
According to the report, the cold waves of glacial runoff into the Gulf of Mexico shifted Atlantic Ocean currents, changing climate patterns throughout the world in a cooling period known as the Younger Dryas.
"A rare swarm" of comets rained over North America about 12,900 years ago, sparking fires that produced choking, leading "to the extinction of a large range of animals, including mammoths, across North America," the report said.
The study was conducted by a group of eight archaeologists and geologists from the universities of Oregon and California, Northern Arizona University, Oklahoma University and DePaul University.
Their findings were published Friday in the journal Nature.
The prehistoric humans known to have inhabited the continent at the time of the event hunters and gatherers dubbed the Clovis culture
suffered a major decline in population in the aftermath, the scientists said.
The scientists studied layers of sediment dated to 12,900 years ago at six North American locations, including one directly on top of a Clovis site in Murray Springs, Arizona.
Each layer was rich in nanodiamonds, which are produced under high-temperature, high-pressure conditions created by cosmic impacts, the report said.
"The nanodiamonds that we found at all six locations exist only in sediments associated with the Younger Dryas Boundary layers, not above it or below it," said University of Oregon archaeologist Douglas Kennett.
Tiny diamonds found in the soil are "strong evidence" a comet exploded on or above North America nearly 13,000 years ago, leading to the extinction of dozens of mammal species, according to a study.
The scientific report also suggests the cataclysm also reduced the population of the earliest people to inhabit the region and triggered a 1,300-year-long cold spell that stretched around the world.
The heat generated by the extraterrestrial impact likely melted much of a glacier that once covered the Great Lakes region, sending a massive flood down the Mississippi River, the study said.
According to the report, the cold waves of glacial runoff into the Gulf of Mexico shifted Atlantic Ocean currents, changing climate patterns throughout the world in a cooling period known as the Younger Dryas.
"A rare swarm" of comets rained over North America about 12,900 years ago, sparking fires that produced choking, leading "to the extinction of a large range of animals, including mammoths, across North America," the report said.
The study was conducted by a group of eight archaeologists and geologists from the universities of Oregon and California, Northern Arizona University, Oklahoma University and DePaul University.
Their findings were published Friday in the journal Nature.
The prehistoric humans known to have inhabited the continent at the time of the event hunters and gatherers dubbed the Clovis culture
suffered a major decline in population in the aftermath, the scientists said.
The scientists studied layers of sediment dated to 12,900 years ago at six North American locations, including one directly on top of a Clovis site in Murray Springs, Arizona.
Each layer was rich in nanodiamonds, which are produced under high-temperature, high-pressure conditions created by cosmic impacts, the report said.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Teens on MySpace mention sex, violence
A new study finds that 54 percent of teens talk about behaviors such as sex, alcohol use, and violence on the social networking giant MySpace
presenting potential risks even if all they're doing is talking, researchers said Monday.
The study looked at MySpace profiles of 500 people who identified themselves as 18-year-old males and females in the United States.
References to risky behaviors included both words and photos, the authors said.
Not all teens who write about risky behaviors in their profiles actually engage in them in real life, said Dr. Megan Moreno of the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, one of the authors of the study, which appears in the January issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.
They may instead talk about sex, substance use, or violence because they are contemplating doing those things, or because they want to brag without actually doing what they say, Moreno said.
Even if teens have not actually engaged in risky behaviors but merely brag about them online, this can still affect their future behavior, said study co-author Dr. Dimitri Christakis, professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington and director of the Center for Child Health, Behavior and Development at Seattle Children's Hospital.
Those who lie about the behaviors to show off may receive positive feedback from others
comments such as "that's great" or "I do the same thing" that encourage them to actually try out the behaviors, he said. Apart from that, teens who claim such behaviors are more likely to be victims of bullying and unwanted invitations for sex, he said.
Experts say the bottom line is that parents should get more involved in the online lives of their children.
"I tell parents that they should absolutely create their own MySpace and Facebook page," Christakis said.
The study inspired him to create his own Facebook account, and his 10-year-old already wants to know about his "friends," he said.
Teens on MySpace mention sex, violence
A new study finds that 54 percent of teens talk about behaviors such as sex, alcohol use, and violence on the social networking giant MySpace
presenting potential risks even if all they're doing is talking, researchers said Monday.
The study looked at MySpace profiles of 500 people who identified themselves as 18-year-old males and females in the United States.
References to risky behaviors included both words and photos, the authors said.
Not all teens who write about risky behaviors in their profiles actually engage in them in real life, said Dr. Megan Moreno of the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, one of the authors of the study, which appears in the January issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.
They may instead talk about sex, substance use, or violence because they are contemplating doing those things, or because they want to brag without actually doing what they say, Moreno said.
Even if teens have not actually engaged in risky behaviors but merely brag about them online, this can still affect their future behavior, said study co-author Dr. Dimitri Christakis, professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington and director of the Center for Child Health, Behavior and Development at Seattle Children's Hospital.
Those who lie about the behaviors to show off may receive positive feedback from others
comments such as "that's great" or "I do the same thing" that encourage them to actually try out the behaviors, he said. Apart from that, teens who claim such behaviors are more likely to be victims of bullying and unwanted invitations for sex, he said.
Experts say the bottom line is that parents should get more involved in the online lives of their children.
"I tell parents that they should absolutely create their own MySpace and Facebook page," Christakis said.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Many skiers who visit Colorado prefer the slopes of Aspen, Vail or Breckenridge.
But there's a cool little day trip from Denver that often gets overlooked by out-of-towners.
The Ski Train is a 68-year-old local favorite that shuttles about 750 people between Denver and Winter Park.
leaving Denver's Union Station at 7:15 a.m. and begins the return leg nine hours later.
The 56-mile trip takes about two hours each way, and many riders say it's worth the cost to avoid the traffic hassles of the oft-congested I-70.
There are additional expenses, such as parking at the train station in Denver and lift tickets for skiers.
If someone chooses to shop instead of ski, a free shuttle into Winter Park is available.
Train riders love the trip route, which winds through the Rockies and climbs to 9,000 feet.
It also travels through almost 30 tunnels, including the 6.2-mile Moffat Tunnel, which passes underneath the Continental Divide.
"The train ride up there is spectacular. You see wonderful vistas as you leave Denver through the northern plains and into the mountains," Kristal Kraft, a real estate agent in Denver, says.
"And once you get through the Moffat Tunnel, you're right there at Winter Park."
Kraft says she enjoyed her maiden voyage on the train, which came courtesy of a local home builder that bought group tickets in one of the club cars. "I loved the convenience [of the train],' she says.
"We relaxed, talked, socialized. And when you get off the train, you are right there at the slopes."
According to skitrain.com, three additional cars are available for charter and one for company retreats.
The Web site lists the price for the presentation car at $5,000 for a winter trip.
The site says the current train cars were purchased after Ansco Investment Company bought the Ski Train in 1988.
Kraft says the cars are comfortably heated and there is ample room to move around.
Many skiers who visit Colorado prefer the slopes of Aspen, Vail or Breckenridge.
But there's a cool little day trip from Denver that often gets overlooked by out-of-towners.
The Ski Train is a 68-year-old local favorite that shuttles about 750 people between Denver and Winter Park.
leaving Denver's Union Station at 7:15 a.m. and begins the return leg nine hours later.
The 56-mile trip takes about two hours each way, and many riders say it's worth the cost to avoid the traffic hassles of the oft-congested I-70.
There are additional expenses, such as parking at the train station in Denver and lift tickets for skiers.
If someone chooses to shop instead of ski, a free shuttle into Winter Park is available.
Train riders love the trip route, which winds through the Rockies and climbs to 9,000 feet.
It also travels through almost 30 tunnels, including the 6.2-mile Moffat Tunnel, which passes underneath the Continental Divide.
"The train ride up there is spectacular. You see wonderful vistas as you leave Denver through the northern plains and into the mountains," Kristal Kraft, a real estate agent in Denver, says.
"And once you get through the Moffat Tunnel, you're right there at Winter Park."
Kraft says she enjoyed her maiden voyage on the train, which came courtesy of a local home builder that bought group tickets in one of the club cars. "I loved the convenience [of the train],' she says.
"We relaxed, talked, socialized. And when you get off the train, you are right there at the slopes."
According to skitrain.com, three additional cars are available for charter and one for company retreats.
The Web site lists the price for the presentation car at $5,000 for a winter trip.
The site says the current train cars were purchased after Ansco Investment Company bought the Ski Train in 1988.
Kraft says the cars are comfortably heated and there is ample room to move around.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Golf`s young bloods set to storm 2009
Golf is increasingly becoming a young player's game.
In the past, aside from the occasional young star like Tiger Woods, the players winning big tournaments have tended to be the more mature pros.
But all this is changing.
In 2008, there was a distinct shift downwards in the average ages of golfing champions.
In April 2008, Trevor Immelman took the Masters title at just 28 years old.
The following month, Sergio Garcia, also 28, won his first big tournament, The Players, simultaneously moving into second place in the world rankings, behind an injured Tiger Woods.
This month Living Golf talked to one of the sport's most impressive, and youngest, prospects, Ryo Ishikawa, who turned 17 last September.
Having become the youngest player to win a Japan Tour event, aged just 15, Ishikawa turned pro at the beginning of 2008 and already has his sights set on the big names.
He told CNN he "would like to play against Tiger Woods in the Masters."
And if the trend of talented youngsters continues, Tiger may be forgiven for being worried by this attention from a rising star.
He has been considered a big prospect since turning pro in 2006, and has attracted the attention of players such as Tiger Woods and Ryder Cup captain Paul Azinger.
At the age of just 23, Kim is the youngest player in the top 30, and ended the year ranked an impressive 12th in the world.
Though not exactly a newcomer on the Tour, Villegas is a player set to become a household name this year, if 2008 was anything to go by.
Another golfer whose name has already been splashed all over the sports pages, Wie is back from an injury she suffered in 2007 and ready to make her mark on the Ladies' Tour. Her performance at Qualifying School wasn't particularly remarkable
she finished tied for seventh aside from the fact it allowed one of the most exciting young players of the last few years to compete with her peers.
He is already so proficient, it seems hard to call him a prospect, but it's clear the 24-year-old German is a serious threat to the big names.
Kaymer was invited by Europe's Ryder Cup captain Nick Faldo to join the team in Valhalla;
a sign the German is expected to play a part in future Ryder Cups for the Europeans, and his calmness under pressure is bound to set him up as a powerful contender.
McIlroy turned pro in 2007, aged 18, having already made a name for himself as a talented young amateur.
With two top five results from his first three tour competitions as a professional, he became the youngest and fastest Affiliate Member to secure his card.
Golf`s young bloods set to storm 2009
Golf is increasingly becoming a young player's game.
In the past, aside from the occasional young star like Tiger Woods, the players winning big tournaments have tended to be the more mature pros.
But all this is changing.
In 2008, there was a distinct shift downwards in the average ages of golfing champions.
In April 2008, Trevor Immelman took the Masters title at just 28 years old.
The following month, Sergio Garcia, also 28, won his first big tournament, The Players, simultaneously moving into second place in the world rankings, behind an injured Tiger Woods.
This month Living Golf talked to one of the sport's most impressive, and youngest, prospects, Ryo Ishikawa, who turned 17 last September.
Having become the youngest player to win a Japan Tour event, aged just 15, Ishikawa turned pro at the beginning of 2008 and already has his sights set on the big names.
He told CNN he "would like to play against Tiger Woods in the Masters."
And if the trend of talented youngsters continues, Tiger may be forgiven for being worried by this attention from a rising star.
He has been considered a big prospect since turning pro in 2006, and has attracted the attention of players such as Tiger Woods and Ryder Cup captain Paul Azinger.
At the age of just 23, Kim is the youngest player in the top 30, and ended the year ranked an impressive 12th in the world.
Though not exactly a newcomer on the Tour, Villegas is a player set to become a household name this year, if 2008 was anything to go by.
Another golfer whose name has already been splashed all over the sports pages, Wie is back from an injury she suffered in 2007 and ready to make her mark on the Ladies' Tour. Her performance at Qualifying School wasn't particularly remarkable
she finished tied for seventh aside from the fact it allowed one of the most exciting young players of the last few years to compete with her peers.
He is already so proficient, it seems hard to call him a prospect, but it's clear the 24-year-old German is a serious threat to the big names.
Kaymer was invited by Europe's Ryder Cup captain Nick Faldo to join the team in Valhalla;
a sign the German is expected to play a part in future Ryder Cups for the Europeans, and his calmness under pressure is bound to set him up as a powerful contender.
McIlroy turned pro in 2007, aged 18, having already made a name for himself as a talented young amateur.
With two top five results from his first three tour competitions as a professional, he became the youngest and fastest Affiliate Member to secure his card.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Britain`s Prince Harry apologizes for offensive language
Britain's Prince Harry apologized through a spokesman Saturday after videos surfaced showing him using offensive language to describe people in his military unit.
In one clip, a voice said to be Harry's calls a soldier a "Paki."
In another clip, the voice tells a soldier wearing a cloth on his head that he looks "like a raghead."
The British newspaper News of the World posted the videos on its Web site Saturday.
It did not say how it obtained them.
A spokesman for Prince Harry apologized in a statement released by St. James's Palace Saturday.
It is not the first apology for offensive behavior by Prince Harry.
In 2005, he was photographed wearing a Nazi uniform to a party.
He said he was sorry for that incident.
"It was a very stupid thing to do and I've learned my lesson, simple as that really," he said in a September 2005 interview with Britain's Press Association, marking his 21st birthday.
"I'd like to put it in the past now.
What's done is done.
Britain`s Prince Harry apologizes for offensive language
Britain's Prince Harry apologized through a spokesman Saturday after videos surfaced showing him using offensive language to describe people in his military unit.
In one clip, a voice said to be Harry's calls a soldier a "Paki."
In another clip, the voice tells a soldier wearing a cloth on his head that he looks "like a raghead."
The British newspaper News of the World posted the videos on its Web site Saturday.
It did not say how it obtained them.
A spokesman for Prince Harry apologized in a statement released by St. James's Palace Saturday.
It is not the first apology for offensive behavior by Prince Harry.
In 2005, he was photographed wearing a Nazi uniform to a party.
He said he was sorry for that incident.
"It was a very stupid thing to do and I've learned my lesson, simple as that really," he said in a September 2005 interview with Britain's Press Association, marking his 21st birthday.
What's done is done.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
President-elect Barack Obama said Sunday the suffering on both sides of Gaza's borders has led him to ramp up his commitment to working for a peace deal in the Middle East.
And obviously what that does is it makes me much more determined to try to break a deadlock that has gone on for decades now," he told ABC's "This Week."
Rejecting criticism that he has been relatively quiet on the violence in Gaza, Obama said he believes "the one area where the principle of 'one president at a time' has to hold is when it comes to foreign policy.
We cannot have two administrations at the same time simultaneously sending signals in a volatile situation.
"But what I am doing right now is putting together the team so that on January 20, starting on day one, we have the best possible people who are going to be immediately engaged in the Middle East peace process as a whole, that are going to be engaging with all of the actors there, that will work to create a strategic approach that ensures that both Israelis and Palestinians can meet their aspirations," he said.
President-elect Barack Obama said Sunday the suffering on both sides of Gaza's borders has led him to ramp up his commitment to working for a peace deal in the Middle East.
And obviously what that does is it makes me much more determined to try to break a deadlock that has gone on for decades now," he told ABC's "This Week."
Rejecting criticism that he has been relatively quiet on the violence in Gaza, Obama said he believes "the one area where the principle of 'one president at a time' has to hold is when it comes to foreign policy.
We cannot have two administrations at the same time simultaneously sending signals in a volatile situation.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
A giant lobster named George escaped a dinner-table fate and was released Saturday into the Atlantic Ocean after a New York seafood restaurant granted him his freedom, according to a statement from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
The lobster, which PETA said was 140 years old and weighed 20 pounds, had been confined to a tank at City Crab and Seafood restaurant in Manhattan when two customers alerted the animal group.
The PETA statement did not say how the extraordinary age estimate was determined, but restaurant manager Keith Valenti told CNN that lobsters can grow a pound every seven to 10 years, and he put George's weight at 18 to 20 pounds.
"I've been here for 12 years, and that's the biggest lobster I've ever seen," Valenti said.
He said the lobster had been "sitting in the restaurant's tank and acting as a sort of mascot," but when PETA got involved and requested the release, it "seemed like the right thing to do."
PETA President Ingrid Newkirk said in a statement, "We applaud the folks at City Crab and Seafood for their compassionate decision to allow this noble old-timer to live out his days in freedom and peace.
"We hope that their kind gesture serves as an example that these intriguing animals don't deserve to be confined to tiny tanks or boiled alive."
Shedding the tight confines of his old restaurant display tank, George was driven to Maine by PETA members and was returned to his natural habitat on the ocean floor Saturday, the organization said.
A giant lobster named George escaped a dinner-table fate and was released Saturday into the Atlantic Ocean after a New York seafood restaurant granted him his freedom, according to a statement from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
The lobster, which PETA said was 140 years old and weighed 20 pounds, had been confined to a tank at City Crab and Seafood restaurant in Manhattan when two customers alerted the animal group.
The PETA statement did not say how the extraordinary age estimate was determined, but restaurant manager Keith Valenti told CNN that lobsters can grow a pound every seven to 10 years, and he put George's weight at 18 to 20 pounds.
"I've been here for 12 years, and that's the biggest lobster I've ever seen," Valenti said.
He said the lobster had been "sitting in the restaurant's tank and acting as a sort of mascot," but when PETA got involved and requested the release, it "seemed like the right thing to do."
PETA President Ingrid Newkirk said in a statement, "We applaud the folks at City Crab and Seafood for their compassionate decision to allow this noble old-timer to live out his days in freedom and peace.
"We hope that their kind gesture serves as an example that these intriguing animals don't deserve to be confined to tiny tanks or boiled alive."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Zimbabwe's central bank will introduce a $50 billion note
enough to buy just two loaves of bread
as a way of fighting cash shortages amid spiraling inflation.
The country's acting finance minister, Patrick Chinamasa, made the announcement in a government gazette released Saturday.
Although Chinamasa did not give the date on which the $50 billion and new $20 billion notes would come into circulation, an official at the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe said the notes would be distributed to all banks by the end of Monday.
Zimbabwe is grappling with hyperinflation now officially estimated at 231 million percent, and its currency is fast losing its value.
As of Friday, one U.S. dollar was trading at around ZW$25 billion.
When the government issued a $10 billion note just three weeks ago, it bought 20 loaves of bread.
That note now can purchase less than half of one loaf.
Realizing the worthlessness of the currency, the RBZ has allowed most goods and services to be charged in foreign currency.
As a result, grocery purchases, government hospital bills, property sales, rent, vegetables and even mobile phone recharge cards are now paid for in foreign currency, as the worthless Zimbabwe dollar virtually ceases to be legal tender.
Once a regional economic model, Zimbabwe is in the throes of an economic crisis, with unemployment running at more than 80 percent and many families unable to afford a square meal.
President Robert Mugabe's critics blame his policies for the economic meltdown, but he says the West is sabotaging his efforts.
In order to attract foreign currency, Zimbabwe's central bank has, since September, licensed at least 1,000 shops to sell goods in foreign currency.
All mobile phone service providers are now licensed to accept foreign exchange for airtime and other services.
Zimbabwe introduces $50 billion note
Zimbabwe's central bank will introduce a $50 billion note
enough to buy just two loaves of bread
as a way of fighting cash shortages amid spiraling inflation.
The country's acting finance minister, Patrick Chinamasa, made the announcement in a government gazette released Saturday.
Although Chinamasa did not give the date on which the $50 billion and new $20 billion notes would come into circulation, an official at the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe said the notes would be distributed to all banks by the end of Monday.
Zimbabwe is grappling with hyperinflation now officially estimated at 231 million percent, and its currency is fast losing its value.
As of Friday, one U.S. dollar was trading at around ZW$25 billion.
When the government issued a $10 billion note just three weeks ago, it bought 20 loaves of bread.
That note now can purchase less than half of one loaf.
Realizing the worthlessness of the currency, the RBZ has allowed most goods and services to be charged in foreign currency.
As a result, grocery purchases, government hospital bills, property sales, rent, vegetables and even mobile phone recharge cards are now paid for in foreign currency, as the worthless Zimbabwe dollar virtually ceases to be legal tender.
Once a regional economic model, Zimbabwe is in the throes of an economic crisis, with unemployment running at more than 80 percent and many families unable to afford a square meal.
President Robert Mugabe's critics blame his policies for the economic meltdown, but he says the West is sabotaging his efforts.
In order to attract foreign currency, Zimbabwe's central bank has, since September, licensed at least 1,000 shops to sell goods in foreign currency.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Kabul's version of "American Idol"
travel across Afghanistan's war-torn provinces in search of the country's most talented singers.
"This is a new type of show," contestant Naweed Sabirpur told CNN. "And the people are watching and following it intently.
Even when they don't have power, they turn on their generators and watch."
The show has Afghans all over the world, via satellite television, riveted every Thursday and Friday night, reconnecting them to the country's long history of poetic and musical artistry after three decades of warfare.
It also offers a refreshing change for a country still reeling from Taliban rule, which banned music and television from 1996 to 2001 isolating people from a significant piece of Afghan culture.
"The people were thirsty to listen to music and to have fresh young artists," said "Afghan Star" host Daoud Siddique.
Siddique added that even though music was repressed, it wasn't forgotten.
"We are talented people, we are no different from the rest of the world's people," he said.
Still, the show often reflects the country's disparities.
Of the 2,700 Afghans who auditioned last year for the show's fourth season, only 11 were women.
Among them was Elaha Sorur, the only woman to make it into the top 10 and a quick fan favorite.
"I hope from God that in the future of the series that the women participating will be ten times that of the men," Sorur said with a giggle.
A refugee in Iran for 15 years, her mix of classic and modern ballads kept the audience wanting more.
However, radical clerics have labeled the show un-Islamic, calling for its end. But that hasn't stopped viewers from tuning in and voting for their favorites via mobile phone.
This is a very big message from this show."
Kabul's version of "American Idol"
travel across Afghanistan's war-torn provinces in search of the country's most talented singers.
"This is a new type of show," contestant Naweed Sabirpur told CNN. "And the people are watching and following it intently.
Even when they don't have power, they turn on their generators and watch."
The show has Afghans all over the world, via satellite television, riveted every Thursday and Friday night, reconnecting them to the country's long history of poetic and musical artistry after three decades of warfare.
It also offers a refreshing change for a country still reeling from Taliban rule, which banned music and television from 1996 to 2001 isolating people from a significant piece of Afghan culture.
"The people were thirsty to listen to music and to have fresh young artists," said "Afghan Star" host Daoud Siddique.
Siddique added that even though music was repressed, it wasn't forgotten.
"We are talented people, we are no different from the rest of the world's people," he said.
Still, the show often reflects the country's disparities.
Of the 2,700 Afghans who auditioned last year for the show's fourth season, only 11 were women.
Among them was Elaha Sorur, the only woman to make it into the top 10 and a quick fan favorite.
"I hope from God that in the future of the series that the women participating will be ten times that of the men," Sorur said with a giggle.
A refugee in Iran for 15 years, her mix of classic and modern ballads kept the audience wanting more.
This is a very big message from this show."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Golf`s young bloods set to storm 2009
Golf is increasingly becoming a young player's game.
In the past, aside from the occasional young star like Tiger Woods, the players winning big tournaments have tended to be the more mature pros.
But all this is changing.
In 2008, there was a distinct shift downwards in the average ages of golfing champions.
In April 2008, Trevor Immelman took the Masters title at just 28 years old.
The following month, Sergio Garcia, also 28, won his first big tournament, The Players, simultaneously moving into second place in the world rankings, behind an injured Tiger Woods.
This month Living Golf talked to one of the sport's most impressive, and youngest, prospects, Ryo Ishikawa, who turned 17 last September.
Having become the youngest player to win a Japan Tour event, aged just 15, Ishikawa turned pro at the beginning of 2008 and already has his sights set on the big names.
He told CNN he "would like to play against Tiger Woods in the Masters."
And if the trend of talented youngsters continues, Tiger may be forgiven for being worried by this attention from a rising star.
He has been considered a big prospect since turning pro in 2006, and has attracted the attention of players such as Tiger Woods and Ryder Cup captain Paul Azinger.
At the age of just 23, Kim is the youngest player in the top 30, and ended the year ranked an impressive 12th in the world.
Though not exactly a newcomer on the Tour, Villegas is a player set to become a household name this year, if 2008 was anything to go by.
Another golfer whose name has already been splashed all over the sports pages, Wie is back from an injury she suffered in 2007 and ready to make her mark on the Ladies' Tour. Her performance at Qualifying School wasn't particularly remarkable
she finished tied for seventh aside from the fact it allowed one of the most exciting young players of the last few years to compete with her peers.
He is already so proficient, it seems hard to call him a prospect, but it's clear the 24-year-old German is a serious threat to the big names.
Kaymer was invited by Europe's Ryder Cup captain Nick Faldo to join the team in Valhalla;
a sign the German is expected to play a part in future Ryder Cups for the Europeans, and his calmness under pressure is bound to set him up as a powerful contender.
McIlroy turned pro in 2007, aged 18, having already made a name for himself as a talented young amateur.
With two top five results from his first three tour competitions as a professional, he became the youngest and fastest Affiliate Member to secure his card.
Golf`s young bloods set to storm 2009
Golf is increasingly becoming a young player's game.
In the past, aside from the occasional young star like Tiger Woods, the players winning big tournaments have tended to be the more mature pros.
But all this is changing.
In 2008, there was a distinct shift downwards in the average ages of golfing champions.
In April 2008, Trevor Immelman took the Masters title at just 28 years old.
The following month, Sergio Garcia, also 28, won his first big tournament, The Players, simultaneously moving into second place in the world rankings, behind an injured Tiger Woods.
This month Living Golf talked to one of the sport's most impressive, and youngest, prospects, Ryo Ishikawa, who turned 17 last September.
Having become the youngest player to win a Japan Tour event, aged just 15, Ishikawa turned pro at the beginning of 2008 and already has his sights set on the big names.
He told CNN he "would like to play against Tiger Woods in the Masters."
And if the trend of talented youngsters continues, Tiger may be forgiven for being worried by this attention from a rising star.
He has been considered a big prospect since turning pro in 2006, and has attracted the attention of players such as Tiger Woods and Ryder Cup captain Paul Azinger.
At the age of just 23, Kim is the youngest player in the top 30, and ended the year ranked an impressive 12th in the world.
Though not exactly a newcomer on the Tour, Villegas is a player set to become a household name this year, if 2008 was anything to go by.
Another golfer whose name has already been splashed all over the sports pages, Wie is back from an injury she suffered in 2007 and ready to make her mark on the Ladies' Tour. Her performance at Qualifying School wasn't particularly remarkable
she finished tied for seventh aside from the fact it allowed one of the most exciting young players of the last few years to compete with her peers.
He is already so proficient, it seems hard to call him a prospect, but it's clear the 24-year-old German is a serious threat to the big names.
Kaymer was invited by Europe's Ryder Cup captain Nick Faldo to join the team in Valhalla;
a sign the German is expected to play a part in future Ryder Cups for the Europeans, and his calmness under pressure is bound to set him up as a powerful contender.
McIlroy turned pro in 2007, aged 18, having already made a name for himself as a talented young amateur.
With two top five results from his first three tour competitions as a professional, he became the youngest and fastest Affiliate Member to secure his card.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniya delivered a defiant speech Monday, promising that the current conflict with Israel will deliver "a new future" to the people of Gaza.
"Victory comes with patience," Haniya said in the speech televised on Hamas' Al Aqsa TV.
"O people of Gaza, with your patience you are drawing the features of a new future."
It is the second speech by Haniya since Israel began its military operation in Gaza on December 27.
His office was struck by an Israeli airstrike in the early days of the military campaign.
"What is truly happening and all honesty is a divine verse of God," Haniya said
a statement reminiscent of the rhetoric used by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who spoke of a "divine victory" over Israel in 2006.
Israel fought Hezbollah militants in Lebanon two years ago in an effort to stop Hezbollah rocket fire into northern Israel.
The six-week war failed to weaken the Hezbollah movement in Lebanon.
Israel launched its military operation in Gaza more than two weeks ago to halt rocket attacks on southern Israel, which it blames on the Hamas leadership of Gaza.
Palestinian medical sources said Monday that 917 Palestinians have died in the operation.
Of those, at least 43 percent are civilians, according to the sources.
More than 4,000 others have been injured, they said.
Thirteen Israelis, including 10 soldiers, have died in the operation in Gaza as well as the rocket strikes on southern Israel, according to Israeli police and military officials.
For a fifth day, the Israeli military paused for a three-hour break from its assault on Gaza to allow residents to pick up humanitarian supplies, a Defense Ministry spokesman said Monday.
Israel was allowing 160 trucks of humanitarian aid into the Palestinian territory through the Kerem Shalom and Karni crossings, Defense Ministry spokesman Peter Lerner said.
Despite an Israeli official's assessment that the military operation may be in its final days, Israeli warplanes continued to bombard Gaza overnight and into the day Monday.
An eyewitness reported Israeli airstrikes on smuggling tunnels under the border with Egypt.
Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniya delivered a defiant speech Monday, promising that the current conflict with Israel will deliver "a new future" to the people of Gaza.
"Victory comes with patience," Haniya said in the speech televised on Hamas' Al Aqsa TV.
"O people of Gaza, with your patience you are drawing the features of a new future."
It is the second speech by Haniya since Israel began its military operation in Gaza on December 27.
His office was struck by an Israeli airstrike in the early days of the military campaign.
"What is truly happening and all honesty is a divine verse of God," Haniya said
a statement reminiscent of the rhetoric used by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who spoke of a "divine victory" over Israel in 2006.
Israel fought Hezbollah militants in Lebanon two years ago in an effort to stop Hezbollah rocket fire into northern Israel.
The six-week war failed to weaken the Hezbollah movement in Lebanon.
Israel launched its military operation in Gaza more than two weeks ago to halt rocket attacks on southern Israel, which it blames on the Hamas leadership of Gaza.
Palestinian medical sources said Monday that 917 Palestinians have died in the operation.
Of those, at least 43 percent are civilians, according to the sources.
More than 4,000 others have been injured, they said.
Thirteen Israelis, including 10 soldiers, have died in the operation in Gaza as well as the rocket strikes on southern Israel, according to Israeli police and military officials.
For a fifth day, the Israeli military paused for a three-hour break from its assault on Gaza to allow residents to pick up humanitarian supplies, a Defense Ministry spokesman said Monday.
Israel was allowing 160 trucks of humanitarian aid into the Palestinian territory through the Kerem Shalom and Karni crossings, Defense Ministry spokesman Peter Lerner said.
Despite an Israeli official's assessment that the military operation may be in its final days, Israeli warplanes continued to bombard Gaza overnight and into the day Monday.
An eyewitness reported Israeli airstrikes on smuggling tunnels under the border with Egypt.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
President Bush admitted mistakes but defended his accomplishments in the final White House news conference of his presidency Monday.
"Clearly, putting a 'Mission Accomplished' [banner] on an aircraft carrier was a mistake," Bush said about how his administration handled the fall of Baghdad to U.S. troops. "It sent the wrong message."
He termed other aspects of the U.S. invasion of Iraq "disappointments," including the failure to find weapons of mass destruction and the treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison.
"I don't know if you want to call those mistakes or not, but they were things didn't go according to plan, let's put it that way," Bush said.
Admitting another mistake, Bush said that he should have pursued a comprehensive immigration overhaul after the 2004 election, instead of Social Security reform.
He said that Congress did not have the political willpower to tackle Social Security at the time because the program was not facing an "imminent" funding crisis.
But Bush said plenty went right during his eight years in office, including the economy for most of his term.
"I inherited a recession, I'm ending on a recession. In the meantime, there were 52 months of uninterrupted job growth," he said.
"And I defended tax cuts when I campaigned, I helped implement tax cuts when I was president, and I will defend them after my presidency as the right course of action."
Bush also said that despite harsh criticism at the time, the federal government responded well to Hurricane Katrina and the flooding of New Orleans, Louisiana, in 2005.
"In terms of the decisions that I had made to protect the homeland, I wouldn't worry about popularity.
President Bush admitted mistakes but defended his accomplishments in the final White House news conference of his presidency Monday.
"Clearly, putting a 'Mission Accomplished' [banner] on an aircraft carrier was a mistake," Bush said about how his administration handled the fall of Baghdad to U.S. troops. "It sent the wrong message."
He termed other aspects of the U.S. invasion of Iraq "disappointments," including the failure to find weapons of mass destruction and the treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison.
"I don't know if you want to call those mistakes or not, but they were things didn't go according to plan, let's put it that way," Bush said.
Admitting another mistake, Bush said that he should have pursued a comprehensive immigration overhaul after the 2004 election, instead of Social Security reform.
He said that Congress did not have the political willpower to tackle Social Security at the time because the program was not facing an "imminent" funding crisis.
But Bush said plenty went right during his eight years in office, including the economy for most of his term.
"I inherited a recession, I'm ending on a recession. In the meantime, there were 52 months of uninterrupted job growth," he said.
"And I defended tax cuts when I campaigned, I helped implement tax cuts when I was president, and I will defend them after my presidency as the right course of action."
Bush also said that despite harsh criticism at the time, the federal government responded well to Hurricane Katrina and the flooding of New Orleans, Louisiana, in 2005.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
The introduction of the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) means visitors from 27 VWP countries
including most of Western Europe, New Zealand, Japan and Australia must now register their details online at least three days before departure.
which came into effect today replaces the written green I-94 form and allows travelers under the VWP to enter the U.S. without a visa and stay for up to 90 days.
The measure is designed to tighten security and make it harder for terrorists who are citizens of the participating countries to easily obtain entry to the U.S.
Critics fear the new rule will be an inconvenience for business travelers and the British Foreign Office is concerned that travelers who have not heard about the new rules may be caught out.
A British Foreign Office report on travel trends for 2009 predicted that 13 percent of British travelers are more likely to visit the States now Barack Obama has been elected.
"The consequences of not registering through ESTA could therefore be far reaching," says the Foreign Office.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has assured travelers that the system can handle last-minute and emergency requests.
ESTA has been operating on a voluntary basis since 1 August 2008 and is compulsory from 12 January 2009.
Applications can be made at any time, even if travelers have no specific travel plans.
If itineraries change, information can be easily updated on the ESTA Web site.
Once travelers are authorized, they can travel for up to two years or until their passport expires, whichever comes first.
Passengers must submit the same information that is currently required in the I-94 immigration form.
This includes biographical data, travel information as well as questions regarding communicable diseases, arrests and convictions.
In most cases, eligibility for travel will be approved immediately.
Applicants who receive an "Authorization Pending" response will need to check the Web site for updates.
Applicants whose ESTA applications are denied will be referred to Travel.State.Gov for information on how to apply for a visa.
ESTA does not change the rules for citizens from countries that require visas.
That no longer includes travelers from the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, the Republic of Korea, and the Slovak Republic;
they joined the VWP in November, 2008.
Malta became a member the following month.
Travelers are advised that ESTA does not guarantee entry into the United States.
The final decision rests with the immigration official at the port of entry.
Visitors to U.S. face refusal under new online entry system
The introduction of the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) means visitors from 27 VWP countries
including most of Western Europe, New Zealand, Japan and Australia must now register their details online at least three days before departure.
which came into effect today replaces the written green I-94 form and allows travelers under the VWP to enter the U.S. without a visa and stay for up to 90 days.
The measure is designed to tighten security and make it harder for terrorists who are citizens of the participating countries to easily obtain entry to the U.S.
Critics fear the new rule will be an inconvenience for business travelers and the British Foreign Office is concerned that travelers who have not heard about the new rules may be caught out.
A British Foreign Office report on travel trends for 2009 predicted that 13 percent of British travelers are more likely to visit the States now Barack Obama has been elected.
"The consequences of not registering through ESTA could therefore be far reaching," says the Foreign Office.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has assured travelers that the system can handle last-minute and emergency requests.
ESTA has been operating on a voluntary basis since 1 August 2008 and is compulsory from 12 January 2009.
Applications can be made at any time, even if travelers have no specific travel plans.
If itineraries change, information can be easily updated on the ESTA Web site.
Once travelers are authorized, they can travel for up to two years or until their passport expires, whichever comes first.
Passengers must submit the same information that is currently required in the I-94 immigration form.
This includes biographical data, travel information as well as questions regarding communicable diseases, arrests and convictions.
In most cases, eligibility for travel will be approved immediately.
Applicants who receive an "Authorization Pending" response will need to check the Web site for updates.
Applicants whose ESTA applications are denied will be referred to Travel.State.Gov for information on how to apply for a visa.
ESTA does not change the rules for citizens from countries that require visas.
That no longer includes travelers from the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, the Republic of Korea, and the Slovak Republic;
they joined the VWP in November, 2008.
Malta became a member the following month.
Travelers are advised that ESTA does not guarantee entry into the United States.
The final decision rests with the immigration official at the port of entry.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Ronaldo crowned FIFA World Player of Year
Cristiano Ronaldo was crowned FIFA's world player of the year in Zurich on Monday as Manchester United's star winger completed a stunning trophy collection.
Portugal international Ronaldo helped United win the Premier League, Champions League and world club championship titles in 2008.
Ronaldo also collected the European Player of the Year accolade and was voted number one by FIFPro, the worldwide players' union.
Now Ronaldo has seen off 2007 winner Kaka, of AC Milan, Spain Euro 2008 top scorer Fernando Torres of Liverpool and Barcelona stars Xavi and Lionel Messi.
"It's another overwhelming moment in my career," said 23-year-old Ronaldo who received the award from Brazilian legend Pele. "It's a tremendously emotional moment and a dream come true.
I'd like to dedicate this to my family."
Ronaldo also paid tribute to club manager Alex Ferguson who fought a very public battle with Real Madrid last summer when the Primera Liga giants attempted to lure the player to Spain.
"It's also true that the manager always has an important role to play. It was a great season for me and for my club, and the coach was important for me because I learned a lot for him," he said.
"I am lucky to be part of the history of a club like Manchester United."
Ronaldo's 31 league goals in the 2007-08 season, and 42 in total, won him the European Golden Shoe as the continent's top scorer.
The awards are voted for by the head coaches and captains of all countries.
Ronaldo crowned FIFA World Player of Year
Cristiano Ronaldo was crowned FIFA's world player of the year in Zurich on Monday as Manchester United's star winger completed a stunning trophy collection.
Portugal international Ronaldo helped United win the Premier League, Champions League and world club championship titles in 2008.
Ronaldo also collected the European Player of the Year accolade and was voted number one by FIFPro, the worldwide players' union.
Now Ronaldo has seen off 2007 winner Kaka, of AC Milan, Spain Euro 2008 top scorer Fernando Torres of Liverpool and Barcelona stars Xavi and Lionel Messi.
"It's another overwhelming moment in my career," said 23-year-old Ronaldo who received the award from Brazilian legend Pele. "It's a tremendously emotional moment and a dream come true.
I'd like to dedicate this to my family."
Ronaldo also paid tribute to club manager Alex Ferguson who fought a very public battle with Real Madrid last summer when the Primera Liga giants attempted to lure the player to Spain.
"It's also true that the manager always has an important role to play. It was a great season for me and for my club, and the coach was important for me because I learned a lot for him," he said.
"I am lucky to be part of the history of a club like Manchester United."
Ronaldo's 31 league goals in the 2007-08 season, and 42 in total, won him the European Golden Shoe as the continent's top scorer.
The awards are voted for by the head coaches and captains of all countries.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Sen. Hillary Clinton told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday that she aims to "renew America's leadership" in a world that has undergone an "extraordinary transformation" since the end of the Cold War and is now facing "great peril."
Speaking during her confirmation hearing for the position of secretary of state, she also called the current U.S. engagement in Afghanistan the "greatest priority for the president-elect."
Clinton completed her testimony on Tuesday.
The committee is expected to vote on her nomination on Thursday.
The full Senate is expected to approve Clinton's nomination before Obama takes office next Tuesday.
The chairman of the committee closed the hearing by saying "we are excited about the prospect of working with you."
During her testimony Clinton pledged to help end the war in Iraq by safely withdrawing American troops and said the Obama administration is "not taking any option off the table at all" when it comes to dealing with Iran, but will pursue a new and "perhaps different" approach characterized by an "attitude toward engagement."
Her "overriding duty," Clinton said, would be to protect America's interests through the use of "smart power" that utilizes all facets at the nation's disposal.
The New York senator and former presidential candidate asserted that, for too long, U.S. policymakers have been locked in a false "either-or" paradigm forcing a choice between the use of military force and diplomacy.
Military power should still be used, she emphasized, but only as a last resort.
Sen. Hillary Clinton told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday that she aims to "renew America's leadership" in a world that has undergone an "extraordinary transformation" since the end of the Cold War and is now facing "great peril."
Speaking during her confirmation hearing for the position of secretary of state, she also called the current U.S. engagement in Afghanistan the "greatest priority for the president-elect."
Clinton completed her testimony on Tuesday.
The committee is expected to vote on her nomination on Thursday.
The full Senate is expected to approve Clinton's nomination before Obama takes office next Tuesday.
The chairman of the committee closed the hearing by saying "we are excited about the prospect of working with you."
During her testimony Clinton pledged to help end the war in Iraq by safely withdrawing American troops and said the Obama administration is "not taking any option off the table at all" when it comes to dealing with Iran, but will pursue a new and "perhaps different" approach characterized by an "attitude toward engagement."
Her "overriding duty," Clinton said, would be to protect America's interests through the use of "smart power" that utilizes all facets at the nation's disposal.
The New York senator and former presidential candidate asserted that, for too long, U.S. policymakers have been locked in a false "either-or" paradigm forcing a choice between the use of military force and diplomacy.
Military power should still be used, she emphasized, but only as a last resort.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
A California man sold his 14-year-old daughter to an 18-year-old man for cash, beer and meat
then called police when the prospective bridegroom didn't live up to his end of the deal, authorities said Tuesday.
Marcelino de Jesus Martinez, 36, of Greenfield, California, was arrested Monday and booked into the Monterey County Jail, Greenfield police said in a statement.
He faces felony charges of receiving money for causing a person to cohabitate, police said.
Martinez had arranged through a third party to have his daughter marry the older teenager, identified by authorities as Margarito de Jesus Galindo, of Gonzales, California.
In exchange, Galindo was to pay Martinez $16,000 and provide him with 160 cases of beer, 100 cases of soda, 50 cases of Gatorade, two cases of wine, and six cases of meat, Greenfield Police Chief Joe Grebmeier told CNN.
All those involved in the case are from the western Mexican state of Oaxaca, the police chief said.
In the Oaxacan community, such an agreement is "normal and honorable," he said.
"In California, it's against the law."
In Oaxacan culture, the food and beverages are provided by a prospective bridegroom for the wedding, Grebmeier said.
Authorities believe the young girl went with Galindo willingly, and no coercion was involved, he said.
However, the girl is four years younger than California's age of consent, although the law does allow 16-year-olds to marry with parental consent.
"The 14-year-old juvenile moved in with Galindo and when payments were not received, the father, Martinez, called Greenfield PD to bring back the daughter," according to a written police statement.
The girl was reported as a runaway juvenile on December 18, Grebmeier said, and police took a missing-persons report and put out a flier.
But "as we investigated, it started to develop into something that may not have been a runaway," he said, and police began to believe Martinez wanted them to bring back his daughter, since he had received no payment.
Martinez was arrested Sunday after undergoing additional questioning by police, Grebmeier said.
He remained jailed Tuesday.
Galindo was cited for statutory rape and released, Grebmeier said.
The girl was returned to her family, he said, as authorities believe she is in no danger.
However, police reported the case to child protection officials.
A California man sold his 14-year-old daughter to an 18-year-old man for cash, beer and meat
then called police when the prospective bridegroom didn't live up to his end of the deal, authorities said Tuesday.
Marcelino de Jesus Martinez, 36, of Greenfield, California, was arrested Monday and booked into the Monterey County Jail, Greenfield police said in a statement.
He faces felony charges of receiving money for causing a person to cohabitate, police said.
Martinez had arranged through a third party to have his daughter marry the older teenager, identified by authorities as Margarito de Jesus Galindo, of Gonzales, California.
In exchange, Galindo was to pay Martinez $16,000 and provide him with 160 cases of beer, 100 cases of soda, 50 cases of Gatorade, two cases of wine, and six cases of meat, Greenfield Police Chief Joe Grebmeier told CNN.
All those involved in the case are from the western Mexican state of Oaxaca, the police chief said.
In the Oaxacan community, such an agreement is "normal and honorable," he said.
"In California, it's against the law."
In Oaxacan culture, the food and beverages are provided by a prospective bridegroom for the wedding, Grebmeier said.
Authorities believe the young girl went with Galindo willingly, and no coercion was involved, he said.
However, the girl is four years younger than California's age of consent, although the law does allow 16-year-olds to marry with parental consent.
"The 14-year-old juvenile moved in with Galindo and when payments were not received, the father, Martinez, called Greenfield PD to bring back the daughter," according to a written police statement.
The girl was reported as a runaway juvenile on December 18, Grebmeier said, and police took a missing-persons report and put out a flier.
But "as we investigated, it started to develop into something that may not have been a runaway," he said, and police began to believe Martinez wanted them to bring back his daughter, since he had received no payment.
Martinez was arrested Sunday after undergoing additional questioning by police, Grebmeier said.
He remained jailed Tuesday.
Galindo was cited for statutory rape and released, Grebmeier said.
The girl was returned to her family, he said, as authorities believe she is in no danger.
However, police reported the case to child protection officials.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Officials say two men in Iran have been stoned to death for adultery and murder, while another escaped death by digging his way out of the hole where he was buried to face a similar fate, according to media reports.
The sentences follow sharp criticism by human rights groups of Iran's use of such punishments.
Judiciary spokesman Alireza Jamshidi on Tuesday told reporters about the stonings, which took place in the northeastern city of Mashhad about 20 days ago, the reports said.
According to the Mashhad prosecutor, the men committed various crimes, including adultery and murder, Jamshidi said.
In the practice, the men are buried up to their chests and people pelt them with stones until they die.
A third was supposed to have been stoned to death. However, he freed himself by climbing out of the stone hole.
He still awaits punishment.
"Stoning is a horrific practice, designed to increase the suffering of those facing execution, and it has no place in the modern world," Amnesty International said last year.
Jamshidi said Iran's judiciary chief, Ayatollah Heshemi Shahroudi, had made recommendations that would ban the practice and said that a measure has been introduced in Parliament to stop the punishment.
But "until this measure is approved and becomes law, the judges have the independence not to pay heed to the recommendations of the Judiciary chief," Jamshidi said.
Amnesty said in a report last year that Iran's penal code allows execution by stoning as the penalty for adultery.
Officials say two men in Iran have been stoned to death for adultery and murder, while another escaped death by digging his way out of the hole where he was buried to face a similar fate, according to media reports.
The sentences follow sharp criticism by human rights groups of Iran's use of such punishments.
Judiciary spokesman Alireza Jamshidi on Tuesday told reporters about the stonings, which took place in the northeastern city of Mashhad about 20 days ago, the reports said.
According to the Mashhad prosecutor, the men committed various crimes, including adultery and murder, Jamshidi said.
In the practice, the men are buried up to their chests and people pelt them with stones until they die.
A third was supposed to have been stoned to death. However, he freed himself by climbing out of the stone hole.
He still awaits punishment.
"Stoning is a horrific practice, designed to increase the suffering of those facing execution, and it has no place in the modern world," Amnesty International said last year.
Jamshidi said Iran's judiciary chief, Ayatollah Heshemi Shahroudi, had made recommendations that would ban the practice and said that a measure has been introduced in Parliament to stop the punishment.
But "until this measure is approved and becomes law, the judges have the independence not to pay heed to the recommendations of the Judiciary chief," Jamshidi said.
Amnesty said in a report last year that Iran's penal code allows execution by stoning as the penalty for adultery.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Yahoo Inc. announced Tuesday that it had hired veteran technology executive Carol Bartz as its new CEO.
Bartz ran software company Autodesk for 14 years, most recently serving as executive chairwoman.
San Rafael, Calif.-based Autodesk, with just over 7,000 employees worldwide, is about half the size of Yahoo.
Bartz is taking over an embattled Yahoo.
In mid-November, co-founder Jerry Yang stepped down after failed attempts to improve the company's performance.
Yang oversaw the company during a high-profile acquisition bid last year by Microsoft Corp., as well as investor Carl Icahn's failed attempt to replace the Yahoo board.
In a conference call Tuesday, Bartz acknowledged "the many problems" Yahoo is facing.
Bartz declined to discuss details of her plans for Yahoo.
"But I can say my focus is on turning this company around and creating value for the shareholder," she said.
The board approached Bartz in December, she said.
Bartz, calling herself "a straight shooter," condemned "the external forces" that have battered Yahoo over the past year.
"Everybody on the outside was deciding what Yahoo should and shouldn't do," she said.
"That's going to stop." Yahoo will report fourth-quarter earnings Jan. 27, Bartz said.
Shares fell 1% Tuesday to $12.10.
Bartz was chairman, president and CEO of Autodesk from 1992 to 2006.
Under her tenure, the company's revenue grew from $285 million to more than $1.5 billion.
Previously, she was an executive at Sun Microsystems Inc.
Bartz sits on the board of Intel Corp., Cisco Systems, NetApp and the Foundation for the National Medals of Science and Technology.
President George Bush appointed her to his Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
Yahoo Inc. announced Tuesday that it had hired veteran technology executive Carol Bartz as its new CEO.
Bartz ran software company Autodesk for 14 years, most recently serving as executive chairwoman.
San Rafael, Calif.-based Autodesk, with just over 7,000 employees worldwide, is about half the size of Yahoo.
Bartz is taking over an embattled Yahoo.
In mid-November, co-founder Jerry Yang stepped down after failed attempts to improve the company's performance.
Yang oversaw the company during a high-profile acquisition bid last year by Microsoft Corp., as well as investor Carl Icahn's failed attempt to replace the Yahoo board.
In a conference call Tuesday, Bartz acknowledged "the many problems" Yahoo is facing.
Bartz declined to discuss details of her plans for Yahoo.
"But I can say my focus is on turning this company around and creating value for the shareholder," she said.
The board approached Bartz in December, she said.
Bartz, calling herself "a straight shooter," condemned "the external forces" that have battered Yahoo over the past year.
"Everybody on the outside was deciding what Yahoo should and shouldn't do," she said.
"That's going to stop." Yahoo will report fourth-quarter earnings Jan. 27, Bartz said.
Shares fell 1% Tuesday to $12.10.
Bartz was chairman, president and CEO of Autodesk from 1992 to 2006.
Under her tenure, the company's revenue grew from $285 million to more than $1.5 billion.
Previously, she was an executive at Sun Microsystems Inc.
Bartz sits on the board of Intel Corp., Cisco Systems, NetApp and the Foundation for the National Medals of Science and Technology.
President George Bush appointed her to his Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Her bid for the vice presidency ended more than two months ago, but Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin appears determined not to become a mere afterthought.
Departing from a historical trend of failed vice presidential candidates who descend into relative obscurity after Election Day, Palin continues to command the intense media coverage that befits a national office seeker.
It's an astonishing development, given that she has no role in national domestic policy and is a first-term governor of a state almost 4,500 miles from Washington.
Palin empathizers say the Alaska governor is merely trying to recover her good name after months of damage by the mainstream media, liberal bloggers and even high-level members of the McCain campaign who grew publicly dissatisfied with their VP nominee as Election Day neared. But some political observers suggest that Palin's ongoing
and predominantly adversarial relationship with the national media is all part of a savvy effort to retain her popularity with the legions of rank-and-file conservatives who stood so strongly behind her during the campaign.
Her bid for the vice presidency ended more than two months ago, but Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin appears determined not to become a mere afterthought.
Departing from a historical trend of failed vice presidential candidates who descend into relative obscurity after Election Day, Palin continues to command the intense media coverage that befits a national office seeker.
It's an astonishing development, given that she has no role in national domestic policy and is a first-term governor of a state almost 4,500 miles from Washington.
Palin empathizers say the Alaska governor is merely trying to recover her good name after months of damage by the mainstream media, liberal bloggers and even high-level members of the McCain campaign who grew publicly dissatisfied with their VP nominee as Election Day neared.
and predominantly adversarial
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Bulgaria is a Turkish toilet, France is always on strike, Romania is a vampire theme-park and the UK... Well the UK doesn't exist.
That's the view of the European Union according to a controversial art installation by Czech artist David Cerny, commissioned by his government to mark its six-month presidency of the pan-continental body.
The work, "Entropa," frames various representations of each member state as components of a giant multimedia model kit.
But the piece, scheduled to have its official unveiling Thursday at the EU headquarters in Brussels, has sparked controversy.
Bulgaria's foreign ministry has summoned the Czech ambassador in Sofia to lodge a protest about the piece, according to the Czech News Agency.
And Betina Joteva, spokesperson of the Bulgarian permanent representation to the EU, said in comments reported by EUObserver.com: "It [the work] is preposterous, a disgrace. It is a humiliation for the Bulgarian nation and an offence to [our] national dignity."
Bulgaria is not the only nation to suffer an unflattering depiction.
Germany is criss-crossed by a series of autobahns in what some critics say is a close approximation of a swastika;
Spain is a giant construction site in a dig at its building boom; and Luxembourg is a gold covered nugget sporting a "For Sale" sign.
The Netherlands is depicted as a submerged land with only minarets peeking through the waves in an apparent reference to its religious tensions.
The Czech government said in a statement on its presidency Web site Tuesday that the original brief was for the work to be created by 27 artists representing all EU Member States
and that it was "unpleasantly surprised" to learn that this was not the case. "David Cerny bears full responsibility for not fulfilling his assignment and promise," said Alexandr Vondra, Deputy Prime Minister.
"In this situation we are now considering further steps.
In 1991 he was arrested after painting pink a Soviet tank that served as a Prague war memorial.
The statement adds that Cerny and his colleagues initially wanted to use 27 European artists for "Entropa", but fell short due to lack of time and money.
Bulgaria is a Turkish toilet, France is always on strike, Romania is a vampire theme-park and the UK... Well the UK doesn't exist.
That's the view of the European Union according to a controversial art installation by Czech artist David Cerny, commissioned by his government to mark its six-month presidency of the pan-continental body.
The work, "Entropa," frames various representations of each member state as components of a giant multimedia model kit.
But the piece, scheduled to have its official unveiling Thursday at the EU headquarters in Brussels, has sparked controversy.
Bulgaria's foreign ministry has summoned the Czech ambassador in Sofia to lodge a protest about the piece, according to the Czech News Agency.
And Betina Joteva, spokesperson of the Bulgarian permanent representation to the EU, said in comments reported by EUObserver.com: "It [the work] is preposterous, a disgrace. It is a humiliation for the Bulgarian nation and an offence to [our] national dignity."
Bulgaria is not the only nation to suffer an unflattering depiction.
Germany is criss-crossed by a series of autobahns in what some critics say is a close approximation of a swastika;
Spain is a giant construction site in a dig at its building boom; and Luxembourg is a gold covered nugget sporting a "For Sale" sign.
The Netherlands is depicted as a submerged land with only minarets peeking through the waves in an apparent reference to its religious tensions.
The Czech government said in a statement on its presidency Web site Tuesday that the original brief was for the work to be created by 27 artists representing all EU Member States
and that it was "unpleasantly surprised" to learn that this was not the case. "David Cerny bears full responsibility for not fulfilling his assignment and promise," said Alexandr Vondra, Deputy Prime Minister.
"In this situation we are now considering further steps.
In 1991 he was arrested after painting pink a Soviet tank that served as a Prague war memorial.
The statement adds that Cerny and his colleagues initially wanted to use 27 European artists for "Entropa", but fell short due to lack of time and money.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Hanso Devi moved to New Delhi from Rajasthan with just one hope
to make a better life for herself and her family.
She, her husband, five children and other relatives erected a hut to live in
a home that provided shelter and a base for her husband's streetside blacksmith business.
The problem is that the land they built on belongs to the government.
And the government has decided to take it back.
In a matter of minutes bulldozers level the place, leaving Devi and her family perched on a bed atop a sea of rubble.
They have nowhere to go.
"They did it so fast that there was no time to take out anything. And the bulldozer broke everything on the way," Devi said.
"It's like we were picked up and thrown away," she said.
Bulldozers razed the makeshift home and hundreds of others earlier this month as the Indian government moves to improve New Delhi for the 2010 Commonwealth Games.
Officials say the land is for a road and the demolitions are simply part of a master plan to clean up the city and move slum-dwellers to proper housing.
But, the government says, there will be no relocation for families like Hanso Devi's because they do not meet relocation requirements.
The government says they are squatting too close to the road, and are located in a major development zone.
"You see they have encroached on the specific project lengths there will be no notice, no relocation projects for them," said New Delhi Mayor Arti Mehra, who says she and the city are worried about those who have been left homeless.
About 3 million people live in New Delhi's slums, the government estimates.
Mehra says New Delhi is slated to build 100,000 new apartments, though only 6,800 are under construction.
Critics say demolishing housing that has been here for years and relocating some residents but not others will hurt many who live on the margins of society.
"They'll be pushed to the brink," said A.K. Roy of the Hazards Centre Sanchal Foundation, a non-governmental organization.
"Eventually I think what the planners are doing, they are not realizing they'll be building up a pool of violence."
The people who live in New Delhi's slums are some of the city's maids, drivers, street vendors and day laborers.
Roy argues the city could not survive without the services that the slum dwellers provide.
Hanso Devi moved to New Delhi from Rajasthan with just one hope
to make a better life for herself and her family.
She, her husband, five children and other relatives erected a hut to live in
a home that provided shelter and a base for her husband's streetside blacksmith business.
The problem is that the land they built on belongs to the government.
And the government has decided to take it back.
In a matter of minutes bulldozers level the place, leaving Devi and her family perched on a bed atop a sea of rubble.
They have nowhere to go.
"They did it so fast that there was no time to take out anything. And the bulldozer broke everything on the way," Devi said.
"It's like we were picked up and thrown away," she said.
Bulldozers razed the makeshift home and hundreds of others earlier this month as the Indian government moves to improve New Delhi for the 2010 Commonwealth Games.
Officials say the land is for a road and the demolitions are simply part of a master plan to clean up the city and move slum-dwellers to proper housing.
But, the government says, there will be no relocation for families like Hanso Devi's because they do not meet relocation requirements.
The government says they are squatting too close to the road, and are located in a major development zone.
"You see they have encroached on the specific project lengths there will be no notice, no relocation projects for them," said New Delhi Mayor Arti Mehra, who says she and the city are worried about those who have been left homeless.
About 3 million people live in New Delhi's slums, the government estimates.
Mehra says New Delhi is slated to build 100,000 new apartments, though only 6,800 are under construction.
Critics say demolishing housing that has been here for years and relocating some residents but not others will hurt many who live on the margins of society.
"They'll be pushed to the brink," said A.K. Roy of the Hazards Centre Sanchal Foundation, a non-governmental organization.
"Eventually I think what the planners are doing, they are not realizing they'll be building up a pool of violence."
The people who live in New Delhi's slums are some of the city's maids, drivers, street vendors and day laborers.
Roy argues the city could not survive without the services that the slum dwellers provide.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
China tops world in Internet users
China surpassed the United States in 2008 as the world's top user of the Internet, according to a government-backed research group.
The number of Web surfers in the country grew by nearly 42 percent to 298 million, according to the China Internet Network Information Center's January report.
And there's plenty of room for growth, as only about 1 in every 4 Chinese has Internet access.
The rapid growth in China's Internet use can be tied to its swift economic gains and the government's push for the construction of telephone and broadband lines in the country's vast rural areas, the report says.
The Chinese government wants phone and broadband access in each village by 2010.
Nearly 91 percent of China's Internet users are surfing the Web with a broadband connection an increase of 100 million from 2007.
Mobile phone Internet users totaled 118 million by the end of 2008.
While China's Internet usage has been growing in leaps in bounds, the government limits the Web sites its citizens can visit.
Earlier this month, China released a blacklist of 19 major online portals and Web sites, including Google and Baidu, that it claims provide and spread pornographic or obscene content.
The move came as several Chinese government agencies, including the Ministry of Public Security, launched a month-long campaign to clean up the Web, according to the state-run Xinhua news service.
China has come under criticism for restricting Web access to ordinary citizens as well as on local and foreign media covering last year's summer Olympics in Beijing.
The U.S. State Department noted in a 2008 report that China had increased its efforts to "control and censor the Internet, and the government had tightened restrictions on freedom of speech and the domestic press" and bloggers.
China tops world in Internet users
China surpassed the United States in 2008 as the world's top user of the Internet, according to a government-backed research group.
The number of Web surfers in the country grew by nearly 42 percent to 298 million, according to the China Internet Network Information Center's January report.
And there's plenty of room for growth, as only about 1 in every 4 Chinese has Internet access.
The rapid growth in China's Internet use can be tied to its swift economic gains and the government's push for the construction of telephone and broadband lines in the country's vast rural areas, the report says.
The Chinese government wants phone and broadband access in each village by 2010.
Nearly 91 percent of China's Internet users are surfing the Web with a broadband connection an increase of 100 million from 2007.
Mobile phone Internet users totaled 118 million by the end of 2008.
While China's Internet usage has been growing in leaps in bounds, the government limits the Web sites its citizens can visit.
Earlier this month, China released a blacklist of 19 major online portals and Web sites, including Google and Baidu, that it claims provide and spread pornographic or obscene content.
The move came as several Chinese government agencies, including the Ministry of Public Security, launched a month-long campaign to clean up the Web, according to the state-run Xinhua news service.
China has come under criticism for restricting Web access to ordinary citizens as well as on local and foreign media covering last year's summer Olympics in Beijing.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Jennifer Hudson to sing national anthem at Super Bowl
Singer-actress Jennifer Hudson will give her first performance since losing her mother, brother and nephew when she sings the national anthem next month at the Super Bowl, according to the National Football League.
Hudson has not appeared in public since her family members were shot to death in October.
Her estranged brother-in-law, William Balfour, 27, was charged in the killings.
The NFL already had announced that Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band would perform at halftime at Super Bowl XLIII on February 1 in Tampa, Florida.
Hudson, 27, won a best supporting actress Oscar for her portrayal of Effie in the 2006 film version of the Broadway musical "Dreamgirls."
She competed on the third season of the singing competition "American Idol" in 2004, becoming one of the top seven contestants before her elimination.
Hudson also has been nominated four times for Grammys.
The Super Bowl will be broadcast in 230 countries and territories, the NFL said.
More than 148 million Americans watched the 2008 game, it said.
Jennifer Hudson to sing national anthem at Super Bowl
Singer-actress Jennifer Hudson will give her first performance since losing her mother, brother and nephew when she sings the national anthem next month at the Super Bowl, according to the National Football League.
Hudson has not appeared in public since her family members were shot to death in October.
Her estranged brother-in-law, William Balfour, 27, was charged in the killings.
The NFL already had announced that Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band would perform at halftime at Super Bowl XLIII on February 1 in Tampa, Florida.
Hudson, 27, won a best supporting actress Oscar for her portrayal of Effie in the 2006 film version of the Broadway musical "Dreamgirls."
She competed on the third season of the singing competition "American Idol" in 2004, becoming one of the top seven contestants before her elimination.
Hudson also has been nominated four times for Grammys.
The Super Bowl will be broadcast in 230 countries and territories, the NFL said.
More than 148 million Americans watched the 2008 game, it said.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Airplane crash-lands into Hudson River;
all aboard reported safe
A US Airways plane with more than 150 people aboard went down in the Hudson River on Thursday after taking off from LaGuardia Airport, and everyone aboard apparently got off the plane alive, officials said.
Flight 1549, headed to Charlotte, North Carolina, may have experienced a bird strike, according to FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown.
Passenger Alberto Pinero said that within a couple minutes after takeoff, "you just heard a loud bang and the plane shook a bit."
"Somehow, the plane stayed afloat and we were all able to get on a raft," Pinero said. "It's just incredible now that everyone's still alive."
The plane had 148 passengers, Brown said, and either five or six crew members on board when it took off at 3:26 p.m.
It was airborne for less than three minutes, she said.
Everyone on board is believed to have exited the Airbus A320, the Federal Aviation Administration said.
The Coast Guard rescued 35 people, according to Coast Guard Cmdr. Ron LeBrec.
Roosevelt Hospital said it had received four passengers who were being treated for hypothermia, but had no further injures.
Other hospitals were on alert.
The temperature in New York was 20 degrees about the time of the crash off Manhattan's west side.
Witnesses reported seeing the plane hit a flock of birds, Brown said.
Airplane crash-lands into Hudson River;
all aboard reported safe
A US Airways plane with more than 150 people aboard went down in the Hudson River on Thursday after taking off from LaGuardia Airport, and everyone aboard apparently got off the plane alive, officials said.
Flight 1549, headed to Charlotte, North Carolina, may have experienced a bird strike, according to FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown.
Passenger Alberto Pinero said that within a couple minutes after takeoff, "you just heard a loud bang and the plane shook a bit."
"Somehow, the plane stayed afloat and we were all able to get on a raft," Pinero said. "It's just incredible now that everyone's still alive."
The plane had 148 passengers, Brown said, and either five or six crew members on board when it took off at 3:26 p.m.
It was airborne for less than three minutes, she said.
Everyone on board is believed to have exited the Airbus A320, the Federal Aviation Administration said.
The Coast Guard rescued 35 people, according to Coast Guard Cmdr. Ron LeBrec.
Roosevelt Hospital said it had received four passengers who were being treated for hypothermia, but had no further injures.
Other hospitals were on alert.
The temperature in New York was 20 degrees about the time of the crash off Manhattan's west side.
Witnesses reported seeing the plane hit a flock of birds, Brown said.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Obama poised to be first `wired` president
As the first president-elect with a Facebook page and a YouTube channel, Barack Obama is poised to use the Internet to communicate directly with Americans in a way unknown to previous presidents.
Judging by Obama's savvy use of social-networking sites during his campaign and the interactive nature of his transition team's Web site, Americans can expect a president who bypasses the traditional media's filters while reaching out to citizens for input, observers say.
"The rebooting of our democracy has begun," said Andrew Rasiej, founder of Personal Democracy Forum and the techPresident blog. "[Obama] has the potential to transform the relationship between the American public and their democracy."
During the presidential race, Obama's campaign won praise for its innovative use of social-networking sites, including Facebook, MySpace and MyBarackObama.com, to announce events, rally volunteers and raise money.
Obama poised to be first `wired` president
As the first president-elect with a Facebook page and a YouTube channel, Barack Obama is poised to use the Internet to communicate directly with Americans in a way unknown to previous presidents.
Judging by Obama's savvy use of social-networking sites during his campaign and the interactive nature of his transition team's Web site, Americans can expect a president who bypasses the traditional media's filters while reaching out to citizens for input, observers say.
"The rebooting of our democracy has begun," said Andrew Rasiej, founder of Personal Democracy Forum and the techPresident blog. "[Obama] has the potential to transform the relationship between the American public and their democracy."
During the presidential race, Obama's campaign won praise for its innovative use of social-networking sites, including Facebook, MySpace and MyBarackObama.com, to announce events, rally volunteers and raise money.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Methane discovery could mean life on Mars
Scientists have discovered methane in Mars' atmosphere, raising the possibility that life might exist on the planet.
The methane could have come from past or present subsurface microorganisms, geological activity or comets striking the planet, scientists and NASA officials said.
Scientists were not sure how long the methane has been on the planet.
four atoms of hydrogen bound to a carbon atom is the main component of natural gas on Earth.
It's of interest to astrobiologists because organisms release much of Earth's methane as they digest nutrients.
Other purely geological processes, like oxidation of iron, also release methane.
"It's time, it's prudent that we begin to explore Mars looking for the possibility of a life form that's exhaling methane," said Lisa Pratt, professor of geological sciences at Indiana University, at a NASA news briefing Thursday.
The team found methane in the Martian atmosphere by carefully observing the planet through NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility and the W.M. Keck telescope, both at Mauna Kea, Hawaii.
Using spectrometers on the telescopes to spread the light into its component colors, the team detected three spectral features, called absorption lines, that together are definitive fingerprints of methane.
"Microbes that produced methane from hydrogen and carbon dioxide were one of the earliest forms of life on Earth," said Carl Pilcher, director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute, which partially supported the research.
Methane discovery could mean life on Mars
Scientists have discovered methane in Mars' atmosphere, raising the possibility that life might exist on the planet.
The methane could have come from past or present subsurface microorganisms, geological activity or comets striking the planet, scientists and NASA officials said.
Scientists were not sure how long the methane has been on the planet.
four atoms of hydrogen bound to a carbon atom is the main component of natural gas on Earth.
It's of interest to astrobiologists because organisms release much of Earth's methane as they digest nutrients.
Other purely geological processes, like oxidation of iron, also release methane.
"It's time, it's prudent that we begin to explore Mars looking for the possibility of a life form that's exhaling methane," said Lisa Pratt, professor of geological sciences at Indiana University, at a NASA news briefing Thursday.
The team found methane in the Martian atmosphere by carefully observing the planet through NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility and the W.M. Keck telescope, both at Mauna Kea, Hawaii.
Using spectrometers on the telescopes to spread the light into its component colors, the team detected three spectral features, called absorption lines, that together are definitive fingerprints of methane.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
The classic English bulldog, a symbol of defiance and pugnacity often likened to wartime leader Winston Churchill, is set to breathe a little easier under revised breed standards issued in Britain.
The Kennel Club, the country's 135-year-old governing body for dogs, says generations of breeders have exaggerated the animal's large jowly face, stubby legs and big shoulders, making it hard for them to breathe, walk, and breed.
The club hopes revisions to the bulldog standards will make the dogs healthier without drastically changing their classic look.
"The character of the bulldog certainly isn't going to change," said Caroline Kisko, spokeswoman for the Kennel Club. "They will still be the steadfast, strong-willed and gay-tempered dog that they are now."
The bulldog isn't the only breed that will benefit from revised standards.
The Kennel Club is revising standards for a total of 78 breeds "to ensure that all dogs are healthy, of good temperament and fit for their original function."
"The things that worry us most are anything which stops a dog from breathing, walking or moving freely," Kisko said.
Other breeds affected include the shar pei and German shepherd.
Kennel clubs outside Britain, such as the American Kennel Club, are not affected.
They have their own rules for breeding and shows.
The classic English bulldog, a symbol of defiance and pugnacity often likened to wartime leader Winston Churchill, is set to breathe a little easier under revised breed standards issued in Britain.
The Kennel Club, the country's 135-year-old governing body for dogs, says generations of breeders have exaggerated the animal's large jowly face, stubby legs and big shoulders, making it hard for them to breathe, walk, and breed.
The club hopes revisions to the bulldog standards will make the dogs healthier without drastically changing their classic look.
"The character of the bulldog certainly isn't going to change," said Caroline Kisko, spokeswoman for the Kennel Club. "They will still be the steadfast, strong-willed and gay-tempered dog that they are now."
The bulldog isn't the only breed that will benefit from revised standards.
The Kennel Club is revising standards for a total of 78 breeds "to ensure that all dogs are healthy, of good temperament and fit for their original function."
"The things that worry us most are anything which stops a dog from breathing, walking or moving freely," Kisko said.
Other breeds affected include the shar pei and German shepherd.
Kennel clubs outside Britain, such as the American Kennel Club, are not affected.
They have their own rules for breeding and shows.
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
Kate Winslet's chances of winning her first Academy Award moved a step closer Thursday as she was nominated twice in the leading actress category of the British film industry's annual awards.
The Baftas are held two weeks before the Oscars and Winslet looks set to build on her success at the Golden Globes, where she picked up awards for "The Reader" and "Revolutionary Road."
"Slumdog Millionaire," a British film about an impoverished Indian teen who becomes a contestant on the Hindi version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, has been nominated for 11 Baftas after winning four Golden Globes.
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," featuring Brad Pitt as a man who ages in reverse, also received 11 nominations.
Other big nomination winners were the "The Dark Knight" featuring the late Heath Ledger with nine, Clint Eastwood's "Changeling" with eight and "Frost/Nixon" six.
Ledger, whose performance won a best supporting actor Golden Globe, has been nominated in the same category at the Baftas.
In the Outstanding British Film category Slumdog was joined by the award-winning "Hunger", which documents the life of IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands, the comedy/thriller "In Bruges," "Mamma Mia!"
and documentary "Man on Wire."
Pitt, Slumdog's young star Dev Patel, "The Wrestler's" Mickey Rourke, "Frost/Nixon's" Frank Langella and Sean Penn for "Milk" have been nominated in the leading actor category.
Winslet faces competition from Angelina Jolie for "Changeling," Kristin Scott Thomas for "I've Loved You So Long" and Meryl Streep in "Doubt."
Winslet step closer to Oscar with Bafta support
Kate Winslet's chances of winning her first Academy Award moved a step closer Thursday as she was nominated twice in the leading actress category of the British film industry's annual awards.
The Baftas are held two weeks before the Oscars and Winslet looks set to build on her success at the Golden Globes, where she picked up awards for "The Reader" and "Revolutionary Road."
"Slumdog Millionaire," a British film about an impoverished Indian teen who becomes a contestant on the Hindi version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, has been nominated for 11 Baftas after winning four Golden Globes.
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," featuring Brad Pitt as a man who ages in reverse, also received 11 nominations.
Other big nomination winners were the "The Dark Knight" featuring the late Heath Ledger with nine, Clint Eastwood's "Changeling" with eight and "Frost/Nixon" six.
Ledger, whose performance won a best supporting actor Golden Globe, has been nominated in the same category at the Baftas.
In the Outstanding British Film category Slumdog was joined by the award-winning "Hunger", which documents the life of IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands, the comedy/thriller "In Bruges," "Mamma Mia!"
and documentary "Man on Wire."
Pitt, Slumdog's young star Dev Patel, "The Wrestler's" Mickey Rourke, "Frost/Nixon's" Frank Langella and Sean Penn for "Milk" have been nominated in the leading actor category.
Winslet faces competition from Angelina Jolie for "Changeling," Kristin Scott Thomas for "I've Loved You So Long" and Meryl Streep in "Doubt."
Flying with the flu?
Living in a cage in Hong Kong
Glove, other Michael Jackson it...
Susan Boyle's debut CD sets Ama...
Women 'bearing brunt' of climat...
Kenya orphanage takes in elepha...
Korea to double African aid by ...
Songdo to host G-20 prep meetin...
Lee will explain his shift on S...
Draft likely to be reduced
Ban will thwart civil servants¡¯...
Flakey forecasters promise cash...
The world`s worst airports
Identifying the world's finest airports is easy.
Hong Kong International Airport, Singapore's Changi and Seoul's Incheon have topped the ranks of airport awards for the last decade.
These 21st-century airports boast the best shopping, classiest restaurants, as well as features such as indoor pools, orchid gardens, and free wireless Internet.
The world's worst airports, however, are harder to pin down.
It's a crowded field to choose from and the choice depends on what you class as bad.
If it's for danger, then Baghdad International Airport, in the middle of a war zone, should rank pretty high.
gateway to the Mount Everest region in Nepal
Landing involves a hair-raising plummet onto an uphill airstrip cut into the side of a mountain.
On takeoff, the airstrip comes to an abrupt end at the edge of a mountain cliff.
In 2007, TripAdvisor asked travelers to rank airports according to how easy they are to navigate, the cleanliness of the lavatories and parking facilities.
Based on these factors, the 2,500 respondents classed London Heathrow and Chicago O'Hare as the world's most hated.
Yet neither of these major hubs appeared in Foreign Policy magazine's review of the five worst airports, published in 2007.
The list here included the likes of Mineralnye Vody airport in Russia for its feral cats and daggers on sale in the departure lounge.
Charles de Gaulle also gains little affection from those that pass through its interminable terminals.
The world`s worst airports
Identifying the world's finest airports is easy.
Hong Kong International Airport, Singapore's Changi and Seoul's Incheon have topped the ranks of airport awards for the last decade.
These 21st-century airports boast the best shopping, classiest restaurants, as well as features such as indoor pools, orchid gardens, and free wireless Internet.
The world's worst airports, however, are harder to pin down.
It's a crowded field to choose from and the choice depends on what you class as bad.
If it's for danger, then Baghdad International Airport, in the middle of a war zone, should rank pretty high.
gateway to the Mount Everest region in Nepal
Landing involves a hair-raising plummet onto an uphill airstrip cut into the side of a mountain.
On takeoff, the airstrip comes to an abrupt end at the edge of a mountain cliff.
In 2007, TripAdvisor asked travelers to rank airports according to how easy they are to navigate, the cleanliness of the lavatories and parking facilities.
Based on these factors, the 2,500 respondents classed London Heathrow and Chicago O'Hare as the world's most hated.
Yet neither of these major hubs appeared in Foreign Policy magazine's review of the five worst airports, published in 2007.
The list here included the likes of Mineralnye Vody airport in Russia for its feral cats and daggers on sale in the departure lounge.
Charles de Gaulle also gains little affection from those that pass through its interminable terminals.
More than 20 plain clothed policemen took Hu Jia from his home in Beijing, according to his wife, Zeng Jinyan.
Hu, who is 33, was said to be collecting data on the detention of activists and has been under house arrest since July.
Zeng said she believed the arrest was part of a wider crackdown on rights campaigners.
Last month, Chen Guangcheng, who had campaigned against forced sterilization and abortion, was jailed for public order offenses.
His lawyers were detained ahead of his trial.
Gao Zhisheng, a well-known lawyer who represented members of the banned Falun Gong group and villagers who accused local officials of stealing their land, was also detained last month.
Hu, who is 33, was said to be collecting data on the detention of activists and has been under house arrest since July.
Australia´s prime minister has condemned members of his own party for distributing leaflets implying the Labor opposition supports terrorism.
John Howard, who trails Labor´s Kevin Rudd in opinion polls ahead of a Saturday´s general election, claimed the Liberal Party had not authorized them.
The flyers purported to be from an Islamic group thanking Labor for its sympathy for the Bali bombers.
Two Liberal activists have been expelled from the party.
The government will hold pilot English tests aimed to replace globally recognized exams such as the TOEFL and TOEIC.
The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology said Wednesday that the preliminary exam will be held at nine public schools nationwide from May 13 through 17.
A total of 1,000 test takers will undergo the Internet-based test comprised of four sections ― listening, speaking, reading and writing.
``The exam will be applied starting late 2009,´´ an education official who wished to remain anonymous told The Korea times.
``This pilot exam will serve as a test bed to gauge the controversial language exam´s feasibility and reliability.´´ The official said it´s too early to conclude whether the state-backed plan will replace world-wide recognized tests in admission processes of foreign schools.
The ministry last July begun researching to develop the home-grown English test with the soaring number of Korean students applying for international English tests to enter overseas universities especially in the United States, which has added to growing educational costs.
The government earmarked 21.5 billion won for the project.
“Barack Obama's resuming his campaign in Nevada today with rallies in Reno and Las Vegas.
And then there'll be one at night in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
The Democrat put aside political events on Thursday and Friday to spend some time with his grandmother in Hawaii, whom he described as 'gravely ill.'
McCain pivots from his three stops in Colorado on Friday, and will also be pushing hard in New Mexico today.
Michelle Obama delivered the weekly Democratic radio address, urging people to vote for her husband:
“His leadership and his policies are the change we need in the White House.
But first, we've gotta send him there.
President Bush, in his radio address, talked about the meeting of world economic leaders he's hosting in Washington on November 15th.
“While the specific solutions pursued by every country may not be the same, agreeing on a common set of principles will be an essential step towards preventing similar crises in the future.”
He's calling for patience, expressing confidence the economy will eventually rebound.
Pakistan's army has captured a key militant stronghold near the Afghan border.
Michelle Obama delivered the weekly Democratic radio address, urging people to vote for her husband:
That's why your vote is so important.”
Republicans in the US Senate have blocked a vote of no confidence in Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
Democrats have been trying to force Gonzales to resign over the sacking of eight federal prosecutors last year.
He is backed by President George W Bush however, who dismissed the vote as “political” and said he would determine whether Gonzales was effective.
Republicans said the non-binding vote was a ”waste of time” and Democrats failed to gain enough support.
The resolution would have needed the support of 60 senators to take it to a final vote.
But the Democrats could only muster 53 votes in favor, seven short of the total required.
The resolution stated that the attorney general ”no longer holds the confidence of the Senate and of the American people”.
The row stems from accusations that Gonzales concealed from Congress a political motivation behind the sacking of the federal prosecutors.
Democratic Senator Charles Schumer reminded senators that calls for Gonzales’s resignation had come from senators in both parties.
Democrats have been trying to force Gonzales to resign over the sacking of eight federal prosecutors last year.
Six-party talks aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear program are to resume after a year's break, amid US warnings Pyongyang is at “a fork in the road”.
North Korea alarmed the world by testing a nuclear weapon in October, prompting the UN to impose financial and arms sanctions.
Observers say there will be relief the talks are resuming but skepticism about the chance of a major breakthrough.
The negotiations also include China, Japan, Russia and South Korea.
UN sanctions were imposed on North Korea after it tested a missile in July and then exploded its first nuclear weapon in October, leading to a wave of international condemnation.
Diplomats have previously indicated that the US may be willing to offer North Korea a security guarantee if it halts nuclear plans.
Washington is also reportedly prepared to discuss easing financial sanctions, as requested by Pyongyang.
But both remain divided over the key question of the North's nuclear program.
North Korea walked out of the last round of talks in November last year in protest at US restrictions imposed on a Macau-based bank linked to alleged money-laundering by Pyongyang.
UN sanctions were imposed on North Korea after it tested a missile in July and then exploded its first nuclear weapon in October, leading to a wave of international condemnation.
Diplomats have previously indicated that the US may be willing to offer North Korea a security guarantee if it halts nuclear plans.
The Navy divers entered the murky waters before dawn on Tuesday to survey the search site and returned later in the morning to clear debris from the site.
They will also use heavy-duty equipment to cut through steel wreckage.˝
˝Teams of US Navy and FBI divers have joined the search for victims of last week´s bridge collapse in Minneapolis, stepping up recovery efforts.
The Navy divers will use sonar to scan for bodies, while the FBI team will carry out forensic investigations.
Minneapolis officials have called for a minute´s silence on Tuesday evening to mark the moment the bridge fell.
Five people have been confirmed dead and eight missing in the disaster, but officials say those figures may rise.
About 100 people were injured when the eight-lane I-35W highway bridge collapsed into the Mississippi river at evening rush hour on 1 August.
The Navy divers entered the murky waters before dawn on Tuesday to survey the search site and returned later in the morning to clear debris from the site.
The Navy team - 16 divers and a five-member crew - are using above-ground oxygen tanks so they can spend longer underwater.
They will also use heavy-duty equipment to cut through steel wreckage.˝
About 5,000 people have been ordered out of their homes as wildfire threatens a Sylmar community, north of Los Angeles.
The blaze also threatened, for a time, Olive View UCLA Medical Center.
“Our power's back up, the uh… danger from the fire itself is um, dissipated, it's not surrounding the facility any longer.”
after tornadoes raked central North Carolina early this morning.
Police say they found the body of a woman in the wreckage of her home near Raleigh; her teenage son is missing.
A child was killed in a neighboring county.
“Our power's back up, the uh… danger from the fire itself is um, dissipated, it's not surrounding the facility any longer.”
Two in five foreign residents in Korea say that they experienced inconveniences or otherwise suffered losses while shopping or using services.
The Korea Times reports that in its recent survey of 545 foreigners by the Consumer Protection Board, 41 percent of them complained about being discriminated against or inconvenienced as consumers.
By types of complaints, 42 percent cited the lack of guidance or instructions expressed in foreign languages. Thirty-seven percent said that they were not satisfied with the quality or safety of products.
In terms of difficulties they experienced in their daily life, 36 percent chose communication with Koreans because of linguistic limitations of both parties.
The second largest complaint in this category was the lack of attention by Koreans paid to foreigners with 28 percent citing it.
Two in five foreign residents in Korea say that they experienced inconveniences or otherwise suffered losses while shopping or using services.
The Korea Times reports that in its recent survey of 545 foreigners by the Consumer Protection Board, 41 percent of them complained about being discriminated against or inconvenienced as consumers.
The second largest complaint in this category was the lack of attention by Koreans paid to foreigners with 28 percent citing it.
Republicans in Michigan voted in the presidential race on Tuesday, with native son Mitt Romney battling for political survival in a primary that could either revive or sink his campaign.
As the results roll in from Michigan soon after the last polls close at 8 p.m.
The hectic schedule reflects the heightened intensity of the wide-open presidential race, as both parties choose candidates for the November election to succeed George W. Bush.
Polls show Romney, a former Massachusetts governor who was raised in Michigan as part of a famous political family, running neck-and-neck with Arizona Sen. John McCain in a state where the ailing economy has moved to the top of the agenda.
A Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll released early on Tuesday gave McCain a statistically insignificant 1-point edge, 27 percent to 26 percent, over Romney.
Mike Huckabee was third with 15 percent. Republicans in Michigan voted in the presidential race on Tuesday, with native son Mitt Romney battling for political survival in a primary that could either revive or sink his campaign.
˝Australia has unveiled details of a new citizenship test for immigrants.
They will be asked questions about history, institutions and culture - as well as committing to Australian social values focusing on “mateship”.
The aim of the test was to get ”that balance between diversity and integration correct in future”, said Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews.
Critics believe the requirement of an English language exam discriminates against non-English speakers.
The new citizenship test is expected to be introduced later this year.
The details were unveiled in a 40-page draft guide that is to be given to all applicants.
Some elements will almost certainly be beyond the knowledge of many ordinary Australians, says the BBC´s Nick Bryant in Sydney.
They include knowing the country´s first prime minister or when European settlers arrived in Australia - or what the opening line of the national anthem is.
Another one could be related to the nation´s most important horse race.
Applicants who fail the test will be allowed to re-sit the examination.˝
The Supreme Court opens its new term today with arguments over limits on lawsuits against tobacco companies.
It will consider whether federal regulation of cigarettes prevents smokers from suing tobacco companies.
Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin has taken off the gloves.
She's attacking Barack Obama for his connections to William Ayres, the founder of the Weather Underground.
“This is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to work with a former domestic terrorist who had targeted his own country.”
Robert Gibbs with the Obama campaign told the CBS“ Early Show” the attack was misleading and unfair.
“They knew each other but of course they weren't close.
Bill Ayres has played no role in Barack Obama's campaign.
Barack Obama has condemned the attacks that happened when Barack Obama was eight years old.”
Ayres lives in the same Chicago neighborhood as the Obamas.
He founded a charity organization in Chicago for which Obama served as chairman of the board, and Ayres hosted a“ Meet the Candidate” event at which Obama first ran for state office in the mid-1990's.
Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin has taken off the gloves.
A growing number of lawmakers are calling for the withdrawal of Korean troops from Iraq amid expectations that the United States may change its Iraq policy after the Republican Party lost in the mid-term elections.
The minor Democratic Labor Party plans to propose a parliamentary resolution for the pullout within this year.
Some lawmakers from the ruling Uri Party are also launching a signature campaign this week.
They have proposed a policy consultation with the government and will hold a series of public debates over the issue.
Korea maintains 2,300 troops in the northern Iraqi town of Irbil.
They are mostly engineers and doctors working to help in the rehabilitation of the Kurdish region.
Their deployment is scheduled to be concluded at the end of this year and the Defense Ministry is expected to seek parliamentary approval for a further 12-month extension.
Korean troops have been deployed there since August 2004.
The minor Democratic Labor Party plans to propose a parliamentary resolution for the pullout within this year.
Korean troops have been deployed there since August 2004.
President George W. Bush has just announced an effort to ease airline delays during the holiday travel season starting next week.
Last year, the military opened some airspace to some commercial flights on the East Coast.
This year, the President says extra air lanes will be available in other parts of the country as well.
Officials say the biggest of the 3 major wildfires burning in southern California was not arson.
That fire has burned nearly 29,000 acres in Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Los Angeles Counties.
All those difficult teenagers being dropped off by frustrated parents at Nebraska hospitals.
State lawmakers want to put a stop to it-they want to limit the Nebraska safe-haven law by putting an age cap on it.
North Korea is not on the verge of a nuclear test and has informed China that it could drop its plan to test a nuclear bomb if the United States accepts its call for bilateral talks, a former South Korean lawmaker said yesterday.
Jang Sung-min, president of the World and Northeast Asia Peace Forum, quoted well-informed diplomatic sources in China as saying that the North feels anxious about world media reports that describe the nuclear test as all but imminent.
US President George W Bush is expected to push for Nato´s eastern expansion during a key summit in Romania.
Bush is expected to tell the alliance´s biggest-ever gathering that Nato membership must be open to any European democracy that seeks it.
Russia´s President Vladimir Putin is expected to voice concern over its eastward expansion - Russia has warned of a crisis if Ukraine tries to join.
Nato´s role in Afghanistan will also be on the agenda at the two-day summit.
US President George W Bush and French President Nicolas Sarkozy have said they will work jointly to convince Iran to give up its nuclear program.
After talks at Mount Vernon, near Washington, Bush praised his French counterpart as “a partner in peace”.
Sarkozy earlier received a standing ovation during the first address in more than a decade by a French leader to a joint session of Congress.He pledged to US lawmakers that France would support the US in Afghanistan.
But he also urged Americans to do more in the fight against global warming and complained that the Bush administration had allowed the dollar to plummet against the euro.
In a press conference later following talks at Mount Vernon, the historic home of inaugural US president George Washington, Bush said the pair had agreed to ”work jointly to convince the Iranian regime to give up their nuclear ambitions for the sake of peace”.
”The idea of Iran having a nuclear weapon is dangerous and therefore now is the time for us to work together to diplomatically solve this problem,” he added.
But he also urged Americans to do more in the fight against global warming and complained that the Bush administration had allowed the dollar to plummet against the euro.
""I wonder if we should be leaving driver qualification to train operators,"" Transport Minister Kazuo Kitagawa told reporters.
The Japanese government has called on rail companies to review their training procedures in the light of Monday's devastating train crash.
One option being considered is a state supervised test for all train drivers.
""I wonder if we should be leaving driver qualification to train operators,"" Transport Minister Kazuo Kitagawa told reporters.
Perhaps the government needs to be more actively involved in driver qualification and training, he said.
The two leaders of Taiwan and China will have a historic meeting.
Will the stock market rebound soon?
The roof caved in again today on the New York Stock Exchange, the Dow nose-diving 445 points.
But Al Goldman, Chief Market Strategist at Wachovia Securities, would not be surprised if the market rebounds tomorrow:
“The downward trend is still down, but if you want some good news, going by the climactic close, and the deeply oversold condition of the market, we do have the preconditions in place for at least a reflex oversold bouts.”
AP correspondent Sandy Kozel reports Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are both putting a hold on foreclosures.
“The decision affects about 16,000 households facing foreclosure.
Freddie Mac's chief executive says the announcement should provide a new measure of certainty to many of those families during the holidays.”
The Senate has extended jobless benefits for 7 more weeks.
GM, Ford and Chrysler are promising to submit a blueprint for improvements to Congress.
House and Senate leaders are demanding a survival plan before they consider giving the Big Three $25 billion they're asking for.
AP correspondent Sandy Kozel reports Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are both putting a hold on foreclosures.
Freddie Mac's chief executive says the announcement should provide a new measure of certainty to many of those families during the holidays.”
The court said it had decided to allow the 68-year-old Chung bail of 1 billion won.
He was released from prison on the 61st day of his imprisonment.
On April 28, he was arrested on charges of embezzling about 110 billion won in company funds and causing some 210 billion won in damage to the carmaker through breach of trust.
Chung's lawyers applied for bail last month, citing Chung's bad health and the group's difficulty in running the company without the chairman.
Widows or widowers will be allowed to inherit half of the properties left by their dead spouses starting next year, according to the Ministry of Justice on Sunday.
The ministry plans to submit a revision bill on inheritance to the National Assembly during a regular session this fall.
The revision is designed to evenly distribute the assets, which couples create over their marriage life, to their spouses regardless of the number of other heirs.
Currently, spouses surviving their partners are entitled to shares of the inheritance in accordance with the number of their children.
The ill-fated F-15K was one of the Air Force's next-generation jet fighters valued at about 100 billion won each.
The Korean Air Force is in the process of purchasing 40 planes by 2008 under a 5.6 trillion-won acquisition project dubbed F-X.
Former Enron bosses Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling have both been found guilty on fraud, conspiracy and other charges.
The two presided over the spectacular collapse of the energy giant in 2001 and were also accused of lying to investors about its financial problems.
The two former chief executives faced 34 counts relating to Enron's collapse.
A spokesman for President George W Bush said the verdict should be seen as a warning to other corporate criminals and applauded the decision.
The energy trading firm went from being the US's seventh largest company to bankruptcy, amid allegations of accounting irregularities.
The boss of troubled carmaker Ford has admitted the company needs a completely new business model if it is to return to profitability.
Ford chairman and chief executive Bill Ford made the comments in a leaked memo that was subsequently formally released to the press.
Ford also said the company needs to explore alliances with other carmakers.
The truth of China’s Northeastern Project?
The economy is a top issue on the campaign trail.
“In one week, you can choose policies that invest in our middle class, to create new jobs and grow our economy from the bottom up, so that everybody has the chance to succeed.”
While in Hershey, Pennsylvania, Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin warmed up the crowd.
“Are you ready to make John McCain the next President of the United States?”
McCain is calling on Alaska Senator Ted Stevens to resign.
GOP candidate says the long-time senator has broken his trust with the people with his conviction on corruption charges.
The economy is a top issue on the campaign trail.
“In one week, you can choose policies that invest in our middle class, to create new jobs and grow our economy from the bottom up, so that everybody has the chance to succeed.”
McCain is calling on Alaska Senator Ted Stevens to resign.
A US soldier is said to be one of a half dozen people killed by a car bomb today in Kabul, Afghanistan.
“They detonated this explosive device right in a crowded area that was both used by civilians and military people, once again showing that they have no care whatsoever who they kill - their effort is just to kill.”
The Taliban is claiming responsibility for that bombing.
Divers and sonar teams are searching the Hudson River for the two engines from a US Airways jet that ditched on Thursday.
The NTSB is using a couple of cranes to raise the plane from the river, and investigators will also interview the pilot and crew about the accident and the remarkable crash-landing on Thursday.
After suffering temps of 15 and 20 below, it's practically a warming spell in Des Moines, Iowa today:
“It feels at least like 15 degrees, which is 15 degrees warmer than it was yesterday.”
That's John Huffman, he's the manager of a coffee house.
An apparent suicide attack in Iraq has left at least 25 people dead and injured more than 30 others.
The bombing is reported to have targeted a Kurdish funeral in the northern town of Talafar, near Mosul.
Earlier, at least five policemen and four civilians were killed in two separate attacks in Baghdad.
In another development, Iraqi police said they had arrested several men over the kidnapping and killing of British aid worker Margaret Hassan.
The Taiwan President wants to have an open talks with China.
Education is the message of the day for President Barack Obama, who's spending the 50th of his first 100 days on the job.
He's throwing his support behind merit pay for the best teachers:
“ It's time to start rewarding good teachers, and stop making excuses for bad ones.”
He says that can definitely make a difference in the classroom.
Teachers' unions have long opposed merit pay in public schools.
The President tells a meeting of the Hispanic chamber of Commerce in Washington that Education Secretary Arne Duncan is looking for results:
“ Secretary Duncan will use only one test when deciding what ideas to support with your precious tax dollars ?
News from Citigroup that it actually made an operating profit during the first two months of the year is creating a bit of a rebound on Wall Street.
The Dow opened up, gaining more than 250 points in the first hour, before backing off a little. Education is the message of the day for President Barack Obama, who's spending the 50th of his first 100 days on the job.
He's throwing his support behind merit pay for the best teachers:
He says that can definitely make a difference in the classroom.
The Seoul District Public Prosecutors’ Office said Thursday that it imposed the overseas travel ban on Samsung Group restructuring office officials and former Samsung Everland executives who carried out chairman Lee’s illegal wealth transfer scheme in November 1996.
The prosecution Thursday banned seven to eight officials from Samsung-affiliated companies from traveling overseas.
The officials are suspected of working on the illicit transfer of wealth from Samsung Group chairman Lee Kun-hee to his children.
The Seoul District Public Prosecutors’ Office said Thursday that it imposed the overseas travel ban on Samsung Group restructuring office officials and former Samsung Everland executives who carried out chairman Lee’s illegal wealth transfer scheme in November 1996.
Another month of record declines in house prices.
A closely watched index from Standard & Poor's shows the values of homes in twenty big cities plunged 18% in the year ending in October.
Those prices have been going down for nearly 2 years now.
In fact, the Case-Shiller Index shows houses are selling for about what they were back in 2004.
We'll get a fresh read this hour on consumer confidence this month.
In the meantime, stocks opened higher this morning on the next to last trading day of the year.
Investors are taking some comfort from the government deciding to provide $5 billion to the part of General Motors that finances new cars.
Oil prices are back below $40 a barrel, traders focusing again on the global recession, instead of the fighting in the Middle East.
AAA tracks gasoline at a national average $1.62 a gallon.
Another month of record declines in house prices.
We'll get a fresh read this hour on consumer confidence this month.
Investors are taking some comfort from the government deciding to provide $5 billion to the part of General Motors that finances new cars.
Bob Irwin said the popular naturalist had been an “ordinary bloke” and would not have wanted a grand funeral.
However, Irwin added that the final decision on the matter would be made by Steve's widow Terri.
The TV star died on Monday in a stingray attack while filming sea creatures off the Australian coast.
The complaints of the foreigners revolve around the two sets of rules for obtaining cell phones in Korea _ one set for foreigners and another for Koreans.
``It's very difficult for foreigners to get cell phones with the same rates as Koreans,'' said David Watermeyer, a South African who has lived here for about a year.
He said that because Korean companies will not accept credit ratings from foreign countries, foreign residents have to either pre-pay for their cell phone time at an exorbitant rate or get a phone in the name of a Korean friend.
Some foreign residents complain that getting a cell phone in Korea is a nightmare that amounts to discrimination, according to the Korea Times.
Railway authorities came under intense scrutiny yesterday for allowing commuter trains to pass through an evacuated site that just minutes later would give way to a massive sinkhole, tearing open a 45-meter section of ground around Gajwa Station in western Seoul.
Police and the Transportation Ministry are conducting an investigation into the incident, which put railway safety standards into question.
A 45-meter section of ground tore open around Gajwa Station and sank 50 meters at 5:14 p.m. after an underground wall at a nearby subway construction site suddenly gave way, the Korea Rail Network Authority said.
The collapse partly destroyed nearby buildings but no injuries were reported.
An uproar arose after authorities failed to stop three trains running on the railway even after signs of an imminent collapse were detected.”
Fighting between Lebanese troops and Islamist gunmen from a Palestinian refugee camp has killed at least 40 people in Tripoli, northern Lebanon.
Some 15 fighters from the radical Fatah Islam group and 23 Lebanese soldiers died in intense battles, reports said.
Later on Sunday, a large explosion sent a plume of black smoke above Beirut.
A woman is reported to have died in the blast in the largely Christian eastern district of Ashrafieh.
At least 10 people are said to have been hurt.
The cause of the blast is not yet known.
At least two civilians were also killed and a further 40 reportedly hurt in the worst internal fighting Lebanon has seen since the civil war ended in 1990.
The cause of the blast is not yet known.
US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill was speaking after the second day of the talks in New York.
He said there was a ”sense of optimism” over last month's deal on steps to end North Korea's nuclear program.
Hill was referring to the steps to be taken leading up to a 60-day deadline for Pyongyang to shut down its main plutonium-producing nuclear reactor in return for fuel aid. The New York talks are aimed at normalizing diplomatic relations between the US and North Korea for the first time since they fought each other in the 1950-53 Korean War.
On the agenda is the US designation of North Korea as a terrorist state, as well as the possible lifting of sanctions against it.
The US and North Korea have had “very good” talks aimed at normalizing relations between the two nations, the top US negotiator has said.
The New York talks are aimed at normalizing diplomatic relations between the US and North Korea for the first time since they fought each other in the 1950-53 Korean War.
Correspondents say it is now feared many of the weapons are being used against US forces on the ground in Iraq.
˝The US military cannot account for 190,000 AK-47 assault rifles and pistols given to the Iraqi security forces, an official US report says.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) says the Pentagon cannot track about 30% of the weapons distributed in Iraq over the past three years.
The Pentagon did not dispute the figures, but said it was reviewing arms deliveries procedures.
About $19.2bn has been spent by the US since 2003 on Iraqi security forces.
GAO, the investigative arm of the US Congress, said at least $2.8bn of this money was used to buy and deliver weapons and other equipment.
Correspondents say it is now feared many of the weapons are being used against US forces on the ground in Iraq.
Bikini Girl now has plenty of time to work on her tan.
Katrina Darrell was cut during the group round last night in American Idol on Fox.
Simon Cowell didn't want to hear any excuses about her being too tired to rehearse:
(female voice)“ I was up till 3, and then - I have scoliosis, and I was sitting on the floor and my back was hurting, and I was so….
Cowell also said“ so long” to the toothy one, David Osmond, son of Alan from the Osmonds:
“I wish I had an opportunity to really share what is inside of me.”
He and all 75 singers made it through;
this time next week we'll be down to the semi-finalists.
The Idol judges can seem mean, but some college kids can be even meaner - sometimes on Facebook, but more often on a website called juicycampus.com.
It publishes anonymous, sometimes vicious, gossip about students.
And now, the CEO says the company has agreed to shut it down.
Simon Cowell didn't want to hear any excuses about her being too tired to rehearse:
this time next week we'll be down to the semi-finalists.
Thirty-five arrests have been made after clashes between pro-Tibet protesters and police as the Olympic torch made its way through London.
Protests over communist China´s human rights record began soon after the relay began at Wembley, and prompted an increasing police presence through the city.
One protester tried to snatch the torch from former Blue Peter host Konnie Huq.
After an unpublicised change to the route, the Chinese ambassador carried the torch through Chinatown.
The Ministry of Information and Communication, which is in charge of the project of boosting Linux, Tuesday revealed the plan about Kwangju located in the southwestern part of the country.
Originally, Taejon was the self-proclaimed hopeful to become the nation's open-source paradise but the city failed to present the application ahead of the deadline.
Should Kwangju be handpicked as a Linux City, it will be required to install open-source software as a main operating system of their infrastructures, a job which the ministry will support with funds and technologies.
In the long run, Kwangju will have to migrate most of its public desktop and notebook computers away from the Windows program of Microsoft, the world's foremost producer of software.
Some official merchandise for the 2008 Olympics in communist China has been made using child labor, forced overtime and low wages to boost profits, a report says.
Playfair - an alliance of world trade unions - has condemned “severe workers’ rights violations” in four Chinese factories ahead of the Beijing games.
The group said it found abuses at the factories - licensed to make official Olympic caps, bags and stationery.
Companies cited in the report have denied the allegations.
The International Olympic Committee said it supported ethical practices.
But in Britain, where the IOC is due to meet on Tuesday, trade unionists said tougher action was needed to make sure that the 2012 Olympic Games in London were not tarnished by similar accusations.
An investigators’ report - entitled ”No medal for the Olympics on labour rights” - cites ”gross violations of basic labour standards… including adult wages at half the legal minimum, employment of workers as young as 12 years old”.
It also highlights alleged labour rights violations, such as forced overtime, workers being instructed to lie about wages and conditions to outside inspectors and poor health and safety conditions.
Iran and Japanese firm Inpex say they are close to finalizing a joint project to develop a big new Iranian oil field.
Both sides say they are less than two weeks away from final agreement over the Azadegan field, which is one of the world's biggest untapped oil reserves.
Any deal will no doubt raise eyebrows in the US which wants sanctions against Iran due to Tehran's nuclear ambitions.
While Japan is totally reliant on oil imports, Iran is the world's fourth largest crude producer.
The Iranian government and Inpex first signed an outline agreement over the Azadegan field in 2004, but they subsequently failed to reach a final agreement due to a dispute over the exact financial structure of the deal.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has proposed holding a regional peace conference following the revival of an Arab peace initiative.
Olmert said if Saudi Arabia arranged a conference of moderate Arab states and invited him and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, he would attend.
Earlier, Abbas urged Israel to engage in direct serious negotiations as soon as possible. Last week Arab leaders urged Israel to accept a peace plan proposed in 2002.
Saudi Arabia has yet to respond but it is believed Olmert’s call for a regional summit suggests the plan could at least form a basis for fresh negotiations.
The Saudi plan offers Israel normalization of ties with Arab states if it pulls out of all Arab land it occupied in 1967 and a “just solution” for Palestinian refugees.
Israel rejected the plan outright when it was first proposed.
No more experience wasting hours in long line at the U.S.
Seven people-four adults and three children-have been killed in a house fire in Philadelphia.
“It's a very tragic situation.
I've been in the house and uh, seen the um, the tragedy that took place here.”
One survivor says a woman in the home was moving a hot kerosene heater when it exploded last night.
President Elect Barack Obama was, for a while, like hundreds of thousands of other residents and tourists, in the dark on Oahu.
“His house, on the beach on Lanikai, near out as well.
So, in conjunction with our Governor and with the Marine Corps, we did provide him with a generator so that he could keep his communications going and keep them safe.”
Hawaiian Electric Spokeswoman Jan Loose says the company has been slowly getting neighborhoods back online;
about 30,000 customers so far.
They hope to have all the electricity restored later today.
Workers at Hyundai, South Korea's largest carmaker, have begun a four-day series of stoppages in a row over pay.
Hyundai said the walkout would lead to a production loss of 2,654 vehicles, worth 36bn won.
Confederation of Trade Unions members have downed tools at three plants as part of tough annual pay talks.
They are demanding a 9.1% basic pay rise and other incentives, but Hyundai says it cannot make any offer while its chairman is under arrest.
Chung Mong-koo was arrested at the end of April for his alleged role in a bribery and embezzlement scandal.
He is accused of creating slush funds to pay politicians and officials for business favors as well as transferring funds and shifting corporate control to his son, Chung Eui-Sun.
The stoppages, due to last a total of 12 hours, are not expected to have a significant impact on Hyundai's output or share price, analysts said.
Hyundai said the walkout would lead to a production loss of 2,654 vehicles, worth 36bn won.
The rules would also ban smoking at national parks and on mountain trails and in many other outdoor public places.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare has proposed to stiffen existing regulations on indoor smoking, and wants to ban the practice in most commercial and public buildings in the country.
The ministry said yesterday its new regulations would make smoking in any such building with a floor area of more than 1,000 square meters (10,000 square feet) illegal.
That ban would encompass most buildings of more than four or five stories.
All government office buildings would become no-smoking zones; now, only smaller government office buildings are smoke-free.
The rules would also ban smoking at national parks and on mountain trails and in many other outdoor public places.
If the cabinet does not veto the new smoking rules, they will go into effect before the end of the year.
N.K. celebrates the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the labor party.
The BBC reports five ethnic Indian rights activists have been arrested in Malaysia, under a rarely used security law that allows indefinite detention without trial.
The men belong to the Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf), which organized a mass rally last month alleging discrimination against ethnic Indians.
Analysts say the arrests are likely to stoke more racial tension.
The five men are being held under the Internal Security Act (ISA), which human rights groups want to abolish.
The act is not thought to have been used against government critics since 2001.
Ethnic Indians - mainly Hindus - form one of Malaysia´s largest minority groups.
Activists say that many Hindus live in poverty, partly because of policies granting jobs and economic advantages to the ethnic Malay Muslim majority.
˝The leader of the opposition Grand National Party (GNP) said Monday his party will file a lawsuit against Lee Sang-eop, a former senior official of the spy agency for orchestrating the covert operations against Lee Myung-bak, one of GNP´s leading presidential contenders.
GNP Chairman Kang Jae-sup said, ``It was quite shocking that the spy agency can gain access to 17 different government-run online systems to inspect details of citizens´ property transactions.
He went on to say that the agency´s meddling in the presidential election cannot be justified under any circumstances.
The GNP is scheduled to complete legal action by Wednesday.
Close aides of Lee also vented deep anger against Park as one of her aides was reported to have masterminded another case of leaking classified information that had fueled attacks on Lee.˝
GNP Chairman Kang Jae-sup said, ``It was quite shocking that the spy agency can gain access to 17 different government-run online systems to inspect details of citizens´ property transactions.
Vice Finance Minister Chin Dong-soo yesterday voiced “grave concerns” about the pace of the won's gain against the U.S. dollar and Japanese yen.
Chin said at a conference that the foreign currency authorities will take steps to balance demand and supply of U.S. dollars in the Korean currency market to help curb the rapid surge in the won's value.
It is rare for a high-ranking government official to openly express concern about the won/dollar movement.
Korean officials and financial authorities largely have refrained from intervening in the currency market recently. Whether there will be any drastic change in the policy will be closely watched, analysts said.
The won has gained around 10 percent against the greenback so far this year, compared with an 8 percent gain in the Singapore dollar and a 2.3 percent increase in the Japanese yen.
It is rare for a high-ranking government official to openly express concern about the won/dollar movement.
The country’s longest hostage crisis is not receiving enough government support, complain family members of South Korean sailors who were kidnapped by Somali pirates off the coast of Africa in May.
Lawmakers and representatives of the Federation of Korean Seafarers visited the prime minister’s office yesterday to urge a quick resolution to a standoff that began May 16th when 24 sailors, including four South Koreans, were taken by Somali pirates 210 miles northeast of Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia.
Sources familiar with the case have said that the pirates are demanding a ransom of about $1 million, but that the ship owner is arguing that beyond $100,000 the company is not able to meet the demands.
In a related development, a foreign ministry official denied a report in Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper that Seoul had paid a $10 million ransom to the Taliban for the release of the Christian hostages.
The newspaper said the Taliban used the ransom money to buy weapons.
The mayor of the Japanese city of Nagasaki has died several hours after being shot, police said.
Itcho Ito, who was 61, was shot at least twice in the back in the centre of the city just before 8PM on Tuesday, and died in hospital on Wednesday.
Police said they had arrested a man, who was allegedly a member of one of Japan’s leading organized crime groups.
Japanese media said the murder appeared to be linked to an alleged controversy over public works contracts.
Ito was campaigning for re-election to a fourth term as mayor of Nagasaki on the island of Kyushu.
Police identified the suspect as Tetsuya Shiroo, who was arrested on the spot.
Television pictures showed police struggling with Shiroo and pushing him into a police car.
Paramedics treated Mayor Ito on the ground outside a train station in the centre of Nagasaki before he was taken to hospital in an ambulance.
Doctors worked for several hours to keep him alive but he died at 2:28 AM on Wednesday.
Police said they had arrested a man, who was allegedly a member of one of Japan’s leading organized crime groups.
An Afghan man charged with converting to Christianity is set to be released from jail while his case is reviewed.
Abdul Rahman's case has been handed back to the attorney-general because of gaps in the evidence, an official said.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said that while the attorney-general looked at the papers, Rahman did not need to be detained.
Rahman, a Christian for 16 years, was charged with rejecting Islam and potentially faced the death penalty.
Afghanistan's legal system is built on Islamic Sharia law, and Rahman could have faced execution if he had refused to renounce Christianity.
The Afghan government has come under increasing pressure over the case.
Key international backers of President Hamid Karzai have called for Shiite Rahman's release, while Muslim conservatives in Afghanistan are in favor of his detention.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said that while the attorney-general looked at the papers, Rahman did not need to be detained.
The division between the Grand National Party’s reigning presidential candidate and the conservative party’s former standard-bearer worsened yesterday in a barrage of name-calling and accusations over past corruption.
Efforts had been underway to ease tensions between current leader Lee Myung-bak and two-time candidate Lee Hoi-chang, who is being pushed by his supporters to run again, a move that would split the party.
Yesterday an aide to Lee Myung-bak abandoned diplomacy and questioned Lee Hoi-chang’s honesty, saying that campaign financing irregularities from the failed 2002 GNP campaign cast a cloud over the one-time leader’s eligibility to run at all.
The dollar has fallen to yet another all-time low against the euro, after further weak US economic data.
Figures showed that US consumer confidence has fallen to a near two-year low, while house prices have seen the sharpest drop in 16 years.
Analysts said the data boosted expectations that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates still further.
The Fed cut US interest rates to 4.75% from 5.25% last week, in a move aimed at restoring confidence in both the housing and financial markets.
It was the first US rate cut in four years.
In further bad news for the US economy on Wednesday, orders for durable goods, which include everything from washing machines to commercial jets, fell by a bigger-than-expected 4.9%.
The high value of the euro has caused concern among European exporters, as it makes their products more expensive in the US.
Figures showed that US consumer confidence has fallen to a near two-year low, while house prices have seen the sharpest drop in 16 years.
The military is pushing to introduce drastic reforms to its judicial system to secure the independence of judges and prosecutors and better protect the rights of the accused.
The fairness of martial law enforcement has often been questioned as it is under the direct control of field commanders.
Critics say soldiers accused of crimes are not given defendants' rights to the extent they are guaranteed in civilian cases.
The Defense Ministry and a judicial reform panel under the Supreme Court jointly drafted a revision bill and submitted it to the National Assembly in September 2005.
It is currently pending because of a parliamentary deadlock over other contentious bills. If passed, it would be the first major change to the military justice system in 45 years.
Critics say soldiers accused of crimes are not given defendants' rights to the extent they are guaranteed in civilian cases.
Republican front-runner John McCain kicked off his final push with a rally in rival Mitt Romney´s home-state of Massachusetts, before heading for New Jersey and then on to New York where he is expected to appear at Manhattan´s Grand Central Station.
White House hopefuls are jetting across the US in last-minute campaigning ahead of the biggest single day of voting ever in a presidential nominating race.
A total of 24 states will hold nominating contests on Super Tuesday.
The Republican race, in which John McCain appears to have a clear lead in polls over his main challenger, Mitt Romney, may be decided on Tuesday.
But the Democratic race between Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama is very tight and may go further.
Super Tuesday states account for over half the delegates who will go to party conventions to formally choose the nominees to run in November´s election.
Mrs Clinton, who began the day with a visit to a child study centre at Yale University where she volunteered as a law student, was later expected to make stops in Massachusetts and New York.
Obama flew out of Chicago and landed in New Jersey, where he attended a rally in East Rutherford.
Introduced by actor Robert DeNiro, he told the crowd, “Sometimes the underdog pulls it out.
You can´t always believe the pundits and prognosticators”.
Republican front-runner John McCain kicked off his final push with a rally in rival Mitt Romney´s home-state of Massachusetts, before heading for New Jersey and then on to New York where he is expected to appear at Manhattan´s Grand Central Station.
He told reporters in Boston that he was ”guardedly optimistic” ahead of the contests.
he father cried, and the son soothed him.
28-year-old U.S. skier Toby Dawson, a Korea-born adoptee, was reunited with his biological father in Seoul after 26 years of separation.
Dawson looked nervous before the meeting at Lotte Hotel in central Seoul, unlike Tuesday, when he kept smiling during a briefing held after he was appointed goodwill ambassador for Korean tourism by the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) and for PyeongChang, a Korean city bidding for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games.
A DNA test conducted with the help of the KTO confirmed that Kim Jae-soo, a 53-year-old bus driver in Pusan, was Dawson’s father.
’ Dawson, who won a bronze medal in the men’s freestyle moguls event at the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics, said he had good adoptive parents and was given many opportunities but he felt torn between the different worlds of Korea and the United States.
Kim said he lost his son in a crowded street market near his home in 1981. Dawson was sent to an orphanage and adopted by ski instructors from Colorado when he was 3 years old.
Kim said he searched for his son, visiting police stations and orphanages, but his efforts were in vain.
When asked whether he understands his father, the athlete said it is difficult for him to fully understand the circumstances at that time.
The Korea Times reported Dawson plans to establish a foundation to help adoptees and orphans in Korea.
Dawson gave Kim a sweater with the U.S. national ski team logo on it. He will spend more time with his family and visit Holt International Children’s Services before leaving for the U.S…
he father cried, and the son soothed him.
The Korea Times reported Dawson plans to establish a foundation to help adoptees and orphans in Korea.
A Catholic priest is to go on trial in Vietnam accused of disseminating information to undermine the state and forming an illegal political party.
Father Ly, who is 59, has already spent 14 of the past 24 years in prison for his opposition to Communist Party rule.
˝President Roh Moo-hyun Wednesday expressed concerns that his policy for balanced regional development would be stopped if Lee Myung-bak, the standard-bearer of the main opposition Grand National Party (GNP), is elected president.
In his speech during a groundbreaking ceremony for the ``Renovated Jeju City´´ in Seogwipo, Roh expressed his uneasiness about the possibility of disparity between Seoul and provincial cities widening if former Seoul Mayor Lee becomes the next president.
Stressing that the incumbent administration has been successful in narrowing the gap, he said the policy for balanced regional development could be stopped after his term ends next February.
Last week, the presidential office filed a libel suit against Lee and his aides for their allegedly groundless statement that the Roh administration was behind a plot to frustrate Lee´s presidential bid.˝
In his speech during a groundbreaking ceremony for the ``Renovated Jeju City´´ in Seogwipo, Roh expressed his uneasiness about the possibility of disparity between Seoul and provincial cities widening if former Seoul Mayor Lee becomes the next president.
At least 17 people have been killed in a fourth day of gun battles in the Gaza Strip between the rival Palestinian factions, Fatah and Hamas.
Both groups have called a renewed ceasefire to end the violence in which nearly 40 people have died, but gunfire was still being heard after it began.
Four Israelis were also injured by a rocket attack, prompting their prime minister to order ””a severe response””.
Shortly after Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said his country’s ””policy of restraint”” could not continue, an Israeli strike on a Hamas training camp in southern Gaza killed four people.
A fire has broken out at a nuclear plant in western Japan, injuring two people but causing no radiation leak, officials say.
The blaze took hold in a waste disposal facility at the Ohi power plant in Fukui, 380km west of Tokyo.
Japan is heavily reliant on nuclear power but confidence has been hit by a series of incidents in recent years.
Two workers were taken to hospital with smoke inhalation.
About four or five former defense ministers including Kim Sung-eun and Lee Sang-hoon said they will meet again today to lodge a protest over the government's move to speed up the process.
Debate is heating up over South Korea's ongoing negotiations with the United States to take back wartime military command of its forces, which conservatives and former ministers argue could hurt the Seoul-Washington alliance and threaten the nation's security.
The debate took another turn over the weekend on reports that Washington was considering speeding up the procedure to hand over the command by as early as 2009.
The Seoul government is currently pushing to regain wartime military command by 2012.
South Korea transferred control of its troops to the United States in 1950.
The peacetime control of the military was handed back in 1994, but the United States would take over command of the South's military if war breaks out.
About four or five former defense ministers including Kim Sung-eun and Lee Sang-hoon said they will meet again today to lodge a protest over the government's move to speed up the process.
The old and new wings of the Grand National Party are back at each other's throats after the party announced its candidates for 20 Assembly districts in Gyeonggi Province and Jeju, eliminating five incumbent lawmakers.
The removal of the incumbents from the party list for the April general elections is a first in GNP history, and the move infuriated former party chairwoman, Park Geun-hye, since two of those delisted are her key supporters.
Senior GNP officials fear that candidate hopefuls who did not make it might leave the party and run as independents, which could divide conservative voters.
More than 20,000 protesters have surrounded the prime minister's office in Thailand, demanding the government resign.
The "red shirts," as they're commonly known because of their favored color want the Parliament dissolved and new elections held.
They accuse the new, three-month-old government of coming to power through illegal means.
Some protesters pushed through a police cordon and used a construction crane to remove a cargo container that was used to block their path.
Protesters also took over a police van.
About 10,000 police and soldiers were deployed to help handle the protesters and quell any violence.
The demonstrators are die-hard supporters of the former prime minister who was ousted in a military coup in 2006.
This protesters wears a mask of the ousted leader.
Protesters vow to stay outside the prime minister's office for days to come.
The protests come as Thailand grapples with its worst economic crisis in a decade.
Milo Lopez, The Associated Press.
Protesters also took over a police van.
Iraq's parliament has approved last-minute changes to the draft constitution aimed at overcoming Sunni Arab objections.
No vote was taken on the amendments agreed by representatives of the communities on Tuesday night.
One Sunni party has said it will vote for the draft if MPs elected in the December elections can review it.
Violence continued in Iraq on Wednesday when at least 30 people - mostly recruits looking for work - were killed by a suicide bomber in the northern town of Talafar.
It was the second major attack on the town is as many days.
Up to 30 people were killed in Tuesday's attack on a crowded marketplace.
China launches its second manned space shuttle.
˝A chartered aircraft carrying a total of 22 tourists and crew members, including 13 South Koreans, was missing in a mountainous region of southern Cambodia early Monday .
The 50-seat plane disappeared from radar screens near the coastal area of Kampot at 10:40 a.m. local time, 37 minutes after take-off, and discontinued communications at 10:50, five minutes before it was due to land at an airport in Cambodia´s coastal tourist attraction of Sihanoukville.
The crash site is thought to be between Kamchay and Bokor mountains in Kampot province, about 130 kilometers (80 miles) southwest of the capital, Phnom Penh, according to reports…
The weather was said to be rainy, limiting visibility.
The Koreans are two four-member families, one two-member family, two women and one guide.˝
˝An influential Republican senator has called for the withdrawal of some 5,000 US troops from Iraq by the year´s end.
Senator John Warner, former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the US needed to show that its commitment to Iraq was not open-ended.
US troops, he said, had enhanced security in Iraq but had been let down by the Iraqi government.
He spoke after the release of a US intelligence report which said Iraqi leaders could not govern effectively.
The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) acknowledged some military successes since January, following the “surge” in US troop numbers.
But it also said Iraqi security forces were still not capable of operating without support from American forces, and divisions between Sunnis and Shias continued to drive political instability.˝
1.7 million young people need care. Nearly 1.7 million young people are exposed to abnormal living conditions that can lead to delinquencies, including suicide and dropping out of school, a government report said Tuesday.
According to the National Youth Commission affiliated with the Office of the Prime Minister, the number of suicides by youths aged between 12 and 24 has increased three-fold since the 1997 financial crisis.
The number of suicides by youth last year stood at 2,560, compared with 908 in 1997.
Nearly 1.7 million young people are exposed to abnormal living conditions that can lead to delinquencies, including suicide and dropping out of school, a government report said Tuesday.
Obama's inauguration has touched off celebrations in Kenya, his father's home country, and Obama, Japan, a seaside city of about 30,000 people.
UN workers peered down at the message from the office windows.
In Washington, Australian Mitchell Colton says he came from half a world away to experience the event:
“I came over especially for the inauguration.
And in London, Americans could get free admission to Madame Tussaud's Wax Works to see the new figure of Obama, and Queen Elizabeth II has sent the new president a personal message of support.
Parties are scheduled in dozens of venues in the British capital, from ritzy hotels to local sports bars.
And in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta - that's where Obama spent four years as a young boy - students from his former school swayed and spun in traditional costumes representing Indonesia's ethnically diverse tropical islands……
in giant block letters in the snow.
And in London, Americans could get free admission to Madame Tussaud's Wax Works to see the new figure of Obama, and Queen Elizabeth II has sent the new president a personal message of support.
President-elect Lee Myung-bak announced the nominees for his first Cabinet on Monday, undeterred by an ongoing conflict with a rival party over his controversial plan to close five central ministries.
Lee has designated Yu Myung-hwan, South Korean ambassador to Japan who also served as vice foreign minister between 2005 and 2006, as his first foreign minister.
Lee Sang-hee, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has been nominated as defense minister, while Lee Youn-ho, vice chairman of the Federation of Korean Industries (FKI), a conglomerate lobbying arm, has been nominated as the first head of the Ministry of Knowledge-based Economy.
The Knowledge-based Economy Ministry is planned to be established through the merger of the Information-Communication and Science-Technology ministries.
The president-elect´s announcement of 15 ministers, including two Cabinet ministers, came after his opposition party failed to reach a compromise with the pro-government party on reducing the number of ministries.
Under Lee´s plan that has been submitted to the National Assembly, the government will be downsized to 13 ministries from the current 18, with five ministries being abolished or merged with others.
Top military officials and lawmakers voiced concern about the Defense Ministry's plan to streamline the armed forces and reinforce the weapons system.
Defense Minister Yoon Kwang-ung convened a general meeting of about 70 commanders to seek support from high-ranking officers for the proposed military reform.
He also briefed lawmakers at the National Assembly's defense committee.
Samsung unveils world’s first 16GB NAND flash memory chip.
The number of people joining the jobless ranks jumped last week to a 26-year high.
The Labor Department reports another 573,000 Americans signed up for unemployment benefits for the first time.
And there are fresh layoffs to report this morning: 2,000 people out the door.
Soon it's Stanley Works, the toolmaker based in Connecticut: it's closing 3 plants and laying off about 10% of its work force.
The Labor Department reports another 573,000 Americans signed up for unemployment benefits for the first time.
Democrats have gained the final seat in the battle for the US Senate, sealing their mid-term poll victory in both houses of Congress.
Republican George Allen admitted defeat to his Democratic opponent, James Webb, in the close Virginia Senate race.
The Democrats had already secured the House of Representatives in Tuesday's elections.
President George W Bush has pledged to work with his rivals, and says he is open to new ideas on Iraq.
He has already accepted the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, key architect of US policy in Iraq, following the poll defeat.
The loss of both houses of Congress will make Bush's last two years in office extremely difficult.
The Senate victory will also give the Democrats key posts on powerful congressional committees, as well as more control over federal spending.
Democrats have gained the final seat in the battle for the US Senate, sealing their mid-term poll victory in both houses of Congress.
Palestinians had urged Israel to raze the synagogues and an official said on Sunday they would do it themselves.
Israeli troops have begun pulling out of the Gaza Strip 38 years after they captured the narrow coastal area.
The move followed a decision not to demolish more than 20 synagogues, after rabbis argued against it.
Palestinians had urged Israel to raze the synagogues and an official said on Sunday they would do it themselves.
Koizumi will have a great victory on the general election.
Two Koreas agreed on unified team for 2006 Asian Game.
Paul Wolfowitz is to quit as president of the World Bank following a bitter promotion row involving his girlfriend.
After lengthy talks with the bank’s board, Wolfowitz said he would quit the global lending body on 30 June.
He had faced widespread calls for his resignation after being accused of a conflict of interest over a pay raise given to ex-bank employee Shaha Riza.
The White House, which had backed Wolfowitz, said President George W Bush reluctantly accepted his decision.
The former US deputy defense secretary joined the World Bank in 2005.
The Bank said it would start an immediate search for his successor.
In a statement, the board of directors said it accepted Wolfowitz’s assurances that he had ””acted ethically and in good faith””.
But it acknowledged that a ””number of mistakes”” had been made in how Riza’s role and remuneration had been handled.
The board added that it ””regretted”” that Wolfowitz’s achievements at the Bank had been ””overshadowed by recent events””.
Wolfowitz has been under severe pressure for weeks, with a number of European politicians calling on him to step down to prevent the Bank’s credibility in tackling corruption worldwide from being eroded.”
But it acknowledged that a ””number of mistakes”” had been made in how Riza’s role and remuneration had been handled.
The U.S. negotiator at discussions on North Korean nuclear status says little progress has been made during the first day of the latest round of talks.
Christopher Hill said North Korea is now asking for a light-water nuclear reactor - a new demand which was not part of the draft agreement.
The six-party negotiations also involve South Korea, China, Russia and Japan.
Hundreds killed and injured in a series of bomb attacks in Iraq.
Lee Myung-bak's tennis mire is deepening, as more questions continue to arise about his games at a Namsan tennis court and who paid for them.
The Seoul mayor played tennis 51 times from March 2003 through last year at the courts, according to the city government.
The Korea Athletic Promotion Association, which runs the courts, sent a bill to the Seoul Tennis Council in December asking for 28 million won ($28,for the use of the court from April 2003 to August 2004.
Separately, it sent a bill for 8.3 million won covering Mr. Lee's use of the courts in the second half of last year.
The mayor evidently paid 6 million won of the total fees.
His staff claims that that amount covered his part of the fees for the entire time, but the receipt issued by the association says it paid for only July through December 2005.
They landed in North Korean waters.
Thursday’s suspected test off the west coast may have been carried out after a similar test failed on May 25th, when the North test-fired missiles off the east coast, a South Korean official was quoted as saying earlier.
North Korea has test-fired two short-range missiles off its west coast, South Korean officials say.
They are believed to be ground-to-ship or ship-to-ship missiles with a range of some 100 km .
They landed in North Korean waters.
Pyongyang test-fired at least one short-range missile at the end of May - off its east coast - as part of what appeared to be a military exercise.
North Korea’s military program is a major source of international concern. Thursday’s suspected test off the west coast may have been carried out after a similar test failed on May 25th, when the North test-fired missiles off the east coast, a South Korean official was quoted as saying earlier.
The North “should focus on the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and fulfill its obligations” under a February agreement to close down its only nuclear reactor, he added.
South Korea confirmed at least one missile was test-fired into the Sea of Japan on May 25th.
˝Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said the UK will make “no apologies” for expelling four Russian diplomats.
The decision follows Moscow´s refusal to hand over the former KGB agent accused of murdering Alexander Litvinenko in London last year.
Brown said that because ”there is no forthcoming co-operation, then action has to be taken”.
The Kremlin said the decision was ”immoral” and warned of ”serious consequences” for the UK.
Former KGB agent Litvinenko died of exposure to radioactive polonium-210 in London in November 2006.
But Moscow has refused to extradite the main suspect, Andrei Lugovoi, who denies involvement.
On a visit to Berlin on Monday, Brown said: ”When a murder takes place, when a number of innocent civilians were put at risk as a result of that murder, and when an independent prosecuting authority makes it absolutely clear what is in the interests of justice, and there is no forthcoming co-operation, then action has to be taken.”
The prime minister added that he wanted a ”good relationship” with Russia.
The Foreign Office has not named the four Russian diplomats, but they are known to be intelligence officers. The UK´s director of public prosecutions has recommended Lugovoi be tried for murder by ”deliberate poisoning”.
Brown said that because ”there is no forthcoming co-operation, then action has to be taken”.
But Moscow has refused to extradite the main suspect, Andrei Lugovoi, who denies involvement.
The official said logistical details for Christopher Hill, assistant secretary of state, were still being worked out.
“In Pyongyang, he plans to meet six-party counterpart Kim Kye-gwan and possibly other senior DPRK officials,” the department official said, calling North Korea by its official name, the Democratic People´s Republic of Korea.
”He will also travel to Yongbyon to observe disabling activities and meet the U.S. disablement team there,” said the official.
Yongbyon is the site that houses North Korea´s core nuclear facilities, believed to have been producing weapons-grade material for atomic arms.
The envoy left for Tokyo earlier Tuesday, the first stop on an Asia swing taking him also to Seoul and Beijing.
The top U.S. nuclear negotiator will visit North Korea Dec.
State Department official said Tuesday.
The official said logistical details for Christopher Hill, assistant secretary of state, were still being worked out.
The president of the World Bank, Paul Wolfowitz, is meeting the bank’s 24-member executive board to respond to allegations against him.
The meeting comes after the panel said he broke bank rules by helping secure a pay raise for his girlfriend.
The board has the power to dismiss him or could choose to report a lack of confidence in his leadership.
Earlier in the day, the White House said it still supported Wolfowitz, but added all options were still open.
The United States failed to win the support of key allies in the Group of Seven, according to a source quoted by Reuters.
The G7 also includes Italy, France, Germany and Britain.
The board has the power to dismiss him or could choose to report a lack of confidence in his leadership.
NFL junkies will be Jonesing until tomorrow, when the conference championships finally get under way.
Tomorrow afternoon, Arizona hosts the Philadelphia Eagles in the NFC title game.
Cardinals coach Ken Whisenhunt says he likes being the underdog:
I think that's helped us to play at a higher level.”
In the AFC, Pittsburgh takes on division rival, Baltimore.
Steelers quarterback Deshea Townsend says it doesn't matter that they've beaten the Ravens twice already this season:
“We'll be the onetime this tough so we're not going to be focused on beating them three times, we're just going to be focused on the one game we haven't had.
OK, this is a rescue for the birds, for sheriff's divers in the Detroit suburb.
They had to hack a goose out of ice after the bird sat too long in some frigid water.
One diver says when it was over, the goose waddled away and joined the rest of the flock for a swim.
In the AFC, Pittsburgh takes on division rival, Baltimore.
Rockets have been fired and bombs dropped on a base of suspected members of the Abu Sayyaf on Jolo island.
The army says five soldiers were wounded and a civilian guide was killed in the clashes, which started on Tuesday.
The casualties cannot be independently confirmed.
Heavy fighting broke out on Jolo after soldiers caught up with militants fleeing the air strikes on their camp.
Rockets have been fired and bombs dropped on a base of suspected members of the Abu Sayyaf on Jolo island.
Universities have reacted with consternation to a government plan capping the number of students for graduate law schools.
According to the Korea Herald, during a parliamentary audit, the Education Ministry for the first time unveiled its proposal for law school student numbers, and has been a topic of hot dispute between schools and the legal industry.
The ministry has proposed a maximum of 1,500 students in 2009 - the first year of implementation - with a gradual increase to 2,000 by 2013.
The plan has been met with strong opposition from university officials, with some National Assembly members also saying the figures are hard to comprehend.
“I don´t understand what kind of methods were used for the ministry to come up with a total of 1,500 students for all law schools,” said Rep.
Lee Ju-ho of the conservative Grand National Party, asking the ministry to repeat its analysis.
Yoo Ki-hong of the United New Democratic Party also suggested the ministry should increase the quota to 2,500.
The blast happened outside the base at Bagram, 60 kilometers north of Kabul.
News reports said at least 14 people were killed including a U.S. soldier, a South Korean soldier and a U.S. government contractor.
More than 27 were reportedly wounded.
South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff confirmed the death of 27-year-old Army Sgt. Yoon Jang-ho who had been stationed in an engineering unit as part of the U.S.-led coalition since last September.
Yoon, a graduate of Indiana University in the United States, is the first South Korean solider to be killed in a terrorist attack in Afghanistan.
Cheney was not hurt in the blast.
Samsung Group Chairman Lee Kun-hee said Tuesday that he will resign from the conglomerate to take full responsibility for the recent scandal that led him and nine other Samsung executives to be indicted.
``Today, I decided to step down as chairman of the group,’’ the grim-faced Lee said in a nationally televised press conference at the Samsung head office in Seoul.
``I will take all legal and moral responsibility and truly apologize for causing concern,’’ he said, adding that he will embrace all the wrongdoings of the nation’s largest conglomerate.
The announcement came days after a team of special prosecutors led by Cho Joon-woong indicted Lee and nine other executives on charges of tax evasion and breach of trust.
The independent body found that Lee had 4.5 trillion won hidden in bank accounts under other people’s names and charged him with evading 112.8 billion won in taxes.
Allegations of bribery and a slush fund creation were not substantiated.
``Today, I decided to step down as chairman of the group,’’ the grim-faced Lee said in a nationally televised press conference at the Samsung head office in Seoul.
Politicians and schoolchildren were among at least 40 people killed in a suicide attack in northern Afghanistan, hospital and provincial officials say.
The scene of the attack in the province of Baghlan was left littered with bodies and splattered with blood in one of the worst attacks in recent times.
The attack was condemned by the Afghan president, the White House and the UN.
Analysts say suicide attacks are rare in this area, and the bombing shows the reach of the insurgency is growing.
The Taliban, al-Qaeda and other militant groups are fighting thousands of Afghan and foreign troops in Afghanistan.
The scene of the attack in the province of Baghlan was left littered with bodies and splattered with blood in one of the worst attacks in recent times.
New York Times, Wall Street Journal reporting that General Motors and Chrysler have held preliminary talks about a merger or making a deal in which GM buys Chrysler.
Automotive analyst Lincoln Merrihew says whatever the deal is, it is going to cost a lot of money.
possibly downsizing the workforce, it may take money to do that;
An apartment fire has killed five people, including 3 children, in Manhattan.
Fire officials say a 10 year-old who survived the blaze, is in critical condition.
Meanwhile, as negotiations over Korean hostages held by Taliban terrorists have made little headway with two captives already being killed, the Seoul government is desperately looking for the United States to help in the release of the remaining 21 hostages by pushing the Afghan government to free jailed Taliban fighters.
˝Taliban kidnap-murderers agreed to face-to-face talks with South Korean officials to discuss the fate of 21 Koreans, held by the Islamic terrorist group for two weeks.
A location is yet to be agreed after the Taliban refused to meet at a venue under the control of NATO-led forces.
Two of the Christian workers have already been murdered.
Their bodies were found in Ghazni province.
The Taliban are threatening more deaths unless ransom demands are met including the release of eight government-held prisoners.
It is thought the South Korean aid workers are being held in a number of small groups in a village about 10km from Ghazni town center.
A BBC correspondent in Ghazni province says military forces have surrounded the area as the efforts continue to try to bring the hostage crisis to a peaceful resolution.
Houses nearby have been searched and roads to the area have been sealed off.
Leaflets were dropped on Wednesday warning local people to leave the area fuelling rumors that a military rescue operation could be launched.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has exchanged prisoners for hostages before, but the government has made it clear this is no longer the policy.
The South Korean government has repeatedly said it is opposed to direct military intervention.
Meanwhile, as negotiations over Korean hostages held by Taliban terrorists have made little headway with two captives already being killed, the Seoul government is desperately looking for the United States to help in the release of the remaining 21 hostages by pushing the Afghan government to free jailed Taliban fighters.
The Islamic fundamentalists have called for releasing their comrades in prisons, including some high-profile commanders in the custody of the U.S. military, in exchange for the hostages.
South Korea is considering delaying rice aid to North Korea after it failed to meet a key deadline to shut down a nuclear reactor, officials say.
Seoul had said aid would resume whether or not Pyongyang met the deadline, but it is now reviewing this, reports say.
Russia, meanwhile, said the missed deadline was due to failure by the US to resolve a financial dispute.
The row, over frozen North Korea accounts, stalled implementation of the nuclear deal for several weeks.
Under the landmark February 13th deal, North Korea agreed to “shut down and seal” its Yongbyon reactor within 60 days in return for aid.
But it linked progress on the deal to the return of $25m (£13m) of its money frozen in a Macau bank.
The US says the money is now available to North Korea, but there has been no confirmation of this from Pyongyang and Saturday's deadline came and went with no official comment from the North.
Its dialogue partners - the US, China, Russia, South Korea and Japan - appear to be giving North Korea a few more days to comply. South Korea is considering delaying rice aid to North Korea after it failed to meet a key deadline to shut down a nuclear reactor, officials say.
The row, over frozen North Korea accounts, stalled implementation of the nuclear deal for several weeks.
Dr Hwang has admitted errors, but claims his work was sabotaged.
An investigation into the work of discredited South Korean cloning scientist Hwang Woo-suk has found further fabrications in his research.
Dr Hwang's landmark claim to have cloned human embryonic stem cells was false, a university panel concluded.
But the panel, which last month rejected other research by Dr Hwang, has accepted that he did create the world's first cloned dog.
All 136 passengers and 16 crew escaped from the British Airways flight BA038 from Beijing.
Eighteen people have been taken to hospital with minor injuries.
An airport worker told the BBC the Boeing 777 pilot, named later as 43-year-old Peter Burkill, said he had lost all power and had to glide the plane in to land.
All BA short-haul flights from Heathrow have been cancelled and others delayed.
BAA, the Heathrow operator, said it hoped to return to “near normal operations” on Friday, but advised all passengers to contact their airlines for up-to-the-minute information.
The worker also said the pilot had told him all the electronics had also failed.
BA refused to comment on the report and said it would not speculate on the cause of the crash.
All 136 passengers and 16 crew escaped from the British Airways flight BA038 from Beijing.
An airport worker told the BBC the Boeing 777 pilot, named later as 43-year-old Peter Burkill, said he had lost all power and had to glide the plane in to land.
Police say the incident was not terror-related.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard and his Labor rival Kevin Rudd have been increasing campaign rhetoric ahead of Saturday´s general elections.
Rudd, in Canberra, urged voters to help Australia “shift up a gear” by backing an innovative government.
In Sydney, meanwhile, Howard reiterated his warning that a Labor victory would damage prosperity.
With three days to go until the polls, the Labor leader remains well ahead of his Liberal rival in opinion polls.
Rudd, a 50-year-old former diplomat, has pledged health, education and labour reforms, and to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.
Entertainer Jennifer Hudson and her sister Julia are already really following the shooting deaths of her mother and brother. Now they may be facing yet another loss.
Chicago police say they found the body of a young boy in an SUV parked on a city street.
Hudson's 7 year-old nephew Julian, Julia's son, has been missing since the shootings last Friday.
Two University of Central Arkansas students are dead, a third person wounded in a shooting last night outside a men's dorm.
Campus police attendant Rhonda Swindle says investigators know who opened fire on the two young students.
“We feel certain that we have all four identified that are involved with the shooting.
We believe the campus to be completely safe at this time.”
Swindle says the dead are identified as 18 year-old Ryan Henderson and 19 year-old Chavares Block.
Now they may be facing yet another loss.
The recession is leading some people to take the art of being a tightwad to new extremes.
“ There's a woman in Colorado who salvages bagel scraps and cuts lotion bottles in half to scrape out the last drops.
Jodi Furman in Florida says if you can't make more money, then you can spend less:
”“ Sharing with friends, swapping out clothing, really just making sure that we are protecting our assets.
” Furman is really into coupons:
“ I can actually, on a regular basis, save 60 to 70% at the grocery store.
”“ Since the economic downturn, Furman has been seeing more activity on her blog:
Detroit mayoral candidate and former NBA great Dave Bing says he does not have a Master's degree and received his undergraduate degree 29 years later than he had claimed.
He tells the Associated Press that his auto industry work was like having an MBA.
The recession is leading some people to take the art of being a tightwad to new extremes.
An electric fault could have caused an overnight fire at the government building in downtown Seoul, which was put out within half an hour without causing any casualties, investigators said Thursday.
The blaze started in two adjacent rooms on the fifth floor of the 19-story Central Government Building just after 12:30 a.m.
Some 130 firefighters and 52 fire trucks were called to the scene and got the fire under control in about 30 minutes.
The 31 people in the building at the time of the fire fled to the rooftop and were able to leave safely after the heat and smoke subsided an hour later.
Electricity to the building was cut off to prevent the fire from starting again.
Last week South Korea´s 14th-century wooden and stone gate Namdaemun, a 610-year-old artifact in downtown Seoul and one of South Korea´s most treasured monuments, was ravaged by fire after a 70-year-old man, disgruntled by a land compensation deal with developers, poured paint thinner on it and set it ablaze with a cigarette lighter.
The suspect was arrested a day later.
The blaze started in two adjacent rooms on the fifth floor of the 19-story Central Government Building just after 12:30 a.m.
The suspect was arrested a day later.
˝Shin Jeong-ah, a former art professor who at the center of a degree-forgery and influence-peddling sandal, apologized yesterday for “causing trouble.”
This came shortly after she returned to Seoul to face an investigation.
The 35-year-old Shin arrived at Incheon International Airport, via Japan where she had spent the weekend after flying from New York City.
She was immediately escorted by prosecution officials for questioning.
Those close to Shin had said she was preparing to fly back to Korea this month, in order to clear her name.
Shin said she would ”tell all” to the prosecutors.
The former professor-curator allegedly fled to the United States in July this year shortly after she was discovered to have lied about having earned undergraduate and master´s degrees from the University of Kansas and a doctorate from Yale University.
Shin was also found to have had close ties with Byeon Yang-kyoon who was President Roh Moo-hyun´s chief secretary on national policy before he stepped down last week
they're tied to a Commerce Department report, which says the Gross Domestic Product, the measure of all goods and services produced within the U.S., fell at a three tenths percent annual rate in the third quarter.
But the White House is trying to downplay the figures.
“Press Secretary Dana Perino says the shrinkage is not unexpected, and in part reflects special factors like hurricanes and the Boeing strike.
She adds President Bush is taking forceful steps to reverse the trend and America is positioned to bounce back.”
AP White House correspondent Mark Smith.
And since the GDP number was smaller than the market expected, Wall Street opened higher…
The Dow is now up 123 points.
But the White House is trying to downplay the figures.
She adds President Bush is taking forceful steps to reverse the trend and America is positioned to bounce back.”
The Dow is now up 123 points.
Internet giant Yahoo has been accused of supplying information to China which led to the jailing of a journalist for ""divulging state secrets"".
Reporters Without Borders said Yahoo's Hong Kong arm helped China link Shi Tao's e-mail account and computer to a message containing the information.
The media watchdog accused Yahoo of becoming a ""police informant"" in order to further its business ambitions.
A Yahoo spokeswoman, Pauline Wong, said the company had no immediate comment.
Shi Tao, 37, worked for the Contemporary Business News in Hunan province, before he was arrested and sentenced on April 10th to 10 years in prison.
Six-party talks will resume soon.
Top aide to President Elect Barack Obama is making the rounds of the Sunday talk shows.
David Axelrod tells ABC's This Week that New York Federal Reserve Bank President Timothy Geitner is a perfect fit for Treasury Secretary.
“Tim Geitner is uniquely qualified uh, to do this job;
he's someone who is uh, steeped in the economy and in managing crises.
Axelrod says the incoming administration's already working on plans to turn the economy around:
President Bush is wrapping up what is likely to be his final international trip and final summit.
Bush is in Lima, Peru, for the annual meeting of the members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.
The AP's Ben Feller reports that Bush has convinced the other countries to work for a global solution to the economic crisis.
“The APEC nations are saying, 'We agree that we shouldn't be protectionist.
Two Iraqi Cabinet members warned Parliament that if the pending security pact with the U.S. is not passed, the country will face economic trouble brought on by security problems.
Iraqi lawmakers are expected to vote Wednesday on the proposal.
The pact would allow U.S. troops to stay until 2012.
Top aide to President Elect Barack Obama is making the rounds of the Sunday talk shows.
“Tim Geitner is uniquely qualified uh, to do this job;
he's someone who is uh, steeped in the economy and in managing crises.
Axelrod says the incoming administration's already working on plans to turn the economy around:
Hoping to symbolize an eventual peaceful reunification, President Roh Moo-hyun will cross the inter-Korean border to reach the North on foot, Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung said yesterday morning at a meeting with his officials.
Although Roh and his entourage will travel by car from Seoul to Pyong-yang, the two Koreas have reached an agreement that Roh will get out of his vehicle and walk a few hundred meters across the Military Demarcation Line.
“The president’s walk across the MDL will pave the ground for establishing permanent peace on the Korean Peninsula,” Lee said.
Roh will be accompanied by 13 official delegates, but only he and first lady Kwon Yang-suk will actually cross the border on foot.
The crossing will be televised live at around 9 a.m.
The Blue House expects Roh to walk about 30 to 40 meters (100 to 130 feet) across the MDL to emphasize the historic significance of the first overland trip by a South Korean president.
The MDL runs across the middle of the demilitarized zone and is also referred to as the armistice line, following the ceasefire after the 1950-53 Korean War.
The US has urged North Korea to fulfill its pledge to shut down the Yongbyon nuclear reactor, as Pyongyang missed a key deadline for closing the plant.
North Korea should ””immediately”” invite nuclear experts to begin sealing the facility, the US state department said.
But the US said it remained committed to the landmark February 13th agreement.
Under the deal, North Korea agreed to close Yongbyon within 60 days in return for aid.
But a row over funds frozen in Macau has stalled progress on the deal.
US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said it was time for North Korea ””to make its move so that all of us can move forward””.
In Beijing, US nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill said that North Korea's failure to meet the April 14th deadline was cause for concern.
But he said that Chinese officials had urged the US to show patience and to wait ””a couple more days”” for Pyongyang to comply.
The implementation of the deal - aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear program - has been delayed by a row over $25m (£13m) of North Korean money held in a Macau bank.
President Roh Moo-hyun left open the option of meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong-il although he admitted the inter-Korean summit will be unlikely before major progress is made on the nuclear issue.
“My position is that it would be difficult to hold an inter-Korean summit unless some sort of conclusion is reached at the six-party talks.
Hong Ra-hee, the wife of Samsung Group Chairman Lee Kun-hee, appeared Wednesday at an independent counsel´s office to be questioned over allegations that she bought expensive paintings with the group´s slush fund.
Hong arrived at the office in Seoul around 3 p.m. as hundreds of reporters were waiting for the appearance of the wife of the nation´s largest conglomerate.
It is the first time that she has been called in by prosecutors.
Arriving with one of the group´s lawyers, she did not answer any of the reporters´ questions, but only said, ``I will faithfully respond (to the investigation).
´´ Hong is alleged to have used the group´s slush fund to purchase high-priced paintings at overseas auctions through Korean art galleries in 2002 and 2003.
The probe team confirmed earlier that some dividends of Samsung Life Insurance shares, which were registered under Samsung executives´ names but actually belonged to the chairman, were used for buying paintings.
Hong arrived at the office in Seoul around 3 p.m. as hundreds of reporters were waiting for the appearance of the wife of the nation´s largest conglomerate.
It is the first time that she has been called in by prosecutors.
Meanwhile, the bitterness over legislative candidate nominations inside the Grand National Party deepened yesterday as the leader of the party’s traditional conservative wing, Park Geun-hye, said there was a deliberate attempt underway to sweep her allies out of the National Assembly.
Last week, two of her top aides, lawmakers Lee Q-taek and Han Sun-kyo, were dropped from the party’s list of candidates for the April general elections.
Then news reports yesterday said that the GNP is preparing to replace more than half the incumbent lawmakers in Park’s traditional stronghold region, the Gyeongsang provinces.
Clearly angered, Park said that the trust between President Lee Myung-bak and her had been shattered.
“Worst weather should be in uh, western Colorado, eastern Idaho, and also going into uh, Utah.”
Freezing rain, meanwhile, glazing streets and highways in the Chicago area.
Indiana state police have shut down the 150-mile long Indiana Toll Road because of ice.
Eartha Kitt turned sultry into an art form during her long career:
Kitt died on Christmas Day of colon cancer.
Fans of Kitt will also remember her for one other thing…”
“I loved doing the Catwoman.
[purr] I really loved it.”
“Kitt said in a 1996 AP interview Catwoman was one of her favorite roles.”
“When they gave me that part, it was nothing to think about, you just walk on the set and do it.”
Freezing rain, meanwhile, glazing streets and highways in the Chicago area.
Eartha Kitt turned sultry into an art form during her long career:
“Eartha Kitt said she knew she'd forever be identified with 'Santa Baby.'
Kitt died on Christmas Day of colon cancer.
[purr] I really loved it.”
One country where the worldwide financial crisis is taking a toll is Iceland;
it's scrapping plans to nationalize a major bank and abandoning an attempt to fix the exchange rate, which would put a floor under its falling currency.
A federal grand jury has indicted a young Tennessee man in the hacking of Sarah Palin's email account.
The 20 year-old is the son of a Democratic state lawmaker in Tennessee.
He could face up to 5 years in prison, a $250,000 fine if convicted.
US comedian and TV chat show host Jay Leno has told the Michael Jackson trial that he was suspicious of the singer's accuser when they spoke on the phone.
Leno said Gavin Arvizo, who as a cancer sufferer sent him voice messages, sounded ""very scripted"".
But in a setback for the defense, he said the Arvizo family had never asked him for money, nor had he sent any.
Jackson denies child abuse and conspiracy to kidnap.
If found guilty, he faces up to 20 years in jail.
There will be more speculation zones in the city of Uiwang and parts of Daejeon city.
Police in Egypt arrested 15 banned opposition Muslim Brotherhood members.
Several miles of coast in California have been closed after a 66-year-old man died in a rare shark attack.
David Martin was bitten as he swam in the Pacific Ocean off Solana Beach, 14 miles north of San Diego.
The retired veterinarian was training with a triathlon team 150 yards (137m) offshore when he was attacked across both legs before the animal swam away.
He was carried ashore and taken to the Fletcher Cove Park lifeguard station, but was pronounced dead at the scene.
Officials cleared all beaches within a 17-mile radius of the attack.
The shark was ""probably"" a Great White Shark, officials said.
since records began in the 1950s, there have been only 11 fatal shark attacks off the California coast, according to the state´s Department of Fish and Game.
Worldwide, there were 71 shark attacks recorded last year, of which only one was fatal.
He was carried ashore and taken to the Fletcher Cove Park lifeguard station, but was pronounced dead at the scene.
A front-page article in the Financial Times yesterday reporting that the Bank of Korea had decided no longer to intervene in foreign currency markets jolted trading in the Korean won and led the bank to issue a quick statement to clarify the story.
A front-page article in the Financial Times yesterday reporting that the Bank of Korea had decided no longer to intervene in foreign currency markets jolted trading in the Korean won and led the bank to issue a quick statement to clarify the story.
""We will take necessary measures whenever the foreign exchange markets are unstable,"" the central bank said in the statement that called the report a ""misunderstanding.
South and North Korea had a summit anniversary event.
A major Israeli operation is under way in the Baalbek area in the Bekaa valley - a Hezbollah stronghold in north-east Lebanon - Lebanese officials say.
An Israeli helicopter has landed in the area after a series of air strikes, according to Lebanese army officials.
Israel has refused to comment.
Earlier, Israel warned civilians north-east of Lebanon's Litani River to leave their homes…
Israeli air attacks have killed at least 280 people in Gaza, most of them Hamas security personnel.
The UN Security Council asked both sides to back off, but the AP's Mark Levy reports that just the opposite might be in the offing:
“Israel has called up some reserve ground troops a sign that it's preparing to invade Gaza.
In the meantime, Israel's air force is keeping up its attacks.
This is the biggest offensive in Gaza since the 1967 Mideast War.
All designed to stop Palestinian militants from firing rockets at Israel.
For now, the barrages continue.
Rockets hit the city of Ashdod, farther away from Gaza than any previous strikes.
Israel's been put on a war footing, an indication of a lengthy operation.
one set off a bomb inside a crowd of Iraqis protesting against the Israeli airstrikes.
One person dead, more than a dozen wounded.
They tried to take out tribal leaders meeting at an elementary school.
The AP's Jason Strasuso reports more than 50 others have been hurt.
“Many of the school children were injured from flying glass from broken windows.”
And in northwest Pakistan, not far from the Afghan border, a man pretending to need help with his car set off a bomb and killed 26 people taking part in a local election.
The UN Security Council asked both sides to back off, but the AP's Mark Levy reports that just the opposite might be in the offing:
All designed to stop Palestinian militants from firing rockets at Israel.
For now, the barrages continue.
Israel's been put on a war footing, an indication of a lengthy operation.
It's all economy all the time again this morning.
President Elect Barack Obama will introduce his budget director and talk more about the need to hold the line on some spending in Chicago today.
The government reports the economy shrank more than first thought in the third quarter, contracting at an annual rate of a half percent on a sharp pullback in consumer spending.
And the Treasury and Fed are lighting the blow torch to further thaw the credit pipeline.
For that we go live at the White House with the AP's Sauger Magoni:
“John, it's a double-barreled, $800 billion government bid to return some normalcy to the financial system.
one aimed at unfreezing credit markets and making loans more available by lending about $200 billion to holders of securities backed by loans.
The others aimed at making mortgages cheaper by buying up to $600 billion in mortgage-backed assets.
The Dow is up 130-well, 131 points, but the NASDAQ is down about 5.
The Pope has capitulated to the communist Chinese leaders.
A new Roman Catholic bishop of Beijing is being consecrated in the Chinese capital, the first for more than 50 years to have the approval of the Pope.
Father Joseph Li Shan´s predecessor, who died earlier this year, was appointed by the government-controlled Catholic Church in 1979.
Until recently China´s Church appointed bishops without Vatican´s approval.
The change comes after a recent letter from Pope Benedict to Chinese Catholics seeking reconciliation.
The Pope has capitulated to the communist Chinese leaders.
A new Roman Catholic bishop of Beijing is being consecrated in the Chinese capital, the first for more than 50 years to have the approval of the Pope.
The umbrella in the old Citigroup logo isn't protecting these people this morning:
53,000 more employees of the banking giant are losing their jobs in the months to come.
The CEO is announcing the cuts at a town hall meeting with employees, as the banking giant struggles to steady itself after suffering massive losses in the financial meltdown.
The AP's Warren Levinson has more from New York:
“The 53,000 job cuts come on top of the 22,000 announced at the end of last year.
Hugh Johnson of Johnson Illington Advisors:
“Bad news for the uh, financial services business.
Bad news, particularly bad news, for New York State, uh, and certainly bad news for the overall employment condition of the U.S.”
Congress gets back to work today in a lame-duck session that some Senate Democrats want to use to bailout the auto industry.
The White House says it's willing to help, but:
The AP's Sauger Magoni at the White House.
The umbrella in the old Citigroup logo isn't protecting these people this morning:
The CEO is announcing the cuts at a town hall meeting with employees, as the banking giant struggles to steady itself after suffering massive losses in the financial meltdown.
“The 53,000 job cuts come on top of the 22,000 announced at the end of last year.
When all the reductions are added up, Citigroup will have reduced its workforce by 20%, from a 375,000 the banking giant employed at the end of 2007.”
“Bad news for the uh, financial services business.
Bad news, particularly bad news, for New York State, uh, and certainly bad news for the overall employment condition of the U.S.”
US authorities have charged four men with looting bones and body parts from more than 1,000 corpses and selling them for medical transplants.
Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Haynes said the scam was ""like something out of a cheap horror movie"".
The body of BBC broadcaster Alistair Cooke, who died aged 95 in 2004, was among those used in the racket.
The lawyer for one of the suspects, former dentist Michael Mastromarino, said his client denied the charges.
A barrage of mortar attacks in southern Baghdad has killed at least 16 Iraqis, while seven others died across Iraq.
A police source told a reporter that a total of eight mortars had been fired into the mainly Shiite area of Doura.
The attacks come after days of sectarian tensions that have left at least 165 dead since Wednesday.
Political and militia leaders say they have made progress in talks to curb the violence that was sparked by the bombing of a major Shiite shrine.
However, an explosion hit a Shiite shrine in the southern city of Basra on Sunday.
But the bomb, placed in the building's toilets, caused little damage and there were no serious injuries.
The mortar rounds were fired into the neighborhood of Doura - first into residential streets and then at a fruit market.
Doura is frequently targeted by insurgents. Earlier this week, 11 people were killed in the same district by a car bomb.
A daytime curfew in Baghdad, imposed to try to contain the spiralling violence, has been lifted but a 24-hour ban on road traffic remains in place.
A barrage of mortar attacks in southern Baghdad has killed at least 16 Iraqis, while seven others died across Iraq.
A police source told a reporter that a total of eight mortars had been fired into the mainly Shiite area of Doura.
Political and militia leaders say they have made progress in talks to curb the violence that was sparked by the bombing of a major Shiite shrine.
But the bomb, placed in the building's toilets, caused little damage and there were no serious injuries.
The mortar rounds were fired into the neighborhood of Doura - first into residential streets and then at a fruit market.
The nation’s analog broadcast system will be converted to digital by the end of 2012, the Broadcasting and Communications Commission said yesterday in a release.
A bill authorizing the change passed the National Assembly on Feb.
Under the new law, which will go into effect on June 28, people who have analog TV sets will have until Dec. 31, 2012 to install analog-to-digital converters so they can receive digital signals or purchase digital TV sets.
Otherwise, TV watching will become impossible for those with the older sets.
For those who cannot afford to buy digital TVs or install converters, the central government will offer help, such as subsidizing converters for people in the nation’s lower-income brackets.
By instituting digital broadcasting, the Commission expects image quality to improve by six times.
Officials in Japan and Australia are working to resolve a row over two protesters held hostage on a Japanese whaling vessel in the Southern Ocean.
Japanese crewmen kidnapped the protesters, from the radical Sea Shepherd group on Tuesday after they tried to board their vessel.
The whalers claim they are trying to return the two men but accuse Sea Shepherd of not co-operating.
Sea Shepherd say Japanese conditions for the handover are unacceptable.
The Sea Shepherd crew have been pursuing the Japanese fleet with the aim of using direct action to disrupt the hunt.
The whalers claim Sea Shepherd activists have injured crew members in the past and accuse them of dangerous harassment.
The two men, Brighton-born Giles Lane, who lives in Leeds in Britain, and Australian Benjamin Potts, boarded the Yushin Maru 2 vessel on Tuesday to deliver a petition.
Sea Shepherd say they were assaulted and tied to the radar mast by the Japanese crew.
The Sea Shepherd crew have been pursuing the Japanese fleet with the aim of using direct action to disrupt the hunt.
Foreign ministers of Korea and Japan are likely to meet Thursday amid an intensifying history row, as Japanese minister Nobutaka Machimura decided to join the Asia Cooperation Dialogue in Pakistan sources yesterday, to be held April 6-7, where South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon is likely to meet him on the second day to discuss what Koreans call Japan's attempt to glorify its imperialist past.
Ban and Machimura's meeting is likely to become a key opportunity in breaking through the sharpening tension between the two countries concerning the interpretation of history.
Foreign ministers of Korea and Japan are likely to meet Thursday amid an intensifying history row, as Japanese minister Nobutaka Machimura decided to join the Asia Cooperation Dialogue in Pakistan sources yesterday, to be held April 6-7, where South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon is likely to meet him on the second day to discuss what Koreans call Japan's attempt to glorify its imperialist past.
The meeting will be held two days after Japan's Education Ministry is slated to disclose controversial textbooks, which critics claim distort and even extol Japan's invasion of Asia, particularly Korea.
The ruling Uri Party failed to regain a majority of National Assembly seats.
Prosecutor General Choung Sang-myoung Tuesday strongly denounced the government’s plan to allow police greater investigative powers, claming that it would compromise the authority of the prosecution.
Prosecutor General Choung Sang-myoung Tuesday strongly denounced the government’s plan to allow police greater investigative powers, claming that it would compromise the authority of the prosecution.
Choung’s stance on the judicial reform plan came a day after the Uri Party announced a draft bill to give police greater freedom to conduct criminal investigations with less control from the prosecution.
A big crisis of MBC .
Former President calls on two Koreas.
Government and ruling Uri Party officials said yesterday they have decided to set up long-term care insurance for senior citizens as early as 2007 in order to address the welfare needs brought on by the growing elderly population.
Government and ruling Uri Party officials said yesterday they have decided to set up long-term care insurance for senior citizens as early as 2007 in order to address the welfare needs brought on by the growing elderly population.
Threatening North Korea to make it return to multilateral talks is no use.
China has had its first defeat at the World Trade Organization (WTO), in a case centered on restrictions on the importation of foreign-made car parts.
Upholding a complaint from the European Union, Canada and US, the preliminary WTO finding agrees that current Chinese practice is protectionist.
Under existing Chinese rules, its carmakers must use 60% Chinese-made parts - or pay higher taxes.
The ruling says China must end this policy to meet its WTO obligations.
The WTO report says that foreign-made car parts are currently in a “less favourable” position than their Chinese-made alternatives.
The police said Saturday that DNA testing by the National Institute of Scientific Investigation showed the two dead babies found in the refrigerator of the French resident's house in Sorae village were his sons.
The dead infants found at a Frenchman's house in southern Seoul are suspected to be sons of the resident, according to a DNA test.
The police said Saturday that DNA testing by the National Institute of Scientific Investigation showed the two dead babies found in the refrigerator of the French resident's house in Sorae village were his sons.
The name of the 40-year-old French man, who reported the bodies to the police after coming back from vacation, was not disclosed.
Former Pakistani prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif signed up on Monday to run in a January election while a spokesman for President Pervez Musharraf said he would be sworn in as a civilian on Thursday.
Both Sharif and Bhutto said they might yet boycott the January 8th general election, which is being organized under emergency rule that U.S. ally Musharraf imposed on November 3rd, largely to derail legal challenges to his bid to secure another term.
Sharif, ousted by General Musharraf eight years ago, flew home from Saudi Arabia on Sunday saying Musharraf had taken the country to the brink of disaster.
Two-time prime minister Sharif said he would not be a candidate for prime minister under Musharraf, who had to reinstate the judges he purged after declaring the emergency.
Sharif also said he retained the option of boycotting the elections.
It's soon gonna be a little more expensive to get your favorite music on Apple's iTunes.
Hit singles and classic tracks will reportedly cost a buck twenty-nine, up thirty cents.
The move could result in some backlash from loyal customers.
Steven Monjaraz (iTunes User):
Yeah, it probably will because 30 cents is a lot, especially when you buy whole albums and stuff.
Some iTunes customers question whether now is a good time to raise prices, with the current state of the economy.
I think people will just buy less music if they're gonna increase the price.
Others say the move could send more music lovers to sites like WalMart and Amazon, which will still offer song downloads for less than a buck.
I'll probably continue to use it, but I'll double-think about the song that I'm gonna download.
The price increase is fueled by record labels as CD sales continue to fall.
Apple has sold more than six billion songs on iTunes since 2003.
Haven Daley, The Associated Press, San Francisco.
Some iTunes customers question whether now is a good time to raise prices, with the current state of the economy.
I think people will just buy less music if they're gonna increase the price.
George W Bush attended the ceremony in Washington, the first time a sitting US president has appeared in public with the exiled Tibetan leader.
Chinese state media had warned it would “cast a shadow” over ties with the US.
Beijing has been accused of human rights abuses in Tibet, which its communist troops occupied in 1951.
Bush led the 72-year-old Buddhist leader into the Capitol Rotunda, holding his hand as they entered before sitting side-by-side.
As he presented the medal, Bush hailed the Nobel Peace Prize winner as a ”universal symbol of peace and tolerance”.
He said the US could not close its eyes to the plight of the religiously oppressed.
The Tibetan leader said he was ”deeply touched” to receive such a ”great honor”.
Chinese state media had warned it would “cast a shadow” over ties with the US.
In an attempt to shore up crumbling negotiations on ending North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, a U.S. envoy traveled to both Tokyo and Seoul for a meeting with top diplomats.
North Korea has threatened a boycott of the nuclear talks among China, Japan, Russia, the U.S., and North and South Korea because of an American crackdown on North Korean finances.
Christopher Hill will fly to Beijing later in the week as he tries to keep the six-way talks from falling apart.
The US secretary of state has said it is time for a Palestinian state to be founded, and that the US will put its full weight behind such efforts.
Condoleezza Rice said reaching a two-state solution was a priority for her and US President George Bush.
Rice was speaking from the West Bank, where she has been trying to get agreement for a peace summit in the US.
Meanwhile the Israeli PM has hinted he may consider giving up Palestinian districts in Jerusalem in a peace deal.
Ehud Olmert told parliament “legitimate questions” could be asked about the Israeli annexing of outlying Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem following the 1967 war.
Activists have criticized South Korea for not putting enough pressure on North Korea over its appalling human rights record.
A UN resolution passed last month accused North Korea of ""widespread and grave"" abuses of human rights.
They included torture, executions and extensive forced labor, it said.
Activists have criticized South Korea for not putting enough pressure on North Korea over its appalling human rights record.
Conservative activists and defectors at a Seoul conference on North Korean human rights violations said the South's policy of engagement with the North had failed.
A UN resolution passed last month accused North Korea of ""widespread and grave"" abuses of human rights.
They included torture, executions and extensive forced labor, it said.
There's still plenty of resistance in Congress, but the Governor of Michigan is pressing the case this morning for an auto industry bailout.
“If General Motors doesn't get this loan, by the end of this month, it is game over.”
A key Senator, Chris Dodd, says the car companies need new leadership to convince taxpayers that their money is necessary and justified to save Detroit.
“We cannot allow the workers in this country to be the scapegoat for this type of a problem.”
Still, he says, the Union is willing to make more concessions to the auto makers.
United Auto Workers' President Ron Gettelfinger tells NBC's“ Today Show” workers should not be held responsible for their bosses' mistakes.
Still, he says, the Union is willing to make more concessions to the auto makers.
When you think of the Olympics, maybe you think of Michael Phelps.
It's an Olympics with a twist.
The participants are all unemployed.
Gary Ross/Recently Laid Off:
All the cool people in New York are unemployed right now.
Participants had to show their unemployment card or a letter from a previous employer to compete in these Olympics.
And the event drew about 60 people who competed in events like the corporate phone toss, and pin the blame on the boss.
Unemployment Olympics is just about putting a smile on everyone's face and I think it worked out really well today.
I know that most people who have jobs don't realize, but the biggest problem is you don't have anything to do.
So this is a nice departure from the usual.
The crowd applauded New York City bars and restaurants for donating prizes
Laid off workers could probably use the fun.
Economists expect they'll be running to the unemployment office in greater numbers at least through the rest of the year.
Sandy Kozel, The Associated Press.
And the event drew about 60 people who competed in events like the corporate phone toss, and pin the blame on the boss.
So this is a nice departure from the usual.
Sandy Kozel, The Associated Press.
[[put a smile on one’s fa
An earthquake measuring 7.3 has struck near the Indonesian island of Sulawesi the US Geological Survey said.
It centered in the Molucca Sea, some 160km (100 miles) south-east of the city of Manado.
A spokesman for the Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center had said there were dangers of a “localized” tsunami, stretching from 100-200km (60-125 miles) from the epicenter.
Indonesia was the worst-hit country in the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004, which killed more than 160,000 people in Aceh province.
It centered in the Molucca Sea, some 160km (100 miles) south-east of the city of Manado.
An official from the meteorology department in Jakarta said there were five aftershocks in the first hour.
The government yesterday moved to end a four-day strike by Korean Air's unionized pilots, forcing them back to work and banning them from taking any form of collective action for the next 30 days.
Labor Minister Kim Dae-hwan announced the ministry decision to arbitrate the Korean Air labor dispute, citing its detrimental blow to the nation's economy and massive air transportation holdups that have stranded passengers.
The government yesterday moved to end a four-day strike by Korean Air's unionized pilots, forcing them back to work and banning them from taking any form of collective action for the next 30 days.
The decision came after the airline's management and pilots failed to narrow their differences at Saturday's last minute talks that were extended into early yesterday morning.
˝US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, embroiled in a row over the sacking of eight US attorneys, has formally announced his resignation.
In a brief news conference Gonzales said he had met President George W Bush on Sunday to tender his resignation, which will take effect on September 17th.
Members of Congress have accused Gonzales of abuse of office over the sacking of federal prosecutors.
He is the latest in a run of senior officials to leave the White House.
Paying tribute to Gonzales, Bush said on Monday that he had been subjected to “months of unfair treatment” and that ”his good name was dragged through the mud for political reasons”.
Gonzales had played a critical role in the war on terror and ”worked tirelessly to keep this country safe,” the president claimed.
A long-time ally of Bush, Gonzales has worked with the president since his days as Texas governor and was the country´s first attorney general of Hispanic descent.
The row over last year´s firings, which critics in Congress claimed were politically motivated, has been rumbling for months.
Gonzales, the nation´s top law-enforcement officer, has faced numerous calls to resign over the affair.
Opponents say he fired the attorneys for political reasons and later lied about the reason for their dismissal.
He testified before committees in both houses of Congress, but senators later said he lied under oath.
Gonzales has repeatedly said that he did nothing wrong.˝
He testified before committees in both houses of Congress, but senators later said he lied under oath.
˝Two more US firms have recalled Chinese-made toys, saying they include paint with dangerous levels of lead.
The items include SpongeBob SquarePants spiral address books and diaries, Thomas the Tank Engine spinning tops and some toy buckets sold in the US.
The recall of about 300,000 toys comes a week after US firm Mattel recalled 18.5 million toys.
That prompted a US senator to call for all toys imported into the country from China to be inspected.˝
Tokyo is bracing itself for a deadly storm that has killed three people and forced thousands from their homes.
Typhoon Man-yi has now been downgraded to a tropical storm but still carries gusts of up to 162km/h.
Man-yi struck the southern islands of Kyushu and Shikoku on Saturday and is moving up the eastern coast.
Man-yi is the most powerful typhoon to hit Japan in July and was expected to inundate the capital with up to 250mm of rain late on Sunday.
The storm´s sustained winds are now being measured at around 108km/h.
Its victims have included an 11-year-old boy who fell into a river in Kagoshima and a 79-year-old farmer also swept into a river in Tokushima.
Gossip columnists often ask if Vice-President-elect Joe Biden has had some work done.
There's no doubt about some others attending tomorrow's big event:
(female voice)“ Along with the dressy dresses and chic suits, people are breaking out the Botox to go to the Inauguration.
New York dermatologist Lance Brown says he's seen an increase in patients wanting to look especially good for the event:
“This inauguration in particular being a momentous one, more and more people would want to be there, and more and more people would want to do something to improve their appearance on a quick-fix type of basis.”
Brown says the economy may be down, but spending is up for quick-fix cosmetic procedures.
For the first time in franchise history, the Cardinals are going to the Super Bowl.
Kurt Warner threw four TD passes in Arizona's 32-25 win over the Eagles in the NFC championship.
The Steelers, on the other hand, will be making their 7th Super Bowl trip, and try to win it all for a record sixth time.
Pittsburgh shot down the Ravens 24-13.
There's no doubt about some others attending tomorrow's big event:
“This inauguration in particular being a momentous one, more and more people would want to be there, and more and more people would want to do something to improve their appearance on a quick-fix type of basis.”
For the first time in franchise history, the Cardinals are going to the Super Bowl.
The BBC is reporting an investigation into fraud allegations against a leading South Korean presidential candidate has been reopened - just days before the vote.
President Roh Moo-hyun ordered justice officials to revive the case against conservative frontrunner Lee Myung-bak.
Earlier this month officials cleared him over a stock price manipulation case involving an ex-business partner.
The opposition Grand National Party (GNP) candidate has a sizeable lead on his two rivals for the top job, polls suggest.
The GNP accused President Roh of meddling in the election but his office said the move would “relieve public suspicion and regain the prosecution´s trust”.
The president, who leads a liberal coalition, ends his term in February and a victory by Lee would see the GNP return to power for the first time in a decade.
Lee has promised to revive South Korea´s economy as well as stronger ties with the US and a tougher line towards North Korea.
The BBC is reporting an investigation into fraud allegations against a leading South Korean presidential candidate has been reopened - just days before the vote.
Pope Benedict will make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in May.
The AP's Ariel David reports from Vatican City:
“ Benedict told the crowd gathered in St.
Peter's Square for his traditional noontime blessing that he would travel to Holy Land to retrace the steps of Jesus Christ in a pilgrimage, and use his voyage to pray for peace and unity for the Middle East and the whole of humanity.”
The late Pope John Paul II visited the region in 2000.
Duke, a 16-month-old St. Bernard, had to be rescued by firefighters after he fell through the ice on a golf course pond in Billings, Montana.
While the big dog was able to pull himself out of the water, his tail froze to the ice.
Firefighters had to break that ice with a mallet, and then drag Duke to shore.
Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez facing hip surgery tomorrow that will keep him out of action at least 6 weeks.
He's being treated for a torn labrum and a cyst on his right hip.
Pope Benedict will make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in May.
President Roh Moo-hyun is expected to propose the creation of a special economic zone for inter-Korean cooperation in North Korea during his meeting with Kim Jong-il, a senior presidential secretary said Thursday.
In addition, Roh will watch the propaganda-oriented Arirang performance during his visit to Pyongyang from Oct. 2 to 4, Baek Jong-chun, chief presidential secretary for security, foreign and unification policy, told reporters.
He said South Korea has already asked the North to delete some sensitive parts of the performance before Roh watches it.
Conservatives criticized it for being a Communist-propaganda show.
Presidential spokesman Cheon Ho-seon ruled out the poss ibility of any ``surprises´´ in the forthcoming summit.
He was responding to the conservative Grand National Party (GNP)´s cynical view of the summit.
The GNP issued a statement containing ``three-yeses´´ and ``three-nos´´ for the summit.
It said Roh must get assurances from the North on its denuclearization, seek ways of solving the separated family members issue and establish confidence-building steps in the military.
On the other hand, Roh was asked not to suggest anything on a unification formula, which would not command support from the people;
On economic cooperation, Baek said, ``The South could propose the establishment of a Gaeseong industrial park-like economic zone, as a step for the joint economic community.´´He said it is inevitable for the two Koreas to deepen business cooperation if the North and South want co-prosperity.
He also hinted at Seoul´s proposal of designating several more special economic zones in the North.
North Korean cities, such as Haeju and Nampo, have been spotlighted as candidate sites in which North and South Korean companies could jointly invest.
He said South Korea has already asked the North to delete some sensitive parts of the performance before Roh watches it.
On the other hand, Roh was asked not to suggest anything on a unification formula, which would not command support from the people;
North Korean cities, such as Haeju and Nampo, have been spotlighted as candidate sites in which North and South Korean companies could jointly invest.
Last weekend's murder of an 11-year-old by a convicted sex offender has triggered an outcry here for the public release of more data on released offenders who are back in their communities.
And in a rare scene of bipartisan support, both the Grand National Party and President Roh Moo-hyun's Uri Party are looking at ways to keep closer track of such offenders.
On Sunday, a man and his son were arrested two days after the man allegedly stabbed a young girl he was attempting to molest.
His son is charged with helping his father dispose of the girl's body.
Ten civic groups met the press at the government complex in central Seoul yesterday, demanding the release of full information, including photographs and exact addresses, of convicted sex offenders.
The group also called for a better strategy to protect minors from sex offenders.
Korea's disclosure law now provides for the publication of sex offenders' names, ages, occupations and general addresses.
A group of priests on Wednesday accused South Korea´s new spy chief and a senior aide to President Lee Myung-bak of having regularly taken bribes from Samsung Group.
"" In a nationally televised press conference, the Catholic Priests´ Association for Justice alleged Kim Seong-ho, a former justice minister nominated as head of the National Intelligence Service;
and Hwang Young-gi, former chairman of the Board of Woori Finance Holdings, took bribes from the conglomerate.
Hwang was initially picked as head of the Financial Services Commission but he did not assume the post.
The potentially explosive announcement came as Lee was filling the posts of his inaugural administration, with Kim yet to receive approval from the National Assembly as the spy chief.
Pyongyang's claim that it needs nuclear weapons to counter the threats from the United States is off the mark, President Roh Moo-hyun said yesterday afternoon, according to Blue House spokesman, Yoon Tae-young.
“From our perspective, the security threats that North Korea claims to face do not exist or are exceedingly exaggerated,” Roh said in a meeting with National Unification Advisory Council members at the Blue House.
When it pledged on Oct. 3 to conduct a nuclear test, the North's state-run Korean Central News Agency said that ”our nuclear weapon thoroughly aims to confront the threat of invasion by the United States.”
The agency announced six days later, on Monday, that North Korea had conducted a test, causing Roh to say he might rethink the administration's conciliatory policy toward the North.
Fearful of a negative reaction from communist China the South Korean government has once again refused an entry visa to the Tibetan spiritual leader, The Dalai Lama.
Fearful of a negative reaction from communist China the South Korean government has once again refused an entry visa to the Tibetan spiritual leader, The Dalai Lama.
China has accused the exiled Nobel Peace Prize laureate of instigating Tibetans to seek independence from China, but The Dalai Lama says his exiled government in India might accept full autonomy in a compromise.
The Dalai Lama had earlier been denied a visa by fellow Nobel Peace Prize laureate Kim Dae-jung, in what was considered a low point in Kim’s presidency.
The North Korean ambassador to the United Nations, Pak Gil-yon, read out a combative statement inside the council chambers minutes after the 15-member body voted unanimously to punish the reclusive communist nation for its claimed nuclear test.
Pak then walked out of the council chamber.
Pak rejected the economic and military sanctions and blamed the United States for the reported blast, saying the U.S. had forced North Korea into rattling sabers.
North Korea's “nuclear test was entirely attributable to the United States' nuclear threat, sanctions and pressure.
The DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) had exerted every possible effort to solve its nuclear issue through dialogue and negotiations,” he told the delegates.
Meanwhile, the Korea Herald reports North Korea offered carrots and sticks of its own Saturday after the U.N.
The North Korean ambassador to the United Nations, Pak Gil-yon, read out a combative statement inside the council chambers minutes after the 15-member body voted unanimously to punish the reclusive communist nation for its claimed nuclear test.
Pak rejected the economic and military sanctions and blamed the United States for the reported blast, saying the U.S. had forced North Korea into rattling sabers.
North Korea's “nuclear test was entirely attributable to the United States' nuclear threat, sanctions and pressure.
President Lee Myung-bak and Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda agreed Monday to expand youth exchanges as the leaders of the Asian countries resumed regular talks, which were suspended in 2005 in a dispute over a Tokyo war shrine.
According to their joint statements, the two leaders reached a consensus that ``college student exchanges´´ between the two countries will become an important cornerstone for better bilateral ties.
They shared the view that a ``working holiday program´´ is playing a great role in strengthening mutual understanding and friendship among the younger generation.
Each country will increase the number of participants in the program to 7,200 per year by 2009, and 10,000 by 2012, the leaders agreed.
They also welcomed the recent jump in the number of tourists traveling between the two countries at around five million per year.
However, on substantial matters, Lee and Fukuda failed to agree on resuming the two countries´ free trade agreement (FTA) talks, which have been stalled for about three years.
The two leaders only agreed to let working-level negotiators discuss the issue in June.
Each country will increase the number of participants in the program to 7,200 per year by 2009, and 10,000 by 2012, the leaders agreed.
Australia´s Prime Minister-elect Kevin Rudd has outlined his priorities after winning a sweeping general election victory over outgoing prime minister John Howard.
Rudd said he would overturn a number of his predecessor´s policies, including signing the Kyoto Protocol and pulling troops out of Iraq.
Meanwhile, Peter Costello - Howard´s nominated successor - has turned down the post of opposition leader.
US President George W Bush - a close ally of Howard - was among the world leaders to congratulate Rudd on his election victory.
In a statement Bush said he looked “forward to working with this new government to continue our historic relationship”.
Rudd promised to name his new cabinet by the end of the week, with one of his key appointments expected to be Julia Gillard as deputy prime minister.
If appointed, Ms Gillard will become the first woman to hold the position.
Rudd said he would overturn a number of his predecessor´s policies, including signing the Kyoto Protocol and pulling troops out of Iraq.
Some of the brokers bragged about being a gigolo in Japan, saying that they can guarantee 10 million won in income per month along with Japanese language learning opportunity.
The story was carried by the pro-opposition Korea Times.
A South Korean lawmaker claims about 30,000 Korean women are working as prostitutes in Japan.
Park Jae-wan of the largest opposition Grand National Party claims to have researched online communities that link entertainment places and people for the past six months and found that 40,000 to 60,000 illegal Korean emigrants reside in Japan.
Among them he claims- about 30,000 Korean women work in the sex trade.
Some of the brokers bragged about being a gigolo in Japan, saying that they can guarantee 10 million won in income per month along with Japanese language learning opportunity.
Park said that there are more than 70 online communities at a portal site serving as middlemen for prostitutes and their clients, and among them, more than 41 were actively working.
The story was carried by the pro-opposition Korea Times.
A US soldier who raped a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and helped to kill her family has been sentenced to life in prison with possible parole.
Specialist James Barker was one of four serving soldiers charged over the killings in the Iraqi town of Mahmudiya in March 2006.
He pleaded guilty and agreed to help prosecutors in an effort to avoid the death penalty.
He could serve up to 90 years in prison, but he is expected to be eligible for parole in 20 years.
Specialist Barker was among four soldiers accused in the rape of the girl and the murder of her family. The three others - Sgt Paul Cortez, Private Jesse Spielman and Private Bryan Howard - are facing court-martial proceedings.
A US soldier who raped a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and helped to kill her family has been sentenced to life in prison with possible parole.
A fifth man, former soldier Stephen Green, has been charged in a civilian court in Kentucky with murder and sexual assault.
Hillary Clinton is scrambling to revive her bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, staking everything on contests in Ohio and Texas next month.
Her husband, former President Bill Clinton, said he thought she could win the nomination over her rival Barack Obama if she wins the two large states.
The two candidates are due to face off in a TV debate in Texas on Thursday.
Obama´s latest wins came in a caucus in his home state of Hawaii and Tuesday´s primary in Wisconsin.
Correspondents say the blue-collar vote will be crucial in the Ohio and Texas contests, and the New York senator has already begun targeting lower-income workers in her campaign ads.
Hillary Clinton is scrambling to revive her bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, staking everything on contests in Ohio and Texas next month.
The two candidates are due to face off in a TV debate in Texas on Thursday.
The Korea Times reports North Korea has accepted former President Kim Dae-jung’s planned visit to Pyongyang in June, the South’s unification minister indicated on Monday.
The North basically shared the South’s view on Kim’s planned visit, the minister, Lee Jong-seok, told reporters after the end of the 18th inter-Korean Cabinet talks.
Details of the visit, including protocol, will be discussed at working-level meetings between the two sides, he said.
On the fourth and last day of the four-day talks, the Koreas agreed to work toward ``practical resolution’’ of the issue of prisoners of war (POW) and abducted civilians.
The agreement was included in an eight-point joint press statement signed between Lee, the South’s chief delegate to the talks, and his northern counterpart Kwon Ho-ung.
The North basically shared the South’s view on Kim’s planned visit, the minister, Lee Jong-seok, told reporters after the end of the 18th inter-Korean Cabinet talks.
The Korea Times reports Seoul and Tokyo on Thursday devoted themselves to resolving rising tensions diplomatically over Japan's attempts to conduct maritime surveys in South Korea's economic waters near Dokdo.Japan's Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs Shotaro Yachi proposed his visit to Seoul to hold talks with South Korean foreign ministry officials on Friday.
A Japanese diplomat in Seoul told The Korea Times that Yachi's visit to Seoul, if realized, signifies Japan's willingness to find a negotiated way out of the ongoing quarrel over the rocky islets in the East Sea.The South Korean government pledged to do its best to seek diplomatic solutions, but said it would accept Yachi's travel to Seoul should Japan suspend its plan to carry out the maritime surveys during the on-going negotiations.
The Korea Times reports Seoul and Tokyo on Thursday devoted themselves to resolving rising tensions diplomatically over Japan's attempts to conduct maritime surveys in South Korea's economic waters near Dokdo.Japan's Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs Shotaro Yachi proposed his visit to Seoul to hold talks with South Korean foreign ministry officials on Friday.
It raised hopes in Seoul to solve the latest round of diplomatic disputes peacefully.
Ignoring North Korean protests over the weekend that earlier remarks had jeopardized nuclear weapons negotiations, Alexander Vershbow, the U.S. ambassador to Korea, said yesterday that if those nuclear talks failed, Pyongyang would be to blame.
He also asked that Seoul's economic projects in the North should be ""coordinated"" with those negotiations.
The three countries are intent on letting North Korea know before returning to the negotiations that it will not be viewed as a nuclear state.
They are also determined to pick up the talks where they left off a year ago despite North Korea's Oct.
The parties to the talks - the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia - had agreed last year to negotiate follow-up measures to the Joint Statement on North Korea's nuclear programs dismantlement, in exchange for diplomatic and economic incentives.
Sources said the chief negotiators will also reaffirm that U.N. Resolution 1718 on North Korea's nuclear test must be fully executed separately from the six-party talks.
˝The educational degree witch hunt continues with prosecution considering filing charges against Byeon Yang-kyoon, a former presidential aide, for pressuring corporations to confer favors on Shin Jeong-ah, the former curator-professor who rose to fame by faking her credentials.
Authorities also said yesterday they secured evidence indicating Byeon misused government funds to sponsor Shin and buy artwork through her while he was planning and budget minister.
They said it is highly likely for Byeon to have purchased the art above the market price, which would be a punishable crime.
They are investigating whether other ministries also bought paintings via Shin.˝
The BBC has uncovered new video evidence that US forces may have been responsible for the deliberate killing of 11 innocent Iraqi civilians.
The video appears to challenge the US military's account of events that took place in the town of Ishaqi in March.
The US said at the time four people died during a military operation, but Iraqi police claimed that US troops had deliberately shot the 11 people.
The new evidence comes in the wake of the alleged massacre in Haditha, where US marines are suspected of massacring up to 24 Iraqi civilians in November 2005.
The video pictures obtained by the BBC appear to contradict the US account of the events in Ishaqi, about 100km north of Baghdad, on March 15, 2006.
The US said at the time four people died during a military operation, but Iraqi police claimed that US troops had deliberately shot the 11 people.
President Bush says his economic team is on the job:
“The United States Government is acting.
We will continue to act, to resolve this crisis and restore stability to our markets.”
The President at the Rose Garden a few minutes ago, after the stock market opened this morning on the slipperiest of slopes, the Dow falling nearly 700 points in the first few minutes of trading, then bouncing back …
… and actually going in a positive territory for a while, triggering this cheer from the traders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.
We'll get a current readout from there in a moment, but first, the AP's Mark Smith is live at the White House with the President's latest words of assurance about your job, your house and your retirement money.
“John, the President says the bailout plan passed by Congress, coupled with aggressive actions by the Fed and governments around the world, will restore confidence to world markets.”
“It will take time to have its full impact.
It is flexible enough to adapt as the situation changes, and it is big enough to work.”
“Bush acknowledges the global stock selloff has been startling.
Says he knows why Americans are anxious, but he adds anxiety's feeding anxiety, and that makes it hard to see all that's being done to fix the problem.
And John, he says officials are working swiftly to do just that.”
lost an additional 100+ points while he talked, so what's happening right now?
Correspondent Julie Walk here is live with the New York Stock Exchange.
“Yeah, and the sellout continues here.
Well, the Dow has mainly been a negative territory all morning.
It's now down more than 270 points.
Frozen credit markets and a loss of confidence have brought the Dow down 21% over the last 10 days of trading.
Cashman, trader of UBS Securities, says until the credit markets open up, expect more of the same.
“Bush acknowledges the global stock selloff has been startling.
Frozen credit markets and a loss of confidence have brought the Dow down 21% over the last 10 days of trading.
The Korea Times reports U.S. economic interventions have only driven North Korea further into ``China's orbit,'' rather than forcing Pyongyang back to the six-party talks, quoting Peter Beck, an analyst with the International Crisis Group (ICG) in Seoul, in a recent opinion article.
``If the Bush administration had hopes that cracking down on North Korea's illicit money laundering activities in Macau last fall would bring Pyongyang back to the nuclear negotiating table, Kim Jong-il dashed them once and for all with his field trip to China,'' he said.
This makes China's role more important than ever for resolving the nuclear standoff, and at the same time constrains Washington's policy choices, Beck said in the article for the Feb.
14 edition of YaleGlobal Online, a publication of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization.
Obama administration officials say America's new objectives for the Afghanistan war could be announced as soon as next week.
“ The new plan will come after several different military reviews, along with an in-house study at the White House.
“ The safe haven in Pakistan….
making sure that Afghanistan doesn't provide a capability in the long run, or an environment in which Al Queda could return, or the Taliban could return.”
“ Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen telling PBS' Charlie Rose the review's almost done.
Officials say it will put pressure on Pakistan to work harder to contain extremism.
Officials say one of ten children is still in the hospital in Littlerock after drinking windshield wiper fluid.
A staffer at a day-care center mistook the stuff for Kool-Aid.
“ The safe haven in Pakistan….
“ Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen telling PBS' Charlie Rose the review's almost done.
Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has been sworn in, two days after his coalition suffered its worst election result in five decades.
He took the oath of office at the national palace in Kuala Lumpur.
The prime minister has faced calls for his resignation in the wake of Saturday´s polls.
The ruling National Front won more than half of all seats in parliament, but it still suffered unprecedented losses and lost its two-thirds majority.
The government had expected a drop in support amid growing concern over ethnic tensions in multi-cultural Malaysia and unease over rising food prices.
But the result was worse than anticipated, with the opposition making sizeable gains.
Negotiations aimed to commit North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons and programs resumed yesterday with a series of bilateral meetings among the six participants and one full session.
But as predicted, expectations for true progress in this round of talks are low.
Several key players suggested that they are, at least temporarily, unwilling to make further compromises to ease the implementation of an agreement in principle reached in early September.
United States is willing to open an office in Pyongyang conditionally.
Europe is set to send a probe to Venus.
In preparation for the scheduled cross-border railroad tests on May 17, North Korea yesterday proposed holding a general-level military meeting between the two Koreas to discuss safety measures for the trains and the passengers who will travel inside the Demilitarized Zone.
Pyongyang proposed holding the talks for three days starting Tuesday at the North Korean side of the truce village, Panmunjeom.
Seoul had earlier proposed holding a working-level military meeting this week, but the North wanted to push the date back while upgrading the level of the talks.
“We will consult with the relevant ministries and inform the North about our answer,” Mun Seong-muk, who is in charge of North Korean policy at the Defense Ministry, said yesterday.
A military agreement between the two Koreas to guarantee the safety of the people and the trains that will cross the inter-Korean border is the key for the railroad test runs.
In preparation for the scheduled cross-border railroad tests on May 17, North Korea yesterday proposed holding a general-level military meeting between the two Koreas to discuss safety measures for the trains and the passengers who will travel inside the Demilitarized Zone.
˝Around 300 Afghans demonstrated Monday in the southern city of Kandahar calling for the release of 21 South Koreans who have been held by the extremist Taliban militia for more than two weeks.
The demonstrators moved through the city in pickup trucks, minivans and cars, distributing leaflets condemning the kidnappers and chanting anti-Taliban slogans through loudspeakers.
They especially criticized the holding of female hostages, as most of the 21 Christian aid workers being held under threat of death are women.
“Death to those who have abducted the South Koreans,” the crowd shouted.
The Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, says he is considering breaking with centuries of tradition and naming his own successor.
Usually, following the death of a Dalai Lama, senior Tibetan Buddhist officials, guided by dreams and signs, identify a young child to succeed him.
But the Dalai Lama said he feared communist China would try to influence this process.
“If China selected my successor after my death, the people of Tibet would not support him as there would be no Tibetan heart in him,” he said.
But the Dalai Lama said he feared communist China would try to influence this process.
Lawmaker-elect Yang Jung-rye and her mother, both of whom are under investigation for the alleged ``buying´´ of a National Assembly seat, appeared at the prosecutors´ office on Wednesday afternoon for questioning.
Yang returned home after eight hours but her mother was still being questioned as of 10:00 p.m.
The summons came days after prosecutors´ raided Yang´s home and the office of a construction company run by her mother and a social welfare center at which the former had worked.
Security Council's (UNSC) move to adopt a resolution that includes a threat of military action against North Korea for its nuclear test, Prime Minister Han Myung-sook said in Seoul on Tuesday.
East Timor's President Xanana Gusmao is taking control of the country's national security and defense in a bid to defuse mounting unrest.
Gusmao, a highly respected former guerrilla leader, also assumed sole charge of coordination with the Australian-led peacekeeping force.
His move comes after fresh violence and looting hit the capital, Dili.
Gusmao said the decision to impose emergency rule, which would last 30 days, had been taken in ""close collaboration"" with Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri.
Emergency powers will give Gusmao control of the army and police, split by internal disputes and gang violence.
The Korean Federation of Teachers and Educational Workers Union said yesterday that it would have a special welcome for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum next week:
In a statement yesterday, the union asserted that the classes would give students only the ""minimum"" information they needed about the APEC meeting and the group. The Korean Federation of Teachers and Educational Workers Union said yesterday that it would have a special welcome for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum next week:
Its member teachers will hold special classes denouncing the group, globalization and the United States in their elementary and secondary school classrooms.
In a statement yesterday, the union asserted that the classes would give students only the ""minimum"" information they needed about the APEC meeting and the group.
French Government authorized a range of emergency powers.
˝A 40,000-tonne coal ship has finally been refloated, nearly four weeks after it became stranded on the Australian seaboard during severe storms.
The Japanese vessel Pasha Bulker was towed out into deeper waters by tug boats during high tide on Monday night after days of work by salvage teams.˝
The skyrocketing Korean won, coupled with hefty oil prices, has turned on a red light for the export-driven domestic economy.
The Korea Times reports South Korea and the United States could reach a ``balanced, high-quality'' free trade agreement, quoting Wendy Cutler, the chief U.S. negotiator for the free trade talks.
At a news briefing on the first day of the eighth round of the FTA talks between the two sides in Seoul on Thursday, Cutler said, ``For a balanced, high-quality agreement and to meet the deadline … we're determined to do something.''
The two sides reportedly reached a final agreement in the competition (or antitrust policy) sector to apply for regulations based on global standards.
But Koreans reportedly rejected the U.S. demand to set up special regulations to oversee chaebol.
Meanwhile, 33 Korean lawmakers from governing and opposition parties and 44 leaders from the agriculture industry urged the government to stop the FTA talks as soon as possible.
At a news briefing on the first day of the eighth round of the FTA talks between the two sides in Seoul on Thursday, Cutler said, ``For a balanced, high-quality agreement and to meet the deadline … we're determined to do something.''
A suicide car bombing has killed 10 people, wounded 20 others, in northern Iraq:
“This attack happened in Tal Afar, which is a city that has been plagued by a number of recent bombings;
this is an area which is near the city of Mosul, which is again, also where insurgents remain active despite security gains in the rest of the country.”
That's the AP's Christopher Torchia in Baghdad.
There is word that the U.S. and Iraqi negotiators have found an agreement on a draft of a security pact to replace one which is expiring at the end of this year.
The military says Afghan and coalition forces have captured a key militant leader responsible for kidnapping aid workers and other attacks in Afghanistan.
Elsewhere, police there thwarted a suicide bombing.
After officers surrounded the man, the attacker was able to kill only himself.
Pakistan agrees in principle to a $7.6 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund.
“This attack happened in Tal Afar, which is a city that has been plagued by a number of recent bombings;
this is an area which is near the city of Mosul, which is again, also where insurgents remain active despite security gains in the rest of the country.”
That's the AP's Christopher Torchia in Baghdad.
Elsewhere, police there thwarted a suicide bombing.
Emergency aid has begun to reach survivors of Saturday's earthquake in Indonesia, as many people spent a third night without shelter.
UN and Red Cross personnel met in Geneva to arrange the relief operation, as the Indonesian president called for a more coordinated effort.
At least 4,295 people died in the 6.3 magnitude earthquake which struck south of the city of Yogyakarta. Countries around the world have promised aid for the devastated region.
More than 20,000 people were injured and the government says as many as 200,000 people had been made homeless.
More bodies are thought to be trapped under debris, but rescuers say the odds of finding survivors are slim.
UN and Red Cross personnel met in Geneva to arrange the relief operation, as the Indonesian president called for a more coordinated effort.
In London this morning, Michael Jackson's attorney says the singer might be too sick to travel to testify in a case claiming he owes $7 million to an Arab sheikh.
Michael Jackson's“ Do you remember, how it all began…”
“In one corner, an Arabian sheikh.
In the other, Michael Jackson, who really likes it when people call him the King of Pop.
The sheikh is calling Jackson a rip-off artist, claiming he took $7 million as an advance on an album and an autobiography, but hasn't produced either.
Lawyers for the sheikh say the money was given to Jackson while he was short on cash, and struggling to revive his career after his child molestation trial.
A lawyer for Jackson says there was never a valid agreement, and that the money was given freely.
Richard Roberts stepped down after allegations he misspent school money on a personal life of lechery.
Lawyers for the sheikh say the money was given to Jackson while he was short on cash, and struggling to revive his career after his child molestation trial.
Prime Minister John Howard has said sorry to the widow of the first member of the Australian military killed in Iraq after she was sent the wrong body.
The angry widow of Private Jacob Kovco called Howard after the mistake was discovered late on Wednesday.
Another body, believed to be that of an eastern European soldier, was flown to Australia while Pvt Kovco's corpse remained in a mortuary in Kuwait.
The 25-year-old soldier died in a firearms accident in Baghdad last week. Pvt Kovco was due to be buried near the southern city of Melbourne with full military honors.
Howard said he understood Shelley Kovco's anger and said he had apologized to the widow, who has two young children.
Louis Blues fans when she dropped the ceremonial first puck at last night's game.
But the visit from the GOP vice presidential candidate didn't bode well for Blues' goaltender, Manny Legace.
He was the first player out on the ice, but injured his hip after tripping over the carpet laid out for Palin to drop that puck.
“Since I stepped on the carpet, the carpet just shot out, my leg just kept goin and my other one was still on the bench, and I felt the pull right away, and I was hoping that it would just, go away.”
After the mishap, an official rolled up enough of the carpet so other players wouldn't have to step on it.
World Series Game 3 is tonight, Phillies Manager Charlie Manuel says his team will break out of its hitting slop.
“We got some more baseball to play.
And you're like, I got a lot of faith in our guys, and I, you know, we're gonna win this thing.”
The game will be played in Philadelphia, weather permitting;
rain is in the forecast, at Series tied up at one game apiece.
Sarah Palin got a big welcome from St.
World Series Game 3 is tonight, Phillies Manager Charlie Manuel says his team will break out of its hitting slop.
The United States might have new direct consultations with North Korea during the current three-week recess in the six-party talks on ending the North's nuclear ambitions, top American negotiator Christopher Hill said.
Hill said he expected a flurry of bilateral diplomacy among all the parties before the fourth round of talks resumes on the week of August 29th in Beijing, where they recessed Sunday after 13 grueling days.
Former President Kim Dae-jung was hospitalized for pneumonia.
Government invoked emergency arbitration.
Margaret Marabe said families were taking the extreme action because they could no longer look after sufferers or feared catching the disease themselves.
Marabe said she saw the “live burials” with her own eyes during a five-month trip to PNG´s remote Southern Highlands.
PNG is in the grip of an HIV/Aids epidemic - the worst in the region.
Officials estimate that 2% of the six million population are infected.˝
The Joong-Ang Ilbo reports the Grand National Party broke an agreement and voted against a revision of tax law Friday.
Lawmakers from both the Uri and Grand National parties on the finance and legislative committees had agreed to approve the bill when, in a full session Friday, it failed to secure a majority, with only 107 yes votes out of a total of 222.
The Joong-Ang Ilbo reports the Grand National Party broke an agreement and voted against a revision of tax law Friday.
The indigestion being felt on Wall Street is easing a bit as the Fed offer some main locks for investors.
“Stock prices opened higher but turned marginally lower in short order, as traders waited for developments from Washington and in the world economy.
Trading was light as investors waited reports of a new Federal Reserve scheme to break the log jam in the credit markets.
The latest idea would have the Fed hold billions of dollars in commercial paper, moving the central bank one step closer to lending directly to the private market but restarting the flow of day to day credit that nourishes businesses, both large and small. Warren Levinson, at the New York Stock Exchange.”
Yeah, and right now the Dow is down about 40 points.
As investors look for help, members of Congress are taking a look at what caused the chain of events that forced the bailout of AIG.
Congressman Henry Waxman says the AIG story is a lot like the one heard yesterday about Lehman Brothers.
“In each case their executives are walking away with millions of dollars, while taxpayers are stuck with billions of dollars in costs.”
Trading was light as investors waited reports of a new Federal Reserve scheme to break the log jam in the credit markets.
Robert Mugabe´s party has lost its parliamentary majority for the first time since Zimbabwean independence in 1980.
Mugabe´s Zanu-PF party took 97 of the 210 seats, while the opposition MDC won 99, final official results showed.
Presidential election results have yet to be declared, but the MDC said its leader had won the election.
Zanu-PF said this was ""wishful thinking"".
Mugabe has no intention of leaving Zimbabwe, his country´s ambassador to the UN told the BBC.
""Robert Mugabe is Zimbabwean,"" said Boniface Chidyausiku.
""He has lived his life to work for Zimbabwe.
Why should he choose another country?
"" He said Mugabe still had work to do to end economic hardship which he said had been caused by external forces.
The governing camp is likely to propose changing the current military conscription system to a voluntary one as a campaign pledge in next year's presidential election, a political analyst said Wednesday.
Jeh Sung-ho, a professor of law at Chung-Ang University in Seoul, said leaders of the governing Uri Party want to take advantage of the voluntary military service proposal to revive the party's nose-diving popularity and attract support from young voters and their parents ahead of next year's presidential election.
The approval rating of the Uri Party has recently fallen below 10 percent.
South Korea maintains a mandatory draft system under which all able-bodied men over 20 must serve in the military for 24 to 27 months.
Jeh, however, expressed concern that the governing camp could abuse the proposal by branding its opponents as ``war advocates.''
The main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) places a high priority on national security.
The approval rating of the Uri Party has recently fallen below 10 percent.
South Korea maintains a mandatory draft system under which all able-bodied men over 20 must serve in the military for 24 to 27 months.
Burma´s ruling generals have rejected a UN plan for three-way talks involving detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, according to state media.
Minister Kyaw Hsan told the UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari that Burma would not accept interference in its sovereignty.
Gambari arrived in Burma on Saturday for his second visit since protests in September were brutally suppressed.
Correspondents say diplomats privately admit.
publicly the UN officials are saying they cannot confirm the junta´s decision to reject the talks proposal.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has expressed concern at the lack of progress being made with the junta.
˝Grand National Party leader Kang Jae-sup yesterday accused President Roh Moo-hyun and state authorities of meddling in the presidential election race and trying to damage GNP presidential frontrunner Lee Myung-bak.
Tension has been escalating between the opposition party and the state prosecution over the ongoing investigation into Lee´s real estate deals.
The investigation was prompted by defamation suits filed by Lee´s brother-in-law, Kim Jae-jung, against aides of Lee´s GNP rival, Park Geun-hye, who claimed that Lee had owned land in his relatives´ names.
After the investigation began, government documents detailing Lee´s real estate practices were leaked to the media, prompting speculation that liberal operatives within Roh´s government had leaked them to damage the opposition party candidate.˝ ˝Grand National Party leader Kang Jae-sup yesterday accused President Roh Moo-hyun and state authorities of meddling in the presidential election race and trying to damage GNP presidential frontrunner Lee Myung-bak.
Exactly one year from today, South Korea will pick a new president.
To the embarrassment of President Roh Moo-hyun, the nation is already engaged in a premature and overheated presidential race.
Who should head the country?
The Korea Times reports the majority of the voters want the next president to ``revive the economy, with an economic philosophy of prioritizing growth over redistribution.''
According to an MBC poll of 1,000 people on Sunday, 52.7 percent of respondents said economic growth should be a priority in the next president's policies, while 45.2 percent chose wealth redistribution as the most important presidential task.
Roh's five-year term ends in February 2008.
The Constitution stipulates that the president serve only one term.
Amid skyrocketing housing prices and increasing fear of economic downturn, South Koreans gave a clear signal that they prefer candidates who will devote themselves to reviving the economy.
The Korea Times reports the majority of the voters want the next president to ``revive the economy, with an economic philosophy of prioritizing growth over redistribution.''
˝Astronauts from the US space shuttle Endeavour are examining a gouge in its heat shield, sustained during take-off from Cape Canaveral on Wednesday.
The astronauts are using the shuttle´s robotic arm and extension boom, tipped with a laser and a camera, to determine the exact size and depth of the gash.
NASA experts on Earth detected the damage as the vessel docked with the International Space Station (ISS).
A piece of foam which broke off the external fuel tank may be responsible.
Three-dimensional images and other information collected will be sent back to mission control in Houston for engineers to study, NASA said.
A senior U.S. senator introduced a resolution setting conditions for removing North Korea from the U.S. list of terrorism-sponsoring nations, one of the key incentives offered for Pyongyang´s denuclearization.
Sam Brownback submitted Resolution 399 on Monday and so far has only three co-sponsors.
The resolution urges the administration not to lift the designation until it can be demonstrated that North Korea is no longer engaged in proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and no longer counterfeiting American currency.
It also demands proof that a North Korean ruling party bureau, in the past believed to be running illicit financial activities including drug trafficking and counterfeiting, has been made inoperable.
The senator also demands that the terrorist-nation designation remain until all U.S. overseas missions have been instructed to facilitate asylum applications by North Koreans seeking protection as refugees.
Brownback, an extreme reactionary, is not expected to get much support within the US Congress for his resolution.
Sam Brownback submitted Resolution 399 on Monday and so far has only three co-sponsors.
It also demands proof that a North Korean ruling party bureau, in the past believed to be running illicit financial activities including drug trafficking and counterfeiting, has been made inoperable.
Police probing the deadly shootings at Virginia Tech University have criticized the decision of US network NBC to show footage of the killer.
Cho Seung-hui sent a package of videos, photographs and writing to NBC on the day of the shootings.
But police said on Thursday that the videos - showing an angry Cho ranting and pointing guns at the camera - added little to their investigation.
A total of 33 people, including Cho, died at two locations on Monday.
Eight students are still being treated at Montgomery Field Hospital, close to the university campus, hospital officials say.
Seventeen were treated for injuries after the shooting, with four undergoing major surgery.NBC broadcast new footage of the 23-year-old gunman on Thursday and defended its decision to use Cho’s videos.
””I'm not sure we'll ever fully understand why this happened, but I do think this is as close as we'll come to having a glimpse inside the mind of a killer,”” Steve Capus, head of NBC News, said on the network’s Today program.
Cho’s package contained 1,800 words of text and 43 photos, 11 of them showing Cho aiming handguns at the camera.
Speaking at Virginia Tech, Steve Flaherty, superintendent of Virginia State Police, said he appreciated NBC’s co-operation, but regretted the decision to broadcast the tapes.
But police said on Thursday that the videos - showing an angry Cho ranting and pointing guns at the camera - added little to their investigation.
Cho’s package contained 1,800 words of text and 43 photos, 11 of them showing Cho aiming handguns at the camera.
The Australian government has made a formal apology for the past wrongs caused by successive governments on the indigenous Aboriginal population.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd apologised in parliament to all Aborigines for laws and polices that “inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss”.
He singled out the ”Stolen Generations” of thousands of children forcibly removed from their families.
The apology, beamed live around the country on TV, was met with cheers.
But some Aborigines say it should have been accompanied with compensation for their suffering.
In a motion passed unanimously by Australian MPs on Wednesday morning, Rudd acknowledged the ”past mistreatment” of all of his country´s Aboriginal population.
Iraqi leaders want to make changes to a tentative agreement which would extend the stay of U.S. troops to 2011.
AP national security correspondent Sauger Magoni has this from the Pentagon.
“The deal would let American forces stay in Iraq three more years after their UN mandate expires at the end of this year.
The talks have been contentious, and the chief Baghdad spokesman says the Cabinet's allowing Nouri al-Maliki to reopen negotiations, saying various political parties had submitted essential amendments.”
Pakistani and Afghan political and tribal leaders say they want to open a dialogue with Taliban insurgents.
The leaders agreed to talk with militants.
Should the insurgents be willing to hand over their weapons and accept the constitutions of both countries?
World Series remains on hold, suspended because of rain.
The Philadelphia Phillies, Tampa Bay Rays, tied at 2, heading at the bottom of the sixth inning.
More rain is in the forecast for tonight for Philadelphia.
Pakistani and Afghan political and tribal leaders say they want to open a dialogue with Taliban insurgents.
Should the insurgents be willing to hand over their weapons and accept the constitutions of both countries?
pecifically, there were cases where landlords demanded foreigners pay higher rents than they would ask Koreans, the board said.
It also said some foreigners were required to make a large amount of deposit when they buy cell phones and apply for credit cards.
``Some retailers are still overcharging foreigners,’’ said a researcher of the board.
``The complaints among many foreigners is attributable to chauvinism among Koreans and the lack of social systems for foreigners,’’ she said.
``A hostile attitude toward foreigners can damage the image of the entire society.’
The survey came as a mid-term check on the government’s five-year plan to address foreign residents’ complaints and improve their livelihood here. The plan was launched in 2003 as part of the Roh Moo-hyun administration’s ambitious strategy to globalize Korea.
``The complaints among many foreigners is attributable to chauvinism among Koreans and the lack of social systems for foreigners,’’ she said.
Two protesters are being held hostage after they boarded a Japanese whaling vessel in the Antarctic.
The Sea Shepherd campaign group said the two - a Briton and an Australian - had been assaulted and tied to the radar mast by the Japanese crew.
They said they wanted charges of kidnap to be filed in Australia.
Minoru Morimoto, of the Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR), admitted the pair had been detained but denied they had been assaulted or harmed.
“It is illegal to board another country´s vessels on the high seas.
As a result, at this stage, they are being held in custody while decisions are made on their future,” he added.
The two - Australian Benjamin Potts and Briton Giles Lane - boarded the Yushin Maru 2 from the Sea Shepherd vessel the Steve Irwin.
In a statement, the group accused the Japanese crew of holding the two men hostage.
”Captain Paul Watson has notified the Australian Federal Police that he would like to see kidnapping charges brought against the Japanese whalers,” the statement said.
Two protesters are being held hostage after they boarded a Japanese whaling vessel in the Antarctic.
Former Korean Ambassador to Washington Hong Seok-hyun returned to Seoul Saturday to face a summons over his alleged involvement in a campaign fund scandal.
The prosecution said Sunday it will call in Hong this week to inquire into whether he played a role in Samsung Group's alleged provision of illegal campaign funds to presidential candidates ahead of the 1997 election.
Hong had been staying in the U.S. since he stepped down from his post as ambassador in September, abruptly ending his tenure after seven months.
His resignation followed a report by local television station MBC in July that claimed Samsung provided slush funds to two presidential candidates ahead of the 1997 election.
The report was based on an eavesdropped conversation between Hong and Samsung vice chairman Lee Hak-soo, as both men allegedly discussed how to distribute the slush funds.
U.S President George W. Bush may stay on the U.S. aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk.
President Elect Barack Obama says rebuilding the nation's infrastructure is one way to reverse the economic downturn:
“We'll put people back to work, rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges, modernizing schools that are failing our children, and building wind farms and solar panels.”
In the Democrats' weekly address, Obama promises programs that would generate 2.5 million jobs in two years.
A hundreds of thousands who will attend Obama's inauguration and parade in Washington, can expect to be under the steady gaze of security cameras and police, or both.
Thousands of video cameras, sharpshooters, and air patrols will be used to safeguard the swearing in.
Bush tells fellow members of the 21-nation Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation group, that there's been a sea change in the global economy:
“We're witnessing a dramatic shift of history, as the center of the world, economic stage, moves from West to East, from the Atlantic to the Pacific.”
Bush is calling on APEC to take the lead in dealing with the global financial crisis.
It's not just the big three automakers that are hurting.
Tens of thousands of auto imports are parked in neat rows on the docks in Long Beach, California.
“Well, what we're seeing here is a really, a visual representation of the downturn of the economy.”
That's Port of Long Beach spokesman, John Pope.
A hundreds of thousands who will attend Obama's inauguration and parade in Washington, can expect to be under the steady gaze of security cameras and police, or both.
The residences of both Mahmoud Abbas, Fatah’s leader and the Palestinian Authority president, and of Prime Minister Ismail Haniya, of Hamas, have been targeted with gun and shell fire.
Heavy fighting has continued throughout the day in Gaza after militants of the Palestinian group Hamas attacked posts held by their Fatah faction rivals.
Hundreds of Hamas fighters had moved on the positions after giving their occupants two hours to leave.
Fatah leaders say they will no longer participate in the three-month-old unity government they formed with Hamas unless the fighting ends.
At least 34 people have been killed in Gaza over the past two days.
The residences of both Mahmoud Abbas, Fatah’s leader and the Palestinian Authority president, and of Prime Minister Ismail Haniya, of Hamas, have been targeted with gun and shell fire.
Witnesses said it was the worst fighting they had experienced in Gaza during 18 months of internal strife.
The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency said Wednesday that it detected the organized school gang, ``Seoul Yonhap,'' comprised of 307 students from 29 smaller gangs in 94 schools and urged them to voluntarily disband.
The detection came amid a police crackdown on school gangs since last month.
Today’s Korea Times reports police have detected the largest-ever school gang in Seoul with its members consisting of more than 300 students from 94 middle and high schools.
The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency said Wednesday that it detected the organized school gang, ``Seoul Yonhap,'' comprised of 307 students from 29 smaller gangs in 94 schools and urged them to voluntarily disband.
The detection came amid a police crackdown on school gangs since last month.
As violence and crimes among school gangs, well known as ``Iljinhoi,'' are getting worse, the government and law enforcement authorities have launched an intensive investigation and are encouraging gang members to voluntarily report to police.
Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said the fate of six-party talks was in doubt.
South Korea’s financial contribution to the stationing costs of the U.S. military on the peninsula cut down for 8.9% this year.
North and South Korean delegates celebrated the 60th anniversary of Liberation Day together in Seoul, calling for unity and peace on the Korean Peninsula while stressing the need to ``fend off unjustified foreign intervention.’
’ Officials from both governments and civic delegations from the North and South, as well as overseas Koreans, gathered in the morning at Changchung Gymnasium for the official ceremony to mark the anniversary.
In a joint declaration entitled ``Statement of Appeal to 70 million Compatriots,’’ members of the delegations said true liberation will be complete only when the division of the Korean Peninsula is overcome.
SNU starts construction on Hwang Woo-suk Research Center.
A final farewell from the 43rd President of the United States.
George W. Bush said“ so long” to the American people before an appreciative audience last night in the East Room.
“He spoke with pride of education reform and fighting AIDS in Africa, but he seemed proudest that there hasn't been another 9/11.”
“America has gone more than 7 years without another terrorist attack on our soil.”
“The President acknowledged good days and bad days in office, but mostly he looked forward, voicing faith in America's future and pleasure in next week's inauguration.”
“This is a moment of hope and pride for our whole nation.”
“Bush heads to Camp David today for the weekend.
The next time he's seen and heard in public will be welcoming Barack Obama to his new home.
Mark Smith, at the White House.”
Stocks opened sharply higher this morning on Wall Street;
investors relieved now that Citigroup and Bank of America have taken significant steps to improve their balance sheets.
South Korea will not join a US-led scheme to stop and search suspicious North Korean ships, officials say.
Seoul has been under increased pressure to join the Proliferation Security Initiative or PSI since North Korea conducted a nuclear test on October 9.
Officials said South Korea did not want to antagonize the North as it had moved to rejoin six-party nuclear talks.
The announcement came as nations finalize reports to the UN on imposing sanctions against North Korea.
South Korea's Deputy Foreign Minister Park In-kook told reporters that South Korea supported the “purpose and principles” of the PSI.
But he said South Korea would not be formally joining it ”in consideration of special circumstances on the Korean peninsula”.
South Korean officials are believed to be worried that intercepting a North Korean ship could trigger an armed clash, which is of particular concern since the two countries remain technically at war.
South Korea will not join a US-led scheme to stop and search suspicious North Korean ships, officials say.
Seoul has been under increased pressure to join the Proliferation Security Initiative or PSI since North Korea conducted a nuclear test on October 9.
The announcement came as nations finalize reports to the UN on imposing sanctions against North Korea.
“So if you're driving or cycling or walking through Times Square, and all of a sudden you're in a shower of confetti and you're thinkin', did I get the date wrong?
It will be dumped from rooftops and setbacks come midnight Wednesday.”
“Right at midnight, the Ball drops and then we drop two tons of confetti.”
“Times Square Alliance President Tim Tomkins says about 150 people will be filling the air with paper.
No, you're just caught in with the Times Square people conducting airworthiness test of the millions of bits of colored paper.
“Right at midnight, the Ball drops and then we drop two tons of confetti.”
A day after the two Koreas reached an informal agreement to resume bilateral talks, South Korea's foreign minister, Ban Ki-moon, warned Pyongyang against conducting a nuclear test and said it should end efforts to exact apologies from Washington for calling North Korea ""an outpost of tyranny.
A day after the two Koreas reached an informal agreement to resume bilateral talks, South Korea's foreign minister, Ban Ki-moon, warned Pyongyang against conducting a nuclear test and said it should end efforts to exact apologies from Washington for calling North Korea ""an outpost of tyranny.
"" ""Conducting a nuclear test would not be recommended for North Korea's future,"" Ban said at a seminar sponsored by the JoongAng Ilbo.
Former President Kim Dae-jung urges U.S to show more flexible attitude toward North Korea.
The top U.S. military officer in South Korea reaffirmed yesterday that United States Forces Korea has no nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula since Washington fully supports the 1992 inter-Korean denuclearization accord.
In an interview with The Korea Herald, Gen.
Leon J. LaPorte, commander of the USFK and the United Nations Command, defended the cease-fire treaty which the North now wants to change into a peace treaty.
He said the armistice has successfully prevented unwanted combat and maintained peace between the two Koreas.
The USFK chief also discussed his thoughts on North Korean military threats and the American military's transformation, saying there will be no further U.S. troop cuts other than the 12,500 reducation by 2008 that has already been announced.
He said the armistice has successfully prevented unwanted combat and maintained peace between the two Koreas.
The leader of Taiwan's main opposition Nationalist party, Lien Chan, is due to have historic talks with Chinese President Hu Jintao in Beijing.
Friday's meeting will be the first between Nationalist and Communist leaders since the defeated Nationalists fled to Taiwan in 1949. Lien is on a historic eight-day, four-city visit to the mainland.
China has given a warm welcome to the Taiwanese delegation, but the visit has provoked a mixed reaction back home.
Some Taiwanese hope Lien can win Beijing's trust. But Taiwan's President Chen Shui-bian and his ruling Democratic Progressive Party - which favors independence from China - says Beijing is using the visit to try to split public opinion.
The Defense Ministry adopts a French-style military reform.
North and South Korea along with China and the United States will start discussions to replace the armistice treaty which ended the Korean War in 1953 with a peace treaty, a steppingstone to a normalized relationship between the U.S. and North Korea, according to sources on Monday.
North and South Korea along with China and the United States will start discussions to replace the armistice treaty which ended the Korean War in 1953 with a peace treaty, a steppingstone to a normalized relationship between the U.S. and North Korea, according to sources on Monday.
The four nations, which participated in the six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear programs with Japan and Russia, agreed to launch a separate four-way forum to discuss the matter, an official involved in the talks said on condition of anonymity.
Discovery, the space shuttle, comes back safely.
Eavesdropping case angers DJ camp.
End in sight for US recession:
Ben Bernanke says the recession could end this year.
but only if the government can get financial markets to operate more normally again.
A new study indicates differences in health care by race continue right up until death.
Ezekiel Emanuel of the National Institutes of Health says dying blacks and Hispanics have much higher end care costs than whites:
“ Minorities seem to get more intervention, such as respirators, admission to the ICU, artificial feedings, at the end of life - when various studies have shown those interventions don't actually prolong life or improve the quality of life.”
The top military intelligence official is telling Congress the use of roadside bombs in Afghanistan more than doubled last year.
The DIA director says insurgent attacks increased by 55% from 2007.
The Federal Reserve Chairman says the recession is turning out to be more severe than expected:
That means it would bottom out ?
Despite high oil prices and an ascending won against the dollar, June exports hit a monthly record of $28.27 billion, up 19.2 percent from a year ago, the Commerce Ministry said.
The ministry attributed the surge of exports to the steady growth of the global economy, domestic pressure to cut inventories, and concerns over aggravated export conditions in the latter half of the year.
The Korea Trade and Investment Promotion Agency, however, projected export growth of 11 percent year-on-year in the second half of the year, slowing from an estimated 14.4 percent rise in the first six months of the year.
The agency predicted that this year's exports would top $320 billion.
The ministry attributed the surge of exports to the steady growth of the global economy, domestic pressure to cut inventories, and concerns over aggravated export conditions in the latter half of the year.
The research group's monthly report is an important economic pointer because consumer spending accounts for about two-thirds of the US economy.
At least 155 people are dead-hundreds more wounded-in a series of Israeli air strikes today against Hamas security posts in the Gaza strip.
Spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas says the government is firmly opposed to Israel's actions.
“We strongly condemn as the Palestinian leadership and in the name of President Abu Mazen Mahmoud Abbas.
Hamas leaders vow revenge, including suicide attacks inside Israel for today's airstrikes.
Melting ice and snow is swelling rivers and streams in the Great Lakes area, prompting flood watches and warnings today.
The warm weather has also caused fog and that means flight problems.
Hundreds of people spent the night at Chicago's Midway airport, where all 82 flights were canceled last night.
More than 400 were scrubbed at O'Hare, the nation's second busiest.
Meanwhile, a tornado watch has been posted in parts of the Midwest, where just a few days ago, it was below zero.
Spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas says the government is firmly opposed to Israel's actions.
The BBC reports North Korea has tested a number of missiles in quick succession, one of which was a long-range weapon which failed seconds into flight.
The US said North Korea may have fired as many as six missiles.
At least three - two of them said to be shorter range - fell into the East Sea.
Both the US and Japan have acted with anger and dismay to the news.
US envoy to the UN, John Bolton, said he was ""urgently consulting"" with other Security Council members on the issue.
Both the US and Japan had said they would consider a range of options - including economic sanctions - if a launch of the Taeopdong-2 missile went ahead.
The BBC reports North Korea has tested a number of missiles in quick succession, one of which was a long-range weapon which failed seconds into flight.
The US said North Korea may have fired as many as six missiles.
˝Tony Blair is to become a Middle East envoy working on behalf of the US, Russia, the UN and the EU.
The announcement came just hours after he stood down as UK prime minister and shortly before it was announced he was to quit as a member of parliament.
Blair said a solution to Mid-East problems was possible but it required “huge intensity and work”.
He faces an uphill task to address Palestinian misgivings over his ties to Israel and the US.
During his final prime minister´s questions on Wednesday, Blair was asked about the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.
”The absolute priority is to try to give effect to what is now the consensus across the international community - that the only way of bringing stability and peace to the Middle East is a two-state solution.”
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has welcomed Blair´s appointment - which was delayed because of Russia´s reservations.
But the militant group Hamas said ”it was not helpful in solving the conflict in the Middle East”, arguing that Blair´s position mirrored those of the US and Israel.
Observers point out that Blair´s mission, as defined by the ”Quartet” of international mediators which appointed him, is narrow.
His brief includes Palestinian governance, economics and security rather than the wider conflict between Israel and Palestinians - at least initially.
Blair replaces the Quartet´s previous envoy, former World Bank president James Wolfensohn who last year resigned in frustration at the lack of progress.˝
The Korea Times reports Kim Kyung-joon, the former head of the investment firm BBK, denied all allegations Monday that he orchestrated stock manipulation and embezzled company money.
At the first hearing of his trial, Kim, also the former business partner of President-elect Lee Myung-bak, said that prosecutors were only wasting taxpayer´s money and time trying to prove something that was untrue.
The President-elect was cleared of charges that he took part in the rigging of BBK stock prices, leaving Kim to face the music alone.
The accused, represented by lawyer Park Chan-jong and three others, claimed prosecutors alternatively tried to persuade or threaten him during questioning.
``They broke principles and violated the individual freedom guaranteed in the Constitution.
As an American, I cannot stand it.
If you allow me bail, I will give more details on their wrongdoings,´´ he said to the judge.
The President-elect was cleared of charges that he took part in the rigging of BBK stock prices, leaving Kim to face the music alone.
The sudden resignation by National Tax Service commissioner Lee Ju-sung has left a trail of doubt over the political conditions that may have induced the untimely decision.
He said it was time to move on to give his juniors a chance to move up.
President Roh Moo-hyun accepted his resignation, Cheong Wa Dae said.
The unceremonious move immediately sent shockwaves through the political arena because the seat of NTS head, which is on equal footing with vice minister, is usually not replaced before a Cabinet shakeup is completed.
The next reshuffling is anticipated as early as next month.
In a statement, the outgoing commissioner said his choice to leave before the termination of his two-year term stems from concerns that his ""successor would be pressed for time as he tries to implement new policies.
"" With the presidential elections looming next year, the next NTS head would have had less than a year in office.
The unceremonious move immediately sent shockwaves through the political arena because the seat of NTS head, which is on equal footing with vice minister, is usually not replaced before a Cabinet shakeup is completed.
A poll shows that 34 percent of first-year army cadets called the United States the main enemy of South Korea, The Korea Times quotes a former superintendent of the Korea Military Academy as saying.
Kim Choong-bae, president of the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, disclosed a past survey of 250 KMA entrants to single out ""the country´s main enemy´´ while serving as the military academy´s superintendent in 2004.
Kim was quoted by a newspaper as saying, ""While the majority ― or 34 percent ― picked the U.S., 33 percent said they regarded North Korea as the main enemy.´´ He said the result was unbelievable, stressing the respondents were those who were supposed to be military officers.
The KMA did not make the result public during the Roh Moo-hyun administration, which ended last February.
Kim hinted that he had been forced not to notify the public of the result, expressing uneasiness about contents of some high and middle schools textbooks.
Citing his meeting with the 250 cadet freshmen, the military expert argued that the hostile sentiment against the ""ally"" is due to ""inappropriate´´ education in schools.
In addition, according to a survey of a group of conscripted soldiers conducted by the Ministry of Defense, about 75 percent of them said they have anti-U.S. sentiment.
Australian commandos have landed in East Timor in an effort to quell three days of increasing violence.
About 150 troops secured the airport in the capital, Dili, amid reports of mounting casualties in the city.
A further 1,300 Australians, and troops from Malaysia, New Zealand and Portugal are also heading to East Timor.
Reports say a number of people have died and many have been injured in Dili, where disgruntled ex-soldiers are fighting government troops.
Household debt in South Korea reached an all-time high of 582 trillion won at the end of 2006, up 11.6 percent from a year earlier.
The figure represents the fastest growth in four years due to a rise in housing loans.
Household debt includes credit card use and all outstanding loans.
The outstanding household debt is equal to 77 percent of the 757 trillion won national 2006 real gross domestic product (GDP), the Bank of Korea said.
The growth of more than 60 trillion won in 2006 was the fastest pace since 2002, when household debts jumped by 97.4 trillion won at the peak of the nation's credit card bubble.
Last year, households borrowed more to finance purchases of homes on expectations of higher home prices.
But demand for mortgages has shown signs of a slowdown since last December in line with the downward correction of home prices due to rising home-related taxes and tighter lending policies at banks.
The figure represents the fastest growth in four years due to a rise in housing loans.
Household debt includes credit card use and all outstanding loans.
The truth of China’s Northeastern Project?
The governing and opposition parties Tuesday were all out to criticize Beijing's attempt to distort the past history between Korea and China.
The rare joint action came after communist China recently published a series of books and articles as part of its ”Northeastern Project, ” claiming that the ancient history of Korea originated from mainland China.
It has argued the Koguryo Kingdom and Palhae Kingdom, which then existed in today's China's northeastern territory, were part of China's ancient history.
”Beijing's continuing distortion of history is no longer tolerable, ” said Rep. Woo Sang-ho, spokesman of the governing Uri Party.
”China has seriously harmed the identity of South Koreans.
” Woo called on the South Korean government to take stern diplomatic measures to prevent any further similar distortion of history by China.
The rare joint action came after communist China recently published a series of books and articles as part of its ”Northeastern Project, ” claiming that the ancient history of Korea originated from mainland China.
Three people have been killed and two wounded in a sniper attack in the town of Moscow, Idaho.
The sniper sprayed a county courthouse with bullets, killing a police officer and wounding two people.
The gunman then hid in a church for several hours before police stormed the building and found his body and that of another man.
Police do not know the shooter’s motive and do not believe he had a specific target in mind.
The shooting began late on Saturday when dozens of bullets struck the county courthouse and ripped through an Emergency dispatch centre.
Five North Korean soldiers crossed the inter-Korean border on Saturday then retreated northward after some 60 warning shots were fired by South Korean soldiers.
The move raised suspicions that the communist North intended to further raise tension on the Korean Peninsula after its announcement Tuesday of an upcoming nuclear test.
˝President George W Bush has signed into law a temporary bill allowing the government to eavesdrop on foreign terror suspects without a warrant.
The legislation was approved by the Senate and House of Representatives just before Congress adjourned for the summer recess.
The bill allows taps on foreign phone and internet communications routed via the US, without prior court approval.
President George Bush claims the measure is needed to combat terrorist threats.
“When our intelligence professionals have the legal tools to gather information about the intentions of our enemies, America is safer,” Bush said on Sunday.
The House voted late on Saturday 227-183 in favor of the bill, which updates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
The Senate had voted on Friday.
The new bill gives the government the right to intercept, without warrants, communications between foreigners that are routed through equipment in the US, provided that ”foreign intelligence information” is at stake.
Bush has said he wants deeper, permanent changes.˝
The Senate had voted on Friday.
As the debate continues on the floor of the Senate on the massive $900 billion spending and tax package, work is going on behind closed doors on changes that could make the proposal easier to swallow for its opponents.
Republican Senator Susan Collins says a meeting this morning produced a common goal:
“To produce a stimulus package that really would boost our economy… isn't just a collection of everyone's favorite programs.
And at an Energy Department event, President Barack Obama made another appeal for quick action:
“We know that if we do not act, a bad situation will become dramatically worse.”
The latest economic figures show a jump in jobless claims last week, and a drop in retail sales in January.
On Wall Street at this hour, the Dow is now up by about 80 points.
There was a huge jump in the number of suicides reported by the Army last month.
There were 24 suspected suicides in January; that's six times as many as in January, 2008, and more than all combat deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan last month.
Home run king Barry Bonds has pleaded not guilty to charges that he lied to a grand jury investigating steroid use in sports.
And at an Energy Department event, President Barack Obama made another appeal for quick action:
The government pledged Wednesday to take appropriate diplomatic steps to cope with China's attempts to distort Korean history.
Vice Foreign Minister Lee Kyu-hyung, however, was cautious about whether the controversial books recently published by China's state-funded research institute should be considered as the Chinese government's official stance.
”We've already asked historians at several research organizations, including the Northeast History Foundation, to study the Chinese publications, ” he said at a weekly press briefing in Seoul.
”Upon receiving the results, we'll take proper steps against China's provocation.
” The foundation, which is affiliated with the Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development, took over research personnel and research results of the Koguryo Foundation, which was originally set up to tackle China's attempt to usurp Korea's Koguryo Kingdom (37 B.C.
-668 A.D.) and its history after a 2004 dispute.
”Upon receiving the results, we'll take proper steps against China's provocation.
Burma has defied international pressure following its suppression of pro-democracy protests, insisting there “is no reason to change course”.
A state-controlled Burmese newspaper criticized the UN Security Council for its statement last week deploring the treatment of protesters.
Earlier, Japan, a major donor to Burma, said it had cut more than $4 million in funds.
On Monday, the EU increased sanctions on Burma and the US said it was considering strengthening its own.
Burma´s official newspaper, The New Light of Myanmar, claimed the government was already on a path to democracy, and there was no need to be diverted.
The article also questioned whether the UN Security Council had any right to comment on the recent unrest, saying that ”the situation in Myanmar does not constitute a threat to the regional and international peace and security”.
It also denied that the country´s military junta was holding any prisoners for political reasons.
Myanmar is what the junta calls the country, which is correctly named Burma.
Burma´s official newspaper, The New Light of Myanmar, claimed the government was already on a path to democracy, and there was no need to be diverted.
The pilots of an Indonesian passenger jet were arguing about the plane’s speed moments before it crashed last month, a senior investigator has said.
Two pilots, who both survived, were flying together for the first time.
The Garuda Airlines Boeing 737-400 crashed as it landed at Yogyakarta airport on March 7th, killing 21 of the 140 people on board.
Survivors and witnesses said the plane came in to land at high speed before it overshot the runway into a rice field and burst into flames.
Passengers and crew scrambled for safety through emergency exits as fire raced through the cabin, leaving the wreckage a gutted shell.
Pakistan has made a huge leap backwards in it's struggle towards democracy.
Planned elections in Pakistan could be delayed by up to a year after General Pervez Musharraf´s imposition of emergency rule, the country´s prime minister says.
Shaukat Aziz told a news conference that the government remained “committed to the democratic process.”
But he said parliament might change the date of elections planned for January, and gave no end date for the emergency.
Rights have been suspended, media has been restricted and hundreds of people arrested under the emergency decree.
Aziz said 400 to 500 ”preventative arrests” had been made so far, and said the emergency, imposed by General Musharraf on Saturday, would last for ”as long as is necessary”.
Small protests have started in the capital, Islamabad, where police and security forces are on the streets surrounding key sites.
Gen Musharraf says he declared the emergency to stop Pakistan ”committing suicide”, because the country was in a crisis caused by militant violence and an unruly judiciary/ In truth, the moves came as the Supreme Court was about to rule on the legality of Gen Musharraf´s dubious October election victory.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said Washington is reviewing the aid which it gives to Pakistan in the wake of Gen Musharraf´s decision.
Musharraf who seized power in a military coup, has been a key ally in Washington´s so-called ‘war on terror’ and has received about $10 billion in aid since 2001.
Pakistan has made a huge leap backwards in it's struggle towards democracy.
President George W. Bush Tuesday described North Korea as one of the “brutal regimes” that oppresses its own people and urged the U.S.
General Assembly in New York, Bush criticized the U.N. human rights panel for its failure to speak up on these regimes in North Korea, Burma, Syria, Belarus and Iran.
He lumped these countries as brutal regimes, saying that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is not being upheld in these countries.
The Korea Times reports Bush made the remark two days before the six-way talks are to open in Beijing to denuclearize North Korea.
Just one day before the crucial Beijing talks, the U.S. State Department plans to announce additional sanctions on North Korean entities connected to missile proliferation.
AP reported Wednesday that North Korea accused the U.S. of defending Israel´s recent air strike against Syria, calling the strike a grave crime that undermines regional peace and stability. President George W. Bush Tuesday described North Korea as one of the “brutal regimes” that oppresses its own people and urged the U.S.
General Assembly in New York, Bush criticized the U.N. human rights panel for its failure to speak up on these regimes in North Korea, Burma, Syria, Belarus and Iran.
˝Fifteen people have been killed and more than 40 wounded by a suicide bomb at a lawyers´ rally in Pakistan.
Ousted chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry was due to address the rally in the capital Islamabad, but was not present at the time of the attack.
Television footage showed blood at the scene of the bombing and several people lying motionless on the ground.
Pakistan´s President Pervez Musharraf strongly condemned the “terrorist attack” and appealed for calm.
Chaudhry has been at the centre of growing anti-government protests ever since General Musharraf suspended him in March.
He and his supporters say the charges are politically motivated.
Correspondents have described a scene of chaos at the site of the attack near the Supreme Court, with ambulances rushing to the scene.˝
Ousted chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry was due to address the rally in the capital Islamabad, but was not present at the time of the attack.
Television footage showed blood at the scene of the bombing and several people lying motionless on the ground.
Jamaican police now claim that Pakistan cricket coach Bob Woolmer died of natural causes and was not murdered, as they stated earlier.
Woolmer, who was 58, died after being found unconscious in his Kingston hotel room on 18 March, following his team’s loss to Ireland in the cricket World Cup.
An initial pathologist’s report concluded that he had been strangled.
Every member of the Pakistan team was fingerprinted before returning home, sparking anger among many in Pakistan.
Jamaican Police Commissioner Lucius Thomas told a news conference in Kingston that three expert opinions had concluded that the original pathologist report of death by manual asphyxiation was wrong.
˝High school students from Seoul and Gyeonggi are being investigated by education authorities on suspicion of buying sex while on field trips to China.
Word of the investigation follows an MBC program Tuesday claiming that Korean high-schoolers were using Chinese prostitutes during field trips.
Education Ministry authorities say they have heard no such reports.
Students from 19 Seoul high schools have toured China recently.
Gyeonggi authorities are also searching for students who may have dallied with prostitutes.
Oh Wan-su, a senior supervisor at the provincial education office, said, “As soon as we conclude the investigation of the principals, teachers and students, those responsible will be heavily penalized.”
Oh didn't, however, explain why.
which has in the past been criticized for untruthful reports designed to boost viewer ratings ? quoted students saying that about 30 to 40 of their classmates paid for sex at a massage parlor in the basement of the hotel where they were staying.˝
Education Ministry authorities say they have heard no such reports.
Private schools nationwide yesterday backed down from plans to refuse new enrollments amid the government's warning of punishment and investigations of possible irregularities by school owners.
Private schools have been protesting the revised education law that requires outside figures to be included on their boards of trustees.
US pressed Burmese government to release Ms.
˝A senior US diplomat has held talks with Burmese government ministers in Beijing, in the first such high-level meeting since 2003.
The US pressed for the release of the democracy activist, Aung San Suu Kyi.
Ms Suu Kyi, who is now 61, has spent 11 of the last 18 years in detention.
Her latest period of house arrest began in 2003.
Washington described the discussions as frank but that there was no sign the Burmese military government had changed its basic opinions.
Eric John, a deputy assistant secretary of state, met Burma´s ministers of foreign affairs, culture and information in the Chinese capital, Beijing.
US state department spokesman Tom Casey said it was ””a very frank discussion of our concerns about the regime, about its behavior.”
” Last month members of Ms Suu Kyi´s National League for Democracy marked the 17th anniversary of their party´s landslide election victory.
However, the victory was never recognized by the junta.
They have ruled the country - which it calls Myanmar - since a coup in 1962.
In 1991, Ms Suu Kyi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to bring democracy to Burma.
Asiana Airlines, the smaller of Korea’s two commercial airlines, finally won its quest to begin service to Paris, the Ministry of Transportation announced.
In 2010, the number of flights for carriers of the EU and Korea will increase to 11 each.
Asiana Airlines, the smaller of Korea’s two commercial airlines, finally won its quest to begin service to Paris, the Ministry of Transportation announced.
But travelers will have to be patient for a chance to fly there on a plane in Asiana livery the new route will be available only in March 2008, when the total number of Korean carrier flights from Seoul will increase from seven per week to 10.
President Roh Moo-hyun yesterday arrived in Athens, the first leg of a 10-day tour aimed at boosting Korea's ties with Europe, Cheong Wa Dae said.
With the latest presidential tour - his third this year - Roh will become the first Korean president to visit Greece, Romania and Finland.
After the three-nation trip, he will visit Washington for a meeting with U.S. 16, he will stop over in San Francisco.
Roh is scheduled to meet his Greek counterpart Karolos Papoulias today and discuss ways to build cooperative ties in the areas of maritime shipping, tourism and ocean technology.
The 45-year-old friendship with the Balkan country began in 1961 when the two countries first opened diplomatic relations.
Two-way trade has grown to nearly $2 billion as of last year.
South Korea´s central bank said Sunday its losses sharply narrowed last year as the local currency´s weakness against the U.S. dollar boosted the won conversion value of assets in foreign currency.
According to the Bank of Korea (BOK), it posted a deficit of 444.7 billion won (US$464.4 million) last year, down 1.76 trillion won from a year earlier.
The BOK logged a deficit for a fourth consecutive year, but its losses narrowed more than expected in 2007.
As of the end of 2007, the won fell 0.7 percent against the U.S. dollar.
It was the first time that the won has fallen against the greenback since the end of 2003 when the won dropped 0.5 percent year-on-year against the dollar.
Yonhap News reports the BOK has diversified more of its foreign currency investment portfolio from U.S. treasury bonds to high-yielding assets like asset-backed securities.
Analysts said if the won´s weakness continues, the BOK could post a surplus for the first time in five years in 2008.
As of the end of 2007, the won fell 0.7 percent against the U.S. dollar.
The latest government figures show the economy is much worse than previous estimates have shown.
the value of all goods and services produced in the U.S.
indicate the economy shrank by 6.3 percent in the fourth quarter, the worst showing in 25 years.
The pain has persisted in the current quarter.
New claims for jobless benefits rose by 8,000 last week to 652,000, while continuing claims jumped to 5.56 million.
But despite the seemingly endless stream of dismal figures, there are some glimmers of hope.
Orders for costly manufactured goods and new home sales both logged unexpected gains in February.
Still, many analysts believe the economy will keep shrinking at least through the first six months of this year.
The government will release its initial estimate of first-quarter GDP in late April.
Diane Kepley, The Associated Press.
the value of all goods and services produced in the U.S.
Diane Kepley, The Associated Press.
The incoming government´s grand plan to cut telecommunication service fees by 20 percent is off to an unconvincing start, with SK Telecom introducing only a slight discount scheme for its loyal users.
1 telecom company Monday announced a new price plan that gives a 50-percent discount for calls made among family members and a 10-50 percent cut in the basic fee, depending on the length of consecutive years the family members subscribed to SK Telecom.
To get the full discount, a family should have an aggregate total of 30 years of uninterrupted subscription.
The new price policy falls short of the expectations of consumer groups and some politicians who wanted mobile service operators to cut their basic fees and call charges indiscriminately, rather than to introduce complicated, prejudicial discount plans.
The announcement came a day after the President-elect Lee Myung-bak´s Presidential Transition Committee said it would leave the telecom firms to decide their own price levels. Until recently, the usually stubborn transition team had insisted that they will enforce fee cuts on the firms.
1 telecom company Monday announced a new price plan that gives a 50-percent discount for calls made among family members and a 10-50 percent cut in the basic fee, depending on the length of consecutive years the family members subscribed to SK Telecom.
Chun and Roh, who took power consecutively after the 1979 military coup, will be stripped of nine and 11 orders of merit respectively, and will lose a monthly pension of 110,000 won ($, medical benefits and the right to be buried in the National Cemetery.
Under the relevant law passed last June, people sentenced to a three-year prison term for breaking criminal, tax or national security laws lose previously awarded orders of merit and military decorations.
Chun and Roh were sentenced to death and life imprisonment respectively for their violent suppression of the historic 1980 democratization movement in Gwangju, South Jeolla province.
They were later pardoned by former President Kim Dae-jung.
Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian has urged the Chinese government to open talks with his administration.
Chen said Beijing had to talk to the leader chosen by the people of Taiwan, and he was sending a personal message to Hu through an envoy.
Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian has urged the Chinese government to open talks with his administration.
The call comes as Taiwanese opposition leader, Lien Chan, continues a visit to China, where he has held historic talks with President Hu Jintao.
The government said there's no evidence of North Korea's possible underground unclear test.
The South Korean city of Incheon has been chosen by the Olympic Council of Asia to host the Asian Games in 2014.
Delegates to the council voted for Incheon in preference to the Indian capital, New Delhi, at a meeting in Kuwait.
The result was greeted by cheers and applause from the South Korean delegation and dejection from the representatives from New Delhi.
It will be the third time the Games have been held in South Korea.
Seoul hosted them in 1986 and in 2002.
The 2010 Games will be in the Chinese city of Guangzhou.
Indian officials say they will now concentrate on the 2010 Commonwealth Games which will be held in New Delhi.
Delegates to the council voted for Incheon in preference to the Indian capital, New Delhi, at a meeting in Kuwait.
˝A group of armed men attacked as many as 300 migrant construction workers who were striking over unpaid wages, communist Chinese media reports.
At least one person is reported to be fighting for his life and six others were injured in the clashes in Heyuan city, in Guangdong province.
China´s construction minister has ordered an immediate investigation, Xinhua news agency reports.
China has faced a number of recent cases involving alleged worker abuse.
More than 500 people were recently freed after they were found to have been working in appalling conditions at illegal brick factories in the north of the country.
Amnesty International warned in March that a lack of rights for China´s tens of millions of migrant workers was creating an underclass in the country.˝
At least one person is reported to be fighting for his life and six others were injured in the clashes in Heyuan city, in Guangdong province.
Britain’s Prince Harry will not be sent to Iraq because of the “unacceptable risks”, the head of the British army has said.
General Sir Richard Dannatt said the prince’s deployment would pose a threat to him and those serving alongside him.
The announcement, which represents a U-turn on an earlier decision, was made amid reports militant groups in Iraq planned to kill or kidnap the prince.
Clarence House said Prince Harry was ”very disappointed” but would not be leaving the Army as a result.
Last month the Ministry of Defense had said the prince would be heading to Iraq as an armed reconnaissance officer in the Blues and Royals regiment.
South Korean trade minister Kim Hyun-chong described the agreement as the “most important event” between the two countries since their signing of a military alliance in 1953.
˝The Grand National Party yesterday stepped up its criticism of the government´s ongoing press reform measures, turning the spiraling debate between journalists and the government into a political row.
Vowing they would fix the system if the party wins the December presidential election, GNP lawmakers claimed the government´s idea to consolidate press rooms was “dictatorship like.”
GNP lawmakers also said they will submit a motion to oust the head of the Government Information Agency, Kim Chang ho, who is spearheading the press ”modernization” measures.
They also vowed to block an additional budget measure of 550 million won ($560,to renovate the press rooms.˝
Last night, the new First Couple attended 10 inaugural balls.
Today, President Barack Obama begins his mission to bring change to the country:
(Organ music) The last official event of the inauguration, a national prayer service, leading back to George Washington's time, is being held in Washington's National Cathedral and getting under way about now.
The Obamas will then greet the public at an Open House in the White House.
The President also will meet with his economic and military advisors.
Online, there's no doubt the White House is under new management:
“Though members of Team Obama are struggling to order supplies and figure out the intercom, they got the White House website switched over within minutes of the President's swearing-in.
It's got a full suite of photos, press releases and videos under the banner 'Change Has Come to America'.
Meantime, the White House has ordered federal agencies to halt any pending Bush regulations so they can be reviewed.”
Associated Press White House correspondent Mark Smith.
A new AP poll indicates that 3 to 1, Americans feel more optimistic about the future under Obama.
The survey, conducted yesterday, finds 53% are more optimistic, while 15% say they feel more pessimistic.
Last night, the new First Couple attended 10 inaugural balls.
Online, there's no doubt the White House is under new management:
President Roh Moo-hyun said on Thursday his administration would continue to pursue a proper mixture of leftist and rightist policies both for sustainable growth and the alleviation of socioeconomic polarization.
In a dismissal of both the ``neo-liberalist’’ and ``leftist’’ labels attached to his administration, Roh argued that such theoretical categorization does not help the nation tackle a number of problems in the era of globalization.
What is important is to adopt necessary policies for our economy,’’ he said during an online forum with Internet users at Chong Wa Dae.
``In that sense, my administration could be defined as `neo-liberalistic leftist.’
’’ Hosted by five major portal sites in the country _ Daum Communications, Empas, Nate.com, Paran and Yahoo! Korea, the forum was arranged to mark the third anniversary of Roh’s inauguration on Feb.
Pim Verbeek, assistant coach of the South Korean national football team, has been promoted to succeed Dick Advocaat as team coach.
Verbeek, 50, was Guus Hiddink's right-hand man when South Korea reached the 2002 World Cup semifinals.
He is the seventh foreign coach of the South Korean team.
Verbeek will start his new job after a short break from this weekend.
He will first call up the squad at the National Football Center in Paju, Kyonggi Province, on August 5 before its August 16 Asian Cup preliminary match against Taiwan.
New coaching staff will be determined after Verbeek returns but little change is expected from the current members.
After the 2002 World Cup, Verbeek joined Hiddink in the Netherlands with PSV Eindhoven, coaching its second squad.
Verbeek, 50, was Guus Hiddink's right-hand man when South Korea reached the 2002 World Cup semifinals.
He is the seventh foreign coach of the South Korean team.
Guess what's for sale on eBay this morning?
One Senate seat goes to the highest BLEEP-ing bidder.
Sellers' positive feedback rating just about zero since yesterday.
Not joking here, more than a dozen people outraged by the arrest of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich who put up the state's vacant Senate seat for bids;
Blagojevich has shown no sign of resigning and could go ahead and name himself or anyone else to Barack Obama's old seat.
Listen to this from our Bryant Thomas:
Senate, is already putting Blagojevich on notice, that any person appointed by him could be refused a seat in Washington.
Durban says several would-be senators have been kept out in that fashion, when their status was compromised by corruption or deeply in question.”
Special Forces have killed six Afghan police and wounded 13 in a case of mistaken identity on both sides.
A fourth suspect is in custody in the case of a 16 year old boy, who showed up emaciated and shackled at a Northern California gym.
Police say the boy was kept chained to a fireplace.
Wall Street, the Dow is up 45.
Not joking here, more than a dozen people outraged by the arrest of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich who put up the state's vacant Senate seat for bids;
latest offer we see is for more than $250,000.
Special Forces have killed six Afghan police and wounded 13 in a case of mistaken identity on both sides.
Wall Street, the Dow is up 45.
North Korea is holding mass celebrations for the 60th anniversary of the ruling Workers Party.
Supreme leader Kim Jong-il smiled and applauded as thousands of goose-stepping troops filed through the capital, Pyongyang's, main square.
There has been speculation Kim could use the occasion to name his successor.
A senior North Korean official said the Stalinist state would ""mercilessly crush"" US and Japanese forces if they threatened his country.
This year's celebrations are expected to be the largest for some time, a huge display of confidence after a period of uncertainty both at home and abroad, says the BBC's Seoul correspondent Charles Scanlon.
A vast crowd of well-drilled civilians roared slogans in support of Kim during the festivities.
China has given crucial economic support to its communist neighbor, but has been pressing North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program.
Smoking regulations are stiffened.
Air Force stationed in Gunsan conducted several combat exercises from January through June 1991 in preparation for possible air-launched nuclear strikes against North Korea.
Bush approved a national security directive in November 1991 committing the United States to removing all nuclear weapons from the peninsula. Forces Korea conducted military exercises in preparation for an aerial nuclear attack against North Korea in 1991, a lawmaker said yesterday, citing recently declassified U.S documents.
Choi Sung of the ruling Uri Party said in a statement that the U.S. Air Force stationed in Gunsan conducted several combat exercises from January through June 1991 in preparation for possible air-launched nuclear strikes against North Korea.
Last month, Choi also said that USFK had deployed nuclear weapons in South Korea but withdrew the nuclear arms from the country around 1992 after the two Koreas signed an agreement not to hold nuclear arms on the peninsula.
Documents provided from the office of Choi show that then President George H.W.
Bush approved a national security directive in November 1991 committing the United States to removing all nuclear weapons from the peninsula.
1.7 million young people need care.
In what some consider another waste of public funds, the government plans to establish an English-only town on Cheju Island to provide high-quality English learning opportunities to students who would otherwise head overseas for language learning, the Ministry of Finance and Economy said yesterday.
In what some consider another waste of public funds, the government plans to establish an English-only town on Cheju Island to provide high-quality English learning opportunities to students who would otherwise head overseas for language learning, the Ministry of Finance and Economy said yesterday.
The envisioned town, to be built on 1.15 million pyong of public land, will include an English learning center, elementary and secondary schools, and colleges along with a range of educational and residential facilities that will help students learn the language.
The sources said the two countries are close to reaching an agreement to establish two separate commands replacing the current Combined Forces Command after South Korea regains wartime operational control of its troops from the U.S. military.
Under the plan, four-star generals of both militaries will still head their respective commands, they said on condition of anonymity.
The two countries are also discussing establishing a consultative organization to control the allied forces' joint operations, and gradually strengthening its role, they added.
The South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff and the U.S.
The sources said the two countries are close to reaching an agreement to establish two separate commands replacing the current Combined Forces Command after South Korea regains wartime operational control of its troops from the U.S. military.
The Joong-Ang Ilbo reports the cost of key money is on the rise.
With considerable increases in the price of gasoline and food, life for low-income households is becoming more difficult.
The rise in key money, the traditional deposit made to lease an apartment in lieu of monthly rent, began in northern Seoul.
Dislocations caused by redevelopment and new town developments have caused large numbers of people to seek new places to live.
Many house lease contracts expire this year and relatively few small apartments are available.
˝A strong earthquake in central Japan has damaged a large nuclear power plant causing a leak of radioactive material.
A small amount of water containing radioactive substances leaked into the sea, and a fire broke out at the plant in Kashiwazaki.
At least seven people were killed and hundreds injured in the earthquake.
Several hours later a second earthquake of magnitude 6.6 struck in the sea off Kyoto in western Japan.
Tokyo Electric Power Company said the small amount of radioactive material that leaked into the sea posed no environmental risk.
Reactors at the plant automatically shut down during the magnitude 6.8 quake.˝
Kang Bong-kyun, a member of the ruling Uri Party said the BOK should consider the potential negative effects of the government's property measures that were unveiled Aug.
Responding to lawmakers' comments on the future direction of the monetary policy, the central bank Governor Park Seung downplayed his earlier remarks that the BOK may raise the interest rate as early as next month.
Communist China has successfully launched its second manned spacecraft, carrying two Chinese astronauts into orbit.
The lift-off, from Jiuquan in the Gobi desert, was shown live on state television and included views from a camera on the outside of the craft.
The mission is expected to see the Shenzhou VI orbit the Earth for five days, during which the astronauts will carry out experiments.
It comes almost exactly two years after China's first manned space flight.
Samsung fined $300m for price-fixing in US.
Ethnic Koreans who have overstayed their visa by up to one year will be saved from deportation as the government is planning to issue a newly introduced visa that would extend their legal stay.
The government began receiving applications for the new H-2 visa, which will allow ethnic Koreans from China, Russia and the former Soviet Union states to stay and work in Korea for up to three years on a single-entry basis or five years on a multiple-entry basis.
The Justice Ministry said the new visa rule will apply to an estimated 4,500 illegal ethnic Koreans.
Those who have overstayed their visa by less than a year and hold an F-1-4 visa or an E-9 visa, will be allowed to switch to the new H-2 visa. For most ethnic Koreans from the regions, two visas have been issued one-year F-1-4 visa, which requires an invitation by Korean relatives, or the E-9 visa, a special work permit for nonprofessional jobs.
The government began receiving applications for the new H-2 visa, which will allow ethnic Koreans from China, Russia and the former Soviet Union states to stay and work in Korea for up to three years on a single-entry basis or five years on a multiple-entry basis.
Zimbabwe’s government has accused Australia of funding violence in an attempt to remove President Robert Mugabe from power.
In an interview, Zimbabwe’s Information Minister claimed Canberra was financing ””terrorist activities”” by channeling claimed aid groups.
Australia is a vocal critic of Mugabe and announced it was increasing funding to civic groups in Zimbabwe.
Relations were already bad after an Australian cricket tour was cancelled.
Thailand's coup leaders are under fire for allegedly accepting extra payments that effectively double their salaries.
Thai newspapers report that the new cabinet decided to give the leaders of September's coup additional pay on top of their monthly military salaries.
Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont is reported to have defended the move, saying the extra payments were worth it to rid the country of corruption.
Graft was a key reason given for the ousting of PM Thaksin Shinawatra.
Tens of thousands of Thai protesters have marched through Bangkok's central shopping district, one week ahead of a snap election.
Organizers say it is their final push to try to force Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra from power before the poll.
His critics accuse him of corruption and abusing power, which he denies.
Yahoo had been “at best inexcusably negligent” and at worst ”deceptive” in evidence given to the House Foreign Affairs Committee last year, it said.
Yahoo´s Michael Callahan originally told Congress he did not know why China wanted the reporter´s details.
Shi Tao was jailed after Yahoo helped Chinese officials identify him.
Chief executive Jerry Yang said his firm had always been open with Congress and that it was ”fully committed to protecting human rights”.
Yahoo has previously said it had to comply with Chinese laws to operate in the country.
Yahoo had been “at best inexcusably negligent” and at worst ”deceptive” in evidence given to the House Foreign Affairs Committee last year, it said.
More Foreigners to Become Permanent Residents From Sept.
Foreigners will get permanent residence status from Sept.1 when they invest more than $500,000 and employ more than five Koreans.
The plan will be put into effect after getting approval from Cabinet, according to the Justice Ministry.
This move came as part of the Lee Myung-bak administration´s so-called ‘business-friendly’ policies to draw more foreign investment to revitalize the economy.
Under the law, the government immediately grants the status to foreigners investing more than $2 million with five Korean employees.
But those investing $500,000 with three Korean employees are required to stay for at least three years to win the status.
According to the ministry, about 8,000 foreigners are residing here with the D-8 visa ― Japanese investors ranked first with 1,800, followed by Chinese with 1,400.
Pakistani and American investors came next with 700, respectively.
Foreigners will get permanent residence status from Sept.1 when they invest more than $500,000 and employ more than five Koreans.
A powerful tropical cyclone has hit Australia's north-east coast, packing winds of up to 290km/h.
Tropical Cyclone Larry smashed into Queensland at Innisfail, about 100km south of Cairns, making thousands homeless.
About a dozen people sustained minor injuries and up to 50,000 homes are without power.
A state of emergency has been declared and Prime Minister John Howard has pledged help for the affected areas.
A top U.S. official has told the AP that North Korea has agreed to all nuclear inspection demands allowing the White House to take the Stalinist state off the terrorism blacklist.
Hurricane Norbert has lost some punch as it bears down on Mexico's southern Baja California peninsula.
Senior hurricane specialist Stacy Stewart at the National Hurricane Center says the remnants could bring heavy rain, even snow to the southwest U.S.
“That would likely occur Sunday, and into Monday.
That could bring locally heavy rainfall to a good portion of south central and central portions of the United States, and possibly enhance some of the snowfall, making it very heavy across portions of Colorado.”
Boston Red Sox win game 1 of American League Championship Series.
Two won, 2-0 over the Rays in Tampa.
Game 2 this evening in Tampa. Philadelphia Phillies have a two to nothing lead over the Dodgers in the National League Championships after beating LA 7-5 yesterday.
Dodgers manager Joe Torre says, his club ought to bounce back, saying two teams will be playing in Philly, tomorrow.
That could bring locally heavy rainfall to a good portion of south central and central portions of the United States, and possibly enhance some of the snowfall, making it very heavy across portions of Colorado.”
They also criticized the role of the United States in the Middle Eastern crisis.
A group of 36 governing and opposition party lawmakers on Thursday called on Israel to stop its attacks on Lebanon.
Israel's attack on Lebanon will not resolve the problems, but will only lead to a vicious cycle of retaliation, they said in a statement.
The lawmakers denounced Israel, claiming Hezbollah's purpose in kidnapping Israeli soldiers, which sparked a series of indiscriminate attacks on Lebanon, was the release of some 8,000 Arabs being held in Israeli prisons, including some 400 children.
They urged the South Korean government to take part in international mediation efforts together with the United Nations to produce a peaceful resolution to the crisis.
McDonald's is being sued by an Arkansas man who left his cell phone in one of its restaurants.
The AP's Jon Gambrell says Phillip Sherman is upset at what was on the phone made it onto the Internet:
“Someone at the restaurant, whether it be employees or another person, got a hold of his cell phone and found that his wife Tina had sent him racy, naked photos of herself, whoever saw these photos then sent Tina a series of text messages and then took the photos of Ms.
Sherman and posted them online.”
The Shermans want a jury trial and $3 million in damages.
No comment from McDonald's, the franchise owner, or the restaurant manager.
It's kinda hard to find anything good to say after your team loses 65 to 21.
“We watched Oklahoma make a one routine play after the next.”
The Shermans want a jury trial and $3 million in damages.
In the latest case, the boy, said to be a local high school student, reportedly told police he killed his mother with a knife during the night as she slept, and had acted alone.
Their mother was believed to have been visiting them on Monday. A teenage Japanese boy has been arrested after walking into a police station carrying a severed human head and claiming to have killed his mother.
The 17-year-old went to a police station in the town of Aizuwakamatsu, north of Tokyo, carrying the head in a sports bag, Japanese media said.
The beheaded body of a woman was later found at the boy’s home.
This is the latest in a series of grisly killings in Japan, a country renowned for its alleged low crime rate.
On Monday a severed human leg was discovered in a small river in central Tokyo.
In the latest case, the boy, said to be a local high school student, reportedly told police he killed his mother with a knife during the night as she slept, and had acted alone.
Japanese press said the boy lived with his young brother, separately from their parents.
In a statement on a website, the group said it acted after US and Iraqi forces attacked insurgents in the northern town of Talafar.
More than 150 people have been killed and hundreds injured in a series of bomb attacks and shootings across Iraq.
In the worst incident, at least 112 people were killed and some 160 injured when a car bomb exploded in Baghdad's mainly Shia district of Kadhimiya.
During the night, gunmen killed 17 men in the nearby town of Taji after dragging them from their homes.
Obama and soon-to-be-First Lady Michelle Obama are now at the White House for coffee with President Bush and Laura Bush, after leaving church services just a short while ago.
“Well, Tim, the Obamas left about 10 minutes ago,……” (background noise)
We seem to be having some problems with Ed's feed.
Ed Donahue is, of course, at Lafayette Park watching as the inaugural events are going on.
And for a look at the throng at the Mall, here's Oscar Wells-Gabriel:
“Looking from the Capitol, it's a sea of people from there all the way back to where we are, which is about 12 blocks away.
“Well, Tim, the Obamas left about 10 minutes ago,……” (background noise)
Samsung Electronics Co., the world's second-largest chipmaker, announced that it is preparing for mass production of a 16-gigabit NAND flash memory chip next year.
The new chip will use a 50-nanometer technology to double the available storage in a space much less than twice the size. Samsung Electronics Co., the world's second-largest chipmaker, announced that it is preparing for mass production of a 16-gigabit NAND flash memory chip next year.
The 16-gigabit capacity is double the size of the largest flash memory now on the market.
N.K. insists a right to peaceful nuclear activity.
Family members of a financial manipulator claimed Wednesday that presidential candidate Lee Myung-bak is guilty of manipulating stock prices and laundering money, but failed to provide key documents to prove their claim.
Instead, they said they would send original copies of ``side contracts´´ to the prosecution by Friday.
Prosecutors have asked both the family and Grand National Party (GNP) candidate Lee to submit their original copies of related documents to check their authenticity.
In a press conference at a hotel in Los Angeles, Lee Bo-ra, wife of Kim Kyung-joon, who has been arrested there for financial fraud and embezzlement, said;
``We had planned to show the original side contracts to you (reporters), but changed the plan after hearing news early this morning.´´ She said according to the news, prosecutors are asking the former Seoul mayor to submit his signature in his own handwriting so that they can compare it with the ones on documents which Kim handed over as evidence.
Candidate Lee and Kim were partners in an asset management business which the latter used to embezzle millions of dollars and manipulated stock prices in 2001.
Liberal politicians, civic groups and North Korea experts railed yesterday against the next president’s plan to dissolve the Unification Ministry by folding it into the Foreign Ministry.
The United New Democratic Party feels “shocked and baffled” by the decision, Kim Hyo-seuk, the party’s floor leader, said yesterday after meeting with senior party members.
At the same time, members of several liberal civic groups, including Jinbo Corea, protested in front of the transition committee’s headquarters in Seoul.
It is feared the president-elect’s radical policies will destroy trust and cooperation between North and South nurtured over the past ten years of democratic rule.
The United New Democratic Party feels “shocked and baffled” by the decision, Kim Hyo-seuk, the party’s floor leader, said yesterday after meeting with senior party members.
Turning up the heat on the Blue House, the National Election Commission yesterday said remarks by President Roh Moo-hyun last weekend criticizing the Grand National Party broke the election law, and it issued a warning over the issue.
The commission also turned down a Blue House request to appear in person before the decision was handed down.
However, the commissioners rebuffed two charges opposition leaders raised.
The Grand National Party had accused Roh of electioneering in his speech.
The party also claimed that the group that hosted Roh’s lecture, the Participatory Government Evaluation Forum, was a campaign organization that the election law prohibits from being formed prior to the beginning of the campaign.
After the decision, opposition leaders could seek legal actions against Roh, as they did in 2004 during an unsuccessful attempt to impeach him on similar grounds.
Prosecutors, however, cannot indict a sitting president, so the move would be largely symbolic.
At least two other investors have said the same thing, but apparently the judge has accepted his plea:
guilty on all 11 counts;
Attorney Jerry Reisman, who represents some of Madoff's victims, says they wanted a trial, so he would have to hear from them:
“… sit there in the box, for 4 to 6 weeks and maybe even longer, and sweat it out, and hear all of the stories, all of the victims….
” Madoff could get up to 150 years in jail.
accused swindler Bernard Madoff telling the judge he's“ deeply sorry” as he entered that plea in the Manhattan Federal Court ?
to charges stemming from what prosecutors say was the biggest Ponzi scheme in history.
“… sit there in the box, for 4 to 6 weeks and maybe even longer, and sweat it out, and hear all of the stories, all of the victims….
A major advance in understanding the genetics behind several of the world’s most common diseases has been reported.
The landmark Wellcome Trust study analyzed DNA from the blood of 17,000 people to find genetic differences.
They found new genetic variants for depression, Crohn’s disease, coronary heart disease, hypertension, rheumatoid arthritis and type 1 and 2 diabetes.
The remarkable findings, published in Nature, have been hailed as a new chapter in medical science.
It is hoped they will pave the way for research into new treatments and genetic tests.
The £9m Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium (WTCCC) involved 50 leading research groups analysing the DNA from 2,000 patients for each of the seven conditions and 3,000 healthy volunteers.
A 7-year-old Sudanese student on Tuesday defended the British teacher accused of insulting Islam saying he had chosen to call a teddy bear Mohammad because it was his own name.
Gillian Gibbons, a 54-year-old teacher at the Unity High School in Khartoum, was arrested on Sunday after complaints from parents that she had insulted Islam´s Prophet by allowing the bear to be named Mohammad.
She is facing a third night in jail without being formally charged.
Mohammad said Gibbons was ”very nice” and he would be upset if she never came back to teach.
He added Gibbons had not discussed religion nor did she mention the Prophet.
Justice Minister Mohamed Ali al-Mardi told Reuters formal charges would be leveled once investigations had been completed.
”(The charges) are under the Sudanese penal code … insulting religion and provoking the feelings of Muslims,” he said.
after investigation the final charges will be ascertained,” he added.
Gillian Gibbons, a 54-year-old teacher at the Unity High School in Khartoum, was arrested on Sunday after complaints from parents that she had insulted Islam´s Prophet by allowing the bear to be named Mohammad.
Morning-after reaction to the second presidential debate:
“McCain's responsibility was to really give us a game change or a change of the momentum.
I don't think that happened.”
Political communications expert Jeremy Grace of Rice University was watching the town hall event in Nashville.
“Polls suggest Obama is approaching the electoral votes he needs to win the White House.
“Americans in general and in swing states in particular, give Obama very high marks on economy;
in places like Pennsylvania and Florida, they generally approve of his handling of the economic crisis by a net 30 point margin, in that vicinity;
McCain, they think he's doing a fine job, but they're not quite as enthusiastic.”
“Rita Foley, Washington.
Morning-after reaction to the second presidential debate:
Political communications expert Jeremy Grace of Rice University was watching the town hall event in Nashville.
“Polls suggest Obama is approaching the electoral votes he needs to win the White House.
in places like Pennsylvania and Florida, they generally approve of his handling of the economic crisis by a net 30 point margin, in that vicinity;
Police in Zimbabwe have raided a Harare office of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), sources inside the country have told the BBC.
The MDC said rooms were searched but none of its officials were there.
In a separate incident police arrested two foreign journalists - one of them a reporter for the New York Times - in a raid on a hotel in the capital city.
Tensions are high with election results delayed and the MDC claiming it has defeated President Robert Mugabe.
Reports said police searched a number of hotel rooms used as offices by the MDC.
Brian Hungwe, a Zimbabwean freelance journalist in the capital, Harare, says the raid is believed to be linked to the MDC´s announcement of presidential poll results ahead of the Zimbabwe Election Commission, which is illegal.
Late on Thursday, the Commission releases the first results in the election for the senate, the country´s upper house of parliament.
The ruling Zanu-PF party and the MDC have five seats each.
The senate has 60 seats in all.
In a separate incident police arrested two foreign journalists - one of them a reporter for the New York Times - in a raid on a hotel in the capital city.
The senate has 60 seats in all.
2006, when Humor University lodged a complaint on the issue claiming foul play by Google.
Google, the world's primary Internet search engine, is likely to face a damages suit in South Korea in connection with its context-based online advertisements, dubbed AdSense.
Encouraged by a recent verdict by the Fair Trade Commission (FTC), Humor University, a domestic Web site said it will file a suit against Google with the court.
Several hundred protesters have attacked the US and other embassies in Serbia´s capital in anger at Western support for Kosovo´s independence.
Protesters broke into the US compound and briefly set part of the embassy alight.
The UK, Belgian, Croatian and Turkish missions were also attacked.
The violence followed a peaceful rally earlier by at least 150,000 people outside the main parliament building.
The US, UK, Germany and Italy are among those to have recognized Kosovo.
Earlier, Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica delivered an impassioned speech condemning the territory´s secession.
""As long as we live, Kosovo is Serbia.
Kosovo belongs to the Serbian people,"" he told the flag-waving crowd.
Most Serbs regard Kosovo as their religious and cultural heartland.
The violence followed a peaceful rally earlier by at least 150,000 people outside the main parliament building.
˝A warning by France´s foreign minister that the world should prepare for war over Iran´s nuclear program has drawn an angry response from Iran.
Iran´s foreign ministry said the remark had damaged the credibility of France, while the official Iranian news agency accused Paris of aping Washington.
“We have to prepare for the worst, and the worst is war.”
Meanwhile, the top UN nuclear official said force should be a last resort.
At a conference of the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), in Austria, Mohamed ElBaradei said he saw no clear and present danger, and that talk of force was counter-productive.
Iran denies it is trying to acquire nuclear weapons, and says it only wants nuclear power to generate electricity for civilian purposes.
But it has repeatedly rejected UN demands to give up the enrichment of uranium, which the US and other Western states fear is being diverted to a nuclear weapons project.˝
The fact that the latest round of talks has gone on so long has raised hopes of some kind of progress.
Six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear program will resume on September 13, according to host China.
The talks, now in their fourth round, were supposed to restart last week but were delayed by North Korea in protest at US-South Korean military exercises.
They continued for 13 days in July and August before apparently reaching a deadlock, when delegates decided to take a recess, promising to reconvene after a short time.
Finance-Economy Minister suggests to invite N K to the APEC Finance Minister’s Meeting.
Yahoo helps arresting Chinese journalist.
More than 100 people have been killed, including 20 police officers, after two bombs hit crowds greeting returning Pakistani ex-prime minister Benazir Bhutto.
Ms Bhutto was being driven in a convoy through crowded streets from Karachi airport to a rally to mark her homecoming after eight years in exile.
Bhutto was not hurt but 100 other people were injured.
Hundreds of thousands of people had turned out to greet the former prime minister, amid a huge security presence.
Several Islamist groups including pro-Taliban militants had made threats against Ms Bhutto.
Police have cordoned off the scene of the blasts and the area around a stage where she was due to give a speech to supporters has been evacuated.
Police say the bombings may have been suicide attacks.
President Pervez Musharraf said the attack was a “conspiracy against democracy”.
The White House also condemned the blasts.
Whether it was on the economy or issues in general, both candidates talked about working together during the presidential campaign:
“All of us are in this together!
All of us have work to do!”
“It'll take all of us, working together, to lead the way out.”
And today, Barack Obama and John McCain will be sitting down together to talk about cooperation in Chicago.
Even though he's been reaching out to other former opponents like Hillary Clinton, the President Elect is not expected to offer McCain a job in his administration.
Thanks to better weather, California firefighters are making progress on 3 major wildfires still burning around Los Angeles.
“It'll take all of us, working together, to lead the way out.”
Even though he's been reaching out to other former opponents like Hillary Clinton, the President Elect is not expected to offer McCain a job in his administration.
Coast Guard boats and helicopters are still searching the waters off the Caribbean resort of Cancun.
They're looking for an American woman who supposedly went overboard from the cruise ship Norwegian Pearl.
Fellow passenger Jim Nestor tells NBC's“ Today Show” the woman and her husband stood out of the crowd:
There are reports there may be a video of the woman falling overboard.
The FBI's Michael Leverock tells the AP the Bureau is looking into that.
Fellow passenger Jim Nestor tells NBC's“ Today Show” the woman and her husband stood out of the crowd:
˝Afghan President Hamid Karzai is meeting US President George W Bush for talks at Camp David near Washington.
They are expected to discuss the fight against the Taliban and al-Qaeda and the growing number of civilians killed in coalition military operations.
The drug trade, economic development and the fate of 21 remaining South Korean hostages held by the Taliban are also likely to be high on the agenda.
Two South Koreans from the group have already been killed by their captors.
The two days of talks between the Afghan and US leaders are being billed as a “strategy session” on combating the Taliban insurgency.
Bush is also expected to urge Karzai to assert his government´s authority throughout the country and root out corruption.
This year the US is giving Afghanistan $10 billion, targeted at building up the country´s own security forces.˝
They are expected to discuss the fight against the Taliban and al-Qaeda and the growing number of civilians killed in coalition military operations.
The drug trade, economic development and the fate of 21 remaining South Korean hostages held by the Taliban are also likely to be high on the agenda.
The polls indicate his party may be set to rule without a coalition partner for the first time in 15 years.
The head of the main opposition party, Katsuya Okada, said he would resign.
Koizumi called the snap ballot after parliament blocked his plans to privatize Japan's post office - the centerpiece of his economic reform proposals.
An exit poll for public broadcaster NHK predicted Koizumi's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) could win somewhere between 285 and 325 seats.
A memorial service to the 9.11 terror held in NY.
Exxon Mobil's third quarter earnings of more than $14 billion shattered its own record for the biggest profit from operations by a U.S. corporation.
But oil industry analyst Phil Flynn says, those profits are about average in terms of return on an investment.
“If you break down what Exxon Mobil makes on the dollar invested, it's no more than, you know, a lot of businesses in this country.”
All these economic reports are coming in just days before the nation picks the next President.
Whether Barack Obama or Republican John McCain win the White House, the incoming President will inherit a deeply troubled economy and a record high budget deficit that could crimp his domestic agenda.
Obama on“ The Daily Show” with Jon Stewart says he's having no second thoughts:
“This is the time to want to be President.
If you win in a public service, thinking that you can have an impact, now's the time where you can have an impact.
And at a rally today in Defiance Ohio, John McCain asked voters for their support:
But oil industry analyst Phil Flynn says, those profits are about average in terms of return on an investment.
South Korea’s consumer prices have risen rapidly over the last few years, narrowing the gap with those of the United States.
If the average consumer price level in the U.S. is put at 100, that of products sold in South Korea is 95 as of the end of December last year, the National Statistical Office (NSO) said, citing data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
This means a product sold at $100 in the U.S. is priced at $95 in South Korea.
The price gap between the two countries has narrowed 13.1 percent from December 2004, when the price index for South Korea was at 84.The narrowing price gap between the two countries also means that living costs are not much different between the two countries.
Still, prices in some European countries were more than 50 percent more expensive than in South Korea.”
South Korea’s consumer prices have risen rapidly over the last few years, narrowing the gap with those of the United States.
Still, prices in some European countries were more than 50 percent more expensive than in South Korea.”
An American man of Korean origin has been sentenced to nine years in jail by a South Korean court for allegedly spying for Communist North Korea.
Jang Min-ho, also known as Michael Jang, was found guilty of passing sensitive information about politicians and security to Pyongyang.
He was one of five people convicted of espionage by the court in Seoul.
Prosecutors have called it the biggest spying case since the two Koreas began a process of reconciliation in 2000.
Two of the five are members of the left-leaning minor opposition Democratic Labor Party (DLP).
Pyongyang had denounced the case as a ””calculated plot”” to smear North Korea.
In what is believed by some to be a politically-motivated case, the 44-year-old Jang was accused of being the group's ring leader, regularly meeting North Korean agents in China and Thailand after his first visit to the North in 1989.
He was found guilty of passing on ””national secrets””, which included details about South Korean politics and its politicians.
The other four received jail sentences of between four and six years.”
He was one of five people convicted of espionage by the court in Seoul.
A group of foreign teachers has started a move to form an association for native English-speaking instructors to represent their interests and to play a bridging role between Korean and non-Korean English teachers.
Its tentative name is the Association for Teachers of English in Korea and it seeks to become the first-ever national organization for contract foreign teachers.
Tom Rainey-Smith, one of the ATEK founding members, said that the organization will take a leading role in building bridges between foreign teachers and parents, employers, government agencies and other stakeholders in English language education in Korea.
He teaches at a private institute in Seoul.
Among the founding members are teachers from public schools.
It will invite contract English language teachers including E (E-1 for professors and E-2 for foreign language instructors) and F (F-4 for ethnic Koreans from overseas) visa holders _ those who share many of the same challenges working at public schools, private learning institutes and universities.
The latest round of regulation covers all of Uiwang in Gyeonggi Province, and four areas of the central city of Daejeon in Chungcheong Province.
The government will add the city of Uiwang and parts of Daejeon city to its speculation zone list next week, the latest in a series of recent moves to curb property price rises this year.
The reclassifications, which are to take effect on Monday, will increase the number of speculative zones to 37 from the current 32, the Ministry of Finance and Economy said yesterday.
The latest round of regulation covers all of Uiwang in Gyeonggi Province, and four areas of the central city of Daejeon in Chungcheong Province.
The growth rate of consumer prices trailed the rate of growth among property prices last month in the five districts.
Presidential committee on Balanced National Development is going to aid North Korean cities.
A US defence department analyst has admitted giving classified information about military communication systems to a businessman working for communist China.
51-year-old Gregg Bergersen, plead guilty to a charge of conspiracy to disclose national defense information ""to persons not entitled to receive it"".
Bergersen faces up to 10 years in prison when he is sentenced on 20 June.
Correspondents say his admission comes amid growing concern in Washington about the activities of communist Chinese spies.
Four others were arrested in separate cases last month for allegedly passing secret details about the space shuttle and other US aerospace programs to China. A US defence department analyst has admitted giving classified information about military communication systems to a businessman working for communist China.
51-year-old Gregg Bergersen, plead guilty to a charge of conspiracy to disclose national defense information ""to persons not entitled to receive it"".
A court decision to clear eight people executed three decades ago under the dictatorship of former President Park Chung-hee of treason charges seems to be encouraging further legal action against the political oppression of past governments.
The legal representatives of the victims said they are preparing to issue a petition to the Constitutional Court, claiming that some emergency decrees announced under the Yushin Constitution, enforced by President Park in 1972, are unconstitutional.
The Yushin Constitution was the nation's official constitution between 1972 and 1979.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il traveled to China on Tuesday in a special armored train, reports said.
The train carrying the secretive leader passed through the town of Dandong on the Chinese border before dawn amid tight security, the reports said.
""The scene was quite similar to one in April 2004, when Kim Jong-Il visited China by a special train,"" said South Korean news agency Yonhap.
Neither North Korea nor China, its closest ally, has confirmed the visit. A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said he had ""no specific information"" about the trip.
South Korea's National Intelligence Agency said it was checking the validity of the report, as was the defense ministry.
One of the most influential figures in the world economy, former US central bank chairman Alan Greenspan, has warned that the good times are over for the world economy.
Greenspan, who played a key role in managing the US economy as head of the Federal Reserve from 1986 to 2006, says that higher interest rates and higher inflation are more likely in the future, leading to slower economic growth and lower housing and share prices.
Greenspan says that the outlook for the world economy over the next few years is highly uncertain.
The most credible worst-case scenario, he says, is a recession in the US, driven by further falls in US house prices as people feel less wealthy and spend less money.
Even in the best case, he predicts a substantial slowdown in the US, with repercussions across the globe.
One of the most influential figures in the world economy, former US central bank chairman Alan Greenspan, has warned that the good times are over for the world economy.
Even in the best case, he predicts a substantial slowdown in the US, with repercussions across the globe.
Good morning, and Merry Christmas!
Pope Benedict says he wants to inspire hope in the world.
“If solidarity doesn't win out over selfishness, and if people just continue to mm… look after their own interests, the world is headed, as he put it, to um, flowing apart.”
“Meantime, crowds return this Christmas to Bethlehem.
American Wayne Chandero was impressed, standing inside the Church of the Nativity on Manger Square.”
I think it's-you, you feel in continuity with all the pilgrims through the ages that have been here.”
Some people spent the night at the airport instead of their holiday destination.
The Midwest and Northwest are the trouble spots.
More snow is in the forecast in Washington State, forcing the governor to declare a winter storm emergency.
But Charla Skaggs with the Port of Seattle says they caught up on flights.
As of yesterday, the airlines were all able to use their full schedules and so thankfully um, operations are back to normal.”
Pope Benedict says he wants to inspire hope in the world.
American Wayne Chandero was impressed, standing inside the Church of the Nativity on Manger Square.”
Some people spent the night at the airport instead of their holiday destination.
The owner of an American cargo ship being held by pirates off the coast of Somalia says a U.S.
Navy warship has arrived on the scene.
Officials say the Maersk Alabama is the first ship with an American crew to be held by pirates in those waters, and the crew has been trying to negotiate the release of their captain.
Authorities in Southern California say they are still trying to figure out the motive in a shooting at a Korean religious retreat that left one person dead, and four others injured, including the alleged gunman.
Authorities say they haven't interviewed the suspected gunman yet because he's in the hospital, unconscious.
A small town police chief in central Texas has been fired from his job and thrown into jail after allegedly tasering his wife during an argument.
Bond has been set at $100,000 for Ollie Ivy who was charged with aggravated assault.
Voters in Manitowoc, Wisconsin have picked a man to run their city who looks young enough to run for the student council.
He's 22-year-old Justin Nickels.
He's the youngest mayor ever in the city's history.
Brian Thomas, The Associated Press with AP NewsMinute.
Navy warship has arrived on the scene.
The BBC, quoting his aides, say South Korea´s incoming president wants to scrap the ministry handling relations with North Korea.
Lee Myung-bak, who takes office on 25 February, will merge the Unification Ministry with the Foreign Ministry.
Four other ministries are being downgraded as part of what he says is a pledge to streamline government.
But Lee advocates a tougher stance towards North Korea and the Unification Ministry has been accused of being too soft on Pyongyang in the past.
At the moment, inter-Korean relations are dealt with by the Unification Ministry, while the Foreign Ministry handles negotiations on the nuclear issue.
The two ministries are known to have disagreed in the past, with the Foreign Ministry preferring a tougher line.
South Korea´s current leader, Roh Moo-hyun, has pursued a policy of economic engagement with the North.
But Lee says he wants greater concessions from the North, linking the provision of economic packages to progress on the nuclear issue. The BBC, quoting his aides, say South Korea´s incoming president wants to scrap the ministry handling relations with North Korea.
At the moment, inter-Korean relations are dealt with by the Unification Ministry, while the Foreign Ministry handles negotiations on the nuclear issue.
The darkest cloud out there right now is the housing markets.
Standard & Poor's reports home crisis tumbled a record 16.6% in the year ending in September.
The typical American house is now worth what it was back in early 2004.
The insurance industry says new cars are doing better and better in crash tests, thanks to anti-rollover technology.
Ford and Volvo, which it owns, have 16 winners in the latest list of crash-worthy vehicles.
Auto analyst John McElroy says this is good news for consumers:
It's three times as many as in 2007.”
Breaking news from Virginia, Michael Vick, the former NFL quarterback, has pleaded guilty to state dog fighting charges in the commonwealth.
Ford and Volvo, which it owns, have 16 winners in the latest list of crash-worthy vehicles.
Apparently grasping at straws in an attempt to bring him to justice, prosecution authorities now claim a former presidential policy planner used government funds to support Buddhist temples, especially one run by a Dongguk University official, in exchange for the hiring of his alleged romantic partner by the school.
Bypassing legal precedents, prosecutor general Chung Sang-myoung met with journalists yesterday and explained the prosecution’s proposal directly to the media.
Apparently grasping at straws in an attempt to bring him to justice, prosecution authorities now claim a former presidential policy planner used government funds to support Buddhist temples, especially one run by a Dongguk University official, in exchange for the hiring of his alleged romantic partner by the school.
The prosecution plans to request an arrest warrant for Byeon Yang-kyoon, former minister of planning and budget and a former Cheong Wa Dae secretary, on charges of abusing power to allocate government subsidies to several Buddhist temples.
Byeon is supposedly a devout Buddhist.The power struggle between increasingly aggressive prosecutors and judges prompted by a local court’s decision to strike down a warrant request to detain shamed art professor Shin Jeong-ah, continued yesterday as the nation’s top prosecutor demanded the right to challenge warrant rejections.
Bypassing legal precedents, prosecutor general Chung Sang-myoung met with journalists yesterday and explained the prosecution’s proposal directly to the media.
As we head into the final week of the presidential campaign, Democrat Barack Obama in what he calls his final argument, compares Republican John McCain to little more than a clone of President Bush.
Both candidates are in Ohio today. McCain, before a crowd in Cleveland, argues that Obama's economic plans will not succeed.
“We need pro-growth, and pro-job economic policies, not pro-government spending programs paid for with higher taxes.”
Most national polls show Obama leading McCain.
Surveys in so-called battleground states range from Obama with leads to both candidates in the toss-up.
The first $125 billion out of that $700 billion federal bailout's being readied for the nation's largest banks.
University of Maryland economist Peter Morici says the government may not have to-may have to prod the banks to use the money to block clogged credits.
On Wall Street, the Dow, after a rocky start, is down 15 points.
The first $125 billion out of that $700 billion federal bailout's being readied for the nation's largest banks.
Korea University is considering dropping its bid to run a U.S.-style law school to protest what it calls an ``unacceptable´´ student quota.
However, The Korea Times reports, it fell short of reaching a conclusion at an emergency meeting of more than 30 professors from the College of Law at the school, Wednesday.
``Professors have in principle agreed to take countermeasures, including abandoning its bid to open a law school,´´ said Ha Kyung-ho, the dean of the College of Law, emerging from the meeting that lasted more than two hours.
``But taking into account the severity of the matter, we will make a final decision after consulting with our students and alumni.´´In early February, the Education Ministry announced 25 successful candidates for the first ever law schools _ 15 in the Seoul area and 10 in the provinces.
Korea University was granted a student quota of 120.
Noting that the school´s professors have expressed strong complaints over the selection result, Ha said ``under the current system, it is extremely hard to nurture competent lawyers and legal experts.´´
The Korea Times reports that while a bit eclipsed by the nuclear standoff, North and South Korea have already started to liven up joint events to celebrate the inter-Korean summit in 2000 as the North has invited some high-profile figures from the South, including key aides to former President Kim Dae-jung.
The Korea Times reports that while a bit eclipsed by the nuclear standoff, North and South Korea have already started to liven up joint events to celebrate the inter-Korean summit in 2000 as the North has invited some high-profile figures from the South, including key aides to former President Kim Dae-jung.
Lim Dong-won and Park Jie-won, main architects of the first-ever summit, were invited along with others who had pushed for the landmark event five years ago to visit Pyongyang to attend the June 14-17 festivities marking its fifth anniversary, according to officials yesterday.
With a large number of South Koreans _ both government officials and civilians _ getting ready for the joint events, Kim’s possible Pyongyang visit draws attention as it could project a replay of the breathtaking encounter between him and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.
Government plans to establish a global consortium for cloning research.
Forty-three people have died and 247 were injured after two passenger trains collided in eastern China, said state run media agency Xinhua.
Ten carriages of one train reportedly toppled into a ditch in the pre-dawn crash at Zibo city, Shandong province.
North Korea Thursday agreed to discuss the fate of South Koreans believed to be kidnapped to the North after the Korean War in an unprecedented gesture, albeit in very roundabout words.
It is the first time for the North to give an official nod to the South’s push on the issue, although the word ``abductee’’ is apparently intentionally omitted in the agreement.
The talks were the seventh of their kind.
The US could face billions of dollars in trade sanctions for failing to scrap illegal subsidies paid to American cotton growers.
The World Trade Organization ruling is a victory for Brazil´s cotton industry and for West African states which say the payments harmed their producers.
Brazil hailed the ruling, saying US subsidies had hit world prices, hurting farmers in Brazil and elsewhere.
But US officials believe the payments comply with international trade rules.
Washington is expected to make an appeal against the ruling.
South Korea´s city of Yeosu Monday won the right to host the World Expo in 2012, beating Tangiers of Morocco and Wroclaw (V-RAHT-swahf) of Poland.
In the voting at the 142nd General Assembly of the Paris-based Bureau of International Expositions (BIE), which selects the host city for the internationally recognized event, the southern coastal city obtained a majority with 77 votes.
Yeosu, a port city about 455 kilometers south of Seoul, has been pushing to host the 2012 International Exposition after losing to Shanghai, China in the bidding for the 2010 event.
All rights reserved.
A massive crowd is packing the National Mall ahead of Barack Obama's inauguration.
“ We came on a bus trip down here, and we booked the bus before Obama had won the election, because we were so sure that he would.”
Joining us from the Capitol is the AP's John Belmont - that's where Obama will be sworn in, in about two hours.
They are clearly excited, but now the VIPs, the people with tickets, are coming in and filling their seats.
I saw the tremendous emotion and power of this day, the swearing-in of the first African-American President of the United States.”
That's the AP's John Belmont with us, live from the Capitol.
The Israeli cabinet has agreed to widen the country's ground offensive against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
The Israeli cabinet has agreed to widen the country's ground offensive against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
The government is also planning to call up thousands more reservists, Israeli radio reported.
Earlier Prime Minister Ehud Olmert ruled out an immediate truce, saying Israel would continue its offensive as long as its security was threatened.
For Prax Sanchez the first sign of trouble was strong pain on the right side of his face.
I went to lay down on the MRI machine and I got a real bad pain on my right side below my eye.
There was something in there.
I coughed up and a nail came up through my throat.
That is not a small nail.
Doctors say it may have been lodged in the nasal cavity for 30 years.
The magnetic force of the MRI somehow knocking it down.
Once it's in a nasal cavity like that, a little membrane forms around, and it just becomes a foreign body.
Sanchez says he has no idea how the nail got there, but it has people talking.
He's a medical miracle.
We've never seen anything like this,
Now it is all smiles for Prax Sanchez
all thanks to a nail, now wrapped safely away in a plastic bag.
Lee Powell, The Associated Press.
Doctors say it may have been lodged in the nasal cavity for 30 years.
Now it is all smiles for Prax Sanchez
Another breaking story now:
five Black Water Security contractors have just surrendered to federal authorities.
They were indicted in Washington last week in connection with a 2007 shooting that left 17 Iraqi civilians dead.
They were expected to surrender in Utah.
Why there instead of D.C.?
The AP's Matt Apuzzo says they may be shopping for a friendlier venue for a trial.
“It's possible that you'd find a more sympathetic jury, certainly a more pro-gun jury.”
Gas prices are at their lowest levels in nearly five years;
the Lundberg survey says, the average price falling 22 cents a gallon the past couple weeks.
“Never before have we seen a drop of much more than $2 per gallon in just five months.”
That's analyst Trilby Lundberg.
AAA has even newer numbers than hers;
it puts gas at a national average $1.72 a gallon this morning.
Another breaking story now:
The AP's Matt Apuzzo says they may be shopping for a friendlier venue for a trial.
“It's possible that you'd find a more sympathetic jury, certainly a more pro-gun jury.”
Cuban leader Fidel Castro says he is in stable condition and good spirits following surgery, according a statement read on Cuban TV.
“I feel perfectly fine,” Castro was quoted as saying.
On Monday he handed power temporarily to his brother Raul, to recover from his treatment for internal bleeding.
Earlier the Cuban leader, who turns 80 this month, was quoted as saying that a punishing schedule in recent weeks had affected his health.
It is not clear whether he is in hospital or recovering at home.
The statement expressed gratitude for the good wishes Castro received from around the world, and urged Cubans to maintain their daily routines.
On Monday he handed power temporarily to his brother Raul, to recover from his treatment for internal bleeding.
A big crisis of MBC .
The state-owned MBC broadcasting network is facing its biggest crisis after triggering a bombardment of public criticism and fire from all sides following its report on ethical lapses in the research work of scientist Hwang Woo-suk.
It then admitted to its own breach of ethics in journalism when filming the material that also sought to question the authenticity of Dr Hwang's work. MBC-TV publicly apologized on Sunday for violating journalism ethics while investigating Hwang's research.
It came after two researchers from Hwang's team said the producers of ""PD Notebook,"" MBC's investigative report program, used coercion, manipulation, and hidden cameras in order to secure recorded interviews unfavorable to Hwang.
It was the seventh time this year that MBC has apologized for ethical scandals and the contents of a broadcast.
Since the remarks made by the researchers were aired during an interview with YTN, a cable news network, MBC has been severely pounded by citizens, politicians and scientists.
The nation's broadcasting commission and the company are discussing different measures to deal with the crisis, including punishing the producers and possibly their supervisors.
Some people had come out in support of Gen Miranda, and the government deployed riot police, but the confrontation ended peacefully.
The man who commands the Philippines marines has been removed from his post, prompting a brief stand-off between his supporters and those of the president.
Some did so - reportedly including former President Corazon Aquino - but a new commander seems to be in control.
""We follow the chain of command.
Saddam Hussein told “Do not blame no-one else.”
The three include a prominent comedian, Zagana, who played a high-profile role in the pro-democracy demonstrations.
The actor, Kyaw Thu, and his wife were also released late on Wednesday, according to family members.
Earlier, Burma´s military leaders said they would continue searching for protesters involved in the uprising.
Meanwhile, the UN envoy to Burma, Ibrahim Gambari, said he had been invited back to the country in mid-November.
Gambari visited the ruling generals, and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, in the immediate aftermath of the crackdown.
Three prominent Burmese dissidents detained following last month´s protests have been released, the BBC has learned.
Political parody and satire have vanished across the Korean media, as the nation´s election watchdog has strengthened monitoring efforts on online personal invective and taken some cases to police.
they just change location.
Political parody and satire have vanished across the Korean media, as the nation´s election watchdog has strengthened monitoring efforts on online personal invective and taken some cases to police.
“ Jon, the President's lifting a ban on funding studies using stem cells from embryos harvested after Bush's announcement.
And, Mark, if you dig deeper, there is more to it than that.
Undoing what the other guy did - President Barack Obama is reversing another of President George W.
The AP's Mark Smith is live at the White House to tell us what that means:
“ Jon, the President's lifting a ban on funding studies using stem cells from embryos harvested after Bush's announcement.
It's been 8 years of state or private cash funding most research which doctors hope could one day find cures for Alzheimer's or severed nerves.
Scientists are hailing Obama's move, while critics say it uses taxpayer dollars to encourage the destruction of human life.”
And, Mark, if you dig deeper, there is more to it than that.
I understand the President also wants to send a message about science and politics?
“ Yeah, that's right, Jon, the President was blunt during the campaign in saying his predecessors let politics trump science on everything from endangered species to global warning.
Today, he's instructing Federal agencies to consult scientific experts on key issues, and keep ideology out.
That's Mark Smith live at the White House.
˝The Korea Times reports the nomination race of the liberal party started Monday with all nine candidates promoting themselves as the right choice to beat Lee Myung-bak, the presidential candidate of the opposition Grand National Party (GNP).
Out of the nine United New Democratic Party (UNDP) members, four will be eliminated early next month, to make the race more efficient and appealing to voters.
The common denominator of all the candidates is that they are strong advocates of engaging North Korea.
But the nine are divided into two groups-pro-President Roh Moo-hyun and anti-Roh.
The anti-Roh candidates include former Gyeonggi Province governor Sohn Hak-gyu, former Unification Minister Chung Dong-young, former lawmaker Chu Mi-ae and former justice minister Chun Jung-bae.
Former prime ministers Lee Hae-chan and Han Myung-sook, former government administration and home affairs minister Kim Doo-kwan and former health and welfare minister Ryu Shi-min are strong supporters of President Roh.˝
An attack on an African Union army base in the Sudanese region of Darfur has killed at least 10 peacekeepers.
Thirty vehicles overran the base, and 50 AU soldiers were missing and seven seriously injured.
Vehicles and property were looted or vandalized.
Rebel sources told the BBC that the raiders were members of breakaway factions from two rebel groups.
The attack came as S African Archbishop Desmond Tutu arrived in Sudan bringing a new peace initiative for Darfur.
The casualties were the most serious suffered by the AU mission since it arrived in 2003, an AU statement said.
AU-UN Joint Special Representative Rodolphe Adada said he was profoundly shocked and appalled by the “outrageous and deliberate” attack, which happened on Saturday evening at a base in Haskanita town.
The fighting is seen to come at a particularly unfortunate moment, with discussions about to take place between the AU and UN to pave the way for peace talks between government and rebels.
Prospects of an agreement at the talks are starting to look bleak, he says.
In a speech at the University of Tokyo, former President Kim Dae-jung of South Korea said yesterday that threatening to take a tough approach in an effort to bring North Korea back to stalled nuclear negotiations will not work.
Some in the United States want to put pressure on North Korea, Kim said, but ""when North Korea does not keep its promise even when provided with a fair deal, then the members of the six-party talks can come up with stern measures against Pyongyang.
"" North Korea has refused to return to the nuclear disarmament talks since last June, complaining of hostility from Washington.
Referring to a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in 2000, Kim said that he learned from his experience then that Pyongyang wants security and economic development.
The US House of Representatives has approved supporting for embryonic stem cell research.
Minority Christian groups are upset over a newspaper cartoon of Jesus holding a cigarette and what looks like a can of beer.
BBC News reports that the groups want to shut down the Malaysian newspaper that published it.
They point out that the government closed two newspapers last year when they published controversial cartoons of the prophet Mohammed.
Christians say they want the same treatment for the papers that insulted Jesus.
The ruling Uri Party suffered a crushing defeat in crucial weekend by-elections as it failed to win a single parliamentary seat while the main opposition Grand National Party swept up five seats, undermining President Roh Moo-hyun's push to pass controversial reform bills that include abolition of anti-communism laws.
The GNP's success in the voting on Saturday increased its seats to 125 in the 299-member National Assembly and blocked Uri from regaining a majority and the ability to ram through legislation.
The ruling Uri Party suffered a crushing defeat in crucial weekend by-elections as it failed to win a single parliamentary seat while the main opposition Grand National Party swept up five seats, undermining President Roh Moo-hyun's push to pass controversial reform bills that include abolition of anti-communism laws.
Moderate measures needed to settle North Korea's nuclear issue.
˝Pro-Taleban militants in Pakistan´s North Waziristan region say they have ended their truce with the government.
In a statement issued in Miranshah, the main town, the militants accused the government of breaking the agreement.
It came as Pakistan deployed more troops in the area, fearing “holy war” after the storming of the militant Red Mosque last week left 102 dead.
More than 60 Pakistanis, including soldiers and police recruits, have died in three attacks in the past two days.
Last September´s truce had ended two years of clashes and was aimed at stopping cross-border attacks into Afghanistan.
The council leaders released the statement on Sunday amid growing tension in the area.
In a second consecutive day of violence at least 11 Pakistani soldiers - and three civilians - were killed in the Swat area of North West Frontier Province.
Two suicide bombers rammed cars into a convoy - as a roadside bomb also went off.
Another 40 were injured in the attack near the town of Matta.
In the city of Dera Ismail Khan, in the same province, at least 26 people died in a blast at a police recruitment center.˝
The Joong-Ang Ilbo reports that, buoyed by public support, the United Democratic Party’s nominating committee confirmed late yesterday that despite internal opposition it will bar some top party politicians from running for the National Assembly.
Under new ethics guidelines set by the committee, any candidate who has been sentenced to jail for financial fraud or other wrongdoing will not be allowed to run under the UDP banner in the April general elections.
The list includes figures who were top aides for former presidents Roh Moo-hyun and Kim Dae-jung.
Park Jae-seung, the head of the committee, insisted on keeping the guidelines.
He said he did not understand why people were calling them unfair.
In a radio interview, Park said he was upset that the party members spoke so harshly against the plan.
Park, who is 69, is a former president of the Korean Bar Association.
Under new ethics guidelines set by the committee, any candidate who has been sentenced to jail for financial fraud or other wrongdoing will not be allowed to run under the UDP banner in the April general elections.
Yonhap is reporting the government shut down a press room in the police headquarter last week, as it continues to enforce its new media policy on journalists.
At around 11:50 p.m., some 50 policemen were deployed to block doors to the press room at the main building of the National Police Agency in central Seoul.
The police agency had cut off electricity in the press room since early last week, preparing for the eventual shutdown of the room where more than 30 journalists work.
President Roh Moo-hyun accused the press corps earlier this year of forming a sort of cartel against the government.
Since May the government´s public relations agency has been spearheading the unpopular policy of closing all press rooms in government agencies and consolidating them into a few news conference facilities.
Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has arrived in Pakistan to a jubilant welcome after seven years in exile.
Thousands of police deployed for his arrival were overwhelmed by a surge of supporters at Lahore airport who carried Sharif on their shoulders.
Thousands more accompanied the ousted prime minister as his motorcade inched its way through the city centre.
Sharif´s return comes amid a political crisis in Pakistan, which has been placed under emergency rule weeks before elections.
It is his second attempt in the past three months to end his exile.
The last time, in September, he was deported within hours of his arrival.
He told cheering crowds that his return was “not the result of any deal” with Musharraf, referring to reports that he had come home under an arrangement with the military ruler.
”My deal is with you, the people of Pakistan,” he said.
Pakistan´s prime minister says national elections will be held as scheduled, despite General Pervez Musharraf´s declaration of emergency rule.
Elections are due by mid-January, but there were fears they might be abandoned because of the crisis.
Police have broken up street protests and hundreds of lawyers and opposition activists have been arrested.
US President George W Bush called for Gen Musharraf to call elections “as soon as possible”.
The Pakistani ‘president’ said he had declared the emergency to stop the country ”committing suicide”, because the country was in a crisis caused by militant violence and an unruly judiciary.
Critics, however, believe General Musharraf was acting to pre-empt a judgment by the Supreme Court on whether his re-election last month was legal.
Treasury Department blacklisted the Banco Delta Asia bank in Macau in September 2005, accusing it of aiding the North's illegal financial activities, such as counterfeiting and money laundering.
The United States, however, is now considering unfreezing some of the funds, Yonhap News agency reported.
Citing an official in Washington, the report said the U.S. government has begun a review of several North Korean accounts at the BDA following a recent Seoul government intelligence report that said the accounts appear to contain legitimate funds.
The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said it was not clear whether Washington's review was prompted by the report, but it may lead to unfreezing as much as half of North Korea's funds, or $12 million.
Citing an official in Washington, the report said the U.S. government has begun a review of several North Korean accounts at the BDA following a recent Seoul government intelligence report that said the accounts appear to contain legitimate funds.
Six of the world's biggest polluters are meeting in Sydney, trying to find common ground to cut global warming and pollution.
The U.S. is joining Japan, China, India, Australia and South Korea at the meeting, along with more than 80 major resource and power companies.
The goal is to set voluntary and mandatory standards to reduce global warming and coal pollution, while also protecting the economic interests of the participants.
The conference is different from the Kyoto Protocol because it will not include binding greenhouse gas reduction targets, which the U.S rejects.
The conference also hopes to help countries fund new technologies that will help reduce pollution.
The U.S. is joining Japan, China, India, Australia and South Korea at the meeting, along with more than 80 major resource and power companies.
The order for the curfew - which is indefinite and also applies to troops´ relatives - came from the top US commander in Okinawa, Lt-Gen Richard Zilmer.
The US military has imposed a curfew on its troops in Okinawa amid tensions over incidents involving service personnel, including an alleged rape.
Under the curfew, which began early on Wednesday, troops´ movements will be restricted to allow them a ""period of reflection"", a military statement said.
Thousands of US troops are based in Okinawa, Japan´s southern-most island.
The recent alleged rape of a teenager by a US marine has caused outrage.
In 1995 there were mass protests in Okinawa after US troops gang-raped a 12-year-old girl - an incident which raised concerns for the future of the US-Japan security alliance.
Both US and Japanese officials are working to prevent a similar outpouring of anger, analysts say.
The order for the curfew - which is indefinite and also applies to troops´ relatives - came from the top US commander in Okinawa, Lt-Gen Richard Zilmer.
The restrictions would give troops ""an opportunity to further review procedures and orders that govern the discipline and conduct of all US service members serving in Okinawa"", it said.
The Korea Herald reports despite the election of a relatively moderate leader of the nation's umbrella labor group yesterday, labor experts are still not optimistic that the union will return to the negotiating table to discuss controversial labor reform bills.
The new head, Jo Joon ho, won the election over a candidate from a hawkish faction in the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions.
The new leadership reiterated that it cannot agree to the key issue in the bills - whether to prevent companies from using non-regular workers.
Prosecutors are investigating domestic file-sharing portal sites for alleged copyright violation practices, including unauthorized content reproduction and distribution.
The Seoul Central District Prosecutors´ Office said Monday that it had begun probing eight peer-to-peer sites at the request of the Coalition of Anti-Piracy in the Korean Movie Industry.
The coalition was established in July last year in association with 128 Korean film productions.
The anti-piracy organization blamed the Web sites in question for infringing upon film producers´ rights by unlawfully distributing movie content in cyberspace.
The Seoul Central District Prosecutors´ Office said Monday that it had begun probing eight peer-to-peer sites at the request of the Coalition of Anti-Piracy in the Korean Movie Industry.
This week's McCain-Obama debate looks a little different through the lens of the further economic damage that's been done since then;
the AP's Rita Foley with this morning's installment of our education series, or our election series, the Contenders:
“The Cato Institute's Mike Tanner was watching viewers react to the second presidential debate in real time.”
“Every time a candidate promised to give you something, the numbers went up.
And every time they talked about sacrifice, the numbers went down.
Uh… look, we want it all.
But, you know, we really can't have it all.”
“But we're gonna wind up with one of these guys as President of the United States.
Are we being short-shrifted or are we getting what we deserve?”
“We're not having an honest debate, and to some degree, it's because we don't want an honest debate.
“Rita Foley, Washington.”
As some of his supporters get angrier, McCain is out with a new ad attacking Obama in the sharpest terms yet, talking about the Democrat's association with former 60's radical Bill Ayres.
And every time they talked about sacrifice, the numbers went down.
Princess Diana and Dodi Al Fayed were murdered, Dodi´s father Mohamed Al Fayed has told the inquest into their deaths in a car crash in Paris in 1997.
Harrods department store owner Al Fayed claimed former Prime Minister Tony Blair, MI5, MI6 and the British ambassador to France were all part of the conspiracy.
And he said Princess Diana
Princess Diana and Dodi Al Fayed were murdered, Dodi´s father Mohamed Al Fayed has told the inquest into their deaths in a car crash in Paris in 1997.
Murrow challenged television to do better in his wires-and- lights-in-a-box speech:
(Murrow)“ This instrument can teach, it can illuminate, yes, and even it can inspire.”
Jon Stewart challenged CNBC to do better in explaining the economic meltdown and exposing Wall Street fraud, when he faced off with Jim Cramer last night:
(Cramer)“ The regulators watch the tape, they realize the shenanigans that go on, they can go after this.
Now, they didn't catch Madoff, that's a shame…”
(Stewart)“ When you talk about the regulators, why not the Financial News Network?
That's the whole point of this:
(Stewart)“ CNBC could be an incredibly powerful tool of illumination.”
He said both he and Cramer are snake oil salesmen, but added he labels the Daily Show as snake oil.
Washington state man has solved the mystery of a meow-ing couch.
Bought a used couch, and, yeah, (chuckling) there was a cat living in it!
Now, they didn't catch Madoff, that's a shame…”
(Stewart)“ When you talk about the regulators, why not the Financial News Network?
˝At least 87 people have died after a budget airliner crashed after landing in heavy rain at the Thai holiday resort of Phuket, officials say.
The aircraft slipped off the runway and exploded into flames.
It was carrying 123 passengers - most of them foreigners - and seven crew.
About 40 people escaped the burning wreckage and were taken to hospital.
Flight OG 269, operated by airline One-Two-Go, had flown to Phuket from the Thai capital, Bangkok.
Officials say at least 87 people were confirmed dead after the plane skidded off the runway in strong winds and driving rain on Sunday.
A French tourist aboard a plane behind the one that crashed told AFP news agency she saw the accident happen.
“When the plane landed it caught fire,” she said.
”We could see the fire coming out of it.”
Survivors crawled out of the wreckage through thick smoke, many of them badly burned.
Phuket Deputy Governor Worapot Ratthaseema said 42 people had been taken to hospital.
Five are said to be in critical condition.
At least 70 of the passengers were foreigners, officials said.˝
About 40 people escaped the burning wreckage and were taken to hospital.
Officials say at least 87 people were confirmed dead after the plane skidded off the runway in strong winds and driving rain on Sunday.
Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was the ""clear victor"" of last month´s poll, a top US envoy says.
Jendayi Frazer was speaking in South Africa, at the start of a tour to lobby Zimbabwe´s neighbours to put pressure on President Robert Mugabe.
The results of the presidential election have not been released.
Tsvangirai says he won outright but the ruling party has said no candidate gained 50% of the vote, so a run-off will be needed.
The opposition says its supporters are being attacked ahead of a possible run-off - claims denied by the government.
Earlier, the leaders of the Anglican church called for international action to prevent violence in Zimbabwe reaching ""horrific levels"".
Meanwhile, a top,,Chinese communist foreign ministry official said a ship carrying weapons to Zimbabwe might return to China.
The results of the presidential election have not been released.
The Korea Times reports the United States is mapping out a new theater war plan on the Korean Peninsula aimed at striking weapons of mass destruction in North Korea, reports said yesterday, citing an unidentified Chinese defense expert in Canada.
The U.S. move comes after North Korea's self-proclaimed nuclear weapon test on Oct.
According to the report, the United States is considering a plan against North Korea to neutralize Pyongyang's nuclear capability with overwhelming use of the U.S.
Whether the new plan is related to the joint contingency plan with South Korea, dubbed OPLAN 5027, was not confirmed.
South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) declined to comment on the report.
The U.S. move comes after North Korea's self-proclaimed nuclear weapon test on Oct.
According to the Joong-Ang Ilbo, prosecutors said yesterday they are considering indicting Chung Mong-koo, the chairman of Hyundai Motor Group, on charges of embezzlement, breach of trust, tax evasion, and bribery.
Chung presented himself yesterday morning at the Supreme Prosecutors' Office to be questioned about allegations that the Hyundai Group created a slush fund to bribe officials.
""I apologize to the people,"" . Chung told reporters before entering the office where his son, Chung Eui-sun, president of Kia Motors, had been quizzed for 18 hours last week. The prosecution said .
Chung was in charge of raising the slush fund and also illegally tried to transfer management control to his son. . Chung admitted a role in raising the fund, prosecution sources said.
Three to four bank accounts under borrowed names were used for the slush funds, the prosecution said.
The overall slush funds are estimated at more than 60 billion won ($63 million).
Chung presented himself yesterday morning at the Supreme Prosecutors' Office to be questioned about allegations that the Hyundai Group created a slush fund to bribe officials.
""I apologize to the people,"" .
We got a triple dip of economics this morning with the government's latest Citibank bailout.
The introduction of the Obama economic team and first, some words from the President, who's meeting with the Treasury Secretary right now.
We're live at the White House with AP correspondent Sauger Magoni.
“John, shortly before the President Elect unveils his new team, the President's speaking with his own and will speak with reporters in about a half hour from the Treasury Department steps next door from here, after the government announced its latest big bailout effort;
Turning the spotlight to two of the economic players to be introduced by President Elect Barack Obama at noon Eastern Time.
Our White House correspondent Mark Smith, who's in Chicago this morning:
“Obama's choice for Treasury Secretary is Timothy Geitner, who was a top Treasury official under President Clinton, and currently heads the New York Federal Reserve.
But the President Elect has also enlisted a former Treasury Secretary to head his National Economic Council, Lawrence Summers, who coordinate economic policy making at the White House.”
The introduction of the Obama economic team and first, some words from the President, who's meeting with the Treasury Secretary right now.
We're live at the White House with AP correspondent Sauger Magoni.
Turning the spotlight to two of the economic players to be introduced by President Elect Barack Obama at noon Eastern Time.
French officials in the Indian Ocean have inspected a North Korean ship under the terms of UN Security Council sanctions adopted against Pyongyang.
The ship was examined on the island of Mayotte, but there were no reports it was carrying any illegal cargo.
It is believed to be the first time a North Korean vessel has been inspected under Security Council Resolution 1718.
Customs officials carried out a “thorough and complete inspection” of the ship, its crew and its contents, a spokesman for France's foreign ministry said.
”We are exercising particular vigilance regarding cargo transported by North Korean ships, and all ships starting from or heading to North Korea,” he said.
The Associated Press news agency quoted a customs official as saying that no weapons, drugs or other prohibited material had been found on the ship or the 45-strong crew after a search ”from bow to stern and top to bottom”.
It is believed to be the first time a North Korean vessel has been inspected under Security Council Resolution 1718.
”We are exercising particular vigilance regarding cargo transported by North Korean ships, and all ships starting from or heading to North Korea,” he said.
Suzanne Scholte, head of the Washington based Neo Conservative think-tank the Defense Forum Foundation, said the South Korean government was content with the status quo in the North for fear that the secretive state might collapse.
Some 700 right-wing activists are attending the meeting in Seoul, including US ambassador to South Korea Alexander Vershbow, who on Wednesday branded North Korea a ""criminal regime"" for alleged state sanctioned drug trafficking, money laundering and arms sales.
˝President Roh Moo-hyun yesterday replaced the ministers of trade, justice, agriculture, and information and technology as part of a partial Cabinet reshuffle.
Kim Jong-hoon, the chief South Korean negotiator in free trade talks with the United States, was promoted to the post of trade minister.
He replaces Kim Hyun-chong who was named to be ambassador to the United Nations in New York.
The pair helped hammer out a free trade agreement with Washington.
Chung Soung-jin, the chairman of the Korea Independent Commission Against Corruption, was nominated as new justice minister, while Yoo Young-hwan, the vice minister of information and communication, was promoted to head the ministry.
Im Sang-gyu, minister of the Office for Government Policy Coordination, was named the new agriculture minister.˝
Kim Jong-hoon, the chief South Korean negotiator in free trade talks with the United States, was promoted to the post of trade minister.
South Korea’s fourth commercial, and first military-purpose satellite Koreasat-5 will be launched into orbit from the southern Pacific Ocean near Hawaii in July, Korea Telecom announced on Monday.
The nation’s dominant fixed-line operator said that the new satellite will be launched from a floating launch platform located at a point near the equator and 154 degrees west in longitude by an international venture firm Sea Launch.
It is the first satellite from South Korea, and the 23rd in the world, to be launched from the open sea.
The Koreasat-5 will also be the first satellite to “officially” service the military, according to the Korea Times.
It is the first satellite from South Korea, and the 23rd in the world, to be launched from the open sea.
The interest on certificates of deposit has been rapidly increasing as a result of the recent hike in the call rate.
This is raising the burden for household loans with floating rates.
Interest on mortgage loans worth 20 trillion won is 80 percent related to certificate of deposit rates.
The certificate of deposit rate closed at 4.03 percent Friday, unchanged from the previous session and contrary to forecasts of a correction following a recent surge in rates.
This is raising the burden for household loans with floating rates.
The US House of Representatives has passed a bill to more than triple government spending in Africa and other badly-affected parts of the world.
The bipartisan measure, which is backed by the White House, was passed by 308 votes to 116.
The bill marks a huge increase from the $15bn authorised during the first five years of an initiative launched by President Bush in 2003.
""There is a moral imperative to combat this epidemic,"" said Nancy Pelosi, the House´s Democratic speaker.
The initiative would be the largest US investment ever against a single disease.
South Korea is considering excluding some parts of cattle, such as brains, backbones and spinal cords, when it resumes the importation of U.S. beef as early as next year.
A livestock quarantine panel, which is responsible for determining the safety of imported beef, is expected to declare U.S. beef safe to consume and clear the way for its importation in its meeting on Wednesday.
Wildfires are burning north, south and east of Los Angeles.
The blazers are pumping huge clouds of smoke into the sky and forcing tens of thousands of people to shelters.
The latest hot spot: Orange County, where 23,000 people have evacuated their homes since yesterday.
County fire authority spokeswoman Angela Bargillo says, 10 homes and 500 apartments have been damaged or destroyed in Anaheim.
She has these totals from 3 other cities and towns.
“In Yorba Linda, we had 70 residences that were damaged or destroyed.
In Corona, we had 16 residences that were damaged and destroyed, and in Brea, um, we had a single structure at Brea High School.”
Police say they'll search today for victims in a trailer park in northern Los Angeles where some 500 mobile homes burned yesterday.
Democrat Barack Obama beat rival Hillary Clinton in Mississippi on Tuesday, giving him new momentum in their increasingly nasty presidential fight as they head into the next critical showdown in Pennsylvania in six weeks.
Reuters reports the win for Obama, who would be the first black U.S. president, extended his lead over Clinton in pledged delegates to the August nominating convention.
The Illinois senator also won Saturday in Wyoming.
Clinton revived her hopes in the Democratic race last week with big wins over Obama in Ohio and Texas, prolonging their bitter Democratic fight for the right to face Republican John McCain in November´s presidential election.
Both candidates visited Pennsylvania on Tuesday, looking ahead to an April 22 contest there that will have 158 delegates at stake
The move followed pressure from Beijing, which believes the material is too sensitive and could lead to social unrest, according to the UK´s Financial Times.
˝The World Bank is alleged to have cut from a report research that suggests pollution causes hundreds of thousands of premature deaths annually in communist China.
The move followed pressure from Beijing, which believes the material is too sensitive and could lead to social unrest, according to the UK´s Financial Times.
It said information was cut from the forthcoming report after requests from two Chinese government departments.˝
We have closed in the last week.
“Papers endorsing John McCain include the Arizona Republic, which says McCain would be a leader in the tradition of Harry Truman, with what it calls a noble willingness to stand up and stand alone.
While Barack Obama concentrates on Colorado, with rallies in Denver and Fort Collins, presidential rival John McCain is focusing his attention today on Iowa and Ohio.
Appearing on NBC's“ Meet the Press” from Waterloo, McCain disputed polls that show Obama way ahead with just 9 days before Election Day.
“Those polls have consistently shown me much further behind than we actually are.
McCain is also not worried about losing.
We have closed in the last week.
If we continue this close next week, you're going to be up very, very late on election night.”
Obama did not appear on any of the Sunday morning news shows.
As the presidential race heads in the home stretch, more newspapers are making their choices known.
“Papers endorsing John McCain include the Arizona Republic, which says McCain would be a leader in the tradition of Harry Truman, with what it calls a noble willingness to stand up and stand alone.
The Hartford Courant is among the papers backing Obama for what it says is Obama's elevating can-do message and calm temperament for these anxious times.
4 Killed as SUV Collides with Car in Tenn.
-North Korea nuclear standoff as discussions are underway at the U.N.
President George W. Bush and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe early this week.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is also scheduled to make an Asian tour as early as next week to discuss the situation on the Korean Peninsula after the North’s proclaimed nuclear test on Oct. 9 with officials of South Korea, Japan and China.
Security Council to map out punitive measures against Pyongyang.
Seoul has opposed making an ”umbrella reference ” to the chapter, saying it could open the door for putting the Korean Peninsula in danger of military conflict.
Instead, the government wants to specify which article in the chapter will be quoted in the resolution.
Article 42 allows the use of air, sea, or land forces.
Tens of thousands of right-wing Israelis have rallied in Tel Aviv, calling for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to quit over his handling of last year’s Lebanon war.
Demonstrators filled Rabin Square three days after an official interim report sharply criticized Olmert’s role in launching and running the war.
Olmert says he will stay in office and implement the report’s proposals.
But on stage in Tel Aviv a large banner carried a message directly aimed at the country’s leaders:
Organizers, who claimed 100,000 protesters were at the event, banned politicians from taking to the stage, but said politicians from all parties were welcome in the crowd.
All rights reserved.
Wall Street is holding fairly steady a day after that huge rally, with investors waiting for this afternoon's decision on interest rates from the Federal Reserve.
The Dow is down 25 points.
European markets traded mostly higher, also watching for an expected Fed cut.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is concerned about a number of European nations getting swept up by the global financial crisis.
“Our first priority at the moment is to stop the contagion at other countries including in Eastern Europe.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is concerned about a number of European nations getting swept up by the global financial crisis.
According to the Americans, the building collapsed under heavy fire killing four people - a suspect, two women and a child.
But a report filed by Iraqi police accused US troops of rounding up and deliberately shooting 11 people in the house, including five children and four women, before blowing up the building.
The video tape obtained by the BBC shows a number of dead adults and children at the site with what the network world affairs editor John Simpson says were clearly gunshot wounds.
The pictures came from a hardline Sunni group opposed to coalition forces. It has been cross-checked with other images taken at the time of events and is believed to be genuine.
According to the Americans, the building collapsed under heavy fire killing four people - a suspect, two women and a child.
The mother of stock manipulator Kim Kyung-joon is scheduled to visit Seoul today to submit to the prosecution the alleged original contracts, which the family claims will prove the leading presidential candidate´s link to the financial scam.
Kim’s sister, Erica Kim, said in a radio interview Thursday that her mother would arrive in Seoul Friday with documents to back up the claim.
The family has said that it has a ``side contract´´ that proves Grand National Party (GNP) candidate Lee Myung-bak is the actual owner of BBK, an asset management company Kim Kyung-joon set up in 1999, and is thus involved in the stock rigging.
Lee and Kim co-founded LK e-Bank in 2000.
The brother Kim was arrested for stock manipulation and corporate fund embezzlement while running BBK six years ago.
Questions about how to handle the current financial turmoil are expected tonight as John McCain and Barack Obama meet in their second debate.
The AP's Mark Smith is in Nashville.
John McCain lost ground in key polls after the first debate, and has been maneuvering over the financial bailout plan.
At four weeks in counting till Election Day, it's the ground he needs to start making up now.
Meantime, Barack Obama had trouble closing the deal with primary voters.
The question is,“ Can he start doing that with general election voters tonight?”
A small group of Chinese Muslims has been ordered to be released from Guantanamo Bay.
Federal judges ruled it would be wrong for the Bush administration to continue to hold them, since they are no longer considered enemy combatants.
And more than 300 suspected illegal immigrants were rounded up in a raid at a poultry processing plant in South Carolina.
The AP's Mark Smith is in Nashville.
Meantime, Barack Obama had trouble closing the deal with primary voters.
James Barker agreed to the plea deal at the start of his court-martial in the US to avoid the death penalty, his civilian lawyer said.
A criminal investigation began in June into the killing of the family of four in their home in Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad, in March 2006.
Specialist Barker is one of four US soldiers charged with murder.
They are alleged to have helped a former private - who has since been discharged from the army - to plan, carry out and cover up the attack.
Two of the soldiers could face the death penalty if found guilty.
All four soldiers belong to the 2nd Brigade of the elite 101st Airborne Division.
A US Army soldier has pleaded guilty to raping a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and helping murder her and her family.
A criminal investigation began in June into the killing of the family of four in their home in Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad, in March 2006.
South Korea´s economic growth is expected to slow to 4.6 percent next year, from an expected 4.8 percent expansion this year, amid global credit worries related to U.S. subprime mortgage loans, an official at the International Monetary Fund said Thursday.
“A modest slowdown, from about 4.8 percent this year to 4.6 percent in 2008, is expected with a sharper-than expected U.S. slowdown the key risk,” said Jerald Schiff, the assistant director of Asia-Pacific Department at the IMF, in a breakfast meeting in Seoul.
”We estimate that a 1 percentage point fall in the U.S. growth rate could still lead to a 0.25 to 0.5 percent decline in Korea,” Schiff said.
South Korean officials have played down the impact of the U.S. subprime crisis, saying the nation´s economic fundamentals are strong.
The FDA is giving the hurry-up to salmonella tests:
“ Right now, it can take as long as 9 days to identify the most common of food contaminants, so the Food and Drug Administration is sounding the alarm for a faster test.
Two recent outbreaks - one involving peanut butter, the other involving tomatoes and hot peppers - have put the agency on the spot, so the FDA has asked the Pentagon, Homeland Security, Agriculture, and the CDC to lend a hand.
Brian Thomas, Washington.”
Premium bird seed imported from India has hit an all-time high, after January rain storms wiped out 50% of the Niger crop ? that's the good stuff that attracts colorful finches.
And it's now going 60 bucks for a 50-pound bag.
The Dow-Jones industrial average now up more than 250 points, NASDAQ ahead 61.
“ Right now, it can take as long as 9 days to identify the most common of food contaminants, so the Food and Drug Administration is sounding the alarm for a faster test.
Two recent outbreaks - one involving peanut butter, the other involving tomatoes and hot peppers - have put the agency on the spot, so the FDA has asked the Pentagon, Homeland Security, Agriculture, and the CDC to lend a hand.
Premium bird seed imported from India has hit an all-time high, after January rain storms wiped out 50% of the Niger crop ?
Expectations are high ahead of Obama's inauguration, senior aide David Axelrod tells ABC's This Week that the administration will focus on an economy that he says will take time to fix:
The day after the inauguration, Wednesday, is being described as Day One for Obama.
President-elect Barack has a full slate of pre-inaugural events today, including a star-studded concert this afternoon at the Lincoln Memorial.
“This morning the President-elect is laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington Cemetery, then going to worship services at a yet-to-be-announced Washington church.
This afternoon, he keynotes the Inaugural's opening gala, which is also a star-studded concert featuring performers running the gamut from James Taylor to Will.I.Am.
Expectations are high ahead of Obama's inauguration, senior aide David Axelrod tells ABC's This Week that the administration will focus on an economy that he says will take time to fix:
“I think it's fair to say that it's going to take not months, but years, to really turn this around.”
The day after the inauguration, Wednesday, is being described as Day One for Obama.
On the agenda for the new president that day:
a meeting on Iraq with the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
In Gaza, Palestinian militants armed with deadlier missiles than ever before, have been firing again at Israeli border towns.
It's estimated that tenth of Israeli's population is now within rocket range.
And as Israel keeps up its air attacks, former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tells the CBS Early Show, Gaza's Hamas rulers have got to go:
“Long live Palestine!
These pro-Palestinian protesters in New York say it's Israel that's to blame:
“We wanna raise awareness among the Americans here so they can understand what's going on, and also call for an anti-U.S. support, because it is U.S. planes that are bombing Gaza.”
Tens of thousands of homes and businesses also remain without power.
That, after a nasty cold front, blew through the other day.
The Dow is up just a few points.
These pro-Palestinian protesters in New York say it's Israel that's to blame:
The Dow is up just a few points.
˝The billions of dollars being spent in Iraq could be better used to improve things in America.
That´s the message in a new report by the activist group U.S.
The group says the nearly half-trillion dollars spent on the Iraq war could be better spent on domestic infrastructure and healthcare.
William McNary, president of U.S. Action, also says the money would be better spent on helping the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
He adds education and housing to the priorities that should come ahead of Iraq.˝
The Korea Times reports the nation´s spy chief could face a criminal investigation for leaking confidential information in violation of internal National Intelligence Service (NIS) regulations.
The speculation arose after he offered to resign Tuesday, amid mounting criticism over leaking classified documents detailing a conversation between himself and his North Korean counterpart, Kim Yang-gon.
Playing politics, the conservative Grand National Party (GNP) called on the prosecution to start an immediate investigation into the incident.
In a hurriedly arranged news conference, NIS director Kim Man-bok said he had tendered his resignation to President Roh Moo-hyun.
``I feel responsible for the leak and have decided to step down.´´ He made public his intention to quit the post after talking with a Cheong Wa Dae secretary.
President Roh Moo-hyun´s spokesman Cheon Ho-seon indicated that Roh will accept the resignation, indicating that he was to be dismissed for his mishandling of confidential information.
Another Hollywood strike looming as talks break down between the Screen Actors Guild and producers.
AP's Christina Ho reports from Los Angeles as sides remain far apart on compensation for shows shown over the Internet:
“This is the same issue that's really sort of rippling through Hollywood these days, which is new media and how the actors, writers, directors, even stage hands are gonna be compensated for these new TV shows and web-specific productions.”
Three quarters of the SAGs, 120,000 members, have to approve any strike action.
In what many consider further interference in Korean domestic policy, the general in charge of U.S. forces in South Korea expressed concerns Wednesday about Seoul's plans to cut its military manpower through a reduction of the mandatory military service period.
Bell also told lawmakers in Washington that he remained wary of North Korea's intentions, despite the North's recent agreement to begin dismantling its nuclear weapons programs in return for aid.
South Korea plans to cut the number of its troops to 500,000 by 2020, and gradually shorten the current two-year term of compulsory military service by six months by 2014 as part of its defense reform and efforts to boost the civilian workforce.
The United States does not mandate military service for its young men.
Bell also told lawmakers in Washington that he remained wary of North Korea's intentions, despite the North's recent agreement to begin dismantling its nuclear weapons programs in return for aid.
˝Southern California found out over the weekend that shaking and baking isn´t just a way to cook chicken.
A four-point-seven magnitude earthquake shook the region Sunday, but no injuries or damage were reported.
The quake´s epicenter was about eight miles northwest of Lake Elsinore.
Meanwhile, the National Weather Service has issued an excessive heat warning for most of Southern California due to the heatwave baking the area.˝
Two British journalists working in Iraq for US news network CBS are among at least 41 people killed in a day of bomb attacks in and around Baghdad.
Cameraman Paul Douglas and soundman James Brolan died when a car bomb hit the US military unit they were accompanying in the Iraqi capital.
CBS correspondent Kimberly Dozier, who previously worked for BBC World Service radio, was seriously injured. She is undergoing a second bout of surgery at a US military hospital.
The CBS team was accompanying soldiers of the 4th Infantry Division.
A US army officer and an Iraqi interpreter died in the same attack
The first regular freight service for over half a century began Tuesday operating across the heavily fortified border between North and South Korea.
The daily freight service is the first tangible result of an inter-Korean summit in October between President Roh Moo-hyun and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.
The two leaders agreed on a package of cross-border economic cooperation projects including the train operation.
The last regular rail operation was in 1951, a year after the three-year Korean War broke out.
The freight service, agreed upon at the inter-Korean prime ministers´ talks last month, will connect South Korea with the joint industrial complex in Gaeseong, in the North.
Emergency aid has begun to arrive on the Indonesian island of Java for the victims of Saturday's earthquake.
The number of dead now stands at 5,698, the social affairs ministry says.
The 6.3 magnitude earthquake near the ancient southern city of Yogyakarta left thousands more injured and as many as 200,000 without homes.
The political stir created by President Roh Moo-hyun last week does not look as if it will cool down anytime soon, as a group of 70 former military leaders were to meet Tuesday to adopt a statement strongly criticizing what the pro-opposition Korea Times calls ‘disparaging remarks’ about the military.
Former defense ministers, former chiefs of staff and other retired generals will hold a hurriedly-arranged meeting to demand an apology from Roh, according to the Retired Korean Generals and Admirals Association.
In what the Times calls an agitated speech last Thursday, Roh harshly criticized conservatives, including some retired generals, for having recklessly opposed his security policies such as plans to take wartime operational control back from the United States.
He argued that the retired generals, kowtowed to the United States in the past while not pursuing a more independent military capability and are now opposing the transfer of military command.
``They should feel ashamed for their dereliction of duty,’’ he said.
Roh also invited angry reactions from the military, by saying that younger men should be relieved of their mandatory military service so that they could marry and raise families earlier, instead of ``exhausting their time in the military.’
’ A high-level Chong Wa Dae official said the next day that the government is considering shortening the military service period as part of efforts to maximize the size of the country’s productive workforce.
In protest against the expulsions, about 100 students, including those who received the penalty, held a rally yesterday, cutting their hair.
On April 5, the students detained nine professors for about 17 hours on a stairway of a school building, calling for the university to grant students in the college of health science the right to vote in the students' union.
The college was incorporated into the university this year, and students who entered the college before the merger are not acknowledged as members of the university ― so they are not allowed to vote.
Korea University permanently expelled seven students on Wednesday as a penalty for detaining nine professors earlier this month, according to the Joong-Ang Ilbo.Korea University is one of the top three universities of the country.
On April 5, the students detained nine professors for about 17 hours on a stairway of a school building, calling for the university to grant students in the college of health science the right to vote in the students' union.
The prosecution plans to announce its decision on whether to request an arrest warrant for Hyundai Automotive Group chairman Chung Mong-koo or his son on Thursday over their alleged involvement in the slush fund scandal surrounding the country's biggest carmaker.
Chairman Chung and his son Chung Eui-sun, who is 36, president of group affiliate Kia Motors, could be indicted for fraud or embezzlement if allegations about their irregularities are confirmed.
The 68-year-old chairman is suspected of masterminding a series of business malpractices to create about 100 billion won ($106 million) in secret funds through group affiliates, using the money to unlawfully transfer corporate wealth to his family.
There are also allegations Hyundai Automotive's executives bribed politicians and bureaucrats for business favors in past years.
Singapore's governing party faces a fight for power for the first time in 18 years.
Opposition parties say they have raised enough candidates to contest more than half the seats up for grabs in the May 6 th vote.
It denies the ruling People's Action Party the guaranteed victory it has enjoyed in the last three polls.
However one opposition party was hit with a lawsuit alleging defamation against the Singapore prime minister.
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and his father, former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, are suing the Singapore Democratic Party leader Chee Soon Juan and other party members over articles they wrote criticizing the government's handling of a scandal at the National Kidney Foundation.
Opposition figures have been sued for libel in the past, and sometimes bankrupted.
˝Japan´s beleaguered PM Shinzo Abe has started campaigning for upper house elections, knowing that a heavy defeat could propel him from office.
Half of the upper house seats are being contested in the July 29 polls.
Abe´s ruling coalition currently controls the house, but his popularity waned after he took power last year.
Defeat would not automatically cost Abe his job, as it is the lower house which chooses the prime minister, but he may feel compelled to leave.
Campaigning in Tokyo, Abe acknowledged that he and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party would be fighting “a very tough battle” in the polls.
But he urged voters to stick with him.
”It is important that you give me the power to carry out reforms,” he said.
In a recent poll, his popularity fell to 30%, and he has been hit by successive ministerial scandals.
Earlier this month his defense minister, Fumio Kyuma, resigned over comments he made about the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.˝
Campaigning in Tokyo, Abe acknowledged that he and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party would be fighting “a very tough battle” in the polls.
The main candidates in the French presidential election have held their final campaign rallies.
A new opinion poll indicates that centre-right candidate Nicolas Sarkozy is still leading with 29%, ahead of the Socialist Segolene Royal at 25%.
The BVA poll also showed the centrist candidate Francois Bayrou slipping a few points to 15%.
But at least one-third of voters remain undecided ahead of Sunday’s first round.
A runoff is expected on May 6.
The main candidates in the French presidential election have held their final campaign rallies.
A runoff is expected on May 6.
The French Government has authorized a range of emergency powers in an effort to combat 12 nights of rioting.
The move, announced by interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy, allows local authorities to impose curfews and lets police perform raids without warrants.
The city of Amiens is the first to declare an overnight curfew, affecting unaccompanied under 16-year-olds.
Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin has outlined to MPs an accompanying program to improve social conditions.
The nightly protests have gripped deprived areas with large African and Arab Muslim communities where unemployment is rife and residents complain of racism and discrimination.
The French Government has authorized a range of emergency powers in an effort to combat 12 nights of rioting.
The move, announced by interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy, allows local authorities to impose curfews and lets police perform raids without warrants.
The US Senate has passed a bill calling for all US combat troops to leave Iraq within a year, defying a veto threat.
The vote of 51 to 47 links funding for the war to a goal of getting US combat troops out of Iraq by March 2008.
The House has passed a similar bill.
The Senate bill approves $122bn in funds - mostly for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq - but also orders the president to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq within 120 days of passage of the bill.
It sets a goal of pulling all combat troops out of Iraq by the end of March of next year, but does not explicitly demand their removal.
The House and Senate must now reconcile their two versions of the bill and send the result to Bush.
If he refuses to sign the bill, it will not become law.
The Senate vote came only an hour after George W Bush made his third vow in less than a week to veto such a law.
The House and Senate must now reconcile their two versions of the bill and send the result to Bush.
Organizers of the 2008 Beijing Olympics say they are investigating reports that children are being exploited in the manufacture of official merchandise.
Jiang Xiaoyu of the Beijing organizing committee said that if the reports were true then the factories involved would lose their Olympic business.
A global trade union group has accused factories in communist China of using child labor, forced overtime and low wages to boost profit.
The four companies cited in the report have denied the allegations.
Playfair - an alliance of world trade unions - said in its report that it had found “severe workers’ rights violations” in factories licensed to make official Olympic caps, bags, stationery and other merchandise.
The report - entitled ”No medal for the Olympics on labor rights” - said such violations included ”adult wages at half the legal minimum [and] employment of workers as young as 12 years old”.
Earlier yesterday the USS Kitty Hawk from Yokosuka, Japan, arrived at Pusan with about 5,200 sailors and 60 aircraft, including F-16 Super Hornets.
President George W. Bush may stay on the U.S. aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk, which arrived in the port of Pusan for military exercises, while attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Pusan, sources said on Sunday.
Bush will arrive in South Korea Wednesday, one day ahead of the scheduled summit with President Roh Moo-hyun in the southeastern city of Kyongju, a U.S.
Earlier yesterday the USS Kitty Hawk from Yokosuka, Japan, arrived at Pusan with about 5,200 sailors and 60 aircraft, including F-16 Super Hornets.
North Korea presented a roadmap toward its ultimate abandonment of nuclear weapons.
Korea´s first astronaut, Yi So-yeon, was moved to a hospital in Moscow for recovery Sunday morning after safely landing on the Kazakhstan steppe Saturday evening.
For about a week, Yi will undergo various medical check-ups while adjusting to gravity in the Gagarin Space Center hospital.
She is expected to return to South Korea on April 28, where a heroine´s welcome awaits her.
When she was rescued from the charred Soyuz vehicle on the Kazahkstan steppe, Yi looked so exhausted that she was not able to walk by herself.
Veteran crewmates Peggy Whitson of the United States and Yuri Malenchenko of Russia also looked worn out.
She is expected to return to South Korea on April 28, where a heroine´s welcome awaits her.
A gap in the nation's food safety program is uncovered at a hearing on the nationwide salmonella outbreak:
“Senators seemed stunned when the FDA's Food Safety Chief told them there is no requirement for food manufacturers or state inspectors to reveal when products are found to have been contaminated by salmonella or other dangerous bacteria.
Tom Harkin is Chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee:
“That is one gaping loophole.
“Senator Patrick Leahy, meanwhile, says fines are not enough to force companies to adhere to food safety laws:
“The revelation came as lawmakers delved into a fatal salmonella outbreak that's been linked to a peanut plant in Georgia.
Jerry Bodlander, Capitol Hill.”
A confirmation hearing for one Obama cabinet nominee gets under way at this hour;
the Senate Intelligence Committee will be hearing from Leon Panetta today.
He's President Obama's pick to head the CIA.
Some questions have been raised, though, about his lack of experience in intelligence matters.
Meanwhile, the Senate panel has now put off a scheduled vote on the nomination of Hilda Solis as Labor Secretary.
“That is one gaping loophole.
Labor shortages will cut the nation's economic growth potential to 4.3 percent between 2011 and 2020, a team of experts working with the government said yesterday.
“A reduction in the number of employed people and working hours is projected to pull the potential growth rate further down to 2.8 percent in the 10 years to 2030,” the Vision 2030 research team said in a report.
Capital input and productivity, however, won't play a major role in reining growth potential, it said.
Korea's potential growth rate continued to fall from 8.6 percent between 1982 and 1990 to 6.3 percent between 1991 and 2000, and 4.4 percent between 2001 and 2005.
The estimated growth potential for the five years to 2010 is 4.9 percent.
The report attributed the decline in the 1990s to decelerating growth in manpower and productivity.
Growth potential shrank in the next few years because investment levels fell.
Korea's potential growth rate continued to fall from 8.6 percent between 1982 and 1990 to 6.3 percent between 1991 and 2000, and 4.4 percent between 2001 and 2005.
Admiral William Fallon told a Senate confirmation hearing that ”time is short” for the US to turn Iraq around.
About 40 people were killed across the country in a series of bomb and mortar attacks as Shia Muslims celebrated the festival of Ashura.
In the worst attack, a suicide bomber killed 19 people at a mosque in Baladruz, north-east of Baghdad.
Elsewhere, 11 people died in an attack in Khanaqin, in the same region. And in Baghdad, at least 10 people were killed by mortar fire in the mainly Sunni district of Adhamiyah.
More than 100 people were injured in the attacks.
President George W Bush's nominee to be the new commander of US military forces in the Middle East has called for a “new and different” approach in Iraq.
Admiral William Fallon told a Senate confirmation hearing that ”time is short” for the US to turn Iraq around.
His comments came on another day of bloodshed in Iraq.
In the worst attack, a suicide bomber killed 19 people at a mosque in Baladruz, north-east of Baghdad.
Delegates of the two Koreas visited Seodaemun Prison History Hall, where the colonial Japanese detained and tortured Korean independence fighters, and demanded adequate apologies and compensation from Japan for their brutal rule.
On the second day of a joint festival in Seoul to commemorate the 60th anniversary of Korea's liberation from Japan's 1910-1945 colonial rule, the representatives of the two Koreas strongly criticized Japan's history distortion and urged Japan to stop paying homage at the Yasukuni shrine which honors Japanese war dead along with convicted war criminals.
Former President Kim Dae-jung urged the United States on Monday to show ``more flexibility'' to offer North Korea ``concrete benefits'' in return for the dismantlement of all nuclear weapons programs.
In an address to the Asia Foundation in San Francisco, Kim suggested that North Korea commit itself to a verifiable denuclearization and that the U.S., at the same time, give security assurances and ease the economic sanctions imposed on the impoverished North.
Government scrutinizing price and illegal collusion of apartments scheduled for reconstruction.
Kim was hospitalized yesterday afternoon at Yonsei University where he is being treated, doctors said, for pneumonia.
Kim had reportedly been planning to speak out Saturday on the 32nd anniversary of his return to Korea after his kidnapping by the national intelligence agency under then-dictator Park Chung Hee.
Following reports that former President Kim Dae-jung was preparing a statement to take issue with the Blue House's handling of the wiretapping scandal, it was announced the 79-year-old Mr.
Kim had reportedly been planning to speak out Saturday on the 32nd anniversary of his return to Korea after his kidnapping by the national intelligence agency under then-dictator Park Chung Hee.
Until recently, it was easy to find picky shoppers being particular over every detail of a product´s class and quality, not minding the number on the price tag.
But the tough economy is bringing people back to the ways of old times, when quantity beat quality.
``Mothers, who are traditionally a major consumer force in Korea, have lately become more frugal,´´ said Lim Eun-kyung, team leader of a consumer group at the Seoul YMCA.
``Even 500 won makes a difference for them now.
The European Parliament on Thursday adopted a resolution demanding that Japan apologize to and compensate women it mobilized as sex slaves before and during World War II.
Yonhap reports the resolution passed with 54 ayes out of 57 members present, marking the fourth time that foreign countries have held Japan accountable for the “comfort women” and pressed for an official apology.
House in July, and the Netherlands and Canadian lower houses last month.
Comfort women is a euphemism for hundreds of thousands of young girls, many of them kidnapped or lured by the Japanese, placed in frontline brothels to provide sex to Japanese soldiers.
The majority of the victims were Koreans, whose nation was under Japanese colonial rule before its liberation at the end of World War II.
Tokyo´s leaders have expressed ”regrets” to the now-aged victims, but the women as well as other governments denounce Japan for what they see as an evasion of a formal acknowledgement of wrongdoing.
The issue is compounded by other history issues, such as Japan´s whitewashing or denials of its colonial atrocities in its school textbooks.
The European resolution calls on Tokyo to accept historical and legal responsibility, in an unequivocal manner, for the coercion of young women into sexual slavery and to eliminate barriers restricting compensation for the victims.
Discovery, the space shuttle, comes back safely.
Discovery landed at Edwards Air Force Base when bad weather forced a change to the intended Florida landing site.
""It's absolutely fantastic to be back on planet Earth,"" said Discovery's commander Eileen Collins at a post-landing press conference on Tuesday.
But the first woman to command a shuttle mission added that the crew had experienced mixed feelings:
"" NASA officials cheered and clapped as Commander Collins made a perfect landing on runway 22 at Edwards Air Force Base about 54 minutes before dawn. The shuttle Discovery has touched down successfully in California after the first mission since 2003's Columbia disaster.
On leaving Discovery, the crew went to inspect the vehicle on the tarmac.
United States is willing to open an office in Pyongyang conditionally.
The United States is willing to open an office in Pyongyang if North Korea takes concrete steps of dismantling its nuclear weapons programs, Alexander Vershbow, Washington’s top envoy to Seoul, said on Wednesday.
The ambassador’s remarks seemed designed to rebuff North Korea’s repeated claims that the U.S. should first abandon its ``ambition’’ to topple the Pyongyang regime.
Vershbow said the Kim Jong-il regime creates fear of an outside enemy to ``justify’’ or to ``cover up’’ the failures of its own domestic policies.
In the last round of talks in September, North Korea agreed to dismantle its nuclear programs in return for economic benefits and diplomatic recognition.
Vershbow said that the foundation of the Seoul-Washington relationship is becoming stronger.
But he warned that a lack of proper attention could undermine it.
Reports have been circulating in Korean financial markets that Lone Star had selected Citibank as its agent to arrange the sale of Korea Exchange Bank.
But a Lone Star official denied the rumors, which surfaced just a month after another report had Deutsche Bank as Lone Star's agent in selling the Korean bank.
The proposal is outlined in a classified directive booklet by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which was issued after the North's atomic test in October, the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said.
With its own missile defense plan, Seoul would beef up its independent aerial defense capabilities rather than participating in a U.S.-led missile defense system, the analyst said.
“The Korean ballistic and guided missile defense system would take a basic form compared to the U.S.
-Japan system,” the source said.
The antiballistic missiles would be designed to intercept low-flying short- and medium-range ballistics such as Scud, Frog and Nodong missiles, he added.
The United States and Japan are currently jointly developing a global missile defense system for all types of medium- and long-range missiles, including North Korea's intercontinental Taepodong-2 missiles which are thought to be capable of reaching the U.S. mainland.
Washington has hinted that it would like South Korea to join the program.
“The Korean ballistic and guided missile defense system would take a basic form compared to the U.S.
Police arrested a 70-year-old man Tuesday after he confessed to the premeditated arson of Namdaemun ― the 610-year-old south gate in central Seoul out of anger against the government over a land compensation dispute.
Police say the man, identified by his family name Chae, was mentally sound although he will undergo a medical and competency checkup.
Chae committed the arson after he concluded that the authorities were ignoring his petition against developers who allegedly did not pay him in full for land he sold them, said Nam Hyun-woo, head of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency´s criminal investigation unit.
It is the second time the senior citizen has committed arson.
In April 2006, he was given an 18-month jail sentence suspended for two years and fined 13 million won after being found guilty of starting a fire that demolished part of Changgyeong Palace in Seoul, a World Heritage site.
Police arrested a 70-year-old man Tuesday after he confessed to the premeditated arson of Namdaemun ― the 610-year-old south gate in central Seoul out of anger against the government over a land compensation dispute.
Japan´s main opposition leader Ichiro Ozawa has offered to resign from his position as head of the Democratic Party of Japan.
Ozawa´s announcement came after he took criticism within his party for not immediately turning down a coalition offer from the country´s new leader.
Japan has faced legislative deadlock in recent weeks, with the country´s role in Afghanistan a key area of dispute.
""The North Koreans have again clearly isolated themselves,"" White House press secretary Tony Snow told reporters.
He said President George W Bush had consulted Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley.
Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill is set to fly out to the region later on Wednesday, while Hadley would be meeting his South Korean counterpart in Washington, in a meeting which had already been scheduled.
Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe said Tokyo ""strongly protested"" the move by North Korea.
""This is a grave problem in terms of peace and stability not only of Japan but also of international society,"" he said.
In Seoul, the South Korean government called an emergency cabinet meeting.
Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill is set to fly out to the region later on Wednesday, while Hadley would be meeting his South Korean counterpart in Washington, in a meeting which had already been scheduled.
Bahk Byong-won, the chief negotiator for inter-Korean economic cooperation, said on Tuesday that economic aid to the North was not free and that Seoul had clearly sent that message in previous meetings between the two Koreas.
Bahk Byong-won, the chief negotiator for inter-Korean economic cooperation, said on Tuesday that economic aid to the North was not free and that Seoul had clearly sent that message in previous meetings between the two Koreas.
Sunshine today and the forecast for the Midwest, which has seen wild weather in the past week or so, from sub-zero temperatures and blizzard conditions to balmy and rainy, with all the snow melting and the rivers rising.
The AP's Karen Russo reports from Chicago:
“Flood warnings and flood advisories all over the northern part of the state, but because the storm system was moving across the state we've also had tornado watches, and hail sightings and funnel cloud sightings in the southern part of the state.”
About 276,000 homes and businesses are without power in Michigan, high winds knocking down tree limbs and power lines.
Power companies cannot predict when they'll get all the lights back on.
“Flood warnings and flood advisories all over the northern part of the state, but because the storm system was moving across the state we've also had tornado watches, and hail sightings and funnel cloud sightings in the southern part of the state.”
Power companies cannot predict when they'll get all the lights back on.
The international community stepped up efforts over the Chuseok holiday to stop North Korea from testing a nuclear weapon, as concern grew that a test might be imminent.
The latest diplomatic efforts to dissuade the North from a test came yesterday, when Shinzo Abe, Japan's new prime minister, met President Hu Jintao of China.
Despite strained relations over Japan's imperial past and its interpretation of that history, the two leaders found common ground in discussing the North's nuclear brinkmanship.
Their meeting, China's Foreign Ministry told reporters, resulted in agreement on the issue that generally echoed a UN statement issued Friday.
The latest diplomatic efforts to dissuade the North from a test came yesterday, when Shinzo Abe, Japan's new prime minister, met President Hu Jintao of China.
The 31-year-old will serve his sentence in Yatala prison near Adelaide.
David Hicks, the Australian convicted of supporting terrorism by a US military court, has arrived home from Guantanamo Bay.
He admitted training with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan in 2001, but denied any prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks.
The 31-year-old will serve his sentence in Yatala prison near Adelaide.
˝The 22 passengers and crew, including 13 South Korean tourists, on a chartered plane that crashed in southern Cambodia on Monday, have been found dead.
The Cambodian government confirmed the deaths, Wednesday, after the plane´s wreckage was found on a mountain.
Nuon Sary, deputy police chief of Kampot province, said that the Russian-made AN-24 flying from Siem Reap to the south seemed to have hit the mountain, leaving no survivors, according to AFP.
The location of the crashed plane was identified after a three-day extensive search and rescue operation by both Korean and Cambodian teams.
Heavy rain and strong wind at the crash site frustrated search teams.
Only a small number of rescuers could reach the crash site due to the bad weather and harsh environment.
The bodies are now being moved to a hospital in Phnom Penh where bereaved family members will be allowed to confirm their identities.
However, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said it cannot confirm the deaths of the South Koreans until a Korean medical team in Cambodia verifies their fate.
Cho Hee-yong, the ministry´s spokesman confirmed that the plane didn´t explode and seemed not to have caught fire as its main fuselage remains whole though it has some serious damage.
All bodies but one were found inside the plane.
The crash site, a dense jungle, 167 kilometers south of Phnom Penh was spotted by the crew of a rescue helicopter earlier in the day.
The passenger list includes 13 Korean names along with three Czech tourists.
Also on board were a Russian pilot and five Cambodian crew-members.
Meanwhile, there was an overwhelming outpouring of grief and sorrow, Wednesday, when the Cambodian government officially announced the death of the 22 passengers.
At the time of the announcement, the families were on their way to the crash site, but immediately returned to Phnom Penh to get details and other information.
Some appeared dazed after realizing that their last hope of seeing their family members again was gone.”
Only a small number of rescuers could reach the crash site due to the bad weather and harsh environment.
But the BBC reports South Korea's decision will be seen as a set-back to US efforts to present a united front against North Korea.
Park said South Korea's decision could change depending on the progress on the six-nation talks, which are due to restart within the coming weeks.
The issue of North Korea is set to dominate when 21 world leaders meet in Vietnam this weekend for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.
At the same news conference, Lee Kwan-se, a Unification Ministry official, said South Korea would continue with the measures it introduced even before the October test - including the suspension of humanitarian aid to the North.
South Korea is one of several countries due to submit their report to the UN on Monday, outlining how they will implement the sanctions, which call for an arms embargo, a travel ban for senior officials and a ban on the shipment of luxury goods.
The PSI is a voluntary initiative that was launched in 2003 as a way of stopping the spread of weapons of mass destruction by stopping suspicious cargo ships at sea.
But the BBC reports South Korea's decision will be seen as a set-back to US efforts to present a united front against North Korea.
˝A key Sunni ally of the US and Iraqi governments has been killed in a bomb attack in the Iraqi city of Ramadi.
Abdul Sattar Abu Risha, who was 37, led what was known as the “Anbar Awakening”, an alliance of Sunni Arab tribes that rose up against the alleged presence of al-Qaeda in Iraq.
US President George Bush met and endorsed the sheikh last week in Iraq.
The White House, which has held up the movement in Anbar province as an example for the rest of Iraq, condemned his assassination as ”an outrage”.
Abu Risha´s assassination is believed to be a severe blow to the ”Awakening” in Anbar.
Meanwhile, US President George W Bush is expected to back a limited withdrawal of troops in an address on his Iraq war strategy.
The gradual pull-out would take troop numbers back to their level before Bush ordered a build-up this year.
The Democrats say more must be withdrawn.
Bush´s televised speech is expected to follow the advice of US commander in Iraq, Gen David Petraeus, who gave a progress report to Congress this week
˝A key Sunni ally of the US and Iraqi governments has been killed in a bomb attack in the Iraqi city of Ramadi.
Bush´s televised speech is expected to follow the advice of US commander in Iraq, Gen David Petraeus, who gave a progress report to Congress this week
˝Officials at a Japanese nuclear power plant have reported 50 malfunctions caused by Monday´s strong earthquake near the town of Kashiwazaki.
In addition to a fire, there were leaks of radioactive water and gas and drums containing nuclear waste burst open.
The company running the plant has said none of the leaks are harmful to people or the environment.
But the industry´s safety is being questioned and Shinzo Abe said the problems were not reported soon enough.
Abe said “The nuclear power plants can only be operated with the trust of the people”.
The magnitude 6.8 earthquake killed nine people and flattened hundreds of homes in the coastal town of Kashiwazaki in Niigata prefecture.˝
The company running the plant has said none of the leaks are harmful to people or the environment.
The top U.S. diplomat on the North Korean nuclear crisis, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, said yesterday the fate of six-party talks was in doubt after a day of discussions in China, host of three rounds of inconclusive negotiations.
The top U.S. diplomat on the North Korean nuclear crisis, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, said yesterday the fate of six-party talks was in doubt after a day of discussions in China, host of three rounds of inconclusive negotiations.
""The future of talks is very much uncertain at this point,"" Hill told reporters as he left his hotel in Beijing.
The Japanese government has hit back in the history text book war.
The introduction of a bill which would heavily restrict pornography in Indonesia has been attacked by women's rights campaigners in the country, who fear it is the first step towards the implementation of Islamic Sharia law.
The bill has polarized society in the country, with conservative Islamic groups - who say tighter controls are needed - pressing for its swift passage into law.
But many women's groups and artists fear proposals to crack down on anything regarded as pornography by the bill's sponsors could restrict freedoms.
Analysts say the move shows the North Koreans are serious about a pledge to “shut down and seal” the reactor.
˝A team of UN nuclear inspectors is heading to a North Korean reactor at the centre of a key disarmament deal.
It will be the first international monitoring team to be given access to the Yongbyon plant since 2002.
Analysts say the move shows the North Koreans are serious about a pledge to “shut down and seal” the reactor.
But in a sign the North remains anxious to prove its bargaining power, it tested a ballistic missile on Wednesday - the fourth such test since early May.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe criticised the short-range missile launch, calling it a provocation that defied the UN, and could destabilize the region.
The White House said it was ”deeply troubled” by the move, which happened at a ”delicate time” in the international negotiations over North Korea´s nuclear decommissioning.
The four-person International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) team is hoping to spend most of Thursday and Friday at the Yongbyon site.
The plant, about 100km (65 miles) north of Pyongyang, is thought to be in a heavily guarded area defended by anti-aircraft positions, and the compound houses over 100 buildings.˝
Unilateral action by Turkey in Iraq could have “very grave consequences” and set a worrying precedent, Iraq´s deputy prime minister has warned.
Barham Saleh says such action could destabilise the region and prompt other neighboring states to step in.
Turkey has said its patience has run out over the handling of Kurdish rebels based in northern Iraq.
It is seeking parliamentary permission for a cross-border operation to pursue Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) members.
Ankara argues the group is a terrorist organization responsible for the deaths of at least 15 Turkish soldiers earlier this month, and says the Kurdish separatists enjoy freedom of movement in northern Iraq.
Baghdad has called for ”urgent negotiations” over Turkey´s threat and has sent Iraqi Vice-President Tareq Hashemi to Ankara.
Meanwhile, the head of the UN refugee agency said he was deeply concerned that the Turkish action could lead to big displacements of people.
Greenpeace conservation activists say they have disrupted the Japanese whale hunt near Antarctica´s coast by chasing a factory ship out of the whaling zone.
Crew from protest ship Esperanza said they were maintaining the chase as the whalers cannot hunt at the same time.
A spokesman for Japan´s whale hunt said Greenpeace´s actions were illegal and people should not treat them as heroes.
Japan´s whaling fleet plans to kill about 900 minke whales and 50 fin whales by mid-April.
The hunt is part of what it calls a scientific research program, permitted under a clause in International Whaling Commission rules.
But Australia and other nations say the same research goals could be achieved using non-lethal methods, and call the research program a front for commercial whaling.
The hunt has suspended plans to kill 50 humpback whales, amid a storm of international criticism.
A number of ships are in southern waters on the trail of the hunters, including an Australian patrol ship that plans to video the whalers for a possible legal challenge, and the Steve Irwin, belonging to the radical Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.A schism has emerged between the protest groups as Greenpeace has pledged to take non-violent action to prevent the hunt, while Sea Shepherd has suggested more direct action to “shut the criminals down”.
A spokesman for Japan´s whale hunt said Greenpeace´s actions were illegal and people should not treat them as heroes.
The Defense Ministry said Thursday it will adopt a French-style military reform, which calls for a reduction in troop size, among other measures.
The Defense Ministry said Thursday it will adopt a French-style military reform, which calls for a reduction in troop size, among other measures.
Briefing President Roh Moo-hyun on his ministry's policy programs, Defense Minister Yoon Kwang-ung said the ministry will submit a bill aimed at legislating military reform methods to the National Assembly by October, after finalizing detailed measures by August.
The Korea Times reports the number of civilian posts in the ministry will increase on a gradual basis, as part of efforts to reform the Army-dominated military.
A classified report containing the accidental killing of the Italian agent will be published.
Iraq's government says it has begun an investigation into the alleged abuse of more than 170 detainees held by Iraqi security forces in Baghdad.
The prisoners, many malnourished and some showing signs of torture, were found when US troops took control of an interior ministry building on Sunday.
The US raid followed repeated enquiries by the parents of a missing teenager.
There have been persistent allegations of abuse by members of the Shiite-dominated security forces, but Sunday's discovery is hard evidence and officials believe it may be the tip of the iceberg.
The lower house of France's parliament has approved plans to extend special powers.
˝President Roh Moo-hyun is expected to replace four ministers as early as this week including Justice Minister Kim Sung-ho who has offered to resign amid rising speculation that he and the president do not see eye to eye.
Information and Communication Minister Rho Jun-hyong and Agriculture Minister Park Hong-soo also offered to step down yesterday.
Cheong Wa Dae sources said a partial Cabinet shakeup will be carried out as early as this week to fill in vacant Cabinet posts.
The reshuffle may also affect Minister of Government Policy Coordination Lim Sang-gyu, who is tipped as a potential successor to the information minister, they said.
Two children and an adult have tested positive for the deadly H5N1 bird flu strain in Turkey's capital Ankara, the city's governor Kemal Onal has said.
The results have not been confirmed by World Health Organization labs, but are still likely to trigger panic.
If confirmed they will be Turkey's first cases outside the eastern region of Van, about 1,000km away.
A poultry cull is under way in Van to try to contain the virus outbreak.
As well as the three new cases in Ankara, another two people in the eastern region of Van have also tested positive for H5N1, Onal said.
The three people who tested positive in Ankara come from a town about one hour's drive from the city.
It is not clear how they could have contracted the disease, although there were reports of ducks in the town having the virus.
If confirmed they will be Turkey's first cases outside the eastern region of Van, about 1,000km away.
One of the new president's most important appointees is on the job:
“It is truly a great honor to introduce the 67th Secretary of State of the United States of America, Hillary Clinton.
The day after she was confirmed overwhelmingly, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton greeted Foreign Service employees this morning, telling them their input matters:
“I want you to understand there is nothing that I welcome more than a good debate.”
Clinton adds that not everybody's ideas will become policy, but indicates her ears and mind are open.
President Barack Obama is expected to sign an executive order today, closing the military prison at Guantanamo Bay within a year.
Stocks opened down more than 100 points on the Dow this morning, on a couple of grim economic reports:
The Labor Department reports 589,000 were filed last week, matching a 26-year high.
Meanwhile, the Commerce Department says new home construction last month fell to an all-time low.
he's an analyst with IHS Global Insight:
“The housing starts sums that came out today were awful, and they were much lower than we expected.
Conditions in the housing market haven't been this bad since the 1930's, and they're continuing to get worse.”
The day after she was confirmed overwhelmingly, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton greeted Foreign Service employees this morning, telling them their input matters:
President Barack Obama is expected to sign an executive order today, closing the military prison at Guantanamo Bay within a year.
Workers at a Tulsa, Oklahoma, grocery store got a frightening surprise when they unloaded a shipment of bananas from Honduras:
Terry Childs (Tulsa University Professor):
This is what they trapped it in.
The employee called in Childs, after looking up the spider on the Internet.
He says they're lucky the spider didn't attack, because a single bite from the Brazilian Wandering species can kill a human in 25 minutes.
Something Childs found out firsthand while moving the spider.
Terry Childs (Tulsa University Professor):
The second he got loose from the container and I pulled the container out, it jumped at me.
The spider is a baby now, but will eventually grow about as big as a tarantula.
Diane Kepley, The Associated Press.
The spider is a baby now, but will eventually grow about as big as a tarantula.
Prosecutors Thursday raided the headquarters of the Korea Exchange Bank (KEB) and the houses of its former executives.
They seized financial documents to investigate the sale of the bank to the U.S.-based investment fund Lone Star in 2003.
The Supreme Prosecutors’ Office said it sent some 30 investigators to the KEB headquarters in Uljiro in downtown Seoul early in the morning and searched finance departments and the office of the bank’s president, Richard Wacker.
``We decided to raid KEB to investigate dubious deals surrounding the sale of the bank in 2003,’’ prosecutor Chae Dong-wook said during a media briefing.
Prosecutors also searched homes of former KEB President Lee Kang-won and former Vice President Lee Dal-yong in Seoul.
They are now under investigation over suspicions that they colluded with ranking finance officials to downscale KEB’s financial status, and helped Lone Star acquire the bank at a below-market price.
Then-Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hun-jai, who is now serving as an advisor to a law firm that helped the sale, faces a summons by prosecutors.
When the officers arrived at the KEB building, the bank’s unionists, who were holding a rally against management at the lobby, cheered and welcomed their arrival.
They seized financial documents to investigate the sale of the bank to the U.S.-based investment fund Lone Star in 2003.
``We decided to raid KEB to investigate dubious deals surrounding the sale of the bank in 2003,’’ prosecutor Chae Dong-wook said during a media briefing.
Here's one of those guys who you may not know his name but you definitely know his face;
actor Robert Prosky who played the second role call sergeant on 'Hill Street Blues,' has died from complications of a heart procedure in Washington, D.C.
AP entertainment editor Michael Weinfeld says he was 77.
“At first, Robert Prosky's goal was to make people laugh…”
“I was always a little overweight and I did comedy very well.
So I thought, well, my future was as a funny fat man.”
“But then, came his most famous TV role as the sarge on 'Hill Street Blues'…”
[Theme music from“ Hill Street Blues”]
“Mike Don, Lear, Death of a Salesman, I've done all sorts but, particularly during the days of 'Hill Street Blues,' I'll be known as sarge, haha, which is alright.”
Michael Weinfeld, Washington.”
“They're cutting the front office squad at the NFL;
because of the recession, the league says it's trimming more than 10 percent of its headquarter staff.”
actor Robert Prosky who played the second role call sergeant on 'Hill Street Blues,' has died from complications of a heart procedure in Washington, D.C.
“I was always a little overweight and I did comedy very well.
“Mike Don, Lear, Death of a Salesman, I've done all sorts but, particularly during the days of 'Hill Street Blues,' I'll be known as sarge, haha, which is alright.”
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson told President Roh Moo-hyun in Seoul on Wednesday that he is ``carefully'' optimistic that the two countries could successfully wrap up negotiations for a free trade agreement (FTA).
South Korea and the United States plan to begin the eighth round of negotiations in Seoul on Thursday.
The deadline for the U.S. government to present the deal to Congress is April 2.
John McCain, with little Republican opposition, focused on the November presidential election on Sunday while Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton prepared for their next big fight in Wisconsin.
With eight straight wins under his belt, Obama was hoping to make it two more on Tuesday in Wisconsin and Hawaii.
Recent polls have him ahead in Wisconsin, but not by much.
Bad winter weather forced both Democrats to cancel campaign stops in Wisconsin on Sunday.
Clinton, the New York senator who has seen her big lead in the national polls disappear, called off all scheduled events and instead visited several spots in Milwaukee, where she had spent the night.
Obama, the Illinois senator who would be the first black U.S. president, traveled to North Carolina on Sunday morning to seek former opponent John Edwards´ endorsement.
South Korea placed 43rd out of 180 countries surveyed in a global corruption index, an international corruption watchdog said Wednesday.
The result is from the Berlin-based Transparency International´s (TI) annual corruption perception report.
The survey covering 180 countries and territories, ranked them according to perceived levels of corruption among public officials and politicians.
South Korea scored 5.1 and ranked 25th out of 30 OECD member countries.
TI´s Korean chapter said that South Korea has made little improvement in transparency, citing that the country ranked 42nd out of 163 countries last year.
The NGO urged the government to find a profound solution to tackle the corruption problems.
China and the United States appeared yesterday to be in the midst of a delicate diplomatic dance over the next steps to deal with North Korea.
Christopher Hill, the chief U.S. negotiator at the six-nation talks on North Korean nuclear issues, and Wu Dawei, his Chinese counterpart, met over breakfast yesterday.
Speaking to the press after that meeting, Hill said he and Wu had “talked about” the need to make clear to North Korea that a nuclear test would be ”a very, very unwelcome development.”
Hill also said the United States was determined to take additional measures to press North Korea to comply with a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Pyongyang's missile tests in July and calling on North Korea to return to nuclear negotiations.
The JoongAng Ilbo reports the administration's pursuit of a free trade agreement with the United States has drawn some additional opponents who joined protesting farmers.
The new group of adversaries include some members of Roh Moo-hyun's own party.
In Seoul yesterday, 23 lawmakers, including 13 from the Uri Party, filed a lawsuit at the Constitutional Court contending that the administration had violated the National Assembly's right to ratify international treaties guaranteed by the Constitution ― even though no treaty has been agreed to or signed.
The lawmakers complained that the administration was unilaterally and aggressively pushing the free trade deal without sharing information with the National Assembly or seeking its assent.
The lawmakers demanded that the administration disclose the details of its negotiations and keep the Assembly better informed as the negotiations proceed.
The Uri majority among the plaintiffs was bolstered by members of the Democratic Party and the far-left Democratic Labor Party.
The largest opposition group, the conservative Grand National Party, saw none of its members join the legal action.
The new group of adversaries include some members of Roh Moo-hyun's own party.
The lawmakers demanded that the administration disclose the details of its negotiations and keep the Assembly better informed as the negotiations proceed.
""Both sides are currently in the final stages of deciding on a venue for the negotiations where senior working-level officials are expected to meet,"" the official said.
The official said Beijing is likely to become the venue as both sides find it hard to narrow differences over selecting the location.
The North has argued for Pyongyang while Japan wants to hold the negotiations in Tokyo, he said.
The North has argued for Pyongyang while Japan wants to hold the negotiations in Tokyo, he said.
The Korea Times reports communist North Korea has broken its months-long silence on South Korea´s new conservative government, criticizing the Lee Myung-bak administration´s tougher line on the North.
It is expected to darken prospects for inter-Korean relations and resolving the international standoff over the North´s nuclear issue.
The North had refrained from commenting on the new South Korean administration, a rare move that many North Korea experts said was aimed at cementing ties with the South to sustain South Korean-backed cross-border projects agreed upon during the second inter-Korean summit in October last year.
Following South Korea´s call on North Korea to improve its human rights situation during a United Nations session early last week, however, the communist regime began issuing a series of statements denouncing the Lee administration.
It is expected to darken prospects for inter-Korean relations and resolving the international standoff over the North´s nuclear issue.
Russia is to help resolve a banking row with North Korea that is blocking progress on a deal over Pyongyang’s nuclear program, US officials say.
Russia is working with the US on how to transfer $25m in North Korean funds currently frozen in a bank in Macau, a US Treasury official said.
North Korea has insisted it receives the funds before it begins shutting down a key nuclear reactor.
The two siblings confirmed to have died of bird flu in the eastern province of Van, had close contact with poultry.
Their brother, the sole surviving sibling of the family, was released from hospital on Monday.
At least two Turkish children have died, and correspondents say fear is spreading rapidly across the country.
Health experts say there is no sign the virus is passing from human to human.
The two siblings confirmed to have died of bird flu in the eastern province of Van, had close contact with poultry.
Tests are still being carried out on their 11-year-old sister, who also died, to see if she was also infected with H5N1.
˝The nation´s top immigration policymaker said Monday Korea needs to prepare for a multicultural and multi-ethnic society as the number of foreigners will account for 7.2 percent of the population by 2030.Korea Immigration Service Commissioner Han Sang-dae told The Korea Times that by 2030, the number of foreigners here will top 3.6 million.
He said the government will focus on seeking ways of helping society accept foreigners as its members so that they can contribute fully to society.
The commissioner emphasized pan-national efforts and international cooperation are necessary to cope with current immigration issues. The total number of foreigners in Korea will soon reach one million, which makes up about 2 percent of the population, excluding about 200,000 illegal immigrant workers, and without proper actions, the government will face serious problems soon.
˝The nation´s top immigration policymaker said Monday Korea needs to prepare for a multicultural and multi-ethnic society as the number of foreigners will account for 7.2 percent of the population by 2030.Korea Immigration Service Commissioner Han Sang-dae told The Korea Times that by 2030, the number of foreigners here will top 3.6 million.
He said the government will focus on seeking ways of helping society accept foreigners as its members so that they can contribute fully to society.
The government will seek to promote the welfare of legal foreigners but take strict policy action against illegal aliens, he added.
The commissioner emphasized pan-national efforts and international cooperation are necessary to cope with current immigration issues.
The total number of foreigners in Korea will soon reach one million, which makes up about 2 percent of the population, excluding about 200,000 illegal immigrant workers, and without proper actions, the government will face serious problems soon.
UN World Press Freedom Day, to be marked on Thursday, has an alarming message - that too many journalists are being killed for what they do.
If truth is killed, the whole world will suffer, writes William Horsley, head of the Association of European Journalists in the UK.
””People sometimes pay with their lives for saying out loud what they think.” ” Those were the words of Anna Politkovskaya, the Russian journalist shot dead by an unknown assassin in the lift of her Moscow apartment block on 7 October last year.
The IRS dropping its private collection agencies - setting up its own offices to go after people who've failed to pay their taxes.
AP's Sophia Manos reports that the head of the IRS feels the government can do a better job:
“ In deciding not to renew the contract, IRS Commissioner Doug Schulman said he concluded, after a month-long review, that tax collection could best be done by government workers.”
(music) Coolio has been arrested on drug charges, the rapper taken into custody yesterday on those charges at the Los Angeles Airport.
He's now out on $10,000 bail.
Coolio was also arrested back in June on a misdemeanor warrant for driving with a suspended license.
Dozens of anti-Israeli activists clashed with police outside a closed arena where Sweden and Israel were playing a Davis Cup tennis match.
At least 5 of those protesters were arrested by Swedish police.
AP's Sophia Manos reports that the head of the IRS feels the government can do a better job:
He's now out on $10,000 bail.
Australian naturalist and television personality Steve Irwin has been killed by a stingray during a diving expedition off the Australian coast.
Irwin, who was 44, died after being struck in the chest by the stingray's barb while he was filming a documentary in Queensland's Great Barrier Reef.
Paramedics from Cairns rushed to the scene but were unable to save him.
Irwin was known for his television show The Crocodile Hunter and his work with native Australian wildlife.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard said he had known Mr Irwin well, and that the country had lost a ””wonderful and colourful son””.
””It's a huge loss to Australia - he was a wonderful character, he was a passionate environmentalist, he brought entertainment and excitement to millions of people.”
Paramedics from Cairns rushed to the scene but were unable to save him.
The number of people living alone has surged as many young people delay marriages and more elderly people are living alone apart from their children.
The average number of family members has also dropped, pointing to a growing number of nuclear families in the country.
According to the National Statistical Office (NSO), the number of people living alone rose 42.5 percent to 3.17 million in 2005 from 2000, accounting for 20 percent of the country's total households.
The average number of family members decreased to 2.9 in 2005 from 3.1 in 2000 and 3.3 in 1995.
``More people in their 20s and 30s are putting off their marriage and staying single as they are trying to find jobs in the tight labor market.
Also, a larger number of the elderly now decide to live alone rather than stay with their children after the death of their spouses,'' an NSO official said.
He also said a rise in divorces and childless couples has contributed to lowering the average number of family members.
According to the National Statistical Office (NSO), the number of people living alone rose 42.5 percent to 3.17 million in 2005 from 2000, accounting for 20 percent of the country's total households.
The US and South Korea have reached a free trade agreement after 10 months of intensive talks.
The deal, which requires legislative approval, is the largest the US has signed since the 1992 North American Free Trade Agreement.
Both countries were keen to reach an agreement, believing it will boost trade and economic growth.
However, rice imports will not be included in the deal after Seoul objected to opening up its market.
Fears that Korean farmers could be harmed by the abolition of rice tariffs led to nationwide protests against trade liberalization over the past few months.
The BBC’s Charles Scanlon in Seoul said a deal was reached with only minutes to spare after a marathon session of talks. There was intense pressure to close a deal because President George W Bush’s Trade Promotion Authority, a so-called “fast track” power, ends on July 1st, and any agreement had to be reached 90 days beforehand - by the end of Sunday.
The special power enables Bush to send trade pacts to Congress for a straight yes or no vote, excluding any amendments.
Negotiations were hampered by differences over various industry sectors, especially those in vehicles and agriculture.
But in a letter to Congressional leaders, President Bush confirmed that an agreement had been reached.
The chief US negotiator said he was disappointed that rice had been excluded from the eventual deal but added he thought further liberalization would take place over time.
Fears that Korean farmers could be harmed by the abolition of rice tariffs led to nationwide protests against trade liberalization over the past few months.
Negotiations were hampered by differences over various industry sectors, especially those in vehicles and agriculture.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says he is ready to negotiate peace with the Palestinians but not until Hamas rejects violence and recognizes Israel.
""I extend my hand in peace to Mahmoud Abbas, the elected president of the Palestinian Authority,"" Olmert said in a keynote speech to the US Congress.
Israel, the US and the EU consider Hamas a terrorist organization.
Hamas, which dominates the PA, has refused to recognize Israel.
It won elections in January and formed a government.
At talks on Tuesday, US President George W Bush supported Olmert's idea to redraw Israel's borders unilaterally if peace talks failed.
A Hamas spokesman said that would spell the end for the Palestinian cause.
Kookmin Bank is very interested in bidding for Korea Exchange Bank once it is posted for sale again, the bank's chief executive, Kang Chung-won said yesterday.
He was talking about a prize that has already slipped out of his grip once.
Kang met with reporters over lunch yesterday, saying he was looking forward to the day when Korea Exchange Bank's controlling shareholder, Lone Star Funds of the United States, puts the bank on the market again. .
Kang was speaking three weeks after Lone Star Funds canceled a plan to sell Korea Exchange to Kookmin, citing Seoul prosecutors' prolonged investigation of Lone Star's investment.
Kookmin and Lone Star signed an agreement to transfer the bank in March, but the sale had been delayed for several months after Seoul prosecutors accused Lone Star of stock trading violations in 2003 when it bought shares in Korea Exchange Bank's cash-strapped credit card unit.
Prosecutors are also investigating whether Korea's financial regulators and former Korea Exchange Bank executives conspired together to understate the bank's financial health and thus make Lone Star eligible to buy KEB. The legal snarl finally prompted the U.S. fund to terminate its sales plan last month.
Kang met with reporters over lunch yesterday, saying he was looking forward to the day when Korea Exchange Bank's controlling shareholder, Lone Star Funds of the United States, puts the bank on the market again. .
George W Bush has called on Cuba to prepare for free elections after Fidel Castro´s announcement that he is retiring on health grounds.
The ailing Cuban leader, who is 81 and has not been seen in public since surgery in July 2006, said he would not accept a new term as president.
Castro´s brother Raul, the 76-year-old acting leader, is strongly tipped to replace him.
The European Union said it hoped to revive ties with Cuba while China described Castro as an old friend and said it would maintain co-operation with Havana.
Beijing has taken over as one of Havana´s key economic partners.
Moscow used to fulfil that role but has been noticeably silent on the end of the Fidel era.
No demonstrations calling for change were reported on the streets of Havana - in contrast to muted celebrations by anti-Castro exiles in Miami, Florida.
Castro´s brother Raul, the 76-year-old acting leader, is strongly tipped to replace him.
US experts have made a “good start” to the process of dismantling North Korea´s main nuclear facility, the leader of the US team has said.
Sung Kim praised North Korean officials at the Yongbyon reactor, which produced weapons-grade plutonium, as being ”very co-operative”.
Pyongyang agreed to end its nuclear program in return for diplomatic concessions and economic aid.
US officials say they hope to disable the reactor by the end of the year.
Defense Department official said Tuesday the United States will slightly reduce its troops in South Korea following the planned transfer of its wartime control of the South Korean armed forces to Seoul.
”As the adjustments take place, there will be a reduction in the number of U.S. forces located in the Republic of Korea beyond the level of 25,000 that we currently agreed to, ” the official told Yonhap news agency.
The official said, however, the reduction would not affect U.S. combat capability.
Defense Department official said Tuesday the United States will slightly reduce its troops in South Korea following the planned transfer of its wartime control of the South Korean armed forces to Seoul.
US and the Iraqi troops have killed 30 suspected Shia militants during heavy clashes in the southern Iraqi city of Diwaniya, the US military has said.
The fighting erupted as troops went in to arrest a militant responsible for earlier killings, they said.
It is thought the rebels were from cleric Moqtada Sadr's Mehdi Army, but its officials in Baghdad blamed “rogue elements” out of his control.
In Baghdad, police have found 51 bodies of people who were abducted and killed.
Meanwhile, a 36-hour curfew was lifted in the northern city of Kirkuk following a huge security operation.
Thousands of Iraqi army and police force personnel backed by US-led coalition troops combed Kirkuk for insurgents, while US troops lent helicopter support.
The fighting erupted as troops went in to arrest a militant responsible for earlier killings, they said.
It is thought the rebels were from cleric Moqtada Sadr's Mehdi Army, but its officials in Baghdad blamed “rogue elements” out of his control.
The Korea Times reports disgraced scientist Hwang Woo-suk will resume cloning research next week with his former colleagues, according to Hwang's lawyer Lee Geon-haeng Tuesday.
Approximately 30 researchers, mostly Hwang's former associates, will join it,'' said Lee, who currently acts as a de-facto spokesman for Hwang.
``Hwang looks to start with animal cloning experiments but he may work on human stem cell research later,'' said Lee, also Hwang's high-school junior.
Lee said most of the core members of Hwang's former Seoul National University (SNU) team -in the fields of animal cloning and human embryonic stem cell work- will move to the veterinarian's new research facility.
A government source said yesterday that Kim's special train (he does not fly) is still in North Korea.
A North Korean television station said Kim was visiting factories in Sinuiju, a city on the border with communist China.
That publicity would be a departure, North Korea watchers said, from Pyongyang's usual practice of clamping a blackout on news about the “Dear Leader” before a trip abroad.
Another source confirmed yesterday that Kim's special train is still in Sinuiju U.S. and South Korean intelligence agencies, sources in Beijing said, believe Kim may begin his trek to Beijing within a day or two.
China's Foreign Ministry has denied that a trip is being planned, although Beijing in the past has denied reports that he was in the city until he had returned to his country.
Speculation continues to swirl about Kim Jong-il's travel plans, but signs are that the reclusive North Korean leader has not yet begun an expected trip to Beijing.
A government source said yesterday that Kim's special train (he does not fly) is still in North Korea. A North Korean television station said Kim was visiting factories in Sinuiju, a city on the border with communist China.
Still another said there were no signs of stepped-up security by either North Korean or Chinese armed forces that would ordinarily presage travel by Kim.
Publicly, Seoul is saying it doesn't know whether the North Korean leader will go to the Chinese capital.
The truth of China’s Northeastern Project?
Kookmin Bank was named yesterday as the priority bidder for Korea Exchange Bank, as predicted recently by many bankers.
Kookmin, Korea's largest bank in assets, submitted a bid totaling 6.4 trillion won ($6.6 billion) to buy a 64.6-percent stake in the bank, now controlled by Lone Star Funds of the United States.
At a press conference yesterday, Kookmin's chief executive officer, Kang Chung-won, and Lone Star's vice president, Ellis Short, announced the start of negotiations for what would be Korea's largest corporate acquisition.
Lone Star Funds bought a 50.5-percent stake in the exchange bank in 2003 when the bank was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.
Lone Star turned the bank around, and began looking for a buyer after a two-year ban on selling its shares expired last October.
˝The Pakistani army says it has found 73 bodies inside a mosque compound in Islamabad, after fierce battles between soldiers and gunmen inside.
Officials said the Red Mosque, or Lal Masjid, complex had been cleared of militants but troops were combing the area for booby traps and explosives.
The mosque´s radical chief cleric, Abdul Rashid Ghazi, was among the dead, the army said.
The operation followed a week-long siege of the compound by troops.
The mosque had been the focus of spiraling tensions between the government and radical students, who had waged a campaign for the adoption of strict Islamic sharia law.
It had been feared that women and children might be among the casualties, but army spokesman Maj Gen Waheed Arshad said none had been found among the bodies.
Scores of civilians, and some militants, emerged from the complex after troops launched an all-out assault in the early hours of Tuesday morning.˝
Officials said the Red Mosque, or Lal Masjid, complex had been cleared of militants but troops were combing the area for booby traps and explosives.
South Korean officials dismissed as groundless a news report that the United States has warned its allies that North Korea may be ready to carry out an underground nuclear test as early as June.
South Korean officials dismissed as groundless a news report that the United States has warned its allies that North Korea may be ready to carry out an underground nuclear test as early as June.
A senior diplomat in Seoul, deeply involved in the nuclear problem, told they Korea Times Sunday that such a story was ``unheard of,’’ adding that Christopher Hill, U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, didn't talk about that when he visited Seoul last week.
Citing unnamed diplomats in Vienna, the AP news agency reported on Sunday that the information on the North’s possible test of an atomic weapon had been gathered in part from satellite imagery.
Reprobating statements between the U.S. and North Korea is growing more serious.
Russia has banned the hit comedy film, Borat, which has been accused of poking fun at Moscow's neighbor and close ally Kazakhstan.
The film stars British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen as a spoof reporter on a trip to the US.
A senior official at Russia's culture ministry says it will not provide a distribution license.
A pair of passenger trains has crossed the heavily fortified border between North and South Korea for the first time in more than 50 years.
The two trains - one traveling from the North and one from the South - each carried 150 invited passengers.
South Korea hailed it as a landmark in relations between the two countries.
But Thursday’s crossing remains largely symbolic as North Korea has so far only agreed to a one-off test-run.
Hundreds of people gathered at Munsan station to cheer the five-carriage train as it set off on the 25km trip to Kaesong, across the heavily-armed border.
Firecrackers and white balloons were set off and crowds waved white-and-blue “reunification flags”.
On the eastern side, children bearing flowers welcomed the North Korean train as it arrived at Jejin station.
A pair of passenger trains has crossed the heavily fortified border between North and South Korea for the first time in more than 50 years.
Hundreds of people gathered at Munsan station to cheer the five-carriage train as it set off on the 25km trip to Kaesong, across the heavily-armed border.
The prosecution Thursday extended the overseas travel ban imposed on American citizen John Grayken, chairman of Lone Star Funds, to 10 days for further questioning over alleged irregularities involving the fund´s acquisition of the Korea Exchange Bank back in 2003.
The chairman has appeared everyday at the Seoul District Prosecutors´ Office in Seocho-dong, southern Seoul, since Monday and has undergone a 12-hour-long questioning each day.
He left the prosecutors´ Office around 10:30 p.m. on Wednesday looking extremely exhausted.
``It is still too early to consider Grayken´s criminal punishment.
We´re still in the early stage of the investigation,´´ Song Hae-eun, a prosecutor in charge, told reporters.
Meanwhile, prosecutors sought a 10-year prison sentence Wednesday during the trial of the head of Lone Star´s Seoul office, Paul Yoo, for alleged stock price manipulation and allegedly spreading false rumors of a capital reduction of KEB, a prosecutor claimed.
Sources fear the outrageous abuse of foreign business executives by the prosecution will further dampen flagging foreign investment in Korea.
The United Nations has confirmed 10 of its staff died in a double car bombing in the Algerian capital, Algiers, which officially killed at least 26 people.
Medics believe as many as 62 people died at UN offices and government buildings when the devices went off on Tuesday morning.
As rescuers dug through the rubble, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called them “an abjectly cowardly strike”.
A group allied to al-Qaeda claimed the attacks on an Islamist website.
Algerian television has reported that six people were pulled alive from the ruins of the UN offices.
The blasts, which the government said injured at least 177 people, were the latest in a series of attacks in Algeria this year.
Tense talks continue this morning on a bill to get $15 billion aid for the auto industry, the White House pushing for tougher consequences than Congressional Democrats want, for automakers' failure to bring costs under control.
The search is resuming for a missing child who was inside a San Diego house.
A home destroyed by a fighter jet that crashed and burned.
“We heard it and then we went outside and saw big black clouds of smoke.
Then we went on the roof and then we could see the flames coming from the house that the plane crashed into.”
a mother, grandmother and child were found in the house shortly after the crash.
Stocks giving back some of the gains from a two-day rally.
They're lower in early trading today; negative outlooks from Texas Instruments and Fedex, reminding investors that the impact of the recession will be felt for some time.
Witness Nicole Barry heard the trouble before she saw it.
They're lower in early trading today;
The Pentagon on Monday charged the alleged planner of the September 11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and five others with murder and conspiracy and asked that they be executed if convicted.
The charges are the first from the Guantanamo war court alleging direct involvement in the 2001 attacks on the United States and the first involving the death penalty.
Khalid, a Pakistani national better known as KSM, has said he planned every aspect of the September 11 attacks.
But his confession could be problematic if used as evidence because the CIA has admitted it subjected him to “waterboarding” an interrogation technique of simulated drowning that has been widely criticized as torture.
The rules of the court on the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, prohibit the use of evidence gained through torture, as does an international treaty the United States has signed.
The Pentagon on Monday charged the alleged planner of the September 11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and five others with murder and conspiracy and asked that they be executed if convicted.
Palestinian militants kidnapped an Israeli soldier during a raid on an army post near the Gaza strip.
The man went missing during an attack on an Israeli tank which killed two of its crew, a military spokesman said.
Hamas said it knew nothing about the soldier, but urged any captors to keep him alive and treat him well.
Israel said it would do everything in its power to retrieve the soldier, the first to be captured since 1994.
The missing man was the gunner on a tank attacked in a pre-dawn raid by militants from a 300 meter tunnel under the Gaza border fence near the Kerem Shalom crossing, Israeli military officials said.
At least two Palestinian fighters were also killed in fighting during the assault.
Hamas said it knew nothing about the soldier, but urged any captors to keep him alive and treat him well.
Israel said it would do everything in its power to retrieve the soldier, the first to be captured since 1994.
South Korea ranked 26th in a world “quality of life” report issued by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) on Tuesday.
The international organization said that South Korea´s ranking remained unchanged from 2006 in its latest Human Development Report.
The report, first launched in 1990, measures overall living conditions by factoring in such variables as the average life expectancy, education standards and income levels of people in 177 countries.
The UNDP said Iceland usurped Norway for the number one slot this year, while both the U.S. and Japan fell from last year.
The U.S. dropped from 10th to 12th, while Japan slipped one notch to eight place.
Hong Kong and Singapore stood at 21st and 25th place, respectively, while China remained unchanged at 81st place.
South Korea ranked 26th in a world “quality of life” report issued by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) on Tuesday.
There have been scuffles between pro-Tibet protesters and China supporters at the start of the Olympic torch relay in Canberra, Australia.
Parts of the city have been sealed off with a steel fence to block anti-China demonstrations like those at the relays in London, Paris and San Francisco.
Australian PM Kevin Rudd says the authorities will come down ""like a ton of bricks"" on violent protesters.
But reporters say Chinese communist supporters heavily outnumber pro-Tibet protesters.
The torch relay began with an aboriginal welcome ceremony and aboriginal youth leader Tania Major was the first of 80 torchbearers carrying the flame on its 16 km (10-mile) journey around the Australian capital.
Police arrested three protesters who ran out in front of the torch - though the relay was not disrupted.
And at least five people were arrested in tussles between communist Chinese supporters and pro-Tibetan protesters.
Australia´s government has been insistent that its officers provide protection only for the flame, not the gang of blue-suited Chinese toughs who are traveling with the torch.
Australian PM Kevin Rudd says the authorities will come down ""like a ton of bricks"" on violent protesters.
The torch relay began with an aboriginal welcome ceremony and aboriginal youth leader Tania Major was the first of 80 torchbearers carrying the flame on its 16 km (10-mile) journey around the Australian capital.
South Korea and the European Union (EU) on Wednesday launched full-scale negotiations on tariff reductions in their free trade talks, a move Seoul´s chief negotiator says will help both sides wrap up the trade negotiations at an earlier date.
After reaching an accord with the United States earlier this year, Seoul has held four rounds of negotiations with Brussels on a free trade agreement that could provide Asia´s third-largest economy with a commercial bridge to Europe.
But the negotiations moved at a snail´s pace as both sides remained reluctant to accept each other´s demand on auto trade and auto-related technical standards, one of the hottest issues in the trade negotiations.
South Korea and the European Union (EU) on Wednesday launched full-scale negotiations on tariff reductions in their free trade talks, a move Seoul´s chief negotiator says will help both sides wrap up the trade negotiations at an earlier date.
˝UN inspectors have verified the shutdown of North Korea´s main nuclear reactor, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency has confirmed.
Mohamed ElBaradei said the process of shutting down the Yongbyon reactor was “a good step in the right direction”.
The move is part of a deal agreed in February, in which Pyongyang pledged to disarm in exchange for fuel aid.
Analysts say that it is just one stage in a long process to disable the reactor.
Speaking in the Thai capital, Bangkok, ElBaradei said his 10-man team of experts - who arrived in North Korea on Saturday - had verified an earlier statement from Pyongyang confirming the shutdown.
” Our inspectors are there.
They verified the shutting down of the reactor yesterday,” he said.
The IAEA chief said that the next step was to verify the shutdown of other nuclear facilities and then disable them, something he warned could be ”a complicated process”.
”It´s a very important step that we are taking this week, but it´s a long way to go,” Reuters news agency quoted him as saying.˝
The move is part of a deal agreed in February, in which Pyongyang pledged to disarm in exchange for fuel aid.
The President also targeted some conservative dailies, which have continuously attacked him for spoiling the alliance, as he is scheduled to meet U.S. President George W. Bush in Washington on Sept.
He took such issues as the Operations Plan 5029, U.S. strategic flexibility and other sensitive problems, which he ”discussed and settled clearly ” with Bush in their June 2005 summit, as examples of the health of the alliance.
Roh also asked political parties and the media not to suspect his ”goodwill ” for the proposed South Korea-U.S.
A North Korean newspaper says that country's government would be willing to abandon its nuclear weapons if President Obama agreed to establish formal diplomatic relations between Washington and Pyongyang.
Israel has pulled its last troops out of Gaza in a move timed to ease tensions as President Obama enters the White House.
We knew this was coming, and Detroit is not happy now that it's here.
There is word this morning that Japanese automaker Toyota sold more vehicles around the world last year than General Motors.
Wall Street, the Dow industrials up 135 points in the first half hour.
We knew this was coming, and Detroit is not happy now that it's here.
“Just before noon today, a series of blasts went off in India's Assam state which is in the north east.
In several different cities, they went off in minutes of each other.”
Thirteen blasts in all, killing at least 61 people and injuring hundreds.
The death toll from the earthquake that shook Pakistan yesterday is 215.
The army is delivering aid and supplies to survivors.
“9,500 blankets and uh, over 2,000 tents.
5,600 jackets and around uh, over 1,000 sleeping bags.”
The quake destroyed 2,000 homes in a string of villages.
IOC President Jacques Rogge sees no immediate threat to the Olympics from a global financial crisis.
He says the fight against doping will be a key priority for his second term in office.
Thirteen blasts in all, killing at least 61 people and injuring hundreds.
The Food and Drug Administration ordered an immediate recall of two species of farmed fish in markets here, less than a day after the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries said that a carcinogen had been found at harmful levels in freshwater fish raised in captivity.
Late Wednesday night the Fisheries Ministry said it had discovered malachite green in carp and trout grown here.
The ministry said a check of 50 fish farms around the nation turned up traces of the chemical in fish from 34 sites.
When Will Ferrell's President Bush Meets Tina Fey's Sarah Palin…
Not one, but two former stars came back to the Thursday night election edition of“ Saturday Night Live.”
Tina Fey was posing and winking again as Sarah Palin, with her $150,000 worth of hair, makeup and clothes.
And Will Ferell opened cold as President Bush endorsing John McCain for president in talking to fake Palin about the job of VP:
“The office of Vice President is the most important office in the land…”
“… the Vice President decides when we go to war…”
“… how we tax the citizens.
And how we interpret the Constitution.”
And Will Ferell opened cold as President Bush endorsing John McCain for president in talking to fake Palin about the job of VP:
Vice President Joe Biden opens a meeting with state officials warning them if they mis-use money from the $780 billion economic stimulus package, then they shouldn't look to the federal government to step in again for a long time:
“ People will support us if it appears as though what we're doing makes sense, we're accountable, and we're totally transparent.”
The White House asked each governor to send their state official in charge of the stimulus money to learn about what programs and initiatives are available.
Two people in a life raft spotted after a helicopter heading to an offshore oil platform went down in the Atlantic off the Canadian coast.
“ The Cougar had 18 people on board; currently, there's a provincial airline on scene, providing top cover.”
Four rescue helicopters and a search plane are headed to that crash site, along with a Coast Guard ship and a supply ship.
So far they are looking for any survivors from that helicopter crash.
Two people in a life raft spotted after a helicopter heading to an offshore oil platform went down in the Atlantic off the Canadian coast.
Eta is blamed for killing more than 800 people in its four-decade fight for independence for the Basque region of northern Spain and south-west France.
In a statement released to Basque media, the group said its objective was now ""to start a new democratic process in the Basque country"".
Spanish PM Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said the government was cautious but hopeful about the announcement.
Eta, which is classed as a terrorist group by the US and the European Union, declared an indefinite ceasefire in 1998 but peace talks broke down and the bombing campaign resumed a year later.
The group has never previously called a permanent stop to the violence.
Burma´s military rulers are setting up a committee to draft a new constitution, state media has reported.
The decision, which is part of what the generals call their “roadmap” to democracy, comes after 14 years of talks in a constitutional convention.
The discussions were boycotted by the opposition, who are also unrepresented on the new committee.
Critics say the roadmap to democracy is just a ruse to allow the generals to hold on to power.
The government has appointed 54 officials to sit on the committee to draft the constitution.
Its chairman is the chief justice and many members appear to be retired doctors or professors.
Fourteen years ago, the generals set up a constitutional convention, which was boycotted by the opposition.
It finished its work and published a set of proposals last month.
In one sense then this new committee is the logical next step.
No doubt Burma´s leaders hope it will be seen by the international community as a positive development. Burma´s military rulers are setting up a committee to draft a new constitution, state media has reported.
The government has appointed 54 officials to sit on the committee to draft the constitution.
Its chairman is the chief justice and many members appear to be retired doctors or professors.
Thailand's main opposition party says it has submitted evidence to the electoral commission that the ruling party has committed electoral fraud.
The Democrats allege ruling party officials were involved in a plan to hire candidates to stand for small opposition parties in a 2 April poll.
As the Democrats are boycotting it, it would lend it more legitimacy.
But Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who called the poll in a bid to end protests, dismissed the charges.
Thailand's main opposition party says it has submitted evidence to the electoral commission that the ruling party has committed electoral fraud.
After being convicted of embezzlement, Park Yong-sung, the former chairman of Doosan Group, was suspended from his seat on the International Olympic Committee.
Park became a member of the committee in 2002.
An official at the Korea Olympics Committee said yesterday it has been told by the international group that its ethics committee would take no further action until all appeals are exhausted here.
Park, president of the International Judo Federation, received a three-year suspended sentence and an 8-billion-won ($8.2 million) fine for embezzling Doosan corporate funds.
Last May, Kim Un-yong was forced to resign from the international committee after also being convicted of embezzlement.
Lee Kun-hee, the Samsung Group chairman, is the only remaining active member of the committee from South Korea, according to the Joong-Ang Ilbo.
After being convicted of embezzlement, Park Yong-sung, the former chairman of Doosan Group, was suspended from his seat on the International Olympic Committee.
The Bank of Korea raised Korea's guiding interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point, to 3.5 percent, ending a period of record-low rates that began last November.
The Bank of Korea raised Korea's guiding interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point, to 3.5 percent, ending a period of record-low rates that began last November.
The action is a signal that the central bank has confidence in the strength of Korea's economic recovery and has turned its attention to pre-empting inflation.
India makes peace with Pakistan over earthquake.
Another anxious morning on Wall Street;
stocks have been gyrating up and down.
As some traders talk about a possible market bottom, this New York woman has had enough:
Stocks are coming off their worst six-day rout in years;
the Dow is now down about 35%, from its high of 14,164 reached a year ago.
New York therapist Kenneth Rouge tells the Associated Press the financial meltdown has some marriages on the rocks.
a lot of anxiety among the breadwinner or the person that's watching their money go down.”
Another anxious morning on Wall Street;
Stocks are coming off their worst six-day rout in years;
More than nerves are being frayed;
What is Paulson's Bailout Strategy?
A Defense Department official says Osama bin Laden's former driver, Salim Hamdan, is being transferred from Gitmo back to his home country of Yemen.
A Yemeni official says the news surprises him since Hamdan wasn't due to be released until January.
Want to protect your kids from violent video games?
The National Institute of Media and the Family is out with a list of the worst… and the best:
The League II' players can target the body part they want to injure on a football rival.
'Saints Row 2' features gang violence and allows players to shoot police officers.
The Institute's President David Walsh says the video game industry and retailers have taken positive steps, and stronger parental oversight is needed.
The group also recommended five video games, all rated 'T' for teens, including 'Guitar Hero:
World Tour', and 'Spiderman:
Ed Donahue, Washington.
The League II' players can target the body part they want to injure on a football rival.
The National Election Commission (NEC) will issue today a ruling whether or not President Roh Moo-hyun violated the Election Law in his remarks against the main opposition Grand National Party (GNP).
The ruling will likely be made public after 3 p.m., NEC officials said Wednesday.
The commission said it would maintain political neutrality and independence in issuing the ruling.
An NEC official said, ``Our neutrality and independence remain unchanged, regardless of Cheong Wa Dae’s future action (or pressure).’
’ It is speculated that the NEC might issue a warning against Roh instead of concluding his remarks as a violation of the law, sources said.
Cheong Wa Dae said it would consider taking legal action, including appealing to the Constitutional Court, but NEC officials said the stance of the presidential office would not affect their ruling.
Criticizing GNP presidential hopefuls Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye, Roh said Saturday that it would be ``horrific’’ to see the opposition party win the presidential election in December.”
Well, Americans are not only spending less, they're also mailing less, hurting the bottom line at the Postal Service.
“The Postal Service ended its fiscal year $2.8 billion in the red, battered by a faltering economy that cut deeply into the amount of mail being sent, and a requirement to contribute $5.5 billion to fund healthcare for retirees.
There is some good news, though; Postmaster General John Potter welcomes recent reductions in the cost of fuel, a major expense for the Post Office.
Ross Simpson, Washington.”
The new 007 movie“ Quantum of Solace” opens today in the U.S., picking up where“ Casino Royale” left off.
“He's also different in this movie, because he just lost a woman he loved, and uh, he's not really thinking about, you know, getting into another relationship, because he's in pain.
So that would be illogical.”
Ross Simpson, Washington.”
North Korea has been constructing new underground missile bases and silos along its east coast in recent years to deploy intermediate-range rockets targeting Japan and U.S. military facilities on the archipelago, a state-run think tank claimed yesterday.
It also said North Korea has been working closely with Iran to develop its long-range ballistic missiles, possibly using Chinese technology.
The new bases clustered along the East Coast in particular are short and median ranged missile bases aiming at Japan and US military installations in Japan according to a report written by Yoon Dong Min, a security expert at the State-funded Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security.
The new bases can deploy about 200 Rodong missiles with a range of up to 2,200 kilometers and 50 SSN-6 missiles with a range of 2,500-4,000 kilometers, the report claimed.
The report which offered no proof for any of the claims- also said North Korea built two underground missile bases in a mountainside in the central part of its land border with China.
North Korea has been constructing new underground missile bases and silos along its east coast in recent years to deploy intermediate-range rockets targeting Japan and U.S. military facilities on the archipelago, a state-run think tank claimed yesterday.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il visited the Chinese Embassy in Pyongyang over the weekend and received a personal message from Chinese President Hu Jintao, the (North) Korean Central News Agency reported.
The content of the message was not revealed.
South Korea and the United States have in principle agreed to exclude rice from their free trade agreement negotiations, The Korea Times quotes an official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as saying.
The provisional agreement was made during South Korean Trade Minister Kim Hyun-chong’s visit to Washington, the official said.
Rice is one of key sticky issues in the talks as farmers and civic groups have fiercely opposed the opening of the market.
In return, Seoul is expected to accept a U.S. demand that it fully opens its door to U.S. beef.
Meanwhile, the ministry officially criticized a group of U.S. lawmakers for urging their president to push Korea to abolish its 8-percent tariff on U.S. automobiles, saying such an attempt could wreck the talks.
South Korea and the United States have in principle agreed to exclude rice from their free trade agreement negotiations, The Korea Times quotes an official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as saying.
Rice is one of key sticky issues in the talks as farmers and civic groups have fiercely opposed the opening of the market.
Meanwhile, the ministry officially criticized a group of U.S. lawmakers for urging their president to push Korea to abolish its 8-percent tariff on U.S. automobiles, saying such an attempt could wreck the talks.
A Japanese businessman has been arrested on Saipan, a US territory in the Pacific, on suspicion of murdering his wife in Los Angeles 27 years ago.
Kazuyoshi Miura, who is now 60, and his wife Kazumi were visiting the US city in 1981 when they were shot in a car park.
Miura was hit in the leg, while his wife was shot in the head and later died of her injuries in Japan.
Miura was convicted of murder in Japan over his wife´s killing, but that verdict was overturned in 1998.
President Lee Myung-bak urged North Korea to stop its verbal attacks Thursday and told it to move toward serious dialogue.
Presidential office spokesman Lee Dong-kwan said the President believed that Pyongyang should move away from its outdated ways, actions and attitudes to hold a sincere dialogue with the South.
``The government wants North Korea to resume sincere dialogue and the North needs to change,´´ President Lee said in a meeting with top military generals at Cheong Wa Dae.
The comment came after North Korea insulted Lee personally, tested missiles and threatened to reduce the South to ``ashes.´´ Pyongyang rejected calls from Seoul to halt provocative remarks and actions, and threatened to take ``military action´´ against the South.
The North Korean response came a day after the Ministry of National Defense sent a letter to the North, urging the North to stop verbal attacks and hostility to protest Seoul´s tougher stance toward the Stalinist state.
In the letter, the South rejected North Korea´s demand for an apology over remarks made by Gen.
Kim Tae-young, chairman of the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).
President Lee Myung-bak urged North Korea to stop its verbal attacks Thursday and told it to move toward serious dialogue.
The Defense Ministry has concluded that a South Korean Army officer found shot dead at a base in Iraq last month had committed suicide due to stress from his duties.
Oh Jong-soo was found dead on May 19 with his chin wounded by a gunshot at a barber shop inside the camp of the Zaytun unit in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil.
The Korea Times reports Oh’s is the first death of a South Korean troop since they were deployed there in 2004.
Oh’s rifle and an empty cartridge were found near his body, a spokesman said, adding the Army concluded that he killed himself due to pressure from his work.
Oh’s body was flown to Seoul and an autopsy was performed to determine the cause of death.
But Oh’s family has called for thorough investigation into the cause of death, refusing to hold a funeral. “The K-2 rifle found at the scene belonged to 1st Lt.
Oh and a bullet was fired from the rifle,” the chief investigator of the incident said, adding that his fingerprints were also found on the rifle and the broken seal of the cartridge.
He is believed to have pulled the trigger with the rifle pointed at his chin, he said.
The chief investigator said the victim might have been under stress from serving as both company leader and officer in charge of medical administrative affairs.
Oh’s rifle and an empty cartridge were found near his body, a spokesman said, adding the Army concluded that he killed himself due to pressure from his work.
Michelle Obama says it'll probably be late winter or early spring before the girls got their promised dog:
“The deal with the dog was that we would get the dog, um, after we got settled, because as responsible owners, we, I don't think it would be good to get a dog in the midst of transition.”
The future First Lady on CBS's“ 60 Minutes” saying Malia and Sasha Obama are good with the decision to wait;
At the weekend box office:
The big draw was Bond;
“Craig, the blond Bond, has the best opening weekend with more than $70 million.
'Quantum of Solace' easily tops 'Die Another Day' from 2002.”
It's Jamie Fryer with the entertainment news.
The 10 and 0 Titans are still the only undefeated team in the NAF-in the NFL, that is, but the Super Bowl Champion Giants are still 9 and 1.
The Cowboys beat the Redskins 14-10 in Sunday night football.
The future First Lady on CBS's“ 60 Minutes” saying Malia and Sasha Obama are good with the decision to wait;
At the weekend box office:
Police arrested a man who attempted to kidnap a 10-year-old schoolgirl in Ilsan, north of Seoul, Monday.
However, law enforcement authorities are being criticized for negligence in their reaction to the apparent kidnapping attempt.
Police detained the man, identified as Lee, at a sauna in southern Seoul.
He later confessed to the crime.
The attempted abduction was captured on closed-circuit television (CCTV) and broadcast nationwide to TV viewers.
However, law enforcement authorities are being criticized for negligence in their reaction to the apparent kidnapping attempt.
South Korean electronics giant Samsung has agreed to plead guilty to involvement in price fixing in the US and to pay a $300m fine.
The fine is the second largest criminal anti-trust penalty in US history, and the largest for five years.
Samsung was accused of conspiring with other chipmakers to fix the price of chips sold for use in PCs and mobile phones between 1999 and 2002.
Samsung is the third firm to plead guilty to price fixing in the case.
South Korean firm Hynix agreed to pay a $185m fine while German chipmaker Infineon reached a $160m settlement.
The US Justice Department said Samsung and its US subsidiary would enter a guilty plea at the US District Court in San Francisco on Thursday.
Meanwhile, locally the prosecution said that it has begun investigating the bank accounts of Samsung Group Chairman Lee Kun-hee's children to trace transactions that may have carried illegal wealth transfers.
Prosecutors are chasing the passage of 9.6 billion won worth of convertible bonds purchased by the chairman's only son Lee Jay-yong and his three daughters during November 1996.
The bond transfer helped Lee's scions gain a combined 50.2 percent stake in Samsung Everland, a de facto holding company.
Lee Jay-yong, who is 37, executive vice-president of Samsung Electronics, is likely to be summoned for questioning if the prosecution discovers the source of the funds allegedly used to CBs in 1996.
Yesterday, the nation's leading civic group filed a complaint for charges of malpractice against junior Lee and nine other Samsung executives from the company's affiliates.
South Korean electronics giant Samsung has agreed to plead guilty to involvement in price fixing in the US and to pay a $300m fine.
Samsung is the third firm to plead guilty to price fixing in the case.
Japan’s parliament has passed a bill that sets out steps for holding a referendum on revising the country’s pacifist constitution.
The legislation was passed by the parliament’s upper house, having cleared the lower house last month.
The move marks a victory for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who has made revising the constitution one of his top priorities, correspondents say.
Drawn up by the US occupation authorities after WWII, it bans military force in settling international disputes and prohibits maintaining a military for warfare.
But Abe wants Japan to be more assertive on the world stage, with a military able to take part in peacekeeping missions abroad.
Abe’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) is working on a draft of a new constitution.
The legislation passed by parliament says that a referendum on the issue cannot take place before 2010, and needs approval from a majority of voters.
Japan’s parliament has passed a bill that sets out steps for holding a referendum on revising the country’s pacifist constitution.
The current constitution has not been changed since 1947.
Drawn up by the US occupation authorities after WWII, it bans military force in settling international disputes and prohibits maintaining a military for warfare.
Communist China recently repatriated seven North Korean refugees who entered an international school for South Koreans at Yantai, Shandong Province, the Foreign Affairs and Trade Ministry in Seoul said Monday.
Communist China recently repatriated seven North Korean refugees who entered an international school for South Koreans at Yantai, Shandong Province, the Foreign Affairs and Trade Ministry in Seoul said Monday.
It is the first time the Beijing regime has sent back North Koreans who sought asylum at international schools.
Red-eared turtles attack Chenggye sewer stream.
The number one movie at the weekend box office got off to a record-breaking start:
“'Marley and Me' has a Christmas to bark about…”
“Jennifer Aniston's ex Brad Pitt has an excellent Christmas at the movies…”
“Variety says 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button', opens with an estimated $11.8 million, well above 'Ali''s earlier mark of 10.2 million.
You don't last long after an 0 in 16 season and a person close to the decision says the Detroit Lions already fired Coach Rod Marinelli.
This comes just one day after Detroit became the first NFL team ever to go winless in a 16-game season.
the Dow is up 8 points.
The number one movie at the weekend box office got off to a record-breaking start:
“'Marley and Me' has a Christmas to bark about…”
“Jennifer Aniston's ex Brad Pitt has an excellent Christmas at the movies…”
You don't last long after an 0 in 16 season and a person close to the decision says the Detroit Lions already fired Coach Rod Marinelli.
the Dow is up 8 points.
She said the Japanese government has to show its sincerity to resolve key issues such as “comfort women,” instead of pursuing military power.
The main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) also expressed deep concern that the move will destabilize Northeast Asian security.
A U.S. expert said North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests are the core driving forces behind the rise of militarism in Japan and the strengthened U.S.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe claims Japan needs to seek military power to increase its role in the global community through peacekeeping operations and cooperation with the U.S.
Abe and his ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) have been actively pursuing constitutional revision.
Political parties Tuesday expressed deep concern over the Japanese parliament’s approval of a bill describing procedures for a referendum on the constitutional revision of its Constitution.
The United States has accused North Korea of helping Syria build a nuclear reactor that ""was not intended for peaceful purposes"".
The site, said to be like one in North Korea, was bombed by Israel in 2007.
Syria must ""come clean"" about its secret nuclear program, the White House said in a statement after CIA officials briefed members of Congress.
Stung by dwindling public support for President Roh Moo-hyun, Cheong Wa Dae is now widening its battle against conservative newspapers to include media outlets once generally regarded as friendly to him.
The presidential office began bickering with Kyunghyang Sinmun after the progressive vernacular daily criticized the president for neglecting public sentiment in a front-page article last Wednesday.
Featuring working-class citizens in intense poverty, the article accused the president of ignoring what the electorate needed for the most, focusing only on politics.
The presidential office immediately refuted the article with an official statement, criticizing the paper for its “biased perspective.”
As one of Korea's progressive newspapers along with the Hankyoreh and online media site Oh My News, Kyunghyang Sinmun has kept close relationship with Roh since his time as a presidential candidate in 2002.
Speaking just before he left for Beijing, North Korean envoy Kim Gye-gwan said his country had a right to ""peaceful nuclear activity"".
North Korea has again insisted that its right to develop a civilian nuclear program is not up for negotiation - just hours before talks in Beijing.
Speaking just before he left for Beijing, North Korean envoy Kim Gye-gwan said his country had a right to ""peaceful nuclear activity"".
Korea’s higher education tops among OECD nations.
Correspondents say the candidates´ presence reflects the growing influence of such bloggers, seen as a key resource by candidates.
˝In the US, Seven of the Democratic candidates for US president have fielded questions from more than 1,000 political bloggers at an annual convention in Chicago.
Frontrunner Senator Hillary Clinton was booed after saying she would not give up campaign donations from lobbyists.
The candidates also attended less formal individual sessions.
Correspondents say the candidates´ presence reflects the growing influence of such bloggers, seen as a key resource by candidates.
The candidates´ appearance at the YearlyKos Convention follows a presidential debate on YouTube in late July, when they answered questions posed solely via online videos.˝
The US military in Iraq is facing growing political pressure over a raid on a Baghdad mosque complex that left about 20 people dead on Sunday evening.
US officials said 16 insurgents had been killed and 18 captured, along with a significant weapons cache.
""Entering the mosque and the killings there are an unjustified and flagrant attack,"" the interior minister said.
""Approximately 18 innocent men who were inside the mosque performing sunset prayers were killed and became martyrs,"" Bayan Jabr added in an interview on Dubai-based al-Arabiya television.
""They were killed unjustly and wrongfully.
"" Some members of the ruling Shiite Islamist alliance repeated allegations - denied by US officials - that Americans and Iraqi troops under their command had tied people up at the Mustafa mosque in north-east Baghdad's Sadr City and shot them in cold blood.
Earlier on Monday, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said he was ""deeply concerned"" by the reports and had telephoned US military commander General George Casey, who had promised a full inquiry.
However, members of Iraq's ruling Shiite Islamist bloc say many of the dead were civilians taking part in prayers.
From one corner of the world to another, a financial bloodletting is underway at the New York Stock Exchange.
'Sell' is the word of the day.
The Dow now down by about 455 points.
The AP's Warren Levinson has on the massive selloff.
“Confidence in the stock market evaporated almost from the opening bell, with the Dow Jones Industrial average sinking below 10,000 about 35 minutes into trading.
It's the first time in four years the thirty stock index has been in four figures.
One hoped-for effect of the financial system bailout measure passed and signed into law on Friday, which to bring calm to the markets, but that was little in evidence, as markets across Asia and Europe tumbled amid banking pressures of their own, with Wall Street following suit.
Warren Levinson at the New York Stock Exchange.”
The bottom has also fallen out from under Latin American stocks, led by a 15% drop in Brazilian shares.
Iceland and Denmark are the latest countries to declare a deposit guarantee; German Chancellor Angela Merkel yesterday said her government would guarantee all private bank savings and CD's.
From one corner of the world to another, a financial bloodletting is underway at the New York Stock Exchange.
“Confidence in the stock market evaporated almost from the opening bell, with the Dow Jones Industrial average sinking below 10,000 about 35 minutes into trading.
Projections after the first round of France’s parliamentary elections suggest President Nicolas Sarkozy’s party is heading for a landslide.
Although most seats will not be decided until next week’s second round, polling firms said Mr Sarkozy’s UMP party would win at least 383 of the 577 seats.
Analysts say a big majority would allow the new president to press ahead with his sweeping economic reforms.
Turnout is reported to have reached a record low, at around 61%.
That contrasted with a turnout of 84% at the presidential election a month ago.
With a second round of voting to follow next week, the size of the UMP’s likely majority was still uncertain.
Why Roh dropped his plan?
President Roh Moo-hyun's withdrawal of his plan to introduce a constitutional revision to the presidential system is seen as a win-win move for both him and his political foes in the Grand National Party.
After a three-month-long row over his proposal, Roh received a promise of pursuing the change in the next National Assembly from the major political parties, including the GNP, which has opposed the change during his term.
In other words, Roh was able to “honorably” retreat from his plan which had slim chances of gaining parliamentary approval due to opposition from all parties.
For the GNP, the parliamentary majority successfully deterred Roh from presenting a motion for constitutional revision to the National Assembly this week as planned.
Experts say Roh's decision came as he worried the unpopular proposal would hurt his approval ratings boosted by a recent free trade agreement with Washington.
The embattled president saw his approval ratings jump by nearly 10 percent to about 30 percent after his administration successfully clinched a free trade agreement with the United States early this month.
˝Investigators probing a plane crash at a Thai tourist resort say they have found the aircraft´s flight recorders.
At least 89 people were killed when the plane, operated by Thai budget airline One-Two-Go, skidded off a runway in heavy rain on the island of Phuket.
Survivors described how the plane smashed through a wall and broke up, before bursting into flames.
About 130 people, mostly foreigners, were on board the plane.
An estimated 40 people escaped the burning wreckage.
The survivors are thought to include nationals from Australia, Britain, France, Iran, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands and Sweden.
Officials are still trying to determine the names and nationalities of those who died.
Flight OG 269 had flown to Phuket on Sunday from the Thai capital, Bangkok.
Both of the plane´s pilots are believed to have perished in the accident, and officials said 55 foreigners were among the dead.˝
Survivors described how the plane smashed through a wall and broke up, before bursting into flames.
New York Governor Eliot Spitzer has resigned, after being linked to a prostitution ring.
Flanked by his wife, he told a news conference he could not allow ""private failings"" to disrupt public work.
He is to hand over power on Monday.
Spitzer again apologized for not living up to the standards he demanded of others - but he gave no details.
The governor had allegedly been identified arranging to meet a prostitute in a Washington hotel.
Spitzer made his name as an investigator of organized crime, financial crime and prostitution, and his fall from political grace is being seen as one of the biggest New York has known.
At one point he was known as the ""Sheriff of Wall Street"" for the vigor with which he pursued dirty dealing in high finance.
New York Governor Eliot Spitzer has resigned, after being linked to a prostitution ring.
He is to hand over power on Monday.
After his world concert tour ends in June, Rain will head to Berlin to start filming his scenes.
K-pop superstar Rain will make his Hollywood debut in ””Speed Racer,”” the much anticipated live action adaptation of the iconic Japanese animated car racing series.
The Wachowski brothers are the creative team behind the sci-fi blockbuster ””Matrix”” movie series.
Yonhap News quoted Rain’s manager as saying the K-pop singer will be attending the ’Speed Racer press conference’ on May 31 in Berlin, Germany.
Hollywood actors Emile Hirsch, John Goodman, Susan Sarandon and Christina Ricci will also attend the press conference.
The National Tax Service has launched an unexpected special tax probe into Kim & Chang, the nation’s largest law firm, according to sources familiar with the move.
The investigation is the first for the powerful firm since the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s.
The legal giant was designated an “honest tax-payer” in March last year, a privilege that is supposed to suspend periodic tax investigations for the next two years.
The probe is quite abrupt, say members of Korea’s legal community.
Industry insiders believe that the tax investigation will be centered on whether the firm, which was founded in 1972, has properly reported its billing of clients that range from Lone Star and Goldman Sachs to Samsung, Hyundai and SK.
The National Tax Service refused to confirm the matter, which local broadcaster MBC first reported on Saturday, saying “related tax laws prohibit revelation of a tax probe target.”
Kim & Chang also declined to comment.
The investigation is the first for the powerful firm since the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s.
Six-party talks on North Korea´s nuclear programs are likely to resume some time next week, officials from South Korea and the United States said yesterday.
State Department spokesman Tom Casey told reporters in Washington that there is “every reason to anticipate there will be a round next week.”
Host China, however, said the date has not yet been fixed and that the members are still consulting.
The next round of nuclear negotiations were originally set to open this week but were postponed due to an objection from North Korea.
While relevant officials remained silent as to the reason, observers suggested Pyongyang may have attempted to show its dissatisfaction over delays in a shipment of heavy fuel oil from China.
No reason was given for the delay in delivery of communist China´s portion of initial aid.
Burma´s Foreign Minister Nyan Win has blamed “political opportunists” for trying to turn protests by a small group of activists into a showdown.
Speaking to the UN General Assembly, he claimed ”normalcy” had returned to Burma after days of pro-democracy protests.
At least nine people were killed, and possibly many more, when security forces ended days of mass protests.
The lethal reaction of Burma´s government to days of protests in Rangoon and other cities has overshadowed the UN General Assembly in New York.
In front of an international audience, Nyan Win gave his government´s version of events.
He claimed ”neo-colonialism has reared its ugly head” by trying to spread disinformation about human rights abuses in Burma.
A famous call for American independence from Britain.
Patrick Henry tells the Virginia Provincial Convention:
The American Revolution begins just weeks later.
More than a dozen years later, Hitler's rule ends in the wake of World War Two and the Holocaust.
President Ronald Reagan proposes developing technology to intercept nuclear missiles, a plan that critics dub "Star Wars.
Russia's orbiting Mir space station ends its 15-year odyssey with a fiery plunge into the South Pacific.
The disaster epic 'Titanic' wins 11 Oscars, tying the record for the most Academy Award wins.
The Return of The King
Sandy Kozel, The Associated Press.
The American Revolution begins just weeks later.
I call upon the scientific community in our country, those who gave us nuclear weapons, to turn their great talents now to the cause of mankind and world peace, to give us the means of rendering these nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete.
'Ben Hur,' and 'The Lord of The Rings:
The Korea Times reports an eight-month probe into Lone Star is losing pace as the court again rejected the prosecution's request to arrest three Lone Star Funds executives suspected of stock manipulation.
The Supreme Prosecutors' Office said it will file a third request for the warrants very soon with more evidence related to irregularities surrounding the Texas-based private equity fund's purchase of the Korea Exchange Bank (KEB) in 2003.
However, critics wonder whether the prosecution is becoming overzealous in its attempts to detain the Lone Star executives to make up for the shortcomings of their lengthy investigation, which so far has produced little in hard evidence.
The Seoul Central District Court late Tuesday rejected the prosecution's request to arrest Lone Star co-founder and Vice Chairman Ellis Short, general council Michael Thompson and Paul Yoo, the head of Lone Star's Korean unit.
Their first request for the warrants was turned down last week.
``As the first step to achieving this goal, I suggest inviting non-members of the Asia-Pacific region to the APEC Finance Ministers’ Meeting as special guests,’’ he said.
Finance-Economy Minister Han Duck-soo Thursday suggested inviting North Korea as a special guest to the next APEC Finance Ministers’ Meeting, if the ongoing six-way nuclear talks are resolved successfully.
During his opening speech at the 12th APEC meeting among finance ministers held in Cheju, Han, as the chairman of the two-day gathering, said that we should now consider filling in the missing links of the pacific economic rim.
Two Koreas agreed on unified team for 2006 Asian Game.
Six-party talks will resume soon.
Day Two for the new President, and the AP's Rita Foley launches our new series called Barack Obama, the First 100 Days:
Mike Tanner of the Cato Institute:
You don't get legislation through in the first 100 days, it gets considerably tougher.
Congressional expert Norm Orenstein says Obama has to show energy and drive:
Rita Foley, Washington
(Voice of Jay Leno)“ As you know, we've never had an African-American president.
Jay Leno on NBC Tonight.
It's about all he's really got, in terms of honeymoon on the Capitol Hill.
You don't get legislation through in the first 100 days, it gets considerably tougher.
Leaders of 15 European nations that use the Euro have come up with a tentative plan to help unfreeze the credit market.
The plan, they hope, will stop the stock market meltdown.
Meeting in Paris today, they have all decided to guarantee future bank debts for five years.
The idea is to get banks to trust each other again so they'll start lending to each other, and then to people in businesses who need cash.
They haven't officially announced this yet; only written it in a draft statement obtained by the Associated Press.
Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summer says this is just what's making the current U.S. economic crisis worse, than the one that caused the stock market crash of 1987.
“He didn't have the breakdown in all the trading between the banks.
You didn't have the largest banks in the country unwilling to lend to each other.” He was on ABC's 'This Week.'
Leaders of 15 European nations that use the Euro have come up with a tentative plan to help unfreeze the credit market.
only written it in a draft statement obtained by the Associated Press.
Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summer says this is just what's making the current U.S. economic crisis worse, than the one that caused the stock market crash of 1987.
“He didn't have the breakdown in all the trading between the banks.
You didn't have the largest banks in the country unwilling to lend to each other.”
Attorney General Michael Mukasey collapsed tonight during a speech at the Marriott Park Hotel in Washington.
AP correspondent Bryant Thomas joins me live with the latest:
“Ross, Mukasey collapsed during a speech tonight, immediately taken to a hospital in the nation's capital.
Associated Attorney General Kevin O'Connor says Mukasey began shaking while addressing the Federalist Society at a Washington hotel.
He went on to say they're very concerned.
O'Connor doesn't know whether the 67 year-old Mukasey had regained consciousness.
An aid to Barack Obama's transition team tells the Associated Press tonight the President Elect is on track to nominate Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State after Thanksgiving, barring any unforeseen problems.
Attorney General Michael Mukasey collapsed tonight during a speech at the Marriott Park Hotel in Washington.
Associated Attorney General Kevin O'Connor says Mukasey began shaking while addressing the Federalist Society at a Washington hotel.
Gasoline prices still heading south;
oil industry analyst Trilby Lundberg says the national average has dropped to $2.78 a gallon.
He also tells us how to find the cheapest and the most expensive gasoline in the country.
“On the 24th, the lowest average in our survey was Wichita, Kansas.
The highest was in Anchorage, $3.50;
Honolulu right behind it $3.48.”
He says the crude oil price crash and decline in demand in the U.S. have combined to drop the price at the pump.
Phillies fans have been waiting to close to thirty years for the club to win the World Series again.
And the 3-1 lead over Tampa Bay after a 10-2 pasting over the Rays last night.
Phillies' shortstop Jimmy Rollins.
“We're still one game away so we get that game, you know, believe, you know, we'll be happy, city will be happy.”
Game 5 is set for tonight in Philadelphia.
“On the 24th, the lowest average in our survey was Wichita, Kansas.
Australia´s politicians have begun their general election campaigns, after prime minister John Howard set a 24th November date.
Howard pledged billions of dollars in tax cuts and launched a web video on climate change.
The opposition Labor Party has criticized Howard´s refusal to sign the emissions-limiting Kyoto agreement.
Howard is seeking a fifth term in office for his ruling Liberal-National coalition, but polls suggest a huge victory for Labor´s Kevin Rudd.
The 50-year-old opposition leader has been ahead of Howard in polls for most of the year.
Analysts say Howard has opted for a long election fight to give himself a chance of overhauling Labor´s lead.
George Jones is among the Kennedy Center Honorees who took a bow last night.
“George Jones has seen a lot during his career as a country music star, but he says when it comes to the Kennedy Center Honor…”
“Jones got a special shout out from the outgoing First Family.
Medical researchers say state laws meant to keep teens out of indoor tanning booths are not being enforced or are having little effect;
an estimated 30 million Americans are customers to the nation's $25,000-25,000 indoor salons.
Melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, is a big problem.
Don't know whether to take a drake or cry.
George Jones is among the Kennedy Center Honorees who took a bow last night.
First Lady Laura Bush introduced his tribute from the stage, and President Bush was seen bobbing his head to the music, one of the few times he appeared animated at last night's gala.
The statement appeared to open up a fresh divide between North Korea and the US.
Talks on North Korea's nuclear ambitions appear to have stalled, delegates meeting in Beijing have said.
The chief US negotiator said the talks were at a ""standoff"", while a North Korean spokesman blamed the US for the lack of progress.
The impasse stems from a North Korean demand that it be provided with a light-water nuclear reactor as part of a deal to give up nuclear weapons and on the intransigence of the United States in denying North Korea any kind of peaceful nuclear program.
The six-nation discussions reconvened on Tuesday after a five-week recess.
North Korean spokesman Hyun Hak-bon said Pyongyang wanted to be given a light water reactor to make up for the graphite moderated reactors it was being pressed to give up under the deal. Light water reactors are much more difficult to use as a source of plutonium with which to build nuclear weapons.
North Korea claims to be using one of its existing graphite reactors to this end.
""While other participating countries expressed understanding on this issue, the United States unreasonably vowed not to provide light water reactors,” Hyun said.
The statement appeared to open up a fresh divide between North Korea and the US.
˝Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says he plans to release 250 jailed members of the Fatah movement led by Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.
He announced the “goodwill gesture” at a summit in Egypt, attended by Abbas and the leaders of Egypt and Jordan.
The meeting was aimed at boosting Abbas and isolating his rivals, Hamas, after their takeover of Gaza.
Earlier, the Hamas captors of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit broadcast what they say is his first audio message.
The voice on the tape says his health is worsening and he needs medical help.
The meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh brought together Olmert, Abbas, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and King Abdullah of Jordan.
Olmert told the gathering: ”As a gesture of goodwill towards the Palestinians, I will bring before the Israeli cabinet a proposal to free 250 Fatah prisoners who do not have blood on their hands.”
He added that those freed would have to sign a commitment not to return to violence.˝
Weather forecasters are predicting a cold wave across the nation this weekend, with snow and high winds in many regions.
The cold snap, they said, would continue until next Thursday.
The Korea Meteorological Administration said that precipitation, either snow or rain, will fall across the entire country tomorrow, with heavy snow and high winds in the west and in the mountainous areas of Gangwon province near the east coast.
The same weather patterns will continue on Saturday in those areas elsewhere, there will be mixed rain and snow showers.
Intermittent snowfall is also predicted in the central peninsula and on the west coastal areas.
Chinese Ships Harassed U.S.
A little international tension here:
the US is protesting an incident yesterday in the South China Sea.
The Pentagon says several Chinese ships came dangerously close to a US Navy vessel, an unarmed ship that was conducting ocean surveys in international waters.
The Navy sprayed one of the Chinese ships with fire hoses to force it away.
Illinois police still haven't released the name of a man suspected of fatally shooting a pastor yesterday at a church across the river from St.
Stocks have been modestly higher in early trading this morning on news of a deal involving drug makers Merck and Schering Plough.
A joint team from the National Intelligence Service and the Defense Security Command is investigating a case in which 250 confidential documents of the Defense Acquisition Program Administration, outlining vital defense development projects, were recently posted on the Internet.
A joint team from the National Intelligence Service and the Defense Security Command is investigating a case in which 250 confidential documents of the Defense Acquisition Program Administration, outlining vital defense development projects, were recently posted on the Internet.
The team said the documents were mid-term defense plans and most were classified as second- or third-level confidential documents.
The Labor Department says consumer prices fell by 7/10ths of a percent last month, and rose by just a tenth of a point for all of last year.
The record drop in energy prices is behind America's smallest amount of inflation since 1954.
President-elect Barack Obama goes to Ohio today to pitch his economic stimulus package.
Foreign investors in South Korea are dissatisfied with the host nation’s tax regulations and are unhappy with overall tax benefit systems, a survey showed.
Choi Ki-ho, a professor of the tax science graduate school of Seoul National University, surveyed officials in charge of accounting at 52 foreign firms on their satisfaction level of the nation’s tax policy.
Among those surveyed, 25 companies are beneficiaries of tax benefits.
Those surveyed are unhappy with the nation’s level of taxation levied on foreign invested firms.
They rated only 2.32 out of full 5 scores in a question over whether they think the nation’s tax burden is lower than other countries.
There's actually a job opening for that under the big tent.
About 20 performers, who dreamed of joining the circus as kids, got their chance Monday during clown tryouts in New York for Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus.
Williams made the cut.
About 20 clown hopefuls strutted their stuff for the judges hoping to capture their eye.
The biggest quality that we are looking for is a desire.
You know we'll see some incredible skills.
We'll see jugglers, we'll see unicycle riders, we'll see people in costume and makeup, but those things don't make a clown.
Those things are tools that a clown uses.
A clown has to have heart and that's what we're looking for.
And desire was definitely not in short supply.
The road to be a clown at Ringling Brothers has come to this day.
I have been working as a clown for 15 years.
From the tryouts in New York only six clown hopefuls were selected.
If picked to continue on, they will tour next year with the circus.
The Associated Press.
Who doesn't want to run away with the circus and I'm a clown with or without makeup on.
About 20 clown hopefuls strutted their stuff for the judges hoping to capture their eye.
After-Christmas shoppers are finding bargains, says the nation's retailers are, feeling the blues.
“I would say that probably 20 to 30% of most chain stores this Christmas underperformed, and that's a recipe for disaster [unclear].”
Retail analyst Britt Beamer says even today's big cuts won't reverse the-one of the most dismal shopping seasons in some forty years.
Police in Covina, California, say Bruce Pardo was dressed as Santa when he arrived at his ex-in-laws' Christmas Eve party.
And instead of presents he brought death and destruction.
At least eight people dead and the house left in flames.
Police Lieutenant Pat Buchanan says Pardo began shooting as soon as the door opened.
“An eight year old female was running towards him, at which time she was shot in the face.
She has an entrance wound on the right side of her face and an exit wound on the left side of her face.”
The little girl is hospitalized, as is another shooting victim, and a young woman with a broken ankle.
Investigators think his ex-wife and her parents are among the dead.
Pardo later killed himself at his brother's house.
After-Christmas shoppers are finding bargains, says the nation's retailers are, feeling the blues.
Shaking off the bitter cold, a stream of mourners continued to visit Namdaemun yesterday to see the rubble with their own eyes and pay their respects to the ancient structure.
In the grass plaza behind the 610-year-old gate, a makeshift mourning altar was set up with apples, ears and soju on a picnic mat.
A 64-year-old man who introduced himself only as a North Korean defector, was handing out white chrysanthemums to passersby.
Visitors waited in line to offer a flower and bow twice, as is done at a traditional mourning altar for a dead person.
Kwon Jae-yoon and Lee Yoon-gyeong, 18-year-old high school students, stood there and prayed.
Children were among the mourners, as well.
In the grass plaza behind the 610-year-old gate, a makeshift mourning altar was set up with apples, ears and soju on a picnic mat.
Kwon Jae-yoon and Lee Yoon-gyeong, 18-year-old high school students, stood there and prayed.
˝Senior US officials have singled out Iran for criticism, a day after giving a progress report on security in Iraq.
Gen David Petraeus, top US commander in Iraq, and US envoy to Baghdad Ryan Crocker both claimed evidence of Iranian involvement in attacks on US troops.
Responding to their report, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said it made clear Iraq´s security had improved, but that Iran was a “troublesome neighbor”.
US President George W Bush is due to address the nation on Thursday evening.
His speech will follow criticism from senior Democrats, who have said proposed reductions in US troop numbers in Iraq are ”insufficient” and do not represent a change in course.
Bush is expected to announce that he plans to reduce US troops in Iraq by about 30,000 by next summer, if certain conditions are met, White House officials say.
The move would bring the number of US troops in Iraq to ”pre-surge” levels, with about 130,000 still deployed in Iraq.˝
˝Senior US officials have singled out Iran for criticism, a day after giving a progress report on security in Iraq.
The official campaign period for next month´s presidential election will start this week, with a majority of voters determined to end 10 years of liberal rule, despite the financial and ethical scandals surrounding the conservative frontrunner, Lee Myung-bak.
A record-number of presidential candidates are running this year.
Twelve registered with the National Election Commission during the two-day registration period that closed on Monday, commission officials said.
This a much bigger figure than the eight who registered in 1987 and the eight who registered in 1992.
Seven candidates ran in 1997 and seven in 2002.Past presidential elections have traditionally been close races between liberals and conservatives, but in this year´s race, the conservatives hold an overwhelming lead in part because of the low ratings of liberal President Roh Moo-hyun.
A potentially explosive announcement by the Supreme Prosecutors´ Office is due on Dec.
It will be made following the prosecution´s investigation into a stock manipulation scam and allegations that Lee Myung-bak was involved.
Lee has denied impropriety, but the key suspect, Korean-American Kim Kyung-joon, has claimed Lee was as responsible for the scam as he himself.
He claims Lee had full ownership of an investment firm that Kim used to rig the shares and embezzle about 38.4 billion won in corporate funds in 2001.
This a much bigger figure than the eight who registered in 1987 and the eight who registered in 1992.
˝Some 6.6 percent of U.S. doctorate degrees earned by Koreans and registered to the government in the past five years are from unaccredited institutes, The Korea Times quoted a lawmaker as saying Wednesday.
Moreover, at least two of those degree holders are now working as university professors in Korea.
Yoo Ki-hong of the United New Democratic Party, 4,199 people reported their U.S. doctorates to Korea Research Foundation (KRF) between January 2003 and July 2007.
However, after examining their degrees through the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA), 276 of them are said to have earned them from unaccredited institutes.˝
Seong said North Korea's abandonment of nuclear arms programs and peaceful relations between the two Koreas were preconditions for implementing the assistance plan.
The chief South Korean policymaker for the country's development said yesterday Seoul is planning to aid North Korea by focusing efforts on two large cities and four smaller zones.
Seong Kyoung-ryung, head of the Presidential Committee on Balanced National Development, unveiled the plan at a special lecture hosted by Grand National Party lawmakers.
Seong said North Korea's abandonment of nuclear arms programs and peaceful relations between the two Koreas were preconditions for implementing the assistance plan.
Tentatively naming the support program as ""two plus four,"" Seong said Pyongyang and Wonsan in the North had been targeted for development aid.
More than 25% of university students have experience of sex.
The names of the 2,749 victims of the Twin Towers attack were read out by their brothers and sisters.
The ceremony paused for a minute's silence at 08:46 a.m. when the first plane hit the north tower.
In New Orleans, New York police helping with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina held their own ceremony.
Koizumi will have a great victory on the general election.
London´s Metropolitan Police force has been found guilty of endangering the public over the fatal shooting of a man officers mistook for a suicide bomber.
The force broke health and safety laws when officers pursued Brazilian Jean Charles De Menezes´s to a Tube station and shot him seven times, a jury found.
It was fined £175,000 with £385,000 costs over the July 22th 2005 shooting.
The Old Bailey jury said police chief Cressida Dick, who led the operation, bore “no personal culpability”.
Dick, now deputy assistant commissioner of the force, had been accused by prosecutors of failing to keep control of her officers.
Met Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair said outside court that he was staying in his job - despite calls for his resignation.
de Menezes´s relatives said they wanted to see a ”full and thorough” inquest into the electrician´s death.
Harriet Wistrich, the family´s solicitor, said the police had been an ”unstoppable force” when they pursued him, and the defense had ”descended to the gutter” to blacken his name.
˝Almost unnoticed at first, the Joong-Ang Ilbo reports another strike has created turmoil inside the Hyundai-Kia Motor Group.
subcontractors went on strike and occupied the automaker’s main plant south of Seoul on Thursday, causing a loss of 3,200 produced cars worth 43 billion won ($45 million), the company said yesterday.
The Hwaseong plant, which represents 42 percent of Kia’s total output, stopped operations after about 400 workers, including parts suppliers dispatched to work in the plant, occupied the painting and polishing lines.
They are employed by Kia’s 26 subcontractors, not directly by the company.
However, the workers regard themselves as non-regular employees of the nation’s second-biggest automaker and are demanding that Kia arrange collective negotiations between them and their subcontractors.
According to a statement from the workers, they are seeking the same pay and job security as the automaker’s employees.˝
Reuters reports a Palestinian gunman killed eight people in a Jewish religious college in Jerusalem on Thursday, most of them students, and wounded about 10 others in the most lethal attack in Israel in two years.
The attacker was killed by an off-duty Israeli soldier.
""It was a slaughterhouse,"" said Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, head of the Zaka emergency service, after surveying the scene following five minutes of bloodshed at the Merkaz Harav seminary, one of the most prominent Jewish educational centers in the holy city.
Jerusalem police chief Aharon Franco said the lone gunman was killed by an off-duty army officer who lives nearby and ran to the school after hearing gunfire.
A city official said the assailant carried documents identifying him as a resident of Arab East Jerusalem.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, but it was greeted with celebrations in the Gaza Strip, where an Israeli offensive in recent days killed more than 120 Palestinians, about half of whom were identified as civilians.
Police arrested Wednesday a man suspected of killing a marine and stealing an assault rifle, ammunition and a hand grenade.
The 35-year-old man named Cho was caught around 3 p.m. near Danseong Theater in Jongno, downtown Seoul by police who ambushed him after receiving a tip from Cho´s friend.
He initially maintained his right to silence but later admitted that he committed the crime, the police said.
But different from what was suspected first, he did not serve as a marine nor have any experience at a special military unit or previous criminal record.
He worked for an interior decoration company.
Earlier in the day, the police retrieved all weapons he used to murder the marine and severely injure another.
A K-2 assault rifle and a magazine with 15 bullets were found under a bridge near the Baekyangsa Rest Area on a highway in South Jeolla Province.
The hand grenade and more ammunition were found in a nearby stream.
After checking their serial numbers, the police concluded that they were the stolen weapons.
He initially maintained his right to silence but later admitted that he committed the crime, the police said.
Former US Vice-President Al Gore has ruled out again making a late entry into the 2008 presidential race.
In an interview with Norwegian broadcaster NRK, he said he would not make a fresh bid for the White House.
Gore told NRK he wanted to focus on his climate change campaign, which won him a Nobel Peace Prize last week.
Votes are being counted in the state of Pennsylvania, where White House hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are engaged in a critical battle.
Mrs Clinton trails her rival in the state-by-state race for delegates who will choose the Democratic nominee.
Going into the vote she led the polls in Pennsylvania, a delegate-rich state, but analysts said Mrs Clinton needed a big victory to keep her campaign alive.
Preliminary exit polls for the Associated Press and US television networks suggested a large turnout among voters over 60 and that six in 10 voters were women - both groups which have favored Mrs Clinton. Votes are being counted in the state of Pennsylvania, where White House hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are engaged in a critical battle.
6, will you sign this?
“Whether Joe Torre broke clubhouse confidences or not in his new book, New Yorkers love him:
(female voice)“ For me, I want to read the book first, before I want to make a judgment.
“For his part, Torre says it's a review of his 12 years here, and not a tell-all:
In the NBA, the Celtics have now won 12 in a row, and the Cavaliers 23 straight at home.
Boston topped Philadelphia last night, Cleveland routed Toronto.
Change is coming to Hempstead, New York.
An elementary school in the Long Island town is being renamed in honor of President Obama today, apparently the first school in the country to do that.
The principal says it was the kids' idea.
“For his part, Torre says it's a review of his 12 years here, and not a tell-all:
They are also searching for members of regional terror group Jemaah Islamiah.
Soldiers in the Philippines have clashed with suspected Islamic militants on the southern island of Jolo, according to the military.
Air strikes targeted a base thought to be used by the Abu Sayyaf group.
Troops then engaged in heavy fighting with fleeing militants, officials said.
The Philippine authorities have been trying to flush Abu Sayyaf rebels from hideouts in remote island locations.
The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education announced Wednesday that in a bid to fight obesity in the young, 50 middle schools in Seoul will adopt intensive programs to help overweight students lose weight.
The move comes as more than one in 10 schoolchildren are considered to be obese.
The fight against obesity in middle schools follows similar programs at 50 elementary schools last year, the education office said.
In Seoul, 11.2 percent of elementary schoolchildren, 10.6 percent of middle-school students, and 15.8 percent of high school students were calculated to be overweight in 2005.
Under the project, selected schools will provide various programs, including exercise and dietary advice.
Details of the program for obese middle-schoolers have yet to be finalized.
For elementary schoolchildren, after-school programs for helping obese students lose weight have been underway.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and other G-20 finance ministers are meeting this weekend in England.
Geithner is trying to get the others to agree to vast spending increases to break the recession.
President Barack Obama meets this hour at the White House with Brazil's president.
The AP's Sophia Manos has a preview:
“ Brazil's economy is the world's 9th largest, and its cautious economic policies have helped it weather the global economic crisis better than most.
As the biggest country in South America, Brazil also has huge new sources of offshore oil and abundant ethanol, and those resources could give it a key role in helping the United States wean itself off Venezuelan crude, and shift to cleaner sources of energy.
The 4-day stock rally stirs some optimism on Wall Street.
Mesirow Financial chief economist Diane Swonk says, however, that there are bound to be bad days ahead, kind of like springtime weather in Chicago:
“ Unfortunately, it's not a bottom yet, and you know, as we remind people in Chicago, we can get a 60-degree day in the middle of winter, and a thaw in early spring, and still a snow in May.”
The AP's Sophia Manos has a preview:
The government wants to form an international research group to further that goal, Park Ky-young, a presidential adviser for science and technology, said yesterday.
The Blue House says it is seeking to establish an international consortium of academics to advance the stem cell research of Korea's leading geneticists, led by Seoul National University professor Hwang Woo-suk.
Hwang and his team announced last week that they had developed a highly efficient method of producing stem cell lines from cloned human embryos.
The news has been hailed as a significant step toward the therapeutic use of stem cells to cure chronic diseases.
The government wants to form an international research group to further that goal, Park Ky-young, a presidential adviser for science and technology, said yesterday.
Japanese Nobel Prize laureate said Japan’s military ambition is in a serious condition.
South and North Korea had a summit anniversary event.
˝The Korea Times reports North Korea has shut down its nuclear facilities in Yongbyon as part of a disarmament deal.
North Korea´s Foreign Ministry officially confirmed the shutdown of the nuclear reactor via its state-run news agency later Sunday.
State Department had said late Saturday that the North had informed it of the shutdown.
The notification was made hours after the first shipment of 6,200 tons of heavy fuel oil out of 50,000 tons arrived in North Korea in accordance with a six-party talks agreement made last February.
South Korean troops in Irbil, northern Iraq, today celebrate the second anniversary of the mission to rehabilitate and bring security to the war torn town.
The Zaytun division has supported the town's Kurdish residents with medical, educational and construction programs since its arrival in 2004.
The name Zaytun means olive in Arabic.
The unit paved roads, constructed schools and health centers and repaired water supply facilities.
The unit also treated up to 25,000 local residents in its hospital, offers industrial training and provided necessities to people in need.
The Zaytun division has supported the town's Kurdish residents with medical, educational and construction programs since its arrival in 2004.
South Korea's disgraced cloning pioneer Hwang Woo-suk has apologized to the nation, in his first public appearance since his work was denounced as fake.
""I ask for your forgiveness,"" Hwang told a televised news conference in the capital Seoul.
He said he would take responsibility for the errors, but claimed he had been deceived by junior researchers.
Hwang was stripped of his national honors earlier this week, and his case is being investigated by prosecutors.
There is public concern about the $29m of government funding he received for his research.
Hwang faced the media for the first time on Thursday, two days after his claimed breakthroughs in stem cell research were exposed as a fake.
He said he could not lift his head for shame and would take responsibility for failing to check the data that was produced by his researchers.
But he insisted that most of the fabrications were carried out without his knowledge, by collaborators on the project.
He said his lab had produced about 100 cloned human embryos, but the hospital responsible for developing them into stem cells had deceived him about the results.
He speculated that the head of the hospital responsible may have wanted personal revenge against him.
The four dead were caught in two landslides in Kagoshima and Miyazaki prefectures on Kyushu island.
Southern Japan has been lashed by a powerful typhoon that triggered landslides and floods and killed at least four people.
More than 100,000 people were ordered to evacuate ahead of the storm, Typhoon Nabi, which brought winds of 126km/h (78mph), and up to 1.3m (51in) of rain.
The four dead were caught in two landslides in Kagoshima and Miyazaki prefectures on Kyushu island.
Bush to ask for additional $50bn regard to Katrina.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard has announced that he will contest elections for a fifth term in office.
In a letter to backbenchers, Howard, who is 67, said he had made his decision after consulting Liberal Party colleagues.
But Costello, who is 47, ruled out a challenge to the prime minister, saying he would remain in his position.
Howard, who has been in office 10 years, is Australia's second-longest serving prime minister.
Robert Menzies, who held office for over 18 years, holds the record.
The US House of Representatives has voted to approve government funding for embryonic stem cell research. The vote sets up a confrontation with President Bush, who has vowed to veto the bill, if it passes the Senate.
Correspondents say that by threatening to use the veto for the first time in his presidency, Bush has made it clear he will make a stand. The US House of Representatives has voted to approve government funding for embryonic stem cell research.
The vote sets up a confrontation with President Bush, who has vowed to veto the bill, if it passes the Senate.
The bill was passed by 238-194 votes - short of the two-thirds majority required to override Bush's veto.
The vote followed an emotional debate between those who said the research was vital to open up medical progress, and those who said it destroys human life.
Human embryos need to be destroyed in order to harvest their stem cells.
Correspondents say that by threatening to use the veto for the first time in his presidency, Bush has made it clear he will make a stand.
Police in Egypt arrested 15 banned opposition Muslim Brotherhood members.
Saddam Hussein told “Do not blame no-one else.”
Former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein has told his trial in Baghdad that he alone should be made to answer for the actions of his regime.
At the end of a second straight day of prosecution evidence, he said the court should not be trying anyone else - a reference to his seven co-defendants.
Earlier, he admitted razing the farms of those convicted of trying to kill him in the town of Dujail in 1982.
The trial, which resumed amid fresh violence, was adjourned until March 12th.
It is a remarkable progress from last year’s first-round success when his team established just a single stem cell line by cloning the somatic cell of a healthy woman.
The exploit will be featured in the next edition of the U.S.-based journal Science.
Seoul National University professor Hwang Woo-suk and his 20-plus colleagues achieved their second-round medical feat of cloning stem cells genetically matched to patients for the first time in history.
Hwang derived 11 embryonic stem cell lines by cloning 11 patients, both male and female of various ages ranging between 2 to 56, suffering from diseases or spinal cord injury.
It is a remarkable progress from last year’s first-round success when his team established just a single stem cell line by cloning the somatic cell of a healthy woman.
Cabinet-level talks between North and South Korea will be held soon.
TG Computer has sought court protection.
Women took seven out of 10 high-income job openings, such as medical doctors and corporate executives last year, according to the National Statistical Office.
The average income of certified professionals, technicians and administrators including legislators were higher than those of the 10 occupational groups classified by the NSO.
The three high-income groups created 222,000 new jobs last year, of which women accounted for 69.4 percent. Women took 61 percent of total new jobs created nationwide last year.
Although women trumped men in recent employment figures, there still are far less women in the career world.
Korea lags behind most of its peers in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in women's employment rates.
Only 48.8 percent of women aged 15 or older were employed, compared to 71.3 percent of men.
Women took seven out of 10 high-income job openings, such as medical doctors and corporate executives last year, according to the National Statistical Office.
Korea lags behind most of its peers in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in women's employment rates.
Pirates have freed a Taiwanese vessel and its crew, kidnapped almost six months ago off the coast of Somalia.
Taiwanese and Kenyans were among those released.
One crew member was killed shortly after the hijacking.
The release followed intervention by the US Navy, which has helped five ships in the area in the past week, all of which had been boarded by pirates.
The increased US activity is being seen as a sign of growing concern over Somali pirates.
The waters off the East African country are notorious for piracy - second only to Indonesia, both Muslim countries.
The freeing of the Taiwanese vessel came the day after two South Korean fishing boats were freed in the same area.
The South Korean boats were being escorted to Yemen under the guard of the US Navy.
Last week, US warships sank two boats that had been used by pirates to take over a Japanese merchant ship - although the ship itself is still under the pirates´ control.
And the Americans also provided support for North Korean sailors, who managed to regain control of their ship from another group of pirates.
Taiwanese and Kenyans were among those released.
UN envoy to Burma Ibrahim Gambari has met detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi in the main city of Rangoon.
Gambari is attempting to mediate between Burma´s junta and the opposition, and end a bloody crackdown on mass pro-democracy protests.
Earlier, he met some of the country´s military leaders in the new so-called capital Naypyidaw, and has now returned there for further talks.
He has yet to see senior general Than Shwe or his deputy.
Ms Suu Kyi´s National League for Democracy easily won elections in 1990, but these were annulled by the junta.
Gambari is believed to be the first foreigner to meet Ms Suu Kyi for 10 months.
A UN statement said they spent over an hour in talks, at a government guest house near the villa where she is kept under house arrest.
A U.N. committee passed a Japan-instigated resolution Tuesday pressing North Korea to improve its human rights situation, with South Korea abstaining.
South Korea, which voted for last year´s resolution, said it decided to abstain “in consideration of special status of inter-Korean relations.”
Leading up to the vote, the United States repeatedly pressured Seoul to again vote yes.
North Korea´s envoy charged the resolution is based on false information and cast a no vote.
Third Committee, which deals with social and humanitarian issues, adopted the resolution expressing concerns at ”continuing reports of systematic, widespread and grave violations of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights” in North Korea.
It also reiterates concerns at North Korea´s abduction of foreigners, referring mostly to kidnapped Japanese citizens, and calls for their immediate return.
Leading up to the vote, the United States repeatedly pressured Seoul to again vote yes.
North Korea´s envoy charged the resolution is based on false information and cast a no vote.
South Korean officials said Wednesday that it is time to focus on diplomatic efforts to persuade North Korea to rejoin the regional talks on its nuclear arms programs and that it's too early to think about hardline options to pressure the communist country.
South Korean officials said Wednesday that it is time to focus on diplomatic efforts to persuade North Korea to rejoin the regional talks on its nuclear arms programs and that it's too early to think about hardline options to pressure the communist country.
The Korea Times reports Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon, who returned home after a brief trip to Washington, stressed South Korea and the United States agreed to make diplomatic efforts to resume the six-party disarmament talks.
Communist China says it has destroyed a ""terrorist gang"" in a raid in the north-western province of Xinjiang.
State media reported that two people were killed and 15 arrested in the raid on an apartment in the provincial capital Urumqi last month.
China has been struggling for years to contain separatist sentiment among the Uighur minority in Xinjiang.
Many Uigurs have campaigned for the mainly Muslim province to become an independent republic.
The Global Times, a newspaper published by the Communist Party mouthpiece China Daily, said the raid on 27 January was the largest of its kind in over a year.
The newspaper reported that guns, home-made bombs and extremist literature were found in the apartment.
In The Age of Turbulence:
˝The former chairman of the US Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan has said President George W Bush pays too little attention to financial discipline.
In a book to be published next week, Mr Greenspan says Mr Bush ignored his advice to veto “out-of-control” bills that sent the US deeper into deficit.
And Mr Bush´s Republicans deserved to lose control of Congress in last year´s elections, he charges.
Mr Greenspan, who is 81, stepped down last year after nearly 19 years in the post.
In The Age of Turbulence:
Adventures in a New World, Mr Greenspan - who has described himself as a ”lifelong libertarian Republican” - spares no criticism of the Republican party.
He writes that he advised the White House to veto some bills to curb ”out-of-control” spending at the time Republicans controlled Congress.
President Bush´s failure to do so ”was a major mistake”, he said.˝
The G7 finance ministers are hard at work, trying to find a solution to the credit crisis that has rocked the world.
“And all of us recognize that this is a serious global crisis, and therefore requires a serious global response for the good of our people.”
There will be no common financial rescue fund in Europe.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel rejecting the plan as unwieldy.
US Treasury delegation is in Macau to discuss lifting sanctions imposed on a bank in the Chinese territory accused of helping North Korea launder money.
An official said the treasury was ready to “begin taking steps” to settle the dispute over Banco Delta Asia.
The sanctions, imposed last year, led to the freezing of some $24m of North Korean funds.
The North insisted the issue be dealt with as part of nuclear talks which saw a breakthrough on 13 February.
Under the agreement, North Korea agreed to ”shut down and seal” parts of its nuclear program in exchange for aid, ahead of the program's eventual abandonment.
South Korea said that preparations were under way to send $20m worth of fuel oil shipments to the North, as one of the first steps under the agreement.
The announcement came a day before the two Koreas resumed ministerial talks in Pyongyang.
The sanctions, imposed last year, led to the freezing of some $24m of North Korean funds.
The North insisted the issue be dealt with as part of nuclear talks which saw a breakthrough on 13 February.
On a vote of 76-10, far more than the 60 needed, the Democratic-led Senate cleared a procedural hurdle and began considering a bill to increase congressional and judicial oversight of electronic surveillance of suspected terrorists.
surveillance without court warrants of e-mails and telephone calls of people in the United States
begun shortly after the September 11 attacks. Nearly 40 lawsuits have been filed accusing AT&T, Verizon and Sprint Nextel Corp.
A senior US diplomat has branded North Korea a ""criminal regime"" involved in arms sales, drug trafficking and currency forgery.
Alexander Vershbow, the new US ambassador to South Korea, was explaining why the US had imposed economic sanctions against the North.
The unusually harsh comments are expected to infuriate North Korea.
The North warned on it Tuesday could walk out of talks on its nuclear plans unless the sanctions were lifted.
But Vershbow, who is a Russian specialist and former NATO envoy, told journalists on Wednesday that the sanctions were a matter of law enforcement. ""This is a criminal regime,"" he said.
""And we can't somehow remove our sanctions as a political gesture when this regime is engaging in dangerous activities such as weapons exports to rogue states, narcotics trafficking as a state activity and counterfeiting of our money on a large scale,"" he said.
Correspondents say the allegations are not new, but it is unusual for them to be made so publicly.
South Korean officials express disappointment with the ambassador’s comments.
A big crisis of MBC .
South Korean presidential candidates began registering on Sunday with polls showing that the main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) is well placed to win the election scheduled for December 19th.
The candidates are running to succeed President Roh Moo-hyun, who is required by law to step down at the end of his single five-year term in February.
With the election less than a month away, polls show over half of voters support the GNP while its candidate Lee Myung-bak, a former Seoul mayor and ex-CEO of Hyundai Engineering and Construction Co., has around 40 percent support.
However, some believe the conservative candidate might falter in the run-up to the election because of his suspected involvement in a growing stock manipulation scandal surrounding an investment advisory company called BBK now being investigated by prosecutors.
Prosecutors have yet to conclude their investigation.
Local media say the registration will boost Lee Myung-bak´s chances for grabbing the presidency because presidential candidates are immune from detention and questioning in most cases during the official campaigning period.
Meanwhile, the Korea Times reports The prosecution is expected to issue its interim report on the linkage of conservative presidential candidate Lee Myung-bak to an alleged financial scam on December 5th.
The prediction came as financial scammer Kim Kyung-joon had his detention period extended for 10 more days to December 5th.
Prosecutor Kim Hong-il said Sunday the court has accepted the request for extending the detention period of Kim, who is at the center of the BBK financial scandal.
During Kim´s extended detention period, prosecutors will clarify whether Grand National Party (GNP) candidate Lee is the real owner of the asset management company BBK through which the Korean-American Kim manipulated stock prices.
Prosecutors have yet to conclude their investigation.
˝The Korea Times reports a senior Afghan official, involved in the negotiations for the safe release of Korean hostages held by the Taliban, Wednesday expressed the hope that the crisis would be resolved without further loss of lives.
Merajuddin Patan, the governor of Ghazni Province, where the 23 hostages _ two of whom were later killed by the kidnappers _ were seized by Taliban militants, said there were hopes that the crisis would be resolved without further loss of lives.
The governor said the Taliban were not asking for a ransom but were demanding the release of prisoners from Ghazni Province and now from other provinces as well.
Meanwhile, a purported Taliban spokesman said on Wednesday that the insurgents still want negotiations despite the expiry of the latest deadline.
Qari Yousuf Ahmadi said that the remaining 21 hostages are still alive for the time being, denying an earlier report that the militant group would kill four more captives as Kabul refused to accept its demand to free jailed guerrilla fighters.
The insurgents, however, threatened that their lives would be in danger if the Afghan and multinational forces launch a military operation to rescue them.
Tension was mounting in the Ghazni province where the South Korean church volunteers are held hostage, as Afghan military helicopters dropped leaflets warning of an upcoming military operation in the province.
Afghan officials said the operation is not linked to rescuing the hostages.
A ministry spokesman, General Mohammad Zahir Azimi, told AFP that this was ahead of a “routine operation which will launchin coming weeks.”
In an interview with Reuters, the Taliban spokesman echoed that no operation had started to rescue the captives.
But he noted that there had been signs of increased troop movement in the area in the last 24 hours.
Seoul officials told reporters that they have not been informed of any military operation, adding that no rescue attempt can be taken without its consent.˝
The insurgents, however, threatened that their lives would be in danger if the Afghan and multinational forces launch a military operation to rescue them.
But he noted that there had been signs of increased troop movement in the area in the last 24 hours.
˝US-led forces have killed about 30 militants in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, the US military has said.
They said most had died in an air strike following a raid in the Shiite district of Sadr City.
Twelve people were also detained in the operation.
The US military said the dead were part of a network that was smuggling weapons from Iran, but witnesses said women and children were among those killed.
The violence came as Iraqi PM Nouri Maliki held security talks in Iran.
Speaking during his flight to Tehran, Maliki said the main objective of the visit was to strengthen relations between the two countries.
Maliki said Iraq and Iran had a ””joint understanding that they are keen to solve problems and sufferings of Iraqi people.
Twelve people were also detained in the operation.
The Blue House announced yesterday that it had traced the source of leaks of sensitive papers that dealt with U.S.
-Korean negotiations over the use of American forces here in other parts of the region to an Uri Party lawmaker .
But the same day, a lawmaker from the left-wing Democratic Labor Party produced new documents on the same subject.
Roh Hoe-chan made a seven-page document available to the press it is purportedly an administration analysis of U.S. efforts to allow its troops here to be sent to other regional trouble spots if necessary.
Dated December 2004, the paper discusses Korean concerns about that proposal. The document is somewhat at odds with the administration's public statements about the matter.
More controversially, it seems to suggest that the Korean government was worried at the time about the possibility of U.S. attempts to reintroduce nuclear weapons to the peninsula.
Roh, a sharp critic of the United States, called for a national referendum on the question of how U.S. forces here could be used.
The document says, ""Flexible movements by U.S. forces in and out of Korea would mean that the government would have to accept American decisions to cut its forces, the possibility of the use of those forces in circumstances involving Taiwan and U.S.
The Blue House announced yesterday that it had traced the source of leaks of sensitive papers that dealt with U.S.
The document says, ""Flexible movements by U.S. forces in and out of Korea would mean that the government would have to accept American decisions to cut its forces, the possibility of the use of those forces in circumstances involving Taiwan and U.S.
""Until 6 September, 2007, the Syrian regime was building a covert nuclear reactor in its eastern desert capable of producing plutonium,"" the statement said.
The United States has accused communist North Korea of helping Syria build a nuclear reactor that ""was not intended for peaceful purposes"".
The site, said to be like one in North Korea, was bombed by Israel in 2007.
Syria must ""come clean"" about its secret nuclear programme, the White House said in a statement after CIA officials briefed members of Congress.
Syria has repeated denials that it has any nuclear weapons program, or any such agreement with North Korea.
But the White House said the ""cover-up"" operation that Syria carried out after the Israeli air strike reinforced the belief that the reactor ""was not intended for peaceful activities"".
""Until 6 September, 2007, the Syrian regime was building a covert nuclear reactor in its eastern desert capable of producing plutonium,"" the statement said.
Korea's top officials yesterday ruled out the possibility of renegotiating the recently minted free trade agreement with the United States after Washington signaled dissatisfaction with labor and environmental issues.
””The United States may propose a renegotiation in the labor and environment sectors following consultations between the U.S. administration and Congress,”” Foreign Minister Song Min-soon told a parliamentary committee.
””But we made it clear during the talks that there will be no additional negotiations once the agreement is reached,”” Song told the National Assembly Committee on Unification, Foreign and Trade Affairs.
His remark came after Wendy Cutler, assistant deputy U.S. trade representative, reportedly told a forum in Washington on Wednesday that her government may have to renegotiate some provisions in the FTA that was struck on April 2.”
Korea's top officials yesterday ruled out the possibility of renegotiating the recently minted free trade agreement with the United States after Washington signaled dissatisfaction with labor and environmental issues.
Israel's action against Hamas and Gaza is now in its second week.
The number of targets are said to be dropping.
The second phase of the attack could include an invasion with Israeli troops and armor massed along the Gaza border.
The campaign has sparked protests:
“Peace has to be addressed in a, uh… in a determined and a clear way.
And not just to resume the same old tactics of talking for the sake of talking.”
The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon wants world leaders to intensify efforts to achieve a ceasefire;
that includes monitors to enforce the truce.
A fatal accident involving four teenage cheerleaders and a woman and her daughter's unborn child in another car, has saddened first responders at the Scott County Volunteer Fire Department in Tennessee.
AP correspondent John Gambro reports there's also sad news about a TV anchor woman in Little Rock, Arkansas. “Hospital officials at St.
Vincent's Infirmary Medical Center sent out a release saying that Anne Presley, the 26 year-old television anchor woman who was beaten at her home earlier in the week, had died.”
President Roh Moo-hyun vowed on Tuesday South Korea would strongly defend Dokdo against Japanese claims, defining Tokyo's repeated provocation as an act negating this country's complete liberation and independence from its former colonial ruler.
In a special statement at Chong Wa Dae, he stressed South Korea would undertake all possible measures to protect Dokdo, the country's easternmost islets, whatever the costs and sacrifices may be because it is a matter of no compromise or surrender.
``Dokdo is our land,'' he said in a solemn tone in the nationally televised address.
``It is not only part of our territory but our own soil of a historic significance where 40 years of painful history is engraved vividly.
In a special statement at Chong Wa Dae, he stressed South Korea would undertake all possible measures to protect Dokdo, the country's easternmost islets, whatever the costs and sacrifices may be because it is a matter of no compromise or surrender.
The Malaysian state of Penang says it will no longer follow a controversial central government policy favoring ethnic Malays above other citizens.
Penang is one of five states now controlled by the opposition, after elections on Saturday saw big losses for the governing coalition.
Malaysia has had a policy of favoring ethnic Malays in jobs and education for almost four decades.
The large Chinese and Indian minorities have become increasingly angry.
Correspondents say it was largely this anger that led to the dramatic election results over the weekend.
Lim Guan Eng was sworn into office as head of state in Penang, after his Democratic Action Party (DAP) won a convincing election victory.
""We want to run the state government administration free from the New Economic Policy that only breeds cronyism, corruption and systematic inefficiency,"" he told reporters.
Malaysia has had a policy of favoring ethnic Malays in jobs and education for almost four decades.
Hopes appeared to be fading for talks with North Korea on the sidelines of a regional security forum in Malaysia.
But a North Korean spokesman said the US had first to lift financial sanctions before talks could go ahead.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has arrived from the Middle East, where she has been trying to broker a deal.
The growing crisis in Israel and Lebanon is also expected to be high on the agenda at the ASEAN talks.
The North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam-sun is in Malaysia, along with officials from the other five nations involved in multilateral dialogue with North Korea over its disputed nuclear program.
The forum comes amid heightened concern over the North Korean issue in the wake of its missile tests of July 5th, and the five parties - the US, Russia, China, South Korea and Japan - have been seeking informal talks.
But a North Korean spokesman, Jong Song-il, said six-party talks “cannot happen”.
Hopes appeared to be fading for talks with North Korea on the sidelines of a regional security forum in Malaysia.
But a North Korean spokesman said the US had first to lift financial sanctions before talks could go ahead.
The forum comes amid heightened concern over the North Korean issue in the wake of its missile tests of July 5th, and the five parties - the US, Russia, China, South Korea and Japan - have been seeking informal talks.
The Korea Herald reports international sanctions to be imposed on North Korea will further cut into the country's moribund trade volume and drag it deeper into recession, quoting a South Korean think tank report released yesterday.
The sanctions - being taken under a U.N.
Security Council resolution - will likely reduce the North Korean economy to a state worse than in the mid-1990s when millions died of hunger, the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy said.
The official exchange rate of the North Korean currency was 137 won to the U.S. dollar in the first half of 2005.
However, the dollar was traded for between 1,900 won and 2,600 won in the market, up to 19 times higher than the official rate.
The prohibition of financial transactions and capital inflow is regarded as the most powerful punitive measure since it has been cited by Pyongyang as one of the main reasons for boycotting six-party talks and pressing ahead with its reported test of a nuclear device.
Security Council resolution - will likely reduce the North Korean economy to a state worse than in the mid-1990s when millions died of hunger, the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy said.
Hu Jia, who is 34, was convicted of ""inciting subversion of state power and the socialist system"", his lawyer said.
He has long campaigned for the environment and for the rights of people with HIV and Aids.
With six days until the presidential election, the latest polls indicate John McCain is behind in states he must win to be elected.
All states that a Republican has to win, Barack Obama's now leading, by a relatively comfortable margin.
If these numbers hold, that's gotta be bad news for John McCain.”
The AP's Washington bureau Chief Ron Fournier on the latest AP-GfK poll findings.
McCain is in Miami, campaigning in a state where he's running about even with Barack Obama:
“We've got to bring Florida home in our victory column, and you need to do it between now and November the 4th and get our vote up.
Floridians have been standing in long lines in polling locations to cast early ballots.
Governor Crist has ordered them to stay open twelve hours a day to accommodate everyone.
“I believe I have a responsibility to the voters of our state to make sure that they can exercise that right in a timely fashion.
You'll see Barack Obama’s face all over the tube tonight:
“The Obama campaign has bought a half-hour slot on CBS, NBC and Fox for $1 million per network.
ABC tried to reach agreement to air the commercial on a different night, according to people familiar with discussions, and was left out.
The commercial will also run on Univision, BET, MSNBC and TV One.”
The AP's Washington bureau Chief Ron Fournier on the latest AP-GfK poll findings.
That's what it's going to come down to, my friends.”
Floridians have been standing in long lines in polling locations to cast early ballots.
“I believe I have a responsibility to the voters of our state to make sure that they can exercise that right in a timely fashion.
Former President Kim Dae-jung called on the two Koreas to prepare for the first stage of reunification as the next step after resolving the crisis over Pyongyang's nuclear programs.
Kim said the two Koreas should try to find common ground between their respective proposals for state reform on the road toward eventual reunification.
Prosecutor General denounced the government’s plan.
President supports for Prof.
A US federal court recently received a part of confiscated assets held by a Korean-American facing extradition to South Korea this month.
The court has unfrozen US$400,000 of the $26 million seized from Kim Gyeong-jun, a naturalized U.S. citizen wanted in Seoul on embezzlement and other charges.
The released money is expected to be spent on legal fees, according to the sources.
Kim´s return to Seoul, possibly early next week, carries heavy political implications ahead of South Korea´s December 19th presidential election.
He set up an asset management company, BBK, in 1999, with co-founder Lee Myung-bak, who is now a leading contender in the presidential race.
Kim floated rumors of his company´s imminent merger with a foreign firm to raise its stock price, then allegedly embezzled more than $41 million before fleeing to the U.S. using a forged passport.
Lee claims to be a victim and denies having any knowledge of the scam.
But his opponents have used the BBK scandal to question his ethical standards.
The released money is expected to be spent on legal fees, according to the sources.
Kim´s return to Seoul, possibly early next week, carries heavy political implications ahead of South Korea´s December 19th presidential election.
Is it a breakthrough or just a break before the shooting begins anew in Gaza?
Militant groups, including Hamas, have announced their own week-long cease fire, a few hours after Israel declared a 10-day unilateral cease fire.
The AP's Mark Lavie reports from Tel Aviv that the stand-down opens a window for diplomats:
“If both sides carry out their declarations, it means a week of relative calm between Israel and Gaza.
A week without violence would help that along.”
Palestinian officials say more than 1,000 people were killed in the more than 3 weeks of fighting.
US Airway's jetliner has been pulled from the icy waters of the Hudson River.
The plane's recorders have been sent to Washington to be analyzed.
The NTSB's Kitty Higgins says both pilots saw a flock of birds in their windshield just before losing power in both engines.
The AP's Mark Lavie reports from Tel Aviv that the stand-down opens a window for diplomats:
“If both sides carry out their declarations, it means a week of relative calm between Israel and Gaza.
Investigators are struggling to understand the killing rampage that left two rural Alabama communities in shock:
a gunman killing at least 10 people and himself.
Authorities say Michael McClendon first burned down his mother's house, her body was inside.
He then went on a shooting spree.
“ We expect updates throughout the day from the Samson Police Department, but this small town and its law enforcement system clearly overwhelmed by the nature and scope of this violence.
They will work hard with the help of law enforcement from this state and surrounding communities to try to answer some of the horrible questions surrounding this horrific act of violence.
” And one Geneva County sheriff's deputy is talking about his loss:
Joshua Myers' wife and young daughter were gunned down while on a porch:
“ Suspect drove up, fired shots, I don't know what happened from there.
I do know that another one of my neighbors, Miss Lena Knowles, did save my baby girl.
She ran up on the porch and got my baby girl and took her to safety.”
Myers also has a 4-year-old son, who ran and hid inside the house during the shooting.
There's also been a horrible shooting incident at a German high school as AP correspondent David Reising reports from Berlin the 17-year-old gunman has been slain:
Investigators are struggling to understand the killing rampage that left two rural Alabama communities in shock:
a gunman killing at least 10 people and himself.
He then went on a shooting spree.
Joshua Myers' wife and young daughter were gunned down while on a porch:
Myers also has a 4-year-old son, who ran and hid inside the house during the shooting.
The Princeton professor who won this year's Nobel Prize in economics is not so sure about the way the government is adding another $20 billion to the pot to prop up Citigroup, one of the biggest banks in the country.
Here's Paul Krugman on the CBS Early Show:
“This is a lot of taxpayer risk in return for not much.
the Dow Industrials' up 165 points at the first half hour.
Authorities still looking for a man they say drove across the country from California to confront his estranged wife, then shot and killed her at a church in New Jersey.
The man, who waved samurai swords in the grounds of a scientology building in Hollywood and was shot dead by a security guard, was not a stranger to the church.
It looks like a very sweet deal for Citigroup management, very sweet deal for Citigroup shareholders, the extent they have anything left, and uh, not very good for the taxpayer.
Lebanon´s pro-Western government says it is determined to hold a presidential election, despite the assassination of another anti-Syrian politician.
Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said the killers of MP Antoine Ghanim would not be allowed to succeed in their aims.
Syria has been accused of being behind the killing, but it denies involvement.
MPs are due to choose a new president next week.
The killings of several anti-Syrian figures have left Lebanon´s government with only a slim majority.
Banks, schools and government offices have been closed in Lebanon, as the country mourns Ghanim, of the Maronite Phalange party.
The education ministry said schools and universities would remain closed again on Friday, when a funeral would be held.
Banks, schools and government offices have been closed in Lebanon, as the country mourns Ghanim, of the Maronite Phalange party.
Leaders from 21 Asian and Pacific Rim countries called for an early dismantlement of North Korea’s nuclear program at an international forum in Hanoi on Sunday.
In a chairman’s statement they adopted at the end of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, they expressed ”strong concerns ” about Pyongyang’s nuclear test on Oct.
9, saying it poses ”a clear threat ” to the goal of a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula.
Hey, it's time to get moving.
The nation's health experts say adults need to exercise more than two hours a week to stay healthy.
People need to move around, find ways in which they can get physical exercise and that combination of exercise and diet's what will ultimately produce health and prevent disease.”
Kids under the age of four should not be given over-the-counter cough and cold medicine.
“After reviewing available data and consulting with the FDA, we are voluntarily transitioning labels to read, 'Do not use in children under four years of age'.”
The recommendation comes less than a week after federal health officials said they saw little evidence those drugs work in kids.
The American author of best-selling book that attacks Barack Obama's being unfit to be president is being deported from Kenya.
Jerome Corsi had been detained for not having a work permit; his book is supposed to hit the stores there today.
The nation's health experts say adults need to exercise more than two hours a week to stay healthy.
Kids under the age of four should not be given over-the-counter cough and cold medicine.
That recommendation comes from a drug company trade group.
The American author of best-selling book that attacks Barack Obama's being unfit to be president is being deported from Kenya.
Korean Air will be forced to cancel 253, or 63 percent of its scheduled 399 flights today as its unionized pilots enter the second day of their strike.
Executives of the nation’s largest airline said 54, or 34 percent of 157 international flights, would be grounded Friday.
The strike is expected to suspend about 176 flights, or 83 percent of the 212 domestic flights, including ones departing from Kimpo to Cheju.
The Frenchwoman identified as the mother of two babies found in the freezer of their family home in Seoul confessed Wednesday that she killed a total of three babies, a police source at the French public prosecutor's office told Reuters.
39-year-old Veronique Courjault said she killed another baby by burning it to death before coming to Korea in 2002 with her husband and two children.
Also, she added that the two babies found in the freezer of her home in Seoul were not twins and she strangled the babies until they died.
French police arrested the couple after a DNA test by French authorities positively identified them as the parents of the newborn babies.
Prosecutors have yet to decide on charges to bring against the couple, who remain in detention.
The Courjaults, who have two other children, had until Wednesday maintained their innocence.
Stocks opened higher this morning on a half day for Wall Street;
that, despite fresh economic news that would make the Grinch smile with glee.
The AP's Rita Foley is live in Washington to tell us about it:
“The bad news, Jon, covers joblessness and consumer spending.
The Commerce Department says spending fell six tenths of a percent last month.
And consumer spending does drive much of the economy.
As for unemployment, the Labor Department reports another 586,000 Americans signed up for jobless benefits last week.
And that is much more than expected, Jon.”
The recession is creating less and less demand for crude.
AAA reports gas is now going for a national average $1.66 a gallon.
That is down a $1.31 from last Christmas.
The Bernard Madoff scandal may have taken a deadly turn.
An investor in New York committed suicide by swallowing sleeping pills and slashing his wrists.
Stocks opened higher this morning on a half day for Wall Street;
that, despite fresh economic news that would make the Grinch smile with glee.
“The bad news, Jon, covers joblessness and consumer spending.
That is down a $1.31 from last Christmas.
One man is dead, a second in critical condition, after what might be a gang-related shooting inside a mall near Seattle:
Right after that, looked behind us to go see what was going on, and saw the stampede comin' towards us, turned around and bop.”
Police say the suspected shooter must have made it out of the mall with the crowd.
Lousy economy get generating a less than a lackluster holiday shopping season:
“I'm going to cut back on some of my gifts, make them smaller, you know, rather than spending a lot of money.”
The Times Square Ball is set to usher in the New Year will be bigger and brighter.
“A brighter New Year's Eve crystal ball to ring in 2009-Waterford Crystal has doubled the ball's size.
More on the ball's new glow from Waterford's Peter Cheney.”
“We've taken the number of crystals on the ball from 672 to 2668 crystals.”
“And just what does this mean to Waterford?
“This is the single biggest promotion Waterford has ever been involved in.”
“More light for everyone this New Year's Eve.
Those looking to get a bit more personal can trash the photo of the acts.
The Times Square Ball is set to usher in the New Year will be bigger and brighter.
“This is the single biggest promotion Waterford has ever been involved in.”
New Yorkers who have seen their life savings reduced to worthless stock certificates and depressing bank statements can get a small measure of revenge today:
Only one out of three Koreans are in good health, according to The Korea Times, quoting a report released on Monday.
The National Health Insurance Corporation released the report, titled ``Analysis of 2004 Medical Checkup,’’ which showed that of all people eligible for a medical checkup, only 51.29 percent actually took the checkup last year.
The report showed that 34.89 percent of those who took the medical checkup were in good health while 4.67 percent had certain diseases.
Tibeten monks have disrupted a tour of Lhasa by foreign journalists.
The journalists were the first to be allowed back to Tibet since protests erupted two weeks ago.
About 30 monks shouted pro-Tibetan slogans and defended the Dalai Lama as journalists toured the Jokhang Temple, the visiting reporters said.
Communist China has accused the Dalai Lama of masterminding the protests, but the US has urged Beijing to begin dialogue with Tibet´s exiled spiritual leader.
Foreign journalists were expelled from Tibet at the height of the unrest, but on Wednesday China allowed a group of about two dozen reporters into Lhasa for a three-day escorted visit.
The monks´ protest came as they toured the Jokhang Temple - one of Tibet´s holiest shrines.
About 30 monks shouted pro-Tibetan slogans and defended the Dalai Lama as journalists toured the Jokhang Temple, the visiting reporters said.
The Korea Times reports Chung Dong-young, chairman of the governing Uri Party Thursday stepped down to take responsibility for Uri’s crushing defeat in the local elections which led to a landslide victory for the main opposition Grand National Party.
``I accept the people’s reprimand of the party that was expressed in the elections in a prudent and humble manner,’’ Chung said in a press conference.
``Considering the results, the Uri Party failed to win the hearts of the people.’
’ The governing camp was shocked and numb as it searched for its ninth chairman following Chung’s departure.
President Roh Moo-hyun also said Thursday that he accepts the crushing defeat of the governing Uri Party in the local elections.
The Korea Times reports Chung Dong-young, chairman of the governing Uri Party Thursday stepped down to take responsibility for Uri’s crushing defeat in the local elections which led to a landslide victory for the main opposition Grand National Party.
Iraq's cabinet has approved a new security agreement with the U.S.
The measure, which has been sent onto Parliament, would allow U.S. troops to stay in Iraq for another 3 years.
The current UN mandate is set to expire at the end of this year.
There's been another suicide car bombing in Diyala province, that's north of Baghdad.
The AP's Christopher Torchia is in the Iraqi capital.
“Iraqi police are saying that 7 people died in that attack;
one of them was a policeman and the others were six civilians.
Seven people were also injured.”
A potential rift between Afghan President Hamid Karzai, the U.S., and its NATO allies.
Karzai is telling reporters today he would provide protection for Taliban chief Mullah Omar, should the Islamist group's leader agree to peace talks.
“If I say I want protection for Mullah Omar, the international community has two choice:
Karzai wants to draw the Taliban into Afghanistan's political mainstream, if that radical group accepts the country's constitution.
There's been no official response from the Taliban.
Iraq's cabinet has approved a new security agreement with the U.S.
The current UN mandate is set to expire at the end of this year.
A second day of surprisingly aggressive raids by a so-called ‘independent prosecutor’s team’ found investigators barging into both the residence of Samsung Group Chairman Lee Kun-hee and the company’s headquarters in Seoul in search of evidence of corruption inside Korea’s largest company.
It was the first time either location had ever been the target of a law enforcement raid.
Two black sedans, a gray van and a bus arrived at the Samsung headquarters building in downtown Seoul shortly before 9 a.m.
Led by assistant prosecutor Lee Won-gon, 40 investigators presented search warrants to raid the offices of Lee and other key executives from the legal affairs, planning and public affairs teams.
Among the offices raided was the finance team suite on the 27th floor where Kim Yong-cheol, Samsung’s former legal affairs chief turned whistleblower, claimed that a secret vault was kept to store slush-fund cash.
Investigators were inside the building for nine hours.
˝An Australian couple has hopefully learned to keep cocaine away from their cat.
The “Sydney Morning Herald” reported the cat was jittery, anxious and had trouble walking.
The cat´s owner insisted the feline hadn´t been exposed to any drugs or possible poisons.
However, when the vet called the owner´s wife, she said the cat may have licked the plates of cocaine that had been served two days earlier at a dinner party.˝
Over 60 percent of automatic teller machines across the country will accept the new notes, according to local banks.
New 1,000-won and 10,000-won bills will go into circulation Monday, the Bank of Korea said.
The new bills are brighter, smaller and have high-tech antiforgery features such as color-shifting ink and an optically variable device.
The new 1,000-won note will be blue instead of purple, while the new 10,000-won bills will remain green.
They are smaller in size for easier use and to meet global standards.
Old bills will be in circulation indefinitely and can be exchanged for new notes at any bank without the need for personal identification.
The Korea Times is reporting former Seoul Mayor Lee Myung-bak has the highest chance of winning the presidential nomination by the main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) even under the current party rule.
The GNP constitution requires the primary to take place sometime in June with some 40,000 people participating in the event.
According to a Media Research opinion poll for the Hankook Ilbo, a sister paper of The Korea Times, Lee topped the list of potential GNP presidential candidates with 47.9 percent.
The poll canvassed 1,000 people nationwide aged over 19 and 500 GNP delegates, who are authorized to vote in the party's primary.
The GNP has a total of 9,142 delegates nationwide.
The GNP constitution requires the primary to take place sometime in June with some 40,000 people participating in the event.
According to a Media Research opinion poll for the Hankook Ilbo, a sister paper of The Korea Times, Lee topped the list of potential GNP presidential candidates with 47.9 percent.
Kim issued a statement yesterday through his secretary, Choi Kyung-hwan.
""There were some opinions that it would be desirable to delay the trip until June in order to avoid political misunderstandings,"" the statement said.
""Since my visit to North Korea should coincide with the national consensus, I will change the schedule to June and coordinate the plan with the government.
"" The reason for the delay was twofold:
April 15 is the birthday of North Korea's former leader, Kim Il Sung, and is celebrated there as one of the country's major holidays.
A visit could be seen as paying homage to Kim, who is revered as a near-deity in North Korean propaganda.
The original schedule, the opposition Grand National Party and Kim Dae-jung's own Democratic Party complained, would color the campaign preceding South Korea's May 31 local elections.
""There were some opinions that it would be desirable to delay the trip until June in order to avoid political misunderstandings,"" the statement said.
A state television´s in-depth report on sexual harassment, and even alleged rape by sports coaches of female athletes is causing an outrage across the nation.
The KBS ``Ssam´´ investigative program on Monday aired its ``Report on Human Rights in Sports and Sexual Assaults´´ showing perpetrators with their reputations and social status remaining intact, and their female victims suffering from long-time trauma.
In the program, a sports insider testified that many of his fellow trainers said, ``Having a sexual relationship is the first way to gain control of female athletes;
violence is the second.´´ These ``control methods´´ are rampant in sports such as football, swimming, volleyball and basketball, to name just a few, where 90 percent of the training staff are men.
The victims ranged from elementary school students to professional athletes, and they spoke of the effects not only on themselves, but also on their families and friends.
The sport authorities, schools or even players and parents, have covered up most of these cases, one father said.
``Revealing the case in public is like destroying one´s career, as most training staff share information about players between themselves and will not accept people who make a large fuss.´´
violence is the second.´´ These ``control methods´´ are rampant in sports such as football, swimming, volleyball and basketball, to name just a few, where 90 percent of the training staff are men.
˝Violence has broken out in several areas of East Timor, a day after independence hero Xanana Gusmao was named as the new prime minister.
Protesters threw rocks and set fire to buildings, and security forces used tear gas in response.
Gusmao was chosen as the new premier to end weeks of deadlock, after no single party won a majority in June´s parliamentary elections.
But his party´s main rival, Fretilin, denounced the decision as illegal.
About 100 youths from a predominantly pro-Fretilin refugee camp near the international airport threw rocks at police on Tuesday, according to a reporter for the French news agency AFP.
Police then fired tear gas towards the group, who were reportedly yelling “Fretilin!
Protesters threw rocks and set fire to buildings, and security forces used tear gas in response.
The Joong-Ang Ilbo reports an apparent rift between President Roh Moo-hyun and the military establishment over how to approach the Northern Limit Line that separates the two Koreas in the Yellow Sea seemed to widen as the defense minister has made it clear that he will fight any challenge to the line, even if it costs him his job, quoting high-ranking military sources yesterday.
Defense chiefs of the two Koreas are to meet in Pyongyang next month to discuss various military-related issues, including a plan to create a joint fishing zone in the Yellow Sea west of the Korean Peninsula.
“I will stand pat on the military’s position of defending the NLL in the Yellow Sea to the last at the ministerial talks in Pyongyang,” Seoul’s Defense Minister Kim Jang-soo was quoted as saying by several military sources during a meeting with senior military staff officers on Friday.
The Northern Limit Line, often called by the abbreviation NLL, has served as a de facto border between the two Koreas since it was drawn by the top UN commander in 1953 in order to implement the Korean War truce.
The South Korean Navy was ordered not to patrol above the line.
The North does not recognize the line and has demanded that it be redrawn.
Incursions over the line have resulted in clashes.
The current controversy erupted last week after Roh admitted that the NLL was not a territorial border but a “one-sided” military division that had been imposed on Korea.
President George W. Bush on Wednesday vetoed a bill expanding a popular children´s health care program for the second time, angering Democrats who are locked in a fight with the administration over the budget and spending.
Pushed by the Democratic-led Congress but also supported by many Republicans, the bill was aimed at providing health insurance to about 10 million children in low- and moderate-income families.
Taxes on cigarettes and other tobacco products would have been increased to pay for the aid.
Eurocopter, a subsidiary of European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co., beat U.S. helicopter maker Bell and British-Italian joint firm AgustaWestland.
The company is to supply a platform and key technologies to help the nation develop six sets of prototype choppers by 2011, according to Park Song-kuk, head of the ministry's task force supervising the project dubbed the Korean Helicopter Program.
But Alexander Vershbow, U.S. ambassador to Seoul, indicated that in his view Chapter 7 will mainly deal with economic sanctions.
”It does not automatically imply anything that has to do with the use of military force, ” he told reporters at his embassy.
The Chapter 7 authority is important to make the measures for sanctions legally binding on all U.N. member states without any exception, he said.
Seoul is seemingly ready to accept Article 41 _ another key element of the Chapter _ as it allows the Security Council to decide what measures, besides the use of armed force, are to be employed to pressure Pyongyang.
It allows the complete or partial interruption of economic relations the blockage of rail, sea and air transportation the interruption of postal, telegraphic and radio services, as well as other means of communication and the severance of diplomatic relations.
A suspected Muslim militant has admitted he was involved in the 2005 beheading of three Christian schoolgirls in Indonesia's Sulawesi.
Hasanuddin, who is 34, told a Jakarta court he helped plan the attack but he rejected allegations he masterminded it.
He said he wanted to avenge the deaths of Muslims killed during religious violence in the country, the world's most populous Muslim nation.
He and two other suspects could be sentenced to death if found guilty.
The murders shocked Indonesia and threatened to reignite violence between Sulawesi's Muslims and Christians, which has continued despite a 2002 peace deal.
“The price of America´s withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens,” he told war veterans in Missouri.
Bush said the Vietnam War had taught the need for US patience over Iraq.
His speech comes amid an apparent rift with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, but Bush said Maliki was a ”good man with a difficult job”.
Hours earlier, Maliki called recent US criticism of his work ”discourteous”.
The White House was swift to respond, saying in a statement that Bush still believes that Maliki is the right person to lead Iraq.
Bush began his speech at the annual convention for the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) group, in Kansas City, by flagging up US successes in staying the distance in other conflicts - particularly in turning Japan from an enemy into a key ally.˝
Princess Diana and Dodi Al Fayed were unlawfully killed due to the ""gross negligence"" of driver Henri Paul and the paparazzi, an inquest has found.
The inquest jury also specified that Paul´s drunk-driving and a lack of seatbelts contributed to their deaths.
Princes William and Harry said they ""agreed"" with the verdicts and thanked the jury for the ""thorough way"" in which they considered the evidence.
But Al Fayed´s father Mohamed has refused to accept the verdict.
The jury of six women and five men returned joint verdicts of unlawful killing through grossly negligent driving - or gross negligence manslaughter, by majorities of nine to two.
The inquest into the 1997 Paris crash that killed the couple and Paul lasted six months.
˝A ship carrying the first delivery of fuel to North Korea, under a key nuclear disarmament deal, has left a South Korean port.
The ship, carrying 6,200 tons of oil, is expected to arrive in North Korea on Saturday.
Pyongyang has indicated it may begin the process of closing its Yongbyon nuclear reactor once the aid arrives.
A UN nuclear team is also due to arrive in Pyongyang on Saturday, to start monitoring the reactor´s shutdown.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare plans to help domestic hospitals attract foreign patients, known as ``health tourists.’
The organization will promote medical services available at member hospitals and provide information on reservations, transportation and translation services.
Government officials believe that Korean hospitals could attract a significant number of foreign patients _ mostly Korean-Americans, Chinese and Japanese.They also want to attract customers from the Middle East and Southeast Asia.
Currently, people from these regions tend to fly to India for medical services not provided in their countries.
The committee will be called the Korea Medical Service Promotion Agency.
The US has said it is willing to give North Korea more time to act on its nuclear disarmament pledge after talks with Japan on regional security issues.
But Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her Japanese counterpart, Taro Aso, warned Pyongyang their two countries did not have “endless patience”.
Rice also reaffirmed Washington’s commitment to a plan to transform its mutual defense partnership with Japan.
The US wants Japan to take a more active military role in the region.
To allow such a move, the Japanese government has begun steps to revise the country’s pacifist constitution.
Tokyo is also currently in the process of buying two missile defense systems, after which it will be responsible for defending not only itself but also the 50,000 US troops stationed on its territory.
The ruling Uri party has secured just one post, the exit polls suggested.
The election could also have far reaching consequences for the South's relations with North Korea.
The opposition Grand National Party (GNP) was dominating the races for mayors, governors and regional assembly members, KBS and MBC TV exit polls suggested.
South Korea's main opposition party looks set to win at least 11 of 16 posts in key local and regional elections, according to exit polls.
The votes are being seen as a key test for the government of President Roh Moo-hyun, increasingly unpopular as it approaches its final year in office.
The ruling Uri party has secured just one post, the exit polls suggested.
The opposition Grand National Party (GNP) was dominating the races for mayors, governors and regional assembly members, KBS and MBC TV exit polls suggested.
Shares of Sun Microsystems fell more than 23 percent Monday on news that IBM withdrew its acquisition offer over the weekend.
The technology giants were set to finalize the $7 billion deal, but IBM pulled the offer and Sun ended IBM's status as its exclusive negotiating partner.
It was unclear whether the talks were continuing, or if Sun was trying to find another buyer.
Ford says it has completed tender offers that will reduce its debt by 38 percent, and shave millions of dollars off its interest costs.
The automaker retired about $9.9 billion in securities issued by either the parent company or its finance arm in exchange for cash and shares under terms of the debt buybacks.
Chrysler said A123Systems will supply the lithium-ion batteries for the company's extended-range gas-electric cars and its all-electric cars.
A123Systems, a spinout of research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said it would produce the batteries at a new facility in Michigan.
Chrysler plans to bring an electric car to market next year.
Shares of Sun Microsystems fell more than 23 percent Monday on news that IBM withdrew its acquisition offer over the weekend.
South Korea and the European Union (EU) continued negotiations on tariff reductions in their free trade negotiations on Thursday, but both sides failed to make a significant breakthrough, Seoul´s chief negotiator for the trade negotiations said.
After reaching an accord with the United States earlier this year, Seoul has held four rounds of negotiations with Brussels on a free trade agreement that could provide Asia´s third-largest economy with a commercial bridge to Europe.
But the negotiations moved at a snail´s pace as both sides remained reluctant to accept each other´s demand on auto trade and auto-related technical standards, one of the hottest issues in the trade negotiations.
State Department was optimistic Tuesday the banking dispute that last week held up North Korean denuclearization talks can be overcome and is “pretty close” to being solved.
Treasury delegation led by Deputy Assistant Secretary Daniel Glaser had a second day of talks with Chinese officials in Beijing, working out details of transferring $25 million out of Macau to a North Korean account in China.
Banco Delta Asia (BDA), a Macanese bank, had frozen the funds after it was accused by the Treasury in September 2005 of laundering money for Pyongyang and abetting the communist regime’s illicit financial activities.
Prosecutors raided the office of Grand National Party (GNP) Chairman Kang Jae-sup in Daegu, Wednesday to secure evidence on an allegation that one of his office workers paid for a party members’ fine.
The raid comes at a sensitive time when the party is embroiled in an internal dispute over picking its standard bearer for the presidential election.
The chairman said he has nothing to do with the case.
Park Jae-wan, chief secretary for Kang, said the party expects the investigation to be concluded in a fair and transparent way so that Kang will be cleared of any suspicion.
The pro-government Uri Party pressed the prosecution to ensure a Transparent investigation.
Prosecutors seized computers, boxes of documents, and election and accountant records at Kang’s office in the southeastern city.
The chairman said he has nothing to do with the case.
Hyundai Automotive Group said yesterday its Chairman Chung Mong-koo and his only son Eui-sun will offer their Glovis Co.
shares ""worth 1 trillion won"" as a social contribution to atone for the automaker's part in a series of scandals.
Chung and his son will provide a combined 60 percent stake or 22.5 million shares to the logistics subsidiary to a social welfare fund, Hyundai Motor Vice Chairman Lee Jeon-kap said yesterday during a press conference.
Hyundai Automotive Group said yesterday its Chairman Chung Mong-koo and his only son Eui-sun will offer their Glovis Co.
The number of detainees on hunger strike at the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has grown and now involves 75 inmates, the US says.
Navy Cmdr Robert Durand said the new hunger strike was aimed at attracting media attention and may also be connected to a disturbance on May 18th.
Detainees started an on-off hunger strike last August to protest at their continued detention and conditions.
The Korea Times reports foreigners may face deportation or fines if they volunteer at orphanages or organize performances without reporting them to the authorities. The interpretation came from Joo Jae-bong, an official at the Ministry of Justice.
Currently, nine foreigners are under investigation in Pusan for conducting performances beyond their visa-sanctioned jobs.
A sketch performed by a mixed group of foreign English teachers and Koreans in Pusan has cast a shadow over the volunteer and extra-curricular activities of English teachers working in Korea.
The players involved in what was intended to be a light-hearted sketch were trundled off to the police station for questioning after reports emerged that the play insulted Korea and Koreans, which turned out to be inaccurate.
The nine who have been questioned are not allowed to leave the country until the investigation is over.
Turkey´s air strikes against Kurdish rebels in Iraq on Sunday were approved by the United States in advance, the Turkish military has said.
The country´s top general, Yasar Buyukanit, said the US opened northern Iraqi airspace for the operation.
Jets targeted the Kurdish rebel PKK in areas near the border.
The Turkish media said up to 50 planes were used.
Iraqi officials said the bombs hit 10 villages, leaving one woman dead, while the PKK reported seven deaths.
The Iraqi Foreign Minister, Hoshyar Zebari, told the BBC that his government had told the Turkish ambassador in Baghdad that the air strikes were “unacceptable”.
Zebari said Iraq did not want to see any further Turkish air strikes on its territory because they might lead to a ”galvanization of the situation and the rise of tension and emotions in the region”.
But Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan hailed them a ”success”.
Turkey has regularly targeted the PKK inside Iraq in recent months, but this is thought to be the first fighter jet raid outside its own territory. Turkey´s air strikes against Kurdish rebels in Iraq on Sunday were approved by the United States in advance, the Turkish military has said.
Minister of Construction and Transportation Choo Byung-jik and two presidential aides offered to resign Tuesday, holding themselves responsible for what critics called the failure of the government's real estate policy.
Opposition parties hailed their resignation, but the main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) did not slacken its offensive, demanding that President Roh Moo-hyun himself apologize for the failure.
The minister and Lee Baek-man, senior presidential secretary for public information, tendered their resignation to Roh earlier in the day, Chong Wa Dae announced.
The West's moves to isolate the new Hamas-led Palestinian government prove it is at war with Islam, a tape attributed to Osama Bin Laden declares.
The tape also described the situation in Iraq and Sudan's troubled Darfur region as further evidence that a ""Zionist-crusader war"" was being waged.
The recording was broadcast by Arab satellite TV al-Jazeera on Sunday.The White House said US intelligence believed the tape was authentic.
If so, it is the first message from Bin Laden since January 2006, when he threatened more attacks on the US.The speaker on the tape said that along with their governments, the people of the West bear responsibility for what he called
He said that the decision by some Western powers to cut funding to the Palestinian government since the militant group Hamas won elections there was further proof of this anti-Islamic campaign.
The West's moves to isolate the new Hamas-led Palestinian government prove it is at war with Islam, a tape attributed to Osama Bin Laden declares.
Specifically, he said, the North must ""provide evidence that the equipment and plates for the so-called supernotes had been destroyed so that concerns about further ability [to print more notes] will be reduced.
"" Vershbow -apparently ignoring the American principle of innocence until proven guilty- was speaking to OhmyNews, an Internet news site, on Tuesday the interview was published yesterday.
The South Korean government discounts the American claims.
This means that employees at the KDI, most of them not teachers, are now covered by a program specially designed for the financial welfare of private school teachers, and not by the national pension scheme.
Government-affiliated institutes are walking away from the deficit-ridden National Pension Scheme in pursuit of higher returns and stable fund management.
The reform of the national pension system has stalled in the face of political wrangling.
The Korea Development Institute, an autonomous economic policy think tank set up by the government in 1971, switched to the National Teachers’ Pension plan in May.
This means that employees at the KDI, most of them not teachers, are now covered by a program specially designed for the financial welfare of private school teachers, and not by the national pension scheme.
Apart from doing research, the KDI runs a small graduate school on economic policies and finance.
All residents in Korea from 18 to 60 years of age, regardless of their income, are covered by the NPS, unless they are government employees, military personnel, private school teachers, or employees of the specially designated post office, who are covered by their respective pension plans.
Passengers gave higher ratings to airlines last year.
I haven't lost a bag in the last year.
I haven't had any luggage issues.
The latest Airline Quality Rating found fewer late arrivals, denied boardings, mishandled bags and customer complaints in 2008.
It was the best overall performance in four years.
The service isn't what it used to be.
Planes are overcrowded.
Low-cost carrier Southwest had the lowest complaint rate.
US Airways-which is still struggling to fully integrate with America West-had the highest.
Dean Headly/Wichita State University:
They're the most improved airline from last year to this year.
But they also have the highest complaint rate.
I grew up in the military so when you went someplace you felt special.
Hawaiian topped the list for most on-time arrivals.
American was at the bottom.
American Eagle the worst.
Atlantic Southeast had the highest.
Despite the improved airline quality in 2008, the study's authors say those gains will likely be reversed when the economy turns around.
Dean Headly/Wichita State University:
Both of those come back at once.
Our system can't stand it.
Our air traffic control and just the general volume at the airports we'll be right back where we were in 05 and 06 and we'll be in the same bad circumstance that we were unless we fix something.
It was the best overall performance in four years.
It came at a time of fewer flights, higher ticket prices, new fees and fewer passengers.
Low-cost carrier Southwest had the lowest complaint rate.
They're the most improved airline from last year to this year.
I grew up in the military so when you went someplace you felt special.
Our air traffic control and just the general volume at the airports we'll be right back where we were in 05 and 06 and we'll be in the same bad circumstance that we were unless we fix something.
The Bush administration is threatening to cut off its food aid to North Korea if the communist country sticks to a plan to force out U.N. food distribution agency monitors by the end of the year.
Agency for International Development (USAID) said on Wednesday it will be obliged to halt food shipments if World Food Program (WFP) officials are made to leave the country.
North Korea protested recent Bush administration financial sanctions against its companies.
The two lawyers shot on Tuesday were defending Saddam Hussein's half-brother Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, and former Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan.
A lawyer for one of Saddam Hussein's co-defendants has been shot to death in Baghdad while another has been injured.
Gunmen opened fire on a car carrying both men, killing Adel al-Zubeidi and wounding Thamer Hamoud al-Khuzaie.
The attack follows the killing of another defense lawyer last month.
Saddam Hussein and seven co-defendants are on trial over the killing of more than 140 Shiite men in Iraq in 1982.
The two lawyers shot on Tuesday were defending Saddam Hussein's half-brother Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, and former Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan.
Europe is set to send a probe to Venus.
Washington says it is easing demands on North Korea to try to resolve an impasse over a disarmament deal.
The US indicated the North´s required declaration of its nuclear activities may not contain everything about past programmes and may not be made public.
But a top US adviser on the issue, Dennis Wilder, insisted that ""no-one has let them off the hook"".
The declaration is a key part of a deal, stalled since late 2007, to end Pyongyang´s nuclear program.
President George W. Bush said on Friday it is hard to believe a leader of any country would encourage abduction of a young child.
His remarks came at a White House meeting with a group of North Korean defectors and a Japanese mother whose daughter was kidnapped 29 years ago by North Korea.
Attendees included family members of Kim Gwang-cheol, a former North Korean soldier, who fled what Bush called ``the clutches of tyranny'' with his five-month-pregnant wife, Lee Kwi-ok, and three-year-old daughter, Han-mi, seven years ago.
In May 2002, the Kim family attempted to enter a Japanese consulate in Shenyang. The scene showing Han-mi terrified at seeing her mother grapple with two Communist Chinese policemen to pass through the iron gate of the consulate was broadcast worldwide.
It was the second time Bush met with North Korean defectors since last June when he invited Kang Chul-hwan to the Oval Office.
Kang fled North Korea in 1992 and now works as a journalist in Seoul.
Describing North Korea as brutal, heartless and tyrannical, U.S.
In May 2002, the Kim family attempted to enter a Japanese consulate in Shenyang.
Even Japanese media usually sympathetic to Korea joined an avalanche of criticism of President Roh Moo-hyun yesterday after his televised tirade against Japan's claims to the Dokdo islets, known as Takeshima in Japan.
Asahi Shimbun, which is generally liberal in its editorial outlook, said that President Roh was evidently unable to control his rage, interpreting the speech as a signal that there could be no improvement in bilateral relations between Korea and Japan for the rest of his term.
The newspaper said that if territorial issues were thrust to the forefront of bilateral relations, the two nations would face a dilemma in addressing other issues.
Mainichi Shimbun criticized Roh for inflexibility, while Yomiuri Shimbun said, ""Roh has good reason to leave the matter to the World Court if he is so self-assured about the legitimacy of his country's stand in the dispute.
"" Japan has proposed settling the dispute there twice in the past those offers were rejected by Seoul.
The Korea Times reports the two leading candidates for the presidency have begun fine-tuning their campaigns to market their economic pledges with two months to go before the December 19th presidential election.
Lee Myung-bak of the main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) is championing his so-called ``747 Vision´´ _ 7 percent growth, $40,000 per capita income and becoming the seventh largest industrialized country.
But his rival Chung Dong-yung of the United New Democratic Party (UNDP) has criticized this calling it a symbol of what he calls ``jungle capitalism´´ devoted to just 20 percent of the population, the so-called robber barons of society.
His aides said Chung seeks to ``save capitalism from the capitalists´´ by enforcing rules and ensuring fair competition among small and large market players.
Chung´s mottos are ``growth without discrimination´´ and a ``peace economy´´ as he will seek to power the economy through promoting peace on the Korean Peninsula.
Lee seeks corporate tax cuts with a priority on growth but Chung is looking to the efficient use of tax with equal balance placed on growth and redistribution, following in the footsteps of the current Roh Moo-hyun administration´s policies.
Lee Myung-bak of the main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) is championing his so-called ``747 Vision´´ _ 7 percent growth, $40,000 per capita income and becoming the seventh largest industrialized country.
Chung´s mottos are ``growth without discrimination´´ and a ``peace economy´´ as he will seek to power the economy through promoting peace on the Korean Peninsula.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates will visit South Korea this week to meet with military officials and discuss a wide range of bilateral security issues, military sources said Sunday.
After stopping in Beijing, Gates will arrive in Seoul on Tuesday to attend the annual ministerial-level Security Consultative Meeting (SCM) scheduled for Wednesday, according to military officials who requested anonymity.
He is scheduled to depart for Tokyo the following day.
The SCM, to be held at the Defense Ministry in downtown Seoul, is expected to touch on a wide range of issues, including South Korea´s decision to extend its troop deployment in Iraq and the sharing of the cost of maintaining U.S. soldiers here.
The Korean government is seeking to accelerate stem cell therapy and interspecies organ transplantation to humans by setting up a large-sized facility geared toward pre-clinical tests of such futuristic cures.
The Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology Monday launched the Korea National Primate Research Center in Chongwon, North Chungchong Province.
The state-backed KRIBB spent 7.8 billion won to build the facility on a 33,000-pyong (108,900 square meters) area.
Korean government decided to pass a bill to delegate autonomy to Jeju Island.
ietnam's leaders have decided to remove dozens of companies from the control of the armed forces and the ruling Communist Party.
Many state and party organizations have made large amounts of money by going into business.
Vietnam's armed forces own a mobile phone company, a bank, shipbuilders, textile factories and even hotels - in total more than 100 firms.
Most of these began by making weapons or uniforms but increasingly they have taken on a life of their own.
The party and party-controlled organizations will also lose control of their businesses.
ietnam's leaders have decided to remove dozens of companies from the control of the armed forces and the ruling Communist Party.
The US maintains North Korea must end all its nuclear activities, whether for making weapons or producing energy, to receive aid and diplomatic concessions.
Chung Dong-young told a South Korean internet site that Pyongyang should be allowed a peaceful nuclear program.
The US maintains North Korea must end all its nuclear activities, whether for making weapons or producing energy, to receive aid and diplomatic concessions.
The fact that the two allies appear to disagree so fundamentally does not bode well for on-going talks on the issue.
Six-nation discussions on the North Korean nuclear issue are set to resume in Beijing during the week beginning August 29th.
SNU starts construction on Hwang Woo-suk Research Center.
˝In a what thought to be a largely theatrical move, outgoing Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been admitted to hospital, a day after announcing his resignation.
Doctors said Abe was being treated for a stomach complaint probably caused by extreme exhaustion and stress.
Such hospitalizations are common among failed political or business leaders in the country.
Japan´s governing party has announced it will choose a successor to Abe on September 23rd.
Finance Minister Fukushiro Nukaga has said he will stand, but the most likely candidate, former Foreign Minister Taro Aso, has yet to make an announcement.
Abe´s decision on Wednesday triggered surprise and criticism.˝
Doctors said Abe was being treated for a stomach complaint probably caused by extreme exhaustion and stress.
South Korea Sunday dispatched a group of investigators to Iraq to examine the suspicious death of a 27-year-old army officer, the first military casualty in the country since troops were deployed there in 2004.
First lieutenant Oh, serving with the Zaytun Unit on a peace and reconstruction mission in Irbil, a city in northern Iraq, was found shot dead inside the unit’s base Saturday, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) in Seoul announced.
Oh was found shot to death at a hospital barber shop of the Zaytun Unit Saturday,’’ the JCS said.
No signs of infiltration from outside or fighting in the base has been discovered so far, according to the Ministry of National Defense.
Two other officers from the ministry headquarters and bereaved family members also left for the war-torn country by way of Dubai.
Unification Minister Chung Dong-young said Monday that North Korea presented a roadmap toward its ultimate abandonment of nuclear weapons during the initial stage of the fifth round of the six-nation talks, which recessed last week in Beijing.
Unification Minister Chung Dong-young said Monday that North Korea presented a roadmap toward its ultimate abandonment of nuclear weapons during the initial stage of the fifth round of the six-nation talks, which recessed last week in Beijing.
Hwang Woo-suk's research activities will not be affected by Gerald P. Schatten's announcement.
The US imposed sanctions targeting Burma´s military leaders and called on China, one of Burma´s closest partners, to put more pressure on the country.
Nine people were killed on Thursday, official media reported.
They included eight protesters and a Japanese video journalist.
Soldiers and police fired into crowds of demonstrators in Rangoon and gave them 10 minutes to clear the streets or face the consequences, the Reuters news agency reported.
Eleven demonstrators and 31 soldiers were hurt, according to the official account.
Authorities were trying to stamp out the largest uprising in two decades, as it continued for its 10th day.
The popular defiance has been led by Buddhist monks but there were fewer of the saffron-robed devotees on the streets on Thursday following overnight raids on monasteries.
The US imposed sanctions targeting Burma´s military leaders and called on China, one of Burma´s closest partners, to put more pressure on the country.
Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has urged the United Nations and African Union to intervene in the crisis over his country´s elections.
He told UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon that he felt African efforts to obtain the release of results had made ""no progress"", a UN statement says.
Tsvangirai, head of the Movement for Democratic Change, believes he defeated President Robert Mugabe in the polls.
Video has emerged of MDC supporters being beaten up since the vote.
Human rights groups say they have found camps where people are being tortured for having voted ""the wrong way"".
The government denies such allegations.
A recount in 23 out of 210 parliamentary seats which had been due to end on Monday was delayed for an unknown period.
He told UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon that he felt African efforts to obtain the release of results had made ""no progress"", a UN statement says.
The government yesterday threatened all possible measures to curb price increases at apartments scheduled for reconstruction as police expanded an investigation into possible illegal collusion between builders and resident unions.
The government yesterday threatened all possible measures to curb price increases at apartments scheduled for reconstruction as police expanded an investigation into possible illegal collusion between builders and resident unions.
The government also vowed to block the sale of apartment units in Songpa-gu, which a Seoul district office approved a day earlier, if its finds builders listed higher sale prices than they promised while bidding for reconstruction work.
South Korea’s financial contribution to the stationing costs of the U.S. military on the peninsula cut down for 8.9% this year.
The motorcycle maker also is closing some facilities and consolidating others in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
Fire crews are back on the lines in West Texas this morning, fighting to control a 2,000-acre wildfire that's destroyed 7 homes.
The grandfather of Caylee Anthony, the murdered Florida toddler, is in stable condition this morning, after he was taken to the hospital out of concern that he might be suicidal.
An all-American sign of the recession:
Harley-Davidson is cutting 1100 jobs over two years.
The motorcycle maker also is closing some facilities and consolidating others in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
˝The US Senate has blocked a vote on a landmark immigration bill, dealing a major blow to one of President George W Bush´s key policy planks.
Senators rejected a motion to take the bill to a final vote - meaning action on the planned law is now unlikely until the presidential poll in 2008.
President Bush had argued the bill would give the immigration system a much-needed overhaul.
But its conservative opponents said it gave an amnesty to illegal immigrants.
The planned law would have enabled some of the millions of illegal immigrants already living within the US to eventually seek citizenship.
It would have also offered some would-be migrants the chance to apply for a guest-worker program.
The bill also proposed tougher border controls to prevent more illegal immigrants from entering the country.
Senators rejected a motion to take the bill to a final vote - meaning action on the planned law is now unlikely until the presidential poll in 2008.
Thailand’s military Prime Minister, General Surayud Chulanont has announced that general elections will be held in December.
General Surayud also allegedly rejected a military demand for emergency powers to be restored to curtail growing anti-coup protests in the capital Bangkok.
The military is worried a protest planned for today might become unruly.
Surayud was appointed prime minister by the military after the overthrow of his elected predecessor Thaksin Shinawatra in a coup last September.
Surayud said a general election would be held on either December 16 or 22.
The sinking economy and the Sunday talk shows:
On ABC's This week, Missouri Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill says everyone in Congress knows unemployment will rise, even with President Barack Obama's stimulus plan:
It's a matter of whether or not we can keep from that job loss being as severe as it could be.
” Arizona Republican Senator John McCain tells Fox News that the best way for GM and Chrysler to survive may be through bankruptcy:
“ They go under Chapter 11, they reorganize, they renegotiate the union-management contracts, and come out of it a stronger, better, leaner and more competitive automotive industry.”
Twelve thousand US troops will be leaving Iraq from now through the end of the summer.
Army Major General David Perkins says even as those troops leave, others will be shipped to cover potential hot spots in Iraq:
“ We will reposition assets throughout the country of Iraq, we will do this in coordination with the government of Iraq and Iraqi security forces.”
“ Even when we were debating the stimulus, we kept saying over and over again ?
The US, the EU and the IAEA have called on Tehran to return to negotiations on its nuclear program.
Russia has called on Iran to stop work on uranium conversion immediately, a day after it resumed operations at its nuclear facility at Isfahan.
Iran's main partner in its effort to develop nuclear power urged Tehran to continue co-operating with the UN nuclear watchdog, the IAEA.
The IAEA meets to discuss whether Iran should be referred to the UN Security Council for sanctions.
Iran has said it is ready for talks, and will put forward new proposals.
The US, the EU and the IAEA have called on Tehran to return to negotiations on its nuclear program. The EU and Washington want Iran to abandon its scheme, which they suspect is a cover for a nuclear weapons program.
Government invoked emergency arbitration.
Discovery, the space shuttle, comes back safely.
Wednesday's missile launches by North Korea have shocked South Koreans with some, including civic activists, expressing deep concern about the future of the Korean peninsula.
The launchings came despite recent, persistent international warnings against them.
However, depending on political inclination, people's reactions as to how best to deal with the incident are divided.
While some urge the government to change its North-friendly policies, others say that although the North deserves criticism, the government's pursuit of a spirit of co-existence and inter-Korean cooperation should not be shaken.
Prime Minister Han Myeong-sook said Thursday that she would discuss with President Roh Moo-hyun the timing and scope of a Cabinet reshuffle in the near future, though there has been no such discussion so far.
``President Roh has not told me anything about a Cabinet reshuffle yet,’’ she said during a lunch meeting with journalists at her residence in Samchong-dong, Seoul.
``But I guess there will be a discussion soon.’
’ The Korea Times reports a small-scale Cabinet reshuffle is inevitable early next year as Minister of Commerce, Industry and Energy Chung Sye-kyun is set to step down in January to return to the ruling Uri Party as a lawmaker.
Roh is expected to replace a couple more ministers, as well as his secretaries, possibly including Presidential Chief of Staff Lee Byung-wan.
But Chong Wa Dae spokesman Yoon Tai-young said that the reshuffle has not been discussed yet.
President George W. Bush and Afghan President Hamid Karzai agreed Monday that they would make no concessions to the Taliban to win freedom for the South Koreans, Reuters reported.
“Both leaders agreed that in negotiations for the release, there should be no quid pro quo for the hostages,” Reuters quoted White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe as saying after the two leaders wound up the two-day summit at Camp David.
”The Taliban are brutal and should not be emboldened by this,” the spokesman said.
South Korean people were disappointed by the outcome of the summit between the two leaders, although they have appealed to the United States and the Afghan officials to negotiate the release of the hostages.
Earlier, Taliban insurgents called on the two presidents to agree to free jailed rebels at Camp David talks, threatening that they would be responsible for the deaths of 21 Korean hostages.
The renewed Taliban threat came as negotiations to free their prisoners remained deadlocked with no agreement even on where to hold talks between South Korean diplomats and the kidnappers.˝
President George W. Bush and Afghan President Hamid Karzai agreed Monday that they would make no concessions to the Taliban to win freedom for the South Koreans, Reuters reported.
Malaysian security forces have used tear gas and water cannon to break up a protest by ethnic Indians in the capital, Kuala Lumpur.
More than 20 people taking part in the banned march were detained by police.
The BBC reports the demonstration was organized by the Hindu Rights Action Force, which is demanding the release from jail of five of its leaders.
Some in Congress are getting tired of bailouts, and the $14 billion in bridge loans for the auto industry could run into a dead end in the Senate today, after being approved by the House yesterday.
Republican Senator David Vitter tells the CBS“ Early Show” he can't say yes 'til he knows Detroit is willing to say 'no' to some old obligations.
“The late actor who ran away with the Dark…”
“We need to see the commitment to bring down labor cost to be competitive with folks like Toyota and Honda.
That little bit of audio was a sneak preview of the Golden Globe Nominations out this morning, AP entertainment editor Michael Weinfeld reports, there's some strange competition in at least one category:
“The late actor who ran away with the Dark Knight picked up a Golden Globe Nomination…”
“Heath Ledger, 'The Dark Knight'…”
“He has some strange competition, including Tom Cruise and Robert Downey, Jr., for their comic roles in 'Tropic Thunder'.
The movies with the most nominations?
“'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button' and 'Frost/Nixon' each have five, including Best Drama.
[Music from“ Mamma Mia”“ Yess, I've been brokenhearted…”
On Wall Street to the first half hour, the Dow Industrial's down 68 points.
“We need to see the commitment to bring down labor cost to be competitive with folks like Toyota and Honda.
“The late actor who ran away with the Dark Knight picked up a Golden Globe Nomination…”
“He has some strange competition, including Tom Cruise and Robert Downey, Jr., for their comic roles in 'Tropic Thunder'.
˝A resolution demanding Japan´s apology for sexual enslavement of women, jointly proposed by 149 Representatives, Tuesday passed the U.S.
Michael Honda, D-Calif., of Japanese descent, who has been the driving force behind a resolution, said he expects the full House to pass it as well.
The resolution is expected to be proposed to a House plenary session in the second week of July and is expected to pass smoothly in view of the passage at the committee, Rep.
He proposed the resolution first in January.
´´What they said today in their vote was that, yes, there were victims, there were women who were used as sex slaves, yes, there was a systematic military program that captured, coerced women and girls to be used as sex slaves,´´ Kyodo News Service quoted Honda as telling reporters after the passage of the resolution.
The resolution has been proposed and supported by 149 members, more than one third of the total 435 House lawmakers.
This is the second time that the resolution on so-called comfort women has been passed following the one passed on Sept.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also expressed support for a ””comfort women”” resolution that just passed a House committee, significantly raising the chances that it will pass the full House for the first time.”
The resolution is expected to be proposed to a House plenary session in the second week of July and is expected to pass smoothly in view of the passage at the committee, Rep.
Provoking his critics and striking political discord on the 60th anniversary of Korea's liberation from Japan, President Roh Moo-hyun said that a new law is needed to compensate those whose rights were violated by past governments under Japanese colonial rule and later South Korea's military regimes.
In a nationally televised speech given before an audience of 20,000 at Kwanghwamun.
statute of limitations:
South Korea condemned NK’s announcement of its first-ever nuclear test yesterday, saying it supports international efforts to discuss the issue immediately at the United Nations Security Council.
Chong Wa Dae said in a firm but cool-headed tone that it would never tolerate a nuclear-armed North Korea, which trampled on the hopes of the international community to keep the Korean Peninsula free of nuclear weapons.
”It is an unacceptable provocation, ” presidential spokesman Yoon Tai-young said in a statement after a National Security Council meeting.
South Korea condemned NK’s announcement of its first-ever nuclear test yesterday, saying it supports international efforts to discuss the issue immediately at the United Nations Security Council.
Chong Wa Dae said in a firm but cool-headed tone that it would never tolerate a nuclear-armed North Korea, which trampled on the hopes of the international community to keep the Korean Peninsula free of nuclear weapons.
˝Korea’s two leading presidential contenders of the major opposition Grand National Party (GNP) have reached a no-win situation as they are both targeted by an investigation by the prosecution.
The Korea Times reports the probe, initated at the request of former Seoul Mayor Lee Myung-bak´s camp, initially cornered his rival candidate former GNP Chairwoman Park Geun-hye.
Hong Yun-sik, a staff member of Park´s camp, was arrested Monday for requesting a retired police officer to provide him with details of Lee´s real estate dealings.
The fact that Hong is one of the key figures working for Park has dealt a blow to her and makes earlier allegations that her supporters orchestrated the smear campaign plausible.
Observers are now asking whether Hong or other aides of Park maliciously shared the private information with Rep. Kim Hyuk-kyu of the pro-government Uri Party so that he could attack Lee.
Kim claimed Lee had used phony residential addresses for property speculation.
Lee´s supporters have claimed that Park´s aides and the ruling camp have colluded with each other to attack the presidential race frontrunner.
They said that Hong and Kim both had copies of a document on Lee´s real estate transaction history, bearing the same date.
A Seoul prosecutor said a probe is under way on the alleged link between the two groups.
If collusion is confirmed, it will deal a fatal blow to Park, the daughter of former president Park Chung-hee, who led Korea from 1962 until his assassination in 1979.˝ ˝Korea’s two leading presidential contenders of the major opposition Grand National Party (GNP) have reached a no-win situation as they are both targeted by an investigation by the prosecution.
Kim claimed Lee had used phony residential addresses for property speculation.
Lee´s supporters have claimed that Park´s aides and the ruling camp have colluded with each other to attack the presidential race frontrunner.
The Japanese government has hit back in the history textbook war, announcing that it will scrutinize history textbooks from 20 countries, including South Korea, China and the United States.
The Japanese government has hit back in the history textbook war, announcing that it will scrutinize history textbooks from 20 countries, including South Korea, China and the United States.
Officials in Tokyo said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Education will conduct reviews, with the modern history in China's and South Korea's textbooks a priority.
World War II, territorial issues and any descriptions of Japan will also be studied.
Japan has been engaged in a series of diplomatic rows after it authorized history textbooks glorifying its military aggression during World War II.
Japan checks train driver’s qualification process after devastating train crash.
The BBC reports tension is building between South Korea and Japan after Seoul sent a ship to survey waters around a group of islands claimed by both countries.
Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe asked South Korea on Monday to ""refrain from carrying out the survey"".
In April, the two nations staged a war of words after Japan announced its own plans to survey the area.
The islands, called Dokdo in South Korea and Takeshima in Japan, sit in rich fishing grounds. They may also contain extensive deposits of gas.
The islands are currently under South Korean control, and Seoul maintains a police presence there.
The South Korean ship left port on Sunday night, with about 20 people aboard.
It is scheduled to conduct its survey in mid-July, although Kim Ok-Soo, a chief survey planner, said the date the ship actually enters disputed territory will depend on weather conditions.
The South Korean ship left port on Sunday night, with about 20 people aboard.
Survivors of an earthquake that killed more than 4,600 people on Indonesia's island of Java spent a second night outdoors.
Driving rain has forced some to return to the rubble of their homes.
Many bodies are still thought to be trapped under debris and rescuers say the odds of finding survivors are slim.
An aid operation is gathering speed in the worst-hit areas around Yogyakarta, where 20,000 people are said to have been hurt and 200,000 left homeless.
The quake, measuring 6.3, struck on Saturday morning, flattening buildings in a densely-populated area south of the city of Yogyakarta.
A major relief operation has swung into operation, with teams from across the country and abroad arriving in the disaster zone.
Many bodies are still thought to be trapped under debris and rescuers say the odds of finding survivors are slim.
A major relief operation has swung into operation, with teams from across the country and abroad arriving in the disaster zone.
Not long ago, cremation was a fairly uncommon practice in Korea.
Today, demand is so high that there are daily lines outside crematoriums in the Seoul area, hours before they open.
In Gangwon province, the Chuncheon City Crematorium recently raised the temperature at its two incinerators to 1,200 degrees centigrade (2,192 Fahrenheit).
That is well above its safety limit of 1,000 degrees, but it speeds up the process.
"" As recently as 10 years ago, cremation in Korea was typically reserved for unusual circumstances ― such as people who had died very young, or with no known family, or in disfiguring accidents. But Koreans are embracing it now.
About 47 percent of Koreans who died last year were cremated, according to the Ministry of Health and Welfare, up from 30 percent in 1999.
6-way talks recess for 3 weeks.
Two more bodies have been found in the Mississippi River in Minneapolis where an Interstate highway bridge collapsed on August 1st.
The grim discoveries bring to eleven the number of people known dead in the accident.
More than 100 people were injured.
The Governor of Illinois has been arrested on federal charges.
U.S. attorney's office in Chicago says Rod Blagojevich and his chief of staff were picked up this morning.
No formal word yet of the charges, but one official tells the Associated Press that Blagojevich was arrested on corruption charges, stemming from the selection of the successor to Barack Obama's Senate seat.
Just yesterday, the Illinois Governor was standing up for laid off workers who were staging a sit-in at a Chicago factory.
They and he blamed the Bank of America for cutting off credit to struggling Republic Windows and Doors.
“We hope that this kind of leverage and pressure will encourage the Bank of America to do the right thing for this business, take some of that federal tax money that they've received, and uh, invest it by providing the necessary credit to this company, so these workers can keep their jobs.”
Federal prosecutors have investigated Blagojevich's administration for at least three years.
They've been looking at everything from the Illinois Governor, for hiring people for state jobs, to the actions of friends and contributors.
The Governor has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
The Governor of Illinois has been arrested on federal charges.
U.S. attorney's office in Chicago says Rod Blagojevich and his chief of staff were picked up this morning.
Just yesterday, the Illinois Governor was standing up for laid off workers who were staging a sit-in at a Chicago factory.
“We hope that this kind of leverage and pressure will encourage the Bank of America to do the right thing for this business, take some of that federal tax money that they've received, and uh, invest it by providing the necessary credit to this company, so these workers can keep their jobs.”
Former Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan, who arrived in North Korea yesterday, said it is not the right time to discuss a summit meeting with the North.
Denying heated speculation that his visit to Pyongyang is part of Seoul's efforts to arrange a second inter-Korean summit talks.
Lee, a confidante to President Roh Moo-hyun, claimed he was going to the North as the head of the Uri Party's Northeast Asia Peace Committee and not as the president's special political adviser.
A day before his trip, Lee visited Kim Dae-jung and talked with the former president for about an hour.
Denying heated speculation that his visit to Pyongyang is part of Seoul's efforts to arrange a second inter-Korean summit talks.
˝The US Senate has voted to revive discussion of a wide-ranging plan for immigration reform.
The bill is supported by President George W Bush, who has said the issue is at the top of his domestic agenda.
The legislation would bring in tighter border controls but offer 12m illegal immigrants a path to citizenship.
The bill faltered in the Senate earlier this month when it failed to win the backing of enough Republicans to move to a final vote.
Senators on Tuesday voted 64-35 to resume debate on the compromise legislation, which was put together by both Republican and Democratic leaders and the White House.
However, it faces a bumpy ride in the next few days as its backers try to push it through before Friday, when the Senate will break for a week-long recess.
Senate leaders have added an extra $4.4bn funding for border security in an attempt to overcome Republican opposition.
Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy, one of the sponsors of the bill, said the compromise measure ””may not be perfect, but it is the best opportunity we have to do something significant and substantial.”
The Korean Bar Association (KBA) has opposed a bill designed to severely punish spouses committing ``marital rape,’’ claiming that it may accelerate the breakdown of the family if legislated.
The association presented a written opinion to Rep.
Lee Eun-young of the ruling Uri Party, who is leading the revision of the law on sexual assault.
``The bill may allow law enforcement authorities to excessively intervene in family affairs, resulting in family collapse or obstructing the recovery of conjugal relations,’’ the KBA said in the statement.
The Korean Bar Association (KBA) has opposed a bill designed to severely punish spouses committing ``marital rape,’’ claiming that it may accelerate the breakdown of the family if legislated.
Lee Eun-young of the ruling Uri Party, who is leading the revision of the law on sexual assault.
A salmonella outbreak that's killed at least 6 people is linked to peanut butter produced by a Georgia wholesaler.
Its peanut butter is not sold directly to consumers, but distributed to institutions and food companies.
The peanut paste, made from roasted peanuts, is an ingredient in cookies, cakes, and other products that people buy in a supermarket.
Tragedy at a monster truck show in Tacoma, Washington:
a chunk of metal from a truck flew over a safety barrier into the grandstands Friday night, killing a 6-year-old boy.
Bill Easterly, a spokesman for Feld Motor Sports, the show's promoter, explains why the show went on after the accident:
“We didn't know the severity of the situation that was happening in the seats;
we had no idea of the gravity of the situation, or we would've stopped the show.”
Feld says it will increase its inspection of the monster trucks that are used in that show.
Its peanut butter is not sold directly to consumers, but distributed to institutions and food companies.
we had no idea of the gravity of the situation, or we would've stopped the show.”
NATO's leaders have urged member countries to provide reinforcements to help in its campaign against Taleban guerrillas in southern Afghanistan.
The alliance's top commander, Gen James Jones, said NATO had been taken aback by the scale of violence in the region.
But he predicted that the coming weeks would be decisive in the fight against the insurgents.
Commanders on the ground had asked for several hundred additional troops and more helicopters and airlift, he said.
NATO's leaders have urged member countries to provide reinforcements to help in its campaign against Taleban guerrillas in southern Afghanistan.
The alliance's top commander, Gen James Jones, said NATO had been taken aback by the scale of violence in the region.
Rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah say they have reached a deal to end violence in the Gaza Strip.
Officials of Hamas, which runs the Palestinian government, said they had agreed a truce with Fatah, loyal to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.
Gaza City was wracked by fighting, with two killed after Abbas called for elections.
Hamas described the apparent deal as a “ceasefire to end the violence” between all armed Palestinian groups.
They said all armed men were being asked to get off the streets of Gaza and the West Bank.
Officials of Hamas, which runs the Palestinian government, said they had agreed a truce with Fatah, loyal to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.
The train's front two carriages were smashed and flattened against the nine-storey apartment block by the force of the impact.
Japanese officials have begun looking for clues as to how a packed commuter train derailed, causing the country's worst rail tragedy in 42 years.
At least 69 people died and almost 450 were injured when the train slammed into an apartment block near Osaka.
Rescuers at the scene in Amagasaki, 410km west of Tokyo, worked through the night to free survivors.
Officials said they would examine a range of possible explanations for the crash, including driver error.
Regulations on buying overseas property for investment purpose is about to be relaxed.
Kim Young-nam, believed in the South to have been kidnapped to the North while he was 16, said yesterday he crossed the inter-Korean sea border ``by accident,'' denying allegations of abduction.
Kim Young-nam, believed in the South to have been kidnapped to the North while he was 16, said yesterday he crossed the inter-Korean sea border ``by accident,'' denying allegations of abduction.
The explanation is an apparent repetition of Pyongyang's claim that it has not committed any abduction of South Korean citizens since the 1950-53 Korean War.
Italian media have published classified sections of an official US military inquiry into the accidental killing of an Italian agent in Baghdad.
The 40-page report was censored by the Pentagon before being officially published on Saturday.
Italy has refused to accept the US report's findings and is to publish its own version of events later this week.
Details of the official report were published in newspapers on Sunday censored material restored in full.
The missing text contains the names and ranks of all of they American military personnel involved in the killing of Nicola Calipari, the Italian agent who was given a state funeral and awarded Italy's highest medal of valor.
The official Italian report on the incident expected to be published this week will accuse the American military of tampering with evidence at the scene of the shooting.
Four people have been arrested in the United States for allegedly passing secret defense information to China.
A 72-year-old former Boeing engineer is accused of giving China details about the space shuttle and other aerospace programs.
In a separate case, two men and a woman are accused of handing over US defense department documents about Taiwan.
A US justice department spokesman said the cases represented serious breaches of national security.
72-year-old Chinese-born Dongfan “Greg” Chung of California, faces charges including eight counts of economic espionage, conspiracy, and making false statements to FBI investigators.
The US justice department said Chung, a naturalised US citizen, worked in the aerospace industry for about 30 years - mostly at Rockwell International and Boeing on the space shuttle program.
A 72-year-old former Boeing engineer is accused of giving China details about the space shuttle and other aerospace programs.
She married Lyndon Baines Johnson later that year.
After leaving the White House, the couple returned to live in Austin.˝
˝Claudia Alta Taylor Johnson, the widow of former US President Lyndon B Johnson, has died at the age of 94.
Mrs Johnson - who was widely known as Lady Bird Johnson - died at her home in Austin, Texas, of natural causes, a spokeswoman said.
In 2002, Mrs Johnson had a stroke that affected her speech.
Last month, she was briefly admitted to a hospital with a low-grade fever.
Her husband - who was the US president 1963-1969 - died in 1973.
She raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to beautify Washington, and the 1965 Highway Beautification Bill was known as the “Lady Bird bill”.
Mrs Johnson was born in Karnack, Texas, which was the plantation home of her parents.
She studied journalism and art and graduated from the University of Texas in 1934.
She married Lyndon Baines Johnson later that year.
After leaving the White House, the couple returned to live in Austin.˝
The lower house of France's parliament has approved plans to extend special powers by three months to try to bring a wave of urban rioting under control.
The emergency laws also need the approval of the Senate, which votes on the issue on Wednesday.
Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy had told deputies France was facing one of its ""sharpest and most complex urban crises"", which required ""firmness"".
He said most of those arrested in the riots were already known delinquents.
Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy had told deputies France was facing one of its ""sharpest and most complex urban crises"", which required ""firmness"".
He said most of those arrested in the riots were already known delinquents.
Mobile phone users in southern Thailand face having their lines disconnected.
Inflation in communist China hit an 11-year high in January after rising price pressures were exaggerated by fierce snow storms.
Soaring food prices were largely blamed for pushing consumer inflation up to 7.1% last month, from 6.5% in December.
Inflation in China continues to rise despite higher interest rates and other measures by Beijing to keep the economy from overheating.
The worst winter for decades hit food supplies, sending food costs up 18%.
Massive snowfalls wrecked crops and killed millions of livestock.
But analysts cautioned that the severe weather was not the only factor behind rising food costs, and warned that prices could still increase further.
The US has said it has no confirmation that North Korea is starting to shut down its main nuclear reactor.
Comments by State Department spokesman Sean McCormack follow media reports in South Korea that Pyongyang may have begun dismantling the Yongbyon reactor.
Satellite images detected unusual activity there, the Dong-a Ilbo and Yonhap news agency said.
The media reports raised hope that North Korea still intended to comply with an international deal.
Pyongyang has already missed the first deadline agreed as part of the deal.
It was meant to have ””shut down and sealed”” its Yongbyon reactor by Saturday - 60 days after the deal was reached.
But complications over North Korean funds, frozen in a Macau bank, delayed proceedings.
On Tuesday, McCormack said Washington was willing to give North Korea ””a little more time”” to honor its pledge. The US has said it has no confirmation that North Korea is starting to shut down its main nuclear reactor.
Satellite images detected unusual activity there, the Dong-a Ilbo and Yonhap news agency said.
The BBC reports that Pakistan has been suspended from the Commonwealth because of its imposition of emergency rule after a meeting in Uganda.
Secretary General Don McKinnon said Pakistan was being suspended “pending restoration of democracy and the rule of law”.
Earlier Pakistan´s Supreme Court dismissed a legal challenge to Pervez Musharraf´s re-election as president.
The president has said that he will now step down as a head of the army.
In recent days Gen Musharraf´s regime has also released more than 3,400 people who had been detained under the emergency rule which the president imposed earlier this month.
And following a visit by US envoy John Negroponte, opposition leader Imran Khan was freed.
But the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG), the group reviewing the status of Pakistan´s membership, decided that despite these changes, not enough had been done.
The majority of U.S. military hardware in South Korea fell into such a state of disrepair that it would have caused serious delays had any hostilities erupted, the Washington Post said Tuesday quoting classified internal audit reports.
The Post said the Pentagon and U.S.
Congress continued to be misled by reports that readiness levels were high, even after an internal investigation in October last year found that 50-80 percent of heavy artillery and other weaponry were not ""fully mission capable.”
The Post said the Pentagon and U.S.
˝Forest fires are burning inside ancient Olympia, birthplace of the Olympics, but firefighters have kept the site safe, Greek officials say.
Flames licked the edges of the original Olympic stadium and scorched the yard of the museum, home to one of Greece´s greatest archaeological collections.
Fires have ravaged large parts of Greece, affecting the Peloponnese, areas around Athens and Evia island.
On Sunday five bodies were found on Evia, bringing the death toll to 56.
Five fire engines are protecting the archaeological museum, which houses sculptures from the Temple of Zeus and artefacts from the ancient Olympics, and anti-fire systems have been switched on, according to the secretary general of the culture ministry, Christos Zahopoulos.
A new fire protection and sprinkler system was installed at the Unesco World Heritage site for the 2004 Athens Olympics.˝
Flames licked the edges of the original Olympic stadium and scorched the yard of the museum, home to one of Greece´s greatest archaeological collections.
Kim Jong-hoon, the chief Korean negotiator in the Korea-U.S. free trade negotiations, sounded unsure about whether the negotiations would ultimately be successful.
“However hard we try, there is a possibility of a failure in reaching an agreement because of reasons either on our side or the American side,” Kim told a Korea Broadcasting System radio interviewer.
But trade experts and other observers were not fully convinced that the comment, the first of its kind that Kim has made, was a discussion of hypotheticals.
President Roh Moo-hyun, in his New Year’s speech, said that he was not interested in an agreement with the United States just for an agreement’s sake, saying that the gains and losses had to be balanced.
“However hard we try, there is a possibility of a failure in reaching an agreement because of reasons either on our side or the American side,” Kim told a Korea Broadcasting System radio interviewer.
U.S. stocks sank on Tuesday after the Federal Reserve trimmed interest rates rather than slashing them, letting down investors who fear the economy might slip into recession unless the central bank becomes more aggressive.
Major indexes fell more than 2 percent after the Fed cut the benchmark fed funds rate for a third time to fortify the economy against a credit crunch and housing slump.
But the quarter-percentage-point cut, while expected, was considered modest while the accompanying statement failed to reassure investors that more cuts are coming.
Hundreds more students were belatedly reported to have shown symptoms of food poisoning apparently caused by contaminated school meals, the government said yesterday.
The Seoul education office said about 400 students in five schools became sick after having school lunches since mid-June.
The report came as the government audit body is set to launch an intensive inspection of schools, food suppliers and education authorities in the wake of the nation's worst school food poisoning case.
The new cases increased the number of infected students to more than 2,700 in 35 elementary, middle and high schools in Seoul, Incheon and surrounding Gyeonggi Province since June 16.
A senior Foreign Ministry official said yesterday it would be awkward for Seoul to ask China to suspend its historical research on a 1,000-year-old Manchurian kingdom, regardless of protests here about alleged Chinese attempts to “hijack Korean history.”
The dispute has flared up again after an uneasy two-year truce.
In August 2004, the two countries reached an agreement to stop historical disputes from growing into political conflicts, but did not agree to suspend the research itself,” the official said at a background press briefing.
The renewed controversy began when the Center of China's Borderland History and Geography Research released the texts of research papers that say the Balhae Kingdom, which was established after the fall of the Goguryeo Kingdom and ruled in the area from 698 to 926, was founded by Chinese minorities and was, in effect, a Chinese provincial government.
The dispute has flared up again after an uneasy two-year truce.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is holding talks with her Israeli counterpart amid fresh diplomatic moves to advance the Mid-East peace process.
Rice´s meeting with Tzipi Livni comes after Israel approved a plan to expand a West Bank settlement, which the US called ""not helpful"".
Livni´s visit to Washington follows a lull in fighting between Israel and Palestinians in Hamas-run Gaza.
US Vice-President Dick Cheney is also due to visit the region next week.
Last week US President George W Bush said he was still optimistic there would be a Middle East peace deal before he leaves office next January.
Twenty years ago, the plaza in front of Seoul City Hall was filled with tens of thousands of protesters risking tear gas and injury to fight for a democratic future.
Yesterday -The Joong-Ang Ilbo reports- the same plaza was filled with balloons, music, clowns and teenagers showing off their hip-hop dance moves.
On June 10, 1987, the country was gripped by massive protests as students and workers joined ordinary citizens to stand up against riot police in a symbolic battle for the heart of the nation.
At the end of the struggle, the military government of Chun Doo-hwan had to give way to democratic elections.
On June 10, 2007, thousands of people gathered nationwide to remember the uprising with festivals and exhibitions, free from the fear that once attended such gatherings.
The difference between the two days really struck 43-year-old Seo Jeong-hwa, who joined the Seoul event with her 17-year-old daughter.
Having attended Yonsei University in the mid-1980s, Seo said she was shocked that her daughter knew nothing about Lee Han-yeol, the Yonsei freshmen who was killed during the 1987 protest and became a symbol of the democracy movement.
“I brought my daughter out here because she did not know about Lee Han-yeol,” said Seo.
She walked around the plaza showing her daughter, Kang Min-jeong, the documentary photos on display.
In one corner of the plaza, a group of women passed out snacks to visitors, just as they did 20 years ago when, as high school students, they fed hungry protesters.
“I am sure kids these days do not understand how it felt to pass out food to protesters who jumped over our school fence to hide,” said Park So-hui, who was in her second year at GyeSeong Girls High School in 1987.
Twenty years ago, the plaza in front of Seoul City Hall was filled with tens of thousands of protesters risking tear gas and injury to fight for a democratic future.
At the end of the struggle, the military government of Chun Doo-hwan had to give way to democratic elections.
The World Health Organization (WHO) says it is extremely worried about a cluster of recent human deaths from the virulent H5N1 strain of bird flu.
Seven people from the same family in northern Sumatra, Indonesia, died from the disease earlier this month.
But he emphasized that there was no indication the virus had mutated.
Experts are worried that if it does mutate, the H5N1 strain could become more easily transmitted between humans, leading to a worldwide pandemic of the killer disease.
The H5N1 virus has already killed more than 120 people worldwide since 2003.
South Korea's list of punitive measures that will be reported to the United Nations on Monday does not include any new steps to support the Security Council's resolution resulting from North Korea's nuclear test, officials in Seoul said on Sunday.
All U.N. member states were required to report to the Security Council on measures they took up to carry out the resolution within 30 days of its adoption on Oct.
The officials claimed that Seoul did not add anything new to the list because the country has already been fully cooperating with international society in preventing the Stalinist state from trading in weapons-related items.
Early this month, the Security Council's sanctions committee drew up three separate lists of materials to facilitate the resolution _ nuclear, chemical and biological, and missile related materials.
Hillary Clinton says she is the best placed candidate for the Democrats to beat Republican John McCain when it comes to the US presidential elections.
She says her win over Barack Obama in the Pennsylvania primary showed she could gather a broad base of support.
She cannot match him in elected delegates, but the super-delegates could give her the nomination if they think she can win against John McCain.
The internet fundraising is a much-needed boost to her debt-laden campaign - in Pennsylvania, Obama outspent her three-to-one.
She has said securing more donations was the only way she could continue to compete with a rival who was outspending her ""massively.”
An early morning fire destroys three buildings in an apartment complex under construction in downtown Indianapolis.
Fire Department spokeswoman Rita Wright says 125 firefighters were able to keep the flames from other nearby buildings:
“ They believe that it started in one building, and because of it being under construction, it easily spread to the two adjacent buildings, and then a fourth building, which is the Indiana Circle Foundation, also had some fire damage with it as well.”
There are no injuries, although some of the neighboring buildings were evacuated because of the blaze.
(singing) U2 gave a private concert in the 1,000-seat Somerville Theater last night.
The group played 5 songs, four from its new album“ No Line on the Horizon.”
U2 was pretty big in the Boston area before it became big everywhere else.
Following the National Assembly’s rejection of the revised bill on the national pension fund on Monday, the three ministers guiding it yesterday urged lawmakers to reconsider it.
The three ministers, including Health and Welfare Minister Rhyu Si-min, said that the reform is vital to stabilize the fund and lessen the financial burden on future generations.
On Monday, the National Assembly failed to approve bills aimed at reforming the deficit-ridden pension fund.
The National Assembly voted on the pension revision bills introduced by the ruling Uri Party and the largest opposition Grand National Party .
Uri’s bill called for reducing post-retirement payments to 50 percent from the current 60 percent by 2008, and raising subscriber contributions of 9 percent of earnings to 12.9 percent by 2018.
The GNP had proposed keeping the current subscriber contributions of 9 percent, and reducing the payments to 50 percent from the current 60 percent by 2009, and lowering it to 40 percent by 2018.
France is to ban smoking in all public places from next February, the prime minister has announced.
Cafes, nightclubs and restaurants are to be given until January 2008 to adapt, said Dominique de Villepin.
Those found in breach of the ban would be fined - 75 euros for individuals and 150 euros for the premises where the offence occurred.
They ignored journalists shouting questions at them when they drove away.
Investigators from a so-called independent prosecutor’s team raided the private office of Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-hee yesterday as part of a high-profile probe into corruption allegations linked to the nation’s most powerful company.
Several homes of Samsung executives were also raided.
“We conducted the raids at Lee’s office and homes of officials in charge of the group’s corporate finances,” a source from the independent counsel team boasted.
“This is to demonstrate that there is no safe sanctuary from our probe.
”The raids on eight different locations, including Lee’s office in Itaewon, Seoul, began simultaneously at around 8:30 a.m.
The traditional Korean-style building housing Lee’s office suite also functions as the Samsung Group’s VIP guest house.
After five hours, six investigators left the compound carrying four large manila envelopes, two laptop computer cases and a tool box.
They ignored journalists shouting questions at them when they drove away.
All the uncertainty has Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, talking about the government maybe buying into more banks.
Listen to this from our Bryan Thomas:
“Paulson says he'll use every tool available to implement the financial rescue plan, passed into law last week, included an option to have the U.S. government assume control of some banks with huge infusions of cash, that could then be used to free up the frozen capital markets.
In exchange, the government would then get an equity stake in those banks.”
University of Maryland economist Peter Morici is not impressed;
he says the real problem with many banks, is they're being run very poorly, and are just not inclined to make loans at the moment.
“They have to get away from this big bonus system which encourages their managers to take risky bets, instead of engaging ordinary commercial banking activities.”
The Dow's currently down 81 points.
Haven't mentioned oil prices so far today; they're still down around $89 a barrel.
AAA reports gasoline is a nickel a gallon cheaper than yesterday, going for a national average $3.40.
Federal officials are pushing ahead with an experimental auction of takeoff and landing times at New York City area airports;
All the uncertainty has Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, talking about the government maybe buying into more banks.
In exchange, the government would then get an equity stake in those banks.”
“They have to get away from this big bonus system which encourages their managers to take risky bets, instead of engaging ordinary commercial banking activities.”
In an unprecedented attack on press freedoms, the Roh Moo-hyun government ordered journalists Tuesday to either use its recently-established consolidated press rooms or leave government buildings, while cutting the electricity supply in lobbies and other areas where journalists defying the new system have been writing stories.
The government shut down all pressrooms affiliated with government offices amid mounting allegations of a government attempt to control the media.
The government has opened three new press centers located in Seoul, Gwacheon and Daejeon, but most journalists are refusing to use them, saying the press reform measures significantly limit their access to information and undermine the people´s right to know.
Journalists covering the Foreign Ministry had to leave the building when the Government Information Agency removed their makeshift workstations made out of styrofoam and rubber mattresses on the floors of the lobby.
Some journalists at the ministry tried to work in other areas in the lobby, but the information agency had even cut the supply of electricity.
“We pointed out to the office in charge of managing government buildings that it may be against regulations for reporters to work in ministry lobbies and rest areas, and that is why the office cut the power,” Yonhap quoted an official at the Government Information Agency as saying.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, however, failed to respond when asked which regulation prohibits journalists from working out of ministry lobbies or rest areas.
It's a sad turn of events for rising star Jennifer Hudson.
Her mother and brother found dead in their south side Chicago home yesterday.
Her nephew is missing, there's an AMBER alert out for him.
Hudson told the AP last month that she liked not being treated as a celebrity at home.
Both the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun Times are reporting that a man suspected in the deaths, William Balfour, has been arrested but not charged.
Police only say that investigators are talking to a number of people in custody.
It's a sad turn of events for rising star Jennifer Hudson.
Hudson told the AP last month that she liked not being treated as a celebrity at home.
Police only say that investigators are talking to a number of people in custody.
All of you gotta vote.”
The AP's Brian Thomas has more:
We are four days away from the election and the candidates are working hard to get the voters to the polls.
“I've gotta have every single one of you voting and you gotta grab five more.
Republican John McCain is stumping across Ohio today in a rally in Hanoverton.
He criticizes Obama's tax plans, in what he says is a shrinking definition of the middle class:
“Fascinating how the liberal left's definition of rich has a way of creeping down.”
McCain trails Obama by some 8 percentage points in the latest AP Yahoo News poll.
That same survey shows that one out of seven likely voters, about 14%, remain undecided.
The AP's Brian Thomas has more:
“These finicky voters could help John McCain because they trust Obama less than decided voters to handle the economy, the Iraq War, and terrorism.
In fact, almost four in ten so-called persuadable voters lean toward John McCain, about as many as are considering Barack Obama.
The rest are either undecided or lean toward other candidates.”
Obama will campaign today in Des Moines, Iowa.
Then a stop at home in Chicago for a few hours before a rally in Indiana.
Watch out Car Accidents on Halloween Day!
John Ryding of RDQ Economics on energy prices, taking the biggest dive in 22 years:
The Labor Department reports wholesale gasoline dropped nearly 25% in just one month.
AAA tracks the retail price at a national average $2.07 a gallon this morning.
It'll be an uphill drive when the heads of the big three automakers come to Congress this afternoon asking for a $25 billion bailout.
Critics say that would just be throwing good money after bad, but Ford's CEO Alan Mulally tells the CBS“ Early Show,” Detroit is correcting its past mistakes.
John Ryding of RDQ Economics on energy prices, taking the biggest dive in 22 years:
“It's not uh, appropriate, I think, to think of lower gas prices as stimulus, but as, really, as cushioning, uh, as the economic environment has uh, turned very recessionary.”
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan says Israel and Hezbollah have accepted his offer to mediate in the dispute over two captured Israeli soldiers.
Hezbollah seized the soldiers during a cross-border raid in July, triggering the recent conflict with Israel.
The group has called for an exchange of prisoners with Israel.
Israel has repeated its view that the soldiers must be freed unconditionally and has said the UN will assist, rather than mediate, towards this end.
The Joong-Ang Ilbo reports they wanted to make sure their children were safe, so the concerned mothers participated in the school’s fire drill themselves.
But an act of parental concern turned into a horror as two mothers plunged to their deaths from an aerial rescue ladder as their children watched helplessly on the ground.
Three mothers of fourth-grade students at Wonmuk Elementary School in Seoul fell from a 24-meter-tall aerial ladder connected to a fire truck when a wire holding a rescue basket malfunctioned and turned their perch upside down, killing two of the women and injuring the third, police said.
The dead, 39-year-old Jung In-young and Hwang Sung-hae, who was 35, fell out of the basket as it flipped over and died after the fall as they were rushed to hospital, according to police.
A third mother was able to cling to the edge of the basket for a few seconds before falling;
she suffered a broken arm and other non-fatal injuries.
The search is on to find the economic fix-that's, to fix the world's economy.
President George W. Bush and leaders of some two dozen other nations' meeting in Washington.
AP's Mark Smith has more on this live report:
“Tim, we're told a list is circulating at the summit with nearly 50 items in all that would improve market regulation, opening up to scrutiny some of the complex financial instruments behind the current crisis.”
“I am pleased that we're discussing a way forward to make sure that such a crisis is unlikely to occur again.”
“In fact, the major wrangling appears to be over how much to fight a global recession with big spending packages.
The summit has also drawn protests in the Philippines;
this man calls it“ a rich man's party”:
“Elite jamboree of uh, 20 rich capitalist leaders of the world.
President Elect Barack Obama, in the Democrats' weekly radio address, which is also on YouTube, says Congress has to find ways to ease the impact on the people of this country, and if it can't find solutions during next week's lame duck session, he'll do it when he takes office:
“If Congress does not pass an immediate plan that gives the economy the boost it needs, I will make it my first-order business as President.”
Here in America, the administration's been resisting a new stimulus plan.
“Elite jamboree of uh, 20 rich capitalist leaders of the world.
Gaza City was plunged into darkness after the plant´s turbines stopped.
Israel´s closure of border crossings amid continued rocket fire from Gaza has brought the delivery of almost all supplies, including fuel, to a halt.
But Israel, which provides 60% of Gaza´s power, says the territory still has sufficient fuel stocks.
The UN believes Gaza´s 1.5m inhabitants face serious hardship and one of its officials said unheated hospitals were having to rely on generators for operations.
Mahmoud Abbas, the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority president who lost control of Gaza to Hamas last year, called on Israel to “end its blockade of Gaza immediately and allow the entry of fuel to facilitate the lives of the innocent”.
At least 61 people have died and more than 1,000 have been injured as a result of the snowfall, which began last month.
In some of the worst-hit areas the snow is more than three meters deep.
Some of the victims lost their lives when their homes collapsed under the pressure of the snow.
Others died in falls while trying to clear the snow from their roofs.
Kyodo news agency says 14 areas have been affected across Japan. Niigata and Nagano prefectures, north-west of Tokyo, are among the hardest-hit.
Local authorities and volunteer groups have appealed for members of the public to help elderly people stricken by the snow.
The Japanese meteorological agency said the snow will continue to blanket northern and western Japan and has warned of possible avalanches.
At least 61 people have died and more than 1,000 have been injured as a result of the snowfall, which began last month.
US President Bush has acknowledged the existence of secret CIA prisons and said 14 key terrorist suspects have now been sent to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The suspects, who include the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, have now been moved out of CIA custody and will face trial.
Bush claimed the CIA's interrogation program had been “vital” in saving lives, but denied the use of torture.
He said all suspects will be afforded protection under the Geneva Convention.
In a carefully-staged television address alongside families of those killed in the September 11, 2001 attacks, Bush said there were now no terrorist suspects under the CIA program.
Bush said he was making a limited disclosure of the CIA program because interrogation of the men it held was now complete and because a US Supreme Court decision had stopped the use of military commissions for trials.
He said the CIA program had interrogated a small number of key figures suspected of involvement in 9/11, the attack on the USS Cole in 2000 in Yemen and the 1998 attacks on US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
The suspects, who include the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, have now been moved out of CIA custody and will face trial.
Bush claimed the CIA's interrogation program had been “vital” in saving lives, but denied the use of torture.
Embassy in downtown Seoul for a visa interview only to be turned down with no clear reason have developed animosity against the U.S. policy.
President George W. Bush unveiled his intention to work with the U.S.
Senate overwhelmingly approved a Sept.
However, South Koreans who experience wasting hours in long line at the U.S.
Concern about the credit crisis is driving down oil prices, now trading here $90 a barrel.
Energy analyst Victor Shum says he does not expect those prices to drop considerably lower, though.
“Some analysts have forecast pricing dropping as low as $50, and I don't think that's that likely in the short term, unless we really go into an extended global recession.”
OPEC ministers are considering calls to cut production to prop up prices.
Congress has opened hearings on the collapse of Lehman Brothers.
Congressman Henry Waxman says he has internal documents that show that executives at the company were building golden parachutes for executives on their way out the door, as their company was failing.
Fuld was pleading with Secretary Paulson for a federal rescue, Lehman continued to squander millions on executive compensation.”
Richard Fuld is the Chief Financial Officer for Lehman.
“Some analysts have forecast pricing dropping as low as $50, and I don't think that's that likely in the short term, unless we really go into an extended global recession.”
Congress has opened hearings on the collapse of Lehman Brothers.
Congressman Henry Waxman says he has internal documents that show that executives at the company were building golden parachutes for executives on their way out the door, as their company was failing.
A 43-year-old American resident earned hundreds of millions of won by selling luxury “Swiss” watches to celebrities and the wealthy at lavish parties, although the timepieces were made in Korea with some parts from China, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency said yesterday.
Lee Dong-jin, who also goes by Phillip Lee, was detained by police.
Another man, who manufactured and supplied the watches, is being investigated, police said.
Lee earned 700 million won by selling about 300 watches with a manufacturing cost of 80,000 to 3 million won at excessive prices, ranging from 5.8 million to 97.5 million won, starting in March 2005, police said.
He also allegedly received 156.7 million won from four people who he promised to give franchising rights.
Lee told the JoongAng Ilbo that all of the watches were made in a factory in Switzerland.
Lee claimed the case was sparked by angry franchisees and said he would appeal the case when he goes to court.
Lee Dong-jin, who also goes by Phillip Lee, was detained by police.
Zimbabwe´s opposition leader and a government minister have denied reports that a deal has been reached for President Robert Mugabe to step down.
Morgan Tsvangirai said he believed his Movement for Democratic Change had won Saturday´s election but declined to declare himself the winner.
He said his party would reveal their tally of results on Wednesday.
Bright Matonga, Zanu-PF´s Deputy Information Minister, also rejected reports of a deal.
˝The Korea Times reports the government unveiled a series of ambitious measures to turn the country into an international financial center over the past few years but the hub dream has become a hollow slogan, many international analysts say.
On Wednesday, the government announced the latest steps in its bid to achieve the financial hub plan, including providing tax breaks to promote mergers and acquisitions (M&As) between financial companies.
Among the measures are allowing the establishment of hedge funds and scrapping all regulations governing private equity funds (PEFs) by 2012.
The government also said it will overhaul supervisory rules on the financial market to be on a par with those of advanced countries.˝
On Wednesday, the government announced the latest steps in its bid to achieve the financial hub plan, including providing tax breaks to promote mergers and acquisitions (M&As) between financial companies.
More than 200 Taleban fighters have been killed in a major offensive by Afghan and NATO forces in southern Afghanistan.
Four Canadian soldiers with the NATO forces were also killed in Operation Medusa, which began on Saturday near the city of Kandahar.
A UK reconnaissance plane supporting the offensive crashed on Saturday, killing all 14 people on board.
Afghanistan is witnessing its bloodiest period since the Taleban fell in 2001.
A spokesman for the Afghan defense ministry, Gen Zahir Azimi, put the suspected Taleban losses at 89, and said a number of civilians had also died.
About 2,000 NATO and Afghan soldiers are involved in Operation Medusa, which is the biggest military operation in southern Afghanistan since the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force took over the area from a US-led coalition at the end of July.
Japan and China have failed to make any progress in their dispute over energy resources in the East China Sea, but have agreed to talk again.
Monday's discussions in Beijing were the first since China cancelled a summit with Japan last month amid increasingly frosty ties.
The two sides also failed on Monday to resolve a row over the suicide of a Japanese diplomat.
Japan and China will hold another meeting late this month or early next.
China again rejected a Japanese proposal that both sides jointly explore gas fields near a disputed maritime border in the East China Sea, a Japanese official told Kyodo news agency.
Tokyo is worried that Chinese operations could tap into reserves Japan claims as its own.
China and Japan have been engaged in a number of disputes over the past year, both over oil resources and Japan's attitude to its colonial and wartime history.
The two sides also failed on Monday to resolve a row over the suicide of a Japanese diplomat.
The Dow Jones industrial average notched its biggest percentage gain in four and a half years on Wednesday, after comments by the vice chairman of the Federal Reserve raised expectations for an interest rate cut in December.
And a sharp drop in oil prices for a second day eased worries that high energy costs might squeeze consumers going into the holiday season.
The Dow and the S&P 500 jumped more than 2 percent, and the surged more than 3 percent.
Banks, insurers and other financials led the rally after Fed Vice Chairman Donald Kohn said renewed financial market turmoil could slow the economy more abruptly than previously thought.
He said policy-makers must be “flexible and pragmatic.”
And a sharp drop in oil prices for a second day eased worries that high energy costs might squeeze consumers going into the holiday season.
The UN's refugee agency, the UNHCR, says it has been ordered to leave Uzbekistan within one month.
The UN's refugee agency, the UNHCR, says it has been ordered to leave Uzbekistan within one month.
The year-end violence continues in the Middle East, Israeli warplanes pounding Hamas positions in Gaza for a third day, more than 300 Palestinians are now dead, including more than 50 civilians and a handful of children.
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni says her side is trying to stop militants from firing deadly rockets into Israel:
“We are trying to target Hamas, which hides amongst civilians.
They are responsible to the situation in Gaza.
Israel wants to live in peace in the region but we cannot because Hamas is targeting our civilians.”
There are indications this could escalate further; Israeli naval vessels are attacking Gaza from the sea, and Israel has doubled the number of troops on the ground along the border.
The fighting in Gaza has helped push oil prices back about $40 a barrel.
Still, prices have come down 73% since July.
AAA reports gas is going for a national average $1.62 a gallon today.
Nearly 200,000 homes and businesses around Michigan still in the dark after a cold front blew through, knocking down tree limbs and power lines.
Parts of Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and northwest Ohio also are preparing for possible flooding.
There are indications this could escalate further;
The G8 summit has opened in Germany amid disagreement over how to tackle climate change and worsening relations between Russia and the West.
Even before all of the leaders had arrived, the US had flatly refused to sign up to a binding deal on slashing greenhouse gases, a key summit goal.
And Russia threatened to target weapons at Europe if US plans for a missile defense shield should go ahead.
Outside, police have used water cannon to try to break up anti-G8 protesters.
Even before all of the leaders had arrived, the US had flatly refused to sign up to a binding deal on slashing greenhouse gases, a key summit goal.
Wall Street opened lower this morning on news of more unemployment and less consumer spending.
The AP's Rita Foley is live in Washington with the numbers.
After last week's lay-offs, the Bank of New York Mellon, Western Union, Dillards Department Stores and other companies, 529,000 more Americans on the unemployment line.
Analysts say that still smells of recession - it's actually down from the week before, and less than Economists feared.
Also this morning word that consumers spent 1% less last month.
And, in the first half hour the DOW is down 81 points.
Wall Street opened lower this morning on news of more unemployment and less consumer spending.
After last week's lay-offs, the Bank of New York Mellon, Western Union, Dillards Department Stores and other companies, 529,000 more Americans on the unemployment line.
Analysts say that still smells of recession - it's actually down from the week before, and less than Economists feared.
That's an especially important number, because their spending powers the economy, Jon.
Once again the US presents an obstacle to improvement in North-South relations as the telephone connection between South Korea and the inter-Korean industrial complex in Kaesong of the North is now in limbo due to deferred approval from the United States related to its export ban on strategic items.
He added that if the U.S. continues to hold up the process until beyond next month, KT will not be able to complete the phone link to Kaesong this year.
Once again the US presents an obstacle to improvement in North-South relations as the telephone connection between South Korea and the inter-Korean industrial complex in Kaesong of the North is now in limbo due to deferred approval from the United States related to its export ban on strategic items.
KT, South Korea’s leading fixed-line operator in charge of hooking up the nation to Kaesong, Sunday said cross-border phone calls could be put off to next year should the U.S. continue to procrastinate on the decision.
``We originally expected the U.S. would give the nod in September, two months after we applied for the approval in late July, but it did not,’’ KT vice president Kim Byoung-ju said.
Smoking regulations are stiffened.
Zimbabwe´s main opposition leader has rejected calls by President Robert Mugabe´s Zanu-PF party to re-check the presidential election results.
Morgan Tsvangirai said such a move would be illegal and impractical.
Eight days after the poll, the country´s election commission has yet to announce the results.
The High Court in Zimbabwe has said it will rule on Monday on an opposition petition demanding the immediate release of the poll results.
A judge at the court in the capital in Harare said he would first consider an argument by the Zimbabwean Electoral Commission (ZEC) that his court did not have jurisdiction.
Tsvangirai, who leads the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), has claimed victory in the election and called on Mr Mugabe to step down to allow a peaceful handover of power.
He has accused the 84-year-old ruler - in power since independence in 1980 - of plotting a campaign of violence to stay in office.
East Timor's governing party has given its backing to the country's embattled Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri, ignoring widespread calls for him to quit.
The decision immediately triggered the resignation of popular Foreign and Defense Minister Jose Ramos-Horta.
Alkatiri has been engaged in a power struggle with President Xanana Gusmao, who wants the prime minister to resign following a recent wave of violence.
But the party decided at a meeting in the capital, Dili, on Sunday that he should remain in office.
The decision immediately triggered the resignation of popular Foreign and Defense Minister Jose Ramos-Horta.
The experts missed it, by a lot, when they estimated that Consumer Confidence would drop to a 52 on the Conference Board Survey.
That's the survey's lowest mark and third deepest drop since it was started more than 40 years ago.
Conference Board Research Director Lynn Franco says people don't have much cheer heading into the holidays.
Our Warren Levinson is watching the stock numbers go up, despite all the consumer pessimism and other gloomy economic news.
“In morning trading, Wall Street shook off news of a historic decline in house prices last month, and followed international markets upward, after the Japanese market gained 6% and Hong Kong rose 14% overnight.
The Dow-Jones Industrial average added 4% in the first half hour of trading.
The question is, is the market coming up off a bottom or experiencing what Wall Street sardonically refers to as a 'dead-cat bounce', a reference to the idea that if you drop a cat on a trampoline, it will go up, once.
Warren Levinson, at the New York Stock Exchange.”
Right now, about an hour and a half into trading, the Dow is up just 34.
The experts missed it, by a lot, when they estimated that Consumer Confidence would drop to a 52 on the Conference Board Survey.
“Consumers are not only concerned about what's occurring today, but what's going to happen in the future, and I think that really is going to pose a bit of challengers to retailers for the holiday season.”
The Dow-Jones Industrial average added 4% in the first half hour of trading.
Former President Kim Dae-jung will leave for Japan on October 29th to receive an honorary doctorate of law from Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto on October 30th where he will give a lecture.
Former President Kim Dae-jung will leave for Japan on October 29th to receive an honorary doctorate of law from Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto on October 30th where he will give a lecture.
The Nobel peace prizewinner will also attend the opening ceremony of a Korean studies center at the university.
˝The Taliban yesterday resumed its threat to kill the 21 South Korean hostages as Seoul officials and the Taliban struggled to come up with an appropriate venue to hold a direct face-to-face meeting, originally targeted for the past weekend.
President George W. Bush and his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai, in the meantime, were set to hold the first of the two-day-long summit talks late last night.
The two presidents were expected to discuss how to solve the crisis, the new Afghan administration´s largest ever abduction case.
Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press quoted purported Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi as saying that the South Korean government was not putting enough efforts to release the Taliban prisoners.
In a telephone conversation with the news agency, Ahmadi admitted the group has been contacted directly by the South Korean government and that the Seoul officials were “repeating” how they were putting their best efforts to get consensus from the United States for the prisoner swap and to acquire the United Nations’ security guarantees for the face-to-face meeting.˝
US troops have launched two raids against Shiite militias in Baghdad, according to reports.
At least 18 people are said to have been killed in one of the raids on a mosque where militants loyal to Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr were based.
In the second raid, US troops arrested more than 40 Interior Ministry staff said to be guarding a secret prison.
Earlier on Sunday, Iraqi security forces found 30 bodies - many of them beheaded - near the town of Baquba.
In Baghdad, an aide to Sadr accused the US of killing unarmed people at the mosque.
US troops have launched two raids against Shiite militias in Baghdad, according to reports.
New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg says Libya has finally met all of its financial obligations to provide almost $2 billion in compensation for the downing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988.
“The nations around the world now know, that they will suffer consequences if they encourage violence against American-acts of violence against American citizens.”
“There is a degree of satisfaction that Libya had to comply, and unfortunately, the only form of restitution the world understands is money.”
Repeating our top story once again, Attorney General Michael Mukasey collapsed tonight during a speech at a hotel in Washington, D.C.
The check's in the mail!
Carole Johnson, whose daughter was killed, says the compensation doesn't bring closure.
In a bid to save financial markets and the economy from further turmoil, the government has agreed tonight to provide an $85 billion emergency loan to the huge insurer, AIG.
It's been a busy day on Wall Street, Alan Valdes, chief trader at Hilliard Lyons, says the stock market will recover from its tail spin.
“If you look at 1907 which was a worse case scenario than this, or the 1930's with the Depression-worst case scenario, the market always comes back.
And it always comes back in 18 months, maybe two years, so it's not, like, a lifetime.
It will come back and you'll make more money than in the bank.
AP correspondent Mark Smith reports the President has received an update from a special working group.
The working group on financial markets includes Treasury secretary Henry Paulson, who was a key player in the decision not to bail out Lehman brothers, investment bank that collapsed under the weight of bad loans, and Fed chief Ben Bernanke, with the New York Fed taking the lead in talks hoping to avert the collapse of insurance giant AIG.
Barclays says tonight it's going to acquire Lehman Brothers' North American investment banking and capital markets, for $250 million in cash.
Lehman filed for bankruptcy protection Monday, after it was unable to find financing or fresh capital to shore up its balance sheet.
Wall Street has partly recovered from its worst sell-off in years after the Feds said today it was keeping interest rates steady. The Dow ended the day, up 141 points.
Authorities in Texas are vowing to invoke emergency powers to force about 250 people who withstood Hurricane Ike, to leave Bolivar Peninsula.
“If you look at 1907 which was a worse case scenario than this, or the 1930's with the Depression-worst case scenario, the market always comes back.
It will come back and you'll make more money than in the bank.
Barclays says tonight it's going to acquire Lehman Brothers' North American investment banking and capital markets, for $250 million in cash.
The Dow ended the day, up 141 points.
Got to have a quick trigger finger to play this game:
hundreds of houses have gone to the highest bidders at an auction of foreclosed homes in New York:
“ More than 300 foreclosed homes starting at $500 were on the block.
Auction company head Robert Friedman says he feels for homeowners, but if they're in over their heads:
“ I don't think it's fair for the American public to have to subsidize these people.”
“ That they should even have the audacity to foreclose or evict, given the amount of money that they made off the crisis.”
An Australian man says he's lucky to have escaped with only scratches and shredded underwear, after tangling with a home-invading kangaroo!
The animal smashed through the man's window, bounced on his bed, and threatened his family before the guy got it in a headlock and forced it out the door.
the Dow is now down 1 point.
hundreds of houses have gone to the highest bidders at an auction of foreclosed homes in New York:
Auction company head Robert Friedman says he feels for homeowners, but if they're in over their heads:
the Dow is now down 1 point.
Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon plans to meet Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe in Tokyo on Wednesday to urge him to stop visiting the Yasukuni war shrine.
A ministry official said it is proper to interpret the meeting as a routine diplomatic procedure, given that Abe's position is to represent the Japanese government.
But the meeting looks still meaningful as Seoul is set to raise the most contentious issue to the Japanese politician who is expected to become the next prime minister in September.
It was belatedly learned that Abe also made a visit to the controversial shrine as recently as April.
But he has not yet clarified whether he will continue paying homage to the religious institution that honors 2.5 million Japanese war dead, including 14 convicted Class-A war criminals.
In just a short while, President-elect Barack Obama begins a symbolic journey to his inauguration;
he and his family boarding a train in Philadelphia to follow the same route Abraham Lincoln took into Washington in 1861.
Obama, in his weekly radio and online speech, says the tradition of a peaceful change in presidential power is a beacon of hope for many around the world:
“Billions of people around the world cannot imagine their leaders giving up power without strife or bloodshed.”
Obama's inauguration could draw the largest crowd in history, and that has security officials planning for just about anything.
Former Secret Service Deputy Director Danny Spriggs says just the size of the crowd presents a daunting task:
“The numbers are going to be such that it would be unconscionable to think that you could screen and put two million people through a magnetometer.”
In just a short while, President-elect Barack Obama begins a symbolic journey to his inauguration;
“Billions of people around the world cannot imagine their leaders giving up power without strife or bloodshed.”
Sloppy engine maintenance caused last month’s fighter jet crash in the Yellow Sea, Korea’s Air Force said.
Even though the maker of the plane said a defective cover plate had to be replaced by the end of 2004, mechanics failed to do so during a routine checkup, the Air Force said.
The defective cover plate broke and fragments damaged the engine of the KF-16 jet during an exercise on Feb.
Even though the maker of the plane said a defective cover plate had to be replaced by the end of 2004, mechanics failed to do so during a routine checkup, the Air Force said.
As hard as your retirement account was hit last week, the AP's Tim McGuire reports the poor people of the world are getting clobbered even worse.
“The World Bank's policy board is meeting today in Washington.
The group has already issued a warning that the global economic crisis is a greater threat to the poorest nations.
That's because they're already racked by growing food and fuel costs, and bigger countries may not be able to help them survive.”
Firefighters are gradually getting control of a wildfire that burned 750 acres and has destroyed one home in a rugged area north of Los Angeles.
“We don't have an estimated time of containment, but really what we're doing is looking ahead through the rest of today and tomorrow, in anticipation of the Santa Ana winds.”
Stanton Florea of the U.S. Forest Service says the wildfire is burning an Angeles National Forest about 20 miles north of downtown Los Angeles.
Pirates off Somalia have apparently fought off an attempt by Somali forces to retake a ship seized for ransom last Thursday.
'Beverly Hills Chihuahua' still the top dog at the box office, taking another $17.5 million this weekend.
That's because they're already racked by growing food and fuel costs, and bigger countries may not be able to help them survive.”
“We don't have an estimated time of containment, but really what we're doing is looking ahead through the rest of today and tomorrow, in anticipation of the Santa Ana winds.”
ecent remarks by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe about comfort women during World War II “gloss over the historic truth,” South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
The Joong-Ang Ilbo reports that, Abe told Japanese reporters in Tokyo, “The fact is that there is no evidence that the Japanese military or government mobilized comfort women under compulsion.”
His comments came on Korea’s national holiday commemorating the 1919 independence movement against Japan’s colonial rule here from 1910 to 1945.
Abe was referring to as many as 200,000 comfort women, many of them Korean, who were forced to work as sexual slaves for Japanese soldiers on the front lines.
Abe’s comment also followed a U.S. House of Representatives hearing last month with witnesses, including two South Korean women, who said they were forced by Japan to be comfort women.
His comments came on Korea’s national holiday commemorating the 1919 independence movement against Japan’s colonial rule here from 1910 to 1945.
Abe was referring to as many as 200,000 comfort women, many of them Korean, who were forced to work as sexual slaves for Japanese soldiers on the front lines.
Abe’s comment also followed a U.S.
A new earth tremor thought to be an aftershock has been felt in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.
Indian troops have crossed the Line of Control dividing the disputed Kashmir region to help Pakistani counterparts rebuild their shattered quarters.
The move follows the massive earthquake on Saturday which killed at least 23,000 people in South Asia.
Both countries have also eased travel curbs, allowing some Kashmiri families to return home via Punjab.
A new earth tremor thought to be an aftershock has been felt in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.
There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties from the quake recorded at 01:23 AM local time by the US Geological Survey.
The police have been under suspicion for their attempts to overlook a revenge assault committed by the Hanwha Group chairman Kim Seung-youn and delay investigating the case.
Increasingly aggressive state prosecutors yesterday raided a Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency office and two local police stations in Seoul as part of their probe into alleged bribery and influence peddling between the police and Hanwha Group.
The police have been under suspicion for their attempts to overlook a revenge assault committed by the Hanwha Group chairman Kim Seung-youn and delay investigating the case.
Prosecution investigators raided a regional bureau of Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency that had assigned Seoul’s local Namdaemum Police Station to investigate the Kim violence case and had received a call from Choi Ki-moon, the Hanwha adviser and former chief of the National Police Agency.
The relocation of the U.S. base in Yongsan, Seoul, is likely to be postponed until 2013 because of a delay in the construction schedule, government sources said Wednesday.
The United States has informed South Korea that it would cost 300 billion won to 400 billion won ($315 million to $420 million) to move the C4I military command system.
The high costs are expected to stir controversy over heavy financial burden on the South Korean government.
South Korean and U.S. working-level officials have discussed the cost of moving the C4I military command system, which stands for a joint command, control, communications, computers and intelligence system.
The system enables a commander to selectively apply and maximize combat power at critical points on the battlefield.
The delay will also affect the government’s plan to build a giant park covering some 2,871,000 square meters of land at the site.
The high costs are expected to stir controversy over heavy financial burden on the South Korean government.
Communist China´s foreign minister has strongly criticized ""anti-China forces"" he says are determined to politicize this year´s Beijing Olympics.
Yang Jiechi said individuals and groups were trying to tarnish China´s image.
In recent weeks human rights groups and a number of Hollywood personalities, including Steven Spielberg, have stepped up criticism of China´s record.
And a report by Human Rights Watch on Wednesday said migrant workers were being exploited to build a new Beijing.
HRW said one million workers from other parts of China constituted almost 90% of Beijing´s construction workforce.
Some workers had had their pay withheld for up to a year, the group said.
Yang accused a few individuals and groups of wanting to politicize the Games.
Beijing has come under fire for continuing to support the Sudanese government, which rights groups hold responsible for atrocities in the Darfur region.
Tibetan activists have also used China´s hosting of the Olympics to publicize what they regard as China´s occupation of their territory.
And a report by Human Rights Watch on Wednesday said migrant workers were being exploited to build a new Beijing.
Some workers had had their pay withheld for up to a year, the group said.
Israel has reopened its border with Gaza, allowing deliveries of humanitarian aid;
the move comes even as rockets and motars are being launched into Israel.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has called on the people of Gaza to turn against Hamas:
“I can tell you we have the power, we have enormous power.
We can do things which will be devastating.”
Four years ago today, 230,000 people were killed when tsunami slammed into a dozen countries along the Indian Ocean.
The AP's Anthony Deutsch reports from Jakarta, Indonesia.
Special ceremonies have been held in the hardest hit areas.
they were conducted at local mosques, in an area, of course, that was virtually flattened by the giant waves that washed onto the coastline on that December day four years ago.”
Similar prayer services held in other countries, including Thailand, India and Sri Lanka.
They were all held for the victims of the tsunami.
the move comes even as rockets and motars are being launched into Israel.
We can do things which will be devastating.”
Former Philippine President Joseph Estrada has denied taking millions of dollars in bribes and gambling pay-offs before he was deposed five years ago.
Testifying for the first time at his corruption trial in Manila, Estrada dismiss sed the case against him as political persecution.
Estrada is accused of amassing about $80m illegally while in office.
Five North Koreans have fled to South Korea in a small fishing boat, avoiding detection along one of the world's most heavily fortified borders.
Their vessel was found adrift in South Korean waters on Saturday.
The five, who are believed to include four members of the same family, have applied for asylum, the South Korean news agency, Yonhap, said.
They told officials that they decided to defect after hearing on the radio that life in the South was better.
The five - a man in his 30s, his wife, two children and a family friend - are being questioned by military and intelligence officials, a defense ministry official said.
The group is said to have left the North Korean port of Tongchon on Friday evening, pretending to go fishing.
Their boat struck a rock and drifted for two days before being spotted by South Korean vessels off the east coast of the peninsula, Yonhap reported.
More than 1,000 North Koreans flee to the South every year, usually through Chinese territory.
North Korea and South Korea are still technically at war, after the 1950-53 war, which left the Korean peninsula divided, ended with an armistice.
Their vessel was found adrift in South Korean waters on Saturday.
The group is said to have left the North Korean port of Tongchon on Friday evening, pretending to go fishing.
South Korea´s President Roh Moo-hyun has walked over the heavily fortified border into North Korea en route to a summit in Pyongyang.
His meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il is only the second such meeting since the Korean war.
The BBC has quoted President Roh as saying a “peace settlement together with economic development” would be his aim.
The 1950-53 war between the two sides has never formally ended, but Seoul has promoted hopes for a permanent truce.
It says this summit, scheduled to last three days, may pave the way for that historic step.
President Roh left the South Korean capital, Seoul, in a motorcade along with business leaders, bureaucrats, poets and clerics.
The convoy stopped at the demilitarized zone to allow the president and his wife, to cross into the north on foot.
They stepped across a yellow plastic tape, printed with the words ”peace” and ”prosperity”.
”I do hope after my crossing that more people will follow suit,” said President Roh at the border.
The two states´ only other summit was held in Pyongyang in 2000.At the time, Kim Jong-il promised to make the return journey to Seoul, but that has never happened.
The first summit led to the former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung winning the Nobel Peace Prize for his ”sunshine policy” of rapprochement with the North.
It says this summit, scheduled to last three days, may pave the way for that historic step.
Former Unification Minister Chung Dong-young won the United New Democratic Party´s nomination to run in the December presidential election, Monday, after a month-long primary race marred by a low turnout and alleged vote buying.
The Korea Times reports Chung, a television news anchor-turned-politician, faces an uphill battle against Lee Myung-bak of the Grand National Party, who commands a strong lead with support of about 50 percent in opinion polls.
Chung´s latest rating stood at slightly over 14 percent.
In his acceptance speech, Chung stressed the internal unity needed to win the election and establish a unified government.
He expressed confidence in defeating the former Seoul Mayor Lee whom he described as the candidate espousing ``distorted capitalism.´´
Seoul's converted Cheonggye sewer stream, proudly opened to the public just over a week ago is under attack, the Seoul Institute of Health and Environment said yesterday.
Seoul's converted Cheonggye sewer stream, proudly opened to the public just over a week ago is under attack, the Seoul Institute of Health and Environment said yesterday.
The culprits, the institute said, are red-eared turtles, which had been imported into Korea from the late 1970s until 2001 to dress up home aquariums.
1.7 million young people need care.
If traffic seems a little lighter this morning, it could be because fewer people are working.
The Labor Department reports new jobless claims jumped to a 27-year high last week, surprising economists like Bob Bruska by reaching 626,000:
“We're now up over the 600,000 mark, to 626,000, for the first time in this cycle, and these are the highest levels of claims in any of the recessions since 1960, except for the 1980's recession.”
He's Chief Economist with Fact and Opinion Economics, and Bruska says this jobless spike may signal we're approaching a high.
Just this morning, cosmetics maker Estee Lauder says its latest profit fell 30%, adding it's cutting 2,000 people - or, 6% of the work force.
President Barack Obama is weighing in on the spiraling economy and the recovery package in an op-ed piece in this morning's Washington Post.
Here's White House correspondent Mark Smith:
“In it, the President warns a failure to act swiftly and boldly could cost another 5 million jobs and allow the economic crisis to continue to deepen.
Obama calls on lawmakers to move on his stimulus plan with the same urgency he says Americans now feel in their daily lives.”
Retailers are reporting dismal sales in January.
President Barack Obama is weighing in on the spiraling economy and the recovery package in an op-ed piece in this morning's Washington Post.
At some point, he says, it may not be possible to pull out.
Former President Kim Dae-jung urged Seoul to pursue another inter-Korean summit by August regardless of what happens with North Korea’s nuclear arms program.
Korea regained sovereignty from Japan on that date in 1945.
The first and only inter-Korean summit between Kim and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in 2000 opened the doors for a flurry of economic, cultural and political reconciliation projects such as the Kaesong industrial park in the North Korean border town and tourism programs to the North’s Mount Kumgang.
Former President Kim Dae-jung urged Seoul to pursue another inter-Korean summit by August regardless of what happens with North Korea’s nuclear arms program.
Kim sent the explicit message on Monday to his successor, President Roh Moo-hyun, who has linked a summit to progress in the six-party talks aimed at ending North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.
15, when the two Koreas hold joint celebrations to honor their independence day.
The Korea Times reports Lee Choon-ho, the nominee for minister of gender equality and family, who has been the target of criticism over property speculation along with some other potential Cabinet members, has withdrawn her nomination.
She told reporters Sunday that she made the decision in order not to become a political burden to President Lee.
Lee Choon-ho had been under attack from the liberal United Democratic Party (UDP) for alleged property speculation, as she owns 40 properties in 12 cities across the nation.
She has denied any impropriety, saying that she inherited them from her late husband.
She told reporters Sunday that she made the decision in order not to become a political burden to President Lee.
Young people in South Korea's workforce are more likely to have achieved an upper secondary education than anywhere else in the developed world.
They are also among the most likely to have university degrees, according to annual education report from the OECD.
The Asian country has invested heavily in education as a central part of its economic future.
N.K. insists a right to peaceful nuclear activity.
Officials say Madonna is to travel to Malawi to try to adopt a second child from the African country.
An official at the Malawi welfare department said Thursday that the pop star has filed adoption papers.
Another person in the country close to the case claims that Madonna will be in Malawi this weekend and a court could hear her adoption case as soon as Monday.
The singer adopted a boy, David Banda, from Malawi in 2006 which became official last year.
Bob Barker returned to 'The Price Is Right,' and this time he was the showcase.
After nearly two years in retirement, the 85-year-old former game show host was invited to come on down to his old quiz program.
Barker's guest appearance was to promote his upcoming autobiography, 'Priceless Memories.'
The 50-year-old actress is citing irreconcilable differences.
The couple got married in 1989 and have a son together.
This is Hilary Fox with AP ShowBiz Minute.
Bob Barker returned to 'The Price Is Right,' and this time he was the showcase.
˝Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has announced he is resigning after less than a year in office.
Abe had been facing growing calls to quit since his party lost upper house elections in July, and opinion polls showed he was increasingly unpopular.
Visibly distressed, he told a packed news conference that Japan needed a new leader to “fight against terrorism”.
His party is set to meet next week to pick a new PM, but analysts say a fresh general election is unlikely.
Days earlier, Abe had staked his job on extending Japan´s naval support for the US-led mission in Afghanistan beyond a current November deadline.
News of the resignation, coming just before a parliamentary debate on the issue, took many analysts by surprise.
Abe, who is seen as a nationalist, took over as prime minister a year ago.
At 52, he was Japan´s youngest post-war head of government.˝
The UN Security Council has urged Burma´s ruling junta to show restraint amid a worsening political crisis.
After an emergency session, it also called on Burma´s generals to allow a special UN envoy into the country.
The US and European Union wanted the council to consider imposing sanctions - but that was rejected by China.
Burmese authorities confirmed one death on Wednesday as police clashed with protesters in Rangoon.
There were reports of at least two other deaths.
US President George W Bush has already announced a tightening of US economic sanctions against Burma.
But China´s UN ambassador, Wang Guangya, said that sanctions against Burma´s military rulers would not be “helpful”.
China and Russia have argued that the situation in Burma is a purely internal matter.
Both vetoed a UN resolution critical of Burma´s rulers last January.
After an emergency session, it also called on Burma´s generals to allow a special UN envoy into the country.
The US and European Union wanted the council to consider imposing sanctions - but that was rejected by China.
Quoting a ministry spokesman on Saturday, North Korea's state-run Korean Central News Agency said, ""Bush is a hooligan bereft of any personality as a human being.
President George W. Bush's remarks Thursday in which he labeled North Korean leader Kim Jong-il a ""tyrant,"" Pyongyang called Bush a ""hooligan"" over the weekend.
Quoting a ministry spokesman on Saturday, North Korea's state-run Korean Central News Agency said, ""Bush is a hooligan bereft of any personality as a human being.
"" The agency also said Pyongyang did not expect a solution to the nuclear issue during Bush's term.
North Korea’s recent missile test was just a common military drill.
That's Forrest Whitaker doing the honors.
Benjamin Button leads the overall nominations with 13.
On Wall Street in the first half hour the Dow was down 144.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall, and Cean Chaffin, producers.
The Korean military yesterday announced it has agreed to purchase four surveillance aircraft from U.S.
at a price of $1.59 billion between 2011 and 2012.
Following the agreement, Korea's military acquisition agency, the Defense Acquisition Program Administration, will sign a contract with the U.S. aircraft maker within this month, finalizing the long-delayed acquisition process, officials said.
Since 2004, the Korean Air Force has sought to purchase four airborne early warning aircraft due by 2012 under a project code-named E-X.
Kwon Young-woo, chief of the spy plane project at DAPA said the price negotiations were particularly tough since the U.S. firm had initially pushed for a $1.9 billion price proposal.
at a price of $1.59 billion between 2011 and 2012.
Three Australians convicted of drug smuggling in Indonesia have had death sentences commuted to life in prison.
Defense lawyers argued that the men - members of the so-called Bali Nine - deserved leniency because they were young and were not repeat offenders.
Indonesia´s Supreme Court accepted the arguments and overturned its own 2006 decision to mete out the death penalty.
The nine - eight men and one woman - were arrested in Bali in April 2005 with more than 8.3kg (18lb) of heroin.
Matthew Norman, Thanh Duc Tan Nguyen and Si Yi Chen - each said to have been a courier rather than a mastermind of the operation - were each sentenced to life imprisonment after their initial trial.
On appeal, this was reduced to 20 years in jail.
But Indonesian prosecutors appealed against that sentence, and the Supreme Court instituted the death penalty against the three.
Three Australians convicted of drug smuggling in Indonesia have had death sentences commuted to life in prison.
Health officials in Mexico say the number of suspected swine flu deaths has now topped 100 with more than 1,600 cases overall.
They're still investigating the exact number caused by the deadly new virus strain, which has shown up in as many as seven other countries and has caused the US to declare a health emergency.
One day after this University of Georgia professor allegedly opened fire at a community theater killing three people including his wife.
Authorities say there's no trace of him, and he hasn't used a credit card or cell phone.
Chrysler says it's reached a tentative agreement with the UAW that puts it one step closer to a partnership with Italy's Fiat.
And GM is expected to announce as early as Monday further moves to comply with government restructuring demands.
Archaeologists say they have discovered an ancient Egyptian burial site containing dozens of preserved mummies dating back as far as 4,000 years.
More than 50 tombs were discovered at the site south of Cairo.
Bryant Thomas, The Associated Press with AP NewsMinute.
And GM is expected to announce as early as Monday further moves to comply with government restructuring demands.
A possible roadblock for the auto bailout:
Republican Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee says he doubts a tentative deal will pass:
It's as if the administration has snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.”
He was on the CBS“ Early Show” as Congress gets set to vote as soon as today.
So what's the plan and, what's the problem?
Live to the White House, an Associated Press correspondent Mark Smith:
“Jon, the plan is for a car czar to oversee $15 billion in emergency loans.
Under the bargain, officials here have struck with top Democrats that czar could recall the loans if carmakers don't restructure.
It's as if the administration has snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.”
Following the ruling of Korea’s first lawsuit, the plaintiffs said they will appeal to the higher court but KT&G, the tobacco company, said the court ruling was wise.
The Seoul Central District Court ruled against plaintiffs for the compensation suits filed against KT&G.
The 36 lung cancer patients and their families claimed they had mental damage from cancer caused by smoking.
A Seoul court rejected civil suits filed by a group of lung cancer patients who have waged a seven-year battle against the nation’s tobacco maker, citing a lack of evidence to prove the correlation between smoking and lung cancer.
˝North Korea has confirmed it has received $25m following a funding row that had hindered progress on a nuclear disarmament deal.
The foreign ministry said in a statement:
“The issue of the frozen funds has finally been settled.”
Pyongyang said the money would be used for humanitarian purposes.
The ministry also confirmed it would begin implementing a deal to shut down its main reactor - a day before UN nuclear inspectors are due to visit.
The team from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is traveling at the request of Pyongyang to discuss procedures for monitoring the shut down of the Yongbyon nuclear reactor.
Washington´s chief nuclear negotiator, Christopher Hill, said at the weekend that Pyongyang had agreed to shut down the reactor within three weeks.˝
˝North Korea has confirmed it has received $25m following a funding row that had hindered progress on a nuclear disarmament deal.
˝The Korea Times reports low- to middle-income salaried workers and the self-employed will see their tax burden cut between 180,000 won to 720,000 won annually beginning next year thanks to revised tax rules.
Under the revised taxation system announced by the Ministry of Finance and Economy Wednesday, those who make between 35 million won and 65 million won annually will get an 180,000 won cut in income tax.
Those who make over 72 million will pay 720,000 won less.
At the same time, the government will cut taxes on capital gains from home sales for those who hold their homes for a longer time by raising the tax deduction scope for long-term home owners.
The ministry said it would submit the revision bill, including the income bracket change, to the National Assembly, to be implemented from next January at the earliest.
It expects around a 3.5 trillion won decrease in tax income for the government up to 2013.˝
’ The Korea Times characterized Kim’s resignation as a strong remonstration against Chun, who ordered him last Wednesday to have the prosecution investigate Dongguk University’s Prof.
President Roh Moo-hyun, Sunday accepted the resignation of Prosecutor General Kim Jong-bin, who offered to quit after a feud with Justice Minister Chun Jung-bae, last week the presidential office said.
Roh, however, did not even consider replacing Chun, the pro-opposition Korea Times reported.
’ Roh also lent strong support to Chun who, under attack from the main opposition Grand National Party, is expected to push for a large-scale reform of the prosecution in the coming days. He was quoted as encouraging Chun to ``go ahead and take charge of the current situation without wavering.’
’ The Korea Times characterized Kim’s resignation as a strong remonstration against Chun, who ordered him last Wednesday to have the prosecution investigate Dongguk University’s Prof.
Hwang Woo-suk is under blaming of conservative religious groups.
With handshakes, leaders of the United States, Israel and the Palestinians agreed on Tuesday to launch immediate talks to secure a peace treaty by the end of 2008 that would create a Palestinian state.
President George W. Bush announced the deal at the opening of a 44-nation Middle East peace conference, with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas standing at his side.
With handshakes, leaders of the United States, Israel and the Palestinians agreed on Tuesday to launch immediate talks to secure a peace treaty by the end of 2008 that would create a Palestinian state.
National Tax Service Commissioner Jeon Goon-pyo was summoned by the prosecution Thursday for questioning over his alleged acceptance of bribes and his ensuing attempt to cover this up.
It is the first time for an incumbent top tax official to appear before prosecutors since the tax office was separated from the Ministry of Finance and Economy in 1966.
Jeon appeared before the Busan District Prosecutors´ Office after coming down to the port city from the tax office´s headquarters in Seoul.
Before entering the office building, he said, ``I´m sorry to the people.
The prosecution will verify the truth through a fair probe.
The media is going too fast, and what they report is not true.´´ Prosecutors questioned him over the allegation that he received 60 million won from former Busan Tax Office head Chung Sang-gon late last year.
Chung testified that he gave the money to Jeon in return for a promotion.
The money was supposedly part of 100 million won Chung took from Busan-based constructor Kim Sang-jin in return for influence peddling in August last year.
Former presidential secretary Jung Yoon-jae is said to have arranged the meeting where Kim gave the money to Chung.
It is the first time for an incumbent top tax official to appear before prosecutors since the tax office was separated from the Ministry of Finance and Economy in 1966.
Jeon appeared before the Busan District Prosecutors´ Office after coming down to the port city from the tax office´s headquarters in Seoul.
Before entering the office building, he said, ``I´m sorry to the people.
With backing from the Olympic Council of Asia, senior Korean sports officials from Pyongyang and Seoul agreed yesterday, in principle, to field a unified team for the 2006 Asian Games in Doha, Qatar.
If the agreement holds, the Asian Games would be the first large sports event in which a united Korean team participated.
Unified teams have competed in single-sport international events, such as the World Table Tennis Championships and the World Youth Championship in 1991.
The Korean Olympic Committee, Seoul's governing body, said yesterday that its president, Kim Jung-kil, and his North Korean counterpart, Mun Jae-dok, struck a deal on the sidelines of the 24th annual assembly of the Asian Olympic Council in Guangzhou, China.
The UN's nuclear watchdog has called for immediate access to North Korea following the country's promise to give up all nuclear activities.
""The earlier we go back the better,"" said the International Atomic Energy Agency's head, Mohamed El Baradei.
The agency has not been able to monitor North Korea's nuclear program since it withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 2003.
Police have named a student who shot dead at least 30 people at Virginia Tech university on Monday as Cho Seung-hui, a 23-year-old South Korean.
Cho was studying English and had been living on the university campus.
He killed himself after the rampage.
He is also thought to have killed two people earlier in the day.
It was the worst gun massacre in US history.
Virginia Governor Tim Kaine on Tuesday pledged to immediately launch an independent review of the events.
US President George Bush told a university memorial service it was “a day of sadness for our entire nation”.
University president Charles Steger said the ”entire nation and people from many other nations are coming together to grieve” over the tragedy, and he hoped it would help begin the healing process. Police have named a student who shot dead at least 30 people at Virginia Tech university on Monday as Cho Seung-hui, a 23-year-old South Korean.
Cho was studying English and had been living on the university campus.
He killed himself after the rampage.
The Korea Times reports Koreans are spending billions of dollars to educate their kids overseas and their expenditure is snowballing every year, while incoming foreign students and travelers are showing no signs of any marked growth.
Koreans are expected to spend nearly 5 trillion won ($5.4 billion) on overseas education this year, more than 13 percent of the government´s 36 trillion won education budget for next year.
Since the 1997 Asian financial crisis, they have spent over $20 billion studying abroad or taking language training courses overseas.
According to the Bank of Korea (BOK), spending on overseas education and training recorded $3.5 billion in the first eight months of this year, marking a 17.3 percent year-on-year growth.
If spending continues to increase at this pace, it would surpass 4.8 trillion won this year, the central bank said.
Leaders of the G8 nations have agreed to seek “substantial” cuts in emissions in an effort to tackle climate change.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the G8 would negotiate within a UN framework to seek a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol by the end of 2009.
No mandatory target was set for the cuts, but Mrs Merkel’s preference for a 50% emissions cut by the year 2050 was included in the agreed statement.
Developing nations should also cut emissions, the leaders agreed.
Bush said the pair had had a ”constructive” meeting, in which Putin suggested using a radar station in Azerbaijan instead of facilities elsewhere in Europe.
Leaders of the G8 nations have agreed to seek “substantial” cuts in emissions in an effort to tackle climate change.
The New York Times says it has seen a memo which shows that the US president was firmly set on the path to war two months before the 2003 Iraq invasion.
From private talks between George Bush and UK PM Tony Blair, the memo makes it clear the US was determined to go to war whether or not he had UN backing.
He is quoted discussing ways to provoke Saddam Hussein into a confrontation.
A UK lawyer quoted the note in a book published in January but this is the first time it has been seen in full.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan refused to discuss the contents of the memo but said that up until the last moment, President Bush was interested in pursuing a diplomatic solution to the Iraq issue.
Defying a White House veto threat, the U.S.
House of Representatives voted on Thursday to outlaw harsh interrogation methods, such as simulated drowning, that the CIA has used against suspected terrorists.
On a largely party line vote of 222-199, the Democratic-led House approved a measure to require intelligence agents to comply with the Army Field Manual, which bans torture in compliance with the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war.
The measure, part of a sweeping intelligence bill, passed amid a congressional probe into the recent disclosure that the CIA destroyed videotapes of al Qaeda suspects undergoing waterboarding, a simulated drowning.
Many countries, U.S. lawmakers and human rights groups have accused the United States of torturing terror suspects since the September 11 attacks.
President George W. Bush says the United States does not torture, but the administration will not disclose what interrogation methods it has approved for the CIA.
On the NYSE stocks fell on Thursday, with the benchmark S&P 500 plummeting to a 15-month low, as news of a plunge in regional factory activity and a hefty loss at Merrill Lynch further clouded an increasingly dire view of the economy.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke echoed the bleak assessment of the economy in comments to lawmakers, reiterating that the Fed was ready to act aggressively and throwing his support behind other efforts to counter the risk of recession.
In one of the strongest signals yet that the economy is at high risk of contracting, the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank said mid-Atlantic factory activity has slowed much more than excted to levels that typically signal recession.
That extinguished Wall Street´s early attempt at a rally, with shares of companies most sensitive to the economy´s ups and downs suffering the most.
Small-cap stocks fell into bear market territory, while at the opposite extreme, megacap General Electric dropped almost 4 percent ahead of its profit report early Friday.
The Education Ministry confirmed its preliminary list of 25 universities that will be allowed to open U.S.-style law schools yesterday, resisting Blue House pressure to evenly distribute legal education to institutions around the nation.
In a news conference yesterday afternoon, Education Minister Kim Shin-il said there will be no changes to an announcement made last week.
The ministry has already made public the list of 25 chosen universities and the admission quota for each institution.
All together, 2,000 students will be admitted every year starting in March 2009.
Education Ministry officials and the Blue House met for nine hours yesterday as the president’s office demanded that at least one law school be opened for each province and metropolitan city.
Meanwhile, Communist China is closing 10% of Beijing´s petrol stations to improve air quality ahead of the Olympics in August.
By the end of May, 144 will shut because they are not expected to meet higher environmental standards, according to state media.
The remainder are to be fitted with devices to reduce the level of fumes which escape when vehicles fill up.
By the end of May, 144 will shut because they are not expected to meet higher environmental standards, according to state media.
The remainder are to be fitted with devices to reduce the level of fumes which escape when vehicles fill up.
It didn't take much for government investigators to get 4 bogus passports;
they used phony papers and the identities of a dead man and a 5-year-old boy.
Security expert Janice Kephart, who worked on the 9/11 Commission Report, says little has changed when it comes to passport security:
“ It is the same type of issue;
this is the issue of using bad information to get legitimate documents.”
Two more homes have been burned in Coatesville, Pennsylvania.
Investigators say someone set a blaze that heavily damaged homes early this morning.
There have been 20 such fires this year in the Philadelphia suburb.
A 19-year-old man is being held for trial on charges stemming from 9 arsons from early January through early February, including a massive fire that severely damaged 15 row homes.
they used phony papers and the identities of a dead man and a 5-year-old boy.
this is the issue of using bad information to get legitimate documents.”
There have been 20 such fires this year in the Philadelphia suburb.
The railways have been out of use since the Korean War.
No amount of rain this morning will be able to stop trains from crossing the heavily fortified border on the east and west side of the Korean peninsula for the first time in over half a century.
The Korea Herald reports the two Koreas yesterday touched up last-minute preparations for the test-run of the two cross border railways.
A South Korean train will be traveling to the North Korean side on the Gyeongui Line and a North Korean train to the South Korean side on the Donghae Line, each train carrying a delegation of 150 people from both Koreas.
It marks the first time in 56 years that a train will cross the Military Demarcation border using the Gyeongui Line, and 57 years for the Donghae Line.
The railways have been out of use since the Korean War.
The top investigator for an Alaskan legislative panel says Governor Sarah Palin unlawfully abused her power by trying to have her former brother-in-law fired as a state trooper.
But she didn't break the law when she fired the state's public safety commissioner.
“The head of the committee that releases reports is a Democrat.
You know, Republicans have been saying that this is a partisan process, and Democrats have been saying, hey, we authorized this;
this is a bipartisan authorization for this investigation;
The latest polls show McCain is trailing Barack Obama.
But she didn't break the law when she fired the state's public safety commissioner.
“The head of the committee that releases reports is a Democrat.
China’s delayed reporting of a sunken South Korean freighter off the Chinese coast has angered Koreans, while the search for 16 missing crew members continued for a third consecutive day Monday.
The South Korean government, meanwhile, remained cautious over the accident to avoid stirring a diplomatic dispute with China.
The accident has sparked suspicions that the Chinese authorities, as well as the Chinese ship, belatedly informed their South Korean counterparts of the collision, to cover up the cause of the accident.
China gave official notification of the accident to the South Korean Embassy in Beijing at 12:50 a.m. Sunday, nearly 21 hours after the accident took place and some 14 hours after it first learned of the incident, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
The belated report also sparked speculation that the Chinese ship left the scene of the accident without trying to rescue the victims.
Chinese rescue workers have not been able to find bodies of the missing sailors, but found two life rafts and other belongings from the South Korean vessel, maritime police in Incheon said.”
China’s delayed reporting of a sunken South Korean freighter off the Chinese coast has angered Koreans, while the search for 16 missing crew members continued for a third consecutive day Monday.
The South Korean government, meanwhile, remained cautious over the accident to avoid stirring a diplomatic dispute with China.
The Korea Herald reports the nation's consumer confidence index fell to a six-month low in April, as fast rising crude oil prices and the strength of the local currency reduced optimism among consumers, a government report showed yesterday.
The Korea Herald reports the nation's consumer confidence index fell to a six-month low in April, as fast rising crude oil prices and the strength of the local currency reduced optimism among consumers, a government report showed yesterday.
The consumer expectation index, which measures the views of consumers on economic conditions over the next six months, recorded 100.6 last month, barely above 100 but down 2.8 points from March, the National Statistical Office said.
A police officer also died in one of the blasts.
The other three men were believed to be linked to a suicide bomber who blew himself up in a Casablanca internet cafe last month, as police tried to arrest him.
A police raid on suspected militants in the Moroccan city of Casablanca has set off gunfights and suicide bombings that have left at least five men dead.
One of the men was shot dead by police in a raid on an alleged militant hideout in a poor area of the city.
Another three suspected militants blew themselves up during the police manhunt.
A police officer also died in one of the blasts.
Suicide bombers killed more than 40 people in Casablanca in 2003.
They targeted the city's ancient Jewish centre, tourist spots and a diplomatic complex.
Moroccan police said the man they killed on Tuesday, named as Mohamed Mentala, was wanted in connection with the 2003 attacks.
The other three men were believed to be linked to a suicide bomber who blew himself up in a Casablanca internet cafe last month, as police tried to arrest him.
Moroccan officials say they recently foiled a militant plot to bomb foreign and security targets in the country.”
˝US President George W Bush has warned Iran to stop supporting the militants fighting against the US in Iraq.
In a speech to US war veterans in Reno, Nevada, Bush renewed charges that Tehran has provided training and weapons for extremists in Iraq.
“The Iranian regime must halt these actions,” he demanded.
Earlier, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned that US authority in the region was rapidly collapsing, and Iran would help fill the void.
”Soon, we will see a huge power vacuum in the region,” Ahmadinejad said.
”Of course, we are prepared to fill the gap, with the help of neighbors and regional friends like Saudi Arabia, and with the help of the Iraqi nation.”
In his speech to the American Legion, Bush hit back, accusing Iran´s Revolutionary Guards of funding and arming insurgents in Iraq.
”I have authorised our military commanders in Iraq to confront Tehran´s murderous activities,” he threatened.˝
Earlier, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned that US authority in the region was rapidly collapsing, and Iran would help fill the void.
Polls in the US state of New Hampshire suggest Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are running neck and neck, two days before a key primary there.
Until recently, most opinion polls in the state put Sen Clinton ahead in the race to be the party´s candidate in November´s presidential election.
But Sen Obama´s victory in Iowa last week has boosted his campaign.
Among Republicans, surveys indicate that Sen John McCain is ahead of rival candidates in New Hampshire.
The latest opinion polls come in the wake of the Iowa caucuses, in which Sen Clinton came an unexpected third, and televised debates in New Hampshire between both Republican and Democratic candidates on Saturday.
A Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll released on Sunday showed a virtual dead heat in New Hampshire, with Sen Clinton on 31% and Sen Obama 30%.
“Fahrenheit 9/11” is raising public interest in the Iraq war.
Michael Moore's record-breaking documentary ``Fahrenheit 9/11'' is a pop culture phenomenon that is raising public interest in the Iraq war just as the United States is attempting a crucial handoff of power to Iraqis.
The movie, an indictment of George W. Bush's leadership and his decision to go to war in Iraq after the 2001 terrorist attacks, took in $23.9 million to become the first documentary to debut as Hollywood's top weekend film.
The heightened public interest generated by the film and the controversy surrounding it is likely to increase the reaction to what happens in Iraq
The White House has dismissed the film as ``outrageously false.''
Michael Moore's record-breaking documentary ``Fahrenheit 9/11'' is a pop culture phenomenon that is raising public interest in the Iraq war just as the United States is attempting a crucial handoff of power to Iraqis.
Theater owners in cities large and small reported sellout crowds.
The controversy surrounding the film has helped stir interest, with some Republican-leaning groups attempting to block its distribution.
George W. Bush said the troops will be brought back to the U.S. duty stations in Europe and Asia. Bush told the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Cincinnati that the redeployment would create a quicker response system against terrorist threats.
There's good news for some 70 thousand American fighting men and women and their families today.
George W. Bush said the troops will be brought back to the U.S. duty stations in Europe and Asia.
Bush told the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Cincinnati that the redeployment would create a quicker response system against terrorist threats.
It could take as long as ten years to complete the redeployment mission.
Uri Chairman Shin apologizes on behalf of his late father.
He said North Korean officials said at the time that Pakistan had conducted a nuclear test in the face of U.S. warnings not to, but no sanctions had been imposed in return.
A Bush administration expert on North Korea says that Pyongyang wants to become what he called ""the Pakistan of Northeast Asia"" and that Washington is expecting the North to conduct a nuclear weapons test.
In an interview with the Joong-Ang Ilbo, the Washington official who covers Korean Peninsula affairs said that North Korea openly mentioned Pakistan's nuclear arms status during the six-party talks last year.
He said North Korean officials said at the time that Pakistan had conducted a nuclear test in the face of U.S. warnings not to, but no sanctions had been imposed in return.
After a few years, the country and the United States were in an alliance in the U.S. war on terrorism.
Former President Kim Dae-jung said North Korea and the U.S. have to make up direct talks.
71 people killed in a day by suicide bombers in Iraq.
Defense Department official has expressed deep concern over the recent leak by a South Korean national assemblyman of classified documents related to the U.S.
The official, who hid his identity, called the documents academic ""research papers"" that should not have been disclosed to the public.
He described the situation as ""very disturbing.
"" Twice last month, Roh Hoe-chan, a Democratic Labor Party lawmaker, referred to classified documents from the ""Future of the Alliance"" talks.
Second Infantry Division:
˝Taliban militants Sunday decided to release two sick Korean female hostages but last-minute hitches delayed the freedom of the captives until Monday.
“The Taliban leadership decided to delay releasing the two female hostages from Sunday to Monday,” the source told The Korea Times.
Despite the delay, the South Korean government said a ”positive development” has been made, indicating that the captives will be released soon.
It is believed that the delayed release signifies something wrong inside the ranks of the militants.
Asked about their previous statements regarding the release of the two, the source said they had received orders from their leadership but some problems in the ongoing talks between Taliban negotiators and a Korean delegation in Ghazni where the militants kidnapped 23 Koreans on July 19 had arisen.˝
˝Taliban militants Sunday decided to release two sick Korean female hostages but last-minute hitches delayed the freedom of the captives until Monday.
The United States and Japan have detected signs North Korea is preparing to launch a ballistic missile capable of reaching almost anywhere in Japan, Japanese and U.S. government sources said on Thursday.
The United States and Japan have detected signs North Korea is preparing to launch a ballistic missile capable of reaching almost anywhere in Japan, Japanese and U.S. government sources said on Thursday.
The preparations were detected after the reclusive communist state refused to take part in a fourth round of six-party talks this month on ending its nuclear ambitions and said it would never give up its deterrent.
Palestinian militants killed two Israeli children through a rocket attack.
US presidential hopefuls are holding their final full day of campaigning before the nominating contest begins in earnest with the Iowa caucuses.
Caucuses are simultaneous meetings held across the state at which voters decide which candidate they will back.
Polls suggest a three-way battle between Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards for the Democrats.
Surveys suggest the Republican battle is likely to be won by either Mike Huckabee or Mitt Romney.
On Thursday evening, Iowans will gather at more than 1,780 locations across the state to choose delegates, the start of a selection process that will culminate in the Democratic and Republican national nominating conventions next summer.
The Seoul City government yesterday announced new measures for the sale of public housing aimed at making prices more transparent and affordable for low-income home buyers.
Publicly funded apartments in Seoul will be put up for sale only after construction is 80 percent completed.
Detailed construction costs will be made public.
Currently, apartments can be put up for bidding as soon as construction begins, allowing builders to fund works with the money prepaid by buyers.
The decision came amid growing controversy over the costs of new public housing in Eunpyeong, western Seoul.
The prices, announced last week, were 30 percent to 50 percent higher than those of comparable apartments in nearby residential districts, triggering criticism that the city government failed to deliver on its promise to supply relatively cheap apartments to low-income households.
Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon apologized yesterday for the controversy and canceled plans to sell the rights to purchase the units, scheduled for later this year.
Breaking from its usually stern rhetoric, North Korea expressed condolences to the United States over the weekend for victims of a massive hurricane that has devastated the U.S.
Breaking from its usually stern rhetoric, North Korea expressed condolences to the United States over the weekend for victims of a massive hurricane that has devastated the U.S.
North Korea’s Red Cross Society sent a message of sympathy to its U.S. counterpart saying it hoped the country would recover quickly from the natural disaster.
The Korea Times reports Communist North Korea’s mouthpiece media is famous for its belligerent criticism of the U.S.
On the same day as the message of sympathy was reported, the KCNA slammed the U.S. as the ``world’s worst human rights violator.’
Seoul sends supports to U.S. for the hurricane.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel will visit South Korea in July on the first leg of her trip to Northeast Asian countries, an official at the Korean-German Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KGCCI) said Monday.
A government source said Merkel is expected to meet with President Roh Moo-hyun during her stay in Seoul to discuss ways of promoting ties between the two countries, particularly economic cooperation on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the KGCCI.
˝The International Committee of the Red Cross has turned over two freed South Korean hostages to Korean authorities.
Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan freed the two women and took them to the Red Cross.
They said the decision to free the women was a gesture of good will toward Korean diplomats negotiating release of all the hostages.
23 people were taken in July and held captive by Taliban forces, who killed two of them.
Taliban officials want Korea to return the favor and help arrange the release of two Taliban prisoners.
The South Korean government confirmed Monday night that Taliban militants had released two sick female Korean hostages, 37-year-old Kim Gyeong-ja and Kim Ji -na, who is 32, and that they were in the hands of Korean officials in Ghazni.
The two women will undergo a thorough medical check-up and screening as soon as possible.
Officials are continuing their negotiations with a delegation from the militant group to free the remaining 19 hostages.
He said, ``Now we have released the two women as a gesture of goodwill following demands from the international community and human rights organizations, the Afghan government should also now fulfill its responsibility and accept the Taliban’s demand for the release of their prisoners.´´˝
Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan freed the two women and took them to the Red Cross.
They said the decision to free the women was a gesture of good will toward Korean diplomats negotiating release of all the hostages.
Presidential front-runner Lee Myung-bak is expected to get a boost Monday as a former political heavyweight is poised to throw support behind Lee who is under fire for alleged involvement in a financial scandal with the election less than three weeks away.
Lee, the stand-bearer of the major opposition Grand National Party (GNP), met with Chung Mong-joon, a five-term lawmaker who rose to prominence over his role in the country´s successful co-hosting of the 2002 Korea-Japan World Cup soccer finals, an aide to Lee said.
Chung, who had approval ratings of 30 percent ahead of the 2002 election, withdrew his candidacy after finishing second to then ruling party standard-bearer Roh Moo-hyun in several public surveys to determine whether he or Roh would run.
The move was aimed at improving the chances of the eventual candidate against then front-runner Lee Hoi-chang of the GNP.
The new round of six-nation talks on dismantling North Korea's nuclear program beginning next week will recess during the APEC summit, a Foreign Ministry official said yesterday.
The two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia agreed in a joint statement issued on Sept. 19 to convene a fifth round of the nuclear talks in Beijing sometime in early November.
No specific date has been set yet, but host nation China will inform the participating countries today when the talks are to resume, Song Min-soon, South Korea's chief delegate to the talks, told a news briefing.
El Nino, which can affect weather conditions around the world, is often first seen as increased sea surface temperatures in the Pacific along with changes in wind patterns.
Warming water temperatures in the central equatorial Pacific last month may indicate the start of a new El Nino.
El Nino, which can affect weather conditions around the world, is often first seen as increased sea surface temperatures in the Pacific along with changes in wind patterns.
80 percent of the city was destroyed and aftershocks continue.
The last few days has brought fear of looting with a nearby maximum security prison collapsing, sending as many as 600 prisoners into the streets.
˝More than 500 people are now feared dead in Peru after last week´s massive eight-point-zero earthquake rocked the region.
Rescue workers fear it´s unlikely they´ll find any more survivors in the rubble.
More than one-thousand people are injured and tens of thousands left homeless.
The town of Pisco south of the capital Lima suffered the most damage 80 percent of the city was destroyed and aftershocks continue.
The children are the most affected… because they're not going to school.
They have their lives interrupted and so whenever they feel something, they start to cry and then run here back and forth primarily.
Andres Vera with World Vision is in Pisco says they are providing food, water and blankets to residents.
But there´s also a health concern from the dust and debris from collapsed buildings.
Many people, especially children, are suffering from upper respiratory problems as well as allergies and medicine is needed.
The last few days has brought fear of looting with a nearby maximum security prison collapsing, sending as many as 600 prisoners into the streets.
Only 60 have been caught.˝
A powerful Sunni Muslim tribal leader and critic of the U.S.-led occupation was named president of Iraq's incoming government Tuesday, after Iraqi leaders rejected the Bush administration’s preferred candidate for the post.
After the selection of Ghazi Mashal Ajil al-Yawer to the largely ceremonial position, officials announced the entire interim government due to take power on June 30 and the body moved quickly to begin its work.
The U.S.-picked Governing Council decided to dissolve immediately to make way rather than wait until June 30.
The incoming Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi, said his government would soon negotiate a crucial agreement on the status of U.S.-led international forces that will remain in Iraq.
As word of al-Yawer's appointment was announced, a car bomb blew up outside the offices of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, which is located just outside the green zone U.S. coalition headquarters in central Baghdad.
At least three people were killed and 20 were injured.
Legal adult age, to be lowered from 20 to 19.
According to the Chosun Ilbo, the recent issue of Newsweek magazine reported that president Roh Moo-hyun’s continuing pursuit of mega projects such as the administrative capital transfer that need excessive government fund spending may lead Korea into a debtor status.
The magazine published an article under the title, ""Perils of Good Intentions;
Roh's idealism has turned South Korea into a debtor state,"" saying that Korea is moving back to the system of the past, when presidents commanded the economy.
According to the Chosun Ilbo, the recent issue of Newsweek magazine reported that president Roh Moo-hyun’s continuing pursuit of mega projects such as the administrative capital transfer that need excessive government fund spending may lead Korea into a debtor status.
President Bush is again pressing Congress to quickly pass a $700 billion bailout package to save Wall Street and Main Street.
“The legislative process is sometimes not very pretty.
But we are going to get a package passed.”
The President's stepping out of the oval office this morning to apply fresh pressure.
While there are disagreements on the deal, Bush says there's no disagreement that something substantial must be done.
Democrat Chuck Schumer took to the Senate floor this morning to suggest there's more than one way to get more done.
“We need the President to respectfully tell Senator McCain to get out of town.
McCain's friend, Senator Lindsey Graham, says the Republican presidential candidate provided leadership yesterday by telling House Republicans to stop shouting at each other.
McCain has met with both Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and top House Republican John Boehner.
So far this morning, Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid has just come out just a moment ago to report that lawmakers are making progress.
On the other side, McCain's campaign says the meeting at the White House like yesterday evolved into a contentious shouting match and implied that Obama was at fault.
Congressional Democrats say it's now up to GOP members to work out their disagreements.
Associated Press correspondent Sauger Magoni on Capitol Hill.
“After yesterday's stunning change of course here in the capital, House Financial Services Committee chair Barney Frank tells CBS an agreement will depend on House Republicans dropping a revolt against President Bush, calling the rival plan pitched by conservatives an ambush plan.”
Still no firm word whether John McCain will take part in tonight's presidential debate in Mississippi.
Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour tells CBS he bet, he's betting that McCain will show.
“The legislative process is sometimes not very pretty.
The President's stepping out of the oval office this morning to apply fresh pressure.
“We need the President to respectfully tell Senator McCain to get out of town.
He, though, says the insertion of presidential politics has not been helpful;
Malaysian police have used tear gas and water cannon to disperse thousands of protesters marching in Kuala Lumpur to demand electoral reform.
The event was organized by a group called Bersih which is made up of opposition parties and dozens of non-governmental organizations.
The pro-democracy marchers were prevented from entering central Merdeka Square because police said they did not have a permit.
Police estimated the crowd at between 10-30,000 people.
Heavy rains could not stop the marchers as they made their way along the roads on the side of Merdeka Square.Many of them were in the yellow shirts which organizers had asked them to wear.
They were calling for changes to the electoral process in Malaysia to prevent fraud.
Tension had been rising over the past few days with the prospect of violent confrontation at the march.
Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi said on Friday that he expected trouble, despite the police ban.
But participants told the BBC they had the democratic right to express their demands.
There was a heavy police presence and rally organizers said 20 people were arrested.
Although no one made it into the central square, a small group did march to the national palace, home of Malaysia´s king, to present a memorandum detailing their concerns.
The event was organized by a group called Bersih which is made up of opposition parties and dozens of non-governmental organizations.
South Korea and China reached a tentative agreement Tuesday aimed at cooling off a dispute over who has historical claims to an ancient warrior kingdom.
The Kingdom of Koguryo reigned from 37 B.C. to A.D.
668, encompassing what is now North Korea, part of South Korea and the northeastern Chinese region of Manchuria.
Koreans north and south see Koguryo as the origin of the Korean nation and say its name is the root of the word ``Korea.''
But a Chinese study earlier this year said the kingdom was an integral part of China's history, raising concerns in South Korea about whether that view could bring wrangling over borders in the region.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wu Dawei arrived in Seoul on Sunday for high-level talks on the dispute, and officials worked out an oral agreement during 91/2 hours of talks that ended Monday night.
But a Chinese study earlier this year said the kingdom was an integral part of China's history, raising concerns in South Korea about whether that view could bring wrangling over borders in the region.
Megan Ambuhl is likely to be reduced.
President Roh Moo-hyun said that he plans to submit a motion to the National Assembly around the middle of next month to revise the Constitution to introduce the U.S.-style two-term, four-year presidency.
In a luncheon at Chong Wa Dae with chief editors from 32 news outlets, Roh warned that lawmakers and presidential contenders opposing his plan would face a political backlash. He made it clear that he has no intention of retracting his proposal until he is persuaded by opponents.
The president said he would respect the Assembly decision on his proposal.
Roh stressed that the change, even if realized, would not benefit him and the governing party but would enable his successor to manage state affairs in a more stable manner as the four-year presidency would fit with the four-year term of the National Assembly from 2008.
But the main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) dismissed the proposal, calling it a ``political tactic.''
In a luncheon at Chong Wa Dae with chief editors from 32 news outlets, Roh warned that lawmakers and presidential contenders opposing his plan would face a political backlash.
The Korea Times reports that veteran financier David Eldon, the only foreign national on President-elect Lee Myung-bak´s transition committee, said Sunday that South Korea should take a more friendly attitude toward foreign investors to attract investment.
The Scottish-born financier who, in an unprecedented move, was appointed to a top advisory position, stressed that openness and transparency are key to helping the nation achieve its economic goals.
``What investors need is a place where they can do business openly and transparently.
Evenly applied law and a level playing field are also important,´´ Eldon, 62, told a press conference in Seoul.
``If Koreans want investment to come in, it has to come from within Korea.
They have to improve the level of competition,´´ said Eldon, co-chairman of the national competitiveness subcommittee of the transition team.
South Koreans showed a willingness to do so as they voted for Lee Myung-bak whose platform aims at revitalizing the economy, said the concurrent chairman of the Dubai International Financial Center Authority.
He cast a positive outlook for the Korean economy, saying ``I believe we can make some serious achievements.´´ However, he said many investors are not certain about the factors required, including openness and transparency.
``What investors need is a place where they can do business openly and transparently.
Evenly applied law and a level playing field are also important,´´ Eldon, 62, told a press conference in Seoul.
Rescuers have pulled at least 113 people alive from heavy seas in eastern Indonesia after a ferry sank.
The boat was traveling from the port of Kupang to Rote Island, 2,000km (1,250 miles) from Jakarta, when it lost radio contact with the shore.
Navy vessels and an air force plane were searching for more survivors.
But officials were unclear how many people were on board the ferry, with reports saying one person was dead and more than 30 might still be missing.
The ferry's manifest showed 102 passengers and crew were on board the boat, but one official said the real number was higher.
Ferries are the common means of transport in Indonesia, but overcrowding has often led to accidents.
Safety standards are often not enforced, meaning boats are in poor condition and carry more passengers than regulations allow.
But officials were unclear how many people were on board the ferry, with reports saying one person was dead and more than 30 might still be missing.
President Roh Moo-hyun has bowed to pressure from Washington despite the promise he made to the nation last year to pull the contingent of South Korean troops out of Iraq this year, issuing a “sincere apology” for reversing his stance.
Acknowledging the unpopularity of the decision, Roh announced yesterday that his administration will submit a bill to extend the deadline for the pullout of the troops, who are scheduled to return in December.
Roh’s aides said the administration had undergone a heated debate before finally reaching the decision to seek an extension.
The decision puts Roh, who was elected as a liberal in 2002, at odds with the liberal United New Democratic Party and in agreement with the conservative Grand National Party, at least on this one issue.
The UNDP reiterated its opposition yesterday to allowing the Zaytun Unit to remain in Iraq.
Thirty Kenyans including many children have been burned to death in a church, after seeking refuge from the mounting violence over last week´s elections.
A mob set fire to the church in Eldoret where many people from President Mwai Kibaki´s Kikuyu tribe were sheltering.
The Kenyan government has accused supporters of opposition leader Raila Odinga of carrying out “ethnic cleansing” against the Kikuyu.
Both President Kibaki and 0 dinga have called for the killing to stop.
An estimated 250 people have died in the violence that erupted following the controversial re-election of President Kibaki, according to police and journalists across the country.
A mob set fire to the church in Eldoret where many people from President Mwai Kibaki´s Kikuyu tribe were sheltering.
First Lady Hillary Clinton said ``historical amnesia’’ among South Koreans about the important role the United States has played in supporting the country’s development is putting strain on their longstanding military alliance.
Clinton, a Democratic senator for New York, made the comment on Tuesday during a Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing for new appointees, including Gen.
Burwell B. Bell, who is nominated to take over as commander of the U.S. Addressing recent signs of divergence between the wartime allies, Clinton said the relationship between the United States and South Korea is at a ``critical juncture.’
The nation's new high-speed railroad service, the Korea Train Express (KTX), began service on Thursday, launching Korea into a new era of high-speed railway travel, The Korea Times reports.
The nation's new high-speed railroad service, the Korea Train Express (KTX), began service on Thursday, launching Korea into a new era of high-speed railway travel, The Korea Times reports.
74, a 5:05 a.m. departure from Pusan for Seoul, promptly left the Pusan Station, making Korea the fifth nation in the world to have a high-speed railroad system, following France, Germany, Japan and Spain.
The new high-speed train service cuts travel time between Seoul and Pusan by more than one and a half hours to 2 hours and 40 minutes from the previous 4 hours and 10 minutes.
Previous aspect of Kim Jae-kyu is considered to re-evaluate.
The government announced yesterday that it would adopt the U.S. standard for digital television services in Korea, a move that may offer advantages to Korean firms.
The new system is expected to replace most analog broadcasting within six years.
The government announced yesterday that it would adopt the U.S. standard for digital television services in Korea, a move that may offer advantages to Korean firms.
The new system is expected to replace most analog broadcasting within six years.
Iraq and Syria agrees to increase security along their border.
Keeping up with the economy now, President Bush says it will come back from the current financial crisis, and what many economists expect already as a recession, but Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson says there will be a bump in the road along the way.
Retailers are reeling after this morning's report that their sales were up 1.2% last month, with auto sales down nearly 4%.
The retail industry, obviously, heading into the fourth quarter, which is the most significant quarter for the retail industry, are alarmed by these numbers…”
That's Craig Pfister of the National Retail Federation.
Back to the President for a moment, talking to the Cabinet this morning about the reworked bailout plan that has the government buying into nine big banks.
Bush says the package doesn't just benefit the titans of finance, it helps the average American.
If I'd have thought this situation would've been contained only to uh, Wall Street, we would've had a different response.”
Bond has been denied to Casey Anthony, the Florida woman who is now charged with killing her daughter, Caylee.
“In virtually every category, there are not bright spots.
The retail industry, obviously, heading into the fourth quarter, which is the most significant quarter for the retail industry, are alarmed by these numbers…”
That's Craig Pfister of the National Retail Federation.
The judge in the Michael Jackson case has ruled that previous allegations of child abuse against the singer can be introduced as evidence in his trial.
Judge Rodney Melville announced his decision on Monday after hearing submissions in the jury's absence.
Observers say the ruling is a blow for Jackson and could have a significant impact on the direction of the trial.
The pop star denies 10 charges of abuse and false imprisonment and says he is the victim of a conspiracy.
South Korea Thursday strongly protested Japan’s recent efforts to step up its claim to Dokdo, a group of rocky islets in the East Sea, through an explicit distortion of textbooks.
Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Ban Ki-moon called Japanese Ambassador Shotaro Oshima to his office in central Seoul, to protest Tokyo’s move to have its high school textbooks describe Dokdo as Japanese territory, reports said.
South Korea Thursday strongly protested Japan’s recent efforts to step up its claim to Dokdo, a group of rocky islets in the East Sea, through an explicit distortion of textbooks.
Meanwhile, the Korea Herald reports President Roh Moo-hyun played another political wild card yesterday, suggesting he would step down if the pro-government Uri Party failed to acquire due support from voters in next month's general elections.
Meanwhile, the Korea Herald reports President Roh Moo-hyun played another political wild card yesterday, suggesting he would step down if the pro-government Uri Party failed to acquire due support from voters in next month's general elections.
The government, to freeze public services fee.
Lawmakers of Uri Party blocked a National Assembly vote.
But Japan believes they and others could still be alive in the North.
Talks between Japan and North Korea aimed at normalizing their troubled relations are being held in an ""honest"" atmosphere, a Japanese official said.
The main issue at the talks in Beijing is the fate of Japanese people abducted by North Korea in the 1970s and 1980s.
Pyongyang admitted in 2002 that it had kidnapped 13 Japanese to help train its spies.
Five have since returned home and the North says the rest have died.
But Japan believes they and others could still be alive in the North.
The two sides have not held substantive talks on the abduction issue since last December 2004, when Japan accused North Korea of lying.
Robert Kim arrived in his motherland.
˝The US Democratic presidential hopefuls are taking part in the first debate to use only video questions submitted online by the public.
The link-up by broadcaster CNN and the video-sharing website YouTube is being hailed as a political milestone.
About 2,000 30-second questions have been submitted, ranging from issues such as Iraq to health care and Darfur.
Up to 30 will be put to the candidates.
Analysts say online video could play a big role in the 2008 White House race.
Candidates from both parties have been trying to build up internet support using social networking and video-sharing sites, with Democratic Senator Barack Obama proving particularly successful.˝
˝The US Democratic presidential hopefuls are taking part in the first debate to use only video questions submitted online by the public.
The Korea Times reports economic research institutes and investment banks are lowering their economic growth outlook for Korea, amid concerns of a recession in the United States and international raw material price hikes.
Few people seem to believe that President Lee Myung-bak can fulfill his economic growth pledge.
Lee pledged to attain an average 7 percent annual economic growth over the next five years during his election campaign.
Bulldozer, who promised to save the economy, won him a landslide victory.
After the election, however, the government lowered its aim to around 6 percent.
Now economists are concluding that even 6 percent economic growth may be impossible to achieve.
Few people seem to believe that President Lee Myung-bak can fulfill his economic growth pledge.
Bulldozer, who promised to save the economy, won him a landslide victory.
Clinton in Ohio, Texas:
China’s economy, the world´s second largest, is not as big as was thought, a report by the World Bank has revealed.
According to the bank, previous calculations have overestimated the size of China´s economy by about 40%.
The revelation came after the bank updated the way it calculated the country´s gross domestic product (GDP).
The bank said the findings meant China would not become the world´s biggest economy in 2012 as forecast.
It also meant China was poorer than estimated.
This in turn would influence future aid and investment plans, the World Bank said.
China gains extra aid from international institutions and has asked for help in climate change talks because of its status as a developing country.
In its report, the World Bank found that five nations - the US, China, Japan, Germany and India - accounted for nearly half of the world´s total GDP.
but they were not amongst the five most expensive places to live, with that honor going to Iceland, Denmark, Switzerland, Norway and Ireland.
According to the bank, previous calculations have overestimated the size of China´s economy by about 40%.
˝The six-party talks on the North Korean nuclear problem are likely to open after July 17, when the delivery of the heavy fuel oil is completed, a South Korean government source said yesterday.
The government yesterday announced it will ship 6,200 tons of heavy fuel oil to the North next week to meet the deadline of July 14.
It is expected to take about two or three days for the ship to reach the North Korean port.
The Korea Herald reports once the six-party talks resume, the negotiators will start to discuss the next step of getting North Korea to declare and freeze all of its nuclear facilities.”
At least 195 people including six Americans have been killed in the Mumbai terror attacks - apparently carried out by just ten gunmen.
The death and destruction in India's also having a negative effect on the already shaky relationships between that country and Pakistan.
“The broader shockwaves are designed to create a communal backlash inside India, but it's based on the rivalry between India and Pakistan.
The kind of anger and resentment domestically in India is pointing the finger at Pakistan.”
President George W. Bush has held a secure video conference with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, US Diplomats in the region and his National Security Team.
The President is expected to make a statement about the attacks when he returns to the Whitehouse this afternoon.
The kind of anger and resentment domestically in India is pointing the finger at Pakistan.”
Little traffic, few gatherings, no big events in Mexico City, as government officials try to break the grip of a swine flu outbreak that's killed up to 81 people and made more than 1300 others sick.
The AP's David Koop reports on an eerie visit today to one of the city's cathedrals:
There was a big sign saying 'No baptisms, no masses, no confirmations.'
That includes health checks at the Hong Kong Airport for anyone arriving from Mexico.
A White House briefing has been set up for this afternoon.
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention spokesman Tom Skinner says the outbreak is likely to grow in the US:
“ We would expect to see more cases in more states, and I think everything that we're trying to do now is to limit the impact that this might have on public health.”
There are 11 confirmed cases in the US ?
Air Force firing range, Koon-ni Range, located only 50 kilometers south of Seoul, will be shut down in August next year after 54 years in operation since 1950-53 Korean War, The Korea Times quoted officials at the Defense Ministry and U.S. military as saying here on Sunday.
South Korea and U.S. were believed to have reached an agreement during the visit of U.S.
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld to Seoul for the annual Security Consultative Meeting last November. Since then, Seoul government has been working on follow-up measures, according to ministry officials.
Air Force firing range, Koon-ni Range, located only 50 kilometers south of Seoul, will be shut down in August next year after 54 years in operation since 1950-53 Korean War, The Korea Times quoted officials at the Defense Ministry and U.S. military as saying here on Sunday.
They face allegations of collaborating with a terrorist group.
A Spanish judge on Wednesday charged two more suspects, including the first woman, in connection with the Madrid commuter train bombings.
The charges bring to 11 the number of those accused in the March 11 attacks that killed at least 190 and wounded about 1,800.
Judge Juan del Olmo charged and ordered jailed Moroccans Rafa Zuher and Naima Oulad Akcha after questioning them separately for more than six hours.
They were arrested over the weekend.
A 16-year-old Palestinian boy with a suicide bomb best was caught at a West Bank checkpoint.
˝US stocks have tumbled amid fears that problems in the mortgage market may prompt a global credit crunch.
The main Dow Jones index fell 387.18 points, or 2.8%, to 13,270.68.
The S&P shed 3% and the Nasdaq lost 2.2%.
European indexes had slumped earlier after BNP Paribas froze three funds saying the market for some of the assets they contained had disappeared.
At the same time, the European Central Bank said it was pumping money into the banking market to boost liquidity.˝
Hillary and Bill Clinton are again teaming up on Barack Obama this time saying the first-term U.S. lawmaker, whom they have derided as inexperienced, would be a strong running mate on a Democratic presidential ticket headed by the former first lady.
Obama leads Clinton, a fellow Democratic senator, in a bruising race for their party´s presidential nomination, but neither is likely to reach the 2,025 delegates needed to become the nominee in the remaining state by state contests.
Hillary and Bill Clinton are again teaming up on Barack Obama this time saying the first-term U.S. lawmaker, whom they have derided as inexperienced, would be a strong running mate on a Democratic presidential ticket headed by the former first lady.
In hailing Obama as a possible vice president, the Clintons are reaching out to him and, perhaps more importantly, to his backers, whose support she would need to defeat Republican presidential candidate John McCain in the November election.
Obama leads Clinton, a fellow Democratic senator, in a bruising race for their party´s presidential nomination, but neither is likely to reach the 2,025 delegates needed to become the nominee in the remaining state by state contests.
Time is running out for the six-party talks to be resumed this month as Pyongyang has not yet publicly reacted to Washington's request for ``good-faith actions'' in dismantling its nuclear programs.
If Pyongyang does not officially announce its return to the negotiating table by next week, the possibility of reopening the multilateral dialogue within this year will become ``really slim,'' an official in Seoul said on Thursday.
A week has passed since Kim Gye-gwan, the North's top diplomat to the denuclearization talks, returned to Pyongyang with a promise to thoroughly review the request that he received from his U.S. counterpart Christopher Hill in Beijing.
Instead of coming back with an official answer, the North is repeating its decades-old arguments by using a Russian news agency this time.
An unnamed senior North Korean diplomat told Interfax on Wednesday that Washington's request was out of the scope of what Pyongyang could accept.
An unnamed senior North Korean diplomat told Interfax on Wednesday that Washington's request was out of the scope of what Pyongyang could accept.
The government will announce today several candidate sites to house a new administrative capital planned to be located in Korea's central region by 2014.
The government will announce today several candidate sites to house a new administrative capital planned to be located in Korea's central region by 2014.
Between five to 10 cities in South and North Chungcheong Provinces, including Osong in North Chungcheong and Janggi in South Chungcheong, are expected to be reviewed as potential sites.
Bill Richardson, the Democratic governor of New Mexico criticized the Bush administration for withdrawing troops in Korea.
˝The week long heat wave continued nationwide yesterday, forcing schools to close classes early or delay the start of fall semester.
Sporadic showers of rain across the country were no relief in the unusually high late August temperatures.
The Korea Meteorological Administration has issued heat cautions on most of the nation´s southern part including major cities like Daegu and Busan.˝
The Philippine government and Muslim rebels have announced a breakthrough in preliminary peace talks in Malaysia.
Manila and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) said they had reached an agreement over ancestral land, a major stumbling block in negotiations.
A joint statement hailed the talks as a ""breakthrough toward a just and durable solution to the Mindanao conflict"".
The MILF has fought for a separate state in the predominantly Catholic Philippines for nearly 30 years.
The statement was made after three days of meetings between both sides in the port city of Georgetown, northern Malaysia which began on Monday.
A joint statement hailed the talks as a ""breakthrough toward a just and durable solution to the Mindanao conflict"".
According to the YBM language institute (www.ybmedu.com), 32,189 high school students, who took the test last year, scored an average of 675.
However, their scores are 87 points higher than university students and 56.1 points higher than the 618.9 scored among graduate students over the same period.
Korean high school students scored an average 675 on last year’s TOEIC, 87 points higher than the 588 score among university students, largely due to a soaring demand for English proficiency for college admissions.
TOEIC _ Test of English for International Communication _ is the standard for workplace English language proficiency worldwide.
According to the YBM language institute (www.ybmedu.com), 32,189 high school students, who took the test last year, scored an average of 675.
However, their scores are 87 points higher than university students and 56.1 points higher than the 618.9 scored among graduate students over the same period.
The top US envoy to North Korea has held a rare meeting with the country´s foreign minister on nuclear issues.
Christopher Hill and Pak Ui-chun were expected to discuss a timetable for North Korea´s presentation of a full list of its nuclear facilities.
The list was part of a deal in October under which North Korea agreed to end its nuclear program in exchange for aid and diplomatic concessions.
Hill has spent part of his visit touring the Yongbyon nuclear facility.
The US Assistant Secretary of State is the highest-profile foreign diplomat to have visited the ageing nuclear complex, north of the capital, which houses North Korea´s only operational reactor.
US experts are supervising the removal of 8,000 spent fuel rods as part of an international deal, first agreed in February and confirmed in October, under which North Korea ends its nuclear program in return for economic aid and diplomatic concessions.
The top US envoy to North Korea has held a rare meeting with the country´s foreign minister on nuclear issues.
Hill has spent part of his visit touring the Yongbyon nuclear facility.
Japan is reportedly considering further sanctions against North Korea, after Pyongyang denounced a UN resolution criticizing its recent missile tests.
Tokyo may ban cash remittances and freeze assets held by North Korea in Japan, according to local media.
After days of talks the UN Security Council unanimously passed a resolution on Saturday which condemned the tests.
But it was a milder document than Japan's original draft, which backed up UN demands with the threat of force.
The resolution was tabled in response to North Korea's decision to test-fire seven missiles earlier this month, including a long-range Taepodong-2, which is believed capable of reaching Alaska. Japan is reportedly considering further sanctions against North Korea, after Pyongyang denounced a UN resolution criticizing its recent missile tests.
Tokyo may ban cash remittances and freeze assets held by North Korea in Japan, according to local media.
Yonhap reports a top-ranking political partner of President Lee Myung-bak announced Sunday he will challenge a prominent former liberal presidential candidate in a Seoul district in the April 9 general elections.
Chung Mong-joon of the ruling Grand National Party, who had aspirations to the presidency in 2002 but withdrew from the race at the last minute, said in an e-mailed statement that he has decided to run in Seoul´s Dongjak B district, where former Unification Minister Chung Dong-young is standing as a candidate of the main opposition United Democratic Party (UDP).
Chung Dong-young finished a distant second in December´s presidential poll, in which former Seoul mayor Lee won a landslide victory.
He won national notoriety for harshly attacking Lee in TV addresses and discussions during the presidential campaign.
He won national notoriety for harshly attacking Lee in TV addresses and discussions during the presidential campaign.
The government on Monday decided to impose a 60 percent capital gains tax on real estate transactions by households owning more than three homes from next month.
The government on Monday decided to impose a 60 percent capital gains tax on real estate transactions by households owning more than three homes from next month.
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas called for his people to persue negotiations instead of violence in the stuggle for a state.
The six-party talks aimed at resolving the standoff over North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs could lose effectiveness if they stall further, a report released Tuesday by the U.S.
The Korea Times reports the State Department’s Performance and Accountability Report for Fiscal Year 2004 said its goal of winning North Korea’s agreement to verifiable dismantlement of its nuclear programs has failed so far, with Pyongyang refusing to engage in substantive discussions.
Two of the U.S. soldiers charged with abusing prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq faced initial hearings yesterday.
Specialist Charles Graner and Sergeant Javal Davis appeared before a military judge in Baghdad.
A scheduled hearing for Staff Sergeant Ivan Frederick was postponed after his defense counsel failed to show up.
During the hearing, Judge Colonel James Pohl ruled that Abu Ghraib must be preserved as a crime scene for the soldiers' trials.
Two of the U.S. soldiers charged with abusing prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq faced initial hearings yesterday.
The presidential office Thursday threatened to sue presidential contender Lee Myung-bak of the Grand National Party (GNP) for spreading groundless rumors and for defamation.
But the Lee camp urged President Roh Moo-hyun to stop ``plotting heinous schemes to prolong its power’’ and to form a neutral caretaker government.
The full-scale verbal war is escalating into a legal battle, with both sides threatening to sue each other.
Cheong Wa Dae Wednesday gave Lee an ultimatum.
To make an apology for defaming Roh or face a libel suit by today.
The warning came after the 66-year-old former Seoul mayor and his campaign staff contended that Cheong Wa Dae is ``remote controlling’’ the pro-government Uri Party lawmakers and state-run research institutes to frustrate Lee’s presidential bid.
Presidential spokesman Cheon Ho-seon said the suit will be filed in the name of Presidential Chief of Staff Moon Jae-in.
A ministry official said the decision to oppose the UN stance was aimed at protecting the research of South Korean geneticists in areas that could serve therapeutic purposes.
The Joong-Ang Ilbo reports South Korea has voted against a draft UN declaration that urges governments to prohibit all forms of human cloning.
The South Korean Foreign Ministry released a statement of the weekend saying the UN statement left too much room for interpretation.
Stem cell research in South Korea will go on against the declaration of UN, prohibiting human cloning.
The Constitutional Court gave the green light Thursday to a special investigation of President-elect Lee Myung-bak over his alleged involvement in a financial fraud case.
The 40-day special probe will start Jan.
In a nationally televised ruling, Lee Kang-kook, president of the Constitutional Court, said that most clauses of the Special Prosecutor Law were in accordance with the Constitution.
However, he said the one dealing with the summons of individuals without warrants was unconstitutional, which will limit the scope of the investigation.
The ruling came after a petition was filed last month by Lee´s relatives who sought an injunction against the law after special prosecutor Chung Ho-young was appointed to investigate his alleged role in stock price rigging by a former business partner, Kim Kyung-joon.
In a nationally televised ruling, Lee Kang-kook, president of the Constitutional Court, said that most clauses of the Special Prosecutor Law were in accordance with the Constitution.
The local currency closed at 926.7 won against the dollar, up 4 won from a day earlier, as the rate reduction weakened sentiment in the greenback.
The Seoul bourse closed sharply higher Wednesday in line with global stock rallies on the back of the U.S.
The benchmark KOSPI closed up 64.04 points, or 3.48 percent, at 1,902.65 points, recovering the 1,900 mark for the first time in one and a half months.
The local currency closed at 926.7 won against the dollar, up 4 won from a day earlier, as the rate reduction weakened sentiment in the greenback.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid tells NBC's“ Meet the Press” Roland Burris' appointment to fill President Elect Barack Obama's Senate seat, is tainted, because of the serious legal troubles being faced by Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, the man who appointed Burris.
It's not the person that has been appointed, it's the appointee.”
It's not the person that has been appointed, it's the appointee.”
South Korea says it has offered new incentives for North Korea to return to six-party talks on its nuclear weapons program.
It has also warned Pyongyang not to continue developing such weapons.
The two sides are meeting for high-level discussions at Kaesong, just north of the border, for their first talks for 10 months.
North Korea has requested large amounts of fertilizer from the South, to help alleviate chronic food shortages.
The South Korean government is alarmed by signs the North is pushing ahead with its nuclear weapons program.
It sees the two days of meeting in Kaesong as an opportunity to entice it back to stalled international talks.
North Korea has requested large amounts of fertilizer from the South, to help alleviate chronic food shortages.
The South Korean government is alarmed by signs the North is pushing ahead with its nuclear weapons program.
Contrary to its stated aim, the incoming administration’s education reform plan cheered the private education business yesterday, while some students, parents and teachers could not hide their frustration over the changes, particularly the emphasis on practical English-language education.
In an attempt to free Korea’s youngsters from the notoriously competitive battle to enter universities, the transition team of President-elect Lee Myung-bak announced Tuesday its three-stage measure to overhaul education policy.
By 2013, universities will be given complete independence in choosing their freshmen.
The plan also aims to reinforce public education while lowering parental spending on private tutoring.
Stock prices of private education companies skyrocketed yesterday, enjoying about a 14 percent hike from Tuesday, proving that change is a good business opportunity for them.
Included in Lee’s plan is the overhaul of English-language education in Korea.
Starting in 2013, English will not be the subject of a standardized test for university admission.
Instead students will be tested throughout their school years on their language ability.
Some subjects will be taught in English to enable students to use the language.
Included in Lee’s plan is the overhaul of English-language education in Korea.
""We assessed the situation and felt that we could not secure the torch and protect the protesters and supp orters to the degree that we wished.
The only North American leg of the Olympic torch relay has been marked by confusion after the route was diverted to avoid crowds of protesters.
Thousands of pro-Tibet and pro-Beijing demonstrators had gathered in San Francisco, prompting fears of violence.
Officials sent the torch on a new route citing safety concerns.
The closing ceremony was also moved to a new site.
There were disruptive protests as the relay passed through Europe.
It will end in Beijing, home of the 2008 Games.
Meanwhile, President George W Bush has urged communist China to ""begin a dialogue"" with Tibet´s exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.
The US House of Representatives has overwhelmingly passed a motion condemning China´s ""extreme"" response to protests in Tibet.
In San Francisco, a planned waterfront closing ceremony in Justin Herman Plaza was moved because of security fears.
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom told Reuters news agency:
The Fair Trade Commission fined sales branches of the nation's top three newspapers ― the Chosun Ilbo, Joong Ang Ilbo and Dong-A Ilbo ― for providing excessive free gifts and free issues.
The antitrust agency said it imposed 180 million won in total fines on 47 branches of the three newspaper companies.
The agency said the branches violated regulations that ban them from providing gifts and free issues worth more than 20 percent of their revenues.
Iraq’s interim government voiced that an election will go ahead.
New York City Housing Commissioner and former Clinton Administration aide Shawn Donovan has been nominated by President Elect Barack Obama to be Housing Secretary.
Obama, in his weekly radio and online speech, says the goal is to find a way to get the country out of the housing crisis:
“We need to approach the old challenge of affordable housing with new energy, new ideas, and a new efficient style of leadership.
We need to understand that the old ways of looking at our cities just won't do.”
The White House is working on a bailout plan for the auto industry after Congress failed to pass a $14 billion proposal.
Michigan Congressman Sander Levin tells CBS“ Early Show” that the national economy would be badly damaged if the car companies go under.
“We need this auto industry in this country for economic reasons and national security reasons.”
It's life, plus hundreds of years, for Brian Nichols for the murders of a judge and three other people during a brazen escape from an Atlanta courthouse in 2005.
He was sentenced just a short while ago.
“We need to approach the old challenge of affordable housing with new energy, new ideas, and a new efficient style of leadership.
“ John is the kind of leader who always puts country ahead of party, is always willing to sacrifice on behalf of our nation.”
Huntsman, mentioned by some as a possible Republican presidential candidate in 2012, served as ambassador to Singapore under the first President Bush, and in trade posts in the George W. Bush administrations.
Astronauts John Grunsfeld and Andrew Feustel are working on the Hubble space telescope in the Atlantis payload bay.
The AP's Marsha Dunn reports from Cape Canaveral that today's space walk is the biggest challenge for the Hubble repair crew:
“ This is the 3rd space walk of the mission, and it's considered to be the most difficult and delicate job yet for the Atlantis astronauts.”
The two are actually trying to fix a burnt-out camera and install a new science instrument which is designed to detect faint light from faraway quasars.
The AP's Marsha Dunn reports from Cape Canaveral that today's space walk is the biggest challenge for the Hubble repair crew:
Academy Award winner Michael Moore's controversial documentary ""Fahrenheit 9/11"" opened in theatres in Korea during the weekend.
George W. Bush’s political headache is in town.
Academy Award winner Michael Moore's controversial documentary ""Fahrenheit 9/11"" opened in theatres in Korea during the weekend.
Kerry accepted the Democratic presidential nomination.
Salman Rushdie is among a dozen writers to have put their names to a statement in a French weekly paper warning against Islamic ""totalitarianism"".
The writers say the violence sparked by the publication of cartoons satirizing the Prophet Muhammad shows the need to fight for secular values and freedom.
The statement is published in Charlie Hebdo, one of several European papers to reprint the caricatures.
The images, first published in Denmark, have angered Muslims across the world.
One showed the Prophet Muhammad, whose depiction is banned in Islam, as a terrorist bomber.
Many newspapers defended their decision to reprint the cartoons on the grounds of freedom of expression.
ark Geun-hye, a presidential hopeful from the Grand National Party, denied suspicions that she was involved in recent attacks on her rival Lee Myung-bak.
Her denial comes amid an intensifying war of words triggered by a Park aide's allegations that question Lee's morality.
The intra-party feud broke out this month after Chung In-bong, Park's former legal adviser, threatened to unveil alleged ethical wrongdoings by Lee, who holds commanding leads in all opinion polls.
However, it turned out that the revelation is a rehash of a 1998 court ruling concerning Lee's violation of the election law.
At that time, Lee paid fines and quit his parliamentary seat after a court ruled that he had spent more than permissible on his campaign prior to the 1996 general elections.
Lee was also found guilty of bribing a former aide who turned whistleblower, and paid for him to flee overseas.
The prosecution on Monday started an investigation into two Cabinet ministers for allegations of illegal campaigning ahead of the May 31 local elections for governors, mayors and local councilors, the pro-opposition Korea Times reports.
The South Seoul District Prosecutors' Office is looking into allegations that Environment Minister Lee Jae-yong, who is 52, and Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister Oh Keo-don, who is 58, have violated election laws that require public servants to resign from their posts before campaigning for a spot in elections.
The main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) filed a compliant against the two ministers with the prosecution last month, accusing them of using their public posts to campaign in favor of the ruling Uri Party.
Both ministers are expected candidates in the May 31 elections, with the governing Uri Party supporting Lee as the candidate for Taegu mayor and Oh as the candidate for Pusan mayor.
Lee was accused by the GNP of making politically-oriented comments at a Uri Party rally in Taegu, in which he accompanied party chairman Chung Dong-young.
Lee asked local electorates to support the ruling party in its traditional weak spot, calling for the replacement of the ``corrupt'' municipal leadership of the nation's third largest city.
The main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) filed a compliant against the two ministers with the prosecution last month, accusing them of using their public posts to campaign in favor of the ruling Uri Party.
South Korea on Thursday decided to halve its 40-year-old screen quota, the mandatory period for theaters to show domestic films a year, to 73 days to clear the way for its free trade agreement (FTA) with the United States.
``The government decided to cut the screen quota by half and the decision will go into effect on July 1,’’ Finance and Economy Minister Han Duck-soo said in a press conference at the Kwachon government complex, south of Seoul.
Han, however, said that the quota is an internationally recognized legitimate tool to protect homegrown movie industries, ruling out the possibility of a complete abolition.
Korea has been operating the screen quota system, a measure that has shielded the Korean film industry from the influx of big budget Hollywood blockbuster films since 1966.
Although the enforcement decree of the Film Industry Promotion Act required local theaters to show Korean films for more than 146 days or 40 percent of the year, the actual quota comes down to 106 days a year when applying various provisions that ease the required Korean film showing days.
former prosecutor masterminded a bizarre scheme last month to kidnap a golf club owner and take over his business using forged documents, the Incheon International Airport Police said yesterday.
The police requested an arrest warrant for the 41-year-old lawyer and the golf club owner’s uncle on charges of planning the kidnapping.
They also detained three security company employees on charges of kidnapping, police said.
“The lawyer planned and directed most parts of the kidnapping scheme,” said Ka Se-ro, the police chief, at yesterday’s press briefing.
According to police, the lawyer, the 66-year-old uncle and the president of a local finance company colluded to kidnap the 59-year-old golf club owner on Feb.
With the owner out of the way, the group allegedly planned to take over the club by using forged documents for a general meeting of stockholders, according to police.
The estimated value of the golf club is 350 billion won.
“The lawyer planned and directed most parts of the kidnapping scheme,” said Ka Se-ro, the police chief, at yesterday’s press briefing.
According to police, the lawyer, the 66-year-old uncle and the president of a local finance company colluded to kidnap the 59-year-old golf club owner on Feb.
More than 100 celebrities and professional baseball players who apparently took steps to avoid being drafted into the military for the mandatory two-year term. The Joong-Ang Ilbo reports the draft law dictates that an exemption can be overturned by a court if it can be proved that illegal methods were used to avoid conscription.
More than 100 celebrities and professional baseball players who apparently took steps to avoid being drafted into the military for the mandatory two-year term.
The Joong-Ang Ilbo reports the draft law dictates that an exemption can be overturned by a court if it can be proved that illegal methods were used to avoid conscription.
Because many celebrities and professional athletes were found recently to have provided tainted urine samples to avoid their military obligation, new physical examinations were ordered.
Officials at the Military Manpower Administration said that 52 people who are not subject to criminal charges involving avoidance of the draft would undergo physical examination by Nov.
The Constitutional Court ruled the capital-relocation plan unconstitutional.
Abu Ghraib prison abuse prisoners as the way of dealing with “enemy”.
Interrogators at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison viewed sleep deprivation, stripping inmates naked and threatening them with dogs as normal ways of dealing with ``the enemy,'' a soldier attached to military intelligence at the prison said Thursday.
and with one already convicted
Army military intelligence ran the prison, Sgt.
Samuel Provance told the Associated Press.
The Seoul metropolitan government is suing MBC television over a report it aired alleging the mayor and other city officials rigged the competitive bidding for the city's recently installed bus pass system.
The Joong-Ang Ilbo quotes the city as claiming MBC distorted the facts and is seeking 1.4 billion won ($1.3 million) in damages.
The Seoul Central District Court is reviewing again the prosecution’s request for arrest warrants for three executives of the U.S. private equity fund Lone Star.
The court rejected a similar request on Friday.
The court will make a decision tomorrow on the arrest request.
Early Friday the court rejected requests made by the prosecution a day earlier for arrest warrants for Lone Star officials _ Ellis Short, Lone Star vice chairman Michael Thomson, general counsel Paul Yoo, Lone Star Advisors Korea president and Steven Lee, former head of the fund’s Korean unit.
They are alleged to have manipulated the stock price of Korea Exchange Bank (KEB) Credit Services in November 2003 by giving false information to investors in order to acquire the stock at a lower price. The court, however, turned down the requests except the one for Steven Lee.
Strongly protesting the court decision, the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office resubmitted the requests in the afternoon of the same day without adding any new evidence to the new applications in a blatant sign of protest.
The Seoul Central District Court is reviewing again the prosecution’s request for arrest warrants for three executives of the U.S. private equity fund Lone Star.
Early Friday the court rejected requests made by the prosecution a day earlier for arrest warrants for Lone Star officials _ Ellis Short, Lone Star vice chairman Michael Thomson, general counsel Paul Yoo, Lone Star Advisors Korea president and Steven Lee, former head of the fund’s Korean unit.
According to a survey by the Institute of Global Management (IGM), a private think tank, 74 percent of the CEOs of 27 foreign companies in Korea said the Korean government's foreign investment policy does not conform with its goal to develop the country into a regional business and financial center.
Today's Korea Times reports seven out of 10 chief executives of foreign firms operating in South Korea said that a series of the Korean government's regulatory moves are not helping the country to become a financial hub of Northeast Asia.
According to a survey by the Institute of Global Management (IGM), a private think tank, 74 percent of the CEOs of 27 foreign companies in Korea said the Korean government's foreign investment policy does not conform with its goal to develop the country into a regional business and financial center.
Chinese and South Korean residents in U.S. had a demonstration opposing Japan’s bid for a permanent seat on the U.N.
Six elephants escaped from Seoul Children’s Grand Park.
“In its April 2007 response to a Landmine Monitor questionnaire, South Korea acknowledged for the first time that it has begun production of self-destructing antipersonnel mines,” the report said.
Risking an international human rights condemnation, South Korea acknowledged for the first time that it began production of antipersonnel mines last year, according to a report released on Monday.
The Landmine Monitor Report 2007, released in Geneva by the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), also said that South Korea reported 1,300 mined sites within its territory, including about 970,000 mines in the southern part of the demilitarized zone (DMZ) and in the military control zone (MCZ), a heavily fortified area dividing South and North Korea.
“In its April 2007 response to a Landmine Monitor questionnaire, South Korea acknowledged for the first time that it has begun production of self-destructing antipersonnel mines,” the report said.
Hanhwa Corporation, a private South Korean firm, produced about 8,900 self-destructing antipersonnel mines, which can be set to self-destruct 48 hours after deployment and are presumed to be copies of the U.S.
President Barack Obama is now proposing spending $17 billion less than he suggested earlier this year:
“ A list of more than 100 programs slated to be reduced or eliminated altogether.”
The President a few minutes ago unveiling the more detailed tax and spending plan he is sending to Congress today.
A $17 billion reduction sounds like a lot, until you realize it's only one-half of one percent of the total spending package:
Let's get more specifics from AP White House correspondent Mark Smith:
Pentagon spending takes about half the hit, while domestic programs take the rest, and officials say most of those on the block simply no longer work ?
from an older navigation system made obsolete by GPS, to the Even Start program for pre-schoolers better served by early Head Start.
“ A list of more than 100 programs slated to be reduced or eliminated altogether.”
Bombs in the Iraqi capital have killed at least eight people, hours after dozens died in a suicide attack.
Most of the victims of Sunday's four blasts were policemen - three from an elite commando unit.
Many were injured, including a number of civilians.
The new attacks came as chilling details emerged of Saturday's suicide bomb in Musayyib, south of Baghdad, which killed 90 people and injured 156.
Reports say parents threw children out of burning houses to save them.
It was the worst attack since a massive car bomb killed at least 114 people in the nearby town of Hilla in February.
Shinzo Abe, Japan's chief cabinet secretary, was elected president of the Liberal Democratic Party yesterday, making it certain that he will be Japan's next prime minister when Parliament reconvenes Tuesday.
In Seoul, the election spurred additional hopes of better relations with Tokyo.
Ties between the neighbors, never close, had been further strained by the visits to a controversial war memorial by the incumbent Prime Minister, Junichiro Koizumi.
“As the new administration is launched in Japan, Seoul hopes that the two countries' conflicts will be resolved and the relationship will be developed into a future-orientated friendship,” said Lee Kyu-hyung, Korea's vice foreign minister.
Calling Japan ”a partner and precious neighbor in building peace and prosperity in Northeast Asia,” Lee urged Tokyo to show a ”sincere attitude” in mending the diplomatic rupture between the two nations that has festered over competing territorial claims, Japan's World War II history and a stirring in Japan for constitutional changes that Koreans fear could lead to a militaristic revival.
Hollywood actor Heath Ledger has been found dead at a residence in downtown Manhattan.
“He was found unconscious at the apartment and pronounced dead,” the New York Police Department said, adding that pills were found near the body.
Police are reportedly investigating if the Australian actor, who earned an Oscar nomination for Brokeback Mountain, died of a drug overdose.
The 28-year-old was found dead in the flat at around 3:30 PM local time.
Police said they did not suspect foul play and that his body had been discovered surrounded by pills.
Police, journalists and crowds of fans are outside the Broome Street apartment in the fashionable SoHo area.
Investigators said Ledger had been due to have a massage at the flat.
The housekeeper went to tell him the masseuse had arrived and found him dead on Tuesday afternoon.
The medical examiner´s office said an autopsy would be carried out on Wednesday.
The housekeeper went to tell him the masseuse had arrived and found him dead on Tuesday afternoon.
The French humanitarian mission sent to Colombia to try to secure to release of the hostage Ingrid Betancourt is being withdrawn from the country.
Colombia´s Farc rebels said they would not allow emergency medical aid to be delivered to the kidnapped politician.
The mission was ""not acceptable"" and was launched without the guerrillas´ agreement, a Farc statement said.
The Constitutional Court said Tuesday it will rule Thursday on the constitutionality of a law authorizing the independent probe of President-elect Lee Myung-bak´s alleged financial misdeeds.
The ruling, due at 2 p.m. on Thursday, is to come after a group of six people involved in Lee´s suspected financial irregularities filed a petition last month to seek an injunction against the controversial law, claiming many clauses of the law, including unwarranted summons of individuals, are unconstitutional.
The ruling will follow President Roh Moo-hyun´s appointment Monday of former high-court judge Chung Ho-young as the independent counsel for the Lee case.
Under the law which passed through the National Assembly last month, Chung is to conduct an extensive investigation into allegations of Lee´s various past misdeeds until shortly before his inauguration on Feb.
``This kind of insinuation
has no place in public discourse,'' Soros wrote Tuesday to the chair and top Democrat on the panel, Reps.
Billionaire philanthropist George Soros has asked the House ethics committee to investigate House Speaker Dennis Hastert over comments suggesting that Soros could be receiving money from illegal drug groups.
``This kind of insinuation
has no place in public discourse,'' Soros wrote Tuesday to the chair and top Democrat on the panel, Reps.
The main opposition lawmaker's remark came on the second day of the National Assembly's 20-day audit of state affairs while he presented detailed information of a U.S. scenario in 1994 for launching preemptive attacks against North Korea that would take out crucial targets.
The Korea Times reports South Korea should map out measures to prevent the United States from launching surgical strikes against North Korea to knock out its nuclear programs, quoting Grand National Party lawmaker Park Jin on Tuesday.
Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry not writing off the possibility of preemptive strikes on Pyongyang, Seoul should take adequate preventive measures,'' he said.
The main opposition lawmaker's remark came on the second day of the National Assembly's 20-day audit of state affairs while he presented detailed information of a U.S. scenario in 1994 for launching preemptive attacks against North Korea that would take out crucial targets.
Citibank’s Labor union staged a strike.
Would Hillary Clinton visit North Korea?
The opposition Millennium Democratic Party is trying to arrange a visit by Hillary Clinton to North Korea along with a group of U.S. senators.
Party chairman Han Hwa-kap plans to meet with U.S. Ambassador to Seoul Christopher Hill today to discuss the issue, according to MDP officials Sunday.
Hill was designated as assistant U.S. secretary of state on North East Asia, a job that will task him with negotiations on the stand off over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program on behalf of the U.S.
Han has been seeking to solidify his political clout by continuing the sunshine policy of engaging North Korea pursued under former President Kim Dae-jung.
The opposition Millennium Democratic Party is trying to arrange a visit by Hillary Clinton to North Korea along with a group of U.S. senators.
Hill was designated as assistant U.S. secretary of state on North East Asia, a job that will task him with negotiations on the stand off over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program on behalf of the U.S.
The UN reporter on torture, Manfred Nowak, has arrived in Communist China on a fact-finding mission to examine allegations of official maltreatment.
It is the first time a UN reporter on torture will be allowed to visit China's prisons and detention centers.
It has taken years of negotiations for Beijing to agree to the trip.
Nowak's visit comes at a time when a public debate is going on in the Chinese media about the use of torture and coercion by the police.
The government pledged to relax or remove unnecessary regulations.
General Motors is to cut 30,000 jobs in North America.
Seoul has praised the six-party agreement at Beijing's talks in September, where the Stalinist state declared to abandon its nuclear weapons, as ""the triumph of South Korean diplomacy.
"" Chung has emphasized that Seoul played a leading role throughout the process of resolving the nuclear crisis.
""Without the South Korean government's creative ideas and persistent negotiating efforts, reaching the agreement of the six-party talks would have been very difficult,"" Chung said in September, referring to Seoul's offer to provide 2 million kilowatts of electricity to Pyongyang and efforts to arbitrate between North Korea and the United States.
The Joong-Ang Ilbo reports the High Court in Busan gave the go-ahead yesterday for a tunnel to be built for Korea's bullet train, turning down an appeal from environmentalists who said the project would destroy the habitat of rare amphibians.
Although construction of the bullet train rail bed between Seoul and Busan started in 1992, its completion has been delayed because of fierce opposition from environmental activists.
The opponents argued that an Environment Ministry's survey in 2002 showed that the new railroad would be built over what are Korea's largest wetlands.
The Joong-Ang Ilbo reports the High Court in Busan gave the go-ahead yesterday for a tunnel to be built for Korea's bullet train, turning down an appeal from environmentalists who said the project would destroy the habitat of rare amphibians.
Korea and Singapore sealed a free-trade agreement.
˝Leaders from North and South Korea are to hold their second-ever summit, officials have announced.
President Roh Moo-hyun will meet North Korea´s Kim Jong-il in the North´s capital, Pyongyang, from August 28-30.
The summit comes amid an improvement in North Korea´s ties with the outside world, and has been warmly welcomed by the international community.
But South Korea´s main opposition party rejected the move as an election stunt ahead of December´s presidential polls.
The new summit comes seven years after the first one, when Kim met then-South Korean President Kim Dae-jung.
That meeting ushered in improved ties and reconciliation between the two sides, who remain technically at war.
The new summit was finally agreed after senior South Korean intelligence personnel made two trips to the North, officials said.
The two Koreas have agreed to formalize an agenda at preparatory meetings in the border city of Kaesong, where they jointly run an industrial park.˝
˝Leaders from North and South Korea are to hold their second-ever summit, officials have announced.
US envoy Christopher Hill has made his first trip to North Korea amid speculation that talks on Pyongyang’s nuclear program could soon restart.
Optimism at the visit has been dampened by reports that a planned trip by UN nuclear inspectors may not go ahead.
A North Korean spokesman said the visit would only be confirmed when funds frozen in a Macau bank were released.
The US said earlier this week that the money had already been transferred, but the North appears to think otherwise.
Russian officials gave assurances on Thursday that $25m (£12.5m) was being transferred to Pyongyang’s accounts.
However, Pyongyang could not confirm the international delegation’s visit until it had verified the transfer.
The inspectors are due to arrive in Pyongyang next week - their first visit since they were forced out of the country in 2002.”
The Korean stock market is continuing its frantic surge, causing milestones to race by like markers on a highway.
Yesterday the main index, Kospi, passed 1,800 points for the first time in its history.
The Kospi has advanced for the last 15 weeks, and it is climbing faster than ever.
Analysts say the arrest is a major victory for Indonesian security forces in their fight against Islamic militants.
Police in Indonesia say they have arrested the alleged military leader of Jemaah Islamiah, the extremist group blamed for the 2002 Bali bombings.
Abu Dujana, Indonesia’s most wanted Islamic militant, was arrested on Saturday on the island of Java.
Seven other suspected militants were arrested with him.
Analysts say the arrest is a major victory for Indonesian security forces in their fight against Islamic militants.
As well as the Bali bombings of 2002, Jemaah Islamiah (JI) is accused of carrying out a string of other crimes, including an attack on the Australian embassy in Jakarta in 2004 as well as a car bombing at the city’s Marriot hotel a year earlier.
Abu Dujana was wanted in connection with both of those attacks, police say.
The Iraqi judge who prepared the case against Saddam Hussein says there is no evidence he was beaten in US custody, despite the former leader's claims.
Saddam Hussein has said in court he has been tortured, and accused the US of ""lies"" for denying it abused him.
His trial has been adjourned until 24 January after three witnesses and a brief closed session on Thursday.
He and seven others face charges over the killing of 148 people in Dujail in 1982.
They all deny responsibility.
President Elect Barack Obama is expected to introduce retiring Illinois Congressman Ray LaHood, a Republican, as his Transportation Secretary today.
With Minnesota incumbent Republican Senator Norm Coleman's lead shrinking to just two votes over challenger Al Franken, the race may not be settled out until the end of the year.
Officials say he's chosen California Congresswoman Hilda Solis for Labor Secretary.
Former US President Bill Clinton has left hospital, four days after a follow-up operation to his quadruple heart bypass surgery six months ago.
Clinton, who is 58, had fluid and scar tissue removed under general anesthetic.
He will continue his recovery at home, a spokesman for New York Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Centre said.
Mr.Clinton said he hoped to return to work within about a month.
Korean government refers, North Korea is a brother and U.S. is an ally.
Few were spared when President Barack Obama took the podium at the White House Correspondents' Dinner last night in Washington, the President even talking about Mother's Day and Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel:
“ This is a tough holiday for Rahm Emanuel, because he's not used to saying the word 'day' after 'mother.
'” Comedienne Wanda Sykes joked that for now, she is pleased that American has its first black president:
“ I'm proud to be able to say that, you know, the first black president, you know.
Well, that's unless you screw up… and then it's going to be, 'What's up with the half-white guy, huh?'
” Comedian Jay Leno is in southwest Ohio, playing two free shows today in Wilmington.
The town, which serves as a distribution hub for DHL Express, has seen most of those jobs go away, and even more will be lost this summer, when the shipping company leaves the city.
A goth who leads his girlfriend around with a dog leash and collar was stopped from getting on a bus amid fears for passenger safety, a UK bus firm has confirmed.
25-year-old Dani Graves and his fiancee Tasha Maltby, who is 19, of Dewsbury, West Yorks, claim they have been discriminated against by bus firm Arriva Yorkshire.
The black-clad couple said they had been told to leave one bus and prevented from boarding another.
The bus firm said safety came first, but it was investigating the complaint.
The couple said they “loved each other to pieces” and the use of the leash was a ”sign of trust”.
Bus operator Arriva claimed other passengers could be put at risk if the bus braked sharply.
25-year-old Dani Graves and his fiancee Tasha Maltby, who is 19, of Dewsbury, West Yorks, claim they have been discriminated against by bus firm Arriva Yorkshire.
In his opening commemoration speech, he said, “Let's try to send a Korean to space as soon as possible...
The Chosun Ilbo reports a Korean astronaut may be boarding a spaceship to the space station in the year 2007.
Science and Technology Minister Oh Myung said Monday that, “The 15 billion won plan to send a South Korean into space will be confirmed by the end of December.
"" Oh laid out the prospects of the long-discussed space scheme in speaking with reporters after visiting the opening ceremony of a life science class room at Busan Women’s Cultural Center.
In his opening commemoration speech, he said, “Let's try to send a Korean to space as soon as possible...
The nation’s household debts surged to 458 trillion won.
The Seoul Young Men's Christian Association said yesterday it had filed class action suits against both KT and Hanaro Telecom for allegedly making illegal agreements to fix prices.
The Seoul Young Men's Christian Association said yesterday it had filed class action suits against both KT and Hanaro Telecom for allegedly making illegal agreements to fix prices.
The Fair Trade Commission earlier this year fined KT and Hanaro Telecom 116 billion won and 2.4 billion won respectively for fixing charges on local calls and private cables for Internet cafes.
U.S., N.K. have regular contact.
Government forecasts 5% economy growth rate.
Moscow may target weapons at Europe if the US builds planned missile defense facilities in the region, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said.
Russia has not pointed missiles towards Europe since the end of the Cold War.
Last week, Russia said it had tested a ballistic missile to maintain “strategic balance” in the world.
The US wants to expand its missile defenses into Eastern Europe.
It says the system is not aimed at Russia but Moscow says its security is threatened.
Putin made the comments in an interview published in Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera ahead of the G8 meeting which starts in Germany on Wednesday.
He repeated warnings that the US defense shield could lead to a new arms race but said it would the fault of the Americans if this happened.
He said the US had ”altered the strategic balance” by unilaterally pulling out of the anti-ballistic missile (ABM) treaty in 2002.
Washington wants to deploy interceptor rockets in Poland and a radar base in the Czech Republic to counter what it describes as a potential threat from ”rogue states” such as Iran and North Korea.
Last Tuesday, Russia tested an RS-24 missile that successfully struck its target 5,500km (3,400 miles) away.
Moscow may target weapons at Europe if the US builds planned missile defense facilities in the region, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said.
Russia has not pointed missiles towards Europe since the end of the Cold War.
It says the system is not aimed at Russia but Moscow says its security is threatened.
Washington wants to deploy interceptor rockets in Poland and a radar base in the Czech Republic to counter what it describes as a potential threat from ”rogue states” such as Iran and North Korea.
Previously, the legal drinking age for USFK personnel was twenty, according to Korean law.
Forces Korea will elevate the legal drinking age from 20 to 21, the Stars & Stripes reported.
Previously, the legal drinking age for USFK personnel was twenty, according to Korean law.
The Chosun Ilbo reports the new law will be applied in and out of USFK headquarters and to family members of USFK personnel as well.
Further step over the controversy about the future status and role of USFK.
Detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has said she is ready to co-operate with Burma´s military junta.
In a written statement, Ms Suu Kyi said that she had made the decision “in the interest of the nation”.
Earlier, the ruling junta announced that Suu Kyi would be allowed to meet her political allies for the first time in three years.
She will meet executives of her National League for Democracy, along with a government minister, on Friday.
Suu Kyi´s party won polls in 1990 but was never allowed to take power.
The junta has kept her under house arrest in Burma´s main city, Rangoon, for 12 of the past 18 years.
Her statement was read to reporters in Singapore by UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari, who has just completed a six-day visit to Burma - his second since protests were suppressed in September.
In a written statement, Ms Suu Kyi said that she had made the decision “in the interest of the nation”.
˝The Korea Times reports a summit between President Roh Moo-hyun and U.S.
President George W. Bush in Sydney last Friday has produced expectations that South Korean troops will stay at least one more year in Iraq.
In his talks with Bush on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, Roh reportedly said he would look for ways to help the United States as a coalition partner in Iraq.
Roh made the remarks in response to Bush´s praise for the Korean troops´ humanitarian and reconstruction operations in the Middle Eastern country.
In a press conference after the summit, Baek Jong-cheon, chief presidential secretary for security affairs, confirmed that the U.S. government asked South Korea to extend the mission of its Zaytun Division in the war-torn country.
The Ministry of National Defense plans to submit a final report on the termination of the 1,200-strong Zaytun Division stationed in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil for humanitarian and reconstruction works to the Assembly this month ˝
˝The Korea Times reports a summit between President Roh Moo-hyun and U.S.
Roh made the remarks in response to Bush´s praise for the Korean troops´ humanitarian and reconstruction operations in the Middle Eastern country.
The government is reporting an unexpected jump in new housing construction last month.
The 22% surge was far better than the continued drop economists had expected.
Some experts say February just looked good because January was so bad, but chief economist David Krauh of the National Association of Home Builders says there may be a bottom forming here:
“ This at least is not more bad news, and potentially could be a sign that we're somewhere around the bottom.”
The government also reports wholesale prices edged up a slight tenth of one percent last month, showing inflation on top of recession ?
The Dow is now up 18 points.
Some experts say February just looked good because January was so bad, but chief economist David Krauh of the National Association of Home Builders says there may be a bottom forming here:
“ This at least is not more bad news, and potentially could be a sign that we're somewhere around the bottom.”
The Dow is now up 18 points.
A group of 37 lawmakers from the governing and opposition parties on Tuesday submitted to the National Assembly a resolution calling for the withdrawal of South Korean troops from Iraq.
Ninety out of the 139 legislators of the governing Uri Party also urged the government to present a troop pullout timetable.
The demand came about after news that President Roh Moo-hyun had already promised President George W. Bush in summit talks in Vietnam last week that South Korean forces would stay in Iraq for one more year with a downsized level of 1,500.
The conservative GNP and centrists from the Uri Party have opposed full withdrawal of troops, arguing that it would hurt ties with Washington and lessen the economic benefits of Korean troops' efforts over the last two years.
South Korea now maintains the 2,200-strong Zaytun Division in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil to help locals rebuild their country.
The Koreans have the third largest troop contribution to the U.S.-led Operation Iraqi Freedom after the United States and Britain.
The demand came about after news that President Roh Moo-hyun had already promised President George W. Bush in summit talks in Vietnam last week that South Korean forces would stay in Iraq for one more year with a downsized level of 1,500.
The prosecution has widened its probe into the gambling business amid suspicions that some lawmakers and President Roh Moo-hyun's nephew are linked to it.
The Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office said yesterday that it will form a special team to investigate allegations surrounding the illegal slot machines ””The Sea Story.”
” The prosecution launched a nationwide crackdown on illegal gambling last month and arrested representatives of companies that produced and distributed illegal arcade games, including ””The Sea Story.”
” They allegedly rigged the game machines to program higher payout rates than those allowed by gaming laws.
Cheong Wa Dae Tuesday expressed its frustration over the election watchdog’s latest ruling that President Roh Moo-hyun violated the election law again.
But the opposition Grand National Party (GNP) threatened to refer the President to the prosecution for defying the election law.
The reactions came after the National Election Commission (NEC) Monday ruled that Roh again breached the law requiring public officials to stay neutral ahead of elections.
The commission issued the ruling for Roh’s repeated criticism of two major GNP contenders’ campaign pledges _ former Seoul Mayor Lee Myung-bak and former GNP chairwoman Park Geun-hye.
It sent Roh an official letter asking him to refrain from further making remarks that can influence elections.
Presidential spokesman Cheon Ho-seon said the ruling is interpreted as a guideline urging the President to ``shut his mouth.’
’ But the GNP is to appeal to the prosecution to investigate Roh for his challenge of the election law. It said Monday’s ruling was not satisfactory.
But the opposition Grand National Party (GNP) threatened to refer the President to the prosecution for defying the election law.
On his first European trip since taking office, President Barack Obama has arrived in London:
After a smile and a wave from the President and his wife Michelle, it was on to a helicopter for the flight into London and an overnight stay in the US ambassador's residence in Regent's Park.
Mark Smith, with the President, London.”
The US and Iran have taken a first step toward thawing relations.
As the AP's Sagher Magani reports, it comes at an international conference on Afghanistan being held at the Hague:
In the morning, the President has meetings with his host, Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and the leaders of Russia and China, before Brown convenes the Group of 20 Summit, so leaders of the world's biggest economies can grapple with the spreading global recession.
The US and Iran have taken a first step toward thawing relations.
It's dejavu all over again in Washington State where flooding closed I-5 for four days in December of 2007.
It's raining, the snow is melting, and the State Transportation Secretary says they may be looking at the same thing now.
A four-day closing of the state's main North-South route for 20 miles around Chehalis, Washington.
This Seattle-area woman got stranded in a flooded road.
“I went to the store and I tried to come home, the other road was blocked off down there and I tried to come out this way and got stuck.”
Breaking news from the Middle East where the UN says it is halting aid deliveries to Gaza, sighting Israeli attacks on staff and installations.
The Israeli army says it's investigating a report that its forces fired on a UN aid truck.
A four-day closing of the state's main North-South route for 20 miles around Chehalis, Washington.
This Seattle-area woman got stranded in a flooded road.
New reports of new swine flu popping up around the world:
Denmark reports its first confirmed case, and Hong Kong has detected swine flu in a Mexican citizen who recently arrived there.
By the way, the World Health Organization says the genes in swine flu may come from pigs, but there is no indication that the current epidemic is coming from swine.
Stocks are slipping, following mixed reports on manufacturing and factory orders.
Manufacturing contracted in April.
Denmark reports its first confirmed case, and Hong Kong has detected swine flu in a Mexican citizen who recently arrived there.
By the way, the World Health Organization says the genes in swine flu may come from pigs, but there is no indication that the current epidemic is coming from swine.
Manufacturing contracted in April.
In 2003, the number reported was 540.
The city also encouraged the homeless to use shelters.
The city's official count of homeless people in Seoul rose to 730 in October, the highest number recorded since the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis.
According to the Seoul Metropolitan Government, there were 826 homeless people living in Seoul in 1998.
The city government said that beginning next month, it would operate a ""drop-in center"" near Seoul Station where homeless people can take showers.
Who discovered the Titanic deplored that people damaged the shipwreck.
In what was hardly a surprise, communist China will never have Western-style democracy, a senior official said on the eve of the country´s most important political meeting in five years.
But Li Dongsheng, spokesman for the Communist Party´s 17th congress, said China would pursue political reform.
Li was speaking at a news conference ahead of the congress, which opens in the capital, Beijing, today.
Some party members have called for political changes to accompany economic reforms, which have transformed China.
But Li quickly quashed any idea that repressive, communist China could ever become a multi-party liberal democracy.
Embassy in Seoul yesterday disputed an article published by The Washington Post, which indicated the United States had misled Asian allies about nuclear exports by North Korea.
The United States has not misled allies or anyone else about the matter.
The Post said the United States told its Asian allies that Pyeongyang had exported nuclear material directly to Libya. Embassy in Seoul yesterday disputed an article published by The Washington Post, which indicated the United States had misled Asian allies about nuclear exports by North Korea.
The United States has not misled allies or anyone else about the matter.
United States officials informed allies of the intelligence community's assessment of the most likely source of certain nuclear material that was transferred to Libya through the A.Q.
The Post said the United States told its Asian allies that Pyeongyang had exported nuclear material directly to Libya.
President Roh, Korea should be a stabilizer for East Asia.
A presidential panel yesterday began to investigate 11 cases of suspicious deaths in the military that include a shooting rampage at a frontline unit in 1984.
The Presidential Commission on Suspicions in the Military was opened last month to shed light on the dark side of the military and has started to deal with petitions from families that were received this year.
11 cases were selected out of 12 cases registered to the panel from Jan.
A Seoul court on Sunday issued an arrest warrant for a former business partner of South Korea´s leading presidential contender on accusations of stock price manipulation and corporate fund embezzlement.
Yonhap reports the issuance of the writ for Kim Gyeong-jun signals the start of a high-stakes probe of his former business partner, presidential candidate Lee Myung-bak of the conservative opposition Grand National Party (GNP), a month before the December 19th election.
Prosecutors sought the arrest warrant late Saturday for Kim, a U.S.-educated fund manager, on allegations of stock price manipulation and the embezzlement of 38.4 billion won (US$41.9 million) from investors.
Kim established the investment firm BBK in Seoul in 1999, and co-founded the LKe Bank with Lee the following year.
Kim was taken into custody on Friday and did not challenge the legality of his arrest, according to prosecution sources, paving the way for the court to expedite the issuance of the warrant.
Yonhap reports the issuance of the writ for Kim Gyeong-jun signals the start of a high-stakes probe of his former business partner, presidential candidate Lee Myung-bak of the conservative opposition Grand National Party (GNP), a month before the December 19th election.
Witnesses say many are taking advantage of a lull in the fighting to leave.
UN aid convoys entered the camp to deliver food and water, but one was forced to leave after shells exploded near its vehicles.
Thousands of people are fleeing from a refugee camp in northern Lebanon which has seen three days of heavy fighting between troops and Islamist militants.
In a clear case of technology trumping utility, major Korean broadcasting companies will begin land-based mobile television services today, allowing people on the move to view multimedia broadcasting programs via cell phones and other communication devices.
The nation's mobile operators are reluctant to market DMB-enabled handsets and terminals in the absence of a clear profit revenue model for them.
Further, service providers have yet to show they can provide attractive contents and services instead of re-runs of their programs on fixed-line channels.
Nonetheless, the launch of the mobile television service, the world's first, marks a step forward in Korea's initiative to integrate broadcasting and communication and usher in the ubiquitous era of communications.
A sea battle between Tamil Tigers and Sri Lankan government forces has left at least 45 people dead, the navy says.
At least 15 sailors are missing after rebels sank a gunboat off the north coast, while at least 30 Tigers were killed in the attack, a spokesman said.
The rebels said only four Sea Tigers were killed when the navy attacked them during a training exercise.
But European peace monitors blamed the rebels for a ""gross violation"" of the 2002 ceasefire.
About 200 people have died in soaring violence in the past month alone.
A gay rights demonstration in Moscow degenerated into violence for the second year running as right-wing and orthodox extremists attacked gay rights activists and supporters of the unauthorised demonstration.
GayRussia leader Nikolai Alexeyev was bundled into a police van and driven away moments after arriving outside the offices of Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov, who has called homosexuals ””satanic””.
Alexeyev was attempting to deliver a petition signed by more than 50 MEPs urging Luzhkov to allow such events.
His attacker was not detained.
His attacker was not detained.
George W. Bush, struggling to control a growing crisis, apologized Thursday for the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers and called it ``a stain on our country's honor.''
He rejected calls for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's resignation but complained about Rumsfeld's handling of the controversy.
``He'll stay in my Cabinet,'' Bush declared, a day after White House officials spread word that the president was upset at the secretary for not alerting him about the damaging pictures.
Some Republicans on Capitol Hill privately questioned whether Rumsfeld could survive and were angry that he had not shared information with them.
Tom Harkin of Iowa stepped forward to call for Rumsfeld's head.
With the reputation and credibility of the United States on the line, the controversy was inflamed by graphic new pictures.
One showed a naked man on a concrete cellblock floor, his neck in a leash held by a female American GI.
Another showed a naked prisoner handcuffed to a bed with women's underwear over his head.
The photos were published by The Washington Post.
``For the good of our country, the safety of our troops, and our image around the globe Secretary Rumsfeld should resign,'' Harkin said.
With the reputation and credibility of the United States on the line, the controversy was inflamed by graphic new pictures.
The Korea Herald reports the step, which results from the government's plan to reform higher education, will reduce the number of new enrollees this coming March to about 621,000 from about 637,000 this year.
The number of new students enrolling at universities next year will be cut by nearly 16,000, the largest reduction in history, the Ministry of Education has announced.
The Korea Herald reports the step, which results from the government's plan to reform higher education, will reduce the number of new enrollees this coming March to about 621,000 from about 637,000 this year.
The overall figures are the sum of cuts planned by various universities in steps to reduce class size and meet other goals.
About 4.3 million Koreans are Internet addicts.
Ruling Uri Party leader Shin Ki-nam yesterday confirmed a monthly magazine report that his father worked as a Japanese soldier during Japan's harsh colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945.
The Korea Herald reports that during a meeting with the press in Busan, Uri Chairman Shin said he was told that his father had joined the Japanese military after serving as an elementary school teacher.
On behalf of his late father, the junior Shin said, he would like to apologize to independence fighters and their families.
The third anniversary of 9/11 attacks will be held in New York.
In a sign of tense inter-Korean relations, communist North Korea Thursday expelled most of Korean officials from the Kaesong Industrial Complex.
The turnaround of the North´s stance came in an apparent protest over the current Lee Myung-bak administration´s tough policy in dealing with the reclusive nation.
President Lee has said his government would pursue pragmatic policies by linking inter-Korean economic exchanges to the international efforts to resolve the lingering standoff over the North´s nuclear development program.
Lee´s stance is in stark contrast with the previous two governments which had been seeking the reconciliatory ``sunshine policy´´ engaging North Korea.
Officials said Pyongyang pulled out 11 of 13 South Korean officials working in the industrial complex near the border village of Panmunjom.
Unification Minister Kim Ha-joong said there would be no progress in inter-Korean relations without the North´s efforts toward denuclearization.
Officials said Pyongyang pulled out 11 of 13 South Korean officials working in the industrial complex near the border village of Panmunjom.
His trial last week took two hours, and his lawyers were arrested before it.
“I thought they were going to sentence him even though he's innocent, but I never expected such a heavy sentence,” she told Reuters news agency.
Li said he was outraged by the sentence.
Chen Guangcheng was sentenced to four years and three months for “damaging property and organizing a mob to disturb traffic”, state media said.
Chen had accused officials in Shandong province of breaking family planning laws in their enforcement of the one-child policy.
In its latest survey of 391 small manufacturers, the Industrial Bank of Korea found that 51.2 percent of the respondents are considering moving their plants abroad in less than two years.
In its latest survey of 391 small manufacturers, the Industrial Bank of Korea found that 51.2 percent of the respondents are considering moving their plants abroad in less than two years.
North Korea requested the aids to South Korea.
Thousands of opponents of Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra are holding a protest in Bangkok, vowing to stay in the streets until he steps down.
About 50,000 people marched to Thaksin's office waving Thai flags and shouting anti-government slogans.
Police said the march was peaceful. This is the latest in a series of rallies accusing Thaksin of corruption and abuse of power.
""We will rally around the clock until Thaksin and his wife leave the country.
The Malaysian government has reversed a decision to ban a Christian newspaper using the word Allah to refer to God.
The government had threatened to refuse to give the Weekly Herald a publishing permit if it continued to use the word.
The paper´s editor said the word had long been used by Christians to refer to God in the Malay language.
The ruling was immediately condemned by civil rights and Christian groups in Malaysia, who said it infringed their right to practice their religion.
But Malaysia´s internal security department demanded the word be removed, saying only Muslims could use it.
In a fax to the Herald´s editor, the government says it will get its 2008 permit, with no conditions attached.
The government had threatened to refuse to give the Weekly Herald a publishing permit if it continued to use the word.
The paper´s editor said the word had long been used by Christians to refer to God in the Malay language.
The US and the EU are to normalize ties with the new Palestinian government, lifting emergencies on aid to support an administration without Hamas.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice promised “full assistance” to the Palestinian Authority and emergency humanitarian aid to Gaza via the UN.
The EU is assessing ways of resuming direct aid, while Israel said the new cabinet was a ”genuine partner”.
Abbas sacked the previous government after Hamas seized control of Gaza.
In a separate development on Monday, one Palestinian was killed and several injured after Palestinian gunmen and Israeli soldiers exchanged fire at the Erez crossing, the Israeli rescue service and Palestinian medics said.
The crossing is the main point for people traveling between Israel and Gaza.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice promised “full assistance” to the Palestinian Authority and emergency humanitarian aid to Gaza via the UN.
A New Zealand woman on an oxygen machine died after an energy firm switched off her power supply because of unpaid bills.
Police said they were investigating the circumstances of Mrs Muliaga’s death.
The power company, Mercury Energy, said it had been unaware any disconnection would put her life at risk.
Relatives of Mrs Muliaga, a schoolteacher, said she had been off work since February with a heart and lung condition.
People who commit sexual assaults against children under 13 and kill them will likely face the death penalty or life imprisonment.
At a Cabinet meeting Tuesday, the Ministry of Justice said it would instruct the prosecution to stiffen punishment on sex offenders against children or young students through revisions of the law.
The move comes after a man sexually abused and killed 10-year-old Lee Hye-jin and eight-year-old Woo Ye-seul in Anyang, Gyeonggi Province, last December, and another man violently attempted to kidnap a 10-year-old schoolgirl in Ilsan, north of Seoul, Sunday.
Earlier, South Korean Ambassador to Japan Ra Jong-il voiced opposition to Japan’s bid for the UNSC.
South Korea supports Germany’s bid to become a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), according to a senior Chong Wa Dae official.
He said Roh also believes Germany is entitled to the membership if more seats are made available at the UNSC.
Earlier, South Korean Ambassador to Japan Ra Jong-il voiced opposition to Japan’s bid for the UNSC.
Japan holds ground on international issues.
With domestic anger flaring over Japan's fresh claims to the Dokdo islets, the Foreign Ministry yesterday summoned the No.
The Korea Herald reports Park Joon-woo, director general of the ministry's Asia-Pacific Affairs Bureau called in Urabe Toshinao, minister at the Japanese mission here, and protested strongly about comments by the Japanese ambassador on Wednesday claiming sovereignty over the easternmost islets.
He demanded that the Japanese government take immediate measures to prevent a recurrence of such comments.
One of the detainees at Gitmo is being sent to New York for trial.
He would be the first to be brought to the US to face trial in a civilian court.
The detainee was indicted by a Federal grand jury in New York for the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Africa that killed 224 people.
A terror plot against Jewish synagogues in New York has been broken up.
Authorities say four men were arrested after planting what they thought were explosives near two synagogues.
They were also allegedly plotting to shoot down a military plane. This man lives in the neighborhood:
“ It's tragic and sad that, you know, any human being would want to murder any other group of human beings.”
he'll be spending the next two months there on home confinement.
Vick arrived about 28 hours after he had left a Federal prison in Leavenworth, Kansas.
The detainee was indicted by a Federal grand jury in New York for the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Africa that killed 224 people.
A terror plot against Jewish synagogues in New York has been broken up.
˝Fiji´s military rulers have reimposed a state of emergency, three months after the previous one was lifted.
Commodore Frank Bainimarama claimed the measures were needed because ousted, legally-elected Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase was trying to destabilize the country.
Qarase, who the military overthrew in an illegal coup in December, returned to Fiji last week after eight months in exile.
Under the emergency powers, which are due to last a month, the authorities can detain people without charge.
But Cmdr Bainimarama said the security situation remained unchanged for the Fijian people, as the measures were aimed only at Qarase and his political allies.
After returning to Suva, Qarase offered to work with the military government, but was rebuffed.
At the same time, he initiated court action seeking to confirm Cmdr Bainimarama´s government as illegal.
The Pacific island´s military rulers have been under increasing international pressure to speed up a return to democracy.˝
Palestinian militants eluding an army crackdown killed two Israeli children in a rocket attack from Gaza on Wednesday and Israeli troops killed seven Palestinians in raids in the coastal strip and the West Bank.
Palestinian militants eluding an army crackdown killed two Israeli children in a rocket attack from Gaza on Wednesday and Israeli troops killed seven Palestinians in raids in the coastal strip and the West Bank.
The renewed rocket fire in spite of an Israeli incursion aimed at snuffing out such attacks was a blow to the Jewish state as it seeks to prevent militants portraying its planned pullout of settlers from Gaza next year as a victory.
Two makeshift Qassam rockets hit a residential block in the town of Sderot close to Israel's fenced border with Gaza, killing a girl aged 2 and a boy aged 4 as they played on the eve of the Jewish festival of Sukkot.
Thirteen other residents were injured in the town that has borne the brunt of Qassam attacks, emergency services said.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon threatened that Israel ""would respond with severity and use all measures to respond and stop the firing of Qassam,"" an aide said.
Chinese shares have fallen after former US Federal Reserve head Alan Greenspan said its stock market was overvalued and due for a ””dramatic contraction””.
His remarks had an impact on markets in the US, Europe and Asia, fanning already prevalent fears of a slowdown in China’s booming economy.
Signs that Beijing was trying to rein in its startling growth earlier this year led to a temporary fall in shares.
But markets have since risen to levels Greenspan said were ””unsustainable””.
He said Chinese markets had risen by 50% since the start of the year and that this trend could not continue for much longer.
Analysts were divided over Greenspan’s comments, some fearing a bursting of the stock market bubble but others suggesting his views were overstated.
Pulitzer Prize winning author and community activist Studs Turkel, has died.
Our Ed Donahue takes a look at his long career:
“Turkel's work celebrated the common people.”
“I think the public is intelligent, provided it has the … the information, not from one side only.”
“He spoke to WLS-TV last year.
Studs Turkel was a symbol of old Chicago.
He was a cigar and martini man, and was perpetually rumpled.
Turkel once said, he never met a picket line or petition he didn't like.
They may be reluctant, but kids in Locust Grove, Georgia, can give up their trick or treat loot for some cold, hard cash.
Linda King, a local dentist, is buying up the candy to send to troops.
“We are um, going to go ahead and send it to a company called Operation Gratitude that does care packages for the troops overseas.”
Our Ed Donahue takes a look at his long career:
“Turkel's work celebrated the common people.”
“I think the public is intelligent, provided it has the … the information, not from one side only.”
He was a cigar and martini man, and was perpetually rumpled.
They may be reluctant, but kids in Locust Grove, Georgia, can give up their trick or treat loot for some cold, hard cash.
Linda King, a local dentist, is buying up the candy to send to troops.
King calls the buyback deal a win-win.
The Iraqi interim government now has legal custody of the man who once ruled the country.
Saddam Hussein and eleven of his former top aides were turned over to Iraqi officials Wednesday. The U.S. will maintain physical custody of Saddam for security reasons.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan says that the fate of the former Iraqi leader lies in the hands of his countrymen.
McClellan characterized Saddam's regime as ""brutal.
The US has called on Iran to stop arming militants in Iraq at the first bilateral public talks between the two countries in almost 30 years.
US envoy Ryan Crocker said his Iranian counterpart had rejected the charges at the four-hour talks in Baghdad, which focused exclusively on Iraq’s security.
Both countries agreed that a secure and stable Iraq was in their interests.
Iran’s ambassador, Hassan Kazemi-Qomi, described the meeting as a success and said there were plans for future talks.
As the talks ended, a car bomb exploded near an important Sunni mosque in the centre of Baghdad, killing at least 20 people and wounding dozens of others.
Speaking after the meeting in the Green Zone, Crocker said he had spelt out Washington’s concerns about alleged Iranian support for insurgents who have been attacking Iraqi and US-led forces.
He said the arming of the militia groups needed to end and that the US would ””be looking for results””.
As the talks ended, a car bomb exploded near an important Sunni mosque in the centre of Baghdad, killing at least 20 people and wounding dozens of others.
Heavy snow in the Northwest, more heavy snow in the Northeast, and bitter cold in between.
Welcome to the first day of winter!
National Weather Service meteorologist Mike McFarland says Seattle's had a half foot of snow.
More than two feet has fallen in other parts of Washington State, and Portland, Oregon, is getting pounded as well.
“They got quite a bit of snow and now they're getting some freezing rain and they have strong east winds, so Portland's a real wintry mess as well, probably worse in Portland than it is in Seattle right now.”
sub-zero temperatures, wind chills as low as 40 below.
Meteorologist Craig Cogil says it looks like a good day to stay bundled up indoors.
“Main problems right now is just going to be uh, the really cold temperatures, along with the blowing snow.
Along the East Coast, a big storm is revving up:
“Northern New England, Central New England, including the Green and White mountain ski areas of New Hampshire, and Vermont, can expect up to a foot of snow.”
Sleet and freezing rain, mixed with snow, will cause travel troubles from the mid-Atlantic States and in New York and Boston today.
More than two feet has fallen in other parts of Washington State, and Portland, Oregon, is getting pounded as well.
The Midwest is bitter cold;
Along the East Coast, a big storm is revving up:
Prime Minister John Howard has said Australians would be ""distressed"" by Indonesia's release of a Muslim cleric convicted over the 2002 Bali bombings.
Abu Bakar Ba'asyir, found guilty in March 2005 of conspiracy over the bomb plot, was released in Jakarta after serving 26 months in prison.
Security experts say the cleric is a founding member of regional Islamic militant group Jemaah Islamiah.
""I want them to understand from me on behalf of the government how extremely disappointed, even distressed, millions of Australians will be at the release of Abu Bakar Ba'asyir,"" he said.
Eighty-eight of the 202 victims of the 2002 Bali bombings were Australian.
Security experts say the cleric is a founding member of regional Islamic militant group Jemaah Islamiah.
Families of people killed in the Bali blast also criticized the release.
This is supposed to reassure all parents about the safety of children's vaccines, but it probably won't comfort some:
“ A theory that Thimerosal is to blame for autism has been repeatedly discounted in scientific studies.
Now, a new study from Italy is adding to the evidence that the mercury-based preservative, once used in many vaccines, doesn't hurt children.
Only one case of autism was found when testing the brain function of 1400 children 10 years after thousands of healthy Italian babies got two different amounts of the preservative in a study of whooping cough vaccine.
The study was funded by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The US military says two of its choppers crashed today in northern Iraq, killing four American troops.
Slumdog Millionaire was one of the big winners at last night's Screen Actors Guild awards in Los Angeles.
On Wall Street, Dow industrials up 107 points in the first half hour, NASDAQ ahead 27.
This is supposed to reassure all parents about the safety of children's vaccines, but it probably won't comfort some:
“ A theory that Thimerosal is to blame for autism has been repeatedly discounted in scientific studies.
Now, a new study from Italy is adding to the evidence that the mercury-based preservative, once used in many vaccines, doesn't hurt children.
The study was funded by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
As 2008 comes to an end, the Associated Press is out with its top ten stories of the year.
And I bet you can guess what, or who, is number one.
Our Ed Donahue is here live to tell us about it:
“Change is coming to America!”
“Newspaper editors and radio and TV news directors say the epic election that will make Barack Obama the first Black President, was the top news story of the year.
It's followed closely by the economic meltdown that will test his leadership. Two other political sagas:
the history-making runs by Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton also make the list at numbers 7 and 9.
His name, might as well be Clark Griswold:
“We're gonna have the best looking house in town, Russ.…
I've always wanted to do this.”
“That's a lot of lights, dad.”
“Change is coming to America!”
South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun Sunday said North Korea detects a crisis because the United States thinks the Kim Jong-il regime will collapse in the end, adding that such hopes are making the current nuclear negotiations difficult.
South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun Sunday said North Korea detects a crisis because the United States thinks the Kim Jong-il regime will collapse in the end, adding that such hopes are making the current nuclear negotiations difficult.
In a speech to South Korean residents in France, he said relevant parties in the nuclear talks would have to narrow differences between China and South Korea, which do not want a North Korean ``regime change'' and the countries that do.
Legal adult age, to be lowered from 20 to 19.
The government has drafted an amendment to the civil law to lower the legal adult age from the current 20-years-old to 19.
The Korea Times reports that if the government’s bill is passed in the National Assembly, 19 year-olds will be permitted to exercise property rights and make legally-binding contracts independently from next year.
They will also be able to marry without parents’ consent.
If the revision bill gets approval from the legislature, there would be changes in other laws on the definition of the adult age.
Currently, election laws permit only those aged 20 or older to cast votes in elections, but the age would also likely be lowered to 19.
If the election laws are rewritten, most college freshmen would be able to vote in elections.
The Korea Times reports that if the government’s bill is passed in the National Assembly, 19 year-olds will be permitted to exercise property rights and make legally-binding contracts independently from next year.
If the election laws are rewritten, most college freshmen would be able to vote in elections.
In what is seen as a Bush administration move to win enlisted military voters, a U.S. military policewoman accused in the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal had the charges against her reduced Wednesday as a set of pretrial hearings wrapped up at an American base in Germany.
Two counts of cruelty and maltreatment and one of conspiracy had been added after the investigation against Ambuhl was completed, a step her lawyers argued was improper and added a possible three more years of prison time.
The World Stem Cell Hub, an institute that will serve as a stem cell bank and global center for stem cell research, opened its doors in Seoul.
A project of Hwang Woo-suk, a geneticist and veterinarian who cloned the first human embryonic stem cells and the first dog, the center will serve as the core of an international consortium that includes research organizations from the United States and Great Britain.
U.S. and S. Korea will have a discussion on the military alliance.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Tokyo feels “responsible” for forcing women to work in brothels during World War II, Newsweek magazine reported.
But, Abe’s remark appears to be only an effort to deflect U.S. criticism over comments he made last month that there was no proof the government or the military had forced the women, many of them Korean, to serve Japanese soldiers in the brothels.
Abe also expressed sympathy for the “comfort women,” as they are called, and reiterated that his administration stood by a 1993 Japanese statement acknowledging official involvement in the management of the brothels a complete reversal from just a month ago.
Abe’s earlier comments risked straining ties with Washington, where U.S. Congressman Michael Honda has introduced a resolution calling for Japan to make an unambiguous apology to the women.”
But, Abe’s remark appears to be only an effort to deflect U.S. criticism over comments he made last month that there was no proof the government or the military had forced the women, many of them Korean, to serve Japanese soldiers in the brothels.
A judge in Iraq has issued a warrant for the arrest of prominent Iraqi politician Ahmad Chalabi.
The U.S.-appointed judge told an Iraqi radio station that Chalabi is wanted in connection with allegations of counterfeiting money.
The judge also unveiled a warrant for Salem Chalabi, Ahmad's nephew.
Salem Chalabi heads the tribunal that is trying ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. He's wanted for murder.
Ahmad Chalabi is a former head of Iraq's interim Governing Council who was close with the Pentagon.
He helped lead the United States to war in the country.
Ahmad Chalabi is a former head of Iraq's interim Governing Council who was close with the Pentagon.
China claims that Tibetan ""independence forces"" are planning to launch suicide attacks as part of a wider uprising to establish an independent Tibet.
Public Security Ministry spokesman Wu Heping said these suicide squads ""fear neither bloodshed nor sacrifice"".
Wu did not produce any evidence to back up the claims - but said China would release proof later.
The prime minister of the Tibetan government-in-exile, Samdhong Rinpoche, denied China´s allegations.
Wu claimed the wave of protests that erupted across Tibetan areas recently was part of a ""Tibetan People´s Uprising Movement"" ahead of the Olympic Games.
The issue of whether to allow North Korea to develop a civilian nuclear power program is not likely to be an obstacle that would derail the six-party talks on the North's nuclear arms program, the top U.S. envoy to the talks said in Washington.
The issue of whether to allow North Korea to develop a civilian nuclear power program is not likely to be an obstacle that would derail the six-party talks on the North's nuclear arms program, the top U.S. envoy to the talks said in Washington.
China expects the talks will be resumed soon.
Korea's fertility rate among world is in the lowest level.
˝Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has accepted his ruling Liberal Democratic Party has suffered “utter defeat” in polls for the upper house of parliament.
But as votes were being counted, Abe said he had no intention of resigning.
The opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) is set to become the largest party in the upper house for the first time.
The LDP has been hit by a series of ministerial gaffes and scandals since Abe took office 10 months ago.
But he insisted he would not be stepping down - although the deputy leader of the LDP, Hidenao Nakagawa, has resigned.
The LDP has a sizeable majority in the more powerful lower house, which chooses the prime minister.
But without a majority in the upper chamber, Abe´s administration may find it hard to pass the laws that it wants.
Half of the 242 seats in the House of Councillors were being contested.˝
The opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) is set to become the largest party in the upper house for the first time.
The LDP has been hit by a series of ministerial gaffes and scandals since Abe took office 10 months ago.
South Korea's foreign minister has won the support of the Security Council's five permanent members in an informal vote on the next UN secretary general.
Ban Ki-moon was the only one of six candidates to escape a veto in the informal ballot.
The poll is non-binding but, barring a major surprise, correspondents say Ban looks set to take the top role.
Kofi Annan's 10-year term in office ends on 31 December.
The Security Council's recommendation will then be passed on to the General Assembly for endorsement.
There is a broad consensus within the UN that an Asian should be the next secretary general, the first since the Burmese U Thant from 1961 to 1971.
The poll is non-binding but, barring a major surprise, correspondents say Ban looks set to take the top role.
President Roh Moo-hyun instructed the administration on Tuesday to take measures to eliminate the legacy of Japan’s 1910-1945 colonial rule of Korea, The Korea Times quoted Chong Wa Dae spokesman Kim Man-soo as saying.
President Roh Moo-hyun instructed the administration on Tuesday to take measures to eliminate the legacy of Japan’s 1910-1945 colonial rule of Korea, The Korea Times quoted Chong Wa Dae spokesman Kim Man-soo as saying.
Industrial production had fallen 7.3% in February.
Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has warned that the militant group is ready for ""open war"" with Israel, after the killing of one of its leaders in Syria.
Nasrallah made the declaration during a fiery speech at the funeral of Imad Mughniyeh in Lebanon´s capital, Beirut.
There is huge tension in the city, where thousands are attending Mughniyeh´s funeral and rivals have held a memorial for ex-PM Rafik Hariri.
It is three years since Hariri was killed, plunging Lebanon into crisis.
Mughniyeh was killed in a car bombing in the Syrian capital, Damascus, on Tuesday.
Correspondents say the events come at a tense time, with no president and no working parliament.
Nasrallah made the declaration during a fiery speech at the funeral of Imad Mughniyeh in Lebanon´s capital, Beirut.
The attack occurred Wednesday inside a police recruitment center in the southern part of the town, eight kilometers (five miles) from where the Korean troops are based.
In the aftermath of a deadly terrorist attack in the Kurdish city of Irbil in northern Iraq, which killed at least 60 and left hundreds injured, South Korean forces stationed in the area raised their alert status, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said yesterday.
The attack occurred Wednesday inside a police recruitment center in the southern part of the town, eight kilometers (five miles) from where the Korean troops are based.
After the attack, South Korean forces tightened security measures around the base.
Japan plans to return remains of Koreans who were forced to work in Japan at the time of WWII.
The chairman of Hyundai Motor Company, Chung Mong-koo, is to face the verdict in his corruption trial.
Analysts say if Chung goes to prison it could harm both the country's car sector, and the wider economy.
His imprisonment could “have a grave impact on the industry as well as the national economy,” said Yong-Dae-in, an analyst with Goodmorning Shinhan Securities.
Hyundai - the country's largest car firm, and its affiliate Kia Motors, which is headed by Chung's son - represent some 70% of South Korea's vehicle exports, making it a vital part of the economy.
As a result, a suspended sentence is likely say analysts.
Hyundai - the country's largest car firm, and its affiliate Kia Motors, which is headed by Chung's son - represent some 70% of South Korea's vehicle exports, making it a vital part of the economy.
Broadcast pioneer Paul Harvey has died at 90:
“ This is Paul Harvey.
The voice was unmistakable.
Paul Harvey used his staccato-style delivery to tell all kinds of stories:
“ Really, it's not much more than what interests me, and/or what I detect in my travels to be interesting to the most people.”
In the 1950's, he started his news and comment for ABC Radio Networks. In the 1970's, he began The Rest of the Story.
He said he had a love affair with radio:
“ As a boy, I fell in love with words and ran away from home and joined the radio, and it really was something.”
“ Harvey died Saturday, surrounded by family, at a hospital in Phoenix.
A Michigan woman with two wombs has given birth to twin daughters, one from each uterus.
Her doctor, Connie Hedmark, says it's a very rare occurrence:
“ The statistics I could come up with were about 1 in 5 million.”
The babies are expected to stay in the hospital for the next 3 to 4 weeks.
The voice was unmistakable.
“ Really, it's not much more than what interests me, and/or what I detect in my travels to be interesting to the most people.”
Bill Richardson, the Democratic governor of New Mexico criticized the Bush administration for withdrawing troops in Korea.
Bill Richardson, the Democratic governor of New Mexico and a former high-profile U.S. negotiator with North Korea, criticized the Bush administration's approach to troop withdrawals on the Korean Peninsula yesterday.
""The Bush administration should work with Korea on the relocation of troops with care and consideration,"" Mr. Richardson told participants at a World Economic Forum roundtable discussion.
""The U.S. government should increase coordination with its South Korean ally.
"" He also criticized the Bush administration for what he said were policies that endangered the six-nation talks with North Korea on nuclear issues.
An Iraqi official says Iraq and Syria have come to an agreement that would increase security along their long border in the desert.
Iraq's deputy prime minister said the move is aimed at stopping foreign insurgents from infiltrating into Iraq.
However, Baghdad still didn't ask for any Syrian troops to help with security matters within Iraq.
The Iraqi official rejected Syrian calls for an immediate withdrawal of U.S.-led troops in the area.
The U.S. accuses Syria of not doing enough to stop the influx of militants into Iraq.
The Iraqi official rejected Syrian calls for an immediate withdrawal of U.S.-led troops in the area.
A South Korean thriller movie “Seven Days” will be remade for the U.S. market, the movie´s South Korean distributor Prime Entertainment said Tuesday.
Summit Entertainment, a U.S. movie production company that has released hit movies in the past, has signed a deal with Prime Entertainment for the rights for ”Seven Days.”
Seven Days is a crime suspense film, directed by Won Shin-yeon.
It will be released in South Korea today.
The movie tells the story of a brilliant woman lawyer with a perfect winning record whose life takes a dramatic turn when her eight-year-old daughter is kidnapped.
The abductor says the lawyer has seven days to win an impossible murder case, or she will never see her daughter again.
Summit Entertainment plans to begin filming the remake next year on a $30 million budget.
Seven Days is a crime suspense film, directed by Won Shin-yeon.
Rehabilitating his reputation is now being considered by a state-authorized commission set up during President Kim Dae-jung's administration to recognize the contributions of democracy activists.
After Park’s murder, another military leader, Chun Doo Hwan, took control of the government, and sentenced Kim to death at a court martial.
The Australian government has announced it will issue its first formal apology to Aboriginal people when parliament resumes next month.
Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin said the apology would be the first item of business when the new legislature convened on 13 February.
It is aimed at the “Stolen Generations” - Aboriginal children taken from their parents to be raised by white families.
It was the ”first, necessary step to move forward from the past”, she said.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced plans to apologize after his victory in last year´s general elections.
The move is a highly symbolic one marking a definitive break from policies of previous administrations, correspondents say.
Ms Macklin said that the content of the apology had been determined after wide consultation with Aboriginal leaders.
It would be made ”on behalf of the Australian government and does not attribute guilt to the current generation of Australian people”, she said in a statement.
olice are investigating how a porn video was posted on Yahoo Korea, one of the nation’s largest portal sites.
Sunday, an Internet user posted a one-minute sex video on Yammy, the portal’s page for user created contents (UCC).
More than 25,000 Internet users clicked on the video clip, making the footage the most viewed clip for a while.
Unaware of this, Yahoo Korea left the footage on the page for about six hours.
It removed the video clip at 11:40 p.m. after the 24-hour news channel YTN began collecting details of the incident.
``We presume staff members did not properly screen the footage,’’ a Yahoo Korea official said.
The company plans to take additional measures on its site such as restricting video uploads, and will deliver an official apology.
Despite the removal, Internet users kept searching for ``Yahoo footage’’ on other portal sites Monday.
The police said they will charge the Internet user who posted the video clip for violation of the law on communications and information protection after receiving the user’s information from Yahoo Korea.
The police will also question Yahoo Korea workers in charge of monitoring the site.
˝Pirated software worth $500 million has been seized as the FBI shuts down a world-spanning piracy outfit.
Before the raids the Chinese counterfeiting syndicate was thought to have sold and distributed software worth more than $2 billion.
The FBI and China´s Public Security Bureau arrested 25 people during the two-week operation against the pirates.
Despite recent crackdowns, industry figures suggest that 82% of the software used in China is counterfeit.
The FBI said it had been building up a case against the piracy syndicate for years before staging the raids on the software production plants in China´s Guangdong province.
During the raids, dubbed Operation Summer Solstice, the FBI seized more than 290,000 CDs with a claimed market value of $500 million.˝
30th of last year, U.S.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld reportedly became enraged and ordered the immediate pull-out of USFK from the peninsula, saying:
Forces Korea Tuesday denied recent media reports that the actions of South Koreans were responsible for the Bush administration plan to withdraw 12,500 U.S. troops from the Korean peninsula.
The remark came after Yonsei University professor Moon Chung-in, head of the Presidential Committee on Northeast Asian Cooperation Initiative, said last Friday that acts on Korea’s part, like anti-American demonstrations, had prompted the U.S. to speed up the reduction plan.
After watching this scene, the volatile U.S.
College enrollment will be cut by 15% in 5 years.
President Roh Moo-hyun is besieged by the controversy over a free trade agreement with the United States.
Up against a March 2007 deadline, Roh is facing huge resistance to the negotiations from civic groups that once formed the base of his support.
On Saturday, central Seoul saw 8,000 people protest against the talks with the United States.
Progressive civic groups, liberal-minded lawyers, far-left Democratic Labor Party members and a sprinkling of movie stars denounced President Roh for promoting the negotiations and for dancing to the United States' tune.
The group, calling itself a ""pan-national group to stop the FTA,"" said Saturday's rally would not be its last.
And in opposition to the anti-FTA campaigners, a group of right-wingers gathered for a pro-FTA rally and denounced their opponents.
The catalyst for the explosion against the free trade talks appears to have been a former Blue House economic aide, Jung Tae-in.
He had long served as an economic adviser to Roh, but has parted company with him on this issue.
In a recent interview with a left-wing Internet news outlet, he said, ""It's no use making peace with a scoundrel,"" referring to the United States.
""What awaits us in the end is a fatal blow to ourselves, leading only to our downfall.
Up against a March 2007 deadline, Roh is facing huge resistance to the negotiations from civic groups that once formed the base of his support.
And in opposition to the anti-FTA campaigners, a group of right-wingers gathered for a pro-FTA rally and denounced their opponents.
It's the day before the night before, and Christmas travel is being affected by the economy and the weather.
University of Maryland economist Peter Morici:
“Given the employment numbers that we're seeing, the economy is going to contract a great deal in the fourth quarter.
Also, businesses are just putting less goods on the shelves;
if you go to the store shelves, you'll see some empty shelves.”
And for the weather, the Great Lakes region is racing for different combinations of snow, sleet and ice today.
Winter weather already has caused big problems for Christmas travelers in the West Coast.
Airports were closed again last night, and Greyhound passengers were forced to camp out in stations in Portland, Oregon, and Seattle.
The“ Biggest Losers” may be an Indiana couple who together tipped the scale at more than 700 pounds, Lorie and Todd Richmond had weight loss surgery on the same day last week, at the University of Chicago Medical Center.
So what's the prospect for shedding some serious weight?
“I would expect that between the two of them, they may uh, lose well over 250 to 400 pounds.”
The husband weighed 305 pounds;
the Dow is up 54 points. It's the day before the night before, and Christmas travel is being affected by the economy and the weather.
the Commerce Department reports it shrank at an annual rate of a half percent in the third quarter, while corporate profits contracted 1.2 percent.
University of Maryland economist Peter Morici:
And for the weather, the Great Lakes region is racing for different combinations of snow, sleet and ice today.
The husband weighed 305 pounds;
the Dow is up 54 points.
The United States on Saturday emphasized the carrots it has to offer if North Korea abandons the pursuit of nuclear weapons rather than the sticks it has often brandished.
President George W. Bush on down went out of their way to highlight the incentives they are dangling - from economic cooperation to a formal end to the Korean War - if Pyongyang gives up its nuclear weapons programs.
White House spokesman Tony Snow said on Saturday the list of what the United States might do includes “a declaration of the end of the Korean War and moving forward on economic cooperation, cultural, educational and other ties.”
Australia's The Sydney Morning Herald says:
Despite North Korea backing away from part of the agreement yesterday, at the very least, it shows that patient diplomacy offers better prospects of progress than the stalemate resulting from the previous pattern of non-negotiable demands by the United States and brinkmanship and cheating by Pyongyang's erratic leader, Kim Jong-il.
The importance of Beijing's readiness to take a constructive initiative is encouraging, not just for the Korean Peninsula, but for the wider region.
There is a long, tortuous way to go, but this sounds like the beginning of wisdom.
NTS tax audits of 6 foreign funds.
President Roh Moo hyun said South Korea plans to triple the volume of its development aid to Africa by 2008, stressing the country's will to expand economic commitment and diplomatic ties across the continent.
Roh arrived in Egypt on Monday for a four day official visit to attend a summit with Egyptian President Mohamed Hosni Mubarak.
The company has also asked six other Japanese power companies to sell it emergency electricity until the end of September.
˝There are fears of power shortages in Tokyo, as the scale of the earthquake damage to the country´s biggest nuclear power station becomes clear.
The government reportedly wants the Kashiwazaki plant to stay closed for more than a year for safety checks.
Kashiwazaki contributes about 12% of the Tokyo Electric Power Company´s supplies to the capital.
TEPCO was criticized after revealing that Monday´s quake caused more than 50 malfunctions at its Niigata plant.
TEPCO is considering restarting six mothballed thermal power plants to meet demand over the summer.
The company has also asked six other Japanese power companies to sell it emergency electricity until the end of September.
TEPCO did not say when Kashiwazaki might re-open.˝
The government, to freeze public services fee.
The government says it will freeze public services fees during the first half of the year to restrain consumer price gains to the 3 percent level.
The decision comes amid rising consumer prices triggered by a shortage of raw materials due to increasing global demand.
Further fueled by soaring crude oil prices, prices for steel and lumber have been climbing steadily since the beginning of this year, giving rise to concerns of supply shortages at companies using the materials for construction and other manufacturing.
A government panel promoting overseas investment decided Friday to set the size of cash grants at between 5 and 15 percent of the money spent by foreign investors building factories or research and development facilities.
The precise percentage of the cash payback will hinge on how many jobs can be created through each investment project and where new facilities are located.
Coelho will have a news conference at the headquarters of the KFA.
Air Force firing range will be shut down next year.
Hong’s involvement in the scandal came to light through a report of a 90-minute tape recording of a secret discussion between Hong, then president of the JoongAng Ilbo, and Lee Hak-soo, vice chairman of Samsung Group’s corporate restructuring office.
President Roh Moo-hyun has decided to accept the resignation of South Korean Ambassador to the United States Hong Seok-hyun over his involvement in a slush funds scandal, according to Chong Wa Dae.
Roh, however, will allow Hong to continue his job for the time being before officially accepting his resignation.
Hong became the shortest-serving ambassador to the U.S. in history, spending only about five months in the position since appointed by Roh on Feb.
Except for a few rare cases, previous South Korean ambassadors to the U.S. spent at least two years in the job in consideration of the strategic importance of the South Korean/U.S. alliance.
Hong’s involvement in the scandal came to light through a report of a 90-minute tape recording of a secret discussion between Hong, then president of the JoongAng Ilbo, and Lee Hak-soo, vice chairman of Samsung Group’s corporate restructuring office.
The conversation, which took place just months ahead of the 1997 presidential election, dealt with providing funds to Lee Hoi-chang, then candidate for the ruling New Korea Party.
Japan becomes an unwelcomed guest as it mentions the abduction in the six-party talk.
More fallout over the Bush administration's memos on harsh interrogation methods.
White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs tells NBC's Meet the Press that President Barack Obama released the memos as a way to move the country forward:
“ The President does believe strongly in transparency, and believes that there was no legal basis for which to withhold these memos.”
Michigan Senator Carl Levin says he wants independent investigators to determine whether any Bush administration officials should be prosecuted because of those memos.
Police are looking for a University of Georgia professor who is a suspect in the shooting deaths of his ex-wife and two men outside a community theater in Athens, Georgia;
and three people, including a shooting suspect, are hospitalized after a shooting inside a dorm early this morning at Hampton University in Virginia - none were students.
North Korea does not appear to be at the stage of test-firing its long-range missile in a day or two, despite recent news reports, as few concrete signs indicating an imminent launch have been detected, sources in Seoul said Monday.
Some foreign news services reported over the weekend that North Korea seems to have finished fueling a long-range ballistic missile increasing the possibility it will go ahead with its first important test-launch in eight years.
But military and intelligence sources here said there is no solid evidence yet that leads the South Korean government to a hasty conclusion North Korea has completed fueling the missile and would test-fire it soon.
Officials in Seoul have kept a cautious attitude toward the possible provocation by North Korea, while staying coolheaded toward the foreign news reports which quoted unnamed officials in Washington and Tokyo.
“This is the first time I've investigated a case in which a prosecutor forced a witness to lie,” said the official, Kim Tae-hyeon.
Kim said the prosecutor in question, Baek Yong-ha, and other prosecutors in the chain of command at the Seoul Eastern District Prosecutors Office will be questioned.
“A rookie prosecutor was assigned to a serious case, and I will investigate whether he properly reported his actions,” Kim said.
“Those commanding the investigation are responsible for properly supervising their investigators.”
On Monday, Kang Jeong-hwa, a 47-year-old businesswoman, filed a petition to the National Human Rights Commission and to prosecutors, claiming a prosecutor had coerced another witness to frame her.
Kang was questioned last year in an alleged influence-peddling case involving the JU Group, the nation’s largest multi-level marketing firm.
Kim said the prosecutor in question, Baek Yong-ha, and other prosecutors in the chain of command at the Seoul Eastern District Prosecutors Office will be questioned.
A 16-year-old Palestinian boy with a suicide bomb vest strapped to his body was caught at a crowded West Bank checkpoint Wednesday, setting off a tense encounter with Israeli soldiers whom the army said he was sent to kill.
The soldiers, taking cover behind concrete barriers, sent a yellow army robot to bring scissors to the teenager so he could cut off the vest.
They then made him strip to his underwear to ensure he was unarmed before detaining him.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the latest in a series of foiled attacks on Israel by Palestinian youths.
They then made him strip to his underwear to ensure he was unarmed before detaining him.
Zimbabwe´s opposition leader says his party came close to an agreement with the ruling Zanu-PF to remove President Robert Mugabe from power.
Morgan Tsvangirai said his MDC party was approached by presidential envoys about a possible unity government the day after the disputed election.
The talks broke down after a few days, Tsvangirai told the BBC.
He has also called on South African President Thabo Mbeki to stand down as a mediator in the crisis.
Mbeki should be replaced by Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa, he said.
Meanwhile, South Africa has said it won´t stop a shipment of weapons from China being transported across its territory to Zimbabwe.
Another world title for singer Rain _ this time, he was crowned as one of People Magazine’s ``100 Most Beautiful 2007.’
’The 25-year-old ``world star’’ is the first Korean singer to be named on the publication’s almost two-decade long annual list of celebrities worldwide who have performed exceptionally in their given fields.
Interviews with 100 stars spotlighted this year will be included in the magazine’s edition to hit U.S. newsstands on Friday.The list is put together not by vote, but through the publication’s internal evaluation of renowned stars.
Rain was interviewed by the U.S. magazine mid-March.
1 spot on the list is Drew Barrymore.
The 32-year-old told the magazine, ``I just think happiness is what makes you pretty.
They become like a mirror and they reflect that happiness.’
’ Other list-makers include Scarlett Johansson, Mathew McConaughey, Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, Halle Berry, Julia Roberts, Jennifer Lopez and Wentworth Miller.” Another world title for singer Rain _ this time, he was crowned as one of People Magazine’s ``100 Most Beautiful 2007.’
’The 25-year-old ``world star’’ is the first Korean singer to be named on the publication’s almost two-decade long annual list of celebrities worldwide who have performed exceptionally in their given fields.
Federal Reserve would cut a key interest rate, analysts said.
The local currency rose against the U.S. dollar.
The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) jumped 42.87 points, or 2.34 percent, to 1,877.56.
Volume was moderate at 341.2 million shares worth 6.35 trillion won, with gainers outpacing losers 570 to 232.
Federal Reserve would cut a key interest rate, analysts said.
The Paris leg of the Olympic torch relay has been cut short following anti-Chinese protests along the route.
Security officials extinguished the torch at least three times due to the protests before it was carried on a bus to the relay´s end point.
It comes after 37 people were arrested in London as protesters disrupted the torch relay there on Sunday.
The Olympic flame is being carried through 20 countries before arriving for the Beijing Games in August.
The Paris relay started to go wrong almost from the start, despite the presence of 3,000 police along the route, riding motorcycles, jogging or on skates.
A member of the French Green party was restrained by police after attempting to grab the torch from the first of Paris´s 80 torch bearers, former world 400 metres hurdles champion Stephane Diagana.
One of the alleged victims in that case may testify tomorrow.
Lindsay Lohan is also talking publicly about her relationship with Samantha Ronson.
She says the two have been dating a very long time.
Two former co-defendants are expected to take the stand today at O.J.
Simpson's robbery and kidnapping trial in Las Vegas.
Thai police detained 175 North Koreans at an immigration office in Bangkok on Tuesday and most of them want to come to South Korea, wire news services reported on Wednesday.
Aside from the 175, 95 other North Koreans are either already in the custody of the immigration office, or at the U.S.
Embassy and NGOs there, Yonhap news agency reported. Around 30 of them hope to settle in the United States, according to a Korean resident in Bangkok.
In a related development, Ellen R. Sauerbrey, U.S. assistant secretary for the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration in the State Department, will visit Thailand next week to discuss the issue of North Korean refugees, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported.
Thai police detained 175 North Koreans at an immigration office in Bangkok on Tuesday and most of them want to come to South Korea, wire news services reported on Wednesday.
In a related development, Ellen R. Sauerbrey, U.S. assistant secretary for the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration in the State Department, will visit Thailand next week to discuss the issue of North Korean refugees, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported.
Over the weekend, a U.N. committee decided to call on nations to ban all forms of human cloning incompatible with respecting human dignity and protecting human life under apparent pressure from the Bush administration.
The decision will be referred to the U.N.
South Korea will continue its stem cell research despite the anti-cloning resolution of a U.N. committee, according to the Ministry of Health and Welfare Monday.
``It is just a non-binding declaration and we have no plan to review our policy of allowing therapeutic cloning,'' the ministry's manager Kim Heon-joo said.
Over the weekend, a U.N. committee decided to call on nations to ban all forms of human cloning incompatible with respecting human dignity and protecting human life under apparent pressure from the Bush administration.
The panel voted for the total prohibition by 71-35 with 43 nations, including many Islamic countries, abstaining.
The decision will be referred to the U.N.
Former President Kim Dae-jung is ready to play a role in the relationship with North Korea.
Moving to calm growing concerns here, Bush Administration Ambassador Christopher Hill stressed yesterday that American forces stationed in Korea will not be deployed unilaterally to handle regional conflicts outside the peninsula.
Moving to calm growing concerns here, Bush Administration Ambassador Christopher Hill stressed yesterday that American forces stationed in Korea will not be deployed unilaterally to handle regional conflicts outside the peninsula.
According to the Korea Herald, he said South Korea and the United States need to reach agreement on a Washington plan to transform American forces here into units that can be deployed quickly in regional conflicts.
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas called on Tuesday for his people to pursue negotiations instead of violence in the struggle for a state, marking out a change of strategy for peace with Israel after Yasser Arafat's death.
9 elections, spoke two days after militants showed their muscle with the deadliest raid on Israeli troops since May, and as a Palestinian policeman and a farmer at a Jewish settlement died in fresh Gaza violence.
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas called on Tuesday for his people to pursue negotiations instead of violence in the struggle for a state, marking out a change of strategy for peace with Israel after Yasser Arafat's death.
National Police Agency announced that female police officers will investigate victims of sexual violence.
Up to 60% capital gains taxes on multiple homeowners.
At least 22 people, including 5 Palestinian children, have died in Gaza´s worst day of fighting since Israeli incursions in early March.
A Hamas ambush in northern Gaza killed three Israeli troops, Israel´s highest daily loss in the area for 3 years.
That sparked Israeli air strikes near Bureij refugee camp, which Israel said targeted gunmen, but which left five children among 11 people killed.
At least 100 people were killed during operations launched by Israel in early March after Palestinian rocket attacks on its territory.
Since then, casualty figures had dwindled in Gaza with Egypt attempting to broker some sort of ceasefire.
Now the chances of that appear slimmer than ever.
Wednesday´s highest death-toll came when Israel launched air-strikes near the Bureij camp.
According to Hamas, Israeli helicopters launched four missiles.
Earlier, three Israeli soldiers were killed and three wounded when Hamas gunmen approached the security fence near the Nahal Oz crossing, Israel´s army said.
The deaths were Israel´s highest daily toll in the area since 2006.
US President George W Bush has urged Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to resume direct talks with Palestinians.
Bush said he believed a settlement could still be reached with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, and condemned the militant group Hamas.
However he told the visiting Olmert that his ""bold ideas"" on a unilateral West Bank pullout could be a key step.
Olmert said Israel reserved the right to leave while retaining major population centers if the talks failed.
Bush said he believed a negotiated settlement could still be reached between Israel and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
The US president made distinction between Abbas, who he said ""speaks out for peace"", and the militant group Hamas ""who does not"".
Hamas, which formed a government after winning parliamentary elections in January, does not recognize Israel and has rejected calls for a permanent end to violence.
The bodies of four U.S. soldiers have been found west of Baghdad.
It looks like insurgents killed the soldiers in an attack, but it's not clear when.
The military hasn't commented on the soldiers' deaths.
Insurgents took witnesses to the bodies in Ramadi.
Parties opened fire Monday on Lee Myung-bak, presidential candidate of the main opposition Grand National Party (GNP), after his lawyer requested that a U.S. court delay the extradition of Lee´s business partner Kim Kyung-jun.
The Korea Times reports that Kim, once extradited, will face questioning on the allegations of business malfeasance, in the ``BBK financial fraud case.´´ The United New Democratic Party (UNDP) called the GNP deceptive, saying the major opposition party tried to prevent Kim from returning to Seoul while openly saying Lee has no connection with the BBK case.
UNDP Chairman Oh Chung-il said, ``Lee has no qualification to be the president because he has suspicion after suspicion.´´ Oh urged Lee to bring Kim back to Seoul so that he can reveal the truth.
The UNDP alleges Lee was involved with Kim´s manipulation of the stock price of investment company BBK, something the GNP denies.
Representative Park Young-sun of the UNDP, a confidant of the party´s presidential candidate Chung Dong-young, beefed up the attack on Lee, claiming that Lee laundered money through an offshore fund called MAF.
The government appears to be moving to tighten up controls that will make the Internet in Korea less anonymous.
The National Assembly approved late last month new legislation on information security.
A report released by the Information Ministry said government and large private Web sites will be required, beginning in July, to include ways to track all posters on those sites by their national identity number.
Despite the emphasis on personal privacy here in some respects, many Web sites here already require users to register with that national ID number, which is checked against the government database of names and numbers.
But on some sites, comments posted in response to a new topic or a news report can still be posted anonymously.
A report released by the Information Ministry said government and large private Web sites will be required, beginning in July, to include ways to track all posters on those sites by their national identity number.
A key aide to President Roh Moo-hyun says the two Koreas may be able to discuss holding a summit after mid-April depending on the North's implementation of initial steps to abandon its nuclear programs.
“The North-South summit and the six-party talks go side by side, and after the initial steps are completed in mid-April, it is possible to consider and discuss the summit,” Former Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan told reporters in Beijing Saturday after he returned from Pyongyang.
He was referring to the April 14 deadline for North Korea to shut down its key nuclear reactor in exchange for energy under a six-nation accord in Beijing on Feb.
North Korean officials raised no particular objection to the idea.
Lee, Roh's special political adviser and a lawmaker of the Uri Party, met the North's No.
“The North-South summit and the six-party talks go side by side, and after the initial steps are completed in mid-April, it is possible to consider and discuss the summit,” Former Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan told reporters in Beijing Saturday after he returned from Pyongyang.
The regulatory change, effective today, reverses the earlier standard that allowed only secondary listings here for companies whose shares were traded on at least one other exchange.
The service said it hoped the revision would attract more foreign companies to the Seoul exchanges and boost the development of securities markets here.
he chief South Korean and U.S. negotiators plodded on, trying to conclude free trade agreement negotiations on their second of three days of informal talks in Washington D.C.
Korea's chief negotiator, Kim Jong-hoon, and his U.S. counterpart, Wendy Cutler, opened high-level talks to minimize “as many differences as possible.”
Those issues include automobiles, agricultural goods, textiles, pharmaceuticals and easing of U.S. trade rules.
Seoul and Washington still have to narrow differences in ”a lot of areas,” a spokesman said during a news briefing in Washington, D.C.
The official said the trade minister-level talks scheduled to take place in Seoul as of March 26 will cover all outstanding issues.
Korea's chief negotiator, Kim Jong-hoon, and his U.S. counterpart, Wendy Cutler, opened high-level talks to minimize “as many differences as possible.”
Overcoming opposition from leftists angered by his support for the U.S.-led war in Iraq, the new president-elect of the European Union's top office said yesterday he would move quickly to assert power in Brussels and mend ties with Washington.
Former Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Manuel Barroso was elected president of the European Commission on Thursday by a European Parliament vote of 413 to 251, with 44 abstentions.
Barroso, who traveled a path from Maoist student activist in the 1970s to prime minister of a conservative government and a supporter of the war in Iraq, has promised to lead the commission with a strong hand.
Iraq's interim government voiced confidence Monday that an election scheduled for Jan.
""The government is determined that the security arrangements allow for elections to take place across the whole country, and that all Iraqi citizens can vote,"" Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said in a statement after officials set the date Sunday.
Security Council resolution earlier this year.
Asia’s top oil importers join forces to eliminate the premium added to their purchases from the Middle East.
Swine flu has broken out in New York City's Rikers Island.
An inmate at the jail has the virus, but officials say his condition is not serious.
Some 70 people who have come into contact with the inmate have been examined; Tomorrow is the 55th anniversary of Brown vs.
Board of Education, the landmark Supreme Court civil rights decision that declared school segregation illegal.
The Reverend Al Sharpton says now, more than a half-century later, too many schools still are not providing a quality education:
“ There must be a commitment in this country for equal education for all American young people.
” Russia's prime minister is turning into something of a one-man car commercial:
They say he was put in jail about a month ago.
Tomorrow is the 55th anniversary of Brown vs. Board of Education, the landmark Supreme Court civil rights decision that declared school segregation illegal.
“ There must be a commitment in this country for equal education for all American young people.
Presidential candidates on Friday headed for South Korea´s central region, which has traditionally provided a key swing vote, as the campaigns underdogs struggled to challenge the conservative frontrunner, who is extending his lead ahead of the Dec.
Lee Myung-bak of the main opposition Grand National Party planned his campaign tour at Daejeon and its surrounding Chungcheong provinces amid strong indications in the polls that he will comfortably win the election.
His lead, with around 40 percent of support, solidified this week when the Seoul prosecution cleared him of long-held allegations of involvement in a financial fraud while indicting his former business partner for stock manipulation and embezzlement.
The legal announcement has led to a slew of political and cultural dignitaries declaring their support for the former Seoul mayor.
Kim Jong-pil, a former opposition leader and prime minister whose political turf is the central region, was the latest heavyweight throwing support behind Lee on Thursday.
Presidential candidates on Friday headed for South Korea´s central region, which has traditionally provided a key swing vote, as the campaigns underdogs struggled to challenge the conservative frontrunner, who is extending his lead ahead of the Dec.
The leaders of North and South Korea have signed a joint declaration calling for a permanent peace deal on the Korean Peninsula.
South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun and the North´s Kim Jong-il issued the declaration after a three-day historic summit in Pyongyang.
They called for international talks on a treaty to replace the armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War.
The agreement came a day after the North agreed to end its nuclear plans.
Officials involved in separate, international talks aimed at ending North Korea´s nuclear program confirmed that Pyongyang had committed to a timetable to disable its nuclear facilities.
Presidents Roh and Kim shook hands and drank a toast after they signed the eight-point declaration. The agreement stated:
“The South and North share the view that they should end the current armistice system and build up a permanent peace system.”
It called for leaders of nations concerned to meet on the Korean Peninsula and agree an end to the 1950-1953 war.
Any such talks would probably involve the US and China which, along with North Korea, signed the armistice that ended the war.
South Korea did not sign and remains technically at war with the North.
The two sides also agreed to resume freight rail services across the heavily fortified border for the first time in more than five decades.
And the North Korean leader used the occasion to quash speculation that he was suffering from ill health saying ”South Korean media reported that I have diabetes and even heart disease, but the fact is that is not the case at all.”
The summit is only the second between leaders of the two nations.
The agreement stated:
And the North Korean leader used the occasion to quash speculation that he was suffering from ill health saying ”South Korean media reported that I have diabetes and even heart disease, but the fact is that is not the case at all.”
John Kerry collected the U.S.Democratic presidential nomination late Wednesday in a convention held in the city that nurtured his political career for nearly a quarter-century.
Kerry, a four-term Massachusetts senator, was in his hotel across town when convention delegates formally bestowed the prize he won in a series of primaries and caucuses last winter and spring.
Kerry challenged Bush over the war in Iraq.
he Fair Trade Commission said it asked the prosecution to start a criminal investigation into two multilevel marketing firms preying on college students.
The antitrust watchdog ordered the two companies that engaged in MLM without proper registration, MYD and UB City One, to stop their marketing activities and submitted the cases to the prosecution.
It also warned two more companies to correct their violation of MLM regulations.
The probe on these four firms showed that most multilevel salespersons are jobseekers in their 20s or college students, according to the watchdog.
The antitrust watchdog ordered the two companies that engaged in MLM without proper registration, MYD and UB City One, to stop their marketing activities and submitted the cases to the prosecution.
Two suicide bombings in Iraq have killed at least 78 people, making this the deadliest day of the year in that country.
A Florida pharmacy is taking blame for killing 21 polo horses over the weekend.
An official says the business incorrectly prepared a supplement that was given to the horses.
Law enforcement officials say the man accused in the 'Craigslist killing' had items belonging to the victim in his Boston apartment.
ABC News is reporting those items include the victim's underwear.
A South Carolina woman says she sees an image of Jesus in her grilled cheese.
Her son tried to sell it on eBay but the picture would not upload.
She keeps the toast in a Tupperware container in her bedroom.
Myra Lopez, The Associated Press with AP News Minute.
Law enforcement officials say the man accused in the 'Craigslist killing' had items belonging to the victim in his Boston apartment.
Meanwhile, the Korea Herald reports the Grand National Party's sweep of elections on Wednesday left local bodies, both executive and legislative, devoid of Uri representation in Seoul.
On top of winning the mayor's post, the GNP clinched the entire 25 ward leadership and 96 seats in the city council up for grabs.
Six out of 10 council seats that were reserved for proportional representation also went to the GNP candidates.
The ruling Uri Party managed to get only two seats by proportional representation and the small opposition Democratic Party and Democractic Labor Party each got one seat.
Across the country, the GNP's capture of administrative posts and council seats was overwhelming, so much so that some people expressed concern that the democratic principle of checks and balances could be undermined by a one-party rule.
On top of winning the mayor's post, the GNP clinched the entire 25 ward leadership and 96 seats in the city council up for grabs.
The Illinois House impeachment committee gets back to work next hour, planning to hear from the first witnesses against the governor accused of corruption today.
“Ed Jensen, the attorney for embattled Illinois governor Rob Blagojevich, is not happy with the state legislature's impeachment process.”
“This is Alice in Wonderland!”
“The state Representative Bill Black made it clear they have their own rules.”
“We are not here to find Rob Blagojevich guilty of crimes beyond a reasonable doubt.
That is not what the impeachment article of the Illinois Constitution is about.”
“The state Supreme Court gave the governor a big victory when it turned down the Attorney General's request to declare Blagojevich unfit to serve.
Mark Carlson, Springfield, Illinois.
Breaking news from Washington:
the Bill Clinton Foundation has just disclosed tens of millions of dollars in foreign government donations;
Clinton agreeing to that to help Hillary Clinton become Secretary of State.
Japan´s Antarctic fleet has resumed illegal commercial whaling after anti-hunt activists suspended their pursuit of the vessels in the Southern Ocean to refuel.
Media reports say an Australian customs vessel saw five whales being harpooned and hauled on to a Japanese ship.
The Japanese fleet had stopped hunting for three weeks while it was pursued in Antarctic waters by the environmental activists.
Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith held talks with his Japanese counterpart in Tokyo on the issue.
A ministry spokesman said Smith had “expressed disappointment that whaling had resumed in the Southern Ocean”.
He also ”conveyed the Australian government´s strongly held view that Japan´s whaling program should cease”.
Japan claims to be hunting the whales for ‘scientific purposes’ but the whale meat invariably is consumed in expensive Japanese restaurants.
Japan has become a major target of environmental groups over this issue but remains intransigent on the issue.
Alaska Governor Sarah Palin says she has been hurt by anonymous Republican campaign sources, who are said to have told Fox News that she didn't know Africa was a continent, not a country, and she could not name the three countries in the North American Free Trade Agreement.
The Alaska Governor insists she never asked for the tens of thousands of dollars in designer clothing and accessories bought for her by the Republican National Committee during the campaign.
One of Osama Bin Laden's sons has been denied asylum by Spain.
Omar Osama Bin Laden and his British-born wife have left Spain on a commercial flight bound for Egypt.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has arrived in China for a three-day visit aimed at improving the strained relations between the two countries.
Singh will meet President Hu Jintao as well as Prime Minister Wen Jiabao and the Communist Party´s second highest leader, Wu Bangguo.
Their talks are expected to focus on territorial disputes and increasing bilateral trade, worth $37bn (?
South Korea and the Southeast Asian trade bloc agreed Tuesday to commence negotiations for a bilateral free trade agreement (FTA) starting early 2005, with the goal of finishing the task within two years.
The Korea Times reports that in a summit meeting in the Laotian capital, President Roh Moo-hyun and leaders of the 10 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) signed the ``Joint Declaration on Comprehensive Cooperation Partnership Between South Korea And ASEAN,'' which focuses on economic cooperation between the two sides.
Iran has no relinguished its right to the nuclear fuel cycle and never will do.
North Korea's Foreign Ministry announced late yesterday evening that the six-party talks, initially scheduled to resume this week, could resume in the week of Sept.
North Korea's Foreign Ministry announced late yesterday evening that the six-party talks, initially scheduled to resume this week, could resume in the week of Sept.
An unidentified spokesman of the North's Foreign Ministry was quoted by the North's state-run Korea Central News Agency as saying, ""Our position is to resume the second stage of six-way talks during the week of September 12, when some of the dust of the war exercise has subsided.
A list of pro-Japanese collaborators released.
North and South Korea saw significant progress in bilateral relations last year with an agreement to actively promote lasting peace on the peninsula.
But efforts to ease military tension remain sluggish due to the North's lackluster response.
Three bilateral ministerial talks and many working-level talks substantially moved forward inter-Korean ties.
South Korea established its first-ever permanent joint governmental office for economic cooperation in the North's border town of Gaeseong.
Both sides also adopted a new style for reunion of the separated families via video and pursued to hold them on a regular basis.
South Korea established its first-ever permanent joint governmental office for economic cooperation in the North's border town of Gaeseong.
The Constitutional Court on Thursday ruled the government's plan to move the capital is unconstitutional, putting the brakes on the relocation project pursued by the Roh Moo-hyun government as a key item on the national agenda.
The Korea Times reports only one justice, Chun Hyo-sook, dismissed the petition.
Chong Wa Dae and residents of the Chungchong provinces were at a loss as the ruling camp held emergency meetings to prepare for the fallout. The Constitutional Court on Thursday ruled the government's plan to move the capital is unconstitutional, putting the brakes on the relocation project pursued by the Roh Moo-hyun government as a key item on the national agenda.
Upsetting expectations, eight of the court's nine-member panel ruled in favor of the 169 citizens who filed the petition in July against the special law that paved the way for the government to move the capital to the Yongi-Kongju region in South Chungchong Province.
The Korea Times reports only one justice, Chun Hyo-sook, dismissed the petition.
The ruling, broadcast live, was met by mixed reactions as Seoul City and the opposition Grand National Party (GNP) hailed the judgment.
Chong Wa Dae and residents of the Chungchong provinces were at a loss as the ruling camp held emergency meetings to prepare for the fallout.
The Korea Times reports the nation’s household debts surged to an all-time high of 458 trillion won in June, up from 450.4 trillion won in March as banks increased consumer lending again during the second quarter of the year.
The Korea Times reports the nation’s household debts surged to an all-time high of 458 trillion won in June, up from 450.4 trillion won in March as banks increased consumer lending again during the second quarter of the year.
The amount is equivalent to 64 percent of the nation’s gross national income (GNI), which topped 720 trillion won in 2003.
The crew of the Dongwon-ho 628 comprises nine Indonesians, eight South Koreans, five Vietnamese and three Chinese.
The boat was 100km (60 miles) off the Somali coast, when it was attacked on Tuesday.
The BBC reports pirates have seized a South Korean fishing boat off the coast of Somalia - the latest in a series of such attacks.
The Dongwon-ho 628, with a crew of 25, was fishing with two other South Korean boats in international waters, when two speedboats landed attackers on board.
US and Dutch naval ships gave chase, but held off when they saw the South Korean crew threatened with guns.
The boat is now in Somali territorial waters, but the Dongwon company says the crew is reported safe.
South Korea's Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday that eight attackers had boarded the 361-tonne vessel.
The Korea Times reports Seoul City and the Walt Disney Company are discussing a plan to establish an amusement park at Seoul Grand Park in Kwachon, south of Seoul.
Officials from the U.S. entertainment giant recently visited City Hall in central Seoul for a workshop with related city officials to discuss details of the plan.
George W. Bush will renew constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.
The Seoul metropolitan government sued MBC television seeking 1.4 billion won.
As evidence of lingering political immaturity, a group of 23 lawmakers Tuesday deserted from the Uri Party, demoting the beleaguered party to second place in the National Assembly with 110 seats.
As a result, the main opposition Grand National Party, which controls 127 lawmakers, became the largest floor negotiating group in the 299-seat unicameral legislature.
In a press conference at the National Assembly, the deserters made public plans to form a floor negotiating group that will be the third largest in the parliament.
They said they would create a new party with ``reform-oriented political forces free from ideological disputes’ ahead of the Dec.
Their desertion will likely make President Roh Moo-hyun increasingly a lame duck as more lawmakers of the Uri Party are expected to quit the party and make it more difficult for Roh to push through his reform policies.
Centre-right candidate Nicolas Sarkozy will face Socialist Segolene Royal in the run-off of France’s presidential election on 6 May, results indicate.
With most votes counted in Sunday’s first round, Sarkozy had nearly 31%, with Royal, bidding to be France’s first woman president, on 25%.
Voting throughout the day reached record numbers, with turnout put at 85% - the highest in nearly 50 years.
Voters turned out in such high numbers that authorities decided to allow more time for people who were still queuing.
Of the main candidates, Sarkozy, a former interior minister, promised a “rupture” with the past and real economic reform, while Royal has pledged a fairer society.
Both are controversial figures who have divided the French.
South Korea's Ban Ki Moon has taken over as secretary general of the United Nations - the first Asian to hold the post in 35 years.
The former South Korean foreign minister is the organization’s eighth leader and succeeds Kofi Annan, who was at the helm for 10 years.
Ban faces a number of global crises as well as reform of the UN itself.
He has vowed to be a bridge-builder and a harmoniser and to set the highest ethical standards.
One key challenge the new secretary general inherits from Annan is trying to get the Sudanese government to accept a joint UN-African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur.
South Korea's Ban Ki Moon has taken over as secretary general of the United Nations - the first Asian to hold the post in 35 years.
The former South Korean foreign minister is the organization’s eighth leader and succeeds Kofi Annan, who was at the helm for 10 years.
The US is leading a drive for greater reform of the UN and analysts say Washington will expect Ban to deliver, having strongly backed his candidacy.
Delegates at the six-party North Korea talks have reached a tentative deal, the US nuclear negotiator has said.
His comments followed late-night meetings on what was meant to be the last day of the talks in Beijing.
If approved, a deal would be a significant step forward in a process stalled since September 2005.
Reports suggest North Korea is seeking large-scale deliveries of heavy fuel oil in return for shutting down its Yongbyon nuclear reactor.
Delegates at the six-party North Korea talks have reached a tentative deal, the US nuclear negotiator has said.
But negotiations faltered over the amount of energy aid the North was demanding in exchange for disarming.
A fleet of 100 ships has been fighting to contain the 10,000-ton spill, but emergency workers have been unable to prevent the oil washing ashore.
Earlier the Hebei Spirit, the tanker which was hit by a barge and holed, causing the spill, was finally sealed.
The 17km slick threatens wildlife and valuable sea farms.
The South Korean government has declared a “state of disaster” along a stretch of coastline affected by the country´s worst-ever oil spill.
San Francisco police combed the city´s zoo on Wednesday for clues as to how a tiger escaped from its enclosure on Christmas and killed a teenager and wounded two others.
Police told a news conference at the zoo that they were now treating the zoo as a crime scene, indicating they were investigating whether someone might have let the tiger out of its exhibit.
Police are also looking into whether the tiger had been taunted.
Zoo spokeswoman Lora LaMarca said zoo officials could not comment on how the 9-year-old Siberian tiger named Tatiana had managed to get out of its habitat a grotto surrounded by a moat and high wall.
San Francisco police identified the victim of the fatal attack as a 17-year-old boy from San Jose, California.
He was pronounced dead at the scene.
The two injured men, 19 and 23 year-old brothers from San Jose, were reported in stable condition at a San Francisco hospital.
Police alerted to Tuesday´s attack shot and killed the tiger after they shouted to try to divert its attention from one of the victims on the ground and it turned towards them.
The zoo made safety upgrades and recently resumed the public feedings.
San Francisco police combed the city´s zoo on Wednesday for clues as to how a tiger escaped from its enclosure on Christmas and killed a teenager and wounded two others.
Zoo spokeswoman Lora LaMarca said zoo officials could not comment on how the 9-year-old Siberian tiger named Tatiana had managed to get out of its habitat
A fiery head-scratcher in Southern California, where we still don't know how many homes have been destroyed by a wildfire near Santa Barbara.
We do know more could be in danger:
more than 13,000 people have been told to evacuate, but Daniel Najera, Najera, that is, just doesn't want to leave his family home of decades:
“ The sheriff showed up yesterday and said it was a mandatory evacuation, but they couldn't take us out by force, so we decided to stay and save the house.”
Firefighters are bracing for another day of hot temperatures and gusty winds.
The US president and Australian prime minister have reaffirmed their alliance in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan after talks at the White House.
Australia's John Howard told President George W Bush Canberra was committed to supporting a lengthy war on terror.
Bush said he appreciated Howard's commitment of Australian troops in Iraq even as times got tough.
The Justice Ministry said yesterday in a release that it will defer making a decision on either hot-button issue in its National Action Plan.
Despite recommendations from the National Human Rights Commission that the country’s death penalty and the anti-North Korea National Security Law should both be abolished, that is not going to happen.
The Justice Ministry said yesterday in a release that it will defer making a decision on either hot-button issue in its National Action Plan.
The law required her to live on the land, but she allegedly never did so.
South Korean Finance Minister Lee Hun-jai has resigned from his job after heavy criticism of an allegedly illegal land transaction by his wife.
Lee, who is also the deputy prime minister, said he was stepping down because the controversy was damaging the credibility of the government.
His wife, Jin Jin-sook, is said to have made a profit of more than 6 billion won buying and selling farm land.
The U.S. is not considering bilateral contact with North Korea.
Would Hillary Clinton visit North Korea?
The union said that its affiliated workers approved a strike vote by 95 percent Monday and more than 300 members occupied the bank's lobby, beginning at 9 p.m.
If there is no breakthrough in negotiations, the labor protest will continue indefinitely, union members said.
The Citibank union wants management to match the pay and working conditions of KorAm bank employees and the same right to labor union activities.
The Korea Herald reports Labor union members at Citibank's Seoul branch staged a strike yesterday, demanding equal treatment with KorAm Bank employees after the two complete a merger scheduled for next month.
The Citibank union wants management to match the pay and working conditions of KorAm bank employees and the same right to labor union activities.
He said market principles play an important role in the formulation of economic policies under the current administration.
Deputy Prime Minister and Finance-Economy Minster Lee Hun-jai on Wednesday described the Roh Moo-hyun administration as center-right since it promotes the market economy and social integration.
The Korea Times reports Lee said in economic policies, President Roh is more conservative than U.S. Democratic presidential contender John Kerry but more progressive than President George Bush.
In a forum arranged by broadcasters at the Lexington Hotel in Yoido yesterday, Lee dismissed the view that Roh's policies tend to focus more on the redistribution of wealth than on economic growth.
He said market principles play an important role in the formulation of economic policies under the current administration.
The Court sentenced Min to three and a half years in prison.
Family members of a Korean-American businessman, indicted in South Korea in a financial scandal he claimed involved the country´s front-running presidential candidate, suddenly canceled a news conference Wednesday that they said they would provide proof of the candidate´s guilt.
The sister and wife of Kim Kyung-joon announced an hour and half before the scheduled news conference that they are canceling their appearance.
In a notice posted at the venue of the conference, they said they apologize.
They did not give any details explaining their decision and could not be contacted.
In Seoul, after a month-long investigation, prosecutors indicted Kim for rigging shares and embezzling some US$35 million in corporate funds in 2001.
Kim was a former business partner with Lee Myung-bak, the South Korean opposition´s presidential candidate, who has a big lead in the upcoming Dec.
Without consulting its members, the labor union representing workers at Hyundai Motor Co.
The decision came after the union’s umbrella group, the Korean Metal Workers’ Union, announced that it would ignore the normal voting process and proceed with a walkout aimed at protesting against ratification of the agreement.
The Hyundai union had planned to consult its members through a ballot prior to the work action, but walked away from the plan.
The work stoppage could turn out to be illegal, experts say, because Korean labor law stipulates that “any type of labor conflict by unionists is banned unless it is based on the results of a direct or secret ballot by more than half of the members.”
The bodies of 6,000 people, most of whom died violently, have been received by Baghdad's main mortuary so far this year, health ministry figures show.
The number has risen every month, to 1,400 in May.
Meanwhile police said nine severed heads were found near Baquba to the north of Baghdad - days after a similar discovery there.
In another development, Iraq's prime minister says he plans to release 2,500 prisoners.
Maliki hopes that by announcing such a large release in one go it will help win over more members of the Sunni community and undermine support for the insurgency.
The bodies of 6,000 people, most of whom died violently, have been received by Baghdad's main mortuary so far this year, health ministry figures show.
The majority are believed to be victims of sectarian killings.
In another development, Iraq's prime minister says he plans to release 2,500 prisoners.
Where is the missing Indonesian plane?
Indonesian military ships and aircraft have been searching for a passenger plane that went missing on Wednesday.
The plane, carrying 102 people, went out of contact as it was flying from Java to northern Sulawesi.
Transport minister Hatta Radjasa admitted late on Tuesday that the reports of a crash site, bodies and survivors were based on incorrect rumors from local villagers.
Korea's global competitiveness dropped five notches over the past year, due mainly to government inefficiency, a report showed yesterday.
According to the report compiled annually by the World Economic Forum, Korea's competitiveness index slipped to 24th place from the previous year's 19th place among 125 countries.
The forum attributed the drop to inefficiency by the government.
Korea ranked 47th in the public sector, down from 38th a year earlier, the report showed.
“The country has already reached world-class levels in certain areas.
However, Korea continues to be held back by institutional weaknesses, both public and private,” the forum reported on its Web site.
Korea's Finance Ministry expressed its discontent with the report, saying the survey was conducted earlier this year when the country's economy was faced with some negative conditions, such as high oil prices and a firmer won versus the U.S. dollar.
Korea showed weak performance by ranking 114th in labor relations, 95th in caps on foreigners' investment in the stock market and 85th in bureaucratic processes needed for business startups.
South Korea is not opposed to American forces playing a greater role in Northeast Asia unless it means a weakening of the combined defense posture to keep peace and stability on the Korean peninsula, Seoul’s top diplomat said Monday.
Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon’s remarks are seen as a further step over the controversy about the future status and role of the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK), stationed here for more than half a century to deter any aggression from North Korea after the 1950-53 Korean War.
South Korean troops take over patrol duties at the JSA in DMZ.
Dozens of gay couples rushed to tie the knot at chapels, parks and beaches across Massachusetts on Thursday as the end of the three-day waiting period under state matrimonial law led to a marathon of same-sex weddings.
Massachusetts law establishes a three-day waiting period between applying for a marriage license and getting married.
However, dozens of couples obtained a court waiver of the waiting period and got married promptly after Massachusetts on Monday became the first state to allow same-sex couples to wed.
The new round of nuptials came as Gov. Mitt Romney took the first steps toward blocking town clerks from issuing licenses to out-of-state gay couples, which the Republican governor claims is prohibited by state law.
President Roh calls on a “cooperative self-defense” system.
˝The Korea Times reports the prosecution plans to summon a top policy planner for President Roh Moo-hyun, who resigned Monday for apparently lying about his relationship with a 35-year-old degree falsifier and a former professor of Dongguk University in Seoul.
Immediately upon arrival from Sydney where he attended the annual APEC forum Monday morning, Roh accepted the resignation of 58-year-old Byeon Yang-kyoon, the senior presidential secretary for policy planning.
Byeon was alleged to have peddled his influence to protect Shin Jeong-ah, who had worked as an art curator.
The two met frequently as alumni of Yale University although Shin is not a graduate of the prestigious American university.
Roh asked Jeon Hae-cheol, senior presidential secretary for civil affairs, to accept the resignation so that prosecutors could investigate Byeon.
The President gave the instruction after he received a report that Byeon protected Shin who has been at the center of a recent fake degree scandal.˝
Immediately upon arrival from Sydney where he attended the annual APEC forum Monday morning, Roh accepted the resignation of 58-year-old Byeon Yang-kyoon, the senior presidential secretary for policy planning.
The death toll is the highest for US personnel in a single attack in Iraq since April 10th.
“ At this point there's almost been a media blackout on this, and it appears as though the Pentagon is really taking the lead on presenting information.”
Christopher Hill, the United States' point man on North Korea, suggested on Tuesday that Washington opposes an inter-Korean tourism project at Mt.
But he apparently gave Seoul the nod to carry on constructing an industrial complex in Kaesong, another key project of South Korea's ”sunshine ” policy of economically engaging North Korea.
The Korea Times reports that after holding a meeting in Seoul with his counterparts Chun Yung-woo of South Korea and Alexander Alexeyev of Russia, Hill told reporters that he finds ”two very different kinds of projects ” are taking place on the Korean Peninsula.
Christopher Hill, the United States' point man on North Korea, suggested on Tuesday that Washington opposes an inter-Korean tourism project at Mt.
Kumgang by describing it a source of revenue for the Pyongyang regime.
Rudd promised a gradual withdrawal of the troops, but had been coy about setting a timetable for their return to Australia.
Australia, a close ally of the United States, was one of the first countries to commit troops to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, and Australia´s former conservative government had been a strong supporter of the U.S. mission in Iraq. About 550 Australian combat troops in Iraq should be withdrawn by about the middle of next year, Prime Minister-elect Kevin Rudd said on Friday, setting a broad timetable for the soldiers to return home.
Australia has about 1,500 troops in and around Iraq, but Rudd won power in Australia´s national election on November 24 with a promise to bring frontline forces home.
“The combat force in Iraq we would have home by around the middle of next year,” Rudd told Australian radio.
Rudd promised a gradual withdrawal of the troops, but had been coy about setting a timetable for their return to Australia.
The troops are based mainly in Iraq´s more peaceful south, where they help maintain security and train Iraqi forces.
Australia, a close ally of the United States, was one of the first countries to commit troops to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, and Australia´s former conservative government had been a strong supporter of the U.S. mission in Iraq.
Facebooking and Twittering your way through the Pentagon:
AP national security correspondent Sagar Meghani reports the military is getting into social networking, and not to share posts about how awesome or terrible“ Wolverine” is:
Lindy Kaiser's job is monitoring it, and to the army's blog, with the goal of reaching and hearing from the public:
”“ Because it's such a comfortable space for comment, we really try to make it an open forum.”
“ The other military services have their own online spots, from Twitter to YouTube to blogs.
Police say they found a vehicle that belongs to a former University of Georgia professor suspected of killing his wife and two other people last week.
Facebooking and Twittering your way through the Pentagon:
AP national security correspondent Sagar Meghani reports the military is getting into social networking, and not to share posts about how awesome or terrible“ Wolverine” is:
“ Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Arana heads the Army's Online and Social Media Division, which recently launched the Services' Facebook page.
Lindy Kaiser's job is monitoring it, and to the army's blog, with the goal of reaching and hearing from the public:
The Korea Times says concern over agflation, or agricultural inflation, is looming amid a surge in international grain prices.
Furthermore, rising food product prices are adding pressure on household economies.
The concern over the supply crunch and speculative buyers drove prices way up, according to analysts.
Kazakhstan, one of the main wheat exporters in the global market, plans to levy export tariffs on wheat to fight domestic inflation, joining Russia and Argentina in wheat export restrictions.
The Korea Times says concern over agflation, or agricultural inflation, is looming amid a surge in international grain prices.
Ten Burmese activists have been charged over last August´s fuel price protests which grew into countrywide anti-government demonstrations.
The activists - including prominent pro-democracy leader Min Ko Naing - are accused of making illegal statements.
They are expected to be tried behind closed doors at Rangoon´s Insein prison, where they have been held under emergency powers since the protests.
Rights groups say more than 700 people are still locked up after the protests.
But Burma´s military rulers have denied the claims.
Aung Thein, a lawyer for the opposition National League for Democracy, said it was not clear what statements they were accused of making.
But he said each of the protesters could be jailed for seven years.
“I am ready to defend them, but so far I have not been allowed to meet them,” he told AFP news agency.
They are expected to be tried behind closed doors at Rangoon´s Insein prison, where they have been held under emergency powers since the protests.
Weapons and explosives have been found in 11 Buddhist monasteries in the Tibetan-populated province of Gansu, according to China´s state media.
The items were discovered in the past two days in monasteries in the Gannan prefecture.
According to Xinhua, 94 people were injured during assaults, looting, arson and vandalism in Gannan in mid-March.
A violent uprising last month in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, quickly spilled over into neighbouring areas.
The local Gannan authorities told Xinhua that conditions had now returned to normal.
The second denuclearization step of disabling North Korea´s key nuclear facilities will commence this week with the visit of U.S. experts tomorrow.
The visit will be a follow-up to the trip made by a tri-national team of nuclear engineers last month.
The disablement works will take about 45 days to complete, according to sources.
The facilities include a five-megawatt nuclear reactor, a reprocessing plant and a fuel rod fabrication plant all located in Yongbyon.
A team of nuclear experts from the United States will survey the facilities and make a final decision on the method to disable them, the diplomatic sources said.
Quoting U.S. officials who were briefed on the talks, the Post reported Beijing was considering other measures to influence North Korea.
Christopher Hill, U.S. chief negotiator for the six-nation talks, proposed the idea of interrupting oil supplies at a meeting in Beijing, on effort 26 the report said.
Quoting U.S. officials who were briefed on the talks, the Post reported Beijing was considering other measures to influence North Korea.
Christopher Hill, U.S. chief negotiator for the six-nation talks, proposed the idea of interrupting oil supplies at a meeting in Beijing, on effort 26 the report said.
The financial world to Congress:
“We need something to hap…
We need a bit of confidence and a bit of clarity to come back into the financial sector now.”
London trader Gary Thomson as the Senate gets set to vote on a revised financial bailout package tonight.
Stocks opened sharply lower in New York as Wall Street waits for some news.
House Democratic Leader Steny Hoyer tells NBC's“ Today Show” both lawmakers and some angry taxpayers are starting to rethink their positions after seeing what happened to stocks with the no-vote in the House on Monday.
“See, the American public, I think, in the last uh, 48 hours has come to view this as something that affects them personally, they saw their 401K plan, for instance, very substantially reduced in value on Monday.
And the latest on Wall Street:
Dow down 175 points, that's a little more than one and a half percent.
The White House says President Bush is working the phones, looking for votes from lawmakers today.
Spokesman Tony Fratto says there's more evidence this morning of a credit squeeze on small businesses and municipalities all across the country.
The financial world to Congress:
We need a bit of confidence and a bit of clarity to come back into the financial sector now.”
“See, the American public, I think, in the last uh, 48 hours has come to view this as something that affects them personally, they saw their 401K plan, for instance, very substantially reduced in value on Monday.
South Korea is not as attractive as Thailand, Japan and most of other Asian countries as a tourist destination, a survey showed.
According to an online survey of 5,050 tourists from the United States, Japan, China, the United Kingdom and six other nations, South Korea ranked 10th among 14 Asian nations in the category of the most favored places to travel in the near future.
About 29 percent of the respondents picked South Korea as a place they intend to visit in two years.
Thailand placed first with 57 percent, followed by Hong Kong with 48 percent and Japan with 47 percent.
Visa Asia Pacific and the Pacific Area Travel Association (PATA) jointly conducted the online survey from Feb.
President Roh, Korea should be a stabilizer for East Asia.
At a graduation ceremony of the Korea Third Military Academy on Tuesday, Roh said Korea's new role was of a stabilizer for peace and prosperity not just on the Korean Peninsula, but in East Asia as a whole.
President Roh Moo-hyun said Tuesday the power structure in East Asia will shift depending on what choices Korea makes.
At a graduation ceremony of the Korea Third Military Academy on Tuesday, Roh said Korea's new role was of a stabilizer for peace and prosperity not just on the Korean Peninsula, but in East Asia as a whole.
""Korea will calculate and cooperate if need be, and move forward with its proper authority and responsibility,"" he said.
Undersea tourists and souvenir hunters are hastening the decay of the Titanic, says U.S. explorer Bob Ballard who discovered the world's most famous shipwreck nearly 20 years ago.
The count of homeless people in Seoul rose.
˝A team of UN nuclear inspectors will soon be allowed to visit a North Korean reactor at the centre of a key disarmament deal, reports say.
It will be the first international monitoring team to be given access to the Yongbyon reactor since 2002.
Analysts say the move shows the North Koreans are serious about a pledge to ””shut down and seal”” the reactor.
The Defense Ministry will look for volunteers among conscripts doing their mandatory military service and offer them one-year extensions of their military service at wages competitive with civilian jobs, a senior defense official said Sunday.
The plan will be tested in 2008, the official said, and will be implemented fully by 2011.
The budget implications of the plan could be large.
The military is already struggling to fund a program to modernize its equipment and war-fighting plans in preparation for the return of wartime military control of its armed forces from the U.S. military command in Korea.
The plan will be tested in 2008, the official said, and will be implemented fully by 2011.
˝Several thousand protesters opposed to Thailand´s military-run government have clashed with police in the capital, Bangkok.
The crowd staged a rally outside the house of Prem Tinsulanonda, a senior adviser to Thailand´s king.
The protesters say Prem was behind of bloodless coup which removed former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
Rocks and bottles of water were thrown at police, in the most violent demonstration since the 2006 coup.
Protesters, mostly supporters of the ousted Thaksin, have been holding nightly rallies in Bangkok since early June.˝
North Korea is likely to face intensified sanctions, albeit nonmilitary, if it once more defies international warnings and tests its nuclear arsenal, independent observers say.
Recent intelligence reports from Washington suggest Pyongyang may conduct another nuclear test in protest against the United Nations Security Council resolution passed after its first test on Oct.
The Korea Herald reports North Korea allegedly notified China of more tests, but Seoul has denied the reports.
””To our knowledge, North Korea has not given such information to Beijing,”” said Lee Kyu-hyung, South Korea's second vice foreign minister.
Experts predict that another test would cause U.N. member states to sharply shore up the level of sanctions outlined in the UNSC resolution.
North Korea is likely to face intensified sanctions, albeit nonmilitary, if it once more defies international warnings and tests its nuclear arsenal, independent observers say.
Recent intelligence reports from Washington suggest Pyongyang may conduct another nuclear test in protest against the United Nations Security Council resolution passed after its first test on Oct.
””To our knowledge, North Korea has not given such information to Beijing,”” said Lee Kyu-hyung, South Korea's second vice foreign minister.
A statewide moment of silence will be observed at 8:46 Eastern time.
Ceremonies will be held in New York City and Albany this year to commemorate the third anniversary of the September 11th attacks.
Parents and grandparents will read the names of victims at Ground Zero Saturday morning and the ""Tribute in Light"" will again shine at sundown.
There will also be four moments of silence to mark the times when each plane hit the towers and the times that each tower fell.
In Albany, a remembrance concert will be held at the Empire State Plaza.
A statewide moment of silence will be observed at 8:46 Eastern time.
Uri Chairman likely to resign under pressure.
Pakistan's Taliban chief claims responsibility for a deadly assault on a police academy, saying he wanted to retaliate for US missile attacks on militant bases bordering Afghanistan.
He's also promising to“ amaze everyone in the world” with an attack on Washington.
The FBI says it's heard such threats before, and says there's no indication anything is imminent.
As the computer virus is expected to ramp up efforts tomorrow, April Fool's Day, experts say the Conflicker worm is no joke.
It can hijack computers even without users noticing.
Computer security expert Mark Shavlick says he's got anti-virus software running:
“ Other products are turned off by this worm, so that's what makes it even scarier.
It turns off the well-known security products, so you have to double-check that they're running, and turn them back on or reinstall them.”
East Timor', should he step down?
East Timor's President Xanana Gusmao has threatened to resign unless Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri steps down.
The ultimatum follows Gusmao's request for Alkatiri quit, saying he had lost confidence in him.
But Alkatiri, who earlier met with ruling party officials to discuss his political future, appeared to have received the backing of his party. The prime minister is unpopular amongst East Timorese, many of whom blame him for failing to stop recent violence.
East Timor's President Xanana Gusmao has threatened to resign unless Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri steps down.
The U.S. military conducted a simulation training exercise for a preemptive nuclear attack on North Korea in 1998, according to U.S.
The declassified documents released by Rep.
Choi Sung of the ruling Uri Party on Sunday also say that the U.S. deployed strategic nuclear weapons to a U.S. base in Chunchon, Kangwon Province, in 1987.
Choi said he received the documents from the Nautilus Institute, a U.S.-based research group on Northeast Asian energy issues, which obtained the documents from the U.S. government through a Freedom of Information Act request.
Aging population results in the stagnant economic growth.
Presidential candidate Chung Dong-young of the United New Democratic Party (UNDP) said a strengthened Korea-U.S. alliance would be the focus of his foreign policy if he wins the election on December 19th.
In an exclusive interview with The Korea Times on the occasion of its 57th anniversary Sunday, the anchor-turned-candidate advocated the U.S.-centered foreign policy.
He said a more dynamic Seoul-Washington alliance was necessary to promote peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and to help improve the U.S.
He said in an unwavering tone that the U.S. troops in Korea should remain stationed here as a stabilizing influence in Northeast Asia.
Chung said the time has come for the two countries to chart a more future-oriented dynamic alliance. He added that the alliance was not maintained only by rhetoric, saying it will be maintained and strengthened only when the two sides have mutual trust and confidence and transparency in sharing information.
He said a more dynamic Seoul-Washington alliance was necessary to promote peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and to help improve the U.S.
Pyongyang's list included television sets, blackboards, desks and chairs, according to the Korea Times.
North Korea on Tuesday asked South Korea to provide heavy equipment and construction materials for its effort to rebuild Ryongchon, its northern town that was devastated by a huge explosion last week.
In the inter-Korean meeting held at the North Korean city of Kaesong, however, Pyongyang turned down Seoul's offer to dispatch engineers and transport relief goods by land.
Pyongyang's list included television sets, blackboards, desks and chairs, according to the Korea Times.
A Major labor group, to stage strikes in Jun if their demand not accepted during negotiations.
Half of the Korean minor manufacturers plans to relocate their plants abroad within 2 years.
Half of voters expect the main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) to break up before the Dec.
The poll of 1,000 people, conducted by The Korea Times and its sister paper the Hankook Ilbo, showed that 50 percent of the respondents said the GNP will be divided into two groups, one led by former party Chairwoman Park Geun-hye and the other by former Seoul Mayor Lee Myung-bak.
However, about 32 percent predicted the GNP will successfully select one presidential standard-bearer to run in the election.
The poll showed that under whatever circumstances and scenarios, the former Seoul mayor would win the election if it was held today.
Barack Obama, the First 100 Days - Our series continues this morning with a reality check on all the expectations for the new administration.
To hear Norm Ornstein tell it, we're lucky to have President Barack Obama.
Ornstein is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
He thinks Obama's smart and flexible.
Rita Foley, Washington.
Getting back to the unemployment situation, Microsoft says it's cutting 5,000 jobs of the next 18 months, after reporting an 11% drop in 2nd quarter profits.
Total revenues are up, but profits slipped because of weakness in the PC market.
We've got a president who has more promise as he enters office…
Ornstein is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
He thinks Obama's smart and flexible.
South Korean companies called on the government Thursday to push for the early lowering of the European Union´s (EU) import duties on cars and electronic goods at free trade talks scheduled for next week.
Representatives from such industry umbrella groups as the Korea Automobile Manufacturers Association (KAMA) and the Korea Display Industry Association (KDIA) said it is imperative that local companies be allowed to export goods without paying import duties if a free trade agreement (FTA) is reached.
In four previous FTA talks held between South Korea and the EU, European negotiators said they want to maintain tariffs on cars and some electronic products for up to seven years.
Cars and electronics account for a large part of South Korea´s exports to the 27-nation economic bloc, which totaled US$48.45 billion last year.
The EU is the second-largest destination for South Korean products after China.
Again intervening in North-South Korean affairs, the U.S. ambassador to Korea, Alexander Vershbow, warned South Koreans yesterday that ignoring the oppressive nature of the North Korean regime would not hasten the unification of Korea.
He also said people in the South should be concerned about the North's counterfeiting and other illicit activities.
He said North Koreans do not enjoy the freedom that South Koreans take as given.
A commentator who wanted to be called only a ""diplomatic source"" suggested yesterday that few Koreans seem to understand the basic principles that are the foundation for some of the ambassador's statements.
Speaking of this message by Vershbow, for example, he said, ""For him, it's just a statement of principles regarding the North and nothing new.
He also said people in the South should be concerned about the North's counterfeiting and other illicit activities.
Vershbow was responding to a question posted on the Embassy's Web site section called ""Cafe USA,"" a Korean-language message board aimed at South Korean Internet users.
The agency said that the percentage would approximate 4.3 million addicts nationwide.
Various reports show a worryingly high level of Internet ""addiction"" in Korea.
About 4.3 million Koreans are Web addicts, according to a survey conducted by the Korea Agency for Digital Opportunity and Promotion.
Last May, the agency tested 2,000 people between the ages of 10 and 40 using a special Internet addiction diagnostic test.
Among them, 8 percent were found to be in high danger or potential danger of addiction, requiring treatment.
The agency said that the percentage would approximate 4.3 million addicts nationwide.
Threat of terror attacks in Middle Eastern are growing ahead of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
Former President Kim Dae-jung said that he sees a possibility for an inter-Korean summit between President Roh Moo-hyun and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il this year.
``The possibility of an inter-Korean summit is greater than ever, as Roh has expressed his willingness to meet his North Korean counterpart anytime, anywhere,’’ Kim, 2000 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, said in a radio interview.
Kim met with the North Korean leader in Pyongyang in June 2000 for the first-ever inter-Korean summit.
At that time, Kim Jong-il promised to make a return visit to Seoul, but he has yet to keep that promise.
The former president stressed the need to hold the summit, urging the North to show a more active attitude.
He said any progress in inter-Korean relations should not be interpreted politically ahead of this year’s presidential election slated for Dec.
Kim made it clear that he would stay away from politics to avoid influencing the elections.
Kim met with the North Korean leader in Pyongyang in June 2000 for the first-ever inter-Korean summit.
You think you have stress?
Try being a college student these days.
Eighty-five percent of college students surveyed in a new AP poll say they feel stressed in their daily lives.
This student from George Mason University in Virginia says he's worried about money:
“ This is the first time I've haven't really been able to secure a really great summer job.
So I've had a really hard time finding any money to pay rent with.”
More than 40% of college students also say they have felt depressed, or even hopeless, for several days during the past 2 weeks.
The crew of the Atlantis packed up today; they're getting ready to head home.
The weather on Earth could cause some problems:
Try being a college student these days.
The National Assembly Wednesday ratified agreements that South Korea signed with nine rice exporting countries at a plenary session, despite intense protests from the progressive Democratic Labor Party and other lawmakers.
Under the bill, Seoul will raise its rice import quota to 7.96 percent from the current 4 percent by 2014 in return for a 10-year grace period for the full opening of the local rice market.
The minimum import amount of rice will increase from some 200,000 tons to 400,000 tons in the next 10 years.
A land mine exploded in Chechnya Sunday during a World War II ceremony, killing Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov and a senior Russian military commander.
The BBC reported at least 32 people were killed and hundreds wounded in the blast in Grozny, the Chechen capital. A Chechen Interior Ministry officer said that Kadyrov
the Moscow-backed leader of the rebel region died of wounds 30 minutes after the explosion, and that Col.
Valery Baranov, head of the Joint Armed Command of the North Caucasus, died at the scene.
A rare tornado hit a town in southern China.
Korea has seen an exodus of foreign capital in recent years amid fresh questions whether the country is sufficiently dedicating itself to attracting foreign investment.
KOTRA reported an outflow of $8.3 billion in foreign direct investment between 2005 and 2006.
The outflow has been accelerating yearly, especially since the Roh Moo-hyun administration took office in February 8th 2003.
During the previous Kim Dae-jung administration from 1998 to 2002, South Korea was serious in attracting inbound investment, especially to tide over the currency crisis in 1997.
Kim himself met personally with foreign CEOs as long as they were committed to investing more than $50 million here.
But the Roh administration made no such serious efforts, a foreign banker in Seoul said.
KOTRA reported an outflow of $8.3 billion in foreign direct investment between 2005 and 2006.
Incheon International Airport authorities are fed up with passenger protests of delayed departures and arrivals and are planning to do something about it.
However, instead of improving airport service to prevent delays and resulting demonstrations, the airport's management committee said that under a draconian new policy, protesting passengers would first be warned and then hauled off the aircraft by police.
PAPA had its inaugural assembly.
The Korean Society for Molecular and Cellular Biology (KSMCB) Monday announced Hwang and Prof.
Yoon Hyun-soo at Hanyang University are no longer members.
A Korean association of stem cell scientists has expelled disgraced cloning scientist Hwang Woo-suk and a colleague from their membership.
Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Wednesday Britain would respond to the captors of hostage Kenneth Bigley in Iraq if they made contact with his government.
Bigley, a 62-year-old British engineer, earlier made an impassioned plea to Blair to help secure his release in a videotape and accused him of lying over the hostage crisis.
""They've made no attempt to have any contact with us at all.
The Nigerian government and rebel militia in Niger Delta agreed a truce.
President Barack Obama says US forces must disrupt, dismantle, and defeat Al Queda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Calling the situation in Afghanistan increasingly perilous, he says he's received warnings that Al Queda is actively planning attacks:
“ If the Afghan government falls to the Taliban, or allows Al Queda to go unchallenged, that country will again be a base for terrorists who want to kill as many of our people as they possibly can.”
The President this morning announcing more troops for Afghanistan ? 4,000 more who will help train Afghan forces to take care of their own security issues.
Authorities in Pakistan are blaming a suicide bombing in a mosque on Islamist militants bent on revenge.
The AP's Steve Gramm is in Islamabad:
“ Taken place in an area that has been beset by feuds between rival militant groups and tribes, which have included suicide attacks, and bombings of each other's mosques.”
President Barack Obama says US forces must disrupt, dismantle, and defeat Al Queda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Authorities in Pakistan are blaming a suicide bombing in a mosque on Islamist militants bent on revenge.
The AP's Steve Gramm is in Islamabad:
Supporters say the idea of 'calling in gay'-having gays and lesbians not report to work yesterday to show the strength of their numbers-didn't work out so well:
“Same-sex marriage supporters called in gay and didn't work, boycotted spending money, volunteered and demonstrated.
Co-organizer Ronald Cruz said the California Supreme Court should stand by its decision, legalizing gay marriage.”
“We are equal, our relationships are equally valid, we have an equal right to marriage.”
“Cruz said the demonstrations were to point out that a majority should not be able to take away the rights of a minority by voting in Prop 8.
Jan Sluser, Berkeley, California.”
From California to Illinois politics, the state attorney general says she'll go to the state supreme court to have Governor Rod Blagojevich declared unfit to hold office if he doesn't step down soon on his own.
Lisa Madigan tells CNN the best thing is for the governor to resign and she won't wait very long.
“We are equal, our relationships are equally valid, we have an equal right to marriage.”
The majority of South Koreans will soon be able to see detailed benefits from a free trade agreement (FTA) with the United States, chief Korean negotiator Kim Jong-hoon said on Monday.
Kim also hinted at the possibility that the two countries may fail to meet the apparent deadline of March 30 (U.S.
Korea and the U.S. are engaged in a heated debate over pending issues including agriculture, telecommunications and intellectual property rights.
They are poised to make a ``package deal'' on those outstanding issues to wrap up the talks by Friday or Saturday.
The Korea Times reports foreign envoys whose countries adopt English as an official language criticize what they call Korea´s discriminatory visa regulations against foreign English teachers.
Korea allows English teaching or E-2 visas to only native-English speakers from the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Ireland.
The envoys said the ``narrow-minded´´ visa policy prevents Koreans from developing English proficiency in a more efficient and cheaper way.
They also argue it is against international norm of equal treatment for all.
Last week, Pakistani Ambassador Murad Ali sent a letter to Justice Minister Chung Soung-jin, urging the Seoul government to allow qualified Pakistanis the English teaching visa.
Philippine Ambassador Susan Castrence said it is bizarre that Korea does not allow Filipinos the visa even though an increasing number of Koreans go to the Philippines to study English.
Singaporean Ambassador Chua Thai Keong, who witnessed Asian English teachers in Japan during his tenure there, said that Korea needs to be ``racially blind´´ to get the best teachers.
``You can´t solve the problem by limiting choices,´´ he added.
The Justice Ministry left open the possibility for change in the regulation though it has not responded to the envoys´ request yet.
Kim Young-geun, an immigration official said, ``The visa regulation can be revised, depending on public opinion and the minister´s decision.
But basically, we don´t allow English teaching visas to foreigners who come from nations where, although English is used as an official language, it is not the native tongue.´´ According to visa regulations, only native English-speaking nationals with a bachelor´s degree or above are eligible for the English teaching visa.
Philippinos, Singaporeans and Pakistani’s are all known to speak heavily-accented English, however, and the Justice Ministry issues the visa to non-native English-speakers only in exceptional cases.
The envoys said the ``narrow-minded´´ visa policy prevents Koreans from developing English proficiency in a more efficient and cheaper way.
Philippine Ambassador Susan Castrence said it is bizarre that Korea does not allow Filipinos the visa even though an increasing number of Koreans go to the Philippines to study English.
Singaporean Ambassador Chua Thai Keong, who witnessed Asian English teachers in Japan during his tenure there, said that Korea needs to be ``racially blind´´ to get the best teachers.
Record oil prices are threatening Korea`s trade balance and the effects of government spending plans to stimulate the economy, government agencies and analysts said yesterday.
Korea is likely to have its trade balance cut by up to $12 billion if oil prices remain high, The Korea Herald quoted a state-run trade agency as saying.
Should Dubai oil prices stay in the range of over $37 per barrel, the country’s imports will increase by $8.83 billion in the coming 12 months, the Korea International Trade Association estimated.
Record oil prices are threatening Korea`s trade balance and the effects of government spending plans to stimulate the economy, government agencies and analysts said yesterday.
Korea’s largest medical doctors’ lobbying group gave tens of millions of won to lawmakers to scuttle a proposed medical law revision, according to a recorded conversation among its leaders.
The scandal broke on Monday when the newspaper Hankook Ilbo unveiled the script of recorded remarks by Chang Dong-ik, president of the Korea Medical Association, during his meeting with local chapter leaders on March 31.
The group representing 95,000 medical doctors were opposing the government-led bill to amend the medical law, which they are concerned would hurt business and public health.
As for South Korea-U.S. relations, an overwhelming 87.1 percent complained about an unequal power relationship between the two traditional allies.
Nearly half of Korean university students believe that the United States maintains the most hostile attitude toward the possible reunification of South and North Korea, an opinion poll showed on Wednesday.
According to the opinion poll conducted by the Advisory Council on Democratic and Peaceful Unification, 49.1 percent of respondents said among four surrounding powers _ the U.S., China, Russia and Japan _ the U.S. is the biggest barrier to national reunification.
Japan came in the second with 35.7 percent.
Asked which country is most favorable to the reunification of the long-divided peninsula, China topped with 38.3 percent. Japan ranked last place with 7.4 percent.
As for South Korea-U.S. relations, an overwhelming 87.1 percent complained about an unequal power relationship between the two traditional allies.
However, more than seven out of 10 supported the continued presence of U.S.
The third round of six-party talks will take place in Beijing.
President Bill Clinton was joined yesterday by former Korean presidents Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung at an event in Seoul, where the three reminisced on 10 years of failed attempts to contain North Korea's nuclear arms efforts.
President Bill Clinton was joined yesterday by former Korean presidents Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung at an event in Seoul, where the three reminisced on 10 years of failed attempts to contain North Korea's nuclear arms efforts.
Clinton had had one more year in office, the nuclear and missile issues would have been resolved, and an era of peace would have descended upon the Korean Peninsula,"" said Kim Dae-jung, in an apparent criticism of the administration of George W. Bush.
Russia and Iran signed an agreement on nuclear fuel supply deal.
Thailand's election commission chairman has cast doubt on whether a controversial election set for 2 April can go ahead as planned.
Vasana Puemlarp said a boycott by opposition parties may mean not enough MPs are returned to convene the body.
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra called the poll in a bid to silence calls for his resignation. Thaksin has downplayed suggestions he was about to step aside to end the mounting political crisis.
Earlier on Wednesday Thaksin had appeared to indicate he might be willing to step aside temporarily, calling the idea a ""good suggestion"".
I would be crazy if I did"" Election Commission Chairman Vasana Puemlarp said delaying the election was possible.
Thailand's election commission chairman has cast doubt on whether a controversial election set for 2 April can go ahead as planned.
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra called the poll in a bid to silence calls for his resignation.
I'm Mark Smith, live at the White House, where President Bush has given a desperate Detroit a reprieve.”
“The only way to avoid a collapse of the U.S. auto industry is for the executive branch to step in.”
“With those words, the President announced a $17 billion package of short-term loans designed to tie the Big Three over till March.
But there's a condition:
restructure and become competitive, or those loans will be called.”
“The time to make our decisions to become viable is now.
Or the only option will be bankruptcy.”
“But Bush says at least now, Barack Obama won't face a major catastrophe as he assumes office.
I'm Mark Smith, live at the White House.
Now with reaction, here's Jon Belmont.”
All this comes on the day Chrysler closes all of its North American manufacturing plants for a month.
Chrysler CEO Bob Nardelli already has thanked the administration for its help, saying the cash will help the company get through its current crisis and eventually help return it to profitability.
The entire industry, including auto workers and dealers, was against immediate bankruptcy, arguing Americans won't buy cars from a Chapter 11 company.
With today's auto loans, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson says the first half of the $700 billion bailout fund is tapped out.
He says Congress will now need to release the rest of the money.
The Dow gained more than a 100 points in the opening minutes.
“The only way to avoid a collapse of the U.S. auto industry is for the executive branch to step in.”
restructure and become competitive, or those loans will be called.”
Or the only option will be bankruptcy.”
The entire industry, including auto workers and dealers, was against immediate bankruptcy, arguing Americans won't buy cars from a Chapter 11 company.
Hanwha Group Chairman Kim Seung-youn, who is in jail for an alleged revenge attack, has reached a deal with the victims in the scuffle in which they expressed their hope that charges against him would be dropped.
But the prosecution said that it has no influence on the indictment against the chairman.
They have already sent the agreement to the court.
But the prosecution said that it has no influence on the indictment against the chairman.
There's a new report out on racial profiling in Los Angeles.
This is lead author Ian Ayres explaining the findings on KABC-TV.
“An African American living in Los Angeles is nearly 3 times as likely to be stopped by police, more than four times as likely to be arrested, and nearly twice as likely to get a citation.”
The report was put out by the ACLU of Southern California.
It took a look at the LAPD's reports off pedestrian and motor vehicle stops since July of 2003 to June of 2004.
The Divine Mercy Care Pharmacy opened this week in a strip mall.
The founders say there are only a handful of others like it in the country.
Well, you won't be able to buy ivory products on eBay anymore.
It's banning the sales to help protect African and Asian elephants.
It will be enforced starting in January.
There's a new report out on racial profiling in Los Angeles.
This is lead author Ian Ayres explaining the findings on KABC-TV.
A new drugstore in northern Virginia has gotten a blessing from the Catholic Church because it refuses to provide any contraceptives.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has taken his former private secretary as his “new wife”, according to a report by South Korea's Yonhap news agency.
Kim is now living with Kim Ok, who is ”virtually North Korea's first lady”, an official told Yonhap.
The Korea Times reports Park Geun-hye, former chairwoman of the main opposition Grand National Party, Wednesday expressed discontent over the disclosure of names of judges who made arbitrary rulings during the regime of former President Park Chung-hee, her late father.
Park, one of the party's leading presidential hopefuls, said, ``This is the reality of Korean politics.
Why is it that they now announce the judges' names?''
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a government fact-finding body researching political oppression by past authoritarian governments, revealed the names of 492 judges who gave guilty verdicts in 1,412 cases to civilians who violated presidential emergency decrees under the Yushin Constitution in the 1970s.
The Yushin Constitution, or the Constitution for Revitalizing Reform, which gave enormous power to Park was effective between 1972 and 1979 when he was assassinated.
The presidential decrees banned people from engaging in actions challenging the Yushin Constitution, and the court punished many students and activists who protested against them.
She called the move a ``political offensive'' against her.
A wildfire in the San Fernando Valley doubled in size overnight.
This man talked with KNBC-TV about what it was like in his neighborhood.
“These houses just went up on fire.
So then we had to back down the streets, so as we were backin out, ambers were flyin' all over and catchin' the fields here on fire, so we'd get out of our cars and put that out.”
The county fire chief says they're doing all they can to get a handle on this fire.
Strong winds have been reported in the area, making the battle even harder.
Weather of a different sort is continuing to cause problems in the Caribbean, tropical storm Omar is now churning in the region.
A wildfire in the San Fernando Valley doubled in size overnight.
“These houses just went up on fire.
The county fire chief says they're doing all they can to get a handle on this fire.
Spanish media says the Madrid train bombers had other deadly attacks planned.
Quoting a police report, Spanish reporters said a British school and two Jewish centers were also targets.
The reports said investigators turned up documents detailing the targets in the wreckage of an apartment where seven prime suspects in the March 11th train attacks blew themselves up a few weeks after the attacks.
191 people were killed and 1900 others injured on packed commuter trains that were hit with explosives.
Investigators say Islamic militants acting in the name of the al-Qaeda terror group carried out the train bombings.
Spanish media says the Madrid train bombers had other deadly attacks planned.
In news of another Islamic dictatorship… the BBC is reporting two high-ranking officials from the European Union and the United Nations - one British, the other Irish - have been ordered to leave Afghanistan.
The two men, based in Helmand province, southern Afghanistan, had been holding meetings with different tribes and groups, including possibly the Taliban.
The US-installed Afghan government has given them 48 hours to leave and the UN has said that it will comply with the request.
But officials hope to resolve what they have called a misunderstanding.
“The foreign nationals have been declared persona non grata and their Afghan colleagues have been arrested and are being investigated.”
He said they had been ”involved in some activities that were not their jobs”.
A top lawyer for George W. Bush's election campaign resigned on Wednesday after disclosing he has been providing legal advice to a group that accuses Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry of lying about his Vietnam War record.
Benjamin Ginsberg was the second person to quit the Bush campaign over ties to the group, the so-called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which has been attacking Kerry's record through television commercials and a book.
People of working age infected with the HIV-AIDS virus are costing the world's labor force at least $25 billion in annual productivity.
That's according to a report by the International Labor Organization.
It estimates some 28 million people will have died or been lost to the labor force by next year.
The toll could climb to 48 million workers by 2010.
The Constitutional Court started reviewing the special law on capital relocation.
In a speech prepared for delivery in Seoul, a senior Bush administration official expressed strong skepticism that South Korea's effort to engage North Korea politically and economically has in fact paid any dividends.
State Department, was to speak last week before Seoul's Sejong Institute, a think tank on security matters, but he canceled the session because of a family emergency. The Joong-Ang Ilbo reports the text of his remarks, however, became public.
Reiss made pointed reference to North Korea's failure to respond to a series of initiatives undertaken by the South Korean government, which has sought to encourage more moderate behavior from Pyeongyang.
He said the ""sunshine policy"" of President Kim Dae-jung has elicited almost nothing in return from North Korea.
Reiss also criticized Pyeongyang for failing to reciprocate the 2000 visit by President Kim, cynically controlling family reunions and violating the 1992 inter-Korean accord to keep the Korean Peninsula free of nuclear weapons.
Reiss made pointed reference to North Korea's failure to respond to a series of initiatives undertaken by the South Korean government, which has sought to encourage more moderate behavior from Pyeongyang.
He said the ""sunshine policy"" of President Kim Dae-jung has elicited almost nothing in return from North Korea.
China and Taiwan are believed to actively spy on each other.
A Hong Kong journalist has been jailed for five years in communist China, after being convicted of spying.
Ching Cheong, who was the chief China correspondent for Singapore's Straits Times, has been in detention since April 2005.
Communist officials accuse him of buying information and passing it to Taiwan's intelligence services over a period of five years from mid-2000 to March 2005.
Both his family and his employers reject the charges.
Ching is the first Hong Kong journalist to have been charged with spying since the communist state resumed sovereignty over the territory in 1997.
China and Taiwan are believed to actively spy on each other.
Saddam Hussein's trial has heard its first witness testimony, from a now deceased former Iraqi intelligence officer on a pre-recorded video.
Wadah Ismael al-Sheik investigated the 1982 assassination attempt which triggered the alleged massacre in Dujail upon which the trial is based.
The trial has been adjourned for a week, until 5 December.
The prosecution says 148 people, mostly men, were killed in the largely Shiite town, some 60km north of Baghdad, after a failed assassination attempt against the former leader.
A defiant Saddam Hussein and seven co-accused were in court.
All eight deny charges of murder and torture.
The trial has been adjourned for a week, until 5 December.
The first United Nations climate conference has opened.
Lone Star Funds' cancellation last week of its planned sale of Korea Exchange Bank to Kookmin Bank has triggered a renewed debate on whether the prosecution's probe into the U.S. private equity group is scaring away foreign investment.
Foreign investors and the media have expressed worries that the drawn-out probe by Korean prosecutors into Lone Star has the risk of dampening the country's efforts to attract foreign investors, who have been choosing more economically viable competitors such as India and China.
On Thursday Lone Star terminated an agreement with the country's largest lender Kookmin to sell its controlling stake in KEB for about $7.3 billion.
It cited the “politically motivated” prosecutors as the prime reason behind the collapse of the deal.
State prosecutors plan to investigate a former Cheong Wa Dae official as part of their probe into suspicions surrounding a game arcade business.
The presidential office said it has requested a probe into Kwon's alleged connections with the voucher firm, Korea Win Solution Corp.
The Korea Win Solution Corp. denied the allegations, saying its head borrowed Kwon's mother's name but that she does not hold a stake in the company.
The Korea Win Solution Corp.
"" Officials here in Seoul, increasingly unhappy with the U.S. denunciations of their brethren in the North, tried to restrain their own.
Meanwhile, The United States is willing to discuss the financial sanctions it has imposed on North Korea, if the communist country makes clear its intent to return to stalled six-party nuclear talks, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said Friday such discussions can take place outside the framework of the six-party dialogue and stressed that Washington is flexible on the matter.
Hill said any decision to lift its financial sanctions against North Korea will depend on what measures North Korea would take in the future.
Treasury blacklisted the Macau-based Banco Delta Asia, accusing it of being a money-laundering window for North Korea.
The move has reportedly hurt the chronically cash-strapped North.
American Idol has one of the early favorites among the finalists:
(singing) Lil Rounds, the smooth-singing 23-year-old from Memphis, got in early last night on Fox.
“ I'm now in the top twelve so all you guys, thank you, thank you!
” She was later joined by Scott McIntyre and Jorge Nunez, and guess who's back - back in tears:
the singer Simon Cowell calls“ The Drama Queen” is one of eight Idol contestants who get to sing again tonight for one last chance to make the top 12.
Felicity Huffman says Eva Longoria and Terry Hatcher will lock lips.
American Idol has one of the early favorites among the finalists:
“ Oh yeah, anything in the whole world, thank you so much, thank you so much, I wanted this so much.”
Markets worldwide recorded heavy losses in reaction to the emergency bailout of US investment bank Bear Stearns over the weekend.
Wall Street had a rollercoaster day, with the benchmark Dow Jones average ending in positive territory - up 0.18% - after tumbling in early trading.
European shares suffered most, with the UK´s FTSE 100 index ending down 3.9%.
Investors fear that the collapse of one of Wall Street´s biggest names means that the credit crunch is escalating.
Billionaire Warren Buffett tells Berkshire-Hathaway shareholders that company profits fell more than 60% last year, to just under $5 billion.
In his annual letter to investors, Buffett admits to making some multi-million-dollar blunders in oil and bank stocks.
He adds he expects the economy to remain in shambles throughout 2009.
However, Buffett is also optimistic, saying the nation's best days remain ahead.
Jurors in a Las Vegas courtroom were shown a videotape of a man said to be sexually assaulting a 2-year-old girl in 2003.
Chester Styles' former girl friend also read from a letter he wrote her from his jail cell:
“ I hope that my legacy is of a man who made some horrible decisions, not a sick predator.”
That tape from KGMA.
If convicted, Styles could get multiple life terms in prison.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has issued a decree asking the country's election commission to set a new date for the country's presidential election.
The commission had decided to hold the election on August 20th, but Karzai has asked that the balloting be held 30 to 60 days before May 22nd.
That's the day some in parliament say is when his term ends.
He adds he expects the economy to remain in shambles throughout 2009.
However, Buffett is also optimistic, saying the nation's best days remain ahead.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has issued a decree asking the country's election commission to set a new date for the country's presidential election.
While collecting opinions from the ambassadors, Minister Ban is expected to explain Seoul’s plans to dispatch rehabilitation forces to Iraq and strengthen ties with the Middle Eastern and African nations .
The Korea Times reports Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Ban Ki-moon is keeping true to his diplomatic pitch focused on strengthening relations with the Middle East ahead of the Iraq troop dispatch.
Ban is scheduled to have a luncheon meeting with ambassadors from 18 Middle Eastern and African countries on Thursday at a reception hall of the ministry building in downtown Seoul.
It is the first time that Ban will have such an event with top envoys from a certain region since coming into office in mid January and, officials say, it shows the special care he is taking for the areas.
Scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratories in Pasadena are still being amazed by the two Mars rovers that are exploring the Red Planet and have high hopes for more discoveries.
Scott McLennan says the rover Opportunity is headed for a rock deep inside the Endurance crater and explained what they're looking for.
He says the next layer down in the Martian soil contains evaporative materials that could reveal a wet history or a completely different kind of geologic history in the more distant past.
Mission specialists plan to point both rovers northward in preparation for the upcoming Martian winter.
Scott McLennan says the rover Opportunity is headed for a rock deep inside the Endurance crater and explained what they're looking for.
The Korea Times reports seventy-year-old Chae Jong-gi who started the fire that destroyed Seoul’s Namdaemun, claimed Thursday that it was President Roh Moo-hyun who drove him to commit arson at the national heritage site by not listening to his petition.
According to police, Chae started the fire to draw attention to alleged incomplete payment for real estate he sold in Ilsan, Gyeonggi Province.
His property was included in an apartment development plan in 1998, and he expected to receive around 400 million won.
However, the construction company only paid him 94 million won, and so he wrote petitions to relevant government departments and even Cheong Wa Dae ― only to be rejected.
In 2006, he set fire to Changgyeong Palace to highlight his frustration, but was arrested, tried and fined 13 million won and given a suspended 18-month prison sentence.
After that, Chae divorced his wife and moved to Ganghwa Island in Gyeonggi Province, where he was relatively quiet and reserved, his neighbors testified.
Industrial production fell 7.3 percent in February to a nearly 7-year low due to slower export growth and fewer working days, the Korea Herald quoted the National Statistical Office as saying yesterday.
Industrial production fell 7.3 percent in February to a nearly 7-year low due to slower export growth and fewer working days, the Korea Herald quoted the National Statistical Office as saying yesterday.
On a seasonally adjusted basis, the decline was 4.6 percent as exports grew a mere 0.8 percent in February, the slowest in four years.
Exports, the sole growth engine in the economy the past two years, had a 21.6 percent gain in January.
National Statistical Office:
A dispute about adult contents in the internet portals is growing.
Humberto Coelho, Korea's national soccer coach, will speak about his future today at a news conference at the headquarters of the Korea Football Association.
Coelho has been under fire for the team's embarrassing performance in recent months, and pressure on him to resign has grown.
Coelho took over the team from Guus Hiddink, a Dutch coach, who directed the team's success in reaching the semifinals of the 2002 World Cup.
But since then the team's performance has been poor, including a scoreless draw last month with the Maldives in a 2006 World Cup qualifier.
˝US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has faced tough questioning from a Senate judiciary panel on the sacking of eight federal prosecutors.
Gonzales was also questioned on the White House´s use of wire-tapping for terrorism surveillance, which critics have said is illegal.
“I don´t trust you,” said the panel´s head, Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy.
President George W Bush has resisted repeated calls to sack Gonzales, who denies any wrongdoing.
”With a history of civil liberty abuses and cover-ups, this administration has squandered our trust,” said Senator Leahy.
Senator Arlen Specter, the committee´s senior Republican, suggested that Gonzales appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the sacking of the eight federal prosecutors.
He said such a move might be necessary to ensure congressional oversight of the Bush administration.
The Senate Judiciary Committee hearing is the latest in a series of hearings looking into last year´s dismissals.˝
Gonzales was also questioned on the White House´s use of wire-tapping for terrorism surveillance, which critics have said is illegal.
Fewer Koreans think they belong to the middle class than three years ago, feeling pushed down to the lower rungs of the social ladder.
Koreans were generally not happy, with only three out of 10 people saying they were content with their lives.
According to the National Statistical Office (NSO), which surveyed members of about 33,000 households across the nation, 53.4 percent said they belong to the middle class in social and economic terms, when considering income, profession, education and assets.
The ratio was 56.2 percent in the survey of 2003.
The survey is conducted every three years.
Those who thought they belonged to a lower class made up 45.2 percent, rising 2.8 percentage points from 2003.
Only 1.46 percent of households said they were upper class.
President Roh Moo-hyun and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il shared a broad consensus on establishing peace on the Korean Peninsula in their two rounds of talks in Pyongyang Wednesday.
President Roh, however, said in a meeting with South Korean journalists that Kim showed skepticism over his country´s market-opening and economic reform.
Roh and Kim will announce a joint declaration this morning to sum up the three-day summit.
Despite world opinion and opposition in the US Congress, President Roh Moo-hyun expressed his support for a White House plan to send more than 20,000 American troops to help stabilize Iraq, his office said.
Bush announced he is adding some 20,000 troops to the 132,000-strong American contingent in Iraq.
South Korea has been the second-largest contributor to the U.S.-led coalition operation in Iraq, after Britain.
It reduced its troop level in Iraq to 2,400 last year from the previous 3,260, and is planning to further cut the number to 1,200 this year,
South Korea has been the second-largest contributor to the U.S.-led coalition operation in Iraq, after Britain.
The Seoul Central District Court issued a detention warrant yesterday allowing Hyundai Motor Group's chairman, Chung Mong-koo, to be taken into custody.
Chung was the target of an investigation into allegations that he masterminded the collection of a multi-billion won cash hoard over the last five years, of which a large sum was spent on the eve of the 2002 presidential election.
Chung was also accused of causing losses to the group and its affiliates by ordering them to purchase shares of an insolvent subsidiary.
Prosecutors said they planned to take Chung into custody at about 10:30 p.m. last night. They will be able to hold and question him for up to 20 days before formally indicting him.
The Guns N' Roses singer says Dr.
The soft drink maker said months ago that it would give a free drink to everyone in America if the band finally delivered the long-overdue album this year.
A Lawyer for Guns N' Roses says while the band made good on their promise, Dr.
The soda maker's website crashed during the 24 hours it offered a free beverage to consumers on Sunday - the same day 'Chinese Democracy' was released.
Pepper hasn't addressed the rock band's complaint.
There's a Thanksgiving feast to football on TV:
Get the turkey in early.
Guns N' Roses and one miffed front man.
Pepper is profiting off his band - and their new album.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has met his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe in Tokyo, at the start of a summit hailed as a sign of improved relations.
The two men issued a joint statement promising to look frankly at their historical disputes, and signed accords on energy and the environment.
Wen is the first Chinese prime minister to visit Japan in seven years.
The meeting followed a trip by Abe to China in October - the first sign of a thaw in ongoing tensions between the two countries.
The Chinese leadership refused to talk to former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi because he insisted on visiting the Yasukuni shrine where Japan's war dead and war criminals are buried.
The government is unlikely to abolish capital punishment despite the National Human Rights Commission’s recommendation to do so.
The Ministry of Justice announced a draft of a roadmap for human rights protection during a public hearing in Seoul.
It said it has collected opinions from all sectors, including the government, academics and civic groups.
According to the National Action Plan on Human Rights, the ministry deferred a decision on eliminating the death penalty, one of three key laws or practices the human rights commission recommended the government abolish in January last year.
The ministry said it would examine the appropriateness of capital punishment under the current laws during the first half of this year and review whether to retain the penalty.
Early last year, the ministry said it would consider replacing capital punishment with a life sentence as part of its plan to better protect criminals’ rights and strengthen the criminal justice system.
˝The threatened departure of Kim Hong-up, son of former president Kim Dae-jung, means the country’s newest party could be one of its most short-lived.
If Kim joins the yet-unnamed new liberal coalition party, at least 20 lawmakers from the Moderate Unified Democratic Party are expected to follow him.
Park Sang-cheon, one of the heads of the Moderate Unified Democratic Party, tried to stop the exodus.
Now, he is losing hope.
Kim was once one of Park’s strongest supporters.
However, he no longer favors Park’s insistence that supporters of President Roh Moo-hyun are not welcome in the Moderate Unified Democratic Party.
The party, led by Park, was a merger between Kim Dae-jung’s Democratic Party and Uri Party defectors who wanted to separate themselves from Roh’s influence.˝
Park Sang-cheon, one of the heads of the Moderate Unified Democratic Party, tried to stop the exodus.
A half dozen pirates got a bit of a shock when security agents on an Italian cruise ship returned fire - as the pirates tried to board the ocean liner last night off the coast of Somalia.
The AP's Nicole Winfield reports from Rome that the cruise ship's skipper is glad there were no injuries:
“ He seemed pretty level-headed about it, but he did tell Italian State Radio that he felt like he was in a war, with the shots flying.
But he was very complimentary of the security agents and pleased that no-one was hurt.”
The ship and its 1500 passengers is continuing its planned voyage.
Police used pepper spray to break up hundreds of rioting Kent State University students in Ohio, who sparked a string of street fires late last night.
more than 60 were arrested.
The ship and its 1500 passengers is continuing its planned voyage.
The rally began at 7 p.m. and continued through the evening without any clashes.
No arrests or injuries were reported. The Korea Herald reports protest against the impeachment of President Roh Moo-hyun is spreading nationwide among civic groups and voters.
Claiming the impeachment was a coup d'etat by parliament, civic groups insist they will hold candlelight rallies every evening in Kwanghwamun, downtown Seoul, until the Constitutional Court annuls the impeachment.
They added the movement was not necessarily supportive of Roh but rather against the lack of democracy in the National Assembly's push for impeachment.
Student groups also discussed ways to participate in the protest, while religious leaders released a group statement denouncing the Assembly's passage of the impeachment motion.
Other, smaller protests are also being held throughout the nation.
The scene was reminiscent of the summer of 2002, when avid Korean soccer fans donned red T-shirts and flocked to cheer for the national team during the World Cup.
But the mood could not have been more of a contrast, as rallies nationwide were solemn and calm.
About 10,000 people holding candles silently walked past City Hall and along the main road leading to Gyeongbok Palace, while about 5,000 riot police looked on.
The government, to freeze public services fee.
The Korea Herald reports the number of new students enrolling at universities will be cut drastically by 95,000 by the end of 2009 under a tentative government plan unveiled yesterday.
Currently the number of new students in all universities and colleges totals a 630,000.
Details about college enrollment and employment rates will have to be disclosed and mergers and acquisitions among schools will be allowed.
The government's draft plan to reform universities will strengthen competitiveness, officials said.
merger and acquisition:
Bush didn't mention Korea as a key ally.
˝The six-party talks, aimed at ending North Korea´s nuclear program, will resume around next Wednesday after a four-month hiatus, sources said Tuesday.
``The six-party talks will be held on July 18 as China, acting as host country, is now discussing to finalize the date with the other five nations,´´ a government official told The Korea Times on condition of anonymity.
The talks, involving the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia, will take place over two days, with a possible extension of one day.
This is a meeting only of chief negotiators in order to save time, another source said.
The main agenda will focus on the implementation of the shutdown of nuclear facilities in Yongbyon, which North Korea promised to do under a February agreement in the six-party talks.
North Korea will receive 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil in return for the shutdown under the Feb. 13 agreement, and the first shipment of the oil will arrive in North Korea on Saturday.˝
``The six-party talks will be held on July 18 as China, acting as host country, is now discussing to finalize the date with the other five nations,´´ a government official told The Korea Times on condition of anonymity.
The talks, involving the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia, will take place over two days, with a possible extension of one day.
The Joong-Ang Ilbo reports that, yielding to pressures from environmental groups, the government said yesterday it would reduce the planned percentage of power generation from nuclear plants after 2010.
The Joong-Ang Ilbo reports that, yielding to pressures from environmental groups, the government said yesterday it would reduce the planned percentage of power generation from nuclear plants after 2010.
And you thought Barack Obama was elected President on November 4th?
“Democracy, liberty, opportunity, and unyielding hope.”
Despite the record of more than 131 million votes that were cast on that day, what really counts is the 538 members of the Electoral College who will lead in state capitals across the country and cast their votes today.
They're technically free to vote for whomever they wish, but you can bet Obama will come away with enough votes to be sworn in as the 44th President of the United States in January 20th.
By the way, we learn this morning the President Elect will whistle stop his way into D.C.
The AP's Rita Foley is live in Washington to tell us about it.
“John, the President Elect will begin his inaugural celebration on January 17th, traveling by train to the nation's capital.
Obama and his family will start their day-long journey with an event in Philadelphia, then board the train and pick up Vice President Elect Joe Biden and his family in Wilmington, Delaware, making one more stop in Baltimore, before rolling into Washington.
Abraham Lincoln made the same Baltimore to D.C. train trip for his first inauguration in 1861, but it actually started much farther west in Springfield, Illinois.
They're technically free to vote for whomever they wish, but you can bet Obama will come away with enough votes to be sworn in as the 44th President of the United States in January 20th.
The AP's Rita Foley is live in Washington to tell us about it.
“John, the President Elect will begin his inaugural celebration on January 17th, traveling by train to the nation's capital.
˝Mexican authorities have evacuated tourist resorts and shut down off-shore oil facilities ahead of the potentially devastating arrival of Hurricane Dean.
Thousands of tourists attempted to leave the resort of Cancun, but some were unable to get a flight.
Neighbouring Belize is also bracing itself for the hurricane, which is registering winds of 240km/h .
The storm has already claimed at least six lives in the eastern Caribbean - but largely spared the Cayman islands earlier on Monday.
In Jamaica, it tore off roofs, uprooted trees and destroyed power lines as the storm´s centre passed just south of the island.˝
Israel has announced a daily timeout from the fighting in Gaza, giving relief workers time to move in humanitarian supplies and medical workers, time to move out the dead and wounded as at this UN school that came under attack:
“The Israeli army has said that if no one attacks them, they won't attack for approximately three hours in the afternoon, and during that period, a movement can be allowed.”
Israel also says it welcomes an Egyptian-French ceasefire proposal, as long as Hamas stops militant weapons smuggling and rocket attacks.
Emergency officials are urging 700 people to evacuate because of flooding on two rivers in Pierce County, Washington.
We understand automated phone calls went out to residents and deputies went house to house, sounding the alarm.
Israel also says it welcomes an Egyptian-French ceasefire proposal, as long as Hamas stops militant weapons smuggling and rocket attacks.
State prosecutors have indicted four Koreans on charges of attempting to leak wireless broadband internet technology to the United States.
LTD., a computer services unit of Korea’s No.1 steelmaker POSCO Co., systemically schemed to hand over key WiBro technical data to a U.S. telecom firm, the Seoul Central Prosecutors’ Office claimed.
The three ex-employees are currently in the United States.
“The three former employees are believed to have obtained U.S. green cards,” a prosecution investigator said.
WiBro, short for wireless broadband, is a wireless broadband internet technology being developed by the Korean telecom industry, and has boasted the fastest data transfer speed among existing mobile technologies.
State prosecutors have indicted four Koreans on charges of attempting to leak wireless broadband internet technology to the United States.
Three former employees and an incumbent researcher of POSDATA Co.
The religious group claimed the Chosun Ilbo falsely accused a Jogye Order temple of paying Shin in return for illegal government subsidies and other benefits.
Plastering huge banners in front of its main holy temple, Korea’s largest Buddhist group yesterday called for a boycott of the country’s largest newspaper.
The Jogye Order said the Chosun Ilbo defamed it in its coverage of the scandal involving former art curator and professor Shin Jeong-ah.
The order also warned the Munhwa Broadcasting Company to be more careful in reporting on the group, claiming its 20 million Buddhists across the country would be watching.
The religious group claimed the Chosun Ilbo falsely accused a Jogye Order temple of paying Shin in return for illegal government subsidies and other benefits.
Prosecutors claim Shin had an affair with a former top Blue House official.
Officials at the Chosun Ilbo declined comment yesterday.
Koreans are shunning ready-to-eat kimchi. In a survey of 359 housewives in their 30s by an online shopping mall, Lotte.com, 70 percent said they would make their own kimchi this year, an increase of 10 percentage points from a survey a year ago.
Koreans are shunning ready-to-eat kimchi.
In a survey of 359 housewives in their 30s by an online shopping mall, Lotte.com, 70 percent said they would make their own kimchi this year, an increase of 10 percentage points from a survey a year ago.
Chaebol on edge over Samsung ruling.
The official search is over for two NFL players and a third man left adrift in chilly waters off the Gulf Coast of Florida, when their boat capsized over the weekend, but family members are hoping private boaters will pick up where the Coast Guard left off:
“ The Coast Guard can call off the search, uh, but we will not give up hope that Marquise is out there fighting and trying to return.”
Bruce Cooper is the father of Marquise Cooper of the Raiders.
One survivor was saved by the Coast Guard.
Authorities say the suspect in the killing of intern Chandra Levy is expected to be brought back to Washington some time within the next couple of months.
Salvadoran immigrant Ingmar Guandique is currently serving time in a federal prison in California.
Taliban, claiming responsibility for a car bombing outside the US main military base in Afghanistan today;
the blast wounded 3 civilian contractors.
One survivor was saved by the Coast Guard.
Salvadoran immigrant Ingmar Guandique is currently serving time in a federal prison in California.
the blast wounded 3 civilian contractors.
Barack Obama has a couple of important jobs to do today.
Go to parent-teacher conferences in Chicago this morning, then sit down to talk about the economy with his financial team.
AP White House correspondent Mark Smith is live in Chicago with the latest:
“Jon, the President Elect will not doubt get an earful from these finance and industry chiefs about the dire straits U.S. companies and families are in.
Obama may also be sizing some of them up for Treasury Secretary.
Several are considered top contenders, including former treasury chiefs Lawrence Summers, Robert Rubin, and investor Warren Buffett.
Happy birthday to the Reverend Billy Graham, the evangelist who got hundreds of thousands of Americans to come down front for altar calls, is in declining health, but he's celebrating with family members and some North Carolina barbeque today.
Barack Obama has a couple of important jobs to do today.
Go to parent-teacher conferences in Chicago this morning, then sit down to talk about the economy with his financial team.
Obama may also be sizing some of them up for Treasury Secretary.
Several are considered top contenders, including former treasury chiefs Lawrence Summers, Robert Rubin, and investor Warren Buffett.
Iran has seized three British Navy vessels and detained several sailors.
A British spokesman says Britain has small naval ships in the area helping to train Iraqi police.
An Iranian military source confirmed the report from Iran's state-run news channel.
Reviving his desire to play an active role in relations between North and South Korea, former President Kim Dae-jung said yesterday that if he were invited to visit Pyongyang, he is prepared to discuss a range of issues concerning the Korean Peninsula.
Reviving his desire to play an active role in relations between North and South Korea, former President Kim Dae-jung said yesterday that if he were invited to visit Pyongyang, he is prepared to discuss a range of issues concerning the Korean Peninsula.
""Since the dialogue between the two Koreas isn't working well, I can do my part to resolve the current stalemate in the relationship,"" Kim said in an interview with MBC Radio.
Responding to a question about Pyongyang’s latest statement that it was abandoning talks over its development of nuclear arms, the former president called the announcement unexpected and said that in light of international expectations the North's action was problematic.
Kim reiterated what he said earlier this month that Pyongyang should return to the talks.
He warned that failing to do so would only provide ammunition to those inside the United States and Japan who are demanding a tougher stance toward Pyongyang.
A former General of Bosnian Muslim is decided to surrender to the UN war crimes court.
South Korea´s consumer sentiment plunged in the fourth quarter as Koreans became more pessimistic about their living conditions and the economy, a central bank survey showed on Monday.
a gauge of consumers´ overall sense of their economic outlook, living conditions and future spending
dropped to 106 in the October-December period from a five-year high of 112 in the preceding quarter.
Throughout the year, the index has managed to stay above the benchmark 100, meaning optimists outnumber pessimists.
The survey of 2,434 households in 30 cities nationwide was taken Dec.
According to the poll by the Bank of Korea, the consumer survey index
US Democratic rivals Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have sought to rally support ahead of a key primary election in Pennsylvania.
Polls have given Mrs Clinton a lead over Obama in Tuesday´s contest.
It is the first primary to take place since Mississippi´s in early March.
That was won by Obama, who is ahead in the overall Democratic contest.
The primary is expected to be the most decisive in the race to be the party´s candidate in the November election.
In the last six weeks, the rivalry between the two candidates has gained pace - despite the fact that no states have been voting.
On Sunday, both Mrs Clinton and Obama took part in rallies and events across Pennsylvania.
Obama addressed a rally in the town of Reading, Pennsylvania.
""You have a real choice in this election.
Either Democrat would be better than John McCain,"" he told the crowd.
Mrs Clinton was in defiant mood at a meeting in York, saying:
""I don´t want to just show up and give one of those whoop-dee-do speeches and get everybody whipped up,"" she said.
It will not be long before Asia's top oil importers join forces to eliminate the premium added to their purchases from the Middle East, the head of the presidential committee on Northeast Asian affairs said yesterday.
It will not be long before Asia's top oil importers join forces to eliminate the premium added to their purchases from the Middle East, the head of the presidential committee on Northeast Asian affairs said yesterday.
The Korea Herald quotes Moon Chung-in, chairman of the Committee on Northeast Asian Cooperative Initiative as saying that Korea, Japan and China were getting closer to striking a deal that would allow them to make joint purchases of crude oil by the three countries that rely on overseas natural resources.
Compared to exports to Europe, an additional $0.83 is added to each barrel of crude shipped to Asia.
The premium reflects the inability of the Asian countries to purchase oil from regions outside the Middle East due to cost factors.
Police have seized evidence indicating single Korean women have illegally entered the united States.
Prosecutors have summoned a TV reporter for questioning about the leaked spy agency tape that has sparked a widening political scandal, and one prosecution source said the reporter could be charged with violating a court injunction.
Lee Sang-ho of MBC-TV has been asked to appear for questioning today, according to Hwang Kyo-an of the Seoul District Prosecutors Office.
MBC said it had not been decided whether Lee would appear.
The Korea Times reports no government officials on Thursday dared to officially confirm even whether Christopher Hill, top U.S. envoy to the six-party denuclearization talks, held a meeting with his North Korean counterpart Kim Gye-gwan in Beijing on Wednesday.
Given that Hill's brief stopover in Beijing on his way to the U.S.
_ or rather the second visit in a week on his tour of Asia _ was made at a critical juncture, officials in Seoul, Beijing and Washington might have agreed to remain silent until they could pin down a date to resume the disarmament talks.
Hill unexpectedly returned to Beijing on the same day when North Korean leader Kim Jong-il was heading back to Pyongyang after allegedly consulting with China's President Hu Jintao in Beijing on how to deal with Washington's financial sanctions against Pyongyang.
It is highly plausible that Hill had flown back to Washington with a proposal, containing ``creative'' ideas of the two Communist allies and South Korea on ways to resolve what Kim Jong-il called the ``difficulties'' that have allegedly blocked Pyongyang's return to the negotiation table.
_ or rather the second visit in a week on his tour of Asia _ was made at a critical juncture, officials in Seoul, Beijing and Washington might have agreed to remain silent until they could pin down a date to resume the disarmament talks.
˝An explosion has rocked central New York during the evening rush hour, forcing the evacuation of nearby streets and Grand Central Station.
Officials said a number of people had been taken to hospital after being hurt when a steam pipe ruptured underneath 41st Street on Manhattan´s east side.
The New York Police Department said the incident, which blew a large hole in the street, was not terrorism-related.
Police said there were unconfirmed reports of six people injured.
Millions of pounds of steam are pumped beneath the streets of New York, heating and cooling thousands of buildings.
A witness, investment banker Heiko Thieme, said the explosion was like a volcano erupting.
Grand National Party (GNP) presidential nominee Lee Myung-bak dismissed his rival Chung Dong-young´s proposal for a public debate on key national issues and values.
Ex-Seoul Mayor Lee, is well known for his blunt word choices, while Chung, the presidential nominee of the liberal United New Democratic Party (UNDP) and a former MBC anchor of the nightly news, is widely known for his political rhetoric.
The Korea Times says observers note that Chung is attempting to push Lee around through a series of debates, in turn building an image of himself as a qualified leader with vision and specific plans for the economy.
Former Unification Minister Chung proposed holding an in-depth debate on peace and the economy in a speech accepting his party´s nomination on October 15th.
Presidential debates are part of the political process in politically developed countries.
We get the Grammy nominations at a Prime Time TV special tonight:
Duffy, Coldplay and Leona Lewis are among the strongest contenders.
Don't discount the Americans, though, like Katy Perry, the Eagles and perennial Grammy favorite Alicia Keys.
Or maybe it will be a combination of both American and British.
Alison Krauss and Robert Plant put out a critically acclaimed album together.
Folks in Mobile, Alabama, will be needing a pretty big ROC Cola to go along with a massive Moon Pie, planned for New Year's Eve.
Tennessee Baking Company's made those treats since 1917;
hasn't said just yet how big the giant Moon Pie will be, and instead of a ball, however, the city will be dropping a giant mechanical Moon Pie at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve.
Or maybe it will be a combination of both American and British.
the Alaska Governor heading off to the Republican Governors' conference in Florida this week, and keeping her options open about maybe running for President in 2012:
“God, if there is an open door for me somewhere, this is what I always pray, I'm like, don't let me miss the open door.”
A lot of people want a piece of history on Inauguration Day, and California Senator Dianne Feinstein, in charge of planning, is asking eBay and maybe Craigslist to not list tickets for sale for the big event;
they're supposed to be free.
“God, if there is an open door for me somewhere, this is what I always pray, I'm like, don't let me miss the open door.”
The BBC reports former President Kim Dae-jung has said he is unhappy with the results of an official report into his abduction from Tokyo in 1973.
The South Korean National Intelligence Agency (NIA) admitted last week to seizing Mr. Kim while he was in Japan.
Kim said the report did not make clear his belief that the agents had originally intended to kill him.
He also said it should have stated that the incumbent South Korean leader Park Chung-hee had ordered the abduction.
With the publication of the report on Tuesday, Japan´s Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda said he now considered the issue closed and urged Japan and South Korea to look to the future.
But on a visit to Kyoto Mr Kim told reporters, “I protest to the governments of Japan and South Korea for ignoring my rights.”
”For Japan, its sovereignty was violated, but it also infringed on my rights by neglecting on its duty to protect me,” he said.
The South Korean National Intelligence Agency (NIA) admitted last week to seizing Mr.
The Socialist candidate for the French presidency, Segolene Royal, has called on communist China to meet its international obligations on human rights.
“Professionals who have participated in defending rights should be protected,” she said.
Speaking during a tour of Beijing's Forbidden City, she said that ties with China should not mean ”losing our fundamental values”.
”The question of human rights should not be delinked from other problems,” she said.
She also touched on the issue of environmental damage caused by China's rapid development.
US ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad has said stabilizing the country is possible in a realistic time-frame, despite ongoing sectarian violence.
He said there would be setbacks, but the goal of creating a multi-ethnic and multi-faith Iraq remained unchanged.
In a joint news conference, the US military commander in Iraq reaffirmed his belief that Iraqi forces could take over security within 18 months.
The statements came amid speculation over Washington's strategy over Iraq.
At least 90 US troops have died in fighting this month - the highest monthly toll since November 2004.
The meeting was held at the Bankers Club in downtown Seoul.
In its latest effort to rev up the stagnant economy, the government yesterday decided to offer 50 percent to 100 percent tax cuts to startup businesses hiring five or more employees.
The Korea Herald reports the incentives would take effect in July.
""Despite the U.S. propaganda Iran has not relinquished its right to the (nuclear) fuel cycle and it never will do so,"" said the cleric, who is secretary-general of Iran's top security body, the Supreme National Security Council.
Security Council while warning that its uranium enrichment freeze would only last for a few months.
""The Americans have been calling for Iran to be reported to the Security Council for a year and a half, now the whole world has turned down America's calls,"" Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Hassan Rohani told a news conference.
Sundance Film Festival kicks off for 10 days on Jan.
Abe, who has admitted his ruling coalition faces an uphill battle ahead of upper house elections this month, said Akagi had done nothing wrong.
But he said Akagi might have to explain himself further to dispel allegations of impropriety.
Akagi was only appointed in June, after his predecessor killed himself.
Two other of Abe´s ministers have resigned since he became prime minister 10 months ago.
Japan´s Kyodo news agency reported that Akagi claimed millions of yen in expenses for an office based at his parents´ home registered to a political group supporting him.
However, Akagi´s father told Kyodo that the home had never been used as a political office.
Akagi has denied doing anything illegal, a stance which was backed up by Abe.˝
The US appears to be moving the goalposts in the FTA ‘game.’
The United States says it will soon notify South Korea and other trading partners of potential changes in bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) required under a new trade policy.
Officials at the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), in a news conference conducted over the phone, reaffirmed that the new trade policy announced Thursday applies to all four FTAs waiting congressional approval - South Korea, Panama, Peru and Colombia.
Changes are required in the four agreements because of the bipartisan deal announced late Thursday by Democratic House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, USTR Susan Schwab, U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and other senior Democratic and Republican lawmakers.
The officials emphasized that the required changes would have to be legally binding and not be made in the form of side letters.
The US appears to be moving the goalposts in the FTA ‘game.’
The United States says it will soon notify South Korea and other trading partners of potential changes in bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) required under a new trade policy.
Loud laments were heard from landowners and real estate dealers in the South Chungcheong area immediately after the Constitutional Court's ruling became known, according to the Joong-Ang Ilbo.
Loud laments were heard from landowners and real estate dealers in the South Chungcheong area immediately after the Constitutional Court's ruling became known, according to the Joong-Ang Ilbo.
Reflecting the hammer blow to the real estate market, construction shares sank 3.5 percent on the Korea Stock Exchange yesterday.
Land prices in the Yeongi-Gongju area doubled and tripled in recent months following news the area had been selected as the site for a new capital.
Japan yesterday banned a North Korean ferry from entering its ports for six months and will impose economic sanctions against the communist country after it fired several missiles into the East Sea.
Japan yesterday banned a North Korean ferry from entering its ports for six months and will impose economic sanctions against the communist country after it fired several missiles into the East Sea.
North Korea's Mangyongbong-92 ferry, which runs between Wonsan and Niigata, Japan, and is the main communications link between the countries, was stopped this morning from entering its port of call in northern Japan.
Responding to questions over how Seoul expects to cover the cost of doubling North Korea's electricity supply, South Korea's top energy official said that the government would undertake to pay whatever was needed to maintain peace on the Korean Peninsula and reach a successful conclusion to the six-party nuclear negotiations.
Responding to questions over how Seoul expects to cover the cost of doubling North Korea's electricity supply, South Korea's top energy official said that the government would undertake to pay whatever was needed to maintain peace on the Korean Peninsula and reach a successful conclusion to the six-party nuclear negotiations.
His comment follows by a week a huge offer announced by Unification Minister Chung Dong-young to provide 200 million kilowatts of electricity for energy-starved North Korea in exchange for its ending its nuclear weapons development program.
Fears for delay of Iraqi new constitution.
The resumption of 6 party talks is immient.
Former President Choi Kyu-hah died early yesterday morning at the age of 88, the Korea Times reports.
Choi was found unconscious at his home in western Seoul around 6 a.m.
and was taken to Seoul National University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 7:37 a.m., according to doctors and his family.
He had been suffering from a chronic disease attributed to his advanced age, according to his bereaved family members. Doctors said the exact cause of his death seems to be heart failure.
He is survived by two sons and a daughter.
President Roh Moo-hyun sent his chief of staff, Lee Byung-wan, to the hospital to express his condolences to the family members and gave them a phone call in the afternoon, according to Chong Wa Dae.
But he stepped down the next year reportedly because of pressures from Chun Doo-hwan, who took power through a military coup on Dec.
Chun appointed himself the country’s fifth president in 1980 after a massacre in May in Kwangju.
No problem if you weren't one of the 160 correspondents in the East Room for last night's Presidential news conference ?
you might be able to ask a question about the economy and have Barack Obama answer it online tomorrow.
The administration is taking questions now for a streaming video Town Hall at whitehouse.gov.
You deserve those answers.”
The President in a video that's up on the website; nearly 12,000 people already have suggested questions.
” Obama says he's eager to answer:
“ This is an experiment, but it's also an exciting opportunity for me to look at a computer and get a snapshot of what Americans across the country care about.”
Again, the online Town Hall will be tomorrow, we think some time during the morning, but no firm time yet.
It'll be online at whitehouse.gov.
“ Many of you are worried, and have a lot of questions, and you want to know what your government is doing to get our economy back on track.
The most popular one asks:
Some conservatives have lost faith in Republican running mate Sarah Palin after her sit-down with Katie Couric, but not her parents;
mom and dad were on the CBS“ Early Show” this morning, here's Chuck Heath:
Palin's mother says her daughter has a special-a special ability, that is, to relate to people.
Palin's mother says her daughter has a special-a special ability, that is, to relate to people.
Our Sophia Manos reports another part of the reason is that parents are more aware of food allergies and quicker to have their kids checked out by a doctor.
A new government study says food allergies are up 18% among America's kids over a ten-year period.
“The precise reason for the increase is not known.
Some experts say a doubling in peanut allergies noted in earlier studies is one factor.
Also, children seem to be taking longer to outgrow milk and egg allergies than they did in decades past.”
the Dow currently down 250 points, NASDAQ off 23.
˝Britain has privately c omplained to Beijing that Chinese-made weapons are being used by the Taliban to attack British troops in Afghanistan.
The BBC has been told that on several occasions Chinese arms have been recovered after attacks on British and American troops by Afghan insurgents.
The communist authorities in Beijing have promised to carry out an investigation.
This appears to be the first time Britain has asked China how its arms are ending up with the Taliban.
At a meeting held recently at the Chinese foreign ministry in Beijing, a British official expressed the UK´s growing concern about the incidents.
When asked about the latest British concerns, the Chinese foreign ministry referred back to a statement made by their spokesman Qin Gang in July who said China´s arms exports were carried out “in strict accordance with our law and our international obligations”.
For their part, the Taliban have recently begun boasting that they have now got hold of much more sophisticated weaponry although they refused to say from where.
Afghan officials have also privately confirmed to the BBC that sophisticated Chinese weapons are now in the hands of the Taliban.
They said these included Chinese-made air-to-surface missiles, anti-aircraft guns, landmines, rocket-propelled grenades and components for roadside bombs.˝
˝Britain has privately c omplained to Beijing that Chinese-made weapons are being used by the Taliban to attack British troops in Afghanistan.
The communist authorities in Beijing have promised to carry out an investigation.
John Kerry was to challenge President Bush over the war in Iraq Thursday in the climactic speech of the Democratic National Convention and pledged an administration where ``America never goes to war because we want to, we only go to war because we have to.''
John Kerry was to challenge President Bush over the war in Iraq Thursday in the climactic speech of the Democratic National Convention and pledged an administration where ``America never goes to war because we want to, we only go to war because we have to.''
Kerry vowed to build a more robust America than now.
The United States and Egypt are pushing to hold a Mideast peace conference to coordinate an Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and advance an internationally backed peace plan, but Israel's foreign minister said conditions were not yet ripe for such a meeting.
It was not immediately clear whether the blast was caused by an Israeli airstrike or a bomb in the car.
The Israeli military claimed it was not aware of the incident.
U.S. and Egyptian officials said the conference was at the early planning stages and there were obstacles to overcoming including Yasser Arafat's refusal to reform his security forces and corruption-plagued government
It was not immediately clear whether the blast was caused by an Israeli airstrike or a bomb in the car.
Caught between two rival candidates locked in a bitter fight, Grand National Party chairman Kang Jae-sup unveiled his amended guidelines for the party’s presidential primary yesterday, a compromise that earned the immediate ire of presidential hopeful Park Geun-hye, while her opponent, Lee Myung-bak, said he would accept the changes.
Trying to settle a rancorous divide in the largest opposition party, Kang has devised a system that guarantees that the views of the party faithful and the general public are given equal weight in choosing a candidate.
Park’s supporters consider the new rules undemocratic and it seems likely that her side will lobby against their implementation.
“Lee claims that the rules should change for the GNP to gain the presidency,” she said in Daejeon.
She said the changes will erode the GNP’s public support.
Trying to settle a rancorous divide in the largest opposition party, Kang has devised a system that guarantees that the views of the party faithful and the general public are given equal weight in choosing a candidate.
“But this is really a wrong idea.”
˝Communist China has said it will send delegations to the US to discuss safety concerns, after a spate of recalls of food and other products.
US toymaker Mattel this week recalled more than 18 million toys after finding that the paint used may contain lead.
This prompted a senior US senator to call for all toys being imported into the country from China to be inspected.
In what is considered retaliation, China has now banned imports of pork from several US suppliers.˝
The Korea Times reports about 400,000 wealthy South Koreans, especially those in the luxurious Kangnam apartments in Seoul, have been hit by tax bombs as their real estate ownership tax rate has jumped as many as 12 times this year over last year.
From this year, owners of homes worth more than 600 million won in government-assessed prices are subject to the punitive and progressive taxes.
Those owning land valued at 4 billion won for business purposes and 300 million won for non-business purposes are also subject to the higher taxation.
Owners of multiple homes will shoulder the burden as they will have to pay far higher taxes from this year, with the tax burden further increasing sharply in coming years.
The US and UK have hailed news that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, has died in a US air strike.
Zarqawi died when US planes dropped two 500lb bombs on a site near the city of Baquba.
He was identified by fingerprints, tattoos and scars.
The US struck after receiving specific tips from within Zarqawi's organization, officials said.
US President George W Bush described the news as a severe blow to al-Qaeda and ""justice"" for Zarqawi.
The court sentenced 38-year-old Min Gyeong-woo to three and a half years in prison.
The lower court had passed a four year term.
Min is an executive member of the Pan-Korean Alliance for Reunification's South Korean headquarters.
In another instance of judicial support for the National Security Law, the Seoul High Court upheld yesterday a lower court conviction of a senior civic group member over his support for Korean unification.
The court sentenced 38-year-old Min Gyeong-woo to three and a half years in prison.
The lower court had passed a four year term.
Min is an executive member of the Pan-Korean Alliance for Reunification's South Korean headquarters.
The U.S. military to increase security before the Oct.
Six year-old Cole Puffinburger is safe and sound.
The boy kidnapped from his Las Vegas home by alleged drug dealers found alive in a neighborhood off a Las Vegas strip.
His grateful father Robert tells KTNV television:
Cole's grandfather Clemens Tinnemeyer's being held as a material witness.
Investigators say the boy may have been snatched because of his grandfather's involvement with Mexican drug dealers.
The Boston Red Sox down 3 games to 1 earlier in the week in the American League Championship Series tied the best of 7 with a 4-2 win last night over Tampa Bay.
Boston has pulled the same stunt twice before, down 3 to 0 to the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS. They went on to win the World Series.
Last year, they were down 3 games to 1 to the Indians, only to rally and eventually take the World title.
The boy kidnapped from his Las Vegas home by alleged drug dealers found alive in a neighborhood off a Las Vegas strip.
Cole's grandfather Clemens Tinnemeyer's being held as a material witness.
The nation's unemployment rate has hit 8.1%, its highest level in 25 years.
In his weekly radio and Internet address, President Barack Obama talked about what the government is doing about the millions of jobs lost:
“ Those who have lost their job in this recession will be able to receive extended unemployment benefits and continued health care coverage, while 95% of working Americans will receive a tax break beginning April 1st.”
Obama also mentioned plans to rework health care, which he says is key to the economic recovery.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on a visit today to Ankara, Turkey, says the Obama administration wants even stronger ties with that country:
“ I know that President Obama and I will work with you, with the President and the Prime Minister, to strengthen and deepen those ties.”
Clinton announces also that Obama will visit Turkey in a month or so.
An 8-year-old limit on using Federal money to finance embryonic stem cell research could come to an end on Monday;
President Barack Obama said ready to end the practice put into place by his predecessor, George W. Bush.
Obama also mentioned plans to rework health care, which he says is key to the economic recovery.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on a visit today to Ankara, Turkey, says the Obama administration wants even stronger ties with that country:
At least 135 people were injured near Podgorica, in one of the worst rail crashes in Montenegro's history.
The train derailed shortly after 1600 local time at Bioce, about 10km north of Podgorica.
Montenegrin Interior Minister Jusuf Kalamperovic told reporters in Podgorica that the accident was caused by a failure in the braking system.
The train - carrying around 300 people from the northern town of Bijelo Polje to the port town of Bar - plunged into the 100-meter-deep ravine full of rocks.
George W. Bush will renew a quest in his second term for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage as essential to a ""hopeful and decent"" society, his top political aide said on Sunday.
George W. Bush will renew a quest in his second term for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage as essential to a ""hopeful and decent"" society, his top political aide said on Sunday.
People who disappointed Bush’s victory are for Canada.
A Missouri sheriff admits he was getting a little pessimistic about finding a 3-year-old boy who'd been missing since Monday.
But his fears were replaced with joy when little Joshua Childers was found huddled on the ground in Mark Twain National Forest, about 3 miles from his home.
Donnie Halpin is the searcher who stumbled upon him:
“ I walked over a little bit, and I could just see the little part of his low butt sticking up there, and I took a couple more steps, and I could see his legs.”
He was on the CBS Early Show.
Police say the toddler is OK.
Wall Street in the first 90 minutes:
Donnie Halpin is the searcher who stumbled upon him:
Police say the toddler is OK.
The Korea Times reports North Korea agreed Tuesday to return to the long-stalled six-way talks on its nuclear program, just weeks after the communist country conducted a nuclear bomb test.
South Korean and Chinese officials said the talks are likely to restart in November or December.
Seoul hailed the North's decision, made three weeks after its first nuclear test, as a possible breakthrough in the protracted nuclear stalemate.
Pyongyang's agreement came at an informal meeting of the chief envoys to the negotiations from the United States, North Korea and China in Beijing, on Tuesday according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
South Korean and Chinese officials said the talks are likely to restart in November or December.
˝South Korea has confirmed that a second hostage has been killed by the Taliban in central Afghanistan.
The foreign ministry identified the latest victim as 29-year-old Shim Sung-min, a former IT worker.
His body was found at the side of the road in the village of Arizo Valley in Ghazni province.
Shim was one of 23 Korean Christian Korean aid workers - 18 of them women - seized on July 19.
A man claiming to speak on behalf of the Taliban said the militants had killed the Korean hostage on Monday evening because the Afghan government had refused its demands to release eight jailed militants.
Earlier, a video of the hostages was aired on Arabic TV station al-Jazeera.
Spokesman Cheon Ho-sun warned that the Seoul government would not “sit by and watch” the lives of its citizens being taken.
”We will ensure they take responsibility for the lives of our people,” he said.˝
Investigators say someone has been setting fires in Coatesville, Pennsylvania, which is just outside Philadelphia.
A fire last night destroyed 15 row homes, and may be connected to the other arsons in the town.
The Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is working with local police and fire on the investigation.
Authorities say there have been as many as 30 arsons in the city in little more than a year's time.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai says 16 civilians, not militants, were killed in a raid yesterday by US troops.
The US military has said 15 armed militants died in that attack.
AP correspondent Jason Straziuso reports from Kabul that Karzai is demanding greater control over US and NATO troops:
“Karzai said that the killing of innocent Afghans during US military operations is, quote, 'strengthening the terrorists.'
Across the border in Pakistan, officials have asked President Barack Obama to stop missile attacks on suspected militant camps.
Two drone-launched strikes on Friday killed 22 people, among them eight suspected foreign militants, including an Egyptian Al Queda operative.
And meanwhile, Pakistani military officials say eight other militants have died in fighting inside Pakistan today.
A fire last night destroyed 15 row homes, and may be connected to the other arsons in the town.
The Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is working with local police and fire on the investigation.
Authorities say there have been as many as 30 arsons in the city in little more than a year's time.
Italy beat France 5-3 in a penalty shoot-out to win the World Cup after an absorbing 1-1 draw in Berlin.
Fabio Grosso scored the winning goal after France's David Trezeguet missed.
Playing his last game before retiring, Zinedine Zidane's career ended in disgrace after he was sent off for crazily headbutting Marco Materazzi.
Zidane had put France ahead early with a coolly-taken chipped penalty, before Materazzi levelled with a header from an Andrea Pirlo corner.
The result caps an incredible period for Italian football, with the domestic game embroiled in a corruption scandal similar to 1982 when they last won the World Cup.
Fabio Grosso scored the winning goal after France's David Trezeguet missed.
Japan's ambassador has gone back to Tokyo to report on rising tensions here over the Japanese Shimane Prefecture's plans to designate Feb.
Ambassador to Korea Toshiyuki Takano returned to Tokyo to report on Korea's stance over Japan's renewed claims to the islands, which have touched off a series of protests here.
22 as ""Takeshima Day"" in a move viewed a challenge to Korea's sovereignty of the Dokdo islets.
That's the sound of money being made on Wall Street today.
Investors are reigniting Wall Street's rally this morning, after hearing the government's plan to help banks get as much as one trillion dollars in bad assets off their books.
The Dow now up nearly 300 points; financial stocks are leading the way.
But investment officer Hugh Johnson of Johnson Illington Advisers warns that both the market and the public are very impatient, and things could change:
” More on the Obama administration's fresh attempt at loosening credit from AP White House correspondent Mark Smith:
“ If the plan catches on, it's hoped up to a trillion dollars' worth of toxic paper can be swept off the balance sheets of America's struggling banks.
A Treasury Department fact sheet says the goal is getting private investors - from insurance companies to hedge funds ? to bid on the debt lowered by low-cost government loans and limits on lawsuits.
” A bit of a surprise here:
sales of used homes rose last month.
They had been expected to fall, but the National Association of Realtors says sales actually grew more than 5% as buyers took advantage of deep discounts on foreclosures.
That's the sound of money being made on Wall Street today.
Investors are reigniting Wall Street's rally this morning, after hearing the government's plan to help banks get as much as one trillion dollars in bad assets off their books.
“ If the plan catches on, it's hoped up to a trillion dollars' worth of toxic paper can be swept off the balance sheets of America's struggling banks.
” A bit of a surprise here:
The opening bell still sounds perky (bell ringing), but the stock market is hurting again so far today.
The Dow is now down 50% from its all-time high.
Traders are second-guessing Citigroup's overnight deal to turn over a much bigger piece of itself to the government, and they're shocked, shocked I tell you, by the revised shrinkage of the economy at the end of last year.
Let's get the latest live from the New York Stock Exchange and the AP's Warren Levinson:
“ Jon, it is a forest of red arrows here.
Wall Street was anticipating considerable shrinkage in the size of the economy ?
maybe 5% - what it got was 6.2%, triggering sell orders across the board.
The Dow-Jones industrial average now down better than a percent at 77 points, that is still better than the session lows though it's just a hundred over 7,000.
Citigroup and regulators reached agreement early today on a rescue plan for the banking behemoth; that was the third try at this.
It would give the public a 36% stake in Citi, dilute the value of current shares, and cancel dividends.
The Dow is now down 50% from its all-time high.
“ Jon, it is a forest of red arrows here.
maybe 5% - what it got was 6.2%, triggering sell orders across the board.
Citigroup and regulators reached agreement early today on a rescue plan for the banking behemoth;
The first British leader to visit Sudan since independence from London in 1956, Blair took a tough approach with Bashir and his officials but said rebel groups must come to the table too.
Britain's Tony Blair warned Sudan on Wednesday the international community would not rest until violence was ended in Darfur and a comprehensive peace deal was struck across the whole country.
On the highest-level visit from a Western government since the crisis erupted last year, the prime minister also said progress had been made in getting humanitarian aid into Darfur, but problems remained to impose security.
The first British leader to visit Sudan since independence from London in 1956, Blair took a tough approach with Bashir and his officials but said rebel groups must come to the table too.
But he avoided Washington's description of the Darfur crisis as ""genocide,"" a line which has infuriated Khartoum.
Citibank’s Labor union staged a strike.
The National Tax Service has raided the Korean offices of several overseas investment funds including tax haven-based Lone Star as part of a comprehensive tax-probe.
The raids come hard on the heels of allegations from the international press of “paranoia” and “economic nationalism” in Korea.
The NTS said Thursday investigators from its Seoul office paid unannounced visits on Tuesday and Wednesday to Gangnam's Star Tower, where Lone Star Korea is headquartered, to collect documents related to the fund's domestic business dealings.
Lone Star is the largest shareholder in Korea Exchange Bank.
Online shopping malls are not supposed to take advantages of customers’ ignorance of consumer protection law.
John McCain and two other senators are in Afghanistan.
Former GOP presidential candidate says the situation there is likely to be pretty tough before there's a surge in U.S.
“We were able to succeed in Iraq, with a strategy, and with a kind of tactics and a sufficient number of troops, we will prevail here as well.”
About 160 Humvees, trucks, and other vehicles bound for U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan have been destroyed in daring attacks on transport terminals in northwestern Pakistan.
“Unfortunately, the people that affect most are those uh, you know, truck drivers and other people trying to earn a decent living.”
A guard was killed in the attacks.
John McCain and two other senators are in Afghanistan.
military in Cabo, says the attacks hurt ordinary working people in Pakistan:
“Unfortunately, the people that affect most are those uh, you know, truck drivers and other people trying to earn a decent living.”
Megumi Yokota is one of 13 Japanese the North kidnapped to train its spies.
The North says Ms Yokota, abducted as a school girl in 1977, committed suicide.
DNA tests have shown that the husband of a Japanese woman abducted by North Korea is almost certainly a kidnapped South Korean, Japanese officials say.
The Pyongyang government has previously indicated that Megumi Yokota's husband was North Korean.
The findings will fuel speculation that Pyongyang is not telling the truth about Ms Yokota, whom many Japanese hope may still be alive.
Megumi Yokota is one of 13 Japanese the North kidnapped to train its spies.
The North says Ms Yokota, abducted as a school girl in 1977, committed suicide.
The post is only 25 meters from the Military Demarcation Line and a few hundred meters away from Panmunjeom in the JSA.
South Korean troops yesterday took over patrol duties from the American-led United Nations Command at a guard post at the Joint Security Agency in the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone.
The event marked Korean troops taking virtually complete responsibility for patrolling the border with North Korea for the first time since the Korean War Armistice was signed in 1953.
The guard post, Outpost Ouellette, has been the only area within the DMZ patrolled by U.S. troops. The post is only 25 meters from the Military Demarcation Line and a few hundred meters away from Panmunjeom in the JSA.
North Korean patrol boats crossed the Northern Limit Line in the Yellow Sea.
Speaker Kim, however, said that no organized move has been observed in parliament to draft a bill, requesting Washington to summon the highest-ranking U.S. official ever assigned to the post in Seoul.
7, Vershbow said that North Korea is a ``criminal regime’’ and the U.S. cannot remove sanctions as a political gesture when the regime is engaging in dangerous activities such as weapons exports to other rogue states.
Ambassador Alexander Vershbow’s recent labeling of North Korea as a ``criminal regime’’ went beyond the bounds, National Assembly Speaker Kim Won-ki said on Thursday.
It is the second remark to come from parliament in a week, criticizing the American envoy to Seoul for his ``provocative’’ definition of the Pyongyang regime.
Kim Won-wung of the ruling Uri Party warned that he would introduce a resolution, demanding Washington recall Vershbow.
The official declined to say whether the lawmaker was gagged by the ruling party’s leadership.
What is a result of a minister’s trip?
On the possibility of resuming the six-party talks, he told reporters at the Incheon International Airport that he cannot give a ``definite answer'' on whether the denuclearization forum could reopen in February.
``The North has not yet replied to China's proposal on the resumption of the talks in February,'' he said.
The multilateral dialogue, attended by the two Koreas, the United States, China, Russia and Japan, went into recess in November after an ineffective three-day talks in Beijing.
As the Bard once said, revenge is a dish best served cold, and when I Want Revenge developed a hot spot on his left front ankle, the horse's owner, trainer and doctor decided not to allow the 3-to-1 favorite to take his full measure on the rest of the field in today's Kentucky Derby.
AP's Mark Carlson reports that's shaking up the line for the now-19-horse field:
“ The other 3 who have the best odds right now are Dunkirk, Pioneer of the Nile, and Friesan Fire, and there really is no clear favorite right now in the Derby, but there are certainly a lot of possible contenders.”
˝Today’s Korea Times reports the Taliban, who have taken 23 Koreans hostage since Thursday in Afghanistan, killed one sick male captive Wednesday.
Police officials in Ghazni Province confirmed the killing of one hostage, according to Taliban sources there.
Korean government officials said that the victim seemed to be 42-year-old Rev. Bae Hyung-kyu, whom the Taliban claimed to have deserted on the road in Musheky, Ghazni.
``That hostage was executed by the kidnappers,´´ a source said.
``The talks on the swap of hostages and Taliban prisoners also failed and deadline continued.
´´ Yousuf Ahmadi, purported spokesman of the Taliban, also said the Taliban killed and threatened again to kill the other hostages unless the Afghan government is ready to release the Taliban prisoners by what they call the ``final´´ deadline of 5:30 a.m.
``We call on the South Korean government, parliament and its people to pressure the Afghan government to accept our demands or we´ll kill more hostages after the deadline passes,´´ Ahmadi was quoted as saying by the AFP.
At the same time, eight of 23 Koreans were released through the negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban, according to Yonhap news agency.
However, an Afghan governor and the Taliban both denied the report.
``No one has been freed so far,´´ Ahmadi told AFP.
The eight were moved to a U.S. military base in Ghazni and will return home as soon as possible after undergoing a physical check-up.
The release news came after reports that a ransom was paid to the Taliban.The Afghan government paid a large amount of money to the Taliban and promised to release eight Taliban prisoners in return for the release of eight Koreans, Japan´s Kyodo news agency reported.
The payment was announced minutes before the Taliban threatened to kill the hostages by the deadline of 2 p.m.
However, the exact amount of money was not revealed.˝
``That hostage was executed by the kidnappers,´´ a source said.
At the same time, eight of 23 Koreans were released through the negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban, according to Yonhap news agency.
The release news came after reports that a ransom was paid to the Taliban.The Afghan government paid a large amount of money to the Taliban and promised to release eight Taliban prisoners in return for the release of eight Koreans, Japan´s Kyodo news agency reported.
A Manila-based radio station on Sunday aired a telephone message from one of the hostages held by armed men in Nigeria that they were being beaten up and deprived of food.
Three South Korean executives and eight Filipino laborers with Daewoo Engineering and Construction were kidnapped Thursday following a shootout at a power plant construction site in southern Nigeria.
The third round of negotiations between kidnappers and Nigerian government officials ended with no progress.
The eight-hour negotiations which took place on Saturday from 8 p.m. failed to free three South Korean executives of Daewoo Engineering and Construction Co., according to the Foreign Ministry.
The ministry also said it reconfirmed through a telephone conversation that the abductees were safe.
It declined to provide further details, citing the sensitivity of the case.
President Barack Obama is playing host today to a high-level meeting on health care reform, and there's already a huge deal on the table:
“ What's being pledged is $2 trillion over the next decade, if the President can get Congress to go along with a plan for universal health coverage.
The pledge is coming at a White House meeting of groups representing health insurers, hospitals, doctors, drug-makers, and a major labor union.
Details of how the cash will actually be saved are still emerging, but Obama is prepared to say the active support of groups that have fought each other and lawmakers for years shows even they know reform is a necessity that cannot wait.
Mark Smith, Washington.”
Professor Mary Kaufman at the McGill School of Journalism taught Saberi, and says international pressure forced Iran to release her:
“ Everything from the hunger strikes, and everything from the President and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton all speaking out on her behalf - all helped, I'm sure, and, I mean, this is really good news and I'm anxious for her to get home.”
Saberi was convicted of spying by the Iranians;
she'd been working in Iran for several news organizations.
GM's top executive says bankruptcy is becoming more likely, but there is still hope that the company can restructure and avoid court protection.
GM is operating with the help of a $15.4 billion Federal loan.
On Wall Street at this hour:
Details of how the cash will actually be saved are still emerging, but Obama is prepared to say the active support of groups that have fought each other and lawmakers for years shows even they know reform is a necessity that cannot wait.
GM is operating with the help of a $15.4 billion Federal loan.
He's forty-seven, he's a first-term Senator, and yes, Barack Obama has been to the White House before, but never the Oval Office-until, that is, the President Elect sits down for a private chat with the President today.
Let's get the story live from the White House and the AP's Mark Smith:
However, Obama stresses America has but one leader at a time, and right now, it's Bush who has to help.”
Uh, Mark, I know the Obama girls are staying home, but I understand they'll be on the minds of the First Lady and their mother.
“Yea, that's right, while the men confer, John, Laura Bush will give Michelle Obama a tour of the White House residence headquarters.
By tradition, she's the one who runs this 135-room mansion.
And Obama has already said her first concern is how 10 year-old Malia and 7 year-old Sasha will settle in here.
A live report from the Associated Press' White House correspondent Mark Smith.
Let's get the story live from the White House and the AP's Mark Smith:
However, Obama stresses America has but one leader at a time, and right now, it's Bush who has to help.”
One more look now at last night's vice presidential debate.
And let's say there were no major mistakes by either candidate, Sarah Palin and Joe Biden.
Each delivered on their own version of populism, focusing on the economy and the middle class.
She's talking about abusive home loans.
Of course there are a lot of swing voters in the middle class.
“We're gonna focus on the middle class.
Because it's when the middle class is growing, the economy grows and everybody does well.”
And with 32 days to go until Election Day, we get more in today's installment of“ The Contenders.”
“Sarah Palin's role in this campaign has got a bit little more complicated.”
“Politico's Alex Burns says ahead of last night's VP debate cracks were beginning to develop in Palin's performance as a national candidate.”
“Between our interview with Charlie Gibson on ABC and Katie Couric on CBS, Sarah Palin really did underscore a number of the concerns that people had initially articulated.”
“Joe six-pack, hockey moms across the nation;
I think we need to band together and say, never again.”
She's talking about abusive home loans.
The rally on Wall Street is so far extending into a fifth day.
Stocks are mixed, after comments by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke that if the bank bailout program is a success, the recession would probably end this year.
On Wall Street the Dow is up about 65 points, the NASDAQ is down about 11 points.
Economist Diane Schwann says the name that pushed the markets on Friday was Bernard Madoff:
“ We also saw Madoff go to jail, which I think had a huge impact on confidence - the psychology of the market.”
Federal prosecutors are telling a New York court they also want the assets of Bernard Madoff's wife.
Madoff's lawyers had indicated earlier they planned to claim Ruth Madoff was entitled to keep as much as $69 million in assets.
There is a lot of anger on Capitol Hill over word that troubled insurance giant AIG paid out millions in executive bonuses.
House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank says it's like rewarding incompetence:
“ Maybe we should fire some people.
President Obama and Treasury Secretary Geithner will be announcing a broad package to help small businesses.
The rally on Wall Street is so far extending into a fifth day.
Stocks are mixed, after comments by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke that if the bank bailout program is a success, the recession would probably end this year.
On Wall Street the Dow is up about 65 points, the NASDAQ is down about 11 points.
Madoff's lawyers had indicated earlier they planned to claim Ruth Madoff was entitled to keep as much as $69 million in assets.
Sources in Washington said South Korean civic groups opposed to a free trade agreement between South Korea and the United States are planning to stage a protest rally near the venue of negotiations, scheduled next month in Washington.
The source said 300 to 500 Korean protesters are expected.
The South Korean Embassy in Washington is on full alert and trying to devise measures to prevent unforeseen accidents.
""Protests are guaranteed as an act of freedom, but the United States is strict in enforcing its laws so it's important to stage the protest within those bounds,"" an embassy official said.
Sources in Washington said South Korean civic groups opposed to a free trade agreement between South Korea and the United States are planning to stage a protest rally near the venue of negotiations, scheduled next month in Washington.
The source said 300 to 500 Korean protesters are expected.
’ He said the government will take all diplomatic steps to tackle the matter and the ``core of such measures will be urging the Japanese government to backtrack.’
Declaring a virtual war of diplomacy, President Roh Moo-hyun criticized Japan on Wednesday for attempting to justify its 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula and claim territorial sovereignty over the Tokto islets in the East Sea.
The government unveiled rescue measures for credit delinquents.
North Korean delegation had a courtesy visit to the Blue House.
During a rare meeting with senior North Korean officials, President Roh Moo-hyun said yesterday at the Blue House that cooperation between the two Koreas was needed to resolve the nuclear arms crisis on the peninsula.
""In the six-party talks to be resumed late this month, the South and the North must work together to make substantial progress in solving the nuclear issue,"" Blue House spokesman Kim Man-soo quoted the president as telling the North's delegation.
Among the six North Koreans at a luncheon hosted by President Roh were Kim Ki-nam, a key member of North Korea's Workers' Party and Rim Tong-ok, chief policy maker for the North Korean Workers' Party on ties with the South.
Kim is leading the 182-member North Korean delegation, which arrived in Seoul to participate in a joint celebration of the 60th anniversary of Korea's liberation from despotic Japanese colonial rule.
Among the six North Koreans at a luncheon hosted by President Roh were Kim Ki-nam, a key member of North Korea's Workers' Party and Rim Tong-ok, chief policy maker for the North Korean Workers' Party on ties with the South.
Japan and North start talks on recognition.
After a month of deadlocked procedural negotiations, North Korea and Japan resume talks today to establish diplomatic relations.
The two sides agreed to begin a new push toward diplomatic recognition at the recent six-nation North Korea nuclear disarmament talks.
Song Il-ho, the deputy director of the North Korean Foreign Ministry's Asian bureau, will represent Pyongyang. Song arrived in Beijing Tuesday.
Akitaka Saiki, deputy director-general for Asian affairs at Japan's Foreign Ministry, is leading the Japanese delegation.
High on Japan's list of priorities is the return of its citizens that the North has admitted abducting.
Ruling Uri Party Chairman Shin Ki-nam will likely bow to intense pressure from his fellow and opposition lawmakers to step down after he confessed to his father's pro-Japanese activities before Korea's 1945 liberation.
Ruling Uri Party Chairman Shin Ki-nam will likely bow to intense pressure from his fellow and opposition lawmakers to step down after he confessed to his father's pro-Japanese activities before Korea's 1945 liberation.
The Korea Times reports Shin will hold a news conference to announce his resignation, quoting party officials.
He canceled yesterday his entire schedule for today.
Following an overnight boost on Wall Street after the U.S.
Federal Reserve’s pump priming, both the Korean stock market and the ailing local currency moved higher in yesterday’s trading.
The KOSPI index was up 2.1 percent to close at 1,622.23.
Boosted in part by foreign buying, the won also gained against the dollar yesterday by 4.9 won.
It closed at 1,009.1 won to the dollar, its second straight day of gains after it fell to a 27-month low against the greenback on Monday.
Top officials of Korean financial authorities also boosted market sentiment, trying to assure investors that they will keep the economy and the currency under control.
The good news was a relief to many but analysts say it is too early to declare a recovery and that more trouble could be coming.
Okay, thanks a lot, Rita.
stocks opening slightly lower on more bad economic news.
Retailers are not looking forward to the holiday season, not with this morning's word that retail sales plummeted last month, making for the weakest October level in almost 40 years.
Okay, thanks a lot, Rita.
˝Next to the calories and nutrition details on the side of a food package, you may soon be looking at the words “China-Free,” as the labeling movement that debuted in the U.S. is quietly trickling into South Korean food and beverage industries.
The move, which was first triggered in June by a Utah-based health food company for consumer awareness, has stirred controversy that it may promote racism.
But a rising number of American businesses, consumers and interest groups are welcoming the labeling method as Chinese food and other imports have recently been headline news for their unacceptable health and safety standards.
An online poll by U.S. news channel MSBNC showed that 77 percent of 9,865 people said they were in favor of the ``China-Free´´ labeling since an at-a-glance sticker tells shoppers what they need to know right away, while only 7.7 percent said they were against it.
˝Next to the calories and nutrition details on the side of a food package, you may soon be looking at the words “China-Free,” as the labeling movement that debuted in the U.S. is quietly trickling into South Korean food and beverage industries.
Meanwhile, Bush has hinted at compromise on an Iraq funding bill, saying the idea of setting benchmarks on progress in Iraq ””made sense””.
But he warned he would veto the current bill, which funds operations in Iraq to the end of July but makes further money dependent on events in Iraq.
The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives passed the bill late on Thursday in a 221-205 vote.
Bush has already vetoed one bill linking funding to troop withdrawal.
Although the new bill has passed in the House, most Republicans oppose it.
That makes it unlikely it will be passed in the Senate, where the Democrats have a very slender majority.
The new bill would limit about half of the money, $52.8bn, that Bush has requested to fund the war in Iraq.
Lawmakers would then vote in July on whether to release this money on the basis of a report from Bush on progress towards political, economic and security targets.
The tornado hit the town of Qishi in southern China's Guangdong province around noon Saturday.
The twister injured 85 people, many of whom were hospitalized.
A rare tornado sliced through a town in southern China, killing two people and ripping the roofs off hundreds of homes, the official Xinhua News Agency reported on Sunday.
The tornado hit the town of Qishi in southern China's Guangdong province around noon Saturday.
The twister injured 85 people, many of whom were hospitalized.
stocks up this morning more than 50 points on the Dow, despite another down night on Asian and European markets, and despite some economists taking a look at unemployment, foreclosures, and economic shrinkage, and daring to use the word depression.
Peter Marisi of the University of Maryland:
“ The stock market has tanked, unemployment is growing at a very rapid rate with no end in sight, the government's programs to resolve the problem will not have an effect large enough to offset the downward pull.
We're getting this from senior administration officials now:
President Barack Obama has reached out to Russia to help out with Iran.
AP White House correspondent Mark Smith is live with the latest:
“ Jon, we're told the President has written the Russian president, Dmitri Medyedev, to urge Moscow to try to thwart Iran's drive for long-range missiles.
Fear of an Iranian nuclear threat to Europe is one reason the Bush administration pushed so hard for a missile defense base in Poland and the Czech Republic.
stocks up this morning more than 50 points on the Dow, despite another down night on Asian and European markets, and despite some economists taking a look at unemployment, foreclosures, and economic shrinkage, and daring to use the word depression.
There had been speculation that the 76-year-old Raul Castro, would name one of Cuba´s younger generation of communist leaders as his number two.
Raul Castro has been unanimously selected to succeed his brother Fidel as leader by Cuba´s National Assembly.
Fidel Castro stepped down last week after nearly half a century in charge.
Raul has in effect been president since Fidel had major surgery in July 2006.
It is understood that he was the only nominee in a vote seen as a formality.
But the real shock came when he chose 78-year-old Politburo hardliner Machado Ventura as vice-president according to correspondents in Havana.
There had been speculation that the 76-year-old Raul Castro, would name one of Cuba´s younger generation of communist leaders as his number two.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare said yesterday that 680 people were newly infected with the HIV virus last year, an increase of nearly 11 percent from the number of new cases in 2004.
More than 3,800 HIV-infected people have been found in Korea to date more than 700 of them have died.
All but 6 percent of the new victims last year were male, and a third of them were in their 30s.
Who will be the next UN Secretary-General?
A major labor group yesterday vowed to stage strikes in June if its concerns, including an increase in the minimum wage, are not addressed during negotiations, the Korea Herald reports.
But the business community called for The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions to be more cautious and responsible. A major labor group yesterday vowed to stage strikes in June if its concerns, including an increase in the minimum wage, are not addressed during negotiations, the Korea Herald reports.
This could be the toughest battle yet between labor and management, as the labor movement recently gained some legislative backing with the Democratic Labor Party's successful showing in the parliamentary elections.
The union-backed party clinched 10 seats and is now represented in parliament for the first time.
Souths aid sets sail for N. Korea.
North Korea requested the aids to South Korea.
“I will not allow it to move through the Senate, unless and until Korea completely lifts its ban on U.S. beef,” he said.
The AFL-CIO, the largest labor group in the U.S., opposes the deal, while non-auto industry associations have expressed initial support.
The free trade deal may be in, but that doesn't mean it's done, especially given the initial reaction of some influential American legislators and industry figures to the agriculture and automobile provisions of the hard-won pact that was announced Monday between the United States and South Korea.
Powerful legislators and automobile companies are already saying they will not support the deal, a sure sign that a lot of noise will come out of the U.S.
Congress before passage of a deal that must be voted up or down with no amendments.
Russia’s threat to aim weapons at Europe if the US sets up a missile shield was “unwelcome,” NATO has said.
The US says it wants missile defense in eastern Europe to counter threats from states like Iran and North Korea.
It aims to build parts of the system in Poland and the Czech Republic, where US President George W Bush has arrived for talks ahead of this week’s G8 summit.
On Sunday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Iran was not a threat to the US, hinting that Russia was the target.
His words sparked concern in the West, with new French President Nicolas Sarkozy saying he would have ”frank” talks with Putin on the issue.
And NATO spokesman James Appathurai went further, saying Russia was ”the only country speculating about targeting Europe with missiles.”
Putin’s spokesman has since attempted to soothe the row, describing the Russian leader’s comment as a ”hypothetical” response to a ”hypothetical” question.
The US says it wants missile defense in eastern Europe to counter threats from states like Iran and North Korea.
Chung, a former president of Seoul National University, said he has decided not to run in the Dec.
19 presidential election as he was lacking in ability and other requirements needed to pursue the job.
He had been floated as a potential candidate to represent liberal groups.
The pro-government Uri Party said Chung’s decision is regrettable, while the main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) hailed it.
The Commander-in-Chief to his new ensigns and 2nd lieutenants:
“ Class of 2009, today is your day.”
Barack Obama delivering his first commencement address to a military academy, at Annapolis this morning.
“ It's your day to reflect on all you've achieved, or should I say all that you've endured.”
The President is promising the new grads, who are becoming Navy and Marine Corps officers, he will only send young Americans into battle when it is absolutely necessary, and when the mission is well-defined.
Meantime, the Defense Secretary says Gitmo has an image problem:
Gates says there would be no problem locking up suspected terrorists in maximum security prisons in the States:
“ The truth is, there's a lot of fear-mongering about this;
we've never had an escape from a SuperMax prison, and that's where these guys will go.
And if not one of the existing ones, we'll create a new one.”
The Commander-in-Chief to his new ensigns and 2nd lieutenants:
The poll showed that more than 90 percent of Koreans consider the current real estate boom a potentially harmful bubble, while only 1.1 percent of respondents believe the land and apartment prices are undervalued.
Nearly half of the respondents said they expect a slight economic slowdown which they can manage to live with thanks to the government's antispeculation measures announced last month. Nine out of 10 Koreans think the current domestic housing prices are overvalued, according to a government survey.
The poll showed that more than 90 percent of Koreans consider the current real estate boom a potentially harmful bubble, while only 1.1 percent of respondents believe the land and apartment prices are undervalued.
The Ministry of Construction and Transportation yesterday released the results of a survey of 1,000 adults nationwide on property policies, jointly conducted by the Government Information Agency and market research company TNS Korea.
In line with the negative public sentiment on the current housing market, about 55 percent of respondents support strong antispeculation measures by the government.
North and South Korea will be jointly celebrating the sixth anniversary of the June 15 Inter-Korean Declaration this week in Kwangju.
The North Korean government and civic delegations will arrive in the southwestern city Wednesday to participate in the celebrations, which continue through Saturday.
Various official and spontaneous festivities will sweep the city, known for the democratic movement against martial law troops in 1980, according to officials at the South's organizing committee.
The two Koreas have held the joint celebrations to mark the first inter-Korean summit and the accord adopted during the summit, which set off a string of rapprochement projects and significantly warmed up inter-Korean relations.
The joint celebrations have taken place annually alternating between the South and North, with last year's festivities being held in Pyongyang.
President Roh Moo-hyun and the governing Uri Party seem to have already passed the ``point of no return’’ after Roh indicated he may withdraw from the party after the current National Assembly session ends next month.
A probable scenario is for Roh to renounce his party membership around the year-end with Uri Party-affiliated Cabinet ministers returning to the party and the president creating a politically neutral Cabinet early next year.
Minister of Commerce, Industry and Energy Chung Sye-kyun, who holds an Assembly seat, told reporters that he would return to the party as soon as the Assembly approves next year’s budget proposal.
But Prime Minister Han Myeong-sook is expected not to resign although she is a key Uri Party member.
Roh is expected to be the fourth head of state to renounce his membership in the governing party like his predecessors Roh Tae-woo, Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung.
Chong Wa Dae spokesman Yoon Tai-young said he is not in a position to comment on whether the president would quit the party or not.
A probable scenario is for Roh to renounce his party membership around the year-end with Uri Party-affiliated Cabinet ministers returning to the party and the president creating a politically neutral Cabinet early next year.
Roh is expected to be the fourth head of state to renounce his membership in the governing party like his predecessors Roh Tae-woo, Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung.
Another passenger who was worried about possible danger caused the disturbance also complained and the two quarreled.
The annoyed passenger reported the woman’s wrongdoings to the police.
She was arrested by Pusan Kangso police and booked without detention on charges of violating the Aviation Safety Law.
The law bans passengers from using electronic gadgets as they could affect the safe operation of the plane. Violators can be fined up to five million won.
A woman has been booked on charges of using a mobile phone while in flight.
Fargo, North Dakota will be open for business in the morning:
The dikes and levees that are protecting Fargo appear to be holding, even after being lashed by a blizzard and heavy winds.
The business community has also been taking a beating:
one economist says the flooding and its aftermath could cost the local economy a hundred million dollars.
The Red River is falling faster than previously predicted;
it was around 38 feet at mid-day, and the Weather Service says it'll fall another 2 feet by Thursday morning.
“ Three members of a banned fraternity charged in a fellow student's death.
Police say the teen had been drinking heavily for 3 days to get into a club that had been banished from the State University of New York in Geneseo.
Tom Moran tells WHAM it's a senseless tragedy:
The business community has also been taking a beating:
City Commissioner Tim Mahoney says nonessential businesses can turn the lights back on:
President Roh Moo-hyun yesterday slammed Japan for its provocative rhetoric suggesting possible pre-emptive strikes on North Korea in the wake of the latest missile crisis.
In the days following the test-fires, the rift between South Korea and Japan has widened due to their contrasting stance toward the provocation.
Hours before the president's comments, the presidential office released a statement accusing Tokyo of trying to bolster its military leverage in Northeast Asia by capitalizing on the latest missile crisis triggered by North Korea.
President Roh Moo-hyun yesterday slammed Japan for its provocative rhetoric suggesting possible pre-emptive strikes on North Korea in the wake of the latest missile crisis.
The pro-opposition Joong-Ang Ilbo reports President Roh Moo-hyun, who was nearly impeached last year, offered to shorten his term on Tuesday, if his idea for a coalition government is realized.
Political observers say such repeated urges for a coalition government, despite a slew of criticism, is due to Roh's determination to revise the constitution and adopt a parliamentary system.
The comments came in the midst of Roh's repeated calls for a coalition government, which he reiterated Tuesday to Uri Party lawmakers, some of whom disagree with the plan, as does the major opposition Grand National Party.
Home prices are expected to fall around 11%.
The Nigerian government and rebel militia fighting in the oil-producing Niger Delta agreed a truce on Wednesday while talks took place on rebel demands for autonomy.
The Nigerian government and rebel militia fighting in the oil-producing Niger Delta agreed a truce on Wednesday while talks took place on rebel demands for autonomy.
Warlord Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, speaking to Reuters during a break in the talks with President Olusegun Obasanjo, repeated his warning to foreign oil workers to leave the region, which pumps almost all of Nigeria's 2.3 million barrels per day output, until a final deal was achieved.
Blair would respond to the captors of Bigley.
At least 20 people have been killed in a suspected U.S. missile strikes on a house in Pakistan near the Afghan border.
Two Pakistani intelligence officials say 14 Taliban militants and 8 Arab foreigners died in the attack.
North Korea's official news agency says leader Kim Jung-Il made it to a soccer game in Pyongyang, his first public appearance in more than a month.
The 66 year-old leader has not been seen in public since the middle of August.
U.S. and South Korean officials say he suffered a stroke.
North Korean officials have never admitted that Kim has been ill.
Two Pakistani intelligence officials say 14 Taliban militants and 8 Arab foreigners died in the attack.
The Korea Times reports the third round of six-party talks on the North Korean nuclear standoff will likely take place from June 23-25 in Beijing.
The six countries _ the two Koreas, the United States, Japan, Russia and the host China _ will also hold a two-day working-group meeting involving lower-level officials from June 21 to lay the groundwork for the plenary session.
According to the source, China has recently informed the other five nations of the schedule and received positive answers from them.
The US Senate has voted to approve a bill which requires US troops to start withdrawing from Iraq by October.
President George Bush has said he will veto the Democrat-sponsored bill, which was also passed by the House of Representatives on Wednesday.
Bush says he is committed to his “surge” strategy, under which more US troops are being poured into Baghdad.
Earlier the top US general in Iraq, David Petraeus, claimed reducing forces could lead to increased violence.
The Senate voted 51 to 46 in favor of the bill, which makes $100bn in further funding for the war conditional on a timetable for withdrawal.
It says the pull-out must start by 1 October this year, and sets a target of completion by 31 March 2008.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said ”If the president refuses to change direction, America risks being bogged down in Iraq for years, not months.”
Republicans dismissed the bill as a futile stunt, since although the Democrats control both houses of Congress, they do not have enough votes to overrule a presidential veto.
Both presidential candidates are claiming to have played roles in getting the administration and Congress to agree on a tentative $700 billion financial bailout.
Barack Obama tells CBS'“ Face the Nation” that what he wanted has been added to the deal.
“They are identical to the things I called for the day that Secretary Paulson released his package.
Earlier on ABC's“ This Week,” John McCain says the proposal has what he wanted:
“Protect the taxpayer, make sure that there isn't excessive compensation for CEOs, oversight body, not leaving all the decisions in the hands of one individual.”
Even during the week of negotiations, Congress has finally agreed on a $630 billion spending bill that includes the Pentagon budget.
Steve Ellis with“ Taxpayers for Common Sense,” says lawmakers use that bill as a catch-all for what he calls“ a number of questionable programs.”
We get the latest now live from the AP's Warren Levinson in New York.
Diane, stock prices have stabilised after falling into a nearly 700 point hole yesterday, but in the first half-hour of trading they're not exactly bouncing back.
The DOW JONES industrial average is ahead at 26 points after rising around 75 - a little less than 1% at the opening.
After yesterday's news that the recession has been here for a year, and manufacturing and construction have suffered heavy declines, the Street is looking ahead to gloomy news on auto-sales, and eager for details on what the domestic car-makers are prepared to do in exchange for Federal Loans.
Right now the DOW industrial's ahead 29 points.
Well, Detroit's big three auto-makers have come up with some plans to stay afloat.
Now, Congress will get a look at those plans.
They Mayor of Lancey, Michigan made an appeal for Federal help for the automotives today on CBS.
“China produced ten million cars last year - China is up and coming, and when you compete with a Chinese company you're competing with the Chinese Government.
We should support out industry like these other Governments support theirs”.
Local UAW leaders are meeting tomorrow to talk over what concessions they might accept to help the auto-makers stay in business.
Vermont Governor Jim Douglas says there's no time to lose on this.
“It's critical that it happen as soon as possible, because it does take a little time to get the bit-process underway, to get the contracts approved, to get the jobs created and the work done, and the tax revenue flowing into the State Treasuries”.
Governors are meeting today with President-Elect Barack Obama in Philadelphia.
The terror threat facing the US is getting worse;
a new study indicates the country can expect a terrorist attack using nuclear or biological weapons before 2013.
The trading day begins with a bit of an upswing.
They Mayor of Lancey, Michigan made an appeal for Federal help for the automotives today on CBS.
Local UAW leaders are meeting tomorrow to talk over what concessions they might accept to help the auto-makers stay in business.
The key Seoul stock index broke past 2,000 points for the first time in two months on Tuesday on the back of the historic inter-Korean summit and overnight Wall Street rally, dealers said.
The KOSPI closed at an all-time high, up 51.42 points, or 2.62 percent, at 2,014.09, the highest closing level.
Market capitalization grew by 25 trillion won to 1,007 trillion won.
This is the first time that the main bourse market value has exceeded the 1,000-trillion won mark.
Foreign investors turned aggressive buyers on expectations that the summit would ease geopolitical risks on the Korean Peninsula.The rally came after Dow Jones Industrial Average hit 14,000.
It closed at 14,087.55 Monday.
Foreigners bought over 600 billion won in Seoul shares, the second highest daily buying.
Eleven South Korean farmers were indicted for allegedly staging violent anti-globalization street demonstrations during a World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting over the weekend in Hong Kong.
The farmers were charged with destruction of public property and assaulting police officers.
Earlier on Monday, Hong Kong police freed an additional 838 South Koreans detained for taking part in the street protests following the release of 150 South Korean women and a child on the same day.
Vice Foreign Minister Lee Kyu-hyung arrived in Hong Kong and met with high-ranking officials, including Commissioner of Police Lee Ming-kwai, to express regret over the violent rallies and appeal for leniency toward the South Korean protesters.
Hong Kong police detained a total of 1,001 South Koreans on Sunday and released 988 of them a day later.
Eh well, it's Halloween:
This Virginia ten year-old says she'll be running with a pack:
AAA's Lon Anderson says with the holiday coming on a Friday, there will be more adults partying tonight:
“We see an average increase of by 30% in fatalities over the typical day, um, when we have Halloween on a weekend.”
Police are expected to be out in force tonight.
Trick or treaters should wear light-colored costumes, carry flashlights, and stay out of the roadways.
In southern California National Transportation Safety Board investigators say the engineer sent a text message from his cell phone just 22 seconds before last month's commuter train crash that killed 25 people.
Stocks are tumbling, credit markets remain tight this morning.
This, on news of an unexpected rise in new unemployment claims at a drop in factory orders.
All this highlighting the troubles facing the economy, even if the House follows the Senate in passing a reworked bailout bill.
Economist Mark Lansey says the economic stress is really straining the job market.
The Dow is down 235 points.
In southern California National Transportation Safety Board investigators say the engineer sent a text message from his cell phone just 22 seconds before last month's commuter train crash that killed 25 people.
Stocks are tumbling, credit markets remain tight this morning.
This, on news of an unexpected rise in new unemployment claims at a drop in factory orders.
All this highlighting the troubles facing the economy, even if the House follows the Senate in passing a reworked bailout bill.
The Dow is down 235 points.
In contrast, U.S. students took 18th place in reading, 22nd in science, 28th place in math and 29th in problem solving.
The Korea Times reports South Korean students topped the list for problem solving skills among 15-year-olds in the results of a global survey released Tuesday by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
Korean students in the first grade of high school were also found to rank second for reading, third for math and fourth for science among 41 countries.
In contrast, U.S. students took 18th place in reading, 22nd in science, 28th place in math and 29th in problem solving.
overall performance was about the same as Poland, Hungary and Spain.
President Roh visited the Sorbonne, a leading French university.
Pantech, the country's No.3 mobile phone manufacturer, Monday formally sought a bailout from creditors to overcome its growing cash flow problem.
If it goes ahead, the bailout will be the largest after the drastic corporate restructuring following the currency crisis.
The Korea Development Bank (KDB), Pantech's main creditor, and 11 other creditors will gather soon to decide whether to rescue the troubled mobile phone manufacturer.
Sources at the state-run bank said creditors have agreed in principle to rescue the firm through a debt-restructuring program.
Pantech and its affiliate Curitel Communications have 1.47 trillion won ($1.59 billion) in outstanding bank credit.
Prosecutors claim they confirmed irregularities in the way Lone Star Funds acquired the Korea Exchange Bank (KEB) in 2003 that could possibly force authorities to nullify the sale.
The Supreme Prosecutors’ Office says it will announce Thursday the results of their 11-month probe into the Lone Star-KEB deal.
The report concludes that the Dallas-based buyout fund lobbied government officials and KEB’s former management to understate the bank’s financial health to buy it at a reduced price.
However, proving such claims in court is expected to be difficult.
Lone Star continues to deny any wrongdoing in its takeover of KEB.
During the course of the investigation, the court repeatedly rejected the prosecution’s request for warrants to detain some Lone Star executives who were close to the takeover deal, citing lack of evidence.
The government announced a set of long-term measures to tackle rising oil prices after an energy conservation committee presided over by Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan.
The Korea Herald reports the government will introduce a flexible, daily work-hour system for public institutions next year to reduce wasted energy due to rush-hour traffic jams.
It will also offer tax breaks for the purchase of locally developed hybrid-fuel vehicles beginning in 2008 and make it mandatory for government agencies to purchase the energy-efficient cars from 2006.
The government announced a set of long-term measures to tackle rising oil prices after an energy conservation committee presided over by Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan.
Korea is the world's fourth-biggest crude-oil buyer, importing 805 million barrels last year.
Constitutional Court decided the National Security Law are constitutional.
The Korea Times reports the Constitutional Court on Monday started reviewing the special law on capital relocation immediately after a group filed a petition questioning the constitutionality of the law.
The Korea Times reports the Constitutional Court on Monday started reviewing the special law on capital relocation immediately after a group filed a petition questioning the constitutionality of the law.
The court designated judge Lee Sang-kyung as presiding justice for the case, which comes just seven days after the government selected the Yongi-Kongju region in South Chungchong Province as preferred site for the new capital.
Challenging the capital relocation project, one of President Roh Moo-hyun's campaign commitments during the 2002 presidential election, a group of 169 people filed the petition with the Constitutional Court on Monday morning, asking it to decide whether the law is in line with the Constitution.
National Assembly and nine other government institutes have been attacked by hackers.
AIDS costs the world’s labor force.
Philippine President Gloria Arroyo has said her country is unlikely to sign a new Asean charter unless Burma frees the opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
The regional group´s new charter, which would commit members to promoting human rights and bolstering democracy, is due to be ratified at a summit on Tuesday.
Burma´s suppression of mass protests in September was widely condemned.
The Commerce Department this morning reports new home construction fell more than 6%, much more than expected;
another sign to many economists that the country's already in a recession.
The Northeast was hurting worst with building off nearly 21%, but the West didn't do much better.
New home construction was down almost 17% there, with single-family building hitting an all-time low.
Wall Street opened more than 250 points lower on the housing news, but it's bounced back a bit since then and is currently off less than 25 points.
A word of caution for first-time investors thinking of diving into the stock market here:
the chief economist of Standard and Poor's David Wyss tells the AP there will be dramatic up days and down days for a while and you could get caught in the buying.
“You end up buying when all the news stories are good and the stock market is going up, and then end up selling when the stock market is going down and all the news stories talkin' about how terrible it is.
The result is that most people end up buying high and selling low, and that's not how you make money in the stock market.”
The Commerce Department this morning reports new home construction fell more than 6%, much more than expected;
New home construction was down almost 17% there, with single-family building hitting an all-time low.
A word of caution for first-time investors thinking of diving into the stock market here:
the chief economist of Standard and Poor's David Wyss tells the AP there will be dramatic up days and down days for a while and you could get caught in the buying.
˝Ko San will become the first Korean in space next year.
The Ministry of Science and Technology announced Wednesday that it had selected the 30-year-old computer engineer for a trip to the International Space Station (ISS) next April, as he had a better record than his competitor Yi So-yeon, a 29-year-old female scientist, in training programs in Russia.
After completing his eight-day orbital tour, Ko is to work as a government researcher and an ambassador for space science and technology.
South Korea has been increasing its investments to embark on its own space exploration projects in the coming decades _ the astronaut program was the first of these.˝
President Bush, in today's weekly radio address, admits that he normally would not use government money and power to rescue banks and other corporations.
“As a strong believer in free markets, I would oppose such measures under ordinary circumstances.
But these are no ordinary circumstances.”
Bush holds talks later today at Camp David with French President Nikolas Sarkozy and the head of the European Commission.
Search is on for a 6 year-old boy snatched from his Las Vegas home on Wednesday.
“Police had said they believed the abduction of the boy may be linked to the grandfather's drug dealings with Mexican nationals.”
Investigators say the grandfather might have stolen millions of dollars from the dealers.
He's in custody in Riverside, California.
Bush holds talks later today at Camp David with French President Nikolas Sarkozy and the head of the European Commission.
“Police had said they believed the abduction of the boy may be linked to the grandfather's drug dealings with Mexican nationals.”
Neutralizing the North's long-range artillery ― counterfire, as it is known ― is one of the 10 military missions that are scheduled to be gradually assumed by the South Korean military as it takes on more responsibility for defending the country against potential attacks from North Korea, the raison d'etre for the half-century U.S.
In another step in the shift of defense responsibilities from the U.S. to the Korean military, Korean forces will take on the mission of countering long-range North Korean artillery fire this year, perhaps as soon as August, a military official has said.
""The South Korean military has successfully conducted a couple of drills regarding the operation of the systems involved in counterfire missions,"" a senior military official told the Joong-Ang Ilbo yesterday.
South Korea is not shifting its foreign currency reserves out of the dollar.
The election campaign in Britain begins.
The Korea Women’s Association (KWAU) released a statement that called the ruling a milestone in improving women’s rights.
Reversing earlier decisions by lower courts, the Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that married women have equal rights with men in sharing the wealth of their paternal families.
The ruling, which states that a woman should rightfully remain a member of her father’s family after marriage, could affect the outcome of similar lawsuits around the country and encourage more legal actions.
The top court referred the case back to the Seoul High Court.
Most civic groups welcomed the court decision as progress in promoting gender equality.
NIS investigating illegal eavesdroppin.
From midnight all unregistered phones will have their signals blocked, a move Thai officials hope will prevent their use as improvised bomb detonators.
Mobile phone users in southern Thailand face having their lines disconnected as part of a drive to reduce bomb attacks.
Thousands queued to register prepaid phones on Tuesday to beat a midnight deadline set by the government.
From midnight all unregistered phones will have their signals blocked, a move Thai officials hope will prevent their use as improvised bomb detonators.
About 1,000 people have died in the Muslim-majority south of Thailand since an insurgency broke out in early 2004.
He admitted that the number of Iraqi army battalions capable of operating without US support had fallen since June from three to one.
At least 62 people have been killed in three co-ordinated car bombs in a city near Baghdad, Iraqi police say.
The near-simultaneous blasts in Balad 80km north of the capital, injured at least another 68.
The suicide bombs went off in a busy vegetable market, by a bank and by a police station in the mainly Shia city, Iraqi police said.
The attack came as the commander of US forces in Iraq said the next 75 days were crucial to Iraq's future.
Testifying before a congressional committee in Washington, Gen George Casey said if the new Iraqi constitution was rejected in a referendum in two weeks' time, the situation could deteriorate.
He admitted that the number of Iraqi army battalions capable of operating without US support had fallen since June from three to one.
His colleague, Gen John Abizaid, told a congressional hearing that al-Qaeda was the main enemy of peace and stability in the Middle East and the threat it posed should not be underestimated.
The focus of talks should be the dismantlement of North’s nuclear crisis.
Russia and Iran signed a nuclear fuel supply deal long opposed by Washington Sunday, paving the way for Iran to start up its first atomic reactor next year.
Russia and Iran signed a nuclear fuel supply deal long opposed by Washington Sunday, paving the way for Iran to start up its first atomic reactor next year.
The agreement, inked by the two countries' nuclear energy chiefs at the Bushehr atomic plant in southern Iran, came as Tehran faced heightened pressure from the United States, which accuses it of secretly developing nuclear weapons.
Iran, OPEC's second largest oil producer, denies the charge and has received strong backing from Moscow, which is keen to play a major role in expanding Iran's nuclear energy program.
Powerful Typhoon Wipha has hit China´s densely populated eastern coast, south of the country´s financial hub, Shanghai, state media say.
State TV showed huge waves hitting the shore as soldiers worked in pouring rain to help residents to move to temporary shelters.
More than two million people were earlier evacuated from Shanghai and neighboring areas.
Experts said the storm could be the worst to hit China in a decade.
The typhoon - with winds of up to 45m per second) - made landfall at 0230 on Wednesday, the Xinhua news agency reported.
The province of Zhejiang bore the first brunt of Wipha.
State TV showed waves of up to 10m pounding eastern shores, and it reported that boats and ships had been ordered to return to port and ferry services suspended.
Earlier, heavy rains forced schools to shut and grounded flights, and flooding brought central Shanghai to a standstill.
The Shanghai Stock Exchange may close if “emergency measures” were necessary, state media reported.
The prosecution plans to bring charges against U.S. investment fund Lone Star this month of stock manipulation and collaboration with Korean policymakers to buy Korea Exchange Bank (KEB) in late 2003.
The buyout fund has denied all allegations leveled at it by prosecutors, calling them baseless and predicting it would win any court case.
”We now face an attempt by the South Korean prosecution to attack Lone Star and its officers with spurious allegations of vague conspiracies without any hard evidence, ” Lone Star Chairman John Grayken said in a statement, after prosecutors sought arrest and detention warrants for its executives.
Prosecutors look confident about proving Lone Star's involvement in illegal activities.
In an apparent bid to rally public support, the prosecution on Monday released to the media a recorded file of conversation between KEB directors during a board meeting in November 2003, where they discussed measures to rescue KEB Credit Services, the bank's credit card subsidiary.
According to Hwang Ju-myung, a lawyer for Lone Star, the fund is ready for a court battle.
The buyout fund has denied all allegations leveled at it by prosecutors, calling them baseless and predicting it would win any court case.
The wartime commander of the Bosnian Muslim army said on Monday he would surrender next week to the U.N. war crimes court, which has indicted him over atrocities by foreign Islamic fighters in the 1992-95 war.
Bosnian Muslim officials and some analysts criticized the indictment of retired General Rasim Delic as an attempt to distribute guilt in the three-cornered war equally but unfairly among Serbs, Croats and Muslims.
The Muslims were heavily outgunned and suffered the highest number of casualties.
Queen Elizabeth will not attend Prince Charles’ wedding.
The Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development on Wednesday announced a plan to provide elite education for about 400,000 students, or 5 percent of the total students from elementary to middle and high schools by 2010.
The Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development on Wednesday announced a plan to provide elite education for about 400,000 students, or 5 percent of the total students from elementary to middle and high schools by 2010.
The Korea Times reports to implement the plan, the ministry will set up two more specialized schools and 58 institutions specially designed for gifted students.
The new policy came as the government has long come under criticism for failing to provide higher level education to talented students under the current system, which focuses on standardized education and equal opportunities.
Korea and the United States have made significant progress in the area of labor by finding common ground on handling labor disputes during the third day of the free trade agreement talks here yesterday.
""Both countries made big strides in labor negotiations, which ended yesterday, by nearing an agreement on the implementation of a public communication system,"" a Seoul government official said.
The so-called ""public communication"" system allows citizens and civic groups of each FTA-partner country to file labor-related complaints to the other government through the help of their own government.
Yeah, it's an old joke, but John McCain made it work on NBC's“ Tonight Show” with Jay Leno.
“Sleep two hours, wake up and cry.
McCain giving Jay his first interview since Election Day, he takes his share of the blame for the Republican loss, and says his running mate was not a drag on the ticket.
“She inspired people, she still does, and uh, look, I couldn't be happier with Sarah Palin and she's going back to be a great governor, and I think she will play a big role in the future of this country.
Kevin Chesney's“ Don't blink…
Just like that you're six years old…”
Kevin Chesney could be the big winner of tonight's CMA awards in Nashville.
He leads the pack with seven nominations.
Satellite radio listeners are getting a fresh ear full starting today.
Sirius is now running XM programming and the other way around.
The merged company says there's no increased monthly cost, and no need to buy a new receiver.
“Sleep two hours, wake up and cry.
“She inspired people, she still does, and uh, look, I couldn't be happier with Sarah Palin and she's going back to be a great governor, and I think she will play a big role in the future of this country.
He's had his 15 minutes of fame on the TV talk shows.
Now, Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich has up to 90 minutes in front of the State Senate to try to save his job today.
The AP's Deanna Belondi reports the politician accused of corruption has decided to do his own closing argument at his impeachment trial:
“Blagojevich up until this point has boycotted the trial, going on a media tour in New York, doing a slew of TV interviews instead, but yesterday they announced during the trial that the Governor wanted to come down and make his own closing statement.”
Blagojevich could be ordered out of office by the end of the day.
Haven't heard much from Republicans this morning, but we are hearing from Democrats on the GOP's lack of support for the President's economic stimulus package that passed the House last night.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs tells NBC's Today Show that's OK, Barack Obama will keep working across the aisle:
“The President's going to meet with Democrats and Republicans each day as we move forward until we get this plan.”
The AP's Deanna Belondi reports the politician accused of corruption has decided to do his own closing argument at his impeachment trial:
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs tells NBC's Today Show that's OK, Barack Obama will keep working across the aisle:
As authorities continued efforts to free South Korean fishermen being held by Somali pirates yesterday, Seoul is set today to sign an anti-piracy treaty in Singapore.
Currently, 16 nations have signed or are planning to sign the treaty, called the Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia.
Once ratified by all 16 nations, an information sharing center will be established in Singapore through which member nations hope to consolidate their intelligence and counter-measures on piracy.
The Korea Herald reports that from next month, lawmakers will do away with bundles of paper and waiting in line to vote at the National Assembly as a new electronic system will digitalize the legislative process.
With an estimated budget of 8.3 billion won, the National Assembly has recently refurbished the main conference hall, which is now equipped with everything from personal computers and a large electronic board to an electronic voting system.
The new hall will be used from the next parliamentary regular session that begins S ept.
MBC made an official apology for bribery scandal.
The government plans to propose to the United States the idea of making the target year for the transfer of wartime operational control of South Korean troops flexible based on the security situation on the Korean Peninsula, according to a Defense Ministry spokesman.
Seoul will deliver the idea to the United States at the Security Consultative Meeting (SCM) next month in Washington D.C., in hopes of it being stipulated in a roadmap for the wartime control transfer, Col.
Kang Yong-hee of the ministry's public affairs office told reporters. ”We're going to start the evaluation of the security situation (on the peninsula) two years before the wartime control is transferred from the U.S. military to the South, ” Kang said.
”I understand the government is cautiously considering proposing to U.S. officials that the target year be delayed if the study finds any element posing a threat to security.
Seoul will deliver the idea to the United States at the Security Consultative Meeting (SCM) next month in Washington D.C., in hopes of it being stipulated in a roadmap for the wartime control transfer, Col.
Kang Yong-hee of the ministry's public affairs office told reporters.
”We're going to start the evaluation of the security situation (on the peninsula) two years before the wartime control is transferred from the U.S. military to the South, ” Kang said.
A top US anti-drugs official has accused Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez of being a “major facilitator” of the trade in cocaine.
The official, John Walters, said Venezuela had become ”a haven” for shipments of cocaine manufactured in neighboring Colombia.
Venezuela rejects the charges, saying it is the victim of traffickers.
But Walters, speaking on a visit to Colombia, said failure to deal with the problem amounted to complicity.
Walters, director of the US Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), was meeting Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.
US officials say about one third of Colombia´s output of 600 tons of cocaine a year now passes through Venezuela, most of it going to America and Europe.
Walters said Chavez had failed to root out corrupt officials or to deny Venezuelan ports and airfields to smugglers.
And ´I won´t do it´ means that ´I am colluding´,” Walters said.
Venezuela rejects the charges, saying it is the victim of traffickers.
But Walters, speaking on a visit to Colombia, said failure to deal with the problem amounted to complicity.
The President was on the horn to space a short while ago ?
Obama joining some big and little kids in the Oval Office to chat with the crews of the space station and the space shuttle Discovery:
” One of the students asked what kids always ask:
the Coast Guard says at least one person is dead, 4 missing from a fishing boat off the New Jersey coast.
The President was on the horn to space a short while ago ?
“ We've got a crew of wonderful school children here, who are all interested in space, and we've got some members of Congress, who are like big kids when it comes to talking to astronauts.
They're working the case now.
The Joong-Ang Ilbo reports major Internet sites offering adult content announced yesterday they will ask a court to determine the legality of their content after 38 people were indicted Sunday on charges of distributing pornographic material.
The move could start a legal battle over what constitutes pornography, a concept vaguely defined under Korean law.
As the Internet has made it easier to access adult content, prosecutors are increasingly concerned over its legality.
The official contends that all materials that appear on Korean Web sites have been approved by the Korea Media Rating Board for their content.
Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon blamed Japanese counterpart Nobutaka Machimura for his inappropriate comment.
Industrial production had fallen 7.3% in February.
The Korea Herald reports the government and the ruling party are considering whether to be more lenient with some of the students disqualified from this year's state-run college entrance tests for carrying cellular phones or other banned items into exam venues.
The Korea Herald reports the government and the ruling party are considering whether to be more lenient with some of the students disqualified from this year's state-run college entrance tests for carrying cellular phones or other banned items into exam venues.
Without elaborating further, Education Minister Kim Jin-pyo said more evaluation is needed and reemphasized that the government repeatedly warned that carrying cellular phones into exam halls would be equal to cheating.
According to reports and lawmakers, a total of 35 students were sent home from the annual College Scholastic Ability Test on Wednesday last week after they were found carrying their cell phones and other banned items such as a MP3 player.
The government has designated four sites in the nation's midsection as candidates for President Roh Moon-hyun's controversial plan to build a new administrative capital, according to the Korea Herald.
The government has designated four sites in the nation's midsection as candidates for President Roh Moon-hyun's controversial plan to build a new administrative capital, according to the Korea Herald.
Unveiling the sites to replace Seoul, the Presidential Committee on Administrative Capital Relocation, an advisory body to President Roh, named Eumseong-Jincheon towns in North Chungcheong Province and three locales in South Chungcheong Province - the city of Cheonan and districts of Yeongi-Gongju and Gongju-Nonsan.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Monday.
“We´ve still got ways to go,” she said at a luncheon speech before the Women´s Foreign Policy Group, and added, ”In the meantime, I can say that much of the work has gone rather well.”
She wouldn´t go as far as to say diplomatic normalization with Pyongyang is possible before she leaves office in early 2009.
”But I think we are on a path that if North Korea is prepared to verifiably denuclearize, then this is a country that can finally break out of isolation, and yes, indeed break out of its isolation with the U.S., too,” Rice said.
Emphasizing the new ”American realism” in foreign policy, the secretary named trade as one of the pillars and urged congressional approval of pending free trade agreements with South Korea and Latin American nations.
”This is a test we cannot afford to fail,” Rice said.
She wouldn´t go as far as to say diplomatic normalization with Pyongyang is possible before she leaves office in early 2009.
”But I think we are on a path that if North Korea is prepared to verifiably denuclearize, then this is a country that can finally break out of isolation, and yes, indeed break out of its isolation with the U.S., too,” Rice said.
About 460 South Korean military medics and engineers have been operating in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah for a year.
They will return home after South Korea sends the new dispatch.
A South Korean military team returned Monday from Iraq after evaluating sites to send 3,600 troops, as the government stepped up preparations for the delayed dispatch.
The deployment, pledged earlier this year for the northern Iraq oil town of Kirkuk, was put on hold amid concerns it would involve combat operations in violation of a parliamentary mandate for peacekeeping.
South Korea is now considering two other towns in the northern Kurdish region of Iraq, Sulaimaniyah and Irbil.
The dispatch was originally scheduled as early as April, but officials say it will be pushed back as the military picks a new site and prepares for the new mission.
The mission would make Seoul the largest coalition partner after the United States and Britain, and the government backed it as a way of winning U.S. support for a peaceful end to the North Korea nuclear crisis.
About 460 South Korean military medics and engineers have been operating in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah for a year.
Coelho will have a news conference at the headquarters of the KFA.
All rights reserved.
The mandatory military service period will be shortened to 18 months on a gradual basis from next year, a government source said Monday.
The plan is part of measures to overhaul the system that requires service from all able-bodied men over 19.
An ad hoc military panel reported the plan to President Roh Moo-hyun last Friday, the source said, asking not to be named.
Currently, service periods are 24 months for the Army and Marines, 26 months for the Navy and 27 months for the Air Force. The nation maintains an armed force of about 680,000 compared to the North's 1.1-million-strong military.
Another measure is to abolish all other forms of substitute service, such as service in the police, state-run companies and prisons, within five years to fill the possible manpower gap in the military from the reduction in service period.
An ad hoc military panel reported the plan to President Roh Moo-hyun last Friday, the source said, asking not to be named.
The nation´s largest snack maker, Nongshim, made a public apology Tuesday for one of its best-selling items containing the head of a small rodent.
The company shut down the snack production line, and supermarkets are already removing them from their shelves.
The apology came after gray skin-like material, 1.6 centimeters in length, was found last month inside a jumbo-sized Nongshim snack, ``Saewookkang´´ (shrimp snack).
The Food and Drug Administration on Monday issued a correctional order to the snack manufacturer.
The ``material´´ was very hard and covered in oil and burnt hair, and it also had the remains of eyes and a nose, which led the administration to conclude it to be the head of a rat.
A customer had reportedly called Nongshim asking for a refund and a recall on all of its product made on that day.
Initially her requests were denied.
However, later the company tried to compensate her and recalled all the products in the market, she said.
The company explained that a factory in China makes the dough and sends it to a factory in Busan to fry, pack and distribute it.
The ``material´´ was very hard and covered in oil and burnt hair, and it also had the remains of eyes and a nose, which led the administration to conclude it to be the head of a rat.
Washington intends to slap more sanctions on North Korea as it has concluded that Pyongyang has no willingness to negotiate with its six-party talks partners, an official in Seoul said on Tuesday.
He said the United States has already notified South Korea and China of its intention to impose more pressure on the North under a recently adopted U.N.
Security Council resolution unless Pyongyang returns to the talks.
The U.N. resolution requires all member states, in accordance with their national legislation, to prevent the procurement of missiles or missile related-items, materials, goods and technology from North Korea, and the transfer of any financial resources in relation to the North's programs for weapons of mass destruction.
The Seoul official predicted that the U.S.-led international efforts to put restrictions on North Korea will likely materialize soon.
In particular, Washington is moving to restore the list of sanctions that were lifted during the Clinton administration, sources said.
Washington intends to slap more sanctions on North Korea as it has concluded that Pyongyang has no willingness to negotiate with its six-party talks partners, an official in Seoul said on Tuesday.
Three Korean executives and nine other foreign workers were kidnapped by armed insurgents at a construction site in southern Nigeria early Thursday in local time, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade announced.
The Koreans are identified as Jung Tae-young, executive director in charge of Daewoo Engineering and Construction Company’s overseas projects;
Jung was abducted during a business trip to the African country for overseas corporate meetings.
Nine others are eight Filipinos, and one Nigerian driver who was released one hour later.
Employed by Daewoo, they are working at a thermal power plant construction site, about 40 minutes’ drive inland from Port Harcourt in the Niger area of the West African nation.
General manager Ha called the office of the construction site by cellphone around 7 p.m., some 10 hours after the kidnapping, and said, “All of us three are safe,” according to officials of both the ministry and Daewoo.
Three Korean executives and nine other foreign workers were kidnapped by armed insurgents at a construction site in southern Nigeria early Thursday in local time, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade announced.
The Korea Times reports South Korea and the United States failed to narrow differences in agriculture, anti-dumping measures and other key sectors during the third round of free trade talks that ended in Seattle on Sep.
Despite the deadlock, the two sides expressed their willingness to conclude the bilateral free trade agreement (FTA) talks by the end of the year.
There is also the possibility of a meeting to plug gaps before the next round of formal talks scheduled for late October.
23-27 and Washington, D.C. in December.
The Korea Times reports South Korea and the United States failed to narrow differences in agriculture, anti-dumping measures and other key sectors during the third round of free trade talks that ended in Seattle on Sep.
There is also the possibility of a meeting to plug gaps before the next round of formal talks scheduled for late October.
The Russian-built MI-8 helicopter was owned by a Bulgarian company, Heli Air, and chartered by SkyLink, a North American company.
A commercial helicopter has been shot down about 20km north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, killing all 11 people on board.
Those who died were six US security contractors, three Bulgarian crew members and two Fijian security guards.
US and Bulgarian officials said the bulgarian-owned chopper was brought down by a rocket-propelled grenade.
The Russian-built MI-8 helicopter was owned by a Bulgarian company, Heli Air, and chartered by SkyLink, a North American company.
Police are having difficulty identifying the dead victims of the fire at a warehouse in Icheon, due to severe bodily damage.
They are also trying to find out the exact cause of the accident that claimed 40 lives Monday.
The Gyeonggi Provincial Police Agency has managed to identify 36 of the 40 victims so far.
The police and the National Institute of Scientific Investigation (NISI) will identify the rest through DNA tests, but that is expected to take 15 to 20 days.
The Korea Times reports police examined the scene of the fire Tuesday together with the NISI, the Korea Gas Safety Corporation, and the Korea Electrical Safety Corp.
The fire broke out around 10:45 a.m. while 57 people were working in the 20,000-square-meter basement of the frozen goods storehouse.
Seventeen were rescued or managed to escape, but the rest perished.
Considering that the workers were injecting refrigerant into the warehouse using urethane, the police suspect that the operation produced flammable gases which ignited, causing huge explosions.
Police are having difficulty identifying the dead victims of the fire at a warehouse in Icheon, due to severe bodily damage.
The Korea Times reports police examined the scene of the fire Tuesday together with the NISI, the Korea Gas Safety Corporation, and the Korea Electrical Safety Corp.
The party of Geeorge W. Bush said in the platform that Japan is a key partner of the United States and the U.S.
Republican Party defined Japan as a key partner and Korea as only “a democratic ally.”
The platform was adopted at the Republican Party’s national convention held in New York.
The party of Geeorge W. Bush said in the platform that Japan is a key partner of the United States and the U.S.
Ruling Party will push for a second inter-Korean summit meeting.
College enrollment will be cut by 15% in 5 years.
A total of 17 South Korean missions abroad are under threat of terrorist attacks but the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade has not provided proper financial assistance for their protection, the Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) announced Thursday.
President Roh Moo-hyun used an address to a group of foreign investors in Korea yesterday to lay out a strongly worded defense of his engagement policy with North Korea.
He told them that if they understood the reasons any South Korean president, regardless of his political leanings, was fated to keep talking to Pyongyang, “Korea would not seem such an insecure place.”
At a forum organized by the Commerce Ministry for existing and potential investors, Roh said his purpose was to explain his administration's position and offer reassurances after the North's Oct.
9 nuclear test, which he said had overly rattled foreign investors.
At least for the moment, the President said, the military equilibrium on the peninsula had not changed.
Meanwhile, the pro-opposition Korea Times reports chief executive officers of major firms have given an ``F mark to the Roh Moo-hyun administration's economic policies, reflecting their so-called escalating discontent over the government's measures.
According to a survey by local business weekly CEONEWS, local business chiefs gave an average 45 points out of 100 to the economic policies implemented by the current government.
The business weekly allegedly polled the top 300 companies and 50 venture startups.
Protest against the impeachment of Roh is spreading nationwide.
North Korea has not changed its mind about ending its nuclear program, leader Kim Jong-il has told a visiting Chinese diplomat.
Disagreements over implementing the deal could be overcome, the reclusive leader told top official Wang Jiarui.
North Korea agreed last year to abandon its nuclear activities in return for aid.
But progress came to a halt after North Korea missed a year-end deadline to disclose all of its nuclear facilities.
Wang Jiarui, head of the Chinese Communist Party´s international liaison department, visited Pyongyang on Wednesday to press Kim on the nuclear issue.
Wang also delivered a message from Chinese President Hu Jintao, the contents of which were not disclosed.
Police said yesterday they have seized evidence indicating as many as 250 single Korean women have illegally entered the United States by representing themselves as the wives of well-to-do employees at some of Korea's major corporations.
Police said yesterday they have seized evidence indicating as many as 250 single Korean women have illegally entered the United States by representing themselves as the wives of well-to-do employees at some of Korea's major corporations.
President Roh said the U.S. will surely give a security guarantee if N.K. abandons its nuclear ambitions.
˝Kia Motors Corp.´s compact car, Morning, saw a 69 percent sales increase last month over the same period last year.
The company said the sales growth is attributed in part to the government´s plans to increase the upper limit for engine displacement for city cars - for which the government provides tax benefits - including the Morning model in the city car segment.
GM Daewoo Auto and Technology Co.´s city car Matiz also saw its sales rise by nearly 50 percent from the previous year, leading to the prediction that the local small cars market is heading for a revival.˝
British troops started pulling out of Basra Palace on Sunday night.˝
˝British troops in Iraq are expected to complete a withdrawal from their Basra Palace base in the next few days, Ministry of Defense has said.
The 550 soldiers are handing the palace over to Iraqi control and joining the remaining 5,000 troops at the last British base near Basra Airport.
The MoD said the handover of Basra itself was now expected in the autumn.
A Downing Street spokesman confirmed Prime Minister Gordon Brown was aware of the operation at the palace.
He added the withdrawal was part of the ongoing process of handing over to Iraqi security forces.
He would not confirm this would mean an overall reduction in the number of troops on the ground in Iraq, saying this would “depend on the assessment of commanders on the ground over the coming weeks and months”.
British troops started pulling out of Basra Palace on Sunday night.˝
Heavy snow falling in the Northeast - the same storm that caused so many travel problems in the Midwest yesterday and overnight - is expected to dump ten inches in parts of Massachusetts.
There have been no serious accidents to report from our area.”
An Ohio distributor has recalled one of its brands of peanut butter after finding it has been contaminated with salmonella bacteria.
King Nut peanut butter is used by restaurants and other institutional customers.
It is not sold to the general public.
Nearly 400 people have been made sick in the latest salmonella outbreak in 42 states.
It is not sold to the general public.
French anti-terrorism police arrested nine people Monday suspected of planning attacks, including an Islamic militant previously convicted on terrorism charges and freed from prison two years ago.
Authorities said the arrest of Safe Bourada, who had been under surveillance since his release in 2003, highlights potential risks posed by unrepentant militants being freed after serving prison sentences in connection with bombings in the 1990s.
The nine were picked up in early morning raids west of Paris and in Evreux, 55 miles northwest of the French capital.
Roh slams Samsung over corporate governance.
There's late word from Chicago that former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker is onboard to head Barack Obama's new panel to create jobs and bring stability to the troubled financial system.
The President-Elect will make the announcement at a news conference this hour - his third in three days - as he continues to focus on the economy.
Time to dream of mom's pumpkin pie and tear out your hair.
Actually, it's not so bad this morning with more people staying home this year.
Let's check with correspondent Julie Walker.
She is live in LaGardia Airport in New York.
In fact, airport officials say travel is down 8%.
Now, that's the same amount that tickets are up - 8%.
And, in an effort to save money, a lot of people are bringing carry-on.
Former First Lady Barbara Bush is said to be doing great in a Huston hospital this morning.
The 83 year-old was admitted for tests overnight after she reported she was in a little bit of pain.
Tests came back negative.
Time to dream of mom's pumpkin pie and tear out your hair.
Let's check with correspondent Julie Walker.
The 83 year-old was admitted for tests overnight after she reported she was in a little bit of pain.
U.S. troops have found the body of a 33-year-old South Korean hostage who was beheaded in Iraq.
South Korea's Foreign Ministry confirmed the body is that of Kim Sun-il, who was abducted last week in Falluja.
Kim's captors had said they would kill Kim unless South Korea withdrew its troops and halted plans to send more.
George W Bush said yesterday that the U.S. will not be intimidated by such barbaric acts, and South Korea should not be intimidated either.
Secretary of State Colin Powell echoed Bush's remarks, calling Kim's killing ""a senseless act.
"" Also today, U.S. warplanes struck a house in the Iraqi flashpoint town of Falluja.
Witnesses and a hospital official said the strike killed four people and wounded six others.
The military says the strike was aimed at militants linked to al Qaeda operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
The won gained sharply against the U.S. dollar Monday on the Seoul currency market, with the won-dollar rate closing down 11.7 won at 927.90 won per dollar.
This is the weakest level for the dollar in eight years and seven months since Oct. 23, 1997 when the rate stood at 921 won per dollar.
Currency dealers forecast the Korean currency may extend to gain further on weak investors' sentiment for the greenback after the rate hovered around 930 won mark for some time.
The won gained sharply against the U.S. dollar Monday on the Seoul currency market, with the won-dollar rate closing down 11.7 won at 927.90 won per dollar.
Let's get more now, live from the White House and Associated Press correspondent Mark Smith:
“Jon, the President's seeing Congressional leaders today as he aims to prune out excess spending to gain Republican votes.
He's also meeting with Vermont's GOP Governor Jim Douglas, who says the states need the aid this package provides.
“ There is no silver bullet to this.
Police battle hundreds of rioters in two Greek cities:
The violence erupted after a 16 year old was killed by police officers in Athens.
Witnesses say he was shot 3 times as a group of young people attacked a police patrol car overnight.
Florida appears headed to the national championship game.
Gators beating undefeated, number one Alabama 31-20 in the SCC Title Game.
Florida quarterback Tim Tebow had three touchdown passes:
“You see the guys out there, they play with that relentless effort, you know, just killin' themselves out there uh, for the team and for each other.”
The Sooners crushed Missouri 62-21 in the Big Twelve Title Game.
Thrill junkies know Bear Grylls;
he starred Discovery Channel's“ Man vs.
Grylls is on his way back to Britain for medical treatment.
Sundance Film Festival kicks off for 10 days on Jan.
The Sundance Film Festival on Tuesday named dozens of films featuring stars from Sandra Bullock to ""007"" Pierce Brosnan that will premiere in January at what has become the leading U.S. showplace for independent movies.
""Happy Endings"" is billed as a witty look at relationships in an American family and is indicative of what Festival Director Geoffrey Gilmore said were many movies for Sundance 2005 that look at ever-shifting American values.
20th with the world debut of ""Happy Endings,"" directed by Don Roos and starring Maggie Gyllenhaal, Tom Arnold and Lisa Kudrow.
Separate aims and positions, including on the North's nuclear standoff, blocked a full agreement at the first inter-Korean talks in 10 months and the two sides decided to slate a third round of negotiations today.
The meeting was due to end on Tuesday after two days of talks but went on until early yesterday morning when the two delegations, who made headway in some areas but remained apart on the nuclear problem and other issues, decided to recess and return today for an additional round.
They will attempt to iron out lingering differences such as holding another round of reunions of families separated by the 1950-53 War and a joint event for opening two recently completed cross-border roadways.
In what might be called “a modern-day Inquisition” the government has announced that it will start an investigation on Friday to confiscate assets of descendents who received financial benefits from pro-Japanese activities of 400 Koreans in the early 20th century.
The Korea Times notes that it marks the first time in 57 years that the government has taken action against Korean citizens who cooperated with Japan, which colonized the peninsula from 1910 to 1945.
A similar move was foiled in 1949 due to strong protests from the collaborators. The so-called ‘Committee for the Inspection of Property of Japan Collaborators’ will start the investigation on Aug.
The committee consists of 104 public officials from various government bodies such as the Ministry of Justice, the National Police Agency, the Ministry of Finance and Economy, and the National Tax Service.
As the legality of such a move is in question, families of many collaborators are expected to file lawsuits against the confiscation decisions, which would delay the seizure.
Also, the committee has difficulty in tracking estates that were given away by so-called ‘pro-Japanese collaborators.’
The so-called ‘Committee for the Inspection of Property of Japan Collaborators’ will start the investigation on Aug.
A total of 455 people tested positive for HIV/AIDS during the first nine months of this year, raising the number of resident Koreans who have been infected with the disease to 2,994, health authorities announced yesterday.
The total of 455 is an increase of 14 percent from new cases reported during the first nine months of 2003.
Of 305 cases where the route of transmission has been determined this year, all 305 patients were found to have contracted the deadly disease through sexual encounters.
Among those, 51 percent were heterosexual contacts, and 49 percent were homosexual.
The United States is still struggling to get North Korea to disclose its nuclear programs, a challenge in a society so tight-lipped that it would keep even clothing sizes secret, a U.S. official said on Thursday.
North Korea has promised to make a declaration by December 31 as part of a wider deal to abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons in exchange for economic and diplomatic benefits from the United States and others.
“They have real weapons and so they should tell us what the weapons program looks like,” said the official, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the negotiations.
North Korea has published no economic statistics in the past several decades and severely limits its citizens´ travel and contact with the outside world.
Its leader, Kim Jong-il, has uttered only several words in public in his long career.
State Department official who is in Pyongyang to discuss North Korea´s nuclear declaration, has reported progress in some areas but sticking points in others, the official said. The United States is still struggling to get North Korea to disclose its nuclear programs, a challenge in a society so tight-lipped that it would keep even clothing sizes secret, a U.S. official said on Thursday.
as well as what it regards as military secrets in its declaration.
Iraqis have passed their country's new constitution, according to official results from a referendum dismissed by the opposition but commended by the UN.
Sunni ""No"" campaigners had hoped to block it by taking two-thirds of the vote in at least three provinces, in line with electoral rules.
But they won in only two, with the swing province of Nineveh returning 44% ""Yes"" votes, the official count shows.
Hours before the result was announced a bomb killed 12 in the Kurdish north.
A second blast in the Kurdish city of Sulaymaniyah wounded two people travelling in the convoy of a senior Kurdish politician.
EU bans imports of live birds.
Dropping outrage, Ban resets his trip to Tokyo.
For the first time in Korean history, the Defense Ministry seeks to introduce a German-style parliamentary watchdog system under which the National Assembly-appointed ombudsman is entitled to monitor possible human rights abuses of soldiers, a ministry spokesman said on Sunday.
Defense Minister Yoon Kwang-ung plans to brief President Roh on the results of the study on the system in January and then the government will decide whether to implement it.
For the first time in Korean history, the Defense Ministry seeks to introduce a German-style parliamentary watchdog system under which the National Assembly-appointed ombudsman is entitled to monitor possible human rights abuses of soldiers, a ministry spokesman said on Sunday.
Kim Lag-jung of the ministry’s public affairs office told The Korea Times.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez broke off relations with Colombia on Wednesday, vowing not to restore ties while President Alvaro Uribe is in power, due to the collapse of mediation talks with leftist rebels.
Uribe, Washington´s top ally in South America, last week abruptly canceled Chavez´s role as a mediator in negotiations with Colombia´s Marxist rebels over freeing hostages, sparking a war of words between the two leaders.
After recalling his ambassador in protest, Chavez went a step further on Wednesday, escalating a crisis that he has said could hurt the Andean neighbors´ $6 billion bilateral trade.
More than 530,000 jobs were lost last month, the worst month of decline in 34 years.
PNC Financial Services economist Stuart Hoffman says we're in for a lousy several months.
“This tells me that unfortunately, the holiday sales season's gonna be pretty weak, and that uh, job losses are gonna continue through at least uh, the winter months and probably into the spring as well.”
President Elect Barack Obama in a just-released statement says the loss of nearly 2 million jobs during the recession is even more reason for passage of an economic recovery plan that he says will save or create at least 2.5 million more jobs over a 2-year period.
The cross of more declines have sparked a market pullback.
Joining us live from Wall Street is the AP's Warren Levinson:
“Tim, retail sales at 35-year lows, unemployment at 15-year highs, U.S. automakers hanging by a thread, it's a recipe for a down day on Wall Street and prices are lower.
The Dow Jones Industrial's now down 169 points, a little better than 2%.
The Standard & Poor's 500 Index down by a similar amount, about 17 points.
Of course, we're just a half hour into the trading day, it's early and those numbers are not as big as they could have been.
One trader says perhaps if we hold here, it will mean that maybe we're getting close to a bottom.
I see AP's Warren Levinson joining us live from Wall Street.
It's Day 2 of a sales pitch from the nation's automakers who are looking for congressional backing for $34 billion in emergency loans.
House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank says he can't allow GM, or Ford, or Chrysler, to go bankrupt.
“To allow bankruptcies and failures and one, two, three of these companies in the midst of the worst credit crisis and the worst unemployment situation that we've had in 70 years, would be a disaster.” Those hearings are going on at this time.
Washington has appointed Christopher R. Hill, the former U.S. ambassador to Poland, as its top envoy to Seoul.
The Foreign Ministry announced on Thursday that the government agreed to the U.S. ambassador-designate's appointment on Saturday and that he would come to Seoul after completing the Senate confirmation hearing and other administrative procedures.
A Foreign Ministry official expected the 52-year-old career diplomat would replace current U.S.
Professors join opposition movements to denounce impeachment.
˝Australian police have been granted an extra 48 hours to continue detaining an Indian doctor in connection with the suspected UK car bomb attacks.
The Australian Federal Police said the extra time granted by magistrates would allow them to consider the evidence they have gathered so far.
Dr Haneef, who is 27, was arrested a week ago at Brisbane airport, following a tip from UK police.
His home on Queensland´s Gold Coast was searched for a second time on Sunday.
The doctor is related to two of the six people being held in the UK over the alleged attempted car bomb attacks on central London and Glasgow at the end of last month ˝
In its petition, the company asked that the union and 21 union officials pay 50 million won ($53,and 300,000 won each, respectively, for every day of the strike in compensation for damages caused to the company.
This is the first time the company has made such a move since the union was established in 1987.
Consumers Korea, a civic group, also sent a petition to the Fair Trade Commission, asking the agency to allow customers to be compensated for delays in the delivery of their vehicles due to the strike. In the face of threats from prosecutors and the company’s management, 20,000 members of Hyundai Motor Co.’
North Korea on Sunday accused the U.S. military of conducting more than 1,200 spy flights over the communist country from January to June and claimed that Washington was looking for a chance to launch an attack.
The U.S. military used U-2, RC-135, and other reconnaissance aircraft for the flights, North Korea's official news agency KCNA said.
The U.S. military does not comment on North Korean claims about spy flights, although it acknowledges monitoring the North's military activity.
Efforts are under way to continue talks aimed at persuading North Korea to scrap its nuclear weapons program.
The six-nation negotiations include the United States, Russia, China, Japan and the two Koreas.
Three rounds of six-party talks were held in Beijing, but ended without a breakthrough.
Three rounds of six-party talks were held in Beijing, but ended without a breakthrough.
13 U.S.military bases will come into the hands of Korea.
Iraq's interior minister says reports of prisoners being tortured at an Iraqi-run center have been exaggerated.
Only a few of the 170 detainees at the Jadiriya centre in Baghdad appeared to have been maltreated, Bayan Jabr said.
But he made clear that no abuse would be tolerated.
The prisoners, discovered by US forces on Tuesday, had reportedly been tortured and were malnourished.
Jabr spoke as the US warned the Baghdad government not to let sectarian militias take over detention centers.
One analyst says there's a lot of panic out there today as the Dow opened by going off the deep end, plunging more than 500 points before recovering a bit this morning.
More on that in a moment, but let's focus first on some good economic news:
used home sales may have started to recover last month, bouncing back 5.5% from August, the biggest increase in more than 5 years.
The sales increase came on lower house prices, suggesting to some economists that prices have now fallen far enough to lure some buyers into the market.
Back to stocks, with the Dow now off more than-let me check here-340 points, or almost 4%.
Shares have been at a nosedive around the world.
Japan's Nikkei index closed down almost 10%, markets in Europe have been following the lead.
Indexes in Germany, France and Britain all have been down more than 8%.
Analyst Diane Swonk of Mesirow Financial says you might wanna leave your 401K statement unopened for now.
“It's a horrible time to have to, you know, live through it.
But you know, to lock in losses when you know you got companies out there that are making money.”
Art Hogan of Jefferies and Company says,“ Yeah, we could be near a bottom in the stock market.”
Japan's Nikkei index closed down almost 10%, markets in Europe have been following the lead.
Analyst Diane Swonk of Mesirow Financial says you might wanna leave your 401K statement unopened for now.
“It's a horrible time to have to, you know, live through it.
Call it a farewell visit to a country that has occupied White House policy for much of his two terms in office.
his fourth and final visit.
“Air Force One landed in Baghdad International Airport in the afternoon, local time, after a secretive Saturday night departure from Washington, an 11-hour flight.”
That's the AP's Robert Reed.
Bush meets with senior Iraqi officials and top U.S. officers in Iraq today.
No formal announcement is expected from the White House either today or tomorrow on a possible plan to prevent the collapse of the troubled auto industry.
Michigan Governor Debbie Stabenow tells Fox News Sunday, that the White House needs to protect GM, Chrysler and Ford, just as other countries protect their carmakers.
“Every other country in the world that has an automaker presence, is stepping up to help them get through that because they know it's critical to their economy, it's critical to jobs, and it's critical to their national defense.”
GM and Chrysler both say that they need billions of dollars to stay in business after the end of the year.
Michigan Governor Debbie Stabenow tells Fox News Sunday, that the White House needs to protect GM, Chrysler and Ford, just as other countries protect their carmakers.
Seoul Mayor Lee Myung-bak is likely to be questioned by prosecutors over a corruption scandal surrounding a vice mayor in relation to his ambitious project of restoring the Chonggyechon stream.
Seoul Mayor Lee Myung-bak is likely to be questioned by prosecutors over a corruption scandal surrounding a vice mayor in relation to his ambitious project of restoring the Chonggyechon stream.
The Korea Times reports the prosecution Tuesday arrested a former head of a local chapter affiliated with the main opposition Grand National Party for taking bribes from a real estate developer in return for business favors.
Kim Il-joo, ex-head of the GNP's Songnam district chapter, allegedly received 1.4 billion won ($1.4 million) from the head of the firm called Miraero Land, identified as Kil, for lifting a height restriction and helping the businessman meet the mayor in person.
The Foreign Ministry said there is no evidence of preparation of a nuclear blast test in North Korea.
North Korea’s nuclear weapon test is unavoidable.
The U.S. military to increase security before the Oct.
The U.S. military is planning to send hundreds of new troops to Afghanistan to increase security before the Oct. 9th election, officials said Wednesday.
Guerrillas have stepped up attacks in the final weeks before the election, defying the presence of some 18,000 coalition troops and the Afghan National Army.
Two military officials, who discussed the potential deployment only on the condition of anonymity, said the new troops have not been selected.
The U.S. military is planning to send hundreds of new troops to Afghanistan to increase security before the Oct.
It is also demanding the removal of the American nuclear threat to the region.
But it says it is trying to draft a list of agreed principles to give new life to the deadlocked diplomacy.
The two sides held a third bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the main talks on Thursday.
Diplomats said the outcome of these bilateral discussions was crucial to the ultimate success of the talks.
Both North Korea and the US have put fresh demands on the table at the talks, which are also being attended by South Korea, Japan, China and Russia.
North Korea wants diplomatic relations with the US and a peace agreement, in addition to the security guarantees and economic help already offered. It is also demanding the removal of the American nuclear threat to the region.
The US says it is not prepared to discuss issues that relate to its alliances with other countries, and for its part, has called for concessions on North Korea's development of ballistic missiles and its human rights record.
Commander in Afghanistan says he needs far more American troops than have been committed to that country.
“Even after an extra army brigade gets to Afghanistan early next year, General David McKiernan says three times that many reinforcements are necessary to fight what appears to be a growing insurgency.”
“McKiernan says that Pentagon has already certified another three brigade combat teams as a requirement.
He won't say exactly how many soldiers that will entail, but did say it's more than ten thousand.
Alaska's investigation into whether Sarah Palin abused her power as governor, by firing the state's public safety commissioner, has run into resistance.
The Speaker of the House is openly questioning its impartiality and raising the possibility of delaying the findings.
South Korea and the United States still remain at odds over their approaches toward North Korea despite an agreement on a ”common and broad approach ” for the restart of the six-party talks made at a Seoul-Washington summit last Thursday, according to South Korean and U.S. officials Tuesday.
Seoul wants the United States to put more weight on diplomacy than sanctions for reviving the talks on Pyongyang’s nuclear programs but Washington seems determined to go ahead with its efforts to put pressure on the Stalinist North.
The top South Korean diplomat in the United States said Seoul has called on Washington to refrain from additional sanctions that could pour cold water on efforts to bring North Korea back to the negotiation table.
The death toll in the Indonesian tsunami has risen to at least 520, fuelling questions over why no warning was given ahead of the disaster.
Government officials said they received a warning that the island of Java was threatened by a tsunami following an underwater earthquake off the coast.
But they said they were unable to pass on the warning to coastal areas.
A fresh earthquake hit the island on Wednesday, but no injuries or major damage have been reported so far.
The epicenter of the latest quake was under the sea off Java's southwestern coast, and buildings shook in surrounding areas as far away as the capital Jakarta.
But officials at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said no new tsunami was expected.
Government officials said they received a warning that the island of Java was threatened by a tsunami following an underwater earthquake off the coast.
President George W. Bush is bidding farewell to the White House press corps this morning in a wide-ranging news conference.
The President was asked what, in his opinion, is the most pressing issue facing the incoming President.
“The most urgent threat that he'll have to deal with and other presidents after him will have to deal with is an attack on our homeland.
And I wish I could report that that's not the case, but there's still an enemy out there that would like to inflict damage on America.”
The President says he is not certain whether democracy will survive in Iraq and he said he is willing to ask for an additional $350 billion in bailout money if President-elect Obama wishes.
Even though the President says the President-elect has not yet asked for that money, the Senate Banking Committee Chairman says he expects Congress will dole out the final billions to bail out banks.
Chris Dodd says the Obama team is assuring lawmakers that it will offer more specifics on how the money is spent.
“He intends to entirely rebrand this program.
President George W. Bush is bidding farewell to the White House press corps this morning in a wide-ranging news conference.
Even though the President says the President-elect has not yet asked for that money, the Senate Banking Committee Chairman says he expects Congress will dole out the final billions to bail out banks.
Nothing was left to chance
from a new campaign video designed to show his softer side to brief remarks from the podium by Jim Rassmann, a Vietnam veteran who credited Kerry with saving his life.
``The future doesn't belong to fear;
it belongs to freedom,'' he was to say in excerpts of remarks prepared for delivery.
What is it about today, May 7, 2009, that makes it an odd day?
A California teacher points out it's the date:
one of only 6 such odd days this century:
For the mathematically challenged, Redwood City teacher Ron Gordon says that 5-7-0-9 is one of only six this century that will feature three consecutive odd numbers.
“ If it wasn't for odd numbers, all the even numbers would bump into each other.”
OK, Ron, tell us more;
you're offering a prize of $579 for the oddest celebration.
the Dodgers set a modern Major League record for consecutive home wins at the start of a season, improving to 13 and 0 by blasting Washington 10 to 3. What is it about today, May 7, 2009, that makes it an odd day?
one of only 6 such odd days this century:
For the mathematically challenged, Redwood City teacher Ron Gordon says that 5-7-0-9 is one of only six this century that will feature three consecutive odd numbers.
“ Yeah, the answer is yes.”
Locals who unearthed the remains from a mass grave in the village of Pandarwada say the bodies were secretly buried.
However, police say they were aware of the grave and those buried there had been legally accounted for.
More than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed in the 2002 riots, although many believe the figure to be higher.
The riots broke out after nearly 60 Hindus were killed when a train was set on fire in the town of Godhra, allegedly by a Muslim mob.
Locals who unearthed the remains from a mass grave in the village of Pandarwada say the bodies were secretly buried.
President Barack Obama, in his weekly radio and online address, says his $3.
6 trillion budget is designed to change the nation's economic course:
“ It's an economic blueprint for our future ?
a vision of America where growth is not based on real estate bubbles or over-leveraged banks, but on a firm foundation of investment in energy, education and health care.
” Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour in the GOP's address says the Obama budget is a threat to the economic future:
“ Trillions and trillions of new spending mean record tax increases and record government debt.”
Parts of a small town some 60 miles north of Philadelphia have been evacuated, after an accident involving a truck carrying a hazardous chemical.
Officials say the tanker, carrying hydrochloric acid, overturned on a highway at the edge of Wind Gap, Pennsylvania.
They say there was no spill, but that everyone who was within a one-mile radius has been evacuated as a precaution.
a vision of America where growth is not based on real estate bubbles or over-leveraged banks, but on a firm foundation of investment in energy, education and health care.
Officials say the tanker, carrying hydrochloric acid, overturned on a highway at the edge of Wind Gap, Pennsylvania.
There is no word of any injuries.
President Roh Moo-hyun will make official visits early next month to Mexico and Costa Rica and will attend the U.N.
Roh, accompanied by first lady Kwon Yang-sook, will leave here on Sept.
8 to initially visit Mexico and Costa Rica for five days before joining the 60th World Summit at the U.N. headquarters between Sept. 13-16, presidential spokesman Kim Man-soo said.
Korean female stars run off with LPGA event.
The Korea Times reports the independent counsel investigating the Samsung Group questioned Chairman Lee Kun-hee´s only son, Jae-yong, ``as a suspect´´ Thursday over allegations about an illicit father-to-son transfer of wealth and group control and other irregularities.
It was the first time the Samsung heir-apparent has appeared at a prosecutor´s office, although he was once questioned in writing.
He is also the first in the Lee family to face summons since the special prosecutor´s team began the investigation into the Group last month.
The junior Lee, who is 40, presented himself before the counsel in the morning.
Investigators questioned him over whether he took Samsung´s managerial control through illegal deals and whether the group systemically plotted the transaction.
An official from the team said that Lee, in the presence of his lawyer, made ``faithful, but mostly short´´ replies to questions.
He is also the first in the Lee family to face summons since the special prosecutor´s team began the investigation into the Group last month.
Abba makes it into space (music).
“ I Have a Dream” the wake-up call for the shuttle Discovery crew, honoring astronaut Sandra Magnus, who is heading back to Earth after four and a half months at the international space station.
NASA says the weather looks good for this early-afternoon scheduled landing at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
NASA says the weather looks good for this early-afternoon scheduled landing at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
22 a day to remember Tokto, a move to which Japan's central government has so far shown a hands-off attitude.
Seoul will issue a new doctrine defining future relations with Tokyo Thursday as a provincial council in Japan finally approved a controversial ordinance on Wednesday in an apparent move to stake claim to the Tokto (Dokdo) islets.
In a clear shift from its past ``low-key'' attitude toward Japan, South Korea will take a firm and resolute policy line in dealing with the neighboring country while trying to reinforce its ``effective occupancy'' of the tiny islets, according to government officials.
Despite fierce protests from Korean people, Shimane Prefectural Council endorsed the measure making Feb.
The Korea Times reports Geoncheonggung Residence, the blood-tainted spot in Gyeongbok Palace where Japanese assassins murdered the last empress of the Joseon Kingdom (1310-, has finally opened, Thursday, for the first time in 98 years.
Under direct orders from Miura Goro, the Japanese Minister to Korea at the time, sword-bearing assassins invaded Gyeongbok Palace on October 8th, 1895 to kill Empress Myeongseong (1851-, who was seen as an obstacle to Japan´s annexation plans.
Also known as Queen Min, the empress was spouse to Joseon´s 26th king, Emperor Gojong (1852-.
Wielding much political influence as queen, she advocated stronger Korea-Russia ties in order to block Japanese influence.
Min was slain in Geoncheonggung Residence, the king and queen´s private quarters, along with two other women resembling her.
Her body was burnt in a nearby forest and the ashes were dispersed.
She was 43 years old at the time.
The tragic death is remembered as the Eulmiwaebyeon incident.
Geoncheonggung Residence was built in 1873 as a resting place for the royal couple, but was deserted after the Eulmiwaebyeon incident.
Then in 1909, the Japanese destroyed it and built an art museum in its place.
The museum had functioned as the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea, until it was closed down in 1998.
Restoration of the edifice began in 2004, and it will open to the public beginning Saturday, October 20th.
The residence is also where Korea´s first electric light was installed and lit in 1887.
The museum had functioned as the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea, until it was closed down in 1998.
South Korea condemned Friday the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and extended condolences to the family of the deceased.
The 54-year-old Pakistani opposition leader was killed Thursday in a gun and suicide bomb attack after a rally in the city of Rawalpindi.
Islamic militants allied to Dictator General Pervez Musharraf were suspected to be behind the assassination while some reports said al-Qaeda has claimed responsibility.
“The government cannot hide its bitter shock over the death of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who was killed by terrorists on Thursday while on an election campaign, and it offers its sincerest condolences to the family of the deceased,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
”Our government condemns any type of terrorist acts,” the statement said.
”The government hopes Pakistan will be stabilized through peaceful means.”
They are asking serious questions about the future of American democracy.
Meanwhile, the summer of love has given way to the autumn of fear in San Francisco, a liberal stronghold where residents bitterly disappointed by the Bush victory are in no mood to reach out and mend divisions.
They are asking serious questions about the future of American democracy.
A young man killed himself was found near the World Trade Center once stood.
President-elect Lee Myung-bak’s plan to draft a prime minister and other key aides from the private sector as well as his first meeting with leaders from the finance industry yesterday underscored his tilt toward business efficiency rather than political ties.
The Joong-Ang Ilbo reports that in case anyone missed his bias, the former Hyundai Engineering CEO and ex-Seoul mayor made the point with the guest list for his first meeting with chief executives of financial companies at the headquarters of the Korea Federation of Banks in central Seoul yesterday.
Present were major executives of commercial banks, including Kookmin, Shinhan, Woori, Citibank and Korea Exchange Bank, along with securities and insurance firms like Mirae Asset Securities, Samsung Securities and Hyundai Marine and Fire Insurance.
However, CEOs from state-controlled lenders, including Korea Development Bank and the Industrial Bank of Korea, as well as leaders with backgrounds in government, were not invited.
The government unveiled yesterday rescue measures for credit delinquents, including a rescheduling of debt owed by low-income earners and writing off their interests.
""This is going to be our last ditch effort to resolve the credit default problem,"" said Lim Young-rok, director general at the Ministry of Finance and Economy's financial policy bureau.
Speaking at a news conference yesterday, Lim said at least 376,000 credit delinquents would be eligible for the rescue package.
The government unveiled yesterday rescue measures for credit delinquents, including a rescheduling of debt owed by low-income earners and writing off their interests.
MS Korea has charged Hana Bank illegally copoied software programs.
Gaza health officials say the death toll is now up to 537 since Israel began its military campaign against Hamas.
The AP's Rebecca Santana on Gaza's southern border reports some wounded are being evacuated to Egypt:
“The Palestinian ambulances are able to come up to the border crossing and they have a number of Egyptian ambulances that are here, and they transfer the patients, the wounded, from one ambulance to the other, and then the Egyptian ambulances are taking them to hospitals…”
An armed standoff is over at a Georgia motel.
His infant son has been taken away in an ambulance and a former police officer, who allegedly abducted three people in South Carolina Saturday, has been hauled off in a police car.
Why is Steve Jobs so sickly thin?
Apple this morning says it's not a recurrence of pancreatic cancer, but a hormone imbalance.
Company says Jobs will undergo a relatively simple treatment.
An armed standoff is over at a Georgia motel.
Why is Steve Jobs so sickly thin?
Apple this morning says it's not a recurrence of pancreatic cancer, but a hormone imbalance.
A gunman who killed five girls in an attack on a Pennsylvania Amish school told his wife he had molested two young members of his family 20 years ago.
32-year-old Charles Carl Roberts made the claim in a phone call to his wife just before he started shooting the girls.
He also made references to an incident 20 years ago in suicide notes and said he had been haunted by dreams of repeating his actions.
Police said it was possible his attack on the girls was sexually motivated.
Five girls remain in hospital - one is critical and one is in serious condition.
His wife Marie and other family members have said he was a good and loving husband and father and that prior to Monday's attack there had been no hint of what he was planning.
Three are described as stable.
New York Giants' Wide Receiver is the latest NFL player involved in a shooting.
AP Sports correspondent John Clovercarver reports that Plaxico Burress apparently shot himself Friday night:
The Giants say they have been in contact with Burress since the shooting.
˝Australian police have detained an Indian doctor over the failed car bombings in the United Kingdom, and have been speaking to another doctor.
They are questioning the first man, named as Mohammed Haneef, at the request of UK police, but say he has not been charged.
The second man is being interviewed as a result of the first arrest.
Seven other people are being questioned in the UK about the attempted attacks in central London and Glasgow airport.
It is believed Haneef had been in phone contact with those suspected of involvement in the London and Glasgow incidents.
President Roh Moo-hyun's most trusted point man on North Korea announced his resignation yesterday, adding significance to a scheduled overhaul of the nation's foreign policy and security team early next month.
“I deemed it was time for a person of greater caliber to come to this post, as all the past achievements on inter-Korean reconciliation and the security of the peninsula are mired in a political rift due to the North Korean nuclear test,” Unification Minister Lee Jong-seok said in a meeting with reporters.
Lee's resignation brings about a complete change in the foreign policy and security lineup, following the resignations of the foreign and defense ministers.
Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon is moving to New York to be the next U.N. secretary-general. Defense Minister Yoon Kwang-ung offered his resignation on Monday, citing similar reasons to Lee's.
Kim Seung-kyu, head of the National Intelligence Service, is also said to be stepping down soon.
This is by far the largest revamp of the foreign policy team under the Roh administration.
The Korea Herald reports the National Assembly overwhelmingly voted in favor of the nonregular workers bills yesterday despite fierce opposition from the major Democratic Labor Party.
The government-proposed bills, which have been pending for two years, require companies to turn nonregular workers they have hired for more than two years into regular workers.
The three bill package will take effect as early as July 2007.
National Assembly speaker Lim Chae-jung yesterday exercised his power to bypass a committee session and presented the bills for a floor vote.
Since February this year, the Legislation and Judiciary Committee failed to convene three times as the DLP lawmakers and officials occupied the committee room.
Nine DLP lawmakers reacted angrily to the parliamentary motion, holding a banner and chanting slogans in front of a speaker's podium.
They engaged in scuffles with some ruling lawmakers and traded barbs with the assembly speaker.
The Korea Herald reports the government plans to allow the National Pension Corp.
to invest in social infrastructure, such as school dormitories, child-care facilities and geriatric institutions.
The plan was discussed during a policy coordination meeting between top government officials and the leaders of the ruling Uri Party at the National Assembly.
The pension fund amounts to about 121 trillion won and is expected to increase to 242 trillion won by 2010 and 363 trillion won in 2015, according to the Ministry of Health and Welfare.
The plan was discussed during a policy coordination meeting between top government officials and the leaders of the ruling Uri Party at the National Assembly.
Fallout this weekend over a black Congressman criticizing the increasingly angry tone of some White supporters at McCain rallies.
“Congressman John Lewis says it was not his intention, or desire, to directly compare John McCain or Sarah Palin to George Wallace.
The Georgia Democrat says he was trying to remind Americans that toxic language can lead to destructive behavior.
He also says he's glad that McCain has taken some steps to correct divisive speech at his rallies.
Lewis had said earlier that the negative tone of the Republican presidential campaign reminded him of the hateful atmosphere that segregationist governor George Wallace fostered in the 1960's.
McCain responded by calling Lewis's remarks 'shocking and beyond the pale.'
Shirley Smith, Washington.”
A Russian spacecraft is on its way to the International Space Station, carrying an American space tourist.
Computer game millionaire Richard Garriott reportedly paid $30 million for the 10-day trip.
The Georgia Democrat says he was trying to remind Americans that toxic language can lead to destructive behavior.
McCain responded by calling Lewis's remarks 'shocking and beyond the pale.'
˝The Korea Times reports that only Koreans who have electronic passports will be able to enter the United States without a visa even after Korea joins the Visa Waiver Program, or VWP, as early as July 2008, according to a government official on Tuesday.
Washington recently notified Seoul of its position that e-passport holders will be able travel to the United States without a visa while those who have ordinary passports will have to get a visa to enter.
The ministry plans to replace current passports with e-passports, which have a chip containing fingerprints and other personal information.
E-passports will be issued to diplomats and government officials on a trial basis in the first quarter of next year.
Other applicants will be able to get them from the following July, according to the ministry.
But critics expressed concerns that if people rush to apply for e-passports next July by the time Korea enters the VWP, then there would be a serious delay in issuance.˝
The survey, which canvassed 31 out of 62 heads of foreign missions for more than six months, showed that 74.2 percent judged the nation’s market openness as average or below average.
The Korea Herald is reporting that in an audit session at City Hall yesterday, the mayor of Seoul again shrugged off allegations that he had financed recent rallies against relocating the national capital.
""I am absolutely against the relocation of administrative capital, but I think that public officials should not be involved in political activities,"" Lee Myung-bak said in front of 23 lawmakers.
The Seoul metropolitan government provided each ward with special fall budgets recently, and top officials of three wards are suspected of having used the funds to organize the anti-relocation rallies.
Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan will not comply with calls from the National Assembly.
Until now, doctors have resorted to autologous epidermal transplantation surgery for damaged skin replacement but that did not work for those without transplantable skin cells.
A team of Korean scientists has developed a breakthrough technology to heal skin damage, such as burn injuries, by transplanting skin cells enriched from stem cells.
The team, headed by Korea Institute of Radiological and Medical Sciences researcher Son Young-sook, Tuesday revealed the medical technique of using stem cells to mass produce skin cells.
Until now, doctors have resorted to autologous epidermal transplantation surgery for damaged skin replacement but that did not work for those without transplantable skin cells.
Another advantage of the new therapy is that it halves the number of surgeries required.
Newspapers show different attitude toward MBC live music show.
South Korean naval vessels fired warning shots yesterday at one of three North Korean patrol boats that crossed the Northern Limit Line in the Yellow Sea, the demarcation line of the maritime border between the two Koreas.
South Korean naval vessels fired warning shots yesterday at one of three North Korean patrol boats that crossed the Northern Limit Line in the Yellow Sea, the demarcation line of the maritime border between the two Koreas.
Afterward, North Korean commanders said they had not intruded into South Korean waters.
Inspectors from the United Nation’s nuclear watchdog arrived in Seoul.
˝The BBC reports Taliban rebels in Afghanistan have released 12 South Koreans - 10 women and two men - out of a group of 19 hostages that they have been holding.
The hostages were released in three groups throughout the day.
They are said to be in good health.
The three women and one man from the latest group to be freed were said to be “hugely relieved” at their release.
The Taliban said the remaining seven hostages would be released soon.
The group was initially seized in July.
The hostages were released with the mediation of tribal elders in separate locations.
The first two groups of hostages were handed over to officials of the International Committee of the Red Cross and were then taken to meet South Korean government officials in Ghazni.
Haji Zahir, a tribal elder who has been acting as a mediator, told the BBC he and two other elders had travelled to meet the Taliban and bring the first three women by car to Ghazni.
The second group of hostages was then released in the Shabaz area of Ghazni province, close to the village of Ghazni itself.
The releases come a day after the South Korean government said it had reached a deal with the Taliban.
South Korea has agreed to withdraw troops from Afghanistan as scheduled by the end of the year.
It also said it would end all missionary work in the country and stop its citizens from traveling there.
There has been no mention of money being paid, but it is thought that a ransom may have been part of the deal.
The Taliban appear to have dropped their earlier demand that Taliban members be released from Afghan prisons in exchange for the hostages´ freedom.
The militants kidnapped 23 South Koreans on 19 July as they travelled by bus on the main Kandahar to Kabul highway.
˝The BBC reports Taliban rebels in Afghanistan have released 12 South Koreans - 10 women and two men - out of a group of 19 hostages that they have been holding.
The three women and one man from the latest group to be freed were said to be “hugely relieved” at their release.
The hostages were released with the mediation of tribal elders in separate locations.
The first two groups of hostages were handed over to officials of the International Committee of the Red Cross and were then taken to meet South Korean government officials in Ghazni.
There has been no mention of money being paid, but it is thought that a ransom may have been part of the deal.
The militants kidnapped 23 South Koreans on 19 July as they travelled by bus on the main Kandahar to Kabul highway.
It's a wonderful thing, you know, they did a miraculous job.
The Steelers captured their record 6th Super Bowl title with a squeaker of a victory over the Cardinals.
“You like to be able to have that easy win, where you can just enjoy the 4th quarter and pour the Gatorade on Coach Earley and celebrate.
But I'll tell you what, as a quarterback there's nothing better than a 2-minute drive to win the game.”
He was on the CBS Late Show with David Letterman.
The NBA saw a season high 61 points last night.
They came from the Lakers' Kobe Bryant at New York's Madison Square Garden.
Dow industrials down 12 points in the first half hour.
This woman tells KDKA-TV the celebration is a blessing to a city suffering through hard times:
The NBA saw a season high 61 points last night.
Ban Ki-moon, minister of foreign affairs and trade, Wednesday tried to dodge criticism by a top U.S. lawmaker who accused Seoul of taking an apologetic attitude toward communist North Korea.
The comments came after Henry Hyde, Republican chairman of the House International Relations Committee, sent a letter to the top U.S. envoy in Seoul Tuesday supporting his stern stance on North Korea.
Earlier this month, U.S. Ambassador Alexander Vershbow dubbed North Korea a “criminal regime,” accusing it of involvement in large-scale counterfeiting and drug-trafficking.
At the time, Ban expressed regret, saying that countries participating in the six-nation talks on North Korea’s nuclear programs should refrain from “using expressions unfavorable to dialogue partners.”
But in the letter, Hyde applauded the U.S. ambassador for his so-called “straight-forward remarks” and appeared to criticize Seoul for siding with the North.
“Those who would make apologies for such a regime are no friends of America and her people,” Hyde said in the letter.
Ban Ki-moon, minister of foreign affairs and trade, Wednesday tried to dodge criticism by a top U.S. lawmaker who accused Seoul of taking an apologetic attitude toward communist North Korea.
Ambassador Alexander Vershbow dubbed North Korea a “criminal regime,” accusing it of involvement in large-scale counterfeiting and drug-trafficking.
But in the letter, Hyde applauded the U.S. ambassador for his so-called “straight-forward remarks” and appeared to criticize Seoul for siding with the North.
Vice Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan called the Japanese ambassador to the ministry to make an official protest against the Japanese premier’s visit to the shrine.
Vice Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan called the Japanese ambassador to the ministry to make an official protest against the Japanese premier’s visit to the shrine.
Oshima said he would deliver the message to the Japanese government.
It's a brave new digital world.
Steve Jobs didn't appear at MacWorld and Bill Gates didn't keynote at CES.
It was Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer taking the stage at Las Vegas last night, announcing Windows7 is almost ready for prime time and will be ready for beta testing by regular users who can download and play with it starting tomorrow.
Looks a little like Mac OS 10, but Ballmer indicates he's not obsessing about Apple:
“Yeah, you got to look at it this way, you know this year, maybe there will be what, 10 million Macs sold and 300 million PCs, or something like that.
I think people are pretty interested in the future of the personal computer.”
The updated operating system could be available on new PC's within a year.
One Irish employee's accusing Dell of greed;
that's because the U.S. computer maker is cutting 1,900 jobs in Ireland and shifting its European manufacturing operations to Poland.
Dell currently the second largest corporate employer in Ireland.
It was Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer taking the stage at Las Vegas last night, announcing Windows7 is almost ready for prime time and will be ready for beta testing by regular users who can download and play with it starting tomorrow.
A group of professors from Seoul National University (SNU) pledged Monday they will launch an organized campaign against President-elect Lee Myung-bak’s cross-country canal project, by forming networks with other universities.
“We will first gather SNU professors opposing the canal project and invite professors from other universities as well.
Many professors have already agreed to participate in the Campaign,’’ said Kim Jeong-wook of the Graduate School of Environmental Studies.
Through the campaign, the professors will publicize problems and possible damage the project could cause, he added.
As an initial step, the professors will hold a forum Thursday, to shed light on negative side effects of the so-called Great Canal Project.
Yoon Je-yong, engineering professor at the school, will emphasize pollution and other environmental problems it could cause.
Among other professors joining the protest are Hong Jong-ho, an economics professor of Hangyang University and Park Chang-guen, an engineering professor of Kwangdong University.
Through the campaign, the professors will publicize problems and possible damage the project could cause, he added.
As an initial step, the professors will hold a forum Thursday, to shed light on negative side effects of the so-called Great Canal Project.
The purge has begun.
The Korea Times reports the nation´s top cultural policymaker urged left-leaning leaders of cultural organizations appointed under the Roh Moo-hyun administration to step down.
In a speech at the Gwanghwamun Culture Forum at the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts, Yu In-chon, the minister of culture, sports and tourism, said those ``who have their own philosophies, styles and originality will step down voluntarily.
´´ His remarks came after Ahn Sang-soo, the floor leader of the governing Grand National Party (GNP), pressed cronies of former President Roh to quit their posts so that they do not become a hindrance to the new administration.
The opposition United Democratic Party criticized the minister for plotting to oust ``democratic´´ forces.
Some 30 public organizations come under the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, including the Korea Culture and Content Agency and the Korean Film Council.
Its heads, appointed under the previous administration, are considered progressives, but the new government has conservative-leanings.
Park Rae-boo, the chairman of the Korea Press Foundation, made it clear that he will complete his tenure through 2010 in keeping with the law and regulations.
The purge has begun.
President Barack Obama says the government has geared up to curb the spread of the swine flu.
In his weekly radio and online address, Obama says health experts are trying to figure out why the virus hasn't been as deadly in the US as it has been in Mexico:
“ Thus far, the strain in this country - that has infected people in at least 19 states - has not been as potent or as deadly.
We can't know for certain why that is, which is why we are taking all necessary precautions in the event that the virus does turn into something worse.
” New York has the highest number of cases in the US, 50, and Michael Bloomberg says most of those cases have been mild:
“ Nearly all of those who have contracted the H1N1 flu, or who have had probable cases of the flu, have had relatively mild cases and all have recovered or are recovering nicely.”
The number of confirmed cases is now 443.
More rain in the forecast for Oklahoma, where parts of the state got as much as a foot of rain through yesterday.
National Weather Service forecasters say flood watches and warnings are up for a handful of Oklahoma's 77 counties.
The number of confirmed cases is now 443.
President George W. Bush says he will lead an investigation into how the Hurricane Katrina disaster was handled.
""I'm going to find out over time what went right and what went wrong,"" he said in reply to criticism that the authorities were too slow to respond.
Senate is to hold two inquiries of its own into the disaster which hit the Gulf Coast and New Orleans.
New Orleans' last residents are being urged to leave the swamped city as fires add to the hazards there.
The city's Times-Picayune newspaper has demanded the sacking of top officials at the U.S.
Senate is to hold two inquiries of its own into the disaster which hit the Gulf Coast and New Orleans.
Senior officials from North and South Korea will hold talks today after a 10-month hiatus to discuss the ever intensifying standoff over Pyongyang’s endeavor to develop nuclear weapons and normalize the inter-Korean dialogue.
Senior officials from North and South Korea will hold talks today after a 10-month hiatus to discuss the ever intensifying standoff over Pyongyang’s endeavor to develop nuclear weapons and normalize the inter-Korean dialogue.
Vice Unification Minister Rhee Bong-jo said in a press conference on Saturday that the meeting, which was arranged at the North’s request for fertilizer assistance, will take place in the North Korean city of Kaesong on May 16-17.
Rhee, heading a three-member delegation, will meet his North Korean counterpart Kim Man-gil, a deputy director at the secretariat of the North’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland.
Intensifying competition between banks could lead to a collapse of the whole industry.
“Well, the cost of mailing your bills went up today.
The price of a basic first-class stamp is up 2 cents, to 44 cents, and several other rates are higher, too.
If you still have Forever stamps you bought for 42 cents, they're still good, but anyone buying them now will pay the new rate.
The Post Office is adding new personalized Forever envelopes that can be ordered;
they will be pre-printed with a Forever stamp, the sender's name and return address, and can include a personal or business message.
Prices will vary by type of envelope.
The increase is to help the Postal Service cover a budget shortfall.
The Miss California USA Pageant is expected to announce its decision of whether Carrie Prejean will keep her state crown.
The pageant has been investigating whether she violated her contract by making public appearances at groups opposed to same-sex marriage.
Prejean also failed to reveal to organizers that she had posed in her underwear as a teenager.
“Well, the cost of mailing your bills went up today.
The price of a basic first-class stamp is up 2 cents, to 44 cents, and several other rates are higher, too.
If you still have Forever stamps you bought for 42 cents, they're still good, but anyone buying them now will pay the new rate.
A South Korean ship brimming with instant noodles, blankets and bottled water sailed Wednesday for North Korea as an international effort intensified to help thousands injured or left homeless in last week's deadly train explosion.
Seoul also moved closer to approving a controversial North Korean plea for millions of dollars in additional aid, including 50 color television sets.
The request came a day after impoverished North Korea rejected Seoul's offer to send doctors, saying it already had enough medical help.
North Korea, meanwhile, lauded the ``heroic deaths'' of four people killed after running into collapsing or burning buildings after the explosion to retrieve portraits of leader Kim Jong Il and his late father, national founder Kim Il Sung.
The leaders are objects of a pervasive personality cult in the communist North, with father-and-son portraits hanging in every home and building.
North Korea likened Thursday's train blast in Ryongchon, a town of 130,000 near the Chinese border, to ``100 bombs, each weighing one ton'' going off at the same time.
KCNA also said the explosion left many victims ``deaf and blind'' and destroyed at least 8,100 homes and more than 30 public buildings. A South Korean ship brimming with instant noodles, blankets and bottled water sailed Wednesday for North Korea as an international effort intensified to help thousands injured or left homeless in last week's deadly train explosion.
North Korea likened Thursday's train blast in Ryongchon, a town of 130,000 near the Chinese border, to ``100 bombs, each weighing one ton'' going off at the same time.
Despite being the object of a corruption and stock manipulation investigation, conservative candidate Lee Myung-bak has won a landslide victory in South Korea´s presidential election.
The result is seen by many as a sign of chronic immaturity of the Korean political process.
The National Election Commission said Lee had 48.6% of the votes after 98% were counted.
Chung Dong-young, of the ruling liberals, was second with 26.2%.
Lee´s victory hands back power to the ultra conservative Grand National Party (GNP) for the first time in a decade, and is believed to mark an end to steadily improving relations with North Korea achieved under the Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations.
Voter apathy was believed partly to blame for Lee’s victory with turn-out estimated to be about 60% - one of the lowest ever for a South Korean election.
Lee still faces allegations over an alleged fraud in 2001, which he denies.
It totals more than 3 trillion dollars;
that's a 3, followed by 12 zeros, and it contains way too much red ink for Republican Congress members like Mike Pence of Indiana:
to an 8% increase in federal spending, 'No!'
to 9,000 earmarks, and let's say 'Yes!'
” Democrats like James McGovern of Massachusetts say the opposition doesn't really have the right to complain about huge amounts of deficit spending:
“ But it's somewhat ironic that the very people who drove this economy into a ditch are now complaining about the size of the tow truck.”
So what is the deal with all the borrowing necessary to make the budget work?
“ That's due to administration efforts to battle the recession, chiefly the $787 billion stimulus bill.
$1.75 trillion, according to a senior administration official.
The budget also holds out the possibility of asking for another $250 billion in bank bailout money.”
Associated Press correspondent Sagar Meghani at the White House.
to an 8% increase in federal spending, 'No!'
to 9,000 earmarks, and let's say 'Yes!'
So what is the deal with all the borrowing necessary to make the budget work?
˝Iraq Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has called on senior leaders in Iraq´s bitterly divided communities to hold crisis talks this week.
U.S. officials are describing the summit as a make-or-break moment for the government.
From Washington, Daniel Ryntjes reports.
Seventeen ministerial posts are empty or filled by members boycotting Cabinet meetings amid protests at Maliki’s faltering government.
Iraq’s United Nations Ambassador Hamid Al Bayati says the government is doing all it can to bring stability to the war torn country.
“We are aware that this challenge should be addressed by the government and the people of Iraq… a responsibility that the government of Iraq is working hard to fulfil in spite of all the difficulties.”
The meeting is the result of pressure from Washington which has been warning Iraq’s leaders to work harder on unity.
Daniel Ryntjes, Washington.˝
The number of newborns in Korea increased for the first time in six years in 2006, the National Statistical Office said yesterday.
About 452,000 babies were born last year, up 3.3 percent, or 14,000, from the previous year.
It is the first annual rise in the birthrate since the 2000 “”millennium effect,”” when the number of births rose 3.3 percent to 637,000.
Korea’s overall fertility rate - the average number of babies a woman aged 15-49 gives birth to during her lifetime - also increased, to 1.13 last year from the record-low figure of 1.08 in 2005, the report said.
The statistics office previously estimated Korea’s population to start declining from 2020, shrinking by more than 12 percent by 2050.
On the other hand, the global population will continue to grow steadily from the current 6.5 billion to 9.3 billion in 2050, despite sharp fall in fertility rates in developed countries.
An increase in the number of children born to women in their early 30s contributed most to the current growth.
Korea’s overall fertility rate - the average number of babies a woman aged 15-49 gives birth to during her lifetime - also increased, to 1.13 last year from the record-low figure of 1.08 in 2005, the report said.
Under heavy fire over its handling of a gang-rape case involving 40 high-school students, the National Police Agency announced yesterday that from now on only female police officers will investigate victims of sexual violence to prevent possible human rights violations, according to the Korea Herald.
The NPA unveiled its new rules and other measures after it came under fire from the public for local police mishandling of a rape case involving two sisters last week in Milyang, South Gyeongsang Province. Under heavy fire over its handling of a gang-rape case involving 40 high-school students, the National Police Agency announced yesterday that from now on only female police officers will investigate victims of sexual violence to prevent possible human rights violations, according to the Korea Herald.
The authorities also said investigators would use interrogation rooms with video recorders during questioning of victims in police stations.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld expressed gratitude for President Roh.
A Korean appeals court overturned a lower court ruling and ordered the U.S.-based Lone Star Funds to pay the city of Seoul 25.2 billion won ($27 million) in taxes and penalties.
The Seoul High Court made the ruling yesterday, the Seoul Metropolitan Government said in a statement.
Kim Ji-ho, a Seoul-based spokeswoman for Lone Star, declined to comment.
Lone Star is allowed to appeal the ruling, the government said.
Lone Star filed a lawsuit against the city last August, arguing that additional taxes it slapped on its purchase of a 45-story building in 2001 were unreasonable.
Under Seoul tax laws, companies incorporated for more than five years pay lower registration taxes on properties they acquire in the city.
The office complex was purchased by Lone Star’s Star Tower subsidiary, C&J Trading, which had been incorporated for more than five years when the transaction was made.
The company was established in 1996 but has shown no business transactions since then.
Lone Star filed a lawsuit against the city last August, arguing that additional taxes it slapped on its purchase of a 45-story building in 2001 were unreasonable.
The company was established in 1996 but has shown no business transactions since then.
South Korea is capable of retrieving wartime control of its forces from the United States even at the current stage and the alliance will not be affected by the recovery as Washington also hopes to give it back to Seoul, President Roh Moo-hyun said on Wednesday.
Forces Korea (USFK), but the number of American soldiers stationed here is not as important as the quality of their services, said Roh in a special interview with the Yonhap news agency.
The interview comes at a time when the governing camp has been strongly criticized by the nation's largest opposition Grand National Party (GNP) for allegedly weakening the alliance.
After the transfer, Washington could possibly downsize the U.S.
Sounds like peace talks are getting serious in the Middle East, but it also sounds like the fighting is getting even heavier in Gaza City, (sound of shouting in background) where a wounded journalist was rushed to the hospital.
Bullets buzzed through the AP Bureau in Gaza City after Israel shelled the UN Headquarters in town, wounding three people.
The AP's Aaron Heller in Jerusalem:
“Apparently, Israel's part of its aerial attack against Hamas positions, hit part of the UN position over there.
Israel Defense Minister Ehud Barak, saying it was a mistake and apologizing to Ban-Ki-Moon.”
What kind of Corinthian leather was it that Ricardo Montalban pitched for Chrysler back in the '70's?
I thought it was fine Corinthian leather, but listen to this:
(music and voiceover, Montalban whispering“ soft Corinthian leather”) - As it was soft Corinthian leather, and now Montalban has died at 88 in home in Southern California.
Israel Defense Minister Ehud Barak, saying it was a mistake and apologizing to Ban-Ki-Moon.”
It's just been lately that swine flu has been all over the news, but researchers this morning say parts of this particular strain have been around for a while.
They say gene segments of the H1N1 virus have been circulating undetected for at least a decade.
At the same time, new tests show what scientists have suspected:
that older people have more immunity to the new virus, maybe because they were around during the swine flu scare of the 1970's:
“ Especially older adults, over 60 or over 65, depending on the samples that we had.”
An international search is under way for a businessman and his girl friend, who took off after their bank accidentally handed them a $6.1 million line of credit ?
more than 6 million dollars at their command.
The bank says the couple managed to flee New Zealand with more than a third of the cash.
that older people have more immunity to the new virus, maybe because they were around during the swine flu scare of the 1970's:
Buddhists from more than 30 countries are in China for the World Buddhist Forum - communist China's first international religious gathering.
Hundreds of monks and scholars are visiting the eastern city of Hangzhou, but Buddhist spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, has not been invited.
Communist China regards the exiled Tibetan leader as a separatist.
It has made its choice of Panchen Lama - Tibet's second most important figure - the figurehead of the conference.
But according to Reuters news agency he appeared to be shunned by delegates.
Fellow Buddhists made no attempt to greet Gyaltsen Norbu during greeting ceremonies ahead of the conference on Wednesday, the agency reported.
The Dalai Lama has nominated his own Panchen Lama, who has disappeared and is believed to be under house arrest.
Communist China regards the exiled Tibetan leader as a separatist.
But according to Reuters news agency he appeared to be shunned by delegates.
˝Under mounting pressure from both inside and outside the company, Hyundai Motor’s union made an announcement they've never made before:
The union said it won't strike today through Wednesday, but still plans to join the anti-free trade agreement walkout by the Metal Worker’s Union on Thursday and Friday, according to the public relations team at Hyundai, which e-mailed a release.
The union made its decision after taking into account the “negative response from the Korean people as well as the union members,” the release said.
Since announcing earlier this month it would join the strike, Hyundai’s union has been criticized heavily, in part because the automaker expects a huge increase in exports due to the free trade agreement between Korea and the United States.The union leaders made the decision to strike in an executive session without taking the required vote from all of the members.
That raised the ire of many workers.˝
The union made its decision after taking into account the “negative response from the Korean people as well as the union members,” the release said.
A music and pop culture staples since the 1960's is turning a page.
[Music“ On the cover of the Rolling Stones…”
“Rolling Stone has ditched its extra large format for a more traditional size, printing on thicker, glossier paper and promising more pages per issue.
After more than four decades standing out from other magazines, finishing editor Will Dana says, it was time for a change.”
And in fact, we got so many people saying this is great, I love it, I don't know why you wouldn't do this, that kinda thing.”
“But Dana promises the magazine” Soul“ won't be altered.”
“I don't think anyone read the magazine because it was big.”
“You can see the changes for yourself, with the October 30th issue on new stands now.
From worst to first, Tampa Bay completed the transition by beating Boston 3-1 in Game 7 of the American League Championship Series.
The Rays now host the World Series opener against the Philadelphia Phillies Wednesday night.
Wall Street, the Dow Industrial's up 145 points, NASDAQ ahead 6.
[Music“ On the cover of the Rolling Stones…”
The first in a series of courts-martial in the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse allegations will begin next week, trials that could bring new revelations on whether the mistreatment of Iraqis was an aberration or stemmed from pressure from commanders.
Jeremy C. Sivits of Hyndman, Pa., a member of the 372nd Military Police Company, will face a military court in Baghdad on May 19, less than a month after photos of prisoners being abused and humiliated were first broadcast April 28th.
Both the speed of the trial's scheduling and the venue in the Iraqi capital underscore the military's realization that it must demonstrate resolve in prosecuting those responsible for a scandal that threatens to undermine the U.S. mission in Iraq and Bush's re-election chances.
Prosecutors summoned Lee Soon-ja for questioning over former president Chun Doo-hwan’s alleged secret fund.
House speaker Nancy Pelosi says she would prefer government spending over income tax reductions as a way to stimulate the economy:
“Economists have told us from right to left that there's more bang for the buck - the term they use - by investing in food stamps and unemployment insurance than in any tax cuts.
Nonetheless, we are committed to the tax cuts.”
In an interview on ABC's This Week, Pelosi adds that any future federal bailout money for financial institutions should include the government getting an ownership stake in those companies.
President Barack Obama has asked Congress to act quickly on his $825 billion economic stimulus plan.
Nonetheless, we are committed to the tax cuts.”
The Korea Times reports South Korea yesterday played down claims by a senior North Korean official that Pyongyang has reprocessed and had ``weaponized’’ 8,000 spent plutonium fuel rods as a deterrent against U.S. hostility.
The official said Choe stopped short of claiming the North has nuclear weapons, stating only that it has ``weaponized’’ the plutonium _ perhaps indicating reprocessing for weapons use.
Consumer sentiment dropped to the worst level.
We don't know about Tiny Fey as Sarah Palin but Fred Armisen and Darrell Hammond say they'll still be doing their political impressions after tomorrow on“ Saturday Night Live”.
“The key to Fred Armisen playing Barack Obama on 'Saturday Night Live' …”
“Under my plan, his taxes will not go up.”
When he listens, he's a good listener, and his eyebrows go down.”
“John McCain was on SNL over the weekend…”
“With John McCain's complete set of pork knives … they cut the pork out!”
“… meaning Darrell Hammond had to hang out with the guy he impersonated.”
“As to who'll be playing the President after tomorrow, Armisen and Hammond predicted a tie on NBC's 'Today Show.'
The Titans are still the only unbeaten team in the NFL.
“With John McCain's complete set of pork knives … they cut the pork out!”
“… meaning Darrell Hammond had to hang out with the guy he impersonated.”
“As to who'll be playing the President after tomorrow, Armisen and Hammond predicted a tie on NBC's 'Today Show.'
President George W. Bush on Thursday sharply criticized foreign policies advocated by Democratic front-runner Barack Obama, saying it would be a mistake to meet the leaders of Iran and Cuba without preconditions or swiftly change course in Iraq, according to Reuters.
It will give great status to those who have suppressed human rights and human dignity,"" Bush added, saying there was no difference between Raul Castro and his brother, Fidel, who recently stepped aside as president because of ill health.
It was the first major instance of Bush injecting himself into the presidential race to choose who will succeed him in the November election, with his unpopular Iraq war a major debating point on the campaign trail.
Bank of Korea (BOK) Governor Lee Seong-tae warned of an economic slowdown, Thursday, saying U.S. financial market unease will pull down growth rates here and pour cold water on consumption and corporate investment.
``Various indications show that economic growth may fall at a faster pace than we anticipated months ago,´´ Lee told reporters after the BOK´s Monetary Policy Committee decided to freeze its base interest rate for April at 5 percent.
``My conclusion is that external risks will have a greater impact on the economy.
The financial instability in the United States and other global markets will continue for the time being, negatively affecting consumption and investment here.´´ This was not the first time that Lee cautioned about a slowing economy, but the tone was clearly different from the past.
The central bank has retained a hawkish monetary stance since last August, saying growing inflation risks outweigh concerns about a slowdown.
Many analysts view Lee´s remarks as an indication that the BOK will lower its interest rate in a month or two for the first time since November 2004.
It may shift its policy focus to downside risks for the economy from inflation soon, they said.
The Joong-Ang Ilbo quotes police yesterday as saying they had arrested the owner of an immigration consultancy on charges of forging documents for use by prospective Korean emigrants to Canada.
Three of his employees and 29 clients are also being investigated, they said.
The man reportedly earned 200 million won from the forgeries and much more in ""commissions"" after the emigrants arrived in their new homes.
The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency's foreign affairs division said the clients were attempting to avoid school fees for their children studying in Canada.
Three of his employees and 29 clients are also being investigated, they said.
A car bomb has wrecked an internet cafe, mangling a bus carrying handicapped children in northwestern Pakistan;
at least 11 people, including 4 children, are dead, many others wounded.
29 suspected militants are said to have been killed.
Some 30 people have been hurt by what appears to have been an acid attack in a busy Hong Kong shopping district.
“ It happened in Mong Kok, which is a very popular shopping district for locals and for tourists.
It's a commonplace for them to go and, at least thousands of people, visit the place on the weekend.
Fire officials say none of the people were seriously hurt.”
Police in Moscow have broken up a series of gay rights protests, detaining more than 20 people, including activists from the US and Britain.
(shouting) City authorities had barred the protests, calling them“ morally wrong.”
“ It happened in Mong Kok, which is a very popular shopping district for locals and for tourists.
The won closed at its highest level in 10 years, rising for the third straight day on globally-weak dollar sentiment following the U.S.
A stronger won against the dollar makes Korean exports more expensive and could take the steam out of them.
The local currency closed at 913.70 won against the dollar Monday, rising 1.4 won.
It is the strongest level for the local currency since Oct.
The US Marine Corps has charged seven marines and a navy sailor with murder over the death of an Iraqi civilian.
All eight would also face kidnapping and conspiracy charges, a spokesman told reporters at the California camp where the defendants were being held.
They are accused of shooting a disabled man in Hamandiya in April, and covering up the circumstances of his death.
It is one in a series of inquiries into the alleged abuse or killing of Iraqis by coalition forces.
Another Pentagon inquiry is looking into an alleged massacre at Haditha last November, in which 24 civilians are thought to have been killed.
The Hamandiya investigation has been examining claims a man was deliberately killed on 26 April in the town in central Iraq.
A military spokesman said all were presumed innocent and it would be up to the authorities to decide if the men would face the death penalty in any future courts martial.
The US Marine Corps has charged seven marines and a navy sailor with murder over the death of an Iraqi civilian.
All eight would also face kidnapping and conspiracy charges, a spokesman told reporters at the California camp where the defendants were being held.
They are accused of shooting a disabled man in Hamandiya in April, and covering up the circumstances of his death.
It is one in a series of inquiries into the alleged abuse or killing of Iraqis by coalition forces.
The Hamandiya investigation has been examining claims a man was deliberately killed on 26 April in the town in central Iraq.
The government has formed a high-level committee to tackle crucial diplomatic and security issues between Seoul and Washington as the nations begin negotiations on the reduction of U.S. forces in Korea, the National Security Council announced yesterday.
The government has formed a high-level committee to tackle crucial diplomatic and security issues between Seoul and Washington as the nations begin negotiations on the reduction of U.S. forces in Korea, the National Security Council announced yesterday.
He warned that the epidemic has spread so quickly that India needed to ""wake up"" and take the problem seriously, otherwise millions of people will die.
A senior AIDS expert has warned that HIV in India is ""out of control"".
The executive director of the Global Fund to Fight Aids said that the epidemic in India is spreading rapidly and nothing is being done to stop it.
Richard Feachem warned that India has overtaken South Africa as the country with the most HIV positive patients.
He warned that the epidemic has spread so quickly that India needed to ""wake up"" and take the problem seriously, otherwise millions of people will die.
More than 50 dead bodies discovered in a town of southern Baghdad.
The Ministry of Justice said Wednesday that Kim Kyung-joon, founder of the scandal-ridden BBK, will be extradited to Seoul from the United States in two weeks to face questioning over his stock manipulation and money-laundering cases.
According to The Korea Times, the government said that the U.S.
Embassy in Seoul confirmed the State Department´s approval of the extradition of the stock manipulator to Korea.
His forthcoming arrival triggered a nervous reaction from Lee Myung-bak, the candidate of the opposition Grand National Party (GNP) and former business partner of Kim.
The United New Democratic Party (UNDP) hailed the decision and urged Lee to reveal the truth.
Minor parties also welcomed the news and urged prosecutors to investigate the case thoroughly.
Prosecutors are scheduled to arrest Kim upon his arrival in Seoul and will question him on allegations of Lee´s involvement in the stock manipulation, prosecution sources said.
Embassy in Seoul confirmed the State Department´s approval of the extradition of the stock manipulator to Korea.
The one-time commander of Abu Ghraib says her soldiers were made scapegoats for Bush administration interrogation policies.
AP national security correspondent Sagar Meghani reports the officer who was demoted after the prisoner abuse scandal feels vindicated by a new Senate report:
“ The report found brutal treatment at the Iraqi prison and Guantanamo was not simply the work of a few bad apples in the rank and file, but rather directly followed Bush administration policies.
Then-Brigadier General Janis Karpinsky was demoted to Colonel after the Abu Ghraib abuses became public.
She tells the CBS Early Show the report backs up her claim that uniformed soldiers did not come up with the techniques on their own:
”“ Karpinsky says she feels vindicated, but the information should have come out sooner:
”“ It took them far too long.”
Football hooliganism tarnishes the sport once again as Italian football fans have reacted violently inside and outside stadiums following the police shooting of a Lazio supporter.
The 26-year-old fan was shot in what police called a “tragic error” as they tried to stop violence between rival fans at a motorway stop in Tuscany.
A match between Atalanta and AC Milan was stopped as fans and police clashed.
There was violence at other games.
Later hundreds of fans rampaged in Rome and there were more protests in Milan.
The 26-year-old fan was shot in what police called a “tragic error” as they tried to stop violence between rival fans at a motorway stop in Tuscany.
South Korea’s Constitutional Court on Thursday ruled two anti-communist clauses of the National Security Law are constitutional, in a decision that may further fuel a controversy over the vaguely-worded sections.
The court’s decision is seen as advocating the necessity of the security law as a means of defending the country from the communist North amid existing ideological confrontation between the two Koreas.
South Korea’s Constitutional Court on Thursday ruled two anti-communist clauses of the National Security Law are constitutional, in a decision that may further fuel a controversy over the vaguely-worded sections.
The Korea Times reports the nine-member panel unanimously ruled two clauses of Article 7 of the security law, which prohibits South Koreans from praising the North Korean regime and carrying materials, which may benefit the communist country, are not against the Constitution.
Korea ranked 5th among OECD countries for consumer price increase rate last year.
Another phase of the O.J.
Simpson armed robbery and kidnapping case is wrapping up in Las Vegas.
“The prosecution is expected to be finished with its side of the case today, but not before giving the world a look at its star witness.
Michael McClinton is key to two parts of the prosecution case;
one, that Simpson asked that guns be brought to the Las Vegas casino hotel room to retrieve sports memorabilia, and two, that the guns were on display while the recovery was going on.
The defense has claimed Simpson didn't know about any guns.
It is expected to begin presenting its case on Monday.
its right at top of the AP college football poll is all but over after Oregon State upset the Trojans 27-21 last night in Corvallis.
Number two Oklahoma, third-ranked Georgia play tomorrow evening, a new poll comes out on Sunday.
Another phase of the O.J.
It is expected to begin presenting its case on Monday.
How bad is it out there on the unemployment line?
Economist David Wiese saying the jobless rate has been higher, but never before have so many Americans needed unemployment benefits on an ongoing basis.
The total now nearly 4.8 million, with another 588,000 people filing first-time claims just last week.
“We're expecting the unemployment rate to hit 9% by this time next year.
We're at 7.2% now, so pretty significant continued upticks in the unemployment rate.”
Wiese is Chief Economist with Standard & Poor's.
And businesses continue to hemorrhage jobs.
Ford reports a 4th quarter loss of $5.9 billion, and says its credit arm is cutting 1200 jobs.
“We've got more people collecting unemployment checks than we've ever had in history.”
Economist David Wiese saying the jobless rate has been higher, but never before have so many Americans needed unemployment benefits on an ongoing basis.
The six-year-old girl was beaten and strangled in her Colorado home 10 years ago, in a case that gripped America.
Karr has said he was with JonBenet when she died, but insists her death was an accident.
Escorted by police, Karr was driven away from the immigration detention centre in central Bangkok where he has been held since his arrest on Wednesday.
Karr was not handcuffed on the flight and took a glass of champagne in his business class seat.
An American schoolteacher held in Bangkok on suspicion of killing child beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey has left Thailand on a US extradition flight.
The six-year-old girl was beaten and strangled in her Colorado home 10 years ago, in a case that gripped America.
Initiated by the Bank of Korea, the issue of a new currency has emerged as a major agenda item among academics and politicians.
The opposition Grand National Party's Rep.
The Korea Herald reports public discussion about redenomination ""cannot be delayed any longer"" quoting majority Uri Party's policy coordinator, Lee Kye-ahn yesterday.
Initiated by the Bank of Korea, the issue of a new currency has emerged as a major agenda item among academics and politicians.
North Korean was murdered by skinhead in Vladivostok, Russia.
The nation’s household debts surged to 458 trillion won.
Lee Sang-deuk, the elder brother of President Lee Myung-bak, has become a target of attack after a group of 55 lawmakers of the governing party demanded that he withdraw his bid for the April 9 parliamentary elections to remove accusations of nepotism.
The lawmakers said in a statement that the President´s brother was to some degree responsible for the falling popularity of the Grand National Party (GNP).
``I know that the senior Lee has been very careful in behaving so as not to create unintended misconceptions,´´ said Park Chan-sook, one of the advocates for Lee´s retirement.
``Despite his demeanor, the fifth-term lawmaker, as the President´s brother, cannot avoid criticism that he played a role in the candidate selection fiasco,´´ she said.
Hugh Jackman says he's heartbroken that his new movie, 'X-Men Origins:
Wolverine,' was leaked online a month before its official release.
The Australian actor spoke at a press conference in Sydney on Wednesday where he unveiled 20 minutes of completed film footage to fans.
Costa Rican police are investigating claims by two photographers that they were shot at by bodyguards at the wedding of supermodel Gisele Bundchen and New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady.
The photographers claim Bundchen's bodyguards tried to seize their cameras' memory cards and shot at their car when they drove away.
Bundchen and Brady were reportedly married on Saturday in the coastal town of Santa Teresa.
A Los Angeles court official has delayed the arraignment of Anna Nicole Smith's lawyer-turned-boyfriend and a psychiatrist who treated the former model.
Khristine Eroshevich face charges they conspired with another physician to provide prescription drugs to Smith, who died of an accidental overdose in 2007.
Their arraignments have now been rescheduled for May 13th.
This is Hilary Fox with AP ShowBiz Minute.
The Australian actor spoke at a press conference in Sydney on Wednesday where he unveiled 20 minutes of completed film footage to fans.
A Los Angeles court official has delayed the arraignment of Anna Nicole Smith's lawyer-turned-boyfriend and a psychiatrist who treated the former model.
˝Black Presidential candidate Barack Obama´s wife apparently zinged Democratic White House competitor Hillary Clinton.
At a campaign rally, Michelle Obama said, , “if you can´t run your own house, you can´t run the White House.”
That´s taken as a nasty slap over former President Bill Clinton´s affair with an intern.
Obama also said she knows what it means to have family values.˝
The National Intelligence Service said Tuesday that the National Assembly and nine other government institutes related to national security, have recently been attacked by hackers in cyber space.
The National Intelligence Service said Tuesday that the National Assembly and nine other government institutes related to national security, have recently been attacked by hackers in cyber space.
The spy agency said it considers the cyber attack a ``grave threat’’ to the national security.
The NIS confirmed that a total of 278 computers in 10 government organizations have been assaulted by two kinds of information-stealing viruses - the Peep Trojan and Backdoor Revacc.
Tens of thousands of ultra-nationalist protesters rallied yesterday in downtown Seoul against North Korea’s nuclear program and the planned transition of wartime operational control between South Korea and the United States.
The protest was organized by the 6.6 National Convention, an alliance of right-wing veterans, radical religious groups and conservative civic associations, to mark the 52nd Memorial Day.
The groups including the Korea Veterans Association and the New Puritan Spiritual Training Center issued a declaration denouncing the government for reconciling with North Korea and weakening the alliance with the United States.
The group said it will continue a signature campaign against the transition of wartime operational control and North Korea’s nuclear program.
The campaign launched in September last year, aims to gather the signatures of 10 million people.
Roh spoke to academics and students at the Sorbonne, a leading French university.
The Joong-Ang Ilbo reports President Roh Moo-hyun has told professors and students in France that Korea needs more friends around the world and suggested the United States holds too much sway over his country.
Mohamed El Baradei Said N.K. had time to secure enough plutonium.
Oil has traded at $100 a barrel for the first time.
Violence in Nigeria, Algeria and Pakistan, the weak US dollar and the threat of cold weather have all raised prices after the New Year break.
There are concerns that the high price of oil will stoke inflation at a time when many central banks are trying to cut interest rates to stimulate growth.
The Obama transition team says the two will meet Monday in Chicago to talk about their shared goal of making more efficient and effective government a reality.
A more efficient economy is something Americans and retailers would relish these days because there's not a whole lot of this going on:
[Sound of cash register printing receipts]
Retail sales plunged by the largest amount on record in October;
the financial crisis and flumping economy caused consumers to cut back sharply on their spending.
“Our numbers show that October was a retail disaster, because the stock market was crashing.
Britt Beemer with America's Research Group after the Commerce Department said retail sales fell by 2.8% last month.
The drop led by a huge drop in auto purchases, but sales of all types of products, from furniture to clothing, fell.
the financial crisis and flumping economy caused consumers to cut back sharply on their spending.
The foreign ministers of South Korea, China and Japan will meet for exclusive talks during the Asia Europe Meeting in Kyoto next month, or during the ASEAN+3 ministerial talks the same month, according to Park Joon-woo, director-general of the Asia-Pacific Affairs Bureau at Korea's Foreign Ministry.
Amid criticism in Northeast Asia of Japan for its ""distorted"" interpretation of its past, foreign ministers from the three nations in the center of the history dispute are likely to meet next month.
The foreign ministers of South Korea, China and Japan will meet for exclusive talks during the Asia Europe Meeting in Kyoto next month, or during the ASEAN+3 ministerial talks the same month, according to Park Joon-woo, director-general of the Asia-Pacific Affairs Bureau at Korea's Foreign Ministry.
The Joong-Ang Ilbo reports anti-Japan sentiment is spreading quickly in China over Japan's new textbooks that are criticized for whitewashing and glorifying Japan's past colonization.
President Roh said N.K. should follow China and Vietnam as a model of becoming a market economy.
Britain's Queen Elizabeth will not attend the wedding of her eldest son Prince Charles to his long-time partner Camilla Parker Bowles, adding to an air of chaos that has surrounded plans for the day.
But some royal watchers said the move would further embarrass the royal family and add to an air of farce around the April 8 ceremony. Some opinion polls suggest the British public is opposed to the marriage of the Prince of Wales and Parker Bowles.
Britain's Queen Elizabeth will not attend the wedding of her eldest son Prince Charles to his long-time partner Camilla Parker Bowles, adding to an air of chaos that has surrounded plans for the day.
The queen planned to stay away to respect the couple's wish for a low-key wedding, the palace said.
But some royal watchers said the move would further embarrass the royal family and add to an air of farce around the April 8 ceremony.
Some opinion polls suggest the British public is opposed to the marriage of the Prince of Wales and Parker Bowles.
Lee Eun-ju, a popular TV and film actress was found dead by committed suicide.
North Korea has pledged to strengthen its “war deterrent”, days after it missed a year-end deadline for declaring its nuclear activities.
The move was a response to US military modernization and aggression, party daily Rodong Sinmun said.
North Korea has made similar statements before, and the remarks often coincide with differences over the ongoing nuclear disarmament process.
It has already begun the process of disabling its Yongbyon nuclear reactor.
But it failed to produce a full declaration of all its nuclear activities by year-end - and as yet has not explained why.
”Our republic will continue to harden its war deterrent further in response to the US stepping up its nuclear war moves,” the daily newspaper said.
Kwanghwamun Gate, Seoul's landmark structure that was restored in 1968, will be dismantled and reconstructed to its original Choson Kingdom form.
The Cultural Heritage Administration on Tuesday announced that it would disassemble the current ferroconcrete edifice and rebuild the original wooden structure by 2009.
The new main entrance to Kyongbok Palace will be moved 14.5 meters to the south and rotated 5.6 degrees clockwise to its original position.
The new building will be two-thirds the size of the present one.
Bad news for Lee Myoung-bak.
A hearing with the potential to embarrass the presidential front-runner is still on track before the election in December, as a U.S. court yesterday denied Lee’s motion to keep a former business partner facing criminal charges in Los Angeles.
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision means that Kim Gyeong-jun, currently in detention, is likely to arrive in Korea in late November.
The United New Democratic Party has voted to hold a hearing after Kim returns.
The party wants Kim to testify about alleged irregularities involving the now-defunct firm BBK.
Kim started the company and is accused of defrauding investors.
Kim Baek-jun, Lee’s legal representative, filed the motion asking the U.S. court not to repatriate Kim until other issues were settled there.
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision means that Kim Gyeong-jun, currently in detention, is likely to arrive in Korea in late November.
The United States rebuffed what seemed to be moves by China to get the United States to talk directly to North Korea about its nuclear program outside six-country negotiations.
The United States rebuffed what seemed to be moves by China to get the United States to talk directly to North Korea about its nuclear program outside six-country negotiations.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Pyongyang could speak directly to Washington within the context of those multilateral contacts.
The U.S. ambassador to Seoul is going to meet Japan’s top negotiator for the North Korea nuclear dispute.
KITA said yesterday that Korean products have lost ground in the U.S. market for three years in a row.
The Daily Joong-Ang reports the ability of emerging markets to offer U.S. consumers low-cost alternatives to Korean products is hurting the country’s U.S. market share, according to the Korea International Trade Association.
KITA said yesterday that Korean products have lost ground in the U.S. market for three years in a row.
US President George W Bush has urged countries to agree on long-term goals for greenhouse gas emissions.
He said he would hold meetings bringing together the US and 14 other major emitters, including developing nations, to set targets by the end of 2008.
Bush was speaking ahead of next week’s G8 summit, where Germany is expected to call for cuts in emissions.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel welcomed the US proposal, saying it was ””common ground”” for action.
Merkel has called for a major deal, including slowing the rise in average temperatures to 2℃ this century, by way of a cut in global emissions by 50% below 1990 levels by 2050.
In his speech on Thursday in Washington, Bush said his administration took climate change seriously.
The US has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol, which sets out targets on lowering emissions until 2012.
Bush also repeated that solutions to the problem of global warming would be found through the development of new technologies.
The nation’s industrial output growth slowed and private consumption dropped in July, stoking concerns that the economy is losing growth momentum fast.
The industrial output growth slowed to 4.4 percent year-on-year last month, the lowest rate in 13 months since June 2005 when production increased 3.7 percent, the National Statistical Office (NSO) reported yesterday.
The figure is lower than the market consensus of around 5 percent.
The seasonally-adjusted output fell 3.9 percent from a month earlier, reversing a 1.2 percent gain the previous month, hit by autoworkers’ strikes and a longer-than-expected rainy season.
Domestic sales of consumer goods fell 0.5 percent last year from a year ago, the first drop in 18 months since January 2005.
Seasonally-adjusted sales also dropped 5 percent from a month earlier.
The industrial output growth slowed to 4.4 percent year-on-year last month, the lowest rate in 13 months since June 2005 when production increased 3.7 percent, the National Statistical Office (NSO) reported yesterday.
The first state-run center for migrant workers will open today in Daerim-dong, southwestern Seoul, to help migrant workers adapt to Korean society, Korean government officials said yesterday.
The Korea Herald reports the center, occupying seven floors of a building near Sindorim station on subway line No.
But services and facilities at the center will not be available for undocumented workers unless they are seeking assistance in voluntarily leaving the country;
The first state-run center for migrant workers will open today in Daerim-dong, southwestern Seoul, to help migrant workers adapt to Korean society, Korean government officials said yesterday.
The Korea Herald reports the center, occupying seven floors of a building near Sindorim station on subway line No. 2, offers various kinds of services including legal counseling, medical checkups, shelter, and computer and Korean language courses, all free of charge for foreigners who are legally working in Korea.
But services and facilities at the center will not be available for undocumented workers unless they are seeking assistance in voluntarily leaving the country;
officials said there are a number of private help centers, which provide such services for undocumented workers.
A priest has been defrocked by Pope John Paul II.
Machimura's visit had been intended to repair relations between the two countries, which have been strained by an ongoing row about Koizumi's shrine visits, as well as disputes over gas fields and history text books.
China has called off a visit by Japan's foreign minister in apparent protest at Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's attending a controversial war shrine.
Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura was due in Beijing, but a Chinese spokesman said his country was ""not in a position to receive him"".
Koizumi visited the Yasukuni shrine, sparking Chinese complaints.
The shrine honors Japan's war dead, including 14 people judged as war criminals after World War II.
Machimura's visit had been intended to repair relations between the two countries, which have been strained by an ongoing row about Koizumi's shrine visits, as well as disputes over gas fields and history text books.
The visit was also intended to pave the way for a meeting between Koizumi and Chinese President Hu Jintao, Japan's JiJi Press reported.
Iran appears to bar some Korean exports.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Sunday Israel was escalating military measures and would freeze peace efforts after a Tel Aviv suicide bombing unless Palestinians smashed militant groups.
Addressing his cabinet in forceful tones Sharon said that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's ""immediate test"" was to act against Islamic Jihad, which claimed responsibility for the first deadly Palestinian in attack in Israel since November.
South Korea, Japan and the U.S. urge North Korea to return to six-party talks.
Russia and Iran signed an agreement on nuclear fuel supply deal.
love don't live here anymore …]
“Their publicists confirmed that Madonna and Guy Richie are calling it quits after nearly 8 years of marriage.
They're asking everyone to respect their privacy during this difficult time.
Madonna and Richie are worth about $525 million.
Mint has started to strike the first of the last of the commemorative quarters honoring the 50 states.
Hawaii Governor Linda Lingel led a delegation to the Denver Mint for the event honoring the 50th state.
love don't live here anymore …]
They also have two kids.
North Korea accused the U.S. of storing chemical arms in the heart of the Demilitarized Zone border, but the American military said this was completely inaccurate.
The communist North's official KCNA news agency published two reports on the alleged discovery of signs of chemical weapons.
KCNA also claimed it had evidence the U.S. was planning a pre-emptive strike because of North Korea's nuclear ambitions.
The North's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland vowed to use not only nuclear weapons but also biochemical weapons if the ""U.S. ignited a new war on the Korean peninsula.
"" The U.S. and the two Koreas are set to meet in Beijing for a third round of six-party talks with China, Russia and Japan over the crisis surrounding North Korea's nuclear ambitions.
˝Seoul stocks rose to a record high yesterday on heavy foreign buying buoyed by the news that Moody´s Investor Service has placed Korea on review for a possible rating upgrade.
The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index jumped 1.82 percent or 32.91 points to 1,838.41.
The market value of companies listed in the KOSPI and the tech-savvy Kosdaq reached 1,014.29 trillion won, exceeding the 1,000 trillion won level for the first time ˝
Israeli air raids have killed at least 23 people in southern Lebanon hours after Israel warned that the area would come under further heavy attack.
More than 120 Lebanese have died since clashes with Israel began on Wednesday.
Twelve Israeli civilians have been killed from Hezbollah rockets, including eight in Haifa on Sunday.
Early on Monday, Israeli planes targeted the port of Tripoli, Lebanon's second city, for the first time.
There is so far no word on casualties.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the Haifa attack - the worst on Israel since clashes started - would have ""far-reaching consequences"".
The Israeli air strikes began after Hezbollah seized two Israeli soldiers in a raid into Israel on Wednesday.
SK Telecom yesterday said the Seoul-based company had signed a contract late last week with Google for the development of the mobile search solution.
”Google is now working on a mobile search engine customized for Korean cell phones, and the first product will have its debut next month.
” SK Telecom official Yang Yoon-seon said ”Under the envisioned mobile services, search results will cover the full fixed-line Web on top of wireless search-specific network.
SK Telecom subscribers will be able to conduct mobile searches via SK Telecom mobile portal, dubbed Nate, which is accessible by clicking a hot key.
”Google is now working on a mobile search engine customized for Korean cell phones, and the first product will have its debut next month.
The Korea Times reports Song Min-soon, deputy foreign minister and chief South Korean delegate to the six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear arms programs, said that no symptoms have been found to back up recent speculations that the North may test an atomic weapon soon.
In Japan and the United States, officials attached little significance to the test-firing either.
Andrew Card, the White House chief of staff, publicly announced the test, saying it was ``not surprising.''
A Japanese military official also noted that Tokyo believes the missile flew only an extremely short distance and would not pose an immediate threat to it.
The Korea Times reports Song Min-soon, deputy foreign minister and chief South Korean delegate to the six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear arms programs, said that no symptoms have been found to back up recent speculations that the North may test an atomic weapon soon.
In Japan and the United States, officials attached little significance to the test-firing either.
Taiwan has marked its national day with a military parade for the first time in 16 years, in a show of strength apparently aimed at China.Fighter planes flew above the capital, Taipei, and 2,000 troops showed off military hardware through the city.
President Chen Shui-bian used a speech to hit out at China´s “relentless military build-up”, labeling it as a threat to world peace.
China regards Taiwan as a renegade province that should be reunified.
Beijing has threatened to use force if Taiwan declares formal independence.
Roh also called on the nation to approach the redeployment calmly, saying it has long been anticipated.
Participants in the meeting also discussed other security issues, such as the inter-Korean military talks and the construction of an industrial complex in Kaesung, North Korea, near the border village of Panmunjom. The Korea Times reports President Roh Moo-hyun Thursday ordered measures be taken to set up a ``cooperative self-defense’’ system to cope with the relocation of some of the U.S. forces here to Iraq.
Roh also called on the nation to approach the redeployment calmly, saying it has long been anticipated.
The instructions came during the first meeting at Chong Wa Dae of security-related ministers since Roh’s return to office.
NK denounced planned redeployment of U.S. forces in Korea.
Alexander Vershbow, the U.N. ambassador to Korea.
The new lineup will be giving its first performance at the Grand Hyatt hotel tomorrow evening as part of the Parade of Nations, a talent show and annual charity gala arranged by the foreign diplomatic community.
The band was created in 2004 with seven members, all Korean diplomats.
Last year, however, the band's drummer, Oh Joon, went to New York as a deputy permanent representative to the United Nations. Vershbow reportedly heard rumors that the band was looking for a drummer and wanting to participate in the Parade of Nations, and told the host of the event that he would like to play with them.
The band will perform The Rolling Stones' hit, ""I can't get no Satisfaction"" and Chuck Berry's ""Johnny B. Goode.
The Mofat Band, a musical group comprising members of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, has picked up a new drummer:
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw have urged Iraq's leaders to speed up negotiations on a new government.
The talks with Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari and Prime Minister Jalal Talabani came as Iraqi politicians are struggling to form a government of national unity.
Rice said the US regarded the formation as a ""matter of urgency"". ""We need to see progress and that is in everybody's interest.”
The visit comes amid continuing violence in Iraq.
The talks with Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari and Prime Minister Jalal Talabani came as Iraqi politicians are struggling to form a government of national unity.
North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il's reported visit to Beijing this week has increased hopes for creating a more favorable environment to resolve the prolonged nuclear standoff, but experts are divided on whether his trip will yield any major breakthrough in Pyongyang's battle with Washington over the issue.
Reported summit talks between North Korean Defense Chairman Kim Jong-il and Chinese President Hu Jintao yesterday came against the backdrop of brisk diplomatic contacts among participants of multilateral nuclear talks toward opening their third round of negotiations, hopefully by the end of June. North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il's reported visit to Beijing this week has increased hopes for creating a more favorable environment to resolve the prolonged nuclear standoff, but experts are divided on whether his trip will yield any major breakthrough in Pyongyang's battle with Washington over the issue.
Most diplomatic analysts here agreed that the two communist allies would have in-depth consultations on ways to defuse the 18-month long tension, and on China's much-needed economic assistance to the impoverished North.
""Big brother"" China can use its political and economic leverage to demand more flexibility from Pyongyang regarding the nuclear conundrum, the analysts said.
China is urging Kim Jong Il to ease off hard-line stance toward the U.S.
The prosecution filed warrant applications late yesterday to detain Shin Jeong-ah, the former art professor accused of forging her academic credentials, and Byeon Yang-kyoon, the former presidential aide suspected of having an affair with Shin.
In the new application, Shin is accused of embezzlement, in addition to academic forgery.
Byeon, whose detention is being sought for the first time, is accused of abusing his power to assist Shin in her career rise.
He is also accused of pressuring a government ministry to provide funding to two Buddhist temples ― one linked to Dongguk University, where Shin had been a professor, and the other to Byeon himself.
18, the Seoul Western District Prosecutors’ Office had applied for a warrant to detain Shin for investigation on her academic forgery.
At the time, the Seoul Western District Court struck down the request, saying she is not a flight risk.
The prosecutors complained about the rejection and went looking for more grounds to add to the warrant application in order to convince the court that Shin needs to be jailed ahead of a trial.
The court had criticized prosecutors for using pre-trial detention as a form of punishment.
The court will have a warrant hearing on the applications today.
In the new application, Shin is accused of embezzlement, in addition to academic forgery.
The prosecutors complained about the rejection and went looking for more grounds to add to the warrant application in order to convince the court that Shin needs to be jailed ahead of a trial.
Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon reprimanded his Japanese counterpart Nobutaka Machimura on Thursday, correcting his ""wrong"" comment with previous day which he ""disrespectfully"" criticized the South Korean head of state.
Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon reprimanded his Japanese counterpart Nobutaka Machimura on Thursday, correcting his ""wrong"" comment with previous day which he ""disrespectfully"" criticized the South Korean head of state.
The diplomatic row between the countries, which has gone from bad to worse in recent weeks, showed little sign of letting up as angry South Koreans from politicians to ordinary citizens rose to censure senior Japanese officials for their lack of composure.
On Wednesday, The Japanese foreign minister took aim directly at President Roh Moo-hyun in what many local media outlets described as ""diplomatic insolence,"" taking issue with Roh's public statement on March 23 that criticized Japan.
Commenting on the recent Japanese moves to lay claim to the Tokto islets and authorize a textbook glorifying atrocities committed by Japan during World War II, Roh also criticized Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi for his repeated visits to a shrine that commemorates Japan's 2.5 million war dead, including Class A criminals from World War II.
Japan worries about playing at the North Korean stadium for the qualifying match of the 2006 World Cup.
But when the name of a civic group referred to the APEC forum, such as the anti-APEC Pusan Citizens’ Coalition, the North Korean media changed it to anti-Bush Pusan Citizens’ Coalition.
North Korean media has not even once mentioned that the South hosted the 13th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum that ended Saturday, according to Yonhap News Agency that monitors the North Korean news outlets from Seoul.
The North’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), Pyongyang Broadcasting, and Rodong Shinmun, all the communist country’s official news media, delivered the news over the weekend that U.S. President George W. Bush was visiting Seoul, but avoided mentioning the occasion.
But when the name of a civic group referred to the APEC forum, such as the anti-APEC Pusan Citizens’ Coalition, the North Korean media changed it to anti-Bush Pusan Citizens’ Coalition.
The prosecution has promised to conduct a thorough investigation into the former No.
The government plans to reduce soldiers from Iraq.
The fight over control of Wachovia intensified this weekend as the judge temporarily agreed to block the sale of the bank to Wells Fargo.
And as we hear from correspondent, Christian Salazar:
“Citigroup had asked for this because it said that it had already had an agreement to buy Wachovia.
But Wells Fargo, a few days later, said it wanted to purchase Wachovia instead.”
Litigation pits two of the largest remaining financial institutions against one another, as the ongoing credit crisis leads the federal government to arrange marriages and sales among banking entities.
And as we hear from correspondent, Christian Salazar:
China's currency revaluation propelled the won to its biggest advance in five months yesterday but Korean exporters fell on the stock market on fears they will lose their price competitiveness.
The Bank of Korea and the Ministry of Finance and Economy said that they are monitoring the currency market closely and would take steps to dampen any speculation.
On Thursday night, China announced that it would end its decade-long currency peg against the dollar and allow the Chinese yuan to float against a basket of unidentified currencies.
The won, which had lost strength in recent weeks, leaped 1.4 percent to 1,021.30 against the dollar on Friday, the strongest advance since Feb.
Deutsche Bank predicted the Korean currency would rise to 980 by the end of the year.
Prosecution to launch an investigation into Samsung fund scandal.
Three missionaries were killed instantly and a fourth died while being airlifted to a military hospital.
Two European engineers were shot to death in a drive-by attack Tuesday, the latest killings in a rash of ambushes against foreign civilians in Iraq.
US military officials said the two hydraulic engineering specialists, one from Germany, the other from the Netherlands, were driving along a remote stretch of highway in southern Iraq when their four-wheel drive vehicle was blasted by gunfire from a passing car.
The Malaysian opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim, has said he has the support of enough MPs to topple the government but is waiting for the right moment.
Anwar was speaking shortly after police broke up a rally of thousands of his supporters marking the end of a ban preventing him from running for office.
The former deputy prime minister was jailed in 1998 on corruption charges he has said were politically motivated.
Malaysia´s opposition parties performed well in the general election in March.
They won control of the legislatures in five out of the country´s 13 states, and an unprecedented 82 of the 222 seats in the House of Representatives.
Although celebrated by the government and the general public for his breakthrough achievements in the use of human stem cells, the Seoul National University veterinarian Hwang Woo-suk has become a high-profile target for conservative religious groups who oppose his research, which involves the use of human embryos.
Hwang has become a popular academic celebrity in the past year, during which he announced the first cloning of designer human embryonic stem cells and the cloning of a dog ― both global firsts.
Conservative religious groups have been more insistently opposing his stem cell work.
President Roh considers to cancel summit with Koizumi.
A man who was angry at his girlfriend used a lighter and toilet paper to set the fire at a lodging house in Jamsil which killed eight people and injured 12, police announced yesterday.
The man had fire insurance worth 150 million won, but police said they have no evidence he set the fire to get the insurance money.
A man who was angry at his girlfriend used a lighter and toilet paper to set the fire at a lodging house in Jamsil which killed eight people and injured 12, police announced yesterday.
A 52-year-old owner of a karaoke room in the basement of the building in southern Seoul confessed that he intentionally set the fire on Wednesday, police said.
Police requested a detention warrant for the suspect yesterday on the charge of arson resulting in casualties.
The man had fire insurance worth 150 million won, but police said they have no evidence he set the fire to get the insurance money.
Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, emerged as the likely candidate to replace Powell.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell, widely respected in a world often weary of America's superpower diplomacy, resigned on Monday.
Powell, viewed as a moderate in the right-wing Republican administration, is the top official to quit since President Bush's re-election, and was one of four Cabinet resignations announced by the White House on Monday.
Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, emerged as the likely candidate to replace Powell.
Portable Internet service providers will pay between 117 billion won to 125.8 billion won in license fees.
Two small bombs have exploded outside a Catholic cathedral and a cafe in the southern Philippines, police said.
No one was injured in the blasts, which happened at dawn in Zamboanga City, where US troops helping the Philippines army fight an insurgency are based.
Police officials said they suspected Abu Sayyaf-linked militants might be behind the incidents.
Two small bombs have exploded outside a Catholic cathedral and a cafe in the southern Philippines, police said.
South Korea will not scrap the plan to resume imports of U.S. beef this year, despite the third case of mad cow disease reported in the U.S.
Agriculture Department conducted advanced tests on brain samples from the estimated 10-year-old cow and confirmed a case of mad cow disease.
A lawmaker from the Millennium Democratic Party is seeking to pass a bill that will require lobbyists in South Korea to register themselves and report their interactions with politicians or government officials.
Lee Seung-hee, first-term lawmaker of the minor opposition party, said she is determined to increase the transparency of political lobbying by businesses and civic groups, providing guidelines for their activities.
Until now, lobbying activities have not been officially recognized nor recorded.
Hermes Investment expressed regret for the Korean prosecution's indictment through a statement, reaffirming that it is innocent.
Further discouraging foreign financial institutions participation in making Seoul an ‘Economic Hub’ the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office Tuesday indicted and fined Hermes Investment Management on charges of manipulating stock prices.
This is the first time a foreign investment fund has been indicted in South Korea for stock price manipulation.
The prosecution slapped 7.3 billion won ($7.4 million) in fines on the London-based investment fund for the same offense.
It also secured an arrest warrant against Robert Clements, the former chief of Hermes Investment's emerging market management on charges of reaping unfair gains from trading in Samsung Corp.
Hermes Investment expressed regret for the Korean prosecution's indictment through a statement, reaffirming that it is innocent.
Is “Putting on a name tag” effective?
President Roh Moo-hyun on Monday called for a more sincere attitude from North Korea in the upcoming negotiations, saying the United States will surely give a security guarantee if it abandons its nuclear ambitions.
President Roh Moo-hyun on Monday called for a more sincere attitude from North Korea in the upcoming negotiations, saying the United States will surely give a security guarantee if it abandons its nuclear ambitions.
The Korea Times reports that Roh, who met US President Bush in Chile last weekend, said the U.S. president had clearly stated that the ``international community will embrace North Korea and the North will get the security guarantee’’ once it gives up its nuclear weapons programs.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld denied lobbying behind the scenes.
Uri Party chairman Lee Bu-young said Wednesday the ruling party will push for a second inter-Korean summit meeting in order to defuse the protracted standoff over North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs.
Uri Party chairman Lee Bu-young said Wednesday the ruling party will push for a second inter-Korean summit meeting in order to defuse the protracted standoff over North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs.
According to the Korea Times, the comments come amid rampant speculation that the government is seeking to persuade North Korean leader Kim Jong-il to agree to a follow-up to the June 2000 summit.
Seoul officials have been quick to deny persistent media reports.
Special sales taxes on several goods likely to be abolished.
Bush didn't mention Korea as a key ally.
Aaron Rifkin is one of some 100,000 tourists stranded in Thailand.
The no-flights into or out of the country's biggest airport which has been taken over by anti-Government protesters:
“I missed Thanksgiving.
God, I couldn't make it back to the States for that because of everything that's going on at the airport with protesters.
The protesters, who are demanding the resignation of the Prime Minister, have clashed with some of the Police who have surrounded the airport.
NATO and Afghan troops have killed 53 suspected terrorists.
The AP's Jason Straziuso reports that includes a wanted Taliban leader who tried to escape with women and children during the raid by wearing a woman's Burkha:
That man was actually the targeted Commander that they were searching for - responsible for making roadside bombs and attacks on Afghan and international troops.
The Commander tried to attack the soldiers but was instead killed by the US forces.
A Long Island, New York Wal-Mart worker was trampled to death by a mob of shoppers when the doors were opened early yesterday.
Police are checking the video to see if anyone should be charged.
NATO and Afghan troops have killed 53 suspected terrorists.
The AP's Jason Straziuso reports that includes a wanted Taliban leader who tried to escape with women and children during the raid by wearing a woman's Burkha:
The head of the UN's nuclear agency says he has been invited to North Korea for talks on its nuclear program.
Mohamed El Baradei said he hoped to discuss the suspension of North Korea's nuclear activity and the “eventual dismantlement of these facilities”.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the US was ”very pleased” at the signs of progress towards that goal.
North Korea agreed to take the first steps towards nuclear disarmament at six-party talks earlier this month.
Under the terms of the deal, Pyongyang has pledged to close its Yongbyon reactor within 60 days in return for fuel aid.
With the six-party talks on the North Korean nuclear crisis scheduled to resume next week, U.S. and North Korean officials have had three diplomatic contacts within a week, U.S.
He said there was diplomatic contact yesterday through the ""New York channel,"" although he did not provide any details of the meetings.
Last week, two bilateral contacts between Washington and Pyongyang took place through North Korea's UN mission in New York as part of increased efforts to narrow differences ahead of the talks in Beijing.
President Roh opposes probe of '97 election candidates.
Sovereign exits Korea with profit of 747 billion won.
Queen Elizabeth II highlighted President Roh Moo-hyun’s state visit to the U.K. with a welcoming ceremony with the Horse Guards and a luncheon that followed, hosted by the queen, at Buckingham Palace on Wednesday.
Queen Elizabeth II highlighted President Roh Moo-hyun’s state visit to the U.K. with a welcoming ceremony with the Horse Guards and a luncheon that followed, hosted by the queen, at Buckingham Palace on Wednesday.
The Korea Times reports that after a 10-minute ceremony that started with a gun salute in Horse Guards Parade by the King's Troop, Royal Horse Artillery, Roh was guided into the majestic palace with the queen in a procession of open carriages.
Korea’s exports climbed straight in November.
Sundance Film Festival kicks off for 10 days on Jan.
At least one death is being blamed on the remnants of Tropical Storm Erin in Oklahoma.
Kingfisher County Emergency Management Director Steve Loftis says the Kingfisher area, just northwest of Oklahoma City, is experiencing major flooding.
Rescue helicopters are hovering with their skids just inches from the floodwaters to allow flood victims to cling to the aircraft.
It´s not always an easy task.
Some victims have had to be rescued more than once after they lost grip of the helicopter and fell back into the water.˝
It´s not always an easy task.
In Monday's statement, the North ""promised to drop all nuclear weapons and current nuclear programs and to get back to the Non-Proliferation Treaty as soon as Possible"".
Rejoining the treaty is crucial, as it will allow IAEA inspectors to return to North Korea's nuclear sites.
In return, Pyongyang has been offered electricity and an assurance the US ""has no intention to attack or invade North Korea with nuclear or conventional weapons"".
US President George W Bush has said the deal is a positive step - but a system must be in place to check Pyongyang complies with its terms. ""Now there's a way forward and part of the way forward is for the North Koreans to understand we're serious about this and that we expect there to be a verifiable process,"" Bush said.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said it was a good agreement but warned that ""implementation of the program is key"".
Hurricane Rita is to strengthen.
Korean companies are increasingly looking for workers with a foreign language other than English, the head of a job recruitment Web site said yesterday.
Han Hyun-sook, president of Joblink, said yesterday that 28 percent of the 21,000 new job listings on its site asked for applicants fluent in a foreign language other than English.
’ Contrary to the Muslims’ belief of the sacredness of the month of Ramadan, which starts on Friday and will likely last until after the U.S. presidential election on Nov.
South Korea has advised its citizens to refrain from visiting Middle Eastern countries, citing possible terror attacks there ahead of the start of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan this week.
The Korea Times reports the Foreign Affairs and Trade Ministry warned in a notice posted in its official Web site that ``terror attacks and kidnapping against foreigners are expected to get more frequent during the period.’
’ Contrary to the Muslims’ belief of the sacredness of the month of Ramadan, which starts on Friday and will likely last until after the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 2, there have been growing concerns about violent events in the region.
With about 2,800 combat troops in the northern Iraqi town of Irbil, South Korea has been put on high alert due to repeated warnings from Islamic terrorist groups.
the Foreign Affairs and Trade Ministry:
About 4.3 million Koreans are Internet addicts.
Physicist Stephen Hawking and his daughter are to write a science book for children which will be ""a bit like Harry Potter"", but without the magic.
They aim to explain theoretical physics in an accessible way to youngsters.
Professor Hawking became famous for his bestseller A Brief History of Time, which attempted to simplify cosmology, the Big Bang and black holes.
His daughter Lucy said their forthcoming project would be aimed at people like her own eight-year-old son.
""It is a story for children, which explains the wonders of the universe,"" she said.
he did not provide any further details, nor a likely publication date.
They aim to explain theoretical physics in an accessible way to youngsters.
World leaders and Lebanese politicians have condemned the bomb attack that killed an anti-Syrian Lebanese MP in a mainly Christian suburb of Beirut.
Antoine Ghanim, of the Maronite Phalange party, died with at least six others in the Sin al-Fil district.
US President George W Bush said the killing was “horrific”, while a host of Lebanese politicians blamed Syria for the bomb.
But the country has been mired in an ongoing political crisis, with a deadlock between pro- and anti-Syrian factions in parliament.
World leaders and Lebanese politicians have condemned the bomb attack that killed an anti-Syrian Lebanese MP in a mainly Christian suburb of Beirut.
But the country has been mired in an ongoing political crisis, with a deadlock between pro- and anti-Syrian factions in parliament.
Banks to improve web safety.
Next December, the Korean government plans to adopt a strengthened personal identity authentication system for Internet banking called the one-time password (OTP) formula.
Although the system is not mandatory, banks and individuals are likely to embrace it because those who use the format will be given incentives, such as a higher daily transactions ceiling, on top of better security.
The Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) Thursday revealed a policy package aimed at thwarting identity theft in online transactions including the OTP.
OTP verification refers to a security system that requires a new password every time a user authenticates himself, thus protecting against an intruder attempting to use an intercepted password.
North and South Korea agreed over the weekend to conduct trial operations of two newly rejoined cross-border railroads on May 25.
The Joong Ang Ilbo says the agreement would be a boost to the project, which was begun with a flourish but has floundered since, reportedly because of objections by North Korea's military leaders.
Former President Kim Dae-jung, who wants to visit North Korea again in June, perhaps spurred the project forward by his stated wish to travel to Pyongyang by rail, although it is unclear that the test runs could make such travel possible
The US government's Terrorist Threat Integration Center is admitting there were mistakes in its initial report on international terrorist attacks.
A new report shows international terrorism killed 625 people in 2003.
That's more than double the 307 deaths the Bush administration cited in an earlier report used to argue its winning the war on terrorism.
The number of international terrorist attacks last year was revised up to 208, from the 190 the State Department initially reported.
U.S. troops have found the body of Kim Sun-il.
˝South Korea is scaling back joint military drills with the U.S.
A spokesman for President Roh Moo-hyun says the decision was made to “create the mood for a successful South-North summit meeting and in consideration of the other party.”
The upcoming summit will be the second ever for the two sides.
North Korea wanted the U.S. military to stop the drills, branding the exercises as an invitation to war.
Instead of field drills, South Korean troops will participate in computer simulations.
U.S. currently has around 30-thousand troops in South Korea, while North Korea has over one-million troops.˝
Al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi claimed responsibility on Sunday for the killing of nearly 50 unarmed Iraqi army recruits in one of the bloodiest attacks on the country's fledgling security forces.
Guerrillas also killed a U.S. diplomat in a mortar attack on a U.S. military headquarters on the edge of Baghdad airport in the first known killing of an American diplomat in Iraq since last year's U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein.
SK Telecom Co., South Korea´s top mobile carrier, said Monday it has signed a deal to take over a controlling stake in Internet service operator Hanarotelecom Inc.
to provide diverse communications to its customers and cope with fast-changing market conditions.
The deal calls for SK Telecom to purchase a 38.89 percent stake in Hanarotelecom for 1.08 trillion won (US$1.17 billion).
A total of 91.4 million shares will be bought for 11,900 won apiece, the company said in a statement.
A total of 13 U.S. military bases in five South Korean cities _ Uijongbu, Tongduchon, Paju, Chunchon and Pusan _ will come into the hands of Koreans from 2005 to 2006, an earlier-than-expected return of land by the American troops.
A total of 13 U.S. military bases in five South Korean cities _ Uijongbu, Tongduchon, Paju, Chunchon and Pusan _ will come into the hands of Koreans from 2005 to 2006, an earlier-than-expected return of land by the American troops.
Nine of the 13 bases, including Camp Falling Water in Uijongbu, Camp Page in Chunchon and Camp Hialeah in Pusan, will be returned by the end of next year, about five to six years ahead of the original schedule.
Kerry said he'd never seen the U.S. such a target of world animosity.
Getting back to traffic:
a new survey of state highway safety agencies shows fewer traffic deaths last year, an average drop of more than 10%.
“The first part of the year of 2008, of course, we had high gas prices.
That has meant less people were driving.
Jonathan Atkins, of the Governors' Highway Safety Association.
President Obama says there's no religion in the world that's based on hatred.
It's going on in Washington this morning.
President Barack Obama, in his weekly online and radio address, says the recent salmonella outbreak traced to a peanut processor shows the nation's food safety system is in serious need of an overhaul:
“ Bad peanut products led to hundreds of illnesses, and cost 9 people their lives, a painful reminder of how tragic the consequences can be when food producers act irresponsibly, and government is unable to do its job.”
Obama has nominated former New York City health commissioner Margaret Hamburg to head the FDA.
In the Republicans' weekly address, Iowa Senator Charles Grassley says there's a fundamental flaw in the Obama administration's push to increase taxes:
“ If taxes get too high, people drop out of the work force, and pay less taxes.
Grassley is sharply critical of the economic stimulus plan and Obama's proposed $3.5 trillion budget, saying the price tag will have to be covered by the middle class.
Obama has nominated former New York City health commissioner Margaret Hamburg to head the FDA.
“ If taxes get too high, people drop out of the work force, and pay less taxes.
Grassley is sharply critical of the economic stimulus plan and Obama's proposed $3.5 trillion budget, saying the price tag will have to be covered by the middle class.
Macau has unblocked funds that have been a stumbling block to a deal on North Korea's nuclear program, Macanese and US officials have said.
“Authorized account-holders” can now withdraw funds from the North Korean accounts that had been frozen, a US state department spokesman said.
Pyongyang had refused to move forward with the deal until the Macau banking authorities released the money.
In February, the North agreed to close its main nuclear reactor by Saturday.
The Monetary Authority of Macau (MAM) said the funds were available with ”immediate effect,” MAM spokeswoman Wendy Au was quoted as saying by Japan's Kyodo news agency.
Macau has unblocked funds that have been a stumbling block to a deal on North Korea's nuclear program, Macanese and US officials have said.
Six hoodlums at the center of the revenge accusations against Hanwha Group Chairman Kim Seung-youn appeared in public for the first time yesterday to claim the tycoon was involved in the attacks that followed a bar brawl between the men and his son.
Asked how they knew the man was Kim, one of the men said, “The son called the man father.”
˝Without identifying her, taliban militants said, Wednesday, one of the hostages they were going to set free due to her ill health opted to stay in captivity for the sake of another colleague whose condition was worse.
A spokesman for commander Abdullah Jan, was unable to name the brave woman who made the heroic sacrifice for the sake of her colleague.
Two women hostages were freed Monday afternoon as a result of face-to-face talks between a two-member taliban delegation and Korean officials.
Meanwhile… little is being said in the English-language Korean media about the condition of the released hostages or the status of those remaining in captivity amid an apparent government imposed blackout.
The Associated Press however says that the taliban has been authorized to reduce the number of prisoners they want freed in exchange for the 19 Korean hostages still being held in Afghanistan, citing taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi.
“If true, it is certainly a good sign,” said a Korean government official who declined to be named.
The taliban have insisted on the release of eight of their prisoners, some of them held under United States jurisdiction.
However, Washington and the Afghan government have officially ruled out a prisoner swap despite calls by Seoul to be more flexible.
South Korean government officials in Afghanistan have focused their efforts on trying to change the demands of the Taliban to something within its capabilities.
The taliban has refuted reports that it wants money in return for the hostages.˝
Two women hostages were freed Monday afternoon as a result of face-to-face talks between a two-member taliban delegation and Korean officials.
Meanwhile… little is being said in the English-language Korean media about the condition of the released hostages or the status of those remaining in captivity amid an apparent government imposed blackout.
South Korean government officials in Afghanistan have focused their efforts on trying to change the demands of the Taliban to something within its capabilities.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who will keep his job when President Elect Barack Obama takes his office, is in Iraq.
While meeting with a brass on troop reductions and the coming withdrawal from the cities;
Gates has also said a warning to Iran:
“Uh, the President Elect and his team are under no illusions about Iran's behavior and what Iran has been doing in the region, and is doing in terms of its own weapons programs.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is meeting today with troops in Afghanistan:
Brown tells reporters that the NATO-led coalition is taking the fight to the Taliban and other extremist groups:
“We will not allow the Taliban or terrorists to defy the democratic will of the Afghan people.”
and NATO supply route in Pakistan attacked again:
Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who will keep his job when President Elect Barack Obama takes his office, is in Iraq.
“Uh, the President Elect and his team are under no illusions about Iran's behavior and what Iran has been doing in the region, and is doing in terms of its own weapons programs.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is meeting today with troops in Afghanistan:
The New York Times reported Sunday that the U. S. intelligence agencies and outside nuclear experts concluded that the Bush administration's efforts to slow North Korea and Iran's nuclear weapon development with its allies in Europe and Asia have failed and these two countries benefited greatly from it.
The New York Times noted that the Bush administration requested that U.S. intelligence agencies produce three secret reports and one of them contained the above criticism.
""The report concluded that nearly 20 months of toughened sanctions, including ending major energy aid, and several rounds of negotiations involving four of North Korea's neighbors have not slowed the North's efforts to develop plutonium weapons, and that a separate, parallel program to make weapons from highly enriched uranium was also moving forward, though more slowly.
South Korea saw the talks as an opportunity to bring the North back to the stalled international talks, but the North was reluctant to go beyond the economic aid offered from the South, shunning discussion on the nuclear issue, South Korean officials said.
The two Koreas yesterday struggled to strike deals on how to stabilize their strained relations amid repeated promises by the South of ""important"" incentives if the North returns to the stalled six-party talks on its nuclear weapons program.
South Korea saw the talks as an opportunity to bring the North back to the stalled international talks, but the North was reluctant to go beyond the economic aid offered from the South, shunning discussion on the nuclear issue, South Korean officials said.
Communist China is to expand the use of lethal injections to replace execution by shooting, a senior official has said.
Jiang Xingchang, vice-president of the Supreme People´s Court (SPC), said that the move was because lethal injections were considered more humane.
Critics say China executes more people than any country in the world.
But Beijing is gradually reforming its use of the death penalty.
Last year the Supreme Court ordered judges to be more sparing in its imposition.
Half of China´s 404 Intermediate People´s Courts - which carry out most of the country´s executions - now use lethal injections.
Turnout has been brisk in Iraq:
some 15 million voters eligible to cast ballots in the provincial elections, which drew 14,000 candidates for 440 positions.
There was some confusion at some polling places, including one in northern Iraq, in which voters claimed they'd been purged from the rolls by Arab election officials.
AP's Robert Reed reports on a shootout at a polling place in Sadr City:
“There have been conflicting reports.
Some people say a security guard opened fire on people who refused to leave their mobile phones at the door; other reports indicate that the shooting was among the voters who had showed up.”
It will be several days before all the power is back on in Kentucky and other states slammed by a crippling winter storm that is responsible for more than 40 deaths.
Louisville Fire spokesman Salvador Menendez says they expect to find even more people killed, or sent to hospitals by portable generators:
“As long as the power is out, sadly, we expect the numbers to go up.
Turnout has been brisk in Iraq:
some 15 million voters eligible to cast ballots in the provincial elections, which drew 14,000 candidates for 440 positions.
other reports indicate that the shooting was among the voters who had showed up.”
It will be several days before all the power is back on in Kentucky and other states slammed by a crippling winter storm that is responsible for more than 40 deaths.
More than 200 professors of the nations’ prestigious universities on Thursday joined civic groups’ move to denounce the National Assembly’s impeachment of President Roh Moo-hyun, calling for its immediate withdrawal.
Some 88 professors of Seoul National University and 120 others of Korea University demanded opposition lawmakers scrap the impeachment motion and apologize for plunging the nation into political turmoil.
The move came as the Constitutional Court held its second meeting to discuss the review process of the impeachment Thursday morning before it convenes its first hearing next Tuesday.
“Bush mismanages the War on Terror.”
Officials from the United States and North Korea met in New York yesterday to discuss bilateral matters relating to the North´s disablement of its nuclear facilities.
Issues to be discussed include removing North Korea from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism and the lifting of sanctions.
North Korea is to complete the disablement by the end of the year in return.
Alexander Arvizu, deputy assistant secretary of state, was meeting North Korean officials to talk about “bilateral matters referred to in the October 3rd agreement,” U.S.
Once the nuclear disablement is completed, Washington and Pyongyang are to begin talks on normalizing their diplomatic relations, one of North Korea´s key goals.
The North Korean representative to the United Nations in New York, Pak Gil-yon, has been one of the few channels of communication between the two players.
Issues to be discussed include removing North Korea from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism and the lifting of sanctions.
The Korea Herald reports average birthrate from 2000 to 2005 in Korea was 1.41 per person, 26th lowest among other countries, compared to the average of 1.56 in industrialized countries, the United Nations Population Fund said in the report, ""The State of World Population 2004.
South Korea has one of the lowest birthrates in the world, even below the average in industrialized countries, a United Nations agency said yesterday in its 2004 world population report.
The Korea Herald reports average birthrate from 2000 to 2005 in Korea was 1.41 per person, 26th lowest among other countries, compared to the average of 1.56 in industrialized countries, the United Nations Population Fund said in the report, ""The State of World Population 2004.
"" The low birthrate contributes to the problem of an aging population in Korea, as shown by statistics on the increasing number of older citizens and the declining number of youth.
President Roh will have summit talks with Kazakh President.
California Wildfire Expands;
about 30,000 now, as firefighters struggle to get ahead of a raging fire that's moving dangerously close to heavily populated parts of Santa Barbara.
Larry Lavelle got out, and later found a picture of his place in flames on the Internet:
“ We had about a day of an evacuation order, and had loaded up important papers and photos, and a few clothes.
The problem was, we thought we were leaving for a few days, not forever.”
He was on the CBS Early Show.
We're told the fire has grown since last night, mainly because of the wind, and some brush that hasn't burned in 45 years.
More wildfire evacuations in Southern California:
A week before Thanksgiving, and an investigation is underway into a PETA video showing poultry workers abusing turkeys:
“The undercover video from the animal rights group shows workers at a farm in West Virginia kicking and throwing turkeys…”
“As long as they don't do it, a lot, I don't really say anything.”
“But Sherrie Rosenblatt with the National Turkey Federation, says turkey producers are very careful about the way their birds are handled.”
“That's where we can provide safe, nutritious and affordable foods for consumers.”
“And she questions the timing of the release of this video…”
“It's more about public relations propaganda.”
“That's where we can provide safe, nutritious and affordable foods for consumers.”
“It's more about public relations propaganda.”
A huge cloud of choking dust is passing over South Korea as the first sand storm of the year blows in from communist China.
South Korea has ordered schools to close and drivers in south-west Japan have been warned about low visibility from the dust clouds.
Every spring brings ""yellow dust"" storms which blow sand from China´s Gobi Desert over the Koreas and Japan.
The dust storms have become more deadly each year as they pass over China´s industrial zones picking up toxins.
South Korea blames dozens of deaths every year on the storms, mostly of elderly people and those with respiratory problems.
South Korean authorities advised parents to keep younger children at home to avoid the dust.
Seasonal winds lasting from late February to April or May combine with dry winter weather to pick up millions of tons of sand from China´s northern deserts.
The storms turn the sky a yellow color and coat everything in a layer of fine dust.
South Korea blames dozens of deaths every year on the storms, mostly of elderly people and those with respiratory problems.
South Korean authorities advised parents to keep younger children at home to avoid the dust.
Lawmakers pounded the Korea Football Association (KFA) for its alleged accounting fraud and excessive control by its president Chung Mong-joon.
They severely reprimanded the KFA and Chung during Tuesday’s inspection, which was the first such occasion for the governing body of South Korean football.
Ruling Uri Party lawmakers Lee Kwang-chol and Ahn Min-seok said that the KFA manipulated official documents and kept their annual budget intentionally unclear.
To prove the assertion, they presented the KFA’s general assembly’s attendance list and employee payment receipts, which contained forged signatures.
˝South Korea says that a planned summit with North Korea will aid international efforts to end the country´s nuclear program.
Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung said the meeting was an important opportunity to discuss the issue.
The summit, only the second ever between the two sides, is set to take place between 28-30 August.
Key nations have welcomed the move, but South Korea´s opposition party has called it an election stunt.
South Korean leader Roh Moo-hyun has less than six months left in office, with presidential elections set for December.
The two Koreas held their first leaders´ summit seven years ago, a meeting that brought improved ties between the two sides, who remain technically at war.
Officials will meet in the border city of Kaesong to formalize an agenda for the meeting.
South Korea will ask North Korea to allow President Roh Moo-hyun to travel to Pyongyang by land, possibly using a reconnected railway across the border, for the inter-Korean summit, the unification minister said Thursday.
Presidential spokesman Cheon Ho-seon also did not rule out the possibility of Roh traveling to Pyongyang by train for the summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il from Aug.
Former President Kim Dae-jung flew to Pyongyang for the first inter-Korean summit in June 2000.˝
South Korean leader Roh Moo-hyun has less than six months left in office, with presidential elections set for December.
A teary-eyed Hillary Clinton pushed for support on Monday as polls showed her poised for a huge New Hampshire loss to Democratic rival Barack Obama, but the former front-runner vowed to carry on with her presidential quest even if she loses.
Obama warned supporters against overconfidence as a flood of new surveys gave him a double-digit lead over Clinton one day before the state primary.
New Hampshire is the next battleground in the state-by-state process of picking Democratic and Republican candidates for November´s presidential election to succeed President George W. Bush.
Voting ends in the state at 8 p.m.
"" While Saddam challenged the court's authority during his court session, many of his former lieutenants addressed the judge politely.
None of the eleven denied crimes had been committed, but some, including Aziz, denied they were directly to blame. An angry and defiant Saddam Hussein appeared before an Iraqi judge yesterday to face charges of crimes against humanity.
The former Iraqi president questioned the judge's authority and maintained that he is still the president.
He called the court proceedings, in his words, ""theater,"" and said that the real criminal is President Bush.
Eleven of Saddam Hussein's closest aides also appeared in court in Baghdad yesterday.
Among them were former Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz and Hasan Ali al-Majid, better known as ""Chemical Ali.
"" While Saddam challenged the court's authority during his court session, many of his former lieutenants addressed the judge politely.
An Islamic militant group has denied it beheaded a U.S. marine.
On Sunday, a group associated with al-Qaeda in Iraq, calling itself Islamic State in Iraq, posted a statement on the internet claiming responsibility for the attack and saying that it was holding the missing soldiers.
The group offered no proof to back up its claim.
US and Iraqi forces are conducting a massive search for three soldiers missing since their patrol was attacked south of Baghdad on Saturday.
Five soldiers were killed in the insurgent attack on the patrol of seven Americans and their Iraqi interpreter near the town of Mahmudiya.
Roadblocks have been set up to prevent the soldiers being moved from the area.
A US military spokesman said the search would continue until the fate of the missing soldiers was known.
The area around Mahmudiya has been the scene of frequent attacks by insurgents against US troops.
The patrol was attacked 11km west of the town spokesman Maj Gen William Caldwell said.
Song Young-moo is favored to become chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), replacing Gen.
Kim Tae-young, chief of the 1st Army Command, has also been referred to as a candidate for the post.
Otherwise, Kim would become Army chief of staff, sources said.
Song would be the first chief of Naval Operations to become JCS chief in the history of Korean military.
The 59-year-old Song, who belongs to the 27th class of the Navy Academy, is well-known for having voiced his conviction on the protection of the western maritime border, Northern Limit Line, which North Korea insists be redrawn.
The NLL, drawn up by the U.S.-led United Nations Command at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, has served as the de facto sea border between the two Koreas. The Joong-Ang Ilbo reports Chief of Naval Operations Adm.
Song Young-moo is favored to become chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), replacing Gen.
Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama faced off on Wednesday in a possible prelude to a U.S. presidential election battle, tangling over whether Iraq would be prey for al Qaeda if U.S. troops are withdrawn.
Democrat Hillary Clinton, who needs big wins in Texas and Ohio next Tuesday to salvage her struggling candidacy, declared herself optimistic about her chances following her final debate with Obama, on Tuesday night in Cleveland.
But McCain, an Arizona senator who at 71 would be the oldest person ever elected to a first presidential term, and Obama, the Illinois senator who at 46 would be one of the youngest, looked past Clinton and quarreled anew over the war in Iraq as it approaches its fifth anniversary.
The unpopular war is an important fault line in the campaign for the November presidential election, with Democrats advocating a quick U.S. troop withdrawal while McCain insists a pullout would amount to surrender and give Islamic extremists a victory.
The Korea Times reports the government plans to freeze public utility and transportation fees to rein in surging consumer prices in the wake of the growing costs of crude oil and other raw materials, to help improve the livelihoods of the low-income bracket.
It is also considering extending low-interest housing loans to low-wage earners amid rising housing costs, while lifting or lowering tariffs levied on 82 major import items, including grain and oil products.
The government announced these and other anti-inflation measures Thursday after an emergency meeting of economy-related ministers, presided over by President Lee Myung-bak at Cheong-Wa Dae.
China's military staged its first parade in Hong Kong on Sunday, with 3,000 soldiers marching crisply in formation along with armored vehicles and helicopters, in a display of Beijing's military might and dominance of the territory.
Chinese officials say the parade was aimed at strengthening Hong Kong's relations with the People's Liberation Army and boosting ``patriotism'' in the former British colony.
But most saw it as a reminder by Beijing of who's in charge amid tensions over the expected victory of pro-democracy candidates in September elections.
Meanwhile, China's defense minister issued a stern warning to Taiwan, saying the mainland military has the strength and determination to ``smash'' any moves toward independence by the self-ruled island, state media reported Sunday.
South Korea's main opposition Grand National Party Chairwoman Park Geun-hye called on the United States yesterday to ""initiate more concrete and realistic proposals"" to persuade North Korea to return to multinational disarmament talks.
South Korea's main opposition Grand National Party Chairwoman Park Geun-hye called on the United States yesterday to ""initiate more concrete and realistic proposals"" to persuade North Korea to return to multinational disarmament talks.
Park, who has just begun an eight-day visit to the United States, pointed to ""the economic assistance and normalization of diplomatic relations"" as examples of ways to draw North Korea back into the six-party talks.
President Roh Moo-hyun will meet Bae Hyeon-jin, the inspiration for the movie Running Boy.
Microsoft Korea has charged that Hana Bank illegally copied its most popular software programs and installed them on thousands of its office computers without paying for them.
The Microsoft subsidiary filed a complaint with the police last month.
Microsoft Korea has charged that Hana Bank illegally copied its most popular software programs and installed them on thousands of its office computers without paying for them.
The Microsoft subsidiary filed a complaint with the police last month.
Hana Bank denied it yesterday had violated any contractual agreements or broken the law and said it will fight the allegations lodged by the Microsoft subsidiary.
The Board of Trustees at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) Tuesday decided not to allow its beleaguered president Robert B. Laughlin to lead the university two more years.
In a meeting held at the JW Marriott Hotel in Seoul, the board of 15 members unanimously approved not to offer a contract extension to Laughlin, meaning his tenure will end on July 14 this year.
The decision means that the experiment of letting a Nobel laureate reform KAIST proved to be a failure as Laughlin was urged to leave the university against his will.
The 53-year-old who formerly worked at Stanford University in the United States, took over KAIST in July 2004 on a two-year contract, extendable by two more years.
After taking the reins of arguably the country’s most prestigious science-technology university, Laughlin revealed a set of reformist measures, which faced criticism.
In a meeting held at the JW Marriott Hotel in Seoul, the board of 15 members unanimously approved not to offer a contract extension to Laughlin, meaning his tenure will end on July 14 this year.
Another bigger than expected jump in new jobless claims last week.
Before I give you the numbers, economist Nigel Gault paints the big picture:
“The overall economy is still contracting very sharply, and we are shedding jobs at a rapid pace.”
He's with IHS Global Insight.
The Labor Department reports the number of first-timers filing unemployment claims bounced back above a half million to 524,000, and the situation is not expected to get any better any time soon.
The government also reports wholesale prices fell another 1.9% in December, closing out a year that saw the biggest price drop in 7 years, most of that because of plunging energy prices.
Apple shares are down another 4% this morning on news that Steve Jobs' health issues are more complicated than thought.
He's taking a medical leave until June.
We don't know just what's wrong with the founder and CEO, but analyst Shelley Palmer does know he's key to the company's success:
To the outside world, Apple is Steve Jobs, Steve Jobs is Apple.”
“The overall economy is still contracting very sharply, and we are shedding jobs at a rapid pace.”
˝The Joong-Ang Ilbo reports the interest rate ceiling allowed to be charged by registered private lenders will be lowered sharply to 49 percent in September from the current 66 percent, the Finance Ministry said yesterday.
˝The Joong-Ang Ilbo reports the interest rate ceiling allowed to be charged by registered private lenders will be lowered sharply to 49 percent in September from the current 66 percent, the Finance Ministry said yesterday.
It had been widely expected that the new ceiling would be around 55 percent, leaving private moneylenders scrambling to understand what happened.
Under a law that took effect at the end of last month, unregistered moneylenders are banned from charging more than 30 percent on loans, a figure that is routinely surpassed, with some consumers paying as much as 300 percent to grey market loan sharks, according to a Financial Supervisory Service study.˝
South Korea’s economic growth was far lower than most of its Asian rivals in the first quarter due to a stronger Korean currency and high oil prices, the Bank of Korea (BOK) said Wednesday.
The country’s real gross domestic product (GDP) grew 4 percent from a year ago during the January-March period.
Relative to the world average the figure is not so bad, but very low by regional standards.
During the same period, China’s economy expanded 11.1 percent, while India posted a 9.1 percent gain, Singapore 6.1 percent and Taiwan 4.2 percent.
Hit by a stronger won and higher prices of raw materials, the country’s manufacturing sector shrank 0.9 percent in the first quarter, the first negative growth since the first quarter of 2003.
The central bank said Korean exporters are competing under less favorable trade conditions, but it expected the situation to get better.
South Korea’s economic growth was far lower than most of its Asian rivals in the first quarter due to a stronger Korean currency and high oil prices, the Bank of Korea (BOK) said Wednesday.
South Korea´s central bank is expected to stand pat on the key interest rate for the fourth straight month in December to bolster economic growth amid volatile local financial markets despite growing inflationary pressures, a poll showed Tuesday.
Economists from 12 financial institutions unanimously predicted that the Bank of Korea (BOK) will freeze the December target for the call rate at a six-year high of 5 percent on Friday, the poll by Yonhap Infomax, the financial news arm of Yonhap News Agency, showed.
The poll was conducted from Nov.
The central bank has frozen the call rate, the interest charged on overnight inter-bank loans, since raising it by a quarter point each in July and August to curb rising liquidity, which could fuel inflation and an asset bubble.
By contrast, people scaled back their spending on communications and transportation, reflecting depressed consumer sentiment.
The Korea Herald reported the faster pace pushed up the portion of education costs to overall household spending from 5.3 percent in 2002 to 5.8 percent last year.
Along with education, Koreans also increased their medical and health care spending 6.6 percent in 2003.
The governing conservative Grand National Party (GNP) became the largest party by securing 152 out of the 299 National Assembly seats but failed to win an absolute majority of 168 as of 11 p.m.
This means it needs the cooperation of 50 winners from other conservative parties and independents to pass crucial reform bills.
In the elections Wednesday, the main opposition United Democratic Party (UDP) failed to secure 100 seats, which are necessary to block the any possible move by the GNP to change the Constitution.
It is expected to secure about 85 seats, including those awarded through proportional representation.
Conservatism swept the country with the GNP and other conservative groups and independents, whose political orientations are almost identical with the governing party, expected to secure more than 200 seats.
Once these conservatives unite, they can revise the Constitution.
Independents also showed a strong showing as many as 25 are expected to win this time, compared with just 2 four years ago.
Campaign watchers said there is no doubt that former GNP Chairwoman Rep. Park Geun-hye was the clear winner as about 30 of her supporters were elected.
Seoul and its adjacent areas picked conservative candidates.
Regionalism was manifest again as the southwestern Jeolla region, the birthplace of former President Kim Dae-jung, threw blanket support to non-GNP candidates, while in the southeastern Gyeongsang provinces, conservatives won clear victories.
Voter turnout stood at a record low of 46 percent.
Conservatism swept the country with the GNP and other conservative groups and independents, whose political orientations are almost identical with the governing party, expected to secure more than 200 seats.
People in communist China are able to access English language stories on the BBC News website in full, after years of strict control by Beijing.
The Communist authorities often block news sites such as the BBC in a policy dubbed the ""great firewall of China"".
But BBC staff working in China now say they are able to access news stories that would have been blocked before.
However, the firewall remains in place for Chinese language services on the website and for any links in Chinese.
Beijing has never admitted to blocking access to BBC news stories - and there has been no official confirmation that the website has been unblocked.
But Chinese users trying to access pages on the site have almost always been redirected to an error message telling them: ""The connection was reset.
"" It now appears that this is no longer the case, and access to the site is much easier.
Steve Herrmann, editor of the BBC News website, says this is a welcome development.
Technology experts say such a development would not be possible without the approval of internet service providers - which are under strict supervision by Beijing.
However, the firewall remains in place for Chinese language services on the website and for any links in Chinese.
The former boss at AIG is joining the finger-pointing over the company's near collapse.
Hank Greenberg tells the CBS Early Show there were no personal contracts when he ran the company, and that bonuses were based on performance.
Greenberg was forced out over accusations of accounting fraud in 2005.
He says the Feds should look into whether any crimes have been committed now:
“ Those who are investigating should determine whether or not there was just stupidity, was there fraud, was there whatever?”
A submarine from the US Navy's 5th Fleet has collided with an amphibious ship in the waters between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula.
Let's get the breaking news from the Pentagon and AP national security correspondent Sager Meghani:
“ The Navy says 15 sailors aboard the USS Hartford were slightly injured when the submarine collided with the amphibious ship USS New Orleans in the Strait of Hormuz, between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula.
The New Orleans suffered a ruptured fuel tank, but the 5th Fleet says both vessels are operating under their own power.”
Stocks have been edging up this morning, as traders appear to be putting aside concerns about inflation.
They're also waiting to hear from the Fed Chairman; Ben Bernanke is scheduled to speak at a convention of independent community bankers.
Currently the Dow is up 37 points.
The former boss at AIG is joining the finger-pointing over the company's near collapse.
Greenberg was forced out over accusations of accounting fraud in 2005.
He says the Feds should look into whether any crimes have been committed now:
A submarine from the US Navy's 5th Fleet has collided with an amphibious ship in the waters between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula.
“ The Navy says 15 sailors aboard the USS Hartford were slightly injured when the submarine collided with the amphibious ship USS New Orleans in the Strait of Hormuz, between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula.
Ben Bernanke is scheduled to speak at a convention of independent community bankers.
The International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF) on Tuesday selected the South Korean city of Daegu as host for the 2011 World Championships.
The IAAF made the decision when it held its 25-member executive council meeting in Mombasa, Kenya.
Daegu's rival cities were Brisbane, a resort city in Australia, and Moscow, Russia.
Daegu will be the third Asian city to host the biennial championships after Japan's Tokyo in 1991 and Osaka this year.
Berlin, Germany will host the championships in 2009. Daegu, about 300 kilometers southeast of Seoul, is the fourth largest city in South Korea.
It hosted the Summer Universiad in 2003 and held some World Cup 2002 football matches.
The International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF) on Tuesday selected the South Korean city of Daegu as host for the 2011 World Championships.
Police were investigating on Monday how a young man managed to penetrate security at Ground Zero, one of the most closely guarded sites in New York, where he killed himself with a 12-gauge shotgun near the gaping hole where the World Trade Center once stood.
The body of Andrew Veal, a 25-year-old public opinion researcher from Athens, Georgia, was found on Saturday and ruled a suicide by the New York City medical examiner's office.
He shot himself in the head.
Defense Minister Yoon ruled out a possibility that South Korean troops would be engaged in combat or public security missions during a crucial Iraqi national election in Jan.
The government has decided to officially request that the U.S. government extend the time period in which it would reduce USFK by 12,500 men by at least a year, according to the Chosun Ilbo.
The government has decided to officially request that the U.S. government extend the time period in which it would reduce USFK by 12,500 men by at least a year, according to the Chosun Ilbo.
The government believes that if the reduction were forced through as originally scheduled, it could negatively influence the security situation on the Korean Peninsula.
A new Army report about abusing Iraq’s prisoners is revealed.
Inspectors from the United Nation's nuclear watchdog arrived Tuesday in Seoul to take a final look at controversial South Korean uranium and plutonium experiments conducted from the early 1980s before deciding whether to report the activities to the U.N.
Inspectors from the United Nation's nuclear watchdog arrived Tuesday in Seoul to take a final look at controversial South Korean uranium and plutonium experiments conducted from the early 1980s before deciding whether to report the activities to the U.N.
In their third visit since the government revealed the laboratory tests early September, five officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will look around two nuclear research facilities, possibly gathering additional samples and interviewing scientists.
The property tax scheme threatens to aggravate and real estate market.
Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Mike Huckabee hold narrow leads on their top rivals two days before the state opens the presidential nominating race, according to a Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll released on Tuesday.
Barack Obama, 30 percent to 26 percent, in the Democratic race.
John Edwards was in third at 25 percent, down one point overnight.
Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor, widened his lead over Romney among Republicans to 29 percent to 25 percent.
Romney, a former Massachusetts governor who has been on the attack against Huckabee, slipped two points overnight.
John McCain remained a distant third in Iowa´s Republican race at 12 percent, with former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson gaining two points to climb to fourth at 10 percent.
The poll of 925 likely Democratic caucus-goers and 928 likely Republican caucus-goers was taken Friday through Monday and has a margin of error of 3.3 percentage points for each party.
John Edwards was in third at 25 percent, down one point overnight.
˝Google, the world´s foremost search engine, may face a lawsuit in Korea regarding its offering of online news search services without the permission of newspapers.
The Korea Online Newspaper Association, which includes most of the country´s vernacular dailies, said Thursday that it is considering bringing Google to court.
Association head Han Ki-bong projected the association would have a good opportunity at winning the court action because other news agencies already marked a victory in similar cases.
France-based AFP sued Google midway through last year in federal court in Washington, D.C., claiming that Google News had infringed on its copyright on articles and images.˝
˝A broker helped more than 100 Chinese nationals get fake high school diplomas, then register and pay for college classes they never took, the Seoul Immigration Office said yesterday.
By pretending to attend college, the office said, the Chinese could work here legally on student visas.
The 54-year-old broker, whose name was not released, was arrested and detained yesterday along with 49 Chinese nationals who will be immediately deported, the office said.
In addition, four officials at struggling two-year colleges Songgok and Songho in Gangwon were charged without detention for allowing the students to register and pay for the classes with the forged documents.
(The broker took a total of 190 million won ($206,from the applicants, or 1.8 million won per person, as commission, according to the office.
The broker, who runs a private Korean and Japanese-language institute in Yanbian, northeastern China, had advertised the fact that foreigners with a student visa can work here legally.)”˝
The presidential transition team said Sunday it will strengthen the publicity of English education and other programs unveiled last week.
Educators and parents have expressed worries over the reform plan, saying it would only raise household spending on private education.
Chairwoman Lee Kyung-sook countered the skepticism, saying once the public understands the big picture of the education plan, they´ll realize that they don´t need to worry about it.
``There seems to be a misunderstanding of the plan,´´ Lee said.
``The plan is not a quick fix.
In fact, it is a reflection of 10 to 20 years of research efforts on key educational issues,´´ she added.
The transition team is scheduled to hold a hearing on the educational reform with experts on Wednesday to raise awareness.
Based on the results, the team plans to present a complete roadmap to English education early next month.
According to the unveiled plan, high school students will be asked to take an English ability test from 2013 and submit their scores for college admissions.
Educators and parents have expressed worries over the reform plan, saying it would only raise household spending on private education. Chairwoman Lee Kyung-sook countered the skepticism, saying once the public understands the big picture of the education plan, they´ll realize that they don´t need to worry about it.
``The plan is not a quick fix.
AP correspondent Mark Smith is live with the story:
Jon, he's calling it 'cause for concern,' but not cause for alarm:
“ The Department of Health and Human Services has declared a public health emergency as a precautionary tool, to insure we have the resources we need at our disposal to respond quickly and effectively.”
That was the President a short time ago, speaking to the National Academy of Sciences as he outlined his administration's science research agenda.
Meantime, as Obama gets the latest in a series of updates on the outbreak - which has killed a hundred people in Mexico and sickened Americans in 5 states - border guards have started screening visitors from Mexico, and officials are trying to understand just how quickly this virus might spread here.
Thank you, Mark Smith, live at the White House.
“ The Department of Health and Human Services has declared a public health emergency as a precautionary tool, to insure we have the resources we need at our disposal to respond quickly and effectively.”
That was the President a short time ago, speaking to the National Academy of Sciences as he outlined his administration's science research agenda.
Meantime, as Obama gets the latest in a series of updates on the outbreak - which has killed a hundred people in Mexico and sickened Americans in 5 states - border guards have started screening visitors from Mexico, and officials are trying to understand just how quickly this virus might spread here.
Thank you, Mark Smith, live at the White House.
Patrick's Day gift for the owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers:
President Obama is sending Dan Rooney to Ireland as the new US ambassador.
Rooney is a lifelong Republican, but endorsed Obama during the Pennsylvania primary.
Patrick's Day, why did Houston play a Japanese children's workout song to wake up the space shuttle crew this morning?
The reason is they wanted to salute Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata, who becomes a member of the international space station crew when the two spacecraft dock.
Reports out of Canada that actress Natasha Richardson remains in critical condition after a serious skiing accident in Quebec.
The Tony Award-winning actress and wife of Liam Neeson reportedly suffered a head injury.
Ankara is recalling its ambassador to Washington for consultations amid anger at a vote in Congress labeling the mass killing of Armenians as genocide.
The passing of the resolution by a House committee on Wednesday despite appeals by the Bush administration was denounced by President Abdullah Gul.
Turkey´s foreign ministry said the ambassador would return to Turkey for a stay of “a week or 10 days”.
US President George W Bush had argued against the resolution, saying its passage would do ”great harm” to relations with ”a key ally in NATO and in the global war on terror”.
All three are up for 'Favorite Movie' and 'Favorite Action Movie.'
“Not as easy as it used to be.”
“Christian Bale and Heath Ledger, and Harrison Ford and Shia LaBeouf, face another tough challenge for 'Favorite On-Screen Matchup' against Tina Fey and Amy Poehler for 'Baby Mama.'
“We're partners, like Tom and Jerry.”
“Tom and Jerry hate each other.”
A wonderful bird is the pelican, and now there's a pelican mystery in California.
Wildlife experts are trying to figure out why sick, disoriented, and bruised brown pelicans are being found in record numbers along the coast, some of them dead.
Some scientists think toxic algae is to blame.
the Dow is down 123 points.
“We're partners, like Tom and Jerry.”
“Tom and Jerry hate each other.”
Wildlife experts are trying to figure out why sick, disoriented, and bruised brown pelicans are being found in record numbers along the coast, some of them dead.
the Dow is down 123 points.
Hard times are chasing some kids away from private schools, making their hard-pressed parents enroll them in public schools.
Washington correspondent Brian Thomas:
“The federal government says private enrollment dropped by 120,000 students in the current school year, and that's just a preliminary number.
Given total private school enrollment of 6 million, that's about 2% of the student population.”
Put down the cell phone!
The National Safety Council is advocating a total ban on using wireless phones while driving.
The head of the group says using a cell phone behind the wheel is like driving drunk.
Blizzard warnings are posted across the Northern Plains, bracing for a bitterly cold blast of snow.
Arctic air will be dipping down from Canada and spreading snow into Montana, the Dakotas, and Minnesota.
Put down the cell phone!
The government will not comply with calls from the National Assembly for reports on administrative affairs if they are related to confidential secrets that may affect national security, Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan said Thursday.
The government will not comply with calls from the National Assembly for reports on administrative affairs if they are related to confidential secrets that may affect national security, Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan said Thursday.
The Korea Times reports the tough measure comes amid controversy over the leakage of some confidential information, including a military secret on North Korea's missile threats, by opposition lawmakers during the Assembly inspection of the government.
NATO says Somali pirates have hijacked a British-owned cargo ship.
Just yesterday evening, helicopters from a Portuguese frigate foiled a pirate attempt on a Norwegian oil tanker.
Troopers confiscated 4 sticks of dynamite, and also automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades, but the 19 pirates were let go because they had not attacked Portuguese people or property.
Singer Amy Winehouse now has a court order banning the paparazzi from pursuing her outside her London home.
A source close to her management team says Winheouse sought that order in order to keep the photographers 100 meters from her new home.
Troopers confiscated 4 sticks of dynamite, and also automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades, but the 19 pirates were let go because they had not attacked Portuguese people or property.
A source close to her management team says Winheouse sought that order in order to keep the photographers 100 meters from her new home.
˝Turkey´s controversial Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul has been sworn in as the country´s new president.
He is the first politician with an Islamist background to become head of state since the creation of the deeply secular Turkish Republic in 1923.
His swearing-in follows a third round of voting in parliament, which he won by a clear majority.
Gul took his oath at a ceremony in parliament, pledging loyalty to democracy and to the secular Republic.
Gul used to belong to an Islamist party, and his candidacy split Turkey for months, inspiring street protests and forcing an early general election.
On Monday the military warned about threats to the secular constitution.
The European Union welcomed Gul´s election, calling it a positive step in the country´s campaign to join the bloc.
European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso said the election was “an opportunity to give fresh, immediate and positive impetus to the accession process to the European Union through progress in a number of key areas”.
In the first inter-Korean cargo flight, South Korea's Red Cross will transport blankets, medicine and other aid to North Korea on Friday to help the communist nation cope with a devastating train explosion.
The relief flight will be in addition to $25 million in building materials, food and other goods Seoul plans to start shipping next week to Ryongchon, the town where the blast killed 161 people and destroyed thousands of homes.
A South Korean ship loaded with instant noodles, blankets and boiled water worth arrived in a Northern port Thursday after a daylong voyage.
South Korea has been quick to respond to the North's request for help after the April 22 tragedy, although Pyongyang has rejected Seoul's offer to truck supplies across their heavily fortified border, seriously slowing the transport of emergency supplies.
The North also refused to let South Korean doctors go to the area, where thousands of homeless families have been living in tents without adequate sanitation or water.
A Korean Air cargo plane will fly into the North Korean capital of Pyongyang on Friday with about $470,000 worth of blankets, noodles, drinks and medicine.
South Korean passenger planes have occasionally been allowed to fly to the communist country, but this will be the first cargo plane to travel to the North.
South Korea accepted the NK’s aid request.
Souths aid sets sail for N. Korea.
Peru's president, Alejandro Toledo Manrique, will pay a state visit to Seoul on Nov.
Toledo will meet President Roh Moo-hyun shortly after his arrival, the Blue House spokesman, Kim Man-soo, said yesterday.
This will be the first visit of a Peruvian head of state since the visit in 1993 of Alberto Fujimori.
When he calls on President Roh, the Blue House spokesman said, the main topic of conversation will be regional issues, particularly North Korean nuclear disarmament.
Two Koreas make a single team in Asian Games and Olympics.
The campaigns have spent an estimated $2 billion over the past twenty plus months, and now we are inside the last two days of campaigning before Tuesday's election.
AP's Warren Levinson reports Republican John McCain stumps again in the Keystone State as well as two other key states.
“New Hampshire has revived John McCain before in the Republican primaries of 2000 and 2008, and the campaign makes a symbolic visit to a town meeting in Peterborough on the last Sunday before Election Day.
Before that, a return to Pennsylvania, where he campaigned yesterday, and a late night rally in crucial Florida.
'The pundits have counted us out,' McCain told supporters, again.”
“Warren Levinson with the McCain campaign, New York.”
Before that, a return to Pennsylvania, where he campaigned yesterday, and a late night rally in crucial Florida.
In response to mass protests in 2003 and 2004, Beijing made some concessions, namely offering to enlarge the 800-strong election committee charged with selecting a new leader.
Tens of thousands of people have taken part in a march in Hong Kong to demand a fully democratic political system.
Trade unions, activists and civic groups joined ordinary citizens, some carrying banners denouncing communist China.
They snaked round streets lined with sky-scrapers towards government offices chanting ""now or never"" and ""do you want a clown or a chief executive?
Campaigners say they want the Chinese autonomous territory's next leader to be elected by universal suffrage.
In response to mass protests in 2003 and 2004, Beijing made some concessions, namely offering to enlarge the 800-strong election committee charged with selecting a new leader.
President supports for Prof.
MBC apologized for its program about Prof.
The state-run corporation said it managed to sell just 86.6 tons, or 2 percent, of the total 4,394 tons of U.S. and Chinese rice on the block at its biweekly auction.
Of the total sold, 54.6 tons was Chinese rice, with the rest being U.S.
Sold only a fraction of its imported rice on an online auction yesterday despite a cut in prices, the Joong-Ang Ilbo quoted the company as saying...
The unemployment line is getting longer!
The Labor Department reports another 554,000 Americans were thrown out of work, and signed up for jobless benefits last week.
That's a little less than expected, but nobody's celebrating.
Not with a recession deepening and Christmas just a week away.
“There's nothing encouraging about this news.
This is one of the worst meltdowns that we have experienced in the last 100 years.”
University of Maryland economist Peter Morici.
Along the latest companies laying off, hard drive maker Western Digital, managed care company Aetna, and plastic container maker Newell Rubbermaid.
says General Motors.
The struggling car company, says this morning's Wall Street Journal report that it restarted merger talks with Chrysler is not true.
Some good news for consumers:
federal regulators this morning adopted sweeping new rules for credit card companies that will keep them from raising the interest rate on your current balance.
Starting in the summer of 2010, they'll be allowed to raise rates only on new credit cards and fresh purchases or advances.
The unemployment line is getting longer!
The Labor Department reports another 554,000 Americans were thrown out of work, and signed up for jobless benefits last week.
Starting in the summer of 2010, they'll be allowed to raise rates only on new credit cards and fresh purchases or advances.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld called him on Monday to express gratitude for President Roh Moo-hyun's recent visit to South Korean troops deployed in Irbil, Iraq.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld called him on Monday to express gratitude for President Roh Moo-hyun's recent visit to South Korean troops deployed in Irbil, Iraq.
Rumsfeld also expressed appreciation of the National Assembly's passage of the Yongsan Garrison relocation agreement.
Voting on the extension of South Korean troop deployment in Iraq is expected during an emergency session of the Assembly.
North Korea has test-fired a short range missile towards the Sea of Japan, according to reports from the region.
If confirmed, this would be the third time in a month Pyongyang has fired missiles into waters off its coast.
The news came as US nuclear envoy Christopher Hill confirmed that North Korea now had access to funds that had been frozen in a Macau bank.
Pyongyang’s military program, and its nuclear ambitions, have long alarmed the international community.
On Monday, the UN’s nuclear watchdog confirmed that its inspectors would be traveling to North Korea next week to discuss shutting down its main Yongbyon nuclear reactor.
President Nicolas Sarkozy’s rightest party has won a majority in parliamentary elections in France, according to early poll projections.
But his UMP party fell far short of the landslide victory it was predicted to win in the second-round vote.
The opposition Socialists fared better than expected, the early results said.
Voter turnout was low, at about 60%.
The results will be seen as a minor setback for Sarkozy’s party.
However, a major blow for the UMP was the defeat of former Prime Minister Alain Juppe, who was made energy and environment minister in the new government after Sarkozy’s election.
Juppe said he would offer his resignation.
Sarkozy has insisted that any minister would have to leave the government if they failed to be elected.
But the victory gives Sarkozy enough room to start pushing his reforms through parliament.
Sarkozy has promised to give universities more autonomy, impose tougher sentences on repeat offenders, tighten immigration, make labour laws more flexible and reduce taxation.
˝A militant Pakistani cleric and about 50 of his supporters have been killed after troops stormed a mosque in Islamabad, government officials said.
Abdul Rashid Ghazi´s body was found in the Red Mosque basement.
Officials said he had been caught in the cross-fire.
The army says eight soldiers were also killed in the military operation, and about 50 women and children rescued.
Students at the mosque and its attached religious schools have waged a campaign for months pressing for Sharia law.
Public anger in the capital had been mounting after they kidnapped policemen as well as people they considered to be involved in immoral, un-Islamic activities.
In recent days the army has redeployed thousands of troops in north-western Pakistan where pro-Taleban militants opposed to President Musharraf have been carrying out a string of attacks said to be linked to the mosque siege.
Troops attacked the mosque overnight and took control of most of the complex during heavy fighting which raged as they went from room to room throughout the day.”
John Demjanjuk is in custody in Germany after being deported from the US.
He is accused of being an accessory to the murder of 29,000 Jews at a Nazi death camp in Poland.
The charge is murder - against an Army sergeant in custody following a deadly shooting at a military counseling center in Iraq.
Sergeant John Russell allegedly killed two doctors and three other people, after being brought into the clinic for treatment.
According to the general, the assailant had been referred to the clinic by his superior officers, indicating that they were concerned about his mental state.
In fact, it is believed that the alleged assailant may have been on his 3rd tour to Iraq.
This is the worst case of soldier-on-soldier violence since the war began.
Pakistani commandos are being dropped behind Taliban lines in the Swat Valley;
meanwhile, the army is estimating that 1.3 million may have become refugees from that fighting.
John Demjanjuk is in custody in Germany after being deported from the US.
Prosecutors say they plan to formally press charges within a few weeks.
He is accused of being an accessory to the murder of 29,000 Jews at a Nazi death camp in Poland.
Will Miss California Keep Her Crown?
Embattled Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich loses another perk:
his Homeland Security clearance.
AP's Rupa Shenoy reports from Chicago that the Governor's top advisors still have access to that classified information:
“His representatives say that those advisors can just turn around and give the information to him.”
The man, Blagojevich has appointed to fill President Elect Barack Obama's Senate seat Roland Burris, is heading to Washington to talk with congressional leaders about their refusal to allow him to take the seat.
Some Chicago activists are upset that Burris may not get the post because of the Governor's legal problems.
“We want people to know all around the world, that Roland Burris is someone whom they can have faith in, whom they can have confidence in, someone whom we fully support as a community.”
Blagojevich could be impeached by a legislative committee as early as next week.
The federal charges against the governor include an accusation that he was scheming to sell Obama's Senate seat.
“His representatives say that those advisors can just turn around and give the information to him.”
Blagojevich could be impeached by a legislative committee as early as next week.
rime Minister Tony Blair is expected to announce a timetable for the withdrawal of UK troops from Iraq.
Blair is due to make a statement about the 7,000 British troops serving in Iraq in the House of Commons.
1,500 British troops are expected to return home in months, rising to 3,000 by Christmas.
Downing Street has not confirmed the reports but Foreign Ministry sources have told the BBC the process could be slowed down if the situation in Iraq worsens.
However, White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe confirmed that President George W Bush had spoken to Blair.
Bush recently announced plans to send 21,500 more US troops to Iraq.
rime Minister Tony Blair is expected to announce a timetable for the withdrawal of UK troops from Iraq.
Additionally, many of them regard the current economic conditions as the worst in six years since the 1997-98 financial crisis, the Bank of Korea (BOK) reported Wednesday.
45 N.K.defectors broke into the Canadian Embassy in Beijing.
Patty Blagoevich is filling in for her husband, the ex-governor of Illinois, on the upcoming reality show I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here.
Ah, here it is, the start of a Memorial Day weekend.
Time to hit the beach, and a sandy strip in Hawaii has been named No.
Beach,” says the sheer beauty of Hanalei is breathtaking.
“ I've got about a mile of round, curving, beautiful white sand beach about 200 yards wide.”
Beach that Hanalei is a great getaway beach.
“ Quiet, less kinda that… totally most people didn't come here.”
The runner-up to Hanalei on Dr.
Beach's list is Siesta Beach in Sarasota, Florida.
Patty Blagoevich is filling in for her husband, the ex-governor of Illinois, on the upcoming reality show I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here.
Cross-party fire this morning over the President's almost-State of the Union address.
President Joe Biden says Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal was too negative in the Republican response to Barack Obama's speech - too negative when he called the President's economic performance irresponsible:
“ In Louisiana you're losing 400 jobs a day, what's the governor doing about that?
I hear a lot of criticism, but I never hear anything in response.
“ Let's do targeted infrastructure investments, let's do tax breaks, let's lower permanently the tax, lower tax rates on the lower tax brackets of the income tax;
let's cut taxes on capital gains;
let's give a more aggressive net carry-forward of losses for small business.”
Getting back to Biden, the Vice President says the administration is ready to take back stimulus funds if some governors, like Jindal, refuse to spend part of the money.
The First Lady generated some buzz last night by wearing another sleek, sleeveless dress to the speech, one that showed Michelle Obama's well-toned upper arms.
That made the editor of Glamour magazine email the New York Times and say“ Oh, my God, the First Lady has bare arms in Congress, in February, at night!”
Cross-party fire this morning over the President's almost-State of the Union address.
I hear a lot of criticism, but I never hear anything in response.
“ Let's do targeted infrastructure investments, let's do tax breaks, let's lower permanently the tax, lower tax rates on the lower tax brackets of the income tax;
let's cut taxes on capital gains;
The First Lady generated some buzz last night by wearing another sleek, sleeveless dress to the speech, one that showed Michelle Obama's well-toned upper arms.
Japan has started to fingerprint and photograph all foreigners when they arrive in the country.
It is only the second country after the United States to check foreigners in this way.
But unlike the US, which only checks foreign visitors, Japan will require foreigners living in Japan to be checked each time they enter.
The Japanese government claims it is an anti-terrorism measure but others call it discrimination.
The biometric data will be checked against lists of people who have been deported from the country in the past.
There will also be cross-checks with more than 800,000 pieces of information relating to suspects wanted by the Japanese authorities and the international police organization Interpol.
Japan claims the new move is an anti-terrorist measure that will cut crime, but human rights organizations say it violates foreigners´ rights to privacy and could encourage xenophobia.
They complain it implies that foreigners are most likely to commit acts of terrorism or commit crimes on Japanese soil.
So far there has been no terrorism in Japan committed by foreigners.
Incidents like the sarin gas attacks on commuters on the Tokyo subway were carried out by other Japanese.
There are also concerns that the information gathered will be shared with immigration authorities in other countries.
Foreigners who have visas which allow them to live in Japan, meanwhile, are angry that they will now be treated the same as visitors and subjected to longer waits when they re-enter the country Japan has started to fingerprint and photograph all foreigners when they arrive in the country.
It is only the second country after the United States to check foreigners in this way.
There will also be cross-checks with more than 800,000 pieces of information relating to suspects wanted by the Japanese authorities and the international police organization Interpol.
South Korea´s spy agency has admitted it abducted future President Kim Dae-jung in 1973, with tacit backing from then leader Park Chung-hee.
The BBC reports the admission came after a three-year inquiry by the National Intelligence Service (NIS) into its past conduct.
Kim, who had lost an election to Park in 1971, from a Tokyo hotel.
They reportedly took him away in a boat intending to kill him.
“This committee confirms that its precursor, the Korea Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA), undertook a kidnapping in Japan, and expresses deep regret over this.”
The kidnapping, on August 8th, 1973, is one of South Korea´s most infamous events.
Mr Kim has said in the past tha t he was loaded into a boat with agents whose plan was to throw him overboard.
Most reports of the kidnap say Mr Kim´s death was averted by the timely arrival of a US plane, which over flew the boat and scared the abductors.
The NIS report said that there was ”physical evidence to support the possibility that, up to a certain point, the plan had been pursued as an assassination”.
After the reported US intervention, Mr Kim was taken to the South Korean capital, Seoul, where he was placed under house arrest by Park´s government.
Park ”at least gave a passive approval” to the plan, the report said, but the panel could not prove he directly ordered the kidnapping.
Kim was kept under house arrest and in prison for several years after that, but re-entered politics as South Korea moved from military rule to democracy.
He was elected president in 1997 and later won the Nobel Peace Prize for his policy of engagement with North Korea.
He walks with a limp because of injuries sustained in 1971 when a truck ran his car off the road - an incident widely viewed as another attempt on his life.
Reports say the abduction was foiled after the US intervened.
He was elected president in 1997 and later won the Nobel Peace Prize for his policy of engagement with North Korea.
Former President Kim Dae-jung on Thursday urged North Korea and the United States to engage in direct talks, saying the standoff over Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programs is entering a ``very ominous’’ stage.
Former President Kim Dae-jung on Thursday urged North Korea and the United States to engage in direct talks, saying the standoff over Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programs is entering a ``very ominous’’ stage.
``The current situation surrounding the Korean Peninsula is reaching crisis point,’’ Kim said during a lecture at Hanshin University in Osan, Kyonggi Province, referring to news reports that North Korea may be preparing to conduct a nuclear test.
North Korea wants to be the Pakistan of Northeast Asia.
The spat between Spain´s king and Venezuela´s leftist dictator took a new turn as Hugo Chavez asked if the monarch had advance knowledge of a 2002 coup.
On Saturday King Juan Carlos told Chavez to “shut up” at a summit in Chile after the president said ex-spain prime minister Jose Maria Aznar was a ”fascist”.
The king was widely applauded in the media back home.
On Sunday the pro-communist Chavez said the king was ”imprudent” and asked if he knew in advance of the brief coup against him.
As he left the Ibero-American Summit in Chile´s capital, Santiago, Chavez questioned whether Spain´s ambassador had appeared with Venezuelan interim president Pedro Carmona during the two-day coup in 2002 with the monarch´s blessing.
The spat between Spain´s king and Venezuela´s leftist dictator took a new turn as Hugo Chavez asked if the monarch had advance knowledge of a 2002 coup.
Anti-abortion demonstrators promise more protests today at Notre Dame, where President Barack Obama, who supports abortion rights, will receive an honorary degree from that Catholic college, and deliver the commencement address.
This woman tells WSVJ-TV that the school is out of touch with its Catholic roots:
” Atlantis astronauts Mike Goode and Mike Massamino have begun work on repairing another broken part of the Hubble space telescope:
“ I think I'm going to spin back around toward the telescope.”
Today's space walk, the 4th of 5 on the repair mission, is expected to take more than 6 hours to complete.
During that time, Massamino will have to remove 117 screws from the space telescope's imaging spectrograph, in order to revive the module that's been dead since a power failure 5 years ago.
This woman tells WSVJ-TV that the school is out of touch with its Catholic roots:
The KCCI survey showed the textile sector will see export and output decline by 0.7 percent and 6.3 percent, respectively, in the second half, while steelmakers will also suffer a decline of 0.8 percent in exports during the same period.
The petrochemical industry is forecast to see domestic demand slip 0.8 percent.
The textile, steel and petrochemical industries are forecast to see a downturn in the second half of this year, and sluggish demand, the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry said yesterday.
In a survey of major industrial sectors, the KCCI said low-priced Chinese textile goods will continue to erode the market share of Korean players in the coming months, while higher oil prices will also weigh down on their already-slim margins.
Steel and petrochemical businesses are also expected to have trouble bolstering their sales due largely to shrinking demand and a decline in export orders.
The KCCI survey showed the textile sector will see export and output decline by 0.7 percent and 6.3 percent, respectively, in the second half, while steelmakers will also suffer a decline of 0.8 percent in exports during the same period.
The petrochemical industry is forecast to see domestic demand slip 0.8 percent.
The Korea Times reports prosecutors summoned Lee Soon-ja , wife of former president Chun Doo-hwan, for questioning over his alleged secret funds on Tuesday afternoon.
The Korea Times reports prosecutors summoned Lee Soon-ja , wife of former president Chun Doo-hwan, for questioning over his alleged secret funds on Tuesday afternoon.
The Supreme Public Prosecutor's Office said that Lee was questioned over the source of 13 billion won presumed to be part of Chun's undisclosed money.
The questioning has signaled a move by the prosecution to expand its probe into the leftover slush funds raised by the general-turned-president during his iron-fisted rule between 1981 and 1988.
North Korea would not become a member of the ADB.
Grand National Party (GNP) presidential candidate Lee Myung-bak will face reinvestigation of his alleged involvement in a financial scam in 2001 after the National Assembly passed a bill Monday to introduce a special prosecutor.
President Roh Moo-hyun will accept the bill according to Cheong Wa Dae and will appoint a counsel within the necessary timeframe.
The independent counsel will look into the allegations against Lee, which include stock price manipulation.
Of 299 Assemblymen, 160 lawmakers of the pro-government United New Democratic Party (UNDP) and the Democratic Labor Party (DLP) and the Democratic Party (DP) voted for the bill.
All of the 128 GNP legislators stayed away from the vote.
The GNP lawmakers described the passage as political terrorism, calling for more solid ballots from conservatives on election day, tomorrow.
After the election, a special prosecutor will be named and he will be given up to 40 days to look into the allegations again.
Considering other procedures, it will take about 72 days to finish the probe.
As a result, it is expected to be completed in late February _ the inauguration of the next government is slated for Feb.
HSBC Holdings Plc., the world´s fourth largest bank, earlier this month announced its takeover of a majority stake in KEB from Lone Star Funds for $6.3 billion.
While a number of big manufacturers and banks are now in the merger market, industry watchers say that their shareholders will find it hard to sell their shares in the near future.
The companies on sale include Woori Bank, Hynix Semiconductor Inc. and Hyundai Engineering & Construction Co., all of which are leading firms in their respective industries.
Recent controversy over Korea Exchange Bank well demonstrates the uncertain prospects of merger deals involving major Korean companies.
HSBC Holdings Plc., the world´s fourth largest bank, earlier this month announced its takeover of a majority stake in KEB from Lone Star Funds for $6.3 billion.
Korea's 3.6 percent consumer price increase rate last year ranked fifth among the 30 member countries of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development ( or OECD), indicating that the Koreans suffered considerable hardships from high prices.
According to the National Statistical Office and quoted by the Chosun Ilbo Thursday, OECD member nations sustaining greater consumer price increase rates than Korea of last year were in the order of Turkey, Slovakia, Hungary and Mexico In 2002, Korea ranked 11th with a 2.7 percent rise in consumer prices, with last year's ranking climbing six notches from the previous year.
Korea's 3.6 percent consumer price increase rate last year ranked fifth among the 30 member countries of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development ( or OECD), indicating that the Koreans suffered considerable hardships from high prices.
Adel Abdul-Mahdi says negotiations are still ongoing and it's too early to give exact figures and ratios.
Abdul-Mahdi will be part of a new interim government that formally takes over Iraq's sovereignty from the United States June 30th.
Abdul-Mahdi will be part of a new interim government that formally takes over Iraq's sovereignty from the United States June 30th.
Prosecutors are seeking to arrest the head of a subsidiary of the American equity fund Lone Star on charges of tax evasion, embezzlement and breach of trust, a senior prosecutor said yesterday.
An arrest warrant was requested for Cheong Heon-choo, the head of Hudson Advisors Korea Inc., senior prosecutor Chae Dong-wook told reporters.
˝Communist China has indefinitely postponed the release of an environmental report on the costs of economic development.
Several local governments are reported to have objected to the release of “sensitive” information about the pollution they cause.
Government officials from different departments also appear to disagree on how to calculate the figures.
But despite the setback, the man in charge of the scheme says the research should continue.
The project - to calculate how much money pollution costs China each year, so-called ”green gross domestic product” - was launched in 2004.˝
˝Communist China has indefinitely postponed the release of an environmental report on the costs of economic development.
Three cabinet ministers on Sunday said Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez won a referendum on whether he can run indefinitely for reelection.
Leftist Chavez is seeking approval in the referendum for a raft of constitutional changes to increase presidential powers, advance his self-styled revolution and consolidate a socialist state for the OPEC nation.
We find ourselves in a position where taxpayers must bear the burden and the risk for greed and irresponsibility on Wall Street and on Washington.”
Barack Obama, a few minutes ago, the Democratic presidential nominee, on a video feed from Clearwater, Florida, to the Clinton Global initiative in New York.
“But we also know that a failure to act would have great consequences for jobs, for savings, and retirement for the American people.”
“I think they should bail out the poor people before they bail out the rich people.
The people who are losing their houses and their businesses cause they can't pay.”
Both presidential candidates will join President Bush and other lawmakers at an economic summit at the White House this afternoon.
Barack Obama, a few minutes ago, the Democratic presidential nominee, on a video feed from Clearwater, Florida, to the Clinton Global initiative in New York.
Republican John McCain was there in person earlier, saying he's confident Congress can come up with a consensus by Monday to stabilize the nation's financial markets while protecting taxpayers and homeowners, and resonates with Los Angeles woman who talked to KNBC TV.
The White House has approved the nomination of Kathleen Stephens, senior State Department adviser for East Asia and Pacific affairs, as the next ambassador to Seoul, sources here said Thursday.
The State Department had recommended Stephens as the sole candidate for the post, and the White House accepted it at the end of last year, according to the sources.
Her nomination, after it is formally announced, needs to be confirmed by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Formerly principal deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asia and the Pacific, Stephens would be the first female ambassador to represent the U.S. in South Korea.
She was the internal political unit chief at the American Embassy in Seoul in 1984-1987.
She also served as deputy assistant secretary for European and Eurasian affairs.
She speaks fluent Korean as well as Chinese and Serbo-Croatian.
The State Department had recommended Stephens as the sole candidate for the post, and the White House accepted it at the end of last year, according to the sources.
The United Nations special envoy to Burma, Ibrahim Gambari, has said the situation there has changed for the better in the past few weeks.
Reporting to the UN security council on his recent visit to the country, Gambari said it had not produced all the results he was hoping for.
But he added though that the Burmese government could be responsive to international pressure.
Gambari visited Burma twice after the violent suppression of protests.
He said opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi had been allowed to issue a statement for the first time in over four years and had been allowed to meet members of her party.
He added also that “the situation today is qualitatively different from what it was a few weeks ago”.
Gambari was reporting to the UN Security Council after his second visit to Burma following the violent suppression of anti-government protests in September.
However, on his second visit he failed to secure a meeting with the country´s leader, General Than Shwe.
The military also rejected his proposal of a three-way meeting with the leaders and Ms Suu Kyi as premature.
Burma has been ruled since 1962 as a military dictatorship, with the junta failing to honor the result of the 1990 elections won by Suu Kyi´s party.
Gambari visited Burma twice after the violent suppression of protests.
He said opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi had been allowed to issue a statement for the first time in over four years and had been allowed to meet members of her party.
Gambari was reporting to the UN Security Council after his second visit to Burma following the violent suppression of anti-government protests in September.
The top U.S. negotiator for the North Korea nuclear dispute will visit Washington and Tokyo this week to seek ways to lure Pyongyang back to the negotiating table, the U.S.
Christopher Hill will meet Kenichiro Sasae, director-general of the Japanese Foreign Ministry's Asia-Oceania bureau on Thursday, the embassy said.
In Washington, Hill is expected to hold consultations on the six-party talks and give a speech at the Brookings Institution and return to South Korea.
The White House said Friday it was nominating Hill as head of the State Department's East Asia and Pacific bureau.
Roh clarified that Korea won't allow USFK to be involved in any dispute in Northeast Asia.
A day after breakthrough at the six-party talks in Beijing for North Korea's denuclearization, a delegation from the International Olympic Committee visiting PyeongChang to evaluate the South Korean city's bid for the 2014 Winter Olympics expressed a special interest in the city's efforts to make it the ``Peace Games.''
Kim Jin-sun, governor of Kangwon Province, to which PyeongChang belongs, told reporters during an intermission to the morning's presentation, ``Some of the delegation members said in the Q&A session that they were deeply impressed by PyeongChang's effort to make the 2014 Winter Olympics a time of peace and harmony.''
PyeongChang, competing with Salzburg, Austria, and Sochi, Russia, has been playing host to the delegation.
It is the first of the bidders to receive such a visit.
Since Pyongyang refused access to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors almost two years ago, the Stalinist enclave has had time to secure enough plutonium for four to six nuclear weapons, said Mohamed El Baradei, head of the IAEA Monday in an interview with The New York Times.
Since Pyongyang refused access to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors almost two years ago, the Stalinist enclave has had time to secure enough plutonium for four to six nuclear weapons, said Mohamed El Baradei, head of the IAEA Monday in an interview with The New York Times.
President Roh visited the Sorbonne, a leading French university.
In 2007, Bindeez was named Australia´s Toy of the Year.
In Australia, two children in New South Wales and one child in Queensland have been hospitalized in the past two weeks after swallowing the beads.
Millions of Chinese-made toys have been recalled in the US and Australia after they were found to contain a substance linked to the date-rape drug GHB.
A total of five children were taken to hospital after swallowing tiny beads known as Bindeez in Australia and Aqua Dots in the US.
The beads were coated in chemicals which transformed into the banned drug when swallowed.
It is the latest in a series of safety scares over products made in China.
US toy maker Mattel has recalled more than 20 million Chinese-made toys this year.
The toy consists of hundreds of brightly-coloured beads that can be arranged into a piece of art and sprayed with water to set.
The beads are meant to be coated in a non-toxic glue, but a batch in Australia was found to be covered with a substance that did not match the approved formula.
In Australia, two children in New South Wales and one child in Queensland have been hospitalized in the past two weeks after swallowing the beads.
All three have now recovered, but all of the country´s states and territories have now banned the toy.
The United States on Sunday urged North Korea to completely and accurately disclose its nuclear weapons programs and any proliferation activities, with less than 24 hours left before the initially agreed deadline for the North to do so.
State Department spokesman Tom Casey, in a statement, said it was “unfortunate that North Korea has not yet met its commitments” to provide the nuclear declaration and has slowed down the process of nuclear disablement.
”We will continue to work with our close allies Japan, and South Korea, and partners China and Russia, as we urge North Korea to deliver a complete and correct declaration of all its nuclear weapons programs and nuclear weapons and proliferation activities and complete the agreed disablement,” Casey said.
Popular television and film actress Lee Eun-ju was found dead, on Tuesday apparently having committed suicide.
The Korea Times reports a note written in blood that included the words, ``Mother, I'm sorry, I love you'' was discovered at the scene.
Ruling and opposition parties agreed to relocate 12 ministries.
Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao has used a landmark address to the Japanese parliament, the Diet, to urge Japan to face up to its World War II actions.
In what was the first ever Diet address by a Chinese premier, he said Japan's invasions in the 1930s and 40s had caused China's people tremendous pain.
And he called for Japanese apologies to be matched by concrete actions.
However, he said just a few militarist leaders were to blame and that most Japanese people were also war victims.
Japan and China have been at odds in recent years over Japan's World War II aggression, and China has often accused Japan of not fully atoning for its atrocities.
Lead supporter Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania said the measure was about preserving the institution of marriage.
A procedural roadblock in the US Senate has ended the legislative journey of a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.
Supporters of the measure couldn't get the 60 votes they needed to put the amendment up for a vote.
Lawmakers say that means the proposal is dead for now, but Republicans vow to get the initiative back on track sometime in the future.
Lead supporter Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania said the measure was about preserving the institution of marriage.
Korean deep-sea fishing vessels threatened in the Persian Gulf.
Thousands of people have attended the funeral of leading US conservative evangelist, Jerry Falwell, in the town of Lynchburg, Virginia.
Falwell, who died last week aged 73, was the founder in the 1970s of the Moral Majority - a right-wing religious pressure group.
It played a key role in turning conservative religious groups into a powerful political force in the US.
Falwell had campaigned against abortion, homosexuality and feminism.
His alliance with Republicans in the 1980s was a key help in the elections of Ronald Reagan as president and many political leaders had sought his support.
The Seoul Metropolitan Government has opened up a new one-stop service center to provide help to foreign nationals.
Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon said Wednesday that the launch of the center will make Seoul a ``truly global city.´´ Named the Seoul Global Center, it began initial services on Jan.
The ceremony was held to celebrate its successful launch with distinguished guests present including ambassadors, politicians and representatives of the foreign community.
The center was set up as part of efforts to develop Seoul into a global city favorable to foreign visitors and residents after the city government announced ``Plans for the Globalization of Seoul´´ last July.
The initial goal of the center is to improve the business, residential, cultural and tourism environments for all foreign nationals, which can lead to the globalization of Seoul, Oh said.
2 before its official launch on Jan.
Accepting petitions filed three years ago from the families of eight convicted criminals executed in 1975, the Seoul Central District Court yesterday ordered a new trial on the treason charges against them.
The court said the original convictions in 1974 were based on confessions obtained by torture.
The prosecution has three days to respond to the order for a retrial if it does not object, the court will move to reopen the case.
The National Intelligence Service recently confirmed the findings of a ""suspicious deaths"" panel in 2002 that confessions had been tortured out of the eight student activists, who had been accused by the Park Chung Hee military regime of conspiring to overthrow the government.
The eight were found guilty in 1974, and the Supreme Court upheld the death sentences in April 1975.
Less than 18 hours later, the sentences were carried out amid international condemnation.
The head negotiators from South Korea, Japan and the United States on the North Korean nuclear issue met in Seoul Saturday, and again urged Pyeongyang to return to the six-party talks without preconditions.
The head negotiators from South Korea, Japan and the United States on the North Korean nuclear issue met in Seoul Saturday, and again urged Pyeongyang to return to the six-party talks without preconditions.
Government is going to control overseas remittances.
North Korean was murdered by skinhead in Vladivostok, Russia.
The Chosun Ilbo reports that a North Korean was murdered by skinheads in Vladivostok, Russia.
Quoting the statements of witnesses, the police confirmed that ten youths assaulted three North Koreans on Saturday, with one victim stabbed and killed.
Although there were a number of bystanders, nobody helped the North Koreans and the attackers escaped.
When about 100 North Korea-born laborers held a protest demonstration following the incident, police dispersed them.
There are approximately 1,400 North Koreans working in Russia's Maritime Province, including 500 construction workers in Vladivostok.
The government should have reported the obtained uranium.
The company said it also planned to ask for compensation from the union for losses it suffered during the strike, which was part of a job action called by an umbrella labor group to protest three Assembly bills dealing with part-time and temporary workers.
Kia Motors, a Hyundai Motor subsidiary, also filed a complaint with the police against its union chief and other leaders for a walkout there
Tensions are mounting within local administrative bodies as a new law enabling residents to oust incompetent local government chiefs and council members comes into effect today.
Local residents and civic groups are already gathering names of corrupt officials to recall, following recent reports that revealed numerous local leaders spending taxpayers’ money on costly junkets overseas.
Under the new measure, local residents are able, through voting, to sack local mayors and governors whose policies and performances are found to be in poor standing or who are involved in corruption.
The new law, approved by the National Assembly in May last year, is aimed at giving residents substantial authority to supervise the management of local governments through a “wake-up call” to corrupt and incompetent officials.
Most countries with a local autonomy system have a similar recall system.
Chinese President Hu Jintao has arrived in the US for the start of a state visit which will focus on trade relations between the two countries.
The high-profile four-day tour comes as anger grows in Washington about the size of its trade deficit with China.
Many US politicians want strong action unless China revalues the yuan, which they say enables it to export cheaply.
President Hu will visit the offices of Microsoft and Boeing during a two-day trip to Washington State.
Both companies have recently signed large commercial agreements with Chinese counterparts.
After a tour of Microsoft's headquarters, the software giant's founder Bill Gates will host a dinner for Hu at his home.
Hu's visit - during which he will hold talks with President Bush and US government officials - will turn the spotlight on Sino-US trade relations, one of the main areas of dispute between the two powers. Chinese President Hu Jintao has arrived in the US for the start of a state visit which will focus on trade relations between the two countries.
The high-profile four-day tour comes as anger grows in Washington about the size of its trade deficit with China.
President Hu will visit the offices of Microsoft and Boeing during a two-day trip to Washington State.
The Wowowee show is popular for giving big cash prizes in a country where 40% of people live on less than $2 a day.
A stampede outside a sports stadium in the Philippine capital, Manila, has left at least 73 dead, many of them women, with more than 300 injured.
Tens of thousands of people had gone to the stadium for the first anniversary recording of a popular TV gameshow.
olice are on high alert as tens of thousands of workers, farmers and teachers are set to take to the streets across the country today in protest against free trade talks with the United States, labor reform bills and new school rules.
The Korea Alliance Against the Korea-U.S. FTA, a coalition of about 300 civic groups, said yesterday more than 71,000 members are expected to participate in the rallies in 13 cities against a free trade agreement currently being negotiated between the two countries.
The 13 cities include Seoul, Gwangju, Jeonju, Daegu, Daejeon, Suwon, Busan, Ulsan and Jeju.
“Record” and“ drop” are no longer words that make jaws drop, not in this economy - and we've got a story that puts them together again this morning.
Live to the newsroom and the AP's Rita Foley:
“Jon, it's another record drop in house prices.
An S & P index that looks at big cities nationwide shows they tumbled by more than 18% in the year ending in November.
Home values have been going down steadily for nearly two years now, and nobody can see the end of the decline in sight, Jon.”
More layoffs to report this morning, Rita.
Corning says it's cutting 3500 people loose, that's 13% of its payroll.
We're told the demand is slumping for the glass used in flat-screen TVs and computers.
President Barack Obama says he's trying to work with Republicans, and the Senate GOP leader this morning is blaming Democrats for holding the President back on his financial rescue package.
“……the Democratic majority, which seems to be pulling in the direction of fewer tax, uh, less tax relief……”
The President goes up to Capitol Hill in a couple of hours to try to work things out with Republicans.
What should we expect from Barack Obama's first 100 days?
3 on four counts of child sexual abuse against Dontee Stokes.
A priest who was shot and wounded in 2002 by a former altar boy he allegedly molested more than a decade ago has been defrocked by Pope John Paul II,.
The pope decided in October to dismiss Maurice Blackwell, and the Archdiocese of Baltimore received the official paperwork earlier this month from the Vatican.
Screening of North Korean defectors will be intensified.
A U.S. nuclear negotiator said late last week that the next round of talks would begin in Beijing the morning of Dec.
16, two months after Pyongyang surprised the world with an underground nuclear test.
``We're going back,'' the Washington Post quoted Christopher Hill, the chief U.S. envoy to the talks, as saying in its Saturday edition.
The report said the negotiations would last a few days before a Christmas recess.
But the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Seoul said Sunday that the date was still under negotiation.
A U.S. nuclear negotiator said late last week that the next round of talks would begin in Beijing the morning of Dec.
Thailand’s junta leader Surayud Chulanont has said he might hold elections to restore democracy earlier than planned.
The poll could be held on November 25, if a post-coup constitution is approved in an August referendum, he said.
On Tuesday, Thai police said they wanted to question exiled legally-elected PM Thaksin Shinawatra over alleged graft.
There were initial reports Thaksin would be required to go to a Bangkok police station.
But police later said his lawyers could appear on his behalf.
They want him to answer questions about allegations he secretly concealed assets in a family-owned property company.
Thailand has been in political turmoil since the military led a coup against Thaksin and his legally-elected government while he was out of the country last September.
Since then, the Prime Minister has remained abroad, living mostly in London.
He is being investigated by the Thai junta on allegations of corruption, principally over the controversial sale of his family’s telecoms firm, Shin Corp, in January 2006.
Thailand has been in political turmoil since the military led a coup against Thaksin and his legally-elected government while he was out of the country last September.
Enraged with the illegal use of their programs, the 11 companies led by Microsoft that claim the rights to the intellectual property filed a class action lawsuit on May 25 against the nine illegal users.
The Korea Times reports police Wednesday booked 259 people from nine companies without arrest on charges of circulating illegally downloaded software on the Internet.
Last month, police found that nine small and medium companies have illegally copied software programs and used them in violation of copyrights.
They allegedly copied and circulated the software contents developed by the market leaders such as Microsoft of the U.S. and Hansoft of Korea, violating computer program protection laws.
Enraged with the illegal use of their programs, the 11 companies led by Microsoft that claim the rights to the intellectual property filed a class action lawsuit on May 25 against the nine illegal users.
The violators, if convicted, will face up to five years in prison or a maximum of 50 million won in fines.
The Joong-Ang Ilbo reports that after North Korean fans in Pyongyang showered the soccer field at Kim Il Sung Stadium with objects on Wednesday during their team's 2-0 loss to Iran, Japan's leading soccer officials expressed reluctance yesterday to have their national team play in the North.
North Korea is scheduled to host Japan on June 8 a qualifying match for the 2006 World Cup.
After witnessing the violent reaction by the North Korean crowd, Junji Ogura, vice president of the Japan Football Association, said he was astonished and that he feared for his players' safety.
The union of South Korean employees of the USFK is about to strike for its sudden cut off decision.
President Roh Moo-hyun on Wednesday urged Japan to face up to history by taking concrete actions to reflect the apologies Japanese leaders have made so far for the atrocities it committed during World War II.
In a speech marking the 87th anniversary of the March 1 Independence Movement against Japanese colonial rule, Roh strongly criticized Tokyo’s mishandling of its wartime misdeeds, including Japanese leaders’ repeated visits to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine honoring war criminals.
Among those honored at the shrine in Tokyo are 14 convicted Class-A war criminals responsible for heinous atrocities during World War II, along with 2.5 million Japanese war dead.
It is viewed by Koreans and Chinese as a symbol of Japan’s unrepentant militarism.
A government spokesman said the defeat went against public opinion and the desires of communist China's central leadership.
On Wednesday, Hong Kong's legislators rejected Chief Executive Donald Tsang's reforms, saying they did not go far enough towards full democracy.
Pro-democracy lawmakers blocked both of his main proposals - to expand the committee responsible for electing the chief executive and to increase the size of the legislature.
A government spokesman said the defeat went against public opinion and the desires of communist China's central leadership.
On Wednesday, Hong Kong's legislators rejected Chief Executive Donald Tsang's reforms, saying they did not go far enough towards full democracy.
The Seoul stock market plummeted Tuesday, joining the global market collapse.
1 last year and the sixth largest plunge ever.
The ``market sidecar´´ mechanism was even activated to halt trading, for the first time this year.
The Seoul stock market plummeted Tuesday, joining the global market collapse.
A Hindi priest chanted prayers, a Muslim cleric read from the Koran, as the Trident Hotel at the Oberoi complex was reopened today in Mumbai, India.
That hotel was one of nine sites in attacks that left 164 people dead three weeks ago.
President Elect Barack Obama and his family are in Hawaii for the holidays.
AP's Phil Elliott reports that while the family is vacationing, Obama's transition team is readying to release a report on the controversy surrounding Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich.
“Hanging over the investigation is the internal investigation into what contact his aides might have had with Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich.
Aides say that they are not going to expect President Elect to make any on-camera statements about this.”
The Obamas are scheduled to spend twelve days in Hawaii.
Today is the start of Hanukah, the 8-day Jewish Festival of Light begins at sundown local time.
Marks the Maccabees' victory over the Greeks and the rededication of the temple in Jerusalem.
“Hanging over the investigation is the internal investigation into what contact his aides might have had with Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich.
The Obamas are scheduled to spend twelve days in Hawaii.
Separately, in an interview with USA Today on May 13, Han said that the only way to resolve North Korea's nuclear program was to have nations with troops on the peninsula, both Koreas and the United States, sign a peace agreement.
A North Korean envoy to the United Nations has denounced planned redeployments of U.S. forces in Korea, but has also raised a new offer of a peace treaty.
The Joong-Ang Ilbo reports Han Song-ryol, Pyeongyang's deputy UN ambassador said, ""Analysts view the announcement on the U.S. 's redeployment in Korea as being aimed at a preemptive strike against the North, raising the potential for a second Korean War.
"" Han's statements follow announcements in Seoul and Washington that the United States will upgrade U.S. military capabilities here, following the dispatch of Korea-based combat units to Iraq.
Separately, in an interview with USA Today on May 13, Han said that the only way to resolve North Korea's nuclear program was to have nations with troops on the peninsula, both Koreas and the United States, sign a peace agreement.
The North has demanded that a peace agreement with the United States precede a North-South Korean treaty.
Horst Koehler, a former head of the IMF was elected as the German president.
The Grand National Party may make or break today depending on how former Seoul City Mayor Lee Myung-bak reacts to party Chairman Kang Jae-sup’s latest plans to reform the party.
Lee is expected to make an announcement after keeping mum for a full day.
Political analysts say he has a tough decision to make.
Optimists say Lee may be able to renew his leadership by pushing Kang out.
But Lee would have to risk breaking up the party by openly challenging the leader.
Lee Jae-oh who is expected to resign from the party’s supreme council to protest the chairman’s reforms.
The senior lawmaker’s move would make him the fourth council member to resign in the wake of last week’s poor by-election results that left the party licking its wounds.
Dramatic moves by the Bush administration.
President Bush has now announced a $250 billion plan to directly buy shares in the nation's leading banks.
Uncle Sam has told nine top banks it's buying preferred shares, and it's offered to do the same for 8,500 smaller ones.
The President says this will inject badly needed cash.”
“This new capital will help healthy banks continue making loans to businesses and consumers, and this new capital will help struggling banks fill the hole created by losses during the financial crisis.”
“Bush says the step which follows similar moves by U.S. allies is limited and temporary, adding he is confident it will help get markets working again.
Mark Smith, at the White House.”
And on Wall Street at this hour, the Dow is now up by about 65 points.
Ideas on ways to jump-start the economy are also coming from the presidential candidates.
John McCain wants to eliminate taxes on unemployment benefits and lower the tax rate on IRA's and 401K's to 10%.
This week, Barack Obama had proposed a 90-day moratorium on home foreclosures and a two-year tax break for businesses that create new jobs. Dramatic moves by the Bush administration.
President Bush has now announced a $250 billion plan to directly buy shares in the nation's leading banks.
Uncle Sam has told nine top banks it's buying preferred shares, and it's offered to do the same for 8,500 smaller ones.
“Bush says the step which follows similar moves by U.S. allies is limited and temporary, adding he is confident it will help get markets working again.
Pro-democracy activists rallied in the Burmese capital, Rangoon, to mark the 17th anniversary of Aung San Suu Kyi’s party’s victory in national polls.
Some 200 members of her National League for Democracy (NLD) gathered to shout slogans and call for Ms Suu Kyi’s release from house arrest.
The rally came on the day her latest detention period was due to expire.
But on Friday Burma’s military junta extended it by another year, drawing swift international condemnation.
Ms Suu Kyi, 61, has spent 11 of the last 18 years in detention.
In 1990 her NLD won national elections, but these were annulled by the army and she was never allowed to take power.
Her latest period of house arrest began in May 2003.
The illegal military junga attempted to rename Burma as Myanmar but many Burmese and foreign governments and news organizations refuse to recognize the change. Pro-democracy activists rallied in the Burmese capital, Rangoon, to mark the 17th anniversary of Aung San Suu Kyi’s party’s victory in national polls.
But on Friday Burma’s military junta extended it by another year, drawing swift international condemnation.
China is reportedly urging North Korean leader Kim Jong Il to ease off his hard-line stance toward the United States, a sign of Beijing's impatience with its communist ally's insistence on building nuclear weapons.
A day after talks with President Hu Jintao, Kim was said to have met Tuesday with former President Jiang Zemin, who remains head of the Communist Party commission that runs China's military.
The Chinese government has refused to publicly confirm Kim's visit.
However, Kim was seen leaving a Beijing restaurant, and U.S. officials say Beijing has told Washington it is meeting with the secretive leader.
China wants North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program, but Pyongyang has said it needs a ``nuclear deterrent'' against a possible U.S. attack and would give up its program only in return for U.S. security guarantees.
During his meeting with Jiang, ``Kim was believed to have expressed a strong doubt that North Korea would ever get security guarantees from the United States even if it gives up its nuclear weapons .''
Kim's visit comes just after Vice President Dick Cheney traveled to Beijing and urged China to do more to defuse Pyongyang's nuclear threat.
Cheney reportedly gave Beijing information from a Pakistani nuclear scientist suggesting North Korea has at least three nuclear devices.
China is reportedly urging North Korean leader Kim Jong Il to ease off his hard-line stance toward the United States, a sign of Beijing's impatience with its communist ally's insistence on building nuclear weapons.
During his meeting with Jiang, ``Kim was believed to have expressed a strong doubt that North Korea would ever get security guarantees from the United States even if it gives up its nuclear weapons .''
Lee Kang-gil, a spokesman for the prime minister's office, said yesterday that the government would use $5 million from its own budget, while the rest would come from donations from the private sector.
In the aftermath of a hurricane that devastated the southern regions of the United States last week, Seoul pledged yesterday to send at least $30 million in relief funds.
The South Korean Defense Ministry is also considering sending military equipment and personnel to help rebuild affected areas.
Lee Kang-gil, a spokesman for the prime minister's office, said yesterday that the government would use $5 million from its own budget, while the rest would come from donations from the private sector.
The Defense Ministry is also planning to send equipment and personnel should the United States request it.
The Korea Herald reports the nation's business community on Wednesday urged the public to stop organizing rallies against the president's impeachment in order to prevent the political turmoil from scuttling a nascent recovery of Asia's fourth-largest economy.
The Korea Herald reports the nation's business community on Wednesday urged the public to stop organizing rallies against the president's impeachment in order to prevent the political turmoil from scuttling a nascent recovery of Asia's fourth-largest economy.
Business leaders also called on the Constitutional Court to deliver its ruling promptly, saying the country's exports and foreign direct investment would shrink should the situation continue.
The call for a halt to the rallies followed the decision by one of the country's two biggest umbrella labor organizations to protest the impeachment by urging its members to refuse to perform extra work every Wednesday.
Pakistan forces might surround the chief strategist for Osama bin Laden.
The acting Chief Financial Officer of money-losing mortgage giant Freddie Mac has been found dead at his northern Virginia home.
David Kellerman's body was found early this morning, and police are calling it an apparent suicide:
“ Normally, we don't say anything about apparent suicides, but in this case, we are.”
Public Information Director Mary Anne Jennings of Virginia's Fairfax County Police.
She won't say whether a suicide note was found.
Kellerman was 41, and lived in a house valued by the county at about $900,000.
Investigators are checking out gambling as the possible motivation for a Boston medical student accused of targeting women who advertised erotic services on Craigslist.
Philip Markoff allegedly lured them into hotels to rob them, killing one woman who fought back.
The International Monetary Fund projects the world economy is likely to shrink this year for the first time in 6 decades.
Some private economists say the IMF's forecast of a 1.3% drop could leave 10 million or more people out of work around the world ?
this forecast much weaker than one issued just 3 months ago.
David Kellerman's body was found early this morning, and police are calling it an apparent suicide:
Investigators are checking out gambling as the possible motivation for a Boston medical student accused of targeting women who advertised erotic services on Craigslist.
The BBC reports North Korea's reclusive leader, Kim Jong-il, has reportedly been touring hi-tech firms in Shenzhen, the city at the forefront of China's economic boom.
The visit has prompted speculation that China is advocating market reforms for Pyongyang and could also urge it to rejoin stalled nuclear negotiations.
China has not confirmed or denied it is hosting the North Korean leader.
The visit has prompted speculation that China is advocating market reforms for Pyongyang and could also urge it to rejoin stalled nuclear negotiations.
Political parties are abuzz on the possible fallout from the return of a former business partner of leading conservative presidential candidate Lee Myung-bak.
Kim Kyung-joon is accused of embezzlement and money laundering.
He allegedly manipulated the stock price of his now-defunct investment firm, BBK, by spreading false information, and misappropriated $42 million in company funds in 2000.
He also set up a financial company in which nominee Lee of the main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) invested $3.2 million.
Lee, a former Hyundai CEO and Seoul mayor, has claimed he was a victim, not a co-conspirator in the fraud case.
The Korean Bar Association yesterday demanded Supreme Court Chief Justice Lee Yong-hun resign over his controversial remarks criticizing the work ethic of lawyers and prosecutors in recent meetings with high court judges.
Prosecutor General Choung Sang-myoung also expressed regret over Lee’s comments, aggravating the prosecution’s touchy relationship with judges that started with last month’s arrest of a Seoul High Court senior judge involved in a bribery scandal.
It is the first time that a prosecutor general has openly criticized the chief of the Supreme Court.
Meeting judges at the Kwangju High Court on Sept.
Prosecutor General Choung Sang-myoung also expressed regret over Lee’s comments, aggravating the prosecution’s touchy relationship with judges that started with last month’s arrest of a Seoul High Court senior judge involved in a bribery scandal.
The Joong-Ang Ilbo reports capture, neuter and release will be the city government’s modus operandi next year in its effort to quell the growing numbers of cats roaming the city’s streets, the Seoul city government said yesterday.
As many as 30,000 cats wandered Seoul as of 2004, city officials estimated, and the number has been increasing.
The city captured 4,599 cats last year, up from 2,851 in 2004, most of which the city euthanized.
Animal rights activists have been demanding the city government stop cat euthanasia.
Under the city’s Trap-Neuter-Return, or TNR, project, a cat will be caught in a trap, neutered by veterinarians, then released where it was captured after three to seven days of recovery.
South Korea on Wednesday voiced opposition to the much-touted option of bringing North Korea's nuclear problem to the U.N.
South Korea on Wednesday voiced opposition to the much-touted option of bringing North Korea's nuclear problem to the U.N.
Security Council (UNSC), while issuing a strong warning on the North's suspected move to extract more fissile material for nuclear weapons.
In a policy consultation session between the administration and the ruling party, Seoul made it clear that it cannot agree under the current situation to such suggestions as a referral of the nuclear issue to the UNSC or economic sanctions on the impoverished Stalinist country.
Foreign carmakers revs up their domestic sales networks.
U.S. private equity fund Lone Star on Wednesday denied what are thought by some to be politically-inspired claims by South Korean state auditors that the fund conspired to lower the capital adequacy ratio of Korea Exchange Bank (KEB) to purchase it at a bargain price in late 2003.
The reaction came after the Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) claimed the fund was ineligible to buy a bank in 2003 and that financial regulators approved its purchase of KEB in violation of the law.
U.S. private equity fund Lone Star on Wednesday denied what are thought by some to be politically-inspired claims by South Korean state auditors that the fund conspired to lower the capital adequacy ratio of Korea Exchange Bank (KEB) to purchase it at a bargain price in late 2003.
The Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairs announced plans to improve public services for foreign residents to help them better adjust to Korean society.
According to this year's policy guidelines released yesterday, the ministry said it will establish an integrated support system for foreigners because the nation is fast becoming a multi-national society.
The foreign population now exceeds more than one percent of the whole population.
Under the plan, the government will provide Korean language education, as well as clearly explain local traffic regulations and trash disposal practices.
Legal advice for problems such as disputes over lease contracts will also be provided.
The government plans to update its websites in English or publish newsletters to provide information and advice to foreigners.
Portable Internet service providers will pay between 117 billion won to 125.8 billion won in license fees in accordance with the business plans they submit to the government.
The Korea Herald reports the government allocated bandwidth for portable Internet services yesterday, saying it would be divided among the three companies that eventually secure licenses for the new business.
Portable Internet service providers will pay between 117 billion won to 125.8 billion won in license fees in accordance with the business plans they submit to the government.
The bandwidth will be assigned to the companies in March, when the government finalizes the licensing process.
The Korea Times reports the government pledged to drastically relax or remove unnecessary regulations hampering financial firms’ businesses to foster a buyer’s market buyer-oriented.
The law will set the ground for the abolishing rules barring financial services firms from offering different types of financial services and take down the boundaries between financial market segments or regulatory entry barriers.
The ministry said it would soften or remove 101 regulations under 19 financial market-related laws by as early as the first half of next year.
POSCO Engineering is embroiled in a lobbying scandal.
The UN reporter on torture has arrived in Communist China.
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Tuesday denied lobbying behind the scenes to scuttle intelligence reforms backed by President Bush, and said he supports Bush's position.
Chinese army division prepares for a prolonged deployment along the Chinese-N.K. border.
North Korea called Japanese officials “political imbeciles” for saying they won't accept Pyongyang as a nuclear power, less than a week after it agreed to return to international arms talks.
In typically harsh rhetoric, the reclusive communist state demanded on Saterday that Japan stay away from the negotiations, and also condemned the United States as ”fanatic warmongers who destroy peace and security on the Korean Peninsula.”
The North agreed last week to return to the international disarmament negotiations - which also include China, Russia, the United States and South Korea - in the first easing of tension after its Oct.
The talks have been stalled for a year.
With the economy yet to bear the full brunt of the failing dollar, Korea's exports hit an all-time monthly high for the second straight month in November, the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy told the Korea Herald yesterday.
The ministry said November exports climbed to $23.31 billion, marking a year-on-year increase of 27.8 percent.
The figure also put an end to a five-month decline in the growth rate.
Imports also hit a record-high for the second month on higher oil and raw materials prices and climbed to 20.54 billion, rising 30.3 percent over last year.
The ministry said November exports climbed to $23.31 billion, marking a year-on-year increase of 27.8 percent.
The South Korean government plans to scrap its special sales taxes on 24 high-end goods as early as this month as a step to stimulate domestic consumption.
The lower income taxes are expected to benefit up to 7 million salaried workers and 2 million self-employed. The South Korean government plans to scrap its special sales taxes on 24 high-end goods as early as this month as a step to stimulate domestic consumption.
The ruling Uri Party said yesterday it has agreed with the Ministry of Finance and Economy on abolition of the excise taxes levied on projection and plasma display panel TVs, air conditioners, golf clubs, motorboats, jewelry and other products. The two sides also agreed to slash income taxes and taxes on interest and dividend payments.
Economist has proposed Korea to pursue the redenomination.
Former British Conservative prime minister Sir Edward Heath has died at the age of 89.
His successor Lady Thatcher said he was a ""political giant"" and ""in every sense the first modern Conservative leader"".
Sir Edward, who was knighted in 1992, won his first seat for the Tories in Bexley in 1950 and led the 1970-74 Conservative Government.
Equalization policy for high schools should be introduced, urges SNU president.
Calls for a revision of the current Romanization system for the Korean alphabet, Hangul, are gaining more ground as confusion continues on the roads, signboards and government documents after the introduction of the current form in July 2000.
Some 75 percent of South Koreans think the government-enacted Romanization system does not reflect the original pronunciation of Hangul properly, a survey conducted by the Yoido Institute, a think tank of the opposition Grand National Party (GNP) showed yesterday.
Of the 2,150 adults polled last week, 66.1 percent wanted the current system to be revised despite the expected financial cost, according to the survey conducted on the occasion of the 560th Hangul Day which falls on Oct.
Romanization is a method to represent words of a language, which has a different writing system, with the Roman (Latin) alphabet.
China, Japan and South Korea have different systems since their languages have different pronunciation structures.
The visit came at the request of North Korean officials, to ””discuss the modalities for verification and monitoring… of the shutdown of the Yongbyon nuclear facility,”” the statement added.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has welcomed North Korea’s decision to allow United Nations nuclear agency inspectors into the country.
Rice was responding to the IAEA’s announcement that it plans to send a team to North Korea next week to shut down its Yongbyon nuclear reactor.
The reactor is due to be closed as part of an international deal to end North Korea’s nuclear activities.
The deal was made in February but was then stymied by a financial dispute.
Earlier reports from Russia quoted the unnamed North Korean official as saying that Pyongyang plans to shut down Yongbyon in the second half of July.
In a statement, the IAEA said the team would be traveling to Pyongyang in the week beginning on the 25 of June.
The visit came at the request of North Korean officials, to ””discuss the modalities for verification and monitoring… of the shutdown of the Yongbyon nuclear facility,”” the statement added.
Russia’s Interfax news agency reported on Monday that the North had set a deadline by which to shut the main nuclear reactor.
Christopher Hill, U.S. assistant secretary of state, said he was looking forward to hearing the results of the inter-Korean meeting and hoped it would yield progress on the nuclear issue.
However, Hill was wary of placing too much weight on the North’s decision to reopen government-to-government contacts with the South.
""I'm tired of looking at signals and reading tea leaves,"" he said.
Korea Exchange Bank is going to introduce deposit accounts denominated in Chinese yuan.
Prosecutors Tuesday raided five more companies in an expanding probe into the slush fund scandal surrounding the Hyundai Automotive Group.
The raided firms included a corporate finance company, Q Capital Holdings, and a corporate restructuring firm, Win & Win 21, which are thought to have been involved in Hyundai's acquisition of machinery company Wia after the group took over the ailing Kia Motors in 1999.
Hyundai purchased Wia, a Kia affiliate, at a below-market price in 2001, raising suspicions about the acquisition deal.
Wia was then a relatively sound company with its annual net profit estimated at 60 billion won.
Boris Yeltsin, who played a key role in the Soviet Union’s demise and became Russia’s first president, has died aged 76, the Kremlin says.
Yeltsin - who had a history of heart trouble - died of heart failure in hospital.
He came to power after being promoted by former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, a man he then outmaneuvered.
He won international acclaim as a defender of democracy when in August 1991 he mounted a tank in Moscow.
In what became one of the defining moments of his career, Yeltsin rallied the people against an attempt to overthrow Gorbachev’s era of glasnost and perestroika.
In another episode of high drama, two years later he ordered Russian tanks to fire on their own parliament in October 1993, when the building was occupied by hard-line political opponents.
Boris Yeltsin, who played a key role in the Soviet Union’s demise and became Russia’s first president, has died aged 76, the Kremlin says.
Top nuclear negotiators from the United States and North Korea continued with a rare and exclusive meeting in Berlin to discuss the denuclearization of the communist regime.
Christopher Hill of the United States and Kim Kye-gwan of North Korea met in Germany's capital without the presence of China, which is hosting the six-party talks and often arranged meetings between the two hostile players.
After ending the first day of talks, Hill said he had a useful discussion and that he hoped to see the multilateral talks resume this month.
North Korea suggested meeting bilaterally with the United States early this month, according to sources. Berlin, where Hill was scheduled to deliver a speech, is considered an appropriate location because of its convenience and significance, they said.
Security Council, Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon yesterday expressed a fundamental objection to Japan's bid. While acknowledging the need for reform in the global body to expand the council's permanent membership, The Korea Herald reports the nation’s top diplomat stressed that any country seeking permanent membership on the highest U.N. body should have full support from its regional neighbors.
Security Council, Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon yesterday expressed a fundamental objection to Japan's bid.
Worldwide survey shows people have favorable opinion about Americans but antipathy toward Bush.
Presidential candidates of the main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) Sunday urged President Roh Moo-hyun to maintain neutrality in the presidential election and threatened to take legal action for the alleged violation of election laws.
The reaction came after President Roh berated two leading GNP contenders _ former Seoul Mayor Lee Myung-bak and former GNP Chairperson Park Geun-hye and discounted their campaign pledges in a forum with his followers Saturday.
The GNP claimed, ``Roh breached the law because his Saturday remarks are designed to make the GNP candidates lose the election.
Roh also intended to influence the campaign race with his negative comments on the GNP contenders, which violates the election laws.’
’ He also rebuked the leading presidential hopefuls of the party.
The president said Korea will have an image problem overseas if the daughter of a dictator _ Park Chung-hee _ were elected as president.
He also said only an insane person could dream of building a great canal which would drain the national budget.
Roh also attacked former Gyeonggi Governor Sohn Hak-gyu, asking how he could be categorized as a candidate for the pro-government camp.
Adding the categorization is an insult to the incumbent Administration.”
Democratic challenger John Kerry mixed the political and the spiritual on Sunday by accusing President Bush of trying to scare America and offering voters a glimpse into his own faith.
The Massachusetts senator, a Roman Catholic who for months was reluctant to discuss his religion on the campaign trail, expounded on the ideology, values and convictions he said he would bring to the White House if he won the Nov.
Powell said that U.S. would not negotiate with North Korea.
Delegates to the Pakistan-Afghanistan Peace Jirga will mainly discuss security, terrorism, and ways to stop the infiltration of Taliban militants from tribal areas in Pakistan into Afghanistan and vice versa.
The hostage issue will also be on the agenda.˝
˝Taliban militants said Wednesday that they will not follow any order to release their 21 Korean hostages given by a tribal council meeting, dubbed “jirga,” slated for Aug.
The meeting is a decision-making procedure among tribal elders.
The Taliban spokesman Qari Yousaf Ahmadi said in an interview with The Korea Times that even if the meeting orders the release of the hostages, this would not affect any Taliban decision concerning them.
”The jirga meeting has nothing to do with us,” Ahmadi said.
”We condemn that and their demand will not affect our decision,” he added.
The meeting had appeared to offer hope to the hostages as negotiations have made little progress since their capture on July 19.
Delegates to the Pakistan-Afghanistan Peace Jirga will mainly discuss security, terrorism, and ways to stop the infiltration of Taliban militants from tribal areas in Pakistan into Afghanistan and vice versa.
The hostage issue will also be on the agenda.˝
Democrat John Kerry said Monday he's never seen the United States such a target of world animosity as he makes a winding pilgrimage to the Democratic National Convention.
On the opening day of the convention that will make him the party's presidential nominee, Kerry underscored its theme that America can be both stronger at home and respected abroad.
He criticized President Bush as having an almost exclusively military response to Sept.
Bob Graham of Florida, appearing with Kerry at a town-hall meeting, said Americans can expect more antagonism from foreigners if Bush is re-elected.
Kerry said the United States should be reaching out to moderate Muslim leaders, asking them to help isolate radical Islamic extremists. Democrat John Kerry said Monday he's never seen the United States such a target of world animosity as he makes a winding pilgrimage to the Democratic National Convention.
Credit-card spending tumbles 40% in first half.
13 U.S.military bases will come into the hands of Korea.
Michael Moore's controversial documentary ""Fahrenheit 9/11"" will remain R-rated.
The filmmaker has lost his appeal to the Motion Picture Association of America to downgrade the rating to PG-13.
The MPAA initially issued the R rating which restricts people under 17 from seeing the film without a parent or a guardian.
But Moore wanted the less restricted PG-13 rating so that teenagers could see the film.
Tom Ortenberg, the president of ""Fahrenheit 9/11's"" distributor Lions Gate Films, says the film is ""perfectly appropriate for 15 and 16-year-olds who are going to be asked to fight in this war, or the next war, to see what war is really like.
The filmmaker has lost his appeal to the Motion Picture Association of America to downgrade the rating to PG-13.
Twelve female inmates were sexually assaulted by a correctional officer, according to an inspection team of the Ministry of Justice.
Justice Minister Chun Jung-bae Thursday apologized to the public for recent sexual harassment cases at a prison here.
Chun also announced preventive measures.
The apology came after an incident where a 35-year-old woman inmate, identified as Kim, attempted to commit suicide after allegedly being sexually harassed by an officer at the Seoul Detention Center last month.
It was also discovered that the 57-year-old officer, identified by the surname Lee, sexually harassed 11 other women from last July until January.
Twelve female inmates were sexually assaulted by a correctional officer, according to an inspection team of the Ministry of Justice.
Chun also announced preventive measures.
The government has unveiled a tax code revision that is aimed at equalizing tax rates between salaried employees and business owners, encouraging women to have more babies and giving modest support to economic expansion.
The bill is to be sent to the National Assembly next month.
The Finance Ministry unveiled its plans yesterday.
President Lee Myung-bak is expected to promise a full opening of the domestic beef market to the United States in exchange for U.S. authorization of South Koreans to tour the United States under the Visa Waiver Program (VWP).
In a keynote speech at the Korea Society´s annual dinner in Manhattan, Tuesday, Lee hinted at the possibility that the two leaders will reach a ``deal,´´ which would be acceptable to citizens of both countries.
Lee cited the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement (FTA) and the VWP as two powerful means to reinforce the nations´ bilateral alliance.
``If the memorandum of understanding (MOU) on the U.S. visa waiver program for Koreans is signed on the occasion of my visit, exchanges in the human resources field will take place´´ he said.
Lee also said the two countries should push for the ratification of the FTA as early as possible.
``If the memorandum of understanding (MOU) on the U.S. visa waiver program for Koreans is signed on the occasion of my visit, exchanges in the human resources field will take place´´ he said.
In 2005 they asked more for development programs than emergency.
The agency says in the past, it has not been easy to provide food to North Koreans because of shortages of funds.
˝The World Food Program is feeding two-million people in North Korea following last week´s floods.
Spokesperson Christiane Berthiaume says her agency has been in North Korea for some time now.
In 1995 North Korea asked help to the UN on an emergency basis.
In 2005 they asked more for development programs than emergency.
The agency says in the past, it has not been easy to provide food to North Koreans because of shortages of funds.
The Korea Times reports South Korean diplomats are attaching no great significance to a senior Washington official’s remark that the United States would consider ``all the tools available’’ to frustrate North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.
The Korea Times reports South Korean diplomats are attaching no great significance to a senior Washington official’s remark that the United States would consider ``all the tools available’’ to frustrate North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.
A senior Foreign Affairs-Trade Ministry official said there is ``no news in the U.S. sticking to the `all-options-on-the-table’ truism,’’ which has long been the approach of the U.S. administration led by George W. Bush.
Justice Minister Kim said he's opposed to abolishing the National Security Law.
Federal investigators are studying a Continental Jet to find out why it left the Denver runway, landing in a ravine and bursting into flames.
Thirty-eight people were hurt Saturday night.
Today's plan is to examine the wreckage, measure skid marks, and conduct the first interviews with the pilots.
So where did the first half of the $700 billion bailout money go?
After all, it is your money as a taxpayer.
Shh… the AP has learned it's a secret.
None of the banks provided specific answers.
The nation's largest bank said they can't track how they're spending the money or refuse to discuss it altogether.
Lawmakers say they want to tighten restrictions on the other half of the money before it's handed out.”
The AP's Bryant Thomas in Washington.
The Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at President George W. Bush remains in a Baghdad jail while his brother alleges torture.
The brother also says the reporter wrote a letter of apology under duress and would do it again.
After all, it is your money as a taxpayer.
How much is being held in savings and what's the plan for the rest?
President Roh Moo-hyun will have summit talks with Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev Monday to discuss issues of mutual interest, including ways of promoting cooperation in energy and natural resources.
The Korea Times reports the two heads of state are set to sign a pact for the strengthening of bilateral exchanges in the sectors of aerospace and information and telecommunications, according to Chong Wa Dae officials accompanying Roh on his state visit to the central Asian nation.
Roh arrived t here Sunday with his wife Kwon Yang-suk on the first leg of his official trip to Kazakhstan and Russia.
Rhetoric at campaigns.
South Korea and the United States reached a final consensus in more than half of the 19 negotiation sectors during the eighth round of free trade agreement (FTA) talks in Seoul, which ended on Monday.
Among the wrapped-up sectors are services, technical barriers to trade (TBT), electronic commerce, competition, procurement, customs clearance and transparency, according to the Korea Times.
Chief U.S. negotiator Lee Wendy Cutler also said the two countries reached (or almost reached) an agreement in more than 10 sectors.
Saying that the almost wrapped-up sectors include trade remedies, she hinted that the U.S. would give low-level benefits in its application of anti-dumping measures against Korean exporters without amending its laws.
South Korea and the United States reached a final consensus in more than half of the 19 negotiation sectors during the eighth round of free trade agreement (FTA) talks in Seoul, which ended on Monday.
Among the wrapped-up sectors are services, technical barriers to trade (TBT), electronic commerce, competition, procurement, customs clearance and transparency, according to the Korea Times.
Former counterterrorism expert Richard Clarke told CNN's ""Late Edition"" George W. Bush has critically mismanaged the War on Terror.
He adds 90 percent of the population in Islamic countries now hates the United States for its invasion of Iraq, a country which
Clarke says- posed no threat. However, he refused to put all the blame on the Bush administration.
He said the problems with the war on terror stem back to the Reagan White House, which he accused of failing to retaliate for the deaths of hundreds of Marines in Beirut.
Drew Peterson is due in court this afternoon.
The former Illinois police sergeant was picked up at a traffic stop in the death of his third wife.
She was found drowned in an empty bathtub in 2004.
Peterson is also suspected in the 2007 disappearance of wife No.
So how will he plead?
“ Not guilty to all charges, obviously.”
That was Peterson's attorney Joel Brodsky on the CBS Early Show.
He calls this a weak, circumstantial case:
“ We still believe that there is, or never has been, a homicide - that Kathy's death was accidental.”
The man accused of stalking and killing a Connecticut college student is set to make his first court appearance shortly.
Police arrested Steven Morgan outside a convenience store 10 miles away from the site of Wednesday's shooting at Wesleyan University.
New unemployment numbers are increasing expectations that an economic recovery could kick in before the end of the year.
Employers slowed the pace of layoffs, cutting 539,000 jobs last month;
that's the fewest in 6 months.
Earlier this week, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke indicated he didn't think the unemployment rate would hit 10%.
These latest numbers indicate that may be a close call.
So how will he plead?
“ Not guilty to all charges, obviously.”
The man accused of stalking and killing a Connecticut college student is set to make his first court appearance shortly.
These latest numbers indicate that may be a close call.
South Korea was holding US$138 billion worth of U.S. securities as of the end of June last year, ranking it 18th among foreign countries, the latest data released by the US Treasury said.
The preliminary report, dated Friday, showed South Korea held $5 billion in equities, $118 billion in long-term debt, and $15 billion in short-term debt.
Of the long-term debt, $13 billion was in asset-backed securities.
A previous tally, taken at the end of June 2006, said Korea had a total of $124 billion in American securities, consisting of $1.3 billion in equities, $110 billion in long-term debt, and $12.6 billion in short-term debt.
The two main US Democratic presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, are preparing to face each other in a live televised debate.
It will be their final encounter before next week´s crucial primaries in Ohio and Texas.
Obama is regarded as the front-runner, after winning the previous 11 primaries and caucuses.
Ahead of the debate he won endorsement from a former rival for the Democratic nomination, Senator Christopher Dodd.
Dodd, who abandoned his bid last month, is the first Democratic campaign drop-out to endorse another candidate.
On Tuesday he and Obama appeared at a joint news conference in Cleveland, Ohio, where the debate will be held.
Dodd said Obama had ""been poked and prodded, analysed and criticised, called too green, too trusting and for all of that has already won"" more than half the states and millions of votes.
It will be their final encounter before next week´s crucial primaries in Ohio and Texas.
The People’s Daily - the Chinese Communist Party’s newspaper - said the document was misleading, one-sided and could harm bilateral ties.
The Pentagon’s report, issued on Friday, expressed concern over China’s growing military might and called for greater transparency over its spending.
””This report continues to make outrageous comments about China’s security and military strategy and its military capabilities, and attacks China’s defense and military modernization.”
” The Pentagon report said that China was spending far more on its military than it had admitted.
China’s state media have hit out at a report by the US Department of Defense on Beijing’s military build-up.
orth Korea is demanding up to 500,000 tons of heavy fuel oil a year in exchange for freezing activity at its main nuclear facility in Yongbyon, Japan's Asahi Shimbun reported.
The newspaper reported that North Korea is also likely to repeat demands for a lifting of U.S. financial sanctions and to be taken off the list of terrorist sponsor countries when the six-party talks reconvene.
But a high-rank South Korean official downplayed the report, saying that he has not “heard such (N.K.) demands from officials of the United States or Japan.
The newspaper cited Joel Wit, a former U.S. State Department official who coordinated the Agreed Framework in 1994, and David Albright, president and founder of the Institute for Science and International Security.
The two had visited North Korea and met North Korea's chief nuclear negotiator Kim Kye-gwan.
The newspaper reported that North Korea is also likely to repeat demands for a lifting of U.S. financial sanctions and to be taken off the list of terrorist sponsor countries when the six-party talks reconvene.
The new government plans to spend approximately 4 trillion won or -about $4.2 billion- over the next five years, with the objective of making Korea the best English-speaking country in Asia within a decade, presidential transition team Chairwoman Lee Kyung-sook said Wednesday.
Lee made the remarks at a public hearing on the proposed English education reform plan at the office of the transition team in Seoul Wednesday.
The hearing drew jeers for not inviting experts providing alternative plans to the proposal.
The incoming administration hopes the plan will help parents reduce private English tutoring costs for their children, which amounts to 14 trillion won per year.
The Korea Times reports the National Intelligence Service (NIS), the country’s spy agency, is wiretapping more and more fixed-line phones and tracking the e-mail messages of Koreans.
The Ministry of Information and Communication admitted on Tuesday the NIS traced a total of 8,440 phone calls or messages last year, up 4.4 percent from 8,082 in 2005.
This contrasts to law enforcement agencies like prosecutors, police and military agencies, which substantially reduced the interception of telephone conversations.
The prosecution spied on just 43 phones last year from 100 in 2005.
Despite human rights considerations, a bill is currently pending in the National Assembly, which would require the country’s three wireless operators to install systems to enable mobile wiretapping.
There is some good news for citizens, however.
``It is impossible to intercept instant messenger-based messages.
It is a global issue that irritates intelligence agencies of the world,’’ according an NIS official who participated at the press conference held at the head office of the ministry in central Seoul.
The Ministry of Information and Communication admitted on Tuesday the NIS traced a total of 8,440 phone calls or messages last year, up 4.4 percent from 8,082 in 2005.
Two members of The Couch surprised young viewers and a studio audience watching Saturday's MBC music show broadcast by suddenly dropping their trousers and exposing their genitals.
If they are convicted, they could face a maximum jail term of five years. In another draconian move police sought arrest warrants yesterday for two musicians who flashed during a live TV broadcast after the two admitted that they had planned the prank in advance.
Two members of The Couch surprised young viewers and a studio audience watching Saturday's MBC music show broadcast by suddenly dropping their trousers and exposing their genitals.
6-way talks recess for 3 weeks.
An Islamic militant group has denied it beheaded a U.S. marine who has been missing in Iraq. Two Islamist websites yesterday announced that Lebanese-born Corporal Wassef Ali Hassoun had been beheaded.
An Islamic militant group has denied it beheaded a U.S. marine who has been missing in Iraq.
Two Islamist websites yesterday announced that Lebanese-born Corporal Wassef Ali Hassoun had been beheaded.
Hassoun was last seen in a video blindfolded and surrounded by militants, with a sword hovered above his head.
The Bush White House is opposed to reviving the military draft.
We want to go back to our Mark Smith for a moment to hear about the President's surprise visit to the White House Press Room last night:
We will try to, uh, yep, have a relationship that's respectful and where you guys feel like you're actually getting answers.
And when someone asked about exceptions to his new lobbying rules, he promised a news conference soon.
Mark Smith, at the White House.
A Pennsylvania woman accused of trying to sell“ Gothic kittens” on the Internet - kitties with ear, neck and tail piercings - is facing animal cruelty charges.
She tells the Associated Press she doesn't see any difference between piercing a cat and piercing a human. We want to go back to our Mark Smith for a moment to hear about the President's surprise visit to the White House Press Room last night:
I just want to say hello to everybody……
That said, this was just a social visit;
Obama was happy to talk about workouts and how it's too cold for basketball outside.
And when someone asked about exceptions to his new lobbying rules, he promised a news conference soon.
Democrat Barack Obama scored an easy win in Vermont, the first of four states to wrap up its voting on Tuesday in presidential showdowns that could decide the fate of Hillary Clinton´s White House bid.
Reuters reports that the win for Obama, an Illinois senator, gave him 12 straight victories in his hard-fought duel with Clinton to be the Democratic nominee in the November presidential election.
Republican front-runner John McCain also won in Vermont, taking him a step closer to his party´s nomination.
Clinton was under pressure to score wins in the two biggest states, Ohio and Texas, to keep her White House hopes alive and prolong the hotly contested Democratic campaign with Obama.
Army report clears top American officers in Iraq of abusing prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad.
The same report also implicates at least 20 lower ranking intelligence troops in the scandal.
The report recommends disciplinary measures against the soldiers that would range from administrative reduction in rank and loss of pay, to further investigation that could lead to military trials.
Pentagon officials say most of the troops are from the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade that was assigned to the prison when the abuses occurred.
Seven U.S. military police also stand accused of beating, humiliating and photographing detainees at the prison.
Those M.P.s say they were only following orders to soften up"" the prisoners for interrogation.
Bad loan at domestic lender had shrunk in second quarter.
The Korea Herald is reporting the government ordered a ban on the prescription and manufacture of cold medicines containing Phenylpropanolamine yesterday, citing risk of brain stroke, especially among women.
Nearly 170 medicines manufactured or imported by 75 companies are subject to the government interdiction.
PPA is an ingredient that was used in many over-the-counter and prescription cough and cold medications as a decongestant and in weight loss products.
At issue is hemorrhagic stroke, which causes bleeding into the brain or into tissue surrounding the brain.
The alleged relation of PPA and increased risk of hemorrhagic stroke is based on a recent government-commissioned examination of more than 900 local patients suffering from the disease.
Foreign companies accelerates M&A to Korean mobile phone manufactures.
In reaction to such concerns, Roh said at a Chong Wa Dae meeting that the government will continue economic and cultural exchanges with Japan, despite his recent denouncing of the country.
The main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) on Thursday expressed concern over President Roh Moo-hyun's declaration of ``diplomatic war'' on Japan, saying a more ``refined'' approach is required.
Park thinks Japan should be criticized for its ``shameless'' attempts to distort history, but she considers it inappropriate for the President to get embroiled in the diplomatic disputes, a party official told The Korea Times.
``It used to be the GNP had to urge the government to assert more active measures against Japan,'' the official said on condition of anonymity. ``But the ruling Uri Party and the government is now overreacting, forcing us to ask them to calm down.''
In reaction to such concerns, Roh said at a Chong Wa Dae meeting that the government will continue economic and cultural exchanges with Japan, despite his recent denouncing of the country.
There is no deadline for NK’s return to nuclear disarmament talks.
A passenger plane carrying 50 people has crashed shortly after taking off from an airport in Kentucky, killing all but one on board.
The Comair CRJ-100 jet, bound for Atlanta, Georgia, went down in woods about 1.
Investigators said the plane took off from the wrong runway, a short strip not intended for commercial flights. The sole survivor, co-pilot James Polehinke, is in critical condition.
However, investigators are still trying to ascertain whether the plane had been cleared for takeoff on the longer Runway 22.
The plane was carrying 47 passengers and three crew members. Captain Jeffrey Clay and flight attendant Kelly Heyer died in the crash, as did all the passengers.
First officer Polehinke was pulled from the wreckage of the crash by a police officer who was unable to reach any other victims, according to police. A passenger plane carrying 50 people has crashed shortly after taking off from an airport in Kentucky, killing all but one on board.
Investigators said the plane took off from the wrong runway, a short strip not intended for commercial flights.
Flight 5191 took off from a 3,500ft runway instead of the 7,000ft runway which it should have used.
In a gesture to mend ties, Japan is planning to return to Seoul the remains of Koreans who were forced into labor during World War II, the Asahi Shimbun reported yesterday.
According to the daily last months, the Japanese government sent a letter to companies that used an estimated 700,000 Koreans forced to work in Japan, asking them to identify the location of the remains of deceased workers.
President of South Korea and China called on North Korea to return to the six-party talks.
A Terrorist attack in a town near Korean troops' base in Iraq killed at least 60 people.
Burma´s military rulers are no closer to accepting democratic reform, the US envoy to the United Nations has said.
Zalmay Khalilzad was responding to a report from the UN special envoy to Burma, Ibrahim Gambari, who said the generals were making concrete changes.
Burma´s envoy to the UN, Kyaw Tint Swe, said it was “disappointing” that people ”continue to express scepticism”.
The row came before a major gem sale in Rangoon - a key source of revenue for the junta.
Human rights groups have called for a boycott of the two-week sale.
Gambari had told the Security Council there had been ”positive outcomes” from his latest trip to Burma - his second since troops violently suppressed anti-government protests in September.
After his visit, detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi was allowed to issue a statement for the first time in over four years and to meet members of her party.
But Ms Suu Kyi remains under house arrest and Western diplomats, including Khalilzad, have voiced scepticism over the commitment of Burma´s leaders to a genuine process of dialogue.
After his visit, detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi was allowed to issue a statement for the first time in over four years and to meet members of her party.
South Korea´s central bank on Friday kept its key interest rate for December unchanged for the fourth straight month amid financial turmoil and record-setting oil prices as well as growing inflationary pressures.
Lee Seong-tae and his six fellow policymakers held the December target for the call rate, the interest charged on overnight inter-bank loans, steady at a six-year high of 5 percent.
The central bank has retained the key rate amid worldwide financial turbulence triggered by U.S. subprime mortgage defaults after raising it by a quarter point in July and August to prevent rising liquidity from triggering inflation and an asset bubble.
he Bank of Korea may invest a portion of its foreign currency reserve in blue chip shares in overseas stock markets to increase returns, the Bank of Korea Governor Lee Seong-tae said.
The Korean central bank is “definitely considering” the move to invest its reserve in overseas stock markets, Lee told reporters.
Lee said the bank has not yet decided how much of its $239.7-billion reserve will be allocated for the investment.
Gearing away from its original investigation focus, a desperate prosecution yesterday said it will now focus on gathering evidence to prove that Shin Jeong-ah, the disgraced former curator and professor, is guilty of embezzlement and attempting to flee the country.
Prosecutors reached this decision after the Seoul Central District Court rejected an arrest warrant the prosecution sought for Shin on four criminal charges that include forging private documents and obstruction of justice.
The court cited insufficient evidence, not to mention that it was undecided over whether Shin´s actions are actually punishable by law.
The court also said Shin appears to have no intention to flee or to destroy evidence.
Shortly after she was summoned, Shin abandoned her right to appeal for a deliberation on the charges against her.
After completing 34 years of military service, General Cha, who is 57, retired Saturday.
South Korea's former top negotiator for defense policy talks with the United States said yesterday the U.S. efforts to fight terrorism have significantly altered the nature of the two countries' alliance.
-South Korea relations is a serious problem,"" Lieutenant General Cha Young-koo told the JoongAng Ilbo.
After completing 34 years of military service, General Cha, who is 57, retired Saturday.
For more than two decades, about 10 petrochemical companies have colluded to rig prices and turn profits unfairly, a top-ranking official at Korea's antitrust watchdog said yesterday.
The companies are expected to pay 200 billion won or about $213 million in fines.
The Fair Trade Commission official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said, “a probe of petrochemical companies has confirmed that they have rigged prices . . . of synthetic resin products, including polyethylene, since the late 1970s.”
Synthetic resins refer to materials used to make vinyl and various kitchen containers.
of synthetic resin products, including polyethylene, since the late 1970s.”
The BBC reports the secretary general of Burma´s largest rebel group, the Karen National Union, has been killed.
Pado Mahn Shar, who was in his sixties, was shot at his home in the Thai border town of Mae Sot, his family said.
He was targeted by two men in a pick-up truck, while sitting on the veranda of his home.
The KNU and its military wing, the Karen National Liberation Army, have spent nearly 60 years fighting the Burmese government.
They want to establish an autonomous Karen state in the east of Burma, and to protect the Karen people from what they say are abuses by the government.
The BBC reports the secretary general of Burma´s largest rebel group, the Karen National Union, has been killed.
President Roh Moo-hyun is going to meet Bae Hyeong-jin, who is 22, and the inspiration for the movie ""Running Boy.
"" ""Running Boy"" is a Korean film about the trials and triumphs of an autistic athlete training to compete in a marathon.
It has revived interest in problems of the disabled.
The Blue House said yesterday, ""(His mother) sent an e-mail saying she wanted to set up a meeting between her son and President Roh to the home page of the Blue House. President Roh said he will meet with Mr.
Prime Minister Lee said “The Japanese don't reflect on any wrong doings.”
The government's planned overhaul of the property tax scheme threatens to aggravate an already troubled real estate market and the reeling construction industry, analysts said.
""Things will get worse in the first half of next year,"" said Kwon Hyuk-boo who has been closely watching the government's property policies and its impact on the overall economy at Daishin Economic Research Institute.
Rising household debt and a possible double dip in private spending would hurt property market sentiment in the coming months, he added.
On Monday, policymakers and the ruling Uri party agreed to revamp the property tax scheme, which would go into effect in July next year, if the National Assembly approves the measure.
˝The nation´s spy chief said Thursday that it is legally groundless for the government to make the Korean hostages held by Taliban militants in Afghanistan bear the costs incurred in securing their release.
Kim Man-bok, director of the National Intelligence Service (NIS), said that it is hard to exert the right of indemnity because the hostages didn´t do anything illegal, lawmakers who belong to the National Assembly´s Intelligence Committee said, following a closed-door session with Kim.
Kim´s remarks in a sense run counter to President Roh Moo-hyun´s instruction Monday that the government should ensure the hostages bear legal responsibility for the costs of their release and repatriation.
Meanwhile, Kim said he could not clarify whether a ransom was paid to the Taliban for the release of the hostages.
Kim said he couldn´t reveal anything about the issue because of promises made to the militants.
The spy chief led negotiations with the Taliban who kidnapped 23 Koreans on July 19 and freed the last hostage on Aug.
Meanwhile, Pastor Bae Hyung-kyu was finally laid to rest in services yesterday at Saemmul Church in Bundang, the church where he began the journey that led him to Afghanistan and death at the hands of barbaricTaliban militants.
Bae, the leader of the group of church volunteers taken hostage in Afghanistan by the Taliban, was killed on July 25 and his body was found a short time later dumped on a road.
His family postponed the funeral until after the hostage crisis was resolved.
At the church’s mourning altar, Bae’s family first broke into tears, but soon regained composure.
Throughout the day, they calmly greeted mourners.
Some of the articles left behind by Bae, such as a Bible, were displayed at the altar along with a photo of the other victim killed by the kidnappers, Shim Sung-min, who was shot on July 31.˝
Bae, the leader of the group of church volunteers taken hostage in Afghanistan by the Taliban, was killed on July 25 and his body was found a short time later dumped on a road.
's initiative toward satellite-based mobile broadcasting has suffered another setback, with the country's broadcast regulator blocking the airing of terrestrial televised content on wireless receivers.
The Korea Herald reports SK Telecom Co.
's initiative toward satellite-based mobile broadcasting has suffered another setback, with the country's broadcast regulator blocking the airing of terrestrial televised content on wireless receivers.
The Korean Broadcasting Commission announced Wednesday that it would not allow the retransmission of terrestrial broadcasts on satellite-based mobile television, keeping mobile-phone operators from accessing programs from the country's main television stations KBS, MBC and SBS.
There will be no crisis on the peninsula on October.
n an action hard to fathom in developed societies, thousands of doctors from Seoul and Incheon closed their clinics and took to the streets to protest the government-led revision of an old medical law.
They warned the action could spread across the nation despite concerns about the danger, inconvenience and distress it would cause patients.
The Korea Medical Association said about 5,000 members in the two cities participated in the three-hour rally outside the Government Complex in Gwacheon demanding the government scrap the revision.
Incredibly, Jwa Hoon-jung, a KMA official, slashed his abdomen with a knife and wrote words of protest in blood.
He was sent to a nearby hospital and is recovering, police said.
A man who died last week in the south Chinese province of Guangdong has been confirmed by the health ministry as the country's ninth victim of bird flu.
The 32-year-old fell ill after frequenting a market in the main city, Guangzhou, and he was diagnosed as having the H5N1 strain of the virus.
The victim had also spent time near a site where poultry was slaughtered in Hong kong.
Hong Kong, which neighbors the province, has warned that the risk of a human case there has increased.
The head of the Episcopal Church in the U.S. says she's open to the possibility of being wrong about the morality of homosexuality, but she also says some conservatives who've left the church over the issue, have made an idol out of sexual orientation.
Here's AP religion editor Steve Coleman.
“Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori told the National Press Club that some have overreacted toward churches' consecration of a gay bishop.”
“Dealing with the issues of sexuality is a part of our mission.
It's not the whole of it.”
“To Christians who claim to support Biblical marriage, she asks…”
Solomon's many, many, many wives?
Um, the concubines, the slaves who bore children for their male masters?
There are some very odd images of family life in the Bible.”
Bethlehem is all decorated, ready for its close-up, Christmas Eve a week from today.
Grand National Party (GNP) leaders Sunday dismissed the rumor that Kim Kyung-joon has a written contract purporting to show that its presidential nominee Lee Myung-bak is a legitimate owner of the scandal-ridden BBK and LKe Bank.
The contract is also supposed to show that Lee is a legitimate owner of the DAS fund.
GNP leaders´ reaction came as the prosecution widened its investigation on the role GNP nominee Lee allegedly played in the stock price manipulation by the 41-year-old Kim.
The largest United New Democratic Party (UNDP) and minor parties have used the case to step up their attack on the frontrunner in the presidential race. GNP nominee Lee has denied the allegations.
Grand National Party (GNP) leaders Sunday dismissed the rumor that Kim Kyung-joon has a written contract purporting to show that its presidential nominee Lee Myung-bak is a legitimate owner of the scandal-ridden BBK and LKe Bank.
The contract is also supposed to show that Lee is a legitimate owner of the DAS fund.
He added he does not resent either the Korean or the U.S. government.
In September 1996, the U.S.
Robert Kim, a Korean-American who spent nine years in a U.S. prison for spying for South Korea, arrived in his motherland Sunday for the first time in 10 years. The 64-year-old Kim, a former U.S.
Navy computer specialist, was put behind bars from 1997 until July last year for passing classified documents of the navy to Baek Dong-il, then military attache at the South Korean Embassy in Washington.
The visit was made after a U.S. court terminated his probation status last month.
Kim told reporters at a press conference at Incheon International Airport that he was not a spy. He also said he did not intend to damage U.S. security and the information was not about the nation’s security or defense.
He added he does not resent either the Korean or the U.S. government.
In September 1996, the U.S.
Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested Kim on charges of espionage.
With one day before the legislative elections, the governing conservative Grand National Party (GNP) claimed Monday that it was heading toward victory.
Meanwhile, the main opposition United Democratic Party (UDP) said it could get 70 plus seats in the elections to be held Wednesday.
GNP leaders said in an interview that the party would certainly secure more than 150 seats in the elections.
They added that it could garner up to 170 parliamentary seats if their candidates in too-close-to-call districts do well.
President Lee Myung-bak needs more than half of the National Assembly seats to successfully pursue his strenuous reform drive.
As the President seeks tax cuts and a contentious cross-country canal project, his party claims that he needs to get solid support from the legislative body.
However, the liberal UDP has appealed to voters to give more support to its candidates so that the party can effectively check the government and its party.
With one day before the legislative elections, the governing conservative Grand National Party (GNP) claimed Monday that it was heading toward victory.
2 credit card company, is facing bankruptcy as LG Electronics and LG Chemical on Wednesday rejected a demand from creditor banks to rescue the debt-strapped card issuer. Amid growing speculation that other LG affiliates, such as LG Engineering & Construction and LG Petrochemical, will also refuse to accept the proposal, market observers say the creditors are not likely to take lenient steps to save the troubled card firm.
2 credit card company, is facing bankruptcy as LG Electronics and LG Chemical on Wednesday rejected a demand from creditor banks to rescue the debt-strapped card issuer.
Amid growing speculation that other LG affiliates, such as LG Engineering & Construction and LG Petrochemical, will also refuse to accept the proposal, market observers say the creditors are not likely to take lenient steps to save the troubled card firm.
A bomb near a Shi’ite shrine killed eight people.
There are now nearly 200 confirmed cases of swine flu in 28 US states. The CDC's Acting Director, Dr.
Richard Besser, tells Fox News Sunday even though 19 people have been killed by the virus in Mexico, the intensity of the disease may be the same:
“ As we learn more about how widespread this is, it may be that the rates of severe disease in Mexico will end up being not different than what we've seen here.”
the World Health Organization says there are close to 800 such cases around the globe, and 5 more countries report their first cases including Colombia, the first South American nation to report a swine flu case.
Two children are among the 4 people killed by a bicycle bomb in a crowded market in Afghanistan.
The AP's Jason Straziuso reports that a clash with militants in eastern Afghanistan has left 19 militants dead, along with a number of coalition forces:
“ A rolling two-day battle began with a militant attack on Afghan outposts.
That attack killed 3 American soldiers, 2 from Latvia, and 4 Afghan troops.”
Deputies are searching along the South Santee River near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina for a missing 17-year-old New York girl.
Dawn Drexel tells WMBF-TV it's hard not knowing what has happened to her daughter Brittanee:
Police say the area they're searching is the last place her cell phone gave off a signal.
The CDC's Acting Director, Dr.
The AP's Jason Straziuso reports that a clash with militants in eastern Afghanistan has left 19 militants dead, along with a number of coalition forces:
According to the poll of 800 Koreans done last week by Research and Research, a survey company, 37.1 percent of respondents said they feel Japan is the greatest threat to Korea.
In a national survey examining which country Koreans feel most threatened by, Japan jumped to the top spot over the United States and North Korea.
According to the poll of 800 Koreans done last week by Research and Research, a survey company, 37.1 percent of respondents said they feel Japan is the greatest threat to Korea.
North Korea was the second most threatening country at 28.6 percent, followed by the United States at 18.5 percent and China at 11.9 percent.
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is the next Pope of Roman Catholics.
Will Miss California Keep Her Crown?
Well, we should find out shortly whether Miss California USA will keep her crown:
Donald Trump is holding a news conference to announce a decision on Carrie Prejean's future as the title-holder.
The woman who was runner-up in the Miss California USA Pageant told the CBS Early Show she questions whether Prejean could have handled things better:
“ She has denied these photos, and they have continued to surface, and then she's going on and campaigning for these different organizations that aren't affiliated with the Miss California organization, so there's just so many different things going on.”
Photos of Prejean dressed only in underwear surfaced after she had answered questions about same-sex marriage during the pageant.
Well, getting bang for your buck while selling a home is getting a little bit harder.
A real estate group says home prices fell in nearly 9 out of every 10 US cities in the first 3 months of the year, as first-time home buyers dominated the market.
Home sales fell in all but 6 states where buyers have been able to snap up foreclosures at a neat discount.
On Wall Street, everything is just about even.
“ She has denied these photos, and they have continued to surface, and then she's going on and campaigning for these different organizations that aren't affiliated with the Miss California organization, so there's just so many different things going on.”
A real estate group says home prices fell in nearly 9 out of every 10 US cities in the first 3 months of the year, as first-time home buyers dominated the market.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has called on both Chinese forces and demonstrators in Tibet to show restraint after days of rioting.
Ban urged ""a peaceful resolution"", but made it clear there were no plans for UN intervention.
The BBC reports up to 80 protesters are reported to have died in the Chinese crackdown.
A Chinese deadline for protesters to surrender has passed, but large numbers of police are patrolling the streets of the regional capital, Lhasa.
Pro-Tibet activists have been demonstrating outside Chinese embassies around the world.
Ban urged ""a peaceful resolution"", but made it clear there were no plans for UN intervention.
The BBC reports up to 80 protesters are reported to have died in the Chinese crackdown.
A Chinese deadline for protesters to surrender has passed, but large numbers of police are patrolling the streets of the regional capital, Lhasa.
The National Tax Service says it is carrying out tax audits of six foreign funds, including the Carlyle Group and Lone Star Funds, to check for possible tax evasion.
In the National Assembly’s audit of the tax authority, NTS Commissioner Lee Ju-sung said that the tax agency will ``wrap up its investigations by the end of the year.’
’ Lee said two large and four small and mid-sized foreign funds are being investigated by the tax authority for the past few months.
It is the first time that the NTS has disclosed that it is also auditing four smaller foreign funds in addition to Carlyle and Lone Star.
The National Tax Service says it is carrying out tax audits of six foreign funds, including the Carlyle Group and Lone Star Funds, to check for possible tax evasion.
Bae Hyung-kyu, was killed on his birthday on July 25 in Afghanistan, adding sorrow to family members.
Bae´s remains were to be donated to a hospital in Anyang, Gyeonggi Province, for medical study in accordance with his will, his brother said.
``We asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade to preserve the body well and carry it home for donation.
He used to say that he wants to be a help not only during his lifetime but also after his death.
He registered himself with an organ donation agency a few years ago with family´s consent,´´ the brother said.
He was afraid donating organs may be impossible as media reports said he had bullet holes in his body.
AP quoted an Afghan police official as saying that the hostage was sick and couldn´t walk and was therefore shot.
The Taliban confirmed the killing of a sick male hostage.
But Saemmul Community Church, where Bae and other hostages are members, said Bae´s health condition has been good.
Some presume the kidnappers, strict Muslims, might have expressed hostility toward Bae, a Christian minister.
Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, purported spokesman of the Taliban, told New York Times Saturday, ``We know that these people have come here to convert our good Muslims away from Islam.
If they were not women, we would have killed them on the spot.´´˝
500 tons of diesel oil;
1,500 sets of school desks and chairs;
As the campaign for international aid gained speed, South Korea on Thursday accepted the North's requests for 50,000 tons of cement;
Most of the aid will go through China's Dandong port on the North Korean border before May 15, as requested by Pyongyang, Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun said Thursday.
Exports in April surged to record $21.7 billion.
˝Taliban militants in Afghanistan have delivered a revised list of their comrades to be freed from prisons to the Afghan government for a possible hostage-for-prisoner swap deal to end the prolonged ordeal of the 22 South Korean hostages, an Afghan source said Sunday.
At the same time, the militant group has set a fresh deadline, the seventh of its kind since its kidnapping of Koreans on July 19, on the lives of the abductees believed to be held in small groups in different locations.
Yousuf Ahmadi, who claims to be a Taliban spokesman, told the AFP news agency that they will kill some of the hostages unless the Afghan government releases eight prisoners by 5:30 p.m.
The Taliban have already killed the leader of the Christian group last week in an apparent demonstration of their hard-line position on the issue.
The new list excluded prisoners in the custody of the U.S. military in the Central Asian country as demanded by the Kabul government, the source told The Korea Times on condition of anonymity.
But Afghan officials declined to confirm if they have received an amended list from the Taliban, he said.
The U.S.-backed Kabul administration had rejected an initial list of eight prisoners including high-profile Taliban commanders late last week because some members on the list are in the custody of the U.S. military waging war against the Islamic fundamentalists with other Western countries.˝
At the same time, the militant group has set a fresh deadline, the seventh of its kind since its kidnapping of Koreans on July 19, on the lives of the abductees believed to be held in small groups in different locations.
The new list excluded prisoners in the custody of the U.S. military in the Central Asian country as demanded by the Kabul government, the source told The Korea Times on condition of anonymity.
An embattled former bank executive committed suicide by crashing his van after killing his wife, failing to asphyxiate their four children in a garage then slaying them individually, authorities in Iowa said.
Steven Sueppel, who had been charged with embezzlement, was missing after his family´s bodies were discovered Monday morning.
His van was found wrecked and ablaze on an interstate about nine miles (14 kilometers) away, and police said they used dental records to identify the body inside as Sueppel´s.
All of the four children were adopted from South Korea with the names of Ethan, Seth, Mira and Eleanor.
In a news conference Tuesday, investigators said they believe he killed his wife, then tried to kill himself and his children by asphyxiating them with carbon monoxide in the garage.
When that failed, he killed the children one by one in the house, AP said.
Investigators think the children died by ``blunt force trauma,´´ though autopsies are not complete.
Two baseball bats might have been used and were being examined, police said.
Two leading candidates of the main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) have become the target of scrutiny both inside and outside the party.
The pro-government Uri Party called for naming an independent counsel to investigate the allegations that the former Seoul mayor engaged in stock manipulation.
It also demanded a National Assembly inspection of the suspicion.
The Uri Party also stepped up its offensive on the alleged wrongdoings of former GNP Chairwoman Park Geun-hye over a controversial scholarship foundation that she heads.
Some Uri lawmakers, including Song Young-gil, criticized the Financial Supervisory Service and the prosecution for taking a lukewarm attitude toward Lee’s alleged stock fraud in late 2001.The party alleged that Lee was involved in manipulating the stock price of Optional Ventures by using company bank accounts of BBK and LK e-bank, which Lee established in February 2000 along with Kim Kyung-joon.
Kim is jailed in the U.S. on embezzlement charges.
It also demanded a National Assembly inspection of the suspicion.
Defense Minister Yoon Kwang-ung said Thursday that the reduction of South Korean troops in Iraq will start in May next year, and proceed on a gradual basis based on political and security conditions there.
Speaking at a meeting of ruling Uri Party lawmakers at the National Assembly, Yoon said his ministry plans to pull out one Army brigade in charge of civil affairs and a few supporting units under a plan to cut 1,000 troops from the Zaytun Unit.
The World Peace Forum announced this year’s world peace index.
President Barack Obama tells C-SPAN the Supreme Court justice he will appoint will not only know the law, but how it works:
“ What I want is not just ivory tower learning.
I want somebody who has the intellectual firepower, but also a little bit of a common touch, and has a practical sense of how the world works.”
Obama adds he does not feel weighed down by having to choose a justice based on what he calls demographics.
The Court now has only one female justice, and it has never had a Hispanic judge.
In his weekly radio and online speech, the President calls on the American people to pay tribute to veterans on Memorial Day:
“ It's about doing all we can to repay the debt we owe to those men and women who have answered our nation's call by fighting under its flag.
” In the Republican address, Wyoming Senator John Barrasso says the White House is ignoring an energy supply that could be used alongside wind and solar power:
“ There are billions of barrels of oil in the outer continental shelf. There's even more in Alaska.
There's enough oil shale in the Rocky Mountain West, alone, to power America for the next hundred years.”
Barrasso says the green push will be costly to the American people, and leave the country more dependent on foreign oil.
Pakistan's army says its troops are involved in street fighting against militants in the main town of the Swat Valley.
That city is considered critical in the offensive to wrest control of the valley from the Taliban.
I want somebody who has the intellectual firepower, but also a little bit of a common touch, and has a practical sense of how the world works.”
The Court now has only one female justice, and it has never had a Hispanic judge.
In his weekly radio and online speech, the President calls on the American people to pay tribute to veterans on Memorial Day:
” In the Republican address, Wyoming Senator John Barrasso says the White House is ignoring an energy supply that could be used alongside wind and solar power:
With the inauguration of a conservative South Korean president just over a month away, North Korea has suspended inter-Korean talks scheduled for today and tomorrow, the Unification Ministry said yesterday.
North Korea said it needed more time to prepare for the talks about reconnecting and repairing railway routes between Kaesong and Shinuiju.
However, the meetings were not rescheduled.
The real reason may be uneasiness about a new president who has vowed to take a harder line against the communist nation, experts said.
“North Korea may want to avoid all talks and contact with South Korea until the inauguration of the new president,” said a Unification Ministry official who declined to be named.
In a press release, the ministry said, “North Korea notified us that it would delay the talks, saying it is the beginning of the year and they have some more things they need to prepare.”
“North Korea may want to avoid all talks and contact with South Korea until the inauguration of the new president,” said a Unification Ministry official who declined to be named.
The American auto industry will never be the same:
Not for the 21,000 additional General Motors workers who learned this morning they'll lose their factory jobs by next year, and not for car enthusiasts, who love the Pontiac brand, which is going away.
Of course, the original GTO died back in 1974.
Glenn Camber of Virginia owned 2 of them, including a 1969 convertible, which still haunts his memory:
“ I drove it around the dealer's block, and around the corner with my two very young kids;
my son was at the time, I think 6, my daughter was 3, and I decided immediately that this was the car I had to have.”
He says this is a sad day for Pontiac fans.
The first same-sex marriages are expected within hours in Iowa, where a State Supreme Court ruling legalizing the unions took effect this morning.
South Korea urged Japan to “face up to history” and expressed official regret on Saturday, a day after Tokyo insisted there was no evidence its military or government forced women to work in World War II military brothels.
Japan's Cabinet said in a formal statement that it could not find any proof that the military or government agencies coerced so-called ”comfort women” into sexual slavery during the war, repeating a similar claim by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
The formal declaration was seen as a slap in the face of Asian nations already outraged over Abe's remarks.
South Korea denounced Japan's declaration as ”an attempt to downplay its past wrongdoing and gloss over historical truth.”
North Korea will take part in an international conference on Asian women forced into sexual slavery during World War II, organizers said yesterday.
The conference on the so-called ”comfort women” will take place in Seoul on May 19-21 . North Korea has sent a letter saying it would send five delegates to the meeting which also involves Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia, East Timor, Australia and the United States.
It was not known whether the North Korean delegation would include comfort women.
The formal declaration was seen as a slap in the face of Asian nations already outraged over Abe's remarks.
Hundreds of thousands of people have rallied in Istanbul in support of secularism in Turkey, amid a row over a vote for the country’s next president.
The protesters are concerned that the ruling party’s candidate for the post remains loyal to his Islamic roots.
The candidate, Abdullah Gul, earlier said he would not quit despite growing criticism from opponents and the army.
Gul failed to win election in a first round parliamentary vote which opponents say was unconstitutional.
Opposition MPs boycotted the vote.
They are also challenging its validity in the Constitutional Court.
An army statement on Friday accused the government of tolerating radical Islam and vowed to defend secularism.
Business leaders have also issued a statement calling on the court to annul the vote, paving the way for early elections.
The candidate, Abdullah Gul, earlier said he would not quit despite growing criticism from opponents and the army.
The six-nation discussions on North Korea's nuclear program may resume on 2 September, according to the Chinese envoy and co-ordinator for the talks.
Wu Dawei is reported to have mentioned the date during a meeting with Japanese foreign ministry officials in Tokyo.
The talks reached a deadlock earlier this month, but delegates agreed to reconvene after a short recess in an attempt to find a solution.
The six-nation discussions on North Korea's nuclear program may resume on 2 September, according to the Chinese envoy and co-ordinator for the talks.
Wu later admitted the date was still not confirmed - and there is no indication of whether North Korea or the United States have agreed to that particular starting time.
The Korea Exchange Bank management deliberately undervalued the bank to facilitate the 2003 sale to U.S.-based equity fund Lone Star Funds, state auditors concluded yesterday.
By inflating bad loans, the KEB executives, including then president Lee Kang-won, sought to lower the bank's BIS capital adequacy ratio, a critical measure of a bank's viability.
""Our investigations find KEB to have overstated its liabilities to lower the negotiating price,"" the Board of Audit and Inspection said in a statement.
As for Lone Star, the board cleared its name, saying the government would not nullify the deal based on the data uncovered so far.
But the fate of the fund is still pending since the deal could be called off if the separate inspection carried out by state prosecutors uncovers evidence proving Lone Star's involvement in the manipulation.
""Our investigations find KEB to have overstated its liabilities to lower the negotiating price,"" the Board of Audit and Inspection said in a statement.
The US House of Representatives has passed a bill allocating $120-billion of new funding for the Iraq war.
The House voted by 280 to 142 in favor of the bill, which will now be sent to the Senate for approval.
Earlier President George W Bush praised the bill, a compromise measure between Republicans and Democrats without any timetable for a US troop withdrawal.
He told reporters that the coming weeks and months in Iraq would be vital for the new US security strategy in Iraq.
Speaking to reporters at the White House, Bush said the last of the US troop reinforcements would arrive in Baghdad by the middle of June.
He said he expected heavy fighting to continue in Iraq during this time.
The House voted by 280 to 142 in favor of the bill, which will now be sent to the Senate for approval.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has made a rare warning to Israel not to do anything that might erode confidence in the peace process.
At the start of her latest Middle East visit, Rice told reporters Israel´s revival of a West Bank road-building project could hamper negotiations.
She met Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and will meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday.
Rice is trying to pave the way for a US peace conference next month.
Israeli and Palestinian negotiators have been trying to produce a joint document agreeing a framework for the November summit.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned Asian defense ministers and analysts that there is more terrorism to come in Asia, and America's allies can count on U.S. support.
Rumsfeld predicted success in Iraq would hamper terrorist operations and spur reform in the region.
Rumsfeld predicted success in Iraq would hamper terrorist operations and spur reform in the region.
˝Local foreign residents say doing business has been made easier for them, but living conditions -mainly transportation, education and medical services- have worsened over the past year.
A recent Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) survey of 253 foreigners working in investment firms shows that 74.7 percent of the respondents are satisfied with the overall local business environment, up 3 percent from last year.
``KOTRA and the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy have worked together since 2004 to improve some of the weak areas with which foreigners had trouble,´´ said Yoo Ye-jin, an assistant manager of the Investment Services Team at KOTRA, referring to the one-stop investor support center, Korean language classes and financial services.
``However, poll results indicate that we should further work on helping foreigners´ outside of work conditions.´´ The satisfaction of overall living conditions fell from 74.4 percent last year to 72.7 percent this year, showing a consistent decline over the past three years.
Foreigners were most happy with visa services at 32 percent, which is still about 6 percent lower than a year ago, and they were least pleased with transportation with just 7.5 percent saying it´s satisfactory.˝
A recent Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) survey of 253 foreigners working in investment firms shows that 74.7 percent of the respondents are satisfied with the overall local business environment, up 3 percent from last year.
South Korean diplomats were hopeful about the group's fate.
Forty-three suspected North Korean defectors broke into the Canadian Embassy in Beijing yesterday.
They reportedly broke into the embassy compound by scaling the mission's 3-meter high spiked fence with a ladder.
During the attempt, two were caught and arrested by Chinese police guarding the mission.
The intruders included men, women and children.
They were being interviewed to confirm their nationalities, the Associated Press reported, quoting Canadian Ambassador Joseph Caron.
South Korean diplomats were hopeful about the group's fate.
In past incidents, China has allowed North Korean defectors who sought asylum in foreign missions to leave for destinations of their choice.
Korea ranked only 34th for quality of life.
Consumer sentiment dropped to the worst level.
The US will likely be keen for Seoul to keep the troops in place.
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is in South Korea to discuss the future of the two sides' military alliance.
Seoul wants greater control over its armed forces, which operate in joint command with the US military.
The US, for its part, plans to withdraw a third of its troops from South Korea by the end of 2008.
A BBC correspondent says the alliance is coming under increasing strain but that Seoul says it is still committed to a strong relationship with the US.
The US, which has had a military presence in South Korea since the end of World War II, currently has about 37,000 troops in the country, to complement the South's own force.
As things stand, a US general would assume command of the joint forces in the event of any future conflict, but South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun recently called for this to change.
The two sides are also likely to discuss the US' plans to alter its military presence in the South.
It is pulling its forces back from front-line positions, and reducing its forces to 25,000 by the end of 2008. Neighboring North Korea will also be on the agenda.
Polls suggest that many South Koreans see the US as a bigger threat to peace than the North, and demonstrators were planning a raucous reception for Rumsfeld as he prepares for talks with South Korean leaders.
The other issue which may be on the talks agenda is South Korea's role in global defense.
It has deployed more than 3,000 troops to Iraq and its parliament has to vote by the end of December to extend, scale back or end the deployment.
The US will likely be keen for Seoul to keep the troops in place.
He made it clear that North Korea would not become a member of the Manila-based regional bank in the near future.
Chino also expressed skepticism over creation of the so-called Northeast Asian Development Bank involving South Korea, Japan and China. The Korea Times reports North Korea will not attend the 37th Annual Meeting of Asian Development Bank on Cheju Island, which will run from May 15 to 17, according to the head of the Manila-based organization.
In a written interview with The Korea Times ahead of the international gathering, ADB President Tadao Chino ruled out the possibility of a surprise appearance by North Korean observers at the Cheju meeting.
``North Korea has not been invited as an observer to the Cheju annual meeting,’’ Chino said.
He made it clear that North Korea would not become a member of the Manila-based regional bank in the near future. He said that the most important issue at the meeting is to reaffirm its commitment to realize the vision of Asia, free of poverty.
New Iraqi government won't have the authority to evict US forces from Iraq.
“ If the mother did this, they should put her behind bars ?
if you're out there, you're going to get caught.”
That tape from KUOV-TV.
Police say they have not been able to identify the 3- to 4-year-old boy, nor do they have a preliminary autopsy report as to how he died.
Pakistan's government says the offensive against Taliban insurgents will continue.
“ This operation will continue till such time the last Taliban is flushed out.”
The military claims to have killed more than 1,000 insurgents in the current offensive.
Japan's Health Ministry says there are now more than 70 cases of swine flu in the country. China says it has a 3rd confirmed case.
The virus has spread to more than 30 countries around the world.
Myanmar's jailed opposition leader Anung San Suu Kyi faces trial tomorrow;
she's accused of harboring an American man who secretly swam across a lake to her home earlier this month.
Police say they have not been able to identify the 3- to 4-year-old boy, nor do they have a preliminary autopsy report as to how he died.
Pakistan's government says the offensive against Taliban insurgents will continue.
“ This operation will continue till such time the last Taliban is flushed out.”
Campus administrators are waging an all-out campaign against binge drinking to protect school facilities from drunkards according to the Korea Times.
Kim Kwang-kee of Inje University, said about 59 out of 77 universities reported 234 cases of violence, 68 incidents of property damage and 35 traffic accidents due to the drunken behavior of students between 2002 and 2005.
Kim said the actual figure was much higher due to underreporting by students and schools.
At the start of every school year, there are reports of freshmen suffering serious bodily harm and even dying as a result being forced to binge drink by senior classmen under the excuses of ``romance on the campus,’’ or ``campus tradition.’
According to the Ministry of Health and Welfare, about 26.1 percent of males drink more than a bottle of soju at a time, which is regarded as high-risk drinking.
Campus administrators are waging an all-out campaign against binge drinking to protect school facilities from drunkards according to the Korea Times.
Kim Kwang-kee of Inje University, said about 59 out of 77 universities reported 234 cases of violence, 68 incidents of property damage and 35 traffic accidents due to the drunken behavior of students between 2002 and 2005.
ix-nation talks on North Korea's nuclear program have ended without progress after its chief negotiator flew home amid a row over money.
The Beijing talks stalled after Pyongyang refused to discuss a deal to disable its nuclear facilities until it recovers $25m held in a Macau bank.
The transfer of the money has been delayed due to unexplained problems.
The US negotiator said that despite the setback, the process to disarm North Korea was still “on track”.
North Korea's chief negotiator Kim Kye-gwan made no comment as he arrived at Beijing's airport.
An Air Koryo flight bound for the North Korean capital Pyongyang left soon afterwards.
The talks, which began on Monday, had been extended into Thursday after North Korea said it wanted the Macau bank issue resolved first.
Correspondents say the lack of progress in this week's talks is a big setback, but there is still probably enough time for North Korea to keep to its side of the bargain.
Under the 13 February deal, North Korea agreed to initially ”shut down and seal” its main nuclear reactor at Yongbyon by mid-April and also allow UN inspectors back into the country.
In return, Pyongyang was promised energy aid.
It is believed that other countries involved in the talks will not want to see the entire deal collapse just because of a delayed bank transfer.
”It's a shame to use this as a reason to not take part in negotiations for two days.
It's really a waste, especially with everyone gathered there,” Yasuhisa Shiozaki, Japan's chief cabinet secretary, told a news conference in Tokyo.
The US chief envoy, Christopher Hill, also voiced his anger.
”The day I'm able to explain to you North Korean thinking is probably the day I've been in this process too long,” he told reporters.
Teams from the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the US have been taking part in the Beijing talks.
The transfer of the money has been delayed due to unexplained problems.
The US negotiator said that despite the setback, the process to disarm North Korea was still “on track”.
The talks, which began on Monday, had been extended into Thursday after North Korea said it wanted the Macau bank issue resolved first.
Correspondents say the lack of progress in this week's talks is a big setback, but there is still probably enough time for North Korea to keep to its side of the bargain.
"" The two sides agreed to hold the military talks early this year but have yet to fix the date.
Cho expects many working-level talks to be held this year to resolve pending issues, including specific measures to establish permanent peace on the peninsula.
The US has agreed to Japanese proposals to relocate a military base on Okinawa.
Details of the move have yet to be released, but Japanese media reports said the air base would be moved from Futenma to Camp Schwab, near Henoko.
The US had previously favoured a controversial plan to build a new base on a nearby coral reef.
The decision to move the Futenma base was taken 10 years ago, after protests from residents over the rape of a local schoolgirl by three US servicemen.
""The US side, taking into consideration the importance of the Japan-US alliance have accepted the most recent Japan Defence Agency proposal and plan,"" US Deputy Under-secretary of Defence Richard Lawless said.
The US had previously favoured a controversial plan to build a new base on a nearby coral reef.
In another move sure to dampen foreign investment in Korea, a Korean affiliate of Qualcomm, the U.S. technology company, is currently being investigated by the Fair Trade Commission (FTC), Korea's antitrust agency.
Qualcomm Korea Wednesday said FTC examiners visited its head office in Seoul on Tuesday and questioned its officials from almost all divisions.
When contacted, the FTC confirmed that the iron-fisted regulator is scrutinizing Qualcomm Korea but refused to elaborate.
Local media guesses that FTC suspects Qualcomm Korea of overusing its market dominance in various ways like in deciding its business partners here.
Qualcomm retains source technologies for code division multiple access (CDMA), one of two main platforms that enable mobile communication with cell phones.
A retired US Army general directly links a violent incident at the Iraqi town of Haditha, the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and chaos in Iraq, to the bad judgment of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Retired Army General John Batiste told CNN's ""Late Edition"" that under Rumsfeld, the U.S. went to war, ""underresourced and overcommitted.
"" ""If we're to move forward on this war on terrorism, we need a Secretary of Defense whose instinct and judgement we all trust.
It was a very special Christmas Eve 40 years ago today:
The Apollo 8 astronauts became the first humans to orbit the moon.
They didn't land, they didn't know whether they would ever get home, but as they circled the moon, taking the famous Earthrise picture that some people still have on their computer desktops today, they read from the Bible, from the Book of Genesis.
Then, after astronauts Bill Anders and Jim Lovell read a few verses each, Commander Frank Borman said goodnight:
“From the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.”
Apollo 8 orbiting the moon in December of 1968.
That was just seven months before Apollo 11 would land on the moon, and the U.S. would score a victory in the space race.
The Apollo 8 astronauts became the first humans to orbit the moon.
A terror alert has been expanded to Korean deep-sea fishing vessels in the Persian Gulf as the government has received information that an unidentified Islamic terrorist group is targeting the fishermen.
The Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries said that Wednesday it has asked deep-sea fishermen in the Gulf to take precautionary steps against a possible terror attack, including emergency communication networks and limitation from alighting from vessels., from last week the government was preparing for possible terror attacks on airplanes and overseas vessels, in response to threats from an Islamic terrorist group which allegedly threatened to attack ships delivering U.S. military equipment to Iraq, putting South Korean shipping firms on high alert.
A terror alert has been expanded to Korean deep-sea fishing vessels in the Persian Gulf as the government has received information that an unidentified Islamic terrorist group is targeting the fishermen.
Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries:
It started almost 48 hours ago, and the shooting and explosions continue in Mumbai.
I could hear people shouting and screaming.”
There is late word that a total of more than 150 people are now dead in the series of highly co-ordinated attacks - the number increasing after Commandos who storm the headquarters of an ultra-orthodox Jewish group found the bodies of five hostages inside.
That word coming from an Israeli medical crew.
A bunch of troops came out of the building, walked to the end of the road, held their rifles over their heads and cheering.
All this is a fresh battle, and fresh fire rage at the luxury Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai.
Officials say Indian Commandos have killed the last two gunmen inside the Oberoi - another five star hotel.
Meanwhile, Korea shows the highest anti-corporate sentiment in Asia and is openly critical of foreign investors, Jeffery Jones, an American attorney at Kim & Chang law firm said on Thursday.
”Korea needs to foster its feelings toward foreign investors to make the nation the best place to invest in the world, ” Jones said in a speech he made in Korean during the session of the Korea Forum for Progress in Myong-dong.
Jones, one of the best-known foreign residents in Korea, made his point at a time when prosecutors are investigating officials of Lone Star, a Dallas-based buyout fund, over its three-year-old purchase of the Korea Exchange Bank (KEB).
President Roh Moo-hyun on Wednesday paid a surprise visit to the ``Zaytun Unit'' in the northern Iraqi town of Irbil on his way back home from his European tour to encourage the South Korean troops stationed there.
President Roh Moo-hyun on Wednesday paid a surprise visit to the ``Zaytun Unit'' in the northern Iraqi town of Irbil on his way back home from his European tour to encourage the South Korean troops stationed there.
During his two-hour stay in the military compound, he met with the 3,700 Korean soldiers over breakfast and praised their efforts for peace and rehabilitation in the war-torn Middle Eastern country.
South Korea faces a daunting task of redefining military ties with the United States.
Mohamed El Baradei Said N.K. had time to secure enough plutonium.
The 0.2 gram of enriched uranium obtained by South Korean scientists in an isolated experiment in 2000 should have been reported to the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, but the case must not exaggerated, The Korea Times quotes government officials as saying Wednesday.
``The experiment itself and the facilities involved were not subject to reporting to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) at the time, but the 0.2 gram produced as the end result should have been reported,'' a senior official at the Foreign Affairs and Trade Ministry said on condition of anonymity.
He said the government should have reported the obtained uranium to the IAEA either before or after the experiment but couldn't because it didn't become aware of the experiment until recently.
China has muscled in on Hong Kong politics in relation to a legislative campaign.
State Department reiterated Wednesday that North Korea must disclose fully its nuclear programs and activities, amid signs of delay in multinational negotiations that hinge on how honest the disclosure is.
Christopher Hill, the top U.S. nuclear envoy who just visited Pyongyang, said there were “some differences” over the nuclear declaration and that the six-nation talks, expected later this week, now seem unlikely to open this month.
North and South Korea, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan are members of the six-nation forum aimed at making the Korean Peninsula nuclear-free.
A latest deal struck in October commits Pyongyang to disable its key nuclear weapons facilities and present a declaration of all of its atomic stockpile and proliferation activities, both by the end of this year.
Christopher Hill, the top U.S. nuclear envoy who just visited Pyongyang, said there were “some differences” over the nuclear declaration and that the six-nation talks, expected later this week, now seem unlikely to open this month.
Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said he will ask parliament to approve an early general election.
He also said he would ask for a change in the constitution to allow the president to be chosen by the people.
Erdogan was speaking after the country’s constitutional court annulled last Friday’s parliamentary vote to elect a new president.
Secularist opposition parties had challenged the vote in court to prevent the foreign minister from winning.
The parties accuse Abdullah Gul of having a hidden Islamist agenda and say his election would threaten Turkey’s secular tradition.
Erdogan, the leader of the AK party, which has Islamist roots and had put forward Gul as its candidate, said he would apply for new polls on Wednesday and they could be held as soon as June 24th. The polls are currently scheduled for November.
Erdogan announced a package of reform proposals that included reducing the term of parliament from five years to four and would also push for a five-year presidency rather than seven, allowing for the possibility of serving two terms rather than just one.
Erdogan was speaking after the country’s constitutional court annulled last Friday’s parliamentary vote to elect a new president.
Secularist opposition parties had challenged the vote in court to prevent the foreign minister from winning.
Introducing the issue of North Korea's abduction of Japanese citizens, Kenichiro Sasae, Tokyo's chief negotiator, told the official gathering that full diplomatic relations between the North and Japan are only possible after the matters of the abductees is resolved.
N.K. will give up its nuclear weapons conditionally.
A powerful storm has hit China´s south-eastern coast, where more than one million people have been evacuated from their homes, state media reports.
Typhoon Krosa made landfall near the border of densely populated Zhejiang and Fujian provinces.
Initially bearing winds of 126km/h (78mph), Krosa has weakened to a tropical storm after coming ashore, Chinese officials say.
Five people were killed when the storm battered Taiwan on Saturday.
Fujian province has issued warnings of possible mud and rock slides.
About 27,000 fishing boats have been recalled to port and holidays for emergency workers have been cancelled, state media reports.
Schools have been closed and airline flights cancelled in the port city of Wenzhou, in Zhejiang province.
Typhoon Krosa made landfall near the border of densely populated Zhejiang and Fujian provinces.
Former US President Gerald Ford has died aged 93.
Last month he became the longest-living US president when he reached 93 years and 122 days, passing the record held by Ronald Reagan.
Ford was never elected president.
He took office after Richard Nixon resigned over the Watergate scandal in 1974 but lost to Jimmy Carter in 1976.
President George W Bush paid tribute to Ford, a fellow Republican, praising his “integrity and common sense”.
Gerald Ford was born in Omaha, Nebraska, and lived with wife Betty who is 88, at Rancho Mirage, about 210km east of Los Angeles in southern California.
The former president suffered ill health this year and he was taken to hospital four times for tests and angioplasty.
He suffered a stroke in 2000.
He suffered a stroke in 2000.
The protest took place late Friday on a street near U.N. headquarters and in front of the Japan Society, watched by handful of the city's police officers.
About 500 Chinese and South Korean residents staged a noisy demonstration in New York opposing Tokyo's bid for a permanent seat on the U.N.
The protest took place late Friday on a street near U.N. headquarters and in front of the Japan Society, watched by handful of the city's police officers.
No violent incidents were reported.
Top U.S. envoy Christopher Hill said there can be other options than negotiation for North Korean nuclear problems.
The Korea Herald reports the Bush administration, rejecting demands from Korea, told lawmakers on Thursday, it won't agree to changes in U.S. antidumping or subsidy rules as part of a pending trade agreement with Korea.
Officials in Seoul expressed disappointment at Washington's refusal to accept their request.
At the last round of negotiations, in Montana this month, Korea pushed U.S. officials to limit the scope of duties it could put on products such as steel and semiconductors.
The United States rejected those changes then, and with a filing with Congress on Wednesday, pledged to Congress that it won't sign-off on any types of legal changes as part of an overall free-trade deal.
Korea wants the United States to make concessions in antidumping laws that Seoul believes are unfair for its exporters, such as Samsung Electronics Co. and Hynix Semiconductor Inc., to move forward negotiations for a proposed FTA.
Despite U.S. refusal, Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said in a statement it will continue to press the U.S. side.
According to a May report by the U.S. Congress, five countervailing duties and 18 antidumping orders were imposed on Korean exports, totaling about $2.5 billion.
The affected goods were mostly semiconductors, steel and telecommunications equipment, the report said.
According to a May report by the U.S.
South Korea will intensify screening of North Korean defectors at its diplomatic missions abroad to thwart criminals' entry and false defections, the Ministry of Unification said Thursday.
South Korea will intensify screening of North Korean defectors at its diplomatic missions abroad to thwart criminals' entry and false defections, the Ministry of Unification said Thursday.
``From next year, we will fortify the screening procedure to weed out murderers, criminals sought by international police and people disguising themselves as asylum seekers,'' Vice Unification Minister Rhee Bong-jo said at a news conference.
``Even after their entry, those with criminal records will be punished according to domestic law.''
The number of Koreans filing claims for unemployment insurance benefit is set to outstrip the level during financial crisis.
A majority of South Koreans believe President Roh Moo-hyun’s proposal for a constitutional revision to change the presidential term of office would be thwarted either by the National Assembly or a national referendum, a survey showed.
The reaction came after the pro-opposition Korea Times and sister company Hankook Ilbo conducted a survey of 700 adults across the country.
The survey was conducted hours after Roh proposed a constitutional revision to introduce a U.S.-style four-year, double-term presidency.
He suggested that his successor and National Assemblymen begin their tenures simultaneously every four years beginning next year.
The survey showed 81.7 percent of the respondents said it would be hard for Roh’s proposal to be passed by the Assembly or a national referendum.
The reaction came after the pro-opposition Korea Times and sister company Hankook Ilbo conducted a survey of 700 adults across the country.
President Roh said “Our interest is to help Pyungyang accept a market economy.”
President Roh Moo-hyun on tour in the Americas has called again for a softer stance toward North Korea, saying the ideological competition between the Koreas is over and that ""Pyeongyang itself knows well that imposing communism on the entire Korean Peninsula is impossible.
"" The Joong-Ang Ilbo reports that speaking to Korean immigrants on Sunday, Buenos Aires time, the president said, ""Now, our interest is to help Pyeongyang accept a market economy so that North Koreans can have a better life.
Defense Minister Yoon Kwang-ung yesterday ruled out a possibility that South Korean troops in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil would be engaged in combat or public security missions during a crucial Iraqi national election in January.
Defense Minister Yoon Kwang-ung yesterday ruled out a possibility that South Korean troops in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil would be engaged in combat or public security missions during a crucial Iraqi national election in January.
The minister made such remarks at a lunch meeting with reporters on the occasion of his 100 days in office shortly after South Korean troops and citizens in Iraq have been told to maintain a high-alert level following recent military operations launched by U.S.-led multilateral forces to disrupt insurgents in Fallujah and Ramadi.
South Korea is ready to offer its “regrets” for kidnapping Kim Dae-jung off Japanese soil in 1973, but Japan wants a full “apology” and may not accept it, a government official said yesterday.
Korea’s ambassador to Japan, Yu Myung-hwan, is ready to express Seoul’s regrets, but exactly when that will happen is not known, the government official said yesterday.
The Asahi Shimbun reported on Friday that Yu might visit Japanese Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura to convey Seoul’s apology, but the meeting did not take place.
In the aftermath of the findings, Japanese officials have demanded an official apology from Seoul for infringing on Japan’s sovereignty.
A diplomatic source familiar with the circumstances said yesterday that Tokyo was still debating whether to accept the visit by Yu, whose message of “regret” was not at the expected level of an apology.
The Japanese have chosen to ignore the fact that the kidnapping of Kim could hardly have been effected without some level of cooperation from Japanese authorities.
espite worldwide condemnation, pro-whaling countries are meeting in Tokyo to plot a path towards lifting the moratorium on commercial whaling.
Japan says the International Whaling Commission (IWC) is too concerned with conservation, and wants it to resume its initial job of regulating hunting.
Anti-whaling countries such as Britain and Australia are staying away.
The three-day meeting convenes against the backdrop of clashes in the Antarctic between Japanese whaling ships and conservation groups.
They are protesting against Japan's whaling program in the Southern Ocean, which is conducted under IWC rules permitting hunting for so-called “scientific purposes.”
A collision between the Kaiko Maru and the Farley Mowat, operated by the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, saw the Japanese vessel damage its propeller, with some reports suggesting it may have to return to port.
His remarks came as Seoul and Washington reconfirmed on Monday that they will seek a resumption of the denuclearization talks without North Korea, if Pyongyang continues boycotting the multilateral dialogue.
""But China seemingly has not yet decided its position.
Security Council adopted a resolution, condemning Pyongyang's missile launches.
”We will pay close attention to the moves by the United States,” the North Korea's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is set to arrive in Seoul for trilateral talks.
Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso is set to join Rice tomorrow for talks in Seoul to be presided by South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon.
The Korean won is forecast to gain further against the dollar this year on globally weak dollar sentiment amid the record-high U.S. fiscal and current account deficits, analysts said.
They also said the strengthening yuan will push up the value of the won and the communist Chinese central bank’s plan to diversify its foreign exchange holdings into the euro and other currencies from the dollar will make the dollar even weaker on the global stage.
The government has pledged to further ease rules on investment in overseas securities and real estate to boost capital outflow from the country.
But these steps are expected to have limits in curbing the won’s strength as long as global dollar sentiment remains weak, analysts said.
They said that currency traders are betting on a weaker dollar as the United States could cut its key rates to help boost the economy this year, while European and Japanese central banks may move to raise their rates, which should further weaken the greenback.
The government has pledged to further ease rules on investment in overseas securities and real estate to boost capital outflow from the country.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Thursday urged Seoul to use its leverage to bring North Korea back to the negotiating table, saying that she did not come to South Korea to dictate what Seoul should do.
”Everyone should take stock of the leverage we have to get North Korea to return to the six-party talks, ” she said at a joint news conference with Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Ban Ki-moon.
Rice's remarks in Seoul, the second leg of her four-nation tour, were interpreted as putting pressure on South Korea to effectively implement inspections of cargo going to and from North Korea to prevent trafficking of weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
But she tried to brush off the impression that Washington is goading Seoul into a hard-line policy against North Korea.
Rice's remarks in Seoul, the second leg of her four-nation tour, were interpreted as putting pressure on South Korea to effectively implement inspections of cargo going to and from North Korea to prevent trafficking of weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
stating that the Korean maker infringed patents on basic technologies for the devices, Samsung told the Korea Herald yesterday.
Calling the move ""against international trade policies,"" Samsung said it was considering taking the issue to the World Trade Organization.
Plasma-display panels are the principal component in flat-screen television, one of the fastest growing segments of the television market.
The action, which was also reported yesterday by major Japanese news organizations and foreign media, marks the first time that Japan has barred the import of Korean-made electronics, Korea`s major export item.
stating that the Korean maker infringed patents on basic technologies for the devices, Samsung told the Korea Herald yesterday.
The action, which was also reported yesterday by major Japanese news organizations and foreign media, marks the first time that Japan has barred the import of Korean-made electronics, Korea`s major export item.
He helped bring down a president:
“I shall resign the Presidency effective at noon tomorrow.
Deep Throat, the ultimate anonymous source in real life, who was played by Hal Holbrook in“ All The President's Men”:
the money and everything…”
Now the button-down number two guy at the Watergate-era FBI has died in northern California.
A friend says 95-year old Mark Felt had been suffering from congestive heart failure.
Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward who had all those secret meetings with Felt and had lunch with him late in life, once told NBC's“ Today Show” Felt was a very different man back in the day:
“During that period, he was really a very uptight man.”
Woodward says President Richard Nixon suspected Felt was Deep Throat; tried to get him fired five different times.
A major winter storm is snarling traffic and cutting power to thousands of customers across the Midwest and Northeast.
In Massachusetts, where up to 14 inches of snow is forecast, the governor tells nonessential state employees to stay home today.
He helped bring down a president:
Deep Throat, the ultimate anonymous source in real life, who was played by Hal Holbrook in“ All The President's Men”:
A friend says 95-year old Mark Felt had been suffering from congestive heart failure.
“During that period, he was really a very uptight man.”
A major winter storm is snarling traffic and cutting power to thousands of customers across the Midwest and Northeast.
The union of South Korean employees of the U.S.
Forces Korea on Sunday rejected the forces' decision to lay off more than 1,000 local civilian staff.
It threatened phased industrial action starting May that will culminate in a full strike if negotiations with the Korean government and the USFK produce no satisfactory results.
Kang In-shik, head of the USFK Korean Employees Union, announced the decision in a telephone interview with the Chosun Ilbo on Sunday.
""The abrupt mass layoff is the first of its kind,"" Kang said.
He added the move was partly due to deterioration in the Korea-U.S. relationship.
Beef consumption in Korea recorded the lowest level in nine years.
Japan worries about playing at the North Korean stadium for the qualifying match of the 2006 World Cup.
More than 600,000 people have been evacuated from southern China as Typhoon Chanchu surges towards the Guangdong province.
The tropical storm, the strongest on record to hit the region at this time of year, killed 37 people as it swept through the Philippines on Saturday. It was heading for Hong Kong, but changed course overnight. Typhoon Chanchu is expected to make landfall in Guangdong province later on Wednesday or early on Thursday.
As the storm approached, some 320,000 people were evacuated from their homes along Guangdong's coastline.
President Roh Moo-hyun, Tuesday clarified that South Korea will not allow U.S. troops to become involved in any dispute in Northeast Asia without the consent of the Korean government.
Roh did not explain how he would or could control the United States foreign policy.
According to the Korea Times. Roh made the extraordinary statement during a speech at an Air Force Academy commencement ceremony.
Korean government plans to lure foreign students into Korea.
After Jeong told the police she got the list at Chung’s primary campaign headquarters, the police expanded their investigation into the presidential hopeful’s campaign.
Chung Dong-young’s campaign has become the primary target of an ongoing police investigation into massive identity thefts that took place in August, when the new liberal political party registered voters for its presidential primary election.
Kim Hee-ju, a former official of the Uri Party’s Jongno District branch, was arrested yesterday on charges of providing a list of names to be used for the unauthorized registrations to the United New Democratic Party’s primary.
Kim turned himself in to the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency yesterday morning.
The 34-year-old is suspected of ordering Jeong In-hun, a Jongno councilwoman, to gather as many voters as possible and compile a list of 800 former Uri Party members and personal information about them needed for the registrations.
After Jeong told the police she got the list at Chung’s primary campaign headquarters, the police expanded their investigation into the presidential hopeful’s campaign.
Kim was questioned yesterday about whether he intended to provide the list and if the Chung campaign was involved.
An attempt by police to raid Chung’s campaign headquarters, however, failed on Saturday after a nearly two-hour confrontation with his supporters.
Armed with a warrant, 30 policemen tried to enter the office in Yeouido, but 20 members of the Chung campaign physically blocked them.
The Chung supporters promised to provide the data.
Floor leaders of the ruling Uri Party and the main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) Monday agreed to normalize parliamentary sessions on Wednesday, The Korea Times quoted officials at both parties as saying Monday.
National Assembly Sessions have been crippled since the conservative GNP began boycotting the unicameral legislature to protest the ruling party's railroading a revision of the private schools law early December.
Lee Jae-oh of the GNP and Kim Han-gill of the ruling party, both of whom have recently been elected as the two largest parties' floor leaders, met at Mt. Pukhan to discuss measures for normalizing the situation at the parliament, ruling party officials said.
Under the agreement, the ruling Uri Party will discuss with GNP a possible revision of the controversial private schools law ``for development and eradication of corruption at private schools.''
Intense fighting is raging between troops and Islamist militants at a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon.
At least nine civilians have died in the clashes at Nahr al-Bared camp, near Tripoli, officials there said.
Thick plumes of smoke are choking the sky over the camp as soldiers attack the militants with tanks and artillery.
Fatah al-Islam, a group accused of links to al-Qaeda and Syria, has threatened to widen its campaign if troops do not stop the shelling.
”If this continues, we will carry the battle outside the city of Tripoli.”
Red Cross officials have appealed for a truce to let aid agencies reach those worst affected by the violence.
A planned two-hour ceasefire on Monday ended after just a few minutes, with clashes resuming before United Nations and Red Cross vehicles could enter the camp.
Thick plumes of smoke are choking the sky over the camp as soldiers attack the militants with tanks and artillery.
Korea Savings Bank said it is soon going to offer an overseas real estate mortgage.
``We decided to offer the overseas real estate mortgage since there has been increasing demand for this type of product among our customers recently,’’ said an official of the bank.
Currently, those who wish to buy houses abroad have to rely on mortgages provided by financial institutions in the country where they will be making the investment since Korean financial firms have not taken overseas real estate as collateral for housing loans.
Such loans, however, were very expensive given that few Korean investors have credit records abroad.
Korea Savings Bank said it is soon going to offer an overseas real estate mortgage.
The US judge deciding the fate of 416 children removed from a breakaway Mormon sect has struggled to control a first chaotic day of custody hearings.
Judge Barbara Walther had to suspend proceedings for an hour to allow hundreds of lawyers for the children and their parents to view evidence.
Lawyers argued whether the Texas case violated religious freedom rights.
Police raided the ranch last week after receiving reports that a 16-year-old girl had been sexually abused.
The judge was forced to suspend proceedings after just 40 minutes amid the objections, in what is reportedly the largest child-welfare case in US history.
The Korea Times reports South Korea is aiming to establish a peace treaty on the Korean Peninsula to formally end the Korean War by 2010 after North Korea completes its denuclearization under a new roadmap, quoting sources from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade on Sunday.
The roadmap was recently reported to President-elect Lee Myung-bak´s transition team, they said.
The plan calls for North Korea to disable its key nuclear facilities no later than March and disclose details of its nuclear programs, according to the sources.
˝The government denied Sunday the report that Afghan security forces and international troops launched an operation to rescue 23 Koreans held hostage by Taliban militants.
The denial came after the AFP reported that the troops surrounded Taliban hideouts in Afghanistan in preparation for a possible rescue mission after militants threatened to kill 23 South Korean hostages by sunset.
Taliban insurgents will kill the Korean hostages if the operation is made, Al Jazeera reported.
However, officials in Seoul stressed that there would be no military operation without prior discussion between the Korean and Afghan governments.
Seoul has been opposed to any operation, which may threaten the Korean abductees.
Meanwhile, the government is belatedly considering designating Afghanistan as an ``off-limits´´ country, under a revised passport law.
Koreans would face punishment if they entered the country without government permission.
On July 27, the government will form a committee comprising 11 passport experts from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Justice, the National Police Agency and the private sector to list dangerous countries for travel.
The law stipulates that Koreans will be fined up to 3 million won or face imprisonment of up to one year if they visit a country that the government designates as dangerous, without prior authorization.˝
The denial came after the AFP reported that the troops surrounded Taliban hideouts in Afghanistan in preparation for a possible rescue mission after militants threatened to kill 23 South Korean hostages by sunset.
Koreans would face punishment if they entered the country without government permission.
Anti-government protesters shout ‘Down with Alkatiri!”
About 2,000 anti-government protesters have converged on the East Timorese capital, Dili.
They are demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri, whom they blame for sacking hundreds of striking soldiers in March.
The protests came amid further unrest and looting, which has prompted tens of thousands of residents to flee.
International peacekeepers are struggling to control the violence, which has left at least 20 people dead.
The protesters came to Dili on motorcycles, trucks and buses from western districts of East Timor.
Foreign peacekeepers searched their vehicles and, after negotiations, allowed them into Dili, but under the escort of heavily armed troops.
The demonstrators shouted ""Down with Alkatiri! "" as they punched the air and waved anti-government banners and flags.
About 2,000 anti-government protesters have converged on the East Timorese capital, Dili.
Satellite surveillance photos indicate that a 10,000-man Chinese army division is making preparations for a prolonged deployment along the Chinese-North Korean border, sources in Washington said.
Satellite surveillance photos indicate that a 10,000-man Chinese army division is making preparations for a prolonged deployment along the Chinese-North Korean border, sources in Washington said.
The sources said on Monday that the photos show that the Chinese division, which in September moved from the interior to the border area close to North Korea, was in the process of building winter barracks.
""These forces are elite combat soldiers and are now being positioned along the Chinese-North Korean border,"" the sources said.
UK Parliamentarians and celebrities launched a bid to impeach Tony Blair.
More than 70 people have been killed in blasts at three cities in Iraq, in one of the deadliest days there for weeks.
At least 53 died and another 90 were injured when explosives packed in a bus detonated outside a restaurant near a court in Baquba, north of the capital.
And 13 more were killed in a suicide bombing at a kebab restaurant where policemen were eating in Ramadi, which had seen a sharp decline in violence.
Three people were also killed in Mosul in the north, and another in Baghdad.
Police said they expected the death toll in Baquba to rise as there were still charred bodies inside cars at the scene.
The bomb there exploded just before noon in a crowded area.
Most of the dead were women and children and many of the bodies are said to be too badly burned to be identified.
There were so many wounded that ambulances struggled to get them all to hospital.
South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon has won an informal UN Security Council vote to find Secretary General Kofi Annan's successor, diplomats say.
The 15 members of the Security Council voted on seven candidates in their third secret ballot on Thursday.
Ban comfortably beat Shashi Tharoor, the Indian UN Undersecretary General for public information who came second.
Annan is due to step down at the end of the year after heading the organisation since 1997.
Other candidates come from Thailand, Jordan and Sri Lanka.
Latvia's president and an Afghan candidate entered the contest recently.
South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon has won an informal UN Security Council vote to find Secretary General Kofi Annan's successor, diplomats say.
The 15 members of the Security Council voted on seven candidates in their third secret ballot on Thursday.
Harking back to authoritarian regimes of the past, the Roh Moo-hyun government is moving to control overseas remittances to prevent the drastic flow of foreign currencies out of the country, backpedaling on its commitment to foreign exchange liberalization.
They claim that the money is sent abroad for education costs or donations but use it to purchase foreign properties and golf courses.
Harking back to authoritarian regimes of the past, the Roh Moo-hyun government is moving to control overseas remittances to prevent the drastic flow of foreign currencies out of the country, backpedaling on its commitment to foreign exchange liberalization.
The Ministry of Finance and Economy said that it may revise foreign exchange transactions rules in the first half of the year to remove any loopholes in the current laws.
The Korea Times reports many Koreans have ""overused’’ dollars overseas, by passing foreign exchange laws, while domestic consumer spending remains sluggish.
Thousands of Venezuelans have taken to the streets of Caracas in protest to the president’s decision to close the country’s oldest private TV network.
Chavez’s supporters say Radio Caracas Television (RCTV) backed a 2002 coup which briefly ousted him.
But the country’s opposition say the decision to close the network is an attempt to silence Chavez’s critics.
Many of those who turned out for Saturday’s protest carried national flags and placards.
The government claims that the channel is breaching the constitution by rallying support for the opposition.
Near the demonstration, hundreds of Chavez’s supporters wearing red caps and T-shirts staged a rival rally to express their support for the closure of RCTV, which has been broadcasting for 33 years.
Lawyers are fighting the government’s decision in Venezuela’s Supreme Court and through the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
Many of those who turned out for Saturday’s protest carried national flags and placards.
A United States intelligence agency has been collecting data on the phone calls of tens of millions of Americans, a report in USA Today has alleged.
President Bush refused to confirm or deny the existence of the program.
He said he had authorized intelligence gathering in the wake of 9/11, adding that the activities were ""lawful"".
US senators reacted quickly to the allegation, saying they would order the phone companies to testify about it.
But Republican senators suggested Leahy was over-reacting.
The country's three biggest phone companies have been handing over call records to the National Security Agency (NSA) since 2001, the newspaper says.
The report of the House of Commons International Development Committee said Britain should work with the United Nations to ensure that the aid reached the refugees themselves and did not benefit the Burmese military government.˝
˝A UK parliamentary committee has said that Britain should quadruple the amount of aid it gives to refugees in Burma over the next six years.
In a report, a House of Commons committee said other countries with poor human rights records got much more aid from Britain compared with Burma.
The head of the committee, Malcolm Bruce, said the extra money was needed to help displaced people.
Hundreds of thousands have fled or are in hiding from Burma´s military regime.
The report of the House of Commons International Development Committee said Britain should work with the United Nations to ensure that the aid reached the refugees themselves and did not benefit the Burmese military government.˝
The United States and North Korea have maintained regular contact through the North's U.N. mission in New York ahead of the planned resumption of six-way talks in November, the chief U.S. nuclear negotiator said.
Christopher Hill, assistant secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, told a news conference in Washington on Tuesday that he had no concrete plans to visit Pyongyang but there will be preparatory discussions among the countries working to end the North Korean nuclear standoff.
Speculation persists about Hill possibly visiting the communist state before the fifth round of the talks begin as a gesture to hasten reconciliation, but both Washington and Seoul denied any such plans.
Christopher Hill, assistant secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, told a news conference in Washington on Tuesday that he had no concrete plans to visit Pyongyang but there will be preparatory discussions among the countries working to end the North Korean nuclear standoff.
N.K., Japan is about to restart negotiations.
Horst Koehler, a former head of the International Monetary Fund who has called for bolder economic reforms in Germany, was elected Sunday as the country's ninth postwar president.
Horst Koehler, a former head of the International Monetary Fund who has called for bolder economic reforms in Germany, was elected Sunday as the country's ninth postwar president.
Koehler, nominated by opposition conservatives, defeated a university professor backed by Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's government who wanted to become Germany's first female head of state.
Prime Minister Goh expressed his resignation.
The Joong-Ang Ilbo reports that on the 20th anniversary of the 1987 Black Monday crash, the U.S. stock market gave investors a nervous weekend to anticipate the fallout from the latest Wall Street downturn.
Korean stock investors will see how the ripple effect plays out starting today.
Prompted by disappointing corporate earnings, soaring oil prices and credit worries, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged nearly 370 points to 13,522.02 on Friday, New York time.
The S&P 500 fell 39.45 to 1,500.63 and the Nasdaq dropped 74.15 to 2,725.16.Korean analysts say the main KOSPI will have a hard time retaining the 1,900 mark this week.
Korean stock investors will see how the ripple effect plays out starting today.
Former Seoul Mayor Lee Myung-bak is ahead of Park Geun-hye, former chairwoman of the Grand National Party (GNP) by 20 percentage points and former Kyonggi Governor Sohn Hak-kyu is most favored as the presidential candidate of the pro-government camp, a poll showed.
According to the poll of 1,000 people conducted by the Hankook Ilbo in collaboration with Media Research, Sohn, who quit the GNP last month, topped the list with 16.8 percent support, followed by Chung Dong-young, a former chairman of the Uri Party with 13.9 percent.
Voters in their 40s (22.6 percent) and 50s (22.4 percent) and self-employed people (21.7 percent) expressed strong support for the former Kyonggi governor.
People in their 20s, 30s and blue-collar workers preferred Chung, who also worked as unification minister, to other contenders in the pro-government camp.
The poll said that former Seoul Mayor Lee continues to enjoy robust support.
People in their 20s, 30s and blue-collar workers preferred Chung, who also worked as unification minister, to other contenders in the pro-government camp.
Secretary of State Colin Powell arrives in Seoul today for a two-day visit, after rejecting a North Korean overture to resume the six-party nuclear talks if the U.S. rewards it for freezing its nuclear activities, according to The Korea Herald.
President Roh accepts the Constitutional Court’s ruling against his capital relocation project.
The top U.S. envoy to South Korea affirmed Thursday that his government will not remove North Korea from its list of terrorism-sponsoring states until the communist state provides a full declaration of its nuclear stockpile and activities.
Ambassador Alexander Vershbow called rumors that Washington is considering a phased removal of Pyongyang from the list “idle speculation.”
Expressing his disappointment that North Korea delayed its actions pledged in the six-party talks, the envoy said that the U.S.
On the free trade agreement (FTA) with South Korea, Vershbow said the clock is ticking in Washington with the upcoming presidential election.
With the resolution of the beef issue, the U.S. ”can get the process started beginning in spring and get a vote ideally before the summer recess,” he said.
Washington observers, however, say that is highly unlikely.
Vershbow was in the U.S. making an annual tour of major cities with his South Korean counterpart, Amb. Lee Tae-sik, in an effort to muster public support for the bilateral alliance and the FTA.
Vershbow was in the U.S. making an annual tour of major cities with his South Korean counterpart, Amb.
he government’s attempts to stabilize home prices have resulted in a continuing stream of changes to its policies, and those changes continued.
A statement by three ministries ― finance, construction and budget ― said that rental housing for lower-income Koreans would be expanded dramatically and that restrictions on real estate-related loans would be tightened further.
A new series of mid-size rental apartment complexes will be targeted at the lower middle class, the ministry said, and government pension funds and private insurers would be invited to participate in a new investment fund to finance the projects.
Foreign direct investment (FDI) stood at $4.95 billion last year, down 29.8 percent from 2005.
According to the United Nation Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) last week, South Korea placed 48th out of 207 countries in terms of FDI this year, down from 29th in 2002.
``It is the result of anti-corporate sentiment, excessive regulations and prejudice against foreign capital that have been widespread since the launch of the Roh administration,’’ said Na Seong-rin, an economics professor at Hanyang University.
Many diplomats here said the public humiliation of Lone Star Fund created an image problem for South Korea among foreign investors.
They also added that, though South Korea is still attractive as an investment destination, other countries are more lucrative, encouraging investors to look beyond Korea in global business opportunities.
This may sound like one of those late-night ads on TV, but in these tough economic times, you really may be able to get some extra cash from the IRS:
“ This comes straight from the federal government, and it's not an email scam.
There are almost $1.3 billion in unclaimed tax refunds from 2005, and you may still be able to get some of that money.
If you did not make enough to require filing a return that year, you may still have had money withheld from your pay.
The IRS estimates that about half of the people who are owed refunds will get more than $580. Diane Kepley, Washington.”
When the 9-1-1 operator asks,“ What's your emergency?”
she doesn't want to hear about your disappointment in McDonald's.
Still, police in Fort Pierce, Florida say a woman called three times ?
Letrisa Goodman told authorities she paid for a 10-piece, but only later was informed the store had run out.
Police cited her for misuse of 9-1-1.
There are almost $1.3 billion in unclaimed tax refunds from 2005, and you may still be able to get some of that money.
A former Texas sheriff and several jailers have been indicted in a drug and sex case.
“ Seventeen people are indicted, all having to do with troubling conditions at the Montague County jail when it was under the control of former Sheriff Bill Keating.
6 women who were guards at the jail, accused of having sex with male inmates and giving them drugs or other contraband, such as cell phones and cigarettes.
Keating, who lost his bid for re-election as sheriff last year after serving a 4-year term, faces at least one state charge of having sex with an inmate.
Neither he nor his lawyer have commented on the charges.
Bob Morrison, Fort Worth.”
The mayor of Los Alamitos, California, criticized for sending an email showing watermelons in front of the White House, is giving up the mayor's job, but will stay on the City Council.
Dean Gross tells KCAL-TV he wasn't aware that the message was in bad taste:
I've learned that you don't forward emails.”
6 women who were guards at the jail, accused of having sex with male inmates and giving them drugs or other contraband, such as cell phones and cigarettes.
Neither he nor his lawyer have commented on the charges.
“ I saw it in a humorous light;
Where was the Secret Service?”
The late night comic got some mileage from the Iraqi shoe thrower.
Jay Leno in NBC's“ Tonight Show.”
“You see what President Bush did, see what, see what he did, though, to keep from being hit?
And David Letterman on the CBS“ Late Show.”
“In Iraqi or Arabic he starts to screamin', 'Here is your farewell, kiss you, dog.'
That's what the guy says.
Leno tells this morning's New York Times he'd like to pay a return visit to Letterman show someday.
Where was the Secret Service?”
The late night comic got some mileage from the Iraqi shoe thrower.
Let's see what's going on on Wall Street by going live to the New York Stock Exchange and the AP's Warren Levinson:
“ Jon, this is where we find out whether 7,000 on the Dow is a safety net or just another in a series of Maginot Lines.
The Standard & Poor's 500 is also down 12 points.
Among other things, the market's staggering under the weight of AIG:
the insurance colossus deemed too big to fail is reporting a record quarterly loss for an American company ?
Right now, the Dow down 127 at 6,936.
Right in the solar plexus!
The Dow took a hit first thing this morning, and it's trading below the 7,000 level for the first time since late 1997.
Let's see what's going on on Wall Street by going live to the New York Stock Exchange and the AP's Warren Levinson:
The Standard & Poor's 500 is also down 12 points.
The leaders of China and Japan have both said that a nuclear test by North Korea would be “unacceptable”.
The statement came after Japan's new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met Chinese leaders in their capital Beijing - the first such contact in five years.
North Korea's threat last week to test a nuclear weapon may have given greater urgency to improved relations between the two countries, correspondents say.
Relations had deteriorated under Abe's predecessor Junichiro Koizumi.
Speaking after the meeting, Abe told reporters that, ”Japan and China shared the view that a North Korean nuclear test is unacceptable.”
”This is a strong message to North Korea,” he added.
North Korea's threat last week to test a nuclear weapon may have given greater urgency to improved relations between the two countries, correspondents say.
The British economic magazine Economist has proposed that Korea redenominate its currency to one won to one euro, according to the Chosun Ilbo.
The British economic magazine Economist has proposed that Korea redenominate its currency to one won to one euro, according to the Chosun Ilbo.
In its recent edition, the Economist said that Turkey and Romania have pursued a redenomination and countries with low currency value are rapidly disappearing.
“At this rate, South Korea will soon find itself an international oddity with its exchange rate of 1,400 won to the euro,” And then, the magazine suggested, “How about a redenomination there to transform the OECD's lightest currency into its most confusing
Ten countries' leading newspapers polled their own citizens in recent weeks to find out how they perceive America and Americans, who they support between John Kerry and George W. Bush, and their views on the war in Iraq.
Negative attitudes towards Bush were common in all 10 countries except Israel:
Arrest warrant for teenagers for torturing a 13-year-old girl.
The widow and five children of Chile´s former military ruler, Gen Augusto Pinochet, have been arrested on charges of embezzlement.
They are accused of illegally transferring $27m (£13.2m) to foreign bank accounts during the general´s time in power between 1973 and 1990.
A judge ordered 17 other suspects to be held, including aides to Gen Pinochet.
Gen Pinochet died in December 2006 before he could stand trial on charges of corruption and human rights abuses.
More than 3,000 people were killed or “disappeared” during his military rule.
Playing on the fear factor, US Vice President Dick Cheney suggested in a campaign speech there might be another terrorist attack on the United States if John Kerry were in the White House.
President Bush's opponents' are raising their own worst fears, including the potential for more wars during a second Bush term.
The rhetoric continued during the weekend. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, speaking at a Saturday night fund-raiser in DeKalb, Ill., said his opinion is that the al-Qaida terror network could operate better with Kerry in the White House instead of Bush.
Kerry's running mate, John Edwards, issued a statement Sunday accusing Hastert of using the ``politics of fear,'' which Edwards said is a ``clear sign of weakness and failed leadership.''
Capital city head raise a public criticism for misused tax revenues.
˝A radioactive leak at a major power plant in Japan damaged by an earthquake on Monday was worse than previously thought, the plant´s operators say.
Owner Tokyo Electric Power company said 50% more radiation was discharged into the sea, following the magnitude 6.8 quake, than was earlier reported.
But the firm insisted the leak was still well below danger levels.
The mayor of nearby Kashiwazaki City has ordered the plant to remain closed indefinitely.
Hiroshi Aida said the plant could not reopen until its safety had been verified.
Meanwhile, Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the UN´s atomic agency, has called on Japan to investigate the incident to “make sure that we learn the necessary lesson from the earthquake”.
In a statement, the Tokyo Electric Power company (Tepco) said there had been a mistake calculating the radioactive level of water that leaked into the sea.
It was 50% more radioactive than had been announced, the company said.
Despite Tepco´s reassurances, the incident has triggered public concern and criticism of the company.˝
But the firm insisted the leak was still well below danger levels.
Lee Myung-bak, the conservative front-runner for this month´s presidential election, received a rare endorsement Sunday from one of South Korea´s two umbrella labor unions that have traditionally sided with the liberals.
Lee of the main opposition Grand National Party is poised to win the Dec. 19 vote, with his approval rating having surged several percentage points to well over 40 percent after prosecutors cleared him of allegations of involvement in a major financial fraud.
The Federation of Korean Trade Unions, the less militant of South Korea´s two umbrella labor organizations, said that in a recent opinion survey of its members, Lee was picked as the most favored among three major candidates.
It´s the first time South Korea´s labor body has thrown its support behind the candidate of the conservative party that has sided with conglomerates.
The endorsement seemed even more unusual because Lee was often accused of suppressing labor activity when he was the chief executive of Hyundai Construction and Engineering from the late 1970s to the early 1990s.
The ruling Uri Party has decided to request Prime Minister Lee Hae chan's resignation over a recent golf game scandal, party officials said yesterday.
Party leaders are set to deliver their position to President Roh Moo hyun as early as possible after he returns from an African tour today.
The decision was made based on a series of discussions among party members and public opinion polls.
More than two thirds of Uri members, including some of Lee's own supporters, view his resignation as inevitable.
More than 60 percent of respondents to its surveys wanted him to resign, the party said.
Lee is a member of the party.
The golf game took place in Busan on March 1 as a nationwide rail strike paralyzed public transportation and is alleged to have involved businessmen suspected of attempting to lobby the premier.
Lee is a member of the party.
The Korea Times reports President Roh Moo-hyun on Tuesday renewed his determination to overcome the nation’s regionalism, telling ruling Uri Party lawmakers that the challenge is the last goal of his decades-long political life.
In a dinner meeting at Chong Wa Dae with legislators of the party, Roh once again stressed that he would give up his vested interests and sacrifice himself in order to achieve the goal within his tenure.
Roh’s remarks came amid signs of an internal feud within the ruling party as not a few lawmakers raised their voices against his coalition proposal, which proponents say is a way of defeating the deep-rooted regional animosity that largely characterizes the nation’s divisive politics.
Education Ministry presents a guideline for essay tests.
North sees talks mid-September.
President Roh Moo-hyun will approve a National Assembly-ratified bill on the appointment of an independent counsel to investigate allegations of President-elect Lee Myung-bak´s involvement in a 2001 financial fraud during a Cabinet meeting slated for today, Roh´s spokesperson told Yonhap News Agency on Monday.
Cheon Ho-seon said that the independent counsel bill will be presented to Wednesday´s Cabinet meeting and the president doesn´t have any intention of vetoing it.
The bill, passed last week by the pro-government United New Democratic Party and a group of minor parties amid a boycott by GNP lawmakers, came after Roh and the pro-government parties raised suspicion over the prosecution´s recent vindication of Lee in a 2001 financial fraud case.
Recent disclosure of a video, in which Lee said that in 2000 he established the now-defunct investment consulting company BBK used the following year by his Korean-American business partner, Kim Kyung-joon, in a massive stock fraud, has embarrassed Lee.
Lee won a landslide victory in the Dec.
The rapidly aging population is expected to become the main culprit of the nation's stagnant economic growth in the coming years, the Bank of Korea said yesterday.
Growth is estimated to remain in the mid 3-percent level between 2011 and 2030 and could drop further below 2 percent after 2030, according to the report titled ""The impact of demographic changes on economic growth.
"" To counter the problems stemming from the drastic demographic change Korea needs a development strategy, which would put more emphasis on enhancing productivity than simply increasing the workforce, the report stressed.
Prudential group establishes its Asian regional headquarter in Korea.
The news of Jeon’s win at Cannes put the entire nation as well as industry people into a celebratory mood.
President Roh Moo Hyun on Monday sent a congratulatory message to Jeon and the entire staff of ``Secret Sunshine’’ for “showing once again the Korean movie’s strength and potential.”
Roh also praised Jeon’s passion and hard work resulting in the outstanding performance.
The celebratory mood also caught on with people in the city of Miryang, South Gyeongsang Province, where some 90 percent of ``Secret Sunshine’’ was filmed.
’Lee, Jeon and actor Song Gang-ho, who also starred in the film, will hold a press conference on May 30 upon returning to Seoul.
They will also embark on a nationwide promotion of the film.
Officials at CJ Entertainment, which is in charge of distributing the film overseas, also appeared upbeat.
Negotiations are underway with companies in Japan, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Italy and Germany, according to the company.
The celebratory mood also caught on with people in the city of Miryang, South Gyeongsang Province, where some 90 percent of ``Secret Sunshine’’ was filmed.
It's Earth Day, and President Barack Obama is off to Iowa to promote alternative energy:
“ The President is touring the Trinity Towers plant in Newton, Iowa, a plant where Maytag used to make washers and dryers, but where now a Texas company builds towers for wind turbines.
It's the kind of transformation the big green energy spending in his stimulus plan is designed to support, but Iowans might be forgiven for thinking there's another motive for today's visit:
Obama's already spoken of seeking a second term as president, and it was his surprise Iowa caucus victory in January of last year that made him the Democratic front runner for his current term.
Mark Smith, at the White House.”
The Canucks have become the first team to advance to the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
In the NBA, the Trailblazers evened their first-round series in a game apiece, while the Cavs and Lakers were going up two games to none.
It's the kind of transformation the big green energy spending in his stimulus plan is designed to support, but Iowans might be forgiven for thinking there's another motive for today's visit:
Justice Minister Kim Seung-kyu on Monday made it clear he is opposed to the idea of abolishing the anti-communist National Security Law, saying keeping a legal system against enemy states is essential to safeguard the country's democratic system.
Kim's comments came as political parties are moving to have debates on whether to keep the security law, which has often been misused by governments to suppress political dissidents.
Recent opinion polls have showed more than 80 percent of lawmakers recognize the need to scrap or amend the vaguely-worded, anti-communist law, which is aimed at punishing organizers and participants of anti-state and pro-North Korean activities.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said after peace talks in Washington that failure to negotiate a two-state solution with the Palestinians could threaten Israel´s long-term survival.
A day after Israel and the Palestinians formally relaunched negotiations, Olmert´s comments appeared in Thursday´s Haaretz newspaper on the 60th anniversary of the passing of a U.N. resolution to partition British-run Palestine between Jews and Arabs
a two-state solution that still eludes them.
For 40 years, Israel has occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip, home to 4 million Arabs.
However, to annex the territory and its people would, Israeli leaders say, undermine the Jewish nature of Israel, which has a population now of 7 million.
Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas agreed at a conference this week to try to forge a peace treaty and create a Palestinian state by the end of 2008
a time scale skeptics say is too ambitious.
However, to annex the territory and its people would, Israeli leaders say, undermine the Jewish nature of Israel, which has a population now of 7 million.
Talking about himself in the third person, the politician picked to succeed the President Elect in the Senate, says there's nothing wrong with Roland Burris and there's nothing wrong with the appointment.
Burris was on the CBS“ Early Show,” saying he'll try to take the seat given to him by the embattled Illinois governor today.
“It says, 'the governor shall fill a vacancy,' and I, as a former Attorney General of my state, I have no knowledge where a Secretary of State has veto power over a governor's carrying out his constitutional duties.”
But Senate Democrats say Burris will be denied.
The fighting and the dying getting more intense in Gaza and Israel today.
Palestinian medics say 30 people are dead in an Israeli air strike outside a UN school in Gaza, the second deadly airstrike to hit a UN school in a matter of hours.
The AP's Aaron Heller in Jerusalem:
“The Palestinian death toll continues to rise as rocket attacks continue and the Israeli ground […]
All twelve of Toyota's plants in Japan will be shut down for 11 days in February and March.
But Senate Democrats say Burris will be denied.
Palestinian medics say 30 people are dead in an Israeli air strike outside a UN school in Gaza, the second deadly airstrike to hit a UN school in a matter of hours.
Death toll is over 550 now.”
``The Japanese do not reflect on any wrongdoings,’’ Lee said.
Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan said yesterday that Japan has not reflected enough on the atrocities it committed during its colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.
``Germany has made every effort to reflect on its past, but Japan's effort is not enough,’’ Lee told reporters before attending a policy briefing session of the Fair Trade Commission at Chong Wa Dae.
Lee was talking about souring bilateral relations triggered by Japan's renewed claim on South Korea's easternmost islets of Tokto and its attempt to release school textbooks that beautify Japan's 1910-45 colonization of the peninsula.
``The Japanese do not reflect on any wrongdoings,’’ Lee said.
Hundreds of thousands of immigrants in the United States have joined a day of nationwide action to protest against proposed immigration reform.
Mass rallies were staged across the US as immigrants’ boycotted work or school and avoided spending money to show how much immigrants matter to the economy.
About 11.5 million illegal immigrants live in the US, many entering via Mexico.
The protest comes as the US Congress is caught up in the divisive business of reforming immigration laws.
A bipartisan bill currently stalled in the Senate would bolster border security, but also provide illegal immigrants a path toward citizenship and a guest-worker program long favored by President George W Bush.
“ The Committee on Financial Services will now convene….
“ You know, what we need is better, smarter, tougher regulations.”
Tim Geithner telling lawmakers the financial system needs comprehensive reform, and not modest repairs at the margin.
He says the current system has proven to be too unstable and fragile, and failed investors in basic, fundamental ways.
Stock prices are up on downbeat news today.
The government reports the overall number of Americans claiming unemployment benefits has reached a new high of 5.56 million.
Meanwhile, it says the economy shrank at a 6.3% annual rate at the end of last year.
But, an upbeat profit report from Best Buy has given Wall Street a sense that the economy may be finding its footing.
to stop another economic meltdown before it starts:
The first United Nations climate conference since the Kyoto agreement came into force in February has opened with the US still resisting targets.
Delegates meeting in the Canadian city of Montreal are to discuss how targets on cutting greenhouse gas emissions over the next seven years will be met.
The host government is trying to find a formula which would enable the US, other industrialized countries and the developing nations to unite under a combined statement on future action.
Thousands of scientists, officials and environmentalists are attending 12 days of talks. The first United Nations climate conference since the Kyoto agreement came into force in February has opened with the US still resisting targets.
As the talks opened, Canada urged wider participation in measures to tackle ""a terrible danger for the planet"".
North Korea will take part in the six-party denuclearization talks in early November as scheduled, the North’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Monday.
North Korea will take part in the six-party denuclearization talks in early November as scheduled, the North’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Monday.
But the announcement came together with strong criticism against the United States.
Quoting a foreign ministry spokesman’s statement, the North’s official news agency reported that Pyongyang will dispatch its delegates to Beijing for the fifth round of the talks at a date to be determined through consultations.
But the statement hinted at tougher discussions down the road as it said North Korea will strongly criticize the U.S. for creating a much more difficult situation than it did prior to the adoption of the joint statement last month.
China threatens retaliation over tainted import claims.
In a separate development, the US military confirmed that a body pulled from the Euphrates River near Baghdad was one of three US soldiers missing in Iraq.
An army spokeswoman said the body was that of Private First Class Joseph Anzack Jr from California.
Pvt Anzack went missing, along with two comrades, on May 12 after his patrol was ambushed near Mahmudiya, west of Baghdad.
The frantic search continues for children thought trapped in what was once their school in Haiti.
The AP's Jonathan Katz reports the death toll is close to 90:
“Somewhere there's at least 88 people dead and about 150 seriously wounded.”
Special search and rescue teams from the U.S. and France are at the site where the three-story building crumbled on Friday.
The school's owner is in custody, facing possible manslaughter charges.
At least 20 people, including 17 civilians, suffocated on board a new Russian nuclear submarine when the vessel's fire suppression system went off by accident during sea trials.
The AP's Steve Gutterman reports from Moscow:
“There were apparently about 200 people aboard this sub, including shipbuilders, as well as sailors, when the accident occurred.”
The nuclear reactor on the submarine was not damaged in that accident.
“Somewhere there's at least 88 people dead and about 150 seriously wounded.”
A military helicopter on a United Nations peacekeeping mission in Nepal crashed on Monday in the eastern district of Sindhuli, killing all 12 passengers aboard, including Lt.
Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff and other government agencies sent a five-member fact-finding team, including two forensic experts, to Nepal to assist in investigating the accident and to bring back the body.
Park’s family members were also sent to the scene yesterday.
According to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Foreign Ministry, a helicopter carrying four UN military observers, including Park, crashed on its way back to Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital, from Sindhuli, in the rugged eastern part of the country.
The other three UN military observers killed in the accident were from Indonesia, Zambia and Sweden.
Other victims included three Nepalese workers, three crew members, one interpreter and a mechanic whose nationalities have not yet been confirmed.
The cause of the crash is under investigation.
A military helicopter on a United Nations peacekeeping mission in Nepal crashed on Monday in the eastern district of Sindhuli, killing all 12 passengers aboard, including Lt.
U.S. officials said the government also offered North Korea three months to start dismantling its programs. In return, the North must provide a full listing of its nuclear activities, disable some dangerous materials and allow monitoring.
The proposal was made at the start of six-party talks in Beijing.
The U.S. has offered North Korea incentives to get rid of its nuclear weapons program.
The U.S. government presented a plan which allows other nations to supply North Korea with energy aid.
Washington also said it could consider giving the North assurances it would not be attacked.
U.S. officials said the government also offered North Korea three months to start dismantling its programs.
In return, the North must provide a full listing of its nuclear activities, disable some dangerous materials and allow monitoring.
The proposal was made at the start of six-party talks in Beijing.
Twins, triplets, quadruplets, we've got plenty of stories about them - but octuplets?
Yeah, eight babies born within 5 minutes of each other at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Bellflower, California.
All eight are breathing on their own this morning, even the smallest preemie, who weighed in at just 1 pound, 8 ounces:
Crisis averted at the White House: the email system back up and running this morning.
Twins, triplets, quadruplets, we've got plenty of stories about them - but octuplets?
“The little one is actually very feisty, and he's doing very good right now.
Uh, this baby was also on the ventilator in the beginning, but I was able to take the breathing tube out last night.”
Crisis averted at the White House:
North Korea has ended a week of feverish speculation by finally confirming that its secretive leader Kim Jong-il has been in China.
Kim, whose overseas visits are usually announced once they are over, held talks with President Hu Jintao, North Korea's KCNA news agency said.
His visit to his closest ally raised hopes that stalled talks on North Korea's nuclear standoff could resume.
KCNA said Kim visited China from 10-18 January in an unofficial visit as the guest of Hu.
The two leaders agreed to press for a ""negotiated peaceful solution"" to the nuclear issue, through the mechanism of the stalled talks.
China's official media confirmed the visit, saying Kim had visited Beijing and the provinces of Hubei and Guangdong.
Kim, whose overseas visits are usually announced once they are over, held talks with President Hu Jintao, North Korea's KCNA news agency said.
His visit to his closest ally raised hopes that stalled talks on North Korea's nuclear standoff could resume.
The Bush White House is opposed to reviving the military draft, despite a stretched all-volunteer force in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The U.S. ended the draft in 1973 during the turbulent Vietnam War era.
The Bush White House is opposed to reviving the military draft, despite a stretched all-volunteer force in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he couldn't imagine the circumstances that might be necessary to invoke the draft.
Congress has also shown no interest in reviving the draft during an election year.
Iraqs prime minister insists theres no room for militants in the new Iraq.
An Islamic militant group has denied it beheaded a U.S. marine.
The prosecution will indict a television news reporter who broke the story on the illegal tapping operations of spy agencies in former governments for violating the communication privacy law.
In concluding its lengthy probe on the bugging scandal, however, the prosecution has decided not to take legal action against some high-ranking executives at Samsung Group, including group chairman Lee Kun-hee, who faced allegations of providing slush funds to presidential candidates ahead of the 1997 elections.
The Korea Herald reports the government's relentless efforts to curb housing prices are stoking concerns that they could cause a hard landing for the property market and hurt the nation's economy by seriously contracting household spending.
With the recent flurry of rules to curb mortgage loans and absorb excess liquidity, market watchers are beginning to worry that many debt-financed households could become insolvent.
They are particularly concerned that the toughened financial regulations could cripple lenders, which are heavily exposed to home buyers.
In the worst-case scenario, analysts say, the inability of households to repay debt under the tightened lending rules could deal a fatal blow to banks, triggering a Japan-like crisis in the coming years.
The rising anxieties came amid a spate of recent government measures to curb an excessive buying boom in the housing market that was in part fueled by the lax lending policies of banks.
The Korea Herald reports bad loans at domestic lenders shrank 15 percent in the second quarter, quoting a Financial Supervisory Service statement that ignited a rally yesterday among bank stocks.
At the end of June, loans in default for at least three months totaled 18.1 trillion won at 19 banks, down from 21.3 trillion won on March 31st, the FSS said.
Bad debt made up 2.46 percent of 738.5 trillion won in the banks' total lending as of June 30th, compared to 2.93 percent a quarter earlier.
On the main Korea Stock Exchange, the banking-sector sub-index rose 0.53 percent to 169.95 point, outperforming the 0.28 percent gain of the benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index.
The Korea Herald reports bad loans at domestic lenders shrank 15 percent in the second quarter, quoting a Financial Supervisory Service statement that ignited a rally yesterday among bank stocks.
Shin Ki-nam decided to step down from the top post.
A new Army report about abusing Iraq’s prisoners is revealed.
˝Grand National presidential candidate Lee Myung-bak yesterday introduced a detailed plan to help North Korea boost its per capita income to $3,000 within 10 years under the condition that Pyongyang dismantle its nuclear program and open up to the international community.
In an address yesterday at the J-Global Forum, a two-day conference organized by the JoongAng Ilbo, Lee said that if elected president, he is willing to create an inter-Korean committee that can come up with a reward for the North if it dismantles its nuclear program permanently.
“I am going to raise an international cooperation fund worth up to $40 billion that's entirely to assist the North,” Lee promised.
This was Lee’s first time to lay out his North Korean policy since he was elected as the official GNP candidate last month ˝
˝Former Seoul Mayor, 66-year-old Lee Myung-bak Monday won the main opposition Grand national Party´s (GNP) nomination to compete in the Dec.
Lee edged former party Chairwoman Park Geun-hye by 2,452 votes in Sunday´s primary, the conservative party announced at its nomination convention in Seoul.
Admitting her defeat as ``fair,“ Park vowed to fight as an ordinary party member for the GNP´s victory in the election.
Lee won 81,084 votes or 49.56 percent of the total eligible votes, while Park received 78,632 or 48.06 percent.
In his acceptance speech, the nominee pledged that he would do his best to win the presidential race.˝
President Roh Moo-hyun Monday withdrew his nomination of Chon Hyo-suk as the country's first female chief of the Constitutional Court, as the main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) rejected his proposal for a bipartisan conference.
``He received a request from Chon to withdraw her nomination as the Constitutional Court chief and decided to accept the request '' in the afternoon presidential spokesman Yoon Tai-young told reporters.
Both the ruling and the opposition parties hailed the decision as the problem has been a bone of contention along with some other issues hindering a normal operation of the National Assembly for months.
16, Roh named Chon, who was the only female justice in the nine-member Constitutional Court, to become the court's new chief.
The outgoing White House pooch must be a little peeved these days.
“Maybe Barney, the presidential dog, is a lot like his master;
just wants to get home to Texas away from the White House press cor.
“Got him on the right hand;
another reporter got it all on tape and of course showed up on YouTube shortly thereafter.
The White House says it was Barney's way of saying he's done with the paparazzi.
Sauger Magoni at the White House.
One of the newest inductees to the National Toy Hall of Fame in Rochester, New York:
The stick-that's it, just a stick-which can become a magic wand, a fishing rod, or …
[Whirring of light saber]
John Decker of Reuters found out the hard way when he reached down to pet Barney on the South Lawn.”
The White House says it was Barney's way of saying he's done with the paparazzi.
At least 35 people were reported killed and 5 missing Monday after a fire broke out at a cold storage warehouse under construction in Icheon.
Thirteen foreign workers, including several Chinese nationals and a pregnant woman, were among the dead or missing.
Police said it will take time to identify the dead as many of their bodies were severely burned.
The number of casualties is likely to rise as the 10 other workers were locked inside the engulfed underground facilities until the blaze was brought under control at 8 p.m.
About 10 others were reported injured.
The cause of the blaze was unknown, but an official from the fire service said that inflammable vapor from the basement´s engine room was believed to have caught fire, setting off three consecutive explosions at 10-second intervals.
Burning toxic chemicals made it difficult for firefighters to approach the building to extinguish the blaze, which gutted the entire warehouse.
The official said a total of 57 people were working in the warehouse when the fire started at around 10:45 a.m. in the basement of a two-story warehouse owned by the logistics company Korea 2000.
Massachusetts lawmakers are considering a constitutional amendment to ban same sex marriage, but establish civil unions.
The proposal crossed one obstacle yesterday.
It would define marriage as the union of one man and one woman, give same sex couples state benefits of marriage, but deny them federal protections.
This is the third time lawmakers have convened in a Constitutional Convention to take up the fiery issue.
Supporters and opponents of same sex marriage are out in full force at the State House.
Massachusetts lawmakers are considering a constitutional amendment to ban same sex marriage, but establish civil unions.
It would define marriage as the union of one man and one woman, give same sex couples state benefits of marriage, but deny them federal protections.
Seoul and Beijing trys to hold six-party talks as early as possible.
China's is rapidly extending its military reach and could pose a threat across Asia, a Pentagon report warns.
It says Beijing has retained its focus on Taiwan - but increased spending on aircraft, ships and missiles means it could project power further afield.
The Pentagon has issued warnings about China's growing might in recent years.
The Chinese have responded to past reports by saying they pose no threat and accusing the US of seeking excuses to sell weapons to Taiwan.
China regards the island as a renegade province and has vowed to invade if Taiwan moves towards declaring formal independence.
Last year's Pentagon report said China has deployed up to 730 short-range ballistic missiles in the three provinces facing Taiwan.
According to the latest document, China has increased by about 25,000 the number of ground troops deployed in the area.
The Pentagon has issued warnings about China's growing might in recent years.
The Chinese have responded to past reports by saying they pose no threat and accusing the US of seeking excuses to sell weapons to Taiwan.
South Korea and the United States have agreed to transfer wartime operational control sometime between 2009 and 2012, reaching a compromise in their differences on a target year for the OPCON transition from the United States to South Korea.
“Both sides have agreed to expeditiously complete the transition of OPCON to the ROK (Republic of Korea) after Oct.
Nine bodies have been recovered from the wreckage of a downed helicopter that crashed in the freezing Atlantic off the coast of Newfoundland.
Ten bodies in all have been found, seven people are missing from Thursday's crash, one person survived.
Joseph Fritzl made an appearance in court in Austria.
He is accused of fathering 7 children with a daughter he kept locked in a basement.
But after finding that they were South Koreans, the Shiite men released them the following day.
The two were in Baghdad following their release.
Seoul has received no report of injuries of the men. Two South Korean aid workers were set free Tuesday, the day after being detained by a Shiite group in southern Iraq.
The two men were doing relief work in the southern city of Nasiriyah on Monday when shooting erupted between Italian forces and Shiite militiamen.
During this gunfight, the Shiite men apparently held the South Koreans because they were foreigners.
“The Dark Knight” was a huge hit at summer box office and now it's a big nominee for the People's Choice Award:
“'The Dark Knight' is nominated in several categories, favorite movie, favorite action movie, favorite cast, and as Paula Marshall reads, this category too…”
“…and Harrison Ford and Shia Leboeuf for 'Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull'.
Voting is at PCAvote.com.
The People's Choice Awards are on January 7.
Stocks tumbling in early trading, with the Dow losing about 200 points in just the opening minutes.
A home builder, Toll Brothers, says it can't project a profit for next year.
“…and Harrison Ford and Shia Leboeuf for 'Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull'.
Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy tells ABC's This Week he fully expects the Senate to confirm a Supreme Court justice to replace the retiring Justice David Souter before the start of the next Supreme Court session:
“ We certainly will have somebody in place;
it would be irresponsible if we didn't have somebody in place by the beginning of the October session.”
The head of the Senate Judiciary Committee says he will schedule confirmation hearings soon.
Former Republican Congressman, cabinet member and vice-presidential candidate Jack Kemp has died of cancer at age 73.
One-time Kemp campaign adviser and president of the Heritage Foundation, Edward Fuelner:
“ He believed in the power of ideas, and he believed that in our system everybody should have the opportunity to move up the ladder.”
He said five rebels were killed and one member of the Iraqi security forces was injured.
There has been fighting between US troops and insurgents in the Iraqi capital and the city of Ramadi.
US troops were involved in a seven-hour clash in Baghdad's Adhamiya district after insurgents attacked Iraqi security forces.
In Ramadi, insurgents launched a coordinated attack on a government building.
Earlier, the bodies of 12 men were found in Baghdad, Iraq's interior ministry said. A military spokesman said US troops took part in fighting in the Sunni Muslim-dominated Adhamiya district in the north of Baghdad.
Troops went in to provide support to Iraqi security forces after about 50 insurgents attacked.
The spokesman described it as ""quite a battle"".
He said five rebels were killed and one member of the Iraqi security forces was injured.
There were no US casualties, he said.
A military option against North Korea can be held as a possible card to keep the North from joining the nuclear club, but it seems impossible at the moment for the United States to launch a preemptive attack or surgical strike, experts say.
As North Korea has accelerated its nuclear drive in recent weeks to bring the regional tension to a peak with its traditional brinkmanship tactics, media outlets have raised speculations about the possibilities of a nuclear test by the North and a military campaign by the U.S. to thwart it.
However, without mature conditions for such an option and due to strong objection by its allies, a U.S. military campaign remains an unfeasible plan for the time being, officials and experts said yesterday.
When does North Korea test its nuclear bombs?
The fifth round of negotiations toward a Korea-U.S. free trade agreement began last night in Big Sky, Montana, a resort town in the U.S.
The five-day round of talks takes on additional importance because of the slow pace of negotiations to this point despite a March deadline for concluding them.
Kim Jong-hoon, Korea's delegation head, said before leaving for the talks, “Trade remedies and pharmaceuticals are what we are going to focus on.”
He was referring to Korea's complaints about actions taken by the United States in retaliation for alleged dumping and government subsidies by foreign companies and nations in export trade to the United States, and to U.S. complaints about Korea's health insurance coverage of drugs.
U.S. negotiators are also expected to continue pressing for more opportunities to sell U.S. automobiles in Korea and to strengthen its protection of intellectual property.
Kim Jong-hoon, Korea's delegation head, said before leaving for the talks, “Trade remedies and pharmaceuticals are what we are going to focus on.”
A conservative American analyst said South Korea´s presidential election last week should serve as a “wake-up call” to the U.S. administration to modify its course on North Korea.
In an editorial published on Wednesday in the Washington Post, Nicholas Eberstadt, a political economist at the American Enterprise Institute, said the election of Lee Myung-bak, a candidate who argued for more reciprocity in dealing with Pyongyang, showed that voters have grown wary of the engagement policy toward the North.
North and South Korea, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan are members of the so-called six-party talks, a forum aimed at ridding the Korean Peninsula of all nuclear weapons and programs.
The Joong-Ang Ilbo reports South Korea has continued to send rice aid to North Korea even though it knew the provisions were being diverted to the communist country’s military, a senior official in Seoul confirmed yesterday.
“From late 2006 until recently, we have spotted North Korean troops near the inter-Korean border in Inje, Gangwon Province, unloading sacks of rice marked with the Red Cross symbol,” the military source said, on condition of anonymity.
Since 1995, South Korea has provided 2.66 million tons of rice to the North to feed its hungry civilians.
Suspicions about the diversion of the rice aid have lingered for a long time following a series of statements made by North Korean defectors.
In December of last year, the Committee for the Democratization of North Korea, a group established by defectors, claimed that 90 percent of the rice aid from the South went to North Korean soldiers.
US Democratic front-runners Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have traded accusations over a photo of Obama circulating on the internet.
The picture, sent to the Drudge Report website, shows Obama wearing traditional African dress during a visit to Kenya in 2006.
The Obama camp claimed it was circulated by Mrs Clinton´s staff as a smear.
Analysts say Mrs Clinton needs to win the contests, in Texas and Ohio, to remain in the race to choose the Democratic candidate for November´s presidential election.
The photograph shows Obama - whose father came from Kenya - wearing a white turban and a white robe presented to him by elders in the north-east of the country.
According to the pro-GOP Drudge Report, which published the photograph on Monday, it was circulated by ""Clinton staffers"".
The accusation was dismissed by Mrs Clinton´s campaign manager Maggie Williams.
Mrs Clinton´s team denied the accusation.
A bomb near a Shi'ite shrine killed eight people and a fierce attack on Iran by a minister fueled fears of sectarian strife when campaigning began on Wednesday for Iraq's first election since Saddam Hussein's fall.
US President Bush warned Syria and Iran not to interfere in Iraq and urged neighboring countries to help enforce border security before the Jan.
30 poll, likely to hand power to the long-oppressed majority Shi'ites at the expense of Saddam's fellow Sunnis. The bombing near the Imam Hussein shrine in the city of Kerbala also wounded 32 people
The Italian Foreign Ministry said it was investigating a claim by an Iraqi photographer.
Telson Electronics, one of the Big 5 cell phone makers, announced Monday it had applied for court mediation to creditors to suspend its debts.
Mergers and acquisition moves by foreign companies aimed at Korean mobile phone manufactures are accelerating, according to the Chosun Ilbo.
A group of foreign businesses including Chinese companies have started negotiations to acquire Korean mid-tier makers that are having a hard time financially.
Telson Electronics, one of the Big 5 cell phone makers, announced Monday it had applied for court mediation to creditors to suspend its debts.
Kerry accused Bush of making the world angry at the U.S.
S.K.bans on PPA for risk of brain stroke.
Some laptops are having battery problems;
our Ed Donahue has more on a voluntary recall:
“The Consumer Product Safety Commission says there have been 40 reports of overheated batteries.
There was smoke or flames in some cases, and small burns were reported in four cases.
The voluntary recall covers certain Sony 2.15AH lithium-ion cell batteries made in Japan.
They were sold around the world for laptops made by Hewlett-Packard, Dell, and Toshiba.
Sony makes the battery but says its own VAIO laptops do not use it.
John McCain is no rookie when it comes to“ Saturday Night Live.”
Aides say the GOP candidate will make his third appearance on the NBC late night comedy tomorrow night, just days ahead of the Tuesday election.
Some laptops are having battery problems;
our Ed Donahue has more on a voluntary recall:
The voluntary recall covers certain Sony 2.15AH lithium-ion cell batteries made in Japan.
McCain's running mate Sarah Palin drew the highest ratings in 14 years for the show when she was on SNL two weeks ago.
Former Prime Minister Goh Kun yesterday launched a civic organization to “reform broken politics,” in a move widely seen to prop up his bid for the presidency.
Goh, a leading presidential hopeful with no party affiliation, defines his group as a ”pure” civic group in an apparent attempt to distance itself from the nation's ”hopeless” politics.
”The current politics do not give any hope to people.
People should come forth and rectify the situation,” Goh said in a launching ceremony for the Hope Solidarity.
Political observers say Goh will focus on civic activities for the time being, trying to establish his image ahead of the 2007 presidential election.
LeBron - you have to be like Mike, hitting a 3-pointer at the buzzer to give the Cleveland Cavaliers a 96-95 playoff win over Orlando.
James says it was magic, against the Magic:
“ To hit a shot like that at the buzzer, at home, wow!”
Game 3 tomorrow night, in Orlando.
A Memorial Day weekend tradition at the Brickyard:
Two-time winner and defending champ, Helio Castraneves, will start from the full position.
Danica Patrick, one of three women to qualify this year, says it's not just how fast you can go, but also how you master the race:
“ You do have to have speed, but then probably, the next most amount, the next most important thing would probably be… the patient in the race.
She formed the team with her husband and crew chief, Manuel Garra, last year. LeBron - you have to be like Mike, hitting a 3-pointer at the buzzer to give the Cleveland Cavaliers a 96-95 playoff win over Orlando.
James says it was magic, against the Magic:
A Memorial Day weekend tradition at the Brickyard:
Danica Patrick, one of three women to qualify this year, says it's not just how fast you can go, but also how you master the race:
˝Hong Kong´s Chief Executive, Donald Tsang, has repeated a pledge to create a more democratic system.
He was speaking after being sworn in for a new term in office by communist Chinese President Hu Jintao.
The event came during a weekend of celebrations to mark 10 years since the territory returned to Chinese rule.
Colorful parades and displays have taken place, but thousands of pro-democracy campaigners also gathered to call for political reform.
President Hu was not there to see them as he had already left Hong Kong for the mainland earlier in the day
President Hu was not there to see them as he had already left Hong Kong for the mainland earlier in the day
Here's where 40 billion of the $700 billion bailout money is going:
AIG, the government gave the struggling insurance giant second financial help this morning.
Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm was going to beg for the auto industry getting a piece of the rescue pie.
She tells NBC's“ Today Show” about the potential impact of the industry going wheels up.
“It would mean between 3 and 5 million jobs.
That would have a devastating impact on the American economy.”
South Africans are mourning the loss of Miriam Makeba…
… a singer known for her sultry voice and 1960's hit in America“ Pata Pata”.
She was banned from her own country for 30 years under apartheid.
Makeba died early today after collapsing at a concert in Italy.
AAA report they're down to $2.94 this morning.
Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm was going to beg for the auto industry getting a piece of the rescue pie.
She tells NBC's“ Today Show” about the potential impact of the industry going wheels up.
˝Bolts of lightning struck near the peaks of two separate mountains within minutes yesterday afternoon, killing five climbers and injuring six more.
According to the National Emergency Management Agency, four mountain climbers died at about noon yesterday near the top of Yonghyeolbong, a peak on Mount Bukhan in the city of Goyang, Gyeonggi.
Another was killed on Mount Surak in the nearby city of Uijeongbu, also around noon.
The injured people suffered minor burns due to electric shock.˝
According to the National Emergency Management Agency, four mountain climbers died at about noon yesterday near the top of Yonghyeolbong, a peak on Mount Bukhan in the city of Goyang, Gyeonggi.
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) requested Thursday the Ministry of National Defense and the prosecution to investigate alleged abuses of human rights in the marine corps and recommended the ministry compensate a victim.
The commission, which received a petition from a former marine in 2004, concluded that the marine’s personal liberty had been infringed on by his senior soldiers’ harsh treatment.
It is the first time the commission has issued a recommendation involving human rights violation cases related to the marine corps. The panel has investigated other cases in the Army or police before.
The Joong-Ang Ilbo reports an historic pavilion called Seojangdae, inside the Suwon Hwasung Fortress, was set afire yesterday by an arsonist.
The second floor of the pavilion, atop Mount Paldal in Suwon, Gyeonggi province, was gutted.
Police said that a 24-year-old man, who was not fully identified under Korea's strict laws on privacy protections, broke into the wooden building at about 1:30 a.m. yesterday, went to the second floor and set a fire that soon engulfed the structure.
About 10 fire trucks and more than 40 firefighters responded to the fire, extinguishing it in 20 minutes.
The first floor of the pavilion escaped major damage. The man, who was watching the fire near the pavilion, was arrested by police on the scene.
The fortress, built in the late 18th century by King Jeongjo, is on the Unesco World Cultural Heritage list. The pavilion was one of the most popular tourist attractions at the fortress, drawing 50,000 visitors per weekend.
It's not clear whether she wants Chris Brown back, but Rihanna does want something she had with her the night her singer boy-friend allegedly beat her:
“ Rihanna is trying to get back some loaner jewelry she had with her the night that she had the confrontation with Chris Brown.
Her attorney is asking the LAPD and prosecutors for the earrings and three rings that she wore to a Grammy-Eve party.
The jewelry is said to be worth $1.4 million, and the people who loaned it out want it back.
Court documents say all sides agree if the jewelry is needed as evidence, it can be represented in photographs.
Meanwhile, the assault case is due back in court Wednesday;
America's newspapers are losing readers faster.
A new report says average daily circulation dropped another 7.1% between last fall and this spring.
Brown himself is not required to attend.
"" Hill said he had no information on North Korea's near-term military plans.
The Joong-Ang Ilbo reports media speculation that North Korea might provoke a crisis on the peninsula this month and that the United States might retaliate with a surprise surgical strike against the North and its nuclear facilities was dismissed yesterday by Christopher Hill, the newly appointed U.S. ambassador to South Korea.
Speaking at a gathering of senior Korean journalists, he said, ""There will be no October surprises coming from the U.S.
Despite earlier statements that a maritime survey in the disputed waters near the Dokdo islets would not begin until next week, a South Korean survey ship entered waters east of the peninsula yesterday claimed by both Tokyo and Seoul as their exclusive economic zone.
Despite the distraction of the North Korean missile launches, Tokyo summoned up an angry reaction and said it would resume planning a similar survey in the area.
The foreign and maritime ministries in Seoul said the ship, operated by the National Oceanographic Research Institute, entered the waters near Dokdo at about 6:40 a.m., or about three hours after the first North Korean missile lifted off.
A government official said the schedule had been advanced because Seoul did not want the war of nerves between Korea and Japan to be prolonged.
Despite the distraction of the North Korean missile launches, Tokyo summoned up an angry reaction and said it would resume planning a similar survey in the area.
The US says coalition forces in Iraq have carried out more than 450 raids since the death last week of al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Iraq says documents seized after the killing of Zarqawi yielded vital leads and that this may be the ""beginning of the end"" of al-Qaeda in Iraq.
An Iraqi insurgent group has meanwhile kidnapped a Turkish technician, Arabic TV network al-Jazeera reports.
A video from a group calling itself the Imam Ali Brigades was aired on the network and showed a middle-aged man with a gun aimed at his head.
The group demanded Turkey withdraw its envoy from Iraq and push the US and Iraqi governments to free Iraqi prisoners within the next week.
Earlier the US said it had identified the new al-Qaeda head in Iraq as Abu Ayyub al-Masri.
The US said 104 insurgents were killed and 759 ""anti-Iraqi elements"" captured.
Wall Street is on the down swing again this morning, investors shifting their focus away from improving credit markets and worrying instead about anemic corporate earnings.
Hurting from hurricane losses, insurance company 'Travelers' reports a third quarter profit is down more than 80%.
The Dow has been down more than 300 points or about three and a half percent much of the morning.
President Bush may have a global economic solution for you.
The AP's Mark Smith has the story live from the White House:
“Well, perhaps the start of the solution, John.
The White House has announced the President will host a global summit on the meltdown November 15th.
G8 leaders plus others from top developing countries assessing the current rescue efforts and starting work on reforms.
Is it time it's the Europeans suggest for a wholesale rewrite of the financial rules of the road?”
“We'll come with our own recommendations and they'll come with theirs and that's what you would expect of a meeting of this kind.
So I think it's too early to say.”
Before a rally in New Hampshire this morning, John McCain told 'Imus in the Morning,' he knows he's down on the polls but added there's still time to turn the race around:
I think we're behind, but I think it's a margin there, and I think we're coming on all the, all the indicators that we're coming up.”
The Republican on WABC Radio in New York.
Is it time it's the Europeans suggest for a wholesale rewrite of the financial rules of the road?”
“Oh I think we're behind.
Veterans by the thousands and world leaders gathered in France to commemorate the 60th anniversary of D-Day.
The Allied invasion at Normandy led to Germany's defeat in World War Two.
French President Jacques Chirac, who has been an outspoken opponent of the U.S.-led war in Iraq, called the U.S. a ""steadfast friend and ally.
"" He said France will never forget what it owes to America.
The U.S. troops in Korea will cut the number by one-third.
˝North Korea said yesterday that the United States has agreed to take it off the list of state sponsors of terrorism and remove some trade sanctions if the communist country discloses and disables all of its nuclear programs by the end of this year.
The two sides agreed on working-level steps to disable the nuclear facilities, an unnamed spokesman for North Korea’s foreign ministry told the state-run Korean Central News Agency.
In return, he said, North Korea will be delisted from the terrorism roster and the sanctions imposed under the Trading with the Enemy Act will be lifted.
North Korea and Cuba are the only countries subject to those sanctions under that act, which bans all bilateral trade with the United States.
Negotiators from Pyongyang and Washington met in Geneva over the weekend. Wrapping up the two-day meeting, U.S.
Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill told reporters late Sunday about the progress.˝
The two sides agreed on working-level steps to disable the nuclear facilities, an unnamed spokesman for North Korea’s foreign ministry told the state-run Korean Central News Agency.
North Korea and Cuba are the only countries subject to those sanctions under that act, which bans all bilateral trade with the United States.
A lot more Americans sitting home this morning, searching the Internet and newspaper for a job:
“ This report really confirms that a lot of the bad news that we've seen over the last few weeks is accurate.”
That's Wachovia economist Mark Vittner on this morning's word from the Labor Department that another 654,000 people lost their jobs last month, driving the unemployment rate up over 8% to 8.1%.
That's the highest since 1983.
The revised numbers show the jobless situation was worse than first thought in December and January.
“ Things will get better, that much is certain.
I'm not so sure the stimulus is simply going to flip a light switch and turn the economy around instantly.”
Some traders feared an even worse jobs report for February, so the Dow actually opened up this morning.
It's currently ahead about 90 points.
“ This report really confirms that a lot of the bad news that we've seen over the last few weeks is accurate.”
The revised numbers show the jobless situation was worse than first thought in December and January.
and Micron Technology Inc.
Korean electronics firms are feeling growing pressure to retain dominance in major IT markets as global rivals are stepping up their offensive.
But analysts say noticeable changes won't occur until 2007 or 2008 as Korean companies still enjoy a solid technological leadership.
Growing challenges from foreign IT firms came to the fore Monday when Intel Corp.
A government-funded North Korea research institute voiced human rights in the North.
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) said Wednesday it has decided to delay a ruling on whether Lone Star Funds’ KEB purchase was illegal, until the court makes a final ruling.
The decision is widely viewed as a rejection to the state auditors’ demand that the FSS nullify its approval of the deal to strip the U.S. private equity fund of a majority stakeholder status in KEB.
The Indonesian authorities are stepping up emergency preparations in case of a major eruption.
Indonesia's Mount Merapi has been showing increasing activity, emitting large gas clouds and sending more than 15,000 villagers fleeing to safety.
The volcano has spewed out its largest gas cloud yet, experts said.
The Indonesian authorities are stepping up emergency preparations in case of a major eruption.
Gunmen in the Iraqi capital Baghdad have killed at least 40 people at a fake police checkpoint, in an apparent sectarian attack against Sunni Muslims.
Later, at least 26 people died when two car bombs exploded near a Shia mosque in the capital, police said.
There has been an upsurge in sectarian violence in Iraq in recent months, raising fears of a civil war.
Police said the vehicles exploded in a market place near the local Shia mosque, killing at least 25 people and wounding dozens of others.
Florida's governor has decided not to run for re-election.
The AP's Tony Wittenberg reports that Charlie Crist may have a leg up on possible opponents:
Charlie Crist is enjoying high popularity ratings, but some Florida conservatives are unhappy with his support of President Obama's stimulus plan, and Crist will be challenged by conservative former House Speaker Marco Rubio.
Some Republicans see a Crist Senate bid as a boost to the party's chance of a vote to keep that seat from going to a Democrat.
Five doctors and nurses who back government-run health care were thrown out of a hearing room today when they staged a protest.
they say supporters of government-run health care are being excluded from the Congressional debate.
The crew of the Atlantis is spending the day today checking out the shuttle for any launch damage;
Instead, he has decided to make a bid for the Senate.
The AP's Tony Wittenberg reports that Charlie Crist may have a leg up on possible opponents:
Some Republicans see a Crist Senate bid as a boost to the party's chance of a vote to keep that seat from going to a Democrat.
“ President Barack Obama says that it's too early to say if more American troops should be sent to Afghanistan.
Obama says the hardest thing he's had to do so far as President was to order 17,000 troops to Afghanistan, on top of an estimated 38.000 that were already there.”
Shirley Smith, Washington.
Rachel Alexandra held off Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird down the stretch to win the Preakness.
She's the first filly to win the second leg of the Triple Crown in 85 years.
“ She kind of struggled the last…
I want to say, the last quarter of a mile.”
Korea and the United States have agreed to free flows of goods and services between themselves and the two countries have yet to introduce free travel of their citizens.
The Korea Times reports about 800,000 South Korean travelers face stumbling blocks in visiting the U.S. due to Washington’s strict visa requirements (aimed at South Koreans.)
Although the American business community in Korea has strongly supported including South Korea on the U.S. visa waiver program (VWP), Washington is still quite cautious about this.
The VWP allows visitors from 27 countries to stay in the United States for up to 90 days without visas.
Requirements for entry into the program include electronic passports, a sustained visa refusal rate of less than 3 percent, and a close cooperation mechanism between respective security agencies.
Seoul currently has an approximate 3.5 percent refusal rate, but has promised Washington to lower the rate to 3 percent.
Except for the refusal rate, South Korea is close to satisfying all other conditions.
The Korea Times reports about 800,000 South Korean travelers face stumbling blocks in visiting the U.S. due to Washington’s strict visa requirements (aimed at South Koreans.)
Korea yesterday agreed to accept a U.S. request to hold additional talks over their bilateral free trade agreement, despite public criticism here over reopening an already sealed deal.
“After careful review of the U.S. proposal and having confidence in a successful FTA, the government decided to hold additional talks with the United States,” Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said in a statement.
The decision comes amid concerns over reigniting strong opposition against the deal that was sealed in April after about 10 months of laborious negotiations.
Washington submitted a formal request to Seoul last weekend to hold additional talks to reflect the U.S. government’s newly strengthened labor and environmental requirements.
Korea and the United States had concluded negotiations in April and they planned to sign the accord on June 30.
A woman and four children have been killed in an apartment fire in Columbus, Ohio.
Fire Battalion Chief Doug Smith tells us that many of the firefighters are taking their deaths personally:
Fire officials say the building was engulfed in flames when they arrived early this morning.
A half dozen people have been killed in a series of attacks in Iraq.
The AP's Robert Reed is in Baghdad:
“A series of attacks have been launched against Iraqi security forces in Baghdad in northern Iraq, killing at least 6 people.
One of the dead is a senior member of an anti-Al Qaeda group.”
OPEC is not likely to put up with oil prices hovering just above $40 a barrel.
Head of the cartel in an interview with the AP says a consensus has formed in the group to make significant cuts in oil production levels.
14 members of the oil-producing nations will be meeting later this month.
A half dozen people have been killed in a series of attacks in Iraq.
“A series of attacks have been launched against Iraqi security forces in Baghdad in northern Iraq, killing at least 6 people.
One of the dead is a senior member of an anti-Al Qaeda group.”
Head of the cartel in an interview with the AP says a consensus has formed in the group to make significant cuts in oil production levels.
Communist China has urged its citizens to be calm amid further anti-Western protests in the country, focused on French supermarket chain Carrefour.
The official Communist Party newspaper, the People´s Daily, said patriotism should be expressed rationally.
The protesters have been angered by disruption of the Olympic torch relay in Paris and London.
They also accuse the West of supporting what the communists call Tibetan separatists, and the Western media of bias.
The official government controlled Xinhua news agency said more than 1,000 people carrying banners had gathered in front of a Carrefour store in the city of Xian, and there were also protests in Harbin and Jinan.
Xinhua added that police were monitoring the demonstrations in the three cities, which remained peaceful.
Communist China has punished more than 17,500 officials in the first eight months of this year on corruption charges, according to official state news agency Xinhua.
Two officials have become the latest reported casualties of the scandal.
Ling Baoheng and Wu Hongmei, from the State Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, are being questioned, the Associated Press says.
A total of 67,505 government officials have been punished in China for corruption since the beginning of 2003 - with 17,505 of those in the first eight months of 2006, according to Xinhua.
Communist China has punished more than 17,500 officials in the first eight months of this year on corruption charges, according to official state news agency Xinhua.
The Korea Times reports the supreme court ruled on Thursday that ``conscientious objection'' to mandatory military service because of religious faith is illegal, upholding a lower court ruling against a Jehovah's Witness and ending months-long debates over the issue.
The ruling is expected to serve as the guideline for lower courts in dealing with around 300 other similar cases of ``conscientious objectors.''
A controversy has recently erupted as some judges at district courts made conflicting rulings on the conscientious objection over the past months.
The Korea Times reports the supreme court ruled on Thursday that ``conscientious objection'' to mandatory military service because of religious faith is illegal, upholding a lower court ruling against a Jehovah's Witness and ending months-long debates over the issue.
Putting national security over religious belief or conscience the court convicted a 25-year-old, identified by the surname Choi, of draft dodging.
The ruling is expected to serve as the guideline for lower courts in dealing with around 300 other similar cases of ``conscientious objectors.''
A controversy has recently erupted as some judges at district courts made conflicting rulings on the conscientious objection over the past months.
Messenger spacecraft will be launched to explore Mercury.
efense chiefs from South Korea and the United States are expected to reach an agreement on the timetable for the transfer of wartime operational control during their talks in Washington.
Working-level officials have narrowed their differences over the schedule and are reportedly close to an agreement on 2012 as the target year.
Defense Minister Kim Jang-soo embarks on a four-day visit today for talks with his U.S. counterpart Robert Gates, scheduled (Washington time). They will discuss pending alliance issues including the wartime control and the delayed relocation of U.S. military bases on the peninsula, the Defense Ministry said.
This is the first time that the two new defense chiefs have met since their inauguration.
The United States believes 2009 is the appropriate target year while South Korea is sticking to the latest possible date of 2012, citing concerns of a security vacuum.
efense chiefs from South Korea and the United States are expected to reach an agreement on the timetable for the transfer of wartime operational control during their talks in Washington.
They will discuss pending alliance issues including the wartime control and the delayed relocation of U.S. military bases on the peninsula, the Defense Ministry said.
A fourth man managed to hold onto the boat's motor and was rescued yesterday.
Mario Bridges is the father of free agent defensive lineman Corey Smith.
He has a strong will, determination, strong spirit.”
A fourth man managed to hold onto the boat's motor and was rescued yesterday.
Mario Bridges is the father of free agent defensive lineman Corey Smith.
Six North Korean refugees arrived in the United States via a third country in Southeast Asia on Friday, a U.S. senator confirmed on Saturday.
The Korea Times reports it is the first time Washington has given official refugee status to North Koreans since the U.S.
Congress passed a law in 2004 making it easier for North Koreans to resettle there.
But it is unlikely to set off a mass exodus to the United States by North Koreans currently in China, experts in Seoul said on Sunday.
The six refugees included four women, who allegedly said they were victims of sexual slavery or forced marriages.
The Korea Times reports it is the first time Washington has given official refugee status to North Koreans since the U.S.
Iran can now produce nuclear fuel on an industrial scale, President Ahmadinejad has announced, in a move likely to further strain tensions with the West.
He gave no details of Iran’s capacity, but some officials said 3,000 uranium gas enrichment centrifuges were running at the Natanz plant in central Iran.
Ahmadinejad’s speech came as Iran celebrated nuclear technology day.
Iran maintains its nuclear program is purely peaceful, but the West fears it wants to build atomic bombs.
The UN has passed two packages of sanctions against Iran for refusing to suspend its uranium enrichment program.UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged Iran to follow the Security Council resolution and an EU spokesman renewed calls for Iran to suspend uranium enrichment.
Iran can now produce nuclear fuel on an industrial scale, President Ahmadinejad has announced, in a move likely to further strain tensions with the West.
Barack Obama holds a rally in Denver this morning, while John McCain and Sarah Palin join forces for a mid-day event in Columbus, Ohio.
Then it's off for a couple of final days of intense debate rehearsal for the Republican running mate.
“But can she overwhelm the famously talkative chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee?
Politico's David Mark says, he may be the one tiptoeing through a mine field.”
“You've gotta be a little careful about not looking overbearing, and most importantly, not looking like he's being condescending or talking down to Sarah Palin.”
“Mark says Palin will likely do what she's done on her very few network TV interviews.”
“She had a few talking points that she stuck to and she repeated over and over again.
I suspect it will be very similar in the debates.”
“Rita Foley, Washington.”
Maine has escaped a direct hit from hurricane Kyle.
Canada was nearly as lucky.
Latest numbers from Wall Street.
Dow off 280 points, down 2.5%, NASDAQ off 85, or nearly 4%.
“She had a few talking points that she stuck to and she repeated over and over again.
The new Iraqi government won't have the authority to evict American forces from Iraq, a top State Department official said Thursday
The conflicting exchanges with Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman at a House hearing reflected the difficult balance the U.S. government is trying to strike as it moves closer to the June 30 handover of power to an as-yet unnamed interim Iraqi government.
The United States needs to convince Iraqis that they will have full sovereignty and are no longer under occupation.
But they also need to convince them that U.S. forces aren't leaving anytime soon.
The United States needs to convince Iraqis that they will have full sovereignty and are no longer under occupation.
But they also need to convince them that U.S. forces aren't leaving anytime soon.
Human rights activists alleged in a report being released Thursday that Beijing has muscled in on Hong Kong politics to create a ``climate of fear'' ahead of Sunday's election that is expected to give opposition figures more clout in an anti-government backlash.
As Hong Kong wraps up a hotly contested legislative campaign, China's presence looms large among charges it marred the contest with dirty tricks while at the same time trying to woo voters with a charm offensive.
Human rights activists alleged in a report being released Thursday that Beijing has muscled in on Hong Kong politics to create a ``climate of fear'' ahead of Sunday's election that is expected to give opposition figures more clout in an anti-government backlash.
Clinton was in good spirit following heart bypass surgery.
A Las Vegas jury begins deliberations this hour on O.J.
Simpson's armed robbery and kidnapping case.
The defense closed yesterday by arguing Simpson was the target of people with ulterior motives and police out to get him.
AP Special Correspondent Linda Deutsch has been covering Simpson since his ex-wife was murdered.
What does she see happening this time?
It's hard to tell because they bring all of their personal experiences, their life experiences, to this case.
They were very engaged during the arguments; a lot of them took copious notes.”
Crews are continuing to come through the Sierra Nevada crash site where the plane of millionaire-adventurer Steve Fossett went down.
The Rays and Red Sox continue their American League division series tonight, each of them up one game to none.
Tampa Bay hosts the White Sox in the first game of the evening; then, Boston plays at Anaheim.
And again on Wall Street, latest on the Dow, it is up 248 points.
Simpson's armed robbery and kidnapping case.
AP Special Correspondent Linda Deutsch has been covering Simpson since his ex-wife was murdered.
They were very engaged during the arguments;
a lot of them took copious notes.”
˝Seoul City said yesterday it will levy 17.1 billion won ($18.59 million) in back taxes on an affiliate of General Electric Korea for its purchase of six office buildings in Seoul since 2004.
GE Korea said it will file a lawsuit against the decision.
The company in March 2004 acquired a legally dissolved company, Korea DB System.
The affiliate, renamed GE Real Estate (GERE) purchased six buildings in affluent business districts in Seoul.
Their current prices are estimated at about 300 billion won.
The company sold two of the buildings for undisclosed prices in December and February.
Current law stipulates that a company pay three times more than the normal registration tax if it buys real estate in Seoul in the first five years after its incorporation.
According to the city government, GERE failed to pay appropriate registration taxes as a newly incorporated company.˝
President Barack Obama is taking it to the Marines this morning, going to a base in North Carolina to announce that most American forces will be out of Iraq after two more summers in the unforgiving desert.
Here's AP National Security correspondent Sagar Meghani:
“ On the campaign trail, the central theme was getting all combat forces out within 16 months of taking office.
The plan he unveiled today would do it in 19, by August 2010.
That would clear the way to send more troops to Afghanistan.
The President's already signed off on 17,000 more heading there.
A big chunk will come from the Marine base he's visiting today:
That's Sagar Meghani, he's traveling with the President today.
Four major wildfires in southeastern Australia are still under control, despite hot temperatures and erratic winds that could create flare-ups.
Here's AP National Security correspondent Sagar Meghani:
“ On the campaign trail, the central theme was getting all combat forces out within 16 months of taking office.
The Korea Herald reports the number of Koreans filing claims for unemployment insurance benefits is set to outstrip the level during the 1997-98 financial crisis, reflecting the serious state of the economic slump that has hamstrung the nation's job market for years, government officials said yesterday.
The Korea Herald reports the number of Koreans filing claims for unemployment insurance benefits is set to outstrip the level during the 1997-98 financial crisis, reflecting the serious state of the economic slump that has hamstrung the nation's job market for years, government officials said yesterday.
Pyeongchang is decided as the Korea’s candidate of hosting the 2014 Winter Olympics.
The ruling Uri Party says it plans to revise the Broadcast Act to dispense stronger punishment to broadcasting stations that disobey already draconian regulations.
The move follows the controversy over an incident of alleged indecent exposure that took place during a live music show aired on MBC last Saturday.
Kim Jae-yun, an Uri Party member and a member of the National Assembly’s Culture and Tourism Committee, in apparent ignorance of the fact that the incident happened during a ‘live’ broadcast.
The move follows the controversy over an incident of alleged indecent exposure that took place during a live music show aired on MBC last Saturday.
N.K. insists to operate nuclear program for peaceful purposes.
And the government isn't sure which side to take, according to the Joong-Ang Ilbo.
IP-TV converges telecommunications and broadcasting, providing multimedia content to television sets through high-speed Internet network systems.
It has different names in different countries ― IP-TV in the United States, ADSL TV in Europe and broadband broadcasting in Japan.
A basic example of IP-TV applications is incorporating online shopping with TV home shopping.
The implementation of Internet Portal television, or IP-TV, is being delayed because fixed-line operators and cable TV service providers are squabbling over whether the service is in the telecommunications or broadcasting realm.
In a reaction reminiscent of the authoritarian military rule of General Park Chung-hee, the MBC television network decided to on Sunday shut down its live music program after members of a local underground band were arrested for indecent exposure after a telecast on Saturday.
``Music Camp,’’ a weekly music show broadcast live on Saturday afternoons, will be taken off the air, the network decided during an emergency meeting in Seoul.
The incident took place during a performance of the local punk rock band RUX, who were joined on stage by members of another punk band, Couch.
Two male musicians of Couch suddenly dropped their pants and exposed their genitalia while continuing to dance.
The incident took place during a performance of the local punk rock band RUX, who were joined on stage by members of another punk band, Couch.
Six nations check 2nd draft.
Iraqi officials have sought to calm fears that the new constitution will be delayed by the killing of three Sunni Muslims helping to draft the document.
MPs will then debate it and submit any changes ahead of a vote on August 17.
The Korea Times reports that Lotte World, Seoul’s largest amusement park, is believed to have ignored a safety review warning about its aging facilities, despite the death of an employee who fell off a roller coaster ride last year.
Completing a joint, two-month examination into Lotte World in December, last year, the Dongyang Structural Engineers Group and the Korea Disasters Research Institute said they found serious problems with four of its attractions _ a roller coaster, a bumper car arena, a movie theater, and a swimming pool.
They also found problems with ceilings in some parts of the indoor fairground. The report advised the amusement park to upgrade its facilities immediately, claiming that there was a danger of the ceilings collapsing.
The report also said the park’s electrical equipment was poorly managed, with exposed power lines near pedestrian areas, raising concerns about electrical shocks or fires.
However, Lotte World thus far has not made safety adjustments and is not planning to renovate its facilities until March.
Critics reportedly wonder whether the park deliberately delayed the upgrading to avoid disruption during the high-demand, winter vacation season.
Stocks in Asia tumbled, with South Korea and Australia nursing falls of almost 5 percent as growing fears of a U.S. recession sparked panic, sending investors to safe-haven government bonds.
Industrial metals, such as zinc and copper, plunged and oil fell on concern any recession could hit demand.
The yen hit a 2-1/2-year high against the dollar as investors reduced their exposure to risky, higher-yielding assets.
The strong yen hit Japanese exporters, such as Toyota Motor Corp and Sony Corp.
U.S. equity markets, shut on Monday for a holiday, closed on Friday with their worst weekly performance since mid-2002 while Asian and European equities plunged on Monday, showing a clear lack of confidence in Washington´s proposed fiscal stimulus worth up to $150-billion. Stocks in Asia tumbled, with South Korea and Australia nursing falls of almost 5 percent as growing fears of a U.S. recession sparked panic, sending investors to safe-haven government bonds.
Forces Korea beyond the peninsula if necessary, according to the Korea Herald.
South Korea faces a daunting task of redefining military ties with the United States as Washington seeks to expand the role of U.S.
Forces Korea beyond the peninsula if necessary, according to the Korea Herald.
Washington has been realigning its troops worldwide to transform them into more agile, mobile forces to cope better with new security threats, characterized by asymmetric adversaries, transnational terrorists, and non-linear battlefields.
Dick Clark has suffered a stroke.
The government and the ruling Uri Party agreed yesterday to reduce the property registration tax further in a bid to reduce the tax burden on individuals.
A South Korean civilian worker died in Iraq after a steel can containing paint exploded.
New polls show Barack Obama bolting ahead of John McCain in three crucial battleground states just five weeks before Election Day.
Here's our Brian Thomas:
“The new Quinnipiac survey show Obama leading in Florida 51 to 43 percent.
In Ohio, 50 to 42 percent, and in Pennsylvania, 54 to 39 percent.
And since 1960, no president has been elected without winning at least two of those three states.”
The Supreme Court won't be taking another look at its recent decision that outlawed executions for people convicted of raping children.
The request had been made by the state of Louisiana and the Bush administration.
Michael Bloomberg wants to overturn New York City's term limit law and run for a third term as mayor.
In 2002, he vetoed a bill that would have allowed him to do just that.
The Supreme Court won't be taking another look at its recent decision that outlawed executions for people convicted of raping children.
Michael Bloomberg wants to overturn New York City's term limit law and run for a third term as mayor.
˝Mexico is bracing for another hit from Hurricane Dean.
Dean swept ashore early today as a Category Five hurricane on the east coast of the Yucatan Peninsula.
It´s now back over open water with reduced winds of 80 miles an hour.
Dean is expected to regain strength over the warm waters and hit central Mexico.
The Yucatan Peninsula had to weather whipping winds and torrential rain, but no deaths have been reported from the storm.˝
The President Elect has one eye on the economy and the other on national security today.
AP White House correspondent Mark Smith has the latest on that, live from Chicago.
“Jon, Barack Obama gets his first detailed intelligence briefing today.
Sure, he got briefings during the campaign, but we're told today's will cover the full range of what U.S. spies are up to, including covert operations, which presumably takes in the hunt for Osama Bin Laden and other deep dark secrets.
This guy's name, little guy actually, is Obama, too.
A newborn in south Florida named Sanjae Obama Fisher born on Election night;
they named him in honor of the next president.
His big sister talked to WSBN-TV:
“My little brother's name is Obama cause it's very inspirational that he's named after um, a president.”
His mom was in labor for 14 hours, but still got to see Barack Obama's victory speech.
He's ahead for now, but only a few thousand votes separate Alaska's Senator Ted Stevens from his Democratic challenger Mark Begich, a final tally in Alaska still days away.
“Jon, Barack Obama gets his first detailed intelligence briefing today.
A newborn in south Florida named Sanjae Obama Fisher born on Election night;
they named him in honor of the next president.
Accused swindler Bernard Madoff said to be ready to plead guilty next week in New York.
The AP's Warren Levinson has more:
“ Emotionally, victims of Bernard Madoff may want to see the disgraced financier hanged by the thumbs, but practically speaking, the likelihood that Madoff is about to strike a plea-bargain with prosecutors means victims are closer to recovering whatever money they can:
”“ Whether he goes to jail or not may have a lot of emotional satisfaction, but we've really got to keep our eye on the ball.”
“ Attorney Brad Friedman represents many Madoff victims; recovery will depend in part on what kind of plea deal is struck.
On Friday, Madoff's attorney said the alleged swindler had waived his right to be indicted;
that's often a sign that a plea bargain is imminent.
(sound of clock ticking) Well, that ticking means it's time to set your clocks ahead an hour when you go to bed tonight;
Accused swindler Bernard Madoff said to be ready to plead guilty next week in New York.
”“ Whether he goes to jail or not may have a lot of emotional satisfaction, but we've really got to keep our eye on the ball.”
recovery will depend in part on what kind of plea deal is struck.
The NIA admitted last week that its precursor, the Korean Central Intelligence Agency(KCIA), kidnapped Kim from a Tokyo hotel in August 1973 and took him by boat to Seoul.
The report said there was some evidence to suggest the kidnap was initially planned as an assassination attempt.
Kim, who was in exile at the time and leading a campaign against Park, previously said he believed the abductors planned to throw him overboard.
He said a US plane flying overhead scared the abductors who then took him to the capital where we was placed under house arrest by Park´s government.
The admission by the NIA followed a three-year report into the past conduct of the KCIA, and the agency expressed “deep regret” for its involvement.
It said that there was ”physical evidence to support the possibility that, up to a certain point, the plan had been pursued as an assassination”.
Making public what was termed an ""unofficial"" visit, Chinese media said that North Korean strongman Kim Jong-il ended three days of meetings with China's top leaders yesterday and had ""agreed to continue jointly pushing forward with the six-party talks process.
"" The six-party talks involving North and South Korea, Japan, China, Russia and the United States started last August in an effort to resolve a dispute over Pyeongyang's development of nuclear weapons.
The talks have turned into a diplomatic stalemate.
The Joong-Ang Ilbo reported that after playing hide-and-seek with reporters and the public, Kim was confirmed to be in China by the state-run Xinhua news agency just as he left the country.
The agency said Kim ""had paid an unofficial visit to China"" at the invitation of President Hu Jintao.
Xinhua made the announcement of Kim's visit moments after he was reported to have departed Beijing by train to return to Pyeongyang.
On the way back, he reportedly visited a model agricultural farm near Beijing, the news agency reported.
"" The six-party talks involving North and South Korea, Japan, China, Russia and the United States started last August in an effort to resolve a dispute over Pyeongyang's development of nuclear weapons.
US President George W Bush has vetoed a bill to expand a children´s healthcare insurance plan, after it was passed with a large majority in the Senate.
Bush argues it takes the program beyond its original purpose of insuring children from low-income families.
The vetoed bill proposed higher tobacco taxes to provide an extra $35bn to insure some 10 million children.
Children´s health insurance is set to be a campaign issue in next year´s elections, analysts say.
Eighteen Republican senators joined Democrats last week in passing the legislation by a 67-29 vote.
But the House of Representatives, which approved the bill by 265-159, was well short of the two-thirds majority needed to override a veto.
It is only the fourth time Bush has used his veto power in the course of his presidency.
Who will be the next UN Secretary-General?
South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon has declared his candidacy for the top job at the UN, officials say.
Current UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan steps down at the end of the year.
Ban joins a number of other Asian contenders, including Thai Deputy Prime Minister Surakiart Sathirathai and Jayantha Dhanapala from Sri Lanka.
There is widespread support for an Asian to take over the leadership, in line with a UN tradition of rotating the job on a geographic basis.
The last Asian to hold the post was U Thant of Burma, from 1961 to 1971.
South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon has declared his candidacy for the top job at the UN, officials say.
The Korea Herald reports President Roh Moo-hyun is highly likely to nominate his national security aide and former envoy to nuclear talks Song Min-soon as the new foreign minister, quoting government sources.
Cheong Wa Dae has almost finalized the new lineup for top security and diplomatic posts, which will be announced as early as today.
The sources said National Intelligence Service First Deputy Director Kim Man-bok appears to be the strongest candidate for chief of the spy agency.
Army Chief of Staff Kim Jang-soo may be nominated as the new defense minister and Lee Jae-jeong, senior vice president of the National Unification Advisory Council is tapped to be the new unification minister.
Cheong Wa Dae is expected to nominate the officials today, presidential spokesman Yoon Tai-young confirmed.
The presidential office has not commented on whether it would announce a candidate to replace Song as Roh's chief national security adviser.
Cheong Wa Dae has almost finalized the new lineup for top security and diplomatic posts, which will be announced as early as today.
It could be some time before there's anything close to a smooth ride for the economy.
Fed chairman Ben Bernanke is telling Congress today it needs to act to help absorb some of the shock.
“Action by the Congress is urgently required to stabilize the situation, and avert what otherwise could be very serious consequences for our financial markets, and for our economy.”
Members of Congress from both side of the aisle are raising questions about the $700 billion plan.
Some want conditions added to it, others don't want the government to get involved at all.
President Bush today predicted that, in the end, something will be done.
“I am confident, that when it's all said and done, there will be a robust plan.
And there needs to be.”
Emotions are still a bit low on Wall Street, despite news that Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway is buying a $5 billion share of Goldman Sachs.
Traders are taking a lot in today, including news today that homes sales were down by 2.2% in August, but right now there is a moderate upward trend on Wall Street with the Dow up about 30 points.
It could be some time before there's anything close to a smooth ride for the economy.
Fed chairman Ben Bernanke is telling Congress today it needs to act to help absorb some of the shock.
Members of Congress from both side of the aisle are raising questions about the $700 billion plan.
˝Top U.S. nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill said on Tuesday that North Korea must do more to dismantle its nuclear weapons program, before it can be removed from Washington´s list of states that sponsor terrorism.
On Monday, Pyongyang´s official Korean Central News Agency quoted a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying the United States had agreed during bilateral talks in Geneva to take North Korea off the list.
“They are not off this list,” Hill told reporters in Sydney, which is hosting the annual meetings of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.
He flew in from Geneva, where he had met North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan over the weekend.
”Whether they get off will depend on further denuclearization,” added Hill, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs.˝
He flew in from Geneva, where he had met North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan over the weekend.
The Joong-Ang Ilbo reports that in an effort to sidestep a Constitutional Court ruling halting the transfer of Korea's administrative capital, leaders of the governing Uri Party have backed a proposal by assemblymen from the Chungcheong provinces that largely revives the plan to move the national government out of Seoul.
Last month the country's highest court declared the capital relocation unconstitutional, but senior Uri Party members and Roh administration officials said yesterday they have not given up on the plan.
The Joong-Ang Ilbo reports that in an effort to sidestep a Constitutional Court ruling halting the transfer of Korea's administrative capital, leaders of the governing Uri Party have backed a proposal by assemblymen from the Chungcheong provinces that largely revives the plan to move the national government out of Seoul.
Last month the country's highest court declared the capital relocation unconstitutional, but senior Uri Party members and Roh administration officials said yesterday they have not given up on the plan.
About 70 North Korean refugees arrested in crackdowns have been sent back to the North.
In a case of better late than never, the government has come up with plans, including Korean-wave type programs, to lure foreign students here to offset the exodus of Koreans to schools abroad and the decreasing birthrate.
With the aim of increasing the number of foreign students seven-fold to 50,000 by 2010, the Education Ministry said it will invest money to improve the education environment for people from overseas and encourage Korean diplomatic and other agencies to help out.
Who is going to be the next U.S. ambassador to Seoul?
“We declare that we are not the parents of the two babies,” Mr.
”I cannot understand the conclusions of the DNA analyses.”
At a news conference yesterday, a French couple said they would not return to Seoul to face investigators looking into the fate of two babies whose bodies were found in a freezer in the couple's apartment.
They also rejected the results of DNA testing that showed they were the parents of the infants.
”My wife was not pregnant during the time period under concern,” he added.
Korean authorities say just the opposite.
The National Institute of Scientific Investigation conducted DNA tests of the infants' bodies and of DNA samples from the couple.
Courjault voluntarily provided the samples when he was questioned after reporting the discovery of the bodies in his balcony freezer.
Grand National Party presidential frontrunner Lee Myung-bak yesterday declared his candidacy for the party’s primary elections ahead of the December presidential race.
Lee said he would work to be remembered as a national leader ””who saved the economy.”
” ””The past decade was the ’lost 10 years,’ lost under an inept government,”” he said, blatently criticizing former President Kim Dae-jung and his successor Roh Moo-hyun.
Other pledges include a canal connecting the country’s rivers, education reforms and plans for erecting an international center for all businesses involving science technology.
Lee has mentioned the canal several times as a critical part of his plans for reducing national and corporate logistics costs.
Meanwhile, competing Grand National Party presidential hopeful Park Geun-hye yesterday threatened to boycott the party’s primary elections, fueling concerns about the GNP’s breakup ahead of the December presidential race.
Political analysts say her remarks are intended to apply pressure on GNP leader Kang Jae-sup to retract his disputed proposal on the primary rules.
However, they did not rule out Park leaving the party and running as an independent.
””If the party does things in this way, there will be no primary,”” she told reporters.
” she said in response to a barrage of questions from reporters.
Lee has mentioned the canal several times as a critical part of his plans for reducing national and corporate logistics costs.
There's a new AP News Yahoo news poll this morning that isn't easy to take for John McCain supporters.
It suggests voters are souring the Republican 2 ½ weeks before Election Day.
He's falling off in areas like ability, confidence and intelligence, while Barack Obama is more trusted on the economy.
California independent Peggy Chilton says she's gone from leaning McCain to leaning Obama, but what she'd really like to see is both sides cooperating more in Washington.
“I want to see more consideration with the other point of view, I want to see them say, hey, you know, this is good, maybe this will work, let's … talk about it.”
We've just learned from the McCain campaign that Sarah Palin will make an appearance on tomorrow's 'Saturday Night Live.'
There's a new AP News Yahoo news poll this morning that isn't easy to take for John McCain supporters.
He's falling off in areas like ability, confidence and intelligence, while Barack Obama is more trusted on the economy.
The judges upheld the decision of the immigration authorities in the case of Humberto Fernandez Vargas.
He had applied for citizenship but was sent back to Mexico under rules for migrants with prior deportation orders.
East Timor', should he step down?
˝A Korea Times correspondent in Kabul reports that despite denials by Seoul, those involved with the negotiation process for the release of the Korean citizens say a ransom has saved the lives of the remaining 19 hostages.
A source privy to the talks between the two sides told The Korea Times that the issue of a prisoners´ swap, the first demand by the Taliban, was shelved after President Hamid Karzai´s return from his three-day visit to the United States early this month.
Before Karzai´s visit to the United States , said the source, the prisoners´ swap was an option and the two sides as well as the Afghan government were deliberating on that.
Till his (Karzai´s) visit to US and his meeting with President Bush, the Afghan officials were indecisive about what to do in response to the Taliban demand regarding the release of prisoners.
However, the source said, the Kabul government came out with a categorical stance after Karzai´s return and rejected any deal with the Taliban on a prisoners´ swap.
The source, who did not want to be identified due to the sensitivities involved, said although he did not know about the exact ransom amount, the Taliban had demanded $10 million in the initial stage.
He said after the Afghan government´s refusal to entertain the Taliban demand regarding the prisoners´ swap, the two sides (Koreans and Taliban) engaged in ransom talks and the delay in release of the captives was caused because the Taliban wanted guarantees and the Korean side wanted scaling down of the demanded amount.
The Taliban commander, who wished to remain anonymous, told the Korea Times correspondent over the telephone that they had received $20 million from the Korean delegation.
He said the amount was paid after guarantees from a third country.˝
Till his (Karzai´s) visit to US and his meeting with President Bush, the Afghan officials were indecisive about what to do in response to the Taliban demand regarding the release of prisoners.
He said after the Afghan government´s refusal to entertain the Taliban demand regarding the prisoners´ swap, the two sides (Koreans and Taliban) engaged in ransom talks and the delay in release of the captives was caused because the Taliban wanted guarantees and the Korean side wanted scaling down of the demanded amount.
Four United Nations peacekeepers have been killed in an Israeli air strike on an observation post in southern Lebanon, the UN has said.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said he was “shocked” at the ”apparently deliberate targeting” of the post.
Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, vowed the group would continue its rocket attacks on Israel.
The UN deaths came as Israel vowed to control an area in southern Lebanon until international forces deployed.
The force will be discussed at crisis talks to be held in Rome on Wednesday.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will be at the talks after ending her tour of the Middle East on Tuesday.
More than 380 Lebanese and 42 Israelis have died in nearly two weeks of conflict in Lebanon, which began after Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on 12 July. The UN in Lebanon says the Israeli air force destroyed the observer post, in which four military observers were sheltering.
It said the four, from Austria, Canada, China and Finland, had taken shelter in a bunker under the post after it was earlier shelled 14 times by Israeli artillery.
A rescue team was also shelled as it tried to clear the rubble.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said he was “shocked” at the ”apparently deliberate targeting” of the post.
Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has been taken to hospital after suffering a ""very minor"" stroke.
He had said he was feeling unwell while being driven home from work on Sunday and was taken directly to Jerusalem's Hadassah University Hospital.
Hospital officials say the prime minister is conscious and that his condition is not life-threatening.
The obese 77-year-old is not known to have had serious health problems in recent years.
His personal physician, Boleslav Goldman, said he expected the prime minister would remain in hospital for three or four days.
UK Parliamentarians and celebrity campaigners launched a bid on Wednesday to impeach Tony Blair for ""gross misconduct"" over his justification for the Iraq war.
UK Parliamentarians and celebrity campaigners launched a bid on Wednesday to impeach Tony Blair for ""gross misconduct"" over his justification for the Iraq war.
The impeachment move, a symbolic parliamentary process rather than a realistic proposition in Blair's case, is the first since the mid-19th century.
N.K officials overseas are no longer wearing badges portraying Kim joun-il.
˝The Korea Times reports an increasing number of financial issues, it seems, are influenced by political populism rather than economic resolve.
Though it is true that obstinate policymaking, obsessed with market principles should be avoided, there is a growing concern over igniting the side effects of ``political meddling´´ in the economy.
The recent argument regarding the interest rate ceiling on private moneylenders shows that the ``free market´´ is never free from politics.
The government recently cut the annual interest rate cap on private moneylenders to 49 percent from 66 percent.
The number private moneylenders ballooned to 17,210 last year and around 3.3 million people are estimated to borrow from them.
They often disregarded the legal ceiling and used illegal ways at retrieving the funds.
Though the issues of private lending requires urgent attention, the government´s sudden change of attitude shows political intervention.
Finance and Economy Minister Kwon O-kyu had originally opposed interest rate cap, saying it could drive low-income people away to unregistered loan sharks.
Ex-American football star OJ Simpson has pleaded not guilty to kidnapping and armed robbery charges arising from an incident at a Las Vegas hotel.
Simpson and two co-defendants could face life in prison over the incident, in which two sports memorabilia dealers were allegedly robbed.
Charles Ehrlich and Clarence Stewart also entered a not guilty plea.
In 1995 Simpson was cleared of murdering his former wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman.
Prosecutors say Simpson and five accomplices attempted to steal items at gunpoint from the dealers, Bruce Fromong and Alfred Beardsley.
Three of the men initially charged have now agreed to plead guilty and testify for the prosecution.
If it weren't for 'Four Tops' lead singer Levi Stubbs who died Friday, another Motown great might not be where he is today.
Michael Weinfeld has more:
“How great a singer was Levi Stubbs?
So great that Stevie Wonder credited him with improving his voice.”
“It was great Levi telling me, the way to keep my voice is to learn how to sing from my diaphragm, that I was able to ultimately go and have lessons.”
“Wonder appreciated it so much he inducted Stubbs and the other Tops into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.”
A little-known Nevada law allows gamblers to dispute the outcome of any game for any reason.
While playing slots, a man won $8.50.
He wanted the casino to return his original 25 cent wager.
State gaming board refused the request but did not declare the claim a nuisance, opening the way for other possibly much larger claims by winning gamblers.
[Music“ When you feel lost and about to give up…”
Because of economic recession and health consciousness, beef consumption in Korea sank to its lowest level in nine years in 2004.
The Agriculture Ministry said yesterday that beef consumption per person was 6.8 kilograms (15 pounds) last year, 16 percent lower than the previous year.
Israel to expand Jewish settlement near Jerusalem.
Prime Minister Goh Kun on Monday tendered his resignation, refusing to buckle under pressure to pass on recommendations needed to appoint new Cabinet ministers.
It was originally scheduled for this week.
Prime Minister Goh Kun on Monday tendered his resignation, refusing to buckle under pressure to pass on recommendations needed to appoint new Cabinet ministers.
As a result, The Korea Times reports, President Roh Moo-hyun is expected to delay the Cabinet reshuffle to late next month, according to Chong Wa Dae officials. It was originally scheduled for this week.
``I have not changed my stand regarding the matter at all,'' Goh said during a meeting with chief presidential secretary Kim Woo-sik, who visited his office to persuade the prime minister to allow the Cabinet shakeup.
``It is not proper for the outgoing premier to make recommendations in light of the constitutional spirit of naming of Cabinet members,'' Goh said.
tender one's resignation :
RIAA to take an active against copyright infringment.
Scoffing at a police ban, the Korea Alliance Against KorUS FTA held its third anti-trade demonstration of the season at Marronier Park in Daehangno yesterday afternoon.
After the 40-minute rally, protesters wandered around the central district until about 8 p.m., snarling traffic during the evening rush hour.
Police said about 20,000 demonstrators were in the streets in 10 cities across the nation.
The park in Daehangno was to have been the site of a Democratic Labor Party demonstration protesting new laws on non-regular employees.
But about 5,000 participants at the rally hoisted flags of the Korean Federation of Trade Unions, the Korean Peasants League and the Korean Street Vendors' Confederation, all members of the anti-trade alliance.
When the party's 90-minute gathering ended at 3:30 p.m., the banner hanging over the stage was quickly changed from “Evil laws on non-regular employees” to ”Against the FTA between South Korea and the United States.”
The US has vowed to push for further UN sanctions against Iran, following the latest report on its nuclear program.
The US and its allies fear Iran is building a nuclear weapons capability.
Tehran denies this and insists the report gave it a clean bill of health.
The UN´s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reached a deal in August with Iran, according to which Tehran would answer outstanding questions as part of a four-year probe into its nuclear drive.
The latest IAEA report praised Iran for making progress in responding to questions about past activities.
The US has vowed to push for further UN sanctions against Iran, following the latest report on its nuclear program.
Four people are dead in the crash of a medevac helicopter in Prince George's County, Maryland, which is just outside Washington, D.C.
Maryland State Police Superintendent Colonel Terrence Sheridan says the weather was not good at the time of the crash.
“Overcast, it was foggy this morning.
The pilot and another state police officer were killed, along with a medic and one of two auto accident victims who were being transported to a hospital.
The second car crash patient survived that chopper crash.
Afghan police say a suicide bomber has killed six people and wounded more than twenty others in southern Afghanistan.
Earlier today, Taliban gunmen assassinated the top Afghan female police official.
The second car crash patient survived that chopper crash.
Afghan police say a suicide bomber has killed six people and wounded more than twenty others in southern Afghanistan.
Earlier today, Taliban gunmen assassinated the top Afghan female police official.
President Roh Moo-hyun said Thursday that the South Korea-U.S alliance would remain intact even after the transfer of wartime operational command, reaffirming his determination to get the military control back from the U.S.
In a nationally televised interview with the state-run Korean Broadcasting System last night, he also displayed his strong belief in a free trade agreement (FTA) with the United States.
”To get right to the point, there is no problem in the ROK-U.S. alliance, ” he said.
”And there is no problem in U.S. Forces Korea support, which will not be reduced at all.
He blamed the main opposition Grand National Party (GNP), which he said is in self-contradiction with regard to the policy objective, pursued in the 1990s by the Roh Tae-woo and Kim Young-sam administrations, predecessors of the GNP.
The main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) called on President Roh Moo-hyun Thursday to veto a bill of reinvestigating financial fraud allegations of its President-elect Lee Myung-bak.
Roh, however, refused the request.
GNP Chairman Kang Jae-sup said in a radio interview, ``It is dirty politics to let a special counsel dig out a President-elect.
It would be desirable for President Roh to veto the investigation bill for national unity before he finishes his presidency.´´Kang further said that Roh needs to pave the way for the new President to realize a smooth power transfer and that the veto is the appropriate way to remove possible political conflicts in advance.
In response, Cheon Ho-seon, presidential spokesman, said Roh will accept the special prosecutor bill as planned, saying:
``Our position remains unchanged.´´ The presidential office´s rationale for the refusal is that Roh had ordered the reinvestigation and Lee also had accepted this.
If the independent counsel confirms allegations against Lee before he takes office on Feb. 25, he will face serious challenges.
The pro-government United New Democratic Party (UNDP), which suffered a humiliating defeat in Wednesday´s election, will also have a better chance in the April National Assembly elections.
A Cheong Wa Dae official said it would be necessary to complete the probe anyway for the benefit of President-elect Lee, his enemies and the prosecution.
Domestic media reports yesterday echoed a Korean Broadcasting System report that Chinese scholars would release a paper next month asserting that a large area of northern North Korea is historically a part of China.
The network displayed a copy of a paper it said was obtained from Chinese sources.
The paper included an assertion of communist Chinese claims to about 400,000 square kilometers of territory very roughly centered on Mount Paektu as “historically Chinese,” including large tracts of North Korea.
The paper reportedly calls the mountain, where the North Korea-China border runs through the center of the extinct volcano's crater, a cradle of Chinese civilization.
It was not clear whether the paper was a draft or a finished research product.
Words of concern and encouragement this morning about the economy.
We'll start with some strong words from former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan:
“We are in the midst of a once-in-a-century credit tsunami.
He's talking to a House Committee and sees all this costing a lot more people their jobs:
“Given the financial damage to date, I cannot see how we can avoid a significant rise in layoffs and unemployment.”
In fact, the Labor Department reports new jobless claims jumped more than expected last week, growing by 15,000.
The encouraging words come from Neel Kashkari, head of the government's $700 billion rescue program:
“Since the announcement of our capital purchase program, we have seen numerous signs of improvement in our markets, and in the confidence of our financial institutions.”
But, the Treasury official tells a Senate committee financial markets remain fragile.
The stock market has been bouncing around up and down in the first 90 minutes of trading.
The Dow currently ahead more than 200 points.
“We are in the midst of a once-in-a-century credit tsunami.
He's talking to a House Committee and sees all this costing a lot more people their jobs:
The encouraging words come from Neel Kashkari, head of the government's $700 billion rescue program:
The stock market has been bouncing around up and down in the first 90 minutes of trading.
Roh’s acceptance of the ruling eased concerns that the president might be set to collide head-on with the Constitutional Court after he indirectly expressed dissatisfaction with its decision.
President Roh Moo-hyun said Monday he would accept the Constitutional Court’s ruling against his capital relocation project but pledged to continue to seek balanced regional development through other means.
The Korea Times says Roh also made it clear in his speech that his government is determined to pursue a plan that does not clash with the court’s ruling but maintains the principle of balanced development across the nation.
Roh’s acceptance of the ruling eased concerns that the president might be set to collide head-on with the Constitutional Court after he indirectly expressed dissatisfaction with its decision.
The court ruled Thursday that the government’s plan to move the administrative capital was unconstitutional, putting the brakes on the relocation, which has been pursued by the Roh government as a key national project.
President Bush and John Kerry pulls out big political guns in a final bid.
Letterman is now a married man, after all these years ?
“ Regis Philbin is as shocked as everyone else to hear that his friend David Letterman has gotten married:
I mean, you know, it came out of the blue!”
And after 23 years, no less!
” The news got them reminiscing on 'Live with Regis & Kelly' about what marriage meant to them:
“ As soon as you get married, you feel the yoke.”
A few days into spring and people in Nebraska and South Dakota are mired in blizzard conditions.
The National Weather Service says at least 8 inches of snow have fallen in parts of Nebraska's Panhandle.
On Wall Street right now, the Dow industrials down 90 points.
” The news got them reminiscing on 'Live with Regis & Kelly' about what marriage meant to them:
Washington’s top nuclear negotiator has indicated the United States is prepared to sign a peace treaty with North Korea as part of a deal to resolve the current security standoff.
Christopher Hill, U.S. assistant secretary of state told a forum in Washington on Thursday that his government is open to discussions on a peace treaty to replace the armistice agreement that was signed at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.
North and South Korea technically remain at war because of the absence of a formal peace treaty.
Hill also said he discussed the possibility of the peace treaty with North Korean and Chinese delegates at the multilateral talks held earlier this month to resolve the dispute over Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programs.
North Korea has long demanded a peace pact with the U.S. and raised the issue again in July before the resumption of the six-party nuclear talks.
President Roh said N.K. could have a right to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.
North Korean delegation had a courtesy visit to the Blue House.
Chained teen shows up at Calif.
A troubling story out of California:
a bruised, half-naked seventeen year-old boy showed up at a gym with a chain locked to his ankle.
Now the AP's Sadine Ganawalah reports that Police are questioning two people in that case:
Authorities are questioning a couple at the Tracey home where the boy says he was being held.
Police say the couple lives close to the Fitness Center where the boy turned up Monday afternoon.
Police believe the teenager had been held against his will in a town about sixty miles east of San Francisco.
Voting is underway today in a Senate run-off election in Georgia.
The Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss is facing a challenge from Democrat Jim Martin.
Today's election has drawn some national political heavyweights to Georgia including former running-mate Senator John McCain and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.
And these are the musical stylings of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
She performed in a piano quintet last night for Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace.
A troubling story out of California:
Police say the couple lives close to the Fitness Center where the boy turned up Monday afternoon.
Marines will not be taking part in the peninsula's largest annual U.S.
The Korea Herald reports aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk, the largest and oldest carrier strike group in the U.S. Navy, will be deployed in South Korean waters during the training.
President Roh demanded apologies and compensations for the truth of the past to Japan.
Government is going to control overseas remittances.
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin has issued a ""desperate SOS"" for thousands of people stranded with no food or water at the city's convention center.
Up to 25,000 people are at the center, in addition to tens of thousands more still trapped by the flood waters unleashed by Hurricane Katrina.
The state governor has called for 40,000 troops to restore order after a spate of lawlessness, AFP reports.
Officials in Arnold Schwarzenegger's Austrian hometown of Graz have removed his name from a football stadium in an ongoing row over the US death penalty.
The large metal letters were taken off the arena overnight.
The California governor has said he no longer wants to be honored by Graz, where he has been criticized for denying clemency to a death row inmate.
Former movie star and bodybuilder Arnold Schwarzenegger is one of Austria's most famous sons.
The 15,000-seat arena in Graz has now reportedly reverted to its original name of Liebenau Stadium.
Schwarzenegger refused to use his gubernatorial powers to intervene in the case of Stanley ""Tookie"" Williams, a former Los Angeles gang leader executed for murder earlier this month.
Graz assembly members condemned Schwarzenegger's support for the death penalty, which is illegal in Austria, and called for the city stadium bearing his name to be renamed.
Former movie star and bodybuilder Arnold Schwarzenegger is one of Austria's most famous sons.
Car maker Ford is closing 14 North American plants with the loss of 25-30,000 jobs as it attempts to revive its business there.
The cuts, representing nearly a quarter of its North American workforce, come as Ford faces tough competition from Asian rivals such as Toyota and Nissan.
It wants to reduce costs in its North American business by $6bn by 2010.
The closure of 14 plants there will slash its annual car production by 1.2 million units, or 26%, by 2008.
Last year Ford's share of the US car market slumped to 17.4%, the lowest it has been since the late 1920's.
Shares in the car maker gained 42 cents on Monday, or 5.32%, to close at $8.32.
B. B. Bell, commander of the U.S.
Bell made the alarmist statement at a breakfast meeting organized by the Kwanhun Club, a fraternity of senior journalists, at the Korea Press Center in central Seoul.
˝The top U.S. military officer in South Korea warned Monday of North Korea´s advanced missile technology, calling it a ``very real threat´´ to South Korea, the region and the global community.
B. B. Bell, commander of the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK), said the North´s test-launch of short-range missiles in recent months were successful enough to pose a grave threat to the armed forces and South Koreans, a view apparently not shared by the US State Department nor the South Korean government.
He said the three short-range surface-to-surface missiles fired off the eastern coast last week were believed to be an upgraded version of the Frog-5 or Frog-7 with a range of 55 to 70 kilometers.
Bell made the alarmist statement at a breakfast meeting organized by the Kwanhun Club, a fraternity of senior journalists, at the Korea Press Center in central Seoul.
``These missiles are designed to be used on this peninsula, and these missiles, in general, appear to be performing as they are designed, “ he claimed.˝
Conservative Nicolas Sarkozy has won the hotly-contested French presidential election, according to early results.
The final count gave Sarkozy 53.06%, compared with 46.94% for socialist Segolene Royal, with turnout at 85%.
The 52-year-old Sarkozy is the son of a Hungarian immigrant, and takes over from the 74-year-old Jacques Chirac.
Riot police have fired tear gas at demonstrators protesting in central Paris against Sarkozy’s victory.
According to the French news agency AFP, a few hundred stone-throwing rioters charged the police in the Place de la Bastille, where 5,000 supporters of Segolene Royal had earlier gathered to hear the results.
Sarkozy’s supporters have gathered for an open-air concert in the Place de la Concorde, which is expected to continue until the early hours.
In his victory speech Sarkozy claimed he would be the president of all the French. He said the right-wing government of the US could count on France’s friendship.
He also said he believed deeply in European integration, but appealed to France’s partners to understand the importance of what the called “social protection.”
Taro Aso, while speaking to the budget committee at the House of Councilors on Wednesday, was quoted as saying, ""South Korea and China are helping North Korea.
"" Aso was responding to a question posed by an opposition lawmaker on how the Japanese government aimed to solve the issue of North Korea's kidnapping of Japanese civilians who were taken to be trained as spies in the 1970s and the 1980s.
North Korea continues to lay claims for the remains of the kidnapped Japanese to be returned, while Japan argues that Pyongyang is hiding others.
The kidnapping issue was one of the bigger stumbling blocks in the nuclear negotiations involving the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia.
The Korea Herald reports Japan's sharp-tongued foreign minister once again stirred controversy by rapping South Korea and China for aiding North Korea.
Taro Aso, while speaking to the budget committee at the House of Councilors on Wednesday, was quoted as saying, ""South Korea and China are helping North Korea. I cannot comprehend why they would do so.
"" Aso was responding to a question posed by an opposition lawmaker on how the Japanese government aimed to solve the issue of North Korea's kidnapping of Japanese civilians who were taken to be trained as spies in the 1970s and the 1980s.
North Korea and Japan agreed to discuss the unsolved issue during the Sept.
19 Joint Statement of principles on denuclearization and have held a couple of bilateral talks since, but no progress was made.
North Korea will take steps to shut down its main nuclear reactor ””within a day”” of a freeze on its funds being lifted, a US delegation chief has said.
New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson said North Korean officials had assured him they would invite back UN nuclear inspectors as soon as they had access to their money.
The funds, which have been frozen in a Macau bank, were expected to be released Wednesday or Thursday, he added.
The issue has hindered efforts to meet Saturday's reactor shutdown deadline.
North Korea had asked for a further 30 days, beyond Saturday, to close its only operational reactor, Yongbyon, Richardson said.
He had told the North Korean officials the US thought that was too long, he added.
””We let them know that this was not acceptable and the issue was dropped,”” Richardson told a news conference in South Korea.
””Now the ball is in North Korea's court to take the next important steps,”” he said.”
New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson said North Korean officials had assured him they would invite back UN nuclear inspectors as soon as they had access to their money.
“People will get a chance to see her from beginning to end, without being edited.”
Former Republican Senator Fred Thompson looking ahead to tonight's vice presidential debate in St.
Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill also was on the CBS“ Early Show.”
“The expectations are so low for Sarah Palin.
And it's difficult for him, I think.”
There,“ he,” she's talking about Joe Biden.
8th, but it was for supporting cultural activities and enforcing the policies of the city government,'' a city official argued.
``Seoul City Mayor Lee Myung-bak distributed a total of 500 million won in taxes to 25 district offices, which means each district was allocated 20 million won,'' the Uri Party leader said.
The Korea Times also quoted Lee as saying``District heads belonging to the main opposition Grand National Party are using the money to purchase banners and audio equipment needed for organizing anti-relocation rallies, for which government officials have also been mobilized.''
The city government, however, rejected the accusation.
``We granted some 1.2 billion won, or 50 million won per district, to 25 district offices on Sept.
IAEA, “more than 40 countries possess nuclear technology to make weapon.”
Rhetoric at campaigns.
Word to calm the markets from President Bush and Italy's Premier at the White House.
AP's Sauger Magoni reports from Washington:
“To help banks gain access to capital, to strengthen the financial system, and to unfreeze credit markets, and restore confidence in our financial system.”
“Berlusconi said through an interpreter the President intends to meet with leaders of the Group of Eight - major industrialized nations - over the coming weeks, following this weekend's meetings here with several nations' finance ministers.
Top financial leaders are beginning the process of dotting the i's and crossing the t's of the big bailout.
Treasury department and Federal Reserve officials are to meet later today with top executives from financial firms to work out details of the $700 billion plan.
Wall Street is on the move, up.
The Dow shows a 500 point gain.
Oil prices are rebounding from the thirteenth month low to top $80 a barrel.
Gasoline and heating oil also are posting substantial gains.
Word to calm the markets from President Bush and Italy's Premier at the White House.
“To help banks gain access to capital, to strengthen the financial system, and to unfreeze credit markets, and restore confidence in our financial system.”
Treasury department and Federal Reserve officials are to meet later today with top executives from financial firms to work out details of the $700 billion plan.
""When we called the parents of the teenagers, some of them refused to come to the station to meet them,"" said a police officer.
The Joong-Ang Ilbo reports, five teenagers ?
all of them runaways- were arrested yesterday while two more are on the run, charged with torturing a 13-year-old girl almost to death.
The girl, identified only by her last name, Kim, was found lying unconscious on a bathroom floor last Thursday night, when a friend of the seven teenagers reported them to police.
Kim is undergoing medical treatment, her doctors said, but remains unconscious and in critical condition.
The police asked the court to issue an arrest warrant for three teenagers on charges of attempted murder.
Two others were sent to a juvenile court; they were both 13-years-old.
Police are searching for the two who remain on the run.
""When we called the parents of the teenagers, some of them refused to come to the station to meet them,"" said a police officer.
A Chinese satellite has smashed into a villager`s house.
The Korean won earned a slight reprieve from the market yesterday, regaining some of its value against the dollar and ending 12 straight days of losses.
But suspiciously large orders for won in morning trading suggested to analysts that there was government intervention on the currency.
The won recovered to 1,014.00 won against the dollar, an increase of 15.20 won.
The appreciation was the biggest one-day rise in three years and contrasts with the largest one-day drop in 10 years on Monday.
The stock market also recovered slightly, gaining less than one percent.
Senior government officials had pledged to take action on the won if necessary, but analysts said the change yesterday was too great to be considered merely the result of talking up the currency’s value or dollar selling by exporters.
The won recovered to 1,014.00 won against the dollar, an increase of 15.20 won.
In response, an IAEA inspection team arrived in Korea on Aug.
The Korea Times reports the International Atomic Energy Agency has been investigating a secret nuclear fuel experiment conducted by a few South Korean scientists in 2000.
A MOST spokesman said the unidentified Korean scientists separated 0.2 grams of uranium four years ago in the middle of nuclear fuel research.
He said the South Korean government submitted a report on the secret scientific activity to the IAEA last month.
The Supreme court upholds the draconian National Security Law.
It was an all-night party in Pittsburgh, where Steelers fans went wild after their team's record 6th Super Bowl championship.
Police made just over 100 arrests when couches and garbage containers were set on fire, and several vehicles were overturned.
Pittsburgh scored a 27-23 victory over Arizona, in one of the best Super Bowl games ever - a contest that included the longest play ever:
a 100-yard interception return by Steelers linebacker James Harrison at the end of the first half.
Arizona Senator John McCain can live with that:
“The old guy, Warner, almost won.
For a change, an old guy almost won.
President Obama's pick to head the Health and Human Services Department has sent a letter of apology to the Senate Finance Committee.
The Dow is down 87 points.
Pittsburgh scored a 27-23 victory over Arizona, in one of the best Super Bowl games ever - a contest that included the longest play ever:
Tom Daschle says he's deeply embarrassed and disappointed by his failure to pay more than $120,000 in taxes.
The central intelligence agency (CIA) of the United States has come under fire for calling the rocky islets of Dokdo in the East Sea ``Liancourt Rocks,’’ siding with the Japanese government’s claim of ownership.
According to the Internet-based Voluntary Agency Network of Korea (VANK), the CIA began marking Dokdo, or Takeshima in Japanese, as the Liancourt Rocks on its country report in 2004, titling toward Japan’s position that no state has sovereignty over the islets.
The VANK is a non-governmental organization dedicated to providing correct information about Korea to foreigners in cyberspace.
The Japanese government has been spreading the name in a bid to distract other countries from the name of Dokdo and make them perceive the islets as a disputed area.
It will then launch an international campaign to have it named Takeshima.
Liancourt Rocks, the French name of the island, originates from a French whaling ship that discovered the island in 1849.
Al-Qaeda in Iraq has named a successor to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, days after he was killed in a US air strike.
Abu Hamza al-Muhajir is ""knowledgeable"" and has a history of fighting a holy war, said an internet message on a site used by Islamic militants.
But observers say little is known about him - the name could be a pseudonym.
In Washington, President George W Bush said Mujahir would be ""on our list to bring to justice"", during talks on Iraq with military and diplomatic planners.
Speaking after the first of two days of talks his advisers say may herald a crucial reassessment of the war, Bush also said US troops would stay in Iraq for the immediate future.
The news came as US military officials said Zarqawi had died from injuries consistent with the results of a bomb.
Questions had arisen over how he had died after the Americans revealed he had still been alive following the bombing of a safe house by US planes on Wednesday.
Oklahoma quarterback Sam Bradford becomes the second sophomore, in as many years, to win the Heisman Trophy.
“I expected it to be real close no matter who won because obviously, all the finalists this year were very deserving.”
Last year's winner Florida's Tim Tebow placed third, even though he had more first place votes than Bradford.
Bradford leads the nation, 48 touchdowns throwing for 4,464 yards, only 6 interceptions.
His Sooners broke the NCAA season scoring record.
Bradford and Tebow could settle the dispute on the field; the Sooners and Gators play for the National Championship on January 8.
There's been a population explosion in a Nativity scene that Antonio Vigilante has been putting up each Christmas over the past 40 years in a Brooklyn Catholic Church.
The original had baby Jesus, Mary and Joseph, a few shepherds and three wise men.
Now it's got a village, 30 houses, 300 figures;
even a babbling brook.
Oklahoma quarterback Sam Bradford becomes the second sophomore, in as many years, to win the Heisman Trophy.
Bradford leads the nation, 48 touchdowns throwing for 4,464 yards, only 6 interceptions.
Bradford and Tebow could settle the dispute on the field;
the Sooners and Gators play for the National Championship on January 8.
even a babbling brook.
He is survived by his wife, actress Choi Un-hee, two sons and two daughters.
He was born in 1926 in Chungjin of Northern Hamkyung Province, at the northeastern part of the Korean peninsula , currently a part of North Korea.
Shin studied in the Tokyo Fine Arts School, the predecessor to Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music in Japan before returning to Korea three years later. The director is not only known for filming the first kiss scene in South Korean cinema, but also for his years of stay in North Korea.
The rumors regarding reasons and events leading up to the alleged abduction of him and his wife to Pyongyang still abound.
He had been under medical treatment since receiving a liver transplant in 2004.
He was born in 1926 in Chungjin of Northern Hamkyung Province, at the northeastern part of the Korean peninsula , currently a part of North Korea.
people around the world dimming their lights.
Mayor Clover Moore says Earth Hour is an important symbol to the nations of the world as they ready for next December's Climate Summit in Denmark:
“ We are sending a very strong message to our world leaders tonight.
Sydney has led the charge, and now we're asking our prime minister to lead the charge in Copenhagen.”
Even more will do the same when the lights are dimmed from 8:30 until 9:30 local time, overnight.
Here's another instance of how alcohol and gasoline just don't mix:
police in Florida say a man who is thought to have been drinking tried to get even with his neighbor after a fight by tossing a Molotov cocktail at the other guy's trailer.
But the wind shifted, and the blaze set fire to two cars, a pickup and a travel-trailer in the man's own yard. people around the world dimming their lights.
Even more will do the same when the lights are dimmed from 8:30 until 9:30 local time, overnight.
Looks like traders are trying to cash in on profits on Wall Street today, after a surge of more than 20% on the Dow the past couple of weeks.
Chief executives from some of the country's biggest banks are weighing in this morning on the Obama administration's plans for stabilizing the financial system.
They're meeting with the President at the White House.
Officials in Fargo, North Dakota are calling in more National Guard troops as the rising Red River threatens to inundate the city in the coming days.
And more people than usual are expected at the Denver airport today because it's been socked in by snow:
“ It creates some hiccups, and some long lines, and some folks might have to wait a day or two to get where they're going, but we'll always get 'em out and we'll do it safely.”
Airport spokesman Jeff Green has said“ actually, at the moment it's not all that bad, at least at the airport.”
It has been down more than 100 points since the opening bell ?
Officials in Fargo, North Dakota are calling in more National Guard troops as the rising Red River threatens to inundate the city in the coming days.
Angry protesters outside Japan's heavily guarded embassy here set fire to the neighboring country's flag and called for a boycott of its goods while political leaders condemned a Japanese prefecture's action in declaring a ""Takeshima Day.
"" Takeshima is the Japanese name for the Korean-controlled Dokdo islets in the East Sea - long an issue of contention between they two countrys.
Some protesters called on Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to step down and even threatened to blow up Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, a memorial to World War II Japanese soldiers which Korea and other Asian countries occupied by Japan during the war detest because it contains Class A war criminals.
Various civic groups rallied in front of the Japanese Embassy in downtown Seoul all day long after the Shimane Prefecture yesterday approved a bill designaing Feb.
Korean Internet and telecom industries started a counter action toward Japan’s recent claim to Tokdo.
The US state of Louisiana has elected its first non-white governor since the 1870s.
36-year-old Bobby Jindal also becomes the youngest US governor and the first Indian-American to head a state.
The Republican took 54% of the vote to win outright over his nearest rival, Democrat Walter Boasso, who got 18%.
Outgoing Democratic Governor Kathleen Blanco chose not to run again after she was widely criticized for her handling of the 2005 Hurricane Katrina crisis.
The Oxford-educated son of Indian immigrants, Jindal narrowly lost the 2003 election to Blanco.
In his victory speech, Jindal repeated his election pledge to fight corruption in the state.
He has also promised to cut taxes and improve education.
Following the weakening of the U.S. dollar and speculation that Asian central banks may diversify their holdings out of the currency, Park Seung, the governor of the Bank of Korea, said the country will not shift its foreign currency reserves out of the dollar for now, Yonhap news agency reported yesterday.
Following the weakening of the U.S. dollar and speculation that Asian central banks may diversify their holdings out of the currency, Park Seung, the governor of the Bank of Korea, said the country will not shift its foreign currency reserves out of the dollar for now, Yonhap news agency reported yesterday.
Park also said that the heads of the central banks of Korea, China and Japan will meet in Seoul next month, primarily to discuss foreign exchange issues.
The Grand National Party is preparing a bill considering North Korean human rights.
Rival political parties are engaged in a heated debate over how to prop up domestic demand amid growing concern that Asia's fourth-largest economy may fall into a longer recession.
The ruling Uri Party yesterday proposed a sharp increase in government spending next year to revitalize investment and consumption, even at the risk of a budget deficit.
Libya agrees to pay for deaths of a past bombing.
Although Kim denied news reports that the two sides could be planning to separate, not many people seem to believe Roh and the Uri Party could go back to their good old days.
In September 2003, Roh defected from the now-defunct Millennium Democratic Party (MDP), the predecessor of the Democratic Party, with his supporters to set up the Uri Party despite criticism that he was betraying the MDP after winning the election on the MDP’s ticket.
The Roh-Uri discord has intensified since Roh proposed to hold a meeting with governing and opposition party leaders to deal with issues that included his nomination of Chon Hyo-suk as chief of the Constitutional Court and long-stalled bills in the National Assembly.
He made the offer without consulting with governing party leaders Sunday.
The party’s chairman, Kim Geun-tae, who asked Roh to discuss the nomination issue four times but received no reply from the president, felt he was being ignored, party sources said.
The party disclosed its disapproval of Roh’s recent behavior Monday afternoon by turning down Roh’s invitation to a dinner meeting at the presidential mansion, a few hours after Presidential Chief of Staff Lee Byung-wan conveyed Roh’s wish to the chairman.
The Roh-Uri discord has intensified since Roh proposed to hold a meeting with governing and opposition party leaders to deal with issues that included his nomination of Chon Hyo-suk as chief of the Constitutional Court and long-stalled bills in the National Assembly.
South Korean officials are condemning the beheading of a South Korean hostage by Iraqi militants.
President Roh Moo-hyun's National Security Council said Kim Sun-il's killing was, ""an inhumane act of terror.
"" Senior security-related ministers, presidential aides and members of the ruling Uri Party were meeting to discuss the killing's effect on domestic opposition to the country's troop deployment.
South Korea has about 670 military medics and engineers in southern Iraq.
The militants demanded that South Korea withdraw those troops and also halt plans to send three thousand more to northern Iraq.
But Foreign Ministry spokesman Shin Bong-kil said those plans will move forward.
There has been vocal opposition to the deployment plan, but Roh has argued that it is important to support the U.S.
The National Security Council said it would strengthen safety measures to prevent future abductions or killings.
Police strengthened security around the Islam mosque after Kim Sun-il’s death.
Ex-American football star and unconvicted murderer of his estranged wife, OJ Simpson has been charged in connection with an alleged armed robbery in Las Vegas.
He is accused of taking part in a raid on a sports memorabilia dealer at a hotel room in the Palace Station Casino last Thursday.
Eight charges have been filed against Simpson, including kidnapping, conspiracy and robbery.
Simpson has said he was trying to retrieve stolen items belonging to him, and denies any guns were involved.
The 60-year-old, who was arrested on Sunday and held without bail at a detention centre, is expected to appear in court for a hearing on Wednesday morning.
Three co-defendants have been charged with 11 criminal counts including coercion and assault with a deadly weapon.
The former football star gained international notoriety in 1995 when he was tried and acquitted of murdering his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman.
The former football star gained international notoriety in 1995 when he was tried and acquitted of murdering his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman.
Malaysian PM Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has unveiled a substantially changed government line-up.
He was responding to the worst election result by Malaysia´s governing party for 50 years.
More than half the members of the cabinet are new faces, including some well-known dissident figures.
Abdullah has been widely criticized for his low-key leadership style, at a time when the government is confronting strong public disenchantment.
Gone are half the old faces in the cabinet, including tough-talking Trade Minister Rafidah Aziz who had held her job for more than two decades.
North Korea has charged that the United States left it no option but to secure nuclear arms as a deterrent and pledged that as long as it was subject to U.S. sanctions it would not return to talks.
“Our country will never return to the talks under U.S. sanctions,” Kim Yong-nam, president of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly, told the Nonaligned Movement summit in Havana on Saturday.
”The United States, far from complying with the six-party commission's agreements, has continued to impose unilateral sanctions sending the talks to a standstill and dragging the situation to an unpredictable point,” he charged.
President George W. Bush in Washington on Thursday committed themselves to six-party talks aimed at defusing the North Korean nuclear crisis, and called on the North to return to dialogue.
The pressure is growing on Zimbabwe's President to step down:
“It's well past time for um, for uh, Robert Mugabe to leave.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice…]
Cholera, caused by a breakdown in basic services in Zimbabwe has killed at least 575 people.
The country's economy's been racked by hyperinflation and an unemployment rate of more than 80%.
Armed robbers, some dressed as women, stole more than $100 million dollars in rings, necklaces and luxury watches from a Harry Winston's jewelry store today in Paris.
Oprah Winfrey is considered by the 'Hollywood Reporter' as the most influential woman in the entertainment industry.
The publication says Angelina Jolie, who gets more than $15 million a movie, is the highest paid actress.
She's followed by Julia Roberts and last year's top earner, Reese Witherspoon.
I think that's now obvious.
The country's economy's been racked by hyperinflation and an unemployment rate of more than 80%.
˝An ex-Khmer Rouge prison chief has been charged with crimes against humanity by UN-backed tribunal in Cambodia.
Kang Kek Ieu, also known as Duch, was in charge of the notorious S21 jail in the country´s capital, Phnom Penh.
Duch is the first of five suspects whom prosecutors have asked the tribunal to investigate over their role in the brutal Khmer Rouge regime.
More than a million people are thought to have died during the four years of Khmer Rouge rule between 1975-79.
Judges spent several hours interviewing Duch on Tuesday before formally filing charges against him.
Duch was not among the top level of Khmer Rouge leaders but he has become one of the most notorious members, according to reporters in Phnom Penh.
He ran S21, a notorious jail where a total of more than 17,000 men, women and children were thought to have been imprisoned, many of them brutally tortured.˝
˝An ex-Khmer Rouge prison chief has been charged with crimes against humanity by UN-backed tribunal in Cambodia.
Duch is the first of five suspects whom prosecutors have asked the tribunal to investigate over their role in the brutal Khmer Rouge regime.
Shin Ki-nam, leader of the Uri Party, is expected to officially announce his resignation from the party chairmanship Thursday, taking responsibility for his father’s pro-Japanese activities during the 1910 to1945 colonial period, sources close to Shin said.
Shin told the ruling party’s high-ranking officials yesterday that he was determined to step down from the top post of the majority party, which has 152 lawmakers in the 299-seat National Assembly.
Shin Ki-nam, leader of the Uri Party, is expected to officially announce his resignation from the party chairmanship Thursday, taking responsibility for his father’s pro-Japanese activities during the 1910 to1945 colonial period, sources close to Shin said.
South Korea asked the United States to delay its troop reduction on the Korean peninsula.
Foreign and trade ministers, attending the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Pusan, urged the World Trade Organization (WTO) members to show the “flexibility,” needed to put forward trade and investment liberalization and facilitation.
At their 17th APEC meeting there, ministers reaffirmed in their joint statement the utmost importance attached by APEC economies to the successful conclusion of the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) negotiations by the end of 2006 with an “ambitious and overall balanced outcome.
Hong Seok-hyun was questioned by the prosecution.
The Joong-Ang Ilbo reports MBC-TV yesterday released an official apology in which it acknowledged that several of its reporters and executives had received bribes from a lobbyist for a Nepalese company.
The apology, signed by network president Choi Moon-soon, read in part, ""Investigations conducted by the company proved that several MBC officials were connected with a bribery scandal.
Korean-Japanese war for name of the sea is getting hotter in the cyberspace.
Iraq's interim prime minister insists there's no room for militants in the new Iraq.
During an interview on ABC's ""This Week,"" Iyad Allawi said Iraqis should, ""follow the bounds of the law, whether it's Moqtada al-Sadr or anybody else.
"" Sadr is a radical Shiite cleric whose followers staged bloody uprisings earlier in the year, but have since quieted down.
Allawi said he met yesterday with a delegation trying to mediate the disputes between Sadr and the government.
He said Sadr indicated his militia would disarm if they were offered amnesty.
Allawi didn't rule out amnesty, saying Sadr wants to be part of the political process and anybody who respects the rule of law is welcome in the new Iraq.
He said Sadr indicated his militia would disarm if they were offered amnesty.
The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) on Thursday told online shopping malls, including all the big names, to stop taking advantage of customers’ ignorance of consumer protection law.
Taking advantage of the fact that consumers are not familiar with relevant laws, many companies do not allow consumers to return them.
The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) on Thursday told online shopping malls, including all the big names, to stop taking advantage of customers’ ignorance of consumer protection law.
The FTC had learned that the malls habitually refuse requests for return of goods in violation of regulations.
President Roh Moo-hyun expressed concern over some Korean who is backing U.S. more than U. S. citizens.
about 2,500 people have bailed around Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, because of a wildfire that's been burning since yesterday and is still growing today.
Governor Mark Sanford has declared a state of emergency in Horry County, South Carolina.
Danielle Prater was visiting her aunt when she looked up, saw the flames, and evacuated:
“ I mean it was like a scene from a movie.
There was a fire in her neighbors' right across the street - back yard, coming up, and smoke, like you could hardly even see through it.”
Dozens of homes have been burned, but no injuries are reported.
The fire is burning toward the Barefoot Landing development near Myrtle Beach.
Governor Mark Sanford has declared a state of emergency in Horry County, South Carolina.
Danielle Prater was visiting her aunt when she looked up, saw the flames, and evacuated:
Yoo Hoe-won, chief of Lone Star Funds' Seoul office, denied all accusations during his first trial yesterday in connection with the U.S. fund's acquisition of Korea Exchange Bank.
Yoo, who is 56, was indicted in January on charges of embezzling 24.3 billion won, evading 2.1 billion won in taxes and colluding with other Lone Star executives to manipulate the stock price of KEB's credit card unit - KEB Credit Service Co.
He was not detained as the court refused prosecutors' to issue arrest warrants four times, citing a lack of evidence.
US TV networks showed pictures from a video apparently made by the Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella group which says it has the two soldiers.
The two soldiers, 25-year-old Specialist Alex Jimenez and Private Byron Fouty, who is 19, were seized in an ambush on 12 May.
The body of a third captured soldier was later found in the River Euphrates.
There were no still images or identifiable video footage of the two soldiers on the militant video, ABC News and CNN reported.
Instead, the film concludes with pictures of personal effects said to belong to the missing soldiers, including credit cards, a cross and cash, CNN said.
US TV networks showed pictures from a video apparently made by the Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella group which says it has the two soldiers.
When Barack Obama gets a call at three in the morning about a National Security problem, he may be getting that call from former rival Hilary Clinton.
Having Clinton as his top Diplomat turns a once-bitter rivalry into a high-profile union - a goodwill gesture after a heated Primary fight.
A senior Obama Advisor says the President-Elect had wanted Clinton as his Secretary of State from the start, though the two clashed on Foreign Policy during the campaign.
Obama aides say Clinton waivered on leaving the Senate, but was swayed by Obama's assurances that she could pick a staff and have direct access to him.
Segar Meghani with the President-Elect, Chicago.
The woman currently America's top Diplomat says the people responsible for terror attacks must be brought to justice.
Secretary of State Rice is in London and plans to travel to India later this week.
This Canadian man was in Mumbai during last week's attacks and talked about his experience on The Early Show.
“I think it's really important that all of us pick ourselves up, clean ourselves off, and get ourselves back in the game.
Gunmen killed more than 170 people during three days of terror in that city.
When Barack Obama gets a call at three in the morning about a National Security problem, he may be getting that call from former rival Hilary Clinton.
Having Clinton as his top Diplomat turns a once-bitter rivalry into a high-profile union - a goodwill gesture after a heated Primary fight.
Segar Meghani with the President-Elect, Chicago.
Seoul National University closed down Professor Hwang Woo-suk's research lab on Sunday as it began a probe into his stem cell research, school officials said yesterday.
The panel, consisting of seven SNU professors and two outside experts, are investigating the authenticity of Hwang's work on stem cells.
Hwang and his 20 colleagues, including all those on his research team, are being investigated and have restricted access to the research lab.
The SNU panel received full authority from the university president to conduct the probe into Hwang's research lab, the first-time in the history of the university that a special panel has been appointed for such an investigation.
The panel is also considering installing closed-circuit televisions in the research lab in order to ensure strict monitoring as part of their investigation.
The panel, consisting of seven SNU professors and two outside experts, are investigating the authenticity of Hwang's work on stem cells.
Searchers have found more bits of bone at the remote mountain site of Steve Fossett's plane crash.
The National Transportation Safety Board's Mark Rosenker says it's going to take weeks to reassemble the plane as part of the investigation into what caused the crash.
“We actually lay out the parts, and begin the process of making sure that we have all of the aircraft.”
A hiker found the wreckage in California's Sierra Nevada, some 65 miles from where the famed adventurer took off 13 months ago.
Four Major League teams are fighting to avoid elimination.
Four others are looking for sweeps in the first round of the playoffs.
In Los Angeles, Dodgers catcher Russell Martin wants to close out the Chicago cubs tonight.
“We know that there's one more game, one more win left and, you know, we're going to do everything that we can to get it.”
The Phillies have the lead as they face the Brewers tonight in Milwaukee.
In the American League, which plays tomorrow, the Red Sox and Tampa Bay also have two to nothing series leads.
A hiker found the wreckage in California's Sierra Nevada, some 65 miles from where the famed adventurer took off 13 months ago.
Four others are looking for sweeps in the first round of the playoffs.
A long shot shocker at the Kentucky Derby:
“ A stunned crowd of 153,000 people watched Mine That Bird win the Kentucky Derby, and an overjoyed jockey, Calvin Borel, won the Run for the Roses by 6 and three-quarter lengths.
Mine That Bird squeezed through a tiny hole along the rail to go from the back to the front.
“ Yeah, I've won a lot of long shots, but yes, Sir, the Derby, you know, I mean, this is unbelievable.”
“ This is Borel's second career Derby win.
A long shot shocker at the Kentucky Derby:
Mine That Bird squeezed through a tiny hole along the rail to go from the back to the front.
South Korea plans to quietly ask the United States to sell it four surveillance planes to watch North Korea, though Washington refused to sell them last year, fearing technology leaks, the Joong Ang Ilbo quotes a government official as saying yesterday.
Seoul will ask to purchase the unmanned aerial vehicle Global Hawk during the upcoming Security Policy Initiative talks the official said, on condition of anonymity.
The request will be made informally, rather than on the official agenda, the official said.
The U.S. $45-million Global Hawk can fly at an altitude of 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) for up to 36 hours to provide high-resolution, near real-time imagery of large geographic areas.
Seoul will ask to purchase the unmanned aerial vehicle Global Hawk during the upcoming Security Policy Initiative talks the official said, on condition of anonymity.
Word from the White House that the Bush family's 18 year-old cat Willie died yesterday.
The female black American Shorthair, whose former name was India, died at home at the White House.
Not just Muslims and Jews who are affected by the fight in Gaza;
Christians are caught in the crossfire:
“The President of Open Doors USA says that is Israel battles Hamas and Gaza… the Gaza Baptist Church has been severely damaged.”
“The building is shot up um, there's, there's windows that have been blown out.”
“The Reverend Carl Moeller says there are only about 3,000 Gaza Christians left.”
“Christians have been in Gaza for 2,000 years, since the time of Christ, and yet this is their greatest hour.”
Second trading day of the New Year on Wall Street and the Dow Industrials open down 94 points, NASDAQ off 23.
Christians are caught in the crossfire:
“The President of Open Doors USA says that is Israel battles Hamas and Gaza… the Gaza Baptist Church has been severely damaged.”
“Christians have been in Gaza for 2,000 years, since the time of Christ, and yet this is their greatest hour.”
Well, it is bound to show up soon at the pump:
“ After falling below $40 a barrel, the price of oil climbed back up above $50 this week, without much indication that demand is picking up.
Oil analyst Peter Beutel of Cameron Hanover says in volatile markets like this, prices tend to over-react both on the high side and on the low side, and now it's sloshing back up.”
“ Beutel says the biggest factor moving prices right now is the Federal Reserve's trillion-dollar cash injection.
A number of companies want to build solar or wind facilities on a half-million acre parcel in the desert, but California Senator Dianne Feinstein says the development would violate the spirit of what conservationists wanted when they donated much of that land to the public.
Well, it is bound to show up soon at the pump:
In a desperate bid to garner voters' support ahead of next week's general elections, the political parties are increasingly resorting to out-of-date negative campaign tactics, highlighting their rivals' faults rather than promoting their own policies.
But the mudslinging, void of any sound policy competition, has only invited cynicism and criticism from the public, who expected a positive turn in this election campaign with so many younger candidates.
Negative approaches for winning the April 15 legislative elections are most notable in media commercials of the major political parties.
The pro-government Uri Party has emphasized the push by the opposition parties to impeach President Roh Moo-hyun, which resulted in a surge in its approval ratings and a plunge in the popularity of both its rivals, the Grand National Party and the Millennium Democratic Party.
The Uri Party reported to the National Election Commission on Monday that it had collected printed materials which criticize Roh's ideology.
Conservative forces have often questioned Roh's ideology, emphasizing that his father-in-law was a communist.
Candidates have also publicized rumors about their rivals' acceptance of illegal campaign funds and misconduct, often without checking out the truth.
Negative approaches for winning the April 15 legislative elections are most notable in media commercials of the major political parties.
Marines fired bombs on a mosque.
It might take the entire length of the National Mall just to accommodate all the egos that perform at an inaugural concert at the Lincoln Memorial this Sunday afternoon.
Bono, Garth Brooks and Sheryl Crow will be there for Barack Obama and their fans. Plenty of other big names, too:
Producer George Stevens wants to hear music more fitting for a presidential inauguration than for a hip-hop or rock concert.
For example, someone will be asked Sam Cooke's” A Change is Gonna Come.
“ There are exceptions, though.
It's a song inspired by 9/11.
The Korea Times reports Seoul and Beijing agreed on Monday to hold the next round of six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear problem as early as possible, confirming Pyongyang's will to resolve the issue through multilateral dialogue.
Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon, now visiting China, and his Chinese counterpart Li Zhaoxing agreed to step up efforts for a peaceful resolution of the standoff, according to Cho Tae-yong, head of the taskforce at the South Korean foreign ministry dealing exclusively with the North's nuclear issue.
According to the top Chinese diplomat, however, the North is sticking to its previous stance that the United States should change its hostile policy towards the North and the agenda of the six-party talks should be focused on U.S. compensation in return for its nuclear freeze.
The Korea Times reports Seoul and Beijing agreed on Monday to hold the next round of six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear problem as early as possible, confirming Pyongyang's will to resolve the issue through multilateral dialogue.
Top executives from General Motors, Chrysler, and Ford, making their sales pitches again on Capitol Hill as they look for emergency federal loans.
Jerry Bodlander reports, the companies fear they will go under without the help:
GM and Chrysler say they need a total of $11 billion in federal loans this month.
All told, the automakers are looking for $34 billion in loans.
Chrysler Vice Chairman Jim Press says, if one automaker collapses, they'll all go down, and they could pull the economy with them.”
“If we lost the industry, 4.5 million jobs would be infected, it could be a depression.”
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says, he doesn't think there are enough votes to pass a bailout package.
Jerry Bodlander, Capitol Hill.”
Pick a sector of the economy and you'll find problems.
The Labor Department says long-term unemployment has hit a 26-year high-more than 4 million people-and more jobs are being lost.
AT&T says it's cutting 12,000.
Media conglomerate Viacom slashing about 850 jobs and freezing raises for some top-level executives.
Last month, the owner of MTV, BET and Paramount Pictures, said its third quarter profits sank by 37%. 600 workers at Adobe will also soon be out of work.
The gloomy economy results in gloomy sales numbers for retailers in November.
Target, Macy's, and Kohl's all say sales plunged by 10% from a year ago.
Okay, so just what impact has the uncertainty over the Big Three, the lousy sales numbers and layoffs had on the markets?
“Tim, right now the Dow Jones Industrial average is virtually unchanged, down 3.5 points earlier in the session, but in the sense that the market speaks with one voice, an all is dicey assumption, it appears to be saying, tell us something we don't know, we know the employment economy is sour, we know people are saving and not spending.
Top executives from General Motors, Chrysler, and Ford, making their sales pitches again on Capitol Hill as they look for emergency federal loans.
GM and Chrysler say they need a total of $11 billion in federal loans this month.
“But the automakers could be spinning their wheels.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says, he doesn't think there are enough votes to pass a bailout package.
South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo was to meet with Chinese President Hu Jintao in Beijing Tuesday for discussions on ending North Korea´s nuclear ambitions and other issues of mutual concern.
Han, who arrived in Beijing on Monday for a two-day visit, was also to meet Wu Bangguo, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People´s Congress, and a group of South Korean businesspeople operating in China before returning home Tuesday evening.
According to his aides, Han is expected to ask the Chinese leaders to pay greater attention to difficulties faced by South Korean enterprises investing in China.
On his arrival, Han held talks with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and they agreed to make concerted efforts to urge North Korea to fulfill its promise to denuclearize.
South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo was to meet with Chinese President Hu Jintao in Beijing Tuesday for discussions on ending North Korea´s nuclear ambitions and other issues of mutual concern.
A former CIA officer whose identity was leaked to the media is suing US Vice-President Dick Cheney.
Valerie Plame is suing Cheney, his ex-aide Lewis Libby and presidential adviser Karl Rove, saying they tried to destroy her career.
Plame's name appeared in the media in 2003 after her husband criticized the Bush government over Iraq.
A spokesman for Rove, Mark Corallo, said the allegations were ""utterly without merit"".
It was revealed last month that Rove would not be charged over the leak.
Valerie Plame is suing Cheney, his ex-aide Lewis Libby and presidential adviser Karl Rove, saying they tried to destroy her career.
The nation's top spy agency said it yesterday will investigate allegations its former agents carried out massive eavesdropping operations on conversations of politicians and business leaders in the 1990s.
One of the illegal recordings allegedly contains a conversation between Hong Seok-hyun, former chairman of the JoongAng Ilbo and now ambassdor to Washington, and a Samsung Group executive in 1997 on plans to support a presidential candidate.
The controversy erupted as MBC, a local broadcaster, was preparing to air some of the tapes, which would hugely affect political and business circles.
Print media firms are likely to be allowed to own broadcasting companies and vice versa, the presidential transition team said Tuesday.
Lee Dong-kwan, spokesman of the team, told reporters that the next government will seek alternative legislation replacing the current Newspaper Law to give press companies more autonomy.
The spokesman said the new legislation will also focus on strengthening the financial health of the media industry.
Lee said the incoming Lee Myung-bak administration will ease regulations prohibiting cross ownership between media businesses and get rid of stumbling blocks to the growth of their business.
Kang Kyung-keun of Soongsil University, Seoul told The Korea Times that the alternative legislation, not a revision bill, was inevitable as the current law was lax in coping with new media environment.
Lee Dong-kwan, spokesman of the team, told reporters that the next government will seek alternative legislation replacing the current Newspaper Law to give press companies more autonomy.
Reuters reports a mortgage bailout plan hatched between Wall Street and Congress is gaining political traction even though it could be on a crash-course with the Bush administration.
The plan would amount to a steroid boost for the Federal Housing Administration, a program conceived to help poor people buy homes that is now being used as a subprime mortgage lifeline.
Both Credit Suisse and Bank of America have mapped out how the FHA could gather up more shaky home loans and Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House of Representatives´ Financial Services Committee, on Thursday offered legislation to do just that.
Under those plans, the government would take failing mortgages off the hands of investors and write new terms that would prevent foreclosure.
The Frank bill is specifically aimed at borrowers who are distressed because the value of their home has dropped.
Both Credit Suisse and Bank of America have mapped out how the FHA could gather up more shaky home loans and Rep.
Samsung Group has hit a roadblock in its move to transfer chairman Lee Kun-hee’s wealth to his only son Jae-yong, as a court Tuesday convicted two of the group’s executives for assisting in the wealth transfer through illicit bond deals a decade ago.
The ruling, the latest in a series of blows to the nation’s largest conglomerate, is paving the way for the prosecution to investigate the Lee Kun-hee family for various stock and other asset transactions among family members.
The ruling is expected to have immense implications for the ownership and governance structure of Samsung Group going forward.
Government forecasts 5% economy growth rate.
Koreans do not believe ready-to-eat kimchi.
The American plans augur the biggest shift in the U.S. troop deployment on South Korean soil since the early 1990s, when the two allies coordinated the removal of 7,000 U.S. soldiers.
A plan to cut the number of its troops in South Korea by one-third by the end of 2005 will force the South to shoulder more responsibility for defending itself against any North Korean military aggression.
The U.S. plan calls for withdrawing 12,500 of the 37,000 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea, according to a statement released Monday by the U.S. military in Seoul.
The statement coincided with the beginning of talks between the two allies on another sensitive issue: moving U.S. troops further south away from the tense border with North Korea.
Those troops were long considered a ``tripwire'' that would ensure U.S. intervention in the event of an attack from the North.
Many in the South also see it as a healthy restraint on the United States, believing Washington won't take military action that could provoke the North when U.S. troops are in harm's way on the border.
The American plans augur the biggest shift in the U.S. troop deployment on South Korean soil since the early 1990s, when the two allies coordinated the removal of 7,000 U.S. soldiers.
The new scheme, part of a global realignment of American forces, comes at a time of heightened tension over North Korea's efforts to develop nuclear weapons.
The U.S. delegation in Seoul, led by Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Lawless, told the South Koreans the troop reduction would not affect U.S. defense capabilities in the theater because the United State plans to bring in more modern weapons systems, according to Kim Sook, head of the South Korean Foreign Ministry's North American bureau.
The U.S. troop cut would include some 3,600 soldiers already earmarked for redeployment this summer from South Korea to Iraq.
U.S. to plans to cut its forces in Korea.
Maoist rebels in Nepal say they are stepping up their support for a campaign of civil disobedience against the direct rule of King Gyanendra.
The rebels said they would take control of the country's roads and destroy all royal statues after two days of unrest in which at least three people died.
Opposition parties have announced the indefinite extension of a general strike and protests against the king.
The government says it is prepared to get ""stricter"" with protesters.
Thousands of protesters defied daytime curfews in towns and cities on Sunday.
In an e-mail statement signed by their top two leaders, Prachanda and Baburam Bhattarai, the Maoists said they backed the nationwide strike.
The Italian Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday it was investigating a claim by an Iraqi photographer who said militants showed him the body of a man together with an Italian passport.
The Italian Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday it was investigating a claim by an Iraqi photographer who said militants showed him the body of a man together with an Italian passport.
A North Korean official expressed strong discontent over the South’s attitude toward the Kaesong industrial Complex.
US Democratic candidate John Kerry accused George W. Bush of encouraging terrorist recruitment with policies that have made the world angry at the United States, a criticism that Bush dismissed as a ``ridiculous notion.''
On the day that Bush announced he would create a national intelligence czar and counterterrorism center to help prevent another terrorist attack, Kerry said the self-described ``war president'' was not acting fast enough to protect Americans.
Kerry said Bush should immediately call a special session of Congress to implement the recommendations of the Sept.
US Democratic candidate John Kerry accused George W. Bush of encouraging terrorist recruitment with policies that have made the world angry at the United States, a criticism that Bush dismissed as a ``ridiculous notion.'' On the day that Bush announced he would create a national intelligence czar and counterterrorism center to help prevent another terrorist attack, Kerry said the self-described ``war president'' was not acting fast enough to protect Americans.
A Muslim chaplain cleared of espionage charges in the U.S.
Prosecutors claim to have evidence that Lee played a key role in underestimating the bank's value.
They declined to give further details.
Prosecutors yesterday requested an arrest warrant for the former head of Korea Exchange Bank in connection with an ongoing investigation into the bank's 2003 sale to Lone Star Funds.
The request comes two days after the Supreme Prosecutors' Office asked for arrest warrants for four current and former top Lone Star executives.
Chae Dong-wook, a senior prosecutor, said Lee Gang-won had been questioned over alleged irregular activities during the sale of the bank in August 2003.
Two or three other former KEB executives and government officials may also be arrested, he said.
Prosecutors claim to have evidence that Lee played a key role in underestimating the bank's value.
A key figure involved in a stock manipulation scandal is likely to return home from his stay and imprisonment in the United States.
His return is expected to bring about a fresh phase to the presidential election, as the businessman, currently in jail for embezzlement, is allegedly linked to Grand National Party (GNP) presidential candidate Lee Myung-bak.
Kim Kyung-jun, a Korean resident in the U.S., established a Korean branch of an investment firm BBK in 1999, and made profits by raising stock prices by spreading false rumors.
The firm went bankrupt, while Kim fled to the U.S. in 2001 after embezzling 38 billion won in company funds and causing losses to 5,200 stockholders.
According to the GNP, Kim, who has been detained in a prison in LA for embezzlement and stock manipulation charges, recently dropped his appeal in which he had applied for protection not to be repatriated to Korea.
He will likely be sent to Korea in November.
A senior aide to embattled World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz has announced his resignation.
Kevin Kellems said an ongoing scandal surrounding his boss made it difficult for him to remain effective in his role at the Washington-based institution.
Wolfowitz has been mired in a controversy involving his handling of a pay package for his girlfriend.
Kellems, who had also worked with Wolfowitz at the Pentagon, is expected to leave his post next week.
Kellems’ sudden departure comes at a critical point in the investigation into whether Wolfowitz acted properly over the authorization of his girlfriend’s promotion and pay increase in 2005.
The lingering controversy over the potential conflict of interest involving Shaha Riza, who is on the payroll of the World Bank, has prompted a growing chorus of voices calling for his resignation.
Critics argue the scandal is damaging the credibility of the global lender, amid a recently launched anti-corruption campaign.
˝The Grand National Party Tuesday initiated legal action against five lawmakers of the pro-government Uri Party for alleged involvement in the illegal leak of information regarding former Seoul Mayor Lee Myung-bak.
˝The Grand National Party Tuesday initiated legal action against five lawmakers of the pro-government Uri Party for alleged involvement in the illegal leak of information regarding former Seoul Mayor Lee Myung-bak.
Lee´s camp, however, said his wealth has nothing to do with his brother-in-law´s activities and those who raised the suspicions should present clear evidence supporting his alleged connection to the case.
The main opposition GNP said the judiciary authority should probe thoroughly the illegal leak of classified documents.
The five lawmakers are Kim Hyuk-kyu, Park Young-sun, Song Young-gil, Kim Jong-yull and Kim Jae-yun, who raised suspicion last month during a plenary National Assembly, that Lee may be involved in stock manipulation and real estate speculation.
Submitting relevant documents to the Supreme Prosecutors´ Office, the opposition party urged the judiciary authority to investigate whether there is any room for illegal activities in the Kyunghyang Shinmun newspaper´s access and coverage of information on real estate transactions by the former Seoul mayor´s brother-in-law.˝
A ranking U.S. official said in New York on Monday that the international community should ensure that all rogue states’ financial activities are stopped, whether they are ``seemingly legitimate or illicit.’ ’ Stuart Levey, the U.S.
Treasury Department’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said that financial institutions must implement effective programs, including targeted financial sanctions, to combat threats from terrorist groups and proliferators of weapons of mass destruction such as North Korea.
His remarks came as the six-party talks on Pyongyang’s nuclear programs set to resume in Beijing.
During the talks, the North hopes to find a negotiated way out of financial restrictions imposed by the United States for its alleged illegal activities, such as counterfeiting and money laundering. Washington promised to set up a working group within the six-party framework to discuss sanctions.
The North’s accounts in Banco Delta Asia in Macau were frozen in September 2006, and sanctions have now almost severed Pyongyang’s access to the global financial network.
Nine Americans and one Russian will share Thanksgiving aboard the International Space Station tomorrow.
The food may be irradiated, freeze-dried and vacuum-packed, but Endeavour astronaut Steve Bowen says the menu is down to earth:
“Turkey and cornbread dressing, and a cranberry dessert and candied yams, and green-bean casserole.
NASA sent along only enough Thanksgiving food for the Shuttle Crew, but the astronauts have raided the Space Station's pantry to come up with enough other traditional items for their ISS friends:
Venus, Jupiter and the Crescent Moon will all be crowded together lighting up a corner of the South-West sky by the end of the holiday weekend.
They are the three brightest objects you can see - it'll be more than forty years before they repeat the show.
Nine Americans and one Russian will share Thanksgiving aboard the International Space Station tomorrow.
A big jump in the number of people looking for jobs;
jobless claims now at their highest levels in 7 years; foreclosures were also up last month.
All this latest economic news may be rattling those folks with good jobs and good credit.
“They squirrel money into the mattress, so to speak, put it in the bank.
They don't spend it at the mall, and as a consequence the economy slows.
Car dealers can't move vehicles, contractors can't sell renovations and additions to homes, appliance makers can't sell what they make.”
And world markets are skittish…
[Bell clanging on Wall Street]
Wall Street opened this morning with stocks up a bit after yesterday's selloff and a downturn on world markets overnight, but markets have gone south again today, the Dow is now down by about 44 points.
President George W. Bush will be near Wall Street today as he talks to world leaders about how to deal with the financial crisis.
He plans to warn against protectionism or abandoning free markets as the world looks for solutions.
There is a bright spot for consumers, though.
The AP's Mike Grossia reports that there is a prediction that low gas prices could be with us for a while.
“Anticipating a more severe economic downturn, the energy department forecasts gas prices will average $2.37 a gallon through 2009.
Gas prices have dropped nearly 50% since July, when the national average for a gallon of regular gas peaked at $4.11.”
jobless claims now at their highest levels in 7 years;
All this latest economic news may be rattling those folks with good jobs and good credit.
And world markets are skittish…
President George W. Bush will be near Wall Street today as he talks to world leaders about how to deal with the financial crisis.
And oil is trading near $55 a barrel.
The rockets have been fired, the shuttle is heading back to Earth:
“ Atlantis is on its way after a 13-day voyage into space to service the Hubble space telescope one last time.”
That was NASA commentator Kyle Herring.
The shuttle will land in just under 40 minutes at Edwards Air Force Base in California, rather than the Kennedy Space Center, because of continued stormy weather in Florida.
Two people are dead, four others wounded, in a shooting at a high school graduation party at a Mesa, Arizona home.
Police sergeant Ed Wessing says the gunman opened fire on officers responding to calls about the shooting:
“ When our first two officers arrived, both of their vehicles took gunfire, and one officer was actually struck in the left arm.”
The 37-year-old suspect surrendered to officers after a 4-hour standoff early this morning.
An American convoy was the target, but US officials say there are no reports of any US casualties after a suicide car-bomb attack in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.
Officials say one Iraqi was killed, and 38 people were wounded.
A member of the NATO forces serving in southern Afghanistan has been killed by a bomb blast.
President Roh Moo-hyun Tuesday chided Samsung Group for its challenge of the government’s effort to keep conglomerates from using financial units as leverage for further expansion.
At stake was a draft bill requiring a financial unit of a conglomerate to get approval from the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) before acquiring a 5 percent or more stake in a non-financial subsidiary to gain control of it.
That concerns Michael Consantino, whose still-healthy son goes to the New York high school where 50 people have gotten sick, many of them after coming home from spring break in Mexico:
“ The fact that it's been so quick and so violent, you knew there was something wrong.”
What about shutting down the Mexican border to stop the spread of the disease?
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano tells NBC's Today Show it is not really doable:
“ That would be a very, very heavy cost for, as the epidemiologists tell us, what would be marginal, if any, utility in terms of actually preventing the spread of the virus.”
Defending the Obama administration's measured response to the epidemic that's still short of a pandemic, Napolitano says tougher enforcement is not necessary yet.
The first cases of swine flu have now been confirmed in the Middle East, and the Asia-Pacific region, Israel, and New Zealand. Britain has a couple of cases, and Prime Minister Gordon Brown says there's no reason to stress out:
“ We have been preparing for this kind of scenario for many years.
Britain is amongst the best-prepared countries in the world.”
What about shutting down the Mexican border to stop the spread of the disease?
The Korea Times reports the chief U.N. nuclear inspector said that South Korea’s past nuclear-related tests did not appear to be part of a weapons program, describing it as ``simply two scientific experiments on a small scale,’’ according to a U.S. news report on Saturday.
``I don't think we have seen any intentions to develop nuclear weapons by South Korea,’’ Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agnecy (IAEA), told reporters in Tokyo, The Washington Post reported on Saturday.
``What we have seen are experiments that have to do with the separation of plutonium and making uranium.
The undisclosed North Korean and Russian plan to the link the TSR with Rajin was Revealed.
In other anti-Japan news, The Korea Herald reports the government will make a strong protest to Japan if Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi goes ahead with his plan to visit the Yasukuni Shrine tomorrow, the Foreign Ministry said yesterday.
The Korean government also plans to distribute a world map naming the waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan as the “East Sea,” and a set of Korea-controlled islets over which Japan also claims sovereignty as ”Dokdo,” officials here said.
Korea celebrates the 61st anniversary of Liberation Day tomorrow.
Korea's quarantine committee yesterday postponed for two weeks a decision on whether to resume imports of U.S. beef.
Korea banned U.S. beef imports in December 2003 after an isolated case of mad cow disease was found in the country.
The panel, composed of government officials, veterinarians and consumer groups, also plans to consult with Canada next year for talks over resuming beef imports from Canada, banned in May 2003 after one cow in Alberta was found to have contracted the disease.
A delegation from the International Olympic Committee, headed by IOC Vice President Chiharu Igaya, arrived in PyeongChang to evaluate the city's bid for the 2014 Winter Olympics.
PyeongChang in Gangwon Province, has a population of over 45,000 and is located about 150 kilometers east of Seoul.
It is the city's second bid to host the event after losing out to Vancouver to stage the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.
The 16-member delegation was greeted by hundreds of supporters on the streets as it entered the city, and a 2 km-long banner signed by 500,000 bid supporters.
The IOC Evaluation Commission is to inspect sports facilities and attend a variety of presentations by the PyeongChang Bid Committee for three days.
The team will also examine the sites of other candidate bidding cities, Salzburg of Austria, and Sochi in Russia, in the coming weeks, and submit their evaluations to the IOC by July when the final venue will be decided.
According to the Joong-Ang Ilbo, in a bid to tear down regulatory walls that have splintered the financial sector here, Seoul has announced plans to overhaul its financial regulations in order, it says, to allow some room to grow.
The Finance Ministry has announced a plan to ease or abolish about 40 percent of the thicket of 300 regulations and restrictions in financial markets here.
Current rules ― 14 different sets of rules, the ministry said ― divide the market into eight sectors, across which firms cannot now tread.
The changes would cut the number of sectors back to three:
banks, insurance companies and all others, including stock brokerages, trust managers and asset managers.
The Finance Ministry has announced a plan to ease or abolish about 40 percent of the thicket of 300 regulations and restrictions in financial markets here.
The leaderboard at the Ladies Professional Golf Association's Safeway Classic at Columbia Edgewater Country Club in Portland, Oregon, yesterday resembled that of a Korean golf tournament.
Korean-born golfers rounded out the top five, marking the first time that players from a country other than the United States took the top five spots in an LPGA tournament.
Gloria Park, a six-year tour veteran, was another shot back at third, and a pair of tour rookies, Kim Joo-mi and Yim Sung-ah, finished fourth and tied for fifth, at 8 under and 7 under, respectively.
Twenty-nine-year-old Kang Soo-yun captured her maiden LPGA event at 15 under par.
that is actually 4 cents cheaper than it was this time last year.
It comes from former Massachusetts Governor William Weld.
Obama has taken the day off from campaigning to visit his gravely ill grandmother in Hawaii.
Meantime John McCain is campaigning in Colorado.
Meantime John McCain is campaigning in Colorado.
When Will Ferrell's President Bush Meets Tina Fey's Sarah Palin…
Two weeks from today, voters will have their say on the presidential candidates.
Today, the candidates are making their case on the economy to voters in battleground states.
In Pennsylvania, John McCain was critical of Barack Obama's recent statements that he wants to spread around the wealth.
“America didn't become the greatest nation on Earth by giving our money to the government to spread the wealth around.”
And in Florida, Barack Obama called for more spending on the nation's roads.
“When we spend $10 billion a month on Iraq, every month, that means less money to fix crumbling roads and bridges here at home.”
As the candidates talk about the domestic economy, the White House is being quizzed on whether it will back another economic stimulus package.
Press Secretary Dana Perino says the administration eased open to discussions, but wants to see how the economy reacts to steps that have already been taken.
“When you have a $700 billion package that is yet to be implemented that we actually think will solve the problem of unlocking the credit markets and will stimulate the economy, we need to give a little bit of time for that to work.” Two weeks from today, voters will have their say on the presidential candidates.
Today, the candidates are making their case on the economy to voters in battleground states.
“America didn't become the greatest nation on Earth by giving our money to the government to spread the wealth around.”
Scientists in South Korea have engineered these dogs with fluorescent genes.
You can actually see some of the redness in the daylight, but the glowing can best be seen in these pictures.
He says they're not playing mad scientist and insists this actually has a unique medical purpose.
He says this shows that it is possible to successfully insert genes with a specific trait into a living animal.
And he says that could lead to implanting other non-fluorescent genes that could help treat specific diseases.
In the meantime, he says the dogs, which are all named Ruppy, are doing well.
He says they're not playing mad scientist and insists this actually has a unique medical purpose.
And he says that could lead to implanting other non-fluorescent genes that could help treat specific diseases.
New governor of Illinois, Pat Quinn, says his job is to mend the flaws in state government.
He was on the radio in Chicago this morning, saying this is a time for governance and reform.
The Associated Press has learned that peanuts exported by a Georgia company blamed for a deadly salmonella outbreak were returned to the US from Canada weeks before the scare:
“The government's own records show the rejected shipment was logged by the Food and Drug Administration in September, but was never tested.
The peanuts were barred from the United States due to, quote, filthy, putrid or decomposed substance unfit for consumption.”
Turns out the woman who gave birth to octuplets this week has six other kids.
That word comes from her mother, talking to the Los Angeles Times.
A family acquaintance tells CBS the woman is fairly young and lives with her parents.
An interior ministry spokesman said police in the province of Styria acted on a warrant issued in 1989 to arrest him last Friday.
Irving was on his way to give a lecture in the capital, Vienna.
In his books, Irving has argued that the scale of the extermination of the Jews by the Nazis in World War II has been exaggerated.
He also claimed that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler knew nothing of the Holocaust. He told a libel hearing in London in 2000 that there had been no gas chambers at the Auschwitz camp.
He lost the case and the judge branded him ""an active Holocaust denier"".
Messenger, however, won't make it's first fly-by of Mercury until 2008, and will not begin its main mission until 2011.
NASA is heading back to the heavy-metal planet Mercury for the first time in 30 years.
The Messenger spacecraft is set for launch August 2nd on a seven-year journey that will loop around Earth, Venus and Mercury.
Messenger will get a boost from the gravity of these three planets to guide it to a Mercury orbit for a one-year mission.
Messenger, however, won't make it's first fly-by of Mercury until 2008, and will not begin its main mission until 2011.
Democrats want to get it done this year, while the new president still has significant political capital, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi this morning is assuring President Barack Obama legislation to overhaul the nation's health care system will be on the House floor before the August recess.
That's music to the Chief's ears:
“ That's the kind of urgency and determination that we need to achieve what I believe will be historic legislation.”
space shuttle Atlantis is set to capture the Hubble space telescope on its robot arm at midday, 350 miles above the Earth.
At Capcom, Dan Burbank was happy to hear the commander's report that the astronauts can see the telescope like a shining star of the East:
“ That's terrific news.
I guess the last time we've seen Hubble up close was March of '02, so that's great to hear.”
That's music to the Chief's ears:
˝United Nations nuclear inspectors have been given the go-ahead to return to North Korea to begin the process of shutting down the main nuclear reactor.
The 35-nation board of the UN´s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), approved the mission at a meeting in Vienna.
It will be the first time inspections have been allowed at Yongbyon since UN monitors were expelled in 2002.Pyongyang has agreed to close the reactor in exchange for energy aid.
The first delivery of aid - a shipment of fuel oil - is expected to arrive from South Korea by the end of the week.
Diplomats in Vienna said the inspection team could be in North Korea within a week to begin the process of verifying the shut-down of Yongbyon, which is capable of producing enough plutonium for a nuclear weapon each year ˝
˝United Nations nuclear inspectors have been given the go-ahead to return to North Korea to begin the process of shutting down the main nuclear reactor.
After a continuation of efforts by protesters to trespass on a future U.S. military base site in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi province, the Supreme Public Prosecutors Office said yesterday that it would subpoena the leaders of the civic group alliance leading the protests.
Base Extension in Pyeongtaek do not cooperate, the prosecution will seek arrest warrants, the prosecution source added.
After protesters were evicted from the site, fences were built, the area was designated a restricted military zone and patrolled by riot police and soldiers.
If the leaders of the Pan South Korea Solution Committee Against U.S.
Alaska towns north of Anchorage are getting a shower of fine, grey dust this morning, although the city itself is being spared.
Redoubt volcano, which has erupted 5 times since last night, sending an ash plume more than 9 miles into the sky.
That rapidly melts the snow, resulting in large mud flows.
Two Discovery astronauts are set for the 3rd and final space walk of the current shuttle mission outside the international space station today.
Joe Acaba and Ricky Arnold are both former teachers.
Redoubt volcano, which has erupted 5 times since last night, sending an ash plume more than 9 miles into the sky.
Amid an intensifying dispute over the planned takeover of wartime control of South Korean troops from the United States, a fresh debate over the so-called ”constitutionality ” of the command transfer has arisen.
Moon Chung-in, a professor of political science at Yonsei University in Seoul, supported the remarks made by President Roh Moo-hyun in his speech to mark the 61st Liberation Day on Tuesday.
”Having a U.S. military general control our forces is tantamount to giving up our constitutional right concerning the authority to command troops stipulated in the Article 74 of the Constitution, ” Moon said at a forum at the National Assembly yesterday.
He stressed control of troops means having both authority over military administration, such as personnel management, and military operational command.
The professor dismissed calls from conservatives for holding a national referendum on the matter.
In his Liberation Day speech, Roh called the current command structure between the South Korean and U.S. militaries ”an abnormal state that stands at variance with the constitutional spirit.
”Having a U.S. military general control our forces is tantamount to giving up our constitutional right concerning the authority to command troops stipulated in the Article 74 of the Constitution, ” Moon said at a forum at the National Assembly yesterday.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has dismissed talk of a new Cold War between Russia and the US, at the start of a visit to Moscow.
Rice said “I think the parallels just frankly have no basis whatsoever”, while acknowledging that ”it's not an easy time” for Russian-US relations.
Washington’s backing for Kosovo’s independence has also been attacked.
For her part, Rice has criticized what she sees as democratic setbacks in President Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
Her key meetings will take place on Tuesday, when she meets Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
She said she did not like the current ”rhetoric” surrounding US-Russian relations, but added that ”it's not a time in which I think any sort of cataclysmic things are happening”.
Recently Putin accused the US of making the world a more dangerous place.
In Iraq, the US military said five US soldiers had died in a roadside bombing in the western town of Ramadi.
The bomb exploded as they conducted combat operations on Wednesday, a statement by the Marines said.
The Sunni town of Ramadi is a stronghold of Iraq's anti-US insurgents, who launch regular attacks against Iraqi and American troops.
Reports say 13 US service personnel have been killed in violence in Iraq in the past five days.
Vice Foreign Minister Lee Tae-sik is appointed as the new ambassador to the U.S.
The leaders of the two Koreas have begun formal talks in Pyongyang on the second day of an historic summit.
South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun is expected to announce considerable financial support to the North, in both aid and direct investment.
On Monday, Roh and his wife swept up to Pyongyang in a motorcade, to be greeted by Kim Jong-il, North Korea´s reclusive leader, and cheering crowds.
But correspondents say expectations for any lasting progress are modest.
The two leaders began their meeting at 0930 at the Paekhwawon Guest House where Roh is staying .
Despite the billions of dollars spent since the last North-South summit seven years ago, the North remains impoverished and isolated.
Some observers believe that, amid military tensions, Kim Jong-il is using the talks to coax further economic aid and other concessions from the nervous South.
President Roh is in the final months of his term in office, and his critics accuse him of using the summit to cement his image as a peacemaker.
South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun is expected to announce considerable financial support to the North, in both aid and direct investment.
US President George W Bush has vetoed a Congressional bill that would have linked war funding to a timetable for withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.
The leaders of the Democrat-controlled US Congress signed the controversial bill earlier Tuesday.
Signing the bill, Democratic Senate Leader Harry Reid urged Bush to ””listen to the American people””.
Congress agreed to $100bn in further funding on condition US combat troops begin to withdraw this year.
It is only the second time since taking office that Bush has used the Presidential veto.
Speaking in Florida, where he has been visiting the headquarters of US Central Command, Bush warned that Withdrawing troops too early could turn Iraq into a ””cauldron of chaos””.
””Success in Iraq is critical to the security of free people everywhere,”” he said.
Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Reid signed the bill at a televised news conference on Capitol Hill.
Pointing to the high death toll for US troops in Iraq last month, Reid said it was time for Iraq to take responsibility for its future.
The leaders of the Democrat-controlled US Congress signed the controversial bill earlier Tuesday.
Speculation about a nuclear test mounted after South Korea's Defense Ministry reported last week that Korean and U.S. intelligence have been tracking North Korea's construction of underground tunnels in a northeastern region of Gilju County.
The Foreign Ministry said yesterday it has found no evidence that North Korea is preparing for a nuclear blast test, saying it has neither detected signs, nor received such information from U.S. intelligence authorities.
Earlier, another senior ministry official made clear his opposition to a possible U.S. pre-emptive strike on North Korea in the event of no breakthrough being made in the multilateral talks.
Speculation about a nuclear test mounted after South Korea's Defense Ministry reported last week that Korean and U.S. intelligence have been tracking North Korea's construction of underground tunnels in a northeastern region of Gilju County.
Days later, the New York Times reported that U.S. satellites detected construction of some platforms and tunnels, possible pointers to a preparation for an underground nuclear test.
71 people killed in a day by suicide bombers in Iraq.
both are on the agenda right now, as the President and the new prime minister of Israel sit down at the White House.
The AP's Julie Pace is covering the first Washington meeting between Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu:
“ The Obama administration wants to promote dialogue with Iran, but Israel worries that could lead to greater tolerance for Iran's nuclear ambitions.
Senior White House officials say this meeting is part of Obama's plan to pursue a comprehensive peace that includes a two-state solution.”
Netanyahu's national security adviser seems to hint Israel might consider military action against Iran.
A not-guilty plea for Drew Peterson at the ex-cop's arraignment in the death of his third wife.
His lawyer entered the plea as Peterson stood silently in court this morning in Joliet, Illinois.
Palestinian statehood, US talks with Iran:
both are on the agenda right now, as the President and the new prime minister of Israel sit down at the White House.
“ The Obama administration wants to promote dialogue with Iran, but Israel worries that could lead to greater tolerance for Iran's nuclear ambitions.
President Barack Obama says immediate action is needed to reverse the nation's stumbling economy:
“If we do not act boldly and swiftly, a bad situation could become dramatically worse.”
In his weekly radio and Internet address, the President says his $825 billion recovery plan would put millions of people to work on repairing the country's crumbling infrastructure.
Two people are dead, and seven others wounded, after someone opened fire last night on a crowd on a street corner in Miami's Liberty City:
“I heard some gun shots like from two blocks away, and we turned back around, and they was layin' out on the ground.”
Police say one of the victims is in critical condition; there's no word on the shooter or shooters.
At least 3 children have been killed and 16 others hurt in the partial collapse of a sports center in Barcelona, Spain.
(loud buzzing machine noise) That's the sound of rescuers cutting through the debris to get to trapped children.
Officials say high winds gusting up to 100 miles an hour might be to blame.
Belgian police are holding a 20 year-old man after a bloody rampage yesterday at a day care center, in which 2 babies and a 54 year-old caregiver were stabbed to death.
“If we do not act boldly and swiftly, a bad situation could become dramatically worse.”
Police say one of the victims is in critical condition;
“We thought that things like this only happen in the United States, and now we see it in Belgium in a small village like this.”
A subcommittee of the Korean Olympic Committee decided yesterday that the city in Gangwon province will be Korea's candidate to host the 2014 Winter Olympics.
The city of Pyeongchang will have another shot at hosting the Winter Olympics.
A subcommittee of the Korean Olympic Committee decided yesterday that the city in Gangwon province will be Korea's candidate to host the 2014 Winter Olympics.
The Joong-Ang Ilbo reports Pyeongchang finished a close second to Vancouver last year in a bid to host the 2010 winter games.
The committee had previously agreed to give its support to Muju, in North Jeolla province.
Powerful earthquakes hit Asia.
NK will continue six-nation negotiations with “patience”.
North Korea denounced as ``humiliating'' U.S. demands that it commit to dismantling its nuclear program before seeking aid in return.
But it vowed to continue six-nation negotiations ``with patience.''
A statement read to reporters by a North Korean official in Beijing criticized Washington for refusing to discuss an aid package until Pyongyang pledges to eliminate the program.
North Korean envoys on Wednesday reportedly demanded aid in exchange for freezing the program at the start of low-level ``working group'' talks hosted by China.
The other participants are South Korea, Japan and Russia.
The United States and its allies say they are willing to provide aid if North Korea freezes its nuclear facilities and commits itself to dismantling them.
Washington says such a freeze must be a temporary step toward permanent dismantling.
U.S. officials refer to the concept as CVID, for ``complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantling.''
U.S. officials refer to the concept as CVID, for ``complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantling.''
North Korea, squeezed by U.S.-imposed restrictions on its finances, tried to open accounts at a South Korean bank, Seoul government and bank officials said yesterday.
North Korean officials made indirect contact with Woori Bank, which has a branch at the Gaeseong Industrial Park on the North's side of the border.
A bank spokesman said Woori serves South Korean companies and their employees from the South producing goods there.
It came after the United States strengthened its crackdown on firms it suspected of aiding Pyongyang in illicit activities such as counterfeiting.
Washington imposed sanctions on a Macau bank in September, accusing it of helping North Korea launder counterfeit U.S. dollars.
A month later, the United States also froze U.S.-based assets of eight North Korean firms on suspicions of illegal activities, including counterfeiting, laundering and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
The Unification Ministry, however, claimed the North's request had nothing to do with the U.S. sanctions, saying an account with Woori Bank, if one were opened, would not have been used for such illegal financial activities.
North Korean officials made indirect contact with Woori Bank, which has a branch at the Gaeseong Industrial Park on the North's side of the border.
A month later, the United States also froze U.S.-based assets of eight North Korean firms on suspicions of illegal activities, including counterfeiting, laundering and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
He's not pitching another kick in the pants for the economy, but considering the chance of a long slowdown, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke tells lawmakers this morning, it makes sense for Congress to consider a second economic stimulus package.
Congressional Democrats have been pushing another jumpstart plan, even though it would be expensive, come on top of the financial bailout package, and the White House has been cool to the idea.
Bernanke says if lawmakers do come up with something, it should kick in quickly, and help break through the credit clog to really help the economy.
Korea plans to provide more than 1 trillion won or $1.1 billion in aid to developing countries this year, a huge increase over what it donated last year, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said yesterday.
The spokesman, who declined to be named, said the ministry finalized its budget yesterday and will send 1.085 trillion won in development assistance to help in areas such as medical services and rural development.
The figure is up from last year’s 646 billion won and 490.2 billion won in 2006.
It also means Korea will reach its goal of spending more than 0.1 percent of the nation’s gross national income a year earlier than planned, the official said.
Korea has been often criticized for being too stingy in its spending to help poorer countries.
Its government spending on international aid has remained at far less than the 0.7 percent of the nation’s gross national income recommended by the United Nations.
Korea has been often criticized for being too stingy in its spending to help poorer countries.
World leaders are weighing in this morning on the Obama election:
“This is a moment that will live in history as long as history books are written.”
A French human rights official who's Black, says the election of the first African American president is the fall of the Berlin Wall, times ten.
President Bush called Obama to congratulate him last night and stepped out into the Rose Garden to talk about it a short time ago:
“I told the President Elect he can count on complete cooperation from my administration as he makes the transition to the White House.”
Bush says he's also invited Barack and Michelle Obama to stop by for a visit before they move in in January.
So what did it for the man who will become America's 44th president?
How did he sail to a big electoral victory over John McCain?
Experts say the youth vote was important;
exit polls show Obama beat McCain by nearly three to one among first-time voters.
Political scientist Allan Lichtman of American University and Mark Morial, President of the National Urban League.
“It's a generational shift in American leadership, Barack Obama is under fifty, and I think he represents uh, yet another evolution in the leadership of this nation.”
World leaders are weighing in this morning on the Obama election:
A French human rights official who's Black, says the election of the first African American president is the fall of the Berlin Wall, times ten.
Bush says he's also invited Barack and Michelle Obama to stop by for a visit before they move in in January.
General Motors’ Asia-Pacific president Nick Reilly hinted that China will possibly overtake South Korea in automobile technology, if the latter neglects investment in auto research and development (R&D).
In a news conference Reilly said, ”Continued investment in research and development is required for Korea to stay ahead of China.
Sprint said customers will be able to get Internet access almost anywhere within the company's markets, using any portable device.
The firm said the service will be four times faster than current Internet connection rates in the United States.
In a press release, Sprint said Samsung Telecommunications America, Samsung's U.S. affiliate, will be the main infrastructure provider of mobile WiMAX.
Samsung has a package deal to provide Sprint with base stations, chipsets, handsets and consumer electronics such as multimedia players, in addition to being the primary infrastructure provider.
Samsung said the project will create 270,000 jobs through 2012.
Motorola will provide handsets and Intel will develop software and supply equipment to build the network.
Sprint said it will invest up to $3 billion in the next two years to roll out the fourth-generation mobile network.
The Korea Times reports South Korea finds itself increasingly at odds with the United States over how to deal with the adamant North Korea as Pyongyang adopts a more hardline policy in the face of growing pressures from the outside.
North Korea’s missile tests on July 5 initially brought the allies to a united front.
But there is now a widening rift over decisions regarding sanctions on North Korea since the United Nations Security Council resolution on July 15.
Hardliners in Washington and Tokyo proposed stronger measures to tame the Stalinist North but President Roh Moo-hyun called for a ”softer ” diplomatic approach to the problems.
In a meeting of security-related Cabinet ministers at Chong Wa Dae Wednesday, Roh set forth his negative feelings toward additional sanctions or pressures on the North, a thinly veiled objection to the hawkish approaches by Washington and Tokyo.
But there is now a widening rift over decisions regarding sanctions on North Korea since the United Nations Security Council resolution on July 15.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare released a list of local hospitals and clinics Thursday that are over-prescribing antibiotics to patients, drawing an angry response from doctors.
According to the list, more than 90 percent of Korean hospitals and clinics prescribed antibiotics to their patients for common conditions such as cold, coughs and sore throats.
The figures also showed that smaller hospitals and clinics overused antibiotics more than general hospitals and large hospitals affiliated with universities.
The ministry said it plans to announce hospitals' antibiotics usage every three months as part of an effort to provide correct information about hospitals abusing antibiotics.
According to the list, more than 90 percent of Korean hospitals and clinics prescribed antibiotics to their patients for common conditions such as cold, coughs and sore throats.
The European Union has banned imports of captive live birds - but not poultry - from other countries in an effort to curb the spread of bird flu.
The decision was backed by a committee of EU veterinarians, officials said.
Fears of infection arriving via pet birds rose after a parrot died of the H5N1 strain - potentially deadly to humans - while in quarantine in the UK.
As the ban was announced, German officials said two geese had tested positive for the flu in initial checks.
LAPD arrests impersonators of well-known characters on Hollywood.
A South Korean civilian worker died in Iraq after a 40-liter steel can containing paint exploded within the compound of the Zaytun Unit in the northern city of Irbil on Monday.
The Korea Times reports no sign of terrorism has been found so far.
According to officials in Seoul and Irbil, 52-year-old painter Chong Myong-nam was working with a couple of fellow workers within the South Korean military base when the lid of a container, connected to a compressor, struck him on the head.
˝Key organizational failures that left Virginia Tech student Cho Seung-hui free to kill 32 people should never be repeated, Virginia´s governor has said.
Tim Kaine lamented a series of “missed opportunities” that allowed Cho to remain at large despite serious concerns over his mental health.
He spoke at the launch of a report that was critical of the emergency response to Cho´s April rampage.
It says that lives may have been saved if college officials had acted sooner.
”Warning students, faculty and staff might have made a difference,” the report says.
However, it did concede that while a lockdown might have helped protect some students and teachers it would probably have been ineffective in stopping Cho, who ”had started on a mission of fulfilling a fantasy of revenge”.
Cho killed 32 people and himself at the US university in April in the deadliest shooting spree in modern US history.˝
Longtime ""American Bandstand"" host and rock music pioneer Dick Clark has suffered a stroke and is being treated at a Los Angeles area hospital.
Often called ""America's oldest teenager"" because of his youthful appearance and dedication to rock music, Clark suffered the stroke earlier this week.
Often called ""America's oldest teenager"" because of his youthful appearance and dedication to rock music, Clark suffered the stroke earlier this week.
The official draw was held at the Asia Football Confederation’s headquaters.
“We learned recently that North Koreans at the country's foreign missions and trading companies as well as those guiding foreigners inside the North are not wearing the Kim Jong-il badges,"" the intelligence official told the Joong Ang Ilbo.
As Seoul continued to issue official denials of political trouble in Pyeongyang, a senior South Korean intelligence official said that North Korean officials overseas are no longer wearing badges portraying the communist country's leader, Kim Jong-il.
The significance of the change was unclear, but it follows unusual developments in the North, including the removal of portraits of Kim from public display.
“We learned recently that North Koreans at the country's foreign missions and trading companies as well as those guiding foreigners inside the North are not wearing the Kim Jong-il badges,"" the intelligence official told the Joong Ang Ilbo.
North Koreans usually wear two badges, honoring the country's present and past leaders, Kim and his father, Kim Il Sung.
An U.S. government auditor said “The Army should withhold some payments to Halliburton.”
The governing Grand National Party (GNP) plans to recruit independent lawmakers-elect to back President Lee Myung-bak´s reform drive, a party leader said Thursday.
GNP Chairman Kang Jae-sup has initially invited four unnamed independent lawmakers-elect to join the conservative party.
In the future, he plans to seek more unaffiliated winners in the election.
The recruitment has become urgent as while the GNP has secured 153 out of the 299 seats, this is short of the 168 required for an absolute majority in the National Assembly.
The governing party is expected to invite conservative independents, probably winners belonging to the ``Pro-Park Geun-hye Alliance,´´ until it reaches an absolute majority, observers predicted.
Korean manufacturers raised salaries by 2.4 times more than the average pay raise of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) member countries last year.
Korea has ranked second in terms of salary growth rates since 2000.
According to the National Statistical Office (NSO), workers at manufacturing firms had their salaries raised by 6.8 percent last year, which is 2.4 times more than the average 2.8 percent rise by OECD member countries.
When putting the average salaries of 2000 at 100, Korean manufacturers´ salaries for last year stood at 173.2, meaning the salaries rose by 73.2 percent during the seven years.
“Butch Cassidy in the Sundance Kid”
“It's not like finding winos in the street.
“You gotta keep his con even after you take his money.
He can't know you took em.”
He was nominated for ten Oscars, but only won once, one acting award, two honorary Oscars.
Paul Newman was dying of cancer yesterday at the age of 83.
Film legend Paul Newman starred some fifty films, including a couple of terrific movies with Robert Redford.
“Butch Cassidy in the Sundance Kid”
“They're beginning to get on my nerves.
“It's not like finding winos in the street.
You can't outrun him.”
DotAsia, the organization overseeing the registration, is expecting huge demand for the first domain name extension for the Asia Pacific region.
But some in the industry are concerned about the proliferation of domain name suffixes in recent years.
While others think that the business of buying domain names has become more about protecting brands than promoting them.
Work to create the .asia domain began in 2000 with the DotAsia Organisation winning official approval to set up the domain in 2006.
A so-called sunrise period, where companies can reserve domains to match their trademarks, has been ongoing since October.
Now the process has been opened up for anyone to register and the first .asia domains will go live on the internet in March.
President George W. Bush and other world leaders are meeting in Washington this weekend to search for ways out of the mess, the President calling this just a first in a series of such sessions.
“The issues are too complex, the problem is too significant to try to solve, or come up with reasonable recommendations in just one meeting.”
The situation's bad in Montecito, California, where wind-whipped wildfire has destroyed at least 100 homes and a college dormitory.
Westmont College student Andrew Lloyd was shocked at what he saw from his dorm window:
5,400 homes have been evacuated, two firefighters suffering smoke inhalation, two residents suffering substantial burns.
On Wall Street, the Dow is down 37 points.
Under the scenario, journalists are supposed to leave ministry buildings shortly after news briefings by government officials.
They will be basically blocked from staying or writing articles in the buildings.
President Roh Moo-hyun has faced legal and legislative action over his decision to shut down the press rooms, with the opposition party vowing to block the initiator of the idea, the Government Information Agency.
Lawmakers from the pro-government and opposition parties have urged Roh to scrap his plan to close most of the press rooms at the central government.
The main opposition Grand National Party designated June as the month to protect press freedom and vowed to thwart the plan to close centers during an extraordinary National Assembly session.
It also seeks to abolish the information agency, the architect of the controversial plan.
However, the pro-government Uri Party showed a lukewarm attitude over closing the agency.
A thousand police officers are being deployed in the suburbs of Paris, after seven consecutive nights of rioting.
The officers will be stationed in Seine-Saint-Denis, north-east of Paris.
Half of the department's 40 towns were affected by violence last night.
Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin has been holding emergency crisis talks, following criticism at his failure to end the violence.
Muslim leaders have urged politicians to show respect for immigrant communities.
The BBC reports former Thai PM Thaksin Shinawatra has returned to his homeland, 17 months after being deposed in an illegal military coup.
Thousands of flag-waving supporters, including key figures in the newly elected government, gathered at Bangkok´s main airport to greet him.
Thaksin was taken straight to court to face charges of abuse of power during his time in office - charges he insists are politically motivated.
He was granted bail and told not to leave Thailand without permission.
Thaksin - a multi-billionaire who bought Manchester City football club last year - said he intended to stay out of politics now he is back in the country.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher has emerged as one of the candidates to replace Christopher Hill as U.S. ambassador to Seoul.
Hill was recently nominated for U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs and is also Washington's top envoy to the six-party talks on the North Korean nuclear crisis.
In its Monday edition, the Nelson Report said that Boucher has the trust of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
The State Department spokesman has been serving in his current capacity since May of 2000.
Seoul strengthens the screening process for high-ranking officials.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has pledged to go ahead with the expansion of a Jewish settlement near Jerusalem fiercely opposed by Palestinians.
He said 3,500 homes would be built to link to form a corridor between the city and the largest West Bank settlement.
The US secretary of state has warned the plan is ""at odds with US policy"".
U.S. denied North Korean proposal for mutual disarmament talks.
South Korean media reported two fuel trains collided at a North Korean railroad station near the Chinese border Thursday, igniting a deafening explosion that rained debris for more than 10 miles around.
The secretive communist government in Pyongyang declared an emergency while cutting off international telephone lines to prevent details of the crash from leaking out.
The North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, had quietly passed by rail through the station as he returned from China before dawn some nine hours earlier.
It was not clear what caused the crash, or if it was related to Kim's journey.
But a South Korean official, quoted on condition of anonymity by all-news cable channel, YTN, said it appeared to be an accident.
The collision reportedly took place about 1 p.m. in Ryongchon, a town 12 miles from China.
One train was carrying oil and the second had liquefied petroleum gas, media reported.
The North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, had quietly passed by rail through the station as he returned from China before dawn some nine hours earlier.
˝And a man with no formal training, no license and no office practiced dentistry for nearly 30 years in Malaysia.
˝And a man with no formal training, no license and no office practiced dentistry for nearly 30 years in Malaysia.
Police there say the 63-year-old suspect illegally treated hundreds of patients in his home.˝
Atlantis is staying in orbit:
“ The landing opportunities for the day have been waved off.
Bad weather in Florida blamed for the scrub.
President Barack Obama, meanwhile, has picked a former shuttle commander to head the space agency.
Back in 1990, he told children at Edwards Air Force Base to aim high:
If confirmed by the Senate, Bolden would become the second astronaut and first African-American to lead NASA.
“ The landing opportunities for the day have been waved off.
President Barack Obama, meanwhile, has picked a former shuttle commander to head the space agency.
Abe attended a commemoration ceremony in the capital, Tokyo, Wednesday but did not visit the Yasukuni Shrine.
Abe attended a commemoration ceremony in the capital, Tokyo, Wednesday but did not visit the Yasukuni Shrine.
The shrine honours Japan´s war dead, including 14 people convicted as Class A war criminals after World War II
more than 180 civic groups yesterday announced their opposition to President-elect Lee Myung-bak’s plan to build a grand canal from Seoul to Busan.
The groups, including the country’s largest environmental organization, the Korean Federation for Environmental Movement, issued a joint release saying the canal plan should be left to the voters to decide through a national referendum.
Lee’s transition team announced Tuesday that the head of its grand canal task force team met with the heads of five domestic construction companies last month to discuss the project.
“Pushing the canal plan through without thoroughly reviewing it will only anger the public and create more social conflict,” the groups said in the statement.
They have been running anti-canal ads in newspapers since September.
Others oppose the canal as totally un-needed and some see it purely a political payoff for Lee’s friends in the construction industry.
The groups, including the country’s largest environmental organization, the Korean Federation for Environmental Movement, issued a joint release saying the canal plan should be left to the voters to decide through a national referendum.
˝The Korea Herald reports The Grand National Party yesterday intensified attacks against the presidential office over the scandals surrounding Cheong Wa Dae officials, and the alleged probe into their presidential candidate Lee Myung-bak.
The opposition party submitted a request for a parliamentary inspection of the national tax agency and the intelligence service.
It alleges that state authorities attempted to influence the upcoming presidential election by digging up personal information on Lee.
The GNP also vowed to demand a parliamentary inspection and a special probe into the scandals surrounding President Roh Moo-hyun´s former aides Byeon Yang-kyoon and Jeong Yoon-jae, should current investigations appear insufficient.
“The president should apologize to the public for attempting to cover for his aide,” GNP floor leader Ahn Sang-soo said during the party meeting.
”The prosecution should conduct proper investigations, as more Cheong Wa Dae officials are likely to be involved in the case.”
The opposition party submitted a request for a parliamentary inspection of the national tax agency and the intelligence service.
Korean male teenagers who smoke begin a couple of months before their 15th birthday, half a year earlier than they did three years ago.
Yonsei University's Graduate School of Public Health surveyed 4,000 middle school and high school students.
But the number of teen smokers has decreased.
In 1999, about a third of high school boys smoked, but that ratio dropped to just under 16 percent in last year's survey.
The worst this, the biggest drop in that.
There are more extremes in this morning's economic news and they're all on the down side.
The government reports consumer prices fell a full 1%, as inflation turned into deflation last month;
that is the biggest drop in more than 60 years, and it comes from a record fall in gas prices.
At the same time, the Commerce Department says new home construction fell another four and a half percent, to the lowest level on record.
President Jerry Johnson of the National Association of Home Builders, says his industry just can't get a break, even from the federal rescue package.
“On Main Street, the homebuilding sector has not seen any of the $700 billion come through the pipeline in the form of acquisition development and construction, or mortgage loans.”
As House members consider an auto industry bailout today, one of the Senators who heard from the CEO's of the big three car companies yesterday is saying 'no' to a $25 billion loan.
Republican Richard Shelby says that would just be throwing good money after bad in an industry resistant to change.
“I don't believe that they have a uh, immediate plans to change their model, which is a model of failure.
I wish that they would, I know they're in dire circumstances but, you know, somebody has to speak up for the taxpayer.”
There are more extremes in this morning's economic news and they're all on the down side.
The government reports consumer prices fell a full 1%, as inflation turned into deflation last month;
that is the biggest drop in more than 60 years, and it comes from a record fall in gas prices.
Six men have been arrested on charges of plotting to attack Fort Dix army base in the US state of New Jersey.
Prosecutors say the men -all foreign-born and described as “Islamic militants”- planned to use automatic weapons to kill as many US soldiers as possible.
The FBI says it infiltrated the group after a video shop alerted police to being asked to copy onto DVD footage of the men firing guns and chanting.
Officials say there is no evidence of links to international terror networks.
Four of the suspects were born in the former Yugoslavia, one in Turkey and one in Jordan.
The six, some of whom were in the US illegally, were due to appear in court in Camden, New Jersey, on Tuesday.
A spokesman for the US Attorney’s Office in New Jersey, Michael Drewniak, said they would face charges of conspiracy to kill US servicemen.
Speaking at a press conference in Camden, US attorney Christopher J Christie thanked the video store clerk who had alerted police after seeing the suspicious footage in late 2005.
It apparently showed 10 young men, including the six suspects arrested, firing guns as they shouted ”Allah Akbar” (God is great).
The FBI says it infiltrated the group after a video shop alerted police to being asked to copy onto DVD footage of the men firing guns and chanting.
The RIAA doesn't know the identities of those it targeted in its most recent round of lawsuits, but plans to discover them through court issued subpoenas.
The Recording Industry Association of America announced yesterday it has sued nearly 500 more people for copyright infringement.
The trade group is trying to stop people from copying music over the Internet.
Despite the lawsuits, more people than ever are using so called ""peer to peer"" networks, like Kazaa and LimeWire to copy music and movies from each others' hard drives.
The RIAA doesn't know the identities of those it targeted in its most recent round of lawsuits, but plans to discover them through court issued subpoenas.
Oklahoma City bomber convicted for 161 murders.
Prime Minister Goh expressed his resignation.
The Korea Times reports about 70 North Korean refugees arrested in crackdowns by Chinese police last month have been sent back to the North where they will likely face severe punishment for defection.
The Korea Times reports about 70 North Korean refugees arrested in crackdowns by Chinese police last month have been sent back to the North where they will likely face severe punishment for defection.
Sources believed the refugees, who were arrested while seeking diplomatic asylum at South Korean missions in Beijing, were deported over the weekend as part of a toughening in Communist China's attitude toward North Korean defectors.
Prime Minister Lee apologized for insults he directed at the GNP.
Japan has said it will resume bilateral talks with North Korea on Saturday.
Delegates will meet in China to discuss the fate of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korean agents in the 1970s and 80s.
The two nations are also likely to talk about possible reparations for Japan's colonial rule in North Korea, as well as Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions.
But Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe made clear that the fate of the abductees would top the agenda.
""I want to make clear that without a resolution of the abduction issue, there will be no normalizing of Japan-North Korea ties,"" Abe said.
Japan has said it will resume bilateral talks with North Korea on Saturday.
John Kerry ganged up on President Bush on the campaign trail on Monday, with Clinton warning Bush wants to scare voters and Kerry slamming Bush's ""incompetence"" in not protecting tons of missing explosives in Iraq.
Bush, with former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani at his side, criticized Democrat Kerry's strategy of ""pessimism and retreat"" and told voters in Colorado that ""in every critical respect, my opponent and I see the war on terror differently.
"" The potential balance of power on the Supreme Court moved front and center with news that Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist was diagnosed with thyroid cancer and is in the hospital after undergoing a tracheotomy.
Rehnquist, who is 80, the leader of the court's conservative majority, is expected back on the bench next week.
But his illness reminded voters a new president could be asked to fill several vacancies of retiring justices on the closely divided court.
Former US President Bill Clinton and Sen.
Communist Chinese police opened fire and wounded four protesters in what it claimed was “self-defense"" last Sunday in a Tibetan area of Sichuan province, the Xinhua news agency says.
It is the first time China has admitted injuring anyone since anti-Chinese protests in Tibet began last week.
Xinhua said police opened fire in Aba county - the same place that Tibetan activists said eight people were killed during protests near Kirti monastery.
Activists released graphic photos of dead bodies showing bullet wounds.
China has said that only 13 people have been killed during the protests, and that all were innocent and killed by ""rioters"" in Lhasa.
The Tibetan government in exile has said at least 99 people have died so far, including 80 in Lhasa - and have accused the security forces of firing on crowds.
Earlier on Thursday, China admitted for the first time that the protests had spread outside the Tibetan Autonomous Region to nearby provinces in south-western China where large numbers of ethnic Tibetans live.
It is the first time China has admitted injuring anyone since anti-Chinese protests in Tibet began last week.
traders are back at it on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.
[Bell clanging continuously]
So far, in the first hour and a half of trading, the Dow has dropped more than 250 points.
Overseas markets also took it on the chin with at least one market analyst in Britain saying the global bank rescue plan is coming too late to give any real relief.
Treasury Secretary Paulson today expressed regret for the mistakes that led to the financial crisis.
Economic sight today includes a report on prices that shows inflation was pretty much awash last month.
Lower gas prices were offset by higher prices for food and other items and unemployment claims were lower than expected last week.
Overseas markets also took it on the chin with at least one market analyst in Britain saying the global bank rescue plan is coming too late to give any real relief.
President Barack Obama's top economic advisor says there's something wrong with AIG Insurance handing out billions of dollars in bonuses after taking $170 billion in federal bailout money, and losing more than $60 billion in one quarter.
Lawrence Summers tells ABC's This Week there's nothing the government can do legally to prevent those bonuses:
” As for the economy, the head of the President's Council of Economic Advisors Christina Romer tells NBC's Meet the Press it is like fighting a war:
Romer, when pressed, says the administration is opposed to eliminating the tax deductions people get for private- and company-provided health care, but the idea has not been taken off the table.
“ This whole area is something we're going to have to look at as we think about regulation in the future, because no one can be satisfied with what's happened.
we have staged a wonderful battle.”
The Korea Herald reports a team of nuclear experts from the United States will arrive in North Korea today to finalize a plan for disablement procedures with their North Korean counterparts.
Sung Kim, director of the State Department´s Office of Korean Affairs, will head an eight-member delegation that includes nuclear specialists, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.
The team will stay in North Korea for about a week.
The visit is part of a disablement process that was put into gear by the October 3rd agreement signed at six-party talks last week.
The agreement calls for the North to complete the disablement and declare all of its nuclear programs by the end of the year in return for additional energy aid and a lifting of sanctions by the United States.
Top U.S. nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill said in an interview with U.S. broadcaster PBS that in this second phase, North Korea would be making a “full disclosure” of its nuclear programs.
Koreans flying overseas can expect to pay more for their tickets beginning next year.
Korea’s Transportation Ministry said yesterday it will give local airlines more flexibility when deciding how much extra to charge passengers when the price of oil goes up.
The change is in response to airline complaints that the current system taxes their finances too heavily.
While the maximum surcharge has been $52 until now, it will rise to $140 per ticket for people flying to Europe or the United States.
The ministry said it would allow airline companies operating here to set surcharges according to 16 oil price levels, up from the current seven.
The new system also raises the minimum price at which airlines can add the surcharge.
The minimum cost will be $1.50 per gallon, up from the current $1.20 per gallon.
The change is in response to airline complaints that the current system taxes their finances too heavily.
The Korean won briefly breached the psychologically important 900-won-to-the-dollar barrier during yesterday’s trading, hitting its highest point since August 1997.
The dollar recovered slightly to finish at 900.70 won, after the central bank intervened to try and ease the rise of the Korean currency.
Given Korea’s export-reliant economy, the upward march of the won is disturbing news.
The dollar started the day at 907 won, and fell to 899. 60 won at around 1:52 p.m., its lowest point.
It immediately rebounded as the Bank of Korea aggressively bought up dollars to defend the 900-won barrier.
Local investors’ dollar-selling spree spurred the hike in the won, coming a day ahead of a U.S. Federal Reserve meeting that is expected to cut interest rates further, experts say.
Cardinal Francis George says a fire that struck Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago this morning is a tragedy, but he's grateful the damage wasn't worse.
The Catholic archbishop says there are now icicles hanging from the pews and water dripping from the light fixtures - very cold morning in Chicago.
A surprise visit today by the UN Secretary General.
Ban Ki-Moon showed up in Afghanistan, saying many challenges remain for the country, where the US is at war with extremists:
“This year is going to be a very important and crucial year, important year for Afghanistan people and government.”
Ban is urging US and NATO-led forces in Afghanistan to prevent civilian casualties.
The Afghan president has increasingly voiced anger over the issue.
the Dow up 24 points in the first half hour.
A surprise visit today by the UN Secretary General.
Ban Ki-Moon showed up in Afghanistan, saying many challenges remain for the country, where the US is at war with extremists:
“This year is going to be a very important and crucial year, important year for Afghanistan people and government.”
Sarah Palin is now talking about her damaging Catie Couric interview to a more sympathetic questioner:
Couric earlier told David Letterman nobody followed up on her question about what the former Republican Vice Presidential candidate reads:
“You know, even in the post-election interviews, Dave, that she's done, nobody's really asked her, 'Why didn't you answer that question?'
In a YouTube clip, Palin tells Ziegler maybe she should have answered.
She says she reads the local papers, USA Today and the New York Times.
A Chinese satellite has smashed into a villager's house on its return to earth, the country's media reports.
The satellite destroyed the building in Sichuan province, but officials say no one was hurt.
A local newspaper printed a picture of a kettle-shaped capsule, which appeared to be about two meters long, lying amid broken bricks, beams and roof tiles.
The satellite was part of a space probe to carry out land surveys and other research, Xinhua news agency reported.
Walking the 86th anniversary of the March 1 Independence Movement, President Roh Moo-hyun demanded yesterday that the Japanese government offer apologies and further compensation to its Korean victims.
No Korean president has made such a demand since Japan paid compensation when the two countries restored diplomatic relations in 1965. Roh said at the Yu Gwan-sun Memorial Hall in Seoul.
""What is needed are the sincere efforts of the Japanese government and people.
They will have to find out the truth of the past and make apologies and compensation, if necessary.
Government overseas remittance restriction movement may backfire in foreign exchange transaction liberalization.
˝The Korea Times reports that, in a delicate shift from its hawkish stance ahead of the presidential election, the main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) Wednesday said it would consider inviting 30,000 workers in North Korea to the South for vocational training programs on the free market economy.
The pledge might calm the jittery North Korean leadership but could trigger a backlash from conservatives who back the party for its hostile stance toward the Stalinist country.
It´s still unclear whether the presidential candidate of the party will adopt the plan as an election commitment.
``The GNP has failed to incorporate the changing security environment of Northeast Asia in the post-Cold War era into its policy platform.
We have focused too much on a security-first and inter-Korean cooperation-later policy for the past years and consequently have failed to catch up with the changing environment,´´ Rep.
The party has run a task force to seek alternative policy options that can replace its hard line policy toward the North since March.
The envisioned policy is the outcome of several months of research, party officials said.˝
``The GNP has failed to incorporate the changing security environment of Northeast Asia in the post-Cold War era into its policy platform.
-South Korea Combined Forces Command assured Korean lawmakers yesterday that the United States is not planning a pre-emptive strike on North Korea's nuclear facilities, according to a lawmaker who was present.
-South Korea Combined Forces Command assured Korean lawmakers yesterday that the United States is not planning a pre-emptive strike on North Korea's nuclear facilities, according to a lawmaker who was present.
10 major state-run organizations plans to move to provincial cities.
IAEA, “more than 40 countries possess nuclear technology to make weapon.”
More than 40 countries with peaceful nuclear programs could retool them to make weapons, the head of the U.N. atomic watchdog agency said Monday amid new U.S and European demands that Iran give up technology capable of producing such arms.
Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, suggested in a keynote address to the IAEA general conference that it was time to tighten world policing of nuclear activities and to stop relying on information volunteered by countries.
Saudi Arabia's King says the price of oil should be $75 a barrel - higher than it is now.
The Saudi Oil Minister indicates that no measures will likely be taken until OPEC meets again next month.
Other Ministers at the hastily convened OPEC meeting in Cairo have not entirely ruled out future production cuts.
Nothing like a kid's tune as a wake-up call to begin to get ready for what could be your final day in space.
Endeavour is scheduled to land in Florida sometime tomorrow.
The Saudi Oil Minister indicates that no measures will likely be taken until OPEC meets again next month.
The wake-up music for the Shuttle Endeavour - NASA Engineers are checking the latest damage assessment of the shuttle before they okay the return to earth.
The Commerce Department reports the economy shrank at an annual rate of 3.8%;
Still, that's the worst showing for the Gross Domestic Product since the recession year of 1982.
And one economist says the economy got weaker as the 4th quarter rolled on.
Another economist sees things in a little brighter light:
“It gives at least a glimmer of hope that when we're looking at the 1st and 2nd quarter of 2009, the rate of decline may significantly continue to decelerate.”
That is Richard Ebeling of the American Institute for Economic Research.
Stocks were up a little in early trading on the news, but they're down just a tad, now.
The Dow is off 22, the NASDAQ down 1.
Exxon Mobil reports it made more money last year than any other American company ever, more than $45 billion - and the company it beat that held the old record was itself.
Exxon Mobil did that well despite of 4th quarter profits that fell by a third on plunging oil prices.
The Commerce Department reports the economy shrank at an annual rate of 3.8%;
Still, that's the worst showing for the Gross Domestic Product since the recession year of 1982.
Another economist sees things in a little brighter light:
“It gives at least a glimmer of hope that when we're looking at the 1st and 2nd quarter of 2009, the rate of decline may significantly continue to decelerate.”
Supporters of Thailand’s now outlawed Thai Rak Thai party have held protests in the capital Bangkok - but the rally was smaller than expected.
More than 1,000 pro-democracy demonstrators wearing yellow headbands called for an end to the military dictatorship that came to power after a coup last September.
Security has been high since a court on Wednesday found Thai Rak Thai guilty of electoral violations last year.
The party was banned and its leaders barred from politics for five years.
The same court cleared the country’s other main political party, the Democrats, of similar charges of election fraud.
Thai Rak Thai leaders condemned the outcome as unfair but have urged people to accept it.
The party’s founder, Thaksin Shinawatra - who was the legally elected prime minister until he was ousted in the coup - urged “everyone to stay calm and don't make any moves”.
Supporters of Thailand’s now outlawed Thai Rak Thai party have held protests in the capital Bangkok - but the rally was smaller than expected.
An estimated 20,000 blue-collar workers, farmers and college students staged a massive rally in downtown Seoul on Sunday in protest of a South Korea-U.S. free trade agreement and government legislation that they claim discriminates against non-regular workers.
The leftist demonstrators, mostly members of the militant Korean Confederation of Trade Unions and other radical civic organizations, flanked by farmers and college students, occupied major streets surrounding Seoul City Hall Sunday afternoon, paralyzing traffic in downtown Seoul for hours.
They chanted various slogans calling for “abolition of the Korea-U.S. FTA,” ”no discrimination against non-regular workers,” ”withdrawal of South Korean troops from Iraq,” ”abolition of the anti-communist National Security Law,” and ”easing of youth unemployment.”
The rally participants also attempted to march towards the U.S. embassy in Gwanghwamun.
A Baltimore native Michael Phelps got a grand welcome home yesterday:
[Snare drum beating, parade music]
The eight-time gold medal winner admitted after the parade in his honor that he's been taking it easy since Beijing:
Michael Phelps back home in his house in Maryland.
For the first time in nearly a year, President Roh Moo-hyun met with his predecessor yesterday to compare notes on their respective summits with the North Korean leader and conservatives were quick to criticize.
Ignoring the fact that only Roh and Kim Dae-jung had ever had ever met with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, Grand National Party spokeswoman Nah Kyoung-won illogically commented “If it's true that the meeting today was held only to explain the outcome of the summit, as the Blue House says, all of the former presidents should have been invited.”
Former president Kim and Roh met at a luncheon yesterday at the Blue House, and talked about the recent inter-Korean summit, the presidential office said.
Roh and Kim Dae-jung last met 11 months ago when Kim’s presidential library opened on the campus of Yonsei University.
President Bush says farewell one more time tonight, this time directly to the American people.
“The President will defend his record once more:
“A record that I'm going to continue to defend, because I think it's a good strong record.
“But aides say he won't re-fight old battles and will instead offer thoughts on the future, how America must protect itself but not turn inward:
“It would be a huge mistake if we become a protectionist nation.
“And he'll wish Barack Obama success in his new home town:
“I hope the tone is different for him than it has been for me.”
“Bush is dropping by the State Department this morning, but tonight's speech in the East Room is planned as the last public event of his presidency.
Mark Smith, at the White House.”
Breaking news from Capitol Hill, where a Senate panel has endorsed Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State.
The same sub-zero temperatures and biting winds that turned the northern plains into a skating rink are now flash-freezing the Northeast.
“But aides say he won't re-fight old battles and will instead offer thoughts on the future, how America must protect itself but not turn inward:
“It would be a huge mistake if we become a protectionist nation.
President Roh Moo-hyun’s governing Uri Party faces a critical time in its future following a crushing defeat in Wednesday’s by-elections that greatly shocked the party’s 141 legislators.
The party’s defeat is also expected to ignite intra-party and bi-partisan debates on the possible regrouping of politicians late this year ahead of the presidential election slated for December next year, political observers said.
In Wednesday’s by-elections, the party failed to win a single seat, continuing its fourth consecutive defeat in by-elections in the past two years.
Of 40 seats up for grabs since last year, the party has not been able to win one.
One of the governing party’s internal factions, composed of 23 first-term lawmakers, yesterday called for an early national convention next January, one month ahead of schedule.
The country's highest court has issued a ruling upholding the draconian National Security Law and even accused the leadership of the ruling Uri Party of trying to strip the country of its last defense measures against the communist North.
The Korea Herald reports in an Aug.
30th ruling sure to widen the controversy over the anti-North Korean law, the Supreme Court opposed its proposed repeal as it dismissed an appeal by two college students indicted for violating the security law and upheld a lower court's decision to sentence each of them to a 30-month prison term.
Former US President Clinton was taking short walks in the hallway outside his hospital room and was in good spirits Thursday following heart bypass surgery this week.
His family said it is distributing flowers already received to other patients at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center.
Flowers that were sent to the former president's Harlem office are being given to charitable organizations in the neighborhood.
The 58-year-old former president went to the hospital late last week after complaining of prolonged chest pain and shortness of breath.
Clinton was moved Wednesday from intensive care to a hospital room following his heart surgery Monday.
Yonhap News Agency reports President Lee Myung-bak Wednesday replaced two of his scandal-ridden ministers-designate to avoid political wrangling with opposition parties amid growing concerns about the delayed formation of his Cabinet.
YWCA Chairwoman Park Eun-kyung, tapped as Lee´s environment minister, offered to withdraw, taking responsibility for the controversy over her alleged involvement in massive real estate speculation.
Park is accused of having violated farmland and real estate laws in the process of investing in properties across the nation over the past decade.
Unification Minister designate Nam Joo-hong, a North Korea expert teaching at Kyonggi University, also offered to withdraw over allegations of illicit real estate dealings and his family members´ dual citizenship.
Earlier on Sunday, Lee Chun-ho, nominated as Lee´s minister of gender equality and family, withdrew over allegations that she had amassed vast wealth through illicit real estate speculation.
President Lee on Wednesday designated Byun Do-yoon, a director of Seoul YWCA, as minister of gender equality and family.
The 61-year-old Byun has long engaged in civic activities to promote the welfare of women and underprivileged citizens.
""Replacements of the unification and environment minister nominees will be announced later this week,"" presidential spokesperson Lee Dong-kwan said.
The Korea Times reports Korea's Internet and telecom industries have begun to counter Japan's recent claim to Tokto, Korea's easternmost islets.
``After consultation with the Information Communication Ethics Committee we closed five communities, which claimed Japan's sovereignty over Tokto,'' a Daum spokesperson said.
The Korea Times reports Korea's Internet and telecom industries have begun to counter Japan's recent claim to Tokto, Korea's easternmost islets.
The nation's biggest portal, Daum Communications Thursday, said it had shut down five overly pro-Japanese online communities.
``After consultation with the Information Communication Ethics Committee we closed five communities, which claimed Japan's sovereignty over Tokto,'' a Daum spokesperson said.
She added Daum also found five more overridingly pro-Japanese communities and is mulling whether to close them.
The state-backed ICEC said the online communities, which distort the history and thus doing mental harm to youth can be shut down under relevant laws.
˝The United Nations found that Korea still has plenty of room for improvement with regard to discrimination against women despite recent progress promoting gender equality.
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women concluded its two-week 39th session, issuing dozens of recommendations for Korea to better protect women from societal mistreatment.
President George W. Bush is calling yesterday's shoe throwing by an Iraqi reporter in Baghdad a bizarre moment.
But he says he doesn't think it represents a broad movement in Iraq where a thousand protestors were out this morning demanding the jailed reporter's release.
The Associated Press correspondent Robert Reed in Baghdad says the incident is generating some jokes.
“Members of the Iraqi Parliament have been sending each other text messages all day warning that you have to take your shoes off in order to enter the parliament building.”
The latest reading on the struggling economy comes from the Federal Reserve, which says industrial output dropped by six tenths of a percent in November.
The Associated Press correspondent Robert Reed in Baghdad says the incident is generating some jokes.
President Barack Obama admits to having a favorite in tonight's Super Bowl:
“Other than the Bears, the Steelers are probably the team that's closest to my heart.”
Super Bowl 43 pits the legendary Pittsburgh Steelers against the upstart Arizona Cardinals.
Cardinals' wide receiver, Larry Fitzgerald, says he's not too concerned about the Steelers' top-ranked defense:
“Every week we play, I mean, everybody wants to say they're going to pound us physically, that's something that's, you know, that's the norm in the League.”
Pittsburgh, which has won five Super Bowls, is a 6-1/2 point favorite over the Cardinals.
Make it three straight Grand Slam titles by Rafael Nadal over Roger Federer, Nadal winning the Australian Open in five sets over his arch rival.
Scurrying to enhance the stained national image and weak influence in the United Nations because of heavy arrears, the Korean government is pushing to expand its participation in the world body's peacekeeping operations, government officials said.
Scurrying to enhance the stained national image and weak influence in the United Nations because of heavy arrears, the Korean government is pushing to expand its participation in the world body's peacekeeping operations, government officials said.
The government will also push to revise laws to allow more efficient and swifter peacekeeping activities under the supervision of a pan-government organization, Foreign and Defense Ministries officials said in a debate hosted by Uri Party lawmaker Kim Myung-ja.
Six elephants escaped from Seoul Children’s Grand Park.
President Lee Myung-bak said Sunday that Pyongyang´s attempts to bypass South Korea for direct contacts with Washington on sensitive security issues will not be successful.
He said that North Korea´s strategy of ignoring South Korea for direct contacts with the United States has failed.
“North Korea has sought strategies to disregard South Korea for direct negotiations with the U.S. on nuclear issues.
He also reaffirmed the strong Korea-U.S. alliance, saying, ``Compared to the previous administration, the new government will be more active in closely coordinating with the U.S. over North Korea policies.´´ He also dismissed speculation that there might be behind-the-scenes deal between North Korea and U.S. nuclear envoys in Singapore where they held talks last week.
Christopher Hill, Washington´s chief negotiator in the six-party nuclear talks, and his North Korean counterpart Kim Kye-gwan said that important progress had been made to end the impasse on dismantling the North´s nuclear weapons program.
“North Korea has sought strategies to disregard South Korea for direct negotiations with the U.S. on nuclear issues.
The presidential transition committee is studying ways to provide more English language programs for soldiers as part of its policy goal of building an English-friendly society, a committee member said Sunday.
The team is collecting opinions from experts and security-related organizations on measures to upgrade English education for men and women in uniform, he added.
South Korea maintains a compulsory conscript system under which able-bodied men over 19 must serve in the military for 24-27 months.
The mandatory service is an unavoidable source of trouble for young men, as they must suspend studies in colleges or quit their jobs.
Kwon Doo-hwan, the Defense Ministry´s chief policymaker on soldiers´ welfare, said the ministry has not yet received any official directive from the transition team on new English programs.
The Korea Times reports police on Wednesday beefed up security around the Islam mosque in Seoul after some people, agitated by the death of the South Korean hostage Kim Sun-il on Tuesday in Iraq, made threats on Muslims.
The Korea Times reports police on Wednesday beefed up security around the Islam mosque in Seoul after some people, agitated by the death of the South Korean hostage Kim Sun-il on Tuesday in Iraq, made threats on Muslims.
Kim Sun-il, “I really want to go home…”
The Korea Times reports South Korea is considering scrapping plans to hold a summit with Japan as Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi once again visited a controversial war shrine in Tokyo, Monday a Chong Wa Dae spokesman said.
The two countries do not have settled summit schedules, but it is President Roh Moo-hyun’s turn to visit Japan as his Japanese counterpart came to Seoul last June.
Kim Man-soo, presidential spokesman, said that the government or will reconsider whether Roh will visit Japan later this year as scheduled.
Roh says prosecutors need civilian control.
Libya agreed Tuesday to pay $35 million to some victims of a bloody terror bombing at a Berlin disco nearly two decades ago, making another step in Libyan leader Mohammar Gadhafi's effort to rebuild relations with the West.
Agreed to by German lawyers and officials of a Libyan foundation run by Gadhafi's son, the settlement deals with 170 non-U.S. citizens, including Germans who were wounded and the family of a Turkish woman killed by the bomb.
Libya agreed Tuesday to pay $35 million to some victims of a bloody terror bombing at a Berlin disco nearly two decades ago, making another step in Libyan leader Mohammar Gadhafi's effort to rebuild relations with the West.
The deal, coming after much larger settlements for the bombings of two U.S. and French airliners, does not cover American victims, including two soldiers who died in the blast at the La Belle disco on April 5th, 1986.
Lawyers are seeking separate compensation for them in U.S. courts.
The New York Medical Examiner says it was an accident that actress Natasha Richardson died because of bleeding in her skull, brought on by her ski-slope fall in Canada.
Other doctors say she might have survived the trauma with prompt medical attention.
A friend of hers, designer Kenneth Cole, is still trying to sort it out:
Cole, on the CBS Early Show.
Spring began this morning, coming in at 7:44 Eastern time, but winter is giving parts of the Northeast a snowy goodbye ?
an inch of fresh snow in New York.
A friend of hers, designer Kenneth Cole, is still trying to sort it out:
˝Americans aren´t too happy with the way things are going in the nation´s capital.
According to a recent CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll, 57-percent of Americans say Bush´s presidency has been a failure, while 55-percent aren´t happy with the Democratic-led house either.
The study suggests Democrats successfully took over Congress last year amid a growing frustration with the President´s Iraq war strategy.
However, since assuming control of both the House and Senate, Democrats have had very little success in swaying the President´s stance on the war.
CNN´s polling director said the results do offer Democrats some good news as Americans still have more confidence in Democrats than President Bush.˝
However, since assuming control of both the House and Senate, Democrats have had very little success in swaying the President´s stance on the war.
Tebow's the man and Florida fans are overjoyed.
Quarterback Tim Tebow led the number one Gators to a 24-14 victory over Oklahoma, giving Florida its second BCS Championship in three years.
“Tim Tebow threw for two touchdowns, the Florida defense came up with clutch stops, as the top-ranked Gators beat number two Oklahoma 24-14 in a BCS title game.
The Gators grabbed the lead on Jonathan Philips' 27-yard field goal with 10:45 left in the fourth quarter.
But after Ahmad Black's interception, the Gator tagged on the clinching score on Tebow's 4-yard pass to David Nelson.
Percey Harvin rushed for a 122 yards and won score for the Gators, who won their second national title in three seasons.
Tebow was picked off twice, passed for 231 yards and grounded out key yards on the ground.
Tebow's the man and Florida fans are overjoyed.
“Tim Tebow threw for two touchdowns, the Florida defense came up with clutch stops, as the top-ranked Gators beat number two Oklahoma 24-14 in a BCS title game.
The Gators grabbed the lead on Jonathan Philips' 27-yard field goal with 10:45 left in the fourth quarter.
South Korea on Thursday asked the United States to delay its troop reduction on the Korean peninsula by more than a year and keep its key combat forces and heavy weaponry systems here.
The Korea Times reports the 11th round of the Future of Alliance Policy Initiative talks, which began in 2002 to reshape the half-century military alliance, is drawing attention as it comes amid the U.S. move to realign its forces on the world's last Cold War frontier.
Future of Alliance Policy Initiative talks:
Korean Ambassador Kang Sung-zu told the Pashtun tribal leaders from Nangarhar Province that Korea will not let any more of its citizens or aid organizations enter Afghanistan and aid organizations that are currently in the country would leave within a month, Afghan TV station Tolo reported.
˝Korean aid organizations will leave Afghanistan within a month as part of their efforts to free 21 hostages held by Taliban militants, according to a report.
Korean Ambassador Kang Sung-zu told the Pashtun tribal leaders from Nangarhar Province that Korea will not let any more of its citizens or aid organizations enter Afghanistan and aid organizations that are currently in the country would leave within a month, Afghan TV station Tolo reported.
Kang added that the organizations might return to Afghanistan some day after the release of the hostages with security guarantees by the Afghan government.˝
The bodies of more than 50 men, women and children have been recovered from the River Tigris in the town of Suwayra, south of Baghdad.
Many had been badly mutilated, Iraqi authorities said.
President Jalal Talabani said the bodies were those of people who had been taken hostage and then killed in the nearby town of Madain.
Meanwhile, there were at least three blasts in Baghdad, including one inside the heavily fortified Green Zone.
A police officer was killed when a suicide bomber struck at an outer checkpoint on the way to the party headquarters of interim Prime Minsister Iyad Allawi.
The prosecution demanded a six-year jail term for Hyundai Automotive Group Chairman Chung Mong-koo for embezzlement and breach of trust.
Chung, who is 69, was arrested last April on charges of embezzling 110 billion won in company funds and causing 210 billion won in damage to the company through breach of trust.
Prosecutors suspect Chung raised massive amounts of slush funds through six group affiliates since 2002 and used the money to illegally transfer corporate wealth to his family.
He was freed from jail on bail in June and has been back in his job as the chairman of the nation’s largest automaker.
Chung’s lawyers asked the judge to hand down a suspended jail term, saying the chairman deserves a lenient penalty considering his contribution to the growth of Korea’s car industry and his role in the automobile group.
Chung also sought a lenient punishment through his written statement, saying he would improve the management system and make the company one of top five automakers in the world if the court gives him a chance.
˝More than 220 people have been killed and 80 are still missing after severe flooding in North Korea, according to Red Cross officials in the country.
The province of Kangwon suffered the highest toll, with 181 confirmed deaths, the International Federation of the Red Cross´s Terje Lysholm said.
Aid agencies are working with the Pyongyang government to get emergency relief to many thousands affected.
But power cuts and washed out roads are complicating the aid effort.
The heavy flooding of recent days has left as many as 300,000 people without homes and destroyed one-tenth of the country´s much-needed farmland, North Korea said on Wednesday.
International aid workers have been carrying out assessments in the four worst-affected provinces and say the damage is extensive.
In one county alone, near the South Korean border, some 4,500 homes have been completely destroyed, affecting 18,000 people, Lysholm told BBC News.
Many people will have been able to seek refuge in neighbors´ homes and in public buildings such as schools and clinics, he said.
Red Cross teams and other agencies are trying to deliver more than 20,000 tarpaulins, kitchen sets, blankets and water purification tablets to the worst-hit areas.˝
The province of Kangwon suffered the highest toll, with 181 confirmed deaths, the International Federation of the Red Cross´s Terje Lysholm said.
Many people will have been able to seek refuge in neighbors´ homes and in public buildings such as schools and clinics, he said.
˝Korea and the Unites States signed their historic free trade agreement on Saturday, capping off an arduous process of negotiations that began in June 2006.
The Korea Herald reports Korea´s trade minister, Kim Hyun-chong, and U.S.
Trade Representative Susan Schwab, signed the agreement with over 200 government officials and business leaders attending the formal ceremony in Washington D.C.
The FTA with the United States would be the biggest trade accord ever for Korea.
For the United States, it would be the largest since the North American Free Trade Agreement took effect in 1994.˝
Australia is to send all asylum seekers arriving by boat on its mainland to be processed in island camps.
Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone said those seeking refugee status would be assessed in an ""offshore location"".
The move follows a diplomatic row between Australia and Indonesia over the issue of refugees.
Rita is this season's 17th named storm.
Emergency teams have once again begun evacuating residents of the flood-hit city of New Orleans as a new hurricane heads towards the US coast.
Some 500 buses are moving out people who had returned to the city battered by Hurricane Katrina three weeks ago.
Several thousand Louisiana evacuees who had found shelter in Texas are being moved to Arkansas and Tennessee. The move came as Category Two Hurricane Rita moved into the Gulf of Mexico, after pounding Florida and Cuba.
Forecasters from the US National Hurricane Center expect the hurricane to strengthen further before reaching the US south coast either in Texas or Louisiana later this week.
Rita - with winds of 160km/h - lashed northern Cuba and the low-lying US island chain known as the Florida Keys on Tuesday.
In the Gulf of Mexico, several oil producers have taken staff off rigs as a precaution in case Rita passes through the area.
Rita is this season's 17th named storm.
Meanwhile, a thick cloud of smoke rises from the Iraqi desert as reports indicate saboteurs have hit Iraq's strategic oil pipeline.
The pipeline links Iraq's northern and southern oil fields.
Meanwhile, a thick cloud of smoke rises from the Iraqi desert as reports indicate saboteurs have hit Iraq's strategic oil pipeline.
The pipeline links Iraq's northern and southern oil fields.
Yongi-Kongju scores highest mark in the evaluation chart for new administrative capital.
Rahm Emanuel categorically dismisses any suggestion that Geithner is in trouble.
In the meantime, the millions of dollars in bonuses that the insurance giant gave to its executives, amid taking billions in Federal bailout money, have caused widespread outrage at the White House, on Capitol Hill, and among the public.
Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell says the administration dropped the ball on the bonuses:
“ The government has been heavily involved in AIG for some months now, and it's shocking that they would… the administration would come to us now and act surprised about these contracts.
Why didn't they ask the question 2 weeks ago before they gave them 30 billion dollars?
” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs says Geithner talked to AIG's top manager last week and objected to the outrageous bonuses:
“ Secretary Geithner received a commitment to lessen some of the bonuses for senior executives, a promise for the restructuring moving forward….
” Questions have arisen about when Geithner knew about the bonuses, and whether he did enough to try to head them off.
Tonight, a source told the Associated Press the President didn't learn about the bonuses until late Thursday.
The President's Chief of Staff says Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's job is not in danger over those AIG bonuses.
” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs says Geithner talked to AIG's top manager last week and objected to the outrageous bonuses:
Still no sign of a recovery in the labor market;
new jobless claims jumped more than expected last week, and the Labor Department reports continuing claims reached a new high for the twelfth week in a row.
economist Stuart Hoffman, of PNC Financial Services, says the weekly numbers have not been as volatile lately:
“ Yes, layoffs are still out there, people are still losing jobs, but some of the size of the job losses in the last 6 months - huge numbers every month - we might finally be seeing that abate.”
There is late word from the National Association of Realtors that home sales fell another 3% last month; the typical sales price plunged to $175,000.
Senator John McCain says it would be counterproductive to prosecute Bush administration officials who said harsh interrogation tactics were legal against terrorism suspects:
“ If you criminalize legal advice, which is basically what they're going to do, then it has a terribly chilling effect on any kind of advice and counsel that the President might receive.”
The Republican on the CBS Early Show.
Iraqi security officials have announced the capture of a suspected militant leader:
the head of the Islamic State of Iraq has long been a key target, and was believed to be working with Al Queda.
Still no sign of a recovery in the labor market;
Mexico's Health Secretary says most businesses will reopen across the country on Wednesday, ending a 5-day shutdown of non-essential businesses to slow the spread of swine flu.
“ He's pointing to the latest test results, which are showing that the number of new cases and new confirmed deaths are increasing only slightly.”
That's Associated Press correspondent Alexandra Olson in Mexico Ciity.
As for schools, the mayor of Mexico City says health officials need to finish inspecting them before students can return to class.
Earlier, a spokesman for the World Health Organization said the group still could raise its alert level to 6, signaling a full-blown pandemic around the world - but the heads of the WHO and the United Nations now say there are no immediate plans for that.
The acting head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says he finds it encouraging that most swine flu cases have been relatively mild in the States.
Wall Street is extending its rally, as reports on housing and construction show improvement for March; pending home sales rose from February.
Investors also are cheering a surprise increase in construction spending, after 5 straight months of declines.
Mexico's Health Secretary says most businesses will reopen across the country on Wednesday, ending a 5-day shutdown of non-essential businesses to slow the spread of swine flu.
He says he thinks the epidemic has peaked south of the border:
As for schools, the mayor of Mexico City says health officials need to finish inspecting them before students can return to class.
Votes are being counted in the Thai general election, as early indications suggest abstentions outnumbered votes for the prime minister in some areas.
Thaksin Shinawatra was reported to be trailing the ""no vote"" in parts of the capital Bangkok, although rural support for him is expected to be strong.
The PM called the election - boycotted by the three main opposition parties - to try to end protests against him.
Thaksin says he will step down if his party fails to win 50% of votes.
But the boycott means that even if he achieves that, he may not be able to form a government.
Because of the boycott, candidates from Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai party stood unopposed in many seats.
According to the Thai constitution, all 500 parliamentary seats must be filled for the lower house to convene, but in some seats unopposed Thai Rak Thai candidates are unlikely to achieve the 20% of the vote necessary to be accepted as legitimate MPs.
Because of the boycott, candidates from Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai party stood unopposed in many seats.
George W Bush has declared California a major disaster zone after four days of wildfires sparked the biggest US evacuation since Hurricane Katrina.
The fires have killed three people, injured 40 and burned 1,500 homes, causing an estimated 1 billion dollars in damage.
More than 500,000 people have been ordered to evacuate as fierce winds fan fast-moving fires that have ravaged land from Santa Barbara to Mexico.
Korea's top finance regulator has expressed alarm about intensifying competition among banks to attract customers at the risk of low profits, saying he feared it could lead to a collapse of the whole industry.
Korea's top finance regulator has expressed alarm about intensifying competition among banks to attract customers at the risk of low profits, saying he feared it could lead to a collapse of the whole industry.
""There has been growing concern over possible negative effects resulting from intensifying competition to lure customers for mortgage loans, securities trading and fund investment,"" Yoon Jeung-hyun, head of the Financial Supervisory Service, told bank presidents and executives at a breakfast meeting.
Lenders have been offering low lending rates while reducing fees for stock trading in an attempt to attract new customers and defend their existing clients.
Uri Party formed a committee to investigate bribery scandal surrounding Cheonggye stream restoration.
North and South Korea will hold talks after 10-month interregnal.
Thailand's ousted PM Thaksin Shinawatra has resigned as leader of the party he founded and built up, Thai Rak Thai.
He said he had to quit due to “changing circumstances”, according to a party spokesman.
Thaksin was deposed in a military coup on 19 September, and is currently living in exile in London.
Thai Rak Thai - once a seemingly unstoppable force in Thai politics - has been hit by a mass exodus of members since the coup.
Thaksin's right-hand man, deputy prime minister Somkid Jatusripitak, resigned earlier on Tuesday - one of more than 100 party members to announce their departure.
Another deputy prime minister - who is a candidate to become UN secretary general - announced his resignation on Monday.
The resignations follow an announcement by the military junta which took over the country last month that members of any party found to have broken electoral laws would be banned from politics for five years.
Thaksin was deposed in a military coup on 19 September, and is currently living in exile in London.
Thai Rak Thai - once a seemingly unstoppable force in Thai politics - has been hit by a mass exodus of members since the coup.
Iran said on Tuesday it felt vindicated by a U.S. intelligence finding that it was not building an atomic bomb, but George W. Bush said Tehran remained dangerous and international pressure should continue.
The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) published on Monday took U.S. friends and foes by surprise after years of stridentrhetoric from Washington accusing Tehran of pursuing a covert nuclear weapons program.
Iran said the report supported its long-standing assertion that its nuclear program had only peaceful civilian aims, such as electricity generation.
The recent incident of indecent exposure on a live musical program on MBC has brought different reactions from newspapers, with conservative dailies heavily criticizing the broadcaster and moderate media remaining cautious on the issue.
The scene was broadcast for four seconds.
The contrasting reports seem to have sensitive political rings to them, regardless of the dispute over the sensationalism itself, as the media circle has been a hotbed of political and ideological confrontation for the last few years.
All the diverging reports came after two musicians suddenly exposed their private parts while performing on MBC’s ``Music Camp’’ on Saturday.
The scene was broadcast for four seconds.
Nuclear negotiators at the six-party talks struggle for the statement.
Therapy for damaged skin using stem cell is developed.
Trigem Computer, one of the nation's largest makers of personal computers, has sought court protection after losing the competitive battle to low-cost Chinese producers and becoming weighed down by debt.
The company filed for court supervision at the Suwon District Court yesterday.
Trigem Computer, one of the nation's largest makers of personal computers, has sought court protection after losing the competitive battle to low-cost Chinese producers and becoming weighed down by debt.
Professor Hwang Woo-suk successfully cloned stem cells from somatic cells of patients.
Washington's already grinding commute could grind to a halt during President Elect Barack Obama's Inauguration.
The AP's Sophia Manos explains:
“The Washington area's transit system is telling passengers to expect extraordinarily long lines for rail cars and buses.
Air travelers will find the airports bustling with extra flights, traffic on the roads could be at a standstill, street and bridge closings.
Then, there's limited parking.
Heavy snows have been known to slam into the nation's capital on Inauguration Day.
A 42 year-old New Jersey woman has an ambitious New Year's resolution:
find a husband or give up the chase for a year.
just a laid-back guy with a sense of humor.
“The Washington area's transit system is telling passengers to expect extraordinarily long lines for rail cars and buses.
And we haven't even factored in the weather.
just a laid-back guy with a sense of humor.
Marines in the third day of a battle to pacify the Sunni Muslim city of Fallujah fired a rocket and dropped a 500-pound, laser-guided bomb on a mosque compound Wednesday, and witnesses said dozens were killed.
has killed 15 Marines since Monday and was part of an intensified uprising involving other Sunni towns in northern and central Iraq, and Shiite population centers south of the capital.
Marines waged a six-hour battle around the Abdul-Aziz al-Samarrai mosque with militants holed up inside before a Cobra helicopter fired a Hellfire missile at the base of its minaret and an F-16 dropped the bomb.
Witnesses said the strike came as worshippers had gathered for afternoon prayers.
An Associated Press reporter saw cars ferrying out dead and wounded.
Witnesses estimated that as many as 40 people were killed.
Marines in the third day of a battle to pacify the Sunni Muslim city of Fallujah fired a rocket and dropped a 500-pound, laser-guided bomb on a mosque compound Wednesday, and witnesses said dozens were killed.
has killed 15 Marines since Monday and was part of an intensified uprising involving other Sunni towns in northern and central Iraq, and Shiite population centers south of the capital.
Gasoline consumption plummeted 10.1 percent to 56.8 million barrels in July from the same month last year, affected by soaring international oil prices, according to a report by the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy (MOCIE) on Monday.
Gasoline prices on average jumped to 1,438 won per liter last month, up from 1,364 won per linter in July 2004.
The airplane ∼ed to the sea.
A list of pro-Japanese collaborators released.
The Iranian government has banned imports from South Korea in apparent retaliation of Seoul’s backing of a U.N. resolution on its nuclear program .
The Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) said Tehran has refused to issue permits for South Korean imports since Oct.
The Foreign Ministry said it was trying to confirm the ban through diplomatic channels.
It plans to call in the Iranian ambassador to Seoul to check whether the ban was an official decision of the Tehran government.
Meanwhile, the Iranian Embassy in Seoul denied news reports that the Tehran government imposed the ban on imports from South Korea, Argentina, the Czech Republic and other nations that voted for a U.N. resolution.
The Foreign Ministry said it was trying to confirm the ban through diplomatic channels.
The recent arrest in Thailand of John Mark Karr has caused the Thai authorities to question the vetting procedures used to recruit foreign teaching staff.
Just days before his arrest, Karr - a wanted man in the US who was once held on suspicion of possessing child pornography - successfully applied for a job in a Bangkok school, and had previously worked in two other schools in the city.
In fact he seems to have spent the past 10 years as a globe-trotting teacher who, according to his resume, taught in South Korea, Europe and Latin America.
“This case shows that we may need to tighten the rules on screening teachers” said a Thai government spokesman overseeing educational affairs.
He said that while there was currently no national recruitment system, the government was due to meet early this week to discuss whether more regulations were needed.
Every year, thousands of foreigners apply for work in Thai schools, particularly in international and language schools.
Just days before his arrest, Karr - a wanted man in the US who was once held on suspicion of possessing child pornography - successfully applied for a job in a Bangkok school, and had previously worked in two other schools in the city.
Meanwhile, the Korea Herald reports South Korea seems prepared to stand up to its half-century military ally by asking America to delay planned changes in its military presence on the peninsula, despite apparent U.S. determination to drive through its forces reduction program.
South Korea plans to beef up its military if the U.S. cuts its forces as planned.
The Pentagon has said it will transform U.S. forces worldwide.
The U.S. will use advances in military technology and smaller, more mobile units to better respond to new security needs and the war on terror.
A South Korean lawmaker says that plan caught the country by surprise.
A U.S. official says the troop pullout plan will be discussed for a few more months.
America's 37 thousand troops in South Korea are mostly a symbolic guarantee of U.S. involvement in any conflict.
The South has 690 thousand members of the military, compared to the North's one-point-one million.
A South Korean presidential official says the nation will increase defense spending next year.
Meanwhile, the Korea Herald reports South Korea seems prepared to stand up to its half-century military ally by asking America to delay planned changes in its military presence on the peninsula, despite apparent U.S. determination to drive through its forces reduction program.
Seoul officials yesterday said it may request a delay to the suggested timeframe of withdrawing 12,500 of the 37,000 troops currently stationed in Korea by the end of 2005, which was made public on Monday.
This would be the biggest cut in U.S. force levels in the region since the Vietnam War.
The U.S. troops in Korea will cut the number by one-third.
The prosecution has promised to conduct a thorough investigation into the suicide of a former No.
The body of Lee Soo-il, who was 63, former deputy chief at the National Intelligence Service (NIS) and current president of Honam University in Kwangju, was found at his home in the southwestern city Sunday evening, an apparent suicide.
General Motors is to cut 30,000 jobs in North America.
North Korean media has not even once mentioned APEC.
In her first major victory on the Ladies Professional Golf Association tour since she joined in 2000, Korea's Grace Park has won the Kraft Nabisco Championship.
The Joong-Ang Ilbo reported that Park, who is 25, ended the final round of the tournament on Sunday at the Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage, California, with a three-under-par 69 to finish at 277, or 11 under for four rounds.
In her first major victory on the Ladies Professional Golf Association tour since she joined in 2000, Korea's Grace Park has won the Kraft Nabisco Championship.
In what is seen by some observers as President Lee Myoung-bak’s lack of confidence in Korean advisors… attention is on veteran financier David Eldon, one of two conservative foreign appointees of the incoming GNP regime.
Having been in the finance business for almost four decades, the 62-year-old is currently the chairman of the Dubai International Financial Center Authority, where he is in charge of luring global financial institutions to develop the Middle Eastern city into a regional financial hub.
The Scottish native is expected to have a similar job description here as the co-head of President-elect Lee Myung-bak´s special committee on national competitiveness.
While not part of the transition team, William Ryback, who has been the first foreign special advisor for the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS), will also serve as an advisor for Lee.
The operation to free hostages held at a school in Beslan in 2004 was full of ""failures and shortcomings"", a Russian investigator has said.
Alexander Torshin, the man leading a federal inquiry, said regional police failed to follow orders which could have prevented an attack.
His preliminary findings contrast with a prosecutor's report which said security forces had made no mistakes.
That angered relatives of the 331 people who were killed at the school.
The operation to free hostages held at a school in Beslan in 2004 was full of ""failures and shortcomings"", a Russian investigator has said.
Alexander Torshin, the man leading a federal inquiry, said regional police failed to follow orders which could have prevented an attack.
Sohn Hak-kyu, the chairman of the pro-government United New Democratic Party (UNDP), has adopted a cautious approach toward the party´s endorsement of a Free Trade Agreement with the United States.
Sohn said in principle he agrees the people will be the beneficiaries of the deal ultimately, but added there are some obstacles to the parliamentary ratification.
``The government has not made the public feel confident that damage resulting from the deal will be compensated for,´´ he said in an interview with KBS TV Sunday.
Sohn mentioned that it was difficult to persuade his fellow legislators to approve the KORUS FTA and that it was important for the UNDP to further discuss the matter with the new administration.
Sohn, formerly a member of the conservative Grand National Party (GNP) and a strong backer of the KORUS FTA, became the leader of the UNDP early this year, despite the opposition and desertions of pro-President Roh Moo-hyun members of the party.
Sohn said in principle he agrees the people will be the beneficiaries of the deal ultimately, but added there are some obstacles to the parliamentary ratification.
Yonhap News reports South Korea´s longest-serving ambassador to China will return home later Tuesday to face a parliamentary confirmation hearing on his nomination as Seoul´s point man on North Korea, the Foreign Ministry said.
President Lee Myung-bak´s appointment of Kim Ha-joong as unification minister marks the first change of Seoul´s top envoy to Beijing in more than six years.
Lawmakers are expected to grill him next week over his ethics and job performance, but they have no right to endorse or veto a Cabinet nomination.
The National Assembly can only express its opinion to the president.
President Lee is likely to pick Kim´s successor soon along with a new ambassador to Japan to lay the ground for his goal of bolstering Seoul´s ties with four major powers which have a great interest in the Korean Peninsula.
The two others are the United States and Russia.
The ambassadorial job in Tokyo has been vacant since Yu Myung-hwan was chosen as foreign minister last week.
President Lee Myung-bak´s appointment of Kim Ha-joong as unification minister marks the first change of Seoul´s top envoy to Beijing in more than six years.
˝The BBC is quoting Taliban militants as saying they have agreed to free 19 South Koreans held hostage for more than a month in Afghanistan.
Seoul said the agreement was reached on condition its troops were withdrawn as scheduled by the year´s end.
South Korea also agreed to end all missionary work in Afghanistan and stop its citizens from traveling there.
The rebels kidnapped 23 Christian charity workers from Ghazni province on 19 July.
They subsequently killed two male hostages, and freed two women.
The BBC´s Alastair Leithead, in Kabul, says no exact release date has been given, but the Taliban have said they will start working straight away to free them.
There has been no mention of money being paid but it is thought that a ransom may have been part of the deal.
A Taliban representative, an official from the South Korean government and mediators issued a statement in Ghazni - where the 19 are being held - saying that they had come to an agreement and the hostages would be released as soon as possible.
Meanwhile, the announcement was greeted with celebrations in South Korea, where families have been waiting anxiously for news of their loved ones.
The Christian church that the hostages belonged to, near Seoul, said all the families were ”rejoicing”.
”They are busy calling other family members and friends at the moment to pass the news,” Bang Yong-kyun, pastor at the Saemmul Church, told Reuters.
Tuesday´s agreement came after South Korean negotiators met Taliban representatives in the central town of Ghazni.˝ ˝The BBC is quoting Taliban militants as saying they have agreed to free 19 South Koreans held hostage for more than a month in Afghanistan.
They subsequently killed two male hostages, and freed two women.
Meanwhile, the announcement was greeted with celebrations in South Korea, where families have been waiting anxiously for news of their loved ones.
A high ranking North Korean official expressed strong discontent over the South's lackluster attitude toward the Kaesong Industrial Complex, just north of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ).
A high ranking North Korean official expressed strong discontent over the South's lackluster attitude toward the Kaesong Industrial Complex, just north of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ).
The Korea Times reports Ju Dong-chan, who is in charge of Pyongyang's project for special zones, made the remarks on Wednesday at a ceremony to mark the shipment of the first made-in-Kaesong products.
The comment cast a chill on the South's euphoria that the first Kaesong products would accelerate inter-Korean economic cooperation.
Reuters reports presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama waged a tight campaign fight across Ohio on Sunday two days before crucial voting that could virtually nail down the Democratic nomination or prolong the party battle into the spring.
One prominent Democrat worried that extended infighting after the voting in four states on Tuesday could split the party into two camps and give a big boost to the presumptive Republican nominee, Arizona Sen.
Victories on Tuesday by Obama, especially in the big states of Texas and Ohio, would give the Illinois senator a major boost toward the Democratic nomination in the November election.
Clinton victories, however, would revive her campaign and end Obama´s winning streak at 11 contests.
McCain, with dwindling competition from the only other major Republican candidate, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, took the day off.
A big night on Tuesday could put McCain very close to the 1,191 delegates he needs to clinch the Republican nomination at this summer´s party convention.
President Roh Moo-hyun will extend a pardon for and reinstate up to 40 business figures involved in various irregularities on Buddha's Birthday, which falls on May 15.
President Roh Moo-hyun will extend a pardon for and reinstate up to 40 business figures involved in various irregularities on Buddha's Birthday, which falls on May 15.
The figures to be pardoned will include those who were charged with providing kickbacks to politicians during presidential elections in 2002 and cooking financial statements.
But many business leaders who were involved in irregularities regarding public funds will not be pardoned this time, according to another Chong Wa Dae official, who asked not to be named.
Education Minister expressed displeasure on protests of students and teachers.
“The Labor Department says employers cut another 524,000 jobs last month, a bit less than economist expected, but the unemployment rate jumped from 6.7% in November to 7.2% in December, the highest in almost 16 years.
The net number of jobs lost in 2008 was nearly 2 ½ million.”
The downward spiral continues.
One economist now says the economy has slipped into a depression.
Peter Morici at the University of Maryland says that's because it has fundamental problems that are not self-correcting.
Let's get the December numbers now from the AP's David Melendy in Washington:
“The Labor Department says employers cut another 524,000 jobs last month, a bit less than economist expected, but the unemployment rate jumped from 6.7% in November to 7.2% in December, the highest in almost 16 years.
The net number of jobs lost in 2008 was nearly 2 ½ million.”
President Roh Moo-hyun expressed hope on Tuesday that North Korea will model itself on China and Vietnam in its efforts to transform into a market economy.
The Korea Times reports he also clarified his opposition to a possible change in the current North Korean government so that it can continue pursuing a market opening in a stable manner, according to presidential spokesman Kim Man-soo.
Roh said North Korea's stability should not be shaken in the process of opening and reform, and also noted South Korea is firmly committed to helping North Korea in its bid for economic revitalization.
President Roh Moo-hyun expressed hope on Tuesday that North Korea will model itself on China and Vietnam in its efforts to transform into a market economy.
Following election authorities’ ruling that Roh violated election laws by making an official pitch for the Uri Party, the Grand National Party and the Millennium Democratic Party both demanded Roh make an official apology.
The Korea Times reports two opposition parties yesterday told President Roh Moo-hyun to stop his illegal pre-election campaigning for the pro-government Uri Party or face impeachment.
Following election authorities’ ruling that Roh violated election laws by making an official pitch for the Uri Party, the Grand National Party and the Millennium Democratic Party both demanded Roh make an official apology.
The National Election Commission ruled Wednesday that the president violated Article 9 of the election law, which requires government officials to maintain political neutrality and refrain from making any comments that could influence voters.
Israeli forces raided refugee camps in Gaza Strip.
A Muslim chaplain cleared of espionage charges in the U.S.
A Muslim chaplain cleared of espionage charges after being imprisoned for 76 days resigned from the Army on Monday, saying officials never apologized or allowed him to retrieve his belongings from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
James Yee ministered to prisoners at Guantanamo Bay naval station, where the military is holding suspected Muslim terrorists.
The Army arrested him last September carrying what authorities said were classified documents.
Former world chess champion was taken into custody by Japanese authorities.
President-elect Barack Obama says now is not the time for half measures when it comes to righting the economy.
In a taped interview for ABC's This Week, Obama said the nation faces its toughest economic challenge since the Great Depression.
He adds national security is, above everything else, his top priority.
The AP's Matty Friedman reports from Jerusalem:
“Israel is saying it will continue with the operation despite increasing diplomatic pressure for a cease fire and despite a UN Security Council resolution on Thursday that called for an immediate cease fire.”
Hamas and Islamic Jihad claim to have ambushed Israeli troops in a Gaza City suburb.
Palestinian health officials say fourteen Palestinians died in the fighting.
In Pakistan, police say a crowd protesting against the Israeli attacks tried to attack the US consulate building in Karachi.
Officials say officers fired tear gas and used batons to disperse the crowd of several hundred people.
More than 250 people are feared dead today after a ferry capsized in the severe storm and crashing waves in central Indonesia.
Eighteen people were rescued.
President-elect Barack Obama says now is not the time for half measures when it comes to righting the economy.
“Let's act boldly, let's act swiftly.”
Hamas and Islamic Jihad claim to have ambushed Israeli troops in a Gaza City suburb.
˝Presidential nominee Lee Myung-bak of the main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) Tuesday indicated that he wants reform of his conservative party.
``It is time for the party to review if it has successfully met public expectations.
We need to think about whether the GNP has the right political orientation and has faithfully fulfilled its commitments,´´ Lee , former mayor of Seoul, said in a meeting with key post-holders.
Lee´s remarks show that he wants pragmatic reform in the pro-business GNP ahead of the Dec. 19 presidential election, said an aide to Lee.
It is expected that Lee will steer the party in a less rigid and more accommodating manner toward North Korea and help the party take on more pragmatic stance despite retaining its conservative orientation.
Lee will also advocate a more pro-business stance to revive the economy.˝
We need to think about whether the GNP has the right political orientation and has faithfully fulfilled its commitments,´´ Lee , former mayor of Seoul, said in a meeting with key post-holders.
North Korea has angrily denounced a United Nations resolution condemning its missile tests and said it would build up its military arsenal.
The country's foreign ministry described the resolution as the product of a hostile American policy and said Pyongyang would not be bound by it.
North Korea would, it said, ""bolster its war deterrent"" in every way.
South Korea has urged Pyongyang to order a moratorium on missile tests and return to six-party nuclear talks.
The UN resolution demands that North Korea suspend its ballistic missile program, and bars UN member states from supplying North Korea with material related to missiles or weapons of mass destruction.
It was passed unanimously by the Security Council after being revised to drop any mention of Chapter Seven of the UN Charter, which is legally binding and can authorize sanctions or even military action.
The resolution was tabled by Japan after North Korea test-fired seven missiles including a long-range Taepodong-2, believed capable of reaching Alaska.
North Korea has angrily denounced a United Nations resolution condemning its missile tests and said it would build up its military arsenal.
The country's foreign ministry described the resolution as the product of a hostile American policy and said Pyongyang would not be bound by it.
North Korea would, it said, ""bolster its war deterrent"" in every way.
Saddam Hussein has confessed to crimes during his regime - including executions - and deserves to die, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani has said.
Talabani told Iraqi state TV a judge ""was able to extract confessions"" from the ousted leader.
""Saddam deserves a death sentence 20 times a day because he tried to assassinate me 20 times,"" he said. The Iraqi government last week confirmed that Saddam Hussein would go on trial on 19 October.
Several of the ex-president's closest aides will also face trial with him, on charges relating to the massacre of 143 Shias in a town north of Baghdad.
The killings in Dujail in 1982 followed an attempt on Saddam Hussein's life.
Four people dead of Nabi in Japan.
Foreigners with permanent residency here will cast ballots in the upcoming local elections in May, exercising their voting rights for the first time to elect governors, mayors and council members.
According to the National Election Commission (NEC), foreigners who have lived here for three years or longer since they obtained permanent residency, will be allowed to vote in the local elections on May 31 if they are 19 years or older.
South Korea revised the election law last August to allow foreigners voting rights.
The law enables 6,579 foreigners, including 6,511 with Taiwanese roots, to participate in voting to elect mayors, governors and council members.
They also include 51 Japanese, eight Americans, five Chinese and two Germans.
They need to register themselves on the list of foreign residents kept by local governments before the elections.
Foreigners with permanent residency here will cast ballots in the upcoming local elections in May, exercising their voting rights for the first time to elect governors, mayors and council members.
The UN has launched a $150m (£81m) aid appeal for strife-torn Lebanon and the US has announced its own $30 million package to ease the suffering of civilians.
The UN's top humanitarian official, Jan Egeland, said the money was needed to help feed and shelter about 800,000 civilians caught up in the conflict.
The moves came as US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice flew to Lebanon and Israel to discuss the regional crisis.
Some 380 Lebanese and up to 40 Israelis have died in 13 days of conflict.
The UN has launched a $150m (£81m) aid appeal for strife-torn Lebanon and the US has announced its own $30 million package to ease the suffering of civilians.
A new report says consumer confidence soared in April, amid signs the economy is starting to stabilize.
Director Lynn Franco, of the Conference Board:
“ Consumers are much less pessimistic than they were last month;
The research group's Consumer Confidence Index is up 12 points, its Expectations Index, which measures how shoppers feel about the economy down the road, has skyrocketed.
A new report says consumer confidence soared in April, amid signs the economy is starting to stabilize.
Director Lynn Franco, of the Conference Board:
however, we're not quite out of the woods yet, but I think we're beginning to see a light at the end of the tunnel.”
Commentators believe Pyongyang is simply seeking to get the best deal from an agreement replete with ambiguities, and there is a long road ahead before a final understanding is achieved.
Regional newspapers are unsurprised by North Korea's insistence it will not scrap its nuclear program until it receives a civilian nuclear reactor, which immediately called into question the agreement reached on Monday in the six-party talks.
The British physicist Stephen Hawking has completed a zero-gravity flight in a specially modified plane.
Professor Hawking, who suffers from motor neuron disease, was able to float free, unrestricted by his paralyzed muscles and his wheelchair.
The flight, which lasted more than an hour took a series of dramatic dives, allowing the professor to experience 25-second spurts of weightlessness.
The event could be a step closer to Hawking’s goal of going into space.
The modified Boeing 727 jet simulates the experience of weightlessness as it takes plunges over the Atlantic Ocean.
US firm Zero Gravity normally charges a fee of $3,750 for its passengers, but that fee was waived for the Cambridge physicist.
He was not given many years to live when he was diagnosed with motor neuron disease in the 1960s, aged 22.
Professor Hawking, who suffers from motor neuron disease, was able to float free, unrestricted by his paralyzed muscles and his wheelchair.
The flight, which lasted more than an hour took a series of dramatic dives, allowing the professor to experience 25-second spurts of weightlessness.
Almost one-fifth of the seats contested in Thailand´s general election are being investigated over alleged voting irregularities, officials say.
Provisional results had given victory to the People Power Party (PPP), with 233 of the 480 available seats.
But 65 of those seats are among the 83 being investigated, mostly amid accusations of vote-buying.
The PPP did not gain an overall majority, but claims to have struck a deal to form a coalition government.
The party, which supports ousted former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, announced on Monday that three smaller parties would join its administration.
Provisional results had given victory to the People Power Party (PPP), with 233 of the 480 available seats.
Meanwhile, Outgoing President Roh Moo-hyun has stepped up his criticism of President-elect Lee Myung-bak´s policies and his conservative platform.
Meanwhile, Outgoing President Roh Moo-hyun has stepped up his criticism of President-elect Lee Myung-bak´s policies and his conservative platform.
Acting US CIA director John McLaughlin says there's no proof that Iran officially sanctioned 9/11.
McLaughlin told ""Fox News Sunday"" that about eight of the al-Qaeda terrorists who carried out the attacks on September 11th, 2001, travelled through Iran on their way to the U.S.
McLaughlin said there's ""no evidence"" of some sort of sanction by Tehran for the attacks.
Baghdad’s willingness to boost diplomatic relations with the outside world.
Messenger spacecraft will be launched to explore Mercury.
In the summer, Moscow asked for a delay in talks among South Korea, North Korea and Russia on extending the railway.
The Joong-Ang Ilbo reports a previously undisclosed North Korean and Russian plan to link the Trans-Siberian Railroad with Rajin, North Korea's northeastern-most port, was revealed yesterday.
The deal, apparently concluded in July in Moscow, is contained in a letter of protocol.
Foreign Ministry officials said that they had received no official notification on the agreement from Moscow, despite meetings there two weeks ago between President Roh Moo-hyun and President Vladimir Putin of Russia.
In the summer, Moscow asked for a delay in talks among South Korea, North Korea and Russia on extending the railway.
The talks had been scheduled to take place in August.
In a related development, Synovate, a market researcher in Chicago, threw a dose of cold water on Korean pride recently when it said that only one out of eight consumers in Europe and the United States think Korean products are high in quality.
The results of a survey conducted in December among 6,000 people said that Korean and Chinese products were about equally regarded ― not highly, in other words.
In the United Kingdom, Germany and the Netherlands, Synovate said, Chinese goods were more highly regarded than Korean.
Mike Sherman of Synovate suggested that that perception had to change if Korea wanted to compete with lower-priced Chinese products.
Lee Jung-ho at the Samsung Economic Research Institute said, ""Korean brands that have recently become famous tend to emphasize their global brand image, instead of resorting to the national image.
Korea has a less positive national image than Japan or the United States.
In a letter sent on Tuesday, Gusmao asked Alkatiri to step down or face being sacked.
Alkatiri is expected to announce his decision on Thursday.
Alkatiri has faced mounting criticism for failing to control a wave of recent violence.
At least 21 people have been killed since unrest erupted, after he sacked 600 soldiers who were striking over pay and conditions, triggering clashes within different factions of the security forces and ethnic violence.
Ambassador to Seoul Alexander Vershbow today to discuss the Visa Waiver Program (VWP), officials said.
According to ministry officials, Chun is expected to suggest how to reduce the possibility of Koreans’ staying illegally in the U.S. and how to increase trust between the two countries’ immigration authorities.
South Korea’s entry into the VWP will allow its citizens to travel visa-free to the U.S., either for business or pleasure, for up to 90 days.
Justice Minister Chun Jung-bae will meet the U.S.
South Korea and the United States on Monday urged North Korea to faithfully implement its denuclearization commitments, reaffirming that Washington will reciprocate with pledged incentives.
South Korean Foreign Minister Song Min-soon, after talks here with his U.S. counterpart, Condoleezza Rice, said they stressed North Korea must promptly and correctly declare its nuclear stockpile, a key action under agreed six-nation agreements.
The two foreign ministers met at the sidelines of the international Palestinian donors conference.
US troops will now serve up to 15 months in Iraq and Afghanistan instead of the usual 12-month tours under new Defense Department rules.
The move is designed to help the US military supply enough troops for ongoing operations.
Soldiers will be allowed a minimum of 12 months at home bases upon return.
The extended tours apply to troops currently in Iraq and those about to be deployed.
By guaranteeing 12-month periods of rest and re-training between tours in Iraq, and by increasing the size of the US army and marines, it is believed that Gates hopes to avoid much more serious problems a few years down the line.
There are currently 145,000 US troops in Iraq.
Reinforcements are needed to help the so-called “surge” against the insurgency that continues to deal heavy blows to Iraqi civilians and coalition forces.
US troops will now serve up to 15 months in Iraq and Afghanistan instead of the usual 12-month tours under new Defense Department rules.
The move is designed to help the US military supply enough troops for ongoing operations.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg has undergone surgery for pancreatic cancer.
She had the surgery today at the Memorial-Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.
She will remain in the hospital for 7 to 10 days.
The cancer was detected late last month during a routine annual exam.
Almost 10 years ago, Ginsberg was treated for colon cancer.
Dramatic FAA tapes released today of the conversation between air traffic controllers and the pilot of USA Airways Flight No. 1549 right after the plane hit a flock of birds:
“Turn right 280, you can land runway one at Teterboro.”
Which runway would you like at Teterboro?”
And not long after that, the passenger jet was brought down safely in the Hudson River.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg has undergone surgery for pancreatic cancer. She had the surgery today at the Memorial-Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.
Almost 10 years ago, Ginsberg was treated for colon cancer.
Dramatic FAA tapes released today of the conversation between air traffic controllers and the pilot of USA Airways Flight No.
Turkey's Transport Minister says it's a miracle so many people survived the crash of a Turkish Airlines jet in the Netherlands this morning.
The plane, with 135 people aboard, slammed into a field near the Amsterdam airport, killing 9 and injuring more than 50.
The head of the United Auto Workers says union members should vote“ yes” on concessions at Ford.
He says the car company simply can't survive without major restructuring.
New satellite data on the melting Antarctic glaciers is causing concern among scientists, who say it's happening faster than anticipated.
A Missouri mother once accused of using the Internet to humiliate a 13-year-old neighbor is set to be sentenced in Federal court in Los Angeles today.
Laurie Drew was convicted of 3 misdemeanor counts of accessing computers without authorization.
New research suggests smoking may be riskier to the lungs today than it was just a few decades ago;
“ Nitrosamines are a natural by-product of processing tobacco into cigarettes, but nitrosamine levels in US cigarettes are higher than, for instance, cigarettes made in Australia - and that, says one researcher, could explain why a certain type of lung cancer here in America is on the rise.”
Millions of people around Southern California got a Sunday night jolt when a magnitude 4.7 quake rolled through the area.
At least 10 aftershocks have rattled the region since then, the largest a 3.1.
There was no significant damage, but one person ended up in the hospital.
The teen committed suicide, but a defense attorney says prosecutors are the real bullies ?
President Roh Moo-hyun reportedly told Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan in November that he was willing to compromise on the name of the Sea of Japan, as it is known internationally, or the East Sea as Koreans call it and want to have the rest of the world call it as well.
The Segye Times reported the conversation yesterday morning, and reaction in Korea was swift and negative.
Some critics complained that the next step would be to give up the name Dokdo for a group of islets whose Korean ownership is disputed by Japan and use the Japanese name, Takeshima.
The University of Oxford said it is eager to expand Korean studies, with an aim to create a full undergraduate degree later this year.
The most prestigious and oldest university in the United Kingdom currently has two degrees focused on Korea:
a one-year masters in Korean studies and a three-year doctorate of philosophy in Oriental studies.
The most prestigious and oldest university in the United Kingdom currently has two degrees focused on Korea:
Democratic fundraiser Hsu was indicted by a federal grand jury for swindling investors in a $60 million fraud scheme and making illegal donations to U.S. political campaigns.
The 15-count indictment, unsealed on Tuesday in Manhattan federal court, follows similar charges filed in September, in a case that prompted Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton to return $850,000 in campaign contributions.
A lawyer representing Hsu, James Brosnahan, did not immediately return requests for comment.
The indictment charges Hsu, 56, with six counts of mail fraud, six counts of wire fraud and three counts of violating the Federal Election Campaign Act, which limits individual campaign contributions.
One of the most powerful earthquakes in a century hit Asia on Sunday, unleashing tsunami waves on coastal areas of Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia and Thailand, and killing an estimated 11,300 people.
Damage in each country because of tsunami.
Pyeongchang is decided as the Korea’s candidate of hosting the 2014 Winter Olympics.
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner says the government will use financial bailout money being repaid by large banks to give additional capital infusions to smaller banks - pour more cash into them.
Geithner tells a meeting of Independent Community Bankers that banks with less than $500 million in assets will have 6 months to apply for the funds.
The Commerce Department reports retail sales took an unexpected drop last month - 4 tenths of one percent - that's triggered a sharp drop on the stock market with the Dow down more than 100 points in early going.
Miss California this morning - she is still trying to explain those semi-nude photos:
“ That was basically a wardrobe malfunction.”
” - Carrie Prejean on NBC's Today Show with pageant owner Donald Trump at her side:
Geithner tells a meeting of Independent Community Bankers that banks with less than $500 million in assets will have 6 months to apply for the funds.
The Commerce Department reports retail sales took an unexpected drop last month - 4 tenths of one percent - that's triggered a sharp drop on the stock market with the Dow down more than 100 points in early going.
Some of the brokers bragged about being a gigolo in Japan, saying that they can guarantee 10 million won in income per month along with Japanese language learning opportunity.
The story was carried by the pro-opposition Korea Times.
A South Korean lawmaker claims about 30,000 Korean women are working as prostitutes in Japan.
Park Jae-wan of the largest opposition Grand National Party claims to have researched online communities that link entertainment places and people for the past six months and found that 40,000 to 60,000 illegal Korean emigrants reside in Japan.
Among them he claims- about 30,000 Korean women work in the sex trade.
Some of the brokers bragged about being a gigolo in Japan, saying that they can guarantee 10 million won in income per month along with Japanese language learning opportunity.
Park said that there are more than 70 online communities at a portal site serving as middlemen for prostitutes and their clients, and among them, more than 41 were actively working.
The story was carried by the pro-opposition Korea Times.
Toy firm Mattel is recalling 55,000 communist Chinese-made toys after lead contamination fears, the US has said.
The recall affects 38,000 toys in the US, 12,000 toys in the UK and the Irish Republic and 5,500 toys in Canada.
The items affected are Go Diego Go Animal Rescue Boat toys imported by Fisher Price.
The move is part of a wider recall of 665,000 by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC).
Mattel recalled millions of toys over the summer.
Mattel´s profits have fallen by 1% over the past three months, in the wake of the recalls.
Earlier in the summer the firm made two large-scale recalls that affected 18.6 million toys, including certain Diego toys.
Consumer Product Safety Commission spokesperson Julie Vallese said the recalls stemmed from the improved examination of goods announced earlier.
The Diego boats had been identified during retroactive testing on items that had been set aside after August´s recalls, according Mattel spokesperson Lisa Marie Bongiovanni.
This latest recall marks the fourth in six months, prompting the EU to embark on a two-month review of its toy safety regulations, expected to be complete in November.
Seoul has not yet been informed of any U.S. plan to increase pressure on North Korea, although it is possible Washington will consider stepping up financial sanctions against Pyongyang, a senior South Korean official said yesterday.
”It is logically possible for the United States to consider such a measure, ” he said on condition of anonymity.
” His remarks contrasted with a recent media report that the United States is set to make an announcement next week that it would restore some economic sanctions it had partially lifted in 1994 and 2000.
While denying the immediacy, the official left open the possibility that Washington might take steps to add more pressure on the isolated North, which he said should be understood as an extension of the July 16 U.N.
Security Council resolution. Seoul has not yet been informed of any U.S. plan to increase pressure on North Korea, although it is possible Washington will consider stepping up financial sanctions against Pyongyang, a senior South Korean official said yesterday.
”It is logically possible for the United States to consider such a measure, ” he said on condition of anonymity.
”But it is a matter subject to prior consultations between the two allies.
The stampede occurred near an entrance to the stadium where about 5,000 people were in line waiting for the concert organized by MBC, a local television network.
The deceased were immediately taken to two nearby hospitals, and the injured were given emergency treatment in other hospitals in the city.
The victims were mostly elderly and children as they were all either in their 50s or older, or children younger than 14.
The concert came at the end of a three-day festival aimed at promoting the use of bicycles in Sangju City, 270 kilometers southeast of Seoul.
President-elect Lee Myung-bak claimed Tuesday that Korea is capable of catching up with Japan in 10 years and becoming a close rival of China.
Mentioning his campaign pledge to make the country one of the world´s seven biggest economies, Lee said the goal is not ``pie in the sky´´ despite evidence to the contrary.
He cited two examples ― the Chinese government´s encouragement of people to have a competitive mind set against the United States and Japan´s full-fledged reshuffle of its government structure.
``In particular, many Chinese have want their country to overtake the U.S.´´ he claimed.
Lee has pledged to raise annual growth to 7 percent during his five-year term, while raising per capita income to $40,000 over the same period with a target of creating 600,000 new jobs every year.
He is scheduled to be sworn in Feb.
25.Meanwhile, speaking of ‘pie in the sky’ Lee Myung-bak’s pledge to build a giant cross-country canal is turning into action.
A spokesman for the president-elect’s transition team announced yesterday that meetings about building the artificial waterway that would stretch 540 kilometers (336 miles) between Seoul and Busan have begun.
“Jang Seok-hyo, the head of the grand canal task force, met with executives from five domestic construction companies last month over breakfast to talk about the project,” according to Kang Seung-kyoo, the deputy spokesman for Lee’s transition team.
30 breakfast meeting was a friendly regular gathering among the presidents of Daewoo Engineering and Construction, Samsung Corporation, GS Enginereering and Construction, Hyundai Engineering and Construction and Daelim Industrial Company.
They are the country’s top five domestic construction businesses.
The five tycoons have picked out three or four senior officials from each company to create a joint canal business team to work on a blueprint for the canal, as a prelude to bidding on the project.
It is still unclear what practical purpose the expensive project would serve.
President-elect Lee Myung-bak claimed Tuesday that Korea is capable of catching up with Japan in 10 years and becoming a close rival of China.
On the road to the post office:
“ Thanks for the memories…”
Used to be, you had to wait 10 years after death to get your face on the stamp, unless you were a President.
That rule was changed last year, and now the Bob Hope stamp is being unveiled today, five years after his passing.
It won't be released until next spring.
Used to be, you had to wait 10 years after death to get your face on the stamp, unless you were a President.
It won't be released until next spring.
Democrat Barack Obama has a number of stops in Ohio today, including a visit with the Boss:
“With Obama running to make history, Bruce Springsteen sees his warm-up act in Cleveland, one of three cities Obama's hitting here.
Polls give the Democrat a narrow lead in the state that decided the outcome four years ago, but he's telling supporters, 'take nothing for granted'.”
“I need you to close the deal.
Because the time for change has come, you know it!
And we got a righteous wind at our backs.”
“Coming full circle, Obama ends this day in Florida, where the run for the White House was decided in 2000.
Mark Smith, with the Obama campaign, Columbus, Ohio.”
More than 25 million voters are said to have already cast ballots in the thirty some states that allow early voting.
“I think you're gonna have a major shift, 25 to 35 seats in the House of Representatives and 7 to 9 seats in U.S.
Because the time for change has come, you know it!
And we got a righteous wind at our backs.”
“I think you're gonna have a major shift, 25 to 35 seats in the House of Representatives and 7 to 9 seats in U.S.
Of them 344 were arrested.
Scores of public servants were found to have colluded with organized real-estate speculators by supplying information and assisting in the transaction process, the prosecution said yesterday.
In cooperation with a pan-governmental inspection team, the prosecution since July has found a total of 9,798 people committed irregularities in connection with speculative investment in land and houses. Of them 344 were arrested.
The Supreme Public Prosecutors' Office said its separate probe of the same period found that 1,713 people including 27 government officials broke the law in connection with real-estate transaction.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Sunday played down expectations for a peace deal with the Palestinians before the end of 2008 as laid out at a U.S.-sponsored peace conference last week.
“We will make an effort to hold speedy negotiations in the hope we may conclude by the end of 2008, but certainly there is no commitment for a firm timetable for their completion,” Olmert said at the start of Sunday´s Israeli cabinet meeting.
President George W. Bush assured Israeli and Palestinian leaders at the conference in Annapolis, Maryland, that Washington would actively engage in peacemaking, despite deep skepticism over chances for a deal before he leaves office.
Launching the first formal peace talks in seven years at the conference, Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas agreed to try and reach a deal on creating a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank by the end of next year.
Marine shooting a wounded and unarmed man in a mosque in the city on Saturday.
A pool report by NBC correspondent Kevin Sites said the mosque had been used by insurgents to attack U.S. forces, who stormed it, killing 10 militants and wounding the five.
Marines rallied round a comrade under investigation for killing a wounded Iraqi during the offensive in Falluja, saying he was probably under combat stress in unpredictable, hair-trigger circumstances.
Marines interviewed on Tuesday said they didn't see the shooting as a scandal, rather the act of a comrade who faced intense pressure during the effort to quell the insurgency in the city.
The man was one of five wounded and left in the mosque after Marines fought their way through the area.
Bush plans to urge allies to press N.K. to return to nuclear weapon talks.
Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton jockeyed for position on Sunday in a bruising U.S. presidential race after Obama scored a landslide win in a South Carolina primary tinged with the issue of race.
I think they want to get beyond some of the racial politics that, you know, has been so dominant in the past,” Obama, who would be the first black U.S. president, told ABC´s ”This Week.”
Obama´s victory, after losses to Clinton in New Hampshire and Nevada, gave him momentum heading into February 5 ”Super Tuesday” Democratic contests in 22 states for their party´s presidential nomination.
Obama, a first-term senator from Illinois, won the first contest in Iowa earlier this month.
Clinton, a New York senator and wife of former President Bill Clinton, would be the first woman president.
I think they want to get beyond some of the racial politics that, you know, has been so dominant in the past,” Obama, who would be the first black U.S. president, told ABC´s ”This Week.”
for its work in Iraq, a government auditor said on Wednesday, in a move that could cost the contractor tens of millions of dollars a month.
In another development involving the Texas company, the lawyer for an Army Corps of Engineers whistle-blower and his client was interviewed by the FBI last week over her claims of contracting abuse involving Halliburton, which was run by Vice President Dick Cheney from 1995-2000.
President Roh Moo-hyun reorganized Cheong Wa Dae yesterday in what is seen as a move to reshape the ruling camp and promote smoother relations with parliament and the people.
The Korea Herald reports Cheong Wa Dae created a senior presidential secretary for civic society and appointed Moon Jae-in, former secretary for civil affairs, to the job.
It also set up a new post, senior secretary for social policy, and gave it to Lee Won-duck, president of the Korea Labor Institute.
It abolished the senior secretary for political affairs, who has dealt with the National Assembly.
Roh had earlier handpicked his chief policymaker Park Bong-heum to be a channel to the legislature, and his political adviser and former Presidential Chief of Staff Moon Hee-sang as a communication line between him and the de facto ruling Uri Party.
In the latest reshuffle, Kim Young-joo, former secretary for policy planning, was appointed as the senior secretary for the bureau.
The US justice department has released the first video of the plane crashing into the Pentagon on 11 September 2001.
American Airlines Flight 77 slammed into the US military headquarters, killing 184 people, after it was hijacked as part of an al-Qaeda plot.
The release of the video, taken from a Pentagon security camera, comes after a Freedom of Information Act request by legal watchdog Judicial Watch.
The group said it hoped to dispel conspiracy theories about the crash.
“Finally, we hope that this video will put to rest the conspiracy theories involving American Airlines Flight 77,"" president Tom Fitton said.
Some theorists have suggested the aircraft was shot down in flight, and that the Pentagon was struck by a missile.
The UN secretary-general has said he believes that UN peacekeeping forces will have to return to East Timor, just a year after they were withdrawn.
Kofi Annan told a meeting of the Security Council in New York that he was ""deeply concerned"" about the situation in the country.
At least 20 people have died over the last month after clashes between rival groups of the security forces.
The UN secretary-general has said he believes that UN peacekeeping forces will have to return to East Timor, just a year after they were withdrawn.
˝From today, citizens could face prosecution for posting messages on internet websites in favor of or against specific presidential candidates, the nation´s election watchdog said yesterday.
The National Election Commission said bans on various acts which could affect voter sentiment take effect from June 22, 180 days before the presidential vote.
Despite alleged free speech laws in Korea, a person who violates the draconian election laws could face a prison term of up to two years and a fine of 4 million won.
unlike laws in democratic countries- the act is prohibited from today.
Similar acts on personal homepages or blogs are also disallowed,” it said.
Voters are also banned from posting partisan messages on the homepages of political parties, it added.
But a political party can post messages on its homepage to inform the public of its arguments, policies and platforms.
Circulating text messages in favor or against a certain contender is also prohibited under the law, the NEC said.˝
Despite alleged free speech laws in Korea, a person who violates the draconian election laws could face a prison term of up to two years and a fine of 4 million won.
Police said Friday they have detained a supporter of conservative presidential candidate Lee Hoi-chang on charges of assault, following a political dispute with a friend that turned violent.
A 40-year-old man, only identified by his surname Ahn, allegedly attacked a 52 year-old acquaintance of his with a screwdriver, after watching a nationally televised press conference Wednesday, in which Lee Hoi-chang announced he is running for the presidency.
Lee, a former chairman of the main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) and Supreme Court justice who unsuccessfully ran for president in 2002 and 1997, will run this time as an independent.
His bid, coming just 42 days before the election, is expected to pose a serious threat to the so-far surefire GNP candidate, Lee Myung-bak, by causing a split among conservatives.
Bickering over the presidential election between the two acquaintances who stand on different sides of the conservative divide had escalated into violence, police said.
A 40-year-old man, only identified by his surname Ahn, allegedly attacked a 52 year-old acquaintance of his with a screwdriver, after watching a nationally televised press conference Wednesday, in which Lee Hoi-chang announced he is running for the presidency.
Senate Republicans have blocked a bid by Democrats to give US troops in Iraq more home leave - a plan strongly opposed by the Bush administration.
The Democrats wanted US troops to have time off between tours in Iraq equal to their 15-month deployments.
The measure needed 60 votes to pass in the Democratic controlled Senate but received only 56 votes with 44 against.
US Defence Secretary Robert Gates called it a backdoor attempt to pull troops off the battlefield.
The move was proposed by Democratic Senator Jim Webb, a decorated Vietnam veteran and former Navy secretary.
Senate Republicans have blocked a bid by Democrats to give US troops in Iraq more home leave - a plan strongly opposed by the Bush administration.
others expect to see him sitting in the First Lady's box at the State of the Union address.
He, of course, is the pilot who brought a US Airway's plane safely down on the Hudson River at New York;
landed it in one piece after losing both engines to bird strikes.
Survivor Bill Elkins tells the CBS Early Show, he thanked the guy:
And the AP's Tim Maguire tells us more about the captain:
“The hero is 57-year-old Chesley Sullenberger, a former Air Force fighter pilot who's been flying for US Airways since 1980.
They call him 'Sully' and on the side, he's a safety consultant who has studied the psychology of keeping airline crews functioning in a crisis.
Oh, one more thing about the crash, first.
Investigators are now on the scene, using a giant crane and a barge to pull the plane out of the Hudson.
Forecasters say this could be the coldest day in years in the Upper Midwest.
It is cold enough in Minnesota to hammer a nail into a board with a banana left outside (sound of hammering).
Yeah, that's science according to YouTube.
It's 16 below in Duluth, Minnesota right now, but up to 10 above on the other side of the cold front, in Minot, North Dakota. Some say this guy should never have to pay for his own drinks again;
others expect to see him sitting in the First Lady's box at the State of the Union address.
landed it in one piece after losing both engines to bird strikes.
They call him 'Sully' and on the side, he's a safety consultant who has studied the psychology of keeping airline crews functioning in a crisis.
Stocks are up this morning, the Dow ahead almost 200 points, an optimism about a bailout deal, but the credit market squeeze continues to ease the crunch.
The Federal Reserve has issued more than $20 billion in things like treasury bills to help meet the demand for safe assets.
All this as new home sales tumbled in August to the slowest pace in 17 years, and while the average price fell with the biggest drop on record.
Opening arguments this morning at Senator Ted Stevens' corruption trial in Washington, federal prosecutors say he's a crafty politician whose decades in Congress has taught him how to accept gifts without getting noticed, the AP's Carlotta Bradley says we may or may not see Stevens on the stand.
So while he said he plans to take the stand, he's also said he'll follow his lawyer's advice.”
Cambodian authorities have arrested two leading figures from the notorious 1970s Khmer Rouge regime and charged them with crimes against humanity.
The mayors of the two expanded cities will be appointed by the Cheju governor.
Cheju Province’s plan to turn the resort island into a free international city is expected to get a boost, as voters approved the local government’s new administrative system on Wednesday.
57 percent of voters cast ""yes"" ballots on the new system while 43 percent opposed the idea.
According to the proposal, the island’s two counties will be merged with its two cities, and are to be directly controlled by the provincial government.
The US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are costing nearly double the amount previously thought, according to a report by Democrats in the US Congress.
They say “hidden costs” have pushed the total to about $1.5 trillion - nearly twice the requested $804 billion.
Higher oil prices, treating wounded veterans, and the cost to the economy of pulling reservists away from their jobs have been taken into account.
The White House has called the report politically motivated.
The Korea Herald reports no more slaps on the wrist for soldiers venturing up Itaewon's ""Hooker Hill"" and to other areas known as places to buy sex.
Starting next year, USFK servicemen convicted of doing so may face stiff penalties of time in jail and a dishonorable discharge.
The announcement was made last month from Washington that pending changes to an article of the Uniform Code of Military Justice will wipe out the grey areas defining penalties for buying sex and allow military courts to kick people out of the military for doing so.
USFK television and radio air waves are now cluttered with announcements warning about the military's tougher stance.
a slap on the wrist:
A Chinese satellite has smashed into a villager`s house.
Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao also promised to encourage Chinese businesses to increase dealings with North Korea, it added.
Prospects for six-nation talks ending the North Korean nuclear crisis brightened Thursday as the communist state's leader Kim Jong Il promised to show ``patience and flexibility'' in the negotiations.
In North Korea's first confirmation of Kim's secretive trip to China this week, its official news agency KCNA said Kim and Chinese President Hu Jintao agreed to try to resolve the dispute peacefully through talks with the United States, South Korea, Japan and Russia.
The countries are to convene a third round of talks in July aimed at persuading North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program.
During Kim's visit, China pledged aid to help North Korea's economic development, KCNA said without elaborating.
Two fuel trains collided at a North Korea.
South Korea will face Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Uzbekistan in the 2006 World Cup’s Asian region qualifying round, which starts on February 9 next year.
The consumer confidence index plunged to its lowest in four years.
Dick Clark has suffered a stroke.
˝Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has admitted the ruling coalition faces an uphill battle to win over the public before elections later this month.
As both houses of parliament closed ahead of upper house elections on 29 July, Abe conceded:
But he insisted that the coalition could still win the election.
His 10-month premiership has been hit by a series of scandals and questions over his leadership abilities.
Recent poll ratings saw public support for Abe drop to under 30%.
Abe´s Liberal Democrat Party and its junior coalition partner, the New Komeito party, need to win 64 of the 121 seats up for grabs to keep hold of their majority in the upper house.
A loss does not mean Abe will have to step down, as the coalition still retains a majority in the lower house.
But some analysts believe a heavy defeat in these elections will make Abe´s position untenable and he will be forced to quit.
˝Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has admitted the ruling coalition faces an uphill battle to win over the public before elections later this month.
Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is to chair cabinet meetings again - seven weeks after stepping aside from front-line politics, colleagues say.
He is to take charge of Tuesday's meeting, two government ministers said.
He had handed power to his deputy after mass protests against him and a flawed election, leaving a political vacuum.
Observers say signs of a return to political life will alarm opponents who accuse Thaksin of abusing power and weakening democratic institutions.
""Thaksin will be back on duty tomorrow to tackle the problems facing the country,"" Transport Minister Pongsak Raktapongpisal told Thai radio.
He had handed power to his deputy after mass protests against him and a flawed election, leaving a political vacuum.
Observers say signs of a return to political life will alarm opponents who accuse Thaksin of abusing power and weakening democratic institutions.
The UN's highest court has cleared Serbia of direct responsibility for genocide during the 1990s Bosnian war.
But the International Court of Justice did rule that Belgrade had violated international law by failing to prevent the 1995 massacre at Srebrenica.
Bosnia brought the case and would have sought billions of dollars from Serbia in compensation if successful.
Individuals have been convicted of genocide in Bosnia. The Bosnian Muslim leader expressed disappointment at the ruling, which was welcomed both in Serbia and the Bosnian Serb Republic.
At least 100,000 people died in the 1992-1995 war, triggered by the break-up of the former Yugoslavia.
Bosnia's Muslims and Croats wanted to cut ties with Belgrade, a move opposed by Bosnian Serbs.
But the International Court of Justice did rule that Belgrade had violated international law by failing to prevent the 1995 massacre at Srebrenica.
North Korea has withdrawn some of its funds from a Macau bank, signaling a breakthrough in the long-running dispute blocking Pyongyang’s nuclear disarmament, a newspaper said Wednesday.
South Korea’s foreign minister said negotiations to transfer North Korean funds are in their final stages.
A South Korean official said the transfer could be completed by the end of the week.
Representatives for two North Korean trading houses last week took, out in cash, part of the blacklisted $25 million from the Banco Delta Asia, Japan’s influential Asahi Shimbun reported, citing unnamed sources.
The report said the remaining funds, originally deposited in a variety of currencies, had been converted into dollars and put into a single account.
The assets were apparently converted ””so the money could be transferred via the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank to solve this problem at once,”” the Asahi quoted a bank official as saying in a report filed from Hong Kong.
Representatives for two North Korean trading houses last week took, out in cash, part of the blacklisted $25 million from the Banco Delta Asia, Japan’s influential Asahi Shimbun reported, citing unnamed sources.
More than 200 people, including 29 children, have been rescued after working as ””slaves”” in brick kilns in central communist China, state media reports.
Tens of thousands of police moved in on the kilns in Henan province, arresting 120 people, Xinhua news agency said.
They acted after media reports claimed that children were being forced to work in kilns in neighboring Shanxi province, Xinhua said.
Photos of distraught parents were also published.
Xinhua said that, following the reports of child labor, some 35,000 police were dispatched to the 7,500 kilns in Henan.
They reportedly rescued 217 people, including 29 children.
Xinhua said the victims had been ””enticed or sent by human traffickers to the kilns””, where they were ””beaten, starved and forced to work long hours without payment””.
Henan’s police governor Qin Yuhai vowed to ””do everything we can to fight human trafficking and rescue those held captive””.
The prosecution has decided to launch an investigation into Samsung Group chairman Lee Kun-hee and South Korean Ambassador to the U.S.
It said it will also investigate Lee Hoi-chang, former chairman of the Grand National Party and Lee Hak-soo, vice chairman of Samsung.
The People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy on Monday requested the prosecution investigate about 20 politicians and business executives for alleged bribery and embezzlement.
The complaint was made after the nation’s leading broadcaster MBC reported tape recordings in which the nation’s spy agency eavesdropped conversations between Lee Hak-soo and Hong, then president of the Samsung-affiliated daily newspaper, JoongAng Ilbo.
The Seoul stock market took a big dive Monday following steep losses on Wall Street.
The benchmark KOSPI closed down 65.22 points, or 3.85 percent, at 1627.19, while the tech-heavy Kosdaq market shed 19.26 points, or 2.95 percent, finishing at 634.52.
Analysts say the fall comes in line with global equity losses and concerns of a U.S. economic recession.
The Korea Times reports the government is considering measures requiring all individuals nominated for ministerial positions to pass a confirmation hearing with the National Assembly in an effort to build a more transparent society.
The newspaper quotes President Roh Moo-hyun during a ceremony in Seoul Wednesday as saying ``The government plans to strengthen the screening process for high-ranking officials.
We are thinking of making all Cabinet members subject to the Assembly’s confirmation.’
The Korea Times reports the government is considering measures requiring all individuals nominated for ministerial positions to pass a confirmation hearing with the National Assembly in an effort to build a more transparent society.
They're threatening to set a new record for December snow in the capital of North Dakota:
From Washington State, where more snow is falling, and only about half the buses are running in Seattle on this second day of winter:
“There's a lot of snow, the most snow I've ever seen.
Clear across the country to Maine, where there's a blizzard warning today:
Winter is a-roarin' in.
It's still more than twenty below zero right now in northern Minnesota and North Dakota, and still below freezing as far south as southern Mississippi and Alabama.
They're threatening to set a new record for December snow in the capital of North Dakota:
“So far in December, with 19.1 inches measured um, we are only a little more than a half inch of snow less than we received in Bismarck all of last year.”
National Weather Service meteorologist Joshua Scheck who moved from Maryland and says he loves it in North Dakota.
Water main break near Washington, D.C.
A civilian defecting to the North likely cut holes discovered in barbed wire fences along the southern perimeter of the Demilitarized Zone, the Defense Ministry said Tuesday, quelling concerns that North Korean soldiers had infiltrated the heavily fortified border.
He said the direction and shape of the holes indicated they were cut from the southern side and no attempt had been made to hide the breach, as would be expected in the case of a North Korean infiltration.
The Korea Times reports the military called off a massive search operation for suspected infiltrators and investigators were shifting their focus to finding out who had crossed to North Korea.
All South Korean troops stationed in the area have been accounted for.
He said the direction and shape of the holes indicated they were cut from the southern side and no attempt had been made to hide the breach, as would be expected in the case of a North Korean infiltration.
A string of suicide attacks, shootings and rocket strikes have claimed dozens of lives on a day of violence in Iraq.
In the bloodiest single incident, 13 Iraqi soldiers died when a suicide attacker drove a fuel tanker into an army base in Mosul in northern Iraq.
The US military said it killed 12 militants preparing suicide attacks in a house east of Baquba.
At least 15 people died in rocket and mortar fire apparently aimed at Baghdad´s Green Zone.
Eight were civilians who were killed when rockets landed short of their targets on Sunday morning.
The bloodshed comes despite an overall reduction in violence since last June.
That was when the US deployed an extra 30,000 troops in violence-hit areas - the so-called ""troop surge"".
But correspondents say Sunday´s violence underlines the fragile, reversible nature of the apparent improvements in security.
A string of suicide attacks, shootings and rocket strikes have claimed dozens of lives on a day of violence in Iraq.
The incident happened in the Strait of Hormuz, a major oil shipping route.
The US said their ships were about to open fire when the Iranian boats withdrew.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called the Iranian action “provocative and dangerous”.
Iran played down the event, describing it as an ”ordinary occurrence”.
Official media also reported the US statement about Iran´s allegedly threatening behavior with skepticism, implying that Washington was exaggerating the incident.
The US said their ships were about to open fire when the Iranian boats withdrew.
The United States has dismissed a proposal from North Korea for mutual disarmament talks.
The chief US negotiator, Christopher Hill, said the offer was not helpful and not serious.
Pyongyang withdrew indefinitely from six-nation talks on its nuclear status in February.
On Thursday, it said the focus of any future talks should no longer be on the North alone, but on regional disarmament by all parties involved.
Danville, California is throwing a party for hometown hero US Airways pilot Chesley“ Sully” Sullenberger.
He's drawn national acclaim for gliding his disabled jetliner to a splashdown landing earlier this month on the Hudson River in New York, saving the lives of everyone on board.
This afternoon, the mayor and other town officials are planning a ceremony on the town green in Danville, which will include music and an honor guard for Sullenberger.
A Korean-American lawyer in Los Angeles said Tuesday she has sent documents to the Korean prosecution showing a clear link between presidential candidate Lee Myung-bak and a financial scam involving her younger brother.
But the conservative Grand National Party (GNP) categorically denied the allegation, saying the documents in question must have been fabricated and asked the prosecution to verify the authenticity of them.
The lawyer Erica Kim said a box weighing more than 10 kilograms contains concrete evidence that the former Seoul mayor played a role in a stock manipulation and money laundering case masterminded by her brother in 2001.
In a fax, Kim said she plans to hold a press conference at her office in Los Angeles Wednesday to disclose copies of the documents she sent to South Korea.
The sender of the fax was named ``family of Kim Kyung-joon.´´ Her brother Kim Kyung-joon was arrested Sunday after being extradited from the U.S. to Seoul, on charges of stock manipulation and embezzling corporate funds while running BBK and Optional Ventures Korea.
A Korean-American lawyer in Los Angeles said Tuesday she has sent documents to the Korean prosecution showing a clear link between presidential candidate Lee Myung-bak and a financial scam involving her younger brother.
Former lawmaker Kim Taek-ki withdrew his candidacy with the governing Grand National Party (GNP) Tuesday after being accused of offering bribes to voters in a Gangwon Province district.
The Korea Times reports the party replaced Kim with Choi Dong-kyu to run in the Taebaek-Yeongweol district, GNP spokeswoman Cho Yoon-seon said Tuesday.
``We feel sorry that this kind of thing happened and the party issued a strong warning to Kim.
He resigned and the GNP will take stiffer measures against violators of the Election Law,´´ Cho told reporters.
Kim denied the allegations of bribery, claiming the money was for purchasing office appliances.
Opposing Choi, who served as administrator of the Small and Medium Business Administration, is the Rep. Lee Kwang-jae of the United Democratic Party (UDP), who is seeking re-election in the district.
On Monday, the disgraced candidate was caught with a confidant by the Gangwon Provincial Election Commission attempting to offer 40 million won to voters.
He resigned and the GNP will take stiffer measures against violators of the Election Law,´´ Cho told reporters.
Leading presidential contender Lee Myung-bak of the Grand National Party (GNP) Saturday apologized for his deceptive residencies.
He denied, however, that his activities were aimed at real estate speculation, claiming that five residencies were for his children’s school environment.
As Lee, a former CEO of Hyundai Construction and Engineering, admitted his wrongdoing, his party rival Rep. Park Geun-hye and anti-GNP parties are assailing the leading presidential aspirant.
Earlier this year, he was accused of infringement of the National Election Law and perjuring his former aide when he stood for an Assembly election in 1995.
Kim Hyuk-kyu raised suspicion that Lee’s wife violated laws by camouflaging 15 residencies in Gangnam, an area where opulent houses and prestigious schools are located.
Lee’s presidential campaign camp had denied the suspicion, claiming that it is a conspiracy to take him down but they soon admitted the wrongdoing.
Since last October, Lee has topped all surveys, enjoying about 40 percent of support.
The Korea Times reports South Korea is considering lifting a ban on travel to allow its companies to advance into the war-torn Middle Eastern nation, quoting government sources yesterday.
A study will be conducted in Iraq by a special inspection team, made up of officials from the ministries of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Construction and Transportation and other related government agencies, before a final decision is made, they said.
Seoul has kept its citizens from visiting Iraq for security reasons since 2004, when a worker named Kim Sun-il was kidnapped and murdered by an insurgent group that demanded the withdrawal of South Korean troops.
The ban has been in place for more than two years, but business organizations have urged the government to ease the restriction, saying that South Korean companies might miss out on business opportunities.
Although many areas of the country are still dangerous, the government recently began to allow some companies to make week-long visits to the Kurdish-controlled town of Irbil in northern Iraq, where Korean troops are stationed.
Ayman al-Zawahri, the number two figure in al Qaeda, appeared in a new videotape aired on Al Jazeera on Thursday, ridiculing U.S. forces as stuck in a quagmire in Iraq and Afghanistan.
""In both countries, if they continue they will bleed to death and if they withdraw they lose everything,"" said Zawahri, the right-hand man of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
Zawahri, wearing a white turban with a machine gun at his side, spoke to camera for several minutes in the tape, broadcast two days before the third anniversary of the Sept.
Strong exports are also expected to boost the trade surplus to $25 billion this year, up $10 billion over last year.
The Korea Times reports exports are expected to exceed $200 billion for the first time in the nation's trade history, reaching around $245 billion, according to the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy Tuesday.
Strong exports are also expected to boost the trade surplus to $25 billion this year, up $10 billion over last year.
Ministry of Commerce , industry and Energy:
he two Koreas agreed to resume bilateral talks for the first time in seven months following the agreement in Beijing on steps toward the nuclear disarmament of North Korea.
The Unification Ministry said Seoul and Pyongyang will hold a working-level meeting to discuss the resumption of bilateral ministerial talks which are expected to deal with food and fertilizer aid to the impoverished state.
The one-day preparatory meeting will be held in the North's border city of Gaeseong according to a Unification, ministry spokesman who declined to give further details regarding the agenda.
North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency yesterday confirmed the working-level dialogue, saying Pyongyang remains committed to the improvement of North-South relations.
The International Institute for Management Development (IMD) announced Wednesday that Korea ranked 38th in 2006 among 61 major economies.
Korea saw the IMD graded ranking hit its lowest point in seven years since 1999 when it ranked 41st.
It was overtaken by 19th-ranked China and 29th-ranked India, which ranked 31st and 39th, respectively, last year.
Malaysia and Thailand, which have competed with Korea for several years, also took higher positions this year, 23rd and 32nd respectively.
The government is considering restricting individuals’ overseas remittances, but there are fears this move may undermine efforts to liberalize foreign exchange transactions.
The government is considering restricting individuals’ overseas remittances, but there are fears this move may undermine efforts to liberalize foreign exchange transactions.
The Korea Times reports International financial experts say the government needs to scrap the plan to cap the flow of funds out of the country and permit more investment abroad. A move to control the flow of money could result in backpedaling from its commitment to the liberalization of foreign exchange transactions and other economic reforms, they warned.
overseas remittance:
˝New safety policies and procedures have been announced by toy giant Mattel, following the recall of millions of toys made in China.
The world´s largest toy seller says it has implemented a three-point check system, including the testing of all products made in China before they´re sold to consumers.
About 65 percent of all toys sold by Mattel are made in China.
The latest recall is the second this month
˝At least seven people were killed when an interstate bridge in Minneapolis, Minnesota, collapsed Wednesday evening, plunging cars and chunks of concrete into the Mississippi River below.
There were “lots” of injuries, said the state Homeland Security and Emergency Management Department.
The accident occurred shortly after 6 p.m.
There were 50 to 100 cars on the bridge at the time, according to early estimates.
Amelia Huffman of the Minneapolis Police Department told CNN affiliate KARE it was ”not clear at this point what caused the collapse” of the Interstate 35W bridge near University Avenue.
Shortly after the collapse, a tractor trailer was seen burning on the bridge.
Rescue workers are using boats to help remove people from the water, bringing them up on the river bank.
Aerial footage showed the middle of the bridge caved in, lying in the Mississippi River, with cars both on top and submerged in the water.
Witnesses told CNN a school bus filled with children was on the bridge when it collapsed, but they also said the bus did not drop into the water and it appeared that the children had all been evacuated.
The main part of the collapsed span is not submerged, but the span clearly separated from the land-based sections of the highway on both the north and south ends of the bridge.˝
Aerial footage showed the middle of the bridge caved in, lying in the Mississippi River, with cars both on top and submerged in the water.
Air Force fighter jet crashed into the Yellow Sea yesterday morning during a routine training flight and the pilot ejected safely, the U.S. military command in Korea said.
The cause of the crash of the F-16C has not yet been determined.
military headquarters, a Korean Air Force rescue unit was mobilized immediately after the crash, which occurred at about 9:30 a.m.
Two helicopters reached the crash site off the coast of Gunsan, North Jeolla province, rescuing the pilot about 15 minutes after he parachuted to safety.
Concerns remain high about fraud in voter registrations in several states.
Today former Senator John Danforth outlined what he sees as an example of the alleged fraud by the group ACORN.
“In Las Vegas, Nevada, the members of the Dallas Cowboys football team were turned in for registration, including the quarterback Tony Romo and the wide receiver Terrell Owens.”
Danforth is the co-chairman of a Republican group opposed to ACORN's activities.
Questions have been raised about registration cards in at least 8 states.
Alaska Senator Ted Stevens may be ready to testify in his own defense.
In some new court papers, his name appears on the list of possible defense witnesses who could take the stand this week.
And a double murderer who had claimed that he was too fat to be executed humanely has now been put to death in Ohio.
Richard Cooey was executed this morning.
Concerns remain high about fraud in voter registrations in several states.
“In Las Vegas, Nevada, the members of the Dallas Cowboys football team were turned in for registration, including the quarterback Tony Romo and the wide receiver Terrell Owens.”
Danforth is the co-chairman of a Republican group opposed to ACORN's activities.
What should we expect from Barack Obama's first 100 days?
Barack Obama, the First 100 Days.
We've got Rita Foley back now, with our continuing series, and a couple of smart guys weighing in on the economy:
(male voice)“ The top priority right now is getting the economy out of the ditch.”
Norm Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute and Mike Tanner of the Cato Institute on President Obama's shot-in-the-arm plan:
Nobody really knows how to get out of it.
Barack Obama, the First 100 Days.
Norm Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute and Mike Tanner of the Cato Institute on President Obama's shot-in-the-arm plan:
So, Obama's on the wrong road?
All three stock market indexes erased deep losses earlier to end strongly ahead, with the Dow Jones rising 2.5% at 12,270.17.
The rally was sparked by hopes that a government plan to rescue bond insurers will prevent huge credit losses.
The UK´s FTSE 100 was down by 3.9% at one point.
Panic had swept through stock markets worldwide on fears that key global economies will enter recession.
On Tuesday, the US Federal Reserve made its biggest rate cut for 25 years to stoke up growth and bolster markets.
However, worries persist that the move may have come too late, as many firms have already reported lower profits and a worsening business environment.
Analysts said that stock markets would probably be volatile in coming weeks.
A 19-year-old man opened fire with a rifle inside a mall crowded with Christmas shoppers in Omaha, Nebraska, on Wednesday, killing eight people and then himself, police said.
Five people were wounded in the rampage at the Westroads Mall, two of them critically, according to hospital spokesmen.
Police said the mother of the gunman brought them a note that was “suicidal” in nature.
KETV, a local television station, identified the man as Robert Hawkins.Witnesses said they hid in restrooms, closets and under racks of clothes, some praying as an estimated two dozen shots rang through the mall.
The gunman shot one man in the head from a third-floor balcony and others at point-blank range, witnesses said.
Some of the victims were waiting in line to get Christmas presents wrapped at Von Maur, an upscale department store.
Police said the mother of the gunman brought them a note that was “suicidal” in nature.
The suicide of a female star was the most shocking news this year for Korean netizens.
According to Naver, the nation’s largest portal and search engine, Sunday, the suicide of actress Jeong Da-bin drew the most concern of Internet users in the shortest time.
Jeong, who starred in popular dramas and films, was under heavy pressure to raise her status and ended her life at her boyfriend’s home last February.
Her death along with female singer Yuni, who also killed herself in January, sent shock waves throughout Korea and sparked a concern over copycat suicides.
Korea has the highest suicide rate among the OCED member countries and the nation has seen more deaths by suicide than those by car accidents.
Korean blockbuster movie ``D-War“ was the second hot topic for 2007.
The film, directed by comedian Shim Hyung-rae, drew the largest number of viewers in the domestic movie history with 2.9 million over five days last August.
It was also the country’s most expensive film, which cost $33 million to produce and the film made inroads into Hollywood.
However, some critics attributed the movie’s success to its appeal to patriotism and ignited disputes over the movie’s quality. The suicide of a female star was the most shocking news this year for Korean netizens.
According to Naver, the nation’s largest portal and search engine, Sunday, the suicide of actress Jeong Da-bin drew the most concern of Internet users in the shortest time.
In the US, an Oklahoma jury has convicted Terry Nichols of 161 murder counts in the Oklahoma City bombings.
The jurors began deliberations yesterday morning and returned their decision about five hours later.
Nichols could now face the death penalty.
The trial's penalty phase is set to begin next week.
The US Episcopal Church has chosen a woman as its next leader - making it the first church anywhere in the Anglican denomination to do so.
The choice could prove controversial - most other Anglican Churches around the world do not allow women to be bishops.
The bishops voted 95-93 to back Ms Schori after a number of ballots, AP news agency reported.
A total of seven candidates were in the running for the post.
It is the second contentious issue for the convention.
A separate row has been raging over gay bishops, nearly three years after the Americans sparked fury from African Churches and other traditionalists by ordaining the first openly gay bishop, Gene Robinson.
The convention in Ohio is under pressure to ""repent"" of its decision to ordain him, to ban future openly gay bishops and to end the blessing of same-sex unions in church services.
It is the second contentious issue for the convention.
Chung Dong-young, head of the National Security Council mentioned Japanese assertions of sovereignty over Tokto.
Meanwhile, in the Roh administration's strongest pronouncement yet on the Tokto islands dispute, Chung Dong-young, head of the National Security Council, said that yesterday Japanese assertions of sovereignty over Tokto were tantamount to justifying the invasion of the Korean Peninsula by the Japanese Imperial Army 100 years ago.
The government lifted all rules today that had barred Koreans from purchasing and retaining homes overseas.
The intent is to bleed off some of the dollars flowing into the country because of strong exports those inflows have spurred a rise in the value of the won that has threatened to put a damper on Korea's export competitiveness.
In January, as the won continued to soar, Seoul raised the cap on residential purchases abroad to $1 million that cap is gone beginning today, and also gone is a requirement that a residence overseas be sold within three years after the owner returns to Korea to live.
Although many observers suggested that the change would not put much of a dent into Korea's soaring foreign exchange reserves, which hit $216.4 billion last month, the change also suggests how long financial barriers that are vestiges of Korea's cash-short economy of the 1960s and 1970s have lingered.
Koreans are still barred from buying foreign real estate as an investment as opposed to a domicile.
The Finance Ministry said it would begin to change those rules next year.
64-year-old Charles Robert Jenkins, the USFK sergeant who defected to North Korea in January 1965 and lived nearly 40 years in North Korea, said he was advised by Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to leave together with the prime minister to Japan when he visited North Korea in April, but high-ranking North Korean Foreign Ministry officials had pressured him into refusing the previous day.
64-year-old Charles Robert Jenkins, the USFK sergeant who defected to North Korea in January 1965 and lived nearly 40 years in North Korea, said he was advised by Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to leave together with the prime minister to Japan when he visited North Korea in April, but high-ranking North Korean Foreign Ministry officials had pressured him into refusing the previous day.
Jenkins also said that after initially defecting to the North, he lived with other U.S. deserters, and they were forced to criticize one another's capitalism and beat each other.
Iraq Government was mired in confusion.
The Supreme court upholds the draconian National Security Law.
About half of elementary, middle and high school students have looked at pornography, while some 3 percent of them have had sex, according to a recent survey.
Most of the sexual experiences took place at their homes or friends' homes.
A survey conducted by the Korean Health Teachers Association for Healthy Society and the Korean Teachers and Education Workers' Union showed 47.1 percent of students have seen porn photos or video footage.
Some 1,060 elementary, middle and high school students nationwide took part in the survey.
More than 43 percent said they saw the pictures and videos at their friends' houses, followed by 39.6 percent at their own homes, 3.3 percent at Internet cafes, and 1 percent at their relatives' homes.
Among elementary school children, 2.5 percent had sexual experiences, while 2.4 percent of middle school students and 4 percent of high school students have had sexual intercourse.
Most of the sexual experiences took place at their homes or friends' homes.
President Roh Moo-hyun said on Thursday that it was wrong to call the Northern Limit Line (NLL) a territorial line, drawing predictable criticism from the conservative opposition Grand National Party (GNP).
``The armistice line was drawn with the agreement of all concerned parties, but the NLL was unilaterally drawn without any agreement,´´ Roh said in a lunch he hosted to brief leaders of the five political parties on the results of the inter-Korean summit in Pyongyang last week.
The NLL has served as a de facto maritime sea border in the West Sea since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.In response, GNP Chairman Kang Jae-sup urged Roh to be clear-cut on the NLL.He noted that he was surprised to hear Roh´s statement that the line should not be viewed as a territorial concept.
Kang insisted that the inter-Korean maritime border in the West Sea should remain intact even though the leaders of the two Koreas agreed to set up a special peace and economic area there.
President Roh Moo-hyun said on Thursday that it was wrong to call the Northern Limit Line (NLL) a territorial line, drawing predictable criticism from the conservative opposition Grand National Party (GNP).
``The armistice line was drawn with the agreement of all concerned parties, but the NLL was unilaterally drawn without any agreement,´´ Roh said in a lunch he hosted to brief leaders of the five political parties on the results of the inter-Korean summit in Pyongyang last week.
Australia’s Prime Minister John Howard has warned his government that it risks “annihilation” by the opposition Labor Party in elections later this year.
A string of opinion polls suggests the Labor Party would sweep Howard’s conservative coalition from power as he seeks a fifth-term in office.
President Roh Moo-hyun expressed hope that candidates in the 1997 presidential race will not be subject to the ongoing probe into the allegedly illegal fundraising scandal.
Political observers construed it as bold gesture from Roh to save former President Kim Dae-jung and Lee Hoi-chang who was defeated by Roh in the 2002 election.
Korea's fertility rate among world is in the lowest level.
Demonstrations are planned in 12 cities worldwide against Burma´s continuing detention of democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners.
Today marks 12 years in detention for the Nobel Peace Prize winner, and the protests are being staged outside Chinese embassies.
Campaigners say China holds the key to Aung San Suu Kyi´s release.
Burma says 10 people died during its suppression of the protests, but diplomats believe the true figures are much higher.
Hundreds of people are thought to be in detention.
Rallies are due to be held in London, Paris, Berlin, Dublin, Vienna, Sydney, Washington, Toronto, New York, Brasilia, Bangkok and Cape Town.
The coalition of charities and other groups behind Wednesday´s demonstrations have called on those taking part to wear Suu Kyi masks and the white cloth of Burmese political prisoners.
Six female Nobel peace laureates have jointly appealed to the UN urging it to help Ms Suu Kyi gain her freedom.
Ms Suu Kyi´s National League for Democracy scored a convincing win in a general election in 1990 but the junta refused to hand over power.
The protests also coincide with the anniversary of the UN charter, and campaigners say they will be stepping up the pressure for UN action.
Residents hit by the deadly California wildfires have been warned to beware of extremely hazardous air quality.
Residents in five southern counties were urged to stay indoors due to pollution levels that are three times higher than normal.
Officials confirmed 640,000 people had fled homes, the biggest mass evacuation in California´s history.
At least 14 people died as a result of the fires.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vowed to hunt down any arsonists responsible.
Arsonists are thought to have started at least two of the fires.
Damage in San Diego county alone is estimated at about 1 billion dollars, with nearly 800 square miles of land scorched.
At least 1,800 homes and other buildings have been destroyed.
˝Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has vowed to stay on, a day after he hinted he may quit if Japan´s mission in Afghanistan was not extended.
Abe has faced growing calls for his resignation, but said he was intent on staying to push through his reforms.
On Sunday, Abe staked his job on extending Japan´s support of the US-led mission in Afghanistan, beyond a current November deadline.
The opposition is against the mission and could delay enactment of the bill.
Abe said on Sunday he had “no intention of staying” on as leader if MPs blocked the move, prompting some analysts to suggest he could be seeking an honorable excuse to step down.
Abe has been facing calls to resign ever since his Liberal Democratic Party suffered a crushing defeat in July´s upper house election.
The result was partly blamed on a series of scandals involving his ministers.
He said he would respond to the negative criticism by pressing ahead with reforms.
He also reiterated comments he made over the weekend, in support of extending Japan´s naval mission to help US-led operations in Afghanistan.
The mission involves Japanese vessels in the Indian Ocean providing refuelling and other logistical support to US military planes, and the US has made clear it sees these activities as vital.
Some critics say Japan´s involvement in the mission violates the nation´s pacifist constitution, which strictly limits its military activities.˝
Abe has faced growing calls for his resignation, but said he was intent on staying to push through his reforms.
The opposition is against the mission and could delay enactment of the bill.
Abe said on Sunday he had “no intention of staying” on as leader if MPs blocked the move, prompting some analysts to suggest he could be seeking an honorable excuse to step down.
Abe has been facing calls to resign ever since his Liberal Democratic Party suffered a crushing defeat in July´s upper house election.
The mission involves Japanese vessels in the Indian Ocean providing refuelling and other logistical support to US military planes, and the US has made clear it sees these activities as vital.
Production resumed at Iraq's vast southern oil fields after authorities reached an accord with militant Shiites who had threatened to attack the country's vital export pipelines for crude.
Oil markets welcomed the news, with U.S. crude futures falling by 32 cents a barrel in late New York trading.
Iraq's South Oil Co.
Yongi-Kongju in South Chungchon Province was picked as new administrative capital.
Libya agrees to pay for deaths of a past bombing.
Roh Violates Election Law Again:
The pro-opposition Korea Times reports the election watchdog Monday ruled that President Roh Moo-hyun again violated the Election Law requiring public officials to stay ``neutral’’ ahead of elections.
It will send Roh an official document asking him to respect the law.
But the National Election Commission (NEC) withheld a decision as to whether the President violated the article governing pre-electioneering.
The ruling came after a six-hour meeting of the nine NEC members.
The first ruling was issued after the Grand National Party (GNP) filed a complaint on June 5 against Roh who has argued that he has the right to engage in political activities and has proposed amending the election law.
In its second complaint, the opposition party said Roh’s remarks in an interview with the Hankyoreh newspaper on June 13 were a breach of the law.
Roh told the daily that the GNP is a party with roots in regionalism and the vestiges of military dictatorships, calling on the people to support a candidate from the pro-government Uri Party.
The GNP also said that Roh breached the law during his speeches at Wonkwang University on June 8 and at a ceremony marking the 20th anniversary of the pro-democracy movement on June 10.
Roh described GNP candidate Lee Myung-bak’s campaign pledges as ``empty,’’ while calling Park Geun-hye, another GNP hopeful, the ``daughter of a dictator.’
’ Park is the eldest daughter of the late President Park Chung-hee.
A senior US envoy has urged Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to lift emergency rule and free opponents ahead of elections due in January.
“Emergency rule is not compatible with free, fair and credible elections,” said John Negroponte, a day after meeting the Pakistani leader.
General Musharraf imposed emergency rule two weeks ago following growing opposition and unrest.
He has insisted it can only be lifted once the security situation improves.
Negroponte, the US deputy secretary of state, said he had urged general Musharraf to stick to his pledge to step down as head of the army, and encouraged him to release political prisoners.
Google Inc shares made their long-awaited stock market debut on Thursday, rising sharply to $100 after an initial public offering marked by missteps and lackluster market conditions.
Google Inc shares made their long-awaited stock market debut on Thursday, rising sharply to $100 after an initial public offering marked by missteps and lackluster market conditions.
Google co-founder Larry Page and Chief Executive Eric Schmidt, guarded tightly by security, were at the NASDAQ stock market's broadcasting facility in Manhattan as the Web's most popular search engine began trading as a public company.
President Lee Myung-bak said he will visit Moscow in his telephone talks with outgoing Russian President Vladimir Putin, Monday.
But Lee said the visit would not be feasible before the end of Putin´s term.
Lee and Putin also talked about South Korea´s first female astronaut Yi So-yeon who will head for the International Space Station on Tuesday.
President Lee said he wants to meet with Putin even after President Putin steps down on May 7.
Lee is expected to visit Moscow in late May or June after his trips to the United States, Japan and China between mid- April and May.
Some officials at the Russian Embassy in Seoul were reportedly discontented with Lee´s overseas visit schedule in which Russia is placed ``last´´ of the four powers.
The two leaders agreed that they will cooperate in reinforcing bilateral relations even after Putin steps down.
But Lee said the visit would not be feasible before the end of Putin´s term.
Lee is expected to visit Moscow in late May or June after his trips to the United States, Japan and China between mid- April and May.
Prime Minister Lee Hai-chan apologized yesterday for insults he directed last month at the opposition Grand National Party, which for the last 13 days has been boycotting the National Assembly to force an expression of regret from the prime minister.
While on tour in Europe last month, Lee said, ""The whole world knows the Grand National Party is bad,"" and ""if the Grand National Party takes power, history will roll backwards.
Prime Minister Lee Hai-chan apologized yesterday for insults he directed last month at the opposition Grand National Party, which for the last 13 days has been boycotting the National Assembly to force an expression of regret from the prime minister.
While on tour in Europe last month, Lee said, ""The whole world knows the Grand National Party is bad,"" and ""if the Grand National Party takes power, history will roll backwards.
Bush administration had set its “red line” in connection with N.K.
About 70 North Korean refugees arrested in crackdowns have been sent back to the North.
Reuters reports the US Federal Reserve announced on Sunday emergency measures to stem a fast-spreading financial crisis, cutting the discount rate it charges on direct loans to banks and setting up a new program to provide cash to big financial firms.
In a surprise statement, the central bank said it cut the discount rate to 3.25 percent from 3.5 percent, effective immediately, an action that puts that rate just a quarter point above the interbank overnight federal funds rate the Fed´s primary policy tool.
It also said it was setting up a new lending program under which so-called primary dealers could borrow directly from the Fed at the discount rate.
big Wall Street firms with which it deals directly in financial markets
But ministers did not decide to launch a larger ground offensive - a day after Israel suffered its biggest one-day loss of the 16-day conflict.
The European Union has dismissed an Israeli minister's remark that it had been given the green light to continue.
Later, the UN Security Council expressed ”shock and distress” at the deaths of four of its observers in an Israeli bombing raid, but did not formally condemn the strike despite lengthy negotiations.
Israel's UN ambassador, Dan Gillerman, praised the ”fair and balanced” statement, and expressed regret for the ”tragic accident”.
Iran said it rejected such efforts to isolate Iran among its Gulf neighbors, adding that ”such policies of fooling the people in the region” had already fallen flat.
Speaking in Abu Dhabi, the third stop of his tour of Arab allies, Bush said Shi´ite Muslim Iran was the world´s number one sponsor of terrorism and accused it of undermining peace by supporting the Hezbollah guerrilla group in Lebanon, Palestinian Islamist group Hamas and Shi´ite militants in Iraq.
Iran, which blames sectarian violence in Iraq on the U.S.-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein in 2003, said Washington´s efforts to isolate Tehran ”fell flat”.
The BBC reports one of the most eminent US cultural institutions, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, has performed a landmark concert in communist North Korea.
The concert included music by two US composers and a Korean folk song, and was broadcast live on local television.
The visit entailed the largest US presence in the reclusive state since the end of the Korean war.
It coincided with a visit to China by the US Secretary of State, to discuss Pyongyang´s nuclear disarmament.
The US and N Korea have a long history of mutual distrust, and analysts say the concert is a remarkable display of cultural diplomacy.
The concert in East Pyongyang Grand Theatre began with the North Korean national anthem Patriotic Song, followed by America´s Star Spangled Banner.
The audience - made up of North Korea´s communist party elite, as well as musicians and foreign guests - stood throughout both anthems, while the countries´ flags were displayed on the stage.
The visit entailed the largest US presence in the reclusive state since the end of the Korean war.
The concert in East Pyongyang Grand Theatre began with the North Korean national anthem Patriotic Song, followed by America´s Star Spangled Banner.
The summit between the leaders of South Korea and the United States later this week is expected to become a major litmus test of alliance relations, as Washington has been making a series of requests on outstanding issues of mutual concern.
Besides the impasse with North Korea´s nuclear weapons program, high on the agenda for the April 19-20 summit are Seoul´s redeployment of troops to Afghanistan, an increase in host-nation financial contribution for the presence of U.S. troops, opening up to U.S. beef imports and participation in the U.S.-led global ballistic missile defense network.
Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Yu Myung-hwan said these issues were old ones that have long been discussed but unresolved, dismissing claims that Washington is pressing Seoul hard to get what it wants in the name of a greater bilateral partnership.
An anti-terror bill has been passed in the Philippines aimed at tackling militants in the south.
The Human Security Act was approved by the House of Representatives late and now goes to President Gloria Arroyo to be signed into law.
Arroyo hailed the bill as a “potent weapon” to shield the country from the ”global scourge” of terrorism.
An anti-terror bill has been passed in the Philippines aimed at tackling militants in the south.
The Korea Times reports the Yongi-Kongju region in South Chungchong Province reportedly topped the evaluation chart for the new administrative capital relocation project, scoring 88.96 points.
The so-called Presidential Committee on Administrative Capital Relocation on Monday announced the evaluation results at the central government complex in Seoul, saying the Yongi-Kongju region scored the highest mark, followed by Nonsan-Kongju with 80.37 points among four candidate sites.
The final confirmation will be made next month after a series of public hearings and presidential approval.
However, it is highly probable that Yongi-Kongju will host the new administrative capital as the gap with the runner-up is wide.
50 Zaituun soldiers decides to withdraw voluntary applications for deployment.
The Bush regime showed strong commitment to maximize its interest in its negotiations with South Korea for free trade agreements (FTA), although it wants to complete negotiations by the end of the year, said a visiting U.S. trade official Tuesday.
FTA, said Tuesday the Americans will eventually achieve their goal of obtaining trade terms favorable to the US as soon as possible.
Admitting that time is pressing -the bilateral FTA talks will begin on June 5- she said the imminent schedule could be a daunting task.
The U.S. wants to conclude negotiations by the end of the year.
Mentioning that the right of U.S. President George W. Bush to negotiate trade and commerce agreements will expire in June 2007, she said the administration is obliged to finish the Korea-U.S.
FTA, said Tuesday the Americans will eventually achieve their goal of obtaining trade terms favorable to the US as soon as possible.
Cheong Wa Dae will file a constitutional petition Thursday at the earliest against the National Election Commission (NEC) which ruled that President Roh Moo-hyun violated the Election Law, a top presidential aide said Wednesday.
Roh’s Chief of Staff Moon Jae-in told reporters that the presidential office has decided to take legal action against the commission as it cannot fully accept the ruling.
The announcement came after the NEC ruled Monday that Roh again violated the election law requiring public officials to stay neutral ahead of elections.
On June 7, the NEC’s first ruling was issued after the main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) filed a complaint against Roh who has argued that he has the right to engage in political activities and has proposed amending the Election Law.
The opposition party said Roh’s remarks in an interview with the Hankyoreh newspaper on June 13 were a breach of the law.
Roh told the daily that the GNP is a party with roots in regionalism and the vestiges of military dictatorships, calling on the people to support a candidate from the pro-government Uri Party.”
load of explosives with enough power to blow up a skyscraper was delivered to a local news service by an unidentified man who said he found them in a garbage can in Suwon.
Authorities do not know were they came from, but said they were probably not linked to a terror plot.
The wire service reported yesterday that the man said he was handing over the explosives because he wanted Newsis to verify what they were.
He delivered a total of 22 box-shaped explosives, including four cylinder-shaped pieces with the letters “TNT,” which stands for trinitrotoluene.
Citing unidentified experts, Newsis reported that the explosives, if placed correctly in the right places, could bring down the 63 Building in Yeouido, which is 60 stories high.
An official with the Defense Ministry said the National Intelligence Service is conducting an investigation.
Authorities do not know were they came from, but said they were probably not linked to a terror plot.
Students at a South Carolina school whose shoddy construction was highlighted by President Barack Obama are finding some big improvements today.
The tattered furniture has been replaced by hundreds of new desks and chairs, thanks to the head of a Chicago company, Sagis International:
“ Their school colors are black and gold, and so what we developed was the…first of all, the very latest designs that we manufacture, the most ergonomic seating, the latest design of table - and we produced them in their school colors, their black and gold.
About the Wall Street rally:
the Dow is up 175 points.
Here we go again, on Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction at the 2004 Super Bowl.
The Supreme Court has ordered a Federal appeals court to consider reinstating a $550,000 fine imposed on CBS by the FCC.
The appeals court threw out the fine last year.
the Dow is up 175 points.
Here we go again, on Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction at the 2004 Super Bowl.
The BBC reports South Koreans are voting in a parliamentary election amid forecasts of the lowest turnout since the end of military rule 20 years ago.
The country´s electoral commission is trying to lure voters to the polls with discount tickets to parks and museums.
It comes little more than three months after President Lee Myung-bak´s hard-fought election campaign.
He is seeking the parliamentary majority he needs to pass his promised raft of sweeping reforms.
But there may be signs of voter fatigue with turnout for these national assembly elections expected to be around 50% - the lowest since South Korea held its first genuinely democratic election two decades ago.
In addition, President Lee´s first few months have been marred by bitter factional fighting within his own Grand National Party.
The rival United Democratic Party will b e hoping to capitalize on these troubles.
Both parties will be fighting for every available vote, but they may be in short supply.
The country´s electoral commission is trying to lure voters to the polls with discount tickets to parks and museums.
He is seeking the parliamentary majority he needs to pass his promised raft of sweeping reforms.
Following MBC’s on-air apology, Hwang’s top lieutenant said no experiments or tests will be carried out to verify the authenticity of their patient-specific stem cells.
The broadcaster had raised doubts over the authenticity of Hwang’s exploit of establishing stem cell lines genetically tailored to patients based on its own test results and urged him to cooperate in a second test.
MBC’s call for a second test gained little support as a growing number of experts took issue with the reliability of the initial tests the television network commissioned and used to support the assertion that Hwang’s achievement was doctored.
˝The former head of communist China´s State Food and Drug Administration, Zheng Xiaoyu, has been executed for corruption, the state-run Xinhua news agency reports.
He was convicted of taking $850,000 in bribes and of dereliction of duty at a trial in May.
The bribes were linked to sub-standard medicines, blamed for several deaths.
China has been criticized over a number of recent cases involving tainted goods, and correspondents say Zheng had become a symbol of the crisis.
Zheng had appealed against his sentence, arguing that it was “too severe” and saying he had confessed his crimes and co-operated with police.
But his appeal, heard in mid-June, was rejected shortly afterwards. Zheng, who headed the administration from 1998 to 2005, was found guilty of accepting bribes from firms to register their products without making them undergo the necessary checks.˝
Former homerun champ Lee Man-soo has trotted the bases hundreds of times in his playing career but had never been treated to the thunderous ovation he got from fans at Munhak Stadium in Incheon, Saturday.
In one of the most unusual moments in Korean baseball history, Lee, 49, now a coach for the first-place SK Wyverns, stepped out of the dugout after the fifth inning _ stripped down to his under-shorts attached with fake buttocks, socks and cleats _ and jogged toward the outfield followed by 20 members of the team’s official fan club.
The bizarre parade continued for about four minutes, with Lee slowly circling the stadium waving his hands to the deafening applause and laughter from the sellout crowd.
His face hinted at a mixed sense of amusement and embarrassment.
The stadium speakers pumped out local singer Chung Su-ra’s popular hit ``You Can Do Anything’’ to add to the humor.
Lee, commonly referred by fans and players as ``Hulk,’’ had declared after a home match with the LG Twins on April 29 that he would run the grounds in his underwear if a game among the next 10 scheduled at the Munhak Stadium sold out.
The fans were up to the challenge, buying all of the 30,400 available tickets for Saturday’s match against the KIA Tigers, with 20,000 of the seats purchased through the Internet prior to the game.
The team confirmed the sellout at the end of the fourth inning and Lee kept his end of the promise.”
The nation is seeing a growing number of illegal cremations being conducted at places other than government-designated crematoria.
Experts say this is due to a lack of crematoriums as more and more people prefer cremation to the traditional burial.
For the last few years, the ratio of cremations among total funerals has greatly increased, as the nation has been getting short of land for burial and it has become more difficult for bereaved families to take care of tombs that are usually placed on mountains far from their residence.
However, the number of crematoria is far short of the demand.
Among 770 funeral homes across the nation, only 46 had crematoria as of last October.
There are only four crematoria in Seoul and nearby metropolitan area, where about half of the total population resides.
In 2005, the remains of 31,921 dead people who had been buried were exhumed for cremation and stored in mausoleums.
Among them, 2,754 remains were cremated in crematoria in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province, indicating many others were dealt with illegally.”
The nation is seeing a growing number of illegal cremations being conducted at places other than government-designated crematoria.
I want to go to Korea as fast as I can.
Kim, who was 33, first went to Iraq in June of last year as a translator for a Korean trading company, Gana General Trading Co, and was due to come home next month to celebrate his father's 70th birthday.
The final letters written by Kim Sun-il just before he was kidnapped by Iraqi insurgents are further deepening the public's sorrow and distress over the precious life lost.
Kim's close friend, Shim Song-dae, disclosed to the public Wednesday several e-mails that Kim had sent to him in May prior to his kidnapping, which revealed his yearning to return home and see his loved ones.
Kim also expressed his deep desire to return to Korea, saying ```I really don't want to be here anymore.
I want to go to Korea as fast as I can.
I really want to go, I really do.''
The letter also showed that Kim harbored negative feelings toward the U.S. and was critical of the actions U.S. soldiers committed toward Iraqis.
I plan to bring back some shocking pictures of U.S. soldiers' acts of brutality.
I will never be able to forget the American's acts of brutality, especially those of Bush and Rumsfeld.''
In his last email dated May 30, he said, ``I find myself looking at the calendar more and more often because of my vacation date.
When I go to Korea, I will buy you anything that you want to eat.
Kim decided to go to Iraq to earn money for graduate school as well as fulfill his dream of conducting missionary work in Arabic countries.
Kim, who was 33, first went to Iraq in June of last year as a translator for a Korean trading company, Gana General Trading Co, and was due to come home next month to celebrate his father's 70th birthday.
Kim’s death shocked the South Korea.
˝The main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) will announce its presidential candidate at a national convention in Seoul, Monday, at around 4:30 p.m.
The primary vote turnout, conducted at 248 polling stations nationwide, stood at 70.8 percent, almost the same as the 2002 presidential election.
Political analysts attributed the high turnout to heated competition between the two leading contenders _ Lee Myung-bak, the former mayor of Seoul, and Park Geun-hye the former GNP chairwoman.
Votes by delegates, party members and ordinary citizens who were chosen randomly, account for 80 percent of the total score in selecting the nominee, party officials said.
The results of a public opinion poll constitute the remaining 20 percent.
Various polls showed Lee, who has been battling against allegations of land speculation and the prosecution´s related investigations, is ahead of Park.
According to the latest poll by the Hankook Ilbo, Lee was leading the race with support of 44.5 percent, followed by Park with 37.2 percent.
Other polls by local media came up with similar results.˝
Political analysts attributed the high turnout to heated competition between the two leading contenders _ Lee Myung-bak, the former mayor of Seoul, and Park Geun-hye the former GNP chairwoman.
Votes by delegates, party members and ordinary citizens who were chosen randomly, account for 80 percent of the total score in selecting the nominee, party officials said.
Acting President Goh Kun said Wednesday that South Korea will push ahead with its troops dispatch.
Thursday's New York Times reports South Korea confined it troops in Iraq to their compound in the southern city of Nasiriyah and suspended reconstruction and medical efforts because of spiraling Shiite-inspired violence.
But the country's acting president reconfirmed Seoul's decision to send 3,600 troops to northern Iraq later this year in a move that will make South Korea the biggest coalition partner after the United States and Britain.
``Because of the instability, we suspended all our troops activities outside military camps and stepped up security,'' a spokesman at the Office of Joint Chiefs of Staff said on condition of anonymity.
Shiite-inspired violence has spread across the southern half of Iraq in the last few days, and Nasiriyah has seen some of the heaviest fighting.
More than 230 Iraqis have died since Sunday, and the coalition casualties this week included 35 Americans, a Salvadoran and a Ukrainian.
The spokesman did not say when the troops would be allowed to leave their compound and resume reconstruction work.
The move also suspends work at a medical facility inside the camp, where Iraqis came for treatment.
About 460 South Korean medics and military engineers have been in Nasiriyah for almost a year.
They will come home after South Korea sends the new deployment of up to 3,600 troops to the Kurdish region of northern Iraq later this year.
Acting President Goh Kun said Wednesday that South Korea will push ahead with its troops dispatch.
``There is no change in our plans to send additional troops to Iraq,'' Goh said during an urgent Cabinet meeting Wednesday evening.
Goh called the meeting after Shiite militiamen seized a South Korean relief worker and businessman during a gunfight with Italian forces in Nasiriyah earlier this week.
Both men were later released unharmed after 14 hours in Shiite custody.
South Korea planned to send a survey team to the Kurdish region on Friday to choose between Sulaimaniyah and Irbil as the site for its new troops.
The number of people traveling overseas surpassed the two million mark in the first three months of this year.
Marines fired bombs on a mosque.
But in Seoul, the situation appeared more positive as the top U.S. envoy here emphasized Washington's willingness to talk one-on-one with Pyongyang.
“Our position has been for some time that if the North Koreans clearly send signals that they are committed to coming back to six-party talks, then there are many possibilities for bilateral contacts,” U.S.
Ambassador Alexander Vershbow said in an interview with Yonhap News.
North Korea has repeatedly asked for a bilateral meeting with Washington, even inviting Hill to Pyongyang, but never with the precondition of returning to the nuclear talks.
South Korea international Park Ji-sung scored his first goal for Manchester United since returning from a knee injury, as the Red Devils blitzed Fulham 3-0 Saturday to shave Arsenal´s Premiership lead to one point.
South Korea international Park Ji-sung scored his first goal for Manchester United since returning from a knee injury, as the Red Devils blitzed Fulham 3-0 Saturday to shave Arsenal´s Premiership lead to one point.
A diminutive attacker, Park converted a rare header just before the first-half whistle to give United a 2-0 lead over the hosts at Craven Cottage, west London, after Owen Hargreaves opened the account in the 15th minute with a set-piece gem.
Park clearly made the most of a rare start awarded by manager Alex Ferguson, who kept Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney on the bench in the opening half apparently with Tuesday´s Champions League second leg with Lyon in mind.
Clinton in Ohio, Texas:
The drug company was hoping to set up the center in Osong, North Chungcheong province, where transportation is convenient because of a high-speed railroad line.
The Korean government, however, insisted that the center must be located in South Jeolla province, where it wants to establish a biological research and development complex according to its so-called national balanced development policy.
GSK said Singapore recently came up with a better offer and that the city state would listen to all the company's requirements, including the location.
The Korea Times reports South Korea is aiming to wrap up talks with the United States on the relocation of the Yongsan Garrison in central Seoul by as early as next month, according to a top Foreign Ministry official.
The Korea Times reports South Korea is aiming to wrap up talks with the United States on the relocation of the Yongsan Garrison in central Seoul by as early as next month, according to a top Foreign Ministry official.
Kim Sook, director-general in charge of North American affairs at the ministry on Wednesday, rejected suggestions that the U.S. base relocation talks could drag out until next year, after the ninth Future of the Alliance Policy Initiative meeting on the issue ended Tuesday without significant progress.
No date has been set for the 10th round of discussions, but sources indicated the final meeting will be held in late July.
Future of the Alliance Policy Initiative:
82% of Americans support pullout of US troops stationed in Korea.
U.S. to plans to cut its forces in Korea.
Here at home the focus is on Black Friday, the after-Thanksgiving shopping frenzy that kicks off the holiday season.
Nervous retailers opened earlier than ever this morning - this college student waiting in line twelve hours to grab a laptop at a Best Buy in Dallas:
“Half of it's just getting to talk to people you would never meet otherwise.
I mean, I'm here to get a deal, but it's pretty fun chatting with people.”
Retailers are offering bigger than usual discounts on their door-buster specials.
Analysts are warning that the next economic crisis could claim malls, hotels and other businesses affected by the mortgage crunch.
“Half of it's just getting to talk to people you would never meet otherwise.
I mean, I'm here to get a deal, but it's pretty fun chatting with people.”
Retailers are offering bigger than usual discounts on their door-buster specials.
The government plans to have a number of major state-owned enterprises listed on the stock market to bolster their capital and provide a fresh boost to the market.
According to officials at the Ministry of Finance and Economy, Prime Minister Han Duck-soo has instructed the government agencies to consider listing shares of healthy and strong state-invested enterprises.
Han is said to be wanting a partial privatization of state-run firms by selling 20 percent to 30 percent of their shares on the stock market through initial public offerings.
Targets for privatization include the Korea Expressway Corp., Incheon International Airport Corp., the Korea Airports Corp., Korea Housing Guarantee, Korea District Heating, Korea Appraisal Board, and power plant subsidiaries of Korea Electric Power Corp.
These firms are among those that can be directly listed on the bourse without revising laws.
Targets for privatization include the Korea Expressway Corp., Incheon International Airport Corp., the Korea Airports Corp., Korea Housing Guarantee, Korea District Heating, Korea Appraisal Board, and power plant subsidiaries of Korea Electric Power Corp.
As President Barack Obama approaches the end of his first 100 days, more Americans indicate the country is on the right track.
Listen to this from a new AP poll - correspondent Bryant Thomas:
“ For the first time in more than 5 years, more Americans than not say the country's on the right track.
According to the latest Associated Press GFK poll, 48% of those surveyed say the country's headed in the right direction, while 44% say it's going in the wrong direction.
The poll also shows 64% of those surveyed approve of President Obama's job performance, and among the right-direction people, 73%, not surprisingly, are Democrats, 17% independents, 10% Republicans.
Bryant Thomas, Washington.”
People south of Los Angeles were rattled by a big explosion last night.
The blast, at an oil refinery in Paramount, California, caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage, but only one worker was hurt, and that wasn't all that serious.
Listen to this from a new AP poll - correspondent Bryant Thomas:
According to the latest Associated Press GFK poll, 48% of those surveyed say the country's headed in the right direction, while 44% say it's going in the wrong direction.
B. B. Bell, chief of the U.S.
But he stressed that ”the term `extended deterrence' is not a military options' package nor does it represent a change in the nuclear umbrella commitment by the United States ” as being interpreted by South Korean officials.
Combined Forces Command (CFC) and the United Nations Command (UNC).
The top U.S. military commander in South Korea said yesterday that his combined forces command with the South Korean military has no intention of preemptively striking North Korea.
But The Korea Times reports he accused the Stalinist state of `international provocations ” with a series of missile and nuclear tests.
Forces Korea (USFK), reaffirmed the provision of the U.S.
”extended deterrence ” for South Korea in case of an attack from the communist regime.
President George W. Bush pushed his trade agenda on Wednesday by urging congressional passage of free trade agreements with South Korea and Latin American countries during his last year in office, but was rebuked by senior Democrats who said they were in no hurry to do so.
“It is in our strategic interest that we support democracy in our neighborhood, and it´s in our strategic interest and our economic interest that the United States Congress passes this free trade agreement with Colombia,” Bush said in his speech from California.
”I am looking forward to making the case for Panama and South Korea as well,” he said.
In Washington, however, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Democrat Max Baucus said such a trade agenda ”must take a back seat” to guaranteeing Americans their jobs.
This task and no other must be our nation´s trade policy priority.
Until we accomplish that, other issues on today´s trade agenda must take a back seat,” Reuters quoted him as saying.
South Korea and the U.S. signed the FTA in June last year.
Seoul submitted the deal for National Assembly ratification last fall, with supporters outnumbering opponents.
Korea's opposition parties seek to conduct a National Assembly investigation on the ongoing stem cell scandal involving now disgraced cloning scientist Hwang Woo-suk.
The two staunch backers of Hwang, Science-Technology Minister Oh Myung and Park Ky-young, presidential advisor for science and technology, have come under fire for pouring taxpayers' money into Hwang's dubious research.
The progressive Democratic Labor Party, which typically takes the opposite side of the conservative Grand National Party, concurs with it this time around.
The Korea Herald reports that unemployment among young jobseekers rose in November to 7.4 percent as the sluggish economy continued to keep a firm lid on the labor market, quoting the National Statistical Office yesterday.
That meant an increase of 6,000 to 360,000 job seekers in the 15 to 29 age group, the government agency said.
A vote on a extension of the deployment of Korean forces in Iraq was called off.
Korean policymakers foresee the two-year economic slump will draw to a close next year as the economy will grow near the potential growth rate of 5 percent and create 350,000-400,000 new jobs.
The Ministry of Finance and Economy Wednesday announced that the government will pursue macroeconomic policy to solidify the ongoing recovery.
The government will focus on restoring vitality to the economy and building a foundation for sustainable growth, deputy finance and economy minister Kim Seok-dong told reporters on Wednesday.
He added that the government will seek to narrow the gap between economic indicators and real economic conditions felt by people.
The government Wednesday reported its 2006 economic management plan to President Roh Moo-hyun at Chong Wa Dae.
The Ministry of Finance and Economy Wednesday announced that the government will pursue macroeconomic policy to solidify the ongoing recovery.
He added that the government will seek to narrow the gap between economic indicators and real economic conditions felt by people.
The lengthy feud between the prosecution and court over arrest warrants sought for some Korean executives of Lone Star Funds is escalating to new heights.
The conflict intensified over the weekend when questions arose over whether Supreme Court Justice Lee Yong-hun’s close relationship with Korea Exchange Bank’s (KEB) management was forcing the courts to take a softer stance toward the Dallas-based buyout firm.
Lee had represented the bank as a lawyer in its first lawsuit against gas supplier Yesco before pulling out to take the Supreme Court job in August last year.
Talking with reporters on Monday, Lee angrily denied the accusations, even suggesting the existence of a ”force ” inside the prosecution that is out to get him.
Since March, prosecutors have been searching for irregularities in the way Lone Star bought KEB in August 2003.
The Supreme Prosecutors’ Office indicted the bank and its majority shareholder, LSF-KEB Holdings SCA, for violating stock-trading laws.
Lee had represented the bank as a lawyer in its first lawsuit against gas supplier Yesco before pulling out to take the Supreme Court job in August last year.
Prosecutors launched an investigation into the head of the nation´s spy agency Monday over allegations he intentionally leaked classified documents covering discussions he had with his North Korean counterpart to local media on the eve of the presidential election last month.
The probe come as Kim Man-bok, director of the National Intelligence Service (NIS), admitted responsibility for leaking excerpts of his talk with Kim Yang-gon, one of key aides of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, during a secret trip to Pyongyang on Dec.
The prosecution has concluded that the documents can be classified as confidential and the leak subject to criminal charges.
In the documents, Kim was quoted as telling his North Korean counterpart that President-elect Lee Myung-bak, then frontrunner of the opposition Grand National Party, would win the election but would maintain President Roh Moo-hyun´s policy towards Pyongyang.
Israeli armored forces raided the outskirts of two neighboring refugee camps in the Gaza Strip yesterday, igniting a gun-and-grenade battle that lasted for hours and left at least 14 Palestinians dead.
At least 10 of the dead were gunmen, but three were youths.
It was the deadliest single Israeli raid in more than a year.
The two candidates vying to be French president have gone head-to-head in a highly anticipated TV debate.
Conservative frontrunner Nicolas Sarkozy and Socialist Segolene Royal clashed over employment, the economy, the environment and law and order.
The only debate of the campaign was a heated confrontation, and continued beyond the expected two-hour duration.
The encounter was seen as a decisive battle in swaying undecided voters ahead of Sunday’s second-round vote.
Sarkozy won 31.2% and Royal won 25.9% in the 22 April poll.
"" The ministry said it would restrict some Koreans from traveling abroad in an effort to stop what it called ""ugly Koreans"" from giving the nation a bad name and to prevent well-behaved Korean tourists from being considered troublemakers.
The proposed regulations would restrict people ""who have damaged the reputation of the country"" from traveling overseas, according to a ministry briefing for the cabinet yesterday.
A ministry official said that the restrictions would apply to persons who engaged in illegal activities or ""shameful conduct"" in other countries.
The Foreign Ministry said yesterday that it wanted to take the fun out of foreign travel for what it called ""ugly Koreans.
The Korea Herald reports that POSCO Engineering and Construction Co., a subsidiary of the nation's largest steelmaker POSCO Co., is embroiled in a lobbying scandal surrounding an apartment complex project in Gwangju, Gyeonggi Province.
The Korea Herald reports that POSCO Engineering and Construction Co., a subsidiary of the nation's largest steelmaker POSCO Co., is embroiled in a lobbying scandal surrounding an apartment complex project in Gwangju, Gyeonggi Province.
The prosecution said yesterday it found that POSCO Engineering, the main contractor for an apartment construction project, has commissioned the design work to a member of the urban planning committee of the province.
Seoul's plans to withdraw some Korean troops from Iraq were a surprise to U.S.
In addition, Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney will testify in one joint private session before all 10 commission members, with one commission staff member present to take notes.
In addition, Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney will testify in one joint private session before all 10 commission members, with one commission staff member present to take notes.
The high-speed train KTX started its service.
Freezing rain and sleet has knocked out power to more than a quarter million customers in Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana, and hundreds of passengers waited hours for flights as a massive storm brought more than a foot of snow, from the Midwest to the Northeast.
National Weather Service meteorologist Mike Eckert says that snow should stay through Christmas:
“From the uh, Pacific Northwest into the Northern Rockies, Northern Plains with the Great Lakes in Northeast, a White Christmas looks like a very good bet now.”
A blizzard that's hitting the upper Midwest today will bring more heavy snow to the Northeast by tomorrow.
President Elect Barack Obama has named his top scientific advisors, including leading climate change scientist, Harvard physicist John Holdren and marine biologist Jane Lubchenco.
In his weekly radio and online address, Obama says the country has to focus more on science:
“…today more than ever before, science holds the key to our survival as a planet and our security and prosperity as a nation.”
National Weather Service meteorologist Mike Eckert says that snow should stay through Christmas:
At least four people were shot in the parking lot of a large Colorado evangelical church on Sunday in the second shooting in a day linked to a religious community in the state.
Police said a gunman opened fire outside the New Life Church in Colorado Springs after Sunday services and that three to five people had been taken to local hospitals.
Police said they had detained a suspect but gave no details about his condition or a possible motive. In an earlier incident, 70 miles away, two people were killed and two were wounded shortly after midnight when a gunman entered a training center for young missionaries in the Denver suburb of Arvada, police said.
Police in the two cities said they were coordinating information but did not know whether the attacks were related.
However Paul Filidis, a spokesman for the missionary group in Arvada, said the organization did rent space for an office from the New Life Church in Colorado Springs.
Police cordoned off the New Life Church and locked down several local buildings.
Fletcher Howard said police were not sure if a second gunman was at large.
One eyewitness told CNN he saw a young man wearing combat boots and with an assault rifle and a handgun.
The top Israeli health official has a beef over the whole swine flu thing:
“ Israeli health officials don't have a cure for swine flu, but they do have a new name for it.
He suggests calling it 'Mexican flu,' since the strain apparently started in Mexico.
His Health Ministry is dealing with two unconfirmed cases of the 'non-kosher' flu - Israelis who were in Mexico recently.
The top Israeli health official has a beef over the whole swine flu thing:
He suggests calling it 'Mexican flu,' since the strain apparently started in Mexico.
˝Pakistan´s former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is heading home at the end of seven years in exile.
Sharif, who was ousted by General Pervez Musharraf in a coup in 1999, is expected to arrive in the capital Islamabad on Monday morning.
Large numbers of police have set up barricades on the road to the airport.
Boarding his plane in London, Sharif said that if he was arrested upon arrival, that would be “a small price to pay for the country´s freedom”.
Hours earlier, his party said more than 2,000 supporters had been arrested by the Pakistan authorities.
A spokesman for the Muslim League party (PML-N) said the activists had been arrested over the past four days in Punjab province, Sharif´s powerbase.
A provincial police official admitted to detaining several hundred ”trouble-makers”.
Sharif says he is determined to return to lead a campaign against Gen Musharraf ahead of elections.
The Supreme Court ruled last month that Sharif had the right to return to the country, but the government has urged him to honor the terms of an exile deal which, it says, bars him from coming back for another three years.˝
˝Pakistan´s former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is heading home at the end of seven years in exile.
Union unrest swept the nation as tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets across the country to voice their opposition to labor and school reforms and free trade negotiations with the United States.
Despite growing public distress and lackluster response from some of its members, the radical Korean Confederation of Trade Unions launched a general strike nationwide yesterday.
About 3,500 members of the group staged a mass demonstration in central Seoul to declare an indefinite walkout, demanding the government scrap new labor regulations and better protect temporary workers.
They were joined by about 3,000 unionized teachers protesting against the government's plan for teacher evaluation and merit-based bonuses.
Separately, the Korea Alliance Against the Korea-U.S. FTA, a coalition of about 300 civic groups, also rallied in 13 major cities including Seoul, Busan, Gwangju, Daegu, Daejeon and Jeju.
More than 71,000 members participated in the rallies, it claimed.
Seoul National University (SNU) president Chung Un-chan on Monday urged the government to reconsider its ban on the high school ranking system.
Seoul National University (SNU) president Chung Un-chan on Monday urged the government to reconsider its ban on the high school ranking system.
Zebari met yesterday with US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, the most senior U.S. official to visit Iraq since the transfer of sovereignty.
The two said their talks focused on security issues.
Baghdad says it will name 43 ambassadors today in a move designed to boost diplomatic relations with the outside world.
Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said he planned to resume ties with all Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
Iraq has had troubled relations with both Arab states in the past.
Zebari told a news conference that the interim government has received some positive signals from both countries about their willingness to resume relations.
Zebari met yesterday with US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, the most senior U.S. official to visit Iraq since the transfer of sovereignty.
The two said their talks focused on security issues.
Bush administration officials say they're still looking at different ways of saving the auto industry.
A senior congressional aide says the White House and Treasury Department are in talks with Senator Bob Corker, a Republican who's been demanding big union concessions in exchange for any government money.
The AP's Bryant Thomas in Washington reports there's no shortage of advice on how to rescue Detroit:
“Conservative Republicans are imploring the White House not to use money from the $700 billion financial rescue plan to help Detroit.
The leading House Democrat congressman Barney Frank says the government should secure veto power over the company's business decisions as part of any aid.
But the big rub for auto workers is Republican insistence that nearly immediate wage cuts level the playing field with foreign carmakers, most of which are located in heavily Republican states in the South.
Bryant Thomas, Washington.”
[Demonstrators shouting]
Demonstrators are out again today demanding the release of the Iraqi journalist who tossed his size tens at President Bush.
Iraq's Parliament speaker says he's resigning after legislators argued over the shoe thrower.
No surprise in“ Time Magazine's” pick of the“ Person of the Year”:
The AP's Bryant Thomas in Washington reports there's no shortage of advice on how to rescue Detroit:
President George W. Bush to be held as early as possible, the presidential office said Wednesday.
It is desirable for a summit between Seoul and Washington to be held ``as soon as possible,´´ presidential spokesman Cheon Ho-seon told reporters.
Asked about the possibility of Roh visiting Washington, D.C. for talks with Bush in late September, the spokesman said the date and venue have yet to be confirmed.˝
President George W. Bush to be held as early as possible, the presidential office said Wednesday.
This time it was a CH-46 Sea Knight transport helicopter, which came down near Baghdad.
Al-Qaeda in Iraq claims to have brought it down, though the US military has indicated it may have been mechanical failure.
But whatever the reason, five helicopters have now been lost already this year with the US admitting at the weekend that the other four had been shot down.
Until now the US military has avoided losses by flying low and fast…but no method is entirely fail-safe And as the US military does not provide details on the number of attacks on aircraft it is difficult to know whether or not there has been an upsurge.
A US military spokesman in Iraq Major General William Caldwell said it was premature to conclude that the threat posed to aircraft by insurgents had dramatically increased.
This time it was a CH-46 Sea Knight transport helicopter, which came down near Baghdad.
In an interview Monday with a Japanese sports daily, a North Korean official said that Pyongyang would accept a ruling by the world's governing soccer body to play its World Cup qualifying match against Japan in Bangkok on June 8 behind closed doors.
The Iranian players and the referees had to be escorted out of the stadium.
In an interview Monday with a Japanese sports daily, a North Korean official said that Pyongyang would accept a ruling by the world's governing soccer body to play its World Cup qualifying match against Japan in Bangkok on June 8 behind closed doors.
The ruling is the result of incidents in a game against Iran, in which North Korean players confronted the referee over a call, while fans showered the field with bottles and chairs.
The Iranian players and the referees had to be escorted out of the stadium.
outh Korea will pay up to 5.6 trillion won or $ 5.9 billion, for the relocation of U.S. military bases, about half of the total costs, the Defense Ministry said yesterday.
The ministry released a plan for the base relocation after 17 months of negotiations with the United States.
In 2004, the two countries agreed to consolidate 42 U.S. military installations scattered across the peninsula into two hub bases in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province and in the Daegu region.
But the estimate does not reportedly include the 1.01 trillion won cost for purchasing land on which the new base will be constructed.
So, including the cost of the land, the total cost will be in line with previous estimates of 5.6 trillion won.
Former world chess champion Bobby Fischer, who was taken into custody by Japanese authorities two weeks ago for traveling with a revoked U.S. passport, has appealed a deportation order to the United States, an adviser said Monday.
Former world chess champion Bobby Fischer, who was taken into custody by Japanese authorities two weeks ago for traveling with a revoked U.S. passport, has appealed a deportation order to the United States, an adviser said Monday.
For George Bush, the truth hurts.
The bill would ring-fence around half of the money that Bush has requested to fund the war in Iraq.
US President George W Bush would veto a second congressional bill on the war in Iraq that links funding to progress there, his spokesman has said.
The bill, -currently being drafted by Democratic lawmakers in the House of Representatives- funds operations in Iraq until the end of July.
But it would then give Congress the option of cutting off money if the security situation did not improve.
Bush has already vetoed a bill that linked funding to a troop withdrawal.
White House spokesman Tony Snow said that Bush would veto the new bill in its current form.
The bill would ring-fence around half of the money that Bush has requested to fund the war in Iraq.
Lawmakers would then vote in July on whether to release this money on the basis of a report from Bush on progress towards political, economic and security targets.
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates claimed that a funding cut in July would cripple the Pentagon.
The Korea Times reports South Koreans will be allowed to visit Japan for up to 90 days without a visa from March, quoting the Japanese Foreign Ministry on Monday.
However, a visa is still required for long-term stays and work.
In what many saw as an olive branch amid continued diplomatic friction between the two countries, Tokyo announced the move which extends a temporary visa waiver in place since last March.
Japan temporarily waived visa requirements for South Koreans last year to mark the 40th anniversary of their normalization of diplomatic relations.
But some political leaders’ repeated visits to a controversial war shrine have soured the bilateral ties.
In Seoul, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade also confirmed Japan’s latest move, adding South Korea would take ``reciprocal’’ action for the Japanese.
However, a visa is still required for long-term stays and work.
US President Bush plans to urge allies at an Asian-Pacific summit in Chile to press North Korea to return to stalled talks over its nuclear weapons program.
The United States, China, Japan, South Korea and Russia have been trying for more than two years to persuade North Korea to drop its nuclear programs, but the talks have been inconclusive.
North Korea declined to attend a meeting in September and was believed to be waiting to see whether Bush was defeated for re-election by Democratic Sen.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Lee Yong-hun yesterday apologized for his offensive remarks to state prosecutors and lawyers that triggered a heated dispute within legal circles for the past week.
”But my remarks were neither meant to offend nor ignore the efforts of prosecutors and lawyers.
Lee, who marked his one-year anniversary as chief justice on Monday, had visited regional courts earlier this month.
During the meetings, he expressed his misgivings over legal practices, suggesting judges toss away prosecutors' investigation records and calling lawyers ”deceptive.”
“I may have used some improper words while I was trying to talk open-mindedly with court staff,” Lee said in a speech to judges at Seoul district courts.
”But my remarks were neither meant to offend nor ignore the efforts of prosecutors and lawyers.
Idyllic beaches were turned into fields of debris.
In Indonesia, raging waters dragged villagers out to sea, flung others inland and tore children from their parents' arms.
One official said more than 4,400 people had died there, while thousands more were missing.
A senior army officer said corpses were still caught up in trees when rescue workers stopped for the night.
In Sri Lanka, where the death toll reached 3,500, corpses drifted in floodwaters, while thousands fled their homes and cars floated out to sea.
Idyllic beaches were turned into fields of debris. Around 750,000 people were displaced.
In southern India, where at least 3,000 were estimated to have died, wailing relatives gathered around bodies.
In the Thai holiday resort of Phuket, popular with tourists seeking some Christmas sunshine, beaches were devastated.
Geological Survey struck at 7:59 a.m.
A warning center such as those used along the Pacific Rim could have saved most of the thousands of people who died, a USGS official said.
Korea recognized as a growing market in the foreign car industry.
Powerful earthquakes hit Asia.
It was the second time for an Asian actress to win the award at the Festival.
Chinese actress Maggie Cheung received the award in 2004 with ``Clean,’’ French director Olivier Assayas’ film about a woman rebuilding her life.
The prize also became another welcome recognition given to a Korean actress on the international level, 20 years after Kang Soo-yeon won the best actress award for her role in ``Sibaji,’’ or ``The Surrogate Woman,’’ at the Venice International Film Festival in 1987.
Actress Moon So-ri won the Marcello Mastroianni Award as best newcomer in 2002 at Venice with her role in ``Oasis,’’ another film directed by Lee.”
It was the second time for an Asian actress to win the award at the Festival.
According to a doctoral paper by Chae Suh-young of Sogang University in 2004, 59 percent of 231 university students and office workers he surveyed had taken English names.
And the number is believed to have jumped significantly over the past few years.
Some companies recommend that workers adopt English names so that they can be addressed by their names rather than the Korean custom of attaching a suffix to the surname, such as Kim, managing director, who would be called ``Manager Kim’’ in Korean.
The Foreign Ministry is under criticism again _ this time for failing to bring home nine family members of three South Korean prisoners of war from China, where they were staying after escaping from North Korea in July last year.
Most of them, who range in age from 20s to 70s, had sought shelter in the city since last July, according to the Monthly Chosun.
They are family members of three South Korean soldiers _ two of whom died in the North, while the other returned to South Korea early last year.
11, two South Korean diplomats reportedly escorted the nine refugees to the home, instead of housing them inside their diplomatic mission, following a protocol established with the Chinese authorities. But the Chinese police raided the house only hours later and directly sent them to Dandong, a border town near North Korea.
A day later North Korean border guards took them into custody.
The Foreign Ministry is under criticism again _ this time for failing to bring home nine family members of three South Korean prisoners of war from China, where they were staying after escaping from North Korea in July last year.
The ministry confirmed a report that the nine refugees were repatriated to the North in October, right after being arrested by Chinese police at a private home in Shenyang, northeastern China.
They are family members of three South Korean soldiers _ two of whom died in the North, while the other returned to South Korea early last year.
the Obama team's detailed reports on staff conversations with the office of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich.
“The President Elect ordered the review of contacts between his aides and the governor about appointing Obama's Senate successor.
Blagojevich is accused of trying to sell the seat.
Obama has said the review will show none of his aides had inappropriate discussions about the opening.
A source close to the governor says incoming White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel contacted the office about the appointment, but Emanuel has refused comment.
Obama's vacationing in Hawaii and has no plans to speak publicly about the report.
The Bears' dream of making the playoff's still alive, thanks to some late night magic at frigid Soldier Field.
Chicago blocked Green Bay's potential game-winning field goal at the end of regulation.
Robbie Gould kicked a game-winning field goal in overtime to give the Bears a 20-17 win over the Packers.
A source close to the governor says incoming White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel contacted the office about the appointment, but Emanuel has refused comment.
The Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairs may dismiss up to 2 percent of its officials by September as part of measures to eradicate bureaucratic inefficiency, it said yesterday.
It is the first central government branch to adopt the measures, initiated by local governments in Seoul and Ulsan, to expel incompetent officials.
About 60 ministry officials have been ordered to improve their working attitudes, with 19 obliged to undergo a three-month training program.
The ministry will decide whether or not to dismiss the 19 officials after the three months, the ministry said.
The Local Administration Training Institute under the Home Affairs Ministry will run the training program, with high-ranking ministry officials participating as lecturers.
The ministry’s personnel affairs committee selected candidates for layoff or demotion after evaluating the working attitudes and accomplishments of its 800 officials in the past two years.”
It is the first central government branch to adopt the measures, initiated by local governments in Seoul and Ulsan, to expel incompetent officials.
A series of court rulings have determined that parents are partially responsible for car accidents involving their unattended children.
The Seoul Central District Court ruled Sunday that the insurance company was 50 percent liable for the accident and must pay the parents 90 million won in compensation.
The court said that the parents were also liable, because they had let their child play unattended at night on a busy road.
˝The U.S. military has decided to retain its 8th Army headquarters on the peninsula even after South Korea takes over wartime operational control of its armed forces from the United States, a Seoul government source said yesterday.
The 8th Army has long been the symbol of U.S. military commitment to South Korea, but expectations had been high recently that Washington will withdraw the unit from the peninsula in line with the U.S. military´s global-wide troop realignment plan.
The decision however, is not one made by the military itself and is subject to change as Democrats are expected to take over the Executive Branch of the United States in the 2008 elections.˝
North and South Korea have agreed to compete as a single team in the 2006 Asian Games and the 2008 Olympics, according to a South Korean official.
The two sides have competed separately since the 1950-53 Korean War, though they have marched together at some recent sports events.
The official said that as cultural and economic exchanges between the two sides increased, ""the mood was ripe"".
Combining the teams will need approval from relevant sporting bodies. Officials from the two sides are scheduled to meet in the North Korean border town of Kaesong on December 7 to work out the details of fielding a joint team.
North Korea's official news agency has not yet commented on the proposal.
But the South Korean agency Yonhap said officials from both Koreas had agreed to the proposal, first tabled last month, when they met in Macau on the sidelines of the East Asian games.
In a similar sign of reconciliation, mourners at Virginia Tech have added a 33rd stone representing Cho’s life to a victims’ memorial on the school’s drill field.
A balloon has been released for each of the victims killed in last week’s rampage at Virginia Tech University, as students returned to classes.
A bell tolled 32 times to commemorate all of those killed by Cho Seung-hui last Monday in the deadliest shooting incident in modern US history.
On Sunday, a special service was held at the Washington National Cathedral.
The service began with a procession of officials and university graduates carrying a candle for each of the dead.
One candle represented the South Korean-born gunman, who was also known as Seung-hui Cho.
In a similar sign of reconciliation, mourners at Virginia Tech have added a 33rd stone representing Cho’s life to a victims’ memorial on the school’s drill field.
Students and staff gathered outside the university’s main administration building on Monday morning for a minute’s silence, after which a single bell tolled 32 times and the 32 white balloons were released.
Gas is up significantly, as we head toward Memorial Day weekend:
But it sure seems significant when the price of gasoline jumped by that much.
it's up 25 cents in the past 3 weeks.”
Analyst Trilby Lundberg says a gallon of gas is still $1. 49 cheaper than it was one year ago, and pump prices do vary:
“ Right now, the lowest in our survey is Phoenix ?
Breaking news from New York, where Woody Allen's spokeswoman says American Apparel has agreed to settle his lawsuit for $5 million.
in the first 90 minutes, the Dow up 154 points, NASDAQ ahead 25.
“ Gasoline now costs $2.30 on average for regular grade ?
This comes despite a pledge by the authorities to clean up the air.
In the latest incident, a reservoir serving 100,000 people in north-west China was polluted by a chemical spill.
China has some of the world's most polluted cities and rivers.
Pollution levels have risen and air quality has deteriorated, the report found.
KT, Korea's dominant fixed-line telecom carrier, launched the first dual-purpose satellite for military and commercial uses Tuesday, lifting the country into the double-digit satellite club.
KT plans to start services with the satellite, co-developed by the former state telecom monopoly and the Ministry of Defense, after four months of testing.
Unlike previous KT satellites that facilitated telecom services just in local areas, Koreasat-5 will cover Asian countries including Japan, China, Taiwan and the Philippines as well as Korea.
Exiled Korean singer Yoo Seung-jun is attempting to make a comeback in Korea.
Yoo, who is still banned from returning to Korea after allegedly dodging military enlistment, is releasing a special Korean version of his album, due to the request of his fans.
Exiled Korean singer Yoo Seung-jun is attempting to make a comeback in Korea.
Yoo is releasing his seventh album “Rebirth of YSJ” in 10 Asian countries, including China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Mongolia, this month.
Yoo, who is still banned from returning to Korea after allegedly dodging military enlistment, is releasing a special Korean version of his album, due to the request of his fans.
More than 8,000 Brazilian landless activists surrounded the central bank on Thursday and threatened a big fight over land next year unless they get more public money to speed up land reform.
Joao Pedro Stedile, a leader of the radical leftist Landless Workers Movement, said peasants could stage more land occupations if Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva did not earmark more funds to expropriate and redistribute unused farmland, as the Brazilian constitution demands.
The violence in Sudan’s Darfur region had worsend.
The US military has accused the “highest levels” of Iran's government of supplying increasingly sophisticated roadside bombs to Iraqi insurgents.
Senior defense officials told reporters in Baghdad that the bombs were being used to deadly effect, killing more than 170 US troops since June 2004.
The weapons known as ”explosively formed penetrators” (EFPs) are capable of destroying an Abrams tank.
US claims the bombs were smuggled from Iran cannot be independently verified.
The US officials, speaking off camera on condition of anonymity, said EFPs had also injured more than 620 US personnel since June 2004. They said US intelligence analysts believed the bombs were manufactured in Iran and secretly sent to Iraqi Shia militants on the orders of senior officials in Tehran.
”We assess that these activities are coming from the senior levels of the Iranian government,” one official said.
He pointed the finger at Iran's elite al-Quds brigade, a unit of the Revolutionary Guards, saying that a senior commander from the brigade had been one of five Iranians seized by US forces in a raid in the Iraqi town of Irbil in January.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has praised the recent agreement by the Koreas, the United States, Japan, Russia and China on steps to end North Korea's nuclear weapons programs.
The United Nations agency called the agreement a ""big turning point"" in the North Korean nuclear crisis.
The agency's spokeswoman, Melissa Fleming, said that its board of governors generally saw the accord as a breakthrough in efforts to end the standoff.
tensions rose in October 2002 when North Korean officials told U.S. negotiators that they had begun a uranium enrichment program.
NTS tax audits of 6 foreign funds.
The White House this morning says letting the auto industry fail would be nothing short of irresponsible;
that, after the Senate late last night said 'no' to a bailout deal for the Big Three.
Let's get the morning-after report live from Capitol Hill with the AP's Jerry Bodlander:
“Jon, right after the bailout effort collapsed in the Senate, the White House indicated it was exploring all options to keep the car companies on the road, and it's now made clear that includes tapping the Wall Street bailout fund, something it had been resisting.
White House Press Secretary Dana Perino says the economy is so weak right now, it could not stand what she said would be a body blow, like a disorderly bankruptcy in the auto industry.
For that we go live at the New York Stock Exchange with Associated Press correspondent Warren Levinson:
There's also bad news in retail sales, down 1.8% in November;
And one more important economic report, the Labor Department says wholesale prices dropped another two plus percent in November, the fourth straight month of declines.
It may sound like good news to consumers, but prolonged price drops leading to deflation, can drag the economy into a deeper recession.
The White House this morning says letting the auto industry fail would be nothing short of irresponsible;
Let's get the morning-after report live from Capitol Hill with the AP's Jerry Bodlander:
The long ride for the cowboy is over on Dancing with the Stars.
Rodeo champ Ty Murray was voted off last night.
Murray wasn't saved by the viewers' votes this time.
Head judge Lance Goodwin said,“ So long” on ABC:
“ If the others have climbed hills, you've climbed mountains.
With that dedication, you've been a credit to everyone.”
Actor Geal Marini, Olympian Sean Johnson, and the bachelor reject Melissa Rycroft all compete for the Mirror Ball Trophy next week.
The judges on American Idol were beating up on each other more than the top 3 finalists:
Kara DioGuardi got into it with Paula Abdul over whether Danny Gokey's dancing during Dance, Little Sister was too gyrating:
“ You're a great singer, but it might be good to remember that performance tomorrow.
He is the fifth person to be targeted by the court, set up to bring surviving leaders of the Khmer Rouge to justice.
The Khmer Rouge´s former head of state, Khieu Samphan, has been charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity at a UN-backed tribunal in Cambodia.
The 76-year-old was earlier arrested at a hospital in the capital, Phnom Penh, and taken to face the panel of judges.
He is the fifth person to be targeted by the court, set up to bring surviving leaders of the Khmer Rouge to justice.
More than one million people are thought to have died between 1975 and 1979 under the brutal Maoist regime.
Khieu Samphan´s lawyers have said they will appeal against his detention.
alfway to a deadline for taking the first steps to denuclearization, Pyongyang’s nuclear reactor is still operating, according to South Korea’s foreign minister.
Foreign Minister Song Min-soon said, “There are no signs that there are changes in the operational situation” of the Yongbyon reactor.
Meanwhile, international nuclear monitor Mohammed El Baradei ended a brief visit to the North without meeting Kim Gye-gwan, the chief negotiator for the six-party talks.
Pyongyang told the delegation from the International Atomic Energy Agency visiting the North for two days that Kim was too busy preparing for the six-party talks to have a meeting.
In an agreement reached last month outlining initial steps to implement a broader 2005 agreement, the North has to shut down and seal the Yongbyon nuclear reactor, let inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency into the country for verification and monitoring duties and discuss all aspects of its nuclear programs in exchange for 50,000 tons of heavy fuel.
Meanwhile, international nuclear monitor Mohammed El Baradei ended a brief visit to the North without meeting Kim Gye-gwan, the chief negotiator for the six-party talks.
Further inciting political instability on the Korean Peninsula, US President George W. Bush revived his famous description of Iran and North Korea on Friday as part of ""an axis of evil"" as they cause the same security threat because of their lack of transparency and pursuit of weapons of mass destruction.
It was the first time for Bush to use the incendiary phrase ""axis of evil"" during his second term.
He first introduced the concept in his State of the Union address in 2002 to describe the security threat posed by Iran, North Korea and Iraq.
The embassy admitted it now takes longer for applicants to get visas.
A long queue of people wait impatiently outside the U.S.
The Korea Times reports since the introduction of a new U.S. visa application system on Aug. 2, over 95 percent of applicants have been required to appear for a non-immigrant visa interview.
And this complicated new process is leaving applicants bewildered and upset.
Previously, the American Embassy exempted those between the ages of 55 and 80 from visa interviews, resulting in only about 65 percent of applicants needing to go through the interview process. Currently, less than 5 percent of Koreans are exempt from visa interviews.
They include diplomatic or official passport holders and their dependents, children younger than 14 and adults aged 80 or older.
The embassy admitted it now takes longer for applicants to get visas.
Subway threatens the passengers.
The National Assembly Wednesday approved President Roh Moo-hyun's nomination of Han Myeong-sook, a two-term female lawmaker of the governing Uri Party, as new prime minister.
Han who is 62 replaces Lee Hae-chan who resigned last month after a controversial golf game with businessmen in Pusan.
The legislature voted 182 to 77 with 3 abstentions.
Han, who served as minister of gender equality under the Kim Dae-jung administration and environment minister during the incumbent government, is scheduled to receive a letter of appointment from President Roh at the presidential office on Thursday.
The legislature voted 182 to 77 with 3 abstentions.
The South Korean government decided on Saturday to send $1 million worth of medical supplies and other emergency relief to North Korea following Thursday's massive train explosion in Ryongchon that killed at least 160 and injured 1,300.
The Korea Times reports the decision was made at an emergency meeting of government ministers chaired by Prime Minister Goh Kun.
At the meeting, Goh said that the government should offer emergency aid for victims of Thursday's train explosion even if North Korea makes no official request.
The aid will be made available as promptly as possible via the Korean National Red Cross.
The Korea Times reports the decision was made at an emergency meeting of government ministers chaired by Prime Minister Goh Kun.
Mexico City’s legislative assembly has voted to legalize abortion in the city, the capital of the world’s second-largest Roman Catholic country.
Lawmakers voted 46 to 19 in favor of the bill that will permit abortions of pregnancies in the first 12 weeks.
Mexico City previously allowed abortion only in cases of rape, if the woman’s life was at risk or if there were signs of severe defects in the fetus.
Opponents of the abortion law have said they will challenge it in the courts.
The abortion vote split Mexico’s population, which is 90% Catholic, and prompted a letter last week from Pope Benedict XVI urging Mexican bishops to oppose it.
Prior to the vote, riot police kept rival demonstrators apart as they hurled insults at each other outside the assembly building.
There are an estimated 200,000 illegal abortions in Mexico each year.
Mexico City’s legislative assembly has voted to legalize abortion in the city, the capital of the world’s second-largest Roman Catholic country.
Fresh fighting between rival gangs broke out in a district of East Timor's capital Dili on Sunday.
Youths threw rocks, set fires to homes and smashed windows in another eruption of the violence which has left at least 20 people dead in two weeks.
The Icelandic singer, Bjork, has caused controversy among fans in communist China by shouting ""Tibet!
"" at the end of a concert in Shanghai.
The cry followed a powerful performance of her song Declare Independence.
Talk of Tibetan independence is considered taboo in communist China, which has ruled the territory since 1951.
Although some at the concert appear not to have heard Bjork´s protest on Sunday, there was an uneasy response from other fans.
According to one audience member, there was no booing after the outburst, but people left the concert venue hurriedly.
Human rights activists and many politicians abroad have criticised Chinese policy in Tibet.
Many Tibetans feel loyal to the exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, whom China considers a separatist threat.
Bjork performed in two Tibetan Freedom Concerts in the United States in the 1990s.
Her behavior at the Shanghai concert has not been reported in the state-controlled communist Chinese media.
"" at the end of a concert in Shanghai.
President Roh Moo-hyun and Chinese President Hu Jintao on Sunday called on North Korea to return to the six-party talks to discuss ways of resolving the escalating crisis over its nuclear weapons programs.
President Roh Moo-hyun and Chinese President Hu Jintao on Sunday called on North Korea to return to the six-party talks to discuss ways of resolving the escalating crisis over its nuclear weapons programs.
During a summit meeting in Moscow on Sunday night, the two heads of state agreed that the nuclear issue must be addressed through dialogue without resorting to military options, according to Chong Wa Dae officials.
Only few students has gathered for the candlelit rally which was expected to be a big one.
The reorganization of the presidential office is part of Roh's efforts to make a fresh start to reform the nation after the Constitutional Court reinstated him last Friday by overruling his impeachment.
He is expected to bolster his relations with the Uri Party since he needs a strong parliamentary buttress to turn his shelved reforms into reality.
In his national address Saturday, Roh signaled he would make a strong drive for his reforms, with no backpedaling on ""principle"", in his remaining four years of leadership.
The president and the Uri Party moved to set up a closely managed consultative council to coordinate and turn into law reforms of the chaebol, or conglomerates, the media and the political parties and legislature.
Senior members from Cheong Wa Dae, the Prime Minister's Office and the Uri Party would participate in weekly meetings.
Korea moved up to 17th position in the global competitiveness ranking this year, achieving the biggest advancement among 117 economies, according to the World Economic Forum's annual study.
Korea moved up to 17th position in the global competitiveness ranking this year, achieving the biggest advancement among 117 economies, according to the World Economic Forum's annual study.
The Global Competitiveness Report 2005-2006 released yesterday showed that Asia's fourth-largest economy climbed 12 notches.
It is the second time that Korea placed within the top 20 since 2003, as it continued to advance for the past three years.
The focus of talks should be the dismantlement of North’s nuclear crisis.
KFA is accused for accounting fraud.
Foreign carmakers are revving up their sales networks with new showrooms and service centers nationwide.
Import sales exceeded 20,000 units for the first time last year, with 23,345 sold. Foreign carmakers are revving up their sales networks with new showrooms and service centers nationwide.
The investments reflect an all-out race to attract Korean carbuyers, despite sluggish sales over the past few years.
More than 5,800 foreign cars were sold in the first quarter this year, accounting for nearly 3 percent of all new registrations in the January-March period.
Hyundai Automotive Group Chairman Chung Mong-koo was sentenced to three years in prison Monday for embezzling about 90 billion won ($96 million) in company funds and causing 210 billion won in loss to group affiliates through breach of trust.
Chung, who is 68, was arrested last April after prosecutors claimed he was involved in a series of financial irregularities since 2002, including raising 69.3 billion won in slush funds through six group affiliates and using the money to unlawfully transfer corporate wealth to his family.
After spending two months in jail, Chung was released on bail of 1 billion won in June.
˝The presidential security council yesterday issued a statement denouncing the Taliban for killing one of the 23 Korean captives.
“Along with the Korean people, the government strongly protests the Taliban´s act of brutality in killing an innocent civilian.
We once again strongly urge them to promptly return home the Korean citizens taken hostage,” the Security Policy Coordination Council said in the statement.
It was read by President Roh Moo-hyun´s national security adviser Baek Jong-chun who was dispatched to Afghanistan yesterday as a special envoy.˝
Malaysia has urged the Burmese military to drop preconditions for talks with pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar said the move was necessary if Burma was to avoid stronger international pressure.
Burmese state media reported military leader Gen Than Shwe had agreed to meet Ms Suu Kyi, but only if she ended calls for international sanctions on Burma.
Malaysia and regional grouping ASEAN also oppose sanctions, which are being called for by the US, UK and France.
Malaysia has urged the Burmese military to drop preconditions for talks with pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
Telecommunications across Asia have been severely disrupted because of damage to undersea cables caused by Tuesday's earthquake near Taiwan.
Banks and businesses in Taiwan, South Korea, China and Japan reported telephone and internet problems.
The earthquake, a magnitude 7.1 according to the US Geological Survey, struck off Taiwan's southern coast. Two people were killed and at least 42 injured in the temblor, which shook buildings across the island.
Japan's Meteorological Agency had warned of a possible localized tsunami heading towards the Philippines, but nothing was later reported.
Taiwan's largest telephone company, Chunghwa Telecom Co, said damage to an undersea cable had disrupted 98% of Taiwan's communications with Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Hong Kong.
Repairs could take three weeks, Vice-General Manager Lin Jen-hung said, but quality would improve daily.
Banks and businesses in Taiwan, South Korea, China and Japan reported telephone and internet problems.
It was followed by a number of aftershocks.
Meanwhile, Koreans who run their own businesses on average report only half of their earnings to tax authorities, economists said yesterday.
Adding to concerns about the widening rift between the haves and have nots, those in the bracket of the least earning 40 percent are financing their expenses by stripping their assets and taking out loans.
These observations were included in the thesis that economists are preparing to present at an economic seminar hosted by the Korean Economic Association that houses leading economic scholars.
Secretary of State Colin Powell yesterday reiterated that the United States has no intent to attack North Korea, and urged the communist regime to return to the discussion table.
The Korea Development Institute forecasted gloomy outlook for South Korea.
A miracle finish for Texas in the Fiesta Bowl.
Colt McCoy hit Quan Cosby with a 26-yard TD pass with 16 seconds left, to rally the third-ranked Longhorns pass 10th ranked Ohio State 24-21.
Serious trash talk leading up to Thursday night's BCS title game between Florida and Oklahoma:
“It began Sunday when Oklahoma defensive back Dominique Franks was asked where Florida's Tim Tebow would rank as a Big 12 quarterback.”
“I said he'd probably be about the fourth best quarterback in our conference.”
“Possible bulletin board material for the Gators and Tebow, a former Heisman trophy winner.
Does he think he'd rank behind three Big 12 signal callers?”
“Florida wide receiver Louis Murphy on Franks' choice of words.”
[Chuckles] Oh it's gonna bring, I don't see how much more juicy he can get, but it's gonna juice him up a lot.”
The Dow is up 103 points.
A miracle finish for Texas in the Fiesta Bowl.
Serious trash talk leading up to Thursday night's BCS title game between Florida and Oklahoma:
“Possible bulletin board material for the Gators and Tebow, a former Heisman trophy winner.
These differing views were clarified at the end of the fifth round of FTA talks held from Dec.
4 to 8, and underscored the prospect for more heated negotiations during the next round in January.
Korea's top negotiator, told reporters during a briefing at the fifth round of talks held in Big Sky, Montana.
The Bush administration has until the end of this year to submit to Congress a draft for trade remedies to meet the June 30, 2007, expiry of its trade promotion authority.
Demanding changes to U.S. antidumping rules and having wider access to the U.S. textile market are two major negotiating points for Korea.
Asia's third-largest economy has many more sensitive areas than the United States, an economy that is well-advanced in market opening.
4 to 8, and underscored the prospect for more heated negotiations during the next round in January.
Demanding changes to U.S. antidumping rules and having wider access to the U.S. textile market are two major negotiating points for Korea.
A study of the world´s power stations has shown the extent to which developed countries produce more carbon dioxide per head than emerging economies.
Australians were found to be the world´s worst polluters per capita, producing five times as much carbon from generating power as China.
The US came second with eight tons of carbon per head - 16 times more than that produced by India.
The US also produced the most carbon in total, followed by China.The Carbon Monitoring for Action (Carma) website is the first global inventory of emissions and looks at 50,000 power stations.
Its data was compiled by the Center for Global Development, a US think-tank.
Mobs in China have targeted Japanese businesses in two cities to protest against Japan's attempts to gain a permanent UN Security Council seat.
In one protest, the windows of a department store were smashed.
A Japanese Foreign Ministry spokesman told the BBC that the Tokyo government was very concerned about the situation.
China claims 35 million of its people died at the hands of the Japanese military.
In the southern city of Shenzhen, more than 3,000 protestors took to the streets on Sunday.
EU’s movement to take Korean bill WTO is unreasonable.
˝US lawmakers have called on Japan´s government to formally apologize for its role in forcing thousands of women to work as sex slaves in World War II.
The symbolic and non-binding resolution was passed during a voice vote in the House of Representatives.
Up to 200,000 “comfort women” were part of Japan´s wartime military brothel program that started in the 1930s.
Japan says it has shown sufficient remorse over the issue, but survivors and relatives say it should go further.
Japan´s government would respond to the resolution at a press conference later on Monday, a spokesperson for the Japanese embassy in Washington told the Associated Press news agency.
The resolution calls on Japan - one of the strongest US allies in Asia - to ”formally acknowledge, apologise and accept historical responsibility in a clear and unequivocal manner” for the suffering of the women.
Earlier this month, a group of Japanese lawmakers demanded the US government retract the resolution, saying it was based on ”wrong information that is totally different from the historical fact”.
Tom Lantos, chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs, described attempts by the Japanese to deny the use of sex slaves as ”nauseating”.
In 1993 Japan issued an official apology for the suffering of comfort women, acknowledging its involvement managing the brothels.
But it was never approved by parliament and Japan has rejected most compensation claims, saying they were settled by treaties.
Historians estimate that the Imperial Japanese Army forced around 200,000 women from across the Far East to work as sex slaves in military brothels during World War II.
An arrogant Prime Minister Shinzo Abe caused an uproar in March when he said there was no proof that the government or the military had forced the women into sexual servitude.˝ ˝US lawmakers have called on Japan´s government to formally apologize for its role in forcing thousands of women to work as sex slaves in World War II.
˝Grand National Party presidential frontrunner Lee Myung-bak yesterday denied suspicions surrounding his wealth and financial deals during a party hearing.
Devoid of grueling questions and often lackluster, the first candidate verification hearing by a political party was criticized for serving only as a stage for the presidential aspirants to defend themselves before the public.
During the session, the panel members only repeated questions already raised by the media and the political circles, and failed to press their arguments tenaciously.˝
South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon has criticized a recent visit by Japan's prime minister to the controversial Yasukuni war shrine.
During talks with his counterpart in Tokyo, Ban said the ""people of South Korea were disappointed"" by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's actions.
But he also urged Seoul and Tokyo to look to their future relationship.
Ban's visit to Japan looks set to be dominated by the row over Koizumi's latest shrine visit, on 17 October.
The shrine honors Japan's war dead, including 14 people judged as war criminals after World War II, and both South Korea and China have repeatedly condemned visits by senior Japanese politicians to the shrine.
""But I have come to discuss with you North Korean nuclear issues and make the APEC summit a success,"" he told Japan's Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura.
""Relations between South Korea and Japan must develop in a forward-looking way,"" Ban added.
While Ban's trip is going ahead, a meeting between Koizumi and South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun is still in doubt.
Ban told reporters earlier this week that his government would assess relations between the two sides before making a final decision.
But after meeting Ban on Thursday, Machimura told reporters that the prospect for a visit by Roh looked ""grim"".
During the foreign ministers' meeting, the two men are believed to have discussed the possibility of creating a new war memorial to be used instead of the Yasukuni shrine.
While Ban's trip is going ahead, a meeting between Koizumi and South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun is still in doubt.
Iraq has provisionally suspended crude oil exports to Korea’s top refiner, SK Energy Company, to protest an exploration deal between Korean companies, including SK, and the Kurdish regional government.
SK Energy confirmed that it has not received any crude shipments from Iraq this month after Iraq’s state-run oil company, SOMO, did not renew its contract to export up to 90,000 barrels per day to the Korean firm on Jan.
The contract had been renewed every six months since July, 2004.
Last month, Iraq warned Korea that it would suspend crude oil exports if Korean companies continued with the exploration project in the Bazian oil field in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq.
Attempts are underway to get North Korea back to the table after its Feb.
Ambassador to Korea Christopher Hill, newly-named top U.S. negotiator on the North Korean nuclear stand off, said the six-party talks should serve as a framework for forming a multilateral relationship among Northeast Asian countries as well as the United States.
The six-party talks involve the two Koreas, the United States, Japan, China and Russia and are now stalemated.
Attempts are underway to get North Korea back to the table after its Feb. 10 announcement that it possesses nuclear weapons and will indefinitely boycott the talks.
We'll start with a little positive news about the economy this morning.
The Commerce Department reports the broadest measure of the trade deficit decreased, more than expected in the 3rd quarter.
Shrank 3.7%, thanks to a boom in exports that helped offset an increase in oil imports.
But University of Maryland economist Peter Morici says we're far from out of the woods, insisting the Fed dropping interest rates to all-time lows yesterday will not end the recession:
“Things aren't quite right and so we've fixed the structural problems in the economy;
“We need to do something about the trade deficit, the huge oil imports, and the huge imports from China, which continue growing!”
We'll start with a little positive news about the economy this morning.
The Commerce Department reports the broadest measure of the trade deficit decreased, more than expected in the 3rd quarter.
But University of Maryland economist Peter Morici says we're far from out of the woods, insisting the Fed dropping interest rates to all-time lows yesterday will not end the recession:
“Things aren't quite right and so we've fixed the structural problems in the economy;
Thousands of villagers have rioted in south-western China over the country’s controversial family planning restrictions, reports say.
The villagers, in Guangxi province, reportedly attacked government offices after officials imposed heavy fines on families who had too many children.
The rioting allegedly took place on Friday and Saturday.
Beijing allows urban dwellers to have one child, while villagers can have two if the first child is a girl.
The policy - which was launched in the 1970s - is aimed at controlling population growth in the world’s biggest nation with some 1.3 billion people.
The curfew will last from 2300 on Thursday until 0500 on Sunday to ""protect civilians"", officials say.
More than 130 people have died since a clampdown on Shia militias in the southern city of Basra started on Tuesday.
Unrest has spread to Baghdad.
Earlier US President George W Bush praised Iraqi PM Nouri Maliki´s decision to order the crackdown.
Heavy fighting between the Shia Mehdi Army, led by radical Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr, has continued in Basra for a third day, with violence in other parts of southern Iraq.
Late on Thursday, Moqtada called for a political solution to the crisis.
In a statement relayed by his aide Hazem al-Aaraji, he said he wants ""everyone to pursue political solutions and peaceful protests and a stop to the shedding of Iraqi blood"".
Maliki earlier vowed that he would continue the fight against the militias for as long as was necessary.
Heavy fighting between the Shia Mehdi Army, led by radical Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr, has continued in Basra for a third day, with violence in other parts of southern Iraq.
Korea is seeking to build ""company towns"" to promote investments and enhance corporate competitiveness, The Korea Herald quotes the Ministry of Construction and Transportation as saying yesterday.
The plan calls for the private sector to invest in building towns specialized for a corporate purpose in accordance with government design.
Seoul and its sprawling surrounding areas, however, will not be included in the project.
The types of company towns will be industry-trade, tourism-leisure, knowledge-based industry and hubs of industry complexes, the ministry said.
Meanwhile, prosecutors are now threatening the foreign media saying Thursday they will consider filing a suit against The Financial Times for having described them as witch-hunters fanning anti-foreign capital sentiment.
Chae Dong-wook, the prosecutor in charge of the Lone Star probe, told reporters Thrusday he will soon issue a statement to provide background information on what he said was a misleading report by the daily.
He said if the newspaper continues to publish malicious reports about the Korean prosecution, he would file a compensation suit.
1 next year, following the controversial abolishment of the age-old patriarchal family headship known as “hoju.”
The Supreme Court yesterday disclosed the finalized details of the new registration law, promulgated last month to replace the hoju system beginning in 2008.
Under the revised family registration law, each family member will be separated from hoju - the head of the family and usually the father - through an individual register book.
Children will no longer be obliged to go by the father’s surname and can follow the mother’s.
The two sides have no other choice but to choose between agreement and breakdown this week as U.S.
Trade Representative Karan K. Bhatia will discuss the remaining but crucial issues at Grand Hyatt Hotel in central Seoul by Friday or Saturday.
It is speculated that President Roh Moo-hyun and George W. Bush will declare the FTA conclusion through a ``telephone summit’’ over the weekend.
Ahead of the crucial meeting, Deputy Prime Minister Kwon O-kyu said he is neither optimistic nor pessimistic over the deal.
He made it clear that the government would not sign the deal unless gain outweighs loss.
Despite what some critics call an unbalanced give-and-take since the FTA talks started last June, analysts predict that the two sides will eventually sign a preliminary deal at the end of March.
Korea accepted 12 demands from the U.S. out of the 30 issues in 19 negotiation sectors.
The United States, for its part, accepted three Korean demands.
Among the unsettled issues are beef, automobiles, textiles, anti-dumping, intellectual property rights, pharmaceuticals and the investor-state dispute (ISD) system, which makes it possible for investors to file suits against each other's government for possible unfair treatment.
South Korea and the United States will open their high-level negotiations in Seoul today to wrap up their protracted free trade agreement (FTA) talks in fewer than seven days.
The two sides have no other choice but to choose between agreement and breakdown this week as U.S.
Korea's consumer confidence plunged to its lowest in four years in November, suggesting that domestic demand will continue to be a big drag on Asia's third- largest economy.
Korea's consumer confidence plunged to its lowest in four years in November, suggesting that domestic demand will continue to be a big drag on Asia's third- largest economy.
The consumer confidence index fell to 86.6 last month from 88 in October, the sixth decline in seven months, the Korea Herald quoted the National Statistical Office as saying yesterday.
Nation Statistical Office:
Rumsfeld promised more would be done to protect forces.
The Burmese army is forcibly recruiting children to cover gaps left by a lack of adult recruits, says a report by a US-based human rights organisation.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) says children as young as 10 are beaten or threatened with arrest to make them enlist.
Burma has previously said it is working towards preventing the recruitment of children by the military.
HRW has urged the UN Security Council to do more to punish Burma over its alleged use of child soldiers.
The report, entitled “Sold to be Soldiers:
The Recruitment and Use of Child Soldiers in Burma” says there are thousands of children in the Burmese military.
It claims that children are approached in public places by military recruiters and civilian brokers who have been promised cash rewards by the military.
The children are often beaten or threatened with arrest to force them to enlist, the report says.
It is claimed that recruiting officers routinely falsify enlistment documents to register children as being 18, the legal minimum age for recruitment.
It claims that children are approached in public places by military recruiters and civilian brokers who have been promised cash rewards by the military.
The Bank of Korea kept its benchmark interest rate frozen for a sixth consecutive month yesterday as the central bank's governor, Park Seung, softened his optimistic view of the economy.
The Bank of Korea kept its benchmark interest rate frozen for a sixth consecutive month yesterday as the central bank's governor, Park Seung, softened his optimistic view of the economy.
Speaking at a news conference, Park said that domestic consumption is picking up but the rebound is not strong enough to compensate for slowing exports, the sole growth engine the past two years.
Opposition Party said government is abusing the new regulations for newspaper publisher.
China has failed to keep its promise of improving its human rights record in the lead up to the 2008 Olympic Games, Amnesty International has said.
A report by the group welcomed some reforms, but criticized detention without trial policies and tightened control of the media and the internet.
It added that the Olympics was being used as a catalyst by China for tougher action on human rights defenders.
Chinese authorities have not yet commented on the report.
The report said the August 2008 Olympics was ””a catalyst for a continued crackdown on human rights defenders, including prominent rights defense lawyers and those attempting to report on human rights violations””.
It also said there were fears that ””abusive systems””, such as the ability to jail a crime suspect for up to four years without trial, were being used to detain petty criminals, vagrants and drug addicts in an effort to ””clean up”” Beijing for the Games.
Amnesty International has welcomed the country’s reform of death penalty laws and allowing foreign journalists greater freedoms, but said they were overshadowed by a hardline crackdown of peaceful dissent.
All rights reserved.
Passengers on an American Airlines flight leaving O'Hare in Chicago had a scare.
The plane hit an icy patch while turning onto a runway, and slid sideways into the grass.
Traveler Mark Smith saw it all:
Police near Los Angeles say a man dressed as Santa Claus opened fire at a Christmas Eve party.
Harold Pinter has died.
The Nobel Laureate has been praised as the most influential British playwright of his generation.
“Their plane was taking off with a cross wind, and considering the fact that it looks like it, the entire airport, many parts of the airport are a sheet of ice, so it appears that the airplane slid off while taking off in a crosswind.”
the suspect is at large.
The legislative council of Japan's Shimane prefecture ignited the reaction when it designated Feb.
"" Takeshima is the Japanese name for Tokto.
Celebrities in AIDS benefit concert in South Africa.
North Korea is committed to dismantling its nuclear weapons program, an unofficial US envoy has said, after a visit to the capital Pyongyang.
Bill Richardson said he was ""very pleased"" with North Korea's willingness to make progress in six-nation talks.
Pyongyang has already pledged to abandon its nuclear weapons in an earlier round of the talks.
Richardson, now Governor of New Mexico and former US ambassador to the UN, said North Korea now wanted to focus on a civilian nuclear program
PAPA had its inaugural assembly.
U.S. and S. Korea will have a discussion on the military alliance.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard has denied involvement in a decision to ban a graphic that tracks audience´s opinion during a live TV election debate.
Critics accused Howard of coercing the host, the National Press Club, to ban the use of the “worm”.
Channel Nine´s feed was cut 25 minutes into the debate between Howard and the opposition leader Kevin Rudd.
The controversy has eclipsed the issues under discussion, which included the economy and Australia´s role in Iraq.
The Channel Nine worm charts the changing opinions of 90 undecided voters in the upcoming November elections.
It turns white and climbs up the screen if the audience reaction is positive, but turns red and burrows down when the voters have a negative reaction.
Howard has fared badly against the worm in previous debates, and has argued that its presence trivialises politics and distracts from the issues being debated.
But the National Press Club of Australia, which hosted the debate and provided Channel Nine´s feed, denied that it was reacting to pressure from Howard in imposing a ban on the worm graphic.
Veteran Channel Nine presenter Ray Martin has accused the NPC and Howard´s office of attempting to stifle the media.
President Roh Moo-hyun, Monday, said he expected a bumpy road ahead for the disarmament talks on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program But he stressed the need to resolve the crisis caused by the North’s nuclear test on Oct.
Roh called the North’s nuclear test ”a foolish act, ” but renewed his strong commitment to joint inter-Korean projects.
The Korea Times quoted Roh as saying ”The government will maintain the Mt.
Kumgang tourism and Kaesong Industrial Complex projects in a direction that is compatible with the spirit and objective of the U.N. Security Council resolution.
” Calling the two inter-Korean business projects ”symbols of peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula, ” Roh went on to denounce conservative groups, including the main opposition Grand National Party (GNP), for opposing the government’s engagement policies toward the Stalinist state.
Roh called the North’s nuclear test ”a foolish act, ” but renewed his strong commitment to joint inter-Korean projects.
Forty-five Pakistani soldiers and 130 pro-Taliban militants have died in two days of fierce fighting in North Waziristan, the Pakistani army says.
Earlier, the military said 50 of its troops had gone missing during the battle near the Afghan border.
The soldiers had disappeared after militants attacked security posts and an army patrol outside the town of Mir Ali over the weekend.
By Monday night, many of the men had been relocated, but 25 were found dead.
After a number of attacks on military convoys over the weekend, the army sent helicopter gun ships and jet fighters to target suspected militant positions in several villages.
The army says the victims were militants and soldiers but local people report at least 10 civilians were among the dead.
Burma’s military government appointed a liaison for Ms.
About 500 elderly people from all areas of the community on Thursday threatened to push for another impeachment motion against President Roh Moo-hyun unless he apologizes for his recent comment in support of scrapping the anti-communist National Security Law.
In a strongly worded statement, the group denounced the government's current policy direction, saying it is damaging the nation's identity.
The ``Emergency Declaration Protect Freedom and Democracy,'' signed by formerly prominent senior citizens, including former Prime Minister Kang Young-hoon and former National Assembly Speaker Park Kwan-yong, released the statement during a news conference at the Seoul Press Center in Seoul.
About 500 elderly people from all areas of the community on Thursday threatened to push for another impeachment motion against President Roh Moo-hyun unless he apologizes for his recent comment in support of scrapping the anti-communist National Security Law.
The Bank of Korea kept the call rate at 3.5%.
Busan police said yesterday they had arrested and briefly detained a 29-year-old who they said distributed 14,000 Japanese pornographic video clips on the Internet, which police estimated was 70 percent of all such online clips posted in Korea.
The suspect, who was not identified, was charged with distributing pornography at his arrest on Tuesday, and released on his own recognizance pending further investigation.
Police said they had been tracking him through the Internet since January.
The suspect, who was not identified, was charged with distributing pornography at his arrest on Tuesday, and released on his own recognizance pending further investigation.
The voting session marked the end of tumultuous weeks of debate between the rival parties as major bills involving controversial subjects were at stake.
The next special session is to open in April.
Making an epochal change to the old family registry system long criticized for being gender-biased, the National Assembly voted to repeal the hoju system, and also revised the law on class action suits at a plenary session yesterday.
The Korea Herald reports the special bill on administration relocation was passed after being delayed until late into the night due to vehement opposition from some Grand National Party lawmakers who occupied the Legislation and Judiciary Committee room.
The voting session marked the end of tumultuous weeks of debate between the rival parties as major bills involving controversial subjects were at stake.
The next special session is to open in April.
Past apologies from Japan are not enough to appease South Koreans.
Flooded Missouri River at Bismarck, North Dakota has dropped two feet since an ice jam was blasted apart yesterday.
At the same time, the city of Fargo is still looking for volunteers to finish sandbagging dikes, because the Red River is now expected to crest at a record high in the next couple of days ?
a foot higher than earlier thought:
“ After thinking that the sandbagging effort could taper off, they are now calling for more volunteers, bringing in more sand, and trying to make more sandbags to take the levee, or the dike system, up to 43 feet.”
The AP's Carson Walker, in Fargo, North Dakota.
US military is racing to inspect more than 90,000 facilities across Iraq to reduce a deadly threat of electrocution from bad wiring.
California National Guard Sergeant Ron Vance says he was knocked out cold by a jolt in the shower:
“ The last thing I remember, is what the guys told me that I was out, yelling I was out on the floor and I wasn't breathing.”
a foot higher than earlier thought:
“ The last thing I remember, is what the guys told me that I was out, yelling I was out on the floor and I wasn't breathing.”
He was chosen on the third round of votes by the 115 cardinals meeting to select Pope John Paul seconds successor.
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger has been elected as the Pope - the head of the world's 1.1 billion Roman Catholics.
Taking the name Pope Benedict XVI, the 78-year-old German appeared on the balcony of St Peter's Basilica.
His arrival was greeted by loud cheers from the many thousands of pilgrims who had packed St Peter's Square as news of his election spread across Rome.
A Senate committee vote on John Bolton to the next U.S. ambassador to the UN has been delayed again.
Japan is the most threatened country to Korea.
Seoul is less safe than other cities across the globe given its steep crime rate and high number fatal traffic accidents, according to a survey by the Seoul metropolitan government yesterday.
Seoul came second in terms of violent crime and murder rate among eight other cities - Tokyo, Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, London, Paris and New York.
Deaths from traffic accidents reached 504 in Seoul in 2003, higher than those in Tokyo, New York, London and Singapore.
Japan holds ground on international issues.
Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich says he won't leave office and he will fight the corruption charges against him:
“I'm not going to quit a job that people hired me to do because of false accusations and a political lynch mob.”
Federal prosecutors say Blagojevich tried to sell the appointment to fill President Elect Barack Obama's Senate seat.
DNA tests confirm the bones found in Orlando are those of 3 year old Caylee Anthony.
Well, a medical examiner says the little girl was killed a length of time between when she was reported missing, and the uncertainty over how she died, could help her mother, Casey Anthony. “We may continue to say she's innocent in the eyes of the law;
she may not have had anything to do with this;
the child may have had an accident, she may have panicked, possibly she left the house and the child left the home, too.
Maybe there was a sexual predator…”
Casey Anthony has been charged with Caylee's murder.
The little girl was reported missing over the summer.
Federal prosecutors say Blagojevich tried to sell the appointment to fill President Elect Barack Obama's Senate seat.
“We may continue to say she's innocent in the eyes of the law;
Uri Party lawmaker Shin Ki-nam resigned Thursday as party leader, and non-lawmaker Lee Bu-young took over as chairman of the party's steering committee.
Uri Party lawmaker Shin Ki-nam resigned Thursday as party leader, and non-lawmaker Lee Bu-young took over as chairman of the party's steering committee.
Chosun Ilbo reports Shin, who had been under strong pressure both within and outside his party due to controversy arising from his belated admission that his father had served with the Japanese military police during the colonial period, expressed his intention to resign his party chairmanship during a snap extended party executive meeting held at Uri Party headquarters in Yeongdeung-po on Thursday morning.
Following the meeting, Shin called a special press conference and officially resigned.
Defense chiefs of the two Koreas failed on Thursday to agree on a joint fishing area around their disputed western sea border, as the North insisted on drawing the zone south of the de-facto maritime border claimed by Seoul.
On the third and last day of the rare talks in Pyongyang, the two sides only agreed to discuss the thorny issue again at future general-grade talks to be held “at an early date.”
Bracing for the storm:
National Weather Service senior forecaster Michael Eckert says a big winter storm could be moving up the east coast through tomorrow:
“ This is going to be a major storm.
It looks like some places will see in excess of a foot of snow.”
As much as 5 inches of snow is forecast through the day today in northern Alabama.
Severe thunderstorms spawned at least 3 tornadoes in east central Alabama yesterday, destroying a church, several homes, damaging other homes and a school:
“ I said, this is it, we've got to get out of here.”
That came from WTVM-TV.
Several minor injuries were reported.
Bracing for the storm:
“ This is going to be a major storm.
As much as 5 inches of snow is forecast through the day today in northern Alabama.
South Korea has agreed to send 400,000 tons of rice to North Korea, after five days of talks in Pyongyang.
There was no reference in the final communique to the North’s nuclear program, which has been the focus of intense international negotiations.
However South Korean officials said the aid would still be dependent on progress over the nuclear issue.
The resumption of aid was delayed after the North missed a deadline to close a nuclear reactor in a landmark deal.
Under the 13 February deal - signed by the two Koreas, Japan, China, Russia and the US - the North agreed to ””shut down and seal”” its Yongbyon reactor within 60 days in return for aid.
It said it would only close the reactor if $25m of its money frozen in the Macau-based Banco Delta Asia was returned.
But the US says the accounts are now unfrozen and it does not know why the North has left the funds untouched.
The Pyongyang talks continued through the night into a fifth, unscheduled day as both parties negotiated intensely over rice and nuclear weapons.
The resumption of aid was delayed after the North missed a deadline to close a nuclear reactor in a landmark deal.
Under the 13 February deal - signed by the two Koreas, Japan, China, Russia and the US - the North agreed to ””shut down and seal”” its Yongbyon reactor within 60 days in return for aid.
Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller are warning that al-Qaeda is preparing for a major attack in the coming months against the U.S.
Ashcroft said at a news conference that there is ""credible intelligence"" about the terrorists' efforts, but there is no information about when, where or how an attack might occur.
Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller are warning that al-Qaeda is preparing for a major attack in the coming months against the U.S.
Additional release of Iraqi POWs.
Oklahoma City bomber convicted for 161 murders.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has been warned of a plot to assassinate him during a visit to Iran this week, Kremlin officials have said.
The Interfax news agency cited sources in the Russian special services saying a gang of suicide bombers would attempt to kill Putin in Tehran.
Iran´s foreign ministry dismissed the reports as “completely baseless”.
A Kremlin spokesman told Reuters there were no plans to cancel the trip to meet President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
During his visit, Putin will also attend a summit of Caspian Sea nations.
He will be the first Russian president to travel to Iran since Joseph Stalin attended a summit of the Allied Powers in 1943.
don't read too much into this, but the number of new jobless claims and the total number of Americans on unemployment both dropped more than expected last week.
The Labor Department reports first-timers fell to 639.000.
The AP's Janina Versa says this doesn't indicate the economy is turning around:
“ The number of claims that were filed are still indicative of a job market that is struggling, and shows that people who are out of work will find it even harder in coming months to land a new job.
” More job losses announced just today:
Single households will be able to adopt a child from next year, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said Tuesday.
To promote domestic adoption, the government has decided to allow single households to adopt a child from next year.
The number of single households has been on a steady increase, accounting for 15.9 percent of the total households in Korea last year Also, the government will grant monthly allowance of 100,000 won to a household who adopts a child until he or she turns 18.
It will also grant 2 million won in an administrative fee, which is needed for adopting a child.
The age difference between adoptive parents and child will be expanded from less than 50 at present to under 60.
Limit on the number of adopted children per one family, now standing at five, will also be lifted.
To raise people's awareness that adoption is another form of birth, the government will also allow two weeks of ""adoption leave"" from next year.
The number of single households has been on a steady increase, accounting for 15.9 percent of the total households in Korea last year Also, the government will grant monthly allowance of 100,000 won to a household who adopts a child until he or she turns 18.
A lawyer who was visiting Fiji to assess its legal system has been refused entry by the country´s military government.
Reports describe Felicia Johnston as a British lawyer from the International Bar Association (IBA).
She was detained shortly after arriving at the airport.
She was put on a flight to Brisbane in Australia seven hours later.
Following the government´s action the IBA suspended its study, which was due to start on Monday.
The IBA is the world´s leading organization of international legal practitioners, bar associations and law societies.
˝Senior generals from North and South Korea have held the first of three days of talks aimed at easing border tensions on the divided peninsula.
North Korea renewed its demand for the long-running dispute over the western sea border to be addressed.
Negotiations have failed in the past because North Korea wants the sea border to be redrawn further south.
The talks come amid improving ties, with the North finally shutting down its Yongbyon nuclear reactor last week.
The closure was part of an international disarmament deal under which North Korea receives energy aid and political incentives in return for ending its nuclear program.
The talks between the generals are the highest-level military dialogue between the two Koreas, who have not signed a peace treaty since the Korean War and remain technically at war.
North Korea renewed its demand for the long-running dispute over the western sea border to be addressed.
Two fighter jets, including the one that crashed, had been undergoing night training at the time
˝The Korean Air Force said yesterday two of the two pilots of a KF-16 fighter jet that crashed in the Yellow Sea Friday night are presumed dead.
The fighter jet, piloted by 38-year-old Major Lee Kyu-jin and First Lieutenant Park In-chul, 27, crashed 90 miles from an air base in Seosan, South Chungcheong, at 9:02 p.m. Friday, 38 minutes after takeoff from the base.
Two fighter jets, including the one that crashed, had been undergoing night training at the time
No shortage of reading material on Capitol Hill today:
The 20th Annual US Capitol Bible Reading Marathon is under way.
Marathon director, the Reverend Michael Hall, says it started Sunday evening, and will continue day and night, rain or shine, until Thursday, the National Day of Prayer:
“ We began in Genesis, and we read all the way through without commentary or comment, to the end.
” He says one to two dozen members of Congress are among those taking turns reading the Bible aloud:
“ Each person comes and reads 10 or 15 minutes.
We do this to celebrate the word of God, and celebrate our First Amendment rights.
Up 170 points at the 8390 level.
No shortage of reading material on Capitol Hill today:
Marathon director, the Reverend Michael Hall, says it started Sunday evening, and will continue day and night, rain or shine, until Thursday, the National Day of Prayer:
“ We began in Genesis, and we read all the way through without commentary or comment, to the end.
” He says one to two dozen members of Congress are among those taking turns reading the Bible aloud:
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met top advisers on Thursday to prepare for his first meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas since the two leaders launched formal peace talks last week.
Olmert and Abbas are expected to meet on December 12 for the first round of talks since they agreed at a U.S.-sponsored conference to try to broker a deal on Palestinian statehood by the end of 2008.
An Israeli official said Olmert met Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defence Minister Ehud Barak to prepare their position before meeting Palestinian negotiators next week.
The Iraqi government has launched an inquiry into unofficial mobile phone footage showing the execution of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
The mobile phone footage showed he exchanged taunts and insults with witnesses at his hanging on Saturday.
The grainy video showed the former leader being told to “go to hell” by someone attending the hanging.
One of the trial prosecutors, who was also at the execution, said ”two top officials” had mobiles with them.
The Iraqi authorities fear the footage, released on the internet hours after the execution, could contribute to a dramatic rise in sectarian tensions between Iraq's Sunni and Shia communities.
He was executed before dawn on Saturday in Baghdad and buried near his hometown of Tikrit a day later.
The grainy video showed the former leader being told to “go to hell” by someone attending the hanging.
More than 200,000 ``comfort women'' suffered gang rape, forced abortions and other humiliations under Japan's colonial and wartime occupation of Asia from the 1930s through the duration of World War II, a statement posted on Honda's Web site said.
The Japanese-American lawmaker said the purpose of this resolution is not to bash or humiliate Japan.
``This legislation, rather, seeks to achieve justice for the few remaining women who survived these atrocities, and to shed light on a grave human rights violation that has remained unknown for so many years,'' he said.
Daniel Kohns, Honda's spokesman, said a hearing will be held in the next couple of weeks.
The Korea Times reports Yongi-Kongju in South Chungchong Province was officially picked as the site for South Korea's new administrative capital on Wednesday, promptly adding fuel to a simmering debate on the capital relocation project across the nation.
The Korea Times reports Yongi-Kongju in South Chungchong Province was officially picked as the site for South Korea's new administrative capital on Wednesday, promptly adding fuel to a simmering debate on the capital relocation project across the nation.
The Yongi-Kongju region, 21.6 million pyong in size and 10 kilometers from the cities of Taejon and Chongju, topped a list of four candidates after a series of public hearings and an evaluation process in which it scored the highest score of 88.96 points, followed by Nonsan-Kongju in a distant second.
However, controversy is likely to continue in the near future.
Supreme Court justice nominee Kim Young-ran support the abolition of ‘hoju’ system.
The Korean Medical Association announced yesterday that its members will strike to prevent the government from extending the college pharmacology curriculum from four years to six.
In a vote in August, 60 percent of the association's members agreed to close their clinics temporarily to protest the proposed action.
But the ministry sent a legislative proposal to the National Assembly a month ago.
The doctors' anguish is apparently based on the fear that more professional training for pharmacists would allow them, legally or not, to get back into the business of prescribing medicine for their customers without a doctor's intervention.
Pharmacists have been barred from providing medication without a doctor's prescription, part of a controversial reshaping of Korea's health-care system.
Korean government seeks to accelerate stem cell therapy.
Robert Kim arrived in his motherland.
China is leading objections to a major report on climate economics being discussed at a Bangkok conference.
A draft copy of the report concludes that the world’s climate can be stabilized at a reasonable cost, as long as nations act now.
But correspondents say the Chinese see the document as a potential threat to their economic growth.
The report is being discussed at a meeting of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Two reports issued earlier this year by the same UN panel warned that the earth was already warming considerably, and that mankind was almost certainly to blame.
They predicted severe consequences including droughts, floods, storms, heat waves and rising seas.
The opponents have contended that the envisioned regulatory body will pose a threat to the independence of broadcasting networks.
The bill empowers the president to appoint all five members of the tentatively named Broadcasting and Communication Committee’s standing body, although two members will be recommended by civic groups and other related non-governmental organizations.
The five members, including its chairman, will be authorized to select the heads of three public broadcasters _ KBS, EBS and MBC.
The bill was passed during this year’s first Cabinet meeting at Chong Wa Dae. The government plans to submit the controversial bill to the National Assembly early next week after winning President Roh Moo-hyun’s approval.
However, the bill is likely to stir much controversy at the Assembly as opposition parties, especially the Grand National Party (GNP), have vowed to thwart it.
Will the Lame-duck Senate Pass s Stimulus Bill?
What was once dangerous Hurricane Paloma is now a tropical storm that's not destined to last much longer.
National Hurricane Center Specialist Richard Pasch says a strong weather system coming off the continental U.S. is racking the storm.
“Very strong westerly winds in the upper levels the atmosphere have literally blown the top of it off, and um, so we expect this to dwindle down to um, to just a weak area of low pressure in a couple of days.”
There are reports of some damage to Cuba by the storm.
Officials evacuated nearly a half million people from Paloma's path before it came to shore last night.
Incoming Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel tells ABC's“ This Week” that the President Elect would like to see Congress come up with a clean economic stimulus bill during its coming lame duck session.
“There's an economic recovery package in front of Congress, Washington should get it done.”
Emanuel says that new administration faces a number of challenges that will need to be solved through a bipartisan effort with all parties in Congress.
National Hurricane Center Specialist Richard Pasch says a strong weather system coming off the continental U.S. is racking the storm.
Quoting the Defense Ministry, the Korea Times reports South Korea will establish an integrated operation command of the Army by 2010, as part of efforts to build a more future-oriented armed forces.
Briefing President Roh Moo-hyun on the ministry’s policy programs last Thursday, Defense Minister Yoon Kwang-ung unveiled a comprehensive reform plan of the military, focusing on downsizing the country’s 680,000 troops by one-fourth by 2020.
Under the plan, the ministry will reduce troops in three stages to around 500,000 by 2020, while boosting its defense capability by aiming for greater agility and state-of-the-art weapons systems.
About 40,000 troops will reportedly be cut by 2008.
Typhoon warning issued as Nabi approaches southern Korea.
Burma´s military dictator, Gen Than Shwe, has agreed in principle to meet the detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, state media has reported.
In return she must drop her support for international sanctions and abandon her confrontational attitude, it said.
It is the first time during his 15-year rule that the general has indicated he may be ready for dialogue with Suu Kyi.
State media also say 2,093 people were arrested during the recent crackdown on anti-government protests.
It said 692 people had already been released after signing a declaration that they would not take part in any future rallies.
However, sources in Burma say as many as 10,000 people - many of them monks who led the demos - have been rounded up for interrogation in recent days.
Security forces are said to be using video recordings of the demonstrations to compile lists of activists for arrest.
The Chinese communist authorities put to death at least 470 people last year, but probably killed many more, human rights group Amnesty International has said.
Amnesty said the hidden extent of executions in China, where figures are secret, might mean the Olympic host was behind the bulk of them worldwide.
But China´s foreign ministry defended the death penalty, saying China limited it to a small number of criminals.
At least 1,252 people are known to have been executed in 24 countries in 2007.
Just five countries - China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the US - were responsible for 88% of known executions in the world, Amnesty said.
About 3,347 people were sentenced to death in 51 nations last year and up to 27,500 people are now estimated to be on death row.
But China´s foreign ministry defended the death penalty, saying China limited it to a small number of criminals.
The government says fewer teen-agers are sniffing inhalants like glue, lighter fluid, and spray paint.
Eric Broderick, at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, says this is a good time for parents to learn more about the dangers of inhalants:
“ March 15th through the 21st is National Inhalant and Poison Awareness Week, and people who would like to get more information about that, they can go to www.inhalants.net.”
Denocio, have you heard the saying that a man who represents himself has a fool for a client?”
That's a scene from the 2006 movie Find Me Guilty.
Silver won a Tony Award, and was co-founder of the Creative Coalition.
He was nominated for an Emmy for his role as a strategist for President Bartlett on The West Wing. Ron Silver was 62 years old.
Eric Broderick, at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, says this is a good time for parents to learn more about the dangers of inhalants:
“ March 15th through the 21st is National Inhalant and Poison Awareness Week, and people who would like to get more information about that, they can go to www.inhalants.net.”
Amid continuing reports of rising anti-American sentiment in Korea among the younger population and some liberal lawmakers, negative sentiment toward Korea is also taking its toll in the United States.
Results of a poll released Tuesday show that 82 percent of Americans support the current Bush administration's plan to cut one-third of Uncle Sam's forces in South Korea by the end of next year.
G8 issued an “action plan” for dismantle NK’s nuclear program.
˝North Korea has shut down all five nuclear facilities at its main Yongbyon complex, International Atomic Energy Agency head Mohamed ElBaradei said.
IAEA monitors in North Korea had verified the four new closures, ElBaradei told journalists in Malaysia.
North Korea shut down its sole working reactor at Yongbyon on Saturday.
After a day of international talks in Beijing, a South Korean official said Pyongyang had agreed to disable all its nuclear facilities by the year´s end.
Chun Yung-woo, Seoul´s envoy to the talks, said North Korean negotiator Kim Kye-gwan also indicated Pyongyang´s willingness to declare all aspects of its nuclear program.
Chief US negotiator, Christopher Hill, was unable to confirm the North´s offer, but he did describe the talks as open and substantive, saying there had been “a lot of agreement around the table about what needs to be done in this phase”.
He cautioned against premature optimism, saying ”there has to be a follow-on phase… and that is the actual abandonment of the fissile material and explosive devices on the DPRK´s (North Korea´s) side”.
The number of people traveling overseas surpassed the two million mark in the first three months of this year, the highest figure ever recorded for the period.
The Justice Ministry said Saturday that among the some 6.7 million inbound and outbound travelers from January to March, 2.12 million Koreans were visiting countries abroad.
The figure is up 8.6 percent from some 1.95 million outbound passengers in the same period last year, when overseas travel diminished in the aftermath of the global outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, SARS.
The number of foreign visitors to South Korea also picked up as well reaching over 1.26 million in the January-March period, but recorded only a 7.7 percent growth rate, lower than the 8.6 percent for outbound passengers .
The figure is up 8.6 percent from some 1.95 million outbound passengers in the same period last year, when overseas travel diminished in the aftermath of the global outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, SARS.
S Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has welcomed a deal reached with North Korea over its nuclear program during six-nation talks in Beijing.
Pyongyang has agreed to take the first steps towards nuclear disarmament, promising to shut down its main nuclear reactor in return for fuel aid.
The US and Japan have also pledged to begin talks with North Korea on building closer ties.
Rice said the agreement was “not the end of the story” but was a good start.
Pyongyang has agreed to take the first steps towards nuclear disarmament, promising to shut down its main nuclear reactor in return for fuel aid.
The US and Japan have also pledged to begin talks with North Korea on building closer ties.
A U.S. university will begin the questionable practice of teaching classes in both Korean and English from later this month to enable Korean students with limited English skills to earn a degree.
Fairleigh Dickinson University, the largest private university in New Jersey, will offer a three-year liberal arts associate degree with classes taught in the two languages, according to the Star-Ledger on Sunday.
Called “mirae- ro,” which means ”to the future” in Korean, the program is an effort by the university to reach out to the growing Korean population in the state, the daily said.
Korean college graduates already suffer a low standard of English, and it's believed by some educators that the practice of US institutions teaching in Korean will lower the general English competency of the college graduates.
The prosecution Thursday said it plans to summon Hyundai Automotive chairman Chung Mong-koo and his son to question them over allegations about slush funds and illegal wealth transfer.
Prosecutors are stepping up their probe into the slush fund scandal after finding an account book of Hyundai’s logistics unit Glovis which is believed to contain transaction records that prove the bribery allegations.
The country’s largest carmaker allegedly bribed politicians and bureaucrats for business favors in past years.
Chung is currently in the United States on what Hyundai executives claim is a regular business trip, although they declined to disclose his schedules and whereabouts. The prosecution Thursday said it plans to summon Hyundai Automotive chairman Chung Mong-koo and his son to question them over allegations about slush funds and illegal wealth transfer.
The country’s largest carmaker allegedly bribed politicians and bureaucrats for business favors in past years.
Seoul's proposal for a peace regime is expected to include a peace treaty, which will replace the armistice signed at the end of the 1950-1953 Korean War.
The two Koreas remain technically at war although they signed a nonaggression treaty in 1992.
Experts say Seoul hopes the two Koreas will take the lead in forming a peace mechanism.
Seoul's proposal for a peace regime is expected to include a peace treaty, which will replace the armistice signed at the end of the 1950-1953 Korean War.
The two Koreas remain technically at war although they signed a nonaggression treaty in 1992.
Defense Minister Hazim al-Shalaan said reports of the arrest of Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, who was sixth on a U.S. list of the 55 most wanted members of Saddam's administration and had a $10 million price on his head, were baseless.
He was directly contradicting reports from his own spokesmen, who said earlier that Ibrahim had been arrested in Tikrit, Saddam's former powerbase north of Baghdad.
The chance of Osama bin Laden’s capture is increasing.
President Lee Myung-bak encouraged American CEOs to invest more in Korea, Wednesday, but chose not to answer when they asked him about his stance on Lone Star Funds.
The Texas-based buyout fund has been barred from selling its controlling stake in the Korea Exchange Bank (KEB) to HSBC, due to ongoing court proceedings on its questionable takeover of KEB in 2003.
A memorandum of understanding on the deal signed by Lone Star and HSBC expires late April.
During his luncheon meeting with the chairmen of global investment banks, a participant expressed discontent, urging the Korean government to resolve the issue in line with Lee´s pledge to attract active foreign investment.
Citing Lee´s remarks that the new administration would ease corporate regulations to make Korea a destination favorable to foreign investors, the CEO said the situation in which the Lone Star issue remains unsettled is a problem.
Seoul prosecutors have questioned researchers who worked with disgraced scientist Hwang Woo-suk.
They want to determine whether Hwang and any of his colleagues should face criminal charges for faking stem cell and cloning research.
Hwang and his team received millions of dollars in state funding and private funding and charges could include fraud and embezzlement.
The group of seven researchers questioned on Monday was reported to include five affiliated with a Seoul hospital that supplied human eggs to Hwang's team, and two members of his research team at Seoul National University.
Is “Putting on a name tag” effective?
The government yesterday announced a plan to hire up to 50,000 more officials in the next five years amid a raging dispute over a push by local administrations to dump deadbeat public servants.
Under the plan, the Roh Moo-hyun government will be increasing its manpower by 12,000 this year, bringing to 60,000 the number of new government positions created during the president’s five-year tenure.
The Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairs yesterday released a new personnel management plan which will take effect beginning this year and carry through to 2011.
The ministry’s plan is based on an estimated annual economic growth of 4.8 percent and a 7 percent increase in annual labor costs.
According to the plan, the central government will add about 10,000 officials each year until 2011.
The ministry’s plan is based on an estimated annual economic growth of 4.8 percent and a 7 percent increase in annual labor costs.
Civic groups yesterday launched a campaign to boycott tours to the Mount Geumgang resort amid growing tensions triggered by North Korea's claimed nuclear test last week.
They called on the government and tour operator Hyundai Asan to immediately halt the program which they accused of financially benefiting the North's rulers and its weapons program.
Hyundai has been operating the business since 1998 as a symbol of inter-Korean reconciliation.
””Making investments in the tour resort in Geumgang is like loading a gun for the criminal,”” a coalition of seven leading conservative civic groups said in a statement.
They called on the government and tour operator Hyundai Asan to immediately halt the program which they accused of financially benefiting the North's rulers and its weapons program.
At least 13 people have been killed in flooding in the Dominican Republic following torrential rains dumped by Tropical Storm Noel.The deaths were reported in the Dominican capital Santo Domingo, and along the south coast.
It is feared the death toll will rise, with several others reported missing.
The storm was expected to pour 25-50cm of rain on the Dominican Republic and neighbouring Haiti, the US National Hurricane Center said.
By early Monday evening the centre of the storm had passed and was heading north-west, past the eastern tip of Cuba towards the Bahamas.
However, on the island of Hispaniola - divided between the Dominican Republic and Haiti - rain continued to fall, forcing river levels higher.
Several bridges were reported to have collapsed, cutting off communities.
It is feared the death toll will rise, with several others reported missing.
And the number is expected to increase steeply as workers have yet to gain access to many houses due to accumulated heavy snow, according to the agency.
Last week's, unprecedented heavy spring snow inflicted severe losses on farming households in the country's central region and trapped tens of thousands on blocked highways.
Daejeon, about 160 kilometers south of Seoul, saw 49 centimeters of snow on Friday, its highest level since records began in 1967. This came a day after Seoul saw 18 centimeters, its heaviest level for March in almost a century.
About 10,000 cars carrying 22,000 passengers were isolated on highways Friday and Saturday as more than 40 sections of the country's main expressways were blocked off for the first time in Korean history.
Nearly 300 billion won worth of property damage was reported as of 10 a.m. on Sunday, according to the National Disaster Prevention and Countermeasures Headquarters.
And the number is expected to increase steeply as workers have yet to gain access to many houses due to accumulated heavy snow, according to the agency.
No fatalities were reported.
Israeli forces raided refugee camps in Gaza Strip.
The Joong-Ang Ilbo reports the South Korean Army announced that 50 Zayituun soldiers who will be sent to Iraq recently decided to withdraw their voluntary applications for deployment.
Army officials explained that the soldiers were afraid they could not get back to school in time because the troop dispatch plan was delayed from April until this month and next, if the schedule is kept.
The soldiers are scheduled to be discharged from military service in February, and most of them had planned to return to college after they completed their service in Iraq by the end of the year.
Another 500 soldiers who are were to be discharged in February decided to extend their military service term for three months in order to go to Iraq.
The soldiers will be dispatched with a six-month service term in Iraq.
The soldiers are scheduled to be discharged from military service in February, and most of them had planned to return to college after they completed their service in Iraq by the end of the year.
The Coast Guard had difficulty in mounting search operations due to high seas.
The 1,300-ton cargo vessel Eastern Bright, carrying 2,000 tons of nitric acid, disappeared near Yeosu after sending out a distress call at 4:19 a.m., according to the Yeosu maritime police.
The coast guard and the Navy rescued a 29-year-old Burmese sailor about five hours later.
He was reportedly unconscious and transferred to hospital.
After a 10 hour search, the coast guard tentatively concluded that the ship had sunk, and widened its search for the rest of the crew ― 12 Koreans and two Burmese.
Bad weather hindered the search carried out by helicopters and 12 patrol ships.
Top envoys to the six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear programs on Sunday announced a three-week recess after 13 days of inconclusive meetings which reached an impasse over Pyongyang's hope to possess peaceful nuclear programs, according to the Korea Times Correspondent in Beijing.
Wu Dawei, the top Chinese delegate, said that the denuclearization talks will resume in Beijing on the week of August 29th. The specific reconvening date will be decided through further consultations, he said at an outdoor news conference in the Diaoyutai state guesthouse.
Members of The Couch planned it before the show.
With the destruction of Dongdaemun Stadium in central Seoul, the sporting goods stores it also houses are about to be closed down, according to the Joong-Ang Ilbo, leaving 40 years of memories behind.
The Seoul city government started demolishing the stadium last week in order to transform the area into a park and a fashion center by 2010.
More than 30 countries around the Pacific Ocean have tested a system to warn them of approaching tsunamis.
The exercise began with a mock alert at the Tsunami Warning Centre in Hawaii.
According to the scenario, a magnitude 9.2 earthquake had struck near the coast of Chile, sending a tsunami racing across the eastern Pacific.
A second mock alert, involving a make-believe earthquake north of the Philippines, has been testing responses in the western Pacific.
The drill is thought to have been broadly successful, although there were some delays with communications systems in Thailand.
The aim of the drill, co-ordinated by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in Hawaii, is also to measure how well the message is relayed through local emergency systems. At the start of the test, a beeping noise sounded throughout the warning centre on Hawaii's Ewa Beach, and within minutes the first alerts were sent out to 30 participating countries.
In a second part of the drill, officials in Thailand, Malaysia, American Samoa and the Philippines staged real tsunami evacuations.
On Wednesday morning, a mock warning of an earthquake north of the Philippines sent nearly 1,000 people in the coastal village of Buhatan scurrying for the hills.
In Malaysia, villages along the coast of Sabah state on Borneo were also evacuated as part of the drill.
In a second part of the drill, officials in Thailand, Malaysia, American Samoa and the Philippines staged real tsunami evacuations.
US President George W Bush has chosen Robert Zoellick, former deputy secretary of state, to be president of the World Bank, US officials say.
Zoellick would replace Paul Wolfowitz, who resigned amid a scandal over his role in winning a new pay and promotion package for his girlfriend.
Wolfowitz will leave the post at the end of June.
Bush will name Zoellick on Wednesday, and expects the Bank’s board to accept him, an aide told Reuters.
Meanwhile, AFP quoted a government source as saying that Zoellick’s ””experience and long career in international trade, finance and diplomacy make him uniquely prepared to take on this challenge””.
””He has the trust and respect of many officials around the world and believes deeply in the World Bank’s mission of tackling poverty.”
” As deputy secretary of state, Zoellick was chief aide to Condoleezza Rice between February 2005 and June last year.
Zoellick would replace Paul Wolfowitz, who resigned amid a scandal over his role in winning a new pay and promotion package for his girlfriend.
Michael takes the record from Isle of Wight teenager Seb Clover, who was 15 when he made the crossing in 2003.
Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott called Michael a “successful sailor in the great British maritime tradition”.
Five Korean workers and a local employee were abducted by gunmen in the Niger Delta of southern Nigeria 0, the Foreign Ministry said yesterday.
The Korea Herald reports the Korean workers, three employees of Daewoo Engineering and Construction Corp.
and one each from Korea Gas Safety Corporation and Korea Gas Technology Corporation, were kidnapped in an oil field in Port Harcourt.
The militia, identified as the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, later indicated it was willing to release the hostages in exchange for the freeing of Asari, the leader of the illegal Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force.
Asari was arrested in September last year and is standing trial for treason.
Bush administration had set its ""red line"" attempts by North Korea to transfer nuclear materials to a third country, and promised to deal with such attempts immediately and severely.
The official did not concretely explain how the U.S. would respond should North Korea cross the ""red line,"" but the paper explained this was a strong warning that military action could not be excluded.
Bush administration had set its ""red line"" attempts by North Korea to transfer nuclear materials to a third country, and promised to deal with such attempts immediately and severely.
This is the first time a Bush administration official has mentioned a ""red line"" in connection with North Korea.
The official did not concretely explain how the U.S. would respond should North Korea cross the ""red line,"" but the paper explained this was a strong warning that military action could not be excluded.
Islamist militants struck back, kidnapping three prime ministers relatives.
A dynamite-wielding armed group kidnapped nine South Korean workers in Nigeria, along with a Nigerian worker at a gas production site in the country.
A Foreign Ministry official said Kim Ho-young, the vice minister, had assembled a team to seek the return of the kidnapped men, employees of Daewoo Engineering and Construction.
They were seized at their living quarters in Bayelsa state, in the unsettled Niger River delta area where oil production has been interrupted by rebel attacks.
This is the second such incident involving Korean workers in the area.
The ministry said the kidnapping followed a gun battle between security guards and the armed group.
No reliable information was available on the identity of the kidnappers or their demands, but Daewoo said that one of the kidnapped men, Hong Jong-taek, called the company from his cell phone and said none of the 10 people kidnapped had been injured.
The Catholic Bishops' Conference of Korea, speaking on behalf of two other church groups, said that they would refuse in any case to allow outside directors on the boards of Catholic schools here, whatever the law required.
Neither did they rule out the possibility of stopping the intake of new students and eventually closing the schools entirely.
The church runs 82 schools in Korea, including primary, middle, and high schools and colleges.
About 90,000 students attend those schools.
The church said it would ask President Roh Moo-hyun to veto the bill and would take the matter to the Constitutional Court if he did not.
The church runs 82 schools in Korea, including primary, middle, and high schools and colleges.
President Elect Obama says he knows turning the economy around will not be easy.
“We have taken some major action to date and we will need further action during this transition and subsequent months;
some of the choices that we make are going to be difficult. One of Obama's top items:
getting another stimulus package through Congress, either in a lame duck session this month or in January, after he takes office.
75 people, many of them children, are said to be dead in the collapse of a school in a town outside Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
The Mayor says that the bodies of at least 17 students have been found, as crews frantically search the rubble of what was once a three-story building that held classes for children from K, grades K through 12.
“It is beginning to move away from the Cayman Islands, although they're still certainly experiencing hurricane conditions there.
It is headed for central and eastern Cuba.”
National Hurricane Center Senior Specialist, James Franklin, says Paloma could bring in a massive 20 ft.
storm surge, high winds, and heavy rain to Cuba.
“We have taken some major action to date and we will need further action during this transition and subsequent months;
getting another stimulus package through Congress, either in a lame duck session this month or in January, after he takes office.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's remarks Sunday produced a storm of rebuke after he said French Jews were under threat by the nation's much larger Muslim community and should leave.
President Jacques Chirac said Monday that the Israeli leader would not be welcome in France until he gave a satisfactory explanation for saying Jews should go to Israel to escape anti-Semitism in France.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's remarks Sunday produced a storm of rebuke after he said French Jews were under threat by the nation's much larger Muslim community and should leave.
Sharon was considering a trip to Paris, but no date had been set.
The UN General Assembly delayed a vote on removal of the security barrier in the West Bank.
The year 2005 was historically meaningful for the Koreans, as it marked the fifth anniversary of the remarkable inter-Korean summit in June 2005 and the 60th anniversary of Korea's liberation from Japanese colonial rule.
When the unification minister Jung Dong-young went to Pyeonyang to celebrate the historic inter-Korean summit in June, he met North Korean leader Kim Jung-il and convinced North to rejoin the international nuclear disarmament and rejoin the international community.
A second outbreak of bird flu has been detected in Seosan, about 140 kilometers north of Iksan where the appearance of fatal H5N1 virus led to a massive culling of poultry and other animals.
Provincial officials said the sick chickens were hatched from eggs distributed in mid-November from a breeding farm in Iksan, North Jeolla Province.
But the authorities have not yet confirmed whether the Seosan chickens were infected with the highly virulent strain.
To prevent the spread of the virus, quarantine officials have so far destroyed about 100,000 chickens and ducks within a 500-meter radius of Iksan, which is about 250 kilometer south of Seoul.
Officials confirmed the H5N1 virus in the Iksan poultry on Saturday.
The ministry said the government plans to cull a total of 236,000 birds, and despite no link whatsoever to the avian virus, other animals such as pigs, and household pets such as dogs and cats in the area will also be slaughtered by Thursday.
Korean animal rights activists ?
if they exist- have been silent.
“Preliminary tests indicate the virus of being a harmless strain,” the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry said in a statement.
Korean animal rights activists ?
The McCain campaign says all the tailored new clothes the Republican party bought for Sarah Palin after she joined the ticket, will go to a charitable purpose after the campaign.
The Republican National Committee spent about a $150,000 on clothing, hair, makeup and other campaign accessories for Palin last month.
The long-time Republican state that's now been declared up for grabs.
He's got a rally in the state capital at mid-day, then heads to northern Virginia this afternoon.
The Republican National Committee spent about a $150,000 on clothing, hair, makeup and other campaign accessories for Palin last month.
The long-time Republican state that's now been declared up for grabs.
World Series Matchup:
In the face of a boycott by the opposition Grand National Party, the speaker of the National Assembly called off a vote on a one-year extension of the deployment of Korean forces in Iraq, describing the issue as too grave to be deliberated by the governing party alone because it involved the lives of the nation's young people.
The mission of the 3,600-man Korean contingent based in Irbil, northern Iraq, is mandated until the end of this year. In the face of a boycott by the opposition Grand National Party, the speaker of the National Assembly called off a vote on a one-year extension of the deployment of Korean forces in Iraq, describing the issue as too grave to be deliberated by the governing party alone because it involved the lives of the nation's young people.
The Assembly's session to vote on the extension of the troops dispatch to Iraq was dismissed after only 13 minutes.
The mission of the 3,600-man Korean contingent based in Irbil, northern Iraq, is mandated until the end of this year.
Grand National Party:
Employment conditions of young adults are deteriorated.
Economists cautioned the incoming administration not to “artificially” bolster growth to meet a campaign pledge made by president-elect Lee Myung-bak.
In a seminar hosted by the Korean Economic Association in Seoul, experts said that unless there is a wholesale restructuring of the country´s fundamentals, it is inadvisable to push for expansion that exceeds national growth potential.
A country´s growth potential is the level of economic expansion that can be achieved without causing downside risks, including inflation.
Lee from the conservative Grand National Party (GNP) won the presidential election in a landslide victory on Dec. 19 by claiming that he is the only candidate capable of reviving the sluggish economy.
He claimed that if he were elected president, South Korea´s gross domestic product growth would surge to 7 percent, and he would create at least 600,000 jobs every year for a total of 3 million during his five-year term in office.
The former CEO of Hyundai Engineering and Construction Co. also boasted he will raise per capita income to US$40,000 from $20,000 at present, and make the country the seventh-largest economy in the world, a giant leap up from the 13th place that it held last year.
In a seminar hosted by the Korean Economic Association in Seoul, experts said that unless there is a wholesale restructuring of the country´s fundamentals, it is inadvisable to push for expansion that exceeds national growth potential.
Some advice for a new mother in Southern California with her hands more than full.
It comes from the mother of the only other set of octuplets delivered alive in the US.
Nkem Chuku tells NBC's Today Show the new mom is going to need help at home.
“I said, Congratulations, Oh my goodness and I told my kids, we need to start praying for them.
Because I learned that when I had my kids, people started praying for me immediately, for the survival of the octuplets.”
Seven of her babies born in Texas survived;
She already has Chuku's good wishes:
“I said, Congratulations, Oh my goodness and I told my kids, we need to start praying for them.
Hundreds of thousands of people have joined May Day rallies across Asia, with protests sparking high alerts in the Philippines and Indonesia.
In the Philippine capital Manila police stopped thousands from reaching the presidential palace amid fears rallies would become anti-government protests.
In Indonesia, tens of thousands rallied against a planned labor law they say will undermine workers' rights.
Strong protest rallies were also held in Japan, Taiwan and Cambodia.
The Joong-Ang Ilbo reports in an attempt to further dictate the admission standards of universities, the Education Ministry announced yesterday a guideline for essay tests which several major universities had planned to administer independently.
Under the new guideline, universities will be banned from using foreign languages in any essay questions.
In response, critics say the Korean government may become the first in the world to decide the admission standards of private institutions.
Home prices are expected to fall around 11%.
Koreans mourned Kim Sun-il through the weekend as the body of the hostage victim was finally returned to his motherland from Iraq, four days after he was slain by militants linked to al-Qaida.
Kim's bereaved family wept as his coffin, draped in the Taegeukgi, the national flag, arrived at a hospital in his hometown Busan Saturday night, one year after the 33 year-old translator went to Iraq to perfect his Arabic and earn money to continue his studies.
Militants beheaded Kim Tuesday after Korea refused their demands to withdraw its 660 military medics and engineers from Iraq and cancel a plan to send an additional 3,000 troops.
His body and head were recovered from a dusty road near Baghdad Tuesday night.
Kim was killed almost three weeks after he was kidnapped May 31 although his capture was not made public until early last Monday morning, when a videotape aired on an Arab TV station showed him pleading for his life and his captors setting Seoul a 24-hour deadline to meet their demands.
Public anger grows over the government about Kim’s kidnapping.
Kim Sun-il, “I really want to go home…”
He added a more in-depth probe is required to say whether politicians fell victim to illegal bugging under Kim’s rule between 1998 and 2003.
National Intelligence Service (NIS) director Kim Seung-kyu admitted Thursday that some illegal eavesdropping had been committed during the Kim Dae-jung administration, but emphasized it does not seem to be as rampant as in previous governments.
In a National Assembly session, the former justice minister, who assumed the post on June 16, said, ``It seems impossible to clearly find out who ordered the illegal eavesdropping and to whom.
He added a more in-depth probe is required to say whether politicians fell victim to illegal bugging under Kim’s rule between 1998 and 2003.
China expects the talks will be resumed soon.
President George W. Bush formally endorsed Republican John McCain for president on Wednesday, calling him a man of character who is ""not going to change"" when it comes to taking on Islamic extremists.
Reuters reports Bush gave McCain the red-carpet treatment at the White House, a day after McCain sealed the Republican presidential nomination with victories in four states.
The two men had a bitter battle for the nomination in 2000 and have disagreed famously on several fronts over the years since then.
The endorsement will likely help McCain rally disenchanted conservatives behind his candidacy, and with Bush helping him raise much-needed campaign cash, it will give him a significant boost headed into the campaign for the November election.
But the endorsement also gave Democrats ammunition to use against McCain, since Bush is unpopular among many Americans because of the Iraq war and the ailing U.S. economy.
Experts doubt the two men will appear together often.
China threatens retaliation over tainted import claims.
Communist China is considering possible retaliation against the series of South Korean government reports that has raised fears over the safety of Chinese food imports.
The Foreign Ministry said the Chinese government warned the Korean Embassy in China that it would take on a trade offensive.
The reaction comes as the Korean government failed to meet the Chinese government's request to hold off public announcement until the giant neighbor completed its own inspections.
The Korea Herald reports foreign carmakers are increasingly looking at Korea as a growth market.
The Korea Herald reports foreign carmakers are increasingly looking at Korea as a growth market.
Aggressive model introductions will translate to 48 new cars on the road here this year and the makers are drawing up diverse marketing strategies to attract local buyers.
Development of the IP tracking system turned out to be true.
President Roh Moo-hyun and Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe agreed yesterday to hold a summit ”at an appropriate time ” to discuss ways of improving bilateral relations, the presidential office announced.
The agreement was made when Roh received a telephone call from the new Japanese premier in the morning.
The two leaders exchanged views on bi-national ties and North Korea’s nuclear problem, Chong Wa Dae spokesman Yoon Tai-young said.
We're learning more about the toddler in Texas who's become the first swine flu fatality in the US.
He's a Mexico City boy who first came to visit Brownsville, Texas and got very sick there the middle of this month.
the patient became quite ill rather rapidly, and was transferred the next day to a hospital here in Houston.”
The doctor says this doesn't change his plans for protecting Houstonians.
She's got the state's first probable swine flu case on her hands, and says the Feds have shipped out the meds and supplies to help Minnesota deal with a possible pandemic:
“ We have been stockpiling those medications and they are ready as needed.
We're also expecting additional stockpiles of drugs from the CDC that are on their way here.”
We're learning more about the toddler in Texas who's become the first swine flu fatality in the US.
“… was admitted to the hospital in Brownsville;
She's got the state's first probable swine flu case on her hands, and says the Feds have shipped out the meds and supplies to help Minnesota deal with a possible pandemic:
The New York Philharmonic orchestra has arrived in communist North Korea, for what has been described as a remarkable display of cultural diplomacy.
The orchestra is due to play in Pyongyang today, and the concert will be broadcast live on local TV.
It is the largest US presence in the reclusive state since the Korean war more than half a century ago.
The US State Department authorized the trip, despite deadlock on the issue of North Korea´s nuclear program.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she welcomed the concert but cautioned against expectations that it would lead to dramatic change.
""I don´t think we should get carried away with what listening to Dvorak is going to do in North Korea,"" said Ms Rice, herself a classical pianist.
The US State Department authorized the trip, despite deadlock on the issue of North Korea´s nuclear program.
More than a week after hurricane Ike hit, cars, vans, trucks lined up early today to make their way across the bridge leading to Galveston.
“They want people to be self-sufficient, they also want people to look and leave.
While officials have said they're not going to drag anyone out of their home today at six 'o clock, they really hope people still pack up, go back to their hotel, go back to shelter.”
A lot of people apparently still haven't made up their minds about the presidential election.
A new poll indicates about 18% of the people are still what are being called,“ persuadable.”
It's time again to think about getting your flu shot.
The government thinks a record number of people will line up for that vaccine this year.
“They want people to be self-sufficient, they also want people to look and leave.
A lot of people apparently still haven't made up their minds about the presidential election.
A new poll indicates about 18% of the people are still what are being called,“ persuadable.”
It's time again to think about getting your flu shot.
Thousands of activists staged protests in Seoul and Pyeongtaek over the weekend against a planned expansion of a U.S. military base.
The Korea Herald reports police apprehended 36 protesters yesterday after activists and riot police clashed in Pyeongtaek, 70 kilometers south of Seoul.
It followed a candlelight vigil by some 6,000 protesters in Seoul on Saturday.
No major injuries were reported during the two days, which were less violent than protests during the previous week which left 210 people hurt and 524 in brief custody.
The protesters demanded cancellation of the U.S. base's expansion and the release of 16 formally arrested activists.
The bullet train reduces travel time from Seoul to Pusan from four hours and 10 minutes to two hours and 40 minutes.
The Korea National Railroad on Tuesday held a ceremony marking the opening of the new high-speed bullet train service.
More than 1,800 people and top government officials including Prime Minister Goh Kun and the Minister of Construction and transportation Kang Dong-suk gathered in front of Seoul Station to celebrate the opening of the Korea Train Express or KTX.
KTX trains will make 128 trips along two routes, the Kyongbu and the Honam lines.
The Kyongbu will run from Seoul to Pusan, and the Honam will travel from Seoul to Mokpo.
They are projected to transport more than 100,000 passengers daily.
The bullet train reduces travel time from Seoul to Pusan from four hours and 10 minutes to two hours and 40 minutes.
Song Du-yul was sentenced to 7 years in prison.
˝South Korea and the United States began their annual computer based joint war games yesterday as scheduled, but on a low key note so as not to provoke North Korea, the Defense Ministry said.
But few field operations will be demonstrated.
The UFL is a computerized command post exercise of the two militaries to simulate the allies´ joint war scenario, Operation Plan 5027.
This year, Pyongyang has condemned the UFL as allied preparations to invade the North.˝
21 to establish the Asian regional headquarters for the asset management division of its subsidiary, Prudential International Investments.
U.S.-based Prudential Financial is to be the first foreign financial organization to establish its Asian regional headquarters for asset management in Korea.
N.K. refuses food aid because of political reason.
Members of the US Episcopal Church have rejected a demand from the worldwide Anglican Church that they stop appointing gay bishops.
Correspondents say the decision by the Church's House of Deputies could lead to a permanent split within the world Anglican Communion.
The US Church attracted the ire of conservative Anglicans by appointing gay bishop Gene Robinson in 2003.
The issue may still be revived before the end of the conference on Wednesday.
The House of Bishops may try to return to the question of a ban but the House of Deputies - which voted against the move by nearly a two-thirds majority - would have to go back on its decision for it to pass.
In Tuesday's vote the House of Deputies - comprising clergy and lay members - rejected a resolution to ""refrain from"" nominating gay bishops or developing rites for the blessing of same-sex unions.
Wendy Cutler, U.S. chief negotiator and assistant trade representative, yesterday said North Korea’s nuclear test has made it more difficult for Washington to include goods from Kaesong Industrial Complex in the bilateral trade talks with South Korea.
The Korea Times reports Cutler’s briefing came on the first day of the fourth round of free trade agreement (FTA) talks on Cheju Island.
Following Pyongyang’s nuclear test, Washington expressed its opposition to the continuation of the Mt. Kumgang tours in order to cut off cash flow to the impoverished state, while being less blunt about the Kaesong complex that provides half a million dollars to North Korean workers each month.
The two projects are flagships of the two Koreas’ business cooperation.
Following Pyongyang’s nuclear test, Washington expressed its opposition to the continuation of the Mt.
President Roh Moo-hyun said on Wednesday that South Korea will begin formal negotiations to conclude a free trade agreement (FTA) with the United States as soon as differing views currently hindering the talks are fine-tuned.
A senior U.S. official in charge of refugee issues has clarified Washington's policy toward North Korean defectors in China, saying the Bush administration is ready to accept all bona fide refugees but believes ""the most appropriate solution"" would be for them to go to South Korea.
A senior U.S. official in charge of refugee issues has clarified Washington's policy toward North Korean defectors in China, saying the Bush administration is ready to accept all bona fide refugees but believes ""the most appropriate solution"" would be for them to go to South Korea.
The organisations named Nasir al-Tijani as the militia leader and demanded action from Sudan's government.
The UN and African Union have condemned with ""disbelief"" a village rampage by militiamen in Sudan's Darfur region.
They said 350 militiamen torched all but two buildings in Khor Abeche, 75km from Nyala on Thursday.
The organisations named Nasir al-Tijani as the militia leader and demanded action from Sudan's government.
The election campaign in Britain begins.
New Hampshire voters stood in lines and swarmed polling places to choose candidates for U.S. president on Tuesday, with Hillary Clinton fighting to keep her once high-flying Democratic campaign alive against rival Barack Obama´s surge.
Five days after finishing a disappointing third in Iowa, the former first lady trailed Obama by double digits in several state polls but promised she was staying in the race until the February 5 “Super Tuesday” round of nominating contests.
Obama, an Illinois senator aiming to be the first black president, looked for a New Hampshire win that would solidify his hold on the top spot in the campaign to be the Democratic candidate in November and deal a second consecutive humiliating loss to Clinton, the former front-runner.
John McCain of Arizona held a narrow lead in state polls over Mitt Romney, the former governor of neighboring Massachusetts who has poured tens of millions of dollars of his personal wealth into the race.
The European Union's aid chief said the violence in Sudan's Darfur region had worsened since the government and rebels signed new security agreements two weeks ago.
The European Union's aid chief said the violence in Sudan's Darfur region had worsened since the government and rebels signed new security agreements two weeks ago.
On the eve of a scheduled visit to Sudan, EU Development and Humanitarian Aid Commissioner Louis Michel on Thursday echoed U.S. and U.N. criticism of rebels for an upsurge of violence in Tawilla town in North Darfur state.
Rebels abandoned Tawilla on Wednesday after two days of heavy fighting that followed several weeks of skirmishing between Arab militias and African rebels.
The CEO says there's a Ford in Ford's future, but one auto analyst is not so sure.
The company's stock is up 15% on news that it lost $1.4 billion in the first quarter, but burned through cash at a slower rate.
Ford is the automaker that said it didn't need a government bailout, and CEO Alan Mulally says better days lie ahead:
“ We are going to increase production now, in the second quarter, in North America, by 25% to support the strength of our products in the marketplace.”
The Ford boss on the Paul W. Smith Show on WJR-Radio in Detroit.
Auto analyst Jim Henry tells the AP the company's future looks murky to him:
“ If demand doesn't pick up again, I would have to say 'No,' it's certainly not going to survive in the size that it is now.”
All this on the day the New York Times reports the Treasury Department is putting together its Chapter 11 deal for Chrysler that would let the automaker stay in business and reorganize under bankruptcy protection.
The government reports new home sales dropped slightly last month, but still topped expectations.
“ We are going to increase production now, in the second quarter, in North America, by 25% to support the strength of our products in the marketplace.”
Bombings in 2 Iraqi cities have claimed at least 33 lives.
Authorities say at least 28 people were killed in consecutive bombings in Baghdad, while at least 5 people were killed by a female suicide bomber in downtown Baqouba-that's 35 miles northeast of Baghdad.
After taking a break from the elections, more congressional hearings this week on the nation's financial crisis:
“Hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money is being used to prop up the financial industry.
Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd says his panel is set to look into whether the money's being used to benefit taxpayers.”
“Reducing foreclosures, spurring the lending and reining in excessive excessive, excessive executive compensation that infuriates all of us.”
“A House panel will also look into whether bailout money is being used properly, as well as what role hedge funds may have played in the credit melt down.
Jerry Bolander, Capitol Hill.”
After taking a break from the elections, more congressional hearings this week on the nation's financial crisis:
“Hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money is being used to prop up the financial industry.
“Reducing foreclosures, spurring the lending and reining in excessive excessive, excessive executive compensation that infuriates all of us.”
The President is headed for Ohio and an appearance designed to show off the impact of the stimulus package.
Let's go live to AP White House correspondent Mark Smith:
“ Jon, the White House calls this a bit of good news in an otherwise tough day on employment:
25 police recruits, laid off by the city of Columbus, whose jobs have now been saved using cash from the President's plan.
He's attending cadet graduation there this morning, to say again the stimulus will help right the economy.
But it's worth noting the city is still so cash-poor, future recruit training is on hold.
Late word from Ohio that the Cleveland man suspected of killing his wife, sister-in-law, and 3 young children was a newlywed.
The victims were found last night on the top floor of a 2-family home on the city's west side:
“ We know this started as a domestic dispute;
information that we got is from one of the survivors ? actually at the shooting, one of the people to live up to escape the house.”
Cleveland police lieutenant Thomas Stacco says officers are searching for 33-year-old Devon Crawford;
a fifth child was wounded in the attack.
Late word from Ohio that the Cleveland man suspected of killing his wife, sister-in-law, and 3 young children was a newlywed.
The victims were found last night on the top floor of a 2-family home on the city's west side:
“ We know this started as a domestic dispute;
It was just a little trick with Nick.
(singing) Nick Mitchell, the sketch comedian who played a singer on American Idol.
He's gone from the Fox show, but he says he's always looking for employment.
He lost out to (singing) Adam Lambert, the theater actor who rocked the Stones' Satisfaction.
Adam says when the announcement was made, he wasn't really sure whether Nick or he was going on to the finals:
“ I thought Nick was hilarious, so I didn't know what was going to happen.
I was up there, laughing my butt off, so…
Chris Allen and Allison Iraheta, who's only 16.
Kobe Bryant scored 22 points and had 8 rebounds, to lead the Lakers to a 132-106 rout of Phoenix.
The Suns played without star point guard Steve Nash, who sat out with an ankle injury.
It was just a little trick with Nick.
(singing) Nick Mitchell, the sketch comedian who played a singer on American Idol.
He's gone from the Fox show, but he says he's always looking for employment.
He lost out to (singing) Adam Lambert, the theater actor who rocked the Stones' Satisfaction.
“ I thought Nick was hilarious, so I didn't know what was going to happen.
I was up there, laughing my butt off, so…
As Christopher Hill, top U.S. envoy to the six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear arms program, indicated Saturday that Washington was considering options other than negotiations, a senior official in Pyongyang blamed Washington for the ""collapse"" of the talks and said the North would continue to build its nuclear arsenal.
As Christopher Hill, top U.S. envoy to the six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear arms program, indicated Saturday that Washington was considering options other than negotiations, a senior official in Pyongyang blamed Washington for the ""collapse"" of the talks and said the North would continue to build its nuclear arsenal.
Hill arrived Saturday in Seoul, his first stop on a trip to key countries in the stalled talks.
Japan's derailed commuter train accident has killed at least 69 people.
In an apparent suicide, police lieutenant Kang Hee-do, an aide to Korea’s No.2 police official was found dead near his house in Wonju, Kwangwon Province, Saturday morning.
The death comes after allegedly increasing suspicions that his boss had been involved in a corruption scandal involving a now-jailed lobbyist.
Prosecutors are concerned whether this latest incident will influence their investigation over the case by scratching their already touchy relationship with police.
They have been considering summoning National Police Agency (NPA) vice commissioner-general Choi Kwang-sik, currently the acting head of the police agency, for questioning over his connections with imprisoned lobbyist Yoon Sang-rim.
Kang had refused a summons the previous day by prosecutors who were planning to ask if he had a role in relaying Choi’s money to Yoon, currently in prison on influence-peddling charges.
Yoon was a well-known lobbyist in judicial circles.
President Elect Barack Obama tells NBC's“ Meet the Press” the economy is going to get worse before it gets better.
Obama says he wants to protect the nation's auto industry while also looking for ways to address the broader problems with the economy:
“My number one priority coming in is making sure that we've got an economic recovery plan that is equal to the task.”
The auto bailout plan is being readied by congressional staffers this weekend.
The proposal will provide about $15 billion in emergency loans for the three carmakers.
The United Auto Workers Union President Ron Gettlefinger tells ABC's“ This Week” if the measure doesn't pass, then the car companies are in big trouble:
“I fear a collapse of General Motors, and possibly Chrysler.
And it could have a very negative impact on Ford.
University of Maryland economist Peter Morici says the country is in for a rough patch for the next year or so:
But not really till 2010.”
Morici expects unemployment, which reached 6.7% last month, to hit at least 8%. President Elect Barack Obama tells NBC's“ Meet the Press” the economy is going to get worse before it gets better.
“I fear a collapse of General Motors, and possibly Chrysler.
But not really till 2010.”
Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has dismissed calls for him to step down, after thousands of demonstrators held another anti-government rally.
""I will not resign, because [it] will not resolve anything,"" Thaksin said.
At least 50,000 protesters marched to Bangkok's Government House on Sunday, chanting ""Thaksin out!
But the main opposition Democrat Party and two other parties have said they will boycott the poll.
Analysts say that the absence of a serious alternative to Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai party seriously threatens the election's legitimacy.
On Sunday afternoon, anti-Thaksin demonstrators gathered in Sanam Luang, near Bangkok's Royal Palace, the venue where Thaksin drew some 150,000 supporters on Friday for his own rally.
This is the latest in a series of rallies accusing Thaksin of abuse of power.
New Zealand is bidding a final farewell to Sir Edmund Hillary, the first climber to stand atop Mount Everest, at his state funeral in Auckland.
Dignitaries from around the world are attending the service in St Mary´s Church, which is being televised via satellite links around the world.
New Zealand PM Helen Clark and Norbu Tenzing Norgay, the son of his climbing partner, lead the tributes.
Sir Edmund, who was 88, died of a heart attack in Auckland on 11 January.
The prime minister accompanied the mountaineer´s widow, Lady June Hillary, into Tuesday´s church service.
Dignitaries from around the world are attending the service in St Mary´s Church, which is being televised via satellite links around the world.
California has long taken the lead in the fight for clean air;
now President Barack Obama is about to unveil the first-ever national vehicle emissions limits.
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will be there to watch him do it.
Obama's rule changes would save 1.8 billion barrels of oil through 2016, but they also could cost consumers an extra $1300 per vehicle.
There's something in here for environmentalists, says Kateri Callahan of the Alliance to Save Energy:
“ We're going to have an average fuel economy standard for our cars and light trucks in this country by 2016;
it'll be an average of 35 miles per gallon.
AP correspondent Ken Thomas:
“ For the industry to know what the requirements will be through 2016 is very helpful, as they develop their model lines.”
California has long taken the lead in the fight for clean air;
now President Barack Obama is about to unveil the first-ever national vehicle emissions limits.
On the upside of the economy, Americans suddenly started spending more in January, after a record six straight months of reduced consumer spending, but the Commerce Department reports most of that was on perishables, like food, that don't do much to keep factories busy.
Folks up and down the east coast are keeping busy this morning, blowing away that snow from the storm, dealing with a system that is dumping more than a foot of snow on some places.
Hundreds of flights have been cancelled, hundreds more schools have been closed, and more than 100,000 customers are without power right now in North Carolina alone.
US Democrats rolled out a ``Bush truth squad'' Tuesday to state the facts as they see them and challenge the president's assertions at every turn of the campaign.
Nearly 20 members of Congress, a retired general supporting John Kerry and other partisans joined in a pledge to ``tell the whole truth'' when President Bush doesn't.
Each party routinely dogs the other's candidate with ``opposition research'' quietly fed to the news media that offers practically point-by-point rebuttal to the claims of the day.
In forming its squad, the Democratic National Committee was putting prominent faces behind the effort.
The Democrats said they will challenge Bush wherever he goes, whether they appear in the same city or say something from a far. A contingent plans to set up shop in New York for the GOP convention at the end of this month, just as Republicans got in their digs from Boston during last week's Democratic convention.
Dick Gephardt of Missouri, the former presidential candidate and a member of the squad.
Korea and the Philippines have signed an employment agreement for Filipinos to work in Korea under a foreign work permit system that goes into effect in August.
The Korea Herald reports the signing Friday, allows Filipinos to be eligible for worker protection and rights, including union membership, minimum-wage guarantees and industrial accident insurance.
Seven other nations, including China, Vietnam and Thailand, are expected to sign similar agreements.
Korean officials plan to admit 25,000 foreign workers under the work permit system this year for manufacturing, farming and construction jobs, on top of 38,000 foreigners coming under an industrial trainee scheme.
The employment agreement reflects sharp realities in the labor market.
However, Bush is expected to condition his plans - and also further troop cuts - on continued progress in Iraq.
˝US President George W Bush will announce this week he plans to reduce US troops in Iraq by about 30,000 by next summer, White House officials say.
They say the cuts, with conditions attached, will be announced by the president in a major TV address.
The move would bring the number of US troops in Iraq to “pre-surge” levels.
The US top military commander in Iraq and the US envoy in Baghdad have told Congress that the surge, launched in February, is working.
President Bush will make the speech on Thursday night at 9 local time.
The White House says it will contain an endorsement of the troop reduction proposed by Gen David Petraeus, who has been testifying in Congress on Monday and Tuesday.
However, Bush is expected to condition his plans - and also further troop cuts - on continued progress in Iraq.
The BBC´s Justin Webb, in Washington, says the president´s move is an attempt to seize the initiative and to give the impression - whether true or not - that he is driving events.˝
When does North Korea test its nuclear bombs?
As the United Nations nuclear watchdog estimated North Korea may have up to six nuclear bombs, key questions being asked here are whether the North plans an imminent test and will it be exploded underground or launched a top a missile.
Analysts say that since Pyongyang announced Feb. 10 it has nuclear weapons, the presumption is that its next step will be to conduct a test, sooner or later.
But the analysts are divided whether the reclusive state will actually venture to carry out a test, aware of various risks this will entail - for example, referral to the U.N. Security Council for sanctions or even a preemptive strike by the United States on the North's nuclear facilities.
Security Council for sanctions or even a preemptive strike by the United States on the North's nuclear facilities.
˝The US Senate has voted in favor of a bill to tighten rules on lobbying and ethics for lawmakers, following its approval in the lower house.
Under the bill, which must be signed by President Bush, lawmakers must disclose donations from lobbyists.
Democrats hailed the new legislation as one of the biggest advances in US congressional ethics in decades.
Lobbying scandals, involving mainly Republicans, played a decisive role in the Democrats´ mid-term election win.
During the run-up to last November´s poll the Democrats repeatedly attacked what they called a “culture of corruption” on Capitol Hill under the Republican party.˝
Under the bill, which must be signed by President Bush, lawmakers must disclose donations from lobbyists.
City officials working for Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg have said such a rally, which could draw 250,000 people, could damage lawns in the park.
Jesse Jackson, liberal filmmaker Michael Moore and actor Danny Glover were expected to join the march. An American anti-war group suggested Thursday that protesters could still gather in Central Park on the eve of the Republican National Convention, despite a judge's ruling that it may not stage a rally there.
The group, United for Peace and Justice, said it would hold a march past Madison Square Garden and ending at Union Square
City officials working for Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg have said such a rally, which could draw 250,000 people, could damage lawns in the park.
Rule for protecting human rights of criminal offenses submitted.
Katie Couric tells David Letterman she's gotten both a call and a note of apology from Alex Rodriguez since he changed his story about using steroids.
But at the CBS Late Show, the network anchor said she believed the Yankee star at the time he told her on 60 Minutes that he had never used performance-enhancing drugs:
But clearly, I think he's somebody who's very consumed with the image he has out there in the country, the impression he's made so far on fans here in New York.
you know, asked me for career advice, and I'm thinking,, Hello?
“ Well, that should've told you he was on the juice.”
The Cavaliers have a one-game lead over the Celtics in the Eastern Conference of the NBA, Cleveland erasing an 11-point deficit to win over Miami 107-100.
But at the CBS Late Show, the network anchor said she believed the Yankee star at the time he told her on 60 Minutes that he had never used performance-enhancing drugs:
The candidates are putting in a frantic pace as they campaign in these final days before the presidential election.
Democrat Barack Obama is in Henderson, Nevada, one of three states for him today.
“Tim, they were up at dawn to start filling the football field here at Coronado High School in this Las Vegas suburb, and now that the sun's up over the mountains, you can see that thousands already gathered under big white letters reading 'Nevada for Change' with thousands more streaming in.
In this first of three red state rallies in Nevada, Colorado and Missouri, Obama's arguing it's time for a clean break from what he calls 'failed policies of a Republican White House,' and John McCain is not the man to bring that change.
Clear across the country, John McCain is stumping hard in Virginia, once a safe state for the GOP, now a toss-up.
In a rally, Newport News he called on supporters to get out the vote:
“Let me state the obvious again:
we need to win Virginia on the Fourth of November …”
“… and with your help, we're gonna win!”
It's onto northern Virginia, then Pennsylvania, before McCain appears late tonight on“ Saturday Night Live.”
Joining us live today is the AP's Mark Smith:
In a rally, Newport News he called on supporters to get out the vote:
The government will implement plans to drive out activists and farmers refusing to vacate lands needed for a new U.S. military installation in Pyongtaek, Kyonggi Province, as early as Thursday, the Defense Ministry said Wednesday.
The government will send unarmed military engineer units and policemen to the area near Camp Humphreys, to seize control of the Taechuri Primary School that protesters have turned into a makeshift headquarters, a ministry spokesman said.
Soldiers are also setting up barbed wire fencing in certain parts of the area.
The Sri Lankan government delegation says the Tigers refused to meet them.
The Tigers say they never planned to.
Norway's foreign minister said the Tigers have now called for EU monitors to leave Sri Lanka, responding to an EU decision to call the Tigers terrorists.
The rebels say two civilians died in a claymore mine explosion in the north-west in an attack they blamed on the Sri Lankan army.
Passengers in subway stations beware.
Passengers in subway stations beware.
Too much carbon dioxide at the subway station may lead to a headache and the thunderous chugging noise may cause hearing damage.
Emergency masks displayed on the trains may be no more than decorations with little use.
China, “YS’s visit to Taiwan is improper.”
The Boss and the Piano man are teaming up for the one some call“ The One.”
“Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel are planning a joint concert to benefit Obama's campaign.
It'll be their first ever concert together.
The show is set for October 16th in New York, the night after the final presidential debate.”
The Phillies and Brewers open the baseball playoffs with a mid-afternoon start in Philadelphia.
It's game one of their National League division series.
Milwaukee pitcher Yovani Gallardo's coming back from two knee injuries to start.
“To have the opportunity to go out there and start game one, I mean, it-it's an honor.”
The Dodgers visit the Cubs in the National League.
The Red Sox are at the Angels' in the AL later today.
Latest from the Street:
the Dow off a 177 points.
“Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel are planning a joint concert to benefit Obama's campaign.
The Dodgers visit the Cubs in the National League.
Kumgang as Pyongyang has approved new real estate regulations for the resort area, according to the Korea Times.
The Seoul government on Monday welcomed North Korea's approval of insurance policies for firms operating at an industrial complex in Kaesong and new real estate regulations for the Mt.
A long-term economic forecast issued yesterday by a state-run think tank paints a gloomy outlook for South Korea.
The Korea Development Institute, in its September monthly report, said that the core problem of the Korean economy is that it has no powerful industry to propel it to prosperity in the years ahead.
The institute's forecast is the second such pessimistic outlook in two months.
Last month, the Samsung Economic Research Institute said that Korea's potential economic growth will fall to the 4-percent level. Meanwhile, government officials repeatedly stress that the economy will achieve 5-percent growth.
Even so, Finance Minister Lee Hun-jai said yesterday, ""We need to seriously think about our future economic growth engines.
A long-term economic forecast issued yesterday by a state-run think tank paints a gloomy outlook for South Korea.
The institute's forecast is the second such pessimistic outlook in two months.
Meanwhile, government officials repeatedly stress that the economy will achieve 5-percent growth.
˝Despite interference from the Financial Supervisory Service, HSBC said yesterday it has agreed to acquire a 51.02 percent stake of Korea Exchange Bank from the U.S. buyout firm Lone Star for about $6.3 billion.
The HSBC announcement spurred the over zealous Financial Supervisory Service, the country’s financial watchdog, to hold an immediate press conference yesterday denouncing the agreement.
“We will withhold any approval of a deal because it could affect a pending court case,” said Hong Young-man, a spokesman for the watchdog.”
The decision is seen as a reflection of anti-foreign investment sentiment here, according to local and foreign media.
The Supreme Court is now examining whether the Korean government and Korea Exchange Bank officials had any part in manipulating the lender’s value when Lone Star bought KEB in 2003.˝
The World Peace Forum, a South Korea-based private research organization, yesterday announced its world peace index for this year.
South Korea's rank dropped three places compared to that of last year.
According to the forum, South Korea was ranked 46th on the peace index list of 76 surveyed countries.
That fall was a consequence of stationing troops in Iraq, tension with Tokyo over the Dokdo islets and Japan's past military aggression, and labor-management conflicts.
Denmark topped the peace index while Sweden came second and Switzerland third.
The United States was ranked 51st.
The majority Grand National Party suffered a stinging defeat in yesterday’s by-elections, just eight months before a December presidential poll.
Party leaders offered to resign en masse last night after they won only one of three contested parliamentary seats.
The polls bolstered two minority parties - the People First Party and the Democratic Party, which each won a constituency in their political bastions.
Adding to their impressive list of electoral debacles since 2004, the Uri Party failed to win any of the three seats.
But it took some solace from the victory of the small parties, which it seeks to ally with before the December presidential election.
The by-elections also determined six chiefs of local administrations and 47 local councilors nationwide.
The vote counts were not completed until late last night.
In Daejeon, Sim Dae-pyung - a co-chairman of the People First Party - beat former lawmaker Lee Jae-sun of the GNP by a large margin to secure a parliamentary seat.
The DP’s Kim Hong-up, a son of former President Kim Daejung, beat an independent in Muan-Shinan, South Jeolla Province.
Go Hee-seon of the GNP won in Hwaseong, south of Seoul.
Hit by a series of recent corruption scandals, the GNP also lost five of six races for local chiefs, including Yangcheon in Seoul and Bonghwa in North Gyeongsang Province.
Voter turnout stood close to a meager 27.7 percent, the third lowest in 14 by-elections since 2000.
But it took some solace from the victory of the small parties, which it seeks to ally with before the December presidential election.
Hit by a series of recent corruption scandals, the GNP also lost five of six races for local chiefs, including Yangcheon in Seoul and Bonghwa in North Gyeongsang Province.
The ruling and opposition parties agreed to Wednesday relocate 12 ministries and six other government agencies to the Yongi-Kongju area in South Chungchong Province, where a new administrative town will be built.
But Chong Wa Dae, the National Assembly, the Supreme Court and six other ministries will remain in Seoul.
They include the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Ministry of Unification, the Ministry of National Defense and the Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairs.
Three offices will also remain in the capital. They are the National Police Agency, the Board of Audit and Inspection and the Financial Supervisory Service.
Board of Audit and Inspection:
However, it would take some time to bring out all the miners as only 300 could be lifted out every hour through the adjacent ventilation shaft, she added.
More than 3,000 workers are trapped deep underground in a South African gold mine, officials have said.
A pipe broke, severing power cables to the lift and trapping workers at the bottom of a 2.2km shaft.
Rescuers are planning to use an adjacent shaft to lift them out, a spokeswoman for the mine´s owner, Harmony Gold Mining, said.
The accident happened at about 0800 GMT, some 80km west of Johannesburg.
The spokeswoman, Amelia Soares, told the BBC that no-one was injured and that the miners have access to water.
She said the bottom of the shaft, where they are trapped, is well ventilated.
Rescuers are in contact with the miners and planned to begin lifting them out very soon, she said.
However, it would take some time to bring out all the miners as only 300 could be lifted out every hour through the adjacent ventilation shaft, she added.
Rescuers first need to reconfigure the lift in the ventilation shaft to carry the miners.
The party allied to Thailand´s ousted PM Thaksin Shinawatra has won the general election, initial results from the Election Commission show.
Samak Sundaravej´s People Power Party (PPP) won 228 seats in the 480-seat house, short of the 241 needed for an absolute majority.
The election is the first since the illegal military coup that overthrew Thaksin in 2006.
The result is a massive rebuke of the military, which has tried to curb Thaksin´s influence.
The Election Commission said about 93% of votes had been counted and the situation would not change greatly.
“This is a victory for all Thai people who unreasonably lost their freedom on 19 September.”
That was the date in 2006 when the military removed Thaksin and his legally elected Thai Rak Thai party from power.
Thaksin, who is now banned from Thai politics, has since lived in self-imposed exile abroad, mainly in Britain.
It is not yet known if the military will recognize the election which clearly turned out to be not in their favor.
The Election Commission said about 93% of votes had been counted and the situation would not change greatly.
The PPP leader said:
That was the date in 2006 when the military removed Thaksin and his legally elected Thai Rak Thai party from power.
Yet another world financial player is pulling out of Korea…
Analysts said that Icahn might have sold all of his shares already.
U.S. billionaire Carl Icahn sold most of his shares in KT&G taking about 145 billion won in estimated returns, ending a one-year battle with the tobacco maker's management over how the company should be run.
The three funds led by Icahn sold a 4.75 percent stake, or 7 million shares, in KT&G for 425 billion won, or 60,700 won apiece, according to Citiglobal Market Securities, the lead manager of the share sale.
It was a discount of 3.8 percent to the previous day's closing of 63,100 won.
Unspecified foreign institutional investors bought the majority of KT&G shares from the Icahn-led funds, it said.
The share sale cut Carl Icahn's stake in KT&G to less than 1 percent from 4.87 percent, or 7.76 million shares.
Analysts said that Icahn might have sold all of his shares already.
Indicating that ties between Seoul and Tokyo may be cooling over the Tokto islands territorial dispute, Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon said that South Korea would rebuff any attempts by Japan to lay claim to the jagged set of rocks in the East Sea (Sea of Japan).
He made plain the South Korean government is closely monitoring whether a Japanese local government would establish a ""Takeshima Day on Wednesday next week"".
In response, he said the South Korean government would begin to state its own position more clearly.
The minister's remarks follow several incidents that had helped to stir nationalistic sentiment in the dispute.
President Bill Clinton is recovering from his second surgery after heart-bypass operation.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned world leaders on Tuesday that international law was being ""shamelessly disregarded"" and cited the U.S. abuse of prisoners in Iraq as an example of such violations.
Speaking at the high-level session of the U.N.
General Assembly, Annan said ""no one was above the law"" whether in Sudan, Iraq, Uganda, Russia or the Middle East.
In Iraq, he said civilians were massacred in cold blood, while relief workers, journalists and others were ""taken hostage and put to death in the most barbarous fashion.
Fans are still asking themselves, how could a healthy-looking guy like Michael Crichton, a doctor, as well as a writer, get cancer and die?
AP entertainment editor Michael Weinfeld remembers the million-selling author of Jurassic Park, who passed in Los Angeles at 66.
“Michael Crichton was outlived by the long-running TV series he created.
He based the series on his time as a med student at Harvard.
His knack for blending science with entertainment culminated in his most famous dinosaur novel that went on to be a movie blockbuster…”
“Crichton wrote 'The Lost World' and 'Disclosure,' which were also made into movies.
Spokesman for the publisher of Bill Clinton's memoir says, considering his poll ratings, later would be better.
Crichton created 'ER' in 1994.
It's in its 15th and final season.
His knack for blending science with entertainment culminated in his most famous dinosaur novel that went on to be a movie blockbuster…”
A man dressed in black, wearing combat boots and holding an assault rifle and at least one handgun, opened fire in the parking lot of the vast New Life church in Colorado Springs after Sunday services, killing one person on the spot and wounding others.
A second person died later, police said.
A female security guard, who was part of a beefed up security detail in response to the earlier shooting at the missionary center, shot and killed the gunman.
The security guard, a volunteer, saved many lives, New Life senior pastor Brady Boyd told a televised news conference on Monday.
Police did not identify the gunman, who Brady said was not a member of the church.
There were about 7,000 people in the building when the shooting erupted.
North Korea reportedly promised Wednesday that it could ""verifiably"" liquidate all of its nuclear weapons programs should Washington remove its ""nuclear threat"" on the Korean Peninsula and normalize its diplomatic relations with Pyongyang.
Pyongyang did not say whether it would accept inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan, Pyongyang’s chief delegate to the six-party talks, apparently made this remark at a plenary session, in which six top delegates from each of the six nations delivered keynote speeches.
During the session, North Korea reportedly asked for an implementation of the ""words for words"" principle and proposed that participating countries reach an agreement on how to turn the Korean Peninsula into a ""nuclear-free zone.
A Korean-American businessman who leaked illegal eavesdropping tape arrested.
The BBC is reporting authorities are investigating the death of a man amid reports he may have been killed by an exploding mobile phone battery.
He was found at his workplace with a melted battery in his shirt pocket and punctured lungs and heart.
Phone maker LG said the cell would have been rigorously tested and was only sold in Korea but it could not comment further because of the police probe.
The 33-year-old South Korean was found in a quarry where he worked in Cheongwon County in North Chungcheong Province police said.
A co-worker said the victim was bleeding from the nose and his shirt had soot in the shape of a phone.
Kim Hun, a doctor at Chungbuk National University Hospital, told the Kookmin Ilbo:
A police investigation is under way.
Utility cruiser working around the clock to restore power to more than 400,000 homes and businesses, in six states, three days after the ice storm.
Peter Judge of the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency says Mother Nature isn't helping with repairs.
“Unfortunately, the weather is kind of turning bad a little bit on us today.
We're getting very strong winds and also getting rain, so that could be problematic relative to even uh, adding more issues to us.”
A lot of public schools are closed in Massachusetts today.
Sunday night football, Tony Romo threw touchdown passes to Patrick Crayton and Deon Anderson.
The Cowboys sacked Eli Manning eight times at a 20-8 win over the Giants.
Steelers' first win in Baltimore since 2002 deliver their second straight AFC North Division title.
Peter Judge of the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency says Mother Nature isn't helping with repairs.
The most wanted Chechen rebel warlord, Shamil Basayev, has died in an explosion in the neighbouring republic of Ingushetia.
Russia's FSB security service chief, Nikolai Patrushev, said Basayev was killed in a ""special operation"".
But a pro-rebel website said Basayev and three other militants died when a truck carrying explosives blew up accidentally.
President Vladimir Putin said his death was ""deserved retribution"" for rebel attacks, including the deaths of more than 300 during a school siege.
The September 2004 attack on a school in Beslan, in the North Caucasus, led to at least 331 deaths.
But a pro-rebel website said Basayev and three other militants died when a truck carrying explosives blew up accidentally.
Canada's Prime Minister, Paul Martin, faces a no-confidence motion in parliament which his minority Liberal government is widely tipped to lose.
Canada's Prime Minister, Paul Martin, faces a no-confidence motion in parliament which his minority Liberal government is widely tipped to lose.
It is expected that parliament would then be dissolved and an election called in January.
Three opposition parties are bringing the motion after Martin rejected an ultimatum demanding a poll in February.
They claim his party no longer has the moral authority to lead in the wake of a corruption scandal.
The first United Nations climate conference has opened.
President Barack Obama says the war in Afghanistan isn't his war;
it's a war that was launched against the American people:
“ It's the same war that we initiated after 9/11 as a consequence of those attacks on 3,000 Americans who were just going about their daily round.”
In an interview on CBS' Face the Nation, Obama talked about the changes that are taking place in the way the war is being fought in Afghanistan, and in helping Pakistan to defeat the extremists who are a threat to that country's stability.
Obama also says he has no plans to speed up the withdrawal of troops from Iraq.
At least 4 people were killed and a number of others wounded in that fighting.
The President is readying for the G-20 Summit this week in London.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner tells ABC's This Week that the US and other major economies will have to work together to solve the financial crisis, and any solution will not be a quick fix:
“ It took us a long time to get into this mess;
A number of European nations and Congressional Republicans have been critical of the administration's stimulus plans, which are running in the trillions of dollars.
that's about a quarter of them.
A Chrysler spokeswoman says the company will reach out and notify specific dealers before it has any more to say in public.
The dealers probably will have the right to appeal to get off the list, Jon.
Chrysler wants to say goodbye to nearly 800 dealers.
We've got the latest on the car company's restructuring plan now, live from the AP's Rita Foley:
Jon, Chrysler tells a Federal bankruptcy judge in New York it plans to get rid of 789 of its dealers ?
that's about a quarter of them.
The automaker says its current 3,200 dealers is just too many;
it wants to hold onto the stronger, more profitable operations with better facilities.
A Chrysler spokeswoman says the company will reach out and notify specific dealers before it has any more to say in public.
The dealers probably will have the right to appeal to get off the list, Jon.
Laid-off auto workers flooded the unemployment lines last week, boosting the number of new jobless claims nationwide to 637,000.
Meanwhile, the number of long-timers continuing to receive unemployment benefits hit a record high for the 15th week in a row.
The central bank yesterday kept its key interest rate at a record low after a government survey showed consumer confidence is the lowest in almost four years.
The Bank of Korea left its benchmark interest rate untouched, as rising inflation persuaded the central bank against any rate cut despite a shaky growth outlook that economists say justifies further monetary easing.
North Korea has accused Seoul of “accelerating a nuclear-arms race.”
New York's Mayor and prosecutors want to know why hospital workers didn't tell police when they treated New York Giants wide receiver Plaxico Burress after he shot himself in the leg.
Bryant Thomas has more:
“New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg wants the DA to go after the hospital management for the failure to report the gunshot wound.
For his part, DA Robert Morgenthau says he wants to get to the bottom of why this was not reported.
A hospital worker has been suspended for not reporting Buress's injury.”
“New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg wants the DA to go after the hospital management for the failure to report the gunshot wound.
Such stars as Will Smith, Annie Lennox and Queen have taken part in Nelson Mandela's second AIDS benefit concert in South Africa.
Such stars as Will Smith, Annie Lennox and Queen have taken part in Nelson Mandela's second AIDS benefit concert in South Africa.
Musicians Katie Melua, Paul Rodgers and India Arie joined South African artists at Saturday's event, hosted by actor and rapper Smith.
32,was raised during the concert by people donating money via text messages.
It followed 2003's concert, watched by an estimated two billion people.
Secretary and the Chinese president had a meeting over recent issues including North Korean nuclear program.
Hurricane Kyle is expected to blow past the coast of Maine overnight, prompting the state's first hurricane watch in 17 years.
National Hurricane Center's latest report puts the storm center about 165 miles SSE of Nantucket, top winds of nearly 80 mph.
Hurricane force winds are some 200 miles from the center of the storm.
The Hurricane Center says New England and Canada's maritime provinces could see up to 6 inches of rain.
The U.S. is giving Israel advanced early warning radar.
The sophisticated radar arrived in Israel in American military transport planes.
Israel radio says, the U.S. also sends specialists to operate it.
The radar expands Israel's warning time of an Iranian missile strike.
They can pick up a missile more than a thousand miles away with the help of satellites.
That would give more time to aim Arrow anti-missiles at it.”
“It's a concrete sign that the U.S. takes the Iranian threat against Israel seriously.
˝North Korea has agreed to shut down its Yongbyon nuclear reactor within three weeks, US nuclear envoy Christopher Hill said after talks in Pyongyang.
Hill said a fresh round of six-party disarmament talks will be held in July.
In its first public response to talks last week, North Korea said it would act as soon as it received funds frozen in a row over money laundering.
Russia, involved in the complex bank transfer, said Saturday it had taken delivery of the $24m (£12.1m) funds.
The money is now expected to be claimed by North Korea, removing a key obstacle to the stalled deal agreed in February in Beijing.
The money was frozen for nearly two years in a Macau bank after the US claimed it was gained through drug smuggling and counterfeiting, making other banks unwilling to touch it.
North Korea said the talks with Hill had been “comprehensive and productive”, the official Korean Central News Agency reported.
The agency said the two sides agreed to resume six-party talks involving North Korea, South Korea, the US, Russia, Japan and China, in July.˝
The agency said the two sides agreed to resume six-party talks involving North Korea, South Korea, the US, Russia, Japan and China, in July.˝
General Motors President Fritz Henderson says they are taking steps needed to stay in business, including cutting the size of the company:
“We have to work with the environment we're dealt, if you will, and as part of that, therefore, we need to size our company much differently to address this kind of difficult economic environment.”
Henderson tells CBS Early Show that even with all the changes, GM will still need billions of dollars just to stay in business.
And on Wall Street in early trading, the Dow is down 172 points.
The BBC reports North Korea has confirmed that it has test-fired a series of missiles and said it would continue launching them.
It also warned of ""stronger physical actions"" if the international community tried to put pressure on Pyongyang.
The North launched seven missiles, one of which was a failed test of a long-range Taepodong-2, believed to be capable of hitting Alaska.
The UN Security Council resumed debate on Thursday on a draft resolution in response to the launches. The document, co-sponsored by the US, UK and Japan, calls for sanctions against North Korea, but differences in approach are already emerging among key powers.
Asiana Airlines management and its striking pilots' union resumed contract negotiations yesterday, three days after the pilots began a general strike demanding better working conditions.
Asiana Airlines management and its striking pilots' union resumed contract negotiations yesterday, three days after the pilots began a general strike demanding better working conditions.
The resumption of talks follows the pilot union's announcement on Tuesday that it would drop demands that do not relate to flight safety.
A international conference on North Korea’s human rights hold in Washington.
Fears for delay of Iraqi new constitution.
Israel has launched night air strikes on bridges and roads in southern Lebanon, as the search goes on for two soldiers seized by Hezbollah militants.
Israel's military said the raids were to stop Hezbollah moving the soldiers.
The strikes came as an urgent session of the Israeli cabinet endorsed a strong response against the militants.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the capture was an ""act of war"", but Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah insisted the two would only be returned via talks.
He said if Israel wanted to escalate the crisis his forces were ready for confrontation.
Tony Blair has announced he will stand down as British prime minister on June 27th.
He made the announcement in a speech to party activists in his Sedgefield constituency, after earlier briefing the Cabinet on his plans.
He acknowledged his government had not always lived up to high expectations but said he had been “very blessed” to lead ”the greatest nation on earth”.
He will stay on in Downing Street until the Labor Party elects a new leader - widely expected to be Gordon Brown.
Brown said people would remember ”how he led the country after 7 July, how he responded for the world after 11 September in America and how he responded to the tragic death of Princess Diana”.
He said Blair’s legacy would also be better public services and a strong economy adding ”Britain’s reputation in the world is stronger than ever before.
At all times he tried to do the right thing”.
US President George W Bush said he would ”miss” Mr Blair.
”I think I spoke for millions when I said at Cabinet today that Tony Blair’s achievements are unique, unprecedented and enduring.
Public hearings held by the panel investigating the September 11th attacks concluded yesterday.
Nine-eleven Commission Chairman Thomas Kean said the US government was ill-prepared for the attacks and that confusion during the incidents resulted in military jets being sent in the wrong direction.
Commission Executive Director Philip Zelikow cited a ""hurried attempt to create an improvised defense by officials who had never encountered or trained for the situation they faced.
"" Earlier in the day, Joint Chiefs Chairman General Richard Myers told the panel the military fought ""many phantoms that day.
The 2nd Infantry, the main flag of the 37,000 U.S.
South Korea and the United States have agreed to deploy an infantry brigade of about 4,000 infantrymen stationed here to Iraq, officials said on Monday.
Deputy National Security Advisor Steve Hadley called up Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Ban Ki-moon to convey the U.S. troop redeployment plan, according to Kim Sook, head of the ministry's North American Bureau.
``Minister Ban expressed understanding of the inevitability of the U.S. plan,'' he said. Kim said the U.S. wanted a brigade from the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division to be sent to the Middle East with the number not to exceed 4,000.
The 2nd Infantry, the main flag of the 37,000 U.S.
Questions are increasingly raised over how the U.S. troops will get out of Iraq.
Plans are on track to release about 600 more prisoners from the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad.
US Army General Mark Kimmitt says there is no link between the scheduled releases and the prisoner abuse scandal.
Meanwhile, former Vice President Al Gore is calling for top Bush administration officials to resign because of bad policies in Iraq.
Muslin cleric Abu Hamza is arrested in London.
Matt Lauer is nursing a bum shoulder.
AP entertainment editor Michael Weinfeld tells us a cycling accident kept the co-host off this morning's Today Show:
“ Where in the world was Matt Lauer today?
” But Meredith Vieira says the deer is fine:
“ He slammed on his brake and went over his handlebars, from what I understand, but he thinks the deer was hired by the competition.”
” They caught him red-handed:
baboons seeking snacks have been breaking into tourists' cars in South Africa, and authorities are threatening to fine visitors who give them food.
They say that just encourages their aggressive pursuit of bananas and sandwiches.
Again, the Dow is up nearly 300 points.
He had a run-in with a deer.
he apparently dislocated his shoulder.
“ Lester Holtz filled in for Lauer as co-host of Today.
” They caught him red-handed:
Again, the Dow is up nearly 300 points.
The Korea Herald reports the army is pushing to change its 24-year-old uniforms to be more comfortable and better suited to the demands of modern combat operations.
The Army presented tentative designs of a new set of battle dress fatigues, clothes for indoor duties and class-A uniforms, which will be ""less heavy and neater in fashion.
"" There have been constant requests to alter the Army's dress code, which follows the designs of the Japanese and U.S. armies.
The plan to outfit the troops with a new dress code has been four years in the making and is currently in the hands of the Defense Ministry.
Australia has rejected criticism from delegates at a Pacific Island Summit in Fiji that it is acting like original bully.
The accusation comes amid a bitter dispute between Australia and both the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea (PNG), over a controversial sex case.
Australia has rejected criticism from delegates at a Pacific Island Summit in Fiji that it is acting like original bully.
A new study says our kids are less likely to graduate from high school than we were.
And it finds most states aren't doing much to hold schools accountable.
The AP's Brian Thomas reports the nationwide dropout rate is stuck at 1 out of 4 students.
“Some states are even worse than that.
New Mexico's high school dropout rate is 33%, North Carolina is 28%.
So the federal government wants better tracking of dropouts, and more effort to graduate more Blacks and Hispanics, whose dropout rate is 1 in 3.”
How about a little rock lobster for lunch?
I'll take mine broiled with butter.
A new study says our kids are less likely to graduate from high school than we were.
And it finds most states aren't doing much to hold schools accountable.
New Mexico's high school dropout rate is 33%, North Carolina is 28%.
How about a little rock lobster for lunch?
A government-funded North Korea research institute voiced some rare criticism yesterday of the administration's stance on human rights in the North.
The Korea Institute of National Unification, an organ under the prime minister's office, also urged that Seoul join international efforts to press the reclusive nation to end its abuses of its citizens.
The institute released a paper on the European Union's stance on human rights issues in the North and Pyongyang's reaction to the outside pressure.
The EU recently won approval from the United Nations General Assembly of a resolution decrying North Korean abuses, a vote on which Seoul abstained.
The auto slum has hit Janesville, Wisconsin.
General Motors says it's closing its Sport Utility Vehicle factory in December.
“Unfortunately, the market segment of full-sized SUV's is shrinking and continues to shrink.”
New York Times columnist and Princeton scholar Paul Krugman is the Nobel-has won the Nobel, rather-for economics.
In accepting the award, Krugman sounded a note of concern.
“I had never thought, in my lifetime, to see anything that would bear even a faint resemblance to the beginning of the Great Depression, but this crisis does bear some resemblance to that.”
Krugman won the Nobel for his analysis of how economies of scale can affect trade patterns and the location of economic activity.
“Unfortunately, the market segment of full-sized SUV's is shrinking and continues to shrink.”
New York Times columnist and Princeton scholar Paul Krugman is the Nobel-has won the Nobel, rather-for economics.
“I had never thought, in my lifetime, to see anything that would bear even a faint resemblance to the beginning of the Great Depression, but this crisis does bear some resemblance to that.”
Krugman won the Nobel for his analysis of how economies of scale can affect trade patterns and the location of economic activity.
How did the Financial Crisis Affect the Race?
They did it discreetly.
There were no photographers chasing the Obama girls as they headed out for their first day of school in the Washington area this morning.
But the transition team has released off-to-school pictures of Malia and Sasha in jackets with backpacks as Dad says goodbye at the hotel suite door.
Let's get more live now from the AP's Sagar Meghani:
“Jon, while Dad saw 'em out the door, it was Mom who got them to school.
Michelle Obama taking 10 year-old Sasha to the Sidwell Friends' Middle School in Washington, while 7 year-old Malia begins at the elementary branch up the road in Maryland.
While they're in class, Dad will be in meetings;
first with his economic team, and then with Congressional leaders on an economic stimulus package he'd like to sign right after taking office.”
But it doesn't look like the President Elect is going to get that package as quickly as he wants it, Sagar.
“Jon, those leaders are expected to tell him today a bill likely won't be ready until a month later, probably mid-February.
But the transition team has released off-to-school pictures of Malia and Sasha in jackets with backpacks as Dad says goodbye at the hotel suite door.
“Jon, while Dad saw 'em out the door, it was Mom who got them to school.
first with his economic team, and then with Congressional leaders on an economic stimulus package he'd like to sign right after taking office.”
˝US President Bush has met with Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and national security adviser Steven Hadley in Iraq.
He also called on American troops and met with high Iraqi leaders.
The presidential visit was unannounced for security reasons.
However, the White House confirmed that Bush landed at the al-Asad Air Force base, located just west of Baghdad in the Anbar province.
Bush made the stop in Iraq while en route to Australia, where he´s scheduled to attend the APEC summit.˝
Republicans have a problem with President Barack Obama's $3.6 trillion tax and spending plan ?
And he's expected to feel some budget chill on the Hill when he goes to the Capitol to talk to them today.
House Republican Whip Eric Cantor says there's way too much spending in there, digging America too deeply in debt:
“ Amassing huge trillions of dollars' worth of debt on the backs of our children is not the way forward.”
Cantor on NBC's Today Show.
More now on Obama's argument for the budget, from AP White House correspondent Mark Smith:
“ The President defends the $3.6 trillion blueprint as inseparable from a sustainable recovery.
Republicans call the debt involved irresponsible, which Obama says is a bit much, coming from the folks who left him trillion-dollar deficits.
Yet Democrats, too, have qualms and have already started cutting.”
“ We never expected, when we printed out our budget, that they would simply xerox it and vote on it.”
“ Still, in his prime time news conference, Obama said without big-ticket overhauls of health care, energy, and education, any recovery could stall.
Mark Smith, at the White House.”
“ Amassing huge trillions of dollars' worth of debt on the backs of our children is not the way forward.”
It is the first time Seoul officials have acknowledged that a North Korean spy posing as an asylum-seeker has reached the South.
The agent, who recently turned himself in to the South Korean authorities, had been ordered to gather information on Seoul's handling of defectors.
According to the sources, the man, who was not identified, returned to North Korea to deliver information to authorities in Pyongyang.
Korea’s exports climbed straight in November.
Nine South Korean workers who were kidnapped by Nigerian gunmen were released and are expected to arrive in Seoul. “We are all healthy.
Nobody is ill,” said Hong Jong-taek, who is 42, one of the South Korean workers, in a phone interview.
After being abducted, Hong said, the workers were confined to a certain area but were never seriously threatened.
The exact identity of the kidnappers and whether any ransom was paid for the release of the workers are still not publicly known.
A third party employed by Daewoo conducted negotiations, and South Korean diplomats said they weren't directly involved in the talks.
Nobody is ill,” said Hong Jong-taek, who is 42, one of the South Korean workers, in a phone interview.
A third party employed by Daewoo conducted negotiations, and South Korean diplomats said they weren't directly involved in the talks.
Australian PM John Howard has written to the Indonesian president to protest against the release of radical Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Ba'asyir.
Ba'asyir, who was convicted over the 2002 Bali bombings, was released from a Jakarta prison on Wednesday after serving 26 months.
Security experts say the cleric is a founding member of regional Islamic militant group Jemaah Islamiah.
Australia has called on the Indonesian government to monitor Ba'asyir closely.
""I write to convey my very deep personal concerns and the distress of the Australian people at the release of Mr.
Abu Bakar Ba'asyir,"" Howard wrote in a letter to his Indonesian counterpart, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
""His release and the inflammatory statements that he has made in support of extremism since he has been released have been deeply offensive,"" he told parliament.
Security experts say the cleric is a founding member of regional Islamic militant group Jemaah Islamiah.
The Korea Herald reports Supreme Court justice nominee Kim Young-ran yesterday called on the National Assembly to abolish within its term the controversial 'hoju' system, in which women are not allowed to officially head a family.
The Korea Herald reports Supreme Court justice nominee Kim Young-ran yesterday called on the National Assembly to abolish within its term the controversial 'hoju' system, in which women are not allowed to officially head a family.
Appearing at her nomination hearing in the Assembly, Kim unveiled her progressive views by also supporting increasing calls to revise the National Security Law and reiterating her opposition to capital punishment.
S.Korea embassy in Iraq urged Koreans to leave the nation immediately.
A top financial regulator on Monday criticized the European Union for its move limiting the number of foreigners on boards of local commercial banks to the World Trade Organization.
Lee Jang-yung, assistant governor for international affairs and macro supervision of the Financial Supervisory Service, said that the EU’s move to file complaints against laws that have not been passed are unreasonable.
``The EU moving to file a complaint is nonsense, since nothing has been legislated as yet.
``You could call it Korea bashing.’
Prosecutor’s office and police would focus on human rights.
Stayin' Alive' may help a cardiac arrest patient do just that.
“A study at the University of Illinois shows 'Stayin' Alive' has about 103 beats per minute.
That's almost a perfect rhythm to help jump start a stopped heart.”
“Doctors and students doing CPR maintain close to the ideal number of chest compressions while listening to the song.
The American Heart Association says it has been using 'Stayin' Alive' as a training tip for CPR instructors for almost two years.
“ Baby Beluga in the deep blue sea…”
That's Raffi, of course, now the federal government has declared the Beluga whale, an Alaska's Cook Inlet endangered, saying it will require additional protection to survive.
That's almost a perfect rhythm to help jump start a stopped heart.”
“Doctors and students doing CPR maintain close to the ideal number of chest compressions while listening to the song.
“ Baby Beluga in the deep blue sea…”
“I think he's a transformational figure.
He's a new generation coming into the world stage, onto the American stage, and for that reason I will be voting for Senator Barack Obama.”
Former Bush Secretary of State Colin Powell tells NBC's 'Meet the Press' he and Republican John McCain have been friends for 25 years, but he doesn't like what he sees as the negative tone of McCain's campaign.
Obama's campaign says it's collected a record $150 million in donations in September.
AP's Jim Cunin reports that much of that money comes from unidentified donors.
But the identities of these donors don't have to be divulged to federal regulators.”
Republican John McCain who agreed to federal financing is restricted to spending just $84 million on his entire campaign.
The owner of an American cargo ship being held by pirates off the coast of Somalia says a US Navy warship has arrived on the scene.
Officials say the Maersk Alabama is the first ship with an American crew to be held by pirates in those waters, and the crew has been trying to negotiate the release of their captain.
Authorities in Southern California say they are still trying to figure out the motive in a shooting at a Korean religious retreat that left one person dead and four others injured, including the alleged gunman.
Authorities say they haven't interviewed the suspected gunman yet because he's in the hospital unconscious.
A small town police chief in central Texas has been fired from his job and thrown into jail after allegedly tasering his wife during an argument.
Bond has been set at 100,000 dollars for Ollie Ivy who was charged with aggravated assault.
Voters in Manitowoc, Wisconsin have picked a man to run their city who looks young enough to run for student council.
He's 22-year-old Justin Nickels.
He's the youngest mayor in the city's history.
Brian Thomas, The Associated Press with AP NewsMinute.
A limited trade deal has been reached in Hong Kong after developing countries approved a European Union offer to end farm export subsidies by 2013.
India and Brazil welcomed the deal - ratified after six days of talks - which will end subsidies by 2013, while the EU said it was ""acceptable"".
A limited trade deal has been reached in Hong Kong after developing countries approved a European Union offer to end farm export subsidies by 2013.
Spring Break is alive and well in Miami Beach, but it is on a budget this year:
“ The lure of surf and sand is still powerful enough to draw crowds to Miami Beach, but many spring breakers say this year they're counting pennies:
”“ Tight budget, like I'm saying, we're picking off the dollar menu…”
“ We stayed in a hostel 'cause it's cheaper than a hotel……we drove, 'cause it's cheaper than flying.”
“ We're all gonna illegally cram in one car, sorry.”
Turn down the lights for Earth Hour tomorrow night.
It's to fight global warming:
“ Even McDonalds will soften the yellow glow from some of its golden arches, as part of the time zone-by-time zone plan to dim non-essential lights Saturday for one hour, between 8:30 pm and 9:30 pm.
The idea is to highlight global climate change and the need to fix it.”
That's Bryant Thomas.
”“ Tight budget, like I'm saying, we're picking off the dollar menu…”
“ We're all gonna illegally cram in one car, sorry.”
Louis in the latest installment of our presidential election series,“ The Contenders.”
“Tonight's vice presidential debate between Republican Sarah Palin and Democrat Joe Biden isn't as important as you might think, says election expert Alan Likman.”
“People vote for the top of the ticket.
The number two choice has almost never made any difference at all.”
“Rita Foley, Washington.”
Gwen Ifill of PBS is dismissing conservative questions about her impartiality as tonight's moderator.
She's writing a book about black politics that includes material on Barack Obama but she says she hasn't even written that chapter yet.
John McCain says he is confident Ifill will do a totally objective job.
More now, on tonight's showdown in St.
“People vote for the top of the ticket.
He did not speculate on who it might be, but in separate interviews, Pakistani government and intelligence officials said they believed it was possible that Ayman al-Zawahiri, the chief strategist for Osama bin Laden, was the one surrounded.
President Pervez Musharraf said Thursday that Pakistan believes its forces have surrounded a high-value Al Qaeda target in a remote tribal region near the border with Afghanistan.
Musharraf said in an interview with CNN that he had spoken to his military commander in the region, who reported fierce resistance that led him to believe the fighters were protecting someone important.
He did not speculate on who it might be, but in separate interviews, Pakistani government and intelligence officials said they believed it was possible that Ayman al-Zawahiri, the chief strategist for Osama bin Laden, was the one surrounded.
A Pakistani independent television station also reported that it could potentially be Dr.
Rallies against the impeachment of President Roh is the largest of its kind since 1987.
' position which is that Washington believes there is evidence the country is trying to develop nuclear weapons.
The leaders of the Group of Eight nations are sharing their concerns on nuclear weapons.
The group singled out North Korea and Iran in a statement of concern.
Leaders issued an ""action plan"" affirming their commitment to the six party talks that have been trying to persuade North Korea to dismantle its nuclear program.
82% of Americans support pullout of US troops stationed in Korea.
In a monthly seminar hosted by the Institute for Global Economics (IGE), Vershbow said that Korea will have to pay the bill for its aging society and reduce the gap between the haves and have-nots, and that the FTA could help in paying for the enormous cost of solving the two problems.
A day after he was bombarded with criticism from U.S. soldiers based in Kuwait, Rumsfeld promised more would be done to protect forces.
President Bush said on Thursday U.S. troop concerns about inadequate equipment for Iraq combat are being addressed and he did not blame soldiers for raising the issue with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
A day after he was bombarded with criticism from U.S. soldiers based in Kuwait, Rumsfeld promised more would be done to protect forces.
Boys were arrested on suspicion of gang raping middle school girls from Miryang.
The consumer confidence index plunged to its lowest in four years.
And The Korea Herald reports the Seoul High Court yesterday overturned a lower court's verdict that a former ruling party lawmaker and an official with the nation's top spy agency diverted a huge amount of the agency's budget to finance the ruling party's 1996 general election campaign, saying the money came instead from then-President Kim Young-sam.
Kerry has chosen Edwards as his running mate.
Kia Motors Corp., an affiliate of Hyundai Motor Group, announced yesterday that it would build its first U.S. automobile manufacturing plant in West Point, Georgia.
Chung Mong-koo, chairman of Hyundai Motor Group, and Sonny Perdue, the governor of Georgia, signed the agreement at Hyundai-Kia's headquarters in Seoul yesterday.
Kia had also been looking at sites in the U.S. states of Mississippi and Tennessee all are in the southeastern United States, where labor unions are weak.
Kia Motors will invest $1.2 billion to build its 2.9 square-kilometer (735-acre) plant, which is scheduled to open its assembly lines in 2009.
British science fiction writer Sir Arthur C Clarke has died in Sri Lanka at the age of 90.
Born in Somerset, he came to fame in 1968 when a short story The Sentinel was made into the film 2001:
Once called ""the first dweller in the electronic cottage"", his vision of future space travel and computing captured the popular imagination.
A close aide said he died after a cardio-respiratory attack.
The death in Iraq of an archbishop who was kidnapped two weeks ago has provoked furious condemnation.
The body of Paulos Faraj Rahho, the Chaldean Catholic Archbishop of Mosul, was found in a shallow grave in the city after a tip from his captors.
Pope Benedict XVI said he was deeply moved and saddened, calling the death an act of inhuman violence.
Iraqi PM Nouri Maliki said it was a horrible crime aimed at stirring strife between Iraq´s religious communities.
Shia and Sunni Muslim leaders have expressed their condemnation, while US President George W Bush branded it a ""despicable act of violence"".
Archbishop Rahho was kidnapped after leading prayers at the Church of the Holy Spirit in Mosul on 29 February.
Iraqi police say the condition of the archbishop´s body, which bore no bullet wounds, suggests he may have died at least a week ago.
According to the SIR Catholic news agency, the kidnappers told Iraqi church officials on Wednesday that Archbishop Rahho was very ill and, later on the same day, that he was dead.
It is not clear whether he was killed, or died of natural causes.
Nobody has claimed responsibility for his death.
Shia and Sunni Muslim leaders have expressed their condemnation, while US President George W Bush branded it a ""despicable act of violence"".
EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson and South Korean trade minister Kim Hyun-Chong both called for rapid progress in free trade negotiations.
Kim said it was a chance to become East Asia’s free trade hub linking Europe, Asia and the US.
The first talks, from 7 to 11 May, will take place in Seoul.
Officials hope to conclude negotiations within a year.
In a joint statement the two ministers said a free trade agreement (FTA) would “open new markets and expand opportunities for Korean and EU businesses while giving valuable momentum to liberalization of global trade”.
˝Three men have been arrested in Germany on suspicion of planning a “massive” attack on US facilities in the country, officials have said.
Federal prosecutor Monika Harms said the three had trained at camps in Pakistan and procured some 700kg (1,500lbs) of chemicals for explosives.
She said the accused had sought to target facilities visited by Americans, such as nightclubs, pubs or airports.
Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung said the men had posed ”an imminent threat”.
Media reports said the men were planning attacks against a US military base in Ramstein and Frankfurt airport.
The US praised the actions of the German government and said the incident showed everyone needed to be vigilant in finding ”terrorists”.
At least seven members of the cell are still believed to be at large ˝
Federal prosecutor Monika Harms said the three had trained at camps in Pakistan and procured some 700kg (1,500lbs) of chemicals for explosives.
She said the accused had sought to target facilities visited by Americans, such as nightclubs, pubs or airports.
The US praised the actions of the German government and said the incident showed everyone needed to be vigilant in finding ”terrorists”.
ran has rejected UN calls to stop uranium enrichment as “unacceptable”, after a report said it had missed a deadline to suspend its activities.
Nuclear official Mohammad Saeed said there was no legal basis for demanding a suspension.
The UN report said Iran was expanding its enrichment program.
The US says the permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany will meet in London to discuss further sanctions against Iran.
Iran denies Western claims it is secretly trying to build nuclear arms, saying its nuclear program is for purely peaceful, energy-producing purposes.
While enriched uranium is used as fuel for nuclear reactors, highly enriched uranium can also be used to make nuclear bombs.
Six people have already been charged over the protests, according to police.
˝Police in Thailand are seeking the arrest of leaders of an anti-junta movement, after violent protests in the capital Bangkok.
Sunday´s clashes broke out after protesters surrounded the home of a top official they accuse of orchestrating last year´s military coup.
More than 100 people, half of them police, were injured in the late-night clashes, officials and medics said.
Six people have already been charged over the protests, according to police.
It was the first violence since the military seized power by ousting legally elected Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in September 2006.˝
Koreans, suffering from a debt hangover, cut their credit-card spending nearly 40 percent during the first half in a further indication that the much-awaited normalization of the unprofitable card industry may come later than hoped.
The Korea Herald reports data from nine card issuers showed that Koreans purchased goods and services valued at 155.7 trillion won with plastic during the first half, compared to 254.7 trillion won a year earlier.
The Philippines decided to withdraw troops in Iraq to save a Filipino’s life.
The World Bank’s board says it will resume discussions on the fate of its President, Paul Wolfowitz on Thursday.
He has been at the centre of a scandal over alleged favoritism.
His lawyer says the board will have to vote to sack him if it wants to get rid of him.
“Mr Wolfowitz will not resign under this cloud,” Robert Bennett told Reuters news agency.
The statement followed unconfirmed reports that Wolfowitz was trying to negotiate terms for his resignation.
Pakistani warplanes have attacked suspected pro-Taliban positions near the Afghan border for a fourth day.
The army says a total of 45 troops and 150 rebels have died so far in battles around the town of Mir Ali.
Locals, fleeing the area in the thousands, say many civilians died.
It is the heaviest fighting for many months in North Waziristan, which the US says is an al-Qaeda safe haven.
Pakistan´s President Musharraf - a vital ally in the so called “ US-led war on terror” - is under pressure to do more to stop militants crossing into Afghanistan, where violence this year has soared.
The violence has been escalating since mid-July when a ceasefire between the army and the militants broke down.
Access for journalists to the tribal areas is restricted and it is impossible to independently verify the casualty figures.
But he stressed the Korean troops will focus on economic rehabilitation and humanitarian activities.
Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon said on Monday the South Korean troops to be deployed in Iraq “will not be engaged in any offensive operations” even if the security situation in Iraq further deteriorates in the future.
Ban made the remark during a luncheon meeting with local and foreign journalists.
The minister reaffirmed Seoul's commitment to the participation in the U.S.-led efforts to rebuild the war-torn Middle Eastern nation.
But he stressed the Korean troops will focus on economic rehabilitation and humanitarian activities.
South Korea plans to send new troops to Iraq despite opposition movement.
Thus, to the South Koreans, it appears there has been no sincere apology and reflection.
Following a speech Tuesday by South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun in which he said Japan might be asked for further compensation for atrocities committed during the colonial era, Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon said that yesterday the comments pointed up the need for Japan to take more ""faithful measures"" to address the issue.
Ban said at a press conference.
A guilty plea today from former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's Chief of Staff.
Christine Beatty will serve four months in prison for her part in a text-messaging sex scandal case.
Retailers are hoping a lot of people are going online today to shop - it's Cyber-Monday, the web version of Black Friday.
On average people are spending a little more this year, but Ellen Davis with the National Retail Federation says stores aren't out of the woods yet.
“Retailers know that even though Black Friday sales and traffic were strong, many people are still being very careful about how they're spending their money, and the next few weeks will be challenging.”
Among the challenges people will be looking at is what's happening with their investments;
right now on Wall Street the DOW's down by 340 points.
Retailers are hoping a lot of people are going online today to shop - it's Cyber-Monday, the web version of Black Friday.
It sounds like it's not over in India, even though Police have rescued at least seven people from one hotel in Mumbai where terrorists took hostages after killing more than a hundred people in a co-ordinated series of attacks.
Did you just hear that huge blast?
There's been at least a half-dozen this afternoon.
President Bush has expressed condolences to the Indian Prime Minister over the attacks.
Press Secretary Dana Perino says Bush talked with Monmohan Singh on the phone from Camp David where's he's spending his last Thanksgiving as Commander in Chief.
Bush offered Singh support and assistance in restoring order to India.
The President also wished the Indian leader success in investigating what he calls“ the despicable acts in Mumbai.”
President Bush has expressed condolences to the Indian Prime Minister over the attacks.
Press Secretary Dana Perino says Bush talked with Monmohan Singh on the phone from Camp David where's he's spending his last Thanksgiving as Commander in Chief.
Bush offered Singh support and assistance in restoring order to India.
The Joong-Ang Ilbo reports the company has decided to close its research and development center in Korea.
ntel Corp., the world's largest chip manufacturer is pulling out of Korea.
The Joong-Ang Ilbo reports the company has decided to close its research and development center in Korea.
The closure comes less than three years after it opened the 20-staff member center in Bundang, south of Seoul, in 2004.
Ben Bernanke tells Congress things should start getting better before the end of 2009.
Associated Press correspondent Jerry Bodlander is covering the moneyman's appearance on Capitol Hill:
“ Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke says he expects the economy to bounce back and begin growing later this year, but he's warning the Joint Economic Committee that even when that happens, economic growth will remain below its longer-run potential for a while.
Bernanke's also warning of further sizeable job losses and increased unemployment in the coming months.
Jerry Bodlander, Capitol Hill.”
Meantime, a private measure of the services sector of the economy shrank in April for the 7th month in a row.
Mexican health officials say the rate of swine flu infections is slowing, while the country slowly gets back up to speed.
Many Cinco de Mayo celebrations have been cancelled today.
“ Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke says he expects the economy to bounce back and begin growing later this year, but he's warning the Joint Economic Committee that even when that happens, economic growth will remain below its longer-run potential for a while.
Angry victims of the 2004 Madrid train bombings have vowed to appeal over what they see as the trial court´s lenient treatment of some of the accused.
One victim´s relative said there had been too few guilty verdicts for such a horrible crime.
The court sentenced three men to thousands of years in jail for their part in the attacks, but acquitted seven including the alleged mastermind.
Spanish prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said justice had been done.
Moroccans Jamal Zougam and Otman el Ghanoui were convicted of murder along with Emilio Trashorras, a Spaniard.
But suspected ringleader Rabei Osman was cleared over the March 11th 2004 blasts on four trains that killed 191 people and injured more than 1,800.
Twenty-one - out of 28 on trial - were convicted for their parts in the Islamists attacks.
All had pleaded not guilty during the four-month trial.
Victims´ groups were furious at the acquittals and perceived leniency of some of the sentences.
Alleged mastermind Rabei Osman Sayed Ahmed, known as “Mohamed the Egyptian”, was found not guilty but is in prison in Italy after being convicted of belonging to an international terrorist group.
Victims´ groups were furious at the acquittals and perceived leniency of some of the sentences.
His remarks came a day after Pyongyang agreed to return to the six-party denuclearization talks ”with no conditions.
” Answering a lawmaker's question on whether Washington would lift its financial sanctions on North Korea when the talks are resumed, Yu said he expects the U.S. investigation into the North's alleged illicit activities such as money laundering at Macau's Banco Delta Asia will come to an end sooner or later.
”It could take more time, but I expect the issue will come to an end sometime soon, ” Yu said at the National Assembly.
Korea Exchange Bank said it yesterday will introduce deposit accounts denominated in Chinese yuan this month, the first among domestic lenders.
Korea Exchange Bank said it yesterday will introduce deposit accounts denominated in Chinese yuan this month, the first among domestic lenders.
The bank said that local customers' demand for yuan recently expanded, because of the expectation that China will let its currency appreciate sooner or later under pressure from the United States.
Secretary of State from North Korea.
Responding to international press speculation that Washington's patience has run out over the drawn-out North Korea nuclear disarmament talks, U.S. President George W. Bush said no deadline has been set to conclude the talks have failed.
""We didn't set deadlines,"" Bush said at his ranch in Crawford, Texas where he is hosting a summit with the leaders of Mexico and Canada.
""What we said is what we've said to North Korea, if you want to ― if you want the way forward, if you want to be accepted by the world, if you want not to be isolated, get rid of your weapons programs.
Pope John Paul II has blessed crowds gathered in Rome.
Parents of soldiers injured in clashes with protesters opposing the relocation of U.S. military installations here roundly criticized the Defense Ministry for not protecting the unarmed troops constructing fences around the base site in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi province, according to the Joong-Ang Ilbo.
The violence broke out after anti-U.S. demonstrators broke through riot police lines late Friday afternoon to try to cut down the fences.
The Defense Ministry said before the clash that it had ordered the troops not to use force against protesters under any circumstances.
They were to have been protected by a cordon of riot police, armed with batons and shields... the police, however, themselves demoralized after being accused of causing the deaths of two farmers during violent protests in Seoul last November, and were unable to keep the protesters away from the troops.
Angry messages were posted on the ministry's Web site over the weekend, accusing officials there of failing to defend the troops from violence-prone demonstrators.
The violence broke out after anti-U.S. demonstrators broke through riot police lines late Friday afternoon to try to cut down the fences.
a ministry official said five are still at a military hospital.
Pornographic Internet content came under fire from the government yesterday with the unveiling of a plan to block more foreign sex-oriented Web sites and increase penalties on those who post obscene material to local portals.
Regulators are acting in the wake of an incident in which a pornographic user-posted video clip found its way on to Yahoo!
Korea last week and became the most searched item before it was removed.
Pornographic Internet content came under fire from the government yesterday with the unveiling of a plan to block more foreign sex-oriented Web sites and increase penalties on those who post obscene material to local portals.
The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog organization, Mohamed El Baradei said on Sunday that any U.S. monitoring of his telephone calls would be a violation of his privacy but that he had nothing to hide.
Commenting on reports that U.S. officials had tapped his phone conversations with Iranian officials, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief told Al Arabiya television that he had no secrets to conceal.
""Unfortunately if this is true, this is a breach of individual freedoms and rights of privacy and, more importantly, the right of international organizations to work independently,"" El Baradei told the Dubai-based television network. The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog organization, Mohamed El Baradei said on Sunday that any U.S. monitoring of his telephone calls would be a violation of his privacy but that he had nothing to hide.
As the Bush administration faces the November presidential election the United States claims it and its allies have put Osama bin Laden on the defensive, increasing chances of his capture soon, according to remarks published in Pakistani media on Sunday.
Cofer Black, State Department coordinator for counter-terrorism, said in Islamabad the entire ""infrastructure"" was in place to capture bin Laden and his close lieutenants, Pakistan's English language Daily Times reported.
President Roh said the National Security Law should be abolished.
Iraq Government was mired in confusion.
A Malaysian inquiry has called on the police to stop forcing some suspects to strip and perform naked squats.
The inquiry, ordered after a video emerged of a naked woman doing squats in a Malaysian police station, said the practice infringed human rights.
Complaints by Chinese tourists of similar treatment sparked a diplomatic row with Beijing.
President George W. Bush will not discuss when the United States will transfer its wartime command of South Korean troops to Seoul during a summit in Washington on Thursday.
Seoul wants wartime operation control to be transferred in 2012, while Washington prefers 2009.
But the two leaders will reaffirm their ”robust alliance ” to help South Korea put an end to domestic disputes over the transfer issue, the officials said.
They will focus on the North Korean nuclear issue, while trying to find ways to bring the North back to the six-party denuclearization talks rather than discussing further punitive measures against the Stalinist state, the officials said.
The US Air Force has relieved several officers of their commands after a B-52 bomber was mistakenly flown across the US loaded with nuclear-armed missiles.
Three colonels, a lieutenant colonel and 66 other personnel were punished following the incident at Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota, on 29th August.
Major General Richard Newton said ground crews had failed to follow procedures.
The incident has been described as one of the worst known breaches of nuclear weapons procedures in decades.
Six cruise missiles armed with nuclear warheads were mounted on the bomber´s wings before it was flown to Louisiana.
The missiles were supposed to have been taken to Barksdale Air Force Base, but the warheads should have been removed beforehand.
President George W. Bush said on Wednesday he had no regrets about the unpopular war in Iraq despite the ""high cost in lives and treasure"" and declared that the United States was on track for victory.
Marking the fifth anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion with a touch of the swagger he showed early in the war, Bush said in a speech at the Pentagon, ""The successes we are seeing in Iraq are undeniable.
"" With less than 11 months left in office and his approval ratings near the lows of his presidency, Bush is trying to shore up support for the Iraq campaign, which has damaged U.S. credibility abroad and is sure to define his legacy.
But he faced the challenge of winning back the attention of war-weary Americans more preoccupied with mounting economic troubles and increasingly focused on the race to pick his successor in the November election.
Bush´s Democratic critics used the anniversary to press accusations that the Republican president launched the invasion based on faulty intelligence, mismanaged the war and failed to put together an exit strategy. President George W. Bush said on Wednesday he had no regrets about the unpopular war in Iraq despite the ""high cost in lives and treasure"" and declared that the United States was on track for victory.
But he faced the challenge of winning back the attention of war-weary Americans more preoccupied with mounting economic troubles and increasingly focused on the race to pick his successor in the November election.
Gunfire broke out Sunday afternoon outside the presidential palace after thousands of Haitians, including the rebel leader Guy Philippe, marched through the capital alongside a convoy of armed United States marines, calling for a new government and a new army in Haiti.
As the march dispersed, a small group of gunmen, believed to be supporters of the exiled president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, opened fire on a cluster of demonstrators, witnesses said.
American and French troops policed the streets near the palace after the shooting.
Japan has asked China to clarify reports that Beijing has imposed a ban on shipping near disputed gas fields in the East China Sea.
Both Japan and China have claimed rights to develop the Pinghu gas field which straddles an area both countries say is part of their territory.
News reports say a ban has been imposed while Chinese workers lay pipelines and cables in the area.
Japan's chief Cabinet secretary says Tokyo expressed its concern to Beijing.This is the latest salvo in a long running dispute between Japan and China over oil and gas resources in the East China Sea.
Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, countries can claim economic zones extending 370km (230 miles) off their coast.
The disputed reserves lie in an area which falls into both countries' economic zones.
Both Japan and China have claimed rights to develop the Pinghu gas field which straddles an area both countries say is part of their territory.
News reports say a ban has been imposed while Chinese workers lay pipelines and cables in the area.
Japan's chief Cabinet secretary says Tokyo expressed its concern to Beijing.This is the latest salvo in a long running dispute between Japan and China over oil and gas resources in the East China Sea.
Bobby Kennedy, Jr., says his cousin Caroline is ready for a bigger stage.
He and the other Kennedys are pushing for Caroline Kennedy's appointment to fill Hillary Rodham Clinton's Senate seat, should she be confirmed the Secretary of State.
Political analyst Allan Lichtman says Caroline may might not be the most qualified, but she does have the name:
John Davis says he shouldn't have to pay a $100 ticket for driving along the shoulder of a Boston highway.
That's because his wife Jennifer was in labor and they were rushing to the hospital.
She tells WHDA that the state trooper who pulled them over took his time.
“He had us wait while he gave a citation to another, another driver, and then he came back.”
The Davis' daughter was born 5 hours after they got to the hospital.
That's because his wife Jennifer was in labor and they were rushing to the hospital.
American Idol's top 3 are being honored in their home towns before they go back to Hollywood to sing their hearts out:
Danny Goky singing at his church in Milwaukee today, Adam Lambert is visiting his old high school in San Diego, and hundreds of people turned out at a public party for Matt Giraud in Kalamazoo, Michigan last night.
Meantime, that teen-age girl who washed out this week says she felt like a little sister to those three:
Alison Iraheta won't tell her fans who to vote for, now that she's off American Idol:
“ They've got to vote for whoever they think is awesome.
” It would be like picking her favorite sibling:
“ If they were having, like, a little argument, and I'd be like, 'Yeah,' and they'd be like, 'You stay out of this, you're only 12 years old,' and I'm like 'Aw.
'” Since she's only 17, her mom stayed with her in the Idol Mansion:
And she's looking forward to the Idol tour, starting July 5th.
“ They've got to vote for whoever they think is awesome.
Simpson has been convicted on 12 counts in connection with the armed robbery of two sports memorabilia dealers in Las Vegas.
AP special correspondent Linda Deutsch reports that Simpson didn't show much feeling when the verdicts were read.
“He showed no reaction.
He was just extremely impassive, extremely composed, controlled.
And when the judge ordered him to be taken into custody, he stood, his hands were put in handcuffs, and he was led out of the courtroom.”
Simpson could get life in prison when sentenced in December.
AP special correspondent Linda Deutsch reports that Simpson didn't show much feeling when the verdicts were read.
He was just extremely impassive, extremely composed, controlled.
The number of South Korean suicides rose to an all-time high of 12,000 last year as more people took their own lives amid economic hardship, recording the highest suicide rate among the 30 member countries of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
According to the National Statistical Office (NSO) yesterday, suicide was the fourth-largest cause of death in the country for two years in a row with 26.1 out of 100,000 people killing themselves, up 2.2-fold from 11.8 ten years ago.
Some 25.2 out of 100,000 people took their own lives in 2004.
A stronger open this morning;
the Dow has been up more than 100 points for most of the first 90 minutes of trading.
The AP's Warren Levinson is at the New York Stock Exchange.
“Stock prices moved more than 2% higher in early trading on news that interbank lending was showing signs of emerging from its deep freeze.
U.S. and Iraqi forces captured almost three quarters of Falluja on Wednesday, but Islamist militants struck back, kidnapping three of the prime minister's relatives and killing two dozen people around Iraq.
Militants threatened to behead interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's cousin and two female relatives unless he called off the U.S.-led ""Operation Fair Dawn"" to wrest control of Falluja from insurgents.
The head of Iraqi forces in Falluja said they had found ""slaughterhouses"" where hostages had been held and killed, along with records of victims.
But Major-General Abdul-Qader Jassim told reporters he could not say if there was any clue of the fate of at least nine foreign hostages still missing.
The head of Iraqi forces in Falluja said they had found ""slaughterhouses"" where hostages had been held and killed, along with records of victims.
At the Federal level, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says the US is moving with alacrity and efficiency to deal with the virus, a virus that is now affecting the Marines.
Live to the Pentagon, an AP national security correspondent Sagar Meghani:
“ Jon, Marine Commandant James Conway says it's happening at a huge base in Southern California:
Another 37 Marines who came into contact with him are having their movements restricted and are taking Tamiflu.
the new strain is suspected in at least 159 deaths in Mexico.
Breaking news out of Pakistan, where officials say a suspected US missile strike has killed 5 people in a region along the Afghan border.
A new report shows the economy shrinking at a worse-than-expected pace early this year, the 6.1% slide of blow to hopes about the recession may be bottoming out.
The mayor of Mexico City is announcing another death from swine flu, but says the outbreak may be tapering off there;
Forget the new ways to make more money.
The AP's Bob Ehler reports most of the auto dealers meeting in New Orleans are trying to find ways to stay in business:
“The main focus at this year's gathering of auto dealers isn't maximizing profits so much as it is survival.
Dealers gathering in New Orleans will be attending workshops on how to get lean and focus on areas where they're making money.
Chrysler and Ford saw their dealer ranks fall by about 300 from late 2007.
Last year's sales were the worst in 26 years, and 2009 figures to be another tough one.
(music, singing and crowd applauding) Miss America 2009 is 22 year-old Miss Indiana.
Katie Stam, a communications major, plans to work in television news after her one-year stint as Miss America.
Forget the new ways to make more money.
The AP's Bob Ehler reports most of the auto dealers meeting in New Orleans are trying to find ways to stay in business:
In what is considered a cynical move aimed at positioning himself to run for prime minister, Thailand’s military dictator, general Sonthi Boonyaratglin resigned as head of the so-called Council for National Security.
Thailand´s military-installed government promised to hold elections in December.
The head of Thailand´s air force, Air Chief Marshal Chalit Pukbhasuk, has taken over as the new head of the military, a spokesman says.
The military seized control, accusing the twice-legally-elected Thaksin Shinawatra of corruption and abuse of power.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's job security takes another hit.
Richard Shelby, the top Republican on the Banking Committee, tells Fox News Sunday:
“ If he keeps going down this road, I think that he won't last long.
I think he's probably on shaky grounds now, at least with the Congress and a lot of the American people.”
Tomorrow Geithner will announce a plan to rescue banks.
The head of the White House Council of Economic Advisers Christina Romer, also on Fox News Sunday, says the plan is to use $100 billion in Federal money, along with private investments, to free the banks of hundreds of billions in bad assets:
that are kind of doing us a favor.
Coming into this market to help us buy these toxic assets off banks' balance sheets.”
Oakland, California in shock ? after 3 police officers and a shooting suspect were killed yesterday.
A fourth officer is in grave condition.
It began with a routine traffic stop; police say the driver opened fire on two motorcycle officers, killing one, leaving the other in grave condition with a head wound.
Acting Police Chief Howard Jordan says a tip led the SWAT team to an apartment where the suspect was hiding:
“ When officers gained entry into the apartment, they were immediately fired upon by the suspect with an assault weapon.
Two officers sustained fatal gunshot wounds, and a third officer received a minor wound.”
The suspect, a parole violator, was also killed.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's job security takes another hit.
Richard Shelby, the top Republican on the Banking Committee, tells Fox News Sunday:
that are kind of doing us a favor.
Two officers sustained fatal gunshot wounds, and a third officer received a minor wound.”
General Assembly on Monday delayed a vote on a resolution urging compliance with a world court ruling that Israel's security barrier in the West Bank was illegal and should be torn down.
The Palestinians had sought a vote in the 191-member assembly urging Israel to obey the July 9th court opinion, but European Union states sought to include mention of the Middle East peace process in the resolution, a European diplomat said.
The assembly announced the delay of the vote at the request of Jordan, representing Arab nations.
Jordan then requested a vote for Tuesday on a revised resolution.
Zarqawi’s group denied sending a message to threaten attacks on Japan.
The floor leaders of the major parties Wednesday agreed to delay the revision of the Constitution until after April but President Roh Moo-hyun urged the parties and their presidential contenders to provide more binding commitment.
Following a meeting in Seoul, they agreed to seek the revision in the initial days of the 18th-term National Assembly to be formed through general elections in April and urged Roh to leave the matter to the hands of the next government.
Chong Wa Dae insisted that the parties and their presidential candidates should show more sincerity and responsibility so people can believe that the Constitution will be revised by the next government without fail.
9, Roh proposed that the five-year, single-term presidential system be replaced with a four-year one, which would allow future presidents to seek re-election.
Six delegations held a series of bilateral meetings on Monday to check whether their concerns are reflected in the second draft statement of principles, which China presented over night.
’ The second draft came after some of the participating countries _ the two Koreas, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan _ had expressed dissatisfaction with the content of the first draft, which was circulated also by China on Saturday.
Hill said there is still ``a lot of language’’ in the second draft containing ``a lot of differences.’
A senior Russian government official said yesterday that the United States has rejected a request for political asylum from a North Korean man who sought refuge at the U.S. consulate in Vladivostok.
The man, who has not been named, entered the U.S. consulate on Oct.
26, in what is believed to be the first time a North Korean has asked for asylum at a foreign mission in Russia.
The official said the North Korean had worked as a logger in Russia.
Prince Charles will not attend the wedding of his godson.
North Korea has said it intends to resume building two nuclear reactors, to increase its energy capacity.
The North said the move was necessary because the US had pulled out of a key deal to build it two new reactors.
But some analysts fear the North wants the reactors completed so that it can produce more plutonium with which to manufacture atomic bombs.
The North had mothballed work on all its nuclear facilities, including the two graphite-moderated reactors, after it struck a deal with the US in 1994.
Under that agreement, two light-water reactors (LWRs) were to be built by an international consortium.
Light water reactors are much more difficult to use as a source of plutonium with which to build nuclear weapons.
But the deal broke down in 2002, when the US reneged on the agreement, accusing the North of admitting to a secret program to enrich uranium for weapons' production, and last month the international consortium formally announced it was abandoning the LWR project.
North Korea now has announced plans to resume work on its 50 megawatt (MW) graphite-moderated reactor at Yongbyon, and a 200 MW graphite reactor at Taechon.
But some analysts fear the North wants the reactors completed so that it can produce more plutonium with which to manufacture atomic bombs.
North Korea now has announced plans to resume work on its 50 megawatt (MW) graphite-moderated reactor at Yongbyon, and a 200 MW graphite reactor at Taechon.
Chinese espionage poses “the single largest risk” to the security of the US technology, a panel has told Congress.
Communist China is pursuing new technology ”aggressively”, it says, legitimately through research and business deals and illegally through industrial espionage.
China has also ”embraced destructive warfare techniques”, the report says, enabling it to carry out cyber attacks on other countries´ infrastructure.
The allegations were made by the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission in its annual report.
The advisory panel, appointed by Congress, recommended that US security measures and intelligence be stepped up to try to prevent the theft of military technology, in particular.
”Chinese espionage activities in the United States are so extensive that they comprise the single greatest risk to the security of American technologies,” the report said.
Chinese espionage poses “the single largest risk” to the security of the US technology, a panel has told Congress.
Communist China’s top family planning body has warned of a ””population rebound”” as couples flout one child policy rules.
The widening wealth gap could lead to a rise in birth rates, Zhang Weiqing, from the National Population and Family Planning Commission, told state media.
Newly rich couples can afford to pay fines to have more than one child, while rural couples are marrying earlier, he told Xinhua news agency.
China has about 1.3 billion people, 20% of the world’s total.
It is keen to curb its population growth, and the controversial family planning policy, implemented in the late 1970s, is meant to limit urban couples to one child and rural families to two.
But rising incomes mean that some newly rich couples in urban areas can easily afford to break the rules and pay the resulting fines.
The widening wealth gap could lead to a rise in birth rates, Zhang Weiqing, from the National Population and Family Planning Commission, told state media.
Many citizens have raised speculation that the Korean and U.S. governments had already shared information about the kidnapping, but kept it secret for political reasons.
Meanwhile, the Korea Times reports public anger is growing over the government’s lack of response to an inquiry by the Associated Press about the kidnapping.
The angry reaction came after the Foreign Ministry on Friday admitted it had a telephone inquiry on June 3 from AP over Kim’s kidnapping in Iraq but gave it no attention.
Kim was executed by Muslim militants linked to the terror group Al-Qaida about three weeks later.
Many citizens have raised speculation that the Korean and U.S. governments had already shared information about the kidnapping, but kept it secret for political reasons.
President Roh will not take disciplinary action in connection with the case of Kim Sun-il until the investigation is complete.
Kim’s death shocked the South Korea.
President Roh Moo-hyun expressed conditional support for North Korea's right to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.
The six-party talks aimed at ending Pyongyang's nuclear programs became deadlocked earlier this month because of differences over the North's demand that it be allowed to build nuclear power plants even if it disarms any nuclear weapons it may have.
The United States is calling on the North to dismantle all atomic programs.
Roh didn't elaborate what conditions the North would have to meet to be allowed to use the civilian atomic program.
On Aug 11, Unification Minister Chung Dong-young said that if Pyongyang returns to the agreed conditions of the non-proliferation treaty, it would be qualified to have a civilian nuclear program.
He expressed optimism that countries involved in the nuclear talks can be more flexible and reach a compromise over the issue.
The United States is calling on the North to dismantle all atomic programs.
He expressed optimism that countries involved in the nuclear talks can be more flexible and reach a compromise over the issue.
The Chosun Ilbo reports a group of hypersensitive Korean netizens calling itself the Voluntary Agency Network Korea (VANK) have incurred the wrath of their equally patriotic Japanese counterparts by persuading Google Earth (earth.google.com) to change the name of the body of water between the two countries from “Sea of Japan” to “East Sea”.
Sunday The English version of the self-styled cyber-diplomats’ homepage (www.prkorea.com/english) had been hacked and its web board swamped with messages thought to be written by Japanese people.
MBC made an official apology for bribery scandal.
North Korea is not a threat to attack South Korea, but its ability to ship weapons to hostile countries or terrorists is a danger, U.S.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld suggested recently.
Pointing out the improved defense capabilities of South Korea's forces and the declining state of the North's military, he said, ””I don't see them, frankly, as an immediate military threat to South Korea.”
” Speaking to reporters Sunday night at a U.S. military base in Alaska, which Mr.
North Korea is not a threat to attack South Korea, but its ability to ship weapons to hostile countries or terrorists is a danger, U.S.
A group of right wing scholars are fanning controversy with their plan to publish a new history textbook said to glorify military leaders who rose to power through coups in 1961 and 1980.
The Textbook Forum, affiliated to the New Right Union, is planning to publish the textbook for high school students by May.
The book calls the May 16 military coup in 1961 by former President Park Chung-hee a “revolutionary upheaval” which opened the way for Korea's current economic development.
The current history book clearly states the incident was a political coup d'etat by the dictatorial former president, then an army general.
The Textbook Forum, a group of New Rightist scholars, disclosed its final version of the new textbook yesterday.
The book calls the May 16 military coup in 1961 by former President Park Chung-hee a “revolutionary upheaval” which opened the way for Korea's current economic development.
Russia is working on new nuclear missile systems that other powers do not have in order to protect itself against future security threats, President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday.
Russia is working on new nuclear missile systems that other powers do not have in order to protect itself against future security threats, President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday.
the commander of U.S.
One-sided handling of environmental issues involved in the return of U.S. bases here to Korea would damage the South Korea-U.S. alliance, General B.B.
Speaking at a meeting of the Korea Retired Generals and Admirals Association, General Bell said the handover of the former bases is being complicated by Seoul's demands that the United States repair any environmental damage in the bases to be relocated from northern Gyeonggi province and Seoul city to more southern locations.
A Korean translation of the general's comments was posted on the association's Web site yesterday.
General Bell complained that U.S. maintenance of empty bases now costs $500,000 per month while the whole question of an environmental cleanup is being debated.
He pointed to precedents in Germany and Japan, where environmental damage repair is a host-country obligation.
The prosecutor's remark followed a JoongAng Ilbo report Tuesday that the office was preparing a system that would enable investigators to conduct round-the-clock surveillance of all activity at targeted Web sites.
The Supreme Public Prosecutors Office acknowledged the yesterday that it is developing a system that could track criminal suspects by their Internet Protocol, or IP, addresses, but said it would not be used for round-the-clock monitoring of certain Web sites.
Government is planning to establish a law for nuclear issues.
Mudslinging or Just Presenting Facts?
“Our opponent is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who targeted their own country…”
At Saturday rallies Palin pressed Democrat Barack Obama on his association with 60's radical Bill Ayres.
But there's no evidence that Obama and Ayres were pals, or even close, when they worked on community boards years ago, and Ayres hosted a political event for Obama early in his career.
Obama in his campaigning is going after John McCain's healthcare proposal:
He gives you a tax credit with one hand, but he raises your taxes with the other.”
In April, exports surged nearly 40 percent from a year earlier to a preliminary $21.7 billion, according to the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy.
The monthly trade surplus stood at $2.9 billion, the highest since December 1998.
It brought the current total to $9.7 billion, just slightly shy of the $10 billion target the government set for the full year and almost two-thirds of the surplus for all of 2003. The Korea Herald reports the nation has nearly achieved its 2004 trade surplus in just four months, with exports of mobile phones, cars and semiconductors setting a record pace, according to government data yesterday.
In April, exports surged nearly 40 percent from a year earlier to a preliminary $21.7 billion, according to the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy.
The monthly trade surplus stood at $2.9 billion, the highest since December 1998.
The abuse of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. soldiers threatens Bush’s rationale.
General Motors reports it lost another $9.6 billion in the 4th quarter, driving up its total loss to nearly $31 billion for all of last year.
The automaker says that's so much that its auditors will soon weigh in on whether they think the company is still a going concern.
com blames a big piece of this on the recession:
“ Not only are retail customers not buying at the local dealership, but we're seeing a fall-off in commercial vehicles, big trucks, that kind of thing.
” Fresh evidence today the economy is forcing employers to get rid of even more workers:
new jobless claims rose more than expected last week, to 667,000.
On Wall Street in the first half hour, the Dow industrials are up 65 points.
com blames a big piece of this on the recession:
” Fresh evidence today the economy is forcing employers to get rid of even more workers:
new jobless claims rose more than expected last week, to 667,000.
Ceremonies have been taking place to mark the first anniversary of the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami.
More than 200,000 people were killed when an earthquake beneath the ocean sent giant waves crashing ashore.
Places as far apart as Sri Lanka, Thailand and Somalia were affected by the disaster.
Worst affected was the Indonesian province of Aceh, closest to the quake epicenter, where more than two-thirds of the deaths occurred.
A minute's silence was held in the provincial capital Banda Aceh to mark the exact moment the first waves came ashore, and a siren then sounded, part of Indonesia's new tsunami warning system.
Further south in the western Sumatran town of Padang, the system was tested for the first time, with around 2,000 residents evacuated as part of the exercise.
A minute's silence was held in the provincial capital Banda Aceh to mark the exact moment the first waves came ashore, and a siren then sounded, part of Indonesia's new tsunami warning system.
Two Australian brothers aged 10 and six drove 100km along a busy New South Wales highway in a bid to make a surprise visit to their grandfather.
Startled motorists called the police after seeing the boys alone in the car.
They had travelled over two-thirds of the way towards their destination, near Moree, when police pulled them over.
""They appeared to be driving normally, certainly better than probably some other people on that road,"" Sgt Matt Clifford of the Moree police said.
The two boys took their grandmother's car and set off up the Newell Highway, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
When police stopped them, the two boys did not seem to think they had done anything wrong.
Police gave the 10 year-old a warning, but further punishment was left to the family.
""I'm sure granddad and grandma, if not mum and dad, might have their own little chastisement for them,"" Sgt Clifford told the newspaper.
""They appeared to be driving normally, certainly better than probably some other people on that road,"" Sgt Matt Clifford of the Moree police said.
The Seoul Central District Court on Tuesday sentenced Korean-born German scholar Song Du-yul to seven years in prison for violating the National Security Law.
The Korea Times quoted the court as ruling ``A heavy sentence is inevitable as Song worked as a member of the North Korean ruling Workers Party Politburo and had a bad influence on the countries’ peaceful unification by spreading the Kim Il-sung’s ideology in the South.
Presiding judge Lee Dae-kyong claimed Song’s Politburo membership is proved by statements from Hwang Jang-yop, former secretary of the North’s ruling party, and former North Korean diplomat Kim Kyong-pil.
Song’s claim that joining the workers’ party was merely a formal procedure to enter the communist country was rejected, as the North extends the party membership only to those faithful to the ideology, the court claimed.
Meanwhile, the German government Tuesday raised questions about the conviction of Song, who is a German citizen.
A German official , who asked not to be identified, said in a telephone interview with Yonhap News Agency, ""We have a variety of questions about the court sentence on Song.
Saudi Arabia plans to cut oil production.
The high-speed train KTX started its service.
The opposition Grand National Party is preparing a North Korean human rights bill that would require the government to put aside funds for humanitarian aid to the North, and to investigate the fate of defectors who are forcibly returned to North Korea.
The opposition Grand National Party is preparing a North Korean human rights bill that would require the government to put aside funds for humanitarian aid to the North, and to investigate the fate of defectors who are forcibly returned to North Korea.
Unlike comparable laws in the United States and Japan, however, the bill does not include provisions for imposing sanctions on North Korea.
South Korea will give rice aid to North Korea even if Pyongyang misses an imminent deadline to shut down a key nuclear plant, a top official has said.
Vice Unification Minister Shin Eon-sang said that while aid and the nuclear freeze remained linked, “either of them can come half a step earlier”.
North Korea asked Seoul for 400,000 ton s of rice aid at talks last month. The comments came a day after top Asian diplomats voiced doubt that Pyongyang would meet the April 14th deadline.
Under the landmark February 13th agreement, North Korea agreed to shut down and seal its Yongbyon reactor within 60 days in return for energy aid and other incentives from the US, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia.
The President went to school this morning, a day after publicly teasing local officials for shutting down classrooms because of wintry weather.
He and his wife visited their younger daughter Sasha at the private Sidwell Friends School.
We're now just three days away from the big game.
“It's midweek of Super Bowl 43 and two question marks remain:
key receivers for each team.
The Steelers' Hines Ward said his sprained knee is getting better by the day and should be good to go.
The Cardinals' Anquan Boldin practiced in full pads Wednesday, and despite a tight hamstring, should also be 'ready to play,' in his words.
Steelers' QB Ben Roethlisberger said he feels more relaxed than he did in his first Super Bowl three years ago, while Kurt Warner of the Cards….
well, this is kind of old hat to him.
Dow industrials down 131 points, NASDAQ off 32 in early trading.
The President went to school this morning, a day after publicly teasing local officials for shutting down classrooms because of wintry weather.
“It's midweek of Super Bowl 43 and two question marks remain:
Both stories today are in the ‘only in Korea’ category… a new crime has been created, degree falsifier.
A practice which might result in loss of a job in other countries apparently has the status of a crime in Korea.
The Korea Times reports an arrest warrant is likely to be sought for 35-year-old former assistant professor Shin Jeong-ah today over her alleged fabrication of academic credentials.
The prosecution will also summon again Byeon Yang-kyoon, former Cheong Wa Dae policy planner following a first round of questioning Sunday.
It will request an arrest warrant for him if allegations that he abused power to patronize Shin, his long-time romantic partner, are confirmed.
But prosecutors have difficulty in securing evidence to issue an arrest warrant for the ``sugar daddy.´´ The prosecution said Monday that it will ask the court to approve its request to arrest Shin, who returned to Korea Sunday after a two-month stay in the U.S., for forgery and interference in the performance of duty.
She has been undergoing questioning since her arrival at Incheon International Airport Sunday afternoon.
The prosecution will also summon again Byeon Yang-kyoon, former Cheong Wa Dae policy planner following a first round of questioning Sunday.
The Revolutionary Council of the Palestinians' dominant political faction Fatah approved Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday as its candidate to succeed Yasser Arafat in a presidential election set for Jan.
The Revolutionary Council of the Palestinians' dominant political faction Fatah approved Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday as its candidate to succeed Yasser Arafat in a presidential election set for Jan.
A Powerful earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 7.1 struck Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido.
President Bill Clinton is expected to make a full recovery after surgery to remove scar tissue and fluids from his chest just months after a heart-bypass operation.
Doctors who operated on Clinton said the former president had a large pool of fluid compressing about one quarter of his left lung.
During the four-hour surgery, a team of physicians removed the fluid with a probe then they opened his chest
a procedure they had not expected to need
South East Asian nations have expressed concern over North Korea's missile tests and urged a return to talks on its nuclear program.
The appeal came in a joint statement issued after a meeting of ASEAN foreign ministers in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur.
The tests could affect regional peace and stability, the statement said.
The grouping has also criticized Israel's action in Lebanon and called for a tough stance on the issue.
President Bush uses his weekly radio address to push for passage of the $700 billion bailout of Wall Street finance companies that dug themselves into a hole by backing now nearly worthless mortgage-backed securities.
“I know many of you listening this morning are frustrated with the situation.
You make sacrifices everyday to meet your mortgage payments and keep up with your bills.
When the government asks you to pay for mistakes on Wall Street it does not seem fair.
And I understand that.”
Congressional leaders are working through the weekend on the bailout plan.
Lawmakers say they are making progress and hope to cut a deal over the weekend.
The country's first space walk, AP correspondent Christopher Bodeen reports it is carried by national TV.
“The spacewalk was broadcast live on television throughout China.”
The three-man capsule's scheduled to return to Earth tomorrow.
The European parliament has approved a damning report on secret CIA flights, condemning member states which colluded in the operations.
The UK, Germany and Italy were among 14 states which allowed the US to forcibly remove terror suspects, lawmakers said.
The EU parliament voted to accept a resolution condemning member states which accepted or ignored the practice.
The EU report said the CIA had operated 1,245 flights, some taking suspects to states where they could face torture.
The report was adopted by a large majority, with 382 MEPs voting in favor, 256 against and 74 abstaining.
The final version denounces the lack of co-operation of many EU member states and condemns the actions of secret services and governments who accepted and concealed renditions.
It is unlikely, the report says, that European governments were unaware of rendition activities on their territory, something the British Government, among others, has denied.
The parliament also called for an ””independent inquiry”” to be considered and for closure of the US' Guantanamo Bay detention camp.
Human rights group Amnesty International welcomed the EU lawmakers' vote, but urged member states to carry out independent investigations.
Israel is continuing to subject Lebanon to strikes by land, sea and air, following the capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah militants.
More than 50 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in the attacks.
Israeli forces fired at Beirut's airport setting fuel tanks on fire, and struck the main Beirut-Damascus road.
Hezbollah has hit Israeli towns with rocket attacks and Israeli sources said the group had fired on the northern port city of Haifa.
Israeli police said two rockets had fallen on a Christian area of Haifa called Stella Maris.
Hezbollah denied firing any rockets at Haifa - Israel's third largest city. There were no reports of injuries or damage.
Hezbollah had said it would attack Haifa if Israeli planes bombed Beirut.
Israel is continuing to subject Lebanon to strikes by land, sea and air, following the capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah militants.
Officials say a wildfire burning near the South Carolina coast for a 3rd day now - has caused more than $8 million damage.
Some of the more than 2,000 people evacuated because of the flames are being allowed to return to their homes.
Horry County Fire Chief Gary Alderman says smoke has been getting in the way of firefighters' work:
“ This morning, visibility was zero.
You could not see your hand in front of your face this morning out there.
” The county's Public Safety Director, Paul Whitten, says they're not giving up:
“ For us, in the unincorporated portion of Horry County, this fire is not done, and we're fully involved in fighting this, and we've got several more days to go.”
The fire is burning across the Intracoastal Waterway from Myrtle Beach itself.
Former Vice President Al Gore says a House measure aimed at curbing the gases blamed for global warming is one of the most important bills ever in Congress.
Some of the more than 2,000 people evacuated because of the flames are being allowed to return to their homes.
Horry County Fire Chief Gary Alderman says smoke has been getting in the way of firefighters' work:
The Korea Times reports unions, management and the government Monday reached an agreement on the new labor reform bill.
The accord followed the government's last-minute concession to accept the union's proposal to put off implementing some key issues of the bill for three years until Dec.
However, the agreement was reached without the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), another leading labor group. The KCTU said that it opposed the agreement and will stage a strike next month supported by the Democratic Labor Party.
The Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU), the nation's more moderate labor organization, has been pushing for the three-year delay in implementing the two controversial clauses, which bans employers from paying full-time union officials and introduces multiple unions at the same company.
That is similar to a June 14 survey which showed Lee with 38.5 percent and Park with 25.5 percent.
˝The latest polls show that presidential frontrunner Lee Myung-bak of the Grand National Party maintains a 12 percent to 15 percent lead over his rival Park Geun-hye despite Park´s all-out attacks on the former Seoul mayor.
The Korea Herald reports the gap between the two political heavyweights once shrunk to single-digits in some polls amid increased scrutiny from Lee´s adversaries concerning his vast wealth and key campaign pledge of building a cross-country waterway.
However, the latest polls show a halt in the decline of Lee´s approval ratings.
In a June 30 poll by Korea Research Center and Donga Ilbo, Lee scored 38.8 percent approval and Park garnered only 24.9 percent public support.
That is similar to a June 14 survey which showed Lee with 38.5 percent and Park with 25.5 percent.
The poll surveyed 1,000 adults nationwide, and carries a margin of error of 3.1 percent.
Korea's performance in some other areas, however, is less impressive, with 35th place for indices for transparency and corruption, 34th for quality of life and 6th for inflation rate.
Korea ranked first in the world in 11 social, economic and technology categories but was only 34th for quality of life.
The Korea International Trade Association on Thursday reported Korea ranked first in the world for the proportion of science and engineering degree holders among total university graduates, the level of shipbuilding production and sales of dynamic random access memory chips.
The Korea Times reported Korea was also the world's leader in high-speed Internet penetration, textile exports and the production of thin-film transistor liquid crystal displays and code division multiple access products.
Korea's performance in some other areas, however, is less impressive, with 35th place for indices for transparency and corruption, 34th for quality of life and 6th for inflation rate.
The data came from the World Bank, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the World Trade Organization and the United Nations.
The bullet train, the G-7, have turned up serious flaws.
45 N.K.defectors broke into the Canadian Embassy in Beijing.
The National Assembly is set to vote today on the nomination of Prime Minister-designate Han Seung-soo with the major opposition party appearing to have softened its opposition after the resignation of three scandal-tainted ministers-designate.
The United Democratic Party (UDP) has conditioned approval of Han on the resignation of some of President Lee Myung-bak´s Cabinet picks over their alleged financial misconduct.
The parliamentary vote was originally scheduled for Tuesday but the UDP, the largest party, boycotted the session, citing his alleged underreporting of wealth and real estate speculation.
The party, however, appears to be softening its objection to Han´s appointment following resignations of three of Lee´s minister-nominees.
The UDP also fears that it may face a voter backlash in the critical April parliamentary elections if it continues to block the appointment of ministers under the new administration.
Meanwhile AP business editor Mark Hamrick reports the Fed is making more moves in the credit market.
“The Feds' latest effort to battle the credit crunches to buy commercial paper for money market mutual funds.
Commercial paper is used for short-term funding by companies.
Traders today are watching some earnings reports coming in and are selling, the Dow now down more than 200 points.
The Pentagon is dropping war crimes charges against five Guantanamo Bay detainees.
The move comes after a prosecutor for another detainee resigned.
Closing arguments underway on Alaska Senator Ted Stevens corruption trial.
Prosecutors are dismissing the Republican's efforts to explain away hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts from an oil services contractor.
Stevens is charged with lying on Senate disclosure forms.
“The Feds' latest effort to battle the credit crunches to buy commercial paper for money market mutual funds.
Traders today are watching some earnings reports coming in and are selling, the Dow now down more than 200 points.
Sarah Palin back on the national stage, attending the Republican Governors' Association meeting in Florida, where the governors are considering what steps can be taken, now that the election is over.
The party is looking for ways to regroup following the Election.
At least 8 civilians have been killed, 74 others wounded today in a suicide attack on a U.S. military convoy in eastern Afghanistan.
An American soldier also died when the car bomb exploded in a crowded market.
the mission claimed that the timing of Kim's visit to Taiwan was sensitive.
China is pressing former South Korean President Kim Young-sam to cancel a planned visit to Taiwan, but Kim's aides say he will go.
During a visit to Japan last week, Kim told friends there that a private group in Taiwan had invited him.
the mission claimed that the timing of Kim's visit to Taiwan was sensitive.
Subway threatens the passengers.
The North Korean Army announced yesterday that it would ""re-examine"" the armistice agreement that suspended the Korean War and agreements between Pyeongyang and the United Nations Command.
The announcement said, with probably intended irony, that the United States would no longer be fulfilling its responsibility under the armistice if it withdrew its troops from the Joint Security Area, the small border enclave that includes Panmunjeom.
Last July, Seoul and Washington reached an agreement to transfer the partial U.S. responsibility for guarding the security area to South Korean troops.
The North Korean Army announced yesterday that it would ""re-examine"" the armistice agreement that suspended the Korean War and agreements between Pyeongyang and the United Nations Command.
There's going to be a recount that the Minnesota Secretary of State says could run into December, so the Associated Press is now taking back its call that incumbent Norm Coleman won his Senate race with former comedian Al Franken.
The AP's Doug Glass is in Minneapolis:
“The two just couldn't be closer;
we've got Coleman with, I think, 42.03%, and we got Franken with 42%.
The difference is something like 700 to 800 votes and that's well within the threshold the state law sets for an automatic recount.”
Overall, in the 2008 Election, Democrats are expanding their majorities in the House and Senate.
At a meeting between North Korean and U.S. officials in New York on Wednesday, the Pyongyang delegation demanded that sanctions imposed by Washington on a Macao bank be lifted before North Korea would return to nuclear negotiations.
Li Gun, the head of the North American desk at Pyongyang's Foreign Ministry, described the meeting in an interview with the South Korean daily newspaper Hankyoreh.
Pyongyang also asked Washington to agree to set up a ""cooperative committee"" through which information on illegal financial transactions could be exchanged. He said the U.S. delegation did not respond to the suggestion.
Ri did not explain in detail another suggestion he made, that Pyongyang open an account with a U.S. bank for ""transparency.
"" Last October, the U.S. Treasury Department designated Banco Delta Asia as a ""primary money laundering"" concern, linking it to North Korean counterfeiting and money laundering.
Several banks around the globe subsequently ended their business dealings with the Macao bank.
Treasury Department designated Banco Delta Asia as a ""primary money laundering"" concern, linking it to North Korean counterfeiting and money laundering.
Prosecutors Tuesday detained the head of U.S. buyout fund Lone Star’s South Korean office in connection with an investigation into the fund’s alleged tax evasions and illegal currency dealings here.
The Korea Times reports detention of Yoo Hoe-won, CEO of Lone Star Advisor Korea, came after former Lone Star executives Shin Dong-hoon and Woo Byung-ik were grilled by prosecutors.
Yoo had worked closely with former Lone Star Korea head Steven Lee until Lee, a Korean-American, was relieved of management for his alleged involvement in illegal foreign exchange transactions and embezzling millions of dollars in company money.
Prosecutors have requested the United States to extradite Lee, now staying with his family in New Jersey.
˝Two days of lavish celebrations have got under way in Malaysia to mark 50 years of independence from Britain.
Thousands of people enjoyed a laser light show in the capital Kuala Lumpur before the national flag was raised at midnight, re-enacting the 1957 event.
Foreign dignitaries are attending a major National Day parade and other events on Friday.
But the event comes at a time when debate is growing about what it means to be Malaysian, analysts say.
This anniversary has prompted some soul-searching about Malaysia´s widening racial and religious divide.
Islam has taken a more conservative and assertive form, with Sharia courts challenging the country´s secular constitution.
The large Indian and Chinese minorities are becoming increasingly angry about a much-abused quota system that restricts their access to education and jobs.
With elections coming and political parties polarized along ethnic lines, the country is struggling to cling on to its image as Asia´s tolerant melting pot.˝
But the event comes at a time when debate is growing about what it means to be Malaysian, analysts say.
He was pushed into a scuffle with DLP members who wore huge masks of Lee Kun-hee and Hong Seok-hyun, holding a banner, shouting ""Arrest Hong Seok-hyun, Arrest Lee Kun-hee!
Hong Seok-hyun, former South Korean ambassador to the United States, was questioned by the prosecution over his alleged involvement in a political fund scandal.
He was pushed into a scuffle with DLP members who wore huge masks of Lee Kun-hee and Hong Seok-hyun, holding a banner, shouting ""Arrest Hong Seok-hyun, Arrest Lee Kun-hee!
"" Hong and Lee Kun-hee, Samsung Group's chairman, are brothers-in-law and both involved in the prosecution's 'X-file' probe of wiretapped conversations in which Samsung Group discussed illegal political funding of Lee Hoi-chang, a presidential candidate, ahead of the 1997 election.
South Korea and U.S agreed in principle to set up regular foreign ministers' meetings.
The number of Korean credit delinquents has approached five million if the people defaulting on their telecom and department store bills are included, The Korea Herald says a set of reports revealed yesterday.
The number of Korean credit delinquents has approached five million if the people defaulting on their telecom and department store bills are included, The Korea Herald says a set of reports revealed yesterday.
The reports submitted to the National Assembly's Finance and Economy Committee by the Finance Ministry, Financial Supervisory Service and Korea Association of Information & Telecomm showed that some 4.81 million people, or one-fifth of the nation's workforce, are effectively credit delinquents.
Korea Association of Information and Telecommunication:
The government will appoint public lawyers for all people detained and accused of criminal offenses to help protect their human rights.
The Korea Times reports it will also implement a set of reform measures aimed at preventing authorities from abusing their power when conducting investigations.
These changes are part of the proposals in the reform of the Criminal Procedure Law to be submitted by the Justice Ministry to the National Assembly for enactment next month.
Ministry officials said, if passed, the new rules will be enforced next year.
Cost of travel and study abroad swelled out.
Then was the winter of their discontent:
“They never told anybody what they were doin, they just made you sit there and wait an hour, after an hour, after an hour.”
Stranded airlines passengers, angry about being left on the tarmac or in the terminal for hours and hours two winters ago, because of weather delays.
The AP's Mike Grossia reports a government panel will do a little something about that today.
“It is informally known as the Tarmac Task Force, but airline passengers should temper their expectations for what the federal task force will produce, in terms of protection against being stranded for hours on tarmacs.
For one thing, the task force, which meets this morning, hasn't been able to even agree on what amount of time constitutes a lengthy delay.”
And all the group suggestions will not be binding on airlines or airports anyway.
Then was the winter of their discontent:
“They never told anybody what they were doin, they just made you sit there and wait an hour, after an hour, after an hour.”
Stranded airlines passengers, angry about being left on the tarmac or in the terminal for hours and hours two winters ago, because of weather delays.
“If he's been impeached, then I think he should listen to that decision and step down.
That's what I think.”
The State House has impeached Blagojevich, who says he'll fight on.
“I'm confident that at the end of the day I will be properly exonerated.”
The State Senate, which as early as next week could hold a trial, if convicted Blagojevich will be removed from office.
“Dirty Dancing” star Patrick Swayze is in a Los Angeles hospital with pneumonia.
Roshini Raj tells NBC's Today Show that she's not surprised Swayze, whose been fighting pancreatic cancer, is back in the hospital.
“When you have cancer, your body is weakened, you're more prone to get infection, and certainly the treatments for cancer - chemotherapy and radiation - further weaken your immune system, so it's very common to develop an infection like pneumonia.”
The State House has impeached Blagojevich, who says he'll fight on.
The State Senate, which as early as next week could hold a trial, if convicted Blagojevich will be removed from office.
“Dirty Dancing” star Patrick Swayze is in a Los Angeles hospital with pneumonia.
Roshini Raj tells NBC's Today Show that she's not surprised Swayze, whose been fighting pancreatic cancer, is back in the hospital.
Desperate to rescue his negative image in the field of diplomacy and foreign relations in the last year of his tenure, US President George W Bush has said he is prepared to exert pressure so that Middle Eastern peace talks can succeed.
“If there needs to be a little pressure then you know I will provide it,” he said after talks with Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert.
He was speaking at the start of what he called an ”historic” tour of the Middle East aimed at advancing peace talks.
However, within hours of his arrival, the Palestinians reported that Israeli forces had killed three people in Gaza.
The Palestinians accused Israel of stepping up such attacks during the run-up to Bush´s visit.
North Korea's envoy to disarmament talks in Beijing says Pyongyang has the right to operate nuclear programs for peaceful purposes.
Delegates say the demand has deadlocked work on a statement of principles for negotiations, aimed at persuading the North to give up its nuclear program.
Resident registration numbers would not be used in cyberspace.
Swine flu is still out there and spreading, although it's mild.
And that concerns scientists, who tell the World Health Organization it'll be mid-summer at the earliest before manufacturers can start pumping out H1N1 vaccine.
They say the virus is growing more slowly than expected in the lab.
Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius assures Americans the vaccine is still in the works:
“ The work on the vaccine is very much under way, and we are at the steps of testing the various strains to see which is the most appropriate.”
The Shuttle Atlantis astronauts are saying goodbye to the Hubble space telescope.
It's all fixed up and set to start exploring the universe again, after being released by the shuttle this morning.
A publicist says Atlanta-based Robert Dolla has been fatally shot at an upscale Los Angeles mall after arguing with another man.
Police have not yet confirmed the victim's identity, but they say they've arrested a man in the fatal shooting at the Beverly Center;
it happened yesterday.
“ The work on the vaccine is very much under way, and we are at the steps of testing the various strains to see which is the most appropriate.”
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's health has worsened sharply and he is slipping in and out of consciousness at his besieged West Bank headquarters.
Arafat, who is 75, veteran symbol of the struggle for statehood, beloved by most Palestinians and reviled by many Israelis, was ""very, very sick,"" a Palestinian cabinet minister said on condition of anonymity.
Details of the illness were unclear.
Palestinian leaders were summoned to the battered compound where Arafat has been effectively penned by Israeli forces for more than two years, accused by Israel of fomenting violence in a 4-year uprising.
Arafat denies the charge.
In March of 2002, two K-2 assault rifles were stolen from the Capital Defense Command and then later used in a bank robbery in Seoul.
In response, the South Korean military declared a security alert in the area in a bid to catch the men and recover the arms.
In March of 2002, two K-2 assault rifles were stolen from the Capital Defense Command and then later used in a bank robbery in Seoul.
Hong Seok-hyun Ambassdor to the United States under demands for his resignation.
The rapid rise in food prices could push 100m people in poor countries deeper into poverty, the head of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, has said.
His warning follows that from the leader of the International Monetary Fund, who said hundreds of thousands of people are at risk of starvation.
Zoellick proposed an action plan to boost long-run agricultural production.
There have been food riots recently in a number of countries, including Haiti, the Philippines and Egypt.
His proposal for a ""new deal"" to tackle the international food crisis was endorsed by the World Bank´s steering committee of finance and development ministers at a meeting in Washington.The World Bank and its sister organization, the IMF have held a weekend of meetings that addressed rising food and energy prices as well as the credit crisis upsetting global financial markets.
The rapid rise in food prices could push 100m people in poor countries deeper into poverty, the head of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, has said.
Zoellick proposed an action plan to boost long-run agricultural production.
Yonhap News reports a U.S. service member stationed in South Korea has been cleared of suspicions that he sexually assaulted a South Korean female, police said Thursday.
Earlier in the day, U.S. and South Korean officials said that the private first class, whose name was not disclosed, allegedly raped a 19-year-old female at a Seoul hotel on Wednesday after meeting her through an Internet site.
The airman from the U.S. Air Force 51st Fighter Wing based in Osan, some 60 kilometers south of Seoul, was booked on suspicion of assault and handed over to the U.S. military authorities.
A South Korean military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the alleged victim also sent a text message on the night of the alleged rape via cellular phone telling the suspect that she arrived at her house safely.
""The woman also admitted to having sex under mutual consent,"" the official said.
The Foreign Ministry summoned Japanese Ambassador Shotaro Oshima Tuesday to protest Koizumi’s visit to the controversial shrine in Tokyo.
In a statement, the ministry said it was ”deeply disappointed and angered ” at the Japanese leader’s visit to the shrine.
”We note that this type of attitude has worsened relations between South Korea and Japan and disturbed Northeast Asia’s regional cooperation and friendship, ” the statement said.
”Japan should build confidence with its neighbors if the country is really willing to contribute to regional peace and prosperity and play a responsible role in international society, ” it added.
In a statement, the ministry said it was ”deeply disappointed and angered ” at the Japanese leader’s visit to the shrine.
Russia took over the rotating Security Council presidency on Tuesday, setting an agenda for the month that focuses on the crisis in Sudan, the U.N. role in Iraq and the world body's counter-terrorism efforts.
Russia's new U.N. ambassador Andrey Denisov pledged to work for unity on the Security Council as it addresses Iraq and other issues that once bitterly divided the 15-member group.
Gay couples can be married in Washington state.
For George Bush, the truth hurts.
Edwin J. Feulner, president of Heritage Foundation, said that a regime change in N.K. is a long-term goal for the Bush administration.
A complete regime change in communist North Korea is a long-term goal for the Bush administration, the head of a right-wing American think tank told The Korea Herald yesterday.
Edwin J. Feulner, president of the “Neo-Conservative” Heritage Foundation, said in a discussion with Herald Media publisher Hong Jung-wook that Washington will eventually work toward that goal and stressed it would be the only way for true development in the Stalinist state.
With China's apparent position that the current Kim Jong-il regime is better than having no regime, Feulner said he could not speak for his government on whether Washington would consider any regime better than Kim's.
Ban said that N.K. needed to return to 6-way talks unconditionally.
Ruling and opposition parties agreed to relocate 12 ministries.
˝Texas doesn´t appreciate the EU´s suggestion that it enact a moratorium on the death penalty.
The EU urged Texas Governor Rick Perry to stop putting prisoners to death before the state carries out its 400th death sentence since 1982 tomorrow.
An arrogant Perry spokesman fired back, saying our forefathers fought the Revolutionary War to throw off the yoke of a European monarch and gain the freedom of self-determination.
He claimed Texans decided that the death penalty is a just and appropriate punishment for the most horrible crimes committed against the state´s citizens.
Johnny Ray Conner is due to die by lethal injection for the shooting of a grocery store clerk in 1998.
Many Americans also oppose the death penalty… and Texas has become known as the legalized murder capital of the United States ˝
The Korea Times reports - Defense Minister Yoon Kwang-ung Monday reaffirmed his ministry's push for the U.S. base relocation plan, despite strong protests from Pyongtaek residents and some civic groups.
Under a 2004 agreement between Korea and the United States Pyongtaek, Kyonggi Province, is the site for a new, consolidated U.S. military base to be built by 2008.
Grand National Party (GNP) nominee Lee Myung-bak Monday again denied allegations of being involved in stock price manipulation in collaboration with his former business partner Kim Kyung-joon.
The leading presidential candidate said that a stock manipulator should not become the President.
Lee also said he has neither expertise on how to manipulate stock prices nor did he conduct the illegal business deals.
Recent polls said the ongoing probe has begun to erode Lee´s popularity.
According to the KBS poll, Lee enjoyed a 37.3 percent support rate.
His rating has fallen below the 40 percent range he had enjoyed in recent months.
The runner-up was hardcore conservative Lee Hoi-chang, whose support rate stood at 20.5 percent, followed by liberal candidate Chung Dong-young´s 16.4 percent.
United New Democratic Party (UNDP) candidate Chung Dong-young, who has sharpened his attack on Lee´s scandal, said this week will determine 70 percent of election outcome.
The pro-government party lawmakers joined the attack on the frontrunner by urging Lee to resign from the candidacy.
UNDP lawmaker Kim Hyun-mee, who serves as a spokeswoman for Chung, told reporters that the former Seoul mayor may be indicted.
The leading presidential candidate said that a stock manipulator should not become the President.
Recent polls said the ongoing probe has begun to erode Lee´s popularity.
North Korea, in its first reaction to evidence South Korean scientists conducted tests to enrich uranium, has accused Seoul of ""accelerating a nuclear-arms race"" in Northeast Asia.
North Korea, in its first reaction to evidence South Korean scientists conducted tests to enrich uranium, has accused Seoul of ""accelerating a nuclear-arms race"" in Northeast Asia.
The Bank of Korea kept the call rate at 3.5%.
The economy and men who have become symbols of the campaign were the highlights of the final presidential debate:
“John McCain and Barack Obama argued about the incumbent.”
“Obama's links to the 1960's Weather Underground bomber Bill Ayres…”
“The fact that this has become such a important part of your campaign, Senator McCain, says more about your campaign than it says about me.
“And the new political symbol:
an Ohio man who told Obama at a campaign stop that his plan to raise tax rates on quarter million-dollar incomes would keep him from buying the plumbing business he works for…”
“Of course I'd talk to people like Joe the plumber and tell him that I'm not going to spread his wealth around.”
“McCain took the offensive in the Hofstra University debate, reflection of Obama's lead in a growing number of polls.
that state, make sure voter registration is free of fraud, is now headed to the Supreme Court.
Four people are dead in Illinois after the crash of a medical helicopter.
The AP's Don Babwin reports the chopper may have had a wire.
“What they're not clear on is whether or not that had anything to do with the crash or the helicopter was experiencing mechanical difficulties and on a on its way down and hit the guide wire.”
Among the dead is a 13 month-old girl.
“Obama's links to the 1960's Weather Underground bomber Bill Ayres…”
“And the new political symbol:
“Of course I'd talk to people like Joe the plumber and tell him that I'm not going to spread his wealth around.”
“McCain took the offensive in the Hofstra University debate, reflection of Obama's lead in a growing number of polls.
Among the dead is a 13 month-old girl.
South Korea ranked fourth in the number of deaths per 100,000 persons among the 30 countries of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development trailing Hungary, Japan and Finland.
South Korea ranked fourth in the number of deaths per 100,000 persons among the 30 countries of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development trailing Hungary, Japan and Finland.
U.S. troop redeployment effects Tongduchon residents.
The leader of the country’s largest conservative civic organization Monday expressed support for the main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) in next year’s presidential election.
In a forum hosted by the GNP’s self-claimed reform-minded lawmakers in Seoul, Rev.
Kim Jin-hong, chairman of the New Right Union (NRU), also called for an alliance of the GNP, the minor opposition Democratic Party (DP) and the People First Party (PFP) to take power from what he called the left-leaning governing Uri Party.
Kim’s remarks came after the Uri Party took steps toward forging an ”anti-GNP ” alliance with high-profile politicians, including former Prime Minister Goh Kun, and minor opposition parties ahead of the 2007 presidential race.
In a forum hosted by the GNP’s self-claimed reform-minded lawmakers in Seoul, Rev.
Homes and businesses across England are being searched and 24 people questioned after police say a plot to blow up UK flights to the US was disrupted.
US intelligence officials believe the plotters hoped to stage a practice run followed by actual attacks on up to 10 planes within days. UK police said they could have caused “mass murder on an unimaginable scale”.
Security chiefs said the group believed to be planning the attack had been under surveillance for some time.
US Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the plot was ”in some respects suggestive of al-Queda.
It had only become apparent in the ”last two weeks” that the target of the flights was the US, Chertoff said .
American broadcaster ABC News reported that five more suspects still at large in Britain were being ”urgently sought”, citing US sources briefed on the plot.
British police declined to comment on the report.
They had accumulated and assembled the capabilities that they needed and they were in the final stages of planning for execution,” he said.
South Korea hopes a meeting of nuclear negotiators from Seoul and Washington in New York will give shape to what is ambiguously called a common and broad approach to resolving the North Korean nuclear issue, a senior government official said on Wednesday.
The remarks were made by Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Lee Kyu-hyung hours after Chun Yung-woo, Seoul's top nuclear envoy, left for New York to attend the meeting with his U.S. counterpart, Christopher Hill.
They will discuss follow-up measures to the agreement reached between President Roh Moo-hyun and President George W. Bush in Washington, D.C. on Sept 14 to take a ”common and broad approach ” to peacefully resolve the North's nuclear standoff.
But the approach has been criticized in Seoul as officials in both countries did not explain the contents of it.
The remarks were made by Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Lee Kyu-hyung hours after Chun Yung-woo, Seoul's top nuclear envoy, left for New York to attend the meeting with his U.S. counterpart, Christopher Hill.
On Wednesday night, Cheney launched a scathing attack on politicians who had accused the administration of manipulating intelligence.
Critics and supporters of the war in Iraq have been trading blows in Washington in a political battle that shows every sign of intensifying.
America is one of the most overtly patriotic nations in the world, never more so than when honoring its military, as at the Veterans Day ceremony last week attended by Vice-President Dick Cheney.
But patriotism, and accusations that opponents of the war are letting down the troops have been the subject of fierce political debate in Washington.
On Wednesday night, Cheney launched a scathing attack on politicians who had accused the administration of manipulating intelligence.
Although energy prices are down for the 2nd month in a row, food costs have posted their biggest increase in more than a year.
That made overall wholesale prices rise more than expected in April.
The government says they climbed by 3 tenths of a percent.
Rescuers are trolling the Atlantic off the Florida coast in search of survivors, after a boat overlaoded with about 30 people capsized and sank.
The Coast Guard says at least 9 people have died, 16 more rescued:
right now we have every reason to believe that if somebody's in a life jacket, they should be fine, they should be alive.”
That is Coast Guard Captain James Fitten.
Consumers are getting a chance today to tell President Barack Obama of problems they've had with credit card companies.
This is part of a push by Obama for legislation to protect consumers by ending some credit card industry practices like sudden interest rate hikes.
Pakistan's army says it is closing in on the Swat Valley's main town as it works to weed out entrenched Taliban militants.
That made overall wholesale prices rise more than expected in April.
At age 59, Bruce Springsteen had no problem rocking the Super Bowl half-time show, although he did seem a little winded at one point.
He closed out with a special version of Glory Days that made Springsteen's old high school buddy a big football player instead of baseball, one who threw a Hail Mary instead of a speedball.
As for the ads, Frito-Lay grabbed the top spot in USA Today's ad-meter survey for the first time with its Doritos ad, featuring an office worker using a crystal ball to free Doritos from a vending machine:
“Free Doritos at the office today?
Frito-Lay and Anheuser-Busch had 4 of the top 5 ads.
The world's most famous groundhog says winter will go on for six more weeks - Punxsutawney Phil passing judgment in Pennsylvania this morning.
He closed out with a special version of Glory Days that made Springsteen's old high school buddy a big football player instead of baseball, one who threw a Hail Mary instead of a speedball.
I think that's a yes!”
President Roh Moo-hyun and British Prime Minister Tony Blair agreed on Thursday to further strengthen bilateral cooperation in high-tech areas, such as information-technology industries, between the two countries, according to the Korea Times.
After summit talks at No. 10 Downing Street in London, Blair’s official residence, the two leaders issued a joint declaration, which contained their commitment to helping each other in the international political arena as well as in economic partnerships.
North Korean defector on espionage is accused of collecting information on South Korea.
The Supreme Court, which handles citizens' property registration documents, temporarily closed its online registry services effective yesterday morning in response to indications that government transcripts can be easily altered and forged online.
The Supreme Court, which handles citizens' property registration documents, temporarily closed its online registry services effective yesterday morning in response to indications that government transcripts can be easily altered and forged online.
The transcripts susceptible to hacking are 21 civil registration documents that can be applied for and issued online from the government Internet registry offices.
Roh slams Samsung over corporate governance.
and other nations around the globe struggle with the economic meltdown, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stieglitz says those who were attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, seemed to have been distracted by all the negative numbers:
“This time, they've gotten more depressed, as they've learned about the problems that each of them face.
So, in that sense, it almost surely has contributed to the deepening of the gloom.”
The 5-day gathering wrapped up today amid the realization that the depth of the crisis is still unknown, and the solution remains elusive.
Mississippi is the latest state trying to unload some high-priced items because of the recession.
State House has agreed to sell an 8-seat jet valued at $3.7 million that's used by Governor Haley Barbour and other officials.
Once the State Senate approves the plan, the idea is to sell the plane on eBay.
Other states have sold desks, police cruisers, and armored personnel carriers.
National football team coach Jo Bonfrere was finally dismissed by the Korea Football Association (KFA) on Tuesday with less than 10 months left until the 2006 World Cup.
National football team coach Jo Bonfrere was finally dismissed by the Korea Football Association (KFA) on Tuesday with less than 10 months left until the 2006 World Cup.
The football’s governing body said that Bonfrere expressed his intention to resign Tuesday, which it accepted in the technical committee’s meeting on Wednesday.
``Bonfrere said that he can quit the job if the technical committee agrees,’’ the KFA’s vice president Lee Hoi-taek said after a four-hour meeting at KFA headquarters in Seoul.
Sovereign exits Korea with profit of 747 billion won.
Korean female stars run off with LPGA event.
The Taliban shot to death Shim Sung-min, who was 29, Monday night, following the killing of the leader of the Christian aid group, Rev.
˝Taliban militants Tuesday threatened to kill a third Korean hostage today unless their demands for a prisoner swap are accepted by 4:30 this afternoon (KST).
Taliban spokesman Yousaf Ahamdi said that the series of killings will continue until their demands for an exchange of Afghan-held prisoners for the hostages are met, as he set the 10th deadline.
A supreme council of the Taliban was held Monday to decide whether to kill the hostages one by one, or collectively, or release them, and was reported to have chosen to kill them one by one.
The second hostage was killed right after the meeting, according to sources in Kabul.
``If our demands are not met by then, we will start killing the rest of the 21 South Koreans,´´ Ahamadi was quoted as saying by AFP, accusing the Afghan and South Korean governments of insincerity in negotiations.
He urged again the Korean government to press Kabul to free the prisoners.
But the Afghan government ruled out release of Taliban prisoners Tuesday.
The Korea Times reports the embassy in Iraq on Thursday strongly urged its citizens there to leave the war-torn nation immediately, citing the worsening security conditions.
Fears of terrorist attacks have been mounting as U.S. forces gear up for a ``final’’ assault on Iraqi insurgents in Najaf, who are threatening to blow up oil pipelines.
The South Korean government has been stepping up efforts to persuade its citizens to refrain from visiting Iraq, especially after Kim Sun-il, a civilian worker, was kidnapped and killed by Islamic militants in the Middle Eastern country in June.
Canadian beef producers filed against U.S. government to reopen the Canada-U.S. border.
Last month the North pulled out of six-party talks hosted by China on the issue.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the Chinese president have endorsed a commitment to get North Korea back into talks over its nuclear program.
President Hu Jintao and Rice also agreed that negotiation was the way to resolve differences over Taiwan, which Beijing sees as a renegade province.
Rice is in Beijing, on the last leg of an Asian tour that has focused on North Korea's nuclear ambitions.
The US wants China to use its influence to put pressure on Pyongyang.
A new bridge connecting Yeongjongdo and Songdo is going to start its construction soon.
Fueling is under way at the Kennedy Space Center, as NASA readies the space shuttle Discovery for launch tonight.
The weather looks good, and there's no reported evidence of a return of the hydrogen fuel leak that scrubbed last Wednesday's launch.
NASA has until Tuesday to send Discovery and a crew of 7 to the international space station.
Five dead in an apparent murder-suicide early this morning in Miami:
“ We have 4 people confirmed dead at this location, one person at another location.
It appears to be domestic-related.”
Investigators say they are trying to confirm that the shooter's wife had recently left him.
Police in Pakistan fired tear gas at stone-throwing protesters after authorities tried to detain the opposition leader Nawaz Sharif.
(shouting) The former prime minister has defied a government house arrest order;
a power struggle threatens to paralyze the nuclear-armed country at a time when its economy is in tatters, and it faces more of a militant opposition.
“ We have 4 people confirmed dead at this location, one person at another location.
Police in Pakistan fired tear gas at stone-throwing protesters after authorities tried to detain the opposition leader Nawaz Sharif.
The OECD has slashed its growth forecast for the US economy and hardly expects it to grow at all in the first six months of 2008.
But the OECD says it is ""premature"" to say the US is in recession.
Among countries that use the euro, it raised its growth forecast for the first quarter from 0.4% to 0.5%.
The report forecast UK growth of 0.6% in the first quarter.
OECD chief economist Jorgen Elmeskov said the Bank of England should be cautious, given the solid growth and worries over inflation.
The research group said the US economy is, ""essentially moving sideways, if not contracting outright"".
Jerry Seinfeld has reunited with one of his most famous TV girl friends.
AP entertainment editor Michael Weinfeld is here to tell us about it:
“ Alley Wentworth is back, playing a therapist to the stars on Head Case, and one of her patients this season is her old” schmoopy,“ Jerry Seinfeld:
In fact, we had to cut a few times because we were laughing so hard.”
“ Seinfeld's producing an upcoming reality show where celebrities referee real couples' arguments.
If Wentworth and her husband, George Stephanopolous, were fighting, would they go on the show?”
“ Season 2 of Head Case premiers tonight on STARZ.
Michael Weinfeld, Washington.”
A landlord is promising 2 months' free rent if his apartment tenants in Ohio, Florida, North Carolina and Texas lose their jobs.
Top overall seed in the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament sees its first action today, actually this evening, against Moorehead State.
Jerry Seinfeld has reunited with one of his most famous TV girl friends.
“ Alley Wentworth is back, playing a therapist to the stars on Head Case, and one of her patients this season is her old” schmoopy,“ Jerry Seinfeld:
In fact, we had to cut a few times because we were laughing so hard.”
“ George would rather take his own life than do something that public!”
“ Season 2 of Head Case premiers tonight on STARZ.
A landlord is promising 2 months' free rent if his apartment tenants in Ohio, Florida, North Carolina and Texas lose their jobs.
President George W. Bush insisted on Thursday he did not learn until recently that the CIA destroyed videotapes of harsh interrogations, and said he would not speak any more in public about the issue currently under investigation by the administration and Congress.At a White House news conference, Bush expressed confidence in congressional investigations, which his Justice Department had balked at last week, saying he thought all the various inquiries underway would eventually get to the truth.
“Until these inquiries are complete, until the oversights´ finished, I will be rendering no opinion from the podium,” Bush said.
With mounting U.S. casualties and the looming deadlines of U.S. presidential elections in November and the June 30 transfer of sovereignty to Iraq, questions are increasingly being raised over how America will get out of Iraq.
Sending Arab and Muslim peacekeepers to Iraq is one possible strategy to reduce violence there, but the head of the Arab League said Monday that's not possible while Americans are in charge.
And Jordan's King Abdullah II warned that neighboring nations would not be good peacekeepers for Iraq because they would be too tempted to meddle.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher, whose country does not border Iraq, said Egypt will not deploy its military there and hasn't ``heard that any Arab country has volunteered'' to do so.
With mounting U.S. casualties and the looming deadlines of U.S. presidential elections in November and the June 30 transfer of sovereignty to Iraq, questions are increasingly being raised over how America will get out of Iraq.
Before the anti-impeachment rally started in the afternoon, about 3,000 protesters, mostly college students, gathered in Daehangno, 10 minutes by car away from Gwanghwamun, to protest the U.S. presence in Iraq on the first anniversary of the war.
The protesters later joined the anti-impeachment candlelight vigil.
At least 130,000 Korean citizens took to the streets in downtown Seoul and across the nation Saturday in rallies against the impeachment of President Roh Moo-hyun and the U.S. presence in Iraq.
The evening's candlelight vigil was the largest of its kind since the president was impeached by the opposition-controlled parliament March 12 on allegations of violating the Elections Law and other wrongdoing.
Similar rallies were held in other provinces and major cities, including Busan and Daegu, but the demonstrations were peaceful and no major incidents were reported.
Holding candles, protesters against the impeachment packed the 10-lane boulevard in Gwanghwamun near Seoul City Hall, chanting ""Impeachment invalid!
"" and ""Let's protect democracy.
"" The demonstration was the largest ever since the June 10, 1987, rally against the authoritarian rule of then President Chun Doo-hwan.
About 8,000 riot police were deployed around the rally, and they watched the protesters' peaceful march, blocking off several roads in downtown Seoul. There were no clashes or arrests.
Before the anti-impeachment rally started in the afternoon, about 3,000 protesters, mostly college students, gathered in Daehangno, 10 minutes by car away from Gwanghwamun, to protest the U.S. presence in Iraq on the first anniversary of the war.
They also demanded the Korean government scrap its plan to send 3,600 troops, including combatants, to the Middle Eastern country.
The protesters later joined the anti-impeachment candlelight vigil.
Vice President Cheney will visit Seoul in mid-April.
We got the bottom line on Christmas sales this morning, and the news is not nice.
“All in all a pretty awful holiday season.”
That's economic analyst Adam York of Wachovia.
He's reacting to word from the Commerce Department that retail sales plunged 2.7% in December;
that's far more than expected, and makes for a record sixth straight month of losses.
York says it's pretty obvious that jobless people are reluctant to spend.
“Certainly, you know, that's not all the consumers who have lost their jobs, but the ones that haven't are probably more worried about their prospects for keeping their job in 2009.”
On Wall Street in the first half-hour this morning, the Dow Industrials down 174 points, NASDAQ off 33.
We got the bottom line on Christmas sales this morning, and the news is not nice.
In a report to the National Assembly, the ministry unveiled a draft five-year roadmap to take back wartime operational control from the U.S. military.
Seoul and Washington are in the final stage of completing joint studies on a future alliance framework.
The U.S. side agreed to provide its advanced intelligence assets to the Korean military to fill the possible security vacuum on the Korean Peninsula after Seoul assumes greater role in national defense, he added. Under the tentative agreement, the U.S.
Forces Korea (USFK) will continue to operate high-tech surveillance and aircraft systems, such as KH-12 satellite, U-2 spy aircraft and F-16 fighter jets, to help the Korean military deter threats from North Korea with its status shifting to a supporting role, according to the report.
In a report to the National Assembly, the ministry unveiled a draft five-year roadmap to take back wartime operational control from the U.S. military.
it's good to be in the business of fixing things these days.
“Coming out, lookin for any hot spots-”
“When the economy hits the skids, most businesses do worse:
But some do better, at least in the short run:
[Body shop noise in background]
“Yesterday was crazy, Saturday, Saturday we had a Saturday like we haven't had in 7 years.”
“Jerome Vasconcelos owns the Ludlow Garage in New York City.
With no one buying cars, owners are fixing the ones they have.”
“Not only is no one buying, Vasconcelos says, new leases are down, too.
He's seeing the spiking drivers renewing their leases and driving older cars.
Holder is said to have accepted; if he passes the background check, he would become the first black to head the department.
the Dow down 40 points. On the upside of the down economy:
“When the economy hits the skids, most businesses do worse:
But some do better, at least in the short run:
President Elect Barack Obama has reportedly informally offered a job of Attorney General to Eric Holder, who's a former deputy AG.
Abu Hamza al-Masri has been arrested in London.
Authorities say he preaches holy war and admires Osama bin Laden.
The indictment accuses Masri of trying to help al-Qaeda set up a terrorist training camp in Oregon in late 1999 to early 2000.
He is also linked to a 1998 attack in Yemen in which four hostages were killed.
Authorities say he preaches holy war and admires Osama bin Laden.
The counts include hostage taking and other terrorism charges.
He is also linked to a 1998 attack in Yemen in which four hostages were killed.
Current security conditions on the Korean peninsula are grave.
Additional release of Iraqi POWs.
The pair were taken from the event in restraints after revealing T-shirts with Bush's name crossed out on the front and the words ``Love America, Hate Bush'' on the back.
So much for “free speech” in the United States.
A man who heckled President Bush at a political rally was fired from his job at an advertising and design company for offending a client who provided tickets to the event. The fired graphic designer said Saturday he won't try to get his job back.
``I'm mad less about losing the job I'm mad more about the reasons,'' said 35 year-old Glen Hiller, of Berkeley Springs, West Virginia.
Hiller was ushered out of Hedgesville High School on Tuesday after shouting his disagreement with Bush's comments about the war in Iraq war and the search for weapons of mass destruction.
Last month, Charleston West Virginia City Council apologized to two protesters arrested for wearing anti-Bush T-shirts to the president's July 4th rally.
The pair were taken from the event in restraints after revealing T-shirts with Bush's name crossed out on the front and the words ``Love America, Hate Bush'' on the back.
voice one’s opinion:
˝The links between the three attempted car bombings in Glasgow and London are becoming ””ever clearer””, the UK´s top counter-terrorism officer has said.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke said he was ””absolutely confident”” of uncovering details of the attackers´ methods and network.
A Jeep containing gas cylinders was driven into Glasgow Airport a day after two car bombs were found in London.
Five people are being held, but police are thought to be hunting a suspect.
A BBC correspondent said that might explain why the country remained on its highest state of security alert - critical, which means an attack is expected ””imminently””.
Two of those held by police are a 26-year-old man and 27-year-old woman who were arrested on the M6 near Sandbach, Cheshire, on Saturday night.
The man has been identified by the BBC as Dr Mohammed Asha.
Both have been taken to Paddington Green police station in London for questioning.
Another 26-year-old man arrested in Liverpool on Sunday remains in custody at a Merseyside police station.
One of the two suspects held at Glasgow Airport on Saturday suffered severe burns and remains in critical condition, and under armed police guard, at Royal Alexandra Hospital, in Paisley.” ˝The links between the three attempted car bombings in Glasgow and London are becoming ””ever clearer””, the UK´s top counter-terrorism officer has said.
Five people are being held, but police are thought to be hunting a suspect.
The brawl broke out when more than 24 members of parliament from the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) stormed the Speaker’s podium.
They were trying to stop the Speaker addressing the bill, and accuse the opposition of delaying the 2007 budget.
Taiwan’s parliament, which is split between two major political factions, often descends into physical violence.
Lawmakers from the DPP accuse opposition Speaker Wang Jin-pyng of abusing his position, saying he is delaying the annual budget by insisting the electoral bill is passed first.
Philippine President Gloria Arroyo has survived a second attempt to impeach her over allegations of corruption, human rights abuses and election fraud.
After a long session, the House of Representatives voted 173-32 to dismiss the opposition's complaint against her.
The move blocked a potentially damaging trial in the Senate, which is dominated by the opposition.
But Arroyo's opponents say they will continue their efforts to have her removed from office.
“I am happy to report to our people that we just closed the impeachment case,” Jose de Venecia, speaker of the House of Representatives, told reporters on Thursday.
Philippine President Gloria Arroyo has survived a second attempt to impeach her over allegations of corruption, human rights abuses and election fraud.
The Joong-Ang Ilbo reports Lee Myung-bak, still seeking an alliance with the woman who has so far been his toughest foe in the race for president, declared in public yesterday that he wanted to earn Park Geun-hye’s trust and that it was his fault the two were rivals.
In a special press conference at the Grand National Party headquarters in Yeouido, Lee made promises that once elected, he will stay out of party affairs to follow the existing party platform created while Park was the chairwoman, particularly in deciding the nominations for the legislative elections.
Park, who has not appeared publicly in five days, declined to respond yesterday.
Her aides said she told them not to say anything in response to the speech before she does.
She is expected to speak today.
Park narrowly lost to Lee in a bitter primary race for the Grand National Party nomination in August.Lee was also stung recently when Lee Hoi-chang, a former leader of the Grand National Party, announced his third bid for the presidency ― this time as an independent.
The Joong-Ang Ilbo reports Lee Myung-bak, still seeking an alliance with the woman who has so far been his toughest foe in the race for president, declared in public yesterday that he wanted to earn Park Geun-hye’s trust and that it was his fault the two were rivals.
She is expected to speak today.
Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero´s ruling Socialist Party has won Spain´s general elections, with the conservative Popular Party (PP) admitting defeat.
But with 92% of votes counted, the Socialists looked set to fall short of the 176 seats needed for an absolute parliamentary majority.
They were projected to win 168 seats, compared to 154 for Mariano Rajoy´s PP.
Zapatero thanked jubilant supporters for handing his party a ""clear victory"" in the elections.
Rajoy, the prime minister´s leading rival, conceded defeat and congratulated Zapatero.
Kim listed maintaining respect for people and their rights, politically neutral and independent investigations, future-oriented approaches among prosecutors, and reforming the prosecutors office as the most critical issues he would deal with during his term.
The first two points he cited directly concern human rights.
The Joong-Ang Ilbo reports ""Human rights"" became a watchword among law enforcement agencies yesterday as the Supreme Public Prosecutors Office and the police both announced that they would focus on protecting citizens' rights.
Both organizations said they will emphasize human rights protection during investigations.
Analysts said the prosecutors and police are trying to adopt the same party line as the current administration.
In his inaugural speech as new prosecutor-general, Kim Jong-bin said the motto of the prosecutors office in his tenure would be safe-guarding human rights.
And his vision for the future of the prosecutors office and the increased role of prosecutors reflected his desire for championing human rights.
Kim listed maintaining respect for people and their rights, politically neutral and independent investigations, future-oriented approaches among prosecutors, and reforming the prosecutors office as the most critical issues he would deal with during his term.
The first two points he cited directly concern human rights.
Seoul demands Japanese textbooks corrected immediately.
The Korea times reported this morning that a U.S. expert has said North Korea is unlikely to implement the second phase of the landmark Feb.
The Korea times reported this morning that a U.S. expert has said North Korea is unlikely to implement the second phase of the landmark Feb.
President Roh Moo-hyun Thursday appointed Vice Foreign Minister Lee Tae-sik as the new ambassador to the United States.
Lee, who is 60, replaces Hong Seok-hyun, who resigned over the slush funds scandal in the lead-up to the 1997 presidential election when he was publisher of the JoongAng Ilbo, a major daily.
He stepped down last Friday ending his seven-month service.
A career diplomat, Lee served as ambassador to Britain and Israel, deputy executive director of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), deputy foreign minister and director-general of the ministry’s trade bureau.
NTS imposes surcharge on foreign funds for their tax evasion.
The Korea Times reports Seoul stocks extended their steep loss, plunging below the 1,600 mark, following a ``Bear Stearns shock´´ that smashed shares on Wall Street last Friday.
On Monday, the benchmark KOSPI market shed 25.82 or 1.61 percent, to close at 1,574.44, while the tech-loaded KOSDAQ lost 17.03, or 276 percent, ending the day at 600.68.
Fed´s decision to slash its lending rate by a quarter point over the weekend wasn´t enough to offset investors´ concerns over the credit turmoil ahead of the opening session of Asian stock markets.
The ripple effect of Bear Stearns´ liquidity trouble stemming from subprime-linked defaults continued and rattled Asian bourses, from Hong Kong, Singapore to Shanghai and Japan.
As Bear Stearns faced a near collapse, the New York Federal Reserve quickly moved to bail out the fifth largest investment bank on Wall Street through JPMorgan Chase.
Besides Bear Stearns, a number of investment banks, including Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and Merrill Lynch had sought bailout funds from global investors and sovereign wealth funds.
The ripple effect of Bear Stearns´ liquidity trouble stemming from subprime-linked defaults continued and rattled Asian bourses, from Hong Kong, Singapore to Shanghai and Japan.
The President is getting the last of his ducks in a row, having the Vice-President swear in his Attorney General this hour, then nominating a third Republican to his cabinet.
We'll start with this hour's swearing-in of Eric Holder as AG and the AP's Jerry Bodlander on Capitol Hill:
“Holder was confirmed as the first African-American attorney general by better than a 3 to 1 margin, the vote 75 to 21.
It marks the start of a new era for a department that's been at the center of numerous controversies, including wireless surveillance and harsh interrogation.”
And President Barack Obama will complete his cabinet next hour when he nominates New Hampshire Senator Judd Gregg to be Commerce Secretary.
The AP's Mark Smith is live at the White House with word it took some doing to bring another Republican aboard:
There's a carefully negotiated condition here, that Gregg's nomination not give Democrats a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.
That apparently means New Hampshire Governor John Lynch, a Democrat, has agreed to appoint a non-Democrat to serve out the remaining two years of Republican Gregg's term.
Another grim economic forecast this morning.
The Sales Chief at Chrysler says American car sales could've dropped as much as 35% last month, to the lowest rate in a quarter century.
The actual numbers will be out later today.
The President is getting the last of his ducks in a row, having the Vice-President swear in his Attorney General this hour, then nominating a third Republican to his cabinet.
There's a carefully negotiated condition here, that Gregg's nomination not give Democrats a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.
President Elect Barack Obama, in his weekly radio address, is calling for quick action in Congress on an economic recovery plan that could cost as much as $775 billion.
Republican leaders say they want time to look over the plan.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, will be getting the details on Monday.
Large portion of the measures is thought to be going toward infrastructure projects, including road and bridge repairs, combined with new programs, such as research and development on energy efficiency.
John Travolta's 16 year-old son Jett has been found dead in the family's vacation home in the Bahamas.
The AP's Juan McCartney reports that the teenager had a history of seizures.
“We also had police sources who wouldn't speak on the record, who told us that he hit his head on the bathtub, as a result of the seizure, and that may have led to his death.”
An autopsy in the Bahamas is planned for Monday.
Republican leaders say they want time to look over the plan.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, will be getting the details on Monday.
The AP's Juan McCartney reports that the teenager had a history of seizures.
“We also had police sources who wouldn't speak on the record, who told us that he hit his head on the bathtub, as a result of the seizure, and that may have led to his death.”
An autopsy in the Bahamas is planned for Monday.
U.S. forces in South Korea staged a river-crossing drill along with troops from the South yesterday, a few weeks before the third round of six-party talks aimed at resolving the crisis over North Korea's nuclear weapons.
Captain David Stewart says soldiers from both countries are in high spirits.
“The atmosphere among US soldiers is great.
We enjoy what we're doing.
We've had a good experience out here.”
About 20 American soldiers from the 2nd Infantry Division and 100 South Korean soldiers crossed a pontoon bridge over the Han River in Seoul as part of the combined exercises.
The two Koreas remain in a technical state of war because their 1950-1953 conflict ended in an armed truce that has not been replaced by a peace treaty.
U.S. forces in South Korea staged a river-crossing drill along with troops from the South yesterday, a few weeks before the third round of six-party talks aimed at resolving the crisis over North Korea's nuclear weapons.
“The atmosphere among US soldiers is great.
We love training with the ROK battalions, it's good training… it's realistic and it's tough and challenging.
About 20 American soldiers from the 2nd Infantry Division and 100 South Korean soldiers crossed a pontoon bridge over the Han River in Seoul as part of the combined exercises.
The man described as a sole-surviving gunman from last month's deadly attack on Mumbai, India, has asked Pakistani official to send legal help.
Indian police say the man wrote to Pakistan after a number of Indian lawyers refused to take his case.
The AP has obtained a copy of his convention-confession.
In it, the 21 year old says the attack had originally been planned for September 27.
The Indian navy has taken some of the fight to Somali pirates.
AP correspondent Tim Sullivan reports from New Delhi:
“An Indian navy ship that was patrolling the Gulf of Eden this morning received a distress call from a merchant vessel flying an Ethiopian flag saying they were under attack by pirates.”
The Indian navy says commandos carried to the ship by a helicopter captured 23 of the pirates.
Last month, Indian navy was criticized for sinking a Thai fishing trawler that had been commandeered by pirates.
The Somali pirates recently seized a Saudi supertanker with 100 million gallons of oil.
The AP has obtained a copy of his convention-confession.
“An Indian navy ship that was patrolling the Gulf of Eden this morning received a distress call from a merchant vessel flying an Ethiopian flag saying they were under attack by pirates.”
The Indian navy says commandos carried to the ship by a helicopter captured 23 of the pirates.
Roh expressed concern over the Korean people who speak in support of the U.S. more proactively than U.S. citizens.
President Roh Moo-hyun said Sunday he has been suffering setbacks due to stalwart conservatives stubbornly backing the United States.
Roh expressed concern over the Korean people who speak in support of the U.S. more proactively than U.S. citizens.
``They act in a way more like Americans than Americans,'' he said during a meeting with Koreans living in Istanbul, Turkey.
The need has been growing to appropriately coordinate the differing opinions between South Korea and the United States with regard to the changing order in East Asia, he said.
Roh's remark comes amid fears that the alliance between the two nations has soured mainly due to the Seoul government's policy toward a ``balancer"" role in Northeast Asia, according to the pro-opposition Korea Times.
Malicious program makers have been prosecuted for the first time in Korea.
President Barack Obama says the economy continues to bleed jobs:
“Already the slowdown has cost us tens of thousands of jobs in January alone.
In his weekly radio and Internet speech, Obama called on the Senate to act quickly on the House-passed $800+ billion stimulus bill.
More layoffs at Caterpillar - another 2100 additional jobs cut at three plants in Illinois:
“In addition to the production workers, we also announced that 416 support and management employees also in Aurora, Decatur and East Peoria have been notified of layoffs.”
As the world's top business, economic and political leaders meet in Davos, Switzerland, police in Geneva had to use tear gas to break up a bottle-throwing crowd of protesters.
“Already the slowdown has cost us tens of thousands of jobs in January alone.
Flood warnings still up in 10 counties in Washington State.
“Beds are, you know, mattresses are pretty much all wet and dressers, you know on the bottom and there's mud everywhere, thick mud.”
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo defiantly rejected criticism Monday of her decision to withdraw Philippine troops from Iraq to save the life of a captive Filipino truck driver.
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo defiantly rejected criticism Monday of her decision to withdraw Philippine troops from Iraq to save the life of a captive Filipino truck driver.
The focus of the 40-minute speech was to flesh out plans for economic reforms aimed at easing the Philippines' wrenching poverty that has led nearly 10 percent of the population to seek work overseas.
Credit-card spending tumbles 40% in first half.
US Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry has chosen North Carolina Senator John Edwards as his running mate.
Kerry made the announcement at a rally in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
But before that, more than one million Kerry supporters learned the news via e-mail.
Experts say having Edwards on the ticket may help the Democrats win some key Southern states.
But one downside is Edwards' relative lack of experience.
He has served just one term as senator.
They signed up on Kerry's website for the opportunity to be the first to know.
The government decided Tuesday to allow conscientious objectors against mandatory military service to conduct alternative services such as caring for the disabled, instead of imprisoning them.
The alternate service term will be 36 months compared to the 24 months of military service, which will be shortened to 18 months in 2014.
The Ministry of National Defense said an average of 750 people annually are prosecuted because they object to performing military service for conscientious or religions reasons.
They will be eligible to undertake alternative services to respect their human rights.
The current laws requires all healthy men to fulfill mandatory military service for 24, 26 or 27 months in the Army, Navy or Air Force, respectively.
The ministry plans to make the social service come under strict labor conditions and impose a longer term for the objectors in order to secure fairness in the alternative conscription system.
The boys were arrested on suspicion of gang raping three middle school girls from the city and two others from Changwon on several occasions since January.
Police have arrested a total of 12 high school boys and booked 29 other students from Miryang, South Kyongsang Province, on charges of sexual assaults on five middle school girls.
Investigators at a police station in the southeastern industrial city of Ulsan initially arrested three suspects, but Saturday arrested another nine of the 41 suspects after victims and their families protested.
The boys were arrested on suspicion of gang raping three middle school girls from the city and two others from Changwon on several occasions since January.
Korea will gain access to 10 million metric tons of LNG.
Rumsfeld promised more would be done to protect forces.
Tina Fey and“ 30 Rock” cleaned up at the Golden Globe Awards.
Fey won for Best Actress in a TV Comedy, and her NBC show was picked as Best Comedy.
One example of an obsessive online correspondent and critic:
“Diane Fan thinks I have a smug smile, and I don't know her, and I don't know what I did to her.”
Fit or fat soldiers?
The Army's top recruiter says obesity will be a bigger challenge than any other problem keeping future recruits out of the military.
She is still as hot as she was late last year.
“If you ever start to feel too good about yourself, they have this thing called the Internet, and you can find a lot of people there who don't like you.
˝Several loud explosions have been heard at a mosque in the Pakistani capital where armed Islamic students have been resisting a siege by security forces.
At least 16 people have died in recent clashes at Islamabad´s Red Mosque complex.
Pakistani authorities have sent troops and police to seal off the mosque and have urged its students to surrender.
The mosque has been at the forefront of a vigilante campaign to enforce a form of Islamic Sharia law in Pakistan.
Its students have kidnapped police officers and people they accuse of involvement in “immoral” acts such as prostitution.
Pakistani President, Gen Pervez Musharraf, has been criticized for failing to clamp down on the mosque´s activities.
The latest confrontation is said to have started on Tuesday when security forces encircled the mosque with barriers.
Women students of one of two seminaries attached to the mosque protested in a nearby street, while their male counterparts traded gunfire with security forces.
At least 16 people died in the violence and scores were hurt.˝
Citing strong exports and improving consumer spending, Finance Minister Han Duck-soo yesterday forecast a 5 percent growth rate for the Korean economy in the second half of the year.
This means that Asia's fourth-largest economy is expected to achieve its potential growth rate of between 4 and 5 percent set by the government.
Lending further support for the minister's remarks, the Bank of Korea also raised its target growth rate to 4.5 percent in the second half.
YMCA files a suit against KT, Hanaro for fixing prices.
Chaebol on edge over Samsung ruling.
Flip-flopping even before taking presidential office, Lee Myoung-bak said Wednesday it will be tough for Korea to achieve the 7 percent economic growth in 2008 he promised voters during his campaign.
Lee said the world economic outlook is dismal, as a variety of unexpected negative factors have appeared.
The Joong Ang Ilbo reports his remark seems to mean he has already backed away from his three-point flagship pledge _ 7 percent economic growth, per capita income of $40,000 and becoming the 7th largest economy in 7 years.
Previously, the KDI and 12 other non-political think tanks projected an annual growth rate for 2008 at 4.99 percent.
The runoff election pits incumbent Ken Cockrel Jr.
the winner will complete the last few months of ousted Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's term.
Does Elizabeth Edwards still love her husband, still feel close to him, after John Edwards disclosed his affair following the revelation of her terminal cancer?
The wife of the former Senator who ran for President tells Oprah Winfrey that's a complicated question.
The interview will air on Thursday.
The Tony nominations are out:
and Billy Elliott, the season's biggest musical hit, dominates the 2009 nominations for the best on Broadway; it picked up 15 this morning, more than any other show.
The Tonys will be awarded June 7th at Radio City Music Hall in New York.
Voters in Detroit are choosing a new mayor.
The runoff election pits incumbent Ken Cockrel Jr.
against basketball Hall-of-Famer Dave Bing;
the winner will complete the last few months of ousted Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's term.
and Billy Elliott, the season's biggest musical hit, dominates the 2009 nominations for the best on Broadway;
President-elect Barack Obama continues to push for his multi-billion dollar economic recovery plan.
In his weekly radio and YouTube address, Obama has called on Congress to work with his incoming administration to help struggling workers.
“That means bipartisan extensions of unemployment insurance and health care coverage, a $1,000 tax cut for 95% of working families.”
Israel aircraft have dropped leaflets in Gaza warning of an escalation in the offensive against Hamas.
Today, jets and helicopters attacked again from the sky.
The AP's Aaron Heller is perched on a hillside in Israel, near the border.
“Israeli attacks onto Hamas locations in Gaza - you can see from where we're standing right now - smoke resonating from a village across the border.
On the other hand, rocket attacks continue this morning into Israel.”
On the ground, troops are edging closer to Gaza City.
An estimated 800 Palestinians and more than 12 Israelis have been killed in the two weeks of fighting.
Israel aircraft have dropped leaflets in Gaza warning of an escalation in the offensive against Hamas.
“Israeli attacks onto Hamas locations in Gaza - you can see from where we're standing right now - smoke resonating from a village across the border.
˝President Roh Moo-hyun yesterday tried to relieve pressure on the government to produce breakthroughs in his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il later this month.
“I do not plan to be overly ambitious in the forthcoming talks.
I would rather not try to make a new historic turning point with this meeting,” said Roh whose term expires in February of next year
˝President Roh Moo-hyun yesterday tried to relieve pressure on the government to produce breakthroughs in his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il later this month.
Pope John Paul II has appeared at his Vatican window to bless crowds gathered in Rome for Easter.
The 84-year-old Roman Catholic leader, who had throat surgery last month, looked frail and in discomfort as he tried to utter a few words.
Ill health has forced him to delegate Easter ceremonies to his cardinals for the first time in his long papacy.
Christians around the world marked Easter Day, one of the most important events in their religious calendar.
Ill health has forced him to delegate Easter ceremonies to his cardinals for the first time in his long papacy.
South Korea plans to send over 3,000 new troops, including combat-ready soldiers to Iraq.
More than 400 medics and engineers have already been operating in southern Iraq since last year.
However, the recent brief detention of South Korean nationals by Iraqi militias has rekindled hot debates in the Korean political field ahead of Thursday's polls as voices opposing the troop deployment have risen again in civil society.
Two South Korean relief workers and eight pastors had been detained for several hours in separate cases last week but later released as they proved themselves not related to espionage missions.
Suicide bombers have set off a wave of blasts in Iraq, killing at least 71 people and injuring more than 100 in the bloodiest day since February.
The deadliest bombings were in Tikrit, where at least 33 died, and the town of Hawija, where at least 32 were killed.
Suicide bombings and shootings rocked Baghdad, killing at least four people.
The attacks continue an upsurge in violence that has claimed more than 400 lives since the start of May, as US forces fight rebels in the west.
Laith Kubba, an Iraqi government spokesman, told the BBC that rebels were lashing out wildly, knowing their ""days are numbered"".
But the insurgency appears to be gathering pace rather than running out of steam.
The attacks came a day after the US Senate unanimously approved an emergency spending bill authorizing a further $82 B for US military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, among other activities.
North Korea wants to be the Pakistan of Northeast Asia.
The U.S. military death toll in the nearly two-year-old Iraq war topped 1,500 on Thursday, according to a count of casualty announcements made by the Pentagon.
The U.S. military in Iraq announced the combat death of a soldier in Babil province and two more in a roadside bomb attack in central Baghdad, bringing to at least 1,502 the number of deaths of American troops and Defense Department civilians announced by the Pentagon.
The official Pentagon death toll for the war announced on Thursday was 1,494, but that number sometimes lags slightly behind the actual total.
Army failed to achieve its recruiting goal.
John P. Grayken, chairman of Lone Star Funds, said Thursday that the prosecution lacks any hard evidence to back its assertion that the Texas-based fund had bought the Korea Exchange Bank (KEB) at a bargain price through collusion with policymakers and former KEB executives.
He was responding to the Korean Supreme Prosecutors' Office's announcement of its interim conclusion on the long-running investigation of Lone Star's investment in KEB.
`After nine months of intensive investigation, there is nothing new in the prosecution's latest public announcement,'' he said in a statement.
``It is the same old broad conspiracy theory that never made any sense and still is not supported by any hard evidence.''
He said that the only news in the announcement is that, once again, the prosecution has extended its investigation. ``It is hard to imagine what more the prosecution could hope to analyze or review on this investment.
It is time for this investigation to be concluded,'' he said.
He was responding to the Korean Supreme Prosecutors' Office's announcement of its interim conclusion on the long-running investigation of Lone Star's investment in KEB.
``It is the same old broad conspiracy theory that never made any sense and still is not supported by any hard evidence.''
A 14-year-old student has killed himself after going on a shooting spree at his school in the US city of Cleveland, Ohio, the city´s mayor has said.
Mayor Frank Jackson said five people were wounded when the teenager entered the SuccessTech Academy and walked down a corridor on the fourth floor firing.
Two teenage boys and two adults were shot while a teenage girl injured her knee while fleeing.
Local media reported the attacker had been unhappy at having been suspended.
The SuccessTech Academy is a 250-student alternative high school that specializes in business and technology.
Shuttle Discovery will be docked with the international space station for the next 8 days.
Paul Dive, the lead shuttle flight director, says the docking, about four hours ago went well:
“ We had a wonderful rendezvous today, it was extremely smooth ?
The Senate has approved legislation tonight that would kill the automatic cost-of-living pay raises that Congress gives itself.
Similar action is“ iffy” in the House.
Shuttle Discovery will be docked with the international space station for the next 8 days.
“ We had a wonderful rendezvous today, it was extremely smooth ?
The government told the National Assembly yesterday it will move 10 major state-run organizations including Korea Electric Power Corporation and Korea Land Corporation to provincial cities not in the metropolitan and South Chungcheong regions, and excluding Daejeon and Jeju.
The Construction and Transportation Minister told the Assembly construction committee the 10 organizations are the corporations of electric power, land, housing, highway, gas, oil, agricultural and rural infrastructure, agricultural and fishery marketing, resources, and tourism.
The government told the National Assembly yesterday it will move 10 major state-run organizations including Korea Electric Power Corporation and Korea Land Corporation to provincial cities not in the metropolitan and South Chungcheong regions, and excluding Daejeon and Jeju.
A bit of a problem here, and we understand it is not fatal for the Obama appointee for Treasury Secretary - the man who would oversee the IRS supposedly forgot to pay some taxes.
“Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus calls Tim Geithner's failure to pay self-employment taxes unintentional and honest mistakes.
He says it shouldn't disqualify him to head the Treasury Department, which includes the IRS.
Geithner didn't pay the $34,000 in taxes until just before he was nominated.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is expressing confidence that President-elect Barack Obama will be wise in spending the second 350 billion dollars in the bank bailout fund.
She tells ABC's Good Morning America, things will be different this time, because as she puts it,“ we'll have a president who will enforce the law.”
Yes, this could be a bit awkward, but Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich will swear in state senators today, the same senators who soon will vote on his fate at his impeachment trial.
He says it shouldn't disqualify him to head the Treasury Department, which includes the IRS.
˝Some 100,000 Muslims have met in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, to press for the re-establishment of a caliphate across the Muslim world.
The Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir - which organized the conference - said it had been the largest gathering of Muslim activists from around the world.
However, the group is illegal in many countries and key speakers have been stopped from entering Indonesia.
Hizb ut-Tahrir regards this as the ideal form of government, because it follows what it believes are the laws of God as set out in the Koran, rather than laws designed by man.
The group says it seeks to set up a caliphate by non-violent means - but many experts see it as ideologically close to jihadist groups.
It is banned in most of the Middle East and parts of Europe.
Controversial Indonesian cleric Abu Bakar Ba´asyir was asked to stay away on security grounds, while three national leaders cancelled at the last minute.
The Palestinian delegate was unable to leave the Palestinian Territories, and representatives from Britain and Australia landed in Jakarta on Friday but were refused permission to enter the country.˝
˝Some 100,000 Muslims have met in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, to press for the re-establishment of a caliphate across the Muslim world.
Citing planned South Korea-U.S. military exercises, Pyongyang told Seoul over the weekend that an inter-Korean ministerial meeting at the end of this month will be postponed.
Pyongyang said it regretted the delay, but said the meeting could be held next month, after the conclusion of the military exercise.
The Unification Ministry echoed those expressions of regret, questioning Pyongyang's ""sincerity.
The Unification Ministry echoed those expressions of regret, questioning Pyongyang's ""sincerity.
The government lodged a ""strong"" protest yesterday against the U.S. detention in Baghdad of three South Korean journalists on suspicion of carrying explosives.
The U.S. forces released the journalists after questioning them for three hours and finding no trace of explosives in their luggage.
Seoul also made it clear that such an incident should not be allowed to occur again.
U.S. response to that demand was not immediately available.
The Red River shows its power.
It undermined a permanent flood wall and flooded a private school in North Fargo, North Dakota early this morning.
Oak Grove School principal, Morgan Forness, says there is little that could've been done to keep the water out of the buildings:
“ The power of the river is just too much;
it's a foot and-a-half higher than it was, you know, in '97, and uh, they gave it everything they had, and it just….
we couldn't contain it, it came (into the) center of campus, and now it's inundating all the buildings.”
A city crew and National Guard troops brought in tons of sandbags and heavy equipment to plug the leak.
The panel of retired police and military officers told the Senate that Iraqi forces should be replacing US troops by early next year.
But the report also warned Iraqi troops would not be ready to take over fully within the next 18 months.
It also said the Iraqi police force was ineffective and should be scrapped.
The report is the latest in a series to be considered by the US Congress as it debates the Iraq war.
Democrats welcomed the call for a reduction of presence as supporting their plans for US redeployment.
But Gen Jones did not back their call for a deadline on US troop withdrawal.
The US has this year deployed thousands more troops to Iraq to carry out a ”security surge” in and around Baghdad.˝
The panel of retired police and military officers told the Senate that Iraqi forces should be replacing US troops by early next year.
Suicide car bombers struck Iran's main Shi'ite holy cities of Najaf and Kerbala, on Sunday killing at least 62 people and wounding nearly 130, in coordinated attacks six weeks before an historic election.
It was the highest bombing death toll in Iraq since July and by far the bloodiest attack since last month U.S. assault on the Sunni city of Falluja, which aimed to quell the insurgency.
Nepal’s Maoist rebels ambushed 10 soldiers.
The South Korean government will block any North Korean officials suspected of taking part in nuclear weapons programs from entering, Unification Minister Lee Jong-seok said yesterday.
Seoul's sanctions are likely to consist of four parts:
President Roh Moo-hyun said the controversial National Security Law should be abolished in a bid to promote human rights and enhance the nation's image as a democratic society.
Roh's remark came only days after the Supreme Court expressed opposition to recent moves to scrap the security law and is expected to create a fresh ideological dispute between conservatives and progressives. President Roh Moo-hyun said the controversial National Security Law should be abolished in a bid to promote human rights and enhance the nation's image as a democratic society.
The Korea Times reported that describing the anti-communist law as an old relic under the past dictatorial governments, Roh cited the need to revise the current criminal law to prevent possible loopholes in national security following the envisaged abolition.
Police arrested baseball players and brokers who faked tests to dodge the military duty mandatory.
Launching an appeal for financial help, President Bush said this was an agonizing time for the people there but he promised help was on its way.
Bush plans to visit the Gulf coast disaster zone on Friday.
Thousands of people are feared to have drowned in New Orleans, most of which is under water. In Mississippi, 110 people are confirmed dead, but officials warn the toll is expected to rise.
According to the White House, nearly 250,000 sq km has been affected by the hurricane - an area roughly the size of the UK.
In New Orleans, people made homeless by the flooding have grown increasingly desperate, with outbreaks of shootings, carjackings and thefts.
Police chief Eddie Compass said there were reports of women being raped. He told AP he sent 88 officers to quell the unrest at the convention centre but they were beaten back by an angry mob.
State governor Kathleen Blanco has said she is ""furious"" at the unrest and vowed to restore order.
Earlier, medical evacuations from the city's Superdome stadium were disrupted after reports that a gun shot was fired at a rescue helicopter.
Korea ranked third in the world for the nation's level of access to information technology (IT) in 2006, a government report showed yesterday.
According to the annual report compiled by the Information Ministry and the National Computerization Agency, the nation maintained the ranking for a second consecutive year by receiving high scores in a total of 11 IT-related categories.
˝Top nuclear negotiators of the United States and North Korea will meet this week in Beijing as part of ongoing contacts among members of the six-party talks, news reports said yesterday.
Christopher Hill of the United States and Kim Kye-gwan of North Korea will meet one-on-one this Monday or Tuesday in the Chinese capital, according to several diplomatic sources quoted by Yonhap News.
Their meeting will lay the groundwork for bilateral working group discussions later in the month, Yonhap said.
Working groups created within the framework of the six-party talks are holding sessions to discuss by category the steps toward North Korea´s nuclear disablement, and the corresponding economic and political benefits.
The upcoming round of the six-party talks next month will design a roadmap based on the outcome of the working groups.
The groups are divided into the categories of denuclearization, economic aid, and Northeast Asian security, in addition to bilateral groups on North Korea and the United States, and North Korea and Japan.˝
Christopher Hill of the United States and Kim Kye-gwan of North Korea will meet one-on-one this Monday or Tuesday in the Chinese capital, according to several diplomatic sources quoted by Yonhap News.
˝Radical Iraqi Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr says he is freezing the activities of his Mehdi Army militia for up to six months in order to re-organize it.
He has also called on all its offices to co-operate with the security forces and exercise “self-control”.
Analysts see the move as an attempt by Moqtada Sadr to regain control over his increasingly divided militia.
The order was read out at a news conference in Karbala, where fighting on Tuesday killed more than 50 people.
Police blamed the Mehdi Army for the violence, but it denied involvement.
A curfew is now in force in the city, where the situation is said to be calm.
At the Karbala news conference, one of Moqtada Sadr´s aides read out a statement announcing that the Mehdi Army had suspended all its activities.
In Najaf, another spokesman said the order included ”suspending the taking up of arms against occupiers, as well as others”.
In April 2007, the US defense department described the Mehdi Army as the greatest threat to Iraq´s security, replacing al-Qaeda in Iraq as the country´s ”most dangerous accelerant of potentially self-sustaining sectarian violence”.
A curfew is now in force in the city, where the situation is said to be calm.
British reality show celebrity Jade Goody died in her sleep this morning ?
the 27-year-old killed by the cervical cancer that she publicized on an almost daily basis since being diagnosed last year.
Her publicist, Max Clifford, tells Sky News people grew to respect Goody:
“ I think she's touched the hearts and minds of people, not just in Britain but all over the world.”
Goody, the daughter of drug addicts, readily admitted that she used her illness and other publicity events to generate enough money so that her children would have a better life than she did.
the 27-year-old killed by the cervical cancer that she publicized on an almost daily basis since being diagnosed last year.
“ I think she's touched the hearts and minds of people, not just in Britain but all over the world.”
North Korea has been sending some positive signals to the outside world, which some experts view as a possible policy shift that might lead to a breakthrough in its standoff with the United States, The Korea Times reports.
With no date set this month for the six-party talks on the isolated Stalinist state's nuclear program, largely due to its financial disputes with the U.S. in recent months, North Korea has shown several forward-looking signs in its relations with neighbors.
Besides its agreement on general-level military talks with the South next month and its consent to the Hyundai Asan CEO's entry, which it had previously rejected, North Korea even resumed negotiations to normalize ties with Japan after a three-year hiatus.
Police in the Netherlands say they have cracked a crime ring which allegedly trafficked Nigerian children into the West to work as sex slaves.
At least 19 people were arrested in the Netherlands and five other countries including the US and Britain.
Traffickers used voodoo to gain a hold over children before smuggling them abroad in a racket which exploited the asylum system, police say.
Scores of underage Nigerians, mainly girls, may have been trafficked.
Dutch authorities had been investigating the disappearance of 140 Nigerian children from asylum-seeker holding centers since January 2006.
Several of the children were later found working as prostitutes in France, Italy and Spain, according to Dutch police.
Police in the Netherlands say they have cracked a crime ring which allegedly trafficked Nigerian children into the West to work as sex slaves.
At least 19 people were arrested in the Netherlands and five other countries including the US and Britain.
An American, South Korean and a Bulgarian have been beheaded by a group led by Zarqawi.
A statement said to come from a group Abu Musab al-Zarqawi threatened attacks on Japan unless it withdrew its troops from Iraq.
But a later Internet message today said the first message didn't come from Zarqawi's group.
The warning coincided with the release in Iraq of a Filipino truck driver a day after Manila removed its small contingent of troops in response to demands from kidnappers.
An American, South Korean and a Bulgarian have been beheaded by a group led by Zarqawi.
Hopes that a second Bulgarian hostage is still alive are fading.
A cool sea breeze and morning fog have provided some relief for those crews battling the wildfire that's destroyed scores of homes along the California coast.
“ Fog rolled in to Santa Barbara, bringing moisture to the air and making it more difficult for the fire to spread, and hopefully the firefighters here ?
” Eddie Bloomberg is staying at a shelter in Santa Barbara, but is still amazed at how quickly the wind has been spreading the fire:
“ I'd been away at a meeting for an hour or two, and came out of the meeting and it was just obvious that the whole situation had exploded.”
Residents of the Midwest are clearing away wreckage following a wave of powerful storms.
Kentucky's Emergency Management Agency says National Guard troops have been called in to help:
“ Madison County requests the National Guard to assist with traffic control and some security patrols.”
The storm killed 5 people; hundreds of homes and businesses damaged or destroyed in Kansas, Kentucky, Illinois and Missouri.
In Missouri, where 150,000 utility customers lost power, the Governor declared a state of emergency.
can capitalize on these favorable conditions.
” Eddie Bloomberg is staying at a shelter in Santa Barbara, but is still amazed at how quickly the wind has been spreading the fire:
The storm killed 5 people;
A 29-year-old female mechanical engineer was named Monday to fill in as the first South Korean in space, after Russia´s space authorities dismissed Seoul´s original choice on security rule violations ahead of next month´s mission.
The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology told a news conference that Russia´s Federal Space Agency asked for Ko San´s replacement, as the 31-year-old repeatedly broke training protocol by taking sensitive training material outside of the Russian space center.
Back-up candidate Yi So-yeon will take over.
LAPD said it was cracking down on what it called ""aggressive begging"".
Los Angeles police sparked a surprising sight when they led away real-life versions of cuddly Sesame Street Muppet Elmo and cartoon hero Mr Incredible.
Impersonators of the well-known characters were arrested for allegedly harassing tourists for tips to pose for photos on Hollywood Boulevard.
""With all of the crime in Los Angeles they pick on us?
Hillary says, ‘historical amnesia' hurts Korea-US alliance.
EU bans imports of live birds.
There's a lot on the President's plate this, his one-hundredth day in office.
Barack Obama is about to hold a town hall meeting in the St.
He's got a prime-time news conference this evening, and he started out today by talking about swine flu and the new Democratic Senator who could help him get a health care plan through Congress.
AP White House correspondent Mark Smith joins us live with that part of the story:
“ Jon, a day after Arlen Specter left the GOP, the President hailed the move as courageous:
”“ It also reflects an independence that has been the hallmark of Arlen Specter's career since the days he arrived in Washington.
”“ Indeed the 79-year-old Pennsylvanian says he disagrees with Obama on lots of things:
”“ I will not be an automatic 60th vote.”
He's got a prime-time news conference this evening, and he started out today by talking about swine flu and the new Democratic Senator who could help him get a health care plan through Congress.
More than 40 percent of South Korean people want the country to have a more independent policy toward the United States in the future, according to a Korea Times-Hankook Ilbo survey.
About 33 percent of those surveyed said the country should have friendlier relations and policies with the U.S., while 22.3 percent responded that maintaining the current relationship between the two allies would be better.
More than 40 percent of South Korean people want the country to have a more independent policy toward the United States in the future, according to a Korea Times-Hankook Ilbo survey.
The survey via telephone interviews said that 42.1 percent of respondents said South Korea should have a more independent approach to carry out policies toward the U.S.
Two women hostages freed by Colombian Farc rebels have arrived on a private jet at an airport near Caracas and have been reunited with their families.
Clara Rojas and Consuelo Gonzalez had been held for several years.
Both women have thanked Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez for helping mediate their release.
Earlier they were flown out of the Colombian jungle by helicopter, in an operation overseen by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
Clara Rojas said, as she was reunited with her elderly mother, Clara Gonzalez de Rojas, who was tearful as she hugged her daughter.
Ms Gonzalez was reunited with her two daughters and also met her two year-old granddaughter for the first time.
Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon reiterated the need for Seoul and Washington to stand side-by-side in a “horizontal relationship”.
The Korea Herald reports that, in his first public address on the Korea-U.S. alliance since last week's presidential election in the United States, Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon reiterated the need for Seoul and Washington to stand side-by-side in a ""horizontal relationship.
"" Pointing out that South Korea, in the past has been extremely reliant on the United States, which had overwhelming priority in the country, Ban stressed that today such a relationship is undesirable and Korea is pursuing a cooperative self-reliant national defense.
Ban also repeated the government's view that Washington will take more active steps in trying to restart the stalled six nation disarmament talks, which involve the two Koreas, the United States, Russia, China and Japan.
NASA keeps Endeavour in orbit - high winds and storms and the forecast for the Kennedy Space Center in Florida force cancellation to the day's first opportunity to land.
There's a second landing chance at Kennedy later in the afternoon.
Rain in the East, some snow in the Mid-West and Northern Rockies pose travel troubles for motorists today - the day millions of us are heading back home to close out the Thanksgiving holiday weekend:
“I'm sure most of 95, for instance, is going to see a lot of that rain all the way basically from the South-East all the way into New England.”
That's National Weather Service Forecaster Brian Corday.
That rain has led to a two-hour flight delays at the Philadelphia Airport:
“We certainly recommend that our travelers and anyone who's picking up or dropping off check the status of their flights by contacting their airline directly.”
That's airport spokeswoman Victoria Lupica.
Joining us from a little further north of Philli, correspondent Julie Walker is watching take-offs and landings at New York's La Guardia:
Tim, so far so good for people flying in and out of LaGuardia Airport.
The check-in lines are about ten people long.
That's not too bad, but it is raining - that could be bad for flights here.
Right now there are no delays or cancellations - in fact, some arriving flights are early.
Vicki Watson flew in from Raleigh-Durham and says she was pleasantly surprised at how smooth her trip was:
her flight was supposed to get in at 09:10 - and it arrived at 08:40.
That's Julie Walker live at New York's La Guardia Airport.
India's top Security Official resigns.
The Government has come under increased criticism since the Mumbai terror attacks which left 174 people dead.
Today demonstrators took to the streets of the city:
“We are just trying to ask just one question:
what is the action the Government has taken?
Why are the systems not in place?
What is it that went wrong?”
Six Americans are among the dead. NASA keeps Endeavour in orbit - high winds and storms and the forecast for the Kennedy Space Center in Florida force cancellation to the day's first opportunity to land.
Rain in the East, some snow in the Mid-West and Northern Rockies pose travel troubles for motorists today - the day millions of us are heading back home to close out the Thanksgiving holiday weekend:
The check-in lines are about ten people long.
India's top Security Official resigns.
Today demonstrators took to the streets of the city:
What is it that went wrong?”
The Joong-Ang Ilbo reports President Roh Moo-hyun showed a flash of anger at a late-night meeting Sunday with members of his Uri Party.
Upset by the protest resignation of Korea's prosecutor-general over the weekend, Roh complained that prosecutors could not be exceptions to ""civilian control.
"" He called the resignation of Kim Jong-bin an act of defiance that could not be tolerated, although Kim was careful to accept an order from the justice minister not to detain a controversial academic before tendering his resignation.
Although it was nominally called to assess their opinions of the controversy, Roh appeared to be in no mood to listen.
India welcomes Pakistan’s offer to open the Line of Control.
President Roh considers to cancel summit with Koizumi.
Cars, cabs, buses and trucks give way to pounding feet today on Big Apple streets as thousands of runners compete in the New York City Marathon.
“At the finish line, there will be massage therapists like Lexon Allison.”
“The day of the race, they just wanna go home, lay in a tub or something, you know that's what I recommend.”
But what are the odds of your vote being the one, to be the deciding tally?
Trio statisticians actually studied the likelihood of one vote winning a statewide tally, tipping the Electoral College scales if they were of any given candidate.
Another way of looking at it, you could be hit by a lightning twice.
“At the finish line, there will be massage therapists like Lexon Allison.”
But what are the odds of your vote being the one, to be the deciding tally?
˝The deputy leader of a rebel mosque in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, has said he and hundreds of his militant followers are ready to surrender.
Ghazi Abdul Rashid said they would lay down their arms if the security forces ceased firing and did not arrest them.
But the conditions were dismissed by Pakistani government ministers.
The offer to end the confrontation, in which 19 people have died, came after troops pounded the Red Mosque complex, breaching its wall in three places.
Earlier, there were two large explosions near the mosque and the attached religious school.
Security officials said the blasts were probably caused by mortars belonging to the students going off by mistake.
Both sides exchanged fire throughout the day, although the clashes have now stopped.
On Thursday evening much of the city was plunged into darkness, after storms caused failures in the power supply.
The offer to end the confrontation, in which 19 people have died, came after troops pounded the Red Mosque complex, breaching its wall in three places.
They accuse the government of turning a blind eye to the situation.
A rare political protest in the Chinese territory of Macau turned violent after demonstrators clashed with police.
Hundreds of people had been taking part in a May Day protest over alleged corruption and illegal labor.
Police fired shots into the air and used dogs to try to disperse the marchers, as they veered off the route.
Protesters were complaining about the lack of local jobs due to an influx of cheap foreign labour caused by a recent boom in Macau’s lucrative casino trade.
They accuse the government of turning a blind eye to the situation.
South Korea plans to establish a law aimed that at better controlling the use of nuclear power and banning any attempts to develop nuclear weapons.
The Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) said Thursday it is looking to draw up a draft in March for presentation to the National Assembly.
The Korea Times reports if the bill passes, it would be implemented in September.
20,000 new apartment units in Pangyo new town will be released at once.
Charles' eldest son, Prince William, reportedly will be at the wedding, serving as an usher, and Queen Elizabeth II also was expected to attend.
Prince Charles and his companion, Camilla Parker Bowles, will not attend the wedding of his godson this weekend, sparking reports in newspapers that they refused to be seated apart.
The reports underline the continuing social awkwardness of Charles' very public liaison with a woman he says he has no plans to marry.
The Daily Mail, which played the story on its front page Wednesday, said Charles pulled out because Parker Bowles had been assigned a seat in Chester Cathedral several rows behind him.
Russia pushes for the resumption of the six-party talks on N. K.’
The hostages are aid workers for a Christian group.
˝A South Korean woman held hostage with 21 others in Afghanistan has pleaded for help to secure their release.
The woman, who identified herself as Yo Syun Ju, told an Afghan reporter by telephone all the hostages were sick.
“Tell them to do something to get us released,” she said in an interview carried out in the presence of the Taliban militants holding her captive.
A group of 23 Koreans was abducted a week ago.
The kidnappers have since killed one of the hostages.
”We are all sick and we have a lot of problems.”
The hostages are aid workers for a Christian group.
The Koreans, who are mostly women, were abducted one week ago in Ghazni province, south-west of the capital Kabul.˝
President George W Bush is to tell nervous Americans they can be confident about their long-term economic future.
But in excerpts released ahead of his final State of the Union address, he urges politicians to resist temptation to enlarge a $150bn stimulus plan.
He will also call on Iran to cease its ”support for terror abroad”.
Speaking on the economy, Bush will acknowledge that the US is ”undergoing a period of economic uncertainty” but will seek to reassure the nation.
”At kitchen tables across our country, there is concern about our economic future,” he will say.
”In the long run, Americans can be confident about our economic growth.”
But in excerpts released ahead of his final State of the Union address, he urges politicians to resist temptation to enlarge a $150bn stimulus plan.
Democrat Jimmy Carter, 80, and Republican George Bush, who is also 80, and his son, President Bush, and their wives, attended a rain-soaked ceremony on the bank of the Arkansas River.
Bill Clinton reveled in the spotlight on Thursday as political friends and foes alike, including two presidents named Bush, helped him dedicate his $165 million presidential library, which highlights his achievements with a little bit of Monica Lewinsky mixed in.
Only 91-year-old Gerald Ford was among former presidents absent, a group that grew smaller last summer with the death of Ronald Reagan.
It is still dangerous in Falluja.
Heavy fighting has been raging in Basra as thousands of Iraqi troops battle Shia militias in the southern city.
At least 30 people have died in the operation, which is being overseen in Basra by Iraqi PM Nouri Maliki, a day after he vowed to ""re-impose law"".
Oil-rich Basra is in the grip of a bitter turf war between armed groups, including the Mehdi Army, analysts say.
Clashes have spread to other parts of Iraq, including Baghdad´s Sadr City, where the Mehdi Army fought rival Shia.
The Mehdi Army - which supports radical Shia cleric Moqtada al Sadr - has threatened a nationwide campaign of civil disobedience.
The powerful militia declared a truce last August which had been credited with helping restore stability to parts of Iraq.
Taiwan´s newly-elected president has pledged to establish better economic and political ties with communist China.
Ma Ying-jeou said he would like to work towards a peace treaty with Beijing, but would only do so if China removed missiles pointed at Taiwan.
He said he had no immediate plans to visit the mainland, but wanted to work on ""substantive issues"".
Ma won a comfortable victory over Frank Hsieh of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party on Saturday.
Official results gave Ma 58.45% of the vote - an advantage of nearly 17 percentage points over Hsieh.
Ma, of the Kuomintang party, had stood on a platform of economic reform and improving relations with China.
He ruled out an immediate visit to mainland China, but said he would focus on improving relations by ""substantive"" means including stepping up direct flights.
Ma Ying-jeou said he would like to work towards a peace treaty with Beijing, but would only do so if China removed missiles pointed at Taiwan.
Saudi Arabia signaled Tuesday that it was proceeding with plans to cut oil production, prompting a gathering of OPEC officials in Vienna this week to voice support for higher crude oil prices, which have become a sensitive political issue in the United States.
Saudi Arabia signaled Tuesday that it was proceeding with plans to cut oil production, prompting a gathering of OPEC officials in Vienna this week to voice support for higher crude oil prices, which have become a sensitive political issue in the United States.
OPEC, which produces roughly a third of the world's oil, is believed to be producing about 26 million barrels a day, or well above its official target of 24.5 million.
Supported by strong demand in China and the United States, the price for West Texas crude oil averaged $35.25 a barrel in the first quarter, the highest such level in the last 20 years.
Registration for election in April is began.
Song Du-yul was sentenced to 7 years in prison.
Several Chinese health workers have reportedly been arrested or fired over claims that they forced people to have abortions or sterilizations.
Communist China's state-owned media said the abuses had come to light in Linyi city in the eastern province of Shandong.
Hurricane Rita is to strengthen.
The incoming administration plans to abolish the Government Information Agency (GIA), revive pressrooms at government offices and downsize the Prime Minister´s Office.
The plan will be incorporated when the transition team finalizes the reorganization of government agencies, according to Lee Dong-kwan, spokesman of the transition team, on Thursday.
He said scrapping the GIA and reviving pressrooms were campaign pledges of the President-elect.Cheong Wa Dae, however, made it clear that the current media policy will remain intact until President Roh Moo-hyun steps down on Feb.
Kim Hyong-o of the Grand National Party (GNP) said the era of a regulatory press policy will be removed by the next administration.
moment when a former NATO commander called him to learn more about Bono's efforts to help poor people around the world.
“He said, you know, we've got billions and billions of dollars of high-tech equipment floating in the Mediterranean, off the coast of Lebanon.
He said we need to understand more the development.”
President Clinton says it does take special efforts to make a significant impact on global issues like climate change and poverty.
But they need to know what this has produced.”
Updating numbers from Wall Street, Dow Industrials now have 197 points, NASDAQ up 33.
Back to the Clinton Global Initiative in New York, activist Rocker Bono told the former President this morning about an“ A-Ha!”
“He said, you know, we've got billions and billions of dollars of high-tech equipment floating in the Mediterranean, off the coast of Lebanon.
President Clinton says it does take special efforts to make a significant impact on global issues like climate change and poverty.
There is an enormous understanding.
Transport union leaders in New York have voted to end a three-day strike that forced millions of commuters to walk, cycle, skate or share rides.
But it could take up to 18 hours to get the public transport network running again, officials have said.
The strike - the city's first in 25 years - is thought to have cost New York up to a billion dollars.
Workers will return to their posts as the next shift begins on the largest public transport system in the US.
Former White House aide Lewis Libby has pleaded not guilty to charges related to the leak of a CIA agent's identity.
Libby, who was chief of staff to Vice-President Dick Cheney, faces five counts of perjury, making false statements and obstructing justice.
He was one of the most powerful men in the US until he resigned last week.
The charges arise from an inquiry into the leak of Valerie Plame's identity.
Her husband - a former ambassador - had criticized the case for invading Iraq.
A powerful earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 7.1 struck Japan's northern island of Hokkaido early Monday, swaying buildings, throwing objects off shelves and triggering a small tsunami wave that reached the shore.
A powerful earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 7.1 struck Japan's northern island of Hokkaido early Monday, swaying buildings, throwing objects off shelves and triggering a small tsunami wave that reached the shore.
The 3:32 a.m. quake injured at least eight people, but there were no immediate reports of damage.
The quake was centered off Hokkaido's east coast, about 550 miles northwest of Tokyo, 30 miles below the sea surface.
The U.N. nuclear watchdog agency will send inspectors to South Korea.
The Institute for Research in Collaborationist Activities released the list of 3,090 notable pro-Japanese collaborators, marking the day Japan annexed Korea in 1910.
A civic group Monday released a list of 3,090 Japanese collaborators during the 1910-45 colonial rule of Korea, including former President Park Chung-hee.
Park had served voluntarily as a soldier for the de-facto Japanese Imperial Army in Manchuria in the 1940s.
The list also includes Korea University founder Kim Song-su, Kim Hwal-ran (Helen Kim), first Korean president of Ewha Woman’s University and former owner of the Chosun Ilbo newspaper Bang Ung-mo.
The Institute for Research in Collaborationist Activities released the list of 3,090 notable pro-Japanese collaborators, marking the day Japan annexed Korea in 1910.
North sees talks mid-September.
Malaysia has charged 26 ethnic Indians with attempted murder in connection with an anti-discrimination rally last month, the defendants´ lawyer has said.
The accused pleaded not guilty to charges of trying to kill a policeman during the rally in the capital Kuala Lumpur on 25 November, the lawyer said.
At least 8,000 people protested against what they saw as the unfair treatment of Indians in Muslim-majority Malaysia.
Police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse the demonstrators.
”This is a clear victimisation of the Indians by bringing forth a malicious prosecution that is race-based,” he said.
But Malaysia´s Attorney General Abdul Gani Patail claimed that the case had ”nothing to do with race”.
The attorney general added that the policeman received injuries after being attacked with bricks and iron pipes.
If found guilty, the defendants could face up to 20 years in prison.
Police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse the demonstrators.
The attorney general added that the policeman received injuries after being attacked with bricks and iron pipes.
The Korean National Railroad says tests of South Korea's self-designed bullet train, the G-7, have turned up serious flaws that could push back the target date for its rollout on the Seoul-Jeolla province line.
The Korean National Railroad says tests of South Korea's self-designed bullet train, the G-7, have turned up serious flaws that could push back the target date for its rollout on the Seoul-Jeolla province line.
Fully developed by the Korea Railroad Research Institute in late 2002, the plan was to purchase 100 trains, for an estimated 300 billion won ($250 million), and put them to work on the Seoul-Jeolla province line by 2007.
But a document on a trial run, submitted to Representative Cho Gyeong-tae of the governing Uri Party by the Korean National Railroad, exposed major problems in the train's core components, and in parts that affect its ability to accelerate and decelerate.
Korean National Railroad:
Korea ranked only 34th for quality of life.
Opposition leader Shimon Peres said on Tuesday he feared Israeli extremists might try to assassinate Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the target of growing far-right fury over a planned withdrawal from Gaza next year.
Opposition leader Shimon Peres said on Tuesday he feared Israeli extremists might try to assassinate Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the target of growing far-right fury over a planned withdrawal from Gaza next year.
Peres, head of the center-left Labour party, said the divisive atmosphere recalled the climate when Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was killed in 1995 by an ultra-nationalist Jew opposed to his peace deals with the Palestinians.
Prime Minister Lee Hae-chen Launched his harshest tirade against the Chosun Ilbo and Dong-a Ilbo.
China, “YS’s visit to Taiwan is improper.”
˝The United States House of Representatives has voted in favor of pulling most combat troops out of Iraq by April next year.
The legislation calls for the Pentagon to begin withdrawing combat troops within four months.
The vote comes despite President George W Bush´s threat to veto any timetable.
Correspondents say the House of Representatives, controlled by the Democrats, is hoping to pressure the Senate to approve a similar timeline.
It is the third time this year the House has voted to end US military involvement in Iraq.
Two previous efforts either failed in the Senate or were vetoed by President Bush.
The latest attempt would allow some US forces to stay in Iraq to train the Iraqi army and carry out counter-terrorism operations.˝
State Department was optimistic the banking dispute that last week held up North Korean denuclearization talks can be overcome and is “pretty close” to being solved.
Treasury delegation led by Deputy Assistant Secretary Daniel Glaser had a second day of talks with Chinese officials in Beijing, working out details of transferring $25 million out of Macau to a North Korean account in China.
Banco Delta Asia (BDA), a Macanese bank, had frozen the funds after it was accused by the Treasury in September 2005 of laundering money for Pyongyang and abetting the communist regime's illicit financial activities.
Three British residents held at the US Guantanamo Bay prison camp for being suspected terrorists arrived in Britain on Wednesday after more than four years in captivity and two were promptly arrested, police said.
Jordanian Jamil el-Banna, Libyan Omar Deghayes and Algerian Abdennour Sameur landed at an airport north of London accompanied by a doctor and under escort by counter-terrorism police, their lawyers said.
Deghayes and Sameur were arrested shortly before landing under Britain´s Terrorism Act on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism and taken to a police station in London for questioning.
The two were seized in Pakistan following the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, although specifics of exactly why and when they were detained are not clear.
The Korea Times reports that President Roh Moo-hyun said Monday that he will not take disciplinary action in connection with the kidnapping-murder case of Kim Sun-il in Iraq, until the ongoing investigation is complete and those responsibility are found out.
Heads of the foreign ministry, the National Intelligence Service, and the National Security Council, are facing pressure to take responsibility for the bungled handling of the Kim case.
Public criticism mounted after the Associated Press, a U.S. news agency, reported that one of its reporters in the Seoul bureau asked the Foreign Ministry on June 3 whether one of its citizens with a name that sounded like ``Kim Sun-il'' was missing or in captivity in Iraq, but was told no.
After repeated denials, the Foreign Ministry later acknowledged that two ministry officials had received phone calls from a foreign news agency about the case.
With the probe on Kim Sun-il's tragic death widening, all eyes are riveted on Kim Chun-ho, Kim's employer, who holds the key to the mystery surrounding Kim's death.
At the heart of the controversy is why Kim, the president of Gana General Trading Co., has been reluctant to come back to his home country, with the government scrambling for ways to determine the true date of the Kim abduction.
Kim will be in Seoul Thursday to present himself for the state auditors' investigation and will hold a press conference the following day to explain missing details on his employee's death, according to sources.
The president of the Baghdad-based foodstuff supplier for the U.S. Army has given contradictory statements on the timing of the kidnapping, efforts he made to rescue his employee and U.S. military's knowledge about it.
Heads of the foreign ministry, the National Intelligence Service, and the National Security Council, are facing pressure to take responsibility for the bungled handling of the Kim case.
At the heart of the controversy is why Kim, the president of Gana General Trading Co., has been reluctant to come back to his home country, with the government scrambling for ways to determine the true date of the Kim abduction.
President George W Bush has declared a ""major strategic shift"" in Iraq following the US troop surge.
He said the US now held the initiative and was looking to deliver a ""crippling blow"" to al-Qaeda in the country.
US troop levels in Iraq are now due to be reduced by about 20,000 by July, but Bush said after that, the ""drawdown"" process would be frozen.
Then, he said, senior commander General David Petraeus would have ""all the time he needs"" to assess the next step.
Gen Petraeus had called for a 45-day ""period of consolidation and evaluation"" after July, before any more troops left.
""I strongly support that.
And therefore I won´t commit beyond July.
""The president said that since the launch of the US troop surge 15 months ago, there had been significant military, political and economic progress in Iraq, and that ""today we have the initiative"".
He said sectarian violence had decreased, and Iraqis were increasingly turning against al-Qaeda.
Meanwhile businesses were reopening and national laws were being passed.
And therefore I won´t commit beyond July.
He's apparently all right, but the Vice President has had to cancel a campaign appearance today because of a recurring heart problem.
Let's get the story live from the White House from the AP's Mark Smith.
The Vice President's office says he will not go to Illinois as a result, and will go to the hospital to have it fixed, presumably with a gentle shock, like the one he had when the same thing occurred last November.
He's apparently all right, but the Vice President has had to cancel a campaign appearance today because of a recurring heart problem.
30, Private Kim Hyun-jong posted an article about his homosexuality on the online riot police community Web site.
He is the second policeman from the squad to have come out after YooJeong Min-shik identified himself as being gay and refused to finish his service term for which he was imprisoned in 2006.
Kim, who works at a police station in Yongsan said his coming out was involuntary after some fellow policemen read some private information he had saved on his computer.
He said he first tried to deny it, but later made up his mind to declare his sexual identity.
He has heard threats from his colleagues calling him a ‘dirty’ gay man, since.
One soldier attempted suicide several times after telling his superiors he was gay and was forced to submit photographs of himself having sex with a man to prove he was gay.
He was then forced to take an AIDS test and was publicly humiliated.
The military policy declares that gays who are willing to turn straight will be fully supported by the government, indicating South Korea still considers being gay a disease.
30, Private Kim Hyun-jong posted an article about his homosexuality on the online riot police community Web site.
As police vowed to take stern action against protestors - in the wake of last year's violent anti-FTA rallies - physical confrontation and social unrest were feared.
Despite a police ban, about 3,200 farmers and workers gathered in Daehangno, Seoul for a massive rally, and marched through the city to the Shilla Hotel, causing severe traffic congestion. The Shilla Hotel is the venue for the free trade talks.
Authorities deployed a total of 15,000 police to shield the talks' venue from protesters and 2,000 riot police guarded the hotel to inspect all vehicles and individuals entering the building.
""It is necessary to restructure the court.
Reeling from the defeat of it's unpopular plan to relocate the national capital out of Seoul, the governing Uri Party began an effort yesterday to revise the laws governing the Constitutional Court, claiming that the nation's highest court is filled with overly conservative judges.
The Joong-Ang Ilbo reports Representative Song Young-gil of the Uri Party prepared a bill with legislators from Chungcheong region to modify the selection procedures of the court's justices.
The bill is being circulated to party members to gain backing.
Song said the bill aims to make National Assembly appointment hearings mandatory for all nine justices of the court.
Currently, only three are selected by lawmakers, while the other six are appointed by the president and the chief justice of the court.
""We need to reinforce democratic verification for the constitutional court justices,"" Song claimed.
""It is necessary to restructure the court.
Yasser Arafat prepared to fly to France for treatment.
Arafat’s health has worsened sharply again.
Centre-right leader Silvio Berlusconi warned of ""difficult months ahead"" as he declared a decisive victory in Italy´s general election.
The 71-one-year-old media mogul said he was willing to work with the opposition to pass much needed economic reforms.
The results return Berlusconi for a third term in office as Italian prime minister.
His new government will be Italy´s 62nd since World War II.
The vote was held three years ahead of schedule after the collapse of Romano Prodi´s centre-left coalition.
With most results counted, the interior ministry said Berlusconi´s centre-right had taken 47% in the Senate, compared to 38% for the centre-left.
The reported abuse of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. soldiers threatens to undermine part of George W.
The disclosures undermine American claims to a moral high ground as the United States tries to put down a growing insurgency and gain international support in Iraq.
The allegation of mistreatment of prisoners ``makes the U.S. and coalition forces a legitimate enemy in the eyes of more Arabs than was the case before,'' said Anthony Cordesman, an expert on Middle East security issues at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The reported abuse of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. soldiers threatens to undermine part of George W.
The U.S. ambassador visited to Yanbu in Saudi.
It's been more than 6 months now since Election Day, and it's time to move on, says the Republican National Committee chairman:
Steele says Republicans will show the public time-tested principles that will ignite a new generation of Reagan conservatives.”
That's Washington correspondent Brian Thomas.
An Ohio man who argued with his grown son over the guy's messy bedroom says he over-reacted when he called 9-1-1.
Dad called the cops after his 28-year-old son, who's a suburban Cleveland school board member, threw a plate of food across the kitchen table and made a fist at Dad when he was told to clean up his room.
Lives down there in the basement.
Home construction down again, according to the Commerce Department this morning, but the Dow is up in the first 90 minutes on Wall Street:
It has added 33 points.
Steele says Republicans will show the public time-tested principles that will ignite a new generation of Reagan conservatives.”
The prosecution Thursday raided the Korean office of U.S. private equity fund, Lone Star, to seize documents and computer files in its probe into the investor's alleged tax evasion, and illegal transfer of funds abroad and other irregularities.
The raid came amid ongoing investigations into allegations Lone Star illegally took $8.6 million of funds out of Korea and evaded penalty taxes of 14.7 billion won.
Law enforcement authorities have banned about 10 Korean and foreign Lone Star staff from leaving the country. Some 60 investigators raided the office in southern Seoul Thursday morning searching for evidence to prove the allegations.
They also raided seven other places including the homes of five Lone Star officials including Yoo Hoe-won, CEO of Lone Star Advisor Korea, and Chung Huh-joo, representative of Hudson Advisor Korea, and Hudson Advisor's document storehouse in Paju, Kyonggi Province.
The two companies have been in charge of investments and asset managements for Lone Star.
Law enforcement authorities have banned about 10 Korean and foreign Lone Star staff from leaving the country.
Many foreign investors coming to South Korea on new business opportunities are surprised at how expensive it is to stay here, with lodging and food expenses topping their list of complaints.
Also incoming foreign tourists have found that it is more costly to travel to and in the country than other Asian nations, which negatively affects the local tourism industry.
Hyun Oh-seok, president of the Trade Research Institute affiliated with the Korea International Trade Association (KITA), said yesterday that Korea’s high cost of living is discouraging foreigners from visiting, worsening its service account balance.
According to the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO), the number of overseas Korean travelers rose to 11.6 million in 2006, up 12.6 percent from the previous, but that the number of incoming foreign travelers rose just 1.7 percent to 6.15 million over the same period.
Hyun said the high prices of tourism-related items here, and the poor leisure and education infrastructure are at the center of the widening imbalance in the travel account.”
Also incoming foreign tourists have found that it is more costly to travel to and in the country than other Asian nations, which negatively affects the local tourism industry.
Included in the report was a list of governments and private companies who had broken the UN trade embargo on Iraq.
The Joong-Ang Ilbo is reporting South Korean officials have begun an investigation into whether five South Korean companies exported sensitive dual-use goods to Iraq before the war.
The inquiry followed the release last week of a report by Charles Duelfer, commissioned by the U.S. government to investigate Iraq's programs for weapons of mass destruction.
Included in the report was a list of governments and private companies who had broken the UN trade embargo on Iraq.
A group suicide through the internet was commited again.
New federal numbers put the number of Americans infected with the AIDS virus each year close to 50 percent higher than previous estimates, activist groups and some media reported, but federal officials denied on Sunday that the data was finished yet.
The groups say the new numbers put the number of people newly infected each year with the virus at 55,000 instead of 40,000.
The New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal all say they have sources confirming this estimate.
Prosecutors have tentatively concluded that Kim Sun-jong, co-researcher of disgraced cloning expert Hwang Woo-suk, fabricated samples of stem cell lines without Hwang’s knowledge, KBS TV reported on Monday.
The state-run broadcaster said in its primetime 9 O’clock news that the prosecution secured Kim’s testimony that he had manipulated stem cell lines by himself.
However, considering the high-profile stem cell scandal, the prosecution will consult with scientists about the conclusion before announcing the investigation results, according to the KBS news.
The prosecution said that Hwang, the former Seoul National University professor, was evidently involved in fabricating two papers on stem cells featured by the U.S. journal Science in 2004 and 2005.
KBS news also reported that Hwang got job offers from some research institutes abroad. Hwang thinks returning back to Korea after making some accomplishment abroad is the only way to reestablish his impaired reputation, the news cited a person close to Hwang as saying.
However, considering the high-profile stem cell scandal, the prosecution will consult with scientists about the conclusion before announcing the investigation results, according to the KBS news.
Major Bowes' Amateur Hour on radio and Amateur Night at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, New York.
Both are celebrating their 75th anniversaries, one of them tonight.
“Before there was this (loud music), there was another sure-fire way to weed out the real singers from the fakes:
Amateur Night at the Apollo Theater in New York.
Ah, but if you were good, cheers cascading down on the stage launched careers of those like Ella Fitzgerald, Stevie Wonder, and James Brown.
The Amateur Night marks its 75th anniversary tonight in New York.
Long before American Idol, there were two places amateur entertainers could get a big- time break:
Both are celebrating their 75th anniversaries, one of them tonight.
“Before there was this (loud music), there was another sure-fire way to weed out the real singers from the fakes:
Ah, but if you were good, cheers cascading down on the stage launched careers of those like Ella Fitzgerald, Stevie Wonder, and James Brown.
Six elephants that escaped from Seoul Children's Grand Park may have been overworked and suffering from stress, say people who saw the animals before their breakout.
An Internet message said the elephants appeared scared and restless to visitors at the park Tuesday.
Experts say elephants are usually mild animals but can become violent when under stress.
The elephants had been performing seven times a day, just 24 hours after being transfered from Songdo Resort in Incheon.
Six elephants that escaped from Seoul Children's Grand Park may have been overworked and suffering from stress, say people who saw the animals before their breakout.
An Internet message said the elephants appeared scared and restless to visitors at the park Tuesday.
North Korea balked Monday at opening its heavily armed border to relief trucks from rival South Korea, even as international aid groups sought more help for thousands injured or made homeless by a massive train explosion.
As a cold rain fell on the devastated community of Ryongchon, relief workers warned that more food, blankets and medicine were needed immediately in the impoverished nation.
Video released by the United Nations showed patients squeezed two to a bed in shabby hospitals, with compresses over their eyes and facial injuries from being struck by a wave of glass, rubble and heat in Thursday's blast.
Aid workers said North Korea was short of even basic equipment like sutures and intravenous drips, and that donated goods were being used up as quickly as they could be supplied.
The Red Cross distributed a three-month supply of antibiotics, anesthetics and bandages to North Korean hospitals over the weekend, but ``according to the hospitals, they have already used these medical supplies and have requested more.''
The casuality toll stood at 161 dead and more than 1,300 injured by the explosion of oil and chemicals, aid agencies said.
As a cold rain fell on the devastated community of Ryongchon, relief workers warned that more food, blankets and medicine were needed immediately in the impoverished nation.
The local market was closed Wednesday for Liberation Day.˝
˝The Seoul bourse suffered its biggest daily loss Thursday since April 2000 on a massive selling spree by both retail and foreign investors worried about the deepening subprime mortgage turmoil in the U.S.
The benchmark KOSPI index shed 125.91 points, or 6.93 percent, to close at 1,691.98, while the tech-heavy KOSDAQ dropped 77.85 points, or 10.15 percent, to 689.07.
The key index fell as low as 1,681.71 at one time during the session.
The Korean currency closed at 946.2 won to the greenback, plunging 13.7 won from Tuesday´s close, as offshore investors scrambled to purchase the greenback after dumping shares on the local market.
The local market was closed Wednesday for Liberation Day.˝
The Korea Herald reports that riding a diehard boom in travel and study abroad, Koreans' overseas spending on these activities swelled 16 percent during the first seven months this year despite the prolonged depression for domestic consumption.
The Korea Herald reports that riding a diehard boom in travel and study abroad, Koreans' overseas spending on these activities swelled 16 percent during the first seven months this year despite the prolonged depression for domestic consumption.
Current-account data from the Bank of Korea showed that $6.5 billion flowed out from the country via travelers and students between January and July, up 16 percent from the year-earlier period.
The seven-month figure has approached full-year figures from the previous six years, which averaged $7.3 billion.
The arrest by communist Chinese police of a group of North Korean refugees in Beijing led to a scuffle with South Korean diplomats and prompted the foreign ministry to file a protest over the incident.
A group of four North Korean defectors tried to seek asylum by entering a South Korean school in Beijing on Tuesday, but they were arrested on the school grounds by Chinese security officers.
The Korean International School notified the South Korean Embassy about the incident and four consular officers arrived at the scene, the embassy said.
Although the South Koreans identified themselves as diplomats, Chinese police pinned the arms of two of the diplomats behind their backs and dragged them away from the school, according to witnesses.
The foreign ministry officially complained to Beijing yesterday about the use of force against the diplomats.
A communist Chinese envoy in South Korea was summoned to hear the complaint, and the South Korean Embassy in Beijing also complained to the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
A group of four North Korean defectors tried to seek asylum by entering a South Korean school in Beijing on Tuesday, but they were arrested on the school grounds by Chinese security officers.
US President George W Bush has suffered an unexpected and embarrassing blow after a new delay in John Bolton's passage to becoming the US ambassador to the United Nations.
Although some Republicans had reservations about Bolton, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee had looked set to vote along party lines and send his controversial nomination to the full Senate.
But in a fractious meeting on Tuesday, one Republican senator sided with Democrats demanding a fresh hearing to air allegations that Bolton was a ""serial bully"" who intimidated junior members of staff.
US President George W Bush has suffered an unexpected and embarrassing blow after a new delay in John Bolton's passage to becoming the US ambassador to the United Nations.
Philippine and Muslim rebels to make peace talks in Malaysia.
More than 50 dead bodies discovered in a town of southern Baghdad.
The BBC is quoting Pakistan´s President Pervez Musharraf as saying UK investigators are to assist in the inquiry into the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.
In a televised address, he said Prime Minister Gordon Brown had agreed to send a team of detectives from London to help establish what happened.
He claimed “terrorists” were behind the murder, and described Ms Bhutto´s death as a ”great tragedy” for the nation.
Elections set for next week in Pakistan have been postponed until the 18th of February.
Musharraf said too much damage had been done to polling stations and voter papers during the unrest in the wake of Ms Bhutto´s assassination last Thursday.
President Roh Moo-hyun called on the nation to consider a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow future presidents two consecutive four-year terms.
“Permitting presidents consecutive terms would contribute greatly to promoting responsible politics.
The current law preventing a second term is outdated and it triggers power struggles toward the end of a presidential term,” Roh said in a statement to the nation.
The Constitution, last revised in 1987, stipulates a single-term presidency of five years.
Any amendment will not affect Roh's term.
The opposition Grand National Party protested vehemently, especially since it was less than a year ago that Roh denied that the administration was considering a constitutional amendment.
He also raised concerns that the amendment could be abused to manipulate voters in the upcoming December presidential election.
The GNP hopes to take office based on the rapidly dwindling approval ratings for the president and his governing Uri party.
Despite the government’s recent refusal to allow world Buddhist leader, The Dalai Lama to visit Korea… the government is welcoming a former communist enemy to the country.
The head of Vietnam´s ruling Communist Party will visit Seoul this week amid burgeoning bilateral trade and investment from which South Korea has emerged as the biggest foreign investor in the communist state.
The planned visit to Seoul by Secretary-General Nong Duc Manh of the Vietnamese Communist Party comes just one month after his visit to Pyongyang in mid October to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.
Reports said the reclusive North Korean leader had expressed his willingness to benchmark Vietnam´s openness and reform policy “Doi Moi” while meeting with Nong in Pyongyang.
The head of Vietnam´s ruling Communist Party will visit Seoul this week amid burgeoning bilateral trade and investment from which South Korea has emerged as the biggest foreign investor in the communist state.
Gay couples can be married under Washington state law, because denying their right to do so is a violation of their constitutional rights, a judge ruled Wednesday.
``The denial to the plaintiffs of the right to marry constitutes a denial of substantive due process,'' King County Superior Court Judge William L. Downing said in his ruling.
His decision is stayed until the state Supreme Court reviews the case, meaning no marriage licenses can be issued until then, said Jennifer Pizer, lead counsel in the case for Lambda Legal.
Washington is one of 38 states with laws defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
Under a state high court ruling, Massachusetts has allowed gay marriage since May.
The Washington state couples challenged the state's Defense of Marriage Act, which restricts marriage to one man and one woman.
A huge explosion rocked North Korea last week but U.S. and South Korean officials said Sunday it was unlikely to have been a nuclear weapons test despite the appearance of a ""peculiar cloud"" over the area.
South Korea first got indications of the blast from a satellite, but it was too early to say whether it was a bomb, according to a senior South Korean.
It probably occurred between Wednesday evening and Thursday morning. US Secretary of State Colin Powell said there was ""no indication that that was a nuclear event of any kind.
"" Asked on ABC's ""This Week"" if North Korea has tested a nuclear device, Powell said, ""No.
"""" North Korea is believed to be developing nuclear weapons Washington has said it may have one or two or even more already.
In October 2002, U.S. officials claimed North Korean officials admitted to a clandestine uranium enrichment program that could be used to develop nuclear weapons and that violated its international commitments.
Rice played down sightings of a mushroom cloud.
""There are all kinds of reports and there are all kinds of assessments that are going on.
Maybe it was a fire, some kind of forest fire,"" she said.
South Korea's Yonhap news agency said a mushroom cloud up to 4 km in diameter was seen after the blast in an area near missile bases in Ryanggang province in the remote northeast near the border with China.
Yonhap said it appeared much stronger than a train explosion that killed at least 170 people in April.
It probably occurred between Wednesday evening and Thursday morning.
"" ""We don't think, at this point, that it was a nuclear event.
Nearly 7,500 unionized truckers nationwide decided to wage a general strike immediately, following 4,000 dump truckers who walked out.
Ready-mixed concrete industry workers are also expected to join.
A two-day voting process via cell phone, in which 97.48 percent of the 7,584 union members participated, showed that 62.8 percent of the member truckers voted yes on the strike.
The walkout, if carried out as planned, is feared to deal a devastating blow to the economy.
Iran appears to bar some Korean exports.
Militants holding five Britons in Iraq threatened in a video on Tuesday to kill one of them in 10 days as a “first warning” unless Britain withdrew its troops.
President George W. Bush said his ”surge” strategy of sending 30,000 additional troops was working.
The U.S. military said 40 senior al Qaeda figures had been killed or captured in November but the appearance of a British hostage in a video aired on Arabic-language al Arabiya channel underscored the continuing threat of violence.
a computer instructor and his four bodyguards
The video, dated November 18, set a deadline of 10 days from the date it was broadcast for Britain to pull its troops from Iraq.
British troops are deployed in the mainly Shi´ite south.
Militants holding five Britons in Iraq threatened in a video on Tuesday to kill one of them in 10 days as a “first warning” unless Britain withdrew its troops.
The U.S. military said 40 senior al Qaeda figures had been killed or captured in November but the appearance of a British hostage in a video aired on Arabic-language al Arabiya channel underscored the continuing threat of violence.
a computer instructor and his four bodyguards
˝North Korea is likely to face a shortfall of more than 400,000 metric tons of food this year due to recent heavy floods, in spite of massive outside aid, a U.S. government funded radio station reported Tuesday.
Citing experts on North Korea, Voice of America reported that the communist country might run a deficit of 400,000 tons of food even if it receives aid from South Korea and the international community.
Devastating floods are believed to have destroyed up to 14 percent of the North´s farmland, South Korean officials said.
The number of dead and missing is estimated at more than 300, with the homeless numbering about 300,000.
An estimated 46,580 homes of 88,400 families were destroyed or damaged, according to the North´s media.˝
Disgraced former Philippine President Joseph Estrada has been granted an official pardon by his successor, a government spokesman has confirmed.
President Gloria Arroyo´s office said the decision was reached after Estrada agreed not to pursue political office.
Estrada was given a life sentence last month after being convicted of corruption following a six-year trial.
The 70-year-old ex-film star was found to have embezzled 80 million dollars(£42m) before being forced from office in 2001.
Disgraced former Philippine President Joseph Estrada has been granted an official pardon by his successor, a government spokesman has confirmed.
Residents in Tongduchon, 40 kilometers north of Seoul, are struggling to overcome devastating effects of the U.S. troop redeployment on their livelihood, especially after 3,600 soldiers of the 2nd Infantry Division transferred to Iraq early last month.
The realignment of the U.S.
Army division headquartered in the city with a population of 75,000 is a life or death issue for workers, taxi drivers, vendors, bar owners and others who earn their income by serving American servicemen.
Following U.S. appeals for solidarity in dealing with North Korea, Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon made a pointed declaration yesterday that Pyongyang needed to return to nuclear disarmament talks unconditionally.
Following U.S. appeals for solidarity in dealing with North Korea, Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon made a pointed declaration yesterday that Pyongyang needed to return to nuclear disarmament talks unconditionally.
The Joong-Ang Ilbo reports Ban's statement comes after the U.S. urged that a coordinated approach be taken on the North Korean nuclear crisis.
Pope John Paul got an emergency surgery because of acute respiratory problems.
Officials of the governing Uri Party formed a panel yesterday to look into the burgeoning bribery scandal surrounding the Cheonggye stream restoration project.
On the same day, two more individuals were arrested in connection with the scandal.
The Uri Party's vice spokeswoman, Yoo Eun-hye, said yesterday that lawmaker Lee Jong-kul will head a five-person committee that will seek answers independent of prosecutors' investigations.
The committee will be assisted by the construction and government administration ministries.
South Korea offered important incentives to North Korea if it returns to six-party talks.
US carmaker General Motors is to cut 30,000 jobs in North America under a restructuring drive that aims to revive the company.
GM has suffered falling sales, a drop in market share and high labor costs. US carmaker General Motors is to cut 30,000 jobs in North America under a restructuring drive that aims to revive the company.
The automotive group, which is struggling to stem huge losses, will also close down nine assembly, stamping and Powertrain engine-maker facilities.
The move along with other cutbacks should help reduce costs by $7billion a year by 2006 - $1billion more than first planned.
GM has suffered falling sales, a drop in market share and high labor costs.
The UN reporter on torture has arrived in Communist China.
Although the Grand National Party has been making political hay with its push for tax reductions, the party's lawmakers have been proposing some huge spending increases, according to an examination of pending or proposed legislation by the JoongAng Ilbo.
Although the Grand National Party has been making political hay with its push for tax reductions, the party's lawmakers have been proposing some huge spending increases, according to an examination of pending or proposed legislation by the JoongAng Ilbo.
The party has proposed to cut 8.9 trillion won ($8.52 billion) from next year's government spending, but the spending plans its members want approved have led the party's floor leader, Kang Jae-sup, to call for self-restraint.
He criticized the tendency to introduce new spending bills only because of constituent pressure or a desire to appear generous.
Saddam Hussein's trial has heard its first witness testimony.
Barack Obama, the First 100 Days:
We're up to Day 95 now, and the AP's Rita Foley reports the Republicans have their own view of how the President's doing:
“ A new poll finds more Americans than not say the country's going in the right direction, but John Boehner's got a different view:
”“ I think if you look at the first 100 days, you can sum it up pretty simply:
”“ The Republicans have tried to play nice, he says:
”“ Unfortunately, they've decided to go it alone.
”“ But the GOP is still willing:
”“ The American people want us to work together.”
“ Rita Foley, Washington.”
The President today is underscoring his concerns for middle-class families stressed by rising tuition.
He's meeting with a family struggling to afford the cost of college.
”“ I think if you look at the first 100 days, you can sum it up pretty simply:
“ It's going to hurt our economy and hurt jobs in America.
South Korean stocks opened higher Friday as bargain hunters scooped up blue chips following steep losses in the previous session, analysts said.
The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) gained 9.4 points, or 0.47 percent, to 1,988.96 in the first 15 minutes of trading.
Most shares got off to a good start, with telecommunication issues leading the gains.
Hanaro Telecom surged more than 12 percent on news that No. 1 mobile carrier SK Telecom plans to bid for a controlling stake in the company.
SK Telecom climbed 5 percent.
The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) gained 9.4 points, or 0.47 percent, to 1,988.96 in the first 15 minutes of trading.
The world must quickly take concerted action against terrorism and deny extremists the chance to carry out a nuclear attack, U.N.
The world must quickly take concerted action against terrorism and deny extremists the chance to carry out a nuclear attack, U.N.
World leaders should adopt a comprehensive treaty against terrorism as soon as possible, he told a conference on Thursday marking the first anniversary of the March 11 Madrid train bombings that killed 191 people in al Qaeda's worst attack in Europe.
The Korea Military Academy allows dating between male and female cadets.
Former Indonesian Dictator Suharto, who has died from multiple organ failure at the age of 86, is to be buried shortly in Central Java.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono will oversee the state funeral in a Javanese royal burial ground near Solo.
Suharto ruled with an iron first for 32 years and was accused of endemic corruption and human rights abuses.
More than half a million suspected communists were killed during his rise to power in the 1960s.
He left office in 1998 amid mass protests over corruption and human rights abuses but did not stand trial on health grounds.
Following news of his death, hundreds of people gathered in the streets around his Jakarta house, many with tears in their eyes.
Many Indonesians still fondly call him their Father of Development but his critics say he ruled by instilling fear.
A North Korean nuclear test would be a “provocative act”, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said.
Speaking in Cairo, she said the US would have to assess its options should North Korea's threat be carried out.
South Korea also condemned the move, saying it would not tolerate nuclear arms on its northern neighbor’s soil.
North Korea did not give a date for its test, which was announced on state TV, but said it would boost security in the face of US military hostility.
Japan and Russia, who have been involved in six-party talks with Pyongyang, have also expressed concern.
And a spokesman for UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said a test would only provoke universal condemnation and do nothing towards strengthening North Korea's security.
The US and China have also been part of the talks, which have been stalled for a year.
North Korea did not give a date for its test, which was announced on state TV, but said it would boost security in the face of US military hostility.
More than 100 people are thought to have been killed in a tsunami triggered by an earthquake off the island of Java, the Red Cross in Indonesia says. The earthquake, which had a magnitude of 7.
7, struck off the town of Pangandaran at 3:19 local time, causing a 2m-high wave.
One resident said high waves had destroyed hotels in Pangandaran and thrown boats onto the beach.
A Red Cross official in the area, said 105 people were believed to have been killed, with 148 injured and 127 still missing.
At least 2,000 people are also thought to have been displaced from the area.
A local official said that thousands of people had sought refuge in mosques and other safe places.
""Many of the injured were suffering from broken bones,"" he told Indonesia's Metro TV.
Earlier, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said the search was still ongoing for the missing.
Yudhoyono urged residents in coastal areas to move to safer places, and said that rescue teams had been sent to the affected area.
More than 100 people are thought to have been killed in a tsunami triggered by an earthquake off the island of Java, the Red Cross in Indonesia says.
The earthquake, which had a magnitude of 7.
The Joong-Ang Ilbo reports after six years of planning and another nine months in delays, the Korean government will begin construction in May of a 12.3-kilometer bridge that will connect Incheon International Airport on Yeongjong Island to Songdo, a massive piece of reclaimed land that the Korean government hopes will serve as the foundation for a financial and transportation nexus for Northeast Asia.
Getting the bridge to the construction stage was not easy, said Keith Martin, vice president of KODA Development, a joint venture between the Incheon city government and AMEC, a multinational public works company, based in London, that is managing the project.
The Joong-Ang Ilbo reports after six years of planning and another nine months in delays, the Korean government will begin construction in May of a 12.3-kilometer bridge that will connect Incheon International Airport on Yeongjong Island to Songdo, a massive piece of reclaimed land that the Korean government hopes will serve as the foundation for a financial and transportation nexus for Northeast Asia.
Getting the bridge to the construction stage was not easy, said Keith Martin, vice president of KODA Development, a joint venture between the Incheon city government and AMEC, a multinational public works company, based in London, that is managing the project.
The Korea Herald reports that government officials said yesterday they are investigating a North Korean defector on espionage charges after he entered the South as an asylum seeker fleeing the secretive communist state.
He is accused of collecting information on South Korea after seeking asylum in January 2003 and of visiting North Korea illegally in April 2004 to report what he found.
Prospect of fielding a joint North and South Korean soccer team for the 2006 World Cup in Germany will be discussed.
Newspapers across Europe have reprinted caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad to show support for a Danish paper whose cartoons have sparked Muslim outrage.
Seven publications in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and Spain all carried some of the drawings.
Their publication in Denmark led Arab nations to protest.
Islamic tradition bans depictions of the Prophet.
The owner of one of the papers to reprint - France Soir - has now sacked its managing editor over the matter.
The cartoons have sparked diplomatic sanctions and death threats in some Arab nations, while media watchdogs have defended publication of the images in the name of press freedom.
The cartoons have sparked diplomatic sanctions and death threats in some Arab nations, while media watchdogs have defended publication of the images in the name of press freedom.
Harry Reid, the Democratic leader of the Senate, said Bush's speech was ""recycled tired rhetoric"", and that the president had ""once again missed an opportunity to lay out a real strategy for success in Iraq that will bring our troops safely home"". President George W Bush has said he will not accept ""anything less than complete victory"" in Iraq.
In a major policy speech, Bush refused to set an ""artificial deadline"" to withdraw US troops, saying it was ""not a plan for victory"".
It comes after the release of the first Iraq strategy document, which rejects widespread calls for a timetable.
They also suggest that six out of 10 Americans think the war in Iraq is not worth the cost. As such, this was a speech from a president in deep trouble, according to the BBC's Justin Webb in Washington.
Major Korean broadcasting companies will begin land-based mobile television services.
The BBC reports the transfer of North Korean funds from a bank in Macau - a key sticking point to nuclear disarmament talks with the US - is under way.
A Macau official said that most of the $24m frozen in the Banco Delta Asia had now been moved elsewhere.
The move marks a breakthrough in a dispute between North Korea and the US.
North Korea had insisted it would only shut its Yongbyon nuclear facility if it had access to the funds, stalling a previously negotiated deal.
It is not yet clear where the money is being sent to, but it is expected to be wired to the US before being transferred elsewhere.
Recent reports suggest the funds will eventually end up in a North Korean bank account in Russia, after Moscow signaled earlier this week that it would help resolve the row.
Until now, banks around the world have refused to touch the money, which is alleged by the US to be the proceeds of drug smuggling and counterfeiting.
A Macau official said that most of the $24m frozen in the Banco Delta Asia had now been moved elsewhere.
Recent reports suggest the funds will eventually end up in a North Korean bank account in Russia, after Moscow signaled earlier this week that it would help resolve the row.
Teachers were angry when they heard the ministry would allow students, parents and fellow teachers to grade their performance in the classroom.
Education Minister Kim Jin-pyo expressed displeasure yesterday in a message addressing student anger over changes in the college administration process, and at protests from teachers who are fighting proposed in-class evaluations.
"" Nevertheless, he said his plans would move forward, and he asked the teachers to cooperate.
Teachers were angry when they heard the ministry would allow students, parents and fellow teachers to grade their performance in the classroom.
One teachers' union disrupted a ministry hearing over the issue this week, calling the plan hypocritical and designed to hurt morale.
A Terrorist attack in a town near Korean troops' base in Iraq killed at least 60 people.
President Barack Obama is meeting with Congressional leaders from both parties this morning, trying to move along his economic stimulus package.
Yes, he's only been in office since Tuesday, but with stocks way down again this morning, Obama does want to get this done soon.
Here's AP White House correspondent Mark Smith:
“Despite initial vows of bipartisanship, Republicans are being more and more vocal.
They don't think key elements of the plan will create jobs.
They're especially scathing about spending measures that they say are wasteful, and in any event won't kick in for many months.”
The Dow is down 150 points in the first half hour.
It says the man returned home after his release about a year ago, then went to Yemen to join the terrorist group.
That doesn't change the opinion of Democratic Congresswoman Jane Harmon that it's right for the new President to close Gitmo:
“President Obama has to proceed extremely carefully, but there is really no justification, and there was no justification, for disappearing people in a place that was located offshore America, so it was outside the reach of US law.”
President Barack Obama is meeting with Congressional leaders from both parties this morning, trying to move along his economic stimulus package.
“Despite initial vows of bipartisanship, Republicans are being more and more vocal.
They're especially scathing about spending measures that they say are wasteful, and in any event won't kick in for many months.”
The Dow is down 150 points in the first half hour.
2 is a Saudi man, who's a former Guantanamo detainee.
That doesn't change the opinion of Democratic Congresswoman Jane Harmon that it's right for the new President to close Gitmo:
Army's 2nd Infantry Division to Iraq.
The Korea Times reports Seoul and Washington will have to discuss further reduction of U.S.
Forces Korea sometime in the future, which has just started with the recent U.S. decision to relocate a brigade of 3,600 forces here to Iraq, officials said on Tuesday.
The remarks came a day after George W. Bush called on President Roh Moo-hyun to reconfirm the Pentagon plan to relocate a brigade from the U.S. Army's 2nd Infantry Division to Iraq.
A military expert said further reduction of the USFK seemed inevitable given that the two brigades of the division are the main fighting forces and the others, including the air force, are backup forces.
``Gradual reduction of the USFK will be discussed in earnest with proper measures to fill a possible security vacuum.''
While ascribing the latest U.S. move to its urgent needs due to the worsening situation in Iraq, Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon also admitted that the troop reduction was, in part, in line with the Pentagon plan to realign its forces under GPR so they can better adapt to the changing security environment.
Seoul puts off tax cut despite oil price surge.
A group of angry Canadian beef producers said on Friday they've launched a multimillion-dollar suit against the U.S. government in a bid to force the reopening of the Canada-U.S. border to live cattle.
The closure followed discovery of a lone case of mad cow disease in an Alberta cow.
A group of angry Canadian beef producers said on Friday they've launched a multimillion-dollar suit against the U.S. government in a bid to force the reopening of the Canada-U.S. border to live cattle.
The claims, filed under a provision of the North American Free-Trade Agreement in Washington on Thursday, seek damages for investments in feedlots and farms hurt by the border closure since May 2003.
California Supreme Court voided same-sex marriage sanctioned in San Francisco.
Partial results put Mitt Romney and John McCain neck and neck in Florida, a key battle for Republicans seeking to run for president in November.
With votes still being counted, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani - who has staked his bid for the party nomination on Florida - was trailing in third.
Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who also pinned his hopes on Florida, was fourth, with 11% of votes counted.
The Democratic election is largely symbolic after an internal party row.
More than one million votes had already been cast before the polls opened on Tuesday, either through absentee ballots or early voting that began on 14 January.
For the Republican hopefuls, 57 delegates are at stake in the winner-takes-all primary.
They will attend the party´s national convention later this year when the Republican candidate is chosen.
The Democratic election is largely symbolic after an internal party row.
For this year’s “Chusok” (Korean Thanksgiving) holidays, people are rushing to travel abroad.
These “golden days” are long indeed, and can last up to nine days utilizing the five-day workweek plus “Gaechonjol” (National Foundation Day) and annual paid-holiday.
During the season, many getaway packages in travel agencies are fully booked, bringing a vibrant atmosphere to the travel industry.
Hana Tour, one of the nation’s largest tourist companies, has placed Chusok packages on the front of its Web site. Around 24,000 people have booked overseas holidays through the agency.
Lotte Tour has a more than 200 percent booking rate for air travel to Southeast Asia, leaving many people on waiting lists.
During the season, many getaway packages in travel agencies are fully booked, bringing a vibrant atmosphere to the travel industry.
The South Korean government has consistently pursued progress in inter-Korean relations in harmony with the resolution of the North Korean nuclear issue.
In the latest ministerial talks on Jeju Island, the Unification Minister Chung Dong-young urged the North to return to the nuclear disarmament talks as soon as possible, stressing the implementation of the Sept.
The South Korean government has consistently pursued progress in inter-Korean relations in harmony with the resolution of the North Korean nuclear issue.
˝Pyeong Chang´s bid to host the Olympic Winter Games fell short yet again after losing a two-way race with Russia´s Sochi in an International Olympic Committee (IOC) vote on Wednesday.
The Gangwon Province resort town lost by a small margin, 51-47, to Sochi in the final round of IOC voting.
The third candidate, Salzburg, Austria, was eliminated in the first round.
The Korea Times reports Kim Jin-sun, in his last year as Gangwon Province Governor, refused to comment on whether he expects PyeongChang to give the winter games another try.˝
A Palestinian cleric called a hunger strike by nearly three thousand Palestinian prisoners ""a type of legitimate jihad.
"" The top cleric is head of the Higher Council for Islamic Jurisprudence.
He told the prisoners' family members that if any one of them dies, ""it will be as if he were martyred on the field of battle and the occupation authority will be considered the true killer.
"" Some 28 hundred detainees are seen by Palestinians as symbols of resistance to Israeli occupation.
"" The top cleric is head of the Higher Council for Islamic Jurisprudence.
One of the group's members told South Korea to withdraw its troops and refuse to send more, or, ""we'll send you this Korean's head.
One of the group's members told South Korea to withdraw its troops and refuse to send more, or, ""we'll send you this Korean's head.
Top UN official Ibrahim Gambari is arriving in Burma on Wednesday at the start of a three-day visit.
This is the first time a UN envoy has visited Burma in more than two years.
Gambari, under-secretary general for political affairs, has asked to be allowed to see Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel prize-winner under house arrest.
He is also due to raise human rights issues and the prospects for restoring democracy when he meets senior officials from the military government.
More than half a million people have been ordered to evacuate parts of the US state of California being engulfed by massive wildfires.
Fierce winds are fanning at least 16 fires that have razed land from Santa Barbara to the Mexican border.
The blazes have left two people dead and destroyed more than 1,200 homes and businesses, say officials.
President George W Bush will visit the state on Thursday, after declaring a state of emergency in seven counties.
Barack Obama gave the jolly old elf a shout-out the other day:
“Malia and Sasha have already put their lists together.
One Santa says you see things behind the beard that no-one else will ever see or hear:
“The children are hearing the 'E' word, but it's not 'Elbow,' it's 'Economy.'
Tim Connahan has played Santa for forty years.
He says kids are very trusting of Old Saint Nick.
Some are asking that daddy get a job or mommy get money they need to buy the house back.
Connahan says Santas have been through this before:
“Even if a child asks for a pony, Santa always knows that the parents probably don't have room for a pony, but Santa has to make the child feel good about it.”
The goal is to leave Santa's lap with a smile.
Barack Obama gave the jolly old elf a shout-out the other day:
The top US military leader in Iraq, Gen David Petraeus, has recommended a suspension of troop withdrawals after July to protect gains in Iraq.
Gen Petraeus praised ""significant"" but ""uneven"" improvements in security and said troop levels would need a period of evaluation over the summer.
He also said the recent Iraqi operation in Basra was ""not adequately planned"".
He and Ambassador Ryan Crocker gave an update to Congress on the Iraq ""surge"", on the first of two days of hearings.
They also came face to face with the three senators vying to succeed George W Bush as president this November.
The Korea Times is quoting Lee Jong-seok, deputy chief of the National Security Council, as saying it is ``inevitable'' for the United States to reduce its troops stationed in South Korea due to the changing security conditions around the world .
``It's not an issue that we can solve by grabbing the trouser legs of U.S. soldiers to prevent them from leaving South Korea,'' Lee told a workshop for lawmakers-elect of the ruling Uri Party at the National Assembly on Saturday.
``The U.S. is under a process to realign its troops around the world,'' Lee said.
``So we have to prepare our own program, regarding the security on the Korean peninsula, and discuss it with the U.S.’
’ Lee said the current security situation is very grave, even comparing it with the financial crisis in 1997 when South Korea was enrolled in the IMF tutelage program. The Korea Times is quoting Lee Jong-seok, deputy chief of the National Security Council, as saying it is ``inevitable'' for the United States to reduce its troops stationed in South Korea due to the changing security conditions around the world .
’ Lee said the current security situation is very grave, even comparing it with the financial crisis in 1997 when South Korea was enrolled in the IMF tutelage program.
President Roh put off the nomination for prime minister.
Muslin cleric Abu Hamza is arrested in London.
The National Election Commission is to rule today on President Roh Moo-hyun’s latest press interview on repeated complaints from the Grand National Party.
The GNP claims that last week’s interview with Hankyoreh, the nation’s liberal-minded newspaper, once again borders on illegal campaigning.
It also accused Roh of failing to keep a neutral stance.
This is a second time in less than two weeks that the election watchdog rules on the president’s comments to decide whether he violated election laws in the runup to the December presidential race.
On Thursday, the president spoke negatively of the GNP and also flatly stated that he would support the pro-government Uri Party and the presidential candidate it produces.
He also reiterated that current election laws are “unrealistic and outdated,” based on his argument that a president cannot and should not avoid current political affairs.
Most Russians would not think worse of President Vladimir Putin if he breached the constitution and ran for a third term in March presidential elections, according to an opinion poll published on Wednesday.
Putin, whose approval ratings top 70 percent, has promised to respect the constitution, which bans him running for a third consecutive four-year term.
His popularity has prompted a wave of calls by political allies for him to change his mind.
A poll by the independent Levada Centre showed 55 percent would not change their view of Putin if he decided to run again, while another 22 percent said it would improve their opinion.
Putin has already said he wants to keep political influence after leaving the Kremlin but he has not explained how.
Demands to formalize Putin´s future role have topped the agenda of his United Russia party, which won a landslide victory in a parliamentary election last Sunday. Most Russians would not think worse of President Vladimir Putin if he breached the constitution and ran for a third term in March presidential elections, according to an opinion poll published on Wednesday.
His popularity has prompted a wave of calls by political allies for him to change his mind.
Lawmakers are pushing for money to help keep the Internet safe - safe for teens:
With 'sexting' and cyber bullying on the rise, Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz says the money would develop and support programs to help teens learn how to protect themselves online:
“ They need to know that the minute they hit that Send button, they not only lose control over where these photos go next, in some cases they lose control over their own future.”
Lawmakers were joined by the mother of an Ohio teen who committed suicide after she was taunted and harassed.
The girl had sent a nude picture of herself to her boyfriend, and it ended up making the rounds.
Gerry Bodlander, Capitol Hill.
Out with the old, in with the new in space:
two astronauts are stripping the Hubble telescope of its 15-year-old camera, replacing it with an updated model.
The Vatican says the Pope's mission as he tours the Mideast is peace, peace, and peace.
Benedict greeted tens of thousands in Jesus' Biblical hometown of Nazareth today.
“ They need to know that the minute they hit that Send button, they not only lose control over where these photos go next, in some cases they lose control over their own future.”
About 1,000 monks marched through Mandalay, and several hundred more in Rangoon, the former capital.
Thousands of Buddhist monks have protested in several Burmese cities in escalating protests against the military government.
In the western port city of Sittwe, nearly 2,000 monks demanded the release of four monks arrested on Tuesday.
President Roh Moo-hyun said on Wednesday the government will study every option to better fund social welfare measures, but ruled out tax hikes.
In his New Year’s press conference televised live across the country, Roh said the administration is endeavoring to reduce unnecessary budget expenditures and striving to improve the tax system.
``Some debates about tax increases are underway in the political circles.
But we will not raise taxes.’
The first-ever communication test to set up their permanent hotline comes two days after military officials from the two Koreas signed an agreement on concrete measures to prevent any recurrence of naval skirmishes and ease tension along the world's last Cold War frontier.
Navies from South and North Korea will test the hotline between their military vessels via an international standard radio frequency on a trial basis to head off accidental armed clashes in the poorly-marked maritime border on the West Sea.
The first-ever communication test to set up their permanent hotline comes two days after military officials from the two Koreas signed an agreement on concrete measures to prevent any recurrence of naval skirmishes and ease tension along the world's last Cold War frontier.
Vice President Dick Cheney's plan visit to Seoul in mid-April is stirring up some new questions on Korea-U.S. relations, as the tentative date for the trip overlaps with the nation's general elections.
Vice President Dick Cheney's plan visit to Seoul in mid-April is stirring up some new questions on Korea-U.S. relations, as the tentative date for the trip overlaps with the nation's general elections.
The Korea Herald reports it also falls amid a pivotal timeframe in the country's political arena with the unprecedented impeachment of the president, Roh Moo-hyun, and at a time in which pending bilateral issues, including the realignment of U.S. troops in Korea, are mounting.
A Japanese whaling fleet has set sail aiming to harpoon humpback whales for the first time in decades.
The fleet is conducting its largest hunt in the South Pacific - it has instructions to kill up to 1,000 whales, including 50 humpbacks.
The humpback hunt is the first since a mid-1960s global ban and has drawn strong protests from environmentalists.
Commercial whaling was stopped in 1986 but Japan is permitted whaling in the name of scientific research.
Four whaling ships, including the lead craft Nisshin Maru, set off from the southern port of Shimonoseki on Sunday.
One crew member was killed.
A Greenpeace campaign ship will be following the Japanese fleet.
Tokyo´s plan to target the humpback - which was hunted to near extinction four decades ago - has drawn condemnation from environmentalists all over the world.
“Humpbacks are very sensitive and live in close-knit pods so even one death can be extremely damaging,” Greenpeace spokesman Junichi Sato said.
The Malaysian government has said it hopes to obtain a full-time pair of Northern Irish sniffer dogs trained to seek out counterfeit DVDs and CDs.
Aiming to form Malaysia’s first canine anti-piracy unit, the new dogs will be a replacement for two Irish black labradors it currently has on loan.
These two dogs, Lucky and Flo, have been so successful, they have attracted death threats from Malaysian criminals.
Malaysia is one of the world’s biggest producers of illegal films and albums.
Lucky and Flo, who were trained by a Northern Ireland-based dog handler, were loaned to the Malaysian authorities by the US-based Motion Picture Association.
The Malaysian government has said it hopes to obtain a full-time pair of Northern Irish sniffer dogs trained to seek out counterfeit DVDs and CDs.
These two dogs, Lucky and Flo, have been so successful, they have attracted death threats from Malaysian criminals.
The FBI is contacting more than one million PC owners who have had their computers hijacked by cyber criminals.
The BBC reports the initiative is part of an ongoing project to thwart the use of hijacked home computers, or zombies, as launch platforms for hi-tech crimes.
The FBI has found networks of zombie computers being used to spread spam, steal IDs and attack websites.
The agency said the zombies or bots were ””a growing threat to national security””.
The FBI has been trying to tackle networks of zombies for some time as part of an initiative it has dubbed Operation Bot Roast.
This operation recently passed a significant milestone as it racked up more than one million individually identifiable computers known to be part of one bot net or another.
The law enforcement organization said that part of the operation involved notifying people who owned PCs it knew were part of zombie or bot networks.
In this way it said it expected to find more evidence of how they are being used by criminals.
˝South Carolina is bringing forward its Republican presidential primary poll, a move set to trigger further changes in the US electoral calendar.
The primary, originally set for February 2nd, will be held on January 19th, the state´s Republican chairman said.
In a presidential election year, states hold primaries and caucuses to choose Democratic and Republican nominees.
Candidates who do not do well in early elections tend to drop out, so giving those states who decide first more say.
The changing electoral schedule is proving a stiff test for the candidates as their campaigns have to decide which states to focus their energy - and their money - on.
Some states get the electoral ball rolling with primaries - an election where voters indicate a preference for a candidate - while others use caucuses - party meetings to endorse candidates.
Larger states like California and Florida, who previously held their primaries later on in the process, have now moved their elections forward.
˝South Carolina is bringing forward its Republican presidential primary poll, a move set to trigger further changes in the US electoral calendar.
Larger states like California and Florida, who previously held their primaries later on in the process, have now moved their elections forward.
"" That's a reference to Arizona Republican Senator John McCain, who turned down overtures from Kerry even though he was never formally offered the job.
The Bush campaign has unveiled a new TV ad in which McCain shows his support for Bush.
George W. Bush is welcoming North Carolina Senator John Edwards to Democrat John Kerry's ticket.
Bush said he is looking forward to a ""good, spirited"" campaign.
But the ""Bush-Cheney '04"" website says Kerry only chose Edwards after his ""first choice for a running mate turned him down.
"" That's a reference to Arizona Republican Senator John McCain, who turned down overtures from Kerry even though he was never formally offered the job.
The Bush campaign has unveiled a new TV ad in which McCain shows his support for Bush.
Seoul’s transportation system is to be changed drastically starting 1 of June.
Kerry has chosen Edwards as his running mate.
Several lawmakers-elect were undergoing close scrutiny Monday over their questionable wealth accumulation, and their submission of false career and academic records to the nation´s election watchdog.
If they are confirmed to have fabricated academic or career records, they might be disqualified from office.
Yang Jung-rye of the Pro-Park Geun-hye Alliance, who was elected lawmaker in the April 9 elections under the proportional representation system, faces questioning for alleged fabrication of her academic and career records.
Reports said that Yang, the youngest lawmaker-elect of the winners of the April 9 elections, allegedly inflated her academic background as well as fabricated a career record.
The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court says he has documented evidence of thousands of killings of civilians in Sudan's Darfur region.
Luis Moreno Ocampo, investigating alleged crimes against humanity, says the killings include large-scale massacres and hundreds of rapes.
In a report to the UN, he also criticized Sudan's own investigations.
The report is seen as significant as the court may only prosecute if Sudan has not provided justice for victims.
Unveiling his report, Ocampo told reporters the team had been working from outside of Darfur, including a field office in neighboring Chad, but had faced ""serious obstacles"". ""We are now entering a new phase where unconditional cooperation will be essential to complete the investigation and identify those most responsible for crimes committed in Darfur.
Luis Moreno Ocampo, investigating alleged crimes against humanity, says the killings include large-scale massacres and hundreds of rapes.
US President George W Bush has urged China to begin dialogue with Tibet´s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.
Bush called his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao to raise his concerns about the unrest and to urge him to ease access for journalists and diplomats.
Beijing has accused the Dalai Lama of being behind the demonstrations - the biggest against China for 20 years, which have left several people dead.
The Dalai Lama has criticized violent protests and urged dialogue with China.
The anti-China protests began on 10 March and developed into violent rioting in Lhasa.
China says 19 people have been killed by rioters incited by Tibetan separatists.
The Tibetan government-in-exile says about 140 people have been killed in a crackdown on protesters by Chinese security forces. US President George W Bush has urged China to begin dialogue with Tibet´s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.
Beijing has accused the Dalai Lama of being behind the demonstrations - the biggest against China for 20 years, which have left several people dead.
The Dalai Lama has criticized violent protests and urged dialogue with China.
Angry at Bush and sensing he's vulnerable, Democrats have put aside their traditional quarrels to strike a united stand for the fall campaign.
Bad news for George W. Americans are anxious about the economy and unhappy about the Iraq war.
The number of soldiers killed will probably hit the psychologically important 1,000 mark before the November election. And in the political horse race, he is tied or worse with Democratic rival John Kerry.
There's a strong market for change at the White House, lifting Democrats' hopes.
Kerry enters his convention stronger than Ronald Reagan in 1980 or Bill Clinton in 1992, the last two challengers to an incumbent president, though Bush's side argues that he is rebounding.
Angry at Bush and sensing he's vulnerable, Democrats have put aside their traditional quarrels to strike a united stand for the fall campaign.
U.S. general revealed witnessing abuses at Abu Ghraib U.S. military prison.
The Korea Times reports the government plans to monitor the nation's online communities every month, to crack down on an increasing number of personal information dealers within the virtual world.
The Ministry of Information and Communication on Sunday said the targets of the monthly surveillance plan would be cyber cafes, and peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing sites.
Internet clubs and P2P sites have been the playground for personal data dealers who gain private information like resident registration numbers, the Korean version of North American social security numbers.
The identity theft issue caught Korea, the most wired country on the planet, off guard in February, when complaints piled up that hackers were stealing private data from millions of Korean people.
The Foreign Ministry on Wednesday summoned Japan's top envoy to Seoul to demand Tokyo ``immediately'' delete its claim of sovereignty over the Tokto islets from school textbooks.
South Korea also mobilized its top diplomat to Tokyo, Ra Jong-yil, to file a similar complaint with Japan's Foreign Ministry.
During the 45-minute meeting in Seoul, Lee said the South Korean government will sternly deal with any attempt to harm its sovereignty over the volcanic islets in the East Sea.
Forest fires in Gangwon Province severely destroyed woodlands and houses.
Prosecutor’s office and police would focus on human rights.
The government has kicked off a campaign to reduce suicides, which now outnumber deaths by car accidents.
The government will provide health insurance coverage to those attempting suicide this year as the act is often done on impulse because of mental problems like depression or hypochondria.
Other measures are also planned to prevent suicide.
The government is considering making agricultural chemicals less toxic since some people consume them to kill themselves.
It is also installing fences on rooftops and parapets, and launching massive anti-suicide campaigns. Religious groups and NGOs will be encouraged to join in a pan-national campaign on human dignity.
Staff will be boosted at consulting centers and monitoring will be strengthened on Internet sites that encourage suicide attempts.
Student textbooks will include sections on preventing suicides.
Teachers will be asked to more strictly monitor bullying and campus violence, according to the Health and Welfare Ministry and the Ministry of Planning and Budget.
Statistics showed that about 24 Koreans out of every 100,000 committed suicide in 2005, making suicide the fourth most common cause of death.
The government will provide health insurance coverage to those attempting suicide this year as the act is often done on impulse because of mental problems like depression or hypochondria.
Yonhap News Agency reports U.S. forces in Korea on Wednesday held a memorial service for a South Korean service member killed a year ago while working on a U.S.-led peacekeeping campaign in Afghanistan.
The memorial service for the late Staff Sergeant Yoon Jang-ho was held at the U.S. base in Yongsan, Seoul, where U.S. Burwell B. Bell had a monument erected in honor of the South Korean last year.
Yoon was an Army sergeant at the time he was killed in a bomb attack at the main gate of a U.S. military base in Bagram, some 80 kilometers north of the Afghan capital, Kabul. He was posthumously promoted to staff sergeant.
South Korea pulled out all of its 200 troops from Afghanistan late last year after a group of 23 South Korean church volunteers were kidnapped by Taliban insurgents in July.
Two of the kidnapped were executed while the rest were released, some after more than 40 days of captivity.
The troop pullout, however, was based on a withdrawal plan ratified earlier that year.
Yonhap News Agency reports U.S. forces in Korea on Wednesday held a memorial service for a South Korean service member killed a year ago while working on a U.S.-led peacekeeping campaign in Afghanistan.
The BBC reports Tibetan protests against communist Chinese rule have spread to another part of China, after days of demonstrations and violence in Tibet´s main city, Lhasa.
Clashes between Tibetan protesters and police in Aba, Sichuan province, saw a police station and cars attacked.
Rights groups said several people had been killed in the clashes, though this could not be verified.
The violence came after exiled Tibetan leaders said a Chinese crackdown had killed at least 80 people in Lhasa.
Indian-based officials said the figure was confirmed by several sources, even though China had put the death toll during Friday´s riots at 10.
Clashes between Tibetan protesters and police in Aba, Sichuan province, saw a police station and cars attacked.
The eighth round of the Future of the Alliance Policy Initiative talks will be held May 6-7 in Washington, according to Brig.
Seoul and Washington have agreed to move the U.S.
Yongsan Garrison, currently in the heart of the capital, to the Osan-Pyongtaek area just south of Seoul by 2007.
But the sides have yet to sign the overall and implementation agreements on the relocation due to ``language and other technical problems.’
’ The Yongsan base relocation is a key part of U.S. plan to reorganize its 37,000 troops based in South Korea. The U.S. military has already said it will pull back its major combat 2nd Infantry Division from the border with North Korea.
South Korea and the United States will hold talks in Washington early next month to finalize plans for the relocation of American forces here, officials said on Tuesday.
Seoul and Washington have agreed to move the U.S.
Yongsan Garrison, currently in the heart of the capital, to the Osan-Pyongtaek area just south of Seoul by 2007.
’ The Yongsan base relocation is a key part of U.S. plan to reorganize its 37,000 troops based in South Korea.
Korea's birthrate fell in 2004 to the lowest level on record, and among the world's lowest, as fewer women opted to get married and couples waited longer to tie the knot, a government report said yesterday.
The number of newborn babies also dropped from to 476,052 from 493,471.
Korea's birthrate fell in 2004 to the lowest level on record, and among the world's lowest, as fewer women opted to get married and couples waited longer to tie the knot, a government report said yesterday.
According to the National Statistical Office's population report, Korean women on average gave birth to 1.16 children in 2004, down from 1.19 a year earlier.
The number of newborn babies also dropped from to 476,052 from 493,471.
After decades of promoting family planning, Korea - like several other affluent Asian neighbors facing plummeting birthrates - is desperately seeking ways to get people to have more babies.
Many families now choose to have only one child, citing the high cost of education and shortage of child care in Korea.
The airplane ∼ed to the sea.
Iraq’s Governing Council has signed an interim constitution after Shiite leaders ended a deadlock that had threatened to undermine the transfer of sovereignty by the American-led occupation force to the Iraqi people scheduled for later this year.
Iraq’s Governing Council has signed an interim constitution after Shiite leaders ended a deadlock that had threatened to undermine the transfer of sovereignty by the American-led occupation force to the Iraqi people scheduled for later this year.
All 25 members of the Iraqi council signed the document during a ceremony in Baghdad, which the president of the council, Sayyed Muhammad Bahr al-Uloum, called an ""historic moment, decisive in the history of Iraq.
"" But just after the signing ceremony in a convention center, the country's most powerful Shiite leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, said that the interim document makes it harder for the drafting of a permanent one, placing ""obstacles to arriving at a permanent constitution for the country,"" and that any further law must be endorsed by an elected national assembly.
North Korea has been forced to ground a fleet of Soviet-era military planes because of the high oil price, South Korea´s Yonhap news agency reported.
Fuel is being diverted for other training flights, Yonhap quoted a military source as saying.
The Antonov An-2 biplanes - of which North Korea´s air force is thought to have about 300 - are able to drop special forces behind enemy lines.
The planes, which can cruise below radar, carry some 12 soldiers.
North Korea´s impoverished economy has suffered from energy shortages for years, and rising oil prices have made the situation worse.
The Antonov, designed and built in the Soviet Union, first flew in 1947, and is still used by a number of military and civilian operators around the world.
The plane is useful in special forces operations because of its extremely low minimum speed - it can fly as slowly as 48km/h (30mph) without stalling, according to aviation experts.
North Korea´s air force fields hundreds of aircraft, but the vast majority are ageing Soviet models - such as the MiG 21 fighter - or Chinese copies outclassed by more modern aircraft fielded by the US, South Korea or Japan.
The Antonov, designed and built in the Soviet Union, first flew in 1947, and is still used by a number of military and civilian operators around the world.
North Korea's missile capability is ""fairly rudimentary"", US Vice-President Dick Cheney has said.
Cheney was responding to calls from former top US defense officials urging that North Korea's missile be destroyed before it can be test-fired.
Several US officials have stepped back from threatening pre-emptive action against the North, while warning it can expect ""consequences"" if it goes ahead.
North Korea is thought to have prepared a Taepodong-2 missile for launch.
The untested missile has an estimated range of up to 6,000km potentially reaching Alaska.
However, a South Korean official has insisted the launch is not imminent, and no substantial moves towards the launch of the missile from Musanri - on the North's north-eastern coast - have been detected in recent days.
The Korea Times reports Seoul stocks took a big dive Monday, following an overnight plunge on Wall Street on the worsening subprime crisis.
The benchmark KOSPI shed 39.89 points, or 2.33 percent, to close at 1,671.73, after staying above 1,700 for about a week.
The tech-heavy Kosdaq market closed down 11.43 points, or 1.74 percent, at 644.51.
Analysts say the fall is in line with stocks´ heavy beating on Wall Street as many economists in the United States fear that the credit crunch will further impact the world´s largest economy going forward.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 315.79, or 2.51 percent, to 12,266.39, while the S&P500 closed down 37.05, or 2.71 percent, at 1,330.63.
The tech-loaded Nasdaq shed 60.09, or 2.58 percent, to close at 2,271.48.
Taiwan's main opposition party is making its first visit to China since Communist forces defeated it and took power on the mainland in 1949.
The 30-member team of the Nationalist Party or Kuomintang (KMT) will be led by vice chairman Chiang Pink-kun.
Chiang said the visit was aimed at easing tensions with Beijing.
Confusion is growing in Kyrgyzstan for constructing the interim government.
Korea will gain access to 10 million metric tons of liquified natural gas, or LNG, from two additional sites near the country's first commercial LNG gas field in the East Sea, government sources said over the weekend.
Korea will gain access to 10 million metric tons of liquified natural gas, or LNG, from two additional sites near the country's first commercial LNG gas field in the East Sea, government sources said over the weekend.
From one site, located about five kilometers south of the field, officials from the Ministry of of Commerce, Industry and Energy project the amount of LNG could reach 5 million tons.
Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy:
That attack also killed three Iraqi civilians and an Iraqi interpreter, the US said.”
Insurgents in Iraq have killed 14 US soldiers in just two days, the US military has announced.
Twelve died in four attacks in Baghdad, officials said, where a four-month-old military ””surge”” has now reached its peak with some 160,000 troops deployed.
The US has also said it killed dozens of insurgents on the first two days of a major operation north of Baghdad.
Elsewhere at least 15 people died and 40 others were hurt in a suicide truck bomb attack in northern Iraq.
The attack in Suleiman Beg, 90km (55 miles) south of Kirkuk, destroyed part of a local council office and several nearby homes.
The casualties included several women and children, hospital officials said.
The latest round of attacks on US forces raised the numbers of Americans killed in June to 59, the AFP news agency reported.
In the worst incident, five soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in north-eastern Baghdad on Thursday.
That attack also killed three Iraqi civilians and an Iraqi interpreter, the US said.”
Gasoline prices have shown a continuous upward trend for the past 15 weeks.
Gasoline prices will likely continue its rising rally in the coming months, as the government plans to raise gasoline taxes in July while revising the nation’s energy tax laws for the second time.
Rising gasoline prices will likely deliver a blow to household economies, as they are mostly used for transportation and traffic vehicles such as trucks and buses.
Gasoline prices have shown a continuous upward trend for the past 15 weeks.
The Korea Times quoted President Roh Moo-hyun as saying Tuesday that South Korea will not sign a free trade agreement (FTA) with the United States unless it brings about benefits for the people, instructing officials to negotiate solely from an economic point of view.
In a weekly Cabinet meeting at Chong Wa Dae, he told ministers responsible for the FTA talks not to be bound by other factors such as its political implications and domestic protests as well as the time limit, and focus only on commercial interests.
Coming ahead of a big deal between the two nations, his remarks were construed as a message of support to South Korean negotiators while putting down growing opposition at home.
Seoul and Washington reached a consensus in more than half of the 19 negotiation sectors in the just-ended eighth round of talks in Seoul.
South Korea's Hankyoreh says:
Therefore the current situation can be seen as a war of nerves between North Korea and the United States as they try to seize a more advantageous upper hand.
Chief delegates from the United States and North Korea met for one-on-one talks in Beijing on the eve of the official reopening of the six-party talks on the North Korean nuclear standoff after a 13-month hiatus.
The rare meeting between the two key and most cynical players in the nuclear drama highlighted the flurry of bilateral meetings among the member countries that also include South Korea, China, Japan and Russia.
Embassy did not immediately release details of the meeting between U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill and North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan, but the two reportedly shared their thoughts on the approach toward resolving the nuclear standoff.
The Washington-Pyongyang rendezvous drew immense interest from international and local press, with dozens of reporters stationed in front of the North Korean Embassy for hours under the scorching sun waiting for the North's delegation to emerge. A dangerous 25-minute car chase ensued on the streets of Beijing in the afternoon from the North Korean Embassy to the venue of the bilateral talks as the delegation's cars tried to shake off the throngs of press vehicles.
The rare meeting between the two key and most cynical players in the nuclear drama highlighted the flurry of bilateral meetings among the member countries that also include South Korea, China, Japan and Russia.
S. Korean Ambassador to the U.S., Hong Seok-hyun’s resignation is accepted.
Nepal's Maoist rebels ambushed an army patrol in the east of the country Sunday, killing 10 soldiers in the latest outbreak of violence in the revolt-torn Himalayan kingdom.
Nepal's Maoist rebels ambushed an army patrol in the east of the country Sunday, killing 10 soldiers in the latest outbreak of violence in the revolt-torn Himalayan kingdom.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates is in the Middle East, trying to reassure allies about America's efforts to improve relations with Iran.
Here's AP national security correspondent Sagar Meghani:
“ The Pentagon chief says the early response out of Teheran to President Barack Obama's outreach is not very encouraging:
” 'We're not willing to pull the hand back yet, because we think there's still some opportunity.
'“ But either way, Gates told reporters in Egypt that Mideast allies should know the US will be open about its contacts with Iran:
” 'Concerns out here of some kind of a grand bargain, developed in secret, are completely unrealistic.'
“ Asked what kind of progress the US is hoping for, Gates said he does not know what's possible.
President Barack Obama meets with the Israeli President at the White House today.
Shimon Peres has declared his country ready to make peace, but Israel's new prime minister does not favor the Palestinian state that's part of Obama's peace plan. Defense Secretary Robert Gates is in the Middle East, trying to reassure allies about America's efforts to improve relations with Iran.
” 'We're not willing to pull the hand back yet, because we think there's still some opportunity.
” 'Concerns out here of some kind of a grand bargain, developed in secret, are completely unrealistic.'
“ Asked what kind of progress the US is hoping for, Gates said he does not know what's possible.
The Joong-Ang Ilbo reports Grand National Party Chairwoman Park Geun-hye said yesterday she would step down from her post in Korea's largest opposition party on June 16, a de facto announcement of her presidential bid in the 2007 election.
The party revised its constitution in November to that effect, in a stated attempt to make its primary election campaigns for the presidential nomination fairer.
The Joong-Ang Ilbo reports Grand National Party Chairwoman Park Geun-hye said yesterday she would step down from her post in Korea's largest opposition party on June 16, a de facto announcement of her presidential bid in the 2007 election.
The deadline for potential presidential candidates to quit their elected party leadership posts is June 18, a year and a half before election day.
A senior Iranian nuclear official said the IAEA report showed Tehran had been co-operating over its nuclear work.
US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, described the report as a red flag and said it provided ample evidence of Iranian defiance.
He questioned Iran's refusal to say why it wanted uranium metal when ””the only real use for uranium metal is a nuclear weapon””.
Iran has failed to stop enriching uranium despite a UN deadline calling for a halt to its nuclear program, the UN nuclear agency says.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said Tehran began a new round of uranium enrichment in recent days.
US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, described the report as a red flag and said it provided ample evidence of Iranian defiance.
Negotiators at the six-party talks on the North Korean nuclear standoff struggled yesterday to keep their discussions afloat and substantive as they moved through an eighth day without a major breakthrough.
The top diplomats in charge of the talks gathered at the Daioyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing throughout the day with occasional recesses to discuss once again each member country's positions.
China, the host nation, presented a third draft on a joint agreement but details were kept under wraps.
S. Korean scientists produced the first dog clones in the world.
There's desperation and fear in Pakistani hospitals and refugee camps, as fighting rages in the country's Swat Valley.
The AP's Stephen Graham reports from Islamabad:
“ Pakistani officials say thousands of people have fled fighting in Pakistan's Swat Valley in recent days, many of them packed into hastily erected camps supported by the UN and the authorities.”
Troops and war planes are trying to drive out Taliban militants.
Even the homeless can't escape the high price of a night in New York City.
City officials are starting to charge rent to some families staying in homeless shelters ?
if they have income from jobs.
He coached the Dream Team to Olympic gold in 1992, after winning back-to-back NBA championships with the Detroit Pistons. Chuck Daly died at his home in Florida;
“ Pakistani officials say thousands of people have fled fighting in Pakistan's Swat Valley in recent days, many of them packed into hastily erected camps supported by the UN and the authorities.”
Troops and war planes are trying to drive out Taliban militants.
Even the homeless can't escape the high price of a night in New York City.
In Washington, a State Department official said Pyongyang seems to have met the legal criteria to be taken off the U.S. list of terrorism-sponsoring states, one of North Korea´s most coveted incentives to give up its atomic weapons programs.
Speaking to reporters on her way to Berlin, Rice said the president has clearly articulated U.S. policy.
”I know where the president stands, and I know where I stand, and those are the people who speak for American policy,” she said.
Jay Lefkowitz, the U.S. envoy on North Korea´s human rights, said last week that the U.S. should review the policy on Pyongyang, given the lack of progress in the six-party talks.
In a speech at the American Enterprise Institute, a neo-conservative think tank in Washington, Lefkowitz delivered biting criticism of the current state of the forum involving South and North Korea, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan that is aimed at denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula.
In Washington, a State Department official said Pyongyang seems to have met the legal criteria to be taken off the U.S. list of terrorism-sponsoring states, one of North Korea´s most coveted incentives to give up its atomic weapons programs.
Army has fallen behind its recruiting goals, officials said on Thursday, amid the violence of an Iraq war that has now claimed more than 1,500 American lives.
The active-duty U.S.
That marked the first time since May 2000 the Army missed a monthly recruiting goal.
North Korea said, the U.S, should make an apology for labeling North Korea as an “outpost of tyranny”.
Clinton in Ohio, Texas:
Hillary Clinton, the prohibitive favorite in the Democratic presidential race just months ago, faces the possible end of her White House road on Tuesday in Ohio and Texas.
The New York senator battled on Monday to save her campaign with victories in the two showdowns, which would halt rival Barack Obama´s streak of 11 consecutive wins in their hard-fought duel to be the Democratic nominee in November´s presidential election.
Reuters reports voting ends in Ohio at 7:30 p.m. EST and all voting in Texas will be over by 9 p.m.
Clinton´s husband, former President Bill Clinton, has said she needs to win both states to continue her campaign, a view shared by many analysts.
Even a split decision in the two states would leave her with a steep climb to overtake Obama´s lead of roughly 150 pledged convention delegates who select the nominee, and increase the pressure on her to quit.
The opposition Grand National Party's suggestion last week to provide apartments at half the market price by leasing the land has caused a stir among the political community and society in general.
As land costs account for up to 70 percent of new apartment prices, having people pay just the construction costs would help cut home prices, although the feasibility of the policy remains to be determined.
“Selling just the building ownership and leasing the land could cut home prices, but we need to figure out where the budget would come from to secure enough land,” Assistant Finance Minister Lim Young-rok said last week.
Attorney in Chicago reading from the supposed Blagojevich transcript who dropped in on David Letterman last night?
Haha, the Senator back to his old form on the CBS“ Late Show.
” McCain says he may vote against some of Barack Obama's ideas, but he likes the President Elect's Cabinet picks, paying special attention to Secretary of State:
“I've traveled with Senator Clinton and uh, to a lot of places in the world, uh, I think she is extremely knowledgeable on the issues, I think it's a good team and I think it's a very wise choice.”
Robbie Gould, drilled the tying and winning field goals as the Bears outlasted the Saints 27-24 in overtime in Thursday night football.
Chicago improving to 8 and 6.
Eh, was that John McCain or the U.S.
“I don't wanna talk about the bleeping campaign.
” McCain says he may vote against some of Barack Obama's ideas, but he likes the President Elect's Cabinet picks, paying special attention to Secretary of State:
“I've traveled with Senator Clinton and uh, to a lot of places in the world, uh, I think she is extremely knowledgeable on the issues, I think it's a good team and I think it's a very wise choice.”
The Korea Times reports a spaceship carrying Korea´s first ‘astronaut’ Yi So-yeon was successfully launched into space from Kazakhstan, setting a milestone in Korea´s space exploration history.
At 8:16 p.m., Tuesday, the 49-meter rocket carrying Yi and two Russian cosmonauts blasted off from the launching pad at Baikonur Cosmodrome and roared into the clear blue sky above the central Asian plain.
The successful launch made South Korea the 37th country to send a person into space and second from Asia.
When the Soyuz spaceship reached orbit ― about 240 kilometers above the earth ― in just 10 minutes, the staff at the cosmodrome celebrated the success by applauding.
The celebratory mood spread to the Seoul City Hall Plaza, where hundreds of citizens including President Lee Myung-bak watched the event on a giant screen.
President Lee hoped that the event will be a stepping stone for South Korea´s ambitions to become a space power.
The successful launch made South Korea the 37th country to send a person into space and second from Asia.
Yonhap News Service reports the Samsung Group was in hot water Tuesday after its former chief attorney made public a document indicating possible shady transactions in father-to-son transfers of company ownership and wealth.
The revelation is expected to deal a serious blow to Samsung´s reclusive chairman Lee Kun-hee and his only son, Jae-yong, who has been expected to take over the nation´s biggest family-run industrial conglomerate within the next few years.
A four-page company document released Monday by a religious group and Kim Yong-chul, a former top Samsung legal affairs official, shows Samsung´s senior executives arranged a series of stock transactions between 1994 and 1999 to help the chairman pass control of the family-controlled group to his son.
With some 58 affiliates, Samsung accounts for nearly a quarter of South Korea´s exports and has Samsung Electronics company, the world´s largest maker of computer memory chips, under its wing.
Jae-yong, who is 40, serves as a senior vice president of Samsung Electronics.
U.S. and Iraqi troops killed some 1,200 militants and took over 1,000 prisoners in clearing Falluja of rebels, Sattler said, but a U.S.
Lieutenant-General John Sattler declared on Thursday his forces had ""broken the back of the insurgency"" in Falluja, but U.S. troops still faced dangers in the city and guerrillas attacked elsewhere in Iraq.
U.S. and Iraqi troops killed some 1,200 militants and took over 1,000 prisoners in clearing Falluja of rebels, Sattler said, but a U.S.
Marine and an Iraqi soldier were killed before a tank ""silenced"" fighters holed up in the shattered city.
Thousands of Aborigines who were removed from their families as children will receive no compensation, the Australian government has said.
Campaigners for the so-called Stolen Generations had asked for a reparation fund of almost $870m as part of a promised official apology.
But indigenous affairs minister Jenny Macklin says money will instead be put into health and education schemes.
Many Aboriginal children were handed to white families from 1915 to 1969.They were brought up by white people in an attempt by the racist government to assimilate the white and Aboriginal populations.
The military trial of a US Army dog handler accused of abusing inmates at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison in 2003 and 2004 has opened with jury selection.
Sgt Santos Cardona, who is 32, faces several charges, including dereliction of duty, conspiracy and assault for allowing his dog to intimidate two detainees.
His defense team is expected to argue that his use of the dog was condoned.
A senior army officer, Maj Gen Geoffrey Miller, has been ordered to testify about US interrogation policies.
Sgt Cardona's lawyers say they will press him for information about a trip he made to Iraq to advise US officials on how to get better intelligence from detainees.
They say shortly after his trip, military dogs were shipped to Abu Ghraib and approved for use in interrogations.
Gen Miller will be the highest ranking officer ever to take the stand in any of the prosecutions arising from the abuse at Abu Ghraib.
The prosecution however claims there is no evidence to suggest that orders came to use dogs in this way.
The military trial of a US Army dog handler accused of abusing inmates at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison in 2003 and 2004 has opened with jury selection.
Sgt Cardona's lawyers say they will press him for information about a trip he made to Iraq to advise US officials on how to get better intelligence from detainees.
Helicopters, boats and fire trucks have joined in a dramatic water rescue right outside Washington, D.C.
“We do have a large amount of water.
River Road is closed in both directions;
we have numerous, uh multiple refuges made at this time…”
That's Peter Piringer of Maryland's Montgomery County Fire and Rescue:
“We do have people uh, trapped in uh, four or five feet of swift-moving water.”
At least a dozen people have been rescued so far.
Water rushing down a road from a big water main break:
“We do have a large amount of water.
River Road is closed in both directions;
It was only for an hour, but it stretched around the globe, from a research base in the Antarctic to the Empire State Building, and to Hollywood and Vine.
The lights were dimmed or doused for an hour last night ?
Earth Hour, highlighting the threat of climate change:
“ For the first time, hundreds of millions of people around the world have had a chance to speak out, to voice their concern about climate change.”
Time zone by time zone, nearly 4,000 cities and towns in 88 countries joined in that event overnight.
The Big East, Villa Nova, is in the NCAA final four, the East regional crown following a dramatic 78-76 win over Conference foe Pittsburgh.
Connecticut's Campbell Walker scored 23 in his club's 82-75 win over Missouri in the Midwest final:
“ It makes you play at a fast pace, and you know, that's something I like to do very much you know, play at a fast pace and I was able to know to keep my composure out there, and know just play fast and know, and either get a basket or get it done.”
The Big East, Villa Nova, is in the NCAA final four, the East regional crown following a dramatic 78-76 win over Conference foe Pittsburgh.
The Korea Herald reports the government will put on the market 20,000 new apartment units in Pangyo simultaneously in November to prevent overheated competition for the units among buyers, shifting from its initial plan to divide the sale into four rounds over the next two years.
The Korea Herald reports the government will put on the market 20,000 new apartment units in Pangyo simultaneously in November to prevent overheated competition for the units among buyers, shifting from its initial plan to divide the sale into four rounds over the next two years.
To prevent possible speculation on apartments to be rebuilt in Gangnam, the government will also ban builders from transforming five-story apartments into high-rise buildings and impose tighter building codes.
Bill Clinton, the former president of U.S. is going to have a book-signing event in Seoul.
One more ginormous number to make your head spin this morning.
A Congressional aide says the federal deficit will hit an unheard-of high of $1.2 trillion this budget year.
Just yesterday, President Elect Barack Obama warned of trillion dollar deficits for years to come.
Chances are he'll be asked about the economy and the Middle East at a news conference this hour.
Then, it's lunch with the President, the President, the President, and the President.
The AP's Mark Smith is live at the White House to explain:
“Jon, the last time all of America's ex-Presidents came together at the White House was before they and Ronald Reagan flew to the funeral of Egypt's Anwar Sadat.
Today, President Bush is hosting his father, Bill Clinton, and Jimmy Carter, so Barack Obama can pick their brains.
There'll be a photo op in the Oval Office before the five adjourn to swap stories and advice in the President's West Wing dining room.
Chances are he'll be asked about the economy and the Middle East at a news conference this hour.
The AP's Mark Smith is live at the White House to explain:
˝Asia-Pacific leaders have concluded a summit in Sydney with a statement that called for a rapid conclusion to long-running global trade talks.
World trade liberalization talks known as the Doha Round have dragged on for more than six years and are now said to have reached a crucial stage.
The 21 members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) account for nearly half of the world´s trade.
On Saturday, leaders agreed on the need for action to tackle climate change.
China and the US - two of the world´s biggest polluters - were among the nations that signed the statement of “aspirational” goal to restrain the rise of greenhouse gas emissions.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard called it ”a very important milestone” towards an international deal.˝
Iran has threatened to press ahead with industrial-scale uranium enrichment if its nuclear work is referred to the UN Security Council.
Nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani said Iran would ""pursue its own path"" if the US and its allies ""want to use force"".
He was speaking a day before the UN nuclear watchdog meets in Vienna.
Western powers believe Iran wants to develop nuclear weapons, for which enrichment is a key process, but Tehran says its plans are for civilian energy.
Larijani told a news conference in Tehran:
""If Iran's nuclear dossier is referred to the UN Security Council, [large-scale] uranium enrichment will be resumed.
""If [the US and its allies] want to use force, we will pursue our own path.
The Korea Herald reports police have arrested eight present and former professional baseball players, two former college stars and two brokers on charges of dodging mandatory military service by faking tests to pretend they had critical kidney ailments.
The Korea Herald reports police have arrested eight present and former professional baseball players, two former college stars and two brokers on charges of dodging mandatory military service by faking tests to pretend they had critical kidney ailments.
Seven current professional baseball players at two clubs, a former professional now manager of a high school baseball team, and two former college baseball players now company employees were accused of paying the brokers to help them dodge the 24-month military duty mandatory for all healthy Korean men.
President Bush failed to mention Korea while listing the name of allies in his acceptance address.
Representatives to the six-party talks on the North Korean nuclear standoff concentrated on bilateral meetings and working group discussions through the weekend to hammer out a draft statement of principles - the first time any joint declaration will have come out of four rounds of negotiations.
Representatives to the six-party talks on the North Korean nuclear standoff concentrated on bilateral meetings and working group discussions through the weekend to hammer out a draft statement of principles - the first time any joint declaration will have come out of four rounds of negotiations.
Deputy heads and other delegation members of the six participating countries gathered again yesterday and tackled the first draft, presented on Saturday by host country China.
This round of talks, which began on Tuesday with negotiators determined to keep it open-ended to see a substantial result, is meant to serve as the guideline on future step-by-step moves toward resolving the nuclear standoff based on the core principle of denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
MBC reporter summoned for questioning about wiretap tape.
The US Federal Reserve has slashed interest rates to 3.5%, its biggest cut in 25 years.
The Fed, the US central bank, is trying to keep the US economy from slumping into recession and US and European stocks took heart from the move.
US President George W Bush has said that emergency economic measures will be passed soon.
The Fed´s move, which cut interest rates from 4.25% to 3.5%, came as a complete surprise, as it was taken a week before its rate-setting Open Market Committee meeting scheduled for 29 and 30 January.
In a keynote speech, Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung offered to resolve the humanitarian issue of prisoners of war (POWs) and abductees believed to be held by North Korea.
The minister also urged the North to implement the long-delayed Feb.
South Korea Wednesday proposed that North Korea start partial operation of cross-border railways on a regular basis and resume defense ministers’ talks as soon as possible to help ease tension on the Korean Peninsula.
On the second day of the 21st inter-Korean ministerial meeting in Seoul, the two sides did not clash over Seoul’s recent decision to delay its food aid to the impoverished North, according to Goh Gyeong-bin, Seoul’s spokesman for the four-day talks.
In a keynote speech, Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung offered to resolve the humanitarian issue of prisoners of war (POWs) and abductees believed to be held by North Korea.
It's Obama administration officials signaling Chrysler will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection:
“ Our hope and expectation is, as the President said, the bankruptcy would be quick and not result in liquidation, and Chrysler will come out the other end a company ready, leaner, and able to compete.”
We expect to hear more when President Barack Obama talks about the auto industry at noon, Eastern Time.
Two administration officials tell the AP Chrysler's talks with creditors broke off after a small group refused to settle for about 30 cents on the dollar. That flashing light?
It's Obama administration officials signaling Chrysler will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection:
””If someone commits suicide bombing to protect the honor of the Prophet Muhammad, his act is justified,”” the minister said, according to Reuters news agency. Iran has stepped up its protest over the knighthood awarded by Britain to Salman Rushdie, whose 1988 novel The Satanic Verses outraged many Muslims.
Iran’s foreign ministry summoned the UK ambassador in Tehran and said the knighthood was a ””provocative act””.
Pakistan voiced similar protests, telling the UK envoy in Islamabad the honor showed the British government’s ””utter lack of sensitivity””.
Britain denied that the award was intended to insult Islam.
Iran summoned UK ambassador Geoffrey Adams to protest against the knighthood.
In Islamabad, British High Commissioner Robert Brinkley was called to Pakistan’s foreign ministry several hours earlier.
The envoy was told that the honor countered attempts by both countries to build mutual understanding.
For his part, Brinkley expressed ””deep concern”” over reported comments by Pakistani Religious Affairs Minister Mohammad Ejaz ul-Haq, suggesting that the award could justify suicide attacks.
””If someone commits suicide bombing to protect the honor of the Prophet Muhammad, his act is justified,”” the minister said, according to Reuters news agency.
President Roh Moo-hyun has made a bold personnel move by naming a new prosecutor-general to a two-year term ahead of December’s presidential election, despite the conservative Grand National Party candidate holding a commanding lead in public opinion polls.
In naming Lim Chai-jin to succeed Chung Sang-myong, whose two-year term in the powerful post ends on November 23rd, Roh dismissed demands from the Grand Nationals that they be consulted on personnel appointments.
The appointment was announced by Park Nam-choon, the senior presidential secretary for personnel affairs, yesterday.
Lim is currently the chief of the government’s Legal Research and Training Institute.
The appointment must be confirmed by the National Assembly.
The 55-year-old Busan native studied law at Seoul National University.
In naming Lim Chai-jin to succeed Chung Sang-myong, whose two-year term in the powerful post ends on November 23rd, Roh dismissed demands from the Grand Nationals that they be consulted on personnel appointments.
Former Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney endorsed erstwhile rival John McCain on Thursday and urged Republicans to unite behind him in a gesture that could help McCain with disgruntled conservatives.
In the Democratic race, Sen. Hillary Clinton scored a much-needed victory in New Mexico and accused surging opponent Barack Obama of lacking substance and experience as she fought for political traction in Ohio after a string of losses.
After a rough campaign battle between them to be the party´s nominee in November´s election, Romney offered conciliatory words to McCain a week after dropping out of the race, calling him an American hero.
Every ministry involved in national defense beefed up precautionary measures following an emergency meeting of the National Security Council convened on Saturday to enhance security at foreign embassies in Seoul and certain key facilities, including government offices, airports and seaports.
South Korean soldiers stationed in the northern Iraqi town of Irbil are keeping a low-key posture so as not to provoke Islamic rebels, a ministry official said. Seoul went on high alert for possible terrorist attacks over the weekend and a close associate of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden purportedly called for attacks on the United States and its allies, including South Korea.
The Korea Times quoted the Justice Ministry on Sunday as saying it directed airport authorities to tighten immigration procedures to prevent the entry of around 4,000 people blacklisted by the Seoul government as suspected terrorists.
No one on the list has attempted to enter South Korea, a ministry official said.
The ministry said it also decided to increase checks on illegal foreign workers in South Korea due to concerns that they might collaborate with global terrorist networks.
Every ministry involved in national defense beefed up precautionary measures following an emergency meeting of the National Security Council convened on Saturday to enhance security at foreign embassies in Seoul and certain key facilities, including government offices, airports and seaports.
The Defense Ministry ordered the whole army, including the 2,800 troops dispatched to Iraq, to step up anti-terrorism readiness.
A New Audiotape of al-Zawahiri aired to resist the U.S allies.
The bullet train, the G-7, have turned up serious flaws.
After two parliamentary hearings, the main opposition Grand National Party yesterday voiced its strong opposition to President Roh Moo-hyun's choice of candidates to fill the posts of unification and foreign minister.
Both men are known to be faithful supporters of his controversial policy of engagement with North Korea.
In protest against the nominations, the GNP refused to adopt hearing reports on Lee Jae-song, unification minister-designate and Song Min-soon, foreign minister-designate.
By law, the National Assembly submits the reports to the president, who then names Cabinet members.
Presidential appointments of ministers do not require parliamentary approval, but the GNP's steadfast opposition is putting an increasing burden on the Roh administration, which only has just over a year remaining in office.
The trial of New York Times researcher Zhao Yan has ended in Beijing, with no word on when a verdict will be reached.
Zhao, who has been held by the Chinese communist authorities since September 2004, denied charges of fraud and leaking state secrets.
Zhao, if convicted of ""providing state secrets abroad"", faces a minimum of 10 years in jail.
However Zhao is thought to have been detained in connection with a New York Times report about plans by ex-President Jiang Zemin to retire from his top military post.
All rights reserved.
The industry body said EU targets were ”arbitrary” and would lead to job cuts and relocation of production abroad.
The European Commission aims to increase the fuel efficiency of new cars by 18% by 2012.
In a statement, the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA) said the European Commission's proposals would damage Europe's economy ”in terms of wealth, employment and growth potential”.
ACEA President Sergio Marchionne appealed directly to EU governments and the European Parliament to design a ”reasonable and level-headed” strategy, saying other means were available to reduce CO2 emissions.
uropean car makers have described plans to force them to cut back on harmful exhaust emissions as “unbalanced” and ”damaging”.
Iran on Tuesday dismissed as ``ridiculous'' U.S. suggestions that it may have been involved in the Sept.
George W. Bush on Monday claimed the United States was exploring whether Iran had a role in the terrorist attacks, a scenario discounted by the CIA.
11th commission report to be released Thursday suggests Iran may have facilitated the 2001 attacks by providing eight to 10 al-Qaida hijackers with safe passage to and from terrorist training camps in Afghanistan.
Egypt prepared Thursday for a strictly controlled military funeral for Yasser Arafat where dignitaries from around the world will pay their respects, but where the people -among whom Arafat was by far more popular- will be mostly shut out.
But Egypt also apparently sought to avoid an outpouring of public emotion that might either get out of control or show that the late Palestinian leader enjoyed more support than other Arab leaders.
Egypt prepared Thursday for a strictly controlled military funeral for Yasser Arafat where dignitaries from around the world will pay their respects, but where the people -among whom Arafat was by far more popular- will be mostly shut out.
The planned 25-minute ceremony at a military club in a Cairo suburb reflects concern for security at an event expected to draw dozens of statesmen and foreign ministers.
Insurgents tried to break through the U.S. cordon surrouding Fallujah.
California Attorney General Jerry Brown has asked the state Supreme Court to overturn voter-approved Proposition H-8, which bars gay marriage.
He claims that the state's constitution can't be amended to reject what he says is a constitutional right.
“In this case, I believe the Court, unless it changes its former opinion, must rule that Proposition 8 offends uh, the liberty provisions of the Constitution of California.”
Meanwhile, sponsors of Proposition 8 have gone to the state Supreme Court, asking for an order to nullify the estimated 18,000 same-sex marriages that were performed before the amendment was passed by voters in November.
The Chapel of Sacred Mirrors, a Manhattan temple, art gallery and sideshow, dedicated to New Age neo-Pagan beliefs and psychedelic art, is ending.
Painters Alex and Allyson Grey are planning to move the business to a 40-acre plot of land in upstate New York.
“In this case, I believe the Court, unless it changes its former opinion, must rule that Proposition 8 offends uh, the liberty provisions of the Constitution of California.”
Painters Alex and Allyson Grey are planning to move the business to a 40-acre plot of land in upstate New York.
The Cabinet passed a set of regulations to reduce government press rooms yesterday despite fierce opposition from journalists and politicians concerned about the possible restriction of news coverage.
A Cabinet meeting, presided over by President Roh Moo-hyun, concluded a plan that will see the current 37 press rooms in the administrative branches consolidated into ””combined briefing rooms”” in government complexes in central Seoul, Gwacheon and Daejeon.
Four briefing rooms and a separate office for news transmission will be set up in Seoul and Gwacheon, and one briefing room in Daejeon.
A maximum of four seats will be permitted for each type of media outlet in the news transmission rooms.
The government plans to begin construction of the new briefing rooms June 30, aiming to initiate the new policy by August.
Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan launched his harshest tirade yet against the nation's two most conservative dailies, urging the Chosun Ilbo and Dong-a Ilbo not to rebel against history.
""I may be able to pardon the military regimes of Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo, but I can't pardon the ongoing treason against history by the Chosun and Dong-a,"" Lee said in a meeting yesterday with Korean correspondents in Berlin during his visit to Europe.
His parents in northern California are now pleading with President George W. Bush to set their son free before leaving office.
“Asking that John Walker Lindh be released from an Indiana prison, Frank Lindh pointed out that his son did not fight against U.S. forces, had his terrorism charges dropped, and as a Muslim, has renounced all violence.”
“Lindh also said that other convicted terrorists have already been freed, and he hopes that George Bush will grant his son mercy this Christmas season.
A lot of Internet users still believe information wants to be free.
But the governor of cash-strapped New York state, wants to tax iTunes songs and other downloaded digital content.
David Paterson proposes a 4% iPod tax in his first state budget.
The Dow is down 17 points.
The Dow is down 17 points.
The UN General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly to create a new human rights organization for the world body, despite United States criticism.
The 47-nation UN Human Rights Council will replace the current 53-country UN Human Rights Commission.
The existing body has been heavily criticized for having countries with poor human rights records as members.
The US voted against the plan, saying the reforms did not go far enough, but pledged to work with the new council.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan welcomed what he called an ""historic resolution... that gives the United Nations a much-needed chance to make a new beginning in its work for human rights around the world"".
He had proposed the changes last year to replace the discredited commission, which has in recent years included countries accused of gross human rights violations such as Sudan, China, Cuba and Zimbabwe.
The UN General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly to create a new human rights organization for the world body, despite United States criticism.
The Vatican has urged all Catholics to stop donating money to Amnesty International, accusing the human rights group of promoting abortion.
The Vatican also said it was suspending all financial aid to Amnesty over what it said was the group’s recent change of policy on the issue.
Amnesty said it was not promoting abortion as a universal right.
But the group said that women had a right to choose, particularly in cases of rape or incest.
“No more financing of Amnesty International after the organization’s pro-abortion about-turn,” said a statement from the Roman Catholic Church’s Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.
The council’s president, Cardinal Renato Martino, described abortion as ”murder”.
Amnesty says it does not take any position on whether abortion is right or wrong.
But it defended its new position in support of abortion for women when their health is in danger or human rights are violated, especially in cases of rape or incest.
The Vatican has urged all Catholics to stop donating money to Amnesty International, accusing the human rights group of promoting abortion.
South Korea and the United States on Monday began last-minute negotiations to resolve issues pending in their free trade agreement (FTA) talks.
The two countries must reach a final consensus over the next 10 days as the March 30 deadline looms.
The sides began agricultural talks at the Government Complex in Kwachon, south of Seoul, to narrow differences on farm issues including South Korea’s import of U.S. beef.
Simultaneously, Korea and the U.S. held a high-level meeting in Washington, D.C. to deal with other FTA issues such as automobiles and textiles.
Russia will push for the resumption of the six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons program before the end of this year, a Russian parliamentary leader said here Tuesday.
Russia will push for the resumption of the six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons program before the end of this year, a Russian parliamentary leader said here Tuesday.
""Russia's primary interest is to have a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula,"" Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the State Duma International Committee, said in an interview with The Korea Herald.
Stephen Hawking, condemned the U.S. led invasion of Iraq.
Benazir Bhutto´s 19-year-old son Bilawal has been chosen to take over her Pakistan People´s Party, after her assassination on Thursday.
Ms Bhutto´s widower, Asif Ali Zardari, who will run the party day-to-day, said it would contest upcoming elections.
But it is unclear whether the vote will go ahead as planned early next month.
Zardari appealed to the former prime minister Nawaz Sharif - a long-time Bhutto rival - to drop his threat to boycott the polls.
Zardari and his son were speaking at a news conference after a meeting of the PPP leadership in Naudero, near Larkana in southern Pakistan.
Another senior party official, vice-chairman Makhdoom Amin Fahim, said Ms Bhutto had named Zardari as her successor as party chairman.
But he said Zardari had turned it down in favour of his son - a decision he said the party leadership had endorsed.
Zardari also announced that the couple´s children would now change their names and be called Bhutto Zardari.
Zardari and his son were speaking at a news conference after a meeting of the PPP leadership in Naudero, near Larkana in southern Pakistan.
The U.N. nuclear watchdog agency will send a fourth round of inspectors to South Korea next month to look into remaining suspicions about Seoul's undeclared nuclear experiments in past years, although it has decided not to refer the affair to the U.N.
Seoul officials said yesterday that the International Atomic Energy Agency informally notified a government delegation at IAEA headquarters in Vienna last week of its plan to send inspectors in the middle of December.
Seoul officials said yesterday that the International Atomic Energy Agency informally notified a government delegation at IAEA headquarters in Vienna last week of its plan to send inspectors in the middle of December.
Seoul intends to send a special envoy to the North before the end of the year.
A Powerful earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 7.1 struck Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido.
The NEC will finalize voter lists by April 8, and send voting guidelines and candidate publicity materials to voters by April 10.
Political candidates hoping for a seat in the National Assembly began registering at the National Election Commission on Wednesday.
Registration is the first step in the electoral procedure for the election to be held April 15.
The deadline for registration is Thursday thus enabling official campaigning to begin from Friday.
Candidates are required to submit documents on their assets, military service records, tax payments and criminal records, if any.
The NEC will finalize voter lists by April 8, and send voting guidelines and candidate publicity materials to voters by April 10.
Absentee voting will be conducted on April 9 and 10, and the voting on April 15 will take place at polling stations across the nation.
US Marine commanders defended their decision not to send troops into Falluja.
˝Putting party politics ahead of national interests, the main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) demanded Sunday that a second inter-Korean summit be delayed until after December´s presidential election to minimize the summit´s political impact on the Dec.
The demand came a day after the Aug.
The rescheduling of the inter-Korean summit is likely to affect the schedule of President Roh Moo-hyun´s summit with U.S.
President George W. Bush tentatively slated for between late September and early October
President George W. Bush tentatively slated for between late September and early October
Foreign Minister Song Min-soon on Wednesday described the ongoing efforts to dismantle North Korea's nuclear weapons program as ``fragile.''
Song also called the North an unpredictable state that causes constant headaches.
13 agreement reached at last month's six-party talks, but it's still a fragile process,'' he was quoted as saying during an alumni gathering of Seoul National University.
He said, ``I called it fragile since North Korea is unpredictable and they have given us splitting headaches,'' according to a ranking ministry official who asked not to be named.
Song's remarks came a day after the North refused to take place in the ongoing six-party talks until $25 million frozen in a Macau bank is released even after the United States made it clear that the 19-month dispute over the frozen funds had been resolved earlier this week.
The pro-opposition Korea Times quoted an ‘expert on diplomatic and North Korean affairs’ in Seoul as saying the minister's remarks reflect his negative view toward the communist north.
Foreign Minister Song Min-soon on Wednesday described the ongoing efforts to dismantle North Korea's nuclear weapons program as ``fragile.''
``It took a lot of time for us to come up with the Feb.
He said, ``I called it fragile since North Korea is unpredictable and they have given us splitting headaches,'' according to a ranking ministry official who asked not to be named.
The military reports at least 3 people dead now, in a Navy helicopter crash in Mexican waters off San Diego.
Five people were aboard the Seahawk when it went down overnight.
The Navy says rescuers are still searching for the other 2 crew members.
Coast Guard Petty Officer Henry Dunphy has more information on the search:
“ We launched a helicopter and a small boat from San Diego to conduct the search, and also there were 2 Coast Guard cutters, which are larger boats, operating in the area. They were also diverted to participate in the search.”
Officials say the SH-60 Seahawk had taken off from the carrier Nimitz before it went into the sea during a training exercise late last night.
Coast Guard Petty Officer Henry Dunphy has more information on the search:
Foreign ministers from Asia and Europe were united in pressing North Korea to move to dispel global concerns about its nuclear ambitions during their meeting in Hamburg yesterday.
A chairman’s statement urged a prompt implementation of the six-party agreement to resolve the communist country’s nuclear programs, according to Seoul and Tokyo officials.
The statement came at the close of the two-day talks of top diplomats from 27 European and 18 Asian nations.
Democratic rivals Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have clashed over remarks by Mrs Clinton on civil rights that she says were distorted by the Obama camp.
Black leaders criticized her for saying Martin Luther King´s dream of equality came true when President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964.
On Sunday she said Obama supporters had misrepresented this as a slur on King.
Obama denied accusing her of racism.
The black vote will be crucial in the South Carolina primary on 26 January.
Black leaders criticized her for saying Martin Luther King´s dream of equality came true when President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964.
The government plans to close most press rooms in ministry offices and consolidate them into a few briefing rooms as early as July.
The plan met with fierce criticism from local journalists, civic groups and political rivals who view the move as an attempt to gag news outlets critical of the administration ahead of the December presidential election.
The Cabinet today will likely approve the proposal, to take effect July 1.
President Roh Moo-hyun will preside over the meeting.
Under a draft plan, the current 37 reporters’ quarters and briefing rooms in the administrative branches will be consolidated into three in government complexes in central Seoul, Gwacheon and Daejeon.
But Cheong Wa Dae, the National Assembly, and the prosecution and police will retain their separate briefing rooms.
Journalists will not be allowed to be stationed in any government offices and will be offered temporary press cards to attend news briefings.
The government will communicate with the media only through press releases and official briefings.
Most government offices will be off-limits to reporters.
The government will communicate with the media only through press releases and official briefings.
President Roh Moo-hyun and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao agreed yesterday to develop the relationship between South Korea and China into a more substantial one.
In talks at Chong Wa Dae, Roh and Wen largely focused on economic cooperation and security issues in Northeast Asia, such as the North Korean nuclear problem and the installation of military hotlines between Seoul and Beijing, according to officials in Seoul.
During the 90-minute meeting, the two leaders are said to have also talked about a free trade agreement (FTA) between the two sides to promote bilateral trade.
Wen stressed the need for an FTA in a meeting with South Korean correspondents in Beijing last week ahead of his two-day visit to Seoul, which will be followed by a trip to Japan.
South Korea, however, has taken a cautious stance about a deal with China, according to trade officials.
Trade Minister Kim Hyun-chong has said that the country might push for a free trade accord with China and Japan only after concluding talks with the European Union (EU).
During the 90-minute meeting, the two leaders are said to have also talked about a free trade agreement (FTA) between the two sides to promote bilateral trade.
Wen stressed the need for an FTA in a meeting with South Korean correspondents in Beijing last week ahead of his two-day visit to Seoul, which will be followed by a trip to Japan.
The first ABB employees
We cannot protect you.
Huddled in a meeting room in a Holiday Inn still pocked with bullet holes after the latest in a string of attacks on Westerners killed two Americans and four others, many said they would heed his words.
The first to go were among the 90 foreign employees of ABB Lummus Global Inc., a Houston-based oil contractor whose offices were attacked Saturday by four gunmen trying to encourage Saudis to join the resistance against the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
The abuse of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. soldiers threatens Bush’s rationale.
Public pressure is mounting for the resignation of Huh Joon-young, the national police commissioner-general, and the Blue House and Uri Party appear to be feeling the heat.
The police chief has refused to resign after the deaths of two farmers, allegedly after injuries they sustained in battles with police during a protest in Seoul last month.
Huh apologized for the deaths on Tuesday morning but said he would not step down, and he repeated that statement after President Roh Moo-hyun apologized to the nation later the same day for the deaths.
The president added that he did not have the power to fire the commissioner, but said he hoped Huh would do the right thing.
A Blue House official emphasized that point yesterday.
""The president's remark that he does not have the legal right to dismiss the police commissioner-general means that he wants Huh to take the proper action first,"" he said.
Uri Party lawmakers have begun to call more openly for the chief's scalp.
The party's deputy floor leader, Oh Young-shik, said, ""Some members brought up the need for the party to use strong political influence so that the government would show more responsibility.
The police chief has refused to resign after the deaths of two farmers, allegedly after injuries they sustained in battles with police during a protest in Seoul last month.
Seriously ill Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on Thursday prepared to fly to France for treatment for a blood disorder as fears grew for the icon of the Palestinian struggle for statehood.
A senior Palestinian official told Reuters that Arafat was suspected to be suffering from leukemia, a cancer of the blood that can be fatal. He spoke on condition of anonymity.
One of Arafat's doctors earlier said Arafat did not appear to have leukemia.
Explosive device is still dangerous around the South Korea troops deployed in the Kurdish.
They smell the outrage in much of America, and this morning, Senate Banking Committee members are pressing the Obama administration over the millions of dollars in bonuses paid to AIG executives who helped send the insurance giant, hat in hand, to Uncle Sam:
“ Where was the Secretary of the Treasury?
Where was Treasury before this money was paid out?
A lot of money, $165 million, a lot more supposed to be paid out in the future. Why did not Treasury step in and let the American people know….
” That's Alabama Senator Richard Shelby on the CBS Early Show.
Democratic Senator John Testor agrees, saying there's no way taxpayer money should've been used for the bonuses:
“ What would those contracts have been if the taxpayers wouldn't have bailed them out?
That company would've been broke, those people would be part of the 600,000 unemployed that occur in this country a month, every month, and they would be on the street.”
AIG says it was contractually required to pay out the money.
President Barack Obama is urging lawmakers to pass his $3.6 trillion budget.
He says the spending package will spark the transformation America needs to stay economically competitive.
Two teenage girls in Western Australia have been sentenced to life in prison for killing a friend to see whether they would feel remorse at the deed.
The girls, aged 16 at the time of the murder, strangled Eliza Jane Davis then buried her under a house.
Perth Children’s Court president Denis Reynolds said the murder was ”gruesome and merciless in the extreme”.
The pair, who cannot be named because of their age, killed 15-year-old Davis while the three were staying at the same house in the coal-mining town of Collie, south of Perth, on 18 June 2006.
They had been discussing how neither would feel bad about committing murder when they decided to kill Davis, who was sleeping in another room, a court heard in April.
""We believe they got acquainted through the Internet.
Japanese police said on Tuesday they were investigating a suspected group suicide involving seven people who met through the Internet, the latest in a rash of suicides linked to the Web.
The four men and three women, mostly in their 20s, were found dead on Tuesday in a car parked on a mountain road in Minano in Saitama prefecture near Tokyo, officers said.
Police said they found four charcoal stoves in the car, which was wrapped in blue plastic sheets and had its windows sealed from the inside.
""We believe they all died after inhaling carbon monoxide from the charcoal,"" a police spokesman said.
""We believe they got acquainted through the Internet.
Six-nation talks on the nuclear program are entering a fourth day in the Chinese capital Beijing.
At stake is a draft agreement under which Pyongyang would reportedly close nuclear facilities in exchange for aid.
Chief US negotiator Christopher Hill was hopeful for a resolution, but the South Koreans and Japanese have doubts.
Chief US negotiator Christopher Hill was hopeful for a resolution, but the South Koreans and Japanese have doubts.
”It may take another day or two.”
The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency said Monday that South Korea's failure to report nuclear experiments was a ``matter of serious concern'' as Western diplomats revealed a link between tests conducted in 2000 and Seoul's secret uranium work in the 1980s.
Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said that Seoul had recently acknowledged producing more than 300 pounds of uranium metal in the 1980s at three facilities it had kept secret from his agency.
Afterward, a diplomat who is familiar with South Korea's nuclear dossier said that more than 5 pounds of uranium metal was used in the 2000 laser enrichment experiments.
While South Korea has recently owned up to what it says was unauthorized dabbling in plutonium extraction and uranium enrichment by a group of scientists, the revelations on uranium metal production were new.
The diplomat expressed skepticism about South Korean assertions that the later uranium enrichment tests
were the work of a small group of renegade scientists without government authorization.
Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said that Seoul had recently acknowledged producing more than 300 pounds of uranium metal in the 1980s at three facilities it had kept secret from his agency.
While South Korea has recently owned up to what it says was unauthorized dabbling in plutonium extraction and uranium enrichment by a group of scientists, the revelations on uranium metal production were new.
Wu Dawei, China's top envoy to the six-party talks, will visit Seoul for talks with his South Korean counterpart Chun Yung-woo on North Korea's nuclear weapons programs, a Chong Wa Dae official said on Sunday.
The two officials will discuss the result of South Korea-U.S. consultations on mapping out the ”common and broad approach ” on the North's nuclear standoff, Song Min-soon, chief presidential security advisor, told a KBS program.
The new approach, which is not yet clear, was agreed upon at a summit between President Roh Moo-hyun and President George W. Bush in Washington on Sept.
The announcement by Taiwan's President Chen Shui-bian, that he will give up some of his powers, is an attempt to try to quell mounting pressure on him to take responsibility for a series of corruption scandals surrounding his administration and family.
The move came as some opposition legislators began pushing for a recall of the president - a constitutional procedure that requires a two-thirds legislative majority and the support of at least half of Taiwan's electorate in a referendum.
There has also been growing criticism of the president from within his party - the Democratic Progressive Party, or DPP.
The move came as some opposition legislators began pushing for a recall of the president - a constitutional procedure that requires a two-thirds legislative majority and the support of at least half of Taiwan's electorate in a referendum.
There has also been growing criticism of the president from within his party - the Democratic Progressive Party, or DPP.
While the President Elect spends Christmas at the beach in Hawaii, the President is spending one last holiday at Camp David:
“The President flew to the mountaintop retreat yesterday, to be joined by the extended Bush family, including the former President.
In his weekly radio address recorded before he left, Bush says this last Christmas of his presidency is a time of taking stock.”
“As years pass by, we often forget about the gifts and the parties.
But we remember special moments with families and friends.”
“Meantime, Bush is urging Americans to remember those in uniform this Christmas.
He says the nation's enemies don't take holidays, so those who defend freedom can't, either.
Mark Smith, at the White House.”
Travelers in the Midwest, Northeast and Northwest, all bracing for more delays and cancellations today, travel problems brought on by snow and ice.
the Dow is up 10 points.
But we remember special moments with families and friends.”
Nearly half of the relatives of victims who died in the World Trade Center attack say the Republican National Convention should have been held elsewhere, and about a quarter believe the GOP chose New York ``to capitalize on Sept. 11th,'' according to a new survey.
But one out of four of those questioned said the Republican Party brought its convention to Manhattan ``to support the city'' and ``show it's safe,'' according to a survey of victims' relatives conducted by The New York Times.
The convention, which starts Monday at Madison Square Garden, will end a week ahead of the third anniversary of the Sept.
Uri Party proposed income tax cut of 1%P.
Korea's newfound hero, Hines Ward, a half-Korean who won the Most Valuable Player in this year's Super Bowl, said he expects to learn more about his heritage during this trip to the country of his birth.
Korea's newfound hero, Hines Ward, a half-Korean who won the Most Valuable Player in this year's Super Bowl, said he expects to learn more about his heritage during this trip to the country of his birth.
""I am very happy to be here, to come back to where it all started,"" Ward said during a news conference at a hotel in central Seoul yesterday.
˝The Afghan government is doing all it can to secure the release of 22 South Koreans held hostage by the Taliban, President Hamid Karzai has said.
He assured a South Korean envoy that no effort was being spared on behalf of the Christian aid workers - mainly women - who were seized 10 days ago.
Karzai said kidnapping foreign guests was “shameful”, un-Islamic and against Afghan culture.
A Taliban spokesman said a new deadline had been set to kill the hostages.
Yousuf Ahmadi told AFP news agency that if the Afghan government did not meet its demands for the release of imprisoned militants by 5:30 pm Korean Time Monday, ”the Taliban will kill some Korean hostages”.
The group´s leader, Bae Hyung-Kyu, was killed by the hostage-takers several days ago, but since then several deadlines have passed, apparently without further bloodshed.
The Afghan government has ruled out a prisoner swap.˝
Seoul court turned down a prosecution request to arrest a key Korean executive of Lone Star, the Texas-based buyout fund.
The prosecution said it will appeal to the Supreme Court on Friday, and later to the Constitutional Court, to review the court's refusal to approve the arrest of the head of Lone Star's Seoul office on stock manipulation and tax evasion charges.
”The prosecution will appeal to the top court on Friday after reviewing the reasons for the Seoul Central District Court's rejection, ” prosecutor Chae Dong-wook told reporters.
The first appeal was submitted last Friday after the district court turned down the prosecution's request to arrest Paul Yoo, head of the Lone Star Advisors Korea.
Prosecutors claimed detaining Yoo is crucial in bringing to light Lone Star's stock manipulation scheme.
Seoul court turned down a prosecution request to arrest a key Korean executive of Lone Star, the Texas-based buyout fund.
Communist China dealt a crushing blow to Hong Kong's hopes for full democracy Monday, when its most powerful legislative panel ruled the territory won't have direct elections for its next leader in 2007 or for all its lawmakers in 2008.
Many people in Hong Kong have been demanding the right to democratically elect a successor to their chief executive, Tung Chee-hwa, a former shipping tycoon chosen for his position by an 800-member committee that tends to side with Beijing.
But the Chinese National People's Congress Standing Committee said ``universal suffrage shall not apply'' to the selection of Tung successor in 2007 or members of the Legislative Council the following year.
Communist China dealt a crushing blow to Hong Kong's hopes for full democracy Monday, when its most powerful legislative panel ruled the territory won't have direct elections for its next leader in 2007 or for all its lawmakers in 2008.
Many people in Hong Kong have been demanding the right to democratically elect a successor to their chief executive, Tung Chee-hwa, a former shipping tycoon chosen for his position by an 800-member committee that tends to side with Beijing.
Train explosion in NK will not affect six-way talks.
The Joong-Ang Ilbo quotes U.S. officials as saying Monday that they had indeed been consulted on Seoul's plans to withdraw some Korean troops from Iraq, despite earlier grumbling, including complaints from President Bush's party in Pusan last weekend, that the plans were a surprise to them.
Adam Ereli, a State Department spokesman, saying he was sure Korea would continue to be a ""strong and very visible member of the multinational forces,"" conceded that Washington had ""spoken to"" Seoul about Korea's deliberations on plans for the Korean contingent in Iraq.
The Joong-Ang Ilbo quotes U.S. officials as saying Monday that they had indeed been consulted on Seoul's plans to withdraw some Korean troops from Iraq, despite earlier grumbling, including complaints from President Bush's party in Pusan last weekend, that the plans were a surprise to them.
Authorities have said that Fatah al-Islam militants who have been arrested and interrogated have confessed there was a plan to attack the UN.
The militants are said to be inspired by al-Qaeda.”
˝Six soldiers serving with the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon (Unifil) have died after their vehicle was hit by an explosive device.
Three were Colombians in the Spanish army, and three were from Spain, its defense minister said.
They were the first Spanish casualties in Lebanon.
Two other Spaniards were injured in the incident near Israel´s border.
Spain´s defense minister said it was a ””premeditated attack””.
Radical groups in Lebanon have previously threatened to attack peacekeepers.
For the last five weeks, the Lebanese army has been battling militants from the Fatah al-Islam group.
Authorities have said that Fatah al-Islam militants who have been arrested and interrogated have confessed there was a plan to attack the UN.
The militants are said to be inspired by al-Qaeda.”
The Korea Times reports the KMA has maintained a ban on drinking, smoking and dating, even marriage, among its cadets.
The military academy started accepting women from 1998.
The new measure came after the restriction on dating among cadets was criticized as running counter to the academy’s goal of producing sound individuals for the nation’s armed forces.
The Korea Times reports the KMA has maintained a ban on drinking, smoking and dating, even marriage, among its cadets.
The new measure came after the restriction on dating among cadets was criticized as running counter to the academy’s goal of producing sound individuals for the nation’s armed forces.
Korean Government is going to change its attitude toward Dokdo problems.
Prosecutors have again delayed an announcement of the results of their investigation into the scandal surrounding Hwang Woo-suk, suggesting there were internal differences about the scope of the investigation into the disgraced cloning expert.
One prosecutor said yesterday they had reason to believe that Kim Sun-jong, a member of Hwang's team, had switched stem cells in the Seoul National University laboratory with cells from a fertility clinic, although Kim has denied the charges.
Prosecutors said they had not been able to prove that Hwang either fabricated data included in two Science journal articles or conspired with Kim to do so.
It predicted more foreign investment, more Korean exports to the world’s largest market, additional liberalization and globalization of the Korean economy.
The rating agency said that near-term benefits for Korea would be a faster growth of exports to the U.S., and that protected domestic markets and industries would face the invigorating effect of greater competition from rising imports.
It predicted that the $77 billion bilateral trade volume between Korea and the US would expand significantly under the FTA.
˝With two weeks to go before the main opposition Grand National Party (GNP)´s primary to pick its presidential candidate, The Korea Times reports former Seoul Mayor Lee Myung-bak is widely believed to be the favorite but Chairwoman Park Geun-hye is seeking a come-from-behind victory.
Park´s possible victory seems within reach as she narrows the gap with Lee in opinion polls.
Campaign analysts said the gap has narrowed 5-10 percentage points.
As the voting day draws nearer, the gap might be further narrowed.
Kim Hun-tae, president of the Seoul-based campaign research center, predicted that it will be a close race because Park is surging ahead at a fast pace as a series of revelations have lost the former Seoul mayor ground.˝
President Roh Moo-hyun is ready to hold summit with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at any time should the new Japanese prime minister demonstrate ”sincere ” attitudes toward resolving disputes between the two neighbors, a senior government official said on Wednesday.
”If Japan shows sincere attitude toward resolving various factors that trigger conflicts, our basic stance is that the summit meeting can occur whenever it is possible, ” Lee Kyu-hyung, vice minister of foreign affairs and trade, told reporters in Seoul.
Abe is set to deliver a speech on Friday in which he is expected to clarify his foreign policies.
The last summit was in November when Roh met Junichiro Koizumi, former Japanese premier, who is considered one of the most unwelcome persons in Korea because of his frequent visits to Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, which includes memorials to 14 Class A war criminals.
The timing of the operation
Pope John Paul underwent emergency surgery on Thursday to help him breathe more easily after he was rushed to hospital for the second time in a month with acute respiratory problems.
The Vatican said in a statement that the tracheotomy was a success, but the 30-minute operation raised the prospect that the Roman Catholic Church's great communicator might not be able to speak again for months, if at all.
A tracheotomy involves cutting a small opening into the neck and windpipe so air can flow directly into the lungs.
The timing of the operation
Syria decided to move troops to eastern Lebanon, following 16-year-old agreement.
More job cuts announced this morning, but stocks opened higher on Wall Street.
1 drug maker is buying a key rival - Pfizer paying $68 billion for Wyeth, and that tells traders deals can get done in a recession.
On the down side, heavy equipment maker Caterpillar is offering buyouts to 25,000 workers in the US, and wireless provider Sprint-Nextel is cutting 8,000 jobs.
The market could take comfort in the Senate confirming Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner as soon as today and the President is focusing on the economy again this week.
The AP's Mark Smith has that part of the story, live from the White House:
Right now, few Republicans would vote for the measure.
Obama's hoping when all is said and done, the plan can win bipartisan support.
one that would let California and other states set their own tailpipe standards.
On the down side, heavy equipment maker Caterpillar is offering buyouts to 25,000 workers in the US, and wireless provider Sprint-Nextel is cutting 8,000 jobs.
The market could take comfort in the Senate confirming Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner as soon as today and the President is focusing on the economy again this week.
Still, the House is likely to clear it by midweek, while key Senate committees get to work.
In a party forum Wednesday morning, a group of 46 lawmakers agreed to put forth a bill late this month aiming to annul what they claim is a ``draconian’’ law.
The Korea Times says the ruling Uri Party is moving to jump-start its stalled drive to do away with the nation’s anti-communist law, which carries harsh penalties for expressing sympathy with North Korea.
In a party forum Wednesday morning, a group of 46 lawmakers agreed to put forth a bill late this month aiming to annul what they claim is a ``draconian’’ law.
Two ministers requested to refrain from traveling to dangerous countries.
˝In a laughable decision, US magazine giant Time has been ordered to pay $106m in damages to the former Indonesian President Suharto.
˝In a laughable decision, US magazine giant Time has been ordered to pay $106m in damages to the former Indonesian President Suharto.
Indonesia´s highest court overturned the decision of two lower courts and ruled that the Time article, published in 1999, defamed the former dictator.
The article reported the fact that $73bn had passed through the Suharto family´s hands during the president´s 32-year reign.˝
Korea's central bank and state-run think tank have called on the government to spur reforms in small and mid-sized companies.
The Bank of Korea and Korea Development Institute both said yesterday that without eliminating nonviable SMEs the chances of faltering corporate investment picking up are slim.
The calls come amid budding signs of an economic recovery that is seen to be hampered by weak investment from the corporate sector.
For next year, KDI slashed its forecasts on facility investment growth to 6.9 percent on-year from an earlier 8.5 percent.
The Bank of Korea and Korea Development Institute both said yesterday that without eliminating nonviable SMEs the chances of faltering corporate investment picking up are slim.
˝Intensive efforts are under way to negotiate the release of 23 South Korean hostages being held by Taleban rebels in Afghanistan.
Afghan troops have surrounded the area in central Ghazni province with the hostages are being held.
South Korean envoys are in Kabul and an Afghan minister in Ghazni says he is optimistic the captives will be freed.
Meanwhile police have found the body of a German man kidnapped a day earlier, but it is still not clear how he died.
A BBC correspondent in Kabul says delicate diplomacy, not military muscle, is at the forefront of efforts to get the South Koreans out safely.
A Taleban spokesman on Sunday said the group had extended the deadline for negotiations for 24 hours for their demands to be met.
The hostages are said to be in good health but the rebels have said they will kill them if there is any attempt to free them by force or if the government fails to release a number of Taleban prisoners soon.
The Taleban have also said they want South Korea´s 200 troops to leave - although Seoul already plans to take its troops out by the end of the year.
The California Supreme Court on Thursday voided the nearly 4,000 same-sex marriages sanctioned in San Francisco this year and ruled unanimously that the mayor overstepped his authority by issuing licenses to gay and lesbian couples.
12th and March 11th, when the court halted the weddings. The California Supreme Court on Thursday voided the nearly 4,000 same-sex marriages sanctioned in San Francisco this year and ruled unanimously that the mayor overstepped his authority by issuing licenses to gay and lesbian couples.
The court said the city illegally issued the certificates and performed the ceremonies, since state law defines marriage as a union between a man and woman. The justices separately decided with a 5-2 vote to nullify the 3,995 marriages peformed between Feb.
Oil refineries and gas stations are enjoying increasing sales margin.
Seoul appellant court ruled that migrant workers have the right to organize a labor union regardless of their legal status.
The Seoul High Court overturned a lower court ruling which backed the government's refusal of a request by a group of foreign workers to form a labor union.
Foreign workers welcomed the ruing as paving the way for the better protection of labor rights of more than 360,000 migrant workers, some of whom face rampant abuse and unfair treatment at their workplace.
In May 2005, the Seoul-Gyeonggi-Incheon Migrant Trade Union submitted an application to launch a legal labor union at a Seoul regional office of the Labor Ministry.
But the ministry rejected it on the grounds that it would include those overstaying their visa or entering the nation illegally.
Foreign workers welcomed the ruing as paving the way for the better protection of labor rights of more than 360,000 migrant workers, some of whom face rampant abuse and unfair treatment at their workplace.
Guarded by U.S. and British armored vehicles, Korean troops traveled aboard 394 vehicles.
The Ministry of National Defense said yesterday 2,800 South Korean troops sent to aid the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq have arrived safely in the Kurdish north of the country.
Their mandate in Iraq under National Assembly legislation ends in three months. The troops left Korea on Aug.
After entering Iraq, the Korean soldiers traveled 1,115 kilometers across the country to reach their destination, the Defense Ministry said.
The announcement was Seoul's first about the troops it dispatched to the war zone. The government had asked media to keep silent over concern for the troops' safety.
According to the Defense Ministry, a convoy, more than 10 kilometers long, crossed the Kuwait-Iraq border on Sept. Guarded by U.S. and British armored vehicles, Korean troops traveled aboard 394 vehicles.
Uri Party with DLP and MDP agreed to jointly submit a bill to abolish the National Security Law.
Republican Rudy Giuliani and Democrat John Edwards abandoned their failing U.S. presidential bids on Wednesday, narrowing the race in both parties to two main candidates ahead of next week´s multi-state round of voting.
Giuliani, the one-time front-runner who finished a distant third in Florida´s Republican primary on Tuesday, traveled to California to endorse Arizona Sen.
Edwards traveled to New Orleans, where he launched his campaign more than a year ago, to make the surprise announcement that he was folding his campaign.
Edwards vowed last week to stay in the race until Tuesday, when almost half the U.S. states vote on candidates for the November election.
The withdrawal of Edwards, who campaigned as the champion of low- and middle-income families, left former first lady Hillary Clinton facing Illinois Sen.
Republican Rudy Giuliani and Democrat John Edwards abandoned their failing U.S. presidential bids on Wednesday, narrowing the race in both parties to two main candidates ahead of next week´s multi-state round of voting.
The prospect of fielding a joint North and South Korean soccer team for the 2006 World Cup in Germany will be discussed during a visit to Seoul later this month by Sepp Blatter, the president of the International Football Federation Association, or FIFA.
The prospect of fielding a joint North and South Korean soccer team for the 2006 World Cup in Germany will be discussed during a visit to Seoul later this month by Sepp Blatter, the president of the International Football Federation Association, or FIFA.
Yun Jong-su, coach of the North Korean squad, hinted earlier this year that consolidating teams was possible.
Roh said that North Korea is not likely to fall suddenly.
˝Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni has met the Palestinian Prime Minister, Salam Fayyad, for the first time since he took office last month.
The meeting is seen as a gesture of support for the moderate Palestinian leadership led by Mahmoud Abbas.
Israeli and Arab officials meanwhile said an Arab League delegation will go to Israel for the first time this week.
The visit will focus on an Arab peace initiative and ways to help the beleaguered Palestinian Authority.
Israel rejected the Saudi-led peace plan when it was launched in 2002 but gave some aspects a cautious welcome when it was endorsed by moderate Arab states earlier this year.
An Israeli statement issued after Livni´s meeting with Fayyad said: ””The discussion dealt primarily with the situation in the Palestinian Authority [PA] and the ways of improving the lives of the residents in the territories while preserving Israeli security interests.”
˝Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni has met the Palestinian Prime Minister, Salam Fayyad, for the first time since he took office last month.
Did you see the old video of John F. Kennedy on NBC News last night?
The future president three days before his daughter was born, saying he'd like to have a child follow him into politics?
His only surviving child has now told the governor of New York she would like to succeed Hillary Clinton in the U.S.
Senate and her cousin Kerry Kennedy tells NBC's“ Today Show”, Caroline Kennedy does have qualifications for the job.
“She's a woman and a mother, and as a mother she brings unique perspectives to that job and we need that voice.”
The French Interior Minister says there was no risk of explosion when a bundle of old dynamite was found in a Paris department store this morning.
A group demanding that France get out of Afghanistan is claiming responsibility for the Christmastime incident.
Winter storm warnings are posted from New Jersey to Nevada this morning.
Temperatures are expected to rise all the way up to 5 below up in northern Minnesota today.
Soggy southern California is bracing for a second frigid storm system lurking out in the Pacific.
A record of more than two and a half inches of rain fell yesterday at UCLA.
A group demanding that France get out of Afghanistan is claiming responsibility for the Christmastime incident.
All public events have been cancelled in Mexico City for the next 10 days, as government officials work to contain a swine flu outbreak that's suspected in about a thousand cases and more than 60 deaths.
The World Health Organization is holding an emergency meeting to determine if the pandemic threat level should be raised.
WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl says what's really especially alarming is the strain itself:
“ This is a virus which has never been seen before - in either pigs or humans.”
The US reports 8 cases, all of relatively mild disease, in the San Diego area as well as in San Antonio, Texas.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says the US troop withdrawal will not be an end to the US relationship with an evolving Iraq:
“ We want to do it in a responsible and careful way, and we also want to expand our work with the people and government of Iraq in other areas of concern:
to help the government, to help the rule of law, to help the civil society.”
Clinton is on her first visit to Iraq since becoming Secretary of State.
The US reports 8 cases, all of relatively mild disease, in the San Diego area as well as in San Antonio, Texas.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says the US troop withdrawal will not be an end to the US relationship with an evolving Iraq:
The prosecution raided the home and office of Yang Jung-rye, who was given a proportional representation seat in the National Assembly by the Pro-Park Geun-hye Alliance, early Wednesday morning for her alleged ``purchasing´´ of the seat with a huge donation.
Investigators seized financial documents and computer files at her home, the office of a construction firm run by her mother, and a welfare center in Seoul at which Yang said she worked.
North Korea yesterday called a joint military exercise by South Korea and the United States “an act of war,” saying it would take pre-emptive action if necessary in spite of the 53-year-old cease-fire treaty.
”We deem the United States' war exercise an act of war that annuls the cease-fire treaty.
The Korean People's Army will take any military measures needed for protecting the security and sovereignty of the country,” a statement released by the Korean People's Army said.
It added, ”We declare that we will not be bound to the cease-fire treaty.”
The two Koreas are still technically at war after the 1950-1953 Korean War that ended with a cease-fire treaty, not a peace treaty.
North Korea yesterday called a joint military exercise by South Korea and the United States “an act of war,” saying it would take pre-emptive action if necessary in spite of the 53-year-old cease-fire treaty.
”We deem the United States' war exercise an act of war that annuls the cease-fire treaty.
However, South Korea will not be bound by those figures if the U.S. security reform bill becomes law.
The bill sets the refusal rate at 10 percent to ease concerns of countries fighting alongside the U.S. in Iraq that their citizens would not be able to travel to the U.S. as freely as they would like.
The chances of Korea entering the U.S. visa waiver program has increased after the U.S.
Senate overwhelmingly approved the bill on Tuesday.
The paper quoted political observers as saying yesterday that Roh had put off the nomination of Kim Hyuk-kyu, his favorite candidate for the job, after considering its possible negative impact on the ruling Uri Party's chances of winning the elections.
President Roh Moo-hyun, seeking to quell controversy and growing disputes, has decided to delay his expected choice of a former governor as prime minister until the nation holds key provincial by-elections Saturday, according to the Korea Herald.
The paper quoted political observers as saying yesterday that Roh had put off the nomination of Kim Hyuk-kyu, his favorite candidate for the job, after considering its possible negative impact on the ruling Uri Party's chances of winning the elections.
Residents of Uljin rattled by an strong earthquake.
Current security conditions on the Korean peninsula are grave.
The Korea Times reports President Roh Moo-hyun on Thursday asked for support from businessmen for the bids to host the 2014 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang and the 2012 World Expo in Yeosu.
Host cities of the two international events will be decided next year in July and December, respectively.
Roh also called for more aggressive investment by domestic enterprises, asking them to create more jobs to drive the country's economic growth next year, the presidential office said.
The Korea Times reports President Roh Moo-hyun on Thursday asked for support from businessmen for the bids to host the 2014 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang and the 2012 World Expo in Yeosu.
Host cities of the two international events will be decided next year in July and December, respectively.
President Roh Moo-hyun instructed authorities to set up a body at an early date to deal with the recent controversy involving the Tokto islets in the East Sea, Chong Wa Dae spokesman Kim Man-soo said Monday.
President Roh Moo-hyun instructed authorities to set up a body at an early date to deal with the recent controversy involving the Tokto islets in the East Sea, Chong Wa Dae spokesman Kim Man-soo said Monday.
Roh made the instruction during a meeting with his senior aides at the presidential office.
Federation of Korean Industries claims the government has to change the rules on overseas funds.
President Lee Myung-bak said Monday that increasingly deteriorating international circumstances may negatively affect South Korea´s struggle to reinvigorate economic growth and tame inflation.
Presiding over the first Cabinet meeting since his inauguration last week, Lee urged his ministers to take extraordinary measures to curb consumer price hikes, promote peaceful labor-management relations and create more jobs, as part of his new administration´s campaign to revitalize the economy and improve the livelihood of ordinary citizens.
Lee then instructed the formation of a special government task force to focus on taming inflation, while the Cabinet approved a number of bills and action plans, including a 10-percent cut in oil tax, expansion of tax favors to corporate investors, freeze in power and public utility rates, lessening of private educational expenses and stimulation of traditional marketplaces, among others
Thirty-eight people have been hurt, two of them critically, when a Continental Airlines jet taking off from Denver veered off the runway into a ravine and caught fire.
Denver Fire Division Chief Patrick Hynes says his crew had his-their hands full when they got to the plane:
“They had to drive off-road to get to the aircraft, but we were able to extinguish the fire rather quickly.
It was described as a heck of a firefight from the commanding officer on scene, but he's very proud of how the crews reacted and the outcome of this incident.”
The one hundred twelve people on the Boeing 737 used emergency chutes to escape the burning plane.
Vice President Dick Cheney, in an interview with Fox News Sunday, says it will be up to soon-to-be President Barack Obama to ultimately resolve the auto industry crisis:
“They had to drive off-road to get to the aircraft, but we were able to extinguish the fire rather quickly.
It was described as a heck of a firefight from the commanding officer on scene, but he's very proud of how the crews reacted and the outcome of this incident.”
The director the controversial movie ""Fahrenheit 9/11"" that is very critical of the Bush administration says his goal is to have a new president in the Oval Office.
Michael Moore told ABC's ""This Week"" that his film which debuts on Friday is an ""op-ed"" piece.
He says he's not trying to pretend that it's some sort of ""fair and balanced journalism.
"" Moore also accused the media of becoming cheerleaders for the war in Iraq, saying reporters have refused to ask ""tough questions"" of the Bush administration.
Six young people have died after a part-time police officer opened fire at a house in the Midwestern US state of Wisconsin early on Sunday.
The shootings took place in the town of Crandon, in the north of the state.
The suspect, who was employed by the Forest County Sheriff´s office, was reported to have been killed by a police sniper.
Unconfirmed reports say the attack followed an argument between the gunman and his girlfriend.
The shooting occurred shortly before 3 am local time when the gunman opened fire at a house party.
One out of every 8.4 economically active people are credit defaulters, but the government is attempting to cover up the severity of the issue, according to a lawmaker.
Lee Hahn-koo of the main opposition Grand National Party told a parliamentary interpellation session yesterday that the credit defaulter problems still pose a threat to the economy, while the government is no longer publishing statistics on credit defaulters.
The government scrapped the credit delinquents registration system in 2005 and introduced the financial debt defaulter system, which is more lenient.
People who have over 300,000 won ($in overdue debt for more than three months, or at least three cases of being overdue, were categorized as credit delinquents under the old system.
The financial debt defaulter system, however, eased the figure to 500,000 won. Even so, the number of credit defaulters were 2.84 million as of the end of August 2006.
It is a big drop from the 2004 figure when 3.46 million people were credit defaulters.
One out of every 8.4 economically active people are credit defaulters, but the government is attempting to cover up the severity of the issue, according to a lawmaker.
The Korea Herald reports that in spite of dangerously high international oil prices, Korea is still not considering resorting to a domestic tax cut that could easily pinch for local consumers, quoting the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy yesterday.
Instead, the government plans to reduce the nation's dependence on energy and develop more alternative resources, the ministry said at a Cabinet meeting chaired by President Roh Moo-hyun.
Those measures include a 7 percent tax break for corporate investment in energy-conserving technologies and a so-called ""cash-back"" plan, in which the government offers 20,000 won to every household that reduces spending on electricity by 10 percent during the summer months.
But the Commerce Ministry did not rule out the possibility of a reduction in taxes on transportation and oil imports if the 10-day moving average of Dubai crude oil, Korea's benchmark, surges above $35.
Those measures include a 7 percent tax break for corporate investment in energy-conserving technologies and a so-called ""cash-back"" plan, in which the government offers 20,000 won to every household that reduces spending on electricity by 10 percent during the summer months.
Fiji´s former prime minister has begun a legal challenge to the military chiefs who deposed him last December.
Lawyers for Laisenia Qarase told the high court in the capital, Suva, that the coup was illegal and all government actions since then have been invalid.
More than half of Japan's citizens do not want their next prime minister to visit the controversial Yasukuni war shrine, according to two recent polls.
About 54% of respondents to a Mainichi newspaper survey said the next premier should not visit the shrine.
A similar poll in the Nihon Keizai Shimbun found 53% of participants opposed such visits.
Current Premier Junichiro Koizumi, who is due to step down in September, has been to the shrine five times.
The visits anger China and South Korea, which say the shrine honors Japan's militarist past.
They object to the fact that 14 Class A war criminals are among the 2.5 million people commemorated at the shrine.
About 54% of respondents to a Mainichi newspaper survey said the next premier should not visit the shrine.
Presidential candidates pledged to reduce unemployment, address the widening income gap and take other steps to revive the country´s sagging economy Thursday on the third day of official campaigning for the Dec.
South Korea´s economy has been sluggish for the past few years due mainly to lack of investment, jobless growth, skyrocketing real estate prices and a widening gap between the rich and poor despite rising corporate revenues based on robust exports.
Economic woes have dominated this year´s campaign as candidates step up their promises to improve the economy and increase visits to business areas and industrial parks.
Korean business leaders Tuesday united to urge the government to reject what they call a labor-friendly set of recommendations by the National Human Rights Commission.
``The commission’s recommendations only reflect the progressive segment of our society,’’ they claimed in a joint statement after an emergency meeting at Lotte Hotel in downtown Seoul.
They called for the replacement of all 11 members of the commission with those who would ``broadly represent the national sentiment.’
Does the Korean government dump such a good chance?
Pakistani intelligence sources have told the AP that US missiles have hit a suspected Taliban location in western Pakistan.
“ We're hearing now that US missiles have hit an alleged Taliban training facility in south Waziristan tribal region, and 7 people are dead, according to our intelligence sources.”
Pakistan has officially condemned the strikes, but many analysts speculate the two countries have a secret deal allowing the attacks.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is on her way to Egypt, her first stop at a trip to the Middle East and parts of Europe.
The AP's Ross Simpson reports the Secretary will also meet with both sides in the Palestinian-Israeli stalemate:
“ Clinton's visit will attempt to show President Barack Obama's commitment to finding a two-state solution that establishes a sovereign Palestinian state at peace with Israel.”
Just ahead of Clinton's arrival, soon-to-be-former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned of dire consequences should militants in Gaza continue to fire rockets and mortars into southern Israel.
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, says he's confident about Iraq's future, and the future of the US withdrawal from that country.
Mullen says, however, he's reluctant to talk about winning and losing.
He does tell Fox that Baghdad will be able to take control of the country.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is on her way to Egypt, her first stop at a trip to the Middle East and parts of Europe.
The new transportation system network is expected to be more convenient, but transportation fares have also increased.
The fares of yellow and red buses will be 500 won and 1,400 won, respectively.
The Korea Times reports that with the aim of solving the traffic problems of the area, Seoul’s transportation system is being drastically overhauled starting Wednesday.
While many are calling the changes a ``revolutionary reformation,’’ it may take Seoulites some time to get used to the new system.
Major changes include the partitioning of Seoul into different areas for different bus routes, a new fare system, a linking system between buses and subway trains and introduction of a special lane restricted for buses.
The capital of the nation is now divided into eight sections from zone 0 to zone 7, and buses will be divided into four groups by their colors _ red, yellow, blue and green _ depending on the designated area they run.
Such divisions will determine the buses’ transportation fares as well.
With the introduction of the new area divisions and four kinds of buses, all the buses will be color-coded and receive new numbers.
Red buses will be used for running wide areas linking Seoul and Kyonggi areas.
Yellow buses will be like shuttle buses, taking passengers to close destinations only within one zone and blue buses will be direct lines that cover two or three zones.
Green buses will travel shorter distances than blue ones and will be used to connect to blue buses and subway stations.
Out of the total 419 routes, 228 changed their routes completely or have simply disappeared.
The new transportation system network is expected to be more convenient, but transportation fares have also increased.
The fares of yellow and red buses will be 500 won and 1,400 won, respectively.
President Roh criticized opponents of capital relocation.
Bush is welcoming Edwards to Kerry’s running mate.
The government wants to create a program for indvidual retirement accounts and allow civil servants to form labor unions as early as next year, the Labor Ministry announced yesterday after meeting with the ruling Uri Party.
The government wants to create a program for indvidual retirement accounts and allow civil servants to form labor unions as early as next year, the Labor Ministry announced yesterday after meeting with the ruling Uri Party.
The Korea Herald reports ministry and party members agreed to submit bills to the National Assembly this year for the sweeping measures.
Suspects’ families watch the investigation process.
Disgraced cloning scientist Hwang Woo-suk and his team are seeking to prove that they did clone human embryonic stem cells.
Professor Kang Sung-keun at Seoul National University, one of Hwang's lieutenants, Sunday argued the embryonic cell batch featured in the U.S. journal, Science, in 2004, is the real thing.
``Although the line seems to have suffered damages or mutations, we are sure that it was established through cloning, and tests prove this,'' he told The Korea Times.
His remarks came just after Hwang's team last week revealed ``imprinting analysis'' test results, which they insist is clear-cut evidence refuting an SNU investigation panel conclusion on the cells' identity.
Professor Kang Sung-keun at Seoul National University, one of Hwang's lieutenants, Sunday argued the embryonic cell batch featured in the U.S. journal, Science, in 2004, is the real thing.
The Korea Times reports the pro-government Uri Party withdrew its earlier pledge that its members would quit the Assembly seats en masse in protest of the opposition parties’ impeachment of President Roh Moo-hyun.
However, party members have decided to return their stipends for the months of April and May to the national coffer as the National Assembly would virtually remain inactive during that period.
In a statement adopted at the end of a party caucus, the party expressed profound regret for failing to keep to their promise that they would abandon their parliamentary seats.
Park Geun-hye elected as the Grand National Party’s new leader.
Political parties face off in today’s by-elections which are seen as a barometer of public sentiment ahead of the December presidential vote.
The poll results will determine three National Assembly members, six chiefs of local administrations and 37 local councilors, nationwide.
The outcome is expected to significantly affect the future course of a realignment of political forces in the lead-up to the presidential election, as the by-elections will test the possibility of various political groups uniting against the Grand National Party.
Observers are keen to see whether the GNP will continue with its record of sweeping election victories in recent years.
The Uri Party, which suffered crushing defeats in previous polls, fielded only 14 candidates in a total of 55 districts.
The party is supporting candidates from two minor groups - the Democratic Party and the People First Party - with which it is seeking to create a new political party.
If proven a success, their electoral tie-up would speed up the formation of the envisioned party though the Uri will face the small parties’ desires for greater roles in their alliance.
Voting started at 6 a.m. and ends at 8 p.m. with preliminary results expected around 11 p.m., according to the National Election Commission.
The poll results will determine three National Assembly members, six chiefs of local administrations and 37 local councilors, nationwide.
The party is supporting candidates from two minor groups - the Democratic Party and the People First Party - with which it is seeking to create a new political party.
Australia's foreign minister has told an inquiry that he was not aware of reports that wheat exporters were making illegal payments to Iraq.
Alexander Downer was testifying before an inquiry in Sydney into the actions of the Australian Wheat Board.
It is alleged the board paid millions of dollars in bribes to Saddam Hussein's regime to secure contracts.
Prime Minister John Howard is expected to deliver a written statement to the inquiry later today.
Downer is the most senior government figure so far to give evidence.
Community leaders across the country are wondering who's going to help with the chicken supper, who's going to sponsor the Memorial Day Parade, now that more than 1,000 General Motors dealers are learning they're losing their franchises:
“ They're going to notify 1,100 dealers today - most of them by FedEx letter - that they will lose their franchise agreements when they expire as of September 30th of 2010.
” AP auto writer Tom Krisher in Detroit on the news that's breaking just one day after Chrysler informed 800 dealers they're being let go, and this isn't the end of it:
“ GM actually plans to cut 2,600 dealers ?
the remainder above this 1,000 would be through attrition, and then through selling off Saturn, and either selling off or getting rid of Hummer and Saab brands as well.”
The latest economic numbers are adding to the impression of a recession that's easing, but hasn't quite shifted into recovery mode.
The government reports consumer prices flatlined in April, and industrial production dipped by the smallest amount in 6 months.
Community leaders across the country are wondering who's going to help with the chicken supper, who's going to sponsor the Memorial Day Parade, now that more than 1,000 General Motors dealers are learning they're losing their franchises:
The government began mass slaughtering poultry on six farms in the southwestern part of the country yesterday.
Test results the previous day confirmed the outbreak of a highly virulent type of bird flu.
Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Park Hong-soo yesterday held an emergency meeting with Prime Minister Han Myeong-sook, Minister of Health and Welfare Rhyu Si-min and Oh Dae-kyu, director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), to discuss measures to block the spread of the avian influenza virus, officials said.
Following guidelines approved by the National Security Council, the government began culling 236,000 chickens and ducks at six farms within a 500-meter radius of the initially infected farm in Iksan, North Cholla Province.
The measures also include slaughtering 300 pigs and 577 dogs in the area.
The authorities expanded the boundaries of the surveillance zone to a 10-kilometer radius of the outbreak site, and they are planning to give orders to conduct extra culling based on test results on livestock within the 3-kilometer radius quarantine zone.
The Pakistani government said it knew nothing about Libi´s death.
News of his death emerged on a website used by Islamist groups.
Ekhlaas.org said he had “fallen as a martyr”.
There is speculation that he was killed by a US missile strike in the North Waziristan area of Pakistan this week.
A dozen militants were reported killed in the attack.
US intelligence agencies said they were checking the reports.
A Pakistani daily paper, the News, reported that the suspected US strike was aimed at Libi and another senior figure, Obaidah al-Masri.
The Pakistani government said it knew nothing about Libi´s death.
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates told the Associated Press he did not ”have anything definitive” to say about it.
The medical law was established in 1951 and underwent major reforms in 1962 and 1973.
A succession of efforts to overhaul the service has since failed due to conflicting interests of different medical sectors.
Doctors are adamantly opposed to the new measures, which they claim are designed to tighten control of the profession, ease barriers to entering the business, and make doctors more accountable for malpractice.
Doctors in Seoul and Incheon will walk off the job and hold massive rallies outside the Government Complex in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province. They will discuss further action.
The medical law was established in 1951 and underwent major reforms in 1962 and 1973.
They will discuss further action.
˝A judge has dismissed a civil lawsuit brought by ex-CIA agent Valerie Plame against Vice-President Dick Cheney and other Bush administration officials.
Plame accused them of conspiring to leak her identity, thus ruining her CIA career, in retaliation for her husband criticizing their Iraq war policy.
US District Judge John Bates said Cheney and the other officials had a right to respond to criticism.
Plame was “very disappointed” and planned to appeal, her lawyer said.
She and her husband, former US ambassador Joseph Wilson, had sought financial damages for violation of their privacy rights.
As well as Cheney, those named in the case were Karl Rove, a senior adviser to President George W Bush, former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and former White House aide Lewis ”Scooter” Libby.
Plame accused them of conspiring to leak her identity, thus ruining her CIA career, in retaliation for her husband criticizing their Iraq war policy.
Libby was convicted on perjury and obstruction of justice charges in March but Bush intervened earlier this month to spare him from going to jail
Following reports that Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan claimed to have seen ""three nuclear devices"" on a trip to North Korea five years ago, South Korea's immediate reaction was that the matter was ""too sensitive"" to comment upon.
Following reports that Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan claimed to have seen ""three nuclear devices"" on a trip to North Korea five years ago, South Korea's immediate reaction was that the matter was ""too sensitive"" to comment upon.
The official conceded that besides the United States and Japan, Pakistan was among the countries that had provided information to Seoul on the North's nuclear capabilities.
According to a New York Times report yesterday, Khan revealed that five years ago he was taken to a secret underground nuclear plant ― not the main plant in Yeongbyeon ― and was briefly allowed to inspect weapons.
He described seeing ""three plutonium devices"" and that ""the weapons appeared to be complete.
Three Japanese were freed a day after other kidnappers executed an Italian.
The Korea Times reports the state prosecution has demanded a 15-year prison term for Korean-German scholar Song Du-yul on charges of spying for North Korea.
Prosecutors said during a trial at a Seoul court that they requested the heavy sentence for Song, professor of Muenster University in Germany, accusing him of violating the anti-communist National Security Law.
Song, who is 59, was indicted last November for acting as a member of the decision-making Politburo of North Korea’s Workers Party and spreading the North’s Juche, or self-reliance technology abroad on orders by Pyongyang.
He has been on trial since last December after three-month investigations into his alleged connections with communist North Korea.
He returned to South Korea in September last year after spending decades in self-imposed exile.
In a dispatch from Paris, Yonhap News Agency is reporting communist North Korea executed a state-run company´s director last year for having made phone calls abroad without government permission, an international journalist group said in its annual report released Sunday.
The case reflects a marked increase in executions for the offense of communication with people outside the totalitarian country, Reporters Without Borders said.
""North Korea is the world´s most isolated country and the security forces are responsible for keeping it that way at all costs,"" it said in the report.
""(North Korean leader) Kim Jong-il is visiting media newsrooms, giving orders to reporters and correcting the editorials"" it said.
President Lee Myung-bak is expected to invite President George W. Bush to visit Korea in July.
A source said Tuesday that discussions have been under way between Korea and the United States for Bush´s visit to Seoul.
President Bush is to attend the G-8 Summit in Hokkaido, Japan on July 7-9.
After the meeting, Bush will be invited to visit Seoul, possibly July 10-11, he said.
He added that final confirmation will be made when the two leaders meet in Washington this week.
President Lee started the first day of his U.S. visit by encouraging a group of Korean-Americans there.
He then delivered a keynote speech at the Korea Society´s annual dinner in Manhattan.
The Korea Society is a leading organization devoted to promoting South Korea-U.S. relations.
On Wednesday, Lee will meet with American business leaders at a Korea roadshow and visit the New York Stock Exchange.
He will also meet with U.N.
Investors and financial professionals will also be invited to hear Lee´s keynote speech at the Korea Investment Forum 2008. President Lee Myung-bak is expected to invite President George W. Bush to visit Korea in July.
President Lee started the first day of his U.S. visit by encouraging a group of Korean-Americans there.
The American general who headed the U.S. military prison at Abu Ghraib personally witnessed abuses there, an Iraqi man alleged in a federal lawsuit protesting his treatment.
In a videotaped deposition from Iraq played Tuesday, Saddam ``Sam'' Saleh Aboud said he endured beatings at the prison.
Aboud identified Karpinski from a photograph in a news magazine that his lawyer, Michael Hourigan, showed him.
``He was adamant that there was an occasion when he was being tortured, in Tier 1A, when she was present and watching and laughing as he was being tortured.''
In a videotaped deposition from Iraq played Tuesday, Saddam ``Sam'' Saleh Aboud said he endured beatings at the prison.
Wildfires burning out of control are continuing to threaten thousands of homes in California.
At least one person has been killed and some 250,000 people evacuated as the fires spread, fanned by fierce winds.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency in seven counties, with 40,000 acres burnt from Santa Barbara to San Diego.
Some of the worst damage is in Malibu, where many show business stars, among them Mel Gibson and Sting, have homes.
Officials say the ground is tinder-dry after a record summer heat wave.
With forecasters predicting that hurricane-force winds will continue until later in the week, thousands more homes could be at risk.
Several new fires were reported to have broken out in San Diego County on Monday morning.
Wildfires burning out of control are continuing to threaten thousands of homes in California.
˝The BBC reports the latest deadline issued by Taliban rebels threatening to kill a group of 23 South Korean hostages in Afghanistan has passed with their demands unmet.
The rebels told Afghan authorities to trade Taliban prisoners for the hostages by 7 PM local time.
But officials say the Taliban rebels issued a new ultimatum soon after that deadline expired.
Intense negotiations have been taking place between the two sides since the Koreans were abducted last Thursday.
The militants have extended their ultimatum on the fate of the South Koreans at least three times.
Meanwhile, South Korea has added Afghanistan to a list of countries to which its citizens are banned from traveling.
Any South Korean making an unauthorized journey to a banned country can be jailed for up to one year or fined 3 million won.
The foreign ministry has urged South Koreans in Afghanistan - believed to number about 200 - to consider leaving.
South Korea also has about 200 peacekeeping troops in the country, which Seoul had already been planning to withdraw by the end of the year.
The South Koreans were seized from a bus travelling from the city of Kandahar to the Afghan capital, Kabul.
They are reported to be Christians on an evangelical and aid mission.
At least 15 are said to be women.
The seizure is the largest-scale abduction of foreigners since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001.
An eight-strong South Korean delegation, including a presidential envoy, is in Kabul to meet Afghan President Hamid Karzai and negotiate for the hostages´ release.
Afghan elders have also been mediating between the militants and government negotiators in central Ghazni province, where the group was taken.
The hostages are reported to be in good health, but the rebels have said they will kill them if there is any attempt to free them by force or if the government fails to release a number of Taliban prisoners soon.
The group has also called for South Korean troops to leave the country.˝
The rebels told Afghan authorities to trade Taliban prisoners for the hostages by 7 PM local time.
But officials say the Taliban rebels issued a new ultimatum soon after that deadline expired.
South Korea also has about 200 peacekeeping troops in the country, which Seoul had already been planning to withdraw by the end of the year.
An eight-strong South Korean delegation, including a presidential envoy, is in Kabul to meet Afghan President Hamid Karzai and negotiate for the hostages´ release.
Australia has announced plans to ban incandescent light bulbs and replace them with what it believes is more energy efficient fluorescent bulbs.
The decision will make Australia the first country to ban the light bulbs, although the idea has also been proposed in the US state of California.
The move is expected to cause a boom in the eyeglass industry as the nation’s children suffer irreversible eye strain as they study under the cheap fluorescent lights.
Australia has announced plans to ban incandescent light bulbs and replace them with what it believes is more energy efficient fluorescent bulbs.
“It's a little thing but it's a massive change,” Malcolm Turnbull said.
The decision will make Australia the first country to ban the light bulbs, although the idea has also been proposed in the US state of California.
A total of 431 hectares were destroyed.
It burnt down 246 houses and buildings, leaving 146 households without homes, but no casualties were reported.
Forest fires fanned by strong winds in the eastern part of Korea destroyed 400 hectares of woodlands, burned a famed Buddhist temple and forced 2,000 people to evacuate their homes before authorities yesterday brought the two biggest blazes under control.
Fires erupted in 23 regions nationwide on Tuesday, Arbor Day, the Forest Service told the Korea Herald.
The worst fire, which broke out just before midnight Monday, was in Yangyang, Gangwon Province, about 210 kilometers east of Seoul.
FIFA will give any penalties for N.K crowds’ uncontrolled behavior.
He did not however- elaborate on the possible changes of the inter-Korean projects.
Song Min-soon, senior presidential secretary for security affairs, said South Korea will not give up its cross-border tourism project despite concerns that they could undermine international efforts to curb the Stalinist state's nuclear weapons program.
Speaking at a security forum in Seoul, Song said the government is in the process of coordinating its position on the matter among different ministries and with other relevant nations, including the United States.
Last weekend, the U.N. Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution sanctioning the North for its nuclear test on Oct.
There's been a suicide car bombing in Iraq's Anbar province.
The AP's Ryan Lukas reports police say the car blew up after the man drove into a police checkpoint:
all those who were killed are all civilians.”
The conservatives have taken the Parliamentary elections in New Zealand, ending Helen Clark's long time hold on the Prime Minister's office.
“You know, in politics, we all experience the highs and the lows, and I've experienced both over a long political career.
Tonight, is a night for the winners to savor, but we won't be going away.”
Clark, who has also resigned as Head of the Labor Party, will remain in Parliament.
“You know, in politics, we all experience the highs and the lows, and I've experienced both over a long political career.
Tonight, is a night for the winners to savor, but we won't be going away.”
Clark, who has also resigned as Head of the Labor Party, will remain in Parliament.
The Korea Times is reporting South Korea’s overall life expectancy reached 77 years in 2002, up 5.28 years from 1991, thanks to improvements in health care and nutrition, and a rising interest in maintaining good health.
The Korea Times is reporting South Korea’s overall life expectancy reached 77 years in 2002, up 5.28 years from 1991, thanks to improvements in health care and nutrition, and a rising interest in maintaining good health.
However, Korea’s average life expectancy is lower than other Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries.
According to the National Statistical Office (NSO) Monday, average life expectancy was 73.4 years for Korean men and 80.4 years for women in 2002, up 5.64 and 4.52 years from 11 years ago.
Nepal’s Maoist rebels ambushed 10 soldiers.
South Korea may ease restrictions on foreign films.
Homegrown movies must account for 40 percent of showings in local theaters.
Washington wants the regulation scrapped to pave the way for a trade deal between the two nations.
Police maintain strict control of protests against the WEF.
Kelly is currently a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
He served as assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific affairs between 2001-2005 and is believed to have sparked North Korean US mistrust by misreading the intentions of North Korea at a meeting in Pyongyang during his tenure at the State Department.
Treasury Department in talks with mortgage industry leaders, was not intended to “bail out” lenders, speculators or those who knew they could not afford the homes they bought.
Instead, the Bush administration hopes that it can help more than half of the two million homeowners who took out adjustable-rate subprime loans with payments due to move sharply higher soon by offering some of them a five-year mortgage-rate freeze.
Officials have said 500,000 Americans are at risk of losing their homes as $367 billion worth of mortgages reset to higher interest rates over the next two years.
Expensive subprime loans traditionally are aimed at borrowers with weak credit, but increasing numbers of buyers took the loans as an easy way to hop into the market during the housing boom.
The Mortgage Bankers Association said on Thursday that a record percentage of mortgages outstanding were in the process of being foreclosed in the third quarter, while late payments hit their highest level since 1986.
Instead, the Bush administration hopes that it can help more than half of the two million homeowners who took out adjustable-rate subprime loans with payments due to move sharply higher soon by offering some of them a five-year mortgage-rate freeze.
Rival parliaments are meeting in Kyrgyzstan amid rowdy scenes and confusion over who has the right to be part of the interim government.
The country's electoral body on Sunday backed the parliament elected in February's disputed polls that led to the removal of President Askar Akayev.
On Thursday, the Supreme Court annulled the polls and said the previous parliament had authority. The acting president, Kurmanbek Bakiev, supports the court ruling.
Massive earthquake struck Indonesian coast.
In an interview with the JoongAng Ilbo on Tuesday, Christopher Hill, the chief U.S. negotiator in the six-party talks, indicated the next round of talks should be spent discussing the dismantlement of the North's nuclear programs instead of wasting time going over a joint statement reached last week which stated the principles of bringing an end to the North Korean nuclear crisis.
In an interview with the JoongAng Ilbo on Tuesday, Christopher Hill, the chief U.S. negotiator in the six-party talks, indicated the next round of talks should be spent discussing the dismantlement of the North's nuclear programs instead of wasting time going over a joint statement reached last week which stated the principles of bringing an end to the North Korean nuclear crisis.
The next step of discussing the issue of dismantling the North Korean nuclear program should be the focus,"" said Hill, who added that he does not have any travel plans right now but would assess when a trip to the North is feasible.
Indonesia's transport minister has denied reports that the wreckage of a plane carrying 102 people had been found on Sulawesi island.
Hatta Radjasa said the plane had not been found and reports to the contrary were based on rumors from local villagers which were wrong.
Rescuers and airline officials were earlier quoted as saying they had seen bodies at the crash site.
The confusion is adding to the distress of relatives of those on board.
Hatta Radjasa told local radio that search teams were still looking for the plane, a 17-year-old Boeing 737-400.
First Air Marshal Eddy Suyanto, commander of the air base in Makassar, close to where the plane was originally reported to have come down, also contradicted his earlier statement that wreckage had been found.
Another regional commander, Major General Arif Budi Santoso, told Metro TV that no wreckage had been found at the supposed crash site.
Black market tickets for next year´s Olympic Games in China are already being sold illegally on the Internet.
Individuals who were initially allowed to buy 50 tickets each are cashing in by selling them for more than 10 times their face value.
Beijing´s Olympic Committee allows tickets to be transferred between users, but not for profit.
The second round of ticket sales has just been launched, and applicants will be randomly allocated seats.
A committee spokesman said: “We will work with relevant departments to respond to the practice of reselling tickets for profit.”
Black market tickets for next year´s Olympic Games in China are already being sold illegally on the Internet.
The second round of ticket sales has just been launched, and applicants will be randomly allocated seats.
"" The daily reported that in 2002 the United States and Japan reached an agreement on the plan.
As part of a new military doctrine, Tokyo has defined its role in the event of a conflict on the Korean Peninsula, saying Japanese forces would undertake the evacuation of civilians and conduct search and rescue missions for downed U.S. and South Korea pilots.
The Asahi Shimbun, a Japanese daily, reported the details of the doctrine called ""Operational Plan 5055. "" The daily reported that in 2002 the United States and Japan reached an agreement on the plan.
Korea will gain access to 10 million metric tons of LNG.
The fighting strength of the U.S.
Forces Korea has dwindled by 23 percent since 1998, a lawmaker said Thursday.
And it slashed the number of F-16s, the primary fighter jets deployed in Korea, from 76 to 60, contrary to popular understanding that reductions focused on ground forces.
U.S. military had a simulation training for nuclear attack on NK.
IAEA praises the agreement of N.K’s nuclear weapons programs.
˝The Korea Herald reports negotiations for the release of 23 South Koreans in Afghanistan extended to another day yesterday amid conflicting news reports on what the militant group responsible is demanding in exchange for the hostages.
The South Korean government said it was maintaining constant contact with the kidnappers and that it is “mobilizing effective measures for a solution.”
On Monday night, the Taliban group extended by 24 hours the deadline by which they have threatened to kill the hostages unless the Afghan government releases an equal number of imprisoned fighters.
A representative of the Afghan government mediating the negotiations with the kidnappers was quoted as saying that the group is asking for $100,000 in return for arranging direct contact with the hostages.
The Taliban group reportedly also demanded money in exchange for photos of the hostages, the representative was quoted as saying by Yonhap News.
The South Korean government said that the crisis team is working closely with the Afghan government and allied countries to seek a solution.˝
The South Korean government said it was maintaining constant contact with the kidnappers and that it is “mobilizing effective measures for a solution.”
Egypt protested angrily to Israel on Thursday and demanded a full explanation for what it called irresponsible Israeli conduct after an Israeli tank crew killed three Egyptian policemen at the Egyptian-Gaza border.
""While condemning and protesting strongly at this regrettable incident, Egypt demands the Israeli authorities hold an immediate, full and comprehensive investigation into the circumstances,"" the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Egypt protested angrily to Israel on Thursday and demanded a full explanation for what it called irresponsible Israeli conduct after an Israeli tank crew killed three Egyptian policemen at the Egyptian-Gaza border.
Roh and Bush reaffirmed the peaceful settlement of NK’s nuclear issue.
It is still dangerous in Falluja.
The Joong Ang Ilbo reports the closed event will be attended by 700 guests invited by Dulpure, publisher of the Korean translation of his book.
President Bill Clinton will visit Seoul next Thursday, squeezing in a book-signing appearance after a tour of tsunami-damaged South Asian nations.
Clinton will sign copies of his memoir, ""My Life,"" at the Sheraton Walker Hill Hotel Thursday night.
The Joong Ang Ilbo reports the closed event will be attended by 700 guests invited by Dulpure, publisher of the Korean translation of his book.
Former Korean Presidents Kim Dae-jung and Kim Young-sam will greet him there, but no other political events are planned, according to Dulpure.
Unless the U.S. changes their policy toward Islam, Al Qaeda will keep on fighting against U.S.
20,000 new apartment units in Pangyo new town will be released at once.
Finance Minister Han Duck-soo on Wednesday made it clear that the government will not adopt regulations concerning the makeup of boardrooms at local banks.
``South Korea has no such regulations and has no intention of implementing them in the future,’’ Han said in a keynote speech at an international conference hosted by Euromoney, a U.K.-based capital markets magazine.
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) had pushed for a plan to restrict the number of foreign directors at Korean banks to less than half of the total board members, but the attempt was blocked by the finance ministry.
Regarding the recently-revised ``5-percent rule,’’ Han said that the new disclosure rule was designed to make investment more transparent, regardless of where the capital is from.
Hanwha Group Chairman Kim Seung-youn, facing accusations of ordering his bodyguards to retaliate against a group of young men involved in a brawl with his son, was questioned at the Namdaemun police station Sunday.
It is the first time in Korea for a chaebol owner to undergo police investigation on suspicion of violence, kidnapping and mobilizing gangsters.
The 55-year-old tycoon, who voluntarily surrendered into custody Sunday afternoon after dodging police twice, could face up to five years in prison or a maximum fine of 15 million won ($16,if he is convicted.
In a rare move Saturday, the presidential office released a statement calling on the police to investigate the incident ``quickly and thoroughly,’’ responding to growing public attention to the case.
According to police, Kim allegedly ordered his bodyguards to strike at least six employees of a bar in Pukchang-dong, downtown Seoul, March 8, after his second son, Dong-won, got into a fight with one of them at another bar in Chongdam-dong, southern Seoul.
The son, a Yale University student, was reportedly hit several times in the face and pushed down a staircase, suffering a cut to his forehead that needed 11 stitches.
It is the first time in Korea for a chaebol owner to undergo police investigation on suspicion of violence, kidnapping and mobilizing gangsters.
Well, the annual White House Correspondents Association Dinner is tonight - a black-tie event that attracts a mix of politicians, celebrities, and journalists.
AP White House correspondent Mark Smith reports that over the years, this dinner has become the hottest ticket in town:
Among the big entertainment names slated to hear the President's after-dinner speech, Jimmy Fallon, Jennifer Garner and her husband Ben Affleck, Sting, Ashton Kutcher, and Dev Patel, the star of Slumdog Millionaire.
All this for a dinner that began as a staid, all-male banquet with President Calvin Coolidge in 1924.
Well, if somehow you misplaced your ticket, you can watch the speeches - by the President and comedian Wanda Sykes - and the entertainment, on C-SPAN tonight.
There's a move underway to get some of the money from the government's financial bailout to the nation's carmakers.
“Putting some of that bailout money on wheels, in a letter to Treasury Secretary Paulson, House Speaker Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Reid, are asking the Bush administration to provide more aid to the struggling auto industry.
Analyst John McElroy says that if the government doesn't help, things don't look good for the big 3 U.S. automakers.”
“The Democratic leaders in Congress would like to see an expansion of the $700 billion bailout package to include car companies.
Sandy Cosell, Washington.”
Refugees in Congo fleeing the latest round of fighting now have a new potentially far more deadly enemy.
Doctors are struggling to contain a cholera outbreak.
“Putting some of that bailout money on wheels, in a letter to Treasury Secretary Paulson, House Speaker Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Reid, are asking the Bush administration to provide more aid to the struggling auto industry.
Doctors are struggling to contain a cholera outbreak.
Demand on offshore oil-drilling is going to be allowed to expire without another congressional fight.
That would allow Congress to pass a bill that would keep the government running.
“Lifting the drilling ban gives considerable momentum to the underlying bill which includes the Pentagon budget, 24 billion in aid for flood and hurricane victims, and 25 billion in loans for Detroit auto makers.”
The new fiscal year starts next week.
This is the AP's Ross Simpson.
The number of Korean students studying in the United States neared 100,000 in 2006, a 14.8 percent increase from the previous year, according to a recent report released by the U.S. immigration office.
The report said that 93,728 students of all ages from Korea were studying in the nation as of December of last year, which ranked Korea the nation with the most students studying in the United States.
The report also said that Korean students compose 14.9 percent of the total number of foreign students in the United States.
The number of Korean students studying in the United States neared 100,000 in 2006, a 14.8 percent increase from the previous year, according to a recent report released by the U.S. immigration office.
Koreans' spending on overseas studies soared in the first eight months of the year from a year earlier, as an increasing number of high-income earners sent their children overseas for a better education.
Koreans' spending on overseas studies soared in the first eight months of the year from a year earlier, as an increasing number of high-income earners sent their children overseas for a better education.
Koreans do not believe ready-to-eat kimchi.
High school students were ready to take to the streets to criticize the new college admission plan drawn up by the Education Ministry, which they say creates a hypercompetitive school environment.
The first recent voluntary protest by 10th graders on Saturday in Seoul attracted only 350 students, partly because of teachers who threatened their pupils against joining what was initially planned to be a big candlelit rally.
High school students were ready to take to the streets to criticize the new college admission plan drawn up by the Education Ministry, which they say creates a hypercompetitive school environment.
Protests planned in other parts of the country never took place as threats there caused few students to show up.
China had refused U.S. suggestion to cut off fuel supplies to North Korea.
“There is a delay in the implementation of economic compensation obligations to be undertaken by the other countries in the six-party talks,” Hyun Hak Bong, deputy director of the North Korean Foreign Ministry´s American affairs bureau, was quoted as saying late on Wednesday.
”We have no choice but to take measures to adjust” he added, referring to the pace of disablement of the nuclear facilities.
“There is a delay in the implementation of economic compensation obligations to be undertaken by the other countries in the six-party talks,” Hyun Hak Bong, deputy director of the North Korean Foreign Ministry´s American affairs bureau, was quoted as saying late on Wednesday.
”We have no choice but to take measures to adjust” he added, referring to the pace of disablement of the nuclear facilities.
North Korea's leadership demanded an apology yesterday from the United States for labeling the communist state an ""outpost of tyranny,"" while at the same time saying its military was prepared to resume long-range missile testing.
North Korea's leadership demanded an apology yesterday from the United States for labeling the communist state an ""outpost of tyranny,"" while at the same time saying its military was prepared to resume long-range missile testing.
In a lengthy announcement from its Foreign Ministry, the North not only denounced Washington but also criticized the Japanese government for being what it called a pawn of the United States.
Iraq’s new assembly is going to hold its first session.
Army failed to achieve its recruiting goal.
Turkish planes bombed an area of Iraq near the border with Turkey on Tuesday to attack Kurdish separatists and the army said it had killed at least 150 guerrillas in its air offensive earlier this month.
A Turkish military source said warplanes launched the limited strike on Tuesday after spotting Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) guerrillas during a reconnaissance flight.
He said the strike was smaller than others in recent weeks.
Colonel Hussein Tamar, director of Iraq´s border guard command in the northern Kurdish province of Dahuk, told Reuters that villages near the border were hit but nobody was hurt.
The area was depopulated because residents had fled earlier attacks, he said.
The Turkish military also said it killed five members of the PKK on Tuesday in an attack on the outlawed group within Turkey.
The South Korean government is seeking to freeze, not reduce the country's payments for maintaining U.S. forces on the peninsula, a government official said yesterday.
The South Korean government is seeking to freeze, not reduce the country's payments for maintaining U.S. forces on the peninsula, a government official said yesterday.
""Considering that U.S. forces are being reduced by 12,500 and the Yongsan Garrison is being moved, there will be a reduction in the standing cost. Accordingly, we think that our burden has to be reduced,"" the official said.
Last year, Korea paid 668 billion won while a government official said that the U.S. side has indicated it expects the amount to rise next year to about 820 billion won.
Hwang Woo-suk said that he would resume his controversial cloning research again.
President Barack Obama meets in the White House this afternoon with the leaders of two troubled countries, first separately and then together with the presidents of Pakistan and Afghanistan.
AP national security correspondent Sagher Magani reports avoiding civilian casualties will be a key part of the Afghan talks:
With the Red Cross confirming dozens of civilian deaths in US-led air strikes this week, the Coalition once again finds itself trying to make sure it has not alienated the population:
“ What is really important after that is to go through a process of re-establishing links with the population, with the people who have been affected.”
Canadian Brigadier General Richard Blanchette, the chief NATO spokesman in Kabul, telling AP Radio that does not mean paying them off, but rather talking with local elders and reassuring them the military is actually there to help.
And US Defense Secretary Robert Gates is in Afghanistan to get an on-the-ground sense of the security situation.
Two Marine pilots are dead after their Super Cobra helicopter crashed in a remote section of Southern California’s Cleveland National Forest.
“ They're investigating the crash and securing the coordinates.”
The fire was quickly put out.
The fire was quickly put out.
Communist China is cracking down on poor food safety amid a string of scares over toothpaste, pet foods, and other goods.
The government published a five-year plan late on Tuesday to increase inspections and tests on exported food.
Singapore has become the latest country to take action against Chinese toothpaste imports found to contain a chemical contained in anti-freeze.
Communist China is cracking down on poor food safety amid a string of scares over toothpaste, pet foods, and other goods.
A right-wing Japanese politician has attempted to justify plans to fingerprint foreigners by claiming he knows an al-Qaeda member who entered the country illegally.
Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama said the man was a “friend of a friend” who was involved in a bomb attack on Bali.
He produced no evidence to back up his claim, but said it showed the need for stricter checks on overseas visitors.
Later he appeared to backtrack, stressing he had not met the man and could not verify his friend´s claims.
From November 20th almost all foreign visitors and overseas workers will be photographed and fingerprinted as they enter the country.
The draconian measures have already proved controversial, with Amnesty International labeling the system as discriminatory and ”a violation of basic human rights”.
But Hatoyama used the dubious story of the al-Qaeda member to argue that the threat of terrorism justified the new measures.
The minister also claimed his friend had warned him of the Bali bombing - although there have been two major terrorist attacks on the Indonesian island in recent years and he did not specify which one he was referring to.
A right-wing Japanese politician has attempted to justify plans to fingerprint foreigners by claiming he knows an al-Qaeda member who entered the country illegally.
Wagoner was taking his company in the right direction, while many of the bankers in New York are refusing to cooperate with the Federal government, yet they still have their jobs.”
Wall Street is not happy with what Pennsylvania Avenue is demanding of Jefferson Avenue ?
that's where General Motors has its headquarters in Detroit.
Stocks slid more than 200 points on the Dow this morning, on news of the Obama administration's“ tough love” for the auto industry; the Dow now down by more than 250 points.
Administration officials say GM is being given 60 days to restructure; Chrysler is getting 30 days to completely join forces with Fiat of Italy.
President Obama has already gotten the resignation of GM's CEO Rick Wagoner.
Economist Peter Marisi at the University of Maryland doesn't think that was necessary:
Wagoner was taking his company in the right direction, while many of the bankers in New York are refusing to cooperate with the Federal government, yet they still have their jobs.”
The President will try to assure car buyers by announcing that Washington will stand behind GM's and Chrysler's warranties.
Tuesday's election draws the attention to President Bush.
In his weekly radio address, Bush called on the people to go to the polls as an example for emerging democracies around the world:
“Young democracies from Georgia and Ukraine to Afghanistan and Iraq, can look to the United States for proof that self-government can endure.
And nations that still live under tyranny and oppression, can find hope and inspiration in our commitment to liberty.”
Bush, like millions of others, has already cast his ballot by absentee.
Others are waiting in lines, 30+ states that allow early voting ahead of Tuesday's election:
That woman voted early in Tallahassee, Florida.
Election experts predict voter turnout could be the highest since the 1960 election.
Tuesday's election draws the attention to President Bush.
“Young democracies from Georgia and Ukraine to Afghanistan and Iraq, can look to the United States for proof that self-government can endure.
Bush, like millions of others, has already cast his ballot by absentee.
Lee Myung-bak, who took office as the 17th-term President Monday, appealed for change to continue what he called the Great Korea Miracle.
In his inaugural address at the National Assembly, Lee, the first former CEO to serve as President, called 2008 the starting year for advancing Korea.
``The Great Korea Miracle will continue,"" said Lee, a conservative who took office after 10 years of liberal governments led by former Presidents Roh Moo-hyun and Kim Dae-jung.
Meanwhile, the Korea Times quoted US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, attending the inauguration Monday, as saying that South Korea and the United States have enjoyed a wonderful relationship and alliance.
``It is a relationship that has only deepened over the years because we share something very important.
As much as we share strategic efforts, we certainly share common values,´´ Rice told reporters.
The Lebanese prime minister has called for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah militants, saying his country ""has been torn to shreds"".
Fouad Siniora said more than 300 people had been killed and 500,000 others displaced in a week of Israeli attacks.
More than 60 civilians in Lebanon and two children in Israel were killed on Wednesday as violence continued.
Hezbollah denied Israeli claims that a bunker housing its leaders in south Beirut had been bombed overnight.
Israel said a wave of aircraft dropped 23 tonnes of explosives on a bunker in south Beirut where Hezbollah leaders, possibly including senior leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, where believed to hiding.
But Hezbollah issued a statement saying the building targeted was a mosque under construction and ""no Hezbollah leaders or personnel were killed in the strike"".
Twenty-nine Israelis have died - including 15 civilians killed by rocket attacks - since the Israeli offensive against Hezbollah militants began eight days ago.
But Hezbollah issued a statement saying the building targeted was a mosque under construction and ""no Hezbollah leaders or personnel were killed in the strike"".
The capsule lifted off on schedule in a roar of fire and noise from the Russian space program's man-launch facility on the barren steppes of Kazakhstan.
It carries a Russian, an American, and Charles Simonyi, an American software billionaire, who's making his second trip to the station as a paying space tourist.
Shortstop Mikel Tejada, make that Miguel Tejada, of the Houston Astros ?
he is due in Federal court in Washington this hour to be sentenced after pleading guilty to misleading Congress about performance-enhancing drugs in baseball.
Prosecutors in the case are recommending probation for the 5-time All-Star.
It carries a Russian, an American, and Charles Simonyi, an American software billionaire, who's making his second trip to the station as a paying space tourist.
Thousands of people have visited the Moscow church where the body of former Russian President Boris Yeltsin is lying in state to pay their respects.
Lines of mourners filed past Yeltsin’s open casket as priests chanted liturgies at the gold-domed Christ the Savior Cathedral.
The former leader died from heart failure on Monday, aged 76.
A state funeral for Yeltsin will be held today, which has been declared a national day of mourning.
Sporting hero Park Tae-hwan, South Korea’s top swimmer won the 400-meter freestyle title at the International Swimming Federation (FINA) world championships yesterday in Melbourne, Australia.
Park is the first South Korean to win a medal at the biggest international swimming event outside of the Olympics.
The 18-year-old beat second place finisher Oussama Mellouli of Tunisia.
Defending champion Grant Hackett of Australia was third.
Park sprinted past three swimmers over the final 50 meters to win the gold medal.
President George Bush failed to mention Korea while listing the names of its allies in his address to accept his nomination as the Republican candidate for the next presidential election.
Given that Korea sent 3,600 soldiers to Iraq, the third largest number following the U.S. and Britain, his failure to mention Korea has raised suspicion that Bush may not consider Korea an ally.
President George Bush failed to mention Korea while listing the names of its allies in his address to accept his nomination as the Republican candidate for the next presidential election.
As a result, some experts say that the incident would affect the future relationship between the two countries.
The US-backed Iraqi government has said that the executions of two senior associates of former leader Saddam Hussein, will take place some time during the week.
Dabbagh said that while the government respected the UN's view, it also had to respect the victims of Saddam Hussein and what he called ‘his henchmen.’
Ban has been criticized for failing to state the UN's policy of opposing the death penalty.
He said capital punishment “was for each and every member state to decide” - words clearly at odds with the UN's policy of opposing the death penalty.
But in a letter to the Iraqi representative at the UN, Ban urged restraint in carrying out death sentences imposed by the US-directed Iraqi High Tribunal.
Mexico is telling businesses to shut down until next week;
it's also urging residents to stay home - all because of swine flu.
World Health Organization officials are now considering whether to raise the pandemic alert to its highest level;
The WHO's Peter Cordingly says nations need to do whatever it takes to limit the number of new infections:
“ We don't think that the international spread of this virus can be stopped;
what governments have to do is to fight it on their home territory, and that means, if necessary, you know, to vet incoming travelers from infected areas.”
An Obama administration plan to go after employers who knowingly hire and exploit illegal workers is not much different from the Bush administration's.
Among other things, the new rules would impose fines and criminal charges against employers who break the law.
November's election was historic for many reasons;
we're learning more of them this morning.
A new study shows it was the first time African-Americans had the highest turnout of any racial or ethnic group;
among people under the age of 30, turnout also was the most diverse ever.
It was driven by high numbers of black women and Hispanics.
Dow industrials up about 100 points.
World Health Organization officials are now considering whether to raise the pandemic alert to its highest level;
“ We don't think that the international spread of this virus can be stopped;
we're learning more of them this morning.
Carl Gutierrez was acquitted on charges he used government workers and public money to build and improve his cliffside ranch.
A jury in the U.S. territory also cleared Gutierrez's former chief of staff, Gil Shinohara, and former airport manager Gerald Yingling.
Gutierrez, who was governor from 1995 to 2003, was accused of conspiring with Shinohara and Yingling to use government employees and $64,000 in government materials on his two-story ranchhouse.
Six-nation talks on North Korea's nuclear program are to resume on December 18th, Chinese officials say.
A date for the resumption of talks has been long awaited after they stalled a year ago when North Korea walked out in protest at US financial sanctions.
Tensions have been heightened since North Korea carried out a nuclear test on October 9th. The talks, which also involve Russia, South Korea and Japan, will be held in Beijing, China's foreign ministry said.
The new date follows weeks of behind-the-scenes diplomacy led by China following Pyongyang's decision to return to the negotiating table after its October test.
The talks are expected to discuss ways of implementing a joint statement agreed in September 2005, in which North Korea agreed to give up its nuclear ambitions in return for security guarantees, aid and other benefits.
A date for the resumption of talks has been long awaited after they stalled a year ago when North Korea walked out in protest at US financial sanctions.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has urged South Korea to pay more for the presence of U.S. forces on the Korean Peninsula in accordance with Seoul’s increasing role in defending the country, government sources said on Sunday.
Rumsfeld also reaffirmed in a letter to Defense Minister Yoon Kwang-ung in mid-August that Washington wants to transfer operational control over South Korean troops to the South Korean military by 2009 when the relocation of U.S. bases is completed.
South Korea and the United States are in the final stage of charting a roadmap for their command rearrangements, including the transfer of wartime control, as Seoul sets 2012 as deadline for taking over the authority.
Rumsfeld also reaffirmed in a letter to Defense Minister Yoon Kwang-ung in mid-August that Washington wants to transfer operational control over South Korean troops to the South Korean military by 2009 when the relocation of U.S. bases is completed.
' allies by saying, ``The interests of America, Britain, Australia, France, Norway, Poland, South Korea and Japan are everywhere.''
CNN quoted a CIA official as saying it had ``high confidence'' that the tape was of al-Zawahiri, the second in command of al-Qaida.
It is not clear when the tape was made.
It is not clear when the tape was made.
A senior North Korean official in charge of inter-Korean affairs will visit Seoul this week to discuss ways to implement agreements made at a recent summit of the two Koreas and to tour major industrial complexes, officials said Wednesday.
2-4 summit, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun and the North Korean leader Kim Jong-il agreed to significantly expand exchanges and economic cooperation between the two Koreas.
The summit was followed by the inter-Korean prime ministerial talks held in Seoul earlier this month for the first time in 15 years.
The talks ended with an agreement to begin a freight train service through the heavily fortified inter-Korean border on Dec.
11 and other inter-Korean economic cooperation projects.
During his visit, Hu reportedly won a pledge from Kim that North Korea would take part in the next scheduled round of six-nation talks on its nuclear program, due to take place in November.
President Hu Jintao has wrapped up a rare visit to North Korea, the first by Communist China's most senior leader since 2001.
The three-day trip came amid efforts to organize a new round of international talks on Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program.
China, as the North's major aid donor, is thought to bear some influence.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il was at Pyongyang's airport Sunday for Hu's departure, China's official Xinhua news agency reported.
Foreign ambassadors to Seoul think Korea has average or below market openness.
The head of the firm's Seoul branch and an executive at LG Group will also be indicted, prosecutors said.
In another action sure to reduce foreign financial confidence in Korea, Seoul prosecutors at the financial crime investigation unit said yesterday they planned to indict Warburg Pincus, a private U.S. equity investment company, for allegedly using insider information in its stock trading here.
The head of the firm's Seoul branch and an executive at LG Group will also be indicted, prosecutors said.
What is a result of a minister’s trip?
PAPA had its inaugural assembly.
Asian nations pledged to work together to address an ongoing history dispute as Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's repeated visits to a national shrine that honors Japan's war casualties and a number of war criminals has ratcheted up tension in the region.
At the end of the inaugural assembly of the Parliamentarians' Alliance for Peace in Asia (PAPA), over 60 lawmakers from 11 countries adopted a joint declaration of peace and a charter that calls for joint studies into the countries' shared past to correct any controversial anomalies.
The assembly was held amid a renewed dispute over Japan's attempts to glorify its past aggression on neighboring states after Koizumi's recent visit to the Yasukuni Shrine, his fifth since taking office in 2001.
The shrine pays homage to millions of Japanese war dead, including 14 class A World War II criminals.
Demonstrations in the airport won't be allowed any more.
Insurgents tried to break through the U.S. cordon surrounding Fallujah on Thursday as American forces launched an offensive against concentrations of militants in the south of the city.
Some 600 insurgents, 18 U.S. troops and five Iraqi soldiers have been killed in the four-day assault, the U.S. military said.
In an apparent bid to relieve pressure on their trapped allies, insurgents mounted major attacks in Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city 220 miles to the north.
Guerrillas assaulted nine police stations, overturning several, and battled U.S. and Iraqi troops around bridges across the Tigris River in the city, where a curfew was imposed a day earlier.
There have been sharp exchanges in the US House of Representatives at the start of a marathon debate on Iraq.
Legislators will vote on a non-binding resolution opposing President George W Bush's decision to send extra troops.
Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the US public had lost faith in the president's strategy.
Republican minority leader John Boehner said attempts to undermine US policy would embolden terrorists worldwide.
The resolution was introduced.
Each member will have five minutes to speak ahead of vote.
This is the first full debate in the House since the Democrats took control of Congress in November.
At the heart of the debate is the decision by President Bush to send an extra 21,500 US troops to try to restore stability in Iraq.
Pelosi said the US commitment in Iraq had “no end in sight” and there should be ”no more blank checks”.
”The American people have lost faith in President Bush's course of action in Iraq and they are demanding a new direction,” she said.
Pelosi said the US commitment in Iraq had “no end in sight” and there should be ”no more blank checks”.
President Barack Obama says it's time to change the way things are done in the nation's capital:
I work for the American people.”
In his weekly radio and Internet address, Obama says he will fight the lobbies and others who oppose his $3.6 trillion budget.
In the Republican address, North Carolina Senator Richard Burr says Obama's plan, coupled with the just-passed Recovery Act, plunge the country deep into the red:
“ Like a family that finds itself choking under the weight of credit card balances and finance charges, the federal government is quickly obligating the American people with similar fates.”
President Barack Obama says it's time to change the way things are done in the nation's capital:
In an attempt to jump-start the stalled talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons program, and perhaps lay the groundwork for another inter-Korean summit, Seoul intends to send a special envoy to the North before the end of the year, high-ranking administration officials told the Joong Ang Ilbo yesterday.
In an attempt to jump-start the stalled talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons program, and perhaps lay the groundwork for another inter-Korean summit, Seoul intends to send a special envoy to the North before the end of the year, high-ranking administration officials told the Joong Ang Ilbo yesterday.
Korea Express will agree to take over the Libyan waterway project.
Ambitious prosecutors investigating an alleged behind-the-scenes money transfer in exchange for a proportional representation seat in the National Assembly have banned lawmaker-elect Yang Jung-rye from leaving the country.
Her mother, identified as Kim, is also under a travel ban from Thursday.
The travel ban came one day after the prosecutors´ raid of Yang´s home and the office of a construction company run by her mother and a social welfare center in Seoul at which Yang worked.
Investigators claimed they secured sufficient documents, accounting ledgers and computer files required to probe the so-called money-for-parliamentary seat scandal through the search.
The government is considering measures to more aggressively counter Japan's provocative movements, including one to allow more South Koreans to visit the Tokto islets in the East Sea, government sources said Sunday.
The Seoul government, which has remained cautious on relevant matters in consideration of diplomatic relations with Japan, seems to have shifted gears following the Japanese central government's hands-off attitude regarding the Shimane Prefectural Council's move to lay claim to South Korea's easternmost islets.
Last Thursday, a panel of the Japanese provincial council passed an ordinance bill to designate Feb.
22 as ``Takeshima Day,'' which awaits a floor vote in the plenary session Wednesday.
President Roh Moo-hyun said he is open to the possibility of leaving the ruling Uri Party if it would help push through a constitutional amendment to allow for two consecutive, four-year presidential terms.
His remarks came in the face of growing opposition from political circles and the public to his proposal, which-according to the Korea Herald- is largely seen as an electoral ploy.
Even some Uri Party officials are becoming increasingly skeptical.
””I can consider leaving the party if the opposition parties ask for it in exchange for a constitutional change,”” he said in a televised news conference.
It has been widely speculated that he could resign early if the revision is scuttled by the opposition.
His remarks came in the face of growing opposition from political circles and the public to his proposal, which-according to the Korea Herald- is largely seen as an electoral ploy.
Stephen Hawking, condemned the U.S. led invasion of Iraq.
Similar events were being held in Spain, Italy, Australia, the United States and Iraq.
Britain's most famous scientist, Stephen Hawking, condemned the U.S. led invasion of Iraq as a ``war crime'' and said Tuesday it was based on lies.
The physicist spoke at an anti-war demonstration in London's Trafalgar Square timed to coincide with the U.S. election.
Protesters read out the names of thousands of Iraqis and coalition troops killed since the March 2003 invasion.
``The war was based on two lies,'' said Hawking.
``The first was we were in danger of weapons of mass destruction and the second was that Iraq was somehow to blame for Sept.
Hawking, the best-selling author of ``A Brief History Of Time,'' was joined by other public figures.
Similar events were being held in Spain, Italy, Australia, the United States and Iraq.
Government sources said China, the host of the talks, suggested opening the negotiations from Tuesday, and other members did not object.
The talks have been stalemated for 13 months because of a boycott which North Korea finally decided to end July 9.
Korea's political parties and legal experts generally agreed that the nominees were an uncontroversial group of moderate conservatives.
Lee Hong-hoon of the Seoul Central District Court, Park Ill-hwan of the Seoul Western District Court, Kim Neung-hwan of the Ulsan District Court and Chon Soo-an of the Gwangju District Court.
The fifth nominee is Ahn Dae-hee, the head of the Seoul High Prosecutors Office.
The National Assembly will hold confirmation hearings within 20 days of Roh's formal nomination. A majority of a quorum of the Assembly must vote to confirm such nominees before they can take their seats.
The Blue House said yesterday that President Roh Moo-hyun had quickly agreed to forward to the National Assembly the names of five nominees to fill seats on the Supreme Court that will be vacant in July.
Korea's political parties and legal experts generally agreed that the nominees were an uncontroversial group of moderate conservatives.
“ This is Paul Harvey.
The voice was unmistakable.
Paul Harvey used his staccato-style delivery to tell all kinds of stories:
“ Really, it's not much more than what interests me, and/or what I detect in my travels to be interesting to the most people.”
He said had a love affair with radio:
“ As a boy I fell in love with words, ran away from home and joined the radio, and it really was something.”
Harvey died Saturday, surrounded by family, at a hospital in Phoenix.
The Coast Guard says it's received no distress signal from a fishing boat that disappeared off Florida's Gulf Coast over the weekend ?
with 4 football players aboard.
No, I'm not going to do the impression here.
He said had a love affair with radio:
How do you fix the world's most expensive health care system?
President Barack Obama has called a summit to get some ideas today, and Associated Press correspondent Mark Smith is live at the White House to tell us about it:
“ Jon, the President summoned 120 experts - from doctors and patients' advocates to executives of drug and insurance companies, even some who helped kill the Clinton health plan.
”“ How to get health care costs under control, and how to do it this year.”
“ That's White House domestic policy chief Melanie Barnes, who says Obama seeks a bipartisan effort.
Joining her on the NBC Today Show, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Republicans are ready:
”“ I think he could get an extraordinary achievement which would help average Americans have health coverage.”
The California Supreme Court hears arguments in San Francisco today on the constitutionality of the state's voter-approved ban on gay marriage.
Police in Whittier, California, have released a frantic 9-1-1 call made last October by the woman who went on to have 8 babies in January:
Nadia Suleyman says she can't find her 5-year-old son:
“ Don't say that in front of your other child, okay?”
That's the 9-1-1 operator.
The boy turned up a few minutes later;
How do you fix the world's most expensive health care system?
“ Jon, the President summoned 120 experts - from doctors and patients' advocates to executives of drug and insurance companies, even some who helped kill the Clinton health plan.
”“ How to get health care costs under control, and how to do it this year.”
Joining her on the NBC Today Show, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Republicans are ready:
The boy turned up a few minutes later;
orth Korea's Foreign Minister Paek Nam-sun has died, according to the country's official media.
In a one-sentence dispatch, North Korea's KCNA news agency said the North's leader Kim Jong-il expressed his condolences over Paek's death.
SK Telecom Co.President Kim, “There is no logic in blocking TV programming from satellite-based DMB.”
The Korean Broadcasting Commission announced last week that it would not allow the retransmission of ground-based broadcasts on satellite-based mobile television, preventing mobile-phone operators from accessing programs from the country's main television stations KBS, MBC and SBS.
""With terrestrial television programs already marketed on third-generation mobile services such as 'June' or 'Fimm,' there is no logic in blocking them from satellite-based DMB,"" said Kim, in a Seoul news conference yesterday.
Prime ministers from North and South Korea have met for the first time in 15 years, in talks aimed at improving ties on the divided peninsula.
North Korean Prime Minister Kim Yong-il will spend three days in the South Korean capital, Seoul, in discussions with counterpart Han Duck-soo.
Talks are expected to focus on joint economic projects and a sea border row.
The meeting follows October´s historic summit in Pyongyang between the two countries´ presidents.
The summit, between the North´s Kim Jong-il and the South´s Roh Moo-hyun, was only the second such meeting since the Korean peninsula was partitioned over half a century ago.
The two presidents signed an accord calling for greater peace and economic partnership, despite the two countries remaining technically at war with each other.
The prime ministers will now use their meeting to discuss more specific proposals.
North Korean Prime Minister Kim Yong-il will spend three days in the South Korean capital, Seoul, in discussions with counterpart Han Duck-soo.
Washington has dismissed concerns that Tokyo's diplomatic conflicts with Beijing and Seoul have impeded cooperation on the six-nation talks aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear weapons program.
Richard Boucher, spokesman of the U.S. State Department, said in a daily press briefing on April 13 that the dispute had not affected the approach to the nuclear issue.
The National Tax Service has started raids on overseas investment funds.
South Korea's Unification Minister said on Monday that the fatal train explosion in the North would not affect six-way talks aimed at resolving the 18-month standoff over Pyongyang's nuclear arms program.
South Korea's Unification Minister said on Monday that the fatal train explosion in the North would not affect six-way talks aimed at resolving the 18-month standoff over Pyongyang's nuclear arms program.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon yesterday voiced concern over talk in Japan of a nuclear weapons program following North Korea's test last month.
“On the option of nuclear arms, which some powerful Japanese politicians have debated since North Korea's test, I would like to express concerns,” Ban said in a news conference in Tokyo.
He said his concern was not just as ”South Korea's foreign minister but also as the next U.N. secretary-general.”
Ban was on a two-day visit to Japan as the U.N. chief-designate.
High-ranking and right-wing officials in Japan, including Foreign Minister Taro Aso and ruling party policy chief Shoichi Nakagawa, have called for the government to start reviewing the possibility of developing nuclear weapons against the threat of North Korea.
Based on a 1967 policy, Japan has sworn off developing nuclear arms, after becoming the first and only country to have been attacked by the catastrophic weapon in 1945.
The North's official news agency KCNA has announced ``blastings at construction sites of hydro-power stations in the north of Korea'' had taken place.
North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam Sun told the same to visiting British Foreign Office minister Bill Rammell.
In an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp., Rammell said Paek told him the blast ``wasn't an accident, that it wasn't a nuclear explosion, that it was a deliberate detonation of a mountain as part of a hydroelectric project.''
Rammell said the North Koreans ``have nothing to fear and nothing to hide and should welcome the international community actually verifying the situation for themselves.''
The North's official news agency KCNA has announced ``blastings at construction sites of hydro-power stations in the north of Korea'' had taken place.
An elected parliament has convened in Thailand for the first time since the military illegally seized power in a coup in September 2006.
An elected parliament has convened in Thailand for the first time since the military illegally seized power in a coup in September 2006.
The session follows polls in December and the announcement on Saturday of the formation of a six-party coalition led by the People Power Party (PPP).
The number of prisoner deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan known to be under U.S. investigation or already blamed on Americans rose to 14 on Wednesday, including two additional deaths being scrutinized by the CIA's inspector general as Congress put new pressure on the Bush administration to disclose everything it knows.
George W. Bush appeared on Arab television to condemn the abuses, the day after the Army disclosed that it is conducting criminal investigations of 10 prisoner deaths in U.S. custody in Iraq and Afghanistan, plus another 10 abuse cases.
In addition, the deaths of two Iraqi prisoners already have been ruled homicides, the Army said Tuesday.
In one case, a soldier was court-martialed, reduced in rank and discharged from the Army.
The U.S. ambassador visited to Yanbu in Saudi.
A stronger open for the US stock market this morning ?
investors returning to the fold, looking for bargains after 5 straight days of heavy selling.
The Dow has been up more than 100 points in the first half hour.
This, after a decent day for Asian and European stocks, a day based not on optimism about the American economy, but about China coming up with a stimulus plan of its own:
“ The news out of the US economy continues to be bad, and people are looking with some optimism that China might be able to take up some of the slack from the slowdown in the US economy.”
The Obama administration is announcing details of a program to help as many as 9 million Americans refinance and stay in their homes, and a separate presidential plan is coming out this hour to cut down on wasteful spending on government contracts.
The AP's Rita Foley in Washington says Barack Obama is about to unveil it:
“ Officials say the idea is to make it more difficult for government contractors to bilk taxpayers, and make a half trillion dollars in yearly business more open to independent contracting.”
investors returning to the fold, looking for bargains after 5 straight days of heavy selling.
The Korea Times reports gender bias has continued despite rapid development over the past decades, especially with male favoritism at home and in workplaces.
Korean students still show a lack of awareness about gender bias.
They have stereotyped gender roles as did their parents, whose traditional values mostly continue to affect their way of thinking.
According to a survey released by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, Korean teens stereotyped culture, entertainment, interiors and fashion as feminine professions, but sports, automobiles, computers and machines as masculine occupations.
China has slapped an import ban on South Korean-made kimchi and side dishes in retaliation against Seoul’s steps to strengthen quarantine against Chinese kimchi following the discovery of parasite eggs in them.
The products banned by Beijing included kimchi, red-pepper paste and seasoning for pulgogi, produced by 10 companies.
The ban came a day after the Chinese authorities announced on Monday that parasite eggs were discovered in the South Korean food made from red peppers and cabbage.
In response, the Seoul government said on Tuesday that it will conduct investigations into the affected products to determine the truth of the allegations, while trying to hold a high-level consultative meeting to resolve the looming ``kimchi trade war’’ before it gets out of hand.
China’s General Administration of Quality Supervision Inspection and Quarantine posted on its Web site the names of the affected Korean food products.
Japan and North start talks on recognition.
Opposition Grand National Party lawmakers denounced the government yesterday, accusing it of abusing new legislation governing newspapers and trying to control the press.
Opposition Grand National Party lawmakers denounced the government yesterday, accusing it of abusing new legislation governing newspapers and trying to control the press.
The new regulations call for publishers to receive newspaper promotion funds from the ministry.
But according to the ministry clauses released this week, subsidies will be provided only if the publishers meet conditions such as having editorial committees made up equally of members from labor and management.
North and South Korea will hold talks after 10-month interregnal.
A new study shows 90% of them got written up for problems last year.
Heads up if you're parents or grandparents, or in a nursing home.
A new study shows 90% of them got written up for problems last year.
“That 90% rate has changed very little over the past 3 years.
Federal investigators say the typical nursing home was cited for seven health and safety deficiencies last year, the most common problem centering on quality of care, including appropriate treatment for bed sores.
Common quality of life deficiencies involved housekeeping or meals.
About 1 in 5 homes surveyed last year were cited for the immediate jeopardy of patients, or actual harm.
Forest Service says more than 800 firefighters are battling a wildfire in California's Los Padres National Forest;
nearly doubled in size yesterday.
White Sox beat the Tigers last night, meaning Chicago hosts the Twins tonight in a one-game playoff for the title in the American League Central.
US Marine commanders have defended their decision not to send troops into Falluja to quell the macabre disturbances that followed after four American civilians were killed and their bodies dragged through the streets.
More than 4,000 marines are stationed near the restive town in the Sunni Triangle but when the violence broke out on Wednesday and the streets of Falluja exploded in mayhem, Marine commanders decided not to intervene.
As the rage cooled and life got back to normal in Falluja yesterday, many townspeople said they felt a mixture of pride and shame.
US Marine commanders have defended their decision not to send troops into Falluja to quell the macabre disturbances that followed after four American civilians were killed and their bodies dragged through the streets.
As the rage cooled and life got back to normal in Falluja yesterday, many townspeople said they felt a mixture of pride and shame.
And shame in watching the bodies get ripped apart and mutilated, a grave sin in Islam.
Hong Kong protests Beijing’s plan to restrict its movement toward democracy.
Registration for election in April is began.
Ford is announcing more layoffs this morning as unemployment hits a 14-year high.
This time, another 2,200 white collar jobs are going away.
The car company lost nearly a $130 million in the third quarter.
Constant Butler understands she lost her production job in Chicago a while ago:
And other companies are cutting back all across the economy, eliminating another 240,000 jobs last month-that's more than expected.
The chief economist John Silvia of Wachovia says it's not over yet:
“You'll probably see in the next two to three months, at least one or possibly two months with 300,000 job losses.
I think that uh, jobs losses will continue probably through February or March of next year.”
This time, another 2,200 white collar jobs are going away.
The 2,800 South Korean troops deployed in the Kurdish autonomous region of Irbil in northern Iraq have been ordered not to leave their compound after an unidentified explosive device went off Wednesday just outside the base.
The 2,800 South Korean troops deployed in the Kurdish autonomous region of Irbil in northern Iraq have been ordered not to leave their compound after an unidentified explosive device went off Wednesday just outside the base.
The Korea Herald reports the explosion killed a flock of 24 sheep, which were in a pasture some 800 meters toward downtown Irbil from the camp's main gate, but no human casualties or injuries were reported, officials said.
The incident comes as the Korean troops have been told to keep a low posture following a series of terrorist threats against them.
Stephen Hawking, the famed mathematician, is seriously ill.
Cambridge University said Hawking was being treated at a hospital for complications related to a chest infection.
Hawking had canceled an appearance at Arizona State University on April 6 because of his illness.
The sixty-seven-year-old, renowned for his work on black holes, has remained active despite being diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease at the age of 21.
Hawking announced last year that he would step down from his post as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, a title once held by the great 18th century physicist Isaac Newton, at the end of this academic year.
Diane Kepley, The Associated Press.
Hawking had canceled an appearance at Arizona State University on April 6 because of his illness.
Daylight Time starts this weekend.
“ Congress added a month to Daylight Time back in 2005 to save energy, designating the second Sunday in March as the trigger point, but this year, because of the calendar, daylight time is making the earliest appearance it can make under the new law.
All states except Arizona and Hawaii utilize DST, along with parts of Indiana, which stay on Standard Time all year.
And now the Montana Legislature is thinking about scrapping Daylight Time.
Anyway, set clocks ahead one hour Saturday night before retiring.
” Time for Larry David to put a Seinfeld reunion together:
the creator of the classic comedy is writing Jerry Seinfeld, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, Jason Alexander and Michael Richards into several episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm in his current show's upcoming season on HBO.
An early heads-up here:
Daylight Time starts this weekend.
All states except Arizona and Hawaii utilize DST, along with parts of Indiana, which stay on Standard Time all year.
And now the Montana Legislature is thinking about scrapping Daylight Time.
” Time for Larry David to put a Seinfeld reunion together:
He knew how to avoid the pass rush in the NFL, and Michael Vick managed to avoid the media when he slipped out of Federal prison in Kansas early this morning.
His lawyer says the former Falcons quarterback convicted in connection with dog-fighting is headed for a couple more months of home confinement in Virginia.
“ I guess his first priority will be spending time with his fiancee and with his children, and winging his way back to the NFL and convincing the American people that he's not the monster that he was made out to be during his trial.”
If all goes well and the NFL lets him in, Vick will be free to report to summer camp in late July.
Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd is brushing aside talk that credit will be more scarce if Congress approves the credit card bill that's up for a final vote in the House today.
Dodd calls yesterday's Senate vote a great day for consumers, but adds that doesn't mean we're free and clear to be irresponsible with our cards:
“ There are responsibilities that consumers face, they've got to be responsible, but they also have rights.”
Dodd this morning on the CBS Early Show.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says a nuclear-armed Iran would spark an arms race in the Middle East.
She's appearing before a Senate panel right now, and so far has not commented directly on reports of Iranian missile testing.
Fresh information this morning about a big domestic issue that President Elect Obama pressed with President Bush yesterday in their Oval Office meeting.
It has to do with Detroit, the shortage of cash, and all the fear in the auto industry.
We got the story live from the White House, with AP correspondent Mark Smith,
“John, an Obama spokesman says the President Elect urged Bush to do what he can as soon as he can to help the U.S. automakers hard hit by both high gas prices and the financial crisis.
The administration has been working on a $25 billion loan Congress approved but is looking at other options, perhaps including cash from the financial bailout plan.
Plus, the White House says it's all ears if lawmakers have other ideas when they return to work next week.”
But for now, Mark, the President is focusing on America's vets on this Veterans' Day?
A live report from White House correspondent Mark Smith in Europe:
They call this Remembrance Day, or Armistice Day, and leaders of United Europe marked the 90th anniversary of the end of World War I this morning.
French President Nicolas Sarcozy and Britain's Prince Charles attended the solemn ceremony near one of the conflict's bloodiest battlefields in France.
It has to do with Detroit, the shortage of cash, and all the fear in the auto industry.
Plus, the White House says it's all ears if lawmakers have other ideas when they return to work next week.”
But for now, Mark, the President is focusing on America's vets on this Veterans' Day?
“Indeed he is, John, he is en route to New York right now to pay tribute to vets in a speech from the deck of an aircraft carrier-that would be the USS Intrepid, a World War II-era ship that's now a floating museum, John?
The Korea Times reports the ruling Uri Party on Monday proposed an income tax cut by one percentage point and additional government spending of 5.5 trillion won next year in a policy bid to stimulate the economy.
The Korea Times reports the ruling Uri Party on Monday proposed an income tax cut by one percentage point and additional government spending of 5.5 trillion won next year in a policy bid to stimulate the economy.
Kang Young-woo, a member of the National Council on Disability at the White House, was known to have played a key role in attempting to realize a meeting between Lee and Bush.
President George W. Bush and presidential nominee Lee Myung-bak of the main opposition Grand National Party (GNP).GNP spokeswoman Na Kyung-won, however, said Lee will continue to conduct economic and energy diplomacy by visiting China, Japan, Russia and the U.S. ahead of the December presidential election
U.S. National Security Council (NSC) spokesman Gordon Johndroe said that the U.S. does not want to get involved in South Korea´s election politics, and hopes to continue cooperative relations with the next president, according to Yonhap News.
Before the statement by Johndroe, GNP leaders said that they had not heard about any change in the proposed meeting.
After the White House denial of the meeting, criticism arose regarding the party´s mishandling of the affair.
Critics said that it was inappropriate for the opposition party to seek a presidential meeting through the nominee´s personal network, not going through official diplomatic channels.
Kang Young-woo, a member of the National Council on Disability at the White House, was known to have played a key role in attempting to realize a meeting between Lee and Bush.
Opponents also said that the office of the presidential nominee made a public relations blunder as they made news of the meeting public when it had not been officially confirmed by the White House.
One of Asia´s most notorious warlords, Khun Sa, has died in the Burmese city of Rangoon.
He had reportedly been suffering from diabetes and high blood pressure.
After decades of guerrilla warfare against the Burmese government, largely funded by his drugs empire, Khun Sa signed a peace deal in 1996.
He then retired to Rangoon, where he lived under the protection of the military rulers, despite the US offering 2 million dollars(£1m) for his capture.
The party said the agreement will weaken national security and the nation's alliance with Washington amid what it claimed was a heightening threat from North Korea.
The agreement was reached Friday during the Security Consultative Meeting between defense chiefs of the two countries.
Combined Forces Command will be dismantled and replaced by a consultative body between the two separate national commands.
The ruling Uri Party hailed it as an opportunity to develop the alliance to a ”future-oriented” one.
The party said the agreement will weaken national security and the nation's alliance with Washington amid what it claimed was a heightening threat from North Korea.
A Senate committee vote on President George W Bush's nomination of John Bolton to become the next US ambassador to the UN has been further delayed.
The vote is now scheduled to take place in May to allow hearings on new allegations against him.
The decision was made after Republican senator George Voinovich indicated he would side with the Democrats who oppose Bolton's nomination.
Bolton has been accused of being a poor manager and shaping intelligence.
AIDS epidemic in India should be taken as a serious problem.
Burma’s military government appointed a liaison for Ms.
Burma´s military rulers have appointed an official to liaise with detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi in an apparent concession to the UN.
Aung Kyi, a retired general currently serving as deputy labor minister, was appointed to “continue relations [with her] in the future”, state TV said.
The appointment of a go-between was an issue raised by a UN envoy visiting after September´s bloody crackdown.
A BBC correspondent has heard fresh accounts of the military´s brutality.
The reporter who spent three days undercover in Rangoon and who met two fugitive monks, heard that in one neighborhood that the army had disposed of the bodies of monks killed during the crackdown by burning them in the local crematorium.
The military government is also reported to be holding monks in disused municipal buildings and even those citizens who applauded the monks during their demonstrations are being hunted down.
The atmosphere in Burma´s main city is described as tense and fearful.
The newly-installed Iraqi interim government will bring Saddam Hussein to trial Thursday to face war crimes charges likely to include the 1988 chemical weapons massacre of Kurds and the 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
Already there are pretrial negotiations over permitting Saddam's foreign legal team to work in Iraq, whether to televise the proceedings and whether to reinstate the harshest penalty in Iraq's legal code: hanging by the neck until dead.
Iraq will take legal custody of Saddam from the U.S. Army on Wednesday and the former dictator is to make his first court appearance Thursday, where he will be informed of the charges in his arrest warrant, Prime Minister Iyad Allawi announced on Tuesday.
The newly-installed Iraqi interim government will bring Saddam Hussein to trial Thursday to face war crimes charges likely to include the 1988 chemical weapons massacre of Kurds and the 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
Iraq will take legal custody of Saddam from the U.S.
Relations between President Roh Moo-hyun and the governing Uri Party were aggravated by Roh’s contentious nomination for the post of Constitutional Court chief, and following his withdrawal of the nomination, both sides seem to be preparing to bid each other farewell.
Kim Han-gill and several other senior party lawmakers Tuesday requested that Roh focus on reviving the economy and dealing with diplomatic issues, instead of meddling in politics.
``Both the party and Chong Wa Dae should respect each other and try to normalize the relationship,’’ Kim said.
``It's the party members, not the president, who should take care of political issues.
Roh should concentrate his efforts on the economy and security issues.’
How did the Financial Crisis Affect the Race?
“Mike Tanner of the Cato Institute says Republican John McCain was doing alright until the economy melted down.”
“The race was pretty much dead even until the financial collapse.
John McCain did not look good during the two weeks of the financial collapse.
Plus he was pushed off message, forced to talk about issues he really wasn't comfortable on.
I think that helped him a great deal.
The polls really shot up.”
“Rita Foley, Washington.”
Characters from the Winnie the Pooh story are brightening one of the many vacant homes in the Michigan industrial city of Flint.
Some beautification amid the economic doldrums;
donations and grant money covered the art supplies.
“Mike Tanner of the Cato Institute says Republican John McCain was doing alright until the economy melted down.”
John McCain did not look good during the two weeks of the financial collapse.
The Korea Times reports the ruling Uri Party and two minor oppositions, the Democratic Labor Party (DLP) and the Millennium Democratic Party (MDP), agreed Thursday to jointly submit a bill to abolish the National Security Law, the half-century-old anticommunist apparatus of the capitalist South Korea.
The Korea Times reports the ruling Uri Party and two minor oppositions, the Democratic Labor Party (DLP) and the Millennium Democratic Party (MDP), agreed Thursday to jointly submit a bill to abolish the National Security Law, the half-century-old anticommunist apparatus of the capitalist South Korea.
Authorities vowed to enforce penalties for the sex trade and trafficking.
The Korean government issued a typhoon warning on southern coastal areas yesterday as powerful Typhoon Nabi approached the peninsula.
The typhoon was packing winds of up to 162 kilometers per hour as of yesterday morning as it barreled toward Japan's southernmost main island of Kyushu.
The 14th named storm of the season is expected to pass though the Korea Strait tomorrow morning, according to the Korea Meteorological Administration.
Even though Nabi is unlikely to hit the peninsula directly and has weakened somewhat, the KMA forecast it will bring up to 100 mm of rain and strong winds in the southern parts of Korea today.
The typhoon has already caused high waves and heavy rains in the southern coast yesterday, forcing the cancellation of flights and ferry services.
The National Emergency Management Agency ordered the closure of the airport in the southeastern city of Pohang, leading to flight cancellations at Korean Air Lines and Asiana Airlines.
Amid soaring crude oil prices, the refineries increased consumer prices, thus expanding sales margins.
However, South Korean refineries raised profits by deciding consumer prices based on the most recent international crude oil prices despite their oil reserves, they argue. The Korea Times reports major South Korean oil refineries and gas stations are enjoying increasing profits despite surging international crude oil prices.
SK Corporation and S-Oil recently decided to offer their employees large financial incentives as their sales reached all-time highs this year.
Amid soaring crude oil prices, the refineries increased consumer prices, thus expanding sales margins.
Agents of oil providers, who supply oil from refineries to retailers, have also been extremely profitable.
In terms of gasoline, their sales margin increased from 3.18 won per liter in June to 4.31 won in July, up 58.9 percent from 2.54 won per liter the previous year.
Market watchers say import prices for crude oil are usually determined one month before the shipment is made.
Seoul City submitted a written opinion to the Constitutional Court.
Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon returned from New York yesterday morning after being formally designated the next secretary-general of the United Nations.
South Korea has something to celebrate despite the aggravating tension on the Korean Peninsula after North Korea's nuclear test last week.
Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon returned from New York yesterday morning after being formally designated the next secretary-general of the United Nations.
Syria decided to move troops to eastern Lebanon, following 16-year-old agreement.
Tens of thousands of Lebanese have taken to the streets to protest against Syria's military and political group on its tiny neighbor since a huge bomb killed Lebanon's former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri in Beirut last week.
Syria said it Thursday planned to pull back more troops to eastern Lebanon in line with a 16-year-old agreement and Lebanon's defense minister said troops would be on the move soon.
Damascus was ready to work with the United Nations to implement a Security Council resolution demanding its 14,000 troops leave Lebanon, Deputy Foreign Minister Waleed al-Mualem said, in apparent response to international pressure.
A suicide car bomber killed 12 people and injured 35 people in Iraq.
˝A Taiwanese China Airlines plane has burst into flames at Naha airport, on the Japanese island of Okinawa.
All 165 people on board survived, with some escaping just seconds before the plane exploded into a huge fireball.
TV images showed flames and smoke billowing from the Boeing 737-800, and the pilot jumping out of the cockpit window as the plane exploded.
Some reports said the left engine of the plane caught fire, but the airline said the cause was not yet known.
“Everything was normal, including take-off and landing, until the pilots were told the airplane was on fire,” China Airlines spokesman Johnson Sun said.
”Then the crew on board immediately took the due procedure to evacuate all the passengers.”
The plane had been on a routine flight from the Taiwanese capital, Taipei, to the southern Japanese island of Okinawa, carrying 157 passengers and eight crew.
Once the fire had been extinguished, an hour later, the plane was found to have broken into two.˝
The appointment of a communist Chinese judge to the highest court in the World Trade Organization (WTO) has been blocked by Taiwan in a surprise decision.
Taiwan lodged its objection citing fears of bias and the step forced a meeting on the matter to be adjourned.
Communist China´s Zhang Yuejiao was among four candidates nominated to the WTO´s seven-member Appellate Body in June.
She would have been China´s first judge on the body, which rules on trade disputes between WTO member states.
Beijing regards the island of Taiwan - which has been under democratic self-rule since the end of the civil war in 1949 - as a renegade province which should eventually be reunified with the communist mainland.
It consistently blocks Taiwanese attempts to join United Nations bodies, but has made an exception for economic organizations such as the WTO.
Taiwan lodged its objection citing fears of bias and the step forced a meeting on the matter to be adjourned.
Prices and probably interest rates are still falling along with the overall economy.
We'll start with consumer prices.
The Labor Department reports they plunged another 1.7 percent last month, a record for the 61 years the government has been tracking the numbers.
Energy prices were the big reason they fell almost twice as much as in October.
Business economist Peter Morici of the University of Maryland says this is dragging a lot of things down with it.
“We've already seen reports from manufacturers that they're having to cut prices to sell their products to retailers, and retailers in turn are discounting heavily for the Christmas season.”
Now the trick for the Federal Reserve is to avoid deflation, a prolonged plunge in prices that could extend the recession.
The Central Bank is expected to cut a key interest rate another half point today, meaning almost free money going out the door at a half percent.
Business economist Peter Morici of the University of Maryland says this is dragging a lot of things down with it.
Bhutto - the first woman PM in an Islamic state - was leaving an election rally in Rawalpindi when a gunman shot her in the neck and then set off a bomb.
The BBC reports least 20 other people died in the attack and several more were injured.
President Pervez Musharraf has urged people to remain calm but angry protests have gripped some cities, with at least 11 deaths reported.
Security forces have been placed on a state of “red alert” nationwide.
There were no immediate claims of responsibility for the attack.
Analysts believe Islamist militants allied to General Musharraf to be the most likely group behind it.
Bhutto, leader of the Pakistan People´s Party (PPP), had served as prime minister from 1988-1990 and 1993-1996, and had been campaigning ahead of elections due on January 8th.
It was the second suicide attack against her in recent months and came amid a wave of bombings targeting security and government officials.
Nawaz Sharif, also a former prime minister and a political rival, announced his Muslim League party would boycott the elections.
He called on President Musharraf to resign, saying free and fair elections were not possible under his rule.
The United Nations Security Council held an emergency session and later said it ”unanimously condemned” the assassination.
Ms Bhutto´s coffin was removed from hospital in Rawalpindi and has now arrived by plane in Sukkur in Sindh province for burial in her home town, Larkana.
The attack occurred close to an entrance gate of the city park where Ms Bhutto had been speaking.
Police confirmed reports she had been shot in the neck and chest before the gunman blew himself up.
Dictator General Pervez Musharraf has announced three days of national mourning.
All schools, colleges, universities, banks and government offices will remain closed.
Bhutto, leader of the Pakistan People´s Party (PPP), had served as prime minister from 1988-1990 and 1993-1996, and had been campaigning ahead of elections due on January 8th.
A civic group said yesterday it has discovered 70 illegal or unfair share transactions committed by affiliates of chaebol, or family-controlled conglomerates, in the past 10 years.
The figure accounts for 27 percent of all dealings carried out between 1995 and 2005 by 250 companies controlled by 38 conglomerates, the People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy said in its report. Among the 250 firms, 64 were found with the irregularities.
The civic group said it will file complaints against the board members of Hyundai Glovis and Gwangju Shinsegae Department Store on charges of condoning the unfair deals.
Korea's largest businesses want the government to change the rules to keep overseas funds from taking over, saying the nation's drive to improve management since the Asian financial crisis has left companies vulnerable.
The government scrapped the rule in February 1998.
Korea's largest businesses want the government to change the rules to keep overseas funds from taking over, saying the nation's drive to improve management since the Asian financial crisis has left companies vulnerable.
""Government rules should promote fair competition,"" the Federation of Korean Industries, the main lobby for big business, said yesterday in a 35-page proposal to the Finance Ministry, the National Assembly and other policymakers.
The ban will last for three weeks.
China has suspended the supply of live poultry and pet birds to Hong Kong, after a man died of bird flu in neighboring Guangdong province.
The man is believed to be the first in China to have been infected with bird flu in an urban area.
It is reported he was infected after coming into contact with live chickens on sale in a market in Guangzhou city.
This death - the ninth in China during the current outbreak - is causing a great deal of concern in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong has reported a handful of infected birds in this outbreak, but no human cases.
that unexpected news comes as the government also reports a rise in factory orders for durable goods ?
the big-ticket items that keep factory workers busy.
Right now, the Dow is up more than 160 points.
Bismarck is the latest focus of flooding fears and sandbagging efforts in North Dakota.
New snowfall and ice jams along the Missouri River are leading to evacuations.
National Guard members are set to fly over the river to see if dynamiting the ice might help.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is launching a 2-day trip to Mexico, just as the US steps up its border security efforts.
She will be talking with Mexican leaders about the fight against spiraling drug violence ?
a lot of drug murders going on there.
that unexpected news comes as the government also reports a rise in factory orders for durable goods ?
the big-ticket items that keep factory workers busy.
a lot of drug murders going on there.
Some civic groups suspicious of nuclear power, however, said the tremor showed that Uljin was not a safe site.
Residents of Uljin, North Gyeongsang province, were rattled over the weekend by an earthquake centered 80 kilometers off Korea's east coast.
The Joong-Ang ilbo says at 5.2, it was the strongest since a 1978 earthquake of the same magnitude was felt near Mount Songni, in North Chungcheong province.
No damage has been reported from Saturday evening's tremor.
Officials at the Uljin nuclear reactors dispatched safety teams but found no problems.
Some civic groups suspicious of nuclear power, however, said the tremor showed that Uljin was not a safe site.
They vowed to stop several new plants and oppose the construction of a spent fuel dump in the area.
Two U.S. soldiers were killed by an explosive device in Baghdad.
With the government’s plan to dispatch additional forces nearing, the Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Ban Ki-moon and Defense Minister Yoo Kwang-woong held a press conference and requested that people refrain from traveling to Iraq and nations deemed dangerous.
The two ministers warned during the press conference, ""Iraqi terrorist groups attempt to achieve their goals in a way of indiscriminately kidnapping and threatening civilians. With the government’s plan to dispatch additional forces nearing, the Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Ban Ki-moon and Defense Minister Yoo Kwang-woong held a press conference and requested that people refrain from traveling to Iraq and nations deemed dangerous.
The Chosun Ilbo said they also asked those who are now in dangerous regions to return home or withdraw to safe neighboring countries as soon as possible.
Some Vietnam veterans insist John Kerry is lying about his war.
South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun said on Saturday that contrary to some people’s predictions, North Korea is not likely to fall suddenly.
While meeting with South Korean residents in Poland, Roh said a sudden collapse of the North will not be desirable for South Korea as well as China, which share borders with the communist country, according to the Korea Times.
˝Taliban insurgents reportedly killed another male hostage early Tuesday, Seoul time, and threatened to kill more unless the Afghan government releases imprisoned Islamic terrorists.
The South Korean Foreign Ministry said it was confirming whether the reports were true.
“We set several deadlines and the Afghan government did not pay attention to our deadlines,” Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi was quoted as telling AFP.
”Finally tonight at 8:30 (1600 GMT:
1:00 Seoul time) we killed one of the Koreans named Sung Sin with AK-47 gunshots.”
The latest victim is believed to be 28-year-old Sim Sung-min, one of the remaining 22 South Korean hostages.
The body has been dumped in the Qarabagh district of Ghazni Province, Ahmadi said.
It is the second killing after the leader of the mission, Rev Bae Hyung-kyu was shot to death on Wednesday.
Bae´s body arrived in Seoul yesterday afternoon.
The 23 volunteer workers were kidnapped en route to the southern city of Kandahar from Kabul.
The Taliban has been demanding that 23 imprisoned terrorists be released in exchange for the hostages.
Ahmadi was quoted as saying by Yonhap News that the insurgents will continue to kill the male hostages one by one, unless their demands were met immediately.
After the male captives, it will be women´s turn and the interval between killings will be shortened each time, the purported spokesman said.
The muslim group had threatened to start killing the remaining hostages among them 16 are women according to the Seoul government from 4:30 p.m. Seoul time, Monday, after the Sunday deadline was passed.
Claiming the Afghan government and South Korean diplomats have not done their best to save the hostages, Ahmadi warned them not to waste more time.
On Monday, an unidentified commander of the Taliban was quoted as saying that the negotiation with the government has ”completely failed.”
The latest victim is believed to be 28-year-old Sim Sung-min, one of the remaining 22 South Korean hostages.
Claiming the Afghan government and South Korean diplomats have not done their best to save the hostages, Ahmadi warned them not to waste more time.
At least nine people have died and tens of thousands have been left without electricity in the US Midwest due to a fierce snowstorm.
At least three people in Minnesota, three in Wyoming and one each in Texas, Kansas and Wisconsin died in traffic accidents stemming from the storm.
The fatality in Texas came in a chain-reaction pile-up involving more than 50 vehicles, including several tractor-trailer rigs, on Interstate 40, police said.
Sgt Michael Poston said at least 16 people were taken to hospital, two with life-threatening injuries.
Many in the pile-up were holidaymakers, including families with small children not dressed for the weather, Sgt Shawn McLeland said.
Other drivers spotted them and opened Christmas presents to provide warmer clothing for the children.
Authorities believe the pile-up, which shut down the highway for most of the day, was caused by very poor visibility.
Officials now confirm it is the wreckage of Steve Fossett's plane found in a rugged part of eastern California.
“They did locate uh, an aircraft, which we have now confirmed is the one that Steve Fossett was flying when it disappeared last Labor Day.”
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen are working both India and Pakistan in an effort to keep the lid on simmering tensions between the two since the Mumbai attacks.
The AP's Anne Gearan, who's traveling with Rice, reports that part of the effort includes getting Pakistan to live up to promises to cooperate.
“Well, they're not saying that out loud, but clearly, they wouldn't, the U.S. wouldn't be marshaling the kind of top-level talent it is sending here um, if there wasn't a worry, that would be the case, or that this would be a missed opportunity.”
India's defense minister warns his military to be ready for terror attacks from the air and sea, and a bag of explosives said left over from the attacks have been found in Mumbai's main train station.
Repeated deployments have a toll on military marriages.
The Pentagon says the divorce rate has gone up for both the Army and Marines in the past fiscal year.
AP's Bryant Thomas reports that women who are married and in the military have an even tougher time.
“Army women divorce at a rate of 8.5% compared to 2.9% for men.
Marine women split with their spouses at a rate of 9.2% compared to 3.3% for male Marine.”
Some groups say those numbers are too low, since the Pentagon doesn't keep track of divorces that happen after someone leaves the service.
A good Samaritan killed in a New Jersey church shooting saves another life.
A 21 year old will be released from a New York hospital breathing free after getting lungs in a transplant.
“Army women divorce at a rate of 8.5% compared to 2.9% for men.
The House is getting set for a fast vote on the financial bailout package.
The FDIC has gotten one big bank to step up and save another, but some voters are angry and Wall Street is not impressed.
The Dow down another 240 points, or more than 2% so far this morning.
House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank says frankly, many Congress members would rather be campaigning for reelection right now than casting a controversial vote on the $700 billion bailout deal.
“This is a tough vote.
This is a vote where many of us feel that the national interest requires us to do something, which is in many ways unpopular.”
Now, for more from the White House.
“The President's calling it bold and decisive legislation needed to stabilize the nation's financial system.”
So American families can meet their daily needs, and American businesses can make purchases, ship goods, and meet their payrolls.”
“The President acknowledges it'll be a tough vote, and hinted even if the bill passes, more may need to be done.
But he says this will address the problem's root cause.
Sauger Magoni at the White House.”
Citigroup is buying Wachovia's banking operations in a deal brokered by the FDIC.
The move greatly expands Citigroup's retail outlets and secures its place among the big three of American banking.
“This is a tough vote.
The House already has okayed the package on a procedural vote.
“The President's calling it bold and decisive legislation needed to stabilize the nation's financial system.”
The Korea Times reports the number of Koreans who are able to work but do not participate in economic activities either voluntarily or involuntarily has increased to an all-time high of 3 million amid the tight labor market.
According to the National Statistical Office (NSO) Thursday, the number of ``idle´´ men and women who are voluntarily unemployed reached 1.63 million in February, up from 1.56 million a year earlier.
The figure was the highest since the office began compiling data in 2003.
These people, categorized as ``taking a rest´´ without any intention to work, are among the economically inactive.
The economically inactive population refers to people over 15 who do not participate in economic activities because of housekeeping, childcare, old age, health problems or other reasons.
The number of college graduates and others studying or training to get jobs also reached an all-time high of 607,000 last month ― up 86,000 a year earlier ― reflecting the country´s worsening job market.
New Congress, new work on stimulating the economy, starting today.
Associated Press correspondent Jerry Bodlander on Capitol Hill:
“With Democrats controlling both houses of Congress and the White House, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says they will hit the ground running to try to boost the economy, though the goal of having something ready by Inauguration Day will not be met.
The stimulus package is expected to run about $800 billion, maybe more, and will likely include about $300 billion worth of tax cuts.”
That includes $500 for most individuals and more than $100 billion for businesses.
Republicans like it that a Democratic President Elect is talking tax cuts, but House Minority Leader John Boehner says, there's still a lot of spending in there:
“This is not a package that's everyone going to be paid for by the current generation.
It's made paid for by our kids and grandkids.”
New Congress, new work on stimulating the economy, starting today.
The Chosun Ilbo reports that in the future, when suspects are arrested, the families of those arrested will be notified immediately, who then will be allowed to watch the investigation process.
The Supreme Public Prosecutors’ Office said Monday that it decided to accept a proposal by the ""Committee on the Improvement of the Investigation System and Practices for Human Rights,"" and to establish new guidelines and implement them within the year.
The committee’s proposal calls for the police to notify suspects’ families of the arrest of suspects, positions and names of arresters, and place of detention when they arrest them.
A judge´s decision not to jail nine men guilty of raping a 10-year-old girl in an Aboriginal community has triggered outrage in Australia.The offenders were either placed on probation or given suspended sentences for the 2005 rape in the Aurukun settlement, in northern Queensland.
In her ruling, Judge Sarah Bradley told them that the victim “probably agreed to have sex with all of you”.
A review of sexual abuse sentences in Aboriginal Queensland has been ordered.
Sentencing seven of the accused in Cairns in October, Judge Bradley told them that the girl involved was not forced into sex, according to a report in The Australian newspaper.
She placed six of the offenders, who were minors at the time of the rape, on probation for 12 months, local media said.
The three other defendants were handed suspended six-month prison sentences.
N. Korea, U.S. on path to diplomatic normalization:
The Korea Times quotes the nation’s top economic policy maker as saying Wednesday that the government’s new anti-speciation measures are expected to bring down home prices in Seoul and its satellite cities by about 11 percent.
Housing prices should fall below the October 2003 level, when previous measures were introduced, Finance-Economy Minister Han Duck-soo said during a media briefing.
Home prices in and around Seoul surged by more than 20-30 percent over the last two years.
The package of measures unveiled yesterday involved a hike in ownership and capital gains taxes on owners of multiple homes and supplying more homes in southern Seoul and its satellite cities.
The new anti-speculation measures came as an outcome of two month-long efforts by the government and the ruling Uri Party to create a ``constitution-like’’ real estate policy to curb speculation.
Home prices in and around Seoul surged by more than 20-30 percent over the last two years.
Police and protesters tangle in Washington:
Officers used pepper spray and pushed several demonstrators to the ground when they tried to march onto a blocked street.
The American journalist convicted of spying in Iran is on a hunger strike, protesting her imprisonment.
Roxana Saberi's father says she stopped eating Tuesday, and will stay on the strike until she's freed.
A German-owned freighter has been hijacked off the Somali coast.
“ Motor Vessel Patriot, a Maltese-flagged, German-owned vessel, was successfully pirated about 150 nautical miles southeast of Muqalla, in Yemen, in the Gulf of Aden.”
Officers used pepper spray and pushed several demonstrators to the ground when they tried to march onto a blocked street.
The opposition parties have continued to call on the government to reconsider the capital relocation and get the people’s consensus before pushing ahead with it.
President Roh Moo-hyun on Thursday strongly criticized opponents of the government’s plan to relocate the nation’s administrative capital to central Chungchong Province.
The pro-opposition Korea Times reported that Roh went on to describe the anti-relocation move as political maneuvering.
Roh’s remarks came as 130 leaders from all sectors of life issued a statement opposing the hasty relocation of the capital.
The opposition parties have continued to call on the government to reconsider the capital relocation and get the people’s consensus before pushing ahead with it.
They fear the cost for building the new capital will be double or even triple the government estimate of 46 trillion won and pose a serious burden on the country's economy.
The growth forecast for the second half is predicted low.
While he supports President Bush's decision to oust Saddam Hussein and his regime in Iraq, former President Bill Clinton says the timing was all wrong.
In an interview in ""Time"" magazine, Clinton said he has ""repeatedly defended President Bush against the left on Iraq,"" but he should have waited until the UN inspections were finished.
The United States will soon launch negotiations on a free-trade agreement with Korea as the two countries ""have made great progress in the last four or five months"" to lay the groundwork, U.S.
According to Reuters, Portman also said in a discussion of his trade goals for this year that a free-trade agreement with Korea would be the largest the United States had negotiated since the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico in the early 1990s.
On the U.S. list of candidates for negotiations on a free-trade pact, ""Korea is the most likely candidate to start talks,"" said Jeffrey Schott, a senior research fellow at the Washington-based Institute for International Economics.
On Friday, Trade Minister Kim Hyun-chong said in Seoul that a free-trade pact with the United States was ""necessary for Korea to become an advanced international trader.
A claim by a local television broadcaster that former President Kim Dae-jung has an illegitimate daughter, who for years was looked after by spy agency operatives, was rejected as baseless yesterday by Kim's aides.
A claim by a local television broadcaster that former President Kim Dae-jung has an illegitimate daughter, who for years was looked after by spy agency operatives, was rejected as baseless yesterday by Kim's aides.
The brief tonight denial was the first reaction from Kim's side following the investigative report aired by SBS, a local television network with ties to former authoritarian regimes.
The report said Kim has a daughter whom he has never acknowledged and that money stemming from a corruption scandal during his administration was used to keep her existence secret.
A commercial helicopter has been shot down by a missile attack near Baghdad.
˝The judiciary committee of the US House of Representatives has voted to file a contempt of Congress charge against two White House aides.
The move is seen as an escalation of a row over the firing of eight federal prosecutors, correspondents say.
President George W Bush invoked executive privilege earlier in July to stop the two aides from testifying to Congress over the sackings.
The contempt charge must be approved by the full House of Representatives.
The charge carries a possible jail sentence of a year.
Congress has held a series of hearings into whether the firing of the prosecutors was politically motivated, as opponents of President Bush say.
The two aides - White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten and and former legal counsel Harriet Miers - failed to comply with subpoenas to testify to Congress over the dismissals.
The White House claims that President Bush has the right to reject Congressional requests for documents or testimony from staff members.
“I am hopeful that today´s vote will help the administration see the light and release the information to which the Judiciary Committee is entitled,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat.
She said the contempt proceedings were ”part of a broader attempt by House Democrats to restore our nation´s fundamental system of checks and balances”.
˝The judiciary committee of the US House of Representatives has voted to file a contempt of Congress charge against two White House aides.
The move is seen as an escalation of a row over the firing of eight federal prosecutors, correspondents say.
A Malaysian cabinet minister has denied reports that his government has imposed a ban on migrant workers from India.
Officials earlier confirmed they had stopped granting visas to Indian workers, in a move said to be linked to rallies by Malaysian Indians last year.
But Works Minister S Samy Vellu cast doubt on that assertion, saying his government had made no such order.
If the prohibition is put in place it will affect about 140,000 Indians currently working legally in Malaysia.
Speaking at a conference in the Indian city of New Delhi, Vellu, the only ethnic Indian member of the cabinet, initially said Malaysia had enough workers and did not want any more.
But he later appeared to take a different stance and denied the reports.
“There is no such thing as banning workers from India and Bangladesh,” he told the BBC.
But Works Minister S Samy Vellu cast doubt on that assertion, saying his government had made no such order.
A Japanese teenage girl who poisoned her mother and kept a blog diary of her worsening condition is being sent to reform school.
The family said they did not want her charged, media reports said.
A United Nations Security Council vote threatening economic sanctions over North Korea's missile tests has been postponed to give diplomacy more time.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the delay was intended to support Chinese attempts to ease tensions.
China, North Korea's traditional ally, has sent officials to Pyongyang to try to resolve the crisis, which follows the firing of seven ballistic missiles.
China, Russia and South Korea have already voiced opposition to sanctions.
Japan had proposed the punitive resolution after North Korea test-fired seven missiles last week.
Two American civilians working for the Coalition Provisional Authority and an Iraqi interpreter were killed by what police officials said they believe were four men dressed as Iraqi police officers.
Two American civilians working for the Coalition Provisional Authority and an Iraqi interpreter were killed by what police officials said they believe were four men dressed as Iraqi police officers.
The civilians were driving down from the holy city of Karbala in an unmarked, unprotected vehicle at 6:20 p.m.
The car, which was traveling on a divided highway, crossed over the median strip, crashed down an embankment and then ran about 70 yards across open ground until it hit an earth banking, where it came to rest.
Lawmakers of Uri Party blocked a National Assembly vote.
As time runs out for the US-Korea Free Trade Agreement, Seoul and Washington began their fifth round of free trade negotiations in the U.S. state of Montana, faced with the challenge of making progress in sensitive areas such as agriculture, pharmaceuticals and tariff rates.
“We have made very little progress in the talks (today),” Korea's top negotiator Kim Jong-hoon told reporters.
Both countries are holding five days of talks at a ski resort in Big Sky.
They hope to conclude negotiations by March to seal a trade pact by July 2007, the expiration of the Bush administration's fast-track trade promotion authority.
But thorny issues including the U.S. demand for wider access to Korea's agriculture and automobile markets, pharmaceutical sector, and Korea's demand for wider access to the U.S. textile market have not yet made any progress, raising doubts over the possibility of meeting the deadline.
”But my counterpart Wendy Cutler and I agreed that it is important to make progress on major issues in this round, because it is the final round of talks this year.”
The former movie star still has mass popular appeal, and over the years the court proceedings have attracted plenty of media attention.
“Whatever the corruption court will decide, I am ready because I know my countrymen have acquitted me.” ˝There is tight security in the Philippine capital, Manila, ahead of the verdict in the corruption trial of former President Joseph Estrada.
Estrada is accused of embezzling about $80m before he was forced from office by street protests in 2001.
He denies the allegations, accusing his successor Gloria Arroyo and Church leaders of conspiring against him.
Analysts say that whatever the verdict, his supporters are likely to use the occasion to hold a protest rally.
The trial began soon after Estrada was ousted from power in 2001, amid violent street protests.
The former movie star still has mass popular appeal, and over the years the court proceedings have attracted plenty of media attention.
The United States wants some 3,500 to 4,000 soldiers of the 37,000 American troops stationed in Korea to be redeployed to Iraq by Aug.
The Korea Times reports Defense Minister Cho Young-kil told lawmakers the USFK commander would leave for Washington on Thursday to discuss related matters, including the question of whether the Iraq-bound U.S. troops will return to Korea after their mission in the Middle East.
In an effort to calm down growing public concern and discuss proper measures for the possible security vacuum, President Roh Moo-hyun will host an emergency meeting of security-related ministers on Thursday.
The Korea Times reports Defense Minister Cho Young-kil told lawmakers the USFK commander would leave for Washington on Thursday to discuss related matters, including the question of whether the Iraq-bound U.S. troops will return to Korea after their mission in the Middle East.
Three Japanese were freed by their captors Thursday, a day after other kidnappers executed an Italian
One of the Japanese wept as Sunni clerics tried to comfort her after securing their release.
Shocked Italians closed ranks as their prime minister insisted he would not withdraw Italian troops from Iraq after the slaying of Fabrizio Quattrocchi.
His captors warned they would kill three more Italians in their custody unless U.S. troops leave the country.
Meanwhile, Russia evacuated 366 workers from Iraq on the first day of a withdrawal called after the abductions of eight Russian and Ukrainian workers.
The eight were kidnapped Monday and freed the next day.
Russia plans to pull out a total of some 800 Russians and citizens from former Soviet republics.
the first known killing of a hostage in Iraq's wave of kidnappings.
One of the Japanese wept as Sunni clerics tried to comfort her after securing their release.
The wave of abductions
has sent a chill through foreigners in Iraq.
In what appeared to be a move of political desperation the main opposition Grand National Party elected Rep.
Park Geun-hye, daughter of the late President Park Chung-hee, as its new party leader yesterday.
Park won 51.8 percent support, or 2,614 votes, defeating four other candidates.
Former floor leader Hong Sa-duk obtained only 28.8 percent of the vote.
Park's election marks the first time a female politician has led a major political party in Korea since 1965.
In what appeared to be a move of political desperation the main opposition Grand National Party elected Rep.
Former floor leader Hong Sa-duk obtained only 28.8 percent of the vote.
South Korean security specialists will be dispatched to Kirkuk.
North Korea says it will punish the US, after claiming it is conducting spying flights over its territorial waters.
The country's Air Force Command accused the US of carrying out three aerial espionage missions in the last week.
The command said it believed the US was preparing to attack and suggested it would resort to shooting down US spy planes if they continued their flights.
Correspondents say Pyongyang often alleges that spying flights are taking place - the US does not comment.
The Korean People's Army (KPA) Air Force Command said an RC-135 plane had flown over territorial waters on June 6th, 8th and 10th.
In a statement it said the US flights were ""openly crying out for a pre-emptive attack"" on the country.
The command said the espionage missions were a ""violent infringement of North Korea's sovereignty and a grave violation of international law"".
North Korea says it will punish the US, after claiming it is conducting spying flights over its territorial waters.
The country's Air Force Command accused the US of carrying out three aerial espionage missions in the last week.
The command said it believed the US was preparing to attack and suggested it would resort to shooting down US spy planes if they continued their flights.
The Korean People's Army (KPA) Air Force Command said an RC-135 plane had flown over territorial waters on June 6th, 8th and 10th.
The LG Economic Research Institute, a think-tank affiliated with Korea’s No.
4 chaebol LG, projected on Tuesday that a full-fledged Mobile 2.0 era will start here in a couple of years.
Web 2.0, the current buzzword in the Internet industry, is defined by a set of core principles and practices such as participation, collective intelligence and richer user experiences.
In other words, ordinary people create and share content as well as consuming it under the Web 2.0 environment while they merely consumed it during the past Web 1.0 era.
Before the widespread assumption that mobile phones will become the primary means of accessing the Internet, there are a couple of major obstacles.
A cheap and stable connection is expected to be probable in the not-so-distant future in developed countries but the form factor remains a big challenge.
A new era, dubbed Mobile 2.0, is just around the corner in Korea underpinned by the always-on wireless connection and the most sophisticated portable devices.
Afghan officials accused the Taliban of a massacre.
The government reports 31 out of 50 civilians who were on the bus that was stopped by the militant group were killed.
The AP's Jason Strasuso reports from Kabul:
“The Taliban claim that they killed 27 Afghan soldiers traveling through the country's south.
But the Afghan Ministry of Defense said that there were no soldiers on board, and that everyone killed had been a civilian.”
It's hard to find Al Qaeda on the web;
a site normally used by the group to get its message out has been down since just before the 9/11 anniversary.
The AP's Paul Schemm is in Cairo:
“Al Qaeda's propaganda operation has been severely affected by the fact that its main websites have been down for about six weeks now.
But the Afghan Ministry of Defense said that there were no soldiers on board, and that everyone killed had been a civilian.”
The AP's Paul Schemm is in Cairo:
British Intelligence Officials say attacks in India have all the hallmarks of Al-Qaeda - even though a previously unknown Muslim extremist group is claiming responsibility for them.
Washington terrorism expert Alistair Miller of the Center on Global Counter-Terrorism Co-operation tells the AP it's important to note where the violence happened and to whom:
“This is a bit like the New York of India.
I mean, it's the financial center and it's not the capital, but it is a symbol of the growing prosperity that we have seen in India, and the people who were the targets of this attack - and this makes it unusual - were mainly Western targets.”
Iraq's Presidential Council is expected to approve a new security pack with the US that was passed by the Iraqi Parliament today.
The deal allows America forces to remain in Iraq for three more years.
The new First Family makes it sound like they'll try to maintain a regular family.
Michelle Obama saying the girls will have chores at the Whitehouse.
Record levels of harmful metals were contained in the yellow dust storms that blew in from China across the nation last month.
The level was four times higher than that recorded in last year's yellow sand period.
The level of manganese in the air around the nation's capital was also nine times higher than the normal average in spring days.
Record levels of harmful metals were contained in the yellow dust storms that blew in from China across the nation last month.
Jobs are down but stocks are up this morning, and you have to take a closer look to understand why.
Investors seem pleased that Wells Fargo has agreed to buy struggling Wachovia at a $15.1 billion deal.
The head of the FDIC says the agency is standing behind the Citigroup agreement.
As for unemployment, it's at 6.1% after the Labor Department reported employers cut 159,000 jobs last month;
the most in more than five years.
Economist John Ryding of RDQ Economics says things are getting worse instead of better.
“I think that it will uh, put in place a rate cut when the Fed meets again on uh, October 29th.”
Latest from markets.
Investors seem pleased that Wells Fargo has agreed to buy struggling Wachovia at a $15.1 billion deal.
The head of the FDIC says the agency is standing behind the Citigroup agreement.
Police announced Saturday that they would maintain strict control of any antiglobalization protests against the WEF at the Shilla Hotel and said they had deployed 1,300 policemen near the hotel in central Seoul.
Police have been put on high alert to guard against possible violent demonstrations by student activists and civic associations against an international economic meeting currently under way in the capital.
The meeting coincides with the second anniversary of the deaths of two Korean middle school students. Two girls were struck and killed by a U.S. military truck June 13, 2002.
The World Economic Forum, an international think tank that groups leading policymakers and economists, is holding a two-day meeting in Seoul that ends today.
South and North Korea navies succeeded in exchanging radio communications.
Kit Bond, top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, says the House Speaker's comments this time yesterday were a tragedy.
The Missouri senator says it's clear Pelosi had been told about the interrogation method, although he acknowledges he wasn't at the briefing:
“ I have looked at the underlying materials, not only the records they kept, but the cables they sent out to the field, and from the…what was apparently contemporaneous documents, it's clear that they did tell her.”
Officials say President Barack Obama plans to restart military tribunals for fewer than 20 Guantanamo detainees.
Two senior administration officials tell us changes to the system Obama once criticized will be announced some time today.
A massive earthquake off the coast of Indonesia is reported to have killed hundreds of people and triggered tsunami alerts around the Indian Ocean.
The 8.7 magnitude quake struck just before midnight, destroying buildings on the Sumatra island of Nias.
Thousands of people fled their homes in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, India and Sri Lanka - areas still recovering from the deadly tsunami in December.
But three hours after the quake, tsunami alerts were scaled down.
About 300 people were killed on the island of Nias, not far from the epicenter, officials said.
˝A plane flown by record-breaking US adventurer Steve Fossett is missing in the Nevada desert.
Fossett was reportedly last seen taking off from the private airfield at the Flying M Ranch near Yerington, Nevada, on Monday evening.
He was flying a blue and white single-engine Citabria plane.
A Civil Air Patrol spokeswoman, Major Cynthia Ryan, said 13 planes were searching for the 63-year-old.
The authorities were alerted when Fossett´s family reported him missing after he failed to return from a trip which should have lasted just a few hours.
Maj Ryan said conditions for Fossett´s flight had been “optimal”, with calm to light winds.˝
Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were locked in a near dead heat two days before the biggest presidential voting so far while John McCain tried to nail down the Republican nomination for the White House.
With 24 states holding nominating contests from coast to coast on Tuesday, the candidates crisscrossed the country, leading rallies and urging supporters to get out and vote.
The Democratic race had narrowed to a nearly a draw in recent national polls while McCain hoped to win enough delegates to the national convention to effectively be the party´s presidential nominee in the November election.
Obama held a slight lead in California, the biggest prize of all where Clinton once led handily, and was virtually tied with Clinton in New Jersey and Missouri three of the states voting on “Super Tuesday”
in a Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll released on Sunday.
While the two people seeking to be the Democratic choice were vying to win the most delegates, they also were making the argument of being the most electable candidate to face McCain in November.
World Series Matchup:
Stock up the fridge!
The World Series opens tonight!
“The Major's losing its team ever against the team that only knew losing up until this year.
It's the Phillies against the Rays in the World Series, opening tonight under the dome of Tropicana Field.
The Phillies wrapped up the NL Championship in Los Angeles a week ago.
The Rays won the AL title Sunday finishing up Boston in seven games.”
It's the Phillies against the Rays in the World Series, opening tonight under the dome of Tropicana Field.
Is “Putting on a name tag” effective?
Name tags were one of several changes the agency said were under consideration.
A nine-year-old girl who was reported missing 40 days ago has been found dead just 70 meters from her home on Jeju Island, while a man with a long criminal record confessed to the murder.
The police arrested the suspect, who is 49, who lived in the same neighborhood as the victim, on charges of murder and rape.
Wrapped in black plastic, the body of Yang Ji-seung, a third grader at Seogwi Buk Elementary School, was found Tuesday evening in a pile of discarded electronic goods in an orange grove near the family’s apartment in Seogwipo city.
At the time of discovery, the girl’s body was largely decomposed and it was difficult to identify her face, but Yang’s parents were able to recognize the eyeglasses, shoes and pants she was wearing on March 16, the day she disappeared.
The Korean government plans to revise the securities law to prosecute foreign investigators who engage in unfair trading of local shares offshore, a senior official at the Financial Supervisory Commission said yesterday.
Under the move, foreign investors will be subject to securities trade law regardless of whether they trade local stocks here or abroad.
Roh Sung-il who provided eggs for Hwang’s research said that no patient-specific stem cells existed.
Hwang and Roh were among the co authors of the paper on extracting 11 patient-specific stem cells featured in the U.S. journal Science this May.
Speaker Kim expresses his regret on “provocative” remarks.
The tentative deal calls for the auto companies to get $15 billion in loans from an already approved fund first set up to help them build market fuel efficient vehicles.
AP Capitol Hill correspondent Jerry Bodlander reports the agreement between President Bush and the Congressional Democrats is a stop gap measure:
“Well, it is less than what the industry requested.
It would be enough to get it through the first quarter of next year.
GM says it needs $4 billion just to make it to next month.”
A legislation is being written over the weekend and will be before Congress next week.
President Elect Barack Obama in the Democrats' Radio Address today outlines a plan that he says will generate or protect 2.5 million jobs.
He says the plan covers several key areas:
“Rebuilding our infrastructure, improving our schools, reducing our dependence on oil, and saving billions of dollars.”
Obama also says the proposal will be ready for Congress when it convenes next month.
would end in defeat.
Al Qaeda's deputy leader said in a videotape broadcast that on Sunday that governments could not stop al Qaeda attacks and that the security of the West depended on respect for Islam and an end to aggression against Muslims.
Ayman al-Zawahri said in the tape aired by satellite channel Al Jazeera that the ""new crusader campaign""
South Korea has expressed its willingness to back North Korea’s move to join the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.
At a news briefing in Seoul Sunday, five lawmakers from the Uri Party, who visited Pyongyang for four days from May 2, said the North is considering applying for membership of the Washington-based World Bank and the IMF.
The United States and several developed countries have shown a lukewarm attitude over North Korea’s entry into international organizations, including the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
The five lawmakers of the Uri Party and the North’s leaders also discussed ways to create a joint peace zone at the mouth of the Han, Imjin and Yeseong rivers.
President Roh Moo-hyun on Wednesday surprisingly fired Minister of Justice Kang Kum-sil, who has been one of his favorite cabinet members at the start of his term nearly one and a half years ago.
The Korea Times reports Kang's dismissal was met with disbelief, although the Presidential office indicated it accepted her wish to step down because she has been complaining of ""fatigue.
"" The sacking of the nation's first female justice minister came as a shock to the media and the prosecution with whom the nation's first female minister has had a rift over a number of policy issues including the scope of reform measures.
Kim Seung-kyu, formerly vice minister of justice and representative of a law firm, was named Kang's successor.
Second group of North Korean defectors arrived in Seoul.
Blatter, visiting President Saburo Kawabuchi of the Japan Football Association, said any penalties would be for uncontrolled crowd behavior .
FIFA President Joseph Blatter indicated yesterday that North Korea could be punished for incidents in the March 30 World Cup qualifying match against Iran in Pyongyang's Kim Il Sung stadium.
Blatter, visiting President Saburo Kawabuchi of the Japan Football Association, said any penalties would be for uncontrolled crowd behavior .
SNAP members will protest against the Vatican’s decision.
Another court hearing will be held in Arizona this afternoon for an 8 year-old boy accused of fatally shooting his father and another man.
His lawyers tried to keep a confession tape encouraged by two female officers out of court.
Listen closely as the boy says he ran to tell a friend about the bloody scene he discovered at home:
“I told him why my dad is dead, and I told him Tim was dead.”
Cleanup crews are making sure they've almost contained the 29,000-acre freeway complex fire now in Orange County, California.
The colder it is, the chances are better it will stay below the 43-foot height of the emergency dike.
Red Cross' Jim Gweaton says his crew has been busy keeping those working the levees warm and well-fed:
“ It's frigid, and I know yesterday we were feeding a lot of folks on the sandbag line…and I'm not sure it got above 20 yesterday.”
There have already been some evacuations in Fargo.
Officials in Moorhead, Minnesota, which is across the river, have told people living in about a third of the neighborhood they should evacuate to higher ground.
A spring blizzard blamed for at least two traffic deaths, as more than a foot of snow falls in parts of Kansas, the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma.
National Weather Service meteorologist Sarah Johnson is in Amarillo, Texas:
“ Pretty heavy snow, especially considering it's late March.
We have had snow totals anywhere from 6 inches to a foot.”
Johnson says it will warm up fast as the storm moves on, temperatures expected in the 60's by tomorrow.
A spring storm dumps heavy rain, baseball-sized hail, and high winds across the Southeast.
Tornado warnings are up as well;
the region is still reeling from twisters over the past two days.
Time and temperature ?
“ It's frigid, and I know yesterday we were feeding a lot of folks on the sandbag line…and I'm not sure it got above 20 yesterday.”
A spring blizzard blamed for at least two traffic deaths, as more than a foot of snow falls in parts of Kansas, the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma.
Homes have been flooded, cars as well, (in) parts of Mississippi and Alabama - about one hundred roads in southern Mississippi impassable because of the flooding.
He was initially arrested in January 1997 in Pennsylvania, with three other accomplices on charges of killing a former U.S. policeman with the victim´s own gun.
The Korea Times reports a second generation Korean American was arrested here after evading an FBI search for nearly nine years on charges of killing a retired policeman in the United States.
The murder suspect, identified as Nam,aged 31, an ethnic Korean with American citizenship, was caught at a private school in Gyeonggi Province where he was teaching English, police said.
The suspect has worked here as an instructor at private language schools in Seoul, Gyeonggi, Jeolla and Gyeongsang provinces since fleeing the United States while on bail.
A police spokesman said Nam changed his workplace every two or three months in order not to be caught and would soon be extradited to the United States after appearing in a Korean court.
He was initially arrested in January 1997 in Pennsylvania, with three other accomplices on charges of killing a former U.S. policeman with the victim´s own gun.
The suspect was granted $1 million bail and confined to house arrest but fled to Seoul the following year.
Japan is reportedly pushing for economic sanctions while China and Russia - sympathetic to the North - oppose any punitive measures.
But Russian President Vladimir Putin said the test launches were ""disappointing"", and stressed the need to resume diplomatic talks.
US envoy Christopher Hill is traveling to the region to discuss the next steps, and a senior Chinese negotiator is heading to Pyongyang next week aiming to kick-start negotiations.
The launches were part of ""regular military drills to strengthen self-defense "", the North's foreign ministry said in a statement carried on the state-run Korean Central News Agency.
South Korean media reported on Thursday that there were three or four missiles waiting on North Korean launch pads, although they were not thought to be long-range.
In a statement reported by South Korean media, the North made its first public acknowledgement on Thursday that it had recently test-fired missiles.
The Fed Chairman says he tried to stop the bonus money from flowing:
“ I asked that the AIG payments be stopped, but was informed that they were mandated by contracts agreed to before the government's intervention.”
Ben Bernanke talking about AIG to the House Financial Services Committee this morning.
“ While the House has voted to impose a punitive tax on those bonuses, and a similar approach has been proposed in the Senate, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke says he wanted to sue to stop the bonuses from being paid, but he was told not only were they contractually mandated, but if they lost in court, they would have to pay several times those amounts.”
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner also was there, and calling on Congress to give him new powers to regulate huge financial companies like the insurance giant.
President Barack Obama may have something new to say about megabucks for banking executives at his prime time news conference tonight.
Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on the CBS Early Show this morning:
Ben Bernanke talking about AIG to the House Financial Services Committee this morning.
The AP's Jerry Bodlander is covering on Capitol Hill:
President George W. Bush reaffirmed on Saturday the principle of pursuing a peaceful and diplomatic solution to North Korea's nuclear issue and promised to give top priority to the settlement of the prolonged problem.
President George W. Bush reaffirmed on Saturday the principle of pursuing a peaceful and diplomatic solution to North Korea's nuclear issue and promised to give top priority to the settlement of the prolonged problem.
Give us a chance to challenge the charges, give me a chance to call in witnesses like Rahm Emanuel, the President's Chief of Staff, who said there was nothing inappropriate in conversations with me.”
But Blagoevich failed to meet a filing deadline for a witness list.
On NBC's Today show, Blagojevich says he's boycotting today's start of his impeachment trial before the State Senate because it won't be fair:
Nine former and current employees of Kia Motors and related companies were indicted yesterday on charges of illegally transferring core automobile production technology to China, prosecutors said yesterday.
The Suwon District Prosecutors Office indicted five current and four former employees of Kia Motors, the second largest automaker in Korea and an affiliate of Hyundai Motor.
The case was presented to prosecutors by the National Intelligence Service’s industrial intelligence protection center.
Nine former and current employees of Kia Motors and related companies were indicted yesterday on charges of illegally transferring core automobile production technology to China, prosecutors said yesterday.
The tests have now confirmed 42 deaths.
An encouraging employment report this morning;
it comes from a private group and indicates job losses last month slowed significantly from March.
Fire officials in Santa Barbara, California are trying to hold back a wildfire threatening about 2,000 homes in the city.
Calmer winds overnight eased the situation, but forecasters say they'll likely pick up again.
and increasing the death toll.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has vowed that ""no-one can make India kneel"", a day after a series of train bombings in Mumbai killed 200 people.
In a TV address, Singh said those affected by the rush hour attacks had responded with ""courage and humanism"".
The government says there are so far no leads, and it has avoided naming any particular groups as suspects.
Two Islamic militant groups fighting Indian rule in Kashmir have denied any involvement in the attacks.
Seven people are dead, twenty others wounded in a double suicide bombing in a poppy-growing region of Afghanistan.
The Taliban claims responsibility for the attack.
A leading Afghan human rights group is investigating reported use of highly flammable white phosphorus in a recent battle involving US and Afghan troops and Taliban forces.
President Hamid Karzai claims as many as 130 civilians were killed in the Coalition bombing raids during that fight.
“ To tie the hands of our commanders and say we're not going to conduct air strikes would be imprudent.
That's part of the combined arms package and so we would probably not do that.
” In neighboring Pakistan, the military claims to have killed up to 500 Taliban in an offensive that the head of US Central Command, General David Petraeus, says has the backing of most of the Pakistani people:
“ There is a degree of unanimity that there must be swift and effective action taken against the Taliban in Pakistan.”
That tape from Fox News Sunday.
A leading Afghan human rights group is investigating reported use of highly flammable white phosphorus in a recent battle involving US and Afghan troops and Taliban forces.
Chinese Embassy warns Rep.
A councilor of the Chinese Embassy called the office of Rep.
Hwang Woo-yea of the Grand National Party last Thursday to complain about his involvement in a drive aimed at urging Beijing not to repatriate North Koreans in its custody to their communist homeland, according to the aide who took the call.
Hwang expressed anger at what the aide called a ``warning'' from the Chinese Embassy, arguing that a South Korean politician can articulate any kind of thought or idea and do anything he believes is right.
The same is not true in Communist China.
˝Communist China has denied reports that its military hacked into the computer network of the US Department of Defense in Washington.
A foreign ministry official claims the charges “reflected Cold War mentality”.
But the Financial Times quoted US officials as saying the Chinese army made the attack, which crashed part of a system for the defense secretary´s office.
Last week China dismissed reports that its armed forces had infiltrated German government computer systems.
The reports come as US President George W Bush prepared to meet his communist Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, at the APEC summit in Sydney, Australia.
Meanwhile, Bush has arrived in Sydney amid the tightest security Australia´s biggest city has ever seen.
Air Force One touched down late on Tuesday evening, following Bush´s surprise detour to Iraq.
Sydney residents had been told to steer clear of the city centre and main roads were shut for Bush´s motorcade.
The city is in virtual lock-down as world leaders gather for the high-profile Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum this week ˝
President Bush in his weekly radio address doesn't see most of the $700 billion being used in the financial bailout as lost money:
“Many of the assets that the government will be purchasing still have significant underlying value.
As time passes, they will likely go up in price, and this means that the government should eventually be able to recoup much, if not all, of the original expenditure.”
Bush signed the bill yesterday, after it was passed by the House.
Today, in Paris, French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde praised the U.S. action.
“I'm extremely pleased that it was passed last night.
It's a question of execution now, like so many things.”
Yes, there are those 10 point polls out there, but our latest AP GFK survey shows John McCain and Barack Obama running almost even among likely voters and a veteran political reporter says the Democrat doesn't have a lock on this.
“There still are scenarios under which he could lose.”
“Journalist Bonnie Urbay has covered national politics for more than 30 years.
She's been talking with an Obama supporter in Congress.”
“I asked her, does this mean, you think McCain is gonna win?
And it's gonna be a very long night.
“Rita Foley, Washington.”
Take another look now at Wall Street.
Dow Industrial's up 250 points in early trading.
The first Malaysian in space and two Russian cosmonauts have landed back on Earth after leaving the International Space Station (ISS).
Their landing craft touched down in Kazakhstan.
The crew was due to be taken by helicopter to the nearest airport, from where they would be flown to Moscow.
Fargo, North Dakota getting ready for record flooding.
City administrator Pat Zavoral says the Red River will be well above flood stage when it crests in a week or so:
“ The National Weather Service has suggested that we can expect a flood somewhere between 37 and 40 feet.”
Hundreds of volunteers are filling a million-and-a-half sandbags to protect the city from the flood.
A bloody rampage between rival Australian biker gangs leaves one man dead at the Sydney Airport.
This woman couldn't believe what she saw inside the terminal:
“ One of the men… lying on the ground and another man came up with a pole, and started smashing it into his head.”
A private funeral planned for today for actress Natasha Richardson, in the New York Hudson Valley town where she married actor Liam Neeson and raised their two sons.
The 45-year-old actress died in a Manhattan hospital from a head injury suffered while skiing in Canada.
Hundreds of volunteers are filling a million-and-a-half sandbags to protect the city from the flood.
“ One of the men… lying on the ground and another man came up with a pole, and started smashing it into his head.”
Communist China has sentenced the former head of the State Food and Drug Administration to death after he was convicted of corruption, state media has reported.
Zheng Xiaoyu was convicted on charges of taking bribes and of dereliction of duty, Xinhua news agency reported.
The sentence is unusually harsh for a senior figure, but Zheng could have his sentence reduced to life on appeal.
The verdict came as the government announced plans for the first ever recall system of unsafe food products.
Beijing has been under pressure to act over increasing concern both at home and abroad about the poor standards of Chinese-produced food and medicines.
State television showed footage of a grey-haired Zheng - who was expelled from the Communist Party earlier this year - appearing in court in Beijing flanked by police officers.
He had been accused by an official investigation last month of accepting the equivalent of more than $850,000 in bribes to approve hundreds of drugs.
Zheng Xiaoyu was convicted on charges of taking bribes and of dereliction of duty, Xinhua news agency reported.
Seoul National University professor Hwang Woo-suk Wednesday said that he would resume his controversial cloning research with human stem cells for therapeutic purposes.
Seoul National University professor Hwang Woo-suk Wednesday said that he would resume his controversial cloning research with human stem cells for therapeutic purposes.
The Korea Times reports Hwang made the remarks yesterday before leaving for Philadelphia in the United States to participate in the annual symposium of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine.
Hwang’s research team stole the global show in February by successfully cloning a human embryo for the first time in the world.
Third warning of terror attacks posted on an Islamic Web site.
Police in Sydney have seized weapons including swords, iron bars and petrol bombs in a major operation to prevent a repeat of last week's racial violence.
Residents largely stayed away from the city's famous beaches, as 2,000 police patrolled the areas in cars, boats, helicopters, on foot and on horseback.
Nearly 60 people have been arrested since Friday, and 100 charges laid.
Police in Sydney have seized weapons including swords, iron bars and petrol bombs in a major operation to prevent a repeat of last week's racial violence.
Representatives of leading foreign business organizations in South Korea Tuesday urged the nation’s anti-corruption agency to come up with tighter measures to eradicate corruption and help improve investment and business conditions here.
Representatives of leading foreign business organizations in South Korea Tuesday urged the nation’s anti-corruption agency to come up with tighter measures to eradicate corruption and help improve investment and business conditions here.
The Korea Times reports criticisms and suggestions came during a meeting organized by the Korea Independent Commission Against Corruption (KICAC) at the Shilla Hotel in Seoul.
Last week the commission announced its plan to hold meetings with foreign businesspeople and embassy officials on a regular basis, as part of efforts to create a business-friendly, transparent environment by formulating anti-corruption policies based on their opinions.
Canada's Prime Minister, Paul Martin, is widely tipped to lose.
Presidential chief of staff Lee Byung-wan warned Wednesday that the widening social and economic gaps, if left intact, could result in ""three Koreas"" - North Korea and divided South Korea - on the peninsula.
Speaking at a meeting of South Korean diplomatic mission chiefs abroad in Seoul, Lee described socioeconomic polarization as one of the biggest problems facing the country.
He said the gap between the rich and poor in the country is one of the worst among member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
A high court yesterday reversed an earlier ruling that South Korean-German dissident scholar Song Du-yul had been a Politburo member of the ruling North Korean Workers' Party.
But it upheld a lower court's conviction of Song for violating the National Security Law by holding frequent unauthorized meetings with the late North Korean leader Kim Il-sung and engaging in other pro-Pyongyang activities.
The Korea Herald reports the Seoul Appellate Court gave him a three-year jail term but suspended the sentence for five years, saying his North Korean visits and activities there did not pose a serious threat to South Korea's democratic order.
He was later released from prison.
A single bullet helped end the nursing-home rampage that left eight people dead in North Carolina.
Officer Justin Garner stopped the gunman by wounding him in the chest. Garner was also hurt.
The ex-wife of the accused shooter says that Robert Stewart could be a violent man:
Police say they are looking into whether the accused gunman may have been trying to get another woman who works at the nursing home.
In Pakistan gunfire in celebration, after gunmen who staged an assault on a police academy were overpowered by security forces.
Authorities say they killed 8 militants and captured 6.
NFL player Ryan Motes says he accepts the apology from a Dallas police officer who stopped him at a hospital parking lot.
Police say they are looking into whether the accused gunman may have been trying to get another woman who works at the nursing home.
Politicians in Iraq have been struggling to form a government for five weeks, following elections at the end of January.
Iraq has said it will hold the first session of its newly elected assembly on March16.
Deputy prime minister Barham Salih said that if a government had not been selected by then, discussions would continue within the assembly itself.
Politicians in Iraq have been struggling to form a government for five weeks, following elections at the end of January.
China will not accept the third countries’ intervention in problems between China and Taiwan.
Brazil's state-owned oil company, Petrobras, says it has discovered a huge new offshore oil field off the coast of Rio de Janeiro state.
The Papa-Terra field was found in the Campos Basin, which is already Brazil's most important oil-producing region.
Petrobras estimates it contains at least 700 million barrels of crude - about 10% of Brazil's current reserves.
The field, which is jointly operated with the US company Chevron, should start producing oil by the end of 2011.
Brazil's state-owned oil company, Petrobras, says it has discovered a huge new offshore oil field off the coast of Rio de Janeiro state.
Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon abruptly reversed course yesterday, announcing that he would visit Tokyo as scheduled on Thursday.
Last week after the fifth visit by Japan's prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, to a controversial war memorial in Japan, Seoul reacted with outrage.
Ban said he had canceled his visit, that a trip by President Roh Moo-hyun to Japan in December was also likely to be scrapped and that the president would not meet Koizumi one-on-one at next month's leaders' meeting of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation group in Pusan.
China threatens retaliation over tainted import claims.
Tory leader Michael Howard has accused Tony Blair of ""pussyfooting"" around immigration problems as the election campaign resumed after a two-day pause.
Howard said immigration was out of control and said the issue ""should not be swept under the carpet"".
But Labor Cabinet minister Peter Hain accused the Conservatives of ""scurrilous, right-wing, ugly tactics"".
Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy said Britain benefited from being a multi-racial, multi-ethnic society.
But Labor Cabinet minister Peter Hain accused the Conservatives of ""scurrilous, right-wing, ugly tactics"".
˝U.N. nuclear inspection officials will arrive in North Korea tomorrow to determine how to monitor and verify the communist regime´s expected nuclear facility shutdown.
Five members of the International Atomic Energy Agency, headed by Olli Heinonen, deputy director general for safeguards, left for Pyongyang yesterday to meet with their North Korean counterparts for the first time in five years since the agency was kicked out of the country in late 2002.
It will be the first tangible step to be taken in accordance with the six-party agreement that calls on North Korea to shut down its Yongbyon nuclear reactor and reprocessing facility in return for 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil as agreed in February.
“We should be able to start a long and complex process for working out with the DPRK the modalities of shutting down the installation at Yongbyon,” Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the IAEA, said, using the official acronym of North Korea.˝
˝Opera star Luciano Pavarotti´s health has worsened and he is in a “very serious” condition, according to Italian media.
Pavarotti, who is 71, has been suffering from pancreatic cancer and was released from hospital on 25 August after a series of tests were carried out.
He is now being treated at home in the northern city of Modena surrounded by family and friends.
Pavarotti had surgery for the cancer in July 2006 in New York and has not made any public appearances since then.
This week it was announced Pavarotti was to receive a prize from the Italian government for his work promoting the country´s culture.
He is the first person to receive the award.
”This prize fills me with joy and pride,” Italy´s Ansa news agency had quoted Pavarotti as saying.
He had been admitted to hospital in Modena on 8 August with a fever.
He was released two weeks later after diagnostic tests.
Despite hopes that he would be able to resume his farewell tour this year, his health has not allowed him to return to the stage.˝
Pavarotti had surgery for the cancer in July 2006 in New York and has not made any public appearances since then.
He is the first person to receive the award.
With tension mounting between Korea and Japan over another distorted history textbook, a government task force will take up the long-running dispute here tomorrow.
The pan-government taskforce, headed by Vice Education Minister Kim Young-sik, will hold its first session at the central government complex in downtown Seoul.
Korean credit card spending and usages overseas increased more than 10% compared to the last year.
Louis city alderman wants people to arm themselves to protect their lives and property.
Charles Quincy Troupe says police are ineffective, outnumbered, or don't care about the increasing crime.
President of the St.
“We want them to know how to use the gun properly, how to properly defend themselves.
Cause a lot of times, guns are used against their owners.” So far, there have been 157 homicides in St.
Louis city alderman wants people to arm themselves to protect their lives and property.
A one-day, U.S. government-funded conference on North Korea's human rights situation took place in Washington on Tuesday, but senior American officials did not attend in an apparent sign that the Bush administration hopes to avoid irritating Pyongyang on the eve of the resumption of six-party disarmament talks.
Representatives from more than 50 groups in South Korea and the United States attended. A one-day, U.S. government-funded conference on North Korea's human rights situation took place in Washington on Tuesday, but senior American officials did not attend in an apparent sign that the Bush administration hopes to avoid irritating Pyongyang on the eve of the resumption of six-party disarmament talks.
State Department provided nearly $2 million so the event could be held.
The Supreme Court ruled that women’s equal rights in their paternal families.
Meanwhile, President George W Bush will face fresh pressure over his Iraq policy this week as the US Senate debates war funding.
The administration is due to report to Congress on Iraq progress on July 15.˝
˝The head of US forces in Iraq, Lt Gen David Petraeus, has told the BBC that fighting the insurgency is a “long term endeavor” which could take decades.
Speaking to the BBC´s John Simpson in Baquba, Gen Petraeus said there was evidence that the recent troops surge was producing gains on the ground.
But he warned that US forces were engaged in a ”tough fight” which will get ”harder before it gets easier”.
His comments come as US calls for a rapid troop withdrawal gather strength.
Gen Petraeus was keen to emphasize that the ongoing unrest in Iraq is not something he expects to be resolved overnight.
Meanwhile, President George W Bush will face fresh pressure over his Iraq policy this week as the US Senate debates war funding.
Four Republican senators have withdrawn their support for his strategy in recent days, adding their voice to a growing number calling for a new plan.
The White House has denied reports it's debating whether Bush should announce plans now for a gradual pull-out, to stem more defections.
The administration is due to report to Congress on Iraq progress on July 15.˝
Your breakfast may be coffee and a nutrition bar in the car, but the government says Americans do take some time to sit down and eat.
Here's Washington correspondent Diane Kepley:
“ More than two hours out of the day on average is spent either on stopping to get something to eat, or grabbing a quick bite at work, according to a new Agriculture study.
The big rush is mainly at lunchtime, with many people taking time out for breakfast and supper.”
The recession is taking a slice out of the pizza business - all the major chains reporting a sag in sales, as cash-strapped consumers eat at home.
(singing) Stevie Wonder played at the White House, and President Barack Obama presented him with the Library of Congress' Gershwin Prize for Popular Songs.
The Motown legend on PBS talked about what Obama's election means to black kids:
that was the first African-American president, yeah, I can do that too!”
Stevie Wonder is now 58, he had his first hit when he was just 13.
The big rush is mainly at lunchtime, with many people taking time out for breakfast and supper.”
(singing) Stevie Wonder played at the White House, and President Barack Obama presented him with the Library of Congress' Gershwin Prize for Popular Songs.
Korea Express, one of South Korea's leading logistics firms, will sign an agreement with the Libyan government next month to take over the remaining construction for the world's biggest waterway project.
The formal signing of the contract is due in early December in Libya .
Korea Express, one of South Korea's leading logistics firms, will sign an agreement with the Libyan government next month to take over the remaining construction for the world's biggest waterway project.
The Korea Times reports Korea Express has tentatively agreed with the Libyan government to complete the Great Man-Made River (GMR) project after the Libyan government promised to waive much of the firm's obligation for debts and payment guarantees resulting from a breach of contract by its parent company, Dong Ah Construction Industrial.
The formal signing of the contract is due in early December in Libya .
Korea and Singapore sealed a free-trade agreement.
A recent Korea Times survey has shown that people see the U.S. visa application procedure as complicated, expensive and lacking privacy protection. Only 7 percent say they are satisfied with the U.S. consular services.
A majority of the American visa applicants said they were frustrated with Korean staff for their lack of kindness during interviews, according to a survey, which sampled 100 people in Seoul.
The written questionnaires showed that 13 percent said Korean staff members at the embassy were ``very unkind’’ while 42 percent said they were ``unkind.’
’ Other respondents said Korean translators were rude to visa applicants, refusing to pay enough attention to what the applicants want to express to interviewers.
The survey, carried out from the end of February through early April, randomly sampled public servants, office workers and students.
Embassy in Korea declined to comment on the survey.
The written questionnaires showed that 13 percent said Korean staff members at the embassy were ``very unkind’’ while 42 percent said they were ``unkind.’
Cars were backed up on many roads as police struggled to stop some protesters from approaching the presidential office of Chong Wa Dae, which is only a few kilometers away from Seoul City Hall.
The protesters clashed with police who sprayed water on them to block their march.
The Korea Times reports tens of thousands of citizens on Monday held rallies at the square in front of Seoul City Hall and several other locations in Seoul to protest the government’s move to abolish the National Security Law, a symbol of anti-communism at the center of an escalating ideological conflict.
Police estimated some 100,000 people attended a rally in the city hall square, which was organized by an alliance of right-wing civic and religious groups opposing North Korea and its leader Kim Jong-il.
After burning an effigy of Kim and a North Korean flag, the protesters designated October as the month of prayer to rally support for defense of the Republic of Korea.
They chanted slogans to demand President Roh Moo-hyun step down, vowing to stage rallies throughout October.
Cars were backed up on many roads as police struggled to stop some protesters from approaching the presidential office of Chong Wa Dae, which is only a few kilometers away from Seoul City Hall.
The protesters clashed with police who sprayed water on them to block their march.
Police said on Sunday that two men attacked Park Geun-hye, leader of the main opposition Grand National Party (GNP), Saturday evening out of dissatisfaction with and hatred toward society.
The Korea Times reports the GNP chairwoman was attacked around 7:20 p.m. as she walked onto a makeshift podium at a street campaign rally to make a speech in support of her party's candidate, Oh Se-hoon, for the Seoul mayoralty in the May 31 local elections.
Hospital officials said the 54-year-old opposition leader's life was not in danger, adding a complete recovery would take weeks, if not months, as the cut caused extensive damage to her jaw muscles.
Park, daughter of the late President Park Chung-hee who ruled the country for 18 years after taking power in a 1961 military coup, has been considered a potential candidate for the presidential election next year.
South Korea will consider allowing a visit by the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, in the event of a request from the public and Buddhist circles.
``We have to address the problem taking into account the ardent wishes of Buddhist and cultural circles and on the basis of the principle that Seoul-Beijing relations should develop further,'' Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Ban Ki-moon said in an interview with the Internet-based newspaper OhmyNews.
But The Korea Times reports Ban kept a very cautious attitude about calls from some people for Seoul to use the Dalai Lama's visit or the issue of Taiwan to cope with so-called Sino-centrism.
North Korea has formally told the UN it no longer needs food aid, despite reports of malnutrition in the country.
Deputy Foreign Minister Choe Su-hon said the country now had enough food, due to a good harvest, and accused the US of using aid as a political weapon.
Top UN relief co-ordinator Jan Egeland said an ""abrupt"" end to food aid would harm North Korea's most vulnerable.
The North may also have lost patience with efforts by foreign agencies to monitor deliveries of food.
In recent years, the UN and other international agencies have been feeding up to six million of the poorest and most vulnerable North Koreans. But these organizations have long struggled for access to one of the world's most closed societies.
French police arrest suspects of attempting terror.
A cloning pioneer regarded as a hero in South Korea has resigned and apologized for using human eggs from his own researchers.
Professor Hwang Woo-suk was chairman of the World Stem Cell Hub, which opened this month, based in Seoul.
International medical standards warn against using eggs from researchers who may be vulnerable to pressure.
However, the health ministry in Seoul insists that he is not guilty of any moral or legal wrongdoing, as the eggs were given voluntarily, without the professor's knowledge, and before South Korea introduced a bioethics law in January.
Hwang, who is 52, gained worldwide fame after producing the world's first cloned human embryos and stem cells tailored to be used on individuals.
Human cloning science offers the possibility that stem cells harvested from cloned embryos could be used to treat diseases like Parkinson's, diabetes and heart disease.
Dr Hwang's breakthrough was seen as particularly important as the stem cells he created were a perfect match for the patient, which could mean treatments without the risk of the body rejecting them.
However, opponents argue that creating and experimenting with human embryos is unethical.
Earlier this month Gerald Schatten, a prominent American colleague of Dr.
More than 100 monks have marched in central Burma, the first time they have returned to the streets since last month´s bloody crackdown on protests.
The monks chanted and prayed as they marched through Pakokku, the site of an incident last month that triggered pro-democracy protests nationwide.
The government said 10 people died during the crackdown, but diplomats believe the toll was much higher.
Thousands more - many of them monks - were thought to have been detained.
Separately, the Human Rights Watch organization has accused the Burmese army of forcibly recruiting children to cover gaps of adult recruits.
More than 100 monks have marched in central Burma, the first time they have returned to the streets since last month´s bloody crackdown on protests.
Secretary General Kofi Annan on Sunday arrived in South Korea, on the first leg of his Asian tour that will also take him to Japan, China, Vietnam and Thailand.
He plans to hold a meeting on Monday with Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Ban Ki-moon, a candidate seeking to become the next U.N. leader when Annan's second five-year term ends on Dec.
The Korea Times reports Annan has said that an Asian candidate should replace him.
Annan will also have talks with President Roh Moo-Hyun on Tuesday.
Secretary General Kofi Annan on Sunday arrived in South Korea, on the first leg of his Asian tour that will also take him to Japan, China, Vietnam and Thailand.
Taiwan lost its bid for representation in the United Nations for the 12th year Wednesday, with no country objecting to the General Assembly president's call to reject a request from the island's supporters to place the issue before the world body's 191 member states.
Taiwan lost its bid for representation in the United Nations for the 12th year Wednesday, with no country objecting to the General Assembly president's call to reject a request from the island's supporters to place the issue before the world body's 191 member states.
The rejection came hours after Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian argued that blocking his country's bid for representation in the United Nations was tantamount to subjecting its citizens to ``political apartheid.''
Chen, speaking from Taiwan in a live video link broadcast to U.N. reporters, blasted China for Beijing's continuous efforts to stymie the island's bid for official recognition.
BC Card demanded higher fee to Wal-Mart’s new Pohang outlet.
Those deposits, which can reach the equivalent of $200,000 and sometimes much more for choice apartments, are at the landlord's disposal during the lease term and are refunded to the tenant when the lease expires.
When the system began, in the days when bank interest rates were in double digits, a landlord could earn a significant return by investing that money.
But with rates now hovering at 4-5 percent at banks, landlords are demanding even more substantial lump sums.
Jeonse prices in Seoul, Incheon and Gyeonggi province have risen 4.6 percent this year through August.
Those deposits, which can reach the equivalent of $200,000 and sometimes much more for choice apartments, are at the landlord's disposal during the lease term and are refunded to the tenant when the lease expires.
President Roh Moo-hyun's latest reshuffle of his security and diplomatic team is not going down well with political parties including his own.
As widely expected, Cheong Wa Dae yesterday nominated Kim Man-bok, first deputy director of the National Intelligence Service, to replace outgoing chief Kim Seung-gyu. Roh's national security aide and former envoy to nuclear talks Song Min-soon was named as the new foreign minister.
Roh also nominated Army Chief of Staff Kim Jang-soo as the new defense minister and Lee Jae-jeong, senior vice president of the National Unification Advisory Council, as the new unification minister.
Four of Roh's top men in security and diplomatic affairs have stepped down in the past two weeks.
With the exception of Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon who is leaving for the post of secretary-general at the United Nations, the resignations are said to be closely tied to North Korea's Oct.
President Roh Moo-hyun's latest reshuffle of his security and diplomatic team is not going down well with political parties including his own.
Roh's national security aide and former envoy to nuclear talks Song Min-soon was named as the new foreign minister.
The number of childbirths in South Korea slid to a new low last year, amid growing concerns of a rapidly aging population.
The national birthrate fell to an all-time low, with one Korean woman expected to give birth to only one child through her life.
There were 438,000 births last year, 38,000 fewer than 2004, the National Statistical Office (NSO) said in a preliminary report.
It is the lowest level since 1970 when the NSO began tracking the data.
Busan, South Korea's second largest city, won the right to host next year's Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit on Monday.
The committee handling preparations for the APEC 2005 discussed the selection of the venue for the biennial summit of 21 Asia-Pacific countries, in a three-way competition among Seoul, Busan and Jeju.
A check of online offerings by the 50-state government shows some information gaps.
Here's our Shirley Smith:
“ As more and more people go online for information, they're finding some big gaps in what government puts out there.
A survey conducted as part of the annual Sunshine Week campaign says that there's some important data missing.
For instance, it's easy to find out what your state's song or flower is, but it's not so easy to find out if your kid's school buses are safe.
This report also says it's pretty easy to find school test scores, since they're posted in 48 states, but that very few states have online death certificates, or records of gas pump overcharges.
” A crowd of several hundred people, many of them young women waiting to audition for America's next Top Model, stampeded outside a Manhattan hotel yesterday:
“ It was scary, people said the girls were crying…”
You know how many girls lost their purses, got hurt?”
That tape from WCBS-TV.
A survey conducted as part of the annual Sunshine Week campaign says that there's some important data missing.
” A crowd of several hundred people, many of them young women waiting to audition for America's next Top Model, stampeded outside a Manhattan hotel yesterday:
Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm says the auto industry crisis is urgent;
she tells CBS one in ten jobs in the U.S. is tied to the auto industry.
That's why she's pressing Congress and the White House to support a financial bailout for the industry.
Auto analyst John McElroy says something's gotta be done to keep a Ford in your future, and prevent GM from running out of cash:
“Nobody wants to hear the word bailout, but look:
these companies can't go into the credit market and buy all the money they need to keep their operations going.
They need cash, just like so much other parts of the economy do.”
The March of Dimes is giving America a“ D” on preventing premature births.
Generally, the farther south you go, the higher the premature birth rate.
“They can start their pregnancies healthy, they can be sure to deal with problems like smoking, and alcohol, and drugs, and nutrition, even before they get pregnant.”
Alan Fleischman of the March of Dimes.
Stocks down for the third straight day, the latest declines come amid new evidence that consumers are sharply cutting back on spending, Macy's says it lost 44 million in the third quarter.
Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm says the auto industry crisis is urgent;
That's why she's pressing Congress and the White House to support a financial bailout for the industry.
these companies can't go into the credit market and buy all the money they need to keep their operations going.
The Korea Times reports the ISI is an annual measurement that combines 15 variables in four columns to quantify ability of 53 countries to access and absorb information and information technologies.
South Korea ranks eighth in the global tech-savvy list, becoming the only nation in the Asia-Pacific region to scrape into the top 10.
The Korea Times reports the ISI is an annual measurement that combines 15 variables in four columns to quantify ability of 53 countries to access and absorb information and information technologies.
The four key areas include computers, Internet, telecom and social infrastructures.
A Japanese professor, after a meeting with a senior North Korean official last week, quoted the official as saying that a nuclear weapons test by Pyongyang was unavoidable.
Yasuhiko Yoshida, a professor at the Osaka University of Economics and Law, told the Joong Ang Ilbo that Pak Hyon-jae, deputy head of the North's Institute for Disarmament and Peace, told a Japanese delegation on a visit to Pyongyang that ""a plutonium-based nuclear test is unavoidable"" and that the world ""would soon know about a nuclear test.
A Japanese professor, after a meeting with a senior North Korean official last week, quoted the official as saying that a nuclear weapons test by Pyongyang was unavoidable.
When does North Korea test its nuclear bombs?
Iris Chang, who was 36, published ""The Rape of Nanking,"" a graphic account of the 1937 Japanese Army invasion of China.
The author of ""the Rape of Nanking,"" an acclaimed history of Japanese brutality against China in the 1930s, has committed suicide, officials said on Thursday.
Iris Chang, who was 36, published ""The Rape of Nanking,"" a graphic account of the 1937 Japanese Army invasion of China.
After it appeared in 1997, the book helped prompt Japan to reexamine this dark history.
Roh insists a peaceful resolution of N.K nuclear program.
The prosecution yesterday arrested a Korean-American businessman at the center of a wiretapping and slush fund scandal involving Samsung Group and high-profile politicians.
William Park, who is 58, is suspected of leaking an illegally bugged conversation that took place in 1997 between a Samsung executive and Hong Seok-hyun, Korea's ambassador to Washington, discussing plans to provide illegal campaign funds to presidential candidates.
After failing to make a deal with Samsung, he provided the tape to a reporter at MBC-TV, a local broadcaster, which aired the content last week.
Park was blocked Tuesday by National Intelligence Service officials from leaving for Seattle and was transferred yesterday to the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office.
Park allegedly obtained the tape from former NIS agent Kong Un-yong who led a special wiretapping unit.
Hwang Woo-suk’s stem cell research.
The broadcaster admitted to violating its own ethics rules while the producers of the investigative program, ``PD Notebook,’’ were gathering information unfavorable to Hwang from his junior staffers in the United States.
The apology came at the start of its main news program ``News Desk 9.’
A Senate Committee hears from the captain of the Maersk Alabama this afternoon about the growing threat from Somali pirates:
“ Captain Richard Phillips has had some time home in Vermont, and now lawmakers want his views on what should be done to confront the growing challenge the pirates pose to cargo ships.
There have been calls for crews to be armed or for ships to have a military escort.”
Capitol Hill correspondent Jerry Bodlander.
Phillips was held hostage for 5 days before Navy Seal sharpshooters killed 3 captors and rescued him.
his fiancee has called off the August wedding in Boston for accused Craigslist killer Philip Markoff.
Megan McAllister's lawyer announced it on national TV this morning:
“ Quite frankly, the charges that he faces make it unlikely that the… it will be rescheduled.”
That's attorney Robert Honnaker on the CBS Early Show.
Markoff, of course, is suspected of killing a woman - a masseuse - he met through Craigslist.
Phillips was held hostage for 5 days before Navy Seal sharpshooters killed 3 captors and rescued him.
Left at the altar by his day in court:
˝At least 10 people have been killed in clashes between security forces and militant students at a mosque in the Pakistani.
A soldier, two students and a journalist were among the dead.
After several hours of shooting outside the controversial Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) a ceasefire was negotiated.
Armed students at the mosque and religious schools linked to it have defied authorities for months in a campaign for Islamic Sharia law.
The mosque and the two religious schools attached to it - one for men, the other for women - have been at the centre of a number of high-profile incidents.
These include the kidnapping of police and people the mosque´s leaders say are involved in immoral activities such as prostitution.
Fighting around the Lal Masjid raged throughout much of Tuesday with more than 140 people wounded in the violence.˝
These include the kidnapping of police and people the mosque´s leaders say are involved in immoral activities such as prostitution.
John McCain campaigns in Missouri, and Barack Obama is in Florida where early voting starts today.
Washington correspondent Shirley Smith.
“Some experts say that early voting is becoming more popular because voters like the convenience.
The campaigns want to bank the votes and election workers want to ease the crowding on Election Day.”
The grandfather of a six year-old Las Vegas boy abducted at gunpoint is set to appear before a federal magistrate in California today.
Authorities believe the kidnapping came from 51 year-old Clemens Tinnemeyer owing millions of dollars to drug dealers involved in the meth trade.
The child was found safe over the weekend.
Opening statements underway now on the trial of five men accused of plotting to kill soldiers of the Army's Fort Dix.
John McCain campaigns in Missouri, and Barack Obama is in Florida where early voting starts today.
The campaigns want to bank the votes and election workers want to ease the crowding on Election Day.”
The grandfather of a six year-old Las Vegas boy abducted at gunpoint is set to appear before a federal magistrate in California today.
Authorities believe the kidnapping came from 51 year-old Clemens Tinnemeyer owing millions of dollars to drug dealers involved in the meth trade.
The United New Democratic Party said yesterday that it is considering calling for a criminal investigation into the alleged theft of President Roh Moo-hyun´s identity during its presidential primary.
Roh´s identity is suspected of having been stolen by somebody who registered him to the Electoral College without his knowledge, party officials said.
If proven to be true, this will fuel suspicions that a number of voters have been enrolled in the UNDP´s party pool, without their consent, by rival camps attempting to mobilize bogus voters into casting ballots for them.
The UNDP´s committee in charge of managing its presidential primary confirmed yesterday that Roh had been signed up via the internet as a member of its Electoral College in Seoul in late August.
But Cheong Wa Dae said that neither that Roh nor his aides registered him for the primary elections.
The governing party failed to win a single victory in the elections for the local legislatures.
The Uri Party suffered a crushing defeat in Saturday's by-elections as opposition parties swept most of the chief posts in local governments, according to the National Election Commission Sunday.
The Korea Times reports of the one mayoral position and four county chief posts up for grabs, the main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) and the minor Millennium Democratic Party (MDP) won two each, with the governing Uri Party saving face with one win.
Of the seven legislative seats in local governments at stake, the conservative GNP secured five while the MDP took one.
One seat went to an independent candidate.
Tackling the issue of what constitutes obscenity and pornography, the Supreme Court has broadened the definition of what is acceptable when it comes to depicting nudity aimed at adults.
Basically, it comes down to pubic hair and genitalia, according to a court ruling yesterday.
The judgment saved a 45-year-old man who was on trial for producing adult content he provided to Korea’s biggest Internet portals, Naver and Yahoo Korea.
The man, identified only by his last name Kim, was earning about 4 million won ($4,a month, until he was indicted in 2005 on charges of “creating a harmful environment for teenagers by producing materials that showed masturbation and sexual intercourse between strangers.”
The Joong-Ang Ilbo reports a rush by consumers this week to purchase cases of instant noodles is the latest sign that inflation driven by the cost of oil and food is becoming a major problem.
Affected by rising flour prices, Korea’s instant ramen makers announced a price increase of 100 won per packet starting Wednesday, a move that saw shoppers clogging stores earlier this week to buy crates of noodles ahead of the increase.
But this is about more than noodles.
The price index for raw materials and intermediate goods in January posted year-on-year growth of 17.3 percent, the steepest rise in over nine years, the Bank of Korea said yesterday.
In October 1998, raw materials jumped 20.6 percent year-on-year in the aftermath of the Won’s plunge during the Asian financial crisis.
-Korea alliance, but asked Korea to pay more to support the U.S. troops here.
Defense Department official criticized the Roh administration Wednesday for making transfer of wartime command an issue of national sovereignty.
Richard P. Lawless, the Pentagon's deputy undersecretary for Asia-Pacific affairs, also defended the transfer as a natural step in the evolution of the U.S.
At a hearing before the U.S.
The government on Wednesday was put on high alert, as one of Japan's ultra rightist groups was heading for the South Korean islets of Dokdo in the East Sea.
Japan notified Seoul that the Japanese rightist group called Nihon Shidokai departed from Etomo near the western Japanese prefecture of Simane aboard a 6-ton ship on its way to the South's easternmost islets.
The Korea Times reports Seoul has mobilized five warships, two aircraft along with 15 special military unit members to force back the Japanese protest boat, warning that any intruders would be dealt with sternly in accordance with international and domestic laws.
The latest incident is feared to further deteriorate already sour Seoul-Tokyo relations amid the tension over the Japanese Prime Minister's recent homage to the war dead at a controversial shrine.
Although the islets are under Korean control, Japanese authorities including Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi have constantly claimed sovereignty over them in an apparent bid to attract international attention, according to a government official.
Stock prices have been down as investors take profits from the pre-election rally that saw the Dow close up more than 300 points yesterday.
There seems to have been little reaction to a report that U.S. services sector contracted sharply last month.
For some, it's not the holiday decorations at the mall that say Christmas is a-coming, but something else that's red and green.
Listen to this from our Matt Small:
“That's right, cups have returned to Starbucks, marking the unofficial start of the holiday season for millions of coffee drinkers.
The Seattle-based coffee chain began offering their holiday-theme drinks, like the Gingersnap Latte and Peppermint Mocha Twist yesterday.
Starbucks says the holiday shopping season is their busiest time of the year.
…but unlike yesterday's freebies, you do have to pay for the fancy Christmas drinks.
Today was down more than a 100 in mid-morning trading;
There seems to have been little reaction to a report that U.S. services sector contracted sharply last month.
“ …and a happy New Year”)
The Korea Herald reports prosecutors yesterday raided the office and home of a top financial official as part of their ongoing probe into his alleged bribery case.
Investigators seized documents and the private computer of Kim Jung-hoe, the deputy governor of the Financial Supervisory Service.
The Korea Herald reports prosecutors yesterday raided the office and home of a top financial official as part of their ongoing probe into his alleged bribery case.
he Philippine military is under new pressure after a government-backed commission linked some soldiers to a spate of political killings.
The commission's report came a day after a UN envoy accused the army of being in “denial” over the issue of extra-judicial killings.
A rights group said 830 activists had been killed since President Gloria Arroyo came to power in 2001.
Arroyo said she would take the findings and allegations seriously. The head of the armed forces, General Hermogenes Esperon, hit back at the criticism.
He said he thought the UN envoy, Philip Alston, ”might be in a state of denial himself”, criticizing him for ignoring evidence of alleged assassinations by Communist rebels.
Gen Esperon described the findings of the latest report as ”strained, unfair and a blank accusation”.
The report by the government-backed inquiry, headed by retired Philippine judge Jose Melo, found ”elements in the military” were responsible for the deaths of some activists.
Presidential spokesman Ignacio Bunye said Arroyo believed that the majority of soldiers were not involved.
he Philippine military is under new pressure after a government-backed commission linked some soldiers to a spate of political killings.
The commission's report came a day after a UN envoy accused the army of being in “denial” over the issue of extra-judicial killings.
Arroyo said she would take the findings and allegations seriously.
"" He said the envoys would go not only to the North, but to four other countries, presumably the other members of the six-way nuclear talks with North Korea.
The Joong-Ang Ilbo reports the leadership of the governing Uri Party and the Roh administration proposed yesterday that former President Kim Dae-jung and the Grand National Party leader Park Geun-hye visit Pyeongyang as ""special envoys for peace.
"" In a speech yesterday at the Kwanhun Club, a club for senior journalists, Uri Party's chairman, Lee Bu-young, said, ""We will consult the president and promote such a plan.
Former President Kim Dae-jung hints at NK envoy role.
The Red Cross says up to 7,000 people are homeless after a tsunami triggered by an earthquake swept through the western Solomon Islands.
A Red Cross spokeswoman in the badly damaged town of Gizo said food and medical aid was arriving but many people were still camping in the hills.
Many people have been afraid to return to their homes because of fears of another tsunami.
At least 39 people were killed when a wave several meters high hit the area.
Many homes in the fishing and diving centre of Gizo were destroyed or badly damaged by both the earthquake and the resulting wall of water.
The town’s airport has now been repaired and supplies of food, water and medicine are arriving in a steady flow.
Shops opened on Monday for the first time since the disaster, and fishermen are selling their catch in the town’s market.
Gizo was only 45km (28 miles) from the epicentre of the 8.1 magnitude quake.
The Red Cross says up to 7,000 people are homeless after a tsunami triggered by an earthquake swept through the western Solomon Islands.
Many people have been afraid to return to their homes because of fears of another tsunami.
Shops opened on Monday for the first time since the disaster, and fishermen are selling their catch in the town’s market.
Its picture doesn't look like anybody's long-lost uncle, but scientists have unveiled a fossil that may be from somewhere deep in the human family tree:
At the American Museum of Natural History, paleontologists have unveiled a nearly complete fossilized skeleton of a primate that lived 47 million years ago.
Maybe not directly, says paleontologist Hans Franz:
“ We are not dealing with our grand, grand, grand, grandmother, but perhaps with our grand, grand, grand, grand-aunt.”
Scientists usually derive theories working with a chip here, part of an ankle bone there.
This skeleton, about the size of a small cat, with grasping hands and nails instead of claws, is so complete that the outline of what may have been its fur is visible.
Warren Levinson, Washington.
Kobe Bryant scored 18 of his game-high 40 points in the 4th quarter;
the Lakers held off the upset-minded Nuggets 105-103 with the opener of the NBA Western Conference finals.
At the American Museum of Natural History, paleontologists have unveiled a nearly complete fossilized skeleton of a primate that lived 47 million years ago.
When Mr Wei refused the Chengguan´s demands that he delete the footage, he was beaten to death on the spot, according to witnesses cited by the Xinhua news agency.
The beating to death of a man who filmed a dispute between officials and villagers in communist China on his mobile phone has prompted a nationwide outcry.
Thousands of people have been posting messages on Chinese websites calling for the government agency involved in the incident to be abolished.
There have also been large demonstrations in the province of Hubei where the attack occurred.
Local police questioned 24 people over the killing, four remain in custody.
The dispute began when local people attempted to stop a rubbish truck from dumping refuse at a site that they argued was too close to their village.
Members of the Chinese municipal inspectors, known as the Chengguan, intervened.
The victim, Wei Wenhua, the manager of a construction company in Tianmen City, was driving by and stopped to film the confrontation on his mobile phone.
When Mr Wei refused the Chengguan´s demands that he delete the footage, he was beaten to death on the spot, according to witnesses cited by the Xinhua news agency.
Communist Party chief of Tianmen City, Bie Bixiong, told Xinhua that those responsible would be punished according to the law.
Intense campaigning today in Georgia in a run-off election for Senate.
Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is taking part in rallies for incumbent Senator Saxby Chambliss.
His Democratic challenger Jim Martin will be joined by rapper 'Ludacris' as he makes a final pitch for votes.
An FBI spokesman is telling us that the Birmingham Mayor in Alabama, Larry Langford, has now been arrested on undisclosed Federal charges.
We'll get more information on this story in the hours ahead.
There may be some late Thanksgiving treats for the crew of the Space Shuttle Endeavour.
The spaceship landed in California because of poor weather in Florida.
Harvard alum Senator Ted Kennedy will be getting an honor from his Alma Mater that puts him in rather elite company.
“George Washington, Winston Churchill and Nelson Mandela are among the few that have been similarly honored.”
Kennedy is getting an honorary degree that recognizes his lifelong commitment to public service.
He graduated from Harvard in 1954.
His Democratic challenger Jim Martin will be joined by rapper 'Ludacris' as he makes a final pitch for votes.
We'll get more information on this story in the hours ahead.
The spaceship landed in California because of poor weather in Florida.
Tough new ""zero-tolerance"" laws to curb the sex trade and trafficking in women went into effect yesterday and authorities vowed to enforce penalties that include lengthy prison terms and heavy fines.
Critics warn that any laxity - one of the major problems in the past in curbing the sex trade - will make the laws hollow and not change a national attitude to prostitution as undesirable but an accepted practice.
The Korea Herald reports brothel owners and prostitutes face prison sentences of up to seven years and heavy fines, while pimps can be jailed for up to 10 years.
Foreigners caught in illegal sex acts can be deported.
US and Japan have detected signs of NK preparing to launch a ballistic missile capable of reaching Japan.
The government unveiled programs to encourage Koreans to invest more overseas in a move to fight off the appreciation of the won.
To engineer a yearly capital outflow of $15 billion from this year, it will exempt taxes on capital gains realized from investments in overseas securities and allow state-run funds to invest in foreign stocks and bonds.
The Ministry of Finance and Economy said Koreans will be able to invest as much as $3 million in overseas real estate, up from the current ceiling of $1 million.
Deputy Prime Minister and Finance-Economy Minister Kwon O-kyu said the latest measures will lead to an additional outflow of $10-15 billion per year.
Seoul is not expected to make a strong push to encourage foreign portfolio capital inflow and foreign direct investment in the face of a stronger won, analysts said.
Kwon said the Won’s appreciation against the dollar will moderate as a result.
The local currency strengthened 8.2 percent against the greenback last year, weakening the price competitiveness of exports.
The Ministry of Finance and Economy said Koreans will be able to invest as much as $3 million in overseas real estate, up from the current ceiling of $1 million.
Kim, who is 80 and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, was admitted to the hospital as a precaution on Aug.
The Korea Times reports former President Kim Dae-jung was discharged from his 12-day stay at Yonsei University's Severance Hospital in Seoul, which he was admitted to for pneumonia-like symptoms, Sunday his aides said.
The National Assembly got a new electronic system for legislative process.
A suicide car bomber killed 12 people, underlining Iraq's dire security challenges, while a Kurdish politician spelt out demands that could complicate the formation of the country's new government.
The attack wounded 35, hospital officials said.
A suicide car bomber killed 12 people, underlining Iraq's dire security challenges, while a Kurdish politician spelt out demands that could complicate the formation of the country's new government.
A man dressed in a police uniform drove his car into the police headquarters in Saddam Hussein's home town of Tikrit and detonated the vehicle during a change of shift, police said.
The attack wounded 35, hospital officials said.
Not sure if the pre-game show has started yet, but let's fast-forward to half time at the Super Bowl:
(singing) Bruce Springsteen will perform in Tampa, and he admits it's not just out of the goodness of his heart:
“We have our mercenary reasons, of course, you know….
and besides, our deep love of football.
The Boss has a new album to promote: Working on a Dream was released on Tuesday.
It was 40 years ago today:
(music) The Beatles played in public for the last time in a rooftop concert in London.
(singing) Beatles tribute bands are climbing onto rooftops across the country today to mark the anniversary.
They'll play in Seattle, Nashville, and San Diego.
(music)“ I'd like to say thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves.
I hope we pass the audition.”
“We have our mercenary reasons, of course, you know….
Hurricane Omar is leaving the Virgin Islands and now making its way to the North Atlantic at the Buccaneer Hotel in Christiansted.
The Manager was asked about damage.
“We had no structural damage here at the Buccaneer whatsoever, and I've spoken to probably, at this point in time, 30 employees from all parts of the island.
They've had no structural damage.
I haven't heard about any roofs off, I haven't heard about any, you know, broken windows…”
A fire on the fringe of the Cleveland National Forest has now grown to about 30 acres.
The Phillies are headed to the World Series after last night's win over the Dodgers to claim the National League pennant.
Now it's time for the Red Sox and Tampa Bay to wrap things up.
The Sox and the Rays are playing Game 5 of their series tonight, which may decide who wins the American League title.
The Manager was asked about damage.
I haven't heard about any roofs off, I haven't heard about any, you know, broken windows…”
that, as firefighters start to get the upper hand on wildfires there.
Another 3 members of a polygamist group in Texas have been indicted:
“The case sprang from an April raid of the group's compound near El Dorado.
The Schleicher County grand jury indicted two people on bigamy charges, and a third on charges of conducting an unlawful marriage ceremony with a minor.
The names of the new defendants have not been released yet.
The grand jury has also issued an additional charge of aggravated sexual assaults against Jeffs.
He's already been charged in Texas with bigamy, and aggravated sexual assault of a child.
Todd Jefferies, Austin, Texas.”
Planned Parenthood says an increasing number of countries worldwide are making spreading HIV a crime.
Health officials fear the trend could undermine gains made in fighting AIDS and might even provoke a surge in cases.
Defense Secretary Gates says Russia's proposal that Washington scrap its missile defense plans in Eastern Europe is unacceptable.
And Vice President Elect Joe Biden gets to see his new home today.
He and his wife will be given a tour of the official residence by Vice President Dick Cheney.
The names of the new defendants have not been released yet.
The grand jury has also issued an additional charge of aggravated sexual assaults against Jeffs.
He's already been charged in Texas with bigamy, and aggravated sexual assault of a child.
˝The last seven South Korean hostages held by the Taliban in Afghanistan have been handed over to the International Committee of the Red Cross.
They were released in two groups, within the space of a few hours, late on Thursday.
On Wednesday, 12 of their fellow Christian charity workers were released after a six-week ordeal.
The Taliban seized the group of 23 last month as they travelled by bus on the main highway from Kandahar to Kabul.
Two male hostages were subsequently killed.
The last three captives, two women and a man, were handed over to ICRC officials in Ghazni province late on Thursday.
Earlier in the day two women and two men were handed over near the village of Janda.
The BBC reports all seven appear to be in good health.
The releases follow a series of direct talks between the South Korean government and the Taliban.
Two women were freed following the first round of talks a fortnight ago.
The release of 12 more hostages on Wednesday - 10 women and two men - came a day after Seoul said it had reached a deal with the Taliban.
South Korea agreed to withdraw its 200 troops from Afghanistan as scheduled by the end of the year.
It also said it would end all missionary work in the country and stop its citizens from traveling there.
There was no mention of money being paid, but it is thought that a ransom may have been part of the deal, according to the BBC´s Alastair Leithead in Kabul.
The Taliban appear to have dropped their earlier demand that Taliban members be released from Afghan prisons in exchange for the hostages´ freedom.
The hostages are thought to have been held in several different locations in Ghazni province.˝
Two male hostages were subsequently killed.
Earlier in the day two women and two men were handed over near the village of Janda.
The Korea Herald reports Seoul City made its demand in a written opinion sent Saturday to the Constitutional Court urging it to rule against Roh's plan to move the nation's administrative capital from Seoul.
The Seoul Metropolitan Government has demanded that President Roh Moo-hyun put his government's controversial project to relocate the capital to South Chungcheong Province to a national referendum.
The Korea Herald reports Seoul City made its demand in a written opinion sent Saturday to the Constitutional Court urging it to rule against Roh's plan to move the nation's administrative capital from Seoul.
The city government submitted the 2,300-page document at the request of the court, which made similar requests to the ministries of construction and transportation and justice.
U.S. troops in Europe and Asia will be brought back to the U.S.
Japan has extended economic sanctions on North Korea, citing a lack of progress in a row over Japanese nationals abducted by Pyongyang.
The measures - which ban imports from North Korea and visits by its ships - will continue for another six months.
A top official said Japan was seeking advances on both the abduction and nuclear issues.
The move comes exactly a year after North Korea carried out its first nuclear test, on October 9th 2006.
Since then, Pyongyang has agreed to end its nuclear program in return for millions of dollars worth of aid.
It has closed its main Yongbyon reactor and last week committed to a timetable for disclosing and dismantling all its nuclear facilities by the end of the year.
Later this week, a US-led team of experts is due to visit North Korea, where they will begin supervising the process of dismantling its nuclear installations.
NATO's decision to help train Iraq's armed forces set off wrangling among the allies Tuesday as more differences emerged between the French and Americans on how to best help Baghdad's new government.
At a summit designed to emphasize NATO's unity after deep divisions caused by the U.S.-led war on Iraq 15 months ago, France and the United States also clashed over Afghanistan and Turkey's relations with the European Union.
The friction came as Afghan President Hamid Karzai implored NATO leaders Tuesday to overcome months of foot-dragging and send more troops to his country ahead of September elections.
The nation’s broadcasting regulator announced on Monday that it would take more than a week before deciding on the proper punishment for the indecent exposure that took place on a live music television program.
The Korea Broadcasting Commission (KBC) said that before taking action on “Music Camp,” a live music show airing on Saturdays on MBC, it will first speak to its staff.
On the show last Saturday, two male musicians of the punk rock band Couch suddenly dropped their pants and exposed their genitalia while dancing during the performance of RUX, another punk band.
The scene, which lasted for about four seconds, was the first instance of indecent exposure to take place on national television.
The musicians, along with the vocalist of RUX, were arrested immediately after the show.
Therapy for damaged skin using stem cell is developed.
Six nations check 2nd draft.
Lee Myung-bak’s supposed date for a face-to-face chat with President George W. Bush was thrown into question yesterday when the U.S.
Nevertheless, Lee’s Grand National Party acted yesterday as if the meeting is still on, while Lee took a wait- and-see approach.
Max Kwak, the spokesman for the embassy, said yesterday that the White House “has no plans” to have a meeting with the opposition presidential candidate.
“That is the official position of the White House,” said Kwak.
Asked whether Washington had declined Lee’s request, Kwak said that was “open to interpretation.”
On Friday, the GNP said the meeting was a go, insisting that the White House had confirmed the appointment through Melissa S. Bennett, a special assistant to the president.
Lee is scheduled to go to the United States later this month.
Max Kwak, the spokesman for the embassy, said yesterday that the White House “has no plans” to have a meeting with the opposition presidential candidate.
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has announced plans to withdraw his country's troops from Iraq.
Koizumi said Japan's presence had been ""highly appreciated by the Iraqi government and its people"".
The 600 non-combat troops have been working on reconstruction projects in southern Iraq since February 2004, protected by UK and Australian forces.
The decision was unpopular with the Japanese public, many of whom said it violated Japanese's pacifist constitution.
It was Japan's first foray into an active foreign war zone since World War II.
Koizumi said Japan's presence had been ""highly appreciated by the Iraqi government and its people"".
John McCain says Barack Obama favors the socialistic approach by supporting tax cuts and tax credits.
He says would shuffle rather than create wealth.
McCain says Obama's tax plan will gut small business.
“Senator Obama's plan will kill those jobs just the time when we need to be creating more jobs.”
McCain campaigns today in North Carolina and Virginia, two formerly safe GOP states.
“The Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times are backing Barack Obama for President.
While the Tribune is the biggest daily in Obama's hometown, the paper hasn't endorsed a Democrat in its 161-year history.
The Times has not endorsed any presidential candidate since 1972, when it backed President Nixon's re-election.
The Tribune's editorial board says Obama is the best candidate to lead the country through a perilous time and restore a common sense of national purpose.
The Times says the U.S. needs a president who displays grace under pressure, is not prone to volatile gestures, and understands the legal foundations of American freedom.
He says would shuffle rather than create wealth.
McCain says Obama's tax plan will gut small business.
“The Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times are backing Barack Obama for President.
While the Tribune is the biggest daily in Obama's hometown, the paper hasn't endorsed a Democrat in its 161-year history.
Chung Myung-whun, the director and artistic director for some of the world's leading symphonies, is to be appointed as an artistic adviser to the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, a Seoul city official said yesterday.
The official said Chung would be an adviser for the first two years of a three-year contract and then become artistic director during the last year.
The appointment of Chung has been a controversial issue within the Korean music scene.
He had previously been appointed as a conductor for the KBS Symphony Orchestra in 1998, but he left the post four months into a multi-year contract.
Chung Myung-whun, the director and artistic director for some of the world's leading symphonies, is to be appointed as an artistic adviser to the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, a Seoul city official said yesterday.
The appointment of Chung has been a controversial issue within the Korean music scene.
In an hour-long interview with the Korea Herald, the No.3 provost marshal officer of USFK and a deputy public affairs officer stressed the USFK's commitment to be a good guest.
Former evangelical pastor Ted Haggard says his sexual identity is complex and can't be put into stereotypical boxes.
“What this process did for me is it opened the door for me to be able to discuss my own sexuality thoroughly and intimately with Gail and the children and my therapist.”
A new HBO documentary follows Haggard after a gay sex scandal forced him to resign as president of the National Association of Evangelicals.
He was also fired from the 14,000-member New Life Church.
Haggard now sells insurance and debt-reduction software.
The NFL playoffs resume this afternoon.
The Baltimore Ravens are in Tennessee to take on the Titans in the AFC's matchup.
Tonight in the NFC, the Arizona Cardinals are on the East Coast to face the Carolina Panthers.
Two more playoff games are scheduled for tomorrow in both conferences.
Haggard now sells insurance and debt-reduction software.
Senator Edward Kennedy was briefly hospitalized yesterday with a mild seizure that doctors think was caused by a change in medication.
The 76-year old Kennedy underwent surgery in June for a malignant brain tumor.
The AP's Bob Salsberg reports it from Boston that Kennedy has already had six weeks of chemotherapy and radiation treatment.
“He has seemed to step up his presence a little bit publicly;
of course, no one knows for certain how his health will play out in the coming months, but he continues to say that he, he hopes to return to Congress when the new session begins in January.”
Tropical storm Kyle just about hurricane strength, National Hurricane Center's Stacy Stewart says the storm is a threat to the far north.
“Kyle was expected to remain to the east of the U.S. northeast coast, and affect the Canadian Maritimes area.
However, it is possible that Kyle could delay its turn for by about six hours, which would bring the center and some of the stronger winds closer to Cape Cod and the eastern portions of New England.”
The AP's Bob Salsberg reports it from Boston that Kennedy has already had six weeks of chemotherapy and radiation treatment.
Following last week’s unprecedented raid on the National Intelligence Service (NIS) headquarters in Seoul by the prosecution, prosecutors will call in former spy agency chief Chun Yong-taek for questioning on Tuesday.
Following last week’s unprecedented raid on the National Intelligence Service (NIS) headquarters in Seoul by the prosecution, prosecutors will call in former spy agency chief Chun Yong-taek for questioning on Tuesday.
Investigators said the former governing Uri Party lawmaker is suspected of having made backdoor deals with the former head of the wiretapping team Kong Un-yong after seizing tapes from him in November 1999.
He is also suspected of ordering the special unit codenamed ``Mirim’’ to get rid of two tapes containing information against him, and he is also accused of having taken advantage of illegally wiretapped information for his own interest.
Vice presidential debate moderator Gwen Ifill is talking about Thursday night's event between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin.
The PBS journalist admits it wasn't much of a standard debate, because the candidates had set their own agendas.
“If they had decided, as Joe Biden decided, that he was going to debate John McCain, and she decided she was going to give a stump speech to the American people, there's very little a moderator can do, other than say, 'No, no, no, listen, I asked a question, please, please, answers!'
Ifill appeared on NBC's 'Meet the Press.
And it's becoming standard weekend viewing now for political junkies;
“And then, you know, we'll do that.”
Violence has dras-rather declined drastically, throughout Iraq, but Mosul remains a major security challenge.
Eleven Iraqis were killed after U.S. forces came under attack by gunfire, and a suicide bomber during a raid in Mosul.
Ifill appeared on NBC's 'Meet the Press.
And it's becoming standard weekend viewing now for political junkies;
An improvised explosive device has killed two U.S. soldiers in Baghdad.
The second soldier died later from wounds suffered in the blast.
Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt said the attack took place in the last 24 hours, but he provided no other details.
Kimmitt said a member of the U.S.-backed Iraqi Civil Defense Corps was also killed in a separate attack.
President of Iraq’s coming government was named.
John McCain, a former prisoner of war in Vietnam, called an ad criticizing John Kerry's military service ``dishonest and dishonorable'' and urged the White House on Thursday to condemn it as well.
The White House declined.
A wealthy Texan and prolific Republican donor is helping bankroll a television ad assailing Democrat John Kerry's decorated military record in the Vietnam War.
Houston homebuilder Bob J. Perry has donated at least $100,000 to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a suburban Washington-based group airing a new ad in which Vietnam veterans who served on swiftboats accuse the Democratic presidential nominee of lying about his war record.
The group bought $500,000 of airtime for the 60-second ad to air in the battleground states of Wisconsin, Ohio and West Virginia.
The effort is reminiscent of a 2000 “dirty tricks” effort that helped drive George W. Bush's then-rival John McCain from the presidential race.
More than 100 people are dead, and some 200 injured in Kenya, after an overturned gasoline tanker exploded.
Police say the tanker went up in an earth-shattering blast, as a crowd of hundreds had gathered around scooping up the leaking fuel.
Sarah Hughes says only the most badly hurt victims remain in her hospital:
“I think the most seriously injured have already left, but there are still some here that will require surgery and further treatment.”
Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says there could be harsh and disproportionate retaliation, after Gaza militants launched rockets and mortars into southern Israel.
Hamas has not taken any responsibility for those new attacks.
Israel holds elections in just a week; recent opinion polls show hard-line former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is the front runner.
More than a half million homes and businesses remain without electricity in Kentucky, slammed by an ice storm this past week.
Governor Steve Beshear has ordered the National Guard to check houses in the hard-hit areas:
“We're going in the right direction, and we've just got to keep going until we get the lights of everybody on, and get heat in every home again, and get their telephone service back.”
At least 42 deaths are blamed on that storm.
Police say the tanker went up in an earth-shattering blast, as a crowd of hundreds had gathered around scooping up the leaking fuel.
Police in Seoul Monday detained 25 prostitutes, pimps and Japanese tourists in a crackdown on Internet-based sex rings.
Police arrested another woman, a 42-year-old identified as Ahn, who has been running a similar Internet site with her husband since July and had earned more than 130 million won.
”The operators of the Internet sites posted advertisements on some of Japan’s adult-only Web sites and gathered customers under a secret membership program that targeted Japanese business travelers who frequently visit Korea or are on an extended stay here, ” according to a police officer.
As for two Assembly seats up for grabs, Lee Won-bok of the main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) was elected in the Namdong-gu district in Inchon, west of Seoul.
The remaining one seat went to Chae Il-byung who ran on the ticket of the minor opposition Democratic Party (DP) in the Haenam-Chindo constituency in South Cholla Province, the party’s traditional stronghold.
Of four local administrative chief posts available, two went to independents _ Ha Jong-keun in Changnyong, South Kyongsang Province, stronghold of the GNP, and Chun Wan-joon in Hwasun, South Cholla Province.
For the first time, the nation's chief economic policy maker has lowered his estimates for Korea's economy next year.
The country's gross domestic product will climb about 4.5 percent next year, down from this year's estimated 5-percent gain, Finance Minister Kwon O-kyu said yesterday.
Previously, the government had said the economy could reach its potential growth rate next year.
For the first time, the nation's chief economic policy maker has lowered his estimates for Korea's economy next year.
'' The next round of talks
The White House said Tuesday that North Korea's Kim Jong Il is engaging in ``more bluster'' by criticizing George W. Bush as a leader who is fomenting world unrest.
The North Korean leader said on Monday that the U.S. president had turned ``a peaceful world into a pandemonium unprecedented in history'' and called Bush ``a political imbecile.''
Last week, Bush referred to the North Korean leader as a ``tyrant.''
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said that North Korea needs to end its nuclear weapons program.
The United States and the other countries involved in talks with North Korea ``are sending a clear message'' that North Korea should end its nuclear program and realize ``the benefits of the international community.
Korea and China reached a tentative agreement on Koguryo issue.
Suspects’ families watch the investigation process.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's third wife, one of whose sons is apparently being groomed as next in line of succession, died of a heart attack and was buried in secret, reliable sources said yesterday.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's third wife, one of whose sons is apparently being groomed as next in line of succession, died of a heart attack and was buried in secret, reliable sources said yesterday.
The Korea Herald reports the marital status of the 62-year-old North Korean leader has never been officially confirmed, but it's no secret he has been romantically involved with a succession of women, many of them actress or singers, including his reputed third wife, Ko Young-hee.
North Korean defectors and other sources privy to the North's ruling family said Ko's parents were Koreans who emigrated from Japan in the 1960s.
North Korean experts have speculated one of her sons with Kim, Jong-chol, is first in line to succeed his father.
Uri Party proposed income tax cut of 1%P.
The Korea Times reports Indications are that Korean policymakers are charting programs to win support from the people and the National Assembly for the ratification of the crucial free trade deal with the United States.
Deputy Prime Minister and Finance-Economy Minister Kwon O-kyu has arranged a series of meetings with business editors and editorial writers next week.
At the meetings, Kwon is expected to explain the result of the Korea-US FTA negotiations.
It is also speculated that President Roh Moo-hyun is to talk with President George W. Bush sometime this week to declare the signing of the deal.
The FTA team, under the direct control of Chong Wa Dae, is busy preparing materials to help the people better understand what it believes to be benefits of the deal.
A government source close to the negotiations told the pro-opposition Korea Times that it is a foregone conclusion that the deal will be concluded by the Saturday deadline.
But the question is how the government can persuade the anti-FTA groups so that the deal can get ratified by the National Assembly.
Deputy Prime Minister and Finance-Economy Minister Kwon O-kyu has arranged a series of meetings with business editors and editorial writers next week.
It is also speculated that President Roh Moo-hyun is to talk with President George W. Bush sometime this week to declare the signing of the deal.
The government and ruling Uri Party agreed to withdraw all South Korean troops from Iraq by the end of next year, government officials said.
The Korea Times reports agreement was made during a meeting of party lawmakers at the National Assembly.
Earlier, the party called on the government to set a specific timetable for the withdrawal of troops from the Middle Eastern nation in the first half of next year.
The two sides also agreed to dispatch a battalion of 350 soldiers to Lebanon on a peacekeeping mission, as well as to extend the presence of medical and engineering units in Afghanistan for another year.
In Afghanistan, about 60 medics of the Dongui Medical Unit and 150 engineers of the Dasan Engineering Unit are operating a rehabilitation mission.
The government plans to submit related bills to the Assembly today.
The two sides also agreed to dispatch a battalion of 350 soldiers to Lebanon on a peacekeeping mission, as well as to extend the presence of medical and engineering units in Afghanistan for another year.
Since 2002, the National Intelligence Service has investigated 107 suspects in connection with six cases involving Middle East terror organizations, the agency said in a report to a legislator made public yesterday.
The intelligence service, according to Representative Won Hye-young of the Uri Party, said South Korea has not escaped involvement with terror attempts by radical Islamist groups.
According to the report, the service learned in May 2005 that an Iranian organization linked to Hezbollah had been involved in wire transfers of cash amounting to about 60 billion won.
The transfers had been disguised as trade transactions it was not clear from the report if the money had been raised in Korea or had been routed through this country in an attempt to disguise its origins.
One Iranian was sentenced to a year in prison here for violations of Korea's financial transfer laws.
In May 2004, the report added, the spy agency learned that people linked to Jemaah Islamiah, another Islamist group, were arriving in Korea to set up a base of operations here.
The transfers had been disguised as trade transactions it was not clear from the report if the money had been raised in Korea or had been routed through this country in an attempt to disguise its origins.
One Iranian was sentenced to a year in prison here for violations of Korea's financial transfer laws.
The Bank of Korea yesterday slashed its growth forecast for the second half citing persistent household debt and lofty oil prices which slammed the consumer confidence index to an eight-month low.
The Bank of Korea yesterday slashed its growth forecast for the second half citing persistent household debt and lofty oil prices which slammed the consumer confidence index to an eight-month low.
The central bank predicted gross domestic product would expand 5 percent, slower than its initial 5.6 percent outlook.
Dressed mostly in black and holding white candles, a couple of thousand people held a vigil in Hong Kong Thursday night to protest Beijing's plans to restrict Hong Kong's movement toward greater democracy.
A series of speakers called for the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress not to proceed with its announced intention of reviewing and officially interpreting Hong Kong's laws on how residents there can choose their chief executive and lawmakers.
A crowd of mostly young protesters marched to the headquarters of Hong Kong's government after the vigil and began a demonstration that, by police estimates, quickly grew to about 400 people.
Organizers estimated that 3,000 people attended the vigil on Thursday night.
Although Hong Kong's laws prohibit restrictions on freedom of speech, Beijing officials have caused considerable nervousness there since mid-February with a series of venomous criticisms of democracy advocates, calling them clowns, idiots and even traitors.
Al-Qaeda plotter Zacarias Moussaoui says he has ""no regret, no remorse"" for the attacks on September 11, 2001 in the US that killed nearly 3,000 people.
When asked by a lawyer whether he would be prepared to kill Americans, he said:
"" Earlier, he turned on his court-appointed lawyers, accusing them of ""criminal non-assistance"".
He was testifying before jurors who are deciding whether he should be executed for his role in the 9/11 attacks.
Defense lawyers say Moussaoui's life should be spared because of his limited role in the attacks, evidence of mental illness, and because his execution would only fulfill his dream of martyrdom.
Al-Qaeda plotter Zacarias Moussaoui says he has ""no regret, no remorse"" for the attacks on September 11, 2001 in the US that killed nearly 3,000 people.
When asked by a lawyer whether he would be prepared to kill Americans, he said:
Defense lawyers say Moussaoui's life should be spared because of his limited role in the attacks, evidence of mental illness, and because his execution would only fulfill his dream of martyrdom.
An explosion has hit a cafeteria at the Iraqi parliament, killing at least eight people, at least two of them MPs, the US military has said.
Police said they believed a suicide bomber was involved.
Twenty-three people were injured in the attack.
The cafe, in Baghdad's highly fortified Green Zone, is for MPs and their staff, some of whom were having lunch there.
Earlier, a bomb on a bridge in Baghdad killed at least eight people and sent several cars into the River Tigris.
The two attacks are seen as major blows to the much-trumpeted Baghdad security surge now in its third month.
The convention centre where parliament meets is one of the most heavily guarded buildings in the country.
There are sniffer dogs, and all the other usual precautions are taken.
Sometimes several searches are made within the space of just a few meters.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki said the attack was a “criminal cowardly act” and said the violence would not weaken MPs' resolve.
US President George W Bush said he stood with the Iraqi government.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the attack did not mean the security operation had failed.
Police said they believed a suicide bomber was involved.
The day before a meeting of their presidents, South Korea's Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon and U.S Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice agreed in principle yesterday to set up regular foreign ministers' meetings to increase their policy coordination.
Kim Sook, director general of the ministry's North American Affairs Bureau told reporters that President Roh Moo-hyun and U.S.
Reports of prisoners being tortured have been exaggerated.
Hong Seok-hyun was questioned by the prosecution.
The Korea Times has reported The High Court ruled on Sunday that it is illegal to force people to drink and to stay late at a drinking session on the ground that it violates personal rights and the right to pursue happiness.
In the ruling, the appellate court ordered him to pay 30 million won in damages.
It overturned the ruling from a first trial, which awarded 7 million won in compensation.
The ruling is expected to bring an impact on the traditional drinking culture in companies, which often coerce people into drinking against their will.
To a large degree company drinking sessions are used as a way of getting workers to socialize.
But those who do not like drinking often complain.
South Korea's Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan has resigned for playing golf when he was supposed to be dealing with a national railway strike.
Lee was criticized by opponents and some newspapers for not overseeing the government response earlier this month.
His resignation, offered to President Roh Moo-hyun on Tuesday, was accepted, Yonhap news agency said.
A spokesman for the president said Lee ""felt sorry"" for the trouble he had caused by acting ""indiscreetly"".
Lee played the round of golf on a national holiday on 1 March.
But that was also the day when railway workers went out on strike and he was widely criticized for not returning to work.
The bomber is thought to have travelled by bicycle towards his intended target, in the town of Mussayib.
Iraqi police said say two policemen were killed in the blast and at least five civilians were injured.
The violence has been blamed on mainly Sunni Muslim insurgents who want to destabilize Iraq in order to undermine the US-led occupation of the country.
A senior policeman and at least two other people were also killed in series of attacks in the capital, Baghdad.
Massive earthquake struck Indonesian coast.
The Korea Times reports lawmakers of the pro-government Uri Party on Thursday blocked a National Assembly vote on South Korea's first-ever motion to impeach President Roh Moo-hyun.
The plenary session was delayed until 10 a.m. on Friday after Assembly Speaker Park Kwan-yong could not physically reach the podium to begin the voting session.
Around 30 Uri Party legislators stood in Park's way to the podium when he entered the hall at 4:25 p.m.
Opposition lawmakers took their seats but refrained from using force to break through the barrier.
President Roh, to step down if Uri party failed to get support in the next month’s general elecions.
Multinational drug manufacturers are opposing the Korean government’s plan to allow only cost-effective drugs to be covered by national health insurance.
Their reaction came out after the Ministry of Health and Welfare announced the plan on May 3, to cut the prices of medicines manufactured by foreign companies to reduce its soaring insurance coverage for medicines.
The ministry will introduce the so-called positive list system in September, under which only medicines with proven efficacy and price-competitiveness will be covered by health insurance.
The insurance has so far covered most drugs regardless of their prices, so long as they are approved by the Korea Food and Drug Administration, and are widely prescribed by doctors.
However, under the proposed system, the government will determine a list of drugs covered by the insurance according to price and efficacy.
The insurance has so far covered most drugs regardless of their prices, so long as they are approved by the Korea Food and Drug Administration, and are widely prescribed by doctors.
Counting is under way in Thailand after voting to elect members of the Senate, in the second stage in the country´s return to democratic government.
The election took place under a new constitution drafted by the military, which has ruled since a 2006 coup that unseated PM Thaksin Shinawatra.
The constitution gives wider powers to the upper house - but nearly half of its members are appointed, not elected.
This may be why turnout was reportedly lower than expected, say observers.
Thai media said between 50% and 60% of voters had participated.
The election may have been overshadowed by the frenzy of excitement that followed the return from exile of Thaksin on Thursday.
Counting is under way in Thailand after voting to elect members of the Senate, in the second stage in the country´s return to democratic government.
Former President Kim Dae-jung has expressed his willingness to visit North Korea again as long as his health permits him to go on the trip.
The former president has been hospitalized twice at Yonsei University’s Severance Hospital in Seoul earlier this year due to pneumonia-like symptoms.
8, President Roh made a phone call to Kim to congratulate him on the fifth anniversary of his winning the Nobel Peace Prize, promising his administration’s support if Kim makes a trip to the communist North.
He revealed his wish to discuss ways to establish a permanent communication channel based on the six-party framework to handle various issues for the sake of peace on the Korean Peninsula and in Northeast Asia.
HSBC Holdings submitted an application to financial regulators for approval of its bid to take over a majority stake in Korea Exchange Bank (KEB), the country´s sixth largest lender, regulators said Thursday.
17 for a regulatory approval of its acquisition of KEB,´´ said Hong Young-man, a spokesman of the Financial Supervisory Commission.
HSBC Holdings submitted an application to financial regulators for approval of its bid to take over a majority stake in Korea Exchange Bank (KEB), the country´s sixth largest lender, regulators said Thursday.
``HSBC applied on Dec.
The top United Nations human rights watchdog passed resolutions Thursday criticizing conditions in Cuba and North Korea, but Russia and China avoided censure.
Human Rights Commission voted 22-21 for a Honduras-proposed resolution that ``deplored'' Cuba's jailing 75 dissidents arrested on March 18, 2003.
Cuba said the resolution against it was the work of the United States.
Air Force firing range will be shut down next year.
A new, young family has taken up residence at the White House - and it's not the Obamas.
Our Mark Smith has the story:
“ Here at the door to the White House briefing room, a mother robin has not only built a nest, but has hatched several young chicks - right under the noses of reporters and camera crews who traipse in and out every day.
The robin has bravely stayed at her post, unlike the father, who's rarely been seen.
Why nest here in this unlikely spot?
Could it be to get a bird's-eye view of history, or perhaps it's just the audacity of hope, that perhaps the chicks, mindful of a certain other White House resident who wrote of dreams from his father, will one day dream their father's dreams, too.
Mark Smith, at the White House.”
Hundreds of college football players will be anxiously waiting over the next two days to hear their names called in the NFL draft.
One who's not worried is Georgia quarterback Matthew Stafford, who will likely be the first selection - by the Detroit Lions.
In the Middle East, Israel continues to pound Hamas targets in Gaza, moving in on Gaza City today.
The AP's Aaron Heller is at an Israeli air base:
“Ex-reserve soldiers are now part of the battle as well, thousands more joining it, and Israeli Air Force pilots continuing to attack locations and targets in Gaza.”
Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.
This guy says - how can you do anything in Grand Folks, North Dakota when it's 26 below?
Great Lakes states are bracing for several inches of snow.
The first of what could be 11 inches of snow by Thursday already is on the ground around Detroit.
“Ex-reserve soldiers are now part of the battle as well, thousands more joining it, and Israeli Air Force pilots continuing to attack locations and targets in Gaza.”
More than 1.5 million people have been evacuated from their homes in south-east China as the strongest typhoon in decades swept ashore.
At least two people died and 80 others were injured when Typhoon Saomai struck with winds of more than 200km/h (124 mph), state news agency Xinhua said.
The Chinese authorities have deployed 20,000 soldiers for rescue operations in Fujian and Zhejiang provinces.
The provinces had already been damaged by another typhoon last month.
The South Korean government says it is investigating whether abuses took place during clinical trials for stem cell treatments, which critics say exposed desperate patients to unacceptable risks.
The government has been forced to rethink its hands-off approach to cutting-edge stem cell medicine following the fiasco over the cloning pioneer, Hwang Woo-suk, who was found to have fabricated research for his claimed breakthrough on cloned stem cells.
South Korean scientists had also claimed a lead in the parallel field of adult and umbilical cord stem cells and the government gave the go-ahead for laxly regulated clinical trials, which some scientists say should never have been allowed.
˝Police in New York are investigating mysterious white powder that´s turning up in mailrooms of big financial companies.
Envelopes containing the powder came in both today and yesterday.
In some cases, officers said the powder turned out to be flour or cornstarch.
The material was in zip-lock bags and was mailed in envelopes postmarked Hartford, Connecticut.˝
The Korea Times reports South Korean security specialists will be dispatched to Kirkuk in Iraq to train their police forces on anti-terrorism tactics and other security-related missions.
The Korea Times reports South Korean security specialists will be dispatched to Kirkuk in Iraq to train their police forces on anti-terrorism tactics and other security-related missions.
A group of 20 bodyguards from a private security service firm will be sent to the northern city of Iraq as early as next week.
The training of Iraqi police officers will begin on April 12 and the Coalition Provisional Authority of Iraq will reportedly pay for the expenses of the training by Korean bodyguards,
Two more suspects charged regarding the Madrid commuter train bomings.
Park Geun-hye elected as the Grand National Party’s new leader.
Longer jobless lines, a lower Wall Street opened this morning.
Economist David Wyss of Standard & Poor's wasn't expecting first-time claims for unemployment benefits to jump last week to more than a half million;
542,000 more Americans out of work, to be exact.
“The unemployment claims came out a lot worse than we expected, this is the 16-year high for initial claims.
And it's been the first time we've been over 4 million people receiving benefits, since 1982.
Wall Street is reacting with more concern over unemployment, the fate of the big 3 automakers and the broader economy.
Live to New York and the Stock Exchange; the AP's Warren Levinson:
The selling has resumed, though not at the fevered pace like yesterday's final hour, or today in Tokyo, where stocks dropped 7%.
The Dow-Jones Industrial's now down 126 points, about 1 and a half percent.
Congress is talking about extending jobless benefits for people whose checks have run out, and there's late word that the White House is now on board.
Let's go live there, to Associated Press correspondent Mark Smith:
“Jon, it's the latest economic U-turn for President Bush, who loathed the idea of intervening in markets and had resisted earlier calls for extra jobless coverage.
We're being told a Western Governor, Janet Napolitano of Arizona, is a strong contender for being picked as Homeland Security Secretary in the Obama administration.
Also this morning, word that Penny Pritzker, who led fundraising for the Obama campaign, is a top choice for Commerce Secretary.
Neither of those is final yet.
Economist David Wyss of Standard & Poor's wasn't expecting first-time claims for unemployment benefits to jump last week to more than a half million;
Live to New York and the Stock Exchange;
The Dow-Jones Industrial's now down 126 points, about 1 and a half percent.
Congress is talking about extending jobless benefits for people whose checks have run out, and there's late word that the White House is now on board.
According to the Korea Times a local monthly magazine has reported that Kim Hyong-uk, former chief of the state spy agency, was killed by a French gang in October 1979 after being lured to Paris by a Korean intelligence agent disguising himself as a student studying there.
Quoting former high-ranking officials of the agency and former Millennium Democratic Party (MDP) lawmaker Kim Kyung-jae, who wrote Kim's memoirs, the Monthly Chosun said that the gang dumped Kim's body and the agent paid them for the contract murder.
Park Chung-hee in the 1961 military coup, was chief of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA), predecessor of the National Intelligence Service (NIS), between 1963 and 1969.
Government has been disagreed on the UN declaration for prohibiting human cloning.
The Korea Herald reports the nation's weather agency yesterday said yellow dust would likely blanket the peninsula two or three more times this spring, raising the alarm over respiratory ailments and industrial damage.
Monday that more yellow dust would come Tuesday night, but said later it would be delayed to Wednesday morning.
The KMA's administrator also apologized for having failed to predict this season's worst yellow dust storm which affected the entire peninsula on Saturday.
The KMA said at 2 p.m.
All the hype ends tomorrow night, when the Arizona Cardinals and the Pittsburgh Steelers take the field for Super Bowl 43 in Tampa.
Our Jim Milatello is there:
“With more crowds rolling in, and more parties popping up, the Cardinals and Steelers will try to avoid the distractions and focus on Sunday's game.
Both teams are slated to go through a regular Saturday walk-through and team meetings, as the coaches try to keep the routine as close to a regular season game as possible.
Arizona coach Ken Wisenhut and Pittsburgh's Mike Tomlin have both allowed time for the players to spend with their families, but after that, Tomlin's moving his team to a secluded location, while Wisenhut will continue the week-long curfew he's imposed on the Cardinals.
Philadelphia's Wing Bowl goes to Super Squibb!
He downed 203 chicken wings in about 20 minutes.
Twenty-three year-old Jon Squibb gets a car, a $7500 diamond ring, and a crown of miniature chickens.
The Wing Bowl is held every year on the Friday before Super Bowl.
Our Jim Milatello is there:
After nearly a week of harassment by Culture Minister Yu In-chon, the leaders of three state-run organizations have resigned under pressure because they were appointed by former President Roh Moo-hyun.
The three are Oh Ji-cheol from the Korea National Tourism Organization, Jeong Sun-gyun of the Korea Broadcasting Advertising Corporation and Shin Hyun-taek, from the Seoul Arts Center, according to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, which oversees these government-owned corporations.
Oh tendered his resignation last Friday after he did not show up for a meeting between the ministry and President Lee Myung-bak.
Jeong of Kobaco, the organization that controls all broadcast advertising in the country, waited until yesterday to step down from the post he has held since May 2006.
Unlike Oh, Jeong handed in his resignation with the determination to walk out, his aides say.
Jeong was a target because he was the spokesman for the transition team that worked for Roh in 2002.
The military alliance between South Korea and the United States has shown signs of friction in recent months, affected by a series of developments between the two allies.
The military alliance between South Korea and the United States has shown signs of friction in recent months, affected by a series of developments between the two allies.
The Defense Ministry last Friday revealed a document from Washington a year ago that notified Seoul of its decision to end its war reserve stocks program by 2006.
The Korea Times reports the disclosure followed an announcement of the United States Forces Korea last month that it will reduce its South Korean workforce by 1,000 at U.S. military facilities by September, to meet a potential funding shortfall in the wake of the Seoul-Washington agreement to reduce Seoul's share of defense costs.
Foreign Ministers of South Korea, China, and Japan is going to have a meeting for the history dispute.
˝US President George W Bush has intervened to prevent Lewis Libby, a convicted former vice-presidential aide, from serving a prison term.
President Bush described as ””excessive”” the 30-month prison sentence Libby was facing for having obstructed an inquiry into the leaking of a CIA agent´s name.
Though no longer required to go to jail, Libby is still due to serve a period of probation and pay a fine.
The judge ruled that Libby could not remain free on bail while his lawyer appealed against the sentence.
President Bush said he had until now refrained from intervening in the case, waiting instead for the appeals process to take its course.
””But with the denial of bail being upheld and incarceration imminent, I believe it is now important to react to that decision,”” he said.”
A support group for sexual abuse victims has condemned a decision by the Vatican to choose Cardinal Bernard Law to lead a Mass for Pope John Paul II.
Cardinal Law resigned as Archbishop of Boston in 2002 following accusations that he covered up sexual abuse of children by priests.
Members of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests are flying to Rome to protest at Monday's service.
Cardinal Law is scheduled to lead one of nine memorial Masses in Rome.
The UN and African Union condemned the Sudan’s government.
""Where is the gentleman ship?
"" after the protests during the Olympic torch run in London.
Many of the visitors from China who were in London last week felt that Britain was against them, she added.
Fu said in the Sunday Telegraph that Tibet is ""loved"" by the Chinese.
The communist Chinese ambassador to London has accused the Western media of demonizing China and says there are ""complicated problems"" in Tibet.
The official was responding to a report by a Japanese business daily that North Korea has asked China to arrange a visit by the U.S. state secretary.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Pyongyang for discussions on the deepening dispute over its nuclear weapons programs.
No invitation has been received for Rice to visit the reclusive communist country for bilateral talks, an unidentified official at the State Department in Washington said.
South and North Korea had talks for North Korea’s nuclear issues and South Korea’s economic support to North.
A South Korean hostage in Iraq has appeared on TV pleading for his life.
According to the ""New York Times,"" the terrorists claim security forces provided uniforms and vehicles needed to set up a phony checkpoint not far from the area where Johnson was abducted.
Al-Qaeda-linked militants say they will kill Kim Sun-il unless South Korea withdraws its troops from Iraq and reconsiders a decision to deploy additional forces.
The South says it will do all it can to rescue him, but won't change plans to send three thousand troops to help rebuild Iraq.
Meantime, the Saudi government denies claims from militants that they had Saudi police assistance when they abducted American Paul Johnson.
According to the ""New York Times,"" the terrorists claim security forces provided uniforms and vehicles needed to set up a phony checkpoint not far from the area where Johnson was abducted.
Johnson was murdered last week.
A public memorial service for Australian motion picture star Heath Ledger will be held next week in Los Angeles, Australia´s foreign minister has said.
Stephen Smith added the actor´s family would be offered help to return his body to Perth in Australia, where he is expected to be laid to rest.
Ledger´s publicist said funeral arrangements “would continue to be kept private at the family´s request”.
The 28-year-old was found dead in his New York flat on Tuesday.
Smith also told reporters on a visit to the United Nations in New York that he understood that a private family memorial service had taken place in the city.
He gave no details of the proposed memorial in Los Angeles, and said any tributes in Australia would be determined by Ledger´s family.
Ledger´s publicist said funeral arrangements “would continue to be kept private at the family´s request”.
South and North Korean navies on Monday successfully exchanged radio communications in their first test of an inter-Korean military communication since the end of the 1950-1953 Korean War.
During the three-hour test that began at 9:00 a.m., police boats from the Navies of the two Koreas used a joint radio frequency.
The South and North used Halla-san and Paektu-san as their respective call signs.
Paektu is the highest peak in the North, while Mt.
The trial communications, in line with a recent bilateral agreement aimed at preventing accidental armed clashes at the West Sea border, marked the first direct contact between combat-ready field units of the two divided Koreas.
The government will announce several candidate sites to house a new administrative capital.
More than four in five multinational foreign executives in Korea said they wouldn't consider setting up regional headquarters in Korea for a wide range of reasons including labor inflexibility, language barriers and a number of other factors including cost of living.
The labor environment topped their list of concerns with only 18.6 percent saying it was OK.
The negative response comes in light of series of strikes at POSCO, Hyundai Motor and other leading conglomerates.
These and other findings came up in a recent poll by Gallup Korea of 280 foreign investors on Korea’s business environment.
More than four in five multinational foreign executives in Korea said they wouldn't consider setting up regional headquarters in Korea for a wide range of reasons including labor inflexibility, language barriers and a number of other factors including cost of living.
The negative response comes in light of series of strikes at POSCO, Hyundai Motor and other leading conglomerates.
These and other findings came up in a recent poll by Gallup Korea of 280 foreign investors on Korea’s business environment.
Communist China will flex its growing diplomatic muscle in grand fashion with a planned 24-story tower, the largest embassy in the country, to be built in Myeong-dong, downtown Seoul, the Seoul Metropolitan Government announced yesterday.
The Joong-Ang Ilbo reports the building will be constructed on a plot of land that was home to China’s embassy before it moved to Jongno in May, 2002.
The former Chinese embassy building on the site will be demolished and the new building is slated to be completed by 2012, according to plans submitted by the embassy to the city government.
South Korean Ambassador to the United States Hong Seok-hyun is likely to announce his plans today amid escalating demands for his resignation.
The demands erupted after news reports were released alleging his involvement in illicit dealings during the 1997 presidential election campaign.
Chong Wa Dae will hold a meeting of senior presidential aides today to discuss Hong's fate, after which President Roh Moo-hyun will preside over another meeting of aides, according to presidential spokesman Kim Man-soo on Sunday.
Public calls for Hong to resign also flared in April when Hong's late father was found to have accumulated wealth illicitly through speculative land investments.
Being the brother-in-law of Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-hee, Hong tops the list of public servants with a high financial standing, holding properties valued at some 73 billion won ($71 million).
He has been serving as ambassador to the U.S. since February. His grandfather was Home Minister during the student uprising that toppled the corrupt and despotic regime of Syngman Rhee in 1960 in which 125 students were killed by police and over 1000 wounded.
President Roh Moo-hyun also urged Japan to reflect upon its actions for the past, act on the past apologies it has made on several occasions and prove in a clear manner that it has no intention of repeating them.
”Japan should take substantive actions to resolve the issues surrounding Dokdo, history textbooks, visits to the Yasukuni Shrine and military sex slaves during World War II, ” he said in a televised speech during a ceremony to mark Korea’s 61st anniversary of Liberation Day from Japanese colonial rule.
Angered at government action to allow more rice imports into Korea, farmers blocked five major bridges over the Han River in Seoul yesterday, causing havoc on the roads.
As police worked to free an immense traffic jam across the city, they smashed the windows of the farmers' vehicles.
More than 300 arrests were made.
The protest later spilled over into the offices of two U.S.-based multinational grain dealers, Purina and Cargill.
Police said about 20 farmers broke into the companies' branches in Seoul and staged noisy protests.
State Department said the six-party talks can lose effectiveness.
The Israeli army says a soldier has been killed in the fighting in the Gaza Strip.
This is the first fatality in what Israel says could be a long and hard-fought effort against Hamas.
The troops and tanks, which moved in overnight, have cut Gaza in two, and have surrounded Gaza City.
Police at Beirut used water hoses and tear gas to drive anti-Israeli protestors away from the U.S.
Some of the protests have turned violent in other cities, as thousands took to the street to condemn the invasion against Hamas.
That, from Berlin, and this tape from WCBS, this New York demonstrator says she's concerned about the civilian casualties:
Gaza officials say at least 31 civilians have died since the invasion began.
More than 500 people, including 400 Hamas members, have been killed, since the Israeli air force began its bombing campaign more than a week ago.
The AP's Chelsea Carter is in the Iraqi capital:
“Iraqi army says a female suicide bomber has blown herself up among a crowd of pilgrims at a revered Shiite shrine in northern Baghdad.”
Authorities say there are fears there could be more violence that would run up to an important Shiite-Muslim holiday later this week.
In northwest Pakistan, police say a suicide attack has at least left, has left at least seven people dead and 25 others wounded.
The troops and tanks, which moved in overnight, have cut Gaza in two, and have surrounded Gaza City.
[Crowds shouting“ Stop the war…”
Gaza officials say at least 31 civilians have died since the invasion began.
Ulsan's top policeman made a public apology yesterday for his agency's handling of an alleged gang rape of a group of middle school girls by 41 high school boys.
The action came against disclosures that the National Police Agency had handed down guidelines on sexual violence investigations in April, which the Ulsan precinct ignored. Ulsan's top policeman made a public apology yesterday for his agency's handling of an alleged gang rape of a group of middle school girls by 41 high school boys.
Up to 60% capital gains taxes on multiple homeowners.
Those AIG bonuses may be even higher.
Connecticut's Attorney General says the company has turned over documents showing that it paid out $218 million in bonuses.
Five of the executives are said to have been paid at least $4 million each, and more than 70 got at least a million dollars.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner could reveal a plan as early as Monday on what to do with the so-called toxic assets being held by banks and financial institutions.
University of Maryland economist Peter Morrissey says the plan includes a deal between the government and private companies:
“ The Treasury is choosing to create a variety of public-private partnerships to take loans and mortgage-backed securities off the books of the banks.
Essentially, it's going to get private actors to participate, provide them with subsidies and government guarantees.”
The idea is to stretch the $700 billion in government money aimed at the troubled companies. Those AIG bonuses may be even higher.
Five of the executives are said to have been paid at least $4 million each, and more than 70 got at least a million dollars.
University of Maryland economist Peter Morrissey says the plan includes a deal between the government and private companies:
The Associated Press has learned a peanut plant in Texas has been operating without a license for nearly four years;
That's important, because the place is owned by the same company that runs a Georgia plant blamed for a nationwide outbreak of salmonella.
I don't have enough bleeps to play this on the radio this morning, but Christian Bayle is getting a lot of play on the Internet today for going bat-crazy at a cinematographer and anyone who tried to calm him down on the set of the upcoming Terminator Salvation.
The 3-minute clip full of f-bombs is up on TMZ.com.
The Associated Press has learned a peanut plant in Texas has been operating without a license for nearly four years;
it also went uninspected until last month.
That's important, because the place is owned by the same company that runs a Georgia plant blamed for a nationwide outbreak of salmonella.
A second group of about 240 Korean defectors temporarily hiding out in a Southeast Asian country arrived in Seoul yesterday, completing an airlift of about 470 defectors which had been in the works for more than two months.
Their chartered Korean Air flight arrived at Incheon International Airport around 9:30 a.m. from the ""unidentified"" third Asian country and they were hustled away to rejoin the first batch of 227 defectors who came in Tuesday.
The 470 comprised the largest single group of defectors to be granted asylum here.
Most of the second group of refugees are women and children, according to witnesses at the airport.
McCain told reporters that the cultural and religious traditions of small-town Americans were not a response to economic hardship.
Obama´s Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, also denounced the comments.
Amazon.com is expected to unveil a new Kindle electronic book device with a bigger screen today.
That device would be geared for textbooks, magazines and newspapers.
Analysts say it could shake up the economics of several industries at once, but media business analyst Shelley Palmer tells The AP this won't be the savior of newspapers.
He doesn't think anything will:
“ There is absolutely nothing about distributing newspaper content on a newspaper-optimized Amazon Kindle that will help change the fact that newspapers are a dual-revenue-stream business whose days are numbered.”
Amazon introduced its most recent version of the Kindle just 3 months ago;
Some say the new one might be subsidized if you buy a newspaper subscription.
A union official says the Boston Globe and its largest union have reached a deal that could keep the 137-year-old paper in business.
A Globe spokesman says details about the negotiations won't be released until tomorrow.
That device would be geared for textbooks, magazines and newspapers.
Analysts say it could shake up the economics of several industries at once, but media business analyst Shelley Palmer tells The AP this won't be the savior of newspapers.
President-Elect Barack Obama is said to be ready to name former Democratic rival Hilary Clinton to be his Secretary of State.
AP correspondent Bob Eller reports that a big hurdle, former President Bill Clinton's International Foundation, has been cleared.
The former President had long refused to disclose the identities of contributors to his Foundation, saying many gave money on the condition that they not be identified.
He's now agreed to do so, and has volunteered to step away from day-to-day management of the Foundation while his wife serves in the Obama Administration.
President-Elect Barack Obama is said to be ready to name former Democratic rival Hilary Clinton to be his Secretary of State.
The President wants to take a little - or a lot - off the top for some executives at financial bailout firms.
We're talking salary cap here, and the AP's Mark Smith is live at the White House with the story:
“Jon, it reflects the President's fury at learning Wall Street paid itself $18 billion in bonuses last year, even as taxpayers rescued top companies from collapse.”
“The height of irresponsibility;
“So Obama's clamping a salary lid of $500,000 on the biggest named companies that took bailout cash, places like AIG, Citigroup, and US car makers.
Meantime, the second bailout package is still in play.
Senators could consider a tax break for home buyers today, after adding help for car buyers and the auto industry yesterday.
“Senators approved an amendment to the stimulus package that allows new car buyers to deduct the sales tax and car loan interest payments from their taxes.
Sponsors say that on a $25,000 car, that would be about a $1500 tax break.”
Associated Press correspondent Jerry Bodlander on Capitol Hill.
The President wants to take a little - or a lot - off the top for some executives at financial bailout firms.
We're talking salary cap here, and the AP's Mark Smith is live at the White House with the story:
“The height of irresponsibility;
The Illinois legislature could start impeachment proceedings against Governor Rod Blagojevich as early as tomorrow.
State Attorney General Amy Madigan tells NBC's“ Meet the Press” that she wants him forced out of office if he doesn't resign.
Senate seat, gain campaign contributions for signing laws, refusing to provide Medicaid reimbursement to a significant children's hospital here in Chicago, get a editorial writer at the Trib fired, there is also this serious concern that absolutely everything that he does from here on out is going to be tainted.”
Blagojevich was arrested last week on federal corruption charges.
Just as the lights are coming back on in the northeast they may blink out again.
Tree limbs bent under the weight of heavy ice could snap back into place today as that ice melts, cutting the just repaired power lines.
About 800,000 homes and businesses are still without power.
“In addition to the fact that he was allegedly attempting to sell a U.S.
Police are expanding an investigation into what appears to be the largest cheating scandal involving high school seniors after securing evidence suggesting about 100 students allegedly used cell phones to cheat during the national college entrance exam held on Wednesday.
Police are expanding an investigation into what appears to be the largest cheating scandal involving high school seniors after securing evidence suggesting about 100 students allegedly used cell phones to cheat during the national college entrance exam held on Wednesday.
Police on Sunday requested arrest warrants for six students and put one other on the wanted list for playing key roles in the cheating scam.
Police said they had received tips that similar methods of cheating had been used in classrooms in other cities where the exam was held.
Parents of some of the students were aware of the fraud before the exam, but failed to report to authorities, they said.
The Fair Trade Commission fine on 47 branches of the nation’s top three newspaper companies.
President Obama has picked New York City's Health Commissioner to head the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Thomas Frieden has been the top local doc for the past 7 years. He led the campaign to ban smoking in New York restaurants and bars.
Of course, the CDC has been the government's lead agency on swine flu, and the virus has now resurfaced in New York, where some newly closed schools are getting a scrubdown:
“ Maintenance workers are scrubbing desks and door handles at 3 New York City schools closed by a new swine flu outbreak.
The Assistant Principal at one of those schools is in critical condition and on a breathing tube.
Mitchell Wiener's son says his 55-year-old father had been sick with flu symptoms last weekend, but it didn't seem serious until Wednesday; now Wiener is suffering from kidney failure and a lung infection.
On Wall Street, Dow industrials up 42 points right now.
President Obama has picked New York City's Health Commissioner to head the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Assistant Principal at one of those schools is in critical condition and on a breathing tube.
Diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis over North Korea's missile tests appear to have made little headway with two sets of talks failing to progress.
Tough sledding is not expected as Hillary Clinton begins her confirmation hearing for Secretary of State.
“We are honored to welcome her here today to our committee for confirmation as America's next Secretary of State.”
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry welcoming Clinton to Capitol Hill a short while ago.
Associated Press correspondent Jerry Boatlander is covering:
“There's not expected to be much resistance to Senator Clinton's nomination.
Republicans say she has worked well with them during her eight years in the Senate, despite disagreements on some major issues.
But she will face questions about former President Bill Clinton's charitable and business dealings, specifically what's been done to make sure they will not pose a conflict of interest.”
President-elect Barack Obama also will be on the Hill today, meeting with Democratic senators about his request for access to the second $350 billion in the bank bailout fund.
Senate Republicans will hear from some of Obama's aides this week.
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke says another economic stimulus package is needed as part of a broader, multi-pronged government response to the ongoing financial crisis.
In London today, he says it could provide a significant boost to economic activity.
Tough sledding is not expected as Hillary Clinton begins her confirmation hearing for Secretary of State.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry welcoming Clinton to Capitol Hill a short while ago.
Associated Press correspondent Jerry Boatlander is covering:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says that as US troops leave Iraq, Washington will have to build up its intelligence gathering there.
The Speaker made a surprise visit to Baghdad today, where she promised the United States will continue its support:
“ All of this struggle will be worth it in the end, because it will be done for the people of Iraq.”
A blanket of cool, damp ocean air is keeping a lid on the destructive wildfire near Santa Barbara, California.
Before the weather changed, tens of thousands were evacuated and more than 30 homes destroyed, including some in Richard Martin's neighborhood:
The deputy premiers of the two Koreas on Tuesday began three-day talks here aimed at consolidating and expanding the details of economic cooperation projects at the second-ever inter-Korean summit in October Seven North Korean delegates, including Deputy Prime Minister Jong Sung-hun, held a plenary session with their South Korean counterparts led by Vice Premier Kwon O-kyu at a Seoul hotel, said Kim Man-sik, spokesman for the South´s Unification Ministry.
Jong, who arrived in the South hours earlier on a direct flight from Pyongyang, told Kwon he hoped for critical progress at this week´s talks, the first of their kind since the summit in Pyongyang.
Seoul police said yesterday they were opening a criminal investigation of 39-year-old Veronique Courjault, in connection with the confirmation that she was the mother of two infants found in a freezer at her apartment in southern Seoul.
They said they would ask the French Embassy to assist in seeking her return to Seoul from France.
Marc Morin, the lawyer of Ms.
The Korea Times says the government has decided to relocate 73 central government agencies and other state organizations to the new administrative capital, expected to be located in South Chungchong Province.
The National Assembly and 10 other constitutional institutions, which have been at the center of disagreements, have been excluded from the initial plan, along with the Supreme Public Prosecutor's Office.
The Presidential Committee on Administrative Capital Relocation on Wednesday announced the scale of the relocation of agencies to the planned new administrative capital along with a basic plan.
Of the total 269 central state agencies, 73 bodies will be moved to the new administrative capital, the commission said.
He admitted that it would take time to establish security in Baghdad, and said that violence would continue, but said it was vital to US security to succeed in Iraq.
S President Bush has insisted a branch of Iran's Revolutionary Guards is linked to some attacks on US troops in Iraq.
The US was “certain”, he said, that the force was providing a weapon known as an EFP, which the US says has been used in particularly deadly attacks.
But he said he did not know who was directing the force, and denied laying the groundwork for an attack on Iran.
Bush also defended his strategy for securing Iraq a day after the House of Representatives began debating it.
The ruling Uri Party and the Defense Ministry confirmed on Sunday that the government plans to reduce some 1,000 soldiers from Iraq, saying reports that came out Friday were mostly accurate.
The ruling Uri Party and the Defense Ministry confirmed on Sunday that the government plans to reduce some 1,000 soldiers from Iraq, saying reports that came out Friday were mostly accurate.
Both groups agreed to phase out 1,000 of the current 3,260 troops stationed in the war-torn country as early as the first half of next year at a policy coordination meeting last Friday, according to reports.
North Korean media has not even once mentioned APEC.
A new international high school in Seoul for Korean and foreign students announced its first student admission requirements and details of the educational curriculum yesterday.
Seoul International High School, which is located in Myeongnyun-dong, Jongno district, will conduct most classes in English, and every student will reside in dormitory halls, according to officials at the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education.
A total of 150 freshmen will be admitted for 2008 and a maximum of 15 foreign students will be enrolled.
The school plans to eventually sit 18 classes and accommodate 450 students in its 4,345-pyeong campus.
To enhance the level of understanding for foreign students, they will receive training before the school year kicks off and take additional class after school if needed.
Foreign students will also be required to take Korean classes.
˝Japan´s scandal-hit agriculture minister is to step down following the ruling coalition´s crushing defeat in Sunday´s upper house polls.
Norihiko Akagi, who is accused of financial irregularities, offered his resignation and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe accepted it, a spokesman said.
A number of Abe´s ministers have been hit by scandal, an issue seen as a key factor in his party´s poll defeat.
˝Japan´s scandal-hit agriculture minister is to step down following the ruling coalition´s crushing defeat in Sunday´s upper house polls.
˝Communist Chinese Defense Minister Cao Gangchuan is to begin a five-day visit to Japan for talks with top military leaders.
Cao is expected to meet his newly-installed counterpart, Masahiko Komura, and inspect Japanese Self-Defense Force troops.
His visit is the first by a Chinese defense minister in over nine years.
China had objected to Koizumi´s repeated visits to a controversial war-linked shrine, and high-level summits were suspended over the issue.
But since Prime Minister Shinzo Abe took office in September 2006, ties have warmed and Cao´s visit is being seen as a chance for further thawing.˝
The two followed a more general warning at the start of the month.
Officials yesterday reported a third warning of terror attacks - this time threatening to ""burn Seoul and make it crumble"" - if Korean troops don't leave Iraq.
The Korea Herald reports a high-level alert posture introduced after the earlier warnings remained in effect as officials investigated the latest threat, posted Tuesday on what it called “an Islamic Web site.”
The statement warned of certain attacks if Korea doesn't withdraw its 2,800 troops from Iraq within seven days.
This is the second online threat within the last 10 days.
The two followed a more general warning at the start of the month.
Over 100 celebrities and professional baseball players to be servicing in the army.
Today's Korea Herald says about 60 percent of the government's contract workers will be granted regular job status and better pay as the government steps up efforts to improve working conditions for temporary employees.
The government move stirred worries among local businesses who face growing pressure to reduce the use of contract workers despite their demand for greater labor flexibility as a means to cut down on costs. Today's Korea Herald says about 60 percent of the government's contract workers will be granted regular job status and better pay as the government steps up efforts to improve working conditions for temporary employees.
The government also plans legislation to improve working conditions for its temporary work force within this year, which will affect one third of Korea's salaried workers.
Abu Ghraib prison abuse prisoners as the way of dealing with “enemy”.
US President George W Bush is returning home after a surprise trip to Baghdad - his first since November 2003.
Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri Maliki was only given a five-minute warning before meeting Bush for talks at the US embassy in the fortified Green Zone.
""Iraq's future is in your hands,"" Bush told the Iraqi prime minister.
The American president had been sharing talks in the US on future policy in Iraq and had been due to speak to Maliki by videophone.
Last week saw the killing of the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and the appointment of ministers in the Iraqi government for defense, security and the interior.
The prosecution was denied a warrant yesterday to further detain Shin Jeong-ah, the disgraced former art professor accused of forging her academic credentials.
The Seoul Western District Court rejected the warrant request to detain Shin, saying she is not a flight risk.
“The prosecution already has enough evidence to substantiate their charges, so there is also no risk that Shin will destroy evidence,” Kim Jeong-jung, the judge who struck down the warrant application, said.
With the warrant denied, the prosecution has no legal ground to keep her in custody.
Prosecutors are investigating her alleged forgeries and her alleged affair with Byeon Yang-kyoon, a former Blue House chief policy planner, to find out if he used his influence to assist her career rise and shield her from scrutiny.
Shin’s lawyer, Pak Jong-lok, said yesterday that his client has admitted to charges associated with the forgery, and gave up her right for a warrant hearing.”
South Korea and the United States have reportedly reached an agreement on a more gradual withdrawal of U.S. troops from the peninsula.
""The U.S. side agreed to postpone the timetable from 2005 to 2008, but the number of troops cut will remain the same,"" according to a South Korean official involved in the talks.
In May, Washington said it would cut a third of the 37,500 U.S. troops stationed in Korea by the end of next year, prompting concerns in Seoul of a sudden security vacuum.
South Korea had been asking the United States to put off the planned cutback to 2007 or possibly 2008.
The United States will pull 5,000 troops, including the 3,600 already redeployed to Iraq, before the end of this year, the official said.
By 2008, the remaining 7,500 will be withdrawn gradually, he added.
Park Jin claimed the possibility of US’s preemptive attacks on NK.
Seoul Southern District Court said yesterday that Shin Hyun-bum and Oh Chang-rae, musicians from an underground punk band called The Couch who exposed their genitals during a live MBC broadcast in July, received a 10-month suspended sentence and an eight-month suspended sentence, respectively, both with a two year probation.
The incident occurred in MBC's live television show, ""Music Camp.
"" While a punk band called Rux was performing, Shin and Oh pulled their pants down and danced with their genitals exposed.
The court said it was the band members' youthful impulsive ways that triggered the incident, adding that the sentences were suspended because the two had spent enough time reflecting on their conduct while detained in holding cells.
KFA is accused for accounting fraud.
Sovereign sold its 7 percent stake in LG Corp.
Signaling a possible withdrawal from the Korean stock market altogether, Sovereign Asset Management Ltd.
yesterday sold off its entire stake in LG Group to incur a loss of over 50 billion won ($49 million).
Despite the loss, it returns home with an overall profit of 747 billion won ($727 million) gained from recent stake sales in SK Corp., the country's top refiner.
The LG stocks were the last of the investment that the Dubai-based private investment fund made here.
and 7.2 percent stake in LG Electronics Inc.
Bonfrere quits football coach.
Korea and Singapore sealed a free-trade agreement yesterday that covers nine broad areas, including electronics, finance and intellectual property rights.
The official announcement was made in Vientiane, Laos, after a meeting between President Roh Moo-hyun and Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.
The Korea Herald reports the agreement, the second of its kind for Korea, should give Korean companies greater access to Singapore's construction market and government procurement contracts.
The High Court Busan gave the go-ahead for a tunnel to be built for Korea’s bullet train.
According to the Korea Times, the female population exceeded the male population for the first time in 35 years on a longer life expectancy for women and a declining birthrate.
South Korea’s population stood at 47.25 million as of the end of Nov.
1, up 2.4 percent from 46.14 million at the end of 2000, the National Statistical Office (NSO) said in a preliminary report on the population census conducted between Nov.
Burma´s ruling generals need to prepare for a transition of power involving opposition activists and international mediators, the US envoy to the UN says.
Zalmay Khalilzad called on the military regime to begin talks with detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
He was speaking as the UN debated a statement “”strongly deploring”” the recent crackdown on peaceful protests.
At least 10 people were killed and thousands detained after an uprising led by Buddhist monks last month.
Khalilzad said UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari, who recently met senior figures during a four-day visit to Burma, should return to the country very soon to assist in talks.
a process that will climax in the November 4 presidential election.
Voters in Iowa begin the process of choosing the next U.S. president on Thursday with two close nominating races, as a new poll showed Democrat Barack Obama leading John Edwards
with Hillary Clinton falling to a potentially damaging third.
The Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll also showed Republican Mike Huckabee expanding his lead on rival Mitt Romney as the most heavily contested presidential caucus in Iowa history draws to a close.
Other polls show both races even tighter in the final hours before Iowa opens the state-by-state battle to choose candidates to succeed President George W. Bush
a process that will climax in the November 4 presidential election.
American Idol is back for an 8th season.
With the usual auditions on Fox, some of them painful, some of them hilarious, Simon Cowell says the eventual winner needs to be more than just a good singer.
“Simon Cowell hopes this season of American Idol holds his interest better than last season did.”
“We don't get to remember this in 10 years' time, are we?”
“I started to get bored because of the middle sections of the show.”
“Cowell is looking for more than just a good voice.”
“We've got to make sure that when we put people on the show, that they have personality, because I didn't know much more about them at the end than I did at the beginning.”
A Los Angeles hair restoration surgeon says bald people have more trouble finding work.
American Idol is back for an 8th season.
“I started to get bored because of the middle sections of the show.”
“Part of the problem, he says, is that contestants these days are too media savvy and don't let their true personality show through.
The White House has described media reports that it attempted to mislead the public over the destruction of CIA interrogation tapes as “pernicious”.
Four senior administration lawyers, including discredited former Attorney-General Alberto Gonzales, debated the fate of the tapes, the New York Times said.
The White House said the implication that it had hidden facts was ”troubling” and should be corrected.
The Bush administration has refused to comment directly on the case.
The CIA´s actions in destroying the evidence tapes are currently the subject of three different investigations.
Both the US justice department and Congress are probing exactly how and why the tapes came to be destroyed.
And the CIA itself is looking into the issue.
The Justice Department and CIA Investigations are subject to White House control and are not expected to show any wrongdoing.
The Bush administration has so far refused to co-operate with the congressional investigation.
The President Elect is getting set to warn Congress and the rest of the country that we need to do a lot more to rescue the economy, and we need to do it now.
AP White House correspondent Mark Smith will be covering Barack Obama's speech next hour right outside Washington:
“John, the President Elect is telling an audience at George Mason University the recession could lead to double digit unemployment and linger for years unless there is a quick and massive dose of stimulus.”
“ We have to take some bold steps now to make sure that we prevent the worst from occurring.”
“That's how he put it in a CNBC interview, pressing a plan likely to cost three-quarters of a trillion dollars, a speech text has Obama saying only government can break the vicious cycles crippling the economy.
All this is the Labor Department this morning, reports that the number of Americans still asking for unemployment benefits, is up sharply to a 26-year high.
One moderating influence, first timers making jobless claims, actually dropped last week.
The President Elect is getting set to warn Congress and the rest of the country that we need to do a lot more to rescue the economy, and we need to do it now.
Lacking that, he says, a bad situation could get dramatically worse, John.”
All this is the Labor Department this morning, reports that the number of Americans still asking for unemployment benefits, is up sharply to a 26-year high.
The Korea Herald reports Wal-Mart Korea, the local operation of the world's No.
""As BC Card applied the higher card fee to Wal-Mart's new Pohang outlet, the retailer has canceled its contract with the card company for this store,"" said a spokeswoman from Wal-Mart Korea, who asked not to be named.
"" BC Card had decided to apply the higher fee of 2 percent at the new store compared to the 1.5 percent at the discounter's other locations. The Korea Herald reports Wal-Mart Korea, the local operation of the world's No.
""As BC Card applied the higher card fee to Wal-Mart's new Pohang outlet, the retailer has canceled its contract with the card company for this store,"" said a spokeswoman from Wal-Mart Korea, who asked not to be named.
""Wal-Mart cannot accept BC Card's demand for a fee increase.
George Soros has asked the House ethics committee to investigate Dennis Hastert.
Taiwan lost its bid for representation in the UN.
China will not tolerate the US and Japan including Taiwan in a security alliance, Chinese foreign minister Li Zhaoxing has said.
Speaking to reporters at the annual National People's Congress, Li said any co-operation between the three would encroach on China's sovereignty.
China sees Taiwan as its territory, and says it is committed to reunification.
Li also called for an end to the EU's arms embargo, but said China did not need to buy any of its weapons.
Li said the embargo should be lifted primarily because it was a jarring note in the partnership between the Beijing and the EU.
Li said the embargo should be lifted primarily because it was a jarring note in the partnership between the Beijing and the EU.
Would Hillary Clinton visit North Korea?
Iraq’s new assembly is going to hold its first session.
Egyptian mediators are reported to have brokered a truce after at least five people were killed and 18 injured in a day of violence in the Gaza Strip.
Dozens more were apparently abducted in the worst fighting since rival factions Hamas and Fatah agreed to form a unity government in a February deal.
Sunday’s violence flared after a leader of the Fatah-linked al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades was ambushed and killed.
His death, in the town of Beit Lahiya, sparked a series of factional clashes.
Hamas denied the claim, but two Palestinians reportedly linked to Hamas were later killed near a mosque in Gaza City, and nine more people were injured.
Most of those wounded were members of Hamas, medical sources told AFP news agency.
Dozens more were apparently abducted in the worst fighting since rival factions Hamas and Fatah agreed to form a unity government in a February deal.
˝A trial has begun of 12 people who are accused of involvement in a slave labor scandal in illegal mines and brick factories in northern communist China.
Among those who went on trial on Wednesday are kiln boss Wang Bingbing and foreman Heng Tinghan, state news agency Xinhua said.
The charges include illegal detention, forced labor and murder.
Almost 570 people trafficked as slaves, 50 of them children, have been freed in Shanxi and Henan in the last few weeks.
The scandal came to light after some 400 distraught parents of children who had been sold into slavery set up on online campaign to raise awareness of the issue.
The case drew widespread anger and unusually strong criticism from the state-run media.
President Hu Jintao ordered an immediate inquiry.˝
South Korea’s economic growth for next year may drop to below 2 percent in the worst-case scenario involving a confrontation between North Korea and the international community, a private research institute said yesterday.
In a report, the Korea Economic Research Institute, which is affiliated with the Federation of Korean Industries (FKI), predicted that if the North Korean nuclear issue is not promptly dealt with, it would trigger an ebb in national confidence and cause an outflow of foreign investments, reducing growth to 1.9 percent.
In the best-case scenario, the institute said that the growth would settle at 3.9 percent.
Last month, the institute predicted a 4.1 percent growth of the gross domestic product (GDP) next year.
In a report, the Korea Economic Research Institute, which is affiliated with the Federation of Korean Industries (FKI), predicted that if the North Korean nuclear issue is not promptly dealt with, it would trigger an ebb in national confidence and cause an outflow of foreign investments, reducing growth to 1.9 percent.
Korea's consumer confidence fell in October for the fifth time in six months, the latest sign that domestic demand will continue to be a big drag on Asia's third-largest economy.
The Korea Herald reports the consumer confidence index fell to 88 last month from 88.9 in September.
A reading below 100 indicates that more households are pessimistic than optimistic about the nation's economy in the coming six months and therefore intend to spend less.
The statistics office attributed the fall largely to the strengthening won, which may hurt local exporters by making Korean products more expensive overseas.
The Seoul metropolitan government sued MBC television seeking 1.4 billion won.
The Ministry of Science and Technology said yesterday that a third team of inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency will investigate facilities at the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute in Daejeon from Nov.
A ministry official said the inspectors will reexamine and confirm all previous findings.
The Joong-Ang-Ilbo reports a final report will be submitted to the secretariat of the UN's nuclear watchdog on Nov.
Based on the report, the secretariat will decide whether or not the case goes before the UN Security Council.
The Ministry of Science and Technology said yesterday that a third team of inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency will investigate facilities at the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute in Daejeon from Nov.
USFK will elevate the legal drinking age from 20 to 21.
Uri Party failed in by-elections.
North and South Korea agreed Thursday to open a cross-border freight-only railway by the end of this year
as part of economic cooperation projects agreed upon in their leaders´ recent summit.
Yonhap News Agency quoted an unnamed Unification Ministry official as saying that Seoul proposed December 11th as the date to start the railway service through the demilitarized zone, but that North Korea´s response was not yet known.
The agreement to open the railway service came on the second day of talks between South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo and North Korean Premier Kim Yong-il in Seoul.
The rare prime ministerial talks were aimed at devising concrete plans to implement wide-ranging accords reached between the leaders of the Koreas.
In their summit in early October, President Roh Moo-hyun and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il agreed on a slew of economic cooperation and peace projects.
as part of economic cooperation projects agreed upon in their leaders´ recent summit.
The agreement to open the railway service came on the second day of talks between South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo and North Korean Premier Kim Yong-il in Seoul.
The rare prime ministerial talks were aimed at devising concrete plans to implement wide-ranging accords reached between the leaders of the Koreas.
Protests are continuing in the Tibetan-populated areas of communist China, with state-run media saying one policeman was killed in the latest riot.
Several policemen were also injured in the clash in the western Sichuan province, Xinhua news agency reported.
The Tibetan government-in-exile says that 130 people died in and around the Himalayan region during clashes that began on 10 March.
Officials in Beijing have previously put the death toll at 19.
Neither of the figures can be independently verified.
In a separate development on Monday, pro-Tibet activists briefly disrupted a flame-lighting ceremony in Greece for the Olympic Games in Beijing this summer.
Protesters from media rights group Reporters Without Borders broke through the cordon of 1,000 police officers in Olympia as China´s envoy spoke.
Separately, local authorities in Sichuan said 381 people involved in earlier protests in Aba county had given themselves up.
Chinese and Tibetan sources have given very different accounts of the protests, which were started by Buddhist monks on the anniversary of a Tibetan uprising against communist Chinese rule.
Chinese authorities have blamed the Dalai Lama for orchestrating the unrest, in an attempt to sabotage the Beijing Olympics and promote Tibetan independence.
Officials in Beijing have previously put the death toll at 19.
US President George W Bush has threatened the use of force against Iran saying all options are ""on the table"" to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
However, he claimed that the US was trying to resolve the issue of Iran's nuclear ambitions ""diplomatically"".
He was speaking after the Iranian president gave a speech threatening to ""cut off the hand of the aggressor"" if Iran was attacked.
Bush called for ""a united front with countries who recognize the danger of Iran having a nuclear weapon,"" saying the US was working closely with the UK, France and Germany on the issue.
International pressure over Iran's disputed program increased last week when Iran announced that it had successfully enriched uranium.
Unease about the stand-off has helped push oil prices to record highs.
Bush called for ""a united front with countries who recognize the danger of Iran having a nuclear weapon,"" saying the US was working closely with the UK, France and Germany on the issue.
Radio stations already pay songwriters for playing their creative content on the air, and now some artists are asking for a piece of the action:
(singing)“ It would make Sheryl Crowe very happy if she got paid by radio stations every time they play one of her songs.
Crowe, Herbie Hancock, and Dionne Warwick were among the artists on Capitol Hill to push for legislation to require radio stations to pay royalties to musicians, similar to what's paid to songwriters.
The National Association of Broadcasters is opposed, arguing that stations drive listeners to buy music at concert tickets.
Ed Donahue, Washington.”
In fact, the rotten economy became sort of a theme, with many party-ers dressed in costumes that riffed on bailouts and the stimulus.
(singing)“ It would make Sheryl Crowe very happy if she got paid by radio stations every time they play one of her songs.
The prosecution and presidential task force for the trial system reform reached an agreement on measures to modify the criminal investigation processes that were proposed by the team by considerably accepting the prosecutors' claims over their investigative power.
However, junior prosecutors criticized the decision, saying that the agreement has been drawn through discussions between the heads of the two sides without the juniors' and public's consensus, and that they would push for a junior prosecutors' meeting to discuss the matter.
10 major state-run organizations plans to move to provincial cities.
Malaysia´s Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi says he will not resign despite a big setback for his governing coalition in Saturday´s election.
The National Front lost its two-thirds majority in parliament - its worst result since independence in 1957.
But it did get 139 MPs in the 222-seat body, giving it a simple majority.
Many voters from ethnic minorities - Indians and Chinese - who make up more than a third of the population, failed to turn out for the coalition.
Concern about a government failure to tackle renewed ethnic tension is believed to be one of the main reasons for the upset.
The credit card company said the number of credit card usages overseas rose 11.1 percent to 679,558 during the same period.
Korean credit card spending overseas increased by 13.1 percent in the first two months of this year compared to the same period last year, reaching $112.6 million, according to BC Card Co.
The credit card company said the number of credit card usages overseas rose 11.1 percent to 679,558 during the same period.
The won traded at 1,029 to the dollar on average for the first two months of the year, down 145 won from the same period last year.
President Bill Clinton has left hospital.
The wild ride of the Korean won continued yesterday as the currency gained 20.9 points against the dollar to end at 976.3, its largest leap in seven years and two months.
The won, which fell to a nearly two-year low of 1,029.2 to the dollar on March 17, has gained 34.7 won per dollar over the past three trading days.
The rise immediately followed remarks by Bank of Korea Governor Lee Seong-tae about the currency yesterday.
˝White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove has resigned.
Rove announced he´s leaving his role as top advisor to the president so he can devote more time to his family.
Bush called Rove a dear friend and thanked him for his enormous sacrifices for the country.
Rove said the recent investigations by Congress into his possible role in the firings of several U.S. attorneys did not affect his decision.
Rove is officially step down at the end of the month.
Meanwhile, Democrats pledge to continue their White House probe into the firing of several U.S. attorneys, despite the resignation of president´s top aide.
According to “The Washington Post,” the resignation won´t stop congressional committees from seeking evidence in the investigation.
It´s suspected that the attorneys were dismissed for political reasons.
Chun Doo-hwan ordered a brutal crackdown on Buddhist monks in the early 1980s to remove the administrative head of the Korean Buddhist Jogye Order, who Chun considered a dissident, a government fact-finding panel reported Thursday.
who seized power in a military coup - has denied he was involved in the case, dubbed the “October 27th incident.”
The committee at the Ministry of National Defense also revealed Chun´s authoritarian government set the professional qualifications for journalists as part of efforts to take control of the country´s media in the 1980s.
On October 27th, 1980, the Chun administration mobilized more than 3,200 police and soldiers to search 5,731 temples nationwide and arrested more than 150 monks, according to the report.
The panel said the Chun government had made a secret report on Ven.
Head monks of large temples in the country were referred to in the classified report as ``gangs.´´ Many of the arrested monks were tortured and forced to resign from their posts, the panel said.
Wolju also was forced to step down.
Torture methods included beatings, water torture, electric shock and sleep deprivation, it said.
The per-pack cigarette tax goes from 39 cents to $1.01;
the tax on chewing tobacco will go from 19.5 cents per pound to 50 cents.”
That's the AP's Carlotta Bradley.
The extra money will be used to finance the extension of a children's health insurance program.
Oscar-winning film composer Maurice Jarre has died at the age of 84.
Jarre won an Academy Award for writing the haunting“ Lara's Theme” for the film“ Doctor Zhivago.”
The French musician's guild says the composer died at his villa in California.
Madonna will have to wait until Friday to learn whether she will be allowed to adopt a second child from Malawi.
The pop star spent an hour in court in the southern African nation today, as she tries to adopt the girl.
Cigarette smokers are about to see more of their money go up in smoke: “ Taxes are going up on tobacco products from cigarettes and cigars to pipes.
It takes effect on Wednesday.
The extra money will be used to finance the extension of a children's health insurance program.
Oscar-winning film composer Maurice Jarre has died at the age of 84.
Jarre won an Academy Award for writing the haunting“ Lara's Theme” for the film“ Doctor Zhivago.”
Hundreds of South Korean residents near U.S. military bases have decided to file a lawsuit alleging the bases cause noise pollution, according to civic groups on Monday.
Hundreds of South Korean residents near U.S. military bases have decided to file a lawsuit alleging the bases cause noise pollution, according to civic groups on Monday.
A total of 527 residents will lodge a suit against the South Korean government on May 3 to receive compensation for severe noise.
Half of the Korean minor manufacturers plans to relocate their plants abroad within 2 years.
Prince Harry has been sharply criticized by British lawmakers, Muslim groups, and many people in Pakistan after a British newspaper published video footage of him using offensive and racist language.
“A tabloid has reported that Harry used offensive terms to refer to people from Pakistan and people of Arab descent, referring to one colleague as 'our little Paki friend.'
Harry is supposed to have made the remarks in 2006 in an airport departure lounge as soldiers waited to go on a training exercise.
He has now issued a public apology.
In the NFL playoffs, the Baltimore Ravens make it to the AFC title game by beating Tennessee 13-10 on the road in Nashville.
And in the NFC, Arizona whipped Carolina 33-13, taking advantage of six turnovers.
Harry is supposed to have made the remarks in 2006 in an airport departure lounge as soldiers waited to go on a training exercise.
In the NFL playoffs, the Baltimore Ravens make it to the AFC title game by beating Tennessee 13-10 on the road in Nashville.
Commonwealth foreign ministers have given Pakistan 10 days to lift its emergency rule or face suspension.
After an extraordinary session in London, they also said President Pervez Musharraf had to step down as army chief and release political detainees.
In Pakistan, opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was given a seven-day detention order hours before she was due to lead a march from Lahore to the capital.
The march was aimed at pressuring Gen Musharraf to ease current restrictions.
The Pakistani leader says a parliamentary poll will be held in January, but opposition leaders want an end to emergency rule first.
After an extraordinary session in London, they also said President Pervez Musharraf had to step down as army chief and release political detainees.
Human skin cells have been reprogrammed by two groups of scientists to mimic embryonic stem cells with the potential to become any tissue in the body.
The breakthrough promises a plentiful new source of cells for use in research into new treatments for many diseases.
Crucially, it could mean that such research is no longer dependent on using cells from human embryos, which has proved highly controversial.
The US study features in the journals Science and Cell.
Human skin cells have been reprogrammed by two groups of scientists to mimic embryonic stem cells with the potential to become any tissue in the body.
India has welcomed Pakistan's offer to open the Line of Control (LoC) dividing Kashmir to help families find loved ones after the 8 October earthquake.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf made the offer, saying it would also boost reconstruction efforts.
""This is in line with India's advocacy of greater movement across the LoC,"" Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna said.
More than 40,000 people are confirmed dead in the earthquake.
India and Pakistan both claim Kashmir and have fought two wars over it since independence, but began peace talks last year.
Roh says prosecutors need civilian control.
Activists are marking the 12th year of detention for Burmese democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, in a series of protests taking place in 12 cities.
Campaigners are targeting Chinese embassies, as they say Beijing holds the key to Ms Suu Kyi´s release.
The Nobel Peace Prize winner has been held by Burma´s military junta, mostly under house arrest, for 12 of the past 18 years.
Meanwhile, Australia has announced sanctions against Burma´s rulers.
Canberra said the measures would target 418 individuals, including top military figures and cabinet ministers.
Pressure has been growing on the military junta since its bloody suppression of pro-democracy protests last month.
Apart from the terminated cases of tax inspections, the NTS said it is also investigating another foreign fund on charges of tax evasion.
The National Tax Service said yesterday that it will impose $207 million won of deferred taxes on five foreign funds, which the tax authority claims have abused tax treaty codes.
The tax authority declined to reveal the names of the funds and the investigation results on individual cases.
The funds reportedly include Lone Star and Carlyle, which have received a tax audit since April, as well as West Brook, Goldman Sachs and AIG.
Apart from the terminated cases of tax inspections, the NTS said it is also investigating another foreign fund on charges of tax evasion.
President Roh Moo-hyun has expressed strong opposition to the possible imposition of sanctions or military strikes against North Korea, stressing that the current standoff over the North's nuclear weapons program should be resolved peacefully through the six-party dialogue.
In a meeting with Korean residents in the U.S. on Saturday, Roh also said he will do his best to resolve the North Korean nuclear problem as soon as possible.
The count of homeless people in Seoul rose.
The Korean currency has appreciated more than 40 percent against the dollar over the past five years on current account surpluses and generally weak dollar sentiment.
But these days the general economic theory seems to be not applicable in Korea.
This conventional wisdom seems to be no longer working in such a simple and one-way direction.
Economists are seeing a change in the way the economy responds to the won´s appreciation.
Despite the strong currency, exports are growing at double-digit rates.
Major companies reported record earnings and the stock market is revising records almost daily.
The Korean currency has appreciated more than 40 percent against the dollar over the past five years on current account surpluses and generally weak dollar sentiment.
Last year alone, the won gained 8.8 percent against the greenback, recording the highest appreciation rate among Asian currencies after Thailand´s baht, and the growth momentum has continued this year
Name-dropping some possibilities for the Supreme Court:
a source tells the Associated Press Justice David Souter is hanging up his robe at the end of this term.
He's only 69, but has always told friends he doesn't like Washington, and does want to go home to New Hampshire.
So who might President Barack Obama go with for his first Supreme Court pick?
“ The potential replacements for Souter abound already;
Federal judges include Ruben Castillo of Chicago and judges in San Francisco, DC and New York;
and then there are other pols, including Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm and Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick.
” Granholm tells WJR Radio in Detroit she's lacking in one area:
“ Every member of the Court is a former judge, and I'm not a judge.”
But the Constitution and Federal law don't say you have to be, and she is a former deputy US attorney and Attorney General of Michigan.
Speaking of Michigan, United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger says he's glad to see Fiat of Italy lined up to partner with Chrysler, which is in the middle of its first Federal Bankruptcy Court hearing in New York this morning:
“ They're bringing about $8 billion worth of technology, and so that's important;
they're also going to be assembling a vehicle here in the United States.”
A short Chapter 11 bankruptcy would help union members, because starting Monday, all Chrysler plants will be closed during that time.
Name-dropping some possibilities for the Supreme Court:
a source tells the Associated Press Justice David Souter is hanging up his robe at the end of this term.
“ The potential replacements for Souter abound already;
“ Every member of the Court is a former judge, and I'm not a judge.”
But the Constitution and Federal law don't say you have to be, and she is a former deputy US attorney and Attorney General of Michigan.
Patrick's Day, a day to wear green and also a day to give away some green.
Cardinal Edward Egan, the Archbishop of New York, says the struggles of the Irish in America are an example for everyone struggling with economic distress:
“ For three centuries they were persecuted, then a terrible famine.
They came here on ships that had no food, no water, and many died, and then they moved into the tenements of New York and somehow, they managed to make it.”
Maurice Chase celebrated his 90th birthday on St.
(loud music) As the NYPD Pipe & Drum Band played in the parade, Chase celebrated his 90th birthday by giving away $15,000 in cash to Skid Row in New York.
A Catholic priest doled it out to hundreds of the city's most down-and-out residents.
Patrick's Day, a day to wear green and also a day to give away some green.
“ For three centuries they were persecuted, then a terrible famine.
The Korea Times reports the 2007 presidential election is expected to become a multi-person race as the pro-government and main opposition parties face internal discords that could lead to party breakup or desertion by major presidential hopefuls.
The two leading presidential contenders from the main opposition Grand National Party are on a collision course over the rules to pick the party’s standard-bearer in the December 19 presidential election.
The pro-government Uri Party, which has already been decimated after mass defections by legislators, is facing a second split due to a feud between former party leaders and President Roh Moo-hyun.
Political analysts say there is a high chance the election will be a four-way competition in that context, but the key point is whether the two GNP contenders -Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye- will join forces in the end to win the election over the center-left forces.
Park’s camp has insisted on maintaining current regulations, while Lee’s camp has called for the party leadership to change the rules to ``better reflect public opinion.
On Tuesday, Lee and Park made it clear they will not back down over the primary rules.
North Korea demanded yesterday that South Korea halt its joint military drills with the United States.
The North made its demand on the first day of the 14th cross-border ministerial talks that ended with South and North Korea on opposite ends of the stick over pending defense issues.
The North's chief delegate Kwon Ho-ung stressed that the South must end its joint military exercises with the U.S. to improve inter-Korean relations.
The Korea Herald reports, in his keynote speech Kwon also called for Seoul to scrap the purported U.S. move to deploy a destroyer equipped with the advanced Aegis antimissile system in the East Sea between the Korean Peninsula and Japan.
The Korea Herald reports, in his keynote speech Kwon also called for Seoul to scrap the purported U.S. move to deploy a destroyer equipped with the advanced Aegis antimissile system in the East Sea between the Korean Peninsula and Japan.
Busy diplomatic schedules are being circulated among the members of the six-party talks, including a timetable for the resumption of the nuclear negotiations, possibly soon after July 4, according to top U.S. envoy Christopher Hill yesterday.
Members of the six-party talks also agreed to hold informal discussions early next month in Beijing to set the table for further negotiations and follow-up measures entailed in the Feb.
North Korea is expected to freeze and shut down its Yongbyon reactor and the reprocessing facility around the time of the informal talks, it said.
July will be a busy month of shuttle diplomacy, Hill told reporters, as the six-party talks get ready to see their first tangible accomplishment in North Korea shutting down its nuclear facilities.
The Korean government plans to replace the mandatory usage of resident registration numbers in cyberspace with new individual identification numbers late this year.
The Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) said on Thursday that it will finalize a new format in October with the aim of launching it late this year.
Currently, most Korean Web portal sites allow users to sign up for services only after the input of resident registration numbers, the rough equivalent of social security numbers in the United States.
Members of The Couch planned it before the show.
The US coalition says an overnight raid killed 15 Taliban militants in Afghanistan, but village elders say the dead were civilians.
The AP's Jason Strasziuso reports from Kabul that the military says those claims aren't true:
“The US denied any civilians were killed, and a photo showed the armed militants maneuvering against the US forces, including one woman with a rocket-propelled grenade.”
The head of the local provincial council says village elders said they would swear on the Koran that those killed were civilians.
Hall of Fame North Carolina State women's basketball coach Kay Yow has lost her fight against breast cancer.
The 66 year-old Yow died this morning after being admitted to a hospital last week.
She had fought the disease for more than a decade.
Yow won more than 700 games in a career that included 20 NCAA tournament bids and 4 Atlantic Coast Conference titles.
She also coached the 1988 Olympic Gold Medal-winning women's basketball squad.
President Barack Obama's $825 billion plan to jump-start the economy could clear the House today.
It's not likely to get much support from Republicans, even though Obama has promised to consider GOP ideas.
“ It provides tax relief for 95% of Americans and targets investments in key areas.
“Democrats have the numbers to pass the measure, which may get just a handful of GOP votes.
Jerry Bodlander, Capitol Hill.”
The vote is expected late today.
This hour, Eric Holder is on track to become the first African-American Attorney General.
Former Vice President Al Gore is on Capitol Hill this morning, urging Congress not to be sidetracked by the financial crisis, and to take decisive action this year to reduce greenhouse gases responsible for global warming.
With home foreclosures spiking, the Federal Reserve is taking steps to help some delinquent borrowers.
The plan includes lowering how much homeowners owe, along with cutting the interest rate or lengthening the term of the loan.
“ It provides tax relief for 95% of Americans and targets investments in key areas.
“Democrats have the numbers to pass the measure, which may get just a handful of GOP votes.
The vote is expected late today.
The Korea Times reports all eyes are focused on the possibility of an informal six-party gathering in Kuala Lumpur this week as U.S.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she would be ”very happy ” to attend such a meeting.
Paek's attendance in the regional forum has not yet been confirmed.
Christopher Hill, the senior U.S. envoy to the six-party denuclearization talks, said Friday that he would be agreeable to extended face-to-face sessions with North Koreans.
Japan and China agreed Friday that the six-party dialogue participants should meet at the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in Kuala Lumpur, while China indicated that it does not want to hold talks without Pyongyang's attendance.
The Korea Times reports all eyes are focused on the possibility of an informal six-party gathering in Kuala Lumpur this week as U.S.
The UN Security Council has adopted a statement deploring Burma´s military crackdown on pro-democracy protesters.
The agreement came after China lifted its objections to a statement first drafted by the US, UK and France.
It represents the first time the 15-nation body has taken any formal action over Burma.
The move indicates a shift of position by China, which had previously used its veto to stop the council from criticizing Burma´s military junta.
The statement “strongly deplores the use of violence against peaceful demonstrators” in Burma and calls on the junta and all other parties ”to work together toward a de-escalation of the situation and a peaceful solution”.
It also calls for the early release of ”all political prisoners and remaining detainees”, urging the junta to prepare for a ”genuine dialogue” with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
The statement - which, unlike a resolution, requires the consent of all 15 council members to be adopted - was issued by Ghana´s UN Ambassador Leslie Christian, the council´s president.
The agreement came after China lifted its objections to a statement first drafted by the US, UK and France.
Former President Kim Dae-jung on Wednesday expressed his willingness to support the government's efforts to find a breakthrough in the ongoing standoff over North Korea's nuclear programs, hinting at his future role as a peace envoy to Pyongyang.
Former President Kim Dae-jung on Wednesday expressed his willingness to support the government's efforts to find a breakthrough in the ongoing standoff over North Korea's nuclear programs, hinting at his future role as a peace envoy to Pyongyang.
The Korea Times reports that during the meeting with the leader of the Uri Party at his presidential library in Seoul, the former head of state gave a positive response to the repeated proposal by the governing party to take up the role of special envoy to the communist nation.
Fifty-four Burmese migrants have been found dead after suffocating in a truck smuggling them into southern Thailand.
More than 100 people were packed into a container measuring 6 by 2 meters.
Many of the survivors are seriously ill from dehydration and lack of oxygen.
The driver opened the doors of the vehicle after the migrants banged on the walls - but he fled on foot when he saw what had happened.
Thousands of Burmese risk the trip to Thailand in the hope of better wages.
Police said the Burmese had crossed by boat to the Thai town of Ranong from Burma´s southern tip at Victoria Point - a route often used by illegal migrants.
They had then been packed into an airtight container on a truck for the journey to the resort island of Phuket.
A local police chief told the French news agency AFP that the ventilation in the container had failed.
Thousands of Burmese risk the trip to Thailand in the hope of better wages.
A strong defense of the decision to close down the prison at Guantanamo Bay, and sharp criticism of the interrogation tactics used by the Bush administration:
I bear the responsibility for keeping this country safe, and I categorically reject the assertion that these are the most effective means of interrogation.
” And President Barack Obama says the very existence of the prison serves as a recruiting tool for the Al Queda network:
“ It serves as a recruitment tool for terrorists, and increases the will of our enemies to fight us, while decreasing the will of others to work with America.
” And he addressed concerns about the threat to national security that comes with the release of the detainees:
“ We are not going to release anyone if it would endanger our national security.”
One of the architects of the Bush administration's war on terror and the development of the detention center is former Vice President Dick Cheney.
He's been an outspoken critic of Obama and his plans for closing down Gitmo. He plans to make a national security speech in Washington shortly.
“ It serves as a recruitment tool for terrorists, and increases the will of our enemies to fight us, while decreasing the will of others to work with America.
It is they first time makers of so-called ""spyware"" programs have been prosecuted in the nation.
The prosecution yesterday indicted 10 people on charges of producing or distributing malicious programs that intrude into receivers' computers and make them display pop-up ads and unwanted Web sites.
It is they first time makers of so-called ""spyware"" programs have been prosecuted in the nation.
The software is circulated on the Internet, largely through bulletin boards of popular Web sites and embeds itself in targeted computers when the user clicks ""yes"" upon being asked whether to download what seemingly is a useful item.
The code reconfigures the user's computer to show pop-up ads on porn sites regularly and set up specific sites as the Internet start page.
Japan is the most threatened country to Korea.
The Korea Times reports about 75 percent of 594 key public office holders, including President Roh Moo-hyun, increased their personal wealth last year.
According to the Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairs Thursday, only 24.7 percent, or 147, of government officials ranking at vice minister level or above saw their personal wealth decrease.
Roh reported his family increased its wealth by 58 million won last year to 734 million won.
Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan also added some 30 million won to his assets.
Lee’s wealth reached 770 million won last year.
Ten of the 15 Cabinet members reported a rise in assets last year.
Korean Government protested strongly about Japan’s claims to the Dokdo islets.
A suicide car bomber killed 12 people and injured 35 people in Iraq.
It's E-1, just one more day until Election Day, and the last full day of campaigning is underway!
With Sarah Palin rallying Republicans this morning in suburban Cleveland, while John McCain tells KDKA Radio in Pittsburgh, he'll put in a long day to try to outperform the polls, hitting seven crucial states.
“We're gonna have a full day and up about one o'clock tonight in Prescott, Arizona, the old capital of Arizona where Barry Goldwater used to end up all his campaigns.
Right now, McCain seems full of energy in Tampa, and the AP's Warren Levinson is covering it live.
“Straight talk express, straight talk local is more like it, John McCain is stopping everywhere this Election Eve.
A drive-by rally just concluded here in Tampa, then onto Tennessee, Indiana, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Nevada, all states seen as being in play.
The gathering of McCain allies on his campaign plane has gotten thick.
Okay, thank you, Warren.
Barack Obama's starting out across the Sunshine State in Jacksonville this morning.
He sounded confident in Cleveland yesterday.
“I've gotta tell you in the last couple of days I've been just feeling… good!”
But our Mark Smith reports the Democrat is trying hard not to seem overconfident.
“The polls are still positive that a Democratic edge among nearly 30 million early voters has been strong.
The crowds have been huge - 80,000 at a rally last night in Cleveland.
And Obama's army of volunteers has hit the streets and phone banks.
Still, aides caution they are assuming nothing and leaving nothing to chance.”
Circuit City is closing 20% of its stores by the end of the year.
A research group says algae could someday be turned into inexpensive fuel for automobiles and airplanes.
AAA gasoline this morning;
a national average $2.42 a gallon.
It's E-1, just one more day until Election Day, and the last full day of campaigning is underway!
A drive-by rally just concluded here in Tampa, then onto Tennessee, Indiana, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Nevada, all states seen as being in play.
He sounded confident in Cleveland yesterday.
But our Mark Smith reports the Democrat is trying hard not to seem overconfident.
a national average $2.42 a gallon.
The jobless rate rose as companies remained hesitant to hire due to economic uncertainty, while college graduates sought more jobs, the NSO said.
The jobless rate rose to 4 percent in February, the highest level in four years, indicating that the job market remains frozen despite growing hopes of recovery in domestic demand.
It is up from 3.9 percent in January and at the highest level since March 2001, when it posted 4.8 percent, the National Statistical Office said in a monthly report.
The number of people out of jobs last month rose to 925,000 from 900,000 a year earlier.
U.S. denied the Washington Post’s article about nuclear exports by N.K.
Human rights activists are urging the military authorities to take a harder look at the harsh treatment of homosexuals in uniform.
Debate is increasing after a self-declared gay serviceman held a news conference to announce his refusal to continue compulsory military service, and confess the mental stress caused by concealing his sexuality.
In South Korea, some military conscripts are assigned to riot police units.
The 24-year-old is now being questioned by police investigators and may face disciplinary action before being sent back to duty.
There have been a number of past cases where soldiers were ousted from the military after being discovered to be gay, but Yoojung’s case marks the first time a soldier has voluntarily announced his sexuality and demanded discharge.
Although the incident brings further attention to the touchy issue of the acceptance of gay men in the military, human rights advocates and gay lobby groups have long criticized Korean military authorities for their blurry stance on the issue.
"" South Korean Unification Minister Chung Dong-young said the issue would be discussed before the next round of talks, which is set to take place in November.
North Korea has said it will not scrap its nuclear program until it is given a civilian nuclear reactor, undermining an agreement reached 24 hours earlier.
Pyongyang agreed on Monday to dismantle its nuclear program in return for aid and security guarantees, following six-nation talks.
The BBC's Charles Scanlon says that the North's new statement looks like a recipe for continued deadlock.
Both Japan and the US have rejected Pyongyang's demand for a reactor.
People in China forced to be sterilized.
Police raided the house and office of Hanwha Group chairman Kim Seung-youn yesterday as they struggle to secure evidence to charge him for alleged involvement in battering six bar employees in retaliation for an attack on his son.
Police had secured warrants to search the premises and confiscate evidence Monday night.
””We are hoping to seize material evidence to prove the whereabouts of Kim and his son on March 8 when the alleged assaults took place,”” an official at Namdaemun Police Station said yesterday.
” On Monday, police secured statements from six victims who said they were beaten directly by Kim and his son.
But the lack of material evidence is making it difficult for police to secure arrest warrants.
Kim and his son both deny the allegations.
Police are planning to seek arrest warrants for Kim and his son as early as today, after searching the premises and securing additional material evidence.
Hello!
No way!
No way!
I'm sad.
Welcome.
Welcome.
Cheer up!
I'm ugly.
It hurts.
Let's go!
Don't lie.
Don't lie.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
Of course.
Seriously?
Take care.
Be careful.
He is nice.
How lovely!
I felt bad.
Love hurts.
Boys do cry.
I don't lie.
I don't lie.
I don't lie.
I'm nervous.
I'm nervous.
I'm shocked.
It's a pity.
What's that?
You're mine.
You're mine.
Blood is red.
Come quickly!
Come quickly!
I don't know.
I hate liars.
I need money.
Is this mine?
Is this wine?
It's suicide.
Just keep it.
We don't lie.
We don't lie.
We're inside.
We're inside.
What is that?
Can I ask why?
Grab the rope.
I am homesick.
I feel guilty.
I hate myself.
I smell blood.
I use Firefox.
I want to die.
I want to die.
I'll kill him.
I'm depressed.
Is that blood?
My head hurts.
We want peace.
Autumn is here.
Autumn is here.
Can I help you?
Do you hear me?
He was hard up.
I don't buy it.
I like reading.
I love lasagna.
I love my home.
I study Korean.
I'm very sorry.
I'm very sorry.
Only God knows.
Read this book.
Read this book.
Sorry I'm late.
That's suicide.
Boil some water.
Can you help me?
Congratulations!
Do you like rap?
Do you like rap?
Don't lie to me.
Don't lie to me.
Don't lie to us.
Don't lie to us.
Drive carefully.
Drive carefully.
Have a good day.
He is depressed.
He loves trains.
I hate funerals.
I hate my voice.
I know Tom well.
I work at a zoo.
It doesn't hurt.
Keep the change.
My blood boiled.
She's depressed.
Sorry, I'm late.
There was blood.
They want peace.
They were naive.
This is suicide!
Tom was too old.
What time is it?
Are you sleeping?
Call this number.
Do you like fish?
Do you like fish?
Do you like fish?
Do you like fish?
Drink some water.
He loves singing.
Her hair is long.
Her hair is long.
Here is the bill.
I felt very safe.
I like languages.
I like languages.
I live in Turkey.
I lost my wallet.
I missed the bus.
I said I'm sorry.
I said I'm sorry.
I'm not suicidal.
Is the bank open?
Is the bank open?
There aren't any.
They're amateurs.
Think about this.
Tom isn't skinny.
Water the plants.
We can't give up.
We can't give up.
What do you like?
What do you like?
What do you like?
I believe in love.
I have a headache.
I won't permit it.
I'm a simple girl.
I'm in charge now.
Leave me in peace!
May God bless you.
Nobody is perfect.
She loves singing.
Take the medicine.
They're all liars.
Tom vomited blood.
Turn on the radio.
Where is the bank?
Where is the bank?
Why are you lying?
You are beautiful.
You can have mine.
You're both liars.
Can I see this one?
Don't get me wrong.
I don't understand.
I have to find her.
I really like snow.
I really like snow.
Is that real blood?
Life is never easy.
She has small feet.
Some water, please.
The night was cold.
Tie your shoelaces.
We've been worried.
Whose book is this?
Do you like English?
Do you like English?
Do you like cooking?
Do you like cooking?
Do you like singing?
Do you like singing?
Everybody loves her.
Everybody loves him.
How may I serve you?
I did nothing wrong.
I do not fear death.
I do not fear death.
I don't know either.
I don't sleep a lot.
I don't sleep a lot.
I don't sleep a lot.
I felt the same way.
I felt the same way.
I made reservations.
I made reservations.
I'll never tell you.
I'll take the wheel.
I'm still in school.
I'm still in school.
I've been kidnapped.
It's not your fault.
Let's do this later.
Please drive slowly.
That's your funeral.
This is so relaxing.
This is so relaxing.
Tom looks very sick.
Tom must be winning.
Was the bank closed?
Was the bank closed?
Watch your language.
Watch your language.
What does this mean?
Who taught you that?
Are these yours, Tom?
Blood was everywhere.
Can I take a message?
Did you buy cat food?
Don't lie. Be honest.
Don't lie. Be honest.
He attempted suicide.
He committed suicide.
I met Tom after work.
I now agree with Tom.
I'm in the same boat.
It rarely snows here.
It rarely snows here.
It was disappointing.
My blood was boiling.
Sorry for being late.
That medicine worked.
That medicine worked.
This camera is cheap.
This room is too big.
Tom baked three pies.
Tom did that already.
Water reflects light.
What are you washing?
Why can't they do it?
Close your eyes again.
Do you know this song?
Do you need the phone?
Don't lie anymore, OK?
Don't lie anymore, OK?
I called Tom for help.
I hate myself as well.
I like Korean cuisine.
I like Korean cuisine.
I like helping others.
I really like puppies.
I want to visit Korea.
I was very busy today.
I'll give this to Tom.
Lawyers are all liars.
Like father, like son.
Playing tennis is fun.
She attempted suicide.
Tom attempted suicide.
Tom committed suicide.
Tom is getting coffee.
Tom is scared of dogs.
Tom was almost killed.
We ought to leave now.
What do you call this?
Why did you lie to me?
Do you come here a lot?
Do you have a nickname?
Don't close the window.
I attended his funeral.
I don't understand you.
I don't understand you.
I'll meet Tom tomorrow.
I'm just doing my best.
No one listens anymore.
She majors in medicine.
She majors in medicine.
Thanks for the warning.
The eggs are still hot.
Tom doesn't sleep much.
Tom had plenty of help.
Tom hasn't decided yet.
We are on the way home.
We're in the same boat.
What does it feel like?
What language was that?
Can I borrow your phone?
Can you really not swim?
I also want to be happy.
I can hardly believe it.
I don't like this store.
I hate myself sometimes.
I hope that I can do it.
I take back what I said.
I want to see you smile.
I'm seeing a trend here.
Kick as hard as you can.
Kick as hard as you can.
Let's go somewhere warm.
Our wedding is tomorrow.
Sometimes I hate myself.
Stay a while and listen.
Tell me what's going on.
Tell me what's going on.
The keys were in my bag.
Tom certainly thinks so.
Tom is in the same boat.
Tom looks pretty sleepy.
Tom was totally into it.
We'll take care of that.
A square has four angles.
Can you help me a little?
Did you make it yourself?
Don't treat me like that.
Everyone loves a freebie.
Greece is an old country.
How's the business going?
I'm getting really tired.
It looks like it'll rain.
Samsung is a big company.
Tell Tom that he's wrong.
That's my responsibility.
The boys have gone north.
Tom asked for a discount.
Tom asked for a discount.
Tom didn't move a muscle.
Tom doesn't look so well.
Tom gave it some thought.
Tom hurt Mary's feelings.
Tom sat in the front row.
Wait for us in the lobby.
We had to keep it secret.
Yesterday was a good day.
Are you going to use this?
Culture destroys language.
Do you think Tom is lying?
French bread is delicious.
French bread is delicious.
I am four months pregnant.
I like studying languages.
I love learning languages.
I prefer spring to autumn.
I prefer spring to autumn.
I took a walk with my dog.
It was nothing but a joke.
Let me help you with that.
Let me help you with that.
My children are in school.
Procrastinating is an art.
Thanks for your help, Tom.
Thanks for your help, Tom.
The funeral was yesterday.
Tom coughed up some blood.
Tom has braided his beard.
Tom is lonely and unhappy.
Tom went to bed very late.
We might need to help Tom.
We went to Korea by plane.
What in the world is this?
What in the world is this?
You will know soon enough.
Are we going somewhere now?
Do I look desperate to you?
Do you want some breakfast?
He made his will last year.
I didn't ask for your help.
I don't understand English.
I used to be poor like you.
I wonder if she is married.
I'm sorry for interrupting.
I'm sorry for interrupting.
Is there a pharmacy nearby?
Let's stay friends forever.
She says she likes flowers.
Tell me where you're going.
The medicine tastes bitter.
The medicine tastes bitter.
There are no stars tonight.
This house is not for sale.
Tom grew up in the suburbs.
Tom has low blood pressure.
Tom initialed the document.
Tom nodded understandingly.
Tom slammed down the phone.
Tom was very disrespectful.
We need to review the case.
We want complete sentences.
We're all in the same boat.
What color is your new car?
Who's your favorite singer?
Who's your favorite singer?
Would you mind if I helped?
Can I take your word for it?
Can the price be discounted?
Do you have to work tonight?
Have you ever donated blood?
I haven't finished this yet.
I live in a small apartment.
I live in a small apartment.
I wish I were an only child.
Is that all you want to say?
Our new car is not very big.
Please tidy up your bedroom.
This is a Turkish tradition.
Tom and I are house hunting.
Tom has high blood pressure.
We'll meet again in October.
What kind of work do you do?
When did you come to Boston?
Who is your favorite singer?
Who is your favorite singer?
A Mexican taught him Spanish.
He stopped smoking last year.
Her faith in God is unshaken.
Her faith in God is unshaken.
Her faith in God is unshaken.
I don't want to go to school.
I hate myself for hating Tom.
I'm so glad that you're here.
My grandfather died in Korea.
The old man asked me a favor.
This could hurt our business.
Tom grew up in a rich family.
Tom noticed a change in Mary.
Tom sat two rows ahead of me.
Tom wanted a bigger discount.
Tom wanted a bigger discount.
We want you to sing the song.
Why don't you leave me alone?
You need to accept your role.
All that glitters is not gold.
Children and drunks don't lie.
He can speak and write French.
He turned his coat inside out.
He was caught stealing apples.
I can't believe Tom confessed.
I hated myself for doing that.
I met an old friend by chance.
That's why I've done all this.
The world is full of problems.
These scissors don't cut well.
These scissors don't cut well.
This is the law of the jungle.
Tom didn't seem to be so busy.
Tom found out what went wrong.
Tom is our next-door neighbor.
Tom walked towards the stairs.
Tom will be there to meet you.
Where is the closest hospital?
Are you really willing to help?
Don't pry into my private life.
Don't pry into my private life.
Don't pry into my private life.
Five times five is twenty five.
I really hate myself right now.
Paris is the capital of France.
Please take me to the hospital.
Strawberries are in season now.
That's what I was going to say.
Tom could be seriously injured.
Tom lives in the room above us.
We're not all in the same boat.
Where were you that whole time?
Who's that in the car with Tom?
All these apples are very sweet.
Education is the key to success.
Everybody wants permanent peace.
Have you finished your homework?
I don't want to throw that away.
I'm a Japanese language teacher.
I've asked Tom to take my place.
I've never been so proud of you.
Let me take you to the hospital.
She committed suicide yesterday.
There are many books in my room.
Tom considered changing his job.
Tom kicked the ball really hard.
Tom kicked the ball really hard.
Tom left us some food and water.
Tom put his shirt on inside out.
Tom wasn't in when I dropped by.
Tom wore jeans and a cowboy hat.
What in the world happened here?
What time are you going to work?
Where did you spend your summer?
Breakfast is served at seven a.m.
Don't you feel the house shaking?
I know I can count on all of you.
I really don't want to miss that.
I'll stay here till you get back.
I'm going to Australia next year.
Let's hear the rest of the story.
Let's hear the rest of the story.
My friend works at a supermarket.
Some animals are active at night.
To tell the truth, I felt lonely.
Tom couldn't hold back his anger.
Tom seems like a really nice guy.
We have many varieties of coffee.
Where in the world have you been?
Can you help me for just a minute?
Every country has its own history.
He was at the bottom of the class.
He was at the bottom of the class.
I hope you tore up my last letter.
I want to learn Chinese next year.
I would like to visit South Korea.
I'd like to volunteer my services.
I'm sorry, but I don't understand.
I'm sorry, but I don't understand.
I'm sorry, but I don't understand.
Last year there was a lot of snow.
Learning languages is interesting.
My ideas are different from yours.
My ideas are different from yours.
She drinks a little wine at times.
Snakes are cold-blooded creatures.
Tom and Mary are in the same boat.
Tom has something to do right now.
Tom's explanation was too complex.
We can do this without Tom's help.
"Are you Swedish?" "No, I'm Swiss."
A wise leader knows when to listen.
He hid himself behind a large rock.
He is the dumbest kid in the class.
I'll call you when I get to Boston.
Let's meet in front of the theater.
Nothing seems to grow in this soil.
The ice is thick enough to walk on.
The price of oil is down this week.
Three people were slightly injured.
Tom didn't know Mary had a brother.
Tom didn't know Mary had a brother.
Tom said he was going to kiss Mary.
Why are you so sure of his success?
Why are you telling this to me now?
Call us toll-free at 1-800-446-2581.
He came to London by way of Siberia.
Is there bus service to the airport?
Japan and South Korea are neighbors.
My favorite singer is Kylie Minogue.
My favorite singer is Kylie Minogue.
Please tell me when he arrives here.
There isn't going to be a next time.
Tom says he's almost ready to leave.
Why do I always get up at this time?
You're the one who gave us all this.
I should've checked Tom's references.
I think what Tom is doing is amazing.
Seoul is the capitаl of South Korea.
Some children do not like vegetables.
The world doesn't revolve around you.
Tom doesn't want to get into trouble.
Tom filled the wheelbarrow with sand.
Everyone except Tom went to the party.
How many times do I need to repeat it?
How many times do I need to repeat it?
I know a good lawyer who can help you.
I should have listened more carefully.
I wish there was more I could've done.
I'm not quite sure who we should hire.
My father is to visit Korea next week.
There were a few children in the room.
Tom and John pretended to be brothers.
What do you think this sentence means?
What languages do they speak in Korea?
I watched TV after I washed the dishes.
It's dangerous to go outside right now.
This restaurant is busier on Saturdays.
Tom and his brother look quite similar.
Tom still hasn't responded to my email.
Tom volunteered to pay for the damages.
What is the difference between A and B?
His brave actions are worthy of a medal.
She lives with him in a small apartment.
This is a bit too loose around my waist.
Tom changed his mind at the last minute.
Tom has a guitar that was made in Korea.
Tom seems to be worried about something.
You can't expect much sympathy from Tom.
Don't believe everything people tell you.
For the first time in ages, I slept late.
I have been ill in bed since last Friday.
I like your cat, but she doesn't like me.
In 1950, North Korea invaded South Korea.
She is always at the bottom of the class.
She is always at the bottom of the class.
The price of gold varies from day to day.
We graduate from high school at eighteen.
We graduate from high school at eighteen.
Where did you spend your summer vacation?
Where did you spend your summer vacation?
How do you calculate the volume of a cube?
I should have told you everything earlier.
Now we have one less thing to worry about.
Remember that we are all in the same boat.
She is more beautiful than any other girl.
There is no bus service after nine-thirty.
Tom should be here within fifteen minutes.
Have you ever seen Tom not wearing glasses?
There is nothing you have to be ashamed of.
Tom liked to listen to Mary play the piano.
Tom told me where I could buy pomegranates.
People who ignore history tend to repeat it.
Shut up. If you don't, you'll be thrown out.
Tom and Mary live in a very small apartment.
Tom went to Korea as a Christian missionary.
Tom's birthday was the day before yesterday.
What in the world do you think you're doing?
Certain religions are against organ donation.
Don't add sentences from copyrighted sources.
I haven't been getting a lot of sleep lately.
This year, Valentine's Day falls on a Sunday.
Upon hearing the news, she broke down crying.
Upon hearing the news, she broke down crying.
Tom lives in a small apartment on Park Street.
You haven't told Tom you're married, have you?
"How many boys do you have?" "I only have one."
It requires more courage to suffer than to die.
The Mona Lisa was painted by Leonardo da Vinci.
Tom currently lives alone in a small apartment.
You need good equipment to climb that mountain.
Are there any students from Korea in your class?
Tom says he doesn't think Mary ought to do that.
Tom told Mary he wouldn't let her go by herself.
You had bacon and eggs for breakfast, didn't you?
This English book is too difficult for me to read.
Tom said he didn't want to go to the park with us.
He left the office without saying a word to anyone.
I used to go swimming in the sea when I was a child.
If it is worth doing at all, it is worth doing well.
Is there anything you want us to send you from home?
There are more than six billion people in the world.
Could you please tell me again where you put the key?
I am not quite sure if we can meet your requirements.
I don't have much money, but I can get along somehow.
Weather permitting, we'll start on our trip tomorrow.
Her dress attracted everyone's attention at the party.
Everyone wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.
The company president was indicted for paying kickbacks.
If it were not for water, human life would be impossible.
Tom doesn't want to spend the rest of his life in prison.
If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.
Tom says he needs to talk to us about something important.
I can smell Mary's perfume. She must have been here earlier.
Is there a place where I can charge my cellphone around here?
I'm going through my closet to find clothes to give to charity.
Tom gave Mary some advice on how to pass multiple-choice tests.
How can anyone trust anything Tom says? He's a pathological liar.
After driving for eight hours, Tom just couldn't drive any longer.
I thought you might be lonely, so I came over with a bottle of wine.
I think I can speak French well enough to say pretty much anything I want to say.
Make a good translation of the sentence that you are translating. Don't let translations into other languages influence you.
Sometimes the eggs are hung on trees.
He saw one boy taller than the rest who seemed to be making the most noise.
August 20, 1984
Yun-ho: Tomorrow morning.
It is a useful thing in the kitchen.
Se-na: Let's go to the library asfter school.
Listen to the radio, and you hear our cities are dying from dirty air.
I explained that cooking was like painting a picture - an act of creation.
Substitutes have to spend the whole day there and must do all the regular work.
They are like sheep being led to the slaughter.
I'm just waiting for an earthquake to come along and shake the potatoes out of the ground."
When we look at some dirt through a microscope, we can see germs.
It Is interesting that the females usually choose as mates those male birds that sing the most.
But suddenly it stood up and went away.
Studies in the United States have also shown that laughter is good for us.
Those who don't join the craze are often criticized by others.
I always wash the windows by myself, though.
Today more and more people live in cities.
Dark clouds began to gather in the sky.
Then the opportunity cost is going Shopping.
My mother kissed me.
He caught Antonio Rattin, the Argentine captain, breaking the rules.
When he gets some food, he puts it in his own place and he doesn't let others know the place.
B : I see, Mom.
The excitement goes away, and you see the country in a negative light.
Sure, Let's move it together.
"I do feel a little guilty, however, for taking it before she could change her mind."
He answered, "This vine will bear a fruit that gives juice.
He lived with his old mother.
The weather won't be cold. It'll be warm.
Thank you.
Famous scientists, inventors, writers and musicians have all admitted that some of their best works were first inspired by a dream.
Sejong the Great made Hangul, the Korean alphabet.
These movie stars are treated in a very special way by everyone.
Today they can be found almost anywhere in North America.
They sat in the front.
After several years he became rich.
They look for employees who support each other, take pride in their work, and encourage a pleasant working environment.
These are all signs that they are having dreams
He asked me to show our garden the other day."
At the click of a mouse, they can tell just how much forest has been cut and burned, and where.
Yu-mi: May I speak to Mike?
Never hurt the feelings of others.
Only a wise person can have them.
"Excuse me," she said.
And it can lead to conversations about more interesting, more serious, and more important topics.
As our urban areas continue to grow in population density, these types of problems will surely grow too.
Many foreigners come to visit the Korean Folk Village which shows people's lives, houses and things in the old days.
When germs go inside fruit, the fruit becomes bad.
John is going to get up late every morning, visit friends every afternoon, and enjoy quiet evenings at home with his wife.
B : All right.
He was very pleased with the present.
My father was not happy, but he didn't say "no."
So next time you are ready to change the TV channel, think about the power game you're playing.
You can decide to develop new beliefs in order to make your life better and more enjoyable.
Some people become rude, violent, or shameless in cyberspace because no one knows who they are.
The practice is becoming popular in many cities around the world.
Ted Williams was one of the greatest batters in U.S. baseball history.
Will you help me move this table?
That's why he raised the heels on his shoes to look taller, and the rich nobles and the ladies started wearing them too.
However, it is just a matter of time before these women get their freedom.
And then she goes back to her desk and begins to type.
"We can't run faster than that bear even with running shoes."
In America, people say, if you dream about a dog, you'll be lucky.
Sometimes he goes to work on Sunday.
He jumped out of bed, put on his clothes, and ran as fast as he could to the station.
Even though you might not realize it, you consider opportunity cost every day.
A : You'll have a test the day after tomorrow.
Q: A man has three things : a rat, some seeds, and a cat.
Love, Mother
Of course I have parents.
From looking at himself!
This is usually their mother.
In 1924 the United States passed a law that said people from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean couldn't come into the country because they weren't good enough.
"What are you doing?" her friend asked.
She took care of the cows and hens.
Americans call it a Jack-O-Lantern.
It seems humans are not the only creatures that dream.
Unfortunately, Giles' grandfather still hasn't accepted it.
American television seems very interested in cleaning.
Several friends of mine have told me about the camp, and I am very interested in attending.
At the 2002 World Cup, many players used the sport's biggest stage to display very interesting hairdos.
Sometimes he learns new things for movies.
But when we crossed the Folly Bridge, we could see an old stone tower.
Later Kennedy reported that Johnson had told him, "You're losing Ohio, but we're doing fine in Pennsylvania."
Scientists say the threat faced by polar bears is caused by global warming.
On the other hand, most Koreans are indirect when they answer to a question.
He has no parents and lives with his poor grandfather."
Travel is fun.
They left their coats and began walking.
Even some movie theaters make audiences enjoy movies more by using smells which match the story.
People have to eat, but culture teaches us what and when.
My mother and father went to a school for deaf children when they were young.
If something is wrong in the environment, frogs are the first to be affected.
So what can you do to say in good health?
Let's say the top crowd decides that it is smart to wear bright red sweaters.
Because he couldn't read well, he did poorly in school.
Su-mi: Yes, I will. Can you help me, Jane?
The teacher told the student to talk about themselves in front of the class: their families, their hibbies, and their hopes.
We now know that coca leaves contain a powerful pain-killing drug.
When they grow up, if a similar string is tied around their leg, they won't try to break it.
The lower the economic class is, the higher the likelihood of teen-age marriage is.
Muslims celebrate Ramadan as the month when the prophet Muhammad first received the teachings of the Quran, the holy book of Islam.
"I don't wear a watch."
However, it is common for many people to experience culture shock in a foreign country.
And they are very clever.
Then, their ability will be greatly improved.
During the boycott many blacks walked.
I am really very pleased with this change, and I hope it will continue.
The sick person was worried and asked, "What's wrong with me, Doctor?"
Each year, millions of people go abroad to work, study, or travel.
It is a special month of the year for over one billion Muslims throughout the world.
"They are ants, you fool," said the other man, "we haven't taken off yet!"
To show they were members of the new elite in the 1930s, they would wear a suit, a necktie and a pair of fashionable glasses.
Employers save on space, heating and lighting.
Many of the students get a mother, father, uncle, aunt, or grandparent to go to school for them.
Researchers at Oxford University have found that a common cure for sleeplessness, counting sheep, does not really work.
When people think of Hollywood, words like creative, flashy and high-tech come to mind.
B : Oh, I'd love to. Thanks.
Their special materials are like their magical stick and classes are like a "kut" - a sacred Korean ceremony.
He asked blacks not to ride on city buses.
In Montgomery, Alabama, blacks had to sit in the back of city buses.
Just then a car came very fast, the dog tried to run away.
Nowadays, Brad Pitt and Leonardo Dicaprio are two of the most famous people in the world.
4. a large box or container in which things can be stored or moved: a packing case
In Persia, a man showed his respect for another man by kissing him on the lips if they were in the same social position, or on the cheek if they were not.
Yi Sun-shin was a great solder.
I have a husband and three wonderful children in Hollywood.
Watching those games is a lot of fun for us.
As you see, most Americans believe that the answer to a question should be direct.
Pusan is in the south of Korea.
So he decided to continue selling tomatoes.
One tropical tree smells like garlic, and there is another plant that smells like a pile of rotting garbage. 
The sun is a star.
You may think, "Not me. I won't get sick on my vacation!"
They show soap for washing clothes.
Finally he decided to buy 25 pounds of tomatoes at a supermarket.
About 15 minutes after falling asleep, their eyes start to move from side to side behind their closed eyelids.
She surely hopes so.
At night it seems almost black.
You must keep your teeth clean.
Contrary to popular belief, the real sufferers are not the young, but the middle-aged or elderly using the Internet for the first time.
He told me that there were thirty-nine colleges at Oxford, and only eight thousand students.
If angry at first, wait till your anger disappears before you act.
He threw his package on the desk and said, "Mrs. Anderson has sent you two of her rabbits."
Yesterday Jack had no work to do after breakfast.
In fact, working well with others is one of the most important job skills.
He was a success, so he began to make movies.
One example of war's destructive effects on art can be found in the history of Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece 'The Last Supper.'
Other soap is just for taking care of little babies.
Test yourself and see how your body feels when you laugh or smile.
His name was Francis Galton.
They paid to be frozen in the belief that future doctors will be able to cure their diseases and give them a chance to live again.
Robins are acting in the most strange way.
It is nice and cool.
A : You don't look good today.
Some even rode on horses.
Whenever a few people in Korea like something new, it quickly becomes a craze.
Fortunately, Aston had learned some Spanish in high school.
I would repeat, "Lunch is ready," and he would shout, "What?"
We're having beautiful weather in Korea.
A common language is needed.
They proved effective.  
For example, it has caused some male fish in the Han River to lay eggs like females!
From that time on, Coca-Cola has been an incredible success.
So she stopped a customer leaving a bank.
Now, I'll tell you about it.
When Rattin broke the rules again, the referee told him to leave the field.
There are four people in my family - Father, Mother, my little sister, and myself.
This wall painting, done in the 1490s, still exists in a monastery in Milan, Italy.
It was 7:52 about a minute ago."
After the trial, a friend who was shocked at this surprising answer asked, "How could you give such a boastful answer?"
When the first Korean mission visited Japan in the 1870s, the Japanese were surprised to see that almost all of its 75 members wore eyeglasses.
American and Brithish people both speak English.
He cannot take time to look for the best angle.
This person is always popping, cracking or chewing gum loudly -- and keeps this up all day without any consideration for the rest of us in the office.
She was with a mother wolf and three little wolves.
You usually use it for cutting things to cook.
Dioxin was created by humans through modern technology.
Dear Tom,
The male dominates and the female follows behind.
It also causes health problems for babies before they are born.
It's proof that the English are best."
At night, his wife would help him sort through the paper work in the living room, or sometimes sitting up in bed.
The Juice that came from the fruit was wine.
But, for many peole, that is what happens.
Often the ads tell about special soap for washing your hair.
A teenager logged on 12 hours a day and needed psychological help to break his habit.
Later, when I found a job in a restaurant, I couldn't put off telling my parents any longer.
Frogs are especially sensitive to changes in the environment.
In an experiment, a group of patients suffering from depression listened to tapes of comedians for 30 minutes a day.
Min-su: Will you carry this desk?
Another child replied, "I want to be a businessman who makes a lot of money."
Another reason is money.
Jack was very glad to find that it was safe.
Have you watched the movie Minority Report?
He turned his head from side to side.
Stop it fight now, Yu-mi.
In fact, there are so many important differences between British and American English.
In many places, cars had to stay off the highways.
I was soon outside again without it.
LH is a very tall building.
They usually stay up late and watch television, but tonight they are going to go to bed early.
One boy is running after the ball.
"Aha!" Francis thought, "two brilliant men in one family.
For most of the substitute students, going from class to class on time without getting lost is the most difficult part.
It is true. that you are a very clever boy, but that doesn't mean you are the cleverest of all.
Believers say the carvings are images of astronauts in their spacecraft, and the pyramids are too advanced for their time.
When Julia later told her about the visitor, her mother was puzzled and asked what the man looked like.
They were always careful not to waste any water.
This helped them to stay calm.
Clouds came and went day after day but no rain fell.
We also need a little sugar.
What a wonderful birthday present and how nice of you to remember my birthday, even when you're on vacation.
When we are reading English, we sometimes meet a new word which we don't know.
The signal will have an impact on everyone, from heads of government and the world's religions to ordinary individuals, and every group will react in a different way.
The bird looked really happy!
In the old days, kissing was more often an act of respect than that of love.
The man explained that he had neither a computer nor an e-mail address.
What do you think the reasons are?
However, scientists are sure it will happen someday.
A man met a joke writer at a party.
Here a lion is jumping through the flames.
Since there is less ice during the spring, the bears must move back to land before they are able to hunt enough food.
All of them tell Mrs. Lee they'll be able to do their homework tonight.
If you were lucky enough, the surgeon would drop some of the chewed leaves into your cut.
But there was a time when things were very different.
Yesterday was Min-ho's fourteenth birthday.
Or has it lost its vitality because of aging, air pollution, and stress of everyday living?
Like "shamans who claim to do miracles, the creators of these methods say they have discovered the secret method of learning English.
Mr. and Mrs. Bull, Comfort Farm, Sussex, Great Britain SU3 8TZ.
It is hard to find the rabbit in the snow.
But it's not fun or exciting if you get sick.
Some people have brown eyes.
Her mother's face brightened.
I'll give you an example.
More than half of the countries have laws to protect the rights of women, and ninety percent of all countries have passed laws to give women equal pay for equal work.
He mixed together cola nuts, cola leaves, caffeine, sugar, vegetables and so on.
Color keeps animals safe.
If your beliefs are not producing good results in your life, you can choose to develop other ones.
Then I go to "Pants Plaza" and see some good-looking pants.
The buildings are not tall.
For Christians, Easter is a joyful time.
Two bigger boys had two boats on the pond.
So they moved to a new house near the school.
Yun-ho: Okey. It's cool there.
The game is called "Who's Boss?"
Many people dye eggs for Easter.
He wanted to get a new camera, because his camera was too old.
Together they cost 21 dollars, but I only have 20 dollars.
When the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan in 1996, 24-year-old female medical student Rohya was forced to leave school and remain indoors.
"While counting sheep, people tend to think of other things such as tomorrow's important meeting.
How is the weather in your town?
This kind of marketing is definitely an interesting way to call attention to the products.
Need to improve your English?
Some British doctors have pointed out that one of Britain's worst waves of influenza happened soon after the decimal coins came into use.
But many scientists say there is no scientific proof that aliens ever visited Earth.
A : I'd like you to come to our party.
"Using sea water is too expensive for poor countries, and reusing wastewater or catching rainfall is only practical in special cases," he says.
friend: What are you looking for?
Their friend, Frank Robinson suggested calling the drink "Coca-Cola."
Give Mrs. Anderson and her son my thanks for their kindness, and here is sixpence for yourself."
Yun-ho is going to go on a picnic with his sisters tomorrow.
During the day, he hid behind the role of a hurried businessman too busy to review contracts or look through mail.
The situation can even become dangerous if the top crowd decides that it is smart to drink or drive cars at seventy miles an hour.
Imagine that!
If you have heart trouble, you don't want to make it worse.
One day a banker called the man and asked for his e-mail address in order to send him some important information.
Used car dealers put a strong leather smell in their cars to make customers feel like they are buying a new one.
These dreams might be normal for twenty-year-olds or even for teenagers, but these children were only six years old! Later, in the same program, a five-year-old was asked what she dreamed of, and she answered quickly, "I wish I had a personal computer."
Others rode in taxis driven by blacks.
But when farmers put out poison and traps to kill them, the coyotes soon sense danger and go somewhere else. 
I work in an office with many people.
But most crazes begin without any serious discussion.
Or they cause so much pain as they come in that they have to be pulled out.
Just think... in a few more weeks it won't be winter any more.
"I had some trees to cut down, but a tornado came along and did the job for me."
They called it a 'devil's wagon.'
He wants to take them across the river, but he is not able to take all of them at the same time.
Pretty soon everybody is wearing bright red sweaters.
They have two ways of breathing - through their skin and with their lungs.
I often go to his office and help his work.
But unlike elephants, we can choose to untie them.
Stock markets will rise and fall as nervous people wonder about the future.
Children may feel neglected or lonely and this may cause them to overeat.
Soon people everywhere wanted to buy the new drink.
Using satellites to protect the rain forest may sound expensive, but it's not.
It was Christmas time and my husband Tom and I decided to buy a Christmas tree.
When she got to work, she asked that a plumber be sent.
You're welcome.
Sometimes the ideas of scientists can be truly dangerous.
Thanks.
Long ago, people's heads were less rounded than ours, and their jaws were large enough to have the third set of molars.
An American astronomer has discovered a diamond as big as the Earth.
For most people, access to the Internet will provide all kinds of great new services.
For example, young voters may prefer a candidate who wears jeans and speaks to them in a rather informal way.
Giles: I have wanted to be a cook since I was about 12.
Today, people in 195 nations drink it every day.
Now it will become much more "gender-neutral."
My problem is one coworker who constantly chews gum in a very irritating manner.
What color are you eyes?
Dear Bob,
We'll be happy to answer any questions.
So many countries like the U.S. and Britain have founded laughter clinics to help depression patients.
One day a rabbit and a monkey were sitting under a big tree.
Eyeglasses were first introduced to Korea in the late 16th century from China.
Doctors are reporting a new illness that is ruining hundreds of lives.
Why not drop us a line and a photo.
We'll watch the full moon in the evening.
Mike: Sorry. My desk is very heavy, too.
If it looked like it was going to rain, the cameras were quickly covered, not the actors.
So he began to write letters to his own son.
It was difficult to have privacy in a small community like that, but there was usually a sense of security, of belonging, and of community togetherness in such places.
After school we make cookies and sell them to our friends.
Turn off the TV.
It's like you're saying to the rest of the family, "I'm the king here."
When the boys kept playing around the men's feet, the men became angry.
"No matter how full one's schedule is, there's always room for more!" answered one employee.
At first there was silence, and then my father asked me why.
Let's be students who can understand other peoples well.
So I have only a little time to study.
Today the Jack-O-Lantern pumpkin is an important part of every Halloween celebration.
Their breathing becomes faster, and their legs may move too.
They rarely moved from one area to another and usually knew their neighbors at least by name, if not by close, personal interaction.
Let's be students who can help other peoples of the world understand us Koreans better.
Now they are going out of the ring.
"I write jokes for children."
You can see exciting scenes where Tom Cruise is being chased by police wearing rocket backpacks.
This climate change is due to the burning of coal and other fuels by humans.
That means more family violence and more fighting over available resources.
About two years ago, a university professor went on TV and spoke about Vitamin C.
Naturally, many of them are not successful.
In 1796, when Napoleon's troops invaded Italy, they used the monastery as a place where their weapons were kept.
They have watched many operations during which the patients were awake but felt no pain.
He was driving through the corner, and the woman in the red sports car didn't stop at a stop sign.
She could not stand or walk like us.
The monkey often scratched himself with his long fingers.
The streets are clean.
Work is important, but everyone needs free time, too.
Limits of Western Medicine
Schools are starting to open to women again.
My father will cut the grass and paint the gate.
One day the shoemaker woke up to find himself famous.
Dioxin usually enters a human body through the food we eat.
If you don't keep your teeth clean, germs can make them bad.
Even after they realize something is wrong, they find it almost impossible to stop.
I had a wonderful time at a beach in the easten part of Korea.
Just imagine where you would be now, if you had used the Internet from the very start!"
Every year about seventeen million animals are used in laboratory experiments.
The next stage is the "humor" stage.
The devil said, "Oh, really?
Yet, Hollywood and the military often work on similar technology such as virtual reality and 3-D simulators.
They couldn't leave home without wearing the burhka, a kind of clothing which covers the head, face and body.
Dirt causes illness.
Pemberton became ill and had to sell the business for $2,300 to Asa Candler, a businessman.
A : This Saturday at six o'clock.
Always be polite but never flattering.
Since Friday and the number 13 are both considered unlucky, then friday the 13th is considered the unluckiest day of all.   
We do a lot of the work.
Ken Aston, a referee, was in charge of a World Cup match between England and Argentina in 1966.
In the end, important changes were made in the law.
A good image is very important for political candidates.
Star Wars will begin at 6;00 and 10:15.
Some people will be excited and happy; others will feel really uncomfortable.
My friends and I have a day off.
The report said that too much Vitamin C can be bad for our bodies.
Go to your room and study.
He learned to fly a jet for Top Gun, and he learned to drive a race car for another movie.
People began to worry.
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Smith,
The drink tasted fantastic!
Today students tend to limit learning to the classroom.
We use them to pick up things.
Midwesterners dine at five or six, Spaniards at ten.
At first, the Irish used turnips as their 'Jack's lantern.'
So far there have been no attempts to unfreeze any of them, but teams of scientists are working on the technology to do this.
Those two boys' attitudes toward life were so different that it made their parents worried.
Look at the sky in the daytime.
His name was Sooho.
Want to spend some time abroad?
Ch'usok is coming soon.
I don't object to gum chewing if it is done quietly, but this person is driving me mad with all the noisy chewing, cracking, and popping! What can I do about it?
He loves to learn new things now.
We will know, at last, that we are not alone.
friend: Your wife lost it in the kitchen, but you are looking for it on the street.
Thanks to India's IT industry, the country has been changing from "an awakened elephant" to "a rushing elephant."
The flowering stone is round and flat and grows close to the ground.
Not only people who are depressed but also those who have allergies, high blood pressure, and even cancer seem to feel better after listening to humor.
In the late Chosun Kingdom, during the 18th and 19th centuries, glasses were a symbol of wisdom and education.
Jane: Of course.
Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party decided that the Germans were the best, and it was fine for them to drive out people who were not so good.
Even before the child can talk, he or she is told such things as, "What a handsome boy you are!" or "How pretty you look!"
In Ohio, the speed limit for cars was eight miles an hour in 1902.
You do this by filling your mind with all kinds of information while you're awake.
They don't talk much now, but they can talk.
However, most of these methods ignore individual differences in attitudes and learning styles.
"What does this show us?" he asked.
Opportunity cost has something to do with choosing one product or service instead of another.
Can you swim by reading books about swimming?
Swift laughed, and after that, he never forgot to give the boy a tip.
Now they can walk to school.
The man in the green truck wasn't hurt at all.
On American television there are many ads about kinds of soap.
1. a single example: It was a case of stupidity, not dishonesty.
I said, "I must go at once.
But lately, government officials have been using satellite pictures and computers to keep watch on the rain forest.
Then a lightning storm set fire to the weeds and saved me the trouble of burning them."
In the middle of the 17th century, men's boots with high heels were considered the best style, and it was King Louis XIV of France that led the fashion trend.
Swift looked at him and said, "That is not the way to give me your package.
Mike: Yes, this is he speaking.
So try it.
You must brush your teeth every morning and every night.
The police came and I left for school.
When something happens, for example, a flood, a fire, or a car accident, his job is to run to the scene and start taking pictures.
Then they will be black and decayed.
We also use our fingers for counting, pointing, and doing many other things.
Jack then cut a cross in the tree's trunk, so the devil couldn't come down.
Recently India has become the world's second leading exporter of computer software.
In the past, it was very difficult to know exactly where the forest was being cut, and how many trees were being cut down.
"Really, have you sold anything yet?"
It's called Substitute Student Day.
Male birds do most of the singing.
The millionaire tomato seller replied, "Why, of course! I would be a floor cleaner at Microsoft!"
Brazilians put hot milk into strong coffee, whereas Americans pour cold milk into a weaker brew.
He was promptly fitted with two hearing aids.
It is a time for them to grow closer to God and become better people.               
Imagine this scene.
And finally, both the Italians and the Polish are famous for their friendliness and good spirit.
Blue or pink clothing is purchased, and the pronoun 'he' or 'she' is used.
For several days her request was ignored.
We'll pay you by the hour, so the more you work, the more you'll earn!
It can also work for you.
A positive self-image, he says, can do as much to help a child lose weight as healthful food and exercise.
But he did not give up.
Market researchers have found that the sense of smell affects customers more than any other sense.
Swift entered, walked to his desk and said, "Good morning, sir. Mrs. Anderson says hello to you.
It gives us heat and light.
He took it home.
It is also a dangerous thing, so you have to keep it away from your children.
Whenever robins are nesting, the same thing is taking place.
Our minds also need a kind of food.
The females do this not because they like the singing but because they know that these males have the most food in their area.
They have never heard me because they were born deaf.
English learners should realize that there are no magic methods for learning English.
"Yes, My TV, car, and the family silver."
She is going to the flower show in the City Hall.
Ben did not play with the other children in school.
In order to protect their shoes, people began using high heels.
He works late in the evening.
He was small and not clean.
A Chinese Method of Killing Pain
This sea ice is very important to the polar bears' survival because they hunt fish and sea animals here.
So he decided to take care of it.
They said that a person could not even stay home from church on Sunday without the whole town knowing about it.
Every morning Susan comes to the office at 9:00.
However, this anonymity does have some negative aspects.
It helps boats to find their ways.
Their marriages are even more fragile than those of the middle-class young.
"In that case," said the manager, "you can't work here."
Swift went out, knocked on the door and waited.
If Aristotle had come to New York and said, "I want to live in America," he would be sent away, "Sorry, you're not clever enough."
After the match, Aston started looking for a way to solve the language problems on the field.
Today, the older use of the kiss, to show respect or welcome, is still common.
National leaders often greet each ether with a kiss on the cheek when they meet.
After all, you could always get another actor but trained horses were hard to find!
One day when Julia was at home alone, a man came to the door asking for her mother.
She lived with them for about seven years.
It used to be a palace where the kings and queens of France once lived.
You've just watched the news on TV.
The manager told him: "Give me your e-mail address, and I will send you an application form to fill out."
Today our jaws are smaller, and there's just no room for the wisdom teeth.
Farmers did not like it because it frightened their horses.
The rabbit is white.
What a difference!
The man put down his newspaper and said they were his friends.
He said that I was crazy to give up farming.
"The Taliban robbed the best five ears of my life," she says. "I don't know if I have the strength to start over."
"Because public systems provide water at little or no cost, no one cares about conserving water," Rosegrant says.
However, Rohya isn't sure if she will go back to her medical studies.
John's father told John that Mary's mother was sick in bed.
They're terribly preoccupied with their bodies, but they've lost touch with mental disciplines.
Then they can take steps to protect these places.
If it's not too late for me to sign up, I'll need you to send me an application form too.
Today in theater Che-il, we are playing 'Jaws' and 'The Sound of Music.'
I can make money that way, too.
Muslimes wash their hands before eating.
But when Irish immigrants came to America, pumpkins were easier to find than turnips.
One of the first anesthetics known to man was used to help doctors instead of patients.
I have an apartment in New York and a house in Hollywood with a swimming pool and a tennis court.
I liked Oxford University.
"Maybe so.
Yes.
He often sniffed the air.
My name is Kang Min-ho.
In the 19th century, a scientist said men from Northern Europe were the best.
His style, a bleached Mohawk, became the newest fashion in Japan as thousands of young men asked for it at beauty shops.
There was a small pond in the park.
It was trying to get out.
This was a protest against Mrs. Parks' arrest.
One day Rowland was asked to attend a trial where his knowledge of science was needed.
And the final stage is the "home" stage.
I hope he'll never smoke again.
Our living and working conditions may put us under stress.
At last you begin to feel at home and enjoy living in that country.
Maybe someday our children will go to school with their rocket backpacks, without the need for a bus or the subway.
"I had to do so," Rowland replied, "because I promised not to lie."
First she opens Mr. Robinson's letters.
Before long, another craze comes along and replaces the old one.
Fortunately, the woman wasn't hurt badly, but her nose was bleeding a little.
Interested?
But it was too late.
He does not like to give things to others.
She crashed into the truck.
No one will respect you more than you do yourself.
It is a fine day.
We Koreans worked hard for the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games.
Then he asked, "Any questions?"
No one knows exactly why acupuncture is so successful.
Yun-ho: What a hat day it is!
They were ordered to move to the back of the bus
So, the parents brought them to a counselor.
Some even attack others just for fun.
While he was sitting in the witness chair, the lawyer asked him, "Who is the greatest living American scientist?"
Early eyeglasses were not just symbols of learning; they also cost a lot of money.
(B) They will grow into new plants.
It was discovered by the ancient Incas of Peru more than 1,000 years ago.
And now I'm happy because I see he's doing something he enjoys.
When winter comes, food is hard to find.
"Oh, not bad," said the farmer.
Min-ho was fond of taking pictures.
Why not come and work for us at Home Farm?
The military will worry whether the aliens are friendly or not.
Later, when Jack died, he wasn't allowed to enter Heaven because of his bad ways.
And since they live both in water and on land, frogs also give information about both places.
I'm going to be a third year student this March.
Unfortunately, Coca-Cola was not successful and they nearly went bankrupt.
A few days later, new shoes were left at Ben's door by a group of girls.
At 11:00 she makes some coffee and takes a cup to Mr. Robinson.
They tell the candidates what to say, what to wear, and even what perfume to use.
My mother will buy new flowers and plant them in the garden.
The doctor told him to stop smoking.
What am I?
She draws a few pictures every day.
Here is the homework you asked me to send for Mary while she is at home with a cold.
Jimmy was an optimist and Timmy was a pessimist.
In some countries, people don't like to say 'no' to a request.
I brought the subject up one night over dinner.
Now, we can both listen to the TV or radio and have a normal conversation at a comfortable, peaceful level.
They are middle school students.
Do you know what LH is?
My father is always busy.
One day he found a white baby horse in the woods.
The item that you don't pick is the opportunity cost.
The social custom of kissing continued, and the kiss became a way af expressing love, first in France, then in all the other countries in Europe.
Experts think that the destruction of the ozone layer is the main cause because ultraviolet rays affect their skin directly.
Be careful not to be guilty of it.
We can learn a lot about the world and people living in it.
However, there are also similarities.
Se-na: All right. See you then.
The rabbit was not quiet, either.
Can a baby live with animals?
The children hid under the table where the important men sat.
Yun-ho: Let's meet at four o'clock.
I practice even in summer.
We must all be aware of the danger of this chemical and learn how to protect ourselves from it.
A : You have no time to watch TV.
As a result, large numbers of scholars and officials with good eyesight ordered false eyeglasses made with plain glass.
She could only walk like a wolf.
In an experiment, 50 people were asked to try different ways of falling asleep.
When I first started, I couldn't run more than a few hundred yards before I had to rest.
If they had lived in the days of capital punishment, they were already died.
They do most of the domestic work, for example, cooking and washing clothes.
Don't be surprised when you see your dog talking in his sleep.
They will visit Su-mi's grandparents in Pusan.
From that time on, when we drink wine, we first become calm like a lamb, and then angry like a lion, and then ugly like a pig, and lastly, we sing and dance like a monkey. 
But when people think of the military, the reaction is probably the exact opposite: controlled, precise and traditional.
In July huge white clouds promised rain.
"Recover" is a special night cream scientifically made to help your skin recover its natural beauty.
Then we use a kind of book to know the meaning of the word.
Back in Europe at that time it was even worse.
When we get knowledge for ourselves, we learn more and understand better.
He dumped some small stones in, which filled the spaces between the rocks.
One rainy night I saw another bookshop on my way home.
Research shows that IAS follows the same pattern as other addictions like smoking, gambling, and drinking alcohol.
Workers must have space available at home to set up their computers and other equipment.
They said that the boys did not belong in the room.
When they saw Timmy open his present, they heard him say, "I don't like this color.  I know someone who's got a bigger toy car than this..."
Sarah Peterson
Eureka!
He created a new science called Eugenics to try to prove he was right.
The man in the middle was reading a newspaper.
The Japanese enjoy eating horse meat, but few Americans would want to taste it.
Many reports have been published on the conditions and rights of women throughout the world.
And you could fly only for a short period of time because the fuel capacity of the rocket was small.
The other three blacks moved but Mrs. Parks refused.
The childen are looking at the funny scenes with their mouths open.
And a meeting of witches, called *Witches' Sabbath, required at least 13 witches.
Simple.
Some people think deaf people can't learn to talk.
People with IAS have a strong desire to log on to the Internet from the moment they wake up in the morning.
The sun's light is very bright.
B : I have a bad cold.
I ran after it for quite a while.
Where did he get this idea?
These new glasses remained a symbol of education, but this time it was new, modern education.
Among early Christians, the 'holy kiss' was a sign of friendship.
Food is important.
Peter said, "Our coats are very heavy.
Next, the Indian government gives its full support to the Information Technology (IT) industry.
In our long history, we have many great men.
He was shouting at the lady.
To this day, his 1941 batting average of .406 has never been broken.
In the 1950s, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) started.
But in many countries today, a difficult question is being asked.
Harry and Jane left the park.
For example, after a rainy match in Japan, one of Britain's top hairdressers went there to fix Beckham's hair for the next match.
He gave Coca-Cola an image.
Thank you for calling.
When people make small talk, they talk about things like the weather, sports, their weekend, and so on.
They point to the pyramids in Mexico and the size of the statues on Easter Island, saying that ancient people couldn't have built them.
If he takes the cat, the rat will remain to eat the seeds; if he takes the seeds and leaves the cat and the rat, the cat will eat the rat.
Respect, good manners, and thoughtful behaviors are keys to successful teamwork.
People celebrate Easter.
Now I can run a mile in eight minutes.
He grabbed the boy, pulled him into the hall, and told him to stay there until he was forgiven.
A man went to Microsoft and applied for a job as a floor cleaner.
The snow is white.
So the females choose these male birds as mates, not because they sing well but because they are rich.
Whenever he sees his own reflection in a window, the robin dashes to drive it away.
While listening to the election results, Kennedy spoke on the phone with his running mate, Lyndon Johnson.
We decide to go to the movies instead of going shopping.
They become very thin and weak.
If you can see frogs around you, it means the environment is healthy.
The Role of China in Medical Science
A hundred years ago, coyotes lived only in the deserts of western United States and in Mexico.
However, many of these organizations don't do anything.
Se-na: What time shall we meet?
In that case, I won't work for them.
But I give them bacon and ham.
He finished all his homework and had only two errors.
In 1885, John Pemberton, a pharmacist in Atlanta, Georgia, decided to make a new "family" drink.
What you probably see is the sun.
They are fishing or watching the river.
And other people spread false rumors about famous people.
We need a few potatoes and tomatoes.
So when I saw this shop I went in.
In every culture, people enjoy making small talk about a variety of topics.
Now, you sit in my chair and watch how I do it."
Let's leave them here in the hall and walk upstairs to out room."
Thank you very much for your letter and the song you sent to me about two months ago.
Frogs have very thin skin.
It is true that some terms in this Bible, first published in 1978, were already replaced with language that could apply to both sexes.
SETI scientists believed that aliens would use radio waves to communicate in space.
The '93 Teajon Expo was a success, too.
Everyone will be changed, knowing that we have company out there in space.  
(A) The seeds will fall to the ground.
Internet shopping already exists and many products, from books to holiday tours, can be bought over the Internet.
Dr. Martin Luther King led a boycott against the bus companies.
The doctor said to his sick person, "Take one of these pink pills every morning with a glass of water, one of the green ones at noon with a glass of water, and one of the blue ones every night with a glass of water."
These plays regarded their hairdos as quite important.
During the very early days of movies, there were no big stars at all.
"Oh, that mush have been Mr. Spade, who has just moved here from Atlanta!
Jack placed the candle inside a turnip to keep it burning longer.
You will find many different ways of life and thinking in ⓑthem.
They have to take notes, ask and answer questions, read books, and do assignments.
You an make friends by being honest, and you can keep them by staying honest.
About six million Jewish men, women and children ended up dying in concentration camps.
husband: But it is dark in the kitchen. I can't see well there. But it is bright here, and I can see well.
Clint Mathis was wearing a Mohawk hairstyle when he scored a goal for the United States in their game against South Korea.
Surprised, he asked the man in the middle if he knew the two men on either side.
It has bright light at the top.
But it does seem to work. People all over the world are becoming more interested in this very old Chinese way of killing pain.
For these reasons they are called *indicator animals.
Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth president of the United States, may have received a message about his own death in a dream.
He was a famous scientist and so was his cousin, Charles Darwin.
This is the biggest and the most famous art museum in the world.
If one person stops eating, the others should stop as well, even if the food has not yet satisfied their hunger.
Cyber terrorists could break down not only websites of companies, but also communications networks and defense systems of a country.
There are many people on the riverside.
But as the woman turned away, she heard, "Wait!"
For example, the smell of freshly baked bread tempts us to enter a bakery and buy some.
In fact, the lifelong process of getting the infant to fit his or her sex role begins at birth.
I'm from New York.
Because they appear later in a person's life, when he or she is thought to be wiser.
Over the Internet we can share ideas that we might he uncomfortable to talk about openly in society.
First is the "honeymoon" stage.
He may fight the enemy for days on end.
Other plants, such as poison ivy and poison sumac, produce a liquid that keeps away invaders.
The Greeks and Romans also used to kiss the mouth, eyes, hand, or even the knee or foot as a sign of respect or as a greeting.
About 600,000 hectares of forest have been saved since 2000.
But animals in zoos never have to go hungry.
He was a wrestler in high school.
Mrs. Lee doesn't know what to do with her students today.
How are you doing, Tom?
He also wasn't allowed to enter Hell because he had tricked the devil.
It fell down and did not move.
I remember hearing of the case of Timothy Evans who was hanged for a murder that he had not committed.
In many homes around the country, orange juice is always served at breakfast time.
Still, the substitutes always enjoy their day.
"I never knew I was the only one reading them to him."
In short, one technology benefits two very different fields.
Twenty red roses!
Coyotes will eat almost anything, even garbage, so they can easily adapt.
You must keep in mind that friends worth having will expect as much from you as they give to you.
Women were also denied medical care.
Bicycles are not expensive to buy.
Mother told me to play with Betty".
He thought that referees could use yellow cards to warn the players and red cards to tell them to leave the field.
I'm in much better shape now than I used to be.
The world becomes smaller every day.
You enjoy tasting the food, meeting the people, and seeing famous places.
"Aren't we lucky?" I said to Tom.
When they start to disappear, scientists become worried.
Many years ago there lived a boy in Mingolia.
John was very sorry to hear it.
"No," said the man leaving the bank.
Dear Andrew, I wish you to remember some things I have already said to you.
She is already a good artist, and she always works hard.
So let these boys have fun while they can.
In Rain Man and The Color of Money, he worked with famous actors.
You'll be picking fruit and generally helping us do all the usual farm work.
In the Middle Ages, cities were not very clean, and the streets were filled with garbage.
For the moment they may yet be hiding behind their apron strings, but sooner or later their society will catch up with the progressive world.
Do you know what the cow answered?" said the minister.
Poland and Italy may seem like very different countries.
Mr. Smith and I stayed the whole day in Oxford.
The sight of a red traffic signal gave him an idea.
So they used pumpkins instead.
2. a particular occasion of state of affairs: They might not offer me much money.
I'm especially interested in learning, horse-riding skills, so I hope you'll include information about this.
Instead, the devil gave him a single candle to light his way through the darkness.
It shines over the sea.
He, too, was arrested, and a bomb was thrown at his house.
It seems that the high temperature and pressure on the star made its carbon surface turn to diamond.
"The pig was unpopular while the cow was loved by everyone.
Books give a lot of things to us.
Jimmy and Timmy were identical twins.
It is a chemical that cause cancer.
Ziege from Germany and Brazilian superstars Ronaldo and Roberto Carlos belonged to the bald club.
Now the Taliban are gone and things have begun to change.
Is your skin clear, smooth, and shining with health?
As a result, there is a great deal of traffic and usually not enough roads, and most of the roads are too narrow.
The new law said that blacks were free to sit anywhere on Montgomery's buses.
Then when it is full of money, I can buy a new computer!".
Believers in aliens' visits argue that there is historical evidence to support their belief.
Two hikers were walking through the woods when they met a big bear.
To do that you must have friends.
The Seoul Grand Park is located in Kwach'ǒn just out of Seoul.
Many people who live in Seoul visit the Seoul Grand Park on weekends.
One town in California passed a law that said, "A driver must stop his car when he sees a horse on the road three hundred feet ahead."
Dear Mr. Jones,
It is a very important builing.
I will be grateful if you could send me information about the various activities and classes you have scheduled.
Did you know that many discoveries have come from dreams?
The two men on either side were acting as if they were actually fishing.
They could take control of missile bases and airports, or break into satellite systems.
Today we see women wearing them in countries all around the world.
Some years later, the real murderer was discovered.
Many of the world's priceless artworks have been damaged or destroyed by warfare.
In Vermont, someone had to walk with a red flag to warn that a car was coming.
He was surprised to find so few people in the street, but thought that this was because he was so much earlier than usual.
So small talk helps people decide if they want to get to know each other better.
"How did you manage to become so rich without e-mail and e-commerce?
When you look in the mirror, what do you see?
One group thought of a relaxing scene like a blue sky or a beach.
This method is called *acupuncture.
Strong believers may not even swallow their own saliva.
Wild animals go to sleep and stay asleep all winter.
It's not strange that a 13-year-old child has them.
The invention became a big hit, but it could not be widely used.
husband: My wife lost it in the kitchen.
Now, an acrobat is walking on a rope.
The Reason Why Acupuncture Costs Much Money
Each hand has five fingers at the end of it.
Usually, Koreans should listen to the speaker through to the end to find the point.
It has been called "the ashes of death" since it is mainly produced when garbage is burned.
Next comes the "horror" stage.
He hurried to the bus stop.
She works in the office until 5:00 p.m.
I'm going to study in ten minutes, Mom.
According to the folk tale, a man named Jack tricked the devil into climbing a tree.
Friday has also long been considered unlucky, perhaps because Christ died on Friday.
I insisted he take a hearing test.
As a speaker of these three foreign languages, you can speak to yourself in them.
She could not speak.
Learning a foreign language is not only fun, but it is learning to understand its speakers, too.
Fifty years ago, most Americans lived in small communities.
He suggested that on their next birthday the parents give the pessimist the best toy and give the optimist just an empty box.
She learned to eat and walk like a wolf.
What this means is that fewer students are using higher education to find out who they are; the sort of human beings they ought to be.
Is there no room left for fairy tales, myths, and legends?
We must stay at home till mother will home."
Inca doctors chewed leaves of the coca plant while they worked.
She needs only to finish what she is able to do.
More than two hundred years ago, the writer Jonathan Swift lived near a rich old lady's house.
Almost every time he is at bat, he hits a home run.
They didn't exist thousands of years ago.
My uncle went to the hospital to see the doctor.
Nowadays, in fact, it is more important than ever.
This morning Nam-su had an English calss.
In every school there is a "top" crowd that sets the pace, while the others follow their lead.
People bought so much Vitamin C that it soon became hard to find.
Now this change is taking place in the Bible as well.
One day when Swift was busy with his writing, the boy ran into his room.
At 10:00 Mr. Robinson rings the bell on his desk and Susan goes into his office with the letters.
In fact, coca has been used for many centuries to kill pain.
They are playing with a ball.
Since then, these scientists have been sending out radio waves from Earth, expecting aliens to answer our signals.
Just imagine!
I'm a famous actress-a superstar!
Coyotes also like to kill calves and lambs on people's farms.
But sometimes it does not look like the same language.
This did not mean that the Koreans had especially bad eyesight - they were simply trying to impress their Japanese hosts.
Our money troubles are over!
A baby lived with wolves in India.
The minister answered by telling a story about a pig and a cow.
However, there is another type of terrorism that we need to worry about - cyber terrorism.
Very recently there have been two cases of men released from prison long after it was discovered that they had not committed the murders.
But there's a problem: the star is 17 light years away from the Earth and it will take 400,000 years to reach.
In the last three years, around 90 people in the U.S. have been frozen.
Julia said, "I remember that he was short, and he had black curly hair.
Then he eats it all by himself.
While a man was planting the first grapevine ever, the devil came and asked him what he was doing.
But those were only small changes, like using "they" in the place of "he," when referring to humankind in general.
I have a number of books to read, but I have no time to read them.
Korean newspapers often carry ads for new and revolutionary methods of learning English.
First, so many people in India speak English, which is the main language used on the Internet.
But this is very interesting.
As she departed one afternoon, she left her boss this note:
The doctor answered, "You're not drinking enough water."
The day we discover a signal from extraterrestrial intelligence will be a turning point in the history of the world.
For Muslims, Ramadan is much more than a yearly custom.
I would say, "Lunch is ready," and he would yell, "What?"
At the same time you can compare our way of thinking with the foreign peoples' ways of thinking, too.
It's the world's most famous drink and one of the symbols of America.
The parks are beautiful.
He will meet Su-mi's parents, and friends.
Now, it's the lion's turn.
They do it to mark off their area and to invite female birds to mate.
If I pick the shirt, then the pants are my opportunity cost.
One is that the idea goes back to the Last Supper.
The boss replied, "Really?"
These gave their owners the look of a highly educated person.
This shows there are serious problems in the environment.
Today many kinds of international games are played all over the world.
It could hurt his legs when landing.
Bad weather in Florida means fewer oranges. And that means more expensive orange juice!
Henry Augustus Rowland was an American scientist who was famous for his modesty.
This is because the poorer young have fewer options than middle-class youngsters to go on to college and graduate school and so delay marriage.
The rocket backpack is something most of us imagined once or twice when we were young.
It's a nice city.
Most of the frozen people were suffering from incurable diseases when they died.
With only $10 in his wallet, the man didn't know what to do.
She hates to do that.
Not all plants have big, beautiful flowers, but all flowers have the same job.
They were shot by her son in the field this morning."
We will have flowers. The trees will become green again.
This shows that even the Bible cannot go against the general trend toward the equality of the sexes.
My family will spend more time outdoors.
A policeman stopped when he saw what was going on.
In this world you will have to make your own way.
He had difficulty reading when young.
The parents followed what the counselor had said and carefully observed the boys, expecting their sons would change.
But they are alive.
You begin to complain about the life and values of the people.
Many people believe that Friday the 13th is an unlucky day, that the 13th floor of a building is unlucky and that the number 13 in general is unlucky.
And he would respond by yelling, "DON'T SCREAM AT ME!"
When I got married, I quit smoking and took up running.
Sometimes the patients were able to walk out of the hospital right after the operations.
She worked on a farm.
The next morning the alarm rang and woke the student.
When the man replied that he didn't use e-mail or the Internet, the banker was very surprised.
And the public will react variously to the news.
John couldn't do his homework because he had to visit his grandmother in the hospital.
In parts of China, groundwater levels are falling by as much as one meter per year.
Some workers like it because their working hours become more flexible.
They can go inside things.
Suddenly, taking Vitamin C became a craze.
One day Ned heard some girls saying, "We don't like to sit near Ben."
He carries a dictionary with him and tries to learn new words every day.
I just wanted you to know how proud I am of Bobby.
Then you will be able to choose the colors, shapes and other design features that you want.
She was arrested by the police.
Searching through row upon row of Christmas trees, my husband and I picked one we liked.
Let me give you another example.
They may succeed by the year 2030.
Now you begin to look back and laugh at your mistakes in the earlier stages.
He usually gets up early and goes to work.
"The cow said, 'Perhaps it's because I give while I'm still living.'"
Not long ago, a television reporter asked some children what their dreams were.
They know that these birds often fly above dead animals, so finding them can lead to a free meal.
These behaviors may weaken the group work environment and decrease productivity.
People with IAS feel depressed if they aren't allowed to use their computer.
So English is used by many people.
Then Peter put his hand in his pocket and said, 'I've left the key of out room downstairs in my coat."
He thought that the two Cs would look good in advertising.
To meet people's needs, governments have used up much of their groundwater.
This makes it harder for female polar bears to have babies.
This puzzled the pig.
They didn't do their homework and now she can't teach the lesson she planned.
How are you?
Susie was a young gril.
What are you going to watch next?
You can go into the world of the past.
They are going to go to the park by the side of Lake Ch'unch'on.
So I didn't like the idea of my son becoming a cook.
"Oh, nothing much.
Everyone answered, "Yes."
People write me letters about robins that spend their days fluttering against windows.
People can do anything they want to do in their free time.
It is Sunday.
By the 1890s, however, people started wearing more simple and accurate Western-style eyeglasses.
If students can get someone to take their place, hey get the holiday.
The pumpkin looks like a face and has a candle burning inside it.
Judy and Betty are sisters.
Hi, my fans. My name's Diana Rich.
In Theater U-ju, we are playing 'Bear' and 'Star Wars'.
After just a few weeks' use, you'll be looking in the mirror and loving what you see. And you won't just be dreaming.
By using this method, doctors can operate freely without giving pain to their patients.
White horses are coming into the ring.
Society teaches children to act like males or females at a young age.
"The main reason we can't grow enough food," he adds, "is because there isn't enough water."
I have a new nice car and a lot of money in the bank.
A girl is standing on the back of the first horse.
Research on rats shows that when animals live in crowded conditions, they live disorderly, violent lives.
No one seems to know exactly why this came to be so, but there are many possible explanations. 
They also learned to understand one's words by watching his face, especially his lips.
While he was waiting for a bus, he saw a little dog going across the street.
Why?
A : Stop watching TV.
For example, coyotes will search the sky for vultures flying in circles.
At the meal were 13 people, including Jesus Christ, and Judas was thought to be the 13th guest.
My sister Betty is waiting for me.
During a clear day it is very blue, and on a rainy day it is gray.
Because quite a few voters decide who to vote for by the way the different candidates speak, dress and act.
When baby birds are born they naturally follow the first large thing they see.
After that, they sit down to a meal, and they start to eat at the same time, saying "Bismillah," or "in the name of God."
Saturday, November 11, Fine.
The sun keeps you from seeing the moon and stars.
These molars are called wisdom teeth.
This is often more effective than dieting.
However, the practice also has disadvantages.
They pretended that they were holding fishing rods and waiting for the fish to bite.
Ninety percent of all countries have official organizations to improve the lives of women.
Horses were considered much more valuable than human actors too, and they were treated better.
The press will be serious in their reporting about aliens, while television will show all kinds of science-fiction movies.
"Thinking of a beautiful beach, however, makes them relaxed and peaceful."
Within two hours, he had sold all the tomatoes at 100% profit.
The boy said, "Come in."
Don't be afraid of making mistakes while you are speaking.
Then the people who follow the lead are endangering their very lives.
Recently, psychologists studied this question and found that the man in the house has his finger on the button for 80% of the time, then the eldest child, and then the youngest child, and only then the woman of the house.
You and your family are relaxing after a hard day's work.
A Growing Interest in a New Medicine
Just a small amount of it can cause deadly harm.
The whole world was shocked when the World Trade Center towers in New York City were attacked by terrorists on September 11th, 2001.
The statues on Easter Island are so giant that some people insist that they were carved by aliens using high technology.
In the early days of the automobile, many people did not think very highly of it.
Other ads are about soap for washing cars.
God only knows what great talents have been wasted because women have not been given the chance to prove themselves.
Other crazes in Korea include DDR, piercings, hair-dyeing and PC rooms.
My father is running with So-ra.
Did you know that this device had been invented long ago?
The boy answered, "Thank you, my boy.
Dirt is full of germs but they are too small to see without a microscope.
First it gets into plants that grow near chemical factories and smokestacks.
At the 1970 World Cup matches in Mexico, red and yellow cards were used for the first time by FIFA.
Candler had lots of ideas on how to sell the drink - giving people Coca-Cola calendars, clocks and coupons.
One of the greatest tragedies of war, apart from the loss of human life, is the loss of people's creations, their artworks.
Today people don't have room for them in their jaws.
Mike: All right.
I am nine years old.
On the other hand, it took a little longer than normal for those who counted sheep to fall asleep.
"I wouldn't worry," he replied.
When you are not happy, a book can give you a chance for a happy life.
Children's minds have more information than before, but is more information good for them?
The boycott ended 382 days after it had begun.
At last I caught the bird and put it in the cage.
In the same way you can learn to speak only by speaking.
One child answered, "My dream is to go to a very good school."
The American dream will become only a dream.
It offers all kinds of programs to train workers in the use of computers.
Often the frames were made of real gold, and the lenses were made of special crystal.
One of them took off her hiking boots and began to put on a pair of running shoes she had pulled from her bag.
He left without leaving his name.
Interestingly, someone who has never used a computer before is more likely to catch IAS.
My wife and I do the housework together.
The topic may not be very important, but small talk itself is important.
Their mother isn't going to go there with them.
He warned the player, "If you break the rules one more time, you will be out."
For decades, Jay Hans hid a painful secret as he made his machine and tool company into a big business group.
"I'll study engineering here some day," I said to myself.
Television ads show soap for washing people, too.
But I knew my parents would not approve, so I had to introduce them slowly to the idea.
Sports help us when we understand people of other countries and keep the peace of the world.
A woman in a small red sports car was driving very quickly down Elm Street.
This kind of food is knowledge.
I'd also like to know about the rooms and meals, and, of course, the prices.
Wendell Moore wanted to fly with a rocket on his back, so he invented one in 1953.
Su-mi's friend, Tom will come from America to Korea tomorrow.
It's a great way to find out what life is like in other parts of the world!
Ramadan is the ninth month of the Muslim lunar calendar.
They were two nice cameras.
Humans are no exception.
In other words, whose finger is on the remote control button?
The custom of making Jack-O-Lanterns first began with the Irish.
Between 1910 and 1990, water use increased by almost 500 percent in Europe, 300 percent in Africa, and more than 100 percent in North America and South America.
So employers always consider teamwork when they judge a worker's performance.
Also, he spoke very slowly in an accent."
Do we have the right to use animals this way?
They also must be able to motivate themselves to work without anyone watching them.
A rich man asked his minister, "Why do people call me stingy when they know I'm going to leave everything I have to the church when I die?"
If cows, chickens, or pigs eat these plants, they will also be affected.
B : When is it?
In the fall of 1920, a man found the girl.
They define themselves according to external things--money, power, status--and choose courses that will get them these things.
But Mr. Lincoln said, "Our boys are fighting in battle, but we can't help them.
In some parts of the world, old customs and prejudices still prevail and women are still considered second-rate.
It rose high into the sky.
Polar bears are in danger because the Arctic sea ice has been melting earlier in the spring than usual.
Women make up 50 percent of the world's population, but in nearly 66 percent of all working hours, the work is done by women.
Later, Mr. Lincoln held an important meeting in his office.
They avoid saying 'no' by remaining silent or changing the topic.
Instead of following every new craze, maybe people should learn to choose their own interests and tastes. 
That is why there are a great many accidents.
Finally, job opportunities in the IT industry are open to everyone in India regardless of the country's class system.
"Look," said one of them who was sitting by a window.
What you cannot see in the daytime is the moon and other stars.
I'll do that in five minutes.
French soldiers, discovering the painting, scratched and threw stones at it.
A man in a large green truck was driving along Central Avenue very slowly.
Others found that it was too noisy and too dangerous.
Unfortunately, some people took Francis Galton seriously.
She could only cry like a wolf.
This is Washington.
They neglect their work and their health becomes bad.
This television conflict is part of a bigger power game which goes on in homes, even though most of the players don't realize that they are playing a game at all.
Later, French men's shoes returned to their normal height, but women continued to wear high heels.
They have the strength to pull the tree right out of the ground, but their 'belief system' tells them that strings keep them bound.  
"Those people down there are so small-they look like ants."
In a few more weeks people won't look sad any more.
Three men were sitting on a park bench.
Some doctors in London say a little humor each day can be good medicine for depression.
Can you go to the supermarket for me?
Tomorrow I'm going fishing.
How do they know?
The park is by the Han River.
When school was over, Jack asked me to play tennis with him.
Other people may have blue, gray, or green eyes.
He would bring legal matters to me and say, 'You're better at law than me," said Jack Sala, now the engineering manager for the company.
(C) The job is to make seeds.
"She just ran over and snatched ours."
Bad policies, too much water use, and pollution are threatening our world's water supply.
Have they gone crazy?
"All I have to worry about is running faster than you."
5. the way in which the form of a word changes, showing its relationship to other words in a sentence: case endings.
My family is at the park.
After a while the juice will turn into a drink that will make People happy."
Many people are enjoying this Sunday afternoon here.
'People think you are generous because you give them milk and cream each day.
She is holding an umbrella over her head.
Swift received her presents gladly, but he never gave the boy anything for bringing them.
Different people will make different answers.
They give a direct answer to the question and go on to tell about it.
"I'm not thinking about the bear," the other hiker answered.
There are four stages to culture shock.
But the star with the most popular hairdo was English captain David Beckham.
English people eat fish for breakfast, but Americans prefer hot cakes and cold cereals.
Harry and Jane wanted to play with them, but the boys did not want to, because Harry and Jane were younger than they.
"Yes, sir!" the man answered as he began to row away quickly.
George helps his team win many games.
"Do you have the time?"
For example, "a man" will be changed to "a person" and "brothers"will become "brothers and sisters."
For this reason, many businesses use pleasant smells to sell their products.
By the age of 13, most people have 28 teeth, including two sets of molars.
The traffic signal doesn't speak any language, yet everyone understands its meaning.
Water pollution is another serious problem, especially for the one billion people living without clean water.
But Rattin didn't understand English, so he couldn't understand what the referee was saying.
George is the best baseball player on his team.
You know, it's a big holiday in Korea.
However, in the future, customization - making products exactly according to each buyer's taste - will be very popular. Using your computer, you will be connected directly to the factories that make clothes, cars and other products.
Yu-mi: I'm doing my math homework. It's very difficult. Please, help me.
Imagine putting a needle into your body to stop pain.
Also, they are expected to talk only about pleasant subjects while eating, and never to introduce a sad experience into the conversation.
"I was working for him.
The world is becoming more realistic, and unless the children of this and future generations develop their imaginations, our world will be full of robots!
"How's it going?" asked the city man.
The main advantage, of course, is that workers save time and money by not having to travel to the office every day.
My daughter Judy, who works for a plumbing company, found herself in need of a plumber at home.
One day when Peter and Bill came back to the hotel, they found that the elevators were out of order.
"Supplies cannot keep up with rising demand," says Mark Rosegrant, a water expert.
Why?
His life was changed because he hurt his leg in high school.
People feel little pain when they come in.
Without hesitation, Rowland answered, "I am."
We can either go to the movies or go shopping.
One night in 1865, he had a strange dream.
By carefully watching mammals like dogs, cats, cows, horses, giraffes and monkeys while they sleep, scientists have discovered that they all show signs of dreaming.
We are going to sell cookies at baseball games, too.
One girl quietly stood up and said, "Please, sir, when may we have our teacher back?"
That's why child nutrition counselor Chia advises parents to praise their children's strong points and make them feel valued.
You'll provide a place to sleep and all your meals.
Dr. King worked hard during those times.
I don't want to shut them out."
They hope that someday doctors and scientists will find a way to bring their hero back to life.
Then he brought out the blood of a lamb, lion, pig, and monkey and poured it on the ground.
Religions may lie confused when alien intelligence is found.
Japanese restaurants use the scent of oranges or lemons to remove the smell of fish.
I even have my feet pickled!
B : OK.
These feelings are so strong that many children consider being fat as bad as having a disability.
Then, at age 18 or later, a third set of molars begins to come in.
Highways were only for horses.
Nowadays many people have free access to the Internet, so they can join any social or political event they like at any time.
In addition, if you have changed jobs or moved house in recent months, you are more likely to fall ill than you haven't.
The principal then returned to the classroom and told the students to be quiet.
When you wake up, you may be able to find just the solution you were looking for.
Dioxin can also change the way a species behaves.
If humans then eat these animals, the dioxin enters their bodies.
They do not need gas to make them go.
In-ho had breakfast at seven-thirty, and started for school at quarter past eight. He arrived at school at eight forty.
Sally couldn't do her homework beacuse she was tired and fell asleep early.
Bob couldn't do his homework because he had a cold.
Deciding what to watch on TV is a battle fought in homes all over the world.
In other words, they should be careful of these shamans offering a quick way to learn English.
I felt sorry for it.
Doctors from many parts of the world have traveled to China to see the use of acupuncture in operations.
Indeed, cyber terrorism could turn out to be more terrible than any other kind of terrorism the world has ever known.
For example, sitting at home in front of a computer with a modem connection to the office does not suit everyone.
He also has little hope for traditional water sources.
They do not sleep through the winter.
The reason for that pain is likely that human heads are shaped differently today compared with many thousands of years ago.
"That is Oxford University." explained Mr. Smith.
He looks for new challenges and tries to learn new things.
Once dioxin enters one's body, it will never leave.
So his father asked him to go to the bookstore to buy a few books.
In other words, you can understand the French, German and English-speaking peoples well.
Throughout the country women were no longer allowed to work or receive an education.
As a result, people quickly lost interest in that craze.
In both countries, the most important religion is Catholicism.
By following the advice of their image experts, each candidate tries to convince the voters that he or she is the best person for the job.
At first we saw many factories.
Christians celebrate Christ's being raised from the dead.
As a result, they have less fat to get through the long summer months.
I'd like to make spaghetti for dinner tonight.
It is half an hour's drive from Seoul.
The star is so compressed that just one spoonful of it weighs around 500kgs.
What are you going to do next?"
Others were less depressed than before.
One day Mrs. Rosa Parks, a black, got on a city bus with three other blacks.
We'll go for walks in the park, and We'll have picnics on Sunday afternoons.
The New International Bible will soon be updated to avoid gender discrimination.
A bigger problem is that people waste so much water.
In fact, the entire Amazon rain forest can be monitored every year for just $3 million.
Bear will are shown at 3:45 and 8:05.
In the United States orange juice is one of the most popular cold drinks.
My husband and I often had problems communicating.
You have the freedom to throw away some beliefs and choose new ones.
Short of cash?
I look forward to hearing from you soon.
He used it and finally convinced Rattin to leave the field.
So I opened the cage, and it flew away.
A: He can take the seeds and the rat, cross the river with them, leave the seed and go back with the rat, leave the rat and take the cat across, and go back to get the rat.
Show time for Jaws are 2:30 and 7:00.
He gave up his life for the country.
They started to advertise in local newspapers and put up Coca-Cola signs.
Dear Sir or Madam, I am writing to find out whether there are still any places available at your Summer Youth Camp.
His nose went on moving.
He set a jar on the table and carefully filled it with rocks.
There is no room for individuality in such a society.
But keep your manhood always.
Mr. Kim knows how to teach him well.
The shirt is 10 dollars and the pants are 15 dollars.
My mother is sketching them.
Maybe he would have become a wrestler!
Overcrowding in large cities, traffic jams, competition for jobs, worry about the future, and any big changes in our lives may cause stress.
Sociologist John Scanzoni says, "To marry young reduces the chances for gaining further education and preparing properly for a career or work.
No one can say it's wrong to follow a craze.
Finally, the finished product will be delivered directly to your door.
Jane wants to write beautifully.
Of course, you do not want to spend your vacation sick in bed.
He became well-known to the people for his nice shoes.
As a new visitor,  everything seems new and exciting.
Easter means that the earth is born again.
It brings back old memories, and it helps them understand today's schools better.
What should he do?
You have a strong desire to look around and explore.
You know you can't.
Whatever negative beliefs you may have, you can choose to change them.
A monkey on a bicyle is taking place in the ring.
He worked hard every day.
Do children no longer dream of wonderful places full of magical and strange creatures?
I was glad nobody was hurt very badly.
They said that Tom was a very good actor.
In fact, the cameras were the most important thing.
The main reason I am against capital punishment is that it is very easy for the law to make mistakes.
In many cultures people have their main meal at noon, but Americans prefer a large dinner.
Such dreams don't usually happen by chance, however.
For example, some people think that a person is not friendly if he or she doesn't make small talk.
The second tried counting sheep.
When there is a new invention such as the automobile, it is often necessary to pass laws about it.
He sold the new drink at his friend Jacob's pharmacy, at 5 cents a glass.
When germs go inside milk, the milk becomes sour.
Some plants protect themselves from plant-eating animals by giving off a bad smell.
However, less than six months later, a new report came out about Vitamin C.
A man from the city was walking down a country road when he saw an old farmer sitting under a tree.
I think that anyone who has a job he or she enjoys is very lucky,
Su-mi will meet him at the airport in Seoul.
The smell of coconuts in a travel agency makes us think of traveling to a tropical beach.
She likes to ask questions and draw pictures.
For example, the same graphic techniques used to create the scary waves in the movies The Perfect Storm and Pearl Harbor are also used by the military to provide virtual reality training to their troops.
You can learn to swim only by swimming.
Now, Tom Cruise loves to learn.
Let's say you know English, French and German really well.
These experts create an image the majority of voters will like.
Donna couldn't do her homework because she had to take care of her baby sister while her mother was away.
Mr. Kim has one young son who just entered a school.
It also helps people feel comfortable with each other, especially at the beginning of a conversation.
I abandoned ours and ran over to grab the tree she had set aside.
It took a long time and finally they reached the thirtyeighth floor.
You will find yourself more relaxed.
3. a question or problem that will be dealt with by a law court: The case against Mr. Smith will be heard.
"Don't talk like that!
"poor dog!" Jack cried.
"That sounds like another bit of luck.
My little sister Annie is five years old.
Then I noticed the one being held by a woman nearby: "the" perfect tree.
This makes it more difficult to sleep," said one of the researchers.
So we may say that sports, like music, are an international language.
Then, I'll give you some special fertilizer."
Previously, in order for my husband to hear the TV, he would turn up the volume so high, it gave me a headache.
I came home at half past three and found Betty reading a book alone.
If you are interested in history, read books about history.
Anonymity in cyberworld can certainly be a good thing in some ways, but if it is misused, it can be very offensive.
The Sound of Music will be screened at 5:00 and at 9:20.
In both Italy and Poland, history is very important to the people.
I just got your flower.
After a month, some of these patients were completely cured.
For example, one method requires students to listen to a tape over and over again until they get the meaning.
Taking pictures is his job.
They are going to get up early tomorrow morning.
The parents then went to Jimmy's room and saw him laughing loudly, "Wow, I can use this to save my money in.
People came from all over the country to buy his shoes.
Most Christians, for example, will worry whether Jesus also lived and died on these other planets.
A great many plants have thorns, spines, or stinging hairs that protect them.
Opportunity cost can also be an activity you don't choose to do during the day.
Bob is my brother.
"In that case," warned the policeman, "you'd better tell them to leave here at once!"
Before long, people will want to send a spaceship to the star in a "diamond rush."
It can't be luck.
Now we are working hard for the 21st century.
According to psychologists, it is much more serious than simply deciding between a soap opera and a sports program.
He had a difficult time understanding the words.
At first, I told them that I wanted to learn cooking "just for fun."
I asked her when mother had gone.
When he couldn't stand it any longer, he opened the door and burst in.
Overweight children often have low self-esteem and a negative self-image.
And I can do many other things, too.
My hobby is traveling.
He talked to the class for half an hour about the importance of good behavior.
And sometimes people have black eyes.
friend: Where did you lose it?
Do you like to live in the city or in the country?
My friends and I are going on a trip to the Grand Canyon during the summer.
That is a bad habit, too.
Everyone needs to eat food well if he wants to have a strong body.
Two men were sitting in a plane.
Some ads show soap only for washing floors.
They were great success.
Giles' father: When I was brought up, men never went near the kitchen.
Often, wisdom teeth don't come in at all.
They listened to him and did not ride on them.
"I will come to work in the morning as soon as a plumber gets to my house."
For example, they could cause fighter jets to bomb the wrong areas or make telecommunications almost impossible.
When germs go inside our bodies, we become ill.
"That was lucky, wasn't it?"
I'm glad I let it go.
It has worked for a lot of famous people.
Often, being patient is not the best solution to the problem.
Learning to speak is like learning to swim.
Some children are near us.
If he had not hurt his leg in high school, maybe he wouldn't have become an actor.
Studying for ourselves brings the most knowledge.
The man then pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and said, "I have an *ATM receipt, and the time is printed on it.
But my grandfather wasn't so kind.
A woman wanted to know the time, but she didn't have a watch.
We'll have a lot of fun.
The lady sometimes had a boy carry a present to Swift.
When there is bad weather in Florida, the whole country knows about it.
When males sing a lot, it means they don't have to spend much time hunting for food.
It is called Internet Addiction Syndrome (IAS).
Tom hurt his leg in high school, so he had to stop sports.
Robinson had beautiful handwriting and wrote the name as it still appears today on cans and bottles!
Please tell her we all miss her and and hope she will be back in school soon.
One day Harry and Jane went to the park.
Life was so personal in those days that people often joked about it.
To keep a pleasant working environment, employers cannot allow certain kinds of behaviors such as arriving late or bothering others.
To forget a duty or not to show thanks for kindness is a crime.
If you have to show your feelings or your anger, do it calmly.
When I was at my desk, a pretty bird flew in through the window.
During the daylight hours, Muslim adults are not allowed to eat, drink or smoke.
But I know that the times have changed.
Thank you for helping me.
There is nothing wrong with that, except the fact that on some people bright red is unbecoming.
Mother often says, "You are a very lazy boy, Min-ho!"
She answered, "Mother went shopping an hour ago.
I go to "Clothes Express" and see a really nice shirt.
A person would believe it really is a stone until she or he touches it or examines it closely.
Here is a story of a man who has seen much of the world and chooses a little country village for his home.
It changes its color at times.
But I knew it would only get easier, and the longer I avoid smoking the faster I was able to run.
Now we could see a forest of stone buildings which stood like castles.
Anyone who doesn't follow the latest craze is considered old-fashioned.
They also are easy and cheap to fix.
You would probably think that this would actually cause more pain.
For example, northern Europeans used high wooden heels to keep their expensive leather shoes clean.
It shows how life will be fifty years from now.
The earth is in danger.
When Ted died in July 2000, his family paid a company in Arizona to freeze his body and keep it in a special refrigerator.
She lived like a wolf.
It was the first day of school and the pupils were very excited.
My father drives his car and I wash it on Saturdays.
When he stopped wrestling, he tried acting in a musical play.
It is also a time to study the Quran and do good deeds such as helping the poor.
When he was a boy, Tom Cruise was a poor reader.
"What do you do for a living?" he asked.
Hutty, spring!
When this happens, women will be free from the ignorance that has been binding them for centuries.
Crowded inner cities are models of lawlessness; the crowded highways of Los Angeles encourage drivers aggression and even shootings.
Nancy and Lucy were invited to his birthday party.
I would raise my voice and yell, "LUNCH IS READY!"
They follow her around and do what she does.
In cities all over the world thousands of people die or are hurt from traffic accidents.
This, of course, reduces the income available to a marriage during its first ten years -- precisely those years in which most separations and divorces occur."
It is obvious that parents like girls better than boys in most countries.
Students at Sandpoint High School have a special way of getting a holiday.
Each year farmers and loggers illegally destroy an area of the Amazon rain forest the size of Hawaii.
You can play games with me.
Now they had to find a name as new and exciting as the drink.
There are several reasons why.
I want to be a professional skier.
On July 25, Mr. Smith and I arrived at Oxford.
Dioxin is one of the most dangerous chemicals made by man.
I am sorry for my late reply to your letter.
But if children receive the attention they need from their parents, they usually eat less and the weight stays off.
In-ho: Okay. Mike, can you help me?
Mary and Susan were playing outside.
She hopes you will accept these rabbits.
"That may be so," said the boss, "but what is more important is to put the big rocks in first."
Yet no one likes me.'
Then, while you are sleeping, your subconscious mind thinks about this information and you may have meaningful dreams.
Nancy and Lucy bought the presents last week and gave them to him at the party.
However, many scientists are reporting that frogs are in danger of extinction.
But if you dream about a cat, you'll be unlucky.
But if the first thing they see is a person or even a thing, they will think of this as their mother.
husband: I'm looking for my wife's gold ring. Please help me.
They learned to talk there.
First of all, the rocket itself was not safe, it was putting the user as well as the people around him in danger.
So many people from the lower classes are rushing to the IT industry to escape from their poverty.
Artists and computer exports have been working hard for more than 20 years for these unlikely partners.
First we must make all the money for the trip.
I hope that we will make a lot of money.
Those who thought of the relaxing scene fell asleep several minutes earlier than normal.
Or, perhaps more importantly, who decides what you are going to watch next?
The Korean Folk Village will serve as a living museum.
The diamond is actually a giant star which shrank to the size of the Earth after burning itself up.
Yes, here it is.
In India, baby elephants are trained by tying one of their legs to a tree with a string.
Women in Afghanistan are taking off their burhkas.
I wanted to wait until I have something to write about.
These dreams can lead to fresh ideas.
Later come the constant reminders from parents, relatives, and teachers, such as 'a brave boy' or 'a nice girl.'
I like skiing and skating, but I like skiing better.
The eggs mean new life.
You will have a toothache.
This kind of honest discussion is one benefit of *anonymity over the Internet.
The boy sat down.
Their house was very far from their school.
The pyramids of Mexico and the carvings within them are considered to be the work of an alien civilization.
Other plants keep safe by matting themselves hard to find.
If you want new clothes, a laser will scan your body to determine the exact size.
Then he asked, "Is it full?"
That's not true.
Thanks to the women's rights movement, words that discriminate against women have been replaced in most media.
However, scientists have concluded that each statue could be made by human beings in about a year's time.
If a baby drintk his or her mother's milk, the dioxin will enter the baby.
I watched as she carried it around the lot and couldn't believe my eyes when she set it aside.
Mike: I'm cleaning my room.
A newspaper photographer must move fast at all times.
Although he was the king, Louis XIV was unhappy because of his short height.
But thousands of years ago, the Chinese developed a way of killing pain by using needles.
Scratching is a habit among monkeys.
You have to prepare for them.
If you lived the way he does, you would look just like him.
However, many scientists say that the carvings are simply religious images, and the pyramids are just well-made stone tombs in which the dead are buried.
Se-na: It's too hot today. When is your English test?
Like elephants, we tie ourselves with our own strings.
You can have me solve a difficult math problem.
By using this language we can talk with people who speak a different language and understand them much better.
My name is Mike.
A : If I were you, I'd go home and take a rest.
The main victims of the Nazis were Jewish people.
One arrived shortly before 7 a.m.
Sometimes they even make sounds like they are trying to bark or meow or moo.
Recently, the Hobble Space Telescope also took a picture of the diamond star.
Then he went outside and began selling them.
He knew that wolves often came around there.
You have to try to find out what is wrong and fix it.
If you're among millions of women who dream of recovering their charming skin, don't forget the name--"Recover."
He wore old shoes.
We like cooking meals and washing the dishes.
At that time I was looking for an old book called English birds by Johnson.
He wanted to be a pilot.
A dog is playing with the boys.
Then he poured sand in the jar, and it filled the spaces between the stones.
Ramadan is considered to be a time for practicing self-control and showing devotion to God.
Suppose you were going to have an operation in ancient Peru.
Avoid quarrels as long as you can.
Each year at Halloween, Americans put pumpkins in their windows.
Millions of women also work 40 percent of all the world's jobs.
For now, the things you buy on-line are mostly ready-made ones.
Sometimes she goes home to have lunch and sometimes she has lunch in town with her friends.
A boss was talking to his employees about managing their time.
Others used car pools.
Sometimes you must pull them out.
Yu-mi: Hi, Mike. This is Yu-mi. What are you doing now?
When his son entered a school, Mr. Kim decided to teach him how to read and write.
Some people like to play sports. Others like to go to interesting places, such as museums and parks.
Knowing this, most candidates hire image exports to help them.
Most of the oranges for juice grow in Florida.
Travel is exciting.
For this work, they earn only about half as much as men, and of course they earn nothing for their domestic work.
It is not easy for people to understand their words, but my sister and I can understand them.
It is considered polite to eat with the right hand, using the thumb and first two fingers.
In some ancient European religions, there were 12 good gods and one evil god; the evil god was called the 13th god.
Each method claims it can shorten the learning period.
Working hard, his profits multiplied quickly.
The school principal visited several classes and was angry at the noise being made by one class in particular.
I saw an accident this morning.
He said to them.